I am now the proud owner of a bike, a cutlass and I’ve been given a piece of land for a small garden. Free at last (not really, it’s just that I don’t have to depend on the tro’s to get around, I can start my garden and hopefully grow some different food, hopefully)!

My village thinks it’s hilarious that I bought a cutlass and that I’m ‘trying’ to use it. But as the saying goes “When in Rome, do as the Romans” so if the Ghanaians use a cutlass to farm then why can’t I? I started hacking away the weeds in my garden, only to walk away with a ton of new blisters on my hands (goes to show that I haven’t been farming much). It’s going to be a gradual process… clearing the weeds, cutting the bamboo for the fence and then building it. Waiting for the rainy season to end so I can start planting, and then hoping that EVERYTHING grows.

Bicycle!!! Yay!! So if my village thought me trying to use a cutlass was funny, then when they heard that I was riding my bike about 11 miles to visit another Peace Corps Volunteer they about died of laughter. A) I guess me (a white girl) riding a bike is crazy, B) Riding to another town is even crazier (if only they understood that I rode my bike across Colorado last summer, and that where I come from we ride long distance for sport… doing anything athletic, other than playing soccer, is unheard of though), and C: well, what can I say?

It all started with three letters… I didn’t even know that Kute had a Post Office? But nonetheless, I was handed three letters from my counter part one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. The letters were all asking me if I would teach in their schools. Teach to the JHS (Junior High School) students. One school was asking about having me teach integrated science and another was asking about teaching ICT (Information, Communication and Technology)… Yay?! The third… I don’t remember.

I went to visit two of the schools, introduce myself to the Headmaster, the staff and the students. It was all arranged: Mondays and Fridays teaching ICT at the public JHS in Kute and on Wednesday and Thursdays teaching integrated science at the Roman Catholic JHS in Kute (back to Catholic School… reminding me of kindergarten).

I arrived that Thursday to the Roman Catholic School ready to teach science… well sort of. I asked if they (the students) had books… NO. I asked if they had a teacher’s book for me at least… only for the form two class (7^th grade equivalent) and not one for the form three (8^th grade equivalent). Ok, well who, what, where, when, why and how and I’m suppose to teach these kids? (science, not my best subject in school, and I haven’t been in a science class in well, since my high school days… 6-10 years ago) So I went to the class and tried to teach, but the first topic for the form two was elements, protons, neutrons, ions, charges… there wasn’t even a picture of the periodic table… (And lets be honest I remember all this. I know that there are two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen and that the symbol for gold is Au, and I have a general concept of all of this, but can I really explain this topic to kids that speak English as a second language, that don’t have school books and the resources to go look things up, or people to ask further questions to?)

The following Monday I arrived at the Public JHS in Kute, I was luckily handed a teacher’s book for form 1, 2, and 3 but as I started to flip through the books I realized that they want me to teach all about the computer… word processing, the internet, other forms of technology. (I can teach most of this, I mean I’m not the best on computers, but I know enough about Word, I can navigate the internet pretty well, and well yes I have an iPod, digital camera and I’m somewhat comfortable in the technology department)… The head master looked at me and then asked if I would then be holding classes in my house (A: my ‘room’ isn’t big enough to hold 20 to 30 students, and B: I’m not using my computer to teach and C: well this is interesting?) Most of these students have never seen a computer, don’t even know what the Internet is, but yet Ghana just passed a law that ALL students must learn ICT and pass it to move onto the next subject… so what are smaller, rural villages going to do when they don’t have the resources to teach these kids.

How can this be when both schools that I’m teaching at don’t have computers, let alone electricity? I can draw a picture of a computer on the chalkboard, but when it comes to the part of teaching how to type in Word or navigate the Internet well I can’t teach that without an actual computer. I can’t ask these students to take the Tro to Hohoe and pay to use the Internet at an Internet café.

It goes to show that education for the most part is put second. Families from the most rural villages don’t think that it’s necessary for their kids to go to school. Some teachers don’t care about their jobs and if they are in no mood to teach… well they don’t. It also frustrating because there is only one class for each grade level (luckily there are two schools in my village). But both of my form two classes have about 40 to 50 students (depending on the day). They are cramming three into a desk. Comfortable? Optimal for learning? I think not.

Every Tuesday Kute becomes ‘alive’ so to say. The stalls are filled, the piles are stacked, and the venders are out. People come in from all over (Togo included) to sell their itemor items. Laying out a tarp on the ground and grouping the items in groups of 4 to 5 to sell. Stacking everything like it is their prized possession in hopes of selling it all. Children, women, and men are all walking around with various trays on top of their heads, selling anything from grilled meat, pure water, beads, to various insecticides, hard boiled eggs, pots and pans, and dried fish (so discussing). The colors are out, the smells are filling the air, and the vehicles are becoming too overloaded that I fear for the day when they are too top heavy. Different chop (Ghana’s version of fast food) bars are open selling, fried rice, groundnut soup with fufu, or banku, various stews and other typical Ghanaian foods. Women are frying anything that can be fried and the market day starts.

small boy carrying plantain

Maiz

I make my way from lady to lady greeting them along the way, practicing my Ewe, using a bit of French, but mostly English. They all ask what I’m looking for, and try to point me in the right direction… but mostly I’m trying to absorb the colors, the smells, the action of a market day in Ghana. I’m still so fascinated by it all.

dried fish... yummm

I usually start with buying pineapple, as they are the heaviest and should be the first to go into the bag. On my first market day I tried to buy just one pineapple… but you can’t do just that at my market… so 4 pineapples for one Ghana Cedi (about 80 cents) went into the bag… what’s the saying, “a pineapple a day, keeps the doctors away?” I sure hope so. I made my way to the cabbage lady (more like ladies as they all try to show me that they have the best cabbage for me…. I never know who to buy form). And so it goes on… buying some spiced grilled tofu, or maybe a fried donut ball and some pure water (water being sold in a bag) and continuing to shop around.

