Kelltothebell's Adventures as a PCV
Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, West Africa- June 2019 To September 2021
I really do intend to share a bigger update soon, but for now, here is a bunch of captioned photos to encapsulate some of the best parts of the last couple months:
After party at the local waterfall/swimming hole
Well hello! I realized it’s been a month since I last wrote, which can only mean one thing: life is oh so good :)) The school term ended mid-December and shortly after I took off to explore the beautiful country of Ghana with some fellow volunteers and BOY OH BOY was that a good time. I visited a little beach town in the south-western part of Ghana that I’m already dying to return to, passed through Cape Coast to learn some history and enjoy an amazing “Christmas” dinner (a couple days after Christmas), visited a good homie at his site in the Volta region, and even stopped by the community we spent with our host families during pre-service training. It was a totally amazing trip and I’m so grateful for the cool calm and collected company I spent it with, the breathtaking views, the opportunity to observe more cultural differences, and for the safe and (mostly enjoyable, minus the 5 hours to get through Kumasi and a girl puking next to us on the bus) travel. I don’t have much to write about it honestly, and now that school is back in session it somehow feels like forever ago, so here are some pictures to document it.
That brings us to school. Term one ended on a slightly irritating or frustrating note for me. We had reconnect in early/mid November, I returned for a week where I only got to teach for two days before having to travel to Accra for some medical things, then finally I was able to return back to school. But then it was sports week, so we didn’t have classes, then all three teacher’s unions went on strike until part way through exams and then my school decided to have students take exams from 6:30am to 3:45pm with two 10-minute breaks the final two days. So that was pretty rough not going to lie. And on top of it, the exams straight up sucked. I’m talking so bad. Like “how can someone even write an exam this terrible” bad. The answer key for my form two science exam provided by the district was a whopping 38% correct with English grammar/spelling mistakes galore and material that according to the district syllabus didn’t need to be covered until term 3. I was so frustrated for about 10 minutes looking at these papers in disbelief and all I wanted to do was egg the house of the whatever person wrote this exam. Then I moved on because I realized what a (potentially fun) waste of time and money that would be, and started seeing what I could do to help the situation. First, I didn’t count any of the questions that were not listed under term one of the syllabus and readjusted everyone’s scores. Then, I gave all my students positive feedback/affirmation where they most deserved it. If a student wrote “bicycle means two wheels” as the answer for “what is a binary compound?” I wrote back “Great memory!” with a smiley face. Although I wasn’t going to give points for them only remembering that the prefix “bi” means two, I was going to let them know that I was really happy they remembered that piece of information. And honestly, the way I see it, remembering that “bi” means two is probably more important life than being able to list what a binary compound is anyway. Just being real here. There are certain things I’m teaching that simply aren’t going to be applicable to these kids lives. That’s just how it be sometimes. At the start of school this term, I gave them all their papers back and told them to “revise them by 20%”. So if a student got a 23%, he/she needed to re-answer enough questions to make his/her score a 43%. Yes, this 23% score is a reality. My students ranged from 11-62% in form one and 16-80% in form two with both classes having an average of about 40%. Here a 50% is considered passing, which is kind of wild in the first place. But I guess it kind of goes along with the majority rules sort of mentality or voting idk. I also met with each student individually to give them back their exam score. That way I was able to provide adequate feedback- usually things like “hey lets work on reading/understanding the question better” or “you have the right idea a lot of the time but then add to much incorrect detail so I cant give you points and that makes us both sad”. And lastly, I explained to my students that I was not at all upset by their performances and that they would not receive any form of punishment. Many of the other teachers were laughing at me, saw this as a waste of time, and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let them be caned, but I held my own and honestly, I’m proud of both my students and myself and am wholeheartedly looking forward to this term. I get to teach some super fun science topics in both forms and even have some ideas for some inexpensive and easy lab activities. I get to teach respiratory system, cardiovascular system, and the reproductive systems which I’m beyond pumped for. I can’t wait to have them count their breaths per minute, heart rate, and understand where a baby actually develops. There’s a pretty funny long story here, but in short: it’s a myth/belief in my community that males and females have different stomachs and that the females is bigger because it has to have room for the baby and that when a woman isn’t pregnant she needs to consume more yam to keep it full. So we definitely have some work to do, some fun pictures to draw, maybe some fun videos to watch and a whooooooole lot of learning.
Another teacher, Kofi, and I have started a reading club at our school for anyone in the community! The goal is to improve both interest in reading and literacy and we’re both equally passionate and hopeful about the premise, so that’s pretty huge. I’m seriously grateful that I have someone here who genuinely sees the problem with the literacy levels here and wants to actually take action to do something about it rather than just state the fact that it is indeed, a “village problem”, as most of the teachers here tend to say. As a matter of fact I just got back from reading club. The turnout today wasn’t great, but its always fluctuating. We will have anywhere between 4 and 12 students. Which sure, isn’t a lot, but it’s still an hour or two more of reading for 4 to 12 students, which is SOMETHING. And honestly, that’s what it’s about. Literacy levels don’t change overnight. Interest in reading doesn’t change overnight. Because of that philosophy, we are hosting reading club every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 4-6pm. That’s a whole lot of time for improvement if you ask me. Also, feel free to send me book recommendations too because I read the entire time the students do, I think it’s really important to prove the point that reading is enjoyable once you get good at it. Last tid bit on reading is that in addition to the books (and fresh coat of happy teal paint) we’ve been granted by EduSpots, I was also able to reach out to Darien Book Aid back in the states and organize another 18-25 pounds that should hopefully be arriving in 4 months. So shoutout to Darien Book Aid for doing what you do, my students are stoked.
Some of my favorite things/experiences/moments over the last month-ish include:
Seasons Greetings homies! I hope everything is going as fantastic on that side of the world as it is over here. Let me start by saying WOW I’M SO ABSOLUTELY OVERJOYED TO BE BACK IN MY COMMUNITY. I mean, Accra is cool and all, but it’s also expensive, missing some pretty key people, and just not home. But being away reminded me just how lucky I am to have already made relationships with people in my community that actually made me sad I wasn’t there. Let alone people who noticed, were worried about me, and/or thought I went back to America and therefore proceeded to call me multiple times/day… every day for 1.5 weeks. I had no idea neighborly love was a thing until I came here, but I can speak from experience now when I say that it is. I came back to site unbelievably energized to hit the ground running and start in on some things (mostly due to the buffet every morning that made it easy to consume a pre-paid, delicious, freshly cooked breakfast that often included an entire loaf of piping hot fresh bread). Invigorated was almost an understatement.
Then all three teachers’ unions went on strike. Which, per Peace Corps policy, means I still report to school and do my job. So at precisely 8:00 am I had my form one students sit down and I was thinking to myself “wow how nice! I’ll be able to do my review sessions for the end of term exam without someone coming in and pulling my students out of class to buy them water or cane them. Life is good”. But then at 8:02 my headmistress came in and told everyone to go home because we are all on strike and she didn’t want them destroying the classrooms. Then she looked at me and said “So you can go home and rest” (as if I had not rested enough in the last three weeks). I looked at her blankly for a couple seconds, watched her turn away, then blurted out “wait but I’m a volunteer so I’m not on strike. I will watch over JHS and help them all review for exams”. Then, already walking away, she sent a good chuckle in my direction and said “They don’t want to”, then all the students laughed at me and stormed out of the classroom. So yeah, you could say that this was one of those hahahawhatislifehahaha moments.
