Sunday-Kristin

Sunday, Oct 25^th, 2014

We need to leave by 8:00 a.m., so M and I shower and dress quickly after sleeping in until 6:30.  Sam and Mariah will be staying home from church again this week to get over their upper-respiratory illnesses. I roll my hair up—just too hot to wear down.  Breakfast is eggs, rolls and Milo—hot chocolate.  Delicious, filling and probably fattening.

We drive 20 minutes to the small converted home that is our branch.  I practice the songs that will be in the service at the small keyboard; many people hum along.  As is tradition, the congregation sings the prelude together about 15 minutes before the meeting begins.

The congregation is small today.  Of late we have been overflowing.  Today many seats are empty.  We have an important visitor, though—an Area Authority Seventy, Elder Vincent.  We sing, and the congregation sings with great emotion; my little keyboard is clearly underpowered.  “How great thou art, how great thou art…”  I tear up during the final verse.

We hear three speakers:  the Relief Society President telling about yesterday’s stake RS “Exhibition,” and a beautiful talk about marriage, and Brother Vincent. He shares with us that we need to talk more about, and focus more on the atonement.  Also emphasizes the importance of self-reliance.  I lean back in my seat by the window and can faintly hear other congregations singing in the distance and baby chicks peeping in the yard next door.  The power stays on and the fans are appreciated.  I scratch my head:  clearly the home lice-killing remedy is missing some targets.

In Primary the nursery children play on mats in the center of the room.  Other young children get up and down to join them.  I invite my grandchildren to sit with me by the piano.  This keeps them seated, at least, and I love being with them.  We have a beautiful lesson on Christ being our Savior.  It is given by a young man (father?) with a face full of testimony.  The children play, but the Spirit is there.  We sing some songs, then have Sharing Time.  While the children color, I play songs.  Some they hum, many they don’t know.  Interesting.  When some children finish early, inevitably they want to play the keyboard.  I turn it off, allowing them to finger silently, then, at the end, turn it on and give them a chance.  As a special treat, the Primary president passes out small chocolate bars to a waiting audience.  I devour mine—a tiny Milky Way and a local bar wrapped in cellophane with a gold paper stripe. Mmmm.

I give a short piano lesson to a beginner and a more advanced learner—he practices hymns slowly as we leave.  At home, lunch is ready:  thick slices of steamed yam (very like yellow potatoes, only slightly sweeter and drier) with fish stew and a boiled egg for each of us.  The stew is spicy, with flaked white fish, and the yams are especially good with a little margarine. 

I nap until dinner—I’m fighting my own cold—and we are treated with spaghetti and sauce with hot sausage meatballs.  Everything is delicious and very spicy.  I help Mariah and Sam take the dishes to the outside sinks to be washed.

Something is different tonight, though.  The heavy rains last night have brought what Emmanuel tells us is a Nigerian delicacy—a thick swarm of flying insects like large ants that are attracted to light.  Our well-lit sink area, with its close walls is apparently attractive, and insects are in all the sinks and all over the walls.  I wash a sink clean and begin rinsing dishes.  But the bugs are continuing to fly around, hitting and landing on me and the dishes often.  I persist, but the children are completely unnerved, standing outside the light, ready to flee.  I hang onto my composure enough to rinse everything, but my hair becomes damp as I brush off the unwelcome insects again and again. Finally we all flee; we’ll have to wash dishes in the morning light.  I wonder how long this will be a problem. 

After Family Night I treat for lice yet again, and comb out a spectacular living specimen.  It is huge (1/8 inch, maybe) and picture-perfect:  light brown and almost transparent.  I am horrified and try to kill it under the tissue with my fingernail.  It remains unscathed.  I flush it down the toilet and know I’ll probably  spend much of the night imagining every itch to be from more of these loathsome creatures.  Online I find a new treatment.  I’ll try it tomorrow.

The bedroom fan is working and the night is humming with insect music.  Goodnight, Africa.

Added Feature to the Blog

Thanks to Michael and Tim, there is a new feature to the blog!!  Check it out on the right==>

Now if you wish, you can receive an e-mail whenever the blog changing thus no longer checking the blog every 5 minutes to see if we've updated it (okay, nobody would check this blog that frequently, but I was concerned about causing some mental frustration to those checking frequently).  So, if you're interested, sign up (you'll only get the e-mail when the blog changes, not everyday just for giggles and grins, so you don't have to worry about a bombardment of worthless e-mails).

