Ete sen? Eye.

Today was a farewell at our office for a very good, kind man who has worked there for 18 years: John Korentang. He is retiring and was given a formal good-bye and thank you for his years of helping and leading others. One of his remarks held my attention: Ete sen (etah sehn)? It is a commonplace greeting in Twi (Tchee - first language of Accra), meaning: How goes it? "It" represents life. How goes life?

The answer is "eye" (ayah). All is well. Again, a traditional Twi response - all is well, no matter illness, financial reversals, hurt feelings, etc. In the whole scheme of things, all is well. What a fabulous philosophy. I'm keeping that thought.

My brother told me before we left, "You have a whole lot of new friends out there that you haven't even met yet." He was right. We have discovered commonalities and differences in both black and white that have made us richer and made us better.



Jane and Lee, one of the couples we have met here and thoroughly enjoyed in many settings - including the golf course, tennis court, and scrabble table.



Jane came up with several double and triple word scores, so she won, but I was very proud of my "hula, hick, and beggar." (warrior had some group help at the end - no points)



"You can take the teacher out of the classroom"...but I'll always be drawn to teaching. Every Sunday we have a different configuration of women who are trying to learn English. They meet in the garage portion of our "meeting house," and 2 weeks ago had no desk or white board, but they did have awesome workbooks supplied by the church. We asked for a small desk and got it. It's small, but provides a place to write.



David and I found this white board at a variety store, and it just fit perfectly with 2 screws in the wall that were already there! Voila! This helped the 2 teachers as they had the women look for and list 3-letter words from a song in the hymm book. They found them, spelled them, then read the list. My favorite, and theirs too, was w-a-y. The woman who spelled it, then pronounced it: "road." After she found out her mistake, we all laughed for 10 minutes!



The workbooks have exercises for learning letters and word patterns, and each woman has a book of her own.


When many women come, this one desk will never do. But for now it is so much more convenient than trying to write upon one's lap. The two teachers are naturally good instructors. They are awesome! They are teaching SDAIE tactics (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) without having had ANY California training. Do I dare let the California Board know that they (the Board) did not originate good teaching??



This is our darling youth group at our Stake Activity last Saturday. It's 4 minutes, but stay with me here. They are a virtual celebration of "eye," - learning a new language, learning a dance, or living in a new culture, all is well. This is Africa.