Home Sweet Home

Hello world!  Or hello to those of you that are following this blog.  Forgive me friends; it has been over two months since my last blog ingression.  Last time we met here I was merely a Peace Corps Trainee.  I am very excited to have crossed the threshold and emerged a volunteer.  I have been in Ghana nearly five months and cannot believe how fast the time is going by.  I am not even sure where to begin on what has happened.  The first three months of training are busy, energetic, full days, little free time, but somehow I managed to write nearly every week or two during that time.  The pace was at first much slower when I got to site, and now I am finally becoming busy which is a very very good thing.

                So, I am now permanently at my site which is in a small village near the sprawling market town of Kumasi.  I love my village, school and community, but no situation is perfect.  I have the nicest house in my part of the village.  (I know, terrible, right?)  I have really great digs compared to many other volunteers.  I have a big living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, private latrine (many volunteers share with others), and private bathing room.  I have a whole house to myself, and also a vacant room.   It’s actually really great…BUT….Most families here have three, four, five, six, or even more living in a house the size of mine or even much smaller.  Part of my responsibilities as a Peace Corps volunteer is cross-cultural awareness, which involves promoting better understanding of Americans to the people we serve.  It is standard for a Ghanaian to think that all Americans are rich and live a life of luxury.  How can I change that perception when I am the only white person in town and I move into the nicest house on my street all by myself?  They don’t know that my school pays for my housing, and the people that always ask me for money don’t understand that I am working on a very limited stipend.  I do my best to explain but seeing is believing.  My students come by my place often to help me clean or fetch water.  They tell me ‘Madam, your place is sooo nice.  I wish to come and live here with you.’  They don’t understand how I can live here alone.  But, I am extremely grateful that my school found such a great place for me to live.  It is more than comfortable and much more than I expected.

                Being the only white person in town also means that people I have never even spoken to know where I live, where I work, and they know my Ghanaian name, which in my village is ‘Abena Abofiri Koto’.  Even though I live alone, I don’t have much privacy.  I leave my house and almost everyone I pass and greet, whether I know them or not says

 ‘Abena! Where are you going?’

‘I am going to Market.’

‘What will you buy?’

‘Just some food’

‘What will you prepare?’

‘Not sure yet’

And on and on and on…and it always ends with them telling me to buy them something.   If I am walking toward my house everyone I pass says ‘Abena! Where have you gone?’  If I go into Kumasi for market or errands and the traffic is bad, I return home and some will say ‘Abena! You have kept long-oooh! Why!?’  (Ghanaians add –oooh to then end of many sentences, it’s catchy, and I have been adding it to my sentences as welloooh). It would be rude to not respond, so it means that mamny people in my village not only know where I live, but they also know where I am and what I am doing at any point in the day.   I will be honest that it was endearing at first, then became extremely frustrating and invasive.  I would smile and say ‘Oh! I am just going into town to buy some things.  I will go and come.’  Then they say ‘You go to Kumasi or you go buy things here?’ I then smile and respond casually with the appropriate answer, even though in my head I am imagining the vein in my forehead pulsing as I scream ‘WHY MUST I ALWAYS TO TELL YOU EVRYTHING I DO AND WHERE I AM GOING??!!!1!!’  But, as more time passed, I adjusted and now reminded myself that it is a different culture.  These small villages are like one big family.  Everyone knows everyone and I am a part of it now.  They only ask me these things because it is part of their culture to do so. They are curious about me.   I am starting to welcome it more and more as it also means  that I am becoming part of the extended family in which my village operates.  I have no choice but to embrace and roll with it, and so I am rolling.  J

