Hello Cameroon!

This post is a little delayed as we've been in Cameroon for over three weeks now! The hospital has opened and surgeries are in full swing! 

Arrival day is always an exciting day where teachers and students alike are excited to get out of class to greet our new country as we sail into port. 

Crew members wave flags from their home nations - over 30 in total.

The ship looks her best on arrival day with her "dress flags" up.

Everyone wants a glimpse of our new home!

Find me 2nd to the left in this photo.

Cameroon: our new home until June!

After 12 days at sea, we were all ready to get off the ship and go exploring; however, we had to wait until our vehicles were registered with the port and all crew members went through immigration which meant 5 more days on the ship with no shore leave.

I was content to enjoy the new view out my classroom window which includes trees and even a bit of grass! Also you can be sure we got in a game of Ultimate Frisbee on the dock as soon as they got the gangway in place and allowed us down.  It's rainy season here with rain most days and clouds the rest. In fact it is always so cloudy, that is was almost 2 weeks before I realized there was a mountain outside my cabin window.  Most days it is completely obscured by the clouds, but it is an impressive view on the rare sunny day. The mountain is Mount Cameroon, the tallest mountain in West Africa at approximately 4000 meters (12,000 feet). I'm hoping to climb it later this year.

Mount Cameroon

I am teaching 4 math courses (6th grade math, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Statistics) in the Academy this year and I continue to serve as the Head of Junior High/High School. I have really enjoyed welcoming our new teachers to the ship and helping them get acclimated to our school culture and all our quirky ways of doing school on a ship. It's hard to believe this is the beginning of my 14th year of teaching! Even still, I still am finding there are so many ways I want to improve as a teacher. As always I am constantly thinking about how to make math fun and engaging while getting students to understand the concepts behind what they are learning. I recently had a #teacherwin when I created a math version of the game Connect Four which had students practicing simplifying radicals. My students (even the ones who don't like math) were begging to play again.

We have over 40 students in the Academy this year ranging from infant to 12th grade, with 16 students in the Junior High/High School. They come from Australia, U.K., Holland, Brazil, U.S.A., Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo, and the Philippines.

Whole School Photo

My Fellow Teachers