Wednesday, September 16, 2009

A day in The Life

I don’t expect there to be running water anymore, that’s a luxury I’ve simply learned to live without here in Ghana so when I make my way to the shower in the morning I make sure to bring my big blue bucket with me. After the final dump of cold water from big blue to rinse away the suds and shock my system one last time, I mosey on back to my room and plug in my cheap, pink Chinese made water boiler that I bought at the Bushcantine for three cedis.

I’m staying strong on my tea game and will soon need to stock up again. I decant my Lung Ching Chinese green tea from my teapot and walk out to my balcony. It’s a nice place to sip slowly and appreciate the subtle flavors and aromas while looking out into the possibilities of an early day. I look down from my fourth floor room to the street in front of my dorm at the women selling bread, cheese and coco; a mixture of ginger porridge and sugar that is a cheap and fairly popular breakfast among Ghanaians but I personally prefer oatmeal.

I’ve begun to forgo my dress shirt and slacks as the weather has gotten both more hot and humid, but today is my first day as a teacher’s aid at the local elementary school so I slip unwillingly into my trousers and a polo.

As I exit the front door of Legon Hall Annex A I stop and converse with the bread women in the little Twi that I know as they spread cheese onto my 20 peswas of bread. The walk to the primary school is short and on the way I look down at my expensive French loafers and see the accumulation of red soil gathering on the tips where the polish has worn off. I don't mind anymore and actually rather like the battle scars my fancy shoes are acquiring.

As I arrive to Mrs. Washington Nortey’s classroom the kindergarten age children are diligently writing the numbers one through one hundred in their math class work journals. I walk around the room helping those kids who are struggling until I get to a little girl named Chantelle who has not written anything and I ask her why. She point to the front cover of her journal and then to the boy sitting next to her. Apparently her mother wrote “math remedials” on the front of hers when it should read “math class work”.

Chantelle was upset when I told her that she should be fine if she turned it in like that but she told me that if she did “The teacher would beat me”. She was genuinely concerned so I tore off a piece of paper from the inside and glued it over “remedials” and wrote, “class work” in its place. Then a rounder, jolly boy came up and introduced himself as Fifi and proceeded to introduce me to all fifty children in the class. The accents of the children are so cute and I love the way they speak English here. I indulged him and began shaking tiny hands until Mrs. Nortey shouted for everyone to sit down and cross their arms. One boy sat swinging back and forth and Mrs. Nortey quickly made an example of him to show the class who was boss.

The topic of the day was nouns and the fidgety children had a great time naming everything they saw around the room. They were very energetic and eager to answer questions and I thought it was very cute. One girl had her hands inside her desk playing with something so Mrs. Nortey walked over to her and twisted her ear! I thought it as different from the way I was handled in Kindergarten but attributed it to being in a different country and culture. After the noun lecture was over I had to leave for class so I waved goodbye to the kids who excitedly waved back and I told Mrs. Nortey I’d be in later in the week.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Marlon! I'm Jaci's Aunt Rene'. She posted the link to your blog on facebook, and I'm so glad she did. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your day there in Ghana. I hope you're saving these. I love your writing, and I love that I can sort of meet you finally.
    I look forward to more posts.
    Aunt Rene'
    :)

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  2. Wow. Dude I didn't know you didn't have any running water in your dorm. I actually read your post right before I took a shower in the morning and it made me very thankful for something I don't even think about everyday...

    - Kevin

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  3. Hi Marlon. Your dentist here... Dad came in today and asked your mom to hook me up with your blog. I'm loving the narrative, taking a wonderful journey back down memory lane. My first year was in Jirapa, near Wa. I was about your age when I was there. I feel like I'm reading my own words when I read this. You're a good writer! I can't wait to read the future installments of your adventures and misadventures (those are fun too!). Soak it all up--it will stay with you forever. I'm a rookie at posting comments to blogs; hopefully this will get to you. Thanks!!! Wish I were there! :-) Clare Macaulay

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