So for those who've already signed up for the new service, did you get an e-mail??

Photos will be coming soon (no really, we bought a new camera, and we've been going crazy snapping photos from the moving bus/car).

Michael

Bugs and Critters Michael

The most pesky bug in Ghana (as far as I’m concerned) is the fly.  They aren’t dangerous as in the Tsetse fly which brings deadly diseases, but they’re just a pain in the rear.  They are nearly everywhere (at least wherever humans have ever eaten at one time), and they just pester you with flying close to you, especially around your head.  I’ve never seen a fly swatter in the country, so I’m reduced to clapping just above them once they’ve landed in an attempt to kill them.  It’s not that there’s a huge number of them, but they seem to have a territorial sense – as soon as a walk near their “territory,” I get buzzed repeatedly until I leave their area. 

However, the most prevalent bug in Ghana is the ant – they are everywhere in the soil, and beyond.  Again, these are small ants, almost so small you can barely see them.  They don’t bite (at least not the ones I’ve encountered), but they will find any piece of food you’ve left behind.  You’ll see these trails of ants from the soil to the source of the food along the sides of building walls and elsewhere.  And yes, they grow ant hills.  You’ll see some soil pushed up out from the rest of the soil, and it’ll looked “disturbed” or loose.  Sometime later, there’ll be a small mound beginning that just gets larger and larger.  As it grows in size, it becomes hardened, such that it’s hard to push it over – a very hard kick with the foot will do it only a piece at a time.  Of course, when you do this, the ants are uncovered with some anger, so you need to get out of there. 

Besides the ants in the ground are the termites.  These and the ants are the reason no one builds with wood in Ghana.  By that I mean all building is with concrete, concrete block, masonry, etc., and that includes floors, walls, ceilings, etc.  This makes plumbing and electrical wiring difficult work.  Only the roof rafters are made from wood and then the favorite roof covering is some kind of sheet metal.  These termites make mounds taller than myself and they are extremely hard to knock over.  They’ll start out as a little mud pie (1/2 inch in diameter) on the ground, and then they’ll just get larger and larger.  Unlike ants they can’t tolerate the sunlight at all.

One of the most feared bugs is the dreaded mosquito since it probably brings Malaria with it.  So far we’ve encountered just a handful of mosquitos (only one ever in our bedroom).  They are not the large mosquitos of Alaska’s first of the season variety, but the small, very clever in avoiding being killed variety.  In fact, I haven’t heard them yet.  So far, the anti-malaria drugs along with almost no encounter with them has resulted in no sickness amongst us, but the fear is always out there, especially near dawn and dusk when mosquitos are most prevalent.

After mosquitos are the little bugs that just happen to bug you (okay, pun intended).  I don’t know if you call them gnats or no-see-ems, but either way, they’re not deadly, just a touch pesky. 

Our next encounter with animals is the mouse; again, if you leave food out, they will find it.  There are no door thresholds in Ghana, so they can get in and out without your permission.  Your only remedy is cleanliness.  I’m not so worried about being bitten by them (although any animal bite is potential deadly because of possible rabies), but they are a vector for many diseases, mostly through their droppings (or in the case of plague, fleas feeding on them).

Then there’s the little lizards that we like; they get in just like the mice, only now, they eat bugs.  YES!  They really are fun to watch as they run away from you as you’re walking down the way.  I’ve kept my distance from them, and only hope they’re eating bugs.  It is a bit unnerving for them to be found unexpectedly in the house though.

Of course there’s the ever-present (that would be ubiquitous) chicken and goats/sheep.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many chickens in so many different places.  I can understand some chickens alongside the road out here in the country, but chickens in the city??  And yes, they are crossing the road for all kinds of reason that you can put forward.  Goats are nearly as numerous, and then sheep less so, but still, the road is constantly lined with various of these animals (I probably wouldn’t make it as a chicken farmer here since there is a large supply of brown eggs – I don’t think it’s a racial thing, but I’ve seen very few white eggs, which in this climate I would think would do great since the Leghorn is a smaller chicken that does better in hotter climates like here).

