Ok, well, a lot of things in Ghana have told me I’m not (do you hear that Ghanaian men? I’m NOT) ready to have children. This country is one of the most fertile I’ve ever seen. There are baby everythings everywhere – children, goats, puppies, guinea fowl chicks (not cute), piglets, calves, dinosaurs, sheep, donkeys….. [...]

Kayla Baumgartner was already my friend the moment I came into the world. For those of you who don't know, our dads have been best bro's since high school in 1932.

[hahahahahahaha old jokes on Dad never get.... old! hahahahha]

And now here we are 23 years later living in Ghana together! Kayla is getting a job in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. I could not be happier or more excited to have one of my best friends so close. :)

So welcome back to Ghana, Kla!

"Watching what you are clicking. If you open Microsoft Excel, I will kill you." - Fred, ICT teacher and friend.

Peace Corps week is coming up next week. I want to challenge all my friends at home to live like a Peace Corps volunteer for one day. From Sunday, the 26th of February to Saturday March 3, you too can … Continue reading →

Disclaimer - most of the photos aren't really of NYC; rather, they are photos of things that I enjoyed.

Ceiling at Angel ShareSnow in New York City just outside the Central Park Zoo

Happy Sea Lions with an actual habitat

Are you lookin' at me?

Where is your trumpet?

Monkeeeeey?

Random shot of Central Park

The roof of an African home

The "new" American Exhibit

Temple of Dendur

Grand Central

Bryant Park

Lower Manhattan skyline from Jersey City

One World Trade Center (1 WTC)

North pool at 9/11 memorial

Trinity Church cemetery

Trinity Church

Random band playing in subway

Twas the night before my run, when all was silent, other than the bats and rats in my ceiling and my cat clawing up my body, that i had a dream, a dream that i was flying, but i was not really flying, more it was like when i jumped, i jumped Real high and ended up at a very far distance. Upon waking the next morning, i knew that it was going to be an excellent day for a run. I had set my alarm for the very early time of 5:30am, so that i would get out before the heat and the villagers.

I sat on the edge of my bed, listening to the sounds of morning in my village, the girls in my compound cleaning, the birds waking up, the guinea fowl Squawking, and now the sound of me putting my shoes on and warming up before my run. Because of the dream that i had, i chose to take a route that i had not traveled yet, into the bush.

It is a path that i had once walked for a small time, but did not make it to the end, well that was my goal, to find where this bush path ended. I started out on slower pace, working my way up to kicking my butt. All was fine, the sun was rising, i had the whole bush to myself, hitting the hard packed red dirt with a satisfying Thump, each time my foot fell. I was looking down and up and all over the place, just happy to be out and seeing the world. I took a few turns, thinking nothing of it. The hills formed by the Volta on my right and the flat expanse of savannah on my left. After running for around an hour, i succeeded in my goal of finding where the path ends; a small fishing village along the lake. I stopped for some small time to talk (and when i say talk, i mean a lot of hand gestures, and smiling and laughing, cause i had no clue what anyone was saying) to the villagers, than i was on my way.

I decided to take my time on the way back, looking around, and this time....really not paying attention to where i was going. Soon I found that i was unsure of where i was, but never fear I have taught a class in tracking (animals that is), and decided to track myself...or my footprints, and try to find my way back to site. I was feeling good and proud of myself....till i realized i was following the wrong footprints....this put a small glitch in my tracking idea. The sun was up by this time, and i was near out of water, when a man comes thundering through the bush, half naked and carrying 4 large bush birds (as he called them) and offered to sell me them. I said i had no money but thank you; he then proceeded to call me beautiful and ask me to be his wife. Much to his dismay, i had to turn down the offer and ask if he knew the way back to my site. He said he did, and led me back..A completely different way than i had originally come...and i made it back to site, after 2hr 30min journey. I thanked the man many times over, and went my way to my compound.

This is my life, in Ghana, crazy......

I wish my hair would grow faster! I am growing it out, simply because keeping it short in Ghana is near impossible. I don’t trust the barbers here with my hair, I would probably end up bald. It is at … Continue reading →

They are longing to stray

Right through the very heart of it

New York, New York

For starters, I flew into LaGuardia (which everyone says don't do!), hopped on the M60 bus, bounced around, leaned on people and tried to keep an eye on my luggage until I was able to get on the subway (the 2) and finally arrived at my friend's dorm at NYU. The dorm in itself was an experience because I never lived on campus during college. They're soooooo small! I genuinely felt in the way no matter where I was in that room. In the future, I'll stay at a hotel.

Upon my arrival, I was starving and luckily Kati Roll was only a block away! Awesome! I loooooove Indian food and grabbing a fast food roll (for $5) and taking it with me was perfect - since I was kicked out so my friend could study. I headed down to SOHO and realized that I don't really like shopping; so, I literally just walked around for few hours. OMG -- the walking!

Thank goodness, my friend only needed a few hours cause I was already tired of walking and hungry again. Thus began the epic adventure of getting our name on the list at 4 different places and then returning to those 4 different places. First, we headed over to Angel Share for "super awesome, I'm a mixologist, not a bartender" drinks. This place was hidden through a door of a Japanese restaurant and, of course, was super tiny. If we had any more than the two of us, we would not had been accommodated. However, we were lucky and slid right up to the bar. The ceiling has a beautiful mural of cherubs that, by itself, makes the place worth visiting. As for the drinks...I'm not really a speakeasy type girl because in my opinion the drinks never are something I'd usually drink.

Moving on, Anna thought it would be a nice change of pace from the bar scene to have tea. So, we trekked over to Cha An to discover there was an hour and a half wait for Tea!!! No problem, we put our name on the list and schlepped over to Death and Co - turns out they had a two and a half hour wait. Again...no problem. Slap our name on that list and we'll get some noodles. We hopped on over to Momofuku Noodle House, and guess what? Yep, there was a wait of two hours. However, the hostess seemed to like us and we were seated immediately. Now this was yummy! We ordered pork buns and ramen. The ramen was off the chain!!! After our meal, we trekked back to Cha An and finished our night at Death and Co.

Day two was probably my favorite day because it snowed, I went to the Central Park Zoo and the Met. The snow was light flurries that didn't stick, but set the mood for quintessential New York day. The Central Park Zoo is very small with only 10-15 exhibits, but so well funded! Every habitat was gorgeous and the animals were out playing. I've never seen sea lions so happy before. Additionally, they had penguins and a polar bear!!! AND.....SNOW MONKEYS! I love monkeys! After I had my fill of animals, I walked the 20 blocks to the Met. This place is awesome; so much so that I wanted to track down the curator and compliment them on the arrangement. By this time, my feet were throbbing from all the walking; so I really only hit up the Egyptian exhibit, but it was phenomenal. There were actual mummies!!! When I left the Met, I was soooo hungry (I actually hadn't eaten at all and it was 4 PM) so I decided Shake Shack would be a good touristy thing to eat. Lucky me, there was a bus headed that way:) After "linner", Anna and I hit up a college party....and that's pretty much it.

Day three, my friend and her husband took the subway in from Jersey City to hang with me. Thank goodness as I was getting really tired of wandering around alone. We hit up this Italian market, Eataly, for cheese and wine. Finally, a big kid meal (for those of you that don't know me - I really believe that wine and cheese constitutes a meal). After delicious food and some shopping in the market (they have amazing cuts of meat and phenomenal cheese and olive oil selections), we headed over to Grand Central Station for more drinks. This place was great as I discovered it would be a good place to spend time with a book when my feet give up:) It's amazing how quiet it is with all the people moving around. If ever at Grand Central, don't forget to look at the ceiling; it's gorgeous. We then hit up Rockefeller, Times Square and Bryant Park before headed to Jersey City for the night. It was nice to sit on a couch and watch some TV.

Day four was a bunch of touristy wandering for me. I took the subway from Jersey City back to lower Manhattan and started my day at the 9/11 Memorial. It took quite a bit of time to get through the lines and security, but once inside the memorial area, it was beautiful. They were able to take an area of tragedy and create this serene garden. From there, I moved over to Trinity Church (which I think is the oldest church in NY) - absolutely gorgeous. I realize it's a bit creepy, but the cemetery was probably the best part. There's something very calming about it. The awesome thing is that Trinity Church is at Broadway and Wall; so...where did I go next? Yep...Wall Street! This isn't really all that exciting, but I was there and there are a couple landmarks. There's a huge statue of George Washington (I think he took the oath of office there). After Wall Street, I walked down to Pier 17, which is extremely touristy - lots of shops. Luckily, the Bodies exhibit was down there; so, I popped in. Pretty cool, but I don't think I was excited as most people would be by preserved bodies since my degree is in biology (I've seen so many different bodies over the years; I guess I'm desensitized). Moving on, I walked even more to the Staten Island Ferry. This is cool because it gives you a pretty good view of Lady Liberty for free. However, the ferry windows are dirty and you're not that close. I would recommend just paying the $12 to go to the Statue of Liberty. My last stop for the day was Chinatown for souveniers - this place was crazy! I'm not a fan of people pushing product at me; so, this was overwhelming and stressful. However,I think I picked up some pretty neat pieces that my family will enjoy. We decided to go to bed pretty early, but I had to eat dinner, of course. So, I hit up Artichoke Basille's -OMG, the best pizza of my life. I ordered the artichoke pizza; which is basically artichoke and spinach dip on pizza crust. There was a party in my mouth and I highly recommend this place ($4.50 a slice)!

Day five, the final day was pretty calm. I woke up early and took the subway to Grand Central for breakfast and some quality book reading. Around 12, I met my friend from Jersey City at Cafe Habana. The corn is off the hook! If you order nothing else, get the corn! If you're not hungry, get the corn! Basically, no matter what you may do there, make sure you order the corn! The shrimp tacos weren't bad either:) From there we headed over to "the oldest pub in America", McSorley's for $5 pints. McSorley's has only two beers available - dark ale and light ale, and was a mens only pub until the mid 1900's. It was a nice experience because the bartender sat down and told us all about his life, family and his love for NYC. We finished the day at a pub near campus and then I hopped on my plane and returned to my life.

I've wanted to go to NYC since I was about 9 years old and I always thought I would fall in love with the city. I'm definitely a little bit heartbroken that we didn't bond the way I hoped; perhaps it simply wasn't our time.

Stay tuned for pics!

One group of girls had a great time with my condom demo.

Condom demonstrations.

My condom demo for the stop motion video.

HIV Bridge Game

HIV Boat Game

HIV High Risk/Low Risk GameHIV Relay fun

Relay questions

Solving HIV puzzel as part of relay.Speaker: Grace from Peace Corps speaking about determination and taking care of yourself to succeed in life.

Promise speaking about teen pregnancy and staying in school.

Picture of all of us with Grace.Scavenger hunt...our shower.

Team building; mine field.

Human knot.

Trust fall...this was by far the girls' favorite.

In the tents.

Team building activity.

Team building.

My daughter from Bala.

From my village.

We did a stop motion video of camp. The girls with their name cards was a part of it.

From my village.

From my village.

Our fearless leader, Kevin.

Girls taking their sleeping mats to the tents.

I had so much fun taking the pics for the stop motion; the girls were hilarious!

Molly with the girls for ICT class at a local university.

Sorry I have not been able to post anything regularly. Today is the first time I have touched the internet since arriving in Ghana 11 days ago! The last week and a half have been a whirlwind. Here are some highlights so far. Last week we went on an Amazing Race type scavenger hunt into [...]

