My students asked about my eyeglasses, the purpose of which eluded them. When I showed them a book of New York photographs, they had trouble understanding that people lived on each floor of the tall buildings. The World Trade Center produced a glimmer of recognition. The students wanted to know why it had been attacked, and whether the attackers had been caught. One student had heard that Osama bin Laden was angry because America had reneged on a promise to pay him money.
Fifteen people working in a poor village for a few weeks cannot have much of an impact on a community. But Global Volunteers sends a continual series of teams — groups have been coming to Prampram for three years. It is the organization, not individual volunteers, that provides the sustained effort. As we wandered around town, there were eerie signs of blofonos who had come before: children with limited English who inexplicably started singing "Blowin' in the Wind"; first graders who ran up with palms in the air, squeaking, "Gimme five."
It is a cliché, in situations like this, to say that you learned as much as you taught, but it was still true. We picked up some of the local culture: we all learned a few key phrases of dangbe, and we could do "the snap" — the Ghanaian handshake, which ends with the shakers making a snapping sound with their middle fingers. And we sat out under a star-packed African sky and debated, as local residents do, the relative merits of Star and Club beers.
We also learned about dignity in tough circumstances. The children of Prampram are poor — some came to school barefoot — but they are unfailingly polite. They call their teachers "Sir" or "Madam" and, as a sign of respect, never look them in the eye. And they have a communitarian spirit that American students lack: when one is struggling at the blackboard, the others quietly call out the right answer. Our Global Volunteers team leader, a Prampram native, said that one thing he wanted us to tell people back home was that despite the serious deprivation we observed all around us, the people we met were happy.
| The New York Times' "Lending a Hand in an African Village" outlines volunteer teacher Adam Cohen's visit to Ghana
posted in articles on August 1, 2003 2:01 AM | t (0)
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