TRAINING IS OVER! Oh geez, thank the lord. I could not take another day of intensive language. I graduated and have officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer and not trainee. I am now just getting settled at site (all alone!) and am just trying to get my bearings. School doesn’t start for another month, so I have to find a way to pass the time. I’m supposed to use this time to integrate into the community, so I’ve been taking random walks around town and introducing myself. It’s intimidating to say the least. Anyway, now that I have time and nothing to do, I figured I should let you all know what I’ve been up to for the past month and a half.
As far as my home stay went, I lived at a pretty bangin’ house and I am the fourth volunteer to stay there. I had electricity, running water (FLUSH TOILET!!), a REAL shower (which is hard to come by), a living room with a TV (again, not very typical) and my own room. It’s a standalone house with a yard and everything. Most Ghanaians live in a family compound where there are some 15 to 20 people living in an area at a time, so my home stay experience was pretty unique. My host dad, Paa Wills, owns his own business in a nearby bigger city and does pretty well for himself. He owns a printing press and does advertisements and printing for various occasions. My host mom stays at home and runs the place. I have four siblings; two sisters and two brothers. The oldest sister, Maggie, is around my age. She has an adorable 10 month old baby named Erama and also has another one on the way. She isn’t married and the one time I got the courage to ask what the deal was my host dad just said it didn’t work out and she wasn’t the type. I left it at that, haha. She either stays home or goes to the market and sells various food items. My other sister is Cecilia and she goes to a catholic senior high school two hours away (most SHS are boarding here and not compulsory). I just recently met her when she came home for her break. The oldest brother, Evans, just left for the U.S. on a student visa. He was studying marketing at a university but is just gonna get his degree in America instead of finishing here. He is 23 and the most westernized of the family besides my host dad. The younger brother is Barfour or “Bills” as he likes to be called; and yes it’s like dolla dolla bills y’all. He studies at a technical training college and too has been around on his break. He is pretty quiet and super nice but I didn’t see him much; he went to work with my host father and did churchy things in the evening.
There is one other younger girl, Adewa, who stayed with us but she isn’t one of their daughters. I’m sure she is related somehow, lol. Most families have a “small girl” or “small boy” to do the house work and go fetch things; it’s mostly girls. Little kids really don’t have a lot of time to play and have fun. They get up early, clean, go to school, come home, clean, do any work around the house, eat, and then they will maybe have some time late at night to do their homework. Some days I'd look at Adewa and she is just totally exhausted and red eyed. It totally sucks but it’s a part of life here. That and Adewa would most definitely get into trouble if she didn’t have work to do; she is a stubborn little lady. I’ve figured out quickly that there is not a lot to do to in your free time here; there are no after school clubs for children to participate in, parks, malls, cinemas, etc. So the kids work. Most volunteers who teach start after school clubs and I probably will too.
Everyone in the house could speak pretty good English but preferred Twi. At first I didn’t like that, there were so many conversations that flew right over my head and it made me feel left out. They also would ask me questions in Twi and I had no idea what they were saying. Though, in the end it helped me pick up the language faster. Most of the social language I knew before it was covered in language class and those few phrases are the ones that I can say correct enough that people understand. I also for a small time had this paranoia that they were talking about me all the time, haha. Well they did talk about me, and they did it in Twi right in front of me, but it’s pretty harmless. I could at least pick up the general topic of the conversations. Another volunteer started picking up when the family was talking about him and he confronted them about it. He thought they stopped but it turns out they came up with a code word for him instead of using his name or “obronee.”
We got to travel two times during training which was awesome. It helped break up the monotony and allowed us to explore on our own. The first time we went on what is called a Project Shadow. We went to stay with another volunteer that has been here for a year or two and see their school, projects, and life in their community. It also gave us an opportunity to travel by ourselves which was a little scary. My volunteer, Dan the Man, had planned to go to the beach that weekend along with some other volunteers. They invited trainees whom were shadowing them to come too and it was awesome. Me and about 5 other trainees traveled to Cape Coast and met up with our Project Shadow volunteers there. There were about 12 or more of us staying at a volunteers place; it wasn’t too bad since the volunteer had a pretty big pad. We went to the beach on that Saturday which was gorgeous. I was uber suspicious of the beach because most beaches in Ghana are pretty dirty. But when we got there I was overwhelmed with happiness and wanted to kiss the pretty white sand, haha. We spent the night again in Cape Coast and some of the one year/two year volunteers made burgers and guacamole. It was a great experience, haha. It was really interesting to talk to a bunch of volunteers that have been here a while and hear their stories. It was also cool to just watch them in action. They knew how to maneuver the markets, lorry stations, and get exactly what they needed and quickly. It always seems like such a process for me to just go to town and buy some toilet paper. On Sunday we all went our separate ways and headed for the volunteers respective sites. Dan’s site wasn’t too bad. The town is in the same region I am going to, Ashanti, and generally the same size. He taught ICT at the local JHS. I didn’t get to see him teach but I got to visit his school and meet his fellow teachers and staff.
