Reading for the Future

Reading for the Future
For a long time, I have been thinking about how to help the kids in my
community learn English better since not only is it the national
language of Ghana, but to advance in their education, it was
essential.  I had heard about an organization that donated 20Lbs of
books to Peace Corps volunteers around the world called Darien Book
Aid (http://www.darienbookaid.org/). You can request any kind of books
that you would like, from text books to story books.
Once I knew that there was an organization that donated any type of
books, I thought about what my community needed and came up with the
perfect idea: A reading club! Now that I had an idea, I talked it over
with my counterpart and the English teacher at my local Junior High
School to make sure that it would be a good match for my village. They
both agreed and said it was an excellent idea, and that both the
Primary school kids and the JHS students would benefit from it.
So I set forth on this idea, and started to plan out the logistics of
it: Who would run it? Would it be sustainable? Would the kids enjoy it
and learn something? This is how the plan looked, I would have the JHS
teachers pick two kids that needed help speaking English or with
public speaking to come and read story books to the Primary school
once a month. I had wanted books that would be easy to read and
understand, so I choose to have story books donated by Darien Book
Aid. Not only would this benefit the JHS students reading English, but
it would help the Primary school students hear English better and more
often. There are not many people in my village that speak English, so
they are not exposed to as often as they should be.
At the first meeting, I choose the two books to be read; one was about
dolphins and had great pictures, the other was a Dr. Seuss book, Cat
in the Hat. The JHS students did an amazing job, and there were around
30 primary school kids to hear the stories. There was also a large
crowd of adults that came to hear the stories as well. We meet at the
Primary school and choose to read the books under a large mango tree,
with the readers sitting in chairs so that everyone could see the
pictures.
To make sure that this is a sustainable project, I am having the
English teacher run the club and keep all the books. There were a few
short novels in the box donated as well, and he had the excellent idea
to loan them out to excellent students, so that they had a fiction
novel to read as a treat. They are also to write down all words they
don’t know and look them up in a dictionary I gave to the English
teacher. I could not be more pleased with how the project/club is
going; I hope that it continues on getting stronger and preparing more
kids for the chance to further their education and self confidence.

A Word on Packages

It has come to my attention that many of you do not know how to send a package to Africa....and with good reason, cause how often do you get the chance to send of....bucket list item for anyone? cause i can help with that...But back to my point, here is a tip that will save you money: a padded envelope is a cheaper and easier to send for everyone. We in Ghana have to pay for the WONDERFUL packages you all send us, but  padded envelope is free for us...Joy!!! Also, make sure to put AIRMAIL or better yet, put Donations on the box/envelope cause than they think its nothing important in there...
There are no words to describe the joy of a peace corps volunteer when they receive  a package from home, as well as those around him, because if i have learned on thing, its that volunteers took the lessons from kindergarten to heart about sharing. SO please don't forget about us, and  now that you no longer have the excuse of  "its too expensive", Send away...and wait to hear the praise from all of us over here in Africa.

Tess May PCV
Peace Corps Ghana
PO box 5796
Accra-North
West Africa

P.S Items that are hard to come by here that I am in desperate need of....*hint hint*
Earphones, Backpack-used is fine...don't need to spend money on me, Memory card for my camera, Hard backed journal, BRAS-you would think in a country where the women have Large breasts, they would have large sized bras....you would think wrong, Exercise bands-gotta keep all these carbs off my body...

The Black Stone Story...

A true story told to me by a woman in my village.

 It is common knowledge that most Africans fear and hate snakes, for example,  I was traveling back to my village in a taxi, when I spotted a snake on the road,  I was super excited about it and told everyone  in the car about the snake; my mistake. The taxi driver stops his car, throws it in reverse and runs over the snake, all the while I am screaming at him in both English and Ewe to stop, to please not do this. He picks the dead snake up carefully and puts it in his trunk so that tomorrow he can sell it to the juju man.

My village knows that I like and respect snakes, so they sometimes makes fun of me, which I don’t mind at all since it is just another opportunity to educate them about the benefits of snakes and why we should not kill each one that we encounter . About a month ago, I noticed one of the primary school teachers was not showing up for class, and I started to ask around where she was. I was then told that she had been bitten by a snake and was recovering with the black rock.  I was uncertain if I had heard that right, black rock? What in the world could that mean?

I decided to take matters into my own hands to go and visit her and ask her about what had happened. This is what she told me “I was going to farm early morning, and started to get to work before the heat of the day came. I was pulling weeds around my maize (corn), when I bent down, I felt a sharp pain on my lower arm, and I looked down and saw two holes. I knew that a snake had come and bitten me. I than dropped what I was doing and ran to the medicine man. He looked at the wound and said that it was a poisonous (venomous is the correct term) and I would have to try the black rock”. I stopped her there and asked more about this black rock. She said that the medicine man gets it from a special place and it takes the poisons from your body. You must place it on your body, where it sticks till it has taken out all the poisons, than drops off. You than take the rock and put it in milk for 24 hours; I was unable to find out why, but it seems to help heal your body completely.  After the milk bath, she said you take the rock and bury far from your house, to keep the poisons away. That is the story of the black stone.

After hearing this, I had no idea what to make of it, did this work? Where did this magical black rock come from? How had they come to this discovery? Sorry to say, I was not able to talk to the traditional medicine man before leaving again, but I will talk with him when I get back to my village. After recounting this story to a fellow PCV, they said it sounded a lot like a leach….and then it donned on me that, that did sound plausible. I hope to soon bring this black rock tale to completion with a talk to the medicine man and a viewing of the black rock its self.