COUNTRY: Ghana
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Orphanage work
WRITTEN BY: Ghana girls 2012
Greetings from the golden land of Ghana on the gulf of Guinea! At school we would teach this alliteration. Speaking of teaching, we are well into the swing of things now. Tara and Sophie are doing special public speaking classes with older primary students. Bess and Zundara are now teaching outside with the goats and chickens, as their classroom has been knocked to the ground... more on that later. Tori and Sarah are getting creative with their kids - googly eyed paddlepop stick men! And Margie and Annie, who teach at the orphanage, are just trying to get the kids to stop beating each other, peeing on the ground and to discover the joys of sharing and spelling tests. Of course, it's not all hard work...
We left you last blog as we were about to go to Winneba, to participate in the Aboakyir deer hunting festival. It was an experience to say the least (lots of wild street dancing and holding on to our hats.) We awoke at four a.m on Saturday morning, which is actually not that early for us here, to go into town and watch the street parade, which consisted of many half-naked men smeared in mud and chasing us down the street. Sophie's face went obibini (black) with mud! We got into a hilarious conversation with a man dressed in a nurses outfit (cross-dressing was the norm).
For the rest of the day we just soaked up the atmosphere, it was good. We missed the deer sacrifice due to the whole confusion of the town, but didn't miss getting up close to the poor, trussed-up, glassy-eyed corpse. We spent the rest of Saturday hiding from the rain, reading books aloud to each other, eating bananas dipped in milo, salad (!!!) and telling some really scary stories.
How about we detail our typical teaching week? Yes, let's go. Monday, after we teach school, we all get a tro-tro out to the orphanage for an afternoon of tears, laughter, fighting, songs, handwashing and lots and lots of loving. The kids all run down to the road when they see us, and fling themselves into our outstretched arms. Literally. It's beautiful. On Monday, as we do every night, we spend a long hour writing lesson plans. Tuesday after school we head down to our local haunt, out into the country to a spot (that means bar in Ghana) called Mavics.
Here we get a cold Coke or Fanta, recount hilarious teaching stories and plan our upcoming weekend. Wednesday - after school we might go the internet cafe, get some corn-rows perhaps, pop into the seamstress, wash our filthy clothes, before heading to the 'obruni' meeting. We chat to a couple of Swedes, a German perhaps, ignore the Poms, and then make a dash home before the mosquitoes come out to play. Dinner is usually pretty early, pretty oily and pretty spicy. Then bedtime usually before eight. Thursday (see Monday). Friday we teach until 12pm (normally at school is worship and dancing) so sweaty and filthy, we head off on our weekend. It's so easy getting around Ghana! Someone just asks us, as they always do, "Where are you going?" and this time, we answer them!
Last weekend was great. Minus Bessie, whose parents popped in for a visit, the rest of us headed off to the fabled "Green Turtle Lodge" which turned out to be a crappy six hour tro-tro ride during which Annie left her wallet on the tro-tro, leaving her dependent on the kindness of others. We chartered our own tro-tro to the lodge, and let me tell you, it was crazy! The road was terrible, at one stage Tara got out to push it up the road. We nearly got bogged! So you can imagine the relief when we arrived to a tranquil beach resort, a cool clay bungalow and some dear, yet divine, food. The next morning we up early, as usual, and ventured into the mangroves in dugout canoes. There were storm clouds on the horizon, yet foolishly we took our precious cameras onto the swamp... and then the wet season struck, leaving us to seek refuge in a remote, impoverished fishing village, where the sweet ladies welcomed us and wrapped us in colourful wax cloths.
We sheltered for an hour, and when the rain abated, we went back out onto the swamp and into the village. Sophie and Tara went off to get bananas and got stuck in the village for another two hours. We ran back along the beach, panting, as the rain swelled again. We got so wet we decided we would get no wetter going swimming!! So we did. Then we put all our clothes back on, and had warm, delicious french toast, banana and honey, and Ghanaian hot chocolate. It was a good weekend, albeit that Sarah lost another two pairs of thongs, leaving the grand total of pairs of thongs owned by Sarah in Ghana to five.
We all brought some money to donate, and are having fun deciding what to spend it on! Tori and Sarah are probably going to buy a water tank for their school, for the children are thirsty. Tara and Sophie are thinking of taking their class to the zoo in Accra, and tying it into a lesson on animals. Margie and Annie have already bought some leather-covered mattresses for the orphanage, and go there almost every day bearing gifts of food (yams yesterday!) But Bessie and Zundara are really showing the rest of us up, it's inspirational. Their school, Prince of Peace, is one of the poorest. Their classrooms used to be like a horse stable, with disintegrating blackboards and lots of chickens. A triple classroom is mid-construction, and we are all excited for the weekend we all paint in together in rainbow colours.
We have set the last part of the blog aside to talk about our feelings. We are all a bit sad and wistful, that we coming to our halfway point in Ghana. The first week seemed so slow and bewildering, yet the days go faster and faster, and we struggle to keep them in our grasp. We are all having an incredible time, beyond words, which is why this is such a long blog. Until next time,
Ghana Girls xoxo
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