Ghana Update Week 4: Dare You to Move

There are a couple new characters I should introduce to our story this week: Peter and Anna are a couple from Australia and New Zealand (respectively) who are traveling around the world for eight months. During their travels, they wanted to volunteer for several weeks so they will be spending two weeks here with us. As I may have mentioned, the school will be instituting anew reading curriculum in the next couple of weeks. Mr. Davidson, the author of the new text books, will be training the teachers for three weeks. It will be very interesting to be living with foreigners for several weeks. Although I am living in Ghana, we have a pretty western setup in the staff quarters so the next few weeks will be interesting, I am sure.

The reading training began this week and it has been very interesting to observe the Ghanaian take on times and schedules. Even in the lower grades, many subjects are taught by subject specific teachers and not the grade level teacher: Grade level teachers usually take the core subjects while others teach subjects like Bible, Physical Education, ICT, French, and Fante (a local language). Only the grade level teachers, not the subject specific ones, are receiving training from Mr. Davidson. So I created a schedule that would allow the teachers to attend training for the next three weeks and miss as few core subject classes as possible. So Anna, Peter, and I will be covering for core subjects that the primary teachers miss. Which should prove to be very, very entertaining! I anticipate much confusion and running from class to class.

This week we were bless with another clinic. I am not exactly sure how people here of the Village of Hope, but people come quite often to offer services and learn more about the organization. And so this week, a group of doctors traveling around Ghana stopped in the clinic for several days. One dental hygienist, one dentist, and one hearing doctor (what are those called again) set up equipment in various corners of the clinic while Anna, Peter, and I went to collect children. Now, if you have never had the pleasure of escorting small children to the dentist, let me tell you that you have been relieved of a near impossible chore. We lined the children up first to see the dentist/hygienist and then to see the ear doctor. Rita is a first grader living in the boarding house who really needed to see the dentist. I was not in the room while she was in the chair, but she was VERY upset afterwards. I held her on my lap for a while to calm her down and after several minutes she went, sniffling, to join the queue for the ear doctor. Not 5 minutes later, she dissolved into tears again! Some of the older girls, in an attempt to console her, worked her into such hysterics that she refused to get within 20 feet of the door of the clinic. I tried to reason with her, telling her exactly what the ear doctor would do to her, but reason doesn’t usually resolve issues with first graders when they are already terrified. Had I been in the States, I would have sent her back to her parents/dorm guardians but that was not an option as she would have been punished for not obeying and sent back. It was only after I retrieved a couple extra head sets, letting her examine and practice with them, did Rita final agree to visit the ear doctor. It might seem like a small victory, but to me, it was huge!

With taking children to the doctor and substitute teaching, it has been a very busy week! Things should slow down a bit next week when the clinic is not here. But I am quickly learning that if it is not one thing, it is another around here. It is interesting to living in a place with such a slow pace of life but to always have something to do. I am not entirely sure how that happens, still in analysis mode on that one.

5 Ghanaian foods I enjoy:

1. Chicken in a curry sauce: chicken cooked in a creamy curry sauce served over rice. Similar to one of my favorite dishes in the states. I could pretty much eat this on a daily basis.

2. Plantain: cooked ripe will make a soft, sweet treat that has the consistency of bananas but the salty/sweet combo like kettle corn. Cooked not ripe, it will make a crispy snack much like potato chips. Long and short, I won’t pass up either preparation!

3. Peanut soup: it’s not really what I would call a soup because it reminds me of a stroganoff – meat and a sauce combined. This dish has a light taste of peanuts and is mildly sweet. I don’t really know how it is prepared, but I think I am going to try to get a recipe.

4. Gari: a dish made from dry, ground cassava (like a potato). Many people add it to dishes as a topping despite the fact that it has very little flavor. When I was in Accra, my host made this dish for me but I do not know how she prepared it so, this is another recipe I should track down.

5. Red red: this is a mixture of beans like black-eyed peas and beef cooked with a red oil made from palm tree seeds (palm nuts). I probably won’t ask for the recipe for this one, but it is good. Maybe I just like it because it is usually served with plantain...