                So regarding the education sector  in the Peace Corps; it is much different than other sectors like natural resource management (NRM) or heath and water sanitation (WATSAN).  I know that this is obvious simply by stating it, but what I mean is that volunteers in other sectors have a lot more freedom and flexibility in their projects (or so I’ve heard).  They get out into their communities and assess the needs and make a plan to address what needs they are most capable of assisting in.  I am not saying that education volunteers do not do that, but our primary project is very structured and clear: we teach.  We definitely have the option of taking on secondary projects in other sectors but we are discouraged from doing so until we have been at site for three months and have settled in.  The only reason I am even laying this out is because it makes the first few months at site pretty boring for an education volunteer, or at least for this education volunteer.  I have been meeting with people in my community and brainstorming ideas as to what I can do for secondary projects within my community, but I also have to be careful that I am not sending a concrete message that I will be able to do this that and the other, because I don’t know how much time I will have to focus on other things when I need to focus on teaching first and foremost.  So I am hesitant to do much else other than teach until I am completely comfortable and confident in doing so, because the last thing I want to do is be over ambitious in efforts outside of being a teacher, resulting in failed projects and disappointment.  Plus, my school is in such a deprived state that I am sure I will make the biggest difference in Ghana by improving the resources and facilities of my school, so any secondary project I do take on in the future will be focused directly at my school.  It does not have a library, no computers, no science equipment; our education resources are seriously limited to chalk and a chalkboard.  A lot of students do not even have textbooks.  I guess the whole point of this rant is that my initial ideas about ‘community development projects’ I would be doing were involving people from all over the community, but at this point it seems that I will make the biggest and most sustainable difference by focusing on one community group: the students at my school.  But even if I improve the lives of even a few people, or a few students during my time here I will see it as a success.  I have been trying to not make any assumptions about the possibilities here.  I want to do as much as I can but I also want to keep realistic and attainable expectations.

                More on teaching, I am actually really enjoying it.  But teaching in Ghana is hard.  Not devaluing the work of stateside teachers in anyway,  it’s just that in Ghana, the majority of students are extremely passive in their learning and even apathetic at times.  Especially for a new teacher, progress is painstakingly slow.  I have also noticed that thinking independently is not something that Ghanaian students are used to so I have found that the hardest part about teaching is to get the students to just think about the material and try to figure out the answers on their own.  They are used to rote memorization and regurgitation of words, not comprehension.  So I feel I am not just teaching science material, but I am teaching these students how to learn.

                As far as the material goes, I am completely baffled at what the education system expects these students to learn.  I teach integrated science, which is basically general science, and everyone has to take it.  There is a section on organic chemistry!!!  Why a 17 year old business track student needs to learn how to name organic molecules I don’t know.  It kind of drives me crazy.  And the fact that the textbook writers think that they can ‘summarize’ organic chemistry in a 10 page chapter of a high school general science book is astonishing.  But nonetheless, I have been giving organic chemistry lectures to 17 year old Ghanaians with the sad knowledge that they won’t remember any of it.

                This week I also started teaching math, and I am also working on my first secondary project of bringing a library to school.  So these things are keeping me ridiculously busy.  My reasons for staying off the blog stream so long were at first no computer due to the theft incident, and then when I got a replacement I was too busy to write consistently.  Anyway, I will have more on the library soon and I really need some stateside support so please keep in touch with me because very soon I will be having some great opportunities for people to get involved with the work I am doing here.

                Welp, sorry no pics this time.  Uploading photos takes forever for my mobile USB modem so I can only do it at the speedy internet cafes.

                Oh, I almost forgot!  I got a dog!  Things can get pretty quiet and boring on the weekends so he is a great pal to have around.  I got him from my neighbor when he was probably a little too young to leave his mamma, but he’s doing great and is living a very posh life compared to other Ghanaian dogs.  When I got him his little face and body was crawling with dust mites and fleas.  Now he is clean and happy and getting fat!  His full name is Daakyehene (Dah-chay-he-neh) which means ‘Future King’ in the local language.  It is a common nickname for brilliant people or people that are expected to do great things in their life.  I call him Daakye (Dah-chay) for short, which just means ‘future’.  Everyone absolutely loves that I gave him a Ghanaian name and he is now quite famous around town.  People even call me Daakyehema, which means future queen, since my ‘son’ is the future king.  If I am spotted in town without him everyone is asking “Eh, Abena!  Where is Future King?!”  I love that people love him! J And he is smart and loyal.  He comes to school with me and never wanders away from the school grounds, and if I leave him at home if I need to travel I will return to him just hanging out on the porch or running around in the yard, he never strays.  You will see pictures soon but eventually you will meet him as I plan on making the trek back to America with him.  J

