An Obroni's Story

Let's talk Sustainability

2011-04-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

This picture may not mean a lot to you, but it means a heck of a lot to me.

My hands down biggest project that I did in Ghana as a Peace Corps volunteer was to organize and run a week-long leadership camp for about 30 girls from over 5 communities. It was a hell of a lot of work and I couldn’t have done it without the support of my fellow volunteers and the community that we held the event in.

One of the many activities the girls took part in during the week was the planting of Vetiver Grass. The guesthouse that we stayed in was situated on top of an incline and most of the top soil had been repeatedly washed away leaving the actual stability of the structure somewhat in danger. I have tons of photos that I took of the area before we set the girls to work that week, planting vetiver grass- one of the strongest and most successful grasses to help with soil erosion and slope protection.

We planted that grass last summer. The second GLOW camp (based off my camp) is happening this week and my friend sent me this picture to show how the grass has grown and is continuing to grow and support this building. In this whole scenario, the word “sustainability” actually means something. This now supported building will continue to house future camps and girls will continue to attend GLOW camps each year.

I am so proud.

Peace Corps News Story

2011-01-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

I had to respond to the 20/20 report. This is copied from a new blog I started about re-adjustment.

Please do not make the mistake of judging a whole organization as good or bad based on Kate Puzey’s story. That would be incredibly sad and belittle the amazing work and friendships that Peace Corps volunteers have acheived over the last 50 years.

After the news report I’ve been scanning the internet. Looking at tweets (still amused by that term), tumbles (is that a term?), and comments (the above quote is from a PC Washington worker). Also, while checking to see if there’s any response on the Peace Corps website I came across this response from the Director.

I think the quote above sums up pretty much everything I want to say. The murder and rapes presented in the news story were tragic and disheartening. Obviously there were many wrongs, both within Peace Corps Benin and Peace Corps Washington (yes those are two separate things and I really really wish the news report had made that distinction).

Kate’s death happened while I was in Ghana. I later learned that the safety measures were changed drastically within their country for volunteers. The same also happened in our country. They continue to change till this day, if you read the statement made by Director Williams.

I cannot say that the Peace Corps program is without flaws. I hated many of its bureaucratic bullshit day in and day out while I was in Ghana. There were times where I just could not handle it. But I do realize (and it’s even easier now that I’m back home), it is an EXTREMELY difficult program to manage, if you just think about it. For a headquarters in Washington, DC to manage all these volunteers spread out all over the world. It’s quite a feat.

[This however, does not excuse their neglect for volunteers’ safety]

The country offices are very disorganized (generalization- but from what I’ve heard and seen, true). Most of the time, volunteers rely on themselves and other volunteers. And that itself, is bad. Peace Corps is working on better support systems, and I think in time they will figure it out.

I hope they stop covering up tragedies like these. I hope they take some responsibility for their mistakes. Or else… well, I know a whole lot of girls who will never ever want to join Peace Corps ever again after hearing about that news report.

And to think, next week I have to go back to High Schools and talk about my experience. Yikes.

But you know… I do have faith in this program. I nearly gave up once, twice, countless times to come back home (yes, in Peace Corps you can leave whenever you want). But I stayed. I made it through my two years and I don’t regret it. Peace Corps has a very disorganized method but the end result is for the most part, good. And isn’t that why we do it? I mean, that’s why I stayed. Peace Corps IS the volunteers. Not the program. Not the bureaucratic bullshit.

And unfortunately, this story has potential to really damage Peace Corps. Just don’t let it damage the volunteers.

And to the victims and their families, my heart goes out to you. For your service, for your courage to come on television and tell your story.

And to all the volunteers currently serving and my fellow returned volunteers, thank you for your service. With the 50th Anniversary just around the corner, let’s try to focus on the positives.

Goodbyes

2010-11-18T06:03:00.000-08:00

Here are a TON of pictures from my last few weeks in Ghana. I'm not going to even try to label them so if you have a question, just ask. See you all stateside real soon!

Is this really the end?

2010-11-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

November 10, 2010

Well, readers, this is it. I’ve come to the end of my service here in Ghana. Next Tuesday, the 16th, I will be leaving my site for the last time. I will spend about a week in and around Accra, having my Close of Service (COS) medical and administrative appointments. I will also tie up some loose ends and possibly even make it back to my homestay family one final time. On Thanksgiving I will attend lunch at the ambassador’s house, say my final goodbyes to volunteers and fly home that night. Once I land in Newark, NJ on November 26, 2010 around 2:00pm I will truly and completely be done.
The past few weeks have been nothing but an emotional roller coaster for me. But before I came back to site to start what would eventually become the closing out of my time here in Anamase, I did have a little Halloween fun. Casimir, Josh, and I went to the hideout- a cute little beach resort in the Western region that I had been putting off for... well, two years. I am so glad I went! It was such a nice relaxing trip and exactly what I needed before leaving site/Ghana. We ate good food, relaxed on the beach, played some hardcore ping pong and even swam in the water. Im glad it was just the three of us, much calmer than a huge group of volunteers going crazy at the beach. Anyway, after the beach I ventured to Alex’s site for a halloween party and what felt like my first real goodbye to some volunteers. We had a lot of fun, played with the glow sticks my mom sent. I will include some pictures from the beach in this post at the bottom.
And that brings me to this past week. Closing out projects, cleaning out what has been my home for the past two years, visiting places that have meant so much to me during my time here, and seeing volunteers and Ghanaians for what might be the very last time. As we all know, my time here has been extremely bipolar, good one day, bad the next- especially in my first year. This second year has not been much different except for a better understanding on my part of how to manage my time and deal with difficult situations. Obviously nothing turned out the way I could have ever imagined, and in the end, I’m okay with that. I did the best I could in every situation and hope that my efforts were not wasted. I’m pretty happy with everything so in my mind, they weren’t.
Lately Ive been reflecting back over my two years... they went by much faster than I thought they would. I try not to think about what will happen when I return home but I know the inevitable truth. I may never see some of these people again. And I’m not talking about volunteers. Obviously my contact with them will live on in the land of technology. But as for Ghanaians... phone contact is limited and expensive. They don’t have mail boxes or postal services. And besides all that, a lot of my friends here speak such minimal English anyway... communication has always been difficult.
I spent two years here watching my community grow and change. Babies were born and are now two years old... some kids are now talking, walking, yelling my name and giving me hugs when I return from traveling... People I know are now married, some even have kids. People I know passed away. Moved away. Lost jobs. Lost crops. Lost money. Strangers are now friends. Friends are now family. I can walk around town and not have to explain myself to everyone. I can speak Twi enough to talk to most people I meet.
I know that life in my town will pretty much continue on in the same way without me. I know to some, soon I will just be the small white girl who liked cats and lived in town for a few years. They will tell their friends and family in other towns about me. I will become a distant memory. A white ghost. I think this is inevitable. I mean, two years in someone else's lifetime is not long. It really isn't. But I really hope that in these two years I was able to make some kind of difference in their lives. Especially with the kids. Especially with the girls. I don't want to credit myself with any child's progress, but I can still see it. I see my friends speaking more English than they did when I first met them. I see more kids going to school. I see kids actually wanting to go to school. I see kids wanting to read books, having ideas of their own, and daring to be just a little different. If I inspired even one of my students or friends or neighbors to do their best- actually motivated them to try something new, then I can go home happy.
In the end, I know the person I’ve changed most during my time of service has ultimately been myself. This was always the case right from the very beginning. Everyone in Peace Corps knows that by committing yourself to this job, you grow as a person. There is no way to live alone in a place so different from home and NOT change.
I’m really glad I went home this summer and saw a lot of my family and friends. That will make my real return home easier. It will still be difficult. Cold weather aside, I need to realize that this is it, and I’m home for good. I need to look for jobs, I need to figure out my life. I am ready to move on from my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer though I am still not sure where to go from here. I always hoped these two years would really point me in the direction I want my life to go... but the only thing I’ve really learned in that respect is that I don’t particularly want to do development work. At least, not in this way.
That leaves me with options... I am considering Federal jobs, Peace Corps jobs... although to be honest, the idea of a real job after being here is rather scary. I’m pretty excited to do real work but I hope I will be up to it. So much of my time here has been spent sitting around... can I still manage to effectively contribute to some kind of job? Especially a government job? We’ll see.
For now, I just need to cope with saying goodbye to this place. Once I’ve left my community the idea of going home will really start to hit me... and I’ve got my resume all ready to go for when that happens. Look for another update sometime in the next week before I leave for America. Until then, thanks for reading.

paradise...

Captain claw... the cat had a hook!

Baby claw...

The Circumstance.

Fist pumping!

Blue Steel

Oh yeah ladies, you know you want some of The Circumstance!

Play golf with Annika!

2010-10-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

Here is my contest entry to play golf with Annika!
Alright, hope this works!

The original contest is here: http://www.theannikaacademy.com/play/

And the reason the screen is so blurry is because my camera has been warped by Africa.

Togo and Benin!

2010-10-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

So here is the much anticipated blog entry about my trip through Togo and Benin. In the previous entry I posted many pictures with limited captioning so if you have any questions about them even after this entry please don’t hesitate to ask! Bear with me, its a long one!

Our trip began as most trips in West Africa do... with a three hour wait for a car ride to somewhere. Conscious of the daylight we were losing each and every minute, Sam, Kathryn and I started to devise alternative plans for the evening- all of which did not include crossing the border into Lome, Togo in the middle of the night. In case you did not know, border crossings and border towns are not exactly safe. Partly because of the smuggling of goods, partly because of the amount of traffic both by foot and wheel, and partly because... well they are just scary as a rule. Especially at night.

Our tro ride to Aflao (border town on Ghana’s side) was one of the scariest I have ever been on. Our driver must have realized how late we would be arriving and decided to basically haul ass the whole way there, nearly killing several small children, animals, and us passengers aboard. At one point our car pulled to the side of the road, allowing all the passengers to buy at least 3 loaves of crappy Ghanaian bread. This incident struck me as being hilarious for a number of reasons. The first being, Togo/Benin are known (at least by Peace Corps volunteers) for their baguettes. Obviously these Ghanaians were truly living up to their stereotype of never wanting to try new food or at least new bread. Sam, Kat and I continued to refer to this throughout our trip- especially when we all bought bags of baguettes to smuggle back into Ghana.
We made it to the station just as it was getting dark, and all previous Plan Bs were ignored in the light of befriending a Togolese woman in our car who offered to walk with us to the border. All in all, crossing the border was easy (especially with our previously bought visas) and aside from a pretty stupid and ridiculous decision to trade money, we came out alive and well, though minus a few dollars. Actually, as Kat would say, if that was the worst thing to happen during the rest of the week, then it would be a good trip. As we would later find out, being cheated out of money is the norm of travelling around Togo and Benin. It was going to be a good trip.

With the help of a friendly woman following our money exchange debacle, we made our way to our hotel, as recommended by Casimir, Le Galleon. This hotel marked our first of many random hotel room set ups complete with shower room (where you can shower and sit on the toilet at the same time!). That night we all passed out pretty early, excited to spend the next day eating croissants and baguettes and exploring Lome.
After obtaining directions to the Peace Corps office from our hotel, we made our way through sandy streets scattered with palm trees, realizing that Lome isn’t really that scary, as long as the sun is shining. One chocolate croissant later, we found ourselves at an office about ten times bigger and nicer than our excuse for a building in Accra. We chatted it up with a few volunteers who were there for a diversity meeting (this was also a constant joke of the trip- who has diversity meetings in Peace Corps?!). These volunteers alternated between asking us “why did you come to Togo???” and complimenting us on the Accra mall as if it was our idea. Little do they know how much we actually detest that mall, even moreso now that we know volunteers from Togo make the trip into Ghana for the sole purpose of going to the movie theatre. Seriously?!
We got out of that office pretty fast, determined to prove them wrong about their country. Well, after just two days spent spread throughout 3 towns, I guess I can say that they were right... just not about the Accra mall.
Togo is a crappy litle country. Probably the length of a few football fields, it takes no more than an hour to drive straight through (which is basically what we did on our way back from Benin).

