Some Ghanaian English

I thought i would take a moment and teach you some Ghanaian english. English is actually the official language here in Ghana but the dialect, as you could well infer, is very different. In order to teach my students I had to pick up these differences in the language and use them. so naturally when i return home to the states people will probably look at me weird when i pronouce everything that ends in an -er with an -a ending and i hiss and start a lot of sentences with the word "Oh!"

Some words and sayings I use almost everyday:

Teacher = Teacha
Driver = Driva
Computer = Computa
Paper = Paypa
The power is out = "Light is off"
The power is back on! = "Light has come!"
I'll be right back = "I will go and come"
I'm leaving (and coming back) = "Im coming" (this is my fave)
Get someone's attention = hiss at them or make kissy face noise (i still have trouble doing these, it just feels wrong)
Do you understand? = "Are we OK?"
That is very nice = "Oh fine"
Something bad has happened = "Oh Why?"
Asking why something bad has happend(non verbally) = Frown, turn out you bottom lip(sad face) clap once and then turn your hands outward at the person.
Imply that you would like to share your food(or something else) = "Oh, you are invited"
Beg/Ask someone for something or apologize = put one hand in the other (like you going up for communion in church) and say "Oh, I beg"
Change(money) = "coins"
scenario:
I Hand my money to the taxi driva.
He looks at me strangely, "Oh, you don't have coins?"
"No, I don't have coins"
Driva: "Oh, Why?!"
Me: "Oh WHY?! You don't have coins!
He laughs and goes to find some change.

Laura = 1 Driva = 0

Thats all I can think of, next maybe I'll show some local cuisine!

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Am I in America?

I just got back from having Thanksgiving in Accra and I am feeling more than pleasantly satisfied. I had already been really excited to go before hand, especially after hearing that last year they had a pool party and so much yummy food you could explode, but they went above and beyond. Seriously, I was legit back in America for like 4 days.

So, we had to RSVP a month or so in advance to the the shin-dig and then we could receive housing from expats in the Accra area. YES! free housing. My host family were super sweet and so hospitable. They are workers at the US embassy and have a real house complete with AIR CONDITIONING, satellite TV, HOT SHOWER and a washer AND dryer! Talk about lap of luxury, I was needless to say in my little oasis. I think the first hot shower i took( i took at least 5 in like 2 days, ha!) i just smiled the entire time like some happy idiot. My host couple were fellow volunteers themselves and met in the Peace Corps(awaiting my future husband please) and have lived all over since going abroad for PC service. So they were really great to talk to.

On Thanksgiving day we went over to the Ambassadors house at around mid-day and swam in his pool and i of course played with his huge super cute, super friendly dogs. We had an open bar(favorite words ever) and then the Ambassador came out to greet us and give thanks and proceed to tell us that he had something like 12 turkeys awaiting. I was just excited for the stuffing and the cranberries. We did have something like 180 people there and only like 20 PCV's who didn't come(why wouldn't you come?!?!?) so I loaded up on veggies and then proceeded to lay in my food coma afterwards.

After dinner we all went out to some american style pubs and bars. The first pub we were at had satellite TV and they had some Thanksgiving day football game on. I wasn't really interested, it was actually a little too much for me. I kinda missed the leisureliness of local ghanaian spots. The next day(after waking up in my air conditioned room :) we spent the day shopping in a touristy district in Accra called Osu. I bought a few things and some holiday presents for peeps back home and then went to the Accra Mall, which is pretty much like any other medium sized mall in America, complete with movie theatre. so we all went to see the new Harry Potter! it was even worth the 12 cedi's i paid for it(my salary for 3 days). Then i went to Shop-Rite, yes they have a grocery store called Shop-rite, but i don't think it is connected to the ones in back in the good ol' Jerz ;). Then I enjoyed a nice home-cooked meal back at my host family and another air conditioned night before i headed back to site.

Oh it was a dream, a sweet sweet dream.

Until next year.

Ja-si-co

YAY, I have made it nearly 6 months here in Ghana! Its weird…sometimes it feels like i have been here forever but other times I cant believe the time has gone by so fast. I guess that's the way time goes here in Africa. When you are busy, you're BUSY. When things are slow, hours seem like days. But i am really enjoying myself and feel quite comfortable at my site and at my job. I surprisingly love teaching! Maybe it is because my students here at Jasico (combination of Jasikan and collge of education, clever aint it?) are older and I don't have to deal with kids and adolescents acting out and causing trouble. There is something about seeing someone take something you said into practice or execute something you have taught them. Its self-satisfying and I'm helping someone learn something new at same time The only thing I can think to compare it to is maybe when you're child takes their first steps or speaks for the first time. Im so proud of my 20-30 year olds!

So last week was sports week here on campus, which means that in the afternoon all of the students went to the playing fields for intramural sports and classes were cancelled. Now usually, being me, i looove when things are canceled and i have some free time but i really did not want that time taken away from my students. We barely have enough time during regular class hours for me to go through the lesson. But, as i have heard from all of my fellow education PCV's thats the way things go. Sometimes class time is not a priority especially for things like religion and apparently sports.

Me teaching…who'd a thunk it?

