Hi all,

Well, Dave and I have finally brought our big African adventure to an end. I have re-written this blog entry a few times because I am just not sure how best to sum up what the past three months have been like. We came to Africa hoping to experience a new culture, teach children, build a school, learn some crazy drumming skills, and have an adventure. We are leaving Africa with a new family, a new home, a few new beats and a handful of adventures.

To speak to our family here, Dave and I were very blessed to live with wonderful, caring individuals who would do whatever they could consistently to make sure that we felt comfortable and safe. The director and his wife and the other Ghanaians taking care of us in the home and around town really taught us about what it is to give gladly. In the beginning of our stay when we were trying to figure out what is "appropriate" to give or not give to a chief or child or individual in need of help, Fred consistently told me that "appropriateness" was not what was important, it is "giving from your heart" that matters. While this was initially a frustrating response since it was very vague, after living with individuals who give what they can and when they can as a general way of living, I see how valuable and simple giving purely from your heart without any feelings of obligation or the need to be repaid can be.

To speak to the children, I think that it can clearly be seen in my previous entries that we have fallen in love with the girls I have been teaching and tutoring. These girls opened their heart and souls to Dave and me. They came to school everyday eager to learn and improve. They visited our house everyday wanting to read Dr. Seuss books and play games. They gave their cookies, food, and candies to us at school when they had the money to buy goodies. They would walk us home from school and ask if they could help washing our clothes and gasp at things like a map of the world or the power of the gas stove or the magic of completing a puzzle. Now that I am home I see things that are everyday for us and think, "if only there was a way to show Asia this! She would be so amazed!" Or "Whoa, what would the girls think if they saw THIS?" 

To speak to teaching, it was a challenge, but I loved it. I wish that I could have stayed longer since I know that I was improving with each week. Luckily our last week in Tamale was the children's last week of school before a month long vacation for the rainy season. Therefore, we spent the last week reviewing and then I gave them each a small test (even 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade level students are expected to have exams here!) It was such a perfect way to end my time the children were able to see just how much they had learned! In English we covering subjects like using "has, have, and had", "is, are, and am", "did, do, and does", nouns, pronouns, common nouns, proper nouns, adjectives, verbs, and vocabulary. In Math we got to Chapter 5! We worked through recognizing and spelling large numbers, 4 digit addition and subtraction, measurement (using a meter stick, understanding cm and m, and even converting cm to m and vice versa!), fractions (this was definitely the hardest math subject. They still need much more practice with this since they seem to understand how I do exercises on the board but when the concept of fractions is introduced in new ways they struggle to understand), and we briefly got to creating tables and taking surveys. Huzzah! They all did really well on their "exams" and I think that they and I were pleased. Now I just hope that their teacher continues where I left off and continues to challenge the children since they can do a lot, you just have to be patient with them in the learning process. 

To speak to drumming and dance, I have seen and experienced how music can be a language. A drum tells a story that a dancer illuminates. Every beat, every call, can have a meaning. To you and me, we hear a sweet lick or are impressed by a fast rhythm. To drum masters and villagers alike, they hear their traditions and their stories. When an elder dies in a village, they place a certain drum beat. When a wedding is about to occur, they use a specific drum call. When the chief wants to meet with the villagers, he uses his drum. And in weddings, funerals, and general evening celebrations, the people dance. Feeling the music is just something that seems to be innate in everyone we met there. I will miss talking with my drum, but I will continue to play from the soul and maybe I can tell a few stories of my own with the drum once I really find my place with the djembe.

To speak to the adventures, a few of the stories have made my previous blog entries. The rest I am going to try to share through pictures. I will add the pictures tomorrow to tell a few more stories as my final blog post. As a sneak Peek, (get it? a sneak PEEK?), below are are a picture of Dave and I with each of our classes.

Biani ("until tomorrow" in Dagbani)

Hi all,

I apologize for the ridiculously long absence. We are alive and well do not worry! The last couple of weeks have been a complete whirlwind of goodness. We are leaving Tamale tomorrow evening (I still cannot really believe that I will be saying goodbye to everyone here in just 24 hours) and then we will be traveling in the Cape Coast for a week. Then, we return to home sweet home! Since we have been gearing up to leave the past couple of days have been an emotional rollercoaster. But I am not ready to fill you all in on that yet so this post is just to inform you all about what we have been up to. (It's a lot!)

