Tuesday, 14 June 2011—Accra

Tuesday, 14 June 2011—Accra

Wow, suddenly although I have now been here only nine days, or half of my total time in Ghana, my teaching duties seem to have almost ended.  Mid-terms, which refers here to the time off given to students midway through a term rather than to any assessments that occur at this time, will begin Thursday evening, with all the students leaving the school, to return next Wednesday.  This means that yesterday’s class with my first form students was actually my last chance to teach them, since I will not see them on Friday or Monday.  I have one more class remaining with the third form students after this morning’s that I just completed, and then tomorrow and Thursday with second form, and that is it.  I will see the students some next Wednesday evening and Thursday during the day, but these will just be occasions to share gifts and take pictures.  I’ll be meeting the AGHISSA officers tomorrow after school to present a contribution and some gifts to them.  I’m turning to Osman for advice on the proper conduct for such departure gifts, of which I owe many—to the ladies in the dining hall kitchen who have prepared my lunches each day, to Rejoice for all of her help, to the watchmen who have been sitting outside my rooms night and day.  In addition, there are the gifts I have for students, for Ms. Akapame on behalf of the school as a whole, and to Osman and Amina. 

We took a group picture with the third form students after class—Osman had asked the photographer who accompanied us on our excursion to come to the school today.  On the way to pick up my food, Osman presented me with several of the photographer’s photos from Saturday.  He said that the girls had already snapped up all of the pictures that they appeared in with me.  Lunch was plantains with sauce and breadcrumbs, and I was able to eat it all this time.  I’m going to head to the computer lab, then return with the computer and get out of the school for a while on my own for the first time. 

No luck at the computer lab, so I strolled up around class blocks as classes ended, seeing students.  Many were looking at the calendar for the rest of the term, which has been posted.  All the students seem to be anticipating the mid-term, but if things here are like things at home, so are the teachers and staff.  I walked up by the canteen (which Osman referred to as a bush canteen, and not a real one), that I also visited yesterday, though I forgot to write about it.  Just a few vendors are still open later in the day like this, but at break time in the morning, there are about a half dozen stalls selling different foods, drinks and other goods.  These included pies (small savory pastries), bread with either butter (margarine) or chocolate (chocolate frosting), the toppings slathered between the two halves of an eight to ten inch long piece of white bread, assorted candies, small notebooks and writing implements, and drinks.  I have solved the mystery of the plastic bags full of soda that I have seen students returning to classes with after morning break—standard bottles of Fanta, Sprite, or Coca-Cola are emptied into the bags so that the vendors can keep and return the bottles.  This would probably be the ideal place to ask someone to save bottle caps, though I’m sure they would think it strange.  I am acutely aware here with the strong Islamic influence and how dirty the ground can be that picking things up off the ground as artifacts might raise even more eyebrows than asking someone to save bottle caps for me. 

Some students were sweeping around the canteen and the front area of the school.  I asked one about the duty schedule and types.  The main include sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, and taking trash to the dump.  Some students are assigned to do these tasks in the student blocks, some in the class blocks and others in the administration buildings.  There are both morning and evening groups working.  The best job according to this student is sweeping.  The worst is scrubbing down floors and stairs.

Returning to my room, I dropped off my computer, then headed back to the top of the school grounds and out the front gates.  Many of the day students were waiting for tro-tros at the station right outside of gates, but others had already walked off, whether to homes within walking distance or other transportation hubs, I don’t know.  I spoke with several of those waiting in front of the school, one of them a second or third form student of mine.  All said they have about a two-hour ride home, during which they may talk, sleep, listen to music, read, or study depnding on the day and how crowded the rises are.  From AGISS many go to 37 station, then on to other places.  From 37 back to here one would look for tro-tros taking the Achimota Road route.  I need to find out how much the fare is and try it one day.  Today, though I walked on down Achimota towards Kanda Highway, the road that intersects Achimota at the bottom of hill, stopping along the way to try and talk with the kente weaver outside of the wall that I see each time I drive out of the school with Osman.  His pieces are of a contemporary style, most in the Ghanaian colors of green, black, red and yellow, and many with religious phrases woven in in the same way that my name was on the Akwaaba scarf I received on my first day at AGISS.  I couldn’t communicate at all with two of the three and the other was not especially talkative, so I headed on.  At the intersection, whom should I meet smiling down at me from one of the 30 foot tall billboards there but Kwami Sefa Kayi, the Ghanaian radio broadcaster who visited our home and my school in April when he was in the United States as a participant in the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.  I was thrilled in April to be able to host him for these two occasions, and look forward enthusiastically to having the chance to visit with him while I am here in Accra.  In addition to being a radio host, Kwami is a bit of a celebrity here, hosting various special events like the Miss Ghana contest—he appears on the billboard as part of the advertisement for a contest of some sort that is being sponsored by Omo, a brand of laundry soap here. 

