English Language Immersion Camp August 2017 (Rob)

This report focuses on the recent English Language Immersion Camp for 31 extremely excited Standard VI students which took place in Panga Chumvi.  The students, aged around 12, were from Zanzibar Schools Project in Unguja Ukuu and they had been selected for the course as they are taking their important Primary School leaving examinations in November.  The plan was two packed days of English language learning and activities in a beautiful location. Sun, sea, sand and singing were the order of the weekend! We’d like to extend a special thanks to Rebecca of Panga Chumvi in Matemwe (www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/1199293 in case you want to stay there) for providing the space for the camp and Coco’s Foundation (www.cocosfoundation.co.uk) for the funding. It truly was a hugely worthwhile project in advancing the English of the Standard VI students and the progress of certain pupils over the weekend was notable and very impressive!

Arrival and Beginning – Saturday 12th

On Saturday morning, Gasica and I took the ZL4LF bus to Unguja Ukuu and collected a thrilled and (mostly) very punctual group of students.  All the way to Panga Chumvi they were practically bouncing of the walls and singing songs! We arrived at 10am and unpacked. The students were split them into five teams of about 7, each team with a miniature cuddly mascot - lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys and giraffes.  Each group had a random mixture of students to encourage them talk to new people as well as shake up the ability levels.  

The line-up of teachers included Gasica, Gail, Damian, Carole, Megan, Gail and me. Damian and Carole are our visiting teachers from the UK, we were extremely lucky to be working with them and I personally was constantly amazed by their depth of teaching experience, skills and ability to bring out the best in children. They brought fantastic expertise to the weekend and we’d like to extend a big thank you to them for all their enthusiasm. The primary school required that we take two local teachers and it turned out they were very helpful in certain sessions with translating and I think they quite enjoyed some of the classes, and even learnt a few new things!

Teaching Sessions – Saturday 12th 10:30am – 4:30pm (with an hour for lunch)

 Five parallel sessions ran simultaneously and the students rotated on a carousel system. Each teacher had a different focus for their session and there were a broad range of activities. Helped by my good friend Geraldine the Giraffe, I worked with the students on phonics, particularly sounds that Swahili speakers struggle with. They had to feed Geraldine with fish (I’m aware of the biological inaccuracy) that had words with the corresponding sounds on them. This was hilarious and the students were told Geraldine spoke no Swahili (again she would probably speak Swahili as opposed to English but we won’t dwell on that), so they had to address her in English only. I felt that students came away from these sessions with a better understanding of tricky English sounds and some new vocabulary. They definitely left with smiles on their faces after interacting with Geraldine, however again not sure if this was at my expense or not! Either way, it was a lot of fun for all of us.

Damian’s worked with the students to create sock puppets – the results were impressive! The puppets were used to practice conversation skills and Damian did a fantastic job getting the students involved and captivated. I think activities like this are always wonderful because we get to see a creative side to the children that they don’t often get to develop and enjoy during their regular school hours with the local teachers.

Carole’s group worked on role playing and drama. They planned and performed a role play about flying on a plane, a big dream for many of them! They had a great time pretending to be pilots and passengers and practiced conversational and formal English as well as travel vocabulary. The students particularly loved the pilot’s hat and sunglasses! The Giraffe team’s role play was so good that they had a public performance at the end of the weekend!

Gail lives in the immediate area and volunteers at Safari English Club every week. On Saturday she led the students on a treasure hunt all over the Panga Chumvi site, with prizes of fruit for the students who completed the trail. The treasure hunt allowed her to weave in vocabulary focused on directions and distances, which is something students often struggle with. They seemed to love a learning activity on their feet and it allowed them to use some of their boundless energy!

Gasica led a class sitting on the veranda of one of the beautiful bungalows. His class focused on the present continuous tense which is important for the Standard IV exams. Megan roamed around and took most of these pictures of the students in action!

Swimming, Dinner and Singing at the end of the day

At the end of the day, the tide had come in and the time was right for swimming! The students had been looking forward to this all day and they were chattering and very energetic as they lined up to receive their new goggles which they were overjoyed about! We’d like to give a special thanks for goggles to our American friend Julia Pangan and Brighton Swimming School (www.pool2pier.com). They really make a difference when teaching swimming in the sea. The students loved them and many were still wearing goggles all through dinner and songs afterwards! It was my first time seeing Zanzibari girls swimming in burkinis and I was stunned by the enormous difference it makes to their confidence and comfort in the water (and on the beach too!) When I was here last year I saw they had a hard time trying to keep themselves covered in clothes that are completely inadequate for swimming. The girls were able to jump and splash completely freely and really loved their time in the water.  We were very lucky that both Damian and Megan are both qualified swimming teachers. They were very knowledgeable on water safety and used this knowledge to ensure everyone was safe and happy. They were also able to teach some swimming skills. Damian oversaw some hilarious races between the boys (including some outrageous cheating!) and a race between Haroun (one of the older students) and me.  He’d spent all day challenging me to this race at every opportunity. Damian was also able to give some of the racers advice on their technique and swimming styles. Meanwhile, Megan and Carole were singing songs and jumping over waves and generally being joyful and making the most of the beautiful surroundings. For me it was a really special time and one of my highlights of the weekend.

In the evening we had a lovely Zanzibari meal of curry and rice with the obligatory spinach. The students devoured their food after a long and busy day, but unlike many British children they even happily wolfed down their spinach! Then there was fruit and ice cream afterwards. Then we sang, initially classics from Chloe’s time here such as the much loved and very well remembered “Ricky Bamboo” song and my personal favourite the “O Ma Ley” song. Megan led to begin with and the students loved the British childhood songs many of which brought back strong memories for me.  Of these songs, my favourite was the appropriately adapted “Old MacDonald had a Safari Park”… after a while the students took over, the boys showing off their dance moves and competing as usual. The girls made up songs and ran around planning and scheming their newest releases with much giggling.  The boys argued over who was the best and came up with Swahili rap lyrics which were hilarious. The spirit and level of energy of the evening was amazing, the only difficult bit was getting the students to calm down. They could’ve carried on all night if they’d been allowed to!

Early Morning Swim – Sunday 13th

We had an early start on Sunday which was incredibly worthwhile. I felt absolutely blessed to start the day swimming with some of the students, just as the sun was just rising.  The way it cut through the clouds was absolutely stunning. Starting the day with exercise really gave me a boost of energy, especially in such a beautiful setting. This was also a great chance for the students who didn’t swim the previous day to get in the water and use their new goggles.

Breakfast and Taste Testing – Sunday 13th

Breakfast consisted of delicious pancakes, local tea and coffee. While we were eating, Gail encouraged groups of students to take part in her “Taste testing challenge”. She had brought an array of foods for sampling which had diverse and distinguishable flavours that the students could learn to describe. I loved this activity - it was a really clever way to allow the students to associate vocabulary with memories and I think the students had a great laugh. For example, she had Marmite to teach students to describe savoury tastes, the students found Marmite absolutely hilarious and the old saying proved to be false, they quite overwhelmingly hated it!

Teaching Sessions – Sunday 13th

Once again, we had five sessions running all day.  This time around my lesson focused on two elements which were based around preparing the students for the Standard IV exam. First, we talked about the best ways to link sentences and choosing between different connectives, mainly “and” and “but”. Then we looked at telling the time in English and the difference between digital and analogue clocks and how to convert between the two. My lesson was less fun than the previous day, but the students were attentive and a couple of the groups floored me with the progress they made through the lesson and also their progression over the weekend as a whole. Gasica again led an exam-focused English lesson, continuing with the previous day’s topic of the continuous past tense.

Damian’s groups used my Bluetooth speaker to listen to classical music, and take an imaginary journey which they had to describe using all their senses. This was a creative writing activity and really pushed the students to dig deep for descriptive vocabulary. As well as this, it gave them some new words for explaining feelings and sensations. I feel it’s really helpful for the students to be creative with their English language skills and it helps to cement learning. The activity also had a focus on the past tense which is something that students can have difficulty with and is vital for the exam.

Carole led an activity on letter writing, which again is again a common feature in the Standard IV English Exam.  The students learnt about how a letter is structured, where the various features should go and most importantly about the style of language used; formal English. We hope that these sorts of activities will allow the students feel ready and increase their confidence when it comes to the day of the exam.

Megan led a conversation activity using the sock puppets that the students had created the previous day. This was a great way to get the students talking to each other and I think was especially helpful for those who can be shy and lack confidence. They were able to speak through a character which gave the conversation a large element of fun and reduced and pressure the students might feel. We agreed there was a significant improvement in the confidence speaking and listening of most children.

 Awards and Performance

 Before the closing ceremony, we watched the Giraffe group’s exemplary role play of flying a plane to London.  They  were deemed to be the best group on account of their confidence, progress.  Stickers and certificates (somewhat painstakingly) rolled and wrapped in ribbon were presented. Gasica made the reading of the names into a silly game where he jumbled up the pronunciations and the students struggled to work out who was who, giggling and chatting. There was a real spring in the step of the students as they received their certificates, and it was rightfully deserved. I was so chuffed to see them feeling proud of themselves, because they honestly had worked so hard, been very dedicated all weekend and made great progress. But most importantly, they had an amazing time, as did we!

Once again, a huge thanks to everyone who took part, supported and helped to organize the event.

July 17, 2017: Rob arrives in Zanzibar

My name is Rob Lindfield, I’m 18 years old and I’m currently living and working in Zanzibar for ZL4LF and the Zanzibar Schools Project. I’ve just finished my A-Levels at Varndean College in Brighton, and I’m hoping to start studying Swahili and International Development at SOAS in September. My first three weeks here have been hectic, chaotic and a lot of fun! My role here is teaching English and French at ZL4LF as well as English twice a week at Unguja Ukuu. In addition to this, I am a co-founder of the microfinance project which I am managing, and I am working closely with Gasica helping him with office work such as replying to emails and attending meetings which I find very exciting. I also discuss future plans about the organisation and plans for Gasica’s new school and help to organise this.

