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.
No comments:
Post a Comment