Steve’s update
I’ve been doing more teaching over the last few weeks, mainly because it’s been very wet and rainy which has meant that a few times teachers haven’t turned up for their lessons ! I’m getting more used to stepping in at last minute, and trying to teach ‘off the cuff’. Where possible I’ve been introducing resources to help the students learn and hopefully this will inspire some other teachers to do the same, rather than all the teaching being entirely ‘chalk and talk’.
Recently I was reminded of an ancient Chinese proverb ; ‘I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do and I understand’. I’m finding this a useful principle to work to.
For example, rather than teaching about scaffolding just on the board, I took in some drinking straws so the students could construct their own models.
I now dread the day I see an entire elevation of a building scaffolded with drinking straws !!
Some lunchtimes I have my lunch in a local ‘chop-shop’ (roadside canteen) with some of the students. Lunch consists of Banku (a local dish made from ground up maize) which looks a bit like mashed potato, Nkatse nkwan (peanut soup), Okra sauce (a spicy sauce made with ochra) and a piece of ‘nam’ (fish - thankfully always the tail end). Jamie Oliver would be very impressed with this pucker dish !
All this is served in a bowl and eaten with your fingers. At first I ended up looking like one of my
nephews after spaghetti bolognaise! (but I am getting the hang of it now).
I’ve been doing more teaching over the last few weeks, mainly because it’s been very wet and rainy which has meant that a few times teachers haven’t turned up for their lessons ! I’m getting more used to stepping in at last minute, and trying to teach ‘off the cuff’. Where possible I’ve been introducing resources to help the students learn and hopefully this will inspire some other teachers to do the same, rather than all the teaching being entirely ‘chalk and talk’.
Recently I was reminded of an ancient Chinese proverb ; ‘I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do and I understand’. I’m finding this a useful principle to work to.
For example, rather than teaching about scaffolding just on the board, I took in some drinking straws so the students could construct their own models.
I now dread the day I see an entire elevation of a building scaffolded with drinking straws !!
Some lunchtimes I have my lunch in a local ‘chop-shop’ (roadside canteen) with some of the students. Lunch consists of Banku (a local dish made from ground up maize) which looks a bit like mashed potato, Nkatse nkwan (peanut soup), Okra sauce (a spicy sauce made with ochra) and a piece of ‘nam’ (fish - thankfully always the tail end). Jamie Oliver would be very impressed with this pucker dish !All this is served in a bowl and eaten with your fingers. At first I ended up looking like one of my
nephews after spaghetti bolognaise! (but I am getting the hang of it now).Vicky’s Update
The students are approaching the end of their summer placement at the eye-clinic now. When they first arrived, because they were inevitably slower at testing, there was often a very long queue of patients waiting for their eye-test (and we kept being told we needed to “hurry up” as some of the patients were complaining about the wait).
Perhaps this would be a good place to explain how the appointment system at the eye-centre works. Well, there isn’t one! Basically people just turn up at the eye-centre and join a queue for the registration process. They then queue to give their history and symptoms to a nurse and then queue to have their vision tested by another nurse before seeing a technician for the intra-ocular pressure check. They are then either sent to us for refraction (i.e. for the ‘glasses test’) or go straight into the queue to have the health of their eyes examined by the Ophthalmologist or Ophthalmic Nurse. All in all it can be a very lengthy process. Especially as the vast majority of people turn up early in the morning, so it’s not as if they are evenly spaced throughout the day.
Anyway, back to the long queues outside the refraction room….
Well, Steve put his practical skills to great use and made a new test chart surround so that we can slide in the spare letter chart and have 2 interchangeable test charts in the one room. Ingenious ! This means that two students can now be testing at the same time. This isn’t without problems but greatly reduces the queuing time for patients (and keeps more of the students occupied at any one time !).
A few weeks back, with approximately one minutes notice (notice a theme ?!) partway through a clinic I was told I was going out on an outreach clinic to Elmina and that the other staff that were going were waiting for me on the minibus. So I had to quickly grab some equipment, working out how it could be shared between myself and those carrying on the clinic at the eye-centre. For someone who likes to be organised, it wasn’t the best way to go about preparing for an outreach clinic. As Anne (who we are living with) reminds us, flexibility is what it’s all about in Ghana !
