Art Worlds in Ghana

Wednesday, June 30

I haven’t written that much about what happens in the classroom, but the school is where I spend most of my time, and it’s the core of my work. I can’t believe I’m leaving now and will only be back once a week. I love these kids and this is where my Ghanaian family is (Euphemia and Alfred, Gladys and Kofi). The other night on the way home from dinner at Euphemia’s, I laid down on the side of the empty road and stared up at the stars, thinking about all I’ve tried to do for the kids and all I wish I could (seriously, me, a city girl, lying down by the grass and looking up at the stars?). The time has flown by and now I’m half done with my trip. It’s hard to encapsulate because there is so much, but here are some moments:

-  When I substituted for a class at the primary school (“the teacher’s not here, teach whatever you want”). I led a spelling bee that got indefinitely paused after the first word, “orange.” I was giving a hint for the last letter (“it’s a vowel”), and I discovered that the class didn’t understand the concept of vowels. After maybe 30 minutes of me trying different ways to explain it and having them vote on what they thought was a vowel or not, I went around to individual rows. Finally, the way y works clicked with a group of girls. I gave “yellow, yes, and yo-yo” as examples of “sometimes y” acting as a consonant. The girls racked their brains for their own example and finally came up with one that was familiar to them: “yams.”

- When I led the theater warm-up for the first time with my kids in the play. I had them push aside the desks to form a circle and repeat tongue twisters after me. “Eleven benemolem elephems,” they would say. “Eleven benevolent elephants,” I would re-enunciate.

They laughed at “m-m-m-ma” and had trouble remembering, “I am not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son…” For the longest time, they couldn’t pronounce, “My mummy made me mash my m&m’s,” which I learned from my middle school theater teacher, Ms. Magee.

“Wait, do you guys not know what m&m’s are?”

Ever since I explained to them that m&m’s are little round chocolate candies coated in colored sugar, that’s been their favorite tongue twister, though they still sometimes pronounce it “em-em-ess.”

-When I was looking for Ebinezer (the teacher here who oversees me) but couldn’t find him, so I just sat down with a bunch of students in a classroom and asked them to teach me Dangme. I was having trouble with some sounds like “nge” and “mo hee,” but they laughed and helped me out. I was there for a while, enough time for one of my kids in the play, James, to come and go. He returned maybe 10 minutes later, put his nose up to the window, and said, “Ba.”

One of my new vocab words: come. Come?

I gave a quizzical look to the students huddled around me.

“It means he thinks it’s time you should leave,” they laughed.

“Oh!” Whoops, I guess I’d been sitting there a while. I turned to James. “No, you ba. Wait – mo ba (You come)!”

I could speak Dangme myself. Everyone cheered. James grinned and came into the classroom.

- When I was closing up a prep session with my Environmentalism Day leaders, having just had a vigorous debate on whether or not waste was a problem. As I picked up my bag, the kids crowded around me and Michael asked, “Madame, what’s the next topic?”

“The next topic? There is no next topic.” Was the environment not enough? Were they bored already?

“No, miss, we like your teaching. What topic will we do after this one?”

“Oh,” I laughed. “Well, there won’t be another topic next week, and I won’t be here next year. But you guys can start your own day. You can do whatever you want. Will you still be here next year?” They nodded. “You should lead your own day, you know how. You can do it.”

They looked around at each other, then said, “Yeah, we can.” A couple of the boys high-fived. As I left the classroom, I turned back to say, “Good work.”

- When Ebinezer brought me around to all the classrooms on the first day to introduce me.

“This is Miss Robin,” he said. “She is here with the Junior Art Club. She will be teaching you Creative Writing, Art, etc. She is a very talented artist. She might be sitting there drawing you and she can sketch you straight.

For the record, I’m not, and I can’t. I do more conceptual and relational art, and journalism and filmmaking. Good thing none of the kids asked me to draw them.

- When I went to substitute for Class 2 in the Primary School and was finishing up a grammar exercise (“Teach whatever you want,” they’d said). One of the kids asked, “Do you want to see our drawings?”

“What drawings?”

“The dog, Beatrice, from the story.”

