HOME! Recap of Last Days in Ghana

I am writing this final post for my blog from my house, back in Chappaqua. It feels very good to be home. But first things first, let me update you on my trip to Kumasi: I took a nice bus from Tema to Kumasi on Saturday morning and arrived in Kumasi around 5:30pm. As I said, I didn't really have a set plan of what I wanted to do, and I had even less idea about where I was going to be staying. So with no map and very limited information about this new city, I got off the bus and was instantly in the grasp of a friendly but insistent taxi driver. He said he knew of a hotel not far away that was nice and not expensive. So within minutes I was in the lobby of the Ashfood Court Hotel, which turned out to be a very good place to stay. If you're ever in Kumasi, I would recommend it. That evening I was pretty tired from the travel and totally disoriented. I had a brief walk around the hotel's neighborhood before it got dark, ate dinner, and then went to bed early.

Waking up Sunday morning, I wanted to get an early start to see as much of the city as I could. For future reference: if you want to spend one day somewhere in Ghana, Sunday is not a very good choice. I wanted to start my day at the nearby tourist office. Of course it was closed. I had read in a guidebook about the nearby Owabi Wildlife Preserve, so I found the tro-tro station and got a tro-tro that took me right to Owabi. I had a great time there. I had a private, guided tour through the rainforest preserve which surrounds a large reservoir that is quite beautiful. We saw lots of colorful butterflies, birds, and even spotted some Mona monkeys as they dashed through the trees.

On the way back from Owabi, I got off at Asenemaso, where I had read about a traditional shrine that was worth seeing. With the help of some local people, I found a shrine (probably not the one I had heard about). It was nice, but not very inspiring as it was enclosed inside a locked building that didn't look like it saw much use. But the people who helped me were very nice and I spent a couple hours hanging out with them. They even had a ping-pong table and I took on some of the neighborhood kids, much to the amusement of everyone. I won, of course.

Finally, I caught a tro-tro back to Kumasi and found I was right next to the Kejetia Market, which I had read is a must-see. It is the largest outdoor market in West Africa. It reminded me of the souk in Fes, where I spent my abroad term last spring, although this was on a much, much bigger scale. They have basically everything you could need, from clothes, to metalware, to foods - including a meats section that I would have rather avoided. I walked around happily for about an hour, and then managed to get myself a bit turned around on my way back to the hotel. But I did make it. All said, though, I did pretty well seeing a city in a day, especially given my total lack of planning.

On Monday (wow, that's yesterday!), I went to take a bus from Kumasi back to Tema so I could collect my luggage and go to the airport for my late night flight. I turned down an offer of a taxi ride to the bus station, which ended up being a mistake. Forty-five minutes later, I arrived, sweaty and and legs aching, at the bus station to find that the Tema bus had just left and the next one wouldn't be for several hours. So I jumped aboard the next bus leaving for Accra and then from the Accra station, took a tro-tro to Tema. The trip actually ended up being faster than my ride up to Kumasi and cheaper as well.

So I collected by bags, which had stayed with Ben - WPE's country director. And I got in a taxi and headed for the airport. The Accra airport was a bit ridiculous, with multiple security screenings, immigration control on the way out, and lines that seemed to never end. Two and half hours after I got on line to check in, I made it to the gate and the plane was ready to board. We took off a little after midnight (local time) and landed at JFK before 6:30am (EST). I got my bags and met up with our friend Dave, who was waiting there despite the early morning arrival, and got a ride home. The jet lag has not been too bad, so far. We'll see how long I last. So far today, I've just been relaxing and enjoying American foods that I've missed (so far a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich for breakfast and pizza for lunch). It's really good to be home and I look forward to spending time with family and friends.

So that will be all for my Ghana blog. If something brilliant occurs to me, I guess I can make another post, but I think a final note of reflection can go here: I had an incredible time in Ghana. Working with the kids at Manye has left a permanent impression on me and I learned a huge amount about other cultures, education, and myself through my experience there. I will always remember that place and I hope to return to visit them at some point after I graduate, maybe with some WPE alumni (! anyone interested??).

Thank you for following my thoughts and travels in this very different part of the world. It is a place with great people and great potential. It is a beautiful and hospitable country that I would recommend to tourists and potential volunteers. Let me know if you have any questions specifically, because I selfishly only discussed the issues that were on my mind. I am sure I will talk to you all soon. For now, this is David, signing off.

"Our Day" + My Last Days in Ghana

I fly home Monday night, so I only have a few days left in Ghana. The academic term has ended and yesterday was a celebration they call “Our Day.” It is the way Ghanaians mark the end of the school year. Parents come to the school and the students put on performances all day and there is lots of food that the kids bring to share. I got kind of picture-crazy all day – by closing time I had taken over 250 photos. Here are three to give you a sense of the day:

The first is from a play by the Kindergarten kids. It was kind of hard to follow exactly but I’m pretty sure it was about a wicked step-mother. She went to the “juju-man” (a kind of evil spirit sorcerer, I think) who put a curse on one of her blankets so she could kill her step-son. But she mixed up the blankets and killed her daughter instead. That realization is the event in the photo.

The second picture is from the singing group, made up of girls in fourth and fifth grade. They were very good and also had very nice choreography. Their songs were all Christian about Jesus, etc. I think the line they are singing here is: “Here I come to worship, here I come to bow down…”

And the final photo is from the Manye dance group, made up of six boys and six girls from the upper primary and junior high students. It was an elaborate, lively performance. Here is a snapshot I thought I would share that captured the energy and costumes in the performance. You can also see some of the parents seated in the background.

So that’s the end of school here. My work at Manye is finished and my commitment to World Partners ends tomorrow. We built a couple buffer days into my travel plans so I could do something after the program ended. So tomorrow I will be going to Kumasi, which is the second largest city in Ghana. It’s about six hours north of Accra and was the interior capital for the Ashanti empire. I will be there by tomorrow afternoon and will have Sunday and Monday morning to explore the city and the surrounding area before heading back to Accra to catch my plane late on Monday night. It worked out well so I will be able to see a new part of the country before heading home. The other two volunteers are flying home tomorrow, so I will be traveling by myself. It’s not such a bad thing – I don’t know exactly what I will do in Kumasi, so I can make my own plans and see as much of the area as I can before I have to go.

