Yes, in 3 months I too will be making a sandwhich. On August 4th, I plan to be home, so who's up for a sandwich party by the beach?

Last week was my group’s COS conference, during which time we could choose a date to finish our service at our sites. So far, two out of the 24 people in my group decided to stay another year, while most of us signed up to leave during the month of August.

For months I have been indecisive on when would be a good time to leave. On the one hand, I need to get back ASAP to start working and paying off my student loans. Since I plan to teach, and school in the US starts in mid-August, it would seem logical to give myself a week or two of rest and readjusting before I jump right into a new job. On the other hand, leaving early means a rushed goodbye to friends, and of course Otumi. School in Ghana ends July 31, so an early COS would take away from leisure time spent with close friends in town. Leaving just after school ends wouldn’t feel right, and that is certainly not how I want to end my service.

I decided to be realistic and choose the one where I get home with time to rest before I dive back into the working world. The headmaster at my school felt that it was the right thing to do, and it would not have to feel rushed- once I knew a date, everyone in my town would know it too. After the phone call,I went back into the conference room and sealed my fate- Darren Fleischer: COS date August 2-4, 2010.

Of course I had my initial doubts- What about the computer lab and library? Will I be leaving too soon, right when things started rolling? Should I stick around and allow some overlap for a new volunteer if one were to come? We are also getting a new headmaster at the school, and I don’t know if I will get to meet him/her before I leave. So many times I had the urge to change my COS date to a later one, but in the end I felt like it was the right decision. If I stayed another month, I’m sure I would want to extend that another month and so on. I need to go back home.

Yesterday was my first day back at site after 3 weeks of being away for STARS work in Accra and conferences in Ho [Volta Region]. I decided to take a walk into town and greet all the people I haven’t seen while away from site. In retrospect, I should have taken a flashlight, because despite the small size of my town, a Big Greet can take ages. I live far from everyone, so going into town is like going to a pub where all the patrons know you.

The sky was blue and the sun told me it was fivish as I set out on my little Odyssey. On my way to the center of town, I had to stop and check on the progress of our computer lab and library- while attending conferences in Ho, the headmaster and a few others from town would call me and tell me how magnificent the computer lab looked. The building now looks so much better than when I left it 3 weeks ago; it now has windows, wiring, a finished roof, and a look that made it easy to imagine just how amazing it would be when finally complete. I was so impressed, I made up my mind to visit the assembly man on the other end of town to congratulate him on all his hard work.

The sky was a mix of gold and blue when I finally made it to the assembly man’s house. Along the way to his house, I chatted with many other people who happened to be on the main road; one guy insisted that I go to his house to see the remnants of a snake he killed at farm- a python, and from the looks of the dried skin, well over 10 ft. When I got to the assembly man's place, we chatted for a while until I heard thunder approaching, and I got out of there. I've had enough lightning storms for my time here.

Of course, I had to visit the chief before the Big Greet came to an end- not seeing him would be an insult. Unfortunately, my timing was awful, because when I popped in the palace, there was a couple pleading their case to the chief- this can best be described as a scene from “The Godfather”. I didn’t want to interrupt, but he caught sight of me and waved me in while he listened to the wife and husband. So I sat, watching the sky go from gold to black. When the couple was through and said their thank yous and good byes, I gave my greetings, reminding him where I went during the three weeks of my absence. During our conversation, I told him I plan on living in Brooklyn right when I get home, and he said he will be back in the Bronx for a visit in December. He lived in the Bronx for about 15 years, so you could imagine how easy it is to relate with him on how excited I am to live in NY, but at the same time how lonely it will be when not surrounded by all things Ghanaian.

By the time I left the chief’s palace, mostly everyone had gone to their houses. Aside from high altitude white lightning flashes, the sky and everything below it was completely black. No moon shone through the overcast sky, and thousands of lightning bugs made the long, lonely walk back home both eerie and difficult when trying to discern the road from the bush and puddles. Unlike most of the people in my town, navigating the road at night without a flashlight proves difficult for me. And it didn’t help that just an hour ago my friend displayed his +10 foot python skin, fresh from the farm.

The Big Greet drove home just how much I will miss Otumi, and the people I will say goodbye to in less than three months. By now, everyone knows my COS date. Second August. Hearing it from a friends’ mouth makes it more real, like their saying it gives it more form- the hugs, tears, promises of returning and writing and calling.

August still seems so far away, considering my projects in progress- STARS, the almost complete computer lab and library, and of course teaching my boisterous students in our last school term together. But really, all us volunteers know that this next 3 months will go in a flash. How inchoate my ideas were before leaving for Ghana! I never would have imagined how close I would become with my friends and students, and how aweful it would feel to be leaving. As much as Otumi feels like home, it isn’t. I know I couldn’t live here all my life, but I feel so welcomed, and the things I’ve grown so familiar to- going to farm, chatting with an entire town, eating food with random families- will all be lost when I go back to America.

While in Ho, we had a conference for all Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Ghana (there is a little over 130 volunteers in country). Sessions lasted from 8 to 5 for an entire week, but of course when not in session we got to catch up with friends, many of which we haven’t seen in months. Since my group is on its way out, learning about how to implement a project wasn’t what you’d call exciting. Many of the newer volunteers described up-and-coming projects, many of which are AIDS/HIV education related, and I felt impressed about the creativity and Ghanaian partnerships that went into each one. Speaking of creativity, the Peace Corps prom turned out to be a success, the best I’ve been to. I’d write more, but I’ll let the pictures below speak for me.

After the week-long All Vols conference, our group stayed four extra days to attend the COS conference. The COS conference is not only designed to mark the period where we accomplished almost two years of service, but also to discuss things like finding a job, readjusting to life in the US, saying bye to our friends at site, closing projects, continuing our service, and typing our final reports. But never mind all that- for the first time I got to see the music videos to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Telephone. Holyjesusmotherofgodandallthingsgood. The first time many of us saw the videos, we just stared; sometimes we would glance at a friend to see their expression before gazing back at the projector screen. At any given point throughout the rest of the conference, you would hear someone singing either Bad Romance or Telephone. This might sound bad, but the music video for Telephone was made for the average male Peace Corps Volunteer. Sandwiches? Beyonce? What more could one ask for in a music video? After watching it for the 40th time, I’m wondering how appropriate it would be to show some of my friends in town- what would they think of the US?

In April, I got to meet Jack’s family, and watched as they were introduced to just a taste of what Jack and I have experienced over the last 23 months. It was great fun, and even though I don’t expect my own family to come, it was nice to see how the families of other PCVs reacted to Ghana humidity, local foods, and insects of all sorts.

Also in April, my students finally were able to purchase new jerseys for their football team. It took them three months to save up about 200 cedis ($140), but when the time came, the teachers put together a football match between the seniors from our school, and past students who are now in high school. Most of the town came out to watch the match, and my students gave them a good show. In the end, we won 3-2.

In March I went to Kumasi with my friend Georgette to get a full kente- the traditional cloth worn by Ghanaians for special occasions. There are a variety of kente colors and patterns, each one having a different meaning. For instance, the one I got is called “Nothing has permanence”. I wore it for the first time when I went to church for Easter. As a Jew, it felt awkward not celebrating Passover and instead going to church, but when in Rome……

To all you mothers and preggers out their: Happy Mother’s Day!!! I wonder if they celebrate that holiday here; I’ll have to ask someone in town tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who donated to the STARS project- we now have the funds to hold the conference. In June I’ll write an entry on how STARS went, along with pictures of the by then completed computer lab and library. Till next time!!!

Wine:

Jermann Venezia-Giulia Vintage Tunina 2006

Music:

Bad Romance- Lady Gaga

Telephone- Lady Gaga

Oh What?- Beastie Boys

Party In The USA- Miley Cyrus

Heart Of The City- Jay-Z

Snail- Smashing Pumpkins

On April 2- Headlights

Get What You Need- Jet

Mad Season- Matchbox 20

Punk- Gorillaz

In A Moment- Collective Soul

Poetry of the Deed- Frank Turner

Time Goes Back- John Frusciante

The Way I Are- Timbaland

Computer lab thank you's

My coworkers hugging after a loooong Term 2 comes to an end

How I spiraled into loving kente

My new kente

Sitting on the chief's throne

Otumi church on Easter

Drying my sweat soaked kente

What came crawling out from under my bed the other day- thing was like 5 inches!

Yellow birds on Ghana's coast

At the beach with Jack's family

Jack and his brother playing some Ghana chess

Our new football jerseys

More spectators arrive to watch our footbal match

Peace Corps kente!!!

Peace Corps Prom baybee

The Nard Dog

Steph, the coolest hippo hater this side of the Volta

Disclaimer- This is not how Ghanaians wear cloth

Our DJ for the evening

My prom date- I tried impressing her with my ripped plaid shirt and drunken stupor. PS- That cig prop disintegrated before the night was through

The don't ask don't tell policy will do just fine here

Collecting our COS certificates from the PC Director

Dan's amazing [full] basketball court

Our small band of JHS teachers during the COS conference

The cats I'll be leaving behind :(

Funny face group picture---sans Jack. Me thinks he's swimming

Our final day with the Form 3 students

Happy Mother's Day!

Just got a text from a friend today congratulating us on 21 months of serving in Ghana. 21 months. Meditating on that (with licorice tea), I can rewind and fast forward all the ups and downs, triumphs, failures, blah boring moments, reality checks, and fears I had in the beginning and still harbor now. 21 months of learning the ropes so I could be infallible the rest of the time I’m here. 21 months of setting up the dominoes for the spectacular conclusion. Ha! Who am I kidding?!

I’m currently working on three main projects- teaching at the JHS, helping to organizing this year’s STARS youth conference, and getting the computer lab and library finished before I COS. Stop me at random, ask me what I’m thinking, and honestly it would probably have something to do with one of those projects. Luckily I am not going solo on any of this; several dedicated and creative people are working right beside me, thankfully. I hear “everything will work out” or “by God’s grace”. Telling that to a volunteer hurtling towards their close of service just doesn’t work.

In the end it doesn’t really matter how hard I work, everything is reliant on the enthusiasm and involvement of others, along with a little luck. It’s like planting seeds and hoping they will germinate, granted you are being smart about your sowing. Ultimately it’s up to the seed and the right conditions for things to come to fruition. Ooooh, perfect segue.

Lately, I’ve been farming. A lot. As soon as I step into the bush, I leave behind all my worries and thoughts. I focus on two things: weed well, and don’t get bitten by a snake. Weed weed weed weed. This is the top de-stressor. Plus I’m helping a good friend AND paying her back for doing my laundry (I’m awful at hand washing shirts and pants). In the forest, I learn a lot about things that don’t crop up normally in conversation, like the life of farmers and stories in the forest. A lot of the farmers I know do not own a plot of land, they rent it by splitting their harvest with the actual owner. Also, around my town there are armed robbers who at any given moment can come in and take the farmer’s entire day’s work, or even their lives in some recent cases.

Every Saturday, my friend Auntie Obi and I head out towards the thick part of the forest. She would occasionally call out an echoing “HOOOOOOO”, with “HOOOOOOOOO” responses from unseen farmers in the green portrait. This is to let the other farmers know you are there, and make things less mundane. It is an hour walk into the forest to get to her farm, and at any given moment we would pass one of my students or a friend I know in town. Their reactions are worth the trip. “Oh sir, you have done well!” “Ayeeekoooooh!” (well done!), “Wo betumi do?” (you can weed?). And I can’t forget to mention what people jokingly say to me on the way to the bush- “Catch me a rabbit” “Bring me back a yam” “Bring me one bush rat”. I would pretend to scrawl this on an invisible sheet of paper; god forbid I forget to bring them their prize. Of course I’ve earned my own keep of avocado, kontummere leaves, yam, oranges and plantain after a morning’s work.

Second to farming is running. Running for my life, as fast as I can go for about ten minutes after school is more like it. Beats the hell out of my stress, because I’m too busy catching my breath than thinking about how shitty my lesson went or that I was the only teacher at school for most of the day. If no one is around, I chase the goats until I tag them. This takes a lot more effort than my normal runs. So far it’s Goats 9-Me 2.

Last week, after school, while running on the main road, some storm clouds were approaching, so I turned around and headed home. On my way back, I heard some of my students calling me from deep in the forest (I stand out pretty easily). I left the road and went down the snaking trail of the forest towards my students and their families. They were getting down palm nuts, and it looked like they were about finished, and just in time- a storm was brewing not too far from where we were . They told me to take the lead, and I went on my way. By the time I got back I was soaked, and lightning was striking all around my house. Usually, I prefer running in the rain, but my acute fear of lightning trumps my love for saturated exercise.

While the lightning was striking all over the place, I could see farmers, including the aforementioned students and their families, walking the flooded road back to their houses, which are almost a mile away in many cases. Some farmers were using their giant metal bowls as umbrellas, with lightning striking so close to them I cringed every time. And here’s where I become a coward- as much as I yelled for them to come to my house for shelter, they could not hear me through the deafening rain. And I was too chicken to go out and direct them to a mug of tea and chair in the confines of my safe and warm living room.

After that day of seeing the farmers working in the rain, straining with their load, and walking several kilometers back home with the threat of being hit by lightning, I’ve had a new and profound kind of respect for my community. I see my students in a new light. When they are finished at school, without question they go to farm in adverse conditions. And then they come to school the next day to learn. I’ve lived here long enough to know this, but my recent farming expeditions allowed me to know a bit more. When I was their age, I worked too. But their work helps feed their family, despite the obvious dangers. Props to the farmers. I know February 6th is Farmer’s Day in Ghana, but in my town that should be every day.

Right next to my house is a palm oil mill. Some farmers bring their harvest of palm nuts straight to this mill, and the nuts are pulverized to make this bright red oil- I have no idea of the nutritional benefits of it, but most people use it when cooking a meal. When I first got here, a tablespoon of the stuff would wreak havoc on my stomach. Ever since I got to my site and could cook for myself, I opted for vegetable or coconut oil and avoided palm oil. Very recently my stomach has gotten stronger, and I don’t get sick from friends’ cooking, so I’ve started getting my own palm oil. I can just go to the mill, and they give me all the oil I want. I’ll come home with a huge container that would last me weeks.

Not too long ago, I got back home with such a container of palm oil, and went to shower after a long day of school. When I got out of the shower and went to the kitchen, the container was on its side, and my three white cats were now red colored culprits. So much fun cleaning that up.

Other small stories

I accidentally dropped a teacher while giving her salsa lessons. We were in the staff room, and all the teachers were laughing hysterically at me and Eva, one of the female teachers, whizzing around doing an awful job of salsa. Then Eva, thinking I would catch her, did a faint. I did not catch her, and she ended up hitting the floor pretty hard. This brought more laughter.

There are so many stories from the staff room, but most memorable was a recent situation where I was left acting as pseudo-parent for the day. While grading papers, dozens of my female students entered the office with one of the other teachers, who looked like Santa holding a big black bag. In the bag were bras, underwear, as well as Western second-hand skirts and shirts. Of course they started putting on the skirts and holding up the bras and shirts to their friends while I sat trying to find a spot on the ceiling to focus on. But the girls and female teacher wanted my opinion. There were plenty of “definitely not’s” and “not on your life” for the pouting girls wearing way-too short skirts. Ghanaians are usually over ambitious as it is with girls, and I didn’t want my students creating more hassle for themselves.

Not too long after that weird situation, my host father from Peace Corps training came to randomly visit me in my town. Everyone in town calls me Kwazi Boateng- Kwazi for Sunday born, and Boateng being my host father’s name; but until then no one ever met him. That day Nana Boateng got to see the school and meet with many of the people around town. It was so nice that he finally got to see where I live. Recently my host sister, Regina, died, which incidentally was an exact week after our primary headmaster passed away. I think this contributed to my host father's decision to get out and see my site.

Although I couldn’t make it to Regina’s funeral, I did go to the primary headmaster’s funeral. Hundreds of people attended the service, and even though his death occurred about 2 months ago, many of us were still grief-stricken. One curious part of the funeral had all the teachers line up, while the new primry headmaster called roll. When they got to the deceased headmaster's name, we all yelled "Present Out!"- this is what our students say if we call out their absent friend's name during register.

We celebrated Ghana’s 52nd independence Day on March 6th with a little marching in the market town. Last year, like every year in Otumi, all the students are involved and compete against the other primary and middle school in town. For months, the students would spend the early morning hours practicing to march. At the last second, the event was cancelled due to change of plans. This year, 20 students from the JHS and 20 from the primary school were invited to come to Kade, the district capitol, to march for the District Chief, the Director of Education, and other dignitaries. Our school did a good job….I think. When I play back what I recorded, the teachers are cracking up at how uncoordinated they were. You could see these videos for yourself when I get home…. In 5 months….

Peace out, for now.

Wine: Ghost Block Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville 2005

Music:

Day-O- Harry Belafonte

Phantom Other- Department of Eagles

Man In the Mirror- Michael Jackson

Too Long- Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire

Obscured- Smashing Pumpkins

On A Day Like This- Elbow

Second Walk- John Frusciante

Peace And Quiet- The Rifles

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing- Jack Johnson

Give It Time- Eric Lindell

Holographic Universe- Thievery Coporation

Flip Flop Rock- Outkast

Sepian Bounce- Charlie Parker

Run It- Chris Brown

Roll Over Beethoven- The Beatles

Stir It Up- Bob Marley

Nervous In The Alley- Less Than Jake

Mr. E's Beautiful Blues- Eels

Worst idea for a poster (bottom right)

Going to farm with Auntie Obi

The trail to AO's farm

Getting down some weird round cucumber thing

How I do dishes

Learning Twi through JHS textbooks

Lights off! Bring out the coal pot

Airplane ≠ Space Shuttle

Nana Boateng (my right) in Otumi

March 6th - Independence Day marching

My school!

Taking pictures with students after marching

My friend has this strange poster in his house

Eva and Milli, two of my coworkers, after marching

At the palm oil mill

A container of palm oil

Another container of palm oil

At the primary headmaster's funeral in Kade

Lining up for "Roll Call"

Three of the sub-chiefs of Otumi

My dogs after a funeral in Nkwanta Anwiem

Camel smiling for Einat's photo

In my last post, I mentioned plans for a winter vacation in Mali. I’m happy to say that the trip was a success, and after a month of rest, relaxation and reflections I can tack on a new post to my almost complete blog of volunteering in Ghana. Honestly, looking at my trip notes and diary, there simply is no way I can give you the fine details on my month long journey. Words wouldn’t do the trip justice anyway, so here is an abridged version of what I and my two traveling companions experienced- the rest is waiting for you to see for yourself.

Let me just correct myself before we move on- the use of the word “vacation” is more of a misnomer in this entry than anything. From day one there was lot of running around, breakdowns (both mechanical and mental), illness and the usual inconveniences one grows used to after living in Africa for so long. I was feverish to the point of hallucinating most of the days in Mali, but I'm sure it didn't help that when I was feeling better, I would give Dogon children speedy piggy-back rides. And the chapped lips!!!! We could have bought our turbans much earlier. But forget about the negative- the sheer beauty and exotic culture we came face-to-face with made every annoyance and frustration a small price to pay.

Day one started with a panicked and impromptu trip to Accra to work out a visa situation for my Israeli cousin Einat. Einat was flying in from Tanzania in a few days WITHOUT A VISA TO GET INTO GHANA. This was probably Einat’s travel agent’s joke on me, and I dealt with it the only way I knew how- puppy dog eyes to immigration. The story of how I came to find someone to help me is about 3 days long, with a lot of back-and-forths to immigration. Luckily I met a senior immigrations officer who was nice enough to drive an hour from his house to the airport to make sure Einat got in alright. Not long after, Einat had her visa for traveling around Ghana and getting back in the country.

Visa situation cleared, we set off for Cape Coast Castle and Kakum National Forest- both in the vicinity of Accra, where we would be getting a bus to Tamale. Cape Coast Castle was where the British held slaves before shipping them off in the deplorable ways many of us learned in history class. Walking around the castle was eerie, especially the dungeons; but the presence of a knowledgeable and professional Ghanaian tour guide left me feeling pride in how far we’ve come since colonial times. There was even a plaque unveiled by Barack Obama and his wife when they visited the castle last year. After the tour, Einat and I explored the coastal town, which seemed like a blend of Victorean-era buildings and typical Ghanaian tin-roofed stalls.

The next day Einat and I went to Kakum National Forest, where we took a trek in a rainforest (which boasts of having pygmy elephents (?)) before walking on amazing bridges that go from tree to tree and tower over the forest floor- see the picture below. We did not see our miniature elephants, but their size might have contributed to their elusiveness. After Kakum, it was back to Accra to for dinner with the Zagers, the family who took me in during Thanksgiving at the US Ambassador’s house. Aside from being slightly inebriated, I managed to play an incredibly fun game of charades with the kids and everyone well into the night.

The next day, we were to catch a 4 PM bus to Tamale (ugh, a 13 hour ride). The bus did not come until 6PM, which was more of a blessing since we did not have to get a hotel when we arrived; we got in around 7 AM and waited for a direct bus to Tatale- Serena’s site. The plan was to rendez-vous with Jack at Serena’s, and spend three days celebrating Christmas at her site. To sum up our time there, we hung out with the people in town and explored new territory. I had never been this far north in Ghana, and the surroundings were new to me- brownish savannah scrub and dryness compared to the humid and green environment I’m surrounded by at my site. Other highlights- eating Jelly Belly Beans, decorating a chicken-sized Christmas tree, watching Serena getting ghetto-fied at the hairdresser’s, meeting some of Serena’s adorable students, dancing every night, and pito drinking with the locals.

The day after Christmas, we headed out for our next destination: Bolgatanga and Tonga Hills. This area is known for it’s beautifully painted mud homes, and the place we stayed that night was like an entire village molded out of clay. Tonga Hills had a place called the Naked Shrine, one of the holiest spots in traditional African lore- Africans would come from all over to visit this ancestral shrine. The catch is that in keeping with the name and tradition, you are supposed to be topless to have access to the Naked Shrine. No problem- shirt off. Jack- shirt off. Einat…..she chose to opt out of this part. Up Jack and I went to the top of a cliff, where we were met with a pile of chicken feathers, empty calabashes, quivers and arrows belonging to past shamens, all shielded by an overhang. We laid on our bellies under the overhang, listening to the now squatting shamen explain the purpose and history of the shrine. Of the reasons the man gave, some of them were along the lines of providing good luck for a successful birth or marriage.

After Bolga, we took a lorry to Burkina Faso, aka The Gauntlet. Before the trip, I knew nothing about Burkina, but after having traveled through the country for over 24 hours, I now know it is a nation to be flown over while sipping margaritas from thousands of feet in the air. I feel bad because a friend of mine in college is from Burkina, and now I don’t think I could ever visit him if he invites me. Holy moly. My loathing for the country is equal to the loathing it has for me. The transition from professional Ghanaian border patrol to sloppy incompetent Burkina border patrol set off only a small annoyance alert for what we were going to have to deal with the first day in Burkina. I don't want to forget to mention that out torpid Burkina border patrol friends took our vaccination cards and forgot to put them back in our passport books; later, after the Mali trip, I was able to go back and find my sheet (but not Jack's) under a heap of papers they had me look through.

On our way to Burkina's capital, our lorry broke down an hour into the drive to Ouagadougou, where our halfway house awaited. An argument ensued where the driver wanted us to pay half the fair, even though we now had to get a new form of transportation and pay a rediculous price. There were some Ghanaians in the lorry that broke down, so I was able to express my indignations to them in Twi, and have the Ghanaians translate everything in French. We ended up paying half :( Throughout the whole trip, my vice was knowing hardly any words or phrases in French. Fortunately, Jack knew enough for us to get by the whole trip. Eventually, we managed to arrange for a random person in town to give us a ride (safer than being stranded at night in the middle of nowhere).

On the way to the capital, the driver wanted to know if he could stop at his parent's house so we could meet them. I acquisced (it was night and he was turning on a dark road that had absolutely nothing around it). We were not murdered, but invited to fresh milk from the farm, local food, and palaver, of which I could not participate in since it was all in French. It really was crazy, seeing a mud home with farm and garrulous family in their element- something the average tourist will never see. After bidding the family goodbye, we continued on towards Ouagadougou, arriving at the Peace Corps Burkina house well past midnight; we should have been there around 5PM.

Then came the next blow from Burkina- exchanging money. Jack and I brought hundreds of dollars worth of Ghana cedis, thinking only what was natural- we could exchange our money easily. In Ghana, I can exchange CFA to Ghana cedis almost anywhere. In Burkina, not one place accepted our Ghanaian currency… in BURKINA’S CAPITAL! Every major bank worker shook their heads when we held up our sweat soaked bills to the glass. Had the glass not been there, they might have even spat on the bills. Everyone said to go to the airport to make the exchange, which would eat into our day when we were supposed to be traveling closer to Mali. In our desperation, we went to the airport where they still would not exchange the money. There were some black market folks who would do the exchange, but they did not understand the concept of being fair and earning a quick buck if they actually could negotiate. But they were dumb and greedy and got nothing but looks of deep antipathy. I might as well have been trying to exchange Monopoly money. So we broke down and used an emergency ATM card I brought, possibly another avenue for Burkina to screw us on. I’ll soon find out what damage that did. Einat was lucky- she brought US dollars, which was accepted everywhere. After getting CFA, we took a bus farther up towards Mali, stayed the night in this small town, and the next day FINALLY got to Mali.