My walk took me right on Kanda Highway and along the edge of Zongo, which I have seen a some of the interior of on my excursions with Osman.  On the sidewalk, I spied a couple of small well-worn wooden boxes with slots in the top, some Arabic writing on two sides, and “Central Mosque” in English on another side, sitting unattended on the sidewalk.  Deducing that these must be for donations, I asked two passing school boys, and they confirmed my guess.  School children, whether these boys or the students at Accra Girls, are great informants because they love to share what they know.  At AGISS, I can basically just walk up to any student and within a minute or two, even if they are not in my class, be asking questions about the school or other topics.  I need to get  some of my students to fill me in on prices for some of the basic items that I may want to purchase while I am traveling on my own—food, drinks, and small souvenirs.

I barely begun heading up the hill opposite Zongo, when I saw a sign for a bead shop across the street.  Entering, I found a woman putting together strands of modern plastic seed beads mixed with clear faceted pieces.  I explained that I was looking for more traditional Ghanaian beads, and was ready to leave, but she said that there was another store in the back.  Locking the front door, she walked me through one courtyard and into a second, where several more woman were stringing beads like those I’d seen in the front.  However, inside a building at the rear was the proprietor, Nadell (vanity plate on SUV-NADEL) who showed me a number of finished pieces, usually interspersing larger solid-colored and modern looking pieces with groups of more traditionally designed ones.  I explained that I was from the U.S. and looking for beads for my wife, who makes her own jewelry.  She offered me a seat and brought out two boxes full of plastic cups, each containing  a different type of bead.   We talked a bit as I began pulling out the cups, sorting those containing beads I was interested in from those I wasn’t.  Given the speed with which Nadell accepted my offer of Gh₵20 for the beads I had selected, I am sure that I overpaid heavily for what I bought, even though this was a third lower than her original quoted price.  However, I needed to meet Osman at 5:00 and having been late once, I didn’t want to be so again.  Lack of time to negotiate is a big problem in bargaining, so in this case I had forego savings for the sake of time.

Having felt a little tired yesterday, I decided to stick with Fanta when going out before dinner for a drink with Osman.  By dinner itself, I realized that I was completely wiped out from nine days of high energy double and triple-tasking—teaching and keeping up with the attendant preparations, going places with Osman during the days, spending evenings talking with him and his friends, and typing, typing, typing.  Several other things also caught up with me all at once.  Today’s walk was the first time I have been out much in the sun in the middle of the day.  Here in Ghana in mid-June, just a few degrees of latitude north of the equator, the sun is almost directly overhead, and it is intense!  I think as well that my body may have reacted a bit to trying to digest the goat I ate last night, which was more meat than I have eaten, probably combined, in the past thirty years.  Finally, I think the fact of the coming mid-terms may also have brought me down a bit today with the realization that my time teaching the girls is already rapidly nearing a close.  I had thought on Sunday about how busy I had been and how much I had done at that point in just the week that I had been here, but I also then realized just how little of my overall planned summer activities that first week actually represented.    I may have to begin pacing myself a bit more.  At any rate, I was so tired that I could not even each much of the tizit,  a traditional northern dish made from maize, that Amina had prepared.  Osman, seeing my condition, got me home early where I spent time preparing for my farewell speech at assembly tomorrow before turning in for a good night’s rest.