I may have time to use the internet briefly when I return on Monday to collect my luggage, which will stay in Tema while I travel. If I get online, I will write up a brief post to update you. But the timing might not allow it, so the next you hear from me may be back in the US on Tuesday morning! So I hope you all are well and I will talk to you soon!

Week 7 (Final Week) Update

With one week left in Ghana, I actually don’t have very much to report. I had a relaxing weekend. I read a good deal and spent time with some kids on Saturday. On Sunday, I went for a nice walk around Community 25, which covers a much larger piece of land than I first thought. I could be a small town in itself. I was surprised to see dozens of really large houses and two enormous schools popping up on the other side of the community. It’s a big contrast with the area around Manye. Technically, we are located in “Community 25 Annex,” although the houses built in the Annex were here first. But it seems Tema’s development plan is kicking into gear and Community 25 will mostly be home to wealthy families in the future. That seems a bit sad, but hopefully that will come as children attending schools like Manye are able to get good jobs and have a better standard of living than their parents’ generation.

Also of note, Dana Charles (Dartmouth’06, currently in graduate school at NYU and a friend of Ben Schwartz - WPE’s founder) is here in Ghana doing research about what motivates people to send their children to school. We hosted a survey here at Manye yesterday so that Dana could collect data for her research. Turnout was unimpressive, but Dana was encouraged by the data she’s been collecting at NAP, the other WPE partner school. So it’s nice to help contribute in some way to the work she’s doing and hopefully she will be successful.

That’s about all I know. Exam week has finished for the kids, but they still have to come to school while the teachers finish their assessments. They basically get to do whatever they like during the day, and I’ve enjoyed hanging out with them. I will miss them a lot when I leave. 

I fly home one week from today, on a late night flight that arrives in NY on the morning of Tuesday 8/9. I will definitely miss this place and everyone here, but I am also looking forward to coming home. So I hope you all are well. I’ll probably send one more blog update later in the week. Talk to you all soon.

Exam Week

To really bring home the fact that my time in Ghana is coming to an end, this week all the kids had their year-end exams. The academic year is just about over here at Manye – they all had their last exams yesterday so there is no more work for them. Although, they still have to come to school today and Monday through Thursday of next week, for reasons I can't quite understand. The teachers are all marking the exams and writing reports for each student to bring home. And then I guess decisions have to be made about whether students have to be held back. I think all those reports have to be completed by next Thursday and that’s when the school year officially ends.

Exam week was pretty low-key for me. I spent time with the kids during before and after school and during their breaks between exams. But there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do, so I’ve been reading a lot. I’m not complaining.

One thing that really struck me and I think is worth noting is the marking system here in Ghana. I got this directly from the syllabus for First and Second Grade English classes, distributed directly from the Ghanaian government. Otherwise I wouldn’t have believed it. I'm not sure if expectations rise in the upper primary or junior high years, but this is what I found about the marking for the lower grades:

            A:   80-100%            Excellent

            B:   70-79%              Very good

            C:   60-69%              Good

            D:   45-59%              Satisfactory

            E:   35-44%              Pass

            F:   34% or below     Fail

So that was pretty striking. If a child knows only 35% of the material on their exam, they pass and go on to the next grade. After I got over the shock, I sort of went ‘Ohhhh’ because this explains how kids who struggle to read end up in Class 3 and 4. I’m still not sure how Daniel got to Class 2 without being able to recognize the letter ‘L,’ but at least we’ve been working on that issue. But the education system here is certainly not setting the bar very high, and that goes for both the students and the teachers.

So I thought that was timely for me and worth noting. I hope everything is well with you. I will be home in just 11 days (!). I’ll keep you posted on more events in my last week and a half here, but I’m also looking forward to talking to you all stateside. Stay well.

Cape Coast Excursion

This past weekend, we went on a trip to Cape Coast, which is about three hours to the west of Accra. Jon, Kiki, and I, along with Catherine (one of the consultants at Manye) and our driver and friend Emanuel, left Saturday morning and arrived in Cape Coast around 2pm.

We parked right by the ocean and had lunch at a nice restaurant and got to go down and stick our feet in the water while waiting for our food. After lunch, we went to the Cape Coast castle, which was one of the major centers for the slave trade until the mid-19^th century. The site was originally a small fort built by the Portuguese (the first Europeans to arrive in West Africa, in the mid-1400s). The fort changed hands several times as Portugal lost its footing in West Africa in the mid-1600s. First it was taken by the Swedes, and then the Danes (who knew!) and then the British took the spot around 1660. It was then expanded into the moderate sized castle it is today. Here is a picture of Jon, Kiki, and I on the castle’s fortifications, overlooking the ocean.

It was certainly worth seeing. We had a good guide and got to walk through the slave chambers, hearing about how 200 people would be crammed inside for 2-3 months, with little ventilation or food, and with waste piling up around them. We certainly learned about the horrors of the slave trade during elementary school, and this added a new and important layer to understand the horrors of that time. It was also interesting to hear it from the African perspective. The cruelties of the colonialists still anger Ghanaians today, although there is very little resentment against contemporary Europeans.

And I was also able to ask our guide about the African side of the slave trade. The Ashanti Kingdom (which controlled most of what is Ghana today) became richer and more powerful through alliances with the Europeans. Networks of slave traders brought people from all over West Africa through this port, but most slaves were prisoners of war taken in battles against enemies of the Ashantis. And even Ashanti people who committed crimes would be sold into slavery into the New World. Only a small percentage would actually end up in America, I was interested to learn. One-third of all slaves sent across the Atlantic went to Brazil. A second third went to the Caribbean. They said that there were 1.2 million slaves sent to the United States during the slave trade era – which is a large number of people, but small in comparison to the overall slave population, which I think was over 33 million.

