I have officially finished at site and am on my way to Accra to close out my service. The last few weeks at site had some exciting developments.
First, we finished building my women's agro-processing/shea butter processing facility and had a one week training on how to use the machines. Now, the women are the proud owners of their own grinding mill and they have my counterpart's younger brother working there everyday so they can earn some income and pay the lights bill. People come everyday to grind their various crops and to make shea butter. The women have also used it to produce a lot of shea butter as a group and hopefully the man who did the training is going to set them up with some buyers for the shea butter. In the beginning of this project I was worried because I had heard from other volunteers that women don't like to use these machines because they see making shea butter as a social event, but that is totally a lie. One of the machines churns the butter for you, which is typically done tediously by hand, and people have been coming to use it all the time. This is the one that I was told would never be used. I think either I have a progressive village or the other volunteers didn't have proper training for their groups and therefore the women didn't know the value of this machine. We've already had some problems with the machines, but we're working on it and making progress. As the villagers say, everything is tough in the beginning but soon things will be running smoothly. It also helps that the machines are under warranty for the first six months, so we can call for assistance when we have problems.
Second, the district finally got their act together and almost finished up the work at the clinic. They got the painters out there and they did a nice job painting the buildings inside and out. They also sent the electricians out, who did half of the wiring and then took a break for a couple weeks, but they finally got out to finish. I managed to get some furniture and basic medical supplies, like scales, stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and thermometers for the clinic. After all of this was done, the only things left were installing some mosquito netting and connecting the electricity. Those still need to be done, but because I am leaving now they decided to open the clinic before those were finished. So, we had an awesome opening ceremony this past Monday. There were representatives there from the district assembly, district health office, subdistrict health office, and nearby villages. The man who originally built the clinic was even there and since he is a well known political figure he invited TV Africa to film the event. Most of my village and the chief and leaders of a neighboring village all came out to celebrate the opening. It was a long ceremony in which many people gave speeches mostly thanking me and encouraging the village to support the clinic. There was even a break for drumming and dancing in the middle of the ceremony. As thank you gifts for me, the village and my women's group each gave me local clothes to wear, so I had two costume changes during the ceremony to show off my new garbs. After the first costume change, into nice traditional cloth, they told me I had to go greet the chief and led me out there with the drummers. I sort of danced my way to the chief and squatted to greet him and was shocked when he told me they were enskinning me as a CHIEF! They made me the Malititinaa, or the chief who helped them. This is a huge honor and I did not expect it at all. Since the ceremony was in my honor, they also made me dance in front of everyone as they put money on my head to show they liked my dancing (no, not like a stripper). Unfortunately though, all that money goes to the drummers. At the end of the ceremony we made the chief the first patient and the nurses checked his blood pressure. They also held a baby weighing after the ceremony so all the babies in the village and nearby villages were weighed and received their vaccinations. That was definitely one of my best days in the village and such a relief to actually have that project become a success.
The last big thing that happened was my replacements came to visit the site. I am being replaced by a nice married couple, the husband being a natural resource management volunteer and the wife a health, water and sanitation volunteer like me. I hung out with them for the first two days of their visit and introduced them to my women's group, who the husband will be working with. I showed them around a bit, but then left for the rest of the week so they could get to know the site on their own and not be in my shadow. I'm excited for them to continue my work, but its weird introducing people who are going to replace you and be compared to you all the time.
Yesterday I left my site for good and it had mixed emotions about it. Everyone in the village kept asking why I was going to go home and leave them, so I had to explain a hundred times that my family misses me and I have to go back to school. I was very sad about saying goodbye to all of my friends, but I'm ready to come home. Two years was a good amount of time and I think I did good work, but home is definitely calling. Now onto closing my service in Accra, a short trip to Togo and Benin, and then home on August 16th!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Things forgotten in last post
I forgot to update you all on some developments in my village and on my end of service plans.
