Simple daily life and a rude awakening at the internship

I think I'd like to start this post with a summary of my ridiculous Mefloquine-induced dreams from last night. First, I was back in the states and meeting my boyfriend's parents, who turned out to be Barack and Michelle Obama. I remember being pretty excited that I was finally 21 and enjoying the open bar in the White House. In my dream I even finished Barack's white wine because I thought it was mine and Michelle called me out on it. I was also told that they would grill me on my plans for the future and I wasn't even nervous telling the president that I had great plans and expectations for myself.
-My second strange dream was about my wedding, taking place a few years in the future. And I guess I was having this wedding as a pre-planned event, like I had no say in how any of it was unfolding. It was at a venue I had never seen before, with music from a random playlist on my iTunes, the photographer was doing everything all wrong and I hated all the decorations and food. I remember being really angry and selfish in the dream and mad that nothing was right. I never saw who my fiance or husband would be in that dream. But all of my close friends and family were there. And my best friends and sister were wearing bright differently colored dresses in the wedding party. One thing I remember though is telling the DJ to play the song that I actually have picked out (in real life) for the dance with my father at the reception. That's about the only thing I've thought about for my real wedding actually, so it's kind of cool that that came out in my dream wedding that was all crazy and malfunctioning.

Okay, back to reality now. And this week I got quite a few reality checks. The first was on Tuesday when the electricity was very shifty on campus and in my dorm, and the running water was out for about 24 hours. I took my first bucket bath since being in Ghana, which I actually really enjoyed. It saved so much water as opposed to sitting under a running shower for fifteen minutes a day. It's something I might try to do more at home. That day I also decided to do laundry by hand, as I've been doing the whole time here, but my Ghanaian roommate said that I wasn't doing it right so she showed me the correct way and ended up doing all my laundry for me even though I insisted that I could take over. It was really sweet of her and we had some good conversation while she washed my sweat and dust-stained clothes. They also came out to be the cleanest that my clothes have been since I've been here.
After that she showed me how to make stew! It was delicious- and spicy- but really easy and I'm definitely going to cook it back home. She made a lot and we split the ingredients so it's been in our fridge and we eat it over yams or rice throughout the week.
I have a lot of free time on Tuesdays before my classes so this was all a great way to spend the morning and a good bonding time for me and Naa (whose real name is actually Gifty, I learned- a common female Ghanaian name). After my three classes on Tuesday, my friend Darou from Togo invited me to hang out so I drank togolese apple-flavored soda (ew) in his room and danced while watching music videos from Nigeria and Togo. He's such a positive energy and genuinely cares about his friends. I really value his friendship, and he even treated me to go see a play on campus and I learned a lot about African culture through watching this theater production.
I also spent my morning making my lesson plan for my internship which really discouraged me. I struggle with it because I don't know the best learning style for these kids, and I don't even have the material in front of me so a lot of times I feel like I'm preparing blindly. But despite being discouraged by this, I was really uplifted my Naa and Darou this week. Naa told me I've hit a new level in my African-ness with the bucket bath, handwashing, and cooking all in one day. This week she also gave me two bracelets of African beads after I said I wanted to visit a bead market. They are beautiful and I will cherish them. We've started to get very close and her friendship really means a lot to me as well.

The biggest shock and reality check came for me on Thursday though, when I went to my internship. I was feeling pretty confident about my lesson plan because Wednesday had gone so well there. But at the beginning of class Pascal asked a few students to stand at the front, asked them why they didn't do their homework and proceeded to lash them with a stick in front of the whole class. This is how they discipline students in schools here, and it's really not uncommon. I knew that the stick was for intimidation, but I didn't know that he would actually use it. This made me sick and really through me off for the whole lesson afterwards. When I gave the kids some exercises for practice, none got more than 3 out of 5 correct. Those who got 0 or 1 correct were assigned to sweep the classroom that day. But when we went next door and I taught the same lesson with the same exercises, he separated them according to their scores and the students who got 0 correct got two lashes and the students who got 1 correct got one lash. The rest were "home free", but about half the class got hit that day with this wooden stick on their bottoms. I couldn't watch him do it, but I watched the kids run back to their seats and put their heads on their desk to hide in embarrassment that they might have been crying as well. They also looked at me to gauge my reaction, which obviously was of shock and sadness.
I began to tear up and left right after this class to go home, because it occurred to me that I had given them these exercises for practice. I gave them problems that were challenging but doable because I knew that they had the skills and knowledge, it just took some application. But I thought, "If I had only given them five problems that they could do perfectly, these children wouldn't have been hit." There was no way for me to know that these were the consequences. But it now makes me question my teaching style. Do I give them more challenging questions so that they learn and gain more out of it- with the risk that they'll be lashed for getting it wrong- or do I give them simple problems that I know they can solve so that they won't get hit that day. It's a conflict that I'm struggling with. And I just do not support this type of education. How is a child learning from his academic mistakes by being hit? But I am in no position to challenge the doctrines of the school. I talked to my roommate and African friends, they said they all got hit in school. It's just the culture, but something I don't think I'll every adjust to.

One thing I have pretty much adjusted to is the stares and being hassled to buy things just because we're white. Of course we have money, we can afford a plane ticket from America to Africa. They know this, and I've gotten pretty good at avoiding eye contact and walking straight past the nagging vendors. One thing I haven't ignored though is the day to day struggles of people here. Today we went into town, and I admit I splurged on a great lunch and snacks. On the tro tro back, I sat next to a 10 year old girl and her 6 year old brother going home from school. The girl asked me if I could pay for them, and my initial reaction was to say I didn't have enough money. In the states I'm all too used to passing by people begging me for spare change. But who am I kidding, why should I be greedy about paying their fare equal to 50 cents when these children need every "dime" they have. This wasn't the first time I paid someone's fare on the trotro who asked me to. When it seems hard to part with 50 pesewas, I think about how they can barely afford to get to where they're going, even though getting there is probably for work to support their livelihood.

I'm sure I could think of more to write about, but those were the major events of my week I suppose. Sunday is Independence Day and I can't wait to see how an African country celebrates its 54th year free of colonial rule!