I’m in Kade again, this time to pick up more paint, stock up on food from the market, and type the second part of this entry. Since I’m stuck at my site until January 2nd (remember, stand fast), I’ll have to get plenty of food not available at my site, though I’m sure that if I run out of food, I could count on Chichiro or my students and neighbors to pick me up something while in town.
I need to add that I'm at the internet cafe near my town typping this up, and there is a huge argument going on over politics and the coming run off. It's kind of exciting. I'm amazing and impressed by how concerned people are about the elections; almost a 70% turnout in the first elections two weeks ago!
Today my students and I continued painting the Periodic Table and some chemistry-related pictures on the wall of our school, and though I took some pictures, I’ll try posting them another day. We had a good turn out- about 12 students came; keep in mind that students are on holiday and are probably working, going to farm, relaxing, etc. We finished with the black, and tomorrow we’ll use the colored paint- the students wanted to use red, gold, and green for the metals, metalloids, and nonmetals, as well as the electrons, neutrons, and protons (think Ghanaian flag colors).
All in all we’re having a good time; the students are learning chemistry, and afterwards the students teach me how to use the school drums and speak Twi. Some people in town periodically stop by to watch us paint the school, and some of them even ventured to name some of the elements (only the abbreviated version of each element is on the Table so that we could use the painting for science trivia).
So in my last post I stopped at me just leaving Bunso for my site. That was a good place to stop. I left a ton of stuff out in my last entry, but maybe I can cover it today if I don’t forget. Anyway, coming back to site….
The back to my site wasn’t too bad, the typical tro ride. I left early enough to get back to my school around noon so that I could see my students and tell them all I saw and did while at Bunso. As we entered Otumi on the lorry, I was happy to be home; having people wave to you and see all too familiar buildings and faces has an exciting effect on the soul.
I told the driver, whom I know all too well by now, to go past the school and head for my home first so I could drop off my stuff. As we passed the school, I noticed many of the students were outside getting food or lounging on the bamboo benches. When they saw me in the tro, keep in mind I am in no way embellishing this story, almost all of them immediately chased after the tro; it must have been a mob of 70 students. Man did that feel good.
I got home, quickly shed myself of my luggage, and headed to school, where I told my students about everything I came away with from the All Volunteers Conference. We talked about the need for HIV/AIDS education in our community, the USAID poster contest (which I’ll get to in a minute, what we will do for Term 2 as well as our plans for the remainder of Term 1.
It was a Wednesday when I got back from Bunso and gave my spiel to my students. I learned that day that the District term exams will not be ready until possibly next week, and when I asked my students what they had been doing for the time being, they said "nothing," which would explain them being outside while my tro was pulling into town. Although this frustrated me, I told them they are still responsible for taking my own exams (the ones I wrote myself) on Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday. All were fine with that. Like I said in my last post, I gave the exams and my students, to my satisfaction, did very well.
The following Monday I gave my last exam, Form 2 Math; unfortunately on that same day it was announced that the District Term Exams will not be issued this term, and will instead be issued the following term. I maxed out my pejorative comments about the education system in my last post, so for now we’ll leave it.
So Thursday and Friday I gave students 4 out of the five exams I had in store for them, leaving Monday open for the Form 2 Math exam. I intentionally left math for last so my students could come to me over the weekend for help. That Saturday I showed up early to the office and a few students came by for tutoring. At around 1 though I got a call from one of the Peace Corps Leaders (PCL) in Kumasi that the country Director had been trying to get ahold of me that day- it turned out that a Florida Senator was in Accra as part of a small tour of Africa for intelligence gathering, and he was planning a brief stop over to the Peace Corps office to meet some Peace Corps volunteers. Peace Corps needed me as the token Floridian…the next day. Since Sundays no bus comes through my town, I needed to leave for Accra that very moment (traveling at night is disallowed by Peace Corps and strongly advised against because of a number of dangers).
I apologized profusely to my students, told them I would postpone the test to Tuesday, left the office, swept my room for anything I needed to bring with me to Accra, and legged it for a ride. Unfortunately, when I hear the bus coming and had the kids run out to flag it down, the bus kept on going. Since that was the last bus to Accra, I had to resort to taking the inefficient, costly, and dangerous method of transportation- tro. Not only that, but I waited an inordinate amount of time waiting for a tro to come through my town. I talked with some of the townspeople before eventually catching a ride, and I was on my way.
When I reached Accra, I saw that a few other volunteers were there to meet the senator- Ira, Carolyn, Cheri, and others- a nice diasporas of about 10 volunteers for the senator to meet. We had one water sanitation PCV, some educators (most of them in def ed), and others belonging to the business, agriculture and environment sectors. All of them had been in Ghana for at least a year, making me overly conscious about my nascence.
Before meeting the senator, we were briefed about his background, the people who would accompany him, what we might want to talk about, as well as the senator’s name- Bill Nelson. Two interesting things about him: he went into space on the Challanger (the launch preceding the one where the shuttle and its crew met their end), and he went to the University of Florida as an undergraduate. Great, I thought.
"So you grew up in Florida, what university did you go to?" ‘Florida State.’ "What was that?" ‘Florida State’. "Haaaaaa haaaaa."
It was explained that the senator was going to be a bit late and that his wife would arrive first to field questions and ask what each of us did. A little before the wife showed up, all of our eyes followed what looked like to be a delicious cheese board, followed by other hours-de-oeuvres. When the wife did show up, we were given the green light to go and eat cheese- something PCVs must pine for throughout their two years of service here. When the wife did arrive, we introduced ourselves and the discussion went into full swing. We told her what we did at our sites, and I was deeply impressed by what all of my fellow PCVs had to say. One, whom I’ve known for a while now, surprised me when she said she worked at a halfway house for women banished from their towns as a result of being accused of being witches. This PCV would work with the women to undertake business ventures using art as an income. Every other volunteer seemed to have an equally interesting role at their site.
Each of us were also prompted by the senators wife to provide any improvements Peace Corps should make, or anything that can make our jobs and lives easier there. My fellow PCVs came up with several good points: having an extended period of prioritization in government jobs for returned PCVs- many of them go on to graduate school after Peace Corps, and the one year priority benefit doesn’t seem to cut it; US military postage rates- we have to go through the Ghanaian postal service, and sending mail home costs an absolute fortune; higher readjustment pay for returning volunteers, especially for those living in major cities.
I was the last person to speak, and when it came my turn, I felt slightly embarrassed about my greenness as well as nervous to speak in front of my peers; also keep in mind that by this time I was at the 5lb mark for cheese consumed. With a surfeit of nervousness, I explained that I am a middle school teacher in charge of about 80 students, teaching math science and computers. When I explained to her that I pay close attention to gender equity since this is something I studied extensively in graduate school, she asked what the male to female ratio was at my school. At this question, I locked up; even though I well knew that it was about 2:1 in both forms. I didn’t bother to ask my peers later how I did when talking to the senator and his wife, but I think I sounded like a nervous ignoramus.
Overall, our conversation with the senator’s wife went well, and in turn we learned that she herself did plenty of humanitarian work. She showed a genuine interest in our cause, and seemed to be well versed in outside humanitarian organizations.
Eventually the senator did show up, and again we briefly introduced ourselves. He asked us what entailed a typical day at site, and again I locked up. I don’t even want to go into it anymore. I did get cheese though. And a photo with the senator. Ira drank the untouched coffee once belonging to the senator.
So that’s about it. I went back to site the next day, and held classes in order to review for the Math test. the next day students took the test, then we took class pictures (see below?). Other highlights:
Wednesday I got sick off of bananas that two students separately presented to me. Living off the land in Ghana is great- I get to eat plenty of the sweetest (and free) pineapples, bananas, oranges, watermelon, and mangoes, not to mention avacados, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, carrots, chili, okra, and spinach. I could just ask for one of these items, and not ten minutes later a student would be back with said item after pulling it from ground or tree.
This next story is told with much chagrin: Thursday was the last day of school, and I wanted to use it to get students interested in a USAID poster contest discussed during the All Vols in Bunso. In a nutshell, two representatives from USAID came to Bunso with enough paint, paintbrushes, pencils, pencil sharpeners, and posters for everyone; these items were to be used for a contest that had ten people or groups design a poster 11x17 inches with the theme "Celebrate Life". These would be submitted to USAID located in Accra later in March.
I described as best I could the details to my students on Thursday, and several of them wanted to get started then and there. I figured I would do it during Term 2, but the enthusiastic look on their faces made me reconsider when I’d hold the contest. Half exhausted from the day, I said to myself what the hell and broke students into groups and passed out the art supplies.
Just after I handed everything out and everyone got to work, my headmaster said he wanted to have a staff meeting about the extra money we collected from the students over the course of Term 1. Extra class money is given to teachers from students for classes they teach after school. Teachers usually use this money to compensate for their meager pay, using it to pay bills or purchase DVD players (I’ve been to a few of my teachers’ homes, and if what they say is true, they are spending upwards of $600 on entertainment equipment- a lot here). I was in charge of collecting and keeping track of the flow of extra class money from teachers, which is why I needed to be present for the conference.
Peace Corps disallows us to use this money on ourselves; we can however alow the money to go back to the school. The meeting was about divvying up the money, and in all I got 40 bucks from the deal- enough to purchase paint for the Periodic Table Project, with the remainder to be go towards a computer the teachers and students have been saving up for.
While this meeting was going on, and unbeknownst to me at the time, pure chaos transpired as students began fighting over the art supplies and forgetting to make their posters 11x17. In retrospect I should have both held out till Term 2 and written instructions on the board. During the meeting, several students came into the room complaining about the scene in class. When I entered the class, it quickly became apparent of how much of a disaster the whole project became. Some students went home with their posters; others used the paltry amount of paint on their practice sheets I gave them; some students even stole other students’ posters or pencils.
Trying to remain indefatigable about the situation, I collected what posters and art supplies were left, took down the names of the owners of these items, then had the students get as much info as they could on those students that broke the rules/ left school with their supplies. To this day I still trying to put things back on track with this poster contest.
There are other stories, like the one that deals with a lone kitten, but I left some food with the woman I usually buy from in the market, and it’s getting late. My next post should be up in early January, around the time I am allowed by Peace Corps to travel outside my site again (remember, stand fast), so you can use your time learning to ice skate (or if in South Florida, roller skate), sculpture your abs, hang glide, get over a fear, etc.
As for me, I have a 25-day holiday. My plans are to paint with my students the periodic table and chemistry pictures on one of the school’s walls, raise money for STARS (an onus I volunteered to do during the All Vols), plan for Term 2, tutor my students, write up my quarterly report for Peace Corps, and spend some time with Chihiro before she leaves Ghana for good. I’ll report to you in January about how my break went and whether or not I was able to fix the disaster that was the USAID poster contest.
Happy Holidays!
Happy New Year!
Happy Birthday Avi Jamal!
Music: Holiday themed (a Jew can enjoy the occasional Christmas song too)
Drink: Eggnog
Game: Dreidel
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Home for the Holidays (Part I)
sBreak out the Maltas! As far as I know, Thursday marked the close of Term 1 for the students and teachers of Ghana. School will reopen January 14th, allowing for a nice 25-day holiday. I can also say that I’ve been in Ghanafor about 6 months now (counting my 10 weeks of in-country training preceeding my actual teaching). Looking back, I feel like the first three months at site weren’t half bad- I became close with the people in my community and got a better sense of what it’s like to be a teacher in Ghana (with all its frustrations) as well as observe the general ebb and flow of life in a small rural town. Suffice it is to say that I still have a lot to learn, and my teaching can use some refinement.
This first term, I took things slow and simple with my students so as to get a better sense of how things work at my school. I won’t go into too much detail here because my earlier entries document most of my observations. What I can say is that the students at my school have a lot of potential- they came to school, did their work, and improved greatly in my math and science classes. Their success can be attributed mainly to their hard work in and out of class, which gives me hope that many of them can go on to high school and maybe even college. The biggest challenge is catching the students up on their math, considering in primary school it seems like they learned very little.
I spent almost no time working with the school staff this term; who was I to tell them how to do their job? Instead I focused on the students while interviewing and observing the teachers in Otumi. I got the sense that without having a firm place at my school, teachers would remain intractable when it comes to me trying to persuade them to rethink their teaching methods. In time, though, I’ll make my move. Unfortunately, I’m not close to any of the teachers in my town, however my headmaster and I get along quite well, and I get the sense that he has genuine concern for our students’ futures. There are times he is nowhere to be found, he is a busy man of course, but I’m hoping that next term he will be around more. I’m also hoping he begins to inform me at least the day before if classes are going to be cancelled; planning lessons this semester and then implementing them was nerve racking. We’ll have to work on that.
The most recent case of incompetence at the educational level was the failure of the district to issue Term 1 tests to students, which means that the sat for two weeks at school doing nothing in terms of learning or being assessed. My classes were the exception. I wrote my own tests in advance since I did not go by the order set by the national syllabus. Surprisingly, my students were eager to take the test to show me they studied hard. After grading the tests, I sat back with a huge smile on my face- almost every student did well on all five finals, including those questionable ones who I have to discipline constantly.
It still troubles me that the District Education Office failed to issue the tests to the students; each student had to pay an equivalent of $2 for printing fees for the test, only to find out that they would not get the test on time. Instead, they will have to take their exams the first few weeks of Term 2, wasting valuable time that could be spent learning new material.
Why was the test delayed? The company being payed to make the copies allegedly took on too much work and could not make enough of the tests to be dispensed on time. This is indicative of the government’s ineptitude and lack of concern for its students outside larger cities like Accra and Kumasi. Stephen’s school, being in the same district as my own, also did not get exams on time. He and I talked at length about our frustrations with the education system- no tests, no textbooks to go with the new syllabus, no accountability. Come Term 2, he and I are planning on voicing our complaints to the director, or maybe even staging a coup at the District Education Office in Kade.
Enough: Let’s leave griping about the education system for now and begin where I left off in my last entry. Where was I?
Full of Thanksgiving dinners, I had to make my way back to site. I’m happy to say that I was able to find my way back to site with no problems. That was about two weeks ago. Since then, I captured a hand-sized spider, went to Entertainment Day at my school, had Chihiro over to watch a football match at my school,, showed Jack around my site, went to the All Volunteers Conference in Bunso, fell into a large hole, met a Florida Senator, and proctored my first term exams..
