Postcard Penpals (WED 3/15)
This morning Ray, our host teacher made special arrangements for some of his 3rd form students (seniors) to meet us again in the science lab one final time, there must have been over 80 students packed in. We passed out the postcards written by LHS students and gave out paper for them to write notes back to the postcard senders. I had planned to purchase notecards from Ghana for them to write on, but alas, Kumasi is not really a tourist city and there were none to be found.
The kids were very excited and the teacher had to finally tell them that time was up for the postcard writing. We also used some of this time to ask the students what they would like to see in their dream classrooms. I was thinking students may ask for overhead lights, windows and closed walls, and air conditioning. I was so wrong, the kids instead told us they wished for their lessons to be more tied to the real world, and for hands on materials, such as lab materials. They asked for projectors so that they could learn visually and they asked for smaller class sizes. I had the chance to video some of them and their desire for a better education experience was loud and clear.
Our host teacher wanted us to experience an elementary school in Kumasi, so he made arrangements with his sister, who was the headmaster (principal) at a local Muslim public school. As I mentioned earlier, most of the private religious schools in Ghana were taken over by the government so that they could be regulated under the same governance and content could be standardized. Many of these schools retain elements of the religious group that once oversaw them, but religion is not forced upon any student or staff member. This particular school is located in a Muslim community of Kumasi, so all of the students who attend are Muslim, although some of the teachers were not. We met many of the teachers, including the Arabic teacher. Teaching Arabic is not the norm in Ghana, it is part of the Muslim culture of the school.
The students at this school were INCREDIBLY excited to see us, some of them even jumping and screaming in anticipation as we were meeting in the courtyard before touring classrooms. The sheer volume of the schoolyard reminded me a bit of going to school in an open classroom concept school, because even though there were walls, there are no real windows in any of the classrooms we toured (and no AC!) so the sounds spilled out and echoed across the area.
At one point the students started spilling into the courtyard and I thought the headmaster said they were going to do a "play" but once they kept coming and going to the water spigot, I finally realized they were going to PRAY. They came carrying water containers, mostly teapots, filled them with water, and then they lined up around a gutter in the courtyard and began the ritual of washing bare feet, arms, face, and head. This is called "wudu" and it is a form of purification before prayer. The big kids helped the tiny preschoolers, there were no adults supervising or helping them prepare. It was quite incredible to see. They filled the school mosque and began prayers, which lasted at least 20 minutes.
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to this school, everyone was so warm and welcoming. Even though religion is a very important part of daily life for most Ghanaians, people of various faiths are incredibly tolerant, living side by side in peace. When I asked our host if there was ever tension between the Muslims and Christians, he answered that "Tension is just not a word I would ever use to describe that relationship between people of Ghana." This reminded me of something I learned prior to this trip, Ghana was ranked last year by a global peace index as the most peaceful nation of West and Sub-Saharan Africa and 40th in the world out of 163 countries. By contrast, the US ranks 129th. This ranking takes into account many factors, including violence, threats of terrorism, crimes, incarceration, political instability, and more. You can read more about the global peace index and view all of the rankings here.
