Only 3 weeks left

So only 3 weeks to go which just seems crazy, time here is strange as everything seems to happen really slowly and take a long time (Africa time) but at the same time I can’t believe I’ve been here for 2 months already.

Firstly I would like to say well done and congratulations to Ellie a fellow International Service volunteer who ran in the Ouagadougou marathon last weekend. Not only did Ellie complete the marathon she was also the first women home, a truly fantastic achievement.    

So back to me, I’ve being feeling a bit demotivated the past week or so due to feeling ineffectual and realising there is so much development to be done in Burkina Faso that 3 months really doesn’t seem long enough to make much of a difference. I feel frustrated for HSB as I know they have the potential to even more great stuff than they already do but most of it is impossible due to lack of funds. But two things within the past few days have cheered me up and made me realise that perhaps all I can do is the small things but this is still better than nothing at all. The first of these things is getting a small article and photo of me and 3 young adults who attend a school for people with disabilities on the Coventry City website. So thank you CCFC for publishing that I am always happy to spread support for Coventry City if you would like to check the article out the link is below.

http://www.ccfc.co.uk/news/article/burkina-faso-fans-856058.aspx

The second thing happened today one of the girls who attends espace Bambino Christine who I have never heard speak except occasionally to her mum. Spent all morning playing with Felix and Jen and then as she was leaving turned round and said ‘bye bye’ to us all which just made my heart melt a little bit. I am going to miss the espace bambino kids a lot.

Brazilian embassy

So last week I and another of the HSB volunteers Ash got to go to the Brazilian Embassy with Janine and Sydney. Janine is a Burkinabe volunteer with HSB and Sydney is the vice president of HSB. The meeting seemed to go well with the Brazilian ambassador regaling me and Ash with stories of how his great great grandfather was British and had come over to Brazil to help build railways and never left. Unfortunately the ambassador said the Brazilian embassy was unable to help HSB financially but he is going to try and set up a partnership between HSB and a similar organisation in Brazil. So hopefully this will prove to be a helpful partnership especially with the Brazil Paralympics coming up in 2016.

APEE School

So this week we went back to the APEE school for disabled children and young adults and spent a very enjoyable morning sowing, pape maching and threading beads to make jewellery. The children and young adults who are participating in these activities all have varying disabilities and have been unable to progress in school. So APEE teaches and supervises them in making  craft items which are then sold in a shop at the school with the child/young adult who made the item receiving 50% of the profit. I also finally gave away my dad’s Coventry City shirts to three young adults in these classes.

                                                        Trying my hand at pape mache.

                                                       Concentrating hard on sowing.

                                                 Spreading support for the Sky Blues.

                                                 Group picture with the female artisans.

                                            Group Picture with the male artisans. 

                                                          

After our morning helping with crafts we then had a tour of the school where we met all of the other classes. The first class we met was the observation class where the children go when they first come to the school, in this class the children are encourage playing with toys and interacting with each other. The teachers then make a judgement as to which class each individual child should be go into. Most of the children in this class were young but there was one boy who was 15 and they were just unable to move onto the next class, despite him improving since arriving.

                                                             The observation class.

The next class we went to was class one this class is only slightly more advanced than the observation class. In this class the children are still encouraged to play but with slightly more difficult games such as jigsaws and numbers puzzles. In this class we met Kofi who is funded to go to APEE by HSB, Kofi seemed to be happy and enjoying himself.

                                                            Koffi and another pupil.

The next class we went into was class two where the children appeared to be drawing shapes and doing simple maths.

The final class we went into was class three; class three is the top class so the children in this class were all been taught similar stuff to what is taught in the main stream schools here. The children who do well in this class are then moved into the mainstream school that APEE also run, the children who are not successful are then moved into the craft lessons to be taught how to become artisans.

I know I am repeating myself a bit but the whole morning was a really great experience and the school seems like a truly special place where children with disabilities can learn and have fun in a safe environment without fear of ridicule and physical abuse. This morning has made me even more determined that I will definitely be sending at least one child from espace bambino to APEE.   

Orphanage

On Friday we made a visit to one of Ouagadougou’s orphanages, I had been preparing myself for this been a very emotional experience. However while the experience was sad as there were over 50 children there who have no families or whose families are unable to care for them it was not as sad as I anticipated. The Orphanage was clean and the children seemed to be well cared for and the older ones all had the own beds and they had some toys and medical care which is probably more than a lot of the Espace Bambino kids have at home.

Wheel chair basketball

On Saturday morning I and some of the other volunteers attended a wheelchair basket ball match. The event was organised by Coaching for Hope which is another NGO International Service have been working with. There were several games and the volunteers were allowed to play in two of them. In the first match it was the staff of Coaching for Hope vs the International Service volunteers. Unfortunately the volunteers lost but the staff of Coaching for Hope were massive cheats and kept snatching the ball from us and generally had some quite aggressive tactics. After this we were all put to shame when the professionals came on and had a match which was pretty impressive with the speed they go and there general control of the ball. At the end after a bit of persuasion the volunteers were allowed to play again it was the HSB volunteer’s vs the Coaching for Hope volunteers we won with Sophie scoring two spectacular goals and Felix a third. The Coaching for Hope volunteers were not very good losers claiming we practice all the time which is not true.

Zinarie

On Saturday I, Jenny, Felix, Amy and Frankie took a trip to Zinarie which is a small town about 1 hour away from Ouaga where one of the other International Service volunteer cohorts is based. Zin is so nice and quiet after Ouaga you don’t have the feeling that you’re constantly going to get run over, and the bus to get there is quite an interesting experience been squashed in with a lot of other people with no air con for an hour was quite intense. All in all Zinarie is a lovely relaxing place to get away from Ouaga but I’m quite happy I was based in Ouaga.

Thats all for this week I’m afraid I have gone on quite a bit.

Lucy