Titagya Schools

The Danes have arrived!

For those who aren’t aware, I spent fall semester last year studying abroad in Copenhagen, and I completely fell head over heels in love with everything Danish (and not just the pastry!)

So it’s a little bit like fate that Dalun has so many connections to Denmark. 1) The center where I am staying was founded by Danes in the late 80’s. It used to be called the Ghanaian Danish Community Program, but has since been renamed the Simli Center. 2) The youth center here was also founded by Danes and is funded by a Danish rotary club. 3) One of the chief’s sons is married to a Danish woman. He lives in Denmark with her and their kids, and comes back to Dalun every once in a while to visit.

I’m sure there are more examples, but these are the most central ones I’ve heard.

Anyway…the Danes are here to plan and participate in the youth center’s annual sports festival and seminar. It starts next week, so I’ll write more about that once I know more about what exactly it is! I actually just met two Danes who are living in my section of the compound, Michelle and Natalie. They seem very nice and they’re staying for three weeks, so good-bye quiet (and a tad lonely) afternoons and nights!

Three other Danes visited Titagya today, and they brought a surprise…balloons!

I don’t know if the kids had ever seen balloons before, but they were a huge hit. It’s Friday, so class only lasts from 8-9 a.m., and the kids play outside until noon. The hype and excitement over the balloons lasted a good half hour, which in kid time is, like, three hours. The students even abandoned the precious soccer balls to play with balloons!

Due to the wind, most of the balloons ended up flying over the fence surrounding the school, so it would be a mad rush to see who could get to the balloons first. A lot of other women and children walking by thus stopped and watched the whole balloon commotion. I’m sure it was quite a sight!

It’s all dirt and rocks outside the school, so a lot of the balloons popped pretty quickly, but it was so funny to hear the shrieks of happiness every time a balloon popped. You’d think the students would have been scared, but no – they were delighted!

The teachers blew about half the bag – maybe about 10 balloons or so, so we’ll see when and if the balloons make an appearance again! It’s so amazing how much joy a simple balloon can bring to young children.

If you know me, you know that I am very, very, very afraid of bugs. Any kind of bug – big, small, winged, 8-legged. It’s been a challenge getting used to the occasional small flying creature in my hut, but I’ve grown rather skilled at swatting at them with a pamphlet I’ve designated to killing all insects.

So you can imagine my horror, disgust, shock, and complete and utter terror when last night, my hut was swarmed by a bunch of huge flying insects and its wingless brothers. I could hear their wings fluttering against the windows and door, but I didn’t think much of it in the beginning, for the night comes with an endless array of strange, creepy noises.

When the first flying insect came in, I thought it was just a fluke, an isolated incident, and killed it quickly. By number 3, though, I started getting nervous. In total, I must have killed about 10 or more of those huge winged ones, and many, many more of the wingless ones that were crawling under my doorframe. It was like those bugs had decided to wage a war against me. My worst nightmare had come true, and I was trying really hard not to completely freak out.

Earlier that day, I had just put up my mosquito net for the first time. I noticed the flying insects were attracted to the net, so I took it down and put it away immediately…it seemed to have an effect. Eventually, the bugs stopped coming, but I stayed up pretty late anyway, too shaken to sleep.

After some googling, I’ve come to the conclusion that these are “flying ants.” (If you google ‘flying ants Ghana,’ you’ll find a few blog posts that mention very similar scenarios. Don’t be fooled by their pictures, though – my flying ants were bigger and badder!) These insects appear after large rainstorms because their habitat is destroyed. They’re attracted to light, but often lose their wings quickly, thus becoming wingless and crawling on the floor. They don’t live for long outside of their natural environment, though, so I guess that’s a good thing. My friend Francesca hypothesized (and now I think I agree) that the white color of my mosquito net was reflecting the light in my room too strongly, and the insects couldn’t resist.

When I walked out of my hut the next morning, I was just a bit disgusted…one of the other huts has a light outside that is on 24/7. On the floor underneath that light were hundreds and hundreds of those dead flying ants – and even more wings, just lying there on the ground.

Today I put my net back up anyway, and have decided that from now on the light will no longer be on in my room after it gets dark. I will have to resort to the dimmest setting on my laptop inside my net – and I sincerely hope this light isn’t strong enough to attract any unwanted bugs!

Well, then. Last night I may have won the battle…but rainy season has just begun – what on earth will I be facing in the future?? I don’t even want to know.

Since I’ve arrived, I’ve been growing closer to and more comfortable with all of the teachers at the school, and I can only hope that this relationship continues to grow as the days go by. One of the teachers, Madame Baraka, has been telling me about some troubles Titagya faces, particularly with the parents.

Titagya is currently only a preschool and kindergarten – a private pre-primary school (and I think the only pre-primary school in the village!). There are about five public primary schools in the village of Dalun, but I think Titagya does the best job with its students – though I might be a bit biased…I’m already growing so attached to the children, I feel like I can call them my kids! The name of the school means “change,” and Titagya truly is making a difference in these kids’ lives.

As such, you could see how the parents of the students might want their children to stay at Titagya…well, forever. Once the kids graduate Titagya and go on to primary school, I think they get lost in the regular public school system (although there are currently only about 30 graduates or so; the first “class” to graduate was last year’s). From what Madam Baraka has told me, the teaching styles in other schools are obviously quite different and not as successful. The children are not used to learning in that way, and will not thrive as well as they did at Titagya. Parents, especially, are quite upset, and want Titagya to expand to include primary school grades as well – I got the feeling that Madama Baraka strongly agreed with this sentiment.

I asked Habib and Safianu whether expanding Titagya to include primary classes was a possibility, and they said the only problem was securing funding. Since Titagya is a private school, they don’t get any money from the government, so they’d have to pay for the construction as well as the teachers’ salaries and maintenance of the school, supplies, etc. all by themselves, through donations and such. Safianu seemed confident that they could find good teachers in the village for classes, but money is just always an issue.

I guess only time will tell if Titagya ends up becoming a primary school. In the meantime, I’ve finally finalized with Habib and Safianu what exactly I’ll be working on this summer. My first project involves modifying some existing curriculum modules to make them more suitable and relevant to the classrooms, so that activities and lesson plans can be successfully carried out. These modules each encompass a different topic, like hygiene, undersea creatures, weather, etc. In addition, I’ll be spending a few afternoons observing other primary schools in the village, and am very excited to see how things differ. I think my first visit is going to be on Monday, so I’ll report back here soon!

Last Tuesday, Habib took me to the Dalun market. It happens every six days, and people from neighboring villages come to buy and sell goods as well. People pitch small wooden huts and lay out various objects, anything from flour, mangoes, and yams to soap, cloth, jeans, batteries…you name it, it’s (most likely) there!

Habib told me that you also have to haggle prices at the markets here. It seems like everywhere I go in Ghana, I need to bargain to buy! I’m going to be a pro haggler by the time I get back to America.

This is unfortunately the only picture I could snap, just as we were leaving. If you look closely, you can see the different huts. Also note the very ominous clouds in the sky…our visit to the market was cut short because of the rain. It happened quite fast, too – the skies darkened, the temperature dropped rapidly, and the wind started picking up until it was fiercely blowing dust and dirt into my eyes! Rain here is pretty intense, but more on that later!

Last week I got the opportunity to meet the chief of Dalun! This is the man who is basically in charge of the entire village. The chief has about 10 or 11 wives, and lives in a compound (called the chief’s “palace”) with about 50 of his relatives, be it sons, daughters, wives, aunts, uncles, nephews, etc. Before going to meet him, we bought kola nuts for the chief, and had to first go to a sub-chief, who let the him know there were visitors.