Getting settled and graduation (not mine): My first week was mostly spent getting settled, meeting lots of people and travelling around the island having fun and working on my Swahili which has been coming on really fast! When I arrived here it was during Eid celebrations at the end of Ramadan, which meant everyone was dressed to the nines and in a very festive mood. There was a lot of dancing, singing and a big party in the park just outside of Stone Town. During this time I rediscovered (for better or for worse) the vuvuzela; a relic from the South Africa world cup. Gasica took me on my first day on a trip to a spice farm (pictured below) and I spent the rest of that week meeting family and friends, as well as planning for the graduation!

Saturday 1 July: we went with a huge group of students to Fumba beach, the site of the famous Safari Blue day trips, to take part in a clean-up operation. This felt like a really worthwhile environmental project, structured as a competition we all were challenged to fill our sacks as much as possible, with the winners receiving prizes. All three winning students were from ZL4LF. We then received generous portions of pilaw and soft drinks and laughed about the day’s events.

Thursday 6 July: we had the ZL4LF and Daraja Foundation Graduation Ceremony. This generated a huge buzz in the local community and the students were bouncing off the walls. We even had TV cameras and a local news team! Mohammed and I were the MCs, I introduced and commentated for those who couldn’t speak Swahili. Gasica and Arsheen explained how they met and started to work together, they were very entertaining but their love for their work and for these projects really shined through. Some previous ZL4LF students spoke about their stories which had several people in tears. I personally found this deeply emotional.

 At times I think I can lose sight of the extent of tragedy that some of these young people have endured. I was profoundly moved and freshly motivated by the stories of students like Khamis Waya, Zahra and Keyrah to name a few. Then we had words from a few of ZL4LF’s partner organisations such as Zanlink, Zanzibar Palace Hotel, Safari Blue and the Rotary Club (both of these were represented by Eleanor in impeccable Swahinglish - a Swahili and English mixture). After this there was a DJ and everyone stayed and danced and celebrated late into the night.

My work at ZL4LF: I’ve been working closely with Gasica, helping him reply to emails, talking about ideas and trying to help him keep this amazing project moving forward. I’m genuinely thrilled to be involved here, I feel it is a genuinely sustainable institution which provides real long term benefits to the community, not just through education but through business and employment opportunities. I am the Founder and Orchestrator of the Microfinance project which aims to allow hardworking students to pursue ambitions and their entrepreneurial spirit through small interest-free loans. With the assistance of Gasica at ZL4LF, Ann from ZSP and Arsheen from Daraja Foundation I designed the application process.  With help from Varndean College Students, I raised the funds to allow students to start their own businesses. This has been very successful and there will be a much more detailed report on microfinance in the immediate future, detailing successes, failures and future plans; short-term and long-term.

Last week I started teaching. I’ve been consistently amazed by the level of English spoken by the students in the advanced class at ZL4LF. We had some really tough lessons tackling the conditional tense and some hilarious ones discussing the various accents and dialects of the English language. The improvement in some students’ English has been astonishing and I love being with this class because the levels are high enough for us to be able to really dig into inferred meanings and colloquialisms which is really enjoyable. French lessons have been coming along well with a small group of very enthusiastic students who have been studying independently so teaching them has been surprisingly easy and fun.

Unguja Ukuu: As we’ve been so busy with graduation, we’ve only visited Unguja Ukuu and the school twice over the last couple of weeks.  Teaching officially started again this week and on Wednesday I’ll start teaching there again. When I’ve visited over the last couple of weeks it has been wonderful to see so many familiar faces and briefly listen to the improvement in the level of English spoken by the students. I was amazed that they all remembered me from last year, and we had a hilarious time with the students briefly flipping the script and examining my Swahili speaking ability. They were satisfied when I proved I could sing a song by Diamond Platinumz (Tanzania’s biggest and most well-loved singer), and everyone had a giggle! Still not sure if they were laughing at my Swahili, my singing or both…

Thank you…for taking the time to read this update, it’s lovely to know that people are interested in what we’re all doing here. If you have any questions at any time, even strange ones about life in Zanzibar, please feel free to email me at zanzibarl4lf@gmail.com - which is essentially my email address for the next 3 months.

June 24, 2017: Graduation from Tanzanian Management Course (Ann)

June 8, 2017: Time for the Children (Ann)

We’re delighted to announce a new venture between the International School of Zanzibar (ISZ) and ZL4LF. Fifteen children from ZL4LF now attend regular martial arts classes at the ISZ’s sports grounds. The children, both boys and girls, are aged from 5 to 13 years old. Classes take place three times a week and are conducted by Vadim Dormidontov, ISZ's Physical Education Teacher.  The children love the classes and wanted to keep going, even during Ramadan when many activities take a break. Vadim, who originates from Russia, has a Master’s degree in Sports Medicine and is a well-qualified sports teacher.  In addition he had the honour of represented Russia in Karate in 2002-3.  For more information about Vadim and his initiatives in Zanzibar please visit http://yoga-warrior.ru/en. Due to Vadim’s efforts and the help of others, in 2014, Tanzania was incorporated by Japan and obtained official affiliation of WSKF (World Shito-ryu Karate Federation). Three Tanzanian practitioners successfully passed their exams and were awarded 1st Dan black belts Shito-Ryu Sito-Kay.

Vadim is assisted by Amran who is a local karate instructor who has a black belt. The pair of teachers say, “We can hardly overestimate the happiness and our deep satisfaction from seeing smiling children’s faces and hearing their laughter when they’re rolling, jogging, skipping and the seriousness of their faces’ expressions when they’re trying to tackle intricate martial arts movements and remembering complex Japanese names of the stances and techniques. The children are already mastering their coordination, gaining strength and flexibility. They’re learning Judo falls, Sumo wrestling, Aikido arm locks and Karate kicks and punches. Great start, impressive efforts with already noticeable results and, what is most important for us – fantastic and touching emotional feedback.”

We would all like to thank ISZ for providing its ample sport facilities, Vadim for covering the transportation cost and local instructor allowance as well as Gasica and ZL4L Foundation for facilitating the whole process! The group is currently looking for finance opportunities to purchase sports outfits for kids, so please reach out to Vadim at dormi.dom@yandex.ru and Katya tihomirkat@mail.ru if you’d like to take part in that process. And for the future?  Vadim says that his dream is to take a team of Zanzibari children to compete in Japan!

We would all like to thank ISZ for providing its ample sport facilities, Vadim for covering the transportation cost and local instructor allowance as well as Gasica and ZL4L Foundation for facilitating the whole process! The group is currently looking for finance opportunities to purchase sports outfits for kids, so please reach out to Vadim at dormi.dom@yandex.ru and Katya tihomirkat@mail.ru if you’d like to take part in that process. And for the future?  Vadim says that his dream is to take a team of Zanzibari children to compete in Japan!

Meanwhile, we’re delighted to report that Gasica has been asked to make a presentation at the final session of the Tanzanian Headmasters’ Management Course  (being run bythe Goodall Foundation, Brighton). His topic is building sustainable businesses and working successfully with partner organisations.  Thank you to Brighton and Hove Soiree Rotary Club for generously sponsoring Gasica’s participation in the event.

Back in Brighton we’ve just finished “Time for the Children” photographic exhibition at the city’s Jubilee Library.  The launch party was very well attended and we enjoyed meeting the new mayor.  The evocative photographs of the children of Unguja Ukuu were taken by the award-winning film-maker and photographer Richard Harris.  If you would like to buy any of the images that were in the exhibition they are available for £75.  Please see the Zanzibar Schools Project Gallery atwww.bigbamboo.photo. Back in Brighton our exciting ‘Time for the Children’ photography exhibition at the city’s Jubilee Library has come to an end. The launch party was well attended and we enjoyed meeting the new Lady Mayor.  The evocative images of the children of Unguja Ukuu were taken by the award-winning film-maker and photographer, Richard Harris.  If you would like to buy any of these images they are still available for £75 each (limited editions of five). More images, (priced from £35 depending on size) can be seen on Richard’s website at www.bigbamboo.photo/zanzibar-zsp.

May 16, 2017: Sad news of Patima (Ann)

We’re sorry but this is a really sad update from Zanzibar.  We want to share the story of Patima Shamhuni Ussi, the wife of Mohamed, one of the excellent English language teachers who works with us to inspire the children at the Safari English Club.   Patima and Mohamed are both 28 years old and they have a beautiful and bright boy who is just 17 months old, named Maher which means skilful, able, experienced, clever, genius. We met Patima in January when she and Mohamed visited our apartment for dinner.  Thanks to Mohamed’s teaching, she understood a lot of our English even if she was a bit shy at first about speaking to us and we enjoyed getting to know her.

Earlier this month Patima gave birth to a baby girl, called Maitham, at her parents home. Initially she was in good health and Mohamed bought her a chicken from Gasica’s chicken farm which she enjoyed eating. But a few days after the birth, she became very ill.  Patima’s parents rented a car to take her to Mnazi Mmoja, the main hospital on the island which is located in Stone Town.  She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and after 7 days she sadly died, leaving two young children and Mohamed. 

The days when Patima was in hospital were traumatic.  The doctors didn’t seem to know what they were doing and just kept asking Mohamed for more money for drugs for Patima.  Apart from Mohamed and Patima’s mother who was staying at the hospital during the whole of her stay at the hospital, no-one else was allowed to visit her in hospital.  The doctors refused to let Mohamed see Patima’s medical notes. Mohamed is happy for us to share the story so that we can give an idea of the scale of problems that Zanzibar faces, not only in education, but in healthcare too.  The Rotary Club in Zanzibar has a joint focus on health and educational initiatives.  Apart from generous sponsorship of educational activities, they have raised considerable sums for HIPZ (Health Improvement Project Zanzibar www.hipz.org.uk) which is working to improve two cottage hospitals on the island.

In the UK we have almost forgotten the dangers of childbirth.  Efficient doctors, regular checkups and effective drugs mean that most problems are resolved before they become life threatening.  The majority of maternal deaths in Zanzibar occur during childbirth and the time immediately after birth. The main causes of maternal death include haemorrhage, pregnancy-induced hypertension, obstructed labour, infection and unsafe abortion. Death rates for mothers is estimated at 2,900 per 100,000 live births (29 per 1000) compared with 10 out of 100,000 in the UK! Infant mortality in Zanzibar is 54 per 1,000 live births whereas in the UK it’s 3.7 deaths per 1,000. In Zanzibar 50% of all babies are delivered at home with unskilled attendants. (Data from WHO).

It’s hard to imagine what trepidation a woman must feel when approaching childbirth and the risks of death are so high. Fortunately Maitham is doing well and is being looked after by Mohamed’s mother.  Mohamed lives with his family so he can help with looking after the children. 

In Zanzibar funerals take place rapidly after death.  More women than men attend the funeral of a woman.  While we were in Zanzibar a woman from the neighbourhood died.  From our apartment we looked at the gathering of women that started early in the morning of the funeral. Women led the religious readings before the body was taken to the mosque and then on to the cemetary.  Our thoughts are with Mohamed as he completes his university studies and adjusts to life without Patima.

May 7, 2017: Swimming (Ann)

We’re so impressed at the determination of the community in Unguja Ukuu to help improve the lives of their own community. Five of the strongest swimmers from the village are learning how to teach water safety and swimming skills. They are being trained by a group from Nungwi who are supported by the RNLI.  Although Zanzibar has the most beautiful beaches, there is a high incidence of drowning.  Hence the RNLI’s initiative to help prevent more deaths from drowning.  There’s quite a bit of theory as well as practical sessions and the RNLI has developed a great book that has been developed to help teachers understand the specific conditions around the island. Training started with a lesson and test in Kendwa to ensure each swimmer could swim for 200 meters.  Our volunteer, Chloe spoke to one of the trainers who told her that he was motivated to teach swimming after a boat sailing from Zanzibar to Pemba ran into trouble and many people died from not knowing how to swim.

Chloe has now returned to England after an amazing year in Africa and spending 10 months running the Safari English Club.  She’s achieved so much, giving the children more confidence in speaking English as well as enthusiasm to try activities they have never dreamed of! Before she left Zanzibar she ran a final outing (safari) to Kendwa.  The students said they had never been anywhere so beautiful before.  They swam, played games and even had a boat trip – all the while practicing English, of course!

For much of April the students were on school holidays…but not the students in Safari English Club!  They had an intensive day of English with Chloe and the teachers from Safari English Club.  There was plenty of time for students to stand up in front of their peers and gain valuable experience in talking to the group.  And there were more stories about the debate in Dar for Haroun to relate and a birthday to celebrate.

The students staged a farewell talent show for Chloe in her last week on the island. The range of skills on display included acrobatics, dances, comedy sketches, singing, poems, speeches, magic tricks and a fire show. And the teachers did a rap!

Meanwhile, Gasica has attended the third part of the Headmasters’ Management Course in Arusha, sponsored by the Brighton and Hove Rotary Club and the Goodall Foundation, also from Brighton.  One of the main benefits of participating in the course is that he’s now part of a supportive and active network of professionals across Tanzania.  He says he’s benefitted so much from learning from his peers.  This time the focus was on learning about having a growing mindset (rather than a fixed mindset) as well as about working effectively with donors (and sponsors). As ever, he’s returned to Zanzibar keen to share what he’s learnt with the teachers at ZL4LF.

April 17, 2017: The debate in Dar (Ann and Chloe)

So the two debate teams have returned to Zanzibar!  Five of the advanced students from Safari English Club and a team from Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation along with teachers Chloe, Sadiq and Mohammed went to Dar es Salaam for the Africa Open Schools Debate Championship.  It’s hard to describe how excited they were – they’ve never left the island of Zanzibar and were really looking forward to seeing a big city on the mainland.  As well as being excited, they were nervous too. They were representing their village and the island.  Everyone had practiced hard, but they knew that they’d have a tough job as the competition would be native English speakers or Tanzanians who have a much better English education than they do. 

Everyone loved the ferry journey and approaching the city skyline of Dar was a thrill. The organisers met the team at the port and took them to the Feza Boys Boarding school.  The event was scheduled for the school holiday so the school dorms were available for the debators. The first day consisted of training for the students and the teachers. It turned out that apart from the Zanzibar students, the other competitors were all from private schools.  There was a massive difference not only in English-speaking ability, but also in their training to be analytical, form arguments, knowledge of current affairs and ability to use smart phones/the Internet to find the information they needed to win a debate. On the first day, the Zanzibari students become worried about their ability to participate. However, Mohammed, Sadiq and Chloe had a big pep talk with the students and explained that they were in Dar to enjoy taking part and enjoy the experience.  Winning isn’t everything, especially when you’re not playing on a level field and you’re the newest to speaking English.

The conversation paid off and the students relaxed and had fun.  The format is based on the UK parliament system with a PM, Deputy PM and whip. Each team talks for a total of 28 minutes and has a specific role they have to fulfil in order to score high points. There were also two impromptu debates where the kids only have 30 minutes to prepare a debate on a surprise subject. As adjudicators the teachers were not able to help their teams at all with this, even though they tried to (a tiny bit...) They were hard! One was "This house believes Donald Trump is a one term President" – quite a challenge for the kids from Zanzibar who don't even know who Donald Trump is!

It’s fair to say that it was mind-blowing for them to see a school with so many facilities.  Haroun said that he couldn’t imagine failing an exam if you have all that support. Everything was different.  In Zanzibar there are heavy wooden desks, in Dar there were chairs, individual tables, windows and lots of glass!

When they completed their registration forms they had to list dietary requirements.  They mostly listed chicken and rice.  They couldn’t have imagined that they would have three big meals a day.  They’ve never eaten like that before! The chairs, classrooms, glass buildings... Everything was such a new thing for them. Although Safari English Club lost every debate and were last overall we’re so proud that they kept at it and didn't let it affect them. And their behaviour was impeccable! While other teams cried and complained when they lost, our students remained positive and kept taking the opportunity to learn all that they could. They really are very special young people. One evening they went to the cinema and the shopping mall. It was amazing! They loved taking a lift to the 10th floor and going up and down on an escalator! Everyone was so happy. And on the last day they went to the zoo and met some big African animals.

The results of this massive adventure? They all LOVED the Dar experience and we think the students got a lot from it. It’s given them even more drive and they’re eager to try again another time. The want to have regular debates at Safari English Club and see it as a good way to improve their English and thinking skills. And they made friends with some lovely kids from around Tanzania. Our teachers are now qualified debate adjudicators and know what you have to do to win!  The teachers had their own training and had to judge the debates. We’re happy to report that Chloe won the prize for best new adjudicator!

But better than us telling you what the students got from it, please read the report below from Haroun (aged 17) who is from the village of Unguja Ukuu and has been at Safari English Club for 14 months now. The interview is with teacher Chloe and is unedited.

How did it feel to spend so much time at Feza International School?  It felt great because I met with different friends and got experience to talk in front of people. I got a chance to improve my English as there they talk English at all times. The conditions are good there, and the teachers are good. There I would learn so much more. In a school like that I would get a real chance to learn. My efforts would be turned into good results for sure. There are different kinds of playgrounds… Football pitch, netball and basketball, swimming pool. I would also get time to play. That's what I want.

The food I also liked because it was delicious. It's important to eat 3 meals a day. If people want to really learn they need breakfast, lunch and dinner. If people want to learn the mind can be constant and concentrated if you have eaten.

How did it feel to lose each round of the debating? I felt good. The 1st time we lost it was like training. There were many things I didn't know. When I fell down I learnt many things – that is good. Each round we lost, I got more and my confidence increased. I knew better what I was saying and I could follow the debate rules and got used to talking in front of people.

What were the best things about going to Dar? The attitude of the people from there. Their respect is very good. I made friends from Arusha – we went into their dorm room to discuss about debating. That was good. I liked the debating system they used.

I liked the bedrooms. I slept in a very good condition. I slept with a pillow and could choose to sleep on the bottom or top bunk bed.  I liked our teachers Sadiq, Chloe and Mohammed very much. When we fell down they made us feel good. When we failed they told us not to worry and to enjoy and learn everything. That was good. Sometimes when I failed I worried about what my teachers would think, but when I met them they made me feel good again.

I loved the cinema – just to arrive in Milimani city was amazing and the cinema was very exciting. We watched a film called Life. It was about how people can live, how they create things and can force problems and then how to overcome the problems. I loved Bahari zoo because I saw many animals I have never seen before… Lions, zebras, giraffes, snakes, monkeys.

Anything else you'd like to say?  I want to say thank you to everyone who helped us go to Dar. It was my first time in Dar and when I arrived there I got delicious food and I have never eaten like that. I lived there for 5 days and I didn't expect in my heart I would live like that. And I can say I learnt more than more from there. You helped me to learn so much from there and now I have the experience which means I can speak in front of many people and it has helped me to think. Sometimes we only had 30 minutes to plan a topic which means I had to change the way my mind works. It was very good.

March 18, 2017: A New Teacher (Ann)

The advanced students are on their way to Dar es Salaam and we can’t wait to hear about their adventures!  They’ve worked so hard to prepare for the Africa Open Schools Debate Championship.  The last day before they left, the team practiced in front of the rest of the Safari English Club. One of the debate topics is particularly relevant to Zanzibari students: This House Believes that the Use of Swahili as the primary language for Education in Tanzania will Enhance the Quality of Learning Content… this is one of the big challenges that students in deprived rural communities face – English language teaching is so poor that it limits what students can learn about other subjects, which have to be taught in English, in spite of the limitations of the teachers.  People from the village of Unguja Ukuu hardly ever visit the mainland – the students in the debate team are leaving the island for the first time.  It will also be the first time the students see sky scrapers and go on a ferry.  There’s some extra money in the budget for them to visit a few tourist attractions while they’re in the city.

