Still here...titles are hard!

Today I went to the market looking for bits and pieces for some science demos. I should probably back up a bit now and say why. Thinking about it logically Im gonna have to tell you how Im helping the science teacher...so i may as well go right back and talk about the staff. Im helping at the JSS, mainly reading, but also supporting the maths and science teachers. By far the best teacher is Julius, the science teacher; he also happens to have no teacher training. The cynical part of me thinks that this is what makes him so good - that and his dedication to the kids. He walks to school every day from another town - a nice 25min walk along the beach, but rather hot in the afternoon sun. Since he has no teaching qualifications he gets paid by the charity that support the school as a librarian. This means he is worse paid than the chronically underpaid proper teachers. The other teachers are much of a muchness; the two female teachers spend most of the day sleeping in the staffroom/libary, the deputy head spent most of the first week 'resting his bones' and many of the teachers use the cane although they are not supposed to. Since Julius hasn't had much training he is very reliant on textbooks to help, and many of the demos/experiments/practicals aren't suitable for the equipment he has. So I am making some water bottle rockets and subarines out of pumps, bits of tube etcetc. Its good fun designing it all. Today I bought the bits andpieces on the way to the internet cafe. The market is bustling, full of all sorts of stores. In Ghana the shops often have biblical/christian names; the God is good petrol station. 'Love Jesus' hair salon. There are also some oddballs - 'Mother T's car shop' 'God is my foundation' builders etc. All good fun to look out for whilst on the road.

There are two ways of getting around in Ghana - taxi or tro tro. Taxis are pretty expensive for one, but OK if theres 4. A tro-tro is a minibus with benches and seats in - run by a driver and his mate. It takes about 18 or so, more if people are prepared to squash up, and the driver is confident he won't have to go past the police roadblocks. If the tro tro has one person extra then the mate will jump out, run past the roadblock and get in the other side. If you are overloaded the police take a bribe (the size depends on how overloaded). Often they will just make trouble and the driver has to bribe them anyway. The poolice are armed, which is a little intimadating, but they are more cautious since an incident a couple of months ago. A policeman stopped and 'fined' a senior army officer. So as soon as he got to the base he sent back some truckloads of soldiers and large brawl ensued. So now the roadblocks don't happena t certain times.

I think that is all for now. Im running out of stuff to say for now - Ill try and say hello to everyone later. But one last little thing:
I have been working with eilidh to get a list of people who need remidial reading classes. We are thinking of putting on a short play with them, to encourage them, as well as normal reading. But for now we have some more people to assess. So far I have checked our lists against the class register for one class...and we have two extra people, with some more who aren't on either list. Its gonna be hard to get round everyone, especially given that we can't take them out of all lessons. And that no one seems to have a list of who is actually in the classes. But I did spend some time reading with someone who is definately on the list. He must be around 15/16 and we were reading wind in the willows rewritten for preschoolers. He really enjoyed it, and it was great to see that. I hope I can help him at the very least.

Callum