Presentations in the last week of classes

In the final week we had many creations from our students that really showed how much they had learned during the summer. Some of these presentations are from Siler's students, based around what and how they envision themselves in the future. Some are from the younger class, where they had to research a country and make a scratch presentation where they met the leader of the country. On the final day, our classes were combined for one last time, and we asked our students to either make a presentation about what they learned this summer using write, paint, or scratch. Here are all of the wonderful things they came up with:

A Trip Down Yaounde

This past week has been a whirlwind and this upcoming one promises to be just as busy as we have our final days of classes while we wrap up our trainings of the teachers and the UAC staff and prepare for our sad but inevitable departure this Friday.
This past Wednesday Sam, Brittney and I traveled to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, in order to meet with a special contact of Mr. Orock who occupied a high position in the government as well as to meet up with the OLPC team that was working on a much larger 5,000 laptop deployment in 51 government schools in the Northern part of the country. We were scheduled to leave early in the morning, and after having breakfast, doing a bit of waiting, and then finally getting into the pickup truck that Mr. Orock's personal driver Antoine would be taking us along with Mr. Orock's good friend and co-proprietor of Jamadianle Henry to Yaounde in, we set out... and then pulled over at a stream on the side of the road because evidently we needed to have the vehicle thoroughly cleaned before we could roll into a place like Yaounde, certainly we couldn't let them judge us for coming form rainy, muddy Buea. After another half hour or so, during which several men spent alot of time throwing water over the truck and scrubbing the wheels, which could certainly get dirty gain the minute they pulled out of the stream, we finally got under way and began the trip, which a 2.5 hour slog into Douala, followed by a thrillingly fast 3 hour speed along the highway to Yaounde, with several stops along the way for the paying of tolls and the buying of street snacks such as grilled plums, plantain chips, or fresh bananas. We finally rolled in around 3, and the difference between the commercial capital of Douala and the government capital of Yaounde was evident form the beginning. Whereas Douala was a chaotic headache of honking congestion threaded through by reckless motorbikes all pushing their way past a million random shops rising out of the mud, Yaounde, while it has its fair share of hustle and bustle in the surrounding sections, has something Douala lacks, stately charm from the many fairly grand and modern looking buildings that house the various ministries that make up the Cameroonian government. Even a few wide avenues and green spaces were visible as we drove through the 7 hills that make up the main part of the city, though of course our view was somewhat limited by the ever present rain. After we checked into out hotel and changed, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed down to the lobby wear we had scheduled a meeting with OLPC people who were working with the government to bring 5,000 laptops to schools in the northern region of the country, as part of a grant from an Islamic Bank. During this meeting we talked about how our summers had gone and shared stories about how successful the laptops had been in bringing new interest to education and inspiring both teachers and children. We concluded with promises to help each other out, us by providing information and lessons learned from our deployment this summer working with our 100 students and the teachers of the Jamadianle School. Them by connecting us with their contacts in the Ministry of Basic Education to see is there might be a chance to expand out successful deployment to other part of the Southwest Region, which would not be receiving any laptops from their own upcoming deployment. Aftter exchanging contact information we followed them to their office opposite the UNICEF building and saw where they had been conducting many of the trainings they had been focusing on this summer. From there we drove on to the house of the Special Assistant to the President, where we had our meeting scheduled for 7pm.
We arrived at about 8 pm, but our fears of coming late were put aside once we were told that he had not even arrived yet and so we took seats in the very large and comfortable sitting room where we were promptly served drinks and snacks by the many attendants he had in service at his very large and impressive residence.
As we waited we had the opportunity to chat with a few of the other personages waiting to meet the big man, among them the Rector of a University in Yaounde who had a son who studied at Drexel University (adjacent to our own UPenn), and another man who claimed to work for the Ministry of Commerce. He also claimed to have attended Harvard University and lived for many years in Cambridge, also having been to many other places in the US about which he spoke in length. With this man we had a long discussion about democracy in Africa and also about Cameroon and its many problems, all of which was very edifying and credible until he began to enlighten us about Hitler's role in losing the colony of Cameroon for Germany in the 1st World War. Despite this little slip up and the fact that he saw fit to bum a ride off of us when we left some hours later, the conversation was very interesting and we were engrossed in it right up until the entrance of the master of the house was announced and we all stood to greet him as he walked through and straight into another room where he spent some time meeting with a woman who accompanied him and another, evidently higher priority, man who had come in a little while after us.
Finally he came down to greet us and we explained to him our reason for coming and presented the laptops that we had brought to show him how effective they could be in educating the children of his country. He seemed to be interested and even asked several questions about how our experience working with the UAC has been and what our hopes for the future of the program were. We told him about the many things we had done over the summer and how we hoped that the success of our program would stand as an example to those in charge of the education system that these laptops could be very beneficial to the progress of the country and indeed were in line with many of the goals already set by the government which included introducing computer education, even to the extent that there would be a national exam on ITC required for all students of a certain level starting next year. He was forthcoming with suggestions, including the idea of bringing XO's to the "Champion Schools" sponsored by the first lady as a test case on a more national scale, and he offered to introduce us to contacts in the Ministry of Basic Education and the Ministry of IT Education to talk further about what could be done in the Southwest Region. We responded that though we were leaving Cameroon next week, we could certainly remain in touch via the internet and also empower Mr. Orock to meet with these individuals to talk about what next steps we could take to expand our deployment. With this and the late hour we made our gratitude for his time known and drove back to our hotel to spend a short night before setting off bright and early the next morning so as to arrive back in Buea in time for the end of class, which was being taught by some of the other volunteers that day, so that Sam could see his students for the last time and say goodbye to them before leaving the next day. As for Brittney and I, we were in need of rest, but also aware that our own last week of teaching approached and so eager to have a great last few days of lessons before making our own goodbyes.