Ghana vs. Germany

we knew we wanted to go to osu (a section of accra close to the beach) for the game, because that is where they pull the big screens down in front of the buildings and project the game onto them. we got there around six, about a half an hour before the game was supposed to start, and it took us twenty minutes to walk about twenty feet. we were swarmed by vendors, face painters, and children begging for money. everyone wanted to be our "friends". it was stressful. thank god we found duncan (another one of our local friends who have been with the program since the beginning) and he brought us to a sports bar called Cels Bridge. we had to pay 3 Ghana Cedi to get in, but we got a free drink coupon. the bar was PACKED. and i mean PACKED. like sardines. annd we were the only white people. it was awesome. i was really surprised that everyone was so excited for us to be there, and welcomed us to spots on the floor. they actually squished themselves (the people on the floor already) more so that we could have room to sit. if any ghanaian had done that in america during the superbowl, i don't think they would have been allowed in the bar even. it was so cool to watch the game in that environment, even though my ears just about bled from the horns and noise makers, as well as the sound system blasting the commentary. it was probably a good thing ghana didn't score because the roof may have collapsed from all the cheering and dancing. i was disappointed in their play, but whatever, we qualified. its funny that ghana plays the US next. GO BLACK STARS :)

you'd never see this in america

before glona classes started yesterday, all of the students at the school were called in for 'worship'. once they were all assembled in the classroom, one of the girls from our group, Stephanie (she's ghanaian but lives in the US and goes to JMU) led them in a song for the Black Stars. they sang and cheered and danced for a while until one of their teachers led them in more songs. the children were so excited to sing for their country's soccer team. they were then led in a prayer session for the black stars. they all had to close their eyes and pray. the intense looks of concentration and hope on their faces was incredible. you'd never EVER see that from any american children. the ghanaian soccer team has become a beacon of unity for the country, and a source of pride for them because ghana is leading the african nations, once again.

to finish, we sang the cutest song on the planet. the children here have trouble pronouncing "th", so they usually just say "t". the song is called 'one little thumb' but they all sing it as 'one little tumb'. it goes, one little thumb is moooooving, two little thumbs are mooooving, as we are praising god. then the song continues to include hands, feet, head, stomach and buttocks. they love this song.

glona day 3

i can't remember if anything exciting slash interesting happened before glona. i don't think so, classes were long as usual and we played with the hundreds of kids before we taught. this little boy named joshua has decided that he is my personal body guard before glona and he sticks to me like glue. he holds my water bottle for me when i play clapping games with the girls.

oh, i have noticed that in ghana violence is much more widely accepted than in the US. if a kid doesn't want another one near him or her they just whack the other person. the teachers threaten "beating" but they never really do it. the kids actually think its really funny. one of the teachers i work with, Madame Rose (she's Ghanaian), asked me yesterday if she should keeel the children who weren't paying attention. she said: Madame Stephanie, should i keeeel them? and all of the children started laughing.

glona just keeps getting better and better. i'm excited now that i've started to form bonds with my kids. they are doreen (17), moses (16 i think), solomon (16), samira (11), hannah (12), and benedicta (14). we taught them to spell the numbers eleven through twelve again. i noticed that moses was having a really tough time spelling any of the numbers. i pulled him to the side and asked him to phoenetically sound the word out. i discovered he couldnt match any phonetic sound with any letter. i asked him if he had been in school for that lesson and he said yes, but since i didn't believe i asked solomon and solomon said that he had been absent. this just shows how difficult it is to teach at glona: the students can't have set terms because they stop coming to school for periods of time. then when they come back, they are far behind the others. so moses, who was trying to learn how to spell numbers with everyone else, was really struggling because he couldn't sound out the words to match them to the letters. once he got it correct, though, was soooo amazing. everyone was so excited for him and he was excited too. it took them a long time to learn it all but everyone was SO happy when they did. i loved the feeling i got from know i helped them learn and was able to pinpoint the root of his struggle.

