Titagya Schools

Today was the last day of school. The kids are now on vacation, but only for about three weeks, and then school will resume August 21^st. Titagya’s vacations are generally a week shorter than the other public primary school vacations, in order to make sure that the students don’t forget all that they have learned! The new school year starts when they come back, which means some of the older students won’t be returning (instead moving on to primary school), some of the younger kids will be moving up to the older classrooms, and there will be new students as well.

Since today was the last day and all, there weren’t any lessons taught. Instead, the kids got to hang out in their classrooms, eating and playing with one another. They brought fantastic meals, too! Usually the students come to school with a simple lunch of rice or beans or some combination of the two, but today they came with larger-than-usual, extra special local main dishes, biscuits (cookies), juices, sodas, and candy. It’s also tradition for students to bring a little something for the teachers on the last day of school, so each student brought a bar of soap or some matches for the teachers, as small tokens of thanks and appreciation!

As for me, I still can’t believe school is over, and that I won’t be seeing all of my students every day anymore. I’m going to miss them so much! I should be leaving Dalun around Monday or so to head back to Accra, where I will be spending some time with Helen Farley ’14 who is also on a CPGC internship in Ghana’s capital. We will hopefully be exploring Accra and taking some trips to other places around the coast, and then soon enough I will be heading back home to the US! It’s been such an incredible journey already.

When I have more time (and a better internet connection), I’ll upload some pictures of Dalun and the school, so you can see exactly where I’ve been living and what I’ve been doing for the past two months!

This weekend, I finally made it out of Dalun and followed the Danes on their travels to neighboring villages. On Saturday, we went to the villages Kumbungu and Zangbolon (I think that’s how you spell them…) In the morning we made our way to the main road in Dalun to find some bus or public transportation to take us to Kumbungu…and we ended up sitting atop a giant mound of dirt in the back of a huge pick-up truck. It was definitely a rough ride, what with the bumpy, unpaved road, but we called it a typical Ghanaian experience, and it was fun nonetheless!

These Danes attended last year’s sports seminar, and have just been here for the week as volunteers, going around to different villages and leading mini sports festivals, which is exactly what they did in Kumbungu. They basically just played games (both Danish and Ghanaian) with kids for about an hour. There were two groups, one for younger children and one for young adults. The younger kids played a variety of games – I noticed a version of “duck, duck, goose” and they also learned the “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” song, among so many more. The older group played groundball (the Danish version of stickball, I guess) and then Ultimate Frisbee.

Afterwards, we went to Fatawu’s house (Fatawu was involved in both last year and this year’s sports seminars, so was well acquainted with the Danes) to eat lunch. After lunch, we made our way to Zangbolon, only a 5-minute drive from Kumbungu. We went to Napa’s house, another Ghanaian who knew the Danes from last year’s seminar. After hanging around for a while, she took us around Zangbolon, showing us mostly the different farms and crops that had been recently planted, like chili peppers, yams, rice, etc. We also made our way to the home of a gentleman who owned an incubator for hatching eggs. Before we left, we stopped by to say hello to the chief. The Danes brought some gifts for him, including a solar-powered hat with an attached fan that blew into his face. The chief then brought out a bag full of gifts the Danes had brought in previous years – most of them were different kinds of fun hats. It was a nice gesture that he kept them all! After that we headed back home – again on the back of a pick-up truck (although this time sans the dirt).

Unfortunately, the last of the Danes left early this morning, so the Simli Center is as empty as it was when I first got here.

In other news, Ramadan started on Saturday, which means most of the locals are fasting – from 4am to 6pm for the next 29 or so days! I find it very impressive that although they aren’t eating, their daily routines don’t change at all. Azeez told me today that you can start practicing the fasting at age 15, but once you turn 18 years old, it is compulsory.

In other, other news, it’s the last week of school! On Friday, the kids at Titagya will be let out for break, and then the new school year will pick up some time in September. This week is a review week for all the classes; they are reviewing all the lessons they’ve covered since school started, one week condensed into a class session. I still have just over two weeks left in Ghana, but I can’t believe so much time has gone by already, and that soon I won’t get to see these smiling faces anymore!

