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thought of Eritrea I saw in my mind a small country with many poor
people. But the more I thought of going there and to learn more about
the country, the more I started to look forward to it. Then when I read
about Eritrea my thoughts changed. Now it seems to be different from
what I thought in the beginning.
With my family I have traveled many times in different countries in
Europe. I think this started my interest in seeing other parts of the
world. This is one of the reasons why I became interested in this trip.
Another reason is that I like to meet new people. It is said that
people in Eritrea are very friendly and very nice.
My favourite interest in my sparetime is music, both listening and
playing. I have played different instruments all my life. Nowadays I
mostly play the guitar. I also spend a lot of time with my friends on my
sparetime. We are 6 people in my family. I have got two sisters, one brother and my parents.
I am looking forward to this trip very much. I think it
will be very exciting.
For me this adventure started with an exhibition about refugees called "On the run".
The exhibition was made by some churches in Alingsas. It was live, the pupils could experience very realistic from the very secure familiar home situation in the kitchen trough bombs and smoke to a refugee-camp. They had built up a camp exactly as it was in Congo or Rwanda. Here we where guided by a woman who actually had been there working as a nurse and she could really make us understand how it was. It was a very realistic exhibition and it made deep impressions on me and my pupils.
Afterwards I was told that the organization behind "On the run " wanted this engagement to be extended and spread out to more youth and grownups. So they had decided to make a Journey to Eritrea. Teachers in all schools in Alingsas could apply. From the beginning it was thought that only one teacher and two pupils should go but in my apply I wrote that it could be a to big responsibility to travel alone with the pupils.
To my great suprise I got it !
They had also considered my thoughts and invited another teacher, Kerstin and two pupils from her school. The problem was that they didn´t have the money for this so we had to spend some months in spring trying to raise money.
Finally it was all set- we where going !
About myself,
I'm working as a teacher at Nolhagaskolan teaching history, geography, religion and social science, 7 to 9th class.
I also work with what we call "pupils choice" and teach radio & video , music and drama. Those are my big interests in my sparetime (if I have any).
I used to play in a band (bass), jazz, salsa, blues and rock, but at the moment there is no time for that. I also like folkmusic and I am now practicing some Swedish folkmusic that we will perform in Eritrea. I will play flute and an old Swedish folkmusicflute called Spilapipa.
Last year I've got money from the community to run a computerproject. It´s about how you can use Internet in schools. From this work I got the idea to use a computer to be able to comunicate during our journey.
My family is a little bit worried. They say I'm already gone away, totally absorbed by the thoughts and the planning of the journey, sitting by the computer all nights.
I have two teenage boys Johannes (15) and Sebastian (12), and a six year old girl, Amanda.
They all speak both Swedish and German as my wife Barbara comes from Germany.
Information Contact: Patti Weeg, Title 1 Computer Teacher, Delmar El. School, Delmar, Maryland, USA. Home Page: http://www.globalclassroom.org
