Busy Bee

January 23, 2011

The last week has been busy.  I organized the library books at school; trying to separate them by reading level.  Not knowing what reading level corresponds to what class is kinda hard, but at least it’s a start.  I also had my first Culture Club meeting.  There were 32 kids; 10 to 15 years old.  I started by passing a paper around to get all their names and info…this proved to be very distracting and it was hard to make them listen instead of talking and going and grabbing the paper from each other.  I tried defining culture…so they knew what are club was for and what we will be learning from the exchange with the U.S. students.  I made a game on the board; they would write something under Ghana (drums, futbol, fufu) and I would write something under the US (guitar, baseball, hamburger) to show different elements of our cultures.  It went ok.  They aren’t used to interactive learning, they are usually just lectured to and expected to memorize…so they were a little hesitant to go to the board and answer questions.  Oh well.  So this week we are gonna start practicing writing since we will be writing letters to the class in the U.S.  I don’t really know their writing skills or if they know what a paragraph is or anything…and asking the teachers is not really that helpful…so…we’ll see.  I have some basic things outlined that I want to go over and then have them write me a simple paragraph about themselves, just so I can see where they are in their writing skills.

Confidence and I had our meeting with the youth about the Batik business.  There are 7 youth (in their 20’s and 30’s) that want to join…6 girls, 1 guy.  We decided on working on Mondays and Wednesdays…and sometime in the next few weeks Confi and I will go to Accra to pick all the supplies.  We also schedule as work day to weed around and then sweep the building we will be working in (the unused Palm Oil Shed).  They asked me what country I was from because they don’t understand anything I say…I talk too fast…yes I know.  I try to talk slower, but it’s hard…I loose my train of thought when I talk that slow.Anyway…this venture should start in February.  Once we start making fabric, I’ll post some pics and see if you guys want any orders J

TMT…yeah…still mind numbing.  Only 4 of the 11 people showed up for the meeting I called.  I told them that we have to reorganize the TMT…I want 5 people on the team and I want the members to be voluntary…not elected because of clan.  I also said we would start paying small money each time a member came to a meeting/training.  They said that we need to talk to the chief first…so hopefully this week Fo Nicho and I will be able to meet with the chief.  If he doesn’t allow us to reorganize, then I’m telling him that I’m not working with the TMT anymore because they are not doing anything.  It’s so frustrating.  There is so much that can be done…and I know I can make it happen if I just had people who cared!  So we’ll see.

So,  if everything that is supposed to happen actually happens, I will be pretty busy…which would be great!

Hope you all are doing well and enjoying all the snow!!!  Happy Birthday Jason!

Liyua ku lelabi.

j

Palm Wine...yummmmm

Dixon and his leaf necklace on my porch.

My sassy dress I had made...the headwrap was just for fun :)

Dixon and I