Pulling funny faces

The three classes I had today were planned to be subjected to my lesson on naming the various body parts. This had been great fun with some groups last week so I thought I would repeat it. As is turned out only two of the classes went ahead and the third just didn't happen. A class was due to start in Balata today at 12-2 but at quarter past 12 I only had one student. By 1pm the number had only increased to 2. The youngster that turned up first did his best to ring around his friends and knock on their doors to get them out of bed but with obviously little success. From his conversations with my Palestinian volunteer it became clear that the boys had been up until 5am playing computer games so English class with me wasn't going to be high up on the agenda. To be fair it is their summer holidays from school at the moment. The situation reminded me of when I used to work for the Prince's Trust and the difficulties we often had getting people to attend the session. Many of the team members were long term unemployed and doing something when you are used to doing nothing takes time. I think it will be better if they move the class to the evening so that we have a greater chance of some of the group turning up. We shall see on Wednesday anyway, when the next class is scheduled to take place...

In Askhar camp I had another fantastic lesson with the group of 8 girls that live there. They were very quick to learn the body parts that they didn't know (difficult ones like neck, chin, shin, cheeks) and I'm putting this down to my pulling my ears and cheeks etc and making them laugh. Our lessons are always fun but the girls are just as competitive as the boys. Woe betide anyone that forgets to give their team a point! They can remember exactly why they should have the point and exactly when they won it. Their level of English and the vocabularly never fails to astonish me. Most of the class take part in a master class at Project Hope called 'Bridge to the World' were they will use the computers to write blogs and compose emails. I am hoping that it will be with these children that I have taught thatI can link with my classes back at Cheadle Hulme High School.

I had a different local volunteer with me when I arrived in New Askhar today and it was a bit embarassing when I got to the centre. Kids all over the place were shouting my name and saying hello from the rooftops, in the street, on balconies and then the same again when I got inside. Like a celebrity. Foreign people are so rare (apart from Project Hope volunteers) that we are always stared at wherever we go. This isn't as unnerving as it sounds as the people here are genuinely interested in you and want to talk to you. They muster all the English they can even if it's just one word and appear to appreciate my very poor attempts at speaking Arabic. It's now very rare for me to go into the city and not see someone I know or that knows me. Whether it be one of the students I teach, someone I know quite well or just someone I have said hello to before.

A very odd thing I saw today was a man and his son trying to squeeze a goat into the boot of the car. I used to pretty strange sights here- a car pulling the shell of another car down the main street with sparks flying everywhere, pictures of martyr's plastered over the walls, children dangling other children over the edge of rooftops- but this was one of the strangest. Probably because there was no way they were going to get it to fit! Not in one piece anyway...

Tonight is a meal for all the volunteers so I'd better stop thinking about how the food here is prepared and just go and eat it.