Ghana Update Week 5: This Week the Trend

This week was very, very busy! But it has been great. Anna, Peter, and I continued covering classes for teachers while they attended the reading training. But, of course, that couldn’t be the only thing we juggled this week. The container from the States arrived about a week ago, full of all sorts of goodies like fabric for uniforms, clothing and shoes. While I manned the reading program, Anna and Peter organized and distributed shoes to all the children and workers at VoH. It was hard work sorting through everything and making sure to account for everyone, but it was worth it to see everyone so excited about shoes.

The reading program is going well. I have been trying to encourage the older students to read books which will challenge them and several have taken me up on that – not without a little negotiating, I will confess. Sampson has been reading The Whipping Boy for a couple weeks now. We read a lot of it together so that I could help him with the larger words that he didn’t know and he did a really great job of deciphering new words within their context. I love witnessing these small victories; the children are so proud of themselves and have so much more confidence to continue learning. I just wish I could witness more of them! Not that the children aren’t experiencing them, just that I must divide myself among them so that leaves very little opportunity of one-on-one time.

This week I started having a special reading class for some of the students that are struggling with reading. Since they are in classes all day, I figured that they would probably be more willing learners if we played reading games after school instead of having a structured class or any kind of lecture. So we played bingo, matching pictures to their corresponding initial letter. With a little planning ahead it was even possible to orchestrate it such that they all won at the same time! Which was great so they could focus more on learning than winning.

The training for the new curriculum is going really well, too. I haven’t been able to attend as many training sessions as I would have liked but I have learned quite a bit just when I am running in and out collecting supplies for substitute teaching. And I have to confess a certain level of amusement at learning how to spell from a Ghanaian instructor. The other day I learned about double consonants. Did you know that a vowel followed by a double consonant should be pronounced as a short vowel sound? Think about the difference between ‘hoping’ and ‘hopping’ or ‘writing’ and ‘written’. I am not sure if this is true with ALL double consonants, but I find myself noticing this “truth” every time I write.

A couple of different sicknesses seem to be going around here. The boarding children are passing something around – every couple days I encounter another feverish child. Last week Godfred slept in the clinic for two hours while we were ushering children through the various doctors. And this week a small child vomited in class while I was covering it. I was just thankful that nothing landed on anyone – which isn’t as much as I could say for my own 2nd grade in-class illness experience. Anna, Peter, Nathanael, and Tommy all have colds or ear pain so I am probably going to be next. So far I have been really good health wise and I am very thankful for that!

As this was Anna and Peter’s last week here, they decided to “host” a party on Saturday night, complete with movie, pop corn, lollipops, and soda. Of course, this is Africa so it’s not like we could jet over to Costco and pick up a giant bag of popped corn. Nope, it meant that we popped 4 and a half huge bags of kernels, filling 180 sandwich-sized ziplocks. That’s about 6 hours worth of popping corn! Luckily we were all up for the challenge and kept in good spirits. But I must confess I did notice how quick our 6-hour-chore was consumed.

3 Challenges from this week:

1.Being consistent in discipline: I confess that I am not good at this. And it is especially difficult when you have children in class, then after school, and in the evening hours. Sometimes it is just exhausting.

2. Remembering that I am not here to make friends: It would be great to just be buddies with all of the children; part of me would really prefer it, but the other part knows that is impractical. I hate it when the children don’t talk to me after I have given them a punishment, but the rational part of me knows that it’s my job to instruct and maintain a learning environment. Luckily their silence is usually short lived...

3. Finding time for myself but staying rested: When I was in college I would stay up late and enjoy [quiet] time by myself after everyone had gone to bed. I can do that here, but it is a bit more difficult. For one thing, I have to get up around 6:15 and for another, I can’t take a nap between classes...