We’re delighted that volunteer Chloe is back in Zanzibar and is accompanying the team to Dar es Salaam.  The parents of the girls in the debate team are happier that they have a female teacher with them.  Chloe is delighted to be back in Unguja Ukuu for the month of April – she’s impressed with the increasing confidence of the students and how hard they are working.

We now employ four local teachers, all of whom have been trained by Gasica at ZL4LF. Khamis is the latest recruit to join the Zanzibar Schools Project teaching English in Unguj Ukuu.  He’s been studying English for 5 years now and started in Form One as he knew he’d need English to pass his exams. He came to ZL4LF and met Gasica and other great English speakers which inspired him to work as hard as possible and follow his dream to become an English teacher himself. He now teaches beginners at ZL4LF and is guiding the Beginner 2 class at Unguja Ukuu through the fun and pitfalls of the English language.

Khamis understands what it’s like to be a beginner and was at first very shy at speaking English. He learnt a lot of his English through watching films and interviews, and by reading books.   He says that slowly his confidence increased.  He now takes the opportunity to converse with English speakers whenever he can and is keen to bring these techniques into the classroom at Unguja Ukuu. Khamis is a great teacher and is a natural with children.  “I love teaching at Safari English Club because I myself was given the opportunity to learn English for free and now it’s my time to give back to the community”. Khamis believes that learning English is for everyone, not just children and he welcomes young and old students alike. “I want to help the students at Unguja Ukuu learn English and have fun on the way!”

It's now the rainy season in Zanzibar.  But it doesn’t stop Gasica and the teachers reaching the village in the Rav 4…here they are navigating the rains to reach the village.  Gasica has just returned from the second part of his Management Course in Arusha that’s designed for Tanzanian headmasters.  He enjoys both the live training and the follow up personal study.  Highlights this time were learning more about motivating his team (we think he could teach that himself), achieving SMART objectives and communications.  As usual, Gasica has been busy sharing his new knowledge with the team at Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation.

March 11, 2017: The Dhow Race (Ann)

Last year the village dhow race was one of the higlights of our visit to Zanzibar. So you can imagine how delighted we were when one of the Safari English Club students (who is a fisherman) asked us if we’d like to attend another race.  This would be in our honour!  We offered to pay the prize money and it was agreed thatWednesday’s tide would be favourable for a 3pm start.  School finishes at 1pm and we’d have time for a final meeting with the teachers, community leader and the school governor before the race.  Meanwhile the students could have lunch and walk to the beach.

The event snowballed and 18 boats from Unguja Ukuu and surrounding vilages took part.  The sailors decided that instead of awarding first, second and third prizes, the prize money would be divided equally between all the boat crews.  This seemed an excellent idea.  Arriving at the beach, we were greeted by a very loud sound system playing some energetic dance music.  Gasica and Sadiq entertained the students with some cool moves.  A lady passing by with firewood on her head stopped for a groove.  Then the white ladies took a turn on the dance floor. Caroline’s students took it in turn to dance with her. The boys executed amazing somersaults.  The girls posed in their burkinis and the rest of the village turned up to party.   Caroline blew the starter’s whistle and the Dhows sailed so far that they were nearly out of sight.  More people arrived and the beach was full! After an hour or so the Dhows raced back – the winner was escorted onto the beach by motor boats.  We presented soft drinks to the first, second and third boats and yet more photographs were taken!

The Dhow Race is an amazing experience. We don’t often come across music and dancing in Zanzibar.  Public music and dancing in the village seems to be reserved for weddings and other special events which is sad as the children love to dance. Daily life is pretty hard and pleasures are few and far between.  So when there’s fun to be had, it’s grasped with both hands.  And we’re so happy to be welcomed as part of any festivities.

We had two wrap up meetings with the teachers. They are so polite and took time to say how much they appreciated every improvement that we’ve been able to secure at the school with the support of the Rotary Clubs in Brighton and Stone Town.  The computer room has seen massive improvements and now has a tiled floor, 7 working laptops and the Kio Kits. 

There are English/Swahili dictionaries aplenty.  Everyone is excited about the debate team travelling to Dar. The girls who won scholarships to boarding school are a major motivation to the younger students. Gasica is keen to run a session with the teachers to encourage them to reflect on how they could improve their teaching practice to achieve more success with more students. He wants to brainstorm with the teachers to agree how best to support the students who have the potential to pass their Standard VI exams. The village leader exhorts the teachers to “work harder” but it’s really a question of “working smarter” and encouraging the teachers to try new approaches to teaching.  There’s some hope with the new science teacher, who speaks good English and is motivated to teach creatively.  The trainee teacher who we’ve got to know over the last few weeks has some innovative ideas.  But sadly lessons consists of writing copiously on the blackboard and students copying down notes without understanding what they mean.  We are setting up a structured “Standard VI” Life/study skills course which will help students prepare for their exams and give them a more equal footing with the students in Stone Town who have access to more opportunities. 

The final session with all the students was incredibly moving.  Many of them had written  letters for us to read on the plane saying how much Safari English Club means to them.   The letters are beautifully illustrated and many of them are folded into even more decorative envelopes. Lukman, who is the head boy and who has been at our classes since November 2015, included two photographs of himself – one that I’d taken of him last year, printed out on poor quality paper in black and white (the colour ink had run out) and one of him playing football.  They were clearly amongst his most treasured possessions and by giving back the photo he had from last year he was making a point about how important Safari English Club is to him and how he’d treasured the photograph of him.                                                                                                                                                                  Now we’re back home we can reflect on our second visit.  When we arrived in Zanzibar we saw amazing progress. The students’ English language skills have improved immensely – the beginners are now intermediate and the intermediates are advanced! Thanks to great teaching by Gasica, Chloe, Sadiq and Mohammed.  The more advanced students relish the fact that they can now talk communicate their hopes and frustrations to us and the younger students are brimming with confidence and enthusiasm.

Personal highlights of this visit to Zanzibar

ANN:  I loved running lessons that were inspired by classes I observed in the UK.  The Great Catapult experiment and the Tinga Tinga Art Class were just fantastic.  It marked a big shift from last year, when I thought we needed to “Teach English as a Foreign Language” now I think the children also need the opportunity to be creative and to develop analytical skills.  “Fun Mondays” were a highlight when students could watch Disney films or join me for Art and Craft sessions.  The students learn so much English when they are “doing” and they don’t realise they are “learning” too!  The arrival of the dictionaries was another highlight and it was great to see the younger children taking responsibility for their own learning and making their own mini dictionaries.

CAROLINE:  I particularly enjoyed working with the advanced group, most of whom were with us last year.  Teaching ‘work readiness’ which covered various skills relevant to the work place as well as a good smattering of English language was stimulating.  My favourite activity was the teamwork game that Gasica had learned on his management course.  Students had a great time and were very competitive.  The prize of 1000 TSH to the winners was well appreciated.  Mock interviews with guest interviewers gave valuable experience to students as well as exposing them to new faces from the outside world. Teaching the basic computing course where students got to grips with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint proved to be exciting as well.  Most of the students managed to type their CVs, written in the course of ‘work readiness’ into the computer.  A very satisfying result when you consider most of them had never used a keyboard before.  I was delighted to see the donated laptops put to good use.  English language training highlights included students reading aloud using material from the Kio Kits (loved by the students) and having their voices recorded and played back so they could hear how they sounded.  Exciting for all of us. The screening of ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ as a highlight and it was great to explore the subjects of culture, religion, gender, generation and personal ambition.  Much animated discussion in English ensued. 

March 4, 2017: One Dictionary per Child (Ann)

It’s hard to describe the excitement of one dictionary per child, but today we did! Children are so used to sharing that they never have exclusive use of anything.  That’s why the Kio Kits are so popular and now they have a rival – the dictionary! Thanks to My Book Buddy, we have some great books and LOTS of dictionaries.  Every student in my class could read a book, look up new words and add them to their personal dictionaries.  They can also look up other words they don’t know but come across in school. It helps so much when all the teaching is done in a foreign language and the teachers don’t always know what words mean. We have so many dictionaries that we gave 7 dictionaries to the teachers, one each for all the English teachers.  We all shared our bounty with Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation.

There was a slight misunderstanding about how they were getting to Zanzibar from Dar es Salam.  They suddenly turned up at the port on Thursday morning when we were at school, miles away. Gasica made a few phone calls and they were safely collected. Later in the day we went to retrieve them from the live poultry section of the market and Gasica bought a live duck which he arranged to be delivered butchered and ready for supper!

Last year we saw the arrival of the TOMS shoes.  They are donated by the Dutch shoe company and the kids are all measured so they get the correct size. The TOMS team also give a lecture on foot hygiene.  There’s some debate about whether the donation is a good idea as it may reduce the need for locally made shoes. However, the reality is that many school children are barefoot or they wear Chinese plastic flip flops.  So TOMS shoes, with their robust plastic soles stack up well against the other options when you have to walk a long way to school each day.

One remarkable outcome from the visit to the Permaculture facility in Fumba is that the students want to start their own sustainable business, using the concept that Gasica has developed at Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation.  One student has a large area of land and he’s thinking of how to irrigate it so that they can start farming.  We visited the site and it looks promising, as long as the water problem can be solved.

We found the UK penfriends scheme was proving difficult to run due to the turnover of students in the UK school.  So instead we’re going to collaborate on regular projects.  The first one was for the Zanzibari students to describe their daily routines.  The Beginners class was happy to take on the challenge and my rucksack is full of colourful illustrations for the English children.

On Tuesday we had some exciting news to share.  The Rotary Club of Zanzibar, Stone Town, has kindly agreed to sponsor two teams to travel to Dar es Salam to participate in the First Africa Open Schools Debate Championships that will be held in Dar es Salam in April. The event includes a day of training by a international expert.  The titles of the debates for the first round look fascinating; my favourite is “This house believes that the use of Swahili as the primary language for education in Tanzania will enhance the quality of education content.” All the advanced class want to participate, but there are only 5 places in the team.  So the class took matters into their own hands and self-selected their best English speakers, who coincidentally are the students who attend Safari English Club most regularly! The event will include teams from other countries and the students from the Safari English club are really looking forward to making new friends from around the world.  It will be the first time for all of them that they will leave the island.  Their teachers are equally excited that a team from Unguja Ukuu can take part in an international event.  Thank you to the Rotary club for making it possible.

Caroline and Gasica ran the final “Work Readiness” module and certificates were awarded to the students who completed the course and who are now able to use the computer as well.  The students want more time to improve their computer skills and it’s a challenge to share 4 laptops between 15 students.  However, 3 more laptops have been repaired and will enter circulation next week.  Haroun has now been entrusted fairly managing a system for one laptop to go out on loan.  There’s much more to be said about our last couple of days at school, but we’re saving those stories for next week!

February 25, 2017: Preventing Child Marriage (Ann)

Promptly at 1.30pm on Monday afternoon Safari English Club gathered to enjoy photos of themselves at Fumba Town Services and having their first swimming lesson in Stone Town.  The boys must have gulped down their lunches in 10 minutes flat as they rushed to claim front seats! We discussed impressions of the visit and what information was relayed back to their families.  They’ve really embraced permaculture concepts such as improving the soil and not burning waste.  Their favourite things at the site were the soil, the plants, the flowers, the rocks, the chickens, the kitchen and, most interestingly, the toilets! The students loved making thank you posters on the theme of “The Environment”...for some reason tennis players in short skirts featured in three of the montages.  Inevitably there was much amusement when one student found the photos of a naked tribe featured in “The National Geographic”!

 The advanced students put together more detailed presentations on Permaculture and several students are interested in how to irrigate a plot of land that one of them owns. They each had the opportunity to give a short talk on three things they had learned from the visit to Fumba and at least one way in which they intended to change their lives inspired by the permaculture project. Composting and improving soil quality were topics that resonate with young people from this rural community.

Teamwork is important in working life and isn’t something that students experience at school.  It’s this week’s topic in “Work Readiness” and Gasica had a fun activity that he’d learnt on the Arusha Management Course to illustrate the concept. Students were divided into two teams.  The object of the game was to turn playing cards over in a particular sequence, running from one end of the room to the other to accomplish it.  All communication had to be in English!  Use of Kiswahili resulted in instant disqualification.  Competition was hot, to say the least.  There were three rounds, between which the teams were encouraged to do a post mortem and come up with improvements.  The team which lost the first round improverd quite dramatically and won the third.  More to this than ‘third time lucky’.   Just to make it really interesting, Gasica offered the equivalent of 75p to each member of the winning team.  The conclusion:  you need a plan, a strategy and good communication to win. And nothing works as well as a good incentive!

The week ended with a talk by  representatives of the Zanzibar Female Lawyers Association (ZAFELA). The group aims to empower women and children by providing legal aid services, lobbying on policy matters and awareness-raising.  We invited them to speak, but weren’t really sure what they’d talk about.  It turned out to be an inspired choice.  The topic was child marriage and how to prevent it.  Tanzania has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world. 37% of girls in Tanzania are married before they turn 18 and in rural areas girls can be forced to get married as young as 11 years old.  The marriage generates an income for a poor family through a dowry which is then used by the boys in the family to secure a wife.  There is also a practice known as Nyumba ntobu which involves an older, wealthier woman paying a bride price for a young girl to become her wife. A man is then chosen to impregnate the girl and any children who are born belong to the older woman. When girls have to leave school due to failing their exams then they are particularly vulnerable to early marriage. The students were fascinated by the talk and they took copious notes about the causes and prevention of underage marriage. The headmaster, who is not usually known for his dynamism, wandered over to find out what was going on and said that this is a great topic for the students to learn about.  He dusted off the visitors’ book and got the contact details of ZAFELA so they may be back in Unguja Ukuu soon! 

Thursday was also notable as the day when lots of books arrived!  The new school text books financed by the Milele Foundation, arrived in an open air truck.  It was just lucky that it wasn’t a rainy day.  Students were seconded to unload the truck and we look forward to seeing the new resources in the classroom. 

February 18, 2017: Visit to Permaculture in Fumba Town (Ann)

It’s festival time in Zanzibar!  In addtion to the amazing music festival, Sauti Za Busara, it’s been a great time in Unguju Ukuu.  More exam results have been published and 6 girls from Safari English Club have passed their Form II examinations which are taken in English.  These girls are 15-16 years old.  If they didn’t pass the exams, they would have to leave school.  Before the results were announced they looked like moody teenagers anywhere.  Now they’ve passed, they can’t stop smiling!  They ditch the old blue and yellow school uniform and are priviledged to wear these sophisticated black and white numbers.  The girls asked for hard-backed manuscript books as a celebratory present – we were happy to oblige and Gail Arnesson from the Rotary Club of Zanzibar, Stone Town, presented the prizes.

Gail helped with two classes - she told the advanced class the story of the local boy who was selected to become a Dive Master.  She focused on the skills he learnt and the qualities he needs to be successful in his career.  The talk helped to reinforce discussions from the “Work Readiness” course.  Gail also rana mock interview for Haroun who missed last week’s interviews with visitor Leanne.  We were delighted that Gail got the opportunity to use the Kio Kits with the Intermediate class as the Rotary Club in Stone Town, Zanzibar, played such a bit part in helping us get the Kio Kits.  The students so love using the Kio Kits, either as a group exercise or for individual work.

Work readiness has completed the first part which focused on how to find a job, so now it’s time to think about working successfully.  So far we’ve covered induction, trial periods, polcies and procedures.  Next week, we’ll discuss working relationships, teamwork and customer care.  Certificates will be given to those who successfully complete the course.  Computer classes have moved on to using Powerpoint.  It will be interesting to see what sorts of presentations the students produce! 

This month the outing was to Fumba Town Services to learn about Permaculture.  In Zanzibar there are many environmental problems, not least of which includes burning rubbish and inappropriate planting techniques.  Our idea was to start the week with preparing the younger students for the visit and we’d developed a simple presentation on the cycle of life and environmental topics to be followed by measuring the biodiversity of the school gardens...but then it rained.  It rained too hard to be able to go outside and measure.  Plan B was to watch a film on African wildlife.  But it rained so hard that there was a power cut!  There wasn’t really a Plan C, so we reverted to Plan A, but without the illustrative slides!  Fortunately Tuesday was much better and we were able to go out into the gardens.  The idea of creating a grid system using string didn’t really work and we couldn’t agree how many butterflies had been spotted. But we did conclude that there was a lot of different life in the gardens and that everyone was excited about visiting Fumba!

Three buses were needed to take the 90+ students to Fumba Town Services.  Now we have 4 classes enrolled, the logistics for outings are more comploated and more expensive! The students were divided into groups of 8, each with an otlder student in charge.  They were named after an animal, which mostly worked except that the warthogs decided that they’d rather be crocodiles and no-one wanted to be kangaroos! The students loved meeting the apprentices and took a keen interest in how to develop a rich soil through composting and particularly enjoyed the recycling area.  They were hands on in mixing the soil and learning what to feed chickens to keep them healthy. Many of the students took  notes and we’re looking forward to Monday when we find out what they told their families about the visit. 

Everyone loves going in the sea but we still don’t have many swimmers as the students haven’t had formal lessons.  Ali, who is a great swimming teacher, bravely agreed to take on the challenge of teaching 90 the principles of breathing in water, gliding and leg kicks.  By the end of the session most had got the hang of the basic pionts that will help them to swim.  We’re going to talk to Ali about further help with swimming instruction over the next few weeks. We hope you enjoy the photos of fabulous Fumba Town Services and the swimming lessons on the next page!

By the way, the kids are still very excited about the goggles that were sent over from the UK by Amber.  This week some of them penned some gorgeous “Thank you” letters.

February 11, 2017: Exam Success! (Ann)

We set up after-school English language club in Unguja Ukuu because no student from the Primary School had ever passed their Standard VI exams, which they take around the age of 12.  The students take the majority of their exams in English even though Swahili is their native language and the school teachers don’t know enough English to be able to teach. With the help of some excellent teaching by Gasica and Chloe, we can now share the most amazing news. Two girls, Akama and Bahati, passed their exams with such great marks that they have been awarded scholarships to boarding schools on the Tanzanian mainland, where the education will be significantly better than they could experience in Zanzibar. For girls, boarding school is particularly important as it prevents getting pressurised into early marriage or child minding.   

The local teachers arranged an impromptu meeting to thank us for helping the girls pass their exams.  Apparently one day the girls heard that they’d passed their exams and the next day someone from the education ministry took them to Dar es Salam.  It is the first time they’ve been to the mainland, so a big adventure.  Sadly there was no time to say goodbye to their friends and teachers and they’ve been allocated to different schools. We’re hoping that their favourite teacher, Chloe, who played such an important part in their success, can visit them while she’s on the mainland and take them a gift on our behalf. The students in Safari English Club are very motivated by the success of the girls – it shows them what can be achieved by hard work and determination!

We were delighted to be invited to the launch of new text books and teachers’ books for Standard I to IV.  Currently the students don’t have text books and the books their teachers have are full of inaccuracies.  The new books were commissioned by the Milele Foundation and were expertly edited by the Oxford University Press. There are 200,000 books waiting to be distributed to schools around the island. The roll out may be challenging as the teachers will be asked to teach in a way they aren’t familiar with and don’t feel comfortable with.  Zanzibar Schools Project teacher Mohammed attended the launch and is ready to coach the teachers in Unguja Ukuu when the books reach the village.

