Goodbye Ghana....Hello Egypt!

Well my last day in Ghana most certainly was a tearful one. I arrived at school and all of the kids came running out to meet me. The first question they asked was "are you going today?" As sad as I was pulling up to school I tried to jump out of the van with a huge smile on my face and look happy! I gathered the kids together for one last circle and song time. I let the kids lead the songs and helped them really understand the words. I pulled my kids together and gave them a few options of what to do for our last day. I brought my computer and showed them all of the pictures and videos that I took during my time at Happy Kids! They absolutely loved looking at themselves and watching the videos! During break time I held Abrah for one last time and then Joshua fell asleep in my arms. The rest of the kids and teachers all recited poems and sang songs for me. The tears started when the other female teacher sang me a goodbye song. Then I pulled my kids together and handed them the folders I made for them with their penpal letters, three pencils, the books with the picture on the back page and all the work they did for me since I have been here. They loved their folders and all of them said thank you about 20 times. They are so grateful for everything I give to them, even the smallest things! We had some time left so we played hangman and then did a circle for the last time. Yayra, one of my favorites started crying during circle time and couldn't even sing the songs because she was so upset. The van pulled up and I went into the nursery and gave hugs and kisses to Abrah, Joshua and Ester - my three favorite babies! Then I went to class 1 and gave them all a hug and as I turned back to walk to my class I saw that my kids were crying and that is when the waterworks started. I gave each of my kids a hug and a kiss on the forehead, gave the teachers a hug and then Yayra and Moda each took my hand and walked me to the van. I crawled into the van and sobbed as I waved and blew kisses out the window to my kids who looked so sad and helpless. It was probably one of the most heartbreaking things that I have ever had to do in my life but also such a wonderful feeling of the connection that I made with my kids! It most certainly was bittersweet. As I was riding to the airport I was trying to take everything in and just soak in the surroundings one last time through tearfilled eyes. It most certainly was a dream come true and I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

As I was flying into the Cairo airport I soon realized I was no longer in Ghana. I was now in the middle of the desert and everything looked like sand as I was landing. Getting through customs was pretty easy and as I was standing in line to get my VISA who do I see standing through the glass but good ole Chreesto waving back at me and then Mom and Dad standing right behind him. I couldn't get through customs fast enough and it was wonderful to be reunited with my family again! We have all arrived safely in Egypt and have just enjoyed the day in our hotel and walking down to the Nile River. Dad, Mom and Chris are all handling traveling well and we are anxiously awaiting the start of our tour tomorow morning. Our hotel used to be a palace and I could just sit outside the patio and stare at the architecture all day! For me the food here is wonderful as I am no longer eating chicken and rice everyday! The breakfast buffet is spectacular and we went to a country diner for dinner. It wasn't like home cooking but Dad did have a hamburger that tasted just like Red Robin..yum!

This will be my only blogpost while in Egpyt since the internet is so incredibly expensive here. We just wanted to let everyone know we have arrived safely! Happy early Thanksgiving! I know I am so thankful and blessed to have all of you in my life! See you when we land safely back at home on the 29th! I am so looking forward to seeing all of you!

Lots of love from Egypt!
Steph (and the rest of the Gowan family!)

A bittersweet goodbye

Well my bags are packed – somehow, I’m not sure how I managed to get everything into my luggage but I did! This past weekend we went back to the beach for one last weekend of relaxation and sunshine. I sat there on the beach and reflected on my time here. It really is amazing how fast time goes by. It has made me really take in and savor the little moments of my final days.

Tomorrow will be bittersweet. I’m pretty certain that a little piece of my heart will be left at Happy Kids after I say, what I’m sure will be a tearful last goodbye to my kids tomorrow. I choked up a little as I said goodbye to them today and I can only imagine what it will be like tomorrow. They have taught me more about life than I ever thought possible from 8-11 year olds. They taught me there is no such thing as bad days, just bad moments. You work through them and then get over them – life is too short to do anything but that. It’s too short to dwell on the negative. They taught me even though you don’t’ have control over the life you are handed or born into, you do have complete control over your attitude and how you react to situations. Going through life with a positive attitude is a much better way to live than trying to change things you have no control over. They taught me to really just make the most out of life, every day and that laughter can cure any bad mood!

There certainly are going to be things that I don’t miss about being here in Ghana and things that I will be looking forward to at home but there are so many things that have just become part of life here that I will miss immensely.

I’m going to miss…
Being able to randomly pick up children on the street
Hearing Yevoo everywhere I go and feeling like a celebrity
Having chickens and goats just walking down the street
White pineapple everyday – three times a day!
Egg sandwhiches from Unis
The simplicity of life here – the wonderful feeling of not always having some sort of technology I have to be on or using

Having a baby fall asleep in my arms every day at school
Red, red and plantains
Waking up to the sound of roosters crowing
Walking outside and seeing mountains
Beautiful sunsets down the dirt road
Going to the market twice a week and buying fabric
Walking down the street and having the locals recognize and wave to me like it was the best thing in their day

Tro-tro rides and just looking out the window

My students
Moda’s genuine smile
Yayra jumping on me every single morning
Roland’s knowing glances and intelligence
Amewuga’s playful grin
Holly’s wanting to constantly please
Porshe’s effort to try and read
Blewusi playing cops and robbers with the little ones at break
Charlotte’s laugh and toughness

I don’t think it will hit me until I am home how much this experience has changed my life. My eyes have been opened to so many things and I don’t think I will ever be able to look at the world in the same way again. I have come to appreciate every aspect of my life in America – the freedoms I have as a woman, my loving family who raised me to be an independent thinking person, my wonderful friends and people in my life who accept me for me, the modern conveniences that I always took for granted and the ability to dream and actually have the resources available at my fingertips to make those dreams come true.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers since I have been here. It has been such a wonderful feeling knowing I have so many people back at home caring and thinking about me!

Enjoy thanksgiving at home as I will be in Egypt with my family!! Please know that I am so thankful for all of you in my life and I look forward to seeing you when I finally land in the USA!!

Lots of love for the last time from Africa!
Steph

In the Jungle, the mighty jungle..

This past weekend was a wonderful weekend relaxing around the home base. On Saturday a few of us went to Kpondo which is a small village about 40 minutes away from HoHoe. In the village there is a small shop called Kpondo’s Potters. It is a small shop down a dirt road that sells handmade pottery. The shop is affiliated with a woman’s cooperative that has taught women the trade of making their own pottery out of clay which they made right from the earth and then taught how to sell it. Since this program has started, over 500 women have been given this skill and have been able to get out of poverty. It was so amazing to see their work and to see the clay that they made sitting at their shop! I wanted to buy everything there but then I remembered there is a weight limit to my luggage and I had to restrict myself to only a few small pieces!

Marinda, Beth and I went to House of Hope on Saturday afternoon to continue to practice the play with the children. They did so well and we were able to go through the whole play twice. Then on Tuesday we went back for the final dress rehearsal. We did bribe them with a small treat if they were able to listen and sit quietly after their turn was over with and it worked. They listened, remember their part and sat perfectly! It was such a relief and wonderful to see them so into their parts! Yesterday was the actual performance of the play and they did fantastic. The other volunteers came to watch and the kids were thrilled. Someone was able to video tape it for me and I cannot wait to show everyone! It was very simple but the smiles on the kids’ faces when they were singing “In the Jungle” as their opening and closings songs is something that I will remember forever! Each kid had a small role in the play besides the two oldest kids and they were so content with just doing their small part. The whole play last about 13 minutes but it was the perfect amount of time for them! I was so happy that after all these weeks of worrying if this was going to work out that it actually did!

School continues to be absolutely wonderful! I can tell the kids are starting to feel that this is nearing the end. We are wrapping some things up and I cannot believe I am already planning for my last week of school. I’ve decided to just do some fun activities and not start anything new with them. I am so happy with the progress that they have made in just the short time that I was with them. It’s amazing to me truly how far they can come in so little time. I have been having them play word matching games and they are in love with them. It’s so wonderful when they ask to play them during their break time instead of running around and playing football. Although I do love to see them go and play too! I am planning on leaving the games with the kids and hopefully they will play them after I am gone. It’s great ways for them to practice words and become familiar with more vocabulary.

Beth and I finished the curriculum for Happy Kids. We still have to edit and add to it but for the most part it is finished! The document is over 40 pages and it really made me think about what I actually know about education. I guess all those undergrad, graduate and my short time in and out of classrooms really did pay off. I didn’t realize how much I really do know about curriculum and what kids should know at what age. I am so thankful to have work with so many wonderful people who helped me to learn so much! I am going to present the curriculum to the headmistress and talk with Godwin, the teacher in my class about things that he might consider teaching with the kids. I don’t want to be too pushy but I have seen how much these children have benefited from interactive learning and I would love to see it continue. The hard part is, I will truly never know if it does continue and I have no control over any of it.

