Science resources!

Hey everyone, Long time no write. I was back in England for a couple of weeks and then had a friend come out to visit so was busy showing him around and now I’m back at work. And no – that’s not why I’m writing a blog, (Eric!) but rather to tell you about something that started way back in September. I ran the Nottingham half marathon before I came back to Ghana to raise funds for the Babies Home in Sirigu and then to buy science resources for some of the local schools.

Well last term I was busily spending money at the Babies Home and then working with the students at my College to make some resources (otherwise known as TLMs in Ghana – Teaching and Learning Materials) for the schools. So whilst I was back in England in February I bought a whole load of science resources which meant by the time I flew back to Ghana I had 2 huge suitcases of science resources and various other things which I was bringing back for myself and other volunteers! Thanks to Oliver for carrying the extra luggage for me – much appreciated.

So when I upload onto this website I can never quite get the photos to go where I want them on the page so I’m just going to write descriptions of them and you can match them to the pictures for yourself. I’m also going to try and be really clever and upload a video as well, but we’ll have to see if the internet connection’s going to be strong enough to facilitate that…

- Teacher using resources to teach
- Resources for the Primary School
- Resources for the Junior High School
- Students from the Primary School holding the resources
- Students from the JHS holding the resources
- Staff from the Primary School with the resources
- P6 student making an electrical circuit with a motor

- Film of P6 students making a magnet using electricity - look how excited they get!

Huge thanks to everyone who sponsored me – I was in the Primary school with the two year six classes in the photos yesterday and the children had an absolute ball making the magnets and circuits. They’ll remember those bits of the curriculum! They also said to send their thanks your way as well. Sam x

TLM Exhibition

Right, if you think way back when to November I was ‘Busy, busy, busy’ working with my students to create TLMs (Teaching and Learning Materials). They ended up doing a really good job on it – there were successes, disasters, joy, frustration… all in all a great learning experience. However, they’d only had the opportunity to see the TLMs that they and the rest of their class had made, so I decided an exhibition was needed.

Therefore last Friday I ended up running round like a headless chicken (oh that’s a bit sick after yesterday…) and it all went well. 190 people came to see the exhibition and then this Tuesday I gave out awards for the best TLMs in various categories. And here are just a few photos of the day – enjoy.

Bribery, Corruption and DINNER!

So Tuesday, an ordinary kind of day; went off to one of the local schools to supervise the third year students on their teaching practice – normal, normal. Overcrowded classrooms, no electricity, some good teaching, some not so good teaching – the usual. Then just as we were about to leave one of the student comes running up to us holding a guinea fowl – a gift for me apparently! Now, at this point I’m far to stunned to actually do anything useful, so just shuffle away from the sqwarking bird – well I didn’t want to touch it. So our driver grabbed it and brought it back to Boscos where they tied it to the gas cylinder in my kitchen. At this point there was only one course of action – find Dinah! Dinah is my housemate who is Ghanaian and I was just hoping she’d deal with the bird in our kitchen. Luckily upon finding her and demanding if she knew what to do with it, she said ‘of course’ and then proceeded to laugh at me.

So after work she and Sarah (another Ghanaian friend) set to it – in the photos you can see the beginning and end result. Let’s just say I didn’t watch or assist with some of the process, but let’s just say it was quick and hopefully painless. However after all that was done we had a feast – guinea fowl in a tomato stew and yam- yum yum yum. Felt rather strange to be eating something you’d actually seen alive and kicking a few hours before, but I guess that’s the reality of meat, we just don’t have to face it too often at home.

Then feeling nicely stuffed a thought suddenly occurred to me – had I just taken, killed and eaten a bribe of some kind? Bribery and corruptness is common place in the Ghanaian education system. (75% of girls in Senior Secondary Schools have been asked for sexual favours by tutors…) I hope not, but then again it’s too late now; the birds been eaten and their marks have been handed in (unchanged from pre-guinea fowl giftage I might add) but I wonder if that was the intention or not?

Happy New Year! (I know it's a bit late, but the internet's been horrendous lately...)!

Happy New Year to you all! I hope that you had a great Christmas and that the New Year is treating you well. I’m now back in Ghana after a brilliant holiday in Cameroon and here are just a few highlights for you.

Mount Cameroon

The second highest mountain in all of Africa standing at 4095m above sea level and we conquered it! Huzzar! 3 days of walking, 2 nights camping and a hell of a lot of biscuits to help us keep going later we did it. A group of ten of us went and had a brilliant time – it’s an active volcano which last erupted in 2000 and as you walk down (or at least on the route we took) you walk across the ash fields, past the craters and along the lava flows – rather impressive. Also the vegetation just changed the whole time, from tropical rainforest to alpine meadows to … I don’t know all the proper terms, but it was impressive. And made all the more enjoyable by the fact that we had porters to carry our bags – yay! No way I’d of managed it otherwise that’s for sure.

Limbe

And down below Mount Cameroon there is the beach covered in black volcanic sand and absolutely beautiful! Over Christmas we stayed in a nice hotel with it's own private beach which was great, so a whole gang of us were about to enjoy the beach and I have to say if you can’t have a traditional Christmas at home then this is definitely the way to spend it – on a beach with a big gang of people swimming, playing beach tennis… bliss. We then headed into the town itself for a meal in the evening which was beautiful – I even ate the fish and enjoyed it!

Korup National Park

Korup National Park

So, it’s a mere 6 hour journey from Limbe to Korup, but it’s ‘one of those roads’ the type where you spend more time out of your seat than in it and when you get out you find you’re covered in more red dust than is actually left on the road, or so it seems. Having arrived after a small hiccup with something to do with the steering on the 4x4 breaking (read 2 hour stop in a random town in the middle of nowhere which had a shop with a surprisingly good range of wines to buy!) we arrived Mbendgo where we managed to randomly run into some people Grahame knew – small world before meeting Chief Adulf (I kid you not). A Chief of one of the villages within the Park he gave us a run down of the history and biodiversity… and the next day having paid our way we were allowed to cross the suspension bridge that leads into the Park where we then spent a merry three days walking and camping in what turned out to be a rather dry rainforest inhabited by just one or two mosquitoes…

In the Park there are a huge amount of tracks cleared and then they have different camp sites so you can kind of choose your route and where you want to stay. Each camp is built by the river with a ‘drinking point’ a ‘bathing point’ and then the latrine/toilet is further down stream and this time last year would have been beautiful with huts for people to stay in. However, poaching is a big problem within the Park and a few months ago a poacher was shot dead by one of the guards and then being a local man the people in his village retaliated by literally tearing each of these camps to shreds; setting fire to anything flammable and knocking down anything that wasn’t, so each night we were camping in a destruction site – strange. So, a good three days of walking with the highlight being the waterfall we went to on the last day – beautiful and the green snake (the only bit of ‘interesting’ wildlife we saw in the whole days) that crossed my path enroute to it.

And back to Ghana

I’m back in Ghana now - not so busy as it’s end of semester 1, so having ‘taught’ (well I say taught – but actually there weren’t classes on Monday as the students were reporting back, classes started late on Tuesday as the classrooms were locked and dirty so the students couldn’t clean them and then Friday was announced as a holiday as the Bishop died just before Christmas and it’s his funeral and we’re a very Catholic college) this week, it’s revision week next and then exams for two weeks after. However, I’m organizing an event about teaching and learning resources so I’ve got something to work on before end of semester 1 break where I’ll be heading back to the UK for two weeks – yay! So I’ll just sign off by saying – see you soon!