Fun/Interesting things that have happened since I've been at site

I like lists perhaps you've noticed.

-I got a kitten, she's super cute-white with brown spots. I've named her Freida.
-I took a machete to shoulder-high grass to make way for my garden for which I have bought carrot, cabbage, tomato, pepper, and onion seeds. I also have zuccinni and basil seeds that my mom sent from America.
-I got punk'd Ghanaian style. I allowed a Muslem women in my village to dye my left hand with henna because I thought that it would be a fun cultural exchange only to find out after the fact that it means that I'm looking for a husband. The henna lasted for a week and a half and my fingernails are stilled tinged orange.
-I had a man come and paint flowers and the words Peace and Love on the screen doors of my bedroom and kitchen, respectively.
-I have grown to like fufu, but yam only please, no casava or plantain. I also learned how to make groundnut soup. If I see you when I come back to the states I will make it for you. It's pretty good.
-I am super tan.
-I got a short-wave radio and the BBC world news has improved my life drastically. I can also get signals from Air Europe, France, Spain, and the Netherlands with programs all in English, through which I have randomly heard Ottis Redding songs, a dramatization of the Lehman Brothers' collaspse, and have been appraised of Christ's second comming-May 21st, 2011. Mark your callenders.

What am I doing here?

So perhaps you're wondering what the heck I'm doing in Ghana aside from reading like a fiend and developing a fierce tan. My job title is Health/Water Sanitation Volunteer and my job description is slightly less vague. I am to educate about HIV/AIDS, Malaria, breast feeding and child nutrition, and to improve the general health of Abunyanya. And as I have mentioned I can also have side projects like reading clubs, women's groups, community gardens, ect. The possibilities of ways that I can complete my mission are endless and becasue I have an endless number of hours in a week I plan on having a lot of projects throughout the course of my service.

The projects that I have rolling around in my head for the upcoming months are as follows:

-I have a girl's group of Juniour High girls which I would like to teach reproductive health, family planning (condems!), job skills, female empowerment, HIV/AIDS ect.

-I have a women's group that I would like teach about breast feeding/child nutrition, family planning (many women have like 9 babies, I'm not kidding, which they sadly can't fully provide for), income generating skills, HIV/AIDS, malaria ect.

-I help the clinics of Kpassa and Azua (6 and 4 miles away from me, respectively) with baby weighing which I would like to lead sessions on breast feeding/child nutrition-including cooking demonstrations using, amoung other things, Moringa powder (look it up!)-family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, ect.

- Building and fixing spoiled latrines. This is needed sooooo badly, most people don't have a proper place to go to the bathroom.

-Teaching reading skills at my friend's kindergarten and one day a week to the primary students at my house.

-Teaching health at the upper primary and juniour high levels

Abunyanya

I have made it to site. A little about Abunyanya: it's a small village of about 3,200 people broken up into two sections, Abunyanya 1 (mostly Christian) and Abunyanya 2 (mostly Muslim), comprised of the Kokumba, Fulani, Koticoli, and Basura tribes. There is no electricity or running water. It looks like what you might think of a village in Africa to look like; a lot of brown surrounded by lush green foliage. The only road, which the village is stretched out along, is of course dirt, the houses are made of mud bricks, most with thatch roofs (the fancy houses like my own have a thin layer of concrete over the mud bricks and have tin roofs), and the most popular places to hang out are under big shady trees where a bench or two has been carefully placed. My house is a 3 room L-shaped compound, which means all doors open to the outside. I have the 2 outer rooms that serve as my bedroom and my kitchen while the middle room is occupied by my landlord and his 2nd wife, both of whom are quite young, friendly, quiet, and helpful.

As exciting as it is to be living in West Africa, my life is pretty peaceful if not almost boring. I wake up at around 6:30 am after a good 9 hours or so of sleep and usually lie in bed and read for about an hour. I then sweep my room, again concrete floors get so dirty so quickly and then eat a small breakfast of bread with peanut butter and an orange. And so far these are the only constants in my daily life. Sometimes I fetch water (the borehole is a good 7 minute walk from the house. My skills in the carrying a bucket on my head department have improved greatly.) Sometimes I walk the entire lengh of Abunyanya which could take about 30 minutes, but I try to strecht it out by talking to as many people as possible. (This consists of my greating them and then nodding and smilling while they babble on in Likpakpan.) Sometimes I read for hours at a time. And somtimes I stare at my hand-made calender, listen to the BBC world news on my short-wave radio, and womder how long 2 years will take.

