So. Classes have started. And not like on Monday, when I went to class at the designated time, and no one else showed up. Apparently, going to class during the first week is optional for students and professors. It was alright, though. I got to get started reading a book I picked up at the University Bookstore. It is called The Baobabs of Tete and Other Stories and was written by Kari Dako, a lecturer here at UG. She gives a darkly humorous twist to the experience of women in Africa, and specifically women in Ghana. Some of the stories are set on the UG campus, so I recognized the places she was talking about! I also found a collection of modern Ghanian poetry that looks very interesting.
The USAC students have stated our Twi class. Twi is the main language spoken in Ghana, aside from English, of course. There are three dialects of Twi; we are learning Asante-Twi, is the most common. The percentage of people for whom Twi is their first language is somewhere around forty percent. What I found really interesting was that the number of people who speak Twi as a second or third language is much higher. Our professor explained that this is because it is required for Ghanian school children to learn a Ghanian language through high school, although all other classes are taught in English. It is very possible that, by the time a Ghanian student makes it to university, he or she is tri or tetra-lingual. It seems to me as though something very similar happens in Europe. But we have nothing like that in the US. I am not even fluent in Spanish, although I suppose that is my own fault, really. I think that there is something incredibly dynamic about being multilingual. I have read several articles that question the decision of post-colonial writers to write and publish in English, as English is the language of the colonizer, rather than the language of the writer's country or heritage.
But the actual class... The professor teaches in the business school, and comes to USAC just to teach us. He is a lovely older gentleman, with a warm, kind expression, a ready smile, and rhythmic voice. He is very excited to teach us Twi. We learned more in the last two days of class that I did the first month of high school German. Of course, the class is meant to get us speaking Twi as soon as possible, given our immersion in the environment.
I also had another English class. I found a very helpful woman in the English Office who very directly told me that Oral Literature would not be offered this term. She helped me sign up for a class dealing with a select author, in this case, Chinua Achebe. I've read a bit of Achebe: Things Fall Apart, Anthills of the Savannah, and a few of his essays. But this will be an opportunity to go really in-depth, to get a feel for his entire body of work. I am very excited.
So I went to the Chinua Achebe class today, and yet again, the professor did not show. But I did meet two Ghanian students, Alberta and Selena. We started talking about their classes last semester, and I think that we really hit it off. I have a whole list of books to look up, and Selena promised to bring me the syllabus for the class she took on Ghanian Literature last semester. I'm very excited for that class next week.
I've been hanging out in the USAC office the last few days. There are a few chairs and a computer for students to use. And AC. That is the kicker. But it's nice to have a place that I can go and ask questions. And the Assistant Coordinator, Claudia, lets us hang out there and relax. She and the director, Abigail, are wonderful. I have no idea what I would do without them.
Abigail was out of the office today, so she asked Claudia to pick up her son after school and take him to his aunt's house. I asked to go with her, and she shrugged and agreed. It was interesting to see a Ghanian primary school. It is the one that is behind my dorm building, but I got to see it from the front and see the buildings up close. They are dark wood structures, with wooden shutters that open so that each building, which only houses one or two classrooms, is almost completely open. Buildings here are definitely designed with the heat in mind. Every building has some way of catching breezes, be it with windows, balconies, or open hallways. The children were actually a bit afraid of me, I think. A lot of them just looked at me like they didn't understand what I was doing there. Some of them smiled and waved, and I tried to reciprocate enthusiastically. I played peekaboo around a corner with two small boys while Claudia was talking to a teacher. Neither of them were willing to talk to me, but they laughed when I pretended to be a silly monster. Abigail's son didn't say much. I think I freaked him out, too. I don't tend to think of myself as scary, but I guess to children, I am an unknown quantity.
We drove Abigail's son to East Legon, which I have heard is where the wealthy professionals live. It was certainly different from some of the other parts of the city I have seen. There were large houses, about the size of houses in an expensive suburban development in America, all behind walls. I had read about that--meaning the house as a part of a walled compound--in Nigerian fiction, but I had no idea that it was true here. What was really interesting was that, as nice as the houses were (and they were very nice, with beautiful stone work, plenty of windows, and interesting uses of color), the roads were unpaved and full of potholes. It was more than a bit of a contradiction. I wonder what these prosperous suburbanites think of their roads? I remember when Williamsburg Village was having the pipes redone. The roads were a mess, and I absolutely hated it. This is far less temporary. It makes me wonder about how these people might go about having the road fixed. In America, or at least in Skokie, the people of Williamsburg Village had some say in what was done with our own tax money--it went into redoing the pipes and roads. I doubt the same is true here.
In the car, Claudia was listening to a broadcast of an appointment hearing for a woman nominated for the position of Minister of Women, Children, and Social Services. She was formerly a human rights advocate, and the members of the assembly were grilling her mercilessly on her position on the rights of homosexuals. I was rather appalled by the attitudes expresses, even by the female former human rights advocate. There is very little tolerance of alternative views of sexuality here. I had to bite my tongue to keep from stomping all over their right to their own view of the issue. I didn't think that it was the right time to challenge such beliefs. But I was very disturbed. The Ghanian constitution treats homosexual acts as criminal offenses. As an American, that baffles me. The American attitude of "don't tell me what to do" is very much present in my reaction. I do not think that any government has the right to tell me who I am allowed to love or how I am permitted to express that love. I would take up arms to defend that right, I think. I have never seen myself as particularly strong in this particular American characteristic, but in this case, I am firm.
But I have to stop myself. What was the American position on homosexuality fifty years ago? I think that it was very similar to the current Ghanian views. Things will change, in their own time and at their own pace. I should not impose my views upon people who have no wish to hear them.
But this is something I will have to think about.
I think about Matt and Marshall and Kate from FMLA at Iowa.
It feels like a cop out to say 'give it time', but I cannot think of any other solution.
No comments:
Post a Comment