January 29, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

We are starting this on Friday evening at home on our own laptop—aren’t you proud!!  We are feeling much more confident that we are not going to burn up the computer.

Wednesday we had our regular school day without a great deal of excitement.  We met with some of the administration of the school and asked them to list what they would like that we could fund with money from “Friends of Akuffo Tom School”.  They gave us a list and said that they preferred to have us spend most of our money on windows and doors for two of the classrooms plus some additional desks and chairs.  We will also fund two-thirds of the excursion to Cape Coast Castle in March.

Wednesday evening we returned to Mamfe to the “obroni” night where we again met the people from the Netherlands who are funding the orphanage and other things in Tinkong where we went last Sunday to the Durba.  They were leaving today to return to Holland.  We sat with another man from the Netherlands who is fifty years old who has been here for three months and is also returning home tonight.  William works for a bank in the Netherlands and used two months vacation time and his company gave him another month with pay to continue his work.   He hopes to return next year.  We have invited him to visit us in the States and he may do that sometime.

Thursday is our big day with eight classes.  However, the last period was cancelled because Ghana was playing in the Semi-Finals for the Africa Cup against Nigeria.  We walked home while the game was being played and the traffic was much lighter as most of the men were some place watching the game.  (We had been told that the game would be on Saturday so were a bit surprised when we found out that we were getting out early.)  GHANA WON!!!!!  They play Egypt in the finals on Sunday.  We have joked that we will see everyone on Tuesday as we expect the President to declare a holiday when they win on Sunday—remember how we prayed for snow days.

During the day the editor of a student newspaper from Accra came to the school and interviewed several of the students and us.  He took several pictures of us with the students showing the books and materials we shipped.  We have seen a few copies of the paper and it is quite good.  We expect that the article will appear in the next few weeks.  The paper is a bi-weekly.  We used some of the articles from that paper to talk about Haiti and earthquakes.  Right after the Haiti tragedy there was real fear in Accra and other places that we would be having an earthquake at any minute.  They have had a few here in Ghana with the last one being in 1939.  There are very few in West Africa.  The editor seemed pleased that we had used the paper in class.

On the way home we stopped at the slow internet café and read our mail but did not try to send out a letter.

In the evening we had to get our laundry ready for the lady who comes around 4:30a.m. to wash for us.  She had everything done by about 7:15—all by hand!

When we got to school there were a few men there who were ready to start work on the windows.  During Joan’s first period there were two men with chisels and sledge hammers slamming out the frames of the four windows and doors which will be replaced—maybe over the weekend.  Joan had planned a test on poetry so she was speaking very loudly to help the students review.  One of the words was “onomatopoeia”—crash, bang—and the door jams came tumbling down.  They finished in our room just in time to give the test while they were in the room next door doing the same thing.  There were pieces of concrete all over the floor and dust flying everywhere.  We could imagine an American administrator having a heart attack thinking that the students would get hurt and there would be a law suit.

We gave Vera the money needed to purchase the windows, doors and supplies needed to install them.  She was sent to Accra with the man who is going to do the work.  It is now a little after eight in the evening and she has not returned home yet.  We have heard from her by phone (to the woman who lives down the hall) and she is on her way.  (She arrived at about 8:30.)

This afternoon we gave a workshop for the teachers on how to use the teacher editions and materials which we shipped.  We have quite a bit for most grade levels for math and science.  We have nothing for French, Twi (the local language) or tech.  We said we would try—especially for French and tech.  We also need things for the very young kids—manipulative materials, posters, educational toys and things of that type.  We want to get some equipment for the science teacher as he really does not have anything to work with except the text—and the students do not all have a copy of that.

The workshop went pretty well.  We probably should have had the primary teachers at a different time from the Junior Secondary but we were able to give them all something to look at and helped to explain how some of the material works.  This includes simple things like telling what grade level it is for by counting the dots or squares on the spine of the book.  Why can’t the publisher just put the grade level on the cover?

Someone asked about lesson plans and goals for the students.  Basically we have a scheme of topics that we have to cover over this marking period that will be on the government exam at the end of the term—about when we leave.  It reminds us of “no child left behind”.  The pressure is on to cover a tremendous amount of work—we still try to fit in some creative ideas.  It is different.  As for goals for the students—get them through a la America style!  Many of the students want to be doctors, teachers and other professionals.  Someone else has asked about music.  There are no formal music lessons.  However, the children have singing on Friday mornings.  There are some boys who play drums when they go to classes in the a.m.  The students appear to rotate who plays the drums on different days of the week.

Tomorrow we are planning to go to a rural village where Vera is from.  Her mother still lives there.  We have hosted Victoria twice in our home in the States.  She has come to New York City twice to help with family.  She came first when her sister was dying from cancer and a second time to help a niece and her family with a new baby.  Victoria was a teacher here in Ghana before retiring.

We will pick up this letter after our trip tomorrow.

Saturday Evening:  

We had a great day! 

The day started with the carpenter coming to the house to be paid for twenty chairs and five tables that he will make.  The chairs will be used by both the students and faculty.  At present there are not enough for both.  Whenever there is a meeting the chairs must be carried from the Form 3 classroom and then the students do not have chairs for themselves.  They were also to come and work on the windows and doors today but we do not know if that happened.  We are amazed at how fast this is happening as the decision was just made this week on how to spend the money.

We visited Vera’s mother in a small village about one in a half hours away if you don’t stop.  Of course it took us much longer.  We hired a taxi for the day for what would be about $30 —we tipped him about 25% so we gave him 50 Ghana cedis-- $40.  Quite a bargain!!!  Along the way we were able to have two tanks of bottled gas filled for Vera to use for cooking.  They have been out in Akropong for some time and she would have to cook outside on a little stove if we did not get this.

We toured the Akosombo Dam.  This blocks the Volta River to create Volta Lake.  When the dam was built in the 1960’s it created the largest man-made lake in the world.  (This is no longer true.)  The first generators were made by GE in Schenectady but they have been replaced a couple of times by now.  We had to pay about $1.50 each for a guided tour.  We were joined by two young Americans who work for McKinsey (sp.) where Veronica is to start work in September.  One is stationed in South Africa and the other is out of Chicago but they are working on some project together here.  Chris, the one living in South Africa grew up in Tarrytown and has relatives in Niskayuna where his family often came for Thanksgiving.  It really is a small world that both Veronica and we would have a connection to these two guys.

The tour was interesting.  We did visit the dam six years ago but had forgotten quite a bit about it.  It generates most of the electricity for Ghana and they sell some to Togo.  Our lack of electricity locally is a transmission problem—not a lack of power being generated.

Vera’s mother has moved into a new house since we last visited.  She showed us the building under construction before but it is now finished.  The house is located next to her brother’s home.  Unfortunately, he died last year.  She rents out part of the house to a family whose husband is a teacher in the local government school.  He told us that they have about 750 students in K-Form 3 (9^th Grade).  For them to have that many students is a lot for a very small town!  Victoria served us rice with a spicy meat sauce and it was very good.  She also served us fresh coconuts—both the juice and the meat.  She gave us paw-paw and mango to bring home.

On the way back we stopped at the Cedi Bead Factory.  We had visited this before.  It is not really a factory as all the beads are made by hand one at a time.  They gave us a demonstration of how they make the beads and then took us to the kilns to see how they are fired.  The kilns are made of termite mud and they get very, very hot.  When they take the beads out of the fire they must work with each one to make them round and to put a hole in them to allow them to be strung into bracelets or necklaces.  It is an amazing amount of work to make a glass bead.  We met a girl from Finland who is there from college with two friends studying the Cedi techniques that are being used as they are unique.  We told her that we had been to Finland for Ansku’s wedding.  This girl was from the Helsinki area.

We also stopped to pick up “pure water” from a place that Vera likes better than what is available in Akropong.  The trunk was already loaded with gas and fruit so we ended up with the water behind our heads in the back seat and on the floor.  It was like being in a tro-tro in a private car. When we arrived home the cab couldn’t make it all the way down the hill so we had to lug everything down the hill and into our living quarters.  Joan, Veronica and Vera head loaded about 6 huge bags of the sachets of water to our house—Veronica and Joan were very proud that they could even do it—of course; we used our hands to help. 

We plan to get this to the internet tomorrow after church.  Sorry this is so long—busy week—still no water flowing, but we are getting used to it.  Thank God the electricity is on.  We hope all is well with you and the winter isn’t too harsh.

Love and Prayers,
Joan and Harry