And I can't see....

I apologize for not posting regularly.  Life's been busy.

From my first day in school, the rest of that first week went basically the same.  I would show up about 8:30/9:00, attempt to get the students to stay in the classroom, and occasionally succeed with about 5 kids.  I finally tried locking both doors, and that seemed to work.  Unfortunately, that meant some students were locked out as well, but I thought, if they weren't in class when it was supposed to start, they were just going to cause trouble in class for those who wanted to learn anyway.  Aankit told me that shutting the doors would help keep kids in class and, therefore, more interested in what we were teaching - there's nothing else to do in there.  Unfortunately, we don't get the keys to the lock on the main door, and they lock that lock, so we have to find a sturdy stick or something to shove through the hole and hope that none of the kids outside decide to take it out.  Not exactly foolproof.  And the other door had been forced open so many times, we actually had to nail in a new board on the top of the frame for the bolts to go into.  Once all of that was figured out, it was Friday.

Fridays, according to their schedule, consists of art all morning.  Keep in mind, their art supplies consist of a few pieces of leftover, too-small-for-teachers chalk and their desks or blackboard.  Then, after the morning break, it's outdoor physical education until lunch, which is essentially the end of their school day.  So, even though we'd figured out a way to help keep the students in class, we couldn't exactly enforce the whole 'stay in the room' thing on a day when no one stays in their room.  So, we waited until the next week to test out the final theory.

During the week, we had a visitor for a day.  I can't remember his name - Adam I think?  Anyway, he was a runner, and I thought it'd be fun to have company for a little while on my runs.  We started going into town, and I realized, again, my shoes I brought are not made for running without socks.  I started getting blisters, so we turned around about halfway and went back. It was a particularly hot and humid day, so we felt like rinsing off in the ocean.  I'd worn my glasses into the ocean before, and nothing happened.  I was just rinsing off, after all.

Unfortunately, a storm was moving in, so the ocean was particularly rough.  My feet fell out from underneath me, and I tumbled around for a moment.  During my tumble, I knocked my knee against the ocean floor, and I felt a band or something slide over my hand.  At first, I grabbed it.  Then, as I realized the danger of hitting my head, I decided to let go and put my hands out to catch myself.  I thought it was just one of my bracelets sliding off my wrist.  I caught myself, and, as I got out, I realized I didn't have my glasses on.  So, I stopped and felt around with my feet to try to find them.  No luck, of course.  I realized later that the band I thought was a bracelet was probably my glasses, since all of my bracelets were still there.  The tide was coming in, though, so I wanted to wait until it went out before thinking worst case scenario.

And, of course, I couldn't find my glasses when I went to look for them as the tide moved back out.  So, three weeks left and I couldn't see anything further than 6 inches from my face.  Well, I could see colors, vague shapes, and motion.  I just couldn't see detail or judge distance/size to any real extent.  Aankit suggested I go to an optometrist.  I decided to give it a couple days to see how I could work without them. I just didn't want to get a pair of glasses that would fall apart/break quickly unless I had to.  And the scholars and Aankit confirmed that there were no really well made frames they'd ever seen in Ghana.  So, I held off.  And it worked! Well, until I had to come back to the States, but that's another story.

Twi Lessons

This is a summary of what I learned about the Twi language while I was in Ghana and in the Twi lessons run by Emmanuel.

First off, the alphabet (letter symbols, followed by phonetic English pronunciation):
a - ah
b - boh
d - duh
e - aa (higher pitched)

∑ - ay (lower pitched)

f - fey (short/chopped)

g - gey (short/chopped)

h - heh

i - ee

k - key (short/chopped)

l - ullllll

m - mmmmmm

n - nnnnnn

o - oh

backward C (I can't figure out how to make it, I'll use ) for this symbol in here) - aw

p - pey (short/chopped)

r - rolled 'errr'

s - sey (short/chopped)

t - tey (short/chopped)

u - oo

w - wey (short/chopped)

y - yay (short/chopped)

You'll notice a lot of the letters have short, choppy sounds.  The language itself is nasally, but short.  

Digraphs:
dw - jw (like Jew, without the e sound)
hy - sh
gy - juh
hw - whew (with the first part 'wh' being a sort of whistle through your cheeks)
kw - qui (like the first sound in 'quick')
ny - yneh
tw - tchu

Greetings:

Maakye - Good morning, pronounced mah-chay
Maaha - Good afternoon, pronounced mah-ha (the ha is nasally)
Maadwo - good evening, pronounced mah-jo

These are written differently than they are spoken:
Mema wo akye --> maakye
Mema wo aha --> maaha
Mema wo adwo --> maadwo

Akwaaba - welcome, pronounced ah-qua-bah

Responses (depends on the ages of the two parties involved):

Yaa agya - response to someone older and male (yah ah-ge-ya)
Yaa ∑na - response to someone older and female (yah ay-nah)
Yaa )ba - response to someone younger than you (yah aoh-bah)
Yaa nya - response to someone roughly your age (yah yn-eh)

Farewells:

Da yia - good night/sleep well, pronounced dah yee-ah
Nante yia - journey well/safe journey, pronounced nahn-tay yee-ah

Questions:

Wo ho te s∑n? - How are you? (woh hoh teh sehn)
Wo din de s∑n? - What is your name? (woh deen deh sehn)
Worek) he? - Where are you going? (wohkaw heh)
Woaki mfie s∑n? - How old are you? (wahdee mfey sehn)

Courtesy:

Mepaakyew - please/I beg you (meh- pah-cho)
Medaase - thank you, literally, I sleep under you (meh-dah-sey)

Numbers:
baako - one
mmienu - two
mmi∑nsa - three
∑nan - four
∑num - five
ensia -six
∑nson - seven
nnw)twe - eight
∑nkron - nine
edu - ten
aduonu - twenty
aduasa - thirty
aduanan - fourty
aduenom - fifty
aduosia - sixty
adu)son - seventy
adu)w)twe - eighty
adu)kron - ninty
)ha - one hundred
ahaanu - two hundred
ahaasa - three hundred
ahaanan - four hundred

to combine:
ex, 17 is ∑dunson (∑nson is 7, edu is 10, so the e --> ∑ and it becomes ∑dunson or ten seven).

Body parts:
eti - head
ti nwi - hair
aso - ear
ani - eye
hwene - nose
anim - face
ano - mouth
afono - cheek
∑se - teeth
t∑kr∑ma - tongue
∑k)n - neck
yafunu - stomach
akyi - back
sisi - waist
nsa - hand/arm
nan - leg
nsateaa - finger
m∑wer - nail
dompe - bone
ho - body

Pronouns:
me - I
wo - you
∑no - he/she/it
y∑n - we
no - you
w))nom - they

Various Vocabulary:

din - name
te - to feel/hear/smell
y - to be good
s∑n - how
awurra - lady
da - sleep
rek) - to go
w - to be
fie - house/home
aane - yes
daabi - no
gyaade - kitchen
bra - to come
ma - to give
Onyame - God
dwene - to think
tenaase - to sit (and shut up)
gai - stop 
gye - to take/receive
dwane - to run
maado - I love you

And that's basically what I learned about the Twi language.  

It's a School Day!

Wow, time for our first day of school!  Jeff and I started in KG2, which is like their second year of Kindergarten.  They were wriggly and hyper, but they actually mostly paid attention and we were getting through the alphabet identification with sounds pretty well.  Then, the headmistress got in (she doesn't get there until about an hour to an hour and a half after school technically starts), and we had to go with Aankit to meet her and get our actual assignments.  We spent ten minutes with the headmistress telling us that we are guests and have to follow her rules and lessons.  We were told that we aren't allowed to coddle the kids or let them get away with anything.  She had us write down our names, then told us where we would be.  Kathryn and I were placed in the KG1 class where we were supposed to be teaching these kids what rhymes are and how to make them.

So, we meandered on over to the classroom, and went to the front of the room.  We were sharing the duster (chalkboard eraser) and chalk with the KG2 classroom, so we ended up just writing anything we thought we'd use on the board so we wouldn't have to erase or write anything throughout the morning.  Since these kids did not even know their letters, much less the sounds of the letters, we didn't feel like we could teach them rhymes yet.  We focused on finding letters that the kids usually got confused with (M vs. W) so we could help them learn.  We got in a little trouble for this when the headmistress came to check on us.  However, we didn't think it would be helpful to the kids to write rhymes on the board and simply have them parrot the words back at us, which is what she wanted us to do.

Unfortunately, we had another fairly major problem.  None of the kids spoke English with any sort of accuracy, and we didn't speak Twi (or Hante or Fante - Twi dialects).  Many of the kids hadn't ever seen a white person before, and those who had knew we wouldn't hit them, which is the only form of discipline they seem to be used to in school.  So, they didn't listen to us.  Instead, they fought, hit, kicked, cried, ran, touched, bit, pushed, and threw things.  Aankit was right when he said these kids act like monsters.  They're younger than most other grades, and they're just exploring their world, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier to figure out how to get and keep their attention to try to help them learn.