We met our Dogon Country tour guide, Solomon, at the Mali/Burkina border, then continued to the next town where we would eat dinner, discuss the itinerary, and sleep. For weeks I had been in touch with another tour guide, Omar, who has been taking Peace Corps Volunteers on tours since he was 17- many of my PCV friends back in Ghana highly recommended getting him for the trip. Unfortunately, he had another party before I could set a date, so he set me up with Solomon. Omar met us on the first night in Mali, before we set out for Dogon Country. That night a few of us, including Jack, Einat and a few other people coming from or going to Dogon Country celebrated the winter holidays by partially building a gingerbread house I snagged at one of the Peace Corps transit houses. Really we just mixed the sprinkles, gum drops, and other toppings with the frosting and sort of just took spoonfuls of it. I think after three scoops we were all sick. At one point, Jack smacked one of the gingerbread walls on my back for laughs, to the dismay of onlooking Malian youngsters. Shortly after, we were asleep.

The plan for Dogon Country was this: 6 days of trekking the same trails local farmers take from one village to the next. Actually, I’m going to save myself time and paste what I emailed PCVs who might plan on visiting Mali:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dogon Trip Info Info about Dogon Country

Dogon Country is located near the border of Burkina in southern Mali. Extending several kilometers, it is lined with villages at the base of or even inside a series of ridges, with the Mali desert opposite the rocky cliffs. Hundreds or even thousands of years ago, a tribe called the Tellem lived in the ridges, but because of war with the Dogon, they are now gone, and their houses are the only structures that remain- many of the Tellem structures are no longer accessible because the means for getting to them are by roots that are now long gone. The Dogon have larger structures built towards the bottom of the Tellem structures, and during the hike you could go up and see the building that are now abandoned or still in use.

The modern Dogon villager speaks mostly Dogon, with some French as well. Some of them know Peace Corps because so many of them travel there, plus there is one living in a Dogon village, working with locals for tourism. The Dogon people are so used to tourists (at least in peak season- winter), that they will have several souvenirs ready to purchase. Indigenous art included indigo dyed fabric, the cotton coming from the farm,; mud cloths, masks, and wood carvings are also readily available.

The guides I met in Mali all seemed to have a pretty good grasp of English, and have a special relationship with the Dogon people to enter their village with tourists. The entire trip (when hiking it) involves going from village to village, each one having something unique (be it crocs or incredible canyon/desert views). You can choose to sleep in a building, or on the rooftop- keep in mind it gets COLD at night. Walking the trails occurs early in the morning, then after a break you walk again around 3PM. You are walking the same trails as the villagers. Many can speak French, but if you can pick up some of the Dogon language, than you might have it made in the shade.

Ø Logistics:

From Tamale, you take a Paga car, then after the border, take a Ouagadougou car. The PC transit house is in a place called Zonzu Bua (sp. ?). The next day, you could get a bus from Ouaga to a place called Ouagihyah (sp. ?) pronounced “Wageeya”. There is a hotel in Ouagihyah, but ask one of the BF volunteers. The place is pretty nice, and is about $7 per person. In the morning, get a car to the Mali border (again, talk to a Burkina volunteer about the station).

So from Ouagihyah, you go to Bankass where you meet the tour guide, and you will continue about an hour north to Bandiagara, where you will spend the night. The next day you start your trip to Dogon Country, which could last a few days to 2 weeks, depending on you. I recommend spending at least 6 days 5 nights trekking the area (what we did).

Our tour guide (Solomon) charged 11,000[1] CFA per person (about $22 a day). We were 3, but with larger parties, the price does go down to maybe 9,000 CFA. Omar charges 10,000 for PCVs. Food and lodging is included, but any transportation isn’t. At the end of the trip, we each contributed 3,000 CFA as a tip to Solomon, a great guide- you should request him if you can’t get Omar. In total, the tour came to about $200 (without souvenirs…oi). Traveling from Accra to Dogon Country and back is about $100-$120, depending on any unforeseen inconveniences (we had many of these- tros breaking down, tro won’t fill- think 2x worse than Ghana, with French). For the trip, I would bring $400, $550 if you plan on getting lots of gifts and souvs.

Omar’s #- 0022379368531 (Be patient, if you don’t get through to him, he might be in the bush). You might also want to contact Peace Corps Burkina and Mali – see your newsletter for email addresses and #s.

Ø Here’s what our trip looked like:

Dec 26 Tamale-Bolgatanga (we stayed in Tanga Hills)

Dec 27 Bolga- Paga- Ouagadougou

Dec 28 Ouagadougou --> Ouagihyah

Dec 29 Ouagihyah --> Koro (Malian border) --> Bankass

Dec 30- Jan 4 Dogon Country

Jan 4 Dogon Country --> Ouagadougou

Jan 5 Ouagadougou --> Tamale

Jan 6 Tamale --> Kumasi

Blah Blah Blah

Including 6 days in Dogon, our trip took about 12 days, going from Tamale to Dogon, all the way back to Kumasi.

Ø Other useful info:

· Bring kola nuts from Ghana for bartering or to make friends with the locals- in Mali they are sought after by the young and old. Jack and I even found out that monkeys are addicted to them.

· In Burkina, the baguettes and sugar-coated peanuts are delic· Currently, it’s about 440 CFA to $1, and 310 CFA to 1 GhC· In Mali, the dried dates are delicious, and sort of make up for the lack of fruit

· *********Exchange all your Ghana cedis into CFA… BEFORE coming to Burkina or Mali- nobody takes them. We went to every bank in Burkina’s capitol, even the airport! Nothing. Even US$ can be tricky in southern Mali****************** · All the dust breaks cameras and electrical equipment. I learned this the hard way. Have a sturdy case, and lock your things away. Even if it doesn’t break in Mali, the humidity in Ghana can mix w the dust, and short circuit the cam, which is what I assume happened to mine

· Take a miniature water filter or Aquatabs (you should flavor the water, unless you like the taste of chlorine). In Dogon Country, you can drink questionable well water, or get raped on the price of bottled water. · Bargain by thinking of a fair price, and if they say no, say final price and walk away. I got almost everything using the price I wanted, and they still made a good profit I think. They usually start at 5x what you could talk them down to. Be courteous, use some Dogon, and offer kola nuts to make a friend and get that souv you would hate leaving behind.

· Take someone who could speak French, ESPECIALLY for chain-smoking Burkina.

· Even though most villages have souvs, you might not find the same thing in each town, and some towns specialize in a certain craft, like the indigo-dyed cloths. Ask your guide about which towns are best for those.

· Bring chap stick- it is dry!!!

· Pack some warm clothes for nighttime. Or eat several sticks of butter for insulation. Either way, it’s cold at night. Mud cloths are wind- proof, and packing light might mean sticking out, getting a mud cloth, then using it as a cover- that’s what I did. I got the largest sized mud cloth for under $25 with persistence and 2 kola nuts.

· Turbans are great for all the dust- they aren’t in Dogon Country, but they are in Bankass and Bandiagara.

· People don’t like getting their picture taken. Be polite and keep that to a minimum. Sometimes if you take their picture, they will demand money. · Try all things local (except for the pot and tobacco- blecchhh. Then again, I’m not a smoker. But I do know you will hate it).

· Pack as light as you can- lots of trekking up and down steep canyons.

· Do NOT let your friend pick you up by the waist to get a baobab fruit, they might mistakenly crush your testicles, causing a severe amount of pain. The trail we followed throughout Dogon Country

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Phew. With the pictures, I hope that help paints a small picture of what we saw and dealt with during the trip. If you want more info and pics, check out this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people

After seeing Mali and getting spat out by Burkina Faso, Einat, Jack and I were back in Ghana, moving south from PC transit house to PC transit house. Jack split from our party in Kumasi (which is where I accidentally left the Dogon walking stick I bought as my headmaster’s gift), and Einat and I headed towards Donkorkrom (Chris and Tammi’s site), where we were having a Peace Corps meeting for my region. Einat got to meet even more Peace Corps volunteers (on top of the ones she met at the transit houses). To get to Donkorkrom, you have to take a ferry that carries cars and people alike. During our sojourn in Donkorkrom, we took a tour of the Afron Plains, saw two other Peace Corps Volunteer’s sites (Nate’s place was so small, his gas burner/kitchen was next to his bed), and a small Fulani village.

When Einat came to my site, I got to show her around town and introduce her to many of my friends. Exciting, since she was the first non-volunteer-foreigner to come visit me. On her first day there, it rained after weeks of a rainless drought. Some people said she and I were lucky, bringing rain like that. I questioned where our luck was when the power went out with the storm. During the storm, I witnessed something I had never seen up to that point- millions of strange looking cotton balls floating with the storm- it looked like it was snowing in a tropical rainforest.

When Einat visited the school, it was the first day of classes, so there was a lot more free time than usual. She and some of the students organized the school library (something that was long overdue). Einat also put the cloths she bought during her first days in Ghana to good use- taking it to the tailor to get them sewn into dresses. She seemed satisfied with the result. Before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to Einat in Accra, after weeks of traveling and playing tour guide. I had to get back to school before I could see her off at the airport, but thankfully the Zager family was so nice to offer her their guest bedroom until she left.

I am now in then middle of teaching week 4 of Term 2 at the school, and things started off very well. Thanks to the generous contributions from so many people back home, I received all the money for my PCPP project to supply computers, internet, and a projector to my school. On top of this, the contractor came to evaluate what is left for the computer lab, and are in the process of finishing the building. It looks like the building will be finished by the end of February, and the teachers and I can begin teaching using the computers after over a year’s worth of work. For those who contributed, I will post a list in my next blog entry. Once I get the list of donors, my students will also be writing thank-you cards to everyone involved.

Unfortunately, and very sadly, on the same day the contractors came to evaluate the finishing touches on the building, the primary headmaster died unexpectedly. In the middle of the night, I got a call from my headmaster saying the primary headmaster, Mr. Boatwe has died. I thought I was dreaming, there’s no way. I had just been talking to him a few hours ago and he was not ill at all. Well, it was true, and now we are waiting to find out what happened, as well as when the funeral is. Just Monday, I promised Mr. Boatwe my students will supply the firewood and water for the workers while they stayed in our town; Tuesday, Mr. Boatwe and I went to see the chief on updates for the computer lab, and Thursday morning, he was gone. What disturbs me is how the teachers are saying he died. I will not go into details, but when they were with him before he died, it sounded like poisoning, particularly the bite from a mamba, but my headmaster said Mr. Boatwe said nothing about being bitten. To top it off, the teachers could not find a car out of town, and the doctor said that had he gotten there sooner, they could have saved him. The entire time, no one thought about the car only a few yards away for the Presby school. And so now Mr. Boatwe is dead. RIP.

The week before all this, Lisa came to my site with actual orders from Peace Corps because a crazy person was harassing her daily, and crossed a line when he tried to get into her place. While she was here, the power went out in my town, leaving us with one worthless electric stove to cook on. Luckily, the day before the lights went off, Lisa convinced me to get a small coal pot to use in just such a moments. I bought some charcoal, we had some kerosene, and plenty of paper for kindle; but try as we might, it took hours with little results. I could not believe I was too inept to get at least one ember from my pile of coals. Finally, my neighbor brought me one of his coals in order to ignite the other coals, and we cooked a delicious tortellini dinner (thanks mom). We also played some Scrabble by candlelight, and soon the blackout became much less annoying. But no power did not bring down Lisa's spirits much, not only did she have to contend with a crazy person, she also had no water for days because of the drought- now that she was at my site she had clean, not red, PIPED water, a shower, and internet access. What more could you ask for?

What else? For MLK day I introduced students to who Dr. King was, showed them some pictures, and played the "Dream" speech. None of them knew who he was prior to that day. Not one of them probably knew of the evils and pure racism that was simply natural for most of America in those days. I don't think my students even know what the term "genocide" means. Out of all my heroes, I want my students to appreciate MLK more than anything.

I also had to get a mattress back for a student. A few months ago, one of my students had a severe back injury from sports, and I had the family over my house to collect the matteress I usually reserve for guests. The other day the father came to me and complained that the grandmother stole the matteress from the child, relagating her to the floor (most children in Ghana sleep on the ground). The father requested for the headmaster and I to interfere. Happily, I think the grandmother caught wind of this, and swiftly made right by giving her injured grandchild MY mattress.

Hmmmm, any other highlights since my last post? Last weekend I took a quick trip to see the diamond mines at my friend Stephen’s site. To get to the mines, we had to walk on a trail through the tropical wilderness, where we came to a few ponds in an open area. Apparently these ponds were the diamond mines, hand dug at one point and now flooded from the rains. Stephen said the mines are usually in operation during the dry season, and while he was saying this, some pond bubbles broke at the surface.

Voilà. That's it for now. Thanks again to everyone who helped raise money for the computer lab and library in my town!

Wine:

Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Kabinett

Mosel Piesporter Goldtröpfchen 2007

Music:

Pride (In the Name of Love)- U2

Don't Rush- Tegan and Sara

The Puppet Show- P.M. Dawn

No Rain- Blind Melon

Stadium Love- Metric

Juanita Bonita- Quantic

Oideyo Oide-パンツ

A Beautfiul Mine- RJD2

Mais- Rosalia de Souza

Bang a Gong- T. Rex

Over My Shoulder- I Am Kloot

Hitchin' a Ride- Green Day

Molly's Chambers- Kings of Leon

Snap Yo Fingers- Lil Jon

Ain't Got Time To Waste- Aim

Just Before Dawn- blow up hollywood

サマーメランコリック- UA

Teeth- Earlimart

The EGG and I- Seatbelts

Painkiller- Turin Brakes

Listed M.I.A.- Rancid

December- Collective Soul

When I'll Be Back- Quetzal

Nights Wave- Mice Parade

Waiting for the Bus- Violent Femmes

Cold Hands (Warm Heart)- Brendan Benson

Something Is Sacred- Eels

Think About That- Dandy Livingstone

Winter Wonderland- Diana Krall

LLi Fat Mat! (What Is Past Is Dead And Gone!)- Rachid Taha

Madly- Tristan Prettyman

The Song is You- Charlie Parker

Free Your Mind- En Vogue

Green, Green Grass Of Home- Johnny Cash

Cecilia- Simon & Garfunkel

Elegently Wasted- INXS

One By One- Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

LAST CHANCE, LAST SONG- SUGARHILL DOWNTOWN ORCHESTRA

Time in a Picture- Punchline

Manteca- Dizzy Gillespie

Cape Coast Castle

Outside Cape Coast Castle

Cape Coast house

Canopy walk at Kakum National Forest

Dinner with the Zagers in Accra

Serena and Einat sipping on some pito

Begaaaaaaack!

Einat's pic of the chicken-sized Christmas tree (you should see the Christmas tree-sized chicken)

Einat took this of Jack and I. Am I really that small?!?! Is my butt really that big?!?!?

Kid passed out from dancing too much

St. Gordon's morning sermon on "Boxers Over Briefs"

Tonga Hills

Huge Baobob, where a party was held the night before

The Naked Shrine

Burkina hates Peace Corps Ghana Volunteers and trucks

At the Peace Corps Ouagdougou house Omar, Jack and I before the Dogon trip

On our way to Dogon Country via donkey cart (Solomon is the one smiling) Our first glimpse of Dogon Country(notice the Tellem structures at the top and Dogon structures at the bottom)

Kittyhotep makes his first appearance on a bus to Mali

One of the first towns we visited in Dogon Country

Mud mosque (Jack and I helped apply fresh mud to one of these)

Kittyhotep returns!

Where we stayed our second night

Dogon roof drainage

Dogon door

Mud cloths on display in one of the towns

Dogon market

Questionable kabobs

Jack and I did this all throughout the trip

Jack got this poor monkey hooked on kola nuts

The view from that cliff

Rolling down sand dunes:this is more painful and dizzying than it looks

Jack, trying to get a boabob fruit

Crocs at a local pond

Ha!

In Donkorkrom with Lisa and the Eastern Region Gang

Einat and some Fulani children in Donkorkrom Einat with the tailor who made her dressesWith Auntie Obi, one of my favorite people in OtumiSushi and white Russians with Einat on our last day together

In one week, I’ll be picking up my Israeli cousin Einat from the Accra airport. In two weeks, Jack, Einat and I will be in Mali exploring Dogon Country. At first glance, the itinerary looks like a lunatic drew it up after briefly peaking at a map of West Africa- the party would zigzag from Ghana to Burkina Faso to Mali, with several stops off the beaten track. But there is a method to the madness that will be our winter trip: each stop has something special- like a fellow PCV, something culturally unique, or a sight that could only be viewed in person.

Take for instance the zenith of our trip- Dogon Country. For years I’ve wanted to go there after reading a book on it. Dogon Country is a beautiful strip of land with villages swathing the southern border of Mali, just above Burkina Faso. In ancient times, a group of people called the Tellem built buildings inside the vertical cliffs that make up the region for protection from the sun and danger below. Presently, the Dogon live in the area, while the Tellem people are said to have moved east. East is where we will be headed, moving from village to village for about 5 to 7 days. There are about 20 villages in total that people can visit, each one having something new. For example, Amani has a sacred crocodile pool, Ireli has ancient Tellem houses and mud granary towers built by the Dogon, and Tireli is known for its pottery and Dogon mask ceremonies. That’s only three villages! It would be amazing if one of the villages were known for its outstanding replication of Chicago hot dogs, but hey, how many Americans get to see this side of the world?

After a series of chats with friends who went to Dogon Country, along with trial-and-error phone calls, I finally got through to Omar, Peace Corps Volunteers’ go-to tour guide. He knows the deal with Peace Corps volunteers- with our $160 a month salary, few of us could afford the normal price charged for tourists checking out the area. No, Omar and his company gives a great price for us volunteers, enough to make for an unforgettable trip. So after talking to Ira and Sue about their trip, I had a general idea of what to bring, how much to spend, and how much patience I should have when trying to get ahold of Omar- he is usually in the bush, of course. But Sue got me in contact with Omar, who is soooo incredibly nice to talk to on the phone. He called, saying unfortunately he couldn’t be our guide, but that his brother Musa will. In Bankass (heeheeeheeeheee) we’ll meet up, and then proceed to Dogon Country.

Other trips [may] include Kakum National Forest (Ghana), Cape Coast Castle (Ghana), Tamale (Ghana), Tatali (Ghana), Bolgatanga (Ghana), Mole National Park (Ghana), Donkorkrom (Ghana), Kumasi (Ghana), Sirigu and Paga (Ghana), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Mopti (Mali), Djenne (Mali), and of course my own town. The trip hinges on a number of factors like tentative vehicle departures, weather, whims, health issues, and the unexpected================================================

Wow. Just had one of those “I love Ghana” moments while taking a break from typing. Normally I like to cook and clean dishes before it gets dark since I don’t have a sink or a light in my kitchen. Doing dishes outside means I’m with all things that come out in the night to bite. So, finished with dinner, I am cleaning up outside when I see tons of my students walking down the road from their parents’ farm. When they caught sight of me, the all rushed up the driveway to my house. It was great. I wish I had my camera, but I didn’t want to leave the scene. Some students had large bowls filled with fruits and vegetables on their heads, others had 6 meter-long bamboo poles with hooks at the end. All were cheering and laughing. The very thing I needed after a long day of chores and work. They started giving me all these oranges, even though I kept telling them my house is surrounded by orange trees. Oh, will I miss my students……………………..

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Anyway, back to the trip. Basically, there’s so much to see, with such little time. Plus, I really was looking forward to the annual Cattle Crossing Festival in Djenne, a ritual done for about 200 years where the Fulani people guide their cattle across the Niger River and meet up with their families after the year-long journey. The festival is held between the end of December and the beginning of January, depending on water levels of the Niger. Unfortunately, when I asked Omar about it, he said the festival already happened two weeks ago in Djenne.

Aside from seeing sights, I would like to bring back some art from Ghana, Burkina and Mali, such as pottery from Sirigu and Dogon Country, masks from Mali and Burkina Faso, mud cloths from mopti, and bronze statues from Ouagadougou. I really want to bring back a butterfly mask from Burkina, but I’m worried that since the mask is about as tall as I am, there’s no way I’ll be able to travel with it. But I am resourceful- I will find a way!

Christmas will be spent with my friend Serena at her site in Tatali, way over by Togo in the Northern Region of Ghana. New Year’s will be celebrated under the Malian stars in Dogon Country. No New Year’s kiss for me though :( Lis will be miles away spending it with friends back in Ghana, since she used all her vacation days traveling in October/ November.

About two weeks ago I had a fantastic dinner at the U.S. Ambassador’s house. The food was AMAZING, and again I stuffed myself like nobody’s business. But aside from eating my weight of Thanksgiving dinner and seeing friends, another great part of that holiday was meeting and staying with one of the families who hosted Peace Corps Volunteers who came down to Accra. Volunteers usually stay at a bunk house that holds about 9 people comfortably, 60 people uncomfortably. About 60 volunteers came to Thanksgiving, which meant instead of inundating the place, Peace Corps found families for us to stay with, most being American expats.

I hit the jackpot with my family. Actually, a lot of volunteers said this, but that doesn’t detract from how great my family was. For three nights I spent time getting to know the Zager family- a family of four, with 2 young children that were so adorable I couldn’t ask for better children myself. Josh, the father, recently came to Ghana as the Marines attaché worker. Jana takes care of the kids, who both attend school in Accra. A Jewish family, I felt at home, and it was such a change of pace from the average day here in Ghana. We made challa for Christ’s sake! And Josh, Lis and I went to see Inglorious Bastards at an actual movie theater. Movie theater. This was the first movie I’ve seen at a movie theater in almost 18 months. Another first in Ghana was jumping on a trampoline while eating cookie dough ice cream at the mansion that was the USAID Country Director’s house, which is where Lisa and a few others stayed. All of us felt so strange going to the most different living arrangements to what we are used to back at our sites. It felt like heaven. That’s what it felt like when it came time to go back to site- leaving food and comfort heaven for the unair-conditioned bush. But rolling up to my town after a four-hour trip from Accra, I was just as happy to be back as I was eating turkey in one hand, and pecan pie in the other. Well, not that happy, but few things compare to Thanksgiving smorgasbords.

The day before I left, Lisa and I went down to the beach to do the second thing I haven’t done in 18 months- go to a bowling alley. Since Lisa was an avid bowler way back in her New Jersey high school days, I figured my girlfriend is going to clean the place with me. My experience with bowling is working at one as a kid and sucking then, going bowling with friends and family and still sucking. My ball once ended up in another lane. But lo and behold, I was beating Lisa during mid-game, and the last frame had me laughing. All I needed was two pins and I’d beat her. I didn’t beat her. End. Of. Story.

When I got back, I thought for sure I’d be sick with the flu, since it’s running rampant here. Lisa had it, and so did the kid sitting next to me on the cramped tro ride back to site. Since the windows were closed, the kid’s coughing fogged up the window I sat next to, and while the snot rag brushed up against my arm and hand, all I could think was how many oranges I would have to eat when back at site. *Sniff *sniff *cough *cough*- 4 oranges. Each hanky-to-hand contact equaled 3 oranges. A direct cough or sneeze to my face equaled 5 oranges. Luckily, I didn’t get sick. Maybe the combined powers of turkey and oranges protected me from all things pathogen related.

Two frustrations this month involved dropped groceries and the caretaker’s kids. With the groceries, I went to my market town an hour away to pick up the school drum that was recently repaired. While there, I decided to change things up and get more dried food than I usually do for god knows what reason. I bought a ton of rice, red beans, black eyed peas, sugar, and peanuts- enough to hold me over for three weeks, before I leave for Mali. So I ask the tro driver to drop me off in front of the school instead of my house so I could bring the drum to the headmaster and get my bike. Drum delivered, I hung the bags on my handlebars like an idiot and went down the slope towards the road. Even though I knew how flimsy the bags were and how easily plastic bags break here, I still rushed to get home so I could cook before dark. Of course I hit a bump, which jostled all the bags to fall off my bike and explode all over the ground. Three week’s worth of food on the floor + a cursing white guy = an inquisitive group of Ghanaians. The people were so nice, helping me pick up EACH INDIVIDUAL BEAN OR RICE GRAIN and putting them in a new bag they got for me. They even tried scooping the sugar into a bag, even though it was red from the dust and pebbles that was now part of the sweetener. As pissed and embarrassed as I was, I can’t describe how grateful I was towards my community; the kindness they show me comes every day in different forms, and this was definitely a new form of benevolence. Now I’m sorting more pebbles out of my dried food than ever before. I actually salvaged some of the sugar too. But lesson learned. Take your mother%$^&#@# time!

As for the kids, boy oh boy. The caretaker of the house I live in is in Togo, again. He sometimes leaves his kids here while he goes over there, but this time it’s been too long. His wife was hit by a motorcycle and sick (she’s okay, says the kids), and the daughter is also sick and had to go to the Togolese hospital. The parents have been gone for about two months now, leaving their two boys with a family in town. The kids still sleep in the room at the back of the house, and have a key to my house for some unknown reason, maybe to clean. But clean they didn’t. I gave them slack of course because of their family situation, and fed them on occasion and gave them soap and water to wash. What bothered me, even when the father was here, was the fact that they stopped attending school. When the father left, I had my headmaster come to my place to talk them into going, saying that if it was a money issue, we would deal with it, but no success came. Instead, the students used their total freedom to annoy me.

