february!

Hello all...

I cannot believe that I have been in Ghana for eight months now. For some of you, I have already emailed you some of these items and my thoughts just bear with me. :D

I am in the city of Kumasi right now with my fellow health volunteers. It is wonderful to see my friends again, speak American English, drink cold beer, and learn many technical skills and resources to guide our next year and a half. My APCD (Associate Program Country Director) of Health is brilliant so training has been quite beneficial and very refreshing as opposed to the general training we received in the first three months of our service. We have all adjusted well or relatively well and this is great to see. It was not so long ago that I was trying to find ways of disposing of my food without offending my host family. On our way back from training this time around, we are all planning on going to visit our host families. I am so excited to see my host mom, witness her crazy happy dance, and show her that I actually do enjoy her food now. It is so interesting, but I think that one of the crucial steps to integrating well into the culture is to learn how to enjoy the food here. Ghanaians have such pride in their local cusine (as do most cultures) so it a point of connecting with and making actual friends with the people over their food so key. This has taken so long, though. I would say that during my 5th or 6th month of service, I came to really appreciate and enjoy the country. Regarding the food, it was a matter of pure hunger that lead me to eat more of their local cuisine and now I actually crave the soup and balls of starch. Sort of a scary thought...if I fit in here, in such a radically different culture, will I ever be able to make friends and function in America? Ha ha. Just a warning to the lucky people with whom I will choose to live and mooch off after I return.

There are many things I miss. Or perhaps they are not really things, but more cultural frameworks and mindsets. Education here is very frustrating as the focus is completely on subservience, memorization, and standarized tests. I recognize that in America we are constantly having the debate about the perhaps improper role standarized tests play in our country. Being here makes me appreciate the wonderful education I received at Hillcrest (Mrs. Maddron especially!). Some of the volunteers have begun teaching computer classes not because they really care about computers or they schools even have electricity, but because without learning the requirements started by Ghana Education Service, these students will have no chance of going to senior high school. Thus, the requirements are not based on whether the students have proper materials in the classroom or even teachers, but on what the education department decides. I am sure this is common in many countries so it is not only Ghanaian youth who struggle to escape the life of poverty through higher education. It is common for me to see the students going to farm after school ends for the day to work on the headmaster's farm. Whem I do go to the school, the students are usually just sitting in the classroom without a teacher. If they students leave, they will get beaten. It is quite a conundrum because we encourage parents to send their children to school instead of farm and yet, it does make sense for a parent to value the finances of the family over the education of the child when the child does not learn anyway. The structure of the education system does not encourage creativity and questioning, as I have mentioned before, and this is one of the most frustrating aspects of education here.

The lack of questioning and conversational skills exists in my everyday interactions and relationships. People have told me that I ask too many questions and perhaps this is true. haha. Not that I am going to change. I don't care if I do, but I have noticed and been frustrated by my failed attempts to hold a meaningful conversation with some people whom I considered my close friends. Looking at the cultural context, though, I can step back and realize these critiques without judgment. Marriage here, at least in the village, is centered around going to farm, eating, and procreating. I recently went to a workshop funded by a local Women's Development NGO and the women discussed many of their relationship problems with their spouses. Some of the women mentioned the fact that they are afraid to speak to their husbands about something that has angered or upset them because they are afraid they will get beat. In fact, Ghana does have a law against domestic violence, but it was very difficult for Parliament to pass such a law. The women at the workshop were professional women so their lives and therefore, their solutions were very different than the solutions some of the women in my village would have come up with. Even then, it seemed like a relatively new concept to many of the women to perhaps ask her husband to go out for a beer or soda and just try to listen and communicate openly about the problem. Going to the workshop and realizing the difficulties these women have in communicating with their spouses made me realize how much I value the power I have to speak my mind, how much I value honesty and frankness, and become more patient with my friends if their conversational skills are limited to food and my general state of being. It also makes me appreciate so much more my few friends I have that ask stimulating questions and with whom I can hold meaningful conversations. And it just puts me, once again, in the role of asking more questions in interactions. haha.


