Western Region Photos

A few photos from this past weekend - Nzulezo Stilt Village and Beyin Beach!

Living in a Construction Zone

No hard hat needed. Might want to invest in a pair of sunglasses for dust protection. And be prepared, you never know when a construction project will begin or for how long it will last.

Some days it feels like I am walking through a construction zone – this is what it’s like to be in a developing country. A developing country where houses are being built, roads are being paved, and every day something has changed in your route from home to school.

The other day I was going to my internship as usual and was approaching the spot where I normally would catch the second tro-tro on my way to Adenta. As I got closer I noticed that the people who normally sell goods on the side of this dirt road were gone and in their place two new dirt roads had been constructed. “How did this happen?” was all I could think.

One morning at Tot To Teen I was looking out the window while watching a construction project take place outside. In this instance, the woman’s structure (what many of us might consider a shack) was picked up by a couple of men and moved because she was in the way of this new construction project. “Can they really do that?” was all I could think.

Yesterday I was at Tot To Teen and noticed that the front wall of the school compound was no longer there, instead there was tin and a lot of dirt for the construction project taking place right outside. "Is the headmaster okay with this?" was all I could think.

Today I was walking to lunch, along the normal construction route by the main gate, and there we were stopped as four men dug a trench in the middle of the walkway. One of the men said as we passed, “This is Ghana.” And that answered all my questions.

It’s amazing to me the amount of construction taking place around this area, in Greater Accra. Back home when there are construction projects I usually know when, where, and about how long it may last, especially when they may impede people’s daily life. But here I never know. That’s not to say that perhaps the people in the immediate area don’t know but I will probably never know.

For that reason I will keep my sunglasses close by, a handkerchief in my pocket, and an open mind that things change, don’t get settled, yet.

Four White Girls in a Tro-Tro

A term coined by Nikki and Amy, it accurately describes our weekend in the Western Region of Ghana traveling to Beyin and Nzulezo Stilt Village.

We just arrived back after taking a weekend trip to the Western Region of Ghana, further than we travelled when we went to Cape Coast in the Central Region, where we planned to go to Nzulezo Stilt Village as well as going to Beyin Beach. Of course, not all things go as planned when you travel by tro-tro but we all agreed that the ways things worked out was the best possible scenario for all of us.

Nikki, Melissa, Amy, and I all headed from home around six in the morning on Friday and met at Circle, via tro-tro, in downtown Accra to catch our second tro-tro of the day to Kaneshie. At Kineshie we found a tro-tro going to Takoradi within minutes of arriving. However, the wait for the tro-tro to fill took two and a half hours. In the meantime, we enjoyed all the snacks around us, listened to men preach about God, listened to other men try to sell worm medication, and I for one, slept. Finally when the tro-tro was full we headed off to Takoradi, which took about four hours to get to. Once we arrived we found another tro-tro going to Beyin and again had to wait for it to fill. So in the meantime, we ate fan-ice products, found a bathroom (that of course cost 20 pesawas), and then we were off. About halfway through the ride it began to rain and get dark because it was getting late. I started to get a little nervous, thinking maybe it would be okay if we needed to sleep in the tro-tro overnight, but knowing that we would definitely make it to our destination in one piece. We finally arrived in Beyin but our tro-tro driver was not quite sure where we were going. Originally we were planning on staying in the stilt village for the first night and at Beyin Beach Resort the second night but because of our late arrival we called ahead and made sure we could stay at the beach resort both nights. This turned out to be a great decision as we then had time to rest the night before we set off on the journey to the stilt village.

Our bungalow, where we stayed both nights, had four beds with mosquito nets and just enough room to walk between them. The bathroom was a shared bathroom and was just down a little walkway from our bungalow. It felt like I was at Girl Scout Camp once again, but in Ghana.

The next morning, on Saturday, we woke up, ate breakfast and headed out to visit Nzulezo Stilt Village, which is a village built completely on stilts above water. We set out on quite the walk to get to the water where we then got into a canoe and started paddling to the village. Once we got to the village we didn’t spend too much time there because there were many tourists visiting that day and the canoes needed to get back to take them.

The village became a tourist attraction in 2000, according to one of the villagers who answered our questions, and the villagers do not mind the tourists because without the donations from the tourists they would be unable to fund their village school. There are about 500 residents in the village. Although it did feel slightly awkward to go and just look, it was amazing to see another way of life, another way of living and surviving.

