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.
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