Sal in Ghana!: One month and one week and one day... HEY!

Dear everyone!

How is cold cold England?! It is still hot here and very sticky and humid most of this week. We have also had week of power cuts - no power for most of Sunday or Monday with a small power cut on Saturday and Wednesday evening and Thursday night AND when I got back from work today (Friday) although it is back now (I’m on Anna’s laptop and hope to get to the internet café tonight). Power cuts don’t really change our lives too much anyway. The worst thing is not having the kettle to boil water for hot drinks… when it gets dark we just hang my head torch from the ceiling or Maria gets her candle out!

So, ONE MONTH DOWN!

WORK:
Work has been slow this week and last. I absolutely ADORE the children and have so many special favourites that I love and would like to take home with me! But on the other hand sometimes I can’t help feel that the teachers either view us as a mild help or just a nuisance! Although I am making great progress with some children I come across a few blocks by teachers – Auntie Elom in particular has been having issues this last week with me doing one-to-one. I’m not sure what she thinks I do with the kids but I think she almost sees it as a treat to be withheld. One boy, Doe (has obvious learning difficulties, and gets very frustrated when he can’t write letters) is mostly ignored by Auntie Elom – but he really works well under constant and positive attention. However, a few times he hasn’t been allowed to go with me because his shirt is untucked, he forgot his shoes, or something equally daft, especially when he doesn’t really understand what he’s doing wrong and then gets more frustrated and angry! Mostly Auntie Elom tries to give me Cephas and Eyram for the whole morning which just doesn’t work as they can’t concentrate for that long. The problem is really that they are so behind they can’t get the required attention and therefore do nothing (and I mean nothing) in the classroom.

As a result of all this on Thursday I decided to stay in the classroom but it was very trying. The children are really just left to their own devices and if they don’t know how to do their exercises or (worse) don’t even have a book there is a LOT of sitting and messing around. If work is done on the board Auntie Elom just called on the smarter children at the front despite the fact that Doe or Cephas or even Eyram with some encouragement would be able to easily count the circles she had drawn there. I hope to resume one-to-ones on Monday…

Tuesday was a little different as the teacher of the highest class (Kindergarden 2) was off so Anna and I spent the morning trying to work with her class! I say tried because I’m not sure whether we totally succeeded as chaos did break out often (unless an Auntie comes in and threatens the cane – then they are angels!!) but we did some exercises on the blackboard and some kids were great. Within both classes it has really struck me how varied the abilities are; and how much the kids learn by rote instead of thinking for themselves. It is quite often a process of elimination – if you write CAP, CAT and BAT on the board and draw a picture of a cat and ask them to spell it most will just shout out the letters randomly until they hit the jackpot!

Anyway, so on Wednesday afternoon I decided to get a more broad understanding of the orphanage so went to house 3 (mixed sexes, ages 3-6) with Anna who has been working there 7 months now. It was good to do something different, although essentially there was yet more hitting and screaming and getting jumped on and pulled around! I fed the two disabled girls who are very sweet but so unbelievably thin on their arms and legs. I hope to go back next week I think as it was a nice change.

LIFE:
Life in Ghana is ticking along nicely. I definitely have a routine here that is not dissimilar from university to be honest. The Ghanaian men are still driving me crazy with all the attention we get. Some are mildly annoying and quite entertaining (for example Katter and I were approached by a guy who announced “I want to marry an obruni”, and men often shout “my wife!” at you, or call random names out to see if you turn – in Ghana you have a name depending upon what day of the week you were born on) but at the markets or on the streets in the centre of Accra men will grab our arms or hands mostly to try to sell something to us! There isn’t much banter to be had with Ghanaians either… it’s all where are you from, what is your name stuff or it’s lectures about Ghanaian culture or about business and success all with this “God will provide” argument that makes discussion impossible!

On Wednesday evening Maria, Kattie and I (along with some others) went to a salsa evening at a hotel around 15 mins tro tro ride from where I live. It was around a pool and it was really fun! The creepy guys were out in force, of course, but the best bit was this line formation thing like line dancing but salsa steps. Some of the routines were really complex and everyone just seemed to know them, but some I managed to pick up on and it was really quite funny!

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So another long rambling blog, anyone tell me if I get boring! I sit down to write something nice and to the point but fail dramatically. Ah well, I’m sure everyone reading this knows how I open my mouth and random stuff just comes out… it’s clearly the same with typing!

I include some more photos from the past few weeks! Okay so it was SUPPOSED to be a few... but after compressing them they load so fast I can't resist! Sorry! Enjoy!

Sal xxxxx

My life in Ghana!