I want to actively experience my time in Africa, not indirectly through Scott or Dakota’s upkeep, or passively through entertaining Elle. I want to dive in myself and become part of life. I want my own identity here, an identity that will leave some type of mark when I leave. Scott urges me on as well. “You can make a difference here,” he cheers, “Change the world, Molly!” In every direction, needy people struggle. At every turn, organizations and businesses flounder. Potential projects in all fields imaginable call for leaders and sponsorship.
It didn’t take long to learn that living in Ghana is hard. It takes mental, emotional and physical strength just to get through each day. Strength I doubted I naturally possessed. In order to find and maintain the energy and drive to get through our 5-month stay, I knew I would need to find my personal motivation; a passion intense enough to withstand, and embrace the daily hardships in order to satisfy it. I searched for it wherever I went in Cape Coast.
People who know me would have surely gritted their teeth in frustration observing my search in the first few weeks. I can imagine them cupping their hands around their mouths and calling from the sidelines, “Molly, you know your passion! Hello, you already know your calling. WAKE UP!”
Within a month in Africa, I recognized that to find my calling had nothing to do with looking around Cape Coast for needy foundations. My passion was sitting right there inside of me, legs crossed, fingernails patiently tapping, checking the clock. It was just hanging out, waiting for me to simply glance within myself. It was confident, sure of itself. It knew it was so obvious, so grand a passion, if I took only one second to search within, the answer would be clear.
No matter where you drop me on this planet, whether it’s in the inner-city or a farming community, or a fishing village in Africa, that calling forever dwells within. I am a teacher.
John Sackey Primary School sits atop a rocky cliff overhanging the seashore. It’s not accessible by car. To get to it, I have to walk through a dirt-pathed fishing village and up a steep hillside. The sandy coast, lined with wooden canoes is on my right. Rickety wooden shanties line the path on my left. In the morning, I see the residents preparing for the day beside their little one-room shacks. A woman crouches beside a pot perched atop a small wood-fire. Bare-chested fishermen spread out their nets. A dusty-clad child hauls a basin of water on his head toward his bare-bottomed brother awaiting a bath. Three men and one old woman sit on benches shaded by a rigged awning, a distinct herbal aroma wafting from their circle. Children wave to me. Some approach to shake my hand. The men and women yell out, “Obruni, How are you?” One asks if I am going to teach at the school. Another asks me to take him as a friend.
As I begin ascending the hill to the school, the path narrows and the shacks stop. Trash blows across the rocky terrain. Grubby pigs wander around me, pushing their snouts through the villagers’ waste. I tread carefully to avoid slipping on loose rocks or stepping in pig shit. The filthiness at my feet and in my nose fades from my senses when I turn to my right. There I see the blue ocean and sky spread out forever. The whitecaps rolling toward a now rocky shore push strong, cool wind across my face. As I climb, the view widens and becomes more powerful. At the peak, the refreshing gusts of ocean air penetrate my sweat-slicked limbs. Long, thin canoes in the distance, gracefully, noiselessly, glide across the water. Huge waves crashe against giant black rocks islanded in the sea, white foam splashing all around. Beauty easily overpowers ugliness here.
The path turns to the left where the hill crests and the school comes into view. The children spy me first and they begin to shout and cheer, waving and running toward me in their little matching purple uniforms. The adults turn their attention in my direction. There are Martin and Kingsley, the upper elementary teachers. They are well dressed young men, slim and tall, late twenties, in khakis or pressed jeans and short-sleeved button up shirts. The woman who teaches the tiny kids is in her late thirties. She wears a more traditional cloth dress with a busy print. Martin is my host. His English is smooth and he comprehends my American accent the best. He stands beside me and points at a man sitting on a cement block in the shade of a tree. The man has dusty, bare feet, a bare back and thin whitening hair. He leans over a pile of broken cement blocks, choosing one and examining it then tossing it into another pile.
I hear a hand bell clanging and the children split up. The smaller ones climb three cement stairs into the front side of the school. The older ones walk in groups to the back of the school where there are two more classroom entrances.
