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Mary Alebdam’s visit to Ormesby Secondary School.

Mary Alebdam is a head teacher of  Ayuusi-Yine Primary School in Northern Ghana.  The school was visited by a teacher from Ingleby Mill Primary School as part of a project by the charity Link Community Development.  There is now a well established link between the two schools.  Mrs Alebdam has been visiting Ingleby Mill School and kindly took the opportunity to talk to some Year 9 students at Ormesby Secondary School in Middlesbrough.  This is a transcript of the questions and answers from the session. 

We would like to thank Mary Alebdam and Ingleby Mill Primary School for their help.

If you want to know some things about Ghana that is good because we want the global citizenship to grow wide.  May be there are some things you have heard about Ghana that aren’t true and may be there are certain things you have heard about we blacks or may be Ghanaians that are not true.

So in Ghana we say “Hi”, we are expected to stop and say “Hi, how’s your mum?  How’s your dad?”   But here it’s not like that.  You say “Hi” “Hi” and that’s it.  And because of the Iraq war and America they said “Whites, they can make friends but they don’t keep them for long” But I see you can keep friends I have been here for more than 5 days and no one has run from me.  They are always ready to put out their arms and show me.

Does the school get any help from the community?

Well the community does a lot of things.  They have to make sure the school is maintained. After the government built the school if there is a problem, if a window is broken or a door or anything the community is supposed to do that.  But the community itself is poor.  We are aware of that so with the help of the grants we get sometimes … When we want to put a floor in they come and put a floor in we have got that money it will come out of that.

The children in Ghana, what kind of fashion of clothes do they wear?

At school they have got a uniform.  When you go to school you wear some dresses like a pinafore and you wear shorts.  Everyone wears them and in the secondary school.  You can only wear those trousers like this when they are going to church or work but in school they wear the shorts.  So children wear that to school but when you are grown you also have clothes you wear.  Short sleeves I won’t wear.  I’ll wear long sleeves like these but a lighter cloth.  You see this one is doubled so it (not this, it’s because it’s very cold).  I only wear this when I’m going to meet people.  I want to tell people that I’m grown.  In Ghana we dress according to our age. My daughter is allowed to wear trousers like these but I am not allowed to wear them.  My daughter is allowed to wear fashionable dress but I cannot.  I am supposed to wear things to prove that I am of an age.

Do the children have to wear those things on their heads?

Yeah we do.  It’s one of the things in Ghana when you see a woman wearing the cloth.  You are comfortable you can wear one that matches.  You don’t have to worry about your hair.  Some of us wear hair but it is very expensive so we just put the cloth.  We want to wear things that match with our dresses and keep the tradition.

How long do you go to school for?

You start at the age of three and you go to nursery.  So you go to primary school at the age of six.  You get to lower secondary school at the age of twelve til the age of fifteen.  Then you go to senior secondary school and leave there at the age of eighteen.  So then some people stop there at the age of eighteen but some continue to university.  And at university you are studying until twenty two.  So it depends on what you want to do.

Do you have cars and stuff, like vehicles?

Yeah we do.  We have buses.  It depends on where you are going to travel to.  If it’s a long place to another long place.   There are people who have got their own private cars and there is a lot in the south.  But in the north what the people like is the motorbikes.  Because they can go into the villages and most of them use bicycles.  Most of them use bicycles to school.  You get to the school and there are more than 100 bicycles in front of you.

I have come to see you and to this country to know a little bit about your culture, the food you eat, the way you go about your life.  Anything you want to know about Ghana I will tell you.  So thank you very much.

What kind of clothes do you wear?

Okay that’s a very good question.  We have got different clothes for different times and normally we wear our clothes according to occasions. 

Our men wear smocks, very big dresses because they want to dance and they flare out.  We wear them for occasions; we don’t wear them to the office.

How long is your working day?

Usually it is, we start at 7.00 to 2.00 for teachers.  8.00 to 5.00 for office workers.

Office workers, how long do they have for lunch?

One hour.

What is your main language?

Okay, in Ghana we have lots of languages.  There are more than ten languages but in Northern Ghana it is tree.  But everybody would use English, people who have not been to school; people in the villages will speak a little English too.

Do they have to walk a long way to school?

Yeah, we walk a long way.  In the village the children have to walk about 5 or 6 kilometres or more.