We spent the morning/afternoon wandering around first looking at a pointless monument that brought to mind the giant Black Star monument of Accra, and then moving on to the grand Marche, a bustling market with amazing street food. If Togo (also Benin) has one redeeming quality, it is the street food. Coffee carts, fresh pastries sold on womens heads, baguette sandwiches with avacado spread and sometimes even fresh potato salad, chicken salad with actual lettuce and roasted chicken, spaghetti and meatballs! All for under a dollars worth in CFA’s, I was in heaven!
The market itself reminded me of ghana, except that instead of being trampled by cars, you are constantly dodging motos that constantly zip by within an inch of your face. Another huge difference which I began to notice in Togo and continued into Benin is the absence of hassle. Don’t get me wrong, we were certainly hassled enough over transportation prices (I will get to that). I’m talking more about being constantly bothered- called out for being white. It didn’t happen in the big towns of Togo or Benin, nor in the smaller cities. So, Ghanaians really are just in your face, all the time!
Or.. maybe they did, but it was in French. One of my biggest struggles during the trip was the French. I speak zero French. Honestly, I cannot understand why anyone would even want to. To me, French sounds like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon- long, fluid, words that all sound the same. Mwa Mwa Mwa-Mwa-Mwa Mwa. I just tune it out, which I admit wasnt all that helpful on this trip. I could sometimes get some inferences from context, also SOME words do sound the same as their obviously superior Italian and Spanish linguistic counterparts. Luckily Kat speaks pretty fluent French or else Sam and I would have probably just been politically incorrect and “hurr hurr hurrd” our way through Francophone Africa. Another running joke/topic of conversation on our trip was the “what if” theory regarding Italy actually colonizing Ethiopia. What would it be like? The options were endless. Also, I would have probably been sent there, had it actually existed. Oh glorious non-existent little Italy of Africa!
Anyway, back to the reality of Francophone Africa, where transportation proved to be the absolute worst. Its not that the actual transportation was bad- aside from all the motos, there really wasnt much difference to the tros and taxis of ghana. The real problem was with the lack of actual stations, the constant haggling, and as we soon began to realize the absolute rip off in price. Unlike ghana, Togo and Benin seemed to run on the principle of two prices. One for the white man, and one for everybody else. This took us a few times of using transportation (and calculating the exchange rates) to figure out.
After Lome we headed towards Togoville, a town across Lake Togo. First we spent some time in Agbodrafo a town sandwiched between the ocean, the lake, and the highway that cuts the two water bodies in half and also runs straight from border to border. Agbodrafo is also a volunteers site, although he was unfortunately at the silly diversity meeting. We wandered around anyway, enjoying the old churches and architecture that didnt look like it was about to crumble at our feet. Apparently ghana has yet to reach Togos level of proper building techniques. After walking around for a bit we made our way to the water where a boat was conveniently waiting for us to board for Togoville. The boat guy immediately overcharged us as we paid approximately the price to cross the water at least 5 times each. We couldnt do much but grumble and get in the boat. The trip across was pretty smooth which is good since I tend to get seasick. As we reached land it was pretty cool to see a massive church sitting up top the hill. By this point it was clear that while ghanaians are very religious, their churches are way inferior to those of Togo/Benin. We mostly attributed this to the French, again thinking about the nonexistant Italiafrica and how pretty those churches would be!
As it was already late in the afternoon, we set about asking for a cheap place to stay as the costs of the day (mostly transport) were already piling up and we realized how fast our money would run out if we kept it up. A random boy led us around the town, first bringing us to a senior high school which was full, then to a cute little compound home whose owner had lost the key to the guestroom, and finally to another compound home where just when we were about to give up and stay at an actual hotel, Pierre (the owner) agreed to let us stay for a 1/3 of the price of any room. Score! We negotiated a bunch of things- a mat to sleep on, bathing water, etc. and then went back into town for dinner. A nice woman made us a legit salad which we ate with some tasty street spaghetti and baguettes. Again, Togo you redeem yourself only with food.
The next morning after being asked for more money (yes after they rip you off, the Togolese have the nerve to ask for a gift) we decided it was finally time to get the hell out of Togo. After negotiating for what seemed like hours we finally paid less (but still too much) for the boat back across. Upon reaching the main road we saw a STC bus, like the ones from ghana, parked alongside the road. We ran across the street and pretty much threw ourselves aboard and rejoiced to find out they were going to Cotonou.
About 15 minutes later we were in Benin. The border crossing was again not difficult and the bus waited for everyone to cross before making its way to Cotonou, a city that is basically the fake capitol of Benin.
Entering the city reminded me a lot of entering Accra: big, dirty, and overcrowded, Cotonou was in everyway Benins version of Accra except for the substitution of motos for cars. Motos everywhere! Our first plan of action was to get to the PC office to aquire some moto helmets. Although we are not allowed to ride motos in ghana, when travelling to other PC countries, we are required to follow their rules. And, in Togo and Benin, volunteers are actually allowed to ride motos, mostly because thats the only way to get around. Upon swearing in they are issued helmets that bring to mind the stormtroopers from Star Wars and are overall pretty badass.
After wandering around Cotonou and finding some delicious tasting yogurt and some kind of lemon-lime drink we made our way to the office. Actually, we were one street over when a Beninoise man yelled “Peace Corps?!” and pointed down the next street. This brings up another major difference that we found in both Togo and Benin. People know Peace Corps. This can be for a number of reasons- Togo and Benin are much smaller countries yet have about the same number of volunteers as ghana- yep they are pretty much sitting on top of each other. Also, I think there are far less NGOs in Togo and Benin... whereas in ghana it is easy for us to be confused with the thousands of white voluntourists that come for a couple weeks to a couple months. The thing that really irks me about this situation is that PC ghana has been around for almost 50 years. We were the first program (they are in the midst of planning tons of stuff for the anniversary) and yet so many ghanaians have no clue what we are or what we do, let alone that we are American. Yes, all American. Im not exaggerating when I say the girl I replaced was thought to be german by more than half my town. Maybe thats a whole other issue though...
Anyway, we found the office and again were blown away by how cool theirs was in comparison. Met a bunch of volunteers who were coincidentally staying in the same hotel as us (thanks to Sinae for the recommendation!) and offered to moto with us there. New to the concept of moto-ing I was unsure exactly how we do it “together”. While I was busy imagining a bunch of motos tied together with rope, our two new Benin PCV friends negotiated prices and the next thing I knew I was holding on for dear life on the back of a strangers moto thanking god for inventing helmets. It really was kind of fun, except for the sudden stops and possibility that the weight of my backpack would finally win and I would be left on my back in the middle of the street.
The Concorde was pretty cool and full to the brim with other Peace Corps volunteers! We met a bunch from Niger and more from Benin. Everyone went to eat/drink at what they called the sunset bar- a bunch of chairs and tables set up right on the ocean. The whole area was actually really cool with almost cobblestone like pathways and lots of shops and eating areas. We got fried fish and lots of side items and sat beside the water watching the sun go down. That night we made plans with a Niger volunteer, Khue, to travel to Ouidah the next morning.
Skipping past the hassle of a rainy morning and more transportation trouble (which was beginning to be commonplace) we made it to Ouidah without too much of a headache. After breakfast- coffee in a giant bowl and a baguette with laughing cow- we made our way to the historical museum which is housed in an old slave trading fort. The tour was in French so Kat tried her best to translate. This was our first taste of Voodoo, which I only then began to realize is still very much alive in the culture of Benin- whereas Juju in Ghana is way more hush-hush. In Benin, voodoo is a central part of their lives, almost like religion in Ghana. We learned from some PCVs in Benin about some actual voodoo stuff that went on in their villages and I again was glad to be placed in ghana where the worst juju Id been exposed to was some decorative wall hangings... no virgin murders or heart beverages... at least, not that I know of.
After the museum we made our way to the python temple... despite my protests (I do not like snakes). I was nominated to be the photographer and tried my best to stay as far away from the snakes as possible. It was very Indiana jones.
There was a funeral going on in another impressive church in the town. We paused to listen to the music and take in our surroundings and then sought out some food. We were left with one main tourist item: the door of no return. After seeing both door of no returns in Ghana, I figured we could skip it, but Im glad we went. We took motos down a dirt path to the ocean, dodging cows (riding motos was never more fun!) and people. The door was actually a large arch right on the sand. First we found a Christian monument and innappropriately posed with our spaceman/stormtrooper helmets. Then we went over to the arch. In Ghana, the door of no return was the actual one the slaves would go through to get to the trading boats. Benins idea of a door of no return was a little more artistic, especially with the strange abstract art on either side of the arch.
Satisfied with our day, we headed back for Cotonou. Ate dinner in an amazing Lebanese restaurant with fellow PCVs and talked to one in particular who later ditched the other Benin PCVs to hang out with us, though now I cant remember her name. Upon hearing the name of my school she told me about a girl in the new group from Elon. Small world.
The next morning we packed up our stuff and prepared to make our way to Ganvie, the stilt village.
That morning was a bit of a crazy time. Sam and I needed to find an ATM because we were quickly running low on funds. We decided to moto together to one while Kat and Khue waited behind. After a terrible moment when the ATM ate my money (Id rather not talk about it) Sam and I attempted to moto back using our limited French. Somehow I ended up crossing a bridge, losing Sam, and yelling at the driver to go back to where we started. We were all pretty freaked out about the whole thing and said we werent allowed to split up again (until our later grand Popo disaster). Anyway we were off to ganvie, Khue travelled with us there again until we parted ways- she went back to Niger, and we spent the night in the stilt village. This was pretty much my favorite part of the trip. A floating town. The market women would paddle around and you call them over to buy whatever you want. Our hotel was pretty awesome, and we made friends with their kitten and monkey. Yes, monkey.
We ate baguettes with potato salad, wine, and pineapple (from a boat!) as we watched the sunset. Yes, it was a fantastic day. Sam and I also splurged on a delicious freshly caught fish dinner. ghana also has a stilt village though I dont know too many people who have actually spent the night there. Waking up in the middle of the night to the call of the fisherman was pretty awesome- sounded something like the cross between monks chanting and some kind of church music. I was pretty sad to leave.
But we were on our way again, to Abomey- home of voodoo! Sams one goal for this trip was to sit on the throne of skulls and see the wall of blood. So a visit to Abomey was essential.
When we got there we wandered around a bit, found the cheapest hotel in our guidebook which could have also doubled for a haunted house. Seriously, probably the sketchiest place I have ever stayed in my life. The lights in the hallways dimmed on and off. There was creepy stuff all over the main room. Our room... well it wasnt bad at all. But the shower room had seen better days. We decided it was an appropriate place to stay in the town of voodoo.
We headed to market and checked out all the monkey skulls, animal pelts, and fetish stuff. Smelled pretty bad. Also we found a guy making sandals from tires (they do this in ghana too) except this guy used belts for straps too and they were super cool! Kat and I both bought a pair. Sam bought a second pair of sandals. Sadly, his pair from Togo fell apart in one day and his pair from Abomey did the same. My sandals howevever are still going strong!
We decided it was time to try the local cuisine, especially since we heard the PCVs talk so much about it the day before. I decided to try Pate (pronounced pot) which is basically like unfermented Banku... so basically like Polenta, but better! Delicious corn based flan like ball served with delicious chicken soup. We picked a good spot and all really enjoyed our lunch.
The remainder of the day was spent getting our feet stuck in mud at a huge temple. We toured around and saw all of Sams favorite things (unfortunately you cant sit on the throne of skulls, its behind glass, but yes, made of real skulls). We ate a dinner of baguettes and oranges at a pretty swanky bar that we were scared of at first for being too expensive with its fancy displays of curtains and such.
The next day we tried to see as many temples/palaces as possible. Basically Abomey was home to many many reigns of kings and they each built their own temples. These were adorned with their respective symbols such as a chameleon, a pineapple, swords, a lion, etc etc. Many of the temples had some kind of historic voodoo story- one was where women were sacrificed to some pretty hungry ants... yeah creepy stuff.
While trying to find the pineapple kings home, we got lost and enlisted the help of a nice old man who took us around. At the pineapple temple we saw Benins version of kente... actually we also saw a lot of the patchwork detailing at the temple of mud the day before... I bought myself a pillowcase with a bunch of the kings symbols on it. It looks a lot like something that would be found in a nursery school, except after touring the main temple I know that they are traditional and pretty cool, for nursery school looking things.
It was stil relatively early when we checked out of the haunted house and tried to get a car to grand Popo. We figured we wanted to spend as little time in Togo as possible and that we should get to Benins border town to make travel the next day easier. I even had a hotel recommendation for a place where the workers dressed like pirates. After a lot of car confusion and waiting around we were off to 3 separate towns where we switched cars and got terribly wet in the unrelentless rain. At the final town we had to switch to motos, and let me tell you, riding a moto in the pouring rain is AWFUL. I was behind Sam and Kat but I could barely see a thing with the rain just pouring down my face. At one point I saw nearly all of Sams leg go into a puddle... yeah it was pretty miserable. When we got off those motos we were told we had to take yet another car along the main road to grand popo, except each one that came did not have space for 3 people. So Sam and I went off together leaving Kat the french speaker alone. Again, not the smartest decision. Somehow Sam and I completely passed through grand popo and ended up close to the border. We had to drop and get a car back, barely missing Kat at the pirate hotel. We didnt end up staying there because it was expensive, but we did get to see the pirates :)
We stayed in a cute little blue place down the street... we called it the jazz hotel because thats what it supposedly had on friday nights. I got to eat Pate for one last time and we celebrated a successful trip in the dark as the power kept going out.
Not much to say about the next day except that we passed through Togo as fast as possible. Bought a bunch of baguettes (which my ghanaian friends actually did like) and caught a tro to Accra.
And that blog readers, was my trip. Obviously leaving out a lot, but thats the basics. And if you actually read all of that, you earned yourself a chocolate croissant!

