Day three, no water

Day three, no water. When I arrived at Charles’ house, his oldest son informed me that Charles was sick and had gone to the hospital. I waited at the house with his sons until he returned home. While he was gone the boys wanted to play a game on the computer that I had brought Charles. I showed them Mine Sweeper.
When Charles got home he informed me that Rebecca, his wife, would be taking me into town because the doctor instructed him to stay home and rest. I am not sure what is wrong with Charles but everyone says that he will be fine. He had some blood work done. That doesn’t sound like a common sickness problem to me.
Rebecca and I went into Accra, went to the bank and bought a cell phone. #24222325, country code 233. we also bought shoes for church~$8, sunglasses “rayban”~$2.50, and a video tape. We then traveled back to Amonfru and stopped at the market to buy all the food that we would be donating to the orphanage Sunday afternoon. We had a total of ¢1.2 million to spend at the store and we had a set list of things to buy. Prices had gone up since the last time so that what we needed would be more than the amount we had allocated. We told the store that we were donating it to the orphanage and they kindly agreed to give us all of the food for ¢1.2 even though it should have been more.
We then returned home and relaxed a bit before dinner. After dinner Charles had one of his volley ball students accompany me to the hotel because the drugs that he had been taking made him drowsy. The guys name was Ben and he was 22, studying computer science.

stop and think

Day two of no running water here in my hotel room. I had a good day at school. I am becoming more comfortable in my abilities to teach and in my abilities to control a class. One thing that I will take away from this is first hand knowledge that teaching is both a very important and difficult job. I gave class six a bonus question on their homework. I told them that if they wished, they could attempt to find the capital of Oregon. I assured that I would have something to give them as a prize if they were successful. I think that once I get my phone, next week Moses and I will go out some time, maybe the beach or a bar somewhere.
Many of the older children (class 4, 5 and 6) are starting to get use to having a white guy around. The local word for white man is Obruni (Oh-Brew-Nee). I hear this wherever I go. As I walk down a road I will go no more than three paces before I hear a little kid yell out “OBRUNI!” and then wave at me. The little kids at school still call out obruni from time to time, but I can always expect them all to wave frantically at me as I pass by them. Many of them simply stare at me, others walk up very slowly and touch my skin or gently grab on to my hand. They are all very curious.
Today is a good day. I was able to make a call back to Portland.
Charles and I did some planning this evening about donations for the orphanage as well as the school project. He showed me all of his records of what has been spent and on what. He is very serious about accountability. To save money, he has cut corners like hiring prisoners to work, demanding lower prices for supplies, getting equipment donated for the day, convincing road construction workers to dump off their excess materials at the school site and so forth.
We had okra soup and corn/cassava mash for dinner. We ate it in traditional style with our right hand and ate from the same bowls. Again we ate the same kind of meats that I ate the previous night with Humphrey. When I stop eating Charles says “Seth, I know you are not full. Keep eating” and I really am full so I eat a little more and then stop and he tells me the same again, and after a few rounds of that he finally lets me stop eating.
Tomorrow I am meeting Charles at his house at 8am. I must find my way there on my own for the first time. We will then head to Accra to go to the bank to take out money for the food we will donate to the orphanage (including an extra ¢500,000 for water supply), a cell phone, hotel payments, shoes for church and other various things. I think the total that I will be withdrawing will be close to ¢4,000,000. it is going to be quite a wad in my bag.
Sometimes I stop and think about where I am and what I am doing and I wonder how I got here. Some times it is hard to believe. So far I am dealing very well with everything and fitting into Ghanaian life but the one thing that I am still a bit uncomfortable with is the bathroom situation outside of my hotel room. They are truly disgusting, but I am sure I will get use to it after a while.
I want to teach the kids at school about environmental awareness. Many Ghanaians simply throw their garbage on the ground so for the most part there is trash littered everywhere. They also have no problem with dumping old motor oil on the ground. I know that Ghana has many things to worry about and the environment is probably not on the top of their list. But because the environment is close to my heart I tend to take it seriously. Without a stable and healthy environment the quality of living will go down for these people. They are killing off the fish that they eat with polluting the waters and contaminating the ground with oil and chemicals that inhibit their ability to use ground water as a source for drinking H2O. But that is enough ranting for tonight. I will now head to bed so that I can wake up early to meet up with Charles.

