2 out of 3

I’ll try to keep this short since I’m leaving for the US in 1 week so am busy with preparing to go! At school we’ve been giving end of term/year exams this past week. Invigilating (monitoring) students while they write (take) exams isn’t my favorite activity but good news is that we finished today. Besides invigilating, I did lots of marking (grading) papers over the weekend for my form 2 math class. During marking 77 objective (multiple choice) papers, I was majorly wishing I had a Scantron machine just for a day at my house. Reminded me the beauty of technology and what conveniences I took for grants back home.

 Sunday I took a break from my work to go to church in the first time in a while. But since it’s farming (sowing and weeding specially) season here church was pretty empty and the madam who comes to lead the Mass was absent. I’m still really glad I got out of the house and went there because… I got to hold 2 of the 3 triplets! A lady in our community had a set of triplet boys a few months ago for the first time in recorded history (from the clinic) for the village. I hadn’t had the chance to meet them yet. They came to church in matching yellow and blue outfits and got passed around among the women and girls to hold. Taking a break from marking papers to hold babies is a lovely way to spend time in my opinion. I was able to snap a photo of them with their mother (on the left), her sister, and Auntie (as she’s known in the village, on the right). Though we didn’t officially have service, another madam led us in some songs and prayer. They also had the kids (and some of the women did it too!) practice traditional dancing during the some of the songs which I always enjoy watching. They tried getting me to dance but I really need lessons first! People here have been doing the local dances since they were wee little ones so I have a lot to learn.

A couple of weekends ago I went to Bolga for a volunteers meeting and stayed at another volunteer’s site one night. She works at a school for the deaf and told me that TOMS had come to her school recently but she wasn’t around to meet them. She thought of letting me know since I have so many (ok only 2 here and 2 back home) pairs of TOMS that it made her think of me. Apparently they give out plain black TOMS so we joked about being disappointed that it wasn’t literally 1-for-1 style and all. It’s funny to dream about a kid in Africa wearing a pair of TOMS that match my Calculus ones but alas plain black ones makes a lot more sense. I always enjoy English funnies so here’s a nice one I discovered on the taxi ride back into Bolga from Lauren’s house. Saw a flyer advertising a hairdressing schools ‘passing out’ which we deciphered meant a graduation ceremony. Come one, come all to my passing out!

To end with, I have the opportunity to work on a project with other volunteers in the northern regions, get some books for our school library, and start a reading club. So…if you’re looking for a way to donate to a good cause (aka my school and the village) shoot me an email and I can send you more information about the North Ghana Book Project. I have 2 committed donors so far but need 3 more to participate and further share my love of reading with my students while at the same time helping improve their English. Thanks for reading my blog with my random ramblings from my time here in Ghana so far! Stay tuned for when I return to school in September...

Shea What?

During training last year the Natural Resource Management (which has now been renamed to just plain Agriculture) volunteers used ‘Shea what?’ as their slogan of sorts so I decided to use that as my title.  They’re very proud of their involvement with the shea industry here as they should be.  Right now it’s the season for shea nuts which contain fruit that can be eaten, turned into shea butter to cook with, or processed to make soap or lotion.  I almost wrote soup instead of soap which reminded me of an answer one of my students gave a while ago during a test where I asked a question about hand-washing.  They answered that you should wash your hands with soup before eating and I really hoped that it was a spelling mistake rather than a comprehension misunderstanding. 

In my village there are shea trees (I don’t have a photo of one) out in the bush but people don’t really seem to intentionally plant them.  As I’ve been going for my weekly bike recently I’ve seen people climbing trees to pick the nuts.  Then some of my students found out I like eating the fruit and have been bringing them to school for me.  I recently learned the Buli word for it ‘chaama.’  The fruit on the outside of the nut and is really sweet; I like It but would love it more without the green outer skin which is kind of chalky tasting.   I also regularly buy the shea butter to cook with and it’s known as Builsa paam (Buli word for oil) in our district.  I don’t always use it to cook with because it has a pretty distinct flavor but it works well with a lot of food.  For example, yesterday I made pad thai (with spaghetti noodles mind you) and used shea butter (melted into oil) instead of vegetable oil.  I’m sure most of you have seen shea products in the store and a lot of the shea comes from West Africa.   A lot of times the raw shea is bought for cheap here and then processed in Europe and America.  Some villages do have women’s groups who make shea soap and pomade to sell for a profit. 

