Africa: Education

Hello!

This week I'm reminiscing about education in Africa. As my parents were frequently in meetings, they were sometimes unable to teach me and my sister during the day -- we therefore had tutors to teach us! When we weren't in Yaounde.

This is where I could have gone.

I'm going to start with FES (Field Education System)-- save the best for last! FES was an American school, which means that the schooling system was divided into elementary school, middle school and high school, with grades instead of years. FES was, I think, elementary and half of middle school; the rest took place at Rainforest International School (RFIS), a boarding school. I never got to go to RFIS, as we got evacuated when I was in year 6, though I was quite excited to be going. Two reasons -- most importantly, I'd be going with Timote, who is one of my closest friends. Secondly, I would get to emulate my then-favourite fictional character, Harry Potter, by going to a boarding school.

We (my sister and I) did go to FES, though only whenever we were in Yaounde. It was located in a compound called "the CTC Annex", with a series of houses nearby, in a square shape, on a hill. At the top of the hill was a playground; at the bottom was an area for sports and games. The school was slightly beyond that area. It was two stories high, with a library on the bottom floor and classrooms on the top. The library also had a small area for Kindergarten-age children.

From what I remember of the daily routine, at the beginning of the day, we'd line up in our classes, I assume in alphabetical order of surnames. Though we were generally at the back, as that's where Timote would have been, as his surname starts with 'T'. Ironically, I now find the behaviour of standing with your friends when you're supposed to be in alphabetical order slightly irritating -- guess I don't have a leg to stand on!

My class once did a project on Ancient Egypt, ending in a mummification of a turkey. It was a fun project -- I quite possibly owe my current love of history to that project, as well as my dad.

Karys and I had friends who weren't the Turks or the Festens at FES, though we were less close to them, as there weren't as many opportunities to see them, so we saw them less often; we made regular trips to Gamboula (en-route to Yaounde), and the Festens lived in Bilolo. I do remember two of Karys' friends -- a pair of twins a couple of years younger than her, called Charis and Channah. 

By the way, the reason I will consistently refer to 'us' rather than 'me' throughout this blog (and future posts) is because Karys and I were near-inseparable when younger -- that combined with similarity of physical appearance and closeness in age led some to think we were twins!

The Tutors

Paul and Jo Murrell

Our parents. They did the majority of the teaching, though weren't always available, hence the tutors. Our mum mostly taught English and Maths, our dad did History and Science. Funnily enough, they used to be teachers -- mum taught at a primary school (Long Hanborough, which is local!), while dad taught History at a secondary school somewhere in Oxford. Don't go looking for it -- it closed a while back. We once did an Ancient Rome module, designing legionnaire armour, making pottery and pouches. Some time later, I accidentally broke Karys' pottery. 

Our first tutors practising doing blood tests for malaria, right after they got to Africa.

My legionnaire helmet!

Rachel Onslow

Rachel was our first non-parental tutor. She used to be a mid-wife before coming to Africa, then returned to being a mid-wife when she left. She was a fun teacher, full of kindness and humour. There were lots of funny moments with Rachel -- I remember I used to have a habit of drinking out of the wrong cup. Especially hers. I don't think that continued to be a problem later. On another occasion, the Murrells, Festens and Onslow were at the Festens' house, for a service or meeting or something -- Rachel excluded, as she was baby-sitting the children. She mentioned at one point my ability to be nice and quiet, to persuade me to use that ability while the adults were busy. Karys interjected with "And sometimes he can be nasty and loud!" Rachel's married now, with a daughter; we still keep in touch.

Hair of gold, heart of gold

Pete Greatorex-Davies (P.G.D.)

Pete was the middle tutor. He was a good tutor; he also played the guitar -- seeing him play was what ignited my own interest in guitar. Though I didn't start learning until I was 11. What I properly remember him for was that he sort of introduced me and Karys to Pokemon -- specifically, FireRed and Emerald. He had a Nintendo Gameboy which he played it on, and kindly gave to us when he went home. I still have the Gameboy, which is in surprisingly good condition. Karys has her own as well, so that we didn't have to share one device. I also wanted to mention our first Emerald game file, since we've long since deleted it; it was a lot of fun. The starter Pokemon we had was Fire type, final form Blaziken, though I've long since forgotten its name. I always thought that Blaziken was cool, partly because of the moveset, partly because of the look. If you don't know what 'Blaziken' means, it's basically just the species name. 

Stock image of a Blaziken.

The Pokemon-love has endured -- some years later, I bought a Pokemon hat. Further down the line, that hat got me in trouble with my bully when he saw me wearing it. He thought I was 'jumping on the bandwagon' -- I guess he was a fan as well. I wasn't too bothered by that though, mostly because little did he know, I'd been playing Pokemon for years...

P.G.D is in the middle, sporting a Luke Skywalker haircut

Sarah Haggie

Onto our final tutor, Sarah! She tutored us during the final year or so of our time in Africa, as she was on a gap year. Then again, so was Pete, I guess. Sarah was a funny, fantastic teacher, and she had a great capacity for being random. Good with children. Though Karys and I pushed her to her very limits -- I once spent 15-20 minutes derailing an English lesson to talk about a funny picture of a 'mad dancing sheep', and asking what the title was. Sarah eventually shouted "The title is Mad Dancing Sheep!" before realising what she'd said. She also had to deal with the chaotic energy of three wildly different cats and, later, a puppy; we were looking after a friend's cats for her. Said three cats were Lucy (a bossy snob of a cat), Tom (her resolutely lazy son) and Mont-Morecy, (Tom's friend, who really put the 'scaredy'  in scaredy-cat). Mont-Morecy could be surprisingly gutsy -- we once caught her licking a chicken that was for lunch.  Sarah's also the 'lucky' one who got to join us in being trapped in a hallway while a civil war erupted outside. Of the three tutors, we're still closest to Sarah, perhaps due to our shared experiences in a hallway. Though we are still close to Rachel and Pete -- as a matter of fact, we've attended the weddings of all three. 

Sarah in Spain

Also, I feel obliged to note that I'm only doing a certain number of 'topical' blogs, as it were; when I've finished recounting topics, I'll do a linear perspective -- from Africa to My Sixth-Form Blog!