After dinner last night, we spotted a lizard roaming about our ceiling. When my alarm went off this morning, I was pleased to have made it through the night without feeling its little feet scampering across my face. I have a hard time waking up here, and hope to get the motivation to go running at 6 am with two other girls sometime soon. This morning was not “sometime soon,” partly because I wanted to keep sleeping, and partly because it was raining out. I rolled out of bed, cut up my pineapple, gathered some more instruments, put my new rain jacket to use, and headed off to grab a taxi.
After paying 4 cedis to get into town both yesterday and Tuesday, I was determined to get there for only 1 cedi today. There are two kinds of taxi rides here – shared and dropped. If you tell the driver you would like a shared ride, that means he can pick up others as he goes along, as long as they are headed the same direction. When the taxi gets near your destination, just tell them to let you out. The price for a shared taxi between Elmina and Cape Coast is 1 cedi. If you say you would like a drop taxi, that means the driver will take you exactly where you want to go, without picking up other people. The best I’ve managed to get between Elmina and Cape Coast is 4 cedi. I did remember to say shared today, and told him I was heading toward Kotokuraba Market. Mary told me this would get me on the right road, and when I saw the Aboom School sign, I could hop out. Unfortunately, this did not get me on the right road, and I ended up having to walk about 15 minutes in the rain with some instruments. I didn’t mind, though, even though by the time I arrived at the school, my face was a wet mixture of rain and sweat. I got better advice from another volunteer, and I will try that tomorrow.
Things at the school were a little crazy today. As I saw a bit of in Jamaica last year, other approaches to teaching are not the same as in the U.S. While at home, teachers tend to deal with inappropriate behaviors with “discipline,” here it’s more like “punishment.” In addition, since many of the kids have a very short attention span, the teachers give them frequent breaks, which gives the kids have a lot of free time to play, sometimes unsupervised. I don’t know if it was the weather, or what, but today, the kids were extra wound up, which can be difficult to deal with. Starting on Monday, it is my plan to do music with the kids during these “breaks,” which are often pretty long. I think this will help curb some of the chaos that results.
I spent a lot of time in the Pre-School class today, mostly just getting to know the students’ names and helping with reading and math. I also did some planning for next week. I meet with the teachers for the first time on Monday afternoon, and plan to get a real feel for what they want from me, as well as sharing with them some of my ideas. I hope to make this as much of a team effort as possible, because in the end, my only goal is to leave the teachers with something that they will actually continue when I leave.
Since Mary was running errands, I ate with the students today – jollof rice with beans. It was good, and if I had to compare it to anything, it would be Mexican rice, but with a little more spice. Despite the students’ disabilities, they are very capable of caring for themselves. Before lunch, the students move the chairs and tables out to the lunch room. With the exception of one student, they all feed themselves, and pretty well. After lunch, they stack their plates and the older girls wash them. Some other students sweep the floors and put the chairs and tables back.
When I returned home, I spent some time answering emails from home, and uploading more pictures onto Facebook. I hope to get some on the blog soon, but for some reason, Facebook is the only page that loads fast enough for pictures. I have a good signal today, so I will try again.
Tonight is the coolest night we have had here by far – about 70 degrees with a slight breeze. I would like to take a shower, but I’m afraid the cold water would just be too cold tonight. I am still on the lookout for the right drums for the school, and hope to have that settled tomorrow. This weekend, a few of the Global Mamas volunteers and I are heading to Kakum National Park, which is just about an hour from Cape Coast. We plan to spend the night in a tree house on Saturday night, and go into the park on Sunday. Since we did not put in an order at Eli’s for dinner tomorrow night, I may be making my first meal from scratch. Although this is something I do all the time at home, this kitchen is a little different (no counter space!), as are the ingredients. It should be interesting to see what I come up with.
Thanks for taking time to write this blog, Amy.I look forward to it daily. Glad things are going well so far. Prayers are with you and what you are doing.
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Keep up the great work.
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