Last week I got to observe a workshop Krobodan is putting on for the farmers in the district. The topics are; National Health Insurance, First Aid, Civil Society Concept, and Leadership in the community groups. I cannot pick up on much Krobo at all so trying to fallow the ideas is really hard. When the First aid presenter came up I was interested to see the similarities and differences between Red Cross Ghana and the American Red Cross. It was so much easier to fallow because he literally acted out everything! He had a fake stroke, nearly choked to death, and I think at one point he pretended to stab himself in the eye. He would then go about fixing the problem while acting it out and explaining. CPR had a surprisingly similar technique and was even demonstrated on white manikins. Its always an interesting day when I go to see the farmers. There is always at least one really drunk farmer that everybody tries to ignore but cant because he is so loud. So far there is two that are notorious for demonstrating their ability to drink. For the ones that make things difficult there is always a couple that make everything better. After shooing away one of the drunks while trying to eat lunch two farmers that I haven’t seen before came over to introduce and chat. They were so nice and proceeded to try to teach me a bit of Krobo, I'm not a very good on the spot learner, I need to write things down especially when there are sounds that I cant even picture. The word for water is nyuo which sounds like the twi nyum meaning music (I'm even worse at spelling in foreign languages), really confusing. But that is the one thing that I remember, slowly learning. Next week we will have the same workshop for another set of farmers, so I can only imagine what will happen!

Today was the first large rain of the season. You could hear it coming from miles away, the low rumbling, the wind picking up, and the sky darkening, all tell tale signs of rain. It has been trying to rain for the past couple days but this afternoon the sky opened and it poured cats and dogs. I had to run out to the line and make sure I collected all my clothes in time and then it started, it was light at first but grew to be a downpour. In true northwest fashion I was out there just standing enjoying the rain and all it brings with it. The kids were in the house can came out to stare at their crazy American standing in the rain. With only a tiny bit of coaxing I got Jemimah to come join in the puddle jumping, Francesca was out there right from the beginning and loving it! Since there is no grass and the dirt got so slippery she decided to just slide around on her butt, so proud. The mamma wasn’t home and I don’t think we would have gotten to play if she was there. After about 20 min of playing in the rain the girls got cold and wanted to warm up. I rung out my freshly rinsed hair and made us some warm Milo and tea. It is these days that I am so happy to be here experiencing these moments of joy. Someday are harder than others but Im always looking forward to these special days where it all comes together in a happy moment.

Precious is a very precocious (no pun intended) 15 year old girl who is in her second class in junior high school. She is one of the top performing students so the teachers pick her for just about anything that needs school representation outside the school. And the best part? She LOVES books. Precious doesn't originally come from Damanko, but her family came from somewhere around Kumasi. She said when she was younger her grandmother used to make her spend the hours after school in the library there, and she developed a love for books. In Damanko, however, there is not much to read. The headmaster at the junior high school quickly found that Precious could not only read at a higher level than most of his students but was equally impressed by the level with which she could recite (not word for word of course) the stories she read. But he soon ran out of novels to give her. (I think the school has scavenged maybe a total of five books one of them being Huck Finn.) So he started sending her to my house. At first I gave her easy-to-read abridged classics I found for sale in Hohoe. She got through those in a couple of hours. Then I started giving her books from our informal Peace-Corps-pass-around library and at first I didn't have much that was suitable for a teenaged African girl, so I gave her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She was excited that it looked like a grown-up book. Surprisingly, she had few problems reading or understanding it. Because of the rote memorization technique the schools employ here, students can usually read the words, but their comprehension is very low. After a couple easier children's novels, I gave her the big volume of the Chronicles of Narnia. I knew I had a winner there, because she devoured that book rapidly and her eyes lit up when she talked to me about it. She even kept it for a long time and read it through a second time. During all that time, I was collecting the Harry Potter books for her because various copies are in various Peace Corps offices and I even had to get the first book sent from home.

After about a month and a half, she is starting on the sixth book. One indicator of JK Rowling's genius is the ability of the books to evoke the same emotion in all its readers. Precious had never heard of Harry Potter before I gave her the books, never met anyone who had read them, and is totally isolated and ignorant about the Potter-mania that has sprung up and the cultural icon that is Harry Potter. Yet she acts like every other 15-year-old I ever saw that absolutely loves the books. Her mother tells her not to come and collect anymore, she is totally addicted. (I'm sure this makes me a bad influence.) I have all except the very last movie on my computer, so I've started letting her watch the movies and we only finished watching the first one today. Because many of the lines follow very closely with the book, she was predicting the actors' lines before they said them. And, no, of course she had never seen the movie before. She remembers nearly every little detail from any of the books she read; details such as that Filch is a squib, and she knows what that means. I had to convince her not to skip ahead in the movie because she was so curious to see what Quidditch looked like. She loves all the good characters and hates the bad ones with a vengeance. She is vehemently convinced of Snape's duplicity. Anytime the movie showed a panoramic view of the castle or flying on brooms, Precious would lament: “I wish I were a wizard!” She is certain all other books will be boring compared to the bright shiny world of Harry Potter. She would fit right in any of the Harry Potter fandom and there isn't much of that in Africa. Is the mark of a truly good story that it provokes similar behavior and emotions in all different people?

When she finishes the series, I'll tell her to take a break from books for a while (she may also need to catch up on her math practices), then I'll throw The Lord of the Rings at her and see what happens.

2-15-12

What do you think poverty look like? When I was home visiting, I talked to several high school classes about Peace Corps and the kind of work I was doing in Ghana. I showed them pictures of the projects I had finished, pictures of people, and pictures of life in the village. Not just once, but several times, a different student would reflect and comment on the feeling of thankfulness my presentation evoked, gratitude over the comforts they enjoy and the lives they lead and the things they take for granted. I was a little thrown by such statements because, while I don't want to discourage a feeling of thankfulness for blessings, that sentiment was not what I was trying to evoke at all. First, I was trying to show them another, equally rich world, a different way of life, a challenge, an adventure. Second, behind this statement is a feeling of pity--”Oh those poor Africans. They don't even have running water and the women have to work so hard (by pounding) to make food everyday.” Pity is one of the motivations that is at the root of Africa's troubles. Out of feelings of guilt and charity, the West is mostly responsible for the continued poverty of Africa. For so long, the aid that came to Africa was about trying to fix Africa's problems without teaching or helping Africa fix its problems itself.

This, of course, is the lens of a high school student, who can't imagine life without a hot shower everyday and easy access to computerized entertainment. I remember what those feelings felt like. But it's funny. As I sit on my perch and watch people walk to and from the market, I have to actually remind myself that what I am seeing is what the rest of the world (including the same people I am watching) considers poor. I am so used to these scenes now, I forget that what I look at is supposed to be “poor” and instead, it just looks like regular old life. The fact that things are always carried on heads rather than vehicles and people walk long distances—life. The fact that everyone's feet are covered in dust and many are barefoot—life. The fact that people are not invisible in their houses watching TV—life. The fact that people have to carry and keep water in bowls and barrels—life. Even naked children seem a highly practical part of life and not as evidence that their parents are too poor to afford clothes. (How many clothes do your babies go through? Who wants to keep buying clothes when kids continually get dirty and tear holes in them? It's quite economical, really. Plus, it's hot here.) It's funny how in America, running water is such an intrinsic part of life, that we think people must really suffer without it. But it is so not true. The suffering comes when people have no access to clean water, not that it doesn't come at a moment's notice with the turn of the faucet or the flush of the toilet. In a place where no one has it, you don't miss it. And you don't miss it because no one expects you to live like you have it. I can actually count on one hand the number of times I've said to myself “I wish I had running water.” So what are the indicators of poverty if it is not these saturating images of dirty children and overworked women? Of course the governmental organizations and NGOs working to alleviate poverty have all kind of measurements like life span, child mortality rates, income levels, accesses to opportunity, etc and I cannot argue much with those. It is the judgments made by the heartstrings of laymen and potential donors that are hard to swallow.

Ghanaians have an unhealthy sense of their own poverty which frustrates me and makes me sad. Because they see themselves as poor, they don't value a lot about their everyday lives. Everything about wealthy countries and cultures is better than what they have, to their mind. If we're looking on a national scale, meaning wealth country by country, to me real poverty is starving people, no access to medicines for preventable or curable diseases, no protection for women's rights, no freedom to advance your status. These are problems faced by many countries on the verge of or recovering from civil war. Ghana has these problems, but on a much much smaller scale. It is hard for me to think about what is happening in Somalia and think that Ghana is poor. To me, the citizens of Somalia, the Sudan, the eastern Congo, and Haiti are truly poor. Conversely, it is hard for Ghanaians to see images of Europe and America and NOT think they are poor.

I really am not good at improvising. I wasn't good at it in high school (or college) jazz band, and I am not good at it in real life. Working in a developing country requires expert skills in operating on the verge of chaos and trying to make something sensible come out of it. I can be flexible, though. I can change gears when needed, though I sometimes need a few minutes to get my brains and emotions used to the change of pace. However, flexibility doesn't require leadership; improvising does. Improvising requires creativity under pressure and then, most though not all of the time, requires one to make decisions and then somehow implement those decisions with your original plans crumbling around you. This was my day yesterday, and I unequivocally failed at it. The day, the event, was not a total failure, in fact it happened to produce a lot of successes, but my ability to operate productively in a situation that needs complete rejuvenation on the spot, was totally not there.

Yesterday was our big Family Planning and Cultural Dance Event that Kwesi and I have been planning for the last few months. The idea was to disseminate family planning education and mix it with a celebration of cultural dance. We needed a draw, if you will, something fun that would bring many different people from different places. For HIV/AIDS education last July, we used football, but that really only draws the boys and men. We could go to the schools, but then we would only reach the educated, and there are many non-schooled people in these areas. Everybody, though, loves cultural dancing. It would bring the young and old, the men and women, the educated and uneducated. Family planning is not an unknown or new concept here, it is just underused, especially in the smaller villages farther away from the community clinic. It is my impression (purely anecdotal not quantified) that some (men) are still resistant to it, but most people think it's generally a good idea, but other things get in the way of participating in it. Men and women don't talk to each other about it, don't attempt to plan their families and leave it more or less to chance. Some don't want to travel to the clinic or don't take advantage of the community outreach days. Others are turned off by going and then having to pay the small fee. Others (women) are worried about prostitute reputations or the myth that birth control makes you sterile. Given these obstacles, we thought a good start was a community-wide conversation about family planning.

So, I wrote six short dramas about family planning, two of them addressing issues surrounding teenage pregnancy and promoting family planning use among adolescents (my stab at stepping outside abstinence only education). We invited over 15 community groups (many from villages surrounding Damanko) and we enlisted four of those groups to present the written dramas. The two talking about teen pregnancy, we gave to the two junior high schools in town.

So, the day of the event comes. Kwesi and I are very excited. I am excited because I get to see a whole day of cultural dancing—and not just Kinachung, the dance performed by Konkombas at every funeral, but dances by other groups that are only done a certain occasions; one of them so rarely performed that the younger generation has seen it very few times so it can be considered “endangered.” Anyway, on all the of invitations and all the meetings and announcements, we said the event would start at 7:30 in the morning. Even though many Ghanaians arise before 5 am, this is still a ridiculous hour to start something, but in Ghana, nothing EVER starts on time (except football, Kwesi tells me) so we allowed a hour or two leeway. But the upsetting part was that not a soul (aside from the several hundred school children running amok) appeared until ELEVEN O'CLOCK. I was so angry. Here Kwesi and I had worked to get everything in place, written the grant, written the dramas (not to mention all the actors working hard at their parts), visited everyone, set up the stage area that morning; I even traveled to Tamale to borrow special cameras from Peace Corps, and it's perfectly fine to make everyone wait, purely because you don't want to be the first group to arrive. Drives me absolutely bonkers. I could feel the passive-aggressive animal rising in me that says, okay, fine, everything's canceled then, since you all can't show that you care or take this thing seriously. Somehow, no matter how many times Kwesi assured me with “that's how Ghanaians behave; don't worry we will do it, everything will happen” and no matter how much I reminded myself that a year in Ghana has taught me that everything that is supposed to happen will happen, just not as you planned them, 20-some years of deeply ingrained (and possibly genetic?) punctuality is difficult to overcome no matter how many yoga-calming mantras you try to repeat to yourself. Needless to say, the day's schedule (even with an anticipated delay worked into it) was completely moot. Which meant that everything had to be done on the fly as groups showed up, which also meant that everyone was clamoring to know when this group would go and that group, when should we have this person's speech, and so on. Two of the dramas didn't even happen because, well, in one half of the actors decided it would a good day to travel, and the other one, I still didn't know what happened. And those two were my most important. So that's it. No more big, community-wide events for me.

