Hello All,

I keep telling myself to try and not write as much each week to save some time but each post seems to be similar in length! This one will probably be the same but next week I promise it will be shorter! I am sick and will be spending a lot of time in the office. Anyway, last week was pretty routine and because I am trying to conserve some more money, I only went to Accra over the weekend.

WEEK AT A GLANCE

Teaching on Monday and Tuesday this past week was actually fun…both days! My students decided to behave themselves and I got brief glimpses of my discipline and teaching methods actually working. Monday began with a fun tro-tro ride to Senya. For some reason there was no mate on the tro-tro, or the boy or young man who sits by the door to yell for passengers, open the often tricky doors, and collect money. I was sitting where a mate would normally be and when we began to move, everyone inside started to laugh saying the “Obroni is the mate,” and some other things in Twi. Playing along, I started to snap at people, which is how they usually ask for the fare and everyone started to laugh again. I had to open and close the door for everyone which got old after the second or third time so I moved my seat once the tro-tro started to empty out. On the tro-tro was another teacher from my school. This just shows how the school has no structure or discipline for the teachers. School starts at 7am after attendance which begins at 6:15am. We got off the tro-tro in Senya at 10am! After I got to school and started my lesson, about ten students came in late. It usually takes them five minutes after the bell has been rung signaling the end of break time to get into their seats. I am always standing outside the classroom looking for my students and pointing to my watch. When they see this, they know to start running and finish their food or drink before they enter. The first five late students came in about 15 minutes after the bell. They always give me some excuse about having to run home or something but I know they could have been on time. I give them my schpeel about how I come from Kasoa and am always on time which means they have to be also. The second group, about five girls, came in 30 minutes late! I asked them where they had gone and they told me that the Headmaster had sent them into town to retrieve goods and food for her. I knew that school would be different in Ghana but this is just plain ridiculous! I even asked Freeman about it and he said that it is just my school. No one, even the teachers and headmaster, seems to take education seriously! I even spoke to one teacher at the school who agreed with me and thinks the same thing about his colleagues. Like I said earlier, the students were well-behaved and I could see some progress regarding them raising their hands, saying they don’t understand something, and respecting each other…kind of! While on my way back to the office, I became frustrated because people kept speaking in Twi to me and I couldn’t understand most of it. It made me realize that I need to improve my Twi everyday and to continue focusing on it. I have a notebook with words I learn and usually try to put one or two new words or phrases in it each day. The past week I hadn’t been adhering to that and those conversations made me remember why I started doing it in the first place. Because of this, on Tuesday I started a new lesson in my class where they teach me Twi. I can’t even describe how excited they were to teach me and how much they laugh when I try to pronounce something for the first time. I’m going to continue doing this, at the end of class, to have a little fun and so they can see that I am still learning just like them. I will have to perfect a way to have them teach me without half of the class standing on their desks, laughing and clapping their hands. Also on Tuesday, I made it a point to call on students who never raise their hand or ones I know don’t have great English comprehension or confidence in their skills. Most of the students were able to answer my questions correctly after some time. From identifying certain attributes of characters in a story, to spelling “China” correctly, I was really impressed with how well they did. I think they were eve surprised! Michael Bennett, who used to be a real troublemaker till I sat him down one day, said that if he could go fly anywhere in the world he would go to China. I think he was kidding when he said it but I told him he had to spell it. Becoming disheartened, he told me he did not know how to. I told him that he could do it if he just sounded it out and I said the word slowly for him accentuating each syllable. When I checked on him a few minutes later, his head was down on the desk and he gave me the look of failure. I checked his page and to his surprise, told him he was 100% correct! He gave me a high-five and a little dance. It’s nice to see that they are slowly picking up n simple things like sounding a word out instead of telling me they don’t know how to spell it. Before I came, most students would just give up but I have been stressing to them that they need to sound letters and words out. After class I went to seek out the Headmaster, absent, or the Assistant Headmaster to find out about my idea regarding splitting the class. I found the Assistant Headmaster but he was arguing with a parent presumably about the exam fees for the upcoming exams. I left them alone and figured I wouldn’t be able to split the classes until after holiday break anyway, if at all. Tuesday was also the day my father had surgery on his back. When I was in NJ before leaving for Ghana, he found out that he had three herniated discs which were pressing on nerves in his back. After performing physical therapy and getting a second and third opinion, he was told that surgery was a must because part of his spine had actually collapsed. By this time I was in Ghana and needless to say, became very worried. In a way, I was relieved because the deterioration of function in his legs wasn’t because of some neurological disorder. I guess you can say the Firestone’s are seasoned when it comes to back surgeries. My sister has had three including one that brought her back to the US from the other side of the world. Not to mention that our extended family has had surgeries and similar back problems. After speaking with my mother and father about the details of the surgery and who was going to perform it, I had to take comfort in their confidence that everything would be OK. Still, a four-hour surgery is nothing to take lightly and I couldn’t concentrate much on Monday and Tuesday. I know that my parents only tell me certain details so not to worry me and I was afraid of them hiding something from me. Being this far away from during this surgery gave me feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and extreme uncertainty. I didn’t like that my mother was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital with this same feeling of helplessness. I didn’t like that if something were to happen, I wouldn’t be able to do anything and would take me at least 14 hours of flying to get back to my family. Thankfully, I spoke with my sister and she was able to lighten the mood. Maybe it was because she is a veteran of these surgeries, but I was comforted with her reassurances. I called my mom before I was going to bed and she was just going to see him in the recovery room. The surgeon said everything went well without any complications. I figured this was the only news I was going to get that night so I told them I would call back tomorrow when everyone had a better idea of the situation.

Mate on a Tro-Tro

Still One of My Favorite Photos – Michael Bennett Who Wants To Fly To China

I Miss These Guys

Wednesday started off on the wrong foot because I woke up to Sarah lecturing me about how I leave the bucket in the shower. After I take a shower in the morning or night I always flip the bucket upside down. This is because there have been many mornings when I walk to the shower, kick the bucket and about 30 mosquitoes fly out of the stagnant water that someone left in it. Being that I am a magnet for bug bites and have received one too many mosquito bites on my butt in the shower, I thought it was a good idea to try to minimize their breeding in our house (I have also been scared that they will bite me somewhere a little more personal!). I told Sarah that I was tired of getting so many bug bites while I was showering which is why I flip the bucket over. She was mad because the shower floor is “dirty” and might get the rim of the bucket dirty. She also said that we will have mosquitoes no matter what because the house is open so there is no point in flipping it. I was still lying in my bed at the time and just kept my mouth shut because if you have ever argued with a Ghanaian, you know that winning is not really an option. When I got to the office, I had an email from a friend who is a graphic designer. I had asked her to look over our logo, which all the interns including myself hate, and give me a few samples of a new one. She replied with some awesome samples and I passed them on to Eric. He immediately poopooed the idea stating that there was nothing wrong with the current one and that the board would have to approve a new logo. Two problems with this excuse in my mind:

1. The current one is terrible. It looks like someone made it in Microsoft Word and doesn’t project an image of a modern, progressive organization with youthful leaders.
2. It has to be approved by the board? What board?! The group of people who you meet with once a year? They don’t have any input on strategy and don’t help with fundraising or donations. Why all of a sudden do we have to have something approved by them? On my “To Do” list is to assemble an actual Board of Directors who operate as such.

I wanted to use the new logo for our new website which I am putting the finishing touches on. Now that I am done with the monthly (or every so often) newsletter, and have gotten through our budget or lack thereof, I will have some time after the newsletter to work on the board. Maybe I will float the logo idea with them and see how they respond. Speaking of the budget, Abby and I sat down with Bright, the finance director, to discuss our funding. It turns out that all of our money comes from two sources: internship fees and donations which only trickle in. They have never received a grant or even applied for one. The “board” doesn’t network in any way to help find large donors and there are no plans for fundraisers. I guess that’s why they assigned me to be a development officer! How CHF is structured right now, solely in Ghana, it will be very hard to have a traditional fundraiser. It looks as though our money will mostly come from wealthy donors who live in Accra and continue to come from internships. When I got home that evening, we had completely run out of water. The government disconnected our complexes water supply, which only ran about five times a month anyway, the previous week for some unknown reason. We had been running low on water for a few days but Sarah still didn’t want to pay someone to fetch it for us from a nearby well. I borrowed some water from our neighbor, Joyce, so I could take a shower that evening. She gave me three times as much as I needed for myself so Sarah and Kojo could shower also. After I took a shower I got into bed to read. I heard Sarah getting ready to shower but I was shocked at what I heard next. She dumped out more than half a bucket of water! Not only is this crazy because we didn’t have any water and were borrowing it to begin with, but she didn’t even dump it down the toilet which hadn’t been flushed in days! I was infuriated. What the hell was she doing?! Again I kept my mouth shut because there was no sense in fighting now. I spoke to Joyce who let us borrow the water and she thought it was as idiotic as I did. Everyone here knows that water is life, and this was just a supreme waste of it.

Current (Terrible) Logo

Last Thursday we had a labour and trafficking talk scheduled at Jehovah Shama Academy in Senya. Anand and I were assigned to junior high school class three which consisted of two sections totaling about 100 students. As they mostly do, the talk started off slow and quiet but as the students became more comfortable with us and the topic, they opened up. It turned out to be an excellent group of kids who had great aspirations: bank manager, newscaster, journalist, and president to name a few. These students asked some of the best questions I have ever heard from these talks. Some of them asked: “Where is the Cheerful Hearts office if I would like to visit?” “What does CHF do if there is a situation where a child is trafficked or working instead of attending school?” and the best one “If everyone is educated, who will fish?” That last one took Anand and me by surprise and we had to quickly form an answer, not ever thinking about this ourselves. We compared it to agriculture and said that individuals go to school to learn better techniques for farming as well as fishing. You can learn new methods, technologies, and conservation techniques to make fishing more sustainable. I am not sure if any of this is accurate, but the student seemed satisfied with the answer. Although, it made me think afterwards about what would happen if everyone was educated. Who would fish for us? I know that it’s a pretty lofty goal to educate the entire world population but hopefully one day we will be there. I wish I had given them my parents old line of, “You have to make it through college, after that you can do whatever you want. Garbage man, gas attendant, astronaut, anything.” The best part of the talk was when they asked how to get in touch with CHF. We don’t have a working office phone so I thought about which mobile number to give them. I decided to give them Freeman’s with a little threat about calling the number if they weren’t serious. It was a girl who asked and by the reaction of her friends, she apparently wanted my number. As I walked out Anand and I laughed about the possible shit storm that I could have just started with Freeman’s phone! We decided to not tell him and see what happened. When we met up with the rest of the Labour & Trafficking team they were in the school courtyard. Freeman was talking to the headmaster and an older lady in Twi and I sat down in the shade next to them. The headmaster kindly offered us a ride to the tro-tro station and all 7 of us plus the driver piled into the car (Anand is about 6’5” and was riding Ace Venture style with his head out the window). After we got to the tro-tro Freeman informed me that the headmaster was the head of Challenging Heights, the organization who is a model for the work we are doing. They have a microfinance division and a rehabilitation center with their own school. As communication goes with CHF, I asked Freeman why he didn’t tell me this while they were talking knowing that I want to set up a meeting with them about their microfinance division. I keep saying baby steps but it is more like crawling!

Vodafone World of Difference Volunteer Leticia Lawson

Labour & Trafficking Talk

Labour & Trafficking Talk

Labour & Trafficking Talk

Labour & Trafficking Talk – Grace and Laura

Labour & Trafficking Talk

Labour & Trafficking Talk

Labour & Trafficking Talk – Freeman

By Friday we still didn’t have any water. After meeting with Bright about the budget, I became suspicious about certain things and wanted to make sure that Sarah was receiving proper compensation for my stay. My contract itemized everything I was paying for so I wanted to make sure those funds weren’t being spent elsewhere. Besides from not having water, we never have food in the house and compared to the intern house and the neighbors, I don’t eat so lavishly. I asked Sarah if she was receiving enough money from CHF and in typical Sarah style, she avoided the question and told me to ask Eric about it and report back to her. I spoke with Eric and explained the situation at the house. He was confused why we still had no water and that there is not food in the house on a regular basis. I asked if she was receiving enough money and he laughed and told me how much she had already been given. It was more than enough for the time I am going to be here and I am kind of upset now. This means either she is trying to save as much as possible or she spent the money elsewhere. I know that people take in volunteers for the financial benefit and I’m cool with that. What I’m not cool with is not eating enough solely because you want to save for after I leave or because you already pissed the money away on something that hasn’t benefited the house or your son. When she asked me what Eric said, I told her everything matches up and that the intern house chef and I could go to the market for her if she didn’t have time. She said no and that she is able to do it. Market days are Tuesday and Friday so if something doesn’t happen by next week I will bring it up again. The amount I paid for 6 months could feed one person for almost a year and I also paid to take care of all the household bills. There are no excuses. When I was in the office, I spoke to Freeman about his conversation with the headmaster and executive at Challenging Heights. He told me that the older woman sitting next to them was the headmaster’s wife and the one in charge of the microfinance. She told Freeman that they extend 3,000 Cedi loans for four months to people in Senya after they are in a financial training course for three weeks. They collect 300 Cedis per week for four months which means they are charging 60% interest!!! Whattttt?!!!! This is robbery! Not to mention that if you ever visit Senya, you will see that 3,000 Cedis is a HUGE amount of money for the community. I couldn’t believe that this is how they run their microfinance business and I will certainly follow-up with them to double-check the numbers. If the 60% interest rate is true, I will lose all respect for their organization. Friday night I went over to the intern house after cooking Kojo dinner. Last Friday he was mad I left him alone at the house and waited about 30 minutes and then followed me to the intern house. We were watching a movie that wasn’t appropriate for him and I sent him home, kind of mad that he just followed me without asking if he could come over. I’ve never been an older sibling so I guess these are some of the disadvantages! Again, he was mad I was leaving him and said he missed his mommy. At what age do kids stop doing this?!

Saturday we took another trip to Accra. The girls wanted to go to the art market again because Laura and Grace are leaving soon and wanted to get gifts for people. I tagged along to get out of the house for the day even though I woke up with a sore throat. While the girls went to the market, I had to stop at an ATM. The closest one is the main Ghana Commercial Bank branch which is across the street from Ghana’s National Bank or their version of the Federal Reserve. As I walked up to it, the soldiers who were guarding the National Bank directed me to where the ATM was. In the street there was a fire truck from the Ghana National Fire Service. Wanting to get a picture for my cousin Lael, I asked Kati for her camera. As I was about to take a photo, I heard people screaming at me. I quickly snapped a photo and turned around to see what was going on. The security guards/police at Ghana Commercial Bank were yelling at me about taking a photo. I told them that I didn’t take one and asked what the big deal was. They asked me where I was from and told me that I can’t just go around taking pictures! Say what?! I told them I am from the US but live in Kasoa and have never had a problem with photos in Kasoa or Accra. Again they told me that I can’t just take photos. Pressing them a little more I kept asking why. Finally they told me that in the area I was in, with the National Bank, photos are not allowed. Ahhhh! They should have just said that in the first place! Understanding their concern I apologized and assured them that I hadn’t taken a photo, suckers. Walking back to the art market, we passed a really nice park that I’m sure you have to pay to get in (Oh Ghana). There were signs on the outside walls telling passerby’s that it was illegal to take photos of the park over the wall! Seriously, nothing is free! That night we went to dinner in Osu at a nice Ghanaian/Nigerian restaurant. The food was delicious and reasonably priced. Afterwards we went to the first bakery any of us had seen in Ghana and indulged ourselves with brownies, pies, and other confectionary treats. I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t have any cookies. There was a ‘free’ concert going on in Independence Square that I really wanted to check out. We took a taxi there and tried to get in the first gate. The security guard told us that it was ten Cedis each. I knew that it was supposed to be free so we walked away. I also felt two or three hands trying to pickpocket me so I wanted to get out of that crowd considering I just went to the ATM. After milling around for a little bit, a guy came over to the girls and gave them the free passes. Call it a benefit of walking around with seven white women in Ghana. The concert was pretty fun but I wish I could have understood the words to the songs more.

Ghana National Fire Service

Sunday I woke up with a full-blown cold which sucks in this heat. My neighbor Joyce made me red red because I was home alone all day. When I called my parents that night, I found out that my father was still in the hospital. His back was doing alright but his stomach was still “sleeping” from the anesthesia so they wouldn’t let him go home. I didn’t get to speak with him but my mom assured me that everything was ok. She said he was in pain from his back which means it really must hurt if my dad is complaining about it! Hopefully everything will work ok in the next few days.

GHANA

As I have documented from my own school, teachers sometimes do not arrive to their job on time, if they come in at all. During my time here, I realized that the burden placed on the student to teach themselves is much higher than in the States. Although I think US students need to take more responsibility for their own learning, I have mixed feelings about how it plays out here. A lot of the time, especially in public school, the classes are huge and the teaching materials are extremely limited. When an instructor is late or does not show up, neighboring teachers check in on the class and may assign some busy work for the day. Mostly, the students must remain in the classroom and read or teach themselves. In my grade four class, about 80% of the students cannot read without assistance. This means when there is no instructor, 80% of the class is not usually focused on school work and are being disruptive to the other 20% who are actually trying to do some work. I see it on the days when the teacher has been absent during the past five weeks. As soon as I leave the classroom, it is as if a party and fight break out at the same time. Then you hear girls screaming for everyone to be quiet so they can read. The days I stay late to grade assignments is when the girls come outside and read quietly to themselves while the fight/party rages in the classroom. Last week I came home and asked Kojo my usual questions for him, how was school and what did he learned? Typically he tells me that school was great or fine and tells me the most memorable thing he has learned that day. That day he told me school was boring and he didn’t learn much. I was shocked and told him that he must have learned something! Again he told me it was boring and he was reading most of the day. I asked why it was boring and he said that his teacher did not come in that day so they just sat there from 6:15am till 3pm. This is something I have come to expect from public schools but Kojo attends a more expensive and better quality private school. It’s obvious that there is not enough qualified teachers in the country for substitute teachers but the absent teacher should at least leave lessons or assignments for the students to work on. I would think that in private schools they would have a plan for when teachers are absent because the students have to pay more than three times the fees than at a public school. Kojo has wanted me to check out his class so maybe I will ask about this when I tour the school.

My Class Teaching Themselves During Break

One thing you don’t see in Ghana is people smoking. That is unless they are obronis! I guess I have noticed it but never really paid much attention to the lack of cigarettes because that smoke is replaced by burning garbage. I never thought I would hate something more than cigarette smoke but burning garbage definitely takes it to another level. The other day, when the girls from Denmark came back after agreeing to partner with CHF, we were all standing outside the office waiting to go somewhere and one of the girls put a cigarette into her mouth. At first I was actually confused to what the hell she was doing. What was that ‘thing’ she just put in her mouth?! Wait a second, is that a joint? (Let’s be honest, this is what I think about) No, no not a joint. Holy crap! It’s a cigarette and she’s about to light it! I think everyone standing outside, about five of us, was staring at her in confusion/disbelief at her cigarette. Before I could comment about it, Leticia a local volunteer from Vodafone screamed, “Hey! Please put that out! You cannot smoke here!” I was amazed by this. Not only because Leticia had yelled at her but because how serious she was about it! She explained to us that there is an actual law in Ghana prohibiting smoking in public. Like most petty laws here, it is rarely enforced but it is on the book somewhere. After thinking about it for a minute, I realized that the only time I had seen someone smoking was at the beach and they were either white or Rasta’s. The one time I saw someone smoking in Accra, people were yelling at him and I couldn’t figure out why! I thought about this now because I keep seeing articles about smoking ban back in the US. Come on people. It kills you and is robbing some people of up to 25% of their yearly income! Look at the larger picture and take the step to improve the lives and health of yourself and those around you. Ghana has prohibited it and they self-police themselves! From a former cigarette smoker, quitting will be one of the best choices you have ever made for yourself and your family.

THOUGHTS

This past week I have been filled with concern about my father and his surgery/recovery. He kept saying, “Don’t worry about me,” which is my grandmothers famous line. He must be related or something! Knowing that it would take at least 24 hours to get home to see your family puts you in a weird frame of mind. Knowing that you would be the last to know if something wasn’t going according to plan and that you couldn’t be with you family is a terrible feeling. Along with holidays, it is moments like these that make you a little homesick. I would have loved to been able to just give my pops a hug before surgery instead of a poor quality and delayed phone call. To be able to sit with my mother during the surgery just to reassure her, or her reassure me, that everything is going to be OK. I’m glad everything went well with the actual surgery but I hate waiting to call him and check on his progress. Hopefully I will be able to Skype with him next week so I can see that handsome face!