When I needed to leave for Accra to fix my fried computer (now fixed), I remember giving the kids half a loaf of bread while legging it to a waiting tro outside my home. When I got back, I noticed that the bike chain on my bike was off, and tire marks lead out of the house through the side door, where the kids have a key. Shit. And the kids, for whatever reason, left the broken bike lock on the kitchen table. I was furious, but I needed to cook and clean, giving me time to cool off and think. Later, the kids came home, and when they heard me in the house, they ran straight into the forest. GUILTY! I wouldn’t have been so angry if this hadn’t been the second time this has happened. Months ago, the kids took my bike and trashed my house (I mentioned this in an earlier entry), and with tearful apologies, they promised it would never happen again. Fool me once……

The next day I went to the house where they were getting food, and called them out. They both denied any wrongdoing. I said to give me the keys to the house. They said they lost them. I threatened to go to the headmaster to get the keys. They didn’t budge. So I then turned to the family, who knew me and knew of the childrens’ guilt. So many things pointed to them, and when more people heard what happened, a crowd started to form around the kids. People said they saw the boy riding my bike to the next town. The kids were stuck, and finally confessed. The next step was what to do next. We all new the delicacy of the situation, with the parents gone and the sister severely ill. A few people said I should take them to the police, but I think this was to scare them straight. I took them to the school, where my headmaster and their primary headmaster heard the story. It just so happened the town officials were all at the school dealing with a different issue- some of my students were caught gambling (a major offense which ended in them getting 12 lashes to the back in front of the school and their parents).

When it came time to decide the fate of the caretaker’s children, the officials handled it very well- the outcome was that the teachers pooled money together so the kids get food in the morning, so long as they attend school. As for meals and after school care, the officials will talk to the Ewe community in town to see what could be done. The kids were bawling and saying sorry, and I think this time they really meant it. They are kids after all. I think they realized that after all this time I spent caring about their schooling, feeding them, providing gifts now and then without asking anything in return, that they in turn crossed a major line. They admitted to taking food and using my stove while I was gone (I think they damaged the left burner). But I forgave them. No word from either parent, but the kids are going to school, are actually looking happy (I check on them now and again at the primary school), and after paying their school fees, they can now take their term exams; I don’t really know how they’ll do on those, but according to their teacher they are trying.

Some good news- the books I’ve been waiting for finally arrived. I emailed an NGO that donates books to Peace Corps Volunteers working in the schools, and about 4 months later got more than I expected- brand new books matching exactly what I had in mind for my students. In the email, I wrote that my students are middle-school age, with many students at elementary-level reading skills. I requested math, science, and world culture books. What I got was math, science, and culture books, along with short novels appropriate for some of my students. Coinciding with the delivery of these books was a microscope I asked a friend to lend me. My students love it. They look at everything from the cotton fibers of their shirts to the mouthparts on a spider’s carapace. Since the term is almost over, students are busy studying for their exams, leaving little time to look at the books. Next term, I plan on having a revamped reading hour using the new books, as well as the books given to us by the Ghana Education Service.

My town is wearing a coat of orange this winter- the red dust is so much that what once was green plants and white animals are now orange plants, dogs, cats, chickens, and goats. After spending last year in Otumi, I am already inured to the harsh harmattan season down here, although I’ve heard it’s much worse up north, which is where I’m headed next week….

That’s about it. It’s Hanukkah and I’m spinning the dreidel by my lonesome. Last week, Lisa cooked real latkes for me, complete with apple sauce shipped from home! I can’t wait to spend the holidays with family next year. This year, it’s winter in West Africa for me.

Big big thanks to the Zager family for inviting me to their home and feeding/spoiling me. Thanks to Ira and Sue for helping with the Mali trip, I’m missing you both now that you’re gone. Thanks to Darien Books for the brand new and excellent books (the students are working on the Thank-you cards). Thanks Brian for the microscope, I’ll have it back in one piece. And thanks to all who have donated so far to my Computer Lab and Library project. Oh owe a lot to my bro, Adrianna, Park, and Ortiz, Maurine and Tim for their fundraising initiatives. Thanks to everyone helping out with the project. And thanks to those people who helped me pick up my beans and rice.

Happy Hanukkah, happy holidays, happy New Year! Love you all!*Please continue donating to my Peace Corps project, the target amount we need has still not been met. The website is https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-278

Wine:

Forget wine. Leave space for more turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, salad, mashed potatoes, and stuffing with gravy on top. Wash down with a glass of sangria.

Music:

Smile- Michael Bublé

Bron-Y-Aur Stomp- Led Zeppelin

Fix Up, Look Sharp- Dizzy RascalThe Egg and I- Seatbelts

Little Delia- Blind Willie McTell

Tender- Blur

Too Long- Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire

We’re Leaving- DeVotchKa

The Chanukah Song- Adam Sandler

Something to Look Forward To- spoon

Bluehawk- Thelonious Monk

Voxtrot- Wrecking Force

Slow Jamz- Kanye West

Run Run Run- The Velvet Underground

Each Day Gets Better- John Legend

All the Old Showstoppers- The New Pornographers

Homelife- John Mayer

The trip up West Africa The rough plan for Ghana

Dogon Country

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Mole National Park, Ghana

Kakum National Park- Canopy walk in the trees over the rainforest

Butterfly mask of Burkina Faso (above and below)

Cattle Crossing Festival, Mali

Mud home near Bolgatanga, Ghana

Thanksgiving dinner!!!

Jack, Lis and I, 2 stone heavier

Hanging loose with Mike, Peace Corps Ghana's Country Director, at Thanksgiving

Jack with a gargantuan dog

Ira and Cheri, gonna miss you both!

Chris holding up a neat Peace Corps designed kente cloth from Volta Region Sue me! Before losing the match

Guh. Terrible.

Merry Hanukkah Charlie Brownstein!

Go dreidel go!

The books donated from Darien books

Yes, a book on sabertooth tigers, only the most ferocious cat that ever lived

My headmaster and I get these newspapers for the students whenever we go to the market

A hand-made pineapple paper card made at my friend Kat's site

Poster from when Obama was here

Lisa made this. Is that a good thing?

After close to ten arduous months of meetings, phone calls, and grant proposal writing, the PCPP for my community’s Computer Lab and Library has finally been approved by Washington- the capital, not the deceased president. A day after hearing from Peace Corps that my project had been given the green light, a web page with a description of my project had been added to the Volunteer Projects website. The address for my project is

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-278

The project is entirely funded by friends and family, so please please please spread the word and get people to donate. 100% of the donations (which are tax-deductable) go towards 20 Pentium 3 computers complete with monitors, keyboard and mouse, as well as a 1-year subscription to the internet and a projector to use for computer, math, science, and social studies classes. I’m hoping to get all the funds by mid-January, since that is when Term 2 starts.

That being said, October and November were pretty quiet months- just teaching and gearing up for the STARS conference in June. The months are flying like my chewed fingernails from all the STARS worries that come with the job. It feels like I just started climbing a mountain shrouded in fog concealing steep inclines and mountain goats I can easily trip over.

In October, I attended a funeral for the mother of two of my students. I’ve been to funerals before, but this was the first where someone I knew was directly affected. I have never seen any of my students so grief-stricken. The headmaster and some of the teachers at my school attended the funeral, held a stone throw’s distance from our school. In the early morning, women dressed in bright red cloths were playing soccer, which was later explained to me was a way to celebrate the fun side of the woman who passed away. I dressed in my traditional funeral cloth, which I always dread for a number of reasons: My diaphanous feet glow white against the black cloth, funeral shoes, and blood that drips down from the open sores on my feet. Yes, the sandals I wear for the occasion are made of hard leather that, because of friction from walking all over town, tears my feet open like they were made of tissue paper; Ghanaians fare well because it’s like their feet are made of indestructible Nike shoes. If you could imagine, two hours into the funeral I’m shuffling around with a pained look on my face, and the body hair did not help my appearance, which was simian to the max.

Several of the students, usually not permitted to attend any funerals, were allowed to support their two classmates. During the dancing part of the funeral, the teachers and students goaded me into dancing. I think I did alright, and it was one of the most memorable times I’ve had in my town- everyone joined in for the dance with happy-sounding music in the background. As cheerful as the music sounded, I had trouble translating in my head what the hell the song was about. I never would have guessed that each song was meant for a funeral since none of it was funereal. One song had the message of moving on with your life after a loved one has passed away, another about making the most of your life while you still have it. A little after the song ended, a storm that had been slowly rolling towards us from the horizon finally arrived to the funeral grounds, raining over our flimsy tents and flooding the ground. So many things happened at once- for an hour lightning struck over and over again so close to where we were sitting I thought we would surely get hit. The ground was no longer dry and rocky but saturated with small rust-red rivers that went under our chairs and headed towards the forest at our backs. The rain was coming down something fierce, but this didn’t deter a dozen or so of the people from continuing to dance in the rain. The rain stopped as abruptly as it started and continued crawling towards the setting sun. Glad to be alive, I bade farewell to everyone and took me and my bloody feet back to the house. The two students are still coming to school, performing much better than I’ve ever seen them. Their mom would be proud.

A few days after the funeral, I was relaxing under one of the shade trees (people tie rocks to the branches to weigh them down, until they collectively make the tree look like a giant umbrella), when a friend came out and pulled me away from the tree. It turns out I had sat under a huge nest of killer bees, you know- the bellicose African kind. While keeping a fixed glance at the black hive now a safe distance away, I asked my friend if he was going to knock them down or something and he said that very night, when they are asleep, they were going to set it ablaze. I made it clear that I wanted to watch and he told me to come around 8:30 at night. A storm similar to the one that came during the funeral blew through though, and I had to stay in that night. The next morning the guy said the storm blew away the hive, which I guess was fortunate for all parties.

One day in late October, my students were taking a quiz when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there came a low, Jumanji-style rumbling from several yards away from the school. Drawing nearer we hear drumming, cheering, and bells clinging, parade-like. Then we saw, coming up the hill, all the primary school children from the school across town marching up, saying “ebi, ebi, ebi, ebi” (I thought I heard A-B,A-B). This elicited snickering and cheering from the students; meanwhile I had no idea what was going on. In the teachers’ lounge, I learned that the students at that school, for reasons entirely unknown to me, were shitting in their classrooms, which pissed off the teachers and eventually led to this march of shame throughout the town saying, shit! shit! shit! shit shit! The Presby school on the other side of town is very old (well over a hundred years old) and has no locks for its six classes, and supposedly students were sneaking in, leaving a clandestine dump on the floor for everyone to see and smell the next day (according to the teachers, this is not at all normal and unheard of in Ghana). Quoting my headmaster, “They were leaving shit-bombs….and got their just deserts.”

Recently, I’ve been enjoying fresh palm wine in town, something I had never had up until the funeral. My headmaster and a fellow teacher took me to one of the houses to enjoy the tasty beverage, and were shocked when I said I hadn’t tried it yet. This drink is a staple beverage in my small town, considering we are surrounded by palms and it is so easy to make. To get palm wine, you cut a hole in a recently felled tree, tapping the sap for about two weeks. Fresh palm wine has a very low alcohol content (about 2%), but tastes not unlike a fruity soda with a hint of bitters. When it is fresh, it is sweet. The longer it sits, the more fermented it gets, and the alcohol content increases. I prefer it fresh. When I came back to town the week following the funeral for more palm wine, I brought my own bottle to be filled (it’s about 50 cents for 750mL). My students saw me and freaked out that I was buying alcohol. I told them that they should wait until they are older, and when they are, to drink in moderation. Sounding Al Gorish, my students realized I wasn’t a swinging drunkard and left me alone. Riding home on my bike, the bottle’s top (not fully screwed on) popped off violently, and I learned that the vapors are slightly volatile. Someone once told me these very vapors attract invisible dwarves, which is a story I’ll have to get into another time. Let’s just say during training, a host-brother of one of my friends warned us not to “F^%$ with the dwarves!” I won’t.

Another newly discovered favorite of mine is this bubble gum ice cream in Accra- 6 cedis (roughly $4) gets me 8 scoops of this cold treat. Lisa and others complained that I have the pallet of a four-year-old since I prefer this flavor over, say, normal vanilla or blasé mocha chip. It doesn’t help that I’ve also started mixing into my oats a brand of this nutritious and delicious powdered baby food. Although the package clearly states it’s for infants, with a baby cartoon bear over this message to help clarify things, I don’t see what the problem is. I have banana flavored, fruit flavored, and maize flavored powders that are keeping me alive and happy. Does that make me less of a man? No. Now, can someone please come over and help shovel this into my mouth making plane noises?

Also coming up soon are Thanksgiving and the arrival of the students’ pen pal letters. The U.S. Ambassador is having Thanksgiving at his place again, and mostly all I can remember from last year is feeling like Jaba the Hut and somehow making it to the pool for a swim. After the ambassador’s, I went to the Kumasi Thanksgiving too, and after two Thanksgiving dinners, I thought I would be med sepped for gluttony. This year I think I’ll play it safe and go to only one Thanksgiving event.

Around the end of November, I’m hoping we get our pen pal letters from the students at Rickards High in Tallahassee. We’ve been doing a correspondence program with the students there, and this time it the letters focus on what science can and cannot study. My students keep asking me when the letters are going to come, and for 6 weeks or so I’ll be saying “It takes about six to seven weeks from when we sent them out.” So we have that to look forward to.

As for me, I’ll be checking the progress of my grant twice a day like a maniac, since this is the biggest project I’ve been working on for over a year. Love ya’ll and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Wine:

Cardwell Hill Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, 2006

Music:

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?- She & Him

You, Me & The Bourgeoisie- The Submarines

Shadows- Rufus Wainwright

The Thanksgiving Song- Adam Sandler

Ship Out On The Sea- The Be Good Tanyas

Yes!- Coldplay

Love- J Dilla

Shine A Light- Wolf Parade

Strange Apparition- Beck

Straight Street- The Fiery Furnaces

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing- Jack Johnson

Empire State of Mind- Jay-Z

The Computer Lab and Library- another month and it will be completed!!!!

Enjoying palm wine during the funeral

At the funeral with a teacher (left) and my headmaster (right)

Two other teachers who attended the funeral (to my left)

Some houses around my town

The Form 1 Classroom

My Form 3s

My Form 2s

The cats, acting weird

They just chopped down this tree outside my home :( Baby food....or breakfast of champions?

STARS!

Florence and Edward

The dining hall at KNUST

Sessions

Activities

Using the computers

Drama night

The campus tour

The talent show

The debate

Male bonding

Florence talking with TV3

Female bonding

Final night at STARS

Thanks Coke!

Kim!

Fun with Kerry's glasses

The wooden Penises

Hey now!

The culture festival in Wenchi: Dancing

Drumming

Poetry

Acheampomaa performing poetry

Getting ready

Talking Drums

At the culture fest w/ my students

Mavis

The Hyundai!!!!!

Books you probably should read at some point

Today’s Friday, and we have just finished our third week of Term 3. Guess how many classes I taught so far…… If you guessed two, give yourself a nice punch in the ribs because you are correct. Two classes! Students spent Week 1 weeding the school compounds; students spent Weeks 2 and 3 building a fence for the soccer field. I’m not going to harp on this much, but let’s just put this into perspective: There are only 12 weeks in Term 3, and the first three have been wasted. Talking to my headmaster, I learned that this term our school is hosting sports on week four and having culture week (2 weeks of no classes) sometime in June. Counting revisions and exams, during 8 of the 12 weeks in Term 3 there are no classes. I hate how much my school is like a treadmill- everything about it is preventing me from making progress.As an outlet to all the cancelled classes, I plucked one of my students, Prince, from a group of other students building the soccer fence. I instructed him to put together a rag-tag team of painters, and then we got to work on the World Map Project. Prince is one of the school’s artistically inclined students, having a penchant for drawing what he sees (he’s the one who helps me make science posters). Since the World Map Project requires precision, I figured he’d be perfect for the job. He, Barbara, Ahunu and Boapea have been working for almost one week now tracing grids, drawing outlines, and painting. I even snuck in some math, having them do measurements and use a protractor to get a perfect 2x4 meter rectangle. What they have so far looks amazing, and next week we should be finished. Given the amount of freedom they had while working on the project, a few mistakes were made. We would work from 7 to 1, or until the intensity of the sun phone checked us to stop.As it stands, Guatemala is under water, the Koreas have been cloaked (ha ha Park), several countries, including Germany and France, seem to have been swallowed by Italy and Spain, and Israel (to some people’s delight) doesn’t exist on our map. The last thing really is to finish the Peace Corps logo and put a few major countries on the map. One of my PCV friends here also decided to paint the World Map Project, and this weekend I plan on helping her out some. Two World Maps should keep me slightly preoccupied from the nagging thoughts of cancelled classes.Going back to school affairs, last week, no one, not the headmaster or the teachers were at the school this one day; but 80 students did… and me. Two teachers hadn’t shown up for two weeks. After finding out that eight of the twelve weeks of classes will be cancelled, I got in my first argument with my headmaster, whom I am very close with at my site. I argued that there is no structure at our school- teachers come and go as they please, there was no schedule for going to class or completing a projects dealing with sports or culture, and many students either stayed home or sat idle during school hours. What sparked the argument was when I started haranguing the headmaster about the need for extra classes, even though they were cancelled because students no longer had to pay for them. I said I’d do them for free, and he remained obstinate until I reminded him of the test I gave during the first week. This test was given to my Form 2s during an informal class- it had 40 questions and assessed their math skills at the basic level- addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions, exponents, square roots, simple algebra and simple word problems. Everyone failed; mostly all the students couldn’t even subtract a negative number by a negative number. Based on my students’ performance during previous terms, I knew my students would fail. The point was to bring them back to reality, to squash their cockiness.I convinced the headmaster to allow me to hold mandatory after school classes for 30 minutes to go over one part of the Math Basics Test (like subtraction or fractions). To make it more appealing, I paid for exercise books for every student, and pitted the Form 1’s against the Form 2’s. I would write four questions and go over each one. Then I would give another four and time the students to do the work on their own. Then, after 10 minutes, I stopped them and randomly chose a boy and a girl from each form to come to the board and write their answer. So far, these classes have been going well, but it’s only been two weeks.I’ve also shifted my focus from formal classes to informal reading classes, which puts less pressure on the students to memorize, and they get to have fun learning. I started them on a chapter in their science books, one we won’t get to cover due to time constraints, and then we discuss it. I’m hoping to have labs like this. You might ask why I don’t just teach what I’m supposed to- well because the students and I don’t know when the next class will be. If I see the students aren’t doing anything I jump on the opportunity. Reading comp is something my students need to work on, and since it’s not for a grade, my students actually like to write what they read in the books. I emailed this company [Darien Books] to donate about 30 pounds of middle-school level books to us (they specialize in sending books to Peace Corps volunteers), but I have to wait 3 months for the order.Next week the new volunteers, or trainees (not trannies), are coming in for training. I wish I could be at the airport to see their wide-eyed faces while we lob Ghanaian goods at them like every group did before us. I can't believe we've been here for one year, and that we are now the "old" group. At the one year mark, Peace Corps issues us orthopedic shoes, a cane, and gives us epson salt bucket baths on the weekends.A little after arriving in Ghana, the new trainees are given five days to go, on there own, to a volunteer's site to see what life is like there- this is called Vision Quest. On top of staying with the PCV, the trainee is to observe and record what they see at the volunteer's site. I remember my Vision Quest host, Phil, in the Volta Region. Phil isn't a teacher, he is doing agriculture with the farmers in his community. He took me around town and gave me some pointers and background into being a PCV in Ghana. In about a week, it will be my turn to show the trainee around my site and be the host with the most. Luckily, the person I'm paired with is in science education.This year, training and host families will be in the same place as when we were trainees- in and around Kukurantumi. When we were trainers, some of the Senior and Junior HS volunteers took turns coming and helping the Peace Corps staff with training. This year, instead of just education volunteers, the new group is double our size and has education, small business, water sanitation, and environment volunteers. A few of my friends in my group will go this year to train the new trainees. Training the new group takes a lot of time away from site, and since I'm so far behind at my school, I did not sign up for this year's training, though I really wanted to do it. On the bright side, the training site is about 2 hours from my home and I can crash it whenever I please.Also, just in time for the trainees, we convened last week in Kumasi to put together and publish the first Ghana JHS teacher's manual. The manual was started 6 years ago by the first group to teach JHS, and contains the words of every JHS volunteer so far in Ghana, each contributing a section or tips. I wrote a section on professional relations with the school staff. Other sections include a year at the JHS, a day at school, a brief background into the Ghana Education System, and tips for teaching math, science and ICT. After reading the manual, I'm envious of the new volunteers.Back at my site, I have a new way to relieve stress- weeding. I had bought this really nice machete to help my neighbor cut bamboo (we were building a new gate for his goats as well as a new kitchen), and found that I could take out several blades of 7 foot high grass with one swing. One of the women in my town who comes to the school and gives me fruit and home made food always jokes that we'll one day go to farm. I took her up on it, and we walked all the way out to her orange tree field now inaccessible due to the new elephent grass the rain brought. I loved every minute of weeding, and the motions reminded me of playing tennis back home. But the amount of sweat pouring out of me got my friend nervous, and after about two hours she pleaded that I stop. I told her I wasn't tired and it helped relieve my stress- she thought I was nuts. I found out she has a bad leg, so whenever I'm in town on the weekends, I've decided to go with her to her farm.A few days later, I got a knock at my door, and when I opened it there was this little old man, with loads of kontummere (the elephent-ear looking leaves I love to eat) in his arms. The man spoke good English, and a whistle escaped the gaps in his teeth to accompany every word. He had the shakes as well, reminding me of Jell-O. Shaking and whistling, he introduced himself as Papa Kofi, and explained that he heard from people around town that I loved kontummere, and that he would like to pick some for me whenever he went to farm. I myself go and pick kontummere after school, which grows like weeds in some areas at my site. I thanked the man, and found out he lives right behind me. I plan on going for a visit sometime soon. Man do I have it made in the shade here.A few days ago, a lizard the size of a small iguana had found its way into my house, and as I chased it to release it back into the wild, I saw this huge insect, something I've never seen perched, yes it was big enough to use the word perched, on one of the halwway's windowsills. The entomologist in me immediately told me to apporach with caution, but capture it no matter what. It was a fly the size of one of those large moths, with what looked like a probiscus that could suck a pint of blood from even the most thick-skinned of animal. I thought it was dead, but when I poked it with a rolled up magazine (Science, haha) it flew at me and I almost broke my skull falling on myself. Despite swatting and killing it, I was able to preserve the body. Then I stared at it for maybe 10 minutes, followed by a photo shoot- the bug might have well been a bikini model, I was taking so many pictures. I later found out that it is harmless, and doesn't even feed as a fly, it gorges itself as a larva, then mates in the adult stage. I think it was called a soldier fly. Good name for such a frightful insect.Lastly, STARS is coming up in a few weeks. It dawned on me that I should invite the high school student I helped with Biology over the break- she's bright and told me she wants to go to college to become a doctor. STARS would be the best forum for her to go out and meet students with similar ambitions. Luckily, I was able to give her all the forms on time. I'm finding fundraising going much better now compared to when I started. I'm in Accra now sealing the deal with a company donating 100 STARS t-shirts and another providing cash donations. It's almost the 11th hour, but it looks like this year's STARS is going to be quite successful.Ciao!Music: Life’s What You Make It- Talk Talk Lovely Day- Bill Withers Change- Sean Kingston Think- Aretha Franklin Here Comes The Sun- The Beatles Disorder and Disarray- Rancid Pull Up The People- M.I.A. Don’t Let It Get To Your Head- Nat King ColeRogues- Incubus Black Velveteen- Lenny Kravitz Moi, Mon Âme Et Ma Conscience- Paris Combo 19th Nervous Breakdown- Rolling Stones Hangin’ Around- Counting Crows Bollywood to Battersea- Babyshambles Don’t Believe A Word- Thin Lizzy So He Won’t Break- The Black Keys Bullet and A Target- Citizen Cope Salute Your Solutions- The Raconteurs Get Ready- The Temptations Ooh Wee- Mark Ronson Flowers in bloom

Weeding

Ghana lawnmower

The Bush Samurai and his lady

Let's make...a fence

World Map outline

Painting the World Map

Almost finished Found this amongst the paint guards we used

Lord of the Flies

Another beautiful sunset in Otumi

Juju Items

Monkey's paw

Medicinal tree bark

Tailor making a fine smock

Being forced to dance

Under the sub-chief's umbrella

One of Techiman's sub-chiefs

A thronging crowd

Drummer

Dancer

Lover (I meant to tell you about her earlier, I swear!)

Kintampo Falls lounge area

Kintampo Falls

Wagashee (fried cheese from the north)- delic!

I was told this is bean paste. It looks, tastes, and has the consistency of wet cement.