I got the opportunity to take over one of the teacher’s classes for the entire past week, as he was away attending a workshop. I think it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life –those were five long days. Remember when I said the kids didn’t quite respond to me as they did their other teachers? Well the same was still true, only I wasn’t done after just one day or one class session…I had to make it through the entire week.

I was teaching them two-letter words, like it, as, if, so, go, to, no…etc. To make matters more difficult, I had to do it entirely in English, whereas the other teachers always infused Dagbani, so the young students would understand better.

It was never so bad during the first class session, but by the time 10 am rolled around, most of the kids just didn’t want to pay attention anymore. It was a huge struggle trying to keep their attention on the blackboard, trying to get everyone to respond and repeat the words after me or the student leading the class. It was even harder to try and discipline the students in English, for they couldn’t understand what I was saying, and would just giggle. I thought I’d explode of frustration more than once, but every single time I managed to draw on some last nerve of patience I never knew I had.

At the end of the week, the other teachers commented that it seemed as though the students had finally gotten used to my teaching style, especially teaching in English. I was too busy trying to keep myself sane in controlling the class that I guess I never noticed it, but I realized they were right. In the end, the students actually learned, and they learned a lot. I taught them almost 20 new two-letter words that the students could identify, spell, and read. When on Friday the students read simple sentences like: “So he is to go” and “I am in it,” I couldn’t be prouder of them.

So yes, it was a long week…but it was one of the most rewarding weeks I’ve ever had, and it was a week that reminded me exactly why I’m here, and why I enjoy doing what I’m doing. It was just the week I needed!

Dalun’s Youth Center is a very important hub of youth activity in the village. It is founded and funded by Danes, and there are Danish volunteers every so often who come to help out. The Youth Center is one of the first of its kind in this area, for it is very hard to bring any youth together, what with all of the political, ethnic, religious, or other divides. Dalun succeeded in spite of it all, and now anyone ages 13+ can officially join the organization (even someone 99 years old can join…they are still youth at heart!). The Youth Center essentially aims to create a huge network of communities, hopefully joining neighboring villages together and bringing peace and development.

They put on a number of programs or workshops and activities throughout the year, such as lessons in computer literacy, or sports programs. For example, in order to dispel the traditional notion that females just belong in the kitchen cooking and cleaning, the Youth Center helped form a girl’s soccer team, and they practice every single evening in a field not far from the center.

The Center especially emphasizes sports, for sports has the immense capability of bringing people together. This year marks the third annual sports festival, which is held here at the Simli Center, involving Danes and Ghanaians both from Dalun and other villages. One of the overall goals of this partnership is “Sports as a tool for development,” and so these volunteers are here for a week teaching one another and learning from one another about sports and sports education. They are broken up into groups – a mix of Danes and Ghanaians – and come up with ideas for games and sports activities to share with others, including the community at large. Today and tomorrow, the groups are actually travelling to neighboring villages, where they will be sharing these activities with the local people.

As you can see, the Youth Center is a pretty incredible place. Unfortunately, I haven’t had very many opportunities to stop by, but I hope that in my remaining less than 4 weeks (ah!) I can spend more time there getting to known the youth of Dalun!

A few weekends ago, Habib took me to the nearby Nawuni River. It was a short 15-minute ride, and on the way we passed by some absolutely beautiful, lush green farmland, with trees sporadically popping up here and there. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – Dalun is one incredibly beautiful village.

The river wasn’t too wide – I could probably swim from one side to the other if the current wasn’t too strong – but apparently it’s pretty long; Habib said he thinks it leads all the way to the ocean by Accra. There are some villages scattered along the other side of the river, hence the canoe taxi that carries people (and objects) across. They even fit a few motorbikes on the boat!

You can see the water tank in the background (is that what it’s called?) that pumps water from the river into the pumping station that is located by the center where I’m staying. This is where they filter, purify, and clean the water for the villagers to use. They also purify water for other nearby villages as well, and it’s a very important place and job! I’m supposed to be getting a tour of the site sometime soon.

Habib also said that when it’s peak rainy season, the water in the river rises so high you can’t even see the trees you do in the picture! I find it hard to believe, but based on how often and hard it rains here…well, peak rainy season is sure to be quite interesting.