We stayed in Cape Coast over night and then on Sunday we went to Kakum National Park, which is nearby. It is one of the few surviving rainforests in West Africa. These incredible ecosystems used to dominate this region, but expanding populations and logging has reduced the rainforests to tiny islands dotting the various countries in the region.

The highlight was the canopy walk – a series of seven suspension bridges made of rope, wood planks, and maybe a little steel. It was completed by just 8 people in 1995. It takes you high up in the trees, around 30-40 meters (roughly 100 feet) over the forest floor. It was a beautiful way to see this incredible place, that is still home to bush elephants (smaller than their savannah cousins), monkeys, antelope, and a multitude of bird, butterfly, and tree species. We didn’t see any wildlife, but the trip was well worth it. The bridge shakes a lot as you walk on it, so many of my pictures came out blurry. Here is one I took that I think best captures the sense of being up there.

So after that, we left the park and drove home to Tema. It was a really great trip and I’m glad I got to explore a new part of Ghana, especially as my remaining time here is running short. So I hope everything is going well with you and I will talk to you soon.

Week Five Update

Not too much of note as I am coming to the end of my fifth week here. The end is coming into sight, just over the horizon. I am getting into a good routine during the school day. I am reading a lot. I’m currently making my way through my sixth book of the trip. I finished the three I put on my Kindle, which I really enjoyed using. Wish I had put more on there. But the people over at NAP have a sizable collection of books, which I am now tapping in to. So that has been good.

The only major excitement to report since the Boti Falls trip was this past Monday we went to Accra Mall and saw the new Harry Potter movie. It seemed like every other ‘obruni’ in Ghana was there as well. There were also a good number of Ghanaians. I enjoyed the movie – although it can never live up to the books – and it was nice to go to the food court and be in air conditioning for a while. So that was fun.

And the only other thing of note has been the weather. We actually got a lot of rain today, so much so that it disrupted school. We woke up to find several classrooms flooded. And the roads get very muddy so the children and teachers can’t get to the school. But by the middle of the day kids and teachers were trickling in and there was a semblance of a school day. We had a day like this two weeks ago and it rained basically every day for my first two or three weeks here.

But what I actually wanted to note was that it hadn’t rained at all for the two weeks before today. The weather turned sunny and hot(ter – the consultants remind me that this is nothing compared to the dry season heat). I like it better when it rains because the temperature really cools down and becomes quite pleasant. But most of the people here complain about the cold if it dips below 80 degrees. It’s all relative I guess. Maybe today’s rain will bring back the return of some cooler weather, or maybe it is just an outlier as we come out of a short rainy season. But I’ve gotten to see both the wet and the dry sides of Ghana in the time I’ve been here, so that has definitely been interesting.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Everything is going well. We will be going on an excursion to Cape Coast (on the Atlantic, to the west of Accra) this weekend, which I’m looking forward to. Hope all is well with you and I will talk to you soon. 

Boti Falls Adventure

This past Saturday, I went with Jon and Kiki (the NAP volunteers) on an adventure to Boti Falls, which is about 3 hours to the northwest of Tema. I set out around 10:30 in the morning from Manye to meet up with Jon and Kiki in Ashaiman, which is a market district on the outskirts of Tema. It also has a large station that serves as a transportation hub for buses, or ‘tro-tros’ as they’re called here.

I should say now, tro-tros are really just large vans. To call it a bus is an overstatement. There is a ‘mate’ who sits by the door and tells you where the tro-tro is going and collects the fare, which is usually very cheap. It was 50 peswes (~ 33 cents) to get from Hitension (closest tro-tro stop to Manye) to Ashaiman. Then it was 4 cedis (~ $2.70) to go the much longer distance from Ashaiman to Kofuridua, a large town near Boti Falls.

Unsurprisingly, given their low rates, tro-tros are very uncomfortable. They squeeze one person into every seat for the ride (so minimum of 12 people in the van) and then there are often parents with young (and not so young) children on their laps. So with knees squeezed into the seat in front of me, I rode for about 45 minutes to get to Ashaiman (mostly because of bad traffic, because it’s really not that far). And then we waited an hour and a half for the next tro-tro to Kofuridua to leave. I thought it was interesting that tro-tros won’t leave on long distance trips until they are at full capacity. So there is no set schedule, or if there is one, it is more of a guideline. It's an interesting way to operate because it ensures that all vehicles run at full capacity, which is good for the operators as well as those last people to buy their tickets to fill the tro-tro. It’s really not that fun for the first people who buy their tickets (which was us) or if you’re trying to get somewhere in a hurry or by a certain time (which, luckily, we weren’t).

The ride to Kofuridua was a little under 2.5 hours. It alternated from paved roads to some serious stretches of cratered potholes. It was a long journey. But the landscape was incredible. The trip took us to the northwest from Tema, out of the coastal plains, into some small mountains. The green in Ghana's flag represents its rich forests and we definitely noticed that change in vegetation as we kept driving. When we got there, we were able to take a tro-tro from Kofuridua that would take us to Boti Falls.

The place was pretty empty, which was nice. We paid 4 cedis entrance fee and then were able to go right down to the falls and had the place to ourselves. The falls were breathtaking. This picture of Jon and Kiki doesn’t do justice to the height of the whole thing. If you stand next to it, not so close to the camera, it makes you look like a tiny speck. I would guess the falls are around 150 feet high. And turning away from the falls, it feels like you've entered a real African jungle. It was a great experience to get out of Tema and explore a rainforest environment with spectacular sights.

After hanging out at the falls for a while we caught a tro-tro on its way back to Kofuridua and luckily got the last three tickets on a tro-tro back to Tema. It was pretty late by the time we got back and I was exhausted from all the traveling. But it was a great adventure that I’m really glad we took.

Teaching and Tutoring Reflections

A couple times now I feel I’ve said that working with the kids all day leaves me exhausted. It’s a good feeling and it’s very rewarding…most of the time.

That feeling depends on how the day in the classroom went. I have been spending a lot of time these past two weeks “teaching” the second grade class. Their teacher is also the school’s Creative Arts teacher and frequently is double-booked (which seems like poor scheduling, but there may be no other way). So Class Two will often be without a teacher. And since I am working with several of the second grade kids on their reading and have a close working relationship with their teacher, it has worked out for me to fill in for him when conflicts come up, which is at least once every day.