Anyway, it was a busy clinic as there had been a radio announcement in Elmina that we would be holding a clinic there, so we arrived to find a roomful of people waiting.
Fortunately two of the students came along too which was a great help for translating and helping Kofi (the driver!) take the vision measurements.
I was refracting in a huge, empty church hall, with the most limited of equipment.
I don’t think I have ever tested so many patients in such a short space of time.
There was recently a mid-week bank holiday as it was ‘Republic Day’ ; the anniversary of the day Ghana became a republic, 4 (we think, but don’t quote us on this !) years after it gained independence in 1957.
We spent the afternoon at the site of the Mother’s Union project, clearing vegetation from the site where the building work was started 10 years ago. It was the one hot sunny day that we’ve had in ages so it was hot and hard work, but you could really see a difference for everyones efforts! And the rake we bought was the best 3 Cedis (£1.50) that we have spent so far !
The other weekend we took a ‘tro-tro’ to visit the towns of Winneba and Apam to the East of Cape Coast. The towns are both based around small fishing communities
As it was a very hot day we decided to stop at a local bar for a drink and a much needed toilet stop. The bar owner indicated to us that there wasn’t a toilet at the bar but took us on a mystery tour to find one. This took us through the back streets past some extremely basic looking ‘lock-ups’/shacks which to our surprise appeared to be peoples homes.
At the point where we were expecting to be shown to a toilet similar to the one in the film Trainspotting, we arrived at the cleanest, shiniest, whitest, porcelain-tiled public convenience / bath house that we have ever come across! It was totally not what we expected to find in those surroundings. We paid a fee of 20 Peswar (approx 10p) to use the conveniences and were each escorted to our respective cubicles on the Ladies and Gents sides. We were even handed a towel so we could dry our hands after. We then returned to the bar (by a more conventional route !) to thank the owner and repay her for her trouble by buying a drink.
On our way back from Winneba we called in at Apam and walked to the fort to get a good view of the town and the fishing activity along the beach. We later decided to venture to the hub of the activity on the beach where young boys and teenagers were playing football while the men attended to their boats.
The students are approaching the end of their summer placement at the eye-clinic now. When they first arrived, because they were inevitably slower at testing, there was often a very long queue of patients waiting for their eye-test (and we kept being told we needed to “hurry up” as some of the patients were complaining about the wait).Perhaps this would be a good place to explain how the appointment system at the eye-centre works. Well, there isn’t one! Basically people just turn up at the eye-centre and join a queue for the registration process. They then queue to give their history and symptoms to a nurse and then queue to have their vision tested by another nurse before seeing a technician for the intra-ocular pressure check. They are then either sent to us for refraction (i.e. for the ‘glasses test’) or go straight into the queue to have the health of their eyes examined by the Ophthalmologist or Ophthalmic Nurse. All in all it can be a very lengthy process. Especially as the vast majority of people turn up early in the morning, so it’s not as if they are evenly spaced throughout the day.
Anyway, back to the long queues outside the refraction room….
Well, Steve put his practical skills to great use and made a new test chart surround so that we can slide in the spare letter chart and have 2 interchangeable test charts in the one room. Ingenious ! This means that two students can now be testing at the same time. This isn’t without problems but greatly reduces the queuing time for patients (and keeps more of the students occupied at any one time !).
A few weeks back, with approximately one minutes notice (notice a theme ?!) partway through a clinic I was told I was going out on an outreach clinic to Elmina and that the other staff that were going were waiting for me on the minibus. So I had to quickly grab some equipment, working out how it could be shared between myself and those carrying on the clinic at the eye-centre. For someone who likes to be organised, it wasn’t the best way to go about preparing for an outreach clinic. As Anne (who we are living with) reminds us, flexibility is what it’s all about in Ghana !
Anyway, it was a busy clinic as there had been a radio announcement in Elmina that we would be holding a clinic there, so we arrived to find a roomful of people waiting.Fortunately two of the students came along too which was a great help for translating and helping Kofi (the driver!) take the vision measurements.
I was refracting in a huge, empty church hall, with the most limited of equipment.
