Something to think about

Today's been busy. Despite having no school today I worked until
3pm, first on making the exam schedule and then finishing typing
the exams (35 or so) which I've been chipping away at for the last
week. It was quite satisfactory to finish, even if it did then take
over an hour to print just the original copies - not because the
printer was slow, it's a very good printer, but because of the
computer. Hopefully while I'm gone to Lake Volta/Boti Falls for
the weekend the copies will actually get made.

Anyway. I'm writing with a request to all those blog readers out
there. I know I've complained a lot about the state of the school,
the quality of teaching, etc. But an Italian organization, RC,
with a Catholic affiliation, has built a new primary school for us
that is to open next term. There are, gasp, seperate classrooms,
and it will be a lot easier to teach and keep classes orderly. Plus
the principle will stop teaching and there will be a push to hire
only qualified teachers, and lesson plans will be checked and tests
will have to go on file in the office. The end of this school year
has been a bit frustrating knowing it will be so much better after
I leave and there's little to do about the situation now.

But there are two places where money is needed. One is the library
in the new school. CBW already has a community library that is staffed
by the most wonderful young woman and kids love to go read in there.
But RC built the school with a large room for a library and CBW filling
it is conditional for the school to open. The UN will furnish it
but I'm asking for cash donations to buy books. Shipping gets too
expensive and we want books that are culturally and materially
appropriate. Any donation will help. All of this, the push for the
new building, the library, the ridiculous school ode, the qualified
teachers, is in an effort to get CBW recognized by the Ghana board
of education.

The other place where donations are needed is the scholarship fund,
which is newly started. This will be the first year of giving
scholarships, previously volunteers just sponsored kids but there
was no accountability and the kids could go a year and then there
was no way to renew. Now the fund will select kids whose parents
applied on the basis of attendence, grades, and disciplinary record,
with less emphasis on the latter in the younger ages. For the three
terms CBW charges a total of about US $4, but uniforms are becoming
mandatory so the scholarship will be subsidizing those. With the
exchange rate I can get at a bank, $6 will due to give a scholarship
to one kid for a year of education.

So, any amount for books or scholarships would be wonderful. As I'm
leaving in two weeks, I ask that if you want to donate, you a) send
me an email pledging the amount and specifying what for at traizen1
@ swarthmore.edu and b) send a check to my home address (I can email
it to you if you don't know it, just ask in the initial email) made
out to me. I'll take the money out of my account now and when I get
home deposit the checks. The deadline on this is next Tuesday
midnight your time, so Wednesday I can get the money out in Accra.

The Lord is my Shepherd Frozen Foods

That's a sign that you can see twice on the way from camp to Kokrobite,
clearly a chain of some sort. Other funny signs I saw this weekend,
or recently:
-"Original I see you" on the roof of a buildign selling timber
-"I saw doctor" on a shack right next door - eye doctor?
-"Mobile Water Industries" with a picture of a mobile phone
-"Expensive Contents" on the side of a truck
-"Highly Inflamable: no smoking" on the back of a gas truck

So, some random different stories and thoughts and such.

Moses, the soldier who picked us up at the airport, came to camp I
believe last Thursday (the 16th or so) in full uniform. Walking
around camp he got quite a few stares, of course, because the Liberians
saw a Ghanaian military uniform and were either scared or curious
or both. He complained that he was a nice guy, etc and the staring
seemed to bother him. He came back today and we ahd a nice chat
and a soda and he invited us to dinner for some real Ghanaian food.
He wasn't in uniform and he got confused a few times for a Liberian
so he's planning to wear it if he comes back to camp again. When
we went up to the top of camp to see Moses off today we encountered a
crowd in the trotro area. It's called the airport because every time
people are "repatriated" as they call it ehre (accepted by US, Canada,
etc for resettlement) they all depart from that place to a big crowd
of (jealous but happy) see-ers off.

I was going to type up some of my journal from this Thursday, the
day after I wrote that last entry. I was quite homesick that day,
but the next day I had a good day at school and was enjoying myself
so I wanted to show the positive contrast. But now I'm too lazy to
do that after spending two hours online here and at the other place
at the top of camp attempting to listen to the Red Sox game. First
I had to retrieve my password, then install a pluging several times
on several computers...no go. I can however watch on gameday and be
happy about how well we're doing and how many players we'll have on
the allstar team.

Friday night Alex, who's been going out at night with some LIberian
friends, took me out as well. Friday night on the town, refugee camp
style. Walking up camp around 10 it was interesting to see what
people were doing. Lots of clubs playing hip hop (American and African)
and people gathered around tiny TVs to watch old bad movies or play
video games. I even heard a bollywood song. Also about 40% of the
music they play is that god awful whiney song "Lonely" which is somehow
Ghana/Buduburum's biggest hit this summer just to torture me. Between
that and Amazing Grace pumped at 5am from the loudspeakers.... Anyway,
it was interesting to talk to these guys at night in a social setting.
Lots of playing pool, etc. The particular group we were with doesn't
immediately propose marriage, though they still hit on the white girls
a bit more than I'd prefer. I was able to talk to a few of the guys
about how they need to go out, even though some have no job, just to
maintain some sort of sanity and spend time with friends. I heard a
phrase along the lines of "This is real" over and over again. One guy
kept going on and on about how perfect America is with freedom of speech
yadayada...true that the US is far better than Liberia for that sort of
thing, but I kpet tellinghim it isn't perfect. He was going on as if
the streets were paved with gold...

