Long time no post. Sorry to all my dedicated followers, as I'm sure there are many of you! I intended to write a post a while back but due to one thing or another, like my electricity going in and out, I did not. As they say in Ghanaian English, Sorry-o!
I feel like this past month as flown by. Thanksgiving was a great success. The US Ambassador to Ghana graciously opened his house to the PCVs and some other workers in Ghana. Two buffet tables filled with delicious food and lots of beer, wine, and sangria. It was the same as how we do in America, but pretty darn close. The fact that I was even able to have a Thanksgiving dinner was perfect enough. I definitely was not expecting that when I came to Ghana. The dinner was wonderful and I was able to catch up with some friends I have not seen in quite it a bit. Naturally, we all went out into Accra later that night to continue the Thanksgiving celebrations. It was definitely a night to remember. But alas, you cannot escape work forever, so I had to return to the village.
Before I traveled to Accra for Thanksgiving, however, I attended a Nutrition In-Service Training in Kumasi (Ashanti Region). I brought a local counterpart with me; a National Service teacher working at the local JHS. She was a great companion and I believe she truly learned a lot and enjoyed the training events. She and I met yesterday to discuss some projects we would like to start with our newly acquired nutrition knowledge and materials. The leaders of the training are colleagues of mine and at the end of the four days, they were generous enough to provide all the attendees with a nutrition toolkit. My counterpart and I now have several books, CDs, photographs, and posters to use to implement projects in our town. Yesterday we decided that we would like to start going to the churches on Sunday to talk about nutrition and health-related issues. As you may or may not know, religion is a very big part of life in Ghana, so naturally, most Ghanaians go to church on Sundays, or mosque on Friday if you are Muslim. This provides us with a captive audience, so they cannot escape when we come to talk to them. One week from today we will go to the Methodist church and lead a small lesson on food groups and use some photo cards to help us. We have also made arrangements to go to the Mosque in two weeks. I am very pleased with what we have planned and I believe it will go well.
My snail project is coming along nicely, at least it seems that way so far. I've been meeting with the students once a week to discuss our plans and start education on snail farming. At our last meeting I asked the president and vice-president of the club to meet with the other students and locate a place where we can construct our snail pens. It has to be somewhere shaded and in a place that no one will be able to steal from. I am meeting with them tomorrow, so I hope that they have completed their assignment and bring me some good news. One of my other counterparts, who is occasionally helping me with this project, informed me you cannot find snails this time of year, so that might delay our project a bit. Apparently the best time to collect snails from the wild is during the raining season, but now the rainy season is coming to an end and the quantity of snails is decreasing. Hopefully we will still be able to gather some, but we shall see. Fingers crossed. I am actually very intrigued by this snail farm. I never thought I would be that invested, but it is actually very interesting. I've learned quite a lot about snails and they are actually a pretty cool animal (mollusk? whatever they are). The only problem with them is that they taste nasty. At least I think so.
On Wednesday I am meeting with the pregnant women and women with children under five years old. I made an announcement this past Wednesday at the baby weighing informing about the meeting and my project. My counterparts and I are anxious to start the bed net distribution project, so we need to start meeting with the women to gather names and start education. This meeting will give me an initial count of how many women will be involved and about how many nets I will need to order. As soon as I can nail down a solid number I can write and submit my grant so we can fund this project. The goal is to educate the women about malaria and why they are most susceptible to it (when they are pregnant or when they have children under five years old). We will do many different kinds of malaria education such as: clips and videos, flip charts, bed net hanging demonstrations, neem creem demonstrations (a local mosquito repellant made from the Neem tree), question and answer sessions, and lessons using photos and materials provided to us PCVs. My counterparts are very invested and dedicated to this project and have already told me they will take time out their schedule to attend the meeting next week. I'll keep you all informed as to how things turn out, but I have a good feeling about this one.
I have also started an English tutoring club at the JHS to help students practice for their final exams at the end of the year - the BECE (Basic Education Certification Exam? something like that). There are several different subjects on the exam and since I am a native English speaker and you cannot really succeed in this country without learning English, I decided to help some students. Two teachers and the headmaster selected the top 20 students and those are the students we are going to use for the initial group. We did this because we only want to students who are serious and dedicated to their education. If the group is filled with students who do not care and already have a lower level of English, it will affect the group dynamic and it will not be successful. We are starting with these students and then as the group progresses and if it is successful, we will expand to other students. It is hard not being able to include all the students, but this is the best way to start and we will take it from there. The head English teacher gave me a book with all the past BECE English exams so I am looking over them and developing lesson plans. The students really need to improve their English comprehension and critical thinking skills. It is remarkable how bad it is. I have been in school on many different occasions and asked questions and I am just met with blank stares, like I was speaking in an alien language or something. The classes here are mostly taught through repetition and copying. They teacher writes something on the board and the students copy it. That is how they learn. Everything is memorized and they never (usually) seem to think for themselves or even have the ability to do so. It's quite sad, but that is the ugly truth. Hopefully this club will ameliorate these problems.
That is pretty much what I have going as far as projects. I feel like I am forgetting something but I cannot think of it at the moment. Everything is going wonderfully and I hope it all continues that way.
The Ghanaian Presidential election as held on Friday and it looks like the NDC party has won. They are still counting votes but it is all but confirmed that NDC will stay in power. If that is the case, then there will be no run-off in the next few weeks and PCVs will be taken off "Standfast." This is one of our safety protocols. During times that might turn violent or something happens in the country, PCVs are usually put on Stanfast, which means we must stay at our respective sites and pack a bag just in case we have to consolidate to our consolidation points. Thankfully nothing violent happened during the election and I believe we will be back to normal soon enough.
It is hard to believe that it is Christmas time already. It sure does not feel like it over here. No Christmas lights or trees and definitely no snow, although I am grateful for that. It is definitely going to be a tropical Christmas this year. Several of my colleague have already left for America to spend the holidays at home and many are still planning to leave in the next few days. However, there are a few of us staying behind so we will be getting together so we can celebrate amongst ourselves. Then as soon as everyone returns from America I will be heading out to South Africa and Zimbabwe to meet up with my parents. I am VERY excited for this trip. I will be gone for three weeks and it cannot come fast enough! About 43 days to go until my flight leaves Accra!
That is all for now folks!
