a classroom!

my very own classroom!
for the last year and a half, the school has been rebuilding the girls' dormitory. because of this, the girls have been staying in classrooms.
for the last year and a half, the school has been rebuilding two teachers' houses. because of this, teachers have been staying in classrooms.
so, obviously, there has been a shortage of classrooms, and as always, art was the first to be cut. i've been a mobile art teacher.
but on thursday, the girls moved into their fancy new home!
which means i can reclaim my room! however, the problem now will be tracking down the furniture that i believe once existed to fill the room. that might take a little bit of detective work. until then, the students might just sit on the floor.
yay!

catching the christmas spirit

once again, this year i'm having a hard time believing it is nearly christmas.

our average high temperature is 36 degrees celsius, so nearly 100 fahrenheit.

however, i am glad for the extreme dryness just now. harmattan is hot: during the day. but relief comes at night and in the early morning, and because of the total lack of humidity (in the north at least), if you are standing in the shade and get a good breeze, it can still be pleasant.

anyway.

i've started listening to christmas music. i love christmas. i love winter. but it just feels weird to hear "baby's it's cold outside" "or let it snow" play when i'm sweating profusely.

i had a fantastic moment of inspiration yesterday though. my jhs students have been working on calabash art, and i looked around my art closet and noticed a bag of baby gourds that have been there since forever.

and i realized, they will be PERFECT christmas ornaments! so today my jhs prep students scorched them. we kept it simple, just a ghana flag design on each one. but it's great: ghana's flag is red, gold, and green, with a black star in the center. JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS!

i think it's too late to get them to america in time for this year, but i'll see what i can do.

they don't decorate christmas trees here...

harmattan

it's that time of year again.

time when you can barely breathe for the smoke in the air, from the fields being burned. time when the dust whips and stings your skin. time when the scorching sun makes you wish you could actually melt.

but, just in case you were worried, i've already committed not to burn a single piece of anything this year. i refuse to relive that traumatic event of the past.

the and is duck?

ghanaian deaf children often have a very hard time learning english. this is because ghanaian sign language uses english words, but the sign language syntax. so the children struggle to use proper grammar. also, they never actually hear the words they use, so often their spelling is incorrect, since they can't just "sound it out." they have to memorize everything.

this often triggers a debate among teachers of the deaf here, whether it is actually best to be teaching the children in ghanaian sign language. most teachers at my school are certain that if we taught using signed english, the students would do better academically. i don't think that changing the language that the children communicate in will do much to help; i think rather that we just need to focus on english and grammar and emphasize to the children that these are two different languages. for instance: "i am going home" is signed "me go home."

that's a task that's easier said than done, i understand. especially when many teachers at the school don't know any sign, whether gsl or signed english.

anyway. all that to say, sometimes the things that the children write don't make sense in either language. in my jhs prep class the other day, written on the blackboard was, "the and is duck?"

it made me laugh.

hmm.

on second thought, maybe that man wasn't trying to be creepy at market when he touched my arm.

i think he thought he was helping, trying to brush off my freckles.