Wednesday- The Gathering

Hey,
It is 6:50 am here on Thursday morning. Sorry I didn't write last night (Wednesday night), but to be honest the night slipped away from me; so, I will update you now on what we experienced and what I learned today. I do need to point out that we had to wear Ghanaian outfits today that they had made for us.

First, we started with an hour wait for our escort Manfred. The driver was here but he was not. He arrived an hour late because he had first tried to go to the tv station here where he was hoping to get the story of this partnership reported. It did not happen because he said they changed the price on him and he could not afford what they were now asking. Now, him being late did not come as a surprise to us because it seems as most things run behind schedule here. One reason for that is that most of them rely on public transportation, in which they cannot control much because the "tro tros" run late quite often or show up full so you have to wait on the next one. When we spoke about it he also said it is often because of the traffic. He was surprised when we explained that we have heavy traffic also, which we too did not always have control. Now, most of us do have our own vehicle which allows us to decide when we leave. One example of this is when we had to way 4 hours for a bus on Saturday that decided not to run after all so then we had to go to a completely different station. Anyways, we call it Ghanaian time; we have noticed things definitely move at a different pace. Another example is when the hotel restaurant had to open an hour late because the guy showed up late, which meant we did not get breakfast that morning. As Ernest (Manfred's brother said, "we cannot stay on 'Ghanaian time' because then we will always be behind and never progress. It is not good business." He felt strongly about this because of his experiences in the UK which is where he lives/works quite often.

Once we did get underway, we went to the district office where we prepared to meet the Mayor and other representatives of his team. After presenting our mission to him, his assistant, and Madam Chairperson of the Assembly, we went over to the assembly hall where they were to hold a public assembly for the 150+ head teachers (principals of KG, Primary and Junior High Schools). The purpose of this meeting was to present our partnership to them. It is important to note that we are only partnering with 7 of their 150+ schools because they have so many schools and we are only 7 in our district. Well, they were very excited about us being there but it did not go over so well when they learned that most of them were not included in the partnership. At that point, we couldn't help but to think that this is probably what it felt like in a DISD board meeting. They were really working hard to get their voice heard and their questions answered. The head council answered their questions and put them in their place when they were out of line. With all that said, that too was a learning experience where we saw many similarities to things we know and saw many things we are to be grateful for being a part of HPISD.

I have received many signs this week that we are doing the best thing by being here and creating a partnership with the Ahafo-Ano South District for our students and teachers. I realized that my conversations with Manfred started because of his desire to give back to the community where he went to school. Manfred is currently a student at the university, and is volunteering as the International Partnership Coordinator for the community where he grew up because he wants to give back. As I listened to him speak to his community about his desire to help them move their education system forward, I could not help but think of our district's motto, "Enter to learn, Go forth to serve." Manfred and Andrews are both living examples of this; they went to school where they learned the importance of an education and now they are working hard to serve their community.