Ghana Team Journal

Thought for the day: Kathleen (in honor of Deb McNally as it is her favorite quote)

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

By Jimi Hendricks

Journal by: Susan

Today’s journal is devoted to the oatmeal and the egg pancake eaters. Breakfast was its usual success, and then on to our stations.

Five of us went to the Ericson International School. I have the easiest assignment with the older students who are respectful, polite, attentive, and fun to be with. Waiting for late arrivals to class, I taught the boys how to play hit the penny/stone. One girl dutifully swept the room and was reluctant to try; however, she hit the stone on her first try. She left after that triumph.

We started our day as usual with “Good morning to you,” and “ Itsy bitsy spider”. While Wiafe was putting the test for the day on the board, I introduced my group to “I walked into the bakery shop.” His test was questions about science and technology. On Tuesday his test had been about the environment. The tests have 3 or 4 questions with several parts. It takes the students about an hour to do it, but there’s a lot of talking and staring into space, while he plays on his cell phone. Today two students walked out of the room to go to the younger students across the courtyard to get pencils. Did Wiafe look up? No. Ten o’clock was break time so he collected the papers. The teachers were sitting under a tree and Wiafe and Winifred joined us. He taught me a board game, which is similar to ours. When break was over, I went back to my waiting students. I put a simple math problem on the board, which had given them trouble yesterday (7000 minus 4). Foster got it immediately and others came along slowly. I told them now I was giving them a harder problem. This time I put 17,000 minus 5 on the board. Again Foster was right there. I got Godwin to do it on the board. “Okay, next is a really hard one. 235,000 minus 6. Everyone seemed to be catching on. In the meantime they had been clamoring for a long division problem. I put 7,665 divided by 35. Foster worked at it, but in the end Wiafe helped him along.

Next came grammar. Ali had asked me to teach subject- verb -object. I had noticed in student’s writing that they had difficulty with the 3^rd person singular in the present tense. They always forgot that pesky “s.” I put a sample conjugated verb on the board and gave them a list of verbs some with and some without the “s.” We worked through which took singular or plural nouns. After doing that we added the object. Hopefully, it became clearer as we worked through the problems.

I read a folk tale to end the class from The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and Foster told and Anansi the spider story. I told them for homework they had to bring in another animal tale, but I think that might not happen as we may not be in the classroom.

Lunch and rest were next and then the library. Kathleen led us to a woman making batiks, and yards of cloth laid out on the grass drying were beautiful. The woman showed us the process with the wax and the dipping. From there we went to the Library. As Samuel was away, Kathleen gathered us outside for a sing-a-long before we entered the building. Before unlocking the door, she gave a strong warning about correct behavior. We all promised to be good.

Home, early dinner in anticipation of the drumming and dancing. The skies opened up in welcome. When we arrived at the community center, a covered pavilion, a religious service was happening. We piled out of the van and sat in the back until that concluded.

And then our treat. Drummers pounding with that melodic beat, led the dancers as they whirled, jumped, wiggled, twisted, circled, leaped, and did everything that the human body can do and then some. In the van on the way home, Liz said that was very suggestive which I thought was an understatement. After doing all that for an hour without a drop of sweat or a pant , they brought us up on stage individually. Cailin and Julie were pushed the hardest while they treated this old fogey with care. But we all had a great time, dancing drumming, cheering, and laughing.

And now to bed.