And when I say “teach,” I put it in quotation marks because I am not doing a whole lot of imparting of knowledge. Either I help them review what they’ve been working on in math (adding and subtracting three-digit numbers), which many of them struggle with. Or we do spelling games. The first day I did this with them, I divided them into three teams (there are three rows of desks in the cramped classroom) and gave each team a name. On a whim, I called them New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The names stuck. Now even their regular teacher uses those team names. I think the kids like anything that references the US. Many of their exercise books have President Obama’s picture on it. It’s always either him or Asamoah Gyn or other famous football players. Whatever it takes to get kids excited about learning, right?

Anyways, my point here was that I haven’t been developing lesson plans or helping them learn more in the classroom, which is a shame. And with the discipline problems I talked about before, much of the time is chaotic and small fights break out. I try to manage it the best I can and all of it is good experience being in front of a classroom. I can’t say I’m doing well at it, so I chalk it up to positive experiences that I can build on down the road.

But tutoring is going well. In the one-on-ones, the kids are very respectful and eager to learn. We usually attract a small crowd of on-lookers, many of whom are high-performing students who feel a little left out and want to practice their ABCs with me, despite the fact that they are strong readers. When I first started, the observers would frequently blert out answers as soon as my tutee got stuck. Now we’ve gotten a good understanding of my expectations and newcomers are reminded by their peers that they have to keep quiet. In practice, it doesn’t work perfectly but I’m glad the kids respect me and my efforts to help them learn one-on-one.

And each of my tutees has shown some marginal progress. It ranges from Daniel in second grade, who today successfully identified all but three letters on the first try, including his notorious foe, the letter “L.” Then there are two first grade boys I have been working with who have embraced phonics and gone from working on the sounds letters make to going through Dr. Suess books. So that is all encouraging and usually leaves me feeling good about my impact, often in contrast to my time in front of the classroom. I love the kids in Class Two, but I really can’t control them and frequently lose my patience.

I’m really glad I have been able to build strong bonds with these great kids in such a short amount of time. At school, I regularly find eager kids tugging at my wrists trying to drag me with them to work on reading. And people recognize me around the community – not just as ‘obruni’ but as ‘Mr. David,’ which makes me feel good that I have entered the lives of these people and hopefully will be remembered here. Kids constantly ask me if I know the past WPE volunteers who have been here. They rattle off the names and some I know and some I don’t. They remember everyone who has come through here and tried to help better their education. It shows what a big impression each of them made on these kids and I’m really thankful to be a part of that legacy as well as make individual impacts on the children I’m working with.

Week Four Update

Hope you all are doing well. Everything is good here in Ghana. I have reached the half-way point in my seven weeks here. It’s hard to say whether my time in Ghana is moving really fast or fairly slow. I think it’s both, actually. When I look back and think that I’ve been here for nearly a month, I think that time has gone by really fast. And also looking ahead, with just over three weeks remaining, I have a lot that I want to do in terms of helping the kids I am working with and seeing more of this great country. But at the same time, I am looking forward to coming home and spending time with friends and family. And each day moves very slowly because there is so much action working with the kids and spending time in the classrooms and doing things with the kids after school. But it’s all good stuff. I’ll post again soon to update on how my work in the school is going.

But two points of other news that I want to share. The first is that we went on an excursion to Accra this past Sunday. The two NAP volunteers, Jon and Kiki, went along with Ben Schwartz (D’06, and founder of WPE) who recently returned from being in the US. It was good to finally meet Ben, who I had heard about a lot. He had a lot to share about Ghana since he’s spent so much time here over the past five plus years and I really enjoyed meeting him.

In Accra, we visited a bunch of different sites including Independence Square and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park. Nkrumah was Ghana’s leader at the time of independence and the park features a beautiful mausoleum holding his remains. It also has lots of cool artifacts from his life, like the car he drove as President and the clothes he wore the night Ghana became independent. And I learned a lot about his history, which is so intertwined with Ghana’s independence movement and its early days of statehood. 

Nkrumah was a leader of the opposition to Britain’s colonial rule and went from being jailed from 1951-2 to being the leader of a semi-autonomous Ghana upon his release based on an agreement with the British that began the process toward independence. Ghana became independent in 1957. It was the first country in Africa to become gain freedom from a colonial power (as several Ghanaians have proudly pointed out to me). Nkrumah was then elected President, but was ousted in a military coup in 1966. He then lived in self-exile in the African country of Guinea and became “co-President” there. That must have been an interesting arrangement. He died several years later and was buried in Guinea. At some point later, I think based on changes to the Ghanaian regime that have come to celebrate his democratic leadership, his remains were brought back to this country and he was re-interred in his hometown. Apparently the burial in this beautiful structure is his third burial. I thought all of this was really interesting and helped me understand the country a lot better.

The other thing I thought I should note is I got my hair “barbered” (as everyone says here) today. So that was pretty exciting. Most Ghanaians wear their hair really short, usually right down so you can see the scalp. I had to tell the barber a few times that I didn’t want him to buzz it, just to be sure. I don't have pictures just yet, but he did a really good job. Certainly the best $3 haircut I’ll ever have! And it feels a lot better with less hair on my head – should keep me a lot cooler during the day.

So that’s the latest round of excitement here. I will post again soon because I have some updates on how teaching is going. I hope you all are well.

Religion in Ghana

I have observed (based on only three weeks here, in a Christian-dominated community) that Ghanaians have a very interesting balance between enthusiastic passion for their religions and a tolerance for religious freedom in the country as a whole. I don’t have many specifics to cite, but I have gathered that Christianity is the main religion here in the south. And I understand that Islam dominates the north. People also practice traditional, animistic religions. Children are taught from a very young age about these different religions in their country and tolerance is an important value in the educational curriculum. In fact, my understanding is almost all based on what I've picked up observing Religion and Moral Education (RME) classes (mostly in the first grade!). Learning about different religions is certainly an important part of Ghanaian education.

