On Thursday, we took the bus to Nima to visit the Anani Memorial International School.  We parked our bus at the nearest landmark—the “big gutter”—and from there we heeded the advice of the school’s headmaster to let him guide us to the school.  Across the street, Kofi Anani emerged from the hidden depths of one of Nima’s neighborhoods.  This residential area, so dense, is hidden underneath the corrugated iron roofs, attaching themselves to each other, as if by any reorganization they could transform themselves and not a soul would notice what happened underneath.

As Kofi stepped into the street and walked towards us, I purveyed the length of the big gutter, lined by trash.  The slight breeze carried with it the faint smell of feces warmed by the sun, which, by now, most of us have grown to ignore.  On the cement edge of the gutter, stood a man in loose pants underneath a long white tunic.  He looked out over the big gutter as a slight-framed cow vigorously chewed on the food scraps overflowing in the wheelbarrow next to the man.   All around them were parked cars, women balancing their day’s work from their head, children running, marketers sitting and watching the days and the people pass by their small wooden crate stands.

The scent from the gutter grew stronger and mustier as large grey clouds converged above us.  The windshield caught small droplets, which ran vertically down the paned glass.  I stepped off the bus and soon felt the rain grow heavier.  By the time our group convened out of the comfort of the bus, it was a complete downpour and Kofi led us across the busy street, away from the big gutter, and into the forest of corrugated tin.

We shuffled through the wetness into a whole new world.  Large drops quickly fell from the curves edges of the roofs, washing everything we carried, and leaving only a few inches to squeeze ourselves closer to the stucco wall of the small structures underneath the ceiling of tin.  With no more that four to five feet for between each building, the water hurried past us, over our feet, and journeyed out of the metal forest, growing in intensity and swiftness.

Kofi disappeared right.  And as I caught up from behind a line of other students, he disappeared left again into the infinite maze of raindrops and roofs.  He continued like this and we continued to follow like ducklings learning for the first time to navigate the new world around us.  Kofi finally reappeared in a small courtyard, where, after escaping the maze, I noticed small glints of purple amongst the dark shades of the schools walls that surrounded the courtyard.  Kofi led us through the downpour into the doorway of one of the buildings and there waiting for us across the room were over one hundred school children, dressed in various combinations of purple skirts or shorts and striped purple shirts, some in small white sneakers and some barefoot on the cool cement.

What we observed throughout the next hour, I think no one had expected.  These children, four years to fifteen, performed for us a variety of traditional dances, songs and other talents, and they recited for us poetry and the Ghanaian pledge of allegiance, some in English and others in French.  As an international school, all of the students learned both languages and the young male teacher leading the performances would navigate between both languages, the children responding without hesitation.

Some of the smallest performed a traditional Ghanaian dance for us, each one with so much energy and so much rhythm, while I sat with our group on the other side of the room in small wooden desks, continually floored by the raw talent of these young students.   A rasta man led the drummers, drawing his energy from the forte of his small dancers, and carried the whole room through a shared experience that would hark back for many days after.  The bright greens and purples that painted the room complemented the audacious boys and girls, especially as the smallest of them recited individual poems.  The first girl, fours years old, stood in the middle of a chalk circle and yelled out her name, her age, and the name of her school with so much confidence.  And then she mesmerized the whole room by a perfectly recited poem, with poignant words about her pride in the color of her skin and her belief in an accepting world.  It was recited so perfectly that one would think she was born with the words of the poem inside of her.

 

The performance continued with an unexpected fashion show with, again, the four and five year old boys and girls doing a circular catwalk across the cement.  As the performance came to a close, each of the students invited us to join them in a group session of dancing.  With our clothes still dripping from the rain, we showered in sweat and barely compared to the students who led us into the center of the circle to follow their dance moves, and then back out again.

Despite the sweat, I think none of us wanted this day to end, but alas we needed to head back to the big gutter and to the air conditioned bus.  In the green glow of the room, each of us danced and played games with the students, who were friendly and who were not afraid to hold our hands, drag us weaving across the room , and insist that we quickly learn their energetic schoolyard games.  Out of so much love and enthusiasm, we emerged out of the classroom, into the courtyard and weaved back through the covered labyrinth dressed as a neighborhood.  Away from the school, we passed a man resting on his elbows out the window of a small mosque and past the corner of young boys in chairs who smiled at our passing, and finally back into the urban sound and smells of Nima’s busy streets.

As we drove out of Nima, the bus felt cold and sterile and I longed to be back in the energy of the colorful school.  Many of us still hope to return to the school in the next few weeks and learn more from the young students about the vibrant talents and hopes they continue to pursue.