It is week two in teaching and i can honestly say that things are going O.K. My first day doing actual teaching was a little nerve-racking and i talked very fast and went through the lesson pretty fast as well. After a couple of more sit-in's and familiarizing myself with the course material, i think things are going smoothly now. So my typical day starts at about 6:30 or 7:30 a.m. when i have my first class. Each period is an hour and i usually get a one-two hour break in between classes. My counterparts and I are doing team teaching, where we all attend all the classes and take turns going over the material. Usual one person begins the lesson and the others can chime in here and there to make the point more clear or just add something. I actually really like this method. It's nice to not be just put out there by myself, with no teaching experience, and expect to teach something like 230 students. but i must say, for my students, they are great! Well great compared to what i have heard from teachers at the junior and senior high school levels. I suppose its typical though. Even though families pay for their children to attend the primary through secondary education schools, it is the kids that do better in school that can move on to the college and university level. Colleges of education and Universities also cost a lot more money, so it is not likely that students will slack off when they have been given the opportunity to further their education. For the most part they pay attention and participate..usually on a very small scale. I can sometimes get 1-3 hands raised when i ask a question, other times…nada. I don't blame them though, ICT is A LOT of information for them to learn and for most they are just trying to copy notes down and memorize so they can pass their exam. See, ICT is required for all second year students to take, whether they want to or not. There in-lies the first problem. A computer, to some to maybe even most students, is really just a concept. Most have seen one but have barely interacted with it and here I am talking about the internal components of the system unit and how the processor and memory works. It's a little extreme. But this year we are trying to get the first year students to start taking some lessons in ICT so that when they need to pass their class for their exams in their second year they are not coming into the course blindly.

I have been finding that i do a lot of board writing and talking AT the class instead of interacting with them. It's hard to engage them because usually i don't have enough time and also i do not have many resources at my disposal. I have made an announcement to one of my lecture classes( yes i teach about 125-150 students at a time, woohoo!) that i will be holding a review session over the weekend, and every weekend henceforth, for their benefit. Now, i have no idea what im going to do at these review sessions but step one is to actually get people to come. I hold my first one this sunday so we shall see how it pans out.

Oh..right, so back to my day. I usually teach 3 classes a day and go back to my house for meals and such. They serve breakfast and lunch in the staff lounge but i usually try to steer clear of that. Although it is great getting free food, don't get me wrong, but they always have porridge in the morning and by always i mean every.single.day….so there's only so much of that i can take. And for lunch they have a mixture of banku or fufu with stew or rice and beans. Usually these dishes are safe but with the rice and beans there is always some kind of mystery beef in there( im still whole-heartedly trying to be a vegetarian) and with the banku and fufu they always serve me and i get tremendous portions that i feel bad not finishing, so i do then i get a stomach ache and hello uncomfortable rest of the afternoon. So i stick to my own veggie concoctions and that keeps me quite congenial.

Sapere Aude - Dare to be Wise

My college's slogan, Sapere Aude, always puts me in a good mood when i see it; Mainly because t is next to a mural cartoon drawing of two guys up in a tree one is sitting on a branch sawing it down and the other has a notepad asking, " How do you define intelligence?". What a knee-slapper.

So it has been awhile since i blogged, as we say here in Ghana, Sorry-o! I thought today i'd write because today was my first official day teaching! hooray, finally! Although i did enjoy my extended vacation time but i could tell boredom would strike soon enough. And looking at my schedule for the academic year, looks like i do not get much time off until next summer, so boo. I haven't actually spoken in the classroom yet mainly just observing today. i should make actual words come out of my mouth tomorrow as i have time in the evening to study the syllabus and textbook and come up with a riveting lesson plan. My weekly schedule is not too bad, i teach 12 one-two hour period blocks per week. Tues and Thurs might be tough as my classes begin at 6:30 a.m. but ill be done by 10am, so there is always an upside!

So, the past couple of weeks i have mostly been bumming around the Volta region. I did buy a bike though, and a pretty sweet bike i might add. Apparently, every couple of months, the bike shops in Hohoe get a shipment of what the locals call "jungle bikes" which are usually bikes from more westernized countries like the UK and the States. So i got a brand-spanking new Trek mountain bike, yippee! It was pricey but one of my PCV friends, who has already been here for a year, said it was a great deal. I've done a couple of nice rides so far including one where i got lost trying to find my friend's town but turned out to be a great little 20 mile exploratory journey. It's weird, 20 miles at home would seem like a piece of cake but out here with the varying terrain and weather conditions, 20 miles is quite a bit of a workout. I want to start making more frequent trips to Hohoe so that i can save some money. I went the other day and when i came back to Jasikan people were coming up to me saying " Oh. I saw you biking to Hohoe the other day. Sister Laura it is very far!" I just laughed and said it was great exercise. I told them that in American people like to ride their bikes recreationally and of course they thought that was crazy. Mainly the people who have bicycles here are the farmers or lower-class citizens. If you have the money it is expected that you take transport or have your own. Well, thats what im here for to stir things up and add some outside perspective!

Speaking of weather changes, even though for exercising it goes from muggy to hot to muggier, it is hitting me now that there are no season changes. The other day i stopped and took note of the date ( because i have no concept of time here) and was so shocked it was October. Back in Jersey the leaves would be turning all shades of yellow and orange and red and in Syracuse it would probably be snowing…It is definitely hotter now than when i came and it's still the rainy season. I heard that in the dry season some places get up to 120 degrees. yikes. but i don't miss the cold yet! Maybe closer to the holiday season...

Kente and Cops and Snakes oh my!

All is going well at site so far. I have made a couple new friends in town but i think once school starts i will be able to use my students to get to know the community a little better. I have mostly being going out of my house every other day or so to do little household shopping here and there. I go to the next big city, Hohoe, a lot because they have a better market, more things and my bank. Me and the other PCV's also meet there a lot for our weekly/bi-weekly get togethers at one of the local spots. We've been doing really well about keeping busy on the weekends, either meeting there or elsewhere. This past weekend we went to Kpetoe(pronounced pet-way), a small city outside of Ho, for a Kente Festival. Im not sure if i explained kente earlier in my blog but briefly: it is a material that Ghanaians make and they are actually quite famous for it. They weave these strands of material together to make intricate designs. Its really cool to watch being done, ill have to videotape it one of these days. I had all the intent of taking tons of pictures of the festival but of course when i got there i left my camera inside at my friends house after i was already at the festival. typical. But the festival was great! It was kind of like going to a summer carnival. There were crowds of people walking up and down the main street and music was blasting and there were many tents set up displaying all different kinds of kente. Kente is actually pretty expensive to buy so i didn't have enough $$ to buy some this time but im sure ill get something over the next couple of years. There were quite a few PCV's there enjoying the festivities and even our Country Director came and joined in on the celebration. After we browsed a bit we went over to a spot to get some food and drinks. Then there was some guy just walking around with a 4-5 foot python on his neck so naturally i called him over. I think it had just eaten because it was pretty calm and i asked to hold it around my neck. Funny how ill scream at the smallest spider but here i can hold a python on my neck and laugh about it. craziness. SO we had left our things at another PCV's house while we toured the festival and when we go back apparently one of the ghanaians who was also staying in the house compound had lost her camera. We were asked to search around for it and check our things and what not. and we all were saying "we don't have it" but somehow what started as just looking around for the camera became we STOLE the camera. It caused a big scene at the house and they were all talking rapidly in the local language, i think one of my friends could make out from there talk "white man" and "thief" so that didn't inspire optimism that the situation would be resolved quickly. So they called the police. sweet. What you don't know about Ghana is that thievery is taken extremely seriously. If someone is caught stealing, there have been many cases where the person is beaten to death. so yeah we were a little worried. After talking to the cops and going down to the station and searching the whole house we were needless to say, pretty pissed. I mean 3 of us had our DSLR's with us and kept saying we all have nice camera's why would we steal yours?? So it took a couple of hours but finally when we where about to sprawl all of our belongings out on the front porch to be checked we heard a commotion from inside. Apparently as soon as we stepped outside the "lost" camera miraculously appeared in the same place we had put our bags down earlier, kind of like someone was trying to frame us. Thankfully the police chief i think obviously knew it had been placed there and he let us go. What sucks though is our friend who stays in that house, who will most likely move out now because well if i were him i wouldnt stay there either. But i guess to take away from this is that shitty things happen, but i wont hold it against Ghana :)

Training's over, Let the dog days begin!

Sooo it's been awhile but i am finally safe and settled at my site in the Volta Region. We had our swearing in ceremony on Aug. 12th which a ton of fun. We had the ceremony on a really nice school campus where all of our homestay families were invited as well as some big shot Ghanaian's and the deputy ambassador to the US embassy. All the volunteers showed up wearing local garb that our families had prepared for us, which was awesome. ANd i must say we were a very colorful bunch. My fabric was light pink and green and had "High Life" written on it which is a type of Ghanaian music style. The ceremony lasted a couple of hours and then we headed off to the local spot where we set up the after party. Most of the families didn't join in at the spot but the after party was really for the PCV's to celebrate surviving Pre Service Training. And our class actually did really well! Out of the 72 of us only one person ET'ed (Early Terminated) which is great compared to the universal Peace Corp statistic that 30% of volunteers leave during PST. So the party started with a couple shots of Apeteshi and i became DJ for the night and made a kick-ass mix keeping us dancing until the wee hours. Even our country director came out for a couple of hours and bought us some drinks. pretty sweet. The next day we left for site early in the morning…not so fun.