The workshop rocked my socks off! Another volunteer in my district went to the workshop and we just came away from it extremely inspired about the quality of the women working for this NGO, the level of consciousness of the women participating, and the potential we have for colloborating with this agency. We had an anon question box and some of the questions were quite sobering. Some of these were what a woman should do if her family does not love her since she is not married and what are suggestions for a woman whose husband no longer loves her and how to win back his heart. The reality of the lives of women here is very hard to swallow, even those of professional women with education. Once the women begin to work and spend more time away from home, it is common for the man to choose another girlfriend because activities such as cooking, being in the house, and doing the wash are seen as acts of love and so if a woman cannot do those all the time, her husband goes to find another. This is not to say all men do this, but this is the reality for many women. The challenges are enormous and just break my heart, I did not come away from the workshop depressed, though. Instead, I was so impressed and moved by the strength, humor, and resliency of the women. I loved the facilitator (who when people ask if she is married, she states she is happily single) and the fact that Ghanaian women were discussing issues and concerns that women all over still face and that my fellow PVCs and I have discussed. I am so excited to work with this NGO on some of our projects, such as a leadership and HIV prevention camp for youth, Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and International Women's Day.

So my fellow health volunteers and I had quite an inspiring day. Part of PC health is to improve the nutritional status of community members. One way to do this is through projects called Alternative Livelihood. In Tutukpene, the majority of the people focus only on subsistence farming with yam, maize, cassava, etc. Today we visited an amazing farm owned by a man who started with a poultry farm of only 50 chickens and has worked up to owning 150 acres, farming fish, chicken, grass cutters, pigs, and even owning ostriches and crocodiles with the goal in mind of beginning an ecotourism project. He won Ghana's National Farmer of the Year a few years ago and rightfully so. Consistent with subsistence farming, it is common here for farmers to not keep track of expenditures and profits and just live day to day. Thus, it is amazing (!) to meet a man who began as a mechanic and somehow had the know how to begin planning for his goals and know how to make them a reality. We went with our counterparts (volunteers chosen by our communities) and it was very beneficial for them to see someone who was formerly in their economic situations and now is quite affluent. I am hoping that my counterpart will be motivated more so now to work with the Farmer's Group in T.P. to raise rabbits, grow trees and moringa trees, and decide on other alternative livelihood projects. On my own, I want to try to raise goats, rabbits, and grass cutters so that perhaps I can fund my vaca. :D

I am sure you are all wondering what I am doing here and if I am completely wasting my life under the African sun. haha. Yes, my skin is turning to leather and I will need to spend my readjustment allowance on plastic surgery. Other than that, I feel like things are going relatively well considering it is hotter than Hades and the culture is so different. Everyday, when I think about American productivity and pace of life and feel guilty about how lazy I am, I have to remind myself of what a brilliant man JFK was when he made 2 of the three goals of the PC about creating relationships and peacekeeping. Thus, I am doing my job everyday that I sit down with my friends to eat fufu, do my wash, and fetch water from the boar hole. That said, there are many projects I want to do and am quite excited about, but I have to make sure that the community initiates the project so that I will not be placed in the role that post colonized nations sometimes fall back on in relying on the "foreigner."

I will just list a few projects that are rolling around in my head and will hopefully come into fruition soon (Africa soon mind you...):

Going to the Upper West with a young female student to learn to make soap the come back to the district/village to teach other women a potential income generating activity

Continuing with the Girls Club I started- training for an AIDS race, doing dramas, baking cakes, Take Your Daughter to Work Day, learning cloth making

Doing HIV/AIDS prevention with the youth- drama and quiz competitions

Working with the Farmer's Group to do Alternative Livelihood projects

Doing educational activities based on treating malnutrition in the community

Working on material items that T.P. has identified as needs- another boar hole, latrines, a storage center for grains

And starting my farm! :D

Just to provide a disclaimer, perhaps ask me about these projects in three months as then they will just have begun...ha.

Gotta go,
Lindsey