That semi-ego deflating moment aside, I’ve had a completely killer week. After my (not even) two-minute walk home I accepted the fact that it was out of my control and decided to immediately redirect my energy and zest for Peace Corps life toward relationships in my community and other (secondary) projects since the teaching gig was apparently taking an intermission. And yoooooo this last week has been 100% hands down my most productive/most fun/most meaningful/busiest and quite possibly my favorite week yet. I spent the majority of my days out and about in my community, alternating between peoples houses and shops and enjoying the Ghanaian ways of social interaction (other than the kids that just scream “hi” at me non-stop). Here’s a list of 22 other small accomplishments, awesome moments, and activities over the last week or so:
1. I made 3 new host country national friends and I love meeting new friends
2. I had time to meet with three other PCV’s near me and hear about their projects
3. I learned a little bit more Twi (but only a little bit really)
4. I was able to run for 45-60 minutes a day which if you know me at all makes me a ridiculously happy human being.
5. My friend Hilda and I did a “food exchange” where we taught each other how to make new foods. I taught her to make French Toast and she taught me to make soymilk from scratch. Both were incredible.
6. I got to celebrate Hilda’s daughter, Akukua’s first birthday, the next day where she perfectly replicated the French Toast from the previous morning to celebrate.
7. I learned the local version of the happy birthday song
8. I gained a deeper understanding of funerals in my community, including expectations for attendance, attire, donations etc. through conversation with my friend Hero.
9. I learned more about appropriate dress for women in different scenarios as well as the history/reasoning behind waist beads through a conversation with my counterpart.
10. I successfully maneuvered my way (independently) through my overwhelming market town using the local language almost exclusively to buy everything on my list AND Hilda’s list without getting ripped off or sunburnt.
11. I helped a friend Kofi look at some different universities in America that he is interested in and look for scholarships/ways to afford them.
12. Met with my girl Patience to help tutor her in science before her exam (her school isn’t on strike so they are still having normal classes/exams) and got to laugh with her as I used my dinner to explain the differences between compounds and mixtures and asked her to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen in my water to prove a point.
13. Made fried rice with my friend/Ghanaian mom, Akua Ruth at her shop surrounded by amazing people, great music, and a beautiful sunset.
14. Stood up to my headmistress on my stance to not write a grant for an ICT lab at our school until the lab at our neighboring school is properly utilized.
15. Met with the assistant head master at the school with the ICT lab and proposed my idea of sharing the lab between the three schools, starting an ICT club for anyone in the community interested, and starting open lab hours for the community (ran by a student and supervised by me or another teacher) to generate income for maintenance and upgrades.
16. Spent some time with Madam Sewaa at the local clinic and got cleared to start doing some maternal nutrition type meetings/sessions starting next year (now I actually have to figure out exactly how I want to go about it because she gave me A LOT of freedom).
17. Finally found the probiotic prescription I was in need of at a pharmacy in my market town and am eager to see if it helps
18. Made homemade peanut butter/groundnut paste and enjoyed it with friends
19. Had a singing/dance party at school to get hype for Christmas where I semi-learned the local version of “Twelve days of Christmas” and was shocked by what is considered appropriate dancing here.
20. Met up with Clement at our favorite spot with outdoor seating and made a little more progress on my naming ceremony.
21. Was “dashed” a small fridge from a friend since she only uses solar lights at her house, so she was just using the fridge as storage. So now I don’t have to always eat an entire pawpaw in one sitting (not having that excuse anymore is honestly kind of a bummer tho).
22. Had a great turn out to our first ever reading club now that we got our hands on some books!
23. Decided on going to the beach over the Christmas vacation with some other PCV’s and surf. I’m stoked man. We’re about to hang soooo loose.
So yeah, you could say things are Gucci. I’m reallyyyy starting to dig my life here. I’ve also been trying to get better about taking pictures during my service as that was something many of the volunteers that were closing their service in Accra while I was there mentioned. So enjoy. Also I’ve been here 6 months now?? It honestly kind of blows my mind. Goals and expectations have never really been my style, but I like to think if I did have any going into service I would be meeting/exceeding them with the way things are going because this whole thing is feeling pretty dang good :)) quote of the week goes to my friend Clement who after not seeing me for three weeks greeted me with “I’ve missed you like harmattan pawpaw”. To which I responded “wait what…?” and he told me it’s a saying since there isn’t pawpaw during harmattan season (which is what we’re currently transitioning into). And that, my friends, is the closest I’ve been to tears in the last 6 months. Happy early holidays!
One of the local water sources starting to dry up 
Well well well, its certainly been a while. So for anyone who thought I died or came back to America, I’m sorry to disappoint. The reality is that I’ve just been extremely busy between school, my cohorts reconnect conference, and longer than expected medical leave in Accra. I’m currently (and finally) on my way back to site on a big ole’ bus laughing at the extremely low quality Ghanaian film playing (without actually understanding the dialogue) and relishing my last few hours of ice cold AC before arriving home. I said it- “home”. Because thats what it is y’all. Over the last three weeks of being absent from site I realized just how much my community already means to me and how thoroughly and wholeheartedly I enjoy being there. Even when I kind of have no idea what is going on around me, which I’m not going to sugar coat, is still most of the time. I’ve missed seeing and getting to work with my students every day, cooking and sharing meals with my favorite shop woman/friend Akua Ruth, picking my counterpart AJ ’s brain about customs and culture, sunset walks where all the farmers yell at me to go home because I exercise too much, frying plantains while listening to the same 5 songs on repeat with my friend Jessica, and hanging out with her newly 1 year old daughter, Afia (and if I missed her taking her first steps I’m going to be so sad). But I’m only 5 or so hours away from all of those experiences again, and WOW my heart is happy just thinking about it :))))
Reconnect is a week long conference/training for Peace Corps Volunteers and their counterparts, so this year we all travelled from our sites to the outskirts of Kumasi to meet. Reconnect also marks the end of site integration period (where we aren’t allowed to travel or leave site for more than market. AKA we more than likely can’t hang out with people from our cohort without breaking policy). Which I would imagine most of us were relieved by, but I have to say I do agree with the policy in that I think it helps us integrate better and therefore become stronger and more resilient volunteers. I had a blast seeing everyone again at reconnect and found it super beneficial overall. I loved hearing about peoples experiences at site so far, noting the similarities and differences in our communities, common themes, struggles, small victories and everything in between. Although I’m not the best at sitting in one room for hours on end, it was easier than PST and the sessions were more applicable and seemed to be catered to our current needs better, which made things a bit easier for my restless legs and ADHD brain. We learned about things like classroom management strategies (which we can now actually discuss and share ideas on since we have actual experience now), how to write grants, strategies for teaching Information computer technology, and how to support each other throughout our very different journeys.
I’m giving up on detailed stories and chronological order in this post because quite frankly I can’t remember all the tid bits from the last month but here are some of the highlights, random events, and ups/downs that are currently coming to mind:
Sadly, I think that is all I have for now. I haven’t exactly had a lot of big developments, successes, or particularly interesting adventures to share with everyone over the last little bit. Most of my time was spent waiting in doctors offices, waiting for test results from doctors offices, and waiting for transportation. But that’s just how life be sometimes. Peace peeps!