The ride up to Volta was nice and short, mainly because our tro tro driver was speeding like a madman but that's how all the taxi and tro drivers are in Ghana, at least in my experience. We did pass though a police barricade where an officer had a radar gun but usually drivers can get out of a ticket with a little hush hush money which just sucks…but hey it happens. I traveled up with a few other volunteers who are near my site which is always nice, makes the ride a little less scary. It's been fairly quiet around here for now since a lot of students are gone. The new semester starts in October so I have about a month or so to kill. But i try to keep busy with little projects here and there. Like cooking, cleaning, list-making, clothes washing, etc. Isn't my life exciting!? haha no but its actually nice to have a little down time. Training was definitely taxing on my mental and physical state and i am happy to be through with it. And I meet up with other PCV's a couple of times a week so you know catch up and shoot the shit. So its fun and relaxing which is great cause im also really nervous about the semester starting and being a teacher. gulp. Im meeting with my counterparts soon so ill have a better perspective on what exactly ill be doing and teaching. I have two counterparts, they are both males and are fairly quiet but seem very nice. So now is my time to go into my larger community and integrate! Ill let you know how it goes :)

Ghanaian Funeral

Ghanaian Funerals

So a Ghanaian funeral is, for the most part, a happy time. Its sad that the person and/or people have passed but they would rather celebrate life and have a big party in their honor than mourn them quietly. When i first came to homestay the weekends were pretty quiet because apparently the chiefs of a lot of the surrounding communities had put a ban on funerals for awhile. Im not sure what the reason was but just judging from seeing them now they do get very loud and people get extremely fired up and rowdy so maybe they were trying to calm everybody down for a bit. They lifted the ban on funerals a couple of weeks ago so now, starting every friday, there are mass amounts of people flooding the streets and there is constant music playing and everyone is wearing black, red or white or a combination of the colors because that is the funeral attire here. Usually when there is a funeral, it is for more than one person. I think it averages between 5-10 people a weekend. So the person or people may have actually passed a long time ago but they wait for a free or scheduled weekend to "celebrate" them. I've heard families waiting months to give their funeral to a family member who has passed. This past weekend there were a ton of people staying at my homestay who were attending a funeral in my village. I have not found out yet who actually died but ill keep researching. But it has been very busy at my household and really nice to meet some of my extended homestay family.

The art of watah fetchin'

So the other day i the opportunity to try and fetch water from the local bore-hole. I wanted to experience doing this at least once during my time Africa so i was eager to help out my homestay family. The bore-hole where my family goes is about a 1/4 mile away but down a little hill. The first bucket i carried back to my house was just plain agony, but i tried not to show how much pain i was in, ha. I set it down for my sister to fill the large barrel with, while i stood there panting. She laughed and then told me we need to fetch water 3 more times to fill it. and of course i was like, Okay! So by trip number 4 i couldn't feel my arms any longer and my neck had squished down at least a half an inch, sweet. But actually after settling i felt good, well i felt mentally good. I thought that we got a lot of attention by just being foreigners but when you step it up to being a foreigner AND carry water i think whole village was looking at me but in a supportive way :). They were all impressed by my initiative to fetch water and would shout out "are you tired yet" and "way to go" in the local language. So all-in-all, 'twas a good day.

Volta= The California of Ghana

After returning home from job shadowing, things slowed down a bit. We had intensive language training for the next week and a half so mostly we were filling our heads with the local language for about 6 hours everyday. After that we had our counterpart workshop beginning on the 18th and then site visit on the 21st. The counterpart workshop was held about 10 min away from my homestay in a town called Bunso. There we had the chance to meet the people we would be working with at our sites for the next 2 years. We stayed at a college which was much like the first place we stayed at, Valley View. The workshop included sessions about diversity, safety & security, what to expect working with americans, etc. Some of the sessions were helpful but entirely too long and it made for an exhausting couple of days. I got to meet my headmaster and one of my counterparts who were both very nice. My headmaster was even a Peace Corps language trainer a couple of years ago which is great. On our last day before leaving some of us got together to play football(soccer) and were joined by the local ghanaians. It was a lot of fun, too! We weren't neural as good as the locals but they were pretty cool and patient about us playing with them. Its funny, the one consistent thing i see in every single town i pass when traveling in Ghana, even in the poorest communities, is a nice football field. It really is the general pastime here, which is probably why almost every ghanaian we play with is so good.

We were able to pack up most of our things from storage and homestay because after the workshop we were then traveling to our sites to see what they would be like. On the 21st we left at 5am for the long trip to the Volta region. I slept for most of the morning but woke up when we climbing this huge hill that looked over much of the middle-southern region of Volta. It was really beautiful and a little scary; We were def not on the best of roads. I was traveling with 3 other volunteers and our counterparts because our sites were all relatively close to one another. By mid-afternoon we reached my town, Jasikan. Jasikan is about medium sized but still pretty quiet. I will be staying on my college's campus. I think in all the PCV's mindset before site visit is to have low expectations about accommodations and other resources in the community (i.e. internet, market). But i must say my house is above and beyond any expectations i had. Apparently there was an american woman living here about a year ago involved in an NGO called SRC(im still not sure what that stands for) who did the whole set-up for the house and bought everything but ended up getting sick and had to return to the states and left everything here. So i am greatly appreciative! I met with the headmasters wife who showed me around and even took me to Hohoe ( a neighboring larger city) to buy some food and supplies. She was super helpful and very nice, it is always nice buying things with Ghanaians because usually the seller will not give you the Obruni(foreigner) price. I got to buy a lot of veggies and finally could stop eating meat! One of the great things about going to site is being able to prepare my own food so i can go back to being a vegetarian :). Although i do like some of the ghanian dishes, they mostly involve some kind of meat base and i think i have exhausted my ability to eat anymore fish. It will be great to eat some more greens and less fish and carbs.

After a couple of relaxing days at site, i met up with some other PCVs in Ho, the capital of the Volta region. We headed out to a couple of different spots and ventured to this fresh juice stand that was incredible and really cheap! The only that kinda sucks for me about living in Volta is that mostly everyone in the entire region speaks Ewe, another ghanaian language, and im learning Twi. My community in Jasikan is one of the rare few that speaks mostly twi and some ewe, so it looks like ill be learning both…struggsville. but alas i will have a lot of free time to do so. So there ended being a lot of us who got together and we stayed a little ways outside the city at a hotel/hostel called Ho farms (ha). But we had a great time, training is pretty stressful most of the time so it was nice to have a little chill out time. We split off into mini groups the next day and made our way back to the hubsite in kukurantumi. Im really excited about my site and living in volta which i like to call the california of ghana because of all the palm trees and the people there just seem so chill.... so only about two more weeks till im officially sworn in and i can start my service!

My Site!

Jasikan, Volta Region

living room

Visit to Aworowa, Brong Ahafo Region

One month, holy shit!

This week we started intensive language, which means 6 hours of Twi a day. Woohoo! Actually it hasn't been that bad, I have a great teacher who speaks nine different languages so she's pretty much a rock star in the whole learning language department. Somedays are better than others but i think im doing OK, it def takes me awhile to talk in common conversation but hey i still gots two years! This week I also go on my vision quest or "job shadowing". We get to travel to a different region in Ghana and shadow a current PCV at there site. I am headed to the Brong Ahafo region to a town called Aworowa( yes i cant say it either). Its about a days trip to get there and i get to go through and stop in at Kumasi which is probably the largest city in Ghana, but not has crowded a Accra. If i haven't explained Accra before let me just say that it is has the most people and cars i have ever seen in one place. You cannot walk even 1 foot, in some areas, without hitting like 5 people. Its madness. I have only spent like 1 hour there but that was enough. Kumasi is a bit bigger landscape wise but in some places, like the tro station, it is just as overwhelmingly crowded as Accra. Especially when you are traveling and have a huge hiking backpack on.

After another 2 hour tro ride i arrived in Techiman in the B. Ahafo region. Techiman is a bigger city but not nearly as crowded as Accra or Kumasi. I actually really liked to the layout of it, in some parts in kind of looks like old time western streets with saloons and everything. After arriving at the Techiman tro station, i took a short 15 min taxi out to Aworowa. I made it to my vision queues home and was welcomed by the locals children, all eager to help me carry my things. This one kid, he must have been about 7, wanted to carry my large pack and i just laughed and sad that it was bigger than him, there was no way he could carry it and then all the children giggled. The place where i was staying was great, it was a compound home so there was my host PCV staying there as well as a family who lived there. The family was apparently related to the chief of one of the community so they were well off and had flush toilets, running water and actual showers. It was a little slice of luxury for me :). The woman who i was staying with was just the sweetest and nicest person and when i met her she came in on crutches. Apparently she had broke her foot on an excursion she had been on in April. That really widened my whole viewpoint on my PC experience. Here is this woman who has to get around on dirt roads, in this heat and during the rainy season and she is still as happy and chipper as can be. I thought, no matter what happens down the road i will always keep a smile on my face and a positive attitude and ill be just fine. We started chatting and found out that we were both from NJ originally and had recently lived in DC and we are also vegetarians and love dogs! So our convos never got boring. On Monday we went over to the school where she teaches which was only a 5 min walk down the road and i met some of the faculty and students who were enthusiastic to greet me. She is teaching at a JHS(junior high school) so it is not anything like where i will be teaching at all but it was still good to see where the teachers that i train will end up teaching at. Her school had been recently renovated through her help financially and her use of fundraising resources. She showed me pictures of the buildings before renovation and it was truly amazing how much they did to help. Almost all the buildings had been drastically improved and they even got funding to open a computer lab that was later named after her and husband. It was really wonderful to see all that she had done for her community and the locals really appreciated it and had a ceremony in her honor. SO she really set the bar high! But even if i do half of what she has done for my community, i will be more than happy.

After 5 days, i returned back to my homestay in the eastern region. For the next week and a half we have pretty much nothing but intensive language until we go on site visit on the 18th. At site visit we all make our individual trips up to our site where we can start to move our things and get a feel for our accommodations and community. Im excited, im anxious to finalllly know where ill be staying and what it will be like.

Field trip to Boti Falls

Beautiful Boti

Practicum continues this week but unfortunately for me and the rest of the ICT group, we have not seen much class time. The college we are teaching at has exams to prepare for this week and it screwed up the whole schedule and we've had a lot of days of doing nothing. I mean i guess i really cant complain about down time since our schedules are usually sooo busy and especially because my ear swelling has not gone down yet and now my other one is beginning to hurt as well but i really want to be prepared when i get to my site and this is the only practical teaching we get before moving to site. The PCV trainers were more pissed than we were but there isn't anything PC can do to remedy the situation in the next couple of days so they just have to think in terms of next year and perhaps pick a different college to do practicum.

Onto more exciting stuff…today was a big day for Ghana because they advanced to the next round in the world cup! even though they didn't beat Germany, they had enough points to pull through so hopefully we can bang out a couple more wins in the next round. Its really interesting to watch football with Ghanaians, they're mannerisms are so different and really entertaining. I would love to describe the sounds they make but i feel that might be difficult via writing. I bet by the time i return home i will have fully adapted to these fascinating Ghanaian mannerisms and everyone will look at me like im crazy.

We finished up practicum for the week and on most Saturdays we have a long day of PC sessions at the hub site where we have a talk with the CD(country director) learn about Ghanaian customs and beliefs and do some medical review. This saturday, when we were finished, we all went over to a fairly upscale spot to watch the Ghana vs USA match. Although not intentional, there was a Ghana room and an American room, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, americans and ghanaians alike. We even stood up and sang our national anthem provokingly and the locals sprang back with theirs, Obviously being much much louder than us. The match was very intense and extremely close, too! but when Ghana scored that second goal the whole place went crazy, and i couldn't help but be happy for the Ghanaians. They have sooooo much more pride in their team than i feel America does, at least thats the vibes i get back home. So coming into the match, for me at least, it was a win-win situation. Although, Ghana winning probably made it a lot easier for us to be in the country :)

On Sunday, PC planned a field trip for us to go to Boti Falls, a waterfall and nature trail about 45 min away from the hub site. It was really great to get out of the noisy and busy towns and see some beautiful scenery. After spending some time walking down the steep stairs to the falls and then coming all the way back up, we went on a hike through the forest. First, let me describe the landscape of Ghana. Ghana is very lush in most of the south, with lots of green hills you can see not too far off in the distance. The plant life is beautiful but unfortunately i hear that the soil is not very good so the farm fields suffer a lot from lack of enriched soil. Ghana also has these beautiful tall trees that stand out from the rest. they look perfect for tree house building, they are tall and skinny at the base and then at the top have tons of sturdy branches. Maybe ill just contract someone to build me a luxurious tree house and live there for the next two years. Thats practical, right? So back to Boti Falls, we went on our nature hike which was actually a little strenuous and involved a bit of climbing in areas which was fun! We came to a huge rock overlooking the hills and valleys and stopped there to take some scenic pictures. Being typical foreigners, we of course took tons of pictures of ourselves looking like we were about to jump off this cliff…i think we mostly do these silly things to keep our sanity :) But the view really was breathtaking and was great to get a bit of fresh air from community life.

i told them to jump. lol.

A bunch of kids at my homestay

Volleyball at Valley View

ICT group

Sweet-stache

Garden partyin'

V for Volta!

Sunday is the sabbath in Ghana, which means a lot of church service. Catholic church service begins at like 6am, so that was a no go for me. There was a children's service later in the day around 9. i wasn't sure that adults could attend so i didn't go then but i heard from other PCVs that went that it was a fun service with lots of singing and dancing. So i will try and go next week. But on the downside they did say it was like 4 hours long, so i best be getting plenty of sleep the night before. I decided to do my laundry on Sunday since it had been quite a while and i must say that there is definitely an art to hand washing clothing and i am far from getting anywhere near good at it but my homestay sister graciously helped me and i was able to be done pretty quickly. Usually Sunday's are mostly reserved for worship and also a time to do laundry and maybe some other small house chores but this Sunday was special because Ghana was playing Serbia in the World Cup. My homestay brother took me to a local spot to watch the game and i was the only girl there around a bunch of loud but fun soccer hooligans. And thankfully we won! So everyone in town was extremely happy and dancing and singing in the streets. The world cup is definitely making it an exciting time to be in Africa. During the match they mostly play the same commercials over and over and there is this song in one of the commercials called "Wavin' Flag" that EVERYBODY sings. Its actually a really cool song and super catchy but i can tell that a couple more weeks of it playing non-stop and im gonna want to hit myself over the head with a rock.

So this weeks starts practicum, where we go to actual schools and teach classes for 8 days. The ICT group teaches at a college a couple of miles away from Kukurantumi at a teacher training college which will also give us a feel of what our site will actually look like and what sort of resources we will have. The college was very nice and the computer lab just got renovated so they got i think like 20 new computers and they have wireless internet! sweeeeet. so my fellow ICT peeps and i have been exploiting that little perk quite frequently. I was a little nervous when i began teaching but so far it has been not so bad. I know i don't like it when teachers talk at me for like 90 minutes so i tried to make my classes as interactive as possible, but since we had an evaluator sitting in at all of our classes, i couldn't be as free-spirited as i wanted to be. The students are very well behaved but naturally they should be at the college level which im quite happy about. No rambunctious high schoolers in my class, thankfully. The students are very patient as well which makes the whole process of teaching a lot more relaxing and comfortable.

Homestay is going good as well, there are lots of children around my house all the time and they greet me enthusiastically every time i come home which is nice. They also try and teach me Twi, but most of the time they speak entirely too fast and i just nod my head like i know whats going on. At night, me and a couple of other PCVs head over to a local spot(bars are called spots here) where a PCV has her homestay. Its a really chill indoor and outdoor spot and they have so many animals, so obvi im always happy to be there. They have this pet monkey named Guy who is about the size of both my hands and if you feed him some yams he's like your best friend and he just sits and chills on your shoulder. So cute! haha So anyway, we also received our site placements this week! I found out that i will be located in the Volta region of Ghana in a regional capital town called Jasikan. Which is great because im right near like 3 other PCVs in my group so i wont be as isolated as i thought id be! Im also very close to Togo, so im sure we'll venture across the border a couple of times and see whats going on over there. Another great thing about my site is that i will be learning Twi, which could have changed because there are over 70 languages in Ghana. Needless to say things are going great and im super excited to get to my site, only 7 more weeks!

click to enlarge

On a less upbeat note, i got my first bout of stomach sickness on saturday morning but thankfully that went away by mid-day but then i got a very painful ear infection that same day which is still afflicting me. But alas i will drug myself up and power through! im on some pretty high dosage antibiotics so im hoping by like day 3 the swelling will go down and i can begin to hear out of my right ear again, if not no biggie i always have the other one, right?

PCV Talent Show

Agatta, Gifty and Grace showing off their singing

and dancing talents.

Enjoying the rainy season.

The Road to Kukurantumi

So, some exciting things start this week. On monday we woke up at 6am to take an early bus down to the PC office where some of us needed to get some more shots and we also had some more mini Twi lessons. On monday evening we attended a party at the US ambassadors house, which we were told would be formal and be very "american" themed. So we all dressed our best and took the long journey through Accra to the ambassadors house. And indeed the ambassadors digs were very nice. He had enclosed property with a pool and a courtyard as well as a patio where entertaining guests seemed to be pretty frequent. We were served a wide variety of appetizers from guacamole and chips to spring rolls and for the meat eaters some chicken shish-kabob. I guess that is what the ambassador considered american dining. but all in all everyone had a great time, it was great to talk to other americans about their experiences in Ghana and some of the things we could expect living in country.

On Weds. we moved out of our luxurious stay at Valley View University and made our way to the training center in Kukurantumi. Although the bus ride there was only supposed to be 2 hours long we, for some reason, made numerous stops and in doing so found out the delicate art of using the outdoor "bathroom". Which, in parts outside the main city, are basically some cinder blocks built up enough to make a small enclosed area with a tiny trench. Personally, im perfectly fine going au natural in the bush, but i digress. We made it to the training center and were welcomed enthusiastically by all the staff, who were very eager to meet us. We went through a welcome session and met all of our trainers and some current PCV's who would be with us during the course of our training. The current PCVs took us on a tour of the community and one of them mentioned a local bar where they spent a lot of their down time and said that the owner was very nice and welcoming to the new PCVs every year. So that night we ventured out for the first time together to go grab a couple of cold beers and relax. The place was empty when we came in but they were blasting miley cyrus so we kinda came to the assumption that they were expecting us. One of the current PCVs was there with his homestead brother from last year and they encouraged us to try the local liquor called Apeteshi(sp?), which is made from palm fruit and, from what we were told about it, was basically the Ghanaian form of moonshine. Needless to say, it was disgusting. After that we just chilled out and ended up having a great time.

The next day started our training. Another long day but we did get to learn about our individual site specific material and have our interviews which would determine where we would be placed for the next two years. So i found out i will be teaching ICT at a teacher training college. I find out which college ill be teaching at in about a week and I will also find out what other language I will be learning. So yay! im excited to start getting some concrete information about what i'll be doing! What's interesting is that my ICT class will be the first PC group to begin teaching at the college level. So my peers and i will be paving the way for this program. I guess that makes me a little nervous, but still really excited that this is a new project and it will probably leave me a lot of room to make mistakes and correct them. We had various sessions over the next couple of days including some peer teaching where we simulated a typical class lesson to our peers and then got evaluated. We were in small groups which made it a little easier but i think everyone was a little nervous, mainly in part because most of us have never taught before. My mini-class was a lesson in drumming. I entitled it "drumming 101" and set up a little drum circle and taught my peers a simple beat and then at the end, encouraged them to begin drum circles in there own communities. I think i did a pretty decent job, it was interactive and fun, and my evaluators agreed! Next week we kick it up a notch and do micro-teaching at a teacher training college with 10-15 students. That's a tad bit scarier but having so many other people in the same boat as me takes the edge off a little. Saturday homestay begins, so to celebrate our first week of training and our last night in our "hotels" the PCV trainers decided to have a dance party at the local bar. A couple of brave PCVs went for the apeteshi because they hadn't tried it yet, and some went for round two. Crazies. I pleasantly declined the apeteshi and we all danced the night away to some local ghanaian music called High Life, with a little beyonce and miley cyrus thrown in periodically.

Saturday we moved into our homestay's in the mid-afternoon. We were placed in surrounding areas of the PC office located in Kukurantumi. We were split up by groups, so ICT and Visual arts were together and we moved out to a town called Asafo, about 8 km from Kukurantumi. So far, my homestay is great. I met with my homestay sister, Naomi, and her daughter Rebecca, who i think is about 3 years ago and super adorable, at the PC office. When we got to Asafo, my home wasn't far from the main street and shopping area. Immediately after arriving, a couple of children greeted me and started bringing my stuff to my new home, i found out soon they were my homestay nieces, nephews and cousins. They actually spoke english quite well and were very excited to meet me, as i was to meet them. They sat me down and the oldest child went through the names of his brothers and cousins. I thought i was doing well with remembering until what seems like a continuos stream of children kept lining up. So i decided to break out the notepad and start jotting some names down. They were all good kids and not shy at all and made note to giggle when i pronouced things in Twi(pronouced chwi) horribly wrong, so i just giggled back. Then i met my homestay Nana, who doesn't speak any english but just has the sweetest disposition. After situating myself, i watched as my Nana and brother made Fufu. Which is a mixture of plantain and cassava dough. The way it is prepared is so interesting. Basically you take a long skinny wood log and continuously stomp it into this dough mixture while the other person continuously moves it around. It actually looks pretty dangerous, like you could get your fingers smashed very easily. But im sure that my Nana has been doing this since long before i was born, so i wasn't worried so much for her, but it will definitely take me some time to get good at. Hopefully when i get to know my family better i can start taking some pictures and maybe even a video of the whole process.

Well, I tried my best to stay a vegetarian here in Ghana and was doing really well until today! But the dinner that was cooked for me was some kind of fish soup that was meant to be eaten with the Fufu. So vegetarian no more, i guess I did manage to have them understand that i don't like meat so lets now see how long i can be a pescatarian... It was an exhausting day of moving and i went to retire to my room for the evening but just my luck there were some creepy crawlies lurking, and i think everyone knows of my arachnophobia, so i got a little pale faced when i saw some of those "s" things in the corner. Thankfully my sister noticed my very recognizable fear and wanted to know what was wrong. All could think of was to point at them and make a shudder. When she and the other kids saw what i was talking about they all had a nice little laugh. And she said to me that she understood and swiftly did away with them. I laughed and thanked her continuously and she laughed back. Well all i can say is that im glad some good came out of my silly childhood fear, a nice big laugh and some family bonding.

Staging and Arrival

So to begin, staging in Philly went really well and we all were more than appreciative of the luxurious accommodations and spending $$$ from our PC directors. We spent the first night trying to learn all 72 of eachothers's names and swapping stories on packing woes, getting military style shots and what clothes are considered culturally appropriate. After an early morning visit to the med clinic to get our yellow fever shots, and then had meetings and pre-orientation the rest of the afternoon. We got most of our burning questions answered and i think we all had a sigh of relief to finally be around a group of people that understood your feelings about embarking upon this incredible journey. The second night, we celebrated one of our PCVs birthdays accordingly at a Karaoke bar, singing well into the wee hours of the morning as many american themed songs and "leaving" songs as we could. And we also threw in some African themed songs like Hakuna Matata and of course Africa by Toto.

AKWAABA! We finally arrived in Accra on Friday morning after having an adventurous day of buses breaking down, wondering aimlessly around JFK airport and waiting on at the gate for an hour to make sure all our luggage was indeed coming with us. The flight actually went by really quickly but after any overnight flight, we were all feeling a tad bit groggy and zombie-ish. We were welcomed with overcast skies and the start of the rainy season, but no rain could deter our happy spirits of finally arriving at the destination that we had waited so long and ever patiently for. I have to say, as big of a group we are, we were pretty good about speeding through baggage claim and getting to the appropriate places and meeting the right people. We piled into probably the nicest buses we will be in in the course of our 27 month stint, at least that's what our Country Director said, and made our way to the PC office. We were welcomed there by all the staff and even some prayer elders who blessed us and then gave us all a shot of schnapps. Pretty cool, eh? We then got our pictures taken, everyone being thrilled by the way... because who doesn't want a picture taken after an 11 hour flight and no sleep, and made our way down the bumpy road to the compound where we would be staying the next couple of days.

We were staying at a place called Valley View University, which was a pretty big compound and had lots of amenities like a basketball court, soccer field and some trails for running. We were staying in a large outdoor area with a large gazebo and courtyard in the middle with dormitory-style housing surrounding the oustide. So far the accommodations have been great and our rooms are huge and we have running water and electricity, always a big plus. This will probably be our nicest accommodations and i think we are all taking advantage of that fact. Its kind of like being at camp, we have meetings during the day but in our down time we're always doing some sports activity or card game or group game. So its been really fun, relaxing and socializing and getting to know eachother. I have to say there are still a few people that i have no clue what there names are but its only been 5 days, i think i have some time. On saturday we learned "Survival Twi"(the local language) and were brought to a local market to test or language skills. We only knew basic things like "what is this called?" and "how much is this", fortunately it wasn't a big market day and the market sellers were very patient with us. Tomorrow starts vision quest for some of the volunteers, unfortunately not the education group which i am in, but we do something similar in a couple of weeks called job shadowing where we go to a current volunteers site and stay there for a couple of days. There, we get to say what the life of a PCV is really like. I think we actually go to the site where we will be assigned for the next two years but im not sure. more to come about that later.