There are five rooms in the school, separated by cement half walls. Each room has small wooden desks teetering on rocky, uneven floors. The children sit two to a desk on narrow wooden benches. The school lists with the grade of the hilltop so the chair where I sit leans forward. I mop my sweaty face with a washcloth. The first few days, I observe the oldest students, class 6 and class 5 combine into 15 students. Kingsley teaches English. His students listen only to his lesson, despite the clearly audible voice of Mr. Martin lecturing behind us, and the small children reciting numbers beside us. I listen to their tiny high-pitched words, “Zay-ro. Z-E-R-O. Oon. O-N-E. Too. T-W-O. The-ree. T-H-R-E-E. Fo. F-O-U-R…” They recite one through ten over and over, spelling each number. If I stand, I can peek over the wall. The numerals are written in white chalk on an external wall painted black. I would call it a blackboard, even though there is no board really. A small girl in her purple dress points a strait stick pointer at each number as the students complete their choral recitation. The girl passes the cane to a different student, who begins the round again. They repeat and repeat and repeat the number lesson for at least 20 minutes, the student leader changing each round.
On the opposite wall, the teacher leads another group of small students in a lesson. I try to make sense of the vocabulary on the black-painted wall. She has drawn two pots on the board. One pot is large and has five small marbles pictured within it. The other is a small pot with the same number of marbles inside. The word “few” and the word “small” are written beside the pots. The teacher points to one of the pots and asks, “Is this few or small?” One child raises his hand. The teacher calls on him and he stands, stating, “Few.” The other students wait silently until the teacher smiles, “Yes, that’s correct. Clap for him.” All the children clap a pattern of 6 rhythmic claps together and the student sits back down.
Kingsley has written the definition of “preposition” on the board. He writes the words “between” and “among.” Then he copies six sentences from the class’s one grammar book, leaving a blank line within each sentence. The students sit silently waiting for him to finish his writing. The air in the room is still except for a thin breeze sneaking through two square openings in the wall on either side of the “blackboard.” I would call them windows but there is no glass, no screen. The students examine me curiously while their teacher’s back is turned. They smile shyly and turn back to the front of the room when I smile at them. He turns from the board and points to the sentences with the cane in his hand. “Fill in the dash with the preposition, “among” or “between” so that the sentence expresses the proper meaning.” Their heads go down as they begin copying down the directions and the sentences. Kingsley returns to his desk. My instinct is to stroll around the classroom, looking over the kids’ shoulders for progress, but the room is cramped. I can only manage to squeeze between the two rows of desks, then spin 180 degrees and walk back to the front of the room, stopping to squint at the flimsy composition books of those students seated closest to me.
While they finish their work I focus on the lesson Mr. Martin is teaching to the class 2 and class 3 students behind us. He’s describing a mouse. A mouse? I hear him describe a monitor, then a keyboard. It occurs to me, he’s explaining a computer. It’s computer class. My curiosity gets the best of me and I peek over the back wall. There is not a computer. There isn’t even a picture of a computer. He’s holding a book about computers and describing what he sees and reads. The children write the key words he’s written on the bIack board into their composition books. I have to physically stop myself from knocking myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. Of course they don’t have a computer Molly, they don’t have electricity! But they have computer class!
Break time comes at 10 a.m.. The prefect, the most clever student in the class, takes the bell from the teacher’s desk. Francisca walks out what I would call the door, except for there really is no door, just an opening with a raised cement threshold she has to step over. She rings the bell. The students don’t react how I expected. They stay in their seats working, until Kingsley stands and listens to the sentences they have completed. He calls on a student. The student stands and reads his or her sentence. Kingsley says “No, sit down,” or he says, “Yes, Clap for him,” and the class claps the same six-beat rhythm together. As far as I can tell, the students don’t necessarily understand why “between” or “among” is the more appropriate answer. Frankly, I’m not quite sure myself why one word works better than the other in the sentences. What I can deduce for sure is that these students are geniuses at reading nonverbal cues and subtle intonations in their teachers’ questioning.
