Thoughts : Sixth Day in Ghana

Today was supposed to be our last, and in most ways it was. We had our last day with the kids and said our goodbyes.

The morning was a typical lesson. We got in a little late again because we were trying to work out how our airport transportation was going to work. Since our wired money had not arrived yet, our contact said he didn't have enough cash on hand to hire a van. That was a fun morning surprise. However, everything is possible in
Ghana, including us hiring a van by ourselves. We know the art of the tro-tro.

While that was not the most pleasant way to begin the day, we've had worse. (Like the day before when our contact accused us of trying to cheat him and that we weren't doing enough to get the money to him. Mike and Lisa then spent the next five hours putting in place a contingency plan.)

But we arrived at the school to focus on the kids. Sara is going to design a brochure for the Street Academy, and Stephanie is going to do the writing, so they interviewed one of the kids (who also happened to be very bright and competent in English).

I spent the morning with my P-3s (and only 5 of them - little Daniel wasn't there). They were studiously copying sentences when I arrived, and when they were finished, I showed them pictures of my family, a picture of my high school graduation, and a picture of Zoe (our dog). They knew all the words for mother, father, sister, grandmother, and so forth, so I tuning they understood what I was showing them. Then I tried to explain my graduation picture, and it got confusing. They thought I was 12 or in grade 12, but it gave them some context, maybe. One of the teachers did ask about the mortarboard.

We spent the rest of the morning on English. We tried to read a book. Three of the boys could read nearly every word. Hannah (who I incorrectly called Anna the other day, since they have a hard time pronouncing their 'h's) didn't even know the alphabet however. She was a good guesser, but could clearly not read a word. Jibris (who I called Dubris the other day - still not sure how to spell it, but this is closer) could do very simple words, but was no where near the others in the class.

I can see why kids that fall behind, stay behind. It is hard to justify spending time on a kid with not even the basics and neglect the others who are clearly just as (or more so) willing to learn.

I had another surreal moment or two as the boys danced to the board to read or write, and as the goats wandered by outside.

We worked on "by", "under", "on", and "in", both with drawing and physically with a desk and the eraser. I was starting to get desperate for ideas at the end, so began to write out the Lord's Prayer, which they recite every assembly (morning and afternoon). That only sort of sunk in.

We went back towards the marketplace during the lunch time, to finish up our shopping and our cedis. When we got back, the school was a bit chaotic, since we were interrupting their routine with a farewell ceremony for us.

While it was getting set up, we tried to prevent the kids from fighting. We have all realized this is a much harsher and more physical culture then back in the States, especially for these kids in disadvantaged situations. We broke up fight after fight (some with sticks, some with clothes ripping, some with punches). It was one of my sadder interactions with the school. Kids being disrespectful or uninterested is one thing. Kids finding violence an acceptable means of expression is difficult to handle, especially when it is pervasive in the culture (like learning to box or even the more hands-on physical approach of the teachers).

In between the fights, Sara and Stephanie and I did the Hokie Pokey a few times. (My parents would be proud.)

Thoughts : Fifth Day in Ghana

It's hard to believe that's it's only been five days. I'm still very glad I came. It was a struggle to be at all excited about this place, and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly I have been touched while I've been here.

Water. The awesomeness of accessible, clean water in the U.S. makes me very proud. No one does I dehydration in the States. Here, the Street Kids Academy have a water tank they have to fill in order for the kids to drink. And right now, finances are tight, so the $50 it would take to supply them for three weeks isn't there.

However, they have been feeding and providing the kids with bags of water for lunch, which, in this hot and humid climate, is not enough.

One of the activities in the afternoon, besides table tennis, is drumming and dance. As distracted and uninterested as the kids can be with their lessons, they are so focused and enthusiastic about dance. When coming up to answer questions on the board, Ishmael regularly dances he way up then does a little jig before getting down to business.

I watched a chicken scratching the dirt behind the school as I taught today. It was a bit surreal.

