Friday, December 21, 2007

My first 3 months in Ghana!


I have been in Ghana, West Africa for just over 3 months now. I am finally getting a feel for life here, both it's struggles and it's beauty. After a long plane trip from Philadelphia to New York to Germany, to Africa.... around 14 hours in all we made it to our final destination. I arrived here September 17th to a warm greeting by Peace Corps Volunteers from all over Ghana, as well as a police escort to our hotel. We spent one week at the capital and in that time had a welcoming party put on by the US Ambassador of Ghana! The picture to the right are 5 studly men from our training group at the Ambassadors palace!(Left to right is: Eric, Blake, Darren, Joe, and Mike) All looking much thinner and hairier at this point! From there our class of 48 went to Valley View University where we stayed one week.









Our next stop on our 27 month stay in Ghana was to our homestay families that we would spend the next 10 weeks of training living with. I lived with a family in Nsuta, right outside of Techiman. They were a wonderful family and took me in with loving arms. I had 3 siblings, 2 brothers, Hilfor and Rich, and a 6 year old sister, Michelle.










Every Thursday afternoon and all day Fridays we would go to the Dery Hotel for training and medical as a group. All in all, we probably got about 15 shots total! We had language and sector training on Mondays through Thursdays. I am learning to speak Nzema, which is a language spoken in the Western region. The Western Region is on the coast and the boarder of the Ivory Coast. We graduated from training on November 27th! It was a great day, we had a dancing group, drumming group, we all did skits in our language we were learning. Our homestay families came to watch us swear-in and we had lunch with them, followed by massive amounts of pictures! That night we did some serious partying that night before saying our very sad good byes and heading to our sites. I have to admit, leaving our group of now 42 to head off to Ghana alone was much harder than I thought it would be. It was scary to leave the only safe place we knew. Before going to site though me and 3 friends decided to head to the beach for some well needed R&R! We went to Cape Coast and laid on the beach. In all the excitement I forgot that we are now right on the equator with a much stronger sun and was burnt to a crisp. From Cape Coast we headed east to Accra, the capital of Ghana. Ghana is known to have the best night life in all of West Africa so we hit the clubs. They were nothing like America that's for sure! Occasionally we would hear songs from America but mainly reggae! After Accra we had to say good byes again... and really get to site. It has been difficult adapting to a new way of life. Time goes by slower here, it means nothing to them. One of the hardest challenges I have had to face is learning how to slow down. Meeting times are set and I am always there early, and my supervisor Cynthia will often arrive hours late. I eat fish and banque every night. The fish is fried, and eaten whole, skin, bones, and all. Banque is made of plantains, and fermented corn, it is pounded into a dough and has a very sour taste. I was nauseated by it at first but am finally becoming accustom to eating it every night. We drink water our of bags if we buy it on the street. They are called water sachets, or pure water by the locals. Come to think of it, we drink and eat everything from bags, water, street food, even shots of liquor. I have been very fortunate to stay healthy while in Ghana, a lot of the PCV have had what we call GT or Ghana Tummy.... sever diarrhea. Many of our guys have lost anywhere from 10-30 pounds.


My site is beautiful! I will be living in a small town called Elloyin for the next two years. It is two villages west of Beyin. Beyin is the closest village to Nzulezo...the village on stilts. My village is very welcoming and excited to have me there. The kids all call me "boofalet" which is Nzema for "white girl". I have been in my village now for 3 weeks and they are finally starting to call me "Yaba", which is my name in my village and means "Thursday born". The ones who don't call my by my name are at least calling me "my boofalet".


I am very lucky to have running water and electricity.... sometimes! I live with my landlord, his name is Ateiko. He is 63 years old and is the town doctor. He is also a community elder, which means he is respected and any problems in the village are brought to him and the council of elders. He has been my life savor the past few weeks, introducing me to essential people in the community, teaching more Nzema, and keeping the village scum away from my door.

In my free time I like to work in my garden.... it's my only escape from Ghana. I have a lot of work to do though, as of right now it is the town dump. I have been burning and burying the trash and it is finally starting to look like a garden. I planted my seeds in empty water sachets and they are just now starting to sprout. Hopefully I will have some fresh vegetables soon. It is so funny to see the reaction of the Ghanaians when I work in the garden.... they say I am strong and hardworking. When I start to sweat they ask if I am tired and try to get me to stop. Of course it only takes 5 minutes to start sweating! It is December and it is in the 90s! Last night it was so hot that I had to sleep on my concrete floor to stop sweating long enough to fall asleep. It's strange living in an endless summer! I'm looking forward to Christmas though, and our New Years festival in my village. I can't wait to post again and tell you all about it!

Until next time, I hope everyone reading this has happy holidays and stays safe!