8am alarm…. Good Morning Ghana! Having no idea of when Ken would be picking us up, an early rise was agreed upon. Unfortunately for us Ken had already popped in to tell Paul we could have a lie in, to which the message did not quite reach the rest of us. As we were already up, dressed, deeted and sun creamed, breakfast was calling. Venturing downstairs we were met by a perfectly laid outdoor table with egg sandwiches, tea and coffee for all.
Paul called Ken to tell him we were all ready and so once he had arrived we headed to our first Omega school, Oblogo. Which was in fact the baby of the 7 omega schools, having only opened 6 months ago. Andrew, the head of education and learning took us on a quick tour round Oblogo and explained to us some of the key objectives of the Omega Schools, including the schools motto of ‘every child matters.’ Oblogo had a large playing field right next to it which automatically caught my eye and I was quick to ask about whether it was used for P.E. Andrew informed me that on a Saturday morning the kids would come for Physical education at 7.30am till 9am, but that this was the first Omega school to incorporate P.E due to the lack of facilities and general inconvenience of taking the kids for P.E halfway through the school day, which would inevitably result in a sweaty smelly class full of kids with half a school day to complete. Not a great idea. But for me, panic began to set in as I had the slight issue of having a dissertation based around the physical education curriculum in Ghana and there appeared not to actually be one in the Omega chain. At least Simiao’s umbrella cheered me up!
After Oblogo (pronounced with a hearty Italian accent) we moved on to another Omega school and then to 94, the school Sophie, Elisabeth and I were going to spend the rest of the week at. 94 is located in a slum area of Kasoa and was a very large school compared to Oblogo. 94 had two classes for each year group starting from nursery to kindergarten to p1 all the way up to p6, with one Junior High 1 class and one Junior High 2 class. Ken asked Ben to take us around the school while he sorted out some business, and unlike the usual quick tour of the basic lay out, Ben felt a more in depth tour was necessary. We visited every single class and were introduced each time. After about the sixth classroom a small routine set in, ‘Hi, I’m Simiao and I’m Chinese!’ or ‘This is Paul…and he is tall.’ As we finally made it to the last classroom everyone was getting tired from the heat and the apparent necessary need for encouragement of ‘read your books’ and ‘do your assignments’ which also featured in our well oiled routine (the casual joke of ‘eat all your lunch and you can be as tall as Paul didn’t go down too well.) After sorting out what we wanted to achieve and what Omega schools wanted us to do for them, it was finally lunchtime. Jd’s café, a fast food restaurant close by, served us all the standard meal of jollof rice and chicken, and once again I followed exactly what Sophie’s Ghana book said…Continuous and Competitive eating.
After lunch we returned to the hotel for some relaxation time and of course showers (casually ignoring the lack of bathroom doors.) The transformation outside from bright boiling sun to a cool evening darkness happens almost instantly in Ghana, and with the darkness tiredness seems to come hand in hand. Yet instead of bedtime Paul forced an evening stroll upon us to find some football match apparently happening on TV. Sadly for Paul we didn’t quite make it to anywhere showing the game, and so all returned to the restaurant next to the hotel to indulge in some more chicken and rice. With dinner done and an early start for us all, bedtime was calling. Today truly helped us understand what ‘This is Africa’ meant. However, American Pie was on our hotel TV, so it’s not quite as different as I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment