More murals, art class, etc.

Students working on a mural of Ghana.

A mural of Africa.

Finished mural of the regions of Ghana.

This is David, drawing my bicycle.  I love this class, Primary 4---they are enthusiastic about everything and make teaching fun.  

This is a drawing of a truck made by one of my mentally disabled students, Moilom.  She is amazing, and has fabulous color sense, and patience beyond any of her fellow students.

This is my bicycle, also draw by Moilom.  I plan to have her draw something for me every day until I leave.

This is Moilom, working on the bicycle.  

Primary 4

This is another great artist, Mohammed Bawa, who made an excellent truck collage, and who also has drawn me a number of portraits of myself, looking quite 'mad scientist', with hair standing straight up on my head (which is often the case here with the heat).

Since the school is right on the main road to Bolga and Burkina Faso, we see a lot of trucks, so I wanted the students to draw them.

Last term I took photos of all the JHS students, and this term they gridded and enlarged the photos, and then painted them.  This is Sheeda and Anass from JHS 1.

This is a relief construction the JHS students are making.

This is Evelyn---she's about to graduate from JHS.  A very quiet, talented girl.  

This is my counterpart, Rosarius.  He teaches Primary 5.

Pigs!  

The sad part about my job is seeing things like this being taught to third graders and not being able to say anything.  These same students have never heard of dinosaurs, space travel, evolution, and most elements of natural history.  There's nothing wrong with teaching students that there is a storybook called the bible full of morality tales, as long as you also teach them that science has challenged much of the content of the bible, and that the world is extremely old, and that we descended from apes, etc.  However, I much prefer Frodo Baggins to Jesus Christ as required reading---so much more interesting.  

Damba Festival, World Map Mural, Self Portraits

Well, I've been in Ghana for almost 20 months now, and I should be home by late July, a little over 5 months from now.  February will involve consistent, daily, teaching, but March will bring my HIV Awareness competition (and the stress that goes along with organizing, planning, and running a school-wide event), plus Ghanaian Independence Day marching festivities (that's right, marching in March), and then in April is the All-Volunteer conference and our term break, and in early May is the Close of Service conference.  That's right---Close of Service, and it's coming right up, just around the corner.   

Damba festival happened again, but this year I missed the main dancing day because I was teaching, but the following day the chiefs from all the surrounding villages come riding into Savelugu on their horses, and big crowds gather around to see them.  Horses are a serious status symbol here.

This is the Savelugu Chief.

Hand-made paper twirler in the crowd.

The students are working on self portraits using photographs that they gridded and enlarged.  I took photos of each student last term and printed them.  Seeing photographs of themselves is a big treat, so this is a project I had been wanting to do for a while.  Most of the students didn't really understand how to following a gridded image, so they just used the photograph and drew it, but those who did understand did an amazing job.  It was a good process project nonetheless.

Sheeda is a great painter.  Great.  

In fact, Sheeda made these two paintings.  (Thank you, Steven, for the guache paint, it really makes a huge difference)

Yeay! Finished world map mural, with the students who painted it, Rahim, Kwabena, Sheeda, and Ganiyu!

I really like this tissue paper fish drawing.  

David, showing off his pattern relief.