Lately I’ve really been loving my job. This past week I’ve
had a lot of great conversations with people in my town, which is refreshing
and also quite enlightening. You can only stand hearing, “Obruni, what is your
name?” or “Hey, I love you. I will marry you,” so many times a day. It
definitely makes you want to pull your hair out sometimes. Another infamous
saying is “Ma me sika,” or “give me money.” Depending on the day you can have
fun with it but on others you just want to chase those little kids away. But
all the great experiences I’ve been having so far definitely make up for the
ones that get under you skin. I figure you can complain and be miserable during
your two years of service or you can enjoy it and realize you have the best job
in the world. I mean who doesn’t get frustrated at work? So take it for what it
is and make the best of your situation. You’ll be a better volunteer and you’ll
have a lot more fun. It also helps that I have made some really great people in my area. There are a handful of PCVs within 20 minutes to two hours of me, and I get to see them at least once a week for our epic market days. I have to say PCVs are pretty great people. It definitely makes my job and my life much more enjoyable.
On Friday I met with two girls from my girls group at the
JHS. Three of them have volunteered to by translators so I wanted to talk with
them about my plan and show them some of my materials. They seemed to
understand everything I was saying and looked pretty excited, especially one of
the girls, Emelia. I think she is going to be my new favorite student. There is
a program through Peace Corps called STARS (Students Taking Action Reaching for
Success) and there is an annual conference at the KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology) in Kumasi. Basically STARS is there to promote
and teach leadership skills for SHS students. PCVs from all over Ghana bring
two students from their local SHS to the meeting, which lasts for a week. A
couple of the PCVs in my area just recently returned and I’ve heard nothing but
great things, so I’m really excited to get involved with this. I would really
like Emelia to be one of my students but I don’t think she will be in SHS by
the time I leave.
Sunday is always one of my favorite days because everyone is
at church. It’s so quite in my compound, except for the incessant noises from
goats, sheep, and chickens. A neighboring Natural Resources Management (NRM)
PCV is working on a project to register cocoa farmers in this area, so after
church I held a meeting with my local cocoa farmers. My meeting was scheduled
for 2pm, but being that we’re in Africa and all, the first person didn’t show
up until 2:30 and the rest came around 3:15 – African punctuality. Ghana’s time
zone is West African International Time aka WAIT. So we finally kicked things
off around 3:30. My counterpart and I explained the idea behind the project and
how it would benefit them. The farmers can sign up to receive text messages
each week that will give them cocoa farming tips and techniques. All in effort
to help them improve their farms and earn more money. I think this a great idea
and I’m glad to help another PCV with his project. Well, after explain all this
and reiterating that it’s completely voluntary and FREE, one man in the group
decided to give a little speech. Basically he told me he thought it was a
terrible idea and would be no benefit to the farmers here. Instead, taking them
to America and conducting a cocoa farming class would be better. My counterpart
and I both said, again, that this service is not required and is only here to
help those interested. So even if only one farmer is interested, that’s still
someone we can help. It was a very frustrating meeting. This man succeed in
making me feel terrible and at one point I was almost in tears. However, I kept
my cool and kept smiling. I ended up getting 30 names, including the man who
was against this. So on Sunday my friend will be coming to register the
farmers, and hopefully more show up. It feels good to accomplish things!
That evening I met up with one of the teachers from the JHS.
We went to one of the local hangouts to relax and watch everyone dancing
Azonto. I suggest you YouTube this phenomenon. I like talking with the teachers
because they speak English better than most people and are fairly educated.
This teacher is involved with the JHS hygiene club and has been helping me with
my girls club, so we were talking about both clubs for a while. He seems really
interested and wants to stay involved, so that makes things easier for me. We
both agree that working with the students is a good way to implement my
projects. I’m working with behavior change, so we figure that is easier to
instill new thoughts and behaviors in younger people who haven’t developed
their lifelong habits. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I plan to change
that though! I’m planning on visiting the primary and kindergarten schools to
teach them a hand-washing game. Hopefully that will get them thinking about
health and hygiene. On Saturday, the teacher and I are planning to do some home
visits. Sometimes he’ll walk around town and visit with his students to see how
thing are going at home and just do a general check in. I was glad to hear this
because it seems like he really cares about his students and is invested in
their education. I also want to get to know the students better and make them
feel more comfortable around me. Hopefully this helps!
On a completely separate but equally important issue…Euro
Cup 2012 has started! I’m a little frustrated that England-France ended in a
draw, but it’s better than a loss! Go England! My television doesn’t show the
games so I have to go into town to watch them, but it definitely entertaining
to watch football with Ghanaians. Today is Denmark vs. Portugal and then
Netherlands vs. Germany. Should be some great football happening there!
I hope all is well in America! I miss you guys...but I'm having a blast so don't worry. Happy early birthday to my wonderful Grandma Gladys Addy on June 14 all the way in England! And of course I didn't forget Rocky! Our little pooper dog turns 12 on June 15! I'm sure my mom will be giving him a right nice dinner.
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