Thursday, October 29, 2009

Still Alive!

Yes, I am still alive! I know most of you are not rushing to this site every day to check for an update from me, but for those who have enjoyed hearing about my adventures, I sincerely apologize for the lack of communication. When I decided to start a blog during my time in Ghana I never thought so many people (friends, family, and many people whom I have never met) would be reading it and wanting to hear more. So, with that said, here is what has been going on for the past few months…

Brad and Gil Visit Ghana

My brother and best friend visited me in Ghana for the last two weeks of August and we had an amazing time! It was so great to see them after so long and spend a couple weeks traveling around Ghana. Although all of the sights were new for them (neither had been to Africa before), almost all of the fun places we went were new for me as well. It was so cool to experience all of the beautiful and fun things here in Ghana that I had not had the time or money to do before.

They flew into Accra, Ghana’s capital city, and we spent a night there before starting the long journey (they agreed to brave the public transportation) to Gwollu, where I live. I chose a hotel that was, in my mind, extremely fancy only to find out quickly after their arrival how much my standards have changed over the past year (I have been in Ghana since September 29, 2008… passed my 1 year mark last month!). The things that impressed me so much, clean bed sheets, a hot water shower, a TV (20” color with 6 channels! It even had CNN, but there was no sound), air conditioning, and the fact that we were on the 4th floor of a building, didn’t seem to excite Brad and Gil so much. But we enjoyed our night in Accra anyway and headed north the next day. It takes a few days to reach Gwollu from Accra… total travel time is about 18-20 hours actually on a bus, and I usually have to change busses/vans 3 or 4 times on the way. The first leg of the trip was okay, we were packed pretty tightly into a van but we at least splurged enough to go in an air-conditioned vehicle. The next long leg was 7 hours from Kumasi to Wa and we found another air-conditioned van that would make the trip as soon as it filled. After waiting for a little bit for other passengers, Brad and Gil thought out loud about what they were in for… “How many people sit in each row of this thing?” “Three.” “And we have to sit in it for seven hours on bad roads?” “Yep…” Anyway, after deliberating the idea for a couple minutes, Brad and Gil decided to buy tickets for all 14 seats on the van so that it would leave immediately and we could each have a row of seats to ourselves to lay down! It was a bit ridiculous (I am a little embarrassed telling other volunteers about it) but amazingly comfortable compared to what I usually deal with so if that was what they wanted I was certainly not going to protest.

We spent a couple of days in Gwollu and the guys got to meet my friends and co-workers and experience a bit of what life in Gwollu is like. We arrived on market day, which happens in the middle of town every 6 days, so they got to see the town at its busiest. In Gwollu we also drank pito, which is a locally brewed beer (basically) made from millet and tried some other local foods. We also played volleyball both evenings they were here (I play almost every day with the same group of guys) and that was really fun… the Gwollu guys really enjoyed it and thought it was funny to have three big, white guys on the court. I was a little worried their skills wouldn’t be up to par with the athletic Ghanaians, but they were really good… they each had a few good spikes, which drew cheers from all around.
From Gwollu we headed south and over the next 10 days we saw the cities of Bolgatanga, Tamale, Kumasi, Elmina, and Takoradi and went to Mole National Park, Kintampo Waterfalls, Cape Coast Castle, Kakum National Park, and Busua Beach. It was a little exhausting to see so much in just 2 weeks, but I am definitely glad we pushed ourselves to include so much and I think the other guys are too. Oh yeah, and after meeting my best friend in Gwollu, Kardiri, Brad and Gil decided it would be nice to invite him along, so he joined us for the whole rest of the trip! It was really nice of the guys to invite Kardiri (and pay for him); he also had never experienced so many of the awesome things in his own country that we were able to see on our trip.

Mole National Park was amazing! The night we arrived we went around the park in a truck and saw a bunch of things, but we saw even more (and closer up) the next morning going around on foot with an armed park ranger (his name was Jeeves, great guy). We were able to get very close to huge elephants, baboons, monkeys, antelope, warthogs, and all sorts of birds. We stayed at Mole Motel, which is the only accommodation within the park grounds and it was really nice. The rooms had a/c, a TV, and a stocked fridge (mini-bar!) and from a veranda outside our rooms we could look over the whole park and see a big watering hole where the animals came to drink (we even saw some elephants swimming/bathing in it). There was also a pool there (also overlooking the watering hole) and great food. After breakfast on our second day there a monkey came right up to where we were eating next to the pool and stole a piece of toast right out of a little kid’s hand. We found it hilarious; the kid was not so amused. The monkey then jumped on our table, we had moved a couple feet away by then, and drank the rest of our juice and stole all of the sugar cubes and milk that came with our coffee. It was awesome.

