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 :)
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