Day 10: The tales of Sunday

One of my favourite things about 94 has to be Sunday the tuck shop lady. She is constantly friendly and has ample time to tell Sophie, Elisabeth and I stories about Ghana and its colourful history. She has helped us with learning twi and fanste, given us all Ghanaian names (depending on which day we were born) except me, as she has taken to calling me Oye. Due to mine and Elisabeth’s progressive tans and ability to demonstrate how to play ampe, Sunday no longer calls us Obruni and is quite happy to allow us (me especially) to be full Africans. Today Sunday’s brother was also working, and we found out that he was what I believed to be a living example of the film ‘Goal.’ He had recently been scouted playing football in a simple field in Ghana but some Italian man, who filmed their game, returned to Italy, and now he has been offered a place in an Italian club. An actual fairy tale…it also shows how greatly sport can influence peoples lives!

Another highlight at 94 is Miss Sofia’s phonics classes with KG2a and Miss Rebecca. The different attitudes towards the kids and teaching place Miss Sofia at one end of the spectrum and Miss Rebecca far away at the other end. Miss Sofia’s positive encouraging style of teaching has been unheard of in this KG2 class before. Miss Rebecca is not your usual warm and fuzzy kindergarten teacher; she is stern, strict and slightly terrifying (I would not want to be one of the class when getting told off!) I do not know whether Miss Rebecca’s approach is due to the large class sizes, the distraction of hearing other classes around the school, or perhaps now the kids only respond once they have been severely disciplined. But having observed Miss Sofia’s lesson, the children have responded well to being congratulated for the good work they have done, and are generally very well behaved following the tactical approach Miss Sofia has taken to keep their attention on her. Whether Miss Rebecca may learn a few new ways to keep control of the class which does not involve shouting ‘What is wrong with you,’ we will have to wait and see.


In the afternoon at 94 I managed to complete some of my teacher questionnaires, with the results showing a slightly bias and loyal stand to the Omega institution, but an overall very honest and competent set of results. Sadly the power at Kasoa school was not on (I presumed after the storm, but have now learned that Thursday is ‘light’s off’ day) so I could not continue my mini project that evening.