Exploding Cannons and Nose Goes

Feb 27.
Today was a busy day, with various groups working on several important projects. Mary, Blake, and Ralph headed back to Kumasi to give some laptops to the Peace Corps. They took a van and rode with a live goat under their seat for most of the way! Another group led by Amber and Mr. Rye went down to Spark FM, Dunkwa’s only FM radio station, to talk about GTA and introduce some songs on the radio. The rest of us stayed at BOA working on the computer labs, visiting classes, and doing laundry. With the help of some of the Ghanaian girls, our laundry system has improved a lot since the first day when they laughed at us struggling to wash clothes by hand for the first time in our lives!

Mike and Ralph have been working with the chemistry and physics teachers to design a couple experiments which they were able to do today. A huge group of Ghanaian students (many of whom were let out of their other classes to watch) gathered to see Mike shoot a Gatorade bottle out of a homemade cannon and crush a gas canister by drenching it with cold water. Both experiments demonstrated the effect of temperature change on the volume of gases.

The tech crew was able to finish checking all the computers in the lab (we had to stop early yesterday because of the power outage) and start putting the finishing touches on the lab so it will be ready for students to use tomorrow! We also inventoried, refurbished, and cleaned some of the school’s old computers which will be set up in administrative offices around the school. We’re also setting up computers in the school’s typing room, which will replace the typewriters they currently have. We’re still waiting for the floor to be finished so we can start moving in computers.

That night the school’s drama club put on a play for us. The plot centered around a college girl being pressured to join the Ghanaian version of a sorority. Afterwards we hung out up by the boy’s rooms for a while. The Ghanaians taught some of us how to pop dance and we taught them how to play nose-goes. We went to bed relatively early to get ready to work hard and finish everything up tomorrow.