mama chicken

this was really funny to me. mama chicken was trying to keep her chick warm, but the chick wanted to see what was going on too.

unfortunately, both are no more. baby ended up dying; mama became christmas stew.

merry christmas!

our neighbor

cote d'ivoire is the western neighbor of ghana. it is the world's top cocoa producer.

there has been trouble there for about ten years, when a civil war began. the november elections were intended to resolve the conflicts, but things have gotten worse.

two presidents, fighting and fleeing citizens...

it's very sad.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-12-16-ivory-coast_N.htm

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/12/19/ivory.coast.refugees/index.html?hpt=T2

oil

on the 15th of december, ghana became an oil-producing nation.

there was much fanfare throughout the country, but especially on the coast. off the coast of takoradi is now a huge oil barge.

it will be interesting to see how this black gold will change the country. many other countries have had problems of corruption with the discovery of oil. ghana already has so many natural resources (gold, cocoa, etc), and now adding oil to the mix could certainly bring income to the country. my hope is that the income generated goes to the places where it is needed most.

not even close

i was resting at home on sunday afternoon. 

a couple of my students came and knocked at my door. they were asking for glue for their football. it had a leak, and they were going to try to patch it. i signed back that i didn't have glue here.

a couple minutes later, another knock on my door. i knew it was the deaf kids; their knocking is often very loud and frantic-sounding, since they can't hear themselves.

i went to the door again, slightly annoyed that they were bothering me so much when i was trying to rest. it was a different boy, asking for something different. it looked like he wanted tape, as if maybe they thought i would give them tape instead of glue. since he signed, "please, i beg you" and looked so desperate, i agreed, figuring maybe they would leave me alone if i just gave it to them.

so i went, got my tape and took it to him.

he laughed, and then spelled out what he had asked for: S-A-L-T.

whoops. different boy, different mission.

water

a lot of people in ghana don't have running water. even in big cities, it is normal to see women or children carrying huge bowls of water on their heads, heading home from the borehole, river, or well.

even among those fortunate to have running water, it is often only on for a few hours a day, at most, or just a couple times a week. during this time, people fill their buckets or barrels to use until the next supply.

the most fortunate people have polytanks. these are huge black water tanks, usually built at an elevation near the house. i am one of these lucky people. with a polytank, we fill the tank, and the water flows from it throughout the day as long as we need.

i am even luckier than most, because my school is on an automated borehole system, so our water supply is endless and free. this means that i can fill my polytank at whatever time it empties. it also means that my neighbor, with whom i share my tank, can use it every single night to water her huge garden, and we never have to pay anything for it.

it's great.

now, when you do have running water in ghana, it is just normal temperature. except in the most luxurious hotels or fancy houses, water heaters do not exist.

so, the best part of the polytank is that if you take a shower in the afternoon or evening, after the sun has been baking that huge black plastic tank all day, it is pleasantly warm!

thanksgiving

each year there's a big party in the capital for thanksgiving. i went last year, and it was amazing.

this year, i was planning to go, but then i felt lazy and cheap and decided i wanted to save all that travel money (and up to 28 hours on a bus) and stay home.

a couple other volunteers in the area had the same idea, so we made a thanksgiving dinner ourselves.

i have to admit, it rivaled the feast at the ambassador's house, plus we killed that turkey OURSELVES.

turkey. mashed potatoes. gravy. stuffing. green beans. carrots. deviled eggs.
plus wine, chocolate pudding, marble cake, and apple cobbler, not pictured.

jewelry

the vocational girls have been making some beautiful jewelry.

here are charity and latifatu modeling some of their masterpieces!

a classroom!

my very own classroom!
for the last year and a half, the school has been rebuilding the girls' dormitory. because of this, the girls have been staying in classrooms.
for the last year and a half, the school has been rebuilding two teachers' houses. because of this, teachers have been staying in classrooms.
so, obviously, there has been a shortage of classrooms, and as always, art was the first to be cut. i've been a mobile art teacher.
but on thursday, the girls moved into their fancy new home!
which means i can reclaim my room! however, the problem now will be tracking down the furniture that i believe once existed to fill the room. that might take a little bit of detective work. until then, the students might just sit on the floor.
yay!

catching the christmas spirit

once again, this year i'm having a hard time believing it is nearly christmas.

our average high temperature is 36 degrees celsius, so nearly 100 fahrenheit.