Howdy! The last few weeks have been equally as exciting/amazing/fun-filled/full of learning as the two before, Probably even more so actually! First I will dive into what was the hardest and most frustrating part of the last little bit. Recently we had a “situation” in our form 3 class, as my headmistress announced. On Monday, all of us teachers sat down to discuss the matter with the priest, chief, and a few of the assemblymen. Rumor has it that a female student in form 3 said a curse against herself and the rest of the form 3 students while on school grounds. I was told that under normal circumstances the girl could simply go to the shrine with a bottle of schnapps, a couple hens, and some yam and beg to revoke the curse. However, apparently since she didn’t mention the name of any specific god during the curse, the person with power to revoke the curse upped the offering to 200 hens (or 200 eggs, not totally sure because of the language barrier, not that it really matters), and 20 yams. Which of course she can’t feasibly do or afford. So the rest of the staff, chief, and assemblymen decided she will no longer be allowed to attend school since her being a witch is a distraction to everyone else. We did vote on the issue but I was virtually the only person out of 20+ people who thought she should be allowed to continue school… so she has not been at school since. I’m still a little bit of shock and am angry that we are disabling a child from continuing her education, especially since she aspired to go study at SHS and had good marks, but I certainly didn’t have enough power or respect at this meeting to change anyone’s opinions. So you could say I walked out feeling a bit astonished and defeated. Moral of the story here is that yes, witchcraft is very alive and real in my community as are taboos.
As for the happier things, I’ve finally found and have been given permission to meet with a language tutor. I felt as though once school started and the majority of my day was in English again, my Twi language skills really started to plateau. So Brother John (the man who vouched for a Peace Corps Volunteer to come here) suggested his daughter to help me, which I’m extremely thankful for. With a little luck, I’ll be meeting with her about once a week for some basic language training so that I can continue to be able to build more meaningful relationships in my community with those who are not quite as conversational in English. Right now, most of my friends have a higher than average familiarity with English and are very educated. But obviously, this isn’t the majority of my community. Which is why bettering myself in the native language will be key to creating better ties with the market ladies, younger children, shop owners, and many other people I encounter daily.
Another little victory is that I’ve persuaded the primary 6, and form 1-3 math teachers to introduce what I grew up calling minute math or math facts quizzes once to twice a week! I realized when I was attempting to teach measurement to my form one students that most students couldn’t divide or multiply by 10. So I did a little experiment and crafted an 8 question quiz on some basic operations and gave students TEN minutes to do it. Even in this ten-minute time frame, students couldn’t finish, came up with totally inexplicable answers, and scored as low as 0/8. Which made me realize that we can’t expect them to understand the more difficult mathematical concepts if they can’t correctly answer 6/2= ____. After having a meeting with the three other teachers and my headmistress, they have decided to trust me and make this a fun little friendly competition between classes. Each class will have a poster board score sheet up on the wall with a list of the students’ names, and each time a student gets an 8/8 on a quiz they will receive one check mark. The class with the most number of check marks in a week is the weekly winner and at the end of the term the class with the most check marks total will be the overall winner. Then within each class, there will also be a winner for the term. But mostly the goal is to drive the students to all perform well and practice their basic math facts by creating competition between classes, which let me tell you- they LOVE.
My form one and two students both reached 10 points on my scoring system this week which meant they got their first reward- toffee (ginger candies). Form one hit 10 points two days before form 2 did and then I overheard my form two students talking about how they needed to behave better to beat form one, which is exactly the logic I want them to have. I brought in these cheap candies for both classes and they were grateful little angels the rest of the day. No talking, just the sound of 15+ young mouths sucking obnoxiously on a hard candy. We just started working on balancing chemical equations in my form 2 class, which is one of my favorite topics of all time, so that’s been fun. I told them it was one of my favorite things in science, which got them all excited and now they want to be extra good at it to impress me, which is hilarious. But they’re definitely doing pretty well! We played around with some not quite as basic chemical equations today so I could show them how complicated these can get and they were super into it. Once I tell them they can work together to solve something on the board and that its okay if they get it wrong, their whole mentality changes and their little brains work wonders. And often times, they even get it right. Which is such a fun moment to witness.
Speaking of competition, my school has decided to participate in sports for the first time this year and will be taking part in the district games. This should be interesting given we play soccer on a hill with a water polo ball, don’t have a volleyball or finished volleyball net, and students don’t know how long 400m is. But its just about having fun and getting kids active :)) There will be soccer, volleyball, handball, running, and dancing competitions. Assuming its not raining tomorrow morning, I’ll be helping “train” the kiddos by jogging with them to the next village over and back. The sports master at my school came up to me today and said “hey tomorrow morning you will go jogging with the students for training. You like to jog”. And I said “oh okay are we jogging the field, and what time?” and he goes “No. You will go with them to the next village over and back. Starting at 4:30”. I tried to argue a bit on the time considering its actually still pitch black out at that hour and our road isn’t exactly known for being the safest, but he told me to just bring my headlamp and that 4:30 is the safest time. So apparently that’s happening. Normally I would be SO excited about this, but knowing I’ll be held responsible for 30+ kids on the side of a dark highway at 4:30 when even I, as a total morning person, am not completely coherent, is a bit unsettling.
This past weekend I went to what the Ghanaians call a “thanksgiving” for my friend Clement’s mother. Since I will be having a naming ceremony fairly soon and becoming part of his family, I needed to attend this ceremony. His mother passed away 7 years ago, so every year they essentially re-celebrate the funeral and honor her as an ancestor. So all 8 of her children and their spouces/children (and me) got matching fabrics, attended the church she was a part of in her hometown, and then spent the day together with food, drink, and dance. It was super fun and I learned a lot about Ghanaian culture. Also seem to have given myself some sort of intestinal issue again, that sent me home from school half way through the day today. But hey, the things you do for family, I guess.
Speaking of this virus/bacteria/parasite that has entered my body, I went into my market town today to get the supplies to submit a stool sample. Obviously I wasn’t feeling great, but I had my bag filled with two bottles of water- one of pure water and the other of oral rehydration salts so I was feeling ready to conquer the world. I walk out to my street and see a taxi heading my direction, wave it down as I learned from the movies about people in New York City, climbed in and greeted the other passengers. We drove about 1 minute and the driver pulled over and goes “we are waiting for someone”, which is totally normal. Next thing I know I’m being shoved face to the window with a kid standing in between my legs with a bucket of salted fish on my lap with 8 people in a 5 person taxi. And somehow this kind of made me feel better. I can’t really explain it, but there was virtually nothing I could have changed about the situation, and that was enough for me. Plus the driver was playing good music, I had cool raindrops splashing me in the face, and I was driving through one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever been lucky enough to live in. Are my intestines still a disaster? Absolutely. But I was so overcome by the fact that the driver had seen these people far away walking towards the road and wanted to offer them a ride before the storm fully set in and ruined all their foods/goods, that I virtually forgot I was on my way to the hospital and instead sang along to my favorite song “Sing my name” with a full car of strangers in the rain. It just reminded me that I need to be that person who stops for others when it’s about to rain more often if these are the kind of moments I’m going to gain from it. Life is rad my friends. Life is rad.
