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.