Saturday, yesterday, was Beach Day for CBW. This was a fiasco from
before it even happened, when the international volunteers found out
it was mandatory and even if the locla volunteers didn't attend the
25,000 cedi charge would be deducted from their 150,000 monthly stipend.
Eventually after a ridiculous meeting in which Semeh tried to call
it a tax for the good of the organization and it seemed like they
were trying tomake money off of it they made it not mandatory. So
we showed up at 7am for the trotros that were to take us to Kokrobite
and of course they weren't there. We all left around 9, not the whole
organization but some of the teachers and various other staff and even
our cook for our hosue with her son. We went to Big Millie's where some
of the internationals were getting rooms for the night and I got a bit
of food, etc, but they kicked the locals off their volleyball court
and back onto the beach. I understood this - the place was booked for
the weekend and you don't want your paying customers disturbed, but then
they tried to kick the LIberians off the stretch of beach that is public
solely because they are Liberian. The owners of the place are Dutch
or something, but they still hadthis xenophobia, and the Ghanaian staff
were talking lots of trash. Of course the beach is clearly public, with
villagers sellign things and leaving their boats there, and the locals
even wander in and out fo the resort. It's too bad they are such
assholes as I really did enjoy the weekend I spent there. Anyway
peopel still seemed to have fun, good spicy rice and frolicking in the
waves like kids and playing football and this game invlving paths
and squares. Waiting for the trotro home I was comparing with one
of the local volunteers the prices here vs. america, but also
the salaries here vs. america. First he was envious fo the salaries
then he said with those prices it must be tough...didn't make the
connection that they're both higher so it works out.

Despite the rudeness, it's made for a relaxing weekend with lots
of reading and napping.

I'm almost out of time but quickly I wanted to note that I've been
thinking about the education here, how bad it is compared to the
education systems at home that I"ve spent my whole life complaining
about. I still will go on thinking it can be better at home, but
in America we're lucky to have what we do and it's good to have
gotten this perspective on things.

Many things....

Quite a few things to ramble on about today.

A few funny notes from Cape Coast that I forgot before. The canopy walk was built by a couple of rock climbing canadians or something like that with bows and arrows to get the ropes up around the trees. They told us because it's rainy season to be careful not to shake the trees because snakes might fall from the water-filled canopies. Also, in the town of Cape Coast Saturday afternoon, with Ghana playing S. Africa in the world cup qualifiers, a huge chear went up that we could hear reverberating throughout the town when Ghana scored. Kind of cool.

Yay, looks like my Sox have gone on quite the winning streak. Sort of. All green on the redsox.com week schedule. This keyboard sucks though. Also the screen is way too magnified, it's quite annoying.

Monday was World Refugee Day and so all our classes and work were shut down for the camp holiday. We got notice fo this Friday and then Monday morning we found out that Semeh Roberts, the CBW director, was to speak at the ceremony. We went to part of it, but it was quite hard to understand everyone with the microphones misbehaving and all of that. There was some sort of rehearsed coming together of the elders of the 16 Liberian tribes to make peace which was the most chaotic thing I've ever seen, a typical African ceremony I joked to someone.

That afternoon I decided to do my own laundry, or washing as they call it here. I was doing it just inside the screen door of the kitchen and of course with all those kids always staring into the house, two girls started making fun of me for doing it wrong. They invited themselves in to show me - except, despite my attempts to explain the concept of teaching and lettign the student practice, they'd keep snatching each item of clothing from me to do it themselves. I explained that we do our washing in machines and push a button and they said that's lazy. Funny, I always thought laundry was a pain in the ass, but it's true - and these girls were so used to scrubbing each item of clothes that they said it was nothing. I bought them each dinner and a soda.

Yesterday one fo the little candy/cookie shops I walked by had cadburry!!!! Here the chocolate is awful, though I have sampled a variety of cookies and do really enjoy the ginger cookies and a certain kind of shortbready-cookie filled with chocolatey-hazlenutty paste. The cadburry expires this month, which is probably why it was there, and it was only twice as much as a local chocolate bar (30 cents for cadburry!) but damn it is good.

Last night was supposed to be the goodbye ceremony for two girls who have been here 4.5 months and are leaving today, one of whom is the pioneer/shaper of the new GVN rep. position to maintain and facilitate the relationship between CBW and the international volunteers. I guess there's been a lot of turmoil and then improvement in the relations over the past three or four months. Anyay, we found out around the time it was to start that the administration (director, treasurer, volunteer coordinator, etc) had taken the CBW car (that's another story of problematic beuraucracy witout accountability) itno Accra and it had broken down. So the ceremony never happened, which really angerd both of these girls and rightfully so. There was one today at noon but their energy had gone out of it having done their personal goodbyes and speaches amongst themselves last night. I am writing this as sort of a launching pad into a rant about CBW in general. And my experience here. I mena, I'm hear for six weeks, nothing I do is sustainable in terms of leaving a lasting effect like those two girls have done. I can hopefully positively effect some of my students, teach some kids a little more math than they would have known otherwise, and get them through the schoolyear to next year when the new building and attempt for accredidation by Ghana will raise the standards for teacher hiring. But you really do have to be hear that long because things move so god damned slowly here. It is definately a cultural thing - people late to meetings, late on deadlines, casual about carrying out any sort of plan. And this adjustment is especially hard for me, with my direct, get-to-it approach. Even the saying hi and stopping to talk on the street is a problem for me - I've written about my reasons for not responding to many people, but a lot of the time with kids or women I'll wave but still rush on, maybe calling back "how are you" over my shoulder. Which is normal at home. I'm in such a habit of rushing from one thing to the next, which I will blame paritally on my northeastern, rushed boston upbringing. I like to walk fast, I like to approach tasks directly. In only 6 weeks here I just can't adjust to the "African way" of doing things. It's very foreign to me, so when it comes to getting things done it's so hard to see how little gets accomplished in a period of time. And my god all of the formalities at meetings, the thankyous and opening and closing prayers and all that - I get it, htat's the culture, but it drags on and on. Not the most efficient way to run an organization - at the same time I know that the more efficient way would work even worse here because of the culture we are in, becuase you do have to work with it. I'm not sure how much sense this is making, but I guess I'm trying to convey a sense of frustration about getting things done. I'm not frustrated at the culture, or CBW, becuase that's the way things are here, and I'm not frustrated with myself for not adjusting, because I know I've adjusted quite a bit (and more than I've shown in this little rant here) but there's only so far my habits and customs will go and my training and education and background has done that to me. Were I here months or a year I think I would make the adjustment to fit in, if only because I'd be forced to not to go insane. But in three weeks I'll be in another culture (thast will be quite interesting to compare) and then a month after that, back at school where I have to get things done bang bang bang.