After an hour of trying to break up each fight (Daabi = no; gai = stop; ydiinya = listen; tenaase = sit) or holding them by the hands to keep them at least in one spot, Kathryn and I gave up.  Eventually, we just sat in the front of the room singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star..." and "Ring around the rosies" because we were supposed to be practicing rhyming.  At one point, we did get a group of about 5 kids to do Ring around the Rosies, but that ended quickly due to arguments over who would hold whose hand.  When we got back, Aankit laughed at us and said we both looked traumatized.  In a way, I guess we were.  I made up my mind to keep trying, and work on ways of at least getting some kids to learn.  I had no illusions about getting everyone in the classroom to pay attention or learn, but I wanted a few to be able to say, yes, I did get something out of this odd white girl who came in to talk funny sounds at us for a few weeks.

And, that was school.  I was extremely worn out by the end of the day. But, at least I had a new goal to work toward while I was there.

Ghanaian News

This was the first weekend we watched Ghanaian news.  Apparently, that's supposed to happen every weekend, but last weekend the power went out, so we couldn't.  It was really interesting to see how Ghanaians presented their news, as well as the international news they mentioned.  First off, all their news is in English, since it is their national language.  (Which actually makes me a bit angry - but that's another story for another time).  But, it still felt like 'normal' news, in that it was mostly sad or discouraging news.  Apparently, that's the only type of news worth reporting.

Anyway! The first thing that threw me for a little loop was how pompous the officials on the news were.  The first story we saw was about the demolition of kiosks and houses along the roadways in Accra and suburbs. (Accra is the capital of Ghana).  So, this politician dude was saying how arrogant these people who built these structures were for placing them on the side of the road.  Actually, these people are poor traders who build on the side of the road because that's where the traffic is of people who will buy their goods.  They can't afford to get a permit for selling or building, and most of them don't know that they have to because they haven't been educated, and you don't put out information in a language they understand.  Instead, you insist on using English, even though most people in Ghana I met don't have a very good grasp of English at all.  ARGH! You make me just a wee bit angry politician dude.

Then, there was a story about schools being damaged and flooded from the recent storms/rain.  The interesting thing was that it was only the poorly built schools that were damaged, and only certain areas.  These areas were....GIRL'S DORMITORIES!  Of course it's the girls' school that's build improperly.  The girls were staying in the cafeterias or dining halls because they didn't have any place else big enough.  So, they'd have to clean up all their stuff every morning before breakfast and put it into a storage area so all the other kids could eat.  This made me mad because all of the schools with problems were all girls schools. None of the co-ed or all boys schools had these difficulties, even the ones in the same exact cities or towns as the damaged ones!

In Accra, there's a psychiatric hospital.  That's right, 'A' hospital.  There are over a hundred patients, but only 17 beds.  All the patients just cram into this small space, and the hospital 'takes care of them.'  When we talked about it afterward, none of the Ghanaian scholars seemed to have a problem with the situation.  The overcrowding was causing health problems and some stealing, but they didn't care.  For them, mental illness isn't something that you treat, not really. Instead, it's caused by doing drugs or being cursed.  Neither of which brings forth sympathy from the kids.  I stopped before I got too mad, but I really don't understand how they can think that people with mental illness aren't worth helping.  I almost felt like telling them about me, but then I decided that would be a supremely bad idea.  They didn't have to know.  (I did tell the program coordinators, for anyone who was worried about that).

So, that was Ghanaian news.  It made me mad, but also gave me a different way of looking at the things I saw happening around me every day.  So, I guess it was worth it.

Running Through Town

So, this weekend, I decided to run through town to Agona (about an hour's run away), instead of up and down the beach (which is really only about a mile to a mile and a half - 10 minutes at a REALLY slow pace).  One, let's remember shoes people.  The roads in Ghana are too tough even for my feet, and I run on the pavement, gravel, woodchips, etc. in the US all the time.  So, I had to remember to wear my shoes.  I am glad I remembered more than flip-flops, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to try.  Anyway, I went, and it was a good run.  I kept getting sidetracked by the people at the side of the road. They'd stop me and ask where I was going and why I was running.  It's not that common for people in Ghana to run just to run, apparently.  They've got too much other stuff to take care of, like figuring out what to eat and how to get it.  If they're running, they're going somewhere quickly for a purpose.

So, I gave up about halfway to town, since I hadn't been able to just run at a steady pace like I could on the beach.  It's rude to ignore someone, so I didn't feel like I could just yell back "Hello," and leave. I didn't want to give the impression I didn't care about getting to know them or their culture. But I just wanted to run. I walked back, since then I could carry on proper conversations and not get frustrated with getting stopped in the middle of running.  On the way back, I met James, a taxi driver, and James's father.  James asked me to marry him, and wanted to go on a date.  I said no, and then said I had to get going.  Marriage proposals are actually very common in Ghana, especially toward foreign women.  James's father and I had an interesting conversation.

We started off with the basics, what's your name, where are you from, etc.  When I said I was from the US, we started talking about Obama.  Apparently, he's a huge fan of what Obama is doing with the US.  He wants Obama to go another term so he can "finish what he's started".  There didn't seem to be any concrete thing Obama has done that this guy could point to which made him like Obama, but apparently it's very important that he be able to finish.  The gentleman even went so far as to say that, because of Obama, America should get rid of the two-term limit on the presidency.  I don't care how wonderful a person or their politics are, we should not get rid of the two-term limit.  I didn't say that. In fact, I didn't say much of anything. I really just asked questions.  Also, apparently everyone in America is rich.  I tried telling him about places like inner city Detroit, or New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  He was like, yeah, but that's still better than Ghana.  Perhaps that's true, I just don't think anyone should be ranking places to live since every place is bad and good in different ways. In Ghana, you don't have to worry about getting shot, and most people are happy even though they're poor.  Part of it is that they don't have any role models of richness.  Maybe that's horrible, I just think that the bad of Ghana doesn't necessarily make it worse than the bad of the US.  Anyway, it was an entertaining conversation.

I told Aankit when I got back about this conversation.  His response, don't talk to any Ghanaian over the age of 12. They're all crazy or just nice because they want something.  Except Yahya.  Apparently, Yahya is the only Ghanaian who is nice just to be nice.  And the house scholars.  At least, to the volunteers they are. ;)  While I admit the conversation confused me and made me a bit uneasy, it was good and interesting to hear a Ghanaian interpretation of the US political system.

News Stories on Vacation

So, Thursday, I got up and took a nice little walk down the beach.  When I got back, the after school room was filled with kids, and they weren't in school uniform.  Now, this is the middle of the week, and about 10:00, so all these kids should have been in school.  I asked Aankit what was going on, and, apparently, tomorrow is a vacation day, so today is vacation, too.  When I asked why, Aankit replied, "Welcome to Ghana."  So, nothing to do but learn.  :)  I worked with three kids on addition, since they didn't seem to be focusing on reading at that point.  We had three chalkboards, and the kids were content to solve the problems I wrote down on them. One kid was struggling with basic 1+1=?, while the other two were doing fairly well with three digit addition. I started, toward the end, to give the two with a better handle on it problems like: 2+?=4. Everyone headed out before lunch, which made me feel a little empty, since I didn't have after school to look forward to then. :(


But, over the next two days (Thursday and Friday), News Hour gave me some interesting stories to think about and discuss.  And I tried sugar cane for the first time. Delicious and not too sweet, but good.  You just sort of gnaw on it to suck the juice out.  The first story that really caught my attention was about voluntourism.  Voluntourism is a made up word to describe volunteering for a short time abroad.  Basically, that's what TOB volunteers do.  The story seemed to be leaning toward the side of this being a bad thing because it gives the impression that foreigners are needed for real success in developing countries, and that it may be perpetuating the poverty in these countries because the companies in charge of the volunteers need to make money to stay in business.  It also can be confusing for the people at the places with the volunteers because there's that constant influx and leaving of the people they may get attached to.  Or, they may learn not to get attached to anyone because they all leave.  I think it's important to keep this aspect in mind, but I'm not yet sure I agree it's a totally bad thing like the story made it out to be.  


Then, later Friday night, there was a story about a few border villages in Peru, I believe, where the inhabitants took the law/justice into their own hands because they didn't trust the government not to be corrupt.  When we discussed this story with everyone, most of the volunteers thought this was inappropriate because the law and justice system is there for a reason, and the people have to respect that. Plus, the newscasters mentioned that the people didn't really have any sort of trial, and there wasn't always proof of wrongdoing.  Most of the Ghanaians, on the other hand, thought this was perfectly justifiable.  In a real way, that's actually how life in Ghana functions.  Everyone keeps everyone else in check.  If someone sees you stealing something, they'll call you out in it in front of the whole village.  They felt, if the system that is in place is failing regularly, then the people who live together have an obligation to keep everyone else honest.  I thought the discussion was one of the best ones we've had as a big group about the news.  

I was going to add the stories from the rest of the weekend, but I feel like that will take too long, so I'll do that in my next post.  Thanks for sticking with me, those who are reading these!

Forgetfulness and Twi Lessons

Every day, I see something else I want to have a picture or video of to show people back home, and I keep forgetting my camera.  I've thought about always carrying it with me, but then I know I'd lose it, since that's what I do.  I'm not used to carrying anything around with me really, so I tend to set things down and not remember to pick them up.  Didn't really want to do that with a camera.  I've been asking people leaving if they'd please remember to email me their pictures, just in case I really don't remember any.

