Hello once agian from the beautiful and arctic Vodaphone interwebz cafe in Tamale. I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to write; whenever I went into town to get it done, the link was down. Sorry! But things are good here.
1. I’ve started teaching! We had our staff meeting and I’ve had two full weeks of teaching so far. Thanks to the generosity of our current Dutch Volunteer, I’ve recently had an influx of cashmonies that I’ve used to buy some supplies. Because of this, I’ve got some really great projects going on.
P4 – Texture! We’re continuing this from last term. Basically I’m trying to teach them the difference between real texture (“feel true!”) and visual texture (“feel deceive deceive deceive!”). I found some aluminum foil here in Tamale – next Tuesday we are going to make raised pictures!
P5 – Books! We’re making ‘all about me’ books. We are doing different pages like “My name is _____.” “I am in P5.” “My favourite subject is ______.” etc., and then at the end of the term we are going to bind them with thread. This project also incorporates lots of spelling practice, like going over with them how to spell the different things in their drawings.
P6 – Sewing! I bought white fabric and all term is going to be devoted to different simple sewing exercises. We’ve done basic running stitch and will do things like how to sew on a button, how to make a pocket, how to sew a hem etc. At the end of the term, they’ll have this practice swatch to take home!
JSS 1 and JSS3 – CLAY. This is what I’m most excited about. Fataiya and I were on a walk one day and she pointed out to me where some natural clay was. The next day we went with some students and hoed it out of the streambed, headcarried it back to school and I worked it up a little. It came out marvelously – amazingly pure and clean. In addition to the luckiness of finding good quality clay, I found the perfect room in which to have clay classes. About a month ago, the school got some standing height wooden tables for sewing and woodworking classes to be taught on. So far, they’re sitting in a room unused, so I went in there, covered four of them with canvas and plastic sheeting that originally covered a mattress (both found in my art closet, also amazingly luckily), and now we have a clay studio. With the tables, the windows on both sides of the classroom and it’s somehow removed location, the room is perfect. I really love it and have actually started using it as an “office.” So far in class we have talked about wedging (kneading the clay to mix it and get all the air bubbles out) and slipping and scoring to join two pieces of clay together. The kids are picking it up really well and I’m really happy to give them something really fun and different to do. Even just getting them out of their normal classrooms is a good change. See my Flickr account for pictures of JSS3 in the studio!
JSS2 – Here is the class that I have issues with. The issues are these: the class is really large (about 35 kids) and about half of them are rowdy and the other half just sit there with these completely vapid stares on their faces. I have a very simple goal for their class this term: LEARN HOW TO MEASURE A LINE. I tried to teach them how to do this, using centimeters and millimeters, and it totally didn’t work. The worksheets I got back depressed me so much I stopped looking at them. But I still have hope. I’m going to try to teach a small group of the especially bright students how to do it and then see if they can get the idea across to their peers. We’ll see how it goes.
Spelling Bee – I handed out the word lists for this term’s spelling bee two weeks ago and just two days ago went over all the signs with the kids. This time around, I gave them a lot more words – probably 200 or so. We’re going to have it on July 7. It’ll be awesome. Aren’t spelling bees always awesome? The answer is YES.
So, yeah, school has been going really great. I feel like the kids are really liking the stuff we’re doing and that is really motivational to me. It’s also started raining, and although this means I have to wake up in the middle of the night to prepare my house to be deluged with water and also that the bugs are back, it’s cooler. Everyone has started farming and it’s really beautiful. Now when I look at the Tongo hills, I see them sharply rather than through a haze of dust. Other great things that have happened lately are….my cats are still alive and happy and adorable (as opposed to another PCV near Tamale’s cat, who just recently got eaten by someone…), I’ve had some really great conversations in Sign, and I got over being really super sick a week ago. I thought I had dysentery, but I didn’t. Thankfully. Oh! I also got some new shoes the other day and got a really awesome, extremely utilitarian skirt out of the Free Box in Tamale. Also, I’ve recently consumed some delicious Fanice/banana/groundnut smoothies courtesy of Jake and his blender (future Jake plants include painting his house and making falafel gyros…) and he gave me some delicious flavoured tuna packets. It’s these small small things that make me happy. I’ve also started writing poetry again and am almost done with a really good book – The Forsyte Saga. And I have some great books lined up to read. Yes, all is good in Ghana. And I’ve been here for over a year now! As of June 4th. Totally doesn’t feel like it. I’m really glad I’m here.
