Practicum Weeks

Koforidua School for the Deaf

For Practicum weeks, we began teaching at our local schools.  The Deaf Art volunteers taught at the Koforidua School for the Deaf, which is located about an hour or more away from our village.  To ease our travel, the Peace Corps set us up in a hotel in Koforidua that had running water, including a toilet and a shower!  There was also a soda case that sold Fanta and a restaurant in our hotel that served French Fries, but I will get to that later…

The first week at the Deaf School could have gone better.  I got sick minutes before leaving.  On the first day, I felt like I wanted to die and ended up lying down on some benches all day.  I had no appetite and did not eat anything.  I was really upset that I didn’t get to teach but I knew I would have passed out if I tried.  The second day was a little better so I got to teach two classes.  Still no food though.  On my third day, I taught one class and then started to feel like crap again.  On the fourth day, which also happened to be my 23^rd birthday, I was getting so tired of being ill and not eating that I called the Medical Office and they decided to cart me 2 hours south to Accra for monitoring. 

After 9 days...

When I got to Accra, they took some blood, and conveniently bent my elbow while the needle was in my arm.  Here is the 9-day bruise to prove it.

I finally felt like eating so I asked one of the PC workers to get me pizza (since it was my birthday after all).  About an hour later, it arrived and I started to devour it!  The pizza had so much on it that I usually don’t eat but you’d be surprised what you will eat when you are starving.  “Chicken,” fish, mushrooms, green peppers, “cheese,” and some spicy sauce.  I was just so happy to have semi-American food again! 

Later that night, I learned another volunteer had arrived in Accra with similar symptoms as I.  I was thinking I had Malaria since I had a constant fever and was generally miserable.  My doctor diagnosed it as Heat Exhaustion.  Right. 

The following day, I met an older Volunteer couple that was visiting for they yearly medical checkup and they took us into Accra for breakfast and to show us around.  We went to this amazing Bistro place located around the Embassies, so it is very sophisticated.  Their menu was awesome and I ended up getting a Panini and French fries.

They walked us into the town a bit to show us the main market store that had everything you could imagine.  After the market, we separated and the other sick volunteer and I had to navigate back to the main office.  I will say I was impressed we made it back considering the condition we were in. 

The doctors kept us in Accra for another night and on Saturday we drove back to Kukuramtumi for our weekly training session.  The rest of the weekend was filled with laundry and trying to make myself eat.

Basic 1 and 2 work

The second week at Practicum was an amazing experience.  I was scheduled to teach Basic 1 and 2 classes, which are just like 1^st and 2^nd grade.  This week did confirm that I am not an elementary teacher but the deaf students were amazing to interact with!  We were gradually building our vocabulary so we could teach during our classes and I though it was really neat to be relying on signs to communicate.   Sure, it is really frustrating when you are used to teaching a certain way and you cannot even come close with a limited vocabulary, but I think I was able to get the point across most of the time. 

Basic 1 and 2 work

My biggest challenges during this week were bringing my lessons down to the Basic 1 and 2 level.  I have really only taught middle and high school art so this was a learning experience for me. 

During this week, I started to design and batik a few yards of fabric.  This process is awesome; you draw with wax onto some cloth and dye the whole thing a color.  The wax prevents the dye from penetrating the cloth underneath.  You continue this process with many colors and by the end you can have a really neat piece of art.  This is mine.

At night, we would return to the hotel and have language sessions.  I went to the restaurant and ate The French fries.  I think I ate so much that my body didn’t know what to do with them so I got sick.  Oh well, it was worth it!

At some point in the week, a few of the junior high girls decided I was handsome and I unofficially “wed” some of them.  This is totally normal here for people to ask to marry you so you just play along and it’s actually pretty funny.  I just started calling some of them Wife and they though it was hilarious!  But really, by the end of the week, I was starting to have personal conversations with the older students and that was the highlight for me.  They really enjoy when someone else knows Sign because they obviously have a limited amount of people they and communicate with in their lives. 

I will really miss working with the students, but now we are going to focus on building our languages and visiting our sites to find out more about what it’s like to be a teacher.  I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks!