Morning! Elisabeth, Sophie and I were up early to be picked up by Ben who was helping us make our way to 94 using local transport. The tro tro seemed to be the least of our worries and instead, crossing the ridiculously busy road took longer than the actual tro ride to Kasoa. Once off the tro, we took an interestingly long walk through the market and into some of the slum areas of Kasoa to our school.
Placed in a Junior High 2 class, I was given the oldest kids in the school, ranging from 14 to 17 years old. First lesson, francais, and I think they got me confused with Miss Sofia, as I was not there to teach. The French teacher finished with 30 minutes to spare, leaving me to entertain the class…uhoh!
Questions of my homeland were instantly asked; ‘where are you from?’ ‘What is your name?’ ‘What are your father and mothers name?’ ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ ‘Tell us a story about your homeland’ ‘tell us about your culture.’ The questions just flooded in! After a while I managed to turn the questions over to them and learn some new things myself. As they informed me dance was a big part of their culture, I requested to see some native dance, and one brave girl was up at the front showing me the local moves. Little did I know, they would want a ‘native’ dance in return. Thankfully my Scottish roots have provided me with the distinctive highland dancing, to which I performed at the front of the class to my best ability. Overjoyed by the strange movements many got up to try and master ‘the fling.’
Music also seemed to be influential to them, as once again a girl joined me at the front of the class to sing some gospel songs from church. The whole class then sang me the Ghanaian national anthem in Twi as requested by myself. Yet once again I was asked to perform in return, and once again the Scottish in me shone through as I stood hand on heart singing ‘O flower of Scotland.’ Clapped and cheered I felt I had held my own in the classroom, but luckily break time had arrived.
The rest of the day was mainly spent observing the other teachers, although I was lucky enough to have a school lunch which involved rice, beans and a boiled egg. With school over the walk back to Kasoa seemed more familiar, and we easily made our way into a tro and back to the hotel. The evening took a similar route, dinner in the restaurant next-door and early to bed.
Small point: A tro – to’s and fro’s from place to place…perhaps where it got it’s name from?
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