                This is all I got for now.  I will try to be more consistent to limit the thesis length updates.  Much more has happened but of course I can’t remember it all at the moment.  Till next time!

Letters, packages, and photos!!

So not a whole lot has happened since my last post.  I am back at home stay after much traveling for another three weeks before moving permanently to Kumasi area.  It will be so nice to settle and stop living out of a suitcase. And spend enough time in one area to get to know it well.  I received letters from my friends Andres and Kiere!!  I loved that!  Getting an actual handwritten letter is a refreshment and I promise as soon as I get to site I will sit down and write to everyone.  I also received a most awesome package from Brian.  Here's a few of my favorite photos so far.

The first pic I took in Ghana

These giant snails are also a delicacy

 Crazy traffic.  It's just one never-ending, multi-player game of chicken

 Bus station in Accra

 My home stay room

 Courtyard area of my current home

 Neighborhood kids

 Pounding fufu, common dish in ghana made of plantain and cassava

 outside of the local 'spot' we frequent.  Pretty  :)

 The next four were taken on the way to and at Kibi School for the Deaf.  Gorgeous area, I love the effect of the fog around the mountains

 Oyoko Methodist S.H.S.  where I did my teacher training.

 Mercy, my sister.  She loves my specs and looks great in them!! 

 Markey Day!!

 We picked up a few guys in our full taxi on the way home, so they were placed in the trunk of course! :)

 My friends Kate and Sarah!

 Slick Vick and I anxiously awaiting our language announcement

 trying to learn west african dances

 My first street meat! It may have been goat or lizard.  :)

 Sisiters, Mercy, Agi, and Fausti

 I'm gonna miss this girl after I leave home stay!!

 This is the head of a German NGO in my village.  He had done so much they made him an honorary chief!  

 The headmistress made this room for me during my site visit because my home wasn't ready yet.  Complete with a TV and a high voltage converter!

 Marta, the headmistress St. Georges S.H.S where I will be teaching, on her way to the installation of the Archbishop.  She rocks.

 Archbishop istallation

 These next few are of Lake Bosomtwe, pretty much where I will be living the next two years.  :)

 Check out these sexy gams.  I do use a mosquito net and insect repellent.  The one that looks like a small volcano is recovering from a pretty nasty infection.  Yay Ghana!! :)

 Boti Falls Excursion.  GEORGEOUS!!

Here's a moving ball of a few hundred red millipede things.  They come out after it rains!!

Forget pick up trucks, this guy is resourceful.. :)

Meeting the Archbishop, My Awesome Home, and other Stories

So I am probably not the best blogger as I am pretty new to this.  During training I am just using it to keep you all updated.  Once I get to site I will have more specific topics to discuss.

