Subject: Report from Ramiro

Hello everybody at the school!

Here is a short report of what I have been doing since I last wrote to you (which was sometime in April I think.... Doesn't the time fly! )

I think you have all heard about the UNITA attack in Caxito and how they kidnapped the children from the Cidadela das Crianças. This incident changed our plans a little, too. One week-end we were in Tecto getting tents up for all the people who were evacuated from Caxito (This included the rest of the children from the Citadel, students from EPF and Vocational school and all the teachers and workers). I felt really good to do something concrete and to be able to help these people a little.

I hope you have also heard that all the children have been returned! They came back a couple of weeks ago and there was a big celebrations. Now all the people evacuated from Caxito are living in Viana in an old rehabilitation centre. When the children returned, there was a big action in the centre to move everybody from Tecto, find beds for all of them, build the beds, cook food, make programme... Unfortunately I did not see when the children arrived, but everybody who saw it said it was a very emotional moment. All the children came back more or less in OK condition. They had walked solid for three weeks so naturally they were tired and some had cuts and other injuries in their feet, but the main thing is that they were all returned.

This is the first time that UNITA released so many children at the same time. This was thanks to a big publicity campaign that ADPP organized. They printed out posters with all the children's photos on them. These posters were sent all over Angola. There was also a lot of publicity on the radio and TV, almost every day there was something in the news about the children from Caxito.

Now life is returning to normal for the people evacuated from Caxito. They have started to have lessons in the centre where they live. All the DIs from Caxito live there as well, they continue their work and organize activities.

Kathy and I just finished a three week investigation. For the first two weeks we visited villages here in the Luanda Sul area. Our aim was to find out the social and living conditions in the different villages. To do this we interview teachers, administrators, nurses, sobas (traditional village leaders) and many, many families. We asked them about the situation in health and education and in general what are the living conditions, for example if they have mosquito nets, do they have latrines, how they get their living, do the children study, do they know about HIV and AIDS etc. This work was very interesting, we got to meet so many people and see typical Angolan life.

For the last week we have been writing a report of our investigation. Actually we did two slightly different investigation: One of them was to find out if there has been any changes in the conditions in the villages where ADPP already works and the other was to find out the existing conditions in the villages where ADPP plans to start projects. Even if I say it myself, I think we did a pretty good job with this investigation. The reports we wrote can be used as a background when ADPP plans new actions. From our reports it can been seen what kinds of improvements and projects are needed in each village. Also the reports can be used to measure future improvements. It is also important to have some facts and reports when ADPP is looking for partners to support the project financially. It was very good to make this concrete work, visit the places and people where ADPP is working or going to work and them produce a report that hopefully will give some ideas for future improvements in the area.

As I said we had a very interesting two weeks visiting the villages. Also our Portuguese improved so much since we had to speak it all day. In the beginning we had some difficulties because people could not understand us, but by the end we could actually have conversations with them. Everywhere people were very welcoming and they answered all our questions although sometimes they must have thought we ask very silly or obvious things. People really went out of their way to help us. One example of this happened in a village called Camama. There we stayed with two ADPP teachers who work in the area. That day we had met the soba of the village and had a long conversation with him. When he heard that we are sharing the small apartment with the two teachers, he was very displeased. Surely there has to be a better place in the village for us to stay! So he took us to the medical post, to the back of the building where there was a room for the nurses. Since there is only one nurse in Camama and he lives in his house, the room is not in use. The soba said we can sleep there in the medical post that night! So later in the evening he came to see us, waited until we finished our dinner and then escorted us to the medical post. There was a candle waiting us in the room and water in the bathroom for us to take a shower. Before the soba said good night he showed us how to lock the door so we would feel safe. The next day he came to wake us up and came with us when we went to visit an other village, Camama II, near by. He helped us to get a ride in a truck, we could sit in the cabin while the soba, an old man climbed up to the back of the truck. That day, when we were interviewing the people in Camama II the soba was introducing us to the people and he made sure we met all the administrators and other people who we needed to talk to. So you see, the people here are really so helpful and everywhere they are looking forward to work with ADPP. They are very much waiting for ADPP to start new projects and help them to improve their lives.

Here at the school the students have started their teaching practise in the primary school in Ramiro. They go there every morning for four hours to teach 1st, 2nd and 4th grades. Twice a week I go there with them to follow how they teach, give comments and advice for improvements. It was really surprising in the beginning to see how little material they really have: most of the pupils do not have any books, usually they only have one or two old and dirty notebooks and a short pen. You can imagine it is very difficult to teach efficiently in conditions like this. The students also have very little basic knowledge and they can hardly write or do basic math. Even in the 2nd grade some kids do not know how to write their names! Now to help the EPF students to make their lessons more interesting and to give them new ideas I am supposed to give courses to them about different teaching methods and how they can use different materials in their lessons. So far I have only given one course because we haven't been at the school for a long time, but maybe now in the next weekly plans I have a couple of courses. I still continue with English both here at the EPF and in Ramiro for the 7th grade. Here I usually have only one lesson a week but in Ramiro I now give two lessons a week. Those lessons are going very well and I can see development there. It is quite different to teach there than here for the EPF students because most of the students on the 7th grade are grown-ups who haven’t been to school for a long time. So I have make sure to explain everything very clearly, do a lot of repetition, think of examples from their lives and prepare the lessons in Portuguese because there I really have to use a lot of Portuguese to explain things for them. It is really rewarding when I go to the lessons and there is a group of eager students who call out "Good afternoon, teacher!" For the lessons here at EPF it is fun to think of different kinds of lessons, sometimes we play games and now I want to teach them some songs.

We have had our midway meeting with Anette, our project leader. We were talking about what we have achieved and what we still plan to do before leaving. Sometimes it is hard for us to see if we actually get any results or if it makes any difference that we are here, but Anette was assuring us that only by being here and setting an example with our lessons and the way we work we do make a difference for the project. So even if we not build anything visible there are things changing because of us. Now we have made good plans for the coming two months and there are still quite a few things we can make. For example I start working in producing two programmes, one for 1st year studies of English and an other for physical education with new games and other activities that can be done with primary school children. Other than that at the moment I am also organizing the task files for EPF, getting them in order and printing out missing pages from the database.

Now we only have two months to go. I have started to like Angola more and more all the time so it is going to be sad to leave. But at the same time I am looking forward to going back to Europe. The life is so different here that it can get quite exhausting at times and then I start missing the easy life and familiar things from home. At the moment I do enjoy myself much more than in the beginning, partly because my Portuguese has actually improved (in the beginning I thought I will never learn to speak this damn language!) so communication with the students here and other people in the village is much easier. It has been really great to get to know some of the students better and make jokes and have fun with them. One week-end we went with the students to a beautiful beach, we spent the night there sleeping in a hut made out of palm tree leaves and spent the days swimming, sunbathing and barbequing. So it is not only work out here!

One more thing I am doing now is having a computer course for six workers in ADPP Confecções! (Confecções is a factory where they do ADPP clothes, furniture’s and a lot of other things for other projects and also to sell to raise money for ADPP.) This is something I never thought I would do since I do not know so much about computers anyway. Luckily I have one of the EPF students to help me. He does all the technical explaining and then I do the practical exercises, basically just show how to make simple documents, tables etc. Actually I quite enjoyed myself doing the first lesson of the course, it is nice to teach a course where people are really interested in learning the thing you are teaching and have fun as well. And let me tell you, I was quite proud of myself that I managed to do the whole thing in Portuguese!

There is going to be a total eclipse of the sun the 21st June. Aren’t we lucky that we happen to be here, Angola is one of the countries where you can see the whole eclipse! I think there is going to be some special program at the school. There has been a lot of information campaigns about the eclipse, programs on the radio and TV and posters everywhere warning the people not to look directly at the sun. It is going to be quite of an experience!

This is all again this time. Take care, everybody and have a nice summer!

Marja