Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Way I See It

Bill wants pictures of Keta, Julia wants pictures of the babies, Mom wants pictures of the school, Solomon wants pictures of my cornrows- I CANNOT KEEP UP WITH YOU PEOPLE! But I will try my best! :) So here's a little glimpse of my life recently...

St. Patrick's Day in Aflao

Keta getting a taste of America


My drama class playing "Sally Walker"
 
Drinking a coconut at Green Turtle Lodge

Aqidaa bridge

Julia and I practicing our African skills

Gabriel and Francis

Traditional mudhuts on the way to Tamale

Hamster or kitten? You decide

Julia showing kids photos of themselves in Aqidaa
    
Good to know that no matter how hard I try, I can't set this truck on fire...

Peter/Paul (never sure which), Bless and Edem making creative use of my chalk stubs and empty sticker sheets

My faux dreadlocks

Teaching English class

Christian helping with the grocery shopping at Denu Market
 
Overview of Aflao
 
Philip "Agogo"
 
Princess

Me and my boy Prince
 
Christian getting a haircut from Victoria

Circling my (50+) sand flea bites. Yes, this is what we do for fun in Ghana.
 
the witness and the Bride-to-be!

Constance, aka Superboy

My guest appearance on my friend's talkshow for Light FM

Worfa playing with Gracious and Lucky and the fleabag


Less Than Half

My buddy Rudy got me hooked on yet another TV show. (I imagine those of you who remember my "Kyle XY" days are groaning right. Sorry, guys.) This one's called "Off the Map" and it's about a group of doctors running a free clinic in the South American jungle. I'm really enjoying it except for one thing- very bad idea to watch a show about a developing country in a developing country. I'm constantly muttering, "That wouldn't happen... That's so unrealistic!... Oh my God, it's totally not like that!" For one thing, their clinic has stuff like a working X-ray machine and a sonogram machine- Pah! The village has no trash in the streets, all of the women doctors have perfect hair despite the supposed jungle heat, they eat sandwiches for lunch, etc etc. In one episode, one of the guys even prints a photo to send to his family and I'm thinking there's three things wrong with that: 1) There would not be a post office in a village that size. 2) There would not be a printer in a village that size. And 3) even if there were, it would definitely not print a picture of that quality. Most annoying to me is that virtually all the villagers miraculously speak enough English to communicate with the doctors who don't speak Spanish, aka the local language. That's not even true in Ghana, and it's an ENGLISH-SPEAKING country for goodness sake. Ok, ok, I know that's just a matter of making the show comprehensible to American viewers, but still- !
Yes, I have turned into one of those people.
So to avoid driving myself- and anyone within a half mile radius when I get really worked up- bonkers, I decided to avoid stuff about Africa while I'm in Africa.
Well, my mom sends me all her issues of "Reader's Digest" and "Guideposts" since both are nice and compact for mailing purposes and I'm constantly desperate for reading material. I happened to pick up the September issue of "Guideposts" while I was eating lunch today and came across an article by reporter Kate Snow called "I Want To Read." It was a tribute to Kimani Nganga Maruge, a Kenyan man who held the title of world's oldest student until his death.
To paraphrase part of her article: According to United Nations' statistics, less than than half of elementary school children attend school in most African countries- and even less in rural areas and city slums. "Schools lack teachers, teachers are untrained and classrooms often do not have a single textbook." Since few African countries offer free public schooling, many parents can't afford to give their kids an education and most need them to help contribute to the family income as early as possible.
It brought tears to my eyes for several reasons.
In stark contrast to the errors in "Off the Map," the situation the article described is exactly the type of everyday reality I am surrounded by here in Ghana.
I tore my eyes away from the words to glance out the window at Worfa's new school, which opened for its first day of classes today. I could hear him cheerfully teaching an English lesson to his students, most of whom are my little Meerkat neighbors. He reduced the registration fee to 5 cedis as an "Easter present," but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was really because the original 7 cedi fee was still too high for some families.
Here I was reading about the woes of Africa, and literally all I had to do was look up to see someone actively working to fix those very problems.
Maybe sometimes it's good to experience media about developing countries while I'm still in one after all. In America, I can read about the poor orphans an ocean away and feel sorry for them. In Ghana, I can walk out my front door and do something.


