Education
The Golog Support Foundation has adopted a school in the city of Dawu, where we teach English lessons. This activity requirs few funds because the teachres pay their own travel expenses. On location they receive simple boarding for free.
The report from Hannemeis Peters (see below), provides a picture of our activities.
Teaching in Dawu (October 2007)
Early April 2007 I traveled to Dawu. During the eight hours bus trip I traveled through an impressing scenery: snow covered mountain tops and huge, massive, red, yellow and green rocks passed my window. Also the first yaks and praying flags passed, I had reached Tibet! The "roof of the world" is an hugely big country with mountains, revolving praying wheels, yaks, and Tibetans on motor bikes.
Dawu is situated south-west of Xining at an altitude of 1300 ft and count around thirtythousand inhabitants. Close to ninety percent of them is Tibetan, the rest being Chinese and Muslim. More than six months I have been giving English language lessons at the First National Primary School of Machen, a primary school with 621 children. I am the first foreign teacher and everybody thinks it is fantastic that somebody from so far away travels all the way to their school. I live close to the school - like so many teachers - and share a patio with one of the female teachers and her husband.
They make sure that I have everything I need. Directly after my arrival I started to go shopping for my first needs with the school director, in my room an internet connection was installed and now I am completely ready to live here.
During the first period communication was quite a hassle and we communicated mainly via body language. The Tibetan language is difficult to master and of course for them it's difficult to speak English. My Tibetan vocabulary is growing every day. There are two teachers English, who don't speak English fluently, but they can translate for me.
Before I came here, English was already on the schedule. The books they have to use are too difficult for the children. And also the teachers have difficulties how to handle these books. Both children and teachers consider English more as a hassle than as fun to learn.
After getting this picture of the current situation, I started to teach English in an informal way, with lots of games. I assumed that the children had no practical knowledge of the English language. In the meantime, the formal lessons of the two teachers continued as usual and I started to coach them. Now there is a practical plan for the teachers and - after consulting the director - new books were introduced after summer holiday. For the long term, coaching of the teachers is very important. We only made the first steps and much more development is possible! It is a fantastic experience to live and work here for some time. Living here as a temporary inhabitant of Tibet is outrageous! While you are busy with every day activities, you experience the daily life of the people in a country at this altitude, so beautiful and so far away from the western world. The children are very enthusiastic and it feels good to mean something to them. During this short period quite a few persons have already become important to me. That will make it difficult to leave again so soon...
Hannemeis Peters, Dawu, October 2007