Hey everyone. I hope you are well and happy! We've started back at NAPSCO, and still settling in to the new term. The headmaster has not promoted any of the year levels yet so I haven't been able to start with the new course work. Instead, we've been doing revision, which is hard for me to do since I don't know what to revise... but i'm really happy to be back at the preparatory school.
This weekend, I went, with 11 other volunteers to the Volta region (lake Volta). We stayed at a riverside hotel the first night which was good. It was not a nice river though so there was no swimming. The next day, we went to a monkey sanctuary. This was definitely the highlight for me. The mona monkeys are so attentive and interesting. One even sat on my arm in order the eat a banana I give him! Hahaha, and another volunteer Rob thought it was funny when I went into teacher mode' and told off one monkey for trying to take the banana intended for the other monkey.
The next day we stopped at a beautiful riverside restaurant where we swam and I had a fairly nice cheese sandwich (bluebell cheese, that is...).
Right now, in the internet cafe, its raining and thundering quite heavily so I have plenty of time to spend!
That's all for today - stay well.
Love.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Belated Blog
Wow, it really has been a long time since i've written a blog. I hope I won't miss anything. Right now i'm the only volunteer at my host-family's home. It's nice so far, different to being in group because the family have really accepted me as part of it. For example I eat with my (right) hand,
eat at the same time and place as the family, and watch the TV show tro-tro (or 'sweaar gaww' as Abby says) on tuesday 8.30pm.
The summer school went for 4 weeks and was really successful. I taught stage 2 with a fellow
teacher from a near-by school, Michael. It was so amazing with the kids. Without him I would have had no authority with them. He naturally took over the Maths and Science lessons and I did Creative Art and English (which often Michael would need to help me with since they are too young to understand my accent sometimes). I learnt some really nice local games (which I won't attemp to spell) involving hiding sticks, running around in circles, shaking your hips, and clapping, singing and dancing.
We visited the Projects Abroad farm, which (for me) was rather disappointingly small and
not progressive, but for the children they were amazed at the caged rabbits in a shed and
watching the farm manager hack corn off for them! The next day we planted our own onion seeds. Some of the kids drowned theirs, before they ever had a chance but by the end of the
program, I was so delighted to see that about 6 of the student's plants had sprouted!
The last the of summer school was so beautiful. We had an essembly and volunteers from other
projects came to watch. We danced (much less cooler than the students danced), had presentations of the students who performed and behaved the best, and then had a lunch afterwards with the music still going.
This week, I've been doing the building project before school starts back (next week).
Even after 2 days I'm arching so much! I think i'm getting pretty good at the chalking though!
That's where you fill in the gaps in the bricks with morter. Carrying bricks, however, I leave up to the guys. The volunteers have decreased drastically since school starts back in Europe & America. The people here now are mostly here for a long period.
I'm sure there is a ton of things that i've forgot to tell you about but, they can be saved
for when I sporadically bring them up in conversation when I return. but what I should
inform you of, is that i've extended my stay in Ghana but 2 months. I now leave Ghana on the 24th of November and go to the UK for 3 weeks, leaving there on the 15th of December.
take care,
love
eat at the same time and place as the family, and watch the TV show tro-tro (or 'sweaar gaww' as Abby says) on tuesday 8.30pm.
The summer school went for 4 weeks and was really successful. I taught stage 2 with a fellow
teacher from a near-by school, Michael. It was so amazing with the kids. Without him I would have had no authority with them. He naturally took over the Maths and Science lessons and I did Creative Art and English (which often Michael would need to help me with since they are too young to understand my accent sometimes). I learnt some really nice local games (which I won't attemp to spell) involving hiding sticks, running around in circles, shaking your hips, and clapping, singing and dancing.
We visited the Projects Abroad farm, which (for me) was rather disappointingly small and
not progressive, but for the children they were amazed at the caged rabbits in a shed and
watching the farm manager hack corn off for them! The next day we planted our own onion seeds. Some of the kids drowned theirs, before they ever had a chance but by the end of the
program, I was so delighted to see that about 6 of the student's plants had sprouted!
The last the of summer school was so beautiful. We had an essembly and volunteers from other
projects came to watch. We danced (much less cooler than the students danced), had presentations of the students who performed and behaved the best, and then had a lunch afterwards with the music still going.
This week, I've been doing the building project before school starts back (next week).
Even after 2 days I'm arching so much! I think i'm getting pretty good at the chalking though!
That's where you fill in the gaps in the bricks with morter. Carrying bricks, however, I leave up to the guys. The volunteers have decreased drastically since school starts back in Europe & America. The people here now are mostly here for a long period.
I'm sure there is a ton of things that i've forgot to tell you about but, they can be saved
for when I sporadically bring them up in conversation when I return. but what I should
inform you of, is that i've extended my stay in Ghana but 2 months. I now leave Ghana on the 24th of November and go to the UK for 3 weeks, leaving there on the 15th of December.
take care,
love
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