Ten years ago, I spent two weeks teaching Creative Writing in a girl’s school in Ibba, in Western Equatoria state in South Sudan. We used drama and song (‘Waterloo Sunset,’ ‘Up on the Roof,’ ‘Under the Bridge’), text-less books and story cubes to create poems and narratives.
It was certainly interesting to pit my English as a Foreign Language experience against the realities of chalk-and-board teaching with 40 in a class.
Read more about Ibba Girls School
My outdoor drama lesson
(in which the girls acted out a story about a pastor and a lioness)
The girls singing in preparation for the pastor’s arrival
Click/tap to read a pdf of my pamphlet
Children outside the Catholic church on Sunday
and Simon my armed guard in Maridi
A little girl outside Ibba church
One of the cooks showing me how to make chapattis (with a whisky bottle)
All my letters from the last day
Assembling for a group photo
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