Life is Good

I really love my site. Affere is great. There are about 7,000 people living in town, according to Ambrose. There was a census in 2010 and they are expecting it to report close to 7,000 people, and I can believe it because the town is pretty large.

On Sunday, I went to meet the village chief and elders. The Assembly Man and my counterpart both explained why I was in Affere and what I would be doing for the next two years. You are not allowed to talk directly to the chief so anything that was said had to be “refined” by the linguist. Out of tradition and respect, when you want to talk to the chief you must do it through he linguist. The linguist will then tell the chief what you have said, but he might choose better words and make it sound more refined. We were there for about 20 minutes and in that time the chief gave me a new mother and father in the town. I live with my mother, and she is a wonderful cook, and my father lives about 10 minutes away from me. I think my father is one of the elders, but I’m not sure. The chief also gave me a new name. I am named after one of the Queen Mothers – Akua Nyarko. I prefer my old name from Anyinasin, which is Dokua, but I guess I have to accept Nyarko. Maybe Dokua will catch on.

On Monday, Alisa and I went into Juaboso to meet two other PCVs that live fairly close to us. Their names are Cameron and Sean and both are Health/WATSAN volunteers like us. Cameron is actually from West Linn, Oregon! Weird. I think he was more surprised that I knew where West Linn is! We met them at a spot around 9am and hung out there until around 1030 when my counterpart called me. Apparently Amakye and Ose (Alisa’s CP) wanted to take us around Juaboso to various places like the hospital, district assembly, and police station, and we had no idea this was their intention. It was so hot outside and we didn’t have that much water, so I literally felt like my skin was melting off me. At least water is easy to find around here, but bathrooms are not. So its always a case of dehydrate yourself and you won’t have to pee in the street or drink lots of water and try to find somewhere decent to urinate...the dilemma of a PCV. Finally, after walking around for a couple hours we came back home and Alisa at lunch at my house. My mother gave us fried plantains and beans, also known as red red. It’s sooooooo good but probably pretty fattening, which is probably why it is so good. Then she brought us chilled apple juice in wine glasses. It was pretty nice. We tried to watch television, yes, I have satellite television in my room, but the power went out. I’m not going to lie my house is pretty sweet. I was preparing myself for living in really bad conditions, but my house is like Little America. I think I can handle that for 2 years!