Once we had walked down their main road, which was a boardwalk with houses built on the side, and seen the school, we got back into the canoe and headed back for lunch. We found a place, literally the one restaurant in Beyin, to eat at called “Café Puerto.” Then we headed to the beach – our very own! There was no one on the beach and it was so nice to enjoy the afternoon in the ocean.

Then we headed back this morning, four more tro-tros and an air-conditioned bus ride later we got back home early in the afternoon. There were more than a couple times during which we found ourselves, four white girls, alone in the tro-tro, just heading to the end of the road.

Girl Scout Cookies

A wonderful surprise in the mail, a wonderful package full of treats for me and for the nursery children met me at the post office yesterday morning. As I opened it I had to contain my excitement so that I could negotiate the price I would pay to keep it. Yes, you have to bargain at the post office to get your package.

By far the most inspiring part of it all was a poem about gratitude which will be on my bedside from now until I return home, reminding me of all that I have to be thankful for.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life,

It turns what we have into enough and more,

It turns denial into acceptance,

Chaos into order,

Confusion into clarity.

It can turn a meal into a fest,

A house into a home,

A stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

Brings peace for today,

And creates a vision for tomorrow.

Running Water, or lack of

I never knew how much water it took to flush a toilet. Until now, until we have run out of water and fetching water is the reality.

To explain, there are pipes that run throughout my neighborhood in East Legon that supply water to our houses. However, the pipes do not run with water all of the time. When the water is running through the main pipes it fills Poly Tanks behind our house and this is where the water that we use to wash our hands, flush the toilets, brush our teeth, etc. comes from. There isn’t running water everywhere in Ghana but I have been fortunate to live in a house that does have running water.

I was told at the beginning of my stay that the water normally runs (this is the water that supplies the entire neighborhood) on the weekend, either Friday or Saturday. But for five weeks the pipes have been closed. And now we have used all of the water in our Poly Tanks. However, Grandma and Felix were prepared and had more water stored in containers. So we fetch water from those now to take bucket showers and fill up the toilet. Soon though that water will run out…Grandma told me today she will have to ask someone tomorrow about getting water to fill our Poly Tanks because we don’t know when the pipes will run again. It’s crazy the number of Poly Tanks I have seen throughout my neighborhood this week and people going to the well near my house to fetch water.

The things I take for granted, here in Ghana and back home, are most apparent at moments like these.

In other news, my students have begun to write their pen pal letters, I have begun work on interviews for my project, I have had three items sewn with fabric from the markets, and this weekend I will be traveling with Amy, Nikki, and Melissa to the Western Region.

Also preparing for my adventure tomorrow to the Post Office to pick up a package (there are many stories from other students)…details to follow

(Re)Vision Plan

This is the follow-up assignment: March 18th, 2012

Two months ago I landed in Ghana. Two months ago I had no idea what was going to happen next, I only knew that my first step was forward, off the plane and into a new country. From that moment I have continued to take steps forward, learning about Ghana, learning about myself, learning about the differences and similarities that exist between and within cultures. Not all of the steps have been easy to take, some require more effort, some require more reflection, and some require a little push. Having this time to write, to understand why those steps are not always easy to take, has been more beneficial to me than I could have imagined. Reflecting back on my vision plan that I wrote at the beginning of the semester to now, I am able to see what I have been able to accomplish and assess the reasons why. The factors that I think have affected my ability to reach these goals are the “intensity factors” that students experience when they are abroad in another country, also called “cross-cultural stress factors.”

I think the factor that is having the greatest impact on me is “status.” Teaching in the nursery and teaching at Tot To Teen has been more stressful than I would like to admit. I have been trying to understand why and I think this stress factor may offer the explanation I have been looking for. As a white American girl I have been given a pedestal and am standing on top of it, at least that’s how it feels. That’s how it feels when Grandma tells me that she has called one of the parents of the nursery school kids, who was not there, to tell her that the white lady was teaching today. That’s how it feels when I am given a class of thirty-six students and am expected to be able to teach without having a college degree. My skin color and where I am from has portrayed a status that I am not comfortable having. It is as if qualifications do not matter because I am a white American and therefore I have all the answers, already know the best or the better way of teaching.

