The First Lady’s Undies (Maybe), a Giant, and an Ultimatum

Hello, dear readers.

We agree that it has been far too long, but at the end of the work day we are just too pooped to stroke the keyboard. My arms are particularly tired from beating kids all day. Kaylee can hardly speak from all the verbal abuse she dishes out. Suffice to say, these kids suck the life out of us! (Only 75% of this paragraph is made up!)

Now to today’s business (to quote our dear friend Mr. Owusu). It has been one helluva week. We find that, by the time the weekend rolls around, we are exhausted. So we spend our weekends doing awesome things like writing lesson plans, taking naps, and reading our textbooks. Jealous? We’re quite the social butterflies.

But seriously. We are pretty tired because the art of teaching here requires a loud voice and a lot of charisma. Sometimes when we get particularly animated in our efforts to control the class, a student sometimes leaves the room, finds a suitable-sized stick, and hands it to us. “Use it!” they tell us. We of course choose our victims carefully, and the beatings only last about four minutes before the kid passes out. Usually the kids wait at least twenty-four hours before trying another disruption.

In all honesty, my classroom management strategy utilizes the “hippie” approach. “All I want is love and understanding, guys.” or “There are no disruptions in my class. They just don’t exist.” These are the phrases I employ to get the kids to “feel” the quietness I seek. My wife’s strategy involves self-victimization, or putting tally marks on the board in an effort to get the kids to visualize their naughtiness. (Enough tally marks and the fun is over. I have yet to see this actually happen.) Compared to the management of other “seasoned professionals” at this establishment, our methods totally blow. Next time they hand us the stick, I think we might … well, think about it. (At the very least, visualize it in our minds and then describe it to the class)

We saw a monkey!

Moving on. On Friday there was a birthday celebrated by one of our coworkers. You can imagine our surprise when we saw the case of Guinness rolled in, coupled with more than one bottle of cheap Champagne and sangria. They also had some excellent grilled chicken, among their other not-so-excellent local cuisine choices. They almost literally forced these items down our throats, alcohol included. Keep in mind that school is currently in session, and kids quite frequently wander in to ask questions or collect their graded coursework. T.I.A. applies here.

Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering about the undies. Today we were invited to attend a church fellowship gathering following the service. After a lurching hour-long voyage in Professor Dodoo’s suspension-free sedan, we arrived at his home, where we spent our first night in the country. The gathering would take place next door, at the home of a man we met at a similar gathering a couple weeks ago. As he took us to tour his grounds, he indicated that the private residence of President Mills (yes, President of Ghana) is right next door. They share a wall. In fact, it happens to be his brother-in-law. This could also explain why he drives a very nice Lexus. (I am told that it has suspension!)

We enjoyed a wonderful time at this gathering. Never once have we felt unwelcome at any gathering. The food was excellent, and we laughed almost too much. The meal kicked off with an unbelievable beef soup: the best local cuisine we have sampled thus far. After everyone finished we were led to a buffet table that was loaded with the following fare: three kinds of nicely seasoned rice, chicken and fish, yams in some kind of spicy stew, beef and olive kabobs, a variety of cold salads, and our personal favorite- the fried plantains. We also received strawberry ice cream for dessert. Ha-mi-na, ha-mi-na, ha-mi-na! (sp?)

On that note (and I mean the ha-mi-na, ha-mi-na, ha-mi-na note… sp?), we met a man from Nigeria at the party, who happened to be named Austin. And he also happened to be a giant. (Don’t worry, he was a friendly giant. Perhaps even jolly.) When we were introduced my hand literally disappeared into his. He spoke like James Earl Jones, and happened to be very funny. We hope to see more of this guy (or giant) in the future.

By the way, he says that he finds basketball utterly boring. This amazed me, as I thought all giant Nigerians loved basketball. He says that he prefers knitting, and I could tell because of the snappy cardigan he was sporting. (Again, only 75% of this paragraph is made up.)

Oh yeah! Back to the undies. The homeowner (whose name is ALMOST Professor Ghandalf, but instead its Gyandolf… that would have been AWESOME) has a balcony above the veranda, and Kaylee and I went up there to look around after the meal. Much to our surprise we saw a lady hanging up the President’s laundry. We snapped more than one picture of what must be the First Lady’s undies. (Or perhaps that’s how the President rolls) Who among you can make such a claim? The undergarments of a Head of State?! I think not.

Now to the not-so-fun part. The ultimatum. We honestly thought we were past all this, but it seems the Global Student Teaching program is out for blood. It seems that Kaylee needs to be transferred to a high school institution, as teaching junior high will not meet her requirements. (Funny, they should have known her requirements before they placed her, as we sent all of our transcripts long before we arrived) We have been pleading with the program director to allow her to stay, because a transfer would not only detract from our feelings of security (the men are VERY forward with my wife), but would add a considerable dollar amount to our transportation budget. Therefore we have been in some pretty thick negotiations with the goal of transferring at the end of March so that she can still meet her requirements, and because we both have to transfer at this time anyway: the term at University Basic JHS ends due to a statewide examination and Easter break.

The ultimatum we received from GST was this: either accommodate the transfer, or come back to the U.S. to finish our student teaching there. We must decline this ultimatum for reasons of budget and time. This was their fault in the first place, and now they’re expecting to force my wife into a potentially unsafe situation and increase our budget to a point that we simply cannot afford.

Our e-mails have been so accommodating and professional, but GST has simply denied all fault and reason while telling us to “bite the bullet.” We have sent one last “hail Mary” to the director in an effort to remain where we are. If she says “no,” we are coming home to pursue legal action. If some of you still don’t understand everything that is going on, please ask our parents or let us know so that we can send a detailed message. I don’t think it’s too professional to put EVERYTHING in the public domain. And believe us, there’s even more.

Are we still having fun? Absolutely. Little ventures like tonight’s party make certain of that. In fact, we might pop in “Surf’s Up” for the third time since we got our DVD player working again. WOO HOO!

Much love to all of you,


The Freemans