God bless you all
Door: Sir Michael
Blijf op de hoogte en volg marco
27 September 2005 | Ghana, Mampong
Hi everyone,
I hope by the Grace of God that you are all doing fine, as I am. This is how all my students started their letter I had them write. Although one was being creative (a uncommon thing here in school) and wrote: by the Grace of Jesus Christ my Savor. Ok, let’s cut the crap and start the letter:
It’s been a while since my last mail. It actually has been so long that I have no clew what I wrote last time. The first two weeks I had so much to tell you guys, but know I don’t really know what to tell. I think that shows pretty good how I’m settling in. In the beginning I was overwhelmed, then I was just surprised about so many things and now I’m really home here in Mamfe. Ordinary live doesn’t surprise me that much anymore, although there are still enough things that prevent live becoming to boring. I’m for example still laughing about the names of shops. Little wooden boxes were they sell some biscuits and powder milk have names like: God bless you enterprise, Christ the kind or Jesus our savior chemical drug store (the last one of course not selling biscuits but drugs, there are a suspicious amount of licensed chemical sellers by the way, makes you think about the license). I am just starting to explore the food they sell on the markets and tro (that are little buses, usually old European vans, were with a bit of effort around 22 people fit in) stations. Last weekend I tried a piece of pastry since I was feeling hungry. Well it took about 24 hours before I had that feeling again. After that we refer to those cakes as “the rock”. Oh man, somehow I find it difficult to write a coherent story. Let’s just start with school.
Two weeks ago summer school finished and real school started. Or at least something like that. I was told we would have a staff meeting the first Monday to discuss the timetable. Of course this was Ghanaian (that’s how we volunteers call lose promises and claims like “this 2 cm thick, 5 cm wide and 120 cm long belt is made of snake leather”). Monday Joanne and I went to school, where we were kicked in to a class with the assignment “to teach them something”. Well being unprepared didn’t make that very easy, especially since my limited amount of creativity was already completely exhausted as the result of 1 week summer school. Somehow I managed to make it another few days, until the “real” timetable meeting. Well the headmaster was so kind to tell us about this meeting, but I recon that he had forgotten to mention it to the other teachers. Joanne and I weren’t really hopeful, but we weren’t feeling like getting into a class either, so we waited for the headmaster to come to us. This happened after about 1,5 hours, when he told us that we would arrange everything during the break at 10 ‘o clock (school starts at 8 and that was when the meeting was suppose to start). At 10 the headmaster gave us the timetables for all classes and told us to make our own timetable (so we had to decide which subjects we were going to teach to which classes). This took about half an hour. After that we were kicked into a class again. Well kicked into a class isn’t really a good description, the headmaster just said we should teach a class. Joanne and I decided that for the remaining two days of the week she would teach JSS 1 (which were about 8 students) and I would teach primary 5 (I think they are about 10 years old) since they didn’t seem to have a teacher. You just have to do what you think is best here and don’t discus it or arrange anything since no one does it. You know, school is a bit like the tro stations, public transport and the markets: there is an order, it just takes a while to see it through what looks to us as one big chaos. The week after Joanne had left. That was a pity, I really liked here, she was just very sweet and my companion in Young Souls. I found out the first day that JSS 1 didn’t have a teacher yet (they were still interviewing for about 4 open placements) so I just thought them for the entire week. That was far more better then teaching Primary 5. I got a bit frustrated of that for several reasons. First of al, and not unimportant, the students didn’t really understand what I was saying. English is a second language for al Ghanaians and although the entire school is in English, form nursery to Senior Secondary School, the children don’t seem to understand it very well. I read them a very easy fairy tale, but they didn’t seem to understand much, so I don’t think they got much from what I’ve said during the lessons. Then another cause for my frustration was that apparently I wasn’t the only teacher they didn’t understand since they couldn’t do the things they were suppose to be able to do. I started with the first subject of maths for that year, which was prime numbers, and found out that they couldn’t even divide properly. A calculation like 12/4 took them ages. Try explaining prime numbers to people who can’t divide. Then on top of that there was a huge difference in intelligence and knowledge between the pupils. I wanted to explain something the atom but most couldn’t get that there were as many protons as electrons (I’ve only explained it about 5 times to them, you don’t even have to understand a bloody thing about the atom to understand that number of electrons=number of protons…ahhhhhh). One boy though suddenly started rattling about different shells over which electrons are divided, I didn’t learn that until my graduation year. Although I really doubt that the boy had any idea what he was saying. That leads us to frustration cause number 4, or 5 I lost count. The children are very good in reciting, copying and that’s about it. They can recite very well what a verb is, but if you ask them to underline verbs in a sentence they won’t get much further then copying the sentences from the board. After some pushing they will say some words are verbs, and sometimes they’re right. They just don’t understand what they have learnt, they only now exactly what the teacher wrote on the blackboard. This makes it pretty difficult for me to teach since I can’t learn them to recite my words, I can only try to make them understand the things I’ve said. I thing I have to get used to there way of learning and they have to get used to my way of teaching. A last thing that is very annoying is the lack of creativity and the absence of self initiative (that’s a Dutch word: eigen intiatief, but who cares). Well these things frustrated me pretty much during summerschool and my first week of proper school (it’s only 2 weeks ago, but it feel like ages, it really does). My second week real school was way better. I taught JSS 1 which was really nice because they were a bit smarter, their English was better and last but definitely not least: they’re only around 8 of them.
Well, apparently I have enough to tell you all. I have to go home know though to get something to eat. I will continue somewhere this week. Although that might be Ghanaian. I work from 8 till 4 and have to prepare my lessons after that, so I don’t have that much time of. I will try to be here tomorrow and maybe I can finish this story then.
Greetings,
Marco
I hope by the Grace of God that you are all doing fine, as I am. This is how all my students started their letter I had them write. Although one was being creative (a uncommon thing here in school) and wrote: by the Grace of Jesus Christ my Savor. Ok, let’s cut the crap and start the letter:
It’s been a while since my last mail. It actually has been so long that I have no clew what I wrote last time. The first two weeks I had so much to tell you guys, but know I don’t really know what to tell. I think that shows pretty good how I’m settling in. In the beginning I was overwhelmed, then I was just surprised about so many things and now I’m really home here in Mamfe. Ordinary live doesn’t surprise me that much anymore, although there are still enough things that prevent live becoming to boring. I’m for example still laughing about the names of shops. Little wooden boxes were they sell some biscuits and powder milk have names like: God bless you enterprise, Christ the kind or Jesus our savior chemical drug store (the last one of course not selling biscuits but drugs, there are a suspicious amount of licensed chemical sellers by the way, makes you think about the license). I am just starting to explore the food they sell on the markets and tro (that are little buses, usually old European vans, were with a bit of effort around 22 people fit in) stations. Last weekend I tried a piece of pastry since I was feeling hungry. Well it took about 24 hours before I had that feeling again. After that we refer to those cakes as “the rock”. Oh man, somehow I find it difficult to write a coherent story. Let’s just start with school.
Two weeks ago summer school finished and real school started. Or at least something like that. I was told we would have a staff meeting the first Monday to discuss the timetable. Of course this was Ghanaian (that’s how we volunteers call lose promises and claims like “this 2 cm thick, 5 cm wide and 120 cm long belt is made of snake leather”). Monday Joanne and I went to school, where we were kicked in to a class with the assignment “to teach them something”. Well being unprepared didn’t make that very easy, especially since my limited amount of creativity was already completely exhausted as the result of 1 week summer school. Somehow I managed to make it another few days, until the “real” timetable meeting. Well the headmaster was so kind to tell us about this meeting, but I recon that he had forgotten to mention it to the other teachers. Joanne and I weren’t really hopeful, but we weren’t feeling like getting into a class either, so we waited for the headmaster to come to us. This happened after about 1,5 hours, when he told us that we would arrange everything during the break at 10 ‘o clock (school starts at 8 and that was when the meeting was suppose to start). At 10 the headmaster gave us the timetables for all classes and told us to make our own timetable (so we had to decide which subjects we were going to teach to which classes). This took about half an hour. After that we were kicked into a class again. Well kicked into a class isn’t really a good description, the headmaster just said we should teach a class. Joanne and I decided that for the remaining two days of the week she would teach JSS 1 (which were about 8 students) and I would teach primary 5 (I think they are about 10 years old) since they didn’t seem to have a teacher. You just have to do what you think is best here and don’t discus it or arrange anything since no one does it. You know, school is a bit like the tro stations, public transport and the markets: there is an order, it just takes a while to see it through what looks to us as one big chaos. The week after Joanne had left. That was a pity, I really liked here, she was just very sweet and my companion in Young Souls. I found out the first day that JSS 1 didn’t have a teacher yet (they were still interviewing for about 4 open placements) so