Operation Ghana

Wednesday January 30, 2008
Shining The Light

This morning, Heidi woke us up at 6:00AM. Aaron, Marco and I started the walk up the road toward the deaf high school.

Today we were going to do a sign language workshop with the high school teachers. Aaron brought his video camera. I had told Curry about how nervous I felt about filming the teachers. Marco and Curry agreed that the sign language workshops are put on and paid for my Signs of Hope International, so it was up to them to say if we could film. Curry said, “Go for it!” When we arrived, Marco told me that we would be doing the same lesson that we had taught the primary and junior secondary school teachers. “Good, I will look like an expert!” I laughed. The teachers seemed enthusiastic about learning and we had a good time together. They were not thrilled that the video camera was in the room, you could tell. Aaron mostly kept the camera pointed at Marco and me. Half way through the lesson one man got up and pulled Marco outside. When they returned, Marco asked Aaron to turn off the camera.

We later found out that this teacher had called the headmaster on his cell phone during class and complained that we were filming. The headmaster was not aware that we would be filming so he demanded that we stop. From what I understand, the high school headmaster is new, so they are still building the trust and relationships there. A trust they had already built with the old headmaster.

When we finished, Aaron went back to the cottage to check on Leah and I stopped at the Orthopedic Hospital to see if Robert was in. I found him and he brought me in to meet his boss. Imagine my surprise meeting his boss Brenda. She is an American from Virginia! She has been here for more than 2 years. An African American man who was from New York City started the hospital. Turns out it is not only an orthopedic hospital but also a full service hospital! She said that their surgeon graduated from Harvard Medical. She said the reason she loves working there is because it is the facility she would choose for herself. (Remember Derek’s nightmare after seeing the local hospital?) So, right up the street from the cottage where the SOHI volunteers live for 2 months is a full service hospital that has a surgeon and hospital manager who both speak English and are from America! Are you kidding me? I think everyone can rest easier.

I told Brenda about SOHI and Signing Time. She said that she would love to have sign language workshops for her staff especially since over one hundred deaf students walk past their facility a couple of times every day. Hmmmm, we could set that up. I am going to run a Signing Time DVD #1 back up to her today. She suggested that the SOHI volunteers register with them at the hospital when they arrive. One of the biggest problems here according to Brenda is that there are so many groups who come in with their own people and their own mission, foundations with their own administration and no one knows what the other groups are doing. Sure you register with your embassy, but that information is not readily available.

Brenda said she is waiting for a large shipment of Braille books and she will deliver them to the blind school a few hours north. I stopped her and told her about Sylvia, Sylvia who is a few roads away, deaf and blind and can read Braille. I begged her to PLEASE drop some books off to Sylvia before sending them all to the blind school up north.

Brenda confirmed the stories of mentally and physically disabled children hidden in corners of small huts all throughout the country. She also confirmed that many villages REALLY do believe the children are possessed and yes they REALLY do expect the parents to abandon or kill their child. (I know the Dutch group had told me this but it is so unbelievable that I had to ask someone else.) Brenda agreed, “It is ALL about education!”

She told me that her hospital would be receiving close to 200 wheelchairs from another non-profit group. She said that there is a disability group that meets at the hospital every other Sunday, when the wheelchairs arrive they will spread the word. This of course made me think of our three friends from Holland who are working in Tamale. They have been trying to get wheelchairs shipped from Holland. Would they salivate to know 200 wheelchairs were en route?

All of this is the perfect example of what an information exchange at least between volunteers, agencies and humanitarian operations could offer! Work smarter, NOT harder!

I hurried home to share the good news with Curry and Heidi. Curry said he would go up later today and speak with her as well. Robi has the email address of our Dutch friends and they are here for a few more weeks, perhaps we can get her in touch with Brenda. Knowledge is power!

I can imagine the SOHI volunteers doing sign language workshops at the hospital too. The hospital providing wheelchairs for the families in Tamale. Braille books being shipped next door to the single deaf-blind student who can read them would not pass her by on their way to the school for the blind, which is hours away.

Rather than pretend we are each an island building our own village from the ground up, we can reach out and build together. Utilizing resources, knowledge and power, together we can clear a path wider and further than we could all alone and we could accomplish it in record time.

We packed up to go to the primary school. I wore my brown skirt and my orange tunic shirt, brown and orange, their school uniform colors. We did some more workshops with the children connecting the written alphabet and manual alphabet. Connecting written numbers and signed numbers along with counting objects.

After the lessons we gave each child a Signing Time temporary tattoo. Some of the teachers wanted them too. We went from class to class through the entire primary school. When we got to the youngest class, the six year-olds, I began signing to them to explain what we were doing with the tattoos, giving them instruction to let them dry, not scratch it off etc. The teacher came up to me and said, “They do not understand you. They do not know what you are doing with your hands. They think you are only waving them around.” At first I thought she meant because maybe the signs are too different, which had not yet been a problem. Then I realized she meant they do not know sign language. Does she really think NOT signing is the answer? I don’t care if they don’t understand my every sign, but how will they learn if they are not exposed to language? Can you imagine sitting at home for 6 years with no information, only to come to school and sit around some more?

This reminds me. The day we did the Signing Time Performance for the students, there was a little girl, one of the youngest who took me by the hand and began leading me to various classrooms. We crossed the entire school grounds, went upstairs and she opened an empty classroom door. She led me to the back of the room and smiled as she pointed to a computer print out, a Signing Time picture of me with Alex and Leah!!

She knew every classroom that had our picture hanging up and she lead me into each one. After she had shown me all of them we walked back to the main courtyard. I was signing to her and an older boy came up to me and said, “Don’t sign to her! She doesn’t know sign and she can’t understand.” I asked him if he knew all of the signs when he first came to school. “No,” was his answer. I then asked him, “What would have happened if no one signed to YOU because you could not sign? How would you ever learn?” He got my point.

I just ran out a third pen! Maybe pens aren’t made like they used to be.

Mary is one of the teachers at the primary school who always welcomes us in. She is anxious to continue learning sign. Hers was the first class we saw today. I had brought some Crayola chalk in my bag. I noticed that her blackboard only had writing in white chalk. I went up to her and handed her a bright red stick of chalk and a bright blue one. “Would you like colored chalk?” I asked. A huge smile broke out on her face. “Thank you! Bless you! May God bless you always!!” I gave her an autographed picture of me and Alex and Leah that said, “To Mary, you are a wonderful teacher!” She was beaming. She was so thrilled. So I gave her the purple, green, orange and yellow chalk as well. Which was half of a 95-cent box of chalk from Walk-mart. She said, “Look,” pointing to her chalkboard, “I have no color. Now I will have color!” Mary allowed us to film and take pictures in her class. We got everyone together and did some group shots.

Each of us has our favorite students. Mine are Priscilla and Solomon. Aaron says Solomon just looks like a kid you want to wrestle. He is 8 years old. After spending some time in his classroom I started to notice his name written in chalk here and there. On the front side of a desk or down the leg of a chair you see all capital letters SOLOMON. Yeas, Solomon is tagging with chalk at age 8! Just makes me love him that much more!

The children finished class and went to lunch. We wanted to get one of our famous fanta runs on video. You’d think no one ever walks in and buys 8 sodas at one time. Dora was not home and the local store has been out of fanta for days now. I am sure they cannot figure out where all of the oburunis came from and how we can exist on a diet of orange fanta I don’t think I have purchased fanta at home ever! I am kicking myself for not realizing that we could have been buying our fanta from Dora this whole time. I am sure she would have appreciated it.

It is hot in the early afternoon, so hot that we come into the house and turn on the ceiling fans. This is their cool season! Many of the students have sweaters and jackets on.