If you've done everything you can to put things right on that day, you get so tired that you have to sleep. There is so much positive.
If you dwell just on the bad things, you become useless."
~ Jane Goodall

The Gods Don't Work On Tuesdays

Sorry it's taken me so long to get my April posts up! My internet went on an unexpected vacation and only just came back.

The social norms in Ghana are a little bit different than they are in the Western world. For example: I went to the Green Turtle Lodge a couple weeks ago with Rudy and Julia, and ended up befriending a group of Norwegians (primarily because the Germans I had befriended previously couldn't figure out what country they were from and enlisted me to go ask). Christian, Wilhelm and Ragnhild had only been in Ghana about three weeks at the time, and are staying three months. Halfway through his six month stay, Simon is the oddball of the group as the sole Swiss volunteer and the only long-termer. They're staying in Eastern Region, decently far away from me.
Not an hour after I sat down- uninvited- at their table, they learned that I didn't have any plans for spring break and promptly invited me to go up north with them ...And to think we westerners are hesitant to even ask for someone's phone number the first time we meet them under normal circumstances! Naturally I accepted and we met April 4th in Kumasi- minus Wilhelm, who had some work commitments.

Day One: Will There Be Water At The Waterfall, Ferguson?
Our first stop was Techiman, an easy tro ride north of Kumasi. Techiman itself has little to offer in the way of tourist attractions, but there's a small village just outside called Tanoboase that boasts the site of a grove sacred to the Akans. The grove is a huge rocky area that forms a natural fortress, a solid basin with high walls perfect for scanning the rainforest for enemies and accessible only by a small crawl space. The Akans used it as a safe place to hide their king during wars.
We had a great afternoon scampering up and down boulders and steep rock faces, rewarded periodically with spectacular views. The basin is surrounded by a forest that is swarming with bats. I have never seen so many bats in my life- and I've seen plenty of bats before. I'm not sure I even realized so many bats existed in the world, much less in one place. And whoever said bats are nocturnal has clearly never met these bats. Their screeching and squalling could be heard continuously echoing from one end of the forest to the other, and they often erupted out of overcrowded trees to circle the sky in a dark cloud.




















From there we went to Buoyem, another village on the outskirts of Techiman, to see African Rock. Which is... a rock shaped like Africa. Which is pretty much as exciting as it sounds. However, much more interestingly, it's situated right by an overgrown, mostly abandoned reptile breeding farm. Which is pretty much as absurd as it sounds. On top of that, our tour guide was a 14 or 15-year-old junior high student with the irritating habit of rushing us completely unnecessarily.
As a subtle revenge for this, Christian and Simon began asking the most absurd questions.
"Will we see lizards?"
"Yes of course."
"Did the owner eat the lizards?"
"No, no! He exported them!"
"Oh...then did he eat them?"
"No, he sold them."
"Oh...do you eat them?"
"No, no!"
"Oh...So who does eat the lizards?"
"No one eats them!"
"Oh...so what do you do with them?"
When Julia was still here, she loaned me a book by Mark Twain called "The Innocents Abroad," a partially fictionalized account of a steamboat trip to Europe and the Holy Land that he took. In it, Twain talks about how he and companions gave up trying to pronounce all the foreign names of their tour guides and decided to call them all Ferguson. And when the Fergusons drove them crazy, they would ask stupid questions to turn the tables, amusing themselves and driving the guides crazy instead. With that story fresh in my mind, I got extra amusement out of the boys' antics.
We also saw a small waterfall called Bibiri Falls. It's a good 30 minute trek into the hills outside Buoyem, and felt much longer when were constantly being harangued by our guide's frantic urging that we should "Hurry. Please come. Let's go. Please, let's go." But of course the first question out of Christian's mouth was, "Will there be water at the waterfalls?"

Day Two: Shake It, Tamale!
Another tro took us further north to Tamale, hands down my favorite of Ghana's major cities. In some ways, northern Ghana is much more yevu-friendly than southern Ghana. We, a group of four white people, could easily walk for 10 or 15 minutes in Tamale without a single person calling out to us or approaching us for some reason. That would NEVER happen in the south. The taxi drivers gave us fair prices without haggling. People barely gave us a second glance really. For maybe the first time in 8 months, I felt like I wasn't being treated a certain way based solely on my skin color. It doesn't matter that Tamale has the worst tasting water sachets in Ghana and the most heat-absorbent hotel on the planet, it's a winner in my book.
Perhaps Tamale's only true shortcoming is that it has virtually nothing for tourists to do. We browsed a shop that teaches skills to disadvantaged women, and eventually ended up at the Culture Center in a misguided attempt to find a fetish market. A man there explained that there wasn't a fetish market (the first of many times our Bradt travel guides would be proved wrong), but he could show us some magicians the next day. We spent the next two hours watching a drum and dance group practice. Predictably, all four of us were pulled up one at a time to dance with the instructor. As a longtime dancer, Ragnhild nailed it, but the boys and I held our own too...sorta. In any case, I very conveniently have no pictures of myself attempting their traditional dances. If they'd ever seen me at the salsa lessons we had in Spanish class, they would have let me stay seated...


Day Three: The Gods Don't Work On Tuesdays
Per our agreement, we met the man from the Culture Center the next morning to go see the magician. As we walked, he vividly described everything the magician had promised to show us: killing a chicken and resurrecting it! Cutting out his own tongue and healing it! He could even change into a lion! Now I'm more open-minded about juju and traditional mysticism than pretty much any volunteer I've met, but not even I believed that what we were about to see was actually going to be magic. I did, however, anticipate an impressive illusion. Ha! Silly me. The magician proceeded to turn several cigarettes into money, light a ball of cotton on fire with a simple command (while holding a lit cigarette, but ignore that), and make food appear in an empty wooden box. To add insult to injury, he wanted 40 cedis for his lame parlor tricks. When we protested, asking to be shown the amazing feats we'd been promised, the magician began throwing baby powder all over his idols and insisting that the gods wouldn't respond on Tuesdays and what day would we be leaving? On Thursday? Well, if only we could come on Sunday, then we could see the big things. Now, 40 cedi please.
Neither impressed nor amused, we told him he should turn more cigarettes into money if he wanted to be paid. Ready with an answer for everything, he told us that the gods required that he only use the charmed money for charity. Right. Naturally. I'm sure they're unavailable on Tuesdays because they're off working at the soup kitchen themselves. We paid him significantly less than he demanded and left, eyes rolling and muttering about gods' schedules.


Day Four: What A Wonderful Day To Be 19 In Wa
We made a last minute decision to see Wa, the capital of the Northwest Region, instead of spending another day baking in our hotel room with only the nasty sachet water in Tamale. So Wednesday found us up at 3 a.m. so we could be at the station at 4 for the 5 a.m. bus that left at 6... sigh. I don't think I've had a birthday begin that early since the very first one.
BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT.
Wa is little more than a city-sized village. It can essentially be summed up with the words low-key, rural and taxi-less. So we didn't have very high expectations for our accommodations, except the faint hope that they would be less reminiscent of an oven. And here's where I throw out my whole-hearted promotion for the Kunateh Lodge in Wa:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Kunateh!!!!!!!!!!!
The receptionist told us that all the single rooms were occupied, and a double room was 35 cedis- a little high for our budget. We asked if we could all sleep in one double room for an extra fee, a fairly common practice. Their double beds are enormous, so it usually doesn't even feel cramped and can be a real money-saver. The receptionist agreed...and then repeated that the price for that would be 35 cedis. Overbooking without an extra fee? What kind of place was this?!?
The kind of place where you open the door with sweat streaming down your forehead and pooling in the small of your back and see an AC unit on the wall. Ok, not too unusual. The important question is not "Is there air conditioning?", but "Does it work?"
And at Kunateh Lodge, the answer is yes, ladies and gentlemen, the AC works!!
Then Simon discovered that we not only had a fridge, we had a working fridge.
I collapsed on one of the beds (our "double bed" was really two obese twin beds pushed together) and shouted, "This is the best birthday present EVER!!!"
I don't know who the owner of Kunateh is, but I'm finding out and naming my firstborn after them.
In great contrast to the south, the population fo the north is predominantly Muslim. We spent the day touring two mosques. We were allowed inside the modern one and even got a good view of Wa from its roof. We also saw the outside of a mud-and-stick one from approximately the 15th century.


My traveling buddies then took me to a real restaurant and bought me a birthday dinner that didn't contain rice- I almost feel like I'm bragging when I say that, so I might as well also tell you that I had a steak, in fact. Well...the menu said it was a steak and it tasted good, so that's good enough for me. Afterwards we bought some drinks- which we stored in our cold, working fridge- and watched a Disney movie in our AC.
Most volunteers who have their birthdays here get pretty homesick. I understand; it's a rough day to be away from your friends, family and traditions in a more personal way than Christmas or another holiday. I thought I might be a little down, especially being away from even my Ghanaian friends and family too. But they spoiled me rotten all day, and even sang to me in Norwegian and Swiss German. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday.
We decided that obviously the gods work on Wednesdays.

Day Five: Is That How You Behave In Your Country??


About three hours after we arrived, we had run out of things to do in Wa. So Thursday we managed to find one of the few taxis and charter it to explore a nearby village called Nakori. We saw another ancient mud-and-stick mosque, and simply wandered for a while to get an close-up view of the circular mud huts characteristic of northern West Africa.
Back in Wa we took a brief look inside the surprisingly modern St. Andrew's Cathedral and decided to also check out the Wa Naa's Palace just across the street. After staring at the outside for a while, we went over to the soldiers lounging nearby to ask if we could take pictures or maybe go inside. We approached the first man and Simon asked, "Do you know if it's possible to go inside?" He shook his head and then suddenly told us to ask his boss, sitting about 15 feet away. So we moved over and Simon repeated, "Is it possible to go inside?" Apparently someone was having a bad day, because that sparked a searing 5 minute lecture. "Is that how you would address your superior in your country?!? Is that how you should behave? What's wrong with you!? You come here and look down on Ghanaians! Go away!! Go now!"
I've dealt with my fair share of irritated government officials in Ghana, but GOODNESS GRACIOUS.
Jumping straight into asking questions without greeting him was admittedly a social blunder on our part, but I've been here long enough to know that our oversight was no where near serious enough to merit that kind of lecture. Of course my hackles went up, but my friends simply turned around and left without saying another word, so I grudgingly did the same. It's always good to travel with people who keep you from yelling at overly-aggressive soldiers in foreign countries...

Day Six: Hakuna Matata
Around Tuesday, Simon and Christian became inexplicably obsessed with seeing "The Lion King." (I feel like this movie comes up a lot...) Luckily for them, DVD stores are quite common. For 2 or 3 cedis you can get a disc of up to 24 poor quality, often hilariously subtitled, probably illegally burned movies. You can find everything from the hottest Nollywood hits to "The Best of Mel Gibson." About five stores and two duds later, we managed to procure Lion King 1, 2 and 1 1/2 on DVD. Appropriately, we watched the first one the night before we set off for Mole (Mo-lay) National Park on Friday morning.
Northern Ghana relies almost entirely on buses for transportation. In many ways, I liked the north better than the south, but I very quickly started missing the tro-tro system! Especially when we got up to catch another sinfully early bus from Wa to Tamale, with the intention of getting off about halfway in Larabanga- best known for its somewhat questionable claim of having the oldest mosque in West Africa and being the gateway to Mole.
By Thursday afternoon the tickets to Tamale were already sold out, but we had been told to go to the station anyway to try to snag standing tickets. When we got there around 5 a.m., the tickets for the next morning were already selling out. (This is what happens when you cut tros from the equation!)We joined the desperate people fighting for a spot close to the doors. As the buses began to fill, the crowd swelled and became borderline violent. It seemed like all of Wa was trying to squeeze into those three buses. About the 20th time I was knocked off my feet only to find that I hadn't fallen because there was no where to fall, I began to worry that we were going to get stuck in Wa. The mayhem peaked when they started actually selling the standing tickets and after all that waiting and shoving I ended up running in the opposite direction just to avoid getting crushed. I'm all for a good mosh pit, but not before breakfast.
Dejected, we discussed our options. Well, option, singular. Really we had no choice but to take a tro-tro to Sawla and try to pick up a ride to Larabanga from there. Unfortunately, the travel guide strongly advised against this, considering official transportation from Sawla to Larabanga doesn't actually exist... So off we went in a pathetic little tro, supporting the roof with our heads. Things looked pretty bleak: no taxis, no tro-tro station to speak of, and the buses had already come through. About 20 minutes after we arrived, a man suddenly came up to us and asked where we were going. When he heard we were headed for Larabanga, he immediately said, "Let's go!" And so we spent the next 2 hours riding in the back of a lumber truck.


Which is SO uncomfortable but SO fun. The landscape of the north is what I think most people imagine when they picture Africa. It's scrubby and desert-y, but at the same time vibrantly alive. The sun beats down relentlessly on the brown chest-high grass. Kilometer after kilometer, the savannah was only broken by small clusters of circular, thatched mudhuts. Cicadas droned from their hiding places in the twisted trees. I caught myself repeatedly thinking, "Wow, I'm really in Africa!" - a somewhat humorous reaction considering how long that's been true.
The Mole Motel, the only accomodation in the park, is built on a huge hill overlooking a waterhole. It's a paradise for animal lovers. Ghana doesn't have the same big game animals that make East Africa so popular- no giraffes, no rhinos, no zebras, no hyenas. Lions, crocodiles and hippos are rare and only appear occasionally near the borders. But for someone who as never seen any African animals outside a zoo, Mole was a very memorable experience. Before we even checked into our room we went to the viewing platform and saw our first elephant! Ok, so we just saw a miniature version of his butt half hidden by trees far below, but you would had thought he had appeared right in front of us in his best suit by the way we went on about it. Then no sooner had we dropped our bags in our room when someone glanced out the window and shouted, "Pumba!" A small group (herd?) of warthogs were grazing around our back porch. Used to ridiculous tourists, they didn't even glance up from their curious half-kneeling position as we hung over the railing to get closer and closer views.

Personally, I think Pumba is more handsome than his real life counterparts. But that didn't make seeing a wild warthog up close and personal any less amazing.
Between the awesome ending after the extremely stressful beginning to our day and all the wildlife sightings, we were in spectacular moods. Naturally we all denied it, but all of us spend the afternoon singing "Hakuna Matata" under our breaths.

Day Seven: Take A Walk On The Wild Side
We woke up Saturday morning to a troop of baboons outside our front door. Slightly less tame than the warthogs, they nonetheless let us get within 20 feet of them as they played tag, groomed each other and picked at the sparse grass. One of the best things about visiting Mole in the spring was that we saw babies of all the animals we encountered except for elephants. (Note the baby baboon hiding between its mother's legs in the first picture.)





                                                                   
Wilhelm and Caroline, another Norwegian I hadn't met, joined us Friday night. All 6 of us managed to get up and out the door just in time for the 7 a.m. walking safari in the morning. For the first hour of the two hour tour the best sighting we had was an elephant mostly hidden by trees as he ate breakfast, and I began to lose hope that we'd see anything very noteworthy.
Then we arrived at a swampy area and lo and behold- there was an elephant! Pretty as you please in the middle of a clearing, calmly taking as a mudbath. We were able to get within about 40 feet of him, give or take. It was absolutely incredible. Here's the world's largest land animal, which could easily outrun and trample us if it had wanted to, letting us come paralyzingly close to it in its natural habitat. Just as we were about to leave, two more elephants appeared out of the brush behind the first and joined him. We had to back up in case they decided to get rowdy. (Boys will be boys in in every species, I guess.)
Been within a stone's throw of wild elephants- check on the life goals list.


We decided to go on the driving tour in the afternoon and had just enough time to go to the pool first. I was the last one to get ready, so everyone else had already left the room. I was right in the middle of changing when I looked up to see a baboon watching me through the window. He was standing on his back legs with his hands cupped by his face to block glare and his nose pressed against the screen- exactly like a human. I started laughing...and finished changing in the bathroom.
Aside from baboons, there is another type of monkey commonly found around the Mole Motel. I think it's called something like a "Patas" monkey, but I probably misunderstood the Ghanaian pronounciation. These smaller monkeys are even bolder than the baboons (if you can get bolder than pulling a Peeping Tom...) and have the mischievous habit of stealing food right of guests' plates. I ended up filming one culprit in action instead of swimming- and the tourist who hadn't quite figured out that, yes, monkeys do bite...
One of the coolest things about the driving tour is that you can ride on the roof of the Jeep. Caroline, Ragnhild and I got the roof, uh, 'seats' for the first hour, and Simon, Christian and Wilhelm switched places with us at the turnaround point.


We saw five different kinds of antelope, including bushbuks- an animal I got to introduced to as a pet when Julia and I went on vacation in the end of November. We also spotted more baboons, herons and two kinds of storks. Most of them were close enough to see clearly, but too far to get good pictures of unfortunately. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied seeing animals in a zoo anymore!

Sunday, April 17th, we got up in the middle of the night for the third time on our trip to catch a bus, this time a 4 a.m. one to Tamale. We spent the night in Kumasi, and the next morning I said goodbye to make the grueling 12 hour trip from Kumasi to Accra to Aflao by myself.
In many ways I preferred northern Ghana to southern. I like the more obvious African vibe. I liked the landscape; it reminds me of New Mexico, whereas the south is more like a combination of Florida and Arizona. I LOVED that the people didn't harrass us very much. My first day back in Aflao I was walking down the street and it seemed like every third person was competing to lose their voice yelling, "Yevu! YEVU!" I just thought, "Yup, I'm back in the south."
The end of my trip kicked off my last month in Ghana. It was strange, and sad, driving through Accra and realizing the next time I would see these buildings, I would be on my way to the airport.
However... My first morning back, Worfa, Victoria and I were relaxing in the shade of a tree in our front yard. In her broken English, Victoria made the effort to tell me, "I felt something missing the entire time you were gone. When you go (home to America), I will keep the room for you. You will always have a place to come back to."
Suddenly coming home- to whichever home that might be- doesn't seem so bad.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Katherine goes C.P.A

With the completion of my second term exams and report cards, my job as a teacher at Good Shepherd is essentially finished. It's a bittersweet landmark- on one hand, I'm relieved to be done with the stress of it and feel very satisfied with the results of my work. On the other hand, I already miss the time with my kids horribly. During my last seven weeks in Ghana, my main job has become managing the donation funds, which basically means making sure they have been successfully applied to whatever purpose they were intended before I leave. It's a surprisingly time-consuming job. It's put me up to my ears in unfamiliar financial matters and I feel like I am constantly darting from meeting to meeting, but I'm enjoying myself immensely. My Type A is having a grand old time with the business-y, organizational side of it, and my Type Me is so excited to finally see more than seven months of planning and fundraising finally turning into tangible changes for my Aflao community. I have three big projects in the works right now:
Using the donations from Ford's fundraiser, work will begin on April 15th to repair the roof on the House of Norway building. If it had caved in during the upcoming rainy season, the older students would have had no where to hold class right at the peak crunch time of preparing for their BECE exams. We're hoping to have all the supplies purchased by the time school closes next week so we can actually begin on schedule and have the job finished before we resume classes on May 9th. (Everyone who has been to Ghana before is scoffing right now, but we'll show you all!)
I'm going today to buy teacher copies of Math, English, Science and Social Studies textbooks for each grade at Good Shepherd. When the previous staff left over Christmas vacation, they took all the school's textbooks with them (not sure how/why that happened). Buying about 32 textbooks will only cost just over $100.
Then there's Success International....