As I head into my final weekend here in Ghana, time has become bittersweet. I have been sick this week and I have several infected mosquito bites covering my legs – I guess it’s my body’s way of telling me it’s really time to go home! I will miss my kids dearly – I am dreading the moment when I have to say my final goodbye to them, but I know what is waiting for me back at home and I am so looking forward to it all!

I hope everyone is well at home! I look forwarding to seeing you all very soon!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Pictures!

Lots of smiles!

School has been wonderful this week. Godwin, the teacher that usually sits in the back of my room has not been there at all this week. Normally, he doesn’t do anything anyways but not having him there has allowed me to have the kids’ full attention without him distracting them. As emotionally challenging as it has been for me, just focusing on my class has been one of the best things I have done for my kids. I give them my full attention, they give me theirs, we work great together and they just make me smile and laugh all day long! The kids are fantastic and I would love it if everyone could meet them! With only two weeks left, I have been starting to wrap up some things. One of my favorite moments of the week was watching Porshe actually write full sentences. Normally, she will write sentences like “to be favorite” and just list some of the words that she knows but on Wednesday she wrote “I like to play football!” My heart smiled. I have seen the most progress in her. She was an emergent reader before I started and now she is well on her way to start reading. She is working through her sight word book and has really excelled.

Another volunteer, Beth, and I have been developing a curriculum for Happy Kids. It has been a challenge but so useful. We are just making a list of English and math skills that are appropriate for each class level (KG – P6) and coming up with multiple activities for each skill. Before I leave, it will be finished and I am going to present it to the headmistress at the school and go through the grade with each of the teachers there. I am hoping that perhaps with an outline of what to teacher, they might strive to teacher them something other than math. Whenever I walk into one of the other class rooms, class 1 or class 5 and 6, the teacher is either teaching math or science. I never seen them teaching anything but math to the kids. The kids never open a book and most of the time they are just writing down notes. Despite a lot of negativity from the teachers, I have seen some positives from them. Joshua, the class 1 teacher, has started using the notebooks I gave my old class. He has them write notes it in, but at least he is using them. Each day as I listen to the Kindergarten teacher teach, I have realized she does almost the same lesson I did the previous day with her kids. I think it’s great that she is trying, but it’s not appropriate for the kindergarteners to be learning the same thing as my 2nd – 4th graders. However, I am looking at the fact that she is no longer having them repeat poems or songs over and over again. Yesterday she had them acting out verbs because that is what I am doing with my kids. It was fun to see the KGers jumping, hopping and walking around. If anything, I am happy she is trying and I’m flattered that she is modeling after my teaching!

At first the play at House of Hope seemed like it was never going to happen. We can only go there at 4:00 after they get out of school and we can only stay until 5:30 so we make it back in time for dinner. Piper, Cat and I were the ones that originally started the play, with Piper gone, Cat has lost interest and they didn’t want to finish. I couldn’t do that to the kids so I decided to power through and ask some of the other volunteers to help out. Marinda stepped up to the plate and we got right to work last Wednesday. Basically, we had to start from the beginning and we were a bit frustrated and nervous that we couldn’t pull it off. Yesterday we pre-prepared all of the props for the kids to color. It was fantastic! They actually listened, it was organized instead of mass chaos and we made all the props. Today we went back and started rehearsal. This isn’t going to be your average middle school play but it will be cute and the kids are having the time of their lives. Through the play, I am learning that things don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay if things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes, it’s the things that don’t happen or things that happen unexpectedly that end up being some of the best!

There is another group of three weekers that leaves this weekend. It’s amazing how many people I have seen come and go at the homebase. I’m realizing that those who are here for three weeks have a completely different mentality and mindset apart from those staying twelve. Those of us who are staying twelve are actually living here. I am still noticing things about the culture and people on a daily basis. Instead of trying to inflict my way of life on people here in Ghana I am trying to see things about their culture and understand why they are still that way. It has completely broadened my view on life. For example, the first time I went to the market, I saw kids running around everywhere or sitting at the shops with their mothers. I thought it was a bit unnecessary having all the kids running around the market when they should be home. Now, however, I understand that mothers have no choice but to bring their kids wherever they go. There are no such things as daycares or babysitters here. Mothers are trying to make a living for their family and they have to do it anyway they can and just bring along their children. There is a lady on the street every night who makes the best egg sandwhiches in the world. Sometimes later at night – around 10 or so we will walk down to get a sandwhich. We have to sit there and watch her make it. Sometimes her kids will be up and they will come sit on our laps and we will play with them, and other times they will be sleeping on the ground right next to her stand. I walk away knowing that those kids are literally sleeping on the street every night – but the mother is trying to make a living and that is how she is choosing to do that and she has to bring her children along. It’s such a hard thing to swallow and something that I am still trying to wrap my brain around.

I hope everything is smiling and healthy back at home!

Remember to email me any questions you have about the culture or children!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Happy November!

Friday was our usual PE day, but since it is so hot out now, we don’t go all the way to the park. Instead we stay at school. The boys made a small football field right by the classrooms and they boys actually play together instead of just the teachers playing like it used to be! It is a wonderful sight to see! The two oldest girls, Comfort and Lusie gathered all the little kids together and did “circle time” with them. It was so rewarding to watch them lead the circle and sing all the songs with the little ones that I sing with them every morning! They don’t really know all the words so sometimes they mumble through them, it was adorable and they had me laughing hysterically! They also created the cover of their books before PE started and I am so excited to give the books to the kids to take home! I know they are going to be ecstatic when they see that I have laminated them!

This weekend two girls, Piper and Isabel, whom I started my journey here with, left. On Friday, Piper, Cat and I walked around town with Piper one last time. Piper was talking about how it’s different walking through town, knowing it would be the last time that she saw certain things. She said it made her see things in a different perspective. I started to think like that and even in my short walk around town, I noticed shops and small details that I had walked by hundreds of times and never even noticed. Like for example, there are no glass windows here. In the houses, there are holes cut out that look like windows but that’s all it is, is a hole. Sometimes there are screens, sometimes not, and there are always a way they can close up the windows at night, like a small door on the windows. I had never really noticed that before, instead I just took for granted the fact that I see that every day. There are so many things that have become just a part of life here that would be so much not a part of life back home in America. Sometimes I wonder what it will be like to walk down a road that is paved, not have chickens roaming around the house or goats everywhere I go. It’s the small things that sometimes go unnoticed, and I’m going to make sure, especially in my last three weeks here, I make sure I take note of those small things!

Today at school I walked into the nursery to get some supplies and out of the corner of my eye I see a yellow dress with a blue and red pattern on it and tears that just melted my heart – it was ABRAH! The little girl that captured my heart the very first day I was at happy kids. I have not seen her for well over a month. She was crying hysterically and I bent down and said hello to her. I had to get back to my class, and she followed me out of the room. She continued to cry until I picked her up and as I was teaching she fell asleep in my arms. I laid her down on the floor of the nursery so I could get back to my kids – who by the way are still fantastic! After lunch, when all the nursery kids were shooed back into the room, Abrah refused to go into the class. Instead she meandered over to my room and I couldn’t help but pick her up and put her at one of the desks. She stopped crying as soon as she entered the room and was completely content just sitting in my class while I was teaching. Then she started falling asleep at the desk so I picked her up and she again fell asleep in my arms. The headmistress came over and took her from me and Abrah started bawling hysterically. She was kicking and screaming and looking helplessly at me. After Abrah was in the room, she escaped and came bolting towards me. However, before she reached me the headmistress had instructed for one of the KG students to grab her. Then the headmistress had to put a chair in front of the door so Abrah couldn’t escape to me. I went in and gave her a hug and a kiss and she tried to come with me. Talk about having my heart completely melt right on the spot.

During every break now, my kids ask to play hangman or charades which I introduced to them today! They are just so much fun and they are really impressing me lately with what they are showing me they have learned! I cannot believe I have less than three weeks with them – I am most certainly cherishing every moment!

As my time is starting to wrap up – if anyone has any questions about the culture or the kids they would like me to find out while I’m here just send me a quick email and I’ll do some research if I don’t already know the answer!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph

All you have to do is hope..

There certainly are parts of school that are downright depressing to watch and not be able to do anything about it. However, I’m realizing more and more the small bits of hope that the kids are showing me every day.

For the kids’ about the author page in their books I have started “interviewing” them during break time and have found out so much about them. Most of my kids live at the boarding house during the week and then travel home every weekend. Some of my kids go home to 10 people living in their house and some go home to no parents at all. Often aunts and uncles or grandmothers will live in their houses with them. I asked them about their siblings and they can always tell me how many brothers and sisters they have but only sometimes can they tell me their names and ages. A lot of the siblings go to different schools or are older than them. I asked each of them what they wanted to be when they grow up and there were a wide variety from a football player, working at a hotel as a cleaner, to a teacher and a basketball player. Although not all of my kids wanted to be doctors or lawyers, they were all aspiring to be something and that gave me some hope for their future. After all it all starts with a dream right?

I have been asking Godwin, the teacher that usually teaches my class, some questions about the school. Those children who are living at the boarding house have to pay 140 cedi per term, which is about three months. Those who only attend school there have to pay 30 cedi a term. This last statistic was the most shocking to me, teachers at Happy Kids get paid 45 cedi per month. That is about 30 US dollars a month. I don’t think I will ever complain about teachers not making a lot of money in the US. No wonder why the teachers don’t really care too much about teaching.

I am finding that for kids here, education is a means of survival. In order to even begin to break the cycle of poverty, just like in America, kids need to be educated. The frustrating part is, at a school like Happy Kids, the people educating the children are so unqualified that it decreases their chance then of survival and making something of themselves. Parents pay a lot of money to send their kids away to Happy Kids and I think that part of it is the fact that they do have volunteers constantly there – which is a wonderful thing for the kids. However, when there are not volunteers there, or there is not a volunteer in their classroom, then they are not receiving an education.

In Ghana, kids can attend a government run school for free up until P6, After P6 they then have to pay for their education and therefore no many children attend school past P6. Although government schools are free, some parents are still unable to afford sending their kids to school because every school requires a certain school uniform and certain small notebooks. If kids show up at most schools without these, then they are sent back home.
For centers I have been doing matching games with nouns, word families and plurals and hangman based on one of those categories. The kids absolutely love these activities. Even in the past four days I have seen a great improvement in my students increase in word knowledge. They are so excited to play such simple games yet they show me so much of what they have learned. I find myself just sitting back and smiling as they rush to the blackboard during break time to play hangman together and when the younger class rushes over to me so they can finish illustrating their books! I wish you could meet all of them because they really are absolutely wonderful children!

Every day my kids are showing me more and more of their potential and every day I attempt to challenge them and they most certainly challenge me! I love them dearly and just by little things they say to me, like actually asking me every day if I can give them homework, they show me there is hope for their future. I guess, that’s really all I can do for them, and that is all they can do for themselves, is hope that things will turn out alright!

I hope this finds everyone healthy and smiling!
Lots of Love from Africa,
Steph

Culture, culture everywhere!

This weekend was a very cultural filled weekend! Saturday morning a few of us girls got up early to attend a funeral. Funerals here in Ghana are a community gathering and usually it is a funeral for two or three people. This was one of the biggest funerals to happen in Hohoe, because it was for a very well respected Pastor. Usually everyone wears black and red or if it is an elderly person then they will wear white and black which most people had done in this instance. There are huge tents set up in a square to create a courtyard type deal in the middle. At the front of the rectangle was a huge stage set up and all the district pastors were sitting up on stage. When we first arrived there was a line wrapping all around the tents. We went to the back of the line and asked a man, Albert, what the line was for. He answered all of our questions and actually helped us get a good spot to see the ceremony later on. The line was to view the bodies. Here in Ghana they preserve the bodies, somehow, for months. The pastor passed away on August 28th and here we are in October. We were right about to go into the center of the courtyard to view the bodies when they made an announcement for everyone to have a seat. The chief of HoHoe was entering to view the body and everyone had to make way for him. The chief walked right past us! Once the chief views the body nobody else was able to view them, so we had to then go and find a place to stand, since all the seats were taken, to watch the ceremony.

The ceremony opened with a prayer and several songs. One of the pastors called up each of the different districts and if you lived in that district, you went into the middle and danced. When they called up Hohoe we all went into the middle and danced too! After they called all the districts forward, they brought out the three caskets. One was for the well-respected pastor, one was a woman who died in a tro-tro accident and one was a little girl who had been hit by a car. Then they started the actually funeral part. For each person, there were tributes. First the wife for husband or parents came up on stage and said a something, then the children, then siblings and then there were words from the district pastor on the person. It was really emotional to watch people cry for those people who didn’t even know them. I even shed a few tears myself. Not only are funerals here in Ghana about mourning the loss of a loved one, but it is also about celebrating their life. There were thousands of people there, and many people who didn’t even have any connection to one of the three people who passed away. They were there for community support and to let the family know they were there for them. It was pretty powerful!

After the funeral, another volunteer, Marinda, and I went to her school. It’s a very small school and looks much like mine but with two solid walls and a tin roof for each classroom! It is a private school and with the help of a cellphone company, the headmistress, Suzzy, had the children do an hour long broadcast at the local radio station to promote the school. We went to the school and walked the kids to the radio station and we were able to listen to the broadcast. They had already pre-recorded most of the broadcast, but we were able to listen to it. The kids sang songs, read poems and did their school anthem. It was really cute and to see the kid’s faces when they were hearing their voice on the radio was priceless! The radio station was extremely small and is nothing what you would consider a radio station at home. It had two small recording rooms and a foyer where we waited. My favorite part was after we were done with the radio station, we walked the kids back to the school and then we proceeded to walk home. Two of the kids were walking home the same way we were so we actually walked them to their homes. They ended up living in the Zongo which is on the complete opposite of town from where we live but we went and met their families, saw their community and was welcomed with open arms into both of them!

On Sunday, Isabel and I hiked to the upper falls of the Wli waterfalls, the highest waterfalls in West Africa! It was a very intense hike that took us three hours but the view was wonderful! Although I have grown up and went to college right next to one of the greatest waterfalls in the world, I am still amazed at the natural beauty of this country, especially this waterfall. This will be my third time visiting it!

This weekend was wonderful and probably one of my favorite weekends so far. We didn’t travel anywhere but I was able to immerse myself into the culture. I think it might be safe to say that we are changing seasons. We are ending the rainy season and entering the dry season. It will still rain, but mostly at night and the winds from the Sahara will come blowing so loud and forceful that it feels like the house is going to fall over. When it does rain, it floods the streets but has been lasting a very short period of time. It gets cooler at night which is wonderful and the heat in the middle of the day is now a dry heat without the humidity which feels amazing!

I cannot believe that I have 3 ½ weeks of my journey here in Ghana! Time is going by oh so quickly! I hope all is well at home! I still look at the moon at night and think of all of you!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

My class!

My class!
Backrow: Holly, Blewusi, Me, Roland, Amewuga
Frontrow: Porsha, Moda, YaYra, Charlotte

A whole mixture of emotions

Hello from Ghana!
There have typically been anywhere from three to four volunteers at Happy Kids. One or two stay with the nursery class, one was working with the kindergarten class and then I have P2 – P4. However, due to sickness and a change of placement with one of the volunteers I have been the only volunteer at Happy Kids this week. It has been a completely eye opening experience, as every week seems to be here! I have so many mixed emotions on what to even think about Happy Kids.

Seeing how things have been handled with the other classes has truly made me see how dependent Happy Kids has become on the fact that volunteers will constantly be placed at their school. Without anyone else there this week I have witnessed teachers go into their routine of having kids memorize or just sit there and do nothing. Two of the four days this week, a teacher did not show up until it was almost lunch time, both of the classes usually have a volunteer there. The teacher of the kindergarten class didn’t show up on Tuesday and her kids had to just sit there until she actually did show up. The male teachers would occasionally go over and cane a child who was not sitting quietly in their seat or tell all of the kids to put their heads down.

Then on Wednesday the teacher of the nursery class did not show up and when I arrived all of the little ones were running around crying hysterically. I did our usual circle time that I do with my older kids and we sang songs for about twenty minutes. It calmed the little ones down and they were singing right along with the older kids. Then it was time for me to take my class and get to work. I helped get all of the nursery kids into their class and then had to head off for the canopy. However, the kids were all crying so loud it was hard to keep the attention of my kids. I went into the room and saw some of the kids hitting each other. Then one of the oldest girls Lucy was instructed to go into the room and have them all sit on the two benches. She was picking up the crying children and placing them on the bench. My kids were working on something independently so I could stay in the room for a few minutes. Once I left the room she closed the door to keep them all contained and then she had to keep them out of trouble, keep them from crying and running away. She’s 12 and she had to head a whole class of 30 crying children by herself.
I tried to help as much as I could, but I have had to force myself to really just stick to teaching my class. It has probably been one of the most challenging things emotionally for me to have to sit and watch me old class of 6 year olds get taught three digit multiplication and never pick up a book or watch the nursery kids get canned because they don’t want to sit on a bench and be quiet for three hours. As much as I would love to just run the whole school I know that would be stepping out of my boundaries and making Happy Kids even more dependable on volunteers.

Today at school I witnessed probably one of the most unbelievable situations at school. My teacher was not there this morning so I was going about business as usual. YaYra, went over to the older kids class, P5 and P6 to get something and all of a sudden I hear her wailing and screaming. I peek under the blackboard and see that the teacher had a hold of her. She comes back holding her head and I asked one of the older boys, Wisdom in the other class what happened. It turns out that the teacher was going around to all of the kids and checking their heads. If they had not had their hair cut down short or shaved, then he was taking a pair of scissors and grabbing their hair and cutting a line down the middle of their head as a way to prove that they needed to get their hair cut. When I told YaYra to lift her hand up I could see that he had cut so close to her scalp that I saw just skin. I gave her a hug to try and calm her down. Then he came into my classroom, cut Roland’s hair and Charlotte started crying and hid under the desk. He pulled her up from the desk but then saw me standing right in front of her and he left the room. My whole entire body was shaking and I could tell the kids could see that I was upset. I was frozen and so upset at what just happened. It was like a scene that I had watch from a movie on the Holocaust. I was horrified at what he was doing but couldn’t do anything about it. I had to snap out of it and continue with the rest of the day and hold in my tears and anger. When I got back to the homebase I was still shaking and I went and told our program managers what had happened. They are talking, and they are going to handle the situation.

On a lighter note! My kids have been amazing me every day! I made individual sight word booklets for each of the kids. I found a list of about 100 sight words they should know and wrote them in the back of the notebooks. Then a few weeks ago I took them one by one and tested the words they knew. After that I created small sight words booklets for them of all the words that they didn’t know. During their illustration of their books time, I have been calling them up one by one and having them go over their sight word books with me. Today, four of my kids were able to read every signal word in their books to me and I am allowed them to take the pieces of paper home! They were ecstatic as I was! If I can give them anything while I am here, I think that giving them the power to read more words is a gift for them! They have been doing so well and I have seen their progress even reflected in their writing! The vocabulary they use to write has become so much more enhanced and it’s so wonderful to see them succeed. They are such hard workers and truly just absorb or try to everything I am teaching them! It’s so wonderful to see their faces light up when they understand a concept!

I know that most of my entries have been about the children, and let’s face it, it’s because they truly have become my life here in Ghana. My heart breaks for them but smiles for them every single day I am here. I have learned so much from them and have loved watching them grow!

The other small bit of life here is Ghana continues to go well. I am resting when I can and making sure I drink plenty of water to avoid the germs and sickness that seems to be milling around the homebase.

I hope you are all enjoying the fall weather at home. I think the cold will be a complete shock to me when I get home, but I’ll be ready from a break from the heat!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Kids will be kids..

I made the decision to not ask to recombine the classes. I thought about it all weekend and decided that by me going to the headmistress and asking her if I could take over not one, but two classes would seem to them as if I was going in to take over the school. As much as it breaks my heart, I know it will be the best to keep peace at school. I will still continue having them illustrate their books so they will at least have that to take home!

On Friday at P.E. I ended up playing a bunch of games with the girls. They have taught me all of their games and songs in Ewe and I can now sing right along with them! They are so much fun to play with and their energy is endless! I have decided that if nothing else comes from my presence at Happy Kids, I will be completely content with the fact that we have exchanged games and songs. The kids can sing all of the songs that I taught them and probably one of my favorite moments last week was when one of the oldest boys, Wisdom led the group in singing Tarzan!

I have finally figured out lunchtime at school. I never saw half of the nursery class eating at lunch and I couldn’t figure out why. Some of the students actually bring their rice from home, so before the chaos of lunch break starts; the teacher feeds those who brought their lunch so it cuts down on the number of kids running to the food bucket when it’s their turn to eat. However, I have found that those kids who do eat first are the ones that are then stealing the other children’s food. Today after the little ones were done eating and it was the older kids turn, I started singing songs and all the little ones flocked towards me and joined it. It kept them entertained and out of trouble while the older ones were finishing up.

Kids never cease to amaze me. They are always taking care of each other and playing well together (for the most part.) As I was just watching the kids play today I noticed that some of the girls were in the half finished new classroom area of bricks and I walked over and discovered they were playing house. They even use one of the babies, Joshua as the baby of the family! Then, I saw some of the older girls and the boys running around and chasing each other, and they were playing cops and robbers. I love watching the kids play together and it reminds me so much of watching the kids at home play on playground. While I was watching them I couldn’t help but think how no matter where in the world you are, whether in a rural village in Africa or a rural village in Upstate New York, kids will always be kids, using their imaginations to create and take them anywhere, and be anybody they want to be!

I love going to school full time, the kids wear me out and I love being so much a part of their day!

Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend! We have decided to keep traveling close to home. We went back to the turtle beach this weekend – no turtle though this time, but it was so refreshing and wonderful to see my first African sunset over the ocean! I still think of you all often and hope you are enjoying fall!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Smiling faces!

Amuwega and Holly during break!

Two of the older girls in the P5 class are standing in the back: Lucy and Comfort

My adorable students in the front: YaYra, Charlotte and Moda!

My whole class plus some of the kids in the younger classes! I will try to get a better picture of just my class - when there were all 16 of them when I get the chance!

Oh, we’re halfway there, Oh whoa living on a prayer…

Although as I post this my time is over half way done, I still thought it would seem fitting to put that as my title. Some days it seems like I have been here for a year and some days it seems like I just arrived. Time certainly is a funny thing that we have absolutely no control over!

Speaking of control…that has seemed to be a bit of a struggle for me lately as I have attempted to talk myself through the fact that I have no control over the culture of the school system here in Ghana. This week has been the start of a new schedule for me that will continue up until my departure. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I have started staying at school all day until it ends at 3:00. Then on Wednesday I am still going to House of Hope, an orphanage right after school is finished. Cat, Piper and I are having the students, after they get out of school, put on a play. We are performing an African Folk Tale. So far we have created a script, casted the parts and had a run through of the lines. It is complete chaos but the kids are absolutely loving it! We are hoping to video tape the performance and then I’ll be able to have a little viewing when I get home! Thursdays I will still be going to school but come home for lunch and continue to go to EPTRA in the afternoons – the micro financing organization. That is something different from working with kids and I get to see the community and really go out there and be in the midst of all the going ons of the people. On Friday I will only be going to school for PE in the morning and returning to the homebase for lunch. It has been a busy week and I have been exhausted, in a wonderful way when I return every afternoon! My bedtime is slowly getting earlier and earlier!

In the few days that I have stayed for a full day at Happy Kids my eyes were opened to a whole new world. On Tuesday my class of 16 was cut in half as they decided to make a new class of P1’s. Now my class consists of P2, P3 and P4. So on Tuesday as I was be bopping around my classroom doing all the activities with my kids, I had to sit and watch the other half of my class stare at me helplessly as their teacher was making them repeat a poem over and over again until they had it memorized. I think that a little piece of my heart actually broke as I watched them run over to me during break and ask if they could work on their books that we have been writing. After break that day I asked if they could come over and we just finished writing the whole entire book since I didn’t know when I would be able to work with them again. I’m going to continue having the come over for a half an hour every day so they can at least finish their books. I’m going to talk to the Head Mistress and see if she would allow me to keep the classes combined at least while I’m there, however, it might have a negative effect on them when I do leave and could possibly put them further behind, but we shall see.

Lunchtime at Happy Kids is quite the ordeal. I have been taking my traditional peanut butter and jelly and a banana for lunch every day, since I am not sure what food they will be eating and I would probably get sick off of it. They are given an hour break from 12:00 – 1:00. The other teachers go and hide in a secluded area and the older girls are left to go and fetch lunch from the boarding house. Meanwhile, the rest of the older kids are laughing, running around playing football and just being kids which was wonderful to see. However, the younger kids are running around, unsupervised, hitting each other with sticks, pushing each other off the brick piles and running away to the park. It was like I was trying to control a circus the first day I was there. I am going to try and start having a few games to play with the younger kids during this time starting next week. I am still unsure of the whole lunch situation. The youngest students are allowed to eat first. They get a bowl, get a little pile of rice and run off to eat it with their hands. Not all students are given bowls and they run over to the kids who do receive food and try to steal it from them. I am not sure why some kids do not receive food and some do. Then the older students are allowed to eat. It seems that everyone is content by the time lunch is over but my head is always spinning.

