My Readjustment to America Problem

As the photo to the right suggests, life is different in Ghana and Africa than in Portland and the U.S. I am noticing this after having been back now for ten days after thirty-two days in Ghana. The roads are better here. People rarely carry heavy burdens on their heads.  The mangos don't taste as good, and they are much more expensive. The humidity is lower. You can't buy plantain chips, water, bread, belts, or a host of other items while stuck in traffic. Traffic moves more smoothly. Drivers are more apt to stop when people step onto a crosswalk. It is much easier to gain weight. I don't worry about keeping my phone and laptop charged in case the lights go out.

I guess these differences could be summed up by concluding that life in Ghana tends to be more challenging and engaging. While working on my history of the U.S. family I was struck by how Americans had gradually drifted away from societies and cultures rooted in an ethos of obligation toward a way of looking at and living in the world characterized by fealty to an Imperial Self. As it has become more and more easy to live without having to depend on others for our survival, we have become more sensitive to individual rights and privacy but also more lonely, defensive, and depressed--"awash in weapons and grievances," as a New York Times reader aptly observes.

So each time I return home, I find myself feeling less at home. I'm sure part of this is the somewhat artificial nature of my weeks in Ghana, which are full of meetings with astonishing people whose dedication to serving others delivers repeated shots of adrenaline and inspiration. But it also has to do with living in a place where the great majority of people are both struggling and happy--more or less the opposite of life in America, where everyone seems to feel entitled and disappointed. I love living in a place where everyone seems to understand that life is difficult AND that we can make it through if we help each other.

I don't think that the solution to my readjustment disorder is to move to Ghana. Rather, I would like to keep working to surround myself and collaborate with the countless people here who are determined to love and serve others, to to look beneath the veneer of comfort and apathy that seems so characteristic of American life to find stories and lives that are more compelling.

July 17: The Hopes of an Accra Taxi Driver

Mr. Frank, who has driven us around Accra--and sometimes quite some distance from Accra--while
we have visited Ghana the past three times not only provides valuable services to us, he represents much of what Yo Ghana! is all about.

Mr. Frank was referred to us by a friend in Ghana who had entrusted his daughter's transportation to him.  In a city well populated with aggressive drivers, Mr. Frank is patient and careful, not to mention dependable, unfailingly polite and kind.

Driving a taxi in Accra is hard, hard work.  The hours are very long, the pay low, and there is more and more competition all the time.  It is also a dangerous occupation, and a vulnerable one.  Drivers are routinely pulled over or stopped by the police, who may, with varying degrees of subtlety, demand a gift of money before letting them proceed, whether or not they have violated any laws.  These are givens.

Mr. Frank puts his hopes in his children.  As someone who has studied the nature of the education system, I know that the odds are stacked against them, that the education system in Ghana, as across the world, is arranged so as to make the road to the top universities smooth for the children of the elite, improbable for the children of struggling parents.  But hope that through hard work one's children might exceed one's own circumstances is a widely shared sentiment in Ghana, one that propels Mr. Frank to make great sacrifices, a characteristic he shares with so many of the teachers and administrators in Ghana with whom we work.  The odds may be long, but there is always hope.

July 16 Dr. Eric Ananga

Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Eric Opoku Agemang and Madam Brittni Howard, who had kindly arranged the meeting after we met at the Ghana Studies Association meeting a week ago.  Mr. Eric heads an organization called Patriots Ghana that works to help children who have been trafficked to the fishing industry.  As so many problems are both cause and consequence of child trafficking, Patriots Ghana works on a host of other issues, too, from economic development to training teachers how to work with students who have suffered severe trauma to how to persuade children how to go to or stay in school.  It’s a remarkable organization, and we hope for Yo Ghana! collaborations in the future.

Then it was off to Winneba for a long meeting with Dr. Eric Ananga, the busiest person I know, and his research assistant, Madam Berthy. 

I met Dr. Eric nearly two years ago and was immediately drawn by his unassuming passion for and dedication to education.  Everyone who had met him attached to Yo Ghana! was delighted when he joined our board, and it was his vision and dedication and connections that made the first Yo Ghana! conference happen in the first place, let alone for it to be so successful.  Eric likes to move behind the scenes to get things done, and he had to be prompted before he would agree to speak at the conference.   He is a delightful person to spend time with, though after doing so I go away feeling like I should be doing more to make the world a better place.

July 15: Anani School Donors and Angel's Academy Oral Histories

The day began at Anane Memorial International School, where I got to do one of my most favorite

tasks: distributing letters of recognition to some of the many parents and school members who contributed goods or services to the school over the past year, such as Madam Joyce who volunteers as a cook.  Nima is a place of both widespread poverty and determination, and the school staff confirmed that these donations, which Yo Ghana! matches, have raised morale considerably.  The community feels much more ownership of and commitment to its school when they are giving time and other resources to it.

I then had the pleasure of watching the Kindergarten students practice their dancing.  They are very dedicated, and the school regularly performs in a variety of venues, such as the airport, to help raise funds for the school.

Then it was off to Angel’s Academy to follow up on Tuesday’s visit by seeing what the students had learned in their interviews of elders.  The reports were much longer and more detailed than I had anticipated.  We started with having the students pair up and deliver their reports to each other, then each read to the group.  We then had a long discussion of how to elicit longer, more

interesting answers, with reflection on what had worked or had not worked in the interviews, and why.  All of the participants seem eager to do a much fuller life story of an elder starting in September, with the assistance of their very dedicated teachers.  Back in the U.S., some students at St. Andrew Nativity School will be doing the same sort of work, so we are excited to see how these two pilot projects work out and what sort of stories the students are able to share with each other—and hopefully the rest of the world.

This oral history project is an example of our desire to go deeper into our exchanges, and it expresses our belief that transformative exchanges can occur not only between nations, but also between generations.

July 14

Today was one of those days when your camera stays in the bag—not because there was nothing of interest to photograph, but because stopping to take pictures would have interrupted the flow.

Mr. Frank’s taxi brought us to Dannacks Senior High School and a meeting with its head, Mr. Justice, teacher Madam Aborgeh, and their students.  Mr. Justice had told me about Dannacks during a meeting a few days ago.  It works with students who struggled in junior high school and would otherwise be unable to attend senior high school.  A high proportion of them then do well on the exams that determine whether or not they can go to university, and many have gone on to excel at university and beyond.  I enjoyed meeting the students, many of whom are keen for the school to join Yo Ghana!  Mr. Justice is also very interested in developing in students a love of poetry in a nation in which rote learning is still emphasized.

We then made our way to my favorite place, Ashesi University, where I had the pleasure of meeting with Madam Carolina and the inspiring students who constitute the very first Teach for Ghana cohort.  This September they will go, in pairs, into fifteen rural, low-performing schools in Ghana and work to transform them.  We are hoping to partner with them, as the prospect of writing to a friend in Ghana can be a great incentive to learn to write for students in such schools.  It was an honor and a privilege to speak with and listen to this band of pioneering educators talk about how they intend to go about the work of providing an excellent education for every student in Ghana.  You could feel the trajectory of Ghana education shift under our feet.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. TK, an Ashesi administrator who in his spare times brings Canadian university students to Ghana to help to activate in them a desire to serve their communities back home and started Future of Africa, a program serving about fifty of Accra’s many street children.  More about that soon.

The long day ended with a nice long visit with board member Dr. Williams, who is also a dear friend.  Years ago Wendy told me that the best way to start and organization is to invite the people you most respect to join it, and when Dr. Williams agreed to join us, it was a wonderful day.

July 13

Today Madam Lucy and I had the pleasure of visiting Kwahu Taho Senior High School.  It was a

long day trip, but definitely worth it!

We learned of the school from Dr. Seth Asare, who grew up in the town and has lived in the Portland Metro Area for many years.  He assured us that the school has a reputation for excellence, and that was certainly the case.

We had an excellent meeting with Madam Alice, the Headmistress, and Mr. Phillip and Mr. Prince.  Mr. Phillip has already started a Yo Ghana! club in the school, even before the school has been paired with U.S. one for the coming year.  That’s the sort of initiative suggestive of a long and dedicated relationship, as is the fact that so many staff members at the school are enthusiastic about our program.

We also got to meet with the students.  There are about two hundred per level or grade, with many coming from villages in the area, others from far away.  The great majority board at the school.  We hope it is the first of many visits.

July 12

Today Mr. Frank got us safely to L & A Academy.  I think it is the first time in my many years of

coming that we arrived on time, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that the very rocky and pitted road on the way to the school is being graded.  I had a good long visit with Mr. Kankam, the school staff—who had some excellent suggestions—and several classes.  L & A was again one of our work-horse schools this year, and Mr. Kankam is the first teacher in Ghana I met, some five years ago.

Then it was off to Angel’s Academy, not far as the crow flies, but a bit of time over the crowded and at times rough roads.  Mr. Justice, founder and proprietor Mr. Ernest, and the rest of the staff game me their usual warm welcome, and the students sang me a lovely song and then stood in the hot sun for one of my “short” speeches.  Some of my African friends tell me that I am perhaps becoming a bit too much of an African man inasmuch as my short speeches are not as short as they might be, but the students were either too engaged or too polite to complain.

Then we tried a grand experiment, as the school’s staff had expressed great interest in having an oral-history workshop.  I’ve done this sort of thing at the university level long ago, but not with students ranging from grade four to eight, or in Ghana, but it was a lot of fun.  The students practiced asking each; other open-ended questions, their teachers were extremely helpful in explaining to them more clearly than I could what it was all about, and on Friday we shall get back together to see what they have come up with, as each are going to write a paragraph or so on some aspect of an elder’s life based on their interviews.  I can’t wait.

Tonight I get to catch up with Miss Dorcas, a recent Ashesi University graduate I met two years ago while doing research on that remarkable institution.  She was very active in an organization devoted to helping rural schools in Ghana that were struggling, and I’m excited to hear what good work she has been up to lately and plans to do in the future.

So it’s another day hanging out with passionate idealists.  Sure beats laying around at the beach!

July 11

After returning to East Legon on Sunday, it was nice to be back ‘home” with Madam Senadza and Madam Doris in their very comfortable home and to have dinner at Chez Afrique, the restaurant that the wife of Yo Ghana! board member Michael Williams has made such a success.

Mr. Frank and I left at 6:00 a.m. to beat the traffic and in three hours were in Akalove, where dear friend Brando Akoto is buried.  It was so good to speak and cry a bit with his mother, from whom certainly he inherited his big heart and great care for others.  I presented her with a Yo Ghana! Kente stole, as her son did so much to form our organization.  I also had the pleasure of meeting with the chief and the elders and telling them of the great contributions that Akalove Basic School was making to Yo Ghana! through their letters to the U.S. and their participation in the Yo Ghana! conference at Winneba a week and a half ago.

I also met with the school staff and the students.  Akalove is a very young school, started just a few years ago by the community. Next year it will offer all three forms or levels of the Junior High School, which is a very exciting development.  The students are a bit on the shy side, but their enthusiasm for the letter writing is very evident, and, as the photo to the right suggests, not all of them are so shy.  It is a pleasure to visit a school that so many people have sacrificed for to bring into existence.

Mr. Frank then got me safely to Accra Girls Senior High School where Mr. Benjamin took time out from his very busy afternoon to organize many of our letter writers for a meeting.  About half of these students correspond in French with their counterparts in a French class at Central Catholic High School, which adds another international wrinkle or layer to our program.

July 8

Today while the other attendees of the Ghana Studies Association Conference were going on tours, I had the pleasure of visiting Ebubonko Basic School.

Madam Felestina, the Headmistress, was so kind to pick me up, and the students who had been writing were well prepared with intelligent questions.  We had an interesting discussion comparing Ghanaian and American schools.  The students immediately pointed out that the U.S. was more developed than Ghana.  But they also noticed some Ghana strengths, from better handwriting to knowing a greater range of languages to close friendships.

So often the differences between the West and Africa are defined by who has the tallest buildings and the largest military budget.  We hope that the letter writing gets at less obvious but very important social and cultural features of life in which Ghana shines.

The students then presented me with place mats that they had woven, which was a wonderful and generous surprise.  Mr. Wisdom has been a very active coordinator for the school, assisted by Madam Lucy.

It was also exciting to see what the school had been doing with its computer laboratory.  Yo Ghana! had provided two laptops a year ago, which the school had augmented with ten additional ones from other sources, as well as providing internet access.  This year we provided some of the materials for strong tables and benches for the room, and the school provided the rest of the materials as well as the labor in putting them together.  Now the school is working on additional improvements to make the building cooler and more secure before adding additional computers.  It is this sort of steady, community initiated improvement that Yo Ghana! loves to collaborate with.

Yo Ghana! at the Ghana Association Triennial Conference

Wednesday I got to present the research that Dr. Eric Ananga and I have been working on at the triennial meeting of the Ghana Studies Association, this year held at the University of Cape Coast. Mr. Wisdom Havor,, our coordinator for Ebubonko Basic School, provided some testimony about the impact of Yo Ghana! at his school.

The paper’s title is “’They Are Not More than Us’: Letter Exchanges between American and Ghanaian Students.” Our research shows that although before exchanging letters, Ghana students widely associate the U.S. with development, the exchanges both lead them to improve their writing and to identify strengths in their own cultures and societies.

The conference itself has been a lot of fun.  There are scholars here from North America, Europe, and of course Ghana, from graduate students to old hands.  It is much less pretentious than academic conferences I have attended in the U.S. or Canada, but the level of intellectual exchange is high.  I’m already looking forward to the next one, in 2019.

Dr. Benjamin Talton, the Conference Chair, noted in his opening that although the GSA started in the U.S., it quickly became a shared enterprise with Ghana.  It struck me that this is also how Yo Ghana! began. And it has been very gratifying to have so many scholars of Ghana take an interest in the work Yo Ghana! is doing.  There were about sixty in our session.

Our Very First Yo Ghana! Conference!

The day before the conference was busy and intense as attendees started arriving in mid-afternoon, with our friends from Dambai.  The action really picked up late at night, and shortly before midnight there were twenty students from three schools packed into a van, traveling from the round-about where the transit bus had dropped them off to the university dorms.  In Ghana, you find a way!  The last group arrived around 1:00 a.m.  Many traveled more than twelve hours in cramped conditions.

But everyone was up early the next morning.  We had eighty-nine staff and students attending. 
Madam Patricia Ananga emceed, Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, for whom the grand conference center is names, welcomed us, and we were soon into our various sessions.

Students learned about how to do math in every-day life, how to write poetry, and exchanged ideas with each other on what they learned from the Yo Ghana! letter writing.  Students from Don Bosco Basic School presented their fine independent research project on a day in the life of a Winneba fisherman.

The teachers and administrators from the sixteen schools spent much of their time listening to presentations from each other and discussing issues ranging from how to discipline without caning to how to improve the educational possibilities for girls whose families require them to work late into the evening to whether or not the national examinations are a worthwhile measure of educational achievement.

Everyone toured the Kantanka Factory, enjoyed dancing and drama from the University of Education Winneba Arts Department, and shared their dreams for their schools and how Yo Ghana! might fit into them.  There were also brief speeches from board members Dr. Eric Ananga—who conceived of and pulled the whole conference together, a massive undertaking--and Dr. David del Mar on Yo Ghana!  Board member Elizabeth Fosler-Jones ironed out a million details, and board member Dr. Eric Donkoh, in Ghana for two months, spent all day Saturday meeting people.

Among the many people who made the event happen, we must mention a few.

Madam Berthy, in the photo to the right, on the left, was the master of many details. Madam Lucy, a recent Winneba graduate, did the very big job of running the dormitories.  Madams Wendy and Lucy of Yo Ghana! worked very hard pulling things together.

Dr. Ananga envisioned this conference as a bench mark in Ghana education, as it is time for teachers and administrators in outstanding schools to be heard on how to improve Ghanaian education.  For me, this amounted to seeing amazing people I had met in isolated schools over many years coming together to educate and inspire each other.

As Dr. Ananga told our teachers and students when we closed: “You are Yo Ghana!”

June 30

Thursday between preparing for the arrivals of our conference attendees Wendy and I visited our two Winneba schools, Don Bosco and St. Paul’s.  The students at both had graduated, so they came in on their vacations and waited several hours for us.  This sort of dedication and patience never ceases to amaze and impress me.

 

We were particularly eager to thank the Don Bosco students for their initiative in undertaking independent-research projects.  It is our hope that more schools will do this sort of work, and the students and their teacher, Madam Cynthia, worked very hard on the projects.

At St. Paul’s we met with Mr. Mills and the students who would be attending the conference, and talked with the students of their plans for senior secondary schooling.  Most students in Ghana live away from home for their three years of senior high school (equivalent to grades 10-12 in the U.S.), so this is a very big step.  Roughly half of Ghana students are able to attend high school, so it is a very exciting time, preparing for this big stage of life and career.