"I promise on my honour to be faithful and loyal to Ghana my Motherland.I pledge myself to the service of Ghana, with all my strength and with all my heart. I promise to hold in high esteem our heritage, won for us through the blood and toil of our fathers; and I pledge myself in all things to uphold and defend the good name of Ghana. So help me God."

This is the Ghanaian Pledge of Allegiance. I hear it every morning said loud and clear by 64 boys and girls. Every morning before school there is an assembly. In this assembly the boys and girls say their pledge, sing the national anthem, and say a prayer before entering school. They stand in line at attention which means hands to their side or behind their backs. This is the way it is here for all government schools. I do not know if I have mentioned it before but also for any government school all children must keep their hair scalp short. Just in case you were wondering in the pictures why the girls have short hair as well. Also the girls are not allowed to wear make-up or nail polish. This is to prevent the age old problem of vanity in young teenage girls.

Start of school was on Monday but my first day with my pre- schoolers was today. I had my 4 year olds from 8:00-11:00 and my 3 year olds from 12:00-2:00. I have only taught VBS before to children and with that it is quite easy, they tell you day to day what to teach and you do. Here though, they give me what to teach but it is just an outline. I freaked out the other day because I realized that what I teach these kids is what they will know. I have not been trained to teach a kid that a circle is a circle or that “A” is a letter and “1” is a number. To me that is just what they are, I look at it and distinctively that is what it is to me. However some of these children do not know the difference between a number and a letter or a circle and a square. So, I’m at a loss of what to do. Please I know I have a zillion teachers out there reading this… HELP! I have people here of course that are helping me know what to do but they are busy in their own classrooms.

My 4s were excellent today! They did better walking in a line than the kindergarteners did. I was proud of them. They also obeyed pretty well. I had few problems but after a few minutes with their hands above their heads in time out they learned fast. I am very good at teaching sit, stand, get in a line, be quiet, things like that. Thinking about it, maybe I should be a dog trainer, not a bad idea. I try to give stickers for good behavior but it is so humid here that the stickers do not stick to anything! Even scotch tape has a problem sticking if it has been out for a while. Everything here mildews. Book, magazines, papers, pictures, everything. Its rather gross.

When my 3s should up at 12:00 they were so cute and excited about school. Even though the school is only a hundred yards (if that) from their houses they have never been able to even walk on the side walk of the school. That is to completely distinguish school from everything else. They stood in line in front of the classroom like they were entering a chocolate factory. Then walking through the room you would have thought it was made of gold. Their eyes sparkled and glittered. Francy, who was in the front of the line stopped abruptly by the book case which made everyone not looking forward jam into the person in front of them. They all got into trouble today though when they came back from the restroom (they say “urinating”) and decided to run around the room like wild children. They all got three minutes of time out, which here means standing with your hands over your head and if you still do not obey they have to sit straight up on their knees with their hands over their heads. They were all looking up at me with these big dark eyes and their hands over their heads, I thought I was at a shooting range. I had to leave the room because I was laughing, not letting them see of course. They thought I was going to get Madam Cathy, and since the rumors flew about Kwaku Isaac’s spanking yesterday, no one wants to see Madam Cathy! (I will talk about that spanking later.)

I let the 4s play for a few minutes today and most of the girls of course got dolls to play with. Like any other girl on the universe. What was different about these girls is that they all grabbed a long, wide scarf from the dress up chest and used it to tie the babies on their backs. At first I did not know what they were doing. There were about four girls all leaning over with these baby dolls on their backs and using these cloths for something. Finally I figured it out and laughed so hard. Then they all wanted me to help them put the babies on their backs. I had no idea how to tie a baby on a back! But it was pretend so I acted like a did and they seemed to go with it. At least the baby did not fall off. I got some pictures of that so I will share them with you later.

So back to Kwaku Isaac’s spanking. Kwaku Isaac is new to Rafiki. He came right before Christmas holiday. He is five years old and had never been to school or church or anything that required him to sit still. I do not know the entire back story of him but he was raised by an American couple living in Ghana and when they left they also left him hence him coming to Rafiki. I have never in my life seen a child like this before. He is off the wall insane. He can not sit still for more than 30 seconds. The people he was living with did not care to teach him his ABCs or numbers or anything. Because of this I thought he was going to be put into my room and I did not know what to do about that idea. I was helping Madam Ann in her kindergarten room yesterday mainly working with Kwaku Isaac, helping him to sit still, do his work, things like that. Well, he decided he did not want to do that so he threw and tantrum and in the middle of it he spit in my face. I did not ask Madam Ann what to do, I did not say anything because if I would have I would have ended up slapping the child across the face. I got his arm and nearly drug him to Madam Cathy’s office where he got spanked. The Ghanaian term for spanking is “beating” so when I took him Cathy told him he was going to get a beating. Kwaku Isaac was very good from then on. Later that day we were all talking about everything and Cathy turned to me and said “This is something to blog about. Tell everyone that because of you a child got beat.” We all laughed but I did not feel bad at all, because he spit in my face!

Tonight at dinner I was a bit disturbed by a few things. When I sat at the table before Mama Agnes served me she asked me “Aunty Sarah, do you eat fish?” “Yes,” I replied. Then she continued to serve me the stew. The reason I was disturbed is because at every meal I have eaten here there has been fish, or so I thought. So, if tonight was the first time I’ve actually had fish we have a problem because I thought I had been eating fish two times a day for two and a half weeks. If you remember a few blogs back I talked about eating gari, the malt-o- mealy stuff. I learned tonight that they also use it in stews to thicken them up, like corn starch or something. It comes dry and looks like orange parmesan cheese and they sprinkle it on top and then mix it in. However, I think tonight they sprinkled a bit too much. The stew was so slimy and slippery it was hard to keep on the spoon. Also we were eating ken ka with it and it made the ken ka so slippery I could barely hold it in my fingers. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Women when the snail goes flying during dinner. Everything just kept sliding off. Thinking about it now, after I’ve eaten it, makes me laugh.

Well, I will leave you now. I must so exercise away my slime.

Always and forever.

Sarah

Prayer Request:
- For Kwaku Isaac that he will learn to sit and be still. And for his teacher, Madam Ann, as she has to work with him.
- For my class that I can teach them well and they will be good for their next teacher.
- We have a mini missionary coming on Sunday. Her name is Susanne. I’m really excited to have company in the house with me. Pray that she gets here safely.