Getting more comfortable

Today I fell into one of my bad habits from home. I slept in past my alarm. Because of this I was unable to get breakfast before I had to leave for school. I have informed the hotel that I would like my breakfast served at 7:30 every day so that I will always have breakfast. Having breakfast set at this time will also force me to wake up so that I can eat.
There is no running water today in my room. I took my shower using a pale and a bucket of water. Whatever works.
When I arrived at school after taking the trotro by my lonesome and getting inquisitive looks. There I was able to grab a couple slices of bread with some butter as well as some Milo tea (pretty close to hot chocolate). I sat and talked to Isaac, the bus driver, for a bit while I ate my bread. I then went off to class 5 to teach math (place values). I know right now I am not the best teacher. I think that this will change in time as I get more comfortable with the job and as the kids get more comfortable with me. I then went on to class four where I also taught math (shapes, lines and points of intersection). It was in this class today that I used the cane for the first time. Of course not on a child! I had collected their exercise and they had begun to get rowdy and it was so loud that I was not able to talk over them, so I snatched the cane and slapped it against a desk with a loud CRACK. I then informed them all to sit down and stop talking so that we can continue with class. Haha, the look on their faces was priceless. I think they did not expect me to use the cane in any way and when I picked it up and slammed it against the desk they went silent and scurried back to their desks. The next lesson I taught was also to class 4. the teacher had come into the teachers lounge and asked if I would like to come to her class on computers. When I got there I came to understand that I was supposed to teach it. She handed me a book and that was it. At first I was a bit caught off guard but then I looked the book over a bit and began to lecture. This class went pretty well. I think it is the best class so far. I was comfortable and the children were understanding and asking questions. That is my biggest thing, I want the classes to ask questions. I know that not everyone knows or understands the answer, yet when I ask if they understand they all say in unison “yes sir”.
I think I am going to be teaching environmental studies tomorrow, or at least sit in on the class. I am moving away from English, which is for the better, these kids probably know more about grammar than I do. The fact that British English is different from American English also hinders my ability to teach the subject. I am looking forward to doing environmental science.
I spent most the day with Moses again. He talked to me about the United States. He brought in a map of the US and we went over it as I explained things about each area, including political aspects. He, and probably many others, thought that Washington state was the capital of the US, but I showed him that it was actually on the other side of the country. We also talked about the Iraq war a bit and I told him how much it was costing our government and we converted it into cedis and he was astonished. That much money could practically make Ghana a first world country over night and then some. I want to get all of the teachers to go to the beach some time as a retreat. I would like to hang out with Moses outside of school. He is very likable.
I walked home with Kobe (Eliza) again today. I found Charles sitting outside his home in the shade working out a trip for some tourists. We sat in the shade and relaxed for about an hour. He then took me next door (right behind Charles’ building) to meet a friend of his that helped with the school project. He lent his van to transport prison workers to the work site. (Charles was finding ways to cut corners wherever possible.) (I will write more about the school project building when I have more free time). It turns out that this man is the “prince” of the town, Engish Amonfu (English new town). His father was the chief and has passed away so he is in the process of being stooled as the new chief. I did not know that until mid way through my visit. His name is Humphrey Botchway but many people call him Kofaridua. Charles introduced us and then left us to go back to his home. We sat in his gazebo and he served me my first Star Lager of the trip. He is a very nice man, easy to get along with and humorous. He requested that I stay and eat dinner with him so I did. We had the traditional Ghanaian dish, Fufu with ground nut soup. The meat in the soup was a combinations of hunks of fish, cow intestine, stomach, joints and crab. Fufu is cassava root with plantain smashed over and over again by a large wooden pole. You end up with a slimy cream colored substance that has the consistency similar to gak sp?. The groundnut soup is poured over it in a large bowl alone with the meats. You then use your right hand and everyone eats from the bowl. It was just he and I that were eating dinner and we talked for probably about and hour or two while we ate. When we got to the meat part he showed me how to eat the crab. They were like our crabs in Oregon but maybe a fifth of the size. You take the top of the shell of it, crack it in two and then simply take a big bite of it taking in the entire torso of the animal. This was very interesting. You just eat the whole thing, including the shell. He told me “it gives you calcium”. I then went on to sample all of the other meats. We talked some more and then went onto his terrace because I wanted to see what the view was like. It was very nice. It allowed us to see across the city. It was night so he told me that all of the lights you can see is part of this city. He told me that I will come and stay at his house some time while I am here in Ghana. He also said that next time I come to Ghana he will have his guest house finished and that I will not stay in a hotel but rather with him. He is 40 but only looks about 30 (Ghanaians age so well) and he is a contractor and coordinates a cultural dance group. He was very nice. His wife lives in Amsterdam with his daughter and they come to Ghana once or twice a year. When I was about to leave while we were shooting the shit he said “I like you!” this made me feel good. I like him too and I told him that I will now have a friend in Ghana who is a chief.

