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.