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!