Thursday was the first PTA meeting of the school year which was held during the day. Since I was sick earlier the week I did not find out about it until the day of. Of course it was all in Buli so one of my colleagues translated for me during the first half only because then we both got tired since it lasted 3 hours. Right before the meeting began, the district circuit supervisor (similar to a county office school official in the States) and my headmaster approached me to ask if I was willing to talk about HIV/AIDS with the parents since I’m the health madam. Since it was such late notice I just discussed basic facts about transmission, prevention, and testing while one of the PTA members translated. One common misconception is that HIV can be transmitted via mosquitoes so we fielded a question around that. In the future I’ll want to prepare to go more in-depth with them regarding HIV/AIDS education. Our school health club now has an executive committee and is over 30 members strong so hopefully we will hold the first meeting soon. I want it to be as fun, interactive and student-led as possible so am brainstorming how best to go about it.
As previously mentioned, I am bummed to be missing fall back home since it’s my favorite season. But the seasons are changing here as well from the rainy to the dry season. Those are the two seasons and from what I’ve understood so far each lasts six months. There has been quite a bit of wind here recently and one day last week as I walked to my house a big gust of wind came bringing with it falling yellow leaves from the tree out front. Harmattan, winds from the Sahara, is coming soon which will bring cooler mornings and evening. I am really excited about it and hope I’ll be able to pull out my jeans, sweater, and light fleece I brought but haven’t worn since landing in Ghana. I have also been eating lots of boiled groundnuts since they’re being harvested in abundance plus they remind me of the North Georgia mountains. I hope I don’t get sick of groundnuts between having them raw, roasted, fried, boiled, as paste, ground in soup, and as soup.
Since my flour spoiled (grew mold), I asked my friend who was coming to visit me to pick up some flour for me. It was a bit difficult because we were speaking on the phone and he couldn’t quite get what I was saying so I texted him instead. He brought the flour when he came to visit me and cleared up that in Ghanaian English it’s pronounced differently which probably explains why it’s been hard for me to find when I’ve looked for it at market. So with my new ‘fl-ire’ (that’s the closest spelling I can come up with!) I made breakfast for dinner twice last week. Due to a belated birthday package from the Martz family, I happily consumed Nutella crepes and it was most definitely the best meal I’ve cooked here thus far. It’s one of my favorite foods to cook in America too so that probably helps. Then thanks to one of my lovely sisters, I cooked blueberry pancakes while one of my students watched. She didn’t like the blueberries and started picking them out for me to eat instead so I made her one with the blueberry-less batter left at the end.
Friday was a special day since our school girls and boys football teams had matches against Fumbisi JHS. Unfortunately the lorry that came to transport much of the staff and students couldn’t hold everyone who wanted to go. But at least twice as many people as capacity loaded in the inside of the lorry and many of the boys sat on top which is pretty common here except for the volume of people. Thankfully I got a seat of honor at the front. The evening got off to a great start when we were sitting around before the game started and a baby stranger wanted me to hold him once we arrived in Fumbisi. That almost never happens here! Usually I make babies cry. For example, yesterday I caused double trouble with two babies crying at once. Steph: 2 Babies: 0 or Steph: 0 Babies 2? I’m not sure which… anyways back to football… I was very impressed with my students’ football playing abilities and also had fun watching some of the girl spectators do traditional dances to cheer the players on. Both teams did well with final scores of 0-0. We loaded back in the lorry and set off toward home but then proceeded to break down just a little outside of town. I had to climb out of the lorry since I was sitting up front where they needed to get to in order to fix the lorry. While we were waiting, a truck approached and so I begged for a ride. They stopped and allowed me to get in the backseat with a man and woman while some of the guys piled in the truck bed. I then realized that the woman in the backseat was pregnant. And then I came to find out she was in labor and the vehicle was on the way to the Sandema hospital. I still cannot believe they stopped to give us a ride! I was pretty quiet the rest of the ride home. While I was bathing off all the dirt my body collected during the travel, I heard the lorry roll into Gbedema with all the kids singing merrily. O what a night!
As previously mentioned, I am bummed to be missing fall back home since it’s my favorite season. But the seasons are changing here as well from the rainy to the dry season. Those are the two seasons and from what I’ve understood so far each lasts six months. There has been quite a bit of wind here recently and one day last week as I walked to my house a big gust of wind came bringing with it falling yellow leaves from the tree out front. Harmattan, winds from the Sahara, is coming soon which will bring cooler mornings and evening. I am really excited about it and hope I’ll be able to pull out my jeans, sweater, and light fleece I brought but haven’t worn since landing in Ghana. I have also been eating lots of boiled groundnuts since they’re being harvested in abundance plus they remind me of the North Georgia mountains. I hope I don’t get sick of groundnuts between having them raw, roasted, fried, boiled, as paste, ground in soup, and as soup. 
Since my flour spoiled (grew mold), I asked my friend who was coming to visit me to pick up some flour for me. It was a bit difficult because we were speaking on the phone and he couldn’t quite get what I was saying so I texted him instead. He brought the flour when he came to visit me and cleared up that in Ghanaian English it’s pronounced differently which probably explains why it’s been hard for me to find when I’ve looked for it at market. So with my new ‘fl-ire’ (that’s the closest spelling I can come up with!) I made breakfast for dinner twice last week. Due to a belated birthday package from the Martz family, I happily consumed Nutella crepes and it was most definitely the best meal I’ve cooked here thus far. It’s one of my favorite foods to cook in America too so that probably helps. Then thanks to one of my lovely sisters, I cooked blueberry pancakes while one of my students watched. She didn’t like the blueberries and started picking them out for me to eat instead so I made her one with the blueberry-less batter left at the end.
Friday was a special day since our school girls and boys football teams had matches against Fumbisi JHS. Unfortunately the lorry that came to transport much of the staff and students couldn’t hold everyone who wanted to go. But at least twice as many people as capacity loaded in the inside of the lorry and many of the boys sat on top which is pretty common here except for the volume of people. Thankfully I got a seat of honor at the front. The evening got off to a great start when we were sitting around before the game started and a baby stranger wanted me to hold him once we arrived in Fumbisi. That almost never happens here! Usually I make babies cry. For example, yesterday I caused double trouble with two babies crying at once. Steph: 2 Babies: 0 or Steph: 0 Babies 2? I’m not sure which… anyways back to football… I was very impressed with my students’ football playing abilities and also had fun watching some of the girl spectators do traditional dances to cheer the players on. Both teams did well with final scores of 0-0. We loaded back in the lorry and set off toward home but then proceeded to break down just a little outside of town. I had to climb out of the lorry since I was sitting up front where they needed to get to in order to fix the lorry. While we were waiting, a truck approached and so I begged for a ride. They stopped and allowed me to get in the backseat with a man and woman while some of the guys piled in the truck bed. I then realized that the woman in the backseat was pregnant. And then I came to find out she was in labor and the vehicle was on the way to the Sandema hospital. I still cannot believe they stopped to give us a ride! I was pretty quiet the rest of the ride home. While I was bathing off all the dirt my body collected during the travel, I heard the lorry roll into Gbedema with all the kids singing merrily. O what a night!
No comments:
Post a Comment