Introduction week in Jachie (24.10-29.10)

After the quality of the introduction week in Capecoast, we were expecting the same kind of standard for our first week in Jachie. But this time, nothing was really scheduled beforehand. We had to visit the Tacco sites and meet the person in charge of the various projects, but on Monday, we did not know when we will go where and who we will meet during the first week. The first three days, except a brief visit at the Computer centre, we spent most of our time walking around at the crèche, playing with the kids whereby Kathryn really impressed me: she could sing kiddy songs (such as ‘A Lion has a tail, it has a big head, and a very small waist…’) for hours and still keeping the same vivacity of voice, meanwhile doing the mimics, dancing energetically…After several times, I felt already tired…it was so hot in the classroom! After this, I thought that I will much feel much more comfortable with teaching the teen-agers and the teachers at the computer centre than entertaining 30kids of 1-2years old at the crèche. Kathryn thought exactly the opposite, so that was easy to split the tasks at the end of the introduction week! At this time, I did not realize that teen-agers were also very noisy and hard to make them stop shouting and laughing at you!!

On Thursday, Afia introduced us to the priest of the Anglican Church. In the afternoon, she brought us to the lake Bosumtwi with an American who had a big interest in TACCO and so we had a nice afternoon sightseeing.

Also we had our first street food judged by Afia as ok for us: fried yam (look like French fries but much drier) with fried salted fish, eaten of course with the fingers in the car! Hum…yummy! ;-) Especially when it is 2a.m and you are starving.

We finally managed to have a meeting on Friday with TACCO education coordinator, Mr Boakye, who is in charge of both the weekly quiz and the big quiz. As a result, we scheduled our first quiz for the following week in his school (the Anglican Junior School). This was just after having met the chief of Jachie as it is the custom here to be introduced to the chief of the village you are staying in.

Unfortunately, we could not visit the disabled centre as they were on holiday. And we had to wait for Monday to visit the hospital and meet our medical contact. However, we end up on Saturday morning in the hospital as Kathryn scared us (Afia and me) at 2am on Friday morning: she was shivering with a fever of 39.5 degrees. Kathryn and I were worried that it was Malaria and hence petrified the rest of the night. We went to the hospital early in the morning and felt so relieved when the doctor told her that a bad glandular infection had caused the fever. This ‘visit’ of the hospital was very reassuring as we found out that it was the main hospital in the region and our contact was actually the head officer of this huge hospital which is located 5 minute’s drive from Jachie!

I thought this introduction week was not really appropriate to my tastes as it was centred around the crèche and I spent only 15 minutes in the computer centre where I am now spending almost all my time. But I was told only on Thursday by David Boateng (calling from Holland) that I will have to assist Charles in the classes for the teachers on Tuesdays and Thursdays and that I will have to structure the classes for the children in the mornings. At first, I thought that for the second task, I will just have to define a programme per class level for the whole year based on the existing software’s. I had never thought I would be teaching with Charles 6 classes of 30 teen-agers from 8 to 2pm without any break (even not to eat or go to the toilets…anyway there are no toilets!) or have to take on my own the classes during two following days as Charles happened to be sick! And at this occasion, I had to kick 6 pupils out of the class in less than an hour in order to be listened and respected. I came up with another trick to capture the children’s attention: I gave 1000 old cedis (10cents) to the winner …that works so well!!