It has been a year and I am no longer in Ghana. But, I felt this video would be a good last post on this blog. In August, 2009, I married another teacher from the deaf school. We had a big Ghanaian wedding and I tried my best to infuse some American aspects that had meaning for me. My entire immediate family was able to attend and even an uncle and two cousins. It was an event I will never forget.

A few months after our wedding I was forced to leave Peace Corps due to returned sickness and the illness of my grandmother. Nash was able to get his visa a few months later and join me in the USA. We are now both working and attending school, living in a complete role reversal. Now, I am the native and he is doing his best to navigate this foreign culture in America.

You never know where life is going to take you.

I do my best to keep my mind open.

Sometimes the best things are found in the unplanned and unknown.

I touched Barack Obama.

Sigh.

We shook hands.

He looked at me.

He said, "Kari Ann Benge, You are doing a great job."

Thats a lie.

He didn't insert my name.

But, he DID tell me I was doing a great job! :)

Then I shook Michelle Obama's hand.

And she said, "I hope you're ready, you're next!"

I wasn't able to utter a single word back to either of them.

The cat had my tongue.

This is what went on in my head- Obama is right in front of me, holyshit. Obama is shaking my hand, holyshit. Obama is looking right at me and smiling, holyshit. Obama just told me I'm doing a great job, holyshit. I just touched Barack Obama, holyshit. Michelle Obama is coming next, holyshit. She's squeezing my hand like we're good friends, holyshit. She's grinning and telling me I'm next, holyshit. What does that mean, I'm next? I just shook hands with Barack and Michelle Obama, holyshit. That was Barack Obama. He was here. I not only got to see him, he talked about how amazing Ghana is, and I shook his hand. Holyshit. Holyshit. Holyshit.

Sigh.

After months of nothing, we got the heads up on Thursday that everyone was invited to the departure ceremony for the Obama's at the Accra airport. I piled in with all the PCTrainees Sunday morning and bumped on down to Accra. By 2 we met up with all the other PCVs in Ghana at the US Embassy, got a nifty VIP ticket and were loaded into a bunch of stc buses that had special clearence to go to the airport (all the roads within a 3 mile radius of the airport were closed.) We were ushered past hundreds of police, military, and secret service and deposited in a little fenced in area directly in front of a podium on the main runway.

Luckily I was one of the first 15 people to enter this corral. So I walked over to the fence directly in front of the podium. And didn't move for 5 hours.

Totally worth it.

Obama gave an amazing speech.

And I got to touch him.

Sigh.

April brought mango season. Immense umbrellas of foilage groan heavily with ripe, yellow and green fruit swinging on vines in the breeze. I am always reminded of free swinging testicles bursting with juice. I can't help but chuckle as children emerge with long poles and take swings at these pinatas. One almost feels bad for the tree- his reproductive parts being prime targets for stick weilding boys and girls.

But once you get a taste of fresh mango juice all the feelings of concern for the tree vaporize.The secret that westerners don't know is that the sweetest mangos- the local ones, small and yellow aren't to be eater. They are to be sipped. You squeeze and suck all the syrup leaving behind the skin, pulp and pith. But noone explained this to me. I had to figure out my method of consumption by trial and error.

The local mango should come with a manual. As a westerner, when I see a ripe fruit, my saliva starts flowing at the thought of that first juicy bite. Apples, pears, peaches, plums. Even tomatoes. In the summers I used to sneak tomatoes from the neighbor's- I'd sit in the garden under the shade of the vines and bite right into the tomato's flesh like an apple- Juice and seeds running down my cheeks and overalls. Pure tomatoey heaven. But mangos... I was totally unprepared.

My first experience was full of promise- a whole bucket for the two of us to split. We washed off the dirt and stickyness and piled them into a mango pyramid. A particular one caught my eye- it was especially plump and had a nice even color. With squinched eyes and gaping mouth, I dove in, sending juice squirting to the four corners of the earth. Then, slowly my eyes opened, I fell from heaven and landed teeth first in a jungle of strong, stringy mango fibers. Every crevice of my teeth was packed full of mango floss, turning my mouth into a malady of tooth rearranging fur. Never bite into the local mangos! Since that first bite I have slowly perfected my no-teeth juice extraction technique.

Damba Festival.

Celebration of the birth of Mohammed (the founder of Islam).

Originally a traditional festival celebrating something else, but everyone forgets what. :)

The big event is when the chiefs of the different areas of Tamale parade on horses under spinning umbrellas to the main chief of Tamale's palace.

Wedding.

Double dose.

Nash and I have decided to marry :) Peace Corps, however, has a whole regimen of hoops for us to jump through. So, at the beginning of break we traveled down to Accra for our marriage interview with the Peace Corps Country Director. Beforehand we have to fill out a whole packet so they can do a background search on Nash to make sure his past doesn't clash with "Peace Corps Policy." He's a good one, so I'm not worried :) Our interview was interesting, the CD asked us the normal things about how we met, what our plans were, and very seriously he said, "Now Nash, you know it's cold in the US. How are you going to handle that?" Haha, Nash just replied, "Well, I guess I'll buy a coat!"

While we were in Accra, Nash's uncle took us to a wedding with his family. It was interesting! They had gifts and minerals and food for all the guests, but my favorite part was the bride's dress. Utterly amazing.

Clay Fun

Fellow PCV, Jess Bowen, and I took a weekend trip up to Sirigu where there is a massive amount of local pottery produced. I was especially interested in the local way of firing. I have found a clay deposit dear the Deaf School and want to teach the kids the traditional way people make potter in this region. Bonfire style. And wonderfully simple :)


Dry season is finally on its way out. Woo Hoo! You can almost measure it by the amount of water that my body needs has reduced drastically. During Feb. and early March I was drinking about 6-7 Nalgenes a day. Quick, how many gallons is that? I want to guess 2 or 3? Anyway, now I'm down to about 4. Much easier. It was work forcing down that much water! My filter never had a moment's rest. I do have a nice filter though. Peace Corps provides us with one that holds about 144 oz. It uses "candles" to filter the water- 2 ceramic cylanders with sand inside. I store water in a 40 gal plastic barrel that goes for everything- bathing, dishes, washing clothes, drinking...Savelugu Deaf has no natural water. Carter Center drilled some wells a few years ago but those only have water during the rainy season. No help. Around campus there are various tanks- plastic, cement, metal that organizations have donated to store water. So, 3 other teachers and I share a cement one. We pay for a water tanker to come fill it ($8 per tanker, which is somehow expensive) So sometimes they can't afford it and I'm on my own to figure water out... Oh water.

I'm lucky though. Dry season is much shorter than it used to be. In late March it started raining about once a week. I guess just 10 years ago it didn't start until the beginning of June. Global Warming?

Speaking of global warming- Yesterday, a teacher sat me down and said, "Kari, tell me everything you know about global warming." How do you begin to answer that? I just laughed and said I would try. We talked for awhile and ended up with a cause/effect flow chart that looked like this:

Pollution/Smog -> Holes in Ozone/ blanket of smog in atomosphere -> harmful rays more acces to Earth/ trapping of heat -> general warming of Earth -> ice caps to melt more than normal -> oceans' rise -> ocean currents change -> jet streams in air change -> ?lots of theories about what next? ice age?

