January 24, 2013
2013 finally made it.
It’s hard to imagine that I will spend this entire year
living in Africa. A wholllleeeee year. Wow. I’ve never been very good at
staying in one place, let alone one job, and now I have to stay in Ghana for
all of 2013. And teach. No other options. I mean, I knew what I was signing up
for, but it’s daunting when it’s broken down.
A funny thing happened. I almost broke my neck on a dried
turd. I was walking home, trying to wave at neighbors and greet people, when I
stepped on the hardened log, slipped, and barely caught myself in time. It was
a lot like stepping on a stick. Then, of course, I notice what a slipped on and
start laughing out loud for my entire village to hear. How embarrassing would
it be to call up the Peace Corps med people and tell them I injured myself
slipping on dried defecation? I am sure they have heard worse, but I don’t want
to be someone’s dinner table conversation.
For Christmas I went to Tamale, way up north in Ghana. It
took two days of traveling. The north and the south are like two different
countries. The south is very humid, jungle-like, mountains, goats, chickens,
the people are a lot louder and outgoing. They want to know everything about
you and they don’t hesitate to yell at you from across the way. In the north it
is so flat, dusty, tall grass, a lot more like what you would expect Africa to
look like. At any moment I expected a Jumanji herd to run across the road. The
people keep to themselves. They don’t yell nearly as much and they don’t seem
as friendly, although I was only up there for a few days so what do I know? Oh
and there are much, much, more cows. On Christmas I watched a bunch of PCVs
catch a goat and put a wreath around its neck, dressed up like a northerner
(coal eyeliner, smock, headgear), tried to cook some food, and danced away the
rest of the day.
Then I had to head all the way back to the south to pick up
a friend from the airport. He stayed for a few, incredibly fast days, full of
hanging out, exploring my village, hanging out with my Ghana mom (who
affectionately calls him Kofi), going to a party for New Years, and just having
a good time. Then, all of the sudden, it was time for him to leave and it was
back to the PC grind. I stayed at my site for a week, getting fatter (seriously
my clothes don’t fit) off of all the American gifts I got for X-mas (thanks
friends and family) that my friend was so gracious to haul across the ocean,
organizing my junk, and doing work. I am finally back on my Ghana diet of fresh
veggies and fish, so hopefully I can fit comfortably back into my clothes in a
few weeks lol.
I have been teaching regularly for a week now. It really
does help pass the time. I had my first practical (hands on art time) with the
kids and it went ok, not good, just ok. They were good the first day. They
listened, got quiet when I needed to tell them something, and handled
themselves pretty well. Today, when we needed to finish the project, it felt
like total chaos. I wanted them to paint a monochromatic painting. Shades and
tints were a completely foreign subject that they had a really hard time with
(“But Madam, there are two colors.” “No, there is one color with tints and
shades of that same color.” “???”) I must have spent 2 hours explaining tints,
shades, colors, non-colors, why yellow and green make a new color, but black
and green only make a shade of green, and so on and so forth. The worst part is
after it was all over I don’t even know if I taught them the correct material.
Ghana art and American art are completely different, but the syllabus and the
book didn’t go that in depth so I just taught them what I knew. I still have
new students arriving that don’t have their supplies, so I had students running
all over the room looking for colors, painting with their hands and then wiping
it on the desks, yelling, and just plain old carrying on. I tried punishments
(mostly playing the guilt card) but they didn’t care. Only when I threatened to
have another teacher stand in the room with a cane, did they finally start to
listen. I don’t condone corporal punishment at all, in fact I abhor it, but
when you have a classroom full of adults, most of which are over 20, and all
they have known their entire lives is pain as punishment, it is very hard to
convince them doing extra homework is a punishment. They just don’t take you
seriously. I gave one heck of a lecture so we will see what happens next week.
I have finally turned my little room into somewhere I can
consider home. When I first visited my site I was so depressed about my tiny
blue “cell”. It was small, cement, stuffy, bright blue, with almost no
furniture and dirty. Now it’s a clean,
stuffy, bright blue with furniture, things on the wall, and a yellow plastic
rug. Thanks to my X-mas package I have hooks, screws, and nails to hang my
stuff (which means less crap on the floor, which with the insects and critters,
drives me absolutely crazy) and I can repair things that break ( like when my
makeshift clothes rod that ripped out of the ceiling during a storm and nearly
scared me to death). Shells and pebbles line the window sills, artwork is
hanging, I have children’s drawings of people and birds on the fridge, and I
built the worlds ugliest spice rack. I am even in the process of making a wind
chime. This is home.
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