The village is very keen on cultural traditions and customs, like bowing before elders (especially important ones like the chief and his “first lady,” aka his first wife) One of the project managers of Titagya, Safianu, acted as translator between the chief and I. We were all sitting barefoot under a large veranda located right outside the chief’s compound. I expected to sit on the ground along with Habib, Safianu, and the sub-chief, but it turns out they had brought out a chair for me to sit on, as I was the special guest!

After introductions, Safianu told me that the chief had just granted me a title: Leader of the Community Women. What I’m going to do with that “title,” I have no clue, but I felt honored anyway. The chief asked a bunch of questions, like how long am I staying, why am I here, what do I expect to get out of the summer…he even asked about President Obama!

The chief then handed us kola nuts as gifts, and we were supposed to crack them open and eat them. I only took a small bite out of mine, as it was so bitter, but Safianu tells me that the people in the village love the taste. After reading so much about kola nuts in my anthropology classes, I was thrilled to finally experience such rituals in person!

We didn’t stay for long, and as we were leaving Safianu said we were very fortunate, for normally the chief wants to talk and talk for hours, asking tons of questions. We were there at 3 pm, however – time for prayer – so our visit was cut short. I do hope that as the weeks go by, I get the opportunity to interact more and more with the community of Dalun!

On Monday I spent the whole day (two class sessions) in the youngest classroom.

To reiterate: Titagya Schools currently has four classrooms, two older ones both around the same age, 4-5 years old (although there are some bigger boys in the classes as well…perhaps a few 6+?), and two younger classrooms, 3-4 years old. The younger class taught by Madame Baraka is slightly more advanced than the class taught by Issah. Many of the children in Issah’s class are new to school, and some are even just two years old. A few of the boys are so small that their uniform shorts go down all the way to their ankles!

As you can imagine, trying to teach a bunch of 2-4 year olds numbers and letters can be a huge challenge, especially when their attention spans last…oh, about half a minute, tops.

Monday’s lessons dealt with simple instructions: come, go, run, and walk. Issah would say the word in English and the children would repeat; then he’d say the word in Dagbani and the children would repeat again, hopefully making the connection between the two languages. In reality, though, only one or two kids successfully understood that “come” in English meant “kamna” in Dagbani, and “go” in English meant “chama” in Dagbani. The rest…well, they were repeating the teacher for the sake of repeating. (Side note: it was adorable how some of the kids were repeating the words…for example, one boy kept saying “what” instead of “walk,” and another little guy would say “wop”)

They are such funny little kids, though. Before the morning’s lesson began, one girl lifted her feet into the air and announced that her parents had gotten her new shoes. And then almost everyone in the class did the same. When one boy asked to go outside and get water, everyone else decided they, too, were thirsty and must get water.

When Issah brought out three lollipops (intending to give them to the students who worked/responded the best), the children immediately perked up, and were so much louder when repeating the words. This, though, only lasted so long (and by that, I mean not long at all).

As they are small children, there is a fair amount of crying in the class as well, sometimes for no reason at all, other times because someone stole his/her toy or seat. I’d say a child cries at least once every half hour – even during the breaks!

There are some sleeping children, too. Madame Baraka told me before class started that since some of them are so young, the teachers just let them sleep, since it’s not as though they would really understand a lesson anyhow, which I guess is fair. In the middle of the second session, though, Issah had all the children go outside and jog a few laps around the building in order to pump them up and energize them.

All in all, it was an interesting and amusing day, and I left the class with so much more respect for the teacher. It must be very frustrating trying to teach lessons to 2-4 year olds who don’t pay attention, who cry, who fall asleep, or bicker with other students while the teacher is talking. I don’t know how much help I can be to this class, seeing as how all the instruction is done in Dagbani, but we will see how things follow in the next few weeks!

Monday morning was my first day at the school. The moment I arrived, the students began chanting something in Dagbani (which I later found out translates to “white lady” – ha) yelling “Hello! Hello!” and fighting with one another to grab my hand. It was quite a welcome, to say the least!

Titagya currently has four classrooms, two for the older students (4-5 years) and two for the younger (3-4 years). The school has definitely grown in the last two years – they’ve expanded to include both preschool and kindergarten, with four classrooms instead of the original two. One of the teachers, Azeez, told me that the school currently has around 115 students, about 30 per class. Habib told me it’s Titagya’s goal to build schools in neighboring districts as well, and they have just begun building a new school, not too far from Dalun!

School starts at 8 am, and at 9 the students have an hour break during which they eat meals they brought; class resumes at 10, and another break follows at 11, with school ending at 12 – the hottest time of day. During the breaks the teachers sit around and chat, while the kids run around and play. The boys and most of the girls seem to love football (and by football, of course I mean soccer), and for such young kids, they’re quite good! They’re not allowed to kick the ball around during the second break, though, for the sun is much too hot. During the second class session, it’s quite amusing to see how many children are drifting off to sleep in their seats – I guess they’ve tired themselves out, running around during break. (I imagine it’s how us college students look like early in the morning, too.) In order to wake them up, the teacher often has the kid(s) go outside and job laps around the building.

Each class starts with a “greet”:

Students: Good morning sir/madam!
Teacher: Good morning! How are you?
Students: We are fine, thank you sir/madam, and you?
Teacher: I am fine also.

Every adult male is a “sir” and adult female a “madam”  – when the students want to answer a question in class, they raise their right hands and yell out (more like scream out!) “Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!” until they get picked on.

Most of the teaching is done in Dagbani, at least for the younger kids. Each teacher, though, has his or her own style and particular presence. A few days this week I was given the chance to take over the two older classrooms for a brief 15-20 minutes or so, continuing lessons in math and English (counting numbers and sound combinations). The teachers of the two classes, Alhassan and Azeez, have two very different teaching styles – Azeez is softer, with his patience controlling the class, while Alhassan has a much more visibly commanding presence, and the children know not to goof off when he’s around. He also generally only speaks English in the class, while the other teachers infuse Dagbani. When he says “what is this number?” or “count loudly so we can hear,” it’s amazing how the kids listen and respond.

Not amazing is how the students didn’t listen to me when I said those same things. I could see some of the students (particularly the little girls) taking advantage of a new adult in the classroom (fresh meat, if you will?), but in the end it wasn’t all so bad. The students just mostly seem very excited to have me around – perhaps too excited to focus on the lesson! It’s definitely hard to control a class full of excited children when the only commands they really seem to know in English are “sit down” and “be quiet,” but it was only my first chance to teach here, and I’m looking forward to future lessons. I’ll say this, though: teaching to non-native English speakers is much, much harder than I thought it would be.

On Wednesday, May 30^th I left LAX in the afternoon, final destination: Accra! I should preface this by saying traveling generally stresses me out. Too many times I have dealt with delayed flights, very narrowly made connections due to said delayed flights, lost luggage, etc. My two flights (from Los Angeles to London, from London to Accra), though, had gone smoothly. I walked into Accra’s customs lines, where an officer barely glanced at my yellow fever certificate, and where all the passengers waited in lines to get their passports checked. After that, I made my way to baggage claim, found my two bags without a problem, then changed some USD to Ghanaian cedis as suggested, and finally made my way out of the airport.

This was the part of my journey that worried me the most. I had heard stories about being ambushed outside the airport and completely overwhelmed by taxi drivers, who would tug on your luggage and try to get you to ride their taxi. You had to make sure the taxi driver was legitimate, and you had to haggle the price before getting into the taxi, for knowing you are a foreigner, the drivers would surely rip you off.

My flight arrived at 8:30 in the evening, so it was dark by the time I made my way out, which added to my worries. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone grabbing at my bags or calling at me to ride their taxi; instead, I made my way to the street, where soon enough a taxi stopped by. I told him where I needed to go, but absolutely forgot to haggle the price until I was already in the car – rookie mistake. I got the price down from what he originally wanted (which was, of course, absurdly high), but still paid far more than I would have liked. In the end, though, I got to my hotel just fine despite all of my worries, so all’s well that ends well. The first leg of my journey was complete!

