Pictures: Reverse Chronological Order

This only shows about 1/8 of the boat, but there's the navigators and a view of the White Volta river


Beth about to chomp into a very scary fish caught from the river


Afayili community members engaged in the Risk Game after learning the basics about HIV


Sadiq helping Liz and Lizzy teach the Afayili health volunteers games to use as tools to teach others about HIV


The Bee Camp crew with their three completed bee hives, one wood box hive and two clay pot hives


Sadiq, Faisa, and I dressed nicely for Eid Al-Fitr, the holiday at the end of Ramadan


One clinic building after the masonry and carpentry were finished. Kinda hard to see, but there are some new roofing sheets, many cracks fixed, and an apron built around the building, with additional work done inside.


A few guys from the community helping out by mixing cement on the veranda


The two masons working and a JHS kid, Okasha, who was awesome and helped out everyday

Boat Trip!

We finally did the boat trip! Some people said they had never heard of this boat trip until my last entry, so here's a summary of the planning process. We were talking about copying an HIV boat trip that was done on the lake since like our first month at site. We originally planned to do the trip in May, at the end of the hot season, but getting approval turned out to be an incredibly difficult process. When we finally got approval, in September, we got moving quickly. The trip officially started on Nov. 7th and finished Nov. 16th. I would call it a very successful trip by Peace Corps standards.

We started in Nawuni (GOD) and hit ten to twelve villages (depending how you count it) on the way to Yapei. The boat was way bigger that I thought it was going to be. I would say it was a 50ft wooden boat clearly made for transporting goods more than people because it had no seats, just planks going across. It had twin outboard engines and went about as fast as I used to like tubing when I was little, which if you know what a chicken I was as a kid, you'll know is pretty slow. It was great to be on a boat on the water though!

To give all the details on the trip would take forever, so I'll give a synopsis of what we did and try to highlight a few good points. In general, in each village we split up the community education and health volunteer education. Each village has about 4 health volunteers who we trained more in depth on HIV and we gave them a kit with games to teach about HIV and a wooden penis to do condom demonstrations. We also gave them four boxes of 144 condoms to sell so they could buy more and always have condoms available in the communities. We taught the community about the basics of HIV, played a game with them, and did a condom demonstration. At the same time, we hired nurses to come do free HIV testing and had an excellent turnout for that. Then we gave them a movie about family planning and HIV that they could watch in the evening.

I guess I should explain the ten to twelve villages thing, since I should probably have an exact number for the villages we went to. We planned to go to ten villages, and although we made some changes along the way, our goal of ten exactly never changed. Apparently some villages on the water are named after the bigger village they are near that is inland. So, when we were told we were going to Wala, for example, the nurses thought we were going to the inland one and we though we were going to the riverside community. Luckily for the first few this got sorted out before we went and we didn't have problems. However, things got interesting in the last few villages. We did one village without testing because the nurses wouldn't test on a Sunday, or so we thought, but they called us while we were doing the education saying they were in the next village and where were we. So we were off by a day with the nurses there, no problem, they would test Sunday and we would educate Monday. Monday, we show up to what we think is Tedrope, but when asking how to spell the name of the village, Kim finds out we're at the fishing camp. We were already into the education and couldn't stop then, so when we finished with the fishing camp we walked the mile or so to Tedrope and did the education again. That adds one village, so we're going for eleven at this point. The next day, the nurses were supposed to meet us in Kito. At 7:30am we get a call from them that they are on their way. We were already in Kito. We started the education... finished the education... ate lunch... where are the nurses? We finally left around 2 and never saw the nurses. Later the nurses talked to Kim and said they came but the village hadn't seen us. I'm curious what village they actually went to, because it clearly wasn't the Kito we were in. So I guess that makes twelve.

Now, I'll throw in a few funny tidbits. First, when you spend 10 days in close quarters with a few friends, you run out of normal topics to talk about. By the end, we were challenging each other to do monologues on things like packaging materials, going to the latrine, chilean mines, and other random stuff. "Julie Goes to the Latrine" was apparently the best monologue, but I unfortunately was going to the latrine at the time. We somehow got obsessed with asking questions about "if you were stuck in a chilean mine..." and saying who you would want there (choosing celebrities, PCVs), what meal, book, movie, song you would want if you could only have one for the whole time, etc. Basically, I think we went a little crazy but we're better friends for it.

At one point I got an eye infection and luckily was in a town with a pharmacy so I got eyedrops. No problem, but the funny part was... the same day I got the eyedrops I was playing with the cat that belonged to the PCV whose house we were in and I noticed the cat's eye was swollen shut too. So, being the kind person I am, I shared my eyedrops with the cat. I don't think she appreciated it as much as she should have but her eye was much better later. My friends like to say I gave the cat the eye infection, but I like to say the cat gave it to me. Either way, I think I shared a disease with the cat.

Along the way, most of the villages were very small, some had less than 100 people. And being small villages in the middle of nowhere, they did not have toilets. We anticipated this and brought a hoe with us to dig and bury when we had to go. So, around the 3rd village, I finally had to go. I wasn't sure where exactly to go, so I asked a girl and she grabbed the hoe and walked me to a nice clearing out of site. Then she proceeded to dig the hole for me and walk about 30 feet away to wait. I went while three other kids went about 10 feet away from me at the same time. Then, I asked for the hoe so I could bury it myself (I thought that was the polite thing to do). Unfortunately, I broke the hoe in the process and the girl had to come back and fix the hoe and finish burying for me. It was slightly awkward. I know I tell too many poop stories on here, but that's a good one, you have to admit.

Those are the funniest stories I can think of at the moment, but if you want more stories see my friend Kim's blog: ghanakimsuri.blogspot.com. I'm not sure if she updated it yet, but she will soon and it will be pretty detailed.

Long over-due update

Sorry I've been bad about updating my blog. I tried to put pictures of the clinic on here a while ago, but the internet wasn't working well or something. Anyway, things are going pretty well. The work on the clinic has started, but this is going to be a long process. The masonry and carpentry work is almost done, and the district came to look at it and made an estimate of the costs of painting and wiring. The village is very happy that we are working on this, but all of us are worried about how long the district will take for their part. I will put pictures up here soon, I promise.

Other than that, I spent the last week in the Upper West region learning about bee-keeping. It was really interesting and bee-keeping is much easier than I thought. Its requires very little work and the starting costs are not too high. I'm hoping to bring this to my village, but have not worked out the details yet on how I'll do that. Even if I don't get to do it in my village though, if the economy is still so bad when I get home from Peace Corps I can just be a bee-keeper there, right?

Last thing for work... I think I mentioned a boat trip that we are planning a long long time ago on here. Well, after months of thinking it wouldn't happen, it seems like it really is going to happen. We are planning on starting on Nov. 7 and finishing Nov. 18. The planning process has been a lot of work, but the trip seems like it will be really good.

Apart from work, life has been pretty normal here. However, I did celebrate my birthday a little. In Mid-September, we had a gathering at the Tamale office where some friends made chicken parmesan for my friend Lizzy and I. Lizzy's birthday was August 30, so we chose the halfway point to celebrate both. It was a pretty laid back time, but all of our good friends were there and we had a great dinner! On my actual birthday I had work to do to plan for the boat trip. That work included going to a village called Nawuni, which means God, where we are going to start the trip. In this village there's a huge water pump in the river that pumps water out to be purified and used as pipe water for the whole region. It was cool to see, but mostly I just like saying I went to God and saw the water of life on my birthday. They also have an area of the river where they bring people who are accused of crimes but deny it. In this area, they have a ju-ju man come and perform a ceremony type thing with a shrine to see if the person is guilty. If the man says the person is guilty and the person still denies it, they send the person into the river to bath. If the person is really innocent, nothing will happen and they come back out and go home. If the person is really guilty though, a crocodile will come and take them away. They also do this for women accused of being witches.

The day after my birthday, I decided to slaughter a chicken and make fajitas as my birthday dinner. My counterpart and I slaughtered the chicken and I made delicious fajitas with veggies from my garden. Another plus, the chicken was a hen and she was about to lay an egg, so I got an egg from inside the chicken. It was delicious the next day. See the fun adventures you can have in Ghana?

Girls Camp and Wedding

I've had a long, but good, two weeks. We just had our Girls Leadership Camp in my district. I don't remember if I wrote about this much before, but it was a week long camp for junior high school (JHS) girls in my district. We asked the headmaster of each village JHS (we didn't include the four town JHS's) in the district to have the 5 best girls from their school apply. Then we chose 3 or 4 from each school to attend, for a total of 50 girls. It was an overnight camp at the senior high school (SHS) in our district capital. We also had 6 SHS girls come as mentors and leaders for the JHS girls. So, we spent 3 days buying stuff and preparing for the camp, then 3 days of training of trainers (meaning we trained the SHS girls), then the 6 day camp.