I never thought that this would be the case before coming to Ghana. I knew that my skin color would be different; that I would stand out from the majority, but I did not know what status it would give me. Now that I have been given this status I have had to think about things differently, act differently, and deal with the emotional stress that has come along with it. Part of my cognitive adaptation has been to think about what I can do to help the students the most while I am teaching them. Since I have not been given any guidance on what to do, I have had to think about what to teach to the nursery school students and have also had to consider how to discipline in both the nursery and the school. I have had to take the mental stance of a teacher. And thus I have also had to act like one. This means that even when I do not know what to do in the classroom I have had to act like I do. This can be mentally stressful, as I feel unprepared for what might happen in any given day. However, I am learning more about myself in the process and realizing that I have the ability to do so much with these students, that I do have a lot to teach.

Another factor that is affecting me is “expectation.” I think that this has created stress for me as I have high expectations of myself and I have found it difficult to do work effectively right away in this new culture. I did not expect this to affect me before I came to Ghana but I am slowly realizing that part of the cultural stress I am experiencing is due to the high expectations I have of myself and the inability to live up to these expectations at the moment. I think this is due to the difficulty in navigating a new culture, the time it takes to learn and understand things, and the frustrations that come along with lack of power or water living in a hot climate. Or perhaps these are excuses. I am mentally trying to prepare myself by focusing on getting things done by a certain time but I am also realizing that perhaps my expectations of myself are too high right now. Perhaps I am trying to do too much and need to slow down. But then there is a part of me that wants to keep pushing, to keep trying. This is the part of me that is concerned with sending pen pal letters, to teaching in the nursery, to starting my multimedia project, to celebrating birthdays, and to learning in all my classes.

(Re)Vision Plan

After reading my initial vision plan I can see where these factors have affected my pursuit of the goals I set for myself in the beginning of the semester. The four goals I had set for myself are to: (1) bridge the gap between perceptions of Africa and America, (2) work with the Ghanaian education system, (3) make a Ghanaian friend, and (4) learn Twi. Looking back at these goals in relation to the factors I have identified previously I think I need to revise the explanations that I gave. I think I also need to make sure I am still moving forward, pushing myself to take the next steps.

The first goal that I have is to bridge the gap between perceptions of Africa and America. I think that I am accomplishing this through my blog but I also wanted to do something bigger. I applied for and received a scholarship to do a multimedia project on the 38 CIEE students and the role that education plays in our development as well as in the development of Ghana. I am finding it difficult to get this project off the ground and part of the stress is due to the expectations I have of myself. I am now setting goals for myself, having a certain number of students interviewed by a specific time and having an end date. I have only recently begun to worry about this project but I think that if I re-center my focus on this that I will be able to accomplish it effectively.

The second goal that I have is to work with the Ghanaian education system. I think that I am accomplishing this through my work at Tot To Teen and the nursery. I am beginning to understand the education system and how the students learn here. I have also added a project to this goal as well – a pen pal program between Tot To Teen and Country Day, a private school in New Orleans.

The third goal is to make a Ghanaian friend. This has been more difficult than I thought it would be. I am becoming friends with the teacher I am working with at Tot To Teen but I am not sure that it is a friendship that will last after I leave. However, I have become closer to two other male Ghanaian friends but I find myself being more reserved and more skeptical. I think that this is due to the “status” that I am associated with, being a white American girl.

The fourth goal is to learn Twi. I have begun to speak it more when I am at the market but I only know short phrases and find it difficult to converse for longer than a few minutes. I am hoping that in the next two months I can learn more but I am unsure whether I will be able to reach the level of conversation that I had originally hoped for. This is one goal that I am willing to revise a little because learning new languages is difficult for me and takes time and patience.

These four goals are still within walking distance, can still be accomplished. I hope that by the end of the next two months I have begun to take my final steps in completing my goals, overcoming the stress of “status” and “expectations.”

Vision Plan

This is an assignment from the beginning of the semester: February 4th, 2012

My Vision Plan for this semester includes four goals. My first goal is to bridge the gap between the American perception of Africa and the African perception of America. I realize that this is a broad goal and is virtually impossible to accomplish but I hope that through various conversations, projects, and adjustments I will be able to facilitate dialogue about bridging the gap that exists. I think that it’s important for people back home to see a different view of Africa, of Ghana, then that which is portrayed in the media and vice versa for the Ghanaians that see an image of America being rich.

