This past week has been pretty good. I've found things to fill my time, so I'll give you a sample of a weekday: Up at 5:45, work out for a little bit, take a shower, eat bread and peanut butter (called groundnut paste here), then its off to school by 7:15. School days vary, but I average about two hours a day actually teaching, and the rest of the time I am either preparing lesson plans, talking with teachers, reading, or zoning out. School ends at 2pm, so amidst little kids from the kindergarten yelling "Yevu!" (White man) I walk to our small little market. There are only about 3 people actually selling things at any given time, so I do mean small. I pick up some fresh eggs, onions, spaghetti, or whatever else I need to make dinner. But, I must be finished cooking and cleaning by 6:15 because it gets dark and we don't have a light in our kitchen area. Usually some students come around for an hour or two and I let them use my computer to practice typing or teach some ICT in addition to school. One student, however, is about 16 and is really good with computers, so I monitor his usage but don't need to tell him what to do. Then, its off to bed by 9pm to wake up early for the next day.
I gave my first quiz Thursday, and it was less than stellar. Since students have always copied off each other for tests since a very early age, about half will do even more work to cheat while I am looking instead of looking back into their notes. I just don't get it. I have strict rules if they cheat, but a select few still try their darndest.
So our school has/had a problem. Some students can't read. At all. This is a problem because all tests are in English. How can a student be expected to answer a question when they can't even read the words? Well, all standardized tests are multiple choice with 4 answers, so guessing on the entire test you will get on average a 25%. BUT, to pass you only need to get a 40%! So we have pulled about 30 of our 90 students out of class for a month or two to teach them to read English, and maybe speak it too. They may repeat the grade, but its better in the long term that they know English, and my classes are now comprised of only the 'smart' students, or even those who can understand what I am saying.
I am really starting to love my site, my community, and everything related to it. I'm quite happy with how things are turning out currently, so I hope this will continue.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
School Starts!!
YES!! School has started and I've been really excited to have something to do finally in my community. We have six teachers and a headmaster at our JHS, but so far there has yet to be one day when every teacher shows up. The school is run on a prefect system, and the only other experience I've had with prefects has been reading Harry Potter. Also, we have different sections (Red, Gold, and Green - the colors of the Ghanaian Flag) that compete for points depending on how well they behave and how well they do on test... the only time I've known of such a system is once again Harry Potter and their Houses. Prefects are students that have been given responsibilities like sweep the library every morning, make sure the school grounds are clean, or lead the school during Assembly, so its like halfway between a student and teacher because if other students misbehave, the prefects report them and even sometimes take discipline into their own hands (discouraged).
For a school with around 110 students and 6 teachers, it makes sense to hand off responsibility to students as much as possible. In fact, I (including being in charge of Red section) hardly need to do any real work. Walking to school, students come to carry my backpack for me. If I'm hungry, students go and fetch me lunch. If a teacher leaves something at my house way across town, its far too much work for the teacher to walk there: he or she tells a student where it is and to go and bring it. Also, if a teacher's yard need to be mowed (called weeding), students are rallied up, and instead of going to school they go and weed!
We had a staff meeting this week. Was it held after school or before school? No, it took up half the day and all the teachers were required to attend in full. When classes are supposed to be taught but the teacher doesn't show up or is otherwise unable to teach, there is no substitute teacher. The students sit for the entire period in the classroom. I've tried to address this waste of time with my headmaster and how to change it, and he said yes to my ideas but means no to implementation.
Every Wednesday morning is Worship time, so all the students gather in a classroom to sing and dance and pray. This was Wednesday, we had a guest motivational speaker come in to inspire them to try in school. I didn't participate in worship so I was in the teachers lounge doing lesson plans, and my colleague, Clement, comes to get me to come be to motivational speaker. Me, taken totally unawares, thought it was a joke. Surely, I could at least have a few minutes to prepare. Nope, he said, I must come now and they expected me to talk for at least 15 minutes in front of our whole school and I could not get out of it. So I gave a talk for 15 minutes on the fly about why they should try in school.