Yes, there are the cows every once in a while, especially when the Mali people drive them from one area to another.  They consider all of the earth as theirs, so they feed anywhere along the way which has presented its problems to our outer fields of vegetables.

While I haven’t seen a snake here, the BYU I interns told of the remains (head, guts and skin) of a green mamba killed out in the vegetable field by one of the farm hands.  Emmanuel also tells that if we didn’t have the concrete fence enclosing the property, cobra and other snakes would be frequent visitors – I have a new love for the fence.  This past evening at dinner, the BYU I interns showed a picture of snake killed just that day about 20 yards from one of our buildings.  The farmers had stabbed the snake, and felt a large object in its stomach; upon closer inspection, found the large object was a frog (digestions had only just begun).  When asked what kind of a snake it was, the reply was “Good, to chop.”  Snakes come in two varieties to the farmers – good to chop, and not good to chop.  I’m not sure what puts a snake on which list.  Then there was the ~7 foot python killed just the other day (It’s a good to chop snake that the farmers ate).

Besides the chickens and roosters, there are a ton of wild birds, all of the small variety, and every once in a while, you’ll see a couple of vultures hanging out.  It makes for quite a symphony in the morning.  However, their early morning chorus is usually outdone by the crickets’ songs (which goes from sundown to sunup) and the occasional frog croaking that can reach deep into your eardrums, especially when it’s in stereo.  Fortunately, the frogs croak only after copious rain, and in the last week or so, we’ve left the rainy season (good for sleeping at night, not so good for watering the plants).  One of the other creatures you no longer see much off is the snail – the French would be in heaven here (snails and frogs legs).

One of the more odd creatures is the glow-in-the-dark snails/bugs.  As you’re walking along the path between buildings, if you glance in the grass, you’ll see little spots of light that will illuminate for a second and then go dark; it’s really a cool sight.  It makes you realize how many different creatures there are in the grass that you otherwise would have no idea they were there (thus the reason for always wearing shoes).

Sam is our source for finding interesting creatures.  One of the more charming ones is the Praying Mantis; while I’ve seen them in the states, these things here are BIG, and my friend as they eat other bugs.  Another interesting one is the millipede.  Yes, they’re in the states, but these things here grow to about 6 inches in length and about a half an inch in diameter – huge.  When they are that size, they move much slower and are normally only found in the soil.  Not to be outdone by Sam is Mariah who tells quite a story of finding a scorpion in our shower stall; her story goes like this: tried to crush the scorpion with a bucket (buckets were used to flush the toilet until the plumber fixed it), then picked up the scorpion with loads of tissue paper, and threw it into the toilet, only to find it not dead and struggling to get out of the toilet, when all of a sudden, Sam inadvertently turns off the bathroom light for a few seconds.  The story ends with plenty of water being poured into the toilet flushing the critter away.

Ghanaian Culture -- MIchael

Here are some initial impressions on my limited exposure to Ghanaians and their way of life.  Ghanaian culture is loud and open – little privacy.  I hear music from some vendor some hundreds of yards away in Ayikuma that plays generally all night on the weekends.  When we go down the street, usually every time, there is some vehicle blaring some kind of broadcast that I can’t understand.  The school where I work has constant noise from the younger children while I’m attempting to teach.  Ghanaians are not afraid of speaking their minds with some volume and force (though I’ve never encountered a rude or belligerent person – though I have seen them interacting on the road one with another), and frequently there are more chiefs than braves (sometimes it’s very difficult getting anything done because everyone has their own idea of how to do something, and rather than persuading you toward their ideas, they just restate them over and over again (usually with more force each time) – it’s very common for a Ghanaian to repeat a sentence or phrase to you, and it has nothing to do with me being a foreigner).  It’s not uncommon to drive down the road and see a 10 year old taking a “shower” alongside the road (they stand in a metal bowl, pour water over themselves, lather up with soap, and wash off).  Breast feeding in public is a normal occurrence, and women tend to appear rather exposed, though I’ve never detected any attempt to be provocative with their dress (unlike entertainers such as J Lo – if I’ve spelled that correctly), it’s something more of a garden of Eden innocence, though I would prefer more modesty.