The Work Readiness course continues to prove very popular with students and is on target to finish in early March.  Current topics include writing CVs, letters of application that win jobs  and interview skills.  In computer skills training the students are also learning how to format CVs and letters of application on the laptops that we’ve brought over from the UK. 

This week Leanne Winterton, avisitor from the UK, kindly ran mock interviews so that students experienced being asked questions by someone they don’t know. Leanne was impressed by the way the students handled the interviews – it’s not the cultural norm to talk about your personal qualities here!  Many thanks Leanne for searching interviews conducted in a facilitative style! Now we’re focusing on spoken English with students reading personal statements from their CVs into a recording device and having the opportunity to hear their own voice, for the first time!  We hope to improve pronunciation and diction. 

The lower intermediates love using dictionaries – it gives them a sporting chance to understand me!  While they’re learning the English, I update my Swahili/English notebook for future quizzes.  Then they have great fun correcting my pronunciation.  It feels like we’re on a learning journey together. At the training course I heard the idea of asking each child to start a personal dictionary.  Duly equipped with 26 small address books (helpfully the letters of the alphabet are cut into the pages), I shared the plan.  Nobody cared that the front of the notebooks said “Addresses” not “Dictionary”, the important thing was that they would each have their own book. There was much excitment and I was thanked by a rendition of the alphabet song and “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”!  My class has a reputation for being the noisiest, but on Thursday it was the quietest – the students went through various exercise books and used the dictionary to create their own books.

We love having our UK friends involved in what we’re doing.  Thank you Sheelagh Dunk for the origami-inspired fortune tellers (you must remember them from the school playground!) After following various folding instructions the students were able to tell each other their fortunes.  Much laughter when they got the fortunes “You will get married” and “You will have four children”.

Amber, a Suffolk teenager raised money to buy goggles on ebay and sent them out to us.  We’re hoping to arrange swimming lessons soon.  There’s widespread fear of the sea here, few people can swim and there are many drownings when fishing boats capsize. Students can only swim when we’re present so it’s always a great occasion. The goggles from the UK made it extra special.  Hope you enjoy the photos on the next page!

If you want to see the really good photos taken by Richard Harris, our friend and professional photographer, please visit http://www.bigbamboo.photo/zanzibar-zsp for the photos of the students and http://www.bigbamboo.photo/zanzibar for the Zanzibar gallery. Thank you Amber and Richard!

February 3, 2017: The Great Catapult Experiment (Ann)

The great catapult experiment....it’s quite simple...students learn about Medieval catapults and construct their own catapults using a ping pong ball as a missile. The lesson plan says students measure how far their projectile travels and modify their designs accordingly. Results are recorded,  conclusions are drawn and the activity is written up as a scientific experiment.  What could possibly go wrong? I got the idea from observing a lesson at a UK primary school.  The English students happily engaged with the experiement and I wanted their Zanzibar counterparts to have the same opportunity.  You’d never have this type of lesson here due to lack of resources, large class sizes and the tradtion of rote learning rather than experience-based learning.

Methodology
You’re probably not surprised to learn that there are quite a few differences between running this in the UK and in Zanzibar!  In the UK there  were 2 adults and 30 children in one room grouped around tables designed for team working. In Unguju Ukuu there were 75 students and 2 adults spread over 2 classrooms where the wooden desks are so heavy you can’t move them.  It turned out there was only one responsible adult as Sadiq was more interested in building his own catapult than supervising a class.  Our friend Richard Harris was darting around, but he was focused on taking these beautiful photos rather than getting involved in the experiment. Meanwhile Gasica and Caroline were powering through “Work Readiness” training (part 3) and just occasionally stopping by to find out what all the noise was about.  Due to a limited amount of equipment (10 coloured sticks, 1 ping pong ball, 3 elastic bands, sticky tape and a pair of scissors per team), we divided the students into groups of 5 or 6.  With the benefit of hindsight, smaller groups would have been better. We attempted to get equal numbers of older and younger students in each team. For cultural reasons boys and girls are always separated.  They sit in different areas of the classroom and never work together.  There’s always lots ofspirited competition between the boys and the girls and yes Sadiq and I did crank up the male/female competitiveness shamelessly.

Results:  Ping pong balls proved to be quite a novelty; 3 of 11 balls didn’t survive the class.  Much English was used in trying to elicit more equipment from me, but we stuck to the rules and it was only 3 elastic bands, even if they broke.A girls team completed the challenge first.  A good half an hour before any other team.  Their ping pong ball also traveled the furthest – 6.9 metres!  Seven of 11 groups successfully made catapults in the time allocated.  All 4 boys teams made successful catapults, but only 5 girls teams made successful catapults (but everyone claimed they would have done if they’d had more time). 

Conclusions: The highspot was a chaotic and ruthlessly competitive finale.  It was taken over by the boys and their triumphant war dances.  Teacher Sadiq proudly fired his catapult and did the wildest war dance. The winning girls team declined to participate in the finale and preferred to rest on their laurels for completing the task so quickly. One boy said it made him as happy as he feels after a piece of cake. 

And the differences between teaching this class in the UK and in Zanzibar? Well the catapults looked much the same. Initially the Zanzibari students were perpelexed by the lack of direction, but they soon formed cohesive teams to complete the exercise and sent out spies to see what other teams were doing. The novelty of the experiment combined with exotic ping pong balls made this the highlight of the week for everyone. As they do in life, the Zanzibar students find extraordinary delight in very little.  Richard and I couldn’t stop smiling. The next day everyone settled back onto their hard wooden benches and wrote up the experiment learning quite a bit of English along the way.  As a reward for hard work they loved reliving the great catapult experiment by watching Richard’s fabulous photos on TV.

Sorry Caroline and Gasica that the experiment has left no time for the great work that they’ve been doing, but they can make up for lack of air time next week!

January 28, 2017: Work readniess begins (Ann)

The week started with the second module of “Work Readiness” for the advanced class.  The first session generated much enthusiasm due to the amount of English learned as well as to the practical significance of the topic.  This week’s class was concerned with skills, qualities, attitudes, experience and qualifications.  Students were asked to speak to the class about their skills and qualities, their job aspirations, and what training they would need to gain the skills needed.  The demand is for two work readiness sessions next week!  Logisctically it’s a bit of a challenge as we need an extra teacher to cover the intermediate class so that both Caroline and Gasica can run “Work Readiness”.  Gasica is already planning to run the course at ZL4LF.

As part of the planning for the trip, Caroline had packed the DVD ‘Bend it like Beckham’. It proved to be an inspired choice as the majority of the class love football. The film stimulated animated discussion around gender, culture, generation, friendship and aspiration. They were surprised to learn that there’s a big English-speaking Indian population in the UK. The Sikh wedding scene along with the clubbing scene were the cause of much laughter.  It proved a brilliant teaching aid for our 14-18 year olds – we find that if the subject matter really grabs the students it overcomes any reticence to express themselves in English.

Currently we have 4 working laptops  at the school.  In addition there are 3 in the sick bay, waiting for the local computer expert to work some magic.  (Likewise the printer is resting up!)  Regardless, computer lessons are very popular with the advanced class.   Computer skills, along with English language proficiency, are seen as being essential to improve one’s life prospects.  So, large groups huddle round the laptops and Caroline works hard to ensure that everyone has a fair turn and that the quicker students support the rest of the class. Most students have no experience with a keyboard let alone a computer. We have them working in Microsoft Word, writing reviews of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’, which they watched on the previous day.  We also looked at adding pictures and graphics to documents.  Hopefully, we will have the INTERNET here one day soon!

Due to the failings of the educational system in Zanzibar, Gasica left school with few opportunities.  He’s self-taught but relishes learning especially as part of a group. So you can imagine how excited he was to be invited by The Goodall Foundation to join a conference in Arusha for Tanzanian head teachers on the topics of leadership and effective management. So he’s been on the mainland for the last 4 days, the only delegate from Zanzibar.  We’re pleased to report that support from Brighton and Hove Soiree Rotary club enabled him to attend and that the course was a huge success.  There was a bit of re-packing at the airport to make room for the obligatory Zanzibar spice selection pack/exotic Christmas decoration.

We had a couple of phone calls from Gascia to check that we were all on track without him. English language teaching in Unguja Ukuu didn’t stop just because Gasica was off the island. He arranged for Khamis to cover his class for the week. There was an official handover meeting and Khamis was left with instructions to ensure the intermediate class mastered at least 20 impressive adjectives and the present simple tense by the time Gasica returns!  Khamis proved an inspiration to the students – he’s just left school and is waiting for his results, but we think his English is excellent.  He’s also learning German at Zanibar Learning 4 Life Foundation and after just a week of lessons with German volunteers he can chat awary in German.  He really enjoyed using the Kio Kits and the class enjoyed reading a story aloud to him.

On Friday we picked up Gasica from the airport, still buzzing with ideas from the course. He has a structured plan of follow up to the course which includes goal setting and mentoring by one of the Tanzanian trainers.  There are two more residential parts to the course, one in March and one in May.  He particularly enjoyed the focus on teamwork and looking at working smarter.  Gasica says that some people in Tanzania believe they can’t succeeed and have the excuse “this is Africa” but the course gave out a clear message that there’s no excuse for not being successful. Gasica is keen to introduce “reflective practice” into his life and will be thinking about what he’s going to do different every year.  Although considering the many achievements and changes he’s made in his life, we think he’s a natural reflective thinker!

Gasica can’t wait to hold a meeting with the team at ZL4LF to share what he’s learnt on the course.  He’s also going to have a meeting with his community to present the developments at Zanzibar L4LF.  There’s some exciting news on the chicken farm front too – the recent visit from the CoCo Foundation and Food 4 Africa has led togenerous funding for a new dormitory, a store, a new batch of chickens and food!

So, all in all, a great week in Tanzania!

January 20, 2017: Safari Zulu Club (Ann)

There’s so much that’s been happening in Zanzibar there’s been hardly enough time to write a report!  We’re delighted that PLCIre-branding looks so fantastic – if you haven’t already visited Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Founadtion’s website, please visit at www.zanzibarl4lf.ninja  The students worked so hard on putting it together, we think it’s really impressive and shows the wide range of activities that Gasica’s school offers.

At the end of December, attendance was lower as school was out for Standard IV children who had taken their exams.  This gave us the opportunity to do some more challenging art work and we had a great series of lessons looking at the art of Rousseau and the local art known as Tinga Tinga.  The discussion as to who is better at painting jungles and monkeys got so heated that there were no inhibitions about speaking English on a complicated subject! The students loved using acrylics and came up with some wonderful art. 

Now school is back and the majority of students who were will us in 2016 have re-registered for 2017.  We also have 25 new students who are mostly beginnerse so we are running 4 classes and provide 75 lunches every day.  We are keeping an attendance register and everyone seems very keen and turns up regularly.

The upgraded Kio Kits are in big demand. Caroline ran a session with the teachers to demonstrate the new features and the science teacher has already expressed interest in using the section on HIV.  The Kio Kits have a “Wiki Slice” feature that covers a vast range of topics.  We are all using the new African stories section and they are proving very useful in working out what the students really understand.

Over the Christmas holiday we put together a “Work Readiness” programme that’s designed for the more advanced students.  It teaches the vocabulary of work as well as bridging the gap between the expectations of major Zanzibar employers (such as hotels and restaurants) and the limited education the students receive.  Caroline and Gasica enjoyed teaching the first session on time keeping and punctuality as well as the concept ofa “legitimate excuse” for absence!  The plan is for Gasica to run the course at Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation in the near future.  Thanks the kind donations of laptops from many of our friends we are running a computer class for the older students.  Even though the average age is around 15 or 16 years old, they haven’t used computers before.  Learning Word, Excel and PowerPoint skills will  be invaluable.  There are 3 students to every laptop, so more equipment is always appreciated!

While Caroline is busy with the Advanced students, Sadiq works his magic with the beginners, Gasica has the advanced intermediates and I have the lower intermediates.  This week my class learnt how to use a dictionary – it took 2 lessons as they aren’tused to looking things up.  However, it was immensely exciting when they all found words and couldn’t wait to show me what they’d found.  This week the fun activity was a choice between watching “Finding Nemo” or Art.  Fortunately it was an equal split so everyone could see the TV and there were enough art resources for everyone. We had some interesting questions to answer for a primary school geography lesson in Surrey – my favourite question from the British school was “Do you hunt for food?” to which the boys all responded “Yes, we kill small birds for food and go fishing”.  Not surprising when you don’t have enough to eat and live by the sea.

The students have gained so much confidence that they really enjoy meeting visitors from overseas.  This week we were delighted to welcome guests from the CoCo Foundation in the UK and Food4 Africa.  The guests included a young Zulu man who taught the students a few words of Zulu.  In his honour, the students changed the name of their club from Safari English Club to Safari Zulu club for the day! http://www.cocosfoundation.co.uk 

We had a great afternoon on the beach and introduced some of the children to beach cricket.  They took to cricket with gusto – but it’s unlikely to take the place of football as the first love!  The girls were straight in the sea and they loved the new pink floats.  They’re still timid about trusting themselves to float, but everyone had a great time.

And what else have we been doing?  Well Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation has a fantastic club called “Chakula Hai” which was set up to encourage students who are entering the catering and hospitality industry.  They will come and cook a traditional Zanzibari meal in your home.  We were delighted to welcome them to our apartment last week.  It was a large crew, each with their own area of speciality, including one young man who was just dedicated to making us the finest passion fruit juice imaginable.  For our Zanzibari friends reading this, we really recommend an evening with Chakula Hai!

December 10, 2016: Swimming and peg dolls (Ann)

Swimming lessons are high on our list of skills to teach in Unguja Ukuu.  There isn’t a culture of learning to swim, even though the island is surrounded by the most idyllic beaches.  As a result every year there are many drownings, particularly amongst girls who don’t learn to swim.  There’s always “something better” girls should be doing with their time. With the agreement of the Zanzibar government, the RNLI from the UK has started a learn to swim programme.  Lastweek we had a great meeting with the organisers to see if we can get Unguja Ukuu enrolled into the programme. Meanwhile we have a UK teenager collecting goggles from her friends to be carried out here by our friends when they come here.  If you want to collect googles and send them out with people travelling here from the UK, please let us know. 

Caroline is back in the driving seat, but there’s always something new to learn about road etiquette.  Last week we had a close encounter with the presidential motorcade.  Caroline didn’t realise that when you see an extremely large landrover careering down the wrong side of the road you should immediately give way and drive into the nearest ditch.  Failure to do this sufficiently quickly led to a tongue lashing from the policeman who was unfortunately observing the incident.  Sadiq, our local teacher, was in the car during the incident, was harranged by the policemen and even with our rudimentary Swahili we understood that it was his responsibility to tell the “Mama” to get off the road!

The Kio Kits have had a welcome upgrade.  An engineer visited from Kenya and he added lots more content which will be great for teaching English and also for the students to direct their own learning.  Monday and Tuesday was spent exploring the new programmes so that we could report back to the teachers on what they will find useful to enhance lessons.  It’s also going to be easy for us to add our own content.  And we have more visitors coming to see the kits in action – Unguja Ukuu is leading the way on this innovative approach to education on the island thanks to our Rotary supporters.

We were honoured that Gasica was the guest speaker at the local Rotary Club Gala Dinner.  Everyone enjoyed hearing him speak, especially the waiters and waitresses who cheered him from the side of the room. Gasica maintained sartorial standards with a jacket and tie in spite of 30 degrees heat and the event raised $17,000 to be spent on very necessary education and health projects around the island.  We’re excited that our silent auction bid was successful in securing us a dinner for 6 people cooked by his catering students.           

Gasica is firing on all cylinders after his UK visit.  He asked Caroline to run a basic accounting and spreadsheet course so that he can assess the profitability of his various enterprises including the Bicycle Workshop and Chicken Farm.  Six students participated and Caroline was really impressed with their enthusiasm and how quickly they picked up the principles of accountancy and gained skill in using Excel. 

I’m helping the website team to put together a new site which is all part of the re-branding exercise that will transform PLCI into Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation in January 2017.   As I explained to the keen web team, it’snot that I’m a website expert, it’s just that I’ve done one more than them!  We’re all learning together and they are doing a great job of checking the brief with Gasica and writing the copy.

The students love the “Fun Thursdays” concept that Chloe introduced and, using their best English they told us that they hoped the tradition would be continued.  So no pressure there!  We’d brought traditional wooden pegs from the UK which the students made into peg dolls.  They are now schooled in the great Blue Peter tradition of using pipe cleaners and bits of newspaper and ribbons to make magnificent objects.  Everyone entered into the enterprise with much enthusiasm, even the teenage boys.  The class wrapped up with small groups performing mini plays with their peg dolls.  All the dolls were carefully taken home at the end of the class.

One of the biggest problems on the island (and the reason for Safari English Club) is that students leave school unable to speak English, which is the key to getting a job on an island where the main economy is the tourist industry.  In addition, employers struggle to give jobs to local people whose culture doesn’t prepare them for the expectations of the first world hospitality industry.   Sowe’re planning to run a course for our more advanced students on the important concepts of time keeping, employer expectations as well as helping them prepare CVs, learn how to look for jobs and interview techniques.  The idea is to creat a sustainable programme that Gasica and his team can roll out as “Jobs 4 Life” at Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation.  If you’d like to help with developing the course content, we’d love to hear from you!

Also, we are looking for volunteers to come to work at Zanzibar Schools Project in 2017.  So if you know of anyone who might be interested, please let us know.  Ideally candidates should have experience of working with young people, have taken a TEFLcourse or have teaching experience.  We’d ideally like people who are able to come for 3 months as this is the ideal time to get the most out of a stay.  In return we offer a fantastic experience!

December 13, 2016: A message to our penfriends (Ann)

We have a new logo...based on a design by one of our students and polished by our talented friend Louise Harvey Verenne...

November 24, 2016: What's changed in a year? (Ann)

Just over a year ago we arrived in Zanzibar and our friends Feroz and Hassan took us to Unguja Ukuu and we started teaching English with the inspiring local teacher Gasica. They weren’t too sure that we’d stay for the full 3 months, let alone come back for a second year. But here we are again! Just like our volunteer Chloe, who’s left after an amazing 9-month stay here, we find we learn so much more than we teach! This time we’re going to focus on helping English classes (known by the students as Safari English Club) become sustainable following Gasica’s ZL4LF model where he finances his initiative through the bicycle workshop, chicken and organic farm and bus service.
We went back to the school and were excited to see the Kio Kits working – they’d arrived after we left Zanzibar. The students love using them and we were impressed that the students use them for self-directed learning. There are three sections on the Kio Kit – Learn, Play and Grow. Students are using all three sections. We saw a group of older girls discussing a science module and making notes in English. They would not otherwise have access to well-illustrated and well-constructed information and we could see they were enjoying the experience. Usually maths is taught in English, which is confusing when neither the students nor the teachers speak English coherently. So the younger children were enjoying the Swahili cartoons that teach maths and were doing well with additions and subtractions with the aid of mice and elephant illustrations.
Unguja Ukuu is the first school on Zanzibar to have the Kio Kits thanks to the support of the Rotary Club of Zanzibar, Stone Town and Brighton and Hove Soiree. This week we had visitors from the Miele Foundation who are interested to see them in action as they are thinking of investing in a kit. The students were keen to demonstrate how they use the resources.
Also thank you to Brighton and Hove Soiree Rotary club for supporting improvements to the computer room. The floor is now sealed and tiled which means there’s much less dust in the atmosphere and electronic equipment will last longer.

