Going to churches

What does one do on Sunday?  One goes to church.

I went to Isabella's church, Church of England.

I went to Father Anyomi's Catholic church.  I even got introduced and talked for a few moments about the importance of education.  

Monkey see, monkey do

We traveled to the gold coast and visited Elmina Castle and Kakum Park. The rope bridges in the park were very scary!  Elmina Castle was sobering.   

I feed the monkeys in the monkey reserve.

Being a tourist

There is no tourist industry... just a few places to visit. 

I bought some pottery from Fesi Shed, a woman's cooperative. Theresa and I visited Wli Falls.

Yes, they are doing the wash in the stream that flows from the falls. 

KPONDO... the market

KPONDO MARKET

All clothing, towels, sheets are clean, but used.  

Fish is dried.  Most stews contain pounded dried fish, which has a distinctive taste... and which I did not enjoy. 

Vegetables are very fresh.

Everything is carried on the head, which leaves the hands free. 

Did I mention that it was HOT, HOT, HOT??

what did I learn?

I learned how to find resources when none exist. 

We had newspaper, we had glue sticks, we had scissors.  We could make collages. 

We had jigsaw puzzles.  These teachers had never done a jigsaw puzzle before.

We had some plastic donated garages, lego-type materials, stuffed animals.  We could build with these materials. We could play with these materials, dramatic play.  We could share our stories, and we could become a community of story-tellers. 

We had some Montessori materials. We could match and seriate these materials.  We even had a set of 3-part cards! 

We had some finger puppets that I had bought with my daughter, Leslie, in a market in Mexico. We could dramatize some stories. 

There are NO TRAYS available in Kpondo...  but there are plastic baggies.  I considered substituting these baggies for trays.  This would keep the dust and sand off the materials.  

Did I mention that dust and sand was blowing everywhere, particularly before the rains. 

 

the rains came...

The winds came, the rains followed AND there are no windows.

So we huddled together in a corner of the room. 

We need to get louvers or shutters or SOMETHING in this school!  There are bars on the windows.

The last picture shows the outhouse and the urinals in the rain.   

Photos of Donum Dei's children

School was closed during my workshops ... it was their Easter break. 

PHOTOS: Saying the pledge before school, 

the 3-6 class, 

the 2 year olds, 

nap time, and 

crammed in the school bus. 

Classroom photos

Here are a few more photos.  The first picture is of another school. The second picture is of a typical outhouse at a school. The third picture is of the classroom of one of the participants in the workshop series. 

The last 2 pictures are of the children in Donum Dei. The 3-6 class and the 2 year olds.  

Your observations are correct.  There are no supplies!

Visiting the classrooms of our participants

There are no resources in these classrooms.  

No paper, no crayons, no puzzles, no books, NOTHING...  The only supply provided to the schools is CHALK.  The blackboards are covered with charcoal.

West Side Montessori School donated full sets of used materials; Samantha Youle Trice from Hamilton Park Montessori School in NJ donated new maps.  Brick Church School [thanks to Lydia Spinelli] donated scissors and glue sticks. In fact she donated so many of these items that we could give some to each teacher for their classrooms.  Also, some churches in the U.S. had donated books and crayons.  

The second picture is of a classroom without walls.   Just imagine when it rains and the winds blow. 

The final picture is nap time.  It is HOT, HOT, HOT ... and everyone takes a nap. 

WORKSHOP ... our participants and their work

We worked with some sensorial materials [donated by West Side Montessori School, New York City].  

The participants, for the first time in their lives, worked with puzzles and a lotto activity, created a collage using nature, and seriated the sensorial materials.  At first they struggled with these materials...  But soon they got into them ... and our workshops, which were due to end at 3pm, often continued to 4:30pm.   

These adults were using these materials for the first time.  They had never done puzzles, or built with blocks, or made patterns with materials.   The workshops gave them opportunities to use these materials.  

Discussion of theory was not relevant.