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.