One of the biggest things PC wanted us trainees to take away from Project Shadow is to experience what it feels like to have nothing to do. That is actually just my opinion, but it’s legit. Like I said, there aren’t all the fun things we have in America here to keep us occupied. We have books, some movies on a laptop if you brought it, and hanging out with locals to fill the down time here. The down time is also plentiful. Teachers teach about two or three 35 minute periods a day and that is it. A full 8 hour day of work is rare. It moves slowly. Aside from integrating, it’s apparently one of the harder things to get used to. Dan, for instance, sometimes just sits and stares at the fan to pass time. Another volunteer I talked to enjoyed throwing bits of food on the ground and watching the ants eat it. It cracks me up but also worries me. I’ve been busy at training and still working on an American schedule. Time was flying but now it will slow to a snails crawl and I will be doing something ridiculous to keep from going crazy.
Okay, so the next time we got to leave was recently to check out our sites. I was super nervous; I was going to visit the place I will be staying for the next 2 years! We first attended a counterpart workshop where we got to meet our teaching counterpart and the headmaster of our school. We all sat through 2 days of cross cultural understanding and all that fun stuff so we could learn to work together. We left and staid at our sites for 3 days. I’m pretty happy about my site. My school is large for a junior high school, about 200 students, and we have a computer lab. Not a legit one, only 4 of them work out of 10-15. The other teachers were all welcoming and excited to meet and work with me. The headmaster is involved and I think he is just the most adorable older man – not sexually (eww). He is short and smiles a lot. Most of the teachers live in Kumasi since it is only 30 minutes away, so I live in a teacher boarding type situation. Right behind the school there are three “apartments” they leave for the teachers to live. The religious and moral education teacher, Theresa, lives with me and she is super nice. She is super bubbly and made me some yummy food. My counterpart is another math teacher at the school and he lives next door with the science teacher. Their names are Bernard and Theopholis. Bernard and Theo both went to a technical teaching training college and are both really cool. They know English well and will talk pretty frankly with me. So every night we all hung out outside of our apartments, listened to music, graded papers and shot the shit. I have a feeling that we four will be pretty close and I’m actually happy to not live alone. We will see if that remains, they like to hover since they aren’t used to an American. They like to know what I’m doing all the time and will not let me do anything by myself. If I want to go to town they HAVE to escort me and freaked when I was going to travel back to training on my own. Otherwise, my site visit went well. Oh I almost forgot. The chief of my town's brother lives in America; specifically Columbus, OH. Crazy, right! He lives very close to my parents house and wants to have them over for traditional Ghanaian food. I thought that was a good sign:)
After that, I came back to training which was for the most part winding down. I took my language proficiency test and some other tests concerning medical and safety & security stuff and I passed. Woot! I was worried about the language test. It was oral, and supposed to work like a conversation but generally the tester hit up key areas. I had to talk about myself, where I was from, what I’m doing in Ghana, how many brother and sisters I had (home stay and real), what my mother and father does (again, home stay and real) and things along those lines. I talked about how to get to my site from where training was held and I role played in a fake market scene. It wasn’t too bad.
I swore in on August 12th, 2010. I wore a dress that my home stay family had made for me; it was interesting. The design reminded me of a circus tent and I had some seriously poofy sleeves, haha. It wasn’t something I would necessarily pick out but I totally appreciated it. We had a couple guest speakers, our country director, CD Mike, some lady from the US embassy, our trainers, and PTO Rob (I don’t remember what the PTO stands for but he oversaw training…PC loves acronyms). All of our home stay families came in addition to some current PCVs. As a training group we performed skits in the languages we learned and performed two traditional dances. My host brother got some great pics and videos of my dancing so I’ll post them somewhere, haha. The newly sworn in PCVs hit up the local spot later that day to celebrate and we ended up having a huge dance party. It was totally random but necessary. I was a dancing fiend. It was just weird, training was finally over so I was pumped but then I realized that I am leaving all my new friends. Not only that but there is a high likely hood that I may not see another American for a while! Crazy. But that’s what I came here for, to integrate and to become as they say a “change agent.” Oh I love that buzz word. That buzz word is totally going on my resume.
Anyway, so now it’s real life. I have to attempt to cook for myself, talk in Twi A LOT, get to know my town, hell, just navigate my town, and figure out what exactly I should do for the people of Antoa. It’s pretty scary to say the least. Even the other teachers are gone right now for vacation so I don’t have them to hang out with. The first day here I was a little touch and go, haha. I went to the chief to let him know that I arrived and he asked me when I get homesick and why. I almost started to cry right then because I was so seriously homesick! It’s always the beginning that is the worst, though. I remember the first day of home stay. I was super freaked and nervous but now I am missing that family like crazy. Even the first day in country I was close to tears a couple times. It’s that big change of stepping completely out of my comfort zone that freaks me out and makes me question whether I am capable of all this. Then I just take a breath, chill out and remember its all baby steps. I can just greet one person each day, or take one walk to start familiarizing myself with the town. As they say in Ghana, kakra kakra a kokoo nom nsuo (small small, the chicken drinks the water). Small, small. Food, however, is a different story. I’ve been either making omelets or bumming off of the other teacher still staying at the apartment complex/teachers quarters. I wouldn’t even say it’s just the cooking. It’s the finding the food, figuring out what you want/need, buying it and then figuring out what to do when you have left-over’s. I want to get a fridge, and as soon as I do, I will be more creative with my meals.
So that's it! Update again soon:) Miss everyone!
