Titagya Schools

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. (:

Clara Kang ’13 will be blogging from Dalun, Ghana during her nine week CPGC internship with Titagya Schools.