Part of our role as a Peace Corps Volunteer is to educate our villages about other sectors, and HIV/AIDS… meaning that as an environment volunteer I could do a latrine building project or a nutrition project. Many volunteers that aren’t education volunteers find themselves teaching in schools, and teachers try to incorporate food security by building a school garden, etc. Our assigned projects may have something more specific with our assigned sectors, but really we can do any work that we think our village needs. In our initial training that takes place our first three months in country we generally learn about our sector though (for me that was environment). There has now been two groups to come in after I came to Ghana and the training has changed a bit… meaning they are getting specific HIV/AIDS training during their 3 months training rather than later on in their service. As part of their HIV/AIDS training they are sent to a PCV who volunteers to host some new trainees to give them hands on HIV/AIDS experience in doing a village project.

I opted to host some new trainees to help me with an HIV/AIDS project in my village because it was time I hit upon the required HIV/AIDS education that we are suppose to give (I did give a small HIV/AIDS education class to one of the churches, but only about 50 people came, and I was trying to educate the younger generation this time). 2 trainees (who had only been in country about a month) ventured to my site to help me work with the Junior High School (JHS) students to raise HIV/AIDS (and other STI’s) awareness.

all the Roman Catholic school children crammed into one classroom

In two days we went to two JHS schools, raising HIV/AIDS awareness for about 200 students. We started at the District Assembly’s School (also known as public school) with about an hour long question answer session… we asked the questions and when we called upon a kid to answer the question and they got it right they got a piece of candy (to get people to answer questions or even attend a meeting it’s always god to have a bribing mechanism.) We asked the obvious questions… “What is an STD?” “What is HIV?” “What is AIDS?” “How can one contract HIV/AIDS?” “What are the 3 methods of prevention in terms of it being a sexually transmitted disease?” ”Can HIV/AIDS kill?”… And we got the not so obvious answers back… “You will get HIV/AIDS by sharing a drink with someone who has it.” “Sharp objects is the main way to contract HIV/AIDS.”

one student holding up a picture explaining how he/she will

prevent themselves form getting HIV/AIDS

From the question portion we broke out into 3 groups and each individually led an interactive game to reiterate what actions are high risk vs. low risk to contracting the virus, the 3 ways to prevent getting any STI (sexually transmitted infection… it’s what they say here), and a risky behavior game.

The last portion of our HIV/AIDS (and other STI’s) awareness day we divided the boys and girls up to answer questions that they might not want to ask in front of each other. The girls were rather shy to ask anything, but the boys were having a hay day with questions.

getting the students involved in HIV/AIDS education

It has suddenly come to my village’s attention (and the rest of Ghana it seems) that I don’t have any children.

I’ve been hassled from the beginning about being married… or not actually being married. I’ve told my village that I have a husband and he lives in Ghana doing other development work, and they’ve bought that… for the most part. And I’ve had few villagers remind me that I need to start having kids soon… yeah right.

But when my counter part asked me a few weeks back if I would stay for a 3^rd year in the village I was touched. Knowing that my village likes me, and wants to have me around means a lot (I’ve heard stories from other volunteers that their village didn’t like the last PCV that lived there, etc.) But I told my counter part that I needed/wanted to go back to the US without giving a reason. He came back to say that it’s probably good that I go back because I need to start having babies, because I’m getting past baby bearing age (at the ripe old age of 25, right.) I had to remind him that I’m not married (he knows the truth, but yet can’t comprehend it) and that I need to get married before I can even have children. As I tried to laugh it off, I told him the old childhood rhyme that we used to always sing to kids on the playground when we assumed someone had a crush on some one else… “First come love, then comes marriage, then comes baby…” My counterpart just shook his head at this… foreign concept.

The second time someone in my village brought it to my attention that I don’t have any children they made it more clear that I shouldn’t leave Ghana without having at least two babies… and they want them to be black (not trying to be politically incorrect). I always just laugh, because they don’t realize the jokes on them… I’m not having any babies (at least not in the next 5 years…)

The last concern that I don’t have any children came from a young female Ghanaian. She started the interrogation with asking, “where I’m from” and “what I’m doing in Ghana”. Then the topic suddenly changed to “how many babies do I have”? I responded with the usual “none”. And she came back to bite me with “why”? I gave the usual response “because I’m waiting till I get back to the US, finish getting my masters, get married and blah, blah, blah” (thinking that another female would understand.) She again responded with a bite in my face, “that it doesn’t matter if I haven’t finished my education, or that I’m not married, but I need to have at least 3 or more babies to keep me company, to pass on my genes, and because it’s a women’s job to have many, many children” (yeah well, not this woman.)

