Grade 7 Retreat to Langano
Each year during the last week of the first term, all the middle school and high school classes at Bingham get involved in community service activities and take part in a retreat of some kind in various parts of Ethiopia. The Grade 7s went to Langano and helped out at the Langano Elementary School, which is a SIM project. Lake Langano is a good 5 hour drive south of Addis (although it is actually only about 220km). SIM have a compound there, and their projects include a clinic, and elementary school for the local children and the Sports Friends residential camp.
- Lake Langano
A few weeks before the camp my Home Group were visited by Joan, a SIM missionary who has been working to set up the Langano Elementary School. Her aim is for the school to eventually be able to be run by Ethiopian staff but it is not quite there yet. The school has about 300 students who come in two shifts; they only have four classrooms! Joan is the only ferenj (foreign) teacher; the others are Ethiopian and are hard-working given the huge class sizes and lack of resources. Joan’s aim for the visit of the Grade 7 class was for the kids to assist in English language skills. Ethiopian students are expected to complete their secondary schooling in English, which is not their first language, and many really struggle in high school (if they get there at all). The more English support they can get the better. Joan brought examples of some simple teaching resources, such as flash cards, and asked the students to make some resources to bring with them. We spent the week before the retreat making cards, colouring them in and laminating them. It was hard work, but the Grade 7s completely embraced the task and I was very proud of the resources they created.
- Grade 7s preparing English resources.
The other parts of the retreat involved the students being involved in a Bible study and taking part in some team building activities. We wanted the students to think about their strengths and weaknesses and how God can use them in spite of their weaknesses. I had a lovely team of teachers supporting me: Cathy, who has been at Bingham for 9 years, and who thankfully knew the Langano area well (her husband is the SIM team leader for the area); Liz, who had been on the Grade 7 retreat last year, so could tell me a bit about what to expect; and Rae and Stafford, who are South Australians like me! We were also accompanied by Dereje, one of the girl’s fathers, who happens to be a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines (some of the best trained pilots in the world; landing at Addis airport is tough, given its altitude!) and who was really helpful throughout the week.
- Cathy and Liz working with two little Kindergarten children. These two little ones could barely hold a pencil.
On the morning of the retreat, we met at the school at 7am, with the aim of departing at 7.30am. It was going to be a long drive and we wanted to be at Langano for lunch. We sent Rae, Stafford and Dereje on the bus with the kids and Cathy, Liz and I drove a smaller van loaded up with everyone’s luggage. It was my first time driving in the country and I thoroughly enjoyed it; it is mad, but not as mad as Addis!
- Grade 7s ready to roll.
The last 20 or so kilometres of the drive were the most challenging; a corrugated dirt road for about 15km, then 6km of an interesting two wheel track… Let’s just say I was grateful for the off-road driving practice my parents gave me on our camping trips in the Flinders Ranges. The pièce de résistance was the infamous “Container Bridge”. Someone needed to build a bridge over the creek, and apparently had a large shipping container to spare, so voilà, the bridge was made. The big bus wouldn’t fit through the container so the students were obliged to disembark and walk the last kilometre or so to the Sports Friends campsite. I, on the other hand, was obliged to drive across said bridge… I resisted the urge to close my eyes and just go for it; but there was a moment of careful preparation mentally and a deliberate lining up of the car just to make sure I got through without knocking off a side-view mirror or scraping off the paint work on one or both sides of the car. Cathy admitted later that she had made sure I was driving because she hates driving through the container! Bless her!
- The infamous Container Bridge.
We were staying at the Sports Friends campsite, which includes dorms, a dining room and meeting hall. All our meals were provided by local Ethiopian staff, but other than that we ran the camp ourselves. The camp had showers and flushing toilets, although the showers were cold, and on the last morning, we ran out of water! All part of life in Ethiopia! I confess to braving the cold shower only once… mostly I was content to remain unwashed! I did, however, tease my lovely Grade 7 boys for squealing like ickle bitty girls when they tackled the cold water! We managed to fit all the boys into one dorm, and all the girls into another so we had them nicely contained. We came up with the cunning idea of making the winner of the tidy dorm competition the gender who got to be served first at breakfast, and this worked wonders, particularly on the boys, who made effective use of their pre-dawn waking moments…
Joan met us after lunch and took us on a tour of the SIM compound at Langano. She showed us the route to take to walk to the school, showed us around the classrooms, then walked us to the SIM clinic, which is very busy and does some amazing work. From there we walked to the lakeside. Langano is a huge lake and is popular because it is one of the few lakes in Ethiopia to be bilharzia-free and therefore safe to swim in… so long as you stay away from the hippos! We didn’t see any, unfortunately!
- The route to the Langano school.
- The Langano school.
We spent the whole of each morning from Tuesday to Thursday at the school. Joan got the Grade 7s to work one on one or in small groups with a variety of students. We began with the little kindergarten-aged students (well, loosely aged; the classes have to be arranged on the basis of skill more than age). The students have little if any of their own equipment; one pencil or a piece of crayon, and an already-filled notebook that belonged to an older sibling is the best most can hope to possess. The students were almost all Muslim, so our dress code for our visits to the school was below the knee skirts for the girls and long trousers for the boys (shorts are only worn by those who can’t afford the more respectable long trousers). I had struggled before leaving Australia to find some practical below the knee skirts, but my brother, bless him, found an American company called Macabi that sells skirts especially designed for culturally sensitive travel. I am now a huge fan; the massive pockets were so very useful for tucking away all sorts of goods and chattels. However I have to say it was sobering to see the state of the Langano children’s clothes; most items would have been rejected by us for our rag bags.
- Me in my “missionary skirt”.
- Langano students who, of course, loved having their photo taken so they could see themselves!
- Wilson and friend.
- More Langano students.
I wasn’t sure how the students would cope with teaching English to the children. While many are Ethiopian, the majority of their parents are wealthy, at least by Ethiopian standards, and while they are confronted by poverty on a daily basis on the streets of Addis, it doesn’t always touch them. However I was so impressed by how they embraced the experience. It was hard work, and the mornings were very long, but the moaning was kept to a minimum and they did their best to get involved.
- Joan preparing the Grade 7s for their first English lesson.
- Lillian and friend.
- English lessons in progress.
- Eyoel and friend.
- Anesu and friend.
Our afternoons and evenings were spent doing Bible study sessions, team building games and with free time. One of the things I love about my class is their ability to entertain themselves. Give them a football (the round version), a ping pong table and foosball table and they are happy for hours. My class loves nothing more than to play a game of football all together, girls and boys included. Virtually the whole class gets involved and they can quite happily play for the better part of an hour and a half. Swimming in the lake was an option, but I think most decided the water was too cold. The other thing that was fun was spotting the baboons and black and white colobus monkeys who live in the trees on the compound. Such funny creatures to watch!
- Time to relax at the lake.
- A baboon.
- Playing soccer at the community beach.
- Black and white colobus monkey.
We returned home on Friday morning, stopping at Sabana Resort for an early (really early; it was barely 10.30am!) lunch! The students desperately wanted to eat western style food so this was our best bet! I ordered hot chips, ice cream and a coke… bliss! Three of the main food groups right there. We all enjoyed our treat, then hit the road for the long drive home! We got back at 4pm, and as soon as I had unpacked the van and seen the students off, I raced home to get my washing into the machine, hit the shower, and start packing for Kenya! Departure for the airport was at 1.3oam the next morning… yikes!
- Wilson and Dylan with the English resources we gave to Joan.
Just a quick word about the Sports Friends ministry. While I haven’t had the opportunity to see this project in action, I thought some of you might be interested in the work done here. Their website says this about their ministry:
Sports Friends seeks to empower and equip churches and church planters to use the platform of sports to impact their communities with the love of God. In the countries where we work, children, youth and young adults are everywhere – filling the sports stadiums, playing sports in the city streets and rural fields, and hanging out around the ping pong and foosball tables. They are passionate about sports! We want to tap into that passion to introduce these young people and their family members to Jesus Christ. Sport serves as a magnet, a bridge from the church to the community, a common language by which to build lasting relationships.
There is something extremely powerful about the relationship between a coach and players. The impact of a coach who shows love and attention to young people is tremendous. Sport provides a great environment for a coach to discuss with his players important character issues and life lessons about self control, respect for authority, honesty, teamwork and commitment. These discussions naturally transition to the truths of the Bible. Sports Friends teaches coaches how to be positive life influencers, to identify teachable moments, to catch the good in youth, to love and encourage, to incorporate Biblical teaching, to introduce youth to Jesus Christ, and to disciple them into greater Biblical maturity – effectively Transforming Lives and Strengthening Communities.
Camp Langano – Sports Friends, in partnership with the Ethiopian Kale Heywot Church, is developing the first Christian residential youth camp in Ethiopia, a country with over 75 million people! This camping ministry will be an integral part of the ongoing sports ministry programs of the local churches of Ethiopia. Youth will come to camp with their sports ministry leaders and will return home after camp with their leaders, providing a continuum of effective relational ministry. The camp is … on a beautiful 95 acre property on Lake Langano which has been owned by SIM and the Ethiopian Kale Heywot Church for several decades.
See the Sports Friends website for more information on how you could support this ministry: http://sports-friends.org/
If you are keen to support the Langano school, you can find out more about this SIM project here: http://www.sim.org/index.php/project/92753. They need further support because they need to expand their buildings and are looking at having to replace all their textbooks to be in line with government policy. If you would like to contribute in a more “hands on” way, please contact me. I have a bit more of an idea of the kinds of resources Joan could use there now. One helpful idea is putting together stationary packs in cloth bags with drawstrings for the students to have.
You can find out more about the SIM clinic here: http://www.sim.org/index.php/project/92020. The SIM website states:
The Langano Health Program in Ethiopia officially provides low cost medical care to more than 10,000 people in the Lake Langano area. The program consists of traditional curative health care and laboratory services, as well as preventive health measures. Preventative services include vaccinations, mother/child health care, family planning, providing local clean water sources, building latrines and other community health programs. Because the Langano area is drought-prone, a nutrition program is in place to screen children under five for signs of malnutrition. SIM works with these needy children and their families to bring them back to health by providing high protein supplements.
I’m not sure the staff who work here ever feel their job is done; there are always more patients to see! Its such important work, and again, I encourage you to consider supporting this project.
School Days
Now that we are three weeks into the school year, I have enough of an idea of the daily routine here to be able to describe it for you! My job description here at Bingham is officially Grade 7 Homeroom and Bible teacher, and ESL and learning support teacher.
The school day begins for staff at 7.45am with a devotion and prayer time. Each week the devotion is led by a different staff member; each one is rostered on for one week in the year; and it finishes with a prayer time during which we pray for each student in the school, three at a time, as well as for other concerns. At the moment we are praying for the KG1 students; the little 4 year old kindergarten children. It’s a lovely calm way to start the school day and I think I will miss it when I return to my state school in South Australia next year. Sure beats listening to people complain about things during morning meeting!
The “warning” bell goes at 8.15am and all my Grade 7s are in our homeroom by the time the second bell rings at 8.20am. Our “bell” is actually a short clip of recorded music. It changes each week, and is chosen by Rupert, the Economics/Geography/Business Studies teacher. In the first week of school it was “Jump” by Van Halen. I can’t remember what it was in Week 2, but last week it was something by Hot Chip. We’ll have to wait and see what it will be this week coming! (PS I just heard what I think might be this week’s selection: “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns n’ Roses… Oh, boy…)
We have 6 periods each day, each of an hour long. The first period for all the Middle School and High (think “Senior”) School students is Bible, which is taken by the Homeroom teacher. We teach this 4 out of the 5 lessons each week; the 5th lesson is chapel, sometimes combined, but generally just the Middle School or High School together. The Elementary School also have chapel once a week. Before we start the Bible session we do the normal things a homeroom teacher would do: take the roll, check on absentees, give any notices and check on the students’ behaviour and academic progress. My lovely Grade 7s love to be helpful, so I set up a duty roster: changing the date; collecting and returning the register; reading the daily notices; handing out any forms; and cleaning the board; and they are just so willing to do their job, even without being asked. In fact I think most get upset if they can’t do their job properly for some reason!
The new thing for me is teaching Bible. Each year level has a set curriculum, and all students have weekly Bible verses they must memorise. I am starting with a quick look at the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13). When that is done, we will do an Old Testament overview, then we will use the book How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Gordon D Fee and Douglas Stuart, which focuses on the different forms of literature in the Bible (Epistles, Psalms, Old Testament Narratives, Parables, etc) and shows the students how to interpret the Bible in a really common sense way. Preparing it is going to be lots of hard work, but I am looking forward to it. The really new thing for me is that there is a different type of accountability to just doing a Bible study with the youth. I actually have to assess them and give them a grade!
The rest of my day involves supporting a range of students from Grade 3 to Grade 12 with their literacy. Almost all of them are ESL students of varying ability. I am part of a team of three people. Jolene is a trained Special Education teacher in the elementary school and is overseeing the learning support team. Emily is an elementary school teacher and a reading specialist. My focus is generally the middle and high school students. A typical day might involve running a small spelling group in Grades 7, 8 or 10 (the students can drop a grade band because of their poor spelling in the Cambridge IGCSE exams so getting this under control is important). I go into Grade 6 and 9 English classes to give support to small groups of students who are struggling with English or who have processing issues. I also work one on one with several students. Alex is a Grade 10 Norwegian student who needs a bit of help with writing his English assignments, so twice a week we talk through his latest piece; he is currently studying Much Ado About Nothing which is fun! Jun is a Grade 12 South Korean boy who has just arrived and is studying in English for the first time. I am helping him to preview or review his material mainly in History, but probably in other subjects too, so am busy reading all about the causes of World War I at the moment! I am going to try and get some material on English for academic purposes for him too; he wants to continue to study in English at university, so he has a lot of work to do to get his formal English up to scratch. Josian and Leonard are very bright German boys in Grades 6 and 8 who just need a bit of help with new vocab and writing, so we are previewing lesson material and I am helping them with their writing especially in English. Finally there are two South Korean boys in Grade 4 and a Finnish boy in Grade 3 who need a bit of help with reading. Bless their hearts, they can talk okay, in fact they could talk the hind leg off a donkey!
The ESL stuff is hard work, mainly because at the moment I am still trying to work out where each of these boys is at and how I can help them! The MEd (TESOL) is finally getting a workout! I have plenty of communicative resources for teaching them, but generally their conversational English is quite good. What they need help with is the formal writing, with correct grammar… you know, the hard stuff!
Morning recess is 25 minutes long and we have morning tea provided for us every day, ranging from cake to biscuits, pancakes, crackers and salsa and cinnamon buns, all freshly made! It’s such a lovely treat to have each day! Lunch is 40 minutes long. This week school lunches started, which we have to order a week or so in advance. There is a different meal each day, including chilli and cornbread, pasta bake, tuna melts, injera b’wat and soup. It’s nice not to have to think about what to prepare for lunch each day, so I am taking full advantage of the school lunches!
The day finishes at 3.25pm, so it is quite a long day. We have only one meeting a week, a staff meeting on Wednesday nights. This begins as a combined meeting, then breaks in to Elementary School and combined Middle and High School meetings.
All in all, while I am busy, and I am sure eventually would miss the responsibility I have at Clare HS, I am enjoying the break and change of scene! And I am certainly going to learn a lot about teaching ESL from just a semester here!
First Impressions
I have been teaching at my new school for just over a week now, although it seems much longer. Starting at a new school is always hard work, but starting in a new country is a whole other kettle of fish!
I was expected to teach the very first two lessons of the day, no induction, no information about the behaviour management system, little idea of what to do… and it was a group of year 11s! I did have a class list, although it wasn’t completely accurate! However the novelty of a new teacher from Australia helped me out considerably! We did the predictable, but remarkably useful ‘write me a letter telling me about yourself’, which proved to be very interesting reading, and does help one to get to know the students a little quicker!
Thankfully, the English faculty is brilliant. There are about 10 of them, mostly female, and mostly young. Several are recent graduates. I am finding the heads of faculty really supportive, making sure I have everything I need, and checking regularly that I am coping. The staff are enthusiastic and clearly care about what they are doing, which is a relief, because that is what my staff at home are like! They regularly share what they are doing, so break and lunchtime converstations are always worth listening to (in addition, there are many comments about the most recent episode of Hollyoaks, the one English soapy I think I could become addicted to, and what happened last night on Celebrity Big Brother…).
Each year level is doing exactly the same topic or text at the same time, which is something I am not used to. For example, all the Year 7s are doing ‘What Makes a Story’, a unit on genre; the Year 9s are preparing for the dreaded SATS (more on them later), studying Much Ado about Nothing; the Year 10s are doing a unit on war poetry, with the focus on imaginative and personal writing responses; and the Year 11s are studying pre-20th Century horror stories. However everyone has a slightly different approach, depending upon the nature of their students and their own personal style. The advantage is that the professional conversations we have at break are so much more efficient; we are all teaching the same texts, so we can immediately use each other’s ideas. For me, as a completely new teacher to the curriculum, it is very handy!
After a week and a half, I think I can say that I will enjoy my year here, and will even have some fanastic ideas to take home with me!