The other day I had meetings with the schools head science teachers
and headmasters to discuss future plans for the curriculum.
The day got off to a rough start. It started with a call
from the GES (Ghana Education Service) guy, Ebenezer, who is supposed to
facilitate the formal introduction, saying that he is at the CRC office (7.20
when it was supposed to be 7.00…whatever, close enough) saying that there is no
car at the office and nobody at the office knows the plan for the meeting.
Great, I get to start the day apologizing…always a favorite.
Eventuallyyyyy everything with transportation somehow works
itself out and we are off! The meetings go more or less well, with varying
degrees or cooperation.
We show up at one school around 11am and the first thing we
notice is a group of students washing the headmasters car (which is not out of
the ordinary). I take a second to look around and the only adult that can be
found is watching over the car washing with a stick in his hand (beating students
is allowed and regularly used as a “learning tool”). Nice. We go up to the
adult and ask for the headmaster, he says that he is the headmaster and that we
should follow him to his office. He takes his stick. We all take a seat and he couldn’t
make it any more clear just how much he does NOT want to be having any kind of
conversation with us. Awesome. He calls the science teacher in for the meeting
and they must be related because she is giving off an even more potent “shove
it” vibe then the headmaster is…and he’s holding a stick! Whatever, the meeting
ends and we get their begrudging commitment to the project.
But the real highlight of the day was lunch. Since I invited
the GES guy to help me with the introductions (even though its part of his job…whatever…not
even going to go there) Ghanaian customs is to feed the person you invited. We
end our school visits and we are all sitting in the car all “where do you want
to go? I don’t know. Where do you want to go?” So finally they (the GES guy and
the CRC driver) say “Sarah, you pick!”…I’d be happy to! We happened to end in a
community that I am very familiar with…it’s a touristy community on the beach
that hosts many ex-pats and has a few obruni restaurants. I know of this one
surf shop, owned by a few Dutch guys, that serve “burritos”, a flour tortilla,
jolloff rice, some green peppers and some onions. Not a real burrito but
everything in it is stuff that Ghanians regularly eat (minus the green
peppers). We get our burritos and the two Ghanaians look at them in complete disgust…meanwhile
I haven’t stopped drooling since we decided to come here for lunch. The driver
gets his first and after some teasing from me starts in (with a knife and
fork). He is repulsed! Ha ha ha! I get mine and pick it up and take a bite and
from the way they are looking at me I may as well be in a zoo. They eventually
choke down their lunch with me rolling on the floor laughing. Whatever…payback
for gaping at me while I eat fufu.
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