On Monday, Eric picks me up at 2 pm to show me the way to the orphanage „New Life“ where I am going to work for the next two months. After a fifteen minutes drive with the taxi we arrive. I am introduced to my supervisor, James, who doesn‘t seem to be very interested. He hands me over to two little boys, Anthony and Nelson, coming back from school to show me around. The orphanage is a one-storey building with three dormitories for boys and three for girls, a dining room with a little kitchen that is not used, a room serving as library, play room and room for the volunteers and one washroom. It hosts children aged from maybe three to eighteen. Next to the orphanage is a private school for younger children, some hundred meters further away a government school. I learn that in private schools, fees have to be paid and the teachers are not qualified. In government schools, there are no school fees, the teachers are qualified and get paid more but they are lazy. Sometimes they strike and on Fridays they don‘t like to work. Now school has finished, time for lunch. Millicent, the cook, scoops bean stew from a big pot, one girl adds some corn, another a trickle of sauce. I help distributing the mostly broken plastic plates to the children. After lunch, the kids play but they don‘t need much help with that. At 5 pm, the other volunteer says we should go. It is hard to find a taxi later. The kids are alone now, except from Millicent, who is cooking in a little hut behind the classrooms, the kitchen.
The next two days, I go to work early and help Jolanda from Holland with her class, seven students in primary 4. It is difficult. Kids walk into the classrooms, even teachers, without any explanation or excuse. There is no door to shut out noise from other classes. But we get along. Mathematics and Integrated science are good subjects for us. We have more difficulties teaching Religious and Moral Education or Fantse, the local language. Sometimes we don‘t get the attention of the students. In the classroom next to ours, I hear the teacher slap the kids. They sit quietly at their tables.
One morning, I hear singing and clapping when I arrive at the school. All the children of the primary school are in one classroom, some are dancing. Led by teachers, they sing, then pray, and sing again. Subject: Worship. They learn a new song and after a final prayer everyone goes to back to his or her classroom.
In the afternoons, more volunteers arrive to play with the children. I don‘t really know what to do as the kids keep themselves busy well enough, so I help washing the dishes in two basins behind the orphanage. The plates have the colour of the food.
