First day of school!

My first day at NAP was wonderful! Like yesterday, I was woken up by Olivia bringing my breakfast at about 7AM. After finishing breakfast (and reading a couple more chapters of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol") I got ready for school and made the 3 or 4 minute walk from my house to NAP.

At NAP, the first order of business every morning is the school assembly at 8AM. They start off with what seemed like their version of the Pledge of Allegiance and then went on to sing the Ghanaian National Anthem as a couple kids raised the flag. Both of these, to my delight, were accompanied by a 3-person drumline, consisting of a bass, snare, and tenor. After the national anthem came a prayer led by Sir Richard, the creative arts teacher, and then came time for me to be introduced! Madam Gifty led me to the front of the assembly and told them all who I was and to welcome Sir Michael "Su" (woops). I couldn't help but smile when all 250 kids chanted "Welcome Sir Michael Su!" in unison three times. Who cares if they pronounce my name incorrectly when they are the cutest children in the world?

After meeting the entire staff, I was told I could choose whatever class I wanted to observe for the day. My first two classes were a math class taught by a teacher whose name I have completely forgotten. He was teaching a JHS-1 (junior high school 1) or Form-1 class about LCF's and HCM's. It definitely brought me back to my pre-algebra days.

Observing from the back of a math class.

After the first two periods came break time and my first to chance to really interact with the students. At first, "interacting" consisted mostly of all the kids trying to hold my hand and touch my hair at the same time. Next, and big mistake here that I should have learned from DREAM, I picked up one of the kids and now everyone was lining up for piggy back rides and getting picked up and "airplaning". Thankfully one of the little girls saved me by dragging me out into the big schoolyard where she taught me this game where everyone stood in a circle with their hands palms up. Your right hand was on top of the person to your right's hand and your left was below the person to your left's hand. You played the game by slapping the person to your left's palm. For every hit, there was a chant and when it got to the 16th chant, the person to your left had to try to get their hand out of the way before you could hit it. Classic reflex game. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't get the chant down for the life of me. I just smiled and mouthed along to what I thought they were saying. 

Apparently the kids got sick of this game pretty quickly though and decided to move onto a new game. One of the kids put their hands above their head, palms facing closed together in a sort of upside down V, forming the tree stance that I had seen so many times since getting to Dartmouth... they were playing Wa! I guess one of the volunteers taught them Wa when they were here and they love playing it now. I don't think they quite understand the rules, but it was still fun playing with them. They don't have a vegetable-off when it gets to the last two though, I think there's just sort of two winners. Or in this case, since it was between me and one of the students, I just let him win. :) Moral of the story: you can get away from Dartmouth but it always somehow finds its way back to you. Who would have thought, especially only a month after Trips, that I'd be playing Wa again, but this time with a very different group of kids? (And yes, trippees, I did just call you guys kids. Get over it.)

First picture of the kiddies.

This is my favorite picture I've taken so far. The little girl in the bottom right hand corner is the one who taught me how to play the hand slapping game.

Some of these kids just can't get enough of the camera.

After break, it was time for me to observe some more classes. This time, I decided to go with some of the younger students to Class 2 and Class 3 (2nd and 3rd grade). Class 2 had science class where they learned that birds have "two legs, two eyes, and a beak" and that "the blood of mammals is warm". I wish science class was still that straight forward.

The rest of the day passed without anything else too special happening. Just more cute kids touching my hair and asking me to speak Chinese. A few things I really liked about today: 1. The little girls in primary school really liked my hair. A couple even asked me to bring them some tomorrow. I'm not sure how they want me to go about that. 2. All the teachers seem so nice and happy. Then again, looking at these kids, how can they not be? 3. I've never been called handsome so many times in my life. I'm sure the teachers were just being polite, but still, a guy could get used to this. :)

Eventually I left school about half an hour early because I hardly got any sleep last night (time difference) and was about to pass out right in the schoolyard. Goal for tomorrow: make it through the entire day. Easier said than done though... while playing with these kids is awesome, it's also exhausting!

The schoolyard.

Madam Olivia preparing lunch for the primary school students.

Speaking of not being able to get away from Dartmouth, the room I ate lunch in has historically been the volunteers' room and they decorated it last year with the alphabet and some pictures. I couldn't help be reminded of Dartmouth and 12X by a couple of the panels.

YOLO... even in Ghana.

Thing 1 and Thing 2, in all their Seussian glory.

As promised, here's a picture of the goat I saw yesterday. He (actually, also could be she, I have no idea), is looking right at the camera. Even the animals love cameras here.

Goat or "apo pom" in Twi (the language they speak here, pronounced kind of like chee)

Here's a picture of my room that I took this afternoon. My room is actually the biggest single I've ever lived in, it's pretty nice. And, with the window open at night, it's actually pretty comfortable temperature-wise in my room when I'm sleeping. 

My room. Mosquito net and all.

Here's a picture of the bagged water that I've been drinking ever since getting here. The tap water isn't drinkable so all their water has to be filtered so it makes sense that they use these little bags instead of bottles. They hold 500 mL of water and use significantly less plastic than the bottles we have in America. Maybe a little less convenient, but definitely more environmentally friendly.

Bagged water.

Okay, it's only 9:30 here, but I think I might try to get to bed early just in case I wake up in the middle of the night again like last night. One day down, 7 weeks and 4 days to go. If today was any indication, I'm going to love the next two months. :)