And I'm now running out of minutes at the internet cafe....this will have to be continued in a few weeks. Sorry!

A Day in The Life

A typical day in the life of Peace Corps Trainee....

5 am: The host family wakes up and turns on the loud Ghanaian radio station (is there any other kind?!) and the roosters crow in unison. I roll over and do my best to ignore it.

6 or 6:30 am: Get out of bed, fold the bottom of the mosquito net over its top, which hangs about 4 feet above my bed, and began to sweep with a broom made of dried grass fastened together with a thick string. The floors are concrete and get quite dusty and dirty everyday.

6:45 am: Bucket bath, usually cold unless I get my morning thermos of hot water (for Milo) beforehand, which when blended with the bath water makes it luke warm. If I'm using harvested rain water then it's ice cold. Refreshing! I just had a brilliant idea to use a zip-loc bag to pour water over myself instead of the normal plastic cup. When the bag is only partially open and the water is squeezed out one can get almost decent water pressure, thus facilitating the washing of my hair which I do once, maybe twice a week. I wish I was kidding.

7 am: Breakfast of an egg sandwich (scrambled eggs with onions on sometimes toasted white bread) and Milo, a poor substitute for Swiss Miss. Milo is much improved when mixed with Cowbell (powered milk).

7:45 am: Walk to class with my neighbor and fellow PCV Opie. He will also be one of my nearest neighbors at site!

8 am: Arrive at class held in the Presbaterian church where we discuss breast and complimentary feeding, the miracle of the moringa plant, how to teach health lessons at the local school, ect. This is supposed to take 4 hours, but since our teacher, Martin, is a less than capable teacher and he doesn't reallly seem to care, we ussually only take 2 hours. Seriously, we all had these "really important" health related projects that we had to do in the community (my group had JSS -junior high- students put on a drama about the importance of washing your hands) where Martin was supposed to come and grade them. He didn't show up to a single one.

10 am: We hang out in the church after class and talk, read, or watch a movie on Beth's computer. We've watched 300, Crocdile Dundee, Dear Frankie, and the Fountian.

12 pm: Go home for lunch. Usually rice or pasta with the ubiquitous palm-oil based marinara sauce and a hard boiled egg.

1 pm: Languge class in the Methodist church. I am learning Likpakpan, the language of the Kocumba tribe, along with Opie and Craig, who will be nowhere near me, but the Kocumba tribe is far reaching. My teacher's name is Kotin and he is from Saboba in the Northern Region. He is also a less than capable teacher, barely able to speack English and he responds to almost any question or comment with a high pitched giggle. I'm not kidding. He teaches us abitrary sentances like 'John is sitting on the top of the room' (?!?). I have dubbed him the Cheshire cat. We have a oral language exam this week and Kotin has graciously, I suppose, given us about 20 sentences to memorize and recite (describing ourselves, our daily routine, and how to get to our site via public transpertation), ensuring us a passing grade (80% or higher). Laugauge class is also supposed to last 4 hours, but thank God Kotin can't "teach" for more than 2 hours.

3 pm: Either go home to read or play with children or take a taxi to New Taffo (about 20 mins. and 70 cents away) for the internet. Sometimes the Wat/San (Health and Water Sanitation) crew will meet at the spot (bar) for a soda or beer.

6 pm: Dinner. Sometimes more rice and pasta, sometimes red red (black eyed peas with fried plantians swimming in palm oil), sometimes I get chicken or goat meat....it varies.

7 pm: Another bucket bath. By the end the day I am pretty grimey from waling on dirt roads and sweating.

7:30 pm: Read, write in my journal, or do a soduko or crossword puzzel with my headlamp on because though I have a light in my room it's blue and not very bright.

8:30 or 9 pm: Sleep.

Exciting stuff.

Everyone Shits Their Pants

This is the the PC rendition of the childrens book Everybody Poops. It's true. Even my friend John who is a volunteer in Thailand can attest that this is supposedly apart of the Peace Corps experience. We call it joining the club. I am happy to report that I am not yet a member and I hope to never be, but we will see. I have yet to get food posioning or giardia, which is not uncommon for PCV, but that's not to say that in the next 26 months I won't. We like to ask random white people we meet on our travels around the country if they have joined the club or not. This is how we can tell the Peace Corps volunteers from other volunteers or vacationers. It's fun.

