Thanks............ Azara!!!!

An other good story about one of my NGVs only this blog was written in July 2011.
After 3 months of doing not much, at least that is how it felt for me, I’m now visiting GSS Azara for a whole week. It’s a busy week of observing lessons of my National Volunteer and arranging workshops for teachers in the school. I like it like this, finally the feeling of being tired after doing a lot of work.

Monday I left the Ministry of Education around 10 am after some discussions about the vehicle. The Permanent Secretary was a little hesitant to let me go without a spare tire. The driver thought it would be okay and I had to tell if I was okay with that. It took us 2 hours to decide I was allowed to go. In a prior blog I already described the road to Azara, one of the remote villages I have to visit during this project, is a real challenge. This Monday it was not as bad as I remembered from last November but still the Governor did not finish as he promised. Also the electricity was still not connected; doesn’t make a difference for the hospitality in Azara.

The chairman of the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) put his second house to my disposal and Chris (my national volunteer working here) took really good care of me. He even arranged a generator for the night before the workshop so I could do some work after 7 pm.

The Tuesday morning I observed one of Chris’ lessons to see if he learned something during the previous workshops. And yes he did. He really was trying to involve the pupils, surely when he arranged group work. Although the groups of 9 where slightly to big, he let them select some sentences in groups of phrases. Nice idea!!!

 

That afternoon we travelled to Lafia, I wanted to go to Teddy and Sreela’s send forth party at NACWYCA and Chris wanted to say goodbye to Sreela. The principal took us halfway. We had a nice chat about schools and education in Nassarawa state. About the new hope now El Makura will be the governor. I also got to know that principals can just without a good reason can be transferred. It is what happened to him and the former principal of GSS Nasarawa, they swooped places. This principal didn’t like it at allllll. He told me he would refuse to work in this school, it was too small for his ability. 

After seeing Sreela and Teddy dance the Indian and Nigerian way, listening to some speeches, giving my farewell wishes we left for Azara again on Wednesday morning. Azara by public is a whole new experience on its own, but Azara by public transport after a heavy rain is quite adventurous. Imagine a road with more holes than pavement, an overloaded car and other traffic. You will go from one side of the road to the other to avoid the holes. After this you enter a road without any pavement, because the governor didn’t finish it. At this point I was a sleep, think as some kind of automatic self-protection from stress, till one of the passengers shouted: ”Careful will you, didn’t you see that other car spinning?”

Getting closer to Azara the road got worse and worse. We even had to get out of the car to cross a bridge. Normally the car will drive through the water on that spot but water level was too high. Finally we made it without any weird things happening.

That afternoon was a good one. I had to prepare the workshop sessions for the next day. I already had some materials but had to write everything out as there are no printers in Azara and I have to set the right example off course. Making posters, group work and small assignments till 7.30 pm. Chris did arrange a gen for that day so I could work a little after dark. Not to much didn’t want mosquitoes to enter the house.

On Thursday it was D-day. The workshop day. The day that I would meet teachers from GSS Azara, JSS Azara and all the corpers in the local government. We expected around 50 participants at 10 am at the school. As it is Nigeria We started with half the number of participants around 11 am. But nonetheless The participants that were there were involved and enthusiastic. They just played along in the activities, even better then I hoped they would. It Was a really good day! Have the feeling I shown the teachers that a little change in approach can already make a big difference in the classroom. The proof I saw this morning. Just a few pupils came to school as it was Childrens day to day, and only 3 teachers. One of them taught maths’ and he used some little adjustments in his lesson that made it more involving. Really nice to see and really good to know that I probably made sense during the workshop!!!!