Starting with the spider, of which I’ve christened with the name “Kwame”, I’ve seen it around my home before, having no fear of the thing nor any quams about it being an inhabitant at my home.- it eats hoards of insects and is no real threat to me. The night I came back from Thanksgiving, though, their was a power outage, and I happened to badly need a shave. I shook up my flashlight to give it about three minutes worth of power, and proceeded to shave in the diminishing light, something I’m getting better and better at. While shaving, I noticed in the mirror an irregular-shaped silhouette just behind my neck, which I immediately recognized as the menacing but innocuous arachnid that comes out at night. I ignored it (one learns to tolerate such things while living in Ghana), and finishing shaving, I showered up an returned to my room. In almost total pitch black, I heard a skittering sound close to my bed. The spider overstepped its boundaries! I shook the flashlight up to give it more juice, and turning it on again, saw that it was racing along the wall at lightning fast speeds. I later explained to my mom that at that point she probably would have had her nervous breakdown. I grabbed a Tupperware container and managed to captured the beast, but not without accidentally clipping off two of its legs in the process. I released it outside, and to this day I haven’t seen my now six-legged friend.
The next day Chihiro came to my school to watch my student play American football. It was a grand day out- a cool wind was blowing down from the mountains north of my site, and many of my students came to the field to talk to Chihiro and watch their fellow students play. Even some of the teachers in town came to the field to watch. The students made teams of about 15 players, and played for about an hour before calling it quits. They played well, and to my satisfaction no one seemed to get badly hurt despite all the tackling that was going on.
The day after the football match, my students had their Entertainment Day, which meant that the Form 1 students performed different acts to entertain the Form 2 and 3 classes; girls dressed up as guys, and vice versa to make things a bit more interesting. Some Form 1s danced, while others sang, did comedy, or quoted passages from the Bible. Most of the acts were done in Twi, but I could tell the students were having loads of fun. Then, the Form 2 students “baptized” the Form 1 student leaders using chalk erasers to the face. Strange, but the event led up to its name.
Jack came to my site next day, although coming from the Western Region of Ghana, he arrived later in the afternoon. Jack and I had planned on leaving from my site for Bunso, where the All Volunteers Conference was taking place. Beforehand, I went to the neighboring town of Kwae (about an hour south of my site) to watch volleyball and soccer matches with a rival school. The girls were able to hold their own in volleyball, but the Kwae school slaughtered our boy’s team. At one point, one of my students was caned by the ref for kicking the volleyball out of frustration. While the games went on, I was introduced to the headmistress of the school, along with the other teachers. They seemed nice, but we didn’t get into any deep conversations. When I got a call from Jack that he was almost at my site, I had to split, and missed the soccer matches.
Arriving back at my site, I met Jack in the town square, where my headmaster also happened to be at the time. Walking back home, we saw my chief and a retinue of subchiefs and elders (kitted out in royal regalia) sitting outside the palace, so we three stopped to greet them. After introducing Jack, we had to leg it to my house if we were to prepare and cook food in adequate light- my kitchen lacks any kind of artificial illumination.
For dinner we had heavily spiced bean burgers, rice wrapped in seaweed and lighty flavored with wasabi; for desert we had sliced apples topped with honey. Jack and I dragged out the dining room table to the front porch to eat and watch the sunset. It was quite pleasant. One of the children stopped by to inform me that the soccer match was rained out, and neither team was pronounced winner.
In the morning, Jack and I ate some breakfast, threw the football around, and did some target practice with a slingshot before heading out for Bunso. To get to Bunso, Jack and I would have to take a car to Kade, then to Koforidua, before finally making it to Bunso. The trip in all took about 3 and a half hours. We dropped at the wrong stop, and went in a big circle before learning that our quarters were the next stop over. We finally arrived at around 6:30PM, and just made it to dinner.
As a reminder, the main purpose of the All Volunteer Conference was to consolidate volunteers during Ghanaian elections, in case any violence sprang up. That means about 90 of us would spend about 5 days at a dormitory compound while being updated on election events, attending seminars on subjects like HIV/AIDS education and grants, and going over technical issues dealing with Peace Corps. The All Vols lasted about 5 days, and I got to see several of my friends. Another 50 trainees on the verge of swearing in as new PCVs stayed in a different compound, so we didn’t get to see them.
One morning, after a jog around the Bunso area, I ran into my friends John and Patrick as they were going into the forest just behind the compound. They intended on walking a trail they had found, snapping some pictures on the way. I joined them, and we set out for the forest. Before entering the forest, we passed a scenic view of large timber trees in the distance as well as an acreage of cocoa trees growing as part of the Cocoa College’s research (the dormitories we were staying at were part of Bunso Cocoa College). John was in the front, I was in the middle, and Patrick in the back as we walked the trail leading into the forest. It wasn’t the best trail, and was used more as an auxiliary path for farmers in the area. Not five minutes into our trek into the forest, John suddenly fell straight down into the ground, grasping onto vines that covered up a nice sized hole. Without thinking, I quickly ran to his aid, only to fall in the same hole, not realizing how big it was. I too grabbed on to vines to prevent me from going all the way in, I could tell the hole was quite deep because of how my legs dangled in the air. John and I both managed to scramble our way out of the whole, but not without being completely covered in dirt, and I had some nice slashes on my arms from the spiky vines. It soon became apparent that there were holes all around us, but they were mostly covered by foliage and forest creepers. The holes turned out to the remnants of felled trees that were taken away by Bunso residents. We noticed that some of the holes were easily over 15 feet deep. We continued on our way through the forest to a river with some bamboo growing around it. John snapped his pictures and we headed back disheveled, but looking cooler brandishing our cuts and scrapes.
As for the elections, many people were on edge because:
a) We were interested to see who would win
b) Possible violence, aside from being terrible in its own right, could mean that we would have to stay away from site an extended period of time, and at worst evacuated from Ghana altogether, like the recent Kenyan volunteers had to do.
c) If no party was pronounced winner, there would be a run-off. There were about 4 main parties in the race, and if one party does not get at least 50% of the vote, than the top two parties would have to again compete in run-off elections in late December. This would mean that us volunteers would be able to go home, but have to remain at our sites as part of a stand fast (in case of run-off violence). Since many volunteers had friends and family planning to visit at the time, a run off would prevent them from traveling anywhere in Ghana.
For about three days we listened to the radio as news came in about voting turnouts and any occurrences of violence. To everyone’s relief, almost no violence befell Ghana, save for an incident in the Northern Volta area, and some possible voter fraud in the Accra area. When the final report came in, we learned that in fact there will be a run-off between the NPP and NDC parties on December 28th, meaning that stand fast would go into effect December 24th and end January 2nd. Any plans we had for meeting up for Christmas and New Years, as well as any travel plans people had for their families and friends, would have to be cancelled. Most of us were frustrated.
Among the highlights of the All Vols was Peace Corps prom and entertainment night (thanks Stephen for suggestion). For the prom, many people came in attire commonly known in our circles as “Ghanafabulous”- for some this meant wearing traditional cloths, such as funeral cloth; for others a smock sans pants sufficed.
For entertainment night, there was comedy, music, acts of sorts, etc. (one song a PCV wrote and sang, something about hippos, is regretfully stuck in my head). One performance ended with the first two rows getting soaked with water (see picture below).
The day after hearing the news, I left for my site. Some PCVs stayed for the swearing in of the new Peace Corps Volunteers, but I had to get back to give my term exams.
….I actually need to run back to my school. I’m painting the periodic table with some of my students, and so far we’ve chalked an outline. When I get back, we are going to paint the thing in. I’ll try to finish up the second part of this post tomorrow, mentioning a story of how I came to meet Bill Nelson, a/the Florida senator, as well as other small but possibly entertaining tidbits.
Music to accompany this entry:
Salty Air- Bitter:Sweet
When The Lights Go Out- The Black Keys
Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In Hand- Primitive Radio Gods
Eros’ Entropic Tundra- Of Montreal
Where It’s At- Beck
Go-Go Gadget Gospel- Gnarles Barkley
Wine to compliment this entry:
This first term, I took things slow and simple with my students so as to get a better sense of how things work at my school. I won’t go into too much detail here because my earlier entries document most of my observations. What I can say is that the students at my school have a lot of potential- they came to school, did their work, and improved greatly in my math and science classes. Their success can be attributed mainly to their hard work in and out of class, which gives me hope that many of them can go on to high school and maybe even college. The biggest challenge is catching the students up on their math, considering in primary school it seems like they learned very little.
I spent almost no time working with the school staff this term; who was I to tell them how to do their job? Instead I focused on the students while interviewing and observing the teachers in Otumi. I got the sense that without having a firm place at my school, teachers would remain intractable when it comes to me trying to persuade them to rethink their teaching methods. In time, though, I’ll make my move. Unfortunately, I’m not close to any of the teachers in my town, however my headmaster and I get along quite well, and I get the sense that he has genuine concern for our students’ futures. There are times he is nowhere to be found, he is a busy man of course, but I’m hoping that next term he will be around more. I’m also hoping he begins to inform me at least the day before if classes are going to be cancelled; planning lessons this semester and then implementing them was nerve racking. We’ll have to work on that.
The most recent case of incompetence at the educational level was the failure of the district to issue Term 1 tests to students, which means that the sat for two weeks at school doing nothing in terms of learning or being assessed. My classes were the exception. I wrote my own tests in advance since I did not go by the order set by the national syllabus. Surprisingly, my students were eager to take the test to show me they studied hard. After grading the tests, I sat back with a huge smile on my face- almost every student did well on all five finals, including those questionable ones who I have to discipline constantly.
It still troubles me that the District Education Office failed to issue the tests to the students; each student had to pay an equivalent of $2 for printing fees for the test, only to find out that they would not get the test on time. Instead, they will have to take their exams the first few weeks of Term 2, wasting valuable time that could be spent learning new material.
Why was the test delayed? The company being payed to make the copies allegedly took on too much work and could not make enough of the tests to be dispensed on time. This is indicative of the government’s ineptitude and lack of concern for its students outside larger cities like Accra and Kumasi. Stephen’s school, being in the same district as my own, also did not get exams on time. He and I talked at length about our frustrations with the education system- no tests, no textbooks to go with the new syllabus, no accountability. Come Term 2, he and I are planning on voicing our complaints to the director, or maybe even staging a coup at the District Education Office in Kade.
Enough: Let’s leave griping about the education system for now and begin where I left off in my last entry. Where was I?
Full of Thanksgiving dinners, I had to make my way back to site. I’m happy to say that I was able to find my way back to site with no problems. That was about two weeks ago. Since then, I captured a hand-sized spider, went to Entertainment Day at my school, had Chihiro over to watch a football match at my school,, showed Jack around my site, went to the All Volunteers Conference in Bunso, fell into a large hole, met a Florida Senator, and proctored my first term exams..
Starting with the spider, of which I’ve christened with the name “Kwame”, I’ve seen it around my home before, having no fear of the thing nor any quams about it being an inhabitant at my home.- it eats hoards of insects and is no real threat to me. The night I came back from Thanksgiving, though, their was a power outage, and I happened to badly need a shave. I shook up my flashlight to give it about three minutes worth of power, and proceeded to shave in the diminishing light, something I’m getting better and better at. While shaving, I noticed in the mirror an irregular-shaped silhouette just behind my neck, which I immediately recognized as the menacing but innocuous arachnid that comes out at night. I ignored it (one learns to tolerate such things while living in Ghana), and finishing shaving, I showered up an returned to my room. In almost total pitch black, I heard a skittering sound close to my bed. The spider overstepped its boundaries! I shook the flashlight up to give it more juice, and turning it on again, saw that it was racing along the wall at lightning fast speeds. I later explained to my mom that at that point she probably would have had her nervous breakdown. I grabbed a Tupperware container and managed to captured the beast, but not without accidentally clipping off two of its legs in the process. I released it outside, and to this day I haven’t seen my now six-legged friend.
The next day Chihiro came to my school to watch my student play American football. It was a grand day out- a cool wind was blowing down from the mountains north of my site, and many of my students came to the field to talk to Chihiro and watch their fellow students play. Even some of the teachers in town came to the field to watch. The students made teams of about 15 players, and played for about an hour before calling it quits. They played well, and to my satisfaction no one seemed to get badly hurt despite all the tackling that was going on.
The day after the football match, my students had their Entertainment Day, which meant that the Form 1 students performed different acts to entertain the Form 2 and 3 classes; girls dressed up as guys, and vice versa to make things a bit more interesting. Some Form 1s danced, while others sang, did comedy, or quoted passages from the Bible. Most of the acts were done in Twi, but I could tell the students were having loads of fun. Then, the Form 2 students “baptized” the Form 1 student leaders using chalk erasers to the face. Strange, but the event led up to its name.
Jack came to my site next day, although coming from the Western Region of Ghana, he arrived later in the afternoon. Jack and I had planned on leaving from my site for Bunso, where the All Volunteers Conference was taking place. Beforehand, I went to the neighboring town of Kwae (about an hour south of my site) to watch volleyball and soccer matches with a rival school. The girls were able to hold their own in volleyball, but the Kwae school slaughtered our boy’s team. At one point, one of my students was caned by the ref for kicking the volleyball out of frustration. While the games went on, I was introduced to the headmistress of the school, along with the other teachers. They seemed nice, but we didn’t get into any deep conversations. When I got a call from Jack that he was almost at my site, I had to split, and missed the soccer matches.
Arriving back at my site, I met Jack in the town square, where my headmaster also happened to be at the time. Walking back home, we saw my chief and a retinue of subchiefs and elders (kitted out in royal regalia) sitting outside the palace, so we three stopped to greet them. After introducing Jack, we had to leg it to my house if we were to prepare and cook food in adequate light- my kitchen lacks any kind of artificial illumination.
For dinner we had heavily spiced bean burgers, rice wrapped in seaweed and lighty flavored with wasabi; for desert we had sliced apples topped with honey. Jack and I dragged out the dining room table to the front porch to eat and watch the sunset. It was quite pleasant. One of the children stopped by to inform me that the soccer match was rained out, and neither team was pronounced winner.
In the morning, Jack and I ate some breakfast, threw the football around, and did some target practice with a slingshot before heading out for Bunso. To get to Bunso, Jack and I would have to take a car to Kade, then to Koforidua, before finally making it to Bunso. The trip in all took about 3 and a half hours. We dropped at the wrong stop, and went in a big circle before learning that our quarters were the next stop over. We finally arrived at around 6:30PM, and just made it to dinner.
As a reminder, the main purpose of the All Volunteer Conference was to consolidate volunteers during Ghanaian elections, in case any violence sprang up. That means about 90 of us would spend about 5 days at a dormitory compound while being updated on election events, attending seminars on subjects like HIV/AIDS education and grants, and going over technical issues dealing with Peace Corps. The All Vols lasted about 5 days, and I got to see several of my friends. Another 50 trainees on the verge of swearing in as new PCVs stayed in a different compound, so we didn’t get to see them.
One morning, after a jog around the Bunso area, I ran into my friends John and Patrick as they were going into the forest just behind the compound. They intended on walking a trail they had found, snapping some pictures on the way. I joined them, and we set out for the forest. Before entering the forest, we passed a scenic view of large timber trees in the distance as well as an acreage of cocoa trees growing as part of the Cocoa College’s research (the dormitories we were staying at were part of Bunso Cocoa College). John was in the front, I was in the middle, and Patrick in the back as we walked the trail leading into the forest. It wasn’t the best trail, and was used more as an auxiliary path for farmers in the area. Not five minutes into our trek into the forest, John suddenly fell straight down into the ground, grasping onto vines that covered up a nice sized hole. Without thinking, I quickly ran to his aid, only to fall in the same hole, not realizing how big it was. I too grabbed on to vines to prevent me from going all the way in, I could tell the hole was quite deep because of how my legs dangled in the air. John and I both managed to scramble our way out of the whole, but not without being completely covered in dirt, and I had some nice slashes on my arms from the spiky vines. It soon became apparent that there were holes all around us, but they were mostly covered by foliage and forest creepers. The holes turned out to the remnants of felled trees that were taken away by Bunso residents. We noticed that some of the holes were easily over 15 feet deep. We continued on our way through the forest to a river with some bamboo growing around it. John snapped his pictures and we headed back disheveled, but looking cooler brandishing our cuts and scrapes.
As for the elections, many people were on edge because:
a) We were interested to see who would win
b) Possible violence, aside from being terrible in its own right, could mean that we would have to stay away from site an extended period of time, and at worst evacuated from Ghana altogether, like the recent Kenyan volunteers had to do.
c) If no party was pronounced winner, there would be a run-off. There were about 4 main parties in the race, and if one party does not get at least 50% of the vote, than the top two parties would have to again compete in run-off elections in late December. This would mean that us volunteers would be able to go home, but have to remain at our sites as part of a stand fast (in case of run-off violence). Since many volunteers had friends and family planning to visit at the time, a run off would prevent them from traveling anywhere in Ghana.
For about three days we listened to the radio as news came in about voting turnouts and any occurrences of violence. To everyone’s relief, almost no violence befell Ghana, save for an incident in the Northern Volta area, and some possible voter fraud in the Accra area. When the final report came in, we learned that in fact there will be a run-off between the NPP and NDC parties on December 28th, meaning that stand fast would go into effect December 24th and end January 2nd. Any plans we had for meeting up for Christmas and New Years, as well as any travel plans people had for their families and friends, would have to be cancelled. Most of us were frustrated.
Among the highlights of the All Vols was Peace Corps prom and entertainment night (thanks Stephen for suggestion). For the prom, many people came in attire commonly known in our circles as “Ghanafabulous”- for some this meant wearing traditional cloths, such as funeral cloth; for others a smock sans pants sufficed.
For entertainment night, there was comedy, music, acts of sorts, etc. (one song a PCV wrote and sang, something about hippos, is regretfully stuck in my head). One performance ended with the first two rows getting soaked with water (see picture below).
The day after hearing the news, I left for my site. Some PCVs stayed for the swearing in of the new Peace Corps Volunteers, but I had to get back to give my term exams.
….I actually need to run back to my school. I’m painting the periodic table with some of my students, and so far we’ve chalked an outline. When I get back, we are going to paint the thing in. I’ll try to finish up the second part of this post tomorrow, mentioning a story of how I came to meet Bill Nelson, a/the Florida senator, as well as other small but possibly entertaining tidbits.
Music to accompany this entry:
Salty Air- Bitter:Sweet
When The Lights Go Out- The Black Keys
Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In Hand- Primitive Radio Gods
Eros’ Entropic Tundra- Of Montreal
Where It’s At- Beck
Go-Go Gadget Gospel- Gnarles Barkley
Wine to compliment this entry:
Any white wine will do.
A praying mantis outside my home
Kwame caught
From the windoooows to the walls
Entertainment Day
Taking off for Bunso
Giving someone the finger (to vote, of course).
Note: Normally it's the thumb that's used to vote;
my headmaster used his pinky finger since he
is special and was in charge of one of the voting booths.
Forest holes
Entertainment Night
Grant being Ghanafabulous (Thunderdome style)
Larry and I at Peace Corps Prom
Florida Senator Bill Nelson (5th from the right)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Tanksgiving!!!
Booyakahshaw- I’m in Kumasi for Thanksgiving: Part Deux. Thanksgiving: Part One was held at the US ambassador’s house, which I’ll get into later. I’ll try sticking to a chronological order of events, though…..
Sunday 11/16
My neighbors presented me with a nice and large and dead black scorpion that wandered out from the bush. It looks like the innocuous emperor scorpions commonly seen at pet shops, but I’m not going to try my luck with a live one. I was too lazy to run and get my camera at the time, so I’ll leave it up to you to go and see one at the pet shop or local zoo.
Monday 11/17
The headmaster and the keys to the book room were nowhere to be found this morning, which was troubling considering I NEEDED the math books for my Form 2s. So instead of proceeding with a lesson I had planned over the weekend, I instead improvised by explaining how easy the new unit was going to be, and put up some practice problems they would be doing over the next few weeks. But I was flummoxed as to why my headmaster was absent more than present at my school over the past few weeks. I’m hoping this won’t be a trend, since I need him to help me out with students sometimes.
I had one student stay with me a half hour during lunch (my first detention), and in talking to him, learned that he might very well be illiterate, which would explain his frustration with my classes. This is tough for me because I do not want to leave the student behind, but at the same time I would have to allot possibly an inordinate amount of time helping him to gain at least a basic ability to read. I’m hoping I can help him build confidence in himself; his mother I know all too well (she makes me fried yams almost everyday) and she laughs whenever I plead with her to get involved with her son’s education.
To lighten the mood for this entry, let’s talk about what I introduced to my school today: American football. The students were all up for it when I made mention of it last week, and I purchased a ball while I was in Accra over the weekend. To compliment my hype of the sport, I found a Miami Dolphins book (pre-Marino) among about a hundred books donated years ago to the school. The book was a boon in the sense that it got everyone excited about learning a new game, and a bane because it had pictures of some Fins making some serious tackles against their opponents, going against my rules that you are supposed to do two-hand touch.
After showing the students some of the rules on the chalkboard, as well as teaching them the concept of getting open and making plays, we went out to the field to put what we discussed into practice. Everyone did much better than I had anticipated, and even the girls were able to hold their own, almost too well. There did come a point where the boys would tackle and, to some of the girls’ complaints, feel them up, so I threatened to kick anyone who did that out of the game. After proving to my students that I do not use empty threats, not one boy hassled the girls after my warning. Alls I can say is my students made me proud today.
Tuesday 11/18
Day 2 of American football worked out splendidly. I helped the students some more with throwing and catching, and again played QB for both teams like yesterday. After practice, my headmaster taught me how to put on a funeral cloth on, which I had upgraded to 8 yards and then tailored the previous day. Putting the cloth on by myself was surprisingly easy, and after a few tries I got it down pat.
Wednesday 11/19
Today was particularly tough for me. Right before going to school, I found out my ex was going with one of my best friends to this Peace Corps prom going on during the all volunteers’ conference. I still don’t know why this got to me, maybe because I was so stressed about classes or I was just being a big baby.
When I got to school, I convinced some teachers to let me teach in their place since plan on spending the next two days in Accra for Thanksgiving, as well as attend the all volunteer’s meeting in December for about a week. I taught 5 classes and covered a lot of the material, but at the cost of me being so tired and stressed that I had a nice cry session with myself in the office. Thank god none of the teachers saw me. I felt pretty down over the past few because I realized more and more that I was not going to be able to finish my Form 1 Science on measurement, a rather lengthy section (no pun intended), as well as some ICT sections I wanted to cover with my Form 2 students. My Form 2 students are also well behind in Math, mainly because the math teacher didn’t show up for weeks on end while they were supposed to be learning.
After crying some, I made up my mind that my will-o’-the-wisp goals were in the beginning unrealistic considering it was my first term teaching. I called up some of my friends who taught here for about a year, and they told me what I covered was fine; this lifted my spirits a bit.
Earlier in the day, I allowed my students for the first time to grade their own math quizzes, showing them that I had the capacity to trust them, and helping them see where they might have made mistakes if any were made. The good news is everyone was honest with their grading, which surprised me when I went to enter the grades. Even the students who I know try to get away with cheating put themselves down as having missed a problem or two if they had gotten it wrong.
Towards the end of school, a beautiful green snake, quite possibly a green mamba, graced our school with its presence; shortly after, my students chased and clubbed it to death. I felt bad for the snake, but people here in Ghana are deathly afraid of snakes, and for a good reason. Despite the fact that most snakes will turn tail from any approaching person, the species in our area are notorious for their deadly bites to humans.
Today also marked Day 3 of football; after school we spent another 2 hours tossing the ball around, and I let the students play on their own, choosing captains and having their own QBs. After the game, some of my students wanted to show me the bush path they take back to their home in the neighboring town of Anwiem. The trail is beautiful, and you have to go through some heavy bush before getting to a large dirt road flanked by palms (see picture below).
Thursday 11/20
Yahtzee! This is my 4th time having giardia in Ghana, and let me assure you it is not fun having to run 10 minutes from school to home with a completely rational fear of dumping your pants. To make matters worse, the power and water’s been out for two days now, preventing me from showering and thusly exercising, as well as maintaining my equine diet of delicious oats.
My Form 2 students also tried my patience to the point where I had everyone sit on their knees in the hot sun while I vented my frustrations with them. Talking was uncommonly incessant among all my students, so I punished the whole class. In retrospect, I could have planned the lesson better, making it slightly less frustrating for my students to learn, but that was no excuse to let them disobey my requests for them to stay quiet. When I allowed my students to go back in the room, we spent the rest of class discussing how to prevent wide-spread class disruption. After turning down several students’ calls for me to start caning, we came up with a system where certain students would take down the names of students talking while I’m trying to write on the board, and those on the list would either have to stay after school, do a chore, or be kept from playing football for a week. Sounds like a plan.
Friday 11/21
No power and water makes Darren go something something…The food in the friedge is starting to turn, and I haven’t been able to cook or wash up in almost three days!!! I left for school feeling disheveled and hungry.
Classes were cancelled early today so students could play sports. I was fuming because I had scheduled the local tailor to come in so we could do measurements as part of the Form 1 Science unit on Measuring. Guess I’ll have to leave that for next week. While the kids played sports (I have two students in charge of watching the football), one of my student’s parents made me complimentary meal of plaintains
When I got back home, my water and power were back on, and I quickly set out to cook a stew using all the vegetables that had been sitting in my friedge for the past few days. I chopped up some vegs while some beans were boiling, then noticed when I was about to throw the rest of the ingredients in that the water was no longer at a boil. Curses! The power went out again! I went around to my neighbor’s house and had to use their fire to cook the rest of the stew. The fire turned my orange pot black, but it did the job. After eating, I got some exercise, shaved and showered to make up for the past few days.
Saturday 11/22
I promised my students that I’d be at school most of Saturday and Sunday if they needed help with anything school related, but before I left this Saturday morning, I desperately needed to do some laundry. I was nervous though to leave out almost all my underwear, socks, towels, etc. on the line while I was away at school because I feel like I’m flaunting my affluence whenever I do laundry; in this case I was afraid that someone might take my clothing while I was off at school, though this was highly unlikely. I had no choice, though, and I got home to find all my clothing still hanging on the line.
While at school, a few of my students showed up, and I helped them with their math for a few hours. I prefer to work with students one on one because it helps me see precisely where possibly other students might be running into problems. We were doing basic algebra problems, but the students seemed to have trouble doing easy division, multiplication, and addition of negative numbers. This prompted me later to reexamine my math lessons for the week, including my science lessons for my Form 1 students dealing with measurements.
After school, I was trying my hand at cooking plantains, and while in the process of frying them, this random guy came over and made things quite awkward. My front door was open to let in the nice breeze from outside, and I noticed this guy was standing in the doorway when I looked in that direction. There was nothing menacing about the guy, but it was strange that he was just standing there. He looked to be about my age, and I’ve seen him before. Today he asked if he could come in to talk, and even though I wanted to have some downtime alone, felt obliged to be a good host. He sat down and talked while I was cooking, and I offered some of my fine plantations I was cooking with some brown sugar and palm oil. The guy goes to college in Kade, about an hour from Otumi, but by on weekends when he’s out from school. The guy is nice enough, but our conversations are not the most engaging, and it was mostly awkward while he was over. The power went out again, and I ended up falling asleep in bed while trying to wait it out until the power went out again.
Sunday 11/23
In the morning, before going to school, I talked with one of my friends teaching at the high school level. Apparently one of her teachers seemed to be sleeping with his students, and although she had no proof of this, it looked fairly obvious. This story echoes what my other friend told me just yesterday about her coworker sleeping with the middle school students. In Ghana, teachers that sleep with their students is not uncommon, and in many cases if they are caught, are just relocated to a different school (as in the middle school teacher’s case). Both of my friends are now talking to the students about how what these teachers are doing is wrong; when I asked why they didn’t bring it out into the open, I was told that the teachers might be killed for their actions. So it’s either kill the teacher or relocate them; otherwise prosecution is lengthy and usually nothing comes of the sentence.
When I got to school to further help students who needed it, I ran into my headmaster and we talked at length about teachers sleeping with students. I hadn’t suspected any of our teachers sleeping with the students, but my headmaster said it was a national problem, and little is done to the perpetrators. My headmaster also talked about the most random things like grizzly bears and the problems with indoctrination in religion and education.
