First Week of School

This is my Government Issued Box of Chalk which really marked the first day of school.

Well, here in Ghana things move a little more slowly, that is a given. In fact, I am getting entirely used to taking each day as it comes and enjoying the surprise of a seemingly schedule-free existence. When neither transport, nor administrative systems are reliable it is rather intuitive that the first week of school in Ghana might be a little different than the way I remember it from my high school days.

The first day, I found out just how different it is. Because the school’s budget does not include salaries for groundskeepers, the students are asked to come to school bearing their machetes for some heavy weeding. This weeding along with a thorough campus cleanup (sweeping, sponging, and scrubbing) goes on for the entirety of the first week. Classes, for the most part are not held.
After discovering the surplus of free clean labor, I enlisted the help of some strong third year boarding students to give my ICT lab a thorough overall.


This has been for the most part my primary focus since arriving in Abura Dunkwa. I had even measured the dimensions of the lab and drafted an alternative arrangement of desk to be the most spatially efficient. The project of course has only just begun and many things must be purchased in order for the lab to have all 50 of its computers in working condition. As of now we have 28 working computers to serve the approximately 1300 students. It is no easy task, but somehow, we are managing.

Here are some pictures of the big lab clean up: