Health Class, Mangoes and Moringa
Hello there! As far as that last post goes, I'm still getting settled in to Tamaligu. I might even get furniture this week! As long as another month doesn't go by, it'll be fine. I continue to sit under trees for extended hours, but I no longer fetch water. There's a line of small boys that love to ride my bike to the borehole, so there's no need for me to go. Sometimes they charge me 10 pesewas because they insist the tires need to get filled up.
Even though I have plenty of time, I sort of threw this together last night. It's just about my new "job" at the school and other happenings.
Thursday was my first day at school! I'll be teaching health, among whatever else I feel like, at the Tamaligu Junior High School. It's sort of like a middle school, so it's 6th, 7th and 8th grades (called Forms 1, 2 and 3). Since the enrollment drops off, I'll have one session with Form 1 and then another combining Forms 2 and 3.
The way it happened was kind of interesting. My counterpart, Jacob and I just went over to the school and asked how I could help them, not really expecting to get a whole class assigned to me. We have a primary school and a JHS. I think the nearest senior high school is about an hour away, but the kids won't necessarily go there since SHS is based on an application system.
The idea was I would help with JHS because it's taught entirely in English. We met the head master, who was thrilled to learn that I'm not only from the U.S., which he referred to as “Obamaland,” but Chicago, the president's home! That's something like the motherland of Obamaland – a really big deal. I was impressed that he knew all of this because most people don't know where the U.S. even is for how much they want to go there, but he's the head master. President Obama is worshiped here because he's black and visited Ghana a few years ago (another really big deal). There's a joke that you can buy tickets now for his return, so you have to make sure to get one.
The oldest JHS students are in the process of studying for a senior high entrance exam, so my original thought was that I would help with their essays or whatever. Instead, the head master started asking what I wanted to teach, listing off all of the different subjects they had. I was a little hesitant and said I just came to observe, given they told us in training we would be offered to teach regular subjects, but should avoid picking up subjects that the teachers are supposed to teach (teachers that don't teach is a problem in Ghana).
A few minutes later, the head master took me from class to class. Each time we walked in the students stood up and formally greeted us:
Students: “Good morning master, how are you?”
Head Master: “Good morning. I am fine, and how are you?”
Students: “We are fine, thank you.”
Head Master: “Master Jeff, the students are greeting you.”
Me: “Thank you, good morning.”
Students: “We are fine, thank you.”
Head Master: “Sit down.”
Now the dialogue that kids give me around the town makes sense, “Good morning, how are you? We are fine, thank you.” That's how some of the younger ones say hi to me.
So five minutes after we met, he introduced me to the kids as being on their “auxiliary staff” and went on to say that I come from America the Obamaland, that they should no longer be surprised to see the white guy here and that they should listen to what I have to say.
Then we met with the other teachers, scheduled my class and then talked about what I might teach. Some of the ideas were taking one of the existing classes, helping in English, or starting something with life skills, health, physics, communication or economics. One of them suggested “ah, just teach whatever you learned in America that we don't have.” The consensus was whatever I'm comfortable with teaching, the students will benefit. Since they're accountable for grading and teaching certain content in the regular courses, I wouldn't take one of those unless I wanted to. At this point I gathered they don't care what I teach, but were excited to have me there. So not really settling on anything, we decided I should just introduce myself, talk about health and the work that I'm going to do in the town and figure out the class later.
The head master sat-in on one of my sessions, and afterward suggested I continue teaching health to supplement the work in the community and involve the kids in the work, but whatever I bring to the class will do. I like the head master – we think alike. So just like that, I got scheduled to teach two sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays and can feel free to assemble the kids in the evening if I ever run out of time (I won't make them do that). It was slightly easier than I expected.
We'll see where the class goes. Fortunately, Peace Corps has a course schedule, sample lessons and ideas for about a semester's worth of material for a health and sanitation class, just for occasions like this. The teachers were interested in getting involved in future projects too, so it was nice to see support and people that had an idea about what I'm doing in the town.
I've also started growing 10 moringa trees, which are something like a “wonder food” with a long list of nutritional benefits. I never heard of them before I came here, so you can look them up. Apparently they'll grow in the southern U.S., and they grow very quickly. Despite this, there are only 10 other moringa trees in town (I counted), they're all very young and only a few of them have been worked to have their leaves harvested. My counterpart said the trees in town are used by herbalists, so they're on the right track. Since I planted them in empty water sachets, I've accumulated four little mango trees from four different people, and a couple people showed me seeds of yams and asked about groundnuts at the farm. I'm a farming expert. I guess people are talking about me.
I'll plant the moringa trees around the compound, and eventually give them to the women who live here and sell wosa wosa, this breakfast-type food. Their business is pretty cool and is an all day process. They usually just sell it in the morning, but on market day they make another batch for market and take the next day off. It has a crushed yam and cocoa base and they add beans, spaghetti and some special sauce to it. Sometimes they add onion. If you're lucky they'll even throw some lettuce in, but the vegetables aren't always available. When they do add them, it's minimal. It tastes pretty good, but like most foods, lacking vegetables (the consequences of this go a long way when you look at how much they sell compared to other options in town and the typical diet). There are simply no vegetables sold in this town except on market day, where you can find onion and sometimes lettuce. Most mornings, I'll buy 50 pesewas, or 20 cents, which gets you plenty for breakfast. Also, if I happen to have a big mango, I'll cut it up and add to it. Mangoes make just about anything better.
The project idea is I can show them how to harvest and dry the moringa leaves to make a powder, which they can add to the yam base. A regular serving of moringa powder will minimally alter taste. The only thing is that they sell a lot, so to sustain it they'll need a forest of moringa. For now it's more experimental. That's the idea with the moringa-infused wosa wosa.
Other than that, I really haven't been up to so much. I got my first really nasty Ghanaian-style sickness that included a fever that peaked at 104.5 degrees. It was the first time I shivered in my 90 degree room! You can ask about the other symptoms if you really want to know. It was mainly just some great bonding moments with my latrine. Our doctor had me check for malaria, which it wasn't, so that's always a plus.
Anyways, I hope you are all enjoying the increasing temperatures. If I could, I would send more heat because we have plenty. I'll keep you posted on anything new!
