Amelia Bedelia of Africa

I want to regal you with some stories I told to my sister on the phone Saturday to which she dubbed me the Amelia Bedelia of Africa. It is kind of true. First I was sweeping in my living room which is a necessary chore daily since bugs are attracted to my lights at night but then die by morning. Usually one of the girl students helps me but since they don’t always come on the weekend I decided to do it myself (novel idea). Well, I picked up a basket on the floor to move it and much to my dismay a bunch of ants scattered. I proceeded to get my can of Read A Dream Insecticide to kill them but when I sprayed a whole colony of ants evacuated the hole under a window in which they had been residing. So I went to move the curtain in order to open the window and which point one of the ants climbing on my drapes bit me. In the midst of all this chaos (and me standing there helplessly), one of the students Felicity walked into to save the day. Or at least my hands from more bites… She was quite calm and collected despite my opposite demeanor.

Once we got the bug situation under control and swept the deceased ants out of the house, I walked to the store with the freezer and bought us old juice boxes as a treat after our hard work. Later the same day, a massive storm rolled in bringing dark skies, strong winds, and a sideways downpour. Felicity and I were contentedly relaxing and reading on my mat (currently I only own one chair). But once the rain started I realized the water was coming in through the gap at the bottom of my back door and a window in the second bedroom so we both jumped up to sweep it out. My floors aren’t fancy so it’s not a big deal that water entered my house but it was discouraging to find out my house is neither insect nor waterproof.

Sunday I was lazy getting out of bed so missed the early bus to Sandema to go do my shopping for the week at the market. I paid dearly for my laziness- by waiting for the next bus for 4 hours. Yes 4 hours. Thankfully I am learning to have greater patience plus always bring a book with me to pass the time. Plus I had the chance to spend time conversing, playing games, and taking phone photos with some of the kids and women. It was definitely worthwhile to be able to eat out, have ice cream, and discover some ‘finds’ in the market. Simple items like an apple, green onions, a cucumber, and lemons (taste more like limes though) are exciting and bring much needed variety into my diet.

I’m so thankful that the students and kids are eager to assist me. One of the ways they help is by fetching water which is another common chore here. I’ve had a lot of questions about my water source so thought I’d end my post this week with a couple of photos. My water comes from a hand pump borehole of which there are several in my community but the closest one can be seen from the front porch of my house. Water is collected in buckets or jerry cans and carried on one’s head with a scarf or piece of cloth providing padding.

I have a water filter that I use for my drinking water and then I use the unfiltered water for bathing, washing dishes, and cooking. There is usually a mad rush to the borehole just before the sun goes down and it’s also a social activity as well for those congregating. In the mornings I’ve started boiling extra water besides what I need to my breakfast tea so I can take a warm/hot bucket bath. It’s nice because it makes me feel cleans and the cold water makes me chilly in the mornings. It still amazes me that I am able to clean my hair and myself with just one bucket of water. Maybe I’ll continue bucket bathing in America…

I am Ghanaian

Today was a holiday from school which we just found out from yesterday. It’s the first president’s birthday but usually it is not observed by missing school. I finally taught my first class yesterday- maths as it is called here. I made myself do it because I was feeling anxious about it and just needed to get it over with instead of building it up in my head. Plus it’s all a grand experiment anyways so the only way to get better at teaching is to try out different things! The other teachers haven’t really started teaching besides reviewing end of the year exams from last year so it was hard to motivate myself. It went well and I hope I came across as a serious teacher like I wanted. I just introduced myself, got the students names (which will take time to learn), discussed my class rules with them, and did a mini-lesson on our first topic which is numeration systems including base numbers. I made sure to tell them that I am here to give them knowledge not money or food since I have had students and community members ask for both. They laughed at this but I hope it got the point across in a light-hearted manner. In other news, one of the English teachers is transferring but didn’t tell the headmaster so he found out informally on Friday. We’re waiting to hear if another teacher will get placed here as a replacement. The system here is definitely different.

