Week 3

Saturday 27th January (Day 15)

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Got up quite late (8:15) and then went for breakfast.

At 10am the taxi came for Emma and Esther - I am going to miss Emma as she was really nice and seemed to really get into her work here.

We spent the rest of the day at the beach, reading, boogy boarding and playing rounders with some kids.  It was the perfect way to wind down after the week I had.

EEEEKKKK - Just going to bed and there is a spider the size of my hand in the hallway - and boy can it move.  I am reading a book with a massive spider in it at the moment - so that will help me go to sleep...

Sunday 28th January 2007 (Day 16)

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Late breakfast again and then took a taxi to Elmina for the internet, but it was closed so I carried on by Tro Tro to Cape Coast.  We passed through 2 police checkpoints on the taxi journey to Elmina.  The level of corruption is ridiculous - at both stops the driver handed over his licence with a 5,000 cedi note slipped into the back and then the licence was handed back and we carried on.  What is worse is that even though it is so obvious and prevalent the Police think they are hiding it, especially from tourists, as they shout out about some random misdemeanour and walk away a few yards to check something (like reversing lights) - but I saw one officer through a mirror and the note was expertly palmed out of the book and into his pocket.  On a different note this taxi driver has also removed his air filter like the other two I have seen - he said it was due to the climate (overheating?) but I still can't really understand the issue.

Walked around Cape Coast for a while - I bought a shirt (managed to haggle 6p off its £3 price tag), then a towel - with a similar discount and then gave up and paid full price (30p) for a multi-plug so that I could charge the laptop and have the fan on at the same time - this feels like a bit of a cheek given that some people don't have any electricity, but it is too hot to worry about it and I like having photos, music and my diary available all the time.

Had a good chat with Janice and uploaded my diary from week 2.  Also looked around the internet for some tips on keeping discipline in the classroom - found an excellent page but the printer was broken so had to write it out long hand and then gave up research because both the computer and the internet connection were so slow  - it is easy to forget how much of what we take for granted in the UK is actually difficult/rare or impossible in Ghana.

By the way - I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to send an email or leave a comment on my blog - it gives me a nice little lift.

Got back and went to the beach then got changed and went to dinner - all in all another nice relaxing day.

Monday 29th January 2007 (Day 17)

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Decided to go with teaching the letter 'i' today (pronounced ower case) to see how the children coped.  I let Aggie take the lesson, and she started with "i as in eye eff - if".  Despite her having read the teaching materials and me having sat down and explained how I understand phonics to work she just does not get it.  To be fair to the kids, they all more or less wrote the letter correctly - but when reading from the board they could not differentiate between 't' and 'i' (although a few mixed it up with 's' as well).  At break I tried to explain to Aggie where she went wrong and why and she replied "Me am understood".  Hmmm.

After the resoundingly disheartening response from Aggie I went to get some water. There was what I hope was a bit of confusion with Paddy in which I believe he asked me to get him a bottle of water and he laughed and walked off when I asked for the money - I just hope it was a misunderstanding.

In the second period I took 2 of the girls to remedial class and started with the letter 'a'.  Neither could write it correctly on the board. I gave them sheets to trace over example letters and eventually they were forming the letter correctly.  When I swapped to pencil and paper they went straight back into backwards mode.  Back on the tracing they were fine.  But every time they used pencil and paper the letters were backwards.  Eventually I got one girl to swap to her left hand as an experiment.  Although it was shakey, she wrote the letter the correct way round.  I tried her with the letter 's' and she got it right first time - checked with her right hand and she wrote it backwards.  Unfortunately the other girl did not have the same improvement and I can't believe 17 of my class are left handed - but I will see if it helps anyone else.  I will ask Janine back home to see if I am barking up the right tree or not.