I've decided to ignore all the random spots and rashes I may (or may not) be developing. The mosquito bites are for real (and here's to malaria pills, hoping they'll work). And maybe that's a heat rash on my arm.

The other volunteers (all of which are German) are planning on staying much longer than we have been here - like three months to a year. I can't even imagine what a month here would be like. I suppose you adapt, but how do you get any sort of injury to heal? It just feels like it would be open and infected with all the dirt around.

We have had great luck with electricity though, thankfully. I've noticed some surges, but it has never gone out.

The beds and couches are made of this foam that conforms to you right away, then stays. Not very spongy, but more comfortable than a floor.

Let's talk about the kids. I don't mention them very much, which is sad. They have experienced such different backgrounds than us that it is hard to imagine what they must go through. Luis is constantly telling them to make sure they get their friends to come to school, since that is the only way they get kids.

They are a pretty scrappy group. There is a lot of fighting, with a lot of hits and rude comments (or whatever rude would translate to in Twi).

My group jumped from four to six today (with the total amount of kids at afternoon assembly being a little over 40). Me and "non-vest" Daniel (one of the teachers) had the two student Daniels (the younger one and the troublemaker one), Anna (the only girl in the group, and looks older than the others), Michael (the bossy one), Dubris (the picked-on but pushy one), and Ishmael (the attention-seeker).

They are quite the guess-and-check-ers. They will make part of a number, then look at me for approval. It is hard to figure out the balance (especially when "no teaching" is sometimes being yelled from the other kids.)

The kids, after they have done something on the board, often are told "clap for them!" meaning that some I'd them do a 1-2, 1-2-3, 1 clap pattern in unison (or roughly thereabouts).

We learned something called "2-4-6-1-1-gato-gato" yesterday with the kids. After a slide and clap beginning, you then "high ten" the other person twice, then four times after the next chorus, then six, then one, then one, then back to two until you mess up. Then you point the finger in blame and start again.

While teaching my kids "Go Fish" today, I realized how difficult it was for them to take turns. It was a mad scramble. And it's a sad thought to think that in survival, there is no turn-taking when it comes down to it. Grab for the water, food, money, attention.

The cameras are an intrigue for all the students. They want to see themselves, and also want to take pictures. Mayer I could use that to my advantage tomorrow.

I could think up some things to do. Words are a struggle, so we played "I Spy" where I wrote down the word to see if they could read then find it. Once I said it aloud, they could get body parts, but not from just the text. I think we'll try rhyming and words that start with the same letter tomorrow.

Thoughts : Fourth Day in Ghana

Since I didn't actually post anything about my day (because the Internet cut out), I should probably mention that a bit.

When we were split up into small groups this morning, I was given four kids of varying skill levels. Ebenezer was exhausted. He slept for most of the lesson. He could write his name and was happy drawing houses.

Nathaniel was awake and ready to learn. He practiced his name quite a few times, and we almost got to the point where his 'e' wasn't backwards. Almost.

Leticia was doing a good job reading all the small words on the page. She was struggling with comprehension though. Her grasp of English wasn't enough for her to understand what I was asking. We learned the word 'bird' together.

Ishmael and Ezekial were good readers, so after we all read through a story, I let them figure out how to draw a cow. They weren't very confident in their drawing skills, so copied a cow from the book. Then one of the German volunteers (Morris?) separated them out and read more with them.

Unlike America, kids came and went as they pleased. Most understood the general rules to the place (more than even we did, since who knew what the next bell ring would bring or what it would bring).

The school is by no means a closed premise. We have the small neighborhood children peeking in on us. We can see other adults from the neighborhood walking by and looking in. There was a stray puppy rooting through the garbage.

I am always curious if any of the things I'm doing are offensive, accidentally. Like a thumbs up. Or winking. Or crossing my eyes.

I've been teaching (and making up) simple games that require little to no English, since even at the highest level have a hard time comprehending our questions (though they can follow the daily orders with loud insistence).

