Here we are at St Michael's School which is a Roman Catholic co-ed boarding school, apparently from our perspective, in the middle of no-where and about 3 and a half hours drive from Madang. It is a beautiful setting with the mountains all around and beautiful trees and gardens everwhere, although very marshy under foot!

The school is very well laid out and classrooms large and airy but, by British standards, not much in them apart from desks, chairs and a blackboard. In a lot of the classes I counted 46 students. However, there were signs of student centred learning which is what we're here to promote.

The teachers are so friendly and I now discover that most are married couples! Cuts down on housing needs though. All are quite young. One couple, both PE wanted us to see some sport and told us that they wanted to learn from us which was nice.

Our stay of three days meant that we stayed in the Church Guest House which was a very interesting experience! I was the only woman and all the residents were "characters!" One fellow asked us where we came from and was surprised as Colchester is where his parents had lived!! Meals were interesting affairs! Loads of lovely fresh fruit though and enough food for an army. Our first dinner consisted of: rice, sweet potato, ordinary potato, casava [potato] and Taro [potato]!! Chicken drumsticks and fried banana. However, for those a bit squeamish, finish now!! At the end of the table were these big chunks of meat and bone which I "think" was pig leg minus the actual foot. The men went for it, I didn't! All the time we were eating, one resident was upstairs eating whilst watching "Home and Away"!!! The conversations were based on what you can get from eating different foods and the good properties of others. At least my favourite fruit, pawpaw [popo] is a natural contraceptive!!!

At night the generator is switched off at 9:30pm sharp and the room then became pitch black! It was spookie. And the rain, wow!

So we had three days of trainng sessions with the teachers which totalled a good 6 and a half hours. We didn't know what they wanted to focus on until we got there so pretty hard work but extremely enjoyable. We seem to make a good team, good job really, and at times I did feel like we were Laurel and Hardy!!!

We will return next term so in a couple of weeks time to enjoy our guest house again but this time I will take certain basic supplies with us, like clean sheets, softer pillows and our own towels!