Last Day in Ghana!

It is crazy to think that I have been here for 7 weeks! Monday was my last day in school, which was great. I taught two classes about MI and the students were very interested. They had so many questions but also taught me more things about their culture. The second lesson I taught went over 15mins because the students were so engaged! It was awesome to have an 80 min lesson that the students turned into a 95 min lesson! After school, I went to my teachers house for the night. At first, I was a little concerned about spending the might at my professors house, but it was okay. As we are leaving, my teacher told me she had to pick up her girl, but she told me she only has 2 sons. I think she and her husband, who is a minister fosters this girl. We got to her house very late because she lives so far away and some of the roads to get to her house are HORRIBLE. I took some video to show just how bad the roads are. When we got to her house, I was shocked. It was huge. We took this two track road to get there and she lives in a Ghanian Mansion, which they have a guard. It was a five bedroom house and I had to take note of things such as the shoe rack so I knew where to turn to get to the guest area. It was great. Esther cooked me dinner, which was some rice and peanut butter soup, which is amazing! After dinner, Esther put on the tv. I forgot about the tv. I haven't watched the tv since I left. After we were watching tv for a bit, "the girl" turned the tv off and handed each one of us a book of hymns. Oh boy. I am flipping through this book and Esther's husband told us to turn to page 109. Then he started signing and, sure enough, we all joined in. It was very interesting. After we sang a few hymns, her husband did some bible reading in both English and Twi. Then there was a discussion followed by prayer. The three of them each said their own 5min prayer. I hope they didn't expect me to do a prayer. I just nervously looked down at my folded hands. After this memorable experience, I went to bed. The bed was so comfy and the pillow was the fluffiest pillow I have seen here. I felt like a princess...but that was only the guest area. Tuesday morning, we had to leave her house very early because of the traffic. The traffic added another 30-45mins to her drive.
Tuesday, we watched the kindergarten Christmas program. It was so cute. One of the guys dressed as Santa. The kids sang songs and got a present from Santa and of course there was some dancing in which teachers and parents quickly joined into. There was some debate over Santa. Some students wondered if he was real or not. They also noticed that he was white, which raised some confusion. This was a serious party with speakers, a mic, and tents. It was crazy, but the studenst were great! After the program was over, we had some lunch and went to do some last minute shopping. After shopping, we had our going away party with our teachers and the administrators from the school. Sadly, my teacher did not come, but it turned out to be okay. It was still a great party. After that, we went out with some of the other teachers from another school. It was a great time. Today, I am finishing my packing and we have some errands to take care oof. We will be leaving for the airport around 5 or 6pm. This experience has been great. I hope to return to this country within the next 10 years! Better start saving now!