They’re Cute!

I miss and love you all,
John

Hello All,

Like I said in my last post, I am going to try and make this short because it is sapping too much of my time! Anyway, this past week was mostly spent in the office so I won’t bore you with the details. It was nice to relax this past weekend when a few of us went to the beach in the Volta Region.

WEEK AT A GLANCE

Last week I did not teach because of end-of-term exams. This happened at a perfect time because I was sick with a cold for most of the week. Monday night I made that a little worse because the neighbors invited me to have a drink with them. One of the neighbors had a bottle of whiskey and a liter of cola. I have never seen a drink poured this heavy! After downing my first glass, I was told that I must have another. I protested but the whiskey was already in the glass. Hey, at least it was whiskey!

Abiba’s Kids

On Tuesday I met a boy named Ahmed on my walk home from the office. Ahmed is a senior high school student who loves science. I asked him if he would be OK sharing with me how much he pays for school fees each term. He told me that he must pay 450 Cedis for each of the three terms and this does not include textbooks, school materials, uniforms, or food. It was discouraging to hear that if he was able to pay for college, he would study business because that’s where he feels all the jobs are. I told him that he should stick with science if he truly loves it but he told me there is no money in the field and the training is not enough for jobs abroad. I don’t know if all of this is true but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of research and development going on in Ghana. Talking with Ahmed was very enlightening because it helped me view education from a Ghanaian point of view. Some people don’t see the value in a full education because of the job market and lack of opportunities in Ghana. This is what we are battling when trying to convince parents to pay the money to send their kids to school. This is what we are battling when telling kids to stay in school instead of dropping out to make a quick buck. How can I tell a kid to go to school for science if there really might not be any fulfilling opportunities for him once he graduates? Ghana really makes you think. Tuesday night I finished rereading Three Cups of Tea. I needed an uplifting story to raise my spirits about work and this certainly helped. I feel as fervently about education as Mr. Mortenson does and it is nice to see that someone who feels lost with their direction in life is able to take that passion and turn it into such a positive force. Now I just need to figure out my next step and hopefully have enough money for a plane ticket there!

I’ve Been Spending Too Much Time Here

Wednesday I woke up to the sweet sound of water being poured into our barrels. It had been a week since we had enough water to cook and bathe with. During the week we borrowed from neighbors and Sarah would fetch just enough to bathe once a day with. There were a bunch of other issues we had throughout the week but I will skip over those because not much has been resolved by the time I am writing this. I walked home from work with Priscilla, the chef at the intern house, that evening and had a little Twi lesson. I also asked her to teach me how to cook Ghanaian dishes because she is an EXCELLENT cook. She said I am always welcome to learn so I will have to leave work a little early on certain days and help her prepare dinner. Since she is cooking for 10 people, it will be perfect for cooking enough for a few days of leftovers! That night, Kojo was in entertainment mode and was prancing around outside naked telling people to slap his butt. This kid cracks me up!

Vendor

I was still feeling sick on Wednesday so I slept in on Thursday. When I woke up I was feeling much better and enjoyed the fact that the house was empty and I could go about my business in silence! My neighbor Joyce came over and cooked breakfast for us which was really nice. The female interns had gone to the bead market for the day and management was attending an orientation for a new HIV/AIDS program that CHF was chosen to collaborate with. This left only Anand and I in the office which was very nice. I got to finish my blog, Skype with a few friends and family, and get some work done on the new website. While I was going to get lunch, a big storm was blowing in that had really cool clouds. The sky was quite ominous and I walked quickly to get my food. Along the way, I was laughing because all the locals were scurrying to get to their destinations. I had never seen Ghanaians walk this fast before! You should know that most Ghanaians hate getting caught in the rain. The only exceptions are the children who seek out the largest mud puddle to jump in! What really made me laugh is seeing an older woman with a huge basket of goods on her head basically running before it started raining. She saw me watching her and even started to laugh herself!

Friday was a holiday for the presidential election which means no work, school, or much of anything else. Knowing that we would have off, Kati and I decided to go to Meet Me There again and spend the weekend. Laura’s mom, Lois, is in town because Laura and Grace are leaving Ghana on the 12th and travelling around Europe before heading back to the States. They wanted to take Lois to Meet Me There on Saturday but Kati and I thought it would be more relaxing if we spent two nights there. Leaving Kasoa and travelling while voting was going on was a very strange sight! There were huge lines in Kasoa where voters bring tables and chairs for comfort while waiting on the queue. I only took one photo because I was yelled at for taking my camera out which has been happening a lot in the past few weeks! When we got to the usually busy main Accra road in Kasoa, it looked like a ghost town. All the vendors’ stands were empty and there were barely any cars on the road. This was the case for the whole day. When we arrived at Tema station in Accra, there might have been 10 tro-tros there when there is usually 100+. Thankfully we were able to get a tro-tro to Anloga and got there very quickly, as there were not many cars on the road. Some people told us that traveling on Election day might be a hassle, and the Ghanaians all warned us that it might be dangerous, but I think it was the best day to travel in Ghana! And besides, if there was to be any violence, wouldn’t it be a few days later when the results were announced?! That night there was no moon and Kati and I saw at least 10 shooting stars while lying on the beach. This is the most I have ever seen in one night! It was a nice end to the week and a perfect get-away since we had not left Kasoa in about two weeks.

Line For One Polling Station

Saturday consisted of a lot of swimming and lying on an inner tube. The ocean was pretty rough so we spent most of the day in the lagoon. Tough life! Laura, Lois, Grace, and Abby all joined us that afternoon and we had a great dinner of fresh caught barracuda and homemade curry sauce. Kati and I went to the beach again to look for shooting stars but did not see as many this time. On our walk back to the guesthouse, we saw some guy getting pummeled in the street. It looked like a drunken fight with a really big guy giving the beating. After they moved down the street more, there was another guy walking back and forth chanting and clapping. Of course he was doing this right where we needed to walk. Not wanting him to see us, we waded through the lagoon back to the resort. If you remember, Kati was the one who was almost robbed in Cape Coast. I told her that I need to stop hanging out with her because trouble always seems to find us!

Joe

Bright With Joe The Monkey

New Puppies at Meet Me There

New Puppies at Meet Me There

After relaxing a little in the morning and swimming, we left Meet Me There. This time travelling was a little more difficult and time consuming than on Friday! I made the trek to the intern house because there was no food in my house. When I arrived back home, the election results were being announced from Friday’s election. The current president, John Dramani Mahama, narrowly won by just over 300 thousand votes. My host mom is a supporter of the opposition and was not too happy with the results. She sat outside with the neighbors and had a heated conversation about the results and was already claiming fraud with the election commission. Only time will tell if the elections were truly free and fair.

GHANA

I have been paying special attention to the campaigns this past week because of the election. I feel that the climax of the campaigns occurred a few weeks ago when each candidate was still explaining their positions on different issues. It was also an exciting time because new evidence of corruption was coming out against the current president and they were arguing about the allegations. Since then, things have pretty much settled down. The National Democratic Congress (NDC), which is the party in power, was running on the platform that its plans have been working and they will continue to have a better agenda then opposition parties. The National Progressive Party (NPP), or the main opposition party, ran on the motto, “Moving Ghana Forward.” They were offering free senior high school “now”, improved roads and electricity, and to crack down on corruption that has plagued the country. There were also a handful of other parties such as the People Progressive Party (PPP) or Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) who are new and upcoming and could play a larger role in the next presidential election. For the past few weeks, the ruling party has been trying to win over some voters by grading the dirt roads and preventing blackouts somehow. I even saw a NDC campaign pickup truck with its bed filled with 55kg bags of rice. I doubt this was to feed the campaign workers! Just like in the US, there are media outlets dedicated to one political party. My host mother, Sarah, supports the NPP and religiously listens to their radio station. I would compare it to the Fox News of Ghana. Recently, the programs have been basically a man shouting in Twi for an hour or two. I pick up on some of what they are saying by familiar words and reactions from Sarah, and it sounds like some heavy propaganda. Everything is always a conspiracy and of course could never have a logical explanation behind it. Granted, there is a problem with corruption in Ghana, but some people aren’t willing to give the benefit of the doubt or think about what the root cause of a problem is. I suspect that it may be because of the tumultuous history of the government in Ghana and many governments in West Africa. As of Sunday night, there was no election related violence and only a few incidences of protesting in Accra. I made a point to try and avoid and political related gathering so I don’t have any pictures from the past week of election related material.

The Future of Ghana Walking Home After School

THOUGHTS

Something I have been thinking about and faced with everyday is race relations in Ghana. I can’t say that I have come to any conclusions but I have definitely observed a lot of different things. For starters, it seems that every Ghanaian thinks I am monetarily rich solely because I am white. This is part of the reason kids ask for money, teenagers ask for food, and women ask for me to marry them. It is really trying at times explaining that although the standard of living in the US is higher and that I may have “a lot” of money in Ghana, in my own country I am considered “poor” because the cost of everything is higher. The best example I have been telling people is the cost of rent for one month. I use the example of a one bedroom apartment costing $1,000 USD and convert it to Cedis for them. When I tell them it will cost 2,000 Cedis every month they are always shocked! This has seemed to get the point across that yes, even though we have more money, things are typically a lot more expensive. If they are persistent, we usually talk about how the job market is different and how developed each country is. Ghana has a slew of mineral an oil wealth that has yet to be tapped in a way that will benefit Ghanaians. Sometimes I can see the benefit of nationalizing the oil industry if it is handled properly and the money is spent responsibly on development within the country. Unfortunately this rarely, if ever, happens and with the amount of corruption in Ghana, wouldn’t really be an option. I am also baffled at why a lot of the print advertisements here feature whites on them. Cosmetics, clothing, cell phones, health centers, and others usually have obronis on the advertisements. Especially if the company is Ghanaian or African, I cannot understand why they wouldn’t use locals. Is it from an elevated perception of whites? Is it ingrained in the minds of Ghanaians from British colonization? Is it the belief that Western material wealth is better than African culture and beauty? I don’t know if I will even get the answers to the questions I have, but this is what I have been thinking about.

Street Vendor

I miss and love you all,
John

Hello All,

The past week has been filled with small successes and feel good moments. I feel more at peace with living here and have starting to look towards the future more. The holiday break is coming up which is a perfect time to plan my next move. I better get serious because my internship is done in a little more than three months!

Neighborhood Friends

WEEK AT A GLANCE

Teaching this week began as it has many times, being pulled over in the tro-tro on the way to Senya. This time it was serious though! When we pulled out of the station, the driver picked up a passenger, his friend, in an illegal zone. There just so happened to be a police officer on the sidewalk who tried to stop the driver. He didn’t listen and continued driving towards Senya. The police officer must have used his phone to call ahead (they don’t carry radios) and there was a police officer standing in the middle of the road to stop us when we neared to police station. Typically when you are pulled over, they are standing on the shoulder and point at you to pull over, but this time he was physically “blocking” the road. He made the driver get out and from the reaction of the other passengers, I knew this wasn’t like the other stops I have seen. The officer and the driver began to argue, as usual, and after hearing the argument, the other passengers began to exit to the tro-tro. When tro-tros aren’t moving, they are extremely hot and the fact that everyone was getting out, signaled to me that this was going to take awhile. Some of the passengers began to argue with the police officer while I found a shady spot to stay out of the way. I asked another passenger what was going on and was told about picking up the passenger in the illegal zone and how the other passengers are mad at the police for making them late. The most animated passenger came over to explain things in English to me and said that he was mad that the police are punishing all the passengers for something the driver did. He told me he was a teacher and was late already. Big surprise there! Because we were right across the street from the Kasoa police station, they called over a superior to voice their complaints with him. Surprisingly, after about 5 minutes of arguing and telling the police that they were making all of the passengers late, they let the driver go without a summons! When I arrived at school and walked into the classroom, it was completely empty. Not only were the students not there, but the teacher, desks and supplies weren’t either! For some reason, during exams they move the students around and all of their stuff was in a different building. After speaking to some of the kids, I found out that during the week after exams, the students do nothing! The instructors are supposed to be grading the exams but when I went to speak with them, it was more like hanging out and talking on their cell phones. All of the students were either running around the school complex or hanging out in the classrooms unattended. This goes on for four days! I went back to the room where the desks were and tried to round up as many of my students as possible. They were curious why, and I told them that we are moving all the desks back and that I will be teaching a lesson today. I didn’t come all the way to Senya to watch nine year olds play football. Knowing that the kids were not prepared to have lessons that day, I decided to just read a story with them and answer the questions at the end of it. After helping the kids move the desks back, about 15 or 20 of them stuck around to learn. By the time we were done reading, there were 20 to 30 more students from other classes sitting in the windows or had snuck into an empty desk reading along with us. I couldn’t help but smile at all these students who really wanted to learn even when they didn’t have to be there. Just as I was leaving, many of the missing students showed up because they saw how much fun we were having. I told them that they missed a good time and should be in class tomorrow.

Students Already Reading When I Arrive

When I returned on Tuesday I found the headmaster in her office. I asked her about being able to split my class and she was very willing to let me do it after the holiday break. Excellent! She told me that they would try to accommodate however I would like to structure it! Finally! Now I just have to plan what I am going to do! When I went into the classroom, I only found Josephine with her “sisters” hanging out. We sat and talked for a little while and she opened up to me about her mother being dead and how she lives with her father and older sister. The little girls who I always thought were her sisters are actually her nieces! Since she was the only one who wanted to learn that day, I asked her what she would do. Of course she told me that she would like to read a story so I had her pick one out. Just before we started reading, a young teacher came in who I have been chatting with occasionally. He is very interested in going to school in the US so always asks me a lot of questions. We talked for awhile even though I kept trying to cut it short so I could read with Josephine! Sorry sir, I actually try to teach when the kids come to school! Finally, Josephine and I read a story. I helped her feel more confident sounding out words and defined some words for her because the textbook doesn’t have a glossary and we don’t have any dictionaries. When she came across a word she didn’t know, she would give up. When I asked her to try to sound it out, she would look in a different direction and say some random word! By the end of the story she had correctly pronounced three or four words which she claimed not to know. After we were finished reading, Josephine asked me about the library which is across the street from the school. For the past two months Josephine and Patience have been asking me to go to the library but it has always been closed. I walked over to the library because I saw one of the doors in an office next door to it open. I asked the man about the situation with the library but he didn’t know. I asked some senior teachers about it but they didn’t know either. Apparently, one of the teacher’s sons used to manage it but he has been out of town for a few months. I will speak with the headmaster over the break to see if we can find someone with a key to it so I can take a class trip! While we were walking back to the school, Patience was telling me how the class would like for me to come in on Thursday, their last day of school this year, so they could give me some gifts. I told them that I really didn’t want them to buy me gifts and that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to come on Thursday. I told her that I would rather they behave in class and learn a lot than for them to bring me gifts. And besides, I give some of the kids’ money because they can’t afford food for lunch before my class. How could I expect gifts from them? They also told me that they have nothing to read over the holiday break and were very upset about it. I told them that I would see what I can do in regards to the library and possibly finding some story books for them. That evening we all said goodbye to Grace and Laura. Lucky for me, Laura had asked for my favorite meal as her last dinner in Ghana, kontomire with boiled plantains. I’m sad to see them go as they were basically my tour guides for my first two months here. They are both from Colorado so I am sure we will see each other soon enough.

Josephine’s Gang of “Sisters”

Deborah & Mary

Look at Those Eyes!

“Show Me Your Mean Face!”

My New Favorite Picture

My Colleague – Yankee

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. Sarah didn’t get home till late so Priscilla brought me some delicious rice and stew that she made.

Thursday I decided to go into school to see the kids before they went on break. I felt bad because I realized I insulted them when I said not to buy me any gifts. Before I left Kasoa, I had Freeman show me where a bookstore was to buy storybooks for Josephine and Patience. After that, I needed to go to the ATM because I was running out of Cedis. I knew that the ATM at the Ghana Commercial Bank was broken so I had to walk do to EcoBank or Stanbic Bank which is about a mile outside of the center of town. When I got there, both of their ATMs were broken also. I didn’t realize there was a Barclays another mile down the road so I turned back to go to Senya. When I arrived at school, I couldn’t find any of my students. Instead I went to the “B” block at the school to speak with some of the students we sponsor. I gave my phone number to the ones who I could find in case they needed to get in touch with CHF over the holiday break. When I was walking back to the “A” block to find my students, I found them surrounding the assistant headmaster under a tree as he was handing back everyone’s graded exams. I made sure to speak with every student and see how they did on the English section of the exam. Judging from their reaction to this, I could tell that this was the first time anyone had taken to time to individually review their exam and speak with them. Most of the scores were pretty bad, 30%-40% range, so I set realistic goals to improve for the next exam with each of the students. Now that I am able to split the class and tailor lessons to ability, I am confident I will be able to raise everyone’s writing and comprehension skills and hopefully test scores. After I went through all 45 exams, I pulled Josephine and Patience away from the others to give them their books. Of course everyone else was interested and it didn’t remain a secret too long. They all wanted books and I told them that Josephine and Patience were receiving these because they were the best behaved students and had high test scores. I made a deal with them that if they behaved themselves after break, I would bring everyone books before I leave. Josephine and Patience of course thanked and blessed me and I could see in their eyes how excited they were. I told them that I would be quizzing them on the stories in January and that they should underline any words they didn’t understand so I could define them later. Two of the male students had really high test scores and I gave them each some biscuits (cookies). I feel really good about teaching after this week. When I returned to Kasoa, I hung out and talked with my plantain lady, Grace or Ama, for awhile. I like learning new phrases and she revealed to me that I am now her husband! That night, I sat and reviewed Kojo’s exams with him. We started with English and I noticed that there were a bunch of errors on the exam and with how it was graded. Even though they teach/learn British English here, some of the questions were written terribly and some responses that he answered correctly were marked wrong. I explained to him how important it is to review your exams and how this is a great way to learn from your mistakes and check the accuracy of the teacher.

Grace (Ama), My Plantain Lady

Neighborhood Friends

Neighborhood Friends

Friday I made my second attempt to get money because I was completely out. I took a taxi to the Barclays because I was drenched after walking on Thursday. Their ATM worked and afterwards I walked through the market and bought some fruit for myself and my neighbor because it was market day. I hailed a shared taxi on my way back and had a nice conversation with two old ladies who joined me in the cab. They thought it was so funny that I got out before my stop because I wanted to continue talking with them and because the traffic was so bad that I could walk faster. When I got home, my neighbor was ecstatic that I bought her and her daughters a pineapple. Of course she thanked and blessed me. I went to the intern house for dinner that night because Sarah has school and I didn’t feel like eating the leftovers of the leftovers. A new volunteer, Javier, who was only here for two weeks and is leaving Monday, was around and I got to finally speak with him. When I came back home, no one was there and I got to relax in the wonderful silence!

I woke up Saturday wishing I could lie in bed and pee at the same time (bedpans don’t count). I didn’t want to wake up that early and once you are out of bed, the sweat starts. Every single article of clothing I have was dirty so I needed to fetch water to wash. Waiting till you are out of clothes to do laundry when you have a washing machine is one thing. When you have to wash by hand, you really regret waiting that long and allowing it to pile up. The previous weekend I told Kojo I would pay him if he soaked and washed my towels and bed sheets. He soaked them but Sarah wouldn’t allow him to wash them, claiming he doesn’t know how to. They sat in the bucket all week which makes them smell so bad. Rotten eggs bad. I washed all of them twice and they still stink. I will have to wash them one more time when I do the second half of my laundry this week. After I washed, no one was home so I got to sit and relax with my book and some food. Some of the little girls from the neighborhood came by to play. I gave them each a cookie and of course they asked for the rest of them! In Ghana, people expect you to finish the package of cookies once you open them! I like to save them and you can tell people think it is a weird thing to do. That night we went to Big Milly’s in Kokrobite for their reggae night. Originally it was supposed to be a celebration for Priscilla’s birthday and for Maia and Javier’s going away party. Priscilla bailed on us so we had Eric and my neighbor, Gideon, come along. It was a really fun night even though I was working full time as various interns’ husband/boyfriend/whatever. On the way home we were stopped at a police checkpoint with eight people in the car. We were lucky that the officer knew Eric from other trips with the interns.

Damn Laundry

Neighbors

Salamatu

Neighbors

Kesia

Neighbors

Ida

Sunday I went over the intern house to hang out with Maia before she left and finally eat the birthday cake we bought Priscilla. When I went home for dinner we had kokonte with groundnut soup. The kokonte is made from cassava and is now one of my favorite things to eat.