We'll start with the village developments. For the past six months or so, UNICEF has been working in my village to mechanize our borehole. That means they installed a pump in one of the boreholes and installed pipes that lead to six polytanks spread throughout the village. They connected the pump to large solar panels to power it. So, now instead of walking like a mile to the borehole and waiting an hour in line to fetch water, the women can go to the tank closest to them in the village and fetch water there. Its closer, faster, and easier because they don't have to hand pump it either, just open the faucet. This is a great development and I'm hoping that the ease of fetching this water will encourage them to drink it too instead of the damn water which carries diseases.
Since I came to Voggu, I've been told that the village leaders were working towards opening the Voggu market. This was literally mentioned in my first meeting with the chief in August 2009. For a long time I thought it was just something they talked about and not something they'd actually achieve since the market had been closed for like thirty years. To my pleasant surprise, they opened the market about a month ago. We now have a market every six days in the field right across from my house. It's a HUGE improvement for the village. Not only does it bring income to the villagers, but it makes life so much easier now that they don't have to travel to get to a market every week.
So, since I came to Voggu, they have gotten electricity, a mechanized borehole, and a market. My replacement is going to be so lucky! And, if you all say a few prayers for my work, the clinic should be open before I leave. The district finally got their act in gear and have delivered the paint and should start painting tomorrow.
That's it for my village, not onto my returning home plans... I'm sorry to say that I will not be returning home. I didn't tell everyone, but I have had a Ghanaian boyfriend here throughout my service and I want to stay and marry him in November. We'll stay in Ghana for a few years at least and decide where to live after that.
Just kidding! I hope I tricked at least one person with that. I will officially be coming home on August 16th. I finish my service on August 3rd and will travel in Togo and Benin again before flying out. Once home, I will hightail it to Vermont and relax by the lake with some sailing and kayaking. Then, I will head back to Springfield to go to STCC and fulfill a couple prereqs before applying to grad school. I can't wait to see all of you when I get home!
We'll start with the village developments. For the past six months or so, UNICEF has been working in my village to mechanize our borehole. That means they installed a pump in one of the boreholes and installed pipes that lead to six polytanks spread throughout the village. They connected the pump to large solar panels to power it. So, now instead of walking like a mile to the borehole and waiting an hour in line to fetch water, the women can go to the tank closest to them in the village and fetch water there. Its closer, faster, and easier because they don't have to hand pump it either, just open the faucet. This is a great development and I'm hoping that the ease of fetching this water will encourage them to drink it too instead of the damn water which carries diseases.
Since I came to Voggu, I've been told that the village leaders were working towards opening the Voggu market. This was literally mentioned in my first meeting with the chief in August 2009. For a long time I thought it was just something they talked about and not something they'd actually achieve since the market had been closed for like thirty years. To my pleasant surprise, they opened the market about a month ago. We now have a market every six days in the field right across from my house. It's a HUGE improvement for the village. Not only does it bring income to the villagers, but it makes life so much easier now that they don't have to travel to get to a market every week.
So, since I came to Voggu, they have gotten electricity, a mechanized borehole, and a market. My replacement is going to be so lucky! And, if you all say a few prayers for my work, the clinic should be open before I leave. The district finally got their act in gear and have delivered the paint and should start painting tomorrow.
That's it for my village, not onto my returning home plans... I'm sorry to say that I will not be returning home. I didn't tell everyone, but I have had a Ghanaian boyfriend here throughout my service and I want to stay and marry him in November. We'll stay in Ghana for a few years at least and decide where to live after that.
Just kidding! I hope I tricked at least one person with that. I will officially be coming home on August 16th. I finish my service on August 3rd and will travel in Togo and Benin again before flying out. Once home, I will hightail it to Vermont and relax by the lake with some sailing and kayaking. Then, I will head back to Springfield to go to STCC and fulfill a couple prereqs before applying to grad school. I can't wait to see all of you when I get home!