On Sunday, after talking with my headmaster and helping some students with math, I tossed the ball around with my neighbor and some students. People were milling about because of the NPP political rally going on in my town, and right after I made plans with my headmaster and some other people to go with them to the rally, it hit me that as a Peace Corps volunteer, I was disallowed to attend any political rallies for a myriad of reasons. I didn’t end up going, but I had really wanted to check out the scene.
Monday 11/24
A lot of the students were missing today during my first period, and when I asked where everyone was, the students who did come told me they skipped school to avoid getting caned for some nonsense. Today was the first time my class openly asked me how I felt about caning, and I told them I abhorred the punishment, though the students know what not to do, yet they do it anyway. Today, they were getting beat for coming so late for morning campus cleanup, but many of them were telling me getting a vehicle out to the school sometimes made them late; for now I’m holding back on stopping the teachers from hitting my students, but it won’t be too long until I protest. I know I keep harping on this caning thing, but readers, if only you saw what I witness daily!
During my Form 2 Science class, in the spirit of learning about water, I had students take me to the nearest river, which according to my headmaster and many of my students, was not more than 5 minutes away from my school. I grabbed one of the teachers who was free for the period to help chaperone my students on the way to the river. It turned out that the river was over 15 minutes away, and in my teaching clothing I went through thick tropical forest bush before reaching our river. Once we got there, we further discussed sources of water and water purification. On the way back, I was a sweaty mess and took a student up on his offer of a piggy back ride. We passed a ton of houses while I clung to the back of this fairly large student, to the open amusement of my village.
Tuesday 11/25
At the crack of dawn, I woke up and took a car to a neighboring town to visit a very sick student who’s been out for a few weeks. When I saw the student, she looked miserable, but said she would try to come by Friday. I told her she needs to take it easy and not go anywhere. Before I left for school, she asked for me to pray for her, and I told her I would as I was leaving to catch the next car to my school. But she meant I would pray with her then and there. It was very awkward, but I said a quick and hopefully convincing prayer for her. If there was any room for humor, I would have done it in Hebrew.
When I got back to the school, I asked my students to contribute money, fruits, or vegetables for their sick classmate, but at the end of the day not one person contributed anything. I was really disappointed.
After school I visited Chihiro at the hospital in Kade, then went to the District Education Office to type up my term exams.
Wednesday 11/26
For the mot part, uneventful
Thursday 11/27
Headed out early for Accra (danke schon, Dubin, for the earplugs) and ate a delicious dinner at the US ambassadors. Before dinner though, I went to the Peace Corps office, I saw Jack, Stephen, and a number of other friends I haven’t seen in ages. I also met for the first time the new Peace Corps trainees set to swear in sometime soon. We left around 12 for the US ambassador’s house, and had a grand time chatting, swimming, and eating a real Thanksgiving dinner. For dinner, we had the typical Thanksgiving items available, with an incredible chocolate pecan pie among the desserts. As tasty as the food was, it did not touch the Thanksgiving dinner we had in Kumasi two days later (more about that below). After dinner and swimming at the ambassador’s, I headed back to the hotel, where we watched some movies and fell asleep.
Friday 11/28
Today I woke up early to visit the dentist about matters concerning my jaw. If the dentist detected any signs of infection, I would go back to the States for surgery; if nothing was found, I would remain in Ghana and deal with the problem after completing my service here. The prognosis: no infection could be found, and the weird sensations, though alarming at times, are in no way harmful to my health- meaning I aint going nowhere.
When I got back to the Peace Corps office, many of my Peace Corps friends were still in town before heading back to town, though my two best friends were planning on going to Kumasi around noon for Thanksgiving at the Peace Corps office up there. On a whim, I decided would go and enjoy a second round of Thanksgiving with my friends. I felt hesitant at first since I told my students I would hang around school Saturday, but I needed a vacation and had yet seen the Kumasi Peace Corps sub-office (KSO).
At noon we headed out from Neoplan station in Accra and went straight for Kumasi, but not without having a few heart-stopping moments on the ride up there. The driver drove like a maniac, flying down the road and beeping the horn like that would make up for his ineptitude to drive safely. I struck up a conversation with a PCV I met a while back, Gray, who sat squished next to me on the four and a half hour ride up. Happy to step out of the lorry alive, we walked a short distance to KSO.
KSO is amazing, and the sign on the front door of the house nicely sums the place up- “The home away from home”. The spacious quarters is complete with 4 bedrooms with bunk beds, living rooms, a beautiful kitchen stocked with cutlery, cookware, every spice imaginable, a stove, and whatnots that satisfy the decent chef’s heart. Many of my friends in Accra ended up going back to their sites, but a few of us went on to KSO. I met a few other friends who did not come to Accra because of their location. Thanksgiving was being held at KSO, Accra, the Tamale sub-office, and other offices in the northern regions of Ghana for Peace Corps volunteers on Saturday. Today we spent the day lounging though.
Saturday 11/29
Today, before attending Thanksgiving at KSO, I went with Stephen to his previous headmaster’s funeral in Sarpe, about a half an hour’s ride from KSO. I never met the man, but he was a friend of my own headmaster, and in fact I broke the news to him three months ago that the man passed away. My headmaster told me about how well known the deceased Mr. Ntiamoah was for his munificence and concern for student advancement. A good number of people showed up to the funeral, and Stephen and I were ushered with the rest of the people into a room with the man’s corpse, propped up to allow loved ones to cry out for him. Stephen had on a black button-down with dark pants, but having gone to Kumasi on a whim, did not bring my 8 yard funeral cloth and therefore couldn’t kit myself out correctly.
The funeral procession lasted until around noon, and just as Stephen and I were about to leave, one of the nieces of Mr. Ntiamoah asked if we wanted to have lunch and stay until five (a typical funeral procession in Ghana is followed by joyous music and dancing to celebrate the person’s life). Stephen and I ended up staying until one, and showed up about an hour late to Thanksgiving dinner back at the KSO. This was fine though because there was plenty of food to go around, and it wasn’t formal in any respect. What the dinner lacked in formality, it made up for in the palatable dishes that covered the dining room table: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, potato salad, pumpkin pie, lemon bars, chocolate chip bars, jell-o, fruit salad, fudge, and banana cream pie were all made by PCVs and consumed by myself. Friends, it might be hard for some of you to imagine how great it is to eat a delicious thanksgiving dinner, scratch that, TWO Thanksgiving dinners, after months of eating mostly Ghanaian foods. I’m usually eating a good variety of foods at my site since I have so much to choose from at my market and I can easily go to Accra and get Western food; some of my friends have only tomatoes, rice, and okra available in their towns, and I can only imagine how good their Thanksgiving dinner is sitting in their bellies.
I am so tired right now that I’m calling it quits and going to bed. I feel like I'm pregnant with 8 pounds of Thanksgiving meal madness. I’m waking up tomorrow to somehow meet up with Chihiro in Kade, although this is my first time in Kumasi and I have a vague notion of how to find my way back. Hopefully in my next post I’ll write on how everything worked out alright in the end. All is well though, and it was a very good Thanksgiving indeed.
Next week, I’ll be teaching classes, Chihiro will come Tuesday to watch my students play football, I’ll go to Kade to type up my report for Peace Corps, Thursday Jack will come to my site and Friday we’ll both leave for the all volunteers conference for five days. I might be able to post an entry while over there, depending on whether my friend’s internet is working on his computer. For now, etre yebihya (pronounced yebishyia- we’ll talk later).
Music and wine to accompany this entry:
Part of the trail to the river
Squinty Mcgee, Kyle, and Erin at Thanksgiving '08
The US ambassador to South Africa(left), fool (center),
My store room at school
Sunday 11/16
My neighbors presented me with a nice and large and dead black scorpion that wandered out from the bush. It looks like the innocuous emperor scorpions commonly seen at pet shops, but I’m not going to try my luck with a live one. I was too lazy to run and get my camera at the time, so I’ll leave it up to you to go and see one at the pet shop or local zoo.
Monday 11/17
The headmaster and the keys to the book room were nowhere to be found this morning, which was troubling considering I NEEDED the math books for my Form 2s. So instead of proceeding with a lesson I had planned over the weekend, I instead improvised by explaining how easy the new unit was going to be, and put up some practice problems they would be doing over the next few weeks. But I was flummoxed as to why my headmaster was absent more than present at my school over the past few weeks. I’m hoping this won’t be a trend, since I need him to help me out with students sometimes.
I had one student stay with me a half hour during lunch (my first detention), and in talking to him, learned that he might very well be illiterate, which would explain his frustration with my classes. This is tough for me because I do not want to leave the student behind, but at the same time I would have to allot possibly an inordinate amount of time helping him to gain at least a basic ability to read. I’m hoping I can help him build confidence in himself; his mother I know all too well (she makes me fried yams almost everyday) and she laughs whenever I plead with her to get involved with her son’s education.
To lighten the mood for this entry, let’s talk about what I introduced to my school today: American football. The students were all up for it when I made mention of it last week, and I purchased a ball while I was in Accra over the weekend. To compliment my hype of the sport, I found a Miami Dolphins book (pre-Marino) among about a hundred books donated years ago to the school. The book was a boon in the sense that it got everyone excited about learning a new game, and a bane because it had pictures of some Fins making some serious tackles against their opponents, going against my rules that you are supposed to do two-hand touch.
After showing the students some of the rules on the chalkboard, as well as teaching them the concept of getting open and making plays, we went out to the field to put what we discussed into practice. Everyone did much better than I had anticipated, and even the girls were able to hold their own, almost too well. There did come a point where the boys would tackle and, to some of the girls’ complaints, feel them up, so I threatened to kick anyone who did that out of the game. After proving to my students that I do not use empty threats, not one boy hassled the girls after my warning. Alls I can say is my students made me proud today.
Tuesday 11/18
Day 2 of American football worked out splendidly. I helped the students some more with throwing and catching, and again played QB for both teams like yesterday. After practice, my headmaster taught me how to put on a funeral cloth on, which I had upgraded to 8 yards and then tailored the previous day. Putting the cloth on by myself was surprisingly easy, and after a few tries I got it down pat.
Wednesday 11/19
Today was particularly tough for me. Right before going to school, I found out my ex was going with one of my best friends to this Peace Corps prom going on during the all volunteers’ conference. I still don’t know why this got to me, maybe because I was so stressed about classes or I was just being a big baby.
When I got to school, I convinced some teachers to let me teach in their place since plan on spending the next two days in Accra for Thanksgiving, as well as attend the all volunteer’s meeting in December for about a week. I taught 5 classes and covered a lot of the material, but at the cost of me being so tired and stressed that I had a nice cry session with myself in the office. Thank god none of the teachers saw me. I felt pretty down over the past few because I realized more and more that I was not going to be able to finish my Form 1 Science on measurement, a rather lengthy section (no pun intended), as well as some ICT sections I wanted to cover with my Form 2 students. My Form 2 students are also well behind in Math, mainly because the math teacher didn’t show up for weeks on end while they were supposed to be learning.
After crying some, I made up my mind that my will-o’-the-wisp goals were in the beginning unrealistic considering it was my first term teaching. I called up some of my friends who taught here for about a year, and they told me what I covered was fine; this lifted my spirits a bit.
Earlier in the day, I allowed my students for the first time to grade their own math quizzes, showing them that I had the capacity to trust them, and helping them see where they might have made mistakes if any were made. The good news is everyone was honest with their grading, which surprised me when I went to enter the grades. Even the students who I know try to get away with cheating put themselves down as having missed a problem or two if they had gotten it wrong.
Towards the end of school, a beautiful green snake, quite possibly a green mamba, graced our school with its presence; shortly after, my students chased and clubbed it to death. I felt bad for the snake, but people here in Ghana are deathly afraid of snakes, and for a good reason. Despite the fact that most snakes will turn tail from any approaching person, the species in our area are notorious for their deadly bites to humans.
Today also marked Day 3 of football; after school we spent another 2 hours tossing the ball around, and I let the students play on their own, choosing captains and having their own QBs. After the game, some of my students wanted to show me the bush path they take back to their home in the neighboring town of Anwiem. The trail is beautiful, and you have to go through some heavy bush before getting to a large dirt road flanked by palms (see picture below).
Thursday 11/20
Yahtzee! This is my 4th time having giardia in Ghana, and let me assure you it is not fun having to run 10 minutes from school to home with a completely rational fear of dumping your pants. To make matters worse, the power and water’s been out for two days now, preventing me from showering and thusly exercising, as well as maintaining my equine diet of delicious oats.
My Form 2 students also tried my patience to the point where I had everyone sit on their knees in the hot sun while I vented my frustrations with them. Talking was uncommonly incessant among all my students, so I punished the whole class. In retrospect, I could have planned the lesson better, making it slightly less frustrating for my students to learn, but that was no excuse to let them disobey my requests for them to stay quiet. When I allowed my students to go back in the room, we spent the rest of class discussing how to prevent wide-spread class disruption. After turning down several students’ calls for me to start caning, we came up with a system where certain students would take down the names of students talking while I’m trying to write on the board, and those on the list would either have to stay after school, do a chore, or be kept from playing football for a week. Sounds like a plan.
Friday 11/21
No power and water makes Darren go something something…The food in the friedge is starting to turn, and I haven’t been able to cook or wash up in almost three days!!! I left for school feeling disheveled and hungry.
Classes were cancelled early today so students could play sports. I was fuming because I had scheduled the local tailor to come in so we could do measurements as part of the Form 1 Science unit on Measuring. Guess I’ll have to leave that for next week. While the kids played sports (I have two students in charge of watching the football), one of my student’s parents made me complimentary meal of plaintains
When I got back home, my water and power were back on, and I quickly set out to cook a stew using all the vegetables that had been sitting in my friedge for the past few days. I chopped up some vegs while some beans were boiling, then noticed when I was about to throw the rest of the ingredients in that the water was no longer at a boil. Curses! The power went out again! I went around to my neighbor’s house and had to use their fire to cook the rest of the stew. The fire turned my orange pot black, but it did the job. After eating, I got some exercise, shaved and showered to make up for the past few days.
Saturday 11/22
I promised my students that I’d be at school most of Saturday and Sunday if they needed help with anything school related, but before I left this Saturday morning, I desperately needed to do some laundry. I was nervous though to leave out almost all my underwear, socks, towels, etc. on the line while I was away at school because I feel like I’m flaunting my affluence whenever I do laundry; in this case I was afraid that someone might take my clothing while I was off at school, though this was highly unlikely. I had no choice, though, and I got home to find all my clothing still hanging on the line.
