Patricia Asantewah Writing

Patricia Asantewah is one of my smartest and hardworking students. She's been taking a lot of great portraits of her younger sister, an ever-willing subject. I assigned Patricia to write a character sketch about her sister and to describe something that her sister always says or does.
Here's one of the portraits too.

Write Like a Reporter for the Graphic

We read the Junior Graphic in class, the kids version of Ghana's Daily Graphic. The Junior Graphic comes out only on Wednesdays. Georgina Dorkuvie, the Proprietress of the school, goes to Zongo Junction and buys copies for the kids. A lot of the essays the kids write are very moral-based, to the point where they sound almost like narratives accompanying an after school special. Since we're working in English composition class on quotations, this week's assignment is to write about Ghana as if you were a reporter for the Daily Graphic, using at least one quote from an outside source.
This is Bushira's essay about HIV in Ghana.

Bushiratu Abubakar
"Sickness" 04JAN05

HIV is a sickness that is all over the world. Even when you are in your houses you can see someone who is having that sickness. I think we have to do something to kill that sickness. We have to kill that sickness by not going out in the night and we should listen to our parents’ advice. Last night I was in the room watching the television and there was a girl who didn’t listen to he parents’ advice. She followed her friends and she got that sickness.
Some hospitals too are not great at all. So, I think the government must do something to fix that. My father said, “the sickness in Ghana are more dangerous because Ghana has no money. Because the Europeans came to take our gold, so our country is now a HIPC* country.”
A lot of ladies in Ghana practice prostitution because Ghana has no money. Because of that some people even die because they don’t have money. And there is too much traffic in Ghana. The government must do something about that too.

*Highly Indebted Poor Country


"My Father Reading the Graphic"

Introducing Edward Chao

Eddie is an eleven year old kid that lives in my neighborhood in Madina, Accra. His father and sister both died when Eddie was really young and he now lives with his grandmother in a one-room wooden shack on Estates Road. I presented the camera to Eddie's grandmother and she agreed to let him take pictures and tutor him, if I would also advise to him to come home on time from school and be obedient in her household by doing his chores. She says she really likes photographs and we spent an afternoon looking through baby pictures of Eddie from the mid nineties and Eddie's grandmother in the seventies. When we found this one of Eddie's father, Eddie said he wanted to hold it while I took his picture.


"Edward Holding His Father’s Picture"
This one is me, Edward Chao, the writer of this book holding the one who gave birth to me. That’s my father, the man who never lost his plans. His name is Vadis Chao. He was a hard worker. He did Tie and Die. And Edward the handsome boy with handsome hair.





My Grandmother Preparing Yakayaka, Edward Chao 1/22/05
My grandmother and I came to live at this place called Social Welfare. At first, she was selling pepper, tomatoes, and onion and fried fish. She carried it and went around selling them up. She stopped selling those things and started to sell salt and people liked buying the salt. But a man was saying people will never buy the salt again and my grandmother became worried and stopped selling the salt. She started to sell only Yakayaka and fried fish. Now, when she is coming to cook, I fetch the water and light the fire.