Before I begin, I just want to comment on my comments: Miranda, your friend is correct...American spiders have NO chance here. And it doesnt matter that I couldnt get up the nerve to check Alberts heartbeat because his twin has decided to move into my bedroom. But they stay close to the ceiling, so its quite all right.









A lorry is what they call these ghetto, broken-down vans/busses that cart us around. They use a lot of words here that they got from the British when they used to rule. Like if I kick a kid out of class, I am sacking him. Or if I want to drink some coffee, I ask for tea...it's kinda like how we call everything coke.









Btw, I'm glad you guys like the new journaling format, me too! On that note...









When I was in college I realized the secret to making learning fun was to LOVE the material you are learning. Here, as a teacher, I have realized that the secret to making teaching fun is to LOVE the material you are teaching. LOVE what you do, do what you LOVE. You'll never work a day in your life.









I made a student cry today. After grading tests, it was apparent that either Peter copied from Sambo or visa versa. I couldnt get either to admit that he was the one. So, I told them both to apologize to the class for bringing down their class test average (I have a competition going between my classes to discourage them from leaking the questions to the other classes before their turn to take the tests). Peter aplolgized. Sambo wouldnt. So I made him sit on the floor under the chalkboard (they hate sitting on the ground here) and face the class throughout my lecture. At the end he was in tears. I hated it! I dont know how people can perform jobs where they are constantly having to enforce rules and punish others. Get this though, here's the weird thing: I feel totally guilty all night and was thinking how I'd have to be extra nice to him so he would pay attention to me in class after I punished him like that, but I was totally wrong. Instead, he is like completely trying to please me now! He's all smiles and volunteering and stuff. crazy...I need to punish more often :)









The weather has taken a cooler feel. And the wind has seriously picked up. It's beautiful.









Maybe I look too deeply into things. It is early morning and I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, Frog. I was entertaining the idea of getting out of bed and getting ready to head off to school. I thought "How nice would it be to take a vow of silence. Only for 2 weeks or so. A person gets so tired of talking all the time, I would really enjoy that". But it would never work here. First off, because I'm a teacher by profession. I'm not sure how much my students would learn from a mute, miming teacher. Secondly, there are too many demands by my community to greet and entertain. But, still, the thought and enjoyment of playing it out, in my mind was there. Just then, and I mean RIGHT at that moment, I sat up sending my phone through the air to land directly in my cup of Starbucks coffee! Wow. If thats not a sign, I dont know what is! Hopefully the damage is not permanent. And that vow I will take, someday.



I know how to get these kids to learn. It means taking an entire class period (~70 minutes) to explain a simple topic (ie. pollination). But the syllabus demands far more than that. There's a main problem right there. I thinks its a big problem in the US as well. The government is making life altering decisions that affects people whoms shoes they've never walked near, let alone in. For example, in Ghana we are to teach ICT to those who have never seen a computer, let alone used one. How much sense does that make??!?



I guess all you good Catholic boys and girls back home have given up something for Lent. Here they give up drinking pito on Wednesdays and Fridays.



Due to my bedrooms design to hold more heat than the rest of the house COMBINED, I started sleeping outside. I bought a nice reclining lawn-chair-type bed (in truth, it was a gift from a friend who was tired of me talking about buying it). I set it up all nicely with cushions from my couch and a sheet atop, and a mosquito net to cover that. I laid down for my first comfortable night without the blazing heat. I awoke at 2 am being nailed with golf ball sized rain drops coming down in sheets. It hasnt rained for 5 months! and here, my first night outside is when it starts. God is quite the jokester...I know this. For the record, I've continued to sleep outside and it hasnt rained a drop since that mysterious downfall 2 weeks ago.

It's interesting what that one night of rain did, though. It's as if someone took a very large water-color paint brush and just lightly painted the whole of my village with green. Just one shade brighter, but it brought about a longing for the lush green of the South.

Not qualified to teach the English language from scratch. Look how hard it is to learn Degarre when I'm surrounded by it all and everyday. And these kids only hear english while in school. So what do I do about the 3-5 students who literally dont understand what the hell I'm saying...like not a word. "Have you done your homework?" "...silence...".

Dont eat rotten eggs. I performed all the tests on them...shake to see if they rattle, put them in water to see if they float. They passed some, and failed others. My roommate was all gung-ho to throw them out. But there were so many, and they're expensive (20 peswais each ~ 15 cents each). We threw away the oldest batch and there were 3 from a more recent buy that I kept. I reasoned "Well, if I cook them they've got to be ok". They smelt fine and tasted good. But I suffered later. Spent last night and all this morning with slight fever (101 F) and running to and from bathroom. Probably more info than you cared for, sorry.

I'm trying to get my students to think as individuals and stop just copying/memorizing everything. So I told my reading club "If you could have any one thing in the whole world, what would you choose and why?". Many said they would want to be a teacher. Some said they would like to be farmers (this one was quite shocking to me, I'm still not sure if they understood the concept). Some wanted cell phones or computers. My favorite answer was from a girl who said she wanted to have forgiveness. But I just have to share with you what this one girl wrote, verbatim: "The President of Ghana. The chief of Sombo. The Head of Ghana. Membership of a country. Property of Ghana. To buy some maize. To buy some tomatos. The tree is so big. It is a animals." At first I thought, "Wow, she's ambitious, but the further down I read, the more I realized...well, actually, I didnt realize anything. Sometimes I have no idea how these kids brains work. But at least she wasnt copying anything, we can be sure of that!

It's funny that I used to pay to do hot yoga. What I didnt realize at the time was all I really needed to do was to move to Africa and then move around a little bit. Effects are the same :)

Some of the students are so very interested in pleasing their teachers. "Do you need any help around your house? Can I bring you some water? etc.) This is kinda foreign to me. When I was their age, I barely noticed my teachers were even in the classroom. Honestly, I didnt even truely gain an appreciation for talking with adults until college. Oh, the ignorance of childhood. But I guess these children are brighter than me in some ways. They actually realize at that age that they have something to learn from their elders. Or at least that there is something to be gained from interacting with them.

"A domesticated lion is only an unnatural lion--and whatever is unnatural is untrustworthy." - Beryl Markham's father in West with the Night. Could there be a more truthful sentence?

Today is Ghana's Independance Day (March 6th). Ironic that while living in Africa, I often pass my days reading about the continent. But the Africa in these books is not the same as the one I know. While the characters of my books are looking at rolling plains of grass, I stare at a paved road with passing cars and lorrys. While they ponder over the motives of lions, giraffes, dik diks, I spend my time thinking about the life of the goat, pig, the cow. While they watch the Masai, and other such warriors hunting through thick forests, I ride my bike along fields of maize and beans. So while some of you may be living your African life vicariously through my writings, I too, am living mine through theirs.

No more princess baths for me...guess who fixed her shower! That's right, now I'm living like a queen in America. I was reading a book and it said "He turned the left know, releasing hot water into the sink.". And I thought, holy shit, I totally forgot that there is such a thing as having TWO knobs,...one for hot and one for cold. And it made me happy that people get such a luxery. And of course, that the future me is one of those people.

I should really start carrying my camera everwhere. I'm on an evening walk, the sun setting to my back, the seemingly full, glaring moon in front of me. On my right is a bush fire (which, by the way, is illegal to start here, but it goes unchecked (along with a lot of other laws!)). What draws me to the flames is not the fire itself, but the 50 or so white swan looking birds that are surrounding it, all of them 1 to 2 feet away from the hot flames. I know that they're not cold, so why? I like to think maybe they are worshipping it like I assume humans used to do back when they were living at one with nature. Or maybe this is a peaceful protest the birds are attending. A protest of the destruction of the land they love. Or maybe they know that the crops in this particular patch of land is not gonna grow as productively come the next planting season because of this fire. At any rate, I should have brought my camera. I guess this beautiful scene was only meant for my eyes.