How did I do? Of course I kept saying, "I'm not a scientist!" I also explained how right now we are in the ice caps melting phase. The stuff beyond that is speculation. Some people say it is all speculation.

The funny part is, after all that, the guy says, "Good! Now I can go to Denmark!" Haha, apparently there is a group choosing people to go to a global warming seminar in Denmark. The guy just wants to go to Denmark... Oh well...


Saying goodbye to mom and dad was different this time. It wasn’t leaving safety and going off into the unknown. Don’t get me wrong. It was sad. But this time it was leaving one family and heading towards another. We said our goodbyes with no tears, knowing it wouldn’t be long before we’d meet again.

Some time on a plane.

And there I was. Plopped down in the same Ghana I’d left 8 months earlier. The same wall of heat stepping off the plane. The same African-accented English. The same smells of rich spices mixed with wafting garbage. Cars honking, drivers yelling out destinations in the distance. Curious eyes watching me, the foreign siliminga. And then there was Nash. The best constant of all. He had come the 12 hours from Tamale to meet me at the airport. I didn’t see him at first. He had talked the guards into letting him into the passenger area. Separate from the crowd, there was his lone figure. Grinning and waving. Suddenly I hadn’t been gone 8 months at all. Time rewound and Ghana picked up right where it had left off.

Peace Corps also met me at the airport. After a quick reunion with Nash and a plan to meet later, they whisked me off to headquarters. I spent the morning making the rounds. A long update with the medical officer. Introduction to the new Country Director. Figuring out paperwork with the finance lady. And Joe B, my boss and Ghanaian father. We spent a long time talking about all that had happened since I left and I introduced him to Nash. He was smiling and laughing and told Nash that if Nash ever hurt me, he would personally go and hunt Nash down. Oh Joe b… haha, I missed him 

Some Accra greetings- Nash’s cousin, Majeed and sister, a very pregnant Rahma.

A 12 hour STC bus ride.

TAMALE. A sigh of relief. I’m home. Things are mostly the same. The bustling market. Line taxis. The calmness of the Dagomba people. The dry heat.

SAVEDEAF. Savelugu School for the Deaf. Bonyeli. Kids grow an amazing amount in one year. There is a noticeable difference in the upper primary kids. I have missed this place. Most of my sign language is not forgotten- or just needs a quick reminder. No one told the students I was coming back. The first afternoon I walked through campus, jaws were dropping all over the place and my “K” sign name was flying around. Art class had ceased in my absence. Students couldn’t believe it was really me. It’s an amazing feeling to have everyone as happy to see me as I am to see them. Warm fuzzies all around.

I spent most of the first week going back and forth from Bonyeli to Tamale. Getting my house back in working order, arranged, stocked with food and water. Catching up with the teacher’s families next door. Visiting Nash’s family. Brushing up on the little- very little- Dagbani I know. It was wonderful seeing everyone again. Nash’s sisters especially. They were so happy.

I started teaching the next week. We did clay in all the classes. Messy, but fun. I had gotten some from a nearby village pond before I left. It was actually still soft enough to use. We did shapes and things like cylinder/cube/pyramid. They loved it. I had forgotten how excited kids are to learn here, over the littlest things. Then they made whatever they wanted for the last half. The boys would all do motos and cell phones and the girls would make pounding basins and babies.

This last week Nash’s father has been sick in the hospital. Luckily he has turned around and is fine now. It has been interesting watching the process. I keep trying to ask what the doctors are saying. But no one seems to know. Family isn’t allowed to speak with the doctors. The doctors order tests and prescribe meds. But no one knows why. Similar to the USA, doctors are extremely overloaded with a surplus of patients. Yet there isn’t anyone to make sure things are correct. The way a family member might in the USA. The care of each patient is also very different here. The family is in charge of all aspects. Food. Water. Fans. Sheets. Baths. Health Insurance, if the patient has it. Bribing if they don’t. A family member is expected to be present 24 hours a day to be tending to the patient’s needs. When someone is admitted for more than a few days, it is a huge hassle for the family. I admire Nash. He has been bearing the brunt of this burden the past week.

And I’m back in the swing of things. Normal life in Northern Ghana has commenced.


Almost an entire year has gone by since I last wrote something. Here's the short and sweet:

In January, I contracted viral Meningitis (diagnosed later) and it relapsed several times and brought on a load of complications in my body. I fought it out and did pretty well, if I do say so myself, considering I was 12 hours from a decent hospital and shriveling in Ghana's 140 deg. hot season. However, the decision to medevac me to Washington DC was finally reached in June.

It was a very odd way to return to the USA. I was a mess of emotions from not knowing what was happening to me (still didn't know yet it had been everything had been related and Meningitis had caused it). And I was suddenly confronted with all these things I hadn't seen in an entire year: an endless supply of water, ice cream, a dishwasher!, a laundry machine!, a supermarket with anything I could want, air conditioning, a mattress with springs, sidewalks, fast internet, grapes, loads of white people, roomy cars, clean air... I could go on and on. My parents came and met me at the airport. It was wonderful to see them, I hadn't seen my dad in a year! The next month was spent seeing doctors and specialists and PCMOs. In the end I was given no choice but to be Medically Separated and give myself some time to heal.

And I was plopped back in Ohio. I hadn't lived at home since high school! After 7 months of doing little things here and there: a ghana month with the church youth group, odd jobs for my mom's business, visiting friends and family, talking to Nash every day on Skype, playing with the dogs.... Peace Corps finally medically cleared me to go back! Whoo Hoo!

Here I come Savelugu, you haven't gotten rid of me so easily!

I can't wait to see everyone. So many things have happened in my absence.

The Drumming and Dancing Troupe has gotten up and off the ground. We were about to give it a start before I left, 5 drums were bought, an instructor agreed to teach, and a few lessons were had. By this time the Troupe has been practicing for 2 full quarters, the deaf students are becoming dancing whizes (i've seen video), another sponsor has been found-a Dutch group who has provided a moto for the instructor to ride to the school, has organized the school's weaving/sewing class to produce original costumes for the dancers, and is even planning to found a non-profit organization that will support and expand the troupe. The first official performance is to be at a local restaurant this Friday (Jan. 30). I'm sad I won't be there to see it, but I'm planning to arrive before the second one!

My sister, Sara, spent 6 weeks in Savelugu. The plan was for her to stay with me and bike to an internship at the local hospital every day. However, I was medevac-ed shortly before she was scheduled to arrive. We were heartbroken that we weren't going to be able to spend those weeks together. Sara made the decision to go ahead with it without me. Nash picked her up in Accra, and my good friend and fellow PCV, Alicia, spent the first week with Sara in my house to help her get acclimated. Despite my absence, everything actually worked out. Sara spent her days at the hospital getting all kinds of experience with malnourished babies, burn victims, and Malaria. Also, she actually contracted Malaria which gave everyone at home a scare. In the afternoons she helped the Dance Troupe practice, often drumming or helping with dance moves. When she finally returned home, we talked for hours about all the different people she had met. It is interesting, without me there, she had a completely different experience, making/visiting her own set of friends at the hospital.

And let's not forget: BARACK OBAMA is our new president!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With a wonderful plan to double the size of the Peace Corps. Get excited.

