Giving Back to Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JHS

My Bridge Year began in the last week of August 2009 in Princeton, New Jersey with a one week orientation that was designed to help prepare me for the physical, emotional, and mental challenges of my nine months ahead. During one of the orientation sessions, John Luria, Director of the Bridge Year Program, led a discussion on the psychology of the traveler. He told us what to expect upon arrival. He dubbed it “The Honeymoon Phase.” We would be away from home, free to explore our new surroundings, and free to make our own choices and do as we please with our free time. This newly found freedom and the novelty of a new country were things to welcome. However, following this “honeymoon period,” we could expect to experience what is often called “The Crash.” During this period of time we could our emotions to come back down to earth. We would realize that there are certain things about this new culture that we may come to find difficult to adjust to: the food, the language, the pace of life, etc.. We would realize that we are not on a vacation, and that we will not see our loved ones for a long time. And the thought that turns a fleeting thought of gloominess into a “Crash” is the realization that my discomfort, my uneasiness, and my nostalgia are not temporary. I am here to stay – for nine months at least – and I will not go home for a long while.

I experienced my “crash” a bit late in my stay in Ghana. It happened in early November. However, my crash was not brought about by illness, different foods, a trouble in grasping the local language, or even homesickness. I quickly realized that any illness was to be expected as my body was adapting to new air, new weather, new bacteria, and a new time zone. As far as food, I knew that would be different, and I quickly adapted to eating more yams and cassava. The language I knew would take time and so I did not put an enormous amount of pressure on myself in this area. And homesickness is simply natural, so I did not panic when I began to miss my family and friends. After all, I am Latino. And although I am not one to believe in stereotypes, this one holds true: All Latin boys are mama’s boys. So I was not alarmed when I began to crave sizzling chorizo sausage with homemade tortillas, or when I began to miss the refreshing smell of Clorox that permeates our home after my mom has cleaned the whole house. Rather what caused my “crash” was the self-realization that I was becoming complacent. I was going to work everyday, but I was not fully giving my whole self to the job. I found the apathy of some of the teachers discouraging. And instead of being the change I wished to see, I was quickly becoming a victim of my environment and becoming apathetic myself. Apathetic is a harsh word; I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I just became immune to the idleness around me. I was becoming more and more complacent and thus short-siding my teaching potential and cheating my students. I would grudgingly agree to cover a class for a teacher instead of simply doing the job I was asked to do to the best of my abilities. And I was discouraged because I had been teaching for two months, and had only a month and a half left, and I questioned whether I was making a meaningful contribution on the students and school. Would the students and teachers of Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS remember me after I left?
What was most disheartening, and what really brought about the “crash,” was the fact that all of my negative feelings, my complacency, and my begrudging feelings towards some of the teachers were brought about by myself. I had lost sight of who I was responsible for and who I was affecting; I was responsible for myself, my actions only, and my attitude – positive or negative – was affecting the students I was responsible for teaching. I was not responsible for other teachers, and if I was discouraged in the job I was doing I had only myself to blame. Regrets come about only when we do neither what we ought to do nor what we like. In all honesty, I suppose to call my emotional trough a “crash” would be a bit of a misnomer. Simply because I did not suffer a traumatic experience that spiraled me into a state of depression, and my emotional decline was not sudden. Rather, I had been sliding down a gentle slope of laziness and apathy for a while. My slide did not have any road signs; it was a gradual one. As I stated earlier: I had become the part of my environment that I criticized the most instead of being the change I wished to see. It did not take me long to snap myself out of my state of self-pity. I reflected on how blessed I was to be in Ghana, and how I was fortunate to be given this Bridge Year opportunity. I soon realized that I did not want to look back on my time in Accra and feel as though I could have done more if I had worked a little harder and cared a little more. It is in this spirit that I began to work to fulfill my real mission for being here: to leave Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS better than I found it.

My plan, or goal if you wish to call it that, to accomplish my aforementioned mission was twofold. It was not uncommon for me to have a bit of free time at the end of certain school days if I had finished marking all of my assignments and if I was not scheduled to teach an afternoon class. On such days I could often be found reading at my desk, and I would never read without my pocket-size Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus by my side. On more than a few occasions, various students came up to me and asked me what purpose the small book I periodically looked through served. I would tell them that I prefer reading with a dictionary close by whenever possible so that if I come across a word I do not know I can look it up. I encouraged the students to take a look through the dictionary, and each time one looked through it he or she would then ask me if I could give mine to him or her. My first initiative would be to try to raise enough money to buy each of my students his or her very own Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus. This way each student could have a dictionary that he could call his own, and he could then use the invaluable and necessary tool anytime he pleased in order to improve his English. My second initiative was more geared to aiding the teachers and to creating a more efficient and clean environment conducive to effective teaching and sound learning. To do this I wanted to remove the old, crusty (please excuse the informal language, but this is a fairly accurate description of the boards) chalkboards and install brand-new, dry-erase whiteboards. All of the chalkboards had cracks in them. One – the chalkboard in the form 2 classroom – even had a gaping hole in the middle of it. The teacher would begin writing a sentence on the left-hand side of the board and midway through the sentence would have to jump three feet to the right-hand side of the board and continue writing the same sentence on a different section of the board. Also, teachers and students alike complain each time the board has to be erased as chalk dust fills the air and causes a lot of people to cough. Additionally, the chalk dirties the clothes of the teachers who are using it. I figured whiteboards would be easier to clean, easier to manage, and the writing would appear clearer on them than on the chalkboards.

In order to support my efforts, in late November I sent out letters soliciting the help of my family, friends, and the Charlotte Princeton Alumni network. I did not want to burden anyone, so I only sought out people who had made it known to me that they wanted to contribute to aiding the teachers and students I am serving and working alongside with here in Ghana. Each group of people showed incredible generosity, selflessness, and benevolence by making significant contributions to my efforts. The donations were enough to pay for ninety Oxford Mini Dictionaries & Thesauruses – enough to give to each of my students and to each teacher – and to cover the cost for acquiring the materials to build and install one ‘4 x 12’ whiteboard in each classroom (three whiteboards total). To build the whiteboards we bought three ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood, Formica (the glossy, white surface that you actually write one), lots of carpenters glue (a few liters), blocks and nails to mount the boards into the wall permanently, and plastic border to make the boards aesthetically appealing. Contributions also went towards buying the teachers a bountiful amount of dry-erase markers and erasers so they do not have to worry about buying those on their own. My host father, a professional carpenter, and I all worked together to build and install the whiteboards into each of the classrooms. I hope to upload some pictures of the construction and installation process; they would include pictures of the old chalkboards, the bare classroom walls (after we tore down the chalkboards), and the newly installed whiteboards.

It is not good that I came to a point where I was embarrassed of the effort, or lack there of, that I was putting into my work here in Ghana. I acknowledge that any feelings or questions I may have regarding the “difference or impact” I am making on the people I am serving are unfounded. And they are in large part rooted in an ego-oriented, misguided perception of my work, which is wrong. My work is meaningful, and I am only to be ashamed if I do not give each job my best effort. And I now recognize, and in the blog post below will talk about, that when I become complacent and give less than my best I am not only shortchanging myself. I am cheating more people. My time is not simply my own, and I cannot simply do with it as I please. And that is what I want to devote the next post to: Let’s talk about “Time”…