Experiences: Cosmic

Lara Dupont is from Germany and volunteered at Cosmic Academy for one month in June and July 2006.

I am back home in Germany for one week now and I already miss Ghana, or lets say I miss Cosmic. It was a wonderful experience. and I am really looking forward to do it again. I learned more in 6 weeks, than I have ever learned before in such a short time. I really had a lot of fun with the kids, Jayaliila and her daughter and the other volunteers (especially Niki, my "english grammar teacher")

The email that Katie Jo, my volunteer coordinator sent me about reverse culture shock when getting home really seems as if it was written especially for me: all the things about friends who are not really interested in your experience, who don't ask, or ask but don't understand - all this happened/happens to me.

Here is my update about the situation:
There are about 60 kids, aged from 2 to 13 who attend this school. The kids are divided into four classes; the nursery class, KG class, first class and third class. The 25 nursery kids are from 2 to 4 years old, the KG kids are 5 to 6 years, the first class kids are about 7 years old and the third class has 12 to 13 years old kids. At the moment the second class is missing because of less classrooms. but hopefully that will change in the next school year.

A new building is in progress. They started building when I was there for two weeks. Two new volunteers (Nici and Ericka) just arrived. Both of them brought donations for the construction. The donations covered the construction of the wall all the way up to the roof. Now we just have to build the roof for these three classrooms. At the moment the school has two proper classrooms, though four are needed. KG and the first class get taught on the veranda.

Teachers change all the time. I arrived on Thursday and the next Monday two new teachers started to teach class 1 and 3. One left after four weeks without saying anything. Nici and me overtook the class, which really worked good. We taught them different things like how to tell the time, opposites and addition. We also drew with them and let them play with Lego and the train set. Playing is a thing they really need apart from getting educated. They get totally excited about the lego and trainset.Drawing is another thing which was really hard to do. They are not used to drawing, though they really like it. But because they never draw, they dont know what and how to draw it. It's really hard for them to use their imagination.

The teachers at Cosmic Academy are not that educated. Many of them are still at or just finished high school and are very young. Sometimes they teach at school so that they can earn money to finish school. One of the teachers is 17 years old.

The normal day at Cosmic:
7:00 Kids start to arrive at school

7:00 - 9:00 Playing (the 3rd class has its first lesson at 8 o'clock)

9:00 -10:30 Classes (nursery & KG sings the first half an hour)

10:30 Snack

10:30-12:00 Classes

12:00- 12:45 lunch

12:45-14:00 Classes (nursery has naptime)

Niki and me started to introduce a more regular timetable with shorter lessons (45 minutes) and a break after every lesson. The kids really appreciated it, but it was really hard to do cause we had to remind the teachers everytime, though we bought a clock for them. I am not sure if it will continue once we have gone. It just was really hard for the kids to sit in their classroom for 3 hours!

Living at Cosmic is really nice. Jayaliila is caring for you and really wonderful. She and her daughter cook the best dishes ever. Nici and me weren't able to stop eating. If you got to Cosmic, ask about peanut cakes. You will never forget those :o) For lunch and supper you get rice, noodles, spaghettis with different vegetables, fruits as a dessert..... In the morning there is toast, cheese, oats with milk, fruits....

T here is one room with four beds for volunteers. You share the bathroom with everyone. Bucket baths are great :o) i really got used to them and didnt even miss the normal shower.

Cosmic has electricity in the evening. That means a generator is turned on, which makes a horribe noise. If you don't need it, tell Jayaliila - she just turns it on because of you. It's really useful to charge batteries for cameras and so on. But i liked it even more with
candle light.

One last sentence about the kids: They are all so adorable. And you will find your favourite kid, who you will really love and miss when you're back home!

I f you have any questions about Cosmic....ask me....

Greetings,

Lara

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Nicolette Barton is from the UK and she stayed at Cosmic for 1 month from June to July.

I have just returned from 4 weeks at Cosmic (I am finding it very quiet back in London!) I had a great time while I was out there. The kids are incredible, so interested in the volunteers and full of fun. Jayaliila is a wonderful host.

The food was amazing and she made me and the other volunteers feel very welcome. I personally enjoyed the challenge of teaching the kids and I found the best approach was to get stuck in to anything that needed doing. I was there with Lara, from Germany, and for some of the time with gretchen from the US. Together we did a variety of things including playing with the kids, teaching classes when teachers were absent, giving the kids revision lessons, painting the school and we tried (with varying degrees of success!) to introduce a timetable giving the students set lesson and break times.

Currently there are four classes, but there have recently been a lot of changes in the teaching staff. Jayaliila has had lots of problems finding reliable teachers and volunteers come in very useful to fill in the gaps!

I would say to future volunteers that they need to come prepared to be proactive. Do not expect to be told what to do. There is no volunteers' schedule or timetable and no set tasks that the volunteers do. You just do what you can/want to. This allows enormous scope to get involved, but also means you will be left on the sidelines if you don't take the initiative yourself.

Building work on the new classrooms started while I was there, but has now stopped as the money has run out. In my opinion one of the single biggest benefits the school could receive is for these new rooms to be finished. Currently two classes have classrooms and two are taught on the verandah. This is too overcrowded and too noisy for the kids to concentrate and learn well. I would therefore advise future volunteers thinking about what to bring that cash is pretty must the most useful thing you could provide!

In terms of other gifts to bring for the school, I would say that volunteers should bring specific items that they plan to use. The school actaully has quite a lot of books, games for kids and some craft materials, but the teachers there don't know how to use them. If you are going to take something, think about how it will be used or it will just sit in a cupboard!

The school is just about to break up for a few week's holiday. The new term will start again in September. Good luck to future volunteers! Hopefully I will be a volunteer at Cosmic again in the future!

Niki