There is quite alot going on in school at the moment, with the football tournament coming up on Thursday and Friday, and the whole country practising for the Ghanaian Independance Day marching competition.

I'll start with the football tournament, where 24 schools are all competing from around the Akim Oda region. We are the defending champions and Mr. Aqcuah Heyford has let it be known on more than one occasion that he expects to retain the title. We are putting forward two teams; the JSS team (junior secondary school) and a primary team. Although Mr.Acquah Heyford announced that i was the new head coach, he seems to have saved me any effort and has decided to take on the responsibility for himself. I'm not complaining because i didn't really want to be head coach anyway. I think he must have got caught in the moment when i fleetingly told him that i enjoy watching football on the tv; and so therefore i must both be good at football, and football tactics.

The kids have been training every day after school this week, and because the JSS students board at the school, they have been waking up at 3am every day to go for a long run at 4am before fetching water and starting school. This sounds excessive, but it gets worse. After football practice and dinner, which is about 7pm, the boarders often have evening classes and then bits and bobs to do before finally settling down at about 11pm, only to wake up at 3, and do it all again.

On the 6th of March, it's Ghanaian Independence Day, where every school in the country will march in lines, competing for a prize. Me and Kirby went to one of the marching practices the other day, and decided to have a go. We joined the back of the lines and immidiately the kids started looking back and laughing. A short trip down the road and the front of the lines stopped and turned right, and the kids started coming back towards us. At this point, even the teachers were laughing (with us) as we tried our best to march. The boarders ushered me to the front of their line, and told me to lead them with the marching. I obliged, and as i was marching, i looked behind me and saw that they had all but given up trying to march now because they found it so hilarious how terrible i was at it. Kirby took his turn aswell, but although he was better than me, he still couldnt do it properly. We both had a great time trying to march, and by the looks of it, the whole school had a great time watching.

Henry (our host in Accra) came to visit us today to check how everything was going. We could only tell him how pleased we were with our placement, and that we were having a great time. We asked him about the other placements, and although everyone else was getting on great, we were both sure we hit the jackpot with ours. We asked what the other schools were like, and Leila (a lattitude representitive) told us that our school was the nicest.

On our way home from Takoradi, we met a German guy called Ingo, who had come up to Takoradi from Akim Oda. It was such a coincidence to meet this guy, because we were only in the tro tro station for about 10minutes, and he just happened to come from the same place as us. He told us that he knew Paul and Solomon (the previous volunteers) and a place in Oda that sells western food. We exchanged numbers and he said he'd be back in Oda in a week and that we should go out for pizza.

We're in our second week of teaching now, and things are starting to get easier. The kids are starting to get easier to manage aswell, although there are still a couple that continue to wander round the class. Today, for example, a girl got up to go and talk to someone across the class, so i brought her up to the front, and made her stand in the corner. It worked pretty well, and the others soon caught on and started listening more intently.

As for teaching methods, i find that the kids will get bored pretty quickly if i stand in front of them and talk at them for too long. As often as i can i will get kids up to underline the adjectives, and adverbs etc. I've just started using 'hangman' to try to get them thinking of more imaginitive adjectives and adverbs. This works brilliantly because they all want to try and beat me, and often they do until i throw a 13 letter word at them that i know they will never have heard before.

Thats all for now, a storm is moving in and we won't have any power soon. Oh, and someone will need to tell gramps that although i havn't seen an elephant yet, i have managed to carry a full bucket of water from a well back to our school.