Aboom Methodist Special Needs School

Because I recently realized I haven't included anything about the project I'm doing here with ProGhana, I decided I'd finally post something regarding the Aboom Methodist Special Needs School.

First things first...

Sadly, children with disabilities are severely looked down upon here in Ghana. Even worse, many Ghanaians see having a child with special need as a punishment from God. For these reasons, as well as limited resources regarding schooling in general, children with disabilities are rarely given a chance to develop with their peers and it is even more rare that these children are given the opportunity to attend a school that employees teachers specifically trained in special education. The Aboom Methodist School for children with special needs is one of the first of its kind and is only two years old!

Thankfully, the children with special needs living in Cape Coast now have somewhere to go and learn.

The good old Aboom Methodist School for Children with Special Needs

There are 30 pupils at the 3 room school, ranging in age from about 5 to 17 and ranging in disabilities from autism and cerebral palsy to a simple delay in speech. The children are absolutely wonderful and greeted me with open arms from the second I walked in.

With ProGhana's help, my main mission during my month in Ghana will be to help facilitate a learning environment that is conducive to each student reaching his or her fullest potential. I'll be mostly doing anything the teachers ask of me, as well as simply providing one on one time with students I feel will benefit it the most.

The first week I mainly tried to build rapport with the children in the younger classroom while also assisting the teacher in keeping the children on task. The best days so far seem to be when math is being taught because addition is quite simple to explain. So far we've used bottlecaps and rocks from right outside the door to help illustrate the idea of adding two numbers together.

Here the students gather rocks for their math lesson

Because my exact role is sort of unclear, I have taken on several.

1. I've taken a page out of my older sister's book and have lead the physical education portion, including a relay race activity that helped teach them to wait in line and to follow instructions and a sweet beach ball passing game that got several students to yell out the name of who they would pass it to, in order to help with vocalization.

Here we are with the beach ball. Paul (the one with the hood on) is always smiling and is one of the students I spend the most time with. So far I have taught him to say "go" when he wants me to push him around really fast and "up" when he is slouching and wants to be repositioned.

2. For those of you that know I have no rhythm, I have surprisingly been able to lead a drumming session.

The two boys pictured above are best buds and are always together. One day, when the middle boy didn't show up and the other was feeling somewhat bored, he decided to walk home. We had no idea where he had went and we checked all over. Sure enough, we phoned his father and he confirmed that he had made it home safely . No one seemed too bothered by it so I guess it happens quite often.

3. Shoe tying! I'm not sure why but all of the children come to me or the Japanese volunteer when they need help tying their shoes. It's fun though, except when they're all slobbery...

This little guy is another one I spend a lot of time with. He's always smiling and loves to play soccer with me during our free time. Luckily, his laces were not slobbery when this picture was taken.

4. Stretch! Although I didn't lead it, I did help one of the teachers get the children to stretch. It was a really fun time seeing how flexible a lot of the kids were and how flexible I'm not. They tried to help me touch my toes but I think I ended up pulling something instead...

Stretch 1 2 3 4

5. Making something out of what seems like nothing. At the end of the day, when all the teachers are absolutely pooped, I seem to be the most useful. There are a couple of children that stay late because they live too far and need a ride home. Because I've already tried every trick in my book at this point in the day, I have to get super creative. When the soccer ball has lost its appeal and the chalkboard is filled with numbers and letters, I get desperate. One day I found two old car tires under a table and started rolling them around. 10 minutes later, we had two lines going and they were taking turns and communicating the most I've seen for some of them.

Here we are rolling the tire back and forth at the end of the day.

I'm currently working on an album with more pictures from the school but due to heavy rainfall and high winds, the internet has been down for a while. Stay tuned!

I Made a Friend!

Sometime last week during my 15 minute walk to the taxi junction, I was walking passed the apartments (flats) where the hospital staff live for free. A girl walked out and she immediately offered to carry my thermos containing my lunch, but I politely declined. We were both going to the same place so we ended up walking the 15 minutes together and then got in the same shared taxi. She seemed really nice and asked me if I wanted to accompany her to go and buy the fresh fish she was planning on purchasing, but I explained I had to go to work at the school but would love to go another day.

In the end, she said that she'd show me the fresh fish market today (Saturday), when I didn't have anything to do. Together, with her 7-year-old little sister, Susie, we ventured off to the beach where the fisherman sell their freshly caught fish right from the net.

I would never have felt comfortable enough to dare enter the large and intimidating area set aside for the fisherman, but Esther was obviously a pro. After talking with some of the fishermen, Esther explained that in order to reach the water we had to take a certain route because the boats were packed so tightly.

For all of you non 'football' fans, the symbol on this boat is of a Spanish soccer team from Barcelona, Spain. Just goes to show you how deep their love for the sport is. As you can see, in order to get the boat on the beach, they roll the boat using the metal rod and the 2 pieces of wood. Tough work...


After walking to the end of the beach and chatting with various fisherman about what they've caught, I noticed a group of boys playing soccer. The ocean is in bounds and they use two sticks jammed into the sand for goal posts.

Susie. Such a cutie.

After enjoying the waves for a while and even venturing out on some rocks, I decided it'd be a good idea to take a rest and enjoy some of Ghana's amazing pineapple juice at a restaurant next to the castle.