I do not mean to paint my school in a bad light, there are just a lot of things that an American can come in and think "This should change, that should change and things would be better", but we have limited resources here and motivation. Students have many chores when they get home, and parents take education as something only done at school. It will also take students a long time to earn any money, possibly 7 years from now. Or, if they stop school, they can immediately go out and earn some cash. Even though we are supposed to teach in English all the time, some students can barely read and others can barely speak, and this is by 7th grade! I am however, happy that there are some students who have a desire to excel, and I am teaching them ICT (information communication technology) two days a week in addition to school to some students.
Favorite line in grading papers so far: "sources of data provide facts bitch not create them"
Number of canings witnessed: 10+
Random names of students in my classes: Redeemer, Saviour, Peace, Divine, Grace, Blessing
For a school with around 110 students and 6 teachers, it makes sense to hand off responsibility to students as much as possible. In fact, I (including being in charge of Red section) hardly need to do any real work. Walking to school, students come to carry my backpack for me. If I'm hungry, students go and fetch me lunch. If a teacher leaves something at my house way across town, its far too much work for the teacher to walk there: he or she tells a student where it is and to go and bring it. Also, if a teacher's yard need to be mowed (called weeding), students are rallied up, and instead of going to school they go and weed!
We had a staff meeting this week. Was it held after school or before school? No, it took up half the day and all the teachers were required to attend in full. When classes are supposed to be taught but the teacher doesn't show up or is otherwise unable to teach, there is no substitute teacher. The students sit for the entire period in the classroom. I've tried to address this waste of time with my headmaster and how to change it, and he said yes to my ideas but means no to implementation.
Every Wednesday morning is Worship time, so all the students gather in a classroom to sing and dance and pray. This was Wednesday, we had a guest motivational speaker come in to inspire them to try in school. I didn't participate in worship so I was in the teachers lounge doing lesson plans, and my colleague, Clement, comes to get me to come be to motivational speaker. Me, taken totally unawares, thought it was a joke. Surely, I could at least have a few minutes to prepare. Nope, he said, I must come now and they expected me to talk for at least 15 minutes in front of our whole school and I could not get out of it. So I gave a talk for 15 minutes on the fly about why they should try in school.
I do not mean to paint my school in a bad light, there are just a lot of things that an American can come in and think "This should change, that should change and things would be better", but we have limited resources here and motivation. Students have many chores when they get home, and parents take education as something only done at school. It will also take students a long time to earn any money, possibly 7 years from now. Or, if they stop school, they can immediately go out and earn some cash. Even though we are supposed to teach in English all the time, some students can barely read and others can barely speak, and this is by 7th grade! I am however, happy that there are some students who have a desire to excel, and I am teaching them ICT (information communication technology) two days a week in addition to school to some students.
Favorite line in grading papers so far: "sources of data provide facts bitch not create them"
Number of canings witnessed: 10+
Random names of students in my classes: Redeemer, Saviour, Peace, Divine, Grace, Blessing
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Greetings in Ghana
So this post is going to deal with how greetings work in Ghana, and more importantly Volta Region because thats where I live. Waking up in the morning, the first thing I do is go around and greet everyone that lives in my compound, and furthermore the greetings ALWAYS take the exact same route. In English, you could say any number of: what's up, how's it going, good morning, hello, how are you, etc. In Ewe, you choose your greeting in the morning from the following list: ŋdi. The ŋ is pronounced like ng in sing, but the end of the g is unvoiced. So its
A. ŋdi. (Good Morning)
B. ŋdi, aƒemeto wo de? (Are you house members okay?)
A. Wodo. (They are fine)
B. Efo mi de? (Are you awake/fine?)
A. Ee. (Yes)
Depending on the time of day, ŋdi changes to ŋdo, woale, and fie, but the other parts stay exactly the same. In fact, because this greeting always happens, if you say it correctly people assume you speak fluent Ewe and so they keep asking you questions in Ewe. I use this a lot - Nye me se egome o = I dont understand, when they start saying too much.
