Hello again. Today is Tuesday June 17th and I officially have just over 6 weeks left in Ghana. I will be arriving at JFK on August 5th and though I do not have a flight to Seattle just yet I assume I will be home that day or the next. All feelings of loneliness or homesickness that I have felt at one point or another while in Ghana have vanished. While I am very excited to get home and see everyone, I have a ridiculously long check list of things to accomplish before leaving.
Let’s see: I left my place at 8:20am on Thursday to head to Accra. After a hell of a time getting to the bus station, then choosing to take a tro-tro, and wait for it to fill up, I was finally on the road around 11:30 (two hours after I had planned to leave). While I thought I would save a few cedi’s by taking a tro-tro, I now see that I got what I paid for. I was the only white person in this 20 person vehicle and not one spoke enough English to communicate with me. I had my book and ipod for this very reason but just as we turned on the engine to get going a man jumped on and began saying a long prayer in Twi. This was not a problem except that NOTHING is done quietly in Ghana and therefore he was in fact shouting for 20 minutes in a language I do not know. He then proceeded to preach about health (from what I could tell when I heard him say HIV). He then held up photos of various advanced states of STD’s in the genital area. Hmmm…I was not aware that with my 5 cedis to go the 4 hours to Accra I would also get health information. Of course this was also in Twi and therefore I had no idea what was going on and attempted to ignore what was going on by turning the volume on my ipod full blast. Five hours later we arrived in Accra. That would make the time around 4:30. Great. I called Patrick and met him at the college. I was mistaken before. While Patrick is the president of a college in Ghana, it is not the University of Ghana. He started Ashesi College 6 years ago. This is a private school focusing on business and math. He was getting ready to go home and I was not able to see much of the campus but it was just as well (I was hungry). We hopped into his Honda CRV and drove a ways through Accra to his home. I learned that he is has a masters in Business from Berkeley and his wife, an American, is from Seattle. We arrived at his home complete with watchman to open the gate. There is a basketball home in the drive way and a backyard with grass, a swing set and two bunnies in a large crate (belonging to his daughter). I was expecting a house that reminded me of home but this was more than I expected. He has a lovely home and two great kids, Nana age 13 and Efia age 6. I had such a great time in the familiar family atmosphere. We ate a family dinner and talked about Seattle (Patrick’s wife Rebecca is an alum of Roosevelt High School) and I played board games with Efia. That night I slept in the air conditioned guest room and felt right at home. Friday I said goodbye to the family as they went off to school and to work as I was told to relax in their home until it was time to meet my friend. I gratefully thanked them and spent the morning watching children’s films, reading and eating scrambled eggs with cheese that their live in nanny prepared for me. Around 3pm I left to meet my friend Jeanette at the tro tro station, she also had a long journey from Kumasi. We had planned on going straight to the beach an hour away but then decided to stick around Accra for the night. We grabbed a taxi to an area called Osu to check into the Salvation Army Hostel where you pay 6 cedi a night for a small bed in an room of 12. We were lucky however and were able to have a room all to ourselves. After checking in we went to explore Osu. There were many restaurants and places to see, overall Accra is completely different from Kumasi. After dinner we headed to Ryan’s Irish Pub (which we learned about from the Ghana Bradt guide). From the moment we walked in we forgot we were in Ghana. Jeanette and I made our way to the bar, she was very excited to have a Carlsberg beer (since she is Danish and everything). We met the owners, a sweet British couple with Irish roots and proceeded to spend the next three hours talking to them about travel, volunteer work and Ghana all while sipping beer, Irish coffee’s and various other drinks (and I should mention that this was the case because the owners felt they should take care of at least half of our bill). From there a friend I had met in Cape Coast came to pick us up and we headed to Champs Sports Bar. I had heard about this place and wanted to check it out. Friday is karaoke night and I felt as though I walked into any bar located on University Ave in Seattle. We ended the night at a club which also reminded me of home. Wow. While I enjoy going out and somewhat forgetting where I am, I am very glad that I was not placed here my whole 6 months. I much more prefer to live in Kumasi where I do not have all the luxuries of home and feel as though I actually am somewhere completely different. Saturday and Sunday we were at Kokrobite, just one hour west of Accra. We opted to stay at the cheap guesthouse (7 cedi for two of us) instead of the overpriced “Big Milly’s Backyard,” though we did spend most of our time there. Saturday was Reggae night and there were more obruni’s in one place than I have seen since arriving in Ghana. And at least half of these obruni’s were from America, I am amazed that I can tell the English language from “American English” so clearly now. I had fun talking about American sports, the upcoming election and just about life in the U.S. I think I may be coming back to Accra for the 4th for I can celebrate among other Americans.
The journey back to Kumasi on Sunday was just as long, if not longer but thankfully I had Jeanette for company. I arrived around 9pm, very tired so the movie night was pushed until Monday. I also learned Sunday night that there was in fact school last Thursday and Friday (the headmaster had the dates wrong). I was upset to hear this because the whole point of my trip to Accra was because I would not be missing any school. This is actually midterm break week and I therefore have just tomorrow before the kids are off for the rest of the week. Shoot. On Monday I came to school and headed straight to class 4. They were working with protractors and learning how to draw angles. Osey and I walked around helping the kids steady their hands and understand the difference between an acute and an obtuse angle. During break some girls from class 5 were asking me about giving them another quiz. I love how excited the kids are about learning. This time they wanted a spelling quiz. I said I only have stickers to give out as prizes but that didn’t seem to bother them (meaning they are not just in it for the chocolate biscuits). I went to work choosing 10 words for a class 5 spelling quiz to be held on Wednesday. Monday night came around and I had no idea where the man was with the tv (that I paid to be fixed). My host mother, Georgina allowed me to use the living room television to set up the dvd player and 20 kids piled in watch “Brother Bear II.” I love to watch how animated their faces get when watching what they call “toys.”
Today was busy. I came to school and attempted to get the printer to work to print off some information about STD’s that I had found earlier but it was a no go. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some information for my vocational school sex ed class. I then continued working math with class 4 and gave the chosen ten words for the class 5 spelling quiz tomorrow. After a lunch of rice and tomato sauce I took the excited class 4 out for P.E. This may sound like a fun time but I usually spend the 30 to 60 minutes breaking us silly fights and listening to pleas of “Madame, no girls! Boys play first, then girls,” or “Madame, the boys won’t let us play.” As much as I would love the class to play coed football, it seems impossible and so few girls actually want to play so forcing the boys to sit aside and watch is an extremely difficult task. Oh well, at least they are outside getting some exercise. Earlier in the day I found my dear Abigail. Late last week she hit her ankle on a pole of some sort and it not only swelled up but looked infected. I had to explain very slowly to her mother that she needed to go to a clinic to have a doctor look at it but from what I was told, her mother did take her. I come back and on Monday I see that her ankle looks much worse. I plead with her mother to take her again and say I will pay for any medication but she needs to get it cleaned and looked at once again. Today Abigail’s mother came to me and explained that the doctor gave her one injection (I’m not sure of what) and she needs two more (for one cedi each) and she was also given a prescription for some antibiotics and a topical solution. I gave her a measly 5 cedi and everything was taken care of. Wow…medical care really isn’t too expensive. I will keep you posted on the status of her ankle. After school I rounded a corner to come to the school to type and I found a teacher beating three children fiercely. While I struggle because I do not want to undermine another teacher, I was not able to stand by and watch. I demanded to know the crime and I learned that they had missed their ride. The school bus has long since broken down and for the past two months children have been taken to and from school in tro tros. I guess the three children did not hear a calling for the car and therefore had to collect money from the headmaster to get home. Yes I understand that this is a problem but they are kids for god’s sake and they were busy playing. After 4 months I am still cringing every time I see a cane raised overhead.
Before I go for the day I want to mention the chalkboards. Daniel, a man who lives at the Columbus community, painted all ten boards over the weekend. They look very nice however, the 4 boards along one of the walls (the empty classroom I use sometimes, class 4, 5 and vocational school) have a problem. When it rains, these boards become drenched and therefore the paint in affected and they are useless until 100 percent dry. Once again, shoot. I am kind of at a loss here. I doubt anyone will be building a cover to protect these boards when it rains and therefore the classes mentioned will have to use the old chalkboards until the paint dries. Someone explain to me how the money I spent wasn’t a complete waste please? I was on the verge of tears when I thought about other projects in the school I could have put that money towards. I guess I just need to learn that I can’t fix everything. Well that is all I have for today, more tomorrow.
Wednesday 6/18…school is over and the kids are at church. I wanted to add a bit more to the blog before posting it. After school yesterday I spent the afternoon hanging out with the kids and other women that live at Columbus. Georgina was sitting outside with baby Yaa (she will finally get her name at her naming ceremony this weekend). I immediately take her into my arms to play with her. She is almost 3 months old and is becoming so animated. I love to see her smile. I also used my camera to take some videos of the kids dancing. I has intended to get a video of P.K. laughing (since his laughter is so infective and I am going to be so sad when I can’t hear it everyday) but I can’t bring out my camera without at least 5 kids wanting to pose. With video’s I can capture the kids voices and movements so I think I am going to be taking many more in the next 6 weeks. This morning I arrived early to school in hopes of printing some notes for my lesson with the vocational school. The printer was working but I had just three pieces of paper to use. I printed what I could about various STD’s then headed to the vocational school room. I walk in and find two students present. I don’t understand why the vocational students cannot get their act together and come to class. From what I see, the students are not serious about learning and therefore it makes the teachers lazy. After speaking to the two teachers however, I can see it from their point of view. The vocational school has little to no resources. They are supposed to have classes in cooking, sewing, shoe making, hair dressing in addition to business lessons (math), the classes are very limited however. There are two sewing machines (and supposedly 15 girls enrolled), very little cooking supplies, and no workshop on shoe making or hair dressing. The teachers then tell me they need my help to raise money. While the entire school of Columbus needs to be redone, I can see why the vocational students decide to come 50% of the time. I told the teachers if the girls put together a proposal telling me what they need to become successful at this vocational school then I will seriously think about raising money when I get back to the states. After that discussion I went on with my lesson about STD’s. The two students were actually quite interested and while they knew the names of some of the diseases I discussed, that was all they knew. Next week I hope to have pictures to go along with the diseases (and I hope for a larger attendance). After that lesson I moved to class 5 to administer their spelling quiz. I was taken back to my 5th grade class with Ms. Kolling at John Hay when she would stand in front of the class giving the spelling test, I would be nervous and forcing myself to keep my eyes on my own paper, oh memories. Overall the kids did very well, many getting all ten, plus my extra credit word correct. At least 10 had zero correct however so I will do what I can to work with these students. After the quiz I took class 5 out for P.E. I enjoy taking this class out much more than class 4, they tend to listen to me.
Alright well I am off to Kumasi. I will be staying with Jeanette tonight (since there is no school tomorrow or Friday), she works at a rehabilitation center for disabled teenagers. I am looking forward to seeing what she does on a day to day basis. I have many things planned this weekend, including a full day with Naomi on Friday. We are going to go to the central market to buy more material for me to get another dress made, are going to two museums and the zoo. Saturday night I will be with Alison and Jeanette and I few other ladies. We are going to get dressed up and try to find a place to get some decent coaktails…we’ll see. Sunday is the ceremony for my baby (host) sister, I’m not sure what this entails, but I’m looking forward to it. Have a great weekend and check back again next week!
-Erin
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
7 more weeks...
Hello again…I know I usually write more than one blog per week but there is always so much to share. Today is Tuesday June 10th around 4pm. School has ended, all the children are gone and I am alone to type. Since posting my last blog, I have been quite busy. Like I briefly said at the end of the last post, I went to a wedding on Saturday. I have now been to two weddings, both of which last under 5 hours, or less. The wedding itself takes maybe an hour or so and in the wedding on Saturday, at the Catholic Church, a presentation of the marriage certificate was part of the ceremony. How interesting. After the ceremony and many pictures we headed to the reception just across the road. The next two hours included toasts from the wedding party, eating, drinking, dancing and cutting the cake. The whole ordeal was over by 3 o’clock. Personally I love weddings and I think the reception/party should last until LATE in the evening but that is just one of the many cultural differences here. My friend Jeanette and I took a taxi to Allison’s place (a.k.a. the Palace) to take HOT showers and relax under the air conditioning. Am I cheating by doing this? A part of me thinks I should be waiting to experience any luxuries until I get home in August but then I think, naw…I deserve a hot shower. We then took her company truck to go to a store to buy a bottle of wine and try a meat shop I had heard about from the Canadian ladies (Heather and Leanne). The 4 Villages Inn Meat Shop (ran by a Ghanaian that spent about ten years in Canada) is small but lovely. The owner let us sample some cut ham and roast beef slices and they literally melted in our mouths. He has a farm so the animals are not out and about eating garbage. We bought some ham and some beef and some Canadian bacon for the next morning. My Saturday night feast was wonderful…ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches and real soup and red wine from Chile. We settled in for the night to watch wonderful girly movies and gossip. Sunday morning Allison took us to a church she sometimes attends named the Calvary Charismatic Center (C.C.C.). This church building was quite large and full of people. We walked in and were greeted with loud and wonderful gospel music that lasted at least 20 minutes. I was pleased to find out that the music and the sermon were all spoken in English. While this church was also a bit too over the top for my everyday taste, I really enjoyed myself and would like to go back before I leave. We headed back to the palace after church to cook up a great Sunday brunch of eggs, fried roast beef, baked beans, tomatoes with cheese, Canadian bacon, orange juice and a huge tray of fruit, it was truly a treat. That night I returned back to my place for a dinner of rice and vegetable stew. Since the television in my room is still broken I was not able to hold Sunday movie night but I did invite the kids in to draw and listen to music.
On Monday I headed to Kumasi early to meet Jeanette and another girl named Mika. Mika is from Japan and has been living in Ghana since September 2006. She leaves in 3 months. She also took intensive Twi lessons and can speak the Ghanaian language fluently. This amazes me. While I have learned the basics, learning the language seems impossible for me. While I am still unsure exactly what Mika is doing in Ghana (she may speak fluent Twi but her English is not great), she is working with AIDS research and prevention. She invited Jeanette and I to the KATH teaching hospital to see how the HIV clinic is ran. I have been on the grounds of the hospital but never inside. I was amazed at how crowded and obviously dirty the main facility was. Mika told me that there are smaller and preferably more clean private hospital, this is the best public, government hospital. We had to walk to the very back of the hospital to the HIV clinic so I had time to take in all that I was seeing. Everything seems archaic in the way the hospital organized patient files and forms. People were lying on the floor waiting to be simply checked in and I grew nervous when near a man with a hacking cough, TB is very common in Ghana. When we arrived at the clinic, Mika did most of the talking and you could see people’s faces brighten when they heard this obruni speaking perfect Twi, it made me wish I has spent more time at least trying to learn more of the Ghanaian language. Jeanette and I met a few of the men and women that run the clinic and they answered basic questions. Mon, Wed and Fri the clinic is used for HIV counseling and administering medication. The same facility is used for a TB clinic in Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was told I could be of assistance once or twice a week if I wished. I told Samuel, a local epidemiologist who has never left Ghana that I would like to take him up on the offer. While I am sure I will have trouble with many of the patients that do not speak English, I can help with paperwork and help counsel those that are educated. I looked around the room. There were probably 50 or so people waiting to be called to get their HIV medication. Some were older (elderly starts around age 50 in Ghana) but many people looked quite young, close to my age and each person in that room was HIV positive. While I am aware of the extremely high HIV and AIDS rates in Africa, it is a very different feeling being surrounded by so many people living with this virus.
Jeanette is interested in becoming a midwife when she returns to Denmark and is therefore interested in volunteering on the midwifery floor. Mika took us to that section of the hospital to see first hand what happens there. We were invited to observe a nurse as she took the necessary information from a woman 7 months pregnant visiting a doctor for the first time. After taking her height and weight and asking about family history the woman was asked for a sample of her urine. She returned with a small vial which she handed to the nurse. The nurse then took out a swab stick with sensors on it and tested the urine right in then and there without concern of gloves. Wow. Before leaving Samuel gave me a whole box of condoms to distribute in my vocational school class as well as a penis model and leaflets with information about HIV. All in all I learned much about the public health care system in Ghana in just one day. I look forward to spending more time at the hospital in the weeks to come.
Today I spent the morning with the vocational school students. After the initial laughter upon presenting the penis replica we got down to business and discussed the ways to protect yourself against STD’s and unwanted pregnancy when they decide to have sex. I had each student practice putting a condom on and correctly disposing of it once finished. They took away two condoms each. I also addressed the birth control pill and explained how inexpensive the pill is. Next week I will continue the sex health class with information on STD’s.
After break, as promised, I had a multiplication quiz with class 5 with more chocolate biscuits for rewards. They did better overall than class 4 but many still struggled. All were able to get a biscuit before returning to class. Tomorrow I do the same thing with class 3 but will stick to the 2 and 3 times tables. Then after lunch I continued working on math with class 4. I am determined to see every student in class 4 get 100 percent on their math homework before I leave. I’m crossing my fingers. Now I am off to do some washing and hang with the kids. More later.
Wednesday June 11th, another school week has come to an end. The kids are at the church and I am off to Kumasi soon to post the blog and check on a few things. This week is midterm break so there is no school tomorrow or Friday. I will be heading to Accra tomorrow to visit the University of Ghana. Friends from my church at home, The Warrens, are good friends with the president of the university and they have made it possible for me to meet him. The school president kindly invited me to stay with him and his family tomorrow night in Accra. There is no for sure plan for the weekend but I think I will remain in the country capital until Sunday. This morning I held my third multiplication quiz for class 3. The class is allowed to use their times tables for everything which gave me limitations to my quiz. I stuck with the 2’s and 3’s times tables. About half of the class answered their question right away but the other half needed exaggerated help. Still, every student was able to get a chocolate biscuit eventually. As soon as I was finished with class 3 I was literally pulled to class 4 by my students to mark the math exercise and give out stickers. While many still received 50% and below, the numbers of students getting just one wrong or all right has increased. One boy in particular, Jah Bless, that I have grown fond of but who never seems to grasp what I am trying to teach him got 5 out of 6 on his exercise. I was so proud of him and I could tell he was proud of himself because he was grinning from ear to ear. Elizabeth Sawaa (I mentioned her a while back) has returned to school. Osey (the class 4 teacher) told me he did not think she would be coming back to school since her mother passed away almost a month ago. Elizabeth is the girl that has failed to pass both class 2 and 3 but her mother did not want to hold her back and she therefore gets further and further behind. I was very happy to see her back in school but we have a lot of work to do before I leave. I had hoped to take the kids to P.E. today but I am glad that the teachers felt they needed the full day to teach since the kids are going on school break tomorrow. I agree that in class work in more important than playing football but I assumed both class 4 and class 5 teachers would be happy to give the kids to me for the afternoon. Instead I helped Mr. Boachie (class 5) administer a science quiz to his class and listened to Osey give a Twi lesson to class 4.
Blackboard update: I was able to sell the remaining 5 bags of cement for 40 cedis and friend is going to pick up the paint for me. I know I will be gone this weekend but one of the men that live at Columbus offered to do the painting for me. I hope to have all 10 chalkboards painted black and spotless when I return. I am off to town to get my errands done. Dad and Grandpa: I will be speaking with you on Sunday. For all the other dad’s reading this blog: I wish you a happy father’s day!
-Erin
On Monday I headed to Kumasi early to meet Jeanette and another girl named Mika. Mika is from Japan and has been living in Ghana since September 2006. She leaves in 3 months. She also took intensive Twi lessons and can speak the Ghanaian language fluently. This amazes me. While I have learned the basics, learning the language seems impossible for me. While I am still unsure exactly what Mika is doing in Ghana (she may speak fluent Twi but her English is not great), she is working with AIDS research and prevention. She invited Jeanette and I to the KATH teaching hospital to see how the HIV clinic is ran. I have been on the grounds of the hospital but never inside. I was amazed at how crowded and obviously dirty the main facility was. Mika told me that there are smaller and preferably more clean private hospital, this is the best public, government hospital. We had to walk to the very back of the hospital to the HIV clinic so I had time to take in all that I was seeing. Everything seems archaic in the way the hospital organized patient files and forms. People were lying on the floor waiting to be simply checked in and I grew nervous when near a man with a hacking cough, TB is very common in Ghana. When we arrived at the clinic, Mika did most of the talking and you could see people’s faces brighten when they heard this obruni speaking perfect Twi, it made me wish I has spent more time at least trying to learn more of the Ghanaian language. Jeanette and I met a few of the men and women that run the clinic and they answered basic questions. Mon, Wed and Fri the clinic is used for HIV counseling and administering medication. The same facility is used for a TB clinic in Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was told I could be of assistance once or twice a week if I wished. I told Samuel, a local epidemiologist who has never left Ghana that I would like to take him up on the offer. While I am sure I will have trouble with many of the patients that do not speak English, I can help with paperwork and help counsel those that are educated. I looked around the room. There were probably 50 or so people waiting to be called to get their HIV medication. Some were older (elderly starts around age 50 in Ghana) but many people looked quite young, close to my age and each person in that room was HIV positive. While I am aware of the extremely high HIV and AIDS rates in Africa, it is a very different feeling being surrounded by so many people living with this virus.
Jeanette is interested in becoming a midwife when she returns to Denmark and is therefore interested in volunteering on the midwifery floor. Mika took us to that section of the hospital to see first hand what happens there. We were invited to observe a nurse as she took the necessary information from a woman 7 months pregnant visiting a doctor for the first time. After taking her height and weight and asking about family history the woman was asked for a sample of her urine. She returned with a small vial which she handed to the nurse. The nurse then took out a swab stick with sensors on it and tested the urine right in then and there without concern of gloves. Wow. Before leaving Samuel gave me a whole box of condoms to distribute in my vocational school class as well as a penis model and leaflets with information about HIV. All in all I learned much about the public health care system in Ghana in just one day. I look forward to spending more time at the hospital in the weeks to come.
Today I spent the morning with the vocational school students. After the initial laughter upon presenting the penis replica we got down to business and discussed the ways to protect yourself against STD’s and unwanted pregnancy when they decide to have sex. I had each student practice putting a condom on and correctly disposing of it once finished. They took away two condoms each. I also addressed the birth control pill and explained how inexpensive the pill is. Next week I will continue the sex health class with information on STD’s.
After break, as promised, I had a multiplication quiz with class 5 with more chocolate biscuits for rewards. They did better overall than class 4 but many still struggled. All were able to get a biscuit before returning to class. Tomorrow I do the same thing with class 3 but will stick to the 2 and 3 times tables. Then after lunch I continued working on math with class 4. I am determined to see every student in class 4 get 100 percent on their math homework before I leave. I’m crossing my fingers. Now I am off to do some washing and hang with the kids. More later.
Wednesday June 11th, another school week has come to an end. The kids are at the church and I am off to Kumasi soon to post the blog and check on a few things. This week is midterm break so there is no school tomorrow or Friday. I will be heading to Accra tomorrow to visit the University of Ghana. Friends from my church at home, The Warrens, are good friends with the president of the university and they have made it possible for me to meet him. The school president kindly invited me to stay with him and his family tomorrow night in Accra. There is no for sure plan for the weekend but I think I will remain in the country capital until Sunday. This morning I held my third multiplication quiz for class 3. The class is allowed to use their times tables for everything which gave me limitations to my quiz. I stuck with the 2’s and 3’s times tables. About half of the class answered their question right away but the other half needed exaggerated help. Still, every student was able to get a chocolate biscuit eventually. As soon as I was finished with class 3 I was literally pulled to class 4 by my students to mark the math exercise and give out stickers. While many still received 50% and below, the numbers of students getting just one wrong or all right has increased. One boy in particular, Jah Bless, that I have grown fond of but who never seems to grasp what I am trying to teach him got 5 out of 6 on his exercise. I was so proud of him and I could tell he was proud of himself because he was grinning from ear to ear. Elizabeth Sawaa (I mentioned her a while back) has returned to school. Osey (the class 4 teacher) told me he did not think she would be coming back to school since her mother passed away almost a month ago. Elizabeth is the girl that has failed to pass both class 2 and 3 but her mother did not want to hold her back and she therefore gets further and further behind. I was very happy to see her back in school but we have a lot of work to do before I leave. I had hoped to take the kids to P.E. today but I am glad that the teachers felt they needed the full day to teach since the kids are going on school break tomorrow. I agree that in class work in more important than playing football but I assumed both class 4 and class 5 teachers would be happy to give the kids to me for the afternoon. Instead I helped Mr. Boachie (class 5) administer a science quiz to his class and listened to Osey give a Twi lesson to class 4.
Blackboard update: I was able to sell the remaining 5 bags of cement for 40 cedis and friend is going to pick up the paint for me. I know I will be gone this weekend but one of the men that live at Columbus offered to do the painting for me. I hope to have all 10 chalkboards painted black and spotless when I return. I am off to town to get my errands done. Dad and Grandpa: I will be speaking with you on Sunday. For all the other dad’s reading this blog: I wish you a happy father’s day!
-Erin
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Happy first week of June!
Back at school…today is Wednesday June 4th. School ended early so that children can go to the church and be blessed. I never mean to sound disrespectful but I really do not see the need to cut school early twice each week so the children can sit in the back of the church, talk and not pay any mind to the service. I guess I just do not understand.
The first thing I want to address in this week’s blog is Ellen. After speaking up about my disapproval of the way she was being treated last Tuesday, she has seemed to disappear. This of course made me worry a bit, “now what have they done with her?” but I was informed that she was brought back to Tema (a city not far from Accra) to live with her mother and be “healed” at a church in Accra. I wish her luck.
I spent the past weekend on various beaches along the coast. I was much closer to the western border of Ghana this time in a town called Axim. While I could not afford to sleep at the fancy resort some of my friends choose to stay in, I was able to spend the day on a beautiful, secluded beach. My tan truly is coming along but I fear I too often forget my sunscreen and I know I need to watch out. Tans are great…but are a BIG price to pay for future wrinkles and the possibility of skin cancer. I promise myself (and my mother) that I will do better in remembering to apply sunscreen, liberally, while on the beach.
We (Heather, Leanne, Tony, Alison, Klarta from Switzerland and myself) played beach volleyball in the rain (it is rainy season so we can’t be sun bathing all day long) and had great food. I stayed down the road in a different resort that had accommodation for budget travelers. However, I personally preferred the Axim Beach Resort as it too was beautiful with charming double rooms with breakfast included in the price of the room. I am perfectly content. The tro tro ride home however was an all day process but I made it in one piece.
This week I have continued working with class 4 teaching math lessons. Yesterday the 9 kids I spent extra time with seemed to really understand how to find the area and perimeter of a shape but then today I looked over their homework and it was as though they forgot everything I taught them yesterday. Boy, do I have an unbelievable level of respect for any teacher anywhere, this is a HARD job. Tomorrow I am holding my multiplication quiz for class 4. They should have been studying their 2, 3, 4, and 5 times tables to prepare for the quiz tomorrow. I will use the flash cards mom sent me in the mail and have chocolate cookies for rewards. They seem excited but I have my doubts as to how many of them will be successful. We will see.
I put the sex health class on hold for this week. In order for me to properly teach the girls about safe sex methods, I need props and information. Yesterday I met a woman from Japan who has lived in Ghana for over a year. She is doing some form of AIDS research though I am not certain of her exact responsibilities. She invited me to join her on Monday at the teaching hospital to visit the AIDS ward, meet patients, doctors and other researchers. She also told me I would have access to condoms, a penis model to help demonstrate how to properly use a condom (hopefully a can discuss female condoms as well) and will also be able to borrow books to better teach sexual education. I am really looking forward to this. While I have enjoyed teaching overall and have really bonded with my kids, I originally wanted to come to Africa to volunteer in health care. If this visit on Monday goes well, I may be cutting down my teaching hours to just three days a week and volunteering with Mika (the woman from Japan), learning more about AIDS research. I will start my sex ed course again next week, hopefully armed with colorful pictures and printed hand-outs.
Well that is all I have for today. I promised to help with homework tonight for a few of the kids living at the orphanage. I do enjoy being a tutor to the children, mostly because I vividly remember those that helped me with my homework in daycare and after school. Without their help, I’m not sure I would be where I am today so I am happy to provide the same guidance to others.
Friday (June 6th) afternoon…the kids are once again at the church for their bi-weekly blessing. I usually head to my room during this time and intentionally avoid going to the church on Fridays but I think I will join them for the last hour of the service today. The week has gone by quickly. On Wednesday I ended up joining Klara and Nana (one of our organization coordinators) to the nearby craft center. Klara is heading back to Denmark next week and she wanted to buy some more gifts for people. I did buy a few bracelets for friends but held off on any wood carvings just yet. There are so many beautiful crafts to buy but I am doing my best to not only wait until my last month here but also to reevaluate my funds. I also know that the first price I am told for any given item is usually about 50 percent higher than the necessary price. While I wouldn’t say I have great bargaining skills, they are improving. After the craft center I came back to hang out with some of the kids. I brought out my camera and that is always exciting for them. If it were up to the kids I would be spending the entire night snapping photos of them in various poses. I also worked on some homework with the older kids.
While watching Forrest Gump on Thursday morning (before school) I heard a loud pop come from the television and then it went blank. Shoot. I have no idea when that will get fixed. I guess I have to remind myself that I was extremely spoiled having a tv in my room but still, I didn’t even get to the part where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan became shrimp boat captains. In addition to the tv breaking, we have been without running water for over a week! I can still “bath” but it is in the form of bucket showers. I know, I know, poor me. I’m kidding, I lucked out before because most people do not have access to showers while in Ghana. Thursday was a very long day for me however. I was busy in school helping the class 5 teacher give an English lesson and after break was the multiplication quiz for class 4. Overall they did better than I expected but I was most defiantly nicer than I should have been and gave multiple chances to some of the kids. They really enjoyed the chocolate biscuits though and I think it is incentive to study harder for the next quiz next week. I made myself hoarse however yelling at the kids to be quiet, sit down and DO NOT help by giving out answers. I may have been yelling at them but I was laughing to myself because while it is very difficult to give a quiz when all the kids are running about, I totally understand what it is like to be their age and how easy it is to get carried away by talking to your friends. Many of these kids remind me of myself just 10 or 12 years ago. I made the mistake of letting kids in class 5 and class 3 see my chocolate biscuits so now I am giving quizzes to both of those classes next week as well. Thankfully, biscuits and cookies are quite inexpensive in Ghana.
After school I went to Kumasi to spend some time on the internet and then met up with friends for Heather and Leanne’s good-bye dinner. I have already had to say bye to many friends I have met in the past 3 months but I have faith that I will stay in touch with most of them, which is very cool. And lastly today…school went just fine. I went over class 4’s homework for the week and gave out stickers to those that got at least 80 percent correct. I think it took a while but I can see the stickers and the cookies are real incentives for the kids to actually try when doing their homework. If I missed giving out a sticker, that student is immediately asking me to correct myself and produce a sticker for all to see. Time to join the kids in church and relax for the rest of the evening…tomorrow I will be joining the rest of the volunteers in my organization at a wedding. William (the head coordinator for ICYE in Ghana) is getting married and we are all invited. I will write about it before posting the blog tomorrow.
Hello all…I just got finished with the wedding. It was held in a Catholic church and was lovely. It was great to see all the other volunteers again too. A lot of the service was actually in English, which was very helpful. I am off to stay the night in “the palace” again. The evening will be filled with grilled cheese and movies. Have a great weekend everyone!
-Erin
The first thing I want to address in this week’s blog is Ellen. After speaking up about my disapproval of the way she was being treated last Tuesday, she has seemed to disappear. This of course made me worry a bit, “now what have they done with her?” but I was informed that she was brought back to Tema (a city not far from Accra) to live with her mother and be “healed” at a church in Accra. I wish her luck.
I spent the past weekend on various beaches along the coast. I was much closer to the western border of Ghana this time in a town called Axim. While I could not afford to sleep at the fancy resort some of my friends choose to stay in, I was able to spend the day on a beautiful, secluded beach. My tan truly is coming along but I fear I too often forget my sunscreen and I know I need to watch out. Tans are great…but are a BIG price to pay for future wrinkles and the possibility of skin cancer. I promise myself (and my mother) that I will do better in remembering to apply sunscreen, liberally, while on the beach.
We (Heather, Leanne, Tony, Alison, Klarta from Switzerland and myself) played beach volleyball in the rain (it is rainy season so we can’t be sun bathing all day long) and had great food. I stayed down the road in a different resort that had accommodation for budget travelers. However, I personally preferred the Axim Beach Resort as it too was beautiful with charming double rooms with breakfast included in the price of the room. I am perfectly content. The tro tro ride home however was an all day process but I made it in one piece.
This week I have continued working with class 4 teaching math lessons. Yesterday the 9 kids I spent extra time with seemed to really understand how to find the area and perimeter of a shape but then today I looked over their homework and it was as though they forgot everything I taught them yesterday. Boy, do I have an unbelievable level of respect for any teacher anywhere, this is a HARD job. Tomorrow I am holding my multiplication quiz for class 4. They should have been studying their 2, 3, 4, and 5 times tables to prepare for the quiz tomorrow. I will use the flash cards mom sent me in the mail and have chocolate cookies for rewards. They seem excited but I have my doubts as to how many of them will be successful. We will see.
I put the sex health class on hold for this week. In order for me to properly teach the girls about safe sex methods, I need props and information. Yesterday I met a woman from Japan who has lived in Ghana for over a year. She is doing some form of AIDS research though I am not certain of her exact responsibilities. She invited me to join her on Monday at the teaching hospital to visit the AIDS ward, meet patients, doctors and other researchers. She also told me I would have access to condoms, a penis model to help demonstrate how to properly use a condom (hopefully a can discuss female condoms as well) and will also be able to borrow books to better teach sexual education. I am really looking forward to this. While I have enjoyed teaching overall and have really bonded with my kids, I originally wanted to come to Africa to volunteer in health care. If this visit on Monday goes well, I may be cutting down my teaching hours to just three days a week and volunteering with Mika (the woman from Japan), learning more about AIDS research. I will start my sex ed course again next week, hopefully armed with colorful pictures and printed hand-outs.
Well that is all I have for today. I promised to help with homework tonight for a few of the kids living at the orphanage. I do enjoy being a tutor to the children, mostly because I vividly remember those that helped me with my homework in daycare and after school. Without their help, I’m not sure I would be where I am today so I am happy to provide the same guidance to others.
Friday (June 6th) afternoon…the kids are once again at the church for their bi-weekly blessing. I usually head to my room during this time and intentionally avoid going to the church on Fridays but I think I will join them for the last hour of the service today. The week has gone by quickly. On Wednesday I ended up joining Klara and Nana (one of our organization coordinators) to the nearby craft center. Klara is heading back to Denmark next week and she wanted to buy some more gifts for people. I did buy a few bracelets for friends but held off on any wood carvings just yet. There are so many beautiful crafts to buy but I am doing my best to not only wait until my last month here but also to reevaluate my funds. I also know that the first price I am told for any given item is usually about 50 percent higher than the necessary price. While I wouldn’t say I have great bargaining skills, they are improving. After the craft center I came back to hang out with some of the kids. I brought out my camera and that is always exciting for them. If it were up to the kids I would be spending the entire night snapping photos of them in various poses. I also worked on some homework with the older kids.
While watching Forrest Gump on Thursday morning (before school) I heard a loud pop come from the television and then it went blank. Shoot. I have no idea when that will get fixed. I guess I have to remind myself that I was extremely spoiled having a tv in my room but still, I didn’t even get to the part where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan became shrimp boat captains. In addition to the tv breaking, we have been without running water for over a week! I can still “bath” but it is in the form of bucket showers. I know, I know, poor me. I’m kidding, I lucked out before because most people do not have access to showers while in Ghana. Thursday was a very long day for me however. I was busy in school helping the class 5 teacher give an English lesson and after break was the multiplication quiz for class 4. Overall they did better than I expected but I was most defiantly nicer than I should have been and gave multiple chances to some of the kids. They really enjoyed the chocolate biscuits though and I think it is incentive to study harder for the next quiz next week. I made myself hoarse however yelling at the kids to be quiet, sit down and DO NOT help by giving out answers. I may have been yelling at them but I was laughing to myself because while it is very difficult to give a quiz when all the kids are running about, I totally understand what it is like to be their age and how easy it is to get carried away by talking to your friends. Many of these kids remind me of myself just 10 or 12 years ago. I made the mistake of letting kids in class 5 and class 3 see my chocolate biscuits so now I am giving quizzes to both of those classes next week as well. Thankfully, biscuits and cookies are quite inexpensive in Ghana.
After school I went to Kumasi to spend some time on the internet and then met up with friends for Heather and Leanne’s good-bye dinner. I have already had to say bye to many friends I have met in the past 3 months but I have faith that I will stay in touch with most of them, which is very cool. And lastly today…school went just fine. I went over class 4’s homework for the week and gave out stickers to those that got at least 80 percent correct. I think it took a while but I can see the stickers and the cookies are real incentives for the kids to actually try when doing their homework. If I missed giving out a sticker, that student is immediately asking me to correct myself and produce a sticker for all to see. Time to join the kids in church and relax for the rest of the evening…tomorrow I will be joining the rest of the volunteers in my organization at a wedding. William (the head coordinator for ICYE in Ghana) is getting married and we are all invited. I will write about it before posting the blog tomorrow.
Hello all…I just got finished with the wedding. It was held in a Catholic church and was lovely. It was great to see all the other volunteers again too. A lot of the service was actually in English, which was very helpful. I am off to stay the night in “the palace” again. The evening will be filled with grilled cheese and movies. Have a great weekend everyone!
-Erin
Thursday, May 29, 2008
End of May
Today is Monday May 26th and once again there is no school. I honestly could not tell you what holiday Ghana is celebrating today but it seems as though school is never in session for these kids. I am happy to report the chalkboards are complete! Well, all ten have been constructed. I have yet to buy the paint. Since there is no school today however I plan on going to town to do just that. I cannot wait to see the finished product.
The weekend went by quickly and the orientation was interesting. While we had great discussions and it was nice to spend time with volunteers who had actually been here for almost a year, I have come to the conclusion that I am a bit disappointed with my organization, ICYE. After a the weekend of pondering this however, I decided I can not do much about it now. I do think that it is entirely possible to come to Ghana to volunteer without an organization and without paying expensive fees to an international office and never fully understanding where my money has gone. While I absolutely will encourage others to volunteer, I would also encourage people to think about going on their own terms.
We arrived at the conference center around 8pm on Friday and we have nothing scheduled other than talking and meeting those we did not already know. All day Saturday we were doing activities and discussions about our projects, the kind of impact we think we had on our projects thus far or what we hope to accomplish before leaving. For those that have been here almost one year, we learned what they think they have actually accomplished and what they wish they had done differently. We had a fairly lengthy discussion on discipline in the schools and how every one of us hated the fact that the school authorities used nothing but physical punishment to “fix the problem.” The canning and the being forced to clean up garbage outside (during school hours) might provide a 5 minute solution but it does not solve anything. Yet when we were asked to come up with other ideas for discipline, things we have and have not tried, everything we came up seemed like it too would fail. Yelling at the kids does nothing, as I have found out, taking away breaks and P.E. also does not work because the teachers will not take their breaks to stay behind in the classroom with the kids. There is no detention teacher (I remember the few times I had detention in both middle school and high school, usually for talking too much, and that always worked on me) and everyone wants immediate results, like beating the children. No one wants to wait for change to happen and wait to see if a new form of discipline will actually work. The topic of discipline is just very difficult. Another interesting discussion was about our experiences in Ghana and what we plan to take back home with us. I still have almost 3 months so I choose to have this discussion with myself perhaps in July but it was interesting to listen to those that have been here much longer than I. Each of us are grateful for the experience and for whomever helped us actually get to Africa, that is one thing we all have in common.
Saturday evening I was hanging out with Eva, Sabine and Hannah, all from Germany. They arrived August 2007 and will be leaving in mid July. They had all graduated from secondary school then took a year off before going to a university to come to Africa. I admire what they have done. After just 3 months a part of me is missing home but they have been here for 10 months and they are just out of high school. To me, they are quite brave. I wish I had had the nerve or the courage to do something like that. Over our beers we discussed the positives and negatives of our organization, ICYE, and they gave me some pointers for my next 3 months. They also told me I am not a “typical American,” though I have no idea what they mean by this. Apparently, to Germans, Americans are selfish, arrogant and tightly wound. I found this fascinating. It is rare that a person gets to hear how they are perceived as a nation, from someone of another nationality. I am happy to report that I am Sabine’s first American friend and she is going to remember that not all Americans are not utterly selfish. At least I like to think that I’m not.
After our final thoughts on Sunday morning we headed back into town and I met up with Heather, Leanne, Tony and the driver Duko to go to another football match. Thankfully the rain held off for the game and we had a nice time, though the stadium was filled far beyond capacity. The match was Kumasi verses Accra, major rivalry. Of course I was waving a red and white Kumasi flag, though overall I didn’t really care who won. Still, it was exciting to see how crazy everyone gets during even the littlest foul. I am grateful that they do not sell alcohol at these games because I can only imagine how ugly things could get in an already over excited stadium, crammed FULL of people. Next weekend I will join my friends down to Cape Coast which should be a lot of fun.
I am going to head to town but will write more this week.
Today is Thursday May 29th and I have a cold. Not just a head cold but a whole body cold. How this happened I am not sure but I am missing the luxury of cuddling up on my couch in Seattle, in front of the fireplace and the tv, eating chicken noodle soup…oh well. Soon enough I suppose.
I find that that week has gone by both slowly and quickly but none the less, here we are with the week just about over. On Tuesday I went to work grading class 4 math homework. About half did pretty good and the other half I spent some extra time with this week and now just the entire class understands how to find the area of a square.
I also continued with my sex education class with the vocational school. This week the subject was puberty. While the girls, the boy did not join us this week, did comply an take notes I do not think they were as interested in puberty as they were with menstruation. This may be because they have mostly passed the puberty period and therefore do not really care that much. Next week I begin with sex health and how to protect yourself. When I mentioned bringing condoms to class and demonstrating how to use them correctly, I had the classes attention. What a shock.
The rain/wind storms hit hard the past two days, one completely waking me up at 4 am with me thinking my room would be torn into two, that or I would be hit by lightening. The bolts were so bright and the thunder so loud I swear the storm from right on top of us. Thankfully, my room did not leak too badly and I was able to go back to sleep.
This weekend I will be going to Cape Coast with my friends from the UK and the girls from Canada. It is Heather and Leanne’s last weekend here in Ghana and I plan on spending it with them. Sadly, I have already said goodbye to many friends during my 3 months and it is always a bit sad but then you meet new people and everything works itself out. I have met so many people from all over the world thus far and that is very exciting.
One last thing I want to share before posting this blog…I am going to attempt to write this in a most unbiased form. For a few weeks now an adolescent girl has been hanging out around Columbus (I am referring to the place Columbus, not the pastor, where I live). She clearly has some mental instabilities but seems harmless and sweet. From what I can see and have been told, mental illness is uncommon here and viewed as something no one wants to deal with. At first I saw her every few days but now it seems as though she is living here. I was told that she came from Tema (located near Accra) where her mother lives and was brought to Medoma (the town where I live) to be with her father. Now her father has disserted her and she therefore has become dependent on the church. On Tuesday, while I was teaching my lesson on puberty, I heard her singing, very loudly on the other side of the school wall. I stood on a chair to see her and asked nicely if she could sing more quietly or go sing for someone else since I am teaching. She then pointed at her leg and I saw that she was literally chained to the ground. There was a metal chain wrapped around her leg, with a lock and she had no room to move around. I immediately thought of a dog, a poorly treated dog, and was appalled. This girl is not an animal yet that is the way she was being treated. I was then informed by the vocational school girls that she was chained like this each day since last week and that one of the associate pastors decided to do this. Again, I was shocked. I tried to finish the lesson then went to speak with the girl. She stood there smiling and singing her heart out. Her favorite is Celine Dion and various American pop artists. I smiled at her and said she has a wonderful singing voice, which she does. After school I went to speak to Naomi about the chaining and then I was given the “rundown” on beliefs in Ghana. Naomi told me that Ghanaians believe in evil spirits, little ghosts, and in curses. If you are “not right in the head,” as they refer to mentally unstable people, you are first brought to a hospital to be checked out. If doctors can not determine what is wrong then the person is “diagnosed” as spiritually sick. The girl (who has been called Ellen) was brought to Columbus so the pastor (bishop, prophet) could pray for her and essentially ‘cure’ her. In order to do this the pastor (my host father) ordered her to follow a strict fasting schedule (not sure exactly what it is but something along the lines of 6am to 6pm without food each day) and is heavily prayed for my him and other members of the church. To prevent her from running off or getting in the way of others she is chained behind the school, in the shade however. With time she should defeat the curse or the spiritual evilness within her. Curses usually happen when someone (who already possesses bad spirits) you know is jealous of your accomplishments or of your success and sends evil thoughts and bad spirits into the person in which they wish to curse. From what Naomi tells me, Ellen has not always been “not right in the head” but we have no facts for sure. The fasting is to strengthen her spiritual soul. You eat for your body strength but eating too much weakens your spiritual soul. When you fast, your body uses fats to increase the strength of your spirit and you can better defend yourself against evil spirits. Naomi herself fasts twice a week to build up her spiritual soul. I was also told that it is late at night when the evil spirits are hardest at work and that is why people pray loudly late into the night (and wake me ). The fasting should strengthen Ellen’s soul and spirit and she will eventually be strong enough to defeat the curse, that and the constant prayers of course.
So…what am I suppose to say to that? This is clearly a belief that I know nothing about and find very hard to understand but who am I to tell the church they are wrong? I still believe that it is cruel to chain a human being…I’ll keep you up to date with Ellen’s recovery.
Today I continued working with class 4 and tomorrow I will wrap up puberty with the vocational school. Have a great weekend everyone!
keep checking my website with the pictures...I am always adding more.
The weekend went by quickly and the orientation was interesting. While we had great discussions and it was nice to spend time with volunteers who had actually been here for almost a year, I have come to the conclusion that I am a bit disappointed with my organization, ICYE. After a the weekend of pondering this however, I decided I can not do much about it now. I do think that it is entirely possible to come to Ghana to volunteer without an organization and without paying expensive fees to an international office and never fully understanding where my money has gone. While I absolutely will encourage others to volunteer, I would also encourage people to think about going on their own terms.
We arrived at the conference center around 8pm on Friday and we have nothing scheduled other than talking and meeting those we did not already know. All day Saturday we were doing activities and discussions about our projects, the kind of impact we think we had on our projects thus far or what we hope to accomplish before leaving. For those that have been here almost one year, we learned what they think they have actually accomplished and what they wish they had done differently. We had a fairly lengthy discussion on discipline in the schools and how every one of us hated the fact that the school authorities used nothing but physical punishment to “fix the problem.” The canning and the being forced to clean up garbage outside (during school hours) might provide a 5 minute solution but it does not solve anything. Yet when we were asked to come up with other ideas for discipline, things we have and have not tried, everything we came up seemed like it too would fail. Yelling at the kids does nothing, as I have found out, taking away breaks and P.E. also does not work because the teachers will not take their breaks to stay behind in the classroom with the kids. There is no detention teacher (I remember the few times I had detention in both middle school and high school, usually for talking too much, and that always worked on me) and everyone wants immediate results, like beating the children. No one wants to wait for change to happen and wait to see if a new form of discipline will actually work. The topic of discipline is just very difficult. Another interesting discussion was about our experiences in Ghana and what we plan to take back home with us. I still have almost 3 months so I choose to have this discussion with myself perhaps in July but it was interesting to listen to those that have been here much longer than I. Each of us are grateful for the experience and for whomever helped us actually get to Africa, that is one thing we all have in common.
Saturday evening I was hanging out with Eva, Sabine and Hannah, all from Germany. They arrived August 2007 and will be leaving in mid July. They had all graduated from secondary school then took a year off before going to a university to come to Africa. I admire what they have done. After just 3 months a part of me is missing home but they have been here for 10 months and they are just out of high school. To me, they are quite brave. I wish I had had the nerve or the courage to do something like that. Over our beers we discussed the positives and negatives of our organization, ICYE, and they gave me some pointers for my next 3 months. They also told me I am not a “typical American,” though I have no idea what they mean by this. Apparently, to Germans, Americans are selfish, arrogant and tightly wound. I found this fascinating. It is rare that a person gets to hear how they are perceived as a nation, from someone of another nationality. I am happy to report that I am Sabine’s first American friend and she is going to remember that not all Americans are not utterly selfish. At least I like to think that I’m not.
After our final thoughts on Sunday morning we headed back into town and I met up with Heather, Leanne, Tony and the driver Duko to go to another football match. Thankfully the rain held off for the game and we had a nice time, though the stadium was filled far beyond capacity. The match was Kumasi verses Accra, major rivalry. Of course I was waving a red and white Kumasi flag, though overall I didn’t really care who won. Still, it was exciting to see how crazy everyone gets during even the littlest foul. I am grateful that they do not sell alcohol at these games because I can only imagine how ugly things could get in an already over excited stadium, crammed FULL of people. Next weekend I will join my friends down to Cape Coast which should be a lot of fun.
I am going to head to town but will write more this week.
Today is Thursday May 29th and I have a cold. Not just a head cold but a whole body cold. How this happened I am not sure but I am missing the luxury of cuddling up on my couch in Seattle, in front of the fireplace and the tv, eating chicken noodle soup…oh well. Soon enough I suppose.
I find that that week has gone by both slowly and quickly but none the less, here we are with the week just about over. On Tuesday I went to work grading class 4 math homework. About half did pretty good and the other half I spent some extra time with this week and now just the entire class understands how to find the area of a square.
I also continued with my sex education class with the vocational school. This week the subject was puberty. While the girls, the boy did not join us this week, did comply an take notes I do not think they were as interested in puberty as they were with menstruation. This may be because they have mostly passed the puberty period and therefore do not really care that much. Next week I begin with sex health and how to protect yourself. When I mentioned bringing condoms to class and demonstrating how to use them correctly, I had the classes attention. What a shock.
The rain/wind storms hit hard the past two days, one completely waking me up at 4 am with me thinking my room would be torn into two, that or I would be hit by lightening. The bolts were so bright and the thunder so loud I swear the storm from right on top of us. Thankfully, my room did not leak too badly and I was able to go back to sleep.
This weekend I will be going to Cape Coast with my friends from the UK and the girls from Canada. It is Heather and Leanne’s last weekend here in Ghana and I plan on spending it with them. Sadly, I have already said goodbye to many friends during my 3 months and it is always a bit sad but then you meet new people and everything works itself out. I have met so many people from all over the world thus far and that is very exciting.
One last thing I want to share before posting this blog…I am going to attempt to write this in a most unbiased form. For a few weeks now an adolescent girl has been hanging out around Columbus (I am referring to the place Columbus, not the pastor, where I live). She clearly has some mental instabilities but seems harmless and sweet. From what I can see and have been told, mental illness is uncommon here and viewed as something no one wants to deal with. At first I saw her every few days but now it seems as though she is living here. I was told that she came from Tema (located near Accra) where her mother lives and was brought to Medoma (the town where I live) to be with her father. Now her father has disserted her and she therefore has become dependent on the church. On Tuesday, while I was teaching my lesson on puberty, I heard her singing, very loudly on the other side of the school wall. I stood on a chair to see her and asked nicely if she could sing more quietly or go sing for someone else since I am teaching. She then pointed at her leg and I saw that she was literally chained to the ground. There was a metal chain wrapped around her leg, with a lock and she had no room to move around. I immediately thought of a dog, a poorly treated dog, and was appalled. This girl is not an animal yet that is the way she was being treated. I was then informed by the vocational school girls that she was chained like this each day since last week and that one of the associate pastors decided to do this. Again, I was shocked. I tried to finish the lesson then went to speak with the girl. She stood there smiling and singing her heart out. Her favorite is Celine Dion and various American pop artists. I smiled at her and said she has a wonderful singing voice, which she does. After school I went to speak to Naomi about the chaining and then I was given the “rundown” on beliefs in Ghana. Naomi told me that Ghanaians believe in evil spirits, little ghosts, and in curses. If you are “not right in the head,” as they refer to mentally unstable people, you are first brought to a hospital to be checked out. If doctors can not determine what is wrong then the person is “diagnosed” as spiritually sick. The girl (who has been called Ellen) was brought to Columbus so the pastor (bishop, prophet) could pray for her and essentially ‘cure’ her. In order to do this the pastor (my host father) ordered her to follow a strict fasting schedule (not sure exactly what it is but something along the lines of 6am to 6pm without food each day) and is heavily prayed for my him and other members of the church. To prevent her from running off or getting in the way of others she is chained behind the school, in the shade however. With time she should defeat the curse or the spiritual evilness within her. Curses usually happen when someone (who already possesses bad spirits) you know is jealous of your accomplishments or of your success and sends evil thoughts and bad spirits into the person in which they wish to curse. From what Naomi tells me, Ellen has not always been “not right in the head” but we have no facts for sure. The fasting is to strengthen her spiritual soul. You eat for your body strength but eating too much weakens your spiritual soul. When you fast, your body uses fats to increase the strength of your spirit and you can better defend yourself against evil spirits. Naomi herself fasts twice a week to build up her spiritual soul. I was also told that it is late at night when the evil spirits are hardest at work and that is why people pray loudly late into the night (and wake me ). The fasting should strengthen Ellen’s soul and spirit and she will eventually be strong enough to defeat the curse, that and the constant prayers of course.
So…what am I suppose to say to that? This is clearly a belief that I know nothing about and find very hard to understand but who am I to tell the church they are wrong? I still believe that it is cruel to chain a human being…I’ll keep you up to date with Ellen’s recovery.
Today I continued working with class 4 and tomorrow I will wrap up puberty with the vocational school. Have a great weekend everyone!
keep checking my website with the pictures...I am always adding more.
Friday, May 23, 2008
How's the weather in Seattle?
Another week…another blog. Are my blogs sounding repetitive or are you still interested?
Since I like to start where I left off…last Saturday night I stayed with friends Alison and Tony (from the UK). They are the ones who live in the house I have nicknamed “The Palace.” For the night I was transported back home. We sat on the fluffy couches, ate top roman chicken flavored soup, had ice cream for dessert and drank Wine! We also watched cable television of course. Doing that made me appreciate my room at the orphanage however. I know one would like it would make me appreciate going home to the states but for the time being, I am happy to not be living in a house that so closely resembles my house at home. I like my cold showers and the bugs (well I tolerate the cockroaches but what else is new) and I have grown somewhat fond of the Pentecostal church waking me up in the middle of the night with repetitions of “Jesus! Jesus!” I think I can only say I have grown fond of it because I will be leaving in less than three months. Yes I have actually less than three months remaining. I recently found out that school is actually out for break starting July 31st After this I am free to travel or go home early. In truth, I have done quite a bit of traveling so far and plan on doing more before August so I am not sure I will have much left to do once third term is complete. I do not have an exact date for my return though so I will keep everyone posted.
To continue: after spending the night at “The Palace” and sleeping in my own air conditioned room, we woke up bright and early to get started on our drive. Heather, Leanne (my Canadian friends here doing research for their nursing degrees), Tony and myself piled into one of the trucks belonging to Tony’s construction company (and our wonderful driver Duko of course) and drove the 3.5 hours north to Kintampo. From there we spent the rest of our morning at the Kintampo waterfalls. There are three falls in all but the only the third is worth spending anytime. We changed into swim suits and stood under the waterfall. Pictures to come soon.
From there we ate a roadside lunch of fried rice and chicken then continued on our way to the Buabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary. The drive was unbelievably bumpy and I kept thanking god (or someone) that I was in a vehicle with working seatbelts. I am still baffled by the fact that the few tourist attractions located in Ghana are so very difficult to get to. The roads are unpaved and unsafe (with the speed people drive) and it is hard not to get discouraged and simply turn around. Since we had our fairly comfortable truck however, we made it to the sanctuary. In the few hours we spent there we came in close contact with quite a few monkeys. This was well worth the drive. From there we headed back to Kumasi. Just to paint a picture of the kind of road we are driving on: a combination of bumpy dirt road and terribly paved roads with potholes that look at those a crater fell from the sky, people are driving anywhere between 60 to 90 miles per hour and sometimes the road curves…oh and in the three hours up and three hours back home I think we saw at least three or four huge trucks completely turned over on its side or even on its roof. Thankfully we witnessed no actual crashes and no blood but passing these trucks on the road is quite nerve racking. For one thing, whatever type of cargo these trucks are carrying is usually piled on top of the truck as well as inside and therefore many of these semi’s become quite top heavy. Take that into consideration as well as the potholes, curves in the road, people constantly trying to overtake one another and lastly, the speed, it is a wonder I am still alive. However, I did arrive home in one piece, and just in time. Sunday night was another long and windy rain storm.
Monday came around and now it is Thursday (May 22). I can hardly believe it. I had a full week with class 4, attempting to teach them math. This week we are working on finding the perimeter of shapes and are still trying to master converting centimeters into meters and vice versa. It took four days but most of the kids were able to get at least 6 out of 8 on their math homework. When this happens, I feel like I am actually accomplishing something. Monday night I held the weekly movie night in my room. While I try to reserve Sunday night for this, I am not always back in time. On Monday the younger kids requested “Toys” meaning cartoons so we settled on “The Emperors New Groove.” My little buddy P.K. sat on my lap the whole time acting very cuddly. It will be so hard to leave him.
Tuesday was my first real sex ed class with the vocational school. I actually had 4 students too, what a break through. I decided not to count on more than 5 at any given time but then the ones who show up are the ones who will benefit right? The topic for this week is menstruation. My students consisted of 3 girls and one boy. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate (for Ghana) to have the boy participate in the class but the teacher thought be should learn about health (as he should) so he remained. Because each of the students were in their teens, they have already had their first periods (alright, the three girls) but when I asked if they knew why they menstruated once a month, they had no response. The boy mentioned something about getting rid of the dirty blood so I went from there. I drew (as best I could) a diagram of a woman’s pelvic region and explained what happens in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes and the uterus. After the discussion, I asked the girls to tell me why a woman gets her period. Though they weren’t completely accurate, they began to understand the workings of ovulation, menstruation and pregnancy. I am really looking forward to continuing this class each week. Of course I had to control the laughter in the class when discussing male and female genitalia but then again I remember it being hard to keep a straight face in my sex health class in high school.
Today I took class 4 to P.E. (as I promised them I would if they worked hard on their math homework) but again was disappointed to see only the boys playing football/soccer. I tried to get the girls to play but most have little interest or are too scared to play with the boys. I have given up trying to play any other organized game at P.E. (which really should just be called recess), and usually our games of football are not very organized either. I wish I could offer these kids a real field to play on with four square lines and basketball hoops but I fear that will always be a dream, never a reality. After lunch I noticed there was no teacher in the KG1 classroom. The nursery school teacher informed me that she went home early because she felt sick. After much prying I learned that she had menstrual cramps and was excused. This made me very angry. I realize that things are done differently here but I don’t think cramps is reason enough to leave your kindergarten class unattended. I am sympathetic to her pain as I too suffer from cramps but I personally would have to be on the verge of fainting for me to leave the children I am responsible for. I then attempted to teach the class but wow, was that difficult. For one thing, these children speak very little English so after covering the ABC’s, counting, colors and reading a children’s book about the weather I had noting left for them. I had them sing me some songs but that only went so far. Soon they were fighting and hitting each other, I am shocked at how many slaps and punches I see between even the young kids. However, when your teachers beat you when you misbehave, it is really only a matter of time before the kids start taking their aggression out on each other. Not only aggression but boredom. After lunch many of the younger classes are told to “sleep.” While I am all for naps, it is rare that the kids will sleep for a full two hours, yet it seems as though the teachers have surrendered for the day and the children are on their own.
The chalkboards are currently in a standstill but I am told construction should resume this Saturday, just three boards remain unfinished, and then all that is left is the painting. I am keeping my fingers crossed that come Monday there will be 10 fully finished blackboards. Well school is over and I need to wash some clothes. I’ll write again before I actually post.
Friday morning: I just got back from Tafo (a nearby town) to again search for black paint. From what I can tell, black paint is not all that common and often people use the liquid chemicals in batteries to mix black paint. When I heard this I became alarmed. Clearly Ghanaians are unaware of how harmful battery juice is if it is absorbed in the skin. There is no way I am using that to paint the chalkboards in the school. I am pretty sure I am going to have to settle on a shade of dark green. I am just looking forward to seeing the finished product. I will take many pictures once they are finished.
Last night I worked with three of the kids in class 5 (that live at the orphanage), we were working on forming sentences using words about household items. Again this is what makes me happy, when I am able to work with just a few kids and really see the progress. I also played with the younger kids, tickling them mostly. I’m not sure what it is but every child here is over the top ticklish and I just love to hear them laugh.
Alright I am off to take class 5 to P.E. Maybe the class 5 girls will actually participate. Then this weekend I will be in Kumasi for the mid session orientation camp for my organization (ICYE). I am not really sure what we will be doing but all the volunteers still in Ghana will be there.
More updates next week.
-Erin
Since I like to start where I left off…last Saturday night I stayed with friends Alison and Tony (from the UK). They are the ones who live in the house I have nicknamed “The Palace.” For the night I was transported back home. We sat on the fluffy couches, ate top roman chicken flavored soup, had ice cream for dessert and drank Wine! We also watched cable television of course. Doing that made me appreciate my room at the orphanage however. I know one would like it would make me appreciate going home to the states but for the time being, I am happy to not be living in a house that so closely resembles my house at home. I like my cold showers and the bugs (well I tolerate the cockroaches but what else is new) and I have grown somewhat fond of the Pentecostal church waking me up in the middle of the night with repetitions of “Jesus! Jesus!” I think I can only say I have grown fond of it because I will be leaving in less than three months. Yes I have actually less than three months remaining. I recently found out that school is actually out for break starting July 31st After this I am free to travel or go home early. In truth, I have done quite a bit of traveling so far and plan on doing more before August so I am not sure I will have much left to do once third term is complete. I do not have an exact date for my return though so I will keep everyone posted.
