So I'm fat, I'm wealthy, I'm funny and very very good at teaching. Haha those are what many of the local villagers think of me. Interesting enough they're not completely off. When ever they say the word fat, they don't necessarily mean it as a negative word. Just a description, as in I have brown hair, or I am short. They expect most volunteers to be skinny and associate wealth with weight. It's an interesting perception and I'm happy to talk with my co-workers about how in some cases it's the opposite in the US but that it doesn't matter in the big scheme of things because you eat, what you eat... Excuses aside. But even eating here, well it's always a good treat. Hailey and I found out that our favorite noodle treat is actually called indomine and I'm pretty sure I will have a hard time eating it once I get home. We had fresh pineapple, mangoes, avocados and a crispy almost tortilla chip type dish on the side this week. Well we're sort of in love with it.
Though I'll admit teaching the HIV seminar with Hailey was difficult to execute, we had so much fun teaching together. We started off making a human diagram to explain how Hailey and I are partners, and trying to get across the idea that even if you are only with one partner at one time, any person you've had sex with previously your partner is now exposed to those same germs and possible infections. Then we went over some good notes on what they already knew about HIV and what were ways to come in contact with it. My biggest thing with the kids is trying to make the examples more accessible to them so they understand under their conditions, such as using a machete or rain water. It's really interesting how they take to that considering our language barrier.
Though I have so much love for these children, I am getting a little tired of them taking advantage of Haileys and mine generosity with our electronic items. Hailey is so much better at being seriously stern compared to me, I try to but always end up making it a joke which tends to make them think I'm not serious. Again, without Hailey here I would be lost. But they used up a few of our credits on our phones, have started coming in without knocking, picking up her iphone and my ipad and telling us often what they think we should leave behind for them. As much as I love them, and will leave behind plenty... I find it frustrating to hear expectations already. I can only imagine what previous interns have left behind, though it doesn't look like much besides clothes.
I was really excited because Bernard finally brought my bags from Accra and now I feel a little more complete about everything. My clothes are here, my shoes are here, and most importantly my books are here, therefore my life here is complete. I do have a lot of laundry though and feel guilty of the size but Hailey and I give Christiana 5 cedis each every week just for soap and I know the soap is only 5-6 cedis so I hope she sees how much we appreciate her doing our laundry for us! Especially considering she does it all in one day, wash-dry everything. She is a serious God send. Weirdly enough, my comforter came with my stuff and though you would think it would prove as a nuisance in this heat, it has made me feel even more comfortable here. It's my piece of home and moves around my body instead of providing road blocks as some of the pillows here do.
Though the Internet connection can be great, I was a little more than frustrated yesterday when I tried to take an exam and it wasted 35 minutes of my exam time just trying to refresh, restart, re-enter into the website only to find out that it was still continuing even when it exited :( Needless to say I was not the happiest camper, and other frustrations tend to loom over ones head when that happens but all in all it's been a good weekend. Hailey and I were able to go to Ho Hoe to pull out more money to give to our director since he still has yet to collect the fee in full yet and we were told a good secret on when to get plantain chips. We walked around and stopped at a local pub?? where she was able to try Alvaroo for the first time, which is this delicious malt carbonated beverage in flavors like Pear, Pineapple and Passion Fruit. I was just glad to be able to share some of my poor excuse of Ghanian knowledge with her. We even met a new friend, the pub owners brother, and since I figured I could use all the help with finding things to do once Hailey leaves at the beginning of July, we switched credentials. we actually had our first haggling experience which I had a lot more fun with than I though. Of course the obruni price is much more expensive than the Ghanian price, we still try to make sure it's fair. Hailey has been trying to find good souvenirs for here family back home and we stopped by one shop to get fabric so she could cut and make into headbands; there wasn't much haggling there, it was really an ok price for even an obruni but I can only assume it was because a child was the seller instead of an adult. But then we went for a cute wallet and the seller said 8 cedis, well I know they're not 8 cedis so I questioned it and he said 7, Hailey said okay after that so I went along, but I still wonder if we could've gotten it cheaper. But the fun was when Hailey saw necklaces so we stopped by another shop. They were long beads and at first she thought they were one Cedi for all the beads that were wrapped together, unfortunately it was one Cedi for one strand of red beads. I shook my head and so did she. I mentioned something about going home and finding something better and they ask where we lived and we mentioned Jasikan. We tend to avoid saying the actual village we're in ONE because it's hard to pronounce and TWO because we don't want people knowing where we live because it wouldn't be hard to find us by the time they arrived in our village. Well after they found out we were more locals, he said what price would I want it at and I said 50 pesewas per strand. He made a face as to say no so we walked away. Well his friend who was talking in Spanish to hailey and I, called us back and said okokok. It just goes to show you, apart of haggling is truly walking away even if you really do want that pretty strand of beads haha.
Today I woke up with a huge migraine and haven't been in the best moods. I feel bad for the kids because every 45 minutes they're knocking on my door and my eyes are so puffy that they already know what I'm about to say. I hate to see their disappointed faces but I know it's the right thing to do. I've taken a couple differ pills so since I woke up around 8 am the pain has subsided to a shorter tempered headache after all of my sleep; but I have been lazy and plan to study and create a better lesson plan for the kiddies tomorrow. I'm teaching 10ish year olds, and still trying to figure out the best way to go out their health education. The young young ones and this age group have proved to be the most difficult for me to plan because I never really know what's a good avenue. Some don't understand any English, others don't get my hand gestures, then to some my accent combined with my poor penmanship is so bad that they just sit there, looking more entranced than ever with the fact that a fat obruni is here to talk about health. I'm amazed with how much I enjoy teaching and have found that while in talks with creating the after school club for female empowerment has been well received, by most but not always the parents. My biggest concern with starting it is sustainability, what will happen once I leave? Trying to find someone who will keep it up, plus keep it interesting, plus keep the girls interested is proving difficult for me to create.
We have yet to start our actual research yet due to some problems with paper work and having it become 100% legitimate, but now that we have board authorization we have come to find out that we can only have the stamp of approval interview documents, which will prove to be expensive for the Ladybug Project considering that some places it's more than 1cedis just for an hour of time, and it's 30-50 pesewas to print. There are copier places but since we need roughly 200-400 copies we're worried how many places we'll have to use. Haha all in a days thoughts I suppose. But all in all I'm enjoy the downtime, and enjoy the ability to read my many books. I think I've read about 11 since I've arrived 5 weeks ago!! Crazy huh?? Well hope you're finding Ghana as entertaining as me :) hope you had a great weekend!!
Happy reading :)
You are amazing.
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