Home For the Holidays (Part II)

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

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:

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)