We are all used to a much more comprehension-based type of learning. The rout knowledge the kids have is incredible, but they can't extract the knowledge from the memorized songs. Maybe we are just not used to this age and what they can and cannot understand, but we aren't using manipulatives to help turn the abstract into real concepts.

The teachers at the school are mostly volunteers, since their salary can't sustain them. A few of them are former Street Academy students themselves, so there is success in the organization.

The schoolhouse reminds me of one-room schoolhouses. They have the desk-chair attachments (with the chairs being not wide enough for me for any length of time). They have wooden partitions that they can move to divide the room into sections. There are two whiteboards on the walls and one or two mobile boards, which are a blessing since paper even is a commodity.

Thankfully, books aren't. They have a library with a bunch of books for early readers, which is what most of the students are. The sad part is, most of these kids aren't in literate households (if in households at all), so these kids only get exposed to it at school for a few hours each day.

Because it is the dry season, many of the kids were asking for water. The Academy makes sure that they have a free meal every day, but right now, don't have the water to go with it., somehow.

Bathrooms are probably the least I anyone's worries, but the toilets behind the school are two separated flats of concrete, that might possibly slope toward a hole in the corner that drains who knows where.

There are computers in the teacher's area (which is a little bigger than a walk-in closet), which surprised me. They were being used on the teachers' break by the teachers to play games, and there is future desire to have a computer lab with Internet behind the school in another small building nearby.

We have been showering at night, after sweating most of the day. It is short -lived as the humidity and heat makes it seem like you never dry off after a wonderful cold shower.

This group has been a blessing. Everyone speaks their mind and problem-solves, looking for the easiest answer to the group's desires. We have nearly stopped complaining about the heat, thought have just reminded each other with "interesting" news of where sweat is dripping now or how many ounces could come out of a worn shirt.

Another blessing has been Matthieus. He has been so fatherly and protecting, constantly going out of his way to make sure we are getting why we need.

Thoughts and Reactions: Third Day in Ghana

We pulled up to a building just like many of the indistinguishable brown and concrete buildings around it except for an alphabet painted on the wall. And the chattering of kids as we approached.

There were not really roads to the building either. Or it was hard to tell what was roads in the midst of the red dust and gutters.

The kids were in undershirts and shorts when we encountered them in the morning. We discovered why when they changed back into their school uniform to go back to their communities.

"Communities" is what one of the main workers at the Street Kids Academy called wherever these kids went back to. That was where they slept and might have been slightly taken care of. Luis was saying he didn't want them removed from their communities like they do at orphanages. I think one of the reasons is for them to get their peers to come as well.

The kids were calling us "sir" and "madame." They also use "boss" for others when they are calling them.

We have been eating delicious vegetarian dishes with rice every night for dinner. Tonight we even had the most delicious and tasteful bananas I've ever had. We've passed some delicious looking fruit and have just now been able to try it, in the smoothies from this afternoon as well those heavenly bananas.

Heaven Above; Hell Bellow: Our Second Day in Ghana

It was a Sunday, so we were given our porridge and Constance rushed off to church.

We met up with Eben and Matthaues, who were going to spend the day with us. Our first mission: finding transportation.

We wanted to go up and down the coast, a 70-mile journey (so at least two hours of driving through traffic and on the toll road). Thankfully, we found a driver we could hire for the day (with a car with air-conditioning)!

We spent two hours driving through the outskirts of Accra. Then the green hills west of here. Then patches of little villages where the green dissolved back into the red soil and brightly painted huts and people sprung up.

We were reaching some pretty great speeds, so we made it in less than the three hours expected on the way there.

Our first castle of the day was Elamira. This was originally built by the Portuguese, taken over by the Dutch, then commandeered by the British until Ghana got their independence.

We walked through the dark caverns of the slave dungeons. The guide described the horrible suffering of the separated male and female slaves for up to three months until they were sent through the "Door of No Return" to the waiting ships to be transported to the West.

