Thanksgiving

Alright so it has been a little longer than i would have liked since my last post but here are some random topics and stories since the last time i posted. I did not review this or edit it so sorry if it is not cohesive or if there are things missing.

Living in a compound style house doesnt exactly allow for the privacy that you have in the States. It doesnt really bother me anymore at this point but I do wait until I am out of clean clothes to do my laundry because my family watches me do it...and they tell me how to do it. To go to bathe I wrap myself in a two yard piece of fabric and walk across the courtyard to the bathing area, sometimes being stopped by family members asking me something or telling me something. Brushing teeth takes place in the courtyard as well.

There is an election coming up in December for Ghana. During the week of the election the peace corps is not allowing us to move so we will have to stay in our village. Sometimes things get out of hand with politics in Africa, but Ghana sets a pretty good example. The main competing parties are the NDC and NPP, NPP wants to make secondary school free, and NDC wants to bring electricity to my village. That is about as much as I know about it.

Pretty much everyone has outy belly buttons here. Many people here also have huge belly buttons. No joke it looks like a golf ball (sometimes larger) is sticking out of their stomach. I am interested to know what causes this. I have been told that it is a hernia but I dont think that makes sense for so many kids to have. If anyone wants to use your infinite time on google to look it up for I would be much obliged.

So one day me and my friend (fellow volunteer) Alex were standing outside of the building where our next training session was going to be held. We were chatting and all of the sudden this dog runs by that is scrawny, covered in dirt, and has a cloud of bugs swarming around it. It was disgusting but we found it hilarious. It is one of the times since ive been here that I laughed really hard so thats why im including it. Poor dog.

They call peanut butter ground nut paste here.

So my nickname in the group is now “my Nancy” which everyone loves to use. One of the PCV Leaders even picked up on it and calls me this. Here is the story: Koforidua has a bead market with locally made beads. We drove past the bead market on our way to our homestay village and we told our trainers that we would really like to visit it. They surprised us one thursday when we went to the training hub site and told us they would be able to quickly take us if we did our lecture in the van. When we got to the market we had thirty minutes to look around and buy beads. I wanted to look at everything and negotiate prices, but I ended up taking the whole time looking at things and not buying much. I bought five small bracelets that were 20 pesewas each (like ten cents) for some of the small girls that were my friends in the village. When I was running out of time, with about four minutes left until we were supposed to leave, me and my friend Kendra went to one of the people selling beads and she was buying several necklaces. She was going for the nicer ones, which I wasnt sure how much was a good price for yet. I didnt know if I was being ripped off or not but one that Kendra was getting looked really nice and I thought it would be a good present for my homestay mother. So I bought one as well, along with a kind of stupid necklace for myself that I ended up regretting purchasing but whatever. It has a little Africa on it but it is sideways and you cant tell that it is Africa too easily...and I realized that it was super touristy and I dont really want to be perceived as that while I am here. Anyway so Kendra was taking forever buying things from this guy and we were definitely late for the bus...I could hear them honking for us to come. Finally one of the language teachers came and told us to come because everyone was waiting, this was about the time that all purchases had been made. So apparently when everyone was on the bus looking around and counting off to see who was missing, my language teacher, Moses, had been saying “Where is my Nancy?” and everyone thought it was hilarious so that is where my nickname was produced. And when they say it they say it in a Ghanaian-British accent.

Ok so we did our intense language training, I passed my test fine, and then we all went to Kumasi for our counterpart workshop. Our counterparts are a person that works with us at our site. They are also called our contact person. When we got to Kumasi it was pretty exciting because we would finally know the location of our sites. Also we were staying in a dormitory style lodging so we got to room with fellow volunteers and be all together. It was nice to be able to hang out at night without having to go home early because host families are waiting for you to get back so that they can go to bed. At meal time there were all these Ghanaians eating with us, and after talking with the one at our table we realized that they were our counterparts...and they knew the name of who they were getting as their volunteer. It was pretty exciting but this was also election night in the states so I was talking with my friend Mike who apparently is poll crazy during elections. Then I heard someone say my name and I look over at a Ghanaian man who is very excited to meet me. My counterparts name is John and he is awesome. He told me the community that I would be living in for the next two years. He shook my hand when he met me and didnt let go for a long time, which is normal here but it made me pretty uncomfortable. I didnt know when to let go and just waited for him to do so which was a very long time. It was throughout our whole conversation. John's voice sounds like Mufasa from the lion king. He also has a very hearty laugh. I felt pretty good about him from the get go, and I think we will get along fine. He liked to speak up during the sessions and doesnt seem timid at all. We spent several days at the workshop learning things and then we went with our counterparts to our individual sites. It was the first time the group had been separated so it was an interesting feeling. My group going to the eastern region all went together to the capital of the region before we parted ways. There are four of us in the eastern region from my training group. We are located pretty close together, I havent seen their sites yet but I think we are all within an hour of each other.

