cape coast and leaving ghana

i have only a few more hours left in ghana and it is down right depressing.

i'm sorry i haven't been posting as much, but i don't get internet access in cape coast. the days have gone by much too quickly. the two weeks of the internship flew by. on friday i said goodbye to my students and it got me thinking. those poor children come from difficult homes with little or no money. they get to come to a school, which is great, but their teachers never stay. the foreign teachers come in, make a big impression on the students, give them someone to look up to, but then they leave. they always leave. that must be so sad for those children. they need teachers that they can count on. teachers that will stay with them to help them through school. it makes me want to come back and make a bigger and more lasting impact on the ghanaian school system.

saturday we spent most of the day at the art center. we've made some good friends at that giant market. its funny now because when they see the usual tourists, the shop keepers rush forward to ask them to come to their shops to buy things. when they see us, they welcome back friends. the market is a great place to go when you know the people more then them just trying to sell you their things. i'm really going to miss those friends that i've made. i think during this last two week period, i've made better and more quality ghanaian friends than i did during the whole of the study abroad. its really sad to leave them, and i don't know if i will ever see them again.

sunday, monday and tuesday were either hectic or incredibly relaxing. we travelled to cape coast on sunday and then just relaxed at the hotel while the two girls who hadn't seen the el mina castle went there. on monday we did the canopy walk again. then we visited an old professor of our professor. that visit was really cool. the man was 82 years old but looked like he was 60. he was so full of life. it was interesting to see someone who had mentored the man that we all look up to so much (dr. owusu-ansah, or as we call him O-A). after the visit, we returned to the hotel yet again while the other girls toured the cape coast castle. on tuesday, we travelled home.

now it is wednesday and tonight i'm leaving. i really can't believe that i'm actually leaving. the reality of it hasn't sunk in yet and i don't think it will until i'm on the plane. i spent all day trying to find everyone in accra that i had become friends with to say goodbye. we spent alot of time at the art center (again), buying and saying our last goodbyes. then i visited the family that i always play with and said goodbye to them. it's so strange saying bye but knowing that i won't visit them tomorrow like i always do. tomorrow i'm going to be in the usa. my good friend, david, and i were standing at the ocean (behind the art market) today and he looked across the water and told me, tomorrow you're going to be on the other side of that ocean.

i have to make it back to ghana sometime. this country is an amazing place. it is the people of ghana that make it so unforgettable. i'm going to really reallly miss all of them.

sad.

mhairi and i have been taking the tro-tro everywhere lately, which is ALOT cheaper than taxis and more fun. we squish into these barely-running vans with all the other africans and travel wherever we want for about 50 pesewas. i'm not sure if i mentioned it before, but tro-tro's are like the ghanaian bus system. we took it to the beach today during our 3 hour break.

we said goodbye to the glona children today. it was the saddest thing i've done here and it makes me realize how soon i'm going to be going home. i'll be happy to go home, but i REALLY don't want to leave here. i'm going to miss everything about ghana so much. i wasn't expecting to cry, but when we were walking out the door some of the students rushed into my arms crying very hard. i couldn't help but cry with them. i'm reallllllly going to miss those kids. i can't imagine how sad the germans must be after teaching at glona for a whole year.

last few days of teaching

we're only teaching until friday, and i'm not sure we'll actually teach much on friday because we'll want to play with the children. on saturday (i think) we travel to cape coast again so the new girls can see what it's like in the central region. teaching has been getting a little easier. i realized i'm expecting too much from them and once i realized that, i became more patient. they are trying to learn a language that isn't native to them, and they are being expected to learn it in two weeks. the students assigned to me have grown alot since i first saw them during the study abroad and i'm happy with that progress. today in the morning session, we ended early so we could go play football. the students have end of the year exams this week, so alot of our learning has changed to focus on their tests. this is a little frustrating because it encourages them to keep memorizing particular words, so that they can do well on the exams. they can all read and spell cat, dog, bed, pot, etc. but they cant pronounced phonetically the sounds po, be, do, etc. it's a very backwards system.

i have only a week left in ghana as of today and that reality is hitting me hard. i'm slightly surprised at how much i don't want to leave. i absolutely love this country. i'm going to miss so much about it. i'll be happy to go home, of course, but i'm going to have to figure out a way for me to come back.

new hair

welp, i finally got my hair braided last night. mhairi had hers done the night before. i spent the whole time laughing at her pain (because i didn't think it would be so bad) and chatting with the ladies. they made me braid some too. but then when i got mine done, holy crap, it hurt so much. mine took 4 and a half hours and mhairi's only took 3. i have like 50 braids more than her though, because my hair is so thick but also i wanted mine smaller than she got. it is supposed to keep for about two weeks, so i'll probably wear it until i get home and then take it out. it still hurts today, especially when the braids are moving around. it's especially annoying to sleep on. we probably look like such idiots with the two of us abroni's and our braided hair. it looks different than caribbean braiding: they use fake hair to make the braids hold and the braids come straight out from my head in the "rasta" style, not cornrows. one of the german women at glona has had hers done seven times! she's crazy.

more questions from dad and teaching today

i'm about to go get my hair braided (which is probably going to take 5 or so hours) so i'm not sure if i will finish this post.