It is looking especially beautiful today- Cool breeze, plenty of sunshine for my drying clothes, and ecstatic children enjoying their first week of the school holiday. It must be murder for the Form 3s, who are right now getting in a few more hours of test prep before they take tomorrow’s BECE. Aside from my neighbor’s outdoor kitchen that blew down, one would never suspect that just last night another of Ghana’s tropical storms barreled through our small town.Thursday marked the end of Term 2 of the school year, and on Saturday I finally finished recording grades. Over the break, many of my Peace Corps friends will be doing some travelling, some running around Ghana, others going to Togo, Niger, Egypt, etc., and at least two of my friends are spending a few weeks in the States. My plans do not include any of the above- I’m strapped for cash and holding out for when my brother (and maybe others?) come here in August. We PCVs get two vacation days a month, and I’ve been saving up every one so far for a nice trip up to Northern Ghana, possibly Mali, and a two week sojourn in Florida to see family and friends. Anyway, I have enough on my plate as it is until June- I think I’ll make the most of this holiday in Otumi.For April, I was looking forward to having a Passover cedar in northern Ghana with my friends Corey, Jack, and a few others. These plans took a strange turn where I ended up spending the Jewish holiday hang gliding over Nkawkaw, while Corey had a BBQ up in Tamale. I guess the temptations of flying and eating burgers trumped a Jewish tradition thousands of years old. Each Easter, Ghana’s Tourist Board sponsors hang gliding in the Nkawkaw mountains (about 3 hours from my site), where ten hang gliding pilots strap reluctant passengers to themselves, then run off cliffs and into the air. There are other pilots who go solo, but for people like me, we pay for the tandem ride. Peace Corps volunteers have been coming to the event for years, and many of us were looking forward to this year’s event. Unfortunately, it was rumored that the event was cancelled, so PCVs started making other plans for their four week Easter vacation. I went on the website for the event and contacted someone about the cancellation. I found out that it wasn’t exactly cancelled, it was just not being sponsored by the Ghanaian government this year. The event was originally created by the NPP party, and since the NDC party came into power this year, the event was put to the side. Instead, this year’s event would go on, but on a much smaller scale and privately funded. What was supposed to be the 5th Annual Easter Hang Gliding Event, with ten tandem pilots and loads of people dissolved into a makeshift event of one tandem pilot, about 5 solo flyers, a few eager participants like myself, and a handful of onlookers.With me were Stephen and Kyle, and all three of us were feeling keen on getting into the air. To make a long story short, only Stephen and I got to go, and Kyle had to get back to site early. The line to get on the hang glider was long, and with only one tandem and an hour in between each flight, we were there for hours just talking to people milling about and watching the take offs. We did meet some Germans, Brits, South Africaaaans, a Swiss fella, and a few Ghanaians (one of which was an ambitious university student whose dream was to marry a white woman).These awesome, and might I add fine, German girls let Stephen and I go before them since we had to get back to our sites and they were staying in town. Stephen went first, and I regret laughing my ass off when he took off- he kind of went stiff during take-off and this looked hilarious. Why I regret this was my take off was no better, in fact it was much much worse- with the simple press of a button, Stephen can play this scene over and over and over again. What happened was this: Before taking off, the pilot, Ed from San Fran, would take us through the motions on the ground- I’m in front, so I lead. I run. I keep running, even as I’m in the air (like Santa’s reindeer- I have the big red nose to go with the part). Fin. Did I mention I’m running about 100 yards down a declining slope that ends at a sheer drop off the top of a mountain? After Stephen got back, it was my turn to fly and Stephen’s turn to laugh. I got into position, and immediately when I put my first foot forward, a gust of wind pulled the wing back and both my feet were in the air- so much for running. The problem was we needed to be running and going forward, and the instant my feet hit the ground a little farther from where we started I ran like hell- I remember the pilot saying something like ‘We need to be going like 12mph to get this thing into the air properly’. This continued two more times where just when I started to get enough speed, I would be in the air and my legs would be rendered useless. It seriously looked like we were going to fall.Things started to look up as we got past the cliff’s edge and were riding the wind to get higher elevation. I can’t describe how beautiful everything was up there. I thought to myself- why don’t I own a hang glider? I looked down at an ant-sized Stephen while gliding over mountains and marveling at everything under my feet. One snag though- my testicles were being crushed by a harness that kept me attached to the rest of the glider. I had no idea how to fix the problem, and I was too afraid to fiddle with anything with the fear that I might unfasten something. So as great as the flight was, my privates were in a vice. I got dizzy and nauseous, but at least I got the pilot laughing. I had a hard time taking pictures since I concentrated more on shifting my weight, but I got a few in, including one showing my nether-region fiasco. We touched down in a soccer field, and that was that. After the flight, Stephen and I hung out with the some of the Brits we met at the event. They were volunteers as well, and they lived just a few minutes away from where we took off. There were some serious parties going on, and I was shocked to see how upscale the Nkawkaw area was- people were dressed for success, there were BMWs, Cadillacs, and Mercedes on the road, and the houses were huge. There is definitely money in Nkawkaw. Later, my headmaster would tell me that the people who come from that town (the Kwahus) redistribute their wealth and help each other, unlike places like Otumi where if someone makes it big, they usually leave and keep their money for themselves. He said sometimes people from these towns are afraid others will curse them because of their newly acquired wealth. Aside from the cursing bit, this fact seems to hold for Otumi- I’ve talked to several people now in my town who haven’t heard from brothers or sisters who grew up in Otumi and made it big. At least two people here have siblings who are doctors in America- one is a brain surgeon, and I’m helping the guy get in contact with his brother through email. Even the headmaster has a brother in New York who made millions after coming to the US in the 70s. He is what I deem a potential STARS sponsor.With great sorrow, I also must add that my grandfather passed away last week, and I learned this shocking news just after touching down from hang gliding. I had known a week before that he had to go to the hospital, but after several phone calls following the day he was driven to the hospital, I was convinced he would pull through. My top concern before leaving the US for Ghana was whether or not I’d ever see either of my grandparents again. I’m very close to them, and since it is difficult to speak with them over the phone, I’ve only been able to communicate through letters. I’m surprised I didn’t remain despondent when we went out with the Brits, but having Stephen around and talking to my family definitely helped. When I got back, my the headmaster at my school also did a good job of cheering me up. A friend back home suggested I write something for his memorial, and I think that definitely helped as well. I wanted to go back, but this would have made things much more stressful for my family. I wish I could have seen him one more time…The day following my hang gliding experience, I was to attend a teacher workshop in the district capital with my counterpart and another teacher. Three teachers from each school in the district were supposed to take part in one of three 3-day workshops: social studies, math, and science. I attended the math workshops, my counterpart the science workshops, and the other teacher did social studies. The workshops were on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and school got out on the last day of the conference. I was upset that I’d have to miss the last days of school, which is when I wanted to go over the answers to the students’ finals, but what can you do? On the bright side, I get more insight into the education system in Ghana, and since Stephen’s in my district, I would get to see him as well.The first day of the workshop was alright, although there was no sign of either my counterpart or the other teacher (we went separately). I showed up a bit early to say hi to someone I knew who worked at the education office- Martin, my old Peace Corps trainer, and I had a feeling that since it said on the notice that the workshops started at 9, Martin and I probably had all morning to talk. Of course the meeting got started at 10:30, and once we got started we moved into the new education reforms which went into effect at the beginning of this school year. The district director of education came and gave a speech, and that was pretty much it for the first day. Stephen was in the science workshop, so we had to meet up later and compare notes. Both of us got stares and childish yells of Obruni by many of the teachers at the workshop (over a hundred of them at each one). I recounted to Stephen how over half the teachers in the room were loud and obnoxious and would try to finish the speaker’s sentences. I’m not kidding when I say my students are much better behaved than most of the teachers that showed up.The last two days of the workshop went downhill. First off, my counterpart was nowhere to be found. I found out later he skipped out and went to the Volta Region miles away. The other teacher showed up, and we both agreed that these workshops were a waste of time and money (Stephen said an NGO was footing the bill). Instead of focusing on teaching methods (which was quickly glossed over), the teachers in the math workshop argued over sample math questions that I solved in my head in a few seconds. I am not kidding. I wanted to tear my eyes out. Mind you, our workshop took place in a JHS classroom, with other students around, and teachers were being loud and roudy. A teacher behind me would shout random nonsense like “Random sample!” if the coordinator asked someone in the audience to speak. One was making a big deal and almost crying because someone stole his juice box (this is not a lie). Another teacher kept getting up, paced the room, and at one point spat a mouthful of water at the back blackboard to make other teachers laugh. Sneaking into Stephen’s workshop, I saw the same deal- here too the hooting and hollering was in full swing. It was INSANE. If these people weren’t responsible for students’ futures, I would think this workshop was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Instead I glared at the teachers as they laughed and talked while someone was trying to speak at the front. I could see some of the students shaking their head in disappointment, and I exchanged looks of embarrassment with some of the older teachers.On the last day of the workshop, while going over our notes of the stupidity we saw, Stephen and I encountered the same exact situation: During lunch, I noticed a single female teacher was carrying the complementary lunches to the rest of the teachers, even though 95% of the room was male. I sat in my seat and just stared, trying to think if I should get up to help her or what. I didn’t know if she volunteered to do it, or if I’d be insulting her in some way if I got up to help. I at least offered to, and she smiled and said it was alright. But it bothered me the entire time. Meanwhile, the exact same thing was happening on Stephen’s side, and he made the same offers and had the same reservations.I was able to be there for at least some of the last day of school before the break. Since I’m so far behind, I offered to have students come directly to my house, where we could sit on the front porch and I could help catch them up on new material or go over the basics if they preferred. I also announced that we would likely be doing a World Map painting on a side wall this break since our Periodic Table painting was such a success. At least two teachers in my town will hang around, and I think this time they’ll help with the project.In my last post, I talked about getting a bike and riding it miles out into the bush. This turned out to be a very bad idea. The headmaster, along with some of the teachers and students, all warned me that it is too dangerous in the bush, that there are people who kill others for their blood and what-not. I blew it off as them trying to scare me. After their warning though the trails seemed to feel much darker o ride on. Finally, a group of farmers I met on one of the trails echoed what everyone at school said: don’t go on the trails, at least don’t go alone and unarmed- take a student or a friend. Apparently someone was recently murdered in the bush out around where I was riding. A few people in town confirmed this, and after that day I’ve stopped riding into the bush. I shudder thinking back to all the abandoned or isolated homes I came across in the middle of the forest.After discontinuing my rides into the bush, I thought I was again safe so long as I didn’t go out there. Of I was wrong. Just a week later, one of my female students was chased down by three men in a taxi while walking home from night classes. At the same time a woman in my town was hit over the head with a pestle and robbed in the night. The teachers and I had to stop night classes for the students’ safety, and now we are trying to figure out when students should come for computer lessons and private tutoring. I reported the incidents to Peace Corps, and someone from safety and security dropped by to check on me and speak with some of the locals. I asked if they could issue guns to PCVs under special circumstances, but I was told no, they didn’t. Guess I’m just going to have to watch my back and be smart.Two weeks ago I went to Accra for STARS fundraising, where I went in person to a few businesses to find sponsors. A few people were very helpful, and although I didn’t get any donations then and there, I think some of the companies I went to might be able to help. On my list of places to go was the Ministry of Education. In my head I pictured a modern looking building with busy people walking through corridors with important documents tucked under their arm. This was not the case. When I got there, I thought I had the wrong place because even though there was a large sign saying “Ministry of Education”, all I could see was an old, sad-looking U-shaped building. Not many people were out, and it took me a while to find the person I was looking for since there were no maps (I used the piles of old furniture as land marks). I talked to three people about getting speakers and sponsors, but no one seemed to be helpful. In the end, I felt like I needed to donate money to the Ministry of Education. I plan on going back to Accra for follow ups and I need to talk to a few more companies.Also in April I went to a funeral in town, had dinner for two separate families, and mailed out about 70 or so pen pal letters my students had written. The funeral was alright, I wore my 8 yard funeral cloth commonly adorned by the men. I saw the chief and several people at the funeral, which was held in the center of town. The deceased was an older man, a retired fire chief for another town, with tons of children and grandchildren. He seemed to be well-liked by the rest of Otumi. Since he died at an old age, the family wore white, the color of happiness, to celebrate his life. Had he been younger, the family would have worn black and red.I went with the family of one of my students who sort of took me in as one of their own, which is fine by me because their food is delicious and they’re a nice bunch to be around. After the funeral, I offered to cook them American food the following week. They took me up on the offer, and after about two hours of preparing and cooking pasta with contummere (spinach) and garlic bread, we sat and ate in the confines of my home. It was a successful dinner party, with 5 people at the table.The other dinner did not go so well. For a long time I swore that I would make a meal for one of the women in town (the one who wants to go jogging and practice boxing) since she is so nice to me and almost daily has a student deliver to me complementary fruits, snacks, and home-made doughnut-type things. Her father tells me stories about when he was a soldier, and her husband is an alright guy as well. When they tried my food, a curry dish made from scratch, they had the worst looks on their faces. The onions I caramelized and in my opinion were delicious were too sweet for their palettes and ruined the whole meal. I was upset, but it was also amusing to watch the husband try in earnest politeness to finish his plate with a disgusted look on his face. So much for caramelizing anything for Ghanaians. We talked into the night, and realizing the “crime wave” in our town, headed back to my house. I need to mention the peculiar name they gave to their cat: Mr. Quiddles.Lastly, my students had fun writing pen pal letters, and I finally sent them out two weeks ago. Now we play the waiting game of having them arrive in the states and receiving response letters. Along with the letters, I also made a Power Point with pictures of my school and around Ghana. Some of the pictures were actually taken by other Peace Corps volunteers to promote eco-tourism in Ghana. These first letters were more introductory than anything, and I found on the Peace Corps websites good lesson plans using the pen pals letters (i.e.- HIV/AIDS discussions, cross-cultural dialogues, day-to-day life, what sharing means, etc.). My students keep coming up to me and asking if the response letters came yet, and I expect them to keep asking until they finally arrive four to five weeks from now. That’s it for today. I’ve got to help write a section for a JHS booklet we’re making for the new volunteers coming in this summer, and I’m hoping to crank out a section on PCV/ school staff relations. Of course I have to plug the website for STARS donations. Below is a link to the STARS PCPP that went through. Please at least click on the link and read about the fund raising we are doing for STARS. Again, this is the conference where about 60 high school students meet for 5 days in Kumasi to learn about HIV/AIDS, Science, Technology, tertiary education, as well as participate in fun activities and hear from successful Ghanaians speaking at the event. It’s coming up in June, and it relies heavily on outside contributions. This is the thing I’ve been walking around Accra for, so in essence if you contribute, I wouldn’t have to walk so much from office building to office building. Please give what you can; it is a very good cause.https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-261Wine Dierberg Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley 2005MusicHold On! I’m Comin’- Sam and DaveThe Kids Are Alright- The WhoIt’s Your Life- Lenny KravitzIf I Never See Your Face Again- Maroon 5Mad Season- Matchbox 20Pretty Vacant- Sex PistolsShout- Sean Paul

Nkawkaw (This is the Brit's dorm/house)

A tree blocking the way up to the hang gliding site

The hang gliding site

Stephen's take-off

The problem

Looking down at our take-off point

"Kyle, check this out..."

Going to a funeral

Making fufu

The pictures I sent with the pen pal letters

Peace Corps Eco-Tourism pics sent with the pen pal letters

My BikeNana Darko- A town elder known for his backflips

Me with some Otumi officials

My Form 2 KMS Drummers

...And we're marching!

My Form 1 girls moving forward

Click Me

View from Sue's place

In search of breakfast in Abompe

Insert pithy comment here Bauxite from the minesAbompe local drilling holes into bauxite beads

Some necklaces with bauxite

More bauxite necklaces

I got one!

My buddy Chris trying his hand at hole drilling

Some soon-to-be beads

Bauxite bracelet- You will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine

Awesome bamboo bike

HUGE fruit the size of your everyday miniature poodle

More books you should definitely read (if you are literate)

Check back tomorrow for a full blog entry. It's getting late and I'm too tired to get mugged walking to the bunk house.

Various slingshots

My new toy

The partially built ICT/ Science Center...

...with detachable roof

Slingshot action

Jack, awake and alert at the in-service training conference

Ronald Tschetter, the director of Peace Corps (center in black jacket)

with PCVs and staff

Most people don’t know this, but those pictures NASA comes out with from Mars missions- fake. The real deal is all those photos came from right outside my home, where almost everything coated with a fine layer of rust red dust. What those scientists are really spending our tax dollars on is anyone’s guess.

Yes, it’s the dry season at my site, and that means desiccated streets, parched animals, and the occasional dust storm. My snot is red. Nothing is white. My lungs, too, are probably red- down to each individual alveolus. The only upside to this- dust angels. Merry Christmas there!

Speaking of Christmas, things went very well over here- Chihiro and her friend Yasuko came over, bringing gifts and some Japanese food to cook. In fact, they brought one of my favorite dishes in Japan- mochi. I haven’t eaten real mochi like this since about 3 years ago when I lived in the outskirts of Tokyo. Things got so bad, I used to have to go to mochi dens to wean myself off the delicious rice treat.

Yasuko brought the dry mix with her from Japan, and all we had to do was add water, roll them into balls, and boil them for a few minutes. Easy enough, right? Unfortunately, no- we added too much water, and when it came time for rolling, it was mush (see below). I don’t think me cracking up, practically on the floor laughing, helped matters. The girls did the best they could and put our sad, limp-looking creations in the pot of boiling water. They managed to get two perfect balls towards the end though.

We boiled them up, mixed them with a brown sugar sauce traditionally mixed in with the starchy treats, and topped it off with mochi poweder, kind of like brown powdered sugar. Despite the mochi coming out nothing like the picture from the package, I gave it all thumbs up.

We exchanged gifts afterwards, and despite my shitty wrapping job (think pieces of notebook paper and duct tape), I think I did well with gifts this year. Earlier that week I went Christmas shopping at the Cultural Center in Accra to find Chihiro a gift. Among the gifts was a stretch of fabric with a woodblock print of dancers from Northern Ghana, as well as two Mad Libs I tore out of my Worst Case Scenario-themed Mad Libs book- one with how to survive a snake bite (for Ghana), and the other for how to survive an earthquake (for when she returns to Japan). Yasuko got a bead bracelet I picked up from Koforidua. Both seemed satisfied with their gifts, and guys, it is al;way propitious to know a girl's favorite color before getting her a gift.

They also brought their computer, and when I placed my pen drive in the computer to lift some files, I found out the drive was riddled with viruses. And then the Great Deletion happened. I lost all of my files, including some important ones dealing with STARS among other documents. Are they backed up? We’ll see next time I go to Accra. Luckily, I didn’t infect Yasuko’s computer….

Earlier Christmas Day, I went into town to exchange afehyia pas (pronounced afishyapa- think happy holidays and New Year’s combined), and gave gifts to those I’m tight with. In Ghana, getting gifts for people is relatively easy-

“What do you want for Christmas?” ‘Biscuits’ “No prob”

For my headmaster, I found a really nice leather frame, and placed a photo of the two of us shaking hands inside it. I’ll never forget his elated smile when I handed it to him. I didn’t bother wrapping it for him after the previous night’s fiasco of wrapping gifts.

It was bothersome when total strangers or people I didn't know very well asked where their gift was. I would tilt my head slightly to the side and just stare at them, befuddled, until they got the point that I had nothing for them. Asking them "Where's MY gift?" or saying “It’s right over there [point in some direction, then run away when they look]" also proved effective.

Among the gifts I got was a huge, I don’t know, stalk? Of bananas, and while carrying this behemoth back to my house, I noticed but was not surprised by an enormous spider, like the one mentioned in my last post, residing on the bananas. Inured to living amongst a plethora of biting and stinging animals, I shrugged and continued to walk to my house, clutching my bananas w/ spider.

All Peace Corps Volunteers either spent Christmas at their site or out of the country- traveling around Ghana was prohibited by Peace Corps due to run off elections taking place at the time. Under stand fast rules, we were to stay at site until January 2nd, a few days after elections in case of any violence. A few of my friends went back to the States, while others spent their holidays in other West African countries or Europe. I forgot to ask for Necco wafers to those friends who did go to the States.

For the most part, elections went well (depending on who you ask); Ghana could account for no major violent outbursts in any of her 10 regions, and it looks like the NDC party (the opposing party in Ghana) won by the skin of its teeth (about 51%). There was just one tiny gaffe in the election process, a certain district botched something and now elections had to be extended to Friday. I found this out from an irritated Grant, who happens to live in that very district. I raised the question about whether or not this would further extend stand fast for PCVs. This seemed to irritate him more.

Sure enough, a few hours after our conversation, Peace Corps texted us that stand fast will in fact be extended to January 6th. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy damn!!!!!

So I got to sulk with mostly everyone else in my town, though their sulking came from the election outcome- NDC's win. Only a few people in my town were staunch supporters of the NDC, and for them it was kind of amusing for me to see the look of satisfaction on their faces. It’s like seeing the lone Dolphins fan in a room packed with Jets fans (if you know what I mean). I can care less about either party; I don’t see any difference between the two, and in talking with people around Ghana, I’m further confused. They both sound the same. I liked the CPP, but they , like America’s Green Party, got a scant number of votes during the first elections. A lot of people liked the guy running for the CPP, but every single one of my interlocutors, being cab drivers or the women selling vegetables in the market, said they liked the main guy, Nduom, but the rest of his party “didn’t have it together”.

Over the school break, my students and I finished the Periodic Table Project- It took three days to complete- first we chalked an outline, then painted with the black, and lastly touched it up with some color. Even Chihiro and Yasuko stopped by to help, though many of the students were at church that day and so we didn’t work on it. The finished product was a beautiful site: A periodic table, some examples of electron configurations, and a model showing protons, neutrons, and electrons.

All JHS students have to take a high stkaes test to get into high school, and keeping in mind that most of the questions on the science portion of the test come from their chemistry units in the syllabus, I thought it would be a good idea to have a visual aid for them. On top of this, the students are responsible for memorizing a heap of insignificant information, such as the names of several inorganic compounds. Looking at the syllabus, a lot of what the students have to learn was taught in my college chemistry class; I think the painting will help boost interest in chemistry, and make them feel smart when they can explain to others information not readily available on the now painted wall. For instance, I want students to be able to look at the table and know what the numbers at the rows and columns stand for.

Elections in my town were held at my school, so many people got to see our painting. With great aplomb, I expounded on some of the concepts of the painting to onlookers. My counterpart, on the other-hand, frowned at our creation. He pretty much expressed that that the painting was unsightly, and it shouldn’t have been done. In my head, I imagined me and a reanimated Mendel knocking my counterpart’s jaw loose with a double punch. My façade though was that of stoicism despite my cp’s obvious affront.

Things have been steadily going south with my counterpart ever since I started work at my site, except that recently, after making the comment about our school's painting, he's been lightening up and being more friendly with me. In fact, just the other day we had a congenial conversation about leaving together for the in service training event on the 12th. He and I, along with all other education volunteers and their CPs, will meet up in Kukurantumi for a five day workshop. I'm hoping that by Term 2, we will have worked out our differeneces.

Since stand fast has left me stuck at site during the holidays, I needed to find some kind of analgesic for my boredom. Aside from tutoring students in the morning, reading books in the afternoon, and talking to people around town in-between, I would find myself restless, needing to do something less mundane. My answer to this quandary took the form of my headmaster’s Minolta SLR film camera. My headmaster had showed me the camera before, but up to that point I was totally ignorant about all things dealing with film cameras. Fortunately, as a youth my headmaster used to be a professional photographer, and showed me his collection of brilliant photographs he took years ago. So my headmaster spent a day showing me the parts of the camera, how film works, and explained some of the jargon that comes with taking pictures. Mr. Donkor showed me how to focus, read the light meter to make appropriate adjustments, and eye a situation to get good light balances.

After giving me a few pointers, he let me borrow his camera, and with a full roll of film, set off to practice taking some shots. I did a nice little walkabout around my town, snapping pictures either of the forest or of families and children excited to get their picture taken. I’m sure I looked like a fruitcake just wandering around the fringes of my town snapping pictures of what seemed like absolutely nothing to my fellow Otumians.

During the holidays, I’ve also been unnerved by reports coming in over the radio about Hamas and Israel’s bloody conflict in Gaza. It is a shame that innocent people are killed on both sides, and as convoluted as the situation is, it hurts to overhear in the rhetoric that many nations are condemning Israel. Coincidentally, about three days before any news of Israel’s retaliation on Hamas, something else that is Israel related had also stopped me in my tracks:

Before leaving for Ghana, I downloaded several episodes of my favorite podcasts on my iPod so that while in Ghana I could hear the sound of Americans conversing. I held out listening to my favorite show, Keith and the Girl, for over a month so I could hear new conversations while stuck in a crevasse of boredom. Last week I was in just one of those situations, and though the show was about 7 months old, it still retained its entertainment value. I was cooking, and while listening, I heard my name mentioned on the show. I nearly dropped what I was doing, I was so shocked.

A while back, I had sent a letter to Keith and the Girl in New York expressing how good I thought the show was as well as how the show should provide some entertainment for me whilst in Ghana; along with the letter I included some pictures of Israel (the Girl is from Israel, and her boyfriend Keith constantly rips on how brown everything is over there). I half-heartedly hoped that my non-brown subjects in the pictures would set things straight. Since I sent the letter in the midst of finshing up grad school and getting ready to move to Ghana, I forgot all about my letter to KATG.

Fast forward to me cooking dinner 7 months after downloading the show, and stopping dead when I hear Keith mention how he just got a letter from “this dude Darren who sent pictures of Israel- the place is brown.” A very weird experience indeed. If you at all you want to hear it for yourselves, just go to KATG.com, click All Episodes and do a search for show #724- Brother Love’s Mother (skip ahead almost exactly one hour into the program to find it).

As fantastic as that all was, three days later came the news of Israel’s most recent major conflict since 2006. At the same time there have been hundreds of Ugandans killed because of war, and close to 2,000 dead in Zimbabwe because of a cholera outbreak. I wonder how many of my students are remotely aware of these events.

