Email: Megan Bauhof

Friends,

The Ghanaian sun seems to rise earlier on the weekdays. Normally, I want to push it right back down where it came from, but not today. This is a typical school day, and I must get up at 5:00 if I want to be at school on time. Because my new diet consists of mostly carbs and more carbs, I use this time to run. Before the whole city comes to life with street vendors and talkative neighbors, I attack the rocky dirt road, willing myself to work hard, if only for 15 minutes.

Back to the house to stretch and have a quick shower, where I have fallen in love with Pantene's 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner for its speed. Breakfast consists of Corn Flakes and toast. After I throw my towel on the line to dry and straighten up my room, Grace always asks if I have eaten and if I am full. My answer is always, “Yes, thank you,” and she closes the gate behind me as I start my trek to school.

I walk a short distance to the tro-tro stop, where many people await the same 12-passenger vehicle as I. Usually it takes about 15 minutes to catch a car. If the wait is longer, I have to take a more expensive taxi ride. This is normally shared with three  other passengers so the cost is lower. After about 20 minutes I tell the driver or the boy who collects the fare on the tro-tro, “Mate, Mepa wo kyew, mesi wo Polyclinic,” which means, “Mate, please I will drop at Polyclinic,” which is the name of my stop.

After I squish through the laughing passengers (an obruni who speaks Twi?) I’m on the ground walking. It’s about 10 more minutes to school. Calls of “obruni” usually follow me wherever I go. I have learned to ignore them, but as I near the school “obruni”  morphs into “teach-ah Adjua.” These calls, I am happy to receive with a smile because they are coming from the yellow-and-blue-uniformed students from Kaneshie Presby School, where I have been introduced as a guest teacher with my day name, Adjua.

This particular day has a surprise in store, though I don’t know it yet. The teacher I have been assisting for the first week has come down with malaria, so she is in the hospital. This is one of those moments where you say, “TIA” (This Is Africa), send up a prayer for Auntie B in the hospital, and feel the rush as the shock of forty-four 6- and 7-year-olds in my care alone sets in. It is now 7:00, and the world doesn’t stop for my problems.

I begin to collect today’s feeding and studies fee (“feeding” is for their lunch if they didn't bring one; “studies” is for the teachers pay, I think) in a currency that I am still struggling to adapt to. We manage to get through the next three hours with a few songs (thank the Lord I went to church camp), many rounds of seven up, and a skewed football version of hang man I hastily created. During our 30-minute break, I am briefed by the teacher next door with the today’s agenda. I quickly realize it will not fill the last four hours of our schedule.

After break, we review our math from last year and begin to look through our reading book. It is my duty to mark the 44 math books one-by-one while the students stand in a line before me (you can imagine the “happy” chaos that ensues). Thankfully, I have in my possession a “cane,” which I have chosen not to use on the hands of the students, but it makes for a perfect attention getter when rapped heavily on my desk.

Usually some time in the early morning a worker from the cafeteria comes to ask what I will take for lunch. So, by 12:00, when I have given the students their lunch tokens and they have skipped from the classroom, an older student will have graciously brought my lunch to me. My lunch hour is used for planning and visiting with my new young teacher friends, whose advice I welcome gratefully.

At 1:00 p.m. starts the next two and a half hours of handwriting practice, English study, and any other ideas God decides to bless me with. As 3:30 rolls around, the kids have sung their closing song, swept the concrete floor, and bounded out of the classroom, leaving me to padlock the door, breathe a sigh of relief, and start my journey home.

Since school is so close to the market, every tro-tro that passes is generally full and I end up taking a taxi or walking. And because it's not raining and I have a good pair of walking sandals, I start the hour-and-15-minute walk home. On the way, I have begun to make friends with the store owners I pass. There is one in particular, whose name is Kwami, who I always take advantage of. This is where I stop, take off my shoes, and juggle the football with Kwami’s three young boys. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't walk past the stroe because those boys can see me coming (anyone can see me coming) and the ball is out and ready when I arrive. After a short time I sadly say I must be going home and pass the last few blocks a little sweatier than before.

Finally home, I am greeted with a kind smile and more likely a jeering “Afternoon, Teacchhaahh Addjuuaaa.” I am asked what I will have for dinner, then I make my way to my room where I flip on BBC radio and, more importantly, the fan. It’'s about 6:00 p.m., and I have done a little reading before I am called to dinner. It usually takes a while to finish my mound of rice or fried yam balls. Then my favorite part of the day commences. I make my way out to the back where my friends’ quarters are. I sit watching Amkye do his art homework or Grace make funny phone calls to friends or watch a little football with John. Basically we are just laughing and having a good time after a full day. Soon Grandpa will call us in for our nightly prayer and Bible study before we make our way to our beds. In my bed, before I sleep, I think about my family and friends and how much I miss them. But I always fall asleep with much comfort, knowing no matter what struggles and stresses I might have, I am exactly where God wants me to be.

Yours,

Meg

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