Hi everyone. I know you all are busy with
life, and this is another thing to check. I'm here for 7 more weeks,
and seeing how much I've written already, there's many more entries to
follow. Thanks for coming on the ride with me! :)
It's now week 2. I'm a bit sick with just a throat cold/cough. Ok, for some reason it's an accelerated cold- woke up the other day feeling weak and with a throaty cough. I think the extreme dusty conditions have to do something with it, along with sweating all the time at night and having a cool morning breeze come into the room when we wake up. Luckily, I've made good friens with some of the locals around here. My friend Ofa, who is a taxi driver/car shop owner hangs out at Linda's shop (across our street) alot. He is such a good guy. I told him that Tory and I both had coughs, but I wanted to get cough medicine for Tory first bc she came to Africa sick, and her cough has gotten progressively worse. Ofa immediately went to the pharmacy for us and got us some British made cough-syrup.
That was actually yesterday. As I noted before, was weak the whole day and just wanted to sleep. I didn't skip my placement though (some people here have been missing their placements due to oversleeping ?!?! or not feeling well.) I went to teach, but just assisted rather than lead like previous times, and took a short nap after lunch. Then dragged myself to woodcarving (very much worth it) which entailed travel via 2 crowded tro-tros and of course, walking under the hot sun.
Woodcarving- love it. I wish I could just be a woodcarver in Africa for the rest of my life. Seth our teacher is amazing. He's like an older brother/uncle type figure, very patient and was getting quite a kick out of my knowledge/skills of the tools. It was so funny, at the start we had to chop our own log of wood with a machete. When I started doing it, Seth was wowed and asked if I had ever farmed before. Lol!! Noooo but my great grandfather was one...I told him I liked using tools and my hands for making things.
As usual, there's alot to write about...first, thanks so much EL and TPH for the letters and EL- my camera cord!!! :D I've taped up your letters above my bunk. Makes me think of kids when they go to camp and their parents send them letters, haha. But I've never had that experience before.
Onto some other details.
Frustration #1: Biggest common complaints are about the lack of water (no flushing toilets), lack of paper (napkins are not part of our meals, and TP seems to run out quickly at the compound), lack of power (this makes charging cell phone and camera difficult. Oh and affects the availability of our fan in the room!) We've compensated by drawing water up from the well is our compound well doesn't work (I've yet to experience this, but really want to try out the community well!) Also have bought individual rolls of TP (so coveted!) at stores.
We are dirty 99% of the time. It's hard to be clean here. It's so dusty and everyone sweats on each other (crammed in the tro-tro's) or bumping into one another...we all have layers of dirt that gets under our nails when rubbing our skin. I can tolerate this. I'm not sure how much I can tolerate sleeping on a sweaty, sour pillow (sorry, just keeping it real)- have been joking bout shaving my head so I can alleviate this problem. Everyone sweats at night here. I really might just shave my head. Why not...it'll grow out in um 7 weeks. Haha. I'll just look like a monkey. If I do it, I'll definitely post up pictures.
Frustration #2: The communication barrier between me and my colleagues! AHHH. Again, it is hard being the only American here. It's not terrible, but today I was getting annoyed. How can they expect me to follow up on their quick conversations in all their different accents perfectly? Half the time I'm just trying to catch what they're saying, and I have to ask questions and repeat myself. Most of them have been good at being patient and explaining to me all the different UK phrases and slang. But geez louise! Tonight I repeated something I thought they said, and they were like- how'd you get that? I said- Put yourself in my shoes for a minute! If you were the only British person in like...the Southern US, I'd like to see how you understand what they're saying. (They said they understood me perfectly, but I've definitely slowed down my speech here.)
Frustration #3: Really don't understand the dynamics between Ghanaian men and foreign women, or maybe it's women in general. I've talked to a former volunteer, Catelyn, who has been traveling around Ghana after her placement, and is now visiting the compound again. She's learned alot from her time here, but is still befuddled by what guys mean when they say "...ok, we're friends." then a bit later in the conversation, they ask "Do you want to marry me?" Tory and I have been great at attracting random guys we can't seem to walk away from without them getting offended (though we are polite when saying we can't give them our personal info.) I just don't know what they expect, and if it's the norm. (Not sure if I wrote about this stuff before, sorry if it's a repeat!)
Well I should go, have written alot and some of the guys are waiting for me. Thankfully I'm walking back with them. It's night here, and while I definitely feel SAFE in Ghana, I don't want to put up with unwanted attention on the street.
This weekend we're going away to an Eastern part of Ghana. Forget what it's called, but sounds amazing. We'll be in huts on a beach. Apparently it's pretty African (definitely don't want to go to a touristy place.) John our staff said we'll most likely be the only "blofo-nyo" or "obroni"- fair skinned folks.
Will write more later, bye!
