Choose Your Own Gizzard

After mid-week, my schedule is much lighter which is pretty nice. On Friday I spent some time in our school book room organizing the boxes of story books (many of which I’m pretty sure are library rejects) and moving some onto a shelf in the office so students can start checking out books. A few gems I found included James and the Giant Peach, A Wrinkle in Time, a Tommy DePaulo, and a couple of Choose Your Own Adventure books. But otherwise the selection available to the students is quite limited. If I end up working to help setup a computer lab in the community, I’d like for it to be more of a literacy center to promote both book and computer literary. Because I think reading will go much further in helping the students with their futures than using a computer. Also even with a computer lab not all the students would be able to use the computer a time. I am starting to dream about using a projector to teach my lessons. My job would be so much easier if I can actually show the students what I’m talking about. This week I resorted to drawing a computer window on the board to demonstrate the functions of the minimize, maximize, and restore buttons to my form 3 students. While showing a few students Wikipedia for Schools on my laptop one day after school, I found out it has Atlanta, Georgia on it. I proceeded to show them photos of the skyline I love, local homes, my favorite skyscraper, the World of Coke, the Varsity, the Connector, the Capitol, and MARTA. And then I got homesick. Our topic this week in form 1 was mouse skills so I had them work with me individually to practice clicking, double clicking, dragging, scrolling, etc. using my mouse. Most my students had never seen a computer mouse until I showed them one and for majority of them it was their time touching one. Although there was some hesitation and lots of giggles, I hope using a mouse, albeit a disconnected one, helps them understand the different functions.

Now onto some new experiences for the week…Saturday morning I accompanied Chris to the Gbedema market which coincides with the Fumbisi market that happens every 6 days. Sandema and Bolga markets occur every 3 days. Our market mostly consists of men selling animals including goats, chickens, and guinea fowls. He bought 2 chickens, 1 to keep for the eggs and another for meat. I may also buy a chicken soon for eggs so I don’t have to continue transporting them from market weekly. We tied up the meat chicken inside my house to hang out for the day until we were ready for well you know. I had to hold the chicken at one point which I knew was bad news for me considering in the evening’s upcoming activity. A good rule of thumb: do not bond with what will later become your food. Later in the day, I stayed inside while the killing happened but I did witness some of the dying and the defeathering. It was quite the process but we were rewarded with the delicious Ghanaian tomato based dish light soup. I thoroughly enjoyed it though I must confess eating the gizzard was not all that tasty to me. I found it to be too chewy. Also my gumbo this week was actually chicken gumbo instead of just veggie gumbo. All this coming from a girl who doesn’t like touching raw meat back home.

Catching the lorry to Fumbisi to go market proved eventful this week since the Metro Mass (government run) bus coming from Sandema was running behind schedule so failed to stop where I was sitting and waiting with two teachers. All of us waiting had to book it down the road to the ‘station.’ During the running action, I discovered a few things. First of all, I am still afraid of dogs and scream when they chase after me, nipping at my heels. Secondly I am out of shape and need to resume my ‘training.’ Lastly people should listen to me sometimes because I can give good advice. I told one of the other teachers to run but he didn’t listen. Thankfully for me I made it to the bus just in time. Literally the door was closed right after I entered. Unfortunately for him he got left behind in the dust and I later found out that the next transportation option didn’t come for another 3 hours.

I celebrated Halloween by engaging in one of my favorite hobbies: eating. I consumed popcorn with peanut M&Ms, Haribo gummy bears, and Starburst candy. I didn’t have to decorate for the holiday (not that I would’ve back home either) since spiders are frequent guests of mine and bats fly around outside my house nightly. I’m grateful my roof has been bat-proofed since bats are a common housing problem for many Volunteers. I realized just how strange the holiday is when I tried explaining it to my students. Costumes, trick or treating, pumpkin carving, and bonfires are all very foreign to them. I’ll try to do a better job with my explanation of Thanksgiving. As I mentioned in my post last week, there are only two seasons here. So I decided to introduce the concept of our 4 seasons to my form 2 class this week. We talked about leaves changing, bundling up from head to toe for winter weather, snow, and the return of green in the spring. I give impromptu mini-lessons on American culture every so often when we have extra time at the end of class or after they take a test. One skill I haven't yet mastered in my teaching or posting on this blog is finishing strong. I usually just end awkwardly.