From: http://angelineinghana.blogspot.com/

Parent and Community SIG Representative

ANGELINE IN GHANA:

My Experience as an American Teacher Volunteering in Tamale, Ghana, July 2018

By Angeline Sturgis

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2018

When I landed in Accra yesterday, I was met by the volunteer director, Fred, decked out in his hand-woven and hand-sewn smock, an obvious garment of pride only worn by the men from Tamale. He acted as if we were long-separated friends, reuniting after many years apart. I was thrilled at his enthusiasm, and delighted to be met by someone who knew my name right outside the noisy, crowded arrivals hall. He was asking me about my flight in perfect, singsong African accented English, when he suddenly turned to a man, slapped him on the back and began a rapid fire conversation in another language. I was so envious of the language shift, and couldn’t help noticing the other man was just as enthusiastic and smiley as Fred, though I was sure they had never met. “What language was that, Fred?” I asked. “Dagbani“ was his answer, “Tamale language.” Ah, it was obvious: they were both wearing smocks. Cool. While we waited in the departure lounge for my short flight to Tamale, he went to ask the check-in staff a question. Yep, different language, and not the Dagbani I had just heard. “What language was that, Fred?” “Oh that was Ga”, Accra language.” Not five minutes later he was chatting to the girl sitting next to us. And yes, it sounded completely different to me. This time he said he thought he knew her, or maybe her cousin. And the language? “That was Twi, from my family’s town, Kumasi.” But how did he know which language to use? Fred just laughed and said he could tell by the way she wore her hair, and besides you “just work your way through the languages and maybe you find the right one.” Oh be still my heart: “work your way through the languages?” Sure doesn’t take me long to get through English and then level 2 Spanish, till I resort to wild gestures, hoping my message gets across.

Aside from his multi-lingual talents, Fred has this way of making you feel like you are his new best friend for life. He had insisted on taking three selfies with me before we finished a cup of coffee in a café, and sent them to the other volunteers in Tamale. I wasn’t sure if it was just his outgoing personality or his linguistic ability that was responsible for the friendly treatment we were getting from everyone around us— airport staff, other travelers, taxi drivers waiting for riders. Then it occurred to me that virtually everyone we saw was happy, lively (despite the oppressive heat) and communicative. It was as though I’d just been dropped down in the middle of a convention of pathologically happy people. I put it down to the fact that there was bound to be a language, quickly ascertained by clues in dress or demeanor, that bonded two people. And once found, why not use that language to share a joke, or a compliment or good news? Now that’s a language worth learning.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2018
“Assisting the Teacher?”

The only real fear I had about this adventure was that I might be expected to become the actual teacher. I voiced my concern to Fred the first day and he said not to worry, that I was there to observe and help. That is exactly what I did the first day, checking papers for the fourth grade teacher, Mohammad, walking around the room to see if the girls were doing what they were supposed to be doing and following along as the day progressed. So much for teacher education in Ghana. Tuesday, Mohammad told me at 8:30 that he had to take someone to work, and not to forget to do math after the mid-morning break. Wait—what?! On my own, with 15 fourth grade girls, most around 12 years old, a classroom with more flies than pieces of paper, a sizzling 90 degrees inside by my estimation and five hours to kill. (Imagine being an entertainer with a five-hour routine.) I pulled out every trick in the book from action songs, to math games, to a chapter from their English book. We had the old lady swallow a fly, met Simon who says, and talked about what is sold in markets. The hours dragged on and sweat began to run down my back. The two breaks seemed like minutes, but in the end, I did it, including a very stern lecture about being kind and respectful. To be fair, Mohammad did come back around 1:00. School is out at 1:30. He stepped in and taught a civics lesson on the responsibilities of the federal legislature, which he wrote on the board and had them copy in their little books. By comparison, I was concerned that they didn’t know all the colors, names of foods, the difference between fruits and vegetables, and that two of them just had no idea how to read at all.

Today I came in more prepared, which was good because I didn’t lay eyes on Mohammad till about 12:30. Besides being the fourth grade teacher, he is also the head of the primary school so maybe he was taking care of business elsewhere. After my serious chat with the girls yesterday, things were much more cooperative and we got lots of things done. They aren’t used to forming an answer, an opinion, or a preference which is totally different from the current conversational, higher-order thinking work we do at Eldridge Park School, and he seemed amazed at my approach. He did ask me a lot of questions today, and I think his tone of voice has softened somewhat with the girls. And the students themselves are as happy, mischievous, and full of life as any kids I know. I’m beginning to feel at home here.

