SheVillage: Things To Do / Places of Interest

Back to SheVillage: Things To Do / Places of Interest page

Introduction to My Experience in Ghana

Janna Hoekema

I watched the trees and river as we climbed past them in the air-conditioned car towards Akosombo. Nervous flutterings in my stomach mixed with excitement and awe. The gentle climb into the hills around Akosombo helped to highlight the beauty of the area. I was still unsure if the school where I would be working had actually managed to find a place for me to live; but had the car packed with my suitcases and a few things from my parent’s house in Accra nonetheless. We pulled into the school’s small gravel parking lot during their morning break. Watching the uncountable children in pink, the teenagers in blue or white mill outside the classrooms just heightened my nervous excitement. The heat, humid and spiced with strange smells, was what first hit me as I left the car. My adventure as a volunteer teacher was truly beginning.

Where is Akosomobo, you ask? It is a town in the Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa. It is about two hours trip from Accra, Ghana’s capital city. My parents were living in Accra near the University of Legon leading a semester abroad program for 15 students from Calvin College. My father is a philosopher and professor at Calvin while my mom was a lawyer who left her firm to join in the adventure. They had not only been in the country two months before I arrived but had also led the same program the previous year. Actually, it was through their contact, Professor Bediako, that I was able to arrange the teaching position at Akosombo International School. Convincing the Director to find me a position was difficult and the preparation was full of uncertainties, but also a dream come true. Since before my college years, I had been dreaming of spending six months or more in Ghana. Sadly, though, I was unable to join the semester program to live, study and teach there during my time at Guilford College. Figuring out a way to live there from September to June after five years of teaching experience in the public schools of Asheville felt like a direct gift from God.

Ghana is a peaceful country that was the first Black African colony to achieve independence from Great Britain in 1957. It was hailed country to be. The first president, Kwame Nkrumah was a visionary who was viewed as a hero by others in Africa for creating a free, democratic nation. However, by building the Akosombo dam--a hydropower dam that caused the Volta Rivers to form the largest man-made lake in the world to this day—he created debt and made other policies that made a political and financial mess. He was ousted by a military coup and a series of other coups kept power until 1981. In 2000, Ghana held its first truly free elections and this year in March celebrated its 50th year anniversary. It is known for its culture and the friendliness of its people. The Ashanti are one of the biggest tribes in Ghana and known for their strength, kente cloth and many more crafts. Dancing, drumming and highlife music are also big draws. Gold, Cocoa and tourism are now the economies main-stays although a major source of income for many is supplied by non-governmental organizations that are funded by grants from the United States and other well-off countries.

Ghana has always drawn many Americans including W.E.B. DuBois and Maya Angelo. Today it is a country with many tourist attractions and numerous study abroad programs from American and European countries. In fact, 1.5% of it’s population is white ex-patriots and the number of tourists or white volunteers is uncountable but vast. I was actually one of those tourists myself 9 years ago now. I traveled to Ghana for a three-week interim in 1998 with Calvin College when I was unable to get into Guilford’s semester program. However, my experience then was frustrating for many reasons including the short visit and the inability to actually get to know anyone there. We had classes on the history and culture of Ghana, visited many places including the slave castles and a traditional shrine. But given our busy schedule and the fact that we stayed in hotels or hostels only, as students we had no real contact with any Ghanaians. At that time and in my time living there from 2005-2006, I had a chance for once to feel like the “other” based on my skin color. In being an Obruni (the Ashanti’s word for white or rich person from across the sea), I had a certain social position. Obrunis are recognized in Ghana as special, wealthy guests to the country—a fact that I encountered in settling into my house, in the strangers who asked for money, and in the numerous marriage proposals. I found myself confronting the implicit white power that I received by requesting less and downplaying my importance.

My memory of being treated as the rich and different Obruni was one motivation for me to find a job as a volunteer. This time in Ghana, I was ready to settle down and get to know the people and the place and live in relative poverty (since I was given a $100 per month stipend & used my savings before I got there). My arrival at the school was greeted with all the pomp and circumstance that is shown to a guest in Ghana—especially a foreign one. The school had found me lodging—as a roommate to the administrative assistant of the school’s director (or superintendent). When I first arrived and was waiting in the office for a tour, my housemate Jennifer introduced her self and began by saying that she “didn’t know how I would manage in the place.” Thus, I expected much worse conditions from her description than I found. I managed well and am grateful to the school and the Volta River Authority for the privacy and autonomy I was able to enjoy in my house. It was a duplex flat, near one of the ridges above the school so that there was a beautiful view of the hills and a bit of the Volta River out my bedroom window. A one-story cement building with two bedrooms, a living and dining room, kitchen and bathroom, it was able to fit my needs well.

