Girl, I wanna take you to a gay bar

I’ve just returned from a week on a wee scottish island. And come back saying wee. It’s just such a cute word, along with ‘beast’. Everything is now a wee bag or a beast of a bag. Or a wee beast of a bag which is confusing.

I had such a great time! It was the training course for my gap year project. There were thirty eight seventeen and eighteen year olds going to Uganda, South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana or Vietnam, and we spent five days staying on a beautiful, remote scottish island. Right outside the centre we were living in was a loch, amazing mountains covered in suicidal sheep which leapt about on rocks hundreds of feet above the ground, and cows which were free to wander into the road in front of the minibus if they so chose, making journies slow but funny!

This is a view of the nearest beach to us – about five minutes walk over the fields. It’s called Hogh Bay, after its proximity to Ben Hogh, the highest moutain on the island. Beautiful, don’t you think?

The thing that made it the best, though, was the people. I met my country group, who are all going to Uganda with me. There’s sixteen of us and they’re all such lovely people. It’s nice knowing I’m going to be seeing them again, on the 15th September. Because that is when I’m going away. For a year. To Uganda.

I’m terrified. But yet just so excited. I’ve been learning all about my project. It’s a primary and secondary school, and I’ll be teaching subjects such as maths, english, french and computer science in both of them. It’s a boarding school too, so I’ll have to look after the pupils, and take prep, and everything like that. I get paid the equivelent of £28 a month for all this!

I am excited, and I can’t wait to go, but at the same time I keep having the image of leaving my mum at the airport, the reality of leaving her for an entire year, not to mention Rose too, and all my other friends. It’s a scary thought.

But I want to talk more about Coll. I’ve been there once before, for my selection course. There’s a population of 159, less during the school terms when all of the secondary school pupils go to the mainland to boarding school. There’s a primary school on the island, with 6 pupils.

Every week during the summer, the islanders play a football match against the Project Trust volunteers. They always win and we always lose. This week was no exception. The final score was 8-2, I think. It was just fantastic fun though, I had a brilliant time. I must admit, I wasn’t very helpful, just seemed to spend most of the time getting in the way, but I did block one shot on goal with… myself.. which was painful but I felt like I was being useful!

It was my birthday while I was there too, and everyone sang me happy birthday. It was the most embarassing thing ever! In the evenings we sat in the little bar in the centre, and played cards or twister or just chatted. On the last night, there was a really smart sit down dinner, and everyone got dressed up. Then there was a ceilidh, and dancing afterwards in the big hall. Everyone got very drunk and had a great time. Me definately not excepted. The worst thing was the three hour ferry journey back to Oban the next morning. With a hangover…

The main point of the course though was to learn how to teach. We had to teach ten minute and twenty minute lessons, and let me tell you, they’re not as easy as they sound. I thought teachers had it easy, that they just turned up and taught their lessons. But so much planning goes into it.

Diane and Adrian have gone to Sardinia, which means that I’m home alone for a week. It should be ok, because I’m at work every day, and then Rose is here until Wednesday, and Claire comes back from France on Friday. So I’ll be fine. I have to learn to take care of myself anyway.

I’m having a big leaving party on the 6th September. If I know you, then please come. I can’t bear the thought of not seeing all my friends before I go. I’m going to send out a big email too, with all the details on it.

It’s scarily close to the end.

love

Ems

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