During the holiday, I also got sick, a first for me since coming to site. I had some sort of cold, leaving me with the beeps bleeps and creeps for a few days. Looking back, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get out of bed and tutor some of the form threes, but I didn’t want to just languish in bed all day, and I have it in my head that being sick= losing the good fight. So for about 4 or 5 days I forced myself from my home, stumbled into class, and looking all a mess, continue with math lessons. It got to a point where I had to quit. One lesson proved to be interesting though- In teaching about exponentials, I used an example of multiplying bacteria in, say, a sickly human being, and then I began coughing terrribly. As pallid as I must have looked, I think I was able to drive home the point of the efficacy of learning maths.One day my headmaster even called to see how I was doing. Even though he was out of town, he knew I was sick and wanted to know if he should come back to take care of me. I turned down his incredibly generous offer, and was left greatly appreciating his and the rest of the town’s solicitude whilst I was sick.

I need to wrap this up… so quickly:

For New Years eve, I went to sleep well before midnight because, well, I was tired, sick and alone. So ladies, save any kisses for when I get back. For New Year’s Day, I went to the Presbyterian church after being urged by so many people to go; I hadn’t gone for several weeks, and I was getting the feeling that maybe now would be a good time to go. I was wrong.

The service was interminably long- over four hours, and I remembered why I stopped going in the first place. I must have said "Jesus Christ" at least 50 times, but for all the wrong reasons. The last hour and a half seemed to deal only with money and accounting, and I wanted nothing more than to leave the place. But I just sat there, and in time it became worth my while- at hour four people started to openly object to having to sit through the procession, and to my amusement, instead of leaving people were up in arms about the service's length. Admittedly, I like the first hour or so of church- people are dancing, there is great music, and I’ll talk to people I usually don’t often get to see. The women wear outfits quite pleasing to the eye (and it’s amazing to me to see all that white when right outside is a storm of red dust). Everything the women wear are tailor-made, and if not white, the outfit has some other color, along with an interesting pattern that is very much Ghanaian in style (I’ll try to get a picture up next time). Also, some cute girls go to church, but again, no deal. I am not starting anything in my town. Bad idea.

Other news?

A mouse not once but twice entered my room; the first time we both freaked out and it ran out of my room. The second time it had entered my room, I was less shocked and more focused on chasing it out of my room, where I found the hole it was coming from and proceeded to occlude its only means of getting back in the house with some wood and a bag (I was like a beaver, sort of).

I read in the NY Times that they may have found a cure for giardia, that cursed intestinal problem caused by paramecia. It’s rather interesting how they plan on preventing illness, something about making the paramecium express all its proteins at once and allowing the body to recognize it, instead of it tricking the body with a different protein coat..never mind. Read it for yourself.

I forgot to mention that the other week my friend Megan and I found a sushi restaurant in Accra; we were full off of Indian at the time, but vowed to try the place next time we’re both in town. We'll also go to an actual movie theater in Accra, the first movie I've seen since I left for Ghana about 7 months ago.

Lest I forget: I also failed to mention in my last post one of the most amusing things I’ve ever seen in my life: During my finals, while one of the students was taking his test, he seemed to furtively put the entire paper in his mouth and chew on it. I don’t think this individual student was trying to be funny, because he did a double take when he looked up to see me staring at him with the most bewildered look on my face. He swallowed it.I tried making a bloomin' onion, then got very sick because I ingested too much palm oil.

That’s it for now. I’m in Accra saying bye to Chihiro...and I just found out the director- the commander in chief- of Peace Corps, is here (with food) so I think I'll stay. There are a ton of people at the office today, many of them coming back from the States, one from Morocco, another from Egypt... uuurrr! I need to travel more! Enough!

To my friends and family in Israel: Stay well and stay safe.

Music:

Winter Wonderland- Diana Krall

Blue Christmas- Elvis PresleyHanukkah, Oh Hanukkah- Jews

Country Gramar- Nelly

Face-to-Face- Daft Punk

Raining- Dandy Livingston

Unity- Operation Ivy

Blue Skies- Ella Fitzgerald

Don’t Touch My Bikini- The Halo Benders

Hooligans- Hepcat

Don’t You Just Know It- Huey “Piano” Lewis & the Clowns

Oh Lately It’s Been So Quiet- Ok Go

The Past and the Pending- The Shins

Rudie Can’t Fail- The ClashUA- 赤いあなた Wine: Masi Campofiorin Ripasso

Mars

Soccer

Yasuko making mochi

CloseNot badOne of Chihiro's gifts

My headmaster's gift

Periodic Table Statge 1

Periodic Table Project- Stage 2

Periodic Table, Finished

Mr. Donkor's camera

Some photos I took

More photos...

My Form 2s

I’m in Kade again, this time to pick up more paint, stock up on food from the market, and type the second part of this entry. Since I’m stuck at my site until January 2nd (remember, stand fast), I’ll have to get plenty of food not available at my site, though I’m sure that if I run out of food, I could count on Chichiro or my students and neighbors to pick me up something while in town.

I need to add that I'm at the internet cafe near my town typping this up, and there is a huge argument going on over politics and the coming run off. It's kind of exciting. I'm amazing and impressed by how concerned people are about the elections; almost a 70% turnout in the first elections two weeks ago!

Today my students and I continued painting the Periodic Table and some chemistry-related pictures on the wall of our school, and though I took some pictures, I’ll try posting them another day. We had a good turn out- about 12 students came; keep in mind that students are on holiday and are probably working, going to farm, relaxing, etc. We finished with the black, and tomorrow we’ll use the colored paint- the students wanted to use red, gold, and green for the metals, metalloids, and nonmetals, as well as the electrons, neutrons, and protons (think Ghanaian flag colors).

All in all we’re having a good time; the students are learning chemistry, and afterwards the students teach me how to use the school drums and speak Twi. Some people in town periodically stop by to watch us paint the school, and some of them even ventured to name some of the elements (only the abbreviated version of each element is on the Table so that we could use the painting for science trivia).

So in my last post I stopped at me just leaving Bunso for my site. That was a good place to stop. I left a ton of stuff out in my last entry, but maybe I can cover it today if I don’t forget. Anyway, coming back to site….

The back to my site wasn’t too bad, the typical tro ride. I left early enough to get back to my school around noon so that I could see my students and tell them all I saw and did while at Bunso. As we entered Otumi on the lorry, I was happy to be home; having people wave to you and see all too familiar buildings and faces has an exciting effect on the soul.

I told the driver, whom I know all too well by now, to go past the school and head for my home first so I could drop off my stuff. As we passed the school, I noticed many of the students were outside getting food or lounging on the bamboo benches. When they saw me in the tro, keep in mind I am in no way embellishing this story, almost all of them immediately chased after the tro; it must have been a mob of 70 students. Man did that feel good.

I got home, quickly shed myself of my luggage, and headed to school, where I told my students about everything I came away with from the All Volunteers Conference. We talked about the need for HIV/AIDS education in our community, the USAID poster contest (which I’ll get to in a minute, what we will do for Term 2 as well as our plans for the remainder of Term 1.

It was a Wednesday when I got back from Bunso and gave my spiel to my students. I learned that day that the District term exams will not be ready until possibly next week, and when I asked my students what they had been doing for the time being, they said "nothing," which would explain them being outside while my tro was pulling into town. Although this frustrated me, I told them they are still responsible for taking my own exams (the ones I wrote myself) on Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday. All were fine with that. Like I said in my last post, I gave the exams and my students, to my satisfaction, did very well.

The following Monday I gave my last exam, Form 2 Math; unfortunately on that same day it was announced that the District Term Exams will not be issued this term, and will instead be issued the following term. I maxed out my pejorative comments about the education system in my last post, so for now we’ll leave it.

So Thursday and Friday I gave students 4 out of the five exams I had in store for them, leaving Monday open for the Form 2 Math exam. I intentionally left math for last so my students could come to me over the weekend for help. That Saturday I showed up early to the office and a few students came by for tutoring. At around 1 though I got a call from one of the Peace Corps Leaders (PCL) in Kumasi that the country Director had been trying to get ahold of me that day- it turned out that a Florida Senator was in Accra as part of a small tour of Africa for intelligence gathering, and he was planning a brief stop over to the Peace Corps office to meet some Peace Corps volunteers. Peace Corps needed me as the token Floridian…the next day. Since Sundays no bus comes through my town, I needed to leave for Accra that very moment (traveling at night is disallowed by Peace Corps and strongly advised against because of a number of dangers).

I apologized profusely to my students, told them I would postpone the test to Tuesday, left the office, swept my room for anything I needed to bring with me to Accra, and legged it for a ride. Unfortunately, when I hear the bus coming and had the kids run out to flag it down, the bus kept on going. Since that was the last bus to Accra, I had to resort to taking the inefficient, costly, and dangerous method of transportation- tro. Not only that, but I waited an inordinate amount of time waiting for a tro to come through my town. I talked with some of the townspeople before eventually catching a ride, and I was on my way.

When I reached Accra, I saw that a few other volunteers were there to meet the senator- Ira, Carolyn, Cheri, and others- a nice diasporas of about 10 volunteers for the senator to meet. We had one water sanitation PCV, some educators (most of them in def ed), and others belonging to the business, agriculture and environment sectors. All of them had been in Ghana for at least a year, making me overly conscious about my nascence.

Before meeting the senator, we were briefed about his background, the people who would accompany him, what we might want to talk about, as well as the senator’s name- Bill Nelson. Two interesting things about him: he went into space on the Challanger (the launch preceding the one where the shuttle and its crew met their end), and he went to the University of Florida as an undergraduate. Great, I thought.

"So you grew up in Florida, what university did you go to?" ‘Florida State.’ "What was that?" ‘Florida State’. "Haaaaaa haaaaa."

It was explained that the senator was going to be a bit late and that his wife would arrive first to field questions and ask what each of us did. A little before the wife showed up, all of our eyes followed what looked like to be a delicious cheese board, followed by other hours-de-oeuvres. When the wife did show up, we were given the green light to go and eat cheese- something PCVs must pine for throughout their two years of service here. When the wife did arrive, we introduced ourselves and the discussion went into full swing. We told her what we did at our sites, and I was deeply impressed by what all of my fellow PCVs had to say. One, whom I’ve known for a while now, surprised me when she said she worked at a halfway house for women banished from their towns as a result of being accused of being witches. This PCV would work with the women to undertake business ventures using art as an income. Every other volunteer seemed to have an equally interesting role at their site.

Each of us were also prompted by the senators wife to provide any improvements Peace Corps should make, or anything that can make our jobs and lives easier there. My fellow PCVs came up with several good points: having an extended period of prioritization in government jobs for returned PCVs- many of them go on to graduate school after Peace Corps, and the one year priority benefit doesn’t seem to cut it; US military postage rates- we have to go through the Ghanaian postal service, and sending mail home costs an absolute fortune; higher readjustment pay for returning volunteers, especially for those living in major cities.

I was the last person to speak, and when it came my turn, I felt slightly embarrassed about my greenness as well as nervous to speak in front of my peers; also keep in mind that by this time I was at the 5lb mark for cheese consumed. With a surfeit of nervousness, I explained that I am a middle school teacher in charge of about 80 students, teaching math science and computers. When I explained to her that I pay close attention to gender equity since this is something I studied extensively in graduate school, she asked what the male to female ratio was at my school. At this question, I locked up; even though I well knew that it was about 2:1 in both forms. I didn’t bother to ask my peers later how I did when talking to the senator and his wife, but I think I sounded like a nervous ignoramus.

Overall, our conversation with the senator’s wife went well, and in turn we learned that she herself did plenty of humanitarian work. She showed a genuine interest in our cause, and seemed to be well versed in outside humanitarian organizations.

Eventually the senator did show up, and again we briefly introduced ourselves. He asked us what entailed a typical day at site, and again I locked up. I don’t even want to go into it anymore. I did get cheese though. And a photo with the senator. Ira drank the untouched coffee once belonging to the senator.

So that’s about it. I went back to site the next day, and held classes in order to review for the Math test. the next day students took the test, then we took class pictures (see below?). Other highlights:

Wednesday I got sick off of bananas that two students separately presented to me. Living off the land in Ghana is great- I get to eat plenty of the sweetest (and free) pineapples, bananas, oranges, watermelon, and mangoes, not to mention avacados, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, carrots, chili, okra, and spinach. I could just ask for one of these items, and not ten minutes later a student would be back with said item after pulling it from ground or tree.

This next story is told with much chagrin: Thursday was the last day of school, and I wanted to use it to get students interested in a USAID poster contest discussed during the All Vols in Bunso. In a nutshell, two representatives from USAID came to Bunso with enough paint, paintbrushes, pencils, pencil sharpeners, and posters for everyone; these items were to be used for a contest that had ten people or groups design a poster 11x17 inches with the theme "Celebrate Life". These would be submitted to USAID located in Accra later in March.

I described as best I could the details to my students on Thursday, and several of them wanted to get started then and there. I figured I would do it during Term 2, but the enthusiastic look on their faces made me reconsider when I’d hold the contest. Half exhausted from the day, I said to myself what the hell and broke students into groups and passed out the art supplies.

Just after I handed everything out and everyone got to work, my headmaster said he wanted to have a staff meeting about the extra money we collected from the students over the course of Term 1. Extra class money is given to teachers from students for classes they teach after school. Teachers usually use this money to compensate for their meager pay, using it to pay bills or purchase DVD players (I’ve been to a few of my teachers’ homes, and if what they say is true, they are spending upwards of $600 on entertainment equipment- a lot here). I was in charge of collecting and keeping track of the flow of extra class money from teachers, which is why I needed to be present for the conference.

Peace Corps disallows us to use this money on ourselves; we can however alow the money to go back to the school. The meeting was about divvying up the money, and in all I got 40 bucks from the deal- enough to purchase paint for the Periodic Table Project, with the remainder to be go towards a computer the teachers and students have been saving up for.

While this meeting was going on, and unbeknownst to me at the time, pure chaos transpired as students began fighting over the art supplies and forgetting to make their posters 11x17. In retrospect I should have both held out till Term 2 and written instructions on the board. During the meeting, several students came into the room complaining about the scene in class. When I entered the class, it quickly became apparent of how much of a disaster the whole project became. Some students went home with their posters; others used the paltry amount of paint on their practice sheets I gave them; some students even stole other students’ posters or pencils.

Trying to remain indefatigable about the situation, I collected what posters and art supplies were left, took down the names of the owners of these items, then had the students get as much info as they could on those students that broke the rules/ left school with their supplies. To this day I still trying to put things back on track with this poster contest.

There are other stories, like the one that deals with a lone kitten, but I left some food with the woman I usually buy from in the market, and it’s getting late. My next post should be up in early January, around the time I am allowed by Peace Corps to travel outside my site again (remember, stand fast), so you can use your time learning to ice skate (or if in South Florida, roller skate), sculpture your abs, hang glide, get over a fear, etc.

As for me, I have a 25-day holiday. My plans are to paint with my students the periodic table and chemistry pictures on one of the school’s walls, raise money for STARS (an onus I volunteered to do during the All Vols), plan for Term 2, tutor my students, write up my quarterly report for Peace Corps, and spend some time with Chihiro before she leaves Ghana for good. I’ll report to you in January about how my break went and whether or not I was able to fix the disaster that was the USAID poster contest.

Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Avi Jamal!

Music: Holiday themed (a Jew can enjoy the occasional Christmas song too)

Drink: Eggnog

Game: Dreidel

sBreak out the Maltas! As far as I know, Thursday marked the close of Term 1 for the students and teachers of Ghana. School will reopen January 14th, allowing for a nice 25-day holiday. I can also say that I’ve been in Ghanafor about 6 months now (counting my 10 weeks of in-country training preceeding my actual teaching). Looking back, I feel like the first three months at site weren’t half bad- I became close with the people in my community and got a better sense of what it’s like to be a teacher in Ghana (with all its frustrations) as well as observe the general ebb and flow of life in a small rural town. Suffice it is to say that I still have a lot to learn, and my teaching can use some refinement.

This first term, I took things slow and simple with my students so as to get a better sense of how things work at my school. I won’t go into too much detail here because my earlier entries document most of my observations. What I can say is that the students at my school have a lot of potential- they came to school, did their work, and improved greatly in my math and science classes. Their success can be attributed mainly to their hard work in and out of class, which gives me hope that many of them can go on to high school and maybe even college. The biggest challenge is catching the students up on their math, considering in primary school it seems like they learned very little.

I spent almost no time working with the school staff this term; who was I to tell them how to do their job? Instead I focused on the students while interviewing and observing the teachers in Otumi. I got the sense that without having a firm place at my school, teachers would remain intractable when it comes to me trying to persuade them to rethink their teaching methods. In time, though, I’ll make my move. Unfortunately, I’m not close to any of the teachers in my town, however my headmaster and I get along quite well, and I get the sense that he has genuine concern for our students’ futures. There are times he is nowhere to be found, he is a busy man of course, but I’m hoping that next term he will be around more. I’m also hoping he begins to inform me at least the day before if classes are going to be cancelled; planning lessons this semester and then implementing them was nerve racking. We’ll have to work on that.

The most recent case of incompetence at the educational level was the failure of the district to issue Term 1 tests to students, which means that the sat for two weeks at school doing nothing in terms of learning or being assessed. My classes were the exception. I wrote my own tests in advance since I did not go by the order set by the national syllabus. Surprisingly, my students were eager to take the test to show me they studied hard. After grading the tests, I sat back with a huge smile on my face- almost every student did well on all five finals, including those questionable ones who I have to discipline constantly.

It still troubles me that the District Education Office failed to issue the tests to the students; each student had to pay an equivalent of $2 for printing fees for the test, only to find out that they would not get the test on time. Instead, they will have to take their exams the first few weeks of Term 2, wasting valuable time that could be spent learning new material.

Why was the test delayed? The company being payed to make the copies allegedly took on too much work and could not make enough of the tests to be dispensed on time. This is indicative of the government’s ineptitude and lack of concern for its students outside larger cities like Accra and Kumasi. Stephen’s school, being in the same district as my own, also did not get exams on time. He and I talked at length about our frustrations with the education system- no tests, no textbooks to go with the new syllabus, no accountability. Come Term 2, he and I are planning on voicing our complaints to the director, or maybe even staging a coup at the District Education Office in Kade.

Enough: Let’s leave griping about the education system for now and begin where I left off in my last entry. Where was I?

Full of Thanksgiving dinners, I had to make my way back to site. I’m happy to say that I was able to find my way back to site with no problems. That was about two weeks ago. Since then, I captured a hand-sized spider, went to Entertainment Day at my school, had Chihiro over to watch a football match at my school,, showed Jack around my site, went to the All Volunteers Conference in Bunso, fell into a large hole, met a Florida Senator, and proctored my first term exams..

Starting with the spider, of which I’ve christened with the name “Kwame”, I’ve seen it around my home before, having no fear of the thing nor any quams about it being an inhabitant at my home.- it eats hoards of insects and is no real threat to me. The night I came back from Thanksgiving, though, their was a power outage, and I happened to badly need a shave. I shook up my flashlight to give it about three minutes worth of power, and proceeded to shave in the diminishing light, something I’m getting better and better at. While shaving, I noticed in the mirror an irregular-shaped silhouette just behind my neck, which I immediately recognized as the menacing but innocuous arachnid that comes out at night. I ignored it (one learns to tolerate such things while living in Ghana), and finishing shaving, I showered up an returned to my room. In almost total pitch black, I heard a skittering sound close to my bed. The spider overstepped its boundaries! I shook the flashlight up to give it more juice, and turning it on again, saw that it was racing along the wall at lightning fast speeds. I later explained to my mom that at that point she probably would have had her nervous breakdown. I grabbed a Tupperware container and managed to captured the beast, but not without accidentally clipping off two of its legs in the process. I released it outside, and to this day I haven’t seen my now six-legged friend.

The next day Chihiro came to my school to watch my student play American football. It was a grand day out- a cool wind was blowing down from the mountains north of my site, and many of my students came to the field to talk to Chihiro and watch their fellow students play. Even some of the teachers in town came to the field to watch. The students made teams of about 15 players, and played for about an hour before calling it quits. They played well, and to my satisfaction no one seemed to get badly hurt despite all the tackling that was going on.

The day after the football match, my students had their Entertainment Day, which meant that the Form 1 students performed different acts to entertain the Form 2 and 3 classes; girls dressed up as guys, and vice versa to make things a bit more interesting. Some Form 1s danced, while others sang, did comedy, or quoted passages from the Bible. Most of the acts were done in Twi, but I could tell the students were having loads of fun. Then, the Form 2 students “baptized” the Form 1 student leaders using chalk erasers to the face. Strange, but the event led up to its name.

Jack came to my site next day, although coming from the Western Region of Ghana, he arrived later in the afternoon. Jack and I had planned on leaving from my site for Bunso, where the All Volunteers Conference was taking place. Beforehand, I went to the neighboring town of Kwae (about an hour south of my site) to watch volleyball and soccer matches with a rival school. The girls were able to hold their own in volleyball, but the Kwae school slaughtered our boy’s team. At one point, one of my students was caned by the ref for kicking the volleyball out of frustration. While the games went on, I was introduced to the headmistress of the school, along with the other teachers. They seemed nice, but we didn’t get into any deep conversations. When I got a call from Jack that he was almost at my site, I had to split, and missed the soccer matches.

Arriving back at my site, I met Jack in the town square, where my headmaster also happened to be at the time. Walking back home, we saw my chief and a retinue of subchiefs and elders (kitted out in royal regalia) sitting outside the palace, so we three stopped to greet them. After introducing Jack, we had to leg it to my house if we were to prepare and cook food in adequate light- my kitchen lacks any kind of artificial illumination.

For dinner we had heavily spiced bean burgers, rice wrapped in seaweed and lighty flavored with wasabi; for desert we had sliced apples topped with honey. Jack and I dragged out the dining room table to the front porch to eat and watch the sunset. It was quite pleasant. One of the children stopped by to inform me that the soccer match was rained out, and neither team was pronounced winner.

In the morning, Jack and I ate some breakfast, threw the football around, and did some target practice with a slingshot before heading out for Bunso. To get to Bunso, Jack and I would have to take a car to Kade, then to Koforidua, before finally making it to Bunso. The trip in all took about 3 and a half hours. We dropped at the wrong stop, and went in a big circle before learning that our quarters were the next stop over. We finally arrived at around 6:30PM, and just made it to dinner.

As a reminder, the main purpose of the All Volunteer Conference was to consolidate volunteers during Ghanaian elections, in case any violence sprang up. That means about 90 of us would spend about 5 days at a dormitory compound while being updated on election events, attending seminars on subjects like HIV/AIDS education and grants, and going over technical issues dealing with Peace Corps. The All Vols lasted about 5 days, and I got to see several of my friends. Another 50 trainees on the verge of swearing in as new PCVs stayed in a different compound, so we didn’t get to see them.

One morning, after a jog around the Bunso area, I ran into my friends John and Patrick as they were going into the forest just behind the compound. They intended on walking a trail they had found, snapping some pictures on the way. I joined them, and we set out for the forest. Before entering the forest, we passed a scenic view of large timber trees in the distance as well as an acreage of cocoa trees growing as part of the Cocoa College’s research (the dormitories we were staying at were part of Bunso Cocoa College). John was in the front, I was in the middle, and Patrick in the back as we walked the trail leading into the forest. It wasn’t the best trail, and was used more as an auxiliary path for farmers in the area. Not five minutes into our trek into the forest, John suddenly fell straight down into the ground, grasping onto vines that covered up a nice sized hole. Without thinking, I quickly ran to his aid, only to fall in the same hole, not realizing how big it was. I too grabbed on to vines to prevent me from going all the way in, I could tell the hole was quite deep because of how my legs dangled in the air. John and I both managed to scramble our way out of the whole, but not without being completely covered in dirt, and I had some nice slashes on my arms from the spiky vines. It soon became apparent that there were holes all around us, but they were mostly covered by foliage and forest creepers. The holes turned out to the remnants of felled trees that were taken away by Bunso residents. We noticed that some of the holes were easily over 15 feet deep. We continued on our way through the forest to a river with some bamboo growing around it. John snapped his pictures and we headed back disheveled, but looking cooler brandishing our cuts and scrapes.

As for the elections, many people were on edge because:

a) We were interested to see who would win

b) Possible violence, aside from being terrible in its own right, could mean that we would have to stay away from site an extended period of time, and at worst evacuated from Ghana altogether, like the recent Kenyan volunteers had to do.

c) If no party was pronounced winner, there would be a run-off. There were about 4 main parties in the race, and if one party does not get at least 50% of the vote, than the top two parties would have to again compete in run-off elections in late December. This would mean that us volunteers would be able to go home, but have to remain at our sites as part of a stand fast (in case of run-off violence). Since many volunteers had friends and family planning to visit at the time, a run off would prevent them from traveling anywhere in Ghana.

For about three days we listened to the radio as news came in about voting turnouts and any occurrences of violence. To everyone’s relief, almost no violence befell Ghana, save for an incident in the Northern Volta area, and some possible voter fraud in the Accra area. When the final report came in, we learned that in fact there will be a run-off between the NPP and NDC parties on December 28th, meaning that stand fast would go into effect December 24th and end January 2nd. Any plans we had for meeting up for Christmas and New Years, as well as any travel plans people had for their families and friends, would have to be cancelled. Most of us were frustrated.

