Desmond Tutu goes here!

This term I am serving on a committee that collates and posts Monthly Test scores. I was responsible for entering in Excel all the scores for all Form 2 (Sophomore) students. Most students take 8 to 10 courses, so I spent a lot of time with these lists. During this process, I came to learn more about common names or trends in names in Ghana, or at least here at Achimota.

There is a student who goes here named Desmond Tutu, he is not one of my students, so I do not know if he is any relation to the Bishop from South Africa; it is certainly a big name to live up to! It is a tradition in Ghana (within all ethnic groups, I do not know) for children to be named after ancestors in the hopes that the child will exhibit their characteristics. One ethnic group (which one currently escapes me) often names children for virtues they want the child to have: Justice, Mercy, Peace Pearl, Perpetual, and Prosper are all Form 2 students here.

Another thing I have noticed is that children are often given names that would be considered "old fashioned" in the US today (unless you are Julia Roberts or Michelle Williams), and some of these names show up numerous times within the school: Florence, Gertrude, Hilda, Matilda, Millicent, Rhoda, Winifred. For boys, Ebenezer and Theophilus crop up.

Emmanuel is probably the most common name for a boy in Ghana, just from my very unscientific paying-attention study. Gifty is a very common name for girls, one I had never heard before coming here. Prince and Princess are both common, too. Nana is popular for both girls and boys and means "grandfather's father" in Akan, or more loosely translated, king or chief.

One Form 2 class includes 2 boys named Adolph, one named Elvis, and one named Justice. The battle for my favorite name though is currently stuck in a tie. There is a boy here named Smyly and a girl named Creamilda. Maybe I will put it to a vote in the future!

Three transportation stories

A couple of weeks ago, I was waiting for a trotro towards the Embassy (I take one to 37, and walk from there). However, I was meeting Leslie for lunch, and did not want to be late; additionally several people were also waiting for a car to 37 who had been there before me. I hailed a taxi and negotiated a price to the Embassy, then told the driver that we were taking these four people to 37 (which is on the way to the Embassy). I sat in the front, they piled in the back, and off we went. We dropped the other passengers off where they wanted to go en route. After the last one had exited, the taxi driver said to me that in Ghana, this is not done - if you are waiting for a car (trotro) with a friend, you have enough money and decide to take a taxi, people will leave their friend waiting for a trotro even if they are going the same place. I replied that it seemed silly for a nearly empty taxi to leave 4 people who were going the same direction standing waiting for a trotro that might take a long time to arrive (I have waited up to 45 minutes for one to 37). He told me that he had asked the 4 other passengers (in Twi) if they would had done the same thing; they had all laughed he stated.

Yesterday, I was once again waiting for a trotro to 37 (I have to get over my dislike for and unfamiliarity with the Achimota station, it hinders my easy movement around Accra) to go to dinner with friends. I have been waiting about 30 minutes when a woman told me that "the white car is calling you". I did not recognize the vehicle as belonging to a colleague, but I walked over. There were two young women and a child inside. They asked where I was going, I replied, and they said they would take me. I asked if I knew them (I do not know all the teachers at my school, or their family members), they said no, they just wanted to give me a lift, but if I was uncomfortable they understood. I got in (two women with a baby seemed innocuous enough). Portia (the driver) is a student at one of the universities and is studying banking and finance, her sister Yvonne had lost her job when her company closed and is staying home as a full time mom for now. It turns out they wanted to set up me with their brother who is currently working before going back to school to study law. I was flattered, but declined. They dropped me at my destination, I gave them an Obama pin I had in my purse, and thanked them profusely. They did not ask for my number, and went on their way.

Something else I have never done in the US I experienced for the first time last weekend. Leslie and I went to Lome, the capital of Togo (which is just across the eastern border with Ghana). One common way of getting around the city is by mototaxi (moped). A first for both of us was taking a mototaxi (no helmets) to the market to wander around. We had been told that it is considered cowardly to hold on to the driver of the mototaxi, and although I am not one to let peer pressure get in the way of my health and safety, I held on to the sissy bar in the back for the duration of the ride. I enjoyed it, but think I would enjoy it more a second time.

Animals and Vehicles

I have been collecting these photos for some time.
This is in Accra near the trotro station I frequent, this is a four lane road (2 lanes in each direction) and these are cattle grazing alongside the road; this is not an uncommon occurrence. One time I saw a donkey cart crossing this same road at a different intersection.

I know it is hard to tell in this photo, but the gentleman on the left is lowering a goat from the top of the trotro to its owner. There were 4 goats that rode tied to the top of this trotro, they were also covered with a net. I wonder if they were freaked out during their ride.

The same day we saw the goats on the roof, Matt and I rode in a trotro with a chicken (pictured below) and another trotro with a turkey (he sat in the back with the luggage). The owner of this chicken was very proud of it and kept wanting his photo taken with his chicken (see next photo).

And last but not least - overstuffed taxicabs are a common sight in Ghana. There was a news report in the fall about how taxicabs are no longer allowed to transport caskets (!)

Oh, also notice the vehicles passing over the solid white line, I am convinced the dotting of lines on the road must mean different things than at home because dotted lines often occur when sight lines are bad (not that drivers seem to pay much attention to anything when deciding to pass another vehicle).