Akosombo, unlike a village or city, is a company town. Akosombo International School—a private school that serves children from Kindergarten to high school—is funded by the Volta Regional Authority (VRA) that I thought was kind of like the North Carolina government before I arrived—a regional agency in charge of schools and infrastructure. I learned that it is not so much of a governmental agency as a private company that runs the dam so thus controls the generation and distribution of electricity to Ghana and neighboring countries. As a company, it partially funds the school, runs the town, owns the land, provides transportation such as school buses and trucks for various branches and basically oversees all aspects of life in Akosombo. This discovery made life easier for me in some ways and less exciting in others. In order to get a new mattress or new chairs for my house, for instance, I simply needed to tell the director of the school and then visit the town manager and fill in the proper papers. My position as an international teacher was a trial run—I was the only Obruni teacher in all of the VRA sponsored schools. I fit into a new category of white volunteer teacher so that some of the updates for our house were only considered once I moved in (despite Jennifer’s having been there for a month before me). However, I should also mention that, being Ghanaians who view and work within time in a way totally different from the American culture, it took over seven months to actually get the new chairs. Find a friend who’s been to Africa and try to have them explain to you the difference in African time, Southern time and American time—I won’t go into it here.

However, my role in the classroom was a familiar one to me from the beginning in many ways. I was asked to work with the fourth, fifth and sixth grade classes in collaboration with one of the English teachers who was the only drama teacher, Ms. Manuh. I began my second day in Akosombo by seeking her out and talking with her about what I felt most comfortable teaching. Once I expressed interest in drama and reading comprehension, she lost no time in getting me in there by telling me to lead off her first class of the day. In the end, it settled out so that I was teaching between 12-15 periods of academic classes a week (each period was 45 min. long) to three different classes. I also ended up being the swimming teacher and coach for the school. In the basic or primary school, each classroom was filled with the students of one grade. So, for instance, the 69 students in grade 6 were crammed into a classroom that measures about 10 by 12 feet. Yes, I did say 69—there were between 59-65 students in each of the three classes I taught by the end of the year. Teachers at the school told me the numbers were supposed to be kept around 40 but the administration kept allowing more in for various reasons. How did I teach 60 students at once in a small open-air classroom? That is a good question that I will attempt to answer in a later entry. Suffice it to say that I had to learn a lot of new things about discipline, slowing down my enunciation, and the pronunciation of my American English.

My teaching and settling down in Akosombo was offset happily by quite a bit of travel around the country. Part of my parent’s role as leaders of a semester abroad program was planning and leading weekend trips to various parts of the Ghana. I was able to travel in a number of regions with them, often spent the weekends when they weren’t traveling with them in Accra before they left in December, and later traveled on the weekends to see friends I had made. Accra is a big, sprawling city with a population of about 3 million either in or around the city. In my memory, I am especially fond of its neighborhoods which each have a specific character. Ghana as a whole and Accra particularly is a very safe place. Many American friends or acquaintances with whom I spoke before departing for Ghana, or even upon my return, were extremely concerned for my safety. They seemed to have the impression that every country on the African continent was plagued with war or extreme crime. Ironically, one of the biggest questions asked me by Ghanaians friends while I was there was about the violence and crime in America. There is, of course, some crime in Ghana but it is very rare—I found it as safe as Asheville. I was able to travel around nine of the ten regions and was amazed by the friendly and generous greetings extended to me by all that I met. It is a wonderful country to travel in—especially if you have a limited budget—for the American dollar goes a lot further towards food and basic needs in Ghana.

I could continue on and on about my experience of living and traveling on my stipend. Sometimes I find it hard to describe to Ashevillians the actual feeling of walking down a street there or a shopping trip. However, I enjoy and appreciate that challenge and hope to give you a sense of all that I encountered and did in this initial entry. I do plan to write in more detail about Ghana’s regions, travel & living conditions, teaching, the history of the slave trade, and the culture of Ghana. I hope that you continue to follow my adventures.

*Pictures by David Hoekema used by permission. Please e-mail @ dhoekema@calvin.edu if interested.