One year on and so much has happened to Gasica, our local teacher who supports our work in Unguja Ukuu. He had an amazing time in the UK, meeting many people who are helping him shape his future plans. He’s so determined to reach his next goal of building a new school and he’s working hard to lay a good foundation for the future. But on Tuesday he was coaching, not being coached. Thanks to Feroz, we met James of the Manoa Foundation, who is based in Nungwe, at the North of the Island. He’s a Ugandan who first visited Zanzibar in 2011, interested in the history of the slave trade.

James realised that the local people need better education to achieve a better life and decided to set up a nursery school, focusing on orphans and those who might not be included in the education system such as the disabled. He set up a school and has 80 children enrolled. Some of the classes take place in the open air and some in a building owned by the local mosque. But the mosque has plans to expand so he’s not going to be able to stay on the site long term and the outdoor classes don’t always take place due to the heavy rains at the moment.
James is struggling to finance his school and to pay salaries (about £350 per month for 5 teachers). Gasica explained that 6 years ago he was in the same situation, struggling to afford to keep his school running. But he realised that by setting up businesses such as the bicycle workshop and the organic chicken farm, he could become self-funding.
James has great links with local hotels and has a lock up facility on a tourist road that doubles as a shop front when he has handicrafts and T shirts to sell. Gasica suggested that James could use his shop front to set up a bicycle hire facility for visitors. James looked as if he could cry with happiness as he realised he could solve his problems. He is already renovating a house as a backpacker hostel to fund the school, so he certainly has business acumen. The bicycle hire facility can be set up reasonably quickly – the next steps are for James to visit PLCI to meet Gasica’s team and for Gasica to decide on how much to charge for the loan of 15 bicycles for a year.

Back to Gasica: since his return home he’s been discussing his visit to the UK with his students and members of the community. They were keen to know about everyday life in the UK including where Gasica shopped for food and who shaved his head regularly (answer: Ann using borrowed electric clippers). This week he’s teaching his teachers the new TEFL techniques that he learnt at the English Language Centre in Hove. So, much that’s changed in a year, but the need to help educate the children remains a challenge.

November 2016: The Immersion Camp and Chloe's thoughts on leaving

It's with a very full heart that I write my final report from Zanzibar. It is hard to believe that so much has happened in the last 9 months, but it is also only now that I am leaving, as I look back at the students’ level of English when I first arrived and compare it to where they are now that I can see how much progress we have made together. That progress is not just in written, listening and oral skills though, but also in the way the students are engaging with the world... They are thinking more independently and trying out new things. Sharifa, one of our adult students, wrote these words to me in a good bye letter. “We learned different things from you, you are teaching us to refresh our minds to create something through our imagination. I like to do it, but actually I didn't know how to do it before. Now I can think and create quickly. It is a good step.” Using creative language is such a foreign idea to the students, but one they have been quick to grasp. In a recent workshop the students wrote this collective poem about the colour said they see around them.:

• Yellow, like the colour of sun shine in the world - it gives us good health.
• Light green like the colour of the garden after the rain fall has come.
• Black is the colour of people in Tanzania. I like black because it is the colour of my hair and skin and it is beautiful.
• Orange is the colour and name of my favourite fruit and I feel well when I eat it.
• Pink like the colour of balloons, they fly so sweetly.
• Dark blue like the colour of the ocean all over the world.
• Purple , like my favourite fruit, grapes! Light blue like the colour of clouds in the sky. White like the colour of the paint in my house where I feel happy.
• Dark green like the colour of leaves on the trees. It is a sensitive colour. Brown like the colour of my land where we dig.
• Grey like the colour of a rainy day.
• Red like the colour of the liver in my chest.
• Gold like the colour of a beautiful girl's hair.
• Silver like the colour of the tin sheets that protect my family when it rains.

An initiative we started many months ago, Fun Thursdays - a weekly session where learning is taken outside of the classroom, has also had a big impact on how students approach tasks. We have also put a lot of emphasis on trying things out and being happy when we make mistakes as it is only through daring to fail that we learn to succeed. This has been slow to achieve in a school system where a wrong answer is often punished by being beaten with a stick. So we have been rewarding the children who try regardless of the outcome and praising students who voice it when they don’t understand something.

All these new practices have not been going unnoticed by the Unguja Ukuu teachers, and at times they have found it difficult to understand what we are doing. I think it can make them feel insecure which in turn causes them to want to take control of our project. In the past months we have had ups and down with the teachers. We have found them too controlling and they have found us uncooperative. I think possibly they are feeling threatened that many of the students’ English is becoming better than their own. A big area of contention had been an English immersion camp I wanted to run during the time the school was closed for exams. I have led similar camps before and know how beneficial being in a sustained English environment can be for learning. We held a parents meeting and everyone present liked the idea saying how these kind of opportunities only ever happened in private schools in Zanzibar.
It was a tricky road ahead though, especially with the school teachers and the village madrassas (religious schools) and we almost gave up on the idea completely, especially when we heard some of our students were being punished by the Madrassa teachers for wanting to go. It's a very confusing line to negotiate with the teachers and madrassas as we believe their resistance is most probably due to them fearing we are ideologically corrupting their children. And if you believe that singing, dancing, having fun, swimming, and free thinking is wrong, then we are. So we somehow have to come to a partnership that is mutually respectful, and allows all of us the freedom to do what we believe is right, and support one another to do what is best for the students. The situation has calmed, but I think it will be good to have a community meeting between the village committee, the teachers, Ann, Caroline and Gasica so that the relationship between the Zanzibar Schools Project and the Unguja Ukuu school can be laid out, understood and agreed on by everybody.
And the wonderful news is that we were able to run the English immersion camp. It ran for four days and was based at a hostel by the beach in a village 1 hour away from Unguja Ukuu. We had the three ZSP teachers and were joined by three wonderful English and American volunteers which meant class sizes were small and people heard English being spoken all day long. It exceeded all of our expectations, and was an incredibly powerful, and I think life changing experience for our students. Every one of them made a big effort with the their English. The students reminding each other often to talk English and not Swahili and being surrounded by English speakers for 4 days had a big impact on comprehension and oral skills.
We packed in so many things, and the kids not only studied English, but had the opportunity to experience so much that was new to them.

• Living and sleeping in an English community
• Swimming twice a day (many of the girls can now swim! And a boy who has never dared enter the water before because he was so scared is now splashing and playing along with everyone else)
• Making chocolate cakes inside oranges on the fire, lotus flower paper lanterns
• Exploring creative language in English
• A terrifying night game in which the students defeated five evil monsters set on taking over the world
• A blind-folded night walk during which the students were silent for an hour and turned their focus inwards
• A celebration fire
• Discussions on what it means to be black and white
• Watching films and singing until we lost our voices during an incredibly heavy rain storm
• Making stalls and having an afternoon fair in which the currency was beans
• Ceremonial opening and closing circles

Everyone was very emotional on the last night/day. We had a lot of tears and I know we will all remember this for the rest of our lives. We had 48 students for the four days, with five extra students joining us on the Saturday. Each and every person there was so supportive and well behaved. And did everything we asked of them and more. I'm blown away by the experience, it was such an amazing way to say goodbye.
Haroun told me "The time in Makunduchi taught me that I am strong and powerful. It showed me many things about the world. It taught me many things about myself."
I personally feel very humbled and grateful. What an honor to spend such a magical time with the students away from all their responsibilities and watch them simply being carefree children for once. All while increasing their fluency in English. It is something that I will never forget.

The week since the camp finished has been spent saying good bye to everyone in Unguja Ukuu, at ZL4LF and in Stone Town. I cried when I left the village which is something that hasn't happened to me when leaving a place in over 20 years and the letters, gifts, words and time talking with everybody this week has been incredibly touching. Students from Unguja Ukuu are still making their way to town to bring me gifts and I spent a beautiful day at ZL4LF cooking and sharing a lunch at the chicken farm and then saying good bye at the school in the evening.

My happiest moments during my time here are:

• Watching the girls learn to swim
• Laughing our way through Fun Thursdays. Especially the egg drop challenge and BanzaiSharing evening meals with ZL4LF during Ramadan.
• Living in the village and making so many beautiful friends there
• Being invited to and taking part in a Zanzibari wedding
• Watching the students becoming more fluent in English
• Taking over an hour to cycle to school every day as I stop to greet everyone on the way.
• Adventures to places around the island with Gasica.
• Feeling very lucky to visit areas tourists never venture.
• Classes and games at ZL4LF which got every one shouting and up on their feet. Especially the rap battles with Rob.
• Visits from students at my home by the beach when we would discuss life and our hopes and dreams.
• Invitations to students homes to share meals and festivals together.
• Swimming in the sea every day and watching the sun set over it each night

Things I've found difficult:

• Watching a school system that so badly fails the students and which makes people believe they are unintelligent and destined to fail.
• Living in such a touristic island.
• The Zanzibaris attitude towards time and thinking nothing of being 2 or 3 hours late.

Before I go I want to say a huge thank you to Ann and Caroline for all their support and the trust and freedom they have given me at the school. I feel very lucky to have had such fantastic bosses who pretty much always said yes to all my ideas! Thanks also to everyone who has supported me to be here: Eleanor and Richard who have been so kind and patient in dealing with our funds, Dr Feroz who I have always been able to ask for advice. Our amazing donors and volunteers who have given the students so much, and both the Brighton and Hove, and the Stone Town Rotary Clubs who have been very generous and continue to support us.

And last but not least to Gasica, who has taught me what it truly means to be generous and who has welcomed me fully into Zanzibari life. We've gone on so many adventures into the heart and hearts of Zanzibar which I shall never forget. Thanks also for standing up to me and not being afraid to tell me when you don't agree. I love that our friendship is so equal