Pioneering in Agona Swedru

After a week in Accra the group forged into new territories and made its way to the central part of the country and into Agona Swedru. This is a new venture for Warwick in Africa and thus for the teachers in the local area.

For context, the closest cashpoint that accepts foreign cards is two hours away. People take out their phones to snap away pics of the 'white people on a bus!' Openly, we get stares and smiles. Our school is a forty minute drive down dirt roads; this is the 'close' school. And on our way home from the close school, Ellis, our driver, hit a baby goat napping in the middle of the road. 

And still. 

Swedru is charming. Hardly a tourist destination and absolutely off the beaten path. But it's real in a way that a big city can never be.  Let me explain--London is a shoddy representation of how England lives. It's full if immigrants (of which I am one), it carries a bulk of the country's wealth, universities, jobs and infrastructure. It's easy to see extreme wealth standing proudly next to extreme poverty. And in many ways, Accra is the same. 

In Swedru, what you see is what you get. The community is relatively rural--corn fields and palm trees stand side-by-side. But the houses we've seen are a lot more solid--less shack like structures and more concrete buildings. There's a greater Muslim influence here too--Islamic schools and mosques dot the area. Nobody bats an eyelid. Life revolves around the local church or mosque and people seem to care about each other. It makes me wonder when western society became so insular, so selfish and so blatantly consumerist. 

As for the schools, the ones we've seen and been in are more cared for. They seem more modern than their Accran cousins, and the campus of the senior high school we're teaching at is similar in size to Hornsey. 

In town, a huge market splits the area in two. It's a true market--with foods and smells and goods for sale. Like any true market, it assaults the senses; smoked fish seem to be the thing for sale here, vendors beckon you to buy their fish, their spices, their truly gigantic snails. No one hassles or heckles you though--you are free to browse as you please. Another welcome change from Accra.  And if you venture back, you'll find stalls and stalls of fabric, tailors and seamstresses. Fabric is inexpensive and getting something made is even cheaper. I've paid 15 cedi, the equivalent of £5 ($7)  to have a shirt made for Paul. 

The rest of the town's streets are dotted with shops, a small grocery store selling British biscuits imported from China with mandarin script on the side, various tailors, coffin sellers and ridiculously named store fronts. There is also one restaurant: Sizzlers, that sells an array of Ghanaian food alongside burgers, chips and pizza.

It's quieter than Accra but is still by no means quiet. You can find everything in one area that spans the distance of roughly a mile.  The open sewers still smell and traffic still abounds, particularly on market day.  But somehow this place feels a bit more real.  It's not everyone's cup of tea.  

Fortunately for me, I don't drink my tea like everyone else.

Drama, Ghanaian Style

I am aware that very little of what I've written this far eludes to why we're actually here. In this way, as you will find out, my title gives nod to subterfuge and entendre. But Before I get carried away listing words I learned in preparation for the GRE, I should note that I am in Ghana because I am, in fact, teaching master classes to the teachers out here.

This makes me sound like some kind of  megalomaniac, I am aware. But teaching master classes is a lot like sharing best practice to a room of people who won't boo you off stage or talk about you when you leave--like your fellow teaching colleagues do at home. 

Our Ghanaian colleagues have been warmly welcoming and very receptive to the myriad tasks at hand. They whoosh and soundscape with aplomb. Their challenges are different--extremely limited resources, gigantic class sizes, a government that doesn't quite deliver (okay, that one's the same) but their true professionalism is refreshing.  These teachers care about their kids and their continued professional development, in Accra at least, has been top notch. 

In a week filled with drama, they have been the true saving grace.

As I spout irrational chatter about my teaching background and then sessions on drama games in the English classroom, interactive learning, inclusion and differentiation, I'm also very aware of how far I've come in my teaching career. And how much I do have to offer the educational scene. It's a rare confidence boost in an educational landscape that always focuses on better, more, quicker.  

There are issues at hand, still.  The WASSCE, the West African Senior School Certificate Exam, mandates a very different style exam to the UK's GCSEs.  Until this year, we've been unable to get our hands on an exam paper or test booklets.  And now that we have it, it seems that our sessions have been delivered at cross purposes.  Teaching PEE and interactive methods is all good until you note that the exam is multiple choice, focuses on idiomatic phrases, grammar and basic comprehension.  This isn't Ghana's choice; they're at the mercy of the West African board.  So if positive change is going to happen, it's got to happen on a much larger scale than we once imagined.  This is a daunting task.  

If infrastructural progress on the ground is anything to go by though, it's a challenge the Ghanaian people are up for.  

Dont Drink the Water; Don't Eat the Rice

Every human being fancies him/herself a bit invincible at one point or another. It is the inability to face reality that ensures the human race progresses. But eventually we are all forced to confront our bodily limitations in various shades of humiliation. 

Rash overgeneralisations aside, this week's brought-to-you-by-Ghana-push-to-the-limit-moments have involved migraines, diarrhoea, explosive diarrhoea and an overnight trip to the local hospital. 

Fortunately, only one of the above situations involves me, and seeing as you're reading this you probably know that if I went to hospital the whole world would've known about it last week. So I'll leave my fragile condition to your imagination. 

I will say this. If you thought being sick at home was fun, you should try it whilst flirting with the idea that: 1. The school's toilet only flushes on a good day (and its  last good day appears to have been last July when you were here); 2. malaria tablets only work if you can keep them in.