After lunch, its back to work for my kids! I have now started doing math and have attempted to be creative with using some manipulatives. It’s a bit challenging when the resources are so limited but it seems to be working out alright. As I am again having my kids doing all kinds of work, the P1 class is being ordered to put their heads down on their desk and take a nap, the Nursery kids are all sprawled out on the concrete floor sleeping, my old class is still repeating the same poem or being asked to do two digit multiplication, and the oldest class P5 and P6 is copying down notes from the chalk board while the teacher is on his cellphone. It is so frustrating and heartbreaking to see what goes on in the other classes after the volunteers have left. It makes me wonder what is going to happen to my class the rest of the year.

There are about 25 kids living at the boarding house that stay after school to help clean up. They have to put all of the desks and chalkboards into the classroom that gets locked at night. Then they have to carry over the bowls and tubs from lunch. Almost all of my kids live at the boarding house and as I was watching them get ready to go “home” I could help but tear up and think about what they do every night. It always amazed me how close the kids in my class were and how they always looked out for each other but fought like brothers and sisters as well. I wasn’t sure if it was a cultural thing, and I’m sure it is partly but after watching them all walk together down the dirt road, I couldn’t help but think that to each other they are more than schoolmates, they are family. I’m sure not all of them are orphans but they don’t live with any family so really they are all each other has. They have slowly stolen and captured a piece of my heart and every day I become so much closer with them and I would love to just love to keep them. So as impossible as that really is and instead of trying to find a way to bring all of them home, I have started saying a prayer for each of them at night.

So as I am ending my seventh week here in Ghana I am asking all of you before you go to bed tonight to just say a short prayer for all the children at Happy Kids and that God will guide them and look out for them. Thank you for your prayers for me while I have been here. It’s been so comforting to know that I have so many wonderful people in my life!

I hope this finds you all smiling and healthy!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph

Roland and Junior during break time!

Moda and YaYra hard at work!!

Rain, rain go away, I really want to teach today!

So a few blogs ago I mentioned that it was near the end of the rainy season and that it was starting to get drier and therefore hotter and hotter…well apparently that was a small joke on my part! It has been anything but the end of the rainy season, I am afraid we are smack dab in the middle of it! A day that it doesn’t rain is a beautiful hot day! Now rain doesn’t really bother me too much while at the homebase, we will once in a while play volleyball in the rain or when I awake to the rain pounding on the roof it is actually quite calming and peaceful! It’s a little annoying when I have to keep my clothes on the line for days because the rain keeps getting them wet and they never seem to dry, but other than that it’s not horrible.

However, when it rains at school, it is a completely different story. If you have seen the picture of my classroom, you will notice that it has a straw roof. Here’s a small hint – the straw does not keep the rain out! There is one classroom that has a canopy but has a tin roof and one actually building where the nursery class is. For the past two days, right after break (halfway through the morning) it has started to torrential down pour. Let me paint you a picture. The kids are out running around, one of the babies, usually Joshua is fast asleep in my arms, and it starts raining. I hurry over (with the child still asleep in my arms) and gather all of their notebooks and papers from the chair, since I don’t have any other place to put things besides the floor and the kids all drag their desks over to the small “porch” of the one solid four wall classroom. The porch is just wide enough for two desks to fit right next to each other. However, there is a slight overhang and the person sitting on the far left gets completely soaked as well as the second desk because the water drips off the roof. On my left side is the K and P1 class attempting to learn and in the classroom where the windows are opened are the nursery kids usually screaming or singing. With the rain pounding down, all of my kids completely soaked, it is nearly impossible to teach. Lately I have been allowing them to start illustrating the book we are writing together, but some of their papers get wet and they are devastated. So, as the other teachers just allow their kids to sit there, I have started story time. I try to be as productive as possible and they love just sitting there and listening to the stories. Although I would love to continue with my lessons, I just remind myself that this is Africa and even just reading a story to the children is better than nothing!

Yesterday I attempted centers again and it worked very well until the rain hit. I have a notebook for each child in my class and I write out their worksheets in the notebooks. I spend my entire evenings creating centers and writing out everything in their notebooks. My favorite moment of the week was when I handed them each their own notebook with their name on it and just saw their faces light up! The notebooks are wonderful and the kids are really starting to like my style of teaching. It takes less time to explain things and they are enjoying the hands on activities that I am presenting them with. I think they may even be learning a few things here or there! I adore them and enjoy my time at school immensely!

I hope all is well at home and you are enjoying some fall weather!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph

Warthogs, Monkeys and Elephants OH MY!

Greetings from Ghana!

School continues to challenge me but is rewarding all in the same breath. My class has increased to now 13 students which has been wonderful and thus bringing on more challenges! There are so many more girls in my class now and they make me laugh just with their interactions with each other. My whole original differentiating plan has now changed as I have added many new students and I have one student, Dora who does not know how to spell her name. I originally was starting to teach them some of the basic phonics still that are taught in Kindergarten in the United States but soon realized that they aren’t taught phonics here for a reason. How they pronounce the letters and words do not match up with the sounds that we are able to produce, so therefore, teaching them phonics has been a bit of a waste, but a nice attempt to see what they can actually do.

So, my new approach has been to do projects with them while teaching them a little bit along the way. Recently, together we chronologically organized what their daily routines are. I talked about ordering and how important it is to look at the activity and then see if it truly is the next thing on their daily routine. We did this together and I wrote it on the chalk board, I still have to do sort of a fill in the blank for the younger kids where I write some of the sentence and then they write the most important words. I allowed the older kids to go on their own and they seemed to do pretty well with the activity. I kept their sheets and we are now in the process of turning them into a book titled “A Day in the Life of ______.” We are writing the book together but the students are each writing their own book. We have been working on writing a complete sentence and they have done well showing me that they can do that! I have been very proud of them! Some of my students, especially the older ones do not understand the whole spacing between words so I have to draw lines for each word to show how the words should be spaced. I am often running around the canopy, not that it’s that big, and modifying for all the students – I love it! After we get done writing I am going to have them illustrate them and I’m going to think of some creative way to bind them and have them take their books home! I think projects like this will be a whole lot more beneficial than attempting to teach them the nitty gritty of our language. If anyone has any ideas – I would love them!

This week I took a long weekend and two other girls (Cat and Piper) and I traveled to Mole National Park. We left, along with Alexa and Isabel at 3:00am Thursday morning on a bus set for Kumasi. It was about a 9 hour bus ride and we arrived in Kumasi at 12:00pm Thursday. After the long trip, Alexa and Isabel decided they did not want to continue the journey to Mole any farther – so we said goodbye to them and waiting for our next bus to Tamale. The man sitting next to me on the first bus, was so nice and helped us find the right place to buy our tickets and waited with us the whole time. I know I say this often, but it still amazes me how out of the way some people go to be nice and help out. I think we could use a little more of this daily random small acts of kindness in America. We finally arrived in Tamale at 11:00pm and had to take a taxi still to our hotel room. Then early Friday morning we got up and finished our long 25 hour journey by taking a final three hour taxi ride to Mole National Park. As soon as we entered the park and started driving towards our hotel we saw a whole bunch of baboons just hanging out in the middle of the road. Right outside our hotel room were warthogs and antelope that we could just walk past and they didn’t care.