Aankit and I went into Agona again, yes.  The district office person still isn't there, even though we were told they would be.  Apparently, this is common in Ghana.  It was frustrating, but only slightly, since I was still learning and having fun, and able to help the kids in the after school program, so it's not like I was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs.  Aankit needed to print something, so we went to the internet cafe (apparently, that's the only real feasible way of printing anything).  Unfortunately, there were storms last night, so the power was still out, even though it was bright and sunny weather today.  Actually, according to Aankit, the power doesn't generally go out because of the storms knocking down power lines or anything, but because, when it storms, someone at the power plant throws a switch to turn off power in case a power line gets knocked down.  So, when it's still off, that means someone didn't show up for work, or forgot to flip the switch.

The feeling I got with Henry still bothered me, so I asked Aankit about flirting in Ghana, and whether he thought I should worry.  He said basically everyone in Ghana flirts with everyone else, by our standards.  It's just a way of being with each other for Ghanaians.  So, don't worry, was what he basically said.  That made me feel a lot better, since I don't know how to deal with that too well.

On our way back, I noticed myself thinking how odd it was that people were walking on the sides of the streets (instead of the middle).  That surprised me since, in the US, people are supposed to walk on the side of the street.  But, in Ghana, no one walks on the side of the street, unless it's a very main road. Like, only on the highway does that happen.  I thought it was cool I sort of started thinking within the norms of Ghana, and it was my first time noticing it!

We got back to the house mid-morning, and everyone was still at home.  This is weird for a weekday, since the scholars are usually in school, and the volunteers are usually out and about eating, drinking, smoking, talking, or just enjoying the ocean.  I was a little unnerved by the change of pace. So many people in the house makes it terribly claustrophobic.  And you know me, I'm good with that, right? (I'll give you a hint - that's a no).  Well, the reason all the scholars were there was because Aankit forgot to tell his bank that he was coming to Ghana, so they took his card when he tried to extract money from the ATM in Takoradi, I believe.  So, he couldn't pay the school fees, which were due today, Wednesday.  If the students show up and don't pay the fees, they get caned and sent home.  So, none of the kids went because they didn't want to get hit.  Makes sense to me.

After school, I worked with the Red group, which is the group of students who don't yet know their letters.  That is, they can't accurately and consistently identify written letters in uppercase, lowercase, or both.  I had only five kids there today, which is not that many.  I'm not sure why, since it's a nice day out.  Anyway, with these kids, we went around in a circle and practiced with flash cards and then, when I realized I didn't have a complete set of flash cards, with the kids themselves writing a letter down and asking the person next to them what it was.  We moved eventually to me whispering a letter to them, the student having to write it down correctly in both upper and lower case, and the next having to tell us what the letter was.  It was fun, and had enough personal involvement that I could see where each was struggling.  Three kids had the letters down well, and probably should have been in the Orange group, where they start with sounds. Two of the students were having a lot of difficulty, mostly with the group of letters that sound alike.  They'd think 'Z' was 'P' or vice versa.  It didn't seem to be necessarily based on shape, just sound.

The two who needed the most practice with letters left first.  They usually leave early, probably due to chores or something, but it was disappointing to see them leave when I had just caught on to how they seemed to be doing and why.  (One child refused to actually look at the letter before guessing).  For the three who appeared ready to work on sounds, I would ask, "What letter?" and then, "What sound?"  Two of them were having a lot of problems with that.  They'd say a word that started with the letter, instead of the sound of the letter. This was a common problem I'd noticed when giving the original letter recognition tests, and I wasn't sure how to approach it.  The Twi alphabet is phonetic, so the letters are just sound-names, but there aren't two things to remember with each symbol, so it's hard to explain that, in English, each letter has a name, and a sound.

The third student stayed after the other two left, and I found him looking at an approximately third grade version of Peter Pan.  I figured this would be a good time to have him start putting sounds together, since he'd seem to have gotten it before with the other two working on it.  I pointed to the word, "Peter," specifically the 'P', and asked him what...and he interrupted, saying, "Peter".  So, I kept going down the page.  He could read!  Why was he put into the Red group?  I saved that question for later, but, in the next half hour, we got through almost a full chapter of the book!  And he'd had only a few mistakes I'd needed to help correct, mostly with the non-phonetic words like 'enough'.  I was excited, and I asked Aankit afterward if I could look at the student's profile so I could make a note that he'd been placed in the wrong group.  Actually, he'd just had the same name as someone who wasn't there that day, but was supposed to be in the Red group.  So, we just needed to be careful of names.  I am just glad the day wasn't a complete bore/waste for the student.

Wednesday evening, we had our first Twi lesson.  Emmanuel, one of the scholars, thought it would be cool if the volunteers could learn a little Twi while they were here, even though we're supposed to be immersing the students in English to help them learn it.  I thought it was a cool idea, and I sat down with excitement.  We started off with the alphabet.  I'm going to make the whole of what I learned of the language another post, so you can skip the technicalities if you would like.  Anyway, we went over the alphabet and some digraphs (two letter combinations that don't necessarily sound like how they should if you just put the two sounds together - like the English 'th').  We were so excited about our lesson, we missed most of News Hour!  We decided from then on to have the lessons upstairs so we would be able to keep track of when News started.

Other than that, my mosquito bites are finally starting to get itchy. Not fun. But, they weren't for the whole almost four days after I first got them. That's different than the Midwest mosquitoes.  The bites themselves even look different.  They're not as softly rounded and pink. Instead, they're more pointed, like cones, and much more red than pink.

Stalling, Reading, Running....and Flirting?

Aankit went into Agona again to see if our letters for going into the Busua schools had been finished.  They hadn't.  In fact, the director of the school district, who is the one who has to write the letters, was gone today, so they couldn't even get them written while Aankit ran other errands with William.  They needed to get school supplies and books for the kids for the coming year (apparently that starts in the summer sometime?). They did that, then came home.  While they were gone, the people in the house were supposed to be getting ready for after school and helping around the house.  I did my laundry, since it needed to be done.  I'd only really brought enough clothes for a week, so I had to do laundry every week.  I figured that would help the girls' room look better, at least.  I enjoy doing laundry by hand.

Then, I wrote up some ideas I had for mathematics assessments for the kids in the after school program.  We's been focusing solely on literacy, which they definitely needed help with, but they also needed help with math. Being a math person, I'm a little biased, and thought we should start doing some math-related activities sooner as opposed to later. It actually felt productive to get those all down on paper.  I showed them to Aankit when he got back, and he liked the idea.  Now, we just have to wait for the opportunity to get materials to make the assessment and projects. There's no shortage of time to wait in Ghana.  It seems to be everyone's favorite pastime. :P  So, before after school started, I tried to come up with a list of materials we definitely needed, would use, and could replace with something easier to find.  That helped the list of 'to do' seem much more manageable.

The power had been out all day, and, come after school, it was still storming a bit.  That meant we only had a few kids come, since everything in Ghana stops when heavy rain comes.  But, we had a few loyal kids and I sat and read with one of them, Frank.  We were reading the Frog and Toad books, and he was doing really well.  There were only a few words he couldn't figure out how to sound out by himself, and some pronunciation difficulties.  I tried to focus on the 'th' sound at the beginning of words, since he was pronouncing it in a way I've never heard before, and I feel like it would be difficult for a native English speaker to understand in speech.  By the end of the day, he still wasn't doing it right, but he was focusing really hard each time that sound came up.  He would stop, think, put his tongue between his teeth, and try to push the air out between them.  It sounded a lot better than before, even though it looked more awkward as well.  I was proud of him for trying so hard and wanting to learn.  I'm hoping I can work with him again to keep seeing progress.

At News Hour, we still didn't have power, even though it had stopped raining.  So, instead of watching the News, we went around and got to know each other a little bit more. We said: our name, where we're from (country, state, and city), who's in our family, what life was like growing up, how we came to be at TOB, and what we wanted to be when we grew up.  I liked learning more about the scholars in the house, and understanding where they come from.  It made it even easier to try to talk to them and make friends.

Henry and I had dinner outside, since it was gorgeous after the rain, and the mosquitoes weren't too bad yet.  I even convinced him to go for a short run with me down the beach.  We chatted a lot about what kinds of people there are in the world, and what our place in it is.  Henry's extremely religious, so his position tended to be that he wanted to help people by helping them realize/find God.  I just kept my mouth shut on that point.  I like that he wants to help people, and doesn't like seeing people sad/mad, so he tries to cheer them up.  I just don't agree that happiness has to come through a God.  Anyway, I was a little flustered toward the end of the evening because it had felt most of the evening like he was flirting with me, but I couldn't tell for sure.  One, I had no idea what friend relationships were actually like in Ghana, so for all I knew, the way Henry was acting was perfectly normal.  Two, I'm really not good at picking up those signals in the US when I do know the culture.  So, I didn't say anything, and I waited.  I've been away from the US for a week now, and I'm not feeling any of the homesickness or peoplesickness I was expecting.  I suppose that's a good thing.