In other tmi news, I have a chamber pot in my room and it is awesome. My room is about 100 ft from the latrine and there is no way I want to use it in the middle of the night. You never know what you may find in there. I was at another volunteers site in the north and I had a giant cockroach crawl over my foot while was in the middle of squat. There was nothing I could do but scream. Terrifying stuff.

Put it on Your Head!

The stereotypical image of a woman carrying an obscenely large load of something on her head is commonplace in Ghana. I have seen women, children, and even sometimes a man carrying large buckets of water, loads of firewood, and boxes or bowls of whatever they are selling (usually food stuffs) on there head with incredible ease. I have even seen a woman carrying a propane tank and once I saw man carrying a cage of live chickens. I kid you not.

I tried to carry a bucket of water on my head the last, and only, time I went to fetch water. Taking a pair of my host brother's shorts that my host mom had given me, I rolled them and then coiled them atop my head to serve as a stable base for my bucket and a cushion for my head, as the locals do. My mom helped me place the bucket, which probably weighed 20 lbs, and after she got her own much larger bucket on her head we were on our way home. We live about a 10 minute walk from the bore hole. While my mom was able to walk seemingly comfortably without laying a finger on her bucket and could stop and great people, turning her head when needed, I kept a white knuckle grip on my bucket and took one cautious step at a time. At the end of the walk my neck, back, and shoulders were aching. It's no wonder why all the women here have such awesomely toned arms.

So the moral of the story is that I now use about half of the water that I previously used for my bucket baths. I am so much more aware about how much water I use on a daily basis and I am very thankful that my mother has fetched water for me ever since! Fingures crossed that when I get to my I will live directly in front of the bore hole. Though if not, I can always pay a small girl to get it for me (this is normal here...child labor is alive and well and I have no qualms about utilizing it if neccesary).

It's All About the Food

This is what we were told before we moved in with our host families. In Ghanaian culture it is a sign of a bad host if a guest has to ask for seconds, so on the first few days of homestay I was fed a ridiculous amount. Like 2 egg sandwiches and half a loaf of bread for breakfast kind of ridiculous. Since never having eaten half of what my mom gives me, she has taken the hint and now serves me a normal amount, by American standards, which is still a lot of food. My stratetgy has been to not eat lunch since I'm usually in training, so that when dinner rolls around I'm pretty hungry and I can eat more.

I hate to say it, but I don't really like Ghanaian food. I mean it's not inedible, but I'm not a fan. The entire idea behind Ghanaian food is starch and grease. I rather like white rice, spaghetti noodles, and boiled yams, but they are usually covered with a sauce that is not unlike marinara sauce, but they mix a fair amount of palm oil in it. My body is still getting used to the idea of palm oil. It's like I'm back on the lemon cleanse. With the starch and sauce I am usually given chicken, fish, or goat. Though it's usually fish, with the bones still in it. I am trying to get used to the feeling of the the vertebra popping in my mouth. But, as my mom pointed out, at least I'll be getting some calcium, since dairy products are pretty much non existent here. Except for Laughing Cow cheese.

The pride and joy of Ghanaian cuisine is fufu. Fufu is cassava pounded (think HUGE petistal and motor) with plantains until it is gooey, but solid and dough-like. They serve it in a broth made of peanuts (groundnuts) and palm oil. You are supposed to eat it with you hands, which is incredibly messy, and you are not supposed to chew it. Just swallow it. There inlies the paradox of fufu for me because I don't like the way it tastes, but I am also horrible at swallowing things without chewing. I still struggle with pills from time to time.

The host families have the volunteers eat by themselves, which a lot of people don't like. But because I am a misanthrope and a picky eater I am so relieved that I don't have to choke down my food with an audience. I actually rarely see my host family eat, but they all look healthy, so I'm sure they eat enough. I can't wait until I am at my site and can cook my own food. I am really looking forward to familiar flavors.

Pictures

I have been taking pictures, but it will probably be awhile until I am able to upload them. Computers and the internet are very slow here and I have to travel to get to them.

Things I love in or about Ghana

-Bucket bathes
-torrential rainstorms, especially the sound of rain on a tin roof
-fanice (frozen yogurt/milk that comes in vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry)
-football...I have a growing appreciation for soccer. It's a great game.
-the beer only comes in 24oz bottles
-soda comes in glass bottles
-Ghanaians are, for the most part, incredibly nice and helpful
-little kids love me and always call out my name to say hi or fight over who gets to hold my hand.
-my new name is Sister Ama, because I was born on a Saturday. It's Ghanaian thing.
-amazing sunsets and sunrises
-the stars at night
-sleeping in the pattern of the sun. Going to bed at sunset, waking up when the sunrises
-plantain chips
-the 2-yard. 2 yards of cloth that are used for a dress, blanket, towel, baby bjorn, ect.
-goats and chickens roam about everywhere
-goats like to climb on things like piles of wood and just stand there. The king of their mountain.
-I actually like goat meat, at least the one time I had it
-the avocados are huge and taste just like Haas avocados.

All in the Family

I have been at my homestay in a little town called Anyinasin outside of Kukurantumi for almost a week. I have a mom, Ya, and two little brothers, Prince and Brice, that are adorable and so much fun to play with. It makes me even more excited to be an aunt when I come back to the states. I also have a grandmother and granfather. Mom and grandma both speak Englsih, while grandfather is helping me perfect my greetings in Twi.

The home consists of a two room concrete building, one room for the family and the other room is all for me. I have electricity, but my light bulb is blue as is my walls, so I still wear my head lamp at night to write and read. There is no running water, but I don't mind the latrine and I really love the bucket bath. It's so refreshing to pour a bucket of cold water over your head when it's so hot and humid out. The kitchen is just a small wooden structure with a dirt floor and a small wood fire surrounded by little stools that are used for both sitting and chopping things on. The one time I hung out in the kitchen I watched my mom pluck a chicken. She asumed correctly that in America we have a machine that does it for us, but she was surprised to hear that we buy prepakaged meat that is already cleaned and filleted. It just brings home the fact that just day-to-day living is so much more difficult and time consuming in Ghana.

I have a mosquito net over my bed and I would not be able to sleep without it, not least because of the mosquitos. I could actually care less about mosquitos, but it's the big scary spiders on my walls that I want out of my bed, amongst other creepy things. The other night I came home, flipped on my blue light, and nearly died as I watched a rat run up my wall and into the roof. The net gives me such peice of mind, though when I get to my site I am keeping my bed about a foot from the wall on all sides.

Please Send Me Letters!!!

Or packages whatever you choose....but don't feel obligated to send me anything more than a hand written letter. :) My address is : Peace Corps P.O. Box 5796 Accra-North, Ghana West Africa

Sending boxes is expensive for you as well as me. I have to pay 3 Ghana Cedis to receive a box (during training I make 2 GC a day and when I get to my site I will make 6 GC a day). Not that I wouldn't be happy to pay anything to receive a box from the US, but padded envolopes are probably the best bet all around. If you want to send me a post card (which would be great), please put it in an evelope. As to what to send me...anything you want including books, magazines, Crystal Light, or pictures of cute skirts or dresses which I could have a tailor make me for really cheap. Thank you in advanced and know that you will get a response! It'll just take a month or two. :)

Two Weeks Down!!

So i have been in Ghana now for 2 weeks. So much has happened and yet everyday we have a lot of down time. Fortunately we have a great group of people from all over the US of all different age groups that make passing the hours of waiting a lot of fun. I have already learned new card games and the book exchange amongst us up and running.

We flew into Accra and have since stayed at a women's Adventist College, various hotels in Kukurantumi, and tomorrow we all move to small communities outside of Kukurantumi to really begin our training. We have yet to learn the technical componants of our jobs and have only discussed our health and saftey at ad nasium, but it's good that the Peace Corps takes these issues so seriously. Also I have gotten 3 shots with more to come. And of course I'm taking my malaria pills. I'll be kicked out if I don't. Also, I don't want malaria, I hear it's not very pleasent.

And So It Begins

I didn't sleep at all last night. In fact my alarm clock has yet to go off, I just can't lay in bed anymore. In a little over 2 hours I board a plane for Philadelphia, with a layover in Atlanta, and truly began my Peace Corps adventure. The 15 month application process was just the warm up.

Ok, alarm bell just rang! Time for a shower and a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll get to post in Philly, maybe not. Stay tuned....

The Best Kept Secret

Let me introduce you to Couch Surfing. It's one of those things that seemingly nobody knows about until you permeate its outer layer and then you realize that there are a million people all over the world that are not only familiar with it, but they live and breath it. I don't remember where I first heard of couch surfing, it is entirely possible that it came to me in a daydream while I was trying to figure out how to travel cheaply in Western Europe. At any rate, my trusty friend Google led me to the website and so it began.

I surfed the couches of two people in Amsterdam and three people in Paris. It was truly amazing. The warmth and hospitality of my hosts was incredible and a little shocking to my New York-jaded psyche. For example, two of my hosts left me alone in their apartments while they were at work. While I, of course, had no intention of doing something to betray their trust in me, why would I?, I was surprised to say the least. Though now that I have been indoctrinated in the Couch Surfing implicit circle of trust, I would not hesitate to do the same.

The most obvious reason to Couch Surf is for free lodging. And internet and sometimes breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The other obvious reason is because it is awesome. Not only do you have a local who can tell you all the cool things to do wherever you are staying, but you get to share travel war stories and have the comforts of home while you are away. Sometimes the bed you stay in is far more comfortable than what you would get at a hostel (pull out couches from IKEA are all over the world!), and sometimes it is not (two loveseat coushins splayed out on the floor, for example). But, regardless, the experiences and conversations are priceless.

I implore you, even if you have no travel plans right now, to find the Couch Surfing community in your town (It is there, trust me. They are in Ghana!) and go to a pub crawl or picnick. I went to two meetings when I was in Paris and met the most interesting people who have traveled the world and love to talk about it! Sure you can randomly meet really cool people in hostels, and I have, but your odds are better with couchsurfing.

One Week 'til Philly!

At this time next week I will be on a plane headed to Philadelphia for staging where I will meet all the other volunteers (there's 67 of us!) headed to Ghana on June 4th. We will spend 3 days getting acquainted with one another and learning about health and safety in Africa and what we can expect for the next 27 months. As eye roll-inducing ice breakers can be, I'm really excited to meet everyone and form a support system that I am sure to lean on over the course of my service. We will also be receiving the rest of our shots (Hep A, B, and C at the very least) and start taking malaria pills. Bring on the throbbing arms and weird dreams! I'm ready!

Anthony Bourdain in Ghana

GHANA!

Yeah, that's right GHANA!!!  Staging will be June 2-3 and then on June 4th I will be flying into Accra and the warm embrace of the equator.  I cannot wait for that shit!  Seriously, you have no idea how many ridiculous layers that I am wearing to stay somewhat comfortable in my heatless apartment.  Which reminds me.....where are my fingerless gloves?

The Invitation is IN THE MAIL!!!

I forgot to mention that in yesterday's post.  It was mailed out last Wednesday and I'm off to check the mail yet again.  Fingers crossed!  

To dayz of consekatv blogin, I haz em.  I also have a sad addiction to icanhascheezburger.com.

Time Flies When You're Killing Time!

Wow.  Ok.  So I haven't posted in the longest time and things have actually progressed since the last time I checked in!  A lot!  

To recap:  I bit the bullet, so to speak, and had 3, yes 3, wisdom teeth removed, thus completing and passing my dental screening.  Need I remind you that the Peace Corps did not specifically ask me to take them out. I only needed to find a dentist that would recommend me keeping them, an impossible task.  So they are out and I am in!  Right after my dental clearance I was medically cleared too-but wait!- this clearance only lasted about 2 months until the PC decided they needed a more detailed history about my left foot, which I had foolishly broken in a bunkbed-toconcrete floor accident two years ago.   I contacted my podiatrist in CA, had him fill out a form and sign his name, and I had to write a brief letter explaining the current condition of my foot (I told them that it hurts in the cold and that I need to be sent somewhere warm :) ).   I was then medically cleared a second time and this one has stuck.

Last Wednesday (Jan. 28th) I spoke to my super nice placement director, Yung-mei, and she informed that I will be moving to AFRICA!!!!!  In June....    Now, one might assume that I would be disappointed with the late departure date, since I was supposed to be leaving in February, March at the very latest, but I'm ok with it.  After all, I was starting to miss New York and I haven't even began to pack yet (too Cary Bradshaw-ish?).  So now I get to have more time go to museums, take strolls through the park, and make as much damn money as I can get my hands on.  Because now Europe is BACK ON!!  And now I have decided to throw in a month in the Caribbean: Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba.  Or maybe just Puerto Rico.  It all depends on the benjamins.  It always does.

Oh, and yeah, I did preemptively quit my job, but I can I just say that I'm actually *glad*  that I did.  *This is in no way a reflection of the JCC, really, just me...needing something new after 2 years.