Ohh. I’d taught this class back on my second day of school, and we did a creative writing exercise much like the one in the junior high about Sylvester (“Silver Star”). Except that these kids came up with a story about a dog named Beatrice who was hungry (notice a pattern?), because the other dogs always beat her up and took her food. I’d asked them to draw what they thought Beatrice looked like, and I’d said that the next time they would write the story.

I didn’t come back, so they didn’t write the story. But they did have the drawing.

“Look at our drawings,” said another student over by the cupboard, already pulling them out.

“Oh wow, that is wonderful,” I said. “I love the detail on Beatrice’s limbs.”

“Look!”

“Ooh, Benjamin used color. It looks great.”

“Grade them.”

“Yes, grade them, Madame.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll grade them.”

I scanned the books and saw that the exercises were graded with red marks like 3/4 or 4/5. I couldn’t grade drawings like that, so I did what my middle school teachers used to do: check plus or check plus plus. Next to each drawing, I wrote a note of encouragement like, “Excellent shading,” or, “Nice note of explanation.”

As I finished grading each assignment book, the kids would grab them out of my hands and rifle through to see their marks. I hope they didn’t mind that I didn’t give them an actual grade. If they’re like me, the comment would mean more than any number.

- When I was sitting with David and Justice helping them work on a character sketch for the play (their characters, they decided, lived in a thatch house by the sea with vines over the gate). David turned toward me and asked, “Madame, when are you leaving?”

I bit my lip. “Next Wednesday is my last day.”

David and Justice stomped their feet and shook their heads. “Oh, Madame, we will cry,” Justice said.

“Who will take care of us?” David said.

- When I took half of Mr. Isaac’s French class to play charades with the recent vocab. The students were having trouble guessing ranger, then out of nowhere, James called out the correct answer.

“Excellente!” I said in French. James grinned and got up to go next for charades.

“Madame,” cried one of the girls, “he is cheating.”

I stepped over to James’s desk, and lo and behold, he had the textbook hidden under his desk. James smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. Maybe I should have been mad, but I laughed and shook my head. “You didn’t have to cheat, it’s really not that serious. But since you clearly want to go that badly, you can go next.”

James got up and acted out monter with great success.

- When I was sitting with some of the students during a break from class and the conversation turned into a quick history and current events lesson – on the Holocaust, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America’s occupation of Iraq, and 9/11, none of which the students could accurately describe, and most of which they hadn’t heard of at all. I was asking Mark, one of my Environmentalism Day leaders, to explain back to me what the Holocaust was, when one of the boys said, “Miss, your bag.”

I quickly looked down to check for my bag. It was still at my feet.

“No, your back,” he said.

I turned behind me and Slim, Rita, and a couple other girls were standing at the window (pink cement curlicues with air holes) playing with my hair through the peepholes.

“Oh!” I laughed. “Hi.” I hadn’t even felt them.

- When my student David came up to me one morning and greeted me with his usual, “Onge samina?” (I think that’s how it’s spelled? It’s pronounced “ing-uh sum-in-yuh”).

“Wait, wait, I have it, don’t tell me.” I was trying to remember the response to “How are you” in Dangme. “Um, umm… I knew it yesterday, but you didn’t ask me yesterday.” I started fishing through my faded LeSportSac bag for the slip of crumpled paper on which David had written the phrase for me. Notebook, hand sanitizer, tissues… where was that paper? “Wait!” It suddenly came to me. “Ig po pe ee” (pronounced “ig poe pay ay”).

“Yeah!” David smiled and clapped for me. “You’ve got it, Madame.”

- When I showed up to school in the second dress Euphemia’s friend Josephine sewed for me – short sleeves and just below the knee, a deep blue with an orange pattern that Josephine sewed at an angle to make look like a sash.

One girl I’d never met came up to me on her way to the assembly hall and said, “You look beautiful, Miss.”

- This wasn’t in school, but: when I was sitting at the beach, writing in my journal and looking out at the water, thinking about the upcoming Environmentalism Day and all that I wanted to do for the students. While I was staring at the ocean, a few kids from the primary school came over.

“Hey. How are you guys?”

“Fine-thank-you-and-you-Madame,” they said in the robotic greeting they are taught to say to their teachers.

“Fine, thank you.”

“What are you doing, Miss?” one of them came closer.

“Just writing in my journal.”

“Oh.”

They sat down by me on the pile of cement blocks.