Friday afternoon we went to an Eco-Village just a short ways away. This Eco-Village was set up by a Peace Corps volunteer who wanted to give the opportunity to show people the way of life in an African Village. The guide that drove us there, walked around the village and we met the chief, played with the kids, watched a woman make shea butter, climbed on top of a roof and saw the whole village, visited the herbalist and just walked around the village. The village has about 600 people and can run independently off the land. I had several mixed feelings as I was walking through the village. Part of me felt a bit intrusive on their life and made it seem like we were going to a zoo or something. Part of me was so interested in seeing their way of life and how they are content in just living off the land and content with everything they have in their village. It was interesting to see the different roles of the village and who plays which part. Since it is in such a remote area they literally have everything they need right there. Part of me thinks it is incredible that they are able to truthfully live off the land and enjoy their life. However, another part of me is sad, because they have no way of advancing their life either; they have no desire to change any part of their life. I am not saying they should go and become westernized or go and buy cellphones, but even just in cleanliness, they are not allowing their lifestyle to change slightly in order to become more aware of good hygiene. It was pretty emotional as I was walking around and think of all these things – and such a joy to play with the children!
Saturday morning we woke up at 6 in order to be ready for our 6:30 walking safari. I brought along my Keen sandals thinking they would be an excellent pair of walking shoes; however, the guide was not convinced that these would properly protect my feet, so I had to rent a big pair of rubber boots to wear, without socks. That was an experience all in itself! At first we started walking down a small dirt path and the guide was telling us about the park and all that it offers. Then we go off the path and just start walking in the bushes and it was at that point I was so grateful to have on the big boots so my pants wouldn’t get wet and so my shoes were not muddy! We saw a tree full of monkeys and watched them play around for a while, and then saw a small family of warthogs trot on by. Then the guide found a fresh elephant footprint, so we started to follow the path. We started actually tracking down and elephant. We followed the footprints, looking for feces, chewed up parts of trees, and even saw the spot where the elephant has laid down for the night. After about an hour of this, I was getting a little discouraged and we had been walking in circles it seemed. We stopped at a Salt Lake, basically a big mud hole that has natural salt the elephants like to stop there. A bit to the left of the Salt Lake, in the trees, we saw four huge gray legs! Finally we had found our elephant! The guide made us wait and see, and then he took us through the woods so we were about 20 feet from the elephant. She (I’m calling it a she, not sure if it was!) was absolutely beautiful to watch. No this isn’t my first time I have ever seen an elephant, but watching her interact in her natural environment was pretty magical. She would take her trunk and just shed an entire branch of leaves and put it in her mouth. At one point she turned and faced us and it really startled me. I didn’t realize how powerful they truly are until I was standing not behind a fence and right face to face with an elephant! I was able to get some amazing pictures but also just stood there and watched her! Wildlife is so miraculous, especially, in their natural habitat! We stayed and watched her for about an hour and then it was time to make our way up the huge hill right in front of our hotel. It was crazy to think that the hotel was right in the forest below our hotel!

It was a fantastic trip and for sure worth all of the traveling! I am excited to get back to my kids and see them again!

I hope all is well at home! If you get the chance, watch the Lion King sometime, with all this wildlife I’ve been seeing, I have been dying to see it!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph

Pictures!

My Classroom :)


























































My little Abrah :)

I spy with my little eye something green...

Last week I started at a new placement on Thursday afternoons at a place called EPTRA. It is a micro-financing company and goes from house to house or store to store and collects money. In return they give it back to them at the end of the month. The mission is to teach people how to save money. Most of the homes and stores are in the Zongo which is the Muslim community. I saw so many different things while traveling since I was actually stepping into the homes and store it was hard to take it all in for the first time. The woman that I work with Vida, is so funny and has such a wonderful personality to work with. She was forcing me to speak Ewe to the clients and it was a great learning experience. I will be doing that every Thursday afternoon and it will be a nice change of pace from working with the kiddos.

This weekend was quite an adventure as we were really unsure of what to expect. We spent the night in Accra which is the capital of Ghana. Accra does not impress me at all. Around Accra big businesses have attempted to come in and “Westernize” Ghana. However, they might put in a big billboard or set up a store but behind the store is a whole community of huts and just filth. Like any city, there is a lot of poverty, but it is a different kind of poverty that I see in the rural community that I live in. In most of the city, there was garbage everywhere and people just hanging out in a dirty mess. Although we may not have been in the “nice” part of the city it was still very disheartening to me that all of these companies, especially cellphone companies come and set up and force their business of people when there is so much more that can be done instead of trying to Westernize a culture that doesn’t really know or want to be Westernized.

On Saturday we traveled to a small island! We got dropped off at the tro-tro station, walked through a small village and then got on a small wooden boat to make our way to the island. The island was beautiful. It wasn’t truly an island but it was close enough. The whole boat ride I could see the small villages on the river and the sun was so bright reflecting off the water is was breathtaking. We arrived on the island and were shown to our huts. I literally mean huts. There were two beds with mosquito nets and that was it. The sand was floor and there was a straw roof. It was actually pretty amazing. The bathrooms were outside and it was truly living in a rural community. The island is set up so that on one side of the island the Volta River meets the Atlantic ocean and made a calm sea water area we were able to swim in. Then on the other side of the island was the Atlantic ocean and we were able to jump the roaring waves! I love the beauty of nature so much! We arrived around dinner time and just hung out, talked with other volunteers that we met there. While we were waiting for our food, we asked the cook if we were able to see turtles on the beach, since at this point we realized that we were in the opposite direction of the actual turtle reservation and about 3 hours away. She said that every once in a while a turtle would come ashore and usually late at night, around midnight.

So we just hung out at the beach and around midnight, of course I would be exact, I asked if anyone wanted to go turtle watching along the beach. Nobody really wanted to go so Piper and Krista amused me and came walking with me. The moon was full in the sky and there were no clouds and a million stars. It was a gorgeous night and I couldn’t help but just stare at the sky. We were walking along the beach, which was littered with tons and tons of garbage and about 50 feet away I saw something dark and the moon was reflecting off of it. We started walking towards it and every once in a while it would move a little and at that point we thought it was a plastic bag blowing in the wind. As we got closer, we realized it was actually a SEA TURTLE! She was coming up from the ocean. It was so sad to watch her walk through the garbage but amazing to watch her walking in the sand. I quickly ran back to get the others and we all just sat on the beach about four feet away from her and watched her lay her eggs. She was working so hard to dig the hole and lay the eggs that she had to stop and take a rest every now and then. It was one of the most magical things that I have ever witnessed in my life. It started to pour and we went back to the huts so we were unable to see her walk back to the ocean but when we went back at 2:30 she was already gone. back to the huts so we were unable to see her walk back to the ocean but when we went back at 2:30 she was already gone.

Today at school was a bit frustrating. I rode up in the van and saw that all the kids were in their straight line ready to march and do their pledge and say their school motto but there was only one teacher there. I now have 12 children in my class starting today which was great, however, Godwin, the one teacher that was there, made all of my children move their desks over to his canopy and he had me teach both classes while he blasted his music and sat and listened in the back of the classroom. I didn’t mind teaching both classes but the teacher was clearly trying to make a point that he was going to do nothing and just watch me. I had to think quick on my feet and change my lesson plan so that now I could teach 6-14 year olds. Just another exciting adventure! I love my kids and I am developing a deeper bond with them every day! I couldn’t wait to get back and see them today after the weekend! I adore them and they make me smile every day!

I hope you are all enjoying fall!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph

Testing the waters...

Tuesday was a Public Holiday in Ghana. It is the second year that they have recognized this day and the country was informed that it was going to be a holiday again this year on Monday night. The day is Founder’s Day and is named after the first president of Ghana after he gained their independence. It is much like our President’s Day in America. So, since it was a public holiday all of the schools were closed. We traveled about fifteen minutes away to a rural community to teach them about personal hygiene. When we first arrived the kids were jumping up and down, singing and dancing. They were singing in Ewe, “Come to me Jesus.” Makafui our program director called the whole community to assemble and he told them in Ewe why we were there. We had them split into three groups and we broke ourselves into three groups and talked about: hand washing, clothes washing, nail cutting, bathing, and preventing the common cold. I was in the group that discussed bathing and clothes washing. While we were discussing the importance behind bathing and washing clothes, we constantly had to adjust our speech in order to be sensitive and realistic to their culture. They all had great questions about prevention and seemed very interested in what we had to say. At the end, we handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and it was like a mob scene. Someone finally had to make them all get in lines. They did not speak any English and everything had to be translated into Ewe by one of our program directors. It really was an amazing day and I’m so glad that I was able to have that added experience. One of my favorite parts of the day was having a little girl just follow me, sit on my lap and hold my hand the entire day. It seems that everywhere we travel there are always children so willing to just be close to you. I was even a little sad to say goodbye to her after I had spent the entire time with her and knowing that I would never see her again.
School has definitely been a great improvement. I have bonding with the other male teachers and I think that they respect me enough now to not pass judgment on my teaching methods and they actually respect my efforts instead of thinking that I am here to take over and change everything about their school. I adore the kids and we are having a wonderful time together. One of my favorite moments from earlier this week was when we were focusing on writing simple complete sentences paying special attention to capital letters and “full stops.” One of the girl Charlotte wrote as one of here sentences “I like to learn.” It just made my day!