My class also sang me their version of happy birthday on my birthday which was adorable. Then continued to ask some follow up questions about American culture like “how many cars did you get when you turned 16 years?”, “what is your favorite type of birthday cake?”, and the one that I left unanswered: “Is birthday sex real? There’s a song about it!”. Keep up the good work America. Some of my other favorite moments over the last little bit included being all huddled up in the least wet classroom at school during another mini-hurricane and 1.) seeing that the little moat we created after the last big storm that flooded the school helped immensely and 2.) that when it started hailing the teachers started screaming “look its raining ice cubes!” to all the students. 3.) Being given a papaya by a student that was so big I couldn’t even fit it in the sink to wash it, him laughing at why I would ever wash a papaya and telling me that they can be even bigger (mind=blown) 4.) Watching a maybe 4 year old boy at church unzip his pants and start peeing right onto the lawn while smiling at me, then proceeding to wave his hand through his steady stream until he finished, lick the remaining urine off of his hand, then start touching his moms hair 5.) My headmistress asking if a friend and I if we had eaten dog before and then dropping everything to call “her guy” who sells dog to get us some for the next day (which didn’t end up working out bc all the fresh dog meat spoiled during the power outage, #bummer). 6.) My friend telling me to stay inside more because the bugs are giving me “bad marks” all over my skin (my freckles and moles) and then literally trying to pick them off of my body, realizing that they aren’t exactly removable, then recommending that I BLEACH THEM OFF. WHAT?! 7.) Me attempting to explain to the woman who owns the local salon that I wash my hair myself when I bathe because she thought I had been here for 2 months without washing my hair (women here go to the salon to get their hair washed and permed/braided/cut/get a new wig about once a week so she thought I was nasty for not ever coming). Now she just thinks I’m weird, which I’m fine with. 8.) The little boys who keep coming to my window or drain and saying the absolute funniest things like “Please madam, I have come to eat you up” when they want food, “Please madam, we have come to drink from you”, “ Madam please us want you to learn me” and “Madam I have come to do the white man”. 9.) Climbing a tree on the side of the path through a bunch of farms and sitting up there for 30 minutes while reading “the subtle art of not giving a fuck” on my kindle and having 9 farmers walk directly under me without noticing my presence and 10.) Cold Kaesar Apple drink and real hot coffee. Okay that’s all I have for now 🙂
Woooooowie y’all HOW COOL IS IT THAT I’VE BEEN LIVING LIFE HERE FOR 4 MONTHS NOW?! I’m such a lucky gal. I’ve made huge progress in integration over the last couple weeks or so here in my community. Which is exactly why I haven’t posted anything- I’ve been busy in all the best ways! Also feeling very blessed that recombination happened the precise way it did and that I have been granted with the trait for extroversion. Because sometimes I quite literally spend time with community members from 6:30am to 8:30pm with my only personal time being trips to the bathroom (which may or may not actually be private, mind you).
I have found a lot of joy in cooking with neighbors from the beginning, pounding (or for my weak self, driving aka folding) fufu on repeat, and asking questions about what foods are taken together and what certain ingredients are. I have been keeping myself occupied with innovative cooking/baking by blending American and Ghanaian cuisines as a way to spend time with others and open their minds to different food options with the ingredients they have available. The time I used to spend laying solo on my yoga mat with my nose in a book (or in this case, a kindle), I now spend observing challenges in my community and doing what the Peace Corps likes to call “needs assessments”. Nutrition is a HUGE problem here and although I cannot provide an actual statistic for you, I can confidently state that a very high percentage of children have Kwashiorkor (extended or protruding bellies) due to a deficiency in protein. From talking to the lady at the clinic, this mostly stems from the fact that many parents are illiterate and uneducated. There are plenty of protein sources available, especially in a farming community as vibrantly diverse and successful as this one. But sadly, that doesn’t actually matter if people are not educated on the implications of a low protein diet. Creating a greater awareness and understanding for protein deficiency is something I am hoping to work toward during my stay here. Obviously, I am not happy that my community faces this problem, but being placed here kind of feels like fate given my passion for nutrition. The woman at the clinic has asked me if I would be interested in doing some talks with (expecting) mothers regarding the importance of breastfeeding (with the goal being for two years) and proper nutrition for growing kids with her during the weekends and this is something I am pretty stoked about as well!
Additionally, after the recent PTA meeting where one of the main complaints from parents was the school meals, Brother John (the community volunteer who vouched for me to come here) and I are hoping to start a school garden with the goal of introducing vegetables into the school lunch program at an affordable cost. Doing so would also give the students an opportunity for hands on learning about agricultural concepts (which many of them will end up using when they take over their family farms) as well as a sense of responsibility and discipline. Not to mention, would provide them with a *more* balanced diet and *more* nutrients. Things wouldn’t be perfect my any means since students are only provided with one meal at school (which starts at 6:30am and now lasts until 3:00pm (don’t even get me started on this change), so it is becoming increasingly important to provide them with foods that will both fuel and nourish them for as long as possible. Most children also do not take breakfast in the morning and if they do, it’s usually just “tea” (which isn’t actually tea at all. Its “milo” which is essentially just chocolate milk powder) and maybe some plain white rice. After school closes, many students go to farm, walk miles’ home to a neighboring village, or start preparing supper and tending to the household right away. I can not speak for the whole of my community, but after collecting a bit of data via observation from my neighbors, fufu is the staple food and is usually consumed twice/ day (mind you most people only eat twice). The most popular soups are palm nut soup (taken usually 3-4 times/week) and light soup (taken the other 3-4 days/week). Palm nut soup is generally just palm nuts, palm oil, salt, seasoning cubes, garlic, tomatoes, and meat if the person chooses to add it. And light soup is just water, pepe, tomato, sometimes garden egg (similar to eggplant), garlic, ginger, and usually some dried fish (or goat meat if you’re the chief/someone else with plenty of money). Needless to say, eggs are widely available, as are seeds (like egushi), beans (any type imaginable), groundnuts (peanuts), kontomire leaves, and even tofu. However even when people farm these food items, they generally just sell them to the larger market town nearby for money without actually consuming any themselves. Rather, they will exclusively eat yam and cassava, many people don’t even consume rice because they don’t believe it will make you satisfied. I asked my class what their favorite fruits were and most of them told me they do not take fruit (other than plantain) more than a couple times a year even though they farm it, which completely blew my mind. Most people are under the impression that cassava makes you strong which isn’t true at all given its almost exclusively starch and not a significant source of any vitamins (other than vitamin C), minerals, or protein. You could call it a highly unfortunate fan favorite of my class, with a whopping 14/17 students voting for it as their favorite food.
