Back to school.

It’s been a hectic few weeks since Easter. The elections passed smoothly but I suppose the real test will be when the government actually hands over at the end of May. I spent the rest of the Easter break visiting other volunteers at their placements , and in Abuja, the capital but headed back to Jos in time for the start of term last Monday. Mind you, I am not sure that anyone told the parents as only about 5 kids turned up on the first day! We don’t operate normal term times as its as NGO and offers year round provision for children with special needs but parents generally assume it’s the same as government schools. It was a good job their weren’t many kids last week though as I was busy planning my first workshop for the staff at the school and a few extras who wanted to come too. I knew I would be doing something for the staff development day last term, but it wasn’t until last week that I found out that I was doing the whole morning’s presentation for 25 or so people!

I also had to move house last week as my room was already booked for a family for the next two months, before I arrived. The new place is sweet though. It’s surrounded by mango trees and has a country cottage feel to it. It’s in a much larger compound than the other place and a big bonus is that there is a nice hotel nearby where I can get nice food and drink if I’m in the mood for some luxury! I am getting used to the lack of running water and electricity and have been getting back into the art of water conservation. As soon as it starts raining I immediately put a bucket outside to collect rainwater….comes in very useful to flush the toilet and doesn’t waste the "good" stuff!

It’s been good to get back into work again, and the workshop went well despite a few teething problems….basically I tried to cram too much info into one morning. But as you can see from the photos , people seemed interested in it and I tried to make it as interactive and practical as possible. I even did a fancy PowerPoint presentation but rather regretted it as we needed to put the generator on to power the laptops which ended up being too loud and distracting. Next time I will either try to borrow a projector or give up on the idea! I borrowed some extra laptops and copied the workshop onto each one, but then as each laptop was slightly different, it was a bit of a nightmare trying to get everyone to move the slides on at the same time, and swop between mini video clips and back again! I tell you, technology is not always a good thing! But it added interest and a bit of reality to the whole thing, as I was supposed to be showing the staff how to do PECS. ( the Picture Exchange Communication System ) …which is basically teaching kids to exchange a picture for something they want, and then making sentences using pictures to talk about all sorts of things. You wouldn’t think it would take over a morning to explain, but trust me, it’s more complicated than it sounds!

I have been with other volunteers a bit recently which has been fun. There was the dutch party at the Dutch Embassy in Abuja at the weekend for Queen’s day, where we all had to dress up in orange , and then various volunteers have been visiting my place to do placement visits. It’s always good to have visitors and it encourages me to check out all the Jos highlights! I also saw a bit of Nigerian culture the other day as one of the guys at school invited me to see his dance group performing traditional dancing...a bit like a African version of Morris dancing!!