The Dagomba Family (6/25)

Just finished my second lesson. It went really well. I was very strict the first day and so I was able to back off quite a bit today and we had fun while noone talked. If it goes too far I’ll redraw the line. Already the problem children are my favorite. They remind me of me in Middle School, lol.
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After class and lunch I met up with my Dagbani group at the main junction of my town. Suf (SOOF), our Dagbani instructor had to go back to his school for a few days. In Ghana, unfortunately, many teachers don’t care about their students, and they take the job because it’s a good one and it’s hard to get fired. Many times teachers simply do not come to school, and sometimes they’ll be at the school, but decide to not go to class, and the class will sit with no teacher for hours.

One of the only ways to get fired is “headcount”. The government comes around and validates the payroll register with the teachers actually present. This way they remove any “ghost” names. So Suf went home to make sure he wasn’t a ghost. From the junction we set off to find the local family Suf had told us about. Supposidly there is a Dagomba family which speaks Dagbani in my town. On our way into town a brand new land rover pulls over about 100 ft ahead of us, opens the passenger door, and honks for us to come over. When we caught up to it, it turned out the driver was the chief of my town. He told us all to pack in and drove us all the way to the house, only stopping once, to give change to a local beggar. The seats were covered in plastic and the speakers were blasting traditional African music. It was another great blend of new and old, which the entire concept of a chief in 2009 embodies.

When we found the Dagomba family they were extremely friendly. They took us in and sat with us for over an hour answering any questions we had about Dagbani or the Dagomba culture. When they asked our names I said Guillermo (Gee-Jer-Moe). In Dagbani they have a lot of “j” noises, so I decided to say my name to them like we say it back home in Uruguay. They decided that it sounded like “Dijema” (Dee-JEH-mah) and renamed me that. We all ended up with Dagomba names.

Dijema- Do not treat me small, do not disrespect me.

As the elder of the group said after naming me
“This is a very powerful name”

Julie got Jalinsi (Jah-LEEN-see) which means “they do not like me”

DAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA…. I about died laughing….