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!!!