hey there folks....well i am back in west africa and man, what a difference a year makes....everything, as most folks would tell you, is so much easier....internet hooked up, cell phone working, know a taxi driver who can take me wherever, new apartment with a pool, new classroom design (better for science), and the weather has been amazing - and believe me, i am enjoying it :) but as of this coming week, they are predicting the temperatures to go higher and higher....the rainy season may be coming to an end....bummer.....
i figured i would send my first blog out with some pictures from my time here so far in ghana....my new apt, my newly refurbished classroom and of some fun things i have been up to....what a difference a year makes....but this has also been a lesson in how to use technology....as iphone 6 does not work with iphoto anymore....so i have been trying to upload pictures from different storage sources....i think i have now got this thing figured out and am using google photos....we'll see if i actually get this post finished today...as it has taken me a few weeks to get this working....so really i have been trying to get this update out to you....on with the pictures....fingers crossed :)
it actually took three tries because the generator kept having problems going on and going off...meaning, i would be in the middle of a download and would lose everything.....but FINALLY, things are now working....some people have asked about power....and up until this past weekend, things were going well...but yesterday we had the generator on for close to 30 hours....and at one point it was rumored that ghana had no power in the country....who knows if that is true though...as it is a stressful situation for all involved....but so far things have been better power wise....
so i figured i would start with my "new" classroom....over the summer the middle school science classrooms were refurbished....had something to do with the three teachers complaining quite a bit and from kids falling off the stools we had, on a daily basis and from the admin looking and realizing it was not the best set up...now we have these cool moveable tables and the lab benches are along the window walls...they even gave us gas hook-up....which means one thing...bunsen burners & FIRE!!!! it is a much better space for the kids and me and i am soooo happy the school came through on this....woot!!!
and here is my "new" apartment...all of these things new....the place i lived in last year is no longer rented by the school....so two of the four of us moved up the hill...and one of us moved down the hill...and sadly, one of us left ghana of the four single ladies of melrose...i went up the hill....this is my living room....and check out all of those windows...great light amount....
and this is my kitchen....which is bit smaller than the last one....but at least i have a working oven this year....very exciting....and its electric...not good with the power problems...but no lighting the gas in the oven (very tricky by the way) this year for me....woot....i still have a gas stove, which is great....but check out the cool tile....it has a very modern feel....
this is my view from the front balcony & living room....looks over some green and the tall building farther out is a steeple of a church...i do have to say they have an amazing choir....although services on sunday are really long....starting at 8:30 and going until after 1pm most sundays.....the little yellow building in the front is a guard station....and across the street is a lottery booth and taxi that has been abandoned and written all over....colorful neighborhood....
this is the pool, before it was cleaned...much prettier now...and i have been in a few times...but the weather here has actually been chilly at night with winds....so when i get home from school, it is not so appealing....today is looking like a hot afternoon though, so maybe i will go hang with a book and go for a dip....sooooooooo nice to have this available out my front door this year....the building in the back is the one i am in....far side, second floor....
this is the front of my building....i am on the second floor closest to the camera...its a two bedroom, 2.5 baths....perfect for one person...and since it has not flooded in about a month now....everything is going well :) this place had not been lived in by someone from the school before, so there were a lot of issues when i first got here...but now...smooth sailing...fingers crossed.....
last year one of my updates had pictures from my walk to work, so i figured i would include that again...if you walked all the way down this street, you would be at my old apartment...this is the big street i cross to get to the alley...
there really is some cool art here in accra (see below for the chale wote festival)....and in the alley i walk everyday, i see this a few times on the wall...kind of perfect for me i think....great question to ponder as i walk to school....
this is the alley i take where that question above lies...not always the nicest of experiences, as people use it as a bathroom....but its a shortcut i am grateful for....
over the summer accra named all of its streets with these blue street signs...they have been wild to see, and local folks say they were named specific names based on who paid to have their name as a street name....confusing, but there are two streets around the school named for the school...so i think this is probably true...no one really calls the streets by the street sign names....so ghana.....i do find it funny that the alley i walk through is called ashitey road...not funny for the professor, but at times that alley is a public toilet....
once i cross the big street and walk through the alley, i am in the land of the manicured gardens and big houses.....still open sewers and weird things on the side of the road...but this neighborhood is quite swanky in my opinion...i kind of like that i am on the edge of it though....as i have one foot in the real aspects of ghanian life and one foot not....this is a pretty sight on the walk to school though....
so chale wote has happened again here in ghana....and its focus was an electronic theme....this is a street festival for performance art and visual art....as you can see above...i went early in the day before things went crazy and got very warm....so it was not so crowded and i could get great shots of the art....