Good things did happen yesterday. Like I said before, everything (or something) will happen, just never as you plan it. The dramas that happened were excellent, a couple even exceeded my expectations, lots of people (and all different kinds of people) eventually showed up, the people who gave speeches spoke very well and gave excellent advice, and those watching seemed to be into it and enjoy it. The biggest disappointment was that I had a very effective event planned, but with such a big delay and the helter-skelter and hurried way we had re-do everything, a lot of the effectiveness was lost.

But enough complaining now, and on to the dancing. Though I unsurprisingly enjoyed this portion, that delay of the morning still lingered as a dark shadow in my mind, so I didn't have the same ebullient feeling I would have had otherwise. Konkomba is the major tribe in this area, so most of the dances belonged to them, but there are large minorities of Ewe and Basare tribes here too, so we asked them to represent themselves as well. After some light pleading, the Basares agreed to perform their Fire Dance, a dance traditionally performed at the funeral of a chief or other important man, and the “endangered” dance I mentioned before. The Traditional Believers (a group of people irrespective of tribe that still adhere to the older, traditional animistic beliefs) begged for a spot too since dancing occupies a large part of their worship, we couldn't turn them down. The Konkombas are widely known for a dance called the Kinachung. It is one of several dances they do, or have done in their history, but this is the one performed most frequently and by the younger generation (so its healthy tradition will continue), and so most favored by the tribe and those outsiders who are familiar with it. This dance is performed by both men and women, though men's is definitely the showier of the two. The Konkomba women have two dances all their own, dances that no man would even think of participating in. They are called Nbanbae and Yechenoi. The latter is set up in a circle with four seated women hitting empty earthenware water jugs over the opening with empty calabash bowls. Traditionally, women didn't touch drums (though no one really cares anymore) and so this was their replacement. The women dance with one arm in the air and stomping their feet in a quick, rhythmic pattern with (if available) rattling shells tied around their ankles for extra percussiveness. Nbanbae is essentially the same, except that in place of the water jug drums, the women use only their hands and voices.

The runaway hit of the show, however, was the Basare Fire Dance. In fact, the crowd kept mistakenly running over the where the fire was set long before they had were to dance, just to ensure they had a good viewing spot, ignoring the other goings-on and further diminishing the effectiveness of the messages we were trying to convey. A major part of funerals in the tribes of northern Ghana is a traditional soothsaying ritual. Through a practiced soothsayer, the deceased can convey any messages to living. These messages, however, usually pertain to the manner and circumstances of death, thereby providing an explanation of a traditionally unexplainable event. The Fire Dance is a spiritual dance performed by the soothsayers to enable them access to the spirit world. How that works is beyond my ken at present. This dance has not been performed by the Basares of Damanko for many years and what was performed yesterday was merely an appetizer portion. I am told that it is rarely performed anymore, mostly due to the fact that to do the dance and the ritual properly, a lot of money needs to be spent. Animals need to be bought for slaughter, drink needs to be brewed and distributed, firewood has to be gathered or bought, and, of course, soothsayers have to make a living. Most of the money goes to animals, though, such as cows which are very costly. And, if it is done properly—for an important man, say—they will invite their relatives and their more expert soothsayers from their original homelands in Togo or the Northern Region. Given the rarity and the spiritual circumstances surrounding the dance, I am impressed, but not surprised, that they chose to air out this old tradition and show it off a little.

So the crowd gathered in a small circle around the fire with three drummers off to the side. There were four men dressed to the “tribal” nines, if you will, men I'm assuming were the soothsayers. Women were performing their own dance in a cluster around the drummer. Logs on the fire were all about the same size and shape and stacked parallel to each other making a small pile with small flames licking the top logs. Dancers cross these logs barefoot, even stomping on them a little, stepping up and over them like a small staircase. Though the flames are licking their toes, it is still a little reminiscent of the walking-over-hot-coals trick.

Everyone had a good time, and I hope they learned something about family planning. Needless to say, I slept well that night.

This morning I did my first farmer training. Technically, I am not supposed to “work” until middle of March. My counterpart arranged the training though and I wasn’t going to say no to farmer trainings. Especially, since it was something … Continue reading →

Here is the man that wants me to speak Fra Fra so bad he is constantly making me repeat what he says. Might get a word or two this way. He is taking all these baskets and putting the letter handles on.

Here the men are making the bottoms of the basket. They make a bottom and then do another one. They were showing me but so far I don't get it. They move to fast

Of course in all the teasing he did not think I would really cook so I did but did not think they would like bean, carrots tomatoes all mixed together and you could still see them. There were in chunks so I did not think they would like it.

Yes the bowl was licked clean. This last picture is the Craft Center Secretary.

The back to work!!

These are the other shape baskets he is putting on the leather handles. Were 4 men doing handles 2 making baskets. I am so upset after lunch 2 young girls came in making basket and I did not take their picture. Will do again on next shipment maybe.Enjoyed sharing my day.

There is only so much you can do when you don’t have a specific project to be working on. I make a circle every morning visiting a few people at the craft center, which is more now that they are trying to get a shipment out, and get a language lesson, as well as a sewing lesson as well as a basket weaving class if one of the ladies happen to be there. Then I stop by a ladies shop I am trying to help get her books with receipts together so she can maintain it for 6 months and possibly get a loan. She would like more products but does not have the money to get them. She tried for a loan once before and they told her no but not why or what to do to get one. Then I go by the seamstress on the main street and talk to all the women it is partly teaching me sentences or laughing on how that same sentence comes out of my mouth, and partly they are telling me the things they either wish for or the community really needs. I then go to the junction to see what fresh they have gotten in and as usual it is very little but now we are getting tomatoes. Hope it keeps getting better with the change of the weather because going into Bolga is not fun. When you can wait over 2 hrs in the sun for a taxi or lorrie, it makes you want to forget it except you know you will not have fresh food, you will miss your friends, and perhaps maybe a package will be waiting for you at the Post Office so you wait wait and wait for a ride. I then go to the house to fix lunch, read, and try to stay cool for a couple of hours. Around 4 I go out front where the ladies are getting water, the children are playing or fetching water and see who will visit with me. Mainly it ends up the children wanting to read or play games. They range in all ages and abilities plus some are good with English so I always get a lesson in Fra Fra with what we are doing because some of the children have to be instructed in Fra Fra. As it gets dark I try to get things finished before my landlord and his family come home so I am out of their way. We share the kitchen so I try to eat my hot meal at lunch when they are at work and then just eat something small in my room and then read, watch a movie until it is time to put in the ear plugs and go to sleep. Head Mistress at the Tailor Show that I visit. She speaks good English and has a sweet little guy that is normally on her back but he was on floor playing about 1 yrs old. Here are the children and I reading two books. The little one with the book on his head is Peter and he is the one that swallowed the candy wrong. He still comes over and does not seem concerned about it. While we were reading the Uncle and his year old nephew drove up. Yes he had ridden on his mother’s back from Bolga and now he was driving the Moto with his Uncle around town. He knows the buttons to push, puts his feed in the rack and holds on when he is asked if he is ready. Told the Uncle he would be in jail in American. He laughed. Here is the lady I am helping w/her books and her two children. Her dau. I showed you her hair that she put on her and her little boy has the most awesome laugh. She had just gotten off her moto, baby asleep and her hair wild. Ha!! Here is his football. It is rubbers (their plastic bags are called rubbers) stuffed and stuffed and shaped round can see where it is tied on top so now he kicks it around while he is walking to bore hole. When I do go to work I will still be able to do these things. Everything is relaxed here. People show up when they want. Such a different life.

Isaac and Lydia @ STARS conference, Kumasi 2011

In the wee morning of Valentine's Day Lydia, one of the senior high school student that was selected last year to participate in a student leadership conference (STARS), called me to inform me that Isaac, the boy that was also selected, has passed away. For several minutes, I could not comprehend what she was trying to tell me. Granted it was 4 am in the morning, but Isaac dead? I didn't want to believe it. It came as a shock to everyone. He was only 17 years old.

Isaac was one of the sweetest boys I had ever met. Smart, friendly, loyal, obedient, social, hard working. He was my friend and I was also his mentor. I would lend him books to read and in return he would bring me huge pans of water on his head. I was going to each him how to type. We went to Kumasi together with Lydia so that he could learn how to be role model in the community. And he was. I am saddened at the sudden lost of a promising kid and a friend.

It has been extremely discouraging that I have lost one of my best students. He embodied characteristics that all young people should have to brighten their's and their country's future. It is also upsetting that he probably died from a preventable or treatable disease, perhaps meningitis. That if this country had better infrastructure, he would still be alive. That however hard we try to educate and help each other, things like this are inevitable in the developing world.

You will not be forgotten Isaac.

Teaching is a joy. An absolute joy.

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Integrated Science: Introduction to ChemistryHomework Assignment 1

QuestionWhat is an atom?

Answer: An atom is the smallest particle of an element that can undergo a chemical reaction.

Anonymous Student's Answer: An atom is the smallest particle of an element that can undergo a chemical erection.

Yes, Kate and I did dance during the festival and were cheered for very loudly, unfortunately though we did not capture it on video. As you can imagine, I danced poorly and Kate was the star of the show. We were told by my students that they over heard people saying "the woman dances than the man". I can't argue with that!

The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Ghana has an interesting and comprehensive ground transportation system that once you get on can take you almost anywhere in the country. After walking, bicycles and motorcycles the most common way to move around Ghana is by ground transportation. Volunteers do a lot of walking, some bike riding always with a helmet, but no moto's unless it is an emergency. Even being a passenger on a motorbike is the beginning of a fast trip back to USA. I walk a lot as I am restricted from riding a bike in the village since the only paved street is the heavily used highway and the Peace Corps has decided that is too dangerous, even with a helmet.

This is a picture of the taxi stand in the village where I live. The blue kiosk is a lady's hair dresser and the palm cover spot is a place to buy fast food, mostly rice dishes, while you are waiting on the taxi or just need something to eat. It is also a place to get out of the sun. The small cabs, mostly Japanese or Korean made, wait until a full load is on board before departing, usually four adults plus the driver. I have never waited more than 20 minutes for the ride into the market city, takes 15 minutes for about 50 cents. Similar taxis go up and down the road about every 20 seconds looking for passengers by blowing their horns and slowing down. An array of hand signals allows you to indicate number of passengers and how far you are going. For me living at the far end of the village, it is easy to walk 30 feet to the road and signal a taxi, but I was told the Village Chief has established this taxi stand and villagers are to go there to take a taxi in order to support the continuation of the local service. So I walk to the stand.

Once in the market city, you are dropped off at a large, busy taxi stand, where you engage the longer distance transportation vehicles. Everything from large, luxury buses to the most common means of Volunteer travel, the "Tro-tro," In almost all cases the Tro's are increased seating, mini-vans or larger vans all re-fitted for max passengers. They leave in all directions from multiple locations in the city and like the taxis wait until they have every seat filled with a person and all the stuff you are bringing. Get in, get settled because that is how you are going to stay for the trip. I have seen some of the larger Tro's with goats riding up in the baggage racks. So by asking questions or knowledgeable trip planning you are able to go from taxi to bus, back to taxi or another bus, and throw in some walking until you reach your destination. Coverage to destinations in Ghana is pretty complete and the system amazingly works in moving people if you discount waiting time, transfer difficulties, break downs and sometimes having a stranger sleeping on your shoulder. However, this type of transportation has risks with frequent overloads, vehicle maintenance concerns, road conditions and many times very aggressive drivers. Peace Corps staff does not want Volunteers traveling at night because of the increase in those risks.

Personal automobiles are rare in the village, most being light trucks or used as taxis. I am told no railways are currently operating in Ghana. And as I was writing, I realized I have not seen an aircraft of any kind since leaving Accra almost eight months ago. Big difference from the sky around Virginia Beach and its military presence.