I am happy to start settling into a routine here which involves little movement in the form of transportation during the week. My commute is a less than one minute walk to school. I will probably only go to a bigger town one day during the weekend to do my food shopping for the week at market. It’s amazing to reflect on how much my life has changed. My friend and fellow math teacher Chris and I went for a two-hour bike ride this morning and he gets such a kick out of people’s reactions when I greet them in their language. A lot of times they’re so shocked to see a white lady much less hear her speak Buli that it renders them speechless. It is quite humorous. People are also surprised that I ran ride a bicycle; I am always willing to prove it to them by riding a little ways on their borrowed bikes. Yesterday after jogging we were walking back to my house by way of the borehole where people were fetching water before sunset and I impressed them by walking a few steps holding the wagon used to transport water. To which Chris exclaimed ‘You are Ghanaian!’ which is a huge compliment I think but I’m not convinced I’m quite there. Sure I can greet and make small talk in the local language, eat the Ghanaian food with my hands and even cook a few dishes, wear the clothes complete with the head scarf, and hand wash my clothes and dishes. But I’m yet to carry water or other items on my head, hold a baby on my back, dance well, bath morning and night, and much more!

While chatting on the phone with my niece Carey a few days ago, she heard a donkey braying in the background (they are super loud) so she decided I live in ‘redneck Ghana’ which is true I guess. It is quite rural with the most common livelihood being farming. And while there are some drawbacks to being out in the middle of nowhere, I really enjoy the pastoral scenery and try to appreciate the beauty of the place on a daily basis by getting outdoors. I’ve been able to see the Milky Way a few nights this week when it wasn’t as stormy and it is an amazing sight. The kids here continue to bring by critters to show me. Last week I had the opportunity to hold a newborn baby goat and stroke it while it fell asleep. Today after they finished swinging on a branch in the tree in front of my house, some boys caught a tiny mouse in a jerry can and held it up for me to photograph. Earlier in the week I had an impromptu photography session with the kids and somehow my TOMS shoebox, plants, and a game became props.

I want to end with a quick story on some of the shirts from America I’ve seen here. While I was in my community during site visit, I saw a guy was wearing a Kentucky shirt that had horses on it so I asked him if he knew where Kentucky was. Unsurprisingly he didn’t so I educated him on the state and the Kentucky Derby horse race. I also saw a little kid in our district capital wearing a shirt that read ‘Come back to my crib’ which made my day. And last but not least, this week I saw a kid wearing a red and green 'Santa’s Helper' shirt complete with a collar that reminded me of the clothes Buddy wore in the movie Elf- so pretty legitimate basically. I had a really hard time holding in my giggles. Speaking of Christmas, I also explained Santa Claus to someone recently- definitely get to have some pretty interesting conversations. Hope you enjoy my musings- thanks for reading and experiencing this crazy ride with me!

Lights On and Baby Bird Soup

When I arrived at my house last week I was welcome by a pleasant surprise- electricity! If you’ll remember when I was here for site visit I reported my house was wired for it but not yet hooked up. I realized during that week that I could indeed live without electricity but now that I have it I am very thankful! On the way to our sites from Bolga, Alex and I made a friend Adam because he recognized me from my tele interview. He’s a nurse at the hospital in our district capital Sandema. I’ve had a number of people recognize and it’s been pretty funny. I’m soaking up being a celebrity while it lasts though of course just being a white lady here makes me somewhat of a star all the time.

My last week or so has consisted of many trips to different markets and towns for shopping to settle in at my house. I don’t love shopping and it can definitely be overwhelming at times here. O how I miss Target! And transportation is usually difficult and is good at making me weary. I would definitely characterize the last week or so as being on a roller coaster of ups and downs. It’s a whole different phase of adjusting and much more trying than the first I fear. I still have more shopping to do but it will be a process. One of my next purchases will be a stand fan because sleeping in heat of high 80s is a bit uncomfortable. But part of me wants to wait until it’s actually hot season to start using the fan because otherwise I’m afraid it won’t do much good at that time. Thankfully it’s been raining a lot recently which cools it down significantly. But the water also attracts mosquitoes thus malaria season has arrived.

My initial focus for my house has been setting up my kitchen so I could cook for myself I now have a stove, propane tank, and other supplies with which I have been experimenting in making American dishes including spaghetti, tomato soup (unfortunately a dismal failure), grilled cheese (made with Laughing Cow- other cheese is a rarity), stuffed bell peppers, boiled groundnut, alfredo pasta, and egg sandwiches. As most of you know, I’m more of a baker and not much of a cook in the States. Needless to say it’s even harder here! It’s been quite an adventure so far including pasteurizing milk, reheating leftovers every 12 hours or so to kill bacteria since I don’t have a fridge, and riding a bicycle over an hour round trip on the hunt for eggs. Getting accustomed to the seasonality of foods will definitely be different than shopping in grocery stores back home where anything you want is almost always available. There’s a shortage of eggs right now because disease has killed many of the guinea fowl which is more common than poultry where I’m living in the area where I’m living.

