Luckily, I chose to work at the mural station. I wrote "Grey Memorial School 2009" across a long piece of butcher paper in purple marker (of course!) but that was totally subconscious come to think of it. Funny. We had to screen out the legitimate school kids from the fakers. The school is located near two other schools. Our kids' uniforms look exactly the same as another schools except for a badge on the chest. However, everyone's uniform is torn and old so half of them don't even have badges. I would have let anyone sign, but just our school alone has 350+ kids, so adding two more schools would have been "too crazy." So I started testing the kids. Haha. I would ask them who their teachers were, and if they could give the names of my classmates who taught them we would let them trace their hand. Sounds mean, but it was necessary! Then we even had to put X's on their hands because they kept trying to sneak back in. Hence, my theory of secret workers for "chaos". It all adds up~
My Mary
Jennifer...and a surprise Abigail
Little Richard and his beautiful face! Love him.
I was mostly happy for the chance to get some photos with my favorite students: Richard, Mary & Jennifer. I am not ready to say goodbye, so I'm going back to the school tomorrow morning before we have class here at the hostel so I can give my kids little bracelets I made tonight, just so they remember me.
This boy, Bernard, is so good with the kids. And he always raised his hand to answer when we taught. I hope he has a chance at some good opportunities in his life.
Laya & Christiana
Lynley giving high 5's
The female teachers got together and made all the girls in our group dresses and all the boys in our group shirts. They didn't even take our measurements and they fit surprisingly well! They just had them in a big pile on the office desk and we randomly picked ours out, but mine is perfect for me. It's blue and has a sparkly neck line. (Above, with Jennifer.)
After we were gifted our dresses we all filed out of the office for the culture show. Once again, I felt like a celebrity as the students performed some dances they had prepared for us. The kids were all gathered around the square and clearly having a ball.
Really, the kids just like to touch us; our arms, legs, chests, tummy, hair, and apparently...feet. This little guy kept "patting" my foot throughout the culture show.
Their outfits were just pieces of fabric wrapped around them and tied in knots. For the most part their outfits are pretty simple designs. And to carry their babies they just take a piece of fabric and wrap it around the baby on their back then roll the ends and tuck them under each other in front of them. No sewing, just tying. And they don't cut off the selvage either. It's all very simply constructed, but surprisingly well fitted. Or maybe that's because both the people and the fabric are just beautiful, so simplicity suits them.
It was like a sea of faces and little black heads in every direction
The dances were pretty similar to each other, they just had different age groups perform. They started out pretty innocent, then...um, seriously, we were kind of laughing to ourselves because of the dance moves. Like, super suggestive in a strange-foreign-culture way. We must be missing something because...it was just funny. But for the most part they were just way cool~
We were guessing he was waking them up???
This was the last leg of our send-off party. They climbed the tree to wave goodbye over the wall. They're like little monkeys...everywhere!
I'm gonna get back to working on my kids' bracelets
(little bells on stretchy
cord that I brought over so when they hear
them twinkle, they will remember me)
and chatting with the roomies~ Another good day in Ghana!
(Mom, I added a video on the Monkey post.)
Oh man...this was just fun! The dancing is just awesome...love it, and the colors of the fabric and the gorgeous faces! Is that amazing that those sweet ladies made you dresses, or what? Pretty cute you were marking the hands of those who had already traced their hands onto the paper. And, I know they will be tickled with their little bells. Glad to know after all of our fretting in Walmart over what to and what not to take just how those little bells will be put to use!! :) :)
ReplyDeleteI admit I loved the chicken-flapping of that last group best, but it was so fun to see each age group dance differently.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I am looking at a National Geographip magazine, the colors and everything is so beautiful.
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