I have not done a lot of personal traveling in Ghana yet, but will look forward to seeing more of the country during my next term break in late April. I am certain it will add to the adventure.

students hard at work

a particularly fabulous pattern relief

'piecy-piecy' coil pot made out of scrap material--she designed the handle and lid herself

Rafia

Kofi

morning assembly

wolf spiders--the one on the right was found crawling up Mark's leg

Damba drummers

Damba Fesival

Damba is the unofficial 'smock' festival--all the men wear their smocks, if they have one--it's not their everyday clothing. Everyone gather's outside the chief's palace in a big circle, and people are beckoned by drumming men to come forward and dance. If the crowd likes how you dance, they will place small coins in your hand (which you then give back to the chief).

Damba spectators

Damba dancers

the women don't move as much as the men---they mostly just sway a bit, and sit back down

Damba spectators who commented after Mark and I danced (twice) that "the woman dances better than the man." Ha!

see brief video

Mark, myself, Abdulai (his student), and Abdulai's younger brothers

beautiful butterfly crayon relief

Savelugu School for the Deaf dance group

dance group

hard at work

weavings

complementary color project

Tailors. I love going to the tailor. I love looking at all the pictures on the wall, picking out which design I want, explaining my own designs, picking out fabric, the whole experience. But I think my favorite part might … Continue reading →

So, I have this issue with spiders. You know nothing serious, just a extremely irrational fear that paralyzes me when I see them. It has gotten much better though! I only freak out now when I see big ones. AND … Continue reading →

Hot, hot, hot. Last night, when I was laying in bed I was wondering what the temperature was outside. I looked it up online, which means it probably wasn’t entirely accurate, but whatever. At 10pm last night it was still … Continue reading →

Ghana is playing in the African Cup. It is like the World Cup, but just for Africa Just in case Africa Cup wasn’t enough to give it away. Tonight Ghana played Tunisia in the first knockout round – the quarterfinals. … Continue reading →

I guess this is how the Peace Corps gods balance out my superb site and awesome assignment, with bank troubles. Nothing is more stressful than money – maybe being President but his troubles are all money troubles too. So yes, … Continue reading →

Baby monkey at the chief's house...his mother was eaten.

Ace please open your eyes for the camera.

Master P. in his new bed.

Running through a cow herd on a run.

One of the many cultural differences between and America and Ghana is the treatment of death.  Weddings are different too, but yesterday I didn't go to a wedding to celebrate a new beginning; no, I went to visit my counterpart and show my support for him and his family after his grandfather passed away. I don't think the death was sudden, and for most present the attitude was that at 91, he was

So the next morning I get up and cook us breakfast. Then my chief comes and brings us fish stew, red rice balls, and bananas. Mom and dad tasted the red rice ball…it’s completely bland, and then I take the stew and rice balls to Francis cause even I don’t like this food, but it was really nice of NaNa to bring it. I’ve only ever had the red rice ball at weddings. Today we board a tro and head to Wli Waterfall. We drop in Bakua to wait for the Wli tro and Chris goes on to HoHoe to go back to his village. We sit and wait under a tree..and wait…and wait…and finally a Wli tro comes. We drop and then go to waterfall. It’s about an hours hike in and an hour out. Wli is said to be the highest single drop waterfall in West Africa…whether that’s true or not I don’t know…they make all kinds of ridiculous claims here. It was a nice walk and the falls really are pretty, I think mom and dad enjoyed it.

After we came out we stopped at Sister Kafui’s store and to shop at the woodcarver’s shops. I know all these people well, as Sister Kafui sells my women’s products and the days I take her products I spend the afternoon sitting around and talking with them and trying to make earrings. So mom starts shopping and dad goes around and talks to the carvers. Koku makes these really cool leaf trays out of wood. A long time ago I ordered one big one, 2 mediums, and 2 smalls. He had them finished and ended up kicking in an extra small one as a “dash” for my mother. So I got 6 hand carved wooden leaf trays for 40 cedis…about $25 USD…eat your heart out World Market! Mom bought some beads and carvings and Kafui threw in a carved bottle opener for dad. We left and waited for a tro to Bakua, and then pretty quickly got a tro to Todome. I had Confi cook us her delicious jollof rice while we were gone, and it was waiting at my house when we got home…yum! We spent the evening hanging out at my house, the electricity went out again. “Just don’t move and you won’t be so hot.” I liked that mom and dad got to see how it is to live here. Lights randomly going out for undetermined amounts of time, filling water from the one spout and carrying it where needed around the house, the internet/phone not working all the time, water shutting off randomly…welcome to my life. We settled in for sleep. Apparently at some point in the night a pack of dogs was barking around outside and kept mom awake. “Did you hear those animals last night? What were they?” “I have no idea what you are talking about, I didn’t hear anything.”

Next day we went down to the school to give the headmaster the heavy duty pencil sharpener that mom and dad brought to donate to the school. After that we walked through the village to greet and I took them to the “new” reception center and griped about my problems trying to get the thing open. On the way back we stopped by the old man who’s a blacksmith. Dad really liked seeing his setup; “it’s like medieval times.” I took them to our current tourism reception building and then to get beans at my bean lady’s hut. They loved them! It was their favorite thing they ate in Ghana. We went back and hung out at my house and tried to start packing our stuff. In the afternoon we went down to have my afterschool class with the kids. Mom and dad carried over the letters from my nephew’s class; his teacher and I have been working to set up a penpal exchange with our kids. So about 30 kids showed up and were all super excited to talk to mom and dad and get their letters. It was chaos as expected. Yelling, running…me screaming. Mom and dad went around and tried to help the kids read their letters as I organized who would have who as a penpal and scheduled small groups of kids to meet me the next week so we could really work on their letters. Questions the kids had for mom and dad: What do you like to eat? What work do you do? They are not overly comfortable asking questions of strangers. They liked watching mom and dad though…seeing how they look different than people here. I think we all had a good time. We went back home and I made banku and groundnut soup for dinner. Enoch, the kid who always helped Rhoda, from Mate came and had dinner with us. After dinner we relaxed in the dark again, but the lights came back on 3 minutes before the Ghana soccer match was to begin. Throughout the evening you could hear the village erupt in cheers whenever they scored.

“Did you hear all that drumming and singing last night? It was at like 3 in the morning and it lasted a long time.” “Nope, I didn’t hear anything. I’m used to hearing the animals and drumming, and loud prayer meetings.” “Oh. Well ask Francis what they were doing in the middle of the night.” I forgot to ask him. So today we jumped a tro to HoHoe to visit Auntie Felcia’s store and also Kofi and Enoch’s store. We sat and talked with Kofi and Yao for a while and mom bought a painting. Then we took a taxi to the silversmiths and I waved as we drove by Sister Divine’s seamstress shop. She called me a couple days later and was very unhappy with me that we didn’t stop so she could greet my parents. “They are old and white and they were hot and grouchy so we didn’t stop. They were ready to go back the village. Sorry-o.” I can never keep everyone happy. So mom picked some jewelry and then I took mom and dad to the market to get food to cook for dinner. We came home and cooked fufu and light soup with Francis. I showed off my cutlass chicken chopping skills and mom tried her hand at pounding fufu a lil’. Mom strongly believes we should add salt and pepper to the fufu; dad thinks you need to turn it into dumplings instead of a big ball you eat with your fingers…yevu take on fufu.

After this we went to say goodbye to Nana and give him his gifts. Mom and dad got to sit on elder’s stools and take pictures with him in his fancy chief hat. As we were walking out the door, “Don’t step on that scorpion!” Just outside the chief’s gates mom spotted a little black scorpion. They came and killed it, but mom was spooked for rest of the night. We stayed up watching episodes of Modern Family since we had electricity that night. The next day we went into the village to say goodbye and then went back to wait at my house for the driver I arranged to take us to Accra. The bastard was over 2 hours late and we therefore did not get to go have our planned delicious burger at Honeysuckle and instead had to sit at the airport bar and have a half tard burger that cost too much. I was mad. Then we wheeled all their stuff (and a 50 lb bag of my crap to send home) into the airport, got them checked in and then had to say goodbye. We did quick hugs and goodbyes to keep from tearing up. I made it into a cab, teared up a little, and then stopped. But once I got to the PC house I stood outside talking to Chris on the phone and just cried. Seeing mom and dad really made me realize how much I’m looking forward to going home; things that I didn’t realize I missed so strongly. I’m really am so happy that mom and dad came; I don’t know if they’ve ever done anything that’s meant so much to me. This is something that they did FOR ME…not really for any other reason, and I love them for that.

So now, mom and dad are home and I’m still here. On Monday we are having our GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp in HoHoe. I’m taking 4 junior high girls from Likpe for a week long camp that us PCV’s are putting on in HoHoe. Hopefully I will be going to Togo and Benin in March, we have our All-Vol conference in April, and our Close of Service conference in May. After the COS conference I should know the dates I’ll be coming home. I have a few beach trips planned with friends. I’m gonna try to make my projects as sustainable as possible and pass my duties on to the villagers these last 6 months; but I’m also gonna try to travel around and see people and really enjoy these last few months…I know they’ll go by fast, and man, I’m ready to come home.Love j

So it’s the day of the ceremony and Chris is coming to stay with us tonight so he can meet mom and dad. Once we get up I make banana pancakes and then I show them how to wash their clothes in a bucket. It was funny. Mom and dad both opted out of hanging their undies outside to dry…wusses! Francis and his brother were molding mud blocks out back, so dad, ever the engineer, goes down to see how they are doing it. There’s a knock at the door. Some of the elders from the village have come to welcome mom and dad. A little later and there’s another knock; it’s Confidence and Peter. “We have come to greet your parents. Where is your mother? We have been sent to do something.” So they find mom and start looking at her and chattering back and forth in Sekua. Mom is just smiling, “Jeanna what are they doing?” “I dunno, looks like they’re gonna make you a dress.” And sure enough the measuring tape comes out. Their measuring mom and chattering. “You know they’re talking about the fat white lady. How’s he gonna make a dress so fast?” “He will.” And then they left. A little later, “Jeanna, call Fo Nicho and give him Sister Kafui’s number.” “Wow, looks like you guys are gonna have a nice ceremony. Sister Kafui is the bead lady in Wli.” Chris arrives, we hang out at my house and talk about mom and dad’s experiences in Ghana so far. After a while there’s another knock at my door. It’s my chief and some guys, they have brought us palm wine! Mom and dad take their first sips from the calabashes…dad said he liked it, mom wasn’t such a big fan. It was fresh and super sweet, not my fav. So we then sit around and sip palm wine…the ceremony was supposed to start at 2. So we sit and wait. And wait. I drink some more palm wine and tell them that it makes you have the poops… “Well then I’m not drinking anymore!” So around 4 Confidence comes to get us.

