September 21th – Teaching starts on Tuesday

First week of school


The first week of school is used to clean the school and general administrative activities. The students are responsible for cleaning the school and the grounds – a lot of sweeping and weeding. The teachers work on class assignments, organize school books, and register students in the various forms (grade levels). The junior high has three forms.

I'm assigned to teach math form 1 and information communication technology (ICT) forms 1 and 2. The school only started ICT last year and thus only the two classes are officially taking the class. I'm going to spend some time with the third year students to provide some ICT training. ICT is very simple computer skills such as typing and understanding the high level parts of a computer.  The school has about 20 laptops - there are some battery issues with a few - but we have enough to teach classes.  Basically, the class is split in half for "lab" and there are two students for each computer.

I'm looking forward to teaching with some concern about learning names and making myself understood by the first year students. JHS is the time when students have to convert to school entirely in English, rather than the native Dagaree.

Monday is a national holiday – Founder's day (Sunday this year) – the birthday of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah along with the other founding fathers. I have a extra day to make my lesson plans.

School farm


In addition to the school buildings, laptops, books, and other resources – the school has a garden, fields, and pigs. The students are responsible for caring for these resources. For example, they bring pig feed daily and take care of the pigs. They finished harvesting the school garden, primarily corn, on Friday. Behind my house are the school fields planted with millet and corn.

These resources are used as supplement funds for the school.


The school has these resources to supplement the money from the government.  Of course the problem of under funding education is not limited to Ghana. We all know that local, state, and national support for schools in the United States have reduced over the years. The amount of student loan debt among the younger volunteers in my group and in the country at large is just one result. Shameful, but I'll leave it at that.

Donkeys in the field


Unfortunately for the school there have recently been a couple of donkeys running loose in the millet field. They are tall enough to eat the millet – destroying the crop. I chase them out of the field when I can – but the destruction continues. It may be possible for the school to hold the owner of the donkeys responsible for the damage – but I'll leave that to the headmaster and the locals.

One of the donkeys in the field

Lunch time for the pair

Buffet after the meal

Food

A common and generally annoying phrase that I used back in the states was that “I eat to avoid starvation”.  For example, I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, fruit, and commonly cookies or a candy bar almost every lunch at work for the last few years. I would drop the candy bar or back off on ice cream at night when my weight increased a little. And then I would add them back when my weight dropped a little. Much to the consternation of some I just did not care that much about my diet and was able to control my weight without much obvious work.

However, now food is a nearly constant focus – in part because I've lost over 20 pounds. Loosing weight for male volunteers is typical.  The Peace Corps doctor was not overly concerned.

I'm working to get a balanced diet with increased exercise. I have not tried much local meat yet so my protein is mainly based on eggs, powdered milk, peanuts, and rice and beans. I get a lot of starch with bread, pasta, yams, and rice. My typical breakfast is a considerable quantity of french toast or oatmeal. I'm also trying to make sure I take in as many calories as possible considering my increased exercise program. Kool-aid and sugar on french toast. A sort of hot chocolate powder at night.  And such.  I'm looking forward to adding honey to my diet.  Local honey is harvested in the dry season.

Daily routine


Now that school has started I need to be there by 7:30. Currently, I get up around 5:30 to take my shower, get breakfast, and do some minor cleaning before school. I'll teach my classes, grade homework and work on lesson plans during the day. Lesson plans are recorded in a bound notebook and periodically inspected. School is over at 2:30. If I need to go into town I'll do that then.

On my way into town I pass by Roger's brother work, bicycle repair. I usually stop both ways to greet and chat. We might also have a local low alcohol drink made from millet called pito or “daa”. This is a common drink and part of the social interaction in the Upper West Region.

I also need to wash my laundry once or twice a week. We are still in the rainy season so there is mud around. But I understand that this is the easy time as the dry season will bring dust and increase the laundry. Also, just saying, that I'm going to be much more careful with the ink pens in my shirt pockets.

Money issues


The Peace Corps philosophy is to have the volunteers live close to the level of the local population. I agree with the benefits of this approach and plan to follow it within reason so I'm back on a strict budget with the rest of the volunteers.

In addition, as the Peace Corps is the Federal Government so getting expenses, such as a medical trip to Accra, reimbursed takes some time. Unfortunately said expenses were considerable (about one month pay) so I needed to pull some money from my U.S. bank. On the plus side, my monthly pay is about $100 so I did not need to take much out. On the negative side I cannot just go into Nandom to pull money. My bank (to write a check) and the closest ATM is in Lawra (an hour away plus the time to fill up a tro (local private van).  Depending on the time a day a tro can "fill up" between 20 minutes and three hours.

As I have not yet been reimbursed I have no money in my Ghana account so a check was not an option. Unfortunately the only ATM in Lawra was down so I had to go to Wa, several hours and of course more money for the travel.

I don't plan on taking much money out of my account and was not particularly happy about taking it out, but had little options with the Accra trip expenses.

On the plus side I was planning to go to Wa eventually. I needed to pick up a hot plate, hangers, and a longer seat pole for my bicycle. None of these were readily available in Nandom or Lawra.

I decided to get the hot plate when I noticed that I was almost out of propane. When my tank is done I'll need to strap it to my bicycle and tote it into town. There a person will take it to get refilled. He goes in the morning and returns in the evening and does not go on Sundays – so I could be without fuel for several days. My other option is to get a charcoal burner. I guess I'm back to living like a college student – short of money and cooking at times on a single burner hot plate. Oh, to be young again.

The twelve hangers imported from China costs 18 Ghana cedis. This is likely about 4 times the cost a year ago as the value of the cedi as reduced from about 1.1 cedi to the dollar to about 4 cedi to the dollar. To put 18 cedis in perspective a small loaf of bread that lasts a couple of days is 1 cedi. Two eggs are also 1 cedi. So figuring coffee and spices my typical french toast breakfast is less than 2 cedis.

However, I want to hang my shirts to get organized so the hangers are a “luxury”. Welcome to Ghana.

I also needed a longer pole for the seat on my bicycle. This was only 4 cedis installed and a great improvement in pedaling.

Just reporting – not wanting to complain


I've learned to live one day at a time, one step at a time. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining or that I'm unhappy. Yes, life is difficult at times and requires a constant adjustment. But that is the way for all of us if we have our eyes open. At the moment I've got a few more adjustments, but soon I hope to be relaxed in the new normal.

All the best until next week.


Love always – John

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