Second Term is Officially Over

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4/7/09
Hello, and a happy April morning to all my avid readers. It is April once again and you all know that means lots of family birthdays, and therefore lots of family dinners. I am truly sorry that I cannot be there to enjoy them all with you, but make sure to have a Jack and Coke for me to help drown out the noise just a little. I have a few things to write about so let’s get to it.
Last week the form 1s and 2s finished taking their end of term exams on Thursday. I wasn’t scheduled to invigilate any exams so I took the opportunity to mark my own exam. I spent a lot of time marking the theory questions on my exam last week to say the least. Although it has taken me hours and hours, I am nearly finished. To make the marking go as quickly as possible, I decided to mark just one question at a time. I started with the first question and went through all of the exams marking only question number one. This way, I knew exactly what my marking scheme was and could quickly award points without looking at my key. As it stands, I only have one more theory question to mark and then all I have to do is record the marks and calculate final grades, but excel will make that an easy task. Most of the teachers calculate grades by hand even though we have a computer lab they could utilize. Granted, we don’t have a grading program, but using excel works just as well.
On the topic of the computer lab; I’m sure you all remember that earlier this term the computer lab was broken into and one of the computers was stolen. To my complete surprise, the money for a replacement computer was collected from the watchmen by the police and we were able to get a computer. The ICT teacher went to Kumasi and looked at all the different options there were for a replacement. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get a new computer, but we did get a pretty nice, used computer. The computer is a Dell with a Pentium 4 processor and a 40 GB hard drive, which is more than adequate for the schools computer needs. The ICT teacher has been installing all the programs that are on all the other computers and it seems that it is going to work just fine. The school really dodged a bullet when we only lost one computer when the break in occurred, when all of the computers could have easily been stolen or broken. The school has been given a second chance and I think the security of the computer lab is of utmost importance since we obviously can’t rely on the watchmen. I have suggested installing iron doors and funding the project through the Peace Corps. Hopefully we are able to make some security improvements before another incident occurs.
On Friday there was a handing over ceremony. With the end of the second term, the form 3 students are basically finished with school. Over the next 2 months the form 3 students will be taking the WASSCE and after that they are finished. The purpose of the handing over ceremony is for the current school prefects to pass the torch to the newly elected school prefects. The ceremony also involved presentations of gifts to the school from the “graduating” students. The entertainment committee presented a DVD player so the students wouldn’t have to rent one to watch movies on video nights. The chaplains presented a pulpit/podium to be used for assemblies and other events. The Student Representative Council (SRC) presented a large message board to be used for all school notices.
On Saturday I attended the funeral of the mother-in-law of one of the teachers. I was with a group of other teachers so I was able to ask a number of questions so I was able to better understand the traditions of funerals in Ghana. People usually go to a funeral in some kind of group or family. I was with a group of teachers from Asare Bediako SHS. There are a number of tents and people are seated underneath them in plastic chairs. One of the most important aspects at a funeral is to greet people. In Ghana, when you are greeting a group of people, you always start from the right and move to the left. There is a DJ playing music and announcing each group as they come to greet the bereaving family. From there, you usually follow someone to receive a refreshment of minerals (pop) or beer. The beer of choice by most Ghanaians is Guinness Foreign Extra. This is not your typical Guinness. It is brewed in Ghana and has 7.5% alcohol content. I’m not a fan of dark beer in the first place, but when in Rome… Funerals are public events held out in the open and people come from far and wide to attend them. I personally had never met the mother-in-law of my fellow teacher, and if it were in America I definitely would not have gone to her funeral. In Ghana on the other hand, if you can make any sort of connection to the person it is expected that you will go, and we all know the rule of 6 degrees of separation so everyone goes to funerals in Ghana. The large number of people in attendance can lead to a problem with the refreshments and “funeral crashers.” As a result, someone is put in charge of refreshments to make sure people have a valid connection to the deceased or the family so it isn’t just a free-for-all. It is also customary that you give a donation to the family of the deceased to help cover the costs of the funeral since there definitely isn’t any life insurance to cover the bill.
Yesterday we had the end of term staff meeting. At this point I am able to sit through the staff meeting with no irritation at all. I have come to expect issues to be discussed in a cyclical manner with the same things being said over and over again before a solution is finally met. The two topics that were discussed the most were the headmaster’s retirement and the WASSCE. My main contribution to the meeting was to inform the teachers and staff, that I would like to start planning a project to build either a classroom block or hostel, and that I would like to receive their opinions and ideas. I got the general feeling that most people believe the school is in need of a hostel most at this point in time.
A bunch of the teachers decided to go in together and buy a cow to have it slaughtered. I joined in mostly because I was just interested to see how something like this is done in Ghana. I planned on watching the slaughtering, but unfortunately we were in the middle of the staff meeting so I wasn’t able to see it. Haruna, my counterpart, had bartered a price for a given cow a few days prior and they brought the cow to the football field to have it slaughtered. There was a little drama, because they brought a different cow than the one that had been bartered for, but we went on with it anyway. After the meeting all the teachers involved went to the football field to find that the cow had been skinned and cut into smaller pieces and the meat was laid out on palm branches. The cow was then divided into 16 “even” piles. When I say the cow was divided, I mean that every part of the cow was divided including: muscle, bone, skin, stomach, intestines, liver, tongue, hooves, tail, and everything else I couldn’t discern. I admire the fact that they don’t let anything go to waste, but I would have to be REALLY hungry to have to desire to eat a lot of that stuff. The “butchers” were using cutlasses (machetes) and a piece of wood to chop through bones and ribs. There were bone shards and pieces of wood, dirt, and palms all over, not to mention all the flies on the fresh meat. It was extremely crude and probably the most unsanitary thing I’ve ever seen. I guess I’ll just have to make sure I cook everything well-done.
For GH¢ 21 I got a lot of cow. I dashed my skin, stomach, and intestines to some of the teachers. I got a lot of good pieces of meat, but I also got a lot of stuff I have no idea what I am going to do with. What on earth am I going to do with the knee or chunks of spine of a cow? Sure there is meat all around it, but it is also surrounded with tons of connective tissue that isn’t easy to cut and tough to chew to say the least. I got some good ribs, but I’m not sure how I’m going to cook them with just a gas burner. Meat is definitely viewed in a different respect than it is in America. Everything is just chopped into pieces with no attention paid to bone or what part of the muscle you are cutting in Ghana. There is no concept of different cuts of meat. I wish I knew more about how and where different cuts of meat are made on a cow so I could get some nice steaks. I’m really glad I bought the meat for the experience, but I doubt I will go in with the teachers again to buy a cow.
Later.

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Comments

[mandy]

i'm officialy grossed out by your cow-butchering entry. flies on raw cow meat = a sad mandy. nothing new - just the regular april-birthday rush. my dad turns 50 this month!! we're making plans for joey and kelly's reception (8/22) and there are new sonogram pictures of baby cameron on facebook. take care of yourself andrew! :)