          Quite a bit has happened since my last post!!  I finally received my site information.  About a week ago we all travelled to the Ashanti Region to a city of one and a half million people called Kumasi, second largest city in Ghana and home to the biggest open air market in Ghana as well.  There is also a sub-office of Peace Corps Headquarters in Kumasi.  We all received our site announcement and met our Ghanaian counterpart or contact person.  My counterpart is awesome.  He is an older gentleman named Anthony and has nothing but the best intentions for the school and my work there.  He is very intelligent and mature which I am grateful for because I did not get the same impression form some of the other volunteers' counterparts.  Many were quite a bit younger, and the job of a counterpart is completely voluntary, and it is possible that some were assigned to be a counterpart by the headmaster or mistress of the school and may not be exactly committed to the job.  I am grateful that my counterpart has shown a lot of excitement about my upcoming arrival at the school.  We spent three days in Kumasi getting to know our counterpart and finding out what the expectations were for both parties.  In addition, we spent an entire day discussing Peace Corps' HIV/AIDS Awareness initiative.  This was a great session to have especially with our counterparts present because for me, it drew attention for the first time, how far behind much of the world is in regards to attitudes and general knowledge about HIV/AIDS.  All of our counterparts are teachers so they are educated people and Ghana is one of the most progressive counties in Africa, but I was still shocked at some of the statements made during the discussion.  One man said that he would not share food or drink with someone if he suspected the person had HIV.  Many stated that they would not get tested if they thought they had been exposed to HIV until they started to feel sick.  One man even said that he would not want to be tested specifically because it may cause him to change his behavior if he knew he was carrying the virus and he wants to live life to the fullest (basically saying he wouldn't want to change his sexual behavior because of HIV).  Another man said he would wait to get tested but force  his girlfriend go and get tested, and then decide.  It was an amazing conversation.  I kept an open mind and made no judgements against those who were obviously misinformed/uninformed, but decided that HIV/AIDS Awareness will be a big part of my secondary projects in my community.  We had a lady speak who was living with HIV and we also played awareness games and I was happy to see many new and improved opinions and attitudes forming as the session continued. 

          I was the first to receive my site announcement.  I will be in a small village called Kuntanase in the Ashanti Region of south central Ghana.  After the counterpart workshop, we all travelled to our sites for five days with our counterparts.  Some volunteers had the misfortune of having to travel up to two days to their sites, depending on location and road conditions.  I was extremely lucky because my site was 30 minutes to an hour drive from the workshop in Kumasi!!  Also very convenient being so close to a major city, market, and Peace Corps office.  Even better, my site is a 30 minute walk to Lake Bosomtwe, which is the only natural lake in Ghana formed by a meteor long long ago.  It is an absolutely gorgeous place to spend the next two years, and even though I didn't get placed on the beach I still have a body of water at my fingertips!! YAY!!  Too bad PC won't let me swim in it.  Oh well.

          A little on my school and my site: The school is called St. George's Senior High School.  It is a private Catholic school with only about 213 students and is currently in a very deprived state of function.  In my opinion it is the ideal school for a Peace Corps volunteer.  Since it is private, there is no government financial assistance.  The only money coming in is from the students' school fees and the generosity of NGO's and other philanthropic societies, but they are few and far between.  It is a poor farming community so it is a challenge to even get the students to pay the school fees.  The teachers sometimes don't even get paid, and even though it is a boarding school, the headmistress has a hard time just paying for enough food for the students.  There is an "ICT Lab" without a single computer, no science lab, and the students don't have textbooks.  The school has only been in operation for three years and because the headmistress wants to help the students in the community, she doesn't have the heart to remove students in debt with school fees.  It is a rough situation and the headmistress is absolutely tickled that I am coming to teach and mentor the students.  It is going to be a serious challenge, but I am very excited to be somewhere that truly needs the help.