glona day 2

i had a MUCH better day today than i did before. i think it is because i know what to expect now from glona. the day started off as my other one had ended, where i was sitting on a desk watching the german 'madame' teach. (all the students call me madame too). i tried to remember her tactics for when students got something wrong or if they were unruly. then she had to go teach in another class and i took over. i reviewed teaching them the months, which they tend to memorize so i wrote them on the board all mixed up and tried to get them to focus on the letters of the words, not just remembering what the third month is. then i taught them all how to spell eleven through twenty and double checked their notebooks after they'd copied it down. when i get home, i'm going to mail a big package of school supplies to them. they really don't have enough. all of the notebooks are old and torn, there aren't enough erasers for the classrooms so it becomes a competition, the pencils they use are broken and unsharpened. its hard enough to learn when they come from bad homes, but they don't even have the materials they need.

pre-glona

so in order for our group to get to the schools we're volunteering at at the right time, we have to drop the kids off for new horizons then drive to glona. we end up getting at glona about an hour early right as the public school kids (who we borrow classrooms in the building from) are getting out of school. there are literally hundreds of kids. the first day we went, my friend brad and i tried to play soccer with them. it was hard because it would end up being about 20 on 1. they decided brad wasn't good so when i tried to play, they told me white people could play soccer. i made them give me the ball and kept it away from them for about a good minute (which was pretty good when i had 20 converge on me and more coming by the second). this one kid wouldn't stop making fun of me so i nutmegged him and everyone started cheering. they decided i was good and wouldn't let me not play. this one little boy joshua kept making fun of me because i was tired. (it was also about 95 degrees and 100% humidity).

the second day we got there, the children all knew what the white tro-tro meant and surrounded the van before it stopped. i played with girls yesterday (tuesday) and danced and learned different clapping games. they think its soooo funny when i dance (a. because i'm white and b. because i can't). everyone in the Akan ethnic groups names their children based on what day of the week they were born. A boy born on thursday, for example, is Yaw. so they sang a song, if you were born on monday come in and dance. then they'd form a circle around the people dancing. brad made the mistake of throwing a kid in the air and then catching him. he had to do it about fifty times after that. we also played the largest game of duck duck goose on the planet.

a few things i thought of

so living in a hotel is interesting. every so often the electricity shuts off and we're stuck in the dark for a few minutes. this morning the water didn't work, good thing i showered last night. my shower head isn't attached to the wall so i have to hold it the whole shower. everytime we walk on the street taxis honk at us, and there are a LOT of taxis.

first day of glona teaching

i don't know what my problem was today but i could not pay attention in the morning lectures. they were interesting and engaging i just couldn't focus. the first was about mental health issues and how they are dealt with in ghana. this was a good lesson for those who are teaching at new horizons. there is a very strong stigma attached to mental illness in ghana, so strong that a man would not marry a woman who has a brother or sister with a mental illness. ghanaians are very suspicious people and the belief is that most illnesses are the work of the gods because that person had done something to deserve the illness. their karma is immediate. the second lecture was about the politics of ghana and the most interesting thing from that lecture is that they have a policy of decentralization. it's funny because our country seems to be traveling in the opposite direction.

today was the first day of teaching at glona. i don't know what i expected but it definitely wasn't what happened. we got to choose the class we helped out with; i choose the "special" class, which is basically for students of all ages who have never had any schooling before. we teach them literacy and numeracy. kelly and i walked into class and there was no teacher. i guess the teacher was sorting out some monetary problem that she had, because she didn't show up for like fifteen minutes. we were kind of thrown into a classroom with no instruction, without knowing what the students had done before. finally the teacher came and told us they needed to learn the months and then left again. we taught the students the months, which was great. it was kind of a test run to see what worked and what didn't. we didnt have a great control of the class, but they learned! the teacher came back after about half an hour and she took control. she taught them phonetics for a test they have tomorrow while we sat in the corner and watched. it was kind of a 180 and i didn't really like it. i wish that the teacher had given us some sort of information on what our role in the class actually is. i was pretty disappointed but we'll see what tomorrow has in store. we're allowed to switch classes if we want and i'm considering it. i'm still undecided so i'll figure it out tomorrow. i'm ridiculously tired. oh, i bought a cell phone so i'll be able to make more phone calls when i get it tomorrow.