Woweeee! It has seriously been half a year since I last wrote on this! So today, I had nothing to do after work, so I decided to bike to the high school to use a teacher's office and update you all on my life.
So, throughout these past months, I have been writing down blog ideas on post it notes sent to me by the lovely Katrina :) I use them all the time. I love them! Anywho, apparently nothing exciting happened between January and Easter. At least not according to my post it notes. Or it could be the fact that I didn't have post it notes to write ideas on, so knowing my memory, those ideas are long gone. Okay, I promise to get to the point.
Easter
My Easter celebration wasn't anything too exciting. But it was much different than celebrating back home. On Easter Friday, there was no school, so I decided to do some laundry. Exciting so far, right? After laundry, I went into town to spend some time with some friends. Then Roger and I went to Forrestry Bar to have some drinks and chat. Afterwards, we went to his pito drinking spot to collect his pig feed (at my site, people feed their pigs the leftover “mush” created after brewing pito). While we were there, I decided it would be a good idea to trip over a tree stump that had been burned for whatever reason. It turns the top of my foot completely black and I had a nice little cut on it. Nothing too severe. And thus ends Easter Friday.
Easter Saturday. Around this time, I was preparing to attend a leadership conference for high school students in Kumasi. So clearly I had to find some high school students. One boy. One girl. I had talked with some friends and one woman told me her daughter was in high school form 2 (form 2 was a requirement). Perfect! Saturday is when I met Jennifer, the woman's daughter. I explained to her everything happening during this conference. While talking with her, some of my neighbor kids brought me mangoes. How sweet. Now, these mangoes are impossible to eat without getting stringy mango innards all up in your teeth. But they were delicious nonetheless. After Jennifer left, I made some “add water only” hashbrowns with BACON BITS. Oh mylanta, were they deelish. After this, Jennifer's mother, Angela, invited me to go watch the stooling of a new Queen Mother. I was excited! When I got there, and after observing the 2-3 hour ceremony, I realized I hadn't understood a lick of it. The people were speaking only Dagaare, and I was not yet a master of the language. Oh well, it got me out of the house. Saturday is the day where they have “midnight” mass service at the Catholic church in town. I say “midnight” because it actually started around 8pm. And didn't end until after 1am. I was beyond tired! I loved all the music and dancing, though. And just like the Queen Mother ceremony, this service was also spoken in only Dagaare. I was falling asleep towards the end, and unfortunately still had to take a 20 minute bicycle ride home. I made it and passed out!
Easter Sunday. Sunday = market day. I wanted to go to the market to buy some nice sandals. I met some of my students in the market, and they happily helped me buy a 10 cedi pair. They're pretty comfy, so I was happy. On my post it note I have the word HOT. You can imagine what the weather was like. I also enjoyed some guinea fowl (I don't remember with who...probably Roger) and the neighbor children came over to draw.
Easter Monday. I made an egg sandwich for breakfast (this entry is filled with exciting info). I fetched water on my own for the first time! My students/neighbor kids love helping me with anything and everything so they never let me fetch my own water. Everyone must have been busy this day, and I really needed water, so I went and did it myself! And by the time I was finished I was panting and drenched in sweat. I also put up more decorations around my house. I taped a bunch of pictures on the wall and a map of Ghana. Makes my place a little more homey.
And that's all I have written down for Easter. Sadly, there was no li'l smokies, no ham balls, no deviled eggs, no colorful chocolate pie that fell to the ground after Meagan and I had a fight, no eating until I was 7 seconds from vomiting. Even though this Easter was entirely different than last Easter, it was still a memorable one.
Girls Camp
Okay, I lied. Something did happen during January and Easter. The Upper West Region had a girls camp! Every volunteer in the UWR brought 3 female students from schools at their site to attend this camp. I took Alice, Mary, and Rotancila. Now, I know you have absolutely no idea who these girls are, but for my sake/memory, they're wonderful. The camp was held in Lawra (a nearby town). We taught the girls about leadership skills, HIV/AIDS awareness/education, malaria education, gender roles, career opportunities, artistic skills, and many other things. It was a week long camp, and my girls loved every minute of it. I know that's not many details about the whole camp, but the pictures really tell the story, which I am pretty sure I uploaded to Facebook, but I will add some here for a visual.
my 2 dozen-th birthday
My oh my, I turned 24 this year! It wasn't anything too spectacular. Especially compared to the Manager's Special and Embassy Suites or Bar Golfing in Iowa City. I had to go to work and teach a few lessons. Then I went home and relaxed for a bit. I met Saana in town and we went to Yeltule (yell-too-lay) Annex. It's a hotel/restaurant/bar. We sat and ate guinea fowl and drank Alvaros and watched TV and chatted and laughed. It was so relaxing and calm and peaceful. It was a nice way to celebrate the big 2-4.
