Today dawned hot and hazy as Ghana's 55th anniversary of independence from Great Britain. We had a quick breakfast and headed downtown to Independence Square to witness the festivities. The president's car drove right next to us as we approached the square. The square was filled with troops of colorful military and civil servants dressed in their uniforms. They consisted from mounted cavalry to army to navy to immigration officers to girl scouts to honored school students. AFter several songs and ceremonial parading, each group marched before the president for review. The pageantry and formality was impressive!
Almost as impressive was just watching the happenings in the stands around where we were stationed. An amazing array of food was being hawked by (mostly) women who carried all of their wares on their head. It's impressive to watch a woman perfectly balance a tray of 100 or so stacked, salted hard-boiled eggs on her head. A large group of neatly dressed schoolchildren sat on the stairs near us and gave us a taste of their daily lives. Without a teacher in sight, the older children kept the younger ones quiet and sitting. If anyone got a bit "out of hand" s/he was quickly dealt with by an older classmate. The schoolchildren came equipped with pocket change to buy a variety of treats from the vendors. A favorite seemed to be some sort of sausage on a stick that was dipped in some red spice.
After the Independence Day event concluded, we went to a shopping area just to wander around. Eric, Barb and I exchanged some money and got a smoothie to cool down.
The afternoon was spent at the hotel learning about the foundations of the Ghanaian education system. It's a national system, governed and funded by the national government. All students are provided free, compulsory education from kindergarten through 8th grade. Then they take an exam to be placed in high school. At that point, they must apply to get into a high school and must pay fees to attend. These are still public schools, but it's not free or compulsory. There doesn't seem to be any special education programming, but some special schools exist for students with physical challenges such as blindness and deafness.
It was a very busy day and by 10 pm I'm ready to hit the bed. Tomorrow morning we're visiting with administrators in a village in the "mountains".
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