Ghana Update Week 6: Our Team

The major event of this week was the competition between a Senya school, Jehovah Shema, and Hope Christian Academy. It was quite the production. I have never heard of an entire school travel for any sort of competition. And I usually think of opening ceremonies as reserved for highly important events like professional sports or the Olympics, not 2-day games between primary/junior high schools. But I am so glad we had them! Firstly because they were beautiful and full of energy. I never knew bodies could move like that! But secondly, it gave me a chance to see the children do something they were so sure and proud of.


Save one broken arm and a rather abrupt end, the games went off very smoothly. The first day consisted of quiz and debate while the second was devoted to volley ball and football (soccer). HCA was trailing in the quiz portion of the competition up until the maths section. Until then most of the questions had been knowledge regurgitation but they sailed ahead when asked to apply and compute. Stephanie was my special buddy for the day and she was hilarious to watch. She is usually animated and full of laugher but she was in rare form. After each question she would turn and look at me expectantly and after each team was declared appropriately right or wrong, she would groan or cheer with an equal amount of energy, violently shaking her tiny body.


To a fairly organized person such as myself, day two seemed very unorganized. No one could really tell me where we were supposed to go what event was going to take place first. The phrase “go with the flow” has an entirely new meaning after following hords of people all day. That mentality didn’t always turn out so well for some of the children when they followed each other too close to several of the matches, but it was a fairly good rule of thumb for the day.


Volleyball was first followed by football with competitions arranged according to gender and age. The festivities attracted students from the surrounding schools and soon a very large crowd had gathered. Those who weren’t watching the games were “conducting” their own close by. And close by each game there was a crowd of dancers and percussionists. . Their excitement and enthusiasm for supporting their team was amazing. I don’t really know how to cheer that so I had to cheer like an American... So I stood out a bit... Of course, I am loud enough that I would have stood out even if the games had been in the States.

Of course we won some and lost some, but then there was one game that I am not really sure about. The very last football match was between the older boys. And near the end of the second half, there was a dispute over one of the calls. After several of the teachers from HCA confronted the ref, we all got up and left. I don’t really know what happened or what the dispute was because no one has really been able to explain it to me. Each time someone has tried, they have either been interrupted with argument or gotten sidetrack by explaining just how horrible the referee really was.


While I always enjoy leaving the campus and seeing other aspects life here in Ghana, I must confess to a being more of a homebody than people might expect. Seeing the sights is exciting, but climbing trees, playing games, tickling, laughing and chatting it up will always appeal to me more. This week I learned how to do “the clapping game”! (I am sure this game actually has a name so maybe I will learn that next week.) Now let’s see if I can explain it... The object is to correctly predict and/or manipulate an outcome. It is like rock-paper-scissors in that you have to anticipate or read your opponent but there is a huge factor of chance as well. So two people face each other and after a series of jumps and claps – that I still can’t seem to manage well enough to quell all laughter – the players throw a leg. And now think of it as a mirror: if the players throw the same leg, then the one who predicted same gets a point; if the players throw opposite, then the one who made that prediction gets a point. I am not sure if they use this child’s game to make decisions, but it would be funny to see... At least rock-paper-scissors is discrete when your family can’t come to a consensus in the middle of the movie rental store...


I think that about sums it up for the week. Ghana’s Independence Day is next week, March 6 so I am sure there will be more sights and adventures to share. But for now I thought I might leave you all with a couple thoughts from this week.


Simple lessons we could learn from Ghana


Re-use: Almost everything is re-used. The rubber band holding closed her box of chicken and rice is now serving as Sarah’s eraser. Old plastic juice bottles are used as funnels to direct pump water into large yellow containers the village children use to carry water back to their homes.


If it’s broken, use it: In class P2B most of the students have broken rulers but that doesn’t seem to bother them at all. Here tools are used until they literally cannot be used any more.


Work as a community: It is common to see people make meal together in the US if it is special day or if you have a large family that lives close, but here it’s an every day occurrence. Here people from the village sit together sorting corn, washing clothes, cooking food on open fires... everyday.


Slow down: Partly it is the heat, I will confess, but the pace of life is just slower here. And for a community that is always working – carrying water, washing uniforms, weeding, planting, etc – that is saying something. I don’t know quite how to explain it yet, but I am working on it...