It was great to see Cape Coast Castle and especially cool because President Obama and his family had just been there the month before us. The tour was full of historical (also appalling and sad at times) information about the slave trade. It’s one thing to hear or read about how slaves were crammed in dark, windowless dungeons by the hundreds and kept there for so long before being crammed into equally rough conditions and shipped to a life of forced servitude and it is a whole other thing to stand in the rooms where it actually took place.
At Kakum National Park, we went on the Canopy Walk, which is a series of long wood/rope bridges very high up in the trees of the rain forest. It was really scary, but also a lot of fun. There weren’t animals to see, like at Mole, but just being so high up and looking down at the rain forest was awesome.
We spent our last few days at Busua Beach Resort in the Western Region of Ghana. The place was sooooo nice! The beach was very clean and great for swimming and our rooms were right on it. After going to all corners of the country in such a short time (we made it to 9 of Ghana’s 10 regions) it was great to have a few days to rest and relax on the beach with great food and nice accommodations.
Email me if you want a link to the pictures from the trip. Also, if anyone else wants to come visit, you are welcome any time!

HIV/AIDS Work

Over the past couple of months I have begun doing a lot of HIV/AIDS prevention work in my district. A friend of mine in town, Sibiri, just finished with his degree from the University of Development Studies in Wa and has started a local non-governmental organization in Gwollu called Rural Indigenous Development Centre (RIDEC). Last month Sibiri and I went to a weeklong HIV/AIDS training program in Kumasi that was put on by the Peace Corps and we took back a lot of great information, materials, and ideas for projects. Among other projects, Sibiri’s group got funding from the Ghana AIDS Commission to conduct a yearlong project in our district. I have been working with RIDEC a lot to help plan and carry out their activities. We have been going to the very rural parts of our district to identify community peer educators and conduct trainings for them to learn about HIV/AIDS and how they can prevent it in their villages. Our program also involves HIV testing and counseling, condom distribution, creating HIV/AIDS Awareness Clubs in all of the district’s schools, holding large events (durbars) to increase awareness, and providing support for those living with HIV/AIDS. So far we’ve been really successful with getting people from all over the district informed and involved and the project will be great for me because it will keep me busy throughout the next year. I’ll keep you updated on our progress… we are now planning a big soccer tournament event in Gwollu for World AIDS Day on December 1st.

Work Troubles

Part of the reason that I haven’t updated my blog in so long was that my future in Gwollu was a bit uncertain over the past month. Due to things mostly beyond my control, life in Ghana has been pretty frustrating and stressful over the past month. I’ll do my best to explain what’s up but some details are just boring and others may not be appropriate for such a public forum. The good news is that everything seems to be fine now and I am back in Gwollu happy and working.

What happened, on a very basic level, was that in August a traditional leader in Gwollu decided to dissolve the tourism committee that I had been doing all of my work with for 9 months. This came as a complete surprise to me and all other people involved (voluntarily) in tourism development in Gwollu. Since then, many members of the community have been trying to work out their differences with the certain traditional leader, but not much progress has been made. The result, for me, has been that there is currently no organized group for me to support. Since I am here to support community-based tourism, not a private enterprise, it has had a great effect on the work that I was actually sent here to do. Since this happened, I had been talking with my Associate Director at the Peace Corps and trying to be patient and neutral (traditional leaders, no matter their actions, are held in high regard in Ghanaian culture, so the issue is something I shouldn’t really be involved with as a visitor to the district/country) as the community worked out their problems and found the best way forward. After sharing my disappointment with the traditional leader about his decision and my desire to create a more representative body to manage tourism in Gwollu, he took the problem a step further. After this traditional leader called the Peace Corps to talk about the problem, Peace Corps decided that maybe Gwollu wasn’t the best (or safest) place for me to be. Bummer! I was already in Accra at the time for a meeting, so PC had me stay there until we could work out a solution. It was difficult to be in Accra for over a week feeling like I had no home. My directors were talking to me about places I may move to (in other regions of the country) if things in Gwollu didn’t work out. After being here for a year I finally feel settled, know my local language well, and have friends in a place and all of a sudden it seemed I was going to have to start all over somewhere else.

