EPI - School Selection - Ga East

Adenkrebi Village:  This village is good because there is not conflict, there are less than 1,000 people in the village, the teachers are smart and dedicated, the students were extremely well-disciplined, and a man in the village said that light was their greatest need.  The kids only get to eat fufu and banku.  The water comes from a stream about 1 mile away from the village.  They farm maize and cassava.  The community is very unified and live close together.  The chief said their greatest needs were: lights, teacher bungalows, roads, and the lack of a hospital in the area.  I had a good feel from the community—this school had arranged for a few parents to come to the school.  So instead of the whole village of us showing up and waiting for us to give us something, they kept it quiet, which I think is so good.  They were also very humble.  They said, “If, by the grace of God, these people feel moved to help you…” compared to some of the others.  They were much more upbeat.  We shall contrast this attitude to the next school I visited. 

We stopped by Akporman Model School on the way.  The kids had pink uniforms rather than the orange ones I’ve seen at the rest of the government schools.  

Adenkrebi School: There are only about 75 students at the school and only one building.  It is in a beautiful rural area at the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the jungle.  There is a very difficult winding, muddy, bumpy road leading through the jungle up to it, which could be a problem as far as maintenance and evaluation is concerned, though.  The only other concern I had was that I wondered if they would have time to play with it.  They only have one break time, and they all go home for lunch (they all live within a five minute walk from the school—which is good because it is easier for them to come back and play on the mgr).  However, if they leave during their break time and go straight home to farm after school and then help around in the house, I don’t know when these kids have time to play.  They only play football on Fridays during gym class and besides that, it seems they always just work. I asked a 13 year old boy, Immanuel, about his schedule, and he said right after school he goes to the farm (2-4) and works, then he sweeps the house, then he does homework and finishes about 5.  Then he helps his mother cook, eats, looks after his grandmother, and sleeps.  He said another interesting thing—he and his siblings wake up at midnight every night to play, because if they don’t, the devil will take you and play with your head like a football and you will have a headache in the morning.  But if you pray, he cannot get you.  Many families have kerosene lights at home, but some do not.  I think they would love the science lab we will create with the mgr.  In science, they learn about food boiling, maize cropping, soil erosion, food, teeth, reproduction and growth, and the environment.  The technology they learn about is: maize, recycling, cell phones, and computers.  As in, there is a picture of a computer in their book with the keyboard and monitor labeled (that is the extent of it).  In their book, the energy unit only shows: how to put on a lantern, charcoal, ironing, and heating water.  This is for kids maybe, twelve years old.  There are no materials for any kind of science lab.  We could even keep the lanterns in the school for study groups or literacy classes at this school, because of the short walk.  Maybe not though, it might be more beneficial to give people light in their homes at night.  Just ideas.

Mueter School:  Tuesday we were around the Affinya area visiting more schools.  Mueter was the first I visited.  Right away, I could tell mud may be an obstacles in getting the mgr in and maintaining it.  There were six classroom, a library, and they are in the process of building a new KG room.  It appears to be a very religious community, because before the teachers met with us, they sang a prayer.  There are about 200 students at the school.  The children’s typical schedule is that they wake up at 5am, sweep and fetch water for the day, take ‘morning supper’ of bunku or rice, and help at the farm after school.  The other problem is that the kids don’t have books to take home, so they do their homework at school often.  Would they come back that far at night to do their homework if there were lights there?  Other times, the homework is based off the teacher’s notes, so the kids can take them home and do their homework.  They do play during their break time, unlike Adenkrebi, and they have two breaks.  They were very happy to get footballs from us.

Mueter Village:  My chief concern about this school is the long walk from the village to the school.  Catherine, Aaron, and I started walking to the village (aka: tromping through a jungle and swamp.  I have to admit, I have the coolest job ever).  We went through a lot of mud to get to the chief’s compound, where there were some huts and a small power generator—the only one in the village.  We walked for at least half an hour and only made it halfway to the closest village.  These kids have to walk far!  It was extremely muddy and I ended up being covered up to my knees (unfortunately I choose this day as the first day I wore my white capris… oh well).  We came to a point where the swamp was up to our knees, halfway to the village, and stopped there.  Our guide said that when it rained very hard, sometimes it was up to the children’s necks, and they wouldn’t come to school.  Some days during the rainy season, they come to school 2-3 out of 5 days.  Aaron thought putting a mgr there may be a good test actually, a good challenge.  All the other essential elements that automatically eliminated a lot of schools we visited were in place at this school.  I actually felt pretty good about it.  The village is, again, a farming community, although there are also many charcoal makers.  The communities are somewhat scattered and a little hard to get together.  The chief sees light as their biggest challenge.  Afterwards, they gave us thirty eggs.  A very generous gesture.  They also pulled out a bucket of water they pumped and washed my muddy legs and shoes off (it was pretty bad).  I was touched that they would pump it for me.  Although I admit it was a little odd to have someone cleaning between my toes for me.  I tried to tell her I could do it, but she didn’t speak English.  I think that the teachers and administration of this school is very capable of taking care of a mgr and lanterns.  The community was not demanding at all.

