So, now I’ll explain what exactly we’re doing here in Tadi! Our partner is the YMCA vocational school and the 2 trades being studied are sewing and catering. Starting on Monday we will be working with the first, second and third years and conducting workshops to teach them about the millennium development goals. Our work weeks will be Monday to Friday and we will be conducting the workshops from 8am to 9:30am with a break from 9:30 to 12:30! We will come back to the school at 12:30 and work with the kids from 1 to 2:30. This time is more open and we will work to support the curriculum in any way we can, ie: essay writing, math, etc.
On Friday evening we went out for a few drinks and a lot of dancing! It was a super great time and I think it will become our regular Friday night hand out spot!
Saturday was jam packed with tourist stuff but it was really interesting. In the morning we headed to Kakum and did the canopy walk which is a set of 7 very narrow canopy bridges suspended between 40 meters above the ground!
Next we went to Cape Castle in Cape Cost which is a UNESCO world heritage site and was built in the 1600’s and it was initially used as a trading post until the start of the slave trade. The tour we had was really interesting, we got to go into the slave dungeons underground and our guide explained the whole process of moving the slaves from one dungeon to the boats as well as the punishment cells for those who tried to escape.This was really interesting for me to see first hand as I did an entire presentation in 3rd year economics class about the slave trade.
After this tour, I was super tired and I thought we were heading back to Tadi, but we ended up visiting the home of a chief. The chief’s wife is Emilia and she is the principle at the YMCA we are working with. This was a really interesting experience. We went into the village and visited with the head chief in his palace and went through the actual steps of greeting the chief. The chief then offers each guest a drink and you have to take it as a sign of acceptance into his palace. Our choices were Star beer or Malt Guinness, the star was a huge bottle so I opted for the smaller Malt bottle because you are supposed to finish your drink before you leave. However, next time I visit a chief I will opt for the Star because Malta has a horrible after taste! It’s definitely an acquired taste! After our village visit we went back to the chief’s house and feasted on roasted chicken, rice with curry sauce and fries. I think this home cooked meal was the best thing I’ve ate so far and being surrounded by so many people it reminded us all of thanksgiving dinner!
So, work starts tomorrow, hoping that our workshops run smoothly and the kids actually learn something from us!
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