If Ghana only have such a thing as noise ordinance… if only I could call the police so they could give out noise violations, and if only the Ghanaians understood respect for other people… if only.

I still live in my small room, with my small window. My room is still in the middle of town, and things are never quiet… but usually manageable… well until the other week that is. Some neighbor, whose house is just across the street, just got back to town and is letting the world know (yes I pretty sure you can hear it over in the US) by the loudness he plays his music.

Ghanaians have this theory that if they want to hear music, well then so does everyone else. But I’m having a hard time thinking that everyone really wants to hear some bump and grind music with the base thumping at 3am (I know I sure as hell don’t… don’t mind the anger in my voice). Especially all the other houses that surround the place where the music is coming from.

After two sleepless nights with my bed shaking from the base that is coming from across the street I decided at 10pm (I usually go to bed at 8pm) to ask, beg, plead with the man to turn down the volume of his music, as least to a level where I wasn’t hearing it over my headphones and wasn’t feeling it.

The man threw out the argument that he wouldn’t then be able to hear his music (load of shit)… if I could hear it inside my room, with door and shutters closed, fan on full blast (great way to block out noise), and with my headphone is and playing music to loud for my own ears, then I’m sure he could hear it even if the volume was reduced small, small.

I stood there for about 5 minuets yelling at the man (yes I had to yell because the music was too loud to talk over) asking for him to turn the volume down. I finally got him to turn the volume down, and I walked away hoping that I would actually get some sleep.

Wrong… just as soon as I crossed the street he turned it up even louder than before, and left it playing until 7am. ARGGGGGG… I was so mad. I got my landlady (aka my Ghanaian Mother) on my side and now he has kept the volume down a bit (I can still hear it in my room with door and shutter closed, but not over my headphones and music at least) and he has been turning it off by around midnight. Yup praying for a long, long power outage now.

When I started the Kute-Buem Women’s Group I didn’t just want the women to work… I wanted this group of women to learn various skills, understand new ideas, and help promote a better Ghana for these women who are the change agents.

The first skill that I wanted them to learn was proper bookkeeping/money management/finances. If this group is going to generating income then they need to know how to keep the books. But I didn’t just want this training to go towards the sewing project or the farming project, I wanted these women to take proper money management and apply it to their own life, to a business they may have.

I called upon another PCV who could teach these women the best way to keep the books, and how to best apply this to not only the Women’s Group but to their own lives. I got 9 out of my 15 women to come (I would say a pretty good turn out for non meeting day) the chalkboard was pulled out and the basic bookkeeping lesson was started. Two out of the nine have bank accounts (normally the cloth that the women wrap around themselves is the bank… if it’s not tied up in this corner, than maybe its in this corner…). A ledger was drawn up on the board and we started discussing the importance of keeping records. We then went over how to keep the records, and what everything in the ledger means.

The women were enthusiastic about learning how to monitor their expenses. Successful meeting I would say!

giving the talk

November? Is it really almost November? (wrote this in October) Time is flying, and I’m again lacking on updating the world on “my life” as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I believe that it was two written posts ago I talked about how disgruntled I was with my assigned project, and my assigned organization. How I’d been struggling with finding work to occupy myself during my time here (rather than pulling my hair out), and how I felt that I wasn’t going to leave a positive impact upon anyone in my village (because I had been focusing my energy outside my village where there was work to be had).

Let me tell you, times have finally changed. I’m FINALLY busy in my village (my mom has been telling me that I have a positive outlook on my Peace Corps service again… at last!). I have an organization that actually has members (16 to be exact… woo hoo!), has been having weekly meeting and a weekly workday, and has two projects that it’s working on.

I finally said adios to my assigned organization (really I just told my supervisor that I was done trying to work with him, when I wasn’t getting anywhere with his non existent group, with a project that was never going to happen), and approached my self-picked counterpart about starting a Women’s Group. He told me that he had helped start one a few years back, and that he would gather the women to see if they wanted to re-start the group. (Yes my self-picked counterpart is male, and he is apart of the women’s group too, but I need him there to translate and he has helped me to mobilize this group… so it’s a “women’s plus one man group.”)

About two months ago the first meeting was had, and I asked the women if they would be interested in working with me. I asked if they had a project in mind that they wanted to start but needed funds, motivation and support from others. I also ask if they would be willing to learn things from me. And the new Kute-Buem Women’s Group was formed.

The main thing all the women said they wanted from this group was to help them generate income (in reality everyone wants to generate income, because most rural villagers struggle with paying school fees, keeping up with repairs for the house, keeping the children healthy, and feeding all the mouths during the dry season when the money from the rainy farm season has ended.) I then asked them what skills everyone had, and what they thought they could do to help themselves generate some income (more what support could I give these people, rather than just being the white girl that make it rain cash… I want these women to work for what they want).

Since I live in a little farming Mecca of the Volta Region, most everyone knows how to farm, and that’s what the women said they wanted to do. But the farming season is usually from May to October/November… the rainy season. The women said that they didn’t think we could start farming until the rains come again. I asked them if they would be interested in “Dry Season Farming,” a concept that Peace Corps Volunteers are trying to get spread across Ghana to help promote food security. This got their attention… farming during the dry season… eating fresh vegetables when normally none are available… selling fresh vegetable at Kute-Buem’s market for a higher price because no other produce is available. The women were getting excited (I feel like I could almost see their minds turning on with the idea of making a bit more income.) We had a project… Dry Season Farming (still searching for funding to buy the dry season farming supplies though.) We were given a plot of land; we set up a nursery, and started nursing some vegetable seeds such as okra, tomato, hot peppers, and cabbage. So far it’s a success!

I then asked the women if the new how to sew (got a few yeses), because I had a project in mind that could help them generate income faster than farming. And this way we’re not putting “all out eggs in one basket” so to say. I found a company back home (Osage Gardens) and asked if they would be willing to sell cloth grocery bags made from used flour sacs form Ghana at their farm store, and at all the farmers markets they attend. We had a yes on both sides. Prices were agreed upon, and the first order was placed.

Sundays after church (church is the life of these people) we have our meetings, and Wednesdays are “work days.” And sometimes Fridays and Saturdays are workdays depending on the amount of work that needs to be done. These women are motivated, they are inspirational, and they are determined to be leaders for the next generation.

Cardinal Kekeli

Food Preparation... the typical way!

my little Carhartt Girl!

Accra International Marathon and Half Marathon…

Every half marathon I’ve ever run (that would be 21 to be exact) has been extremely well organized… no matter the number of people, the location, and the weather, the race crew is on top of everything allowing for us runners to be smooth sailing (or rather smooth running) for the duration of the race.

The Accra International Marathon and Half Marathon is great in the terms of cross cultural education, teaching Ghanaians that other nationalities love to put their endurance to the test and run for 13.1 or 26.2 miles in grueling conditions assuming that the race crew will be there for full support. It taught us patients, and was a good reminder that we are in still in Africa (yes we still sometimes need reminders after a year).

Six Ghana PCV’s decided to run the race… 5 running the half (not willing to subject ourselves to pure insanity), and one lucky contestant running the whole marathon (purely insane). Some of us started the training months ago, and others just decided the week before to run. The day before the race we all gathered in Accra to get our ‘race packets’ (just a bib and t-shirt… although I was running to just get the shirt). We were invited over to our Country Director’s house for an amazing carbo-loaded dinner of pasta, homemade sauce, bread with real butter, salad and Rice Krisppy treats for dessert. Purely amazing American-ness to gear us up for race day.

Our alarms went off a bit to early as we were told that the shuttle bus to get to the race start would leave at ten till five, for a 6 am race start. The taxi that we pre arranged to take us to catch the shuttle was right on time (a bit out of the norm), and we arrived to catch the shuttle to find no shuttle waiting. Some lady from the race crew said that she would give us a ride in her car, yet she had no idea where the start to the half marathon actually was (we still had plenty of time, but I was getting rather nervous). Eventually we find the start, and the waiting begins till the race starts.

There are no bathrooms, and no other people waiting for the race… everything is just a bit out of place, but hey this is Ghana. We find out that there was no shuttle, so we are lucky that we caught a ride with the lady, and we start to beg for someone to take us to a gas station with a toilet, otherwise there is going to be a lot of us OD (open defecating) at the race start.

6:00 comes and goes, and there are still hardly any people. 6:30 rolls around and the guys that are racing in wheelchairs arrive along with some random shuttle filled with other racers. And 6:40 the gun goes off while we are all still talking and not expecting the race to start.

1 hour and 53 minutes later I finished the race to be greeted with oranges and freshly cracked open coconuts. The sky was clear and the sun was shinning with such intensity that I was nervous for all the marathon runners that I knew were probably still 2 plus hours out. I was 10^th women over-all to finish (not sure our of how many). And completely stoked to have run a race in Africa (it just sounds so cool to say.)

the runners