Notes from November 06

Charlie writes...

We are keeping busy with the logistics of life here. Traffic is horrendous, as the roads are in poor condition, and cars, taxis and tro-tros (15-20 passenger vans that function as an unofficial bus service) frequently block each other and cause gridlock. This and the lack of restaurants in our part of town are our biggest complaints. So, really we don’t have it so bad. We are doing pretty well in our language lessons. We can make simple sentences describing activities or a picture, and hold some basic conversations. I get more practice with the women in the market than Charlie does at the university.

The boys have plugged right in to their school. Chip is in the school play this next week, with two smaller roles in Oedipus Rex. He is also enjoying playing goalie for the JV soccer team. Ken is his usual carefree self, and enjoying after school activities like karate and chess. They both had good reports on their mid-semester report cards, some room for improvement, but that’s to be expected!

Charlie is teaching two sections of Freshman Math for IT students, a Discrete Math course. He has a day session with about 40 true freshman, and an evening session with 9 “mature” students. He really is enjoying it, especially when he sees that they understand what he is teaching or when they get engaged enough to really start asking him questions. Please pray for him and his students as they will be having mid-term exams this week and next, and Charlie has to prepare his final in the next couple of weeks as well. One of the other things that we are really enjoying is the Wednesday morning worship service at the University, which we both attend. The chaplain draws from a wide variety of speakers, both on and off campus, and the choir is terrific!

I have had two meetings with the Methodist Church Ghana, starting the groundwork for future water projects. I am looking forward to getting to know the Ghanaian civil engineer that they have hired as a consultant. He will be a great resource for me as I try to learn about the practice of engineering in Ghana. I will participate in a Dry Farming workshop on November 21^st. We want to educate farmers to work together to put in wells near their fields so that they can irrigate crops and increase their yields. We will be sharing a number of technologies with them that day, including a treadle pump and clay pot water filters for drinking water. I will also attend a conference on Rural Water and Sanitation that is being held in Accra the last week in November. So keep me in your prayers as my schedule picks up.

We’ve started to look for a vehicle to purchase. Right now we are borrowing a car from friends on furlough, but they will come back after Christmas. This seems to be a very complicated process here. We found one used Pathfinder that seemed like a pretty reasonable deal, but then were advised by several friends not to buy a used car in Africa, as you never know what you are getting and vehicles are often poorly maintained here. So we will start looking at new cars next week, but of course that has budget issues. We have been blessed to find a terrific driver, Jasper, who helps with getting the boys to and from school. He worked at one time for a German organization that was involved in water projects, so he is knowledgeable in that area, too. He has been a big help to Charlie as they have looked for a car together.

We’re attending church at Mt. Olivet Methodist Society, here in Dansoman. It is a truly Ghanaian church, probably about the size of DUMC. It has an English service at 7:30 am, that we attend for the boys’ sake. Several other lecturers from the university are members there, as well. It has an interesting mix of traditional and contemporary worship in the services, which last 2 to 2-1/2 hours each.

MUIT 101 Daytime, MUCG Prayer Service, Trip to the Post Office

Charlie writes...

It was a busy day today. I joined the boys and Jasper as they left this morning for school, and they dropped me at the college. Ken was greeted by his namesake and Jasper's brother, who is now watchman/guard on the campus. Kennedy had been our night watchman at the house when we first arrived, and introduced us to Jasper. I spent some time reading Romans in "The Message" before some of the IT freshmen came by to ask about where MUIT 101 was to be taught. Together, we scoped out a room on the ground floor that seemed about the right size. There are about 40 freshmen in the IT group, eight of whom are female. The evening students are older, and numbered 9, all male.

The day students are mostly fresh graduates of the SSS (senior secondary schools, comparable to a high school in the US), and seemed alert and ready, even though the class ran from 8:30 to 10:30, which would have been VERY early and long for me as an undergraduate. I outlined the differences between what freshman IT majors would learn in their math class and what the other majors would be studying. The polynomials, equations of lines, trigonometry, and exponentials/logarithms of the rest of the school are replaced with "discrete math" which includes topics like Number Theory, propositions and proofs (via induction, cases, contradiction), Trees, Networks, Graphs, Counting, and Recursion.

After class, I chatted with the master groundskeeper/landscape architect on the campus, who was supervising a crew of 6 men hacking away at the elephant grass lining the main dirt road leading to the campus. The principal had requested that bermuda grass be planted for a more finished look, but the landscaper again commented on the very tight budget he must work within. He also indicated that water for irrigation may be a problem, since the water pressure on campus is not great. Perhaps Mary Kay will have a water project in our own backyard!

The chaplain's office had put up flyers announcing the first weekly worship service on campus, and Mary Kay came over to join me. We sat in the front with the other lecturers and academic officers. A lecturer in psychology who is a Prebyterian minister gave the homily, and lead the congregation in a prayer session following. Using texts ranging from Genesis to Jeremiah, he tried to impress upon everyone that we should be confident in pursuing our goals which honor God, and not be afraid or distracted. There were several hymns sung from a book excerpted from the MHB (Methodist Hymn Book), most of which we were familiar with, even using the tunes we remembered from the US. It seems that almost half of the hymns we sing at Mt. Olivet Methodist are familiar words but sung to different tunes than we are used to.

The college receptionist gave us a notice from the Ghana Post Office that reported the arrival of a package from my sister two weeks ago. We checked at our local PO, but they directed us to the Accra Central PO for pickup. Jasper stayed with the car, while I queued at the main window. The clerk there told me I was at the wrong place, and so we ended up circling the block to park inside the main post office courtyard. We were then directed to walk around the outside again to another entrance. We saw a long line of people queued for outbound shipments, but then a number of windows for pickup. Our form had a red '7' marked on the top, which we then found out indicated the window which we were to use in claiming the Parcel Post. We had been instructed to present ID in the form of a Ghanaian passport and driver's license, so I had brought along a scan of my US passport and the International Driver's Permit and my Georgia license. The clerk joked that people from the US have too many IDs. She took the passport copy and made note of my Georgia license number on her paperwork, then went behind to fetch the parcel. Then the customs lady had us open the parcel in front of her, then announced that based on the contents, I would have to pay 47 thousand cedis duty. Being familiar with the habit here of quoting a price down to the cedi and then collecting much more without returning change, I had brought along smaller bills. I paid 47 thousand with two twenties, a five, and two fresh one thousand bills. This made quite an impresson on both of them, as they assume that an obruni (white man) will pay with big bills, and they can pocket the change. Then I was asked questions about what I was doing in Ghana, and once they found out I was teaching at Methodist University College, the customs lady said she had a relative she wanted to get into college, and the post lady said she had a ward who she wanted to get into the Wesley Grammar School on the opposite side of the property. I had to beg off, saying I didn't know the folks at Wesley Grammar. All in all, a rather complicated exercise. Upon exiting, the gate keeper asked Jasper to pop the back trunk for an inspection, which seemed a bit gratuitous. Having packages delivered is obviously much more complicated than flats, which seem to make it more easily, although still at a cost of nearly $20 each.

7th Grade First Day

Ken writes...

7th Grade First Day


Fall of 2006 has come.
I feel my left leg going numb.
It's my first day at this school.
This makes me feel like a fool.
2nd period....
time for French.
My mother said,
"It's a cinch!"
What's that? I don't understand.
I feel like I'm in a foreign land.
It's time for lunch!
Munch! Munch! Munch!
Next stop Math!
There's no path
Between the 10th graders.
I slip,
I trip,
I do a flip
In the giant crowd!
I want to sleep in the shade
On the first day of 7th grade.

Support Raising as Deep Change

Charlie writes...

I just read the book "Deep Change" by Robert E. Quinn, which had the following comments which I thought relevant to the process of support raising (pages 84-86):

Deep change works in a similar way. Once we have our sense of direction, we need to get organized, pack our gear, get motivated, and move on out. This process introduces new information and allows us to make choices and progress and grow our way forward. The process also transmits signals to others, and they are attracted by our courage and motivation.

I am often reminded of Gandhi, early in his career, in South Africa. He had developed a vision and was working toward it. One day, a man arrived from another country and volunteered to join Gandhi. The man asked, "Aren't you surprised that I've shown up like this?" "No," Gandhi replied. He pointed out that when one discovers what is right and begins to pursue it, the necessary people and resources seem to turn up.

Trusting in our vision enough to start our journey into the chasm of uncertainty, believing that the resources will appear, can be very difficult. The fact that we have enough trust and belief in ourselves to pursue our vision is what signals to others that the vision is worth investing in. Our message is filled with integrity and good intentions. However, it is usually our actions, not our words, that send the message.

Acting on a vision that exceeds our resources is a test of our vision, faith, and integrity. Once C. K. Prahalad and I ran a strategic planning workshop for forty-two business school deans and their associates. They were a tough audience. They had little patience for our "theories." They wanted to get their strategic plans done.

We let them prepare their strategic plans and then provided some feedback. C.K. reviewed what he saw going on in many of the planning groups. They reviewed their resources, clarified their objectives, and then budgeted their resources for the upcoming period.

C.K. promised them that if all went well, they would be, at best, mediocre. Why? Because they were letting their present resources determine their future. They had plans, not visions. A vision would lead them toward a plan that exceeded their present resources.

His comments made the deans furious. Their level of denial and rejection soared. They accused us of being unrealistic and specified numerous constraints that made it unrealistic to think in the way that C.K. was suggesting. We listened for a long time. Finally, I asked if there were any business schools in the last ten years that had been transformed. They listed several. We chose one and analyzed the initial impossible situation it was in. We evaluated the strange and risky things that were undertaken by the dean of that particular school. Gradually, the complaints stopped, and the group began to show some interest in trying to understand what C.K. was saying.

Caught in a similar situation, most of us will react in exactly the same way. It is much easier and safer for us to stay within the zone of certainty, particularly if we are mired in the slow death dilemma and suffering. The challenges arise as we contemplate deep change. We must reach a point of ultimate despair and frustration before we seriously think about initiating deep change.

Tackling deep change and facing a new future, we must be willing to get lost with confidence. This confidence, along with tenacity, will guide our actions as we begin to build the bridge toward our vision. It is only when we experience deep change that the new vision comes into view. When we can actually "see" our vision, we must be willing to put it into action.