          As for the site location and my home, I couldn't be happier.  Many PC teachers live on campus as most schools in Ghana are boarding schools, and I would have been fine with that, but because the school is so small there is no place for me there.  So, I have a whole house to myself!!  AN ACTUAL HOUSE!!!  Right now there is an extra room that someone may move into later but it is all mine for the time being.  It is a 10 minute walk from the school and is being painted and a few final touches in the next few weeks before I return.  Lake Bosomtwe is a huge bonus.  Since it is a big tourist attraction many people, Ghanaians and PC volunteers alike often travel to my village.  So I can expect many visitors and won't get too lonely.  There is also PC volunteer living very close to me, his name is Alex.  He's a 40 minute walk away, and if I thought my digs were good, his are hard to believe.  His front yard IS Lake Bosomtwe and he has a most spacious home with a screened in patio area, and a bathroom with a real shower AND…oh my… A BATHTUB! I wasn't sure those existed outside of hotels in Ghana.  He is also a great carpenter so I hit the jackpot as he has already offered to help me build furnishings for my home.  He also has a little dog named Zora, that needs a playmate, so he is also helping me secure a puppy of my own when I get to site for good.  I can't wait to get my dog!  It is also much easier than I thought to bring him or her back to America with me after service.  I also found that Alex played a pretty crucial role in me actually getting to this site.  He is an Agriculture volunteer, and the headmistress of my school met him and asked if he would please teach a few classes at St. George's.  He couldn't say no, and so the seed was planted in her head to request an actual education volunteer for the school.  This a great help to him since he can focus more on his primary agriculture projects now that I am here.  A crucial tidbit of info for this story: There was a girl that was supposed to be in our training group that just never showed up to staging, maybe she got cold feet, but she was supposed to be with us and just wasn't.  So, when that happened, PC had to cut one of the proposed volunteer sites.  According to my inside sources, my program at St. George's was the school that was initially cut.  Alex caught wind of this and pulled some strings, made some calls, expressed how badly this site needed a volunteer, and played a hand in PC's decision to keep St. George's on the volunteer roster and removed a different school unknown to me.  I am happy this school didn't get cut because it needs all the help it can get.

          A few comical situations presented themselves to me during my site visit.  My headmistress is very happy to have me coming to the school and paraded me around all weekend meeting and greeting people.  It was fun but also a bit exhausting.  The first day I arrived I attended a ceremony for a man named Geret that was being made an honorary chief of a neighboring village.  This is a pretty big deal.  He is from Germany and runs an NGO that has been installing boreholes and toilets/latrines at schools in the area for that last two years.  His organization also offers scholarships for eligible students that takes care of their schools fees and possibly higher education if they do well and graduate.   He put a borehole and toilets in place at my school.  It seems they have been doing a lot for the community.  So I was one of very few, maybe four other white people at the ceremony.  There were maybe a hundred attending, and Geret and his wife were in the very front row, where all the important people should be sitting.  I walked by to shake his hand and a woman just grabbed me and sat me down in one of few empty seats in the front row.  She assumed that since I am white that Geret was my father and I should be sitting there with him.  I felt a little awkward, and got a few awkward looks from Geret, probably wondering why I was sitting there.  He then asked me to be sure there was a place for his son and his wife.  Of course I got up and retrieved his son and his wife at that point.  The only reason I hadn't yet gotten up is because I wasn't sure if it would be rude to be moving around all over the place.  Several people told me on the way out that they respect what my father has been doing for them.  It was an interesting experience.  But, nonetheless, his NGO is doing phenomenal work.  I look forward to possibly spending time with him and learning from his organization when I get to site.

