Ghana Team Journal

Thought for the day:

“Our children, our future.”

Journal by: Sandy

Oatmeal for breakfast! Yum, yum. Esther joined us and shared her joy at the participation with Liz, myself, and Pat on the river cruise after lunch yesterday. Liz shared her journal entry and inspirational thought with us and we were off to school and library by 8:15.

It seemed quite warm and very humid today but our school time passes so quickly that I don’t notice until it is time to leave. After our morning greetings and a prayer of thanks to God for food, shelter, family, friends and school, the children and I read our stories about ourselves and found that we could get to know each other better this way.

Next we reviewed the days of the week and talked about which days were school days and what we do on the weekends when we are at home with our families. A lively discussion of calendar month was begun when the children sang/spoke, “Thirty days hath September” which they have memorized. Festivals during certain months were also a lively topic.

The times tables to 5 were our next subject until the break; these still prove very difficult for even the brightest children since they learn by rote and are unable to understand the concept of three sets of three when asked randomly, “ how much is 3x3?”

After the break, we began our English lesson using the flipbooks borrowed from the Senchi Library. Today we covered the words ending in ALL by adding letters in front of ALL, we made many words and used them in sentences. We worked to find the verbs and nouns in the sentences we created. The most difficult word we made was SQUALL. We started on words ending in AT but time ran out before we could finish. The children are also enjoying the story that we read together each day, “The Awful Ogre’s Awful Day”.

Back to St. James via taxi (5) for lunch which was extra special with ice cream dessert to celebrate Pat’s birthday belatedly. Off to the Library at 2:45 via cab. Kids were restless, rowdy, and aggressive today. It is difficult for them to hear us read or for us to hear them read with all the cacophony. Several boys were especially aggressive and bullied others and an older girl, Mary, pushed a smaller child’s head into the wall. Julie asked her to stop the behavior and to leave the library but Mary chose to ignore Julie and to follow directions. Three other boys pinned a fourth boy down and cut his right ring finger with a bottle cap! They were out of control and need to know that there are consequences for this behavior. When we left the library, we walked with Matthew to the St. James’ driveway so that he could catch the tro-tro to Kpong.

Wrote in my journal and took a shower before supper. Shepherd’s Pie with salad and ice cream for dessert! Discussion following supper on the program and related to the fact that this is summer school vs. the regular academic year. The children need some organized physical activities in the afternoons for release of energy. We will try for soccer drills tomorrow with the older children while we read to the little ones.