My site

My site is a community which actually has eight villages within it. So there are eight different chiefs. I met four in my four days at site. Each day I went to a village and met the chief, elders, opinion leaders, youth leaders, and some community members. My counterpart would tell them why I was there and what I would be doing, and culturally sensitive things. It is not acceptable here to use the left hand for waving or addressing the public, or to receive something being handed to you. Basically you are not supposed to use it for anything. After my counterpart would tell them a lot of information in Krobo (the language in my area) where I could understand bits and pieces, he would let me get up and say whatever I could in Krobo. I can't say much but I would always tell them that I like banku with groundnut soup and they would go nuts. They really light up when you speak the language with them. Seriously all the time you can pass someone on the street and their expression looks stone cold but when you say something in a Ghanaian language to them a huge smile breaks across their face. I would give myself about a 60% rating in my endeavors to speak Krobo with my community. I did okay, but in my language class I learned a lot of things that werent the greetings that they use where I will live. In Ghana it is very important to greet people. You basically need to say hello to everyone, in a respectful way, and ask about their family and tell them that the place you came from sends their greetings. And there are different ways to say this in the morning, afternoon, and evening. So when me and my counterpart were walking around he would often teach me the greeting right then before the meeting and sometimes I would pull it off and sometimes I wouldnt. The chiefs wouldnt always ask me in same way that we just practiced and it would throw me off. Also it is really important for me to integrate and the chief is the most important person in the village so I was kind of nervous about how I acted in front of them. They all seem really nice but they are very formal about customary things and when meeting me for the first time, they do it in a very traditional way. They welcome me by giving me a gift. They gave me a huge bowl of oranges. They also do this thing where they get a bottle of schnapps and pour it out on the ground for the ancestors and then pass it around for everyone to take a drink if you want to do so. It is important to leave the last little bit to pour on the ground for the ancestors. At one of my meetings when I spoke in Krobo, I said that I liked music and dancing. One of the queen mothers of the village (and elderly respected woman) was very excited that I said this and she got up and began singing a song and clapping her hands and everyone joined in with her. She started dancing over to me and when she got to me she grabbed my hand and I got up and attempted to do the traditional dance with her. I dont think I did it right but they loved it. They were all so happy and walked up the road with us as we walked home. Someone carried my oranges for me. It was a pretty cool moment. In one of my other meetings these guys brought some drums and to end the meeting they played an awesome song and everyone got up and danced. 

I dont have electricity at my site but there are outlets in my room and switches so it might be coming after the election in december. 

We went to visit the whispering cave in the brongahafo region. The story behind the cave is that when the people were at war they hid their women and children through the cave, and the men had another cave which was really more like an alcove where they hid to shoot people if they approached. The cave was actually a cave that you had to crawl through and then there was a huge open space of rocks where you could climb around. The view was amazing. It was really fun and kind of scary at some parts because the rocks are very high up. At some point about half way through our adventure I found myself with a cloud of bugs swarming around my head. They followed me everywhere until I ran away and climbed up to the top of a huge rock. I felt like that disgusting dog that I saw in my homestay village but it was hilarious at the same time. When we were walking back to the bus through the bush all of the sudden I hear John say “Ants! Army ants!” and as fear struck I soon felt the army ants bite my foot. Army ants bite and do not let go. And it hurts. We started running to try and get away from them but the ones that were already on us were not easily brushed off. Instead they hold on as hard as they can and crawl up your leg and bite you. I was wearing my Keens so they easily made it to my skin and I got bit three times. Then I found another one on the bottom of my pants crawling up. I flung it off of me and jumped onto the bus. Several other people were already on the bus and we could hear the shrieking of the people who had been further behind us on the trail as they encountered the ants. As we were sitting on the bus waiting for everyone Joe kept finding more ants on him and flinging them out of the window. As we sat there I got bit again and so I killed that one. Honestly it was hilarious because everyone was so on edge trying to make sure all the ants were gone and it hurt pretty bad but once you got them off it didnt hurt so it was like a traumatic experience that could easily be laughed off. I really wish I had taken a video.

We went to visit the Wenchi Agriculture Station where they do a lot of research to find different crop varieties and solutions to problems with crops. They have a lot of cashew groves there and the guy in charge of the station gave us a two liter bottle of cashew gin. This day we ate at a chop bar and I got banku with peanut soup and chicken, which is my new favorite meal. When we were done for the day we went back to the hotel. We are staying at a hotel right now, and have been for about a week. I think we will stay here for about ten more days. We have flushing toilets, hot water showers, air conditioning, and best of all, a pool. So on this particular day we went to the pool with our bottle of gin and passed it around til it was gone. It was fun but it probably does not top our sunday experience in the pool. So sunday was when we went to the cave and climbed around on the rocks. When we got back to the hotel we were very hot and ready to get in the pool. It just so happened that there were a TON of Ghanaians at the hotel, in the pool, but mostly around the pool because they were shooting a music video. We went out there and when we got in the pool so did a lot of Ghanaian men. They didnt have swimsuits though, some wore shorts in the pool and some just got in with underwear. It was interesting. They splash a lot when they swim. It is extremely comical because they are trying so hard but they are fighting the water. They also gave quite the show when they jumped into the pool. Many of them landed hard on their backs and stomachs. It was kind of intimidating to go out there in the beginning but it was hilarious and worth it. Also we taught them marco polo, and then they wanted to have a breath holding competition. They were sad when we got out and said they wanted to add me on facebook but I politely declined.

For thanksgiving we used the hotel kitchen and made an awesome feast. We had stuffing with chicken instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, mac n cheese and it was delicious. I was stuffed to the max. Many hilarious stories from yesterday. :) but for today we have some free time so here I am.