--In Ghanaian public schools, students are taught that the natural environment was ‘created by God.’ Definitively. I saw this as a multiple-choice question in a Primary 1 textbook (“Who created the natural environment?”). The other three choices were names of men I haven’t even heard of. An option including “…the natural environment was created by millions of years of weather, tectonic shifts, etc.” was not available. Aren’t we supposed to be teaching verifiable facts in the classroom? Or at least educated hypotheses? There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the natural environment was created by God, unless you take the word of the bible, in which case you should also take the word of other storybooks, like Harry Potter, and believe that people really can fly on broomsticks.
--My American friend asked me how to say ‘hello’ in Dagbani. It’s not that simple. In Dagbani, I say Desiba, Antire, Aninwula, Na Da, Na Mauni, Na Gorum, or Na Dar Ne, depending on what time of day it is, where I’m at, if I’m moving, where I’m coming from, and if you have sticks on your head.
--I can’t have a friendly conversation with a Ghanaian man, and not be asked for my phone number. Every time. It’s really obnoxious. Thankfully, I just tell them that I work for the American government, and I can’t give my number out (this is a total lie, but it works beautifully).
--I put my thermometer outside, and it read 116 degrees in the sun. And we aren’t in the hot season. It’s usually 95 degrees in my room during the day.
--The rain has stopped. It was raining every day, and then it came to an abrupt halt. No more. It hasn’t rained in weeks. Everything is turning brown.
--My solicitations for donations for art supplies have been very successful. I’m receiving packages from Dick Blick, and Strathmore Paper, as well as an approximately $1500 donation from a Ghanaian company, Fan Milk. Now, I can begin to dream of bigger projects at my school, like a batik workshop and wood walls for hanging artwork.
--The look on my students’ faces when I mix blue and yellow paint to make green is priceless. I’m like a magician; they are in awe.
--When I went to make copies at a Kinkos-type copier store, the shop owner first had to go buy the paper. A copier store that doesn’t have paper. Imagine. I waited patiently while she walked down the street and bought a ream of paper.
--I’ve spent a lot of time recently stalking my local birds--binoculars, bird book, and camera in hand. There are some really exotic species right outside my door. Unfortunately, I have the stealth of an elephant, and I usually scare them all away before I have a chance to identify them.
--My best P4 student, Basheru, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me--“You are good,” it said.
--I’ve mentioned this before, but the value placed on conformity in Ghana is so high, and it trickles down to the primary school level, where students are so eager to copy my example, but never to come up with new ideas on their own. In the U.S., an artist tries to make work that is different than everyone else, every student wants to come up with new ideas, and every shop owner wants to have a different product than the place next to them. But in Ghana, every bread-seller sells the exact same bread, made with the same ingredients in the same shaped pan. Every groundnut soup recipe is exactly the same. Every vender has the exact same selection of merchandise or food. In the U.S. there is a value on entrepreneurship, on originality—and it is often rewarded with larger profits, or whatever the goal might be. I think this value on conformity is a detriment to the development of Ghana and to their school systems. Every student is taught to copy the teacher’s notes into their notebook, without ever thinking critically about what they have written, without questioning it or understanding it. They memorize a scientific idea or definition directly from the book, but if the wording is changed slightly, they have no idea what you are talking about. We are taught in PC that we should not work for systemic change, but systemic change is precisely what Ghana needs.
--My P4 class could cut and paste forever, I think.
--Two of my P5 students stole some embroidery thread from my store room (sometimes the room gets opened in the evenings or afternoons for drumming practice), and when I arrived the next morning, I was swarmed by students telling me that someone had stolen thread. I told another teacher, and 30 minutes later, the thread was returned to me, and the girls formally apologized. They were also given a punishment of bringing sheep manure across the campus and to my garden for fertilizer (I love that in Ghana punishment means that the students have to do manual labor for me; I suppose it’s better than caning them, which is the Ghanaian alternative).
--I helped Mark edit some pen pal letters that his (hearing) JHS students are writing to students in America. Besides the fact that they were all virtually identical and copied from each other and from their English book, the letters were hilarious. They all began, “I hope you are fine, by the grace of the almighty Allah, as I am also fine.” All the students also described themselves as being ‘fair’ or ‘black’ in complexion, but Mark told me they are all nearly identical in complexion. I suppose they recognize variations in each other, though. Many of them also said that they had a ‘pointed nose,’ and I don’t have any idea where they got that idea from. Although the American students who receive these letters will probably be told that English is a Ghanaian student’s second language, they will undoubtedly be rolling in the isles reading the butchered grammar and ridiculous personal narratives.