Anyway, CBW. Despite cultural differences, there are certain basic failings within the organization. This car that they allegedly bought to pick up international volunteers, that didn't pick me up, that is often seen wasting fuel money driving around camp because it's a status symbol on camp to be driving a car. And driving it around the ditches of dusty camp puts it in horrible shape. In terms of money, they cut corners on picking us up and dropping us off and even our food (which has gotten miserable lately, but we're going to try and fix it tonight) and meanwhile where is this money going? International volunteers are like 95% of their budget, but we see little to no accounting of how it gets spent. I'm sure most of it is legitimate, but there's stuff like all that show-off fuel when they claim they can't drop us back at the airport. And they've made this beach day manditory saturday for all employees - yet everyone has to pay their own way, 25,000 cedis which is one sixth of most of the local volunteers' monthly salary, regardless of whether they want to go or whether they are going, and with a trip on your own costing half that.

At the same time, with my long list fo gripes about the management of the organization and finances and what's going on in school, I've on and off been totally amazed at what they are doing here. The sanitation programs are incredible and so needed, the aids education, the school that costs somehting like half of what other schools on camp cost. To persevere, to work for so little money at jobs many are overqualified for (clearly that's not most of the teachers, but many administrators have degrees, one worked in a hospital, one has a business degree, etc) serving their own people and tirelessly organizing various projects to improve the life of the camp. It's quite impressive, quite incredible, desperately needed, despite my complaints aboiut the slow pace of thigns they've managed to accomplish quite a bit and I know that many things just are slow here, it's just the way things work.

Another frustration today was in trying to go over the final exam drafts Mr. Johnson made. He drafted the four grades with 20 qurestions, 22, 25, and 30, then tells me there should be 15 or 20 for a 60 point score. Some of the questions were terribley confusing, had more than one right answer, or no correct answer. Given that they've only got an hour to do the test, I'm going ot shorten them all to 20 questions but I've got to rewrite much of it and to make half multiple choice like Johnson wanted but didn't do himself. That he took weeks to do this and then it's all wrong just depresses me so much - this is what the kids have bene getting. And now that I can see what I think is the curriculum for the year (though he left things out I know they've done that I had to add) I know why, for example, the third grade had such trouble with measurements: they hadn't learned multiplication and division and decimals, sequentially earlier in the curriculum for a very, very good reason. Meanwhile I'm suppo\sed to be typing all 50 or so exams for the whole school but the teachers haven't given them to the principle so he can't get them to me.

But life chugs on, I'm starting my little reading/geography class tomorrow and attendence should be good, I've gotten some nice clothes back from the tailor's, I do enjoy the kids, especially those around the house, and it is overall a good experience, just all of these frustrations come out on the blog. The same culture that seems so restrictive to progress within CBW and school is also one that gives much liesure time, cool music and clothes, great food, and though I may walk quickly, the politeness and friendliness is refreshing and nice.

One more complaint, though. This week has been terrible with the loudspeaker that goes on at 4 or 6 am and blasts on about religious stuff so loudly you wake up and can't get back to sleep. I go to bed early, but it's not an uninterupted sleep by any means.

Cape Coast! Kakum!

Quickly, because I have 15 minutes and don't want to pay for more time. I'm
writing from Hans Cottage Botel (not a typo) in Cape Coast, where the
restaurant and some facilities are on stilts above a pond with crocodiles.
Owned by some couple that had this idea, took the risk, and then the
crocodiles moved in. There's also a monkey in a cage that we played with
this morning and he actually tried to grab one girl's fake gold bracelets and
reach into our bags, quite a funny little fellow. More expensive and less
clean than big millie's last weekend, but the shower has running water.

Cape Coast, Kakum, wow. We arrived yesterday and just hung around, had
dinner, and got up early this morning to go to Kakum national park, one of
the protected remants of West Africa's rainforest. We did the canopy walk
high above most treetops, canopy to canopy (net and planks of wood, suspended
on cables attatched to the highest trees), which was great fun for people
like me who don't mind heights at all. Then some of us did the hour hike
through the rainforest. Let's see. At the beginning there were two trees,
similar rlooking but different breeds, growing right next to eachother that
the guide says are called Mr. and Mrs. because the "Mr." is used for pestles
and the "Mrs." for mortar/the large bowl in grinding fufu. Haha, quite
dirty. Another tree which has perfumey sap was the incest tree. We saw a
tree with spikes to protect its soft bark that's used to treat asthma, a
great big tree larger than a few cars at the trunk that doesn't have deep
roots but a huge base, another similar but smaller one with snake like roots
protruding from the ground, a tree that supposedly treats broken bones, one
for ulcers that's also addictive, a vine that will eventually kill its tree
that's poisonous, a tree that makes the ebony black wood used in piano keys,
and a few other useful trees as well as just the fact that I hiked through
the rainforest, ran over a few patches of ants and got bitten by them, etc.
Also talked with some peace corps volunteers taking a break from their
service in Mauritania.

