Things to say...

Hello missed friends and family!

I’ll have you all know that first hand wrote this update sitting in a classroom where I arrived 45 minutes early for class. When I got here, I snatched absolutely the last free desk in the room… the course is far too big for the space, which is common at University of Ghana. Most students, if they know there is not a course in a room in the preceding period, come an hour early (or more!) to stake out a seat with their notebooks… I unfortunately, could only get there 45 minutes early, because I was grading papers…

Yes, my teaching internship has started! I have officially become my mother- literally. I am acting as a Form 1 and 2 (like 6th and 7th grade) English teacher at Nadat Memorial, a smallish private primary and Jr. High school in Adenta, two communities north of my University/home.
There are so many things I could say about this place… it’s a concrete complex in disrepair, though not the worst I’ve seen in Ghana. The bathrooms should definitely be condemned. This is a middle class school- the fees for each kid are 210 Cidi a year, which is like 225 US. Keep in mind the avg. Ghanaian makes 300 Cidi a month… and people have many, many children… Kids are send home from school if they can’t pay their fees.
I get up at 5:30am to get ready, leave my building at 6:30, walk/ tro tro/ walk again to the school all to arrive at roughly 7:30. I go Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and Monday and Tuesday, because of my other courses at UG and through CIEE, I don’t get back to my room until 7 or 8 at night (sound familiar mom!?) I’m at the school for a total of 4-5 hours, so suddenly I’ve lost 15 hours of free time. On day one I showed up, met the current English teacher, a very nice woman with a mean sense of humor by the name of Dorcus (like dork-us, a very common girls name here, as funny as it sounds) who literally handed me a textbook and said “today you will teach form 3 lesson 10 on reading,” to which I responded “um, can I just observe today, I’ve never taught in my life…” They teach straight out of the textbook here, in fact Dorcus must borrow a book from the students, because they don’t have enough for the teachers. Makes life easy for me, though it’s hard to be creative with a list of instructions. I observed Dorcus’ “Religious and Moral Education” class (more on this in a moment.) The kids are so well behaved! Then I went to watch an English class, but 20 minutes in the teacher got pulled out… so I just stood up and kept going with the lesson on countable nouns. How’s THAT for crazy… and grammar really isn’t my best subject, but we got through it. My only critique the next day is that I spoke too quickly.
In Ghanaian private schools, religious education and Christian worship are endemic. In public schools, it was recently written out of the curriculum for primary school, but it still happens by way of “special assemblies” and taking time out of social studies courses. Education in Ghana is hardly consistent because each 4-year government changes the structure. New this year students have 6 years of primary school, 4 of Jr. High, and 4 of Sr. High, meaning a Ghanaian is about 22 before they graduate and can go to university. It used to be 20ish, with less Jr and Sr High, but people just weren’t ready for college when they graduated. Dorcus says it takes longer to go to school in Ghana because they just don’t have the resources that we do- no teacher’s aides, no colorful posters on the wall, no books in the classroom, etc. I think it’s also affected by their view of time- for instance, on Tuesday morning worship spilled over 45 minutes into what should have been a 1 hour, 45 minute reading lesson for my 7th graders. There’s also the issue, in my view at least, that they could cut out religious educ entirely in favor of academics- but in Ghana, it’s seen as the church and the school’s responsibility to teach those things, it’s not individualized by family like it is in the US, because pretty much everyone here is Christian, and especially they are at my school. There are surely factors I’m missing, but this is at least what is obvious to me. I think my 7th graders are at about a 4th grade reading level, and their writing was I think less than that…
Teaching itself is a joy! The children call me “Madame” and “Ms. Cole,” and occasionally laugh at my accent. On Tuesday when I showed up, I was informed that I would be leading worship songs with the whole school. A sense of minor panic ensued as struggled to come up with Christian kids songs… it’s been a while people… and eventually settled on “Jesus Loves Me,” “Go tell it on the mountain,” “and This Little Light of Mine.” The kids laughed at my singing for sure, but it was adorable. It was wonderful to later go into a 1st grade class and teach them another verse- so precious!!!! Does any one have any other suggestions for songs?
Unfortunately, my teaching post will only last three weeks, then I will help proctor 2 weeks of exams, and then the kids go on vacation for a month. I’m told my program and I will work out a new assignment. I love teaching, but I’m mixed on whether I’d like to do it all over again, or work in another context. There are just so many varied opportunities here- I’d love to work with gender resources, but the education system is very interesting as well… At any rate, it’s a great relief to be doing something, rather than having load s of free time to brood.

