Who knew going to get my Master’s at a London university immediately after living and working in southern Africa would be so horrendously difficult?
Stay tuned as I recount my (ongoing) fun adventures while subjecting my passport to a rigorous month of border crossings.
At least I’m having fun, right?
Part 1: Leaving Lesotho
Part 2: Border-Jumping to Bechuanaland
Part 3: Finding a Plan en Route
Part 4: The Application
Part 5: A Second Border-Jump
Posted in Education, La Vie Quotidienne, Travel
Tagged adventure, Africa, border, Botswana, fun, lesotho, school, South Africa, southern Africa, study, Swaziland, Travel, travelling, trip, visa
My holiday gift to myself was a darling ink sketch of a girl clutching a bouquet of flowers in front of her face. The artist, local Ladybrand Afrikaner – of Living Life parentage – is a lovely young lady named Daisy Jo Grobler.
But Daisy Jo is no idle hobby sketcher. She wan the Elizabeth Galloway Academy of Fashion Design YOU magazine design competition in which she designed Lady Gaga’s performance getup for the pop icon’s 2012 South Africa tour. With the only instruction being ‘white tshirt, 3 ways,’ she brought in delicious SA flair.
In 2013 she began studying at the Fashion Academy – yet another honor for winning the competition. This girl is going places.
And in real life? Daisy Jo is beautiful and quiet and elegantly dressed. Some day I’d love to catch her scribbling on a sketchpad, but normally I see her spending quality time with her parents in the Living Life Station Cafe.
I enjoy knowing good and humble people doing cool things. Can’t wait to see where Daisy Jo ends up next!
Posted in La Vie Quotidienne
Tagged Africa, art, competition, daisie jo, daisy jo, design, fashion, illustration, illustrator, institute, Lady Gaga, Ladybrand, Living Life, magazine, school, South Africa, win
Now is not the time to detail my profound love for the number 7 or describe the source of my appreciation for all its mystical power. Predictably and graciously each month, however, the 7th rolls around like clockwork, for indeed it is. Understanding this to be the first 7th of the new year, it deserves some recognition and added celebration.
I have been resident in Lesotho and working with TTL for exactly one month. Today I received my Lesotho residence permit. Like most visa scenarios, this was a time-consuming affair – though not as cumbersome as my Ghana visa extensions… Today I celebrate residency!
One year ago I arrived in Equatorial Guinea from Germany to begin as a research assistant for the annual January Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program (BBPP) expedition. I met some great people, and today I celebrate the anniversary of our time together.
Perhaps it is cliché to be grateful for the chance at a new beginning and a year ahead with blank pages aplenty. Fortunately this year has so much potential to be phenomenal, thereby overriding any categorization as ‘cliché.’ Today I celebrate plans fulfilled, opportunities knocking, and dreams to be realized.
Students dancing at the inauguration of six new classrooms at Adaklu Hli Have
Pencils of Promise in Ghana turned one year old! It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here for half of the full lifespan of this organization, but I have loved watching it grow.
When I arrived in April, PoP Ghana had recently broken ground on its sixth and seventh schools. Today, an impressive 10 additional schools are under construction, and 8 have been completed – now in use by a few hundred preschool and primary students. Hilda and I researched and launched the first scholarship program, thanks to which 47 students can now attend junior secondary school.
Freeman and Anthony have plans to break ground on another 7 schools by the year’s end, and the teacher training program will finally begin in January 2014.
Not bad for the first 12 months of work.
Posted in Education, La Vie Quotidienne
Tagged Africa, Anniversary, birthday, construction, first, Ghana, NGO, one, organization, Pencils of Promise, pop, school, Schools, Work, year
Hours spent preparing for the test: 130
Coffees consumed while studying: 67
Flashcards flipped: 750
Practice exams taken: 13
Hours of official testing: 4
All to calculate a few numbers determining my eligibility for graduate education.
Months dedicated to the process: 18
Coffees consumed while studying: 1080
Essay drafts: 78*
Peer editors: 14
Letters of recommendation: 14
Mock interviews: 6
Submissions: 7
Likelihood of success based on previous statistics: 4%
Cheerio!
*divided across 4 separate fellowships
Posted in Education, La Vie Quotidienne, Lists
Tagged Application, coffee, degree, edit, Education, exam, Fellowship, Fulbright, Gates, Gates Cambridge, graduate school, interview, learn, Marshall, Mitchell, revise, revision, Scholarship, school, study, submission, test, UK
I am very grateful for my college education. I have greater knowledge in the areas that interest me; had the luxury of taking a few classes just for fun; and met some wonderful people – several of whom are still good friends and colleagues.I learned after graduation, however, that a Bachelor’s degree cannot take me where I want to go. I was so indecisive in undergrad that only after I had finished and put a year of work under my belt did I discover what I should have studied in college. Taking a year or two off before I entered college would have helped in everything from choosing the proper degree course to selecting the school itself.
There is nothing better than figuring out what you want to do before you join a fast-track program. As an 18-year-old, odds are you don’t know everything about the world. Trust me on this one.Travel can open your eyes. It teaches you that there are different ways to approach a problem, clean a house, prepare a meal, live your life. Keep an open mind and discover how people do things differently – and, more importantly, how similar we are underneath it all.Furthermore, working abroad will force you to learn about the visa and customs process, navigate an unfamiliar place on your own, and hopefully provide you with a unique job or internship experience.