Lunchtime at Savelugu School for the Deaf




Savelugu Market

Kakum National Park- Trip with Mom


The past couple of months have been chocked FULL! Heres the rundown:

Beginning of Feb.

I was laid flat on my bad sick for the first time in my memory. I told my mom it felt like there was a migraine in my whole body. Boo. To make a long story short, I had some recurring headaches/spineaches and we still don't know the cause. However despite my many random diagnoses (Menangitis, Malaria, Migraines, Multiple Sclerosis... Being Posessed-j/k not one actually said that one) the whole thing just kinda stopped. So, hopefully it won't come back and thank you everyone at home for being so worried, it made me feel loved:)

Feb. 11-16

In Service Training. We art people got to stay for a few days at a fancy hotel in Kumasi complete with a/c and a swimming pool. What more could you ask for? We spent our days discussing our experience thus-far and learning fun new crafts- screen printing, glass bead making, and batik.

Feb. 18

My first VISITORS! Mom and my professor Gretchen arrived ready to take on Africa. We spent the first night in Accra with Nash's brother Fuzi. Cuddled together in a spare room, we did our best to stay cool in the southern humidity. The next day was a rest day-Gretchen and the driver went exploring Accra for good picture opportunities of market ladies, and mom and I went to the Peace Corps Office to do some small small. We all met up, headed to the beach and had some Obruni food for dinner. Yum Yum. The next morning we caught the bus straight to Tamale-12 hours. The one plus side is getting to watch the change in scenery as you move north-tropical to forest to bush to savannah to burnt blackness with a few trees sticking out. Well that is a slight exaggeration, but by the time you get to Tamale it is looking pretty crisp from all the grass burning.

After a warm welcome from Nash, the first of many rounds of tea, and a day touring the markets of Tamale- we finally arrive at my site. Tah Daaah!! We make the rounds, greeting everyone and then since i don't teach fridays just hung out at my house and took a much needed break from African life under the fan.

We spent the weekend in Tamale where Nash had figured out some great places for Gretchen to see how local art forms are processed. We went to a leather "factory" which looked more like a slaughter grounds with bloody hides tacked to dry everywhere- it was interesting to see the local processes though, 1-soak hide in ashes and water to remove hair 2-soak in melons and water to counteract the acidity of the ashes 3-combine ashes and pounded guinea corn stalk to produce redish dye and soak hide in that 4-pin to dry 5-cut into sandals or purse or wallet

We also went to see a potter make her pots which was also done in a completely local, simple way. 1-She mixed her clay with the sand of already firred clay to make it strong 2-She formed some thick coils about a foot long and a circle for the base. 3-she didn't place the coils around for the walls, but twisted them against her palm while rotating after each twist/wall segment-i had never seen it done this way before 4-after finished pot has dried she would turn upside down in a cleared area and cover with wood and grasses and just light it for the firing process 5-finished

For the next week we start in on a big paper mache project that encompasses all 6 of my classes. In preparation for the drumming and dancing team, we decide to build 3 larger than life drums covered in scraps of the colorful traditional fabric. After each class does their part of the drum, we work on understanding rhythm and by the end of the class are using real drums to pound out a beat and everyone dances. It was great fun :)

Towards the end of the week Gretchen decided to strike out on her own and took a weekend trip to Bolga to see the pottery and painted houses before heading down to accra for her flight. It was sad to see her go, but we ended well with a feast of yams and guinea fowl at the rooftop restaurant.

Mom and I finished up classes and therapy sessions(she had developed a little following amongst the kids with some physical disabilities) and then we followed Gretchens footprints and went north to bolga for the weekend with Nash and his friend Bismark. They bought some lap drums for the school and the we all went to see the crocodiles- this small village, Paga, is set near ponds chocked full of crocodiles. The legend is that each crocodile harbors the soul of one of the villagers. so to kill a crocodile is like murdering a person. so they take you down to the water with a chicken to feed the crocodiles, when the crocs hear the chicken squwaking they come out of the water. about 4 came to see us. then you can touch them! it was weird. there was one croc though that kept coming at me. i think he thought my legs were chicken. our guide would hit him on the nose with a stick to make him stop. i didnt' take any chances though, i hid behind nash :)

Then we took an extremely hot and cramped tro ride back to Bonyeli(the local name for the School for the deaf at Savelugu) ready for another week of classes and therapy sessions. Our normal routine was to sit outside in the morning and watch the neighbor teacher's kids head off to school on their bikes-they aren't deaf. Then head over to school around 8:30. If it was a monday or wednesday we would attend sign language classes and eat with the teachers after school was out. Then head back and try to make it through the heat of the afternoon. Moms normal position was laid out on the cement floor with an ice pack on her belly. Then around 5ish we'd go sit outside and play with the neighbors and watch the deaf kids play soccer. We made dinner and then read or chatted with other teachers in the evening. It's a simple life. For our third weekend Mom, Nash and I headed to Mole National Park. It was really cool, the hotel is spread along the edge of a steep hill overlooking the area's main waterhole. So every day elephants, monkeys, Kob deer, crocodiles and tons of birds come to dance around in the water. We took an early morning hike down around the grassland/waterhole area and saw all those animals up close and personal. It was really surreal. Then the rest of the afternoon while we were hanging by the swimming pool, you could just look down and see elephants in their natural habitat. It was sweet.

We spent mom's last week at my site pretty much the same way as the previous one. It was nice that we had plenty of down time for her to get a feel of what my day to day life is like. On thursday we packed up and mom said her goodbyes for us to embark on the last leg of her Africa journey. First we headed to the monkey sanctuary. We had a great guide who knew a lot about the vegetation and had all kinds of interesting comments about things-for instance. we were watching a group of colobus monkeys in a tree when the male started into this siren-like roaring and racing in circles around the tree. according to our guide that means that it will rain in the next three days and if no rain comes then a young person will die! yikes! we stayed 2 nights in Nkwansa in the greatest guesthouse, Hand in Hand Community, it was on the campus of a small community for the mentally/physically disabled orphans. It was really neat how they had the whole thing set up into familys of 3 with a full-time mother/caretaker. The grounds were kept extremely clean and there were all kinds of activities for the kids scheduled throughout the day-beadmaking, weaving, swimming, drumming, movies. I was really impressed. They use the guesthouse, then as a means of supporting themselves.

We left for Kumasi and just stayed a night there on the way to Cape Coast. It was fun though because my friend Jess (who also teaches art at a deaf school near Kumasi) was coming through town with her mom who had also come to visit. So the four of us met for a couple of hours for a beer and compared notes on travel and airplane rides and deaf schools. It was fun meeting her mom, I feel like you always know people a little better after meeting the person who raised them :)

Cape Coast was next on the list-we stayed with my friend tim who is another deaf art teacher and got to see his school and where he lives. They have really great facilities there. Mom and I went to the Elmina Slave castle that afternoon and toured the place that held slaves to be shipped and sold in the americas. It was eerie and sad. The castle itself was white and simple and beautiful, but then it was horrifying to hear the stories and history of what went on there.

Dinner on the beach with Tim and up early the next morning to see the rainforest at Kakum National Park. We took a hike up to the canopy walk where we got to stroll on rope bridges through the upper canopy. My game was to see if I could walk without holding the ropes. Mom made me take all the pictures during that part so she could hold on tightly :) Then an hour hike after that where we saw ebony trees, massive millipedes, tarzan vines, and butterflies.

