Drum roll please...

new dress made of batik fabric

coil pot project

coil pot project in progress

Scott signing with the students

my JHS class showing off their work

staring through the brick wall at me

Koforidua Deaf campus

water sachet collage project

me attempting sign language

My site was announced yesterday, and at the beginning of September I will be heading to my permanent location in the Northern Region in the town of Savelugu, a mere half hour outside of the large city of Tamale. My school is called the Savelugu School for the Deaf, and I will live in my own small house on the campus compound. I will have running water, a toilet, a bathroom, and some basic furniture. I will get to visit my site for the first time near the end of July, about a month from now. Until then, I will learn a lot of sign language and do some more teaching/observing at the Koforidua School.

I keep thinking that the ‘big’ moment has arrived--- I arrived at Staging in D.C…but then I wanted to arrive in Ghana…and then I wanted to arrive at my home site…and then I wanted to know my permanent site…and now I just want to SEE my permanent site, and be there. This process is continuously unfolding, and will continue to develop for months to come. Although I will learn primarily Sign Language in the next two months, the main language of Savelugu is Dagbani, so I’m going to need to get a tutor once I get to my site in order to catch up with the local language. I’ve heard that it’s very easy to get by with English as well, though; the Northern region has so many languages and dialects that the common language among the people tends to be English.

I have had a lot of success with my JHS students in my practice teaching. I did a project where I dug clay dirt out of their schoolyard, hydrated it, and used it to make coil pots. It was a huge hit with the students because they had never handled clay before—they have an immediate facility with the material, and although they like to copy my example, one of them came up with the idea to make a lid, and then they took off from there, making a cell phone, spoon, and a mortar and pestle to accompany their pots. My one problem is getting my students to stop working at the end of class because they just want to continue making things, instead of going back to their Math or Worship classes (It seems that if the System doesn’t believe in a deaf student’s aptitude and the right to a quality education, it at least makes sure that the students are trained to be religious lemmings. One can never underestimate the power of God to suppress dissent). (The boys’ ‘House Mother’ told me that she likes her job because she will be rewarded in heaven for her work with the deaf. Perhaps she will instead be rewarded during every moment of her day at the school.)

In other news, I had a beautiful, simple dress made out of batik fabric, and I love it, although I don’t have a mirror, so really it could look like a paper bag on me, and I wouldn’t know. It’s a smidge tight to the point where I have to suck in before I can get it to zip, but we’ll just say that it ‘fits like a glove.’