Having said that Ghanaian culture is loud and public, I’ve found Ghanaians quiet when conversing with me as an individual.  I don’t know if that comes from me being a foreigner and father-in-law to the school CEO, and the difficulty in communicating in our different forms of English, but I suspect it’s some kind of combination of those factors.  But then the same thing happens in Sunday School – I can’t the individual comments nearly at all, and even some of the Ghanaians ask others to speak up.

I find Ghanaian’s somewhat frustrated with life, but willing to go along with things rather than revolt.  That’s a positive (no overturning of the government in decades), but a negative also, no rising from poverty unlike what has happened to S. Korea (they and Ghana were very similar at the end of the 50s when Ghana became independent from UK and S. Korea came into existence from the Korean war).  It seems hard to light a fire under a Ghanaian to get things to happen.  Whenever I go to a shop to buy something, there is a palatable lack of enthusiasm by the employee.  Natasha says that’s because the person is generally not the shop owner, but if you meet the shop owner that capitalist enthusiasm comes forward very readily, unlike the beaten-down socialist go-along-to-get-along behavior that I have seen so far.  That’s not to say that Ghanaians are lazy; I’ve seen them work hard, but have a propensity to not work smarter – there is so much of manual labor here (what I wouldn’t do with my tiller on the Ayikuma farm land, nearly all carpentry is hand saws, etc.).  I find that there’s a plethora (okay, that means a lot) of vendors all selling the same thing with the same lackluster response to a customer, and all selling at the same prices (The one exception are the road vendors who walk between cars when they are stopped for traffic or those waiting at the toll booth – they have energy).  No one is interested in “getting ahead.”  In fact, the economy is comprised mostly of retail with little actually being produced.  Where is the value added to simply selling something, rather than producing something of value?  So with so many vendors all selling the same thing in such close proximity, lots of sellers simply sit during the day waiting for a few customers.  And yet, if you want to buy a few things of similar nature, you, the customer have to go to multiple vendors since each vendor just sells one thing (not very customer friendly – what I wouldn’t do if a Lowe’s were here).  Some of this might come from the political turmoil that occurred in the 60s and 70s (one leader was assassinated, and a coup took place during another time period).  I would say that the rule of law hasn’t really taken hold here (the police act very arbitrary here rather than following law – “tips” to the police are common to avoid further hassle from them, land has been arbitrarily taken from law abiding, private property-holding citizens only because the government wanted the land for some purpose – eminent domain run wild).  So most people just keep quiet and stay under the radar – just survive.

However, there is quite a tendency to use dictatorial communications (public humiliation, yelling, talking down to others, rather than less emotional corrections) among superior/subordinate relationships, in particular between teacher and student.  In other words, section 121 isn’t used much (persuasion, long-suffering, patience, etc.).  I suspect it comes from the heavy-handed government/military past and a frustration from a lack of rule of law.  It’s a reliance on authority rather than reason.  It reminds me of passive/aggressive behavior between parent and child (there’s some personal experiences!!).

I’ve also picked up on a trend regarding space and community.  If you leave something out, it can often grow legs.  This isn’t the usual petty thievery that is common in most societies (America in particular), but a kind of squatter mentality.  You see it with partially completed homes (quite common place here – reminds me of Italy); if you don’t steadily work on your home or have it completed and secured (barbed wire, etc.), squatters will come in and live in the home.  If you have some land with trees on it and you don’t fence or otherwise show that you own it, others will come in, and harvest the trees for charcoal.  Now in the school setting, I don’t have any real place to put my materials, so I viewed some other teachers taking a portion of a classroom (the science lab), and I did the same, only to find things disappearing from my area or being broken which is something of a tragedy, these were items I brought over to help instruct the students (little physics demos).  How sad.  I don’t know if this is all similar to the “common” holding that many indigenous cultures adhere to – we all just “borrow” from each other, or more of a survival thing, but it’s definitely different from back home.

Having said all that, I’m under the impression that Ghanaians are a happy people though they may not show it directly in public interactions (you do see it in their music and dance).  As I meet Ghanaians along the way, they appear non-engaged (probably something like people passing on the streets of New York City), but if I say “good morning,” they brighten up and reply with a smile and a greeting.  In fact, many of their daily greetings (in particular the first greeting in the morning) carry with it the outline of a hand salute accompanying the “good morning.”  The hand salute harks back to the British military salute (palm forward or up instead of the American military salute with the palm facing rearward or down).

