We are the Champions

Friday before last two of our students competed in a radio quiz show in Fumbisi.  At school many of us left behind listened to the quiz and cheered them on afar.  Three boys (one extra) went all of whom are part of my peer education program.  To be honest I couldn’t really understand what was being said on the radio because of all the static but I still listening and pestered my students with questions on how we were performing.  In the end our students won and beat the two other schools competing.  We were all happy and proud of them and they received quite the reception when they arrived back from Fumbisi.   There was much blowing of moto horns, cheering, and hoisting of the victors while running around.  I really wish I had thought to get my camera from the house before their arrival but I did take some photos of them with their prizes- a clock, English books, and drinks- after the fact.  It reminded me of my days in middle school as part of the academic team.  Wow my inner nerd has been coming out a lot lately with marching, quizzes, and also math.  As some of you may know Thursday was Pi Day so I wished my form 2 students a ‘Happy Pi Day’ when I entered their class since last month I taught them area and volume of a circle.  I was happy that one of my students realized the date corresponded to pi.  I wasn’t sure they’d get it since the date is usually written day-month here and usually in calculations they use the estimation 22/7 instead of the value of pi.  

In other news, the trained teachers are now on strike over pay.  I haven’t much been paying attention to the details but the government is notoriously bad about paying teachers on time.  It’s just a shame it will affect the students.  But it’s lead to some interesting conversations around the American government paying me rather than the Ghanaian government.  Much to my surprise and enjoyment the weather this past week or so has been cooler and we even had some rain Sunday and Monday!  Sunday it only rained for 10 minutes or so but yesterday there was a proper storm and it rained for a few hours.  Unluckily, a scorpion came into my house because of the rain but fortunately I always wear flip flops around my house (mostly because I’m lazy and don’t sweep daily) and happened to see it.  So now I’ve killed my first scorpion and it was very satisfying to do so.  Otherwise it’s pretty much been business as usual around here. 

The most ridiculous thing of all…

is that I am now a proud and happy owner of an air conditioner!  In Peace (or Posh rather) Corps!  Ridiculous, I know.  To straighten things out, I didn’t buy it for myself but was rather gifted it by a generous benefactor who happens to be from my village and very good friends with my old language trainer.  Last hot season I met up with the two of them and had lunch in Sandema, during which he was very impressed that I was able to live here during hot season and vowed to get me an air conditioner for next hot season.  Even though people make a lot of broken promises, I remember vaguely thinking he seemed pretty serious about it and maybe was a man of his word but I didn’t really think about it too much.  I even told him maybe it be better to get the a/c for the computer rather than me.  Lo and behold one beautiful day in February the unit was delivered and later installed.  I started using it soon after Valentine’s Day (best.present.ever) and it really has made a world of difference in my sleeping in super high temps.  This amazing gift makes me reflect on how sometimes when you serve you end up being served yourself; it’s all very humbling.   I’ve gotten way more out of my Peace Corps service than I could ever have given and not just because of the air conditioner.  It’s just a physical representation of the many blessings and experiences I’ve had here. 

I’ll end this post with an encouraging passage about service from a great book (my fiance's favorite in fact) My Grandfather’s Blessings: Service has a life of its own.  A single act of kindness may have a long trajectory and touch those we will never meet or see.  Something that we casually offer may move through a web of connection far beyond ourselves to have effects that we may have never imagined.  And so each of us may have left far more behind us than we may ever know. 

Ridiculous

These are a few of the ridiculous things in my life...Some are funny but others are me trying to disguise complaining :)

1. A bat swimming in the bucket full of water inside my wash room that I was going to bathe with
2. My face while teaching today when we heard the sound of rain on the school’s tin roof- it barely sprinkled but still!
3. A cow in my “courtyard” next to the latrine (since the gate broke) licking the ground- I could hear it
4. 110 degree temperature highs- and the butt sweat caused by sitting in a chair in it
5. The chalk shortage at my school
6. The amount of water I now have to drink to stay hydrated (it’s probably 4-5 liters)
7. Huge camel spiders inside my house (look them up- they’re terrifying even though harmless)
8. That Skype was working at my house for about a month and that it just stopped working last week
9. How the kids in my village love chopping (eating) green mangoes before they’re ripe- c’mon people, delayed gratification
10. That folks who come in my house ask if one of the photos in my hall is of me (it is) because I guess I look so different here with my hair always up and no makeup
11. How last week a student told me “Madam, you can work Maths!” while I helped him with a problem- my response “I’d better be able to if I’m teaching you how to do it!”
12. Planning a wedding from a third world country- and that I can do it at all because of the internet in my middle of nowhere village
13. That my countdown to Spain is almost at a month!
14. How tired of kenke, banku, and other Ghanaian food I am
15. The fuel/gas shortage in the North of Ghana
16. How ready I am to go home sometimes yet at the same time how emotional I get when thinking about leaving the people I love here, especially my students
17. The number of times Aladdin has starting playing for kids who come to my house (they now ask for Laddin and Princess)
18. How much spare time I have- and the detailed trip planning and itineraries that come out of it
19. The number of times I play the same few albums repeatedly
20.  And I’ll save the most ridiculous thing of all for next week- it deserves its very own post