Also, people like to know where you are going - just because. So if I'm walking around the town, someone I've never met will yell out "Afika neyina/Where are you going?". This took a long time to get used to... my first reaction when I heard this was "why do they care where I'm going?", but thats not the point. The point is to communicate with them and to build a relationship with other members in the community. Think about it - if you talk with everyone walking by, even if its just a simple question, people will know you. In fact, here its rude NOT greet people you walk past and houses you come across; I've made the mistake of not looking inside someone's house to see if they are there and was berated because I didn't greet the person. Its very much a talk-wtih-everyone-on-the-street culture, unlike many parts of the US. Also, if you give your phone number out (not recommended), people will call you just to talk about every 3 days or so, even if you met them for a second on the street: as such, I tend to be creatively untruthful and say my phone is broken or the government monitors my calls or I cant figure out how to unlock it, or my goat ate it.
A. ŋdi. (Good Morning)
B. ŋdi, aƒemeto wo de? (Are you house members okay?)
A. Wodo. (They are fine)
B. Efo mi de? (Are you awake/fine?)
A. Ee. (Yes)
Depending on the time of day, ŋdi changes to ŋdo, woale, and fie, but the other parts stay exactly the same. In fact, because this greeting always happens, if you say it correctly people assume you speak fluent Ewe and so they keep asking you questions in Ewe. I use this a lot - Nye me se egome o = I dont understand, when they start saying too much.
Also, people like to know where you are going - just because. So if I'm walking around the town, someone I've never met will yell out "Afika neyina/Where are you going?". This took a long time to get used to... my first reaction when I heard this was "why do they care where I'm going?", but thats not the point. The point is to communicate with them and to build a relationship with other members in the community. Think about it - if you talk with everyone walking by, even if its just a simple question, people will know you. In fact, here its rude NOT greet people you walk past and houses you come across; I've made the mistake of not looking inside someone's house to see if they are there and was berated because I didn't greet the person. Its very much a talk-wtih-everyone-on-the-street culture, unlike many parts of the US. Also, if you give your phone number out (not recommended), people will call you just to talk about every 3 days or so, even if you met them for a second on the street: as such, I tend to be creatively untruthful and say my phone is broken or the government monitors my calls or I cant figure out how to unlock it, or my goat ate it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Water
For this blog post, I am going to talk about how Ghana has dealt with not having clean drinking water. There are no water reservoirs for drinking water like there are in the US. In order to have running water, you must have a Polytank to store the water, and similar to mini-water tower it has to be elevated. This way, people can take non-bucket showers, have faucets, etc. But as far as drinking the water goes, it is unsafe to do so. Either you must purchase a large water filter, boil your water, or buy water sachets. These sachets are made in each district town, but basically water is purified en masse and a machine puts it in a plastic bag, sort of like a square water balloon.
So, when you are travelling around Ghana you dont look for a water fountain, faucet, or anything like that. You look for these people that are selling 'pure water' on their heads.
On a side note, at the stations you wait in the vehicle for it to fill up and people come to try and sell you various items like toothbrushes, any type of food, nuts, and water, among other things; they also carry them around on top of their heads which A) is amazing B) looks really heavy and C) Ive never seen something fall off someone's head. Back to water, once you get the sachet you simply bite off a corner and drink. Its a pretty ingenious idea, but the downside is that empty water sachets are found everywhere. Instead of carrying my nalgene around, I just buy a water for 5 pesewas (3 cents) because its chilled, tastes okay, and I dont have to lug all my water with me travelling.
So, when you are travelling around Ghana you dont look for a water fountain, faucet, or anything like that. You look for these people that are selling 'pure water' on their heads.