Yam Chips and Dancing

Sunday, I played basketball again.  The hoop they've built here takes a lot of getting used to.  The hoop isn't set off from the backboard at all, so the bounce you get has to be even more accurate, and the wooden board makes the ball actually bounce more than the courts I'm used to.  Plus, we're using a volleyball since we don't have a basketball.  That makes it even harder to adjust to.  Needless to say, I'm not terribly good.  Not that I'd be great on an American court though - it's been what, four years since I've legitimately picked up a game of basketball.  Yeah, but it was fun, and the boys have been working with me on my dunking.  They actually think I can jump to the rim eventually.  I'll keep trying, but I do not think that's going to happen.  I got no hops kid. :P

I somehow got roped into drawing flashcards for the after school program, since we didn't have a full set of culturally relevant flashcards for the alphabet.  (Really, I for Igloo?  They don't have/have never seen an igloo).  People who know me know I don't tend to draw very well or with a lot of enthusiasm.  But, we got through most of them.  There were a couple we didn't do very well, so we erased them and asked Henry to draw them.  Henry is taking graphic design classes, and draws fairly well, so we thought it would be a good idea to ask him when he got back from wherever he was, probably church, since it's Sunday.

Anthony was playing music all day, trying to perfect a song on the guitar.  He's pretty good, actually.  Anyway, that meant I was swimming by myself, since he didn't want to go for our swimming lesson today. The waves were a lot calmer than yesterday, which made it less fun/exciting, but probably more beneficial to actually trying to swim.  It was fun, and I've not gone out terribly far, since I want to be sure I've gotten the hang of how the ocean works first.

For lunch, we had these long, fried strips of something that looked and tasted like potato, so I thought they were fries.  I hadn't actually seen a potato in Ghana, so I didn't think it was that.  I've never tasted yam before, so, until Louis told me they were yam chips, I was just assuming that there were potatoes, and I just hadn't seen/recognized them yet.  Yam tastes/feels like potato, in case you were wondering.  We had them with this thick tomato paste sauce, so it felt like I'd just had fries for lunch.  They were good, but rice is a lot more filling.

There was a new volunteer who came today also, Sierra.  She's from Washington D.C., and has, like every other volunteer here, been to Africa before, just not Ghana.  I am starting to feel a bit out of place and like a little kid who doesn't quite know what to do.  They have all been through the travel bit before, so I feel like they're more comfortable than I am.  But, Sierra seems cool, and it feels like she's here for the right reasons - to try to learn and help the kids.  Unlike some of the volunteers who seem like they just want a vacation and don't care about helping in the after school or making sure they show up to News Hour.  That annoys me.  So does the fact that people leave lights and fans on and things plugged in when they're not there.  They also are leaving the doors to the bedrooms open, which lets in mosquitoes.  It's like they don't care that all this wastes electricity and makes it uncomfortable for everyone else in the room.  I don't know why, but today was the first day I started to get very irked by this.

Henry, Torsten, and I went for a walk that evening after dinner.  We just went along the beach, chatting about our respective countries. (Torsten is from Sweden, here killing time after his internship in Kumasi, a Ghanaian city).  Then, we had a singing 'contest'.  We each sang our respective national anthems, and a song of our choice before we got bored.  We agreed none of us won, since we were all equally not good.  One of our conversations dealt with social theory, and how a society can breed a specific way of thought based on how it's organized and what those in power can/want to advance.  I'm not sure Henry fully grasped what the implications of these ideas are, but Torsten and I had a wonderful time trying to explain what little we know about it.

When we got back, it was dance party time.  Anthony had his speakers going from the iPod, and all the kids were dancing, and trying to teach us volunteers how to dance.  I think I've got pretty good rhythm, and a good feel for what fits the music, but they insisted I had to do their dance to their songs. That makes sense, I guess, but it frustrated me when they seemed to get mad when I tried to just dance what I felt with the song.  About half of them were in an Akan (Twi/Fante) language, so I didn't know what they were saying, but I still got the groove of the music, which, to me, is whole point of dancing.  Anyway, I did have fun, and  I did enjoy learning the dances the kids showed me.  So, I guess it was a productive evening. :)

Rain and No Electricity - What Could Be Better?

My first Saturday, Anthony took me swimming.  Of course, I'd already been in the water, but I was hot and sweaty from playing basketball with Ben and Emmanuel, so I didn't mind.  Anthony can swim, but he's not very confident in himself, so we're going to work on that.  My goal is to get him to come out to the island with me eventually. He doesn't know this yet.  ;)

When we got back, I rinsed off with a bucket of water, then set down to read a bit more.  I'd gotten hooked on the Millennium series, which starts with the book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I've not read many fiction books in a while, so it was kind of nice to start again.  Aankit had mentioned that I'd been seeming a bit antisocial (even though he didn't come right out and say it), so I decided to read out in the main room area.  It's a lot harder to concentrate there, but no one was asking me to get involved, so I was happy trying to finish my book.  Gladdis, our house cook's younger daughter, came up behind me and started playing with my ponytail.  She was being gentle, and it seemed like she wanted to play with all of my hair, so I took out my ponytail and let her play with my hair down.  She asked me for a brush, so I got mine out and I read while she put almost my entire head into those little bitty braids about a centimeter thick.  When she was done, which happened to be about the same time I was done with my book, she told me to look in the mirror and see if I liked it.  I don't think I look good in braids at all, but I could tell she'd put a lot of effort into them, and they were very pretty, organized braids, so I said I liked it very much.  Then, she brushed them out and put my hair back up in a ponytail.

Apparently, Gladdis got bored after that, and she left.  Since I was done with the book, and didn't feel like starting the next one, I got out my bracelet making thread and found a scissors.  Those who know me know that making bracelets is calming for me, and helps me relax and focus.  It's a repetitive action that requires some concentration to keep the thread going straight instead of curling in on itself.  My goal was to make a bracelet the colors of Ghana: red, yellow, green, and black.  I started making it, and Tina comes to sit by me to help.  We're alternating rows (she does one, then holds it for me to do one) when it starts to storm quite loudly and violently.  The rain is coming through the gaps in the window panes where the glass folds over on itself, and we had to move the sewing table into a protected corner.  Of course, the power also went out, like it usually does when it rains or gets cloudy.  Since it was starting to get late, it was darker.  Tina and I kept going on the bracelet, and there were two rows she flipped the string, making the wrong color show up.  At first, this irked me a lot.  I didn't say anything, but I'd figured on taking the rows out in the morning when I could see so I could fix them.  But, come morning, I saw the rows, and thought immediately of how much Tina had smiled when we were working together and how, at first, she didn't understand that I wind one string all the way across a row before doing the next one.  And how she looked so intent when she was winding the knot on a string, looking up at me to make sure she was doing it right.  It was not only a bracelet to remind me of Ghana, but one to remind me of Tina as well.

We did stop when it got too dark to see, though.  It was still bright enough outside to see what was going on next door, so, when I went out to the balcony to watch the storm, I saw a bunch of the locals outside as well.  The odd thing for me was to see them in the ocean.  They weren't far into it, but those waves were strong, as I had felt earlier that day swimming with Anthony.  I looked closer and realized they were laughing, singing, and dancing.  Some appeared to be praying/thanking some higher power (most Ghanaians are Christian, to a certain extent).  This was the first real rain of the rainy season, which starts mid-May and usually goes until the end of June/beginning of July.  And rain is certainly something to celebrate.  How else does everything stay green and yummy?  After seeing this, I just wanted to sort of bask in the simple joy that I felt watching the celebration of our neighbors.  Luckily, since the electricity was off (light off), we didn't have News Hour, so I was able to. (Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy News Hour, I just wanted to be able to let the happiness around me seep in).  It was a very happy night for me.

Reflections

People are different. People are the same.  Groups of people are the same way - different from and the same  as other groups of people.  This was what was running through my head as I sat in the bedroom and thought about what I had seen, heard, talked about, and felt since being here in Ghana.

Like, when my kids I was evaluating for their knowledge of the English alphabet not saying all the letters 'correctly'.  They'd say "Gee" (like the first part of geek) for our letter "E", "jayn" for "G", and "vayn" for "V", as well as "zed" for "Z".  These don't sound like English letters, but neither does "elemenope" for "L, M, N, O, P" when average American kids sing the alphabet without an adult directing them, or when a child with a speech impediment tries to say a word that uses sounds they have difficulty with.  Yet, they know when they're right.  And they don't like it when you think they're wrong.  The kids I marked wrong on letters they weren't sure on, didn't question it.  They tried again, but didn't try to convince me they were right.  The kids who had just pronounced the letters differently than I was expecting were very adamant that they were right. They would draw the letter in the air and try to tell me again and again, very clearly, what letter they meant.  They thought I was just hearing them wrong, not that they were wrong.  And, when I've worked with kids in the US, they're very vocal about being right, especially when they know they're right.  They'll stomp around and try to write it, say it, draw it, and bring a friend over to tell you they're right.  Even though the language is different, and the modes available to express their frustration are different, the idea behind their expressions is similar.