today was full of good and bad. the morning was incredibly frustrating. i'm not sure if i was just over tired or impatient, but i had a really hard time teaching the kids. at first it was only gifty, and i realized that it is too hard for me to teach her to speak, write AND read english all at once. i'm focused on just trying to teach her to speak. but then the other children came, and for whatever reason, they did not feel like learning today. we slowly worked our way up to small sounds but they kept guessing. it drives me crazy that they see the letter p and yell any word that starts with p. they've been taught backwards: they taught themselves to just remember words by sight of the first letter so that they can do well on tests, but now i have to teach them that is bad and THEN teach them how they should have learned in the first place. they were all about guessing today and it was frustrating. i know that me being angry or annoyed doesn't help their learning so i'm trying to be patient but this morning was rough.

this afternoon was much much better. for lunch, mhairi and i went to a chinese restaurant that we'd been to before. then we went to go visit our drummer friend. he was so excited to see us. we hung out on the beach behind the market for the few hours that we had free. it was nice to be able to hang out somewhere i felt comfortable; we hadn't yet found a place like that for us and it's too expensive to take a cab back to our hotel and then back again to teach. we stumbled upon some really cute little kids playing soccer. they were about 3-6 years old. they yelled at me: abroni! (oh-bro-knee, it means white person) snap my picture! so i got some really cute pictures of them playing soccer and falling all over themselves to be the only one in the picture. it's sad that the beaches here are used for trash dumps (the ones that aren't touristy). the beach was a mess and the sewage line emptied into the ocean along this particular beach. for the afternoon session i had to teach the special class again. we spent the whole time reading. i'm really impressed with how well they can read. i didn't really see that when i was volunteering during the study abroad part of the trip. i was most proud of Hannah (a girl who comes for the morning lessons) because she was leading the whole class in reading today. this is a girl who was sent for extra treatment because she can't read, and she was reading better than anyone else. i was so so soo proud of her. it was a really great moment that i could literally see that the frustrations i face in the morning really do pay off in the afternoon.

so, speaking of beaches, my dad had some questions about them. the water is really warm. its very comfortable to go swimming but the waters are dangerous so i've only gone in once. they have markers that show people where they are allowed to swim and i only swim if Brad (a really good swimmer slash lifeguard friend) is with us so he can save me. i haven't seen anyone build any sand castles the way kids in america do. usually boys are playing football (soccer) on the sand and girls are watching. people don't really lay out the way americans do, obviously because they don't need to get any more tan. most people who live on the beach or who hang out at the beach alot are rastafari men. it depends on the beach that you go to whether or not the sand is soft. mostly yes, but i've been to one little rock beach. also, i've never seen anyone boogie board or surf. the waves are usually too big and i hear that the undertoe is really bad. actually, almost all of the africans i have encountered don't know how to swim.

weekend things

our friends who are staying in apam at the hospital came back on friday night to stay for the weekend. they were sooo happy to be in accra where there is running water and where they can choose what they want to eat for meals. we took them out on friday night to a bar that we frequent and then to a club where there was dancing. it was really fun and i think that the new girls really enjoyed being back in the city.

on saturday we all travelled to aburi for a conference. scholars from england, the US and different parts of africa were present. the conference was held high up on the mountain with a beautiful view of the Ghana plains. the scholars had each written papers and then they would present their topic and leave time for discussion. we caught the tail end of the first morning discussion, but stayed for the second morning discussion and the longer discussion held after lunch. the topics were generally about economics, and the afternoon discussion was focus on the gendered idea that women in ghana are more poor than men. we ate lunch with two professors from harvard, no big deal. it was really cool to hear idea from these big names, even if we didn't fully understand everything that was going on.

today we brought the new girls shopping at the market and in osu. i got a lot of good presents (michelle, i got you two presents youre going to loveeee) and i finally got a jersey of Gyan that i'd wanted but didn't see a nice one. they finally had nice ones and i bought mine for 15 cedi less than another kid who had bought one during the study abroad (sucker). i didn't realize how much of the culture i've absorbed until i watched the girls at the market today. i'm very comfortable now telling a pushy vendor that i don't want their product and i'm getting really good at bargaining. i've realized that a story comes with the price, the vendor tells how something about how long it took him to make the product or the quality of the wood, etc. i respond with telling him that i'm a student and a volunteer so i don't have much money. it's like a play that is put on every time you go to buy something. it's really fun once you get the hang of it.

when we went to the art market, we found a friend that mhairi had made the first time we went there. he had given her and her roommate a drum lesson. we were welcomed into his show with open arms. he (and three of his friends) proceded to play us a welcome song. their music was so beautiful, a lot of people passing by stopped to dance. he then gave us all a drum lesson (for free). we weren't pressured to buy anything and he seemed genuinely happy just to teach us african music. he runs his shop very differently than most other vendors at the market. i hope we can go back for another lesson.

friday morning lesson

friday is a funny day for ghanaians. the least amount of students come to school that day but we've been told thats okay because its friday. i assume its because the children like to start their weekends early, but maybe the roots are deeper in tradition, because most adults are okay with it too. so i had only 3 students show up friday (and one came an hour late) and mhairi had one. i'm having a hard time teaching Gifty. i end up just giving her writing exercises that i know she doesn't benefit from but if i can't communicate with her it's pretty impossible for me to teach her, especially if i have other students to teach as well. it really frustrates me that i can't do more for her. i just don't have enough time and my reasoning in my head is that i want to make the greatest impact i can in two weeks so i know the other students (who can speak english) will benefit from me more. it's really unfair but i don't know what else to do with the situation. she needs someone who can speak both english and twi or she needs full attention from one teacher. on the other hand, Moses made big progress on friday. he now knows all the letters and most of the phonetic sounds. we had just started the concept of vowels when it was time for lunch. i'm really getting to see the ups and downs of teaching. i know that i'm gaining a ton of experience and knowledge from this internship, more than i ever imagined i could.