Big Week/Long Blog

The end of last week was our ‘Mid-Term’ break so I had a 5 day weekend. For Thursday-Saturday I went to a small poor fishing town called Kokrobite, about 30 minutes past Accra. I went with Rebecca (Fulbright teacher) and Linda (my exchange teacher Samuels’ 23 year old daughter). We stayed at a cute beach ‘hotel’ (clusters of cool little huts) and relaxed and ate good food. The beach life outside the hotel gate was alive with fisherman, women selling wares and fish, young children that should have been in school, and Rastafarians. This was when I realized that Rasta is not a ‘look’ it’s a group of people with their own (often funky) set of beliefs. Kokrobite is also one of the centers of cultural music-especially drumming and we were promised a great cultural group performing Friday night.

I’m going to post a few pictures of the beach life- the first one is me with Linda.

I did NOT take a picture of the dead body that was pulled out of the water Friday morning. It lay on the beach (attracting many) for 9 hours until 1) the ‘Chief of the Fishermen’ could come and bless it (because it happened in his region) and 2) the police could take it away. I couldn’t really figure what else the Chief or the Police had to do in this small little town that was more important than the dead body but oh well we all seem to be on ‘Ghana Time’. The cultural group cancelled because they thought it was a bad omen, and oh yeah, although it’s not celebrated in Ghana, I thought it was interesting that this was Halloween….

The elections were all over the news here, of course. One of the reasons is that Ghana has their big presidential election on Dec 7th. They will also elect a new administration since their old one can’t serve another term. They’re trying to learn from our process. I will blog on their upcoming election when it gets closer because it’s all been very interesting (They have 8 candidates).

SO, what was the reaction here? Well it’s not Kenya but it’s close. I will tell you I got 3 free cab rides on Wednesday, a lot of high 5s and someone wanted to buy my Obama button for $10. I was invited to a 6AM (We are now 5 hours ahead of the east coast) breakfast at the embassy Wednesday and brushed shoulders with important Ghanaian, foreign and US officials. Everyone was tired from staying up all night but it was very festive. I had to smile yesterday- while walking by a hair weave salon in Accra’s big(only) mall I saw a young woman reading Obama’s book. (There are no real bookstores here-only used books sold on the side of the road)

Tuesday also happened to be my FIRST day teaching the first year students. I have a very polite and not too large (42) class of eager–to-learn students. These kids haven’t been in school since July and because of the whole testing and placement process into high schools-it took until this week to get classes started. Let me explain: at the end of Junior High (~9th grade) students take a big test and also choose their 3 top picks for high schools. The tests are graded (apparently slowly) and the students are placed in their choices depending on how well they do. This is for public schools. If you don’t do well on the test, or can’t afford the tuition ($180 a trimester) too bad you don’t go to high school. Although there are private schools that have spaces but are also quite expensive. 40% of Ghanaian teens attend high school.

On the first day I decided to have them write down questions they had for me about life/schools in the US. They were great and so I’ve been pulling one a day and answering it. (As you’ll see, I anticipate some of the answers being interesting discussions) Here are some of the best ones:

*Is the syllabus the same in Ghana as it is in the US?(lots asked about comparing the countries in Math/difficulty level)
*Why don’t students wear prescribed uniforms to school?
*Where is the most nicest and beautiful place to be in the US?
*How different is your mind from ours?
*Why is the US made up of both black and white people?
*Why did the US build the Statue of Liberty?
*Is it true that students in the US are not lashed/caned? (several asked questions like this)
*Can you write to me a nice easy essay on the effect of teenage pregnancy?
*In US do children care about their parents when they reach their teenage years?
*What is so special about the USA that makes our students travel there in terms of education?
*Is it true that blacks are disliked in the US?
*Why do musicians have a lot of money like Birdman and Weezy?
*Is it true that Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were murdered at her residence recently?

THANKS FOR READING!