Here, Susie kicks my butt in a bottle cap game.

As you can tell by how empty my bottle is, I really love Ghana's pineapple juice.

With the constant breeze from the ocean and the great food selection, this is definitely gonna be one of my new hangout spots.

After playing the bottle cap game and keeping them entertained with stories about my family, including Oakley the family dog, we eventually made it back to the downtown taxi junction and waited for about 30 minutes for it to fill up with other passengers. I've never had to wait that long for the shared taxi, but in the end I was happy because we purchased a fresh pineapple from a vendor who came to our window and devoured it within minutes.

Unfortunately, it started to drizzle while we sat in the taxi. It started to pick up but never became anything of a bother. After making our way out of town and to the junction closer to home, the rain started to pick up. We were still able to walk in it and it was quite refreshing. I was enjoying the moment when all of a sudden Esther yelled, "LISTEN!" In the distance I could hear the sound of the raindrops roaring. Susie took off but I stayed back with Esther. Within seconds it was an absolute downpour!

Look closely and you can actually see the raindrops!

We were soaked to the bone but because it remained about 80 degrees, I was happy.

And then, just like that, it was gone. The clothes I had out on the line were drenched but there wouldn't be another cloud in the sky all day. Just another day in Cape Coast...

It feels so great to finally have made a friend. I can tell the older brothers are becoming a bit tiresome of having to accompany me everywhere. I can't blame them because I finally realized that when I invite them to the market to help me find clothes hangers or a mirror, for them, it's just like me going shopping with my mom at home...HORRENDOUS!

Tomorrow I get to join up with the new ProGhana group from California and head to Kakum National Park, so stay tuned!

My Hotel Room in Accra

Because it's a 3 hour drive from Accra, Ghana's capital city, to Cape Coast, where I'm staying, Sarah decided it would be best if we stayed in a hotel the night I arrived and took a van to Cape Coast the following morning. Here are my very first pictures from Ghana, showing off my hotel room. I enjoyed a wonderful breeze all night and in the morning woke up to the sound of the barking guard dog, a German Shepherd that reminded me of Casey, my childhood dog and best friend growing up. Sarah and I enjoyed a quick breakfast consisting of toast and jam and some tea before heading off to Cape Coast. I had my hands full with my luggage to snap any pictures but we were surrounded by people trying to get in the right van heading for Cape Coast. It was exciting and somewhat scary but we made it. I learned all about Sarah's life abroad (in the last 9 years she's only spent 2 years living in the U.S. and that was with teach for America!) and further realized how great of an asset she's going to be while her in Ghana.

My bed. Notice the curtains blowing as well as the sweet fufu ball on my luggage, thanks to my Grandma Lesch ; )

Thankfully, Sarah reminded me that they do not flush their toilet paper in Ghana...

Hot water showers are hard to find but they really aren't needed. The quick shower I took was quite refreshing, thanks to the obscenely high humidity that I'm thankfully somewhat used to.

More coming soon...

Here Goes...

So it's been a little over a week here in Cape Coast, Ghana and I couldn't be happier.

I'm here with the organization ProGhana and so far their staff has been extremely helpful and willing to bend over backwards to meet my needs. From the moment Sarah, the site director, picked me up from the airport after I had spent over 13 hours in an airplane, I knew she was going to be someone I could definitely count on during my stay in Ghana.

Since this is my first post, I'll take this time to explain how I got here.

As many of you reading this know, last December I was given a chance to go on a study abroad trip to Cape Town, South Africa. During that trip, I decided I would skip studying abroad in Spain and traveling around Europe to instead return to the amazingly wonderful Cape Town. After working things out with VaCorps, the internship organization I'll be working with in South Africa, it seemed as though I would have the month of June free. Meanwhile, I had been receiving emails and postcards in the mail from ProWorld, ProGhana's parent organization, regarding their sites in Peru and Bolivia because I hoped to expand my poor Spanish-speaking skills with them in the future. Out of nowhere, I got an email stating that they had just opened up a site in Ghana and were looking for volunteers. I thought about it but decided I should just stay around town and instead study for the GRE . The next day, I received an email from a representative from ProWorld, explaining that they would have a rep on the U of I campus the following week. I put it on my calendar and continued to contemplate.

I decided that I wouldn't commit to anything at the meeting but I would get as many details as possible and make an educated decision. After meeting with Erin, the super-nice representative, I was hooked. After speaking with my parents and asking my contacts in South Africa if the change in dates would be okay, I applied. And now I'm here...

I am the first individual volunteer here in Cape Coast and there has only been one group of volunteers that was here a couple weeks ago. For being so new, ProGhana is super on top of things and has been simply amazing.

Besides getting a little sick from the drastic change in food preferences and weather, the trip has gone perfectly so far. For my project, I am working at the Aboom Methodist School for Children with Special Needs. It is one of the very first schools for children with special needs in the area and there is a waiting list for pupils that are eager to be admitted. That takes up my week and last weekend I got to go with Lawrence, another staff member of ProGhana, to help build a school in a village outside of town. The picture below is of Charles, the brother of the founder of the school, and myself placing a palm tree post in a hole. It will support the roof of a temporary kitchen for the school.

Since this is the very first post, I'll keep it short. Still trying to get used to this but look for more pictures soon!