Thursday 17 April 2008

Clicking fingers and snake



Training



In response to a need I had noticed while taking students with me on the “displays” training, for the last two days I have been training ninety 3rd year students (3 groups of 30) at the college in basic teaching aids / display skills. It really notices that they never had experience with rulers in their schooling and I went right back to holding the ruler in the middle and spreading your fingers to hold it steady. I went on to measuring a distance down both sides of a sheet of paper and joining the dots up with a line to get it straight and parallel. It was strange: in a way it was like teaching 7 and 8 year olds in the UK (like I mentioned in a previous entry.) Something I hadn’t even thought of cropped up in the first session: I asked them to measure a 10cm line so I could check for precision and found a significant minority had drawn a 9cm line. I discovered they had started from 1cm on the ruler, so I had to build in to my training mentioning starting at 0cm.



During the training I got the students to put their skills in to practice by making teaching resources which I will then be able to distribute to the cluster schools. Something else cropped up: some of the students didn’t know how to use a paper clip, and put them on sideways. You cannot assume anything here. Some of these students are in their late teens / early twenties and had never come across a paper clip – it really is a different world.



Something that was funny was that when the students wanted something they clicked their fingers at me. My first reaction was “how rude” but it’s just another cultural thing to get used to. It’s like clapping when you want service in a hotel, to order drinks or something.



Anyway, judging from the evaluation feedback, it was a useful and enjoyable training for the students. Either that, or they didn’t understand me give the instructions for filling in the evaluation!



Weather



The rain has stopped. There was one day when I went into the village and got a mild taste of the slippery mud that will be far worse in the raining season. I think I’ll have to wear my walking boots then. The temperature is rising again. It’s 22:30 and the temperature outside is 26C.



On Friday the sun will be directly overhead at 12:34 according to my Astronomy program. After that, shadows will appear to be moving anti-clockwise until August as the Sun will be arcing over the sky in the North instead of South.



Bahir Dar



I’m off to Bahir Dar for a couple of days to have a break, to speak English at full speed (with Judith a VSO Volunteer working at the university), have some hotel meals and get some supplies (food + shampoo / shower gel etc.) As usual, I’m not looking forward to the travel. (6am start then 4 hours bumpy, noisy ride to Kosober and the asphalt road.) Then I might leave the bus and get a minibus (which is quicker and more comfortable, but does mean moving bags and negotiating which bus.)



Snake



Tonight there was shouting outside and then someone knocked on my door and asked for me to come with my camera as someone has just killed a snake across the road. It was about 1.5m long and had bands down it – which didn’t look good as far as poison was concerned. It was still wriggling a bit until they took its head off!



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