I would be interested in learning more about the history of how this kind of curriculum was developed. I don’t know if there is a history of religious conflict that this is meant to address. Or if this was simply considered a priority at the country’s independence in order to promote a stable, harmonious society. In any case, I think it is an important idea, particularly because I’ve noticed how prevalent religion is in Ghanaian society.

You really can’t escape Christianity here in this part of Ghana. When we’ve gone into downtown Tema, all of the taxis have some sort of religious message (many of which are often bizarre) stenciled on the rear window.

At the school, prayer is a big part of the school day. The daily morning assembly before classes has all the students pray as well as recite the Lord’s Prayer. I should know it by heart by the time I leave, right after I memorize the Ghanaian national anthem, which they also sing every day (and is quite catchy!). Also, we always have a “staff meeting” after assembly, which is when the teachers and the headmaster all gather in a circle and one of the teachers leads a prayer. Finally, the day also closes with prayer and the school also hosts a Sunday school every week, which I attended on my second weekend here. It has been interesting to learn about Christianity, which I don’t have much exposure to, and also to learn about how important religion is to people here.

I also have to note the loudspeakers that blare from somewhere near the school about four or five nights a week. They go on for hours, alternating from a pleasant buzzing hum, which reminds me of the call to prayer in Morocco that I remember fondly, to a booming, fire-and-brimstone televangelist who repeatedly shouts “IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!”

That kind of religious fervor is a bit too much for me. But I have found that this kind of passion is often coupled with a respect and tolerance of others that is very reassuring. I can only speak for the brief observations I have had in one small part of the country, so I wouldn’t want to generalize too much about Ghana as a whole. But I have never seen this kind of extreme balance where just about everyone is passionate and vocal about religion, but at the same time is tolerant and supports institutions that advocate for religious harmony. So I thought it was particularly worth noting.

Middle of Week 3 Update

After a couple more reflective and somber posts, I should update you all on what I’ve been doing lately. We have finally resolved my internet struggles, so that is a good thing. The whole process was more complicated than I anticipated, but it’s all working now and I don’t have to be stealing minutes off of the consultants' internet any more.

I’ve continued to do tutoring and help in the classroom. I’ve filled in for teachers a few times this week and I feel I'm getting a better feel for managing the chaos in the classroom, although it’s certainly still chaos. And I’m working with more kids on their reading now – all first or second graders. I am enjoying that, although it definitely involves plenty of frustration. Hopefully we can achieve some real progress in the time that I’m here and start to build strong foundations for these kids to do well in the future.

The only bit of excitement to report was an excursion I went on with the Catherine and Jamie, the WPE Manye consultants, and two of the Manye teachers and a bunch of their friends. Last Friday, on Ghana Republic Day, we went to the beach at Ada which is a little over an hour east of Tema. It is right where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean. It's a very beautiful area that I think is quite popular for Ghanaians to travel to, especially on a long holiday weekend.

We rented a van and squeezed I think 14 people in for the ride. The spot where we went is on a kind of peninsula and we took a boat down the river a little ways, almost to the mouth of the ocean and then pulled in to a kind of mini-resort area. It was a really happening place – like a beach + a dance party. And you had the river on one side and then about fifty yards of sand and then the ocean on the other side, although the ocean was closed to swimming. I stuck my feet in – it’s the same cold Atlantic I know from home. We had a lot of fun there – we played soccer for a while then went in the water and hit a volleyball around and we ate some really good kebabs. It was a great outing, and my first time outside Tema. We will be going to Accra this weekend, so that should be another good excursion.

So that’s basically all I know for now. Everything is going well. Working with the kids is pretty exhausting and I come back to my room really tired every day. But it’s a lot of fun and rewarding, and always entertaining. The kids are really great. So I hope you’re doing well and I will talk to you soon.

Corporal Punishment and Violence (cont.)

Related to my earlier post, I want to continue my discussion of corporal punishment in Ghanaian schools to include the overall violence I’ve seen here, because I think they are related.

Horseplay, especially among the younger boys, during school time breaks here at Manye is more aggressive than anything I remember growing up. They play a game in the school yard where I gather there are two teams and the point is for each side to run around and try to kick the shin of a boy on the other team. Almost all the boys have some nice scars on their legs. Also in class, small disputes or minor incidents turn into small scuffles shockingly fast. If a child takes his friend’s pencil or workbook (often because he/she doesn’t have one of their own), the proper response seems to be to smack the offender in the head or give some other form of student-on-student discipline. The first child, now feeling wronged, usually responds in kind and a small tussle breaks out. And even when students are trying to be helpful by silencing their disruptive peer, it is often done with a smack – in perfect imitation of what they see their teacher do each day. I think the level of violence directed at the children in their daily lives has a big impact on their interactions with each other.

And beyond the violence in the school, I am sure that beating is routine for misbehavior in the home. And I expect that most parents would be upset if their child wasn’t getting beaten for disobedience at school. It is part of the general culture and educational system here. It’s how they were raised. It’s safe and familiar to them. Discipline, obedience, and respect for elders are highly valued traits in Ghanaian society. Corporal punishment is the means for enforcing those values.

Based on all this, it’s hard to see a way to change the system of caning in the school in the near future. I think it will ultimately require a larger change in mindset among the people here. My small and very poor attempts at classroom management based on my values (mutual respect, not raising my voice, emphasizing disappointment over anger) have been met with total chaos. The children have lived in an environment, enforced both at school and at home, where discipline is maintained through force and the threat of force. It would take a very long-term, consistent effort to make the kind of change I would like to see in a classroom. On top of that challenge, the teacher would likely face constant pressure from parents to return to ‘traditional’ methods of teaching. And unless the entire school was changed, the children would eventually move on to a teacher who enforced discipline through fear of punishment, undoing all the effort done in previous years.

Maybe there is some hope, however. I’ve learned that corporal punishment has been completely phased out of university education, which is certainly an important development. Caning in the final two years of high school, I believe, has also been prohibited. And I think there is movement to eliminate, or at least reduce, caning in JHS 3 (equivalent to ninth grade) here at Manye. This is the highest grade Manye teaches, so possibly it could trickle down from there. And as more students graduate from a system where physical punishment was a less and less important part of their educational experience, they may become more open to reducing caning on their own children. I see the elimination of caning in Ghanaian schools as a long-term, but entirely possible, development that I hope could be sped along.

Corporal Punishment in Ghana

Brace yourself for a long post, but one that I hope you'll find interesting. It was certainly an eye-opening experience for me. Corporal punishment is something that I get exposed to a lot working at the Manye School. It almost always involves caning, which can be quite brutal to watch and often reduces the children to whimpers and tears. To discuss it, I need to put in the context of the two uses for which I’ve seen it employed.

The first is discipline. If a student acts out, has disobeyed the teacher, has come to class unprepared, etc. then the teacher will almost always cane the child for their misbehavior. Discipline is critically important to an orderly classroom that promotes effective student learning. It also happens to be probably the weakest part of my (extremely limited) teaching skills, so I can certainly appreciate the difficulty a teacher faces in maintaining order in the classroom.

The times I have been in front of classes on my own here in Ghana, there has been a constant buzz of chatter or kids getting into arguments and little fights in their seats. In ED41, I was exposed to several discipline strategies like using time-outs or a 1-2-3 strike system, or turning the lights on/off or using wind chimes to get attention. Time outs are best when you have space to remove the child from the disruptive environment, but they remain in the classroom and absorb material. But classrooms are so small here that this is impossible; in fact, the close quarters is often what starts disputes between the children, but that is an issue for another time. The strike system requires a lot of trust built up over time to make the strikes meaningful, so I have not tried it. The other two methods involve things I don’t have access to. Maybe I could make wind chimes or a gong or find a whistle and try to use that. But as of now, I don’t have any solutions other than to manage the chaos as best I can. Suggestions here are welcome!

But I have to say, the children have certainly been trained to behave in the classroom under the current system. As soon as a teacher walks in my chaotic room, the class becomes dead silent. They know the consequences of misbehaving in front of someone willing to wield a cane. So the Ghanaian education system, which is really built around the threat of corporal punishment, is very effective at maintaining discipline. 

The other case where caning is used is to punish students for incorrect answers. This is the most troubling issue I have come across in my time here. The idea, which has been repeatedly reinforced in my conversations with Manye teachers, is that if they don’t cane the children, they won’t learn. Their point is that if the student didn’t know the answer today and they got caned, then they will focus more on their studies and come more prepared tomorrow.

But based on what I’ve witnessed, this is wholly unproductive and unethical practice. Most of the problems I have seen related to poor student performance are not from inadequate studying, but from a lack of basic academic skills necessary to understand the task at hand. The most disturbing example came from the first grade class on Tuesday. They were given a dictation test. The teacher read out 10 words and they had to copy them down and they would receive a grade. But this was no ordinary test – these words were hard! And, mind you, most of these kids don’t have basic reading skills! And they were being asked to spell words like ‘education,’ ‘double,’ and ‘environment’ (which the teacher mis-spelled as ‘enviroment,’ which I didn’t challenge because none of the kids were remotely close). I was asked to grade the quizzes as they came in. I would say about 75% of the class either got 2/10 or 0/10. I think four may have gotten 4/10, there was one 5/10 and one 7/10. This was disappointing, but not totally unexpected, to me. What was unexpected was that the teacher then called up each student, consulted the mark I had given them, and gave them a lash for each wrong answer they got! And these are little first graders! Even the superstar of the class was getting three lashes, and a whopping eight were doled out to those performing at the median! And, I repeat, these kids can’t read!

 

Needless to say, I was horrified. I left the classroom after the first few whippings occurred. I went to vent to the consultants, who were helpful in listening to my concerns and explaining that every volunteer goes through shocking process. I guess I’m still venting now. Later that day I went and talked to the teacher and she reiterated what I had already heard about ‘if I don’t cane them, they won’t learn.’ I wasn't interested in picking a fight and didn't pursue it very long. In this case, certainly, there are a lot of other things that could and should be done other than punishment in order to promote better student achievement. I guess that’s where my work with tutoring comes in and I will continue to work closely with Class One during the rest of my time here.

There are a number of other things I want to say about corporal punishment and violence more generally, but this post is already much longer than I thought it would be. So I’ll stop now and post again soon. Hope you all are well.

Tutoring at Manye

Working with the kids here has been very rewarding so far. I technically started my work tutoring on Monday, although one of the teachers was sick and I ended up filling in most of the day. And then we had a shortened school week because tomorrow is Republic Day -- a national holiday celebrating the adoption of the current constitution (in 1992 I believe) -- and the children got today off from school as part of a midterm mini-break.

But on Tuesday and Wednesday I started my work tutoring some of the students in need of the most help with their reading skills. I had a little training on this when I got here and also I came in with some experience with teaching phonetics from my ED41 class in the spring. From that, I was able to begin to grasp the importance of reading and some methods to help children develop strong reading skills.

And I am certainly seeing its importance here in Ghana. Almost all of the classes are based on memorizing what the teacher writes up on the board. It is a very different culture, based on learning as a task that must be accomplished rather than a process and experience to build a better human being. Part of this mentality is maintained and perpetuated through corporal punishment, which is something I will devote a separate post to.

But without basic reading skills, you simply can’t do anything in the Ghanaian school system or in life, I would posit. And in my first encounters with students at the bottom of their respective classes, I have been stunned by how far behind the children are in their reading abilities.

The case of Daniel, a second grader with whom I was paired on Tuesday, stands out as the most extreme case. He can recite the alphabet from memory, and recognize the first 7 letters or so, but that’s where his skills end. In order to recognize any letter essentially from I-Z, he had to have the entire alphabet in front of him and go through reciting the ABCs until he found the name of the letter in front confronting him. All my notions of what education was supposed to be sort of flew out the window at that point. I couldn’t imagine how he had been allowed to advance from first to second grade. Even more troubling was imagining how he had spent the past school year, where nearly all the material is written on the board and the children are expected to copy it down and re-read their notes before quizzes and examinations. And finally, the comparison between this second grader and the first grade class at Marion Cross Elementary, where I was paired with a mentor teacher in the spring, is almost comical. The kids at the ‘bottom’ of the class of first graders in Norwich, VT were light years ahead of Daniel. Plus they receive a terrific amount of extra assistance to help them progress forward. This is a very different place.

