September 10/11

Thursday morning brought us back to Winneba, home of Dr. Eric Ananga, our Yo Ghana!

board member and possessor of seemingly inexhaustible energy.  We first visited John Bosco School and then St. Paul Methodist.  Students and teachers at both schools are very interested in the letter writing, particularly the original-research projects, and they posed a great number of questions.  We had a full team: Elizabeth and I and Lucy Dawu, our Accra coordinator, together with Eric and his very able assistant, Betty.  Eric and Betty are pictured here at Don Bosco.  So the students heard from a variety of perspectives.  They are two of three Ghana schools we are adding this year and are participating in a research project Eric is overseeing to measure the impact of the letters on several factors, including perceptions of the U.S.

Friday morning we drove along the ocean to the outskirts of Cape Coast and Ebubonko Basic School.  There we met our very capable school coordinator, Mr. Havor Wisdom, and the rest of the staff, including Madam Dorthy and Mr. Alexander, who will be assisting Wisdom this year.  Elizabeth, Lucy, and I were very impressed by the level of attention and interest shown by the students, and it looks like quite a number will be working on original-research projects, despite the fact that most are still in primary school.  Here is a photo of them, in their library, below, listening to Miss Lucy.

Reflection: One theme that I live to dwell on in my short (by my standards) talks to students is that

Yo Ghana! is relying on them to teach Americans about Africa, because we cannot depend on our media to do that.  Popular images of Africa depict it as a "failed continent" of disease and warfare.  Most of the positive images are of animals.  But these students have many success stories to tell, of lives rich in friendships and hard work and persistence.