The last of the Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour?

Last week I ended my Speaking Tour with a final visit to the Ladies Evening Guild at my home church. They booked me as a speaker when I first came back from Kenya, 9 months ago! I was at first a little worried about speaking about my time in Kenya again, for two reasons really, firstly because I have not done any speaking about it for a good number of months and I was worried that I wouldn't remember what to say anymore but secondly because things have gone so badly wrong in Kenya in the last couple of months. I needn't have worried in the first instance, I had borrowed a projector from church and was able to show my photographs so all that I had to say came instantly rushing back to me the minute I saw them. As for the situation in Kenya now, I could only share what little I know from what Glyn and Jane have shared with me.

At the beginning of the evening my mum and I stood at the back, deliberately not looking at one another as we could have been transported straight onto the set of Calendar Girls, it was so unbelievably stereotypically WI! The most amusing part was when the secretary stood up to read out the minutes of the last meeting and told us all about what the previous speaker had told them about! No doubt next month they will be hearing all about my time in Kenya for a second time! There were murmurings of surprise when the ladies arrived to discover that the chairs were arranged facing the wrong wall so that I could project onto it, which amused me as well, though they didn't complain about the rearranged seating so I give them the credit for that.

So now the Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour has come to an end, at least the end of all that I have been booked in for since returning from Kenya. If I was asked to speak to anyone else, I would do so willingly, though now it is a year since I went to Kenya I'm not sure how up-to-date it would be anymore.

Any Dream Will Do?

When I was in Kenya I spent most weekends in the swimming pool. I love swimming and I always have done and one thing that I have always wanted to do is to be a synchronised swimmer. My mum and dad used to call me a little dolphin because you would rarely see my head above water, I was forever doing handstands and rolls and flips and holding my breath for as long as I could. A couple joined us in Kenya for about a month, Lorna and Ken. Lorna would tell me how I should grab every opportunity and not let something pass because I didn't have the time - if I wanted to do synchronised swimming I should look to find my nearest group and join in! Good advice perhaps. The only problem is that there just is no time to do everything that I would like to do! When I get to be 70 and I look back on my life and think of all the things I didn't get the chance to do, will I be sad at what I have missed out on? Or do we ultimately have to choose just a couple of things that we really enjoy and do them well?

I love to sing, I love to perform. At university I played a part in an amateur dramatics performance of Godspell. I absolutely loved it, after a weekend of performances it was all over and 2 months of rehearsals had come to their conclusion. What a dream it would be to sing and dance and act in a musical...

I love to sing. At university I was a member of 2 college based choirs and the thrill of rehearsing and perfecting a piece of music as a group then to perform it in a church or a cathedral or a chapel was so rewarding. I have happily continued to sing in choirs since leaving college and thoroughly enjoyed my current choir's performance of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man just before Christmas. Next year I hope to join a huge number of people from choral societies across the country to perfom the whole work at the Albert Hall. Now that is a dream come true!

I find history fascinating. I studied it at university along with teacher training but really miss studying it now that I am working. I have always been fascinated by Time Team and archaeology and even researched the possibility of studying archaeology through the Open University last year before I got my current job. I doubt I would ever have got so far as applying but it certainly crossed my mind!

Yesterday I was looking at the books on my shelves in my bedroom at my parent's house and took down a book called Krabat by Otfried Preussler. I won it as a prize for throwing myself fully into my German exchange trip when I was at high school. I began to read it, but much like children who choose books that are beyond their vocabulary range, I soon became tired and put it back down. I would love to study German again, go to Germany and get to grips with the language properly, something I never managed to achieve at A Level.

I love church and I love God and I love telling children and adults alike stories from the Bible and helping to make them come to life. How often do I sit in church, itching to get involved more, reading, singing, preaching. It would give me great joy to learn how do get better involved and to be involved officially.

But finally I love children and I love teaching. And that is what I do for a living and, for the moment, what I adore doing.

How is it possible to do all the many things that I would dream to do? Or yet do I combine all the things that I enjoy best in a job that I can do well and put my heart and my soul into it.

Assemblies and all that jazz

I seem to have had no thoughts worth blogging of late... only thoughts of support work and whose facebook profile I can look at next!

Today I was at Ripley in Lancaster as a guest speaker, giving an assembly about my time in Africa. High School students don't give any instant feedback when you speak... no smiles, no laughs, no obvious sign that they are taking in anything at all in fact, or any indication that what you are saying is vaguely interesting - though maybe it wasn't! Quite a lot harder than any of my talks so far, but it was good to do it nonetheless I think. On my way in I did meet 2 old friends about to help out at the Year 10 spirituality day, though, so that was nice :)

The Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour

The speaking tour got off to a start today, I have been into St. George's High School in Blackpool to talk to their CU about Kenya and the great adventure. I was really nervous about it, I was never quite sure whether I would have enough to talk about (though I was more confident after the success of the Guide evening last week) or indeed whether a bunch of teenagers I had never met before would care enough to listen. Again, I needn't have worried and I really enjoyed myself. I didn't manage to get through all my photos and the kids were responding really well to it and asking questions etc and so I'm probably going to go back again after half term and they might even consider sponsoring! So all in all it was a most positive experience! My next speaking engagement (teehee!) was going to be Ripley, but interview has meant it has had to be postponed. Excitement abounds!

Kenyan evening

I'm just back from doing a Kenyan evening at Guides. I have been a bit worried about it because I did not have an activity for the girls to do and I thought that I wouldn't have enough to fill an hour. I didn't need to worry. I spent most of the afternoon preparing Kenyan food, chipatis, sukuma wiki, beans and maize, ugali and a nameless tomato soup thing. I couldn't stand the sight of them by the time we actually got to Guides and I didn't think anyone would actually try anything, but it went down a treat. The girls were all crowded around the table having a try of each of the foods, including the ugali (even after my quite less than encouraging note about the ugali which even I wouldn't try because it looked so disgusting). I showed them the new Education for Life dvd and my photos and talked about my experiences in Kenya. I showed them unsorted beans and they passed it around, two girls sorted them for me :) and then I unsorted them again :D then I showed them how they tie babies on their backs with kangas and some of the girls came up and had a go at tying a doll on their backs. It was quite amusing!! I got through everything but there was no time for questions at the end because it was already time for taps. A fun evening, an informative evening, and another tick towards my Queen's Guide :)

Facebook and other musings.

It is taking over my life. I do seem to go through these phases... the only problem is that I don't ever lose the old phases, it just means that I have more websites to check and thus waste many hours of the day perusing them. Sad I know.

I have also been reading through my inbox today, some emails make me laugh so much :) I was intending on tidying up my inbox, particularly in Outlook which I no longer use and has over 1900 items in the inbox... failed miserably though and I still have 1955 items. I am sure I can probably happily delete 900 of them, but it will take forever and for really rather little purpose.

I took something off my shelf today and came across the cards for when I left Stanley last year. I really smiled at the card from the second naughtiest boy in my class and probably the most troublesome (though utterly lovable), he wrote "Miss you lots. To Miss Swarbrick I will miss your voice and your face. From Aaron". Bless. I've been to see the Boyds this weekend and it seems that it's still not a happy place to work - the farcicle permanent/temporary contract applications begin for them again. I saw the job advertised on the internet and had to remind myself that I'm not a masochist before I was tempted to apply. No, Emma, just no.

Look, I can teach :)

The adventurer returns

I am now back from my adventuring in Kenya! I had an absolutely wonderful time, am missing them all already, and Hannah, me wee flattie. I didn't have the most enjoyable of flights home and am still feeling the after effects of no sleep on the return journey. Over the next few days I plan on sorting through all my photographs and putting together some kind of slide show for showing in school and at the Ladies Evening Guild at church. I'll put some more pics on here too, but not yet, I haven't unpacked yet!

Long time...

It has been a long time since I updated this blog, for which I apologise. I thought I would have more opportunity to blog but have neglected my blogging duties since arriving in Kenya! Blogging will recommence on my return! First a few photos of me in Kenya!

Feeding giraffes is revolting

At Shimba Hills

With Jardene outside her house (plus Hannah and her parents)

Trying Ugali (officially disgusting)

Karibu!

Karibu!

So here I am in Kenya.

This week I have begun to find a place for me in the school, Tunaimi Timbwani. I have been giving one teacher ideas to help her make her maths more enjoyable and to help the children to learn more (at the moment a lot of the learning is done by rote so the poorer ability children never get any better). And I have been given a job of taking out the poorer ability children in the lower classes at English and giving them extra support. I just had them out now and some of them didn’t know their initial letter sounds so I am really having to go back to basic phonics. I only had them for a short while. I think I was meant to have them for the whole afternoon but I was unprepared and had no resources, besides which an hour and a half is too long to slog on with letter sounds, one of them was only 5. So I left them back at their class so that I could go away and find some more appropriate work for next time.

The weather is luscious at the moment and I am living in strappy tops and skirts. It gets ridiculously muggy in March apparently but it is pleasantly hot at the moment. Yesterday I found myself taking a class to the field for PE (it was sprung upon me, as many things seem to happen here) and realised on the way that I didn’t have any suncream on or indeed a hat. The lessons are only half an hour though and so I managed not to get burnt. It wouldn’t normally bother me but the sun really is strong when you are not in the shade.

Anyway, has to be a quick one, here’s a photo of the kids for you all to enjoy.

Forget Norway, Kenya!

The great big monolith of a task has been done and for the 3rd time in the space of a week my adventure plans have changed significantly.

Today I have booked my flights out to Kenya for the 29th January, a week tomorrow.

I would like to explain the events surrounding my move from Rwanda (via the Philippines - that's another story) with Signpost International to Kenya with Education for Life but frankly I've explained it that many times over the last day or two that I can't be bothered to write about it as well!! Enjoy this though:

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/

Forget Norway, Kenya!