But I’m really glad I’m here. What I have learned, more than anything so far, is about myself and how I feel a strong passion and commitment to help those most in need of assistance, especially in reading. There is no skill that the education system professes to directly teach that is more important to living a happy and successful life. If I can help children develop those crucial methods needed to decipher the squiggles we put on paper or a chalkboard, or a computer screen, then I know he or she will be that much closer to actualizing their potential and living life to its fullest degree. I may be getting a little too emotional here, but right now I feel that is the most important and rewarding thing I could be doing. So I am very thankful to be here in this position, able to act on those goals and hopefully making an impact in the lives of some children who need help.

Start of Week Two

Things are going well here in Ghana as I am now in my second full week at the school. Yesterday we went back to the internet place and got a new SIM card, so hopefully that will resolve my internet problems. So now is a good time to update you on what has been going on as of late.

Things at the school are going well. I’ve gotten to know all of the teachers and many more of the students. There are so many that I have a lot of trouble remembering names and faces. They all recognize me though, although recently I've been getting more ‘obroni’ (translation: foreigner, but in a fairly benign sense) or even sometimes ‘Mr. Ben’ (for Ben Schwartz, WPE’s founder. I guess all white men look the same to them? Haha. Most of the time they’re just kidding but sometimes I'm not so sure).

Last week, I observed teachers in their classrooms as I was getting to know the system. This week I am beginning to work with individual students who need the most help in reading. I just started this today, and it was quite an eye-opener, which merits its own post. But it is a good feeling to start this work, which I feel is critically important and extremely rewarding (although very frustrating at times!).

But the kids are a lot of fun. They are all very welcoming and excited to include me in their lives. Here is a picture of me and some of the kids. As you may be able to see, I’ve decided to let my moustache and other facial hair grow out since I’ve gotten to Ghana. I figured now is as good a time as any to give it a try. I doubt it will live up to the incredible displays of Kevin, John Gerdes, and Tim (couldn't find a link, but there has been some wild styling).

In other news, I’ve learned some new skills since being here. The first involves the drinking water here, which is sold in half-liter plastic bags for 10 pesewes (~7 cents) each, or 1 cide (less than a dollar ) for a giant bag of them. But to drink them, you have to tear a small hole in the corner with your incisor teeth, which took me several days to master. I had a nice picture to share on this, but the internet is acting slow so I'll save it for later. Anyways, I’m not sure how this plastic pouch model caught on in Ghana, but it's a similar deal for Fan Ice, which is a kind of ice cream in a plastic pouch. Again, you tear off a corner and squeeze it into your mouth. Those are quite refreshing on hot days.

The other skills I’ve learned (sort of) is washing clothes by hand. I say sort of because when I went to wash some clothes on Sunday, six kids jumped up (there are always some hanging out at the school after school and on weekends) and insisted they do it for me. So I “supervised” this round, and promised myself I would play a more active role the next time I need to do wash – which will now be as long as I can avoid doing it, because it is a long and painstaking process.

One final note and I’ll let you go. We’ve had two nights with the other set of WPE consultants and volunteers. They are at NAP Academy, which is in a slightly more suburban part of Tema, about half an hour away from Manye. It seems that they are doing well. I had met Jon and Kiki (both Dartmouth ‘14s) at the WPE orientation meetings at the end of the spring. And I got to meet the NAP consultants – Richard (Dartmouth ’15) and Katy (Dartmouth ’10, and Teacher Education Program graduate). It was great to spend time with that crew and we’ll see each other again this coming weekend.

So that’s what I know for now. I will hopefully have some more posts of my reflections on my first experiences tutoring and some other thoughts as I’m now in my second full week in Ghana. A lot has happened and it feels I’ve been here much longer than that. But everything is going well. Talk to you all soon.

Storms in Ghana

On Wednesday I went into bustling downtown Tema (which is actually a sizable city – but based on my first few days in Ghana, this felt like a super-metropolis) and got an internet SIM card and loaded it with some internet credits. So with this I can use the internet more regularly. Of course the thing broke after one day, so we’ll be back there this weekend to replace it. But hopefully once that is resolved, I will be able to keep you all updated on what’s going on as well as add some more reflection posts, like this one.

One thing that immediately stands out for me to mention is rain storms. It is after all the rainy season here, so it has rained just about every day. They have been mostly at night, and they don’t last all that long. But when you’re trying to fall asleep and it starts to rain on my tin roof, the sound is quite alarming.

Last night I realized where I’ve heard this sound before. The rain on the tin roof here is pretty much exactly like the sound of a “rain stick,” which I remember playing with when I was younger. For those who haven’t seen one before, it’s a roughly three foot long wooden stick that’s hollow and filled with lots of grains of rice or similarly small objects. And when you tip it one way and then the other, it makes a sound as all the pieces fall from one side to the other. And when you’re trying to sleep under a tin roof, it feels like you’re inside one of these things – it’s like a million little beads pounding down over your head. Then we’ve had a couple thunderstorms as well – when the thunder is near you, it shakes your bones. It’s quite an experience.

So I just thought I would put this thought up since it’s on my mind. I should hopefully get more regular reflections up as I go along. I’m keeping a couple different journals to record both my experiences and my reflections, so hopefully I will be posting elements from both in the future. Stay well.

First Long Ghana Update!

Hi all,

Everything is going really well here in Ghana. These first three full days have been action-packed, so I’ll get right into it. I slept a lot on Saturday night/Sunday morning because I was really tired from the flight and plenty jet-lagged. I had a relaxing afternoon – got a tour of the community from some of the local kids and spent some time reading as well. So it was a good way to get settled in.

