Major update right here:

Ok, so many Sundays ago we took a trip to Boti Falls (on our not-off Sunday). It was a really great day. We walked down these stairs and then boom- there was this beach and small water pool and these two separate falls. We were surrounded by rock walls. It was beautiful. We all climbed the rocks to hang out, I guess. Our Ghanaian staff (except Mutala) stayed behind of course. They photographed us like crazy, which was really fun. Mutala also climbed with us, and he was like all of us, camera in hand snapping pictures. Then our walk back up killed us all. The stairs felt like they were never ending. You’d turn a corner thinking it was the top, and of course it wasn’t, why would it be? Once we got back up we started our actual hike. It was funny, because the real hike was nothing compared to those stairs!

The hike lead through some rocky terrain, and had some flat spots where you’d look around and think, “Wow. This is Africa.” It lead to this teetering looking rock. The view was gorgeous. We walked a little farther to lunch, which was one of the most amazing things of the day. It was PIZZA! We had been craving and talking about pizza for weeks. I can’t express how excited we were to get our piece!

After the glorious pizza lunch we were asked if we would like the opportunity to go to another set of falls. Uh duh. So the Peace Corps bus took us over. When we were going down the stairs to this one I just kept thinking how the stairs would hurt on the way back up. The waterfall was in a narrow rock bed, and you could climb right up there next to it. I just kept thinking how the day was so picturesque, except that we all looked horrible- red and sweaty. Great way to remember life? I was in a few pictures- and I hope they never appear. I got a head start back up to the bus, fully prepared to get my butt kicked by the stairs. I got to the top and fully expected more. Funny how things can happen!

Just a quick note I think is really cool. So we split into groups to go meet different offices of the District Municipality. My group met with the Ministry of Education. Our meeting went really well. We got a lot of information from the director, and other positions. 

The thing I thought was really cool though, is that on this particular day there was a country wide football tournament for deaf students. They had tents with their school colors. I thought the tournament was one of the coolest things I’d heard of or seen in Ghana. There typically isn’t much support offered to those who are different. I knew there were schools for the deaf in Ghana (I was not so secretly hoping to work in one), which in and of itself I thought was great. Football is so incredibly popular, so having a chance for all these schools to get together and play was incredibly considerate. That’s how I saw it anyway.

March 6, Ghanaian Independence Day

We traveled to a nearby town to see what their festivities are. We had seen students practicing a march when we visited the District Assembly. One night when I was dancing in the rain with my neighbor, my “host brother” came over and showed me the same march. I didn’t understand what its significance was. When we got to Tafo and saw all the kids in school uniforms, with multiple schools doing the march around the field it clicked.

This celebration was similar, and completely different than any other Independence Day I’ve ever celebrated, and I’m not just talking about America’s. The main population at this celebration were the students, and then women selling snacks. Everyone was really enjoying watching the various schools marching with their appropriate school banner at the lead. There was an anxious photographer rushing around here and there getting pictures of everything.

As far as us Peace Corps Trainees were concerned, we got very excited when we found a stand selling fabric. If I were to make a factual statement, the majority of us were on the hunt for fabric to get clothes made by the local tailor. I need to get good looks at the cloth, so I walked into the tiny shop to look at the fabrics and figure out prices. The lady is used to using the old money amounts, which when you’re not focusing it’s really confusing. You take the new money, and add like three 0’s and you have old currency. Others are better at this than I am. Also, I’m getting side tracked from the story, so I’m in this tiny shop (which I’m pretty sure I wasn’t actually supposed to be in this thing.. Woops) and people start to find it. So naturally people started asking about fabrics, prices, whatever. After about 15 minutes of being in there I decided I knew the fabric I wanted, and decided I wanted to get out. Just then another woman stepped up to help us in the box. She was completely blocking the entrance, so I kept helping. After about 40 minutes, when I was going to be late to leave the festivities, I broke out of the box. It felt like mere chaos, three of us had been in the box grabbing for fabrics, me trying to remember the new currency cost of things, people wanting to know about others. Somehow it had worked out and we had all gotten what we wanted.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable experience all in all.

