What color Jesus?

Hey there,

So I'm in Kumasi sooner than I thought cuz alas, I ran out of money, but don't worry, I hadn't been to the bank in one month, so I just had to go to the bank and take some more money out. Thank goodness peace corps pays us quarterly, then i only have to go to the bank 4 times a year! I hate going to the bank here. First, there's no privacy laws. Second, there's no lines, just a bunch of pushing and shoving. And then there was somewhat of a line, but when the system went down for a few seconds some people started to panic and rush to the front of the line and gave the teller their paperwork, and what's crazy is the teller took it!!!!!!! God! how frustrating! i was really angry by the time i left the bank, but it's ok. i don't have to deal with it very often.

I did my first full day of teaching yesterday and now my voice hurts. P6 P5 P4, that's grades 6 through 4. I taught the P6 first cuz they have the best english. Man oh man, teaching in your own language and culture is hard enough, let alone teaching in a new culture to students who speak another language at home. Ahhh! challenges, but that's why i joined peace corps.....for the challeneges :)

I'm sorry my emails have been so short lately. I just get tired, and life is becoming more routine so there's less to say.

I tutor some JSS 2 students, approx. the 8th grade in math yesterday, teaching them distribution and foiling....it got too late to teach them factoring so i hope to do that tonite. They have a serious national exam coming up the end of Aprill so i hope to make sure their math scores are proficient, cuz right now they're confused. Man the math program here in Ghana sucks......really. The teachers don't give enough examples and they don't explain well at all....makes me wish i came with the teacher group and taught math to studetns. It's easier to talk numbers than to talk health with a language barrier. Oh well... i do enjoy my work.

OH!!!! Please! can you all send me some Black and Arab and Asian, etc. Jesus'.... People in Ghana keep telling me they like my skin, it's the same color as Jesus', and I keep telling them that the pictures are wrong. SO if you could send me some and then i can show them that Jesus could be any color, but since he was born in Isreal (right?) he most likely looked like this..... whatever, picture you can find. And then black Jesus' too, just so they know that the white pciture can be wrong. Ugh......somtimes i feel like Ghana is the US during the 40s and 50s, at least how i learned about the US 40s and 50s... gender inequality, no black pride, no woman pride, so much admiration for the white man.... There's a lot of learned helplessness around here. Oh my. But so far, i've taught a 3 year old to put his trash in my trash can and not on the ground, and i'm teaching the 2 girls math, so i'm doing some good :)

HUG

Kristina