Then we went to the Cape Coast Castle where we saw the slave dungeons and
governor's quarters and all of that. Quite intense. The tour guide was a
bit vivid at times which, this is kind of hard to describe, but seemed
disrespectful almost, just in acting out the way a slave would walk or
whatever. The gate where they used to ship slaves out of, called the gate of
no return, now leads to local fishing. We walked around but couldn't really
find a good market and we had dinner right by the castle overlooking the
ocean with foam and huge crashing waves and a cool, nearly cold breeze. The
service sucked but I tried ground nut soup and now I've had that and fufu
(just a taste, it's not good at all, gelatonous) and the components of red-
red though not together. It felt like a really busy day, and certainly very
cool things to see. Tomorrow we'll do Elmina before heading back to camp.

Travelling with us are an English girl (dead ringer for Kiera Knightly) and
an Irish girl who volunteer down the road in Kosoa and their host family is a
bit protective. They'll probably travel with us often. Very nice girls.

I've looked a bit at the Uganda guide book and I doubt I can afford the
liscence necessary to trek where the gorillas are, but I think I might white
water raft the mouth of the nile and there's tons of other wildlife to see.
Though if it's like here you can only see it at night or absurdly early in
the morning. We'll see.

Time to sign off, I've been online quite a long time here.

Emmanuel's story, and bits and pieces

Here I am at the supposedly fastest cafe in Accra that has signs advertising that it's the largest IT center in Africa or West Africa or something like that - Busy Internet. But I think the place in Osu, Tower, might have been faster.

Anyway, I had a good day at the Cultural Center, and really I now shouldn't buy anything else while I'm in Ghana, but yeah right. I got the expensive (well, us$10 or so) thingas that I wanted out of the way, so now I might just pick and choose with fabric and beads. There's one thing at the Cultural Center I wish I'd gotten, oh well...I shouldn't ever go back! It's a fun, busy place, and in the rain they were desperate for customers so they'd follow us around. Defiantely a cultural experience. I traded my ONE bracelet as part of one purchase because I could get more value out of it than it was worhth, and I have another at home.

I just had a delicious salad of actual lettuce but now my stomach feels a bit funky. Also last night I had my first go at the "Spicy Chicken Lady" as the volunteers call her - she has all sorts of meats and the spiciest sauce ever which makes your whole face burn around your mouth. So could be from that too.

My airport nervousness/dilemma seems to be resolved - apprently they are, in fact, open 24 hours a day (despite closing checkin for afternoon flights at 6 or 7) so I can get a hotel and get a cab at 5 or 4:30.

I know I've been complaining a lot about Mr. Johnson, and school is miserable when it consists of talking to him but great when I'm teaching kids. I don't want to switch, though I could, because I feel like his students really need extra help, but at the same time the real way to be efficacious here in the education department is to pass knowledge, skills, etc on to a teacher and I don't think he is receptive. We'll see. It's not like I could teach without him - despite his unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive yelling at the kids, he does need to sometimes translate from my English to theirs, and he does know how many problems they can do in x amount of time, etc. Plus the whole continuity thing, and when a local teacher isn't around the kids are a bit mroe disruly for volunteers.

The main purpose of this post is to discuss what Emmanuel, the pretty good Environmental Studies teacher, told us Monday night when he came by the house. (Env. Studies is fascinating - human rights, peer pressure, don't push in line - funny curriculum.) You have to understand that the Liberians have been here 14 years, some, though most 8-10 years. The Ghanaian government won't let them work, so there is much poverty and idleness because they can only work on camp. Like I may have said before, amazingly low crime considering. But the Ghanaians still, on the whole, resent the LIberians, and the Liberians tend to blame everything on the Ghanaians even if it may very well be a problem (violent problem, I'm talking about) that comes from people within the camp. And there still are rebels around, who arne't going to admit it because most people in the camp, whichever side they were on originally, lost an unspeakable amount to the rebels.

That's semi-relevant background. Emmanuel told us that he was born in 1979 and in 1994 the war was really bad. His father had been in the army or worked as a policeman or something like that. They had withdrawn to a farm (I had a bit of trouble understanding his accent here) and the rebels came and tied his father up. They said they'd take him somewhere with everyone (I think) but then asked for money, and when the family said they were broke, something like "I'm a police man and it only provided for my kid's food and school," they shot the father. His sister fainted and might have been killed as well. The house was torched. At the time his mother was in the capital city so they never heard from her again. With an Aunt Emmanuel took of for Cote d'Ivoir, his brothers went a different route, and he made it. They were living with a little food from the UN every month and one day in a market he ran into this man who was his uncle, so they moved in with him and his kids. His uncle was growing kasava somewhere but the locals didn't want a refugee farming so they told him not to. They were pretty hungry so he went to harvest it anyway and carryign it back was killed. Emmanuel and his family heard about a man killed in the forrest and when the uncle never returned they knew. The kids went off somewhere and he and his aunt heard Ghana was safe so they foudn someone to pay their way here. He got to Buduburum around June 1995, I think, and they lived in a tent with others for quite some time. Many were dying at the time with poor sewage and dirty water - they didn't buy it then. He taught himself construction and worked to get to school, got a scholarship for two years (it was a lot cheaper then) to a highschool and graduated 2002 or so, top of his class (president, they call it). He just this year got a full ride at some Iowa religious school but three times was rejected by the US embassy fora visa - finally they told him on the third time, after he wasted $200US on the 2nd two tries, that though all his papers were in order they couldn't give a visa, even an I-20, to a refugee. He could get one if he went to Liberia but that is too dangerous/expensive and now I think he's lost the scholarship. Just really, really shitty. Volunteers tried to help hima t the embassy, coached him for the interview, etc. It's sept. 11, cause they let his brother in in 2001. He's now the only guy in his family not to have a university education, which has got to feel shitty.