In Ghana you are supposed to help your parents.  You don’t have to say I am a school child.  You have to earn money.  In Ghana most of the secondary schools are boarding so when you are boarding you are better.  When you go home you have to go to the farm.  My children do the cooking, I don’t do the cooking.  I have to go to work very early.  At 7 I have to be at school.  When I get there I have to supervise the children.  At 6 o’clock I’m on my way.

And children and Ghana don’t say “Mum let’s go shopping.” You want that, you want that. No.  Maybe in Accra the capital city there are some rich but up in the north and in other villages no.  It’s not what you want, it’s what you get.  When your mum puts meal on table you eat.

Is the food very different in Ghana to the food here?

Very different.  We grow crops like Yams, cassava.

They won’t know what that is.

Yam, cassava is like a potato.  We have yam, cassava, plantain.  In the north we have rice, and sometimes we take breakfast, we take porridge.  This is millet porridge.  Sometimes we have it with milk but milk is in a tin and a tin is for the whole family for maybe a week.  There are no bars of chocolate.  Those who have money take breakfast.

It’s not like here I don’t think.  Here there are a lot of vegetables.  We have got vegetables but we use them in our soup.  In the north we use the vegetables for soups because our vegetables are bitter ones.

How many children are in the school that you teach at?

We have got a lot more than 600 and 6 classrooms.

So there are more than 100 children in each class?

Yes.

And are the classrooms bigger than this one?

No, just like this one.  We don’t have furniture.  We sit on the floor.

And do the pupils behave themselves?

Yes they do because in Ghana every child is expected to behave well.  In Ghana a child has no rights over an adult.  There is a saying in Ghana that a child will never be right before an adult.

Do you find a teacher never has to try and control the children?

Sometimes there’s a little bit of that from the younger ones.  You know they make a lot of noise so you have to shout “Be quiet”.  One minute they are quiet and another they are not.

When you get in a classroom you have nothing.  There are so few textbooks.

Would there be anything on the walls?

No in certain circumstances there may be some drawing like in the lower primary.  But we don’t have space on the walls and if you display things the children destroy it because they are many they are many in the classroom.

And in Ghana the children arrive before the teachers.  Is it so here in England?

No

Children keep help the school clean.  So the children arrive early, sweep the classrooms, sweep outside.  They have to get water.  At my school we have lunch.  We are supported by American agency.  So they give us the sago.  So we come at 7.00.  Each class from P4 to P7 must have a duty to perform.  So when you come that class has to get the water while the others sweep.  When they food is ready they go and collect it from the kitchen and come and share it.  Teachers come out and supervise.  I get there at 7.00 to supervise the children because we don’t want the children to get hurt.  Sometimes the teachers don’t get there on time because it’s a long way so I get there early.

How old are you when you leave school?

That’s at the age of eighteen.  Some go to university so it is the age of twenty two.  Some don’t go anywhere.

What is your main religion?

We have got three main religions.  Christianity, Islam and Traditional worship.

What lessons are you taught in school?

There are different lessons at different levels.  The lower classes have got six subjects.  English, maths, environmental studies,  P.E,  a Ghanaian language and music which comes from the culture.  In the upper classes they put in social studies and science.

But when they get to the secondary school level like you are they shed some subject and specialise.

What is your transport system like?

Okay, we have trucks, but in most of the towns in the north it is bicycles and motorbikes.  The motorbikes that we use because some places in the villages you can’t go by truck so we’ll be using bicycles.

So if they can leave their bicycles at school I take it there’s not much crime.  Here they wouldn’t be allowed to take their bicycles to school because they’d get stolen.  No one would steal them in Ghana.

Oh no, no, no.

Is there any other crime though?  Different types of crime?

There is a lot of crime but the law is against it.  It can send you to prison. Assault, rape, defilement.  Even if you beat your wife they put you in prison.  He gives a whack he goes straight to jail.  For the young, they send them to Borstal homes.  They are like children’s prisons.  So there is a lot of crime like drugs.  In the cities there is a lot of drugs.

What are the prisons like?

 They are very cramped.  They don’t have beds.  Just a floor they sleep on.  They give them blankets to sleep on them.  And there can be a hundred people sleeping on the floor.  And the food is not proper food.  Some of them go to prison and come out a hardened criminal because of the harshness in there.

