My first Day of Senior High School

I’ve been in Ghana for about two weeks now and today was my first day of school.  I am going to West Africa Senior High School, which is located about 10min away from my house.  When I got to school at about 7:15am, I met up with Katherine (the other AFS student near me) and Paul (an AFS volunteer) and we all entered the school together.  Katherine and I were dressed in black skirts and white blouses, because the school was not able to provide us with uniforms before we started, so we really stood out.  As we were walking onto the school grounds tons of kids said “hello” and “good morning” and we had a warm welcome to school.  We all went to the admissions building where the head mistress had told us to meet her, but she wasn’t in yet.  After a bit Paul left and we were directed to a waiting room on the top floor of the admissions building.  Katherine and I waited for about 30 min until the head mistress got there.

When the head mistress came she escorted us to the downstairs portion of the administration building and we were handed over to the sir in charge of the bookstore.  He took us up the school bookshop and we were supplied with some books and notebooks and part of our uniform.  Since everything wasn’t in stock at the time he said to check back in later for the rest of the items.  After that we were escorted to our classes.  I am in General Arts C (class 3).  When I walked to the door of the classroom, I saw about 15 kids in the classroom and they were all greeting me and welcoming to their class.  As soon as I was introduced everyone started yelling out that I should sit near them.  It was great to feel accepted and I enjoyed my peer’s enthusiasm.  The class prefect (the student in charge of keeping order in the classroom) ushered me to an open seat near the back of the class and I thanked him.  As soon as I sat down a bunch of kids came over and wanted to chat.  So I sat around talking for a long time and explaining why I was here in Ghana and what America was like.  It was really interesting to see their perceptions of America and I enjoyed getting to know some of the students.  As I said there were only about 15 kids present that day out of a class of about 40 kids.  I found out that the first week of school isn’t really serious.  Teaching starts the second week of school.  The first week is just used for teachers from the previous year to “pop in” and review last years exams; the students also take their own initiative and refresh themselves on what they learned last year.

I was shown the school cafeteria, which is called “The Canteen”.  It’s really different from American cafeterias.  There are seven different “stations” that serve different foods.  The foods are prepared on the spot so you receive your traditional Ghanaian dishes warm and ready to eat.  This being said, it takes a bit of time to serve people so there are usually long lines.  There is also a drink station (water, soft drinks…) and a snack/dessert station.  It was really cool to see how this cafeteria worked.  I had never experienced anything like it.  For the first day of school my host mother had actually packed me a lunch, so I didn’t buy anything that day but I ate in the canteen with a group of students from my class. 

After that we all went back to our classroom.  In Ghanaian schools the student’s stay in the same classroom for the whole day and the teachers rotate based on when they are teaching your class.  Back in the classroom, I continued to chat with different people and I looked through some of their previous exams and notes (just to get a feel of what school was like here).  At about 2:30pm some of the kids that I had been chatting with suggested that we leave school to go home for the day.  I was a little confused as to why we would be leaving early when school ended at 3:00pm and they explained how no teaching was actually going on so its okay to leave early during the first week.  They wanted to escort me home so I went to get Katherine and we all set off to walk towards the Adenta station (a parking lot where people can catch cars or tro tros to multiple locations around Accra).  As we all walked (about eight of us) we chatted some more and talked about different places in Accra.  Once we got to the station, Katherine and some of the others in our group caught tro tros home.  The rest of us proceeded to turn down the streets leading to our houses.  It just so happened that two of the boys in my group live on the same street as me so we all walked together and they walked me to my house, then veered off to theirs.

All together it was a great first day of school.  Looking back on it I really enjoyed the fact that today was a chill day because I got to know some of the kids before being thrown into the rigorousness of school.  I definitely think I’m going to like West Africa Senior High School!!