Hello to everyone!
I know I have called some of you but I have usually called to ask how life is back home and havent really been going into a lot of detail about things. First off I would like to say that I am having an excellent time. Our trainers showed us a timeline of peace corps volunteers happiness and apparently we are still in the honeymoon phase. On the timeline it said that usually volunteers start feeling down from the 4th-6th months. All of the volunteers are together for the first three months during training. It seems like it will be hard to miss home too much when I am still around 21 people who are all in the same situation as me. As for the other volunteers, they are all cool. We have a lot in common, seeing as we all wanted to dedicate two years of our life to trying to learn from the Ghanaians and impart whatever knowledge to them that we can. Taking advice given to me by Ton in Boone, I have made my friends primarily based on music taste. But actually everyone is cool even if they dont have the same tastes as me. Everyone is very open minded and happy people...for now. We will be spending a lot of time together so really anything could happen before its over. I will say that it is hard for me to pick my favorite person out of everyone, because there are a lot of great options.
So heres the set up; we are in a village that I cannot disclose, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. We are all living with host parents who agreed to take us in and show us how to live like a Ghanaian. My father is the sub chief of the village. He speaks english and is very helpful, but just like any elderly man he likes to go on rants and share all his knowledge. He says a lot of funny stuff about america. He has a nephew in america and asked if I knew him. My mother speaks Dangme, which kind of sucks because I want her to teach me how to cook and everything and its hard when you cant communicate. Most of the time she sends me to my father to get information. The language that I was assigned to learn is Dangme, so soon I will not have this problem. Also having a Dangme speaking family helps loads with learning the language. We have six hours of language learning every day. For part of this my teacher sends me out into the village to talk to people. Not everyone in this village speaks Dangme though...so it makes things interesting. This is technically a Twi village, so I at least know enough Twi to say hello and ask how are you so that I dont come off as completely rude when talking Dangme and they dont know any. The Dangme speakers LOVE it when I speak Dangme with them. They think it is hilarious, probably because I am saying it wrong or maybe because I am an obruni. Either way, everyone is very friendly and helpful with the language. Its pretty intimidating because I know so little at this point and I dont ever remember what they tell me unless I write it down.
People in Ghana are soooo super friendly. Community is everything to them. Everyone wants to say hello to you when you are walking down the street, and ask how you are doing and where you are going. Anyone is willing to help you out. Heres an example; the Peace Corps trainers do seminar days for us in the nearby town, so on those days we have to get a taxi out of our village. After one seminar day some of us volunteers decided to go for a beer after the training. The nearby bar/restaurant/whatever it has beer is called the Spot. Haha... anyway so the beer in Ghana is alright. They are all lagers, which is better than pilsner I guess. They come in 30 oz bottles and cost like a dollar fifty. Anyway so we had one and then caught a taxi home. The road home was completely tore up because of the rain. It was just a road of clay mud. So we get back to our village and the taxi drops us off at the front, and I realize that this is my first time walking home in the dark. We have been living in this village for less than a week...so Im not even that good at finding my way around during the day yet. But my house is a straight shot back if you walk on the main road until you come to a little bridge made of logs on the left once you start getting out of town. So I start walking...and I know there is an intersection of sorts where there is a tree...but I walk past the tree and it just isnt right...and all I had is my phone to light the way...and I kind of walked in a circle when this guy came up to me and asked, “Where are you going?”. I tried to pronounce my host parents last name as best as I could, and he didnt really get it. He told me to come with him, and we walked up to another group of people and they knew the name, told him where it was, and he walked me there. He didnt linger or anything creepy when we made it made he just wanted to help. And that is one of the many reasons why this country is awesome, because of the people. Another day when we were waiting at the front of the village to get a taxi a guy gave us a free ride to the town.
There is a group of kids that come over to my house every night, this one little girl especially is always happy to see me and laugh at me when I dance. Last night we took some pictures and they loved that. They also have tried to teach me this dance...called azuntu but you kinda twist your leg and roll your fists in front of you and then stick one in the air and say something that ends with jo I ay. Another game that try tried to teach me is where you jump up and down and clap and then at this certain part you kick out one leg, but I am not coordinated enough to really get it. The kids have been showering me with gifts. They brought me a bowl full of oranges my first day here, then last night they brought over a plate of oranges that had been peeled and cut all ready to eat. They eat oranges kinda weird over here...they peel the outside but leave enough white to not break the surface, then they cut the top off and squish the orange and suck the juice out. And thats it. So I am not very good at it yet and I usually make a mess. This method might grow on me though because ive always thought that oranges werent worth the effort anyway. Last night when the kids brought those over though they made me eat all of them in front of them. The other gift was roasted or boiled nuts of some sort. The girl came to my house with a steaming fresh bowl of them and offered them to me. I ate them whole but later saw some other volunteers eating them and apparently you are supposed to break them open and just eat the inside...whatever. They tasted kind of like a nutty potato.