Among the highlights of the All Vols was Peace Corps prom and entertainment night (thanks Stephen for suggestion). For the prom, many people came in attire commonly known in our circles as “Ghanafabulous”- for some this meant wearing traditional cloths, such as funeral cloth; for others a smock sans pants sufficed.

For entertainment night, there was comedy, music, acts of sorts, etc. (one song a PCV wrote and sang, something about hippos, is regretfully stuck in my head). One performance ended with the first two rows getting soaked with water (see picture below).

The day after hearing the news, I left for my site. Some PCVs stayed for the swearing in of the new Peace Corps Volunteers, but I had to get back to give my term exams.

….I actually need to run back to my school. I’m painting the periodic table with some of my students, and so far we’ve chalked an outline. When I get back, we are going to paint the thing in. I’ll try to finish up the second part of this post tomorrow, mentioning a story of how I came to meet Bill Nelson, a/the Florida senator, as well as other small but possibly entertaining tidbits.

Music to accompany this entry:

Salty Air- Bitter:Sweet

When The Lights Go Out- The Black Keys

Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In Hand- Primitive Radio Gods

Eros’ Entropic Tundra- Of Montreal

Where It’s At- Beck

Go-Go Gadget Gospel- Gnarles Barkley

Wine to compliment this entry:Any white wine will do.

A praying mantis outside my home

Kwame caught From the windoooows to the walls

Entertainment Day Taking off for Bunso

Giving someone the finger (to vote, of course).Note: Normally it's the thumb that's used to vote; my headmaster used his pinky finger since he is special and was in charge of one of the voting booths.

Forest holes

Entertainment NightGrant being Ghanafabulous (Thunderdome style)

Larry and I at Peace Corps Prom

Florida Senator Bill Nelson (5th from the right)

Booyakahshaw- I’m in Kumasi for Thanksgiving: Part Deux. Thanksgiving: Part One was held at the US ambassador’s house, which I’ll get into later. I’ll try sticking to a chronological order of events, though…..

Sunday 11/16

My neighbors presented me with a nice and large and dead black scorpion that wandered out from the bush. It looks like the innocuous emperor scorpions commonly seen at pet shops, but I’m not going to try my luck with a live one. I was too lazy to run and get my camera at the time, so I’ll leave it up to you to go and see one at the pet shop or local zoo.

Monday 11/17

The headmaster and the keys to the book room were nowhere to be found this morning, which was troubling considering I NEEDED the math books for my Form 2s. So instead of proceeding with a lesson I had planned over the weekend, I instead improvised by explaining how easy the new unit was going to be, and put up some practice problems they would be doing over the next few weeks. But I was flummoxed as to why my headmaster was absent more than present at my school over the past few weeks. I’m hoping this won’t be a trend, since I need him to help me out with students sometimes.

I had one student stay with me a half hour during lunch (my first detention), and in talking to him, learned that he might very well be illiterate, which would explain his frustration with my classes. This is tough for me because I do not want to leave the student behind, but at the same time I would have to allot possibly an inordinate amount of time helping him to gain at least a basic ability to read. I’m hoping I can help him build confidence in himself; his mother I know all too well (she makes me fried yams almost everyday) and she laughs whenever I plead with her to get involved with her son’s education.

To lighten the mood for this entry, let’s talk about what I introduced to my school today: American football. The students were all up for it when I made mention of it last week, and I purchased a ball while I was in Accra over the weekend. To compliment my hype of the sport, I found a Miami Dolphins book (pre-Marino) among about a hundred books donated years ago to the school. The book was a boon in the sense that it got everyone excited about learning a new game, and a bane because it had pictures of some Fins making some serious tackles against their opponents, going against my rules that you are supposed to do two-hand touch.

After showing the students some of the rules on the chalkboard, as well as teaching them the concept of getting open and making plays, we went out to the field to put what we discussed into practice. Everyone did much better than I had anticipated, and even the girls were able to hold their own, almost too well. There did come a point where the boys would tackle and, to some of the girls’ complaints, feel them up, so I threatened to kick anyone who did that out of the game. After proving to my students that I do not use empty threats, not one boy hassled the girls after my warning. Alls I can say is my students made me proud today.

Tuesday 11/18

Day 2 of American football worked out splendidly. I helped the students some more with throwing and catching, and again played QB for both teams like yesterday. After practice, my headmaster taught me how to put on a funeral cloth on, which I had upgraded to 8 yards and then tailored the previous day. Putting the cloth on by myself was surprisingly easy, and after a few tries I got it down pat.

Wednesday 11/19

Today was particularly tough for me. Right before going to school, I found out my ex was going with one of my best friends to this Peace Corps prom going on during the all volunteers’ conference. I still don’t know why this got to me, maybe because I was so stressed about classes or I was just being a big baby.

When I got to school, I convinced some teachers to let me teach in their place since plan on spending the next two days in Accra for Thanksgiving, as well as attend the all volunteer’s meeting in December for about a week. I taught 5 classes and covered a lot of the material, but at the cost of me being so tired and stressed that I had a nice cry session with myself in the office. Thank god none of the teachers saw me. I felt pretty down over the past few because I realized more and more that I was not going to be able to finish my Form 1 Science on measurement, a rather lengthy section (no pun intended), as well as some ICT sections I wanted to cover with my Form 2 students. My Form 2 students are also well behind in Math, mainly because the math teacher didn’t show up for weeks on end while they were supposed to be learning.

After crying some, I made up my mind that my will-o’-the-wisp goals were in the beginning unrealistic considering it was my first term teaching. I called up some of my friends who taught here for about a year, and they told me what I covered was fine; this lifted my spirits a bit.

Earlier in the day, I allowed my students for the first time to grade their own math quizzes, showing them that I had the capacity to trust them, and helping them see where they might have made mistakes if any were made. The good news is everyone was honest with their grading, which surprised me when I went to enter the grades. Even the students who I know try to get away with cheating put themselves down as having missed a problem or two if they had gotten it wrong.

Towards the end of school, a beautiful green snake, quite possibly a green mamba, graced our school with its presence; shortly after, my students chased and clubbed it to death. I felt bad for the snake, but people here in Ghana are deathly afraid of snakes, and for a good reason. Despite the fact that most snakes will turn tail from any approaching person, the species in our area are notorious for their deadly bites to humans.

Today also marked Day 3 of football; after school we spent another 2 hours tossing the ball around, and I let the students play on their own, choosing captains and having their own QBs. After the game, some of my students wanted to show me the bush path they take back to their home in the neighboring town of Anwiem. The trail is beautiful, and you have to go through some heavy bush before getting to a large dirt road flanked by palms (see picture below).

Thursday 11/20

Yahtzee! This is my 4th time having giardia in Ghana, and let me assure you it is not fun having to run 10 minutes from school to home with a completely rational fear of dumping your pants. To make matters worse, the power and water’s been out for two days now, preventing me from showering and thusly exercising, as well as maintaining my equine diet of delicious oats.

My Form 2 students also tried my patience to the point where I had everyone sit on their knees in the hot sun while I vented my frustrations with them. Talking was uncommonly incessant among all my students, so I punished the whole class. In retrospect, I could have planned the lesson better, making it slightly less frustrating for my students to learn, but that was no excuse to let them disobey my requests for them to stay quiet. When I allowed my students to go back in the room, we spent the rest of class discussing how to prevent wide-spread class disruption. After turning down several students’ calls for me to start caning, we came up with a system where certain students would take down the names of students talking while I’m trying to write on the board, and those on the list would either have to stay after school, do a chore, or be kept from playing football for a week. Sounds like a plan.

Friday 11/21

No power and water makes Darren go something something…The food in the friedge is starting to turn, and I haven’t been able to cook or wash up in almost three days!!! I left for school feeling disheveled and hungry.

Classes were cancelled early today so students could play sports. I was fuming because I had scheduled the local tailor to come in so we could do measurements as part of the Form 1 Science unit on Measuring. Guess I’ll have to leave that for next week. While the kids played sports (I have two students in charge of watching the football), one of my student’s parents made me complimentary meal of plaintains

When I got back home, my water and power were back on, and I quickly set out to cook a stew using all the vegetables that had been sitting in my friedge for the past few days. I chopped up some vegs while some beans were boiling, then noticed when I was about to throw the rest of the ingredients in that the water was no longer at a boil. Curses! The power went out again! I went around to my neighbor’s house and had to use their fire to cook the rest of the stew. The fire turned my orange pot black, but it did the job. After eating, I got some exercise, shaved and showered to make up for the past few days.

Saturday 11/22

I promised my students that I’d be at school most of Saturday and Sunday if they needed help with anything school related, but before I left this Saturday morning, I desperately needed to do some laundry. I was nervous though to leave out almost all my underwear, socks, towels, etc. on the line while I was away at school because I feel like I’m flaunting my affluence whenever I do laundry; in this case I was afraid that someone might take my clothing while I was off at school, though this was highly unlikely. I had no choice, though, and I got home to find all my clothing still hanging on the line.

While at school, a few of my students showed up, and I helped them with their math for a few hours. I prefer to work with students one on one because it helps me see precisely where possibly other students might be running into problems. We were doing basic algebra problems, but the students seemed to have trouble doing easy division, multiplication, and addition of negative numbers. This prompted me later to reexamine my math lessons for the week, including my science lessons for my Form 1 students dealing with measurements.

After school, I was trying my hand at cooking plantains, and while in the process of frying them, this random guy came over and made things quite awkward. My front door was open to let in the nice breeze from outside, and I noticed this guy was standing in the doorway when I looked in that direction. There was nothing menacing about the guy, but it was strange that he was just standing there. He looked to be about my age, and I’ve seen him before. Today he asked if he could come in to talk, and even though I wanted to have some downtime alone, felt obliged to be a good host. He sat down and talked while I was cooking, and I offered some of my fine plantations I was cooking with some brown sugar and palm oil. The guy goes to college in Kade, about an hour from Otumi, but by on weekends when he’s out from school. The guy is nice enough, but our conversations are not the most engaging, and it was mostly awkward while he was over. The power went out again, and I ended up falling asleep in bed while trying to wait it out until the power went out again.

Sunday 11/23

In the morning, before going to school, I talked with one of my friends teaching at the high school level. Apparently one of her teachers seemed to be sleeping with his students, and although she had no proof of this, it looked fairly obvious. This story echoes what my other friend told me just yesterday about her coworker sleeping with the middle school students. In Ghana, teachers that sleep with their students is not uncommon, and in many cases if they are caught, are just relocated to a different school (as in the middle school teacher’s case). Both of my friends are now talking to the students about how what these teachers are doing is wrong; when I asked why they didn’t bring it out into the open, I was told that the teachers might be killed for their actions. So it’s either kill the teacher or relocate them; otherwise prosecution is lengthy and usually nothing comes of the sentence.

When I got to school to further help students who needed it, I ran into my headmaster and we talked at length about teachers sleeping with students. I hadn’t suspected any of our teachers sleeping with the students, but my headmaster said it was a national problem, and little is done to the perpetrators. My headmaster also talked about the most random things like grizzly bears and the problems with indoctrination in religion and education.

On Sunday, after talking with my headmaster and helping some students with math, I tossed the ball around with my neighbor and some students. People were milling about because of the NPP political rally going on in my town, and right after I made plans with my headmaster and some other people to go with them to the rally, it hit me that as a Peace Corps volunteer, I was disallowed to attend any political rallies for a myriad of reasons. I didn’t end up going, but I had really wanted to check out the scene.

Monday 11/24

A lot of the students were missing today during my first period, and when I asked where everyone was, the students who did come told me they skipped school to avoid getting caned for some nonsense. Today was the first time my class openly asked me how I felt about caning, and I told them I abhorred the punishment, though the students know what not to do, yet they do it anyway. Today, they were getting beat for coming so late for morning campus cleanup, but many of them were telling me getting a vehicle out to the school sometimes made them late; for now I’m holding back on stopping the teachers from hitting my students, but it won’t be too long until I protest. I know I keep harping on this caning thing, but readers, if only you saw what I witness daily!

During my Form 2 Science class, in the spirit of learning about water, I had students take me to the nearest river, which according to my headmaster and many of my students, was not more than 5 minutes away from my school. I grabbed one of the teachers who was free for the period to help chaperone my students on the way to the river. It turned out that the river was over 15 minutes away, and in my teaching clothing I went through thick tropical forest bush before reaching our river. Once we got there, we further discussed sources of water and water purification. On the way back, I was a sweaty mess and took a student up on his offer of a piggy back ride. We passed a ton of houses while I clung to the back of this fairly large student, to the open amusement of my village.

Tuesday 11/25

At the crack of dawn, I woke up and took a car to a neighboring town to visit a very sick student who’s been out for a few weeks. When I saw the student, she looked miserable, but said she would try to come by Friday. I told her she needs to take it easy and not go anywhere. Before I left for school, she asked for me to pray for her, and I told her I would as I was leaving to catch the next car to my school. But she meant I would pray with her then and there. It was very awkward, but I said a quick and hopefully convincing prayer for her. If there was any room for humor, I would have done it in Hebrew.

When I got back to the school, I asked my students to contribute money, fruits, or vegetables for their sick classmate, but at the end of the day not one person contributed anything. I was really disappointed.

After school I visited Chihiro at the hospital in Kade, then went to the District Education Office to type up my term exams.

Wednesday 11/26

For the mot part, uneventful

Thursday 11/27

Headed out early for Accra (danke schon, Dubin, for the earplugs) and ate a delicious dinner at the US ambassadors. Before dinner though, I went to the Peace Corps office, I saw Jack, Stephen, and a number of other friends I haven’t seen in ages. I also met for the first time the new Peace Corps trainees set to swear in sometime soon. We left around 12 for the US ambassador’s house, and had a grand time chatting, swimming, and eating a real Thanksgiving dinner. For dinner, we had the typical Thanksgiving items available, with an incredible chocolate pecan pie among the desserts. As tasty as the food was, it did not touch the Thanksgiving dinner we had in Kumasi two days later (more about that below). After dinner and swimming at the ambassador’s, I headed back to the hotel, where we watched some movies and fell asleep.

Friday 11/28

Today I woke up early to visit the dentist about matters concerning my jaw. If the dentist detected any signs of infection, I would go back to the States for surgery; if nothing was found, I would remain in Ghana and deal with the problem after completing my service here. The prognosis: no infection could be found, and the weird sensations, though alarming at times, are in no way harmful to my health- meaning I aint going nowhere.

When I got back to the Peace Corps office, many of my Peace Corps friends were still in town before heading back to town, though my two best friends were planning on going to Kumasi around noon for Thanksgiving at the Peace Corps office up there. On a whim, I decided would go and enjoy a second round of Thanksgiving with my friends. I felt hesitant at first since I told my students I would hang around school Saturday, but I needed a vacation and had yet seen the Kumasi Peace Corps sub-office (KSO).

At noon we headed out from Neoplan station in Accra and went straight for Kumasi, but not without having a few heart-stopping moments on the ride up there. The driver drove like a maniac, flying down the road and beeping the horn like that would make up for his ineptitude to drive safely. I struck up a conversation with a PCV I met a while back, Gray, who sat squished next to me on the four and a half hour ride up. Happy to step out of the lorry alive, we walked a short distance to KSO.

KSO is amazing, and the sign on the front door of the house nicely sums the place up- “The home away from home”. The spacious quarters is complete with 4 bedrooms with bunk beds, living rooms, a beautiful kitchen stocked with cutlery, cookware, every spice imaginable, a stove, and whatnots that satisfy the decent chef’s heart. Many of my friends in Accra ended up going back to their sites, but a few of us went on to KSO. I met a few other friends who did not come to Accra because of their location. Thanksgiving was being held at KSO, Accra, the Tamale sub-office, and other offices in the northern regions of Ghana for Peace Corps volunteers on Saturday. Today we spent the day lounging though.

Saturday 11/29

Today, before attending Thanksgiving at KSO, I went with Stephen to his previous headmaster’s funeral in Sarpe, about a half an hour’s ride from KSO. I never met the man, but he was a friend of my own headmaster, and in fact I broke the news to him three months ago that the man passed away. My headmaster told me about how well known the deceased Mr. Ntiamoah was for his munificence and concern for student advancement. A good number of people showed up to the funeral, and Stephen and I were ushered with the rest of the people into a room with the man’s corpse, propped up to allow loved ones to cry out for him. Stephen had on a black button-down with dark pants, but having gone to Kumasi on a whim, did not bring my 8 yard funeral cloth and therefore couldn’t kit myself out correctly.

The funeral procession lasted until around noon, and just as Stephen and I were about to leave, one of the nieces of Mr. Ntiamoah asked if we wanted to have lunch and stay until five (a typical funeral procession in Ghana is followed by joyous music and dancing to celebrate the person’s life). Stephen and I ended up staying until one, and showed up about an hour late to Thanksgiving dinner back at the KSO. This was fine though because there was plenty of food to go around, and it wasn’t formal in any respect. What the dinner lacked in formality, it made up for in the palatable dishes that covered the dining room table: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, potato salad, pumpkin pie, lemon bars, chocolate chip bars, jell-o, fruit salad, fudge, and banana cream pie were all made by PCVs and consumed by myself. Friends, it might be hard for some of you to imagine how great it is to eat a delicious thanksgiving dinner, scratch that, TWO Thanksgiving dinners, after months of eating mostly Ghanaian foods. I’m usually eating a good variety of foods at my site since I have so much to choose from at my market and I can easily go to Accra and get Western food; some of my friends have only tomatoes, rice, and okra available in their towns, and I can only imagine how good their Thanksgiving dinner is sitting in their bellies.

I am so tired right now that I’m calling it quits and going to bed. I feel like I'm pregnant with 8 pounds of Thanksgiving meal madness. I’m waking up tomorrow to somehow meet up with Chihiro in Kade, although this is my first time in Kumasi and I have a vague notion of how to find my way back. Hopefully in my next post I’ll write on how everything worked out alright in the end. All is well though, and it was a very good Thanksgiving indeed.

Next week, I’ll be teaching classes, Chihiro will come Tuesday to watch my students play football, I’ll go to Kade to type up my report for Peace Corps, Thursday Jack will come to my site and Friday we’ll both leave for the all volunteers conference for five days. I might be able to post an entry while over there, depending on whether my friend’s internet is working on his computer. For now, etre yebihya (pronounced yebishyia- we’ll talk later).

Music and wine to accompany this entry:

I'll post that at a later time (too tired to think at the moment)

"Students, this is American football"

Football: Day 1

Football: Day 2

Soon after this picture, the students attacked my camera

V for Victory!

The way home for some students o' mine

Some fly slop on the burners

Ralph in the newspaper

Where's the funeral?

Posing with what very well might be a green mamba

Poor/Beautiful snake

Part of the trail to the river

Squinty Mcgee, Kyle, and Erin at Thanksgiving '08

The US ambassador to South Africa(left), fool (center),

and the US ambassador to Ghana (right)

My store room at school

(aka: The Batcave or The Place Where I Go to Cry)

The funeral

It’s been close to three weeks since my last post, so I’ll just give a brief outline of whatever I jotted down in my journal, and then elaborate on anything important. Before any of that, here’s a recap of what I had written in my last entry: a certain jaw situation left me in limbo while D.C. figures out what to do with me, two new teachers arrived at my school, freeing up my schedule somewhat, I was at odds with many of the teachers in my town, and I almost choked to death on a cocoa bean. Much has passed between then and now, so here we go…

Friday 11/1

Got Giardia for the third time now

Sunday 11/3

Chihiro came over for lunch

Tuesday 11/4

The Peace Corps doctor called to tell me that DC wanted more info from my dentist back home before taking any measures

My friend Stephen slept over to listen for the presidential elections outcome, and subsequently we recieved texts asking us which one was the "big spoon"

Wednesday 11/5

Celebrated early- 4:30AM for us- over Barack and America’s big win

Showed Stephen around my school a bit before he headed back.

Raised around $60 from the students and teachers to purchase a computer for our school

Was asked by the headmaster and my Form 2 students to teach math again, putting me back to teaching 5 different classes

Mary, my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD), visited my school as part of her tour de Ghana.

Learned from Mary that my counterpart (whom I’m not what you’d call “buddy buddy” with) will accompany me to the in service training (IST) seminar in December.

My bout of Giardia evidently ceased

Thursday 11/6

My headmaster, Mr. Donkor, gave me a brief account of a rivalry between our school and the Presby school on the other side of town, just before we went there to pick up science equipment.

On the way to the Presby school, Mr. Donkor chased and shot at pigs with his slingshot

After picking up the science equipment, Mr. Donkor and I, on a whim, took a walkabout in Otumi. I met a lot of people and discovered a lot more about Otumi than meets the eye.

I happened to be the first whitey this toddler in my town had ever seen. My god you should have seen his face.

Talked with some neighbors I had neglected visiting for quite some time.

An earwig got in my ear

Broke up a troupe of ants, who seemed to be filing their way towards my bed.

Realized that I am in love with my town, and would severely regret having to leave if my jaw situation got serious. I do miss big cities, though.

Friday 11/7

Parent/ teacher argument over confiscated cell phone

JICA showed up at KMS, my humble school

Played my iPod off the speakers for the first time for the children around my home. We enjoyed our daily workout while such hits as Morris Brown (Outkast) and Summer Love (Timberlake) played in the background

Saturday 11/8

Went to Boti Falls with Chihiro, then grabbed some burgers(?) in Koforidua before heading back to Kade

Sunday 11/9

Caught up on my work for school

Got chili pepper in my eye

Monday 11/10

Made AWSOME science posters with students

Started to plan out what I’m going to cover for the rest of the semester.

Tuesday 11/11

After school, ran into the chief while on my way to grab a tro bound for Kade, the main market town near Otumi. He and I talked for a while. I also almost gave a dog a heart attack when it saw I was both white and abruptly running for a fast approaching tro.

Went to Kade to get some vegs and use the slow ass internet at the internet café, where I met this guy Michael D. More about him below.

Got 6 yards of funeral cloth since I’m invited to the event weekly.

Wednesday 11/12

Gave math test to my Form 2s, then graded their papers only to find out that 95% of them horribly failed it.

Thursday 11/13

Rebuked my students about how they were not putting in any work in my math class.

Friday 11/14

Went to Kade to type this sucker and meet up with Chihiro. Stephen was SUPPOSED to sleep over, but got caught up with a school event.

And that is an account of the last 3 weeks since my last post. Before I go, I’ll go into detail about my current state of affairs, and elaborate on some of the things listed in the outline above.

Firstly, this jaw situation hasn’t gotten any better. It feels like I have about 5 goddamned marbles tucked away in the left side of my cheeks, and it’s a feat to try to communicate with people while pretending this invisible sensation isn’t there. My face isn’t swollen at all, and a passerby wouldn’t be the wiser about what’s going on with my jaw. It’s just so annoying to wake up each morning and feel like Droopy Dog’s face was grafted on to the left side of my own. Thankfully, the eye twitching has ceased, while the kidney tingles are fading. Still mark me down as being a mess, though.

It did come as a relief when I found out that I am not in fact going back to the States before the end of the first term at my school. I’ve worked too hard to let things fall apart, which I’m more than sure would, if I left early. As I stated earlier, I also love my town, and became even more enamored with it that day Mr. Donkor and I did our walk about. I consider myself to be a city boy- in love with towering metropolises like New York, Chicago, and Tokyo. But there is something about Otumi; I can’t put my finger on it yet, but I feel I’m close. Otumi can be considered an island, one with buildings (and I’ll use this word loosely for some structures) surrounded by a dense tropical forest. Trails only a native Otumian can discern have become apparent to me, and following them, sometimes for what feels like an hour, I’ll come upon a home I never knew existed. Some days I wish I could be a fly on the wall, watching and listening to the daily conversations that take place throughout town; but my whiteness immediately curtails my going unnoticed when I leave the house. About my home though, it is situated all the way at the farthest end of my town, which means I get more privacy, and I’m far away from the speakers that blare music almost every night.

A red road slices through the green bush that lays everywhere that isn’t taken up by road or building. Red dust coats viridian-colored houses, whose inhabitants always call out to me- using my Ghanaian name- to join them for food. The children in my town even have taken to calling me Nana Boateng, the title Nana being an esteemed prefix in Ghana. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot with many of my students parents, and on top of compliments on educating their children, I get hooked up with a salubrious assortment of fruits and vegetables. This week’s haul included tangerines, bananas, a pineapple, cocoa, apples, an egg sandwich, oranges and some cucumbers. So yes, I’m in love with my town.

And the inimitable JICA volunteer Chihiro. All I can say is this girl is smart, she can speak English and Twi, as well as her native language Japanese, she is well traveled, she has a good sense of humor (she admitted to being fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm of all things!), is a good cook (strangely she can make an excellent Italian dish) and is sadly leaving in less than two months. Just to remind you, Chihiro is the JICA volunteer ho visited my school a while back to schedule a lesson with my students. She came last Friday to my school to educate my students on HIV/AIDS, and was pleasantly received. The first time she came, though, I silently languished through a bout of Giardia, which I've had now two times previous to this while in Ghana, both times leaving me with soiled underpants. You need to do the research on your own on what Giardia is. Let's just say the fear of shitting myself while Chihiro was over was the only thing on my mind that day. And I'm not ashamed of saying I soiled myself during my adult life. It is so ubiquitous amongst volunteers that we even have a club for it. In a discussion with one of my friends who has been here for over a year, I could quote him on saying that "Every fart should be considered with suspician."