At second break we invited the teachers to join us for lunch tomorrow (Dorkus had suggested it and we all felt a bit ashamed for not having thought of it ourselves).  When we asked Aggie and Maggie there was deathly silence.  We asked if there was a problem with the day - if so we could change it, but no response.  Eventually they agreed to come.  Afterwards Dorkus came to us and explained that Aggie and Maggie were dicussing that they would rather have the money than come for a meal.  I was, and still am, incredibly offended by that.  Later in the day we worked out that each meal may cost almost a days wages (£3 ish).  I realise that they may be living on the breadline and can understand that is a lot of money to them, but the sentiment was one of thanking them for putting up with us and to try and build some kind of relationship - for them to ignore those factors and think only of the money is very disheartening.  We likened it to being invited to a dinner party and declining, whilst requesting the money instead.  Having said that, they never voiced it openly to us.

Played some games for last period.  We had 3 teams and I tried to play over and under with a baton going along the line.  It failed at the first hurdle because Aggie was unable to organise children into lines.  Eventually we managed between us and they had fun.  Then Aggie said we should split them in half and play relay races.  She singulalry failed to split any of the lines into 2 and I eventually lost my cool with her.  She does not seem to realise that the children cannot understand English so my trying to move them about is pointless and her just pointing at children and waving her arms is even less use.  I told her (in a raised voice) to explain to them in a way they would understand what game we were playing and how to play it.  The game degenerated as Aggie paid less attention and finally walked off.  She then seemed shocked when I called a halt and sent the kids back to the classroom.

I spent the last 10 minutes getting the children to come to the board and draw different parts of a face and body.  I had to ask Aggie to help explain to the children what I was asking them to do - and she reluctantly did that for the first 2, then I had to prompt her every time to explain to each child as they came up.  To be fair to the kids they were great at drawing body parts correctly - I was very surprised and pleased.

Mat and I played rugby with about 20 kids in the afternoon - it was great fun and they were able to play a very simplified version of touch rugby - some of them were really good.  This was the sort of experience I was looking forward to when I decided to do voluntary work and I (and Mat and the kids) thoroughly enjoyed it.

The day got even better when I was talking to a couple from Shetland who were staying at the resort and they told me they had a box full of goodies (pencils, erasers, sharpeners, books etc...) for the children.  They gave me a contact name in Shetland, but I was remiss and never got their names - whoever you are, please know how much it is appreciated.  I will pass on the details to Aubrey so he can send a thank you and some explanation of the work that is being done here.

Tonight we were due a power cut but it appears to have been cancelled.  Found out another explanation for the regular cuts - the Volta dam is low and cannot generate enough power.

Tuesday 30th January 2007 (Day 18)

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Was woken up by Kwofie at 6:45 as he called to me through my window - he needed help with his homework.  In the end it took the 3 of us volunteers to do it, but only because in the end we decided to change the format from the question response that was set by the teacher:

Q. Write 2 jobs a librarian does:

A1. They are........

A2. They are........

We made him cross out "They are" and use English instead.  The only answer that almost fitted originally was "They are lexicographers" - but I thought this was a bit much for a 9 year old who can only just write his name.  I did make him talk through the jobs of a librarian (which he clearly knew but struggled to articulate) before helping with the answer - so it was not completely cheating.

Gave Aggie a comprehensive plan for the lesson - letter 'p' and the words that can be made with all the letters they have that contain 'p'.  I had to explain the words "pit", "pat", "sip", "sap", "tip" and "tap" to her (i.e. all of them).  I then took 2 boys to remedial class.  Aggie sent me the wrong Ebeneezar (Ebeneezar the Toothy Geezer instead of Ebeneezar the Git).  Issac could not write the letter 'a' correctly.  Tried left handed but he nearly cried - and still wrote backwards.   After 1 hour he had it right (I had some help from Venadatu who looks after the lower nursery classes - I would love to see her try taking my class, I think she would be good).  Ebeneezar the Toothy Geezer is my star - he could write all the letters so I gave him letter and sound combinations and at the end of the hour he spelt "sit" after I had said it.  I cannot describe how happy I was with both of them for the levels of their relative achievments.

At break Morri was describing how she was reduced to tears in frustration at Maggie, who had hit 2 children because they did not know their 2 times table (or something like that).  Mat then told Maggie off as she is not supposed to be hitting the children and it does not help them learn (and I guess making Morri cry did not help).  Maggie cried.  Aggie helped comfort Maggie by telling her to stop crying and get on with teaching.  Glad I was taking remedial class.

Next Mat saw Dorkus hit a child because they had written "ap" instead of "pa" so he then told off Dorkus - she apologised profusely but so over the top it felt almost insincere.  Aggie had managed to make one of the girls cry by telling her off because she had written the letter "p" too small - even though it was the right was round and looked alright - I was cross because this was the girl from yesterday who could not write "a".  All round the teachers are not having a good day.

Second lesson Aggie failed to help them learn left and right (getting it wrong herself for a while) and failing to understand how to play "pin the tail on the donkey/elephant".  After that Aggie was too tired to carry on teaching and made the kids sleep.

In the afternoon she gave them all different parts of the same jigsaws - no pieces matched and she gave them no help in fitting bits together.  I went round trying to help them understand how to "read" jigsaw pieces and then I had a group on the floor joining all their different sections of the same jigsaw and was close to a whole jigsaw (a cartoon beach scene), and the kids were identifying images on the jigsaw when Aggie decided to end the lesson 5 minutes early - so frustrating.

Paddy had a text from Aubrey in the UK asking him to stop taking money from us.  He called Mat over (not all 3 of us) and they had quite heated words.  Paddy blamed Esther, and Mat spent a long time trying to make him understand that Esther is just about the best thing to happen to the school.

Paddy came round and looked in on each class.  He chose a good moment to be near my class as I was once again punched.  3 troublemaking boys were carted off to his office - I made Paddy guarantee me that no one would get caned.  When they returned they still looked really cheaky so I am not sure what was said to them.

We took the teachers to lunch Lunch and it was probably a good way to end today after all the conflicts - even if it was not scintillating conversation - it finished when Aggie asked me "Are you leaving now" and I told her no, but that they could go whenever they wanted - they all ran off (after Dorkus sang us an excrutiating thank you song).  They had all eaten chicken and rice and we discovered that this was considerd a special occassion dish in the past and is what a lot of Ghanaiands will eat if taken out.

Kwofie got 2 out of 2 for his homework - we are all proud of ourselves.

In the evening we had a good chat with Esther - we have explained our frustrations and have got some plans going forward.   She is also frustrated, in her case by Paddy telling everyone that she is only responsible for getting volunteers from the airport to Brenu, after that they are his responsibility - I don't feel I could rely on Paddy to help and be as readily available as Esther - and I feel she is far more focussed on our needs than Paddy and she also seems to have a better understanding of the workings of the charity/volunteer program.

In terms of our plans going forward; I am going to talk to Aubrey (of Sabre Trust) when I get back to see if there is an opportunity to help organise eye tests in the school; we are all going to come up with some guidlines for discipline and take them to Paddy; we are hoping to carry out teacher training next week as long as Paddy agrees; and Mat and Esther's plans for the 50th Anniversary celebrations are coming together - its a shame I will miss the events.

Wednesday 31st January 2007 (Day 19)

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The teachers called us together and gave us a genuine thank you for lunch, which was nice.

I showed Aggie a useful way of teaching letter forming: start with a "c" (a, c, d, g, o, q, s) or a straight line (b, h, i, j, k, l, p, t) - this fits all but 6 or 7 of the letters - and hopefully helps children form these letters the right way round sooner.

Aggie then sent most of the kids home to collect their school fees so I took 2 that were left over to remedial class.  Did not go so good today - one was already left handed and wrote 'a' backwards (right handed was the same) and the other (Prince) is bouncing off too many walls to understand what is expected - although he did briefly get it for 5 minutes and then reverted back again for some reason.

Second lesson I did a contest between the 3 rows of desks - asking a kid from each line in turn to come up and identify a letter from a row of 6 that they have learned already.  I would guess about 30% definitely knew and 25-35% either knew (ish) or had a good guess.  I don't have the experience to know if this is acceptable or not, but I would have hoped for higher.  After break we did some singing and playing and then last period we wrote the letter 'a' again - nearly everyone did it acceptably (including Cecilia who had got it wrong during remedial class).  I got Aggie to explain a game we would play as an incentive to finishing their task - it is called "Desert Island Rescue" and is basically British Bulldog but with a shark trying to get people and 3 rescue ships that the kids have to run to.  It took Aggie ages to read the rules from a simple book (took me about 20 seconds). Then she took so long collecting the books after the writing excersize that there was not time for the game - this is bad as the kids see an empty promise and are even less likely to work hard next time.  I will try and make sure we play the game first thing tomorrow morning.