Kids explore things with their hands, mouths, and any other part of their body that they can, usually.  My kids in the US stick marbles, food, even dog poop if I'm not watching in their mouths and nose, sometimes ears.  My Ghanaian kids do the same thing.  One of the major differences I saw was that, in Ghana, the kids aren't generally reminded not to stick things in their mouths like kids in the US are.  They might take my hand and, wanting to meet me and understand what they're holding, they'll put my hand in their mouth or lick me.  In the US, most people would scold the child, saying something like, "You're not supposed to lick/bite other people. That's rude."

The other way I found the explorations different was in the force of their physical movements.  Kids in the US will touch everything, maybe push on it, kick it, drop it, or slap it.  But, generally, they don't do any of this in the repetitive, forceful way I saw kids in Ghana doing it.  For example, when I've taken care of a group of American kids who don't necessarily know each other all the way, they'll reach out and maybe touch each other's faces or hang onto their hands.  Ghanaian kids will reach out and punch someone.  They're still learning about their environment and others by touch - it's just a different kind of touch.  It surprised me at first, how violent these kids seem.  They actually do hurt each other quite often.  They also learn to deal with it though.  When they get hurt because of someone else hitting them, they cry, sit down, look around, notice that no one is going to help them, and stop.  Soon, they're right back into the game or fight.

As time goes on, I'll notice a lot more of the differences and similarities in a way I can write down so they make sense. I'll wait until the time in my trip when I noticed them so you can follow my experience as much as possible.  Keep in mind, please, people are more the same than they are different.

The Weekends...Friday, Saturday, Sunday

That music I thought was just a party going on next door actually goes on every night.  At least it's fairly good music.  Not my choice for bedtime music, but not bad.  Stuff like the Beetles or Kelly Clarkson usually.  Not much heavier than that.  I'm used to listening to music as I try to fall asleep, so that's actually helpful since it's not bad music.  (My definition of bad music is music in which the lyrics consist of mostly swear words or derogatory terms/ideas).  Unfortunately, the volunteers usually stay out later, so I hear them come in at all hours, meaning I don't get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.  Then, I'm up at 05:30-06:00 because the sun wakes up then, and I wake up with the sun. I'm a little tired of being tired.

At least I was productive, though.  Since we're still waiting on the letters for us to go into Busua schools and teach, I read a book or two, and started on that series, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.  I've never read it before, but someone had donated all three of them to TOB, so I started reading them.  I found them when I decided to organize the bookshelf upstairs. (There's a bookshelf upstairs for the people in the house and one downstairs for the after school program).  The one upstairs was in disarray - books laying sideways, no real order to the piles, different sizes all mixed up together, and it was nearly impossible to tell what books they had or didn't have.  It bothered me, so I fixed it.

Apparently, organizing the shelf was Anthony's job. All the kids in the house have their own project to work on, and Anthony's was the bookshelves upstairs and downstairs.  Anyway, I had the books organized by genre, then alphabetical by two different sizes, due to the shelves being only tall enough on one shelf for the smaller books.  It looked pretty by the time I was done, I thought.  That was how I found the trilogy to read, since I hadn't noticed it before.  Anthony didn't mind I organized the shelf, but Aankit told me to make sure if I did anything else around the house to be sure to do it with one of the sponsored kids.  Volunteers are there for the kids, so we should try to include them in as much as possible.  Makes sense, and I tried to do that the rest of the time I was there.

Getting ready for after school, I started to get scared about teaching Monday.  I didn't really have much experience teaching young kids, and I'd figured out by now that English was not a strong language for most of the people in the town.  I didn't know how I was supposed to approach the class, what I was supposed to say, or anything about what to do. Kathryn and I started chatting, and she's scared too.  We sort of decided we'd try to write songs on the board and teach the kids them, starting with the alphabet, since Aankit told us to focus on letters and their sounds for the KG classrooms.  I think we both felt better knowing that not even Aankit knew exactly what to do.

After school on Fridays is a big game for everyone.  The Busua schools don't do much on Fridays.  It's generally physical education, music, and games all day, so the kids are used to Fridays not being academic.  Apparently, TOB hasn't challenged that in the after school program, so we had out coloring books, board games, building blocks, and puzzles for the kids to play with in the afternoon.  I tried to make the group I was playing with play something that would be educational, and I succeeded for about 10 minutes, but then they went off.  At first, they had this bag of 18 dice, 9 colors, 2 of each color.  There were 6 of them at my table, so I had them all count the dice, and the people, then split up the dice so each had the same number of dice.  (Division, sort of).  After that, I asked them to add the numbers on the faces that showed when they rolled them.  Some of the kids seemed to like this game, but most of them walked away as soon as I asked them to do math.  It was disappointing, but I recognized that they're not used to Friday being a learning day. Eventually, I lost all my kids to football games or drawing. So, I started building with Legos with a couple of boys who came over with a bag of them. It was fun, and I think they're learning balance/center of gravity for building a tall tower, so I felt it was successful.  It's draining though.  I felt like I could sleep forever when we were done.

I went for a legitimate swim afterward, and that was my first time swimming in the ocean that I remember.  I'd gone in it yesterday, but didn't swim.  The water is nice, not too cold, but definitely refreshing.  It's strong though.  Like really strong.  The waves are, on average, about 6 feet tall, and the undertow is almost as strong as the waves themselves are.  You don't realize how big the waves are really until you actually get into the water and try to stand in them as they're coming at you.  There's a little rocky island about a mile away from the beach, and I want to swim to it.  After the waves, about an eighth of the way to the island, the water looks calm and manageable.  I'm not guessing there are sharks or completely dangerous animals, since people kayak out to the island quite a bit, apparently.  After I got back, I asked Aankit if he knew whether it was safe to swim out to the island or not.  He told me I should take someone with me, just in case, but it should be safe.

I showered, which is a light trickle of water coming down from the pipe sticking out of the wall, and got cleaned up.  Kathryn and Emmanuel were heading out into Busua for something, so I went with them.  I saw this cool little kiosk that was selling bags and hand purses.  I hadn't brought a purse, and I was figuring out that if I wanted to carry anything, I would need a small bag.  So, I found a purse and got it.  My first experience haggling by myself in Ghana. It was actually kind of fun.  :)  Then, it was time to head back for News Hour.   On the way back, Kathryn saw a kid catch a chicken for dinner and walk back toward his house with it.  She started whining and making little squealing noises and feeling sorry for the chicken.  I told her if she had a problem with it, she should just not eat the meat.  She can see all the animals before they die around in the streets.  She said no, she just didn't want to see it get killed.

I still can't understand much during News Hour because of the British accent, but the discussion centered around various economies around the world, so I'm guessing that was a focus of the news tonight.  Then, Anthony and I worked on catologuing the bookshelf I'd organized.  We needed to write down all the titles and authors for the house records.  We got through the non-fiction, short stories, and poetry books, which consists of the first shelf.  Then, we were both tired.  I went in to the bedroom to relax and chill before bed.  I ended up thinking about how the children here are different from the kids back in the US.  Like in what ways they're different.  And, noticing that they're more similar than different. Cool how that works, isn't it?

First Full Day...Part 2

After school is the main reason for TOB's existence. It's how the whole thing started.  The sponsored kids in the house are there because the coordinators originally saw they could and wanted to do well in school.  They took it upon themselves to make sure they could continue their education.  Now these young adults help with the after school program for kids like they once were.  Mainly, after school focuses on remedial reading and math skills many of these kids in primary school are lacking.

My first day of after school, we were trying to get the kids organized into groups so we could teach to their level and not either bore them or challenge them to the point they get too frustrated to learn anything.  We had them watch Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob, I believe, while we took the kids one at a time to test their knowledge of letter names and sounds. We just had a sheet of capital (big) letters out of order, and a sheet of lowercase (small) letters out of order they were supposed to identify.  Then, we were supposed to have them tell us the sounds of the letters.  During all of this we're supposed to note the mistakes they made and what they were.  (i.e. if the letter is "h" and they say "k", we write "k" in the box marked "mistakes/substitutions").  I say supposed to because it didn't always work out the way we thought it should.

First off, all the kids are used to doing everything in groups, or at least partners.  If one person knows the answer, they just tell everyone else what it is.  So, whenever I asked one kid to come over, a few more would follow along.  Then, if the child I was testing didn't know the answer, others around the table would answer for them, they'd repeat the letter, and I'd have to mark down what they said.  Asking the tag-a-longs to go back didn't work, since other kids just came over.  So, I started telling them they could stay, if they could be quiet. That worked for the most part, and I was able to get a fairly accurate reading of whether the child I was testing knew their letters or not.

Secondly, the children would watch me mark down on my paper whether they were right or not.  Most of them couldn't read the column labels, but they knew when I switched columns, and would stop and start explaining to me that they didn't really mean what they said.  They'd stumble over letters until they hit the right one (the other kids would nod when they got there).  Then, they'd sit and refuse to go on until I marked the other column.  So, I started just writing the letter they said, whether right or wrong, in the mistakes column, then going back over it at the end and making a check next to the letters that were correct.  That didn't attract as much attention, and it seemed to help with not giving indicators of right/wrong answers, since we're not supposed to do that when we first test them.