GHANA

I have written about being stopped by police in the past, but most of those were routine: tro-tro stops, police check registration stickers, driver exits the car, bribes the police with a few Cedis, and we go back on our way. This time was much different because the officer was not about to let us go with just a bribe. I don’t know if it was because we were directly in front of the police station or because this offense was more lucrative if it went to court. What was amazing, though, was that even though money couldn’t get the driver out of this situation, the anger of the other passengers could! Imagine being pulled over in the US and having the passengers yell at the officer that he is making them late. Now imagine this actually works and he lets you go! I had to laugh. Even in Ghana, a country which runs on Africa time and basically nothing happens according to a schedule, claiming you will be “late” can get you out of a police summons! Even though the passengers got the driver out of trouble, they still paid their fare for the ride. He could have at least showed his appreciation with a free ride!

Whatever happened to washboards? Seriously! My knuckles are raw from all of this washing by hand! Did washboards help with this? I’m going to have to start looking to see if they sell them here. Saturday I washed half of my clothes, including all 30 pairs of underwear (hey, I was told to bring a lot!). Sitting in a laundromat all day seems glorious after that!

THOUGHTS

This past week I have been confronted with the state of public education in Ghana. Between experiences at my own school, reviewing Kojo’s end of term exams, or flipping through a college textbook, I have noticed a severe lack in quality and seriousness. Starting with my own school, as I have written about, over the past two months I have observed the lax attitude towards education and teaching. The problem starts with the headmaster and assistant headmaster of my school. I know they have some resources at their disposal because of the extra desks that are piled up in the beautiful staff room. (I have my eye on this room for a possible classroom once I split my class!) Their attitudes towards managing and educating have proven to be terrible. Between being absent for weeks at a time or focusing on non-education related topics during staff meeting, I have yet to see either the headmaster or assistant headmaster take their positions and mission seriously. Going on down the line, teachers are next. I think a lot of the problem is how they are trained. I have been told that to become a teacher, you just complete a three month “workshop” and you will be able to teach at most schools. One of my colleagues at DA Primary is teaching before he even graduates from university. Not only this, but he is teaching for barely 6 months so the students will need another teacher after the holiday break. Everyone always says the reason for the large classes I have seen is a shortage of teachers. A fellow inter, Kati, teaches at a private school two days a week where they have more than enough teachers. Sometimes there is nothing for her to do because of all the teachers. Maybe this has to do with how the teachers are compensated? I know that teaching is not a prestigious or highly respected profession as it should be, especially in Ghana. Because of the limited training, I have seen some terrible lessons, caning is accepted as a norm, and long periods of downtime in the classroom. I have proven that you do not need to cane students in order to punish them and have observed how caning does not deter the undesirable behavior. Sometimes you can be lashed for simply for giving an incorrect answer to a question! When I have observed lessons, at least half of the time is spent organizing things, quieting the students, or doing nothing whatsoever. When Patience was telling me how much students learn when I come to teach, part of me couldn’t help but think they feel this way because I engage them and teach for a full hour. I made a point of this after observing my first class and seeing that the instructor was just relaxing outside for half of the class period while the students talked and beat each other. Sometimes I see other instructors outside for the whole class period while the students “teach” themselves. When Kojo, who goes to a more expensive private school, comes home with an exercise or exam that has basic grammatical errors in the text it pains me. How can this be at a school where parents pay extra to ensure a better education? On top of this, he has responses marked as incorrect that are blatantly correct! When asked, “How many fingers are you supposed to type with on a QWERTY keyboard?” he responded ten. This was marked incorrect! Huh?! The problem also extends to the students and their family. How can they focus on education and taking it seriously when putting food on the table is the first priority? When I hear that some of my students will be beaten if they read at home, it kills me. At the same time I can understand that the parents must worry about feeding everyone first. It’s not enough to tell parents to value education and give them the reasons why. They must be given opportunities and trained on how to better provide for their family using improved methods and tools so education can take the priority. I see this problem in the US as well. Parents send their children to school and consider the job done. It takes a lot more than the hours spent in the classroom to provide and quality, wholesome education. I make a point to ask Kojo everyday how school was and what he learned. Aside from making sure he finished his homework so he can continue his chores, I never hear Sarah talking about school with Kojo. My last observation about education is Ghana has to do with the textbooks used in universities here. I believe that textbooks are a great tool for learning but can never replace quality professors and the knowledge they share. That being said, I’ve seen some of the books that are used as the main learning material for some courses and it worries me. At first I thought they were just simple readers for one section of class because of how small they were and how large the text is (think of books for the visually impaired). However, I was told that those are the textbooks and that most of the lessons are derived from them. I’m not saying you need big fatty books in order to receive a quality education, but given the size of these books, pamphlets, I could tell that some of the time management problems from primary school are also problems at the collegiate level. This small thing takes all semester to get through? As much as we complain about our education system back home, I am slowly seeing why students go to great lengths to study in the US. Why we don’t make it easier for them to do this and turn the US into a beacon of quality education and innovation instead of material wealth is something I cannot understand.

Josephine Reading

I miss and love you all,
John

Hello All,

Afi Shia Pa! Happy belated new year! Sorry for the long absence but I was travelling and it was holiday time! I took a week off from writing but this post covers two weeks of activities and thoughts, including my trip to Bolgatanga in the north of Ghana and Burkina Faso.

I also want to take a moment and recommend two books that I have read which have helped me better understand the situations I am facing in Ghana and Africa in general. The first is The Fate of Africa: A History on Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith. It is a comprehensive account of Africa’s recent history, from the roots of colonialism till now.  If you would like to understand contemporary African political and social issues please read it! The second book is a must-read entitled Dead Aid written by Dambisa Moyo. It describes how foreign aid has created a culture of dependence which is crippling Africa and prescriptions for how to move forward from here. According to the United Nations, Africa and Asia will account for 86% of all growth over the next 4 decades! I suggest that everyone takes the time to read these two books to better inform and prepare themselves for this new focus on Africa.

WEEK AT A GLANCE December 17-23, 2012

Monday was spent mostly in the office. Javier, the Spanish intern who was here for two weeks, went home after working on a sports program in one of the local primary schools. That evening I talked with my neighbor Gideon for awhile. I love asking Ghanaians what they think about some of my experiences here and the program I am here volunteering for. While we were talking, I told Gideon about how I always get asked for money by young kids and sometimes teenagers. He laughed at how ridiculous some of my stories are and how I am asked by the same boy everyday even though I have never given him anything. What surprised me was that Gideon is even asked for money sometimes when wearing his school uniform. People know that if you attend senior high school you may have more money than they do. I just never thought about it that way and never realized that young kids would do this. In the middle of our conversation about kids always asking me for money and why they feel they can do it, Kojo chimed in, “kids know that white people are rich and that’s why they ask for things.” This proved our points that many children view white people as all being monetarily “rich” and how wrong they usually are because many of us are broke volunteers! I was really glad that Gideon could see the true reason I am here and that it doesn’t mean I am rich or even trying to be. He has been one of the first Ghanaians to show any interest in the work I am doing and understood that I am working to help people who are in a much worse situation that a vast majority of the people in Kasoa. He even pointed out that I would be spending all of my money in Ghana which is only helping the people and economy here.

On Tuesday I went to conduct some trafficking interviews in Senya with Freeman, Leticia, Anand, and a group of girls who were here from the UK. One of their friends was a past volunteer and they wanted to tour around and see what kind of work we do. Of course we take them straight to the “shit” on one of the hottest days! I split off with Leticia, Anand, and our local volunteer Godfred and we interviewed two mothers and the trafficked children. The first child we talked to was a pretty rare story. He was taken by his grandmother to Yeji for a little over one year without pay. What surprised us was that he said he enjoyed the work. We could tell this kid was rare because for the hour we were there, he never stopped smiling! The second mother we interviewed was a little more apprehensive about telling us her story. Halfway through the interview she said she couldn’t talk anymore because she was busy. On our way out of the village, we saw her sitting in front of her house not doing anything. Obviously she was uncomfortable with all the attention or embarrassed about the situation with her child. I have been insisting that having a large group (more than two people) conducting interviews is both unnecessary and counterproductive. It makes it even worse when there are obronis involved because we are entering areas where outsiders typically don’t go and we always draw a large crowd to the interview. This situation helped my case later in the week when I met with Eric to talk about our plans for 2013. Freeman took the two UK girls and their cousin with him to conduct some interviews with our local volunteer Hayford. They came across a young man who is believed to be 18. Not sure of his age or when he was sent to Yeji, he knows that he has been fishing for at least 10 years. Like in some other cases we have come across, he liked the money that he was making at while fishing so even after returning to Senya for some time, he went back to Yeji to fish. It was the only thing he knew how to do to earn a living. The physical effects of hard manual labor were evident while looking at him. He was extremely short, even for Ghanaian standards. His face was weather beaten and aged which is part of the reason no one could tell his exact age. While he is too old to begin school, it made me think about some sort of technical training program for young adults who don’t have the desire to go to school. After the interviews we took the UK girls to the slave castle that is in town and down to the shore. Along the way I saw one of our sponsored kids, who attends my school, hanging out with his friend. It was good to see him enjoying his vacation and not working. Unfortunately, when we got to the shore where the fishing takes place, we saw another one of our sponsored students, Emmanuel, working. At first, he was excited to see us but then his demeanor changed. Maybe because he thought we wouldn’t be happy with him or because the work was making him unhappy. We could tell by his face that he was tired and figured he has been working long hours at the shore. I told Freeman to go talk with him and find out the details. Freeman spoke with Emmanuel and his uncle, who is a fisherman, and told him not to work the boy too hard. The uncle agreed and pointed out that when school is in session, Emmanuel is always in attendance. I told Freeman that this is true and the boy is always smiling and doing well in school. It is hard not to get upset that a child we are sponsoring is back working at the shore, but we have to remember that the family needs to eat. I will discuss this more later on in the post. When we got back to the office, I had a long conversation with Freeman about culture and race. Again, I will write about this later on in the post. I guess I was in an argumentative mood that day because when I got home I tried to speak with Sarah about the problems we have been having regarding food and water. When I tell Eric and Freeman about some of the situations at home, they laugh and say that Sarah is just being too Ghanaian, or stubborn! I have to agree wholeheartedly with this! She was more concerned about how I told Eric some of the problems after they weren’t resolved and how she would appear; despite the fact that she knew what I was saying was true. My only issue was to make sure that the money I paid for this program was going to the right place, my stomach. Leading up to this conversation, there were many times where we ate the same thing, rice and tomato sauce, for three or four days in a row. I know that I paid much more than what this costs to prepare and that each meal should at least have some sort of protein in it. Many times Sarah is busy and doesn’t arrive home till 7 p.m. which means dinner isn’t ready until 8 or 9. This would be fine if there was food in the house for me to cook but there never are any ingredients. Previously I tried to tell her that Priscilla, this intern house cook, and I would go to the market for her if she just gave us a list. Being stubborn, she said no and that she could do it herself. This never happened and her new excuse was that if she bought a lot of food, it would spoil in the house. This is just not true, especially if we are cooking every day or every other day. After the market approach didn’t work, I asked if she was receiving enough money. She beat around the bush and told me to speak with Eric about it. This is why I brought up these problems to him in the first place, which she later got mad at me for speaking to him about. He told me how much money she receives and it is more than enough to eat and drink very well for my six months here. I told her that she receives plenty and that I am just trying to make her job easier by shopping or even cooking for her. Still being extremely stubborn she kept the topic on how I was trying to make her look bad (she was the one who told me to go to Eric about this) and other random things not related to my main concern. In the middle of everything she just walked away and started speaking to the neighbor. When she returned I asked if we could finish our conversation and she reluctantly agreed. Realizing that she is the type to only be happy if she wins, I agreed with her about something miniscule. She leaned back in her chair with a big smile on her face as if she had just won the grand prize. Oy! We came to a compromise about food and she agreed to change things up during the week. Eric also agreed to speak with her again about the money situation and what is expected out of her. I told him to stop being so nice and accommodating when it comes to certain things while running an organization.

Leticia Having Some Fun Before and Interview

I Have Never Seen A Child Labourer So Happy!

Interviewing a Mother…Skeptical Child

Freeman With an 18 Year Old Labourer. He Would Like To Go To School.

Child Workers

Freeman Trying His Hand At Fishing

Wednesday I finally made it to the tailor to have some of my fabric turned into shorts and shirts. Originally I had wanted to make pants, but let’s be real. It’s too damn hot to ever wear them! Freeman took me to his guy and we finished our conversation about race and culture from the day before. I also asked him about the tax system in Ghana. He told me that realistically, only the workers in the formal sector (bankers, office workers, teachers, etc.) actually pay taxes. Everyone else, like those who sell fish, food items, and clothing, typically don’t pay any kind of tax because of the system in place to collect it. For these kinds of businesses, someone actually walks around to collect money based on the honor system. You are supposed to tell the tax collector how much you have sold and pay accordingly. In the markets, this collector walks around almost every day to collect. Freeman told me that many people just say that they haven’t sold anything and that they have no money regardless of if they have or have not sold anything. There is no way to prove them right or wrong so the collector just moves on. There are many problems with this. The first is that when anything goes wrong or an individual is frustrated with their life or the community, many times the first thing they blame is the government. While corruption here is the real deal, I don’t see how you can blame the government for all your woes if you don’t even pay taxes. The second problem is that it creates a divide, and even animosity between the formal and informal workers. This doesn’t always mean a division between the rich and poor either because many of the informal workers make a very good living. However, this divide is typically between people living in urban cities and those who are living in rural villages. A third problem is how the government is not able to host any sort of public works programs. I’ll admit that even if they do, a lot of the money would not end up where it was suppose to due to the corruption. There are so many projects that I have thought of which would put tens or even hundreds of thousands of people to work and improve the living conditions in Ghana. We are just not able to initiate all of them and at the massive scale that would be needed. Another thing people always refer to is how oil was found in Ghana and there has been drilling since 2007 but not visible benefits yet. It seems to me that many people are expecting there to be huge windfalls and a check written out to each citizen. In a government as corrupt as this one, and even a government which is not, I don’t think this is a realistic hope. All day on Wednesday the power was off and the internet was not working. I went home early to fetch water because I had run out of clothes and we had no water. I’m not able to carry a bucket full of water on my head well enough to make it home with water still in the bucket so I use large, screw top containers that originally held vegetable oil. They don’t seal too well so by the time I got back to the house I was soaked! Fetching water is not my favorite! There was an eruption of cheers from all around Kasoa when the lights came on later that night after being off all day. I have noticed that the longer the lights are off, the louder the cheers are when they come back on!

Still feeling pretty rowdy on Thursday, I had an argument about sexism with Freeman and an animated conversation with Bright about how we handle some of the volunteer placements within the community. The sexism conversation was prompted after I was told that woman teachers only teach the lower grades, class one, two and three because they are better equipped to handle young children and men are the only ones who can handle the older kids. After looking back at my own experiences here and the staff of the school I teach in, I realized that this is how it is typically structured. Obviously I think this is absolutely ridiculous and asked Freeman whether it is an official practice or just accepted informally as the rule. He told me that there is no formal rule that says this but most schools practice it and it is generally accepted. I asked him why it is structured like this and he told me in a matter-of-fact way that woman don’t handle the older students as well as men and that men don’t teach the younger students as well. Freeman used to be a teacher so I immediately asked if this meant that he was unable to teach young students well. He scoffed at that and said that personally he is able to teach them well but other males may not be as skillful. I gave him examples of male teachers in my school who teach the lower grades and asked if they were suited for the job. I also made sure to show him that he said that men weren’t good enough for the job and that if a woman couldn’t teach older student than every mother must be a bad parent after the age of eight. After some more arguing I asked him to recall any female teachers that he had who were outstanding instructors. Of course he could remember some and told me that they were in high school and university! I looked to Leticia for help as she was the only female Ghanaian who was in the room. Obviously she didn’t agree with the practice but told me it was just part of the culture; a part that women like her are trying to change. It was a very powerful moment because here we are, all men, discussing sex issues and the woman in the room was telling us how wrong the tradition is. I don’t know if the Ghanaian men understood at that moment how discriminatory the practice is and how a whole gender feels knowing that they are not thought of as equal. I didn’t have much to say after that and Leticia and I smiled at each other. From the look she gave me, I could feel that she knew I was on the same page as her and that slowly, women are fighting this battle in Ghana. Later on I started talking to Bright about some of our volunteer placements and how they are arranged. I found out that when we send our health volunteers to the local clinic, we give them money for each person we place there. So not only are we providing them with free labor, we are paying them to do it! I could understand if we were placing interns there for a learning experience, but volunteers are supposed to be here to share their knowledge and knowhow so the clinic can improve their services. Giving money to the clinic doesn’t even help us secure government contracts or other projects that bring us funding. I asked if the clinic was corrupt and Bright told me that they are but this money isn’t necessary to place volunteers there. He told me that is was more of us giving them charity. Oy! My heart sank when he said this because we are supposed to be a development organization and not a charity! I continued asking him tough questions about how things have been running and received pretty bleak answers. The conversation showed that CHF leadership may or may not know what sustainable development is. This argument somehow morphed into a discussion about the three ways to kill a cat to eat it and how domestic cats can kill humans. I will spare you with the details about that one.

Leticia, My Only Ally

Bright

Friday was washing day for me and I set up a cleaning day at the office. I hate working in dirty, cluttered spaces so I’m glad we all cleaned. That morning I found a shirt that I had not taken out of my bag since arriving. It smelled like home and I was caught smelling myself numerous times during the day!

Office Cleaning Day

Office Cleaning Day

Saturday was our first day of vacation but I went into the office to use the internet that had been out all week. Eric, Anand and I had also scheduled to have a meeting that morning to discuss our game plan for 2013 and some changes that we want to see. It was a very productive meeting where we laid out some of our goals and came to terms with the realities of where we operate and what is and isn’t possible. Our biggest task is to figure out some alternatives to child labour in Senya and other communities whose whole economy is based on fish. After reading a bunch of reports and studies on alternative income generation for child laborers, it is not looking so easy to figure this out. I have confidence that we will be able to establish some sort of program to help the community diversify their economy and place a focus on education.

Eric

Sunday finally came which meant my long awaited trip to Bolgatanga. I think it was originally the name that had attracted me and also the fact that it is the furthest city from where I live now. Abby and I went to Accra on Saturday and were lucky to purchase bus tickets because four companies were sold out. I guess we should have planned that better because it was the week of Christmas and a lot of people are travelling to visit family. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 2pm but this is Ghana and we didn’t leave until 4:30pm. It was supposed to be at least a 12 hour bus ride and I was hoping the bus would be late because I didn’t want to arrive in Bolgatanga at 4:30am. The ride was pretty uneventful and I spent it watching movies, listening to music and falling asleep for 30 minute intervals.

