Never thought it would happen...

During one of our classes yesterday it became apparent that the lack of provision for those with Special Needs was not the only issue we would have to deal with in regards to behavioural problems or causes for disruption in our classes.

Special Needs children mainly carry on in regular school classes but drop off the register as they fail exams to get into High School - with no real specialist support (though in some cases a helper may be employed to assist them in school to a certain extent). This is due to the stigma attached to not succeeding in this country... a place which shamefully has the highest adolescent suicide rate in the world due to the pressure of exams and the need to be the best academically.

But today a new situation was flagged in our faces - Orphanages.

I had expected that such institutions would have existed here as there are orphans across the globe due to illness, low mortality rates, war etc. but I had not been prepared for the harsh and selfish nature of Korea in this respect.

It is not uncommon for a child to be placed into an orphanage if their parents get divorced! They just get rid of them!

Why? Because no one wants to get married to someone and be a parent of another blood line!

??? So they just divorce their own kids to look for a new partner? Yep!

We can't even imagine how this would affect the children involved - an eternal feeling of 'I'm not wanted'?

I know I'll not be able to change anything here in South Korea... and I know I'll have to hold my tongue on many things that will drive me mad while I am here... but even if I can't change it - I think that letting these children know (along with the other orphans) that they are the rice of Korea, the future of the country, that they more important than their parents is a must for me during the next 12 months and that I should go out of my way to make life better for them.

How can a parent ditch such a responsibility as a child just to copulate?

Rant over for now.

Field Trip and lesson planning...

So after two days of intense lecturing, learning Korean, watching Korean movies and trying to be sociable we were all looking forward to Monday's Field Trip to the Jeonju Hanok Village and then the Traditional Cultural Centre.  Everyone wrapped up warm and boarded buses to take us to our starting locations - classes 1 to 4 went to the Hanok Village first for a tour with some handicrafts (making a photo frame) and then off to a restaurant for some Bimbimbap for lunch.

This was our first real class group photograph (although 4 members of the class were missing as they had to attend the medical that the rest of us suffered on the first morning here), taken outside the Gyeonggijeon Shrine.

After going round the village we ventured down to Nambu Sijang a market area which gave us a real insight into both the people here and also the wears that they sold/bought in the markets. Some things were a bit "eugh!", such as the silk worms which they ate but there was also a fasinating selection of fruits, fish and beans/lentils too.

From the market we went to a craft village where we made the aforementioned photo frames from paper made in the village (using traditional methods).  The paper is also used in the making of doors and windows.

Then it was off to a popular Jongro Restaurant, Korean tourist restaurant, where we were all given some traditional Bimbimbap - a dish that translates as being an all in one bowl dish.  Some people loved it and the various other delicacies that were provided... others not so much! lol!



It was then onto an old traditional school which is partly being restored and not currently in use.  Inside the grounds was a tree which the Korean people hold very dear as it is over 800 years old... so of course loads of people wanted their photo taken with the tree and seized the opportunity to touch it!

There was soooo much happening throughout the day that I can't possibly post all the photos on this blog. 

Between dancing, drumming and traditional Korean wedding cermonies (Danielle was a Bridesmaid!) the day was packed and we were all totally exhausted by the time we got back to the university.  Unfortunately the day didn't end as soon as we all got back as many of us wanted to meet up to go through lesson plan planning for joint presentations on Thursday morning... an EPIK orientation teacher's day never stops!
So, as a means of giving you the opportunity to have a look at all the photographs from the day I have added in a slideshow below... fingers-crossed it works!

Grand opening ceremony and dinner!

Yesterday (Friday) we met our classmates and were given our theme/guidance for our lesson plan presentations which will happen next week... so of course we all immediately settled down last night to work on them - YEAH RIGHT!!!

We had an opening ceremony in the afternoon which included some displays of a drumming dance, taekwando and a fan dance too.  The Taekwando was definitely the most interesting and visually stunning and included some very fancy kicking the tripe out of wood and apples!

Here's a quick video of some of the bum-kicking fun!

And some pics of the rest to give you some idea of it:

After this we had a grand buffet dinner - thankfully we were the first to cotton on that the food was already sitting waiting for everyone and quickly getting cold so we jumped at the opportunity to warm up a little with the various dishes presented - some tasty... some just a bit iffy to our palates!

The venue was so cold that in the end we decided to head down into the town and find a pub where we could all sit and chat in a warmer surrounding!

Saturday would see us all having our first full day of lectures, Korean Language lessons and a Korean movie to watch... so we ended up having a quiet and early night... ...was that enough to convince you???  There were a few soreheads the next morning but that was due to Jetlag... yeah... that's the answer everyone is sticking to!



