January 21, 2014
This Saturday YAN had the
first ‘extra/make up’ class of the 2014 year!!
I was at the Buea Town cyber
at 8:30am so I could meet with Charles, the manager, and get a bit more
information on him to add on the YAN website as a local partner. Check it out
HERE.
Around 9am two students
arrived who needed help with their emails. Last week we had a lot of trouble in
both classes signing into emails. Students had either written down their
password incorrectly or never wrote it down at all. There was a total of 7 students
who got help with their email that day. I met an hour early with these
particular students so that I could watch each and every one of them as they
created their email. I was able to remind them to write down their password,
and not forget which letter is capitalized.
GHS Buea Town students getting busy on Saturday morning!
Between 10 and 10:30 the
rest of the students showed up, totaling 12. Saturday’s focus was the
individual websites! There were two groups who couldn’t remember their
passwords to WordPress even though they had copied it down in their books and
it was not possible to retrieve or reset the password because the group member
who’s email address was used to create the blog was not present. It these
cases, the students just typed up the information that they will be putting on
their website. Their websites are made up for three pages: About, Research and
Videos & Photos. For the About page, students looking back at their
research and combined interesting facts of their research topic with their own
individual motives and intentions of their website. As for the Research page,
students had previously collected the most relevant and interesting 8 facts of
all their completed research to add onto their website. Students simply typed
up their 8 facts. We saved these two documents on a flash drive and will put
them on their websites this week in our regular class. There was one group who had
all of their members present so I took their photo to add to the YAN website.
You can see all of the 2013-2014 YAN projects coming together HERE.
 Working hard in the Lycee Molyko computer lab. We worked until
just after 12:30pm and then I headed down to meet my students at Lycee Molyko.
There was less of a turn out at Lycee, only 9 students, but it was still very
productive. The groups that did show up were able to get a good amount of work
done. Only one group was fully present so I took their photo as well. At this
time, the only groups that are somewhat behind are the Waste Management group
(who has 2 of 3 members with high absenteeism) and the group researching
Unemployment (mostly due to absenteeism).
Sunday I went to Bonduma
(a neighborhood in Buea) where I met two students who had previously requested that we meet on Sunday
because their schedule never permits them to meet on Saturday. These two
students are researching the Lack of Practical Education in Cameroon. We went to
a cyber where they worked on two computers for one hour. Within that hour, they
went from being one of the furthest behind groups to right up there with
everyone else!!
When the internet is working and the children are motivated –
its amazing how much work can get done!
Posted by Antonia.
January 17, 2014
Happy New Year YANers!!
2013 has come and gone but YAN is here to stay!
This year, YAN welcomed back its students with a fun and interactive 'scavenger hunt'. The purpose was to not only allow the students to review what they had learned last year, but it also helped me evaluate where their strengths and weaknesses were. At first, there was only
about 5 students who showed up and I had worried that I should have posted a reminder on the school's message board. But soon, anothe... Continue reading...
Posted by Antonia.
January 15, 2014
The Village: Rhumsiki (with pit
stops in Mokolo, Kossehone, and Mogode)
My friend who had recently
traveled here had recommended a guide for Megan and I for when we traveled. We
had made arrangements while we were in Garoua and scheduled two days and one
night in Rhumsiki hiking through the Mandara Mountains. We met our guide,
Charles and our driver, Njida, Sunday afternoon to ask questions, get ourselves
acquainted and discus details of the trip. We were scheduled to leave at 7am
(whitem... Continue reading...
Posted by Erin Wildermuth.
January 15, 2014
Welcome to the Northern Regions of Cameroon
“Bonne
journee, bonne soiree, bonne annee, bonne vie!”
“Have a nice day, have a nice night, happy near year,
have a nice life”
The next leg of my holidays
was with Megan, a Canadian who will spend nearly one full year in Buea working
for an NGO called Human IS Right. When she gets back to Canada, she will
attend the very same school and study the same subject my amazing Aunty Patty
has recently completed – International Develop... Continue reading...
Posted by Erin Wildermuth.
January 13, 2014
The title of the blog post, Bumpy
Dusty Roads, Mystical Twin Lakes, HOT DRY SUN, and Fulfulde, pretty much sums up everything I
have been doing since my last days of teaching.
The first leg of my journey started in Douala. Douala is
known to have the best night light in the entire country. Here you will find
not only bars on every corner but also a slew of night clubs that are open until
dawn and tons of cabarets that play some of the best music ever. Since we were going
to Bange... Continue reading...
Posted by Erin Wildermuth.
December 20, 2013
All week I had been in the house working on individual progress reports. Here in Cameroon, students are usually just given their grade: pass or fail. They are not told their strengths or what they can work on and improve. I took the time to evaluate each student by looking at their attendance, grades on homework and finally my personal assessment of their participation and seriousness in class.
Wednesday morning I baked four cakes for the two classes.
For those of you who bake.. I would like ... Continue reading...
Posted by Antonia.
December 14, 2013
Friday’s make up class for the Lycee club was held at a cyber cafe for the first time this year! I decided a cyber would be best for two reasons. 1) There are only 3-4 working computers with internet in the computer lab and 2) The lab wasnt even available because GCE registration was still going on.
Therefore, I got permission from the Principle to take the YAN club off campus to the cyber I had reserved just down the road. As we were leaving, there were 5 advanced students who showed... Continue reading...
Posted by Erin Wildermuth.
December 12, 2013
Wednesday started just like
any other Wednesday. I prepared for the lessons in the morning and headed to
school shortly after noon. At Lycee, when I arrived, the director of the lab
informed me that the internet was not working. Usually, this isn’t a big deal
because there are other things they can work on, for example researching from
articles I have previously saved on my flash drive or writing a professional
email (and not sending it just saving it to my flash drive), but today was
diff... Continue reading...
Posted by Antonia.
December 10, 2013
On Saturday the 7th, YAN held one class in Buea Town and one
at Lycee: 10am-1pm and 1pm to 4pm respectively. Both classes had the same
purposes 1) conducting research; 2) preparing to create their website and if
time permits; 3) creating a website for those group that are ready.
In Buea Town, the students
use a cyber café that YAN rents out. By the time it was open for class, it was
10:30am. It’s good that we started a bit late though because most students
didn’t show up until close... Continue reading...
Posted by Antonia.
December 5, 2013
Today was the Advanced YAN
class form 3-5pm at Lycee. I went early to get the start loading the research
from my flash drive onto the computers. When I arrived, only one computer was
open because teachers were using them all. Soon 3pm (when class starts) was
approaching. I kindly reminded the teachers that I had a class starting at 3pm.
They explained to me that class today wouldn’t be possible because all the
teachers were doing their grades. I asked them what time they would finish,
they ... Continue reading...
Posted by Antonia.
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