Advertisement
Published: February 17th 2009
2/10/09
Hey peoples, how’s it going? I just realized as I typed the date that I have been in Ghana for 8 months today. It seems like just yesterday I was stepping off the plane for the first time in Ghana. It also seems like I’ve been here forever at times though. Now that I’m back in the full swing of school, it seems like the weeks are just flying by. I’m finding that I either have absolutely nothing to do or I am extremely busy. There doesn’t seem to be a medium ground for teachers in the Peace Corps. This last week was much better than the previous one and I was even more busy than usual.
Last week I scheduled to be one of the masters on duty. It is the master on duty’s responsibility to make sure the students are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Classes don’t start until 7:45 am, but the students are supposed to come to school early to clean up the campus. This means that they sweep up all the fallen leaves and trash thrown on the ground from the previous day. The students also have morning assembly everyday before classes, which usually starts around 7:30 am. Personally, I think it is a little ridiculous for the students to have to come to school an hour early to clean up, but they do a pretty good job about it so I didn’t really have to do too much. I did make students that arrived late to school pick up rubbish before they could go to class though.
Most of the time the school is pretty lax about students being in class when they are supposed to be, so the students weren’t prepared for me to question why they were out of class. On Monday there were many students walking around outside of class. The administration building is right next to the food sellers so I sat outside the staff room to stop all to students going to the food sellers during class. The most common response I got was that the students were going to buy sachet water, and they were shocked when I told them that they can buy it during break and to go back to class. Some students would send form 1s to buy water for them and a few even tried to have primary school kids go buy water for them. I would either take the money or the water then tell the messenger to relay that they could get it during break. You are probably thinking that I’m a real hard ass for not letting students get water during class, but it was unbelievable how many students were out of class. The students just want to get out and walk around and they think that buy water is a good enough excuse, but it isn’t for me. It got to the point that I was making students kneel for being out of class so much.
I got a number of excuses that the students thought justified them being out of class, but very rarely did I agree with them. Students would want to go back to the dorms to get a book, a notebook, or a calculator that they had forgotten, but I explained that it was their fault for forgetting it and that they could get the item during break. Inter-school athletics is coming up so many of the students have been training before school. Being someone that played sports in high school and college, I understand about missing school for sports. It is one thing to miss school to compete in sports, but it is another thing to miss school training. There is no reason students should miss class because of practice. Either have the training earlier or do it after school. But the sports master is also to blame for this so I didn’t hold the students completely accountable. The other problem is that all of the other teachers think training is a perfectly good excuse to miss 2 hours of school.
The last thing that I tried to enforce was students returning to class on-time after break ends. There are a couple problems that make the students late to class after break. First of all, the school doesn’t have any sort of bell system so the students don’t know when break is over unless they have a watch that actually works. Secondly, there is no buffer between when break end and the next period starts. The first break ends at 10:55 am and the next period starts at 10:55 am. If a student leaves the dinning hall or the food sellers area at 10:55 am then they will obviously be late for their next class, and as a result you are lucky if you can start class by 11:05 am. Thirdly, the other masters don’t hold the students accountable for getting back to class on time. So I had to herd the students away from the food sellers to get them to go back to class at the end of break.
As the week progressed it was amazing how much things changed. For one thing, many of the other teachers and even the headmaster caught on after seeing me actually enforce the rules. One morning the headmaster was disciplining every student that arrived to school late, and it was the first time I’ve ever seen him do that. The other thing is that the students realized that I wasn’t going to let them wander around so most of them remained in the classrooms when they were supposed to be there. By the end of the week I didn’t even need to say anything to get the students to return to class after break. My mere presence at the food sellers told them that break was over and it was time to get back to class. Being at school all day on patrol for the week on top of teaching was very exhausting. I’m curious to see how things go in the weeks to come.
On Saturday I travelled to fellow PCV’s site to help him paint a world map. There were a few other PCVs that had come to help out the previous day so most of the sketching was already done when I got there. The map is 7 feet by 12 feet I think and it is on the wall of a building. They were kind enough to leave Europe for me to trace since this was the first world map that I’ve helped with. As most of you know, I am about as artistic as a box of rocks yet I’m also a perfectionist so it was a struggle to sketch all the tiny countries of Europe. After I finished sketching, we started painting the map. The combination of Ghanaian paint brushed, Ghanaian paint, and extremely hot weather made painting much more difficult than I would have imagined. The paint would soon dry out and get so thick that it felt like I was spackling rather than painting. By the end of the day we had painted all of South America and Africa, and had most of North America and Asia complete. We had 6 people working on the map all day and we got a lot done but there is still way to go before it is done.
