Maureen Bennie has travelled around the world, running workshops and trainings, and volunteering. This section includes all blog posts, links and articles pertaining to Autism Awareness Centre’s international projects.
June 2019 marks Autism Awareness Centre’s 16th anniversary. When I co-founded this company in 2003, my children were 4 and 6 years old. I was only four years in to the autism journey. Today my children are 20 and 22, young adults. So much has changed in the autism field these past 16 years. Some of our biggest advancements have…
We left for Bagomoyo this morning on the express bus and arrived at the Livingston Hotel where we are treating ourselves to a night and day at this lovely beach resort. William used to work here and recommended it to us. It is lovely and has high speed internet. I might even be able to send you some photos tomorrow!
What happened was, we went to the bus station at 8:30 on Wed. morning to catch our 9:00 bus. After much discussion between our cab driver and the ticket office staff, they tracked down a young man who explained to us that the 9:00 bus left at 8:00. We had missed it.
Saturday morning we packed up, bid Ibra good bye and the driver took us to the “Luxury” bus to Lushoto we thought we had tickets on. As in Alice’s Wonderland, nothing is as you think it will be. Fortunately it was a rather cool day and the sky was overcast because we were packed in like sardines for the 7 hour trip that was suppose to take 5.
Did I ever mention that the Dadas (teacher assistants) don’t speak English? Two of the new teachers don’t speak much either and do not let us know when they are not understanding what we are saying. They are wonderful people and very good with the children. The teachers help translate but we definitely have had some communication breakdowns.
Wow, this week has flown by. We have been practicing, practicing, practicing all week. Thankfully the children are responding to the strategies which we hope will fuel the teachers for the hard work ahead of them. We will make work tasks tomorrow afternoon then meet with the teachers. On Friday we do a wrap-up.
I forgot to tell you about the school. The program is housed in a residential neighborhood just down the road from our hotel. Mr. Chanadu meets us at our hotel as we are finishing our breakfast (peanut butter and jelly sandwich, coffee and a banana) and escorts us as we walk to school, dodging the puddles and passing school children, vendors selling fried donut-type balls and a woodworking shop.
Last night we went to the Slipway, a shopping district along the coast. Watched the Dhows sail along in the sunset, beautiful! We had barbeque for dinner and, unfortunately, the shrimp Kari had did not agree with her. She is out of commission for the day and for the night so I am on my own. There is an internet non cafe just a block down from our hotel so that is where I am.
We arrived safe and sound after a long and tiring flight. It is the end of the rainy season so there are major puddles on the dirt road in front of our hotel. On Sunday Kari and I walked to the Mwenga Village Museum (think Murphy’s landing), a living museum demonstrating tribal village life from different areas around the country. We saw wonderful dancing, artists and crafts. Very charming.