Teaching

We finally have water again! It came back on Monday or Tuesday, hard to remember which day since everyday is the same here... I definitely have a new appreciation for water though.

On Tuesday I went to my school alone to teach for the first time. As part of my program, we teach HIV/AIDS prevention and we are allowed to go the school during the week to help out with whatever the teachers need. I will be going to my school on Tuesdays to teach science and maybe some IT, or maybe just cultural differences from America.

I woke up at 6am, walked out the door by 6:45am so that I could arrive to the school by 9am. I take one TroTro to Market and switch to the Madina TroTro. Once at Madina I can take a shared taxi or another TroTro to Pantang Hospital J.H.S. which is right next to the hospital. The whole trip takes about 2 hours, which I think I mentioned in an earlier post.

Anyway, I got to the school and Mr. Peter Nyame was waiting outside for me. He is a young teacher, about 25, and very welcoming and nice. He showed me to his classroom where there were about 45 junior high school students. The first thing I noticed was the fact that some students are very young looking and some look too old to be in the class. Other interns have heard stories from their students about taking time away from school. One child's father died, so he was not in school for three years. The stories are amazing, but yet even the kids move on with their lives. Life continues whether they like it or not and they just don't complain.

Mr. Nyame asked that I teach some simple science to begin. I talked to the kids about vegetables! Minerals, vitamins, roughage, how it makes a garden look nice, and the income from exporting from Ghana. The kids seemed relatively interested, but it was difficult for me to hold their constant attention. With so many kids in the class I really had to shout to be heard in the back room. My voice does not carry through a crowd, and I think that made it more difficult for me.

After about 30 minutes of discussion, the students went on a 20 minute break. I couldn't believe they were going on break in the middle of the morning. Very different from my Junior High experience... although the head mistress did tell me that the students arrive around 7am to clean the campus and straighten everything in the class room. People here are very disciplined it seems, and I have more to discuss about that later.

After break, the students returned to finish the lesson. I gave a short 5 question quiz (ex. Why are vitamins important? What is roughage? What is the difference between an import and an export....etc.) Most students got every question correct. Those that didn't either did not know the answer or were just being lazy. From looking around the room while they were answering I am leaning toward laziness. Can't say I blame them though, vegetables aren't really that exciting.

Once I finished grading the assignment we moved on to HIV prevention. There was supposed to be a district-wide quiz where one school competes against another. Unfortunately, the person in charge of the district is new and was not aware. Long story short, the quizzes have been postponed... However, I still needed to gauge what they already knew about HIV. The students are all in the HIV Club and they take a health class every year. For the most part they knew the basics about AIDS, how it spreads and how to prevent it.

Then we got to questions.

"If I have sex with a dead person who had AIDS, will I then get AIDS?"
"If a snake bites someone with AIDS and then bites me, does that mean I have AIDS?"
"Can I get AIDS if I share a glass of water with someone with AIDS?"

Their questions were so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh. Although, at least I could provide answers and they learned some things. It was strange though since they would call out "Excuse me, Sir" to ask a question. Then I would answer and they would say "Thank You" and look very satisfied that they knew the answer to their question.

I taught HIV prevention for about an hour and then it was time to leave. I know now that I am not meant to be a teacher. I really liked the kids and had a great time, but I'm not cut out to be a teacher or maybe more accurately it isn't something I see myself doing. I do need to prepare a lesson for tomorrow, Friday. I will be going to both of my schools, hopefully teaching the same lesson twice.

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We had a mini house meeting to talk about cleanliness and order. Here in Ghana, the locals wake up around 7am and the first thing they do is make their bed and clean their room. The discipline is admirable. Us interns all sleep til 9, 10 and to them it is just unbelievable. They don't understand why we would sleep so late.

In other news, I am completely sick of rice, chicken, beans and plantains. My friend Roy and I bought our own bowls, forks and spoons - and liquid soap. Now properly equipped, we might go to the market to get fresh vegetables. The only annoying part is that everything MUST be rinsed in clean water, especially the vegetables. Considering we are bound to get sick anyway (even the locals get sick), it almost seems silly to care anymore.