The last two weeks - Goodbye Ghana

Week 15 – November 30 – December 7 The week of “last times”

But first a few students that I will never forget

Me and Khadija, my awesome helper all term

Musah, a tough little kid, more prone to pushing than talking, but when he started talking to me about a month ago that was a major victory for me.

Gloria (little miss sassy pants) and Selase, my star stage 4 English student

Agogo and Patrick, a couple of my stage 2 boys that would grab my hands anytime I was walking around campus, my mini entourage

Day 95 – My last real classes before exam week. Sad to say goodbye but happy that they all, even the super quiet ones, were disappointed it was our last class.

Day 96 – Last time taking a trip to Ho, just doing errands mostly but it was nice to be able to run around and do lots of things, not get lost, successfully fight my way onto an overbooked trotro, and be home in time for dinner.

Day 97 – Last time doing buckets of laundry. It is definitely the one chore that I most dislike without running water. Bathing is totally fine, dishes not that much worse than home, an hours of scrubbing, pouring, rinsing etc. is a pain in the butt. BUT the good thing was I was able to download lots of podcasts the day before so caught up on tons of Radiolab and Mike and Tom Eat Snacks.

Day 98 – Exam day! I was really pleased with most of them, even though no matter how many times I told them to re-read, 3-4 still just totally skipped a section. Test taking skills should have taken a lot more of my time probably.

Day 99 – Most of the day just in meetings, but I guess I am just thankful that all of these meetings felt good, mostly productive, and on the same page with the staff here. So even though I was here in a huge transition period (like 3 senior staff fired, 5 teachers in one term) I hope I am leaving on the upswing for the next volunteers.

Computer store

Day 100 – Last visit to Hohoe to the school for the deaf and finally, FINALLY buying a computer that was promised to a community to give them in August. This has been my monkey on my back, a small, but always on the to do list that will not go away.

Josh, another volunteer, setting up the first computer in a small village.

Day 101 – Mostly a day just hanging with the kids and playing computer, but one of the hardest meetings with a student that has been in big trouble for fighting and today was stealing. Not a favorite thing, but I guess I am happy that there were overall so few problems like this considering the overall lack of supervision these kids have a lot of the time.

Week 16 – December 7 - 12^th to the end.

Day 102 - Voting Day so no school. Had a nice last trip to my favorite fried chicken place and read about 1.5 books.

Prince and Bright with their Christmas loot

Organizing Hundreds of soccer jerseys

Day 103 – HUGE shopping trip, taking 4 hours with three students to buy clothes, school supplies and Christmas gifts for them and their whole families. Hot and a little chaotic but it is my favorite thing to do, give stuff to the kids. Then back to the school where two hours of four of us sorting hundreds and hundreds of donated football jerseys. A hard day but one I know will bring lots and lots of smiles. 

Day 104  - My last frustrating experience with Ghana internet. Eventually got the student on Facebook and got him an email account. I hope in the next year I can see the school have a real commuter program again. The students are so desperate for computers it is amazing.

Day 105 – Got little packs of cookies for students that wanted to give gifts to their teachers but had no money to. I am constantly asked for things by students, so it is so touching when a boy, one of the absolute poorest we have, asks if I can buy some biscuits for him to parcel for his teacher.

Students with their new sandals

Day 106 – Random fun thing, the campus had a tree infested with these huge, crazy green and spiky red types of caterpillars. But the best thing was going to market and buying new sandals for 8 of the neediest kids. My brother Scott suggested instead of gifts this year since my family is not going to be together much we could all do giving trees instead of sending gifts. When I got the sandals to the 8, they were totally surprised and I explained to them these were gifts from my mother, father, and brothers. It was great seeing one of the most serious kids, always very intense, with a big smile on his face.

