I don't like making titles...

Well, it's been too long since I last updated!

School has started! It's going well so far but it's A LOT of work. I'm currently teaching 5 classes: Algebra I, Algebra II, Chemistry, Trigonometry, and Physical Science. I'm also helping out with 6th grade math. I started out with teaching another class as well, Physics, but (thankfully!) the student ended up not needing it and so dropped the class. Sixth grade math might end up being another class for me though, instead of just a class with which I'm helping. It's the biggest grade in the school at 15 kids. The class might end up being split into two with me taking one half and the other teacher, Barbara, taking the other. It would be better for the students that way but so much more work for me since I already have 5! Even with very small class sizes (my two biggest are Physical Science and Algebra I with 3 students each) the planning load is the same. The students are great though, and I don't anticipate any problems. The biggest challenge, beyond planning, will be teaching to the different ability levels. In this case, having a very small class is almost harder because for example, in Algebra I, I have one student who is so far behind and should be re-taking 8th grade math, another student who is right where he should be, and the third student is 2 chapters ahead. How do you teach to that?! Hopefully, I'll figure it out :-)

One day this past week was a teacher-in-service day to organize our classrooms. Meg and Amanda (two roommates) decided it would be fun to do a wacky dress up day! See above picture :-)

Also, this week I had my first cockroach in my bedroom. It was huge and scared the heck out of me! I screamed and scared the rest of the girls. Amanda killed it for me :-) See picture!

We also got a puppy. Well, it's Jules' (another roommate). The puppy's name is Roxy, she's about 3 months old, and she's a German Shepard. She's cute but Jules went to the store a little bit ago and isn't back yet so Roxy is outside crying to come in. If any of you know me at all: I'm so not a dog person :-) See picture, though!

Well, those are the highlights, I think. I've been missing home a lot, especially since football season has started. I know it sounds silly, but that's what you DO in Columbus during the fall :-) So, I've started thinking about why I'm here in Ghana and I haven't quite figured it out yet, or at least God hasn't made it super clear to me yet. I'm starting to think that maybe my purpose here is more to help the school be more organized and to help with curriculum writing and things like that. I'm not sure but I keep praying that God will tell me what to do and why I'm here! During my Beth Moore Bible study this morning, I read part of the story of Abraham where God tells him to "Go from your country, your people, and your father's household..." That's what God has told all of us here in Ghana to do! We all left our country (literally for most of us) and our homes. And Beth makes the point that how "God hones us is rarely within the parameters of the familiar" and Ghana is definitely the unfamiliar. Please keep praying for me and the work being done in Africa!

Missing you all!
E

New Home

Okay well this is going to be a short post but I thought I'd get something up here. (Even if you are the only ones reading Gma and Gpa :-D )

I've gotten all moved into my new room and it's great! The Palace, as the house where I'm living is affectionately called, is huge and pretty nice. The worst part are the ants in the kitchen and I don't think our dryer works. Other than that, things are good! It's great having my own bathroom connected to my room. The house is also super close to the school - about a 5 minute walk. Then, in the other direction, there is a small "mall" about a 10 minute walk away.

We started teacher orientation yesterday and it was a short meeting in the morning and then we were able to work in our rooms for the rest of the day. My room is a corner room about 10ft x 12ft - TINY. It's so small with no whiteboard to write on or bulletin board to post things - great. I understand that my classes will probably be the smallest in the school but I still need materials to work with - frustrating. And windows are awesome but there are so many that there is hardly any wall space to put up a bulletin board or whiteboard. I'm not sure what's going to happen yet so we'll see.

All right, well right now I'm with all the other young teachers so I'd better go be social :-)

A little vacation

It's been an exhausting three days! Liz, Emily, Jonathan and I just got back from our trip to Elmina and Cape Coast.

Day 1 - Wednesday:

Up at 7 to be ready for William to pick me up to head to the bus station at 8am. 8:45am William shows up with Liz, Emily and Jonathan. It's then I'm reminded of "Ghana time." Yes, in Ghana there is a whole new clock by which the country runs and that's: no clock. Haha. It's not too bad except when it causes you to miss your bus. Oh well! We ended up getting a later bus to Takoradi, which cost a bit more but would drop us off where we wanted to be: Cape Coast. The bus was actually pretty nice with air conditioning and everything! After a quick two hour ride we arrived! After bartering with a taxi driver, we hopped in and we were off to our second destination of the day: Elmina. Once in Elmina we went to St. George's Castle (I think is what it's officially called). The castle was built by the Portuguese (if I remember correctly) in the 1400's. They initially settled in Elmina to trade with the Ghanaian's. Back then, the coast was known as the Gold Coast because of all the gold...obviously. Then they started enslaving the Ghanaian and other African people and the castle became a holding place for them until ships arrived to take them away. In the 1600 or 1700's (I forget) the Dutch took over the castle and continued the slave trade until the British took over in the 1700 or 1800's. (My memory for details is astounding!) Anyway, it's a pretty grim history but the city of Elmina now is amazing. After the castle, we had lunch at a little place nearby. I had Red-Red, which is fried plantain and beans - so yummy! We were then off to find another taxi to take us back to Cape Coast to Hans Cottage to stay for the night. We were fortunate enough to get a room with 4 beds, even if it was communal bathroom. Oh and it was only GC5.40 each (i.e. $5.40)!!! The big draw of this botel is their lake with crocodiles. We only saw one but there were a ton of birds! Before dinner, we were playing ping pong when a Ghanaian girl with her friends walked up and asked if they could join. We of course said yes and I ended up playing her first. Well, what she didn't say is that she was on a champion ping pong team and was a fierce player! I beat her though :-) Her and her friends even taught us some Twi, the local language. In addition to already knowing how to ask, "how are you" and how to respond, I can now say please and thank you! So fun!!!