And that was it. (I started getting sad at this point) We headed to accra and treated ourselves to a really nice hotel with a hot shower, a/c, giant swimming pool and pizza! We spent 2 full days relaxing by the pool and reading.

March 20

I wasn't allowed to go into the airport with mom, so we stood outside and cried and hugged while Ghanaians looked at us like we were crazy. The whole thing was somehow perfect. Nothing went wrong, mom didn't get sick, everyone loved meeting her....all was amazing. It will be wonderful to be able to tell about whats going on in my life now and have someone at home understand. It's such a completely different world here, you can't begin to understand it until you come and spend time and meet the people. There are a few things to see, but what makes Ghana Ghana is the people.


The end of Winter Break. It has now been almost a month and a half of no classes. Looong. The interesting things that have happened during the interim are: Christmas Travels, visiting friends, the Fire Festival and the onset of Harmatan.

Christmas- my first one not celebrated with the Benges. Sad day-o. A group of us decided that the best way to cope with missing family on Christmas was to head to the beach.  So I made my way down to meet up with 7 other PCVs at a place called Green Turtle near Takoradi. We had wonderful food and spent most of our time lying on the beach. One of the other guests organized a sandcastle building contest and 3 of us decided to form a team. While everyone else was building traditional sandcastles we got festive and made giant sleigh in which Jesse posed as Santa and Alison, Jess, Rachel, Sarah, David and myself were reindeer. It turned out pretty amazing I'd say  They awarded us the drama award. Christmas Eve was the highlight of the 5 days at Green Turtle. After a deliciously American dinner of salad, potatoes and fish, a troupe of drummers and dancers came and danced around a giant bonfire on the beach. I was hoping everyone would join in the dancing, but noone did, so finally I did all by myself and the kids had a good time trying to teach me all the different moves. They also got a kick out of the sparklers Jesse brought, twirling them while then danced. Christmas Day we exchanged small gifts and just relaxed. Jess's sister Rachel had come to visit for Christmas and was amazing and brought some Christmas presents from Mom and Dad in her luggage for me. So we all enjoyed same dried fruit and dark chocolate. Yum Yum.

I got back to Tamale just before New Years. Nash and his brother and I celebrated by going to a local roof restaurant and watching people throwing fireworks at each other down on the street. I had my guard up all night tho, because every once in awhile someone would toss one up to where we were, making us jump. 

Jess came to the north for a week after her sister left. I had been talking about painting a mural on my wall for awhile but hadn't gotten around to it, so we finally made it happen! It's only halfway done now, but is already amazing. We painted a giant tree with all kinds of oddities intertwined- fish being the main thing so far, but more will be added soon. Was fun having her stay though, too bad we can't double up at sites!

FIRE FESTIVAL! Friday Jan. 18th. Probably one of the most interesting things I have experienced so far here in Ghana. This is a festival unique to the north. 7 days after the first sighting of the new moon, Dagombas gather to reenact the story of a prince who was lost in the woods and the whole village went into the woods and set a tree on fire so the prince could find his way home. I came to Tamale to celebrate it with Nash's family in their area of town-Hilltop. Around 7 people started gathering, dancing to drums and getting pumped up. Many of the young guys were dressed up crazy- some like warriors, some like women, and some in just plain ridiculousness. Then after everyone made their way to the main street they lit their torches and began marching towards a designated tree. It was a wild parade of dancing, chanting, waving machetes and setting everything in sight on fire. The chants were ridiculous- some examples are: "If you don't have a wife, go have sex with a cat" and "Whoever is the strongest has the least faults". Hah. Once they reached the tree everyone threw their torches on it, broke off a limb of the tree and paraded back to the starting area. They did this 4 times, each one taking a different path. I loved it. For the most part I stayed on the edges away from the flying fire. But went in the middle for the second march for awhile and danced with a torch someone gave me. The night was lovely. It went late. We didn't return to the house until almost midnight.

So those are the highlights of my break. The weather has changed to Harmatan Season. This means that the wind blows down off the Sahara and makes everything extremely dry. Dust blows everywhere, coats everything and turns my boogers black. The nights are very cold. I had to buy a blanket in town even. Everyone is always asking how I'm coping with the weather. I tell them that I love the cold but that I could do without the dust!

I have officially finished my first quarter of teaching!

December 11th will be my 6 month mark from arriving in Ghana. Time is an odd thing. I seem to have been here forever and just arrived at the same time. While I don't feel as if I have accomplished a significant amount yet, I am happy with the roots I am putting down by getting to know the other teachers and students well and discovering how I can best help the school help themselves. Some projects that I have underway in addition to teaching are:

> an ArtShow that will happen in May 2008 in which the PCV's teaching art across Ghana will bring 2 students each to Tamale for a week long exhibition/traditional craft workshop

> a Drum/Dance Troupe fundraiser to buy the drums necesesary for beginning a Team at the Deaf School, which in the future should be able to perform at local and national events and hopefully provide a method for the school to have some petty cash- as of now the depend entirely on NGO's for supplies and so have no actual cash available for small purchases

> a roadside art stand where students can sell functional artwork and not only earn some small money but also learn about running a small business

>bringing in books to fill the new library space that are not from the 50s

So we will see how things fall into place over the next couple of quarters. Everything progresses so slowly here that there is only so much action one can take before being forced to sit back and watch things unfold.

Here is some of the random artwork I have been producing...they are all small, I might or might not make some of the on a large scale, what do you think? Any particular ones?

5:00 am. Usually I wake up for the first time about now because I have to pee. Sometimes I try to roll over and hold out, cuz I dont feel like walking outside to bare my ass in the mosquito infested outhouse. But if thats not possible, which usually its not, I get up, grab my windup flashlight, wrap a 2-yard around me like a towel-its usually too hot to sleep clothed, slip into my charlies (flip flops) which i keep by the door, and truck outside. You have to be careful not to step on the toads- they are everywhere, usually i end up kicking one or two accidently. After taking care of my business I greet whoever else is up on my way back (everyone wakes up at about this time) and go fall back into bed.

7:00 am. Rebecca, my small girl who lives next door and is the daughter of another teacher, bangs loudly on my door and yells my name. Most of the time I'm still asleep and if not am definitely still in bed- my favorite thing is to just lay in bed and think about things for awhile before getting up in the morning, nothing in particular, just whatever comes into my head. Rebecca is wanting the bottles of water she had stashed in my freezer of my small square fridge the night before so she can take them to school for her and her sister. After this I stay up and putter around, I either read or take a bucket bath or cook breakfast or add to whatever painting i'm working on or do some small laundry (this consists of a bucket and bar of soap and my knuckles.)

8:00 am. I walk across the soccer field which also doubles as pasture for the school's herds of goats and sheep. I cut over to the main part of campus where they are having morning assembly- its interesting because the teachers usually don't do anything, they just observe, and the prefects take care of all the pledges and announcements and lost and found. All the students stand in a semi circle around the flag pole in lines according to their class and height- JSS on the left, shortest in the front. I always wave to Zaratu, she is my other small girl, she is in JSS and always at the front because she is short. Then, I go to the headmistress's office to sign in and greet all the other teachers who are coming in. I don't think a day goes by when I don't greet every single one of them. I kind of like all the greeting, because it makes you feel like people care, and that way there isn't anyone whom you don't talk to at all.