LPI

So after a week or two at training we found out what language we were going to learn. We then had four weeks to become proficient in said language. The really hard thing about learning Dagbani in southern Ghana, is that I’m in the land of Twi. So while I would greet the village in the morning, people would start asking me things in the local language. I generally threw up my arms in defeat and had to attempt to explain that I’m not learning that language. Generally people don’t care, they still want to teach you their language. Ghanaians are very helpful that way. It is something I appreciated some days and got incredibly frustrated with on other days. 

So, the week before the big Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) stress was running high everywhere. It could be cut with a knife. Or spoon. It was bad. The day after the LPI was when we were going to be leaving for Counterpart Workshop, then we had Site Visit and then Off Site Technical Workshop. The point is, I started having this inner battle between studying, doing something to relax, and feeling the need to hang out with my mom before I was gone for a month. Who knew that talking for 20 minutes could be so nerve racking? That’s all the LPI was. It was a 20 minute talk. We knew what it was about and yet we were anxious, stressed and potentially losing sleep over it. It’s not to say that if we had failed we would be sent home, that’s not even close to accurate. If we did not pass round one, we would get two other chances to retake it, and on top of that we would have a private tutor help us study where we were weak. At least for me, the thought of not passing was bad enough. I didn’t want to be stressed out over the same ‘interview’ on multiple occasions, possibly all in one week.

Anyway, I passed. Which was phenomenal! Then I was off to the next training adventure.

Counterpart Workshop

As excited as I was to learn how to educate on matters such as HIV, all I cared about was learning where my site was and who my counterpart was. I guess I had it easier than most, I knew I’d be in the Northern Region. The Twi group could be in any of the 7 southern regions, well, 6, we knew no one would be in Ashanti. We also kind of had a hunch that no one would be in the Greater Accra region either, so 5. Still, that is a lot of Ghana. There were 15 of them. I had it easier I suppose. I was still excited for the revelation though.

So, some Peace Corps staff drew out a huge map of Ghana, with all 10 regions properly outlined, labeled, and dots for sites. Being that the other 2 in my language group are married, and they marked married couples with double dots, I knew before it started where my site would be. I almost wanted to just jump on my dot before anyone else’s site was announced. I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted.

Site Visit

So after our half week workshop I got to travel to site. I was finally, finally going to see my future home. I was finally going to meet the people I would be living with for 2 years. I already knew the set up of my future house (I had already met the PCV I am replacing), and I knew that my village has somewhere around 900 people. Northern Ghana is primarily Islamic, so I knew I would get to know the Muslim Religion, as first hand as I can get really. So after traveling at 4:30 am and getting into Tamale around noon, I was just ready to be there and get rid of all my STUFF.

I had 4 days at site before I had to get back to Tamale for Off Site Tech. One of the first struggles was with introducing myself to people. Ghanaians honestly have a hard time with my name. They were so excited when I finally met the chief and got my local name.

It’s an election year here in Ghana, so every day I was in the village people were lined up at the registration table under the big tree. The day I arrived was an immunization day. I think it’s really cool how some of these services are brought to the village. It’s what works, and what is honestly most convenient for many people. It’s also a way to guarantee something gets done. 

All the same, it’s not something you would see in America, not in this way. It was cool to hang out with the guys under the tree while people were registering, or hanging out with them off the road in front of the shop. There is nothing like the feeling that you are automatically accepted. Now, I know it will take more than that to truly gain acceptance, but I have 2 years to do it. I’m also glad I have that much time to learn the language. It’s funny how pronunciations can change and totally shake your confidence.

Site visit wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, there is one thing noteworthy. When I was shown the latrine that I’ll be using, it was impossible to not see the curtain of bats around the ceiling. It was disgusting, and terrifying, and it made it really hard to need to go to the bathroom. Luckily the north is so dry that once you take a drink of water it’s sucked out of you. That helped me out.

When the day finally came for me to head off to Offsite Technical, I kept postponing grabbing a car and heading to town. I knew it would be about a month until I was back. Once you know where your site is, and you visit it for the first time, training feels even more.. Heavy on your shoulders.

Off Site Technical Training

As informative as training proved to be, it was also redundant. We learned a lot about things that we can’t see using in the village. How do you tell villagers that malaria is caused ONLY by the female anopheles mosquito, that there are two kinds, the Funestus and Gamibae? When will information that specific be necessary when you’re pushing that people get and use bed nets as opposed to keeping them in the bag because they’re nice and new?

Not everything we learned seemed detached from the reality we’re starting to envision for our time here. We saw Income Generating Projects we can potentially start up with a Women’s Group we can start. We saw large scale SHEP (School Health Education Program) program we can do, after were at site for 3 months. 

With the SHEP program we split into groups and taught health lessons at the school. I had Primary 1, and we taught them the importance of washing their hands. We used glitter to represent germs, and they had to see how long it took to wash the germs off. After that the classes were split into groups depending on their age they were either doing a picture scavenger hunt, or they were doing a relay race.

Then a surprise cropped off. There was a performance for us. Local dancers and then a skit was done by the kids in a drama club.

We did a condom demonstration and HIV education with mango farmers before they got tested. And I mean, we went to Paga Crocodile Sanctuary and sat on a 98 year old crocodile. How cool is that?

We visited a local clinics Baby Weighing. There were several mothers there with their adorable children. This is done every other week, and they educate the mothers on different topics every time they come in. It's a pretty great system, when it's utilized.

We visited a village and did CLTS, Community Led Total Sanitation. We used community mapping and other strategies to try and lead the community to decide it is not sanitary or hygienic to practice open deification. I had the feeling it was not going to be successful. This program has been attempted in 200 villages in the Northern Village and has been successful 13 times. The odds were against. All the same, we tried our best.

We visited a current PCVs site and did certain projects. There was a group working on brick lying around a latrine, another doing the ceiling. I was on a group creating two soak away pits. From the picture we got beforehand we knew it would be a hard job. There was so much gunk and sludge to be removed before we could start digging out the pit. Then there was the thought of digging two three meter pits with four girls, one guy, and two shovels. When we arrived Alisa and I started removing sludge from the main perpetrating pipe. It was as disgusting as anticipated, only worse. It literally smelled like, using the Ghanaian term, crap. It was horrible. 

There was about an inch of this smelly sludge. Once Alisa and I got this removed the shovels were taken from us and some Ghanaian men cranked out the pits in a matter of hours. When it came time, Ryan started breaking rocks to better fit in the pit. Even this was taken from him. I’m happy that capacity building was executed, and that this sludge will no longer be on a main village path, but I felt so lazy doing nothing but sweating under the hot Ghanaian sun while these men were sweating bullets doing hard genuine work.

At another PCVs site we painted murals at the Nutrition Clinic.

We learned how to make a bug repellant and went into the taxi stand of Tamale and did a presentation on how to make the cream. We included other activities, different ways you can hang bed nets. Then we also had scenario cards and used them to get conversation going. They were a good educational tool.

So after a long, eventful and exhausting Tech Training we headed back to the Eastern Region for one more week of training before swear in. The ride was long, and uncomfortable. There were 28 of us in 25 seats. There were three rows where 5 people were sharing 4 seats. I was in the back corner of this for 8 hours of our 13 hour day. Sometimes it was just better to stand and lean back on the luggage that kept trying to slip on my head. We would get delirious, then be fine. I had anticipated this ride being one of the worst things ever. But it really wasn’t that bad. It felt random and unreal. Once it was over it wouldn’t matter, and it would seem like a hazy memory like everything else. It was nothing to get worked up over.

So, I’m back in Anyinasin with my host mom, and trying to get a grasp on the fact that in a week I’ll be gone. I’ll be on my way to site. I’ll be doing exactly what I’ve been waiting to do.

And hey, that’s Ghana!