While at school, a few of my students showed up, and I helped them with their math for a few hours. I prefer to work with students one on one because it helps me see precisely where possibly other students might be running into problems. We were doing basic algebra problems, but the students seemed to have trouble doing easy division, multiplication, and addition of negative numbers. This prompted me later to reexamine my math lessons for the week, including my science lessons for my Form 1 students dealing with measurements.
After school, I was trying my hand at cooking plantains, and while in the process of frying them, this random guy came over and made things quite awkward. My front door was open to let in the nice breeze from outside, and I noticed this guy was standing in the doorway when I looked in that direction. There was nothing menacing about the guy, but it was strange that he was just standing there. He looked to be about my age, and I’ve seen him before. Today he asked if he could come in to talk, and even though I wanted to have some downtime alone, felt obliged to be a good host. He sat down and talked while I was cooking, and I offered some of my fine plantations I was cooking with some brown sugar and palm oil. The guy goes to college in Kade, about an hour from Otumi, but by on weekends when he’s out from school. The guy is nice enough, but our conversations are not the most engaging, and it was mostly awkward while he was over. The power went out again, and I ended up falling asleep in bed while trying to wait it out until the power went out again.
Sunday 11/23
In the morning, before going to school, I talked with one of my friends teaching at the high school level. Apparently one of her teachers seemed to be sleeping with his students, and although she had no proof of this, it looked fairly obvious. This story echoes what my other friend told me just yesterday about her coworker sleeping with the middle school students. In Ghana, teachers that sleep with their students is not uncommon, and in many cases if they are caught, are just relocated to a different school (as in the middle school teacher’s case). Both of my friends are now talking to the students about how what these teachers are doing is wrong; when I asked why they didn’t bring it out into the open, I was told that the teachers might be killed for their actions. So it’s either kill the teacher or relocate them; otherwise prosecution is lengthy and usually nothing comes of the sentence.
When I got to school to further help students who needed it, I ran into my headmaster and we talked at length about teachers sleeping with students. I hadn’t suspected any of our teachers sleeping with the students, but my headmaster said it was a national problem, and little is done to the perpetrators. My headmaster also talked about the most random things like grizzly bears and the problems with indoctrination in religion and education.
On Sunday, after talking with my headmaster and helping some students with math, I tossed the ball around with my neighbor and some students. People were milling about because of the NPP political rally going on in my town, and right after I made plans with my headmaster and some other people to go with them to the rally, it hit me that as a Peace Corps volunteer, I was disallowed to attend any political rallies for a myriad of reasons. I didn’t end up going, but I had really wanted to check out the scene.
Monday 11/24
A lot of the students were missing today during my first period, and when I asked where everyone was, the students who did come told me they skipped school to avoid getting caned for some nonsense. Today was the first time my class openly asked me how I felt about caning, and I told them I abhorred the punishment, though the students know what not to do, yet they do it anyway. Today, they were getting beat for coming so late for morning campus cleanup, but many of them were telling me getting a vehicle out to the school sometimes made them late; for now I’m holding back on stopping the teachers from hitting my students, but it won’t be too long until I protest. I know I keep harping on this caning thing, but readers, if only you saw what I witness daily!
During my Form 2 Science class, in the spirit of learning about water, I had students take me to the nearest river, which according to my headmaster and many of my students, was not more than 5 minutes away from my school. I grabbed one of the teachers who was free for the period to help chaperone my students on the way to the river. It turned out that the river was over 15 minutes away, and in my teaching clothing I went through thick tropical forest bush before reaching our river. Once we got there, we further discussed sources of water and water purification. On the way back, I was a sweaty mess and took a student up on his offer of a piggy back ride. We passed a ton of houses while I clung to the back of this fairly large student, to the open amusement of my village.
Tuesday 11/25
At the crack of dawn, I woke up and took a car to a neighboring town to visit a very sick student who’s been out for a few weeks. When I saw the student, she looked miserable, but said she would try to come by Friday. I told her she needs to take it easy and not go anywhere. Before I left for school, she asked for me to pray for her, and I told her I would as I was leaving to catch the next car to my school. But she meant I would pray with her then and there. It was very awkward, but I said a quick and hopefully convincing prayer for her. If there was any room for humor, I would have done it in Hebrew.
When I got back to the school, I asked my students to contribute money, fruits, or vegetables for their sick classmate, but at the end of the day not one person contributed anything. I was really disappointed.
After school I visited Chihiro at the hospital in Kade, then went to the District Education Office to type up my term exams.
Wednesday 11/26
For the mot part, uneventful
Thursday 11/27
Headed out early for Accra (danke schon, Dubin, for the earplugs) and ate a delicious dinner at the US ambassadors. Before dinner though, I went to the Peace Corps office, I saw Jack, Stephen, and a number of other friends I haven’t seen in ages. I also met for the first time the new Peace Corps trainees set to swear in sometime soon. We left around 12 for the US ambassador’s house, and had a grand time chatting, swimming, and eating a real Thanksgiving dinner. For dinner, we had the typical Thanksgiving items available, with an incredible chocolate pecan pie among the desserts. As tasty as the food was, it did not touch the Thanksgiving dinner we had in Kumasi two days later (more about that below). After dinner and swimming at the ambassador’s, I headed back to the hotel, where we watched some movies and fell asleep.
Friday 11/28
Today I woke up early to visit the dentist about matters concerning my jaw. If the dentist detected any signs of infection, I would go back to the States for surgery; if nothing was found, I would remain in Ghana and deal with the problem after completing my service here. The prognosis: no infection could be found, and the weird sensations, though alarming at times, are in no way harmful to my health- meaning I aint going nowhere.
When I got back to the Peace Corps office, many of my Peace Corps friends were still in town before heading back to town, though my two best friends were planning on going to Kumasi around noon for Thanksgiving at the Peace Corps office up there. On a whim, I decided would go and enjoy a second round of Thanksgiving with my friends. I felt hesitant at first since I told my students I would hang around school Saturday, but I needed a vacation and had yet seen the Kumasi Peace Corps sub-office (KSO).
At noon we headed out from Neoplan station in Accra and went straight for Kumasi, but not without having a few heart-stopping moments on the ride up there. The driver drove like a maniac, flying down the road and beeping the horn like that would make up for his ineptitude to drive safely. I struck up a conversation with a PCV I met a while back, Gray, who sat squished next to me on the four and a half hour ride up. Happy to step out of the lorry alive, we walked a short distance to KSO.
KSO is amazing, and the sign on the front door of the house nicely sums the place up- “The home away from home”. The spacious quarters is complete with 4 bedrooms with bunk beds, living rooms, a beautiful kitchen stocked with cutlery, cookware, every spice imaginable, a stove, and whatnots that satisfy the decent chef’s heart. Many of my friends in Accra ended up going back to their sites, but a few of us went on to KSO. I met a few other friends who did not come to Accra because of their location. Thanksgiving was being held at KSO, Accra, the Tamale sub-office, and other offices in the northern regions of Ghana for Peace Corps volunteers on Saturday. Today we spent the day lounging though.
Saturday 11/29
Today, before attending Thanksgiving at KSO, I went with Stephen to his previous headmaster’s funeral in Sarpe, about a half an hour’s ride from KSO. I never met the man, but he was a friend of my own headmaster, and in fact I broke the news to him three months ago that the man passed away. My headmaster told me about how well known the deceased Mr. Ntiamoah was for his munificence and concern for student advancement. A good number of people showed up to the funeral, and Stephen and I were ushered with the rest of the people into a room with the man’s corpse, propped up to allow loved ones to cry out for him. Stephen had on a black button-down with dark pants, but having gone to Kumasi on a whim, did not bring my 8 yard funeral cloth and therefore couldn’t kit myself out correctly.
The funeral procession lasted until around noon, and just as Stephen and I were about to leave, one of the nieces of Mr. Ntiamoah asked if we wanted to have lunch and stay until five (a typical funeral procession in Ghana is followed by joyous music and dancing to celebrate the person’s life). Stephen and I ended up staying until one, and showed up about an hour late to Thanksgiving dinner back at the KSO. This was fine though because there was plenty of food to go around, and it wasn’t formal in any respect. What the dinner lacked in formality, it made up for in the palatable dishes that covered the dining room table: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, potato salad, pumpkin pie, lemon bars, chocolate chip bars, jell-o, fruit salad, fudge, and banana cream pie were all made by PCVs and consumed by myself. Friends, it might be hard for some of you to imagine how great it is to eat a delicious thanksgiving dinner, scratch that, TWO Thanksgiving dinners, after months of eating mostly Ghanaian foods. I’m usually eating a good variety of foods at my site since I have so much to choose from at my market and I can easily go to Accra and get Western food; some of my friends have only tomatoes, rice, and okra available in their towns, and I can only imagine how good their Thanksgiving dinner is sitting in their bellies.
I am so tired right now that I’m calling it quits and going to bed. I feel like I'm pregnant with 8 pounds of Thanksgiving meal madness. I’m waking up tomorrow to somehow meet up with Chihiro in Kade, although this is my first time in Kumasi and I have a vague notion of how to find my way back. Hopefully in my next post I’ll write on how everything worked out alright in the end. All is well though, and it was a very good Thanksgiving indeed.
Next week, I’ll be teaching classes, Chihiro will come Tuesday to watch my students play football, I’ll go to Kade to type up my report for Peace Corps, Thursday Jack will come to my site and Friday we’ll both leave for the all volunteers conference for five days. I might be able to post an entry while over there, depending on whether my friend’s internet is working on his computer. For now, etre yebihya (pronounced yebishyia- we’ll talk later).
Music and wine to accompany this entry:
I'll post that at a later time (too tired to think at the moment)
"Students, this is American football"
Football: Day 1
Football: Day 2
Soon after this picture, the students attacked my camera
V for Victory!
The way home for some students o' mine
Some fly slop on the burners
Ralph in the newspaper
Where's the funeral?
Posing with what very well might be a green mamba
Poor/Beautiful snake
Football: Day 1
Football: Day 2
Soon after this picture, the students attacked my cameraV for Victory!
The way home for some students o' mineSome fly slop on the burners
Ralph in the newspaper Where's the funeral?
Posing with what very well might be a green mamba Poor/Beautiful snake
Part of the trail to the river 
Squinty Mcgee, Kyle, and Erin at Thanksgiving '08 
The US ambassador to South Africa(left), fool (center), and the US ambassador to Ghana (right)
My store room at school (aka: The Batcave or The Place Where I Go to Cry)
The funeral
Friday, November 14, 2008
Myyyyy Kiiind of Town, Otumi is...
It’s been close to three weeks since my last post, so I’ll just give a brief outline of whatever I jotted down in my journal, and then elaborate on anything important. Before any of that, here’s a recap of what I had written in my last entry: a certain jaw situation left me in limbo while D.C. figures out what to do with me, two new teachers arrived at my school, freeing up my schedule somewhat, I was at odds with many of the teachers in my town, and I almost choked to death on a cocoa bean. Much has passed between then and now, so here we go…
Friday 11/1
Got Giardia for the third time now
Sunday 11/3
Chihiro came over for lunch
Tuesday 11/4
The Peace Corps doctor called to tell me that DC wanted more info from my dentist back home before taking any measures
My friend Stephen slept over to listen for the presidential elections outcome, and subsequently we recieved texts asking us which one was the "big spoon"
Wednesday 11/5
Celebrated early- 4:30AM for us- over Barack and America’s big win
Showed Stephen around my school a bit before he headed back.
Raised around $60 from the students and teachers to purchase a computer for our school
Was asked by the headmaster and my Form 2 students to teach math again, putting me back to teaching 5 different classes
Mary, my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD), visited my school as part of her tour de Ghana.
Learned from Mary that my counterpart (whom I’m not what you’d call “buddy buddy” with) will accompany me to the in service training (IST) seminar in December.
My bout of Giardia evidently ceased
Thursday 11/6
My headmaster, Mr. Donkor, gave me a brief account of a rivalry between our school and the Presby school on the other side of town, just before we went there to pick up science equipment.
On the way to the Presby school, Mr. Donkor chased and shot at pigs with his slingshot
After picking up the science equipment, Mr. Donkor and I, on a whim, took a walkabout in Otumi. I met a lot of people and discovered a lot more about Otumi than meets the eye.
I happened to be the first whitey this toddler in my town had ever seen. My god you should have seen his face.
Talked with some neighbors I had neglected visiting for quite some time.
An earwig got in my ear
Broke up a troupe of ants, who seemed to be filing their way towards my bed.
Realized that I am in love with my town, and would severely regret having to leave if my jaw situation got serious. I do miss big cities, though.
Friday 11/7
Parent/ teacher argument over confiscated cell phone
JICA showed up at KMS, my humble school
Played my iPod off the speakers for the first time for the children around my home. We enjoyed our daily workout while such hits as Morris Brown (Outkast) and Summer Love (Timberlake) played in the background
Saturday 11/8
Went to Boti Falls with Chihiro, then grabbed some burgers(?) in Koforidua before heading back to Kade
Sunday 11/9
Caught up on my work for school
Got chili pepper in my eye
Monday 11/10
Made AWSOME science posters with students
Started to plan out what I’m going to cover for the rest of the semester.
Tuesday 11/11
After school, ran into the chief while on my way to grab a tro bound for Kade, the main market town near Otumi. He and I talked for a while. I also almost gave a dog a heart attack when it saw I was both white and abruptly running for a fast approaching tro.
Went to Kade to get some vegs and use the slow ass internet at the internet café, where I met this guy Michael D. More about him below.
Got 6 yards of funeral cloth since I’m invited to the event weekly.
Wednesday 11/12
Gave math test to my Form 2s, then graded their papers only to find out that 95% of them horribly failed it.
Thursday 11/13
Rebuked my students about how they were not putting in any work in my math class.
Friday 11/14
Went to Kade to type this sucker and meet up with Chihiro. Stephen was SUPPOSED to sleep over, but got caught up with a school event.
And that is an account of the last 3 weeks since my last post. Before I go, I’ll go into detail about my current state of affairs, and elaborate on some of the things listed in the outline above.
