Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 8:54am
Dear Friends,
So
I’ve been waiting to tell you about classes until I actually had some
and now that I have, I’d better update you. The registration process
consisted of us picking classes off of sheets of papers for the
different departments and we didn’t have them for all the departments.
In choosing the classes, there are no times so you don’t know if any of
them overlap or what kind of schedule you are signing up for when you
choose. So crazy and disorganizes!! We were very surprised at this
‘process’ since it seemed so mishmash or something. So we picked some
classes based on the names as there were no descriptions of the classes,
another frustration. Signing up for a class you don’t know what it may
consist of, what time it meets or where is just frustrating. So we did
that on Friday 2 weeks ago.
Classes were sort of supposed
to start the following Monday but since this is Africa, (TIA), that
wasn’t the case. I didn’t have any classes that week and I went to all
of them. After registering you have to have the info from your classes
and then go to the departments that aren’t very clearly labeled and find
the boards out front or in the area where they post the ‘time tables.’
After you do that, if you can decipher the posted info, you have to try
and find the class rooms. People will help you but sometimes you get
tired of asking for everything all the time and just want to figure it
out. So when you find your classes and show up, you are feeling pretty
good. Its good to ask someone in the room, if there are people, what the
class is to be sure you are in the right place. And then you wait. And
you wait. And you wait some more, sitting on wooden benches with peeling
paint and slatted back rests with only 2 maybe 3 boards to lean on,
crowded in with lots of people all on the same bench since there often
is not enough room for everyone, sweating and hot, waiting. And the
professor doesn’t show up. You’ve waited half an hour, an hour, or
longer and no professor. You’ve sat there in a fairly uncomfortable
state for a lengthy amount of time for a seemingly pointless reason. The
people are often friendly and will talk to you and that’s cool, in
fact, the only redeeming part of this experience of sit and wait that I
have found and it’s a good one indeed. I love talking with people and
finding out about them and they have a dozen questions they ask you,
which I’ll tell you about later.
So that was my first week
of classes or lectures as they call them here. Frustrating. Tiring and
insanity-inducing. But I made a lot of friends and met a lot of people
so that counts for the good. Ok, so the first week was a joke. Some of
the others had profs show up but not me. Awesome!! Second week. And I
thought the first week of no-shows was frustrating?? The second week,
this week, when I finally had my profs show up was even more insane. Ok.
So by now you have an idea where classes are and you’ve tracked down
any profs that you can or asked people to make sure the venue/location
and the times haven’t changed since last week and you think, this week
we’ll start, the profs will be here, we’ll get going. Hmm. Silly
obrunis!! (that is what they call foreigners or more commonly, white
people, and by ‘call’ I mean holler, shout, point, etc whenever they see
you). You arrive at class and there are more students there this week.
They knew about last week and didn’t waste their time like we did.
Smart. We wait… and wait… and wait some more. Then, maybe, someone comes
in with a course outline/syllabus and passes those and assures us the
prof is coming. Ok, great!! Some progress is being made! You now know
what you have gotten yourself into with this class, well, at least in
brief. And you wait. Always waiting. Then, if it’s a good day and not
too hot out and the prof hasn’t been held up or just not wanted to show
up, you might have one arrive. Again, anytime from half hour to an hour
has been endured waiting for something productive to happen for these
classes. On the hard benches. Sweating. Packed in like . . . like too
many people in too small of a space. Yes, sardines is the common
reference. At long last, there is a professor here to educate you and
all that!! But hold on, keep the celebrating and relief to a minimum
just yet.
Did I mention you aught to sit up front if you
are not a native-speaker of any of the local languages? Well you should.
If not, not only can you not understand the prof because of a strong
accent but because for some reason when they need to speak to you,
people in general here, they often do it in soft tones and are hard to
hear, meaning you have to constantly be saying, “ Huh? What? Can you
repeat that? I didn’t understand you.” Things like that, making you feel
like a stupid obruni. (We use that term now for ourselves since it is
amusing to use sometimes. We take our humor where we can get it. Don’t
judge.) Which is strange since everything is so loud here. Seems to be
quite a contradiction. Oh and there is noise coming in from outside and
the students are often making noise in the room as well so if you don’t
sit up front you aren’t going to hear or understand what’s going on and
being the one white person in a class and not understanding what the
truck is going on isn’t the most fun I’ve ever had. Anti-fun in fact.
So
if you have learned that you need to sit up front and are able to
understand the professor and he/she seems to be a good teacher, then you
can breathe a tentative sigh of relief. Tentative!! So now that you
have a classroom full of people and a professor to boot, now comes the
bargaining. Yep. Think of something like an auction house or something
like that. Chances are that the class time that was set up will not work
for one or more people, often the prof. Start the bidding at Monday at
2:30-4:30pm? Anyone? No? that doesn’t work for you? How about Tuesday at
6:30-7:30am? Pm? No? Hmmm. Ok. How about Wed. at 5:30-6:30pm then
thurs. 10:30-12:30am? Yes????? That works for you (asking the obruni)?
Yes, no conflict. Ok. Good. Now, where can we meet? We have to find a
venue because now that you have changed the times you no longer have
access to the same space…. Yep. Start the bidding again only more in a
suggestion sort of way. Wow!! I just sit there laughing and shaking my
head at what seems like such madness.
Everything is up for
debate and even after you set times, chances are those aren’t really
set. TIA. If it happens that the prof has a time conflict, it can be
moved also. Nothing is set. Nothing is certain. Nothing makes sense.
But.
Yes there is a but. Hooray for that, huh? Ha! I am really excited for
all my classes. I think they will be so interesting and I’ll learn so
much and I can understand all my profs for the most part I think. They
do teach in English but with an accent and with more British English
than American so the emphasis is all wrong (:P) and not always
understandable. My schedule is as follows, tentatively of course:
Soc 204: Social structure of Ghana - Mon 1:30-2:30pm, Wed 2:30-4:30pm.
Soc 312: Deviance and social problems - Mon 4:30-6:30pm, Tues 4:30-5:30.
AFS 319: Ghanaian culture - Tues 1:30-4:30pm.
ASP 136: Slave trade and colonialism - Wed 6:30-7:30pm.
PFL 422: Poverty studies - 12:30-3:30pm.
No
classes on Friday so far which is pretty sweet. As you can see my
classes are all over the board but thankfully none are too early. Hooray
for that!! Some others have classes at 6:30am!! Yikes!! No thanks. I’ll
keep my random schedule and get some sleep. J
I’ve now
had a week of classes and have seen all my professors. Whew!! Feels like
such a huge accomplishment, though it wasn’t really my doing or
anything. Just happy to feel like something is going to work out. Now to
find the books or get the copies of things that I might need. I’ve no
idea about that yet. They make copies of things here and its just how
its done. That makes it infinitely cheaper and you can use the library,
too. Of course, in trying the library you have to be able to use a card
catalog, which may be quite a challenge.
We are
discovering that if you set out to accomplish 5 things one day, you may
only get 1 of those things done, if it’s a good day. On a bad day, you
have been walking all day in the heat - tired, hungry, cranky, and have
nothing to show for it except for some more sweat rings on your clothes,
an empty stomach and dusty dirty tired feet. Course, even if you do get
something done, you prob’ly still have those to show for your day. So
we are learning slowly. Maybe by the time we are done we will be getting
it down finally.
There you have it. Be grateful for the
way it works at home. We are taking bets on who will have a meltdown
first. Again, don’t judge. LOL!!
Alright. That’s what I have for now. Stay tuned for the next update.
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