One week down, one hundred and three to go

Quick post today. I had plans to do a longer more involved one with pictures and everything but the internet is being temperamental.

Anyway, I have been officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! It feels absolutely no different than it did before swearing in but I guess that’s typical for arbitrary commencements and the like. Shipping off to site was relatively traumatic as me, and my fellow volunteers, were thrown into our isolated sites and ripped away from the people we have spent essentially waking moment of the last three months with. There is a definite attachment that has grown there which makes the separation difficult, but I am guessing that is just a Stockholm Syndrome-esque response and that I will quickly realize exactly how much I despise all those obnoxious obrunis.

I am now living in Bormase, and those readers whose loyalty I have not yet failed to exhaust will remember it as the village where I will be spending the next two years of my life. There are approximately five hundred people in the town and we make gari! I do not want to spoil the joy I felt in my virginal experience of gari, so I will let those reading do their own research to discover for themselves what this magical treat is. I will follow up with a more detailed look at Bormase when I finally upload photos.

There are four other volunteers living near me, and we are all working with Krobodan(Pronounced with a super hero like emphasis on the -dan.) Three of these lovely people are in my training group and we have been going through many of the same trials together. Kofi Adam, our gentle giant, has generously taken up the cross of the serial pooper for our quartet. Not that any of us are lacking on that front but he has notably gone above and beyond the normal human capacity for excretion.

If you weren’t aware, Christmas is next week. Ghana celebrates it too! My only insight into how they celebrate is when my friend in town took me to the local distillery to get Akpeteshie, the local moonshine. It is amazing stuff. Puts hair on the chest and then can be used to burn it right off again. He purchased two gallons of it.

I want to send some postcards home to friends and family but strangely I lacked the initiative to collect addresses before leaving. If you would like me to send you a postcard you can message me your address via facebook, email (jveritas334@gmail.com), or through this blog. I will very likely get around to sending something to everyone in the two years while I am here. If you would like to ensure your name at the top of that list you can mail me something first! My address is:

Joseph Stein – Peace Corps Volunteer

Peace Corps Ghana

P.O.Box 5796

Accra-North, Ghana

I gotta go. Send me something. Or don’t. I will only love you marginally less.

Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of the Peace Corps.  They only represent those of the author.

The Newtown Shooting

I just recently heard about the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. There are no words to accurately describe this tragedy. I cannot begin to imagine the depths at which this is being felt back everyone back home. The victims will live on in my heart and those of all of the Peace Corps and Ghana. We will pray for the families and loved ones of the deceased, as well as the survivors, at church in Bormase this Sunday.  

Thanksgiving

Currently, all twenty remaining PCVs in my group are living in the Dery Hotel in Techiman. We have air conditioning, running water, a pool, a bar, and little real responsibility. Most of our time is spent complaining, which is Peace Corps Volunteers’ unofficial hobby. We are here for our offsite technical training, which lasts for a total of two and one half weeks and currently has a little over a week remaining. The training includes a mix of lectures, on topics ranging from microfinancing for farmers to pest management, and hands on practicals, on topics such as beekeeping and GPS and tree stand management. It has been a nice mix of tedious and fascinating. Techiman has the largest open market in all of Western Africa. Yesterday was market day and we all went and shopped for supplies for the makeshift Thanksgiving we will be celebrating tonight. I will thankfully be doing none of the cooking and will hopefully manage to be productive in my own fashion.

After our offsite technical training is over we will return to our homestay town of Addo Nkwanta. We spent four of the first five weeks there and after spending two more we will be sworn in as volunteers and shipped off to our sites. We are all experiencing a combination of terror and optimistic excitement at this. The balance of terror and excitement differs but is undoubtedly consistent for us all. I am fairly certain that we will all survive but it is daunting nonetheless. This is exacerbated by the three month site restriction we will all have imposed on us. This is to promote integration of the volunteer into their communities and is definitely constructive in the scope of our whole service. However, it is reportedly very difficult as the way of life we are all about to begin is very different from any we have previously lived.

Four of us will be working with Krobodan in the Eastern Region of Ghana. They are a Danish organization that does development work among the Krobo people in parts of the Eastern region of Ghana. They focus on working with local farmers, single mothers, and increasing secondary income for these two groups. My primary assignment will be helping to facilitate the implementation of improved methods of chicken and rabbit rearing among local farmers. My site is in a community of about one hundred up the road from Sekesua.

This primary assignment is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of my plans for the next two years. I hope, and expect, to be very involved in my community and all of those surrounding it. The primary income generating industries in my communities are bead and gari making. Gari is ground, fried cassava that Ghanaians tend to love and Americans tend to hate. In addition to this, most community members are farmers as well and I plan to work extensively with them. This work should be very collaborative and will focus on introducing income-generating practices into their daily lives.  Teaching is already very likely for me and I hope to work with the local physician in introducing many grassroots health initiatives (i.e. expanded HIV awareness training, prevention of teen pregnancy, etc.). These secondary projects are often the highlights of a volunteers’ service, thus I am particularly excited for these.

           

Anticipation is high for the next couple of months as everything we have been preparing for will be put to the test. The first couple of months we are supposed to maintain a passive role in our communities as we evaluate and assess the specific needs of the community members. This translates to long days with no structure and little progress but I hope things get going relatively quickly and I can make some type of impact. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of the Peace Corps.  They only represent those of the author.

1 Month in Ghana

 As of tomorrow morning, I will have left home, and as of Wednesday, I will have arrived in Ghana, exactly four weeks ago. Its been a surreal month to say the least.

It began with a night in DC and the thirty hour travel marathon to Ghana, by way of Frankfurt, Germany. My arrival in Ghana did not coincide with my realization that I was in Africa. That epiphinal moment crept up on me over the next week and sucker punched me once I had moved into my homestay. It struck as I was lying in my bed, drenched in sweat, covered in bug bites, and serenaded by screaming goats.

"What the hell am I doing here?"

Totally unlike Connecticut, and only in negative ways it seemed. I was continuously mulling over how much I would be willing to pay to sit on a ceramic, plastic, or really, any non-concrete toilet. Is that really too much to ask? For a salad? Some privacy? Or a meal portion that doesn't make me think I am supposed to share with the other twenty-one volunteers in my group?

I didn't realize what it meant to be overwhelmed before arriving. Typically, I can maintain my cool in stressful situations. Sometimes I do when perhaps I should be losing it. However, arriving in my homestay town of Addo Nkwanta was a total sensory, emotional, and mental overload. So much so, that I didn't have a chance to maintain, or lose, much of anything. The first couple days dragged like only the worst of their kind. Every movement was scrutinized, every interaction was strained, and I was ninety percent sure I was going to contract a flesh-eating disease and die before the week was up (This is still a concern; no help was given by learning the names of the specific flesh-eating diseases that currently enjoy epidemic status in Ghana.(Just kidding Mom, as long as I don't swallow any of the water I use to brush my teeth or take bucket baths with I'll be fine.))

Anyway, that was 3 weeks ago and I am still here, happy as my African Momma after she beats the crap out of a neighbor boy for stealing her chicken. This post is a testimony to my (mostly) functional vitals and the initial trials I underwent. These struggles have only begun but I am absolutely certain that this is where I am supposed to be, and unequivocal in my determination to succeed in every way I can.

Ghana is a truly amazing country and I am excited to share it with anyone who remembers me fondly enough to actually read this. More optimistic posts are forthcoming...

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of the Peace Corps.  They only represent those of the author.