The Rest of Ghana

My second day in Ghana was one I’d been looking forward to for a while.  I visited the Morning Star School, a private school in Ghana.  It’s a religious, K-9 school with just about 1100 students.  Unfortunately, only the ninth graders were in that day.  The rest of the student body was on vacation.  The ninth graders were in to prepare for a government test that will determine if they go to high school or not.  It’s different in Ghana.  In 9th grade, all the students take a standardized test and then depending on how they do on this test, they will be gain admission to a high school, which is 10-12.  So there’s a lot of pressure to do well.  We spent a good three hours with the school’s headmistress and she told us pretty much anything we wanted to know.   The school reminded me A LOT of a Catholic grade school.  Religious paintings all around, prayers in the classroom, and I dunno it just did.  There also was a poster in the library that said: “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”  This poster was in my 7th grade classroom and half the people on the trip said they’d had this exact poster in one of their grade school classrooms. 

I had a chance to have a conversation with several of the ninth graders there and they just reminded me of me when I was in eighth grade.  They told me they loved it because they were the “kings of the school.”  They also were nervous about going to high school the next year and would be parting with students they’d known since Kindergarten.  I felt the exact same way in eighth grade.  King of the school, nervous about high school, and sad about parting ways with the St. Philip Neri Class of 2004, most of the whom I’d been with since Kindergarten.  Funny that Western Africa reminds me of this.

The headmistress took us on a tour and answered our questions.  One thing that is very different from private schools in the U.S. is that Ghanaian private schools get no funding from the government whatsoever.  They are completely dependent on the tuition.   Private schools, however, are the top rated schools in the country.  The headmistress said: “No public school comes close.”  I’d like to think she wouldn’t be lying (especially since the school is a religious one) and from some of the things she was telling is it would make sense.  Very interesting stuff.  The headmistress also told me she’d love for my future students (I’m an education major) to be pen pals with one of her classes.  That’s going to look good on my résumé one day. 

After the school visit, I returned to the ship and then was headed out for the evening.  We were fortunate to meet a Ghanaian named Nii (pronounced “knee”) on the first day and Nii was no ordinary Ghanaian.  He has a bit of a history with SAS.  In between every port we’ve had an inter port student.  A college student from a university in the next country we’re visiting sails with us from one port to the next.  This student will talk in lectures, answer our questions about the country, gives us good things to do, and stuff like this.  Nii was the Ghanaian inter port student from the Fall 2009 SAS voyage.  He ran into us on the street and told us and we couldn’t believe that we’d run into him.  He sailed with the MV Explorer from Casablanca to Accra last time she went around the world. 

Anyways, Nii wanted to help us SASers out again.  He had taken my friends all around Accra while I was visiting the school and was hanging out with us again at night.  He drove us to the resort we were heading to, Big Millys.  It was a forty-five minute drive from Accra and on the coast.  It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it was a great time.  It basically was a village hotel.  We had a great night there and Nii spent the night with us.  He was fun to talk to and I just couldn’t believe that he was going out of his way to help us so much.  We’d only met him about 24 hours before. 

The next day Nii arranged for us to have a Ghanaian style brunch, again going out of his way to help us.  The food was very spicy, but good and ultra fresh.  I think they may have killed the chickens and caught the fish that morning.  Afterwards, Nii took us to some secluded beach areas and I got a chance to swim in the Atlantic Ocean.  I still can’t believe it was the Atlantic.  This is the ocean I swim in every summer and have hundred of memories because of, but this time it was the other side.  I don’t know if it’s a feeling I can describe with words.  I felt at home in it and swimming today was unlike any of the other swimming I’ve done on this trip.   This probably makes no sense at all, and like I said above words just can’t describe it. 
So, it was a great evening and day getting to know Nii.  He had really interesting things to say and I really learned a lot about Ghanaian people from him.  I still CAN NOT get over how hospitable he was to us.  Hopefully, I can be the same way to a tourist in Philadelphia one day. 

Another interesting thing happened when I was traveling with Nii.  One the way to Big Millys, he took us to an off the beaten track restaurant.  It was a little joint run by a family.  The woman who served us and cooked our food had on a very interesting t-shirt.  It was a Catholic school’s basketball jersey.  It had the name on the school and a bunch of sponsors on the back- the exact same kind I used to wear in grade school.  The funny thing is I remember donating these old jerseys and seeing people donate jerseys exactly like them at church!   You’d always hear they went to African nations and I saw with my own eyes that they really do!  The lady told us jerseys like these come in every so often from U.S. Catholic organizations and are sold at a used clothing store for what would amount to $.25.   Nii said the region we were in relies on clothes like these because it’s the only kind the sellers can afford.  It was just so crazy and strange to see. 

Nii took us back to Accra and we headed back to the ship.  It was sad to say goodbye to him (we couldn’t see him the next day because he had classes) and I have his contact information so we can keep in touch. I spent the evening on the ship, as I was completely exhausted.  The heat, 3 hours or so of sleep the night before, and swimming drained me. 
The next day I didn’t do too much.  I headed into Accra and got some souvenirs, including an awesome African shirt, and spent a few more hours walking around the city.

Ghana was a different country.  The people here are very laid back, and very welcoming to Americans, which was so nice.  However, I didn’t really like the fact that it was so hot.  I can deal with the heat, but imagine walking around a big city where there’s running sewage everywhere, and it’s 100 degrees out.  Not the best smell in the world.   Also, a hidden price developing nations like Ghana are paying is traffic.   If you think traffic is bad in the United States, it’s ten times worse here.  The roads are terrible because there’s just a lack of basic road infrastructure.  Nii was going all over the place to get on to the highway.  There were very few labeled entrances and exits.  You just drove on a dirt road until and went into traffic.  Imagine 100 cars doing this at a time and then imagine the traffic problems that would create.   We spent a lot of time sitting in traffic.   

So, now we’re crossing the Atlantic Ocean and off to Brazil, our last port of call.  I cannot believe there’s just 21 days left on this voyage.  I have no idea where the time went.  Hawaii and Japan seem like another lifetime ago.