We walk down my hill and start walking up to the village. The drums start, the kids dressed in their cultural outfits start dancing and singing down the road to get us; the villagers are gathered at the kindergarten grounds clapping and singing. Fo Nicho, Francis, Gifty, Apolonia, Mama Victoria and others come to help us dance in. The kids grab mom and dads’ hands and walk with them up the street. I’m just smiling; my village is good to me. We walk/dance into the grounds and are seated. The chief and elders are all there in their garb; the drummers and dancers are lined up on the opposite side. Silencer starts the ceremony speaking into the mic which is rigged up to a bullhorn powered by a car battery. The elders come out and pour libations for mom and dad’s safe arrival and safe travel back home. Next we get up to greet and shake hands with the elders of the village. Then the elders get up and come to greet us. Next I get up to introduce mom and dad to the village. Then the Queen Mother’s linguist and another woman elder come over to present the gifts to mom and dad. First they dress dad in a batik chief’s smock. They give him a big strand of beads for his neck and a bracelet. Then comes mom. The women start pulling a batik dress over her head. They’re yanking and pulling (“they about ripped my tits off!”) and then put a headband on her along with neck beads and a bracelet. They have dad get up to address the community. He thanks them for the ceremony and for taking care of me. Then comes the cultural display. The girls in my village do a long dance and then comes the dance with boys and girls. I love these dances and the drumming. After a while they start a general dance with people in the community coming up and forming a circle dance. I love to dance, but I get tired of dancing in a circle. But I get up and join in. I look back and here comes mom, dad, and Chris! We’re all in the circle dancing and laughing; I look back and Gifty has dad all hunched over trying to teach him to dance. I WAS LAUGING SO HARD!! First of all, my father cannot dance, bless his heart. And Gifty always yells at me, “Bend over, bend over.” “Gifty, if I bend over any further I’ll be on the ground!” It’s a running joke between us. Instead of harassing me today, she’s got dad! He won’t be able to move tomorrow. We danced and laughed and I was just so happy. This is why I love Ghana. I love that the people here dance and sing for any and every reason and it makes everyone smile and there is just a simple, unbelievable joy in it. After the dancing is finished, Silencer announces the palm wine has arrived and talks about how much Sister Boala loves our palm wine…I do…he catches me at the palm hut quite often J So as they dole out palm wine to the villagers from the gas jugs, I take Francis to play body guard and go to distribute the candy mom and dad brought for the kids. After a while it turns into a malay (as I knew it would) and I’m swarmed by kids, adults, and old women. I end up just throwing it and running away to mom and dad’s delight. We drink some palm wine and take pictures with the chief and villagers. It was awesome! After that we head back to house to drop off things and then head down to Fo Nicho’s for fufu, light soup, and mom’s big black cock. We get there and start eating. As I’m eating the chicken I think it looks kinda small for the black one. “Esther, is this the black cock?” “NO! He ran away into the bush to hide. I had the boys look for him for 2 hours and then had to kill a different one. He is clever.” And sure enough a few minutes later I see the black cock emerge from the bush. “Oh, I’m glad he wasn’t killed for me.” “Mom, they still killed a different one.” “Yeah, but I don’t know which one. I’m glad the black one got to live.” So we sit and eat; mom and dad said they liked it, but it was spicy. Francis came down. “Francis, you want my bones?” “Yes.” Here in Ghana people eat the bones for calcium. Mom and dad sat and watched as Francis chomped the bones…they thought it was funny. After mom and dad finished, Chris and I really dug in. “Good Lord, you guys act like you haven’t ate for days.” “This is how you gotta eat…fast, fast.” After fufu we went home and relaxed. Dad said that Gifty reminded him of my sister, Jennifer. “Always bouncing around stirring up shit!” “You know, she does remind me of Jennifer. She’s one of my favorite people in the village…maybe that’s why.” It was a great day!

So after our exciting breakfast we started driving towards Tamale. We stopped there and went to the cultural center and then continued on. I had never traveled the road from Tamale to Nkwanta (top of Volta Region). The road is famous among PCV’s as being super shitty and bumpy and dusty and in the rainy season it is basically impassable. We drive for 5 hours on what was in essence a dried out river bed…now a river of red dirt with large farm trucks hauling people, cows, and copious amounts of yams. I can’t imagine doing it in public transportation. It was super hot with the sun shining in so I had to rig up a two yard that bubbled out the window…we looked like a traveling gypsy van. The road was beyond bumpy with “pot holes” that spanned the road and rocked the car back and forth constantly. Small dust “tornados” would develop and go up maybe 200 or 300 feet in the air…they were actually kinda cool to look at. The villages here were all made of circular mud huts with rounded out compound walls which reminded me of what I think the inside of beehive would look like. We drove through many small villages with kids and adults yelling “obruni” and waving wildly at our car. We finally arrive in Nkwanta and find a nice place to stay. We are all dyed red from the dirt. We go to order food. All the things we ask for off the menu they are not having. Mom and dad eat an omelet and I order a sort of chicken sandwich. The next day we would finish our trip, landing in my village. We start to talk about the trip as a whole. Mom and dad are ready to go home. Nothing is comfortable here; the beds, the cars, the food, the heat, the dirt, the intermittent electricity. “We’re happy to have come and spend time with you, but I’m ready to get back. I just wish we could take you with us.” Ain’t that sweet? We talk for a little bit and then go back to the rooms and watch a soccer match and go to bed early so we can head to HoHoe early the next morning.

So we take our 3 hour drive to HoHoe, stop at the market to get food to take to my house, get fuel, and I take mom to the silversmith to do some first glances. We then head to Likpe. As we’re driving out to my village I think about the first time I traveled that road 18 months before. I was coming to visit my village for the first time; I was loaded in a tro with Fo Nicho and Francis, both who I had just met, and was about to see my new home and community. They were speaking some language, and it wasn’t Ewe, which I had been learning. I was so nervous I almost felt sick. I remember thinking how beautiful and green the land was with the mountain line looming in front of me; I remember going through Likpe Nkwanta and then Bakua, and then slowly climbing the hill and Francis saying, “This is Todome.” We drive and I see the community meeting grounds with a cool gnarly, old tree leaning to the right, mud houses, some with concrete. Old ladies selling at the side of the road and kids running down the street in their school uniforms. We pass through the village and the tro stops to drop us in front of the school. There is the sign for the guesthouse. “Up this hill is where you’ll live. This is my house,” says Fo Nicho. We climb out and he hollers and 4 or 5 kids come to haul all my luggage up the hill. Francis and I start walking up the hill and I see the guesthouse…it’s not mud J We get to the door and Francis starts to unlock it and I start getting real nervous…I have to live here for 2 years, dear Lord, please let it be ok. And it was…and it is. I completely lucked out. I got a great house and phenomenal community that takes good care of me. I’m so excited to show my parents this. They have seen the bullshit of Ghana that still drives me crazy at some times, but now they are gonna get to see why I love Ghana…my village; people who I spend time with and eat with, the kids I play with, and the old ladies who love to greet me and give me bananas. This community and these people have been my family for the last 18 months, and I love them.

There was a celebration in Bakua that many of my villagers were at, so there are not many people on the road in my village. For the first time ever, I ride in a car up my road to the guesthouse. We get out and start taking the luggage in. We say goodbye to Ben and then settle in. I had called Francis and had him sweep the house out before we came. **Short story. When I was living in KC my parents came to visit and dad was appalled at my dirty microwave, “Jeanna that’s disgusting. You’re gonna get ptomaine!” So ever since then I never clean my microwave when I know my parents are coming to visit me, just to give dad something to gripe at me about. Since I don’t have a microwave here, and I am indeed a lazy deep cleaner, I left my lil’ fridge dirty. In all truth I haven’t cleaned it since I got here and it was gross, but when mom and dad said they were coming to visit I did deep clean my house, but left the fridge nasty just for sentimental reasons. Francis cleaned my fridge while I was gone! I guess he figured it was too disgusting for my parents and he cleaned out all nice and shiny!**

We walk back behind the house and greet Francis and then spend the afternoon relaxing in my house and trying to organize all our crap. After a while there is a knock on the door, “Esther sent these to your parents.” It was a big bunch of bananas and some ground nuts (peanuts). This was the first of many gifts arriving at my door while mom and dad visited. I believe we probably received around 70-80 bananas (no lie) while they were here. Everyday we all had to eat at least 2 bananas…that was the rule we came up with. In the evening we walked down to Fo Nicho and Esther’s house to greet them. We took Fo Nicho the digital camera he had given me money for…he was really happy. Michaela (my favorite baby) was actually shy around mom and dad, Dixon and Rose were as goofy as always. We sat and talked and then I showed mom her big, black cock that was running around the yard. “Look mom, there’s your cock…light soup tomorrow J” We had a good visit with them and then Fo Nicho walked with us into the village because I wanted to greet the chief. We get into town and here comes Gifty (a woman my women’s group and one of my village favorites); she runs up and gives mom and dad each a big hug. Then the old ladies saw them and came over greeting and bowing and shaking hands and saying stuff in Sekua. They’re so funny. Mom and dad were shaking hands and saying thank you’s and starting to get the feel of my village. We went to NaNa to greet him and say we have arrived. He said that tomorrow (Sunday) will be their welcoming ceremony where we would present them to the village. Ok, so we walk back to the house and just chill. The lights go out and we sit with a candle and talk. Mom and dad both squeeze into my single bed and I flop on the couch. Tomorrow’s the big day!

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise our last day at the beach. We walked around and took pictures of our round lil’ hotbox, aka our hut, and the beautiful sky as we waited for our car and driver to pick us. For the next 5 days we were gonna be chauffeured around like movie stars…no more tros or tro-yards; I could see the glee in mom and dad’s eyes :) Ben our driver showed up early…in Ghana?? Yes! So we start traveling towards Kumasi to overnight in route to Mole National Park, which is in the Northern Region of Ghana and takes forever to get to. I went to Mole in November 2010 on public transportation and it was the worst traveling experience I’ve had…ever! Once mom told me she “wants to see elephants if I’m flying all the way to Africa,” I decided we had to do a private car. There was no way I was taking mom and dad there using public transportation; chances are one of us would have ended up dead and the others would be beatin’ each other with the corpse’s leg.

So we drive for about 3 hours and are going through Obuasi, the gold-mining town, and dad says lets stop for a pee. Ok, so I start giggling inside because this is gonna be their first public bathroom experience and I know what usual toilet/urinal places are like in Ghana. So Ben stops at a gas station and I ask where the urinal is…and it was toilet…but the water wasn’t working so we couldn’t use it. So we start looking around and over a wall I see a guy coming out of a toilet room and ask if we can use it. So we start climbing around the back alley/lot place to get to this building. It was a pay toilet. So we get to pee after a wait, but I had left my purse in the car and mom and dad had only 5 cedi bills. It costs 30 pesawa each to pee (30 centsish). I try to explain that we only have 5 cedi bills and will need change to the lady and eventually she just says to go on. “I would have paid her five cedis to take a leak. My eyeballs were floatin!” Yes, dad. That was so much less eventful than I had hoped it would be.

We start driving again and then stop at a kente-weaving village near Kumasi. We go to the weaving shed and the weavers start selling to us. Mom found a couple things she liked and I found one. Dad was just trying to get out as fast as possible. This one guy kept trying to drape a men’s cloth on him and dad was not interested. I’m bartering with a guy on the stuff mom wants and I look over and dad looks so unhappy. He hates shopping! But then you add the high-pressure way people sell stuff here and that he can’t communicate with the guy and it just cracked me up. So I try to sneak a picture of dad looking completely despondent and he and the guy see me at the same time, dad waves at me and the guy wraps his arm around dad and smiles real big. It freaking cracked me up…the photo looks like they might be having fun. Soon after I look up and dad has escaped to the car. Next we go to Ntonso where they stamp adinkra symbols on kente cloth. “I’m staying in the car.” Ok, so mom and I go in. The guy takes us around and shows us how they make the dyes from bark and leaves and then lets mom pick out a couple symbols so she can stamp her own strip of cloth. The guys were really fun; they used to have a Peace Corps volunteer…if we do nothing else we teach our communities not to hound tourists, they come there to buy stuff and pressuring people just makes them leave. So we go back to the car and sit in traffic on the way to PC house (I had to pick some of my women’s products from there). When we are in the PC house mom and dad say they don’t wanna stay in the “guesthouse” that I had scheduled for us; they want AC and a hot shower. So we ended up staying in a really nice place, eating a decent dinner, and drinking REAL whiskey :) We were all very happy. Next day we head to Mole. Along the way we pass a cool old mud/stick mosque and finish the 6-7 hour drive with over an hour on red dirt road. I dunno why, but I do love the red dirt; add in the old knobby trees and I’m a happy girl. We get to Mole and just relax that night. We ate and sat by the pool overlooking the watering hole. “Oh, I’m gonna order a cheeseburger.” “Me too.” “Me too.” “Oh we are not having bread or beef. Sorry-o.” Balls! Rice again…welcome to Ghana. By this point in the journey, mom and dad have realized that every place, even the "nice" places, have the same menu. Now they know why I requested so much food to be brought! We went back to the room and played cards and called it a night early so we could wake up for our morning safari.