Don't Post Angry! (p.s. not taking my own good advice)

A couple of things: I started moderating comments several weeks ago when several nonsense comments popped up on the blog (see the comments on the entry "not quite like home...school edition" to see what I mean). It sometimes takes me a while to log on and post ALL comments that are more than the result of what look like fingers slamming randomly on the keyboard. I appreciate the patience during the delay between when someone submits a comment and when it appears - as I have mentioned previously, the internet connection is unreliable.

And for those of you who missed out on this comment (one of three) I just enabled today, I have reprinted it here:
I knew it. Sooner or later you were going to resort to the all familiar way on reporting on the shortfall of Africans. We are all familiar with how Africa is reported in the western media. Disease, poverty, war, corruption etc. I was hoping you were not going to feed your audience with the same old same old. I was hoping you will report on their little "triumphs". I wonder why you did not mention that a student from this same school scored the highest mark in the college entrance exam in the whole country. That, a good number of its alumni are attending or have graduated from top US universities, such as MIT, HARVARD, Yale, Cal Tech etc. I see your subtle condescending tone, but hey, it is your blog and you are at liberty to inform or misinform your audience.

This commenter is correct - students from Ghana do go to universities abroad, and excellent ones as well (the daughter of one Fulbright teacher from Ghana is currently at Princeton). Many of the previous leaders of Ghana have attended university outside of Ghana, mostly in England. [side note - according to wikipedia (I cannot believe I am referencing wikipedia, but something new happens every day), the current president of Ghana John Evans Atta-Mills attended undergraduate and law school here in Legon, but then went to school in London and at Stanford for his Ph.D.] However, I feel the need to state that I worry about how the students from Ghana will cope in the universities abroad since most pride themselves on demanding critical thinking of their students which is not something that is stressed or taught at all here (at least at Achimota - that is all I can accurately speak on) - the curriculum is focused on regurgitation of information rather than application. Additionally, it saddens me that students feel the need or have to leave their country to receive what they believe to be a top notch college or post-graduate education. The more people who leave a place, the more who do not return, and it is likely those with educations who decide to stay elsewhere. Ghana should focus on fighting brain drain by continually improving the university system here as well as expanding the primary and secondary system to include all, not just those who pass the rote tests and can afford all the fees that are required to attend school.

I believe the commenter is also referring to the fact that a student from Achimota received the best scores on the end-of-secondary-school/college entrance exams in all of West Africa (in other words, this student beat out all other West African students who took exams). This is a wonderful accomplishment for this young man, and certainly adds to the reputation of the school where I am teaching.

I was impressed with the handling of the drawn out election process here, I thought I had made that clear in a previous entry - for how many countries in the world (African or otherwise) whose elections devolve into violence, or never occur, or are fraught with election fraud, I would say this election cycle in Ghana was a major accomplishment, as well as their second peaceful transition of power from one political party (NPP) to another (NDC) in the last 16 years. I view this as a major achievement or triumph and was lucky to have been here to experience it.

And my last bit of posting written in pique - I love comments on this blog. Please identify yourself when you contribute. Thanks!

I will be posting a substantive comment later in the week - stay tuned!

Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Library Alphabet

Nancy Drew, a young strawberry blond haired woman who lived with her father since her mother had passed away when she was a young girl, was visiting the local library one day with her boyfriend, football star Ned Nickerson, and was browsing in the Fiction section when she discovered something disturbing. The books seemed to have been alphabetized in a rather odd way. Rather than alphabetized in the section as you expect to find in a library or bookstore (where all the books by authors whose last names start with 'A' are at the beginning, authors with last names 'L' are in the bays and shelves in the middle, and authors with last names that start with 'Z' are at the end) the books were alphabetized shelf by shelf independent of other shelves, that is each shelf started with 'A' authors, proceeded through other letters of the alphabet, and ended with authors whose names fall at the end of the alphabet. The next shelf started over with 'A' authors and followed the same pattern.

"What kind of system for organizing and locating books is this?" she asked her boyfriend Ned.
"Maybe you should ask Bess, since she volunteers here at the library on the weekends," Ned replied, thoughtfully.

The following day, Nancy took Ned's sage advice and visited one of her two best friends Bess. When Nancy queried Bess about the odd organizational system in the Fiction section, Bess replied, "Oh, there is an explanation for that. You see, a teacher brought in some of her students to help out and apparently they are unfamiliar with how libraries are organized."

Bess continued her story, explaining to Nancy that a teacher at the school had heard of the passing of John Updike, and visited the library to find out what books by that recently departed author were available. Much to the dismay of the teacher, the Fiction section seemed to be shelved randomly with no concern for alphabet at all. Later that week, the same teacher had students arrive late to class. Now punishments in this school often include physical labor like weeding, but this teacher thought it would be good to have the students help organize in the library. She brought several students with her, and explained that the section was disorganized. That all the 'A' authors should be at the beginning, etc. leading to any 'Z' authors who would fall at the end. This teacher, thinking the explanation was clear, and that students had a working understanding of a library, sat down several rows away from the students and read her own book, checking occasionally on the students. It was not until it was almost time for them to leave that she realized they had been alphabetizing by shelf rather than by section. The students completed only one of three rows of shelves, so there is plenty of work still to be done. And thus this teacher is no closer to solving her own mystery of where the John Updike books might be located.