To continue: after spending the night at “The Palace” and sleeping in my own air conditioned room, we woke up bright and early to get started on our drive. Heather, Leanne (my Canadian friends here doing research for their nursing degrees), Tony and myself piled into one of the trucks belonging to Tony’s construction company (and our wonderful driver Duko of course) and drove the 3.5 hours north to Kintampo. From there we spent the rest of our morning at the Kintampo waterfalls. There are three falls in all but the only the third is worth spending anytime. We changed into swim suits and stood under the waterfall. Pictures to come soon.
From there we ate a roadside lunch of fried rice and chicken then continued on our way to the Buabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary. The drive was unbelievably bumpy and I kept thanking god (or someone) that I was in a vehicle with working seatbelts. I am still baffled by the fact that the few tourist attractions located in Ghana are so very difficult to get to. The roads are unpaved and unsafe (with the speed people drive) and it is hard not to get discouraged and simply turn around. Since we had our fairly comfortable truck however, we made it to the sanctuary. In the few hours we spent there we came in close contact with quite a few monkeys. This was well worth the drive. From there we headed back to Kumasi. Just to paint a picture of the kind of road we are driving on: a combination of bumpy dirt road and terribly paved roads with potholes that look at those a crater fell from the sky, people are driving anywhere between 60 to 90 miles per hour and sometimes the road curves…oh and in the three hours up and three hours back home I think we saw at least three or four huge trucks completely turned over on its side or even on its roof. Thankfully we witnessed no actual crashes and no blood but passing these trucks on the road is quite nerve racking. For one thing, whatever type of cargo these trucks are carrying is usually piled on top of the truck as well as inside and therefore many of these semi’s become quite top heavy. Take that into consideration as well as the potholes, curves in the road, people constantly trying to overtake one another and lastly, the speed, it is a wonder I am still alive. However, I did arrive home in one piece, and just in time. Sunday night was another long and windy rain storm.
Monday came around and now it is Thursday (May 22). I can hardly believe it. I had a full week with class 4, attempting to teach them math. This week we are working on finding the perimeter of shapes and are still trying to master converting centimeters into meters and vice versa. It took four days but most of the kids were able to get at least 6 out of 8 on their math homework. When this happens, I feel like I am actually accomplishing something. Monday night I held the weekly movie night in my room. While I try to reserve Sunday night for this, I am not always back in time. On Monday the younger kids requested “Toys” meaning cartoons so we settled on “The Emperors New Groove.” My little buddy P.K. sat on my lap the whole time acting very cuddly. It will be so hard to leave him.
Tuesday was my first real sex ed class with the vocational school. I actually had 4 students too, what a break through. I decided not to count on more than 5 at any given time but then the ones who show up are the ones who will benefit right? The topic for this week is menstruation. My students consisted of 3 girls and one boy. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate (for Ghana) to have the boy participate in the class but the teacher thought be should learn about health (as he should) so he remained. Because each of the students were in their teens, they have already had their first periods (alright, the three girls) but when I asked if they knew why they menstruated once a month, they had no response. The boy mentioned something about getting rid of the dirty blood so I went from there. I drew (as best I could) a diagram of a woman’s pelvic region and explained what happens in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes and the uterus. After the discussion, I asked the girls to tell me why a woman gets her period. Though they weren’t completely accurate, they began to understand the workings of ovulation, menstruation and pregnancy. I am really looking forward to continuing this class each week. Of course I had to control the laughter in the class when discussing male and female genitalia but then again I remember it being hard to keep a straight face in my sex health class in high school.
Today I took class 4 to P.E. (as I promised them I would if they worked hard on their math homework) but again was disappointed to see only the boys playing football/soccer. I tried to get the girls to play but most have little interest or are too scared to play with the boys. I have given up trying to play any other organized game at P.E. (which really should just be called recess), and usually our games of football are not very organized either. I wish I could offer these kids a real field to play on with four square lines and basketball hoops but I fear that will always be a dream, never a reality. After lunch I noticed there was no teacher in the KG1 classroom. The nursery school teacher informed me that she went home early because she felt sick. After much prying I learned that she had menstrual cramps and was excused. This made me very angry. I realize that things are done differently here but I don’t think cramps is reason enough to leave your kindergarten class unattended. I am sympathetic to her pain as I too suffer from cramps but I personally would have to be on the verge of fainting for me to leave the children I am responsible for. I then attempted to teach the class but wow, was that difficult. For one thing, these children speak very little English so after covering the ABC’s, counting, colors and reading a children’s book about the weather I had noting left for them. I had them sing me some songs but that only went so far. Soon they were fighting and hitting each other, I am shocked at how many slaps and punches I see between even the young kids. However, when your teachers beat you when you misbehave, it is really only a matter of time before the kids start taking their aggression out on each other. Not only aggression but boredom. After lunch many of the younger classes are told to “sleep.” While I am all for naps, it is rare that the kids will sleep for a full two hours, yet it seems as though the teachers have surrendered for the day and the children are on their own.
The chalkboards are currently in a standstill but I am told construction should resume this Saturday, just three boards remain unfinished, and then all that is left is the painting. I am keeping my fingers crossed that come Monday there will be 10 fully finished blackboards. Well school is over and I need to wash some clothes. I’ll write again before I actually post.
Friday morning: I just got back from Tafo (a nearby town) to again search for black paint. From what I can tell, black paint is not all that common and often people use the liquid chemicals in batteries to mix black paint. When I heard this I became alarmed. Clearly Ghanaians are unaware of how harmful battery juice is if it is absorbed in the skin. There is no way I am using that to paint the chalkboards in the school. I am pretty sure I am going to have to settle on a shade of dark green. I am just looking forward to seeing the finished product. I will take many pictures once they are finished.
Last night I worked with three of the kids in class 5 (that live at the orphanage), we were working on forming sentences using words about household items. Again this is what makes me happy, when I am able to work with just a few kids and really see the progress. I also played with the younger kids, tickling them mostly. I’m not sure what it is but every child here is over the top ticklish and I just love to hear them laugh.
Alright I am off to take class 5 to P.E. Maybe the class 5 girls will actually participate. Then this weekend I will be in Kumasi for the mid session orientation camp for my organization (ICYE). I am not really sure what we will be doing but all the volunteers still in Ghana will be there.
More updates next week.
-Erin
Saturday, May 17, 2008
It's a long one...
Wednesday May 14, 2008: School is about to start but I wanted to begin typing this weeks blog because it seems as though I have a lot to write. Finally the school attendance is almost back to normal and I am so happy to see all the kids. I am still trying to work out my schedule for this term because, as usual, there is so much I want to do and so many classes I want to work with. But first I am going to go back to this past weekend.
On Friday night I went to the hotel of my friends from Canada. Heather and Leann are staying in a hotel for 3 months while they are completing their research for their nursing school masters program at the university of Alberta. Both are interested in birth and delivery and midwifery and they have told me about their findings. Heather is studying pregnancy and birthing within a community in Ghana while Leann is studying from within the teaching hospital. This hospital is supposed to be one of the best in the country but from what she has told me, I pray to do not get sick during my last three months here because it sounds as though the conditions at the hospital will only make me worse. Patients are placed on mats on the floor and are not given even remotely the care they should be given, especially while in labor. I watched Leann break down in tears when she was telling me about the number of babies that have died before being born or just after she has witnessed in the 6 weeks she has been in Ghana. The high infant mortality rate is more often than not due to the negligence of the hospital staff. How terribly sad. And from what Heather tells me, I would prefer to have my child with a midwife in the community because she has witnessed far fewer infant deaths, stillborn births or death of the birthing mother. One rather morbid cultural difference is that in Ghana if a woman dies while giving birth it means she was unfaithful to her husband and God is punishing her. Just before the baby is born, within the village/community, the nurse or midwife asks the woman if she has anything to confess and if she neglects to do so and then dies it is because she did not confess to her adulterous sins. Another thing I find quite disturbing is that women are not allowed to grieve if their first child dies. Because children under the age of 5 die so often here, and in many developing nations, a woman is not allowed to grieve when her first child dies, but once the second or third child passes away then they can mourn. And another thing, when a child is stillborn or dies within the first 8 days of being born, they are not given a funeral but simply placed in a shoebox and are disposed of. Apparently a baby is not a person until they are 8 days old. The things Heather and Leann are learning are both fascinating and horrifying.
To continue: on Friday night the three of us made fufu and chicken stew. Yes it is possible to make fufu without the actual pounding stick, you can buy fufu flour at the store and mix it on the stove. We also used a blender to mix the veggies, how very un-Ghanaian of us. Still, it was a good dinner. That night we met up with other friends and attempted to go out to a bar. Nightlife here is very different than nightlife back home. For one thing bars and clubs do not get remotely crowded or in full swing until after midnight and some people stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning. Not me. By 2 I am tired and it is well past my bed time. Then on Saturday morning I woke up at Heather and Leann’s hotel and we made breakfast! They had found some instant bisquick batter and we made pancakes and eggs. It did not taste exactly like home but it was nice to have something other than oatmeal. I returned to the school on Saturday to see how the chalkboard building process was going. The workers seemed to have gone home early for the day but three more boards were finished. Overall they look good and are now just in need of paint. While I am glad I could help to make the school function better, I was unaware of all the extra costs such as paying the men for the labor. This means I can not continue buying posters for the classrooms and colored chalk because now is the time to really watch my finances. I did good on Sunday however and I was able to have a great day without spending much. Before heading into town and to the swimming pool I made a peanut butter (or rather ground nut butter) and jelly sandwich to save money on lunch. I was at the hotel swimming pool with a few friends from 10 to 2 pm and then I headed to the football (soccer) stadium. I had met a new friend named Tony a week earlier, he is from the UK and is here for the summer working construction for a water treatment company. He is living with another girl from the UK whom I met while at the national park. The two of them are living extremely luxuriously while here in Africa. They have drivers to take them wherever they want to go (and now their new friends, me) and a beautiful 5 bedroom house for the two of them complete with huge kitchen, washing machine and big screen tv WITH cable. We spent Sunday evening watching tv and enjoying a beer and drying off. Earlier while at the game we experienced Ghana’s rainy season like never before. Before the game started the sky was blue and it was quite HOT but by the first ten minutes of the game dark clouds rolled in and I was worried. First off there was NO shelter and all of us has cell phones and cameras. We crammed them all under our one umbrella just before the rain came pouring down in buckets, literally. We were instantly soaked through the bone and I was feeling cold. Everywhere around us people were yelling and having a great time, it was quite the experience. The second half was called off but I was not disappointed one bit. What better place to go than Tony and Alison’s palace of a house? I plan on spending many of my weekends there.
So Monday came and school started. To my surprise, most of the kids had actually showed up. While school is important in Ghana, daily attendance is not. Even though teachers expect attendance to be low I still witnessed many kids being caned because they missed the first week of classes. One thing I have noticed: the child is always to blame. If the parents requested the child stay home or if the family wanted to travel (not that that happens too often) or if the guardians do not have the money for the printing fee, the child gets beaten. How is that in anyway fair?
On Monday I dealt with some issues in building the chalkboards, I did not want the building to interfere with the children’s education and had to tell the workers they must wait until the weekend to continue. It seemed as though the nursery school class was completely out of control so I attempted to get them to quite down by singing songs. We began with “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” but the teacher soon took over and I heard the kids singing songs about Jesus. There were no vocational school girls at school so I headed to Kumasi early to bid farewell to Emily. For those who need clarification as to who she is, Emily is the other American volunteer from my organization. She and I grew close over the phone starting in October and had planned to first go to Kenya together and then decided on Ghana a month later. Due to the late start of our volunteer work, she is only able to be here for 3 months and is returning home this week. I will miss her a lot but hopefully we will see one another soon since we do in fact live in the same country.
Since I got home later than planned on Sunday I had movie night with the kids on Monday night. This time we watched “Save the Last Dance,” a movie about dancing. I guess the older kids had grown tired of Disney movies.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the workers had completely dismissed what I had told them earlier and continued building. After some rather harsh words, they understood and will wait until Saturday. I began with class 4 and we did math, or converting centimeters to meters and millimeters to be exact. I had to correct the teacher a few times so clearly it is difficult to teach the kids but about half of them got their homework correct so they are making progress. It is so hard to teach the kids without text books. If I did not have my own math book when I was in grade school to take home and complete my homework each night, I would have been hopeless. This school needs so many supplies, I hardly know where to begin.