“Hey, have you guys ever cleaned up the beach before?” I asked. Steven nodded. “Really?” I was surprised. Kofi had told me his school stopped their beach clean-up a few years ago. Was my Environmentalism Day not going to be anything new?

“Yes, we come by sometimes in school.”

“Oh.” I turned to my notebook to write about how naïve I was, and how silly I thinking I would bring about some change. “Have you guys ever heard of global warming?” Steven nodded. The others stood still. “What is it?” He shook his head. Okay, so I did have something to teach them. Environmentalism Day might be useful after all.

I started to explain as best I could. We talked about climate change, conservation, and waste management, while looking out at the blue water and piles of trash. The kids told me they would sometimes throw their garbage on the beach. I told them about how that kills the sea life and makes the beach dirty. They nodded and seemed to get what I was saying.

As the sun started to dip, I said, “Well, I guess I’d better get going. See you in school.” I padded out onto the sand and the kids said goodbye. When I got to the road, they were already there, waving to me from the grass on the right. They had taken a shortcut.

My flight was delayed multiple times (I got to watch Picture This with Ashley Tisdale while I waited in the airport), but I am finally home safe and have been for a few days.

Sorry I’ve been so so terrible at updating this. Much belated blog posts to come soon. For now, here are a couple pictures of me with some of the kids from the play.

It’s hard to believe it’s over. I’ve been amazed by my shower, sturdy buildings, organized streets that don’t smell like the sewers, and a clear subway system with a map and labeled stops. I miss Ghana though — music playing in the street, brightly painted houses, eating banku and stew with my hands, women selling pineapple off their heads, men with FanMilk carts of ice cream in plastic sachets, and stores with names like “Sure In Him Bakery” and “Blessed Spot.” I’m adjusting to people not staring at me, asking for my number, or calling out, “You are welcome,” or “Obruni, come!”

I’m happy to be home, but I miss my Ghanaian friends and family, and there’s so much more I wish I could do. And the prices, I miss the prices now I’m back in New York City. Yesterday I stopped by an upscale soda fountain near the Met museum. A milkshake cost $8.50, and I promptly left. You can get a whole meal off the street for 2 cedis in Ghana (about $1.50).

I just spoke to Kofi on the phone; he gave me a call to see how I was (my friend from the village/Gladys’s grandson who took care around the house). It was hard to understand him on the phone, but he said he misses me and can’t concentrate since I’ve left.

Last I saw him, he was wanted by the police for dating a girl who is 16 (he’s 23), except that he’s not actually dating her, they’re just friends, and her parents don’t know what they’re talking about. He couldn’t walk on the main road though because he might get arrested, so he had to come from behind the house. Oh, Kofi.

That evening, Gladys and I waited for Kofi to make his way through the brushes. When he arrived, he laid down on the bench across from us and rested his head on his hands. I saw that he was wearing two of my slim black hair bands on his wrists. They must have fallen out of my suitcase, and he’d found them in the room after I left for Accra. “But Kofi,” I said, “you don’t have any hair to tie with them.” He just looked at me and smiled.

Friday, June 26

Thursday morning, the social studies teacher (let’s call him Mr. A) brought three students into the teachers’ office and took out his cane. He snapped off the broken edge, held it out, and hit the backside of the first student.

“Oh!” I cried out, my hands clenched above my head.

He turned to the second student, flipped open her workbook, and said, “Zero.” He lifted the cane and brought it down, twice. There was a loud thwack, and the girl jumped and gave a quiet yelp.

“Oh my God! Stop!” I said. I had squinched up my face and my stomach was tense.

The teachers shook their heads at me and smiled. The first two students were standing in the corner. Mr. A approached the last boy and hit him, hard.

“Stop! You shouldn’t do that.”

Ebinezer motioned at Mr. A, who took the child outside. I couldn’t see the boy, I just heard thwack, thwack through the open door. I thought of Jennifer, sitting next to me on the patio and asking if they cane in America. I told her no and asked her if it hurts, because the teachers said it doesn’t much. “Yes, it really does,” she said quietly. I thought of the students lined up in French class, ready for their daily cane. I thought of my kids in the play and my Environmentalism Day leaders, who are so great and whom I could never hurt. The knot in my stomach was growing, my throat was choking up, and before I knew it, I was crying.

