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Published: April 17th 2009
4/16/09
Hey everybody. Even though school has been out, I’ve still been pretty busy over the last week and a half. I spent a lot of time marking my end of term exams last week, and I am proud to say that I’ve finally finished marking all the questions. Then I spent a number of hours adding up the scores for each student and recording them into my computer. It is amazing how long it takes to simply record the grades of an exam when there are 235 students. Now that I have all the scores in my computer; all I have to do is calculate the final grades for the term and write them in the terminal report for the school. I think I mentioned this a long time ago, but I’ll mention it again here. As far as final grades go, all schools in Ghana adhere to the policy that the end of term exam makes up 70% of the grade and all other class work and tests makes up 30% of the grade. Personally, I find this extremely harsh. This policy also gives the students very little incentive to participate in class and do the homework because in the end it doesn’t directly effect their very much. When it comes to a subject like math though, the only way to get good at it is to practice it. As a result, when the students don’t do their homework because it’s only a small percentage of their final grade, then they aren’t able to do well on the end of term exams because they haven’t practiced and their grades take a big hit. You might remember that I said that a 35% is passing and that is extremely low for American standards, but it makes a lot more sense when you consider that 70% of the grade comes from one test. Can you imagine how stressed out American students would be if you told them that 70% of their grade was based on their final exams?
Over the weekend I traveled up to Tamale in the Northern Region to visit some friends. Just like back home, April is also a big birthday month for the PCVs here in Ghana, so we had a little birthday bash. I hadn’t been to the Northern Region since back in June when I went on my vision quest so it was nice to go back. The mango season has begun and on my way to Tamale I passed through the Brong Ahafo Region and I saw more mangos than I have ever seen in my life. On the sides of the road there are women selling mangos by the bucket full. Talking to some PCVs that live in the Brong Ahafo Region, they have told me that during mango season they don’t even need to buy mangos because they get dashed so many. Apparently during the height of mango season you can drive through the Brong Ahafo Region and see huge mounds of rotting mangos because they have so many mangos. Unfortunately, I do not have the same mango situation in the Ashanti Region and I’m not sure why, because the climates are practically the same. If I want mangos then I have to go to Obuasi and pay between 5 pesewas and 20 pesewas (equivalent to 5 to 20 cents) per mango depending on the size. The next important thing to mention is that there are two different types of mangos and they are extremely different. There are the local mangos which are about the size of an orange and turn yellow/orange when they are ripe. Then there are the grafted mangos which are the size of papayas and are red/orange/green when they are ripe. The local mangos are VERY stingy and fibrous and a pain in the butt to eat, but they are juicy and taste amazing. It is difficult to eat a local mango without getting it all over your hands and face. I’m still trying to find an effective method to eat the local mango and I’ll keep you updated. The grafted mangos are much more expensive, but they have the same great taste as local mangos without the strings from the pit and they are much larger. The local mangos are the ones you can find by the crate loads in the Brong Ahafo Region. Grafted mangos are much harder to come by but you can find them. I paid GH¢ 2 (equivalent to $2) for 3 grafted mangos in Tamale.
I had forgotten how different the northern part of Ghana is from the southern part. The biggest difference that I noticed this time around was the fact that there aren’t any palm trees in the north. The south is green and covered with bush that has tons of different types of palms all over. The terrain is very flat in the north and the trees are sparser. In the south the climate is very tropical where as the climate in the north is very dry and much like Eastern Washington in the summer. It is still the dry season in the north, but it is green and has been raining for a couple months in the south. I find it odd that the climate and vegetation are so different in the north and the south because there is no distinct separation between the two like a mountain range or a large body of water. I am glad I’m in the hills in the Ashanti Region where I get lots of rain because I don’t like the dust in the north and being surrounded by green reminds me of home. The birthday weekend was a lot of fun and totally worth the 14 hour roundtrip bus ride for 2 nights in Tamale. We played some BP and FC, which I haven’t done since I was in the States so that was fun. If you can’t figure out the abbreviations then ask a college student. Another highlight of the trip was playing the Lonely Island - I’m on a Boat music video on youtube over and over again. It is absolutely hilarious, and if you haven’t seen it then you need to go watch it right now. It is highly likely that some of us will try to take a cruise home after COSing just so we can make our own video to the song. There was also a lot of rocking out to Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry. I know what your thinking, but don’t judge me. I find it amazing the kind of music I like since I’ve been in Ghana. I like almost anything that reminds me of America. I find myself bobbing my head to even the worst hip-hop songs that come on in a tro, where as I’d immediately change the station if the same song came on and I were in America.
Yesterday, I had a meeting with a professor at KNUST to start figuring out some of the logistical details for the STARS conference. I think this is the 3rd or 4th year this professor has worked with the Peace Corps to organize the STARS conference, so he is extremely easy to work with and a huge help. I was expecting that it would take a number of meetings to figure everything out, but thanks to our contacts experience and communicating via e-mail I think we should have all the details worked out in the next few weeks. I think that is all for now, so take care and I’ll write again soon.
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Greg
non-member comment
north Ghana
North had more green hundreds of years ago than it does today. Effects of the Sahara getting bigger