All in all though it was a really nice day with no real problems for any of us.

After lunch we went to the University of Cape Coast to play pool with Kwesi.  We had 5 games of doubles which were all close and then I was challenged by a hustler at the Uni to play the best of 3.  Unfortunately I let down 'Obrunis' everywhere by losing 2:1 - missing a long double in the last game.  It was great fun and made a nice change.  Esther came to meet us and I was able to send off her improved business plan for her - fingers crossed.  I had several emails from friends and family back home - its really nice to have a little bit of contact with the real world (sorry I did not reply to anyone but I only had a couple of seconds checking my mail).

Just before dinner I showed some of the kids photos and videos from back home - they seem to really love that kind of thing here.  They also enjoyed seeing pictures of themselves which I had downloaded onto the laptop.

After dinner we had some rain which was nice (the frogs in particular enjoyed it).

Thursday 1st Feb 2007 (Day 20)

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Very bad nights sleep - not sure why.

Got Aggie to take register (she always grumbles and will not do it unless I prompt her).  Mat is on his own today so he may have difficulties, but Maggie is suposed to be helping.

Managed to get Aggie to agree to play the game first thing.  Getting her to understand (again) and then explain to the children was harder than pulling teeth - however, the game went really well and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Paddy came round and told me to go to a meeting at 12:30 and that the girl from our day in Elmina had come to visit us.  She turned up in my classroom during our game and just sat quietly in a corner.  Aggie asked if I had met Paddys niece(?) before - and I said we had met.  After break she went and sat in Mats class for the rest of the day - hardly saying a word but sending out half the class as punishment when Mat was not looking at one point.

There is a boy in my class - Ben - who is really intelligent and a really nice lad.  His mum works at the beach resort so we see him quite often.  Unfortunately he hates the teachers so skives a lot (although he was genuinely off with Malaria last week) and during lessons he is very disruptive - I think that is because he finds everything too easy.  I am going to see if we can move him up to Mats (or even Morri's class).  It will be a shame if he never acheives his full potential because he seems to me like he could achieve anything.  At the moment I am being very tolerant/lenient to make sure he does not start to hate class again - but that is not fair on other children.

I got the kids to draw features on a face again and they did really well - even with a moustache and earings and spectacles.  A few kids were too short so I picked them up and they loved it.  The last couple of days I seem to have found my rhythm with the children - getting a balance of caring (hugs for the crying), admonishment (like a gentle tap on the head that makes them laugh but they know to stop, or the right tone of voice), and general playing with the kids but in a way that seems to be getting me some respect rather than abused/beaten up.  I am really enjoying it at the moment.

I got the class to write the letter 't' and did an excersize on differentiating 's' and 't' as they still struggle to hear the difference.  I worked out (and then Morri confirmed) that I was saying 'seh' rather than 'ssss' and 'seh' and 'teh' sound too similar - I will make sure I say 'ssss' from now on.

Towards the end of the excersize the class started degenerating and I looked to Aggie to see what she was going to do about it - she was asleep.  I walked up the class and clapped loudly several times (definitely at the children and not Aggie...) and then turned and walked back - she was suddenly awake and started shouting at the children.  I think this is another problem in these classes - the teachers do not have the energy needed to keep up with the kids, which is where we volunteers add real value. I would not be surprised if the children are forced to have regular quiet periods/sleep periods when we are not about.

At 12:30 we went to our teachers meeting - it was decided to close the kindergarten/nursery classes early.  This meant my class had missed a total of nearly 3 days in the last 3 weeks.

The meeting was to announce 3 bereavements, including Paddys brother, and to discuss the outcome of an education board visit - things like teacher time keeping records not being kept/being forged, lesson plans not up to date and to announce key dates for events (sports and 50th anniversary).  Paddy also discussed the fact that there was currently only 300,000 cedis in the schools fund to cover sporting and other events (we think that is what he was saying - it was not completely clear) - this is about £20!  It is hard to comprehend how a school can function on so little money.  This puts our lunch for us, 5 teachers and 4 children into perspective - it cost 500,000 cedis! (£30).

Spent about 1hr after lunch teaching the waitress Accua (I hope that is how it is spelt) to read and write the leters 's', 'a' and 't'.  She is still a little shakey on writing 's' but otherwise did realy well.  I gave her some homework and her colleagues are all being really encouraging - hopefully she will progress quickly.

Spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach, while Mat and Mori went to Cape Coast.  Spoke to mum which was nice - I thought I would let her know that this week is going better than last - as she would have just read my blog for week 2 and currently things are much rosier.

Before dinner Isaac called round - he was carrying a load of school pupil progress record books which he had been given to fill in as teachers had not done it - so he was (badly) forging the pupils progress over the last 6 years.  I guess the only good thing is that given what we have seen so far it is unlikely anyone will ever read the books to see that they have been forged.

Talked to Kwesi about the cost of living out here - there is a secure, high quality housing area not far away, where the houses cost about £175,00 - but they are considered mansions.  Here in the village the prices are nearer £4,000 for a property like the one we are staying in (3 beds, living room, kitchen, toilet, shower, electricity). It is really hard to think in those price terms for a house.  You can see why so many people from African countries try to get to England.  With only a couple of years hard work and hard saving they could collect enough money to buy themselves a house and be fairly financially secure if they returned to Ghana.

Friday 2nd Feb 2007 (Day 21)

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Took my class for games in the first period.  We played Desert Island Rescue again - they really enjoy it, even if some cheat unmercifuly (either to become sharks or keep pretending they were not touched).  After ages playing I was absolutely drenched - it was so hot.  I asked Aggie what the time was - 9:15 - uh oh.  We played a few more games and then the running in a circle game (after a water break).  Then I had to stop (to try and dry off a bit) and Aggie played "Jack where are you" with them.  She seamed to be really enjoying herself.

Next period I helped Mat by refereeing one of the football matches his class played - the match was really quite good, although most of the girls ran off and danced instead.  OK, now I was really hot.  Fortunately Morri had some sun cream with her otherwise I would have frazzled.  At second break I had to go home and have a quick shower and get changed - I decided to take the last period wearing a loose shirt and my swimming shorts - that meant I could go in the sea sooner after school - is that considered poor form or good forward planning?  Whichever, it was a necessity.

After an hour or two on the beach I had to go home as I could feel my arms getting very hot (they looked more brown than red though).  Slapped on loads of after sun so hopefully I have averted disaster.

Opened one of my drawers and a lizzard jumped out - I have no idea how he got in there or how long he's been there.  He's really small and cute.

I have given my mosquito net to Esther to present to Mancata (I am using a spare one in the house) - she will explain to his father where it is from and why - that way Mancata will not get in trouble.  I was not sure who I should give it to, so in the end I just said the first name I thought of - otherwise I would have spent to whole of my last week failing to devise a fair way to choose who to give it to.

Esther has agreed to come with us to Domana rock shrine tomorrow, which is nice - we all get on well with Esther and have not had much chance to sit and talk.

Went for dinner - I had chosen buttered sole for a change and asked for sauted potatoes instead of chips (I convinced myself they were healthier).  When my deep fried fish arrived it took me a while to realise what had gone wrong.  If I had been expecting battered fish I would have gone the whole hog and had chips. Maybe next week I start the kids learning the difference between 'a' and 'u'.

We had eaten early as there was a half chance of a power cut, but by 7:30 we decided we were safe (they usually start at 6:30).  8:00 all the lights went out - bum!  It was going to be a really hot night.  It was nice though as there was pretty much a full moon - we did not even need torches to get home.

Towards the end of her stay Emma was starting to look forward to a few things back home, for me it is a cold bed with a warm Janice to snuggle up to and a warm duvet to snuggle under.