well. i guess its kind of been awhile... sorry, yeah? as they say here. things have really been picking up on camp lately and i really just havent found time to be on the internet...
its exam time right now at school (yes, grade threes write exams... the littlest pre schoolers do them too, which is totally ridiculous). last week was all revision, and this week is the actual writing. so far, it gone pretty well... i have a few kids that still don't understand things like long division so i'm having an after-school session with them to give it one last go before they move onto grade 4. i've noticed that with these kids, who are generally a bit slower to pick up on things, i get really frustrated with them and stop wanting to teach them. i reluctantly keep doing it though, because you start to realize that these kids are behind because teachers get frustrated, stop working iwth them, and then they just fall further behind, making things more furstrating and making less teachers want to work with them. not rocket science or anything, but it really makes me appriciate teachers in general, particularly those who only work with kids who are struggling.
since school is coming to a close on friday, our attention has been turned towards establishing a summer program for the kids on camp. after talking with a couple of the local volunteer teachers, i've sort of taken on this project. what i've found is that a lot of the teachers at CBW are now turning their attention to getting themselves back to Liberia (now that they don't have a job here) and so their willingness to do a purely voluntary teaching program during the day is kind of low. they're eager to lend a hand, but the planning is falling on our shoulders. i'm personally kind of pumped about it, because it means we can take charge and really get the ball rolling. we've decided to make this school totally free, with no uniforms required and we'll provide pencils, papers etc. we want to get as many kids as possible (i might be kicking myself for saying this on wednesday when i'm up to my armpits in kids) so yeah, no barriers to enter.
we're hoping to have a big focus on reading at this summer school, using the books that we have in the library. what i've found with my grade 3s is their ability to read new material is really limited. they're wicked at memorizing and reciting, but putting a new book in front of them is totally foreign. i did this free reading stuff with my kids and they'd never done it before, but it worked really well. hopefully, the same will happen just on a bigger scale with these guys (or.. it will be total chaos). we also want to push free writing and stuff like that here.. this whole creativity idea is something that isnt really pushed at CBW, probably due to a lack of resources and teacher training. whats cool right now is that we have a bunch of trained teachers here with us, hwo have experience and ideas that we can really put to work. because they only just got here, they didn't really get the chance to do any official teaching, but i think they might actually be more useful in this program than during the actual school year.
we started to do outreach today to let the camp (population of about 20 000 now... it was 30 000 when i got here) know about our school. we've divided the internation and local volunteers into groups that will go into each of the 12 zones on camp. today i did one zone and got an incredible response from the people. a lot of people were so excited to hear that it would be totally free and that we would be establishing a more in depth feeding program (although how we're going to buy and cook rice for hundreds of kids is still a mystery...). i think that the first few days are going to be totally chaotic and insane at this school, but hopefully by august we'll have something established. its a big project, but it feels really good to be doing something that, while we wont see any real results, is going to be a bit more concrete and really beneficial to the kids who are just sitting around right now because they cant get themselves to school.
the orphanage and the pee has also been keeping me busy. yesterday we took some of the older kids to a recreation day that CBW hosts every tuesday. these kids, like the ones i met in uganda, continue to just blow me away with how they take care of each other. not only do they make western kids look like huge weenies, but they really put the kids on camp to shame as well (who, until this point, i thought were pretty self-sufficient). they don't have a choice in how fast threy grow up, but it just blows my mind that one woman (regina) and a couple helpers are able to raise kids that not only do well in school, but are so polite, well mannered and generally well rounded. at the field, one kid started beating on one of the ARCH (the orphanage) kids and rather than starting a mass brawl (which is normally what happens) the ARCH kid came over to tell my friend that this kid was beating the crap out of him. that being said, isaac, a 2 year old at the house, continues to punch me from the second that i come in the door. regina says its a twisted sign of love that he only gives to me... i'm not totally sold though.
i'm rushing right now to get to dinner at a teachers house tonight... he always makes me and my friend come over for dinner (which ends up being a boring discussion of how he can marry british royalty). i'm not thrilled about going this week but... he's found me in the internet cafe so, i guess i'm going to go eat some fufu and fish soup with him. lucky thing he has a really nice mother who is cool to hang out with.
i'll be in accra later this week and will give a bigger update then... i just felt bad it had been so long! hope canada day was good - it overlaps with ghana's republic day so it was kind of overshadowed here.
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