Game On

On Friday afternoons, many Ghanaian schools end classes early (at second break, around 1:30pm) and have something called Games for the last hour and a half of school.  Now, my experience is limited to Manye, NAP and stories about other schools from friends, but I am confident, the activities that occur during Games period vary pretty greatly depending on the school and it's organization.

Manye tends fall into the more "unorganized" category.  Often, Games is just a synonym for extended recess, where kids run around, or the headmaster, Mr. Kabutey, will have kids work on the school farm.  Once, there was an essay-writing contest; once they spent the whole hour arranging the kids into four sections (like teams) that will be used for various activities; once they held elections for prefects.  

Yesterday was a bit of an exception -- Games period was used for a Quiz Bowl. Two contestants each from P1, P2, and P3 sat on a bench behind a table and took turns answering questions asked by Sir Eric, the math teacher.  The top 4 entertaining moments from the afternoon were as follows:

4.  A group of 5 or 6 P1 students kept trying to help out their classmates by jumping up and down and mouthing the correct answers (or at least what they thought were the correct answers). 

3.  Sir Ashitey, the P2 teacher, yelled at some misbehaving students to "SMILE," because if they didn't, they wouldn't go to America. 

2.  Several of the boys in P5, P6, and JHS 1 tried to stump me on math problems.  When one of them told me to write 25% as a fraction in its lowest form, I wrote 1/4 on the paper.  They then all yelled, "Madam, you must show your workings!"

1.  Sir Eric asked the P3 contestants to fill in the blanks/provide the complete word:  A - D - J - __ - C - T - __ - V - E.  Jamie couldn't do it.