Ghanaians wear their religion on their sleeves.  The majority of the country is Christian, but there is a significant minority of Muslims.  From what I can see, everyone gets along without problems (We just had a national holiday – Muslim prayer day; I asked one of my Muslim students what was done on that day to celebrate and he said prayer and eating – fine by me).  Religion is part of the public square as opposed to the current American culture of flocking toward a lack of religious liberty.  It’s amazing to see the number of roadside advertisements for churches and even better yet, the religious names of the businesses (photos to follow soon).  There are many Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists so many go to church on Saturday, and since they are nicely dressed up (although Ghanaians enjoy dressing nicely in public most any time), there are many on Saturday and Sunday who are dressed up in public.

Ghanaians are very much a family oriented society – children are still appreciated as a society, and the goal for a young person is to get married, raise a family, and leave a legacy rather than the gay lifestyle of selfish pursuits.  As a developing country, Ghana bucks the tide of smoking; I think I‘ve seen one person smoking since I’ve been here, what a nice change.  Anytime I’ve gone to other developing countries around the world, smoking was the norm (while it’s been vilified in America, the tobacco companies do extremely well in the developing world), so somehow, Ghana has avoided that trend.  I’ve been told that alcohol abuse is a problem in Ghana, but I haven’t seen its use or effects, but then I’m not exactly a party animal.

In summary, I find Ghana a culture of extremes or opposites – the person sweeping the dirt area around their kiosk, and yet garbage piles up a few feet away in the public arena; the taxi drivers who will nearly beg you to get a ride from them, and the employee of a kiosk who shows no enterprise at all.  Maybe that’s the transition that a developing country goes through as it changes.  For me the question is will Ghanaians see themselves strongly enough as Ghanaians first, a nation, to work together or will old tribal ties keep them as separate but peaceful groups.  Will the rule of law become the dominate culture or the current survivalist?

Daily Life/Schedule -- Michael

Here is our typical day: get up at 0430 (that’s pretty dang early, but, it’s not bad since we go to bed so early – what else is there to do in the evenings once the sun has set?), of course that’s after the 0130-0230 wake-up call from one of the outside guard dogs’ barkings, and if the watch alarm doesn’t get me, then the roosters will, or the Muslim call to get up and go to prayer.  It’s still dark outside, so if it’s a lights out condition (no electricity) and the diesel generator isn’t running, then it’s a flashlight kind of morning (showering with a flashlight to illuminate the room is a special treat!).  The shower sprays gently, smells of sulphur, and is a touch cold (you never get used to the cool water (probably about 70 degrees) when it first hits the arms, back, chest, and head, but after a few moments, you relish the cooling off it provides); we now have a mirror on the wall, so shaving is no longer by feel only, but brushing teeth using bottled water is a bit cumbersome (the tap water is assumed to be safe for showering, but not teeth brushing).  The towel to dry you is never really dry (too humid), but it works, especially after a partial drip dry while shaving and teeth brushing.  Your clothes kind of stick to you as you put them on since you’re not really dry either, but they eventually loosen up.  By 0500 is time to get the kids up (various stages of denial), then it’s time for personal and family scripture study, and by 0600 everyone is in some stage of being prepared for the day.  Breakfast is delivered sometime after 0600, and can either be devoured, or pushed away depending on what it is (our favorite is a rice porridge with eggs and rolls, and the least favorite is what I call “hot, brown yoghurt” – it has a distinct sour dough flavor that only large amounts of sugar, cream, and bread can neutralize).  By now it’s quite light (sun comes up around 0615), and we get our things ready to school/work (two lab tops, maybe a violin, backpacks, etc).

