Three weeks left of training. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda just wanted to stay at site when I went to visit. The prospect of coming back to learn a new language all day long when I suck at speaking in general was not the most thrilling. But now I’m close to the end! Although I am going to miss being close to all the other PCVs. They are good ones.
So my site. It was amazing. I’m pretty much the luckiest person ever.
My headmistress and counterpart came to Techiman (where we are training) 2 weeks ago. We all had a couple of days of workshops where we talked through different common issues that we might have to deal with at site. My headmistress is a really great lady. It was kinda awkward sometimes because neither of us are small talk people, but she is really dedicated to the school. I’ve kinda gathered that this isn’t necessarily the norm. So it is a big relief to be working with someone who will be supportive. On Friday we left early for the north. I didn’t go with them because there wasn’t room, but they did take all my stuff. I decided to take my life up to site and leave it so that I wont have to deal with carrying it around later. (So now I’m just living out of my backpack). Jesse, Brenda, and I rode up separately on a Tro – they are the two who are closest to me from our training group. They are both teaching at sites near Bolga in the Upper East. Jesse is deaf art and Brenda is high school science.
My site- the school campus isn’t right in town, its about 2 km out by itself. My house is right on campus, although kinda away from the main building which is nice, but right next to the staff housing compound so there are always people around. My house is so nice! I feel like its not peace corps or something. It is basically a big rectangle. There is a T down the middle- the top of the T being the living room, and the stem being a hallway, then there are 2 rooms to the right and a kitchen and bath to the left. The kitchen is almost even a proper American kitchen, (without a sink or fridge of course) but there is a gas stove and cupboards which is way more than most ghanaian kitchens. My “bathroom” is literally a place where I can bathe with a bucket. A tile room with a drain in the corner. I was very excited to have one of these all to myself! AND because of that I can make the rule that noone is allowed to pee in there. Everywhere else the bathrooms reek like pee because that’s where people pee. Mine will not be that way. Then I share an out house that is a ways from my house with everyone which is cool. The biggest living related challenge I’m going to have at my site is water. There isn’t any. Right now they collect rainwater which works fine, there is a silo looking thing that we all use. But during the dry season we all have to buy water from a big truck that comes and fills a tank.
The school is great. There are about 150 students from 1st to 8th grade. I will mostly be teaching P1-P6 and then having an art club with the JSS in the evenings. AND! Get ready for this…. I have my own art room!!! Crazy huh?! Not only do I have my own room, but there are some supplies also and big tables! The supplies are mostly left over from what people sent to Sabrina (the girl who I am replacing) but it will be really nice to have something to start with. The only thing I will need to figure out is scissors… they are sort of lacking here in Ghana. The rest of the school is set up sort of campus style. Each building is separate and is an open air structure with a blackboard some wood desks/benches, and a cabinet to store the students notebooks. There aren’t textbooks for the most part, teachers write paragraphs on the board and the students copy it into their notebooks.
So I spent 4 days at my site. The first night I arrived Sabrina was still there, so it was wonderful to be able to ask her my millions of questions. Then she had to go down to Accra for the rest of the time so I had the house to myself. Well kinda. I don’t think I was ever really alone. The girl who lives next door (who’s dad teaches at the school) helped me out with all kinds of things and is my new shadow. She is 12 and goes to the school in town. She wouldn’t let me do any work! She even randomly cooked dinner for me when I was taking a nap one afternoon. Crazy. Its kind of weird letting someone else do things for me. But I have kind of gathered that they really do want to and even are insulted if they are there and you don’t let them do the work. I didn’t cook much in the house though, I mostly went to the headmistress’s house for dinner. It was good to spend time getting to know her, although we are both pretty quiet people, but that was fine, comfortable silence was had The weekend I spent exploring the school and talking to other teachers and basically getting a feel for things. It was fun, one night there was a football match (soccer) and it was the teachers and students against the alumni who had come in for the 50th reunion of deaf schools in Ghana. It was really interesting, everyone was deaf. So instead of cheering there was lots of running in circles on the sidelines. It was great.
Before coming back to Techiman; Jesse, Brenda and I met up and spent 2 nights and a day at the Peace Corps suboffice in Tamale. We got to know some other PCVs in the area and made some American food and wondered around Tamale for a bit. It was good.
So now its Dagbani, Dagbani Dagbani….. hopefully my next update will be about how I have passed my language test and have moved on to site!
