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.