Me teaching…who'd a thunk it?

It is week two in teaching and i can honestly say that things are going O.K. My first day doing actual teaching was a little nerve-racking and i talked very fast and went through the lesson pretty fast as well. After a couple of more sit-in's and familiarizing myself with the course material, i think things are going smoothly now. So my typical day starts at about 6:30 or 7:30 a.m. when i have my first class. Each period is an hour and i usually get a one-two hour break in between classes. My counterparts and I are doing team teaching, where we all attend all the classes and take turns going over the material. Usual one person begins the lesson and the others can chime in here and there to make the point more clear or just add something. I actually really like this method. It's nice to not be just put out there by myself, with no teaching experience, and expect to teach something like 230 students. but i must say, for my students, they are great! Well great compared to what i have heard from teachers at the junior and senior high school levels. I suppose its typical though. Even though families pay for their children to attend the primary through secondary education schools, it is the kids that do better in school that can move on to the college and university level. Colleges of education and Universities also cost a lot more money, so it is not likely that students will slack off when they have been given the opportunity to further their education. For the most part they pay attention and participate..usually on a very small scale. I can sometimes get 1-3 hands raised when i ask a question, other times…nada. I don't blame them though, ICT is A LOT of information for them to learn and for most they are just trying to copy notes down and memorize so they can pass their exam. See, ICT is required for all second year students to take, whether they want to or not. There in-lies the first problem. A computer, to some to maybe even most students, is really just a concept. Most have seen one but have barely interacted with it and here I am talking about the internal components of the system unit and how the processor and memory works. It's a little extreme. But this year we are trying to get the first year students to start taking some lessons in ICT so that when they need to pass their class for their exams in their second year they are not coming into the course blindly.

I have been finding that i do a lot of board writing and talking AT the class instead of interacting with them. It's hard to engage them because usually i don't have enough time and also i do not have many resources at my disposal. I have made an announcement to one of my lecture classes( yes i teach about 125-150 students at a time, woohoo!) that i will be holding a review session over the weekend, and every weekend henceforth, for their benefit. Now, i have no idea what im going to do at these review sessions but step one is to actually get people to come. I hold my first one this sunday so we shall see how it pans out.

Oh..right, so back to my day. I usually teach 3 classes a day and go back to my house for meals and such. They serve breakfast and lunch in the staff lounge but i usually try to steer clear of that. Although it is great getting free food, don't get me wrong, but they always have porridge in the morning and by always i mean every.single.day….so there's only so much of that i can take. And for lunch they have a mixture of banku or fufu with stew or rice and beans. Usually these dishes are safe but with the rice and beans there is always some kind of mystery beef in there( im still whole-heartedly trying to be a vegetarian) and with the banku and fufu they always serve me and i get tremendous portions that i feel bad not finishing, so i do then i get a stomach ache and hello uncomfortable rest of the afternoon. So i stick to my own veggie concoctions and that keeps me quite congenial.

Sapere Aude - Dare to be Wise

My college's slogan, Sapere Aude, always puts me in a good mood when i see it; Mainly because t is next to a mural cartoon drawing of two guys up in a tree one is sitting on a branch sawing it down and the other has a notepad asking, " How do you define intelligence?". What a knee-slapper.

So it has been awhile since i blogged, as we say here in Ghana, Sorry-o! I thought today i'd write because today was my first official day teaching! hooray, finally! Although i did enjoy my extended vacation time but i could tell boredom would strike soon enough. And looking at my schedule for the academic year, looks like i do not get much time off until next summer, so boo. I haven't actually spoken in the classroom yet mainly just observing today. i should make actual words come out of my mouth tomorrow as i have time in the evening to study the syllabus and textbook and come up with a riveting lesson plan. My weekly schedule is not too bad, i teach 12 one-two hour period blocks per week. Tues and Thurs might be tough as my classes begin at 6:30 a.m. but ill be done by 10am, so there is always an upside!

So, the past couple of weeks i have mostly been bumming around the Volta region. I did buy a bike though, and a pretty sweet bike i might add. Apparently, every couple of months, the bike shops in Hohoe get a shipment of what the locals call "jungle bikes" which are usually bikes from more westernized countries like the UK and the States. So i got a brand-spanking new Trek mountain bike, yippee! It was pricey but one of my PCV friends, who has already been here for a year, said it was a great deal. I've done a couple of nice rides so far including one where i got lost trying to find my friend's town but turned out to be a great little 20 mile exploratory journey. It's weird, 20 miles at home would seem like a piece of cake but out here with the varying terrain and weather conditions, 20 miles is quite a bit of a workout. I want to start making more frequent trips to Hohoe so that i can save some money. I went the other day and when i came back to Jasikan people were coming up to me saying " Oh. I saw you biking to Hohoe the other day. Sister Laura it is very far!" I just laughed and said it was great exercise. I told them that in American people like to ride their bikes recreationally and of course they thought that was crazy. Mainly the people who have bicycles here are the farmers or lower-class citizens. If you have the money it is expected that you take transport or have your own. Well, thats what im here for to stir things up and add some outside perspective!

Speaking of weather changes, even though for exercising it goes from muggy to hot to muggier, it is hitting me now that there are no season changes. The other day i stopped and took note of the date ( because i have no concept of time here) and was so shocked it was October. Back in Jersey the leaves would be turning all shades of yellow and orange and red and in Syracuse it would probably be snowing…It is definitely hotter now than when i came and it's still the rainy season. I heard that in the dry season some places get up to 120 degrees. yikes. but i don't miss the cold yet! Maybe closer to the holiday season...

Kente and Cops and Snakes oh my!

All is going well at site so far. I have made a couple new friends in town but i think once school starts i will be able to use my students to get to know the community a little better. I have mostly being going out of my house every other day or so to do little household shopping here and there. I go to the next big city, Hohoe, a lot because they have a better market, more things and my bank. Me and the other PCV's also meet there a lot for our weekly/bi-weekly get togethers at one of the local spots. We've been doing really well about keeping busy on the weekends, either meeting there or elsewhere. This past weekend we went to Kpetoe(pronounced pet-way), a small city outside of Ho, for a Kente Festival. Im not sure if i explained kente earlier in my blog but briefly: it is a material that Ghanaians make and they are actually quite famous for it. They weave these strands of material together to make intricate designs. Its really cool to watch being done, ill have to videotape it one of these days. I had all the intent of taking tons of pictures of the festival but of course when i got there i left my camera inside at my friends house after i was already at the festival. typical. But the festival was great! It was kind of like going to a summer carnival. There were crowds of people walking up and down the main street and music was blasting and there were many tents set up displaying all different kinds of kente. Kente is actually pretty expensive to buy so i didn't have enough $$ to buy some this time but im sure ill get something over the next couple of years. There were quite a few PCV's there enjoying the festivities and even our Country Director came and joined in on the celebration. After we browsed a bit we went over to a spot to get some food and drinks. Then there was some guy just walking around with a 4-5 foot python on his neck so naturally i called him over. I think it had just eaten because it was pretty calm and i asked to hold it around my neck. Funny how ill scream at the smallest spider but here i can hold a python on my neck and laugh about it. craziness. SO we had left our things at another PCV's house while we toured the festival and when we go back apparently one of the ghanaians who was also staying in the house compound had lost her camera. We were asked to search around for it and check our things and what not. and we all were saying "we don't have it" but somehow what started as just looking around for the camera became we STOLE the camera. It caused a big scene at the house and they were all talking rapidly in the local language, i think one of my friends could make out from there talk "white man" and "thief" so that didn't inspire optimism that the situation would be resolved quickly. So they called the police. sweet. What you don't know about Ghana is that thievery is taken extremely seriously. If someone is caught stealing, there have been many cases where the person is beaten to death. so yeah we were a little worried. After talking to the cops and going down to the station and searching the whole house we were needless to say, pretty pissed. I mean 3 of us had our DSLR's with us and kept saying we all have nice camera's why would we steal yours?? So it took a couple of hours but finally when we where about to sprawl all of our belongings out on the front porch to be checked we heard a commotion from inside. Apparently as soon as we stepped outside the "lost" camera miraculously appeared in the same place we had put our bags down earlier, kind of like someone was trying to frame us. Thankfully the police chief i think obviously knew it had been placed there and he let us go. What sucks though is our friend who stays in that house, who will most likely move out now because well if i were him i wouldnt stay there either. But i guess to take away from this is that shitty things happen, but i wont hold it against Ghana :)

Training's over, Let the dog days begin!

Sooo it's been awhile but i am finally safe and settled at my site in the Volta Region. We had our swearing in ceremony on Aug. 12th which a ton of fun. We had the ceremony on a really nice school campus where all of our homestay families were invited as well as some big shot Ghanaian's and the deputy ambassador to the US embassy. All the volunteers showed up wearing local garb that our families had prepared for us, which was awesome. ANd i must say we were a very colorful bunch. My fabric was light pink and green and had "High Life" written on it which is a type of Ghanaian music style. The ceremony lasted a couple of hours and then we headed off to the local spot where we set up the after party. Most of the families didn't join in at the spot but the after party was really for the PCV's to celebrate surviving Pre Service Training. And our class actually did really well! Out of the 72 of us only one person ET'ed (Early Terminated) which is great compared to the universal Peace Corp statistic that 30% of volunteers leave during PST. So the party started with a couple shots of Apeteshi and i became DJ for the night and made a kick-ass mix keeping us dancing until the wee hours. Even our country director came out for a couple of hours and bought us some drinks. pretty sweet. The next day we left for site early in the morning…not so fun.

The ride up to Volta was nice and short, mainly because our tro tro driver was speeding like a madman but that's how all the taxi and tro drivers are in Ghana, at least in my experience. We did pass though a police barricade where an officer had a radar gun but usually drivers can get out of a ticket with a little hush hush money which just sucks…but hey it happens. I traveled up with a few other volunteers who are near my site which is always nice, makes the ride a little less scary. It's been fairly quiet around here for now since a lot of students are gone. The new semester starts in October so I have about a month or so to kill. But i try to keep busy with little projects here and there. Like cooking, cleaning, list-making, clothes washing, etc. Isn't my life exciting!? haha no but its actually nice to have a little down time. Training was definitely taxing on my mental and physical state and i am happy to be through with it. And I meet up with other PCV's a couple of times a week so you know catch up and shoot the shit. So its fun and relaxing which is great cause im also really nervous about the semester starting and being a teacher. gulp. Im meeting with my counterparts soon so ill have a better perspective on what exactly ill be doing and teaching. I have two counterparts, they are both males and are fairly quiet but seem very nice. So now is my time to go into my larger community and integrate! Ill let you know how it goes :)

Ghanaian Funeral

Ghanaian Funerals

So a Ghanaian funeral is, for the most part, a happy time. Its sad that the person and/or people have passed but they would rather celebrate life and have a big party in their honor than mourn them quietly. When i first came to homestay the weekends were pretty quiet because apparently the chiefs of a lot of the surrounding communities had put a ban on funerals for awhile. Im not sure what the reason was but just judging from seeing them now they do get very loud and people get extremely fired up and rowdy so maybe they were trying to calm everybody down for a bit. They lifted the ban on funerals a couple of weeks ago so now, starting every friday, there are mass amounts of people flooding the streets and there is constant music playing and everyone is wearing black, red or white or a combination of the colors because that is the funeral attire here. Usually when there is a funeral, it is for more than one person. I think it averages between 5-10 people a weekend. So the person or people may have actually passed a long time ago but they wait for a free or scheduled weekend to "celebrate" them. I've heard families waiting months to give their funeral to a family member who has passed. This past weekend there were a ton of people staying at my homestay who were attending a funeral in my village. I have not found out yet who actually died but ill keep researching. But it has been very busy at my household and really nice to meet some of my extended homestay family.

The art of watah fetchin'

So the other day i the opportunity to try and fetch water from the local bore-hole. I wanted to experience doing this at least once during my time Africa so i was eager to help out my homestay family. The bore-hole where my family goes is about a 1/4 mile away but down a little hill. The first bucket i carried back to my house was just plain agony, but i tried not to show how much pain i was in, ha. I set it down for my sister to fill the large barrel with, while i stood there panting. She laughed and then told me we need to fetch water 3 more times to fill it. and of course i was like, Okay! So by trip number 4 i couldn't feel my arms any longer and my neck had squished down at least a half an inch, sweet. But actually after settling i felt good, well i felt mentally good. I thought that we got a lot of attention by just being foreigners but when you step it up to being a foreigner AND carry water i think whole village was looking at me but in a supportive way :). They were all impressed by my initiative to fetch water and would shout out "are you tired yet" and "way to go" in the local language. So all-in-all, 'twas a good day.