It’s sad knowing that Chihiro's leaving so soon, but we’ve talked extensively on visiting each other in our respective countries. I wish I could invite her to Thanksgiving, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but I’m nervous about asking if I could have her as a guest. One last thing, before this paragraph becomes categorized as obsessive, Chihiro is from Osaka, Japan, and is not as familiar with Tokyo and Northern Honshu as I am. We’ve been talking about visiting each other’s old stomping grounds, bringing back fond memories of living in Japan. Also, another Japanese volunteer will take her place, allowing me to further my practice of Japanese since they will live in the same house as Chihiro, only an hour away from mine; but no one can really replace Chihiro. Interestingly enough, a few of her friends in JICA have met or are located near some of my Peace Corps friends.

As for the situation with the teachers in my town, I’m happy to say things are getting better. They’ve been acting much more amiable to me over the past several days, and I’ve lightened up as well with them. I feel like I need to have an in with them if I were to every make a positive impact on my town in terms of pedagogical methods. I wish I could swap counterparts. Technically we could switch, but I don’t think it would go over well, and I sense things are kind of tense sometimes between my headmaster and some of the teachers. I like this one teacher I work with a lot though, and I wish he could come with me to the IST we have in December.

When I went to the Presby school on the other side of my town to pick up some science equipment, I offered to help train teachers in ICT, and help them learn how to use a computer. Right now, my students have raised close to $75 for a computer, which means we are about $25 away from getting one. We still don’t have power at our school, but once we get the computer we are going to try and put some pressure on the chief to get our school electricity. I’ll also use the ICT training as a guise to teach alternative classroom discipline compared to the harsh and ineffective discipline they use daily in their classroom.

On Thursday, I spent the morning giving my Form students a diatribe on how just coming to class and taking notes in Math isn't enough, and that they need to at least spend maybe 5 minutes doing practice problems. Going back to the beginning, I was originally teaching Math to my Form 1 and Form 2 students until we had a new teacher come in to take over those classes; I wrote about this in my last post. Unfortunately, my Form 2 students were doing terribly, and I would notice that the teacher rarely was in class when he was supposed to be. The headmaster and many of the Form 2 students came to me to take over the class again, and at first I was annoyed that the other teacher was being rewarded for his laziness. I probably know less about the math than he does, and yet he wasn't putting in any effort. The headmaster promised that the other teacher would take on a new class, so I acquisced to his and my students' pleas.

I picked up where the other teacher had left off- on adding, subtracting, and multiplying different bases- a subject I am not at all familiar with. I spent a lot of time trying to teach myself the math, then making lessons, practice questions, quizzes and tests, for nothing. I repeatedly told students to do the work outside of class, and to see me the two hours I stay after school if they need help. Not one person came to see me about Math, and close to 95% of the students completely failed the test. It was like I never taught the the unit. Maybe it was my teaching, but after a lot of reflection and talking with students, I've come to suspect that it was more the students' neglect to do work of their own. So going back to Thursday, I told them that if half the class fails the next test, I'm done- I will refuse to teach the class. As part of my morning harangue, I expressed my dissapointment by saying I felt like a farmer who spent several days planting maize and cocoa, only to find that nothing grew. The students are doing extremely well in my science class, but as for math they have no confidence and might find the subject vapid. It was weird though that all of them came to class, participated, and seemed to understand the problems when we worked them out on the board, but the end result showed all of this was fruitless. The next unit is on linear equations and inequalities, so I'm hoping for a successful turnaround in grades.

Thanksgiving’s coming up, and I plan on seeing a bunch of good friends at the dinner table in Accra. Jack’s coming over the night before and I’ll get to show him around my site. There’s this water tower at the other end of town, and I plan on sneaking us up to the top so I could show him all of Otumi (the thing’s about 4 stories up). I. Love. Thanksgiving. I hope there will be yams like the ones my mom makes. Oop. I have some drool on my shirt. I actually fell asleep one day while grading my students’ papers, and drooled all over them. I just remembered that.

Recently I talked to my parents, and when I asked about how Max, my cat, is doing, I found out he broke yet another cherished thing of my parents, a vase that’s been in my living room since forever. I spent weeks training Max to break that vase, and he finally accomplishes the feat only when I’m away in Ghana. He is still receiving what sounds like a gross amount of turkey from the hands of my mother, father, brother, and cousin. I love that cat. Unfortunately, he would not last a day here.

Another matter that’s been on my mind is the all volunteers conference coming up December 5th-10th in the Eastern Region. Because of the elections coming up in Ghana, and the possible violence that might ensue following the results, the Peace Corps is consolidating all volunteers in a dormitory-like compound. Although I get to see loads of friends I haven’t seen since swearing in, as well as close to 50 new volunteers that just came to Ghana, there is one person in particular that I am very reluctant to see- my ex-girlfriend from training. Don’t get me wrong, I have not one iota of ill-feelings toward her. In fact, it’s just the opposite. In case she or someone relevant is reading this, I won’t make it too embarrassing for her and not go into too much detail; but this is worth mentioning because the poignant thought of it creeps into my head daily, and comes almost on schedule once a week to haunt my dreams (which might be due in part to a side effect of the malaria medication I take). There’s nothing I can do about trying to not think about seeing her there. Instead of shifting my thoughts to something else, I found myself, out of dread, thinking up ways to go about inevitably seeing her in December. I’ve thought up a number of ways to act around her, none of them seeming to be realistic when I try to work it out in my head. I could somehow save her life and she would forever be indebted to me. She could save my life, and I would have a reasonable excuse for trying to talk to her again. I could only use head nods to communicate with her. I could employ a plane to fly over the compound with a banner reading “Hey, let’s talk.” Probably, though, and this is sad, I’m going to have to cadge her to forgive me or at least let me get in one good dialogue with her. If you have ideas, please message them to me. Otherwise, you can pray. Pray for Darren.

Music to accompany this post:

Slide- Goo Goo Dolls

Cherry Blossom Girl- Air

Beautiful Day- U2

1 Giant Leap- Braided Hair

Happy Valentine's Day- Outkast

Morris Brown- Outkast

Rescue- Eve6

You Sexy Thing- Hot Chocolate

All in a Day- Joe Strummer

Amy- Mark Ronson

The Puppet Show- PM Dawn

Kiss- Prince

Sussudio- Phil Collins

Can't Wait- Hepcat

Doorbell- White Stripes

Passing Me By- Pharcyde

Can't Hurry Love- Diana Ross

Tallahassee Love- T-Pain

Nutmeg Fantasy- Macy Gray

Gnossienne No.5 Modere- Erik Satie

My Kind of Town- Frank Sinatra

La Belle Excentrique- Grande Ritourelle

Build Me Up Buttercup- Dance Hall Crashers

It Takes Two- Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock

Wine to compliment this entry:

Chardonnay, La Crema, Sonoma Coast, 06

Waking up to the sound of a god forsaken parade in Kade

Chihiro (notice my nose shadow)

Chihiro!!!

Too scared to come down from the "Umbrella Rock"

Boti Falls

Stephen

Maaaaaaaaaax

Boti Falls

“Holy crap.” These were the first two words issued from me today. Why? Because the horn of the bus I needed to so desperately catch was blaring not too far from my home. Usually, I’m much more composed and am standing by the road. This time though, I was sleeping like a baby at 2AM - 30 minutes before my alarm was to go off and approximately 1.5 hours before I should hear the sound of the bus idling up the severely underdeveloped road that snakes its way past my house. Bleary eyed and shaken, I quickly dressed and stuffed whatever I meant to pack the night before in my bag and ran out to the road. And here I am, in Accra, at 6:20 AM, still bleary eyed and shaken.

Today I have to go back to the doctors because the meds they put me on were making my kidneys go a little nuts on me. My right eye has been twitching for the last two days. I’m a mess, it seems. Hopefully the doctor will have sorted out my jaw situation and I can get back to teaching uninterrupted. Standing in for absent teachers has helped me catch my students up with the work, and now that we have TWO new teachers, things might start to change for the better. Then again, my headmaster and counterpart had to go and find the teachers who hadn’t shown up for two days, and Mr. Bbbbbb (another teacher) and I had the school to ourselves. Later, after the two teachers were retrieved, they just sat in the office and stared at books. They seemed rapt in making lesson plans, so we didn’t talk much. Ostensibly, they will stay at the school and teach maths and social studies, but that was what the last four teachers were supposed to before they mysteriously vanished from our school and Otumi.

Having a new math teacher means I can go from teaching 3 subjects to the much more manageable number 2. Since six 70 minute classes have been excised from my weekly schedule, my life is now unfettered enough to start planning other projects for my students as well as study Twi to the point where I have a good command of the language.

In my last entry, I was in Accra visiting my friend BJ before he leaves Ghana, possibly for good. That was Saturday. We said our good-byes to each other, but now we’ll do it a second time around, since I talked with him yesterday and found out he is leaving Thursday. Today we’ll probably go get lunch if the doc doesn’t hold me too long. When I got home on Saturday from Accra, it was pretty late, around 10PM, and my landlord Kwame and is brother were sitting on my/his porch. This was the first time I met the man, and seeing that I was tired, he told me we would talk tomorrow after our introductions.

Sunday, I went to church in the morning before really sitting down and chatting with my landlord. I hadn’t been to church in almost three weeks, and the last time I was there, I embarrassed myself by putting change in the collection plate when it turned out people were dumping something else in there. But that’s what happens when you leave a Jew to his own devices at Christian church- embarrassments all around. This time I was ready, and made sure the patrons were putting money and not envelopes or notes in the collection plate. Luckily, I get the impression that I’m well received.

After church, I called my host parents in Kukurantumi to see how they were doing and inquire on whether they had a host child from the new omnibus group that came into town. My group, the 2008 PCV education group, was the first to do training in Kukurantumi; before, Peace Corps training was done in Techiman, located in the Brang Ahafo Region. More about training is talked about in my first post, but I did not mention much about life with my host family. I turned out to have an incredibly nice host family, the Boatengs. My large and in charge mom (Mama Agy) was a great cook, but spoke rapid-fire Twi to me without including a word of English. Nana Boat, my host father, likened by many of the people in my group as the “Ghanaian Santa Clause”, was in fact one of the jolliest men I’ve ever met. His English was excellent, and he helped me with almost everything. He not only was one of the sub-chiefs of Kukurantumi, but also an electrician; we would have daily discussions on topics ranging from how the chieftaincy works in Ghana to how to repair electrical outlets. Both of my parents made me feel like I was part of the family, to the point where I would tell them I was going out or inviting them to my soccer games as if I were a teenager. One time some neighbors kept referring to me as Obruni, white man, even though I repeatedly told them in Twi that that wasn’t my name. Even though this didn’t really bother me, my host parents intervened and told them I was an Obibini (African) in heart, which I took as a major compliment.

There were several children and grandchildren who lived at the house as well; unfortunately I later found out that to accommodate for me, the children jammed themselves into two rooms. I became closest to the grandchildren, one in middle school and the other just entering high school (Ema and Kwazi, respectively). They would help me with Twi and we would talk about different things like what cold climates are like. I had a deaf sister who helped me pick up some sign language- I know how to say sit, mother, father, and stupid. I’m digressing. Getting back to the call I placed to my host parents, I found out they did in fact have a host child, and I got a little jealous. We made plans to see each other within the next two months, and I can’t wait for them to visit me at site.

Sorry, the rest of this post might be scatter-brained; I just got back from the dentist with some very bad news. It seems that the infection in my jaw is the result of a botched implant that left a severed nerve and some damaged tissue in my mouth; this means that they need to take the implant out or else the situation will get worse. My body is rejecting the medicine, and they say I’ll need to replace the implant with a bridge.

I’m waiting to see the Peace Corps doctor to find out if they can take care of this here or in S. Africa (where many PCVs go for complex medical procedures). Going back to the States is exciting in a way, but I felt crestfallen when I first heard the news because that means I’m away from my students for god knows how long. I just got to my site, and I feel it’s too soon to leave them, even for a little bit. The semester is almost over, and I need to get them ready for the end of the term final. I’m working out in my head just how to solve this dilemma. If worse comes to worse and I have to be gone for an extended amount of time, I think I might work with a student or two to teach the class for me while I’m gone. The other day I asked around to see which students might want to become educators, and whether or not they would like me to mentor them in becoming a future teacher. I had a about 4 students who were interested, and they are actually some of my top students. If it comes down to it, perhaps the students can teach out of the books while I’m gone. I’m just hoping I can hold out until the end of the term, but the inflammation is pretty nuts right now, so I might have to scratch that idea. We will see. Let’s get back on track.

When my landlord came back from a funeral taking place in town, which is what brought him up here, we talked for a while about politics in Ghana and the States. Kwame owns a construction company over in Medina, Accra, and only comes up to Otumi every few months for a funeral. He talked about growing up in Otumi, and explained he was happy to put me up in his home to help benefit his community.

On Monday, I went to school, and during morning assembly, found out one of my students might be getting kicked out of the school. He is one of my form 2 students, and although he does in fact disrupt my class sometimes, all I have to do is move his seat and he’s good the rest of class. Apparently, he stole some corn from one of the teachers and was caught, thusly prompting the headmaster to take action. He told me he was held back last year from going to Form 3, and he hung out with a rough crowd. I asked to speak with him alone while everyone else was in assembly.

I had the student follow me to the benches in the sitting area, and we talked for a bit before class started. I pretty much tried to relate to him, since as a kid I myself used to steal lawn ornaments and be disruptive in class. I told him that looking back, it was wrong for me to do that, and that he should catch himself and try to refrain from hanging out with some friends he described to me. I got the headmaster to give him one more chance, and I’m keeping a close eye on him. He’s got smarts, but he definitely has too much mischief in him.

When I got home, I experimented with vegetable oil, brown sugar, and corn kernels to make delic caramel corn which I enjoyed thoroughly. Later, while I was putting the container of corn kernels back on the shelf, I noticed a ton of beetles mixed in with the kernels. More protein! Later, when I went outside to do dishes, I could hear from the mosque across town the calling for prayer on the loudspeaker, and it was at that very moment that it hit me that I was really in Ghana, that I was really doing this. Since I came to Ghana, I hadn’t experienced any surreal moments; living in Ghana has been pretty much natural to me. I’ve wanted to do Peace Corps for well over a decade now, and I finally was a volunteer in a foreign country living the dream. That stuck with me the rest of the day.

Tuesday I got a call from my PCMO that I need to be at the doctors in Accra on Wednesday. Later, during one of my classes, a bunch of the primary school students came close to my classroom and started yelling obruni through the windows; I had one of my students kindly remove them from the area and take them to their teacher. Later, when I saw the primary school teacher, I told them that their kids are disrupting my class, and he just laughed.

This is part of what I mentioned last week. The teachers in my town, save for Mr. Bbbbbb show unabashed contempt for me, and I’m still trying to think of how to react to this. There are about 15 teachers in my town, counting the now 4 at my school, 5 at the primary school, and the rest at the Presbyterian middle school on the northern part of Otumi. Whenever I run into them, I act like I normally do with everyone else, I greet them, and they just laugh at me and put on a nasal whitey tone to mock me. Kids. The teachers in my town are kind of like kids. Which is what kills me about my students- their role models are scarce, and the teachers set incredibly bad examples. For instance, students are taught not to fight or hit one another, otherwise, they get beat. Students are expected to show up on time to school everyday, even though many of the teachers are nowhere to be found. I’m not saying all teachers in Ghana are like this, but I can tell you the ones in my town certainly are, save for Mr. Bbbbbbb. Mr. Bbbbb is alright, he cares about the students and is nice to me, but he canes way to much as well.

I think part of the reason they act this way towards me is because I actually put in work when I teach. The only other people I’ve seen show enthusiasm in class is my headmaster and Mr. Bbbbbb. Yesterday, I watched my headmaster give a lesson on the Twi language, and the students were really in to it. My headmaster told me he used to be a teacher, and missed doing it, though he plans on becoming a farmer once he retires in two years. My headmaster is usually really good with the kids in my town.

After school, since I was going to be gone the next day, I had one of my students stay after school so I could catch her up in science for the test Friday. The girl came from Nigeria about two weeks ago, and she’s one of my best students. I caught her up on the carbon cycle and climate, and a bunch of students ended up staying after as well. I’ve talked to the girl’s father on a few occasions when I see him around town, and I think it might be hard on them since they are so knew and don’t really know anyone. My town is a major produces of palm oil, so we get people from all over, especially from Togo, coming to Otumi for work.

Tuesday was also a close call when I choked on one of the slimy cocoa beans I love to eat. My headmaster gives me a bunch from his farm whenever he goes. I got Jack on board with this popcorn thing. He’s thinking of getting a popcorn maker. That’s not a bad idea….I also talked with one of my friends, who will stay the night next Tuesday to watch and listen for the election results. The next day he’ll observe maybe one of my classes and head back. I’m running out of money, but I would like to get a bottle of champaign for the momentous occasion. Aside from that, mine and Chihiro’s lunch plans were again postponed to this coming Sunday. I need to find mangoes to chill, but they are not in season

Music to complement this entry:

Cruisin’- Holly Cole Trio

Vagalume- The Mosquitos

Waiting for the Man- Nico

Friends- Luscious Jackson

Fortress- Pinback

Tallahassee Love- T-Pain

St. Thomas- Sonny Rollins

Tubthuumping- Chumbawamba

Gnossienne No.2- Erik Satie

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor- Mozart

Hold Your Head Up High- Bloodhound Gang

Isaac- Squeak E. Clean

Falling to Pieces- Faith No More

What You Know- T.I.

Do It- Nelly Furtado

Fire- Ohio Players

Hatchet- Low

Wine to Complement this entry:

2004 Stony Hill Chardonnay

Host family brothers and sisters

My host parents at swearing in

Family photo

At home in Kukurantumi

Kwazi, my host mom, and mom's friend

My headmaster at his well

Some students of mine

I’m back in Accra for the third time this week, didn’t think I’d say that, but here I am. My friend BJ is leaving and there is no way I’m going to miss him before he goes. Coincidentally, the meds the doc has me taking is having a curious effect on my kidneys; they've been tingling a bit since I started taking the medication. Knowing this isn’t right, I’m also going to see the PCMO. I’m starting not to enjoy coming to Accra though; it’s getting expensive, I’ve seen enough for now, and the rides to and from my site are dangerous. After today, I’m going to stop coming to Accra for a while, I think.

On the last trip, I made the mistake of not taking the front seat on the tro going back to my site, and had to endure 5 hours of sitting in a fetal position in the back since the floor started where my knees were supposed to be. I didn’t know at the time that the floor was like that, but didn’t want to sit in the front where I can fly out the window if we hit something. This is where my reluctance to come to Accra stemmed from. The good news is the people in Kade, the town I do a stop-over in before going to my site, have stopped calling me Obruni and started calling me Kwazi Boateng (or as some people call me, Boat), my Ghana given name.

Briefly, Obruni (emphasis on the “o” to give a mocking effect) is the equivalent of saying “white man” to someone. Obruni kokou, or “white man with red skin”, is commonly heard from screaming buoyant children or the occasional adult. I usually have a comeback; in fact my students just the other day told me I should say womboadee- “you’re not being respectful”. I used to say Obibini! (African!) or just browbeat the person.

When my tro pulled up to my site, the caretaker and his family were on lawn chairs near the collapsed bridge that marks the beginning of my property. The power was out, and since it was around 9 PM, the only light came from their flashlights. Monstrous sacks of cucumbers were on the ground, and they explained that they were taking them to Accra the next day when the bus comes at 2AM. They offered me a cucumber, which in fact was delicious when I cut it up, chilled it, and had it with olive oil and garlic. We talked for a while, and then the lights came on, which was my cue to get inside and get some much needed rest.

The next day was a challenge; since I missed Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday classes, I used Friday to do some serious catching up. Based on the fact that Mr. Mhm does not show up to most of his classes, I step in for him and teach math, science, or ICT. Students spent the latter part of the day weeding and playing football; I think the teachers were getting bored and eschewed teaching the last 4 periods. The other teacher and I followed the students out to the field, where they spent a good 45 minutes just weeding, and to the students’ surprise I joined them. I’ve gone to farm with my neighbor before, and he showed me how to properly use a cutlass (machete), so I was able to impress them with my mad cutlass skills. I enjoy it, in increments of 5 minute chopping, 5 minute resting. One girl got caned really badly for fooling around, and I glared at Mr. Mhm for hitting the girl so hard across the knees.

Before leaving for school on Friday, Mr. Appiah, the brother of the owner of my house, had some news for me- his brother will be in town this weekend for a funeral in Otumi. Keeping in mind that Chihiro, the JICA volunteer near my site, is supposed to meet me for lunch at my place on Sunday, this kind of throws a wrench in my plans. At the same time, I’m incredibly grateful to the man for letting me stay in his huge house for free. I’m trying to think of how to balance my time between the two.

I’m starting to teach my students how to make cryptograms, which worked out well with my host sister during training, in exchange for learning Twi. So far, I’ve got a few that are pretty good at it. Acryptogram looks like this: YGKSHN GWH KSV PK NHGNSK, ZHV P KHHE SKH VS AWHNHKV VS UTPTPWS VSYSWWSI- good luck to anyone who wants to decode it.

On the ride to Accra today, I noticed an unusual number of winged, ant-like insects all over the bus. I phlegmatically watched as they used my arms, neck, and head as a landing strip. The trip was violently bumpy, like usual, and I unfortunately chose the seat under the speaker blasting gospel music throughout the trip. One woman was reading a newspaper with a featured article on the front cover titled “Woman Turns into Cobra”. The woman gave me a disdainful look when she saw the smile on my face looking at her article. Just the other day I got in trouble when I was making faces at someone’s baby. It’s hard being on your best behavior when crammed into vehicles.

One final note: Flipping through my Form 1 ICT Computer book while planning lessons, I came across this picture of a Microsoft Word box in the Word Processing unit; I noticed that whoever made the book grabbed the wrong picture to display what a Microsoft Word box looks like. The one they have is a parody of the original box, with famous rappers on the front in lieu of plain white. I posted a picture of it below, making most of this paragraph redundant.

That’s it for now. I’ve got to run and eat lunch with my buddies. Next week I’ll go into a situation I have with the teachers in my town, and how I think they don’t like me very much. All else is fine, though.

Music to complement this entry:

The Wind- Cat Stevens

Don’t Worry Be Happy- Bobby McFerrin

Over the River- Jiving Juniors

Daly City train- Rancid

Teardrop- Massive Attack

Smoke and Mirrors- RJD2

Graffiti, Pt. 1- Stereo MCs

Clouds Up- Air

In the Swim- Blank Blue

Two Icicles- Flunk

Handbags and Gladrags- Rod Stewert

Lost Weekend- Brother Love

Mad Rush- Philip Glass

Better Days- Sublime

Wine to complement this entry:

2007 Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc Reserva

My friend BJ (left)

Your Typical Tro

Word!!!!!

BJ!!

I’m in Accra again; I forgot to take my meds with me to my site and had to go all the way back, which means I missed another day of classes, spent ten valuable bucks, and have to languish on a bumpy five hour ride from and to my site. Fun part is I got to see two friends at the office as well as rapaciously eat a tasty meal at the Ghana Army Mess Hall food just down from the Peace Corps office. One of my friends had malaria for two weeks, and she came down with a pretty serious fever. I'm the first non-Ghanaian she's seen since site, and we caught up before I left for my site. Her other friend is coming tomorrow, so at least she'll have good company.

I found out yesterday that another one of my friends in my group is ETing (early termination, which puts the number at 6 people from our group. I heard he’ll be here tomorrow, so I’m missing him by one day. I can’t even call him. I happened to be in Accra to bid farewells to my other friends, but I’m missing this guy by one day; I can’t even get a hold of him by phone. I learned Tuesday that our country director is leaving as well in mid-December. I really look up to this guy, and we had some good conversations; I’m going to try to get in a game of tennis before he leaves. He’ll be replace by an ex- Marine/ Peace Corps Volunteer who we’ll meet in a few months.

On to lionizing my friend Jack- We were talking on the phone yesterday and I heard all this commotion like students fighting over something in the background. Apparently, Jack has night classes from 8-9 everyday, helping students with test-taking & computer skills. I don’t do anything but teach. I haven’t really done anything yet with my students, and I’m jealous every time I here all the great things other PCVs are doing. I’m still trying to figure out what my students can benefit the most from before I announce anything. For now, I just help the Form 3 students after school with whatever questions they have.

Another bat flew into my home yesterday, the second one this month. Again, like the last one, I had to get a chair in between me and the winged rodent so that it safely flies out of my home. I’ve also had to chase some chicks out of my home, as well as some pesky goats I alluded to last time. This morning, as I was rushing out of my home at two AM, I noticed a communion wafer-sized spider come out from under my bed. I grabbed one of my Tupperware containers, caught it, and released it before catching the bus bound for Accra.

When I get back home today, my neighbor’s kids and I are making peanut butter using the grinding bowl (see below). Per usual, I’m loading the mix up with tons of sugar. Then, reading time with the kids IF it is not too dark out. I'm still working on getting my dog to at least play fetch, and I might squeeze that in too if I have the time.

