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.