July 11, 2018
Let’s just say there aren’t quite as many internet cafes as the volunteers were led to believe. In fact, there is only one, and it’s two miles away from our neighborhood. It is such a good news/bad news story, the kind of thing that seems to happen to travelers. It went like this…Fred said he would take all the volunteers to the city because he knew the guys at the Vodofone store and we would all get all the wifi and data we could ever have dreamed of. He took us from school and off we went. Sort of. It was a blistering hot day, even for Tamale, and we ended up in an area of town that consisted of about one square mile of market stalls. We parked in a wood merchant’s lot because Fred knew everyone there, and just needed to have a quick word with them all because that’s what one does in Ghana. We stood in the lot for about half an hour, meeting relatives with titles like “Junior mother” (we would say “aunt”) and second mother (well, we don’t have a word for that because it is your father’s second wife.) Finally, we were off in search of data and wifi. Sort of. Instead we had a tour of various parts of the market, all interesting and colorful and sometimes an assault to the senses like the rows and rows of mackerel booths and the “butchering cabins,” (I’ll spare you that.) Somewhere around the gourd bowl rows, Fred met some long lost friends, or maybe just a junior brother or second sister, but we got a full run down of how they make the bowls and even got one each as a souvenir. But Fred, the wifi? the data?

We emerged from the market somewhere around the manure stalls (yep, that’s what I said) to blasting music from…the Vodafone store! There were five guys in red t-shirts hawking SIM cards right on the sidewalk and up we walked to wait our turn. If we hadn’t been so hungry we might even have been excited to see there was an actual, very modern, and AIR CONDITIONED internet café inside. It was just about then I realized I didn’t have my phone with me, but no worries, I would check out how my friend’s fared, come back tomorrow if need be, and for now I could nip inside and buy an hour online. Had I brought enough cash? That was the really good news. An hour online and in working, brilliant A/C cost sixty cents. At that point I would have paid twice that just to sit in A/C. During the hour I was trying to catch up with the real world, my friends outside were anxiously watching their iPhones be pulled apart, Verizon identities removed, and tiny little data chips inserted. Most didn’t work till the third or fourth try, and even then the most they could do was iMessage and Whatsapp, but honestly, it was all good (except for me because I had forgotten my phone. I would bring it the next day.)

And that’s what I did today. Why didn’t anyone tell me I needed an ID? Americans don’t carry IDs! I wrote my name down on a scrap of paper and told the guy that was my ID. (Being way too hot and hungry makes you more assertive than you have ever been). It took all five guys to get the SIM card to work, and it is only as insufficient as my friends’ service, but I’m online in a texting kind of way now, even when I’m back in my neighborhood outside of town.

I’m not even going to tell you the trauma with my original plan for easy internet access, my portable personal “Skyroam Hotspot. Take it anywhere with you! Instant communication with existing 4G service! Pay for one day at a time!” After using a full hour of paid internet time chatting with Paolo, my new best friend at Skyroam’s tech support center, and trying every trick he passed on to me, I opened a new window and checked the “worldwide service provided by Skyroam.” Yep, not quite up and running in Ghana yet. Oh well, there’s always What’s App on my phone, and a nice sixty cent investment at the internet café and the glory of air conditioning.

FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2018
Home, Sweet Home

I know everyone is wondering about the home-stay situation. I was given a room in Fred’s house, while the other volunteers stayed together in another of his family’s properties on the same road. Our house is situated around a courtyard with a huge, leafy tree that gives shade all day. This courtyard is the space for clothes washing, outdoor cooking, playing, chicken roaming, and storing trash. Next to the tree is a huge cistern that collects rain water, they tell me, though I don’t see how that’s possible based on the hose hook-ups. The house has three toilets and one sink, but they exist without plumbing. Buckets of water (or buckets waiting to be filled with water) are strategically placed near the bathrooms, as are waste paper baskets for the used toilet paper. These rooms are hot and filled with mosquitoes. Two of them have an overhead light. There are also two shower spaces, ditto the lack of running water, ditto the buckets. The water is unfit to drink, of course, so tooth brushing is pretty pasty.