It can be intimidating to travel in a place where you are unable to communicate. Even if you know a few key phrases, gesturing and sign language are probably required. Learning a language provides insight into the thoughts and worldview of a group of people. Not only does it look great on a resume, but it’s just an important life skill to have – including languages you will ‘never use again.’You’ve already learned at least one language, you can learn another. Don’t be discouraged by difficulty; it took many years of immersion to get this one down. You probably won’t learn everything in a few weeks, but the locals will appreciate your efforts.
Living on your own is a frightening new experience. It’s also enormously expensive. This becomes obvious fairly quickly (say, in Tokyo), but even if you marvel at the cheap food prices, you will soon find that paying for utilities, internet, toilet paper, shampoo, etc. grows your bills each month.
Read news from your home country; you’ll want to know. Read local news wherever you are; it helps when practicing a language and you can discuss with friends and neighbors. Even if you think a lot of the news is trash, depressing, or irrelevant – having an understanding of current events is good practice for university where such discussions will undoubtedly take place in your classroom.
Posted in Education, La Vie Quotidienne
Tagged abroad, advice, college, experience, foreign, graduate, graduation, high school, internship, language, learn, school, tips, Travel, university
Pencils of Promise launched it’s new fundraising campaign today! Not only am I proud to work for this organization – as evidenced by my previous posts and general love for my colleagues – but I’m more than a little giddy at seeing photos I’ve taken and copy I’ve written appearing on the website.
Just a little #humblebrag to start the day.
Recently a colleague referred me to this article, detailing recommendations for improvements to Ghana’s education system. A few things stood out to me:
More than half of the candidates who sat for the BECE in 2011 failed to qualify for admission into Senior High Schools (SHSs) and Technical Institutes. An official of the Ghana Education Service (GES) was quoted, in the Daily Graphic (29/09/2011), as saying that such colossal failure was ‘normal’.
The BECE, or Basic Education Certificate Examination, is a mandatory standardized test that Junior HS students take in their third and final year. Failure to pass – attain a score of 50% or greater – necessitates a repetition of multiple previous terms.
While I’m not thrilled by the emphasis on standardized tests, this is unacceptably poor performance.
…well-intentioned educational policies failed because they … did not equally address supply side factors. For example, abolition of fees leads to dramatic increase in access to schooling and inversely impacts on learning quality … overwhelm[ing] infrastructure, teachers, cost allocation, text books, etc.
I’ve seen this played out, especially at the JHS level. Some schools practice the government’s ‘free education’ policy, not charging tuition and eliminating extraneous costs, but they typically have to advertise as such. Many others institute what I would call ‘hidden fees’ that ultimately supplement government failure to deliver textbooks or adequately pay its salaried teachers. In free education schools, attendance is much higher and teachers are far more strained.
A second policy with unanticipated results is the feeding program at the preschool level. Some parents withhold meals, assuming the government will properly feed the children. Yet in my experience, the meals provided are nutritionally inadequate. Whether this is poor outline (fault in policy) or poor delivery (corruption at a middle stage leaving little for the cooks’ use to buy good ingredients) I cannot say, but thousands of students rely on these meager meals to survive the day.
In both cases, I fault the improper communication with communities – a gap in expectation on both sides that never gets resolved, often addressed later through another broad-sweeping policy. The omniscient finger likely must be pointed many directions, though.
***
The article goes on to make some decent recommendations, though notably does not indicate a source of funding – I assume development partners and an unstated stop to internal corruption.
I particularly like those revolving around teachers – general teacher shortages, low salaries without further incentive, and non-uniform materials make the profession (although high in status) less desirable. I would add an integral teacher training program at all levels, even for the untrained graduates, that is often reinforced and updated.
A second critical gap is between teachers and even the lowest level of district government. This costs students updated syllabus material, textbooks, even desks in some cases. On a micro level, these are easy fixes. The article does a good job of showing that nationwide, some progress can still be made.
I’d be interested to hear other thoughts on this article, especially since I am new to Ghanaian education.
Ghana (and sub-Saharan Africa at large) loves its ceremonies – the elegant traditional dress, the singing and dancing, the honor and status, the gathering of community, and especially the speeches, speeches, speeches.
Freeman reviewing the full-page agenda of speeches
Typical ceremonies, including church services, can last several hours. I did not know on Thursday that the ‘Love to Read campaign launch’ was in fact a commissioning ceremony for a new library in Kpedze [ped-jay], but I quickly realized we were not there for a meeting. To be honest, my heart leapt when I learned our actual purpose. The shortage of books in Ghana – especially non-Christian literature – is disheartening at best for an avid reader like myself.
A few development partners, including PoP’s friends DIVOG, have spent the past several weeks building and outfitting a library for the community. A Canadian NGO Links Across Borders, under Professor Sylvia Morrison, has led this project.
Prof. Morrison, Jamaican by birth, was honored in an ‘enstooling ceremony.’ In short, the village chiefs made her a queen of Kpedze – a very high honor.
Traditionally, kings and queens are presented with beads, a staff, and various gifts once they have been seated on their elaborately carved stools. In return, a king or queen is expected to care for the community. The honorary title now extends to particularly influential development partners, like Prof. Morrison, as a symbol of immense gratitude for the work they have performed on behalf of the community. She received the title Mama Agbalényó, or Queen Mother Book is Good. (And yes, even my Ghanaian colleagues thought the name was ridiculous.)
As staff photographer, I passed the majority of the ceremony standing, snapping photos of the fun. But after nearly four hours, I was glad to stop and sit for lunch.
Enjoy!
The Menace of the Years 