Day 107 – My last full day (well not really as I discovered the next day when my flight was cancelled) and it was a busy day of last minute tasks, getting report cards, organizing files etc. But then in the afternoon, it was Carols Night, a totally chaotic, but adorable show of each class singing a Christmas carol and the distribution of tons of little gifts between all the students. My favorite was the Twelve Days of Christmas with a different child singing each day and the “Two Turtle Doves” Fortune say as “Two Dirty Gloves”. Then Bishop made a big speech about my work here and of course I totally got chocked up and could not talk. Lots of pictures with my favorite students. Sad/happy day overall.

Christmas Play, the sheep totally stole the show from Mary and Joseph

Day 108 – On my last morning, after packing up I was visited by two of my favorite students, then three more, all just playing and talking at my house. I said some final goodbyes to my friend Emmanuel, my taxi driver, Believe my seamstress, and a final walk through the town.

Final goodbye at my house

BONUS Days – I am finishing this list sitting in a fancy hotel in Accra. Flight was cancelled and delayed two days but since it was Delta's fault, we are in a fancy hotel. Sad to miss my homecoming weekend. 

Pete in Ghana Week 14

Week 14 – Week of Pete Cont. November 23 - 29

Day 87 – Travelled back to Accra to meet for dinner with a friend of Pete's who is in Peace Corps. We had a few extra hours to walk around Osu, the fancy part of the city where we got ice-cream and the best grilled chicken I have ever eaten. It was a cool Indian dinner talking with a punch of other volunteers and then onto Deluxe, a hidden nightclub that was close to the hotel. We got there around 11 and not much was happening, kind of empty, but by the time we were out on the dance floor an hour later it was packed, there were fireworks on top of bottles for birthdays and if you did not think about it it could have been any club in Chicago. But it was fun to have a night on the town in-between mostly ourdoorsy travelling.



End of a lovely day lounging on the beach in Elmina

 Day 88 – Breakfast in bed, I really liked the hotels in Accra where we stayed. They were both around 100 USD which is totally expensive compared to the rest of Ghana but great compared to the Super 8 at home. Off to Elmina in the worst traffic we experienced. Elmina and Cape Coast is really the first place I have been here where there are total tourism markups. The taxi rides in Accra are expensive, but so is everything else. Here it was just crazy how much taxis charged us for 10 cedis for trips shorter than I take at home all the time for less than one. I just kind of got over it, tried to stop arguing with every taxi and just accepting paying the extra, but still kind of pissed me off. The eco-lodge in Elmina was totally off the beaten path which was nice and peaceful but also inconvenient to do anything besides swim and relax on the beach. This is exactly what we did for the whole afternoon and it was lovely. But the next day we decided to move on and stay in Cape Coast where we could do a few more things.

Canopy tour

Day 89 – Being a Sunday so many things are shut down or transportation not going so we got a private taxi to take us to Kakum to do the canopy walk. It was underwhelming for me but a good time. The big group of super loud guys also detracted from the nature walk, especially after so many days hiking totally alone or with one guide. We stopped at this weird resort with crocodiles on the way back for lunch and went to wander around the town. We assumed we were too late for the castle tour but got in one the last one. There was a family of four Asians, two Ghanaians, Pete who is 100% Polish and first generation America, and me, whose family has been in the US for many generations. I do not know for sure I do, but I was definitely the only person there that had a possibility of being descendant from slave owners. SO the whole tour talking about the Carribean and American slave tour was not exactly awkward, but maybe different for me than a Ghanaian. We saw the male and female holding cells, the chamber they put women accused of having sex, the hole where they put people who tried to escape to slowly die, and the door of no return where they were marched out to the ships. The coolest thing was opening those doors and the beach below is now a totally vibrant harbor and beach for the locals. Still called “white mans beach” there were tons of kids in the water, boogie boarding on pieces of wood, people repairing their nets and selling plantain and other things. Dinner at the hotel after a swim of lobster pizza and grilled lobster. Pete fought more with the spiky lobster, I was happy to eat the pizza, my first in 3 months.  

Mens holding cells

|White man's beach outside the Door of No Return

Day 90 – Pete’s last day we went going to the top of a hill with an abandoned fort which we are pretty sure people are squatting in, who offered to take us on a “tour”. Coffee at a Reggae smoothie shop where they had no smoothies, buying a few last gifts and a last swim in the ocean before heading back to Accra. Got Chinese for a late lunch, which with the past few days of pizza and Indian totally hit all of my non-Ghanaian food cravings. I knew I lived in a small town when people I have never seen before know who I am, I knew it was a small region when I randomly ran into the headmaster on the streets of Ho, the regional capitol. I realized this day it was a small country when in the capitol city, I was sitting in my trotro to head home and as I passed a guy called out “Bishop Forson” (the school I work at)

Day 91 – Back to school so back to short snippets but it was really fun and totally a ego-boost walking back onto campus and having tons of my kids run up yelling “Madam Becca, Madam Becca” grabbing my hands and the older students saying they missed me Even when I feel like these few moths was not enough time to make a huge difference, I feel good knowing that there are a bunch of kids that were able to do new, fun things with me, some can read better, and that unlike many of the teachers here, that I actually liked them and was nice to them.

Day 92 – Was one of the first days that I realized that I am now entering the time where it will be “this may be the last time I eat at Janet’s” instead of the first two months where everything was a first time

Day 93 – The last class with stage 6 and their verbal exam. Overall I was really happy with their progress the past 15 weeks. Some are still frustratingly in the same place that they started.

Day 94 – Reading the kids letters to their sponsors. Most of them were pretty similar, just talking about what is happening at school and thanking them. But some were cute, like Joshua telling about the new kitchen program and drawing the weekly lunch schedule (this is the first time they had ever had that.) or the ones that mentioned me were a nice to see.

Pete in Ghana Week 13

Pete came to visit for his Thanksgiving break, which was . Unfortunately for this blog, he took about half the pictures this week which I do not have.

Week 13 (AKA the week with Pete) – November 16 - 22

Day 80 – Super disappointed in Pete's cancelled flight, but had time to just putter around and walked and practices multiplication with two of the nicest 2^nd graders.

Day 81 – Pete's here! And a successful first venture into Accra to watch a movie and buy catsup.

Day 82 – Travelling in the trotro and Pete's first take-out food handed through the window of the moving bus. Small tour around Torkor where we ran into at least a dozen of my students. Took him to my little family bar and the local restaurant.

Monkeys!

Day 83 – Breakfast of Waatky in a bag on the way to show Pete the school. It was still kind of surreal having my US life meet my Ghana life. Then off to get bikes and bike to Tafi Atome. This time it was just the two of us and we had to hike a ways into the forest. Unlike last time too, the monkeys actually jumped on me. A totally unplanned but wonderful stop by Kudzra where we ran into a student of mine and tons of his friends by the river. Just too tempted by the bamboo high ump set up, Pete and I both jumped in and saw, with the kids. Favorite quote of the day, Duncan asking “why is he scared of the ground?” I realized he was asking why Pete was walking gingerly on the rocky beach when barefoot. Kids here are so often barefoot the idea of tender soles was new. Late lunch at my favorite spot and planning the rest of the trip.



You can kinda see pete's little head in the water



Day 84 – Demonstrating how the easy is difficult and the difficult is easy here. While it is harder here to do some basic things like grocery shop, pay bills, or print something somehow renting a motorcycle was super easy. I made a taxi driver friend and he knew a person and took us there, gave him 50 bucks, no questions or proof of knowing how to ride a bike and we were off. Even getting stopped at a police barricade, which I was a bit worried about, was a totally pleasant experience. They were very nice, just asked if we had a license and we said yes and they did not even want to look at it or try to hassle us for a bribe like they do to others sometimes. The days activity was visiting Likpe Todome where they had ancestral caves. After a hot hike on a cattle road so no shade we got to the top of the mountains with the caves. It was pretty cool seeing where hundreds of people lived, slept, kept prisoners and chief’s room. One of the deeper caves was totally full of bats that would fly around super close to our faces when we shone a light at them. Back to Hohoe where Pete found some awesome African fabric covered Chuck Taylors that they made in his size overnight. Then a sweet encounter at a drinking spot where about 6 kids surrounded us but one was just obsessed with Pete's legs and was petting and holding onto his knees for a while.