Speaking of buying water, which Bandu told me they didn't do in LIberia, brings me to Bandu. She apparently has 8 kidds with 8 men or something like that. She's a bit of a scammer. But her kids are sweet. Funny what you learn about people as time goes on.

Frustrations about School

It's ridiculous. The kids are in school for 4 45 minute periods
from 2nd to 6th grade, and from 7:30 to 12 or 12:30 from "ABC"
(before K1) through 1st grade. Classes are huge, especially for
younger kids, which makes it impossible for the teacher to taylor
a lesson or help kids who are having trouble. And from the ground
up, lessons are drilled and not explained. The K kids can copy
from the board any letter or sentence or number but some don't
know what the actual letters are. At the level I'm teaching,
teachers just go from thing to thing, with memorization and
drilling and again, no guarantee (or even no good chance) of
comprehension for the majority of kids. I was just so frustrated
today. Mr. Johnson seems to be an especially poor example, but
so many of the teachers have scattered lesson plans, no plan
for the whole year (and if Mr. Johnson is any indication, no
discernable record of what they've done). There's hours-long
exams, even for K-1, mandated by the Ghanaian government, that
CBW is trying to adhere to as well as the curriculum (most teachers
get through half, or random parts, or some get through all of
it over and over but the kids still don't know the stuff, according
to various conversations with other volunteers). CBW is trying
to get Ghana to recognize it as a school, which would give both
credibility and additional funding, so there's all sorts of hoops
to jump through there, some of which are productive (certified
teachers, I think) but some are stupid - like we have to have a
school Ode for Ghana to recognize us. The lyrics are rather
interesting, though, I'll try to copy them down and post them.

Anyway, the problem is so deep-seeded, it's in the teachers, the
class sizes, the disorderly environment (which, thank god, will
improve next year when they move to the new school with actual
seperate classrooms!). I want to do a workshop on long-term
accademic planning. Mr. Johnson is just so unresponsive when I
try to ask him what he's done or advise him to make a list of it.
It doesn't make school very enjoyable, in fact it makes it a bit
miserable, but then there are the moments where I can make the
kids understand something so I feel good. However, me teaching
30 kids here how to do mixed number to improper fraction
conversions is not really going to be much help in the long run.
I have really mixed feelings - the schools just need such an
overhaul, yet the older kids can read and do some math despite
the seemingly impossible younger classes where kids don't know
what 10 is after it's been gone over and over and over.

Anyway, I'll post more tomorrow when I go into Accra - one of
the better teachers came by last night and told us basically the
story of what happened to him in Liberia and how he got here, as
well as his struggles here. I'm just drained from school today
and struggling with Mr. Johsnon about the end-of-the-year test
and the curriculum.

Dichotomes and the beach

I'll be surprised if I spelled "dichotome" correctly without the
aide of dictionary.com, but here goes:

Walking around camp in the places where there's a view of the
landscape beyond is quite striking. There you are, head to the
ground to avoid stepping in a stream of sewage or some thrown-
out piece of food covered in flies, surrounded by people who
could do to wear a bit more deoderant and children with god
knows what on their hands coming up and touching you because
you are white and often because they are attention starved.
And suddenly you look up, past the dilapedated shops selling
everything from bags of water to food to clothes (some probably
donated, others new and more expensive than people here should
be buying with all of the needs around them). And you see above
camp the most gorgeous landscape of rolling hills and green and
interesting trees and all of that. It's especially ironic, or
something like that, near the "Gulf," which is at the bottom
of camp beyond my guest house. The Gulf is absolutely beautiful,
with mountains and trees and green and most days the clouds are
gorgeous, but the Gulf is where the kids are afraid to go
because they could get snatched up to be sex slaves, and where
the woman who does the wash for the other guest house was once
going to the bathroom when a man approached her with a machete.

Anyway. Strange how that is. I really noticed it on the way to
the top of camp Friday as we left for Kokrobite, the beach in
between here and Accra. Friday afternoon was so relaxing, we
checked into Big Milly's Backyard which is a resort of sorts,
except with no toilet paper in the shared, door-less toilets,
and with bucket showers. There was, however, electricity and
our room had a fan, so it was heaven, and at night even with the
fan off it was actually cold due to the sea breeze. The food
was incredible both at Big Milly's and this real italian restaraunt
that was just down the road. Big Milly's made this desert that
was fantastic, just chopped fresh fruit, incredibly flavorful,
and ice cream. And the omlette I had for breakfast...mmm. The
bananas here are so incredibly good, at home I eat a banana and
it's like, ok, got my potassium, but here they are to savor.
Friday night there was drumming and dancing on the beach but last
night it rained, so no live reggae. THe downsides were the
sunburn I got only on the back of my body as I lay on my stomach
on the beach reading, and the bug bites due to no mosquito net,
despite the fact that I was slathered in deet. But oh, the coast
line was beautiful, with carved wooden boats and palm trees, and
on the way back in trotros I noticed how gorgeous the whole coast
is with all these red and brown roofed houses. The Ghanaian
shops in that area were shacks like in the camp, just more spaced
out. The only downside was when one of the volunteers, who is
leaving Tuesday and was going to go right into Accra to stay, was
mugged last night. He went and talked to the village chief and
the head of Big Milly's and apparently there's some guy you can
pay to get your stuff back - sounds like they do this often.