On a side note, at the stations you wait in the vehicle for it to fill up and people come to try and sell you various items like toothbrushes, any type of food, nuts, and water, among other things; they also carry them around on top of their heads which A) is amazing B) looks really heavy and C) Ive never seen something fall off someone's head. Back to water, once you get the sachet you simply bite off a corner and drink. Its a pretty ingenious idea, but the downside is that empty water sachets are found everywhere. Instead of carrying my nalgene around, I just buy a water for 5 pesewas (3 cents) because its chilled, tastes okay, and I dont have to lug all my water with me travelling.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
New Updates from Volta Region
School starts in 5 days. I've been spending a lot of time at my house in my village, so I will start to update you all on them. Kofi, who is about 5 years old, I am slowly teaching bits of English. I brought some lacrosse balls to use for juggling, and he just likes to simply walk around all day with one (they are different colors, so he must say the colors of the balls correctly to get any for the day). Fafali is about 2 years old, and if any of my family has heard a baby screaming in the background while they call, its her. She cant say my name, so she yells "Ai" when she wants my attention. Kekeli is about 10 and speaks English very well, but he watches television all day and I rarely see him playing outside. My landlord (a 76 year old badass) is still full of energy, though he cannot walk very far to his farm. Also, Kofina is essentially my caretaker because she cooks dinner for me, but she is always doing something - never any down time it seems like... she does have three kids to look out for. Village life is good.
Number of complete fish found in my food: 1
Number of goats found inside my room yesterday: 2
Countdown until I will return to the US: ~700 days
Current temperature: ~75 F
Number of Werther's Hard Candy eaten in Ghana: 42
Number of times I've been to a police station in Ghana: 1
Okay I will tell a bit of a story here. I went down to the Kente festival with a few friends to see all the cloth and have a good time. It was fantastic. Except for a digital camera that went missing. It belonged to a Ghanaian but she was pretty sure that one of us took it. At the time, we all had our pricey SLR cameras and had no need for a simple 1 MP point-and-shoot AA battery operated camera from 1999, so she called the police to search the house we were at and everything in it (including our stuff). Long story short, it took four hours out of our day including a trip to our district police station. The final result? as the police were about to look through our stuff a second time (with us watching very closely to make sure nothing of ours went missing), the camera magically appeared where one of our bags had been about a minute earlier. Since the Americans were all in a different room when it was replaced and found, we concluded that someone in the household may have 'borrowed' it but gave it back in a way to make it seem like we had had it all along. The police commander said a prayer, thankful the camera was found, and then the police left. It bothered all of us a bit to be accused of stealing a camera so blatently, when in fact someone else from their family had taken it, and then the same person tried to frame us loosely in the end. Besides that, we had a great mini-vacation in Kpetoe.
If you want to see a video of fellow PCVs and I doing a Ghanaian dance, check out Molly's blog: mollyrumery.blogspot.com Its about halfway down the page.
Number of complete fish found in my food: 1
Number of goats found inside my room yesterday: 2
Countdown until I will return to the US: ~700 days
Current temperature: ~75 F
Number of Werther's Hard Candy eaten in Ghana: 42
Number of times I've been to a police station in Ghana: 1
Okay I will tell a bit of a story here. I went down to the Kente festival with a few friends to see all the cloth and have a good time. It was fantastic. Except for a digital camera that went missing. It belonged to a Ghanaian but she was pretty sure that one of us took it. At the time, we all had our pricey SLR cameras and had no need for a simple 1 MP point-and-shoot AA battery operated camera from 1999, so she called the police to search the house we were at and everything in it (including our stuff). Long story short, it took four hours out of our day including a trip to our district police station. The final result? as the police were about to look through our stuff a second time (with us watching very closely to make sure nothing of ours went missing), the camera magically appeared where one of our bags had been about a minute earlier. Since the Americans were all in a different room when it was replaced and found, we concluded that someone in the household may have 'borrowed' it but gave it back in a way to make it seem like we had had it all along. The police commander said a prayer, thankful the camera was found, and then the police left. It bothered all of us a bit to be accused of stealing a camera so blatently, when in fact someone else from their family had taken it, and then the same person tried to frame us loosely in the end. Besides that, we had a great mini-vacation in Kpetoe.
