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.