Ghana Team Journal

Quote of the day: “I went to America and asked for a bucket of water and they thought I was crazy!” Esther

Journal by: Nancy

We woke to a rain-soaked earth after a night of thunder and downpour. Our “usual routine” is a welcome one; feels like home here to us now. A delicious breakfast from Bless, catching up with Esther, and reading our journal entry. We were moved to read a very beautiful “goodbye” letter that Veronica and Maria had left for us. We had lots to tell Esther about our weekend at the Cape Coast. We are playing catch-up with our journal writing and decided to postpone Julia’s description of Friday the 16^th until after lunch. Julia seems to be on the mend from her “digestive challenges” of this weekend. Katie seems to be dragging and may stay back to rest.

Esther offered complementary chauffeur service to our schools, and no one objected! During our car ride, Esther made the above-mentioned statement, which left us all laughing (some of us still recovering from the shock of seeing buckets of water outside of our room as replacements for showers, toilet flushing and the like). Since our recent experience with no water, we have gained a new appreciation of the luxury of running water for taking showers and flushing toilets. Esther had prayed that the water would NOT come back on after our return from the Cape Coast, in order to teach us spoiled Americans a lesson, but, alas, she was disappointed; we were gleeful when we came back to the St. James and running water! I know I speak for all of us volunteers when I say that we will never take for granted either consistent electricity or a nice hot shower with decent water pressure!

We headed out to our respective schools to teach. I was eager to return to the Methodist Junior High School since I had missed last Thursday due to illness, and Friday due to visiting schools using the classrooms for their students’ exams. Alas, I quickly discovered that this week is the beginning of the student’s promotional exams and I would have no more chance to teach! Feeling disappointed, I decided to make the most of it. I helped monitor the 1A and 1B students (7^th graders) during their exams.

Julia stopped by to see if she could help teach, but due to the testing, we had to come up with “Plan B”. I introduced her to Frank, my supervising teacher, and then gave her a tour of the school. I could see that she was shocked by the deplorable state of the classrooms. Our plan is for her to return on Wednesday to see if Frank is able to organize some time for small group work.

Angie and Lisa went to their usual site -- the private school, which was also testing. Angie has shared some great insights into the success of this school; I hope to find a diplomatic way to share this with the folks at the Methodist School.

Katie stayed back this morning because she was feeling under-the-weather. We all agree that being sick is a total bummer, but being sick away from home is even worse. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Lunch was delicious! Red-red has become my favorite Ghanaian dish, and fried plantains as well. I was thrilled to see that Bless had prepared red-red, plantains, and the fruit of the gods, mango. Doesn’t get any better than this, as far as I’m concerned.

After more debriefing with Esther, we headed back to our rooms for a quick rest before tutoring at the library. Not as many showed up today at the library, so our reading groups were small, cozy and quiet. Actually quite relaxing. We sauntered back through the community to the main road in search of a taxi to take the 4 of us (Katie still resting.) to the Volta Hotel for some Internet access and Wi-Fi, something to drink, and just cooling off. After some misunderstanding with our taxi driver about the cost of his transportation, we arrived back at the guesthouse in time for dinner. Katie resurfaced but is not yet her usual chipper self. We kept conversation short and headed back to our rooms by 7:30. Angie, Lisa and I wrote our journal entries. Back to bed, before, as Jackson Brown said, “We get up and do it again.”