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Long Overdue Update
Sorry for my lack of motivation in updating my blog. For a while it was because nothing was happening here. I spent a couple of months trying to get a grant approved, trying to get the district to do their part for my clinic, and planning another girls leadership camp. At that time, I filled my time with going to the school a lot. Our school received two computers donated by a police commissioner (or something like that) in Accra who was originally from our village. Since there are new computers and I know more about computers than any of the teachers, I offered to help teach the computer classes to students and teachers. It was fun for a while, but the teachers were not very interested and its very hard to teach three classes of 40 students on two computers. Its still great that the school has them though, and I think it will be a big step up for the kids to even have a little time on actual computers before senior high school.
In April, my life suddenly got very busy. First, my grant proposal for an agro-processing plant for my women's group was approved. This is at the risky end of the dry season because it actually had been raining every once in a while, and as you can imagine, mud buildings under construction don't do so well in heavy rains. We lucked out though and my counterpart worked with local builders and the women in the group to build, roof, and plaster the building by the end of April. I also put a deposit on the machines needed and they should be done early next week. The hardest part I think is going to be getting electricity hooked up to the building. I bought the form (yes, you have to buy forms in this country to apply for things) for that yesterday and will try to go through the process as quickly as possible.
Second, we had another Girls Leadership Camp in my district. Kim and I worked with the three new volunteers in our district to hold another camp for 50 outstanding girls in JHS. We had to make a few changes and cutbacks from last year, but it still went very well and I hope the new volunteers will continue the tradition. The girls seemed to really enjoy it.
Third, we had our Close Of Service (COS) conference at the end of April. Our whole training group went and learned how to close out our service while facing the reality that we are leaving in a few months. It was a lot of fun to hang out with friends I haven't seen in a year and to have our whole group together again. It was also probably the most useful Peace Corps conference I've been to. Oh, being at a hotel on a river with a pool wasn't bad either.
Immediately after COS conference we had an All-Volunteer Conference. If you can't tell from the name, all the PC volunteers in Ghana got together for this. I expected it to be insane like last year, but it was actually a fun and fairly relaxed event. We had "informational sessions" as time fillers before the fun events in the evenings, which included a talent show, date auction, and pirates and ninjas themed prom.
After those three busy events in a row, I was happy to go back to site and relax for a bit. And now, I'm in Tamale for an "End of the World" Party. We partied it up last night because, in case you weren't aware, judgement is coming at 6pm eastern time today. So, I hope you all read this before that.
In April, my life suddenly got very busy. First, my grant proposal for an agro-processing plant for my women's group was approved. This is at the risky end of the dry season because it actually had been raining every once in a while, and as you can imagine, mud buildings under construction don't do so well in heavy rains. We lucked out though and my counterpart worked with local builders and the women in the group to build, roof, and plaster the building by the end of April. I also put a deposit on the machines needed and they should be done early next week. The hardest part I think is going to be getting electricity hooked up to the building. I bought the form (yes, you have to buy forms in this country to apply for things) for that yesterday and will try to go through the process as quickly as possible.
Second, we had another Girls Leadership Camp in my district. Kim and I worked with the three new volunteers in our district to hold another camp for 50 outstanding girls in JHS. We had to make a few changes and cutbacks from last year, but it still went very well and I hope the new volunteers will continue the tradition. The girls seemed to really enjoy it.
Third, we had our Close Of Service (COS) conference at the end of April. Our whole training group went and learned how to close out our service while facing the reality that we are leaving in a few months. It was a lot of fun to hang out with friends I haven't seen in a year and to have our whole group together again. It was also probably the most useful Peace Corps conference I've been to. Oh, being at a hotel on a river with a pool wasn't bad either.
Immediately after COS conference we had an All-Volunteer Conference. If you can't tell from the name, all the PC volunteers in Ghana got together for this. I expected it to be insane like last year, but it was actually a fun and fairly relaxed event. We had "informational sessions" as time fillers before the fun events in the evenings, which included a talent show, date auction, and pirates and ninjas themed prom.