On Sunday I went to the KSO for a STARS meeting. STARS stands for Students Taking Action Reaching for Success. The STARS Conference is something that was started by PCVs about 4 years ago I think. Every year 30 PCVs bring the best form 2 boy and girl from their SHS to attend this week long leadership conference held at a university in Kumasi. Since I live so close to Kumasi, I am going to help organize STARS. This conference is really big and there is a lot to be done to make sure it runs smoothly. We have to write funding proposals, get sponsors, get speakers, plan the events, organize meals, organize boarding, and a million other things. You will hear a lot more about STARS in the next couple months. There is a group of about 8 PCVs that are planning STARS this year, and it will happen in June. My responsibility is to work with our contact at KNUST, where the conference is held, to make sure everything from dorms to food arranged.
After the meeting a group of us planned on going to the Kumasi Asante Kotoko vs. Accra Hearts of Oak soccer game in Kumasi. Kotoko and Hearts of Oak are the 2 biggest rivals in Ghana’s Premier League. It is like when Manchester United and Chelsea play in the EPL. I hadn’t been to a soccer game yet in Ghana so I was really excited to go to such a big game. We went to the stadium an hour early and to our disappointment, the game was sold out and they had closed the gates. I had heard that Kotoko never sells out so I didn’t think it would be difficult to get tickets. It was crazy how many people were at the stadium. People were climbing over the ticket gates to get into the game. I was pretty bummed out that we could see the game after all the anticipation. There is a good burger joint called Big Daddy’s close to the stadium so we decided to go get some comfort food. We were once again disappointed when we got to Big Daddy’s to find that the grill was broken and there were no burgers. We decided to go to a spot next door to get a beer and try to watch the Kotoko game on tv. Then we found out that they don’t show the games live on tv. We did get to watch some good European soccer on tv though while we had our beers. As we were going to head back to the KSO we thought it would be worth while to stop by Big Daddy’s just to check if the grill had been fixed, and sure enough it had. We enjoyed our double cheese burgers, and the day wasn’t a total let down.
Yesterday I met with our contact at KNUST to introduce myself. This professor has helped organize the STARS conference the past 3 years, and it wouldn’t be possible without him. He is an extremely nice guy and he like to crack jokes. It will be really easy working with him to get things organized. Until we hear back from some of the speakers we would like to come there isn’t too much we can do yet. There was a conflict was the original dates and we had to plan the conference back a week, but that was about all we covered. I walked around KNUST and was amazed how nice the campus is compared to the other schools I’ve seen in Ghana.
This it getting long so I’ll cut off here. A PCV I was talking to gave me the idea of cruising across the Atlantic instead of flying home when I am done with the Peace Corps. I know it is a long way off, but I thought I’d mention it incase any of you would like to join me. My birthday isn’t until April, but if you are thinking about what to get me some good ideas are: chocolate, candy, beef jerky, and propel/crystal light packets. Later.
2/15/09
Hey everyone. Sorry this is such a long entry, but I ran into trouble when I tried to post last week’s entry. I don’t have any classes on Tuesdays so it is usually my day to go into Obuasi to use the internet. When I got to one of the internet cafés I often use, the power was out. I waited around for an hour before deciding to try another place. I went to an internet café I’ve never been to before. I had my blog entry saved on a pen drive so I could just upload to my blog. Unfortunately for me, when I plugged my pen drive into the computer it got a virus and deleted all my files on my pen drive. Luckily, I had another copy saved on my laptop. Using a pen drive in an internet café in Ghana is like having unprotected sex; you never know when you’re going to get a virus.
As far as school goes, last week was extremely disappointing. As I mentioned, I missed school on Monday to attend a meeting at KNUST in Kumasi for the STARS conference. Then on Tuesday I didn’t have any classes and had an unsuccessful trip to Obuasi. On Wednesday I taught my first class without any problem. Then 10 minutes into my second class on Wednesday I was informed that school was closing early to give students an extra hour to get ready for Inter-School Athletics that started on Thursday. There was no school on Thursday and Friday because a number of students went to Inter-School Athletics in Kumasi to either compete or support the athletes. So I taught all of one class last week. I am way behind in the syllabus already from the form 1s arriving to school so late in term 1 and I have no idea how I’m supposed to get through all the material.
