Badly driven 4 wheel drives with Mum’s on mobiles is not a British phenominum outside schools, it’s just the same here!! Once you get the idea of how the traffic works, cycling is quite straight forward. No one seriously stops at junctions, but the traffic seems to meld into a new direction. Rule one, big rules the roads; rule two, never go so fast you need to use the brakes, nor so slowly that you need to stop. I have been cycling to the school there and back, twice a day. The pot- holed muddy roads with puddles that are big enough to have crocodiles at the bottom are a bigger danger than the main roads.

There’s not enough space in the state schools for children to go all day, so they go morning or afternoon. The children I am working with go to state school but come to ABC and Rice the other half of the day, rather than be on the streets either doing nothing or selling post cards etc. they have to be pretty poor to come to the school, and are encouraged by being” paid ” with 3 kilos of rice a month, so their parents don’t have to send them out to earn.

One or two will probably learn English sufficiently well to get a job in the tourism industry, from waiters to guides, but whether those who aspire to be doctors will have the chance, who knows……..

My role was to help with pronunciation and vocabulary. First lesson, by reading a book , which the children read back, other classes by supporting their teacher in much the same way. I’ ve enjoyed it but would find it hard to have done it for longer.