After those three busy events in a row, I was happy to go back to site and relax for a bit. And now, I'm in Tamale for an "End of the World" Party. We partied it up last night because, in case you weren't aware, judgement is coming at 6pm eastern time today. So, I hope you all read this before that.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Trip home and Voodoo Festival after
After my trip home for Christmas, I think I have a better idea of how many people actually read this blog... not that many. But those who do read it seem to like it and its kind of like a journal for me too. So, I was home for two weeks, not quite long enough, but it was very nice. I got to see Meme one last time, all my family, and many of my friends. I think you all are included in that list, but if not, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you, two weeks is not a lot of time. I'm in the home stretch now, though, and it won't be too long til I'm home for good. I would expand on my trip home, but since most of you were part of that trip, it would be boring to read. So, I'll just say it was very nice to see everyone. I really missed people from home and enjoyed having time to relax and enjoy the luxuries of America.
When I got back, I rushed to get my next vacation approved, which was a trip to Togo and Benin. After running around Accra like crazy, getting the visas, bring forms everywhere to be signed, I left for Togo on the 8th. I traveled with five other volunteers, which apparently is the perfect number because we filled taxis easily (yes, six people is a normal number for taxis). In Togo, we didn't get to do a whole lot, but saw Lome, the capital, and went to the beach for a bit. We met a bunch of Togo PCVs there and they were great, helpful and fun to hang out with. The best thing about Togo, in my very short visit, was the baguettes! Since Togo was colonized by the French, they have much much better bread than Ghana. I think we each ate about 2 baguettes a day throughout the trip. The worst thing was, that none of us spoke French. That was actually a problem throughout the trip, but since we are used to not understanding what people are saying, we managed "small small" as they would say here. Funny thing was, I was one of the people who spoke the most french, using what little high school french is left in my brain after Dagbani pushed the rest out.
After staying in Togo for one short day, we got up early and traveled to Benin for the Voodoo Festival. As I'm sure you can tell by how far in advance I planned this trip, I knew nothing about this festival. My travel buddies were equally clueless. So, we went into this thing blind. We found a decent place to stay and wandered around until we found white people who looked like they could be in the peace corps. On our second try, we were right (we have a look to us). So, we met up with a bunch of Benin PCVs, also great people, and they told us about the festivities and where to go.
We were there for two days of the festival. The festival included people dressed in big crazy colorful costumes. I think they were supposed to be the ancestors of the tribe or spirits or something. But they danced around and acted crazy. The crowd would be gathered around them watching them dance and they would get angry or something and charge at the crowd. The crowd would all run backwards to get out of the way, sort of running each other over. One of my favorite characters was one that had a fake head and a bunch of leather straps hanging off the back of his head. When he got angry he would charge at people and flip his head forward quickly, swinging the fake head and straps so they smacked on the ground and anyone/thing in the path. There were also creatures covered in a pyramid shaped thing covered in colorful hay. These ones danced and charged the crowd too, but every once in a while they would start to shake, lean forward, and an animal would pop out. I saw a turtle, chicken, and small bird come out of one and supposedly a snake was coming soon. I don't really know what any of this meant, but it sure got the blood pumping and was fun to watch.
At the same time, there was a cultural dance performance going on at the beach. We went to watch it for a while, but it was hard to see and wasn't too exciting. So, we walked around on the beach for a bit, took some pictures at the Port of No Return, and went back to where the interesting stuff was. Another thing in that town, not related to the festival but still awesome, is a python temple. This is not exactly a temple, but it does contain a lot of pythons. There were a bunch of little huts, like the ones people here use for their animals and the guy attempted to tell us about them in his Frenglish and then brought us into one that had the pythons in it. I walked in first and did not know exactly what I was walking into when I saw snakes all over the place. There must have been like 30 snakes in this small room curled up all over the place. I was legit afraid I might step on one. Then the guy calls one of the guys in our group over and puts a python around his neck and tells us to take a picture. We negotiated the picture price while our friend was standing there with the snake hanging around his neck telling us to just take the picture. Then we each took a picture with it around our necks. I haven't seen my picture yet, but I'm pretty sure I have a terrified look on my face.
After the Voodoo Festival, we headed north a bit and learned a little of the history of Benin. It was in the little bit of English that the guide knew, but it was a tour of a museum portraying the history of a major tribe in Benin that I cannot remember the name of. The main thing I remember was that there were lots of cannons because the slave traders came and this tribe traded their people for cannons. The next day, we made a very long trip all the way back to Ghana. The day after that I made another very long trip from Accra to Tamale. Needless to say, I was exhausted and happy when I finally got back to my house and was able to rest.
When I got back, I rushed to get my next vacation approved, which was a trip to Togo and Benin. After running around Accra like crazy, getting the visas, bring forms everywhere to be signed, I left for Togo on the 8th. I traveled with five other volunteers, which apparently is the perfect number because we filled taxis easily (yes, six people is a normal number for taxis). In Togo, we didn't get to do a whole lot, but saw Lome, the capital, and went to the beach for a bit. We met a bunch of Togo PCVs there and they were great, helpful and fun to hang out with. The best thing about Togo, in my very short visit, was the baguettes! Since Togo was colonized by the French, they have much much better bread than Ghana. I think we each ate about 2 baguettes a day throughout the trip. The worst thing was, that none of us spoke French. That was actually a problem throughout the trip, but since we are used to not understanding what people are saying, we managed "small small" as they would say here. Funny thing was, I was one of the people who spoke the most french, using what little high school french is left in my brain after Dagbani pushed the rest out.
After staying in Togo for one short day, we got up early and traveled to Benin for the Voodoo Festival. As I'm sure you can tell by how far in advance I planned this trip, I knew nothing about this festival. My travel buddies were equally clueless. So, we went into this thing blind. We found a decent place to stay and wandered around until we found white people who looked like they could be in the peace corps. On our second try, we were right (we have a look to us). So, we met up with a bunch of Benin PCVs, also great people, and they told us about the festivities and where to go.
We were there for two days of the festival. The festival included people dressed in big crazy colorful costumes. I think they were supposed to be the ancestors of the tribe or spirits or something. But they danced around and acted crazy. The crowd would be gathered around them watching them dance and they would get angry or something and charge at the crowd. The crowd would all run backwards to get out of the way, sort of running each other over. One of my favorite characters was one that had a fake head and a bunch of leather straps hanging off the back of his head. When he got angry he would charge at people and flip his head forward quickly, swinging the fake head and straps so they smacked on the ground and anyone/thing in the path. There were also creatures covered in a pyramid shaped thing covered in colorful hay. These ones danced and charged the crowd too, but every once in a while they would start to shake, lean forward, and an animal would pop out. I saw a turtle, chicken, and small bird come out of one and supposedly a snake was coming soon. I don't really know what any of this meant, but it sure got the blood pumping and was fun to watch.
At the same time, there was a cultural dance performance going on at the beach. We went to watch it for a while, but it was hard to see and wasn't too exciting. So, we walked around on the beach for a bit, took some pictures at the Port of No Return, and went back to where the interesting stuff was. Another thing in that town, not related to the festival but still awesome, is a python temple. This is not exactly a temple, but it does contain a lot of pythons. There were a bunch of little huts, like the ones people here use for their animals and the guy attempted to tell us about them in his Frenglish and then brought us into one that had the pythons in it. I walked in first and did not know exactly what I was walking into when I saw snakes all over the place. There must have been like 30 snakes in this small room curled up all over the place. I was legit afraid I might step on one. Then the guy calls one of the guys in our group over and puts a python around his neck and tells us to take a picture. We negotiated the picture price while our friend was standing there with the snake hanging around his neck telling us to just take the picture. Then we each took a picture with it around our necks. I haven't seen my picture yet, but I'm pretty sure I have a terrified look on my face.
After the Voodoo Festival, we headed north a bit and learned a little of the history of Benin. It was in the little bit of English that the guide knew, but it was a tour of a museum portraying the history of a major tribe in Benin that I cannot remember the name of. The main thing I remember was that there were lots of cannons because the slave traders came and this tribe traded their people for cannons. The next day, we made a very long trip all the way back to Ghana. The day after that I made another very long trip from Accra to Tamale. Needless to say, I was exhausted and happy when I finally got back to my house and was able to rest.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
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
Thursday, November 18, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
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?
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?
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