So at 6:30 we pile in our car with Ben and a guide and off we go. Us three were all smashed in the back so I climbed on the roof and nearly froze to death for the first hour. We saw a bunch of deer things, a big owl, warthogs, monkeys and baboons. We then headed to the waterhole and there were the elephants! It was a male group of about 6 elephants. The big old leader guy was huge! It was really cool to see them up close. Then we walked to the waterhole to see the crocodiles, but “the elephants have scared them away.” But then we heard noise in the bush and there was a lone male elephant by himself. “Oh this is a very friendly elephant. Sometimes he comes to the house. We can get close.” So we got within 10-15 feet of this guy. He was drinking and the sounds that he made were so funny. I can't remember the exact number of liters the guide said he takes up each time with his trunk or how many in a day...it seemed like 200 liters of water a day or something ridiculous. He was really cool. After we left him we headed back to the camp for breakfast. We spent the afternoon just resting and then went out for another safari around 3:30. We all climbed back in again and went driving. We didn’t see elephants and monkeys again, but saw everything else and it was pretty driving around at sunset. Mom’s hair was sticking up all crazy from the wind so I started calling her pineapple head. Also, the tsetse flies were really bad and once the guide said it was tsetse mom spent rest of the ride beating the hell out of me and dad in the back trying to whack flies…we were quite entertaining to the Ghanaians. We got back to camp at dark and Ben came and had a couple beers with us before he left to eat dinner with a friend’s family. We ate and sat around drinking (I got some whiskey in Kumasi) and talking. It was probably 10:30 or so and Ben came back and started hitting the whiskey with me. We all sat there talking and laughing until midnight.

Next day, we get up and mom and I head up to the main building for breakfast. We had bought a pineapple and I was carrying it up so we could have it with breakfast. We start out walking and talking and then a baboon rounds the corner and keeps coming towards us. “Oh just keep walking mom, it’ll go around.” But it didn’t. It kept walking straight for us. “I’m going back Jeanna, there’s another one coming over there. Drop the pineapple.” “No! He can’t have it, I’m not backing down.” I turn around and mom’s already back at the door and this baboon is only a few feet from me and another is closing in from behind. Shit! I started to panic and just stood there yelling at it and hugging my pineapple…and here comes Ben! He started whooping at it and swinging a big stick; they start to go away. “Give me the pineapple.” So Ben walks us up to the main building but not before he holds the pineapple out teasing the baboons. “Ben, stop that!” We sit down at a table and the freaking baboons came up there! Ben has gone off somewhere to talk to someone and the damn thing jumps on the table and starts toward us again. Mom moves pretty fast when she’s scared. But then one of the guys comes out with a sling shot and shoots at it and they all run away. “Oh shit, what about Rick?” “Oh, Lord. Well I haven’t heard him yell yet. Ben, did you see dad out there?” “Yes, he is coming.” About that time dad rounds the corner. “What we got for breakfast?” “We were ambushed by baboons. They tried to steal our pineapple. Ben ran them off with a stick.” “I didn’t see any. Glad I had to go to the bathroom.” Nice.

.

I went to a meeting today with a friend from the Village. It is a group of ladies getting together each Saturday to try and help each other with things they need-like today’s topic was things they should be doing with their children at home-while they do their basket weaving. The basket weaving is where they get their money during the dry season because they do not have access to water out where they are to do dry season gardening. I spent a couple of hours with them and listen to their wish list like a building to meet in during the rainy season. Had no real advice except Children need to be taught English as early as possible. Don’t think they understood but will try a different approach next Sat. I was going to just post some pictures from today. Enjoy. BarbaraYes, they think it is that cold. She was all dressed in her sweater and hat to go to work with Mommy. ALL children go to work with Mommy and up to about 3 they get nursed whenever and as long as they want while Mommy sews, sells, whatever. This car has loud speakers and he was driving through the country side telling everyone the Mosquito Net give away would be at the end of this month. PC and Ghana plus a few other are doing this-giving 2 nets per family that had registered in December. Here are the ladies and I under the tree with all their children, nursing, playing or touching the white lady. They are all so sweet and want a better life for their children. The braids are made from fake hair – Patience’s took her little hair and wound it to the fake hair to make braids. Can’t imagine a 10 month old sitting still for that. Can you see the chalk marks? This is where she will cut. Do you see anything to cut straight no they just cut it.She is adding another line to cut. Do you see the iron? It is heated with hot coals they put in the bottom. Her shop does not have electricity. Do you remember Michael from John’s house when I stayed there in Nov? He was so excited to see me at the seamstress. He was there with his friend and he had to show off for her. Make sure Justin sees Michael, they talked to each other under the Mango tree. He also talked to Jack, but of course he knows only to mimc English. Love him to pieces!!! He is 3 1/2 yr old. My Saturday is about over except to read to the children that come while I am outside with “Barbie’s koom” okay so they don’t know its not water. Ha!! Talk to ya’ll soon. Love, Barbara

Abba!: WHY? Used mostly to express frustration. Best if both syllables are pronounced distinctly (AH—BAH!) ‘It’s the 3rd week in the term and the students still have not come to school. Abba!’ be free: to openly talk with someone, to be honest, to be someone’s friend (in the American English sense, see: friend) ‘Sister, you [...]

I don't look happy at all, do I? I loved this day.

Mom and dad joined the dance circle. Gifty about had poor dad down on the ground trying to get him to"bend over!"

Chris and I

Just in case dad ever says he didn't have fun.

I'm not quite sure what is happening here, but the faces are hilarious.

Dad says Gifty reminds him of my sister, Jennifer. "Bouncing around, stirring up shit." Gifty is one of my favorite people in the village...and now that he mentions it, she does remind me of my sister!

Fufu'n

I've just bought a new tablet: I'm taking a class in computing in the classroom and it seemed prudent for me to try using some technology in the classroom, which I'm sure will feel very awkward at first as I've spent so many years getting quite good at taking notes on paper, but as educational technology is the future (and what I want to study) here I am getting rather annoyed at my on-screen keyboard.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about is the Kahn Academy app I downloaded for it.

The Web-OS app is clean and easy to use, giving you access to thousands of educational videos without any distraction of cat videos or ads like you'd get if you watched the videos on YouTube. Although I recommend finding yourself a quite, distraction free time an place to work thorough the videos, the magic is that you can pause, rewind, and rewatch as often as you need, and you can watch them anywhere you can get internet access.

At first I thought these videos would primarily be targeting those who either don't have access to, or have not done well in traditional educational settings, I was delighted to learn that they are being used by whole classes in public schools to tremendous effect.

Using friendly, casual spoken English and multi-colored demonstrations, the classes start at the most basic level and take a learner through a skill tree to college level materials. The lectures are tied to interactive-feeback quizzes and live volunteer tutoring help, and all the data can be linked to a teacher dashboard. It is designed with an international, multi-cultural audience in mind.

The topics focus on the Maths and Sciences, and is transforming the way they are taught. With Kahn Academy, students can take risks, explore, and confirm mastery of each topic before moving on, avoiding the "swiss-cheese" gaps of other educational models that move a class relentlessly through material.

But, despite all these amazing possibilities, Kahn Academy doesn't have the hubris to claim it will replace classroom learning, but only that it frees up teachers and students to do the interesting, fun, group work in class, and let the lecture be done as homework. Additionally, by reducing the amount of busy work for both teachers and students, and giving the teachers detailed metrics of each students progress, time in school is spent on quality, individualized coaching.

I looked at Kahn academy a few years ago, and it was interesting then, but wow, has it come a long way. The tablet app is a wonderful was to get started, and I am excited to delve deeper into it!

I've just bought a new tablet: I'm taking a class in computing in the classroom and it seemed prudent for me to try using some technology in the classroom, which I'm sure will feel very awkward at first as I've spent so many years getting quite good at taking notes on paper, but as educational technology is the future (and what I want to study) here I am getting rather annoyed at my on-screen keyboard.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about is the Kahn Academy app I downloaded for it.

The Web-OS app is clean and easy to use, giving you access to thousands of educational videos without any distraction of cat videos or ads like you'd get if you watched the videos on YouTube. Although I recommend finding yourself a quite, distraction free time an place to work thorough the videos, the magic is that you can pause, rewind, and rewatch as often as you need, and you can watch them anywhere you can get internet access.

At first I thought these videos would primarily be targeting those who either don't have access to, or have not done well in traditional educational settings, I was delighted to learn that they are being used by whole classes in public schools to tremendous effect.

Using friendly, casual spoken English and multi-colored demonstrations, the classes start at the most basic level and take a learner through a skill tree to college level materials. The lectures are tied to interactive-feeback quizzes and live volunteer tutoring help, and all the data can be linked to a teacher dashboard. It is designed with an international, multi-cultural audience in mind.

The topics focus on the Maths and Sciences, and is transforming the way they are taught. With Kahn Academy, students can take risks, explore, and confirm mastery of each topic before moving on, avoiding the "swiss-cheese" gaps of other educational models that move a class relentlessly through material.

But, despite all these amazing possibilities, Kahn Academy doesn't have the hubris to claim it will replace classroom learning, but only that it frees up teachers and students to do the interesting, fun, group work in class, and let the lecture be done as homework. Additionally, by reducing the amount of busy work for both teachers and students, and giving the teachers detailed metrics of each students progress, time in school is spent on quality, individualized coaching.

I looked at Kahn academy a few years ago, and it was interesting then, but wow, has it come a long way. The tablet app is a wonderful was to get started, and I am excited to delve deeper into it!

Each yearly quarter I have to submit a report via a database to the Peace Corps telling them my about my projects and what I think about my experience here in Ghana. Since I've been a terrible blogger I decided to copy and paste some of my report here for your reading pleasure. You'll notice each section has a specific title and question I'm answering. At the end of this blog post you'll find a link to some pictures from the month of January. Enjoy! Godspeed. -Zachar

CommunityIntegration

As stated bythe drop down list, I feel somewhat integrated. I stepped into the shoes of the RPCV Guillermo Moratorio and experiencean expectation to be like him both internally from myself and externally frommy community. By the end of Guillermo'sservice he had learned Dagbani quite well and was spending many afternoonsaround the village sitting with the old men. The beginning of my service is not at all like the end of his. I struggle with the language, although I tryto speak it as often as I can, and I spend most of my time either in aclassroom, sitting with the other teachers of my school, or in my homepreparing for the next day's lessons or grading the exercises or exams fromthat day. I do receive continuousDagbani instruction once a week with four other volunteers and speak thelanguage weekly in the market and periodically through the week when in townrunning an errand or buying chop. However I feel like I have reached a plateau with my languagelearning. Until I have the time to sitand am forced only to use the local language then it will never sink in. I don't think I will be able to find thatkind of free time until I’m nearing the end of my service. For now my days are spent integrated andexcelling as a teacher in my school. Itake a great deal of pride in my work and the performance of my students. I believe I command their respect andadmiration and am regularly sought out for individual tutoring and help. At Diare JHS A I would say I am "wellintegrated". I have a friendly andprofessional relationship with our staff and students. I am very fortunate to be able to speakEnglish all day, every day. Although myDagbani suffers because of this, I am sought out for English tutoring andregularly have substantial conversations in English about development, the"Western" world, and cultural experiences. I am satisfied with my overall communityintegration and recognize my strengths and weaknesses within it.

Challenges

The biggestchallenges I face in my service are in my classrooms. Each Form presents its own challenges.

My Form 1students hardly speak English. It isclear that they were not instructed in English in Primary School. Many of them cannot read out loud the notesfrom the board/their notebook when asked to do so, when I ask a questionwhether orally or during a written exercise I regularly get no answer at all,and I feel nearly every other word I write on the blackboard is a newvocabulary word for them. Half of theother teachers at my JHS continue to instruct these Form 1 students in theirlocal language which only perpetuates the problem.

My Form 2students are over all the best performing students in the school. Their English isn't great, but clearlythey've benefited from having more in depth English instruction. They are also led by a prefect that commandstheir attention and disciplines them when necessary. So the challenge with this class is findingthe balance in instruction to the handful of very high performing students andto the rest which are struggling with English, concept understanding, andmotivation. The gap between the top andthe bottom increases every week.

My Form 3students are a hard bunch to figure out. This is the year that is going to make or break the rest of theireducation and maybe the rest of their future, however they sit around sleeping,playing games, and are generally lackadaisical about everything. Only 5 of 37 passed the First Term. When asked for course feedback they all admitto not studying and agree that my instruction is fair and of good quality. I'm very worried that it is much too late forthem to steer their collective ship in the right direction and I've resignedmyself to the fact that I can only help those that want to be helped, whichunfortunately is maybe 10 or so out of the 37.