Not until every sentence is recited does Kingsley dismiss the students for break. Mr. Martin and Kingsley each take a plastic chair and walk to the front of the school where they sit in one shady spot beneath a tree. Mr. Martin barks to one of his girls who happily runs off to bring me a plastic chair as well. It’s her privilege to have been chosen for the task.
The boys and girls split up into their own games. This isn’t a school yard with a playground or basketball court, just one dirt clearing in front of the school. There are no jump ropes or balls. The girls sing songs and play jumping or clapping games. The boys chase and wrestle. One boy uses a stick to skillfully push a plastic spool along the bumpy ground. Two other boys race, pushing old tires toward an imaginary finish line as the other boys cheer.
One large old woman, with straitened hair sticking out in all directions works beside us. She’s wearing a ribbed tank top tucked under massive breasts. Her brown belly hangs over a long cloth wrapped around her waist. She leans into a wooden stand holding two silver pots. She’s stirring and dipping a spoon into the pots then dumping fish stew, with bones and heads into tiny bowls. Balls of whitish dough sit in the bottom of the bowls. She passes them off tiny hands reaching up to her with silver coins. The kids take their bowls and squat in the shade beneath the wooden stand, using their fingers to scoop the stew up to their mouths. Martin explains, “If a student brings small, small money, they can get some stew at break time.”
Other kids wait gathered around a woman sitting on a low stool beside a large silver basin filled with oranges. Their 10 pesewa coin tinks into a smaller silver bowl beside her. She cuts the tough green peelings from the oranges one by one, slits the top third off then hands them to awaiting hands. The kids squeeze the orange with both hands and stick the cut top between puckered lips to suck out the juice.
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| Kingsley, Martin and the Fish Stew Lady |
When I stand up to get a better view of the fish stew woman’s food, she turns and begins yelling to me in Fanti. Her lips are pursed out and her index finger wags at me as she yells in deep, raspy incomprehensible words. I turn to Martin for guidance. He and Kingsley just smirk and shrug their shoulders. Fish stew lady yells and yells in Fanti, one hand on her hip. Her eyes twinkle with amusement and I realize she’s actually repeating the same phrase. I understand only the number “twenty thousand.” She repeats her phrase over and over and I nod and smile, totally confused. Then her phrase changes. She repeats it slower and slower each time, separating each word, and points to me over and over. She wants me to recite it back to her. I struggle with each word. The kids laugh at my effort. When I finished the sentence, the fish stew lady laughs and pats my should. Martin and Kingsley giggle between themselves, wagging their heads. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I told her I’d give her money, because every time I go to break time from that day on, she yells at me in Fanti, demanding the money I promised her. Her mischievous, teasing eyes give her away, though. Later, I find out that she is the headmaster's wife.
I can’t sit for long at break time. The little girls sing and dance in their circle. I must join them, which delights them and me. I mimic their choreographed movements with each song. Sometimes, the headmaster enters the middle of the circle and calls out the name of different songs then the children sing it and watch as I struggle to match their movements. Sometimes a class 6 boy named Oscar sits on a stool in the middle and plays a drum for us. All the adults and children smile and laugh in the hot sun. The joy of it all is so wonderful! The lower elementary teacher calls from outside of the circle, “You teach us a song, Madame Molly!” I teach them Hokey Pokey. They erupt in hysterics when we get to “Put your backside in. Put your backside out. Put your backside in. And shake it all about!” Every break time they request the hokey pokey. Soon the oldest girls are singing the chorus with me. Although my job at John Sackey School is to teach English and grammar, I really just want them to sing the whole hokey pokey with me by the time I leave!
The tiniest student at the school is Loratia. She is the sweetest little two-year old with cropped hair and gold earrings. Her purple uniform dress hangs on her tiny frame. After only a few days, she’s come to look forward to break time when I pick her up and carry her. Sometimes, she can’t wait and will wander from her classroom in the front of the school all the way around to my classroom and stand at the door waiting for me to see her. “My baby, Loratia” I announce to the giggling students and swing her into my arms. I tell them I want to take Loratia home with me. A class 6 girl named Victoria gives me permission, “I asked her aunty and she said Loratia can go to your house with you.” Loratia talks Fanti to me, and the older girls tell me what she’s trying to say. She examines my face intently and touches my nose and lips with her tiny exploring fingers. I can see the wonder at my strangeness in her eyes. When I’m not holding her, she follows close behind, her little bare feet scurrying across the dirt. She holds my hand and stares at it curiously, spinning the shiny silver wedding band.