I don’t think I have ever tested so many patients in such a short space of time.
There was recently a mid-week bank holiday as it was ‘Republic Day’ ; the anniversary of the day Ghana became a republic, 4 (we think, but don’t quote us on this !) years after it gained independence in 1957.
We spent the afternoon at the site of the Mother’s Union project, clearing vegetation from the site where the building work was started 10 years ago. It was the one hot sunny day that we’ve had in ages so it was hot and hard work, but you could really see a difference for everyones efforts! And the rake we bought was the best 3 Cedis (£1.50) that we have spent so far !
The other weekend we took a ‘tro-tro’ to visit the towns of Winneba and Apam to the East of Cape Coast. The towns are both based around small fishing communitiesAs it was a very hot day we decided to stop at a local bar for a drink and a much needed toilet stop. The bar owner indicated to us that there wasn’t a toilet at the bar but took us on a mystery tour to find one. This took us through the back streets past some extremely basic looking ‘lock-ups’/shacks which to our surprise appeared to be peoples homes.
At the point where we were expecting to be shown to a toilet similar to the one in the film Trainspotting, we arrived at the cleanest, shiniest, whitest, porcelain-tiled public convenience / bath house that we have ever come across! It was totally not what we expected to find in those surroundings. We paid a fee of 20 Peswar (approx 10p) to use the conveniences and were each escorted to our respective cubicles on the Ladies and Gents sides. We were even handed a towel so we could dry our hands after. We then returned to the bar (by a more conventional route !) to thank the owner and repay her for her trouble by buying a drink.
On our way back from Winneba we called in at Apam and walked to the fort to get a good view of the town and the fishing activity along the beach. We later decided to venture to the hub of the activity on the beach where young boys and teenagers were playing football while the men attended to their boats.
Steve was soon invited by a group of fishermen to help drag their boat back up the beach. It was deceptively heavy even for the 12 or so people helping. As the men haul the boat up the beach they sing a little song. As far as we could make out this went ‘Hello Hello HoH and everyone pulled or pushed (depending which end of the boat they were at !) on the Hoh. The song was also sung in alternating ‘verses’ between those pulling and those pushing. It was another memorable experience, which will hopefully last a lot longer than the blisters from the rope !
We had fun last week when we had an African Dance and Drumming lesson along with Anne. The beats were quite tricky to follow to dance to and even harder to drum ! There were a few bizarre dance movements (glad there’s no photographic evidence of that !) which initially we were a little self-conscious about as it was held in one of the most popular bars for tourists. Guess it made some unique entertainment for the onlookers anyway…..For the drumming we learnt several rhythms and managed well when we were all playing the same rhythm together but at the end when we were each playing a different part it all went a little to pot.
For a few weeks we attended the University Interdenominational Church where there is a bible study session before the service. We feel very comfortable there because people are very friendly, the worship is lively and we find we can understand and relate to the teachings more than in some churches that we have been to.
At one or two of the other churches we’ve attended people like to pray out aloud (actually very loud), not just one person but the whole congregation, along with the worship leaders who also use a microphone. People seem to repeat prayers and chants over and over again, getting louder and louder until the noise feels almost unbearable. Compared to praying in silence as we are used to, we found this pretty distracting to us. Imagine trying to pray on the front row of a busy cattle market ! However, it is evidently a way of praying that suits a number of congregations here.
Last Sunday we attended a local Methodist church. We understood that it started at 9am and would be in English. It started at 9.30 and was (mainly) in Fante ! At least we were early rather than late ! It was the parade service of the churches uniformed organisations who processed down the road accompanied by a marching band. This reminded Steve of his time in the Boys Brigade in Matlock with regular church parades and marching drill sessions.Despite not understanding much of the spoken word in the service, we could join in the traditional Methodist hymns and enjoy yet another different style of worship. As we have found in many churches here, the collection was taken at the front of church with really catchy chorus style music playing and all the congregation dances their way forwards from their seats to put in their offering. As people sing and dance their way along they look so joyful to be praising God in their giving.
Well, this has been a lengthy entry so we won’t go on any more for now.
Obama is coming to Cape Coast ! More on that next time ……..
