My first week of teaching class

---

10/5/08
It’s time for the weekly update. Just to let you know, this week was pretty busy and it flew by. Last Sunday I was in Kumasi at the KSO so I didn’t have a chance to go to church, but that’s alright because church came to me… Shortly after my tro left Kumasi on my way back to Akrokerri a passenger in the front row stood up and turned around to face the back of the tro. He proceeded to lead the tro in a song that I naturally assumed was religious, but the song was in Twi so I don’t really know. After the song was done he then pulled out a Bible and started reading scripture, still in Twi. Then he broke into a homily of sorts, and he sure did have a lot to say. Luckily I had just downloaded a bunch of music on my laptop while I was at KSO and got headphones from the package that my ipod “fell out of,” so I listened to music. There were some passengers that were hanging on the preachers every word and followed along in their own Bibles. Other passengers paid no attention and carried on conversations like nothing was going on. There were even a couple passengers that found the mock church service comical and laughed out loud. I just minded my business rocking out and lip syncing to my country music. The guy stood up and preached the entire hour long tro ride to my stop at Akrokerri, and I’m sure he kept it up until the end of the line in Obuasi.
On Monday after school I got my new fridge. I used my rainy day cash from the safe in Accra pay for the fridge so I still have plenty of money to buy food and stuff. My new fridge is awesome. Obviously, it’s not actually new, but it is in great condition. It is much newer than my old fridge, and I’m confident this one is going to work out much better.
I bet none of you knew this, but Tuesday was a Muslim holiday to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan. As a result, there was no school on Tuesday. Although I’m in the south where Christianity is the dominating religion, there is still a prevalent Muslim community in Akrokerri. I can’t believe how little I know about Islam. One of the teachers I hang out with a lot is Muslim so I am learning about some of their customs and beliefs.
I taught my first week of real classes. I'm teaching the form 2 core math until the form 1s get here. There are 4 form 2 classes and I meet each of them 3 times a week. The periods last 80 minutes but they go by pretty quickly some how. Since I teach the same lesson plan to each class and only have to make 3 lesson plans per week, things aren't too busy, yet. Once the form 1s get here I'll have a lot more work to do. I'll meet with the form 1 classes 5 times per week so I'll be a lot busier.
Compared to the average American diet, I am eating a lot less protein than I usually do. Most male PCVs loose weight while in Ghana as a result of loss in muscle mass. To try and prevent this I’ve been running 6 days a week as well as doing the leg crank, abs, and lots of push ups. This week I got a little bit extra protein in my diet when I found that the oats I bought came with a bonus of a few bugs. Most of the bugs floated to the top when I made my oatmeal, so I just spooned them out. I did some bug hunting when I waited for the oatmeal to cool down. I’m sure I missed a lot, but I just didn’t look and tried not to chew too much. If you add enough sugar you can barely even taste the bugs. Granted, oats are really cheap and I could have bought a new bag, but I could use the extra protein and I’d feel bad to waste foods when there are people all around me that don’t get enough to eat on a daily basis.
I mentioned earlier that the leaves were changing color and falling off some of the trees. It took about one week for all the trees to loose all of their leaves. The very next week, all of the trees were full with brand new leaves. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. When I told some of the teachers that the leaves don’t come back until April or May where I’m from, they thought that was really strange. All Ghana has is a rainy and a dry season, but as far as plants go, I don’t understand the season at all. There seems to be no difference in the weather to prompt the trees to loose all of their leaves and grow new ones within a week. At the same time, there is a crop of corn coming up at the school. The four distinct seasons that we have in the Northwest are much simpler to understand as far as I’m concerned.
Whenever the power is on, which is most of the time, I’ve been listening to music a lot. It really makes the time go by much quicker than without it. By the way, the new Metallic album, Death Magnetic, is awesome. If you’re a Metallica fan I would highly suggest getting it. I’ve discovered that music is my new comfort from home and unlike chocolate, music doesn’t run out after you listen to it. By all means, I would still love to receive packages with chocolate, but itunes gift certificates would also be much appreciated. In addition, I learned this the hard way by getting my ipod stolen in the mail, but if you are sending a package with anything that seems remotely valuable in it, then be extremely vague on the customs declaration form. I’m sure my ipod got jacked because the customs form said there was an ipod inside right on the front of the package. For example, for an ipod I’d write something like “apple player” or “mac device.” Just be as vague as possible. Simply writing “food” is descriptive enough for chocolate or any other snacks. Try not to give anyone a good reason to steal my goodies.

---

Comments

[mandy]

hey andrew! good update - i know little about islam as well, so it would be interesting to know someone with that background. also - thanks for the tips about mailing you stuff, that's good to know. good luck with school, and keep updating! :)