The Children Will Do It

Ms. Lagen has a most wonderful photo of some students from the junior high walking up the hill to their new school with huge old wooden desks on their heads. Things on heads of every size and age are nothing special in Brenu Akyinim. And children doing heavy and tedious work is commonplace. In fact, what we have noticed is that all the people of every age in the village contribute to the wellbeing of the village every day. even the smallest children work and help. And they care for themselves and their siblings constantly while parents are away on the farm working or in the home cooking and doing laundry.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to get working on coming up with some instruments for the new music room on the top of the hill where the newly built junior high school is. Nothing in Brenu is wasted. Ms. Lagen and I were walking along the beach and spotted about five boys, maybe about ten to twelve years old, sitting on a sandy rise just out of reach of the surf. They were busily hacking away with their machetes at the coconuts they'd dropped from the nearby palms. It has been a source of concern to both of us that such young children, many younger than these boys, carry very dangerous implements with them as a matter of course.

Anyway, I asked them if they would consider cutting and cleaning some coconut shells for me in such a way that the shells could be used for a musical instrument. The children have only makeshift instruments and have begun to learn the recorder now, so I want to add some pretty tone colors by making a set of tempo blocks. Then we can add interest to our recorder pieces and our songs with cool rhythms on the tempo blocks. My Walker students will know what I'm talking about. In the classroom at Walker were two sets of tempo blocks. Both have five wooden boxes suspended on a stand. one is quite small and we call them the piccolo blocks. The other is large and is played with mallets while standing. It has a tick-tocky sound that goes vert well with other instruments. Well, the children obliged. I explained what I wanted and they happily set to the task of c utting and cleaning out the coconuts. It was no small task. The coconuts now sit at my window drying out so that I can mount them and take them up to my classroom.

One more thing. We have noticed that, in spite of their poverty, these children probably eat a better balanced meal than many children in the United states. Because they cannot afford such things as candy and bagged snacks and soda pop, their diet consists of vegetables and fruit that they or their village neighbors pick the very same day that they eat them. Like the coconuts!!! Frech from the palm trees to their waiting stomachs. It is a life that would seem in some ways idyllic to us if not for the hardships.

I am enjoying learning and speaking Fante with the village people. They are so amazed and tickled to hear "bruni's"---foreigners---speak their tongue. It's fun to learn and everyone tries to help.

New Pictures

From Ms. Lagen

Memoache! Good Morning in Fante
I have been here one week only, and it feels like a lifetime. I am already planning to return some time next year with Jim as a volunteer in the same village of about 2,000 people, called Brenu Askyinim. We are located in the Central Region on the Atlantic with the most magnificent beach, We walk the beach gathering shells, octopus backs, and sea glass as early as possible before the heat of the day.

The people are so warm and friendly everywhere I go. They are delighted that we use their everyday greetings every opportunity that we get.The young children flock around us and want their pictures taken so they can see themselves. They have a joy for life unmatched in America. Their toys consist of sticks, stones, shells, and fishermen's spools. Very creative!! No signs of technology which in many ways has retained their innocence.

School on the hilltop overlooking the sea began on Tuesday. I teach Junior High School math and English but spent this week setting up our library from scratch. Last term the school was on the beach so everything had to be hand carried 15 minutes up the hill. I mean everything. Students carried heavy desks attached to chairs on their heads. The JHSers pushed an enormous cart "truck" filled with books, exams, workbooks, etc. multiple times delivering them to me at the library. I recruited several industrious students to assist me. We categorized them very crudely and labeled the shelves with first aid tape. You need to be very imaginative when you do a task as the nearest stores are 12 miles away in Elmina or Cape Coast where we are today. I brought new items each day to entice kids into the library.One day it was wrap ups, a match manipulative, another day calculators, also a phonics game that in America would appeal to 6-7 year olds. Yesterday, I brought hula hoops, and they were a huge hit!!! More boys than girls go the swing of it quickly. Kids play "Cat in the Cradle" with string stretched between trees jumping between them and jacks with stones. Children from a young age farm with machetes, shimmy trees to get coconuts and fronds to weave for roofing material and privy enclosures. Young girls walk about the village selling extra produce from bowls and trays balanced on their heads. I have favorites but all of the kids hold their faces to the sun and are lovable.

Those of you who contributed to our adventure, "medase". We contributed $20 to help a family who had a tragedy this week at the farms nearby. A baby on mother's back had 2 fingers severed at the knuckle by a machete when she fell forward. We bought some school supplies today in CC. There are none at the schools. We brought 4 suitcases from America, but we couldn't anticipate everything. Walker children, your contributions have been invaluable. The level of math that I am teaching to 13-16 year olds matches Walker's 4/5th grade curriculum.

Our house is first class by their standards. We have electricity (unlike the school), running water, a flush toilet, a COLD shower and walls that reach the rooftop. The children always carry our supplies to and from school and peek into our home if they can. Others in the village live in all manner of crude structures and are grateful for a roof over their heads. Many unfinished structures stand until they can get funds to continue construction. Up on the hilltop near the school are several beautiful homes underway owned by African Americans who are benefactors to the community.

Communication from Ghana is very difficult. Last time we came to the city to an Intenet cafe, the network was down. I will try to write again in about a week. Until then........nantu ye. (good bye)

Much love, Akua Linda (Wednesday's child) a Ghanaian custom

A Different World!!

Oh, my dear friends and students, there is so much to tell you. Ms. Lagen and I have been at school in Brenu now for a week and more. Ms. Lagen will be teaching in the Junior High School, which is about the level of our fourth and fifth graders at Walker. I will be in the Primary Fourth grade, the fifth grade and the sixth grade; also in the earlier grades. I have taught music and English and Math so far. The children have no supplies to work with, nothing. I use the blackboard for most of my instruction. The classes are large and the classrooms have no lights, no screens on windows, no electricity, no running water.

But the children desperately want to learn and they do. Imagine this, they are learning in two languages at once. They learn and study the Ghanaian culture in their language of Fante, but they also study math and reading and writing in English, even the very youngest ones. So while they seem to be behind us in many regards, they are also way ahead of us in others.

When I can post pictures, I would like you to see what the children use for toys. Many of them wander about the village with long sticks cleverly attached to tin cans or soda cans and these are their "cars", They also collect bottle caps to use to count with. And rocks---rocks are used in their math classes for operations including multiplying. They spend their early morning minutes before school sweeping the ground around their school buildings of debris like leaves and sticks and litter. The broom are made by them of some stiff weed. They truly rely on nature for their existence in a way we can barely imagine. The fruits of the plants---coconut palms, palm nuts, ground nuts, plantains (a fruit similar to bananas), and many garden vegetables that you would recognize---are their foods. Actually, when you think of it, they're far healthier in their diet than most of us in the U.S.

Our life is simple but very pleasant there in Brenu. (We come to the city of Cape Coast to get on the internet. It is a long taxi ride and quite expensive by Ghana standards, but it is the only way for us to get on line!!) We take cold showers, but we are lucky to have water at all!! Running water. Outside the window of our rooms---we live in an actuall building of concrete block---we hear goats bleating constantly and roosters crowing and sometimes children playing or babies crying. The children are well loved in Brenu.

Ms. Lagen and I walked along the beach one day in the early morning and discovered some rather strange objects that were clearly from the sea. We could not figure out what they might be. I guessed that these things were the skeletens of something that had tentacles. It turned out to be a good guess. The science teacher from the high school told Ms. Lage that they were the "backbones" of the octopuses!!!

We miss our students from Walker and think often of you. We often find outselves saying," Our students would be so surprised by this (or that). You would. We'll let you know more as we are able. In the meantime, Nantu ye, Yebeshia! (Goog-bye! We'll be seeing you!) Ms. K

Oh the people are beautiful!!

We arrived in Brenu Akyinim yesterday and have found the people to be very friendly and open. We were settled into our rooms and then went down to the beach where we met the lady who will cook for us. We sort of took new names. Mine is Araba Mary and Ms. Lagen's is Acua Linda. The first names are the names of the week on which we were born.

The most common sight that we observe every day a thousand times is small, small children carrying bundles of things---sometimes baskets of food to sell or large bundles of wood for cooking. Everyone in the village, including the children, have a job to do and a role to play in their community. They are beautiful and so happy!! They have next to nothing, but they are so happy and willing to talk about anything. The children who have begun school speak some English. The younger ones mostly do not unless they have been exposed to the volunteers. The language spoken in the village of Brenu is Fante. "Good morning" is "Memo atchay".

The people walk nearly everywhere. Andwhen they walk, they carry their burdens on their heads.

Oh the people are beautiful!!

To Accra on the West African coast of Ghana

From Tucson, Arizona, to Accra, Ghana, we are finally---at long last---on our way!!! So, Walker students, stay tuned in and connected and we will try our best to do the same. Please remember that our village is small and does not have all the amenities that a city would have. We will most likely have to get a ride to the nearby city of Elmina---or, in the opposite direction, to Takoradi---in order to find an internet cafe where we can plug in and get online.

Oh, and it bears mentioning that the school of which you have seen several photos on this blogsite was very, very recently built by volunteers. It has concrete floors and a thatched roof and contains four classrooms. Each classroom will handle several grade levels and as many as sixty children!! The kindergarten classroom , you may have noticed, is still without desks. They call it the kindergarten, but I believe it is for first and second grade also. We will soon find out!!!

Here we go!!!

Tucson connections

Ms. Lagen has a friend living in Tucson who knows a fine man and his wife from Ghana. The man, whose name is Kwaku, teaches at a college in Kentucky; so Ms. Lagen flew to Kentucky to meet him and also met his wife, Ama.

While she was there, Ms. L had dinner with Ama and Kwaku and made plans to visit Ama's mother who still lives in Ghana. In fact, to our delight and surprise, Ama's mother lives in the little village of Egyei Krom, outside of a larger city, Kumasi, north of our village of Brenu Akyinim. Ama has now arranged for Ms. Lagen and me, Ms. Kierzek, to stay with her mother in that village before we return to the United States at the end of our teaching experience. We are extremely thrilled at the prospect of staying with a villager in her own home. It will be for a couple of days. She does not speak English, but we're confident that we will do just fine. She will be taking us to another village that is very well-known for its beautiful wood carvings.

That makes two particular crafts we now know of that we must investigate: this wood-carving and the beautiful woven cloth called kente cloth. We will, of course, bring back samples of each to show our students!!!

In addition to this lovely couple, we have made the acquaintance of another wonderful person. Her name is Florence Clark and she is a Tucsonan who has recently set up an orphanage in Ghana and is trying to finance the private education of the children who live there. She says that Ghanaian students must take a very important test before middle school and they must score high in order to go on in school. She wants to be sure they all make it to the next level of schooling. She cares so much about these children---there are twelve of them presently living at the orphanage--- that she is even now trying to establish a business near the orphanage to help support the cost of raising the children, that is, buying their food and clothes and paying for their schooling. I have so much admiration for people such as Florence.

Here's the interesting part: the business she's starting up is fish farming in a lake nearby the orphanage. Who even knew there was such an industry in Ghana as fish farming?

This is the kindergarten room in the new school in Brenu Akyinim. Notice the open air structure of the classroom. Maybe one of us will be teaching here!!!