First Day at The Street Academy

For the few days of my trip here, it was mostly about getting settled in and learning the ropes of Accra. I've also been getting to live with and hang out with the other international volunteers who I am working with. They are from the UK, Poland, and Australia, and I can already feel myself speaking with a slightly more sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structure because of their influence (the battle is not over). There are several Ghanaian volunteers who we are working with as well, which is very helpful because the kids that we'll be teaching the ins and outs of film do speak English, as it is the national language of Ghana, but they also all speak a local dialect called Ga. In a lot of cases, their Ga is a lot better than their English, so unless someone is interpreting for you, things get can a little crazy.

This past Monday is when the Akosia film education program finally got underway! Bright and early at 7:30 am (or circa that time), we boarded our tro-tro and headed out to the Jamestown area of Accra. A tro-tro is the Ghanaian version of a public bus, but is more like a 14- to however-many-you-can-fit passenger van. Since there are so many of us, we don't have to worry about flagging it down on the street. After about a half hour ride or so, we got to Jamestown via some paved and a few dirt roads. Not far from where we were dropped off was The Street Academy, the school that we are working with to bring the Akosia project together. The kids that are in the program are street children, so they come from a variety of underprivileged backgrounds where they haven't had a chance to do much, let alone make their own movie. Yet even having so little, they are super friendly and always laughing.

We all trickled in and the kids were really shy at first, but then slowly started to warm up to us all. We then went outside for this activity called Morning Circle on a circular slab of concrete for some games. For one of them, you had to go into the center of the circle and dance according to the day of the week that you were born on. Somehow, out of 20+ kids and volunteers, I was the ONLY one born on a Monday, so I had to be the brave soul that ventured into the center of the circle first and alone.

The kids were also placed into separate groups where they have created their own mini production companies. There is one group that has this awful catchy theme song that goes "Yellow, yellow, Yellow Card Productions!" And with these groups, they have been moving around to learn about different aspects of making a movie: music, set design, story, and camerawork.

They also love when they see someone's camera. They insist on holding it, and then make you get in the picture, and a whole bunch of kids usually join in. Case in point: