Working hard!

From most of the posts so far I have probably given the impression that I am permanently on holiday. Let me reassure you that this is not the case. It's just that I am sure you would find it incredibly dull if I kept on posting pictures of the school. I had a hectic week last week with a visitor with me every day, either other VSO volunteers or other interested parties! ( ie a german girl working with an NGO here who is interested in doing speech therapy as a career) It's always good to have other people around to bounce ideas off, and also as an extra pair of hands when you are trying to work with a group of children! We are one staff member down at the moment so it's all hands on deck, especially with the little ones.

I have now done two workshops for the staff at school, and this time we managed to rig up my camcorder to the newly purchased TV which proved very useful not only to show certain therapy techniques ,but also the staff loved watching themselves, as I filmed them on the school trip to the wildlife park.( I had not been able to show them until now!)

Since word has got out that a speech therapist is in town, I have now ended up going out to a mainstream school to assess and work with some children there, and I am also working with a 46 year old man who had a head injury last year and has lost most of his speech. So any of you adult therapists out there, any tips please? I am trying to remember back from Uni days, with no equipment bearing in mind! But its working so far as he is responding to using photographs of his belongings, and we are making a communication folder for him. He gets incredibly frustrated that he gets stuck on a word and keeps repeating it, even though he knows it is not what he should be saying. I am working in conjunction with the teacher in the reading clinic as he is using Hausa with him, so at least its not all down to me!

Anyway, sorry this is a bit full of work news. The photos show my visit to Akwanga last weekend for a friend's birthday, luckily only 1 1/2 hours away. We visited a few local villages where the people are incredibly friendly, and at least here I can go back and give them the photos that I take of people. I also went hiking in the hills near Jos again which looks even more stunning now its rainy season...luckily only raining in the late afternoon at this stage. Not looking forward to the constant rain expected in July and August!

The worst thing about the rain is that generally it means that there is no electricity afterwards, so it's candles all round and if you had planned an evening of laminating ( oh the joys!) , it just isn't going to happen! Actually last week I had quite a few evenings out as I had plenty of visitors...always a good incentive!


Arrgh! This computer won't let me download the photos.....I will have to do that later!!