One of the most significant things I've learned so far is how adaptable we can become. Probably to most of you the thought of bucket showering or learning how to speak a tribal language seems like a long shot. It was for me too at first..but I think that coming here and experiencing a new way of living has taught me to adapt to my surroundings and forced me to learn a lot about myself. One thing that I'm going to take away from here is knowing that no matter how foregin a place may be, we adapt, change and find our own special spot within it.
I love it here. The people, CCS, my fellow volunteers, my students, everything.
I have found myself falling more and more in love with this place everyday. I've never felt so welcome into a community before. The people here are constantly welcoming us into their homes and are so happy that we are here. Walking into town is one of my favourite things. We are constantly swarmed with kids yelling 'Yevo, yevo'(white person) who want to play with us,and hold our hands, it's really the greatest thing ever.It's great that my school is so close to the homebase here because my students always come by to hang out..they are all such kind and interesting little people, and I'm so excited that I get to share this time with them. They've stolen my heart already.
My placement has been incredible but truly is testing my abilities. It's difficult to teach a class with students who are all at such different levels. When I teach a lesson some students catch onto things right away and others are so far behind in English that I have to start at the fundamentals. I have been trying to think creatively to make lesson plans that can be tailored to all the student's learning needs, but with the lack of resources it becomes difficult. I'm learning my way around here so I'm hoping to find a library or something that my students can get books from. It's extremely difficult for me to understand how these students can learn to the best of their ability when there is no literature for them to read or text books to take home.I'm trying my hardest to be a valuable resource for my students, and that is really all I can do.
One of my fellow volunteers Dan really put things into perspective for me. What he said was this...As westerners we come here and instantly want to change things. For instance looking at red dirt pot holed roads and automatically think why don't they get better roads here? But the reality is that the way things are here works perfectly well for the people. If they fixed the roads they would have better / faster cars, which would result in more accidents and all of the beautiful people carrying baskets on their heads would be non-existent. His point was this: our automatic assumption to change things to become more like home isn't necessarily the right way of doing things. We can't be so quick to judge that we know whats best when we don't understand that it's these tiny things that make up what makes this place so incredible. So i'm trying to remember this at my placement by accepting the way the school system works. Let's be honest, my time here is better spent trying to make the children happy and teach them things I know then trying to fight a system that I do not understand.
On another note,this past weekend I travelled to Cape Coast and visited the Atlantic ocean and the Slave castles. It was so great to get out of Hohoe for a little break and see some other territory in Ghana. Visiting the Elmina castle was an extremely emotional experience for me. Standing inside the rooms that so much brutality and suffering took place in was somewhat surreal and extremely hard to comprehend. It's interesting how a nation that underwent such brutality for hundreds of years contains some of the nicest people I've ever encountered...I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.
Everyday I'm inspired here by the smiles on every ones faces, joy seems to just beam out of people and nobody takes life too seriously. People are happy here..content, and I admire that.
Well I think it's safe to say that I have made it through the culture shock phase and am adapting to this new style of living. Ghana is incredible and I'm so happy.
-A.
I love it here. The people, CCS, my fellow volunteers, my students, everything.
I have found myself falling more and more in love with this place everyday. I've never felt so welcome into a community before. The people here are constantly welcoming us into their homes and are so happy that we are here. Walking into town is one of my favourite things. We are constantly swarmed with kids yelling 'Yevo, yevo'(white person) who want to play with us,and hold our hands, it's really the greatest thing ever.It's great that my school is so close to the homebase here because my students always come by to hang out..they are all such kind and interesting little people, and I'm so excited that I get to share this time with them. They've stolen my heart already.
My placement has been incredible but truly is testing my abilities. It's difficult to teach a class with students who are all at such different levels. When I teach a lesson some students catch onto things right away and others are so far behind in English that I have to start at the fundamentals. I have been trying to think creatively to make lesson plans that can be tailored to all the student's learning needs, but with the lack of resources it becomes difficult. I'm learning my way around here so I'm hoping to find a library or something that my students can get books from. It's extremely difficult for me to understand how these students can learn to the best of their ability when there is no literature for them to read or text books to take home.I'm trying my hardest to be a valuable resource for my students, and that is really all I can do.
One of my fellow volunteers Dan really put things into perspective for me. What he said was this...As westerners we come here and instantly want to change things. For instance looking at red dirt pot holed roads and automatically think why don't they get better roads here? But the reality is that the way things are here works perfectly well for the people. If they fixed the roads they would have better / faster cars, which would result in more accidents and all of the beautiful people carrying baskets on their heads would be non-existent. His point was this: our automatic assumption to change things to become more like home isn't necessarily the right way of doing things. We can't be so quick to judge that we know whats best when we don't understand that it's these tiny things that make up what makes this place so incredible. So i'm trying to remember this at my placement by accepting the way the school system works. Let's be honest, my time here is better spent trying to make the children happy and teach them things I know then trying to fight a system that I do not understand.
On another note,this past weekend I travelled to Cape Coast and visited the Atlantic ocean and the Slave castles. It was so great to get out of Hohoe for a little break and see some other territory in Ghana. Visiting the Elmina castle was an extremely emotional experience for me. Standing inside the rooms that so much brutality and suffering took place in was somewhat surreal and extremely hard to comprehend. It's interesting how a nation that underwent such brutality for hundreds of years contains some of the nicest people I've ever encountered...I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.
Everyday I'm inspired here by the smiles on every ones faces, joy seems to just beam out of people and nobody takes life too seriously. People are happy here..content, and I admire that.
Well I think it's safe to say that I have made it through the culture shock phase and am adapting to this new style of living. Ghana is incredible and I'm so happy.
-A.
1 comments:
Alissa! This sounds amazing! I'm really glad your're enjoying Ghana and it seems like you're learning a lot. It would be so cool if you taught your students how to read music; you could even write a song with them. You probably already are, but I'll remind you anyways: take a million bajillion pictures! I want to see everything =)
Post a Comment