February Updates

February:

Lots to say! We are having so much fun in the classroom! We are really keeping busy trying to keep up with all the kids. We had sports day at the school, in which the teachers set up a track around the soccer “field” (its all dirt) and we had house races to see who is the fastest. We never finished the final competition; we got rained out, so Augusta (my house) is still in the running!

Sister Lucy, a great friend from India who was on internship here, left in February, and we were so sad. She was always smiling and joking about everything. Her laugh will be greatly missed!

We had midterm break and the three obrunis took a tro tro to Cape Coast to visit Elmina, one of the castles they kept slaves in during the Trans-atlantic slave trade. It held 1000 slaves at a time, 400 female and 600 male. It was so depressing to see the living conditions of the slaves, and hear of everything they had to go through. It was very cool to actually visit such a historical site; this castle had been built in the 1600s. 

Female Slaves cell. They fit 150 women in here.

A cannonball that weighs 25 kg (55 lbs). As a punishment, slaves would have to hold this all day in the hot sun, or get 40 lashes and their ear chopped off.

Making fishing boats

A small memorial

Overlooking the city

January Updates

January

We came back from our Christmas trip, rejuvenated  and reenergized. Julie and I prepared for meeting our 40 smiling students, while Sister Esther had another plan for us. She sat us down and said they added another new student, so we have 41, and therefore they decided to split the class. We were mixed feeling about this, because while we wouldn’t be in the same classroom with the same students all the time, we would be able to actually control a class of 20 or so children. We decided to continue to subject teach instead of one of us teaches all of A and one teaches all the subjects in B. I teach math, science, religion, and music to both classes while Julie teaches English, social studies, computer and art to both classes. It is a lot of running back and forth between the adjacent classrooms but we both prefer seeing all of our kids instead of only half of them. Also, we are continually getting new students in both classes. We are up to 45 now, and we are having so much fun. It’s great that all the kids get the individual attention they need in order to excel in the classroom.  

One of our students celebrating a birthday :)