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