The Ghana Rural Library Project

I’m still getting used to the heat and the pace of life here, and still getting rid of my jet lag. We began with a regular breakfast – here in Ghana they have porridge, usually, which is a kind of powder that they mix with water, which produces a sweetish, sourish paste that is difficult to describe and even more difficult to consume. Not only is it hot, but you suck it out of a little plastic bag. It also isn’t very tasty. At Nana’s house, we eat oats, which is what they call oatmeal – a high-class version of porridge.

After breakfast, our team had our official introduction to Ghana meeting. We talked about what the next six weeks are going to look like, how our teaching is going to work, what the school is like, what the town is like, how our projects are going to go, and we all shared a little bit about our expectations and our general first impressions of the town and of the country in general.

Generally, culture shock hasn’t been drastic by any means. We all kind of get the feeling that it will be more difficult returning to the states than it’s been coming here. I actually really like the simplicity of life here… At present I feel like I could stay here for a long time (live here?) but I’ll have to rethink that after I’ve been here a bit longer.

We walked to the school after our meeting and again were flanked on all sides by these beautiful children. As we approached the main teacher’s room (like a break room or administration room) and waited outside for the headmistress to arrive, the children had brought out their drums and had a miniature introduction ceremony for us! Two girls wore their traditional dresses and the boys played amazingly. They danced and sang for a few minutes before the teachers shooed them away and we entered the building.

We talked a bit about what teaching will look like, and we visited some of the classes. One thing you notice right away about the school is the constant noise. There are a few reasons this may be: all of the rooms, because of the heat, have open doors and windows. Also, the classes don’t break at the same time, so there are children yelling and playing outside while other classes are in session. If that isn’t enough, Ghanians just seem to be noisy people in general. No matter what the deal is, the classes are so loud that teachers cannot be heard and I don’t think they even care… It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to keep order in the classes.

Another thing we noticed (that Mike did mention before) is the use of caning. The only way, it seems, that the teachers can get the children’s attention is by whacking them with a wooden rod. It works pretty well, too, as I’m sure you can imagine. Usually they just have to smack the cane on a desk and the noise scares the kids into obedience, but they will hit the children as well if they deem it necessary (which means whenever they want, which means often).

Mike told us straight up that we were not going to be caning. So it’s up to us to figure out how we’re going to control our classes (some classes have up to 70 children, by the way) without using the only method they’ve ever known.

Afterward we visited last year’s library and it was both amazing and a little disheartening. It was tiny, there were almost no books in it, and it was just so… simple. I want to bring this state-of-the-art experience to this community, you know? Obviously it isn’t possible, but there’s still that desire. I mean, I should be content with doing whatever we are doing, you know, because it’s still just so much more than they’ve ever had. And, I mean, there were tons of kids in there, and some of them are super smart and will do amazing things for this community… I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel. I’ll write more about that library later.

We came home and napped, I read some, we had dinner, and then some of the guys taught Nana Opoku how to play blackjack, which was hilarious because he won a bunch of hands!  Tomorrow is the introduction ceremony, which promises to be amazing.