Stories from a Ghanaian e-reader village (pt2)

My assignments during my volunteering mission in Ghana are twofold - 1.) make sure children can connect their e-readers remotely so they can choose and read all the storybooks they like. 2.) To help Worldreader understand how children use their e-readers at home.

For this second goal I am working on a case study, and after meeting Diana, Mabel and their families, I spent a full day in one of the iRead pilot villages near Accra, visiting students and their families at home, to chat and read with them.

My first visit was at Ransford's place, a Senior High Student's who was living with his family in a fairly decent village home. 'Fairly decent' means that their house was built out of concrete, and opened up to a concrete yard, compared to the wooden houses of Mabel and Diana, which had opened to dry earth yards. The yards are where most of the family life happens, including washing, eating, talking and, of course, reading. When I arrived, Ransford, his mother and sister were washing:

Ransford's parents were both teachers, his dad was a retired school teacher, and his mum an active Kindergarten teacher. Her English was very good, better than Ransford's in fact, but, as she said, he had only started with the e-reader a year ago, and she reported his English and overall grades improving. 'The e-reader keeps him at home', she said, 'he does his schoolwork with it and reads storybooks. Before he always seemed to have something to do elsewhere'... Interesting was that Ransford also used the e-reader to play games and listen to MP3s. He was happy to let his sister Millicents use it with him, she had become quite a fan of the device herself. His older brother Alfred,  would also use it sometimes when he was around, accessing the browser to research the cinema-industry, which he was professionally interested in. Overall, Ransford's whole family seemed to see a big value in the device and enjoy using it, each in their own way. Towards the end of our chat I asked if he had any suggestions for improvements. 'Reading Lights,' he suggested, 'So students can read at night. And e-readers for all the other classes as well, so people don't constantly come and want to borrow ours.'

We then drove to the villages Senior High School. The second student I visited that day was a 'boarder', he lived at the Senior High School. When I arrived, the school was crowded like one might imagine a fair or a market. Apparently it was a large meeting of the 'parents' and teachers' association', which came with much music, food stalls and speeches. The student, Nartey Richard, picked me up and we went to one of the empty classrooms, a bit further away from all the music. Nartey told me that he was one of 6 children of a farmer, and that he was grateful to his parents for enabling him to go to this school: He was living here with many other students, but few of them had e-readers. Since many were interested in the e-readers and would sometimes 'borrow without asking' Nartey had set a password for his e-reader and since then never had problems. He was a 'heavy' reader, who had over 100 storybooks on his Kindle, along with the 9 standard textbooks for his class. His favorite books were biographies of Ghanaian politicians and influential industrials. Together, we read the biography of Dr. Joyce Aryee, who had grown up as the daughter of a single mother with a modest background and became Ghana's Minister of Education and later the first female CEO in Ghana, responsible for the chamber of mines. Nartey was full of admiration for her career, and was dedicated to finish his school with great grades, so he could study politics and pursue a similar path. Nartey's family would surely be proud.

I then met Mr. Mohammed, the coordinator for e-readers at the Junior High. We shared some lunch together, chicken with Jolof rice, before he joined me to meet Stephen Aziaka and his mother.

Stephen's family was a four people family, his dad was a farmer as well, while his mum took care of the household. His older sister Rita was a seamstress. Stephen did not have his e-reader there, as he had recently accidentally dropped and broken it. He was a bit stressed about it, he now had to do all his homework at school, as his classmates would not easily let him borrow their e-reader, but only co-use it, while they were around. Stephen also missed reading his storybooks, like Ananse's Magic Drum. Stephen hoped to get a replacement for his e-reader soon, so he could read for himself, or with his sister and mother, who was slightly visually impaired. I suggested they tried out the 'text to speech feature' one day, a function of the Kindle Keyboard, which reads out a books content with a computer voice. Stephen's opinion: 'The e-readers are great to read by yourself, but sharing and using them together with someone makes you enjoy them even more.'

The last student I visited that day was Daniel, another student from Junior High. He lived with his family on a farm in the tropical forest near the village. I met him and his grandmother, who instantly gave me a tour of their small farm, showing me banana trees, maize, and pineapples. They noticed my fascination with the pineapples, and before I could protest they offered me to take a ripe pineapple with me, and cut it from its stem. Holding a massive pineapple in my lap I sat down to interview them, and the Owosu's were eager to tell me about their experience with the e-reader. Daniel's grandmother only spoke Twee, but Daniel and Mr. Mohammed happily translated for me. Daniel's English was impressive, he easily one of the most advanced students I had met that morning, despite being one of the youngest. He was the only one of the six children of the family to have an e-reader, and he loved itwith passion. His grandmother told me how Daniel would often get so immersed into his reading that he did not hear when they called him for food. Daniel told me that his favorite book series was 'The Magic Treehouse' by Mary Pope Osborne, and he showed me his collection of all 44 episodes. Daniel's imagination had clearly been sparked by his reading experience. Like Richard, Daniel would also browse the web on the e-reader to go to sites like GhanaWeb, a portal with country information on Ghana, politics etc. When Daniel finishes school, his greatest wish is to study and become a medical Doctor. I asked my hosts if they had any suggestions for the iRead program, which they did not have, but instead his grandmother was full of unexpected praise. With great enthusiasm she complimented Worldreader on the fantastic opportunities created by the e-reader program. I was very moved when she told me how she was eternally grateful for the impact this had made on Daniels education and perspectives, and through him for the whole family.