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MY
PLACEMENTS IN SALVADOR
Alto
das Pombas Comunity (The Holy Spirit Parish)
Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Alto
Pombas is a poor community located in Federação, a
neighborhood full of social inequalities. The community
is bordered by the shantytown of Calabar and upper class
neighborhoods. Alto das Pombas square in front of the
church is an area for leisure and political mobilization
of the community entities.
Speak
Easy English School – Tuesday and Thursdays
Cesar the
Director of Speak Easy rented a room in an office
building to teach English for a reasonable price to low
income students, kids, adults and local communities. The
classes were always on Saturdays. The students that
could not effort the classes on Saturday tried to ask
him about different days and during that time he came up
to Alto das Pombas to find out about CCS project on
teach English there. He invited CSS to start the
project there on his place.
9th September
Flew from
Heathrow to Lisbon and transferred to Salvador 8.5 hour
flight. Very comfortable as the flights were half full.
Getting off the aircraft into 28o Celsius was like
getting into a sauna. Great welcome at the home base
from staff who new me before. Met a few voluinteers
before retiring to catch up on sleep
10th
September
Another 10
volunteers arrived, all from the USA, 5 men and 5 ladies
– all young. Very nice friendly bunch. As I new my way
around I took them all to Pelhourinho, the old Colonial
Historical centre, full of Neo Classical and Colonial
Architecture and colour. They loved it. One of the
existing volunteers will also be teaching at Speak Easy
for two more days and she will assist me in my program.
Tomorrow is induction day.
11th
September - Induction day
We now have
17 volunteers - 16 from America and myself. 8 fellows
and the rest girls. I admit that I am struggling with
their rich accents. Induction day with a talk by the
placement manager and area director outlining the aims
of Cross Cultural, in house rules, etc and a description
of the various placements. I gave everyone a short Audio
Visual of Salvador from my last trip that was enjoyed.
Also run my teaching program past the director who loved
it. Afternoon on the local show beach to top up my sun
tan and relax before the fun starts tomorrow. food very
good and pigging out but healthly.
Week
beginning 12
September
Alto
das Pombas Comunity (The Holy Spirit Parish)
Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Speak Easy language school
Tuesdy and Thursday
Well a week has now passed and I have taught 5 lessons
very successfully and have gelled well with the
students. They can't
believe their luck to get an Audio Visual teaching
programme instead of a whiteboard that I hardly use.
They all love it and say that it is
much better than normal teaching methods. I have their
full attention all the time. The A/V's of
different countries has gone down very
well. They all love it and want more. I am
totally knackered after 3.5b house of intensive chat and
concentration/. I love it.
Played Bingo Friday and they went hysterical - can't
believe adults get so excited by a silly game. They will
get a shock next week as
they are going to get Bingo with WORDS from the first 3
lessons. I call the words out and they must find the
word on a list they will get
against a number. They will have learned about 100
words by then.
All 17 volunteers are really enjoying the
experience and are getting attached to the children,
Really nice.
Did an extra lesson this morning (Sat). A conversation class
with 10 students. No computer or projector. What a
challenge and it
knackered me. Torrential rain today so catch up time on the
computer
During next
week I will give all the volunteers and staff my Audio
Visual presentation from my last visit in 2010
that I have given to the WI
and others.
Toured the old
cultural City of Pelhourinho during the weeks and
pleased to note that the restoration programme is
proceeding well slowly
but surely./ Probably with an eye on the World Football Cup
in 2014.
Weekend 17/18 September
Saturday morning took a English discussion class at
Speak Easy for 1.5 hours. Definitely a new challenge
after normal teaching as I
have never done this before. About 18 students from
various classes of different abilities that really slows
me down. Knackered me by
lunchtime. Spent two hours at the Internet café trying to
get images up on line without success. Must be a
computer problem or just the
Internet. Poured all day, sometimes torrential, so couldn’t
do much except catch up.
Lovely day
Sunday. Two hours on the beach in the morning and a walk
through Salvador in the afternoon. Quite a few
volunteers had left
and some were away for the weekend. Very relaxed and took
many photos. This time I am much more relaxed and
confident as I know
what I am doing and it is going extremely well.
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