I just thought them for the entire week. That was far more better then teaching Primary 5. I got a bit frustrated of that for several reasons. First of al, and not unimportant, the students didn’t really understand what I was saying. English is a second language for al Ghanaians and although the entire school is in English, form nursery to Senior Secondary School, the children don’t seem to understand it very well. I read them a very easy fairy tale, but they didn’t seem to understand much, so I don’t think they got much from what I’ve said during the lessons. Then another cause for my frustration was that apparently I wasn’t the only teacher they didn’t understand since they couldn’t do the things they were suppose to be able to do. I started with the first subject of maths for that year, which was prime numbers, and found out that they couldn’t even divide properly. A calculation like 12/4 took them ages. Try explaining prime numbers to people who can’t divide. Then on top of that there was a huge difference in intelligence and knowledge between the pupils. I wanted to explain something the atom but most couldn’t get that there were as many protons as electrons (I’ve only explained it about 5 times to them, you don’t even have to understand a bloody thing about the atom to understand that number of electrons=number of protons…ahhhhhh). One boy though suddenly started rattling about different shells over which electrons are divided, I didn’t learn that until my graduation year. Although I really doubt that the boy had any idea what he was saying. That leads us to frustration cause number 4, or 5 I lost count. The children are very good in reciting, copying and that’s about it. They can recite very well what a verb is, but if you ask them to underline verbs in a sentence they won’t get much further then copying the sentences from the board. After some pushing they will say some words are verbs, and sometimes they’re right. They just don’t understand what they have learnt, they only now exactly what the teacher wrote on the blackboard. This makes it pretty difficult for me to teach since I can’t learn them to recite my words, I can only try to make them understand the things I’ve said. I thing I have to get used to there way of learning and they have to get used to my way of teaching. A last thing that is very annoying is the lack of creativity and the absence of self initiative (that’s a Dutch word: eigen intiatief, but who cares). Well these things frustrated me pretty much during summerschool and my first week of proper school (it’s only 2 weeks ago, but it feel like ages, it really does). My second week real school was way better. I taught JSS 1 which was really nice because they were a bit smarter, their English was better and last but definitely not least: they’re only around 8 of them.
Well, apparently I have enough to tell you all. I have to go home know though to get something to eat. I will continue somewhere this week. Although that might be Ghanaian. I work from 8 till 4 and have to prepare my lessons after that, so I don’t have that much time of. I will try to be here tomorrow and maybe I can finish this story then.
Greetings,
Marco
-
27 September 2005 - 18:17
The Guy In Ghana:
Something i forgot to say: thank you very much for your reactions, it's really nice to hear how you are doing. I will try to write something back when i have the time. thanks -
27 September 2005 - 21:30
PM:
Geleende drop smaakt beter -
27 September 2005 - 22:23
Bramelam:
yo beat,
FUCK. ik een heel verhaal typen, druk ik op het verkeerde knopje en is het weg. fucking techniek van tegenwoordig. maar goed, opnieuw dus...
goed om wat van je te horen! braaf heb ik om de dag je site gecheckt, maar lang gewacht op nieuws. Hier in delft is alles nog steeds gewoon goed. wel veel nog steeds, vanmiddag heb ik voor het eerst genoten van een middag vrij. voor de rest is het gewoon zwoegen tot half 6, of -als ik geluk heb- half 4. daarna vaak nog even naar de c1000, en dan afwassen en koken en de dag is ook hier alweer snel om. beetje vervelend af en toe, en huiswerk komt er natuurlijk niet van. Toch bevalt het leven hier uitstekend. Rene heeft trouwens een kamer op de korvezee (wat betekent: 30 m2 kamer en een eigen douche en toilet) ja, echt.
