Oasis

I spent Friday night with the other Upper East Volunteers at a place called Tongo Oasis just outside of Bolga. There are 13 of us now since the newly sworn-in NRM volunteers had 6 placed in our region. Tongo Oasis is an amazing place. It’s owned by 2 former Peace Corps volunteers who don’t come around that much but have left it in the more than capable hands of Ghanaians. They have cute, posh mud hut accommodations available but only to volunteers. The Tongo Hills are close so the scenery is quite picturesque. There is also a house with a common room that we used. The cook was taught how to make Mexican food so we enjoyed guinea fowl burritos and brownies for dinner. It was great meeting all the newbies even though I probably won’t see that much of them since they’re all near Bolga and I don’t go there very often. It was also fun to catch up with the other volunteers as well and we all hung out up on the roof of the house at night. Saturday we had our Volunteer Action Committee meeting where we discuss all things related to being a volunteer. Then a group of stayed an extra night at a volunteer’s house at the nearby school for the deaf. It’s always fun to see other people’s sites and hers especially since there were 6 kittens to play with, tons of students to meet, sign language names to share, and a chill time to be had in her nice setup.

I did a lot of waiting to get back home Sunday even though I thought I left with plenty of time. I finally arrived by 6 in the evening just in time to talk to the family back home and eat some dinner before going to watch the Ghana Black Stars play Tunisia in the quarterfinals. So instead of Superbowl Sunday for me it was (Africa Cup of Nations) Quarterfinal Sunday. When I arrived the match was tied at 1-1 and the half was approaching. The second half was at times exciting but since nobody scored the game went into overtime. Some of the players got overly aggressive and got yellow & red cards in overtime since so much was at stake. I don’t enjoy seeing people play dirty like that though. Anyway when Ghana scored in overtime much celebration was had by all. This included some of my male students picking up the bench they were sitting on and running around with it which scared me so much because they were not at all watching where they were going so my maternal instincts feared they were going to take someone out. At one point one of the guys was even riding on top of the bench as they ran around with it. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy the chaos as much as everyone else. Ghana ended up winning 2-1 at the end of overtime to proceed to the semifinals where they’ll face Zambia tomorrow.
Right now we’re still in harmattan but it’s moving toward the hot season.

Yesterday’s weather was super hazy, quite windy and dusty. We didn’t see the sun all day long so by the afternoon I was really sleepy. It was like those days back home that are so overcast that they just weight you down and all you want to do is nap. Last night the weather was rather chilly (low 70s) so I froze while bathing and got to wear pj pants. I keep telling myself to enjoy these cool moments because pretty soon the heat is going to be blazing. It’s been getting up to the low 90s during the days recently but from what I hear the temperature will continue to climb next month.

I want to end by sharing this photo of one my favorite students Linda from my form 1class. I know I’m not supposed to have favorites but I do. Thanks to an awesome librarian I know, my students have some new books to read in our school library (or bookshelf rather). Linda has been coming almost daily recently to get a new book. She reads a lot which is somewhat rare here so I think we’ve bonded over that. I took this picture of her taking a book about a Ghanaian footballer since she also plays football and is really good. In honor of Charles Dickens' 200th birthday (thanks google for that info), I'm off to start watching Little Dorrit until bedtime.