Day 2 - Thursday:

We got up early and hopped into a taxi that we had arranged the previous day to meet us at our botel. Off to Kakum National Park we went! Once there, we bought our tickets for the canopy walk. This is a walkway with seven different suspension bridge walkways throughout the canopy of the rainforest - 30-40 meters above the ground! Emily is afraid of heights so it was hard for her...but she made it! It was aaaaaamazing. We didn't see any wildlife but we had a great time on the wobbly bridges, haha. After Kakum, it was back to Cape Coast to see the Cape Coast Castle. This one has a similar story to the Elmina castle but is much younger - built in the 1600's by the British. After the castle was a loooooong lunch at the Cape Coast Castle restaurant. Remember "Ghana Time?" We waited probably almost an hour for our food. At least it was good food! Then for dessert was my first experience with Fan Choco! It's basically frozen chocolate milk and it's sooooo good. After our long lunch we went in search of a place to stay for the night. Finally we reach the Somma (I think?) Guest House after following far too many wrong directions from the local people, haha. It's about the same price as Hans Cottage but not quite as nice. When we had secured our rooms for the night we went back out to the Oasis Resort to see the beach! At the beach we played with some of the local kids for a little while who were so funny. After taking some pictures on the rocks by the water, we headed back to the resort for some dinner and card games.

Day 3 - Friday:

Not too much happened. We ate lunch at our hotel at their rooftop restaurant. It's not as glamorous as it sounds but the food was yummy. It rained a bit but we didn't melt as we hailed a taxi to take us back to the bus station to head home to Accra.

Whew, I'm tired.

Just a quick note...

Hello!

It's been a few days since the last update because I haven't been able to get the page to load. Of course now, when I'm waiting to be picked up to leave, it works. Oh well, I'll do what I can with the short time.

Sooo...I had soooo much fun at dinner Sunday night! See picture. Jonathan was there with his two friends Vanessa and Chris (who are great!) and then I went with Amy, Jonathan, Jon, Liz, and Emily. (Yes, too many Jonathan's!) It was awesome to just be able to sit down and talk to Jonathan (A) and hear his stories about Ghana. It was a beautiful night, too. It was almost chilly with the breeze but was so nice. There was even a Ghanaian band playing music and we all got up and danced for one song!


Two days ago, Amy and I went to the market, which was an experience. A lot of the stalls had fish...but not normal fish. All of the fish they had, had this silvery sheen to them. I can't even describe it. And the smell...gha! It was really gross but apparently Ghanaian's really love it. I bought some fabric, too that I took yesterday to a seamstress to get made into a shirt/skirt combo. I'm not sure what it's going to look like so it'll be a surprise, haha.

Today I'm leaving with the three other new teachers and heading to Cape Coast and Kakum National Park. Liz is the one that knows what we're doing and on which days but as far as I can tell, there are some castles, forts, and fish markets to see as well as a canopy walk through the rainforest! We're basically just going to go down to Cape Coast and bum around for a few days and probably stay in a little hotel that Jon recommended. We'll also head to the next town over, Elmina, where there's a really good castle to see. Pray that I don't get car sick on the way down there!

Anyway, that's an update for now. I'll be sure and post another with pictures when I get back from our trip! "See" you in a few days!

First day out and about

Where to begin? Well, Liz, Amy and I decided to go to the mall (yes, there is a mall). It was pretty nice but it being Saturday there were TONS of people and the traffic was unbelievable. You think the 270/23 interchange in Columbus is bad...trying to leave the mall was way worse. First, there aren't many traffic laws to speak of in Ghana. There are really no lanes painted on the ground and even if there were I'm sure people would pay no attention to them. Ever seen that YouTube video of people driving in India? It's kind-of like that. Never will I drive in Ghana. So when we were leaving the mall, I was in my first Ghanaian (Guh-nay-an) car accident! It wasn't bad but William, our driver, was pretty peeved about it and got out of the car and started yelling at the drive of the other. That's kind-of how they handle these things here, hah. Long story short and a few police stations later, things turned out fine.

Liz and I got phones, too! They don't work yet, haha. We'll figure it out tomorrow. We also had our first oranges today! See above right picture... Here, they take most of the skin off somehow and then just cut the top off and you sqeeze and drink the juice. Yummy.

Tomorrow we're all going to an orphange where one of the couples preaches once a month. I think we also hang out with the kids some and make bracelets. I'm not sure yet but it should be fun :-) Then we're going to dinner at a hotel with Jon and his friends! Should be a fun Sunday!