At 7:30 AM, while I walk on one side of Bechem road a line of goats walks along the other. Fathers pass me on bicycles riding their children to school. One mother will walk a group of children to school. I greet people known and unknown. Hearing “Bruny” I turn to look into smiling faces of little children as I respond “Good Morning, what a beautiful smile!” Trotros( over packed, rickety old vehicles) and cabs speed by leaving a warm breeze and diesel fumes in their wake. Kiosk keepers help customers or lean on tables bent at their waist. I walk through the cement wall and iron gate onto the teak lined, cracked dirt path where a young teacher crosses my path. He quickly takes my books and greets me with “Akwaaba!”
We chat about the lesson I have prepared. I explain the teaching chart I created for him along with 2 paperclips and one extra piece of chart paper. The enthusiasm over this reminds me of how little teachers are provided so my meager contribution is viewed as a gift.
Class goes very well for the Form 2 class (grade8) and together Alex and I share a teacher moment….51 students on a Friday morning are quiet, writing, thinking for more than 30 minutes as they write. Alex has started to learn new techniques evident by his walking around the room assisting, reminding, encouraging, etc.
I have become a part of the staff though am only present two days each week. All have engaged in conversation with me and most have sought professional advice. At the close of a staff meeting I am given a cup of Malta ( a very sweet soda enriched with B vitamins) for some refreshment to share with them on their am break.
Classes are often preempted for a variety of reasons such as: teachers stopping lessons to greet people coming by ; no teacher came for that class; teacher meeting; teacher beating a student to name a few. Next week this particular school has been designated an examination sight so classes will be relocated to 2 different schools. The following week will be exams at Methodist. The week after teachers will mark exams while students clean the compound and pack away furniture for the month long break at end of term 2 for this year. Students and teachers do all that need doing, there is no custodial staff in any school I have visited.
The Twi teacher presents me with 2 eggs from the Form 3 students thanking me for preparing them for their upcoming exams. I walk back through the teak grove and step onto the crudely paved road lighter for having passed on information which I hope will be passed on again and again.
I stop in at SODIA (Social Development Improvement Agency) to greet the other white female in Bechem, a Peace Corp volunteer from Maine. We talk about when I will come to visit her village of Kwasu. I will do so in the next week or so as the entire school recently attended a workshop and I must deliver their certificates of participation,
As I pass stores and kiosks and people in the street I am greeted by many some know me by name others greet because it is the Ghanaian way. As I approach St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, goats line the top step relaxing in the shade of the veranda’s overhang. Just a short distance away a mother sits nursing her baby under a mango tree with a bundle of tree branches at her feet. She has cut them herself no doubt with baby on back in the late morning 4 degrees of latitude sun. Soon she will swing her baby onto her back, wrap her in a piece of cloth tying it around her own front. She will then squat to pick up the cumbersome load and place it on her head. She will do so without any apparent apprehension of it slipping off her head and harming her baby and her feet will negotiate the rough terrain effortlessly.
The gates of JOSCO open onto the sounds of student punishment: cutlasses swinging and cutting weeds; hoes and cutlasses chopping into the ground to uproot a tree for infractions of disrespect and reporting for school later than the designated date.
I deliver the eggs to Adwoa who immediately decides I am in need of fresh watermelon to rejuvenate me from the half hour walk I have completed. I must admit it is delicious as I return to the Centre to face yet another 5 hours there.
At 12:30 I walk over to administration to see students heading toward Mozarto, they have been called to an assembly on the upcoming solar eclipse. To show you how impromptu things are done here, as the science teachers pass me by they decide to include me in their info session. I demonstrate the safe way to view this phenomenon without looking directly at the sun. Using 2 pieces of white paper, one has a pencil hole in it the other plain. Position yourself with back to the sun holding the paper with hole in line with its rays, place the solid piece on the ground at an angle and watch the event on the solid paper as it transpires.
Back at the Centre workshop prep is swift as the participants are our neighbors and arrive promptly at 2 (an unlikely yet improving occurrence here) from the School for the Deaf which is a school for both blind and deaf children of all ages. About two hours into the workshop my second teacher moment comes about, forty teachers all creating innovative teaching and learning materials for their very special students. Here in Ghana special education is still in its segregation phase. Just this year have 6 students from this school been included in our demonstration school on campus (where inclusion means in the classroom sitting at a table in the back, sound familiar?) This group of teachers is especially creative in the materials they have chosen to make. Toward the end of the session during the Vote of Thanks the Head Master of the school thanked me profusely for the opportunity and my expertise. At 5:30 I am still tidying up things when a male student enters to assist, cleaning paint brushes and fetching water from a nearby spout to wash the tables down.
At home I plunk into my chair for about 10 minutes when I am called to the kitchen to prepare my evening meal. Lights go off just as I sit down to eat and remain off for about an hour as thunder booms in the distance, lightening flashing lighting the room intermittently.
At 7:20 I am out the door and off to a rehearsal (no I am still in Ghana!). Directing for the Debaters and Writer’s Club has become a joy. This group of 16 is quite talented and quite critical of each other. We finish blocking Act 3 while sharing many laughs at both my directing antics and their results onstage. Accompanied by 3 students I walk into the cooler clear evening gliding along the uneven path pleased with the events of the day.
Once again I kick off my shoes, sit and soon Adwoa beckons me to the kitchen (actually to the place we have come to call Hell, the room where her oven resides) two hot meat pies are waiting with some minerals (soda and in this case specifically Malta). We are soon engaged in our favorite pastime, conversation.
At about 10PM, I wash off the dust, perspiration and insect repellent but the effects of my experiences today will remain within.