I'm living in the house of the headmaster (Mr. Kabutey) of the Manye school. The school is in the cit of Tema which is a suburb of Accra (~30 minutes away). Tema seems pretty interesting in its development – it is a planned city and we are in Community 25. Since Community 1 is at the center of Tema, a big number like 25 means we are really on the outskirts. And in Ghana, the outskirts of a major suburb = rural. We have electricity and a working shower. The toilet is a little shack with a toilet looking shape on top of a hole in the ground. The smell isn’t too bad – makes me think of all those horse show porta-potties back in the day.

My room is good. I’m in an annex of the headmaster’s house and I’ve kind of got the place to myself since it’s separated from the other part of the house where the headmaster and the WPE consultants live. So it’s nice to have some personal space. You can see some pictures of my room. Note the fan and the mosquito net – key assets. I’ll take some pictures of the school soon to put those up – the house is right next to the school.

Another thing of note is the food, which has been great! Emma, the wife of the headmaster, is a really great cook and she has been serving mostly western dishes with some Ghanaian flavor. Dishes of note have been fried chicken and rice, chicken and chips, and a delicious spaghetti plate with bits of meat, vegetables and spices. It could have been right off a restaurant’s list of specials. So that’s been really great and my stomach has had no problem since being here, which is a great contrast to Morocco where my whole family got really sick on our second night in the country.

I haven’t gotten off scott free, though. I spent all of Sunday night tossing and turning, not able to sleep – likely because of the jet lag. Then I woke up late because my alarm didn't go off. I tried to get ready really fast and suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. The lack of sleep and probably a little dehydration did me in. So I took it slow on Monday morning. I met some of the kids and teachers. Mr. Kabutey tricked me into substituting for the First Grade teacher who was out sick. So that was a bit of a riot, but by the end of class I actually felt back to normal.

The children are pretty hilarious. All the young ones want to come up and hold my hand and play with my watch and ask me questions. They all call me “Mr. David” or “Sir” which I find pretty funny. Sometimes it turns into "Sir David" which is just hilarious. But Ghanaian culture places a strong emphasis on respect, which is interesting to see. And all the kids are very friendly and curious. They remember all the past WPE volunteers, so I’ve been telling them I know "Mr. Kevin," "Madame Jeni," "Madame Sidny," and "Madame Maya" – all Dartmouth friends of mine who have been here previously. They think that’s greatest and they wish all of them would come back and visit them. The volunteers certainly make a big impact in the lives of these children, which makes my time here feel very special.

I spent Monday afternoon walking around the community with some kids and local people they know, which was great. And on Monday night, I slept really well, which was a big relief. I may be over the jet-lag (fingers crossed). I woke up feeling fine this morning and had a great day at the school. I observed a Third Grade class in the morning as they did French, Reading Comprehension, and Math. Then I went back to check out my First Grade class in the afternoon. Luckily the teacher had returned. She was teaching the subject RME (Religious and Moral Education), which a pretty interesting element of Ghanaian public education. They were going over the basic practices of Ghana’s three major religions – Christianity, Islam, and “Traditional” (animistic) religions. Although all the students and teachers here are Christian, the coverage of the topic was balanced and seems a good way to promote tolerance. Although the topic and the title they use for it constantly made me think of REM’s “Losing My Religion.” Haha

So that’s what I’ve got for now. I’ll see if I can cut down the length of future posts, but a lot has gone on in the first few days and I wanted to make sure I’m relating the experience well. If you have any specific questions and want to know more about something, send me an email and I will reply the next time I have internet. Hope you all are well and I will be in touch!

Arrived Safely in Ghana!

Just thought I would do a quick post since I arrived and borrowed an internet connection. I have arrived safely, although my flight was really delayed last night. It was supposed to leave at 9:30pm. But because of all the thunderstorms in NY, the plane got there late, then the pilots got in even later, and then they had problems closing the cargo door (!), and finally we were stuck in a huge line trying to take off. So we didn't get in the air until 1am.

But we did get in the air! And I slept well on the plane and read a little as well. I had with me a great little book called The Other by Ryszard Kapuscinski, which my good friend Joe Polwrek recommended to me. It talks about how we only know ourselves in relation to "The Other," which I think is a very timely message for me as I explore this very different culture. The author says this is the most important thing a person can do, and I think I agree. I know I will learn a lot about myself through this experience.

So I'll keep this post short since I'm on borrowed time. Hopefully I'll get myself set up with my own internet connection in the next week or so. But everything here at Manye seems great. The two consultants - Catherine and Jamie (both Dartmouth '10s) have been very welcoming and helpful. And meeting a few of the kids has been great. But remembering names is going to be hard. I'll work on it. And I'll hopefully keep you updated sometime in the near future!

First Post! About to Leave the US

As I've been telling everyone who asks, I am very excited as well as nervous about leaving for Ghana. My flight is tomorrow (Friday) at 9pm and I will arrive in Accra around noon local time on Saturday.

 

This past week, I've had an incredible time on a family vacation in Cancun, Mexico. All of my mom's side of the family was able to be there and the 19 of us had a great time. I spent most of the trip sleeping, eating, reading by the beach, and occasionally doing something productive like snorkeling or water skiing. I also did get to play a lot of tennis, which was great. It was hard to leave that tropical paradise, but I know I have a great experience ahead of me.

So I'm brand new to this whole blogging thing, but it seems like a great way to stay in touch. And I remember reading my close friend Kevin Niparko's blog when he was part of this program two summers ago. It was through Kevin and some of my other friends that I learned about the great work World Partners in Education (WPE) does in Ghana and I'm really looking forward to getting there and experiencing it for myself. I'm sure I will learn a tremendous amount this summer, especially pertaining to my two academic focuses at Dartmouth - education and international relations. But I'm also sure that I will learn a lot about myself in the process and have valuable experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life.

So I'll try to remember to cut my rambling short in future posts. I'll hopefully keep this blog up and running with regular updates while I'm there. I feel ready to go, but I know that I can't fully prepare for the experience I'm entering and will have to just go with the flow most of the time. It should be a wild ride and I'm ready to get started. Talk to you all later!