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Man Utd and Morton Triumph!

Saturday is leisure day at the Project. The children put on a coffee ceremony, dancing, reading poetry, playing games and then get something to eat. It was good fun, but the sun came out and after a bit I had to retreat into the shade as it was getting a bit too hot for my tender Scottish complexion and thinning grey hair. My pal Goitom was a star at Charades. He had to be a snake and there he was crawling along the ground sticking his tongue out like a snake. What a wee belter he is!

On Sunday I stopped off at the internet café to check the emails from home and got a wee bonus to read that Morton had won their first 1st Division League match 3-2 against Clyde.

In the afternoon about 4pm, Daniel, Gary and Gerulesus, three of the older street-boys came by our place as arranged to go to the Sports Café to watch the Man Utd v Chelsea match via satellite. There were about 400 of us in a crammed space with more and more stools being pushed in to fill up every available space on the floor. It was quite an experience and the boys were well chuffed their team won as they are all Man Utd daft. The boys think I am like Alex Ferguson, one of the Man Utd heroes, so my Scottish credentials obviously give me a few brownie points.

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In Monday’s class I covered past, present and future. Each student was asked to select one of the tenses and write a short sentence on the chalkboard. If there were any small errors there were usually shouts from the class about their view of why it was wrong. I still can’t used to it, but am learning fast, that these young children have been so steeped in helping each other out that the correction calls create no peer pressure whatsoever, in fact the opposite. I’m still self conscious about a child feeling humiliated, but no, it doesn’t seem to work that way over here.

I’m not sure if I can explain this adequately, but will have a bash anyway. Working with children all day long on this Project and hardly bringing up religious beliefs, church, Catholicism, Christianity or anything formally connected with structured religious life is about the most Christian service I have experienced. It’s as if the gratitude and love you get back from the children is provided in a human manner rather than because of some formal religious connection.

Tommy Dobbin
6th August 2007