“Oh no, don’t cry,” the other teachers said.

Mr. A walked back in with the boy as I was slumped over the desk with tears running down my face.

“I’m sorry, don’t cry,” he said.

“You shouldn’t do that,” I said hoarsely.

“I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“But you will! As soon as I’m gone you will, and you shouldn’t.”

“Sister Robin, you are right and we will stop. Don’t cry,” said Mr. Caesar, the English teacher. He leaned over his desk toward me and looked into my eyes.

“I know I’m silly to cry like this,” I said, wiping away tears, careful not to smear my eyeliner. “I know you didn’t really hurt them that much. But I mean it. Caning doesn’t help the students, it only hurts them.”

“Yes, don’t worry Robin.”

“They’re such good kids, and they’re so well-behaved,” my voice rose. “They don’t need the cane, and it doesn’t help them learn.”

“We are sorry miss. We didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m okay, it’s not about me. It’s the kids.”

I pulled out my journal, composed myself, and started to scribble furiously. But I couldn’t concentrate. I set my pen down.

I walked over to Mr. A’s desk and started to ask him, “Do you ever think – ” when suddenly I was choking up again. “Do you ever think,” I said hoarsely, “of where caning comes from?”

He stared at me.

“It comes from slavery.” Fresh tears were running down my cheeks. “It comes from the cruel legacy of slavery. And you should reject that, not continue it.”

“Ahh,” said Mr. Caesar, rushing over. “So we are like the slave masters caning the slaves when we cane our students?” He looked at me brightly and blinked.

“I don’t think you’re like the slave masters, but that’s where caning comes from, and it’s cruel.” I rested my hands against Mr. A’s desk.

“I see, that is very interesting,” Mr. Caesar said. “Yes, but, it is different in our country. Where you come from, caning is unacceptable and illegal, but here, it is part of our culture. The government allows up to three strikes. We need strict discipline, or the students will not pay attention or do their work. We don’t have the support of their families. They don’t care about school. We ask the parents to come and talk to us and they don’t show up. And then the government blames us when the students fail.

“Just the other day, one of the students spat at a government official who had come to visit. We were all so embarrassed. We need to keep the students in line, and the only way they will do their work is if they are afraid.”

“I understand that it’s hard for you,” I sniffed. “And that’s tough the families don’t support you. I know they don’t give you enough resources. I know the classes are too big for you to always give them individual attention. When I have a French class of 30 kids, I can’t know all their names. For the play and with my Environmentalism Day leaders, I can get to know my 15 kids, and they want to participate and do their work. And you can’t always do that.

“But you want the students to want to do their work, not be afraid of you. The classroom should be a place of love and support. Learning should be something they look forward to. If you cane them, they’re not going to suddenly change or behave. You need to teach them why what they did was wrong, and then support them and help them do right. I understand the cane doesn’t really hurt them that much, but there are better ways of disciplining them.”

I told them about giving them detention, timeout, extra lines, even dunce caps; writing students’ names on the board; having them write letters of explanation; and holding meetings to follow up.

“You need to ask students what’s wrong and find out what’s going on in their home lives,” I said. “Because they’re not bad kids, and there’s probably a reason they’re acting out. Like Justice, he wasn’t in school for two days, so we asked him what was going on and it turned out his Dad was sick.”

“Those are very good ideas, and we will try them out,” said Mr. Caesar.

“Yes, we will do that next time,” agreed Mr. A.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“No, we will.”

This was way too easy. “Did I really just change your mind?”

“Yes, I see what you mean. There are other ways of discipline. We need to help and encourage the students. They should love us, not fear us.”

“Yes, exactly,” I beamed. I looked between Mr. Caesar and Mr. A. “If you want to go back to caning, I suppose I can’t stop you, even though I disagree. But I’d appreciate it if you would try out these other ways.”

“Yes, yes, we will try.”

“Great! Let me know how it goes.”

“We will.”

“I hope I don’t seem like an outsider imposing my views and saying my way is right and yours is wrong, without understanding your culture.”

“No, I am learning a lot from you,” said Mr. Caesar. “I like this exchange of ideas.”

“Good! I do too.” I sat back at my desk and took out my journal.

Mr. Caesar headed out to class and said, “I look forward to discussing this with you more.”

“Me too.”