Kan ya ma kan

The title of this post (and the play) means “Once upon a time” in Arabic, and would be the title of our blogsite rather than Kwasuka Sukela, its Zulu equivalent, if Val could work out how to change it. Doesn’t seem like rocket science to me, but what do I know?

Back to work today after a relaxing and enjoyable weekend, and a daunting prospect after the departure of our excellent Jordanian assistants, Zaid and Louzan. The day did indeed start pretty shakily: we were late arriving on the bus, so had no opportunity to rearrange the furniture to represent the performance space, or clear the deskful of stuff from last week’s activities, so opportunities for distraction abounded. What is more, to begin with we had no Arabic-speaking support, which made things… challenging.

We are now teaching all four lessons, first team teaching, then splitting for periods 3 & 4. While this gives us more rehearsal time, we were concerned about our ability to sustain the children’s attention.

But we didn’t need to worry as Raghad, the headteacher’ daughter, was assigned to us to start with, and she was a great help. Then Bassil turned up to help Val during his free lesson. And the lesson in which Avo joined us (giving up his break) and acting as interpreter/narrator/assistant director, was a real rehearsal: great progress being made and the kids enjoying themselves. Nothing like the sorry excuse for a rehearsal that I had managed earlier.