In other news, classes are in full swing now. I joined an Islamic theology course, that so far is pretty interesting, and with only 17 students, it’s great by UG standards. Surprise- no one here wants to learn about Islam. I’ve had several people ask me if I’m afraid of the class, because the prof might be trying to turn me into a terrorist… brother! I’ve also started my Development Studies class, Twi (ugh, stressful) and Sociology of Deviance courses. So far, only 2 of the classes appear to have any reading whatsoever…

Last weekend I embarked on my first travels through Ghana independent of CIEE. Two friends and I took a two hour tro tro ride at night, complete with squawking chickens in the car, to a town called Kpong. We stayed the night in a very shady “leasiure center,” and then spent Saturday touring Cidi’s Bead Factory. Now, keep in mind that a “factory” here is 5 or 6 open grass and concrete huts. It was great, a man showed us how they make, recycle, and restore glass beads, which is a major industry to Ghanaian cultural life, even though glass beads were originally brought to Ghana by the Dutch. Both men and women commonly wear beaded jewelry here. Chiefs and Queen Mothers adorn themselves with gigantic beads round their necks, and girls obtain beads from birth until puberty, when they have a big celebration and are given several thin strands of “waist beads” to wear, signifying their womanhood. We watched the whole process, from crushing liquor bottles, to melting and shaping, to firing and cleaning and painting, and finally to several women clustered around a table stringing necklaces and bracelets.

That day we also found our way through a huge market, traveled to our 2nd hotel, and then spend 2 hours roaming around on the side of a highway, looking for a destination we never actually found. There was an awesome sense of freedom and joy in three women walking around in the middle of nowhere, no cars, people, or buildings in sight in the middle of West Africa… Day 2 we hired a forest service guide to walk us around the Shai Hills National Reserve. This place isn’t great for seeing animals (we say only free roaming bats, baboons, and antelope) but has peaks and caves for hiking. The caves themselves once served as the hiding place for the Shai people, as they were being enslaved by the Ashanti people (the dominate Ghanaian tribe of old) so that the Ashanti could sell them to the Europeans who would then sell them oversees. Yes, Africans participated handedly in their own slave trade. The Shai used the caves on the top of the peaks as hiding places, look outs, and to throw rocks at the oncoming Ashanti. For us, this meant hiking the hills, then crawling up through the caves to come out at the highest viewing points. It really was quite an adventure. And the views were beautiful- you could see out for miles and miles, though we were told that the viewing is better during the rainy season, when the dust is less. We ended up hiking for 6 hours and getting extremely dehydrated, but I have been so proud of my self for happily getting through such a physically taxing day. I feel so thankful that I am generally not a couch potato so that I was healthy enough to do what we did.

On that note, I happened upon 4 Ghanaian girls working out in the hall outside my door this morning… odd, almost all Ghanaians avoid even walking places if they have to, and there are very few gyms here. They invited me to join, but I said “no thank you!” explaining that I am reveling in their culture that does not say I need to be perfectly slim in a gym to be beautiful. I might eventually get around to doing a few crunches, but for the most part, I walk more than any Ghanaian so I don’t really worry about it. I found it odd that one of the girls told me she worked out because she wasn’t born with “skinny genes.” I hadn’t got the impression that many Ghanaian women thought in that way, I wonder where the pressure in coming from. Television? It doesn’t seem to me that skinny women are desirable to men here, so I’m not really sure what the deal is.

At any rate, that’s about all I’ve got! Now that life is more normal here I will try my hardest to publish the notes I took from our orientation lectures on Ghanaian religion, culture, gender, history, etc, so that you can more understand my context. I am also working on reflecting upon what I like and don’t like so much about Ghana in a meaningful way, rather than in a list format. I really struggle with the views and “place” of women in this country, as well as with the extreme homophobia, but I don’t know the best way to articulate those feelings. I’ll try though.

Take Care!