In the village many people have animals like chickens, sheep and goats. Many of these animals wander around the village, doing whatever they please. The different owners mark them by tying a string around their neck or painting them different colors or cutting off their toes. The baby goats are actually very cute, and one was born at another volunteer's homestay parents house. I got to hold it. It was only a day old! It was tiny like a kitten. One of the chickens at my house had babies as well. They are so tiny and cute! They all run up under the hen and hide under her. One got separated from the group and somehow was on the other side of a 5 inch high wall and it was trying to jump over to get to it's mom. It kept jumping into the wall because it couldnt jump high enough to get over...it was adorable.
Things ive been trying to get used to:
sweating profusely
washing clothes by hand
pronouncing ghanaian words
eating bones
Things im surprised I dont miss yet:
American food
Listening to my music 24/7
running water
things I do miss:
broccoli
cold beverages
my pillows
Alright so tonight was my first football match that I was able to watch in Ghana. It was Spain v France for the WC qualifying. There was a sign in the middle of town today that said Spain v France 7pm at DSTV. We found out where that was and showed up at 7. It was a room with a TV and a lot of wooden benches. It was extremely hot in there, but felt better after a while because someone brought a fan. The match was awesome with france scoring at the last possible moment. My little friends from home that come over every night found me watching the match, and one of them fell asleep on my shoulder near the end. It was adorable. This kid falls asleep shortly after 8pm every night when he comes over, so seeing as the game went until 9 he was in real trouble tonight. Usually he just lays down on a bench outside my room where we are hanging out. Last night he was sitting there with his head propped up on his knee and started falling asleep. Tonight he was falling asleep sitting up next to me and his head kept bobbling around like crazy. I was afraid he was going to hurt himself but finally his head rested on my shoulder. I felt kinda bad because I knew he was waiting for me to go home to go but I had to stay because I have really been waiting to watch some football. Anyway when it was over my three main little buddies walked me right to the gate to my compound and all said huo! Meaning they would see me tomorrow.
Did I mention that I have the status of a rock star here in my village? Everywhere I go children follow me or yell “Obruni!” and wave vigorously. Some come up and just hold my hand, or come hold my hand and walk with me wherever I go. Just thought that it was an important detail.
I looked at my photo album that Gina gave me tonight...made me kind of sad. I am lucky to have such amazing friends but it kind of sucks to leave them all behind. But I cant be nostalgic for long because the group of volunteers that came with me are also pretty awesome people. Its just really hard right now to balance my time. I need to be studying and learning as much of the language as possible. I also need to be spending time with my host family and the local people to integrate myself into the community. But I also want to spend time getting closer with the people I came here with, because they are my new family. Tonight I tried to study Dangme but then I got distracted and wanted to hang a couple pictures on the wall so I went through my photo album.
I found out that we are going to be tested on not only language but also home making, cooking, and the technical skills that we have been learning. They also told us that we might to learn an additional language when we get to site. Oh joy! As if it is not hard enough remembering just one.
I have been electrocuted numerous times lately by my computer. I have a voltage converter and a surge protector that I use when charging my computer, but somehow when I have it plugged in and touch any metal on the computer it shocks me. The first two times werent so bad but the times after that have really hurt. It is getting to be so bad that I dont want to charge my computer. I also am starting to get an association with the shocking and sitting at my table where I sit to read or study or be on my computer. Now when I go sit there I feel like I need to be extra cautious about not touching anything metal. It is really starting to piss me off but maybe when I get to site I will not have this problem anymore. Or I will just not be able to touch my computer when it is plugged in or for a couple hours after its been charging. But at least I have electricity right? We have pretty much had electricity the whole time we have been here, but it goes off every now and then.
Instead of having coffee for breakfast every morning here in Ghana they drink Milo. Milo is pretty much hot chocolate but the container says “The energy food drink”. It was weird at first but I am really digging it now. I also brought some instant starbucks coffee which my sister got for me as a parting present, but the coffee plus the heat is just not very fun. I have had it two times since I got here and both times it has given me a horrible headache. It is extremely hot here. I usually sleep with no clothes on because it is too sweaty. And this is the coolest part of the year in the south. And the south is where I will be living for the next two years, based on the language I was assigned. They havent actually announced our sites yet but Dangme is spoken mostly in the eastern and greater accra regions. So I will be relatively close to the capital if I ever need to go there.
A big thing in Ghana is sweeping every morning. Every single morning. I havent started doing it yet but when I do sweep in the morning I get a big praise. Ill start doing it in time to get to site...a big part of training is learning what the culture is all about so that we arent complete freaks when we get to our two year village. Like carrying stuff on your head. They just dont carry things in their arms here. I carried my first thing on my head when we went to our homestay parents farms. My Mami, sister and I went to farm which was a short distance from the house. We walked through a jungle looking forest, semi jurrasic park status, which here they call the bush. In the middle of the forest we came up on coco trees, and then they said we had made it to their farm. We didnt harvest any coco because it had already been done, but we did get plantains, palm nut, coco yam, kontomere, and a ton of oranges and firewood. The oranges were delicious straight off the tree. I ate several of them.
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