Then, when we went to sounds for the kids, I'd try asking, "What sound?" and point to my mouth/throat area.  Usually, I got a response of a word that starts with the letter, or just the letter itself again.  I tried having one of the kids who understood English translate, but that didn't seem to help.  So, I gave an example.  The first letter was "H", so I'd say, "What sound? B sounds 'buh'. What 'H' sound?"  That actually seemed to work for some kids, so I kept at it.  If the child didn't know most of their letters, I didn't ask them about sounds, since we figured they have to know what the letters are before they can learn what sounds they make properly.

The part that makes it quite difficult for these kids is that their alphabet is phonetic.  So, there aren't names and sounds, there are just sounds.  That makes it hard to explain that the English alphabet they need to learn what they think of as two different names for the same symbol.  Anyway, that testing took the entire hour and a half of after school, and then we had to split them up into groups based on the results.  We created four groups, which would later become five.  Red, Orange, Yellow, and Green.  We thought we could just add colors of the rainbow as the students became more advanced, and that way, we could remember which group was the lowest in terms of reading skill without making the kids feel bad about being in the "slow" group.

Red group kids didn't know their letters.  That was the majority of kids, age ranging from 6-13.  Orange group kids know their letters, but don't know the sounds they make.  This was the next largest group, same sort of range.  Then, Yellow group knew letters and sounds, so they started working on combinations of sounds and how that looks in letter form.  Once the children started in Yellow group, we thought we'd take the kids who appeared to have at least an intermediate grasp of sound combinations and move them to Green group.  These kids, generally, could read on what we'd consider in the US a Kindergarten-2nd grade level.

After the after school program, there was really just enough time to relax and feel calmed down enough before News Hours started.  (about 2 hours between the two).  I just walked on the beach for a bit and wrote my impressions of the after school program.  Then, I tried to understand the news as we watched it.  I was still having difficulty with the British accent of the newscasters, and the fact that I'm not terribly globally aware in the first place.  But I tried, and I understood some parts.  Again, the discussion afterward was mostly the Ghanaian students talking about the news stories, with a few of the volunteers throwing their opinion in.  There weren't any comments that struck me as much as last night, but the overall conversation definitely feels different than if we were to have a discussion about the same news in the US.  I can't pinpoint exactly how it feels different yet, but it does.

First Full Day...part 1

My first full day in the TOB house was a Thursday.  I didn't sleep very well, but, for those who know me, that's not much new.  The ocean was quite loud, and the music next door didn't turn off until about 03:00.  I could hear the house kids getting up and ready for school about 05:30, and decided I should get ready for the day as well, even though I wasn't sure what the day had in store.  I decided to skip the shower since I no longer felt sandy and I hadn't been sweating that much.  Brushed my teeth using the rest of the water left in my sachet of pure water, and put my hair up in the ponytail I can finally say holds most of my hair.  :)  After putting on my skirt and t-shirt, I was ready to go.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite sure what I should be doing at 06:30.  So, I went to the bookshelf in the main room of the house and picked a book to read. Yes, I'm a dork like that. Once Aankit got up, he asked me to wake up the other girls.  Kathryn was still asleep, but the professors were up and getting ready already. I'm glad for that, since I really hate waking people up and they were willing to wake Kathryn up.  We all trooped out and Aankit said we were going to the school to meet the headmistress, Madame Nelson, and see how we could be of help.

The school is about a two minute walk down the road. Yes, there's really only one road.  We went into the headmistress's office and she talked about what the school needed, as well as how things run there.  She emphasized the lack of proper resources, and that things are done a certain way so we need to respect that. I volunteered to teach, since they hadn't had a teacher all year for KG1 or KG2 (Kindergarten 1 and 2).  Kathryn also volunteered, but the professors were leaving in a couple days, so they couldn't really.  Jeff was with us and wanted to know if he could observe and do some research for his project.  They apparently don't like that, so he said he'd teach, thinking that he could at least get data from one class then.  Aankit told us afterward to be careful with the headmistress, since Ghana is very bureaucratic and chains of power are important.  That's why we had to go to district office in Agona - because we needed their approval to teach in Busua.

So, after meeting Madame Nelson, we took the share taxi to Agona.  (Share taxis are normal taxis that just go back and forth between places for a set price, once they're full).  Agona is where district office is, as well as social welfare.  Aankit, Yahya, Jeff, the professors, Kathryn, and I all went to the district office and waited to see the president or manager or whatever he's called.  Waiting happens a lot in Ghana, by the way.  I learned a lot of patience there. Some of it actually stuck with me even.

The district person we were waiting for came out and introduced himself, Samuel, and he brought another man from Accra. Michael was apparently visiting from the Ghanaian equivalent of the state department of education, whereas district office presides over what we might call a county or parish.  So, we met with both of them, where they said they needed a letter from each of us explaining how long we'd be there able to teach, what subjects we were able to teach, and where we were going to be.  Then, we would get letters from them saying where we'd be teaching and what level, as well as the rules for what we can and can't do.  We were told we weren't allowed in the schools until we got those letters.

After that, we walked over to the social welfare office.  Aankit's been trying to get TOB registered in Busua as a legitimate organization.  Right now, we just have village permission to help teach their kids, but not governmental permission.  TOB is registered in America, and either Kumasi or Medina (both places TOB has worked before).  So, we went to go check on that.  Yahya apparently applied about a year ago is what it sounded like, but they haven't gotten to the application yet.  The man we spoke with said a couple days, that's all.  As far as I know, by the time Aankit left, they still hadn't gotten to it.

Then, we headed back to Busua and the house to get ready for after school...my first!

An Evening to Catch Up

After Ben took my bags up the stairs (he wouldn't let me carry any of them), Tina showed me the room in which I'll be staying.  I'm in the top bunk, which worried me at first.  See, at night, when I have to go to the bathroom, I generally don't give myself a lot of time, if you catch my drift, so I was a little scared I'd wet the bed or hurt myself getting in/out of bed.  I practiced getting in and out a couple times and got the hang of it so I'd be okay.

Tina came back with a plate of rice with this tomato, pepper, and onion sauce on top that was quite spicy.  I like spicy foods for the most part, and I enjoyed this too.  They knew the six of us would be getting back, so they saved some lunch for us.  It was my first Ghanaian meal, since all I'd had that morning was a granola bar.  This, in minor variations, was to be my lunch and dinner for the next five weeks.  I wasn't sure what to do when I got full, so I ate the rest of it, then felt a bit sick because there was way too much food in my belly.  Rice is very filling, by the way.  When Tina came back to take my plate and show me where the kitchen was, she smiled and told me it was good I ate it all, since none of the volunteers usually do.

There's no way to get to the kitchen without going outside and down the stairs, which everyone complains about when it's raining, but I sort of like it.  It was sunny out the day I got there. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I met the other volunteers: Kathryn, Jeff, Torsten, and the three professors (Shannon, Richard, and I don't remember the other), and we sat and chatted for a little while.  Torsten had been working in Kumasi, a city to the north, but his internship/job ended, so he came to TOB.  The professors were just checking out the program to see if they could create a class around the program and have all the students come to volunteer as part of the class.  Jeff was there for the whole summer doing his study abroad/research for his major - something about international relations or politics or something.  And Kathryn was just there for a few weeks because she heard about the program and wanted to try it.  She'd been to Tanzania with her parents before, teaching, so she wanted to try this by herself.  All of them were intriguing to talk to, and I enjoyed hearing their impressions of Ghana, the kids, and the program itself.

Kathryn and I went out to the backyard/beach because we saw some of Kathryn's favorite kids playing in the sand.  She started building a sand castle with them, and I got roped into playing a couple different hand clapping games.  It seemed like, once I got the hang of one of them, they switched to a different one to try to teach me.  After like a half hour, they seemed to get bored, so I tried to teach them the first children's song I thought of - Ring Around the Rosie.  They understood the circle part, and eventually got the fall down part, but the movement of the circle didn't seem to make sense to the kids.  This girl came up with her mother, and she spoke very good English, unlike the other kids I'd been playing with.  She helped us all get organized into a sort of game.  This consisted of me either being a jungle gym or picking each child up and spinning around, dropping them in the sand.

At one point, one kid decided he liked my hair, and tried to take my ponytail. As most of you realize, ponytails are attached.  This child didn't, and got frustrated when he couldn't just take it with him.  He started to pull, and another kid tried to help me by pulling it back toward me.  Unfortunately, that just meant my hair was being pulled in two different directions and it hurt. I kept saying stop, but these two kids didn't understand English.  Kathryn finally noticed what was going on and yelled, "Dabi, dabi, dabi".  (Pronounced dahbee, it means no).  They let go, and I said I had to go inside.

I was right, I did have to be going inside.  I rinsed off the sand in the ocean first, which semi-worked.  The ocean is very active, so there's a lot of sand in the water in the first place, so a lot of it just stayed stuck to me.  Plus, my feet were wet then, so the sand on the beach covered my feet and ankles by the time I got to the house.  I had to learn to get used to sand everywhere, and I'm pretty sure I ended up bringing about a pound home with me anyway.

By the time I got inside, it was time for News Hour, which we do every night the power is on.  In Ghana, they say "light on" or "light off".We watch Aljazeera, which has usually British newscasters.  That first night, I could barely understand what they were saying.  British accents aren't terribly easy to understand, especially when you're still trying to take in all the new things you've been experiencing the last not even 24 hours.  During the discussion, one comment really sticks out.  Henry said, about the US and some difficulties California was having economically, "If it's the United States, shouldn't the other states step in and help California?"  For Ghanaian people, community is extremely important, so the idea that the rest of the US would let CA struggle is hard to think about.  Whereas the Americans tended to say, CA got itself into this mess, let them get themselves out.