Anyway, I have been back in Gwollu now since October 9th and it seems I will be able to stay here (I hope!). Things actually may work out to be better now because of all of this. Today (October 20th) is my first day in my new office! I am still living in Gwollu in the same place (with Snoop, who is great by the way), but my job description has been broadened and I have been given an office at the District Assembly (which is the local government body). The District Chief Executive and Presiding Member of Parliament for our district worked very hard to convince the Peace Corps that I should return to Gwollu and they have helped to redefine my role here a bit so that I can be more effective. My office is in the District Assembly Administration Block in Gwollu (just a short bike ride across town from my house… Snoop runs behind my bike and then guards it while I am in the office) so I am right down the hall from all the other district government and development workers. I’ll have to see how much this really changes things as time goes on… I certainly do not have a 9 to 5 job now (although I did use the term “lunch break” for the first time in Ghana today). I can come and go from the office as I need (so I can still spend plenty of time interacting with the community), but it will be nice to have a place to work close to the big wigs and with facilities (I can have use of a vehicle and driver if I need it to visit other communities for work and I can use the printer!) I will be supporting tourism development still, but now within the whole district. We will be forming a new district-wide tourism committee at the assembly that I will work closely with and we are still trying to work through the problems with who is in charge of tourism management in Gwollu. I hope those issues will be solved soon, because currently visitors to Gwollu are not be properly received and there is no body in place to effectively collect or account for any fees paid by tourists.
So, that’s what is going on with my work for now… I’ll keep you updated if there are any new developments!

Halloween/Thanksgiving/HOME!

Halloween is coming up soon and I’ll go get together with some other Peace Corps Volunteers for a party. I am still thinking about what to dress up as but for now I am only sure that it will involve a pretty serious haircut and facial hair trim. I haven’t cut my hair since probably July, so it is as long as it has been in Ghana and just waiting to be cut into a mullet, a mohawk, or both! I also haven’t trimmed my beard in about a month, so I am sure I can incorporate some sort of funny arrangement there too. Right now the leading candidates for my costume are redneck or rock star, neither of which should require much work. The markets here always have huge piles of clothes for so cheap… Ghanaians call them “dead obroni (white man)” clothes. Anyway, there are some great finds in these piles, it’s like the best (or worst) of salvation army and garage sales combined, especially if shopping for Halloween costumes. I’ll do my costume shopping at the Wa market on my way to the party and try to get a picture of us in our costumes up next time I post; I am sure there will be some very creative outfits.

No plans for Thanksgiving yet but I am sure we will do something. Shortly after Thanksgiving though, I will be HOME FOR A MONTH! I am so excited to come home to see family and friends for a whole month, December 18 to January 18. I will also get to visit CLEMSON from January 6-10 (thanks to Aunt Sandy for the plane ticket), which will be great. December 18th might seem like a long way away, but time seems to go by fast here and I have already been thinking for quite a while about all of the things I want to do while I am home. I will have so many people to see, fun things to do, and delicious things to eat! Anyway, if you will be in VT any time while I am home be sure to email me or something so I can see you… also Clemson people should consider the weekend of January 8-10 a mandatory reunion weekend, no excuses (most of you can drive there in a few hours, I am coming all the way from Africa for a weekend!). I will try to get my U.S. cell phone working again for the month I am home with the same number I used to have so that people can get a hold of me.

Until Next Time…

Well, again I apologize for not posting for so long but this one should give you enough of me for a little bit. I hope all is well at home with everybody and I am excited to see so many of you very soon!

p.s.- while I was gone for a few weeks an extended family of mice took residence in my kitchen and house! My friend Mashoud and I killed 12 of them the other day and I have killed a few more since. I had a massive cleaning day a few days ago and duct taped up all the places where I thought they were getting in… I think I’ve won the battle, but we’ll see if they return!

p.p.s.-wrote this last week and travelled to Tumu just to post it only to learn that the internet place was closed and has been for awhile. I am in Wa now, which is where it seems like I will have to come for internet access now... the roads have gotten so much worse over the rainy season and some busses/vans have stopped running so it now takes me about 5 hours to reach Wa (if I can get means!).

p.p.p.s- Hippo Attack! My friend, another Peace Corps Volunteer in the Upper West, was attacked by a hippo in his village this morning! A hippo came into his village (they are 10k away from the river) so he and many others went to see it and take pictures and after it went behind a bush he saw everyone running and he fell down and got hit by the hippo! He didn't even realize he was hurt until he went to bathe and saw blood... there was a big chunk of his butt missing! Anyway, I visited him in the hospital today and he is doing fine... they have stitched him up and given him medicine and he will go to the hospital in Tamale tomorrow to get it checked out there. Thankfully he will be fine, but what a horrible, scary experience!

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