On to the important stuff: Me and my well-being. As of
today, I am approximately two months into my official service and over half way
through my site restriction. For those of my readers who have not previously
been in the Peace Corps, site restriction is a three month probationary period
at the beginning of every volunteers service in which we are not allowed to
overnight away from our sites unless it is on administrative business. At the
end of these three months we “reconnect” with our training group at
“Reconnect,” which is traditionally viewed as the light at the end of the
tunnel. During training, many of the PCVs who came to help train us depicted
site-restriction as a torturous three months, by the end of which every
volunteer is sleeping outside, without their mosquito net, and without their
anti-malaria medication, in the hope that they get malaria and are allowed to
go to Accra for a medical vacation.
While I have seriously considered sleeping outside without
my mosquito net to have just one night where I do not startle myself awake
because I had a dream where I was drowning in my own sweat, to say I am not
suffering too badly during site restriction is an understatement. Besides
travel restriction, the other administratively imposed reason for the stigma
attached to site restriction, is that we are not supposed do any serious work.
They want us to participate in our communities passively and learn about their
lifestyle and find ways we hope we can make a positive impact. I have found
this to be more difficult as at times I do feel a sense of impotence. However,
these occasions are definitely in the minority and typically occur when I am
sleep deprived or am sweating to unusually high degree and have no way of controlling
it. The rest of the time I have been happy as a clam, becoming a member of
Bormase and doing my utmost to avoid any semblance of real work. Because the
Peace Corps says so obviously.
So as I’m sure most of you might wonder, or will wonder once
I finish this sentence, what do I do all day if I can’t do any real work?
First, I will clarify: Real work is my lazy way of saying “Peace Corps project
work.” Basically they don’t want us showing up at site and trying to build a
school a week later. We are encouraged to develop an understanding of our
communities and their most critical needs, or at least significant needs that
we, as Peace Corps volunteer have the capacity to address. Then we are supposed
to “facilitate” a solution. The emphasis is on “facilitate,” because our
projects should be sustainable, meaning they will continue to be beneficial
after we leave Ghana. We are encouraged to work with our neighbors at their
jobs every day and learn everything we can about the day to day work that goes
on in our communities.
Anyway, my daily schedule is highly varied. I have nothing
even remotely resembling an actual job. Despite this I inevitably wake up at
around 6am. My counterpart and neighbors have a knack for knowing when I have
not slept well and coming over the next morning at 5:45am and waking me up
during the first real hour of sleep I have gotten all night. Even if they don’t
come a combination of a deluge of sweat, the neighbors radio, and those lovely
screaming baby humans and goats more than suffice to shock me awake at the same
time every morning. Besides this uniformity nothing else in my day to day life
is particularly regular. I usually will read for a couple hours in the morning,
take a nap in the afternoon, and then eat dinner and play cards in the evening
at my neighbors house.* How I survive this drudgery is beyond me. I often go to
farm with one of my neighbors and just recently cleared my own plot for a
garden! They all love to feel the softness of my palms and laugh at how easily
I bleed. Just because they have hands made of leather and use them as cutting
boards (literally) they think they’re tougher than me. Assholes.
Wednesday is market day so I ride my bike the twenty minutes
down the road to market. People I pass on the road have a nasty habit of trying
to have a conversation with me while I am speeding down a hill right at one of
the four million massive potholes on the road. If I make it through site
restriction without flying over my handle bars at least once I’ll have dodged a
bullet.
Besides that, I spend a lot of my time visiting people in
the surrounding communities, playing football, or going to the local Junior
High School (more on this in a later post.) It has been difficult for me to
become accustomed to the lack of structure but I becoming used to it and expect
to increase my work load through various I plan to start in coming months. None
of which I will jinx before they get off the ground by advertising them here.
About six more weeks until site restriction is over but I
can’t say I particularly care. It will be nice to see the rest of my training
group but I plan to have a very happy two years in Bormase.
*Me and my neighbor play cards most evenings. He doesn’t
speak much English, but it was sufficient to learn Egyptian Ratscrew. For those
who don’t know Egyptian Ratscrew is a fast-paced game filled with slapping and
heightened emotions. Ghanaians are big fans of any game that encourages yelling
and fast-paced action for which Ghana is perfect. While I consider myself a
rather proficient Egyptian Ratscrewer, having played for over ten years (many
lovely memories playing in airports,) my neighbor learned the game and was
beating me within three weeks.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of the Peace Corps. They only represent those of the author.
