Ghana Team Journal

Quote of the day: I don’t go by the rulebook—I lead from the heart, not the head.

Journal by: Rick

Good news, I was up on time to meet for breakfast with Janine and Amo. We all sat down before the cook brought the meal to the dinning room. The breakfast for the morning was oatmeal, egg omelet with toasts, and drinks (orange juice and hot water for coffee or tea).

After breakfast, we left hotel at 7:45 am for the tour of the schools and able to meet the rest headmasters of the schools. After meeting the headmasters, they intro to us to their teachers who will be working with us for the next few weeks. We only had a few minutes to chat with them before they head back to the classrooms. While we were touring around the schools, lots of the kids were waving at us while they were trying to learn something from the teachers. They were very exciting to see us with happy faces.

After the tour, it was time for us to get the work for the first day. My first schedule was to help the kids on the lab tops at the library. The first class arrived to the library at 10 AM; they were kids under 7 years old and very exciting to touch the lab tops for the first time. After arriving to the computer room, the teacher put 3 kids per computer. The 1^st thing the teacher asked the kids, the meaning of the “lab top”? The kids didn’t respond back to the teacher on the meaning of the computer. He had to explain them the meaning of “lap top”. After explaining the meaning, the kids began to learn “Paint” on the computer. They never touched a mouse and never learn how to click the mouse to draw a line on Paint. I had to help the children to draw a line, use color, shape of the “O” & “Star”, etc. I notice one of the boys was able to pull a game instead using “Paint”. I had to close the game and told him “No” on the game. Don’t ask me how he learned to open the game from the computer. After an hour working with them, they went back to the classroom and I stayed at the library waiting for Amo to pick me up. While I was waiting for Amo, I was able to watch a movie from one of the computer. (Shhh!!!) The name of the movie is “#24 hours”. It must be a TV show from Fox. Don’t ask me how the movie came with computer from USA.

Amo came to pick me up and walked to the classroom to pick up Janine. While we were walking to the classroom, we saw Janine sitting front of the classroom facing the kids. All the suddenly, the kids saw us and they ran toward to me trying to hold my hands. They all asked me for my name. The teacher had to pronoun my name to them.

After picking up Janine, we walked back to the hotel for lunch. Our lunch for the day was a bean salad, chicken and an exciting item. Guess what? French Fries! Oh boy…….

After we had our lunch, we walked back to the library for the afternoon story time. When we arrived to the library, the kids were waiting and exciting for us to read a book. It was real interesting trying to read them a book for a numerous of reason: lots of the kids do not sit at the whole time listening while I was trying to read them a book; they kept asking me for my name; they asked me “where I am from?”; they laugh at me trying to say the word, “Red” (I was reading a book, “The Book of Red”); they were rubbing my hairy legs; they love to listen to the sound of my hearing aids; etc. It was a real blast trying reading them a book.

After reading the kids the books, Janine and I decide to take a small trip to a hotel, which is located toward the river for a drink, and chat on line via my iphone and ipad. Janine was thrill for me to bring my Ipad from home.

The cab rider was supposed to pick us at 5:45 pm, but he came about a half hour late. We started to get worry and do not have the phone number for Amo. While we were discussing how we could get back to the hotel, the cab came. Thanks GOD.

After we arrived back to the hotel, we had our dinner, white streaming rice and chicken with vegetable.