Last Day at SOS HGIC

Well, the weekend was crazy! Friday, we spent some more time in Accra because we had the day off due to the holiday of Farmer's Day. We went to Osu, which a part of Accra. We did some shopping and had lunch. We had been told that people will trade. Example, you give them clothes, they will give you some of their goods. After lunch, another girl and I wanted to get a few paintings, so we went back down the street while everyone else finished lunch. I was able to trade some things for this awesome shirt! I am so excited for it! When walking down the streets, there are so many people stopping you. They are yelling things out like my friend or my sister, please come in. If there is another white person around, they say your brother/sister in here, so you come in, regardless if you know the white person. There are few white people, so most of the time they are right. I am with the other white person. After our trading session, we got some cabs and headed over to the Kwame Nkrumah Museum, and did some educational things. After that, we headed over to the cultural center. We did some more trading and of course shopping. The trading in the cultural center turned out to be not as easy going as planned. They did not really come down on price, but we were able to do some trading and it was still fun and part of the experience. I did trade some of my clothes with a guy, and he put them on and modeled them. The pictures are great! Once we were done shopping, 6 of us girls, were trying to figure out how we were going to get back, and conveniently, there was a guy at the cultural center that had a mini van that went back and forth to Tema. We got into his van and he turned the radio on and his was planning so awesome music, Whitey Houston, I will Always Love You, Bryan Adams...it was great. We had a nice concert on the ride back. I am not sure if the driver enjoyed it, but we did. One of the guys on the trip hadn't been feeling well since Thursday. We we got back on Friday, he went to the clinic and he is bring treated for Malaria. It is not 100% sure he has it, but they are pretty sure he does. They cannot confirm he has it until a blood test is done. Saturday morning, I got up with the expectation that I would be going to my teacher's house for the night. After some confusion, my teacher dropped another girl and myself off at the market and I was no longer going to her house, because another teacher from the school called because he wanted us to make fabric, and we needed two days rather than the one day we planned. So, on Saturday, we started making fabric, which was awesome but very time consuming. It is also very draining because, while making the fabric, we were standing out in the heat and right now we are moving into the hot season. It is very hot right now and very draining. Sunday, two other girls and myself went to church. This was an experience. We were told the service started at 7:30 and lasted an hr or an hr and 1/2. Great. We can handle that. We get there at 7:30 and take our seats in the back. Clearly, we were going to stand out so there was no need to sit in the front and we also had this suspicion the service would last longer than an hour. There is this thing called Ghanaian time, basically time does not matter. As we were sitting in the back, we noticed that there were very few people in the church, especially for it being 7:30 when the service was supposed to start at 7:30. We had one woman come over to us and ask us if we would like to sit up front, we politely declined. Then, the pastor came over and we could not decline him, so we moved to the very FRONT row. Three white girls in the front row. Needless to say, we stuck out like a sore thumb. Church finally started at 8, but at 8:45 when we were just starting greeting, we knew the service was going to last longer than an hr. After greeting, everyone started dancing and singing. This is like get out of your seat and walk around church dancing. The three white girls were watching until we were called out and the people did not leave until we were dancing. So, we sat at church through the sermon, but when a bride and groom walked in and they were getting out the communion things, we realized we need to sneak out. We were well aware of the fact that we would not be sneaking out but after being there for over 3 hours, we had to leave. When we got outside, we could not believe the amount of people outside. This church was huge with two stories of seats and the walls open up and they put chairs outside which were all filled and people were still standing. We drove by other churches on the way home, and the other churches were just as packed. It was crazy to see so many people at church. Once we got back, we finished out fabric which cost a lot more than planned but it was worth it. It was also very hot yesterday and I was crabby. I was told I needed to take a nap. :) So, I napped and it was great until I woke up sweating! After a shower, we headed to get pizza. A teacher from the other school invited us to get pizza at her husband's restaurant. It was very good pizza. Her husband is from Napolion, Italy, which is know as pizza city. To summarize, we are Americans in Ghana eating pizza from a native Italian. Never a dull moment here! After pizza, we came back and all worked on some homework and packing. Today, I am teaching some students about MI. I am pretty excited. After school, I am going to my teachers house. Tomorrow we have a Christmas program in which we are each playing an elf. Wednesday, we are dropping some books off at a library that is just starting. It is going to be a busy three days, but I am excited to come home!

Last Full Week Here!

This week has been pretty calm in terms of adventures. In school this week, the students are taking their end of semester exams. That makes for a pretty lame week for me. There is not much I can do and the teachers only give out one exam a day, so I have a lot of down time. I went to school on Monday and worked on the last few assignments for me degree!! Crazy! Tuesday, I visited the other "high school" Teme International School, which was very nice and I also visited the kindergarten! That was crazy! Wednesday, I went to school again and helped with the exam, which means I passed out and collected exams. Then, I typed some things for Esther. I used my amazing typing skills she is oh so impressed with. After school, we went to the market to pick up our clothes we had made which look amazing! I could not be happier! I wish I could get more made. We have some money from a memorial fund that we need to spend to help improve the education here. We chose to spilt the money and buy books and also maps and atlas for each school. Yesterday, we went and did that. Last night, we went to our pizza place, Bisicilla's for the possibly the last time. Today is Farmer's Day. It is a day that farmers are recongized because, until recently, farming was the #1 job in Ghana. It is now the 2nd. We are taking full advantage of our day off and going to Accra to do some last minute shopping and visit a museum! Tomorrow I am going with my teacher to do some more shopping in town then I am going to her house for dinner and to say the night. Sunday, she will bring me back bright and early so a few of us can hopefully go to church and later in the day we are planning to make fabric! After that, we are going out for pizza at another place. These next three days are going to be so busy!

