Adventures in Ghana: “An unusual Monday you say…Why?” “Demonstrating how to put on a condom in a Muslim school was not on the cards at the start of the day…”

On Friday I was told by a Head Teacher of a local Muslim JHS school who owns the local spot that a letter had been sent by GES regarding the school projects for the municipal science clinic, the winners of which would be taken to the Regional Science Fair. A meeting Madame Vero and I had held at the Regional Office surrounding the clinic and the Regional Fair had instigated the letter so I was fully aware of it. The Head Teacher is a persuasive lady and she is a friend so I didn’t really want to say no. She insisted I came to her school the following Monday to help the Science Teacher set up the projects. Not very capacity building when I have to work over the weekend to deliver something for her to watch rather than plan it together but hey ho. I had also planned to see the English teacher at her school to start a letter exchange between English and Ghanaian children. I had received 31 letters from Year 5/6 at Over Primary School which were kindly sent to me by their teacher, the nephew of a teacher friend of mine. I wanted to arrange a couple of lessons to write letters back, take photos and send them back to the UK.

I arrived at 7.45am. Unfortunately only one other teacher was in and it wasn’t the Science mistress, nor was the Head Teacher, so I just got straight on with the lesson after the pupil led assembly (can you imagine pupils in the UK holding their own assembly without teachers present!!) and started teaching. It was a long session but I enjoyed it and I think they did too, getting them to think about what kind of learner they were – visual, auditory or kinaesthetic as opposed to slow, average and fast - was interesting and a great start; it enabled me to set up some really mixed groups for the project without really knowing the children that well.

I was told that I could meet with the English teacher 40 mins after the lesson ended when the next class finished, so I hung around. Nearly one hour later and I still hadn’t been seen, so I went to see what was going on. Form 1 and 2, a mix of boys and girls, had been combined and they were listening to a talk by a nurse on personal hygiene. Cotton knickers were strongly recommended due to the heat and ‘lack of free flow of air in that area’. Blades were not recommended for shaving the female pubic area (which is an expectation here) and are usually used to cut hair, instead the disposable shaving stick was suggested, much safer and ‘avoids any accidental cutting of the vulva’ (crossing your legs yet ladies?) The nurse left but the Science mistress who had arrived 40 mins after the start of the science lesson earlier that morning, decided to continue with this little discussion; presumably as she had the captive audience of all form 1 and 2. I decided to stay and bounced another teachers 3 month old baby the actual size of a nine month old on my hip whilst listening to words of contraceptive injections (very progressive for Ghana I thought) and boys deceiving girls by putting holes in condoms. The STI conversation came up at which point I had to interject as HIV/AIDS had been totally circumvented. The teacher then asked the question ‘has anyone ever tried to put on a condom?’ Now, I’m no expert in African culture but I know teenagers and if you ask me, kids are kids are kids wherever in the world you go. My feeling is, a teacher asking that question of a mixed sex bunch of teenagers ANYWHERE in the world would get pretty much the same answer she got. Utter and complete silence. I wondered if she was born an adult and never experienced those god awful questions you get as a teenager….I reminded her of the condoms in the Science Resource Box and suggested a demo. This was only because she had started to explain the process of how to put one on which seemed pretty pointless without the visual. She went searching for the condom... I went searching for a banana. Which brings about the African phenomenon which is similar to the English bus phenomenon… you know the one; when you need a bus they are never there and when you don’t, 3 turn up at once. The African equivalent is all about women sellers who carry everything on their heads, they come to the office, they walk around town, they even walk down your street. They sell everything. Sitting on the roof on any one day you could potentially get all your daily needs via these women who sell all manner of goods from big bowls perched on their heads… that’s assuming you are not aching for one particular thing; as sure as eggs are eggs that woman would not walk by. Then next day, when you don’t need the item, you will of course see 3 women walking down the street together selling the exact same thing. Like buses they are. I couldn’t find a banana. Someone did however find an enormous chalk board compass instead… the most phallic object that could be found in the school… which of course it wasn’t…and then of course I got asked to do the demonstration. It’s been a while but I managed it… contrary to earlier Ghanaian experiences, this was more like putting a black man’s condom on a white man’s penis…

Morning break and Muslim prayers happened and I still hadn’t seen the English teacher for the meeting. That came 3 hours after I was originally told I should meet him. There is no evidence of my demonstration but please see below pictures of form 1 writing to their pen pals. The fact the English teacher at this school is just a pupil teacher and barely through the other side of puberty himself meant I had something to offer this class, which as most of you know is a huge accomplishment. English is definitely not my strong point… and as for spelling… well…

Primary students who wanted their pictures snapped just as I was snapping JHS 1 students for their letters to the UK

JHS 1 classroom

more primary children wanting their picture snapped!

the 3 month old child who is the size of a nine month old... told you.

Drafting a reply

This is the total sum of music at this JHS school. Flies in the face of orchestras, flutes and so on that needed to be explained in the letters from the UK. KFC, hedgehogs scootering were also completely unknown to these students and I'm not sure the chalk picture and accompanying theatrical demonstration helped with that understanding of exactly what a scooter was...