February 3, 2012

Hi All,

Before I forget, here is my mailing address. If you send a letter or package you should let me know so I make sure that I go to the post office to get it.

Frederick Addai
Jenny Peek
Post Office Box TL 313
Tamale, Ghana

There is so much to share! So, I am going to split it just into sections and you can read what you like!

The weather:
It is very hot from 11 am to 4 or 5 pm. After that it is not too bad but if the power goes out (it has been out 3 times since we have been in Tamale) and our ceiling fans turn off it gets really hot really fast. The power seems to turn on after a couple of hours. The government controls the power and water, so everyone (who can afford it) has water tanks and a couple of flashlights.In the morning while I am teaching it is not bad and the evenings are nice to walk around in.

The food:
Breakfast: Hot chocolate or hot tea and white bread in bagette form (but it tastes more like wonder bread but is less chewy).
Lunch: more bread and water. We drink a lot of water here since it is so hot. So far today I have had 12 cups of water and it is only 5 o'clock! Hopefully Dave and I can find snack food we like and can eat without getting sick soon. After this we are getting mangos (yum!) I think we just need to explore around town more and we will find food we like.
Dinner: A LOT of rice, noodles, vegetables, and spices mixed together. Starches and spices (like hot pepper) are really big here. The Peek's are known for liking spicy food, but this is a new level of spice! Even Dave has had trouble with some of the hot sauces. But we had a ramen noodle like dish that we both really liked last night.

School:
I love the girls I work with. My class has about 30 girls in it and I HAVE successfully learned all of their names! It was difficult since they are all new...Naziha, Rahama, Rahema, Karima, Salamutu, Sadia, Madiya, etc. But I think the fact that I now know their names made them like me even more so they really respect me and pay attention. We do English in the morning for 2 hours, take a 30 minute break for lunch and then do math for the last hour and a half. We have been learning things like how to use "has" and "have", "is" and "are" and "this" and "that." English is harder than math because they only know some English words and not others and whenever I ask "do you understand?" they always respond "yes" as a class, even if they have no idea what I said. So I am getting good at recognizing their blank stares  and doing body motions for words. But how do you do a motion to help they know what "to describe" means? It's been interesting to say the least. In math we first went over addition, which they are really good at. Now we have been doing subtraction. The first day was disasterous. I was trying to explain how to borrow 1 from a number. (For those of you who do not remember, when you subtract something like 112 - 23, since 3 is bigger than 2 you have to "borrow" 1 from the second 1 in 112 and then think 12 - 3 and then 10 - 0.) Anyway, the first day crashed and burned but on the second day half of them understood and by the third 75% do. I need to figure out what to do with the girls who are very behind. There are two students who are older who struggle with subtraction problems like 10-4 or 12-6. I tried to work with them during the break but they are embarrassed that they have to stay in class for an extra amount of time. Hopefully I can figure something out (since the other teacher is usually (read: always) helping in the other classrooms. Since I am here for 11 weeks I am trying to come up for a bigger plan (versus going day by day) but it seems like the other teacher would just flip in the handbook to a certain page and start teaching there. So it is difficult to tell  what the girls have learned before and what is new. I guess this is what happens when most of the teachers are volunteers who come for different lengths of time and feel comfortable teaching different subjects. If any of you with teaching experience have suggestions of things we can do with limited paper and supplies that is at a 3rd grade level, let me know! (jennyrpeek@gmail.com).

Phew, this is turning into a really long update! I should go, but I would love to hear about how each of your lives are doing. I am thinking about keeping a dream journal since they are all about the U.S. So far I have dreamed about Colorado and Grinnell. Last night my dream was about food Italian food and boy was it tasty! I guess dreaming about food will have to hold me over until we find food that we really like here.
I hope you all are doing well. Congratulations for getting through the entire post!