8:45 I head over to the art building to make sure everything is in order for classes. I brief Shahad on what we're doing that day. Shahad is the teacher who is assigned to be my partner. Except it is more like I plan everything and run most of the lesson and he kind of helps out, which is fine because i'm not very good at group planning.

8:55 Class starts- this is my schedule:

Mon P1 8:55-10:10 and P2 11:30-12:45 Jss 7:30-8

Tues P5 8:55-10:10 and P6 12:10-12:45 Jss 7:30-8

Wed P6 8:55-10:10 and P5 12:10-12:45 Jss 7:30-8

Thrus P4 8:55-10:10 and P3 11:30-12:45 Jss 7:30-8

Fri- free

i'm pretty happy with it :) "P" just means primary and is equivelant to elementary of the same numbers... although the ages are all over the place, i have a 21 year old in my P6 class. crazy. they were all excited when i took all their pictures (5 & 6) and am going to print them at the suboffice so that they can make picasso style portraits of themselves. i also had them write "stories" about themselves to put on the back, which just means they answered some questions like age, # siblings (some where like 18), fathers job (most were farmers), fav subj in school, their fav. game, and what they want to be when they grow up....it was interesting some of their choices for what they want to be. one boy just wants to sell water bags in the market...another boy said he would be a doctor and when another boy told him he coudn't i made sure and told him many times that he could! lol, and another boy said he wanted to be someone on tv. it took me awhile to get them to even understand the question. i don't know if anyone has ever asked them that before, but they got really excited once they understood :)

I havent gotten to do much with my younger kids yet, because most of the class is taken up by going over rules and me getting their names and sign names written down...my rules are:

DO- share art materials, be creative, have fun/smile (this one makes them laugh because the sign for funny is scratching your nose with 2 fingers and the sign for smile is smiling real big and using your fingers to extend out from corners of mouth)

DO NOT- beat each other, come to class late, go in store room....lol, i figure that covers most things

i wrote DO and DO NOT on opposite sides of the board and then they had to choose where each rule went.

The kids are so cute and excited to be in art class. School is really hard for most of them and art class is when they dont have to think as much and they just get to DO. :) My sign language is getting a lot better. I'm usually able to say about anything I want to say. The problem comes when I put things in the order they go in English and not in Sign Language order. Example: English- Use the green pencil to trace your hand. Sign- Hand trace pencil green use. And its always hard for me to understand what they are saying to me. I get lost when i forget a sign and by the time I remember what it is, I have missed the 3 or 4 signs that followed it. They go so fast!

10:10 am. break. If I don't have a meeting to plan something or other I go over and sit in the shade with the other teachers and hang out. Usually its nice because they are speaking English (about half speak Twi and half Dagbani) sometimes they are all talking in Dagbani though, its weird because I can understand random words, but never really know what they are talking about. Sometimes I go back to the house to get water during break. I have developed this thing where if I start getting dehydrated even the tiniest bit, my ears clog and my voice echos in my head. It took me awhile to realize it was correlated with drinking water, i just thought I had some weird wax thing going on that would come and go.

11:30 am. next class

12:25 pm. class is over- usually I go chat with the other teachers for a few and then head back to my house for lunch and a nap. Here is a list of the food items I have that I can make things from: tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, apples, bananas, groundnut paste(peanut butter), yams, eggs, honey, mustard, oats, pasta, flour, sugar, margarine, tomato paste. Period....I've gotten good at getting creative :)

4:00 pm.ish I usually head back over to campus and stroll around or work on some project in the art room and let whoever wants come in and read kids books at a table. They LOVE this. I wish I had more children's books for them to choose from. I don't think they ever really have the opportunity to read any books at all. Let alone a book that isn't for school. The boys love the dinosaur books and are always amazed when I explain how they are real and lived a long long time ago. When I'm ready to go back and tell them to clean up there is always double handed and repeated thank yous. They are such good little students :)

6:00 pm.ish I head back to read or chat with the teacher neighbors who live in the compound next to me. Maybe eat something small for dinner. Do whatever chores need doing with Rebecca or Zara while listening to music turned up loud. Rebecca's favorite is Regina Spektor. Zara just laughs at us dancing to something she can't hear. I hate doing dishes. The way it works is I have two basins, one for soapy, one for rinsing. Then when finished I dump the dirty, soapy water outside and save the rinse water to be the soapy water for tomorrow. Water is scarce though, so I've gotten good at not using any. I probably drink about the same amount as I use for bathing, laundry, and dishes combined.

7:30 pm. JSS art club. I've only had one meeting so far, the others keep having to be put off for different reasons- either there is a thunderstorm or lights out or I have to leave because they are toxic smoking my roof to make the bats and bees who live there leave (thats why i'm at the sub-office this weekend, I had to stay out for a couple days while the fumes subsided) But about 50 kids showed up to the first meeting. I let them look at lots of different pictures of famous artwork I had. The couldn't stop looking! It was great to see them so interested in the different artists, they especially liked frida kahlo and salvador dali and they all thought the mona lisa was mary(mother of jesus). It was hard to explain how noone knows who the Mona Lisa is but that it is one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world and the reason it is so famous is simply because Leo said it was the best thing he did and carried it everywhere with him. Don't forget all this is in sign language.... I tried though. After everyone finally showed up I told how I was going to be teaching batiking in the after school program and how they needed to bring some sketches for the next meeting or else they had to leave. This is my way of weeding out the ones who aren't serious. 50 people is too many! So Monday is the next scheduled meeting and we will see how many actually do the drawings. It could be of anything they want, however they want. Just the effort of them remembering to actually do something and bring it will show me they mean business about learning art.

9:00 pm. I head back across the field home. If I'm tired I go strait to bed. Sometimes I read for awhile and fight all the stupid gnats that come through the screens when I have the light on at night. I take a quick rinse bath-I'm usually too sweaty-sticky from the day to not. I send some texts to peace corps friends to see how they are getting along....then it starts over :)

Shoo-doop :)

SITE:

so I arrived from "traveling" on september 4. school was supposed to start on the 11th. Today is the 28th and, drumroll please, i just taught my first class yesterday! It went well, it was 4th grade and we spent an hour and a half playing a rule game where i had Do and DoNot sections and they had to decide which side the rule went under. Most of the time was spent getting them to understand what each rule means, which was interesting because not only are they still learning sign language, but so am I. But all worked out well and when i showed them the project we'll be doign first they got all excited. (tracing hands with crayons so they overlap, then filling each hand with a different pattern, then looking for new shapes where the different hands overlapped and filling every "shape" with different colors of watercolor. fun fun) what have i been doing with the rest of my time do you ask? well let me tell you. if you'll checkout the list of books on the side of this blog page, youll see a pretty good list for only 3 months (it took me a whole month to get through the first one Wicked, cuz i thought it was boring but wanted to finish) Here is a crazy story: i didn't really sleep last night, one of my students went missing last night. she is only like 4 and is new and in the K class. i guess she had been trying to run away all day and they had tied her to her bed. (which is ridiculous and a seperate issue) and when they untied her to let her go to the bathroom she ran away. the thing that made is really bad is that there wasn't electricity last night- no lights and she is deaf so they can't call for her. and there was a major thunderstorm. they are like walls of water here. scary. they didn't find her until this morning at 8! i felt so bad for her. i think they are going to send her home.

i'm gonna get some fruit and veggies at the market before i go back to site (i'm in tamale now, in savelugu you can only buy bread, tomatoes, onions, rice, yams and beans. period.) i miss fresh things! and dairy...................mmmmmmmmmmm that is the first thing when i get back. i hope i don't go lactose intolerant while i'm here, that would be a very sad day. peace!

Yikes! It's real now. The past month has been packed full!

First I would like everyone to give me a little pat on the back for passing my language test!! Thats right, according to my interviwer I am "intermediate med." level in Dagbani (which also means I barely passed). If you guys will recall my language skills in English are pretty lacking...so I was a little worried about being able to have a 20 min. conversation in Dagbani with a stranger. But luckily I have down how to say "can you repeat please" (labi yeli) and speak slowly please (dim suglo, yelmi bela bela). So i somehow made it through...

Aside from trying to cram language in my head, the last couple weeks of training weren't so bad. The art people got to go and learn traditional crafts, so we practiced Kente Weaving, Batik, Kalabash art, and making glue from kasava. It is interesting going to the shops because there is not only the craftsperson, there are a ton of apprentices who are all in little uniforms to help out. The all got a kick out of watching white people trying to do it and thought it was funny how we kept making things our own way because they have it drilled in to them to do everything a specific copied way.

I don't know what it was that was so draining about training, but I'm glad it's done. Last week I said goodbye to my homestay family and gave them all a crate of minerals for a gift (that means pop- the choices are coke/sprite/orange faunta) and then headed off to the good ol Dery Hotel were we all stayed a couple of nights before swearing in. Swearing In was entertaining...i dont know about fun persay, but definitely interesting. We all were decked out in clothes our families had made for us, some people matched both parents hehe:) And then everyone had to do some sort of presentation in the language they had been learning the past 3 months. Mine was a poem and it went like this: Shikiru, Shikiru, Shikiru - Shikiriu changi viella - A yi chang shikiriu - A ni nya bangsim ni kpem - Dinzugulo, Sokam cham shikiru! > School, School, School - Its good to go to school - If you go to school you will be wise and powerful- So, everyone should go to school!

Quality, I know :)

Swearing in night was a good time. We just danced all night and made merriment :) After that everyone went to their sites! I decided to help my friend Tim move into his site down at Cape Coast and visited a few other people on the way back up...now its time for the real deal. Today I go to site. Get Excited :)

OK so the deal on visiting me >

everyone is welcome!

i have a spare bedroom, so if you start getting on my nerves i can just close you in there for awhile. :) Plan on coming for 2 weeks minimum. Africa is on a much slower pace than America and you're gonna need a lot of time to get into the flow of things. I can't have visitors for the first 3 months of service or the last 3 (Sept. 07-Nov. 07 and June 09-Aug. 09) But I would love to have you and show you around Ghana! Or just be a place to stay while you are on your own journey (you are all capable of this, and i could help "start you off")

here is a good website for some info:

http://goafrica.about.com/od/adventuretravel/a/africaflights.htm

North American Airlines seems to be the way to go, the winter months especially are fairly cheap. Delta also has some cheap flights...

dont forget to get a visa from the ghanaian embassy a few months ahead of time :)

I can’t believe that training is almost over. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda just wanted to stay at site when I went to visit. The prospect of coming back to learn a new language all day long when I suck at speaking in general was not the most thrilling. But now I’m close to the end! Although I am going to miss being close to all the other PCVs. They are good ones.

So my site. It was amazing. I’m pretty much the luckiest person ever.

My headmistress and counterpart came to Techiman (where we are training) 2 weeks ago. We all had a couple of days of workshops where we talked through different common issues that we might have to deal with at site. My headmistress is a really great lady. It was kinda awkward sometimes because neither of us are small talk people, but she is really dedicated to the school. I’ve kinda gathered that this isn’t necessarily the norm. So it is a big relief to be working with someone who will be supportive. On Friday we left early for the north. I didn’t go with them because there wasn’t room, but they did take all my stuff. I decided to take my life up to site and leave it so that I wont have to deal with carrying it around later. (So now I’m just living out of my backpack). Jesse, Brenda, and I rode up separately on a Tro – they are the two who are closest to me from our training group. They are both teaching at sites near Bolga in the Upper East. Jesse is deaf art and Brenda is high school science.

My site- the school campus isn’t right in town, its about 2 km out by itself. My house is right on campus, although kinda away from the main building which is nice, but right next to the staff housing compound so there are always people around. My house is so nice! I feel like its not peace corps or something. It is basically a big rectangle. There is a T down the middle- the top of the T being the living room, and the stem being a hallway, then there are 2 rooms to the right and a kitchen and bath to the left. The kitchen is almost even a proper American kitchen, (without a sink or fridge of course) but there is a gas stove and cupboards which is way more than most ghanaian kitchens. My “bathroom” is literally a place where I can bathe with a bucket. A tile room with a drain in the corner. I was very excited to have one of these all to myself! AND because of that I can make the rule that noone is allowed to pee in there. Everywhere else the bathrooms reek like pee because that’s where people pee. Mine will not be that way. Then I share an out house that is a ways from my house with everyone which is cool. The biggest living related challenge I’m going to have at my site is water. There isn’t any. Right now they collect rainwater which works fine, there is a silo looking thing that we all use. But during the dry season we all have to buy water from a big truck that comes and fills a tank.

The school is great. There are about 150 students from 1st to 8th grade. I will mostly be teaching P1-P6 and then having an art club with the JSS in the evenings. AND! Get ready for this…. I have my own art room!!! Crazy huh?! Not only do I have my own room, but there are some supplies also and big tables! The supplies are mostly left over from what people sent to Sabrina (the girl who I am replacing) but it will be really nice to have something to start with. The only thing I will need to figure out is scissors… they are sort of lacking here in Ghana. The rest of the school is set up sort of campus style. Each building is separate and is an open air structure with a blackboard some wood desks/benches, and a cabinet to store the students notebooks. There aren’t textbooks for the most part, teachers write paragraphs on the board and the students copy it into their notebooks.

So I spent 4 days at my site. The first night I arrived Sabrina was still there, so it was wonderful to be able to ask her my millions of questions. Then she had to go down to Accra for the rest of the time so I had the house to myself. Well kinda. I don’t think I was ever really alone. The girl who lives next door (who’s dad teaches at the school) helped me out with all kinds of things and is my new shadow. She is 12 and goes to the school in town. She wouldn’t let me do any work! She even randomly cooked dinner for me when I was taking a nap one afternoon. Crazy. Its kind of weird letting someone else do things for me. But I have kind of gathered that they really do want to and even are insulted if they are there and you don’t let them do the work. I didn’t cook much in the house though, I mostly went to the headmistress’s house for dinner. It was good to spend time getting to know her, although we are both pretty quiet people, but that was fine, comfortable silence was had  The weekend I spent exploring the school and talking to other teachers and basically getting a feel for things. It was fun, one night there was a football match (soccer) and it was the teachers and students against the alumni who had come in for the 50th reunion of deaf schools in Ghana. It was really interesting, everyone was deaf. So instead of cheering there was lots of running in circles on the sidelines. It was great.

Before coming back to Techiman; Jesse, Brenda and I met up and spent 2 nights and a day at the Peace Corps suboffice in Tamale. We got to know some other PCVs in the area and made some American food and wondered around Tamale for a bit. It was good.

So now its Dagbani, Dagbani Dagbani….. hopefully my next update will be about how I have passed my language test and have moved on to site!

The past week has consisted of lots of contemplation time. I'm beginning to understand that is a MAJOR component of what Peace Corps is. Down time. Free time. Community Integration time. Skill Development time. Insanity Development time.

We returned on Monday to the deaf school where we practice our teaching skills. This time our trainers let us decide how the week's schedule would be arranged, so we decided to pair off and each pair would stay with the same class for a full 3 days (9-12) and then have an art show at the end. Jess and I had the JSS1 (approx. 8th grade). We decided our project would be an accordian book with a comic book-like story inside. The objective being to show time through a series of four pictures. The first day was the hardest. It wasn't until right before the end of the period that the students began to understand the concept of breaking down a "happening" into four steps. This is a classic example of probably the biggest difference between Ghanaian and American schooling. Here, it is rare that students have to come up with original ideas, if ever. Memorization is central. To me, it is actually kind of amazing the extent to which they can memorize (for those of you that dont know, i lack considerably in that area ;) ) Students are used to memorizing portions of text and if, on the test, they have even one word off, it is wrong. So, if that is all you have ever learned. You can imagine how difficult it would be to not simply duplicate a set of pictorial events given by a teacher, but to come up with your own parallel ones. Our examples were things like: seed, green shoot, big plant, dying plant....or egg, chick, hen, dinner...or (this was the full example i made to show the project)Kari goes to Ghana- saying goodbye to family, flying over the ocean, landing in Ghana, teaching art to Ghanaians. The kids got really excited when they figured out that the little cartoon character was me :) The second two days were much smoother, they colored in their drawings and then made covers.

It was really cool to be with the same students for a period of time and able to get to know them and their individual skill levels. It was really exciting when one girl was able to come up with a completely different idea for her story (she did fetching water) and then when one boy was an amazing artist out of nowhere...and i got really attached to one girl who has a lot of developmental problems. She is way behind the other students. For example she never was able to grasp the storyline concept. But I just finally let her draw her ideas and color the way she wanted, then helped a lot with her cover. She was sooooo proud when she was done! It was so cool to see that.

Since we didn't have to spend tons of time on lesson plans, the 6 of us had lots of time to do whatever (we were done at 12 every day). I think it was good practice for what site will be like. A little structure with lots of down time. I have started realizing that you can't really go through Peace Corps without developing little insanities/obsessions or quirks if you will to fill the time:) The PCVs have been telling us stories about some of the more extreme versions...like one guy had some pet snakes and kept goign to the health office with snake bites, they finally told him he had to get rid of the snakes, so he cooked them and ate them. Another girl hadn't been heard from in awhile and so another PCV went to check on her. When the volunteer arrived the girl asked if the volunteer wanted a donut. And the visiting volunteer looked around and the girl's kitchen was filled with donuts in all varying states of decay. Like she had started making donuts for weeks on end and never stopped. Another interesting one is a guy I met. He was a really cool guy too. He had started hunting all his own meat in the jungle (i think with a machete) and was determined to make sure he tried every sort of meat possible.

So what do you think mine is goign to be?? I'm already kind of weird. Hopefully it will just become something random, like my friend Jenny has been writing down every single text she sends and recieves for the last year in a book. And thats like 20+ a day. SO get excited for me. It'll be fine :)

Another thing that might make everyone laugh is that one of the guys in the group informed me last night that when me met me he knew I was in Peace Corps, apparently everyone else is random and you would never expect that they were a PCV....but I on the other hand scream Peace Corps. hehe. oh wellll....

Kari's wish list :)

travel games (scrabble or cards or whatever, i brought nothing)

mind game books....i am starting to realized the mass amount of free time we are going to have

primary art ideas book (one that has lots of natural stuff would be good, but mostly just lots of basic ideas, its hard to think down to that level again)

art supplies!!! (markers, crayons, watercolors, colored pencils, paper, elmers, pens, sharpies)

good tea (i like peppermint!)

candy! nutella?

any randomness is always good:)

so i love working at the deaf school!!!!!!! i have taught 6 different classes now and they are so fun. it is a whole different ballgame. it is a real challenge to come up with something that is the correct ability level that can be taught with the few signs we know and mostly gesture and with hardly any supplies at all. but i love it. the kids are unbelievably excited about art and soo proud of the littlest things. they crave attention and eat it up when you give it to them. one thing i hadn't thought about before that is that most of the deaf students also have other disablities in some form... whatever caused the deafness also affected other functions. also here instead of a child staying at his/her ability level the teachers keep passing them so that they can reach tech. school and learn a skill. which i can see, but at the same time it is odd to have mostly students with an ability level and one way behind. you just sort of encourage and give extra help. i'm really excited though about it all. :)

homestay is also going really well, even though I am hardly ever there. I think i'm getting a really different experience than most, because there really isn't a set family that i live with. i live with the queen mother of the village, her parents, and then a whole host of random people who are distantly related somehow. there is one boy who can speak english really well, so he is my interpreter. the house is arranged in a square with about 9 rooms all facing an inner courtyard. everything happens in the courtyard. washing, cooking, hanging out... i do have my own room which is really nice and have tried my best to make it homey :)

Traveling. Wondering around. Riding. Roaming. Traveling. Following. Looking. Traveling. Traveling. Traveling. That about sums up the past 2 weeks. It’s mind boggling that is has only been 2 weeks since I left home. Feels more like 2 months. It’s nice to think that part is behind me. For a little while anyway.

Leaving was hard. I knew I would cry. But I’m not gonna lie, I sobbed. Haha. When I went to give the security guard my ticket/id I couldn’t talk. I guess that’s why they didn’t confiscate the giant pocket knife I forgot I had in my purse. Oops. I realized it was in there later in Philly when we had to do a security check at a federal building and they made me leave the premises to “dispose” of it. (I put it in a bush and picked it up later.J ) I was only in Philidelphia for 2 days. I think the whole purpose was to test our ability to stay awake. They gave us lots of info we need to know about all the general Peace Corps policies, but yikes! 8 hours straight of that pushes my limits. It was fun getting to know our group though. My group consists of 36 education volunteers who are all in Ghana. There are 6 visual arts educators (me!), about 6 information technology educators and the other two halves are math and science educators. It’s a good group, everyone is mostly 20-30 and has really interesting personalities and backgrounds. A few people had never been out of the country. I can’t imagine my first out of country experience being Africa! They are brave J.

After two eight hour plane rides we arrived! Accra hit me in the face the second I stepped off the plane. I thought the humidity in Ohio could get bad. I knew nothing. Most days here you are just covered in sweat. All the time. All day long. All night long. At home I usually just shower like once every couple days. Here I take a cold shower every morning and every night. And its wonderful. I actually haven’t even bucket bathed yet. Everywhere I’ve been has had a shower.