My god the bugs in here just got awful, I wish I had deet in my
back pocket right about now. Really bad, all over me and the
computer and my neighbors, I want to just read sox articles but
eww.

Something funny I've noticed at these internet cafes is that all
the locals around me are always chatting up some girl on yahoo im
or on one of htose match sites - the marriage proposals and the
internet surfing fit togethe in this desperation to finda girl to
get them out of here, I think.

OK, the bugs are awful.

School and "Friends"

My teacher,Mr. Johnson, is a pretty much one of those teachers who dislikes
children, gets angry at them too easily for getting wrong answers,and doesn't
try to explain the processes. Lazy, angry, etc. He also gave me a note
after school yesterday asking for 200,000 cedis - more than a month's salary
for them - to buy food. That much would feed the whole camp for a day or
two, and one man for years. Also, they aren't supposed to ask their teaching
partners for money. Today he brought it up (I was planning to just ignore
it) so I told him he's not supposed to ask me for money and he went on about
how he has a problem, blah, blah, arguing with me. I told him no and if he
persisted I'd have to talk to the principal. THis sounds harsh, but
bullshit. The man is lucky here. He has a job, which most men, especially
as old as him, don't. He has a monthly salary. I doubt he has a family to
support. He's the most disorganized teacher ever, perhpas because he think's
I'll do the work, but he goes from class to class and has to search for his
notes in his 6 notebooks and he doesn't even know his schedule months into
the term. And having a conversation with him is like talking to a kid with
acute ADD, he skips from one thing to the next andit's so hard to get
straight answers out of him.

But besides that, school was good yesterday. The third grade is frustrating
because I am trying to teach cm-m conversions to kids who apparently haven't
had multiplication and it also looks like they don't know decimals and place
values. But Thursday and Friday, with a longer break and later school day,
seem to go faster because during the break I can have lunch or go online
(like now). The rest of yesterday was wonderful, I finally got into the
swing of things and stopped Mr. Johnson from grilling them with problems to
show them the reasoning behind the methods they were using. Here
I seemed to make great progress both with the kids' understanding
and Mr. Johnson, who saw that when you bother to explain the
math to them they will actually get it and then do the problems
correctly, and even get excited about it.

Last night was the departure ceremony for the two volunteers who
are leaving Tuesday. Every CBW department gives a little goodbye
(even if you didn't work with them!) and then a rep from each
house gives a sort of performance - apparently it's traditional
to usually do a poem or song or something funny in addition to
the sentimental goodbye part. It's held in candle light in the
library and each departing volunteer gets a pair of sandals (they
call them slippers) and a shirt.

I've been havig a lot of discussions lately with the other
volunteers about "friends" here. Both specific kids and people
our age who are really nice. It's so hard to tell if they just
want money. Like Stephen, who followed me around and took me
to church, disappeared after I denied a request for money (to
mail a letter to previous volunteers of all things, frivolous
compared to people who'd want the same amount to feed kids or
help put a kid into school!). There's a girl my age named
Patience whose younger sister is one of the kids who hangs
around the house who has been really nice, just walking around
camp, telling me she'll bring to the house pictures from her
boarding school (high school off camp). Some of the other
volunteers had similar stories, or a woman who'd be really
helpful and nice and say "Oh, I'll come back later and see you."
You just can't tell if they want money because of the constant
requests, but you also feel guilty for doubting someone who may
genuinely be a kind person. It's a difficult call to make.

Trotros, to explain, are large vehicles, vans or small minibusses,
that have seats packed into them, so that thye can hold 25-30
people. They are all different colors and models but they charge
a fixed rate to go along fixed routes from place to place, for
example camp to Accra is 4000 cedi, approximately $.45. To get
farther away, like Lake Volta and Kumasi (which I probably won't
bother with), you take a bus, and to get around Accra you take a
taxi and get charged 3 times what locals pay, but trotros are
cramped, often slow, mass transportation.

Also, apologies for the format on the blog caused by posting
through email. I try to do line breaks but sometimes I don't
have time.

Quick Post

I guess I should have bought more time on the internet here at the top of
camp, but this will have to be a quick post as I've used msot of my hour
because I haven't been online since Sunday (torturous!). The internet place
down by where we live at the bottom of camp hasn't had power all week.

A few anecdotes and notes and such:

Sunday I went to church which was excruciatingly boring. The music was nice
but it was 3 hours long and I had to make an offering which made me very
morally uncomfortable. Luckily I can tell the kids who keep asking me that
msot other Sundays I'll be away. Then we watched a chaotic soccer game on a
too-small field that was an absolute mess (it rained all ngiht and morning
which cooled things off wonderfully but created rampaging rivers of
water/sewer all over camp, and the field is down towards the bottom).

I am now teaching every day at the Primary school, except Wednesdays when the
kids have P.E. day because the school is held in a rented church that needs
the space. I am teaching math with grades 3-6 from 9-2, with a free period
thrown in there to try and talk to my teacher, Mr. Johnson, about tests,
lesson plans, etc. It's hard to understand him though. The first day,
Monday, he just handed me a lesson plan and had me teach cm-m conversions to
3rd graders, so the next day I brought rulers and actually showed them what
cm and m means so they would understand. It's hard because I have no idea
what the kids have been taught and even if it's been presented to them
whether they understand it. I'm going to try and work with Mr. Johnson on
being more responsive to kids who don't understand. I'm also trying to
organize, with Christine, trips to the hospital in Accra where the refugees
from this camp who are seriously ill from AIDS are transfered, but I might
not get to participate in the actual visits by the time I leave with the pace
of things here and CBW beuraucracy. Alex and I are coaching a girls soccer
team Monday afternoons and Wednesday during P.E. day and I'm working on
starting a newsletter to former volunteers and donors. Next week I'll try to
start up an extracurricular reading group with world stories and geography,
after I get a feel for which kids would be good for it and would attend.