          My favorite experience so far occurred this past Saturday.  My headmistress, Alice Martha Adjei, Martha as she prefers to be called, a lovely and charming woman, requested I join her for the installation of the new Archbishop of Kumasi.  This is also a pretty big deal in the Christian community, not only in Ghana but anywhere, really.  The event was on the news here in Ghana and hundreds of people surrounded the church as the ceremony neared.  Most people that know me know that  I am Agnostic.  I am sure that Christians would be baffled and appalled to find that I have been fibbing and posing as a Christian since arriving in Ghana, and for this I apologize.  But religion is a very big part of Ghanaian culture, and since I am working at a Catholic school and my headmistress is a devout Catholic, I don't want to create any waves by claiming that I have yet to decide what my religious beliefs, if any, consist of.  Anyway, my headmistress assured me that foreigners are highly respected in Ghana, so when we arrived at the basilica in Kumasi she proceeded to push through the gaggle of people that arrived long before we did so we could get a seat in the front.  I am sure everyone there was not happy about this.  She sat me down in an area that was clearly reserved and marked for an affiliated religious group, and we were plucked and moved elsewhere.  This plucking and moving occurred about three times, until she was satisfied with our location, or maybe the church staff grew tired of plucking and moving us and let us remain.  And I must say that I did question our location each time and requested that we should move, but she assured me that it was fine because foreigners are highly respected Ghana.  Haha.  The ceremony lasted almost five hours.  About midway through, all of the nuns present began to form a line to greet the new Archbishop.  There were many nuns from all over the country that travelled to attend the occasion.  Behind the nuns, many other people that were simply spectators also lined up to greet the Archbishop.  Of course, when Martha saw this she requested that I also get in line to greet him.  I obeyed, and since I was so close to the front, she placed me right in the line of nuns.  Also, since I was so close to the front, I was unaware that all of the spectators behind me were being asked to sit back down as only certain people were invited to greet.  I didn't realize this was happening until I was nearing the steps to the altar.  I thought I would draw more attention to myself if I left the line so I reluctantly remained.  It was too late.  There were about five or six current bishops to greet before arriving at the the man of the hour, and I received many blank stares and raised eyebrows as I shook their hands.  I just smiled, said thank you to them all and had a good chuckle to myself about it as I walked back down to my seat.  I was dressed in my Sunday best, but obviously NOT a nun, and secretly not a Christian.  It was great.  Hahaaa!!!!  I have told this story a few times and a few of my fellow volunteers are impressed that I shook the hand of an Archbishop.  It was interesting, to say the least.

          My final mini-story, another of my favorites so far, is not mine, but my friend and fellow volunteer, Peter Vanney's.  Peter has had a wonderful homestay experience.  His host family adores him and he may be the most well integrated volunteer by the end of service as I assume this adoration will follow him at site.  He is great with language, completely comfortable and communicative with people here, and I think he will be a model volunteer.  Anyway, a member of his homestay family recently had a baby.  There was a naming ceremony (I haven't learned about this tradition yet so I can't say much about it) and Peter made a modest donation to the family.  To show their gratitude, they said they wanted to name the baby after him!  It's awesome!  He said it really wasn't necessary, of course, but the family stuck with their word.  So, please join me in welcoming baby 'Kweku Peter Vanney Okyere' to the world.  I absolutely love it.

          I am glad I finally had some time to sit down and write a detailed update! I am very pleased with how things are going so far and certainly hope hope it continues.  I know it will.  But I miss you all and thank you for following my experience with me. I'll close this entry with my favorite cultural differences I have seen in Ghana so far:

           

          Cultural Differences

•    Really long handshakes…a Ghanain might continue to hold your hand for the duration of a conversation

•    There are only Twi (my language) words for the colors red, black, and white (according to my language coordinator)

⁃                     other colors are simply described.  So my eyes are the color of a fresh leaf and my hair is like chicken fat, apparently.  :)

•    Greeting is very important in Ghana, and it may be considered extremely rude and/or disrespectful to not greet whenever meeting people or saying hello.  And greetings are much more elaborate than American standards

⁃                     Don't greet someone holding T-roll (Toilet paper) because you could cause them to miss an important opportunity to relieve themselves and cause an embarrassing situation, if you catch my drift… :)

⁃                     Greeting someone while eating is much shorter, because eating is serious business in Ghana.  If someone is eating, and most food is eaten with the hands, no utensils, you say to them: "Kuta mu!"  Which simply means 'Hold it firm!"  To which the person replies "Mekuta mu!" Confirming that he/she is holding it firm and will not let it get away!  Hahaaa!!  I love this one.

