Chatterboxes at Baah Memorial School, Kumasi

We left Elmina yesterday, and visited the Kakum rainforest (interesting, but could have been much better with proper guides) en route to Kumasi, Ghana's second city. It's a more densely commercial place than the uncontained urban/shantytown sprawl of Accra, and is surrounded by lush tropical woodland.

Today we met with the Sinapi Aba schools microfinance co-ordinator, and spent the day with him at the Baah Memorial School, in a peri-urban developing district named Apaaso, some 30mins south of the city. Baah is owned and run by Lily, a pioneering woman with a passion for education that began to manifest itself when she started up with just a few pupils in her living-room: a story somewhat similar to Desmercy and Samrit Academy in Ashaiman/Accra (see earlier posts). Now she has more than two hundred children on a small site on the edge of the district, from ages 3 (nursery) to 15 (junior high).

We spent a fun day with the nursery and classes 1 through 5, reading to them, singing, telling the time and making paper "chatterboxes" (see pic). We return there tomorrow for more time with other nursery classes and years 6 to 8, before visiting another local school on Thursday and Friday.

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