Hello Europe, this is South Korea calling...

Don't know why on earth I've used a Eurovision phrase so don't mention it...

We've arrived safely in South Korea and are settling into our university accomodation for a week of orientation in Jeongju University 'A place for Superstars'.

After very little sleep on the plane journey we did get a quick nap on the bus journey down to Jeonju and then had a very patchy night of sleep too (including a visit at midnight from one of the staff to give us some LAN cables for the internet... he surely assumed we would be wide awake!).

I've uploaded a quick video of our room for the next week so you can see what it is like!

We'll try and keep you posted throughout the week as to how things are going... this morning we have a medical examination which requires me to give blood... NOT looking forward to this! Oh, by the way we ended up turning the heating off completely and opening a window (-6 outside) to try and get the room cool enough to sleep - under floor heating nearly burnt our feet but is off this morning so its now a bit chilly! lol!

Leavin' on a jet plane!

Tuesday 15th Feb 2011.

Danielle and I have set off again on our travels/adventures - this time to South Korea for a year of God knows what!  Its the first time I have agreed to take on a contract of work without knowing exactly where I will be working, who I'll be working for, where I will be living and have a strong knowledge of my rights as an employee... so it could be a bit of craic! lol!

We flew to London with Danielle's sister, Andrea, and met up with her friend, Paul.  We had all arranged to go into London to see the girl's cousin performing in Wicked.  We were not disappointed! It was absolutely brilliant and we loved every moment of the musical.

We'd already stuffed ourselves with a nice warm Nandos prior to going to the Apollo Victoria... but we still loaded up on sweets and water for some unknown reason - Paul even indulged in some donuts!

After the show we went around to the stage door and I waltzed right in with Danielle and the others following - right past some of the new stars that appear in the cast.  We went up to Rachel's dressingroom and chatted with her for about 30mins as she removed the green body paint that seen her leaving the theatre last every night from the cast's side of production.

So, we left Andrea and Paul in England as we jumped on another plane this morning (Wednesday) and headed east.  I am currently posting this from Abu Dhabi, a nice, big airport with free Wifi!  We are waiting to board our next flight onto Incheon Airport in South Korea... which will take us another 7/8 hours of flight time with little sleep.

The next post will hopefully be from our room at Jeonju University where we are to be based for the next 10 days before being sent out to our respective schools and, fingers-crossed, some very nice accomodation for Danielle and I - our first real home (not counting the hut in Malawi!).



Out of Africa...

So, we organised our flights back to the UK through a number of manic phonecalls and then a plater of emails between London, Addis Ababa and Malawi and finally got a date to return to London.  Unfortunately our onward flights to Belfast were going to cost us far too much (£50 to change and then an extra £230) so we decided to rebook flights with a different airline (Easyjet) which worked out at less than £50 all in!

The only problem was - and this required the utmost of careful negotiations and tact - our final flight back into Belfast wasn't going to be for 5 days after we arrived in London! We would be stuck in England for 5 days so what could we do?

Thankfully a close friend, Aaron, and his partner Tara, helpfully agreed to let us stay with them for the few days we were to be there - a God send!  It was all looking good and it would be great to catch up with them since we hadn't seen them since the wedding.

It was so nice to be back in cool/cold weather too! We landed after 13 hours of travelling (excluding the 7 hour to, and overnight stay in Lilongwe) from Malawi to the Congo, on to Addis Ababa and then to London.

We arrived in around 6.30am and went to pick up a hire car to help us get around over the next few days - it was once again nice to be back driving.  We got to Aaron and Tara's shortly after 8am just as Tara was about to head to work - and she was shocked to see these two tanned figures appear at her door in summery clothes!

It took me a while to acclimaitise (hence the flipflops and t-shirt) but Danielle was feeling the cold straight away so our first port of call, after a quick nap, was into High Wycombe to get some clothes to wear that were more suitable to the temperatures in the UK!

Danielle really felt the whole reverse-culture-shock sensation while we were driving around.  Not seeing multitudes of people walking around, seeing animals actually in fields, how green everything was in comparison to Africa, not seeing people working in the fields to the same scale, and even having running water that you could drink!  I don't know why I don't get those sensations - I seem to be able to switch from one world to another like turning on/off a light.  It is possible that some of that comes from the years spent as a child at numerous times throughout the year living in Donegal in the West of Ireland.  I remember having to go and collect water from the river and local wells so that there was something to wash and drink, I've experienced cereal with the fresh milk still warm from the cow's udder.  When in Donegal I wouldn't think twice about going outside for a pee, back in Belfast I wouldn't consider it - an immediate switch happens and I think that is the same between UK and African living.