After break I decide to begin working with the vocational school girls. Apparently there are 16 girls enrolled in the class but I have never once seen more then ten girls at a time. Yesterday there were 3. Oh well, I decided those three will benefit from being in school on time. I began my sex ed course with the question “What is sex?” I said there is no right or wrong answer but I wanted them to write down whatever they think of when I say the word sex. One girl, 16, answered “when a man and a women come together, in a bed.” That is on the right track. I then brought up several different ideas that come to me when I think of the word sex. The girls seemed both attentive and interested so I have high hopes for this course. From there I bulleted the main topics I wanted to discuss over the next 5 weeks or so. So far I have menstruation, puberty, sex health such as methods to protect yourself, STD’s and infections, abortion, sexual abuse, rape and finally some nutrition. For homework I told the girls to think of anything else they would like to discuss and to tell their friends to make it to class next week. Clearly I have a lot of research to do. I know what I learned in middle and high school health classes and that was a while ago. While I plan on looking online more this week, if anyone has some keys facts about these topics, please email me. Thank you. Well that’s enough for today. More before I publish this post this weekend.
Thursday May 15, 2008. The school day is over and I am once again rolling my eyes as myself because I must learn to control my impatience. I find myself writing a checklist each day of all the things I want to “fix” at this school but then I get overwhelmed, have no idea where to start begin thinking pessimistically telling myself “well nothing is going to change anyway so why bother?” I know this is a terrible attitude but it is just so heartbreaking to see the lack of necessary materials and resources needed to accurately teach these children. After grading the math homework of class 4 yesterday I wrote down the names of the 4 children that got the lowest scoring grades then today I took those 4 children out of class and began from square one. How can these kids do long division is they can not subtract? The four kids, Paul Owasu, Kwame Agyr, Bonsu Opoku and Elizabeth needed to break down the problems step by step to understand that you can not subtract 5 from 2 and therefore you must borrow from the number to the left. This concept is quite difficult for them and even though I find myself easily frustrated I remember that I too had serious difficulty learning math. I however had access to tutors, math books, chairs and desks meant for a child my age (not desks meant for kindergartners), and people who actually KNEW how to go slow and teach me. After 45 minutes 3 of the 4 were able to answer problems on their own but Elizabeth was having major trouble. I dismissed the other 3 and I worked for another half hour with her. This time I had her begin with a simple addition problem. After a while of making her understand the difference between addition and subtraction we began the long process of her adding simple number such as 9 and 3. Starting from 9 and adding three on her hands also proved to be quite difficult for her. I took out a plastic bag with many bottle caps (something Catherine had put together and left for me before returning to England) and used them as props to add and subtract. I decided for next week I will buy a bunch of hard candy and use it for props, perhaps that will help. After lunch I did a lesson about colors for KG 1. Overall they did very well and knew just about all of their colors. I think I need to give myself balance between the older classes and the younger classes. Tomorrow I plan on teaching a lesson on prepositions to class 4, we’ll see how that goes, and continue math with Elizabeth and a few others who need extra help. Then this weekend I am going to look into the price for blackboard paint and attempt to paint the boards myself to avoid more labor costs. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Just another quick thing before posting this. It is now Saturday and I have yet to buy more paint. It turns out that the men building the boards did not estimate correctly because there are several bags of concrete leftover. They are not finished with all of the chalkboards but they defiantly do not need 12 bags to do so. Therefore I am waiting to buy paint until I see if I can return the leftover concrete. Yesterday was nice and somewhat relaxing. We were due for a rainstorm since it had not rained since Tuesday. The storm prevented me from getting into town to use the internet and check on paint prices but I was able to almost finish my tenth book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. If any of you have not yet read both this book and The Kite Runner: Get On It! They are absolutely incredible and terribly sad. I now have just two books left for my next three months so that could be a problem. In addition to reading all night I put to use the multiplication flash cards mom sent to me in Ghana at the request of the kids. No where else will kids be asking to “learn” on a Friday night. This gives me great pleasure and helps me realize the impact I am having since I feel utterly useless while in school. More on that later though. Ok well I am off to meet the Canadian girls and my new friends from the UK. We are going to make dinner in their fancy kitchen and watch movies. Have a great weekend.
-Erin
and last but not least...I have some photos up online. I am only up to my weekend at Cape Coast over Easter and I am not near done yet) but check these out in the mean time: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26395483@N06/?saved=1
just plug in the above website and start from the beginning!
On Friday night I went to the hotel of my friends from Canada. Heather and Leann are staying in a hotel for 3 months while they are completing their research for their nursing school masters program at the university of Alberta. Both are interested in birth and delivery and midwifery and they have told me about their findings. Heather is studying pregnancy and birthing within a community in Ghana while Leann is studying from within the teaching hospital. This hospital is supposed to be one of the best in the country but from what she has told me, I pray to do not get sick during my last three months here because it sounds as though the conditions at the hospital will only make me worse. Patients are placed on mats on the floor and are not given even remotely the care they should be given, especially while in labor. I watched Leann break down in tears when she was telling me about the number of babies that have died before being born or just after she has witnessed in the 6 weeks she has been in Ghana. The high infant mortality rate is more often than not due to the negligence of the hospital staff. How terribly sad. And from what Heather tells me, I would prefer to have my child with a midwife in the community because she has witnessed far fewer infant deaths, stillborn births or death of the birthing mother. One rather morbid cultural difference is that in Ghana if a woman dies while giving birth it means she was unfaithful to her husband and God is punishing her. Just before the baby is born, within the village/community, the nurse or midwife asks the woman if she has anything to confess and if she neglects to do so and then dies it is because she did not confess to her adulterous sins. Another thing I find quite disturbing is that women are not allowed to grieve if their first child dies. Because children under the age of 5 die so often here, and in many developing nations, a woman is not allowed to grieve when her first child dies, but once the second or third child passes away then they can mourn. And another thing, when a child is stillborn or dies within the first 8 days of being born, they are not given a funeral but simply placed in a shoebox and are disposed of. Apparently a baby is not a person until they are 8 days old. The things Heather and Leann are learning are both fascinating and horrifying.
To continue: on Friday night the three of us made fufu and chicken stew. Yes it is possible to make fufu without the actual pounding stick, you can buy fufu flour at the store and mix it on the stove. We also used a blender to mix the veggies, how very un-Ghanaian of us. Still, it was a good dinner. That night we met up with other friends and attempted to go out to a bar. Nightlife here is very different than nightlife back home. For one thing bars and clubs do not get remotely crowded or in full swing until after midnight and some people stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning. Not me. By 2 I am tired and it is well past my bed time. Then on Saturday morning I woke up at Heather and Leann’s hotel and we made breakfast! They had found some instant bisquick batter and we made pancakes and eggs. It did not taste exactly like home but it was nice to have something other than oatmeal. I returned to the school on Saturday to see how the chalkboard building process was going. The workers seemed to have gone home early for the day but three more boards were finished. Overall they look good and are now just in need of paint. While I am glad I could help to make the school function better, I was unaware of all the extra costs such as paying the men for the labor. This means I can not continue buying posters for the classrooms and colored chalk because now is the time to really watch my finances. I did good on Sunday however and I was able to have a great day without spending much. Before heading into town and to the swimming pool I made a peanut butter (or rather ground nut butter) and jelly sandwich to save money on lunch. I was at the hotel swimming pool with a few friends from 10 to 2 pm and then I headed to the football (soccer) stadium. I had met a new friend named Tony a week earlier, he is from the UK and is here for the summer working construction for a water treatment company. He is living with another girl from the UK whom I met while at the national park. The two of them are living extremely luxuriously while here in Africa. They have drivers to take them wherever they want to go (and now their new friends, me) and a beautiful 5 bedroom house for the two of them complete with huge kitchen, washing machine and big screen tv WITH cable. We spent Sunday evening watching tv and enjoying a beer and drying off. Earlier while at the game we experienced Ghana’s rainy season like never before. Before the game started the sky was blue and it was quite HOT but by the first ten minutes of the game dark clouds rolled in and I was worried. First off there was NO shelter and all of us has cell phones and cameras. We crammed them all under our one umbrella just before the rain came pouring down in buckets, literally. We were instantly soaked through the bone and I was feeling cold. Everywhere around us people were yelling and having a great time, it was quite the experience. The second half was called off but I was not disappointed one bit. What better place to go than Tony and Alison’s palace of a house? I plan on spending many of my weekends there.
So Monday came and school started. To my surprise, most of the kids had actually showed up. While school is important in Ghana, daily attendance is not. Even though teachers expect attendance to be low I still witnessed many kids being caned because they missed the first week of classes. One thing I have noticed: the child is always to blame. If the parents requested the child stay home or if the family wanted to travel (not that that happens too often) or if the guardians do not have the money for the printing fee, the child gets beaten. How is that in anyway fair?
On Monday I dealt with some issues in building the chalkboards, I did not want the building to interfere with the children’s education and had to tell the workers they must wait until the weekend to continue. It seemed as though the nursery school class was completely out of control so I attempted to get them to quite down by singing songs. We began with “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” but the teacher soon took over and I heard the kids singing songs about Jesus. There were no vocational school girls at school so I headed to Kumasi early to bid farewell to Emily. For those who need clarification as to who she is, Emily is the other American volunteer from my organization. She and I grew close over the phone starting in October and had planned to first go to Kenya together and then decided on Ghana a month later. Due to the late start of our volunteer work, she is only able to be here for 3 months and is returning home this week. I will miss her a lot but hopefully we will see one another soon since we do in fact live in the same country.
Since I got home later than planned on Sunday I had movie night with the kids on Monday night. This time we watched “Save the Last Dance,” a movie about dancing. I guess the older kids had grown tired of Disney movies.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the workers had completely dismissed what I had told them earlier and continued building. After some rather harsh words, they understood and will wait until Saturday. I began with class 4 and we did math, or converting centimeters to meters and millimeters to be exact. I had to correct the teacher a few times so clearly it is difficult to teach the kids but about half of them got their homework correct so they are making progress. It is so hard to teach the kids without text books. If I did not have my own math book when I was in grade school to take home and complete my homework each night, I would have been hopeless. This school needs so many supplies, I hardly know where to begin.
After break I decide to begin working with the vocational school girls. Apparently there are 16 girls enrolled in the class but I have never once seen more then ten girls at a time. Yesterday there were 3. Oh well, I decided those three will benefit from being in school on time. I began my sex ed course with the question “What is sex?” I said there is no right or wrong answer but I wanted them to write down whatever they think of when I say the word sex. One girl, 16, answered “when a man and a women come together, in a bed.” That is on the right track. I then brought up several different ideas that come to me when I think of the word sex. The girls seemed both attentive and interested so I have high hopes for this course. From there I bulleted the main topics I wanted to discuss over the next 5 weeks or so. So far I have menstruation, puberty, sex health such as methods to protect yourself, STD’s and infections, abortion, sexual abuse, rape and finally some nutrition. For homework I told the girls to think of anything else they would like to discuss and to tell their friends to make it to class next week. Clearly I have a lot of research to do. I know what I learned in middle and high school health classes and that was a while ago. While I plan on looking online more this week, if anyone has some keys facts about these topics, please email me. Thank you. Well that’s enough for today. More before I publish this post this weekend.
Thursday May 15, 2008. The school day is over and I am once again rolling my eyes as myself because I must learn to control my impatience. I find myself writing a checklist each day of all the things I want to “fix” at this school but then I get overwhelmed, have no idea where to start begin thinking pessimistically telling myself “well nothing is going to change anyway so why bother?” I know this is a terrible attitude but it is just so heartbreaking to see the lack of necessary materials and resources needed to accurately teach these children. After grading the math homework of class 4 yesterday I wrote down the names of the 4 children that got the lowest scoring grades then today I took those 4 children out of class and began from square one. How can these kids do long division is they can not subtract? The four kids, Paul Owasu, Kwame Agyr, Bonsu Opoku and Elizabeth needed to break down the problems step by step to understand that you can not subtract 5 from 2 and therefore you must borrow from the number to the left. This concept is quite difficult for them and even though I find myself easily frustrated I remember that I too had serious difficulty learning math. I however had access to tutors, math books, chairs and desks meant for a child my age (not desks meant for kindergartners), and people who actually KNEW how to go slow and teach me. After 45 minutes 3 of the 4 were able to answer problems on their own but Elizabeth was having major trouble. I dismissed the other 3 and I worked for another half hour with her. This time I had her begin with a simple addition problem. After a while of making her understand the difference between addition and subtraction we began the long process of her adding simple number such as 9 and 3. Starting from 9 and adding three on her hands also proved to be quite difficult for her. I took out a plastic bag with many bottle caps (something Catherine had put together and left for me before returning to England) and used them as props to add and subtract. I decided for next week I will buy a bunch of hard candy and use it for props, perhaps that will help. After lunch I did a lesson about colors for KG 1. Overall they did very well and knew just about all of their colors. I think I need to give myself balance between the older classes and the younger classes. Tomorrow I plan on teaching a lesson on prepositions to class 4, we’ll see how that goes, and continue math with Elizabeth and a few others who need extra help. Then this weekend I am going to look into the price for blackboard paint and attempt to paint the boards myself to avoid more labor costs. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Just another quick thing before posting this. It is now Saturday and I have yet to buy more paint. It turns out that the men building the boards did not estimate correctly because there are several bags of concrete leftover. They are not finished with all of the chalkboards but they defiantly do not need 12 bags to do so. Therefore I am waiting to buy paint until I see if I can return the leftover concrete. Yesterday was nice and somewhat relaxing. We were due for a rainstorm since it had not rained since Tuesday. The storm prevented me from getting into town to use the internet and check on paint prices but I was able to almost finish my tenth book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. If any of you have not yet read both this book and The Kite Runner: Get On It! They are absolutely incredible and terribly sad. I now have just two books left for my next three months so that could be a problem. In addition to reading all night I put to use the multiplication flash cards mom sent to me in Ghana at the request of the kids. No where else will kids be asking to “learn” on a Friday night. This gives me great pleasure and helps me realize the impact I am having since I feel utterly useless while in school. More on that later though. Ok well I am off to meet the Canadian girls and my new friends from the UK. We are going to make dinner in their fancy kitchen and watch movies. Have a great weekend.