Emmanuel either takes us in to the school (1 hour drive) or drops us off at the bus transfer point (Oyibi) which then means an hour and a half ride.  By now, it’s warmed up and sweating is a normal event (upper 70s Fahrenheit).  School occurs from 0800 to 1500 when we board the bus or go home with Emmanuel a little later in the day.  Besides teaching classes (or for Mariah and Sam, attending classes), there’s time to check e-mail and the web for what’s going on in the world, update EMlearner (the software the school uses for homework communication), etc., have time for a lunch provided by the school, and prep for classes.  The ride home with Emmanuel is about 45 minutes, but the bus ride is about 2 hours and something to behold (I end up with near fatal cheek burn out).  When we get home, we unload our bags, greet Natasha and the grandchildren (Dante, Iris, and Raine), and plop down on the couch – it’s now been a number of hours of sweating.  Dinner is served at Emmanuel and Natasha’s apartment where we eat with them and the BYU I interns (Jake and Trevor).  Dinner nearly always consists of some kind of rice with some kind of tomato-based stew that includes onions, carrots, and fish or chicken (small amounts).  By now the sun has set, and lately we’ve been attempting to see Mercury shortly after sunset, as well as Mars and Saturn (Jupiter is in the morning, and Venus is too close to the sun in the morning with the ever-present clouds close to the horizon); dinner dishes are washed primarily by Mariah and Sam, and we head back to our apartment.  I had been engaged in a particular book, but I’ve finished it now, so I’ll need to find another one to read (what else is there to do?).  There’s usually some kind of homework questions answered, story read, and conversation had, but by 2000, we’re all pretty beat, and are ready for bed.  I usually attempt to cool off underneath a ceiling fan prior to sleep, but that process also includes swatting at the little bugs that find me (so far no mosquitos and malaria). 

Fortunately, we’ve had no mosquitos get us, and we’ve kept the flies and ants to a minimum with good clean up after every breakfast; parents, if you ever wanted to teach your children to clean up after themselves, this is the place – there is an immediate (2 hour) lesson from the ants on what you didn’t clean up.  Of course, sleep comes with the chorus of crickets, and when the rains had been frequent some unbelievable frog croaking.  The only change to the routine is Thursdays for me, and Fridays for Kristin when we don’t go in to Adenta (I have classes at Ayikuma on Thursdays (labs), and Kristin has no classes on Friday).  We haven’t had enough Saturdays to come up with much of a routine, but they usually include doing extra laundry (you must dry your clothes in the sun or you’ll end up with maggots in the clothes), and filling up the cistern tanks with water so that we have shower and toilet water.  Sunday’s are a “late” rise in the morning (0600 is late compared to 0430), breakfast, go to church with Emmanuel’s family and the interns (the three hour block starts at 0900), and then home for lunch, lots of visiting, dinner, and then a church movie in the evening.  We also get a movie on Friday or Saturday night for entertainment.

Some upcoming changes will include possible internet available in Ayikuma which will make e-mail, skyping, and EMlearner updating much more convenient.  And then there’s the hope that Emmanuel and Ta’s house will be completed before we leave – wow, that would be the heat (okay, the cool, but that’s not correct vernacular).

Michael

Work and School -- Michael

So how about a discussion of what Kristin and Michael, Mariah and Sam are doing here?  First some background.

The Golden Sunbeam school is a private school in a country that has a free public school system (yes, public really means government just as in America).  The school was established in 1989 intending to be a full K-8 school in Adenta, a suburb of Accra, Ghana to fight the ignorance among the villagers around Accra.  The school began under the leadership of Emmanuel’s (our son-in-law) mother and father.  Since 1989, the school has broadened to include a high school that was intended to be taught at a new location – Ayikuma, a town further out of Accra (I liken Palmer to Ayikuma, Eagle River to Adenta, and Anchorage to Accra for distances and size although Accra’s population is many times more than Anchorage -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accra ).  The Ayikuma high school campus was finished about 4 years ago, but recently, the high school students have been moved back to the Adenta campus for two reasons:1) the Ayikuma campus has expanded into a vocational school centering on Nursing and Agribusiness (in cooperation with BYU Idaho) – the Ghanaian ministry of education didn’t want to mix high school students with post-high school students, so in order to become accredited as a nursing school, the high school students had to be removed, and 2) in the past year, Ghana has experienced some moderately steep inflation and a devaluation of the Ghanaian currency (known as CDs) relative to the US dollar (the exchange rate is now around 3+ CDs for 1 US dollar); with those economic factors, enrollment in the school is down, so the decision was made to consolidate the high school students to the Adenta campus and expand the Vo-Tec offerings in Ayikuma – there are plenty of high school opportunities in Ghana, but a shortage of nursing and other Vo-Tec schools.  The school has its own busses for transporting students, its own hostels for boarding students and its own kitchen facilities for feeding them as well.  The Ayikuma campus sits on about 5 acres in a very rural setting and the Adenta campus is on about 1 acre in a very urban setting (http://www.goldensunbeam.com/ ).  A predominant cost to the school is the feeding of the students, so the Ayikuma campus has greatly expanded its farming facilities (fish (aquaponics), chickens (yes, roosters awaken us every morning before the sunrises), geese, and cows for protein, vegetable gardens, and recently, soybean production for soy milk).  The following was not a paid advertisement of the school, but merely some background.