Long Weekend!

So, Thanksgiving turned out to be quite the adventure. One girl went to get her hair done, so another girl and myself stayed back to wait for her while everyone else headed to the restaurant on the beach. We were supposed to be there at 5 and the place was supposed to be 15 minutes away. Well it took Rachel longer than expected to get her hair done and we left pretty late. We get a cab but the cab driver does not know where the restaurant is. Some guy walking down the road tells the cab driver where we are going. That should have been a warning to get another cab, but we got in anyway, thinking we could find this place. It can’t be that hard, right? Well first we got stuck in traffic. During this traffic, we started talking to the driver. Eminem came on the radio and we asked him if he knew where he was from. He said yeah. I told him we live near Eminem in Obama land. He understood where we live. The cab driver decides to take short cuts and such down some other roads and eventually we hit Beach road. As we come up to Beach road, there is a big sign for the hotel we are going to eat at. It said 3 minutes ahead. Great, we found it. So we start driving but we are still in traffic so we didn’t expect to make it there in 3 minutes. After 30 minutes, we were starting to get worried we had to driver pull over then we told him to continue and during this time the ocean is getting farther away. We call Sandy and she tells us to look for ships. Thanks for the landmark, but Tema is a shipping port, so there were lots of ships. After driving around for an hour, we learned we need to turn the other way and it was about a minute from the sign. The cab driver wasn’t too thrilled with us. He may never pick Americans up again. We were got to dinner; it was after 7 so it was pitch black. We couldn’t see the rock, but we did see it another time. We tried Octopus, which was great. I tried to order pizza but they were out, which was a big letdown, so I was stuck with a burger on Thanksgiving. Not my ideal Thanksgiving dinner, but I was sitting basically over here the ocean while eating my burger. After dinner, we were informed that taxis do not come to this hotel since it is basically in the middle of nowhere. We were with Osei, who is our go-to person for this trip, so he informed us. We did have “Uncle T’s” phone number so he said he would try to find other cabs and come get us. Well, he couldn’t find other cabs so he said he would do trips. There are 11 of us and we wanted to do this is 2 trips. We fit 7 people in the cab. Never knew cars we so spacious. Finally, we made it back and relaxed and went to bed. As Rachel pointed out, “If you see a crowd of white people in Accra, chances are a Harry Potter movie just got out.” After the movie, we headed back because we knew Saturday would be an early morning.
Saturday, we got up and left about 6:30 for our boat trip. We left a little late because of our professor and her husband. Who would have thought 9 college students could be up and ready to go before the professor. We had to beep the horn so they knew it was time to go. We were going on a boat ride on Lake Volta to Dodi Island. We had some miscommunication or we were misinformed, but we arrived about 2 hours before the boat was supposed to leave. Now remember, this is Ghanaian time and being on time is not such a big deal. Lucky for us, there was some shopping. Just what we need to do when money is getting tight, but prices were good and I checked some more things off my list. After shopping and waiting around, we boarded the boat and waited. We went to the third deck and sat behind the captain. Then we sat some more. We were told the boat leaves at 10, but 11 rolled around and we still sitting at the dock. The captain did blow the horn around 10:30 for a solid 45 seconds and every 10 minutes after that. Don’t forget we were sitting behind the captain. I am pretty sure the whole country knew we were about to leave the dock. Finally, we backed out of the dock and headed towards this island. The lake we were on is something the country is proud of, but this boat trip was not anything special. It was very relaxing. There was not much to look at. It was all the same, hills/mountains with lots of vegetation. I didn’t mind, but this was a long boat ride. It was 2 and ½ or so hours to the island 2 and ½ or so back with the same scenery. The food was not that good either. It was confusing and they kept running out of food, but the boat did not seem that full. When we got to the island, we were told we had 30minutes. We got off the boat, and there are a bunch of groups of children playing music on jugs, using sticks, and using the ground to make music. It was really interesting, but they really want money. There was an older group of people playing and some of the other passengers just started dancing and singing. It was cool to watch them just jump in. There new the music and how to dance to the music. There are also lots of kids on this island that want to show you around for tips. A few of us had some kids come up to them, but not all of us. We were starting to head to the top of the island, but 3 of us realized that we would not be back in time so we turned around and headed back to the boat. As we were walking back, I had a little boy grab my hand. I wasn’t expecting it so I jumped back, which scared him and he jumped back. We looked at each other and just walked around. Very awkward, but I am glad he left because I would have come back broke. It is very sad to see these children, because they cannot read. There was one girl who was about 10 years old and asked my professor to read something to her because she did not know how to read. It is very hard to walk away from those children. I am glad my professor did not tell me this story until we were on the boat. After everyone finally bored, we headed back to the dock. There was a lot of dancing happening on the boat because there was a live band. One of the guys from my group decided he was going to dance. Let’s just say he is a unique dancer. I love how this culture dances. It is very energetic and makes you feel good. Once the boat docked, we got back into our van and headed back. We did stop and do some shopping on the side of the road in the rain. Always fun to shop on the side of the road. It did rain on Saturday and we have heard it only rains during the say on Saturday, which we have noticed that, very weird.
Sunday, we were able to sleep in. For lunch, we were given a traditional dish. It was fufu and it was great. It is a dough-like consistency that you get in a bowl and a soup in poured over it. We had peanut-butter soup, which we have had before with it. The soup has whole pieces of chicken in it. This meal, like many meals, is supposed to be eaten with your hands. I first started with a spoon but tired the hands things. It was fun to eat like that. After lunch, we headed out to a soccer game. We met one of the girl’s teachers, Prince, and got a tro-tro to Accra. We all went, so Prince got us a nice tro-tro. We loaded into the tro-tro and made a small shopping stop before heading to the stadium. It wasn’t a big game, so the stadium wasn’t packed but we still enjoyed it. After the game, we went back to the tro-tro station in Accra and got an even nicer tro-tro back to Tema. This tro-tro was better than the van we have taken on our trips. As we were driving back, we looked out to window and seen so many bats. It was crazy. It probably went for a mile on either side of us and probably went from a mile both forward and backwards. There were so many bats. We got back late, so we did not have the lady cook for us. We decided we would be on our own. A few of us went to get pizza at a place just around the corner, Emily’s. The owner was there and was very nice. The pizza was great and we got a sample of the ice-cream which was also good. One of the owners was Sunday born, so he was celebrating and he was really c-e-l-e-b-a-t-i-n-g. He was having a grand ole’ time. He invited us to hang out with him this Friday, because it is a holiday. Of course, we already have plans to go shopping, so we will see. This week is going to be very busy. There is still lots to do!

Unexpected 5 day weekend...sure!

This unexpected 5 day weekend came as a very pleasant surprise! Yesterday was a revision day for the students so my teacher told me to take the day and go visit another school. I went to the Tema Parents School Association where 2 girls are teaching. I really enjoyed my visit. The staff was very friendly and welcoming. They gave me my Twi name, which I have forgotten. The students were also fun. I would like to go back. After school, a few of us went to the Tema market. This market is not really different from any other market. It is just on a smaller scale and less touristy. I bought some fabric there for 10 cedi and I am getting a dress made for 7 cedi. Basically, I got a whole dress custom made for 17 cedi, which is less that 15 dollars! Pretty excited. Let's hope it comes out like I expect it to. After the market, three of us did some shopping on the side of the road. We haven't really spent time shopping in Tema so it was nice to get out and see the town we have been living in for 5 weeks. I got some awesome things that I am very excited about!
Today, we are going to dinner at a beach resort in Tema that overlooks the ocean and the Prime Meridian rock. Pretty excited to eat dinner as I am basically sitting on the Prime Meridian.
Hoping to blog tomorrow about my day! Enjoy Thanksgiving!

Great Weekend!

Saturday morning we got up early, as we seem to do everyday, and headed to Cape Coast. It took us about 4 hours to get there after we took some back alleys and bottomed out the van. Got to love the roads here. We went to the Cape Coast Castle and the Elmina Castle. The history of these two castles is overwhelming at points. These two castles were used for many different things, but they are most famously known for their purpose during the time of slavery. These castles were the points where salves were taken to before they were loaded on ships and sent all over the world. The tours were very powerful. We were put into the slave chambers and told many facts. It sent chills through my body. I learned so much. There is much more to this part of history then I felt I learned in school. The tour guides made it very clear they the blame was not placed on the white people, but is blamed on humans as a whole. They also noted that the North America received the least amount of slaves. I cannot remember the exact number but of the total number, the amount North America got was significantly less! Overall, the castles were amazing and I learned so many facts and so much information.
On a lighter note, there were some funny points. As I published in the last blog, we were told that the children were mean in Cape Coast. We didn't really experience that. There was a lot of hounding from adults. On the whole, when a group of white people get out of a van, we are flocked with people selling things. We are getting use to that. It is annoying, but we are getting use to it. At the second castle, we were bombarded! It was crazy. Eric, our driver, told us to watch out for these rascals. As we were waiting for the whole group to walk out of the castle, these rascals spotted us and were waiting for us. We told Eric we were not coming out until he opened the van. We headed out as a group and charged towards to van. Kind of felt like a celebrity. After we fought our way into the van, we headed to the resort. Amazing. We stayed at a beach resort. Yup, we had rooms right on the beach. You had to walk through the sand to get to your room. Rough life we are leading. Then we got ourselves some milkshakes and such and lounged on the beach. It was great. After dinner, we went back out to the beach to watch a fire. To sum it up, on November 20, we were sitting on the beach watching a bonfire. :) Basically, it was amazing! After the fire died down, we went to bed. We showered and had the A/C going and were all ready for a nice restful sleep! Then we lost power. We laid there for a few minutes because usually the power comes back on with a few minutes. Then we get up and look out the window and notice that the other villas seem to have lights. We come out and only our room and the other girls room did not have power but everyone else did. We found an employee of the resort and he said give me 5 mins. We start walking back to the room and all the power goes out. I guess if we couldn't have power no body could. Just kidding. A few minutes later the power came back on. It was a good laugh. Sunday morning, we got up bright and early and headed to Kakum National Park, which is in a rain forest. (It was raining/sprinkling. Pretty cool to be in a rain forest and it be raining!) The resort was a bed and breakfast, but breakfast was not served until 7:30 and we had to leave by 6:30 to get to the park to see the animals. The resort was concerned so they packed us some boiled eggs, LOTS of bread, jam, and butter. It was fun to try and put jam on your bread while driving. We got to the park and went on the tree top canopy walk. It was so cool, but scary. Basically, you are walking on a plank from tree to tree. You have to use the ropes because it is so hard to keep your balance as you are swinging back and forth. You walk on a total of 7 bridges and they only let 2 or 3 people on at a time. In between each bridge, you stop at a tree stand where only 5 or so people can be. It is crazy! You are so high up! It was very scary but also very exhilarating! To get to the canopy walk, you have to walk up this hills and the guide tells you about some of the trees. As the park was first being researched, guys would go out in twos and do some research. If they lost there partner, they would not yell or clap their hands, but they would bang on this certain tree because it sounds like it is hollow and sends an echo into the rain forest that can be heard up to a mile away. I was very impressed with that. Who would have thought to do that?! After our walk, we loaded back into the van and headed to back to the resort. We stayed there for a few hours and ate lunch and walked along the beach. 3 of us took a long walk down the beach. As we got further away from the resort(which there were many white people, probably the most white people we have seen at one time,) the beach was filled with garbage, such a bottoms of rubber shoes, underwear, rags, fish nets, and lots of plastic. It is a shame that this beautiful place is trashed like this. Also, another group walked the opposite direction the night before and they also found something more disgusting. As they were walking, they came across many fishing boats and fishermen. That part of the beach area was used as their bathroom. It was used as their toilet and their shower. During many of our trips, this one more so then others, you see people openly bathing in the ocean/water and bathing suits are very much an optional clothing item.
After lunch, we headed back to Tema. The drive seemed to be quick, which we all really enjoyed. When we got back, we went into our rooms and 3 out of the 4 girls huts did not have power. Of course the boys did have power. Apparently we were not to have power this weekend. We did get power back after a few attempts were made to fix it. The weather has been chilly and over cast both yesterday and today. I got a slight chill last night and closed some of my windows. It was a nice change in temperature. Walking to school today, I was not soaked with sweat. I enjoyed it. This week is going to be a short week for me, but not as short of a week if I was in the US. I am looking forward to the break. For the last 5 weeks, it seems as if we have not really had time to relax. It is still hard to believe that Thanksgiving is 4 days away! Pretty sad I won't be getting on Turkey or stuffing or mashed potatoes or...PUMPKIN PIE...this list could keep going :(

