Friday, September 12, 2008

A long awaited update!

Hello all! My father recently informed me that I haven't posted a blog in 2 whole months so I figured I better go on it and knock one out. So here it is with my sincerest apologizes, an update on my last two months in Ghana.
I thought way back to July, and referred back to my journal, and remembered that July was the month school let out. I spent most of July wrapping up my environment clubs and getting ready for break. I also had a few visitors come to hang out on the beach with me. Brady came for about a week and Janet and her freind Karen from the states. Also, Terri and Erika were all at my place on Erika's way to Accra to ET (early terminate). We had a great time, we camped on the beach...even though we were rained out at 2 a.m. we still had a ball. I'm missing Erika bad!
In August Janet came back after dropping her friend off at the airport to unwind from the stress of visitors...haha! Janet is a sixty year old PCV who lives a few hours south of Wa in a town called Bole. Sha has on of the most interesting lives imaginable, from living homeless on the beaches of Hawaii to the life of an ex-porn star, ex-stripper. She is currently engaged to a chief in her village! We sat and daydreamed about making a cultural center at my site and hers. Then we brainstomed finding local artesians and having them train younger generations some of the dying cultures in Ghana. In addition we could find new crafts that foreigners might enjoy, like beach art and jewerly using seashells. Also teach the local fish net weavers to make hammocks! We even went as far as checking the price to buy land on the beach. My wonderful landlords response was, "Oh you want to buy some? I have plenty. I will give you some!" So, I'm now an ocean front property owner in West Africa. Janet is coming back down to my site in early October to help put together a PCPP proposal (Peace Corps Partnership Project). That will be a link on the PC website so people can make personal donations to our project. If all of this goes through and the funding is available I might think about extending my service a year to make the cultural center more sustainable and teach them book keeping, putting me back home in December 2010. As you can see, it's been an exciting and busy two months. While Janet was down we also had several beach burn activities, just started making trash piles and burning them, then asking passer-byers to help us. We always finished the beach burn with a swim and I would have about 8-12 Ghanaian kids hanging on me in the ocean. They seemed to enjoy it!
Last week we had HIV/AIDS training in Kumasi at a real nice hotel, with a pool and A/C. We learned how to put together PEPFAR proposals to use USAID money for HIV projects in our village. I'm aiming for my village football tournament to be in November. The students and environment club members will facilitate HIV/AIDS education, games, songs, and skits before the games, halftime, and following the games. I want to put together a larger proposal next year for an HIV/AIDS walk that will involve 7 villages.
Other than that life has been pretty normal here! After having malaria for my second time, and recovering from my fourth worm I can say I'm back to perfect health. We did go about a week without running water or electricity so I had to rough it and fetch my own water for a while. I also had to eat 1 1/2 kilos (3.3 pounds) of meat becasue my freezer when out with the power. Talk about a stomach ache! This week all of my group will be celebrating our 1 year in country, it's hard to believe I've been here a whole year. I'm really looking forward to coming home for Christmas, only 3 more months! I'm going to eat so much food! I'm also looking forward to seeing tons of friends and family. I'm hoping to go talk to one of the classes that I've been writing about Ghana and making them some fufu. My grandmothers coming down to visit from VA for the holidays. We are also making a short side trip to TX to visit some of my family in Austin. I will be busy for sure. In my down time I'm looking forward to doing some construction with my Dad and maybe making some cool cards with my Mom.
Sorry I wasn't able to post any pictures again, the internet is moving too slow today. I hope everyone back home is doing well! I miss you all! Love, Mandy