Mariah and Sam are enrolled in their respective grades (8^th and 5^th), and so far are enjoying their time here after some initial adjustments (“the teacher doesn’t understand me,” “ the schedule is confusing,” “I don’t know how much the snack food costs,” etc. – please note that the English spoken here, is not American (or even British) English, but an African/Caribbean version that I have a hard time understanding myself (never mind the various local languages used)).  Both took entrance exams to determine what their classes should be and while each excelled in some areas, they were deficient in others; Ghanaian education is larger a matter of memorizing facts and figures, not critical thinking and problem solving (one of the reason’s Emmanuel wants our educational background here to help change teaching to move toward critical thinking and problem solving rather than just memorizing lecture notes), so Mariah excelled at English and needs greater exposure to science and math, while Sam excelled at Math and needs science and English.  Of course Mariah has the delightful experience of having her dad as her math and science (physics) instructor (I’ve enjoyed having her in class – it’s been insightful (and pleasing) to see her in action).

Kristin teaches music to the elementary through junior high school grades with her usual infectious enthusiasm.  She’s also started her violin class in the 5^th grade, and hopes to start her 7-12 year classes once the busing schedule gets ironed out.  I’ll let Kristin tell more of her experiences herself.

Two days after we arrived (Thursday, 18 Sep), Emmanuel reported that two teachers didn’t show up for work (math and agriculture) – they went hunting instead, so Michael was plugged into teach 8^th and 10^th grade math under the Cambridge syllabus (more on that syllabus later), and the two BYU Idaho interns who were going to assist in teaching agribusiness, were asked to take it over with the help of the farm manager in Ayikuma (BYU I is affiliated with the Ayikuma school and its agribusiness – they donated the soy milk production equipment and have sent two interns each term to assist and for the interns to gain real world experience).  Additionally, the physics teacher was a recent hire with no experience, so Emmanuel wanted Michael to teach 8^th and 10 grade physics.  One of observations of Ghanaian culture is that planning is somewhat lacking – it’s more survival of the moment.

The curriculum at the high school level is two-fold: 1) the Ghanaian system that prepares a student for the exam known as WASSCE (West African Secondary School Certificate of Education) – yes, Ghanaian schools have external final exams, but unlike patsy America, they mean something (think HSGQE) – the tests are given at the end of a person’s high school experience, and if you don’t pass, you don’t pass and move on; if a student does well enough on that exam, they are generally accepted into a Ghanaian university, and 2) the Cambridge system, developed in the UK that prepares students for the IGCSE exam (International GCSE – some kind of Brit acronym for their school system ) http://www.cie.org.uk/ (Again, not a paid advertisement, just background) – oh, by the way, IB isn’t IB, it’s a recloaking of the British school system.  Go ahead and investigate the Cambridge curriculum and then compare it to the IB system and you’ll see Cambridgeisms all over the IB system.  If a student does well enough on the exam (as well as their “A-levels” – another Brit invention), then they can gain entrance into most international universities.  I’ve been asked to teach the 8^th and 10 grade Cambridge students (the curriculum is more rigorous than the Ghanaian system).  For 7^th grade and onward, students have the option of choosing three specialties – science, art, and business.  Each of those options has classes associated with them (science includes physics, chemistry, and biology, arts includes literature, geography, and something else (don’t ask me), and business includes accounting, economics, and business studies); the required classes for all 7+ students includes French, math, computers, and English.  As currently scheduled, I have physics students for four hours a week, and math students  three hours a week (the students have an additional math class – “Added Math” that meets 3 hours a week); consequently, it’s as if my science students are taking physics, chemistry, and biology every year in this school (finally I have some time to instruct a curriculum instead of racing through one poorly), and the math class is equivalent to one and a half math classes in the US (it’s an integrated math syllabus).  Classes go for one hour and school starts at 8 a.m. and ends by 4 p.m. with some periods being “free time.”  There is no Saturday school and school is year round with 6 week breaks every 4 months (three terms in a year).

