If you are preparing to go on a travel adventure, you may be keen to keep a journal. It’s a great way to capture your experiences. It is easy to keep up to date for the first week or two and your motivation is high. However despite your best intentions the Read more…
Nine of us, 7 teachers and 2 Head Teachers, had been selected for the adventure and training took place over 2 weekends in Edinburgh. The charities supporting the project were LINK and The Wood Foundation. It was both daunting and exciting to meet my fellow adventurers. While we would train Read more…
It was February 2012 and a fairly miserable day. Then an email pinged in. It was full of information about a new Global Teacher Project. A small group of Scottish teachers and Head Teachers would be selected, trained and sent to Uganda for a 5 week placement, during the summer Read more…
Truly Great Names One of the first things that I look at in a new country is the names of shops and schools and churches. It sounds daft but it can give you a real sense of a place and a culture. Of course, this only works if the signs Read more…
I want to tell you a story.
In Uganda, I was living in a rural village, on my own, with a local family. It was my third day and I was still terrified. I didn’t understand the culture, there was limited communication because of the language barrier and my living circumstances were more challenging than expected. It was Sunday and volunteer teachers had been advised to attend church with their hosts. It turned out that my family weren’t going but I was to be accompanied by 2 children (neither of whom spoke English) for the 3 mile walk to church. This included walking through the dense bush before joining the red murram road. I didn’t want to do it but I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.
So off we set. There were many people on the road, travelling in both directions. I was nervous and feeling very intimidated. I was in deepest, darkest Africa, on my own with two children, with no idea of where I was going. Every time we met someone, they would stop and stare at me, the muzungu (white person.) It was not a friendly stare and so I tried to avoid eye contact and increase my pace.
