Our first day in Grand Bassam was an amazing experience. The school itself is really basic but run really well with excellent dedicated staff. The school has 360 pupils in total, ranging from 3 year old pre-school to 18 year old pre-university students. Roughly half the kids are Boarders (live at school during term time) and are looked after by the teachers and house staff. They run two systems of education, the French state school and the Ivory coast system. The school has a specialism in english and ICT learning and use the facilities for the local community as well as for the students. They have concentrated on providing a base knowledge of Computer use in order to prepare students for the working world. Make sure you look at the pictures I took on the left, I think you'll all agree that we are pretty lucky to have the facilities that we do, remember this is a fee paying private school!!!
The children and staff are really welcoming and friendly and we will be spending some time in classes tomorrow so I will hopefully have more photos for you. The weather was lovely and sunny today and, of course, extremely hot! We went out for a walk this evening with two of the teachers from the school who took us to where they live and introduced us to their families. This community is really amazing. The town itself is quite big but everyone says hello to each other and smiles, we spent a good hour playing with the local kids (I amazed them with my Drogba like football skills) and being bought drinks of fermented palm liqueur that erupted a volcano of heat in your belly! The wages that teachers have to live on in this country are so meagre that I for one will never complain about pay again, and they all do their work with smiles and enthusiasm, there are some real lessons to be learned around here!
Anyway, Hope everyone is enjoying the coldness of the UK, I promise I won't show off my arm tan too much when I get back!!! Speak to you all again tomorrow
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