voor de rest nog wat rock n roll nieuws: ik zit nu dus officieel in bitter lemon, nog geen optredens gelukkig, eerst gaan ze het hele album opgenomen krijgen. waarom? geen idee, blijkbaar was het eerst kut. ik oefen dus braaf mn partijen en hoor aan van bart wat ik verkeerd doe. Verder wordt het huis hier verbouwd, door onszelf uiteraard: het schilderen van de hele hal is ongeveer beeindigd, er ligt laminaat en het wordt dus heeeeel mooi. de woonkamer, kleine hal en keuken moeten nog... ook staat er nu een nintendo 64 met mario kart die zorgt voor de nodige frustraties. heerlijk. afgelopen zaterdag naar Karlo de Wijs geweest in het bimhuis, livejazz! erg relaxed. 14 oktober naar Maceo Parker, iedereen die die gast niet kent moet zeker eens naar hem luisteren. op de muzikale tour dus. ook heb ik er alweer 3 tekenlessen op school opzitten en het bevalt goed.
aanstaande zaterdag gaan we met zn allen (dat wil zeggen: in ieder geval marco, bastiaan, rob en ik en misschien sonja en bas) naar de ph. zal wel weer gezellig worden, maar niet zo gezellig als met jou, om maar lekker sentimenteel te doen, haha. het bier kost daar trouwens wel fucking 3x zoveel als hier. en ik heb maar 5 euro op de bank staan, woeh!
pfft, het is alweer kwart over 12. net voetbal gekeken met marco en paul. ik weet niet of je er iets om geeft, maar Ajax heeft met 1-2 verloren van Arsenal. Ook met sonja is alles goed, hun huis begint al aardig op te schieten. alleen nog een paar dingetjes verven en de meubels kunnen er echt in, superchique. waarschijnlijk zal ze binnenkort ook wel weer reageren, maar dat weet ik niet. ze heeft het nog drukker dan ik.
oh! binnenkort krijgen we een nieuwe huisgenoot voor 4 maanden, die we al niet mochten voordat we hem gezien hadden, echt mooi. nu gaan we dus allemaal feutenregels invoeren hopelijk en hem goed het leven zuur maken. hoeven wij niet af te wassen voor 4 maanden, klinkt goed. nee, natuurlijk zijn wij (wij = arjen, pieter en ik) echte schatjes en ontvangen hem met open armen. thuis (in delft) wordt het wel alleen maar gezelliger, nu ik mn huisgenoten beter leer kennen. het is echt superrelaxed om thuis te komen, en dan nog steeds niet alleen te zitten. als ik ergens wel dood van ga, dan is het van alleen zitten, maar dat hoeft hier dus nooit. altijd iemand om mee te lullen of lachen. zodra je terug in het koninkrijk bent, moet je echt langskomen, dat wordt koel. voorlopig zit je nog lekker zonder stromend water, laat staan 100mbit TU internet. (maar goed, eerlijk is eerlijk: dat heb ik ook niet, alleen de grote flats). maar goed, op kamers dus ook alles goed, ik heb zelfs al een paar keer durven koken. binnenkort zal ik je misschien wel ff fotos mailen van hier, is misschien wel leuk. maar goed, dan moet ik dus wel tijd hebben... marcomout@zonnet.nl, toch? goed, ik zal mn best doen in ieder geval.
tot dan, cheers man, amuseer je in het zonnige zuiden. hier worden de dagen alweer korter... ik ga pitten nu, tis bijna half 1. gelukkig moet ik morgen pas om kwart voor 11 op school -sorry, de univ- zijn.
cheers,
broemmmm...
ps. de nuna 3 loopt nu al 2 uur voor op de rest! DELFT POWERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR -
27 September 2005 - 23:36
E&H:
Wir können auch nur bestä-tigen:Goed om wat van je te horen, Marco! Wir haben
das ja schon auf `zonnet`
mitgeteilt. PM hat den Nagel wieder auf den Kopf getroffen--in der Kürze liegt eben immer noch die Würze,deshalb grüßen wir dich herzlich und wünschen weiterhin viel Erfolg beim Vermitteln der Grundfähigkeiten an die Schüler in Ghana.
Gruß von Eri& Harry
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