School Garden

As part of our agriculture club, my counterpart teacher for the club Chris and I wrote a small grant to do a school garden with the students. Thanks to generous donations the grant filled quickly and now our project is in the works. Here’s more about the project from part of the write up that went online: Two student leaders and I attended a Peace Corps Food Security Youth Camp in our region in October to learn more about agriculture topics including nutrition, school gardens, animal rearing, beekeeping, tree nurseries, and farming practices. The goal of the camp was to equip and inspire students to become involved in tackling food security issues in their community by forming a club. Since the camp, another teacher and I formed an Agriculture Club with the two student leaders and interested students from our school. The students are especially interested in school gardens and beekeeping and it's exciting to see their desire to learn more practically and outside of the classroom setting. This project hopes to allow students to experiment with gardening and in the process learn a lot and gain skills for the future.

The main item we needed funds for was the wire fencing but I wasn’t very sure how to get the fencing from the place I knew to buy from in Tamale back to my village (especially since I take 3 cars for that trip). Thankfully my Peace Corps supervisor Mary was coming for a visit to my village in late February to hold a community meeting about getting another volunteer me once I finish my service. Since she was coming from Tamale, I was able to snag a ride for the 4 rolls of fencing, fertilizer, watering cans and even myself for part of the trip. It was a huge help and am so relieved I didn’t have to find other means of transportation! I know what a hassle that would’ve been…

Starting on Thursday this past week we started holding work days to create the garden. We chose a location close to the borehole in front of the other teacher’s quarters to make the watering easy and to have eyes watching it too. After the Independence Day marching Wednesday, Thursday was also a holiday so we informed the agriculture club members to come work on the fence if they could. We’d been asking the students who were late to school (we often punish latecomers by having them bring useful items like stones, sand, sticks, etc) to bring sticks for us to use as posts for the wire. Several hours were spent in the morning working on the fence and we finished before it got too hot. The students who came out were rewarded with pure water, biscuits, and toffee. Also we played music and I took photos to make it more fun. One thing that should be said about this project is that we’d intended to do it in February before true hot season started but because of the holidays in December and January the processing was delayed and we had to wait. Nobody else seems to mind to terribly much about being out in the hot season sun but for me I have to be super careful to wear sunscreen and drink tons of water.

Friday was a school day but since little effective teaching happens we again used the morning to work on preparing the land and creating sunken beds. This time we recruited all the form 1 and form 2 students to help since it is a “school” garden after all. One of our active students Edward acted as our school garden “manager” he told me and took the names of those who worked so I could reward them with candy later. The sun got pretty hot early that day so we closed early and decided to hold another work day on Saturday to finish the beds. Saturday we held another work day to finish the beds and again around 20 students came out to help. I’m very impressed with how hard some of the students are willing to work. It was funny too because I tried to pitch in and do some digging and hoeing but then a student would come and take over for me. 

Mostly I felt like I spent the morning running errands to buy food for the students who came to work. My “daughter” Linda helped me go buy one item at a student’s house. Because I’d never been to this particular house before it took time since I received the customary flour water (it’s as weird and disgusting as it sounds) to drink/eat) as a stranger/guest. And apparently people call Linda my “daughter” since we spend a lot of time together (she’s active in girls and agric club, peer education, and even went to camp). Even her parents when she gets home from being at my house will ask her “How is your mother?” So yes I have a teenage daughter. Back to the garden work, the boys work very diligently and finished the beds even in the noonday sun. They were rewarded with food and more candy. This coming Friday we’re planning on holding our final work day to sow the seeds (namely tomato, carrot, lettuce, cabbage, onion, and pepper). Then the students will be in charge of maintaining the garden by watering and weeding- so we’ll watch and see what happens. I also want to teach them to nurse trees using mango and moringa seeds which we can later transplant.