Having learned a valuable life lesson when I accidentally food poisoned myself last May and still went to work, this time I green facedly bowed out of teaching for the day. Instead, I spent a morning rotating between my bed, the toilet and a bevy of bad films on Ghanaian television. Though I felt remarkably sorry for myself and annoyed that rice is one of the foods with the highest propensity to grow angry-faced bacteria and the only real 'vegetarian' option in a country of rice and meat eaters, it could've been worse.

And for Stacy, one of the student teachers, it was. Stomach bugs are relatively common to western stomachs in Africa with the change of scenery, change of climate, daily dose of anti-malarials, difference in hygiene standards. With me, it was a nuisance. For the student teachers who were sharing rooms, and therefore germs, it became a mini-epidemic. At one point last week, 5 of the 10 student teachers were so unwell they couldn't go to school. 

Unfortunately, Stacy had  pre-existing medical conditions of the autoimmune variety. She became dehydrated after not eating or drinking for nearly three days and thus the decision was made to take her to hospital. Initial reports of conditions there were grim: digging for veins with a needle for ten minutes, filthy ward conditions, the dying lying inches from the immunocompromised. Walking blood and stool samples on your own to be tested and picked up, referring to the price list and  paying before treatment.  Fortunately, the doctors were ace.

Too many things hit home for me though. We never had any serious brushes with sickness last summer and dealing with hospitals never occurred to me. I never considered the medical compromises a Ghanaian makes, not a choice but a reality. And because I love someone immunally challenged, it made me so eternally grateful of a National Health Service that's stretched to the limits but is head and shoulders cleaner, safer and more efficient than here. No judgment. No disrespect. This comes from a place of genuine fear. 

So there Ghana goes teaching me something else. 

As for Stacy, she's doing fine after her brush with bacterial gastroenteritis. She  won't be eating the rice any time soon. Me, I'm tucked up in bed with my new best friend, the anti-bacterial hand gel. We've become close these last few days; I reckon it's a relationship built to last. 

Sisimbo Beach Resort

On our first weekend in Accra, Warwick University organised a tour to Elmina, Cape Coast and Kakum National Park.  Since Wendy and I had gone last year and because I had less than 24-hours between the end of term and the flight, we instead opted to take ourselves away for a weekend at the beach.  With the help of Cross Cultural Tours, we hired a driver, Kwame, who whisked us away to lovely, lovely Sisimbo Beach Resort.

If we would've planned things better, we would've stayed somewhere a lot closer because driving through the market town of Kasoa on a Saturday is the equivalent driving through the combined traffic of New York, London and Paris back-to-back.  

But Sisimbo was a truly peaceful paradise and entirely worth the drive.  

Never far from home

Fishing 

pre-teen with coconut and machete

Wendy and her coconut

spacious accommodation with jungle shower

We had a hell of an adventure on the way back when the presidential convoy rushed past us stopping traffic on both sides. Kwame took this as an opportunity to jump onto the back of it, zooming through the opposite side of the dual carriageway and past a backup traffic ten miles long.  Ace.  

This Time Is Not Like Last Time

Last summer, my first, and scariest, memory of Ghana was its airport. An assault on the senses that left me weary and concerned about what I'd signed myself up for. This is also what i told the newcomers on the trip. Be prepared. Get psyched up. Take deep breaths because the terminal is madness.

Imagine my surprise when we were met with orderly yellow fever checks, a roped off calmly winding passport queue and revamped luggage conveyor belts.  The exit out of international arrivals was wide and easily passable. And on the other side, last year's drivers, Clement and Ellis, awaited us like old friends. 

But I wasn't fooled; the worst part was yet to come. Men, tall, short and fat, trying to grab at your luggage to 'help' you carry it to your vehicle. They were on us immediately upon exiting into humid city air last July. So I stepped out, gear strapped to my back, suitcase handle firmly in hand and was greeted by...no one. In the place of leery touts stood a set of picnic tables, a series of outdoor food establishments and a fence hemming in the car park. Progress. Way to up the game, Ghana.

Winding our way through Accra, I was also surprised to find that I knew the way to our accommodation. And that it kind of felt like I never left. That's a nice feeling when you're somewhere as far away from your norm like Africa.

That quickly changed when the cluster of disorganization happened upon arrival at Yiri Lodge. Rooms weren't ready. The staff seemed to know nothing about what was going on. When I finally opened the door to room 14, I was greeted with a series of 14 damp towels strewn across the bed, desk and chair, a wall stained with brown such and such and bloodstained sheets. The lock didn't really lock. A hooded man-cum-security guard lurked around the courtyard with his face covered. 

In typical Western fashion, I complained and was moved rooms, only to be moved again a day later. 

It appears the management here has changed and everything has lost last summer's shiny veneer.  One of the girls got shouted at: 'move your laundry from your balcony! It's an eyesore!' music pumps late into the evening and there's a general sense of unease. Nothing huge, but a definite shift.

Above all of this, I feel a shift in the group dynamics as well. Nothing bad. Just different, very different. We're a group of 10 women meeting a team of summer school teachers who have already been here for a week. And there's some very strong personalities that make me feel less inclined to show the real me. I feel somehow old. Not in age but mentality. 

I am aware that this trip is nothing about our accommodation or the airport or the dynamics of the group.  But it has set me up for an uneasy start. And that's not fair to my very lovely group whose only failing is that they are not the Beth, Charley, Charlotte, Dora, Ian, Jen, Juliet, Paul, Meryl, Wendy powerhouse combination of last year. 

But if  Ghana's taught me anything it's to be flexible and resilient because change comes barreling down your door whether you like it or not. 

With this in mind, I forge into the next two weeks of adventures in teaching.