VIP Bus Station in Accra

VIP Bus Station in Accra

VIP Bus Station in Accra – Guy on the Right in a Colorful Shirt is Ron Artest’s Ghanaian Look-Alike

WEEK AT A GLANCE December 24, 2012 – January 3, 2013

We arrived in Bolgatanga (Bolga) at 5:30am on Monday, December 24th, almost exactly 13 hours after we left Accra. Exhausted, we promptly went to our hostel and fell asleep for the next three hours after only getting some intermittent sleep in uncomfortable positions on the bus. We were staying in a Catholic mission which was one of the nicest places I have stayed while in Ghana. After getting up from our early morning nap, we went to the Tourism Board to find the best things to do and how to get their cheaply. They were extremely helpful and called a taxi to be our driver for the day. The driver, Patrick, gave us a very reasonable price and was great in giving us some information about Bolga and the surrounding villages. Our first stop was Paga, a border town with sacred crocodile ponds and a former slave camp in a nearby village. The crocodile pond was pretty cool but very touristy. We paid a little extra to buy a guinea fowl to feed one of the crocodiles. While we were leaving, we talked to a man who said he would take us for a bike ride through the bush and into Burkina Faso even if we didn’t have passports. I had wanted to go to Burkina Faso and most of us have missed bike riding from back home so it sounded like a perfect opportunity for the next day. We got his information and told him we would call him and be there on Tuesday morning. After speaking with him we grabbed a bite to eat with Patrick and went to the former slave camp in Pikworo. It reminded me of Gettysburg’s Devils Den because of the large rocks and terrible past. The camp had been used by slave masters to round up new slaves and hold them until they were marched to the slave castles in Accra/Cape Coast/Elmina over 800km south. The area was extremely exposed to the sun and surrounding bush. In some of the rock formations, “bowls” were carved into the rock by slaves. These bowls are what they ate and drank from, chained together, one or two times a day. Next to where they ate, their was the “entertainment center,” or a musical rock.  We got a demonstration of this music here. There were two punishment rocks that are still there and the guide demonstrated how and why they were used. Sometimes slaves were chained with their backs to the rocks and forced to stare at the sun all day long until they apologized for their “misbehavior.” There is also a cemetery on the grounds which hold mass graves. Each grave was marked with a large stone but most of them have been cleared by local villages, trying to move on from the horrors that occurred there. Just like the slave castle in Cape Coast, this was a very powerful experience and place. Trying to comprehend how humans could treat one another like this is a hard thing to do even when faced with the evidence. The last stop for the day was a village called Siragu. It is known for the monochromatic paintings which the village women paint on the houses. We made the mistake of stopping at the visitor’s center and not just driving straight to the village. The employees there wanted to charge us 11 Cedis a person to take us to the village or 5 Cedis per person to show us around the visitor’s center compound. Sick of getting charged for every little thing, we ended up just paying the 5 Cedis so the girls could go look at the museum/shop. 5 Cedis to see a guest house and go into a shop and spend more money! This was extremely frustrating to me and I let the “tour guide” know how I felt about it. On top of that, the money is supposed to be going to the women of the village who paint, weave, and make pottery but there were no women working at the center! The best part about the time at the visitor’s center was when Patrick showed me some edible fruit/nuts that grow on trees in the area. All day we were out in the blazing sun of the savannah which is vastly different than the lush vegetation of the coastal region. Before I left for the North, everyone told me how hot it was up there and how I would come running back to Kasoa because of the Harmattan (dry season). I would compare it to the heat difference between New Jersey and Colorado where the coastal region (New Jersey/Kasoa) the humidity that kills you and how inland (Colorado/Bolga) you are roasted by the sun but it is very dry. The savannah landscape in the North was more of the stereotypical Africa that you would think of with larger populations of large animals. I was also amazed by the amount of Baobab trees that were up there. After a past volunteer, Laura Tilley, told me about these trees, I have always looked out for them. Around Bolga there were countless old, massive Baobab’s which stand out on the arid landscape. The sunset during the ride back to Bolga was, as usual, my favorite part of the day. When the sun is low in the sky at this latitude, it is absolutely enormous! It makes for beautiful, but short sunsets. I was captivated by the new landscape and the Baobabs which dominate the horizon. This is one sunset that I wish would have lasted much longer. When we arrived back in Bolga, I continued to be impressed by the amount of motorbikes there were and especially how many female drivers there were. You see very few female drivers of cars in Kasoa and virtually none who drive motorbikes. In Accra it is a little more common but not to the extent of Bolga. This was just another small difference between Bolga and Kasoa.

Robert – Bolgatanga Tourism Board

Our Driver, Patrick

Travel Partners

Crocodile Pond

Crocodile Pond

Crocodile Eating a Guinea Fowl

Pikworo Slave Camp

Pikworo Slave Camp – Food Troughs

Pikworo Slave Camp

Pikworo Slave Camp – Punishment Rock

Pikworo Slave Camp – Music Rock – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Siragu Guesthouse

Siragu Villager

Siragu Villager

Siragu Artwork – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Siragu Fruit/Nut

Baobab Sunset

Baobab Sunset

Baobab Sunset

Tuesday morning we woke up early so we could be in Paga by 7am. Like I said, the midday sun is scorching so we wanted to be done bike riding by the afternoon. The man who took us on the ride was Al Hassan, a local to Paga. Around Bolga they speak over five languages and Paga was no different. Because of all the tribes in the area, there were probably 10+ languages spoken in a small area. Being a native of the area, Al Hassan was able to speak all of these languages and even French because Burkina Faso is about 400 yards from the center of Paga. He said that most of the money we pay for the bike tour goes to the villages (we hope this is true) that we will visit and after negotiating a price (his asking price had doubled since we spoke with him the day before) we were on our way. Originally he had told us that there was a chance to see elephants in the bush but I didn’t have such high hopes. We passed some pepper farms and a lake with crocodiles in it. Once we passed the lake, we were officially in Burkina Faso! After a short while we arrived at the first village. They had a herd of cattle which helped sustain them. I asked where the rest of their food came from and was told that it is bought or brought from farms far away where the men go to work for a number of months each year. Their house was a simple one room thatched hut. When you hear the term “bush people,” this is exactly what you think of. They told us that they had chased away elephants in the morning because they had killed two of their cattle. After spending some time with them we travelled to four other tribes which were very close to each other. The next two villages were literally 100 yards away from each other. Despite the physical closeness, they spoke a completely different language. All the villages were very similar where they had a herd of cattle and the men were off farming somewhere in the bush. Next we stopped at a border marker, or just two large stones with engravings in them. Living in the US, you forget that it must be this easy to cross borders in most countries. Not a person in sight! The next two villages had no cattle but maintained small plots of land where they grew okra. Again, each of these villages spoke their own language. This whole time I was captivated by the people, their beauty, and their lifestyle. I feel that there is something so attractive to the simplicity of life that many Ghanaians/Burkinabé’s lead and the values that it promotes. I wish this didn’t go hand-in-hand with poverty and struggle. After these villages we wanted to go to the official border crossing and go across into a real Burkina Faso town. We got to the border post and schmoozed with the guards while Al Hassan went inside and bribed them. We were able to ride into Burkina Faso and stopped at one of the border villages. It’s amazing that as soon as you cross an imaginary line, the language immediately changes to French. In the village we found one of the boys had a big rice belly which is caused by malnutrition or worms. The public health girls I was with freaked out and gave the mother Cedis (we were in Burkina Faso mind you) so she could take him to the clinic. I told them that throwing money at people doesn’t really work and that they are more likely to buy food with the money than take him to the clinic. After talking to them for a little bit, we rode back into Ghana. Back at Al Hassan’s compound I was able to try some of the fruit from a Baobab tree which tasted like candy. That day we also rode past Shea Butter, Eucalyptus, Mango, Ebony, and Lime trees. Exhausted from the past two days, we headed back to Bolga to figure out the rest of our travel plans before we relaxed for dinner. It was a good thing we went to an internet café to check out the hippopotamus sanctuary we wanted to go to because they had received terrible reviews from past visitors. This changed all of our travel plans and we decided to go to Mole National Park instead. After securing a guesthouse, we went to check out the market in Bolga. It was hard to remember that it was Christmas day because of the heat and there isn’t the commercialization of things in Ghana. Not many Christmas lights or trees around unless you go into western establishments. I also got the impression that Christmas does not warrant a big celebration like New Years. Christian Ghanaians typically go to church in the morning and then just hang out with family most of the day. If you go in to town, the only way you can tell it is a holiday is from the shuttered businesses, but there are plenty of other options. We cleaned up after the market and headed out for dinner to try tuo zafi again, a maize based food which is more popular in the north than in Kasoa. This was our last night in Bolga and I was sad to leave. I really like the feeling in Bolga. The people, small town feel, landscape and climate all make it an enjoyable place.

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Ghana-Burkina Faso Border

Biking in the Bush

Burkinabé Villager

Burkinabé Villager

Biking in the Bush – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Okra

Ghana Border Entrance

Warrior

Merry X-Max

Wednesday was a travel day to Mole National Park. We had to be at the bus station in Bolga by 5am just to get on line for the bus that would hopefully leave by 6am to Temale. We got into Temale with a few hours until the bus for Mole was scheduled to leave. After purchasing our tickets, we went into town for a bite to eat and to look around. Temale is the largest city in the north and serves as a transportation hub like Accra and Kumasi. We made it back to the bus for a lovely 5 hour ride to Mole National Park. About two-thirds of the ride was on poorly paved roads with bush fires burning next to them or on a terrible dirt road leading to Mole. The sunset was, as usual, awesome and was timed perfectly for when we were approaching the park after letting most of the passengers off. Of course it wouldn’t be a complete trip without some drama. Just before we got to the entrance of the park I was looking out the window at the last rays of light from the sunset. Coming towards us I saw a single headlight from a motorbike. Just before we passed it, the light seemed to go out of control and the next thing I know the sound of the bus running something over! We all jumped up to stick our head out of the window to check out what just happened. Under the back of the bus was a motorbike with half of a dead cow on it. Seeing the inside of the cow was kind of confusing as I have never seen a cow on the back of a motorbike and didn’t know if the bus had killed and severed it in half or it was already like that. The driver was laying across the road, seemingly unhurt but in disbelief of what just happened. Typical to Ghana, the driver got out gave a loud “Aah,” which is used for discontent, asked if the rider was ok and then yelled at him. The motorbike rider luckily only had a small cut on his foot because he bailed before the bus hit the bike. The motorbike was not working and had a flat tire. The cow, well the cow was already dead so I guess it was still dinner. We got to the gate at Mole National Park where they wouldn’t accept my student ID because it didn’t have an expiration date. No matter what I always end up being charged full price! After settling in, we went to get some dinner. We knew that the Mole Motel was expensive because of the dorm room rate (24 Cedis) but their dinner was outrageous (14 Cedi where the average is 5-10 Cedi)! Most places in Ghana give huge portions, but even with this high price the portion size was small. Two Canadians were staying in the girl’s dorm and joined us for a drink after dinner. It was nice talking to them because they had been living in Temale for the past few weeks and were just coming back from two weeks in Burkina Faso. After talking with some backpackers I become jealous and wish I was just floating around. Not only that but I usually have more in common with them than the people I have been travelling with and enjoy their personalities more. Maybe it is because of how I have been living or what is important to me, but I see myself backpacking around the world sometime relatively soon.

Leaving Bolga

Oops!

Thursday morning we woke up early to go on a walking safari. We were in search of elephants but were unsuccessful in finding any. We did see some antelope, baboons, warthogs, crocodiles, cranes and elephant prints in the mud. Walking around in the bush and seeing some pristine landscapes really makes me want to go to Tanzania/Botswana for a real safari to see wild lions, giraffes, elephants, zebras, etc. When we got back I called some of the guesthouses I wanted to stay at for the next few nights. The girls were going to go down to Kumasi to the fabric market and I wanted to try and make my way into Cote d’Voire. None of the places I wanted to stay had working phone numbers or websites. I looked for other places in the area but there weren’t too many options because of the remoteness. Without any options, I had to plan something else or go down to Kumasi with the girls. I decided that I can make two other trips out of the things I would like to do and hopefully do them myself or with only one or two other people. That evening, the girls went on a driving safari but I stayed at the lodge because I was trying to save some money. While I was hanging out, I spoke with a guy from Larabanga, the nearest town. We talked about the makeup of the town, mostly Muslim, and some details about life in Larabanga. Supposedly it has the oldest mosque in Ghana and possibly the oldest one in West Africa. He also spoke about how there is no senior high school in the area and if kids would like to attend, they have to stay in Temale which is at least four hours away by bus. He told me how he was helping an orphanage in Larabanga and that they have a guesthouse which they only ask for a donation to stay in. I told everyone that we should stay there for the night because the Motel is so expensive and that you are able to sleep on the roof at the orphanage. Initially, everyone was on board and I set up transportation. About halfway through dinner, most of the girls changed their minds and wanted to stay at the motel again. Long story short, we stayed at the motel again and I had to pay for a bed to sleep in for a few hours before our bus left at 4am the next morning. This episode made me realize that I need to find a good travel partner(s) or go solo from now on.

Mole

Ready for the Safari – Courtesy Katharina von Eitzen

Safari – Courtesy Katharina von Eitzen

Antelope – Courtesy Katharina von Eitzen

Guinea Fowl Feathers

Warthogs and Baboon

Baboons

Baboon Momma – Ouch! – Courtesy Katharina von Eitzen

Crane

Our Safari Guide – Notice the Elephant Prints

Warthogs

Baboon

We left Mole at 4am on Friday morning. When we got into Larabanga to pick up more passengers, the bus needed to be pushed out of a rut it parked in. There is nothing like pushing a coach bus at 4:30 in the morning! We had decided to hightail it back to Kasoa because our plans for the hippo sanctuary fell through and we were tired from waking up so early all week. We made it back to Temale in five hours and had missed the direct bus to Accra. This meant that we had to go to Kumasi first and then transfer to a bus that goes to Accra. We found a bus that was about to leave and hopped on. It seemed like a really nice bus with plush seats, air conditioning, and TVs until it broke down about two or three hours into the ride. You have to be prepared for slowdowns like this but it took the three hours to fix the bus. I later found out that it was the oil pump that was broken so I guess three hours isn’t so bad for this repair. We finally made it to Kumasi and immediately found a bus to Accra. I even managed to fit in an argument with someone about how Ghanaians think every white person is rich as I was getting food for the ride. The bus to Accra was freezing cold which blows my mind because Ghanaians can’t handle anything below 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit! Also, the road from Kumasi to Accra is half unpaved! For such a main thoroughfare it is very surprising that it is not even paved or that the construction of the road isn’t going quicker. We made it to Accra and got back to Kasoa around 2am.

Broken Down Bus – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

The Goat is Staying Cool – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Over the weekend I recuperated from traveling and just hung out around Kasoa.

Monday was New Years Eve and we decided to go to Osu, a young, up-and-coming area of Accra with a lively nightlife. All of our Ghanaian friends and collegues from Kasoa went to church that evening as many Christian Ghanaians do. We ended up on Oxford Street which is like the Main Street of Osu at a sidewalk bar we were familiar with. Apart from being pick pocketed (only 5 Cedis), it was an awesome street party with lots of music, dancing, and fireworks. Just like Christmas, it is weird celebrating New Years in tropical weather.

Wednesday the 3rd we were back to work. With no internet still, I could only read some studies I had downloaded the previous week. We also briefly talked about our plan for the next few months. There is much more planning to come though.

GHANA

On Tuesday when we went to Senya to conduct some interviews, we found one of our sponsored students, Emmanuel, working down at the shore with his uncle. This is the harsh reality that I am faced with everyday in Ghana. Even though children tell us that they don’t like the work, we educate them on their rights and even go as far to sponsor them in school; hunger and poverty push them back into child labour. We could see from the look on his face that he was not enjoying his time down at the shore, especially after we had just run into another sponsored student who was happy, relaxing with some friends during his vacation from school. Every day I battle with myself about the solutions to the labour problem and if what we are doing is in vain. I know that when it comes down to it, the need for food will take precedence over any law, school, sponsorship program or initiative that we setup in the community. When I saw him working at the shore, I went through a mix of emotions. First I was kind of pissed off because he was always smiling in school and manages to run up to me and say hello everyday that I teach. He was not smiling now and looked exhausted. Initially I was also mad because we were sponsoring this boy. He was supposed to be “saved” from laboring like this. I then had to take a step back and remind myself that he wasn’t doing this because he wanted to. He was working because he and his family need to eat. This is when I started to feel OK with the situation. If any of us were in his shoes, we would be doing the exact same thing. Besides that, it is expected of children to help the family provide food for each other and this is what many boys and girls in the fishing community do. I was then stuck in between these two emotions. Am I rationalizing child labour or am I just being realistic about it? Should I be angry at this situation but still respect it? I think I settled on being mad at the situation but being able to understand why it is taking place. The best I could do at that moment was to send Freeman over (the boy has very limited English skills) to speak with him and to tell the uncle not to work him too hard. I will follow-up with him when I see him after school resumes and talk to him more about working. This incident has given me the motivation I was starting to lack in the past few weeks and has helped me refocus on poverty which is causing these circumstances. I have to remind myself that even though child labour is such a complex and difficult problem to resolve, I have to take small steps and do what is possible at this moment.

Freeman Talking to Emmanuel

When we arrived at Mole National Park I was really frustrated because there was no volunteer pricing and they wouldn’t accept my student ID. Lately, my anger about being charged full price for everything isn’t the result of one incident but rather the constant onslaught of charges. It is hurtful that my efforts in Ghana and commitment to our cause are almost never rewarded with praise or appreciation in any form. It also makes me wonder if most of the tourism industry in Ghana is supported by volunteers. Granted, some of the people we meet at guesthouses and attractions are volunteers but most are tourists just visiting for a few weeks. Is it because a lot of people claim to be volunteers to receive discounted prices? If this is the case there needs to be some sort of system in place to identify true volunteers. This can be done while applying for your entry visa to reduce confusion and fraud. I’m not saying that I expect a discount everywhere I go, but it would be nice to occasionally receive one just like Ghanaian students do. Especially at government run attractions, I feel that this is a good way to show some appreciation for the scores of volunteers who come here to help and end up spending their money in the Ghanaian economy.

While in the north I noticed a large amount of NGO’s and development projects that had taken place or were in progress. It is understandable that these rural villages need more help receiving the basic services of electricity, clean water, and education. In almost every village we visited, there were manual water pumps that had obviously been installed in the last 5-10 years. I also saw a number of solar powered street lamps in rural villages without electricity. Seeing this made me wonder if all of these NGOs are truly doing “good” or are just imposing what we view as a better life on these villages. Who are we to say that western living is better than another way of living? We are the ones who created the idea of “standard of living” and have turned it into the idea that material goods improve your life. I admit that everyone should have the right to access clean water, electricity (not to power iPads but to power lights so student can study after their household chores), sanitation knowledge, and education. While a lot of the villagers I came across seemed happy, a few told me that life is hard. Do they feel this way because they are comparing it against what they see in Accra and on TV from North America? Are they striving to feed their family or to fit in with how they view the rest of the world? No doubt, a majority of their struggles are from providing the basics to their families. Although, with all of these projects and outside influences in rural areas, it makes me wonder what the word “successful” means to the villagers. I guess that can be a project for another trip to these rural areas.

“Any moment from now.” This phrase has been repeated over and over to me during my time in Ghana and still makes me laugh. In a place that runs on “African time” I feel that this saying is sometimes taken more literally than it is meant! Sometimes it really means that something will happen in the next 5-10 minutes. Sometimes it means that something will happen in the next 1-4 hours! I have told Freeman about this and he laughs. I thought they did things slowly in Colorado until I came to Ghana! This has increased my patience to a new high. Don’t be alarmed by my lack of urgency when I return to the States!

THOUGHTS

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a huge conversation with Freeman about race relations and perspectives in Ghana. Although he is only one person, I value his opinion because in the past it has been shared with other people and his upbringing is pretty typical. The conversation probably started with a story I told him of an encounter I had experienced that day where race played a part. I was curious to find the true meaning behind the word “obroni,” and the feelings associated when someone says it. Freeman told me that there are many different meaning for it and it depends on how it is said, who it is said to and in what context. The most obvious meaning is of “obroni” is white person. There is a difference, though, in how Ghanaians and Americans view different races. We have had two volunteers with one black parent and one white parent and both of them are considered “obronis.” It must be hard for them to deal with this because in the US they are not considered white, while in Ghana they are labeled “obroni” and not considered black. Freeman is considered a light-skinned Ghanaian and told me that at times people will call him an “obroni.” They might know that he is Ghanaian but his skin apparently makes him stand out among other Africans. When you are labeled an “obroni,” it almost always means that you are thought to be monetarily rich. This is part of the reason I am constantly asked for money, food or clothes by strangers despite only saying “hello.” I constantly have arguments and tell others that just because people are white, does not mean they are rich. When I tell Ghanaians that there are people who go to bed hungry at night and homeless individuals in the US, it really blows their mind. Every time I talk about money with someone who considers me rich, I make sure to explain that while we make more money, we also spend a lot more money for services and goods (Ex. Rent in the US $300-2000/month vs. $4-100/month in Ghana). At the same time I have to remind myself and make them aware that I do feel rich because of my ability to go home and make money and live in a different standard of living. I make sure to tell them that it is because of this feeling which is the reason I am in Ghana volunteering and they should recognize that a lot of other volunteers are in the same situation. I am not monetarily rich at home, but it is worth it to spend the little money I have on other humans who need help improving basic services and education. The term “obroni,” almost always means that you are an outsider. Even though I live with a host family and try to live as my Ghanaian hosts, I will always be considered an outsider because of my skin color. Sometimes I have heard the word used in a harsh sense when trying to call me an outsider. While this is rare, it never feels good especially because of my mission while in Ghana. Freeman told me that there can be many feeling associated with the word but mostly the speaker is saying someone is rich and that everything about them is “right.” He likes to remind me that some people think “white is right” and when they see me, they believe I portray everything they should be. You can see this in the skin whitening products, the portrayal of whites in the media, young kids stroking my hair and skin while telling me my skin is so “smooth and creamy” and the questions that I am asked sometimes. I can’t help but notice that some people are timid when greeting and speaking to me, even grown adults. Sometimes I think it is because of the language barrier but other times I am convinced it is because of race. We then discussed why whites are always viewed as rich. Freeman told me, and I have witnessed how these perceptions of whites are instilled at an early age through TV, parents and schools. There is even a Ghanaian school textbook that says whites brought Africans clothes, shoes and beds because they used to sleep in trees! What?! A lot of this is the remnants of colonial rule and how generation after generation has been force-fed the sterilized history of Europeans and North Americans. Sometimes I get into deep conversations about why Ghana has been slow to industrialize even though they have a wide variety of natural resources versus the US and Europe. I have to remind people that the US and Europe were “developed” using barbaric methods such as slavery, exploitation, religious persecution, and extreme discrimination. By trying to develop without utilizing those practices is something we have never witnessed before. With older individuals, I make sure to ask them about their quality of life 50 years ago compared to today. Most of the time they admit that it has improved and I remind them that their children will notice the same differences in the next 50 years at a much faster pace especially if Ghana can curb its corruption. Freeman and I also discussed race in America after I told him that understanding race in America and Ghana are so different because the make-up of each country. If I’m asked what a typical American looks like, I can’t give just one answer. I explained to Freeman that the best part of America is that every race or religion can be considered American. While whites are the majority in the US (not for long) their backgrounds all differ from various parts of Europe. Trying to explain all this in Ghana is sometimes very difficult because of the homogeneous population here. Most families can trace their roots back to villages in Ghana for many generations. Occasionally you find a Nigerian or Burkinabé who now lives in Ghana but for the most part, Africans leave for Europe or North America. He also had a hard time understanding the term African American. He wanted to know why they weren’t considered Africans living in America because of how Africans were brought to the US. I told him that I was not the best person to talk to about this but that is something an individual has to decide. I am technically and Irish/Lithuanian living in America but I don’t identify as one because I am so far removed from my ancestors who immigrated to the US. My whole life has been in America and I can’t say that I feel any connection to Ireland of Lithuania. To round out the conversation, I brought up religion and how most Ghanaians I talk to are shocked I don’t go to church and pray. Thankfully Freeman told me that these people are jokes because the fact that you go to church doesn’t make you a good person. He assured me that even though none of the volunteers identify with a religion, he believes we are good people because “we do the work Jesus would have done.” I couldn’t help but think of my mother because even though she calls my siblings and me her heathen children, we are truly living our lives and performing the work that is preached about in the Bible, Torah, etc. It’s nice to know that not everyone here thinks that going to church and praying is the answer to leading a good life!

Really?

Freeman

I am always impressed with new landscapes. OK maybe not the Midwestern plains of the US but you know what I mean. The savannah of northern Ghana is no exception. Driving north from Accra is a trip through different ecosystems. You first have the coastal areas and then the cocoa belt with its lush vegetation and mountainous landscape. Slowly you get to drastic rock formations as the land starts to flatten out and turn into the savannah. The savannah is a strange mix of an extremely dry landscape with big trees and tall grasses everywhere. A truly beautiful place with unbelievably beautiful people. The combination of this barren landscape and the simple lives of its inhabitants showed me what so many people are unable to experience; basic love and happiness. While the lifestyle is sometimes a struggle, the villagers are admittedly happy when simply talking to others and their love for each other and us is evident. It is not happiness from material goods or money; it is happiness from interacting with others who show an interest in their lives and from the love of their family around them. I was fascinated by the feeling that I got while in their presence and captivated by their beauty and simplicity. I have realized that wherever I am, I’m drawn to others who value the simplicity of enjoying life with what they have and focusing on the interpersonal relationships which make life so great. Before I left for Ghana, I knew that being in the bush with remote villages would make me feel at home. As we rode around on bikes through the bush, I couldn’t help but feel that these villages, thankfully, are frozen in time. There was one compound which couldn’t have been larger than my parent’s property at home but it held up to 100 people at different times. Those who live in the compound work as a team for every aspect of life; farming, cooking, eating, raising children, maintenance, etc. They might not realize it, but they are rich in their own way. Money can’t buy the genuine love and happiness that these people share with one another.

One thing that keeps amazing me is how things I say I would like to do keep coming to fruition. Whether it was moving across the country for college, spending a couple winters in a ski town, various hiking and camping trips, or coming to Africa, things I imagine myself doing seem to always come true. Most recently, the trip to Bolgatanga and Burkina Faso is another example of this. About a month ago I said I wanted to go to Bolgatanga for no good reason. I didn’t know anything about it or what was there and had only heard the word during a lesson I was teaching in class. I was trying to teach North/South/East/West and used Bolga as an example of North. After I said I would like to go there, I actually looked it up and saw how close it was to Burkina Faso so figured I should go there also (any opportunity to go to a different country I will jump at). Low and behold, a few weeks later we were on our way to a trip I (kind of) planned and ended up having an amazing time. Unfortunately, because we went into Burkina Faso illegally, I was not able to get my passport stamped. Oh well! I think all of these things are just a sign that I was made for travelling!

I miss and love you all!
John

Hello All,

Last week I went back to teaching and started to plan some new initiatives for the Stop Child Labour & Trafficking project. Over the holidays the project fell into a lull because of a lack of staff and my lack of motivation. While we are not receiving any new volunteers for the project, leaving just Freeman and me, I believe that we can expand the project by harnessing local human resources. I skipped writing a blog about two weeks ago because I am lazy and didn’t want to bore you with my lack of productivity. Although, it was Kojo’s birthday and I bought him a soccer ball, two books and took him to the beach again. According to him, I’m the best brother ever.

Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Trying to Teach him to Swim – Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

Courtesy of Katharina von Eitzen

WEEK AT A GLANCE

Monday was back to my regular schedule of teaching. I was sort of glad to get back to teaching because being in an office all week is torturous to me. I got Senya a little early so I could check in with our sponsored students and see how their vacations were. After seeing Emmanuel working down at the shore, I wanted to make sure he was able to enjoy his time off while not working and check if the other students had been working. All of our sponsored kids were happy to speak with me and none of them had worked too hard over vacation. Even though all the kids are doing well, and not participating in hard labour, we received some troubling news from Daniel Otoo, the boy who had been trafficked for ten years. Apparently, his mother took another boy to Yeji to fish over the school break that died from drowning. This information took me by surprise and really got me thinking about the shortcomings of the project. Recess was over so I had to cut the conversation short and attend to my class. As expected, the class was pretty rowdy and many students were absent. Not to break with tradition, the teacher was also absent. The students told me that I need to shave but that they liked my new African patterned shirt I was sporting. Convincing me even further that I need to shave (besides the fact that it looks terrible), I was called Jesus twice that day! Not really knowing how to respond to that, I told them that I couldn’t look like Jesus because he was black. Both of them asked me if I was sure and I told them “No, but I assume he was at least brown.” It’s always fun to give people a little shock and then walk away. Back at the office I had a meeting with Freeman and Anand who is leaving on the 21st of this month. We went over the various meetings and ideas we had over the holiday break and formalized a plan of action for 2013. Along with outlining some projects, we made a contact list for individuals we will need to speak to in the coming weeks. Freeman and I have a lot of work to do in the next 2 months!

Teaching on Tuesday started with half of my class being caned by their teacher for being late to my class. I think it is ridiculous that students get caned for being late in a country where almost nothing is done according to schedule. Not only that but by a teacher who is absent more than any student. The whole situation was pretty messed up because when he came into the classroom (which he never does while I’m there) and told students they would be lashed for lateness, the other students rushed to close the doors, locking out anyone who was late. The students outside ran and tried to barge into the doors like people trying to knock down a door to escape a fire. If a student made it in, they were promptly identified by the rest of the class and sent to get their lashes. I was surprised at how fast classmate ratted on each other to get caned when everyone is fearful of the lashes. About 15 students had to line up in front of the class and receive your lashes. The only good thing that came out of this was that the class was pretty quiet when we read a poem and a story. Back in Kasoa, I didn’t feel like sitting in the office and working so I went outside and hung out with Abiba and Abena for an hour or two. We talked about politics, current issues in Ghana and how things used to be. Robia, Abiba’s smallest child got a new uniform so we all were laughing as she danced around in excitement while trying it on. While I was talking to my neighbor Gideon that evening, I was called Jesus again!

Abiba’s Daughter, Robia. Happy with her New Uniform.

Wednesday I was supposed to go observe an English lesson in class 1B in Senya so I could gauge where some of my students stood in terms of English skills. It was something I had planned with the teacher since the previous week and had even reminded her about it on Monday. When I arrived at the school it was break time and the teachers were all hanging out outside. I asked if she was still teaching English after break and she told me that should couldn’t today because she was now planning to teach religion and moral values. Standing next to her was the class 2B instructor and I asked if she would be teaching English because they have the same timetable. Of course she said she wouldn’t be teaching English either. To be honest, I was pretty pissed and told them that I had travelled all the way from Kasoa (1 hour each way) for something that we had been planning for a week. Not really caring, they told me I could come back tomorrow. I just said goodbye and left, not wanting to tell them what I really thought about how teachers at that school take no responsibility for anything. Not wanting to waste a trip to Senya, I met up with Hayford, our local coordinator, and filled him in about the meetings Anand, Freeman and I had and the projects we would like to start in Senya. Hayford takes care of a new primary school close to where I teach that has four rudimentary classrooms. About five or six of our sponsored students attend the school so I checked in with them also. After touring the school, I discussed our plans (in order of what is immediately possible):

1. Reestablish contact with the parents of our sponsored students. Until now we have sponsored children and not addressed the poverty afflicting the family which is allowing child labour and trafficking to continue. I want to begin interviewing the parents to sensitize them to the long-term consequences of child labour and trafficking and identify what kind of assistance they need to increase their income. Hopefully we can provide business and financial guidance that will help them better provide for their family and avoid situations like the second child Daniel Otoo’s mother took to Yeji.
2. Launch an adult education program addressing the wants and needs of the community. Hayford told me that there is already a program like this running so we need to contact them and find out what they are doing and if it needs any assistance.
3. Arrange an apprenticeship network with local craftspeople. During some of our interviews, we have talked to young adults who have returned from Yeji who are too old to start primary school or don’t have the desire to receive formal schooling. Assisting individuals in learning a skill other than fishing will enable them to make a more reliable income, diversify the economy in Senya and involve community members in the development of their town.
4. Develop a farming cooperative with instruction from local farmers who are already using efficient and productive methods. On the road into Senya there is so much land that in not being cultivated that some of it has to be available for a project like. Like I mentioned earlier, the economy in Senya is so reliant on fish that it will be good to add some agriculture to the mix to stabilize incomes when fish are not plentiful. Not only that but it will provide cheaper food stuffs to the community, allowing them to save some money.
5. Secure investors and a location for a refrigeration and distribution center. Many times, fishermen and fish mongers have to short sell fish because it is about to spoil. The only way fish are typically preserved is by smoking them which still has a limit in how long the fish will last. It also creates problems for the environment and the health of those around the smoke pits, but that’s a whole other story. We have to explore ways to set this up, either as a cooperative, a “fish bank” or some other way to manage the fish. Regardless, it will eliminate the need to travel to other communities and pay inflated prices for fish when they are not able to catch any in Senya. It can also turn Senya into a fish distribution hub and boost the economy by drawing fish mongers to the town when fish are not coming in their respective communities.
6. Last, but not least, we want to talk with the local government representative about a sanitation project. Like I have talked about in previous posts, garbage is burned here by each house usually right outside the door. You cannot go one day without breathing in smoke from a garbage fire. This sanitation project would hopefully provide public trash receptacles, which are nonexistent outside of the few in downtown Accra, and garbage collection. While I am pretty sure that current sanitation companies just burn the garbage after it is collected, at least it is not in populated areas where everyone breathes it in directly.

After explaining all of this to Hayford, I asked him to start thinking of some contacts in the community for the adult education, apprenticeship and farming projects. Also, we will have to gain approval from the various chiefs in town before we can begin to implement these projects. Later that evening I sat down and talked to my neighbor Joel (pronounced Joelle), who received the public health teams HIV talk at school earlier that day. It was interesting/frustrating hearing him talk about what he learned because while he agreed you should wear a condom to prevent HIV, he did not want to mess with “god’s plan” of conception. I seriously just wanted to smack him. Afterwards I got a drink with a group of 8 nursing students that are here from Johns Hopkins University. It was good to get out and have a drink during the week especially since the spot was right next to my house.

Hayford With his Class of Sponsored Students

Thursday was an office day and a fellow volunteer’s birthday. We had dinner at the intern house and a marble cake with nutella frosting.

Friday was a more formal meeting with Hayford and Freeman to discuss our plans and who we need to speak with regarding each project. Like I mentioned, we have to do some preliminary work and then get approval from the appropriate chief(s) in the community. That night I stayed in and tried to watch a movie, Cool Runnings, with Kojo. The movie stopped working after 15 minutes and I started talking with my neighbor Gideon. When I turned around, Kojo was passed out on the table. We are party animals!

My Neighbor Gideon

The weekend consisted of going out in Osu on Saturday night and watching the Ghana v Congo match on Sunday. The African Cup of Nations is taking place right now and it is so fun to watch the matches here in Africa. Ghana is favored to win the cup this year but tied with Congo 2-2 and will play Mali on Thursday. I already told Eric I have to leave early that day!

GHANA

One thing you have to be careful about in Ghana is giving out your phone number. Sometimes people will call you 4 or 5 times in a day just to say “hello.” I mean, that is nice and all…..the first time! Also, I usually find out in the first or second conversation whether the person just wants me to send them a visa invitation for the US or really just wants to be my friend in Ghana. To be honest, it has taken a little to get used to after living in America where many people never want to talk to strangers! Some of my friends always laughed at me because I would talk to anyone but never to this extent! Last night my phone rang 5 times during dinner from two different callers! Thank goodness for ‘silent mode’!

THOUGHTS

On Friday night I hitched a ride with Eric to Accra. He was going to drop Jenny off who has been here volunteering for two months. I couldn’t help but think that in a little over two months I will be taking the same trip to the airport to leave Ghana. My original wish was to stay here for one year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I will be able to do that because of my dwindling money supply and the lack of job opportunities for westerners. The desire to travel elsewhere has also caused me to reconsider my future plans and what I need to do before I can make those trips. Anyway, the ride to the airport was pretty quiet and I could tell Jenny was thinking about the past two months and how fast they must have passed. Even though I was going to Accra to have a fun night out, it made me think about how hard it will be to leave a place where I have met so many wonderful people and really tried to sink my roots into. Hopefully the next two months will be the best ones here and I can really make the impact that I envisioned.

Hello All,

Sooooo I have been pretty lazy when it comes to blog posts this year!  Because the old ones took so much time and were a lot to read, I am going to change things up a little bit.  The last time I posted something was just about a month ago and a lot of things have happened since then!  Needless to say, the past month has had the same extreme ups and downs which have been present throughout my time in Ghana.  One thing that hasn’t changed is the heat…still hot as hell!

TEACHING

Plenty of good things have been happening on this front.  A few weeks ago I was finally able to split Class 4A into two sections, the advanced group and the ones who need extra attention mostly because they are disruptive.  Because of the original teachers’ attendance and his preference to cane kids, I left him with the disruptive group and took the advanced class to another room.  Immediately the entire learning atmosphere changed for the better in my section.  In the three weeks that I have been with them, I haven’t had to tell them to be quiet or interrupted the lesson for any kind of discipline.  Almost all of the students participate and I have slowly helped them feel more comfortable asking questions.  My suggestion to split the class was validated this week in the online class I am taking.  The professor discussed how “tracking,” or splitting a class to homogenize the academic level, has been proven to help all students.  In my section, I have already seen an improvement in the responses to some of the exercises and have been focusing on developing their critical thinking skills.  One day this week the normal teacher didn’t show up which means I had to teach both sections together.  It was just like old times with a crazy class and a lot of talking!

Still Goofballs

Related to teaching, I finally tracked down the assemblyman who has the key to the library.  Unfortunately he told me that the library “needs” renovations, paint, and asked me for money to complete the project.   Basically he is holding the library hostage until he receives a few hundred Cedis for this project.  This type of behavior is what has constantly discouraged me while living in Ghana.  While young students are begging to go to the library for access to storybooks they can’t afford to buy, someone in power is trying to enrich himself without thinking about the consequences for everyone else.  Not only that, but does the library need to be closed while you are raising funds?  Best of all, the letter he presented to me soliciting funds for the project was poorly written broken English.  Proof that these people need the damn library!

Last week I began teaching at Nali High International School in addition to Senya DA Primary.  A returning volunteer, Lucian, just finished four weeks of helping the school construct a library and canteen while improving their class schedule which has been a problem because of a severe teacher shortage.  He asked me to take an hour or two each week to go over there and instruct the Junior High School Class 3 in whatever subject(s) I feel comfortable with.  At the end of this term they take their exams which will determine whether or not they can attend Senior High School.  After twelve noon, the students don’t have any teacher so I scheduled myself to come in the afternoons during their “self-teach” periods.  The first lesson went well but it is hard to work through past exam questions when there are only two textbooks for the class.  My teaching style is certainly different than that of a typical Ghanaian teacher and it will take a few lessons for everyone, including myself, to feel comfortable.  They must have thought I was crazy when I moved all the desks into a semi-circle and sat with them!  The class is small, only 8 students, which makes it very enjoyable compared to the 20-45 student classes in Senya.  I hope that in the coming weeks I will be able to create a good working relationship with the students and address the topics that they don’t feel confident with.

Library Dedication Assembly

My New Class

CHILD LABOUR & TRAFFICKING PROJECT

A lot of things have been going on with the project since I last posted.  Freeman and I have continued our trafficking interviews in Senya and the monitoring of students who we already sponsor.  Each week when we interview these children, it is a stark reminder of why I am here and the unimaginable hardships that other people face.  In my last post, I outlined a number of projects that I would like to institute and ranked them by how possible and necessary they are.  Since then I have started laying the groundwork for these projects and have been gauging the level of interest in them.  I will run through them briefly with you:

1. Agriculture Project – Initially, I envisioned some kind of farming cooperative for the parents of our sponsored children and other individuals in the community.  After doing some research and talking with people who actually know how to farm, we decided that a demonstration farm would be a better idea to train people how to grow crops for themselves.  I visited a demonstration farm in the old Liberian refugee camp outside of Kasoa where an organization called Point Hope is doing some amazing work.  A CHF volunteer is working in the camp for their nutrition program which is tied in with their agriculture training program.  The farm manager, Emmanuel, explained their training program and took us for a tour of their vegetable farm, poultry farm and newly acquired land where they hope to build a compound complete with a farm.  The great thing about this project is that an assemblyman and sub-chief in Senya offered to donate land to CHF.  While I think the term “donate” is used loosely here, it is an encouraging sign that this idea can actually materialize into one of the missing pieces of the trafficking project; skill building and income generation.  In the coming weeks we will be working on actually securing the land, which can be a nightmare in Ghana, and arranging our funds and ideas on how the training program will work.
2. Open Dialogue with Parents of Sponsored Children – After I teach my class in Senya, I have been seeking out parents of our sponsored children to give fill them in with the academic progress of their children.  Next week I even want to visit the parents of my two best students to let them know just how talented their daughters are.  Sometimes it is hard to track down the parents so I have had mixed results with this.  It is also hard because I need a translator to come with me who can speak the local dialect.  After I create a survey/questionnaire, I will begin to more formally ask them what kind of job training they might be interested in or if they would like to learn how to read, write and speak English.  I would like to eventually organize some basic business and financial workshops for them using local businesspeople
3. Apprenticeship Program – This program has been a little slow in getting off the ground because of how transient the older fishers are.  We have been trying to target people in their late teens to early twenties who are not interested in receiving a formal education and don’t see a way out of the fishing industry.  While we have interviewed two possible candidates, they have not been in Senya recently when we looked for them because they were following the fish to the Ivory Coast.  To formalize this program, I would like to create a database of skilled workers who can be used in the future as we locate more individuals interested in learning a trade.
4. Adult Education – This initiative has also been a little slow to get up and running because of my preoccupation with the farming project.  My mother, the literacy guru, has sent me some literature to start with and I am formulating some ideas on how to run these courses and who to use for instructors.  Next week I will meet with the head of the District Assembly to find out about their past literacy program and if the community has anything running right now.  Finding literate instructors who are willing to volunteer or work for a very low wages is a difficult task and I am trying to think of what kind of schools or organizations would be interested in providing their support.  After conducting a trafficking interview a few weeks ago, I encountered a woman who asked if we could teach her how to read and write in English.  I was so happy that she was asking for this and I know that there must be more people in the town like her.  Something tells me that I will definitely get this program running and it will be success.
5. Sanitation – This is such a large issue in Ghana and it is hard to think of how CHF could really set up a comprehensive system in Senya and the surrounding communities.  Part of the reason it seems so daunting is because sanitation is a mentality and lifestyle choice.  That being said, I do believe that CHF can make a difference in some of the schools that we operate in.  In the next few weeks I would like to buy waste bins to help collect trash and water rubbers, or the bags that drinking water comes in.  While the garbage will be burned, at least it will not be strewn all over the schoolyard.  The water rubbers can be recycled and the company that collects them will pay you for them.  Using that money to help purchase school supplies or create a bonus for well performing teachers is something I had in mind.

Despite our lack of personnel, I am highly confident that all of these programs will be feasible in 2013.  The agriculture project has taken priority because of the possibility of free or very cheap land which is amazing.  It feels so good to suggest something and see some momentum put behind it from outside forces.  In the next month I hope to have a more concrete view of all of these initiatives and be able to outline a timeframe for everything.  Then I will be able to create some project plans and wait for some more volunteers to help execute them.

Trafficking Interview

Trafficking Interviews

Point Hope Demonstration Farm

Point Hope Demonstration Farm

TRAVEL

The past month hasn’t been too crazy with travelling.  We went to Kumasi a few weeks ago for a festival and checked out the huge central market.  It is said to be the largest one in West Africa and was quite overwhelming with the amount of vendors and variety of goods. This past weekend we all went to a beach resort by Cape Coast for a fellow volunteers’ last weekend in Ghana.  It was a nice break from spending everyday in Kasoa and it always feels good to lie on the beach in February!

Ashanti Akwasidae Festival

Ashanti Akwasidae Festival – The Ashanti King

Ashanti Akwasidae Festival

Abandze

Fort Amsterdamn

Abandze

GHANA

“Water is life.”  A common saying here in Ghana.  Water is something that you don’t think too much about when you live in the US.  Growing up in New Jersey a drought meant that you couldn’t water your lawn everyday or wash your car in the summer.  Moving to Colorado, the realities of a drought became a little more real when I saw ever increasing forest fires and water restrictions that were actually enforced.  Still, most of those restrictions didn’t affect my everyday life besides from the disappointment of not being able to tube down the closest river. For the past two months, water has been a huge problem in Kasoa.  The tap has flowed once in the beginning of January and that was it.  I think it has rained once or twice for a few minutes in those two months which is hardly enough to even keep the ground wet for more than a few minutes.  In a real drought like this, you quickly realize all the things you rely on water for and how difficult they become when there truly isn’t enough water for everything.  From washing dishes and clothes, to taking showers, washing your hands, flushing the toilet, or cooking, everything becomes more difficult or impossible.  It seems that you never have the time to fetch enough water.  Fetching water is always that chore that you are too tired to do at the end of the day and the water source always seems to get further and further away.  Tensions over water are always high and I can’t help but understand why people will literally fight over the right to water.  Even in my own house, it has been a source of these tensions.  Granted, my host mom and I don’t have the best relationship, but the water issue adds more stress to an already challenging situation.

In addition to the water situation, electricity and fuel has been contentious issues in Ghana.  The power supply has been extremely unreliable in the past few weeks, almost as bad as when I first arrived.  Fuel prices have spiked which immediately caused an increase in everything from drinking water to bread.  Natural gas or LPG prices rose by 50% which is devastating to the taxi drivers who rely on it to power their vehicles and anyone who cooks with gas.  The election is still being contested in court which makes the government the perfect, likely, scapegoat for all the criticism going around.  I don’t think anyone really knows the true problem or solution to all of these issues.  All you hear in the media is propaganda and there is never a reliable source of information in the government because everyone believes them to be corrupt.  It is easy to see why so many people distrust the government with all of these problems swirling around but I maintain my position that the government shouldn’t be blamed for every difficulty we face here.  Private organizations and individuals need to step up and create realistic solutions to these pressing issues if Ghana is ever going to overcome them.

Overcoming Hardships Starts with Education!

THOUGHTS

I have been thinking about what I am going to write in this section for over a week now.  Although there is so much I can discuss, my mind keeps on coming back to the challenges and success I experience every day.  In short, volunteering in a third world country is a complete mind-fuck (excuse my language but there isn’t a better word).  Every single day I am faced with terrible and great situations, awful and truly amazing people, and a country that is both severely dysfunctional and beautiful all at the same time.  It’s the never ending onslaught of emotions which exhausts me and keeps me motivated to make even the smallest of changes.  Each day is an extreme exercise in patience and teaches me to move on from small failures and create something positive out of them.  As I have written about in the past, every other week I am forced to calm myself down and refocus on what is possible in the situation at hand.  Things can become so overwhelming that you lose focus of all the good things that are happening around you.  I have always been someone who likes to come home from work, talk about and process everything that has happened that day and allow myself to decompress.  For a long time in Ghana I didn’t afford myself the time to do that because coming home was always another stressful experience.  Now that I have been making the time to actually process the events of each day, I can evaluate all the good things that took place after I clear my head of all the frustrations and “clutter” that diverts my attention from the positives.  Some of my worst days are littered with great moments from my students, colleagues, neighbors or just plain strangers.  Despite all of the crap that goes on, I will always be inspired by the humanity and resilience displayed by some of the people I have met here.  I have been extremely fortunate to encounter and be surrounded by some truly amazing individuals who, if for nothing else, keep me going day after day.  These are people who will continue to empower and transform the lives of those most in need and will remain with me no matter where life leads me.

I love and miss you all,

John

Hello All,

This past week marks five months here in Ghana and I can’t believe how fast the time has went. I can remember my first day here like it was yesterday and the whirlwind of experiences since then. The project I have been working on has opened my eyes to a whole world that I never knew about and introduced me to some remarkable people. I can only hope that the next few months will be filled with the same excitement and I will be able to see my project ideas come to fruition.

TEACHING

Teaching at two different schools has taken over a large chunk of time during the week that would otherwise be devoted to the Labour & Trafficking project. Fortunately, I have really enjoyed instructing these kids and I use it as my motivation booster every week. In addition, it gets me out of the office which is the biggest benefit of all (I don’t think I’m an office person)! My class in Senya DA Primary continues to be very enjoyable. The only problem I have been having with them is tardiness. They have their first break of the day, or recess, right before my class and it sometimes takes 15-20 minutes to get them all in the classroom again. Nothing I seem to do encourages them to be on time so I have just started to accept it and begin teaching as the kids trickle in. On Tuesday I split the class into teams and they responded to that very well. It might have been the first time a teacher has made them work in groups because they didn’t quite understand that they could work with their partner to read and answer the questions. Towards the end of that class the students were having trouble focusing. One of the permanent teachers had stopped by to ask me if I could tell him when I was done with my lesson so he could cane some of the children who had been late to school. Immediately I could see a change in some of the students who would be caned and the class didn’t want to participate. Towards the end of the lesson they begged me to tell the teacher not to cane them. They even showed me the “dance” kids do when they are getting caned. When I dismissed the class, not a single student got up! It was one of those situations where it was such a sad sight that I had to laugh. I did tell the teacher to take it easy on them because they were the best students, but I knew that there was no way out of it.

Teaching at Nali School has improved from the previous week. The class seems more comfortable with me and they have realized that I will make them answer questions and challenge themselves the whole time I am there. The school itself is a sad situation that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. They lost two teachers during the week and have been instructed not to hire anymore. The students are typically great kids but you can’t help but get the feeling that the education system in Ghana, and the school, has failed them tremendously. Walking into a classroom is so depressing when there is no teacher and the kids are either sitting there with blank faces or sleeping. Some of the students have such low confidence levels because they have spent years or months without proper instruction and no one encouraging and reinforcing their skills. One boy, who has a learning disability, always tells me he can’t read but when I finally get him to, reads to the class pretty well. He still insists, though, that he can’t read because that is what he has always been told or has not been shown that he can do well in school. When I begin teaching and realize the class hasn’t learned material that should have been covered because it will be on their final exam, it makes me angry. It also makes me upset because I realize that if these kids want to progress to senior high school, I have to begin teaching for the exam instead of having the time to give them a well rounded education. Because the end of the term is approaching, I don’t have much time with this class. Hopefully I will be able to help some of them on their final exams or at least encourage them to continue their educations.

LABOUR & TRAFFICKING

Last week was a typical “two steps forward, one step back” for the L&T project. In the beginning of the week I met with a senior high school teacher whose information I had received from our Senya coordinator. He is an agriculture teacher who specializes in animal husbandry, but has farmed in the past. Our meeting went very well and I was also able to meet with the head of the Agriculture Department at the school to pitch some cooperative ideas. The school has no land to apply what they learn in the classroom so I thought it would be a good way to give the children some practical experience and possibly use them to train others. Being that we haven’t even secured the land yet, I made sure they understood that this was just a preliminary meeting and that I would be in contact within the coming months to set up something more formal. I was very encouraging by how responsive they were to my ideas and the chance to give back to the community. Later on in the week, Freeman and I went to the Non-Formal Education Division of the Ghana Education Service to explore what kind of adult education programs they operate in the area. The woman we met with, Joycelynn, was very helpful and gave us times and locations for their training sessions and contact information for the facilitators. It turns out that their classes are winding down and they will be looking for new recruits in the coming weeks. I want to go observe and evaluate the program next week before we decide to send people there or partner with them. The “one step back” last week was a cancelled meeting with a member of the Senya royal family. I want to consult with him about our land acquisition and make sure we are going about it in the right way and speaking with the correct people. There are many cases of land being sold by people who don’t actually own it and then the land has to be forfeited when the true owners learn about it. The man I was supposed to meet with was busy when we were supposed to meet and I had to reschedule for the following week. On top of that, our Senya coordinator wasn’t prepared to conduct any trafficking interviews that day so besides for teaching, it was an unproductive trip to Senya. It gets very frustrating sometimes when I go into something with so much motivation and a clear game plan, and just get shot down every step of the way, especially when it is from others laziness or lack of organization!

Possible Plot of Land in Senya

Trafficked Boy

TRAVEL

One of the volunteers left last Saturday so we didn’t travel anywhere over the weekend. Instead we went out for her last night in Accra and I went to the beach on Saturday. I think I need to take a break from the sun for a few days because it has been so strong and my skin is pretty crispy!

OTHER HAPPENINGS

On Thursday I picked up a package from my parents which finally arrived after a little over a month. I had asked them to send some literacy materials for the adult education program I want to set up or to improve an existing one. In the package there were also some puppets that my mom wanted me to use to help my students learn. I forgot that she had told me this and instead gave one of the dolls away to the girl down the street from the office, Rabia. Her face was all I needed to know that it was the right decision. She might have been, or still is, the happiest girl on Earth with the doll. Her mother told my colleague that she has to keep cleaning it because the little girl feeds the doll her food before she will eat it!

Thanks for the Gift, Momma!

THOUGHTS

A couple of years ago I asked my sister how she made it through two years in China without seeing the family. It was during the holiday season and I was in Colorado missing my family, which is particularly hard during holidays and special occasions. She told me that it is tough sometimes but you have to surround yourselves with great people who act as your family. This is what got me though some times in Colorado and has certainly been a factor while here in Ghana. Recently, I have been occasionally eating dinner with another host family and the interns living there. Besides from the issues I face with my host mother, I think the reason I enjoy their dinners so much is because we all sit around the table and talk like my family would back home. I have always said that my favorite thing in the world is eating dinner with my whole family. It is what I think about when I miss them and my favorite part about coming home. I can admit that I am guilty for going over there subconsciously wanting to be invited for dinner because then I can relax and feel “at home.” Their host mother, Auntie Josephine, reminds me so much of my grandmother and always makes me feel like her own son when I am at her house. Like my sister said, it is the great people you surround yourself with who become your family no matter where you are and can give you that little taste of home.

Kasoa Family

Kasoa Family

Kasoa Family

I miss and love you all,
John

Hello All!

Last week was dominated by Ghana’s Independence Day and the preparations for it by my school children.  I was struck by how proud the children were to participate in the festivities and the sense of pride displayed for this still young country.  Some issues have surfaced at Senya DA Primary with a child we sponsor which has revealed some serious lapses in the management of the school.

TEACHING

Like I mentioned, because of Independence Day I wasn’t able to teach full lessons this week in Senya or at Nali School in Kasoa.  I got through half a lesson in Senya before the drumming (seen here) began outside for marching practice and after two minutes of trying to talk over it, I gave up with a horsed voice.  The next day I was able to get through most of a lesson about comparative adjectives before the drumming but was having such a good time with the kids that I brought them outside to enjoy the sights/sounds.  It was on this day that I realized how much I loved these kids and teaching them.  As difficult as they have been at times, it has been one of the best learning experiences I have ever had.  Even when I don’t try, I am learning something new every day about the kids, the culture/life in Ghana or life in general.  I don’t think they will ever realize how much they have changed my view of the world and have influenced my time here.

Independence Day Practice

Independence Day Practice

Independence Day Practice

Independence Day Practice

LABOUR & TRAFFICKING

Last week I met with a member of the royal family in Senya Beraku to make sure that we were consulting the right people about land ownership.  His name is Nicholas and was kind of what I expected from a royal family member; old, fat, slow talking and slow moving with a cane and a jolly laugh.  Overall, he was a very nice guy and supportive of our operations in Senya.  Most importantly, he confirmed that who we had been dealing with, a sub-chief, is the right person.  We were also able to set up a meeting later in the week with this sub-chief to discuss some details about cost, project plans and how to proceed from here.  While the cost of the land if cheap for the area, it is very expensive for CHF.  I have been thinking of fundraising ideas and alternatives for this project.  More to come on that next week.

While I was teaching on Tuesday, I sent Freeman up to the other block at the school to check on one of our sponsored students who hadn’t been attending school.  At the beginning of the term he stopped coming because the teacher was out on maternity leave and there was no replacement.  This left the surrounding teachers to try and patch together lessons but ultimately left the kids, class 2, alone for eight hours a day.  He found that the boy wasn’t in school and there was still no teacher.  More surprisingly, when Freeman was walking by the class 1 room where we have two sponsored students, the teacher was kissing the class 4 teacher in front of the class!  Just another drop in the bucket of ridiculousness at Senya DA Primary.  After that incident we talked to the assistant headmaster about the teacher situation for class 2.  He told us that they administration only learned of the teachers maternity leave the previous week and that they have placed a permanent teacher in the classroom.  Freeman and I gave each other looks because even Freeman knew the teacher was pregnant last term and had been out for 7 weeks now.  Also, he told us the “permanent” teacher was the floating Fantse (local language) teacher who spends his days going to most other classrooms for lesson.  Since the beginning of this term, I have never seen him in the class 2 room.  Knowing that the assistant headmaster was feeding us complete bullshit, we asked if they could switch our student to the other class 2.  He told us this was “not possible” unless we re-enrolled the student because the two blocks are run by different headmasters (again…bullshit).  Basically this is just a way for the school to get more money out of CHF because we would have to pay the school fees again.  Frustrated and seeing that this conversation was going nowhere, Freeman told the assistant headmaster that we would come back to straighten things out.  Personally, I would take the boy to a different school and discontinue using this school to sponsor kids in.  Government schools are notoriously mismanaged and known for poor instruction and overcrowding.

We were unable to perform any trafficking interviews last week because the children or parents of the children were not present.  We did, however, stumble upon a serious situation where an individual has been impersonating a CHF employee and taking kids to work in Accra.  We discovered this while talking to an adolescent boy who we thought would be good for the apprentice program I would like to start up.   Apparently, the man had been impersonating another organization that operates in the area but switched because of a disagreement he had with our local coordinator.  The boy we were interviewing, John, said that the man took him to Accra to labour in a bakery for 30 Cedis a month, or $15 per month.  Luckily, he realized that this man was just exploiting him and not actually from our organization and returned to Senya.  He would like to learn to weld and we are trying to set him up with a shop in Accra.  As for the impersonator, we are going to speak with him and threaten police action if he continues.  I have also suggested making identification cards for our interviews and to wear shirts with the CHF logo on it.  Eric laughed at my t-shirt suggestion because I have been asking for a shirt for months but I am serious about it and think it is a low-cost way to ensure our credibility in the community.

John “Kofi”

TRAVEL

I didn’t travel anywhere last weekend because one of the volunteers left on Tuesday and she wanted to have a farewell dinner in Accra.  Now there are only three volunteers including myself left until more come at the end of the month.

GHANA

As I said in the introduction, last Wednesday was Independence Day here in Ghana.  This year marks 56 years of independence from British colonial rule and it is this young age which brings perspective to the problems Ghana is facing.  It made me think about where the US or any developed country stood when they were 56 years old.  In 1832 Andrew Jackson was the president and there were only 24 states at the time.  The US government acquired the land for Florida, began removing Native Americans from the east coast in what became known as the “Trail of Tears”, the Oregon Trail became the primary route for settlers, slaves were still being imported from West Africa (Ghana) and there was a cholera epidemic in New York City.  While we live in different times, I feel that some of Ghana’s growing pains are typical of any new country working to establish a functioning government and productive society.  To celebrate Independence Day, Freeman, Victoria and I went to Accra for dinner and to check out what was going on.  We were able to watch some fireworks and attended an all-night concert at the football stadium (we didn’t stay all night).  While it was nothing compared to the feeling I get during the Fourth of July (I have realized that celebrations in Ghana are much more subdued unless they are Fetish funerals) it was nice to get out and join Ghanaians in celebrating their independence.

THOUGHTS

On my way to Kasoa one morning last week, I passed by a bar which had just caught on fire.  Like many others, I stopped to watch and see if there was anything I could do to help.  The first thing that struck me was the men running with buckets of water and shoveling sand onto the fire.  When you think of fires back home, one always envisions fire trucks and emergency crews at the scene.  Here there were just the other shopkeepers helping their neighbor save their livelihood as if it was their own shop.  Men were standing in the street stopping taxis and asking for their fire extinguishers which are required in all passenger carrying vehicles.  Most drivers were willing to give them up and the extinguishers were quickly passed along to someone inside the bar trying to put the flames out.  It was quite a scene.  To the left of the bar were what I assumed to be the owners, on the ground devastated and crying as their business was falling apart in front of their eyes.  While this was going on a man walked up to me and said “We called the fire service but they are not coming.”  I didn’t know what to say.  I couldn’t imagine the feeling if the only people you could call to help ignored your pleas.  It made the efforts of those trying to put out the fire even more significant.  They knew that the fire service was never going to come and in Ghana I don’t even think anyone would truly rely on the fire or police services.  I was on my way to teach so after snapping a few photos, I pulled myself away and continued on my way.  On my 45 minute ride to Senya, I couldn’t stop thinking about this fire.  We have been so spoiled in the US to think that if something catches on fire, you can call the fire department.  If you business is lost, you can collect the insurance money and rebuild.  If there is someone to blame for the fire, you can sue and receive money for the damages and lost income.  Here, there are none of those safety nets.  If you even call the fire service, nothing guarantees that they come.  If your building burns down, there is no one there to write you a check and help you rebuild.  If it was the electric companies fault that a fire started, good luck with trying to get money from them.  It is a truly devastating situation.  I could tell from the anguish on the faces of the owners that they lost their only source of income, and their entire inventory to the fire.  Fittingly, my lesson that day mentioned the police department.  I asked if the children knew the phone number for the police, fire, or ambulance services (they are 191, 192 and 193 respectively).  Not a single hand went up…

I miss and love you all,

John

Hello All,

Last week I was mainly focused on teaching and the education system here in Ghana.  I firmly believe that education can give you the skills you need to end the cycle of poverty in your family, even if it takes a few generations.  However, when this system is dysfunctional or overwhelmed, it can be extremely frustrating!

TEACHING

Last week was challenging.  It was challenging for me to remain calm and patient.  It was challenging for me not to lecture an assistant headmaster for his incompetence.  It was challenging for me not to scream because a library which was donated had not been used in over a month.  Through all of this, I learned that my patience level has reached a new high and that you can’t allow yourself to get worked up about systemic problems in the past which you can’t control.  Most of my frustration stemmed from teaching at Nali School, the one with a money/teacher shortage.  During a math lesson, I had to keep backtracking through skills that should have been learned already by the students.  They are at the equivalent of the 9^th grade and I had to explain how  is equal to 0.5 for about ten minutes.  This was in the middle of a lesson about solving different types of equations which will be on their upcoming exams.  Never mind solving equations, they need to know how fractions work first!  When I returned later in the week, I was not able to teach that class because of a scheduling conflict with another teacher (no one informed me about the change).  Instead, I went into the JHS 1&2 class which has no teacher.  They were supposed to be in their “English Self-Study” class but were mostly sleeping.  I decided that we should go to the new library which I wrote about in a blog a month ago.  Not surprisingly, it was locked and covered in dust/dirt.  When I looked at the check-out log, there hadn’t been a book checked-out in over a month.  This was extremely disappointing especially since they all were excited to be in the library and rushed to grab storybooks.

