John's Next Step

Most of the schools in Ghana are government run and so the teachers work for the government. This is not entirely true. Some of the teachers have completed their education and have received a posting assignment by the government. These teachers tend to belong to a union such as the Ghana National Association of Teachers and are paid by the government. However, there are not enough teachers or government funds at the moment to go around. Recent college graduates perform a year of service assigned by the government also fill some slots as teachers at a small stipend. Other teachers come from the local community are either paid locally or volunteer their time. Our school has four government teachers, four local teachers, and me. Government employees also includes doctors and nurses as well as administrative and other workers each to their own union. These workers are now on a multi-sector strike over pension benefits. Similar to the debate in the United States, the conflict is ...

The school year in Ghana is divided into three terms. This first term runs 14 weeks from September 9 th to December 12 th . The last two weeks are for review and end of term exams. 14 weeks, the first week being more a clean up and administrative week so 9 weeks of teaching. We are about halfway through the first term from a teaching perspective. I'm teaching the first year of math and the first and second year of Information Communication Technology (ICT – computers). As with most first year Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) teachers – I've not made as much progress in the first term as I would like. Part of this is being a new teacher with a new accent – so the students have trouble understanding me and I have trouble understanding them. Also, some first year students are not reading and writing English. I'm told that things will improve in the second and third terms. For now – I need to go slow – repeating and adjusting the explanation and examples along the way. S...

Impact on me The Peace Corps commitment is 27 months. The life is hard, the work is hard, the being away from loved ones is so hard. The rewards? I expect to see some improvement in myself and hope to see some improvement in the students and people around me in my temporary community. But, I know that the results may take years to develop and I will never know the extent of the impact I have on the lives of those around me. But, then we never know. We cannot even know the true impact of any experience or struggle on OUR life. Reflection and hindsight years later may help; I do not believe we ever really know. So I am making huge sacrifices, all Peace Corps Volunteers do. The sacrifice is part of the reason we volunteer. I believe that the results in myself and others will be worth the sacrifices, but I don't know. Anniversary and that time of year Today is my wedding anniversary with Theresa. October 12 th is a day to reflect on my life since I met Theresa. Alt...

Budget as a Peace Corps Volunteer The Peace Corps provides a monthly living allowance so the volunteer can live near the level of the local population. The amount varies by country. In Ghana the amount is about 325 Ghana cedis, ¢325, or approximately $100 with the current exchange rate. I do not need to pay rent or electricity – so the money mainly goes for food and travel. Obviously things are less expensive in Ghana than in the United States, but ¢325 does not go as far as it use to, particularly as it was worth about $300 at the beginning of the last fiscal year. I am fortunate to live in the Upper West where living expenses are less – translation – I cannot buy many things here beyond basic staple foods. I've been tracking my living expenses. (Nothing new for me – I’ve always tracked my spending - but yes this means writing down every expense for about a month.) On average I'm spending about ¢7 a day on food and minor purchases. That converts to about ¢2...

Flexibility of the school system My assignment changed for the week as the headmaster shuffled staff to support the students.  I taught the three forms of math and got one class of ICT in for the week.  We started school without a science teacher so the headmaster needed to make some adjustments in the schedule.  I’m told that we will have a science teacher next week so I’ll likely start ICT form 1 and 2 and my original schedule of form 1 math. It was nice to be able to see all three forms and get to know the students a little better.  There are over 60 students crammed into the form 2 room.  This makes teaching difficult but it should become easier when we move to the new school building and larger classrooms. Harvest time This is the start of harvest time in the region.  Of course food has been continually harvested throughout the last several months: yams as already mentioned, along with okra, tomatoes, peppers, onions and other crops ha...

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....

Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crop...