6th of March, 1957

Last week I announced to my form 3 students that I wanted to give them a class test on Tuesday before the holiday. They quizzed me and asked “Madam what holiday?” so to answer their question I sang. “6th of March, 1957-7, Ghana’s Independence Day…Ghana is marching, Ghana is marching. Ghana, Ghana, Ghana is a marching.” The whole class erupted into laughter and thought it both hilarious and impressive that I knew “their song.” I explained that last year when they practiced their marching and singing for Independence Day I heard the song repetitively so I couldn’t help but learn it!

In typical Ghanaian fashion, the letter inviting 40 students to participate in marching at our new district capital class this year for Independence Day didn’t arrive until Thursday. This meant that a good portion of school time was devoted to practice on Friday, Monday and Tuesday which is almost better than weeks of practice. It’s rather ironic that Ghana celebrates its independence from British colonial rule by having school children march in colonial style marching. Much of the time kids are caned when they make mistakes but thankfully the new master at my school who led the students in the marching didn’t use this tactic. It’s particularly brutal in the North since it falls during hot season so the poor kids are sweating out in the sun while first practicing and then performing.

I had a funny conversation with some of my students who asked me if I knew how to march. I explained to them that I didn’t know how to do this kind of marching but that I participated in marching band in high school. It was pretty interesting trying to describe the instruments we use since only drums and wooden flutes are common here. But I did show them how to march by rolling their feet like we did in band. I kind of wish I had a video to show them of a marching band because I think they would be quite fascinated.

Yesterday the chosen 40 had their final practice in preparation for the big day and they were looking pretty good. Especially when compared to the first day of practice when there was much giggling and little seriousness. I decided to take a break from marking some class tests and walked out to the field to take some photos of them. More girls were chosen to perform and frankly they looked much better than the boys. The boys couldn’t quite get their arms and legs moving at the same time. But both the girls and boys were spot on in their salutes and singing. Today instead of having a day off like the rest of us they travelled with two teachers to Fumbisi. I think they were all proud to take part in celebrating their country’s independence.

Peer Education

One of the main secondary projects I’ve been working on during my service has been training HIV peer educators at my school. Per the request of my headmaster, the assistant health teacher and I chose 12 form 1 and form 2 students during second term last year to meet with as often as possible to educate them on HIV/AIDS, STIs, and Life Skills. We based the program on the HIV Alert curriculum used her in Ghana but I also supplemented material using a Life Skills manual Peace Corps gives us. Once we finished with them last year we worked on a small grant to be able to hold a one day program to further educate them, swear them in and reward them for their hard work. I wrote two posts back in November on the success and challenges of the program but haven’t updated you much since then on what the peer educators have been up to.

After they were sworn in as peer educators, two outreach ideas the students came up with were holding session in the various sections of the village where they live and also practicing and performing dramas. Though we’re still working on the dramas, the peer education sessions have started and are going really well. Our boys senior prefect Michael was the first to start his in Ballerinsa. Other peer educators com to help him lead the sessions when they can and I’m also present to answer questions. I try my best to let it be student led as much as possible since that’s the power of peer education after all. We’ve met with his “people” three times now and have discussed HIV transmission/prevention, condom use, STIs and PLWHA. They’ve played games (with toffee as a reward), done demonstrations, danced, played quizzes (with stickers as prizes), read stories, and completed exercises. I’ve brought my camera a few times to take photos of the peer educators and students. During the last meeting, they did the loss exercise (which teaches empathy and compassion for PLWHA) and one of the boys wanted to pose with his paper which was kind of perfect. Michael will conduct his last meeting this coming Sunday and we’re hoping to debut one on drama called “The Shop” based on a Scenarios from Africa short film.

A couple of stories from going to Ballerinsa for the trainings….for the first meetings three other PEs- Raymond, Linda and Mary- also came to help Michael which was great. That day I’d brought my iPod and small speakers so they could play the condom game so one the trip home we blared the music as we rode our bikes. For me it was one of those surreal moments where you’re like “Yes I’m in Africa and in Peace Corps- and I’m loving that this is my job!” Of course now that hot season is in full swing the bike rides in the middle of the day (we start at 2PM on Sunday afternoons) have not been so pleasant. Last week none of the PEs went with me so I biked the 30 minutes by myself in the worst heat of the day. I had to stop three times to rest in the shade and drink water. I kept noticing how few people I was passing and how all the farm animals were resting in the shade meanwhile the white lady was out in the brutal sun.

Another peer educator Mary held the first meeting in her section of the village Kunkwak and had a good turnout. About 20 youth came and 3 other peer educators came to help out. It’s made me so proud to watch my students use their peer education training and to witness the fruits of my labor. Hopefully more of the students will start up similar programs in their parts of the village next term.