The sports master asked me to go to Inter-School Athletics with the school so I jumped at the opportunity to observe the track meet. I was told that we would leave at 6am on Thursday, so we left right on time at 7:45am. One reason we were late was there was typical miscommunication between the headmaster and the sports master. The sports master had a printed roster of 40 students to compete in the track meet with all of their events, but one of the other teachers apparently told the headmaster that there were only 24 students competing, so the headmaster said 40 was too many and it took some persuading to let all the students go. The ride to Kumasi was very similar to the ride I took last term to go to the regional qualifying soccer tournament. This time the benz-bus wasn’t as full as for soccer, but the students were just as loud. The students sang the entire hour long ride to Kumasi while banging pieces of wood and metal together. We arrived at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi just in time for registration of the first events of the day. The Kumasi Sports Stadium was recently refurbished for the Africa Cup of Nations that was held in Ghana last year. This is the same stadium that I tried to watch Kotoko versus Hearts of Oak the previous Sunday. I was amazed at how nice the stadium is. It is a world class soccer stadium that can hold 45,000 people. I definitely plan on getting tickets to a Black Stars game in Kumasi when they play World Cup qualifying games later this year.
All the senior high schools in the Ashanti Region are randomly divided into 4 zones. Each zone has a 2-day track meet. The top 5 schools for boys and girls from each zone qualify for super-zonals in 2 weeks. Unlike track in America, super-zonal is a team event and not an individual event. If your school qualifies for super-zonal then all the athletes at that school get to compete in super-zonal. For example, if an athlete wins his event but his school sucks, then he doesn’t get to compete at super-zonal. If a bad athlete goes to a good school though, then that athletes will get to compete again at super-zonal. This didn’t make any sense to me, but it was explained to me that super-zonal is an event to make money and fill the stadium. If an individual athlete is good enough then he or she will be invited to the Regional team to compete at a National track meet.
My school was in zone 2 and there were 27 schools at the track meet. Thursday was mostly elimination heats for the running events. There were so many athletes and so many heats for each event that I was extremely impressed with the efficiency in which the meet was run. To make the field events go quickly, the judges set minimum marks that must be attained before they would even measure a throw or jump. As for the performances, there were athletes at both extremes. Some of the race times were extremely impressive, but I’m not sure why many of the students even showed up to compete. One thing I realized was that even though this was a senior high school track meet, many of the athletes are in their 20s so it is almost like watching a college track meet in America. It was painfully obvious that many of the athletes had never trained for the events. In particular, I thought the field events were subpar because none of the athletes knew the correct techniques to perform the event. Most of the high jumpers tried jumping over feet first instead of going over backwards. For the triple and long jump the athletes just got in a long line and started running from totally random positions so they never hit the board in stride. The vast majority of athletes threw the discus without spinning. Just like when we had inter-house athletics at ABSEC, there were a number of runners that “collapsed” on the track and were stretchered off by “red cross” students.
My school didn’t do very well and needless to say, did not qualify to compete at super-zonal. ABSEC didn’t have very many runners competing on Friday because most of the races were just the finals of the heats ran on Thursday. In the end, our boys ended up with 0 points which means we didn’t have anyone finish in the top 8 of any events. The girls ended up with 5 points. For each event, first place scores 9 points, second place scores 8 points, third place scores 7 points, etc… The winning boy’s school had 114 points and the winning girl’s school had 95 points. There were 2 schools that scored fewer points than ABSEC though so I guess it could have been worse. The students asked me if I would help them train next year so hopefully we will be a little more competitive. But I don’t think they will be too keen on the idea of training after school because many students think training is good excuse to miss class.
One of the coolest parts of the track meet was watching the supporters from the different school. Some of the large Kumasi school rented Metro buses to take students to the track meet. Since all schools have uniforms, all the groups of students from different school were clearly distinguishable. Ghanaians love to sing to cheer for their schools and teams so the stadium was full of noise. There were groups of hundreds of students from schools, but apparently the entire stadium will be full for super-zonal.
This weekend there was a funeral for the mother of a big Ghanaian politician in Akrokerri. There were more nice cars in Akrokerri than I have ever seen in one place in Ghana. There was a rumor that the President might even make an appearance, but he didn’t show up. There were a ton of people at Church on Sunday too as the funeral continued and Mass lasted over 4 hours as a result.
The dry season is definitely over in Akrokerri. In the last week we have four or five huge rain storms roll through. Akrokerri is in the hills though so we get more rain than many places in Ghana. I’m sure that the North is still a dust bowl and they won’t get rain for a month or two. On Friday while I was in Kumasi there was a big rain storm in Akrokerri but there wasn’t a drop of rain at the track meet. I heard that the harmattan was short this year and only lasted a couple weeks so the cold weather is behind us. See ya.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.222s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1858s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mandy
non-member comment
love the idea of cruising back to the states! that would be june, 2010 - correct? let's chat about it - that would be amazing. :)