•    Sometimes I go for a jog  in the mornings, and I quickly learned not to say 'I am running' when someone asks where I am going/what I am doing because that would mean to a Ghanaian that I have diarrhea and my poo is running.  I should say 'I am 'training'

•    If you are joking around and saying that someone is 'crazy' or 'silly' it truly implies mental illness and is not used jokingly in Ghana

•    The language is very tonal, and I also quickly learned that the word for 'pull' and 'vagina' are almost identical, with the exception of the tonation.  This will be interesting because sexual terms could make a Ghanaian very uncomfortable….or they will just laugh at you.  :)

•    If someone says "I am coming" it might actually mean they are leaving, and may or may not return quickly.  I still haven't quite figured that one out yet.  But I have used it at the market when trying to get away from an aggressive seller.  I'll say 'Oh, I am coming!", and then walk away. That seems to appease them because they think that I will come back later to buy, but I am really going.

Practicum and other stuff

So I am moving right along with pre-service training.  The last two weeks I completed practicum, which is basically like student teaching.  I was at a beautiful campus with extremely smart and fun students.  Our collaborating Ghanaian teachers offered great criticism and I am happy to have made a lot of improvements from the first lesson I taught.  My biggest problem is that I speak very fast, and have to constantly tell myself to slow my speech as my students are not native English speakers.  And there are some Ghanaian-English terms I have to get used to as well.  The classrooms are basically open air with tin roofs, so if it rains, which is quite frequent, you have to yell or stop.  It's common for students and even teachers to not show up at all if they believe the rain is coming.  Practicum was great but I am ready for the next leg of training as it means I will be closer to getting to site!!

Last Friday we received our language assignments.  The language assignment can give a pretty good estimation of where our placement will be, unless you are assigned Twi, the most widely spoken language, then it could be anywhere.  And I got Twi! So, on Sunday I will know where I will be living permanently.  But most likely it will be in the southern half of Ghana.  Sunday we travel to Kumasi and meet our 'contact-person' which is basically someone in my community that I will work with and my official person to call if I have problems or questions while settling in.  I will get to visit my site next week and note any major issues to my living quarters that need to be fixed before I move there in a little over a month.  Then I will be shadowing a current volunteer teacher somewhere in my region.  This week has consisted of our intro to our language.  My Language facilitator is awesome!  His name is Taj and he was one of the first Ghanaians I met at the beginning of June.  He is a very jovial, encouraging, and entertaining character.  A couple of my good trainee friends are also in my language group so it will be a fun few weeks when we get into it!  We start to really get into language after returning from the two week site visit/shadow period.  As much as I love my fellow trainees I am looking forward to the next to weeks as it will be just little ol' me, other than my trainer and contact person.  I haven't really had any privacy since getting here.

We have been able to do a few fun things the past couple of weeks.  We went on a day-excursion to a place called Boti Falls.  We hiked for a couple hours and took in some beautiful scenery.  We also visited the Cocao Research Institute of Ghana and had some cocao fresh from the trees. This weekend I cooked for my family.  I made fried rice with chicken.  I thought I made way too much but Ghanaians know how to eat and nothing was wasted.  :)  My sisters were very excited to have me cook and rice is commonly eaten during holidays here so it was a treat for them.

Last night we had our volunteer 4th of July celebration.  It was a blast.  We had a pot-luck at our local spot (bar) and I was very impressed with what everyone threw together because the food availability isn't what it is in america to say the least.  I made fried chicken with Sarah and Victoria and it turned out  great!  One volunteer organized a superlative survey and the results were revealed that night.  It was quite entertaining.  Not to my surprise, I was voted 'Best Laugh' and 'Most Likely to Get Lost'.  To my surprise, however, with a landslide I was also voted 'Most Likely to be Removed from the Country at the Request of the Ghanaian Government'.  Hahaaaa!!!!  I am sure that it was due to my sarcasm and warped sense of humor, and I am pretty open with my opinions as well.  A few volunteers have even coined the nickname 'PC April' standing for Politically Correct April (not to be mistaken for Peace Corps April); also due to my often inappropriate but nonetheless good natured humor.  Always said with the best intentions.  :-D

As usual, I am short on time.  I will write an extensive blog soon with all the things I have loved and laughed at so far, and will eventually get some pictures up here.  I have so much more to say!!!