Firstly, this jaw situation hasn’t gotten any better. It feels like I have about 5 goddamned marbles tucked away in the left side of my cheeks, and it’s a feat to try to communicate with people while pretending this invisible sensation isn’t there. My face isn’t swollen at all, and a passerby wouldn’t be the wiser about what’s going on with my jaw. It’s just so annoying to wake up each morning and feel like Droopy Dog’s face was grafted on to the left side of my own. Thankfully, the eye twitching has ceased, while the kidney tingles are fading. Still mark me down as being a mess, though.
It did come as a relief when I found out that I am not in fact going back to the States before the end of the first term at my school. I’ve worked too hard to let things fall apart, which I’m more than sure would, if I left early. As I stated earlier, I also love my town, and became even more enamored with it that day Mr. Donkor and I did our walk about. I consider myself to be a city boy- in love with towering metropolises like New York, Chicago, and Tokyo. But there is something about Otumi; I can’t put my finger on it yet, but I feel I’m close. Otumi can be considered an island, one with buildings (and I’ll use this word loosely for some structures) surrounded by a dense tropical forest. Trails only a native Otumian can discern have become apparent to me, and following them, sometimes for what feels like an hour, I’ll come upon a home I never knew existed. Some days I wish I could be a fly on the wall, watching and listening to the daily conversations that take place throughout town; but my whiteness immediately curtails my going unnoticed when I leave the house. About my home though, it is situated all the way at the farthest end of my town, which means I get more privacy, and I’m far away from the speakers that blare music almost every night.
A red road slices through the green bush that lays everywhere that isn’t taken up by road or building. Red dust coats viridian-colored houses, whose inhabitants always call out to me- using my Ghanaian name- to join them for food. The children in my town even have taken to calling me Nana Boateng, the title Nana being an esteemed prefix in Ghana. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot with many of my students parents, and on top of compliments on educating their children, I get hooked up with a salubrious assortment of fruits and vegetables. This week’s haul included tangerines, bananas, a pineapple, cocoa, apples, an egg sandwich, oranges and some cucumbers. So yes, I’m in love with my town.
And the inimitable JICA volunteer Chihiro. All I can say is this girl is smart, she can speak English and Twi, as well as her native language Japanese, she is well traveled, she has a good sense of humor (she admitted to being fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm of all things!), is a good cook (strangely she can make an excellent Italian dish) and is sadly leaving in less than two months. Just to remind you, Chihiro is the JICA volunteer ho visited my school a while back to schedule a lesson with my students. She came last Friday to my school to educate my students on HIV/AIDS, and was pleasantly received. The first time she came, though, I silently languished through a bout of Giardia, which I've had now two times previous to this while in Ghana, both times leaving me with soiled underpants. You need to do the research on your own on what Giardia is. Let's just say the fear of shitting myself while Chihiro was over was the only thing on my mind that day. And I'm not ashamed of saying I soiled myself during my adult life. It is so ubiquitous amongst volunteers that we even have a club for it. In a discussion with one of my friends who has been here for over a year, I could quote him on saying that "Every fart should be considered with suspician."
It’s sad knowing that Chihiro's leaving so soon, but we’ve talked extensively on visiting each other in our respective countries. I wish I could invite her to Thanksgiving, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but I’m nervous about asking if I could have her as a guest. One last thing, before this paragraph becomes categorized as obsessive, Chihiro is from Osaka, Japan, and is not as familiar with Tokyo and Northern Honshu as I am. We’ve been talking about visiting each other’s old stomping grounds, bringing back fond memories of living in Japan. Also, another Japanese volunteer will take her place, allowing me to further my practice of Japanese since they will live in the same house as Chihiro, only an hour away from mine; but no one can really replace Chihiro. Interestingly enough, a few of her friends in JICA have met or are located near some of my Peace Corps friends.
As for the situation with the teachers in my town, I’m happy to say things are getting better. They’ve been acting much more amiable to me over the past several days, and I’ve lightened up as well with them. I feel like I need to have an in with them if I were to every make a positive impact on my town in terms of pedagogical methods. I wish I could swap counterparts. Technically we could switch, but I don’t think it would go over well, and I sense things are kind of tense sometimes between my headmaster and some of the teachers. I like this one teacher I work with a lot though, and I wish he could come with me to the IST we have in December.
When I went to the Presby school on the other side of my town to pick up some science equipment, I offered to help train teachers in ICT, and help them learn how to use a computer. Right now, my students have raised close to $75 for a computer, which means we are about $25 away from getting one. We still don’t have power at our school, but once we get the computer we are going to try and put some pressure on the chief to get our school electricity. I’ll also use the ICT training as a guise to teach alternative classroom discipline compared to the harsh and ineffective discipline they use daily in their classroom.
On Thursday, I spent the morning giving my Form students a diatribe on how just coming to class and taking notes in Math isn't enough, and that they need to at least spend maybe 5 minutes doing practice problems. Going back to the beginning, I was originally teaching Math to my Form 1 and Form 2 students until we had a new teacher come in to take over those classes; I wrote about this in my last post. Unfortunately, my Form 2 students were doing terribly, and I would notice that the teacher rarely was in class when he was supposed to be. The headmaster and many of the Form 2 students came to me to take over the class again, and at first I was annoyed that the other teacher was being rewarded for his laziness. I probably know less about the math than he does, and yet he wasn't putting in any effort. The headmaster promised that the other teacher would take on a new class, so I acquisced to his and my students' pleas.
I picked up where the other teacher had left off- on adding, subtracting, and multiplying different bases- a subject I am not at all familiar with. I spent a lot of time trying to teach myself the math, then making lessons, practice questions, quizzes and tests, for nothing. I repeatedly told students to do the work outside of class, and to see me the two hours I stay after school if they need help. Not one person came to see me about Math, and close to 95% of the students completely failed the test. It was like I never taught the the unit. Maybe it was my teaching, but after a lot of reflection and talking with students, I've come to suspect that it was more the students' neglect to do work of their own. So going back to Thursday, I told them that if half the class fails the next test, I'm done- I will refuse to teach the class. As part of my morning harangue, I expressed my dissapointment by saying I felt like a farmer who spent several days planting maize and cocoa, only to find that nothing grew. The students are doing extremely well in my science class, but as for math they have no confidence and might find the subject vapid. It was weird though that all of them came to class, participated, and seemed to understand the problems when we worked them out on the board, but the end result showed all of this was fruitless. The next unit is on linear equations and inequalities, so I'm hoping for a successful turnaround in grades.
Thanksgiving’s coming up, and I plan on seeing a bunch of good friends at the dinner table in Accra. Jack’s coming over the night before and I’ll get to show him around my site. There’s this water tower at the other end of town, and I plan on sneaking us up to the top so I could show him all of Otumi (the thing’s about 4 stories up). I. Love. Thanksgiving. I hope there will be yams like the ones my mom makes. Oop. I have some drool on my shirt. I actually fell asleep one day while grading my students’ papers, and drooled all over them. I just remembered that.
Recently I talked to my parents, and when I asked about how Max, my cat, is doing, I found out he broke yet another cherished thing of my parents, a vase that’s been in my living room since forever. I spent weeks training Max to break that vase, and he finally accomplishes the feat only when I’m away in Ghana. He is still receiving what sounds like a gross amount of turkey from the hands of my mother, father, brother, and cousin. I love that cat. Unfortunately, he would not last a day here.
Another matter that’s been on my mind is the all volunteers conference coming up December 5th-10th in the Eastern Region. Because of the elections coming up in Ghana, and the possible violence that might ensue following the results, the Peace Corps is consolidating all volunteers in a dormitory-like compound. Although I get to see loads of friends I haven’t seen since swearing in, as well as close to 50 new volunteers that just came to Ghana, there is one person in particular that I am very reluctant to see- my ex-girlfriend from training. Don’t get me wrong, I have not one iota of ill-feelings toward her. In fact, it’s just the opposite. In case she or someone relevant is reading this, I won’t make it too embarrassing for her and not go into too much detail; but this is worth mentioning because the poignant thought of it creeps into my head daily, and comes almost on schedule once a week to haunt my dreams (which might be due in part to a side effect of the malaria medication I take). There’s nothing I can do about trying to not think about seeing her there. Instead of shifting my thoughts to something else, I found myself, out of dread, thinking up ways to go about inevitably seeing her in December. I’ve thought up a number of ways to act around her, none of them seeming to be realistic when I try to work it out in my head. I could somehow save her life and she would forever be indebted to me. She could save my life, and I would have a reasonable excuse for trying to talk to her again. I could only use head nods to communicate with her. I could employ a plane to fly over the compound with a banner reading “Hey, let’s talk.” Probably, though, and this is sad, I’m going to have to cadge her to forgive me or at least let me get in one good dialogue with her. If you have ideas, please message them to me. Otherwise, you can pray. Pray for Darren.
Music to accompany this post:
Friday 11/1
Got Giardia for the third time now
Sunday 11/3
Chihiro came over for lunch
Tuesday 11/4
The Peace Corps doctor called to tell me that DC wanted more info from my dentist back home before taking any measures
My friend Stephen slept over to listen for the presidential elections outcome, and subsequently we recieved texts asking us which one was the "big spoon"
Wednesday 11/5
Celebrated early- 4:30AM for us- over Barack and America’s big win
Showed Stephen around my school a bit before he headed back.
Raised around $60 from the students and teachers to purchase a computer for our school
Was asked by the headmaster and my Form 2 students to teach math again, putting me back to teaching 5 different classes
Mary, my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD), visited my school as part of her tour de Ghana.
Learned from Mary that my counterpart (whom I’m not what you’d call “buddy buddy” with) will accompany me to the in service training (IST) seminar in December.
My bout of Giardia evidently ceased
Thursday 11/6
My headmaster, Mr. Donkor, gave me a brief account of a rivalry between our school and the Presby school on the other side of town, just before we went there to pick up science equipment.
On the way to the Presby school, Mr. Donkor chased and shot at pigs with his slingshot
After picking up the science equipment, Mr. Donkor and I, on a whim, took a walkabout in Otumi. I met a lot of people and discovered a lot more about Otumi than meets the eye.
I happened to be the first whitey this toddler in my town had ever seen. My god you should have seen his face.
Talked with some neighbors I had neglected visiting for quite some time.
An earwig got in my ear
Broke up a troupe of ants, who seemed to be filing their way towards my bed.
Realized that I am in love with my town, and would severely regret having to leave if my jaw situation got serious. I do miss big cities, though.
Friday 11/7
Parent/ teacher argument over confiscated cell phone
JICA showed up at KMS, my humble school
Played my iPod off the speakers for the first time for the children around my home. We enjoyed our daily workout while such hits as Morris Brown (Outkast) and Summer Love (Timberlake) played in the background
Saturday 11/8
Went to Boti Falls with Chihiro, then grabbed some burgers(?) in Koforidua before heading back to Kade
Sunday 11/9
Caught up on my work for school
Got chili pepper in my eye
Monday 11/10
Made AWSOME science posters with students
Started to plan out what I’m going to cover for the rest of the semester.
Tuesday 11/11
After school, ran into the chief while on my way to grab a tro bound for Kade, the main market town near Otumi. He and I talked for a while. I also almost gave a dog a heart attack when it saw I was both white and abruptly running for a fast approaching tro.
Went to Kade to get some vegs and use the slow ass internet at the internet café, where I met this guy Michael D. More about him below.
Got 6 yards of funeral cloth since I’m invited to the event weekly.
Wednesday 11/12
Gave math test to my Form 2s, then graded their papers only to find out that 95% of them horribly failed it.
Thursday 11/13
Rebuked my students about how they were not putting in any work in my math class.
Friday 11/14
Went to Kade to type this sucker and meet up with Chihiro. Stephen was SUPPOSED to sleep over, but got caught up with a school event.
And that is an account of the last 3 weeks since my last post. Before I go, I’ll go into detail about my current state of affairs, and elaborate on some of the things listed in the outline above.
Firstly, this jaw situation hasn’t gotten any better. It feels like I have about 5 goddamned marbles tucked away in the left side of my cheeks, and it’s a feat to try to communicate with people while pretending this invisible sensation isn’t there. My face isn’t swollen at all, and a passerby wouldn’t be the wiser about what’s going on with my jaw. It’s just so annoying to wake up each morning and feel like Droopy Dog’s face was grafted on to the left side of my own. Thankfully, the eye twitching has ceased, while the kidney tingles are fading. Still mark me down as being a mess, though.
It did come as a relief when I found out that I am not in fact going back to the States before the end of the first term at my school. I’ve worked too hard to let things fall apart, which I’m more than sure would, if I left early. As I stated earlier, I also love my town, and became even more enamored with it that day Mr. Donkor and I did our walk about. I consider myself to be a city boy- in love with towering metropolises like New York, Chicago, and Tokyo. But there is something about Otumi; I can’t put my finger on it yet, but I feel I’m close. Otumi can be considered an island, one with buildings (and I’ll use this word loosely for some structures) surrounded by a dense tropical forest. Trails only a native Otumian can discern have become apparent to me, and following them, sometimes for what feels like an hour, I’ll come upon a home I never knew existed. Some days I wish I could be a fly on the wall, watching and listening to the daily conversations that take place throughout town; but my whiteness immediately curtails my going unnoticed when I leave the house. About my home though, it is situated all the way at the farthest end of my town, which means I get more privacy, and I’m far away from the speakers that blare music almost every night.
A red road slices through the green bush that lays everywhere that isn’t taken up by road or building. Red dust coats viridian-colored houses, whose inhabitants always call out to me- using my Ghanaian name- to join them for food. The children in my town even have taken to calling me Nana Boateng, the title Nana being an esteemed prefix in Ghana. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot with many of my students parents, and on top of compliments on educating their children, I get hooked up with a salubrious assortment of fruits and vegetables. This week’s haul included tangerines, bananas, a pineapple, cocoa, apples, an egg sandwich, oranges and some cucumbers. So yes, I’m in love with my town.