At the same time though, my market town is the most epic farmers market I’ve ever had the opportunity to explore. I’m talking the most beautiful heads of cabbage being unloaded from trucks coming straight from farm, the orange-est carrots you’ve ever laid eyes on, ladies with huge bowls of dried dates on their heads, red and green apples from south Africa, freshly picked beets still covered in dirt, and a variety of millet, rice, corn, and other dried goods so wide it’s impossible to know where to start. I was completely overwhelmed my first few endeavors into market, but now that I have somewhat of an understanding on the lay of the land I LOVE going. So much. I have to stop myself from going more than twice a week since that would be a little abnormal for most people in my village, and I’m still trying to not stand out or show off too much. Which is completely impossible by the way. The moment I leave my house kids start shouting “madam Abena!” and then their parents will come rushing out to greet me too. Sometimes the quarter of a mile walk to get tomatoes is a 30 to 45-minute excursion. My community is off of the Kumasi-Tamale Road, which is a highly trafficked highway. Thus, walking along it also draws a lot of attention from motorcycles, cars, tros, and busses full of people I’ve never met. I have lost count of the number of times a taxi has unsafely swerved off to the (non-existent) side of the road to say “obroni! How are you?” or “obroni, please, I want to marry you”. And lets not neglect this one specific compound (that is thankfully on the opposite side of the highway from where I live/walk) filled with 10 kids ranging from 2-7 that either scream “HI. HI. HI.” In the most obnoxious pitch you’ve ever experienced, or chant “O-bro-ni, O-bro-ni” until I’m far enough away for the road noise to cancel them out. No matter which language I respond in, how many times I tell them my name, respond “hi” back, or even if I straight up ignore them, its an every day occurrence. A harsh reality of being the only white person in a village, and something I definitely signed up to experience. I would imagine it will fade with time, that time frame might just be longer than I originally anticipated.
Alright enough of that, lets talk school. A couple great things first: my students are dope, super anxious to learn, are much less afraid to speak up now, are becoming not just accustomed to my point system but are also responding to it by behaving really well, and love asking questions about America. Such questions include, “Have you met Obama?”, “Is captain America real?”, “How many babies do you have”, and “Have you seen an airplane before?” (keep in mind they’ve never seen a world map and therefore are not aware of this thing called the ocean that I had to fly over to get here). Some of the negatives are that students are caned frequently for reasons I don’t believe in and that both students and teachers regularly show up late. Students are mandated to arrive at school at 6:30am, but many come from nearby villages (30-45 min walk along the main/super dangerous road) and are caned if they are late. Teachers are late all the time with no consequences though. But the sun doesn’t even rise until 6:00am anyway, god forbid students have to fetch water or go to farm in the morning. This week I watched a girl get caned HARD 17 times for having bad handwriting. Best part? They caned her hands. As if her handwriting will now magically improve with the swelling and wounds. Students are also caned for making mistakes, speaking in their native language, not performing a teachers errand fast enough, etc. One of my biggest issues is that teachers cane for being late/missing class but then also send the children during class times to buy them tomatoes for dinner or get them water when the teacher is just sitting there not teaching or doing anything. It makes no sense to me to be able to cane students for missing class but also send them to miss more class when they are there and able to learn. It’s brutal to witness but at this point the other teachers are not anywhere close to receptive enough for me to try to voice my opinion. They still make fun of me for not being “able” to cane.
One thing that I find really interesting and totally appreciate at school, however, is the sense of community and support. Teachers are always doing things for one another and laughing while doing so! My coworkers make each other laugh to the point of crying or spitting out food pretty much daily. We also take lunch together every day, family style and Ghanaian style (with our hands) and it’s something I am super grateful. Sure sometimes the soup is covered in a thick couple centimeters of palm oil or leaves me feeling bloated beyond belief, but it’s worth the experience of eating all together. At this point I still use a spoon for many of the soup and banku or fufu pairings because I’m not quite good enough to not stain all my clothing yet, but I fully anticipate getting there by the end of my two years. I also just cant put my sensitive little sausage fingers into soup that was just taken off the boiling fire like these thick skinned Ghanaians. They also don’t use any pot holders or anything and just grab the pots and pans with bare skin from the fire. This is an example of something I’m okay with not being able to do by the end of my two years. I also just recently read a book titled “Never Eat Alone” which showed me the importance of sharing food with others and was a really interesting read!
Some of my favorite random things about life here are
1.) The fact that its completely normal to make friends as an adult by walking up to something and asking them to be your friend and exchanging contacts
2.) The creative names for chop bars and shops (see picture below)
3.) The way age, body shape, and size are viewed as beautiful rather than as a negative
4.) The fact that breastfeeding is SO normalized and that women simply bring their babies with them to work and no one says a thing. In fact, my school has little cribs for teachers with babies. And the JHS teacher with a baby will teach her class and the other teachers will watch her baby during this hour, no questions asked. (Usually this is when I go for my podcast walk to avoid responsibility. Still really appreciate the sense of community though).
5.) Bargaining and dashing goods. It’s standard to ask for price, then counter with a lower offer for many items. And with foods, sellers often “dash” you more than you have paid for. (I might be buying 2 cedi of tomatoes, which is generally like 6 tomatoes, then the seller might throw in an extra two at no added cost).
6.) How often people drop everything they are doing to show or help you with something.
7.) The fact that many people wear watches, but they don’t even have a battery in them or are just hours off on the time
8.) If you ask someone how long it takes to get somewhere they have absolutely no idea because they’ve simply never felt the urge to time it. It doesn’t matter here. It just takes however long it takes. What are you going to do? Not go there anymore? I don’t think so.
9.) Chilling under the mango tree and meeting strangers that become friends that way
10.) The way people casually tell you that “the rain is coming” as its already pouring and they’re setting out buckets to collect water.
11.) The fact that people tell me in Twi “you have done well sister” if I’m able to just say “good morning” in the local language. These are the types of people you need to boost your moral after someone else just screamed at you in Twi.
12.) Walking while singing audibly to yourself/the rest of the world is totally normal but listening to music or singing in the shower makes you weird.
13.) The fact that I’ve opened my door to 100% naked children over 10 times now who came to simply say “good evening madam”.
14.) The amazing turn out I have had for my “supported study sessions” lately. Such a good turn out, we can no longer fit in the courtyard of my compound and have to occupy the school.
It’s been a while since my last post and I honestly can’t cover (or remember) everything anymore but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here ya go!
The new school term is officially under way here in my community, and boy am I happy about it! My structured American self has more of a schedule again, as well as a purpose. Not that purely trying to integrate into my community wasn’t a true purpose, but being in the classroom again certainly helps fill the void of boredom given I couldn’t spend 24 hours a day attempting to integrate. It’s truly exhausting. Beautiful and oh so important but exhausting. I now understand why our exchange student, Luisa, needed time to herself to think in her native language and take a break from my sister and I attempting to teach her everything about the English language and American culture on a daily basis. You can only absorb information so quickly, and sometimes you’re just not up for your every move being scrutinized.
Overall, I am feeling really good about where I am at in the process. I’ve made quite a few friends here that I attempt to greet every day (and if I don’t, they get very concerned and a little bit butt hurt). I walk most days to greet my neighbors and community members, which sometimes feels ridiculous, but I’m determined to keep showing my face every day and giving my respect to the elders. There is one elder in particular who tells me every time I see him that he will be waiting for me to come greet him. At first I thought he was being facetious, but no joke every time I walk by his home he is sitting in a chair near the path I walk on as if he actually were waiting for me. Sometimes I don’t get around to walking that direction and he will even come all the way (which I guess isn’t really that far in a smaller village but still) to my compound to greet me and ask if I am okay. My only problem is that its getting hard to keep up with greeting all the people I have promised to greet on a daily basis. But this is a really good problem to have so I can’t complain :).
I was able to eventually persuade my headmistress to let me teach science, since that was kinda the whole reason I came here and what she signed off on. Part of being a Peace Corps volunteer is learning how to be flexible and how to put your communities needs over your personal interests, which is super important to recognize. However, I am completely incompetent in BDT (basic design and technology) since I have never knitted, crocheted, or sewn a thing in my life and couldn’t manage to pull an “A” in high school art. She also asked if I would teach ICT (information computer technology) but after looking at the syllabus and textbook I decided I would need at least a term to prepare and learn the material myself. You might think a junior high computer class here would be a breeze, but it’s far different from what you might expect. I never had to learn all the parts of the different types of computers and how information flows through them. Someone just gave me an Alphasmart in middle school until I figured out how to type and in high school I created crazy tree houses with “google sketch up” the whole semester, refusing to ever actually code anything or use any of the other programs we were supposed to be learning. Which I only got away with by later convincing the teacher that our high schools mission statement was about fostering students interests so he shouldn’t be allowed to force me to learn HTML if my interest was in google sketch up.
Anywhoooo, JHS science is taught in more of an integrated fashion. My middle school in the US did earth science one year, physical science one year, and life science the last year. Here, however, the students get to learn a little bit of each one every year, which is nice as far as being able to get every student in the class interested at some point. Not everyone is a life science person, so the way its set up allows those students to still enjoy 66.66% of each year of JHS rather than hating a whole year of science curriculum. I was a little bit worried about my ability to connect with (and deal with) JHS students before coming to Ghana since most of my experience has been with either high school or college-aged students. But I’ve really come around to it and am more excited than ever. Like how cool is it that I get to be the first person to teach science to these JHS 1 students? I get to be the one to spark their interest in a branch of science that they may have never even thought existed (already got a kid hype about astronomy). I can be the one to help cultivate their passion for science early. I’m the first one to teach them science. They haven’t had science ruined for them by a bad teacher yet, I get to be the one to convince them that science is the coolest thing out there. AND THAT IS SOMETHING TO BE EXCITED ABOUT.
On a not as happy note, the first week of school was rough. Although I was completely aware of most of the realities of the Ghanaian education system, it was still difficult to see some of the things put in to practice. Caning and other forms of corporal punishment are still very real in this country and although I had seen plenty of it during pre-service training, the sound of a students’ bare calf or nearly bald scalp being hit with the cane still makes me cringe. Many students and teachers did not even show for the first few days, and those who did just swept and weeded the compound. That is, when they weren’t being punished for it not looking good enough. We also received our standardized test scores from last year, which are supposed to be used to either promote students to the next grade or repeat them. But that’s not really how it goes. The headmistress and staff at my school wanted to promote everyone even though our highest average score between all the subjects was a 50%, with the many of the students in the 20-30% range. Some dipping as low as 10%. After an hour or so of me voicing my opinion on the matter, they made a slight compromise and decided to repeat those below 25%. Sure this isn’t perfect, but I do believe those 5 students will benefit from it. Especially with the curriculum changing and the addition of new teachers.
Some other news from the last couple weeks would be that I’ve made “American food” for two more of my friends/neighbors now, receiving ravishing reviews both times. I had a surplus of bananas and bread at one point because I went to market and bought both of those items and was then given two more bunches of banana (courtesy of my homegirl Patience) and a second loaf of bread from my landlord following his travels to Kumasi. Cultural note: it is very common to “bring bread” back for 1-3 people or households you are particularly close to when you travel. So I prepared banana French toast for my neighbors that have been oh-so-sweet to me since day one and they completely loved it and asked me to show them how to prepare it. Then one of my fellow teachers, AJ, and I made quesadillas with some cheese she brought back from her hometown. The tortillas ended up being a little on the thick side due to a lack of measuring utensils and the absence of a rolling pin, so they were more like a Panini but I didn’t disclose that and she loved them. I’ve also attended a funeral now, which was an entirely different cultural experience and much more lighthearted and happy than American funerals tend to be. A few of my students brought me a small turtle they found in the river at farm in a black plastic bag as a gift and I had to kindly deny it and explain to them that it needs to be in the water to survive long so they should return it. I’ve also decided to have a naming ceremony in late November after reconnect since my friend Clement asked me if I would want to join his family as a sister! I mean when in Ghana, right? I’ve also now used my blender (that does indeed work, yay!) and am back on my homemade peanut butter grind. Feeling like myself again. Since students weren’t doing anything Last Friday I also got to teach a lesson of plastics and the importance of reducing, re-using and recycling to the whole school which was right up my alley. Oh and Patience also brought me 3 papayas the size of my head. So yeah, life is good!
Quote of the Week:
*Priest switches from Twi to English during the middle of a prayer*
Priest: “and we pray that Abena Kelly will give birth and marry here soon”
Me: *frantically looks up to observe that no one else has reacted or found this weird*
Priest: *finishes prayer in Twi* “amen”
Random men at church: *run toward me and ask to marry me*
Me: “Oh I am not allowed to marry or get pregnant while I am here or Peace Corps will send me back to America, sorry!”
Random men: “They will not know”
Me: *at a loss for words, nervously giggling* “okay bye-ooooh”
Priest: “You will birth here in Ghana, Abena Kelly. It will be a gift from god.”
Everyone in the church: *cheering and applauding*
Me: “Oh medaase (thank you) *runs out of church scared for life and has nightmare about giving birth to a baby goat balloon animal*
Good news folks: I’m starting to feel like more of a real citizen of my community! Things are progressing along smoothly for now, although I’m sure I will encounter some bumps in the road in the near future. I’ve found some amazing places to run (and go for sunset walks) in my community. There is only one paved road here, and it happens to be the major freeway between two of Ghana’s largest cities, and with the way people drive on it, its certainly not safe for running or biking. Therefore, the dirt roads interlacing the farms are my best bet and WOW I’m eternally grateful. The hills absolutely kick my butt every time, but the scenery is so 1000% worth it I (almost) don’t mind. Back home I normally ran the flat, straight gravel path along the canal which was filled with more rusted shopping carts and rotting fish than actual water. Now I get to look at nearly red, clayey soil, a multitude of different types of trees, and farms galore. Not to mention the sounds of crickets, birds, and the occasional motorcycle or sound of a machete slicing through thick jungle. Much more my style. 
I even found a local running buddy! Her name is Patience, and she goes the JHS in the next town over, but attends the church my school is attached to. She’s been a saving grace over the last few weeks and has come over to show me how to boil yams (bc somehow I was doing it wrong), help me do my laundry (which I swear I did not force her to do), and sweep/mop the floors of my compound. She also brought me the most beautiful bunch of bananas I have ever consumed straight from her family’s farm. In return, I have exposed her to some American music, card games, and photos of home. You could say were BFF’s. Although I do have to admit that although I love the company, I find myself exhausted after a couple hours of social interaction and need some “me-time”, which is quite literally a foreign concept to Ghanaians. So often I have to ask her to leave so I can rejuvenate myself just enough to greet my other neighbors or buy something at a shop. 
I’ve made some relationships with shop owners, neighbors, taxi drivers, and JHS students that seem to be meaningful, and I can’t wait to continue improving in Twi so I can get to know them even better. I spend time simply sitting with neighbors while they prepare food, ask questions, have them point to things and say the name in Twi, sit with women at shop and listen to interactions between community members, and play games with the kids (not the ones under like 12 though, I still don’t have more than 10 seconds of patience with them, but I’m working on it). I have been told many times now by multiple people that I am much friendlier than the other volunteers and that they appreciate me always trying to speak to them in Twi first, so I guess I’m doing something right, even if most of the time it seems like I am source of laughter. 
