5th
So I had this nice entry all typed up on Jasmine’s laptop the other day, but I forgot the thumb drive, so whatever.
Today was my last day of school for a while. Tomorrow we have the Independence Day celebrations, and then we leave Sunday for Tamale and Mole National Park. We’re planning to get back Friday evening. I thought I’d be ecstatic, but I’m going to miss my kids. Really, I’ll only have 4 more weeks of school after I get back, which is hard to believe! I already know how quickly it will go by.
On Monday, my teacher, Paulina, slept all day and took a 2 hour lunch. Normally she’ll at least teach something. Tuesday and Wednesday, she didn’t come in at all. And today she was back and sleeping. I’ve been really nice to her up till now, because she can be nice and a lot of the previous volunteers have become genuine friends with her. But I have problems being friends with anyone that lazy and inconsiderate. Also, whenever we try to make friends with the teachers, they ask us to buy them things. So I’ve struggled through the last couple of days, because the kids are little terrors when she’s gone, but I made it. To celebrate Independence Day, I traced and cut out their hands onto red, yellow, and green construction paper, and then sticky-tacked them to the wall to make the Ghanaian flag. I’ll put up pictures soon! They love seeing their artwork.
We have a woman named Suzanne Eyers staying with us. She was a volunteer 3 years ago, and has come back every year with an organization called FACE to pick out kids to sponsor. She’s this 68-year-old Vancouver woman, and since she’s older than anyone, she’s not afraid to pick fights when they need picking, so it’s nice to have her around.
Speaking of fights, I got into a bit of a spat with Dada on Tuesday. It started with me needing scissors to cut out the hands. Dada wasn’t at the school, of course, so I went to the headmaster, Martins, to ask for the key to Dada’s cupboard, where I know there are scissors left behind by a previous volunteer. I knew full well he wouldn’t have the key, so it was kind of rhetorical, but then it turns out Martins didn’t even know there were school supplies in Dada’s cupboard. So I confronted Dada about it at lunch, saying that the school supplies he hoards in his cupboard and in his bedroom have been left behind by volunteers for the teachers and the school, so they need to have constant access to them, which is impossible when the key is with Dada, who’s in Kumasi 3 or 4 times a week, and off at his shop the rest of the days. Dada is amazing at talking in circles, and is quickly heading towards senility, so bascially it descended into this kinda heated argument. He kept saying, “Shee-Han! If the teachers need supplies, they can come to me in advance. That is MY cupboard and I keep MY records and clothes in there” and I kept saying, “Then DON’T leave the school supplies in there, too!” He told me to come to school and to “talk to the headmaster the way I’m talking to him.”
I wasn’t really being disrespectful or anything, but you have to understand that Dada is a crook, and there are few who would argue with that. He gets hundreds of dollars from us, $700 from Italy, and hundreds from other sources every month, but the house boys have to come to US for new shoes and bags, and the school is pretty much the laughing stock of Ejura for it’s mediocre teachers.
Anyway, I got to school, and it turns out it was me, Dada, Martins, and ALL the teachers meeting. I just sat there and made my case, and Dada and I had the same argument, except Dada started talking about a crazy man who used to come and smash the water tank, so we had to steer him back onto track. Eventually he agreed to get a new cabinet that the teachers can have access to, so a small victory there.
The whole time, the teachers just set there quietly, occasionally talking in each other in Twi. I felt like I was wasting my time, since it seemed like they didn’t really give a crap one way or another. I left kinda dejected, but then four teachers caught up with me and said, “Thank you, thank you! You have to talk for us! He says we can ask him for supplies, but if we do, or if we complain, we’ll be sacked!” And then they were saying they really need paper, and they’re expected to do all this art projects and make tests for the kids, but Dada never gives them anything. In theory, this school should be the richest, with all the nice new supplies pouring in, but the volunteers just use the supplies they bring on the class they teach, and anything left over gets taken by Dada. Very frustrating. So I’m going to try and scrape together some communal supplies. We’ll see.
Anyway, I’ve written way too much. Looking forward to the marching and partying tomorrow, and to my trip up north! Also, happy 30th to Matt on the 3rd, and happy 39th to Dad today! What an old man.
