Barnehageprosjektet

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The Preschool at Helemisi is an experience of its own! 176 children in 7 classes. Beautiful children willing and interested to learn. Our preschool is a demonstration preschool, it means that our own students as well as others who want to know how a good preschool can be, should come and see for themselves. I have been involved in a project to make this preschool one of the best in Swaziland. We have used the last 3 staff meetings every Tuesday for this. All staff has come with ideas for what we can do to make things better. It is all from painting the classrooms, repairing outdoor equipment, decorating the walls indoor with children's own drawings, teachers being more active during free play etc.



Picture: Outdoor play- a race to collect buckets of water. The teacher Hlopsile in front, and QMUC students in the back.

We have also emphasised that language learning can be very effective during outdoor play if the teachers also participate. Teacher Fikile and teacher Lungile in action with happy children.









Commuting to Maputo

I have been driving up and down to Maputo nearly every week of late - to try to get all the documentation ready for our application to start the preschool teacher training. The vw city is my faithful friend on the tours that take at least 3 hours one way.

Kirkeleder
Aron Matsebula is president i Free Evangelical Assemblies in Swaziland. He works in the office next door to my office. Today he came over to us for lunch. We had interesting talks about missions and church work in Swaziland. FEA is a growing church. New local assemblies are continously started, and the churches are growing.

Mr. Aron Matsebula with me in our sitting room.

Preschool Teacher Training in Maputo

The work to start a preschool teacher training in Maputo is progressing. I am commuting between Swaziland and Mozambique almost every week. Last week we managed to have a meeting with the vice director and three staff members of the faculty of Education at the University of Maputo. They are willing to work with us and they also want to join our Africa-network. A very positiv meeting that can be important for the recognition of the training.

 Picture: Meeting with staff from the Universidade Pedagogica, Maputo. To my left: Magaly, a missionary from Brasil who work with preschools. She also participated in the meeting.
 
I also had an interview with a lady who can teach Early Childhood Education,  and made arrangement to have office and classroom for the training at Centro Juvenil Ingrid Chawner, a street children's centre started by PYM in Maputo.

Saturday we took a tour to Mbambane, the capital city, to do some shopping and a haircut. Afterwards we rested on a sun bed at Logogo Sun hotel. I had a swim in the pool. It is good to have a break in the weekend.
Next week I am going back to Maputo to finalize the work with the application for the training there.

Visit to cultural village

We took the Norwegian students doing there fieldwork here in Swaziland for a little tour around Ezulwini vally. We visited Swazi candle where we saw how these famous candels are made, and also a lot of other handicraft. We also visited another centre for local craft, and then the cultural village where one can see how a traditional Swazi homestead looks like.

 We also got to see traditional swazi dances, and the Norwegian students were invited to participate!


The Preschool here has now started to use also the outdoor area as a classroom. Under a three there is a nice shade and  a very pleasent place for storytelling.

Watch out!
On the way to Mozambique we passed this sign. It is better to wach out, especially if one is walking this way!

Swaziland and Mozambique,

Back in Swaziland by the beginning of February, I have visited our demonstration preschool at Helemisi some times. Very nice children! We agreed on the last staff meeting to start a project on making this preschool one of the best in Swaziland. All staff will give their ideas in the next meeting!

Last week I also did a quick two days visit to Maputo. I met with Bernardo Muthemba who is working to get our application to start a preschool teacher training through all the different offices. He has also done a great job by finding a number of documents that need to follow such an application. Leif Listgaard, a Swedish missionary at the street children's centre in Maputo also took part in the meetings.

The picture: Bernardo with his wife and two children, a neigbour and a friend of the children, with me in from of Bernardo's house.

I also had a meeting with the director and three staff members of the Faculty of Education at the Universidade Pedagogica. They seemed positive to assist us, and we hope they will sign our certificates. This will give our preschool training a good reputation. The Director also was interested in cooperation with our Competence Building Network for Early Childhood in South and East Africa.  We will soon have a new meeting with them.

Another nice happening this week was that Kirsti had invited a number of our friends here for a celebration of my 60. birthday. We had Mrs. and Mr. Tsabedze, Mrs. and Mr. Khumalo, Lars Blystad, Lars Olsen, Mr. and Mrs. Thwala, Evy Surdal and Mrs. and Mr. Dlamini (Absalom and Flora). Kirsti had a nice picture show about different aspects of my life, and had made a song, there were speches and a song from the guests and also nice messages from our daugheters, sons in law and grandchildren. A memorable evening.

Summerfield was a nice frame around the occation. The menu was very good!

Kirsti and me listening to one of the good speeches!

In Norway

The last two weeks I have been in Norway, mainly to teach the international class called Comparing Childhoods at Queen Maud University College. This is a 4 week course for those who come to QMUC on exchange and those from QMUC who are going for exchange to other countries. It was nice to share experiences with them. I was also teaching the class for further education (master level) in Special Needs Education. Very good students and interesting talks. In Trondheim this time I stayed with Hanna and Sean (daughter and son in law) and my grandchild Isak (3 1/2 month). It was very nice to share the fellowship with them at Heimdal. The picture shows Isak with his aunt Susanna. She is living upstairs in the same house.
On my way back to Swaziland I stopped over in Kristiansand (south in Norway) where Sara (my second daughter) and Espen is living. Sara just gave birth to Isabella the day before I arrived, and it was exciting to be able to visit them and see our second grandchild - a beautiful girl - this time!

Above is one day old Isabella! David says in Psalm 127, 3 Children are a gift from the Lord. (Translated from Norwegian). So we thank Him for this gift!

Glade, nybakte foreldre Espen og Sara med lille Isabella.

2. week in Swaziland/Mozambique

The second week in Swaziland we had an intensive week in the Preschool TEacher Training. 2 classes had about 40 periods each. It became a very busy week. In addition to students from year 1 and 2 there were also about 13 former students who came back to upgrade their exams to diploma. It was very exciting when we were together with about 65-70 students for morning devotion. The songs in different voices is something one need to experience!

The students at the morning devotion. Kirsti in the picture to the left.

Winile is one of the lecturers at the college. She is well known of many since she took her master degree at Queen Maud University College in Norway. She was teaching a number of lessons during the week. She is also the headmistress of the demonstration preschool.

Winile teaching. Kirsti and I was also teaching this first week together with Evy Surdal and some part time lecturers in English and Health/nutrition. Evy did a great job in teaching them how to make teddy bears and puppets etc. Students were very enthusiastic!


Early Wednesday morning I drove to Maputo. In the afternoon I was teaching in a seminar for about 50 preschool teachers. My theme was how to help children develop a positive self image.I also gave them some group work. The participants showed a great involvement!

Next day I went with Bernardo (a Mozambiquan brother who has been working to get the documents through the ministry of education) and Leif- a missionary- to meetings in the Ministry of Education. The meetings were positive, and we got more precice information about all the documents our application need to contain for recognition by the Ministry. In the afternoon we had a meeting with 3 staff from the pedagogical university of Maputo. They were quite interested in our plan, and were willing to assist in teaching in our course.


After this week I went back to Norway to have two weeks of intensive teaching at Queen Maud University in Trondheim, Norway. It was part of the deal to let me go to Africa that I had to come back for some teaching. I am here the two last weeks of January. It gave me the opportunity to stay with Hanna and Sean and see my first gradchild Isak. He is a very beautiful boy who is developing every day...

Isak, our first gradson, is an active and joyful boy who knows how to charm is grandpa.

En sondag i Swaziland

Hva gjor man en sondag i Swaziland?

Forst gikk vi til en engelsk gudstjeneste kl. 9.00 i Zakhele church, en stor Swazi menighet like ved senteret.  Det var en livlig gudstjeneste med fantastisk sang. Vaar tidligere nabo (fra 1996) ledet sangen sammen med en gruppe. Det er bevegelser og mange stemmer! Menigheten hadde bygd ny kirke siden vi var der, og har naa minst to gudstjenester, en paa engelsk og en paa siswati, den siste best besokt, men det var ganske mye folk ogsaa p[ den den engelske. Imponerende bygg, ikke minst med tanke paa at de har bygd den med egne midler. Trivelig aa treffe gamle kjente.

Etterpaa gikk vi paa gudstjenesten paa Helemisi senteret der vi bor. Den startet kl. 11. Denne menigheten ble dannet paa slutten av vaart opphold her. Naa var det mye folk ogsaa her, sarlig yngre folk. Guds rike vokser i Swaziland. Her traff vi bl.a. pastor Khumalo og familien hans, som var med og startet senteret naar vi var der for 11 aar siden. Levende sang og utfordrende tale om aa laa troen vokse i det nye aaret!

Etterpaa begynte vi aa bli sultne, og vi dro til et nytt sted - Summerfield - mellom Manzini og Mbambane. Her har eieren laget en storslagen botanisk hage med kunstige dammer, statuer av afrikas dyr, restaurant i stilig afrikansk arkitektur, smaa paviljonger i hagen der man kunne spise, svaert god mat. Og rimelig! Omraadet er noe av de vakreste jeg har sett paa mine mange reiser. Vi hadde en deilig lunsj!  Og saa var jo dagen neste gaatt, og det var hjem aa skrive litt meldinger og blogg.

Afrika er ikke bare nodhjelp og fattigdom. Det er ogsaa mye fint.