The Kids

This morning we left at 8am and traveled to 7 of the schools that are in the ASK program. ("A"nswers "S"olutions and "K"nowledge) We will teach to junior and senior high school kids who have elected to be in the program. We only stayed about 10 minutes at each school just so that we could meet some kids, the headmaster of each school and get more comfortable. We didn't get back home until around 4 since the schools were about 2 hours from here. By car and no traffic it would have been maybe 25 minutes, but we had to switch Tro-Tro three times plus we hired a bus to take us to each school.

It was a long ordeal, but also incredible. The primary school children (aged 5 through 8 or 9 maybe) went CRAZY when they saw us. The were jumping and screaming and begging to take photos with us. Then when you show them the picture on the camera screen they would go nuts again. Screaming and running with these amazing big brown eyes and big white teeth. The girls have short hair and everyone wears a school uniform.

One little boy was shy and didn't say a word but followed us everywhere on the school tour. One of the Chinese interns (Fei-Fei) has Garfield on her bag and the boy was studying it and was completely mesmerized by it. I wanted to take him home with me as my little buddy.

Each intern will be assigned to 1 school and we will teach on Fridays. Every other day we can go and teach whatever we want. However, the schools are so far that I don't think I will be able to go everyday. There are more schools in the program within walking distance in the city of Kaneshie and we are going to them next week.

Tomorrow I am leaving for the National AIESEC conference in Cape Coast. None of us interns really want to go the conference, but Cape Coast is a big tourist place -- tons of castles, historical slave trade sites, and a big national park. They got a deal for us so it's only 25 Ghana Cedis ($20) for hotel with beds, showers and A/C; 3 meals per day; and the conference. The conference is Thursday-Sunday but we are only going Thursday-Friday. On Saturday morning we will leave to do tourist things. Saturday night we are camping near the national park and Sunday morning we will go on the Canopy walk where you walk in the trees and look down at the animals.

I won't be posting until Sunday or Monday but I'm sure my next post will be nice and long. Oh, 4 more Chinese interns came today. Super crowded in here, but I am learning some Mandarin!

She-She = Thank you; Shan= mountain; Xia = down; Shang = up; yen = human