Ghana Days 3 & 4

Day 3-

Roosters crowing before sunrise marked the beginning of my third day in Ghana. They served their purpose as we needed to be up early to see the monkeys of the village before they left for the day. We all congregated where the edge of the village met the forest, our guide called the monkeys with  what sounded like an exaggerated kissing/smooching sound. Soon the leaves above us began to rustle and we spotted the first of the monkeys darting around the branches above us. With each of us armed with a banana, we assumed the official monkey feeding stance.  For those of you curious about the official monkey feeding stance it goes like this: you stand with your feet firmly planted within jumping distance of a branch BUT you must make sure to stay out of their reaching distance to ensure maximum effectiveness. Then you extend your arm, with the base of the banana grasped firmly at the base.

If all goes as planned, the miniature poodle sized monkey will jump from their branch onto your arm and peel the banana while it it still in your hand. For my first attempt, I got a little too close to the tree. The monkey just threw out its upper body and grabbed onto the banana with its hands while its tiny feet clutched onto the branch. It stayed stretched between the tree and my arm until I decided to let go of the banana leaving the monkey to dangle around on the branch before it then scurried up to a higher branch to enjoy its loot. My second go around worked as planned, as the monkey leapt from the tree onto my arm and sat there patiently as it peeled the banana from the rind  and enjoyed.

After the monkeys were satiated, our guide lead us down the road to the elementary school of the village that was just getting started for the day. The kids were assembled  in rows in front of the school singing their national anthem when we arrived. Our guide had us split up into small groups and stand behind a class during the assembly. When I walked to to our class, a young kid named Francis turned around and whispered "you stand there" pointing towards the middle of the line and then pointed the two girls in my group to the front of the row. A small group of boys in the back of then began to play the drums in the back of the assembly. Immediately all of the students started marching in place, and after staring around blankly for a few moments Francis signaled to me that I should join in as well. We marched through tight laps in the field in front of the school before the student in front lead us into the classroom.

One of the first things I noticed walking in to the classroom was the student's textbooks. They all had a picture of Barack Obama eating shaved ice on the cover, I am sad to say I didn’t capture them on camera. We all went to the back of the classroom where we sat and waited for the teacher to come in. We waited and waited some more until one of the administrators came by and informed us that WE were the teachers for the day. It turns out that this school did not have enough teachers so they rotated them through classes periodically. We did the best we could, placing some math problems on the board to solve, some sentences for the students to read and the grand finale of singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in rounds. In the end, we led the students outside to play for the rest of our time there. I let one group of students loose with my camera while I followed Francis around the school yard.  Francis showed me around the school like a tiny 11 year old diplomat. He explained that the girls usually played a game akin to hop scotch while the boys competed by playing a game the opposite of limbo, trying to jump over a stick as it was held higher and higher each turn. Something that surprised me was the fact that kids got some of the most excitement when you just showed them a picture you had taken of them. As one of the other SAS kids remarked "It would be nice if Polaroid still made film".

Lunch time for the students meant bus time for us, we had to get on and trek back to Accra to end the tour.

Day 4 -

My last day in Ghana was for errands, skype, drinking coconuts, and recovering from the three day tour de force described earlier!