Music to complement this entry:

Help!- The Beatles

Kola Kola- The Clash

A Well Respected Man- The Kinks

Gone- Kanye West

Soul Call- Soul Rhythms

Ghost Town- The Specials

Rosa Parks- Outkast

Wine to complement this entry:

2005 Ravenswood Zinfandel

The Country Director for Peace Corps Ghana

Jack and I

My friend Jen (far right) who I saw in Accra

Ma Dog

Making Peanut Butter

My front porch where the children and I read

I spent the past few days typing up what I’ve experienced since swearing in, as well as some back stories to go along with whatever needs to be elaborated on. By page 30, I stopped, realized no one is going to read that much drivel, and scrapped the whole thing; instead I’ll hark back to last Tuesday and proceed from there. In fact, events that took place last Tuesday are a major reason why I’m sitting here now in the Accra Peace Corps Office today and not teaching classes at my site. It stinks that I’m leaving out a ton of stories I have from the past several weeks at site, but I hope to make up for it in my later posts. This one might be alright, but I’ll leave that up to the reader.

Quizzes and Caning

Last Tuesday, the year of our Lord October 14, 2008, was what one could call a typical day for a Peace Corps Volunteer: went to school, chased goats out of my home, and went to the main market a ways away from my site. My Form 1 and 2 students took their first test in my class, and cheating wasn’t too bad, though after grading the tests, I found some awfully similar incorrect answers on students who sat next to one another.

Cheating is prevalent in most Ghanaian schools, and is sometimes even encouraged by some of the teachers since it makes them and their schools look good if the student does well on high stakes tests like the BECE. Cheating goes on in my classroom, but it’s been on the decline since I usually just stand there, arms akimbo, quietly telling the student to go to the front of the room where they can sit and take a zero. Some students do really well on the tests and quizzes I give, while others seem to do poorly for one reason or another. I’m still trying to get to know each of my students on an individual level, so it’s tough for me to see who is studying and putting forth an effort while others might have learning disabilities. Many of the students, after school, do a long list of work for their parents, many of them being farmers. I don’t blame the students for being exhausted when they come to class, which is why I try to make my lessons as enjoyable and insightful as possible.

Word of mouth is pointless; the teachers at my school are out of touch with the students. Case in point, we had a new student come in, and my headmaster told me she is known to be shy and probably won’t participate in class at all. So far, she’s volunteered more than most of the class in providing answers. Almost all my students are still conducting themselves very well, taking notes and coming to class on time. I’m still working on getting them to be more open and comfortable during class discussions.

Student performance is alright in my classes. Since I’m teaching Math, Science and ICT to the Form 1 and 2 students, it’s sometimes hard to step back and evaluate things when so much is going on. Basically, I’ve found that both forms do well with attendance and effort in class. I try to keep my classes interesting, but I’m still finding it hard to get many of the students past just waiting for the answer or reciting in verbatim the definition for something. This is just how they learn from their other teachers, so I’m hoping with time and effort I can help students move away from this type of learning and actually understand what they are studying.

I’ve noticed with the teachers at my school is that they have very little confidence in their students, and they think caning is the end-all solution to dealing with students who misbehave or don’t know the answer to sometimes cryptic questions. On top of working with students, I’m putting some effort into getting the two teachers at my school to realize that the students are not hopeless and need to be hit to behave. All I hear from them, and this is no joke, is that students are “stubborn” and need more discipline. I feel they are just middle school students with tons of energy and frustrated with such a heavy workload at school.

One teacher at my school, we’ll call him Mr. Mhm, evades classes at all cost, and shows up late on a regular basis; but if one students does something minor, they are punished severely, I’m talking punches them hard in the arm in a non-playful way. These are my students, and I really don’t know how long it will be until I lose my cool on him, though first I need to talk to him alone. I really don’t like him though, and these probably won't be the last pejorative statements I make about the guy. Thus is the situation at my school.

I might be having some sort of affect on my headmaster, because he told me and the rest of the students and teachers during morning announcements the other day that “caning is no good, and that it will hopefully be done away with soon.” I’ll have to see it to believe it, but for now I’m just going to continue doing what I’m doing and try to convince the teachers that there is a better way.

From the Ghanaian teacher’s point of view, I’ve been told that being a teacher here is frustrating, that students get little discipline at home and must cane or they would have little power in the classroom. Another source of frustration comes from the low pay for teachers and in many cases extremely late payments into their accounts. I’m ignorant as to how many of the teachers are trained, and I’m slowly learning about the teacher-placement process as well as many other aspects of the Ghanaian education system.

This week I’ve been collaborating with teachers about how we can deal with the teacher shortage at our school as well as more effective methods of classroom management. I’ve seen little results this week, and I still hear the terrible sounds of students getting caned in the next room over. I caught myself glaring at the primary school teachers going nuts on their students with the cane. My students know how much I hate the measure since I openly protest to it when we chat after class.

Chihiro and the Problem

So Friday an odd but wonderful thing happened- I was asked to go home to collect some of the extra class money I was responsible for holding for the school, and on the way to my home, thought about how great it would be if my friend Jack came with me to Japan after we finish Peace Corps. Jack and I share a similar interest in Japan, and he can speak the language pretty well. I reminisced about the two years I spent there on the return back to my school, and when I entered the staff common room to count the money, not a minute later this Japanese girl is there before me. This might sound mundane to most people, but when I am the only non-Ghanaian in my town and don’t normally see any foreigners, it’s a big deal. If I had a tail, it would have been wagging.

My headmaster introduced her as a Japanese volunteer belonging to JICO (can’t remember what this stands for), and I remember him mentioning something about her a while back. The girl is about my age, beautiful, and has worked at a hospital not too far from my site for about a year and a half. Her name is Chihiro, and I took great pleasure in surprising her that I lived in Japan and could speak the language pretty well. As part of her work in Ghana, she would go around to schools teaching about AIDS/ HIV and other diseases. That day she made plans with my headmaster to come back Tuesday to educate our students. We chatted it up for a bit, with the end result of her planning to come to my house for lunch on Sunday.

Later that day, though, I was eating dinner at school while the students worked on this science poster I asked them to make, when my mouth suddenly started to swell up precisely in the area where a year earlier a dentist had accidentally severed my nerve. A little panicked, I asked my students if they noticed anything wrong with my face, with which they replied they did, and I looked a bit weirder than I usually do. The past few days, I’ve been having some strange sensations in that area, and even felt like my salivary glands decided to shut off. I’d get dizzy some days, and there was a level of concern that entire week. I figured it was a new allergy that might have cropped up, though I’ve only ever been allergic to plutonium isotopes. I called the PCMO (the Peace Corps medical officer), and he was under the impression that it might be an allergy and I should go on anti-inflammatory for a while until it clears up.

Friday, though, it was serious enough to get a hold of my dentist stateside and find out what he thought. He was under the impression that I had a mouth infection based on my history in that area and what I experienced the past few days. He gave me a list of medications, and I called the PCMO again to see her Saturday. If you could picture it, here I was with a swollen mouth in pitch black (my power was out and it was night time), writing down fantastic prescription names and packing my stuff for Accra. I did not find the humor in it at the time.

When I got to Accra Saturday, the PCMO looked at what was going on with my mouth, saw there was some inflammation, and put me on meds. She told me I need to stay in Accra until Monday to see the dentist. I told her maybe it would be best if I went back to my site, which was about four hours away, and come back bright and early Monday morning. She told me no. I looked at her incredulously; on any other occasion I would love to stay the weekend in Accra with Peace Corps’ permission. I usually spend my weekends taking a brief sojourn in Accra to visit friends and surround myself with all things familiarly Western, including shopping malls, pizza, and ice cream. A while back I had to cajole my APCD into letting me stay in Accra so that I could watch my friends compete in a marathon, and from that conversation I acquiesced to not coming staying in Accra again until the end of the term.

Any other weekend would have been brilliant, but this one was no good. The PCMO asked me why I needed to get back so badly, and I let it out that this beautiful Japanese girl was coming over to my place at noon on Sunday to eat lunch, and that I really had no choice but to go back to my site. No go. And here I am in Accra typing this up.

The weekend wasn’t so bad though. All in all this turned out even better. I texted Chihiro that I wasn’t going to be able to make it Sunday, and asked if we could maybe move the lunch to Saturday or Sunday of next week. She took that well and so next Sunday I plan on doing something really special, which I’ll elaborate on in a second. So with that matter resolved, I walked again with some panache in my step to the mail office to get the package I heard came for me the previous day. Signing for it, I noticed my friends Chris and Tammi from my group had also picked up a package not too long ago, and Sammy the mail guy told me they might still be in Accra. I gave them a call immediately and learned that in fact they were still in Accra and would stay the night.

We met up at a great Italian restaurant called Mama Mia’s, which I had previously went to with my friend Stephen. My friend Ming, a PCV from the education group before us was also there. They all came to Accra to vote as well as run other minor errands, and we got to spend all day together. We caught up, and even though I had talked to Chris and Tammi numerous times on the phone before, it was great to see them in Accra. They are a great couple, and part of the reason I enjoy Chris’ company so much is because he towers over me like a sky scraper, reminding me of such wonderful cities as NY, Chicago, Tokyo, and San Francisco. After lunch, we stopped by the Asian marketto look at squid in a bag and get some dried plums. I bought up some soba, green tea cakes, and something else for lunch next Sunday when Chihiro comes over.

Sunday I bid farewell to Chris and Tammi, and I spent the rest of the day lounging at the Peace Corps office with my friends Ming and Ira, as well as some other people I met over the weekend. While at the office, I saw an article featured in the San Francisco Chroncile about Ralph, one of the PCVs in my group; he is currently the oldest PCV, and one of the most amusing in my opinion. I also met this one woman who had volunteered as a PCV in Ghana, but was now stationed in Afghanistan as an engineer for the Army. We talked for a bit, and Sunday she and the rest of us went to the officer’s mess hall just a few meters away from the Peace Corps office. The food there was amazing and affordable.

Monday I got to vote, which felt wonderful in many respects. For one, we voted before any state-side suckers could, and two, this is by far the most exciting election that Florida will NOT screw up, so help me god. I also spent Monday going to the dentist’s in Osu where the doctor checked out the inflamed area, which ballooned up the previous night while chowing down dinner; the doctor told me to go to Korle-Bu, an area about 30 minutes by taxi from where we were, to get an X-ray. It was a scenic ride to the office, where we passed long stretches of beach. I would recommend though that anyone who visits the beach to plug their nose

When I returned to Osu to show the dentist my X-ray, he pointed his finger at my chest and said “Son, you have a mouth infection.” Really though he told me this news like a normal person. He wrote me a prescription, but before going back to the office to give the prescription to my PCMO, I stopped in an actual bookstore I had noticed on the way to the dentist’s. Actual bookstores are a rare site in Ghana, and I being the avid reader cannot escape bringing everything to a halt to check out what was in the shop.

The bookstore had a decent selection of books, all used, and I picked up maybe $35 worth of books even though I had only $20 and needed the rest to get back to site. Since I thought I was going back to my site the same day I left for Accra, I didn’t bother taking things like extra underwear or money. The result was me standing in the bookstore with an armful of books, smelly clothes, and a defeated look on my face. The guy at the register ended up giving me such a good discount that I got to take almost all the books home and had enough to return to the office, where I would later be reimbursed for food and travel.

When I got back to the office, I entered the computer room to find three girls I was all too familiar with: two of them I’m enamored with, the other knowing about these attractions since I confided this fact to her a while back. The two I liked were staying in Accra at the same hotel I was to take the GRE the following day. Excellent, although I think any interest in me by other of them is nil. They went to dinner while I worked on this entry; later I met up with another friend at a restaurant across from our hotel before meeting back with the two I adored.

Today, being Tuesday, four of us had breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants, and we headed back to the Peace Corps office. We talked for a bit in the computer room before they left and I got back to work on this post. I also picked up my medication, and plan on coming back here for a check-up next week. I’m really upset I missed two classes, and I hope this doesn’t put my students too far behind in the curriculum.

While putting the finishing touches to this entry, my friend Ira and I, the only two PCVs at the office at the time, were invited to pizza, which happened to be on my mind all day. Soon I’m taking off, though, so I’ll leave you with an address to an Amazon Wishlist I’ve created. I’m not saying I’m book deprived per-se, but I would greatly appreciate if you send any of the items on the list my way. My next entry should come next week, if anyone is at all interested.

Music to complement this entry:

Johnny Appleseed- Joe Strummer

People- The Oscar Peterson Trio

The Good Life- Kanye West

Senorita- Puff Daddy and the Family

Outversion- Mark Ronson

Photograph- Def Leopard

Around the World- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Flutter- Amplifico

You Can’t Hurry Love- Diana Ross and the Supremes

Living in America- James Brown

You Sexy Thing- Hot Chocolate

Fly- Sugar Ray

Jump- Van Halen

Ooh La La- The Faces

Flower- Moby

Raspberry Beret- Prince

A Little Less Conversation- Elvis Presley

Yay Area- E-40

Passing Me By- Pharcyde

Dark Eyes- Ramsey Lewis Trio Ming and Chris and Squid at the Asian Market

Sunset at my Site

The Inquisitive Goats

Packages!

Mama Mia's

Chis, Tammi, Ming and I

Stephen and I

Jack

Ralph and Squinty McGees

Chris and Tammi

Pizza!

I’ve been in Ghana close to four months now, and it’s about time I started an online journal as a means for reflection, catharsis, and cutting down costs on phone bills and postage. For this first post, I’ll attempt to summarize everything that’s taken place from the time I left the States to the present, where I’m currently racing against time to finish this entry and get back to my site post-haste.

Quickly, though, if asked if I was happy, I would respond “Yes” and “What’s it to you?” I have great friends here, I’ve integrated well with my community, the students are excellent, there’s plenty of delicious food, and I live in a castle. I also share my neighbor’s dog, which I’ve grown to love, and I’m pretty sure won’t be killed. I cannot believe my luck that things are so good for me here.

Ambitions:

The trick now is to accomplish and learn as much as I can in a two year period, without getting seriously ill or majorly offending anyone. For my students, I would like them to: be able to think and learn on their own, have pride in themselves, treat other people with respect, have a sense of compassion for animals, make well thought out life choices, value education, and read more. I don’t think this is too much to ask. My students are great when it comes to carrying my things and getting me complimentary food. Yesterday I scored some nkyeree (pronounced encheriyay), which is like peanut brittle, but with maize in lieu of the peanuts.

I also want to have a positive impact on the teachers. Caning has gotten way out of hand at my school, and I can’t even teach at times when I hear a student getting punished for probably nothing in the next room. I don’t think the teachers I work with believe in their students, nor do they understand that they are just kids. Flailing them for the smallest things doesn’t teach anyone anything. I still have a lot to learn about how schools operate here and where educators’ frustrations stem from, although I have some theories on this. As of yet I’m not too sure what I’d like to work on with my community; I’ve only been in town for maybe a month.. There was a good turnout at the last PTA meeting, so I think there’s at least a sense of concern from the parents for their children’s education.

For myself, I would like to become fluent in Twi and maybe French, and maybe even pick up some sign language. I’d also like to be able to run a marathon, do electrical work and home improvements, use a slingshot accurately, and play soccer. I tried to build a robot out of bamboo, mud, wiring and a motherboard, but the ants got to it before I could see if it works.

The first three months I’m going to only focus on teaching, learning about the school system and the town’s resources, speaking Twi, and learn about the people in my town. Once I feel like I have a handle on things, I would like to begin working on some secondary projects, for instance maybe painting with my students a giant periodic table, double helix and world map on the side of our school building (The World Map Project). Other projects I have in mind are: an email correspondence program between my students and their American peers, field trips, and STARS (more about that in another posting). By the time I start any secondary projects, though, I’m hoping the students come up with something they might want to do.

In a year from now, I want to work with teachers in and around my area so that students are provided with quality education receive less draconian measures of discipline. I also plan on learning from books and perhaps university professors about the education system in Ghana. If possible, I would even try to work with government officials about the state of the education system in Ghana, though it sounds too lofty an idea at the moment. I’ll just see how things go for my first term as a JHS teacher.

The Job At Hand

Some background into what I’m doing in Ghana. About a month ago I swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer to teach science and math at the middle school level. My site is in Otumi, a small town located in the Eastern Region. I’ve been teaching now for three weeks, and because of the teacher shortage at my school have been asked to teach a computer class to my Form 1 and 2 students; so to sum it up, I’m teaching science, math, and ICT to Form 1 and 2 students (think 6th and 7th graders), and I am in charge of the Form 2 students.

My students are excellent, almost everyone shows up to class everyday and are eager to participate and help me out with things. They seem to understand what I’m saying, but a lot of work needs to be done when it comes to students expressing themselves. Talking to the students after class, a lot of them said they are shy or don’t know enough English to participate in class discussions.

I teach a combined total of 85 students, and by now I’ve remembered a majority of their names. I’ve made two books where each student is designated 4 pages; in the pages, I document the students’ performance, attendance, and personalities to better handle each student on a case-by-case basis. I can tell which students can be the trouble-makers, but once being one myself, I’m pretty fast in shutting any mischief down. The students are doing well policing themselves, and classes are rarely interrupted, except on the occasion that a teacher or a student’s family member comes in with something bogus. The best part is all of them try in my science, math, and ICT classes; I just have to maintain their determination to learn and do well.

The students do not have any books to take home, and the ones they do have do not go at all with the new syllabus that I have to some how cover in its entirety. Copying important information on the board takes some time, but I manage to get in a few good activities in many of the classes. It’s still taking some getting used to in both covering the material and building students’ critical thinking skills. In fact, I’ve been dwelling on this issue for a while now, and it occupies a lot of my thinking time. The time tables aren’t really followed by teachers, and sporadically classes are cancelled. Since the students sit around in some classes because the teacher is out, I usually sit in and have the students work on practice math problems with each other while I plan the next week’s lessons.

Caning is the biggest problem for me right now. My headmaster does not like caning, but the two other teachers do it constantly. My counterpart is gone for registration, so it’s just been me and this other teacher (Mr. Baku). The teachers are both my age, and although Mr. Baku is pleasant to me, he is way too harsh on the students.

Since I’m head of Form 2 students, I think I’m going to request that none of the teachers hit them; instead, I want them to come to me if there’s a problem. My students behave very well in my class, and whenever I do catch something, I can shut it down right away without wasting any time or hurting the student in the slightest. The worst that happens is I have them sit on the floor for a small period of time, depending on the incident. They are kids full of energy, though, so good planning and fun lessons sort out most of students’ anxiousness.

The Community

Otumi is a small rural town in the Eastern Region, about 3.5 hours north of Accra and 3 hours slightly north-west of Koforidua. There is no high school, but there are two middle schools. I teach at Kwaebibirem Model Junior High School (KMS), and across from this is the primary school. So far as I know, most of the people are farmers or traders, and the main crops grown in my town are cocoa, oranges and palm oil. The funny thing about palm oil is that it gives off the strongest odor during the manufacturing process- this odor can very easily be mistaken for the smell of burning pot. In fact, the first time I smelled it, I thought that’s what it was, until someone told me that smell came from the palm oil.

The school is about a 5 minute walk from my home, and the town market is about 10 minutes away. I’m not sure how many people are in the town, but everyone seems to gather in the market square or at church on Sundays.

The roads are rust red and extremely underdeveloped. Houses range from large compounds to small mud structures. Some of the houses and buildings have electricity; my school does not. There is also running water in some of the homes and facilities. Power outages do occur, though, and I just got through a three-day black out.

When I’m not working on school plans, I try to go out and talk to the people. I still have much more to learn about the community, and I would say everyone I’ve talked to has been kind and affable. I get many requests to sit and eat with my neighbors, and I’ve taken a few of them up on their offers. I have to admit, the food is good, but it’s kind of gross when I’m expected to share the same bowl with three other people using my hands, which is customary here. I try to put everything I learned about Biology out the window when I partake in whatever is in the bowl. The first time I told them I had a cold and I shouldn’t share from the same bowl. That was nonsense, they told me, and so I ate.

I’ll go more into the food in later entries I’m sure, but to give you a sense it’s usually a ball of some starchy treat surrounded by a soup of some sort. Fufuo is my favorite, but my stomach goes ill on me every time.

I met the chief, subchiefs, and the elders of the community. They all seem to be very supportive of my mission there, and the chief offered to take me around the Eastern Region when we’re on break. Currently, the chief is working on getting computers for our school, so we’ll see how that plays out.

Roger is the caretaker at my place; he and his family live in back of my house and we often talk when we see each other. The entire family is from Togo and they primarily speak Ewe and Twi; but Roger and his 13 year-old son speak pretty good English. He also has an 8 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. Almost everyday the kids and I do some reading on the front porch, then about 15 minutes of jumping rope, followed by weight lifting (buckets filled with rocks), and pull-ups on the orange tree outside the house. By the end of it we get a spectacular view of the sunset on a lush tropical forest, and then I eat and wash dishes outside.

Training

Training took close to three months to complete. First, all of us met up in Philly as part of the staging process. There, I met the 35 people belonging to my group, all educators in Ghana. There were four different sectors of education: science, math, ICT, and art. Funny enough, my friend Stephen and I belong to three of those sectors now. We had 3 days of orientation and ice-breaking sessions in Philly, then flew from NJ to Amsterdam, to Ghana.

Arriving in Ghana, we were greeted by current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and our future trainers for the three month training process. We were escorted by police vehicles to Valley View, a college in Accra. We spent a few days doing more Peace Corps introductory sessions there and visited Peace Corps HQ, among other things. I became pretty close to the people in my group, though I liked everyone from the get-go, and still do actually.

On our last day at Valley View, we were to head out, on our own, to visit a current PCV’s site as part of Vision Quest. Each of us were paired with a PCV and spent 5 days taking notes and seeing what life is like as a volunteer. I visited two people in the Volta Region- Phil and Beth in Guaman and Logba Tota, respectively. Their sites were magnificent- both volunteers lived in a mountainous region surrounded by thick tropical forests. I had a good time with both hosts, and afterwards had to leg it to Kukurantumi for the next part of training: site interviews and placements.

My group members slowly trickled into the Peace Corps hub site in Kukurantumi as they were returning from all parts of Ghana. Some people spent the good part of two days on the road getting to their Vision Quest sites. I was fortunate to only have to travel 8 hours, though I thought I was going to lose my life on the drive up to the site. The next two days we were interviewed about site preferences: I wanted to teach middle school science somewhere south and surrounded by other volunteers. The day after my interview, I got precisely this, and as fate would have it, I was paired up with my host family, the Boatengs, in Kukurantumi. In fact, all JHS volunteers stayed in Kukurantumi, while the other volunteers teaching Senior High School went to the towns flanking Kukurantumi- Suhyn (pronounced Sushyen) and Old Tafo.

Without going into too much detail, we spent two weeks getting field experience at a selected school. I taught at a Presbyterian school not too far from my home, and taught there with my friend Jack. Also during training and continuing after the two week practicum was language and technical training. For language training, there were 5 people in our group and we were all learning Twi. There were other Twi groups as well as Fanti, Dongbe, etc. But our group was the best.

Technical training consisted of teaching methods and procedures in Ghanaian schools. The group members in my town would get together for these sessions on weekdays. On weekends, everyone in our group would meet up at the hub site in Kukurantumi. Aside from technical training, we also had sessions on Ghanaian culture, which was kind of fun for me but monotonous for others.

I’m skipping over a lot of events and info, but during training a few people sadly had to go home, I had a brief, tempestuous relationship with someone in my group I think I might have loved, I had a brilliant time with my host family, and splitting with everyone after swearing in was tough for me. When I got to my site after swearing in as a PCV, I had three weeks before school started. I spent most of this time preparing for teaching, though I frequented Accra weekly to see a few friends.

From Here On Out

I’m in Accra itching to get back to site, so that's it for now. I plan on posting the past week's worth of events tomorrow sometime soon. Know that licorice, rainbow sprinkle cake icing, Gatorade dry packs, mac-n-cheese packets, and other provisions would be greatly appreciated here. I'll also have an Amazon wish list up soon (I'll let you know when). Letters are also cool. I’ll leave my address below. Pictures are available at this address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29504710@N02/

Music to complement this entry:

Hot Pants- Bobby Byrd

Rock Island Line- Sonny Terry

Blue in Green- Bill Evans Trio

Summer Samba- Ramsey Lewis

Rocky Raccoon- The Beatles,

Je Te Veux, Valse- Erik Satie,

Mandolin Concerto in G Minor- Johann Hummel

Doo Wop- Lauren HillNatural One- Folk ImplosionMaking Time- CreationSecurity- Thane RusselAll Right Now- FreeBack in Black- AC/DCMy Hero- Foo Fighters

Country Grammar- Nelly

Summer Love- Justin Timberlake

Inversion- Mark Ronson

Bhindi Bhagee- Joe Strummer and the Mescalaros

Evenflow- Pearl Jam

Bohemian Like You- The Dandy Warholes

Alone- Brother Love

Strictly Bongo- Bent

Leave Home- Chemical Brothers

Build Me Up Buttercup- Dance Hall Crashers

Downtown Venus- P.M. Dawn

Can’t Wait- Hepcat

Paths- Robert Miles

From Me to You- Bobby Mcferrin

It Was a Good Day- Ice Cube

Morris Brown- Outkast

Werewolf in London- Warren Zevon

Otumi First Days in Ghana

My Host FamilyAfter Swearing In

Fufuo in Peanut Soup

What we lack here in Ghana

Otumi Market Square

Kwaebibirem Model Junior High School (KMS)

My Palatial Home

My Classroom

Some of My Students

The Chief, Elders, and Subchiefs of Otumi

The Caretaker (Roger) and his Family

My Dog Spike (who will not be killed)

Peace Corps GhanaDarren Fleischer- PCVPO Box 5796 Accra North, GhanaWest Africa