The rain has finally come here which means the farmers can sow.  It also means that the temperatures are really nice; gets down to 78-82 at night and mid-80s during the day.  Definitely nicer than the heat wave temps I’ve been hearing about back in the US.  But I think I’ll be just fine when I come home because of air conditioning!  During the big rains I set buckets outside to collect the rain water to use for bath water and to wash dishes.  I think my lower threshold for cold water bathing with cold is around 85 degrees.  Below that I’ve started boiling water to bathe with to spoil myself.  People think that’s funny here because I’m always commenting how much I like the cooler weather- but I just explain that I do not like cold water.   That’s different. 

Later this week my students will start writing exams so we’ve been in revision (review) mode recently.  I can tell it’s time for the end of the term because I’m started to get frustrated by school.  It’s perfect timing though because each term when that happens then it’s time for vacation.  And this time vacation means the USA- in two weeks and couting!

Popular

I keep forgetting to post some answers to abbreviations from the internet class test I gave to my form 1 students.  They’re pretty awesome!

WWW- wild world web
HTTP: headache treating telephone process
FTP: floppy the paper

Wow I promise I taught the correct answers!

Moving on…last Tuesday the Peace Corps Ghana Country Director (we call him CD Mike) came to visit.  From what I understand, he tries to visit each volunteer about once a year.  I think that’d be a really fun part of his job to go around and see what everyone is up to at their sites.  He came right as I was wrapping up teaching my form 2 students math so he watched the last 15 minutes of my lesson on probability and then spoke to my class.  We then went to the form 1 class so he could briefly speak to those students.  Then we took a walk around my village to the building we’re planning on renovating into an ICT lab, to the primary school (the kids were in awe), to the few stores, and then through the football field to my house.  They brought me books from Accra and also bread and eggs.  I gave CD Mike a quick tour of my house before we rode in the Peace Corps vehicle to see more of the village.  We drove out to the Kunkwak dam where I usually bike too.  It was a short visit (two hours) but it was nice to have someone to show around.  Since I’m so remote my nearest neighbor is the only volunteer who’s visited me so far though my homestay brother did come up from the Eastern region back in December.

After school Wednesday I met with the girls for girls club to talk about HIV/AIDS.  I usually try to open with a game to make it fun and they love this game called ‘Wah!’ that I learned from some Canadian volunteers in Sandema.  I’ll teach it to you when I’m in Atlanta in August IN LESS THAN A MONTH!  Then we started the short talk by discussing basic HIV transmission facts and by doing a Fact/Myth exercise.  The main points we talked about are why women and girls are more vulnerable.  I was really excited because 20 girls came which was the most yet.  After we wrapped up in the classroom, all the girls came to my house to watch some short HIV films on my Scenarios from Africa DVD that I picked up at our Ghana AIDS Project meeting last month.   I choose four films that targeted young girls and they were a hit.  The next day some of the same students returned and new people came to watch.  These films have made me super popular! 

Then Friday a bunch of students were sticking around to watch a football match in the evening so also viewed some films.  We also had a small dance party so the girls could warm up for their ‘cheerleading’ (dancing) at the game.  Some of the small kiddos were around too and two in particular busted a move (check out the face photo of Awenwe and Mariana). I enjoy watching the boys play football but I also like watching the girls do the local dances.  Apparently the dancing helped cheer on the boys because our team won 1-0!  Go Gbedema!

Last week was a really great week here but I did get discouraged Friday when I met with our peer educators for some training.  This will probably be the last time we meet this term so we did a revision of some basic facts on STIs and HIV/AIDS and then they did some role plays on being assertive.  We also talked about their roles as peer educators and what a serious responsibility it is.  Somehow at the end when I opened it up for last minute questions some of the boys started talking about how people living with HIV should be forced out of their communities to go live isolated in a camp.  This very thing has happened to ‘witches’ who now live in Gambaga in the Northern region so that’s where they got the idea.  A common response my students give to ‘What would you do if you found out you have HIV?’ is ‘Kill myself.’  I tried asking what if it was you or a close family member and they still thought the same thing.  I shared with them my perspective and turned it around to focus on what we can realistically (and humanely) do to stop the spread of HIV.  It was pretty discouraging for me to realize how much of a problem stigma is here regarding people living with HIV.  Plus even though I’ve been educating my students on how you can live a long and successful life with HIV the point doesn’t seem to be getting across.  But I still have a year here to hopefully influence them so I can take it as a challenge that I still have plenty of work to do here- especially on stigma reduction.