As far as my living situation goes, I can say with confidence that I am indeed spoiled. I often have running water. There is a large black water basin next to my compound that is hooked up to the borehole nearby. I’m not sure what the capacity is, but it lasts a few days and then when it empties, I walk to the man who is in charge of the waters house to let him know and fetch my water until he has pumped more water into the basin. Sometimes this all happens in a matter of hours and sometimes in a matter of days. Either way, a luxurious accommodation. I also have somewhat reliable cell phone service. I alternate between E (which is essentially 2G) and 3G most of the day, which is enough to send/receive messages via whatsapp, send/receive voice messages fairly quickly most of the time (within an hour or so usually), and enough to make calls back home during certain hours from certain locations. I also have mostly reliable power. The pattern seems to be that 1-2x a week it goes off for somewhere between 2-6 hours. I came into the Peace Corps knowing that the complete absence of electricity altogether was a possibility, so it’s been nothing but a pleasant surprise . 
This is a weird period of time for us volunteers since the school year hasn’t started yet and we aren’t supposed to start on any secondary project yet or leave our communities for the most part. I’m honestly impressed with how busy and entertained I’ve been able to keep myself. I spend most of my day walking around and greeting people and seeing where that leads me. Sometimes I end up shelling groundnuts with some women for a couple hours, playing cards with some kids, preparing fufu for the 50th time, or visiting someones farm. No way I would be able to happily maintain this lack of routine forever (as lovely as it is), but school starts in a couple weeks so I won’t have to.
My community provided me with a bedframe and foam pad, a fan, and table and chair. So all I’ve purchased in addition was a shelf to hold all my books, cleaning products, medical kit, and other do-dads, my yoga mat which is highly multipurpose, and a mirror. Then I hung a stick from my ceiling to use as a closet rack, and another stick to hang some photos from home. I spend most of my time at home either sitting on my yoga mat (eating, reading, journaling, playing Sudoku etc.) or sitting outside in the courtyard to take advantage of the breeze. I seem to be doing a pretty fair job of not spending money I don’t need to be spending. However, as extra as it may seem, I did just purchase a blender. I wanted to be able to make my own peanut butter, smoothies/juices, hummus/bean dip, guacamole, oat flour, oat milk, coconut flour, and coconut milk. Which also means I will be able to start baking soon. I’ll be using a “dutch oven” over my fire by filling a large pot with a couple inches of sand, and raising a baking dish using some metal cans and covering it. This helps to disperse the heat and create an oven like environment for the smaller baking dish. Banana bread here I come. I’m also going to start fermenting and pickling foods once I am able to aquire enough containers. I can get cabbage, cucumbers, carrots and what appear to be radishes in my market town, which will all be great for pickling. I also intend to learn to ferment my own kombucha so that I can hopefully improve my GI flora after these last few weeks. Not to mention, I’m a huge sucker for overpriced kombucha in the US anyway.
I hopped in a taxi yesterday to go to market and greeted the woman (and her baby) next to me and we started talking. She asked how long I had been here and what I would be doing, then I asked about her work and turns out she is a health and sanitation/hygiene inspector based in my market town and travels to my village once a week. As we were getting close to market she asked if I would be getting out there and I told her yes and that I would go buy some things after I went to the bank. Then she, no joke, absolutely INSISTED to help me find everything I needed because market is big and busy. So she walked me to the bank, the ATM was down, walked me all the way across town to the other bank where the ATM was also down but we were told if we waited “small time” it would be on again. And we did just that. This woman and her 8-month old waited at the bank happily with me for over an hour before taking me all the way through market to buy a large pot with a lid and a blender at non-obroni prices. She later told me that her husband leaves to go to Physicians assistant school this weekend and that she will be alone with her kids at her house and asked for my number so that I could come over and learn how to make her favorite kelewele (spiced fried plantains) and learn some more Twi. I’m constantly amazed by the generosity I have been exposed to here, it’s inspiring and is rubbing off on me in the best way possible. Some of my neighbors brought me a ball of plain banku and said “we know you prefer banku to fufu so we wanted to bring you some. But we know you cannot eat too much pepe because it will hurt your stomach and you do not eat grasscutter, so we did not bring you soup”. If these examples don’t inspire you to be a more generous human being and don’t give you more faith in humanity, I’m truly sorry and don’t know what would. And I’ll leave you with that- give when you are able 🙂
A friends (that I ran into on the side of the freeway) mushroom spore lab bench and farm. Once they grow he shows local women how to do it so they can sell mushrooms for a profit at market. SO COOL.
Quote of the week:
My neighbor: “So your parents send you money to Ghana, right?”
Me: “ Oh no, I only make money from the Peace Corps while I’m here. They might send mail or a package though.”
My neighbor: “They do not love you??”
Me: “No no they do! But I am an adult, and the Peace Corps is my job now so they don’t need to send me money”
My neighbor: “But they are your family, they should send you money. You are not married. They do not love you”
Me: “No I am not married, but in America when you graduate university, your parents do not pay you.”
My neighbor: *stands up from chair to express disbelief* “I do not understand. No husband to give you money. No family to give you money. They need to give you money until you marry or they die. No one is loving you!”
Me: *gives up on explaining this aspect of American culture* “You know what, you’re right. I will tell them”
Me neighbor: “Yes. That is what I am saying. They should still give you money if they love you. I will pray for you that they do”
After a whirlwind of events over the last couple weeks, all 23 of us managed to pass our LPI’s (oral language exams), cultural exams, swear in, and safely make it back to our sites. In other words, Ghana officially has 23 new Peace Corps Volunteers on the loose. The swear in ceremony was in Accra and despite the long bus ride both ways we all seemed to enjoy every minute of it. Not only did we officially take the oath promising to serve for the next 25 months and meet members of the US embassy as well as returned PCV’s that are now living in Ghana, but we also had access to a buffet with muffins, coffee cake, kelewele (spiced fried plantain), frittatas, fruit kebabs and more. A huge win.
I arrived “home” on Saturday afternoon after making an overnight trip in one of the major cities along the way in order to purchase some hard to find items including stick deodorant, a yoga mat, honey, and real coffee. Nescafe is readily available at a low price everywhere and is better than nothing. However, as the coffee snob and ex-roaster/barista I am, I decided to splurge and indulge in a bag of (hopefully) good coffee beans. My plan is to enjoy real coffee while I have it and then drink Nescafe in between trips to big cities for real coffee purchases. Yes, I have thought through this enough to establish my game plan. I’m also pretty excited about my new yoga mat that will allow me to do core workouts and yoga without having to endure bruised elbows or tailbone as proof. Honestly, now that I have those (essential for me) items, I feel much more settled in. My next exciting purchase is the shelf I just talked to the local carpenter about making. I asked for a 4ftx3ft unpolished (bc let’s be real, I don’t want to pay for that) shelving unit. It’s going to cost me 150 GhC, but boy will it be life changing. For the last two months I have had merely one plastic table and chair for stacking clothes, books and electronics, as well as for studying, eating, and laying laundry out to dry. Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal and was totally doable, but being slightly OCD, I am very much looking forward to another organizational surface. Since I asked for it unpolished, I might even polish it myself later on or just paint it my favorite shade of yellow if my room needs an extra little dose of sunshine. The possibilities are unlimited!