At the camp, we played a lot of teamwork games, which were fun and funny. Since there is no concept of personal space here, some of the games were extra funny and slightly violent. We also did HIV, STI, hygiene, and budgeting education. Finally, we did lots of leadership and goal setting stuff. We had pretty much every minute of every day from 7am to 9pm scheduled. This camp was started by peace corps volunteers last year and I think its one of the best projects we've done in our district. The change in these girls just throughout the week is huge. The first day they were too shy to volunteer to speak and most of them spoke quietly with their head down. Then everyday they were more confident and energetic. By the end of the camp I think there were maybe two girls left who were still looking at the ground while talking. I was especially happy that one of the girls from my school was always the first one with her hand up to volunteer to read something out loud.

We also brought 4 career women to come and speak to the girls about how they got to where they are and to motivate the girls to set high goals for themselves. It was fun for me to go and find the women to come and speak and then see how the girls reacted. I think they really liked it. We tried to get women from a variety of jobs, so there was a university professor, restaurant owner/carter center worker, orphanage owner, and tie-and-die woman. When I was going around asking for people to come it was really nice to see how people were happy to do it. I was trying to get a banker (which failed because the camp was during open bank hours) and got sent to the highest manager in every bank I went to and they were all very interested if it had been on a weekend.

Apart from the girls camp, I went to a wedding yesterday of a peace corps volunteer who married a man from her town. It was a nice wedding at the church in her town. There were a few hundred people who came and there was tons of singing and dancing during the ceremony. Not at all like the weddings I've been to in the US. She looked beautiful and although I hadn't met her husband before, he seems very nice. After the wedding, a dance troupe in her town put on a performance of many cultural dances from Ghana. That was really cool. Then there was a reception just outside her town and we got a ride back to Tamale from the caterers. Before the wedding, all of us who were going got the same cloth made and had clothes made from it. So we were a big group of white people all wearing the same fabric. Stood out a little I think, haha. It was a lot of fun.

YAY

THANK YOU a thousand times over to those who donated to my clinic renovations! We finally raised all the money and in a few weeks when it gets to my account, we will start the work. My community is going to be ecstatic!

On another work related note, I recently had a health dance in the community. The women have a traditional dance here called the tora-tora. For a couple months now, I've been trying to plan a day to have the tora-tora and have my women's group teach the other women about nutrition and safe drinking water. We had to delay a few times, but finally had the event. I'd say about 200 women and girls came out to dance and we stopped about an hour in to teach them about nutrition. It was a bit chaotic, but the women from the group split up and each talked to a small group of women, using the nutrition handout I made for them as a guide to teach about nutrition. They also talked about the importance of drinking the borehole water over the dam water. Before the event, the women made me promise to dance, so I agreed of course. I dance the tora-tora for about 10 minutes and then they made me stop because I "must be tired". At the end though, they had a session where everyone got in a circle and one person at a time would go in to dance. They made me dance there too, and everyone loved it. Then I made my counterpart dance too (he never dances) and they loved it again. It was a very successful event and I hope to do it again sometime.

Other than that, I've added a fridge to my collection of electronics. I now have ice cold water at my house everyday :). If I put the plastic bottle against the back of the fridge it will even freeze! And, my vegetables last much longer and the lovely things sent from home that are supposed to be refrigerated, like maple syrup and mayonnaise packets, now won't spoil.

Lastly, I've been told to put an updated list of requests for things in packages, so here goes:
pasta sides
freeze dried meals
canned chicken
bacon
cheese packets
parmesan cheese
seasoning packets (like chili seasoning and those things)
maple syrup
cookies
chocolate
candy

Things not to send:
mayonnaise packets (they're good, but I have plenty)
canned chicken or tuna salad (plain chicken and tuna are great, but the canned salads aren't so great)

As always, I miss everyone at home and hope you are all doing well. Thanks again for donating to my clinic project and for all the packages I've received.

Fans!!!

After my electrician took three days for this father's funeral, as is the muslim tradition, he came back and finished the job. I had a meeting in another village while he was doing the work, but he apparently had to crawl around in my ceiling a lot and spent about 3 or 4 hours working on my messed up wiring. But, when I got home, I had working fans and lights!!! I never gave fans enough credit when I was home. They are the most amazing things in the world! It's sooo nice to sleep under a ceiling fan now. The lights attract bugs, but are useful sometimes, but its the fans that I am incredibly grateful for.

Also, Nicole asked about my garden. Well, we planted some yams, corn, and carrots, but after a very windy night, the goats got into my garden and ate the corn that had started growing. So, I think we'll have to replant the corn, but I have high hopes. We are also nursing tomatoes, peppers, and onions, but that isn't going great either. I think the onions won't make it but maybe the tomatoes and peppers will be okay.

Finally, thanks for all the clinic donations so far! Only about $1,000 to go. You guys are great, keep spreading the word about it.

LIGHTS!!!

That's right, I finally got electricity! On wednesday evening they came and hooked up the electricity on my village. I've never seen my community so excited. The MP (Member of Parliament) for my district came for the event and gave a little speech on the night that they hooked it up and then the whole village ran back to their houses to see if their lights were working. Most of them were, but since then, there has been a steady stream of electricians flowing through the village fixing problems with people's wiring. Since my house was wired over 5 years ago and has been sitting in poor shape since, I was worried as I walked back to find out if everything was working. Let me tell you, I had reason to worry. Unfortunately, only one light in my house works and it is the outside security light. And, none of my fans work. All of my outlets seem to be working though.

The first electrician that came to look at it said he would have to enter the ceiling to find the problem but he thought he was too heavy and would break the ceiling (but I'm pretty sure he really just didn't want to dirty his clothes), so he left. The second one wouldn't enter the ceiling that day because of his clothes and it was getting a little late. But, he came back the next day and put on some sweats and climbed all around in my ceiling. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out the exact problem because a pole burned in a nearby village and we didn't have electricity most of that day. In the afternoon, he came back and told us his father had just died and he had to go immediately. So, he will be with his family for a few days and then come back to hopefully finish the job.

Eventually, I hope to have working fans and lights, but for now it is nice to be able to charge my phone and plug things in. Also, in my lack of faith in actually getting lights, I had left most of my electronic stuff and my adaptor in Tamale for when I am here. So, when I get back I will have an adaptor and at least be able to plug in the fan Aunty Cindy sent me, which will make me very very happy.

Back to site and work

The abcess saga has come to an end. I got back to site about a week ago and you'll be very happy to know that my armpit is doing very well. However, the adjustment to life with no lights, AC, or TV was a bit of a struggle. I don't know what it is about TV, but its very addicting and can cause withdrawal when you don't have it anymore.

Luckily though, the rainy season is on its way up here, so the weather is getting a little cooler sometimes. This is also a love/hate thing for me though, cause I hope for rain everyday and when it doesn't come, which is most of the time, I am disappointed again. But, since it is coming, I am starting a garden outside my house. My counterpart has been working very hard on building a fence around the area so that goats and sheep won't come in and destroy the garden and I just bought seeds in Tamale. I bought tomato, onion, carrot, and pepper seeds and also plan to grow a little bit of corn. I'm debating buying lettuce seeds too, but we'll see how much room I have in this garden. I am also not sure that I have a green thumb. Judging by how well I took care of my Ivy plant in college (it died in a week), I might not, but I did keep couple other plants alive for my last two years of college. So, this could be really awesome or a complete failure, but either way it'll be something to do while everyone is farming in the rainy season. If any of you have good gardening advice though, please do share.

Other than that, I've been continuing with my women's group and I'm trying to work on getting the boreholes in my community fixed (we are down to 1 of 6 working). I'm also working with some people to plan a girl's leadership camp for August, which we just wrote the proposal for. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to my clinic so far! We have raised about $700 already and I'm told that people are still working on it at home and sending in checks. You guys are awesome, thanks!

Clinic Renovations

I just sent in my final copy of my proposal for money to fix my clinic on Friday, and guess what? Its already on the website so people can donate to it! If you haven't heard about this already, it means you are not on my email list and you're not my facebook friend. I just found out that the request was on the website yesterday and today I found out we already raised $600! Keep up the good work everyone. If you haven't donated yet, or want more information to decide if you want to donate, go to this website:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-295

Overall, when the clinic opens it will become the closest clinic for people in 15 villages. That means you'd be helping about 11,000 people. As soon as I raise all the money, we'll start the repairs and hopefully get the clinic running this year. Also, by donating to this project, you know exactly where your money is going. All the money donated goes directly to my project and I will oversee all the work so that I can make sure all the money is spent wisely.

That's my exciting news for now. Other than that, I'm still in Accra waiting for my abcess to heal. Its almost healed now and I should be leaving on Tuesday morning. I'm enjoying the break, but I'm ready to get back, so I hope it continues to heal well and quickly.

Thanks in advance for all your donations!

All Volunteers Conference and Other Nonsense

This week, we had our All Volunteers Conference, where all the PCVs in Ghana got together at a hotel with the Peace Corps staff and had lots of sessions on how we can improve our work and new ideas and all that good stuff. Its being held at a nice hotel in Ho (yes, that is really the name of the city) in the Volta region. We have nice rooms with AC and a pool. Every night has basically been a huge pool party with lots of people ending up in the pool with their clothes on, some willingly and some not. Last night we even had prom. It was a lot of fun. People dressed up either in nice clothes or in ridiculous outfits, including a couple of guys in dresses. Some of the staff even joined us for the festivities and one almost became prom king. Tonight, we have a talent show, which should make for another night of ridiculous fun.

Right now though, I am in Accra because my skin hates Ghana. My skin is always getting irritated here and most recently I developed some absesses in my armpits. If you don't know what they are, they are lumps that form when bacteria enters your hair follicles and your body tries to attack that bacteria. Basically a big pocket of pus forms and sometimes heals itself and sometimes keeps growing until you have a doctor cut it open for you. I am lucky enough to have one that the doctor had to cut open. Even the doctors said it was an impressive one. Not sure if I should be proud of that, but I am a little. The cleaning process was very painful, but I feel much better now and I'm on antibiotics to make sure it heals well and doesn't spread. It was so painful all week that I sometimes avoided the pool and couldn't even dress up for prom (not that I would have gotten too dressed up anyway). I'm glad to have it taken care of and advise everyone to avoid absesses.

So anyway, that is my life recently. I hope I didn't gross out too many people with that story, but I like gross things and thought I should share.

Women's Group

I finally started a women's group in my village. I have wanted to do this for a long time but never knew how to get started. So, I finally decided to just gather some women who are motivated and start a health group with them. I am still trying to figure out how this is going to go and how I can make it sustainable. So far, we have been talking about nutrition and water. I talked about the importance of drinking borehole water over dam water because of parasites and the feces and stuff that get in dam water. I also gave them some colored strips of paper to measure small children's arms to see if they are malnourished. Finally, I talked to them about food groups and the importance of eating energy, protective, and body building foods in every meal. I want to try to have them teach other women some of the things we talk about at baby weighings. They seem to be learning and enjoying the group, but they are discouraged with a lot of the things I tell them because they do not have the money to buy some of the foods that I say they need to eat. Money is a serious issue here, but it is one that I don't have the resources to solve also. We'll see how it goes.

I am also preparing to hand in my proposal for fixing my clinic. I have all the estimates done and am just trying to finish the final copy of the application. So, hopefully soon you will get some information from me asking for donations to fix up our clinic. Other than that, I'm trying to get some projects started, but seem to keep running into clitches. Oh well, it all works out.

Sorry such a short post, but not much has been going on.

Rain Fun

A small group of us came to Tamale yesterday to meet about a boat project we are planning, which I will tell you all about if we can actually do it. However, of course we couldn't only talk about work, so we decided to enjoy St. Paddy's day a little and go out for good food. We went to Sparkle's, a restaurant with American food and decided to try out the recommended pizza. It was delicious, not quite American, pizza. Then, we came back and decided to be even more adventurous and try out the "washing machine" that a volunteer's parents sent her. The day was pretty overcast, but we decided to go ahead anyway because we wanted to see how this wonder machine would work. It is a small container that you put clothes, water, and soap into and spin around for a couple of minutes to wash your clothes. We weren't sure it would work but decided to try.

In the midst of the first load of laundry, the rain started. It didn't take long for the rain to become very heavy. So, there were 3 of us outside spinning this little washing machine in the pouring rain, pointlessly wringing out the clothes before hanging them in the pouring rain. Part of the way through this process, I decided it was a good idea to bathe in the water coming off the roof instead of taking a shower and someone else suggested we wash our hair in it. So, we got my shampoo and bathed (with our clothes on) and washed our hair in the water running off the roof of the house. Our smart friend who was inside brought us towels so we could take off the dripping clothes before going inside. Overall, I think it was all good decisions and would highly recommend bathing in the rain. Also, it seems the clothes were clean today, so the miracle machine works.

Life in Ghana is slow

I last said I wanted to hit the ground running after training, and I guess I have at least hit the ground trotting. Since I got back to site, I have started looking into our clinic and what needs to be done to get it openned. The buildings need a lot of work. Parts of the ceiling need to be replaced, doors need to be replaced, locks, window panes, the latrine needs to be completely rebuilt, and the place needs to be cleaned worse than any place I have ever stepped foot into. There were so many bugs that the keyholes in the locks were stuffed with bugs and we couldn't get the keys in some of them, which was fine because the keys actually don't work anyway. However, all this work is do-able if I can just get the money. So, I'm working on that now. We're going to the District Assembly monday to see how they can help. I'll keep you all updated on if and how you can help too. Hopefully this will be my big project. I'll be really excited if we can get the clinic up and running this year. Its sad that they've had these buildings for like 6 years and they've gone unused and therefore unmaintained.

Other than that, not much is going on. I'm happy to be back, but the hot season has officially arrived and it is pretty miserable. My friend just checked the weather report for today and said "not bad, its only 106 today". I've now taken to sleeping in my hammock on my porch. It's not too bad when I do that. The hammock is amazing, I kinda want to sleep in it all year. Only about 2 more months of this and then the lovely rainy season comes and I can start a garden.

I almost forgot about the crazy rain. Right now, it is the dry season and has been since like November. So, theoretically, we shouldn't have rain until like April/May. However, one night about two weeks ago we got this crazy rainstorm. An RPCV, Peter, was visiting me at the time, and in the afternoon we were like "it looks like it'll rain, but that's impossible in February". Then it started sprinkling and I stood out in it and enjoyed every drop, thinking that was all that would happen. Then it started pouring! I stood out in that til I was soaked and until the wind was so hard that the droplets stung my skin. When all the Ghanaians ran into their houses, Peter and I stayed out on my porch to watch in amazement and enjoy the storm. However, in our enjoyment, Peter went in my room for a minute and said "does it usually leak in your room?" I went in to see the damage, because it doesn't usually leak in my room, and there was a huge puddle on my floor and the same in my kitchen. After I close the windows tighter, it stopped the leak and then I soaked up half a bucketful of water from my bedroom floor. I waited til the next day to sweep the water out of the kitchen.

We were not the only ones to suffer from the rain though. Since it is the dry season, it is also the season to build mud houses. A lot of people had been building houses or molding blocks to build houses or building new rooms on their houses. They were all taking their time since the dry season was not even close to over. So, this surprising rain was extra devistating. It destroyed all the blocks and many of the rooms that were already built. So, everyone who was building had to either make repairs or start all over. I felt really bad for them, but they all took it in stride and just started over the next day. I've noticed they are working faster this time though so another surprise rain can't come and destroy it again. I love the carefree attitude Ghanaians take for a lot of things. Something like this would upset Americans for weeks, to the point that I would avoid some people until the anger passed, but Ghanaians were laughing about it the next day. I hope I can take that attitude home with me.

Madelyn Marie Caron Pictures

Big sister Emma

The newest member of Julie's family! Madelyn Marie Caron born while we were visiting January 17th at 3:12am 9lbs 2oz.

Mom's Visit and Life Since

As you have all heard already, Sheryl and my mom had a wonderful time while they were here (or at least I hope they were telling the truth). I was a little nervous that they would have trouble dealing with the inconveniences in Ghana, but for every ridiculous setback they put on a happy face and said "this'll make a good story". I was very happy to have them here and thoroughly enjoyed living in Ghana on an American budget for 2 weeks. However, readjusting to no AC or fans at my house was not the easiest. Since they already told most of their stories on here, I'm going to move on now.

Since they left, I hung out at site and relaxed for a while. I also went to the District Health Office and found out the reason we don't have nurses in our clinic is that the buildings are not up to par, so I hope that will be my firs big project. I also visited my friend Kim for her birthday and ate delicious chocolate cake she made for herself. I was a good friend and made her a gift bag out of the stuff my mom brought when she came. I think the crummy yo-yo was the highlight of the package.

Now, I am at in service training (IST) in Kumasi. We've been here since Sunday, having workshops all day everyday. These workshops have been very useful though and are motivating, so I hope to hit the ground running when I get back. We finally learned about funding and other projects we can do. We also have our counterparts with us, so now they have a better idea of what their role is and the things we can do. I'm excited about the new opportunities for projects.

IST is also fun because it is the first time the whole WatSan group has gotten together since training and its great to see everyone. We're having fun hanging out and coming up with t-shirt ideas to make just for fun. I personally think we have the best group of all the sectors, so this has been a really fun week. After, I'm going to visit my homestay family, which I am also excited about.

I miss all of you and hope all is well at home. Give Madelynn and William hugs and kisses for me and send lots of pictures of them, not just in email, I want pictures of babies on my wall!

More pictures from our visit!

Our gift of a rooster from the Chief, dinner for tomorrow!

Our gift from Sadiq's family dinner for tonight!

A walking safari at Mole' National Park above are 3 of the 8 elephants that we saw.

Julie holding the beautiful baby from across from her home.

She's 3 months old and adorable !

Pictures from Ghana

A small number of children who came ot visit on a regular basis they were lots of fun and loved to spend time with us!

This is Julies village "Voggu". The people were very welcoming family is most important and they liked that we went over to see her.

As you can see when we met up with Julie in Tamale Sheryl and I were in Gahnian dress. Julie was not one bit surprised to see us in such attire!

Our first Ghanian food and drink

Red Red a very popular and tasty meal. Fried plantain, beans and fish mmm-mmm-good

This meal was delicious as you can see!

Great beer Star and Club were our usual

We started out splitting a beer but ended up drinking two!!!

This is the before picture above above was the after.

Return from Ghana Adventure

As you can see Sheryl and I have returned home safe and sound! This was the most amazing trip. We had a wonderful time with Julie. She was a fabulous hostess, tour guide, translator and barterer, not to mention fun to travel with. Something we could have never done on our own.
The last time we posted we were at what we call the "Garden of Eden"( Four Villages Inn) in kumasi. We went to a museum and art center there. We also med Guillermo one of Julies Peace Corps. We had lunch at a restaurant and had hoped to have some Ghanian food but to our surprise they did not serve ghanian food on Sundays!!! We stayed two nights at the inn and loved it there.
As we continued south we saw a significant change in landscape, weather, dress and culture. The more south we went the more developed and modern it was. Don't misunderstand not at all modern compared to our standards but more than the north where many places still did not have water or electricity.
On Monday we were able to take an STC bus to Cape Coast the best mode of transportation we used our entire stay. It was air conditioned and even played a movie! What a treat!!!
We stayed at a friend of Julies at Cape Coast, Nancy. She is a teacher at a school for the deaf and blind. She did have water and electricity another treat. We had a great time at Cape Coast. That is where we experienced our first" trotro". That would be a van with bench seats in which they fit as many people as possible in. No air conditioning of course. Unlike Julies village they don't put luggage and people on the top but fill it up as much as possible.
We went to Kakum National Park where we did the canopy walk a bridge built on the top of trees in the rain forest it was fabulous! We also went to a monkey sanctuary a place where a couple take in animals who are in need of shelter they had many kinds of monkeys, cats (not kitty cats) snakes, and a few more I can't think of oh yes crocodiles and turtles.
From Cape coast we headed to Accra. We were at the bus station at 6:15 am as we were told we could definately get tickets on the 7 oclock bus.
But as usual there were no tickets the second bus had broken down and the other one was already full when it left the previous location. Julie suggested we take a trotro and we did. Once again it was quite an adventure.
We stayed in a very nice hotel in Accra with a pool and had a relaxing comfortable day. After dinner the Shukans pick us up and we had a very nice visit with them. This is Julies pediatricians son and his family they have invited Julie to stay with them whenever she is in Accra it has been great.
Overall our trip was amazing. The Ghanian people were wonderful . Our flight back was uneventful. We met many interresting people throughout our trip. Maryellen and Michael picked us up in New York. It's good to be back. My shower and bed were wonderful. Not to mention some american food like cold milk and yogurt.
We kiss you Julie thank you for a wonderful visit and sharing your experience with us.

Continution of Sheryl and Gail's trip

Since we last posted we have had a few more adventures! Julie and I got up at 3:45am and took a taxi to the metro station (nothing like you have ever seen!) to purchase tickets for Mole Natl Park that day. You can't buy them a day ahead of time and the station was very very crowded. They had told Julie that they started selling at 4am. However you have to understand that they were talking Ghanian time. The lady showed up at 6am. Julie was second in line for 2 hours. We purchased our paper tickets for the 1:30 bus and went back to the hotel We did get some bofrut( donut like food that a woman was cooking on the side of the road.So it wasn't a wasted trip. In the meantime Sheryl and Julies friend Beth were at the hotel. Sheryl was getting a little nervous at how long it was taking.
We arrived at the station at 1:30since Julie said it's always late and as usual she was right. We left at 4pm and arrived at the park at 8pm. We had dinner and took quick showers since the water was going off at 10pm. Nezt morning wentona walking safari. It was a dream come true. First thing we saw was an elephant, right in front of us. Then all of a sudden there were 3! UNBELIEVABLE! We saw baboons, warthogs, crocodiles,and many kinds of antelope. Just amazing.
Next morning left at 4a.m. (standard time for busses in Ghana and arrivedat 9 a.m. to our destination filthy, sweating, exhausted. Along the way we were stopped at customs and had 20-25 boxes of DVDs & home sound systems confiscated, then we ran into an accident between 2 trucks which held us up again. Really too much to tell.
We finally arrived at our wonderful bed & breakfast. It is our garden of eden after our bout in hell> Hot water, air conditioning, comfortable bed, not to mention absolute beautiful rooms.

Had a wonderful day in Kumasi today. Will keep you posted on our future adventures.

Update on Sheryl and Gail's trip to Ghana

We arrived in Accra safe and sound. The flight was very nice and uneventful. It was a difficult city to get around in but we managed to get to our hotel walk around Osu area and immediately were bombarded by the market people following us around and trying to get us to buy things. That was a bit annoying so we returned to our hotel for a while and went out again to purchase our tickets to Tamale. At the ticket office we met a lovely woman from Tamale who told us where we should go in Accra and she also owned a hotel in Tamale which is where we are staying tonight and it is very nice.
Back to Accra we went to a museum, and art centre then walked around a bit and went to a restaurant on the beach and tried our first Ghanian food which was very good. We may have had a couple of beers while we were there.
The flight to Tamale was great but we had to leave the hotel at 4:30am to board at 5:45. That taxi ride was eventful but will take too long to tell you about.
Julie met us at 7:10 am what a great sight!! We went to her village and stayed there for 5 wonderful days. the people were very welcoming in fact for the first three days we constantly had people coming by to greet us and give us Ghanian food. I must confess we thought we would take to it better than we did especially since Julie likes so much of it. Well we didn't but we tried.We were also welcomed by the children anywhere from 1 to 20 at a time. They were lots of fun they entertained us as much as we entertained them. They are beautiful!
Staying at the village was a wonderful experience we survived no electricity or running water. Julie and her village people cetainly made up for that.
We were given gifts from the family of Julies counterpart Sadiq and from the Chief. Sadiq's family gave us a guinea fowl and the Chief gave us 4 yams and a rooster. So what do you think we did with them. We had already slaughtered the guinea fowl and had started preparing it for dinner that night so we had to tie up the rooster in the other room for the next day. It kept up a constant dialog with the guinea fowls and roosters outside. But we did prepare it and had it for dinner the next night and it was delicious!!! We didn't name him!!
It;s late and we have many stories to tell. This is an amazing experience so far. We are off to Mole natl park in the morning.
We are all safe and happy.. Sheryl and Gail

Waiting for Mom and Sheryl and Fire Festival

I'm in Tamale now, waiting impatiently for tomorrow morning when my mom and sheryl get here. They arrived safely in Accra and called me from the hotel this morning. I hope they enjoyed their day in Accra and didn't get ripped off too many times for cabs and whatnot. They arrive in Tamale around 7:15 tomorrow morning and I will be at the airport waiting eagerly. Then in the afternoon we will leave for Mole National Park and see the animals. On Monday we'll make our way to my site and stay there for a while. Then we'll make our way south back to Accra, seeing Kumasi on the way. More details will come, I'm sure, but I've changed the plans too many times so far to think they won't change again.

As for my life recently, there was a great festival a couple of days after christmas, well named as the Fire Festival. The history of this festival is that a long time ago the chief's son was lost and the village all went out looking for him at night and carried torches for light. After a long time of searching, they found him up in a tree and they were so excited they had a celebration. So, now every year they have this celebration where the traditionalists sacrifice animals during the day to get "juju" from them that will protect them from any harm. At night, everyone dresses with their juju items and carries torches. They parade down the street with their torches, burning everything and everyone (not badly) on the way, and throw the torches into a tree outside the village. Somehow, the tree does not catch fire and all the grass that catches burns out without spreading to houses or anything. Then, they pick fresh branches from another tree and carry them to the cheif's house and other leaders houses. At those houses, people have made concoctions that they sprinkle/pour on the villagers while the villagers dance and people play the drums. The next day you are supposed to boil water with the leaves from the branch that got concoction on it and bath with that water so that you will be protected for the year. It was a ton of fun and dangerous at the same time.

Before the fire part of the festival, I watched some traditionalists sacrifice chickens for the juju. For the first chicken, they did a chant and cut its throat and dripped the blood onto they're juju items. For the second chicken, they did a chant, cut its throat, and let it flop around to see how it landed. Depending how it landed it may or may not give them juju. However, I think they told the chicken to get me before they killed it because when it was flopping, it kept landing on my feet and when I would hop out of the way it would turn towards me and land on my feet again. I couldn't get away from the thing. So, I had some chicken blood on my feet and leg and had a dying chicken flopping all over me. I think I must have extra juju for that.


Sorry it's a blurry picture, but its hard to get pics of people and fire at night while walking. But this is the parade of people about to throw the torches into the tree.


This is the traditionalists bleeding the chicken onto their juju items.

Off to Ghana for a visit

Sheryl and I are leaving for Accra tomorrow at 4:35pm and should arrive 7:35am on Friday morinig their time. They are 5 hours ahead of us so the trip is about 10 hours. We are Sooooooooo excited and will try to post a couple of time if possible. We will meet up with Julie on Saturday morning in Tamale. Should be interresting, adventurous, exciting, emotional and a great experience. I understand many of the people in the village are going to prepare ghanian food for us. Once again should be interresting. I figure if Julie can eat it I certainly can because she is much more fussy than Sheryl and I. In fact we'll probably like it.
If your reading the blog please comment even to say hi Julie loves to hear from you!!