one month almost

We have finished our two weeks of practice teaching called "Practicum". I was assigned to work with one other volunteer to teach at Presbyterian Jr High School in Kukurantumi.  During the first week I taught 7^th and 8^th grade mathematics while Jessica, my co-instructor, taught science.  The second week I taught 7^th and 8^th grade science.  During the second week, I had to prepare 10, mostly 70 minute lessons on ecosystems and force, both subject that I had some prior experience, but that only tended to get me in trouble.  There were too many examples that the students were not ready to understand.  I struggled to limit my discussions to the material in the lesson book. But on Friday the 29^th of June we finished our “practicum” teaching and we spent the last period of each class tell the students about America and ourselves and our favorite food in Ghana. They had a photographer take pictures of us with the students and the faculty and the headmistress.  It was all fun.  Even the lesson (I still presented one period) went well.  I was not expecting to actually teach today, but I had some leftover material from Thursday that worked well.  I’m so glad that this week is over, but it exposed so many of my class-room management challenges that I almost wish I had a little more time to perfect my teaching abilities.

Jessica is giving her students in Form 1 a test.  note that the only thing on the board is "NO CHEATING"

 

On Friday (6/28) afternoon we all gathered at the shell of the Presbyterian Church in Anyinasin and waited anxiously to find out what language we will be taught during the final 7 weeks of pre-service training.  I now know that the local language of my area will be Twi , but I do not yet know exactly where I will be stationed.  They say that will come near the end of next week and then we will be sent to our station to shadow an established volunteer for two or three weeks. After that we will spend our final two weeks preparing to pass an oral language examination before we are sworn in. The rest of the story are pictures from the past two weeks.

Last Sunday they took us to a park with two beautiful waterfalls and a nice hike in the country.  It was a great break from practice teaching:

Beku Falls (first Cascade)

From the back side everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

Second Cascade about 2 miles away. 

Cocoa is great if you like low hanging fruit.

 Then we all took a trip to the Cocoa Research Institute in New Tafo.  It is a prestigious place to work and interestingly they make many by-products of Cocoa Beans, including Gin. I've heard that it tastes a little like rubbing alcohol, but I wouldn't know.

Martin is one of our teaching and language instructors.  He is sucking the juice from raw cocoa beans.  It's pretty good, but you don't want to bite the raw beans.

The Beans must be fermented then dried.  this is one of the drying racks.  These start to taste like real cocoa. My homestay Father, Mr Akato explained all this last week, but I didn't understand until I saw it.  He worked at the CR|IG for 20 years.

I am beginning to like Fufu. I had it three times this week.

My homestay mom, Sese Ago, and my sister, Ama, are making fufu.