Introduced to the teaching style

Today was an early morning. I woke up at 6:30 to take my shower and prepare myself for work. I later decided that it would be better to take my shower at night before bed. I took breakfast outside in the courtyard, I think I would like to do this more often.
School was very interesting today. I was introduced to the teaching style and sat in on classes 4, 5 and 6. I even did a bit of a math lesson for class six. Tomorrow I will lead the whole lesson. The children are shy and very quiet. This makes it difficult for me to hear/understand them so I tell them to stand up and shout out the answer when I call on them. I am sure that soon they will become use to me. I worked mostly with a teacher named Moses.
Most all of the teachers carry around a stick or cane as an instrument of intimidation. I don’t think I have yet seen them use one on a student. The madam proprietor of the school told me she would get me a cane as well. I doubt it will ever see any action. I will be eating lunch at the school every day. Today they made me a special plate with extras such as fried plantains. The rest of the staff did not receive this same treatment, and while I appreciated the gesture, I let Madam know that I would prefer to be treated the same as the rest of the staff. Special treatment isn’t fair to others and it wont allow me to gain the full experience that I am looking for.
After school, Eliza AKA Kobe and I walked back to his house (he is so far timid around me. I am going to work harder at warming him up to me) where I met up with Charles. We worked on the laptop I brought him for a bit and then went to the internet café. This particular café is typical of Ghana. It is fairly slow access and the computers are used late 1990s shipped over from the US. Charles says that there is a café that is very fast that I will be able to go to every now and then. I will have to wait until these occasions to upload my pictures online because otherwise it would take way too long to post even a single picture.
As Charles and I walked back to his house we stopped in at his barber shop so that I could get my hair cut. This was a very humorous scene. The white man’s hair is much much different than that of a Ghanaian. They had never cut a white man’s hair before so it was an experience. If you are looking for style then I wouldn’t recommend coming to the Ghanaian countryside for a salon. But they managed to do a decent job and the price was right. It cost me 5,000 cedis. It is about 60-70 US cents, much cheaper than the places I was looking at in Switzerland. (39 euro)
For dinner we had fried fish, potatoes, and plantains as well as a tomato sauce. Notice everything except the tomato sauce was deep fried. I think I will have to do more walking if I am going to eat like a Ghanaian.
Tomorrow I must go to the school on my own. Charles will be out of town so he can not guide me. This means simply walking down to the road and catching a trotro.
I really want to go to the beach some time soon!
One of the teachers, and older man, is planning on teaching me the basics of how to speak the native language as well as take me to a very large national festival to explain more about Ghanaian culture to me. People here are so nice.
I will now head to bed so that I can wake up early and study for my lessons. They have guide books to follow for the lesson planes. I will be teaching three different math lessons tomorrow and maybe one on grammar. I told the staff that I was more comfortable with comprehension lessons than grammar and I will remind them of that again I am sure. Grammar has never been a good subject for me…
I am finding that I am just a bit rusty on some of the topics that I am teaching but it is coming back to be. They teach a bit differently than we do in the US but for most of the part it is very similar.
One last note: I have noticed that even after a few days I have started to pick up on some of their linguistic tendencies. It is very easy because there is nobody else to talk to that speaks the same way that I do.