At the Monday afternoon teachers' meeting, a first grade teacher told the
following story which may be a joke but may very well be completely true:
"I was doing spelling with the kids and we were doing words like "cow" and
the next day a mother came up to me and said, 'Why are you teaching my son to
spell a great big word like cow? He's only four. At least teach him to
spell mosquito!"

When I walk around camp (and this is true of all the female volunteers) I get
lots of cat calls and men greeting me. It feels rude in this cultural
setting, but I've learned to walk right past even somebody just saying hi if
it is a male or I'll have to dodge the question of where I live or tell him
he cannot come visit me. Just now as I walked through the market an older
guy, perhaps 40, grabbed me and said "White woman." He was holdign a baby
and said, "You and I will raise this baby together." I said NO and walked
away to the amusement of onlookers.

Hm, a normal day in the camp is waking up at 7, staying in bed a few minutes,
hopping in for a the bucket shower, slathering on sunscreen before I get so
sweaty that it can't absorb, and having breakfast, some combination of white
bread, egg, and oatmeal with brown sugar or jam or cinnamon etc. I have a
bit of time before class to do interviews for the newsletter, use the
internet (if the place down at the bottom of the camp were working) and run
errands before going to school. The hours of the school day make the end
seem quite long and I get a bit hungry. Wednesday is better because P.E. is
8-10 and then I'm free for whatever; I expect I'll go into Accra at least one
or two Wednesdays. Lunch is rice and stewed (and greasy and salty)
vegetables or potatos of some sort, which is also dinner unless I buy
something. Afternoons are full of meetings and errands and such, I'll
probably get involved in the scholarship committee for example. Then it gets
dark and I read or write or hang out with volunteers, or some nights there
are organizational meetings, and if I eat out it's White Flower for chicken
rice and salad (that's the internet place) or Sunday we went to the top of
camp to a risque bar like place and had delicioussssss spicy goat stew and
watched the locals socialize to western music from around 2000 and dance.
Then it's usually early to bed.

Better log off before it cuts me off!

A few random bits and pieces as I'm back in Osu on the fast internet, having
spent today (Saturday) exploring Accra:

The Liberians wear a mix of traditional clothing and American style
clothing, often the t-shirts are clearly second hand from America. Many of
the kids have holes in their clothing. But the second hand thing is quite
funny because we saw a guy of about 20 wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm 70"
with arrows to protruding veins, sagging chest, grey hair, etc, and another
older man with a shirt that said "Yes I'm a bitch, that's Queen bitch to
you" or something like that. But really, especially for children, the
clothing situation is very sad. There are many stalls in the camp on the
main streets selling phones, food, clothes, etc. and one is a botique that
had in the front window the other day a Red Sox jersey dress and a Celtics
jersey. I got a big kick out of it but didn't have my camera and when I
went back the window had changed.

I sat for a long time yesterday afternoon with the woman who lives next door
to the house I'm staying in. In between our house and hers is a large
animal pen that a volunteer helped the family build with chickens, ducks,
pigeons, and two rabbits. The animals are fairly new and they are hoping
for babies to eat and sell. One of the rabbits was called Rammy or
something like that - but it sounded to me like Remy, as in Jerry of the Red
Sox, so when they asked me to name the other rabbit I decided on Ortiz. I
had to spell it out for them but they could pronounce it well and I told
them it's a Spanish name. Anyway, the mother's name (I think) is Bantu and
she has at the camp 6 children, including a two year old named Sara who is
just the cutest thing and was a surprise child. Sara can count and do ABCs
and all of that and loves to run around without her shoes (most people wear
flip flops or cheap plastic sandals) which her parents and siblings always
have to tell her to put back on. Bantu told me that she was married to a
government official in Liberia so her family was hunted down and forced
out. She lost many family members including children and her husband,
though her accent made it hard for me to understand the details. After a
trip through Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea she got to Buduburum. She met a man
in the camp and married him and he's a member of the vigilantes, who augment
the insufficient Ghanaian police force for the camp. It's quite nice to
have him nearby for protection as we live at the edge of the
dangerous "Gulf," an empty (but pretty) stretch of land. Bantu asked me if
I could sometimes give her my laundry and the woman who does ours hadn't
arrived so I did so immediately.

Other stories I've heard include a woman who does the wash for the other
guest house, who was with her sister and sister's husband. The soldiers cut
off the husband's head and made the sister comb its hair etc and then the
woman herself was made to be a sex slave for several years. There are
stories like this all over the camp from the older people, and I can't
imagine what the people my age and a little older went through as children.

I got really angry the other night because Thrusday we had a tour of the
camp from Anthony, one of the CBW people, and he said he'd been working at a
hospital in Liberia but because Ghana won't let them work off the camp
everyone is basically chained to the camp where there isn't enough work for
the 48,000 or so residents. Many of the men are completely idle, even those
like Anthony who are very qualified, or those who struggle to put themselves
through IT courses like Bantu's husband is doing to improve their job
chances. Bantu's 22 year old son works on a space-to-space phone, which is
like a rent-a-cellphone. Anyway, I got angry about this impossible
situation: Ghana thinks that the Liberians should be able to go home and
work but most of Liberia is still extremely unsafe, leading to this terrible
quandry and poverty. Still, it is amazing that crime in the camp is very
rare. HIV/AIDS as well is estimated at only 1 or 2 percent. That only 20%
of the camp's children are in school and many don't finish or are 15 in the
5th grade...and the lack of food for some, etc. makes me so angry.