We went to the Cape Coast Castle next for a bite to eat at a fairly tourist-centric nearby. The menu was more a process of elimination than a menu. We toured the slightly larger but fairly similar castle.

In both castles, the cells of the slaves were on a floor below the church, symbolizing, as the guide said, the heaven above and hell below.

The awful memories of the castles were surrounded by the beauty of the ocean. The waves were capping on beaches, either with a pair of men in flip-flops with a mission or on a busy outcropping where half of the splashes were for work and the other half were for pleasure.

Head of the Household : Sixth Day in Ghana

It was our last day at the school, and we had our typical journey on a tro-tro into Accra, passing the typical shacks and huts with corrugated tin roofs.


Then the power went out in the internet cafe right after we found out our flight was delayed 10 hours.


So I'll see you all in the States tomorrow afternoon instead of morning. :P

It's a Circus: Fifth Day in Ghana

Besides the troubles getting here, we've been having difficulties paying our participation fee because of miscommunications. International checks weren't fast enough, and so we've been going through this rigmarole. Today, Lisa and Mike have been working on it completely and whole-heartedly, and we are so grateful to them.

The six of us (current or former) CMU students worked with the kids. We were again divided into classrooms (thankfully), but pretty much left on our own after that. I tried to teach the kids Uno and Go Fish, with moderate success (and with quite a bit of Twi cheating that I couldn't stop or understand). We also did a bit of review of fractions, did some work with making multiplication squares, and then, thankfully, it was time for lunch.

The director pulled Sarah and I aside to ask about continued relations. We want to help (once I tell my co-workers that I'm learning table tennis alongside some Ghanaian children, I think they will be excited to help) and we were asking how best to help in the future. He was excited about volunteers coming, but I think that much of what we can to do help can come from the U.S. They need money (even just money for water for the children right now) though help with a bunch of children is really always needed.

The afternoon was more of the morning (except with very tired, hot kids) and then it was activity time. I watched a dance, then went back to the ping-pong I played yesterday.

We had plans to go to the beach, but best laid plans aren't really plans at all in Ghana. We went shopping instead. I have been ripped off, but at least I bargain it down to half of the rip-off that it was originally.

It's one more hot night, and then back to the creature comforts of home. And the cold weather. I'm ready to not have mosquitoes at night. And sweating. Oh, sweating...

Barely Controlled Chaos: Fourth Day in Ghana

We started the morning again at 6:30am (though it was a bit more challenging today than other days... guess we are adjusting to the time?). Porridge and sugar cubes for breakfast.

We had quite a morning with the kids. We were expecting more kids today, but the 22 that showed up were still a bit under what we expected (up to 200, we've been told).

Since we were in groups most of the day, I can only only really say from my perspective what happened, which  was a lot of math and some English and trying to figure out what discipline is around here.

More to come later!

Left Hand or Right Hand: The Third Day in Ghana

Yesterday, we did a tour of Cape Castle, Elamina Castle, and saw the sea for the first time (yay!) I also had squid for lunch (and was not sick at all. Also yay!)

Today, though, it is a Monday, so we got to head to the Street Kids Academy for our first day of volunteering. We headed out at our usual 7:30 (when we are already getting a little sweaty in the shade) and took a tro-tro to the Academy.

We arrived and were slightly mobbed by kids. We got many handshakes and greetings from the 12 or so children that were around today. The school wasn't opening until tomorrow, officially, but today was a spring-cleaning and slightly less organized kind of day.


We first had introductions from the director, the teachers, the day-to-day manager, and some of the other volunteers (a few Germans). We then went into a session of hangman (where they pulled out some impressive words like "hippopotamus" and "communication").


In the last year or so, they have used the help of volunteers and some cameras, they had created a few movies, with the kids acting and writing scripts. I was very impressed with the quality, and it was a good lull to the day.


We went off to a fancy resort for lunch, and had our Ghanaian specials of the day, with refreshing drinks and smoothies. We were much closer to the water than we expected, so got to see a (pretty dirty) beach.