this is a modern day take on adinkra symbols of ghana....which was a written language of the past between tribes....these are not the real symbols, but ones that have an old feel, but a new meaning...i really loved this piece of art....am thinking i need to get something made in its form....we'll see...
bands were also playing in chale wote....these guys were a bunch of fun....with many of their instruments made from recycled materials....hence their head gear as well....
and this is a perfect sign for chale wote, as this is what the organizers really want people to do here in ghana....think...it has a very artistic feel, recycled art feel and an awareness....glad i went....
from one recycled story to the next....this year during one of our faculty meetings, we opted to go do some service for places around the school....and i got to go to this house across the street from school that i have been seeing everyday....its called the wheel story house (http://www.lamudi.com.gh/journal/wheel-story-making-old-new-accra/) and has been in the process of being built and changed for 30 years....by a gentleman by the name of sammy ansah....
sammy has been collecting garbage from folks who are throwing things away....he says that everything can be used again....as you can see from this interesting conglomeration of buildings and art on his property....and yes, people live there....
he finds things or is given things by people and re-purposes them....and he is always seeing something new....the day we were there we are putting together a "tree house" structure for kids to play in...not sure it was up to code, but we had fun making it....
all of the parts of the house are made from something that someone else has thrown away....from shipping containers to trash bins to picnic tables....there were even things he collected from our school that we were throwing away that he remade into something new and useable....
for instance, the hat on this guy's head, it is the lid of a trash can from lincoln school....he uses this figure to represent how people of ghana should be recycling and reusing..he has made up a story of this guy as an elder, who talks with kids who come to the house about treating the environment better and producing less waste...sammy's house is a testament to show that he really walks the walk and talks the talk....
this is how our piece turned out....he even moved it outside of the complex so we can see it every day when we walk past....it was great to go to this place and experience what he is trying to accomplish and experience how he is trying to change a mindset of the culture here....
a different group of teachers went to an eco-space, that is a park for kids called mmofra....a park that features things to do and play outside and in a sustainable manner....this past week we took the 8th grade there for a morning to have some bonding and team-building time....it was a great adventure for the kids....who swung on ropes, climbed trees, used a reclamation toilet and examined a hydroponics set up for native plants.....it was great to be away from school, even if it was only 5 minutes away....
i loved this mancala board they had created from a few tree trunks....they had a few of these scattered around....we also contributed wishing symbol stones the kids painted to thank mmofra (http://mmofraghana.org/) for letting us use their space....it was a fun time and the kids got to play outside, not including soccer for once in a blue moon, and experience ways to become stronger, cooperative learners....what a blast :)
and here are those kids....this is my 8th grade crew this year....i work with all of them....we are small in number, but strong in heart....this is actually the smallest bunch of kids in the middle school at the moment, so we really wanted to focus on how they could be the leaders of a middle school where the 7th grade and 6th grade has many more students than the 8th....the kids come from about 35 different countries and many of them have a hard time answering where they are from, as they have lived all over the world....great variety and diversity :)
i went on an adventure this past weekend to find the chinese grocery store...it was successful as you can see from the products above and i was sooooooooo happy to find it...they have my favorite crackers from china...baby bok choy, chinese eggplant and spices/sauces i cannot find anywhere else here in ghana....plus, majority of the patrons were speaking chinese....so it was fun to say hello and thanks and yea! in chinese again....hauda, hauda, hauda......it was an A for effort and an A for accra's chinese community....such a great find....i will go back :)
this last shot is from a celebration of life party this past weekend for dutch friends of mine...they have moved into a new house, the wife has a new job that makes her happy at school, and they are expecting their first child...and being dutch, the husband's boss brought a cooler filled with different tasty belgian beers (ok - not really sure how this shows they are dutch, but....)....so of course i had to try a few....it was a great night of music (as you can see from the stage behind me), friends and fun!!!! and the beer was pretty, darn tasty....
and so you have it....my first 6 weeks in ghana has been jam-packed and busy with fun things and work....things have started much better this year....what a difference a year makes....i may try and get out another update soon, but our october break is just around the corner and i am off to country number 72 - south africa...i am in cape town for a week, and i cannot wait!!!!! plus, my xmas is shaping up to be an extravaganza of a trip.....madagascar and kenya.....so big trips planned with exciting adventures ahead....
i hope you are well and happy, as is your family....feel free to drop any questions my way if you have them and visit the two websites above to learn more about places here in accra that are trying to make a difference.....i will be back in touch sometime soon.....i hope....happy start to fall in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere...and let's go all blacks in rugby world cup :)
peace out and have a fab day :)
dani
