Home Again.

Home again! It is lovely to be able to use a toilet, to have a shower, to be able to see when it gets dark and to make a cup of tea when I want! Of course it is great to see the boys again. Duncan has overtaken me in height since I was away.

The experience I have had has been once in a lifetime and I can’t even think where to start to describe it. Often time passed incredibly slowly, as I had nothing to do, especially at home. Highlights were things like doing my washing or helping to shell groundnuts or to prepare dried maize to make flour. The real lows were when things went wrong. The pit latrine at my home collapsed and I was left with only a bucket to use as a toilet for a week! Then there were the visitors to my room – first of all frogs, also huge beetles and finally the rats. That was enough for me to get out of village life 3 days before I was due to leave.

Food was really difficult throughout too. I lived on carbohydrates almost entirely and had no dairy products or fruit for the whole time in the village except for a few bananas and a small orange when visiting someone for lunch.

The school experience was incredible and I have learned so much from this in terms of my own professional ability. It is difficult to say how much of an impact my work will have but that is down to the school staff and the Educational Advisor to take things forward. The 3 In-service days we led were fantastic. I worked with 2 other Scottish teachers to deliver courses on Leadership and Management, Literacy and Numeracy, each lasting 5 hours.

I hope I can share my photos and videos with you all and talk through some more of my personal experiences. Thank you all for your interest and support. I will try to post a link to some of my photos in the next few days.

Val x