Teaching - GHANA Daily Life - Teaching in Ghana

Typical Daily Life of a Volunteer

On weekdays I would wake up at about 8am. No need for an alarm clock; the raucous chickens in the yard below and the street sellers shouting loudly to advertise their products sufficed to rouse me from my deep sleep. By the time I was up my host family had already been awake and active for several hours, so I only needed to compete with the other three volunteers in the house for the bucket shower and bucket-flushing toilet.

Washed and dressed, we would eat breakfast together, fruit juice and toast, and then make our separate ways to our respective placements. My roommate had further to travel and needed to take public transport - a battered old van called a tro-tro - to her placement while I was able to walk.

The twenty minute walk to my placement along dusty roads was always enjoyable, observing and being observed, taking in the smells and the smiles and the intense heat. I would arrive at my placement at the Glona Academy at around 9am. Glona is a charity set up by two brothers from the area who wanted to provide free education to children and young adults who have been unable to attend ordinary schools. It also provides healthcare and HIV/AIDs awareness to local people. To carry out the teaching, Glona was given the loan of several classrooms at the local school which could be used after the end of the normal school day at 3pm.

In the mornings from 9am until 11am, we worked on a project to help the local community, a 'clean-up' project which involved arranging sponsorship, giving talks at local schools, gaining permission for 200 children to be involved, and finally the clean-up itself. I had a few hours off over lunch which I would spend either having lunch with a friend, chatting to my host father, or generally relaxing back at my house. I spent the afternoons from 3pm until 5pm teaching basic English and maths to children between the ages of eight and ten. I shared a class with a Ghanaian teacher so sometimes I would teach the class (with the help of blackboard and chalk), and sometimes I would give one-on-one lessons to a few of the weaker children in the class.

My host family would prepare a delicious dinner which was always served at around 6pm, which I would eat with the other volunteers on the balcony. In the evening we would often go to a local spot bar for a few beers and to meet the other volunteers. At weekends we would travel to interesting places in the surrounding areas.