site and shadow

August 12, 2012

First of all, I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last blogged!  I have just been so busy with everything leading up to swearing in.  Which by the way happens on THURSDAY!!  How insane!!  Anywho, since I last wrote, I got to visit my site.  So I’ll start with the details of that.

The morning we left for site, I woke up at 3:30am.  Yowza.  We ate breakfast and left for the bus station at 4:30am.  We got to the station shortly after, and I waited about 3 hours before we took off for the Upper West Region.  The majority of the ride wasn’t too thrilling.  I listened to music and slept for a lot of it.  We made occasional stops to pee and eat.  When we finally made it to the Upper West, we stopped in the capital, Wa.  The bus needed to refuel and what not.  Apparently it takes more than 2 hours to refuel a bus.  It was a tad ridiculous.  I was antsy to get to my site and beyond exhausted.  Anywho, after we left Wa, things the trip got interesting.  We kept stopping and people were starting to get annoyed with the fact.  A man got on the bus, and maybe 5 minutes later asked to stop the bus so he could urinate.  People continued to get upset and a huge argument in the back started.  At this point, the bus was stopped.  And then I notice everybody started to back away from the back of the bus, staring at the ground.  I heard someone shout “Get a doctor”.  What the heck happened?!  My counterpart told everyone to open their windows.  Then I saw 2 men pick something heavy off of the floor.  Whatever happened seemed to be under control, and everyone sat back town.  I asked Eric what happened, and he told me a man had an epileptic seizure.  Holy shit!  The bus started back up and we kept going.  No need to stop at a hospital.  At another stop, the bus “mate” got off to help unload baggage for a passenger who was alighting.  Somehow, Eric detected something was wrong, so he got off the bus.  A few minutes went by, and he came back.  He told me the “mate” had been assaulted by the passenger and a policeman “nabbed” (or maybe he said “napped”?) the passenger.  Eric had to convince the policeman to let the passenger go.  Crazy.  And the journey continues.  We made about a billion more stops, and finally arrived in Nandom at 8pm.  It was too late to trek to my house, so I stayed in a guest house (just like a hotel) for the night.  It was glorious!  I had running HOT water, a toilet, air conditioning, and a TV!  Holy crap!  ‘Twas lovely.

The next day we headed to my site.  I ended up getting a ride from a man named Stance.  Luckily, because I had a ton of luggage.  I arrived at my house, and it’s so cute!  Just a small little place with 2 bedrooms, and a small sized living room.  Walking out of the back door, you see 3 more doors.  One leads to the “kitchen”, the other is my shower room, and the third is my bathroom.  Two beautiful holes in the ground.  A-maz-ing.  Oh well, I’ll get used to it eventually!  The whole area around my house is beautiful!  So many thin trees and greenery.  It’s gorgeous.  After putting all my things in the house, we walked over to my school.  Which is approximately 20 meters from my house.  Score!  I met Marcarius, the headmaster.  He seems pretty cool.  I also met the assembly man Morris (actually spelled Maurice, but I like Morris better).  He is also pretty sweet.  We then had to head back into town to meet all the important people.  Everybody had their motorbikes (which I’m not allowed to drive/ride).  So how to get into town?  I ended up borrowing a student’s bike (ha!) and a motorbike helmet.  You know, the helmets with the plastic covering over the face?  Let’s just say I looked pretty studly.  Not to mention I was wearing a dress.  The bike ride wasn’t too bad, but I still sweat my butt off.  Hope I look good enough to meet everyone.  We went to the police station first.  I had a letter to give to the police chief explaining what I was doing there and all the small details.  Then we headed to the chief’s house.  We were sitting there waiting for him in his yard, and he comes out, sits down, and slowly puts on his Calvin Klein sunglasses.  Again, a-maz-ing.  He seems so laid back.  I love this town already!  Afterwards, we visited the hospital and met with some of the staff.  Then we met up with a bearded man named Bruno.  Who, as of now, is my favorite person.  He has a booming laugh and a giant smile.  I love it.  We ended up going to a spot to get some drinks.  I was dehydrated, so I got 2 Alvaros (which is like a carbonated fruity delicious non-alcoholic drink).    Marcarius, Morris, Eric and Bruno all got beers.  Then we decided to go get some lunch.  I walked with Bruno (everyone else rode their motorbikes).  He showed me 2 other spots because he said “We like to drink in this town.”  A-ma-zing.  Made it to the chop bar, got some food, and a beer.  Eric had to leave for some reason in the middle of eating.  After we finished, Bruno was going to take me back to my house to gather my things.  They didn’t want me staying there because I don’t yet have electricity.  They would prefer I stay at the guest house.  No objection there!  On the way to my house, I realized I was about to pee my pants.  Damn Alvaros and a beer!  But being in Ghana, I should have guessed we wouldn’t go straight home.  We stopped at a huge Catholic church.  Which apparently is the largest Catholic church in Ghana or Western-Africa or somewhere.  Basically, it’s a pretty big deal.  It was gorgeous!  After that, he wanted to show me his family compound.  I met some of his family, and then we walked up onto the roof.  They have ladders that lead to the flat roofs on some buildings.  I’ve been told people will sleep up there because it is cooler than sleeping inside the house.  It was so interesting!  He also showed me his garden of trees.  It seriously went on forever!  It was awesome and there were maybe 6 different types of trees.  Anywho, we finally made it to my house and I darted for the bathroom.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I successfully peed in a hole.  Bam.

The rest of site visit was fun.  I got to meet some more people in town, visited several more spots, and had a swell time.  Then I had to leave for job shadowing.  My shadow site had changed, so I was heading towards Kumasi instead of a town nearby.  Damn.  I wasn’t ready for another long trek.  I was going to be shadowing the same person as Jim.  I finally made it, exhausted.  My shadow person is Spencer, and he lives in a mansion, I tell you!  His house is insane!  Electricity, running water, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen with everything you could ever need, a fridge, a huge dining room table, comfy furniture.  Everything.  I was so jealous.  My cute little powerless house doesn’t seem so inviting anymore.  Anywho, it was exam week, so Spencer didn’t have to do any teaching/proctoring for a couple of days.  So we got to rest for a few days.  Another volunteer and his shadow were nearby, so we invited them over and we all had….CHEESEBURGERS!  Legit cheeseburgers.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I was stoked.  They were delicious!  Anywho, enough about food.  It’s making me hungry.  Spencer does this after school math tutoring session 3 times a week, so we got to help him with that.  I actually taught a mini lesson during it.  It was great, because I actually hadn’t taught for several weeks, so it was nice to get back in the groove.  There were only about 7 students there, but it was still awesome.  They were also brilliant!  I got so excited during my lesson.  Towards the end of the week, Spencer had to proctor his math exams, so Jim and I helped.  Which I also found fun.  Wow, I’m such a nerd.  I would just walk around the room, and if a student had a question, I would help them as much as I could.  There was nothing to it, but I still loved it.  So, back to food.  One day we decided to make no-bake cookies.  You know, the ones with oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate, coconut, deliciousness, and sugar?  Yep.  We made them.  And they rocked my world.  Holy crap, they tasted just like they came from America.  Oh!  We also had pancakes one morning!  I covered my in chocolate syrup and peanut butter (it’s actually groundnut paste) and cherry jam!  I’m such a child, but I don’t care one bit!  It was glorious.  Shadow visit ended, and it was time to head back to homestay.  Hooray.  More traveling.  But this trek was only about 4 hours long.  Not too shabby.