Day 28: Pathetic Fallacy

On the morning of our last day at school, Sophie and I awoke to a grey and cloud possessed sky. Pathetic fallacy in its element and clearly Ghana’s way of telling us not to go! On route to school 94 picked up my new troos from the tailors, and at only 5 cedis to make from material bought at the market, including pockets and an elastic waist I thought it was an absolute bargain!  The air was naturally still warm, but the breeze had a hint of a chill running through it. It must have rained in the early hours of the morning as the ground was already wet, and with menacing clouds in the background I felt the rain was imminent.

The bad weather held off until we got to the safety of Miss Rebecca’s KG2 class. But halfway through her first phonics lesson, the rain began. At first lightly, then gradually heavier, until it was full blown British style rain (perhaps Ghana knows we are leaving and was preparing us for the weather at home.)  As part of Sophie’s dissertation she wanted to see if Jolly Phonics could be taught by the African teachers, and so today both her and I were observing Miss Rebecca teach her first phonics lesson. Considering the style of teaching phonics is at the opposite end of the spectrum to her usual rote style teaching, I felt Miss Rebecca must have been watching Sophie carefully as she delivered a wonderful lesson. She managed to incorporate letters they had learnt before, while also introducing new letters and new worksheets, managing to avoid falling into all habits of rote style repetition.

After our morning lesson the rain had left us confused, for our last day at school we had planned to relax with Sunday at the tuck shop and watch the day go by.  But with the rain in full flow it wasn’t an option anymore and now that 94 had computers (in the newly and beautifully painted computer room) the makeshift staff room had been moved to the empty classroom at the end of the second floor. With a secure roof over us we spent most of our day in there debating various issues with the teachers (who were all free due to this week being the beginning of revision week.) The conversation changed from Britain to taxes onto education and then to money, all with differing conclusions and point of views, and sometimes a bit tricky to understand when they all started using twi rather than English. Having to say goodbye to all the teachers that we'd been with for almost a month now was quite emotional, and I don't think it'll truly set in that we won't be seeing them everyday anymore until we return home to Britain. Luckily we got some lovely pictures so we can treasure all our memories from the Omega schools, especially 94.

We rounded off our final day in school by making the trip over to Kasoa to once again find out the lights were off. A fitting end to a project which had such high hopes in the beginning.  Luckily I think I have gathered enough data and managed to send a succession of emails in the 4 weeks of attempting to overcome the power shortages in Africa. With just the two of us that evening we didn’t feel like venturing out, so we got some cheeky room service brought up and settled down to watch ‘Who wants to be rich?’