Meet Livingstone Gomashie:


You know him better as Worfa, my host father. In December, Worfa shared a dream with my brother and I- the dream of building his own school right here in Awakorme.
Awakorme is a poor district of a poor town, where mostly farmers and fishermen live. Only a very small percentage of kids who live in this district have the opportunity to go to school. Remember my Meerkats, the ever-growing herd of neighbor kids? Only four of them have ever been to school, and even then only inconsistently. Worfa, who has been a teacher at a school in Lome (Togo) for ten years, saw his passion for teaching as an opportunity to give these kids a chance they might never get otherwise. And, when I received a private donation of 1,550 cedis, Success International School went from a dream to a reality!
Our house has been a construction zone for the last several months. This initial donation completely covered the materials and workmanship to construct a three-room school building in our courtyard, as well as building 13 wooden desks. The three classrooms are separated by interior walls (something I would kill for at Good Shepherd) and a corrugated metal roof keeps out the rain. The cement floor is being laid as I type and soon we are going to install the doors. I got a second private donation of 400 cedis last week, which is going towards outfitting Success with blackboards, textbooks, a clock and all the other little items needed to run an efficient school. 





In accordance with Worfa's intentions, the core mission of Success International is to provide education for kids who would not be able to afford it otherwise. Therefore, he is only charging a 7 cedi registration fee, compared to the usual minimum of 15 cedis. He plans to open after Easter in time for third term (Ghana uses a trimester schedule). As a sort of good faith gesture, Worfa is not charging school fees (tuition) until school resumes in September. He plans to charge 18 cedis per term. Again, compare that to the usual minimum of 20 cedis, although finding school fees even that low is rare. In other words, a child can go to school at Success International for under $40 per year.
And yet, even that is enough of a financial burden that some families may have to pull their children out of school- maybe temporarily, maybe permanently.
As Worfa and I were discussing all this, I was amazed by the steps he is taking to make his school accessible to everyone. At the same time, I couldn't help thinking about the realistic possibility that even though he's doing  everything in his power, some kids still won't be able to afford it. It didn't help that earlier that morning, one of my aunties had shoved a meticulously written letter into my hand, asking if I could help send one of her children to school. For 7 months I have watched student after student at Good Shepherd miss classes, skip exams or drop out entirely for financial reasons. It broke my heart every time. I guess my heart got tired to piecing itself back together, because this time it got mad and decided to DO something instead.
The Meerkat Scholarship was born.

First of all, for the sake of clarity, the scholarship is not anything legally or officially registered, recognized, etc. At this point, it is operating out of a personal-albeit-formal agreement between Worfa and myself. However, it is an official program offered at Success International School.
The function of the Meerkat Scholarship is to supplement families' incomes and provide an incentive for students to be academically successful. Each term, parents who cannot afford the entire school fee can apply for the scholarship to cover any portion of it by filling out a simple form signed by a witness (a pastor, elder, etc) stating that there is a legitimate need for assistance. It will also provide full scholarships for orphans and half scholarships (9 cedis per term) for families with 4 or more children enrolled, and for any student who stays at the head of their class at least three consecutive terms for as long as they maintain that position. The scholarship is also available to adults, as Worfa is going to offer night classes in English, and Ewe reading and writing.

I don't know how well this will work, in all honesty. Not surprisingly, I've never attempted anything like this before. And the scholarship won't go actively into effect until around October or November, when the due date for first term school fees is approaching, so it will be a while before I know if my plan needs tweaking- or total renovation, for that matter. But if I have to tweak, I will tweak. If I have to renovate, I will renovate.

I've traded my chalkboard for a spreadsheet, and it's feeling pretty darn good so far...

Friday, April 1, 2011

Something Strange At Makavo

I learned the hard way that some things stay the same across cultures:



I got a call this morning from my buddy Hardcore right as I was stirring up a gourmet cup of powdered coffee. "Katherine, there's something strange going on at Makavo! They're saying a pig gave birth to a human! You have to come see!"
I thought Whoa, must be a deformed piglet. Everybody's going to be all up in arms about juju. So I obediently set aside my powdery goodness and hopped on a motorbike, still pondering if this was a hoax or just some freak of nature.
When I got to the Makavo Hotel, I called him again, "I don't see you."
"You at Makavo?"
"Yeah, where are you?
"....Do you know what day it is?"
I groaned.



 
 
HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY FROM AFLAO'S MOST GULLIBLE YEVU!