An Arson and a STARS Crisis Averted

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5/17/09
It has been a while since the last time I wrote and there have been a few events I need to tell you about. First off, we finally had our staff meeting to open the term. The meeting wasn’t very successful for a couple reasons though. For one thing, there were only 10 teachers in attendance out of the 25 or so that we have. The other reason is that the meeting had to be cut short because of an emergency at a house that some of the teachers live. A boy that used to be a student at ABSEC and who is the son of one of the teachers lit his father’s house on fire. There is a long background story that goes along with the boy and I’ll get to that in a second. The father, along with two other teachers all rented rooms in the same compound house. During the staff meeting one of the teachers received a call informing him that he boy had lit the house on fire. The nearest fire department is in Obuasi and there response time is poor so neighbors attempted to save as many possessions as possible while trying to put the fire out with buckets of water. An advantage of Ghanaian buildings is that they are built with sand/cement blocks so the walls and floor don’t burn and slow the fire from spreading to other rooms. The ceilings, roof supports, and items in the rooms however, are flammable. When I arrived to the house the fire was out apart from embers in the roof supports. Two of the teachers’ possessions, the father’s included, were able to be save for the most part. The third teacher’s on the other hand, lost most of her things in the fire. The fire department arrived at least 45 minutes after the fire was started and hosed down the rafters to ensure the fire didn’t start up again.
Now here is the background story with the boy. I am using the term boy loosely though, because the person I am talking about is 22 years old man. The father is a teacher at ABSEC, and I believe has been kicked out of one high school in Obuasi already. The boy came to ABSEC toward the end of the first term and joined a form 2 class. During the second term, the boy had to be punished by the discipline committee for an incident that I do not know about. Soon after, the boy threw stones on the roof of the headmaster’s bungalow, which is my house too, in the middle of the night. I can tell you that when large rocks are thrown onto a tin roof in the middle of the night, it is not a pleasant experience. The boy then proceeded to throw stone onto the roof of the assistant headmaster’s house in the middle of the night and threatened to burn the assistant headmaster’s car. The father obviously has no control over the boy, and the school had had enough. At the end of last term, the boy was put on indefinite suspension from the school. On the issue of the arson of his father’s house, the boy admitted that he did it because his father would not give him GH¢25. There are rumors that the boy has a drug problem and might have a screw or two loose, but I have had little interaction with the boy so I’m not sure. The boy was arrested the day of the fire and I believe he is awaiting trial. I’ll keep you updated as the case progresses.
The next big event to tell you about has to do with the STARS Conference. Last week, I had a meeting at KNUST to continue planning conference. At the meeting the Professor that I am working with informed me that the university has scheduled their graduations for the same week that STARS is scheduled. The only direct conflict is that the library facilities, including the computer lab, will not be available the entire week. One of the main sessions of the conference is an ICT session that we need the computer lab for. Our options were either to move the conference back a week or find a new venue for the session or conference. I quickly got on the phone and called the other PCVs organizing the event to figure out what we wanted to do. The difficulty of moving the dates of the conference is that we have speakers scheduled already. In the meantime, I was able to get price quotes on the lodging and dining for the conference. By the end of the day, we were able to officially change the dates of the STARS Conference to the following week. A potentially major crisis was smoothly averted, but I can’t say that I’m surprised since the Peace Corps has taught me that there are obstacles around every corner.
As far as school goes, technically the school was open last week, but there was little to no teaching going on. With the form 3 students taking the WASSCE, a number of classrooms have become available and the form 1 classes have all been separated so they have their own classrooms. This means that instead of having 2 gigantic classes, I now have 4 extremely large classes and double the periods to teach. My teaching schedule has finally caught up with me and I am not looking forward to teaching 36 periods per week for the next 3 months. One way to look at it is that I am going to be so busy with school that if I keep my head down and work hard then the term will just fly by. Three of my classes have over 70 students in them, but there was probably and average of about 20 students present in each class. With so many absent students, I thought it useless to start covering new material, so instead I went over questions from last term’s exam. Much of the week, the students spent doing general cleaning around the school because they didn’t report during the first week. The students also closed from school around noon everyday because there weren’t any classes being taught. Regardless of how many students are absent this week, I am going to start teaching because that is what I’m here for.
My computer has been on the fritz lately so keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t die on me. Otherwise, I’ll be writing much shorter blog entries much less frequently. My observation is that electronics generally don’t last long in Ghana. All the heat, humidity, and dirt definitely take a big toll. I had a problem with my graphics card and out of no where my laptop screen went fuzzy and I couldn’t see any distinguishable images. I took my laptop to a computer repair store that the ICT teacher recommended to me in Kumasi. They fixed the problem but their service fee was GH¢50, which is a lot of money for a PCV that lives on less than GH¢7 per day. Their service came with a 30 warranty though, which is unheard of in Ghana so I guess it was worth the money. The only problem is that if I open certain programs, then the screen goes blurry so I don’t know how long the fix is going to last.
Now, I have to go write my lesson plans so I’ll write again soon. Later.

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