Mole National Park:
Dave, three other volunteers, one of the Ghanaians who lives with us (Baba), two of our students and I went to Mole National Park last weekend. We saw FIFTEEN elephants! It was incredible. The park did not have any lions, giraffes, or tigers but seeing baby elephants and their mothers and fathers walking around, visiting the water hole, and playing with one another was priceless. Surprisingly the elephants were black. They look gray/red most of the time because they put dirt on their backs to protect their skin from insects. It was awesome to see them enter the water gray and emerge from the water black. It was also great to see the girls and Baba's excitement at seeing more of their country.

In addition to the elephants we saw antelope, wart hogs, lizards, snakes (one of which was in our "shower") one monkey, and Dave had a run in with a spider above his bed that was so big it was carrying a cockroach on its back!    

Getting home was a bit iffy because we did not anticipate the park costing as much as it did (we had to pay to enter the park, to take the tour, to buy food, to buy the tour, to pay the tour guide, etc. None of the costs were very high but all together they added up quickly.) We managed to save enough to buy our bus tickets home (the bus picked us up at 4 am ha) by not eating lunch on the first day and breakfast on the second day. When we got home we had 2 Cedi (Less than $2) left between Dave, Nir (our good friend who is a volunteer) and I. Whoops!

Sex Education/HIV/AIDS Class (say what?!):
So, this actually happened and it went really really well. The director of our organization's wife, who is a nurse, led the class with me. It was really helpful that she was there because she was very informed about AIDS from personal experience treating individuals with AIDS and she could speak to the girls in Dagbani. Around 25 girls ages 14 to 18 came to the class.

We structured the talk around HIV/AIDS (only one of the girls knew what AIDS was) by beginning with what the disease is, how it is contracted, what you can do to prevent contracting it, and how/where you can get tested for it for free. After discussing condoms we gave each of the girls a male condom and discussed what is is, where to buy it, how to open it carefully, the importance of checking the expiration date (one of the female condoms expired in 2009!) and how to use it. None of the girls had seen a condom before. They knew the word but I will never forget the look of surprise/facination/excitement/fear on their faces when I told them that they were each going to open one. After the male condom we demonstrated how the female condom works and then wrapped things up by reviewing the condom and AIDS. I think the class went really well. I was worried that the tone would be either scary or uncomfortable but the girls were really open to asking questions (which does not usually happen) and I think they felt informed afterwards. If I was living here longer it would have been great to get the parents involved in sex education (since most of them do not use condoms and do not talk about sex in the home) but there is just too much to organize! So though this is only a short term thing, I can only hope that a few of the girls who came are able to discuss using a condom with their boyfriends once they feel ready to have sex.

Ok I am running out of time so I am just going to list a bunch of the things we have been doing and I will say more about them later.

1. Sleeping in the village at two of my student's house.
I slept with their mother, the two students, and their 5 younger sisters in one room on the cement floor. Though I did not sleep very well it was really cool to get to see how the nuclear family in the village interacts with one other.

2. Buying, "hunting", killing, and eating a chicken.

3. Performing with the dance/drumming group that I have been training with for all of the Maltiti girls. It was terrifying at first but once we started playing I loosened up and it went really well!

There is more but I will have to write it later. I think that will we will have some down time in Cape Coast so I will try to update maybe on Wednesday. If not then, then I will be home in a week and will write more.
Thanks for all of your support. This experience has been truly incredible for both Dave and I and I cannot wait to tell each of you more about it once we are home!

Little Victories and a Video!

Time is flying by here. I can't believe that I only have a month left! We will be staying in Tamale for the next 3 weeks and then I am finished teaching and we will be traveling down to the Cape Coast. I know that these next three weeks are going to go by faster than I wish so I am spending as much time as possible with my students.

Our director took a video of me with the girls in my class. I do this "activity" with them about once a day to get their blood moving. Here is a snippet of why I love it here so much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtUM_JGwG_k&feature=youtu.be

The ending is cheesy, but all Fred wanted me to say was "Hi I'm Jenny and I'm from America." So that's all I said!

Below are a few of the little victories we have had here this week:

Victory Number One: I took 8 of my girls to the internet cafe down the road. They are all 10 to 13 years old. They had NEVER seen a computer before. (Even though I know this it still surprises me when they do not know the words "mouse" or "keyboard" or "loading" or "Google" or "Facebook.") Anyway, I showed them how to turn it on, we went to the Google homepage and they all practiced writing their name and saying "hello." Then we searched for pictures and information about Ghana. Many of them had not seen a map of Ghana until that morning in class so they were really excited/intrigued to see all of the pictures on the screen. I also showed them my email and they were so amazed that you can actually talk to other people through the screen. I think they all had a lot of fun and the internet isn't such a foreign thing anymore. The true victory in this story is that three of the girls came to my house this morning and told me that they had gone to the internet on their own that night! In just 45 minutes they went from never seeing a computer to feeling comfortable going to a cafe on their own! It's events like this that make me want to stay here longer so that I could really have to show all of them all there is to see and learn and experience in the world outside of their village.

Victory Number Two: On Wednesday I had my afternoon class with 3 of the girls who are really behind in my class. The class on Wednesday went really well but I had to leave early. The girls noticed that we were ending earlier than usual and asked if they could come back the next day to have class again! Now, many of the girls here are very eager to learn. But these three girls often become discouraged because they are so far behind. They stop paying attention in class, resulting in them falling further behind, which leads to them not participating in class or enjoying learning. But after that lesson on Wednesday they each spoke up 3 or 4 times in class on Thursday! We had a follow up lesson on Friday afternoon (just the three of us) and by the end of the class they were excited and engaged and cheering when they got the answer correct.

Victory Number Three: I did the "human knot" team building activity with my older girls at the night class on Friday and they could not get enough of it. We also practiced speaking and writing in English by coming up with "Would you rather..." questions and answering them. For example, one of them came up with the question, "Would you rather have 15 children or 0 children?" It was a pretty even split with some preferring no children and some preferring 15. 

Victory Number Four: We convinced another one of our house mates to come to the pool with us and he got in, put his head under, tried the breaststroke, and can move from his stomach to standing in the water comfortably.

I could keep going but for now I will stop. I will try to update again in a week. Hopefully I will have more victories to share!

My Weekly Schedule

Hi All,

Sorry for the long absence. If any of you have emailed me I have probably (definitely) not responded yet because life has gotten ridiculously busy here! It’s still awesome, but let me fill you in on my general day…

6:45- Wake up

7ish-Drink hot tea or Milo (similar to hot chocolate) with bread and with jam and honey or eggs.

7:45- Walk to school

8:00-12:30- Teach English and Math

12:30-1:00- Walk home with the girls who always insist on carrying our backpacks. They love mimicking how we walk. So I’ll take really tiny steps, then suddenly take really big steps, then switch to hopping up and down backwards and they can’t get enough of it. By the time we arrive home we are usually thirsty, sweaty, tired, but happy.

1:00-2:00- Some of the girls stay at our house to drink water and play games. I brought out the memory card game (where there a pictures that each have a pair and you have to try to find the pair) and they love it. Who knew that one game could entertain 10+ girls for so long! While they play I either sit with them or we make our lunch. Usually fried yam, a noodle dish similar to Ramen, or peanut butter and jelly.

2:00-3:00-Ok, this one comes with a back story. Two weeks ago I told the class that if any of them wanted to work more afterschool with me one on one on the homework or other questions they have they should let me know. What I meant by “let me know” was that they should come see me after class and tell me if they wanted to work with me.) Instead EVERY girl raised her hand and said that she wanted to work more. Every single girl! And it wasn’t one of those things where because a few people raised their hands everyone felt that they should, they all sincerely wanted to do more afterschool. So, I decided to split them into 5 different groups and I work with 5-8 of them every day from 2 to 3. I split them up by their reading and math levels and have been reading picture books that we brought from home. They LOVE it. Some of the books are too difficult though. I assumed they would be at a 10-15 year old U.S. reading level but in actuality the Dr. Seuss book I brought is perfect. So we have been going through some of the other books slower. After reading I have been reviewing what I think the students that I am with need the most help on. With the advanced students I tried to have them write a short story. I do not think they have every been asked to write something creatively so they had a hard time understanding what I meant but it was relatively successful and they were really proud of themselves so that’s what counts.

3:00-6:00ish-Monday through Wednesday I go to my drumming lesson while the other volunteers go to the internet café or walk around town. Drumming usually goes from 3:30 to 5 (I’ve stayed till 6 a few times to watch the dancers practice but I am usually ready to switch things up after 5 and I’ll join the other volunteers. Thursday and Friday we go to the orphanage from 4 to 6. We change, bath, clothe, and feed the babies and toddlers. The more we go there the more enjoyable it is since we know the children’s faces more and know what comforts the babies more.

6:00-7:00 maybe go to the internet café. If not we go home and eat dinner.

As of last week from 7:30 to 10:00 we now are holding evening classes/tutoring sessions with the older girls who have left the elementary school we teach at for junior and senior high. For now we are doing these classes 7 days a week, but since that is pretty ambitious I think it will become a Sunday through Thursday night thing soon. I have really enjoyed working with these girls because they speak more English so it’s easier to talk to them and get to know them personally. Before leaving I think I am going to do a sex education night with them (eek! But it is completely necessary since they do not get the information from school or at home.) I also want to start taking more of them to the internet café. Four girls asked if they could come last week and 3 of the girls had never used a computer, not to mention heard of Google or Facebook or emailing. Honestly, it has been overwhelming to realize the extent to which these girls are cut out from information even though they want to learn (the fact that all of my 10-15 year olds wanted to do extra school every day is evidence of this). It’s heartbreaking to see just how much they are lacking because of resources. Hopefully I can come up with a plan/schedule/curriculum that future volunteers and the director here can use once I leave so that the girls continue to get follow up on Sex Ed and computers. There is just so much to do and teach and encourage and inspire and empower!

After 10: Sitting on the wall outside our house and enjoying a beer or cold soda, preparing for my morning lesson the next day, and finally, sleep!

Besides being busy with the kids here are a couple of gems that have happened recently:
-There is a new volunteer here from Germany. (There is another 23 year old male from Isreal, a female 19 year old from Germany, and now this 19 year old volunteer from Germany.) She is really nice and has convinced all of us to go running before school in the morning.
-Last Tuesday (the 6th) was Ghana's Independence Day. They celebrate in the morning when selective students from different schools in Tamale march in the main square. The students, famous actors from Tamale, soldiers, police officers, hair dressers, and seamstresses all march and compete.The girls at our school were not selected to march but they have been marching around the school in the morning singing the marching song for a week. I will forever have the song "Why are you marching so? Why are you marching so? Why are you marching so? Sixth of March! 1967. Ghaaaaaaana. Independence Day!" We met up with a couple of the girls at the march and sat with one of our host brothers. There were SO many people. The Vice President of Ghana was there and the entire park was packed with people and vendors. Pictures can't really capture how many people were there but if you imagine a field the size of a track with bleachers on each side and rows of people standing on the track that's about the size of where we were.

Also, thank you SO much for the donations so far! We have enough for my class (34 girls) so far and I know that a few checks are still on the way. Once we buy the books I will take pictures and post them so you all can see how happy I know the girls will be!

That's all for now. I hope you all are doing well. Thanks for reading!

Books, Waterfalls, and Monkeys!

Hi all,

So much to say! So little time. How do I even begin to organize everything I want to share?! I guess I will stick to my default bullet-style update.

-Announcement-
We are trying to raise money so that each of the girls can have their own English workbook for school. It is $5 per book and there are 150 girls in our school. Right now the girls have notebooks and pencils. While this in itself is a blessing since they can practice in their notebooks and can copy down exercises or short stories, it is very time consuming (and wastes a lot of class time) when I have to write something on the board for them to write in their notebook so that they can practice reading. So...if any of you would like to help us buy books for the girls we would greatly appreciate it! If you send a check to my parents house made out to me, my parents will keep track of how much money comes in and then I can withdrawal the money here to buy the girls books. Any amount will help. If we cannot afford to get books for the whole school then we will focus on one class (my class has 34 girls.) Please do not feel at all obligated to donate! I just thought I would let you know in case anyone wants to donate.

As for what has been going on with Dave and I, this weekend we went to visit the Kintapo waterfalls and a monkey village! We organized a small bus to take us, two of our Ghanaian friends, two of the other volunteers who have been living with us (Christine from Germany and Nir from Isreal), and four other volunteers who we just met. It was perfect that the other volunteers could join us because it made the trip much cheaper and it was nice to talk to a couple of new people about their projects. We drove 4 hours to the monkey village and stayed the night there. In the morning we drove on a bumpy dirt road to the village. There were SO many monkeys! There are 2 different species of monkeys in that forest. One is small, friendly, and LOVES bananas and the other is big and black with big long tails. We fed the monkeys bananas, hiked in the forest, and climbed one of the 300 year old trees. One of the most interesting things about the visit is that the villagers believe that the monkeys are the children of the gods. So they see them as sacred. Therefore, when a monkey is sick or getting ready to die it comes to the village and the villagers bury and mourn the death of the monkey.

They waterfall was also wonderful. It was really nice to cool off. We even climbed underneath the waterfall! Getting down was a bit tricky but was well worth it. I will post pictures on facebook soon. Maybe in a week? Then I will try to figure out how to post pictures on the blog.

I was planning to write more but time has slipped away from me so I will try to update about school, the girls, the orphanage, and food next time.

For now, we miss you all but are still having a wonderful time!

Swimming, Wedding, School, and Cooking!

Hi all,

Sorry for the long absence. The power was out during the day all weekend and yesterday. But then turn it back on at night which is wonderful since that is when we want the ceiling fan to sleep and can use the lights to read and cook. We have been doing lots of exciting things! I am not really sure where to begin so I am going to list what we have been up to.

Swimming!
We went to a swimming pool on Sunday! When we arrived the pool was PACKED since what could be better to do on a hot Sunday afternoon than go to the pool? It felt really nice to get in the water to cool off and swim around. One of our Ghanaian friends here, Masky, came too. She does not know how to swim so Dave and I helped teach her. She was progessing VERY quickly. In just an hour she went from only putting her feet in the water to blowing bubbles in the baby pool, leaning back to put her head in the water, floating with my assistance, getting in the big pool in 3 feet of water, to moving out to 4 feet, stepping 5-6 feet away from me, and jumping and then doggie paddling towards us! She has been wanting to learn for years (she is 25) so she was very excited. I think we will go there once every one or two weeks to cool off and have fun.

Wedding!
We were invited to a Muslim wedding this weekend because the cultural dance and drumming group that I have been practicing with was performing at the wedding. Weddings here take multiple days. I never saw the bride because she does not come out until the evening after her parents and the groom's parents have met in the mosque to discuss the arrangements of the marriage. There was a lot of music and dancing had by everyone (not me since I cannot dance AT ALL and there is a very specific way you must dance to many of the songs) but I had fun watching. I look a lot of pictures of the cultural group performing so I will try to post those on facebook soon.

School!
Things are still going well at school. I would not go as far as to say that we have mastered fractions by any means but they can each create a fraction after a picture is drawn and shaded. (I will draw a square with four squares in it, shade 3 of the squares, and they will know that that means three fourths, etc.) About 80% of them understand why 1/2 is bigger than 1/4 and why 1/1 is bigger than 7/8ths. Hopefully they will all understand that by the end of the week. It's difficult to decide when I should move on from a concept or stay back since there is such a spread of ability. Six of the girls are very advanced, 6ish are far behind in either math or English, and the rest are somewhere in the middle. It was a bit overwhelming when the teacher than used to be teaching came in on Friday asking what ability level each of the girls (there are 34 girls in my class at the moment) were at. He wants to move a couple of them down. I agree that it is a good idea but it seemed strange that he thought I should make the decision when I had only been working with the girls for 3 weeks when he has been working with them for the entire year. I told him I needed some time to think about it and on Monday he asked if I had made a list grouping the girls into ability levels. So, I made a list last night and we will be moving 6 girls down. Now I just need to come up with a way to make moving down seem like an exciting thing and not a punishment.
In other news, we are building an addition to the school which will eventually hold computers! Most of the girls do not know how to use a computer, not to mention search the internet, or write an email so they are very excited to get that portion of the school going.

Learning to cook!
Masky and her sister have been teaching us how to cook! This is VERY exciting news because it means that Dave and I can have a little bit more control over what we are eating, I am learning to cook (which is just exciting in general and makes me feel more self sufficient), I am learning my way around the market, we are becoming better friends with Masky and her sister, and, because I need to mention this again, I am learning to become a good cook!
Yesterday we made Yam Balls which were really tasty and simple. We peeled, cut, and boiled, and mashed the yam (it is kinda like potato but more starchy and soft), cut green peppers, carrots, and onions, mixed the vegetables with the yam with sardines (I NEVER would have considered eating sardines at home), mixed in a bit of egg, rolled the yam and ingredients into balls, rolled them in egg, and then fried them. So tasty. and easy. So I think we will be eating like at least once a week. We will also learn to how to do other thins with the yam and how to make different types of stews.

That is all for now but thanks for all of the emails everyone. I love hearing about all of you and it's wonderful to hear that people are actually reading the blog.

The Orphanage, Teaching, and Soccer

Hi all,

I am learning that how I walk away from my experiences (whether I feel optimistic/overwhelmed/happy/sad etc. depends on my perspective. That might seem like an obvious revelation but I think it will be huge for me being able to handle the large ups and downs of the trip. For example, today we visited the orphanage for a second time. There were 4 women working there taking care of 15 babies (2 months to 1 year) and 12 toddlers (from 1 up to maybe 5 year olds). We were sent to the "play room" (play room is in quotes because it was a tiled room with two wooden benches and barred windows) to distract the toddlers while the women were bottle feeding the babies. There were three of us and every toddler wanted to be held, spun around, and bounced at the same time. I had one on each leg and one on my back when I was sitting down. The kids are adorable and a few would repeat everything we said and sang which was fun. Ok, here is where the perspectives lesson comes in. Part of me is very sad for these children and the fact that they do not have parents, the orphanage does not have the man power to give them the attention they deserve (one child had peed herself and one was running around without underwear), and it is not likely that the older ones will be adopted. When I think about this while I am there it is overwhelming But. when I think about the fact that these children are lucky to have food, water, and a place to sleep (which is just not a reality for many kids here) then they are lucky. The women are amazing for doing what they do every day and most of the babies will be adopted. So, there are two sides to the coin! We will be returning tomorrow to help with feeding and dressing the babies. I think this will be a bit easier actually since the babies won't be trying to talk to us in Dagbani. Dave and I will have mastered  diapers by the time we return home.

Teaching:
I am loving it. Some of my lesson ideas flop (such as introducing fractions today. How did my third grade teachers do it? I mean, how do you explain that 1 over 4 means one forth, and that 1/4 plus 1/4 is not 2/8ths its 1/2 (who came up with spelling "half" with the "l" anyway?) haha but I am sure tomorrow will be better. Last week the idea of doing subtraction with more than two numbers was daunting and now they have mastered it with 4 and 5 digit numbers!! We have also covered <,>, and =, and they can write out "one thousand five hundred and fifty two" huzzah! haha It is really satisfying seeing their progress. I am finding that Math is much easier to teach than English so far (but fractions might change that!) In English we are reciting poems, making sentences and acting them out, defining adjectives and coming up with actions for them, and doing jumping jacks every 45 minutes or so to make sure they are paying attention. It is harder to see their progress here but I think they are improving and they seem happy so that's good. They are so eager to learn which makes my job a thousand times easier.

Also, adorable story...two of the girls were writing a note so I took it away from them. The note said "I love you Jenny" in Dagbani and English. One of the older girls was helping the younger one translate. They were extremely embarrassed since the note was about me and I didn't really know how to react since it made me happy but I was supposed to scold them for writing notes during class. So, I ended up giving them a scolding look and then saying thank you. Not very direct feedback but what was I to do!

In case any of you are following soccer the African cup (which is every 4 years)is going on right now. It has been super fun to watch with the Ghanaians. Sadly we just lost in the semi finals because we were not able to finish even though we were completely dominating the game. But we got to see four games here, each of which were good matches. (You sound silly if you call it a "game" not a match here.) If you want to watch the final it will be this Sunday Ivory Coast vs. Zambia.

Ok, that is all for now For those of you who have emailed me, I will get back to you soon. ,I love getting all of the mail.