Sixth March
First of all, you may be asking “Why did you spell out sixth instead of writing the number??”. Here's the answer. I went on vacation, spilled shampoo all over my computer, and now my number five, number six, and left ctrl keys do not work. Huzzah.
Okay. The Sixth March is Ghana's Independence Day. For a solid two weeks before this day, my students practiced marching. It's very similar to marching band marching. Except here, they swing their arms more. We picked the best students in our school to compete. Oh yea, it's a competition. On the sixth of March, we all make our way into town. Nandom (the major town close to my village that I also consider my site) recently became it's own district. So we had the marching competition there. All of the surrounding schools came to compete. There were so many! It was so cool! I sat in almost the front row for the whole thing taking pictures and cheering on my students. Sadly, we didn't win, but I was so proud of my students regardless. I also added pictures of this to Facebook, and I will try to add here...if I remember. (UPDATE: check Facebook. I have deleted all the pictures from any memory/flash drive and I don't want to use credit to download them. Here is a link to the album
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151406576142358.1073741828.503292357&type=3 )
I will NOT work!
Yep...those were the words coming out of several Ghanaian teacher's mouths. Because of pay discrimination (and I am sure other things), every teacher who was a part of GNAT (Ghana's National Association for Teachers) or NAGRAT (which I have no idea what it means, but it's very similar) went on strike. Mind you, it's mandatory to be part of at least one of these unions. Anyway, every teacher stopped teaching. Except for the teacher whose office I am using. He is so dedicated to teaching and absolutely loves it, and he is so inspirational. Anyway, I continued teaching because I wasn't a part of either union, but as it turns out, my students went on strike too. They were so rowdy and not wanting to learn anything, so I did what any rational teacher would do. I canceled all classes and held a volleyball and soccer tournament. It was fantastic. I was the only teacher at the school, and there were over 200 students. I think this country has finally turned me crazy. But we had a lot of fun. I made sure the boys weren't the only ones playing in either tournament. I encouraged the girls to be a part of both. So there was a little education going on throughout the whole thing. The strike lasted basically until the end of the second term. And I felt bad for the students because they still had to take their exams that were created by some company hundreds of miles away. Bologna. Such is Ghana.
too many cedis
So, I can't remember if I have updated you about my major project. I have told you before that my school is fully loaded with students. Each classroom has about 70 students. Way too many for such tiny rooms. So my plan is to build another school block with 3 more classrooms, so we can divide the students into 2 groups. Now, we met with a local mason who found a guy in Wa (the capital of the Upper West Region), and he made us an estimate for a building with 3 classrooms, an office, a storage room, and a staff room (all things we wanted). Turns out all of that would cost us about fifty five thousand cedis (damn you, number five key). That is about $27,000. Oofta! I almost fainted when I saw that estimate. Nope. We can't do that. We have to get it lower. So I have been trying to meet with my Assembly Man who just now got back to me. He told me about other ways to fund the project. There is a District Assembly Common Fund, and we could talk to the District Chief Executive (DCE) about the plan and the money situation. I tried calling the Assembly Man yesterday, but he told me he was busy, so I will call him later today. So hopefully soon this project can get started, because fundraising this money is going to take some time.
World Malaria Day
World Malaria Day was on April twenty-fifth. I decided to have a small spelling competition with a few of my form 3's who have been regularly attending my after school tutoring. I had been telling them we would have a party since they were being so studious and what not. So we decided to make lunch together, and I decided to trick them into a spelling competition. We made about 800 pounds of rice and prepared a delicious stew/sauce to go with it. While we were all eating, Melissa (a volunteer in the Upper West) and I conducted the competition. All of the words were malaria related, so after a student would spell the word correctly (or after nobody could spell it), we would talk about what the word meant. We showed them how to properly hang a mosquito net, and we showed them how they can repair a net if there is a tear in it. The winner of the competition received a brand new mosquito net, and the second and third place winners received a needle and thread to repair any net (or any article of clothing, for that matter). After the whole thing was over (which took about 4 hours), I had asked the students if they had had fun. One student replied by saying “Some of us could say that this is a day we will never forget.” I almost started crying right then and there. That was such an amazing thing to hear. So, even when it seems like I am not doing anything to help these students, I need to realize that even the small things make a difference.
