Volunteer Articles

Teaching through a West African Downpour

By Megan Tady September 2005

This article was first published in Travelmag.

It was a scene she'd never encountered in her corporate office in Philadelphia: a handful of kindergartners squirming in their chairs while the Ghanaian rains pelted the roof of the school and made a swimming hole out of the path to the bathroom.

"I'm trying to teach a math lesson and the heavens open," said Marianna Allen, who volunteered to teach in Ghana for one month last May. "And one of the kids goes, "Teacher, I go wee wee." So I thought okay, that's me, and they have to pee. I was looking outside at the puddles and made them take off their shoes because I didn't want their one pair of shoes to get ruined."

It wasn't long before the entire class begged Marianna for a bathroom pass.

"I kept thinking that it only takes one of them to wet their pants," Allen said. "It was my second day there and I didn't want it on my conscience. But then their uniforms came up over their heads and they started dancing in the rain. That's when I knew I had been had by a bunch of four and five year olds."

Marianna and her Class

What Marianna would find out later is that, in Ghana, when the rains come, studies are often abandoned; the rain is the only reprieve from the intense heat.

"I'll never forget that sight: the kids sitting at their desks, with their tiny little bodies and their little workbooks and pencils, in their underwear," Marianna said.

In fact, Marianna wouldn't forget much about the month she spent volunteer teaching in Abokobi, a village outside Accra, with the Global Volunteer Network (GVN).

"I'm missing the children now because I'm around these boring adults all the time," Marianna said. "They brought out the best in me."

Related Programs

Ghana (Teaching) Teach English in pre-schools and primary and secondary schools throughout Ghana, and participate in the development of Ghana's young people.