My son, the future Akora!

Here it is, October 7, 2010, approaching 10:00 a.m., and as I sit here typing this blog post, my 15 year old is sound asleep in my bed. While today he is not feeling all that well, this is the norm. And it has been since we arrived back in Ghana in early September.

Because, while Alexandra and Michael have been attending SOS School as dutiful, well-behaved (ha!) children should, slothful Sean has been practicing his metamorphosis act. You see Sean graduated from JSS this past July, and soon (hopefully very soon), he will join the ranks of past and present Akoras as a Form 1 student. For the non-Ghanaian, that is the nickname given a student who attends Achimota Secondary School, long considered one of the best high schools in the entire country. Several notable (and notorious) people (and not all are Ghanaians, by the way) are Achimota alumni including Kwame Nkrumah (the first democratically elected president of Ghana), John Evans Atta Mills (the current democratically elected president of Ghana), Jerry John (J.J.) Rawlings (ummm, eventually a democratically elected president of Ghana), and Robert Mugabe (past, present, eternal president of Zimbabwe, with questionable pedigree).

Yes, we are very proud that Sean got into his first choice school, in spite of his relatively sloppy study habits – testament, perhaps, to his gene pool?

But I digress… as I said before, it is October 7th and he is NOT in school. Why is that? I haven’t a freaking clue.

When we learned in mid-September that Sean was admitted to Achimota, we took a drive to the school. It was deserted. Not a soul in sight, except for the guards at the gate and a single groundskeeper (who, apparently, will be spending the rest of his life trying to tame the huge Achimota campus with only a single cutlass – we can only hope that the blade was sharp!).

Entering the administration building, we found the office of the Headmistress. A woman working in the office (and no, I don’t believe it was the headmistress) could not help us. She didn’t know when school was going to be started. They didn’t even have the enrollment list from the Ghana Education Service. We were advised just to come back (come back?!) once a week (once a week!) and inquire. She wouldn’t even give us a phone number to call. I so wanted to say something about this being the information age. You know, making appropriate and effective use of technology… telephone, website, Facebook, tweeting, something…. but I held my tongue (I know you’re proud of me – it was not easy).

I blame it on the Ghana Education Service, since the buck can’t be passed higher than that. They have postponed and postponed secondary school opening day so many times that we will be fortunate if our kids are sitting behind a desk by the end of this month.

And what will happen then, I have to wonder. Will the school year be lengthened at the end? Will they shorten the between-break holidays? Will an extra hour be added on to the school day? Will students have to forgo their Saturday leisure time? Will teachers zip through the lesson plans with disregard, in the hope that students will learn through osmosis?

In the meantime, Sean is home. We’re steadily accumulating all of the things we think he will need for boarding school life – obligatory red and black metal footlocker, wooden chop box, towels, student mattress and pillows, bed sheets, buckets, cutlery and dishware, iron, etc., etc., etc. We’re not entirely sure we’ve remembered everything – Sly is trying to recall it all from his boarding school days, but as that was generations ago it may be things have changed. Who am I kidding? This is Ghana. Boarding school is a tradition, and tradition does not change.

Sean is home; he is sleeping, eating, playing video games, eating, arguing with his siblings, watching the Mexican telenovela Storm over Paradise and America’s Next Top Model (cycle 5, I think), eating some more. Essentially, driving me nuts. What Sean is not doing that he should be doing is studying the Form 1 books that we bought for him so that he will be ready for the start of school, regardless of when that is and how they attempt to squish five missed weeks into the lesson plan. Essentially, driving Sly nuts.

When will the madness end? Only the Ghana Education Service knows the answer… and they’re not talking.