Marco has not been feeling well. He has been having trouble with his eyes and his hands were cold as ice today. His hearing aid was not magically fixed after using Leah’s dehumidifier. Luckily, Moses, the landlord stopped by last night. He rents to Marco as well. We all talked for a while. Moses said he had the cottage cleaned when we were in Cape Coast, but he had locked the bedrooms to protect our things. I asked him about the early morning chanting, turns out the gardener is Muslim and we had heard his prayers, come to think of it, it was reminiscent of when I went to Israel years ago. Moses was talking to Marco, but Marco explained that his hearing aid broke so he could not hear Moses. Moses is an audiologist in Accra. He took Marco into his home and tested his hearing and even said he would bring a loaner hearing aid until his comes back from the U.S. fixed. The loaner is not as strong as Marco’s hearing aid but it is better than nothing. Marco is the only person I have seen here with a hearing aid.

Every day you see ash blowing around in corners of courtyards and near walls. We all end up with little bits of ash in our hair. Curry had said that people would go through our garbage. I imagined dumpster diving. The first few days here, whenever someone took out the trash I imagines them walking to a large metal container with two plastic hinged doors on top. One day I volunteered to take out the trash. I was told, “The garbage is through the gate and then back behind the far wall, just keep walking and you’ll see it. There is a path.” I followed these instructions only to find a vast garbage pile running down a steep hill. The path continues on toward other homes. This was a main walkway from the homes behind us to the road. This is something I thought about a lot. As you drive down the road you see shops, store fronts and peddlers, but what is beyond the shops? What would you find in the hills along the footpaths? What is presented to you and easy to see appears to be what I would consider extreme poverty. But don’t judge a book by its cover… only think of that as the opposite of the traditional sense. Are we presented with the shiny cover? Are we seeing the best? If so, I do not have a word for what lies beyond.

Poverty does not necessarily equal misery and sadness, just as wealth does not equal happiness and peace. Is it better to have a car that is light enough for 5 men to lift by hand if it gets stuck? When my starter goes out do I head down hill and pop it in gear or do I cancel my “life” because one of my possessions has inconvenienced me?

We have not worn half of the clothes we brought. Does that gross you out? I am sure it would have grossed me out 9 days ago. I was worried about finding 4 t-shirts in one color and 4 more in another color and trying to keep from clashing. I am serious! When I get home I am donating half of my closet to Goodwill or maybe I will list it all on EBay and then donate it to Ghana. There is so much to do and many who can do it. The question is who is willing? Is there a cause that is worth your life? Or do we simply cycle? Wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, breakfast, put kids on bus, work, lunch, work, meet kids, homework, dinner, watch TV, brush teeth, pajamas, bed. REPEAT. I think sometimes the ONLY reason we get out of bed each morning is because we didn’t die in our sleep the night before. Is that it? We pat ourselves on the back for brushing our teeth regularly and flossing. I am not being critical so please don’t read this in an angry tone. I am not being sarcastic either.

We know not what we see and we can only guess at what we cannot see. SOHI came across a little girl in a deaf village. She didn’t know her name, only her name sign. Her mother works every day to make enough money to buy enough food to sustain life for her children. And we think we struggle? We think we know sacrifice? Sometimes the mother does not eat, so her children can. When SOHI offered to sponsor the daughter so she could go to school her mother in tears thank God and told her daughter, “You will go to school! You will sleep on a bed and you will eat every day!” In a sense I feel my hands are tied, wanting to help improve areas that can be improved but also glimpsing the truth on the other side. To us the schools look filthy, lonely and the education could stand an overhaul. But for so many of these children they see the same school as a haven. It is life. It is as the mother said, a bed and food every day. We see the school, but we may never see where these children live when they go home. I can only imagine home is some place better than the school because I am lucky enough to ONLY know better and to ONLY have seen better and so I can only imagine better.

The more I look, the deeper I shine the light the more it is clear to me that I know nothing.

I have not been forced to hide my physically disabled child. The few times I have been criticized for my parenting choices it has hardly impacted my family at all. Here it can be life or death.

I get emotional many times when I sing the Signing Time Theme Song. One line in particular just gets me whether I am in Central Park, Mampong or Fargo. “Where friends can meet and find we’re not so different after all.” It is all about love. If we could love, rather than judge, we would live entirely different lives.

We are heading back to the school. This is the second to the last time we will go to deaf school. See, there I go tearing up again!

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