Sea Salt

In Ghana you can’t smell anything (its considered bad juju)… so trying to buy a ripe pineapple, or deciphering between the spices is rather challenging… most of the market ladies don’t know the English word for the spices sold in Ghana, and many of the “so called spices” are ground up fish powder… yuck!

Gari (made from Cassava)

Living in a developing country is like taking a step back in time… rather living in Kute is like taking a step back in time. There is no running water… no flushing toilets, no sinks, and no showers. Everyone uses fire to cook. I do believe that I’m the only one in Kute to have a propane tank (and I still think that cooking with no running water is a hassle, imagine if I had to cook over a fire… I would starve.) Everything is washed by hand… clothing included (they always laugh at me when I ‘try’ to hand wash my clothing and then they ask how we wash in America… With a machine!) No one own cars, and the only way to get out of my village is either by foot, bicycle, or the random cars that are periodically waiting at my small lorry station. There is still barley no cell phone reception in my town (that is at least for Ghana, lately I’ve been getting better Togo reception). I usually have to hike out of my village to call home, or wait till I’m in a larger city. Everything is spread by word of mouth… (Almost scary how fast word travels… especially about the ‘white girl’ in town.) Everything is done by hand, well most everything. Life is rather simple.

So the other day when I had this grand idea to try and make corn chips, I went to the market to ask where I could buy maize. The lady stands up and motions for me to follow her. She leads me to what I’m guessing was her house and starts shelling out some corn kernels (not like pop corn kernels, but rather corn kernels that are shucked from the cob and then laid out to dry and eventually ground into corn flour) into a bag. It was almost exhilarating knowing that the maize this kind lady was giving me was from her farm, that her family harvested, and then dried and that they would eventually take to the mill to get ground for making banku (another typical Ghanaian food substance). I walked away with more corn than I knew what to do with and went to the mill.

The mill… a steal machine probably out of the early 1900’s located in a rusted out shack with a few boards and tin roof holding the building together. The grinder was run on gas (diesel I’m guessing) and was operated by a loan man, sitting next to the grinder feeding the grain in to the mill to be ground up. There was a small line as I guessing that people from the bush (they were calling me yevo, and everyone in my village now calls me Sister Abra) were there to get their maize ground as well. I waited my turn, watching as these small Ghanaian children had their maize ground for their families, loading the fine flour into large basins that they then carry away on their head.

While sitting there I had this thought that I’m eating more pure than I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, and yes I was raised eating mostly what came from our farm, but at the same time still not knowing 100% where all my food was coming from. It’s not like my family was growing the wheat flour that my mom used to make her bread, or the beans that my family ate on a semi regular basis. But still we knew where our veggie, eggs, and milk were coming from. We always made our own bread, granola, and often my dad would make his own cheese. But here in Ghana I’ve been to the rice fields. I pass the maize, cassava, ginger, tomatoes, peppers and onion plants when I go running. The chickens run wild. I see the ‘small boys’ killing rats, bats and grass cutter for protein for the stews. I’ve watched the butchering of goats and chickens. Everywhere I go someone points out mango, avocado, cashew nut, and papaya trees. Plantain and banana trees are mixed in with every crop. Sea salt is harvested fresh from the ocean. And they make their own palm nut oil (and boy do they like their oil.)

It’s almost as if living in Ghana I’m partaking in the 100 mile diet. It could be called the ‘Local Ghanaian Diet’ even though mostly what I cook for myself has a ‘Molly twist’ to it. But the rice, maize, beans all the veggies, and fruit are from Ghana. The peanut butter and coconut oil, salt, and chili powder all Ghanaian. I’m living simply Ghanaian… or so to say.

The war… correction, wars are on… Molly vs. the termites and Molly vs. the ants. So far the termites and ants are both winning. Stay tuned for further details.

First day in my ‘home’ I noticed the termites. I asked my ‘small boy’ where I could get some insecticide, and he came back with this white powder stuff. I sprinkled it around the edge of my room and a few days later I started to sweep up some dead termites. But that’s not to say that I don’t notice a small pile of powdered wood on my floor in the mornings and I haven’t seen the crazy designs that they are leaving in my furniture. Then one night as I was writing a blog posting, sitting on my new chair thing I got this feeling that things were crawling all over me. I started wiping my back only to be killing these small, baby insects. Then I noticed this small hole in which they were coming from, crossing the wall to land on my chair thing and then crawl on to me. I decided to investigate. Pulling out my tools… rather my head lamp… I saw that they were baby termites. And I stated to smash them with my finger (I know you’re probably thinking disgusting, but that’s what I was doing as they crawled all over my body). I sprinkled some more insecticide down and I’m hoping that this mass-murdering thing starts to work… PLEASE…

The ‘War on Ants’, well no matter what I do they are there… in my beans, in my veggies. On my wall, in my Tupperware, in my double-bagged items… they are EVERY WHERE. I re-bag, I clean my counters and walls with bleach, I sprinkle insecticide on the perimeters of my room and on my shelves… I also kill them with my thumb, and yet they still come back and they are thriving on whatever they are getting a hold of in my kitchen. ARGGGGGG!