Coming to an Ending Where I Began: With John Denver

Annie's (Ghana's) Song
You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, 
[you've filled me] again.

The following stanzas are from a poem I wrote several years ago and they still ring true today after 15 years and 10 trips to this fascinating country:

Ghana eviscerates you,

and flays the senses

with its naked blade of openness and honesty.

What you see is what you get

and what you get

is always more than you bargained for.

Ghana does to the senses what the idea of an incarnate God does to the mind: blows them away and takes them in directions previously unimagined. Even after 15 years, every time I come, despite knowing better, I come with my own expectations, previous understandings, already drawn conclusions, and pompous presumptions.  It usually takes about a day, if not an hour, for those to evaporate in the face of the reality into which I have once again stepped. 

The radical extremes of this country never cease to shock and amaze.  Homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars sit one hundred yards from single-room houses made of sun-dried mud bricks with corrugated metal roofs and no running water or electricity. Brand new Mercedes, BMWs, Escalades, and Land Cruisers drive alongside two-wheeled pushcarts, donkey carts, and thirty-year old Toyota and Nissan taxis. Schools outfitted with new science and computer labs educate children from privileged families while children of the poor in the same city go to schools with no electricity, no technology, no running water and sit in open-air classrooms with teachers who struggle to do good work in miserable conditions and children learn to write by using old-fashioned slates and chalk.

Double-edged razor blades are

the kindergartener’s preferred pencil sharpener

and long-bladed machetes are

more common in the hands of nine-year olds

than TV remotes or Gameboy joysticks;

and more useful, too.

But what is both fascinating and frustrating is that the Ghana I left three years ago is the Ghana to which I have returned.  

 

Nothing has changed; 

and yet for me everything seems somehow different.

The children of the well-off are able to be educated in private elementary and junior secondary schools which prepare them to do well on Ghana's ninth grade exit exam. This exam, taken by all ninth graders across the country during the same week in April, is the sole qualifier for application to and acceptance by the better high schools across the country which, while "public" in the sense that they are open to all who have good scores, are actually private and charge fees for tuition, books, uniforms, and room-and-board as most are residential by intent and design. The older and better the school, the higher the fees and the more competitive the acceptance process.

Wesley Girls Senior High in Cape Coast (one of the best girls high schools in the country) had something like 4000 applications last fall for 500 openings.


The children of families with limited incomes are unable to attend the better private elementary and junior high schools and so must rely on the public schools in their area which can typically have between 30 and 50 students per classroom. For example, while the official class limits may be 30 for Kindergarten and 35 for First Grade, if there is only one teacher for a grade then whoever comes comes.  Moreover, in Ghana a child must begin school at the Kindergarten level regardless of how old the child is when he or she begins school; which means that in rural areas there may be 8, 9, and even 10-year olds in Kindergarten classses.

A further dilemma for limited income families is that even attending the public vocational/technical schools requires payment of fees for tuition, books, uniforms, examinations, etc.  Therefore, many qualified 9th grade completers are unable to attend high school because their families lack the funds to make this possible. One of the former students of Tuwohofo-Holly School who completed ninth grade successfully a year ago has been living at home doing odd jobs around the village all year because there is no money available to pay for his schooling. 

On a personal level, I have felt very comfortable in the variety of formal and informal settings I've found myself in this trip. I enjoyed renewing old relationships and it was an honor to meet and talk with several educational, business and community leaders in different parts of Central Region.

However, I've also been more aware of how separate I am linguistically, culturally, and socially. Obviously, I am the "odd man out" wherever I have gone these past two weeks; but my inability to speak and understand Fante/Twi has been the greatest frustration for me as Takyi and I have traveled around the Central Region.

In previous years, when leading groups of students and teachers, knowledge of Fante/Twi always fell into the Nice to Do category in this "English is the Official Language" country. However, this trip on my own has clearly shown the need for language facility to move up the the Desirable level if not the Essential. Were this the beginning of my Ghana experiences rather than their conclusion, I would not return without a conversational knowledge of Fante/Twi.

As Thomas Baidoo attempted to teach us back in 2011:

Midzi banku  -  I eat banku  
Idzi banku  -  You eat banku 
Odzi banku  -  She eats banku  
Yedzi banku - All of us eat banku 

GOOD  EATS!