Sorry-o

2010-09-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

So I just wrote a 3 page blog entry all about Togo and Benin. And this computer crapped out on me, and I lost it. Just like that.

I posted a bunch of pictures but without the story behind some of them, it will probably be a little confusing. I don't know when I will be able to get around writing all of it down again. I promise it will happen sometime in the future.

For now, enjoy the pictures!

COS conference and then Togo and Benin!

2010-09-24T01:18:00.000-07:00

Omnibus 2008-2010
Slackjaw

Our training Director Rob, who was taking the pictures

Environment! Not pictured: Ann, Kevin

Romance at the beach: Casimir and Kris

Pre-Togo/Benin Pictures

Its the love boat

Check out our beautiful resort digs!

Environment attempting a beachside photo... Nicole looks like she's surfing

Western Region

Eastern Region

Casimir and I... I will miss him

Aw...

And the Togo/Benin trip begins... in a tro shower?

Nothing like palm wine in the morning to start your day

Our hotel in Lome, Togo

Grand Marche/Tro station

Beachside roadside

Useless monument?

We are explorers

Coffee cart!

Lome street scenes

Check out that sinkhole

En Route to Togoville... across the Lake

Our luxurious accomodations

Boat Trip back from Togoville... time to get out of Togo!

COTONOU
I look photoshopped in front of a Dr. Suess like church

Sunset beach bar in Cotonou. Ignore the trash.

Coffee Bowl. Just add hot water.

Moto riding

Yup.

We are astronauts...?

Fetish tree?

Traditional silly hats

Python temple

Very Indiana Jones

This picture rocks. Spacemen explore Christian territory?

Door of no return

Ganvie stilt village: highlight of the trip!

This is what their market is like. Boat window shopping.

My dinner, probably caught off the side of the hotel, dead for only a short period of time before I ate it aaaaaaalll up

Our room was at the top there :)

Stilt village voyage!

On our way to Ganvie

Buying pineapples from a boat!

Our kitten friend, who attacked and ate Kat's sandwich

Temples in Abomey

Delicious Pate

Aaaaaaand we're back

2010-09-20T01:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, sad, sweaty, and ridiculous past two weeks. I sit here in the Peace Corps office in Accra wearing the same dirty clothes I've been cycling through since I left site two weeks ago. I'm tired, my feet are dirty and ripped open in places from my sandals, and I still have another three hours to go till I'm actually back at site. For now I'll just try to do a little recap of my latest travels because I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to update my blog again.
Close of Service (COS) conference was a huge mix of emotions. Happy to be together as a group, sad because its the last time we'll all be together in Ghana, happy to be leaving Ghana, sad to be leaving Ghana. A lot of laughs over our Fufu awards (PC tradition) and fun times spent poolside and oceanside. It was a pretty calm conference considering it was our last one. I think we are all just ready to move on. I did get my date and book my flight home. I will be officially arriving in the United States on November 26, so mark your calendars!
After COS I travelled to Togo and Benin with my friends Sam and Kathryn. I had planned a pretty rough schedule for us with towns to visit and things to see and for the most part we did get to see everything we wanted to. The differences between Ghana and the two countries was unbelievable. Besides the national language being French- the culture and the people were just so different. I'm really glad I got a chance to travel to Togo and Benin because it really made me appreciate Ghana for what it is and what it isn't. The food in Togo and Benin was incredible and there were a lot of cool places to go and things to see but the people were very difficult to deal with. While they were not as "in your face" as Ghanaians can be, they were constantly charging us more money (the white man price) and being completely unfair about it even when we haggled with them. Riding motos (with helmets) was pretty terrifying in the big city of Cotonou and the dirty roads of smaller towns like Ouidah. Overall it was surprising to see how truly developed Ghana is in comparison to these nearby countries.
I would like to write more but my mind is a little scatterbrained this morning. I realize now that I have two months to go and I have a number of reports to write, grants to close, and things to do before I can even think about packing up to leave. COS conference focused a lot on life after Peace Corps and it's really made me think about what I need to do- jobwise, lifewise...
I am really excited to actually be home for the holidays for the first time in two years. It will probably be strange... and definitely cold.
I promise to write more about my trip and post some pictures soon...

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Camp GLOW!

2010-08-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

Me and my two girls Mathilda and Charlotte

S'mores night

Planting Vetiver

Making beads

Alan and the World

Canteen

There was lots of dancing and football

Rachel and I ready for Environment Day in our matching greens

Because every day can be Easter

Pastor with HIV/AIDS came to speak. We had 3 PLWHA come to speak to the girls.

They loved the banana song

Staff!

Outside the guesthouse

Marian leading "Where in the World"

Everybody!

Been a long long long time!

2010-08-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

Written on August 26, 2010

I know it has been quite a while since my last substantial blog post. The combination of the many farewell parties for the teacher volunteers who finished up their service this summer and the ongoing work for my Camp glow took up mostly all of my time. July flew by. I cant believe I've been back for over a month now with less than 3 months to go.
After settling back into my Ghana lifestyle and sleeping off all the stuff I did in America (seriously I slept for a week- never had such a bad case of jet lag before!!!) I was ready to say some goodbyes to my teacher neighbors. One of my friends actually had two back to back parties- one for his birthday and the other for his farewell and instoolment. The instoolment was probably one of the coolest things I have seen so far in Ghana. I had yet to see someone instooled (made a chief and the fact that this instoolment was of a fellow volunteer, a white man, made it that much cooler.
Matt, a PC teacher at the JSS in town, was made a chief among his peers, friends, fellow volunteers, and townspeople. It was truly an event- typical of Ghana there were giant circus tents and massive speakers with pulsating music. But there was also a cultural element not always present in these big events- dancing by students, procession of the chiefs and the presentation of Matt on a palaquin, paraded around like a god dressed in full kente and gold bangle bracelets... complete with sword. I have never seen anything like it before.
The weekend after Matt's instoolment was Darren's goodbye party. Not quite as elaborate as an instoolment but still really really sweet. You can tell how much Darren's town and teachers really enjoyed having him there. All his students came to watch. There were speeches and dancing and gifts. There are always gifts. Everyone who attended also got a walkthrough of the computer lab which was finally wired and ready to be operated. Unfortunately Darren's time had come to an end and he asked me to help with setting up his lab while he's back in the states. This has become my new job... well sort of... but I'll get to that in a minute. First it's time to talk about...
CAMP GLOW!!!!
So most of my time back at site and in Ghana after my America trip was spent stressing over Glow camp. Getting t-shirts printed, getting posters, buying supplies, having girls register, etc etc etc holy crap was I stressed. I was running around Accra, Koforidua, Dorothy's site (where the camp was being held) and then back and forth from my site at least once a week.
Let me tell you what though, it was totally worth it.
For the first time in my Peace Corps experience I actually felt like I did something worthwhile for the greater and everlasting good. The young girls that came to the camp were extraordinary. Not like the usual JSS girls I normally work with at my school in town with my club. No, these girls were outspoken, motivated, opinionated... they were fun! I think we all really just had a fun time when it comes down to it.
We had lots of speakers come and talk about various topics, we had discussions. Real discussions. It was great to see these girls actively thinking about different issues that affect them daily. Normally they do not get to do that. Girls aren't really encouraged to do much of anything here except have babies. We touched on that also. Lots of family planning and sex discussions. It was great to get the girls opinions on it because most of these subjects are just not talked about.
In addition to all these sessions we also had lots of really fun activities. I guess planting vetiver grass and moringa trees may not sound that fun to everyone so we also had movie nights, a bonfire with s'mores (introducing the girls to marshmellows was fun- they loved it), tattoos, balloon games, games in general... so many things. We even dyed eggs with my Easter Dye kit from last year... the girls loved it. Mostly all the girls want to come back for the camp next year which is great to hear but it will probably have to be all new girls.
So I bet everyone wants to see pictures but there are SO many to choose from. I posted a ton (over 200) on facebook and I'm including the link here so please go there and check it out. Also, if the link doesn't work please leave a comment to let me know.
So now to just do a short little update on what's to come... I've really only got 3 months to go... pretty unbelievable, huh?
In a few weeks I'll be having my COS (Close of Service) conference at a super nice beach in Elmina (Cape Coast area). It even has a golf course. Very exciting. Right after that conference I will be going to Togo and Benin with my friends Sam and Kathryn... we plan to eat lots of tasty food and check out all things voodoo.
Most of the month of October will be spent working on Darren's lab... I am hoping to get bookshelves built for the library room in there and also have all the teachers trained before I leave on how to use the computers. The other PC teachers in my area have agreed to work out a schedule so that they will visit the lab at least once a month and make sure it hasn't burned to the ground... or that all the computers are still there. You know, basic Ghana check up.
Right now my return to the states is dated for the end of November. Currently torn as to whether I should fly home the night of Thanksgiving so that I can go to the Ambassador's house again and go swimming and eat all the good food and hang out with my friends for one last time before coming back to America for good. The more I think about it the more I like the idea.
Well, thats all I really have for you right now.
Probably won't hear from me again until the big Togo/Benin post and I promise to have lots of fun stories and pictures from the land of french speakers.
Au reviour! (I'm practicing)

Back in Ghana, again

2010-07-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

Well here I am. Back in Ghana. This is the second time I've returned after a short vacation, but this time I actually went home. For 3 weeks. As crazy as it sounds, I'm happy to be back. Ghana crawls under your skin in weird ways that may take some time getting used to, but inevitably stick with you until the end. I missed it. I did.
With that being said, my first actual day back in country was probably one of the worst travel days I've had in a while... and by while, I definitely mean both from an America standpoint and also Ghana. Yeah so, without dwelling on this too much, in the span of 6 hours I was hassled, touched, marriage material, flat tired, flooded (apparently it rained nonstop since I was gone and all the roads are now rivers), wet, cold (who knew?!), and very very VERY tired. I made it back to site around 6 or 7pm... I can't even remember because I had just traveled for nearly 24 hours and was having a hard time keeping my eyes open... and the power was out. I pretty much dumped my stuff, ate a Cliff bar, and passed out on my musty smelling bed. The next morning I woke up to a big 'ol mess that had become my home in the 3 weeks of my absence. My PC friend Kathryn (who was medically separated back in December) came to visit that afternoon so I cleaned as best I could.
The next few weeks are going to be pretty ridiculous. For one, a bunch of volunteers are at the end of their service. This includes mostly all of my closest neighbors like Stephen and Darren. Many volunteers are having goodbye parties. One volunteer (cough) is even asking me to watch over certain projects of his that are not actually complete. Yeah, this is what I came back to.
In addition to the planning of my GLOW girls camp in August, I will now be taking over for Darren's computer lab. Oh joy of joys. In addition to this, I recently found out Stephen will actually be replaced so I have a new neighbor to look forward to meeting soon.
In addition to the teacher group leaving, a number of individuals in my own group will be leaving early, after our Close of Service (COS) conference. It will be sad to see them go early (this includes Alan and Marian, my two close neighbors) but it is really time. I mean, we all knew it had to end at some point. Also, A&M are getting replaced as well, by another couple. The overlap with these replacements is a very minimal 2 months at best, which is enough to meet them once or twice before I leave. Not much for building friendships on.
I'm hoping to go to Togo/Benin with Sam and Kathryn either before or after our COS conference. Those details need to be figured out sometime soon since we'll not only need to get leave request forms but we'll also need visas, etc etc. I'm pretty excited about having Kathryn back, she used to be one of my closest neighbors (in the central region) but now she'll be up in Wa (Upper west). Luckily my other friend Nicole has asked me to help out with her camp (late August, early September) so I will probably be up that way for one last visit around that time. I also hope to FINALLY make it to the western region beaches and sites at some point soon.
So phew... lots to do, in not a lot of time. 4 months. Can hardly believe it.

PS I finished my Ghana map! Photos to come.

Dear America

2010-06-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

Dear America,
You have everything. Why do you always insist on having more? You own everything, make everything, eat everything. You buy everything, sell everything, want everything. Everything is accessible, communicatable (this is probably not a word), and at times, easy.
I cannot even begin to explain to you how overwhelming your everything is.
Love,
Lisa

A photo update

2010-06-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

Only a week till I go home.. heres some stuff thats been happening this past week: STARS conference, visiting Kelli and Sam...

Fent speaking at STARS

Darren in a bunny bag...

stamping Adinkra symbols at Kelli's site

Sam and I rock the shorts

Yes I made that pizza. Yes that is real eggplant. Thank you Kumasi!

Cherry Cheesecake anyone? No bake jello products are awesome!

Sam in "Ghana Gothic"

See you all in ONE WEEK!!!!

Memorial what now? IT’S THE DAY BEFORE JUNE!

2010-06-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

May 31, 2010

It feels like awhile since I’ve written an actual blog entry. The last time might have been a month ago at my all volunteer conference. Funny how time flies when you aren’t exactly busy. Although I guess that isn’t entirely true. As you all saw from my last entry, my world map is finally finished! Thanks to the hard work of everyone who helped me at one time or another, the primary school now has its first map. I say first because just today I started my second map, a map of Ghana. Doing a map of just one country is proving to be MUCH easier than doing one of the whole world. Or maybe I am just so much more experienced now… or maybe it’s due to the fact that I didn’t grid anything and just drew it all free hand (there’s no book for a Ghana map- maybe I should make one!). Either way this map should definitely be finished within the week… that is, if I were going to be around at site to paint it. But no, based on my newly revised (and dare I say) hectic schedule starting tomorrow I will be gone from site for almost a week.
But let’s rewind a little first. It’s like I’m looking at the calendar, about to flip the page to June and do my “Oh my god its June” happy dance (16 days!!!) and I haven’t even told you all what happened in May. This shouldn’t take too long: I spent way too much time in the medical unit only to find out there was nothing wrong with me. I finished the map. I finished my PEPFAR grant for the girls camp and tried many times to turn it in (more on that later). I met Stephen’s brother who was visiting for a week. I went to the beach for the first time in a year (yeah, a year… what is wrong with me?). I learned how to make coffee cake. I bought AMAZING fabric for Morghan’s wedding! aaand that’s about it, OKAY FLIP TO JUNE!!!
As I said before, my grant is finished and I’ve been trying to get it turned in before the end of May, but I guess June 1st will be good enough. Tomorrow I am going to Accra where I will begin my little adventure. Darren is running this huge student conference (STARS) in Kumasi this week and for whatever reason, the t-shirts he ordered weren’t ready in time. Since I was already going to Accra and apparently don’t know how to say no, I will be picking them up and bringing them to STARS. I was already planning on going to STARS because I got them a speaker, who I am now realizing I have not yet mentioned. I guess I can add meeting Fent to the May list. So anyway, I’ve befriended (through the Elon girls who came to visit me) a University of Ghana student who also studied abroad at… Elon! Small world. They were friends with him before they came here and must have told him about me. Anyway, I thought he would be a great speaker for STARS since the point of the conference is to motivate students to continue with their studies and go to university. So I told Fent that I would come to STARS to support him and also meet him (in person). I am also planning on visiting and staying with my friend Kelli whose site is right outside of Kumasi. Also I will do some shopping at the cultural center for my visit home (16 DAYS!!!) and whatnot. I also hope to visit Ann and check out her newly finished library (which I saw about a year ago). Throw in a visit to Sam and that about rounds out my week. I’ve been travelling a bit more than I thought I would before coming home but to be honest, it’s making time go SO MUCH FASTER! I’m still getting work done, or at least, whatever work it is I have to do… but I’m so restless at site, just staring at the calendar, making plans for home and counting the days.
16 days till three weeks at home. I still can’t believe it. It feels like an award I don’t really deserve. I told myself I would never do this and here I am counting down to it. I’m also a little nervous about the whole culture shock part, of course. I mean it’s been… over a year and a half now. Over two years for seeing some people. I can already tell by looking at my schedule that I am going to be absolutely exhausted (seriously, I’m used to sleeping for 10+ hours a night), fat fat fat from all the food I’ll be eating (but hopefully not too fat because Morghan’s wedding is OF COURSE the LAST weekend) and completely overwhelmed by a few of the following AMERICA things that you all probably just don’t even think about:
Cold beverages. Hot showers. And running water EVERYWHERE!
Children actually wearing clothes. Make that adults too. Especially old ladies. Yikes.
Toilets with toilet paper. ALWAYS.
A variety of food in a restaurant. Not just rice. Not just fufu. YES!
Sidewalks, streets, and cars actually adhering to driving laws. LAWS! WOW!
White people. Lots of white people! White people everywhere! Not just me!
LAWNMOWERS. Think about it.
Finding what you want. Exactly what you want. All in one place. A STORE! A MALL!
Time: the concept of actually FOLLOWING IT.
Leaving food out without worrying about ant invasions. No bug invasions in general.
Being LEFT ALONE when out in public. Not being a SPECTACLE.

I CANNOT WAIT!

World Map: FINISHED!

2010-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

May 20, 2010: Finally stopped painting, writing, and sweating long enough to realize that there was nothing left to do. My world map is finally finished!!! Here are some pictures of the final moments including the many happy students of the school! Next up... Ghana map!!!

Thanks for your help everyone!!!

my support team!

One of my favorite Ghana pictures... see if you can find the white girl!

Lots of photos!

2010-05-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

Visits from Elon students, map painting, Periclean Clinic in Volta, Vli falls

A long awaited update

2010-05-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

So many things have happened since I last wrote. I will try to write the events in order but most of it will probably be all over the place so bear with me. My last update was a bit of a hodgepodge of recent events. So to begin, let’s start with my community. Not too many new things going on… school came to and end with exams and my students became increasingly lazy as the weeks went on so club meetings just did not happen. So instead, I worked on my world map pretty much every day. My closest friends/family in my town that I often write about and post pictures of recently moved away. I returned to site from the Moringa soap workshop and they were gone. Very mysterious. I have been trying to get in contact with them, apparently they moved to a town close to where Alan and Marian live. I may try to visit soon but I am still confused about why they moved away. It’s been kind of difficult with them gone because I miss going to their house every day and having friends to talk to and kids to play with. At the same time, it’s been nice to be on my own and not have to deal with the kids coming to my house at all times of the day and bothering me. So I guess it’s a toss up. I have been trying to spend more time with the family around my compound instead and that’s been fine so far. So moving on…

I mentioned that I was planning on taking 3 of my best junior high school girls to Accra for an event called Take your Daughter to Work Day. This was a very successful day and I owe all the planning to the Eagle Women’s Empowerment club who ran and organized the entire event for the girls. Four other volunteers brought students as well and we were all driven to the television studio by Peace Corps. The women of this club are involved in many different careers and activities for income generation and spoke with the girls about staying in school and reaching their potential. Providing the girls with successful role models was an extremely important part of the event, as most young female Ghanaians are not motivated to stay in school by even their own families. The girls were able to ask questions and learn more about possible future endeavors that they may not have even considered. They received both a tour of the facility as well as a tour of a local university that was just down the road. Overall, the experience was unique and even if the students couldn’t understand everything (the presentations were all in English) the opportunity to travel to Accra was extremely special and I believe the students will remember it for a long time.

Next up, I recently have been in connection with a few of the Elon University students who are studying abroad here in Legon in Accra. Two are currently Periclean Scholars of the 2011 class and were planning on visiting the class of 2010s clinic in the Volta region (more on that later). I met with Natalie in Accra to discuss a possible visit to my site and we planned out a trip to the Volta together with another girl, Maggie. Natalie expressed interest in Peace Corps so I stressed the importance of visiting my site and seeing what daily life is like for a volunteer. They both came to visit and it was my first time hosting people who are not Peace Corps Volunteers. I wasn’t really sure what to do or how many things to explain or not. They have been in country since January, so long enough to understand Ghana, but still a long way from being in my position. Honestly, I don’t consider Accra to be well representative of Ghana. Obviously many cultural things are present no matter where you are in country (these cultural things are also different between north and south) but smaller poorer towns are where volunteers are mostly placed, and where many of the country’s problems are.

So they came to visit and we toured my town and worked on my world map and relaxed a bit. It was a fun visit and it was interesting to have 3 people crammed in my tiny house (plus they had brought 3 giant boxes of medical supplies for the clinic so that made my room even more cramped). After our visit we started making our way to the Volta region, first with a stop in Koforidua to show the girls the weekly bead market (which they loved and want to come back to) and then we were on our way to Ho. The Periclean Scholars class of 2010 at Elon built a clinic in a mountain town outside of Ho which I had yet to visit. The visit was important for learning the needs of the clinic and reporting back to Elon to keep them update on its progress. After staying there for a night and meeting with the nurses, chief and elders of the town I decided that the best thing I could do for the community would be to help them request a Peace Corps volunteer to help with the clinic. The clinic was finished and the town was almost done with the building for the nurses’ homes. There are a lot of future plans involved for the clinic and I could really see a Peace Corps volunteer helping to bring a lot of changes to the clinic and helping facilitate health programs in each of the surrounding communities that will be sharing the clinic. This week I’ve been at our annual all volunteer conference and I plan to meet with a few of our supervisors to really get the ball rolling on that.

After our visit at the clinic we went on to Dan’s site to see some kente and his newly built basketball court at the senior high school. We then went back to Ho and waited a for the last car to fill to make our way up to Vli falls, the highest waterfall in West Africa. We didn’t arrive until very late that night and then we still had to take a taxi to our hotel near the falls. Luckily we had called earlier in the day to make a reservation so when we arrived they were expecting us. We all collapsed in our beds and instantly fell asleep. The next morning we made an early start for the falls after learning the upper hike would take approximately four hours. We walked from the hotel and after arriving at night it was amazing to see the town in the daylight. The mountains surrounded the roadside and the few scattered house compounds and you could practically see the top of the falls up in the hills. I may have mentioned this before but the Volta region is truly beautiful with its hills and waterfalls and lake and it was really incredible to feel like I was in the middle of all the beauty, just walking down that dirt path in a small town.

The hike was also incredible and unfortunately I was not up to it. I made it more than halfway and could see almost all the way to Hohoe, and also I could see the top of the waterfall as we climbed. At about that point I was feeling really awful and decided to stop. There was another random volunteer from Holland who also decided to stop and we chatted for a bit at the falls while waiting for my friends.

After that we were on to Kpando, home of pottery and my friend Amber. I showed the girls the pottery (in the rain) and then they departed for Accra while I stayed the night there.

The next day Amber and I left for our all volunteer conference which can only be described as IN-SANE. I would write more about it but I actually have to get going back to site, so maybe next time. Some of the pictures are posted on facebook, I would post pictures here but they are a little too crazy for the internet! We had so many fun times at All Vols including: rock paper scissors contest, the beard off (my favorite!), James Joyce reading by our English volunteer, Peace Corps Prom (a night of crazy!), and the Talent Show featuring Lady Ga-Ga-Ghana and syncronized swimming!

Hope you enjoyed this update, for the month of May I will be busy busy busy working on my Pepfar grant for the Girls camp in August, helping get a Peace Corps volunteer for the clinic in the volta, and just enjoying time in my community until my visit home!

Miss you all!

Photos to entertain till I write more

2010-04-28T01:29:00.001-07:00

here are some photos from Take your daughter to work day in Accra. Write up coming soon!

Quick Update

2010-04-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

I recently realized that I posted pictures of my soap making workshop but never actually wrote about it. I spent the week before Easter in the Upper West at my friend Adam’s site learning how to make moringa soap. The trip itself was a little painful since we did the whole thing in one day. I think we left site around 9am and didn’t arrive in Lawra until 4something in the morning the next day. The workshop took place at the clinic where patients make the soap to earn money to pay for their treatments. Many of these workers have HIV/AIDS and the sale of the soap helps both them and the clinic. To condense a long week into a few sentences I’ll just say a few things:

It was incredibly dry and dusty. I forgot it was still the middle of the dry season and for the whole week it felt like there were 3 cups of sand in my throat. I also got sick, possibly from the soap fumes, and wasn’t feeling all that spectacular all week long.

Soap is not that difficult to make but many of the steps of the process are extremely important and cannot be done incorrectly. This pertains mostly to the mixing of the costic soda, which is extremely toxic and mostly awful. Also the carving of the soap (for beautification) is extremely tedious and far more difficult than one would imagine. In all, soap making from start to finish is a big undertaking and I hope that when my group of workers start to make it we are efficient from the very beginning. I haven’t talked with anyone about the soap making yet in my town since I’ve been preoccupied with some other things but since we now have all the equipment (which I had to drag down with me and looked somewhat like a body bag) we should be able to start soon. I brought back SO much soap that my whole smaller room is just overflowing with soap. At least the people in my town will be clean since I’ve just been handing it out everywhere since I came back.

I spent Easter getting over my dusty cough at the Kumasi sub-office while most of my friends were jumping off cliffs (literally) about an hour away at the paragliding festival in Nkawkaw. I however, enjoyed being around the bunnies and pink chickens that were wandering around outside the office (pictures on facebook).

The map is nearly finished. I wanted to have some kind of party for its completion but school ends this week and getting all the kids to come to school when it’s out is very difficult. I figure I’ll just wait until it starts up again. This Wednesday I will be taking three of my best female junior high school students to Accra to participate in a Take your Daughter to Work day event. A few other volunteers will also be bringing students and the event will be held at a television production studio. It should hopefully be really interesting and helpful to the girls. Speaking of girls, the camp in August is still a work in progress but after every meeting I feel more and more excited about our event and can’t wait till we actually have the camp.

I recently met with a student from my university who is studying at Legon in Accra. She is also a Periclean Scholar (an amazing program I was in at Elon) and will be visiting my site in a week or so. We will then go on to see the clinic built by the Periclean 2010 class in Kpetoe, Volta region, which also happens to be Dan’s site. I’m currently working on facilitating the connection between Periclean Scholars and Peace Corps volunteers because I was extremely frustrated to hear they chose a town with aPeace Corps volunteer and didn’t communicate with him at all!

Yesterday I went to church for 4 hours. That was my limit and I escaped after the fourth collection of money. One of the female teachers at the primary school where I have been painting the map got married this weekend so church yesterday was the official ceremony of that. Parts of it were really nice, and parts of it were really frustrating. The fact that I made it through 4 hours is pretty impressive, even to myself.

Our last HIV/AIDS moringa training is coming up at the end of the month but I will miss it because of our All volunteer conference. Luckily, Nana is taking charge and will do the meeting himself. This is pretty exciting since the whole point of these workshops is for him to be able to continue doing them even once I’m gone. We are hoping to provide a whole meal made from moringa for the lunch so I need to help with the planning for that this week.

I handed in my travel forms for my trip home (!) and found out I still have over a week in vacation days left. I guess I could have come home for more time but maybe I will take a trip to one of the neighboring countries like Togo or Benin. A lot of volunteers I know have been to both so I’ll get some information and find out. I might as well since I’ m here and may not be in West Africa again for a long time.

Well that’s my quick update, hope everyone is doing well!

Moringa Soap Workshop

2010-04-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

Spent a week in Lawra, Upper West learning how to make Moringa soap

March 6th! Ghana's Independence Day!

2010-03-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Practice

Maya

The big day!

Nana processing under his fancy umbrella

Akua

Mabena and her friend

There's my kids! Anamase JHS!

World map progress...

2010-03-19T06:56:00.001-07:00

The very beginnings.... (yes, I am aware you are supposed to paint it all blue first, but I didn't have enough paint!!!)

My assistant, Simon, helping to draw the grid lines. After I got over my fear, I now climb that ladder and paint. Scary stuff.

The school!

Stephen came by to help one day!

This is how it stands as of today!

Birfday fun!

2010-03-19T02:46:00.000-07:00

They say it’s your Birthday, well it’s my birthday too!

2010-03-19T02:42:00.000-07:00

Written March 14, 2010

There is nothing more satisfying than a successfully relaxing and well deserved break. After actually feeling busy and productive (world map, girls camp planning, pen pal letters, moringa workshops) for a few weeks, celebrating my birthday in Cape Coast felt like the perfect thing to do. Casimir helped me to plan and orchestrate my birthday by suggesting a fellow volunteer’s place to stay and helping to make other arrangements, so a major shout out to him!

But first, before I talk about my time in the coast, I need to describe the events of March 6^th, which is Ghana’s Independence Day. All week leading up to the 6^th, all of the students practiced and practiced their marching under the hot sun. You couldn’t walk down the street or sit in your house without hearing the drums banging in t he distance. In Ghana, students march in honor of those who fought for the independence of the country. Its less like marching band and more like military style marching, one primary school boy’s group had even made fake wooden guns to use to salute. Last year students were selected from each town and marched only in the district capitals, but this year they marched in each town, which was fabulous. I can honestly say that this was the first time in Ghana that I haven’t been completely turned off by the amount of ceremony and pomp and circumstance (and loud speakers) used in mass events. Everything about the day was enjoyable, especially watching the students. I guess it would not have been as entertaining if my town were smaller. As it is larger, we have about 10 schools including the private ones. Every primary and JSS school participated and each marching performance was different. Each group started at their school and marched to the center of town where they would trade off with another group. Eventually they all marched up the hill to the field (directly next to my world map!) where the full ceremony began. Nana even marched with his royal procession and personal umbrella holder.

Boy that sun was hot.

As usual, the ceremony had a late start due to some confusion so it ended up lasting till after 1pm and the students were basically puddles by that point. I was dripping sweat and I was sitting down, under a tent, in the shade. But the kids were still troopers, and you could really see their dedication to something that I could picture American students hating and refusing to do. In one respect it was almost like some sort of twisted form of child torture. Parading them all around, judging them, laughing at their mistakes, applauding their successes. But at the same time when I looked around at the faces of the people in the crowd with me I realized that these people were once children too, and were most likely once made to do this same traditional march (at least the younger generations, Ghana has only been Independent for a little over 50 years). Parents took pride in their children and were probably reminiscent of their own childhood memories of marching on the 6^th. I also really felt like a part of my community to sit there and watch students that I’ve somehow grown close to over the past year march past me. I took lots of photos and videos and for the remainder of the day sought out the students to show them how they looked marching. This of course was very exciting for them. There is a lot of technique involved in the marching which I didn’t really understand and they tried explaining to me. It was also interesting to have to explain (and defend) our own way of celebrating Independence d ay, as we don’t exactly just march. Parade isn’t exactly a new term to Ghanaians but our version of parades is radically more extreme. Not to mention fireworks and picnics and all the other things we may associate with the 4^th of July (by the way, I can’t wait to come home for my visit and eat burgers and hot dogs and watch the fireworks!!!)

So that’s pretty much Ghana’s Independence Day, Ill post lots of pictures up of the students in my next entry so stay tuned for that. Now onto my birthday J

Casimir and I planned to meet and stay the night at a fellow volunteer’s site. Nancy, a deaf art teacher (who pretty much has the coolest job ever) lives right outside of Cape Coast in a really really really (really really) nice 4^th floor penthouse suite (there is no exaggerating after I’ve been living in a closet for almost the past year and a half). Casimir had further to travel so while we were waiting for him to arrive we swapped craft ideas and I taught her how to make magazine beads. I also tried picking up some sign language. For some reason I remember learning a bit of sign language at some point when I was younger and cant remember why or where or even when but I can still do pretty much the whole alphabet. Some older girls came up to do crafts with us and they showed me how I would sign my name (L sign over left arm from wrist to elbow, back and forth). I cannot express how jealous I am of Nancy’s job and kept thinking If only I had known this existed in Peace Corps! Nancy said her recruiter asked her about it (she has a background in teaching graphic design) when she was applying; she is obviously very happy with her placement. After Casimir arrived we all had a good dinner/evening and the next morning we were off to Cape Coast and then Elmina. After we swore in, over a year ago, Casimir and I were the only two from our group to explore Cape Coast and do the castle tour. It was something I had wanted to do immediately upon doing research of Ghana (not to mention the canopy walk, which we swore to return to do in the future). This time we planned to do Elmina to see the (St George’s) castle which was another slave trade area. The castle was packed with school groups because it was a holiday (also my birthday) but the crowd control was very well done and we toured in a small group. In the end, I think I preferred the Cape Coast Castle tour to Elmina’s but preferred Elmina’s castle and the surrounding area. Both castles were very different in their design and also their use during the slave trade. The area around Elmina’s castle was really cool, a massive port with longboats and canoes, kids jumping in and swimming in gross polluted and murky water, a massive fort up a hill directly across from the castle. After our tour, we walked around the town to check out the Fante shrines which all pale in comparison to the one at my friend Kathryn’s site with giant blue figurines that look like the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. Most Fante shrines appear to have bizarre animal statues and bright colors. This was true of the Elmina shrines but they weren’t as crazy as other ones I had seen (I need to do a little research about Fante shrines. Since I don’t live in a Fante area I don’t know much about them other than that they are pretty crazy looking). Also we kept attracting small children asking us for our names and our money. Casimir started telling them his name was Billy Idol and that the kids were fatter than him and therefore didn’t need money/food. After we scared away all the kids I decided next time I should tell them I was Hannah Montana (never got a chance to do that). We wondered if the Daily Graphic, Ghana’s nationwide newspaper, would report Billy Idol’s visit to the Cape Coast area in the next issue ("accompanied by Hannah Montana, Billy Idol insulted all of Elmina’s small children by telling them they were fat").

After we toured a bit more of Elmina, we caught a tro back to Cape Coast so we could eat lunch on the beach next to Cape coast Castle in the really nice restaurant we ate in over a year ago. We both had a really nice meal (fried shrimp and French fries for me!) and Casimir tried to get me free food for my birthday but no one was nice enough to even bring me a cupcake with a candle. Oh well.

After eating we were off to Hans Botel, a hotel (boat-el) on the water, or so it claims, with a stilted restaurant, crocodiles, and swimming pool… I thought it was awesome! It was a little crowded at first because of the holiday but once people left it quieted down except for a private party at the pool. Casimir and I went swimming almost immediately and while staying as far away from the extreme booty shaking Ghanaians I still got hit on several times by men who looked ridiculous in their giant lifesavers (fun fact: most Ghanaians cannot swim). One of them asked if Casimir was my father and if he had his permission to talk to me (head slap). We walked around the botel (they had lots of little paths and walkways) and there were tons of weaver birds making nests and sleeping crocodiles. I ate a great burger for dinner and we went to bed planning to do Kakum early the next morning followed by the Rock shrine and canoe tour we read about in the Bradt guide.

The day started off well with a begged ride into Kakum with a park worker. Since we arrived earlier than the park opened we ended up taking an early tour with Senior high school girls from Kumasi. There was no one else there but the guide informed us if we didn’t take the early tour we would have to wait another hour or so. Apparently the day before there were hundreds and hundreds of visitors and this group of girls was meant to do the canopy walk but were rescheduled to the following morning. When we drove into the park I had wrongly assumed all the heaps of trash in the picnic area was normally there (Ghana has a ton of pollution) but it was actually from the overflow of guests (when we left after our tour it was spotless). The tour was nice and the actual canopy walk was awesome! It would have probably been awful with tons and tons of people but just with the one school group it was quiet and calm. Although the girls did freak out the whole time (another fun fact: most Ghanaians are afraid of heights/everything) while climbing above the forest, they were far ahead of us so it was still pretty quiet. It was incredible to look at the tree tops and imagine all of the life hundreds of feet below us on the ground (which I couldn’t even see!) Casimir and I took several pictures and both agreed it was truly a unique experience.

Our next experience was also unique, but in a completely different way. Although there were signs on the road and an actual visitor’s center, the Rock shrine/canoe tour was definitely not up to the same standards as Kakum, AT ALL. I didn’t expect it to be, but I also didn’t expect it to be this poorly run. There were no guides to the shrine, the people expected us to pay over 20cedis for a taxi (because we are white and have money, of course!) and laughed when we said we would walk. In hindsight if I had known it was going to be such a rough experience I would have said to just forget about it. After taking a picture of the map and being given a small girl to lead us to the shrine we were brushed off by the welcoming crew who obviously had no expectation for us to survive the walk. In the end, we did walk the 7+ km to the rock shrine, find the canoe boys, ride the river, and find our way back. We also got lost (mostly because of the stupid girl who responded to every question with yes even though she didn’t understand what we were saying), eaten by mosquitoes (my feet and legs were swollen for days), and somewhat dehydrated. I don’t want to dwell on this story for long because it was obviously stressful and not to mention completely underwhelming at the same time. The rock shrine was cool enough, a natural rock cavern made by giant boulders, though the trail was seriously unkempt and difficult to maneuver. The canoe tour was less of a tour and more of just a 20 minute ride down the river. Like I said, underwhelming. Although it felt nice to sit after walking so long (I think we walked about 5 hours in total that day). After returning to the town the visitor’s center woman demanded we pay for our visit which was ridiculous. We had snagged another bummed ride (with a chief! we seriously had the best free rides that day!) back to the hotel so we just kind of threw money at the lady and split. The whole experience was pretty bad but I was just glad to have a swimming pool to return to. After a little nightswimming (cue the R.E.M. song) we ate dinner and passed out. I have never slept so well.

The next day I went into Accra to get packages and endure a pretty painful boil removal. One of my mosquito bites became infected and swollen (and painful!) so I had the Peace Corps doctor look at it. She decided it needed to be cut out with a knife which was absolutely awful. But at least it’s gone and can’t get any worse. Volunteers suffer through boils more often than you would think- mostly because of our poor water and sanitation situations. Can’t keep things clean in this country! Luckily we got it before it could grow any larger. After my surgery, I decided I needed to treat myself.

I went off to a silversmith with a married couple, Chris and Tammi (who coincidentally also have close birthdays to mine) and bought a really nice silver ring with traditional Adinkra symbols on it. I then marched myself over to the new real Italian gelato store and had pineapple and coconut…mmmm… and then met up with more volunteers at Epos rooftop spot for noodles.

Now I am back at site with a million bug bites and sore feet. Stephen came to visit yesterday/today to help with my world map. Progress, slow and steady progress. I hope to have it complete and beautiful by Earth Day (April 22) and host an unveiling and some kind of educational party thing. Today I was really annoyed because it looked like some kids took sticks and scraped some of my paint off. Seriously, really frustrating!!! Sometimes this country! Ugh! We fixed it but still, if this happens again I don’t know what to do. I also don’t know why I’m bothering to do something nice for people who obviously have no respect for it or for me. Okay, I’m done ranting.

Looks like it’s about to storm, so probably should shut my laptop down.

Till next time!

A Later Note: Water is back in my town! Sort of. They fixed the borehole nearest to my house so the water has been a lot clearer lately. Also, its been raining a lot more and that's great because I don't even have to go fetch water when it rains heavily. Although, when it rains heavily apparently my roof now leaks... but that's a whole other story.

Quick birthday update!

2010-03-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes and packages! I had a really nice birthday in Cape Coast and plan to update the blog on all the fun things I did.
For now I'll just give a list for you to think about before I post again:
-Elmina slave castle
-Birthday lunch on the beach in Cape Coast
-Kakum rainforest canopy walk
-swimming pool!
-5 hour hike to rock shrine/canoe tour (pretty ridiculous)
-Italian Gelato in Accra

Basically, I had good food, good company (thanks Casimir!), and an overall really good time!

Things are (somehow) better!

2010-03-01T01:34:00.000-08:00

Written February 28, 2010

It’s kind of funny to see how this blog progresses sometimes. The last entry I wrote was full of frustrations and thoughts of early termination due to a lot of problems that I unfortunately still have. There are no easy solutions but so far I’ve made more progress in the past few months than I have in the past year. I guess the way to look at it is simply: I needed a year to figure it all out. I understand more of this country and these people than I give myself credit for. Sometimes I forget how much I’ve actually adapted to my surroundings. I mean I have no water for Christ’s sake!!! Unfortunate circumstances aside, I’m used to the way life is here. Sure, it still frustrates the hell out of me and I wish Ghanaians would just get their overall act together but… I do enjoy my work here. Somehow.
Somehow is a pretty common word used here in Ghana. Mostly because so many things take forever to get done or most often never get done due to laziness or lack of motivation or lack of funds, etc. You never know if something will work out here and even though you may be trying your best it may not matter because something will prevent it from ever being finished. If you talk to a Ghanaian about something to be done, it is most likely that they will respond with the following phrases: "By God’s grace….somehow…."
So basically, somehow I enjoy what I am doing and somehow I am getting things done. Sure, I wish a lot of things could be different and in all honesty if I had known it was going to be quite this dysfunctional I might not have signed up for this. But, here I am and I’m here to stay till the end.
As I said my projects are really in full swing and I know I’ve mentioned a few of them in previous blogs but I’ll just explain them briefly.
First, my monthly Moringa PLWHA project has been going really well. At the end of each month Nana and I go to a People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) support group and do a presentation on moringa (in case you have not read any of my previous blogs (shame on you!), moringa is pretty much a miracle tree with ridiculously healthy/medicinal leaves... Google it!) We started in January with an introductory lesson and this past Friday we went and did a more in depth session on health and starting a tree nursery. Each meeting we distribute moringa powder packets and this past meeting we gave out seeds. Next month we give out the seedlings we grew for them and at our final meeting we teach powder production. Nana and I may travel to the Upper West for a moringa soap making workshop but the dates are still up in the air. Moringa soap would be another good ALP (alternative livelihood project, i.e. money making) for PLWHA and I hope to find another support group to work with on soap making.
I finally coerced enough of my JSS students to write Pen Pal letters to my wonderful friend Ellen to give to her middle school students. The process of getting kids to do an assignment for me was so much more ridiculous than it should have ever been. I even told the teachers who teach English to make it a homework assignment (that I would grade for them!) so that the students would have to do it. Apparently this was just too difficult and I ended up going to the school and literally forcing students to write the letters. Most of my form 2 students were good about writing them. Since form 3 is about to take their exit exam in April, they are pretty much unwilling to do anything for anyone. What really pissed me off was that I was trying my best to make it seem like an important and interesting thing to do and the teachers literally told me one day to stop bothering because the students obviously couldn’t care less so why should I? Yes, that is the exact message these teachers send to their students. You don’t care, so why should we? I nearly lost it. This is why I don’t really work with the JSS teachers. Why I don’t really make an effort to include them in my clubs or projects. I mean I’ve tried in the past, but they are more interested in leaving as soon as school is over or talking on their cell phones instead of actually teaching. They complain about how the students are not motivated and then they themselves don’t even try to motivate them. Don’t even get me started on how they wanted me to pay to borrow yardsticks to do my world map painting at the primary school.
I finally started a world map at the primary school which happens to be extremely far from both the JSS and my house. I’ve been borrowing yardsticks from the JSS and the teachers have not only NOT offered to help in anyway but they honestly expected me to give them something when I borrowed yardsticks to work with… which by the way were coated in dust in the storeroom closet. The part that makes this whole experience worth it (besides hopefully the beautiful finished product and knowledge t hat comes from learning from a map) is the primary school teachers. Everyday I go they make me feel welcome and offer me as much help as they can. One day they were all up on ladders helping me trace lines and offering advice. They offer to sharpen my pencils or get me water. They call to see if I am still coming to the school. They ACTUALLY CARE!!! I think the JSS teachers might be partly annoyed that I’m not painting the map at their school (which I can’t even do because there isn’t a wall with the right measurements) but still! I explained some activities that I want to do with the primary students once the map is finished and the teachers were all willing to help because they want their students to know about the world (direct quote). And that, blog readers, makes it all worth it. Somehow.
The biggest and most exciting project I have lined up right now is a Girls Leadership Camp which will take place mid-August. Last weekend I went to a fellow volunteer’s site in the Eastern region to see if we could hold the camp there. Dorothy is an incredibly spunky 79 year old woman who lives about 45 minutes from Koforidua, the main city of our region. Her site is actually near where we had training so it was nice to be back in the area. She lives in two rooms in a guesthouse that serves as accommodations for guests who visit for the cocoa tours (Cadbury and Earthwatch ran various research projects in her town on cocoa and wildlife and supported the building of the guesthouse and visitors center). Dorothy is a business volunteer who is supposed to be helping with the tourism in her town. We actually took the cocoa tour and went to the visitors’ center to give her some feedback. Another volunteer, Kathryn (who is my mom’s age) also came to visit with a teacher from her town who leads a program called Young and Wise. This woman will help us with the camp which is great news because the more Ghanaians involved the more possibility the camp has to be sustainable. Basically, the camp will be for junior secondary school form 2 and 3 students with senior secondary students as mentors. We are going to have volunteers from all over our region select and bring girls to the camp to participate in a weeklong program. We are still in the planning stages but I am really excited because the guesthouse has perfect accommodations. I will post pictures up soon: there is a huge mango tree that we can have sessions under, a canteen, a field, etc. Also her town is where the big six of Ghana met to plan for independence so the historic element is really neat. We are planning to have lots of programs with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS and leadership. While I was there Dorothy and I also discussed various methods for erosion control because the ground around the guesthouse is severely washed away and basically a mess. I will be going back not only to help plan for the camp but also to plant some grass and trees. I hope to have an environment session during the camp so the girls can also plant some trees for the guesthouse.
So as some of you know my birthday is coming up in a week and after some planning Casimir and I are going to (finally) go to Kakum National Park and do the touristy canopy walk! Also there is supposedly a cool rock shrine nearby so we hope to do both. We will also go into Cape Coast and see the Elmina castle (another slave castle) and stay with a volunteer down there. It should be a good birthday. Darren has to teach or I’m sure he would go too. The Saturday before my birthday (March 6) is Ghana’s Independence Day and all the schools celebrate with a marching competition. It’s kind of like watching tiny armed officials practice their marching. I tried to explain that we do NOT march in schools in America (except for marching band of course) but that was kind of lost to them. Don’t worry I’ll take lots of video!
And finally, as most of you already know, I am coming home for a visit!!! I will arrive June 17 at 2:00pm and start working on eating all the food on my list of most missed food in America list at exactly 2:01pm. The stuffing of my face will end approximately at 10pm on July 7 when I fly back (yes I am coming back to Ghana… I promise!). I’ll be home for 3 weeks and during that time hope to figure out a lot of stuff. The biggest factor in me deciding to do this (I mean, I COS in November… it’s kind of late to be going home for a visit) was my good friend Morghan’s wedding. Every time I thought about everyone at the wedding and me sitting in my house here all alone I got too ridiculously sad. I am really excited to get to see Morghan on her big day but also am excited to see all my family and friends (or as many of them as I can). The more I think about coming home in June/July the more I realize how perfect it will be. First it will be warm so I will not only freeze BUT I can actually enjoy eating ice cream and Rita’s Italian Ice because it will be warm (not to mention anything and everything my Aunt Kris makes, plus bacon, and bagels, and donuts… trust me the list goes on for pages and pages) and play golf and do all kinds of fun things outside without hiding under 5 blankets like I will be doing when I come home for good in November (I will also be able to lose all the weight I gain in America when I come back to Ghana and hopefully be able to semi-restrain myself when I return home for good and don’t gain it all back again!). This visit will also give me a chance to try to sort things out as to what I ’m doing with my life after Peace Corps. I am leaning toward living either in or outside of the DC area and getting pretty much ANY government (or NGO) job that will have me. I figure I still don’t really know what I want to do, so if I can at least get a job (and I have priority for government jobs from PC), I can work and make money and somehow work my way up, in a matter of speaking, and hopefully figure stuff out in the meantime. I know I really wanted to take a road trip when I got back but I’m thinking that will have to go on hold because of funds. I still want to have my 25th birthday in Las Vegas (somehow during most peoples spring breaks) so to all my friends, please keep this in mind. I know that everyone’s schedules are going to be different this summer but let me know if you want to try to meet up at some point when I’ll be home. I definitely plan to make a trip to DC (still not sure if I’ll come to NC yet), but I will be spending most of my time in NJ and you are all absolutely welcome to visit me there!!! (just don’t let me hear any more cracks about NJ and garbage, its an amazing and beautiful place which you would know if you took the time to visit it… and also, its my HOME). Remember, I’ll be back at the end of the year so if it doesn’t work out this time there’s always November!
And on that note, please everyone stop sending me big packages! I really appreciate everything you have all done for me but since I’m coming home save your money! You can still continue to send me letters or small padded envelopes but I really discourage packages for the rest of the year. Save your money and buy me something off my ridiculously long list of missed American food (ice cream ice cream!) if you want
Miss all of you and can’t wait to come home in 4 months!!!

VAC and Volta Photos

2010-02-04T04:29:00.000-08:00

Here are my pictures from the Eastern Region VAC meeting and my trip across the lake to the Volta region:

Lately

2010-02-04T02:46:00.000-08:00

February 2, 2010

I realize I haven’t really written about a lot of things going on at site or with my projects. I’ve talked with many of you about various problems or concerns I’ve been having lately but I feel it’s necessary to clear some of these up here on the blog. It’s a rather long entry so be prepared.
So first I’ll start off with some of the bad things and then talk about the good.
Safety concerns have been plaguing me and my town lately. First a man I’ve never seen before in my town began consistently bothering me in town and then at my house so much that I got a little worried. I’ve had many strangers come to my house (mostly drunk and obnoxious males who my neighbors chase away) but this was the first time someone came more than once a day. The man is mentally challenged in some way and even though he seems to understand and respond to questions (in English) with no problem, he constantly talks to me and to himself about a variety of things. I felt really uncomfortable with him always coming to my house so I told Nana who told me more about the boy who also insults Nana on occasion. Harmless, but annoying. However, the man’s persistence to get into my house was stressing me out so Nana had my neighbors watch for him. My friend Nicole came to visit to see how I was doing and he bothered both of us so much that she called Safety for me. We have a new safety person, Richard, who was one of our trainers and is very efficient. He called Nana and came to my site to personally deal with the problem. For a week I didn’t see the guy at all but since yesterday he’s randomly popping up again so I ’m not really sure what action to take. Peace Corps would have to remove me from my site if I have any reason to feel threatened, and while I’m sure this man is not dangerous, he is “not correct” as Ghanaians would say and therefore potentially dangerous. Once my crazy stalker was “taken care of,” I was informed that there have been a series of murders in several communities in my area done in a ritualistic manner. Fabulous. Nana has a border control set up for our town and so far no one in our town has been harmed. In other nearby towns, people (of all age and sex) have been killed at farm, in town, etc. but mostly on the outskirts. I called Safety again and they are talking with the police for more information. I feel safe in town but I have no intention of being anywhere near our borders or anywhere at night. So there’s that.
For mostly all of January my town has been suffering greatly from the dry season. With very little rain and 4 out of 5 boreholes broken in a town of over 6,000 people there has been a serious lack of water. Many people in town have private wells at their compounds but even these are now rock bottom because of excessive use by neighbors who need water. The well by my house is a small puddle of muddy brown water, much like most other wells in town. The streams in the bush are also rather dry but are still supplying people with water that eventually gets them sick. It has rained only a few times recently, helping to refill the wells only slightly. I’ve put pressure on Nana, the chief, to fix at least one of the broken boreholes. Unfortunately, as with anything in Ghana, that costs money we don’t have. The ideal model for borehole repair costs is to have everyone in town pay a minimal amount to keep them operating. Nana said they’ve tried this in the past but with no success so instead now they collect money at funerals and other large town events for a variety of town purposes, including borehole maintenance. Apparently we have just enough money from these collections to fix one borehole (even though the money is also meant for other things as well and that would mean we’d be left with nothing). I offered to go house to house and collect money which I feel would be somewhat helpful, even though I’m sure people won’t want to donate because they have personal wells and are using unhealthy river water. Many other volunteers have had this exact same problem with community fund collections (not to mention no water!) and we are seriously at a loss for what to do. Sure, I could go door to door and convince enough people to give money but then what happens when I leave? When I’m not around to be solving their problems who will step up? This brings me to my next and probably biggest problem I’ve been dealing with lately.
Every project I’ve been working on lately have been initiated and carried out by me and other PCVs. Environment club, Reading club, HIV/AIDS radio show, girls leadership camp, even my moringa trainings for people living with HIV/AIDS (although I couldn’t have done it without Nana). Some of the biggest projects volunteers will ever work on are completely independent of anything Ghanaians would ever think to do let alone actually initiate and follow through with on their own. And I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing it’s just that it’s not supposed to be like this at all. Peace Corps is supposed to be more of a partnership where we help countries with projects or programs that they themselves initiate (at least that’s what I’ve always thought it was). And that’s what’s been really killing me lately. I know that there are extremely competent and hard working Ghanaians- my counterpart/chief is a good example of one. The problem I keep seeing over and over again is that Peace Corps volunteers are used for many things that the host country nationals as we are meant to call them are very capable of doing all by themselves. Let’s face it; Peace Corps has been in Ghana for nearly 50 years. You’d think after all that time there would be a better system in place for selecting projects. For making sure we aren’t idle and useless for half our service and then overused and taken advantage of for our other half. In an effort to feel needed most of us just accept it and create projects that we find are extremely necessary. For example, my new reading club at the junior high school for the Form 1s. It was my idea, I run it all by myself, and what do the teachers do? Go home early or watch the brand new 35inch screen television that magically appeared in the teachers’ lounge last week. One day they thanked me for how good of an idea it is (after all, without any reading skills the kids will NEVER pass their exams) but never once offer to help! Not that I really want their help… which is a sad admittance. I really dislike the teachers at my school for how badly they treat the students. It’s bad enough that the younger kids are scared to go to school because they get beaten so much. A few of my best female students from Form 3 help me with the reading club because the Form 1s English comprehension is so bad they never understand me- the teachers thought this was hilarious- to be using girls to do anything, even though the teachers themselves don’t ever help!!! Anyway, back to what I was saying. I suppose it’s not as bad as I make it sound, that I could just deal with it and continue with what I’m doing except that I recognize the biggest flaw in this system and probably the reason we’ve been in Ghana for so damn long. These projects we start- from big ones like STARS, Student Art shows, and girls leadership camps to small ones like school clubs or radio shows- they will never continue without us. We are constantly replaced by new volunteers who face the same dilemma we do and ultimately give in, leaving the project and problem again to the next volunteer. It is a vicious cycle and we have no one to blame but ourselves and the Peace Corps program for such bad follow up with volunteers. Sure, we act as proper models for Ghanaians, that they could choose to follow if they so desire. The problem is that it is SO much easier for them to just sit back and let us do all the work. Have us teach their classes so they don’t have to. Have us run their meetings and make all the decisions. In some places, have us actually do the manual labor. Seriously? What has become of this program? We might as well just come in for a day and throw them money because that’s all that seems to matter anymore. Money money money. How can we most easily get them mass quantities of money. And the sad thing? We can get them money simply by filling out some grant proposal that they just sign. Obviously there’s a little more work than that but that’s what it comes down to for them. We bring them money. We also bring them ideas but most of the time, I think they’re way more interested in the money.
I could vent about this problem for pages and pages but I think you get the general idea here. I’ve made a point to talk to PC about this and explain how my frustrations have really affected my ability to stay in this country and work till the end of the year. I really want to be happy with my projects and any small successes I have… but there is just so much bullshit that I cannot stand. Not to mention this country in general. I realize now that no matter how long I remain here in Ghana I will never completely belong. The people here are wonderful and welcoming and the country is beautiful but there are just so many social constructs that I absolutely hate. Day after day of greetings and being bothered by complete strangers (most of them men) who always want something. I have tried to be accepting. I feel integrated in my community, but I will never be integrated into this country. Not as long as I remain white, female, and American. I don’t know what else to say because it’s so hard to convey my discomfort (and this is completely unrelated to my crazy stalker or the murders… these kind of things happen everywhere and everyday). Even volunteers here are frustrated with my inability to comply with “the way it is”. It also doesn’t help how much I miss my family and friends and things that I’m used to. Just to be able to do something familiar sometimes is a lifesaver, even something as simple as listening to music or watching a television show. I know I am strong enough to make it the rest of the year here in Ghana. I don’t want to leave knowing how many opportunities there are for me to work with here. Some days I just really don’t know if it’s worth it anymore. Or if I even care enough to stay. The less I care about this country the more I feel pulled to leave early and just go home. It’s not giving up if there is nothing here for me. But because there are still things here to work with for now, I will stay. I promise myself till April (and the end of my current project) I will stay. If I can’t see work or happiness waiting for me in the last 6 months then I will leave. Why prolong unhappiness any longer than you have to?
So enough talking about bad things, let me just mention a few good things before I wrap this blog entry up.
The reading club I mentioned has been going really well and I think it will really benefit the students and help them more than anything they’ll ever learn at their school. I am also starting pen pal letters (finally!) with the older students and I’m hoping that maybe even the teachers can help get the students to write letters (as part of class assignments). The tree nursery at school is on hold until I get seeds but I hope to grow a nice amount of moringa with the students and host a moringa day for the community where we give away seedlings to people in town. Speaking of moringa, we had our first training for the people living with HIV/AIDS support group and it went extremely well. Nana is an excellent public speaker and so knowledgeable that he held the group ’s interest and had them asking lots of good questions. We have the sessions once a month and next month we will be bringing the moringa seedlings to teach proper tree raising. Eventually we will teach powder processing so that the group can make additional money. I may be participating in a moringa soap making workshop in the Upper West that my friend Adam is running for people living with HIV/AIDS. If I could take one of the group members (or Nana) to learn how to make soap, it would be really good for the whole group as well. One of the new volunteers wants me to visit her site to check their land for erosion problems and figure out a few solutions. I will also check to see if it is a good possible place for a future girls leadership camp that me and a few other volunteers want to hold in our region. I finished my grant for the radio show but need to print it out to take to the station to see their response. I hope to meet with the farmers AT SOME POINT to discuss raising animals (I will also mention moringa soap making possibilities). The manual I’ve been working on for the GYD committee is finished and I also need to run that by our head in Accra. We finally have a new APCD, Nico, who was our trainer during training so we are all extremely happy about that.
This week I hope to go to Accra to pick up more Christmas packages and do some computer and internet work. Hope you are all doing well in the snow and cold weather. Miss you all!