Here are pictures of that event. I have about 300 more that my students took throughout the whole party, but I only uploaded the Malaria Day specific ones to Facebook. The others are soon(ish) to come!
I want to go shopping....me too!
No need, because I have an amazing tailor who likes making me dresses/outfits!! I think I have about fifteen or sixteen outfits made, and there are 3 more on the way! They are made either out of tie-n-dye (like batik) or printed material. I look very Ghana-esque and the students always compliment my outfits. Maybe one day, I will take a picture of every outfit I have and put it online. Maybe.
pop goes the tire
Super short story, but it was interesting (to me I guess). There was one day I wanted to go into town. However, my bicycle tire was flat, so I had Roger's son/my student (Raymond) pump air into it. It was beyond hot, and I should have just stayed in my water barrel all day. I get into town, and I am heading towards Saana's shop. I get off my bicycle a few meters away and walk it the rest of the way. As I get to his shop, I hear this strange hissing noise. It sounds like it's coming from my tire. No problem. It's just a puncture and the air is coming out. I'll just get it fixed while I'm in town. As I put the kickstand down and walk away, I hear an explosion!!! Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I turn around and see my bicycle tube and tire has burst, making the loudest noise ever. Okay, not the loudest, but I want to make this story more interesting than it actually is. Everyone is looking at me wondering what happened, and I just turn around towards Saana's shop laughing hysterically. I have officially gone crazy.
scary
One day on the side of my house beneath my bedroom window, I saw a camel spider eating a lizard. The end.
free education!! ...sort of...
One day at school, my headmaster decided to pull these giant rice bags out of the storage room. Yay, we get lunch today! Sadly, not the case. Not so sadly, those bags were filled with exercise books, graph books, and atlases for all! Well, almost all. Ghana Education System can never be perfect. Each student received five exercise books, one graph book, and an atlas. For free! Now make me a sandwich.
vacation
During the holidays, I decided to take a small vacation. I went towards the capital and went to the beach in Keta with some friends. It was pretty fun. The water was nice and cool (and over salted), we made s'mores, and ate like kings and queens. Okay, we had grilled chicken and tilapia. Close enough. After that, I went and visited Sam at her site. I met all of her friends and we enjoyed some banku and laughter. It was a lot of fun, but way too short of a visit. I am hoping to visit there again, because let's face it, Volta Region is beautiful.
tired
As you can see, my stories are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. I am getting tired of writing. Also, the power just went out and then back on. I was worried for a second that all my things that I am using/charging got fried. They didn't. It's all good!
planned vacation
I plan on going to Mole National Park with some friends (including Kelsey and Dani!!) in a few weeks, so I am super excited about that! I will also be traveling down to Kumasi with a counterpart to attend a workshop about Grassroots Soccer. Grassroots Soccer is a program that educates people about HIV/AIDS while incorporating the always fun and awesome game of basketball! Just kidding...it's soccer. So I am really excited about this. I was thinking of meeting with my students on Saturdays to play a li'l ball and teach them stuff. It'll be fun.
STARS
I had mentioned before that I was taking Jennifer to a leadership conference. This conference is called STARS (Students Taking Action Reaching for Success). This was very similar to the Girl's Camp, but with high school males and females. There was also more of a focus on furthering their education and seeing what programs certain schools had to offer. I took Jennifer and also Roger's son, Prosper. Each year, they have Junior Group Leaders who attended the conference the previous year and are there to help out. And Prosper was chosen to come back next year!! So we will be going to the conference again, and he is super excited about it.
BECE
My form 3 students (along with everyone else's form 3 students) are taking the BECE this week. BECE stands for Basic Education Certificate Examination...I think. Basically, it's like an entrance exam into high school. I am nervous for them, and I hope that they do well!
say cheeeeeeeese
I discovered wagashie (wa-guh-she). It's basically fried cheese aka cheese balls/nuggets/oddly shaped things. I first discovered them in Wa where Melissa and I bought six cedis worth. Which is equivalent to sixty pieces! We thought we were getting half that (which is still an extremely large amount). I don't want to frighten you, but we did in fact eat all sixty pieces. We made a marinara sauce from scratch that was to die for! A few days later, I discover Nandom has wagashie! Holy smokes! I had Saana buy some and bring some over, I prepared my own marinara sauce, and we feasted! He loved the marinara and said I was a great cook. Little does he know, that's about the only thing I can make. Aside from mac n cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In any case, I get the feeling I will be eating this wagashie until my time is up. I am gonna be broke, and fat, and I don't care.