When we got back, we were officially mobbed. The kids all knew us now, so it was a crazy jumping-hugging-screaming mass that created us. I pulled out the frisbee I brought, and started getting really sweaty.


Over the years, I have developed a no-physical-lifting policy when around large groups of children, because it always leads to more kids wanting more piggyback rides. Some of the group were much less stingy with their muscle, and soon the frisbee was being tossed from the shoulders of Mike, Sarah, and Stephanie (as well as some of the older kids with the younger kids).


The little kids were being entirely left out, so we started a "is the rock in the right hand or left hand" game. It was great: there were enough small rocks to go around! Everyone could play!


We ended the day a bit more quietly, by pulling out the paper and doing a drawing exercise. "I like ____" Some kids drew football, drawing, or swimming. Some wrote that they liked women and "Sir Michael" (who was either Mike or one of the students; never really figured that one out).


We had stayed pretty late at that point, until 4pm or so. Matthaeus had to be to work at 6pm, so we found a tro-tro in the crowded lot and headed home, sweaty and fulfilled. Tomorrow might be more orderly chaos, since school is officially in session. Maybe. Probably not.

Third Time is the Charm: First Day in Ghana

We got in this morning at 6am, after a 10-hour flight. We were delayed waiting for more "provisions", but all in all, we made it. After passport challenges and flight delays, we made it.

We found our guide, Eben, and his very friendly volunteer, Matthaeus. We spent a little bit waiting at the airport, a little bit getting to the van, a little bit driving to our homestay, a little bit meeting Constance and her son, a little bit changing clothes, a little bit debating about how to pay our participation fee, a little bit eating some oatmeal, and a little bit waiting for some water. Then we were raring* to go.


(*"Raring" is pretty generous for the delirious state we were in, with 0-4 hours of sleep each. But we didn't want to sleep.)


Our first stop was the National Museum, where Matthaeus got us a tour of all the cultural heritage artifacts they had on display. It was a very thorough tour, so by the end we were dragging a bit. But we pressed on, heading to the monument to the first president.


But once we got there, we found a garden that was a little dusty, a monument, and a bridal party. But not enough to pay the 6 cedis (and the extra time) to go into what was also a small museum.


Instead, we were all gungho to go to the market. And were we in for a surprise.


It was crowded. And cramped. And we had quite the time making sure all 8 of us were within shouting distance (which isn't that far when it's that loud and crowded.)


And there was everything under the sun to buy, but we were too busy navigating to get anything! We will try again at the Art Center (also, maybe, a market) to get more of the crafts that we want.

And now, naptime?

Curses! Foiled Again: A One Day Delay

We made it to the airport. We got on the plane. We pushed away from the gate.

Then we heard the announcement: "We are waiting for the ground crew to help us park."

That was the opposite of what we wanted to do.

Long story short, our back-up pressurizer was broken. So we have a 16-hour delay. Our 11pm flight is now a 3pm flight.

On the bright side, we are bonding, get to spend the night in a hotel (even if it isn't with our full luggage), and really aren't missing much of our time in Ghana (getting in at 2pm Friday versus now getting in at 6am on Saturday).

Cross your fingers for tomorrow.

This Time for Africa: DC to Accra

It's 4 hours until my plane leaves for Ghana with me and seven other CMU students, staff, alums and chaperones. This trip was supposed to happen February of last year (aren't those lyrics to a song?) but was rescheduled when our passports and visas were lost in the mail.

But now, it's finally happening. We got a change of plans from our coordinator two days ago. We will be volunteering at the Street Kids Academy with homeless youth. Schools in Ghana are all private, so many kids and families can't afford an education. This facility helps those children who are on the street.

I'm excited to have this experience. I haven't done any volunteering since I started working, and maybe this will be my impetus to find something I'm passionate about around my area, instead of always traveling halfway around the world to find it.

It's the New Year! How about a card?

For all of you to whom I couldn't mail a card, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! Here's the card (pdf).