I’m only expected at the school one day per week to teach English, but I can’t keep myself away for so long. I bring Elle up to spend break time with the children on some days. Some days I go up the hill with school supplies sent in care packages from friends in America. I’ve never really wished for tons of money in life, but now I find myself wishing that I had millions, so I could give them more.
When my moms visit from America, they bring loads of school supplies and books to donate. Once organized, the gifts fill every pocket in a full size suitcase. My mom and I stand at the base of the hill wondering how we can possibly haul the packed, heavy bag up the rocky path. I call Martin and ask him to come down to help. He comes, along with Kingsley and Francisca. The two men pull the suitcase from Big John’s taxi and place it on top of Francisca’s head. She balances the heavy load on her head and walks effortlessly up the steep hill, four empty-handed adults following her. As we trudge up, Kingsley leans toward me and quietly says, “Your mother is so young!” He doesn’t want to say it too loudly. It’s not a compliment here. With age comes respect and honor, so unlike us, the women prefer to be considered older than they are.
The headmaster tours my mother around the school while I lead a lesson on personal pronouns. He’s dressed in a colorful African shirt and pressed pants in honor of her visit (so did his wife). He presents the different class rooms. The students stand and recite, “Good. Morning, Madame. You are welcome.” He’s most excited to show her the future of his school. He proudly flourishes his arm over an area dug out for the foundation of the junior secondary school. The location of the interior and exterior walls are mapped out by the furrows dug in the dirt.
One Friday morning, Elle and I walk through the fishing village and climb the hill to find the teachers, children and headmaster in work clothes, building the walls of their new school. The smaller kids play in the school yard while the older kids create a system of hauling huge, rectangular cinder blocks from the bottom of the hill. Two boys struggle to lift the block over the head of a third boy. They carefully balance it atop a cloth rag circled on his head to protect his scalp. The boy climbs to the top of the hill where two other boys heave it off his head and add it to the existing pile of blocks. Martin, Kingsley and the headmaster work in the dirt furrows, laying the cinderblocks and cement. Their dark skin glistens in the sun. They stop occasionally to wipe a sweaty rag over their wet faces, heads and necks. The progress on the building is evident; the walls are coming up layer by layer.
My first inclination is that the hard labor is horrible for these kids but, of course, as I watch them work, my opinion changes. Their sweat and pride are part of the mortar holding up these cinder block walls. How can they not love their school when they’ve built it with their own hands.
The headmaster climbs up to ground level to stand beside me. I feel the rough skin of his hand wrap around mine. We look down at the future school, holding hands. The sea breeze tempers the burning sun. The children gather, and Martin and Kingsley stop their work to look up at us. He says, “Madame Molly, We are so grateful for all the help you are giving to our school. I would like to name this new school for you. When it’s finished I would like to have your name on this school. And the day we open it, we will have an opening ceremony. I would like you to be here for the opening.” I am shocked. I am incredulous. I am overwhelmed. I am humbled. I am honored.
I don’t deserve this, I know. The joy and love and fulfillment I gain on top of this hill is so many millions of times more than I can ever give back in my short time here. In that moment I hope with all my heart to be in this spot on the day the new school opens. I feel doubtful because there’s no way the project will be complete by our departure date, and the expense to return is more than Scott and I can afford any time soon. I tell Scott about the headmaster’s plans. His face brightens. He beams. There’s no question in his eyes. “Well, I guess you’re coming back to Ghana!” He wags his head, grinning with pride and praise. “I told you…Change the world, Molly.”
"I don't know about changing the world," I say, "but I know a group of African schoolkids on a hill who will know how to do the Hokey Pokey!"
Thanks for bringing a smile to our face this morning! Hope all is well!
ReplyDeleteLots of love,
Jennifer and Kevin