Today at placement I attempted what I thought would be the impossible. Now that I am into a routine and over the shock of the structure, resources and attitude towards school I am not 100% prepared to do what I came here to do and that was to teach children. I decided to start really building in some of my active learning and differentiated beliefs and I spent all of Wednesday night preparing for class today. It was my goal to have them participate in centers while I conducted a small guided reading lesson with the oldest student in the class. I knew that it could possibly be a complete flop or could be one of the greatest things that could happen to the classroom for the next twelve weeks making my life and theirs enjoyable! All of the centers were reinforcing skills that I had been teaching over the past two weeks: a rhyming cube game where they had to make words and put them in appropriate columns, ordering the days of the week and the months of the year and then putting sentences back together that I had cut up. Since there are no materials here, I spent Wednesday night creating paper cubes with word families and consonants on them, and papers that had the sentences and day/months that I cut up. Now here is where my personality is being completely tested because I love creating materials like that however, I would have loved to have been able to put them into zip lock bags or paper clip them together or something to have them organized instead of just thrown in the bottom of my backpack! It worked and was a complete success. The kids absolutely loved it, I was able to bounce around the room and work individually with some students. The teacher was even participating in the centers. It was a wonderful day!

Things continue to challenge me every day but in a wonderful way. One of my favorite things to do is just ride in the car and look out the windows at the small villages, mountains, or just jungle!

This weekend we are traveling to a small little island near an turtle conservation where we are hoping to see some sea turtles! If not, we at least will have spent the night on an island!

Hope all is well at home, I think of you every day!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Happy Monday :)

Happy Monday!

On Friday at placement we have P.E. So the teacher teaches one math lesson for a half an hour and then we go to the park to play until 1:00. I sat back and just observed the lesson that he was teaching. Their approach to teaching is completely different from anything that I have ever been taught and sometimes it can be very frustrating to watch. He gave two examples of a math problem that really only the two eleven year olds should be learning then called each student up one by one to do a problem on the board. When someone didn’t get it correct he essentially would laugh at them and tell them to go sit back down. He expects that the 6 year olds and the 11 year olds will learn the same material and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. Once the “lesson” was over he had them all take out a piece of paper if they had one, if they didn’t have paper then they just sat there. Then he wrote three problems on the board for them to answer. Before he allowed them to get to work he said aloud “one mistake” and they responded “two canes.” Meaning if they got one problem wrong then they would get caned twice. It makes me so sad that school and learning is treated as such a punishment. After the lesson we all went to the park and participated in P.E. I was playing football with most of the kids in my class and they were just loving life and we were all laughing together and having a wonderful time. Then the three male teachers called me over to join their game of football. I thought that they were getting a big game going with all of the older kids. Instead it was a small game of the four of us and the four oldest kids in the school. They didn’t even care about any of the other kids and what they were doing. It was hard for me to truly enjoy playing with them when I knew that really it was just playtime for them. Something that I have learned is that crying is not accepted here in Ghana. When one of the students fell down during football (soccer) the teachers would mock him and say “I’m sorry for you, now get up and be a strong player” or in the pre-school class at school if a kid starts to cry the teacher will start singing a song about the kid being a pussycat and then all the students will start to meow at them. There is no sympathy whatsoever and that has been difficult for me to sit back and watch and really not able to do anything about.

On Saturday Cat, Piper, Krista and I traveled about 45 minutes to a waterfall. We had to visit with the chief of the village and talked to him and ask permission to hike up the sacred waterfall. Now I was expecting a full on chief in a headdress, well once we were seated down on a bench out steps the chief in jeans and a t-shirt. It may have been a bit of a scam but oh so worth it. A guide took us to the base of the first waterfall and it was like a small rapid. We were able to swim in the waterfall and we attempted to swim across the falls to a rock on the other side. Needless to say we didn’t make it more than five feet away from the shore because the current was so strong and pulling us backwards. As soon as we were done swimming a huge rainstorm came through. The tour guide went into the forest, chopped down a small tree, pulled the humongous leaves off the tree that were about as tall as me and we used them as umbrellas, it was the coolest thing ever! Then we were able to continue hiking up to the top of the waterfall and see where it begins. At the top of the waterfall there was a huge wooden cross, and I could see the mountains in the distance, it was beautiful! Then on Sunday we went to church. Church here is at least three hours long. It really amazes me how much passion people in Ghana have about their faith. They were just singing, dancing, listening and praising the Lord for the entire three hours – they are incredible and so inspiring!

Today at placement was wonderful. It definitely gave me some hope compared to last week! The teacher that usually sits in the back of the room and watches me teach was not there today. It was nice to just be able to do what I want instead of worrying that I am not doing enough rigorous work with them. I realized that I need to do some “assessment” type things just to see what they actually know and what they don’t. They encourage spelling words here so I am going to start making their own spelling words to test and take them from words that they actually need to learn how to spell. I am going to attempt to find something to make them each a folder out of so that I can keep all their work in to see the progress that they have been making. I am going to start back and the basics since all of my kids do not know the sounds of the letters still. Since they are taught to memorize everything when I encourage them to sound out a word they have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. I am going to work on this one! I introduced them to “I see” today, basically “I Spy” but you can play it so many different ways. Today we played “I see something that begins with the letter…” and “I see something that rhymes with run…” The highlight of my day was when Roland actually guessed the correct word that rhymed with run…sun! We have been working on CVC rhymes for the past week and they are slowly starting to understand! It was a shining moment! It really is going to be all about the baby steps and now that I have some confidence in myself I think that things will only start to look up!

I thought I would quickly give a rundown of a typical day:
6:00 – wake up (usually run/get ready)
7:00 – Breakfast (Egg of some sort, pineapple and a piece of bread)
7:15 – Reading and talking on the porch
8:15 – Leave for school
8:30-12:00 - At school
12:15 – Lunch (rice, chicken, pineapple)
12:30 – 4:00/5:00 Afternoon activities
Monday – Errands and market
Tuesday – Rehabilitation clinic
Wednesday – House of Hope Orphanage
Thursday – EPTRA (saving and loans place)
Friday – Weekend traveling
6:00 – Dinner
6:30 – Pitch black here in Ghana and Cat, Piper, Krista and I walk the loop in town
9:00 – In bed!

I have added some new placements and activities in the afternoons now that our cultural learning activities are over with. This is my first week starting at those placements and I will talking about each of them in other entries!

I hope that all continues to be well at home! The new additions to the homebase have been nice. I sure do miss the peace and quiet though, with 21 people that doesn’t really happen that often around here.

Tonight – look at the moon and know that I am looking at the same one, smiling and thinking of you!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Monkeys and Bananas

This was our last week of cultural learning activities and we went to visit both the monkey sanctuary and had a guest speaker on child labor. At the monkey sanctuary, it literally is a community that allows people to walk into the forest and feed the monkeys. The people in the community believe that the monkeys are spirits they can communicate to God through. Those who practice traditional Africa religion believe that God is so powerful that people cannot communicate directly to Him. Instead one had to speak through a spirit which can be in the form of animals, trees or their ancestors. So, the people in this community believe that the monkeys are spirits and don’t harm them. Instead, they allow people to come into the sanctuary and see the monkeys. We walked into the forest with bananas in hand and the guide stopped at this one huge tree and started to whistle. All of a sudden, monkeys start jumping out from the other trees and jump right in front of our feet and are all above our head. We all held out bananas and they came right up to us and if we held on tightly, the monkeys would peel the bananas right out of our hand. It was the craziest thing ever!

The guest speaker on child labor was so interesting. He works with an organization called Pro-Link. This organization goes out and rescues children who have been sold by their parents to usually fishermen and sometimes mining industries. Children as young as five years old are sold to these industries for 100 – 500 cedis and are given a one to two year contract with these places. However, often what ends up happens, especially with the fishermen, they end of moving locations and the children continue to travel with them. At that point, they lose contact with their families and then just continue to be with the fishermen. After rescuing these children, they actually reconnect them with their families and then provide services to their families to educate them about the rights children have. There is also a great deal of discrimination against women still here in Ghana. Most men can choose to have as many wives as possible and as many children as he wishes. Women do not know and understand their rights of saying when they would like to have children and when they don’t. It cannot believe that in 2010 there is still child trafficking and such severe discrimination against women still going on. Living in the United States we take for granted our freedoms and rights, often don’t exercise those rights but then complain about what we are not allowed to do. It’s hard to think that some women here in Africa, some even living right in the village that I am in, are treated like property. The best thing that can be done to help stop this from continuing, is educating people in the United States that issues like this are still going on around us. So think about the next time you see a woman paying for something in a store, or you yourself pay for something and know that here in Africa, women have no rights to keep in possession any money, and thank God for all the rights and privileges that we take for granted every day.