What a Week!

2010-01-22T01:13:00.000-08:00

Written on January 14, 2010

If you look at a map of Ghana, you will notice that the southeast is largely surrounded by bodies of water, specifically the ocean and the largest man made lake in the world, the Lake Volta. Part of the Eastern Region, where I reside, lies beyond the lake midway to Volta. This is where Peace Corps decided to put the two new environment volunteers… a good 9 hours away from my site. For our VAC meeting (where we all come together as a region to throw around ideas and complaints about PC) we decided to take the boat over and explore this completely different part of the Eastern Region. Two older volunteers, Chris and Tammi are teachers and live in a part of their headmaster’s house with enough space for all of us, which was good because we ALL went. In what we believe to be an unprecedented act in PC, we had 100% attendance (all 14 people) not to mention Darren’s cousin who was visiting from Israel.
Most of us met up at the Nkawkaw station to take the Metro Mass transit bus. The bus route took us up in the mountains (pretty scary ride) and to the edge of the lake where we all had to get out of the bus and wait for a giant pontoon boat to bring us to the other side. Our bus also went on the boat plus a few taxis and bags and bags of charcoal and other agric products. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing especially with the lack of any safety precautions (what we decided were lifeboats were nothing more than square metal buoys with rope). Luckily it wasn’t a very long trip and soon we were on the other side. I must say, I have travelled Ghana pretty extensively now, and it is very different to travel in a large group (we were 10) than it is to travel alone. Being in a large herd of white people can be extremely annoying because you are constantly hassled and approached by Ghanaians. However, half the group was made up of older volunteers (aged 60s and 80s) and thus they were treated with the respect of elders making travel a little easier for all of us. Metro Mass is probably my least favorite form of transport in Ghana (well it was until I took the canoe…) mainly because when it comes time to load and get tickets, Ghanaians push and shove- making it literally a mad house. Our plan was to have someone buy tickets and get on board before anyone knew what was going on. Alan pushed his way through and made some awful comment about how Ghanaians don’t bruise (to which Marcus and I were cracking up) and we started passing bags through the windows to him because we couldn’t get in through the door easily. After all the chaos died down and everyone got a seat we were on our way. The whole trip took a while with a lot of the usual stopping and waiting for vehicles and we all arrived at Chris and Tammi’s around 5pm, just in time for a small tour of the building and dinner! Chris and Tammi had just returned from Tanzania and Rwanda so they had all kinds of neat things to show us and stories to tell. Their house was scattered with loads of interesting crafts from Ghana and elsewhere. Chris is an art teacher and he’s working on a book about all the different craft villages in Ghana, so in order do research for the book he’s been to nearly all of them. Most of us stayed in the rooms next door in the abandoned master’s house (with school out of session he had travelled) which really made my humble home look like a closet. Ceiling fans, large fully furnished rooms, huge kitchen complete with oven… etc.
The next day we decided to visit the sites of the other two volunteers nearby- who both happen to be environment volunteers, the only ones besides me in the whole region. We loaded up in the Bone Crusher as Chris and Tammi named it- a massive green truck/van used for transporting the students to the Secondary school where C&T work. The road to Rachel’s site, the first we visited, was really bumpy and even more so in the Bone Crusher which only had wooden planks for seats. There was lots of bouncing around and eventually I got a little sick- probably from multiple things… it was really really hot. Rachel’s town was not expecting us at all yet they welcomed us with open arms and even gave us biscuits and minerals (soda) while we had a small introductory meeting. After seeing a bit of her home and community, we got back in the Bone Crusher and drove a little further to see a Fulani settlement. Fulanis are nomads from Nigeria and most of them are in the northern part of Ghana so I was surprised to see a settlement in our region. These Fulani travel every 2 years and rebuild their homes in different places. They also raise cattle and produce the only milk and cheese you’d ever find in Ghana. They spoke no English and were both afraid and curious of such a massive group of white people. You couldn’t help but notice the incredible difference between the Fulanis and the Ghanaians we are working with. The culture of these people was preserved and present everywhere… yet the children did not attend school. It reminded me a bit of the Zapatistas and Mayans in Mexico and I wondered whether Ghanaians discriminated against them. Also, how difficult it must be to live in a completely different country among people as different as Ghanaians (who I am starting to realize are in a whole separate category of Africans when it comes to culture and lifestyle). It was definitely an eye-opening experience and I think we all enjoyed it.
We then went to briefly visit Nate’s site before lunch. His home is officially the smallest I’ve seen so far in all of PC homes. He did get us some mushrooms that he’s working on growing which we had later in pasta for dinner- so that was excellent.
We had a lengthy VAC meeting and brought up several important topics and suggestions/complaints for PC about administration policies. I made a little speech about my work as a member of the GYD committee and after the meeting I talked more about it with a few of the new volunteers. We decided to try and plan for a girls leadership camp in our region. One volunteer (now the oldest in country), Dorothy, works in eco-tourism and has a guesthouse at her site and we hope to have the camp there. I’ll go visit there sometime next month to see if it will work for the camp.
After VAC ended we all went our separate ways. Most of us decided to cross the lake on the other side into the Volta Region. This route involved taking a tro to the other side of the lake than where we crossed the day before and then boarding a 50 person canoe to the Volta side. When the first thing I noticed about the boat we were about to board was that two people were constantly bailing out water… I immediately began to have second thoughts. Swimming even started to look like a better option. Well, I got both options with this boat since we had to wade out in the water to get onboard. Then once we were all loaded and semi-comfortably sitting on top of giant burlap sacks of charcoal we ended up going only maybe a few minutes before going back to shore to pick up some people we apparently forgot. Then someone forgot their cell phone so we had to wait for him to go back and get it. Then when he came back he jumped into the water with the phone in his pocket and everyone on the boat did a major head slap and groan. Seriously, what the heck? After another two stops similar to this- picking up more people and charcoal we were off! We were also slightly tipping over and at this point I informed my friend Stephen that it was his duty to save me if we tipped. They somehow straightened out our boat and we made our way across the lake in the hot hot sun and luckily my two-yard was handy and we used it as a tent to shade ourselves against the sun. The total time onboard was about an hour and a half although it felt like years and years. The dock we landed in was at a small fishing town outside of a larger town where Amber lives.
Alan and Marian and I had previously decided to travel to Amber’s site and see her work with the potters. Then, when Dorothy mentioned visiting another volunteer near Hohoe we changed our plans a little and decided to go with her. This volunteer works with eco-tourism (similar to Dorothy’s project) for the nearby mountain (largest in Ghana) and waterfall. We thought we’d stay at the guesthouse but the volunteer, Katie, ended up having enough room for all of us. She lives in a lawyer’s home who works and lives in Accra and so she is sort of maintaining the house for him until he comes back (which Katie said he does for funerals sometimes). Her site was very very pretty but I was so exhausted after the canoe ride and sitting in the hot sun that I fell asleep shortly after we got there.
The next day I was still exhausted so I opted out of the hike to see the waterfall. We left for Ambers sometime in the afternoon and met up with her at a spot in her town before finding Alan and Marian a hotel to stay at. Once all our bags were settled we headed out to the nearby town where the pottery is made. Unlike other pottery I’ve seen, these women did not use a wheel. All the work we saw was done all by hand with wooden paddles. They would literally smack the clay into shape. It was pretty neat and I of course bought a few pieces. Somewhere along the path to the pottery center I slipped and hurt my foot which was unfortunate because we wanted to go see the Scary Mary, a large shrine to the Virgin Mary complete with the full Stations of the Cross statues. I opted out of it and we went for dinner instead at a nice restaurant that was playing the first Lord of the Rings movie on the television so that cheered me up immediately.
The next day Alan and Marian left for site but I decided to stay and try to see Scary Mary even with my foot. It wasn’t hurting as much so we also walked through town a little bit and went inside a really nice Catholic church that was unlike any other church I’ve seen so far in Ghana. We took a taxi out to the shrine and it was truly a beautiful area in the hills and just as we were approaching the area you could see a massive white statue up in the trees. Virgin Mary (or Scary Mary, as Julie coined the phrase) is a massive white statue about 40 feet tall- possibly the only Virgin Mary to be seen from space. Amber and I hiked a bit down the path and admired the Stations of the Cross statues and the outdoor church next to Scary Mary. When it was time to leave I realized my foot wasn’t hurting as much anymore and decided that my foot had been healed by Mary. Hallelujah! We then went off to Hohoe where I spent too much money on jewelry and Amber met up with another volunteer who went home for Christmas and brought back Amber’s laptop. That night we watched Up (I love that movie!) and ate some really tasty pasta. The next morning I was off to Accra to pick up my packages and visit medical for a shot- H1N1 you’ll never get me now!
Thanks to everyone for the amazing packages and letters. I truly can not express how much your mail means to me. Also a big big big shout out to Brandon and Amy for sending me a box of CDs from the past year. Seriously, it is the best Christmas present in the world! You saved my sanity for yet another day. Miss and love you all! Till next time.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

Written on January 5th, 2010... only 11 months to go!

Happy New Year to all! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, whether you celebrated Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa (which contrary to popular belief is NOT celebrated here). I’m sure you were all wishing you were here in the 90 degree weather--- dripping sweat out of every pore while eating Christmas dinner--- rather than in freezing temperatures and snow, of course. However you celebrated the holidays, I hope you kept in mind your fellow Americans over here in Ghana who made due with what festive food was available (canned ham) and new friends (American and Ghanaian alike). This was my second Christmas in Ghana and I must say it was significantly better than last year’s, mainly because we were not on lockdown and could actually leave our sites to celebrate with fellow volunteers.

There were a few ups and downs of course, but for the most part, my last few weeks of 2009 were nice. A large amount of volunteers in my group went home to celebrate the holidays with their families, but since I had decided not to go home during my two years of service, my family will just have to wait another year. Some volunteers’ families came to visit them here for the holidays which was nice. I even met up with my friend Sam and his family which I’ll talk about in a little bit.

I realize I haven’t written a blog in a while so bear with me if this one is rather choppy. I can’t remember the last time I really sat down and wrote something for my blog. I admit I’ve been travelling a bit on and off these past few months, partly for vacation and partly for required PC things. I was in Accra for Thanksgiving and then again for mid-service medical. I went to Kumasi for the second years environment IST where we were meant to serve as resources and also input for changing the future of the environment program. Ann came to visit me afterwards and we had a movie marathon. I went to Alan and Marian’s on Christmas Day. And yesterday I returned from celebrating New Years in Kumasi and also visiting Casimir’s new site in the Western Region, which means I’ve finally been to every region in Ghana!

This weekend I will travel again, for my VAC (regional) meeting which will be held across the lake towards the Volta side. Most of us are excited because no one has actually travelled there yet and also we are all planning to attend the meeting which is a first for our region (because we are so spread out, usually the people across the lake never make it to our meetings). So I will take my first boat ride in Ghana (a little nervous about that) and then following VAC, Alan, Marian and I plan to cross the lake again into the Volta side to visit Amber, who works with people who make pottery. At some point after this adventure, I really hope to make it to Accra to pick up my millions of packages that are most likely awaiting me…

Update: January 13, 2009

I'm in Accra now, picking up packages and gathering documents for a few upcoming projects. I will return to site today and work on a better update for you on my recent travels including photos... so until next time!

Another photo update.... Princillas 1st Birthday!

2009-12-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

Major shout out to Pam Kopsky for sending me a stuffed toy to pass along to my favorite baby!

I love them