A little of this...A little of that...

Not much has happened in the last two days, but I am sure I will find a way to make yet another long post. :) On Wednesday, after school we just hung out for awhile and had seminar. After seminar we made a quick trip to Evergreen (the grocery store) before dinner. After dinner, we went back to our area and played a card game. The game was going great, but while we were sitting under the pavilion, there was a bat. That bat wasn't the big deal. The issue was that the bat kept flying into the roof over and over. We were starting to worry about the little guy. That was until he drive bombed us. He flew into the middle of our group and landed on one girl's arm of her chair. We were all yelling/laughing and trying to get away from the bat. As we were all trying to get out of the way, the girl went to put her hand on the arm rest...right were the pat was! It was so quick! It gave us a good laugh. After we all gathered ourselves from that, we continued to play the game before heading to bed. Thursday was just another typical day at school. Just more talk about exams. At the end of the day yesterday, Richard, who is a teacher and also leads CAS, invited myself and who ever else from my group to come to his CAS group. (CAS is like an extra curricular thing, but every student is apart of one. Basically, they are trying to make the world a better place.) Richard's CAS group makes the fabric that a lot of clothes are made out from here in Ghana. It was a really neat process and he invited us to make our own cloth one day. We also stopped by some other CAS groups, one of which was making jewelry. The students make these things and then they sell the things and use the money to help out other schools. It is a pretty cool thing. The students seem to enjoy it. After we got back, we did the same ol same. Just dinner, a little talking, then bed. Today is Friday. On Fridays, school starts early for the assembly. The assembly was a presentation by the environmental CAS group. The students talked about the importance of clean water, not littering, and not destroying things by being wasteful. It was neat to watch the students who seemed to be very passionate about the topic. Side note: one of the facts the students gave: Only 27% of the world has access to clean, safe drinking water. I am not sure who the source is but that is a crazy fact! The students also asked for more bins (trash cans) and the principal said he agreed with them and would get them more bins. It was cool to see the power the students had with the quick reaction from the principal. It makes the students feel validated and active members. He then went on the scold the students. It was a quick change of pace. He talked about how the students are not acting like good members of society and if that did not change, they do not have a place at this school. Very intense. I am not sure if these are idle threats or not, but it had me shaking in my boots! After the assembly, things went on as normal. I sat on the computer for awhile. I did get to observe the teacher from New York city who is here on a one year leave. I really enjoyed her class. She has 9 students, most who come from other SOS schools. The students are all orphans or come from a unstable home life leading then to the SOS villages. It is great to see them getting an education and being so excited about it. Two of the students are girls from Ethiopia. From what I understand, education is not very high on the priority list, and girls get an education is an even lower priority.It was great to see those two girls. Also, there is another student from Ethiopia who is missing two fingers and has to use a crutch from war injuries. On one hand, it is so sad to know that but on the other it is great to see them here. It is sad that there are only 6 students from Ethiopia here. These students also come late into the year so they tend to stick together. The teachers and students tend to "blame" it on them. I think they need to take a step back and realize these students are coming in late, moving to a whole new country, and for most of them, English is there third or fourth language that they have only begun to learn in the last few years! Also, there class is held in a basement in a building behind all the other classes. The school is not really helping to make them feel welcomed. They miss the beginning of the year orientation then they are placed in a class together in a basement. There is a big lack in education to not notice how wrong that is. Enough on that, tomorrow we head for Cape Coast. This should be interesting. Word is that there are a lot of children begging and if you don't give them money, they get mean. I guess we will have to see who is meaner.