Site Visit

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!

The past week has consisted of lots of contemplation time. I'm beginning to understand that is a MAJOR component of what Peace Corps is. Down time. Free time. Community Integration time. Skill Development time. Insanity Development time.
We returned on Monday to the deaf school where we practice our teaching skills. This time our trainers let us decide how the week's schedule would be arranged, so we decided to pair off and each pair would stay with the same class for a full 3 days (9-12) and then have an art show at the end. Jess and I had the JSS1 (approx. 8th grade). We decided our project would be an accordian book with a comic book-like story inside. The objective being to show time through a series of four pictures. The first day was the hardest. It wasn't until right before the end of the period that the students began to understand the concept of breaking down a "happening" into four steps. This is a classic example of probably the biggest difference between Ghanaian and American schooling. Here, it is rare that students have to come up with original ideas, if ever. Memorization is central. To me, it is actually kind of amazing the extent to which they can memorize (for those of you that dont know, i lack considerably in that area ;) ) Students are used to memorizing portions of text and if, on the test, they have even one word off, it is wrong. So, if that is all you have ever learned. You can imagine how difficult it would be to not simply duplicate a set of pictorial events given by a teacher, but to come up with your own parallel ones. Our examples were things like: seed, green shoot, big plant, dying plant....or egg, chick, hen, dinner...or (this was the full example i made to show the project)Kari goes to Ghana- saying goodbye to family, flying over the ocean, landing in Ghana, teaching art to Ghanaians. The kids got really excited when they figured out that the little cartoon character was me :) The second two days were much smoother, they colored in their drawings and then made covers.
It was really cool to be with the same students for a period of time and able to get to know them and their individual skill levels. It was really exciting when one girl was able to come up with a completely different idea for her story (she did fetching water) and then when one boy was an amazing artist out of nowhere...and i got really attached to one girl who has a lot of developmental problems. She is way behind the other students. For example she never was able to grasp the storyline concept. But I just finally let her draw her ideas and color the way she wanted, then helped a lot with her cover. She was sooooo proud when she was done! It was so cool to see that.
Since we didn't have to spend tons of time on lesson plans, the 6 of us had lots of time to do whatever (we were done at 12 every day). I think it was good practice for what site will be like. A little structure with lots of down time. I have started realizing that you can't really go through Peace Corps without developing little insanities/obsessions or quirks if you will to fill the time:) The PCVs have been telling us stories about some of the more extreme versions...like one guy had some pet snakes and kept goign to the health office with snake bites, they finally told him he had to get rid of the snakes, so he cooked them and ate them. Another girl hadn't been heard from in awhile and so another PCV went to check on her. When the volunteer arrived the girl asked if the volunteer wanted a donut. And the visiting volunteer looked around and the girl's kitchen was filled with donuts in all varying states of decay. Like she had started making donuts for weeks on end and never stopped. Another interesting one is a guy I met. He was a really cool guy too. He had started hunting all his own meat in the jungle (i think with a machete) and was determined to make sure he tried every sort of meat possible.
So what do you think mine is goign to be?? I'm already kind of weird. Hopefully it will just become something random, like my friend Jenny has been writing down every single text she sends and recieves for the last year in a book. And thats like 20+ a day. SO get excited for me. It'll be fine :)
Another thing that might make everyone laugh is that one of the guys in the group informed me last night that when me met me he knew I was in Peace Corps, apparently everyone else is random and you would never expect that they were a PCV....but I on the other hand scream Peace Corps. hehe. oh wellll....

a small taste

I love working at the deaf school. I have taught 6 different classes now and they are so fun. It is a whole different ball game. It is a real challenge to come up with something that is the correct ability level that can be taught with the few signs we know and mostly gesture and with hardly any supplies at all. But I love it. The kids are unbelievably excited about art and soo proud of the littlest things. They crave attention and eat it up when you give it to them. One thing I hadn't thought about before that is that most of the deaf students also have other disablities in some form... whatever caused the deafness also affected other functions. Also here, instead of a child staying at his/her ability level, the teachers keep passing them so that they can reach tech. school and learn a skill. I can understand that, but at the same time it is odd to have mostly students with an ability level and another way behind. You just sort of encourage and give extra help. I'm really excited though about it all. :)

Home-stay is also going really well, even though I am hardly ever there. I think I'm getting a really different experience than most, because there really isn't a set family that I live with. I live with the queen mother of the village, her parents, and then a whole host of random people who are distantly related somehow. There is one boy who can speak english really well, so he is my interpreter. The house is arranged in a square with about 9 rooms all facing an inner courtyard. Everything happens in the courtyard. washing, cooking, hanging out... I do have my own room which is really nice and have tried my best to make it homey.