Connections

I can't write today without sharing my pleasure at Obama's victory. It is so important that a black man be elected President of the USA on a left of centre programme. Having a Kenyan father seems poignant too, perhaps the US will have a healthier relationship with Africa from now on?

Something shifted in me over the weekend with my visit to the Sound of Music and the Cabinet War Rooms over the weekend (see my last blog for more). I remember a difficult discussion with my Dad about Northern Ireland in about 1970. He really had a go at me for supporting Civil Rights and the radical People's Democracy movement which promised so much at the time before Internment and the decline into further violence, the British troops so welcomed by the Catholics all too soon became part of the problem. I could not answer his arguments, indeed I felt destroyed by them but I knew I was on the side of the peacemakers. I still am. And I recognise that I might in some circumstances copy my dad and fight like he eventually did in 1940 but meanwhile how do we peace make?

When the post election violence erupted in Kenya I was scared for my friends out there - their safety but I was also scared for Kenya as a whole, a beautiful country and people facing some real difficulties and on the edge. I felt helpless. When I viisted Kenya next last September at the KAPC conference I heard about the work done in the Displaced People's Camps. I encouraged Gikundi, from KAPC, who was chairing a session and presenting a report on the counselling work done in the camps that he ask the audience to stand up if they had been to the camps to offer counselling, group work, de-briefing, or had supported the work through supervision and in other ways. Well out of an audience of 300+ about 4 out of 5 people stood up. I am weeping as I write this so moved at the memory of this love and care freely given, not always even with transport costs covered.

Yesterday on the course Clare and I teach we had a visiting speaker Ian Kaplan who does amazing work with photography. One thing he does is hand out cameras and get children in school to photo places they like and places they don't like and then talk to him about it. There was a picture taken by an African student from Zambia of his favourite teacher and his class. It was fairly typical in my experience - a bare class room with bright children in it.

I made a connection, I was the first in my direct family to go to Uni - my mum and dad left school at 13. My sister at 15. I broke the mold and crossed the line. All of my adult teaching at Universities since 1994 has been with mature students some of whom are breaking the mold too. I identify with them. This is why I work with the people in Kenya I want to lift them up as I was lifted up.

When I had the chance to do a second degree and then a third degree both with John McLeod I was hungry to learn. I biked or bussed into Leeds railway station at 6 in the morning and caught 2 trains and bus to reach Keele Uni. I read Carl Rogers and Gerald Egan on those early morning trains. I travelled to Keele for 5 years like this, weekly for 2 years and then fortnightly. I raided the Uni library in my lunch breaks - there was no electronic journals then. I had a passion for learning. I still do. When people are up for it I am with them.

I aint no saint and my teaching is often a bit rambling but my spirit is clear and when people can connect with me we can move ahead together.

Bill still on bike and it is a bit less cold and my heart is warm today