Easter Weekend and Back to School

So, of course, it was Easter over the weekend and as Ghana is a very Christian country, it was off to Church! The church was incredible - a roof over some plastic chairs with this material at the front for where people spoke (or shouted with great enthusiasm)...then when you look around...what a view! I kept getting distracted by the mountains behind us and the view of the community. It was gorgeous. And overall, the experience was definitely not like any church experience I've had in England - it was full of energy and shouting out and walking around and dancing and singing, not like the quiet, serious worship at home. 

Just a short walk from where I am staying - beautiful!

A trip to the beach on Easter Monday! Swimming in the warm sea and drinking Sprite...then being entertained by this fella, who probably had the most out of tune guitar I ever heard...but he had a lovely smile, so I let him off!




Possibly THE busiest beach I have ever seen...you literally could hardly move for people (and for the people constantly shouting and trying to grab hold of me). This is probably the only downside to travelling to some parts of the world - it would be nice to go somewhere to enjoy it without being constantly hassled, it gets very tiring and boring. (It was the same in India because it was very rural and we were probably the first white people they had seen and sometimes even in Italy I got stares with other workers when in the town centre when they heard us speaking English.) 




Drinking coconut milk on the beach, with a new volunteer Jana, from Germany. Yum!





Back to school...

The first part of the day at school was absolutely heartbreaking. Children came running into class very excited to learn, but then it was time to collect their exam fees. The teachers had been collecting this for the past week or so and this was their last chance. But of course, some children could still not afford to pay it...so they got sent home! My class of 25 dwindled down to just 15, all because they could not pay the small fee. I felt awful.  

Today, with Class 2 I helped explain how 'timestables' work. I told them to run and collect 3 stones each. We piled them into groups of 3 etc and then counted how many there were according to the sum (1X3, one group of 3 stones) etc etc. Then I wrote out the sums and this description (group of..) of the 4 timestables for them to do themselves and told them they could come up and use the stones to help them if they needed...I wasn't sure if they would, but slowly, people drifted up to the table to work out a sum then rushed back to their seat to write it down. Here are some children in action working out their 4 timestables. And the result......


Every child in the class (21 children) got 10/10 apart from two...who got 9/10. Fabulous result and I was so proud of them :)