Discussion usually consisted of either small groups of 4-5 or one whole big group, depending on the number of people.  For the most part, discussion was a short recap of the news stories, and then everyone's opinions on how the story was presented or what it means or how the people involved could be thinking/what they could be doing better/worse. Sometimes, it got a bit one-sided as outspoken individuals tried to make others see their point of view, but it was mostly open dialogue.  Volunteers tried to keep the Ghanaian students in charge of the discussion since the major point of News Hour, aside from understanding the greater world community, is practicing English.  In order to do that, the students have to be able to synthesize what they heard and express it.  I had an easy time keeping my mouth shut since I didn't really understand what was going on, but I wanted to be able to contribute better in the future.

Then, it was time for dinner.  More rice with more spicy tomato and onion sauce.  Still good, still too filling.  I ate it all because I was still too afraid of offending the cook or the kids in the house.  But I knew I couldn't keep eating everything they gave me.  I would explode!  After dinner, we had a birthday celebration for Ben in the backyard.  There was a bonfire, mostly of bamboo, I think.  I stuck around to see the fire lit, but my head was pounding and I was feeling terribly overwhelmed, so I went in and went to bed.  The windows in the room, though, are just screens with some wooden slates to help support them, so the music and talking/singing from the backyard floated right into the bedroom.  Plus, the place next door had music blasting.  At first, I thought they were having a party too, but then I realized they do that every night.  It's a restaurant, and music is part of their atmosphere.  It's usually American pop, rap, r&b, or older rock.  Mostly good music, actually.  I enjoyed falling asleep to it, even though I felt bad missing the party.

The Kids

Before I continue with the rest of the adventure, I thought it prudent to explain a little about how TOB works and introduce the kids in the house.  TOB sponsors eleven (I did my math wrong earlier, sorry) kids to keep going through school.  They've been working with these young adults for a number of years, and the TOB house is their home.  Some of the kids don't have parents, some have one parent, some have both still, but, for some reason, they felt they could do better with TOB.  All of them are dedicated and smart and want to continue school.  In Ghana, primary school dropout rates are insanely high, so making it into Junior Secondary School or Senior Secondary School is an accomplishment in and of itself.  So, TOB acts as 'parent' to these kids, while running an after school program to help younger kids learn basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The kids in the house consist of: Anthony, Ben, Divine, Yahaya, Emmanuel, William, Henry, Henrietta, Adu,  Louis, and Valentina. You'll get to know them a bit more through the rest of this blog, but here's a short intro to each of them.

Anthony plays guitar and likes reading.  He's called the librarian by the other kids in the house, and he's sort of quiet until you get to know him.  More of an introvert than anything, but he tends to hold challenges until he wins or has to concede.  He's stubborn, quick, and fun, and it's hard to get him to focus on something he doesn't want to do.  Oh, and he's a computer nerd.

Louis (pronounced like Louise)is harder to get to know, but he's a bear when you do.  English isn't as easy for him as most of the other kids, but he works hard at learning.  In fact, he works hard at just about everything.  Even though he's not very academically strong, you more often see him working from a school book than out playing basketball with the other guys.  Whenever I started to get down or feel sad, he'd ask me what's wrong.  I usually said nothing, but it was still nice to hear someone care.

Ben is a basketball player at heart.  He's almost always out on the court shooting or bouncing the ball (which was a volleyball until someone managed to bring in a basketball) if he's got free time.  When we're in discussion mode, he generally listens without comment, but when others shut up long enough, he's always got something to say.  He's really good at blending into the background and just watching a scene unfold, but he's totally down to have fun when it's time.  And, man, does he got some moves on that dance floor!

Divine is a troublemaker, and Tina's older brother.  He likes trying those odd things which sound cool, but anyone who sat and thought it all out would see it's a bad idea, like trying to get Jasper (the house dog) to bike down the front steps.  It would be cool to see, but putting him on a bike at the top of the stairs and letting go is not the way to do it!  If something needs to get done, he'll get it done, but if it's not pressing, he'll be real laid back about it.  Always good for a laugh, and easy to tease because he'll tease you right back.

Adu is another quiet young man.  He sits on the sidelines and smiles that little smile which seems like he knows something he's not telling you.  Even though he generally has an opinion which is very well thought out, he usually keeps silent.  You have to push him to talk academically, and even personally.  He also plays basketball a lot, and was in charge of organizing volunteers to get the basketball court done.

Emmanuel is very outspoken.  He's confident and well-spoken in his opinions and ideas.  However, it's hard for him to be wrong, too, and constructive criticism isn't received too well.  He's always trying to help the volunteers find what they need, and he was our Twi language instructor during our time there.  Even though he's always trying to help, a lot of the time he takes charge instead of working together with others.  As a conversationalist, especially about touchy subjects, he's very good at keeping his head cool and his ideas easy to understand and argue.

Henry, Henrietta's twin, is one of the most sociable people I've met.  He loves getting to know everyone - the volunteers, the kids, the townspeople, and other tourists along the beach.  It's hard, sometimes, for him to focus on one thing though, and he'll often start conversations without completely finishing them.  His faith (Christian) is very important to him, but he's also fairly open to trying to understand other spirituality/religion.  Another important thing is his art.  To me, he sort of took on the role of protective older brother (he's younger than me), and, in a way, he does that with everyone in the house.

Henrietta is Henry's twin, and very quick.  She's got a great command of English, probably better than half the kids in my introductory English class in college.  She's also very social, but in a different way than Henry. She's always out in the village trying to meet people and figure out how TOB's presence can be helpful to them.  As a female in Ghana, she's taught to stay in the background and be silent.  She has a hard time at times speaking her mind, but has gotten a lot more comfortable with showing her confidence in her abilities and ideas.

Valentina (Tina) is the youngest kid in the house, Divine's sister, and she's the only one still in primary school.  Around the house, she's extremely helpful and knows where most everything is. If she makes up her mind to get something done, she'll do it, but if she decides she's not doing something, no one can make her do it.  She's pretty laid back, and likes to create/make things.

Yahaya is one of the most hard-working people I've ever met.  Anything that needs to be done, if he sees it or knows about it, it'll get done.  He's always smiling and ready to help.  Oftentimes, that means he picks up the slack for others, which you can see can be frustrating for him, but he doesn't generally say anything about it; he just does it. He's not in school (graduated), so he does a lot more while the others are at school.

William is also graduated from school, and he's the TOB in-country director now.  He runs the logistics of the house when there can't be a foreigner there in the house.  He's great with money and finances, and can keep even that crazy house organized.  Sometimes, it seems like he stays in the background, not really participating.  I think that's his way of staying objective in a situation.  When all the coordinators are away, he's the 'house dad' instead, and that requires a lot different relationship than 'brother' like the others have.

I miss all these kids, and I hope I can go back someday to see them all again, how they're doing and such. The other important people to know are the TOB coordinators: Aankit, Megan, and Mike.  Aankit was there for the first half of my trip, a little longer.  He's more process oriented and really wants things to get done how they're planned on paper.  He has taught in school before, which makes him a valuable resource for new volunteers. Megan came for the last half of my stay.  She's younger and more detail oriented. As much as the process needs to be there, Megan wants the outline to be filled in first.  Mike isn't technically a coordinator anymore, but he helped start TOB, and now works somewhere else in/near Busua, so he came to visit a lot and the kids still call him 'Dad'.  He's way more laid back and loose, tending to spontaneity and impulse rather than careful planning and process instructions.

And, of course, the other volunteers.  I won't go into them now, since you'll meet them throughout the rest of this, but they're there, as well as the people from the village, the after school kids, my kids, the teachers, and all the other people I met while in Ghana. Hopefully, this gives you a little outline to understand these next entries as they come up.

The House

This is the TOB house where I stayed for the 5 weeks I was in Ghana.  It's one of the only two (almost three) story houses in Busua.  The only other larger buildings are the hotels and the Methodist church by the school.  Right behind the house, you can kind of see on the right-hand side of the picture, is the ocean.  The Atlantic Ocean, for those who aren't terribly good at geography.

The first floor has the kitchen, office, and after school room.  That's where we held the main part of the TOB program.  After school, which I'll go into detail later, is our way of helping kids learn basic literacy and numeracy.  The second floor is where the sponsored kids and volunteers live.  There's a main room which is where we do News Hour (I'll explain that fully later). The sponsored boys have their room, the sponsored girls have their room, and the volunteers are split between the other two rooms, boys in one, girls in the other.  When we got a big influx of volunteers, some of the girls stayed with the sponsored girls, and we made the side rooms downstairs into bedrooms for the overflow.




This is a view of the second floor main room from the doorway of the boys' room for the kids in the house.  The door you can see is the volunteer boys' room.  To the right, just off the frame, is the volunteer girls' room, and behind and to the left is the  house girls' room.








This is a picture of what the volunteer girls' room looks like.  The bed closest on the right ended up being taken out because it made more sense to have the group of new girls in the room downstairs, since they came in a group.  I was the top bunk by the window.