If you want to see a video of fellow PCVs and I doing a Ghanaian dance, check out Molly's blog: mollyrumery.blogspot.com Its about halfway down the page.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Food
Its time for a brief overview of Ghana food. Essentially there are two parts to a meal - the carbohydrate substance side and the stew/soup part. Fiber rich foods such as yam, plantain, cocoyam, rice, and cassava (lots and lots of cassava). These carbs provide a ton of calories and fiber, and the empy carb calories vectors are either boiled or fried. Majority of space and calories come from these semi-nutritionless plants. This fiber-intensity is a mixed bag however, because it takes a while for your stomach to fully process that enough food is actually in your stomach: it seems to take about 15 minutes, after the carbohydrate concoction expands in your stomach, for your body to realize it has enough calories and there is no more space to cram more food in. Unfortunately, this feeling comes about 15 minutes too late, so my strategy to eat some and then stop BEFORE I feel even close to full. Even so, there have still been some close calls where I feel absolutely terrible and roll into a food coma where I cant talk and just want to find the closest bed or similar non-dirty surface to lay down on and wait for the agony to pass. Even though I seem to have figured this out fairly soon, I have seen some Ghanaians that try and eat as much as possible now and deal with the consequences of food inundation later. I imagine it feels like a hot air balloon inside you filling up with air.
Okay, let's move onto the stew and soup part. This is where the protein and fat in my diet come from. For stews, they first make a paste by hand mashing onions, garlic, tomatoes, and hot peppers together in a bowl. Then they heat up some red oil (palm oil), put the paste in, and either serve over rice or next to sliced yam, cocoyam, etc. For the soups, Ghanaians first make the paste then dump everything into a large pot with titanic quantities of oil or groundnut (peanut) paste to simmer.
Fufu, besides being a fun word to say, is actually mashed plantains and cassava served with groundnut soup. I dont know where I stand with fufu. It comes in a big dough ball in the middle of a sea of soup and you rip off a piece - then, contrary to all natural instincts and probably because of the sliminess quality of fufu, you swallow it whole. No chewing, no deciding if you like it or not, no spitting out fish bones. Overall, an efficient way of eating - I can sense I need to stop (because it will expand inside) after less than one minute of actual dining time. Preperation, not included in eating time, is about 2 hours. Consequently, adults frequently get their children to do most of the hard work for them (pounding fufu with a person-sized battering ram, grinding veggies in a bowl, and other things). But, the fufu pounding makes so much noise that for seemingly hours on end a constant boom, boom, boom is ringing in your ears.
Also, food here is spicy. Good news is that it tastes good and keeps you regular. Bad news is there is no milk to negate these effects.
Updates on my life: I start teaching in about 10 days and will probably teach math and ICT. Ive been to a few football matches and its crazy - there are the people who watch the game and the people who are just there to dance and drum. I also got my first taste of Ghana ceremonies - a guy I met while here from the US was enstooled (made a subchief) on Tuesday, so I went to check out his ceremony... I should have brought my video camera.
Okay, let's move onto the stew and soup part. This is where the protein and fat in my diet come from. For stews, they first make a paste by hand mashing onions, garlic, tomatoes, and hot peppers together in a bowl. Then they heat up some red oil (palm oil), put the paste in, and either serve over rice or next to sliced yam, cocoyam, etc. For the soups, Ghanaians first make the paste then dump everything into a large pot with titanic quantities of oil or groundnut (peanut) paste to simmer.
Fufu, besides being a fun word to say, is actually mashed plantains and cassava served with groundnut soup. I dont know where I stand with fufu. It comes in a big dough ball in the middle of a sea of soup and you rip off a piece - then, contrary to all natural instincts and probably because of the sliminess quality of fufu, you swallow it whole. No chewing, no deciding if you like it or not, no spitting out fish bones. Overall, an efficient way of eating - I can sense I need to stop (because it will expand inside) after less than one minute of actual dining time. Preperation, not included in eating time, is about 2 hours. Consequently, adults frequently get their children to do most of the hard work for them (pounding fufu with a person-sized battering ram, grinding veggies in a bowl, and other things). But, the fufu pounding makes so much noise that for seemingly hours on end a constant boom, boom, boom is ringing in your ears.
Also, food here is spicy. Good news is that it tastes good and keeps you regular. Bad news is there is no milk to negate these effects.
Updates on my life: I start teaching in about 10 days and will probably teach math and ICT. Ive been to a few football matches and its crazy - there are the people who watch the game and the people who are just there to dance and drum. I also got my first taste of Ghana ceremonies - a guy I met while here from the US was enstooled (made a subchief) on Tuesday, so I went to check out his ceremony... I should have brought my video camera.
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