Besides the shelving unit, I can’t say I have an immediate need for much else. I am trying to avoid going to my market town and buying a bunch of expensive items at once with my settling in allowance. But rather, waiting things out more to see what is actually crucial and what I don’t need as much as I thought. I have two buckets for bathing, laundry, and other household tasks already as well as soap and a small pot and pan. And in all honesty, that’s sufficient. I tend to air more on the side of minimalism when possible anyway. My roommates for the last 3 years have always made fun of me for it by asking if anyone actually lived in my bedroom and by saying it looked more like a hotel room or staged bedroom. But I have to say, it was great preparation for the Peace Corps! (Also if this topic interests you at all, listen to “The minimalists” podcast).
The school year doesn’t start until the first week or so of September, so until then, myself and all the other volunteers at their communities have the same goal of becoming better in the local language, continuing to integrate, and figuring out what we need to have a successful service. After about 10 seconds of self-reflection, I decided that this will undoubtedly be one of the hardest times for me as I am a complete extrovert and busy body. Hopefully with the help of a multitude of good books, sudoku, and solitaire I will be able to mostly entertain myself when needed. At this very moment, the boredom is very real. Unfortunately, I seemed to contract some sort of nasty virus or parasite that has left me mostly home-bound and eating pretty much exclusively white rice and bananas for the last 5 days. I will spare the rest of the details, but lets just say that I am more motivated than ever to stop biting my fingernails once and for all. Also quick shout out of appreciation to my Mom, Shelby, and Alicia for putting up with my constant updates and occasionally gruesome details, thanks for being in the medical field- you rock my socks off <3.
Once I am back to my usual energetic self, I very much look forward to walking around my community more, meeting those I haven’t met yet, playing local games with the kiddos, getting lovingly forced into learning the language even when I’m not feeling like it, and hanging out with my neighbors and cooking more. There are going to be a lot of adjustments and changes the next couple months and I think that one of the most important things for me to do is simply expect it.
Moments of the Week:
1.) Sammy J, Kevin, Cielo and myself barely and I repeat, barely, fitting all of our belongings, including a guitar, into the tiny car (slightly bigger than a smart car, maybe equivalent to a Nissan leaf?) that was taking us from the Peace Corps sub-office back to our hotel.
2.) Finding a trampoline and asking the security guard if we could use it and getting “yes” as the answer.
Since returning from site visit, things have been pretty chaotic and I haven’t had as much time to sit down and write. As far as pre-service training goes, we’re kind of in crunch time between our small community outreach projects, studying for our language exams, completing the rest of our technical sessions, and finishing up any final paperwork or assignments. But if you know me, you know I like to keep myself busy and often overwhelmed, so it’s been enjoyable overall. If all goes as planned, our entire cohort will be swearing in (aka becoming official volunteers) August 8th, which is only a short week and a half away at this point.
I’m still enjoying life out hereimmensely and am still waiting for that moment where I realize that I’m forreal doing this and am actually going to be out on my own in my community for afull two more years. I know I will have this epiphany at some point, but I’llworry about it when it happens and keep relishing the beauty of day to day lifehere until it does. I do have to admit, however, that coming back to ourhomestay community after site visit was a little bit rough. During that week atsite we gained back our normal adulthood freedoms such as when we wake up/go tobed, when we go shopping, what we buy, where we go or who we hang out with, whenand how often we bathe, and what/when we eat. So returning to site and havingto ask my host mother to leave the house after dinner again and being told “no”,has felt like a little bit of a regression. But simply knowing that she justwants me to be safe and that I will be free as a bird again in a week and ahalf is holding me together enough.
Language is still going fairlysmoothly overall! I am extremely excited to get back to site and be able tohave slightly longer and more meaningful conversations with members of mycommunity. Who knows, maybe I’ll even come up with the audacity to throw somecompound sentences in there whoohoo- big things coming. My vocabulary has definitelyexpanded as well as my confidence and sentence formation time. I am stillstruggling with being able to understand and interpret questions though sincethe structure differs so much from English. It also always feels like peopleare talking incredibly fast, so that’s what I need to focus on most up until mylanguage exam next week.
Enough of the boring stuff though,lets talk about food and fun. For starters, they are often the same thing.Example 1: Oranges. First you get to locate and retrieve your target fruit.Next, you get to peel it. You might be thinking “Kelly, this sounds stupid and/orboring” but what you don’t understand is the exhilarating feeling of properlydissecting the perfectly fresh, juicy orange that you just obtained with arandom person’s machete on the side of the road. Then on top of it, going outto find these “magical berry fruit seed things” (not sure what they’re calledbut I’ll get back to you) that act as natural sweeteners and enhance the flavorand sweetness of whatever food you consume next. Thereby turning your alreadydelicious orange into what tastes more like melted orange-flavored snow conejuice that you slurp right out of the orange peel bowl you have createdyourself. And if that’s not a beautiful experience, I honestly don’t know whatis. No joke, the happiness and boost in mood my friend and I experienced legitmade us wonder if we were on drugs.
Secondexample- Papaya, mango, and pineapple are all equally as amazing. At market theladies that sell fruit will portion out small bags of already cut fruit foryou, that way you aren’t taking any risks when you buy it and know it’s a goodfruit. I recently purchased a hefty (probably like 1.5 cups) of super sweetbright yellow pineapple for 1 GhC (which is equivalent to about $0.20 inAmerica) and again, I can’t totally describe it but the pineapple is justdifferent. Come visit to find out. Mango and I have had a rocky relationship,it’s always been my favorite fruit and that hasn’t changed but at this point Ihave definitely cut open more than my fair share of rotten mangoes. And I’m nottalking a small brown spot on one side. I mean the whole thing is infested withsomething, maybe worms? Not totally sure. Cutting this mango (below) washonestly the lowest point of my service so far. Mostly just because I wasalready cranky/hangry and I had been depending on this mango to resurrect me.Papaya is another blessing in life and is enjoyed best cut in half and eaten witha spoon while reading yet another psychological thriller. See below for proof,not that you’d need it.
Exhibit3- Fufu, which is a blob (for lack of a better term) of mashed cassava root andeither plantain or coco yam. In its finished form it resembles a fresh ball ofbread dough that you’re leaving out to rest for an hour. Smooth, plump, and abit shiny. Despite this unappetizing description it’s not awful. I’m prettyneutral with it and do enjoy it with light soup! That being said I definitelywon’t be preparing it for myself at site. For the amount of energy it takes tosteam the cassava/yam, mash small batches of each ingredient separately, and thenfold them together to the right consistency, I’d rather have something else. Tome it just seems like a lot of work for a not fantastic food. But I would neverdeny the offer if someone else presented it to me. Below is a picture of me inthe fufu making process at my friend’s compound doing maybe 1% of the physicallabor required by simply feeding coco yams into the bottom mortar (a job I waslater fired from).
Quote of the week:
*Learning health vocabulary in language training*
Godwin:“so we also have this for medical treatment, what is it?”
Me:“Oh! The thing moms use to get rid of their babies boogers!”
Godwin:“hmmm” *smiling*
Kevin:*whispers* “up the butt?”
Jenand Me: *laughing* “omg can you imagine”
Godwin:*stands up from chair and starts turning to the side*
Kevin:“OH MY GOSH UP THE BUTT I’M RIGHT”
Jenand Me: “NOOOO YOU”RE KIDDING”
Godwin:“Yes correct. Like if a patient is constipated”
Me:“Can that even happen here??”
Kelltothebell's Adventures as a PCV 