I spent most evenings in the house, since I determined I did not like the Ghanaian past times of drinking and smoking.  I also would sometimes walk along the shore at night.  Mostly, if I was in the house, I was relaxing.  Otherwise, I was outside working, downstairs (which didn't feel like the same house) planning/teaching, or  in Busua school down the street teaching. The house itself was pretty upscale for Ghanaian standards.  We had electricity and running water, if the electricity was on and the pump had water in it.  Usually, everything worked, but not always.  The ceiling leaked when it rained hard.

The third floor, which was never finished, everyone called the roof. There were drying lines hanging in the main part, and there was a little lean-to-type cover over the staircase from the second floor.  Almost no one went up there unless they were hanging laundry, and I found it was a good place to escape and watch the village life go on around us, or watch the ocean, depending on the side of the house I went to.  It became one of my decompression/thinking spots where I could really sit and reflect on everything happening in what seems such a short time.  This area just behind the half wall was where I went a lot.  I has a great view of the ocean, and is fairly hidden if people do want to come up to do their laundry.  I slept up here on a mat with my mosquito net more than once. :)

Getting to Busua

Everyone in Ghana is up about 05:00, and those who aren't, are up when the sun rises, which is 05:45.  Because it's close to the equator (practically on it), daytime is always 6-6.  Anyway, Aankit and Jeff didn't get up until about 07:00, so I just sort of watched out the window at what was going on.  Kids started getting to school, and women and children were getting buckets of water.  There were kiosks opening and people sweeping steps or entryways.  It didn't look busy though, just active.  People weren't walking as if they were the white rabbit, but just patiently making their way about their everyday business.  It was calming.

Once the boys were awake, we all got ready to go.  It was satisfying to be able to brush my teeth and spit over the side of the stairs (which had no railing, by the way).  Jeff got donuts from a street vendor, and Aankit got me a water since I still hadn't exchanged money.  Water comes in these little 500 mL bags that you gnaw a hole in on a corner to drink from.  The bags are really sturdy, so they don't tend to accidentally break.  You can also get bottles of water, but they're not worth it since you can't really reuse the bottles.  Plus, the bags are made in Ghana, so you're supporting Ghanaian industry.  It confused me at first because I didn't know where to put my bag when I finished drinking the water.  There isn't a waste removal system in Ghana, so people just throw their garbage in the gutters on the side of the street.  It makes the place look dirty by American standards, but somehow it doesn't feel dirty in Ghana.

We took a taxi to the Medina market, where we found a share taxi to the airport.  A share taxi means that once there are four passengers, the taxi leaves, and it's a set price (unlike most things) to get there.  We had to go to the airport to exchange my money, as well as pick up three professors who were coming to check out the program.  We had to walk about half a mile, me still with all my luggage, which was starting to get heavy at this point.  Once we got the professors, we found a tro-tro, which is like a minivan, to take us to Busua.  Aankit held out in the market for an air conditioned vehicle so we'd be more comfortable.  So, all of us packed in with our luggage, and we were off to Busua.

The ride there was long, about 6 hours, and the road was really good in places, really bad in others.  Through Accra, and the other major cities on the way, it was a six-lane divided highway, and some corners even had traffic lights!  The majority of the lights didn't work, so there was a policeman directing traffic at those intersections.  The ones that did work were just like the ones here. (And by 'here' I mean WI, not MI since MI is just weird :P ).  With one exception.  The lights, before they turned yellow, flashed green once.  It was a nice warning since, for most intersections, people just sort of go and keep going.  There's some sort of agreement as to how things flow, but usually it's not organized, so drivers occasionally (mostly) ignore when it turns red until the other cross street starts going.

In between cities, the road was dirt and full of potholes like the ones through Medina.  That actually felt safer since there were fewer people to hit and we were going slower.  People on the side of the road heard the car and got out of the way.  If they weren't getting out of the way, the driver would honk and they'd move.  The car rarely slowed down, except for goats.  (I learned why later).  I spent most of my time looking at the plant life on the side of the road.  It was gorgeous and full and green.  A lot of it looked like what you might find in the Midwest, but some, like palm and coconut trees, were obviously different.

There were farms spaced out along the road, and occasional stands selling fruit or veggies.  It was interesting to see the people as we passed, but I was tired, so I dozed most of the way there.  We had two bathroom breaks, which consisted of pulling to the side of the road and watering a tree.  The first time, I felt a bit self-conscious, but then I got over it.  When in Ghana... :)

We pulled into Busua and the kids in the house came out to grab my bags and show me to my room. And then the adventure really begins.

Medina - The First Night

Leaving the airport, I was with Aankit, the program coordinator, and Jeff, another volunteer who was there from the beginning of May through the rest of the summer.  I had my bags, and we caught a taxi.  The airport officials try to keep other taxis away from the pick-up area, hoping that arrivals will take the airport taxis.  Airport taxis are terribly expensive, though, so we walked 50ft down the road and caught another taxi.  This was an experience of firsts for me.

One, driving in Ghana.  Roads are dirt roads with major potholes.  Some parts of roads are paved, but the pavement is just a collection of rocks with mud, maybe cement, to hold them together.  They're generally about the width of two small cars, and this is a three-lane road for the most part.  Taxis are small, old cars that have been cobbled together from scraps of other vehicles.  Most are stick shifts, and some don't shift in the order we're used to.  Horns work from a button on the radio or by pulling/pushing the blinker lever.  Police don't enforce traffic laws, if they exist in the first place, and intersections don't have stop/yield signs.  It feels like you're going to die the entire time you're in the car. They don't have seat belts, except sometimes for the driver.  The whole car feels like it'll fall apart.  Between potholes, they go about 80mph, and slam on the breaks right before the hole (which is about as big as half the car) to crawl over it, then speed up again.  Sometimes, if their directionals work, they use them, but most often they don't (work or use them).  It was, in short, terrifying.

The second thing that was odd for me is that almost everything in Ghana is decided by haggling.  Aankit talked with the driver about how much to take us to Medina, a suburb of Accra.  We were staying the night because I got in late and it's a 6 hour drive to Busua.  Aankit says the driver gypped us, but I was just glad to get out of the car.  Medina is where Teach on the Beach (TOB) started about 8 years ago, and Aankit still had contacts there so we could get a room to stay in for the night.  Anyway, Aankit and the driver were arguing the entire 20 minute drive to Medina about how much it should cost.  Aankit kept saying we were social welfare, helping kids, and the driver was telling him how he's got this brother who's sick. It was entertaining, and I eventually did learn how to haggle with some success.

We made it to Medina, and dropped everything off in the room.  Aankit and Jeff wanted to go for a walk, so I went with them.  Medina is a concentration of unemployed young people, so there's a lot of activity at night.  Aankit and Jeff went looking for Solomon, who's their marijuana dealer.  Aankit doesn't smoke except in Medina because in Busua he's like the house dad.  I refused to take part, but wasn't sure I could find my way back to the room, so I stuck around while they all smoked and chatted.  I explored around where they were, just to stay away from the smoke and to see a little of the land.  Apparently, smoking and drinking are the two main pastimes for Ghanaians.  Not really something I wanted to find out.  :/  But, the town is pretty, in a dirty sort of way.

All the houses are squares of mud and/or cement stacked onto each other, and then a roof of some sort of wood, maybe tin or aluminum.  Along the road are kiosks, which function as a house for some families.  The kiosks are usually painted some color to represent a phone or internet provider. Glo (green) was popular in Medina.  There are a lot of partially built buildings, which usually haven't been touched in a year or two.  People build when they get money, stop when it runs out, so the process is long.  The buildings are all very close together; it's a dense population.

The people I saw were mainly young adults, and they reminded me a lot of high schoolers in the US because the guys walked with their shorts hanging below their butts, showing their boxers, and the girls walked in groups and flirted. Those who didn't have children tied to their backs, that is.  Overall, I wasn't that terribly overwhelmed or surprised with what I saw that first night.

The room was small - about 3 yards by 5 yards. I got the bed, Aankit and Jeff shared a mattress on the floor.  If I had to go to the bathroom (which I did way too often), I had to go outside, down the stairs, around the house and the house behind it, into this little shack over a hollow stone cylinder over a hole in the ground.  There were no lights, so I couldn't see anything.  I think I would have preferred to just pee off the side of the staircase.  But, I made it through the night, and got a little sleep even.

During the night, roosters kept crowing. And the church down the street kept having groups of people singing and shouting and speaking in tongues.  At least, until about 03:00.  (Times, when important, will be in military time because that makes more sense to me).  It was relaxing and peaceful, I think because they weren't speaking/singing in English.  I'm not a huge fan of Christianity, so in English it probably wouldn't have been as comforting, but I felt better listening to it. It was humid and hot, so that didn't help, but the breeze through the window screens was nice.  There was a lizard in the room, which I watched for a little while.  It was about 2 inches long and black.  Adorable. :)  Aankit had lit a mosquito coil, which is probably full of cancer-causing chemicals, but drives mosquitoes away extremely effectively.  I didn't get one bite that night.

My first night was definitely an introduction, but one I didn't quite understand yet.