By Wendy Baker, English Teacher Mentor at ICFP Teacher Training College
For the past year, Wendy Baker has been mentoring English language teachers at the Catholic teacher training institute in Baucau, run by the Marist community. As her trainees begin their three month prac placements, Wendy has taken on something new. Drawing on her accounting background, she is now mentoring the institute’s finance team.
It was never part of her original brief. It grew out of time spent together, and a host and a volunteer coming to understand each other’s strengths and needs. That is the heart of long-term volunteering. Palms volunteers are not consultants. They become part of the community and contribute their skills as they learn more about the people around them.
Wendy wrote to us about her year:
“The character of our students and the people working beside us is a real blessing. Our students come from many different regions of Timor-Leste, and we all learn together and from each other.
I love going to Mass with the community. I walk down our road and chat with people as I pass, and everyone greets me with ‘Bondia!’ The warmth is real. The Cathedral is always packed. There are no hymn books, but everyone knows the hymns, and the moment the organist plays the first couple of notes the whole parish recognises the tune from a lifetime of singing. They go to it with angelic voices and boundless enthusiasm.
Robert, the local rooster, wakes us all at about 4am. I keep hoping he will sleep in. Fresh fruit and vegetables are everywhere, usually sold by ladies at the roadside or in the market, and the livestock roams free, which makes for some colourful moments on the road.
When I worried about the rubbish, one local put it beautifully: ‘Mana, we have only been a new country for 25 years, and we cannot do it all at once.’ They face many hurdles and they meet them with extraordinary grace. In short, I love this country and its people very much.”
If you, or someone you know, has the flexibility and humility to share your skills this way, you may be surprised just how transferable they turn out to be. Many of our current placement opportunities are on the website. Others might be discussed after application. It starts with an Expression of Interest…. what have you got to lose ?