SO, I have been trying to find other things to do. I have been observing classes at the local primary school. It is actually really depressing to me. The children just memorize things, they don't actually 'learn'. A majority of the teachers were not there, so the students are just hanging around not learning anything. I sat in on a teacher teaching English - ALL DAY! He taught a lesson in English in a block of about 4 hours that he could have taught in 1 hour. He just had the children read some sentences from their 'readers', then yell at them for not teaching correctly. Then he would tell them to copy those sentences into their notebooks for an hour. While they are doing this he would either go walk around outside, go to his house (a short walk from the school), or talk to me about how the students are so much smarter where he used to teach. He blamed the students poor english skills at this school on how the kindergarten teachers were teaching well. But yet his teaching is, "Nothing to write home about," but he can't see that. And I'm not in a position to tell him that. I told some of my friends in the village about what I saw at the school and how it bothered me. They were like, "Well, we will ring the gong gong and you tell the teachers what they should be doing and tell the parents to get involved." I was like, "I can't do that. That is not my place. I shouldn't be telling people what to do." My counterpart wants me to teach at the school. If I do start teaching (which is why I started sitting-in on classes) I will try to talk to the teachers or the headmaster once I get to know them. But I'm not here to boss people around or tell them what is "right" or "wrong" in my opinion. Things are so different here.
There is potential there for me to teach and that will start to give me a schedule. However, some people have been asking me how the children will understand me since they are so young and know so little English. That is a really good point, however I am debating whether me at least being there and trying to teach is better than what is going on there currently. We'll see what happens. I am going to have some village meetings when I return from Accra (where I am now). At these meetings we will map-out the community (hopefully) to determine important places in the community, important structures and where people frequent. Afterwards, we will have a discussion about community needs/wants and current resources (again, hopefully). Who knows how these will turn out. I've been waiting for the chief and others to make lists of different groups in the community -- male/female age groups, so I can meet with them individually. I've been asking for the last two months. They say the lists are ready when I return. Who knows...I guess I'll find out tomorrow :).
So, this is what my day is like right now:
6am: wake up and go to my counterpart's house to hike halfway up the mountain (I do this for exercise and he wants to come along)
7:30am - 9:30am: go to meet with/greet people (somedays I don't do this b/c there is no one for me to meet/greet). After this, I return home and bathe and eat.
whenever I return home - 4:00pm: Go observe at the school or go hang out with some of the market ladies. Sometimes I'll visit other villages with my counterpart or other community members. One of the young women in my village has been teaching me how to cook Ghanaian food (though now she has moved to the nearest city).
4:00pm-ish/5:00pm-ish: my counterpart teaches me the local language. Afterwards, we might go meet with people or I'll go hang out with the lady who sells bread outside of the chief's palace.
dark - 10pm: No one really does anything at night except for the sketchy people who hang out by the roadside, so I'll just stay in and read or make this rug I've been working on for the last 2 months...haha. My PCV neighbor and I cook and hang out together a lot too.
So, that's my day in a nutshell. It varies, though. Hopefully after the community meetings I will determine what other projects I am going to do in the community and if I am going to teach at the school.
My community is starting to get to know me better. The children don't call me "Abruni", but they call me by my local name and can actually tell me apart from other white people, which is pretty awesome. The women yell at the children who do not call me, "Sister Lelabi" because saying 'sister' before a name is a sign of respect here. That is pretty awesome - I hope that means they do actually respect me.
I'm in Accra right now at the Peace Corps office. It is so nice to use internet that works at a high speed. I can actually check my email - haha.
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