Asutsnape Junction School:  I didn't really like this school.  The headmaster was actually pushing the kids down if they were in his way.  There were 376 kids and no order at all.  The whole community showed up sitting under a tree to demand things from us—TVs, entertainment, anything they could think of.  They were saying, “We have no electricity.  No hospital.  No market.  No entertainment.  We are bored.  Give us mobile phones.” in a ‘what are you going to do about it’ way.  They kept arguing and talking over each other in their native language.  They seemed mad we had only brought footballs.  Apparently, hard drugs are a problem in the community, and teen pregnancy.  Before we left, the headmaster told the whole community, “We know that once we see white people here, all our problems will be solved for us” and everybody clapped.  I felt like he said it just to put the pressure on us and it was so annoying!  As if there is nothing these people can do about their problems themselves without waiting for a white person.  They are so not empowered!  The school did have a maize farm, a pepper farm, and a tree lot the kids work in to support the school.  I really wonder if it is a good idea or child labor and where the money really goes.  We met with the teachers, who were less than helpful and looked like they wanted us to go away.  Most had only been teaching for 1-2 years, but there was one great lady who had taught for 23 years.  In science, there is no equipment, they draw the equipment on the chalkboard.  The ages, as in most schools, are very mixed up according to opportunity.  For example, there is a 20 year old in the primary school.  There are three 30 minute each breaks.

 

Back to Adenkrebi about a month later: Our final visit before deciding to select Adenkrebi in the Ga East district was interesting. It had formerly been my top choice, but now I’m not so sure. We took a few trotros to get there and finally took a taxi from the last city-like area to the school. The taxi driver was dressed in traditional garb and seemed more than happy to be paid to chill in the car while we did our school visit, with his long legs sticking out the open door and African music blaring from the car. Adenkrebi had been so organized and well-behaved last time I went. However, this time they were not informed we were coming and things were a bit different. The headmaster was out and we only saw three of the nine teachers at the school that day. The kids didn’t seem so disciplined, and sometimes the kids were not in the classroom. The location is gorgeous—it is at the top of a high hill overlooking other beautiful green hills. We gave the assistant headmaster the brochure and application and explained who we are. They were quite interested in applying.

Drama: One of the teachers invited us to come watch a ‘drama’ the kids are doing. We stood around in a circle with the kids for the warm-up. There was one student in the middle who called out and everyone else responded. It went something like this:
“Whazzup?”
“Wazzup?”
“I want you.”
“For what?”
Then everyone starts dancing like crazy.

I think they were entertained by JJ’s and my obruni dance. Then they put two big chairs in the middle of the classroom for JJ and I to sit on—I felt bad that they didn’t bring one for Solomon, but he insisted it was fine. So JJ and I watched from our thrones while everyone else stood. Then the kids did the real performance.

It was about a village man who wouldn’t allow his girl child to go to school. The best part was near the end when some village people were reprimanding him that every child, even the girl child, has the right to go to school. In the end, the kids playing the "community" ganged up on him, grabbed him by his trousers, picked him up, and carried him out the door to the police station while he yelled and kicked his legs. The boy playing the father was absolutely hilarious and looked completely indignant as he was hiked a foot into the air. It was awesome and definitely reflected the change in mindset and how hard the government and NGOs have been working to get girls in rural areas to school.

Adenkrebi Village: The most enlightening part of the trip was when we went into the community. The assistant headmaster took us around and I believe showed us a very biased view, taking us to all the better-off and more prominent people (who still lived in mud houses). We met the chief first and then one of the elders, the asarfo hene, (hene means chief and asarfo has something to do with youth). Many members of the community actually have tv sets and take their batteries into town to charge them. We found an interesting fact, that when electricity is introduced into a community, the birthrate goes down because people have something new to do at night (watch tv). Everyone in the community seemed to be a farmer, plus have another very small business. One man was a pensioner (retired teacher) who farmed to stay young, his wife ran a shop, and his daughter a hair saloon. We also sat under a tree talking to five men who spend time between Adenkrebi and Accra.



The people seemed to all have cell phones and tv sets, until we choose the last house instead of letting the headmaster take us. I really liked the last house. It was a carpenter and his wife, and there was a little baby sleeping outside on a homemade rug in the dirt. The carpenter had made a scooter out of wood. They also grew a garden in the back with coconut and palm trees and cocoa yams (which they made a stew out of the leaves and root, and some pound the root for fufu.). The cocoa yam leaves were longer than my arm and fairly circular.


There were a lot of homemade bamboo fences in that area. People actually tied their goats up instead of letting them wander around. The general feel was that it wasn’t quite as open and friendly as some other villages. The other concern I had is that people would use the energy for cell phones or tv’s instead of education - but maybe that would be okay if they had other positive impacts?

The interesting thing was that everyone in the school and the community remembered me immediately (JJ and Solomon had never been there before). And all of them said, 'I remember you, the one that asks a lot of questions.’ Apparently I am a loudmouth.

Adenkrebi kids: The kids at that school followed us around and made some interesting noises through narrowed lips, kind of like ‘ssssswhhheeessssweeeessss.’ We finally realized they were simply trying to imitate the way we talk. JJ and I were trying to teach the kids how to high-five. They all just wanted to touch our hands. So it turned out the kids were falling all over each other trying to touch my hands for a high-five, then I’d go down for a low-five and they would all kneel on the ground trying to touch my hands over each other. When I said, “Up high,” they didn’t understand, so the whole way back to the taxi there was a mass of primary school students following us saying ‘uh-buy, uh-buy.’ Cute kids.