The last week was a hectic storm of activity, broken only by the occasional glimpse of sunlight through the perpetual clouds of Buea. This final week of class was highlighted by the progress all of our students were showing, now able to accomplish any number of complex tasks on their XO's as well as explore on their own. (to the great amusement or their teachers, I remember the first time I let them bring their XOs home the next day they were incredibly eager to show me all the pictures of ancient Mayan sports games and copies of the Declaration of Independence that they had found in the collection of world images available offline in the Browse activity). As our students gained skills we were able to create learning projects that tested their abilities and challenged them to explore new areas that they would never have touched on in a normal classroom. The many projects we did require some explanation and are treated in more detail in a separate blog entry. Beside the ends in out of class we had other tasks to accomplish before we could sit back on the airplane leaving Douala and feel confident enough to say that we had done all that we could to ensure our project would continue and could successfully sustain itself through the upcoming school year. To this end we decided it was necessary to put together a Handbook or guide to using the XOs in the classroom, something that would include examples of learning projects and suggestions for the teachers whose responsibility it would be to introduce these laptops into their classes at Jamadianle come September. For the most part we felt fairly confident that the teachers who had gone through our training sessions as well as those who had the opportunity to use the XOs during their Summer Holiday classes would have little problem successfully integrating the XOs into their daily lessons to great effect. However we wanted to be sure that these teachers, as well as those who would be coming back fom spending their summer holidays elsewhere, would have an comprehensive resource available that they could reference for inspiration as well as for assistance in technical matters including troubleshooting any problems that might arise during a typical day in the classroom. As we scrambled for time to write this guide in the UAC Cyber, we also made sure to collect contact information from the many teachers and other UAC staff we had worked with so we could make updates to this document as well as check up on how classes were progressing in the fall, as of course, just to stay in touch as several of them had become friends. As Friday drew nearer Brittney and I found ourselves spending longer than usual hanging out at the Orock's house, savoring these last days with the family we had been so warmly welcomed into. This of course and the fact that we bid our most of our fellow volunteers goodbye on Wednesday morning as they were leaving for a vacation in Kribi and would not be returning until after our flight, so we were feeling a little lonely back in the volunteer house. The night before they left we had our sendoff ceremony, a tradition with the UAC where whenever a volunteer was leaving we would all share a common meal of our request from Madame Amelia. During this ceremony Mr. Orock was absent as he had missed his train coming back from the far north but the rest of us volunteers and UAC members celebrated in style with our favorite Beans and Rice, Chicken and French Fries in special tomato sauce. We also had the opportunity to make short speeches about our experience working with the UAC this summer and perhaps there were more than a few people with some moistness in their eyes, or it could have just been the reflection of Hannah Montana coming from the TV.
Friday arrived early and as we stepped out onto the mud path to head to the UAC Compound for our last day of class we were greeted by a few rays of sun, the first in weeks, surely a sign that today would be a fitting finale to our summer's work. Without a doubt we would be doing Harambee today (as long as the weather held, you never know) and it was going to be sooo HYPE!
When we arrived at the compound the kids were as usual milling around in chaos, but there was an extra element of activity, which we were to soon find out was the presence of some 100 candidates who were applying for teaching positions in the Jamadianle School. Evidently the 100 percent success rate on their final exams made the school a popular choice and there were many applicants for a fairly limited number of positions, not a bad situation to be in. It was somewhat awkward when I went to ask the Head Nursery teacher Madam Ada if t wouldn't be too disturbing to throw down a massive Harambee circle in the middle of all this, at which point she took me around to each of the rooms where the hopeful teachers to be were waiting for their interviews and made those stand up who professed to be "computer literate". The number proved awkwardly small and more awkward still was their obvious struggle between an honest assessment of their abilities and their desire to be considered for the job. After which Madam Ada assured me that they would only be hiring new teachers who had skills in ITC so as to adequately support the new OLPC aspect of their classes, progress, i guess. We did manage to secure permission to Harambee and after a rousing (and somewhat sweaty) run through of our favorite cheers and chants we all packed into the main hall for our final class. In this class the students were asked to make a presentation about what they had learned over the summer, and in this they could use any combination of their favorite programs to make it as multimedia and informative as possible. Many of the students stuck with the professional format of writing up a numbered list of their achievements and these I read to much excitement as they very succinctly included most of the goals we had set out to accomplish at the start of our program. Other students used Scratch presentations or Record to make full motion presentations demonstrating the many things they had learned and each of these deserved to be recorded and saved as they really made it clear how far these students had come over the course of the summer. After taking in all these projects it was time to take up the XOs and say goodbye, and as hard as this was we did it knowing the XOs would go on to benefit more children during the school year and that those who had been through our program had enjoyed a really wonderful experience. Besides which several of them had created email accounts and would be keeping in touch with their teachers form America.
At this point it was time for Brittney and I to go back and finish packing, after which we decided to go to Bonokanda for Caravan one final time. In Bonokando we only had a short while before we needed to leave for the airport but in this time we managed to have a rousing jump-rope competition, spurred on my the packet of glittery stickers that I found in my pocket. As the inevitable rain began to fall again we headed back to the UAC to pick up Epeye who evidently needed to bring a bunch of plantains down the road on our way and after several more random people piled into the van (as always trips to Douala were strangely popular) we finally left. After enduring the incredibly horrible road (if it can be called that) that marked the Boniberi entrance to Douala we had just enough time to use the remainder of our CFAs up at the Zepol bakery were the most delicious pastries could be had for impossible to beat prices (!). From this point we made our way to the airport and after a short but meaningful farewell to Barclay and Monique and our faithful Germans Leah and Jannick, Brittney and I checked in, paid our exit tax and finally relaxed in our seats, I personally anticipating the In Flight meal on our journey to London that was Air France's forte. It had been am incredible summer and we were committed to spending all the time we could find over the next year to staying in touch with the people we had met and supporting the program we had founded with the UAC in Buea, Cameroon.
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