Report from Mozambique

최근에 IICD로 보냈던 Report 이다.
 

 Hello trena, Hello IICD !! how are you doing everyone ?? Is it still hot there ? or cold season is already coming now ?? I miss IICD so much. School, dorm, people and food... everything is still on my mind. And I believe it’ll be coming soon to see all of them. :) 

 Firstly, I’m sorry for this late report. I could have sent earlier, but I couln’t think about it. Everyday has been passing by me so fast, and I’ve been very busy in this school. Especially, these days are the most busiest days. I feel even busier than when I was in IICD.

 Let me start my story by speaking Vini and I’s Machamba (Farming) project. We worked at the garden of hospital near our school at the first two months. When we started working, everyting went very well. We could work with prisoners who were near hospital, and everyday we could cultivate large part of garden. We changed an abandoned land into a garden which hospital can use. We bought wood and bundles of straw to protect sprout, and they started to grow. All of sudden, the new officer of prison didn’t allow us to work with prosioners. we also could’t work ourselves. Because we started teaching in the school and other volunteers also had left Mozambiqe. We couldn’t make big change, but we made a small farm from the abandoned land. We hope this hospital will use it for the patients.

 Then now let me move to our main project in the vocational school. Since beginning of july, we started teaching English and history at the vocational school. I teach English and Vini teaches history. We have 2 classes, and each class has 18 and 38 students. We give lessons for 6 hours per week. We’ve had 2 exams so far, and It will be one more exam before we leave here. As I give a  English class in Portuguese, it was not easy at the first months, but now I feel more comfortable teaching them. I learned some know-hows and my portuguese also has improved.

 Teaching Mozambiqan students is not easy work. Many of them don’t have a particular goal of study. For example, we study to enter a good university and to get a good job in Korea. But mozambiquan students relatively don’t have that kind of thought we usually have. It is unefficient to study without strong motivation. Many of them just like to watch soup opera and sports game after class. I think my job is giving them  a proper motivation as well as giving them English classes. And I think this is also very interesting  work to make them motivated with something they could like.  

 Second project is about my night classes. I’ve been teaching guitar & computer everynight for last 3 months. It was started by one student’s request. When I arrived in Mozambique, I was a little bit passive because of language barrier. When we didn’t get the class from this school, I just work at the Machamba in the morning and study my self for all day in my room. I knew that my job was for helping students but I couldn’t actively approach to students. I just kept saying ‘bom dia’ and ‘tudo bem’. One day one students came and asked me to teach him how to use computer. As I was willing to do something, I accepted that happily and students kept incresing. After I got close to some students, they asked me many different things. They wanted to learn English, Facebook, Korean and even chopsticks. I did many things that I could do and it made us more close. At the first month, I didn’t teach guitar to my students. As I only have one guitar, I thought it would not work out well if I taught many students with only one guitar. But after they knew that I had a guitar and I’m a guitarlist, they started asking me. And they even tried to learn by waiting their turn with one guitar. So I decied to give guitar class, and finally I’ve given them guitar and computer class with one acoustic guitar and one macbook.

 I needed more equipment to teach students efficiently. Fortunately, god helped a man who helped himself. At the early of last month, this ADPP vocational school got 20 computer donation. Those are very good computers for the students. Project leader knew that I’ve been giving computer classes to students, and he asked me to be a in charge of  ‘informatica’ class every night with new computers. So I could officially start the ‘informatica’ class. I have a plan to teach basic of windows, word, excel and power point. It took one month to set those computers up, because some cables and equipments were missing. Now I’m teaching them with 9 computers. I give 2 classes a day. 7:30~8:30 for class one and 8:30~9:30 for class two. As a lot of students are eager to learn computer, there are more than 2 students for one computer in every class. As almost of all students don’t know about computer at all, it is pretty hard to teach them. I even need to teach the difference between ‘Click’ and ‘Double Click’. As I’m not good at speaking portuguese, sometimes it’s very difficult to help each of them. However, although all of those obstacles, It is also thankful that I can share my knowlege in this way, and I love to do that.

 After 9:30, I start my guitar class. It’s usually finished by 12:00. Actually, I’ve bought 2 new guitars to teach my students. And I’ll buy more guitars for the students. As I’m not that a rich boy, I just started fund-raising thorugh facebook (www.facebook.com/adppkomusicclass is the address). I’m planning to have a concert before I finish my project here. I’ll teach students and have them to make their song. They’ll be singing their opinion & voice at the concert. At the same time, they’ll present about their song with MS word and power point presentation. I believe this concert & presentation will be able to be a good motivation for my students. I also need your support for the fund-raising !!  :)

 The best benefited person from my night class is me. Above all, I become their friend, and they become my friends. I don’t feel alone even in the middle of Africa. When we eat, hang around, play sports, study and play the music, I can be always with them and it makes my Mozambique life wonderful. I’m also learning Portuguese by them. Being with them is also good Portuguese class for me. Unlike the students at my regular English class, every students who attend my night class are willing to learn something. I don’t have to push them to study or practice, they already have a strong motivation that they like to learn. I’ve been giving my class for week days and weekend also. Although I don’t ask them to come, they come themselves and put their time and effort until every mid night. I feel so thankful for them that follow my teaching like this.

 Let me get back to me and Vini’s project again. We’re preparing a Movie about our life in Mozambique. It’ll be about 50 minutes movie. We hope we can make a good creation and share that in the IICD in November. To make it happen, I ordered one video editing book from my mom in Korea and study it in my spare time. Actually, it makes me a lot busier now.

 Before I left IICD, I said that I want to become their friends and want to share my knowledge and skills with the students. Fortunately, I’ve always met nice people, I could do what I wanted do. Now I have 2 months left and I only have some challenges. Fund-raising, informatica class, movie and concert. Any of them is not easy for me. But I feel thankful that I have those opportunity to try in Mozambique. I hope I’ll keep passionate until the last time. And I think I will be able to achive that because I’m with wonderful students around me.

 I miss you so much IICD. I hope I can talk about my challenges happily in two months. Thank you.