On Tuesday when I arrived to school the kids were split up into three classes as opposed to one class from yesterday. I asked the teacher where he wanted me to teach and he said that I could choose whichever class I wanted to. The choices were P1, P2 – P4, P5 & P6. I had to make a quick decision which is so not like me at all and I choose to teach P2-P4. The lesson that I had prepared for that day was for the children in P5 & P6. I felt unprepared again today and had to think quickly on my feet for the next three hours. I was way too ambitious when I first started preparing lessons and forgot that I was in Africa and not in a school in the States. I was going to have them introduce themselves by making an acrostic poem of their name. We brainstormed some words that might describe themselves and I did a model of my name for them. When I had them do their own name, all they did was write words that began with that beginning letter. Although my lesson was essentially a complete flop, I was very happy to see that they at least understood the concept of writing one word per line and just to see where their vocabulary is.

For my lessons on Wednesday I based them off of the book that Godwin, the teacher gave to me. I took the “skills” and then modified and tried to add some of my own activities as well. To say the least, it was a complete disaster. As I continue to reflect on Wednesday, although at the time I felt that it was horrible, I am realizing that my students did make some progress. The students did learn some basic rhymes through a fun activity I did with them, I heard them read for the first time, they were able to answer orally some comprehension questions.

Here in Ghana, and I’m sure most of Africa in general believe in teaching children through rote memorization of facts and definitions. On Tuesday, the class next to me, P1, had to repeat the same poem over and over again for 45 minutes. The teacher made them stand the whole time and if they were not standing then he would hit them on the head with a stick. On Wednesday our ride home was late so I watched as the teacher took over the class once I was done with all of my lessons. He was teaching them about adjectives. First he stated what an adjective is then he made all the students stand up. He went around individually and asked them what the definition was; if they did not get it right then they had to stay standing. I even saw one boy standing off to the side rubbing his hands together over his head and marching in place. He had to do this for about five minutes before he could come back and sit down.

Everything about education here in Ghana besides the fact that they try to get all children educated, goes whole heartedly against my entire philosophy of education. Now I understand that I am unable to change their views and way of teaching. The challenging part is that when I do try to do something that involves creativity or actually explaining why something is the way it is, the kids do not understand because they have not been taught to think that way. I am not going to forget all my own beliefs in education but at the same time I have to teach the way the students are going to actually begin to understand things. I am going to attempt to mix in both philosophies while trying not to completely frustrate myself. It’s going to be about finding the right balance that works well for the kids. The best part is I still have nine weeks with the kids and will hopefully see them grow in even the smallest way.

I can’t believe I have already been in Africa for three weeks, time is flying by so quickly. On Saturday 12 new people come to the homebase and the dynamics will be completely different. That will be a challenge for me all in itself, but I am looking forward to hearing the life stories of so many new faces!

Hope all is well, think of you often, and eat a fresh apple from a tree for me!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph

Pictures!

Some of the children playing in the park!

Happy First Day of School in Ghana!!!

Yeah school has finally started here in Ghana! Before I talk about that let me give just a brief recap of my fantastic weekend exploring Cape Coast!

We had our first full weekend of experiencing tro-tros and it most certainly was an interesting one. It was about an 8 hour journey to Cape Coast via tro-tros and taxis. We traveled to Accra on one tro-tro, got dropped off in the middle of the highway. Had to take a taxi to the next station, go on a tro-tro to Cape Coast. One of the reasons that I love Ghana so much is for the friendly people that live here. I’m not saying that there are people smiling and waving everywhere we go but there are people who are genuinely such caring and nice people here in Ghana. We asked the driver if he could take us right to our hotel since it was already dark out and we didn’t know exactly where it was. There was a woman sitting next to Dunkin and I in our row of seats on the tro-tro and once she heard the name of our hotel she told the driver that we had already passed it. The driver pulled over right away and told us to get out. The woman sitting next to us also got out and started fending off the taxi drivers there were bombarding us. Everywhere we go taxi drivers literally get in fights, sometimes physical fights over taking us places because we have the money. The woman yelled at the drivers and put us all in taxis and wished us a nice weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how caring some people in Ghana are.

We traveled to Kukum National Park on Saturday to do a canopy walk. It was a nice, simple hike up to the canopy platforms. The guide explained to us that there are only 5 canopy walks in the world and this was obviously one of them. It consisted of 7 bridges 320 meters above the forest floor. In between each bridge there were small platforms to wait on until it was okay to go across the next bridge. The bridges were quite shaky and were swinging a bit as I was traveling across some of them. Even though I am not scared of heights I was a bit nervous as I was crossing the first few bridges. Once I got the hang of it I was able to enjoy the beautiful scenery around me. I was only a little bit away from the top of the tree line and it was amazing to see the clouds and sun close.

After the canopy walk, we traveled to Cape Coast castle. This was a castle that participated in the transatlantic trade route or “triangle trade.” I went into a museum first that talk about the history of slave trade and showed maps of where the trade routes went to. It showed a picture of the boats and how the slaves were transported across the ocean. Then we went on a tour of the castle. We went inside the male and female dungeons. Each of the dungeons were about the size of a standard living room. In each room 200 males or 400 females had to stay, I’m not even going to say live in there because there was no way it was actually suitable for any sort of living. They had to stay in there for up to three months since that is how long it took to make the journey across the ocean and back to the Americas. The rooms were dark and only had one small window that created a small amount of light and air. They were passed food through a hole in the wall and there were small ditches that usually got back up for “liquids” to drain out of. By the female dungeons there was a huge door that led to the harbor where the slaves would be packed into boats. On the top of the door you could see the scratch marks of the slaves who tried to get out. Then above the door it says, “The door of no return.” A few years back, they had ancestors of the slaves pass through the door of no return and then they had them pass back through. So now on the outside of the door that faces the harbor there is a sign that say “The door of return” to symbolize the end of slavery. It was one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had and is something that just sends chills up my spine even as I am writing this.

Today was the first official day of school, and it truly was the first day of school!!! When we got there, the teacher that I mentioned earlier was there and asked Clay and I what ages we would like to work with. Not all of the children were not there today because as the teacher put it, many of them did not know that school resumed. So there was the oldest class and then there was the pre-school/kindergarten class. The teachers just put the kids in a group and sent them over to us. Now I may have taken the easy way out, but I chose to take the older kids and leave Clay with the younger kids. Today there were only 12 kids in my class and Clay had 25 kids. So I will be teaching P4, P5 & P6 all in the same class – talk about some serious need to differentiate! Today since there were not enough kids to have the P2 & P3 class, I had them in my class as well. The classroom is located under a straw roof, has a small blackboard on a stand and wooden desks for some of the kids. Some of them shared desks.

I started by having them make a name tag so I could see and know their name. Then I had them introduce themselves and say their favorite color. I showed them my pictures from home and then had them draw me a picture to teach me something about Ghana. They looked at me like they had no clue what I was talking about so we brainstormed some things that they could draw. Most of the either drew the Ghana flag, different types of fruit that are here in Ghana or a plane or car. It’s so interesting to me that kids here in Ghana have no creativity when it comes to drawing. I had them complete a small writing activity answering some questions about themselves to see where they are in their writing. Since I have such a wide age/ability range I tried to differentiate as much as possible. They are allowed a 15 minute “play” break and then it was back to work. We finished the writing activity and talked about it. Then I read them a couple of stories and it was time to go already. The day flew by like nothing!

It will most certainly be a challenge for me as I teach three grade levels and they figured twice as many kids once they all are actually there. I was talking with the teacher and he said there is no set curriculum, textbooks or any materials to actually work with so I am just creating things on my own. They do have some books, but the children don’t use them, I am allowed to use them to create some lessons. The teacher told me that I am allowed to do whatever I want and he will just teach the subjects that I don’t. I think that I am going to teach English and Science since they have a pretty big emphasis on science here. I will leave math for him to teach since we all know it’s my favorite subject haha not! So here’s to lesson planning, lots of creative and differentiating!

Today Cat, Krista, Piper and I (my three roommates who have been my saving Grace in the homebase) finished painting at a Christian orphanage “House of Hope.” We painted a boy and a girl to indicate the bathrooms and wrote the bible verse “Lord wash not only my feet but also my hands and my head” in the middle of the bathrooms. It was so much fun to paint and I hope that there are most projects like that to do in the future.
I hope that all is well at home and that you had a wonderful weekend! Think of you often!

Lots of love from Africa,
Steph