-Erin
and last but not least...I have some photos up online. I am only up to my weekend at Cape Coast over Easter and I am not near done yet) but check these out in the mean time: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26395483@N06/?saved=1
just plug in the above website and start from the beginning!
Friday, May 9, 2008
whoa...the week went by FAST
The first day of school is over and I taught not one thing. Today is Tuesday May 6, 2008 and probably a quarter of the students actually attended school. Apparently this is quite common for the week after break and we shouldn’t expect usual attendance until the start of next week. So today we (the other volunteers, Martina, Klara and I) visited with the kids, helped tidy the classrooms (dusted away spider webs, and the spiders along with them, swept the dust on the floor from one pile to another, that sort of thing) and tried to ignore the fact that this lack of attendance would never happen back home. Even though we were not able to begin teaching, it was great to see the kids faces and they seemed just as happy to see us.
I noticed that many of the blackboards in the classrooms were falling down, bent and pretty much worthless. I had noticed this before but did not know if there was much that could be done. Most of the boards are literally a large piece of plywood that has been painted black. This only lasts so long and as you can imagine, the chalk never gets completely wiped off. I asked Naomi what is costs to have actual blackboards installed in each classroom and she went to ask someone. She returned to ask if she could take me down the road to a lumber yard to see for myself. Since it was clear that there would be no actual teaching done today, Martina, Klara and I went with Naomi to the town of Ahwiaa (about ten minutes away). Of course the school needs more text books and reading books and pencils but it also needs appropriate blackboards, ones that will last. The school itself needs so much work and I believe chalkboards are where to start.
I soon realized that true blackboards are hard to find in Ghana but we could buy new boards for 8 cedi each and again paint the boards black. Another idea is to figure out the cost of cement and build blackboards by smoothing a new layer of cement to the walls of the classrooms and to then paint that black. I did not understand how this would work so Naomi took us to another school nearby that used cement for their chalkboards. After seeing the other school I think this is the best option. I should get an estimate on costs soon and depending on that cost, the other two volunteers and I may just decide to pay for them. I would love to see some improvement in the school building before I leave.
This past weekend was fun. I spent most of the day on Friday with a friend I met in Mole National Park. She is a grad student from Canada doing research for her nursing program. Because she has to work in her thesis while here in Ghana, Heather has a laptop with her and this is wonderful because we discovered free internet at a luxurious hotel in Kumasi. The Golden Tulip hotel is stunning and has a beautiful pool and restaurant and is entirely too expensive to stay at, however they coffee is affordable and REAL! We sat at the restaurant at the hotel for hours drinking coffee, treating ourselves to lunch and using the free (fast) internet. I was able to upload my pictures onto my cd but need to wait until this weekend to use her computer once again to actually get the pictures online for you to see. I am really keeping my fingers crossed this time because I cannot wait to show you all what I have been doing the past 10 weeks. After we left the hotel we went back to her hotel. Heather (and her friend Leann who was traveling for the weekend) are staying in a hotel for the full three months they are living in Ghana because they were unable to find a host stay. While this is a somewhat expensive choice, I was invited to stay over Friday night and I have never slept so well (while in Africa). Not only did they have air conditioner but it was very quiet!
Then on Sunday I joined Emily and Monica (two other volunteer friends) at another nearby hotel to spend the day at the pool. Not long after we arrived a woman came over to introduce herself after hearing us speaking English. Turns out she is with a group of adults in the medical field hoping to open a training center specializing in facial deformities in children. We asked her where she was from and she said that seven out of the ten were from non other then the Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Washington. This was all too fortunate and unbelievable. I asked if I could meet the rest of her group deciding I absolutely must take this opportunity to practice my networking skills and decide if I do in fact take after my mother. She invited me to join them and soon I found myself seated with her group explaining what I was doing in Ghana, where I went to high school, college and my future plans (to get into the health care field myself) in addition to current Seattle weather and any recent news in the democratic election. Before leaving I managed to get three business cards and invitations to get in touch with them. I was thrilled and felt quite accomplished. Don’t worry, I have already sent an email to each saying how great it was to have met them. And to finish off the weekend Martina and Klara returned to our project after not seeing much of each other over the break and the three of us ate a dinner of boiled yams and vegetable stew and watched “Dream Girls” on the dvd player. I will write more this week before posting this blog.
Hello again...it is Friday May 9th today and I am back at the Golden Tulip luxury hotel with two friends from Canada taking advantage of the free internet. I am happy to say that this week went by very quickly. So on Wednesday Martina, Klara and I went with Naomi to purchase the cement and then order the sand. While I am so happy to offer to pay for all of these materials, I have to admit I did not think the construction for the blackboards would even begin to take place until July or something. Everything in Ghana takes three times as long as it would anywhere else so to my surprise I was shelling out $240. Again, I am quite happy to do this but my casual comment about the price of blackboards now has me seriously watching the amount of money I have in my account for the next 3 months. The sand did not arrive until yesterday afternoon therefore the actual building of the blackboards did not begin until this morning. Yesterday I came to school wearing shorts, a t-shirt and my running shoes. The kids know what that means. I was greeted with huge smiles and "Madame...P.E.??!!" I smiled back, "yes kids...c'mon." They followed me out to the "field" and we began a boys verses girls game of football. With the attendance being so slow, we were actually able to play a real game for a while. The girls tired easily though to my disappointment. I played with the boys a while longer then began skipping rope with the girls. My forgot to put sunblock on however and my shoulders are quite red.
Thursday was beautiful and very hot but that night we had one of the biggest storms we have ever had. There was torrential rains, wind, lightening and thunder complete with a leaking roof. In addition to all of that I had about 12 kids in my room. Klara had gotten braids in her hair about 3 weeks ago and it takes just as long to take them out by hand (about 7 hours). She was in my room with a few of the girls taking out her braids while watching some movies and before I knew it all the other kids were in my room. When the storm started not one of them wanted to go outside, understandably so. By nine, when the storm finally let up, I had ten children sleeping on my floor. I felt bad waking them up but there was no way they could all stay in my room for the night.
I have to get going though, Heather, Leann (friends from Canada) and I are going to attempt to make our own fufu for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. Have a great week and Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!
-Erin
I noticed that many of the blackboards in the classrooms were falling down, bent and pretty much worthless. I had noticed this before but did not know if there was much that could be done. Most of the boards are literally a large piece of plywood that has been painted black. This only lasts so long and as you can imagine, the chalk never gets completely wiped off. I asked Naomi what is costs to have actual blackboards installed in each classroom and she went to ask someone. She returned to ask if she could take me down the road to a lumber yard to see for myself. Since it was clear that there would be no actual teaching done today, Martina, Klara and I went with Naomi to the town of Ahwiaa (about ten minutes away). Of course the school needs more text books and reading books and pencils but it also needs appropriate blackboards, ones that will last. The school itself needs so much work and I believe chalkboards are where to start.
I soon realized that true blackboards are hard to find in Ghana but we could buy new boards for 8 cedi each and again paint the boards black. Another idea is to figure out the cost of cement and build blackboards by smoothing a new layer of cement to the walls of the classrooms and to then paint that black. I did not understand how this would work so Naomi took us to another school nearby that used cement for their chalkboards. After seeing the other school I think this is the best option. I should get an estimate on costs soon and depending on that cost, the other two volunteers and I may just decide to pay for them. I would love to see some improvement in the school building before I leave.
This past weekend was fun. I spent most of the day on Friday with a friend I met in Mole National Park. She is a grad student from Canada doing research for her nursing program. Because she has to work in her thesis while here in Ghana, Heather has a laptop with her and this is wonderful because we discovered free internet at a luxurious hotel in Kumasi. The Golden Tulip hotel is stunning and has a beautiful pool and restaurant and is entirely too expensive to stay at, however they coffee is affordable and REAL! We sat at the restaurant at the hotel for hours drinking coffee, treating ourselves to lunch and using the free (fast) internet. I was able to upload my pictures onto my cd but need to wait until this weekend to use her computer once again to actually get the pictures online for you to see. I am really keeping my fingers crossed this time because I cannot wait to show you all what I have been doing the past 10 weeks. After we left the hotel we went back to her hotel. Heather (and her friend Leann who was traveling for the weekend) are staying in a hotel for the full three months they are living in Ghana because they were unable to find a host stay. While this is a somewhat expensive choice, I was invited to stay over Friday night and I have never slept so well (while in Africa). Not only did they have air conditioner but it was very quiet!
Then on Sunday I joined Emily and Monica (two other volunteer friends) at another nearby hotel to spend the day at the pool. Not long after we arrived a woman came over to introduce herself after hearing us speaking English. Turns out she is with a group of adults in the medical field hoping to open a training center specializing in facial deformities in children. We asked her where she was from and she said that seven out of the ten were from non other then the Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Washington. This was all too fortunate and unbelievable. I asked if I could meet the rest of her group deciding I absolutely must take this opportunity to practice my networking skills and decide if I do in fact take after my mother. She invited me to join them and soon I found myself seated with her group explaining what I was doing in Ghana, where I went to high school, college and my future plans (to get into the health care field myself) in addition to current Seattle weather and any recent news in the democratic election. Before leaving I managed to get three business cards and invitations to get in touch with them. I was thrilled and felt quite accomplished. Don’t worry, I have already sent an email to each saying how great it was to have met them. And to finish off the weekend Martina and Klara returned to our project after not seeing much of each other over the break and the three of us ate a dinner of boiled yams and vegetable stew and watched “Dream Girls” on the dvd player. I will write more this week before posting this blog.
Hello again...it is Friday May 9th today and I am back at the Golden Tulip luxury hotel with two friends from Canada taking advantage of the free internet. I am happy to say that this week went by very quickly. So on Wednesday Martina, Klara and I went with Naomi to purchase the cement and then order the sand. While I am so happy to offer to pay for all of these materials, I have to admit I did not think the construction for the blackboards would even begin to take place until July or something. Everything in Ghana takes three times as long as it would anywhere else so to my surprise I was shelling out $240. Again, I am quite happy to do this but my casual comment about the price of blackboards now has me seriously watching the amount of money I have in my account for the next 3 months. The sand did not arrive until yesterday afternoon therefore the actual building of the blackboards did not begin until this morning. Yesterday I came to school wearing shorts, a t-shirt and my running shoes. The kids know what that means. I was greeted with huge smiles and "Madame...P.E.??!!" I smiled back, "yes kids...c'mon." They followed me out to the "field" and we began a boys verses girls game of football. With the attendance being so slow, we were actually able to play a real game for a while. The girls tired easily though to my disappointment. I played with the boys a while longer then began skipping rope with the girls. My forgot to put sunblock on however and my shoulders are quite red.
Thursday was beautiful and very hot but that night we had one of the biggest storms we have ever had. There was torrential rains, wind, lightening and thunder complete with a leaking roof. In addition to all of that I had about 12 kids in my room. Klara had gotten braids in her hair about 3 weeks ago and it takes just as long to take them out by hand (about 7 hours). She was in my room with a few of the girls taking out her braids while watching some movies and before I knew it all the other kids were in my room. When the storm started not one of them wanted to go outside, understandably so. By nine, when the storm finally let up, I had ten children sleeping on my floor. I felt bad waking them up but there was no way they could all stay in my room for the night.
I have to get going though, Heather, Leann (friends from Canada) and I are going to attempt to make our own fufu for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. Have a great week and Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!
-Erin
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