Classes

The Early childhood Development course I am working in is only taught over the school breaks, so two weeks after starting, here I am teaching 3 two hour lectures a day, over the Easter break. It has been a little bit of throwing myself in the deep end, but I am coping.
I had a little stress out on the weekend and had to point out to my boss that there is only so much I can do. As it was my lectures changed so much I had some difficulty getting prepared. Anyway I got prepared, each subject only requires six two hour lectures.
It is nice that in the Gambia they take the personal side of life more seriously than work – although it can be frustrating at the time. In each lecture I have I actually have three classes (so I repeat the same lecture three times). It is great because although the lectures are vastly different from my uni days, some of the classes are so enthusiastic they really inspire me.
One of the most amazing things is the evidence of family life in my lectures. One time I had one student there with her three kids in the lecture. In each lecture I have between one and four babies, so women are breastfeeding whilst I am teaching them, or they are getting sacks out of the back cupboard to lay on the cupboards for the babies to sleep. When the students are busy making resources I will sometimes hold the babies for the mothers so they can concentrate. Actually most of these photos were taken while I was holding a seven month old baby (who was even smaller than Eliza), if you look carefully you can see her foot in one photo – she is asleep tied on her mother’s back.
Sometimes it is hard to know which is the baby’s mum because the babies will just get passed around during the lectures to share the load. Even the men help out.