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Paul and Rebecca's trip to Bethany, 26th April - 14th May 2009 Report
It was a very positive trip and great to see Dave, Vicky and Karen so stuck in to life at Bethany. It is really good to have long-term volunteers at Bethany as it enables short term visitors to begin a teaching routine much more easily than before.
On average we taught for 5 hours a day. We kept Standard 6 at Bethany for the duration of our trip in order to give them additional lessons. Other standards were taught, though this was organised around the times they were due in school. We went to the local primary school on Friday morning and assisted Dave and Vicky teaching 2 classes (each of around 80 children). It was certainly eye opening to see how poor the education is at the village school. Once you have visited the school at Yitwimila it becomes clear how priveleged the children at Bethany are to have lessons at the Bethany site.
We organised a sports day on Saturday afternoon which the children enjoyed. It was good to see the children working together in teams and looking after one another. A bit of competition is always good fun as well. The girls have now started to play football and this seems to be a trend sweeping across the local schools. In the time we were there on our two week stay the girls played at least 3 pre-arranged matches against local schools. There must have been at least 600 people watching each one!
It was rainy season whilst we were there so it rained most days and was very hot in between. There was a bit of flu/cold/cough type symptons going round the children which Paul and Karen both experienced too but it was nothing serious.
Daniel took several trips to Mwanza in the process of sorting out visas and passports for the proposed trip to England in September. We visited Starehe childrens home in order to get ideas for an adventure playground to be built at Bethany (funded by a US donors) and Daniel has now passed this information to Bryson, the builder based in Mwanza.
It was great to get to know some of the younger children that were not at Bethany when we last visited in 2007. There are some real loveable characters and they certainly kept us entertained. We were particularly impressed with some of the younger children and how bright and capable they were in terms of their education. Karen is doing a great job with the little ones and their English is certainly a testimony to the work she is doing!
The new visitors block is wonderful to stay in and a hot shower every day certainly makes a big difference. It was good to spend some time with the three girls due to come to England next year; Sophia, Fatuma and Minza. They have a lot of work to do before they arrive but we think they will learn quickly once they arrive in the UK.
There were a few sad realisations of the differences in our cultures when one of the care worker's wives died (aged 24 of breast cancer). We were afterwards informed that she was not taken to the hospital because people thought she was bewitched. Really sad. Overall though, it was a really positive trip.
For comical note, we took a hand puppet (a black coloured boy) out with us and one evening we did a short show. The children went crazy and loved it. The next day Daniel informed us that one of the care workers had said, 'I've never seen anyone like that before!?!'. He had thought it was a real person!
Finally, we would like to urge anyone thinking about volunteering to please come to one of the monthly meetings and find out more. The children really need as much teaching as possible. Any help will be greatly appreciated. We can assure you that it is well worth it!
Thanks
Paul and Rebecca Pountain
Paul and Rebecca
Tel: 01254 239544
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