On a different note, the way into Accra today was interesting. Apparently
Saturdays are quite the day for traffic, which sucked, and it was raining
into the windows of the trotro so people shut them leading to overheating
and an excess of carbon monoxide fumes. It took two hours to get into the
city. We went to the Cultural Center, which they call the Art Center, and I
will definately go back before I leave for gifts and such but for now it was
interesting just to look and haggle a little and get a feel for prices.
Then we went to find an Indian restaurant but couldn't so we went to a not
very good place mentioned in the guide book - the people I was with were
hungry so we were rushed, I wish I'd been able to look for the Lebanese
place my guide book talks about. But I'm sure there will be time to try
that, and the Orangerie which is downtown. Anyway, it's pouring rain again,
just in time for us to go back and look at fabric and then get on a trotro
to go back to the camp.

I only have a minute left, got to send.

The Oops Bar and Restaurant

We got to the camp Tuesday afternoon and were
greeted by a heard of enthusiastic (and often
annoying) children. I figured out soon enough
to lay down the law and not allow them to climb
on me. They are always around Guest House 2,
looking in the windows like we're in a zoo or
putting bracelets on our wrists and then the next
day asking us to pay for them! The volunteers
who have been here longer will just send them off
with some cedis to buy whatever they want, and we
tip them with a piece of bread or a water sachel.
Tuesday night we went to eat and then played
poker using ibuprofin, calcium, and matchsticks
for pokerchips with a 5000 cedi buy-in ($.50). I
did quite well for myself considering I've never
played in real life - only watched.

Wednesday we didn't get to have our orientation
because the BBC came to the camp as part of filming
for a documentary to be aired July 8 and 9th on
BBCWorld with some cheesey title like "Journeys
of Hope." We got to meet their long-time Africa
correspondant and they filmed in the pre-primary
classroom and on Main Street. Also on Wednesday
a gaggle of girls took me off to see the camp. I
had no idea where I was most of the time, and of
course many people were staring or introducing
themselves. I was taken into the houses of two of
the kids, and one of them had an uncle who wanted
to show me his room! The houses had small rooms,
sometimes with lanoleum or paper on the ground but
often just cement. They took me by many different
schools including a school for the deaf, where I
went in and signed out my name - the kids in the
lower of the three levels all screeamed and jostled
to spell theirs. Mid-morning I went and sat in on
pre-primary class (1st grade) that was doing reading
via repetition (I question that the kids were
reading, probably they had memorized the excercise)
and then did a spelling bee. Then the BBC finally
came, quite late, they'd kept the children into
the afternoon. And then I was exhausted, having
not slept much Tuesday night due to noise and the
very uncomfortable bed. I'm rooming with a very
nice woman from Australia named Yuki who is here
three months and will leave at the end of June.

So today we started orientation and heard from Semeh
and various CBW volunteers and coordinators. Anna,
in the newly created position of GVN/CBW
International Volunteer coordinator, has created
a new and improved orientation as well as improving
many other programs. Anyway, we've seen all the
levels of school and the HIV/AIDS team in action
and tomorrow we'll finish up and then decide what
we want to do. I'd like to do English for the older
primary students and probably do some ad hoc
HIV/AIDS team stuff as well as helping them put
together a regular visit to Accra to give company
and support to AIDS patients abandoned by their
families. There's a bit of a hangup as CBW is
full of red tape and getting either the car or
funding for trotros (hey, I'd pay for it myself
but others seem to think CBW should) is exceedingly
difficult.

The camp is full of houses of cement, the streets
are trashy and of course used as sewers. The house
has a fairly nice (compared to my expectations)
toilet and shower set up. The pre-primary school is
right next door, though, and the kids don't have a
toilet so they use the corner of the yard by our
house! So that smells a bit.

I really wish I'd brought my digital camera. All
of the GVN literature was quite misleading, and
Anna is revising that now but there is sporadic
yet available electricity to charge cameras (one
girl even has an iPod) and most of the volunteers
have them and say it's very safe. I would love
to set it to low resolution and go around taking
50 pictures of the crazy names of shops and on
buildings - China Embassy no visa on a house,
The Oops Bar and Restaurant good food and drink,
and all sorts of religious names. I guess this
way I don't have to be paranoid about it, but
I really wish I'd known to bring it. And you can
easily get things that they say you can't,
everything from toilet paper to tampons to hair
conditioner (which I will be buying in Accra).

This weekend many volunteers are going to Lake
Volta but the new ones will have to wait because
of orientation. I'll be going into Accra Saturday
to see the Cultural Center, use the fast internet
and go to Koala grocery and whatever else, and
Sunday we might go to the beach (where, contrary
to things I've read, bikinis are perfectly
acceptable, say the other volunteers). I'll also
look for cloth to have some clothes made.

Right now a little girl has just come up to me and
is now hanging on my lap and won't tell me her name,
but she is very cute.

I'm a bit worried because I can't load my inbox.
The internet is painfully slow, and I'm at the
airconditioned place at the top of camp where it
is supposedly faster than White Flower, the bar/
eatery/internet place close to our Guest Houses.
But in 40 minutes my inbox hasn't loaded.
Strangely, Redsox.com loaded fine. I can't wait
to get back to the fast place in Osu.