The first time I tried to wash must have been worthy of a viral video. The problem was that my bucket didn’t have a dipper at all so I kept picking up this 20 gallon thing and dumping it on the appropriate body part. I was left with shampoo in the hair, soap in the armpits, filthy feet and no more water. I’ve gotten more skilled, as one would imagine, and usually get it all done in half a bucket. Still it is such an ordeal that the cooling effect of the unheated water doesn’t really happen. I emerge just as sweaty as ever, but I guess it is cleaner sweat than what was there before. I always try to make sure my hands are dry at least when I leave if I have to switch off the light. The whole mechanism outside the shower room door is falling to pieces and I feel like I might get a dose of the 220v current if I’m not careful, but isn’t it nice to have a light? Also that jolt might dry the sweat.

I have the nicest room in the house with an oilcloth floor, bright blue walls and nylon curtains, a door that locks, and louvered windows with screens. No one sleeps with a top sheet, but I do have a fitted sheet on my single-bed mattress. The most wonderful invention of all time, a ceiling fan, whirls away at a fast pace the whole time I’m in the room. There is even an outlet to charge my phone.

I don’t really want to describe the kitchen because I don’t want to paint a picture that is to be pitied, either for me or the family. They like it just fine. It serves its purpose well each day. Let’s just say it is impolite to walk into someone’s house with shoes on. Well, I had to let that one roll off me. No way I’m going near that kitchen floor in bare feet. There aren’t that many chickens running around in it now that I think about it, but the flip-flops still seem like a good idea to me.

MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018
School Days
Maltiti Girls’ International School

Our school is in the center of a village of straw-roofed mud huts with various commercial ventures scattered here and there. These ventures are nothing more than women cooking over an open fire and selling their food to the children for a few cents a bowl. A mosque stands at the edge, near the main road, and Kisuwa (Fred’s adopted daughter) and I enter this world each day at about 7:45 am.

You just can’t imagine the state of the classrooms until you see it. The desks are ancient, falling apart, and the littlest girls, who have no desks, take their stools home each day, carrying them on their heads. The girls have uniforms, but there seems to be a lot of variation. One thing that is strict is that they are not allowed to wear their headcoverings because as there is no standard for that, it wouldn’t be a uniform. All the girls are Muslim except for one or two in each class. They are supposed to wear shoes and socks but they loathe that. The first thing most do when the recess bell rings (or rather ‘clanks’ since it is a tin can that is hit with a spoon) is throw their shoes in the corner and run outside barefoot.

I was told school started at 7:00 am, but don’t worry about what time I actually arrive. Yes, I was as puzzled as you might be at that. Turns out most teachers roll up around 8:00, so that’s what I do with Kisuwa each day after our 15-minute walk from home. The girls dribble in eating their breakfast of noodles and sauce squeezed out of the corner of a baggie. They also eat at 10:00 break time, and 12:00 for a shorter break, often buying drinks from the pot-stirring women who surround the school.

The method of instruction is based on the fact that there is only one text book for each subject and the teacher has it. He reads from it, writes it verbatim on the whiteboard and the girls copy it all in a copy book. That’s it. Sometimes they all read it aloud together, but remember English is not their first language, and most understand very little.

Enter Ms. Sturgis, or “madam” as I am called. Since I was given full responsibility for the class on day 2, I decided they needed a little small group instruction. Thus began the most phenomenal teaching innovation ever seen at Maltiti: Center Time! They were very cautious about moving their chairs into four groups of four; very possessive of what was happening to their chair when I asked them after 15 minutes to move to the next center; and reluctant to do a thing unless I sat right next to them. After three days, it is amazing. Other teachers are coming to see how this is even possible. This week exams start, and they MUST pass to go to the next class in September. I had the regular class teacher, Mohammad (who showed up because I asked him to), be in charge of the review center and he was hesitant but ultimately delighted. He quizzed the girls on English, which is the first test tomorrow.

Below are some pictures that will give you an idea of my days at school……

Kisuwa walks with me to school, always carrying my bag, and today wearing my hat.

We step into the village off the highway.

Outside the school, one building finished

Outside the school, one building not so finished

Local girls not lucky enough to go to school here, selling drinks.

Before entering the class, still wearing her covering

Kindergarten child taking her stool home after a long day

Child peeking in to check out Center Time

Jr. High girls bring water to the cement workers who arrived today.

Outside my window, a real cowboy

Kindergarten classroom without students' stools.

A class in full swing

My class's first Center Time!

Mr. Mohammad taking a break

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2018
Well, That’s Different!

My fellow volunteer and new best friend Lydia and I have a new, useful expression, “Well, that’s different!” It comes in handy. For instance, when we walked into the kitchen this morning and found a goat head and four hoofs on the kitchen counter, honestly, what else could you say? ”Well, that’s different!” (more about that goat later).

