Greetings from the art room of Auntie Asa.  That's how the students address me.  I am including a photo that is intentionally blurry due to my FERPA obligations.  This is a typical after-school day.  If I stay late, students will come into my room.  In fact, they are often there immediately after classes are dismissed.  I  have told students that they can only stay in my room if they work on class projects.  I would allow them to do otherwise, but I simply can't afford to lose the resources they suck up doing fun extra projects.  Even so, students LOVE to do art work!  They will spend a lot of time working to perfect their class work.

I even had a breakthrough moment this morning.  One of my eighth grade students came into class before school to work on a project that he has been intentionally bad mouthing and showing disinterest at during class.  It turns out, he is quite talented, but just has a real low self confidence level.  He was so concerned about what I thought about his work, that he would check in with me every 5 minutes and ask if I liked it.  I finally asked him if he liked it.  Did he think it was his best work?  What did he think he could do to improve it? .......long pause.......and he quietly went back to his table and worked uninterrupted silently for the next 30 minutes.  Not sure how to interpret that, but something shifted in his attitude.  It was palpable.  This is the adventure in teaching.

Some people have been asking about the mechanics of living here.  What do I eat?  How do I exist?  Well, I live with a host family in a town that is about a 15 minute tro-tro ride away.  Tro-tros are old beat up passenger vans that cart people from place to place.  There are busses, but they do not come by frequently.  There is no such thing as a tro-tro stop or a bus stop.  If you want one, you simply hail one from the side of the road by waiving.  They will slow down enough for you to yell out your destination, if they have room, and will stop if they are going in the same direction.

My house is posh by Ghanaian standards.  I have electricity, running water (which is collected from the rain gutters and stored in polytanks and transferred into the well), and a room to myself with a ceiling fan.  The problem is that the electricity is out so frequently that I cannot often charge my laptop.  This also means that internet is out of the question...the nearby internet cafes will also not have power.  I have to do all of my own laundry by hand.  This can be tedious because of my schedule.  I understand now why getting up with the sun is so important.  There are so often no lights at night.

As for food, I eat just about anything now.  My stomach is accustomed to the bacteria in the food here and I no longer get diarrhea.  My favorite local food are the morning porridge called koko.  Koko is a combo of grains (rice and wheat) with peanut butter, medicinal herbs like moringa, and spices to taste.  Each batch of koko is different.  Fufu (a mashed cassava and plantain) dough that is made into one large dumpling is also interesting and is served in a variety of sauces and stews eaten communally and with the fingers.  Jollof rice is very nice as well.  Waiche (spelling?) is also a favorite which is beans and rice with fried plaintain...a varitey of this is also Redred which has more of a gravy to the beans.  Kenkey is much akin to polenta and is used, like yams, as a dipping tool to scoop up sauces.  There is much much more.  I love having the plethora of tropical fruits at hand.  Currently in season are papayas, pineapple, plantains, bananas, passion fruit and watermelon.  Mangoes are just coming on.  I also love eating cocoa plucked from the tree, the pods dried in the sun and crushed to make cocoa in the kitchen.  Wow!

That's about all for now, I hope I didn't leave you with a cocoa desire.  Ironically, chocolate is pretty hard to come by here.  But, if I did, go get your fix with a nice Chocolove bar and think of me.  Until next time....

Be well!