Workshop

Ok, so, as I sit here in my verandah, listening to a program on BBC about people who use the Internet to worship and sipping my tea, it seems like as good a time as any to type down some highlights of my time away... So, let's see, some of the highlights...

1. It was refreshing to be away in a town that has banned plastic bags! And the children still like to collect the empty plastic water and pop bottles from the streets. And, everyone and their dog has a pit latrine! So it was clean. Dusty, but at least the dust was "clean" dust. It was much less "fragrant" than my usual city. Of course, I was still dirty all the time. Just walking out of the bathroom where you have just bathed makes you dirty. Dirt under my fingernails, dirt under my toenails, and a sheen of red dust covering every inch of exposed skin. Oh well. The guest house that we stayed in didn't have any running water, either. So bucket baths were in order. Jackie and I also got really good at pouring water on each other's hands so we could wash two hands at once :)

2. I ate my entire year's quota of meat in the last few weeks. Because the town is a lot more Muslim, we had to adopt a more Arab sort of eating schedule. We had tea in the morning (but I had to supplement with a piece of bread and jam!), then "breakfast" at 10:30am. That was normally a sandwich filled with fried meat. Unfortunately, the last few days, it was a sandwich filled with liver :( Eeeewwww... I will never understand why people eat liver. Then we had lunch at 2:30 or 3. Again, it was meat, meat and more meat. Only slimy okra for veggies! Then we had our dinner around 8 pm. Again, meat or fish or chicken. And slimy okra.

3. We made friends with the tea lady on the corner near the guesthouse where we stayed. She set up her little charcoal stove and jars full of tea and sugar and spices and milk and coffee on the corner, just as the sun was setting every night. So me and Jackie went every night to sit with her and drink some milky tea or sweet coffee, which was thick enough to be almost a mocha pudding! She didn't speak English, and we hardly speak any Arabic, but we had a great time together :) She was a funny woman, and had quite a personality! It was great practice for us to try out the little Arabic that we know, and she was really very patient in repeating phrases for us over and over again until we figured out what she was saying. It was just so relaxing to sit on the street corner, under the brilliant stars, sipping tea and playing around with Arabic.

4. Oh yeah, the workshop... that actually went quite well, as well! We had 32 participants, and many of them were really quite high up in the state ministries of education. So they were in a position to make some decisions about how to start implementing the language policy here in this country. Of course, there were also some folks there who somehow came along and didn't actually speak any English at all! But they were all very kind and very eager to work. There was a lot of group work and time for people from each state and each language group to work together and do some planning, so even if they didn't catch all the things that Jackie and I were leading from the front, at least the could have some time to help each other out in their groups.

It was also really encouraging to see that some of the people in the States ARE actually using the mother tongue of the people in their states for the first few years of primary school... even though no one is making any textbooks or resources available to them. Some of the teachers took photocopies of some of the textbook samples that we had brought with us, so at least they can be used by a teacher in one school! We pray that the government will get things together enough to actually start printing some of these books and distributing them to the schools, so these children can actually start to learn in a language that they understand.

It was so much fun to be teaching and facilitating a workshop again! Maybe I am more of a performer than I thought I was, but I think it's so much fun to be helping people understand a concept, even if that takes a little song and dance routine up in front of a big group once in a while. I'm convinced that even adults like a little action when they're learning, so I try to do a lot of active sorts of things. It also helps a lot to be a bit dramatic when people are trying to understand some difficult concepts in a second (or third or fourth!) language. I think the participants understood some of the big issues enough to actually go and make some good, informed decisions about the implementation of mother tongue education. So in that respect, I think the workshop was a huge success! Thanks for praying for us.

5. The workshop was closed by our guest of honour - the Bishop of the Catholic Church! Most of the participants who were there are Catholics, so it was a real honour for them to receive their certificates from his Lordship the Bishop. He also made an amazing speech about the role of the mother tongue in finding one's identity in Christ. He was very eloquent and very supportive of the use of local languages, both in education and in people's relationship with Christ.

It was wonderful to be able to mix the work that we're doing with the Ministry of Education with our own Christian faith. Because it was a government sponsored workshop, we weren't planning to do any prayer or devotions or anything like that, but the participants themselves asked us to do some Bible reading and prayer at the start of each day! So I also pray that as these guys go back to their "normal" jobs of teaching and administration in the Ministries of Education, that they will also become advocates for the use of the Scriptures in their own languages, as well. Many of them spoke of the fact that they want children in their communities to learn to read and write in their own language because then they will be able to read the Scriptures and take part in the life of the church!

Phew, this is a lot of text for one night. I think these are the main highlights... there were SO many funny "blog-able" moments throughout the workshop. I mean, nothing is ever really straightforward or "normal" in this country, so some days of the workshop were just a complete comedy in errors, at least, from me and Jackie's point of view! But somehow, through God's grace, we made it through!