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Published: June 27th 2008
We began teaching at a school yesterday. I am teaching 3rd grade English and Lindsey is teaching 2nd. The school is roughly a thirty minute walk from the house and it is called Christ is King. Religion is huge here. The school has open classrooms with only a blackboard separating them. In my class of 24, none of the children have textbooks. The books that I am teaching from are from 2001 and 1984! It is like a completely different world... There are two other volunteers at the school right now. One is from Australia and one is from England. They had told us about caning earlier in the week. They said that a couple of the teachers would beat the children with a cane/stick as punishment or if they missed a question. At one point in time they had informed the headmistress that this bothered them. She was not aware that the children were being hit when they missed a question, so she stopped it. Yesterday at the end of the day, two of the students were brought to the front of the school. They had been skipping school and gambling. As punishment, they were hit six times each. I couldn't watch it. I teared up and I had to walk away... The child's mother had turned him in and asked for this punishment. One of the teachers saw me crying and apologized. The headmistress and another teacher talked with us about it after school had been let out. I have not right to ask them to change anything. That is not why I am here. I think it was the strength behind the lashes that affected me. I am used to children being spanked, but it was just rough to watch. Plus, the children were publicly embarrassed. They told us that it will only happen at the school when children have done something wrong. Still, it is just something I do no think that I can ever get used to.
At home are our African parents (Chas and Joyce), our sisters (Nikki (9), Comfort (16), and Mimi (20)), our cousin (Derek), and grandmother. The majority of the cooking is done outside on an open charcoal pit-ish thing. Ma thinks we do not like her cooking because we do not eat much. The food is very spicy and I had to let her know that I do not get along with spicy food. So she has started to cook our food with less pepper and no onion, as we also asked. But she still gives us HUGE portions and says, "African portions. Finish it all". We never can though. The bread is great. It is sweet and we have it every morning with breakfast. I had fresh avocado for the first time in my life and it was like a piece of Heaven (Mom, be jealous). We eat alot of fish, boiled eggs, rice, and oatmeal. We asked for fruit the other day and when we came home from school there were thirteen bananas in our room. 😊 Our family does not let us do any housework or cleaning. Every time we asked to help wash the dishes or sweep, they laugh. Also, at school when we move to another room or outside, the children carry our chairs. If we are ever carrying anything they take it form our hands and carry it for us.
So what about showers and toilets? The toilet is a normal toilet but it does not flush. We flush it with water from a bucket. The toilet paper goes in a trashcan. I am getting used to it. The shower is a concrete room. We scoop water from a bucket and pour it on ourselves. Lindsey and I choose to use cold water, but Ma and some of the others heat their water. The cold water is refreshing though. We live close to the beach. Actually we will be going there on Sunday. While we are there we are going to pull the fish nets in. Tomorrow we are going to a funeral of someone who went to school with Ma. She told us to bring our cameras because there will be lots of dancing and music. Yesterday we went to a dancing and music competition at one of the local schools. It was amazing.
We are four hours ahead of Georgia time. The Ghanian cedi is equal to one US dollar. But, things are much more expensive at home. We bought three cokes the other day for an equivalent of $1.20. Over all, things are good. It is different from things at home, but most places are. I am wearing alot more dresses and skirts and Lindsey is getting tons of marriage proposals from random men around town. Our family is very nice and the kids at the school are great. That is all I have for now!
---Emily
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brittany
non-member comment
perspective is everything
i love that you guys are taking the opportunity to see more than our sheltered american world. take it all in. let it teach you. learn and grow from it. and come back and teach us! i'm praying for you guys! love your cuz (glad i'm not the only one throwing toilet paper in trash cans and flushing with buckets of water!!)