And the inimitable JICA volunteer Chihiro. All I can say is this girl is smart, she can speak English and Twi, as well as her native language Japanese, she is well traveled, she has a good sense of humor (she admitted to being fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm of all things!), is a good cook (strangely she can make an excellent Italian dish) and is sadly leaving in less than two months. Just to remind you, Chihiro is the JICA volunteer ho visited my school a while back to schedule a lesson with my students. She came last Friday to my school to educate my students on HIV/AIDS, and was pleasantly received. The first time she came, though, I silently languished through a bout of Giardia, which I've had now two times previous to this while in Ghana, both times leaving me with soiled underpants. You need to do the research on your own on what Giardia is. Let's just say the fear of shitting myself while Chihiro was over was the only thing on my mind that day. And I'm not ashamed of saying I soiled myself during my adult life. It is so ubiquitous amongst volunteers that we even have a club for it. In a discussion with one of my friends who has been here for over a year, I could quote him on saying that "Every fart should be considered with suspician."
It’s sad knowing that Chihiro's leaving so soon, but we’ve talked extensively on visiting each other in our respective countries. I wish I could invite her to Thanksgiving, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but I’m nervous about asking if I could have her as a guest. One last thing, before this paragraph becomes categorized as obsessive, Chihiro is from Osaka, Japan, and is not as familiar with Tokyo and Northern Honshu as I am. We’ve been talking about visiting each other’s old stomping grounds, bringing back fond memories of living in Japan. Also, another Japanese volunteer will take her place, allowing me to further my practice of Japanese since they will live in the same house as Chihiro, only an hour away from mine; but no one can really replace Chihiro. Interestingly enough, a few of her friends in JICA have met or are located near some of my Peace Corps friends.
As for the situation with the teachers in my town, I’m happy to say things are getting better. They’ve been acting much more amiable to me over the past several days, and I’ve lightened up as well with them. I feel like I need to have an in with them if I were to every make a positive impact on my town in terms of pedagogical methods. I wish I could swap counterparts. Technically we could switch, but I don’t think it would go over well, and I sense things are kind of tense sometimes between my headmaster and some of the teachers. I like this one teacher I work with a lot though, and I wish he could come with me to the IST we have in December.
When I went to the Presby school on the other side of my town to pick up some science equipment, I offered to help train teachers in ICT, and help them learn how to use a computer. Right now, my students have raised close to $75 for a computer, which means we are about $25 away from getting one. We still don’t have power at our school, but once we get the computer we are going to try and put some pressure on the chief to get our school electricity. I’ll also use the ICT training as a guise to teach alternative classroom discipline compared to the harsh and ineffective discipline they use daily in their classroom.
On Thursday, I spent the morning giving my Form students a diatribe on how just coming to class and taking notes in Math isn't enough, and that they need to at least spend maybe 5 minutes doing practice problems. Going back to the beginning, I was originally teaching Math to my Form 1 and Form 2 students until we had a new teacher come in to take over those classes; I wrote about this in my last post. Unfortunately, my Form 2 students were doing terribly, and I would notice that the teacher rarely was in class when he was supposed to be. The headmaster and many of the Form 2 students came to me to take over the class again, and at first I was annoyed that the other teacher was being rewarded for his laziness. I probably know less about the math than he does, and yet he wasn't putting in any effort. The headmaster promised that the other teacher would take on a new class, so I acquisced to his and my students' pleas.
I picked up where the other teacher had left off- on adding, subtracting, and multiplying different bases- a subject I am not at all familiar with. I spent a lot of time trying to teach myself the math, then making lessons, practice questions, quizzes and tests, for nothing. I repeatedly told students to do the work outside of class, and to see me the two hours I stay after school if they need help. Not one person came to see me about Math, and close to 95% of the students completely failed the test. It was like I never taught the the unit. Maybe it was my teaching, but after a lot of reflection and talking with students, I've come to suspect that it was more the students' neglect to do work of their own. So going back to Thursday, I told them that if half the class fails the next test, I'm done- I will refuse to teach the class. As part of my morning harangue, I expressed my dissapointment by saying I felt like a farmer who spent several days planting maize and cocoa, only to find that nothing grew. The students are doing extremely well in my science class, but as for math they have no confidence and might find the subject vapid. It was weird though that all of them came to class, participated, and seemed to understand the problems when we worked them out on the board, but the end result showed all of this was fruitless. The next unit is on linear equations and inequalities, so I'm hoping for a successful turnaround in grades.
Thanksgiving’s coming up, and I plan on seeing a bunch of good friends at the dinner table in Accra. Jack’s coming over the night before and I’ll get to show him around my site. There’s this water tower at the other end of town, and I plan on sneaking us up to the top so I could show him all of Otumi (the thing’s about 4 stories up). I. Love. Thanksgiving. I hope there will be yams like the ones my mom makes. Oop. I have some drool on my shirt. I actually fell asleep one day while grading my students’ papers, and drooled all over them. I just remembered that.
Recently I talked to my parents, and when I asked about how Max, my cat, is doing, I found out he broke yet another cherished thing of my parents, a vase that’s been in my living room since forever. I spent weeks training Max to break that vase, and he finally accomplishes the feat only when I’m away in Ghana. He is still receiving what sounds like a gross amount of turkey from the hands of my mother, father, brother, and cousin. I love that cat. Unfortunately, he would not last a day here.
Another matter that’s been on my mind is the all volunteers conference coming up December 5th-10th in the Eastern Region. Because of the elections coming up in Ghana, and the possible violence that might ensue following the results, the Peace Corps is consolidating all volunteers in a dormitory-like compound. Although I get to see loads of friends I haven’t seen since swearing in, as well as close to 50 new volunteers that just came to Ghana, there is one person in particular that I am very reluctant to see- my ex-girlfriend from training. Don’t get me wrong, I have not one iota of ill-feelings toward her. In fact, it’s just the opposite. In case she or someone relevant is reading this, I won’t make it too embarrassing for her and not go into too much detail; but this is worth mentioning because the poignant thought of it creeps into my head daily, and comes almost on schedule once a week to haunt my dreams (which might be due in part to a side effect of the malaria medication I take). There’s nothing I can do about trying to not think about seeing her there. Instead of shifting my thoughts to something else, I found myself, out of dread, thinking up ways to go about inevitably seeing her in December. I’ve thought up a number of ways to act around her, none of them seeming to be realistic when I try to work it out in my head. I could somehow save her life and she would forever be indebted to me. She could save my life, and I would have a reasonable excuse for trying to talk to her again. I could only use head nods to communicate with her. I could employ a plane to fly over the compound with a banner reading “Hey, let’s talk.” Probably, though, and this is sad, I’m going to have to cadge her to forgive me or at least let me get in one good dialogue with her. If you have ideas, please message them to me. Otherwise, you can pray. Pray for Darren.
Music to accompany this post:
Slide- Goo Goo Dolls
Cherry Blossom Girl- Air
Beautiful Day- U2
1 Giant Leap- Braided Hair
Happy Valentine's Day- Outkast
Morris Brown- Outkast
Rescue- Eve6
You Sexy Thing- Hot Chocolate
All in a Day- Joe Strummer
Amy- Mark Ronson
The Puppet Show- PM Dawn
Kiss- Prince
Sussudio- Phil Collins
Can't Wait- Hepcat
Doorbell- White Stripes
Passing Me By- Pharcyde
Can't Hurry Love- Diana Ross
Tallahassee Love- T-Pain
Nutmeg Fantasy- Macy Gray
Gnossienne No.5 Modere- Erik Satie
My Kind of Town- Frank Sinatra
La Belle Excentrique- Grande Ritourelle
Build Me Up Buttercup- Dance Hall Crashers
It Takes Two- Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock
Wine to compliment this entry:
Chardonnay, La Crema, Sonoma Coast, 06
Waking up to the sound of a god forsaken parade in Kade
Chihiro (notice my nose shadow)
Chihiro!!!
Too scared to come down from the "Umbrella Rock"
Boti Falls
Stephen
Maaaaaaaaaax
Boti Falls Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Ipso Fatso
“Holy crap.” These were the first two words issued from me today. Why? Because the horn of the bus I needed to so desperately catch was blaring not too far from my home. Usually, I’m much more composed and am standing by the road. This time though, I was sleeping like a baby at 2AM - 30 minutes before my alarm was to go off and approximately 1.5 hours before I should hear the sound of the bus idling up the severely underdeveloped road that snakes its way past my house. Bleary eyed and shaken, I quickly dressed and stuffed whatever I meant to pack the night before in my bag and ran out to the road. And here I am, in Accra, at 6:20 AM, still bleary eyed and shaken.
Today I have to go back to the doctors because the meds they put me on were making my kidneys go a little nuts on me. My right eye has been twitching for the last two days. I’m a mess, it seems. Hopefully the doctor will have sorted out my jaw situation and I can get back to teaching uninterrupted. Standing in for absent teachers has helped me catch my students up with the work, and now that we have TWO new teachers, things might start to change for the better. Then again, my headmaster and counterpart had to go and find the teachers who hadn’t shown up for two days, and Mr. Bbbbbb (another teacher) and I had the school to ourselves. Later, after the two teachers were retrieved, they just sat in the office and stared at books. They seemed rapt in making lesson plans, so we didn’t talk much. Ostensibly, they will stay at the school and teach maths and social studies, but that was what the last four teachers were supposed to before they mysteriously vanished from our school and Otumi.
Having a new math teacher means I can go from teaching 3 subjects to the much more manageable number 2. Since six 70 minute classes have been excised from my weekly schedule, my life is now unfettered enough to start planning other projects for my students as well as study Twi to the point where I have a good command of the language.
In my last entry, I was in Accra visiting my friend BJ before he leaves Ghana, possibly for good. That was Saturday. We said our good-byes to each other, but now we’ll do it a second time around, since I talked with him yesterday and found out he is leaving Thursday. Today we’ll probably go get lunch if the doc doesn’t hold me too long. When I got home on Saturday from Accra, it was pretty late, around 10PM, and my landlord Kwame and is brother were sitting on my/his porch. This was the first time I met the man, and seeing that I was tired, he told me we would talk tomorrow after our introductions.
Sunday, I went to church in the morning before really sitting down and chatting with my landlord. I hadn’t been to church in almost three weeks, and the last time I was there, I embarrassed myself by putting change in the collection plate when it turned out people were dumping something else in there. But that’s what happens when you leave a Jew to his own devices at Christian church- embarrassments all around. This time I was ready, and made sure the patrons were putting money and not envelopes or notes in the collection plate. Luckily, I get the impression that I’m well received.
After church, I called my host parents in Kukurantumi to see how they were doing and inquire on whether they had a host child from the new omnibus group that came into town. My group, the 2008 PCV education group, was the first to do training in Kukurantumi; before, Peace Corps training was done in Techiman, located in the Brang Ahafo Region. More about training is talked about in my first post, but I did not mention much about life with my host family. I turned out to have an incredibly nice host family, the Boatengs. My large and in charge mom (Mama Agy) was a great cook, but spoke rapid-fire Twi to me without including a word of English. Nana Boat, my host father, likened by many of the people in my group as the “Ghanaian Santa Clause”, was in fact one of the jolliest men I’ve ever met. His English was excellent, and he helped me with almost everything. He not only was one of the sub-chiefs of Kukurantumi, but also an electrician; we would have daily discussions on topics ranging from how the chieftaincy works in Ghana to how to repair electrical outlets. Both of my parents made me feel like I was part of the family, to the point where I would tell them I was going out or inviting them to my soccer games as if I were a teenager. One time some neighbors kept referring to me as Obruni, white man, even though I repeatedly told them in Twi that that wasn’t my name. Even though this didn’t really bother me, my host parents intervened and told them I was an Obibini (African) in heart, which I took as a major compliment.
There were several children and grandchildren who lived at the house as well; unfortunately I later found out that to accommodate for me, the children jammed themselves into two rooms. I became closest to the grandchildren, one in middle school and the other just entering high school (Ema and Kwazi, respectively). They would help me with Twi and we would talk about different things like what cold climates are like. I had a deaf sister who helped me pick up some sign language- I know how to say sit, mother, father, and stupid. I’m digressing. Getting back to the call I placed to my host parents, I found out they did in fact have a host child, and I got a little jealous. We made plans to see each other within the next two months, and I can’t wait for them to visit me at site.
Sorry, the rest of this post might be scatter-brained; I just got back from the dentist with some very bad news. It seems that the infection in my jaw is the result of a botched implant that left a severed nerve and some damaged tissue in my mouth; this means that they need to take the implant out or else the situation will get worse. My body is rejecting the medicine, and they say I’ll need to replace the implant with a bridge.
I’m waiting to see the Peace Corps doctor to find out if they can take care of this here or in S. Africa (where many PCVs go for complex medical procedures). Going back to the States is exciting in a way, but I felt crestfallen when I first heard the news because that means I’m away from my students for god knows how long. I just got to my site, and I feel it’s too soon to leave them, even for a little bit. The semester is almost over, and I need to get them ready for the end of the term final. I’m working out in my head just how to solve this dilemma. If worse comes to worse and I have to be gone for an extended amount of time, I think I might work with a student or two to teach the class for me while I’m gone. The other day I asked around to see which students might want to become educators, and whether or not they would like me to mentor them in becoming a future teacher. I had a about 4 students who were interested, and they are actually some of my top students. If it comes down to it, perhaps the students can teach out of the books while I’m gone. I’m just hoping I can hold out until the end of the term, but the inflammation is pretty nuts right now, so I might have to scratch that idea. We will see. Let’s get back on track.
When my landlord came back from a funeral taking place in town, which is what brought him up here, we talked for a while about politics in Ghana and the States. Kwame owns a construction company over in Medina, Accra, and only comes up to Otumi every few months for a funeral. He talked about growing up in Otumi, and explained he was happy to put me up in his home to help benefit his community.
On Monday, I went to school, and during morning assembly, found out one of my students might be getting kicked out of the school. He is one of my form 2 students, and although he does in fact disrupt my class sometimes, all I have to do is move his seat and he’s good the rest of class. Apparently, he stole some corn from one of the teachers and was caught, thusly prompting the headmaster to take action. He told me he was held back last year from going to Form 3, and he hung out with a rough crowd. I asked to speak with him alone while everyone else was in assembly.
I had the student follow me to the benches in the sitting area, and we talked for a bit before class started. I pretty much tried to relate to him, since as a kid I myself used to steal lawn ornaments and be disruptive in class. I told him that looking back, it was wrong for me to do that, and that he should catch himself and try to refrain from hanging out with some friends he described to me. I got the headmaster to give him one more chance, and I’m keeping a close eye on him. He’s got smarts, but he definitely has too much mischief in him.
When I got home, I experimented with vegetable oil, brown sugar, and corn kernels to make delic caramel corn which I enjoyed thoroughly. Later, while I was putting the container of corn kernels back on the shelf, I noticed a ton of beetles mixed in with the kernels. More protein! Later, when I went outside to do dishes, I could hear from the mosque across town the calling for prayer on the loudspeaker, and it was at that very moment that it hit me that I was really in Ghana, that I was really doing this. Since I came to Ghana, I hadn’t experienced any surreal moments; living in Ghana has been pretty much natural to me. I’ve wanted to do Peace Corps for well over a decade now, and I finally was a volunteer in a foreign country living the dream. That stuck with me the rest of the day.
Tuesday I got a call from my PCMO that I need to be at the doctors in Accra on Wednesday. Later, during one of my classes, a bunch of the primary school students came close to my classroom and started yelling obruni through the windows; I had one of my students kindly remove them from the area and take them to their teacher. Later, when I saw the primary school teacher, I told them that their kids are disrupting my class, and he just laughed.
This is part of what I mentioned last week. The teachers in my town, save for Mr. Bbbbbb show unabashed contempt for me, and I’m still trying to think of how to react to this. There are about 15 teachers in my town, counting the now 4 at my school, 5 at the primary school, and the rest at the Presbyterian middle school on the northern part of Otumi. Whenever I run into them, I act like I normally do with everyone else, I greet them, and they just laugh at me and put on a nasal whitey tone to mock me. Kids. The teachers in my town are kind of like kids. Which is what kills me about my students- their role models are scarce, and the teachers set incredibly bad examples. For instance, students are taught not to fight or hit one another, otherwise, they get beat. Students are expected to show up on time to school everyday, even though many of the teachers are nowhere to be found. I’m not saying all teachers in Ghana are like this, but I can tell you the ones in my town certainly are, save for Mr. Bbbbbbb. Mr. Bbbbb is alright, he cares about the students and is nice to me, but he canes way to much as well.
I think part of the reason they act this way towards me is because I actually put in work when I teach. The only other people I’ve seen show enthusiasm in class is my headmaster and Mr. Bbbbbb. Yesterday, I watched my headmaster give a lesson on the Twi language, and the students were really in to it. My headmaster told me he used to be a teacher, and missed doing it, though he plans on becoming a farmer once he retires in two years. My headmaster is usually really good with the kids in my town.
After school, since I was going to be gone the next day, I had one of my students stay after school so I could catch her up in science for the test Friday. The girl came from Nigeria about two weeks ago, and she’s one of my best students. I caught her up on the carbon cycle and climate, and a bunch of students ended up staying after as well. I’ve talked to the girl’s father on a few occasions when I see him around town, and I think it might be hard on them since they are so knew and don’t really know anyone. My town is a major produces of palm oil, so we get people from all over, especially from Togo, coming to Otumi for work.
Tuesday was also a close call when I choked on one of the slimy cocoa beans I love to eat. My headmaster gives me a bunch from his farm whenever he goes. I got Jack on board with this popcorn thing. He’s thinking of getting a popcorn maker. That’s not a bad idea….I also talked with one of my friends, who will stay the night next Tuesday to watch and listen for the election results. The next day he’ll observe maybe one of my classes and head back. I’m running out of money, but I would like to get a bottle of champaign for the momentous occasion. Aside from that, mine and Chihiro’s lunch plans were again postponed to this coming Sunday. I need to find mangoes to chill, but they are not in season
Music to complement this entry:
Cruisin’- Holly Cole Trio
Vagalume- The Mosquitos
Waiting for the Man- Nico
Friends- Luscious Jackson
Fortress- Pinback
Tallahassee Love- T-Pain
St. Thomas- Sonny Rollins
Tubthuumping- Chumbawamba
Gnossienne No.2- Erik Satie
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor- Mozart
Hold Your Head Up High- Bloodhound Gang
Isaac- Squeak E. Clean
Falling to Pieces- Faith No More
What You Know- T.I.
Do It- Nelly Furtado
Fire- Ohio Players
Hatchet- Low
Wine to Complement this entry:
At home in Kukurantumi
Today I have to go back to the doctors because the meds they put me on were making my kidneys go a little nuts on me. My right eye has been twitching for the last two days. I’m a mess, it seems. Hopefully the doctor will have sorted out my jaw situation and I can get back to teaching uninterrupted. Standing in for absent teachers has helped me catch my students up with the work, and now that we have TWO new teachers, things might start to change for the better. Then again, my headmaster and counterpart had to go and find the teachers who hadn’t shown up for two days, and Mr. Bbbbbb (another teacher) and I had the school to ourselves. Later, after the two teachers were retrieved, they just sat in the office and stared at books. They seemed rapt in making lesson plans, so we didn’t talk much. Ostensibly, they will stay at the school and teach maths and social studies, but that was what the last four teachers were supposed to before they mysteriously vanished from our school and Otumi.
Having a new math teacher means I can go from teaching 3 subjects to the much more manageable number 2. Since six 70 minute classes have been excised from my weekly schedule, my life is now unfettered enough to start planning other projects for my students as well as study Twi to the point where I have a good command of the language.
In my last entry, I was in Accra visiting my friend BJ before he leaves Ghana, possibly for good. That was Saturday. We said our good-byes to each other, but now we’ll do it a second time around, since I talked with him yesterday and found out he is leaving Thursday. Today we’ll probably go get lunch if the doc doesn’t hold me too long. When I got home on Saturday from Accra, it was pretty late, around 10PM, and my landlord Kwame and is brother were sitting on my/his porch. This was the first time I met the man, and seeing that I was tired, he told me we would talk tomorrow after our introductions.
Sunday, I went to church in the morning before really sitting down and chatting with my landlord. I hadn’t been to church in almost three weeks, and the last time I was there, I embarrassed myself by putting change in the collection plate when it turned out people were dumping something else in there. But that’s what happens when you leave a Jew to his own devices at Christian church- embarrassments all around. This time I was ready, and made sure the patrons were putting money and not envelopes or notes in the collection plate. Luckily, I get the impression that I’m well received.
After church, I called my host parents in Kukurantumi to see how they were doing and inquire on whether they had a host child from the new omnibus group that came into town. My group, the 2008 PCV education group, was the first to do training in Kukurantumi; before, Peace Corps training was done in Techiman, located in the Brang Ahafo Region. More about training is talked about in my first post, but I did not mention much about life with my host family. I turned out to have an incredibly nice host family, the Boatengs. My large and in charge mom (Mama Agy) was a great cook, but spoke rapid-fire Twi to me without including a word of English. Nana Boat, my host father, likened by many of the people in my group as the “Ghanaian Santa Clause”, was in fact one of the jolliest men I’ve ever met. His English was excellent, and he helped me with almost everything. He not only was one of the sub-chiefs of Kukurantumi, but also an electrician; we would have daily discussions on topics ranging from how the chieftaincy works in Ghana to how to repair electrical outlets. Both of my parents made me feel like I was part of the family, to the point where I would tell them I was going out or inviting them to my soccer games as if I were a teenager. One time some neighbors kept referring to me as Obruni, white man, even though I repeatedly told them in Twi that that wasn’t my name. Even though this didn’t really bother me, my host parents intervened and told them I was an Obibini (African) in heart, which I took as a major compliment.
There were several children and grandchildren who lived at the house as well; unfortunately I later found out that to accommodate for me, the children jammed themselves into two rooms. I became closest to the grandchildren, one in middle school and the other just entering high school (Ema and Kwazi, respectively). They would help me with Twi and we would talk about different things like what cold climates are like. I had a deaf sister who helped me pick up some sign language- I know how to say sit, mother, father, and stupid. I’m digressing. Getting back to the call I placed to my host parents, I found out they did in fact have a host child, and I got a little jealous. We made plans to see each other within the next two months, and I can’t wait for them to visit me at site.
Sorry, the rest of this post might be scatter-brained; I just got back from the dentist with some very bad news. It seems that the infection in my jaw is the result of a botched implant that left a severed nerve and some damaged tissue in my mouth; this means that they need to take the implant out or else the situation will get worse. My body is rejecting the medicine, and they say I’ll need to replace the implant with a bridge.
I’m waiting to see the Peace Corps doctor to find out if they can take care of this here or in S. Africa (where many PCVs go for complex medical procedures). Going back to the States is exciting in a way, but I felt crestfallen when I first heard the news because that means I’m away from my students for god knows how long. I just got to my site, and I feel it’s too soon to leave them, even for a little bit. The semester is almost over, and I need to get them ready for the end of the term final. I’m working out in my head just how to solve this dilemma. If worse comes to worse and I have to be gone for an extended amount of time, I think I might work with a student or two to teach the class for me while I’m gone. The other day I asked around to see which students might want to become educators, and whether or not they would like me to mentor them in becoming a future teacher. I had a about 4 students who were interested, and they are actually some of my top students. If it comes down to it, perhaps the students can teach out of the books while I’m gone. I’m just hoping I can hold out until the end of the term, but the inflammation is pretty nuts right now, so I might have to scratch that idea. We will see. Let’s get back on track.
When my landlord came back from a funeral taking place in town, which is what brought him up here, we talked for a while about politics in Ghana and the States. Kwame owns a construction company over in Medina, Accra, and only comes up to Otumi every few months for a funeral. He talked about growing up in Otumi, and explained he was happy to put me up in his home to help benefit his community.
On Monday, I went to school, and during morning assembly, found out one of my students might be getting kicked out of the school. He is one of my form 2 students, and although he does in fact disrupt my class sometimes, all I have to do is move his seat and he’s good the rest of class. Apparently, he stole some corn from one of the teachers and was caught, thusly prompting the headmaster to take action. He told me he was held back last year from going to Form 3, and he hung out with a rough crowd. I asked to speak with him alone while everyone else was in assembly.
I had the student follow me to the benches in the sitting area, and we talked for a bit before class started. I pretty much tried to relate to him, since as a kid I myself used to steal lawn ornaments and be disruptive in class. I told him that looking back, it was wrong for me to do that, and that he should catch himself and try to refrain from hanging out with some friends he described to me. I got the headmaster to give him one more chance, and I’m keeping a close eye on him. He’s got smarts, but he definitely has too much mischief in him.
When I got home, I experimented with vegetable oil, brown sugar, and corn kernels to make delic caramel corn which I enjoyed thoroughly. Later, while I was putting the container of corn kernels back on the shelf, I noticed a ton of beetles mixed in with the kernels. More protein! Later, when I went outside to do dishes, I could hear from the mosque across town the calling for prayer on the loudspeaker, and it was at that very moment that it hit me that I was really in Ghana, that I was really doing this. Since I came to Ghana, I hadn’t experienced any surreal moments; living in Ghana has been pretty much natural to me. I’ve wanted to do Peace Corps for well over a decade now, and I finally was a volunteer in a foreign country living the dream. That stuck with me the rest of the day.
Tuesday I got a call from my PCMO that I need to be at the doctors in Accra on Wednesday. Later, during one of my classes, a bunch of the primary school students came close to my classroom and started yelling obruni through the windows; I had one of my students kindly remove them from the area and take them to their teacher. Later, when I saw the primary school teacher, I told them that their kids are disrupting my class, and he just laughed.
This is part of what I mentioned last week. The teachers in my town, save for Mr. Bbbbbb show unabashed contempt for me, and I’m still trying to think of how to react to this. There are about 15 teachers in my town, counting the now 4 at my school, 5 at the primary school, and the rest at the Presbyterian middle school on the northern part of Otumi. Whenever I run into them, I act like I normally do with everyone else, I greet them, and they just laugh at me and put on a nasal whitey tone to mock me. Kids. The teachers in my town are kind of like kids. Which is what kills me about my students- their role models are scarce, and the teachers set incredibly bad examples. For instance, students are taught not to fight or hit one another, otherwise, they get beat. Students are expected to show up on time to school everyday, even though many of the teachers are nowhere to be found. I’m not saying all teachers in Ghana are like this, but I can tell you the ones in my town certainly are, save for Mr. Bbbbbbb. Mr. Bbbbb is alright, he cares about the students and is nice to me, but he canes way to much as well.
I think part of the reason they act this way towards me is because I actually put in work when I teach. The only other people I’ve seen show enthusiasm in class is my headmaster and Mr. Bbbbbb. Yesterday, I watched my headmaster give a lesson on the Twi language, and the students were really in to it. My headmaster told me he used to be a teacher, and missed doing it, though he plans on becoming a farmer once he retires in two years. My headmaster is usually really good with the kids in my town.
After school, since I was going to be gone the next day, I had one of my students stay after school so I could catch her up in science for the test Friday. The girl came from Nigeria about two weeks ago, and she’s one of my best students. I caught her up on the carbon cycle and climate, and a bunch of students ended up staying after as well. I’ve talked to the girl’s father on a few occasions when I see him around town, and I think it might be hard on them since they are so knew and don’t really know anyone. My town is a major produces of palm oil, so we get people from all over, especially from Togo, coming to Otumi for work.
Tuesday was also a close call when I choked on one of the slimy cocoa beans I love to eat. My headmaster gives me a bunch from his farm whenever he goes. I got Jack on board with this popcorn thing. He’s thinking of getting a popcorn maker. That’s not a bad idea….I also talked with one of my friends, who will stay the night next Tuesday to watch and listen for the election results. The next day he’ll observe maybe one of my classes and head back. I’m running out of money, but I would like to get a bottle of champaign for the momentous occasion. Aside from that, mine and Chihiro’s lunch plans were again postponed to this coming Sunday. I need to find mangoes to chill, but they are not in season
Music to complement this entry:
Cruisin’- Holly Cole Trio
Vagalume- The Mosquitos
Waiting for the Man- Nico
Friends- Luscious Jackson
Fortress- Pinback
Tallahassee Love- T-Pain
St. Thomas- Sonny Rollins
Tubthuumping- Chumbawamba
Gnossienne No.2- Erik Satie
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor- Mozart
Hold Your Head Up High- Bloodhound Gang
Isaac- Squeak E. Clean
Falling to Pieces- Faith No More
What You Know- T.I.
Do It- Nelly Furtado
Fire- Ohio Players
Hatchet- Low
Wine to Complement this entry:
2004 Stony Hill Chardonnay
Host family brothers and sisters
My host parents at swearing in
Family photo
At home in Kukurantumi
Kwazi, my host mom, and mom's friend
My headmaster at his well
Some students of mine
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