Day 85 – Back up the mountain to the Wli Falls, where we had the same tour guy I had about 3 months earlier. We also wanted to do another hike about an hour away that afternoon so we only went to the bottom falls but it was still a fun shorter hike and swim into the pool beneath the falls which were so strong it was hard to get very close with the water stinging our faces. Back on our bike and off to Biakpa, my favorite place in Ghana so far. We went on a hike through the dense jungle here where we got to swim in the second waterfall of the day. This one was smaller so easier to get right under it. Back to the hotel for a nice dinner and early to bed to get up to do day 4 of hiking/biking.

Day 86 – Morning hike across the valley to mount Gemi and the village of Afadjato. Again a wonderful hike although the nearby road construction dampened the peaceful sounds of nature. This made our total activities total in 3 days about 3 hours of cycling and 12 hours of hiking, 3 places where we swam,  and Pete having to drive the motorbike in-between all our activities. It was not until about 1 in the afternoon coming back from the morning hike that Pete mentioned something about Thanksgiving, I totally forgot it was. Back home to drop the bike, realize the power was off and go to plan B. We had our Thanksgiving dinner of a fishtail with rice for Pete and chicken neck stew with Banku for me. We did get a festive box of wine to drink with dinner and while we watched Battleship of Pete's computer to relax after a lot of time on our feet and in the sun.

The month that disappeared

I have not been at an Internet cafe for almost a month, hence the lack of blogs. With the director from the US visiting which was crazy busy and then the ten days of Pete visiting, which was crazy fun, it has been hectic. So here is my quick list recap of all the weeks 9-12:

Week 9 October 19 - 25th

Day 53 – Was so proud of my students. Most of the school just canceled the last class of the say, which happens frequently on Fridays, but they all were sitting at my table and doing final review for their midterm. I really hope they do ok on the midterm.

Day 54 – Lovely day it Liate Wote. Not the quiet, solo hiking I was looking for since it was a festival day, but good in other ways. Full blog here

Day 55 – At the moment it sucks with the noise, dirt etc, but it is nice to have a big renovation being done on the house. Would have been great 2 months ago, but having a door on the bathroom, ceiling that doesn’t leak and a door that does not lock me into my room will be great for the remaining two months.

Day 56 – Midterms went well, most did as expected but a few a lot better than that so I was pretty happy. Another fun evening at campus, reading books to the Abu brothers, watching them try to catch a cricket – to eat. I think all kids from 2-4 should have to eat a developing country diet, bugs, fish heads, spicy fish-heads, little sugar.

Day 57 A successful renewal of my visa, thank goodness, and a nice “girl talk” lunch with Tracy facing some of the same frustrations with working in the schools here and feeling like we can not look pretty in this climate.

Day 58 The last day of midterms and I did not really try to work, but just had a great time playing with the kids, jump ropes and Frisbees a success.

Day 59 Day one of two amazing days hiking and relaxing in Biakpa. I love the Avatime Region.

Week 10 October 26 – November 1

Day 60 – Second and even better day hiking to Amadjofe and the surrounding sites. Amazing feeling of energy even after 6 hours on my feet and two liters of beer. I need to keep more active on my normal days someone, it is so much better for my energy levels. (See here for complete blog of this trip)

Day 61 – Made my first trip to a seamstress and a nice surprise I randomly ran into Perfect, the super smart, adorable new kids in stage 5 who was in a seamstress shop that is her family's. So I went there instead of a totally random on and she could do some translating for me. Hopefully my sketch of a more simple, not African style dress with turn out.