When we walked out of the airport tons of PCVs (peace corps volunteers) where there screaming and throwing little ketchup packet-sized bags of liquor at us. Haha. It took us a minute to realize that’s what they were! We spent the next couple of days getting introduced to everything. Accra. Peace Corps Headquarters. Tros. Vaccinations. Everyone yelling Abruni Abruni anywhere we went. Ghanaian trainers. Humidity. The American Embassy. The Ministry of Education. More Vaccinations. Fufu. Bantu. Buying food out of the windows of Tros. Cedis. Marriage proposals at the end of every conversation with a man. Humidity. Humidity. Humidity.

After giving us a little taste of everything we were on our own for awhile. Vision Quest. Each trainee was assigned to a PCV somewhere in Ghana and we had to travel on our own to visit them and stay for a few days at their site. I was assigned to visit Sarah. She is a visual arts teacher in the Volta Region. I didn’t get to practice traveling alone though, they assigned Dace, another trainee, to the same site. We never did figure out why they did that. Oh well. So we set off for the Volta Region. The first thing you learn when you are trying to travel in Ghana is that you can’t do it without help from the Ghanaians. There’s not really any maps or road signs, or anything that would help independent travel. The way you go about it is to first ask multiple people how to get to your destination (if someone isn’t sure they will make up something so you have to double check the directions) and sometimes people will just take you. Ghanaians are the friendliest group of people I have ever met in my life and they love Americans. You can’t go anywhere without making friends. If you can’t walk then you flag down a tro by various hand signals and talk to the “mate” to make sure they are going the way you want and hop on. The Tro is unexplainable. It is an experience. Picture really old vans, like from the 70s, with about 20 people squeezed into seats meant for about 15.There is a mate hanging out the side window yelling “AccraAccraAccraAccraAccra” (or wherever the to is headed) and it is flying in and out of traffic. The lines on the road here are only a suggestion. If there is any lines. Or pavement. When there is pavement, it is generally a maze of potholes and dicey edges. There really is no explaining the Tro. It is an experience that everyone should have.

So using these highly evolved methods, Dace and I set off for the top of the Volta Region. Our only hangup was in Kpong when we had to wait 2 hours for the Tro to fill. (if you get a tro at the tro station, they don’t leave until it’s full) Sarah’s village was great. It was pretty small, so everyone knew her and would call out “Ama Sarah” (Ama is her day name, mine is Effia) everywhere we went. It was fun seeing her set-up. She had a little house in which she had her own room and a closed porch area that functioned as kitchen/sitting room and she shared with one of her students who also had a room next to hers. There was an outside shower and outhouse right next door that she shared with her immediate neighbors. We met all Sarah’s Ghanaian friends and another PCV up the road who was there as an environmental volunteer. He had started a nursery in the next town. The chief of Sarah’s village was gone, but we got to meet the chief of Doug’s village and it was this whole ceremony. It was really interesting. The chief and sub-chiefs all sit in a row on their porch and are dressed in traditional wraps. You have to say “ago” and announce yourself before step onto the porch. Then the chief’s linguist will speak (I guess the chief isn’t allowed to speak directly to you, at first anyway) they ask if you are coming in war or peace and joke that if it is war, give them a minute to go back to their houses to get some weapons, some prayers are said, they spill some gin for the ancestors, and then you seal it with a shot. It was all very formal.

After following Sarah around through her daily routines and learning to handwash laundry Dace and I set off for Techiman. 20 hours on the Tro. I don't wish it on any of you :) We found out later that there was a faster way, but we didn't know, so we just did what Sarah said. Oh well. It was really fun arriving in Techiman. It had only been 3/4 days, but it was sooo nice to be among familar faces again and be able to speak english without attempting to put on an African accent (yes i have to do that now, so they can understand me, its funny listening to each other's "ghanaian accents") We spent the 3 days in Techiman doing interviews with the assistant directors and brushing up on our Twi (Tchwi is how you pronounce it) I've gotten the basics down pat: Welcome (Akwaaba), I accept your welcome (Yaa So), How are you (Wo ho te sai), I am fine, and you? (Me ho yay, no on suai?), I am also fine (Menso me ho yaya paaa)...:) and a few other things.

Saturday was the best day of all. We got our site assignments!! It was really fun the way they told us. They drew a giant map of Ghana in the courtyard in chalk and put little X's on the places where our sites were. Then we all stood around the map and they called out who was going where one by one. We danced over to our X and gave a big hug to the trainer who would be in that area. It was great. So my site is...dun dun dun... Safelugu! This is a town that is about 20 min. north of Tamale. Lol, I was one of 2 people in the entire northern region. By the end everyone was grouped together, but I had room to break dance if I wanted. I was a little apprehensive about being all by myself at first, but Tamale is a PC Headquarters, so volunteers will be traveling through my area often. The closest volunteers to me are in small towns in the Upper East Reigon near Bolgatanga. I'm very excited about my site also. I will be replacing a current visual arts deaf educator at the boarding school and will be teaching primary (ages 5-10) and have my own bungalo house with my own bathroom. I'm rollin high-style :)

Now, we have moved on to the "real" part of training. I am living in a small village outside of Techiman with a host family! I am staying with the Queen Mother of the village, her name is Nana Yaa Focia and my new name is Kari Afia Focia. It makes everyone laugh when I introduce myself that way.. Me din de Kari Afia Focia. The peace corps recruited all new villages this year for the homestay, so we are the first white people ever to be living in each of the villages. (or so the villagers say) So what that means is I'm a local celebrity. Everyone wants to talk with me. It takes forever to get anywhere because you have to greet everyone. I kind of enjoy it actually. Although I never know if I am getting my Twi right or not because they laugh at me either way. My current problem is now trying to learn Dagbani (the lauguage I will speak in Tamale) when I use Twi all day in the village. My homestay family is amazing. But that is for the next entry :) Mayko

Its soon. June ninth I'm off. Destination: Accra, Ghana.

There is so much to do before then.

Las Cruces goodbyes. Moving out. Driving across the country. Packing. Eaton goodbyes. Otterbein goodbyes. All these goodbyes. People act as if I'm not coming back. Like I am going off to fight a war. People keep asking if I'm scared or nervous or sad. But, really I'm just excited. To me it feels more like an adventure I'm to embark upon. Everything about it just feels right.

At the moment, there is all this suspense. So many things to wander about:

What will the family I live with during training be like? Will the treat me as an equal?

Are the other volunteers close to my age?

Do I really have to wear close-toed shoes all the time? I love sandals.

Is my hair going to go into dreds from always washing it in a bucket? Will there really only be a bucket for bathing?

Will I need to learn to use a washboard?

Will I be able to use English very often, or will I have to get good at Twi?

Will they teach me sign language at training? I hope so.

Should I take lots of art supplies, or should I just use what is available?

Will there be any chocolate in Ghana?

Will I ever have any alone time?

Is everyone going to ask about the idiocy of the Bush Administration?

What will I miss the most?

What will be the most changed when I come back?

Will I ever come back during the 27 months?

What part of Ghana will I be in? Will there have been a PCV there before me?

Will I be able to get the new Harry Potter book to read this summer?

Will my box of books I'm going to ship before I leave arrive?

Will I want to stay there when my 2 years are up?

Will I be able to handle coming back to the abundance of America?

I feel no hesitation whatsoever about doing this. I have no worries. Life will take care of me. What is supposed to happen, will. I think I have found my life's path. I'm just going to let it carry me.