Ghana 2012 - Week 3

So for the beginning of week 3 we had a crazy day in Epinal. I think kids got used to us being around and teaching so they became more relaxed and louder than before. It became a bit more difficult to keep the crowd down in their seats. We thought this is because we did not have that respect that permanent teachers have and we also don’t use canes if someone behaves inappropriately. Anyway, it is part of our aim, to get kids involved in the workshops as much as possible and they do so it is great.

On week 3 we developed and ran 2 workshops. One was the car workshop, for which we actually had to work hard at night to have the cars ready for following morning, but everything worked fine. The cars were made out of plastic bottles (body), cans (wheels), and some metal bars (axis). For this one we decided to explain that Energy is never destroyed and can be either stored or transferred. And we used rubber bands and springs as examples for that. Kids seemed to know what energy was. what types of energy existed and that it is not destroyed, but after asking some further questions we realised that they had poor understanding about how energy worked and how it changed from one form to another. Although after explaining that energy can be stored in rubber bands kids seemed to understand the concept, they found it extremely difficult to apply it in the workshop. Very few teams though about tying rubber bands to the axis. Teams that managed to get to that point struggled to get the idea of winding the wheels up and letting them go. We still don’t really know how to improve the workshop and how to make it clearer for the kids.

The other workshop we prepared was the pressure workshop. The kids were explained that in liquids pressure depends on depth of liquid rather than on volume. This was explained using example of two containers of different heights and volumes and after that we asked kids which container would have bigger pressure at the bottom. Their challenge was to pick a container where they could store water and make the longest jet that could spin the water wheel. The containers we gave them contained holes at the bottom, so the higher the container was, the higher pressure it had and the longer jet they could get. They were also asked to build structures to support the water wheel. We thought that this could improve the knowledge they got in previous Structures workshop. They could choose between small bottle, big bottle, bucket and a small bottle with a 1m pipe. These containers had different heights and volumes, so kids had to think carefully which one to choose and how to use it. Quite a lot of kids chose pipe and small bottle, but quite a lot of them did not know how to hold the pipe in order to get the longest jet (the higher the pipe, the longer the jet). By using pipe appropriately they could have had a jet of up to 1m long.

 

On Tuesday, some classes had exams, so we could only teach one workshop each. That gave us an opportunity to have an easier day and have some rest or sort out stuff in town.  I decided to go to town and find out about the foreign currency exchange. Surprisingly it was not that easy to exchange my money, because none of the banks do it. Luckily, I found the foreign exchange bureaux and again surprisingly I was told that different notes have different values. For example if you have a note of 20, you would be given one exchange rate, whereas if you have 50, you would be given another, better rate. After all I exchanged my money and went back to school.

We also had a chance to try fufu, which is another traditional Ghanaian meal. It (possibly, I am not sure) contains of a mashed potato like thing, which was actually quite spicy and a soup, which is a very important part of this meal. That time we tried fufu with fish soup. I thought it was quite nice, because it reminded me of some Lithuanian food, but not all of us liked it.

On Wednesday we went to Believer’s Hope school. After first lesson we had the best lunch we have had in Ghana, which was fried Yam and vegetable stew. After school we went to Shopright, which is equivalent to a supermarket in Europe. We were surprised that there were so many white people. After some shopping we took a trotro to SenjaBreku, which is an old fishermen village about one hour away from Kasoa, going to the west. On a trotro we met William, a student whos grandmother lives in SenjaBrekuand he studies in Kasoa. He kindly offered us to show around the village and take us to the castle. Apparently, although the village was quite small, it had its own language and this is quite common for some villages. There are a lot of languages and dialects spoken in Ghana and William told us he knew 4 or 5 of them. After visiting the Portuguese castle (in which you can stay for 5 cedis = 1.6 pounds a night) we went to meet his grandmother. It was quite late and dark by the time we left SenjaBreku. Although it was a really long day for us, we enjoyed it very much.

Thursday morning I started feeling quite bad. I had a headache and was feeling tired. Ignoring that we all went to Believer’s Hope.  It was our last time in this school, so after teaching our class, we had very nice lunch. Patrick also made some pasta for everyone, which everyone seemed to have enjoyed. It was quite sad to say bye for the school, because 3 weeks passed by so quickly. In the evening I started feeling even worse and realised that I had high fever. Although symptoms seemed to be similar to Malaria (headache, fever, feeling sick), I decided to go to bed and see how I felt the other day. Surprisingly, I was completely fine the next morning, so I did not have to go to hospital. We still have no idea what that was. (For those who travelled: any ideas?)

Friday was the day when we were supposed to be leaving Kasoa. It was raining very heavily in the morning, so we had to wait for a bit and we did not have a lot of time. It is the rainy season now, so rains are becoming more and more common. After having breakfast with Robert and his family, we kept ourselves busy until the midday, because there was still quite a lot of stuff to sort out before leaving. We went to say bye to everyone to Epinal in the afternoon and left Kasoa. Our next stop was Accra. We spend one night there before leaving to Bolgatanga, which is located in far north.

We came in to the bus station quite early, about 1 hour before the time of departure, but we were surprised how late the bus was. We were supposed to leave at 8, but only left at 9:45am. Once in the bus, we all knew that there is about 15 hour trip ahead. It was also funny that the road from capital Accra to second biggest city Kumasi was not all paved. We thought about sleeping on our way, but it was simply impossible with holes that big on the road. Luckily, it was just on the way to Kumasi and the rest of the roads seemed to be fine so we managed to get some sleep. We also passed another big city Tamale and by 2am we were in Bolgatanga.We also agreed that bus was surprisingly comfortable and the journey was quite pleasant. After 5 minutes, Ibrahim arrived. He is the person from Meet Africa, who is going to take care of us for the coming 3 weeks. He took us to his house and showed us our rooms. They were not of European level, but hadfans and lockable doors, there was also shower and toilet in the house, so we were happy with that. 

On Sunday we were given the opportunity to sleep until 8am, which we all found very pleasant. We were all quite tired after the trip so it helped to recharge our batteries. After a nice breakfast we left to look around in Bolgatanga. The first impression is that there are very few cars and sooo many motorbikes. Everyone has a motorbike or a bicycle and use them to go to places. People speak another language here, which is called Guruni, so our skill of Fanti language became a bit useless here. We were taught some basic words in Guruni. We are probably going to try and learn as much as possible of this one as well. After having a look in the town we went to a place called Karminga. Ibrahim has some land there and is an important individual in the community. He came up with the idea of a Green House, which is a guest house that can accommodate up to 14 guests. The community built it in 2 months and the income is now used to support the locals, who need help. We also found out that it was the day when a new born baby has to be given a name. We went to visit that family and found out that when this happens, the day is celebrated. No one has to work and everyone visits and greets the family. After greeting mother, we were shown where Ibrahim planned to build his house. He looks like quite an important man in that community so there were people taking care of the place already. It was quite late by the time we finished, so we went back to Ibrahim’s house.

Photo of Green House

Tomorrow (Monday) we hope to meet Abigail, another person from Youth Harvest Foundation, who should introduce us to the host families and the schools we are going to be working in. We will see how it all goes.