The only otherchallenge of my service so far worth noting here is that from the time Iarrived until the problem was solved in mid-October my house was being infestedwith bugs at an exponential rate. Myceilings and walls were increasingly being covered with bugs and I was findingthem in my food. My patience came to anend and I called the PCVL but he was of no help whatsoever. I then called Mohammed Iddrissu from the TSOand he came out immediately for an inspection, concurred that my house was unlivableas is, and within a few days he had my home sprayed with a safe and effectiveagricultural insecticide that continues to work to this day. Immediately after spraying my house shed allits bugs and although the cleanup project was huge, I now continue to enjoy ahouse that is bug free. Thanks Mohammed!

LessonsLearned

Most thetext below is copied from a blog post I wrote on January 3, 2012.

--End of theTerm Reflections-- This is howthe first term ended: 17 of 63 Form 1 students passed Integrated Science, 10 of53 Form 2 students passed Integrated Science, and 5 of 37 Form 3 studentspassed Mathematics. Over all theirperformances were very, very poor. Iknow this is a combination of my ability to teach but also their own disciplineand responsibility to study, do homework, and review their notes. I know most students not only failed mycourses but also the courses of the other teachers as well. Therefore even though I teach every periodI’m given, assign homework, teach extra classes, and invite students over to myhouse for tutoring, these Ghanaian students are just plain and simply badstudents in a bad situation. They don’thave parents that engage them about their studies but rather send them to farmor to work in the market, they don’t have textbooks to read and do exercisesin, and they don’t have any role models that exemplify the payoff of educationwithin their local community. I try togive motivational speeches and encourage them but it doesn’t seem to sinkin.

New thingsthat I want to try this upcoming term are: 1. give more homework – assign atleast 5 questions to answer after every class period; 2. get students to copythe notes before the class is actually taught so then we can do exercises,discuss, and answer questions during class rather than just copy notes from theboard; 3. bring two students to my house each night for one hour of two-on-onetutoring – for the Form 3 this means that they’ll get private undividedattention twice a month; and finally 4. since the in-class work (includinghomework, class work, and mid-term exams) is only 30% of the final grade (theterm’s final is worth 70%, a percentage dictated by the Ghana EducationService) I’ll give mostly pass/fail credit for doing the homework so thestudents just need to demonstrate that they’re trying in order to get most ofthat 30%.

So, teachingis a mixed bag but mostly it is extremely rewarding and I believe this isdirectly proportional to the hard work I’m putting into it. The other things that I spend my time doingare spending weekends with other PCVs during which we cook, relax, go tochurch, and run. My involvement in thelocal church is rewarding and life giving. I'm very happy to have found a small church home here in Northern Ghanawhere Christian churches are few and far between. I try to run twice or three times a week, butthat has slowed as my teaching work increases. I could save time by paying someone to do my laundry, sweep/clean myhouse, and do my dishes, but I like get my hands dirty and doing it all myself. The same goes for cooking. I could eat in town every night for just adollar, but not only do I like cooking for myself, I crave the variety in thefood whereas in town only a choice of two dishes is available each evening.

The New Yearwill be a time of finding my stride in the classroom and carving time to dosome more intensive language study and hopefully a little grant writing. Christmas and New Year’s Eve were totallystrange here, but nonetheless they were fun to celebrate. The awkward translation of these holidaysleft much to be desired. They reallywere just another day here in this country which is so different than home,with people that have so much potential but regularly come up short (myselfincluded), however this is an experience that is perfect in its own way. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

PlannedActivities

Mycounterpart and I have recently returned from our Education IST and are highlymotivated to apply for funding to improve our school. I brought up the topic at our staff meetingand asked for feedback about what the school's/community's priorities are. It was the staff's consensus that the schoolbuilding, specifically the classrooms are in dire need of renovation andimprovement. If money is going to bespent, then improving the learning environment of our students should be ourfirst priority. Therefore, in the nextfew months I intend to begin collecting the necessary information in order toapply for SPA or PCPP funding. Our goalsare to in all the classrooms: install open air windows and shutters, installdrop ceilings, install ceiling fans, install lights, install outlets, installwhiteboards, resurface the existing blackboards, paint the interior andexterior of the school, and repair the rain collection system and tank.

Peace CorpsGoal 2

I feel thatI somehow embody Peace Corps' Goal 2. Ioften I find myself saying, "In America..." I try not to interject an American/Ghanaiancomparison in every conversation but many topics lend themselves to bediscussed with a global perspective. Forexample, we might be discussing the upcoming Ghanaian elections and how theprimaries are conducted. The UnitedStates happens to be also in an election year and so I take the opportunity tomention how campaigning happens in the USA and how the primaries areorganized. If I'm remembering correctlyI have discussed sports, politics, religion, health insurance, family planning,education systems, and of course, food in this way with my teacher friends. I believe that in each of these topics I havehelped to promote a better understanding of America and Americans amongGhanaians. This was especially potent duringthe time of the American holidays Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the globalholiday Christmas. I was able to shareeven some small "toffee" gifts with my fellow staff and communitymembers.

When itcomes to my students the cultural exchange is even more frequent and indepth. My students are very curious howI live, the pictures I have on my wall, and what I do with my free time. We are constantly talking and sharing, especiallyin the evenings when I've invited students into my home for tutoring. This breaks down the student-teacher barriera bit and they feel freer to ask me questions. I also seize the opportunity during these one-on-one interactions to askfor help understanding the Ghanaian culture and in learning the language.

Peace CorpsGoal 3

I wasapproved to and went home to Chicago, IL USA for one week in between PST andreporting to my site. While I was homeand surrounded by family and friends (on the occasion of my sister's wedding) Itook the opportunity to do a slideshow presentation and tell them about myexperience thus far. I think thisengagement solidified the interest of a number of them when before they were alittle indifferent. Since this returntrip I've communicated with my immediate family every week, with interestedmembers of my extended family and my friends personally about very month andvia my blog and facebook.com pages even more often than that.

SuccessStory

The thirdyear of JHS is a critical time in the life of young Ghanaians. As students complete their Form 3 year theyhave only one thing on their mind, the BECE examination. This exam will determine if they are able tocontinue their education into Senior High School or if their educational liveswill come to a dead halt. It has been myown experience that during similar critical times in my life I relied on thehelp of my colleagues' peer education even more than that of the formaleducator. Knowing this I have madetraining and educating the Form 3 class leaders a priority so that then theycan educate their Form 3 peers.

Thisundertaking has been carried out through focused tutoring and frequentmotivational conversations with the Form 3 class leaders. The feasibility of this "project"has been further made possible because our school's General Prefect and ourForm 3's Senior Prefect are serious students that are motivated to learn andare natural leaders among their peers. In addition to these two formal leaders there are two other Form 3students that have sought me out for extra help with their mathematics. I've been able to spend at least 2 hours ofextra instructional time each week with these four students.

Theunderstanding and grasping of mathematical concepts by these four students hasbeen achieved. These four students areclearly the best, brightest, and highest achieving in the Form 3 class. They have frequently taken what they havelearned from me in our more intimate tutoring sessions and have re-taught thematerial to their classmates. I believemathematics has become a priority of these four students and some of theirpeers due to the utilization of this peer teaching methodology. Unfortunately, it seems the other students inthe Form 3 class are significantly less motivated to learn and are needing agreat deal of remedial work in their mathematics to bring them up to the samelevel of these four class leaders. Groupwork has been assigned and encouragement has been given to the class as awhole, however it seems at times that the Form 3 students have more faith in atest taking miracle than their own ability to find the answer.

Ideas and Recommendations

Since I teach all three gradelevels of JHS I am able to see the considerable change that occurs between aForm 1 and Form 3 student. A great dealof this advancement has to do with teaching using English instead of the locallanguage. I've been told and I'vewitnessed that at the Primary School level most of the instruction occurs usingthe local language. This is evident inthe poor English ability of my Form 1 students. Some of these first year JHS students cannot read or write. I seriously doubt they understand what I'msaying in class. My recommendation is toassign Peace Corps Volunteers to teach English at the Primary Schoollevel. By the time students reach JHS itis nearly too late to mold them. Anyimprovement of a student's English ability earlier in life will pay dividendslater on. This is not to take away fromthe importance and usefulness of learning the and via the local language,however it is clear that Ghanaian students are suffering from a severe lack ofEnglish instruction at the Primary School level.

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I saw on a fellow PCVs blog that she wrote down the stuff she wants to pack and what she already has. I figured I should do that at some point too. Just so I don't forget anything, and also so I don't wait until the last minute to get things. And as it turns out, there is a LOT more I need than what I thought. I have underlined the things I already have. And I have crossed out things that either don't need to be packed or that will be provided for me. So here is the list:

Clothing

lightweight waterproof jacketsweater, sweatshirt, fleececonservative swimwear1 pair of tennis shoes3 pairs of sandals1-2 pairs of dress shoes/sandalsflashlight2 lightweight pantsswiss army knife5 skirts5 blouses2 dresses3-5 tank topsathletic shorts2 pairs of cotton pants5 tshirts5 cotton bras40-50 pairs of cotton underwear5 bandannas Bathroom1-2 towels1-2 wash clothstoothpastetoothbrushshampoo conditionerbody lotionface lotionfacewash/padsnail clippersOB tamponshair brushQ-tipsrazorrazor bladesshaving cream3-5 deodorantloofachapstickibuprofenallergy medicinekleenexeye dropsfirst aid kithand sanitizerBedroom1 set double sized sheets1 set pillow cases1 pillowalarm clock (wind-up/battery)Entertainment/Electronicsdeck of cardsother card gameseReadermp3 playerexternal hard drivelaptoplaptop bagdigital cameracamera caseworld travel adapter2 flash drivesunlocked USB modemPersonalphoto albumsmall items to give as giftsjournalsMiscellaneous24 ziploc baggies1-2 water bottles1 pair of scissorsgluehandiwipesumbrellatraveler's backpackrechargeable batteriesbattery charger3 rolls of duct tapeprescription drugs (3 month supply)2 pairs of glassesprescription sunglasseseyeglass repair kitsunscreenbug sprayear plugshead lampvoter registration cardforwarded absentee ballot

Sorry it has been so long since I last wrote! Here is what has happened since then. I got a phone call a while ago saying that the Computer Science program in Ghana had been cancelled. I froze. What does that mean?! Am I no longer going to Ghana? Do I have to wait even longer? The guy on the phone said he would transfer me to my placement officer and she would talk to me about my options. He transfers me, and she doesn't answer. Of course. I had to leave for work shortly after that phone call, so I was worried I would miss my POs call. I left her a message, then decided to send her an email. I told her I had to go to work, didn't have access to my phone, but did have access to my email. I told her to email me with any details she could spare and that I was more than anxious to hear from her. Here is part of her response:

the good news is that we have an alternative assignment for you in the same Ghana training class that departs on June 4, 2012

I didn't care what the rest of the email said, I was just ecstatic I was still going to Ghana! And even more ecstatic that it was the same time frame! Then I read this:

Attached I am sending you the Volunteer Assignment Description for the Ghana Mathematics Teaching program

YES YES YES YES YES!!!! I more than LOVE math! Of course I would happily accept this new assignment! So what turned out to scare the absolute crap out of me, turned out to be something amazing! I am so passionate about math, so the fact that I will now be teaching it excites me so much! I just hope I will be able to get my students just as excited :-)

So mom and dad survived their first night in Ghana just fine…and there was no critter in my mattress :)

The next morning we take a taxi with all our luggage to Kaneshi station, which is a huge tro/bus station in Accra. We had the taxi drop us on the side of the road where could catch a nice AC tro to Elmina Beach; these tros are not in the station and that helps avoid a whole lot of hassle. Mom and dad got to see the clusterfuck that is Accra traffic, complete with burning heat, choking exhaust, and ditches filled with funk and urine. We get out and start to drag our luggage to a tro and a guy grabs one of the little bags. Then he of course started to demand money. I’m trying to talk to the tro driver about our luggage, we’ll have to buy 2 extra seats to accommodate them, and the bag guy is harassing mom. People are pushing by on the street, announcements are screaming from the speakers, and food is being sold off people’s heads; the white people are melting in the sun. I determine that there is not enough seats for us and our luggage, so they tell us to wait for the next tro and there is no other tros on this side heading to Elmina. After a few minutes of trying to corral mom, dad, and our luggage, and fight off the bag guy, I tell mom and dad to stay put and not give money to anyone and I’m gonna walk down the row and see if I can find a different tro. Low and behold there is one, yippie. So I go back and collect mom and dad and the luggage and off we go as the tro driver and bag guy yell at us.

