This image is from my recent trip to Ghana in honor of the "Year of Return" celebration the country is hosting to welcome people of African decent back to their home land.
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Allow me to share a few of my own;
Notice:
The expression on the faces of these children communicate "I am here", " I am proud" and "I am happy".
Wonder:
I wonder what it is like to be a child growing up in this farm village on a Cocoa farm in Ghana?
According to ancestry.com's latest update I am about 1% Ghanaian. This is the the closest I have come to knowing where my roots trace back to in Africa. My family took this trip to place feet on the mother land. We wanted a window into the spaces that our ancestors walked and lived and learn about their customs and traditions. Visiting Africa proved to be just as much a "mirror experience" as a window experience.
(Take a moment to look at the pictures about and list all of the things you think, comments you make and questions you have as an educator before you read on)
The elders took us into every classroom and explained how each room came about with great pride. The men of the village harvest cocoa by hand and sell it to the government to fund the village. Every person plays a role in some way. One of the elders of this village started a touring company in Ghana and 10% of the proceeds from the touring company also fund this particular project in the village.
Enock, a village elder explained that in order to build the school the men in the village take one day off a week to collectively work on it, as long as materials are ready. Right now they are working to earn enough to purchase the nails to secure roofing for the next building. He explained with great pride, how the people of this village saw a need for a school house in their village and banded together to meet this need.
Prior to this building the children were walking pretty far to attend school in another village. When it rained children were not going to school. Having a school in the village helped with this among other things.
This "Village School Project" is a beautiful story of grassroots community development. They are so proud of their schoolhouses and all that is taking place in them. The image below is of the 5-8 school house in progress. Enock said "it takes a while because we cannot waste days of work on the farm to build the school, because the village must run." I hear him saying one thing is not more important than the other. They are ALL important.
I totally agree with him now, but when I heard him make this statement I thought "nothing is more important than education Enock it is the way out".
When I stopped to hear myself, I realized the absurdity in what I was saying. There are tons of things more important than building or attending school. I am so glad there are places in the world where people still know this.
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