Senya wasn’t too far behind last week in disappointments.  During one of my days teaching there, I checked on one of our students who hadn’t been coming to school because there was no teacher.  The student still wasn’t in the school and there was no instructor for the class, even after we had spoke to the assistant headmaster about it.  When I walked in the room to check on the student, the class got up and cheered thinking that I had come to teach them.  “You have come to teach us!” one boy exclaimed.  I felt like I had no choice but teach them for a little bit.  We did a fun little exercise in English and quickly organized a dance competition between some students before I left.  Classes with no teacher are becoming a trend in my experience here and I don’t know what is worse, a class with no teacher or a student who is not coming to school at all.  My only saving grace last week was during a lesson in Senya where I used bananas as a prize for the best students of the day.  After giving them all out I noticed that every child who received one would share it with everyone around them.  I’m pretty sure that by the end of class, every student had a piece of banana.  How they all shared without even thinking about it really made me happy and kept a smile on my face the rest of the day.

LABOUR & TRAFFICKING

Last week I wasn’t able to get much done on the Labour & Trafficking project.  Like I mentioned in my last post, after discussing the farm plans with Eric, CHF’s executive Director, the cost of the land is too high for us.  Ideally I would like to negotiate with the chiefs in the area to reconsider their price or work out some kind of deal with us so the community can benefit from the thousands of acres of unused land.  If that won’t be possible, I have ideas about partnering with another organization or reaching out to land owners who need assistance cultivating their land.  Before I make any more plans with the project, I am focusing on some of the other initiatives that I proposed so I can get some of that up and running.

TRAVEL

Last weekend was spent in paradise or a beach resort in Cape 3 Points.  It is the southernmost point in Ghana and claims the most pristine beaches in the country, which I will vouch for.  You are surrounded by a forest preserve and large rubber and palm plantations.  The closest town has about 300 residents and there is not much else besides that.  A truly beautiful place…

PERSONAL PROJECT

Last Wednesday I organized a school cleanup day in Senya Beraku for Day Star Academy which is a school where CHF sends a handful of sponsored children.  The owner of the school, Hayford, is also our local coordinator who I have built a great friendship with.  Each week I typically run over there to say hello and set up our plan for interviews and other business for the week.  I’ve become close with the teachers and students and have taken a personal interest in improving the school partly because of the dedication of the staff and partly because of how well behaved the children are (about 90 students).  The school building itself is very new and still under construction with missing roofing sheets and rudimentary scrap wood walls.  The classrooms have dirt floors and the bathroom is a group of bushes about 30 yards from the building.  Some of the classes don’t have enough desks for all the students, forcing them to sit on the floor, while in others the students squish three or sometimes four student into a desk made for two.  Needless to say, there is a lot of work to be done which will require a good amount of capital which is especially hard to raise in an impoverished community like Senya Beraku.

One thing that has bothered me since I arrived in Ghana is the amount of trash strewn everywhere, particularly the black plastic bags.  The schoolyard at Day Star Academy was no exception.  Small thorny bushes cover the yard and are perfect for snagging plastic bags and other debris blown in by the ocean breeze.  Each time I walked over to the school, I would cringe at how much garbage was laying around and how the children usually congregated on a dirt patch instead of playing on the trash covered grass.  Like most other places in Ghana, there is no waste bin in sight, and the small amount of garbage that is collected is burned a few meters from the classrooms.  About two weeks ago I told Hayford that I wanted to have a school cleanup day and that I would provide the school with a waste bin and a recycling bin for their water rubbers which can be traded in for money (think 5 cent return for a soda can).  He thought it was a great idea and told me that I just needed to pick a day and time.

We decided on last Wednesday and I made arrangements with the school canteen to have enough snacks and water for all the students and the teachers.  I also gave Hayford money to buy the waste bins because I knew he would be able to get a better price for them than I would.  When I introduced the idea to the students, their reaction was mixed between excitement, blank stares and probably some confusion.  I know some were excited because I told them that the money raised from recycling the water rubbers would go to buying footballs, textbooks and other school materials.  When I arrived on Wednesday morning, I was surprised by how prepared everyone was.  There was a pile of about 10 cutlasses (machetes) which the boys brought to help weed the schoolyard.  They were outside sharpening them when I arrived and I could tell they were anxious to get started.  Some of the girl had brought rakes and the neighboring mechanic was happy to loan his for a few hours.  After assembling the school outside and splitting them into different groups, we let them loose on the yard.  The youngest kids were the infantry, responsible for picking all of pieces of garbage and water rubbers from the ground.  The older kids were responsible for weeding, raking and any other more labour intensive tasks.  The little kids turned out to be AMAZING!  They were garbage picking machines and their youthful energy kept them going for about an hour and a half.  They would even run over and take the garbage out of my hands as soon as I picked it.  After awhile they were making me feel lazy because I didn’t have to walk anywhere to throw it away!  The older kids knew what they wanted, a football field, and what needed to be done to make this a reality.  The teachers were pretty active in supervising and I could tell that they were enjoying themselves, even if only because they were out of the classroom.  By the end, everyone was dirty, sweaty, tired, thirsty, but most of all happy with a sense of accomplishment.  After washing their hands, the students lined up to receive the bananas, sweet buds (doughnuts) and water I had bought for everyone.  The end result was a huge pile of garbage which we, unfortunately, had to burn.  I absolutely hate this but there is no money for collection and if we didn’t burn it, it would have all blown back by the end of the day!  The students were proud of their clean schoolyard and the waste bins which they were eager to use.  Overall, it was an amazing day.  The energy those kids smiles gave me kept me going all week.  They kept thanking me but I couldn’t take any of the credit.  The students and teachers were the ones who took charge in cleaning up their own school and created some school and personal pride.  All I did was to give them the idea and basic tools which made this possible.  All for under $20 USD….

I miss and love you all,

John

Hello All,

This past three weeks has been a very mixed bag regarding achievements and emotions. It is hard to believe that April 2 was exactly six months here in Ghana. During my time I have met some of the best people on this planet and experienced things that I never expected. To say that this adventure has been life changing would be an understatement. Because of these feelings, I have decided to stay for three months following the end of my volunteer term which expired on April 1. Working the extra three months will allow me to better establish the projects I have started and train incoming volunteers in June about the Labour & Trafficking project and the new initiatives. I also want to say that I haven’t forgotten all the people who have offered their support for my projects. In the coming weeks I will be reaching out to all of you asking for your help with financing some projects I have created. Please contact me via email JFire13@gmail.com or on Facebook if you already haven’t done so and are interested in helping!

TEACHING

Three weeks ago the public school teachers in Ghana went on strike for salary issues. Public servants were recently put on a “single spine” salary system and some of the bonuses that were promised to the teachers have not been delivered. When I first arrived at Senya DA Primary to teach, the classrooms were open but the teachers were not teaching and most of the students had gone home. Fortunately I was able to teach a handful of my students who had hung around. The next day I went to Senya expecting the same deal, open building but no lessons. Instead I found that the building was locked and only a few students from the whole school were still in the compound. Four of those students were from my class and I told them that if they wanted to stick around, I would teach. One of the boys looked at me and said, “How will you teach with no chalk?!” I had to laugh! Because of the casual atmosphere of holding a class outside on the steps, I just had them tell me a story about their favorite experience or holiday with their families. This was not as easy as I thought it would be for them. None of them could tell me any stories or memories and would only give me their detailed family history. It made me wonder if they really didn’t have any fond memories with their family or it wasn’t something that they think about or value. After our little “lesson” I visited the houses of my two best students. Since I started teaching here I could always notice a lack of confidence by the students and stories of a home life that doesn’t value education. I wanted to tell these parents that their children were excellent students who could do anything they want if they continue learning with the passion they have shown in my class. More importantly, I wanted to try and give the parents a sense of pride about their children’s accomplishments in school. The public school teachers strike lasted through the next week which meant no teaching for me. Since school has resumed, classes have been wonderful. This past week I was giving my final lesson of the term before the go on vacation for a few weeks. Because the students were preparing to write exams, the rooms had been arranged differently. In the room I teach in, the partition that separates my class and the neighboring class was removed. Their teacher was not conducting a lesson so the entire class was listening and participating in my English lesson. It was nice to have different responses and my students enjoyed having the older kids involved with their lesson.

Locked Out

Locked Out

Locked Out

Locked Out

Combined Classes

The other school I teach in, Nali High International School is private and therefore was not involved in the teacher strike. Right now, my students are preparing for their upcoming final exams which will determine if they go to senior high school and if so, which one. Over the past few weeks I reviewed their pitiful mock English exams with them and have really been focusing on reading comprehension. Their mock English exam scores ranged from 50-68% which is terrible but they only need a 70% to be considered excellent. Their scores on the overall test that included all subjects ranged from 11-72%. After reading some of their answers, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that some of these students are doomed. It is a terrible feeling when you realize this even though the student(s) try hard in class and you can tell that they are just not good at taking exams. This depressed feeling carried over to the next week when I was attempting to conduct a reading comprehension lesson with only one book for six students. I looked at the class and said, “This is ridiculous! I am buying new books for all of us by next week.” I don’t know if they were scared, shocked or both but they certainly showed that no teacher had ever bought them a book to use in class. Since then, the English classes have been a joy to teach and I am not struggling to have the class read a story with one book and then for me to dictate the questions to them. Teaching them to use a passage to find the answers is something they have never done but it seems that they are realizing how easy questions can be if you just take the time to find the answer. Like in my other class, there is one student who continues to make it all worth it. She reads very well and can write full stories with ease. It’s hard to see how demoralized and unmotivated she is because there has never been a teacher or individual pushing her, or the other students, to achieve more than they think is possible. I wish I had more time with these students before their exam and I wish that their school and teachers hadn’t given up on them. All I can do now is try to build their literacy skills and confidence and hope it can translate into improved scores on the exam. If not, at least the skills and their belief in themselves will stick with them after they are done schooling.

LABOUR & TRAFFICKING

The past few weeks on the Child Labour &Trafficking project has been a lot of information gathering. While we are still interviewing children who have been trafficked and their families, we noticed that a lot of children have returned to Yeji or we already identified and interviewed most of them in the Senya community. Also, now that the village is familiar with CHF and our interviews/sponsorships we have encountered more and more people who give us false stories in hopes that we will give them money. Some of it is so bad that I can tell people are lying to us even though I can’t understand the language. As a result, we are going to slow down the amount of interviews we are conducting to ensure quality over quantity. I also suggested that we move to the other towns we sponsor students in and reevaluate the trafficking situation there. If nothing else, it will show the community and fishermen that we are still there and still working on this issue. After one of the interviews, we revisited a girl who we interviewed last year. A former Ghanaian volunteer would like to sponsor her to go to school and allow the girl to live in her house so she can help with the family business and taking care of the children. I asked around and this is normal for Ghana. As long as she is going to school and not strenuously working or spending too much time watching the children, I think it is a good idea.

An initiative I have been trying to work on to improve the Labour & Trafficking project is to establish some kind of apprenticeship or training program. In the past three weeks I have been going to observe and evaluate training programs which are offered by the Ghana Education Services Non-Formal Education Division. They all seem to be well run but each face their own different problem. The first is a dressmaking course that teaches women to be seamstresses. It is a three year program but the women need to provide their own sewing machine and tuition. This could easily reach 1,000 Ghana Cedis ($500 USD) which is an enormous amount of money in Senya Beraku. While I was meeting with the supervisor of this program, she introduced me to the facilitator for a training program in catering. This is a two year program where the women learn how to do large scale catering events like weddings and funerals, which are huge in Ghana, and also the traditional decorations for them. This past week I went to find out about an English training course. It seems like a wonderful FREE program except no one attends it! The course is six hours every week and they provide exercise books, training materials and story books for the advanced students. The facilitator also told me that the government has not given the incentives which were promised to the teachers for two years. They are not cash incentives but rather material things like cement, bicycles, sewing machines, roofing sheets, etc. I told him that I can’t provide him with any kind of money or gifts but I can go to the government office and try to put a little more pressure on them to deliver on their promises. Like most things in Ghana that deal with the government, I don’t have high expectations that this will be resolved quickly or at all. In the meantime, Freeman and I will compile a list of candidates who we think would be good for these programs and present the idea to them. For the free English and Fantse (local language) literacy programs, we will enroll those who are interested immediately.

A month or two ago my main focus was setting up a demonstration farm to teach the parents of our sponsored children. They would learn how to farm and be able to raise crops on their own beds to help feed their family and sell on the market. Ideally, this would alleviate some financial strain so they would be able to send more of their children to school instead of Yeji to fish. After meeting with the sub-chief about acquiring 40 acres of land, we realized that even 5 acres was going to be too expensive for our budget. Now, I would like to try and renegotiate with the sub-chief because I don’t think our local coordinator presented the idea to him properly. After discussing it with the coordinator, it sounds like he told the sub-chief that we want to buy the land so we can work it when in reality CHF would not profit from it at all. The hard part is that these chiefs always say they are working for the members of their community but it seems that is only true when there is money to be made from the deal. I want to put pressure on him and the other elders to show them how we are doing this for the people in their community who truly need assistance. Hopefully they can prove that they are really working to better the lives of the people who they represent.

TRAVEL

Over the past few weekends I have gone to an Easter celebration on a local beach, two beach resorts and a place called Wli (pronounced vlee) Agorviefe where there is a spectacular waterfall, Wli Falls. On Easter Monday, Ghanaians like to go party on the beach. We organized some people and food and went to a local beach I like to visit during the week. Typically I am the only one on the beach but for this day, there had to be at least 20,000 people there…absolutely crazy. It was great being with so many Ghanaians celebrating in their own way with music, food, drinks, and plenty of dancing. At Wli Falls, two new volunteers and I took a hike to the upper falls which was really beautiful and secluded; exactly what I needed after not being able to take a legit hike in over six months. We also stopped by the monkey sanctuary which I had been to before so they could check it out. The beaches were nice relaxing weekends, one with a new volunteer and the other with Victoria and two new volunteers. It is always hard coming back to Kasoa after these weekends!

Upper Wli Falls

Upper Wli Falls

Upper Wli Falls

Lower Wli Falls

GHANA

In Ghana I have had a lot of conversations about religion. I have also dodged a lot of conversations and questions about religion. A few weeks ago I was in Senya one evening trying to observe the English training class. It turned out that they were on a break that week and I would have to wait to hear from the coordinator. Instead Hayford, our local coordinator, and I went to get a drink. Normally I am in Senya from 10am till 2pm. That day I had gone in the evening because of the class and by the time we got to the spot (bar) it was 5pm. To me, Senya has always been a hot miserable place where I only get glimmers of hope from a few individuals. That evening showed me a different side of Senya, away from the trafficked and depressed children I am in constant contact with. There was a cool breeze coming off the ocean and the fading sun had painted the sky orange and pink. Because of the teachers strike, kids were everywhere laughing and playing and as usual, there was the loud distorted highlife and azonto music which has become the soundtrack of my stay in Ghana flowing into the streets from shops and houses. Two friends joined us at the spot where we began discussing our vision for Hayfords school (the one I organized the cleanup day at). Hayford is a rare find in Ghana. Because of the entrenched poverty in Senya, school fees are collected every morning from the children, about one Ghana Cedi (50 cents). This covers their day at school and a basic lunch. What has impressed me is that Hayford would rather a student come to school and learn than kick them out of school, sack them, for missing school fees. He even has a handful of students who can’t pay but he knows they want to be in school. A lot of the schools I have visited seem to focus more on the money than their real purpose, empowerment through education. After talking about what needs to be done to complete the school building and how to review their finances so teachers’ salaries aren’t delayed, I discussed how I can help and what I expect from the staff and administration. The conversation soon turned to religion when Hayford asked me, “How can a guy who gives as much as you do not believe in god?” I couldn’t help but laugh! After discussing my beliefs or non-beliefs with the group I was amazed at how respectful they were about the things I was saying. I could tell that they didn’t agree with them, but usually I get such strong pushback when it comes to religion that it was nice, for once, to just see them nodding and asking more questions. At one point I compared Hayford with myself. We both believe in education and the power it holds. Both of us believe that you should have access to an education no matter what economic class you were born into and that there are enough resources to educate everyone if we become creative with how we run the school or education system. Similarly, we both think it is worth sacrificing personal wealth or luxuries to make education possible for those who are not in the position to pay for food and education at the same time. I then posed the question, “Why does it matter what I believe in or who I pray to if we are striving to achieve the same thing and try to live our lives as genuinely good people?” The three of them seemed stumped by this. For the first time, I didn’t hear “Because you have to give you life to Christ.” I’m not trying to tell them that their beliefs are wrong or they should believe in what I do but rather I am trying to encourage a tolerance for other beliefs and ways of life. This beautiful evening in a foreign place with amazing friends and such positive energy helped me push away all the clutter in my mind and refocus on what can get done in the coming months.

THOUGHTS

Like I mentioned in the opening, April 2, 2013 marked six months here in Ghana. To say it has all been easy would be a complete lie. Six months kind of crept up on me and when I realized how long it has been it opened a floodgate of thoughts and feelings. I think it is fair to say that working in the education field and dealing with severely impoverished communities in the developing world is a pretty thankless job most of the time. If it weren’t for the small victories, achievements or interactions each day, I would be absolutely crazy by now. That said, it’s hard to stay focused on what’s possible when the complexity of poverty is something you can’t fully wrap your head around. It’s hard to keep progressing and staying positive when you are inundated with terrible situations, problems, frustrating experiences and people all while trying to maintain a life away from work. It’s hard to deal with people asking for handouts and harassing you day in and day out. Most of all, it’s hard to keep grinding on when you can’t even tell if the individuals you are directly helping are thankful. All of these seem more manageable if there was some kind of support to go along with it. With such a small organization and no other volunteers working on the Labour & Trafficking project with me, there is no one to discuss these issues with or help with project ideas. Not only that but being one of two volunteers who has been here longer than two months puts you in a world of you own. Things are no longer new and no one can really relate to what I have already experienced. Sometimes I laugh because I can see myself in the things the new volunteers do or see but there is no one to share that with or laugh with me. Six months hit and I just felt tired. Tired of being “on” every second of the day. Tired of giving my all to something without any support and without seeing many results. Tired of sweating 24 hours a day, constantly being dirty and waking up to scratch one of my 10 mosquito bites. Tired of the extreme ups and downs which seem to drain you every other day. Tired of not being able to help people who don’t have any support system. Tired of all the external stresses while trying to navigate a relationship with someone special. Tired of being tired.

Ok. Enough complaining…

Around the six month mark something changed. Riding back in a tro-tro from another weekend at the beach, I was looking out the window as usual but everything looked different. It was no longer this crazy, loud, dirty foreign land. I knew where I was. I understand a lot of the conversation around me and feel like I can relate to others because of my experiences and the people I work with. Driving back to Kasoa was, at least for a moment, peaceful. It looked beautiful. It felt like home. While I am constantly reminded that I am an outsider and don’t always feel at home, this was a great feeling to have at such a time.

Even though I feel like I have a lot of arbitrary things to complain about sometimes, I still feel tremendously fortunate. I worked my ass off to get here and have been rewarded with a life changing experience full of new wonderful people, places and perspectives. On top of that, I seem to spend each weekend in a literal paradise whether it is a beach, mountain, rainforest, or barren savannah land. Eventually, I am always reminded of the reasons I am here. Most recently it was from a man named Ahmed. He is the English training class’s facilitator who I mentioned earlier that hasn’t received any kind of compensation for two years. When I spoke with him I could still feel his passion and dedication for teaching his community members. The fact that he hasn’t been paid was only brought up after I was prodding him for more information about the program and how the government sponsors it. He was genuinely upset that attendance in the class was abysmal and wanted to know if I could help to improve it. Speaking to individuals like him and his supervisor who are quietly working on these vital programs is the fuel I need to keep going. There are plenty of nameless and faceless people out there who are selflessly working for others. Finding one and interacting with them is the best gift I could ever receive.

Another Wonderful Individual, Miriam

I have to take a moment to thank my family for being so supportive especially in the last six or seven months. Although you guys aren’t here, your thoughts and ideas have influenced a lot of lives through my work in Ghana. Sometimes it is hard to get in contact with each other but I cherish those short late night phone calls I make or waking you up, Sue, early in the morning. At times being this far has been hard and I really miss you all. Thank you for being there and giving me the support and advice I need.

I miss and love you all,
John

No words for the past two weeks, but here are some pictures…

Karen’s Farewell Fufu Party

Returning End-of-Term Exams

Frank is Happy

Returning End-of-Term Exams

Priscilla is Happy

Burst Pipe = Close Water Source

Last Day of Term

Last Day of Term – Treats for the Class

Last Day of Term

Last Day of Term

Last Day of Term

Last Day of Term

My Best Student, Josephine

Some of Josephine’s Family

Container Store Improvement Sponsored by past CHF Volunteer

Container Store Improvement Sponsored by past CHF Volunteer

Laundry Day Wounds

Full Moon at the House

Helping a Nutrition Program

Measurements

Feeding Program

The Hat is Serious…it was “Cold”!

Day Star Academy – Senya Beraku, Ghana

Dear Family, Friends and Interested Acquaintances,

For the past seven months I have been living in Kasoa, Ghana, working with a small Ghanaian NGO, Cheerful Hearts Foundation (CHF), whose main mission is to rescue children sold into labor in fishing communities by their families who are too poor to feed, clothe and house them. CHF rescues these children, returns them to their families and pays for their schooling so that the youth of Ghana have the opportunity to break the chain of poverty that causes their families to make such tragic and unhappy decisions. The project has opened my eyes to a world of exploitation and slavery which is commonplace in developing countries but rarely heard about or understood in the developed world. Through countless interviews, days teaching, conversations with strangers and my travels around Ghana, I have begun to see the issue more clearly and understand its causes.

One of the schools CHF supports with volunteers like myself is the Day Star Academy in Senya Beraku, a fishing community where child trafficking is very prevalent. CHF sponsors 13 students at the school and I have formed a close relationship with the students, teachers and headmaster/owner. It is at this school that I organized a cleanup day and where I have been working with the headmaster to minimize their costs and increase their revenue while maintaining a focus on the quality of education offered. Currently the school has about 120 students, 80 of which attend on a regular basis. While Day Star Academy needs more students (school fees) to help boost their ability to purchase supplies, the building is incomplete and rather unsightly. Two of the classrooms don’t have a roof and there are about 30 students without desks. In class 3, the small girls pack 4 people into a desk that is meant for 2. The bathroom is an outdoor pit and also lacks a roof which is even more important now that we have entered the rainy season. Pictures below.

Since my time in Ghana is rapidly coming to an end (at the end of June), I am determined to raise the money needed to complete the school’s roof, the outdoor bathroom roof and purchase enough desks for the current students at Day Star Academy. This would provide such a positive boost for the school and the students and would remind them that there are people around the world who want them to succeed in making a better life for themselves and their families. My goal is to raise $1,000 which will provide:

15 Desks = $221 (approx. 420 Ghana Cedis)

• Wood – $10.52 per desk ($158)
• Nails – $16
• Carpenter – $3.15 per desk ($47)

Roof = $295 (approx. 560 Ghana Cedis)

• 40 Corrugated Tin Roofing Sheets = $190 (Package of 20 roofing sheets cost $95)
• Labour cost = $105 (Will renegotiate for a lower price)

Aesthetics = $221 (approx. 420 Ghana Cedis)

• Plaster – 10 buckets @ $9.47 each ($95)
• Paint – 4 cans @ $18.42 each ($74)
• Labour $52

Total = $737 or 1,400 Ghana Cedis
*All calculations use the conversion of $1USD = 1.90 Ghana Cedis which is variable.

I plan to use the remaining $263 or 500 Ghana Cedis to purchase some important items identified by the staff when we held a meeting: security at the school (classroom doors), 2 chalkboards, start up money for a school farm to help reduce costs associated with feeding children, textbooks, storybooks and help with an adult literacy program to assist parents advance their own education while re-prioritizing their child’s schooling.

The extra money will also give Cheerful Hearts Foundation a little buffer for changes in the exchange rate, and unseen expenses associated with the building improvements. After careful consideration, I have devised two ways of getting the money to me so I can accomplish this project before leaving Ghana:

1. Personal check: For those of you who are not concerned with receiving a tax deduction for your donation, I recommend sending a personal check made out to me to my parent’s house. This will bypass all costs of transferring money to Ghana because they will just deposit the money in my checking account and I can withdraw 100% of it at an ATM in Ghana.
2. GlobalGiving.org (http://goto.gg/8910): Cheerful Hearts Foundation has a page for our “Stop Child Labour & Trafficking” project on this website. While Global Giving takes 15% of your donation, you will be able to print a receipt for your tax records. Please email me with the date and amount of your donation so I can confirm to my boss that the money was donated for this specific project.

Suggested Donations:
• $25: 2 Desks or 5 Roofing Sheets
• $50: 10 Roofing Sheets or 5 Buckets of Plaster
• $100: 7 Desks or Doors for all Classrooms
• $250: 15 Desks with Exercise Books for all Students
• $500: Complete Roof and Desks for all Students
• $1,000: A completed school and the eternal gratitude of 120 Ghanaian children and myself!

Needless to say, all the money I spend will be accounted for with receipts and photographs. When I return home in July, I will be more than happy to show you exactly where your money was spent and the impact it has made.

Please contact me, JFire13@gmail.com if you would like more information on the project or if you have any suggestions! I encourage you to pass this post along to anyone you know who might be interested in supporting these projects!

Thank you for your support!

Much love,
John

Day Star Academy – Incomplete

Classroom

Classroom That Only has Half the Needed Desks

Toilet

Dear Family, Friends and Interested Acquaintances,

Thank you for all of your outreach so far! I have been overwhelmed with your support and kind words. For those of you who would still like to donate, I am collecting money until June 3, 2013. After that, construction will begin and I will be blogging about the progress.  Any additional money raised will be used to sustain an adult literacy program for two years, textbooks for Day Star Academy and a small library with story books for the children.  If you did not read my previous post, please take a look here.

Day Star Academy – Senya Beraku, Ghana

Day Star Academy – Incomplete

Classroom

Classroom That Only has Half the Needed Desks

Toilet

Hello All,

It has been some time since I have written a blog post which I apologize for.  So much has been happening here with the Day Star International School project that I haven’t had the time to sit down and write!  As promised, I want to use this post to give updates on the project and some thoughts I have had over the past few weeks.

DAY STAR ACADEMY PROJECT

::: Desks :::

This was the first part of the project which I started.  After picking up all the wood, cement and roofing sheets from the Kasoa market and being stopped by the police twice for bribes, we were able to deliver the wood to the carpenter to make the desks.  From cutting the wood to planing it, everything is by hand and it was really cool to watch these desks take shape.  Immediately, I took a liking to the carpenter because he was the first one not to ask for money upfront.  Apparently he is close with Hayford, the owner of the school and gave us a really good price to make the desks.  After three days, we had 12 beautiful new desks for the students.  Now there are enough desks for each student to sit comfortably in a proper sized desk.

::: Roof :::

Before the desks were completed, I had another carpenter put on the missing sections of roof.  Not only does it make the building look more complete, but it keeps the students dry now that it is the rainy season.  We still have to put a roof on the toilet because there was a “misunderstanding” with this carpenter about the work that needed to be done.  I have since asked the desk carpenter to finish the bathroom roof and supporting structure.

Before

::: Blocks :::

Before we could reposition and paint the walls, we wanted to improve the concrete cinderblock around the school that makes up the base of the walls.  The classrooms previously without a roof had incomplete walls which were unsightly and didn’t keep out the rain.  We used five bags of cement to make blocks and raised all the walls to the same height.

::: Paint :::

Paint was the easy part of this project.  Before we started, the desk carpenter volunteered to reposition the wooden planks that makeup the walls at the school.  They were mostly crooked with large gaps in between some of them.  Using excess wood that was removed to make room for more cinderblocks, we completed the walls to looks better, keep the rain out and to keep students focused instead of peeking out the cracks!

::: Other Projects ::

Farm

For months now I have wanted to start a farm.  Originally I wanted to do it for the parents of our sponsored students as an alternative income source.  This turned out too costly for the organization and needed much more support than it was capable of giving.  When I had my first meeting with the teachers of Day Star International School, one of them suggested a school garden or farm and I jumped at the chance!  Not only would it be able to teach kids skills to help provide for themselves, it is also something they can look at and feel proud about.   Everyone in the school has contributed in some way to the farm.  When I am working in Senya on weekends, kids will stop by and help without me even asking.  A lot of the time children who don’t even attend the school help out!  For the first year, we have planted maize, pepper, tomatoes and okra.  Hopefully this will all be added to the students lunches once harvest time comes!

Fence Builders

This is what we found after we cleared the bush!

Weekend Workers

After some clean-up!

Sunday Clean-Up Crew

Seeds are sown!

First maize sprout

Food

Most schools in Ghana also provide lunch for their students.  The fees for this are collected as a separate ‘canteen fee’ in addition to the school fees.  In Day Star’s case, 70 pesewas out of 1 Cedi per day go to the feeding fee – think 70 cents from a dollar.  The other 30 pesewas go to the school fees. Canteens are usually managed by women who work as a separate entity from the school.  In this case, the women have been buying their supplies piecemeal from suppliers in Senya instead of buying in bulk at the Kasoa market.  Not only does this mess up the schools finances because they ask for money every day, but it costs almost double because they are buying in small quantities rather than at the market.  To put them on a level footing, I bought all the supplies they need for a month and told them that the school would only dispense funds at the end of each month based on the number of students who have ate.

Accounting

Throughout this whole process, I have been training Hayford on basic bookkeeping methods and how to better manage the schools money.  We set up a bank account for the school which only allows him to withdraw money with the signature of a colleague of mine here at CHF.  This puts come checks in the system so he is not able to spend the money freely as soon as he collects it.  It also allows us to see if he is depositing the money as often as he should and if any disappears from the time it is collected to the time he makes it to the bank.

Textbooks

Books were purchased on Monday for the entire school.  I was trying to get in touch with some distributors to see if I could get a better price for them but all the prices are pretty much the same after you factor in transportation.  Checking in on the classrooms today, I saw many of the students reading while they were on break.  It was such a good feeling to see this and receive a visual “thank you” after working non-stop this month to get everything together. 

Seeing students skip their break to read makes it all worth it.

Teachers

For the past couple of months, I have been meeting with the current teachers to keep them informed on the changes with the school, asking for their input and evaluate how they fit into the long-term goals of the school.  In addition, I also organized a PTA meeting where a handful of involved parent and a few curious adults without kids came to the school to share their ideas and listen to our plans.  After observing for awhile and seeing how things run, Hayford and I decided to start looking for a couple of new teachers for next term.  We believe that there will be a significant increase in enrollment and that two of the current teachers are not fit to teach based on their performance and behavior.  We have started to interview new candidates and have scheduled times for them to give lessons so we can observe their ability in front of a class.

Literacy

The adult literacy program that I had wanted to fund has been put on hold for now.  I believe that having textbooks and reading books in the school takes priority right now.  While the pieces are in place for the program to begin, the funding is just not there.  Hopefully in the coming months I can work to raise more funds and get this program running while I am back in the US.

OTHER HAPPENINGS

Before construction started on the school, my friend Kim from NJ came to visit.  I didn’t know it at the time but it was the last chance to relax that I would have for a month!  We went to Wli Falls and the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary (second time for both) for her first excursion, and then to a beautiful beach in the Western Region for the second.  It was nice to have someone from back home visit and I just hope I showed her as much of Ghana as you can in one week!

Teaching at DA Primary has been really fun this term.  I told my students on their first day back that this was the last couple of months I had with them and that I was going to challenge them unlike any other teacher they have.  Mostly I have been focusing on critical thinking skills using reading and writing comprehension activities.  At the beginning of each class I am confronted with a group of confused faces telling me that they don’t understand and that they can’t do it.  By the end of class I have a bunch of smiling students who have not only finished the assignment, but have usually done it better than they, or I, ever imagined.  Putting on little skits is there new favorite and it always guarantees a little fun by the end of class.  I am going to miss these kids more than anything else in Ghana.  They always have kept me grounded and make me forget about anything else going on even if they are being a pain in the butt!  I know that somehow, I will see some of them again.

Like I mentioned earlier, I organized a PTA meeting before starting on the improvements to the school.  The big problem is Senya is that parents don’t value education.  This not only is bad for the kid’s chances of escaping poverty, but holds the parents back from improving their skills, businesses and lives.  While working with the Labour & Trafficking Project, I have been trying to get it to focus not only on the parents, but sensitize them to the importance of education, and how it can improve the situation for an entire family.  Organizing this meeting was part of that effort and taught me a lot about how parents interact with schools.  Firstly, I made the mistake of telling parents to get there when I actually wanted the meeting to start.  With people running on Ghana time, I should have told them to get there and hour before I wanted to start the meeting so they would all be on time.  Once we started, though, the meeting was very constructive.  They were excited about the changes being made to the school and were happy that they were being kept in the loop.  One thing that came out of the meeting was that the parents want the students to have Saturday classes.  The parents also were very understanding of the financial situation and how the school fees are broken up.

PTA Meeting

PTA Meeting

PTA Meeting

Summertime at CHF means that there are a lot of new volunteers.  This is part of the reason I stayed longer, to be able to train them, but it is also sad that I am leaving at a time of such great potential.  Having extra minds and bodies here to help with all the things I have been bogged down with for the past four months is really nice.  Much of the paper work that I have been putting off has been done and being able to ask for help on tasks really makes it easier  for me to focus on driving projects forward instead of being overcome with the details.  We are also lucky enough to have three Ghanaians interns here from the University of Ghana, Legon.  Not only are they motivated to learn and try different things, but they speak Twi.  We placed two of them in Day Star School to teach twice a week and they have been instrumental in making changes to how the school is run and report back to me about the status of the school/teachers.

University of Ghana Interns

June 12^th was World Day Against Child Labour.  To observe this day, CHF organized four schools where we sponsor children to have an activity day.  We talked to them about the dangers and consequences of child labour and pitted the schools against each other to win a trophy.  The activities included ampe, musical chairs, sack races, lime and spoon races, fill the bottle and of course, football.  As expected, the main attraction was the football matches and they were very entertaining.  Some people were surprised with how competitive the children were in the other activities, but this was for a trophy, and better yet, bragging rights!  For prizes, we gave out story books to all the individual winners.  All schools received a participation certificate, and the winner, Methodist Memorial School, won the football match and the trophy.  It was a great day that the Labour & Trafficking team collaborated on and quickly put together after some volunteers/interns had only been here for a few days.

If all this wasn’t enough, we also held a couple of Labour & Trafficking informational talks at schools.

THOUGHTS

(Written June 1, 2013)

This past week I feel like I am back in the swing of things.  Items are constantly being crossed off my “To Do” list and days are full with various appointments for my projects.  If you follow this blog, you read that I am raising money for a roof, desks and paint for Day Star Academy and hopefully for an adult education program.  Fundraising has been going well and I am eager to have the workers start on the improvements.  This week I personally paid for some of the land in the schoolyard to be cleared so we can begin our school farm.  It is the rainy season which means time is of the essence for farming and we can’t wait any longer to plant the seeds.  I think I am feeling good again because these are my projects which I have thought of and put the wheels in motion.  In recent months, I allowed myself to become distracted and was waiting for approval or for support in this organization.  I strayed from what I love doing, from what I am good at which is making things happen and figuring it out along the way.  For some reason I stopped doing that here, of all places, and I couldn’t figure out why I felt like I was in such a funk.  Now I am back doing what I love in the way that I love.  Being out consulting with people, making plans and overcoming obstacles is what I have been missing.  I can’t sit in an office and make things happen.  Not at this job at least.  Do I completely know what I am doing?  Not a chance.  Do I think I will be successful and will reach my end goal?  There is no doubt in my mind.  This is how I have lived my life until this point.  Whether it was Colorado or Africa, I didn’t know how I would do things or how I would get there, I just knew I would.

I don’t know what the reason is why I strayed from my bullish attitude.  I like to think that I needed to absorb more Ghanaian life and culture in order for me to understand what needs to be done, in which order and how to go about it.  Meeting with people now seems more fluid than ever.  They usually laugh at me because I speak and negotiate like a Ghanaian with a little more of an American, enough with the bullshit, attitude.  The other day I even corrected a Ghanaian with their Twi!  That one made everyone laugh and one extremely embarrassed Ghanaian!  I can now see the needs and how people shy away from addressing them.  Maybe it is because they don’t know how or because they are embarrassed of them.  Either way, the feedback I get when I share my ideas has been wonderful.  Some of the best ideas have come from the locals, which is the way it should be.  I’ve made a conscious effort to allow them to “own” these projects and remind them that I am only here to give them a little nudge in the right direction and assure them that they can make anything possible.

(Written June 17, 2013)

Sunday marked two weeks left here in Ghana.  It has been strange trying to comprehend that I am leaving after making this my home for 9 months.  Each day I can think of so many reasons why I need to stay longer.  From continuing to help the school operate better, guiding the new volunteers with the Labour & Trafficking Project or just being able to remain here with my adopted family I have so many things I want to stay for.  When I break it down, there would never be a time that I couldn’t stay here to do more on the project or for the school.  Knowing that, I feel that it is time to go home, see my family and start on a new adventure while keeping tabs on what I have set-up in Ghana.  Sometime in the next couple of years I know that I will return to see the people who are so dear to me and check in on Day Star School and my students.  Until then, I have to trust the structure I put in place to keep the school running well and the people who will look after it while I’m not here.  I’m excited to see my family and rest after going non-stop this entire month.

(Written June 24, 2013)

Yesterday marked one week left and I celebrated the day by doing a lot, A LOT, of laundry…by hand of course.  While I can’t say I will miss that at all, I have been seeing and thinking about all the people and things I will truly miss.  Like I have talked about many times, the people who I have met here changed my world in so many ways.  Especially my students and the children who I interact with often, there is a special place in my heart for them and all the lessons they have taught me.  When I told them about my last day teaching, they didn’t get upset, they were mad!  “You mean you won’t come back?”  “Ohhh why Sir John?!”  That has made it a little harder to think about leaving because my class really does have a special bond with each other.  They know in my classroom that they are not allowed to make fun of or laugh at each other and that they are all challenged no matter how advanced or behind they are academically.  Not only that, but I feel like they are very comfortable in my class because they know I won’t cane them and take time to work through tough questions or explain why answers are wrong.  Certainly, one of the hardest parts about leaving Ghana will be leaving these students.

For the past few weeks my emotions and thoughts have been swirling.  Because there has been so much going on with the Day Star School project and 12 new volunteers, I haven’t had much time or space to sit down, process everything and clear my head.  During these weeks I have been through just about every feeling in the book and back again.  Some things have made me the most frustrated and angry I have ever been here, and there have been times of pure joy and feeling that this is my home and I shouldn’t be leaving.  The past few days I have been forcing myself to start closing things up with my activities and in my mind.  I love Ghana, as truly wonderful and fucked up as it is (what place isn’t?).  In my heart I know I will be back again soon to visit the many people who have opened their hearts and minds to me during my stay and have become my family.  For now though, I am mentally, emotionally, physically and whatever else kind of exhausted.  Writing about how I feel and the end of this experience seems daunting right now and I promise that I will write about it soon when I have a clear head and a nourished body. It’s time to see my family, sit around the dinner table and laugh until my stomach hurts.  Go on this safari with my sister and celebrate our birthdays with some lions and elephants.  Catch a ballgame with my brother and drink a beer that will stay cold for more than 5 minutes.  The rest will work itself out…

I miss and love you all,

Kwame

The following are 108 photographs from the safari my sister and I took before I returned to the US (I will add labels when I upload them to Facebook).  We did a 7 day camping safari through Base Camp Tanzania and had an AMAZING time!  The safari allowed us to camp in Tarangire NP, Lake Manyara NP, Serengeti NP and Ngorongoro Conservation area.  It was such an awesome experience…I will let the photos speak for themselves…

Please let me know if you would like any prints.

Rest Day – Around Arusha: Sue and I decided to take a walk and explore the villages in the mountains around our guesthouse.  What a great way to celebrate her birthday!

Tarangire National Park: 

Lake Manyara National Park:

Olduvai Gorge: Where 10,000 year old footprints were found

Serengeti National Park: Day One

Serengeti National Park: Day Two

Serengeti National Park: Day Three

Serengeti National Park: Day Four

Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Camped on the rim of the crater