“Get in the first row and sit, I’ll take care of the baggage.” So I pay our new tro guy and am still fighting with the bag guy from the first tro. After 10 minutes or so we’re off. We’re sitting in line to leave and the bag guy comes up, smiles, and knocks on mom’s window and waves bye…it made her laugh. So after traffic and about 3 hours we land at Elmina junction where we have to catch a taxi to our beach huts. I argue again and then the guy loads our bags in his taxi…but the luggage won’t fit without leaving the trunk up. So we’re off, down the roads through the busy port town of Elmina. The streets are crowded, fishing boats are coming in, and mom and dad have their eyes peeled for their luggage falling out the back or for someone grabbing a bag…dad’s hand was on the door handle ready to jump out the whole time :) We keep going, pass through town, turn, go past a really nice hotel. “Oh that’s nice.” “Yeah, not for us.” Turn again and go past another nice looking place, “Is that for us?” “No.” “Where the hell are we staying?” At about that time we pull up to a thatch building… “This is us.!”

So we go down pulling our bags through the sand and the girls take us to our hut. It was super cute. Uh….no fan…that sucks! And a composting toilet…I’m afraid now…the parents are not looking so happy. “Look, you get to shower outside at night under the stars, it’s great!” That didn’t brighten them up, either.

We go and sit under a thatch hut and listen to the waves. The place is really beautiful and quiet. There’s a couple other people there…they have a dog that keeps fighting with the dogs that live at the place…mom spent the whole 3 days worrying about getting rabies...the one shot she didn't get :) We have a drink and just relax. That night at dinner we meet an old lady from Germany who has been traveling around Ghana, Togo, and Benin for 2 months. I thought it was good for her to talk to mom and dad because she has traveled extensively…then she told them how she got robbed in Ghana…dammit! Anyway, we go to bed and it’s hot as hell in the hut. Lights are only solar after 10 pm as the place is ran on a generator in the evening. Mom realizes she’s not going to able to fix her hair in the morning and starts to freak. “Don’t worry, no one cares what anybody looks like here.” “I don’t wanna look stupid in all my vacation pictures!” I forget that in some places people expect things of you, like make-up, deodorant, clothes that match…it’s gonna be a rude awakening for me going back to America! I spent the night sleeping on the floor (where I got to sleep for 3 days) coughing my lungs out thanks to the great harmattan weather, trying to muffle my coughs so mom and dad could sleep. It was a long, shitty, hot night!!! And since the toilet was out the back door, I got to play potty partners with mom all night with our headlamps…fun stuff, eh, mom?

Next day we get a cab into Elmina to visit the slave castle there. It was interesting and you could see the Elmina harbor…I just love their boats. After our tour we walk down towards the market because we wanna buy some fruit. Immediately annoying guys selling shit descend on us in the parking lot. After we get rid of them we walk; as we’re hunting for fruit sellers, a lil boy comes up and says, “Give me money.” I give my usual lecture, “ Can your mother not feed you? Where is your mother? Should I tell her that you are begging from strangers. You sound stupid. You don’t beg, it’s rude!” “Jeanna, shut the hell up, that girl over there has a machete!” (everyone in Ghana has a machete…that’s how they cut stuff). At this point, mom and dad don’t care about fruit anymore and since we don’t see any sellers, we head back to the castle area to catch a taxi. We do find a coconut seller and have a coconut while some little annoying girl talks shit to us in Twi. I hate going to touristy areas! I want to beat all the bratty kids and tell them that they are hurting themselves, their community, and Ghana by being obnoxious little beggars and that tourists will quit coming and they’ll have no one to sell their bags of water to then!

So after haggling with the taxi driver, we take off and head home after maybe 3 hours away. “I don’t care if we ever leave the hotel until our driver comes.” Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured. So we hang out at the huts, just relaxing by the beach, reading magazines mom and dad brought me, eating beef jerky and peanuts. I found a lady to take my braids out…dad kept telling me how bad they smelled…and they did, so that took 3.5 hours in the evening. We spent the evening talking to the German lady again. Our last day was just relaxing; reading magazines and dozing under the huts listening to waves. I got caught up on the happenings of Jefferson City :) It was nice!

There’s a new addition to the family! So yes, I’m still in Tumu with my NGO & they just got the cutest puppy from a friend of theirs in Tamale. She’s as playful as anything, is only about 1.5 months old, & has a fur coat of white, tan & gray. Jonas & I gave her a bath when she first got here, but we’ll need to give her another one soon because she gets into everything! My NGO wanted to give her a Sisaala proverb name, so they named her Zi Le Keng Chie (literally translated into “goodness has tomorrow” but figuratively means “goodness of the future”). If it was up to me, I would have named her Shadow because she follows me everywhere & if I’m not careful, I’ll step on her because she tries to gnaw on my shoelaces or the heel strap of my Tevas. She’s adorable anyway so I’ve posted some pictures of her below. My NGO already has a female dog named Ngaa worung na (meaning, “do well & see”) but she is an older dog that doesn’t want to be bothered with the puppy, so she’ll growl & snarl at her. Another reason why I’ve taken a liking to this new dog – to rescue her from Ngaa worung na that could easily tear her to shreds.

This past week went by really quickly with the Peace Corps here for the Dry Season Gardening IST. It was nice to meet some PCVs from the Northern Region that I hadn’t met before & there was one PCV from the far away Western Region that came as well. He lives on the coast overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. So not fair…let’s not talk about it. Anyway, all of the PCVs & supervisors loved the food that my NGO provided them, especially the baked goodies that I gave them for snack. In the morning, the classroom sessions for the IST were held at TUTCO (Tumu Training College) where Travis, my closest PCV neighbor, teaches ICT (Internet & Computer Technology). In the afternoon, the fieldwork was done in 3 surrounding villages: Pulima, Jawia & Kupulima. The last day of the IST, we constructed a drip irrigation system in Kupulima where David, my next closest PCV neighbor, lives. Fortunately, Kupulima has a dam, so setting up a drip irrigation system was possible. Unfortunately, my village Chinchang doesn’t have a dam, so no drip irrigation system for me – manual labor all the way. Anyway, setting up the system wasn’t easy, but with several PCVs, some of the Danish health workers & help from some of the Kupulima farmers, we finished it all in one day. According to David, the most important things to remember to do with a drip irrigation system are to flush out the system & to check the filter. Word to the wise, do exactly that. Because as soon as we flushed out the system by letting the water run through the pipes & tubing that we just set up, there were clumps of reddish-brown sediment that poured out & then the water stopped flowing entirely. Hmm that’s strange everyone thought…no one turned off the pump. “Let’s check the filter!” exclaimed Jordan (my third closest neighbor located about an hour south of Tumu), acting all happy because he remembered what David had instructed us. He then turned the control valve to stop the water flow, in case it started up again while checking the filter, when everyone heard the loudest CRUNCH. Well, I don’t really know how many mice were in the tubes or if they truly were blind, but I do know that they were dumb enough to crawl through our drip irrigation system because all of them died that day. Pictures shown below - just in case anyone was interested. In the end, we finished flushing out the system, including the mice guts, & we were finally able to watch water dripping out of the holes in the tubing. Then we planted some cucumber seeds & snap peas. Not too bad for a day’s work. As for a sports update, CONGRATS GIANTS! And congrats to my dad & brother for winning the Super Bowl pool final score box = ) I wish I was there to celebrate with all of you (family & family friends) back home at the Super Bowl party, but I’m sure everyone had plentyyy of fun without me haha especially my cousin Nick that I’m sure was jumping up & down screaming his head off once the Giants won. Miss all of you & hope you ate some hot wings for me. And for other football news, I’ve also been watching Ghana play football (or our American soccer) in all of its matches in the African Cup of Nations on the TV in my NGO’s guesthouse. Their most recent game was playing against Tunisia in the quarterfinals & Ghana won 2-1, but their final goal was in OT & they were really lucky that they even got it. “It’s not easy oh!” all of the Ghanaians will say - & don’t forget the “oh” or you won’t be talking like a true Ghanaian. Ghana took a shot on goal & the Tunisian goalie deflected the ball rather than holding it, so a Ghanaian forward was there to easily tap it in. Luck, pure luck. Ghana has some good players, but as a team, they aren’t cohesive. I just hope that Ghana won’t get creamed by Zambia on Wednesday. Oh, & I’m sick again. I think it’s a combination of heat exhaustion, eating unfamiliar Ghanaian food & overworking myself – but my NGO says it’s malaria. Then again, as soon as someone is sick in Ghana, the locals always say it’s malaria. Chissà? (in Italiano: “Who knows?”) But it gave Jonas (because he got sick the same exact time that I did..as well as half our guesthouse staff. weird.) & I an excuse to hang around & watch movies. One of the movies that we watched was 127 Hours & although that was the third or fourth time I watched it, it still reminds me of how important it is to cherish the people I care about in life. I mean, you never know what can suddenly happen to you, your family, friends, acquaintances, that really nice person that you just met on the subway - okay, well maybe not that person, they were probably a creeper – but really, the list is endless. So don’t end on a bad note with people & no matter how independent you might want to be, keep in touch with those that you care about. Whether it’s a relationship among family members, between a husband & wife, boyfriend & girlfriend, you & Joe Shmo down the street…keeping relationships are hard – they’re not meant to be easy. People always make the excuse, “I don’t have the time,” but then make the time. I thought that I would have so much down time here in Ghana, but since I’ve been living with my work, I’ve been working nonstop & see where that got me? Sick in bed. So make the time to call that person you didn’t call back yet, tell the ones you love that you love them, write to your friend who now lives on a different continent because it will make her the happiest girl around (just a little plug on my part haha), etc. It’s not too late to change your ways.

Love from miles away,Rachel Zi le keng chie & I. The cutest puppy in town. A few years ago, a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer had built a playground in Tumu, but when he left, the playground shut down. Until I walked passed the entrance did I see that some kids had broken the door open & were playing inside.

Dartmouth and the Peace Corps: 50 Years of Partnership

Created by Jim Brown, senior lecturer in the Department of Film and Media Studies, this documentary chronicles the relationship between Dartmouth and the Peace Corps over the past fifty years. Through stories of their service, returned volunteers from each decade reflect on what their experiences have meant to them personally and for their careers. The film features interviews with Dartmouth alumni, including Charles Dey '52, who was instrumental in bringing the Peace Corps to campus as associate dean in 1961 and served himself as volunteer coordinator in the Phillipines in 1962, as well as distinguised Dartmouth professor Dr. John Rassias, creator of the Rassias method of language teaching. From: Dartmouth Views: 37 0 ratings Time: 48:56 More in Education

Ghana was, at first, this great mystery. There were parts of my life that I recognized as being like my life in New York but only in a whisper, with minimal similarity. Ghana felt like a place I was visiting and I felt like a tourist.  I didn’t feel settled, my house didn’t feel like my own [...]

So far Philadelphia has been good. Not too cold for being in the dead of winter. It’s about 40° F during the nights. Considering I only brought a sweatshirt, I feel like I lucked out. Last night some of the early arrivals met up and watched the Super Bowl at the Holiday Inn bar. Then [...]

I am so impressed with the life experiences and attitudes of my fellow Peace Corps trainees.  Some examples of their foreign travel experience: Studied in Italy for four months A year in Russia as a Rotary exchange student Month-long trip to … Continue reading →