We also began looking for work for when we got home to cover us until we would leave for Korea.  We had a quick chat on Skype with our recruitment company out there too and finally set a firm date for our interviews which were scheduled for 5.20am for Danielle and 6.20am for me! Doh!
We had a great time in England - we got to go into London to see Wicked (though Danielle's cousin Rachel was off that night - she plays Elphaba (the green witch)) and enjoyed it so much that we swore we'd go back again to see it when Rachel was working.  We also got to enjoy Bonfire night too and it sort of made up for not having been around for Hallow'een.


Hot food, good craic and, of course, fireworks! We had a great time!  And even little Sam showed no fear or shock at seeing or hearing the fireworks at all!



On the Sunday night we left and headed to Luton airport and got the first flight home to Belfast.  We arrived in and again got a hire car just to help us get around and surprise everyone.  We stopped up to my parents' house first.  My brother Tomás opened the door saying, "Holy S%&T! Holy S*"t!" quickly followed by tears from my mum.  After a bit of breakfast we drove over to Danielle's mum's and again there were tears flowing as they were so surprised and happy to have us back home.

So, that's us home until Jan/Feb when we head off again.

(Well, its techincally the end of Jan 2011 now and we now know that we leave Belfast for South Korea on the 15th of February.  We have been told we will be placed somewhere in the Cheungbuk province - an area that wasn't even one of our choices!  So, the next time we post it will be from Korea!

It will be much easier to post on the blog from there - super internet speeds! And I am sure there will be so much to tell!  I also hope to get some video footage on here too so that is all still to come!)

Korea was calling and we had to go!

Well hello folks!

It has been a very long time since we last posted anything on here and that has been due to a number of various reasons that I will quickly skirt over so we're all on the same page! lol!

Since I last posted we have celebrated Danielle's 25th birthday while in Malawi.  This was preceded by a number of bouts of what appeared to be an emotional breakdown (nothing to do with her age) due to the medication that we were taking for Malaria - Lariam.  It seems that the drug was causing her to be extremely overly emotional resulting in tears flowing at any point - even in the middle of laughing she would break down into floods of tears!

There was an up side to the tablets in that they temporarily rid Danielle of any intolerances to the food types that normally plagued her - but the final straw was when she started having nightmares about the snakes and scorpions crawling over her during her sleep.  So it was clear a change was needed.

So we made a big thing of celebrating her birthday as a bit of a pick-her-up!  I was a bit crap to be honest - we were in the middle of nowhere and the option of even getting her a present was a far fetched one! A card.... well, they don't even seem to have postcards here nevermind Birthday cards!

We went out to the next lodge, Chintheche Inn where two of our friends Nick and Zana are in charge, for a lovely meal and a change of scene.  It was great food which we were so glad it lived up to our expectations. 

On Danielle's actual birthday we all got together to have a brie (BBQ) with Richard, Lauren, Zana and Nick.

During the course of the evening of the party it was sort of decided that Danielle and I needed to escape from Makuzi for a bit and it was agreed that if we could sort out the logistics of it all then we would take the following weekend off.  We decided to head south ( a 7 hour drive) to a music festival called Lake of Stars - an event that was also to be Danielle's first experience of CAMPING!!! (Something she swore she would never do!)

So, we went for broke and did it - borrowed a tent, some mats to sleep on, the ute and hit the road!

The drive down was great - it felt like we'd had our wings released and it was such a relief to see Danielle suddenly come back to life as we enjoyed the scenery, trees and people.

Even though we had already done our sums and knew it was going to be an expensive 5 days away - we knew we both needed it and even if it left us broke it would be worth it!

Lake of Stars is quite a good idea as far as festivals go.  It is organised by an organisation in London and really tries to attract UK based artists along with a number of African based ones to perform at a weekend festival.  It is also promoted via STA which means that a lot of young people take the opportunity to visit Malawi for Lake of Stars and then also either have a safari or travel around the country which helps feed into the economy of the locals - not necessarily the government (which is possibly the bane of the country's problems).

Anyway... it was great to get away and I really enjoyed the driving too - could have been a longer trip but work called!

The next thing we knew emails expressing concern over our skype connection and telephone line began to come through to let us know that if the connection wasn't improved then we would not be able to conduct the interviews for Korea... and therefore would not gain a placement for travelling there.

This stumped us... there was no way we could possibly do anything about the quality of phone or internet connection in the whole of Malawi... so we were pushed into making the extremely difficult decision to leave Malawi and return home... devastating for both us, our friends, the school and the children.



Danielle's class.

Colm's class.

The following week, after numerous phonecalls and emails, we were flying back to London.

What happened next I will blog later this week! Promise!