Ghana - Life in a rural village!

Once again, Ghana stands out as one of our most memorable ports – this time because of Fredrick Benneh Frimpong and our 4 day homestay in Senase village. Fred is a 25 year old Ghanaian from Senase and currently finishing his studies in the US.  He flew back to Ghana from San Francisco just for this trip and to check on the school you will hear about later in this posting.

When we signed up for the Semester at Sea field program to a rural village in northern Ghana, “2 hours” north of Komasi, we knew the drive would take longer than the 5 hours touted, so we doubled the expected travel time, and were not surprised when it to took 10 hours there and 11 hours back (we left the ship in Takaroti then met it in Tema).  

We joined 24 other shipmates on a trip that provided us a glimpse into a non-touristed part of a Ghana and the chance to interact with Ghanaians in their village and school.  We were well cared for during our 4 days, eating local dishes prepared by Fred’s family over campfires in their yard and sleeping in rooms generously vacated so that we had a place to sleep.

In our welcome briefing, Fred had suggested that we all might try to get up early and help our host families hauling water from the local well, sweeping and getting ready for the day.  It sounded like a great plan, but in reality, we just tried to hang on in this foreign environment.  Our bodies were not used to the 90+ degree heat (day and night) with no A/C and there were constant activities and people swarming around us at all times so by the time we fell asleep we were exhausted.  We sweated 24/7 and we found ourselves sweltering in our beds as we tried to fall asleep waiting for the oscillating fan to finish its 15 second rotation back to our bed.  Just before 4:00 a.m. the neighborhood roosters, which Jay called the Vietnamese roosters since they clearly were calling out dawn in the wrong time-zone, would sound their alarms and try to rouse us from our beds.

We spent our first day volunteering at the Semanhyiya American School that Fred had founded and built.  The school, whose name means “if we had not met,” was the result of Fred’s meeting Barbara Allison, a SAS lifelong learner who funded Fred’s university schooling in the US and who started the Godfred foundation that built  the school.  Semaysheya represents a new approach to schooling that is in stark contrast to the government run schools in Ghana.  Fred incorporated the best teaching techniques from London and the U.S. into his school’s kindergarten and 1^st grade classrooms.  They filled the initial classes with a lottery since they had so many applications for limited spots.  Now that they have a year completed, we are sure their new class of pre-K will be even more oversubscribed. 

Our 3^rd day started with a 5:30 wakeup call since the school bus left at 6 to pickup kids from neighboring villages.  Despite the early hour, we greeted by energetic smiles at each stop.   We arrived at the school by 7:30, served breakfast to the kids and began a morning of games and activities with the kids.  A highlight was seeing what the kids built from toys we brought from our toy company, Brackitz.   Another highlight was pehaps the funniest part of our day.  The students begin each morning by dancing and singing the Electric Slide and, even better, the Macarena.  By the time we finished delivering the kids back to their homes, we were exhausted by the heat and constant interaction with dozens of kids.  But Fred had one more treat in store.  He had organized a soccer game against the locals on the village field.  With heaps of spectators, Luke and Jay joined three students from the ship, the teachers and Fred's friends in a referee-aided 5-3 victory over a group of local players.  It's a miracle that Ghana's Black Stars regularly qualify for the World Cup but we suppose practicing tin that heat will kill you or make you stronger!

In addition to our time at Semanhyiya, we also visited different villages, government schools and hung out with the locals in Senase.  With the intensity of 4 straight days living at Fred’s parents’ house, we were able to see the realities of living in a subsistence farming community and the stark difference in teaching styles, facilities and overall resources between public and private schools. Ghana remains primarily a subsistence farming country with 60% of the population involved in agriculture, usually on a small scale. To achieve its long-term goals of becoming an industrialized country by 2030, it will need a new generation of entrepreneurs and leaders to challenge the status quo and bring about significant change. It is the very rare exceptional person who will come out of the rote-learning, fear-based model of teaching in the government schools prepared to drive the changes Ghana needs.  And so Semanhyiya’s model gave us a glimmer of hope, but the concept will need to be replicated on a much larger scale.  We plan to support the construction of the 2^nd grade classroom that will open next September and Fred is planning to expand his concept with other schools in nearby villages.  We think Fred has a great chance to succeed through his leadership and drive.  He and Barbara have created a model where the schools need support for construction but are self sustaining for operating expenses.

Although this was a tiring 4 days, it was the best trip we have taken through SAS because it allowed us to authentically interact with locals and understand a way of life that is so starkly different from our own.  We have made new lifelong friends and have found a new way to give back and make a difference in one small place in the world. 

To learn more about Semanhyiya and its founders, Fred and Barbara, visit this website.  The foundation is called Godfreds Foundation and was named after a bright young student named Godfred.  Fred's first aim was to make sure that Godfred had a path to a good future and would have opportunities that Fred never did.  Ironically, Godfred is too old to attend Fred's school since it only has pre-K - 1st grade (and is adding a new year of school each year as the kids advance). 

So that’s a wrap on our experience in Ghana. If you want to hear more about our take on Ghana, look for another post soon.  On the ship we had a lot of discussion about the costs and benefits of “voluntourism”, and tourism in general.  We will explore that and other things in a non-country blog post soon.