Dealing with Differences

Being in a new country, in a new place far away from home can be difficult at times. People experience it at different times, from different interactions and reactions, and for different reasons. Maybe it's missing out on Mardi Gras, or missing a birthday in the family, or experiencing something here, a new meal or an interaction with someone on the street, that makes that moment, maybe that day a difficult one, a challenge you have to overcome.

Certainly I've had many interactions with people on the street that would never occur in the U.S. and there have been many times when I would really like some milk with my dinner or a cookie for dessert. But none of these had upset me, I just see them as changes, differences that are here. However, on Friday for the first time I needed to take a step back, to remove myself from the situation in which I was in, to begin to deal with the differences between our way of educating our preschoolers and the Ghanaian way.

I went over to my grandmother's nursery on Friday and the teachers wanted me teach something to the children. I was caught off guard, confused, and a little unsure of what to do. In the classroom there are 1 year olds and 3 year olds sitting at desks. I couldn't get past this at first, this discipline that the children are required to have. I thought I would be playing with them, reading them books, and talking with them, but I can now see that none of this is going to happen. As a teacher, I am required to discipline the students, not to play with them but to teach them nursery rhymes. I've found though that they can recite rhymes but don't understand the meaning. They can recite the a,b,c's but not even know what they are. After talking with each of the students for a few minutes and reading them a story outside I went back to my house to start to deal with the differences.

I will begin to work in the school, Tot To Teen, on Tuesday and I am sure that I will encounter a similar experience there. The hardest thing about it is that I can't change anything. Instead I must become a part of the preexisting system, learn how to educate them here, and not be the teacher I see myself becoming. I must forgo my way of teaching, or the way in which I want to teach, in order to work with the students here.

I went on a run that afternoon and ended up running into one of the supervisors of my program. We discussed how I was feeling and she told me that it is a common way that students who go to the schools here feel. I think that one of my goals while I am here in the schools will be to connect meaning to the nursery rhymes that they are able to recite through drawings and play, though the play will have to be structured. On Tuesday I will find out what the school that I will be working in is like and form a goal for there as well.

Dealing with differences can be difficult. Some differences are funny - like seeing sheep on the side of the road or chickens running around. Some differences can be uncomfortable - like when a Ghanaian man approaches you to ask if you are married, or if you have a boyfriend, or if he can have your number. Some differences take time to understand - like why the water doesn't run all of the time and how can the electricity just go off without notice. Some differences are difficult - like seeing a family on the side of the road living in a wooden shack or a woman carrying a baby on her back and food to sell on her head. Some times far away from home, from what we know, we may want to break down, to cry, but we remain strong. Melissa, a friend from the CIEE program, was telling me the other day about her experiences trying to get trotros and how looking back on it she was surprised she didn't get more anxious or nervous or upset when things didn't work out the way she planned. I turned to her and said, it doesn't really seem like an option here. We have to take care of ourselves, part of growing up, and sometimes that means forcing a smile on your face to make it home in one piece, to get on that trotro and ask questions of where it's going, to not be scared when the taxi you get in doesn't start and they start pushing it, to continue walking when a man asks for your number. It's all part of this experience, pushing ourselves to continue home, home here in Ghana.