Internship cont.

Though this could come across as a shock, I LOVE my internship. I love teaching and getting to know the kids and the other teachers. So far, it has been a great experience. I've taught several classes by now on informal letter writing. We practiced writing thank you letters and a letter to someone in America. The letters are HILARIOUS to read. I crack up the whole time in the corner while grading. First of all, almost every sentence mentions God or the Lord or something related. Ghana is an EXTREMELY religious country so it fits. Also, they have really funny/cute expressions that they use. They often write, "I hope you're fit as a fiddle," meaning I hope you're doing well. I was so confused when I first read this. Also, when the kids were writing letters to "pen-pals," I told them to pick one specific cultural difference and explain it. In Ghana, everyone is named after the day that they were born. I'm Tuesday born, so my name is Abena. One kid wrote, "The common names in Ghana are Abena, Kofi, Ama, (etc. these are all day names). The common names in America are Bruce, Yamit, and Richard." I died when I read this. If only he knew that there are no other Yamits in America.

Another really cute aspect is how this kids ask to go to the bathroom. They generally say, "Can I go urinate?" which was unexpected. Sometimes the boys ask to go to the gents. I had to go to the bathroom the other day for the first time so a teacher sent a student to go show me the teacher's bathroom. I was really impressed that they have their own bathroom because it's not uncommon for schools to have no bathrooms at all. So we go in the regular bathroom (which is co-ed) and she just points to a specific stall and tells me that's the teacher's bathroom. It wasn't any different than any other stall. And then of course, the sinks didn't work.