Getting into an exercise routine has been really nice and I hope to maintain in once teaching starts. Besides bike riding yesterday, I’ve been trying to walk or run to the nearby dam every morning or evening with my fellow math teacher Christopher. I’ve found that the dusk light, sunsets and full moon rises this week in the rural surroundings definitely has its charms. Weight gain for female Volunteers is a concern here because of the carb heavy diet so I feel like I need to start being more active as a preventative measure. I weighed myself yesterday at the clinic during baby weighing and I’ve only put on a few pounds as of yet so that’s good. Though I could probably stand to gain a little more for parasite-proofing…

Another thing that’s given me joy is playing with the kids who come around my house. I’m slowly learning their names and brought out the bubbles this past week much to their delight. One of the neighbor kids brought 3 newborn baby birds to my house the other day which I held and ooo and ahh over. Of course the kids laughed at me since it’s not as novel to them. Then I was told that these cute little birdies would be put in a soup- I was horrified and on the verge of tears but held it together. Talk about my emotions going from high to low! I have much to learn about life here….I’ve also been playing cards (or spa as it’s called here) with some of my students. I taught a few girls how to play Crazy 8s even though I’m still mastering it myself.

School started today but the first week is really just for students to clean, sweep and weed. I helped clean out the dirty office and organize some of the books today. I was also looking for the ICT syllabus which has gone missing so I feel rather lost in lesson planning. I’ve mostly been working on classroom management plan and reading about different ideas to employ in the classroom. O in other news I now have the internet (though it's slow) working at my home so I should be able to respond to emails regularly and update my blog at least on a weekly basis. Maybe once I get more settled in I’ll have the time to update it with greater frequency. Also note the change of address in the side bar to send me mail that comes closer to my site.

Whirlwind Week

Wow so it's been quite a week here in Ghana! Monday morning I said my goodbyes to my home stay family. We had exchanged thank you gifts the night before and they gave me beautiful white and black fabric that is traditionally worn to weddings and lots of nice beads. Waving to them as the taxi pulled away was reminiscent of my family goodbye in the airport 3 months ago now; of course I teared up. We left our training site in Kukurantumi bound for Valley View University where we stayed upon arrival in Ghana in June so our training came full circle.

Tuesday we were up and dressed in our finest Ghanaian clothes early to make the trip into Accra to the US Ambassador's house where swearing in took place. My home stay mom gave me lovely gray fabric with a yellow print and I got a matching yellow duku (head scarf) to go with it. I love this outfit! We were served real coffee and tea in nice china. The ceremony started at 10 and consisted of speeches, presentation of certificates of completion for training, our swearing in by taking an oath, dancing and drumming, and celebration of the 50th year anniversary as well. It was very inspiring especially having Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) present including one representative from the very first group in 1961. Then there was a reception with drinks, food, and mingling with current Volunteers, RPCVs, and dignitaries. Later in the day we found out we'd be staying in Accra a few more days than expected because President John Atta Mills requested an audience with us!

Thursday we went to Osu Castle for a program with His Excellency Professor John Atta Mills. There were tents and Ghanaian flag colored decorations setup in the garden. The program was about an hour long and consisted of speeches, a thank you in Twi by one of my fellow Volunteers to the President, and getting a group photo taken with the President. By the way I've posted some photos and shared news coverage on facebook of this event and the swearing in ceremony. Afterwards we were served drinks and food during the reception. Ghana TV was there to cover the story; a few people sitting at my table included myself were interviewed and made it on the news. My host brother called me that night to let me know they saw me on the tele and my host mom was really excited I was wearing a dress made out of fabric she gave me. My language trainer PP was very happy because I mentioned I'd be living in the Builsa district. My headmaster Clement also liked my shout out to Gbedema JHS where I'll be teaching.

Speaking of which, I'm headed to Gbedema tomorrow so I have a full week at my site before school starts. I'll be buying stuff for my house focusing on getting my kitchen setup so I can start cooking for myself. Then I'll be starting lesson planning for math and ICT and also solidify my classroom management plan. I'm practicing my stern face. It's been sad slowly saying 'See you in 3 months!' to most of my new friends. I'll see the folks living near by more often though and am already thinking about getting a kitten to keep me company. I'm excited and nervous to start life in my village as a Volunteer! The real job now begins...