When Lydia badly needed a bathroom yesterday morning and asked at the school where the toilet was, the teacher said, “There is none. The girls use the forest.” “None at all?” begged Lydia. “Well, there is something, you have to pay, but white teachers don’t like to use it.” Lydia took a chance. It was horrendous. Four concrete stalls set in the middle of a field with no doors, no roof, and only a hole on the floor, a strip of newspaper for her cleanliness. She came back with a stunned expression, “Well, that was different!”

When our fourth grade girls were beginning their all-important exams, Mohammad handed me the packet and said, “I am going to get breakfast, so you can give the exams.” What?! “Well, that was different.”

We were so excited to have our home stay mother deliver her third baby on Monday night. We even got to visit them at the hospital on Wednesday. Both of us wanted to bring a gift, maybe a bouquet of flowers or a small outfit for the new boy, but unfortunately no one grows flowers here because they aren’t food. And believe me, Babies R Us hasn’t hit Tamale. Yesterday a baby gift did arrive at the house on a motorcycle. It was a gift from a village that Fred and his family support. The driver had a bundle on his lap that seemed to be moving. Turns out it was a black and white goat, feet tied together. He got off the motorcycle, untied the goat and secured it to a tree root. Lydia and I were hoping it was a new pet for the baby. They could grow up together! Sweet. But we knew better, especially when the driver stood up and we saw the three foot long knife blade tied to his handle bars. We decide to leave and go to town.

When we came back, the goat was gone, so at least we had missed the final stage of this baby gift offering. Then we went to visit the other volunteer house. A fire in the backyard had drawn all the children in the neighborhood, and with great excitement they welcomed me to come watch a woman singeing the fur off the ‘baby gift.’ “Well, that was different,” Lydia and I agreed.

Newspaper strips for toilet paper? That’s different! Squeezing noodles out of a baggy and straight into the mouth as a snack? That’s different! Men peeing anywhere at all? Mothers driving three kids to school on a motorcycle all at once? Yep, That’s all different, too.

Tomorrow afternoon I fly back to Accra and spend the night in a hotel near the airport. I’ve heard there will be a working bathroom right there in my room, and there will be a toilet seat, and a working flush, and handles that you turn and warm water falls on your head. Wow, that will be different!

Goats

Newborn

Family on a Motorbike

Goat head

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018
Home Again

Although I am back in Pennsylvania, my heart is in Ghana. I can’t sleep past 4am, and when I wake up, I think I must get ready to walk to school with Kisuwa. I haven’t done much at home these last two days, but I have spent a good deal of time researching my next adventure for the summer of ’19, I keep thinking I need to go back to Maltiti Girls School, back to Fred’s family, and back to a lifestyle that is simple, honest, uncomplicated, and spilling over with gratitude. I would be much more prepared the second time, and I have a real desire to help Fred improve his house so it will be more livable for his family and for future volunteers. Things are so inexpensive in Ghana. I can’t believe it would take much to bring plumbing in, fix a few things and add a coat of paint. Of course I have no idea if that will ever happen. Everyone who knows me knows I am a “now” kind of girl. I don’t plan much in the future, despite my latest google searches.

So for “now” I am happy sitting here, grateful for the friendship of the other volunteers, ten of us from completely different backgrounds and experiences, thrown together happily in the crazy world that waited for us in Tamale: Pernilla and Emelie, well organized and punctual nursing students from Sweden, who, because of those fine qualities, may have had more coping to do than the rest of us; Maria and Karla, happiest, biggest motivators and super smilers now in medical school in Spain; Cody a would-be medical student from Utah who talked his way into volunteering at the hospital, and organized Mormon Studies 101 for everyone; Natalie, the most likely to be named International Ambassador to the world (half American, one quarter Togolese, one quarter Hungarian, grew up in Oman, entering UCLA in Sept. tri-lingual….); and Lydia, lovely Lydia, kindergarten teacher from London, who raised a fortune in one year to help complete the Maltiti Girls School’s latest building project. What a miracle that we were thrown together, and none of us believes it was by chance, to listen and learn and understand just who we are and who we are becoming.

I end this blog by thanking all my friends for reading it, giving feedback and much needed support, and want to let you all know that if you ever get to that “What was I thinking?” stage of your life, call me. I might be able to propel you forward.

Here are some more photos for those of you who asked.

Loved the signs, especially those mixing God’s help with entrepreneurial endeavors.