Ready for the day

Today I woke up at 7:00 to get ready for the day. I took my shower (No hot showers for a few months), got dressed and had breakfast. I found out later from Charles that my breakfast will be included in the price of the room, which is very nice.
We had to go into town so that Charles could run some errands. Because his car is out of service at the moment and we could not find another vehicles to use, we took the infamous Ghanaian public transportation, the Trotro. Try to imagine a eurovan that has been used as farm equipment for about 10 years, stick a few more rows of seats in so that you can fit about 20 people in and you have a pretty good picture of what it was like. No bother though, packed in like sardines I got to look out the window and take in the scene on the busy streets of greater Accra. Our first stop was the bank. I needed to get some money out to pay for at least part of my lodging. I took out 2.4 million cedis. We will probably stop again tomorrow. We would have taken out more but the most you can withdraw is 800k for each transaction and there were other people needing to use the ATM. I am wondering what kind of exchange rate my bank is giving me.
Next, we stopped off to talk to the man who is getting Charles a new engine for his car. He is importing it from Germany. It seems like all of the world’s second hand items makes it to the streets of Ghana. From used clothing to refurbished televisions lining the boulevards, Ghana seems to be the world’s little sibling, once America or Europe grows out of whatever item it is, they send it down the line.
Charles informed me today that I can get a cell phone here for relatively cheap. So I plan on getting one this Saturday. We are going to go into town to do some things and then I can get a phone. They are prepaid and it doesn’t cost me anything if I get calls, only when I make them. This way I think maybe I can figure out a calling card system that is pretty cheap to Ghana and have people call me. I can also get text messages for free. It will be nice to have that ability for communication. It is also a good idea to have a phone just so I can get a hold of Charles etc. while I’m here.
The next place on our excursion was the university of legon. We went to the book store there so that Charles could buy some text that his older son (13) needs for school. While on our way there, Charles informed me that my school may have more pressing needs than buying textbooks with the money I raised. I told him I would like to hear what this might be and that I’m sure that everyone who made donations would want their money to go wherever it is needed most. To be continued…
On the ride back, also in a trotro, I bough a FanYogo. These are so good and it only cost 2,500 (about 27 cents). This is a frozen strawberry yogurt packet that is sold by individuals walking up and down the lines of cars at stops along the way. I also bought two handkerchiefs to battle the sweat on my face, these cost about the same as the fanyogo. We then stopped for lunch before heading to the school that I will be teaching at. We both had fried rice and two pieces of fried chicken. I had my favorite flavor of fanta, fruit cocktail. I haven’t seen it anywhere outside of Ghana. We then walked a short distance to the school. The name is “Mary Star of the Sea.”
When we entered the school compound the children were all seated in the school square for an assembly in my honor. As we entered the schools gates the children began to get very excited and whispering to each other and waving to me like crazy. In the middle of the square there is a statue of the mother Mary. I noticed that Mary is depicted as being black. It was just one of those things you notice because it doesn’t fit the mold of my normal life. It makes me happy that the statue is black, in fact, Mary probably had a fairly dark complexion anyway, being from the geographic area of the middle east. So they had an assembly with dancing and singing to welcome me and I got up and made a little speech about who I am and why I am here. The atmosphere was very energetic and I am very excited to begin teaching. I will be teaching ages 7-9ish.
After the assembly I met with the other teachers that work at the school and I got up and explained my background, family, interests and why I ended up in Ghana. Charles told them all about the school project from last year and that I wanted to be president of the united states. He was embellishing a bit… When he said that the madam head master said that when I came up to meet her that she saw in my face someone who is going to do great things. School starts tomorrow and I have to wake up at 6:30am. There is no way that I could do this at home.
After school I walked back to Charles’ house with Charles and his younger son (9), Eliza, who attends the mary star of the sea school. Every day I am to walk home with Eliza and then have dinner with the family. Tonight we had ground nut soup with fish and chicken in it along with white rice. Everyone is too kind here. I remember this from when I was here last time but it is still amazing to me how friendly people are.
It seems a bit weird to be here without the rest of my “Ghana Questers” who were here with me last time. Being here brings back so many memories. We should have a reunion when I get back in December.
I hope I will get to go to the internet café tomorrow and that all is well at home.
Side note: the pollution and environmental problems here are disturbing. I am sure I will write more on this another time.

Arrived today in Ghana

Arrived today in Accra. It was a nice crisp 78 degrees at 7:10PM when I stepped off the plane. It smells like Ghana. Charles picked me up from the airport and we went back to my hotel. I think it took probably about an hour or so to get here. I have a bedroom which consists of a bed, TV, nightstand, closet and AC. I also have a small room as you come into my hotel room that has two chairs and a coffee table as well as a refrigerator. Off that room is both my bedroom and bathroom. I had spaghetti tonight for dinner. I forgot how extremely hot it is here. (spicy) the portion was very large and I could only eat about a third of it. Charles left around 10:30pm. He said I can probably get my haircut at his normal barber. It will cost a little over a dollar. Tomorrow we will go to the school after lunch where I guess they have a program prepared for my arrival. I’m looking forward to seeing this place and to meet my kids. Charles said today that he thinks I am teaching 7-9 year olds. I am looking forward to seeing this place in the daylight. I wish I could call back home to let people know I got here ok as well as get a chance to talk to Caitlin since I never got a hold of her the other night.
Off to bed, have to be ready early in the morning for Charles when he gets here.
P.S. There are occasionally little lizards in my bedroom.