Breaking News!
June 21, 2013We spent Monday morning with the YAN student interns working on descriptive and detailed writing, tools that are especially important as they have each been involved in newsletter or article writing, blog posts or website creation. The first exercise paired students next to makeshift chalkboards (originally our closet doors)—one student received a piece of chalk and was directed to face the board, while the other received a random item and was directed to face away from the board. The objective of the activity was for the item-holding student to describe their assigned item to their chalk-holding partner, who would subsequently draw the item. For the next 10 minutes, student pairs worked in differing levels of excitement and frustration as they attempted to specifically describe and draw a broom, a bunch of bananas, and a shoe without using the words broom, banana, or shoe.
When drawings were complete, we walked around to each group and analyzed the results, discussed difficulties, and tried to figure out what details were missing. Student pairs then spent a few minutes with each item, trying to list as many characteristics as possible. Finally, each student worked individually to write a news article announcing the arrival of one of these (never-before-seen) items from space.
Here are a few of the results:
Breaking News! This morning, a strange phenomenon landed in the city of Buea at about 8:36 am. The scientists here decided to name it a banana. It looks very weird; it has three long objects attached together and at the point of attachment there are some sort of hairs on it. The long figures look like fingers and are yellow in colour and at the point of attachment it is black in colour. The fingers are arrange in this manner: there are two lying together in the same manner while the longest is on top of those two fingers. This alien smells ripe and looks eatable and from what the scientists here have examined it could have been cultivated in another planet (probably Mars). The scientists say they are looking for a means to know how to cultivate it. Stay clear for the moment—if any other falls near you do not eat it until it is finally proven eatable.
-I am Eyole Emmanuel reporting from Buea
Oh My God! An unbelievable object from space has just reached Earth in Buea, Cameroon. It is black in colour and smells awful! It is about 15 cm long, smooth at the top and rough at the bottom. It is heavy and has an opening at the top and the opening is blue in colour with blue laces. Beneath it is a platform and it has the mark blue heaven. The sides of the inside are blue and bottom inside is black. The soul is white in colour and when it lands it sounds like a giant stepping on the group like “THUM!” It has white lines of sewing thread all over it. Watch out, it is deadly!
-Suh Ruth
After readying and critiquing these news articles together, students took a few minutes to write and reflect on their work from the past week. Here’s a taste of what our interns have been up to with their partner organizations:
A week like any other by nature but with its own ups and downs. This past week I happened to create the Facebook address for our organization’s newspaper with the help of my internship partner. The newspaper is known as The Green Vision Newspaper which will be launched on the Monday, June 17, 2013.
Another duty was surely updating, so my partner and I got friendship with the organization’s program in order to be able to keep uploading the information on the website. Regarding this, we have uploaded an article called “ERuDeF Commemorates the 41st Edition of the World Environment Day (WED). I even got to paste a special notice concerning the newspaper’s launching on Facebook.
Our water source project will commence this week and concerning the mayor we are to see him with our supervisor, perhaps Tuesday the 18th. No doubt we will be doing something for the meantime. We did visit the water stream called Ndongo Water at Santa Barbara, Molyko—we made a video of it and took pictures. Hoping to go to the next stream at Mile 18 while waiting to see the mayor. [This group is waiting to interview the mayor about water sources in the Buea area.]
-Bessinula Emmanuel
Last week I followed a member of my organization to the standard market in Buea at Bongo Square to sell stoves. I also learned how to fill the receipt issued to buyers. Also we went to Soppo to make a video on how the stove funtions and this video will be advertised on one of the most popular channels in Buea “HiTV.” In the video I acted as a neighbor who is so amazed to see a stove using firewood efficiently.
-Nanje Lucia
Last week, I wrote a report about the library programme and typed it to deliver to the director concerning the various types of books found in the library and also the books that are not found in the library. The problems the organization is facing in the library is that they do not have a projector.
This week, I will have to read an agriculture textbook titled “How to Establish a Tree Nursery” and analyze and select important facts from. I may be creating a website about the library program to share information about the books.
-Tetsop Florantine
YAN interns meet up during their lunch break to share a meal:
Posted by Clara Rowe.
