Three Weeks!
I had another week of full-teaching this week! This marks week two out of three required weeks for me. Many of my classes were spent administering examinations this week. This is the last exam before their semester examinations in a few weeks, so students were reviewing the previous units and preparing for a new one. While this meant that I did less traditional teaching this week, it was a really good experience for me to learn how to effectively run an exam classroom, especially here where exams are taken very seriously.
Monday was exciting because it was the day that I did my lesson observation for SNC. This means that I prepared a lesson to be observed virtually by my supervisor at the college. This made me nervous because I was scheduled to lecture on the Abyssinian Crisis and I am not used to lecturing for the majority of the class period. After this lesson, I had to run to the other part of the school campus to teach about World War 1 battle tactics. Luckily, my observation and both of my lessons went well. This was one of my big assignments during this experience so I was glad that the lessons went smoothly. Perhaps more importantly, the students seemed very engaged as well and participated a lot in the class.
I also challenged myself this week by leading a few more classes than I normally do. I got the opportunity to lead a few upper-level history courses, including a course with only one student! Not only did this give me more experience, but it also allowed me to practice being flexible and working with more students. I did know these students already because I normally sit in on their classes, but it was fun to teach the class.
I have been preparing a lot of lessons here. While some presentations are given to me by teachers, I am creating many of them. This is a wonderful experience for me and is what I spend much of my prep periods doing. I will be preparing lessons tomorrow and grading and I am excited to practice this skill more. I am over halfway through teaching here which is hard to believe. After I am done teaching, I will help teachers during the exam period.
I tried many wonderful foods this week and could spend most of this post talking about them, but I will keep it brief and just mention some of my favorites. On Monday, I got to try the (highly anticipated) rice dish Jollof. It was every bit as good as I was told that it would be! I also had Waakye and Gari Foto and they were both amazing! Waakye was a rice and beans dish served with noodles that was so delicious and not too spicy! Gari Foto was a cassava dish served with vegetables. For a teacher's birthday, she brought Milky Way candy bars to school. Both of these foods were new to me but I definitely want to eat them again. To my surprise, a Milky Way here is actually the same as a Three Musketeers bar at home, and it was a nice treat! I also got to have a coconut smoothie drink and a Coca-Cola out of a glass bottle at home which was delicious! They do not eat as many sweets here as I do at home, so I really enjoyed the sweet treats!
This week, I had some fun adventures! On Wednesday after school, I went to the seamstress in our community and bought fabric to make dresses. She took my measurements and is starting to create the dresses. Due to the currency changes here, getting dresses custom-made is affordable, and I am so excited to have custom dresses in African prints that I can wear in the classroom. It was fun to get to pick out my dress design and pattern and I can't wait until I get my finished dresses!
Yesterday, my school had a field trip. The secondary school students went to an adventure park in nearby Accra, and I was invited to join them. The park had activities including paintball, board and card games, and field games. Many of the teachers and I played board games throughout, and I even learned a new Ghanaian card game! We also watched as students played games and enjoyed their day away from school. It was a hot day to be outside but it was fun to interact with the students and teachers outside of the school environment! Driving there and back was entertaining as well because I got to see Accra and other parts of my town that I had not seen during the daytime before.
Today, I went to a local beach. I am near the ocean so it was less than one hour's drive to the beach. It was perfect weather for it and I got to walk in the ocean. The currents were stronger than I had expected so I ended up getting swept to shore a few times while I was just standing in the shallow water. It was a lot of fun and we played volleyball for a while in the water as well. I also spent time standing in the sand and sitting in the shade because I wanted to just soak it all in. The beach was busy but not crowded, and the people were all very friendly. For the equivalent of $1 USD, I rode a horse across the beach. This was my first time ever riding a horse and it was a thrilling experience. Horses are frequently present at Ghana beaches because Children take care of them and then take them to the beaches for tourists and other beach-goers to ride. The horse was very gentle and I felt safe.
I am definitely forgetting some of the things that happened this week, but I will try to post more later this week. In the meantime, here are some pictures of me at the beach today.
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