Day 62 – Meeting Ellen, the director, in person after dozens of hours on the phone and almost a year of emails.

Day 63 – So many kids were not back from midterm so with only a third of my class, we just had fun looking up things in the dictionary, encyclopedia and google. I want to badly to make these kids curious, and think instead of just memorizing. The younger kids at break got to pick something they wanted to learn about and I googled on the Iphone. Topics of the day included babies, monkeys, sharks and crocodiles.

Day 64 – Sometimes there are big, big problems, and here honesty is unfortunately not the prevailing virtue. Today made me so happy that I been surrounded by family, friends and coworkers that I have been able to trust almost without exception.

Day 65 – Stage 5 so excited about writing to my friends and family, and having Dodzi think Pete looks like Jean Claude Van Dam.

Day 66 – Yes, this is totally a lushy and shallow thing to say is the best thing today, but after a long day and then going to buy laundry soap and tooth brushes for the kids I found a bottle a sparking wine and drank the whole dang thing.

Week 11 – November 2 - 8th

Day 66 – After many long, long days with the director visiting I had a great, happy hour at the Digba bar, and read for hours and went to bed at like 7pm.

Day 67 – Demoing two board games, one on HIV one on the Ghana constitution with Edwin. They were pretty bad, Aaron, my professional game designer brother, would be appalled. But it was nice to see some kind of creative leaching methods.

Day 68 – Disappointed in the dress, but a nice chat and walk with my students to her house to get the dress, pushing her little brother on a bike the whole way.

Day 69 – Sitting after school with a bunch of random kids and giving them an impromptu lesson on ants and how they work together.

At the school for the deaf, one of the few female weavers, a traditionally male role

Day 70 – Visiting the school for the deaf in Hohoe with an amazing computer lab and vocational training center.

Day 71 and Day 72 were a blur that I barely remember of meetings in any free time between classes. Also probably the low point of my experience so lets just skip ahead to the next week.

Week 12 – November 9 – 15

Day 73 – Successful trip to Ho to get my passport. I know this is not normal but I had a surprisingly easy time with the immigration office.

Day 74 – A morning shopping trip with Josh and Tracy, mostly venting but also fun picking out fabric.

Day 75 – Mostly just chores and recovering after the Weeks of Ellen's visit, but got the final painting done for the house and pretty much called the house as complete as I am going to leave it.



Mercy with her new textbook



Day 76 – Visiting Mercy at the school for the deaf again and her running up to give me a hug even though we barely met. Met with the Asst headmistress who was wonderful and it was great to have her there to translate. Also taking video interviews with Sampson as my director and then having Synaider some up after saying he thought of much better answers and he wants to re-shoot.

Day 77 – The serendipity of Agbeshi the electrician. I found the place to buy light bulbs, he told me he was an electrician, and never thought I would need to know that. The next day I blow a fuse.

Day 78 – Showing Josh and Tracy, the volunteers who will take over at school when I leave, around the school and my town made me feel something like hometown pride. I was proud of my little house and that they liked my super awesome and cheap place I always get food and that they seemed like they would be happy here.



These two girls are always petting mt leg. Turns out the same thing happened to Pete when he was here./

  Day 79 – Each and every one of my stage 6 class read a 8 page little book by themselves. Pretty sure they could not do that 3 months ago.

Sampson, my video director, former smart-mouth and current most improved in my stage  class.

All week -  Getting ready for Christmas  including reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas to my class, hearing classes practice their carols, and giving a Christmas homework assignment. The book made little sense to them with all the weird Christmas traditions “So we hang our socks above the fire and Father Christmas sneaks in at night and put presents in them” made me sound like a lunatic. And in a place where Christmas really is about family, music, church and food (roast beast maybe) the moral of the story is not really a lesson my kids need but it was the only Christmas book I could find in the Library.