First Day at School

Today was an interesting and emotionally charged day; we visited Greater Joy School for the first time and observed some lessons in which we had to identify the similarities and differences between the learning experiences in English primaries compared to Zambian ones. We found that there were far more similarities; however, one major difference that we noticed was their attitude towards learning; they were far more eager to learn and were excellently behaved in lessons. After observing the lessons we spent break with the younger children, playing games like duck duck goose and whats the time Mr. Wolf with them – we discovered through this that Will would make an amazing primary school teacher! We were also given the opportunity to interview the woman in charge of admin for Greater Joy, with many of us finding it strange that she was the only person charged with managing admin whereas English schools would have a team of people to do this. We were then given a tour of the village, which saw Mr Baidoo (and Kalum) attempt to buy a bag of popcorn worth 1 kwatcha (approximately 10p) with a 50 kwatcha note! Perhaps most surprising is that the man selling it actually offered for Mr Baidoo to just take the bag for free, which is amazing considering that he would not be making any more than 20 kwatcha a day, in fact, likely a lot less. Lunch consisted of nshima (maize meal), beans and relish, which we all took up to scooping into our mouths with our hand very quickly! Though this day sounds pretty amazing so far, there was a significantly upsetting period in which we visited another school which has unfortunately been temporarily closed by the government due to insufficient facilities (toilet related). The classrooms that we saw were meant to hold 20+ children, yet they barely fit us. One of them – that didn’t have a door – had charcoal mathematic equations over the makeshift blackboard where the children missed school so much that they went back to practise their own maths. All of us also found it particularly.. disturbing, Olivia in particular, how there was one girl, who had been a student there before the closure, in a classroom (that was being used as a storeroom for the overnight security guard’s things) making lunch for the security guard! It was even more perplexing to find that it was just a random child that he had tasked with this, and not a daughter or immediate relative! Despite this, however, we all fed back that we had had an interesting, fun and satisfying day. (Chloe B - day 2)