Last week I got approval from the Head of the Multi Media Resource Center and the Principal at Lycee Molyko two use the computer lab an extra two days per week!! This is fabulous news for YAN!

When I went to Lycee on Monday  I left a power-less house to meet with the Waste Management group. The electricity was out. Lycee and my apartment are on different ‘grids’ or ‘blocks’ or electricity so I don’t even think that there would be a problem at the schools. But sure enough, when I arrived and made it to the lab, Kenneth was just locking the doors before there was no power, meaning no computers or internet. It must have been all of Buea, or at least Molyko so I didn’t try to find a cyber café for us.

When the 3 girls in the Waste Management group showed up, I broke the bad news to them. So we did all that we could do... Instead of physically working on computer and practicing research skills – we did it theoretically, while waking down Molyko towards all of our houses!

The 25 min walk gave us enough time to review singing into emails (including quiz of their usernames and passwords), parts of a professional email, advocacy and purpose of YANs work, and lastly I gave them several search tips/suggestions and examples for better results. This was a 100% oral lesson with no chalk, paper, pens or computers. Last week this group had admitted to having some problems researching: what to research and how to find only the important facts in articles. This was the hardest lesson to verbally communicate, but if they weren’t lying, then they seems to have a better grasp of web based research. We will see how that goes on Wednesday. I was able to walk one of the students, Rose, all the way up to her door step – she is a neighbor of mine, just about 20 meters away.


Tuesday I met with the Advanced YAN students at 3pm for our first week of double classes!  Surprise-surprise: for now the 3rd class period in a row, the internet was not working! These students are truly motivated and dedicated to YAN. They weren't even upset in the slightest when I informed them of the internet problem. David nearly read my mind when he responded, "Madam, we can finish typing for the website."

This class period gave those who attended a change to catch up on typing and get as much typed as possible before creating their site. Over the weekend I went through the two boxes of curriculum books for the club. I removed those who had stopped attending class/dropped YAN and we have recycled those books to be for the Advanced YAN students. There was one book for each research topic.

Some of the students are having a hard time deciphering ideas from facts. Shemilove, who is continuing his research from last year on Malaria, wrote for his first fact: “I can help prevent malaria by going into the villages like Tole and teaching others about it.” I explained how this was a fantastic idea and something he will hopefully do, but the facts are what you will inform them about. He understood things perfectly after that explanation and went on to write about how many people malaria effects each year.


The Advanced YAN students and I are all confident their websites will be finished before the end of the term - Easter!