Neem Cream!

I showed this video to the girl Edith who always comes to my house and yesterday (it was Republic Day so no school) we made it together. Since it's mosquito repellent, I want to spread the word in my community about it's use to help prevent malaria. As the health madam, I can share the instructions with my students. I also want to go talk to the nurses and see if we can do a demo or show the video at the next baby weighing so mothers can learn about it and use it for their children. I have a giant neem tree in front of my house so it was easy to collect the leaves plus soap and the shea butter are also readily available. I'll post photos soon of our effort yesterday!

Gender Challenge Training

I promised to post more about the training I attended last week and I fully intend to after wishing everyone a happy independence day!  Tomorrow I won’t be doing too much celebrating but I did have the opportunity to go to an ex-pat party Saturday night in Tamale where I enjoyed a burger with guac, drank ginger ale, and devoured cake.   It was wonderful to eat food from home and meet other foreigners living in Ghana though most of them worked for an NGO and live in a cities so it’s pretty different but still.  

Onto the training… the first day was the partner’s meeting where Ghanaians working for NGOs and the government met with us to discuss ways they are currently working on the kayayo issue and the phenomenon in general.  Some of the current education interventions I found particularly interesting included a sensitization programs by Camfed, use of film shows at market to educate communities, and radio shows which give a realistic picture.  Another interesting project picked village girls to send them for a camp in Accra where they’re exposed to the sleeping situation of kayayo and receive HIV/AIDS education.  Other interventions addressed those currently in kayayei such as one targeting street children to train them in a skill and another which works to resettle people back to the three northern regions.  Other organizations also work on skills training like bicycle mechanics, sewing/dressmaking, tie & dye, hairdressing, and mobile phones repairs.  It was really interesting to hear all the work that’s currently being done and to get ideas too.  The district chief (or DC) from my district was present so that was great getting to meet him and talk to him.  We also did a situational analysis and discussed the economic, social, and cultural causes of the kayayei phenomenon.

The next two days were just for the volunteers and our counterparts.  We were trained on topics like community entry, confidence building, and business skills training.  One of the best activities we did was group work on the pros and cons of kayayei and then sharing the ideas in a debate.  I (thankfully_ wasn’t chosen as a presenter but I thought it was a creative way to present both sides of the story.  Then we discussed how to support potential and returned kayayei in our communities.  My counterpart and I decided we want to first focus on the education piece to clear up misconceptions about kayeyei in our community and give an accurate picture.  Dispelling myths and portraying the reality of village versus city life will so people can make better informed decisions.  Naturally we plan to start at our school since we’re both teachers but also want to reach out to the PTA, primary schools, churches, and clubs.  We want to not only speak to the community members but also use media like photos and video.  We will also continue our work of working with peer educators and the students in our school to equip them with basic life skills and good health information.  The last step once we meet with all the parties would be to do some type of income generation activity (examples: soap/pomade making, tie & dye or batik, sewing) to give them a reason to stay in the village.  If life is improved and money can be made in the village then there are fewer reasons to leave. 

 

Besides interventions at the community level, there are a couple of projects the volunteers want to work on together too.  One is a ‘survival kit’ for the girls who decided to go do kayayei so they are better equipped for life in the city.  The other is a travelling two-day camp to not only educate girls on kayayo but also prepare for life in general but more specifically as a kayayo in case they decide to go.  It was nice exchanging ideas with other volunteers in the north on how we can help by working together.

In other news, the rain has come to the Upper East thankfully and now the farmers are starting to sow their seeds.  School will officially vacate July 26th which means we're going to be wrapping up teaching, doing revision (review), and starting exams soon.  And, saving the most exciting partfor last, in 1 month I'll be home for a three-week vacation!