So the prison is not somewhere you would want to go.

Do they get hit in prison?

Yeah, sometimes by some people.  You get them all sleeping on blankets and some people get hurt.

What are the homes like?

In the city they are strong.  They are made from breeze blocks like these.  But in the village we have got mud huts.  We use mud.

What health care do you have?

We have hospitals.  There aren’t many doctors so most of the time we are treated by the nurses.

What do you do if you’re going to have a baby?

Normally you are treated by a midwife.  If there is something wrong you are sent to a hospital to see a doctor but normally you see a midwife.  We don’t lie down when we have a baby at home in Ghana, we crouch, but in the hospital you lie down.

What is the most popular food in Ghana?

The most popular food in Ghana is Yams and Cassava.  A yam is a tuba, it’s shaped like this.  Like your sweet potato.  We also have a sweet potato.  It’s from the north.    You can boil it and make soup from it.  And you can see that everyone can take it.

What’s the most major export crop?

Okay, we used to export most of our cocoa and gold but that has gone down.  And sometimes we export timber too.

What time does the school start and finish?

We start at 7.30 and about 2 o’clock.

What’s the climate like?

We have got a very warm climate.  The wet season starts from June to October.  Then the dry season starts from November to May. It brings a lot of dust.  When it’s the dry season and hot we can have temperatures of 43° 44°.

What are the main jobs?

The main jobs we have got are jobs like here.  We’ve got doctors, teachers, nurses, carpenters, builders.  But most of the time in the village when you talk of jobs they are farmers.

How are the schools in Ghana different from the schools in England?

Okay, they are different in that our building is long.  When we talk of the school

I also think that schools here do not stand in a line when the children go into the classroom.  In Ghana we stand in a line.  We say a prayer whether you are Muslim or Christian and sing the national anthem and then you march in a classroom and sit down.  I also think that in schools here children are given freedom.  In Ghana the children have to say “Yes Madam”.  They cannot say “Yes Miss”.  If you see a teacher you have to say “Good morning, good morning”.  You have to come in and say “Good morning Madam” before you in.  But here children are given more freedom and I like it.    You don’t have freedom in Ghana to express yourself in school.  Everything in school is “Yes Sir”, “Yes Madam”.  And I see that in schools you are allowed to raise your left (hand) in Ghana it’s your right.

Only your right then in Ghana?  You’re not allowed to raise your left?

Yes, only your right.  It is not respectful to raise your left.

In the classroom in Ghana there are more than 100 children.  I see here that there are only about 30.  That is better.  In Ghana there is no time for individual attention.  Children here have the change to express your feelings, to discuss.

I see here that the teachers are much quicker.

It’s not very hot here so it’s easier to move around.

What do kids do in their spare time?

Nothing.  What will allow you to go and play because there is work waiting for you.  In the city there are children will go to extra classes.  They eat lunch then at 3.30 they are back in the classroom.  They close at 5.00/5.30 and when they come home, take their meal, do their homework and go to bed.  Saturday we have to do washing, your clothes and your parents clothes.  Sunday’s most families go to church and it’s only after 1.00 on Sunday that you have for yourself and you would be preparing for school.

What about music?  Is there music?  Do people listen to the Radio?

Okay, back in the village we have our own music, the local one.  So we teach it in school.  And we do dance.  When children get home, if they have a little time they practise this dance.

Do you have telephones?

Yeah we do, but only few people own them because it is very expensive.  And you don’t have telephones in the village only in the capitals.  In the capitals you have tv, telephones, everything.

Do you have special occasions like we have Easter and Christmas?

Yes we do.  Ghana we celebrate Christmas and we have the day off.  Christmas is a national holiday, Easter is a national holiday, erm  Sala  which is meant for Muslims is a national holiday.  So we celebrate it but not as much as you people do.  So on Christmas day this is what we do.  We put plates of food for other people coming round and may be I’ll make some chips, make some small biscuits.  I’ll buy in some soft drinks, fanta, coke and I will buy them new dresses.  We buy children new dresses.  We don’t just go out whenever and buy new dresses.  We buy them only for Christmas and Easter.

Do you have birthdays?

Yes we do but only some.  You know in Ghana many are illiterate.  So you cannot expect and illiterate to know the birth date of his child.  So he doesn’t care about someone’s birthday.  As for me I do.