So far my impression of the school, curriculum, and students is mixed.  The students are good-natured, but I had some mystical ideal of young people starved for education craving for instruction (yeah right), and quite frankly, they are similar to young people around the world – teenagers.  They have less to distract them here, true, but attention span, organizational skills, etc., are still being formed with varying degrees of success.  The students appear to be more respectful of teachers and authority, but I wonder if it’s more a surface effect – I had my Hittite discussion and male “I dunno” response lecture the second day with the 10^th graders because of their poor attitudes, and since then, they’ve brightened up considerably.  My 8^th graders are actually pretty fun to teach (they’re still eager to learn though they wear quickly during the class period), though they struggle with getting information to stick in their brains more than a day.  The facilities are attempting to go virtual as much as possible – paper is at a premium, the copier machine is a dinosaur, text books expensive and rare, etc.  I applaud the move, but we haven’t quite arrived yet.  I’m currently attempting to learn the school’s e-learning system “EMLearner.”  So I’ll have more to say about that in the future. 

Upon arrival, I scrambled to find some math textbooks to help me as reference guides (boy am I glad I taught geometry last year at Palmer); I have plenty of physics books that I brought with me, but I hadn’t anticipated teaching this math curriculum (what I wouldn’t do for a good solid geometry and pre-calculus text from America – the textbooks that are here are substandard).  I’ve been a little frustrated at the commotion within the school during the day (the schedule of classes just changed yesterday and school has been in session for over a week!), and the primary grade students make quite a bit of noise outside the classrooms (the classrooms themselves are adequate except for the whiteboards which no longer work well – can’t erase well) – it’s hot here, so the doors and windows stay open with ceiling fans running throughout the day (noisy and constant blowing air).  The internet lacks stability – one day you can connect to the WIFI with excellent transmission speed, and the next, you can’t even log on, or you get logged off randomly throughout the day.  Just like the electric power, things are unreliable (nearly each day there are “lights out” or rolling blackouts throughout Accra due to a lack of sufficient electrical generation).  I guess the best attribute of Ghanaians is their ability to handle it all – they don’t get too shook up about most anything.  Unfortunately, that’s also a downfall – they lack passion to get out of the squalor that abounds here.  The students here are from around the world besides Ghana (Nigeria, Botswana, US, UK, Holland, etc.), and come predominantly from upper-middle class Ghanaian families.  While their socioeconomic status may sound like a good thing, it can be a detriment since some of those wealthier families just kind of “dump” their student off here to be educated while they chase their financial dreams (I have one student whose parents are Ghanaian, but living in the US and brought him back to Ghana to “straighten him out.”).  My class sizes are small (4 to 9 students) since I’m teaching the Cambridge system which is the harder of the two curriculums and somewhat feared by students or not desired by parents (fear of failure or lack of desire for a better future).  I enjoy the size since the students are pretty much plugged in to me and want to learn (following the Hittite chat).  I was taken aback by the lack of curriculum guides, pacing material, etc. at the school, so I’ve been very busy attempting to take the syllabus material from Cambridge and make pacing guides for physics and math instruction for me and my co-worker.  I asked what other teachers do, and the answer was something like “whatever we’ve been doing.”  And that’s one of the reasons for me coming – to break the teachers out of just doing what’s been done in the past.  Most of these teachers simply teach what and how they were taught which consists of facts and figures by lecture.  So I have my work cut out for me.  We’ll see how it goes.  I must say, I do like the dress code here – teachers in white shirts (I skimp with short sleeves), ties, slacks, and dress shoes, and students in uniforms.  It makes a positive difference. 

Well I think those are enough thoughts for now.

Michael