Romantic Beatings

We are having a local woman come over every night and help us prepare typical Ghanaian food for dinner. Her name is Mary. She is a teacher at the school. Last night she was preparing dinner and talking about relationships in Ghana. We asked her is domestic violence in issue in Ghana. She said "No! Sometimes husbands must beat their wives! It is romantic! It helps the relationship stay strong". All the women in the kitchen paused. Just to clarify, Mary is a woman. She continued for about 30 minutes and stated that beating your spouse is not bad and that sometimes men "accidentally" hit their wives and that is not a good reason to leave. (NOTE: It is only recently a crime to abuse your spouse in Ghana) We tried to explain the legal and social consequences that a woman-beater would experience in the States and she could not understand why a woman would call the police if someone beat her. She said, "A lot of women in Ghana are getting educations and then they won't cook and clean and get angry when their husbands beat them. But a good Ghanaian wife stays with her husband no matter what. It is what God says." I then realized that I was arguing with a fool and I would be just as foolish to continue in the conversation. I let it go for the moment. Today I polled the women and men around me and asked their opinions on domestic violence. The majority of men and women supported wife-beating and many of them gave the same reason,"it is romantic". Only two men spoke against it. Neither of them were married and I kind of think that they only said "I would not beat my wife. I would only love her" as a way of flirting with me. This is a very physical society. Everyone is hands on all the time. The children are constantly hitting each other. The teachers are constantly caning the kids. And I guess they all go home and beat the hell out of each other. Today I almost fell in line. I was asked to teach a class of younger students. Forty-five 7 year-olds and 1 me. The original classroom teacher is supposed to stay in the classroom whenever their is a guest teaching but I got ditched. No support. No lesson. Just 90 big eyes looking at me waiting. I made up a lesson and it was great...for about 45 minutes. Then students started getting up from their seats, smacking each other, talking loud. I used every classroom management technique I knew to maintain order. Unfortunately none of them worked. "Please sit down" does not work on a group of students who usually hear "Sit! Or I will beat all of you!". In desperation I did the unthinkable. I picked up the cane. No, I did not beat anyone; but, my job became considerably easier once I put it in my hand. There was a rambunctious group of boys in the back who could not get it together. I walked toward them and beat the desk a few times. That was all it took to be able to go on with my lesson. I guess I was finally speaking their language.

Today I included a picture of a typical shop in Ghana. Notice the name.