Blog Number 3
January 15, 2008

We traveled this weekend. We went to the central region, to Cape Coast. We had bought our tickets early last week to take a public bus there. Our bus was supposed to leave at 8:00 in the morning to ensure that we would get there by 10:30am. Well, the bus was having troubles so they delayed it, and we didn’t end up loading until about 9:30am. Once we got on the bus, I discovered that my seat was in the very back, the seat that spanned the back of the bus. This meant that I had a person on each side of me and that I did not have any arm rests. About 45 Kilometers into the trip, the bus pulled over. People started to leave the bus and hang out outside. We waited an hour before we finally found out what was going on. The fan belt had broke on the bus and the driver was already on his way back to Accra to try to find a new one to bring back to the bus. Jenny was about to throw in the towel and head back to Accra. There were some other American’s on the bus and one of them had flagged a “tro tro” (which are large passenger vans that they pack as many people into as possible- a popular form of public transportation) and that was taking them into Cape Coast. Jenny and I ended up hopping this tro tro and we finally made it into Cape Coast at 1:30pm. Our first stop on this trip was to Kakum, the national park in the area that was home to the only Canopy Walk in Africa. There are 7 bridges linked together with platforms. Each bridge was a series of planks of wood, supported by a “cage-type” net. Since we were going in the middle of the day, we did not get to see many animals, but the experience was still very cool. After the park we headed to Elmina and Cape Coast castles. These castles were the major ports for slave castles and as beautiful the buildings were, they had a horribly sad background. We returned to Accra on Sunday with (thank to God) no problems with out bus.

This week started the normal schedule for classes and I actually had a chance to speak with my teacher regarding the classes and expectations of the class throughout lessons. It is very difficult for me to understand him at times, but I am making my way through.

I have discovered what one of my biggest difficulties with teaching this group of students is. I am having a tough time figuring out time management, especially with classes that have 45 students in the one class. The lesson that I did yesterday went fine, but I still see definite room for improvement here.

What is really nice is that I have two classes of the fifth level language arts, so if there are adjustments that need to be made after doing the lesson once, I have time to evaluate it and make the adjustment for the second class.

Life is still good! I am excited that I am starting to get into the swing of things with classes and activities. As of right now, I teach two classes on Monday and two classes on Wednesday. I also do some follow-up work on Friday. Right now I haven’t done anything to get more teaching/observing in, but that is only cause I want to finish off this week. Next week I plan to see where else in the school I can help out.


Love to all!
 Chelsea 