the start?... ahhh, yes, ghana!

So the beginning of my PC experience… so much has happened in the first two weeks of being here I don’t know where I should start. I guess I’ll start by saying that the flight over to Ghana was long and I got the aisle seat ): The movies were junk and the food wasn’t good either. I think the only good thing was they had cheese and crackers. Something I haven’t seen here yet, but I heard they have Laughing Cow. Anyways, after arriving in Ghana we loaded all our luggage into this huge truck and packed into a bus that was taking us to our “hotel” for the next couple of days. As we were driving (Ghanaians are crazy crazy drivers, but they are the really good at being crazy drivers. They are reckless but somehow are able to maneuver crazy pot hole half dirt half paved roads and get us to our destination safely.) the bus all of a sudden hits its brakes and swerves to the left. I just thought that maybe the car in front stopped a little too late, but as we passed, I see a motorcyclist on the road with his bike on the ground! It was crrrazy! Especially since we had only been in Ghana for like half an hour.

We stayed at the “hotel” for three days. I won’t go into much detail about this place because there isn’t much to be told. A lot of introductions, talking with current volunteers, hanging out, and trying different Ghanaian dishes. Oh yea, and waking up at 5:30 nearly every morning.

We also got to have a little party at the ambassador’s house. It was pretty nice. They had an open bar. So much for detoxing here… it seems like although drinking is looked down upon here, drinking is basically what pc people do in their free time. What makes it even worse is that it gets dark around here at 6 and since we don’t have cars and trotros can get quite costly or people don’t live close to each other, people start drinking here at like 12. They have this hard alcohol called apetechie and it is probably the worst alcohol I have ever had, but the Ghanaians drink it like water. They have like a glass of it, not a shot, but a glass… at like 3 in the afternoon when it is blazing hot outside. I’m amazed. Also, most people here drink apetechie instead of beer because of the cost. A beer here cost 1 cedi and 30 peswas. A shot of apetechie cost like 20 peswas, and apetechie is strong, I would probably compare it to like 151. You might be thinking at 1 cedi and 30 peswas doesn’t seem like much, but I only make 2 cedis a day here. So if I get one beer, I pretty much spent all the money I made in a day.

I also moved into my homestay house, which is not really a house but a compound. (think of a dorm and that’s basically what I live in.) I have a mama, a papa, 3 brothers and one sister, and many others. They have been really nice to me, but I think they get angry (well not literally) because I don’t finish all my food. But here in Africa, no food gets wasted… if you don’t finish your food, your brother or sister will finish it. And by the amount of food that they give me, you would never think that people are starving in Africa. They pile loads and loads of food on your plate. I also got lucky with my homestay, because my mama (Major, they pronounce it May-Jo) makes the best rice in my town. I’m not really sure if that’s true, but everyone says it, and it is pretty delicious, but I think its mostly because she has a stand called Major’s Rice. The dishes here have been pretty interesting. When I have the time I will try to upload some pictures of them. Most of the dishes are made with tomatoes, onions, and pepe. Then they throw in coco yam leaves, fish, chicken, random meat like bush rat, grasscutter, dog (sometimes I’m scared to ask what kind of meat it is because I think its best not to know.) I swear, one day I think I had snail in my soup! It looked like snail, but when I asked my brother told me it was chicken fat, but I’ve seen chicken fat before, and that definitely looked like snail! Plus, the other night, my brothers were roasting snails to eat… like the kind of snails that you pick up from the side of the road! I want to try it, sort of, but I also don’t want to have the shits all day. Btw, I think there have been some people in our group who has shat their pants. I hope to never join the group, but the way things are prepared here/the things they put inside, it might be a hard task. Plus, public restrooms don’t exist. People here also eat dogs/cats. Some volunteers have dogs/cats (I hope to get a little puppy once I finally get to my site) and I heard that some of them go on trips and they leave their dog/cat with their neighbor to take care of and when they come home they find out that it got sick and died… aka, they probably got hungry and ate it!


I also went on a vision quest (you basically spend four days with a current volunteer to see her living situations, her current projects, and a little more of Ghana and what your life might look like for the next two years) I went to Likpe Todome in the Volta Region. It was cool to see how she was living, but she had a pretty sweet deal because she was living at a guest house, had running water, electricity, and a refrigerator! She is doing Ecotourism and her primary project is working with her village to strengthen/attract visitors to their waterfall and bat caves. We went hiking up to the batcaves. First off, I want to give props to my rainbows. I didn’t bring any shoes with me on the VQ, so I had to hike and rock climb in rainbows (I’m pretty sure that those slippers are amazing, and I didn’t slip once… but that’s probably because I’m pro hiker! Ha, jk) But it was cool to go hiking up the mountain to the caves. I got to see Togo from afar, hang out with some bats, eat some medicinal fruit (Denise, I’m taking notes so I can report back and you can use them when you start making natural medicines), see a huge beetle, some tree flem, and get a little history about the caves/the area. Although I thought it would be cool to have an Ecotourism site, after visiting her and seeing how things were, I’m pretty glad with the assignment that I was given.

So after homestay I will be leaving to go to Ntonso in the Ashanti region of Ghana. I’m pretty excited about it because I will be working with the Kente and Adinkra Sellers Association to help them with marketing and how to capitalize on tourist that visit the area. Basically from what I’ve read about Ntonso, it’s a crafts town where Adinkra symbols (series of unique symbols representing various forces and powers in the world) and cloth dyeing originates. With all the good, there must be some down sides, so I won’t have any running water or electricity. Which isn’t that bad, because I did come in to Ghana thinking that I wasn’t going to have that anyways, but I think I’ve been spoiled since I’ve been here. Every place so far that I’ve been has electricity. I know that I will be okay without running water because at my homestay we have a bore hole which I fetch water from to flush the toilet, take a shower, and for drinking, but electricity is harder… but I’ll learn to deal.

I don’t really know what else to say… A lot has happened, but there has also been a lot of down time (I finished a two books, so if anyone has good books that they would like to send to a child in Africa, send away) For the most part my days are pretty much routine now. I get up every morning at around 6:15, but I really get up at like 5ish (most Ghanaians are up by 4, they start cooking, sweepings, and other crazy things) cause the roosters are crowing and they start to play their music loud, so its pretty hard to sleep when everyone else is up. I go to school, a full day of language/business training… they don’t mess around too… we have 2 four hour sessions of training, and for the most part, they like to use all the four hours. Then go home, eat dinner, and hang out with my brothers/sisters/dormmates. I think that’s about all for now. Ghanaian life is simple. So maybe I shall try and start a ruckus.

And just incase you guys decide to visit me here in Ghana, I will put a Twi pharse at the end of my entries.

Twi Phrase of the month: Wo hu te sen? How are you?


PS, anyone down for World Cup 2010, South Africa?