My second goal is to work with the education system that is in place here and become a member of it so that I can participate in a different form of education. From what I have already seen of the education system I realize that it is vastly different from the American education system. I do not intend to try and change any part of the education system here because that would require me to go against what the Ghanaians know, what they understand, and what they want for their children. Instead, I will attempt to connect what the students know with meaning. I’ve found that many of the children know nursery rhymes and can tell you the five senses when they sing the rhyme but if you ask them a question about it they can’t answer the question. As a future educator I hope to use what I’ve learned in the U.S. to accomplish this goal as well as learn from the Ghanaians how to be a teacher here.

My third goal is to make a Ghanaian friend. I have found myself to be more outgoing here than I am back home but I have yet to make a Ghanaian friend at the University. I would like to get to know someone my age, a girl, that I can talk with, ask questions to, and have fun with. I think friendships are important in learning about a new culture and thus far my Ghanaian family has been my link to learning about Ghana but I would like to continue to explore and make friends.

My fourth goal is to learn Twi and be able to converse with Ghanaians by the time I leave in May. I’m not very good at learning new languages so this will take my time and patience. I think it’s important to learn this language to try and connect with others. Although I didn’t come to Ghana to learn Twi, now that I am here I would like to be practicing and working on this new language in order to facilitate conversations.

Goals, Plans, and Anticipated Obstacles:

1. Bridge the gap between perceptions of Africa and America. I’m going to do this by keeping my blog that has already begun to accomplish part of this goal. The people that are reading it, family and friends, are seeing my view of Africa, as a young American girl in Ghana. Although we will all have different experiences I think even just reading about one view can begin to change our preconceived notions and force us to realize that there is more. The second way in which I hope to accomplish this goal is to do a multimedia project on the 38 CIEE students that have come to Ghana. This will take the form of a DVD that students can take back with them to America and that can be dispersed of in Africa as well. I will ask the students questions about Ghana as well as asking their Ghanaian friends, colleagues, and family members similar questions. I think this could be a medium through which conversation can begin. Possible obstacles: Not everyone may be receptive of this. I may need to adjust the multimedia presentation if others are not willing to work with me. Also, language could become a barrier of sorts but I hope that I will be able to overcome this by learning some Twi. Measurement: I don’t think there’s an easy way to measure this because it’s such a broad goal but I think that it will be based on people’s reactions. Perhaps I will conduct a short survey with the DVD.

2. Work with the Ghanaian education system. I am going to accomplish this goal by working at Tot To Teen and also the nursery school that my host mother runs. I hope that through these two schools I can begin to understand the way in which the children here learn. I’ve already seen that the teachers mostly ask questions and the children also learn nursery rhymes. I’d like to connect meaning to these questions and to the nursery rhymes with the students that I will be working with. Possible obstacles: I think the hardest part of accomplishing this goal will be the resources that are available. There do not appear to be many resources so this may be challenging and force me to become creative. Another obstacle will be the language barrier. Although the students are learning English, my English is different from theirs. Measurement: By the end of the semester I hope that the students will have made some connections between words and objects. I also will measure this by my own interaction with the schools and whether I am able to accept the differences that exist.

3. Make a Ghanaian friend. Through University classes I hope that I will be able to meet someone that I can build a friendship with. Possible obstacles: The challenging aspect of this is that I am in only one class with mostly Ghanaians and in addition there are four or five CIEE students in this class. I hope that I can branch out from the CIEE students and ask questions of the other students in the class in hopes of making a friend. However, there are also other people outside of the University that I may be able to make friends with, such as the teachers at Tot To Teen or Felix’s friends. Measurement: Hopefully by the end of the semester I will have a Ghanaian friend that I can keep in touch with when I return home.

4. Learn Twi. Being enrolled in a Twi class will help me accomplish this goal. Possible Obstacles: Although I will need to force myself to practice and learn the language on my own time. Also, my host family does not speak Twi, they speak Krobo, and so I will need to practice with other Ghanaians and the other CIEE students. Measurement: I hope by the end of the semester I will be able to carry on a conversation for a few minutes with a Ghanaian in Twi.