Peripatetic Journal: January 2012

Don't miss the 'Girls Dance' video (at right)!

My students watching a movie I showed them on my laptop about deaf American performers called "See What I'm Saying."

Powerful Peace Corps moment.

see my tiny laptop?

You can laugh, but the water sachet pom pom project was a big hit with the P4-P6 classes.

finished pom pom

Yes, that's a sprig of cilantro on the right--the only one I've seen so far, and I'm sure it will die soon.

Abyssinian Roller

sheep taking a break from the heat

We rode our bikes to Adayilli, a fishing village along the White Volta River. This is the fish market.

They're called grasscutters, but they look like big rats.

toward Adayilli

cattle drive

children of Adayilli, coming to meet us

seriously out in the middle of nowhere

White Volta River

Savelugu School for the Deaf girls ready to play soccer

morning soccer match

Abyssinian Roller

(I thought I was going to name my first-born child 'bearded barbet,' but now I'm thinking 'Abyssinian Roller.'

lentil burger with cheese (made by me!)

Woodcarving demo during In-Sevice training in Kumasi. This is an Ashanti doll in progress.

That's a big tool for a small job.

Machete carving

finished product on right

to fire the clay bowls

preparing to fire clay bowls

finishing touches on the clay bowls (mortars); polishing with a stone

kneading the clay

Mary and Joe Bee from the left, the two Education Coordinators/Directors for PC

pottery ladies

kiln being opened after firing

My newest 'counterpart,' Rosarius, who accompanied me to the training event in Kumasi. He's the Primary 5 teacher at my school.

Just your normal bush fire, nothing to get excited about.

The dust that accumulates inside my house in one week, swept into a pile.

Don't miss the new video posted to the right, "Breakfast at Savelugu Deaf"

Notes:

--The school term rumbled to a slow halt—one week for review, one week for exams, and one week for giving ‘marks,’ aka grades (a week when the students sit around and do virtually nothing all day), and then we were finished. The break is quite short, and then we will roll slowly into the next 14-week term, undoubtedly not actually starting classes until the 3^rd week.

--I’m having the fight of my life here against the chickens and guinea foul in my garden—every time I think I have plugged every single tiny hole in my garden fence, I find a giant chicken and 10 chicks pecking about and eating every last sprout my garden has produced. One day, I will see many sprouts surfacing throughout the garden, and the very next day---gone, all gone. The chickens have decimated everything I have planted up until this week. I finally got a number of pumpkin plants to survive past germination (they must not taste good?), and I’m continuing the reinforcements of my fence and planting yet again. I would start eating chickens (I’m a vegetarian) if I thought I could curb the population, but no matter how many I ate, there would always be one crowing at 4 am, and another one pecking away at my garden. Too bad metal fencing is so expensive, or I would have installed that by now.

--Most hilarious answer on my final exam:

Red + God = Violet

Really?!?

Same student:

A God is the repetition of lines, shapes, numbers, or colors.

Evidently God is the answer to everything. I think she figured if she just answered ‘God’ for every question on every exam, eventually she would be taking the RME (Religious and Moral Education) exam, and she’d get an answer correct. Yes, RME is a required course for all Ghanaian school children. I’ve got two words for the Ghana Education Service: SYSTEMIC CHANGE. I just feel sorry for the students.

--No wonder they call it ‘invigilating’ the exams here---my students are relentless cheaters. I can’t even blink, and they are trying to copy off each other. Seriously, it was exhausting just trying to keep my eyes on every student during the exams, as they signed to each other across the room and looked over their shoulders. And it’s not as if it helped their scores—almost all the students failed miserably…because they can’t read. It’s the same problem in all their classes, and even the hearing JHS students at Mark’s school mostly failed as well. They just don’t study, and their English is terrible. I’m already thinking about how I can drill vocabulary with my students for the next term. The Ghana Education Service has made it mandatory that 30% of every student’s grade is based on class work, and 70% is based on the final exam, which means that no matter how well my students perform on class art assignments, if they can’t read well enough to pass an exam, they can’t pass the class.

--I attended a World AIDS Day event in Gushie where I acted as a photographer during a ‘scavenger hunt’-type game. The event was hosted by ITFC, a big mango producing company in the area, and the employees had to run around Gushie in three teams, and perform HIV/AIDS/Malaria education activities. The teams blazed into hut compounds shouting, ‘Kamna, kamna,” (“Come, come!), and they’d quickly organize a group of local spectators, often all children, to watch a condom demonstration or mosquito net hanging demo. This was a timed exercise with prizes at the end, so all the demos were given in extreme haste, rushing from compound to compound, and rudely (it seemed to me) grabbing people out of their houses to watch a brief presentation. I’m so glad it was Ghanaians leading this exercise, because I would never be so bold.