The next day I made my way to Busy Internet, an internet café located within walking distance of my hotel, and bought a cell phone. (I had some trouble activating my SIM card, and my phone would continue to give me troubles throughout the day, adding to my already existent traveling anxieties!). I logged onto a computer and was able to call my parents via Skype; it was such a relief to hear familiar voices again! After sending a few emails, I made my way outside again and got into a taxi (not before haggling the price, though!) to head to the STC bus station to buy my ticket to Tamale.

Once there, though, I was told that the buses for Saturday and Sunday were already full. I was bummed, because I was hoping to be in Tamale by Saturday night – I guess this must have shown, because one of the ladies behind the counter told me something about a different ticket, and to show up tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. anyhow.

And show up before 6, I did. The bus station was already bustling with people loading their bags onto the buses going to various cities. I ended up successfully getting a ticket for Tamale (although I’m still not quite sure how this happened…), and then headed to the area to wait for the bus. After about an hour, the bus arrived, and after weighing our bags and loading them on (all for a small fee), we were aboard headed to Tamale!

The bus was air-conditioned, with quite large, comfortable seats. It was supposed to be a 12-hour bus ride, and despite a very bumpy first two hours, the rest was smooth sailing. I fell asleep for most of the ride, but still managed to get a glimpse of the beautiful Ghanaian landscape as we traveled North. Luckily, my phone was working at this point, so I was able to contact Habib, the managing director of Titagya Schools, who would arrange my pick up from the Tamale bus station and take me to Dalun.

So on Saturday night, after a long bus ride from Accra, I arrived in Tamale, met Habib and his friend who had graciously driven, and made our way to Dalun. This drive took over an hour, and we literally went off-roading on bumpy dirt paths. As we passed by various communities, we also passed by tons of goats (and a few donkeys as well!), many of which were simply squatting in the middle of the road like they owned the place. To my delirious self after so much traveling, it was a rather funny sight. But anyway, we got to the Simli Center in Dalun where I will be staying during my time here (formerly known as the Ghanaian Danish Community Program; Simli means “friendship” in Dagbani, the local language), and Habib showed me to my room, which is small but tidy, fit with two beds, a desk, chair, bookcase, and – best of all – a ceiling fan. This private section of the compound has two more rooms just like mine, a kitchen, a toilet/shower area, and a large, open hut-like space in the middle where I can eat or relax.

I’m sorry to say I was too preoccupied during my time in Accra (worrying about getting to Tamale) to take any pictures, but I promise future posts will be full of pictures of Titagya, Dalun, and the rest of my travels!

It took a while, but I am finally in Dalun, Ghana (with internet)! Dalun is a small village located outside Tamale, the regional capital of Northern Ghana and the country’s 3rd largest city. Now how did I get here…

I had heard of Titagya Schools through a friend who interned here now two summers ago, Alison Crawford ’11. It sounded like a wonderful experience, so in December I contacted Andrew Garza ’08 (the co-founder of Titagya Schools) and after a few emails and phone interviews over winter break, I was welcomed on board as a summer intern! After a long application process to apply for a self-designed internship from Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, I was generously awarded funding, which made this trip possible.

Through the 360 program at Bryn Mawr, students were able to go to Titagya over spring break with Professor of Education Alice Lesnick, who is also on the board of advisors for the school. Before I left Haverford for the summer, I met with some of the students and Alice who shared their experiences and thoughts, and was lucky enough to meet with Habib, the managing director of Titagya, as well! He was visiting America for the first time and had stopped by Bryn Mawr and Haverford. Habib and Alice told me much about Titagya, and what to expect.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with my posts all at once, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to post about my journey to Dalun. In the meantime, I’ll try not to melt in this heat. (: