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!