however, i am glad for the extreme dryness just now. harmattan is hot: during the day. but relief comes at night and in the early morning, and because of the total lack of humidity (in the north at least), if you are standing in the shade and get a good breeze, it can still be pleasant.

anyway.

i've started listening to christmas music. i love christmas. i love winter. but it just feels weird to hear "baby's it's cold outside" "or let it snow" play when i'm sweating profusely.

i had a fantastic moment of inspiration yesterday though. my jhs students have been working on calabash art, and i looked around my art closet and noticed a bag of baby gourds that have been there since forever.

and i realized, they will be PERFECT christmas ornaments! so today my jhs prep students scorched them. we kept it simple, just a ghana flag design on each one. but it's great: ghana's flag is red, gold, and green, with a black star in the center. JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS!

i think it's too late to get them to america in time for this year, but i'll see what i can do.

they don't decorate christmas trees here...

harmattan

it's that time of year again.

time when you can barely breathe for the smoke in the air, from the fields being burned. time when the dust whips and stings your skin. time when the scorching sun makes you wish you could actually melt.

but, just in case you were worried, i've already committed not to burn a single piece of anything this year. i refuse to relive that traumatic event of the past.

the and is duck?

ghanaian deaf children often have a very hard time learning english. this is because ghanaian sign language uses english words, but the sign language syntax. so the children struggle to use proper grammar. also, they never actually hear the words they use, so often their spelling is incorrect, since they can't just "sound it out." they have to memorize everything.

this often triggers a debate among teachers of the deaf here, whether it is actually best to be teaching the children in ghanaian sign language. most teachers at my school are certain that if we taught using signed english, the students would do better academically. i don't think that changing the language that the children communicate in will do much to help; i think rather that we just need to focus on english and grammar and emphasize to the children that these are two different languages. for instance: "i am going home" is signed "me go home."

that's a task that's easier said than done, i understand. especially when many teachers at the school don't know any sign, whether gsl or signed english.

anyway. all that to say, sometimes the things that the children write don't make sense in either language. in my jhs prep class the other day, written on the blackboard was, "the and is duck?"

it made me laugh.

hmm.

on second thought, maybe that man wasn't trying to be creepy at market when he touched my arm.

i think he thought he was helping, trying to brush off my freckles.

back to school

school is back in session, and it is nice to have a routine again.  

the second year of teaching is so much better than the first, because now i know what to expect.  i'm no longer surprised or frustrated when classes are cancelled for the day so the students can harvest the school farm.  i have a much better grasp on sign language, so now i can understand things after maybe just one "again?"  i know my kids, know most of their names, and most importantly, know what the abilities and interests are for the different classes.  

so all of that being said, i'm doing a couple things differently this year.  i've dropped my youngest two classes (P1 and P2) so i have more time to focus on the older students.  the young classes were huge and were difficult to control, and i felt the students weren't gaining any real education from it.  i'll still stop in from time to time and play with the kids or let them color, but now i can let them have fun with the projects instead of worrying that they weren't "educational" enough.

so now i have P3 to P6, of which all but one are small and very productive classes.  we are learning some color mixing and crayon resist there.

then JHS prep through JHS 3.  these are the older kids who are more responsible and self-motivated (they have to pass an exam at the conclusion at JHS in order to enter SHS).  so far, we are continuing with calabash art.  we are making scorched designs now, and i want to make some available for sale here in ghana.

and then, finally, i'm assisting in the vocational department.  this is a new role for me, so i'm still figuring out what it looks like and what the needs are.  at this point, i'm mainly an observer and supplier.  the items the students made last year have helped fund SUPPLIES finally in the vocational department, so the girls finally have beads for their arts and crafts class.  they already have a teacher for the class, so i am trying just to assist and see what the program really looks like.  once i have a better idea of what they are capable of and interested in, i'll try to steer them in a direction where we can find ways to sell these new items as well.  

so, that's about it!  a slightly different approach this year, but mainly i've just gained some very helpful familiarity with the school.

gave up on the garden

i told you about the goat problem i had with my garden.  well, the beans did recover slightly, enough for me to pick about five more green beans.  then the goats returned and finished them off again.  

the zucchini never had fruit; it just kept blooming and then dying.

the lettuce, squash, and nasturtiums never even came up.

so all we had left were about five stalks of yellow corn.  

and then someone came through and stole the corn right off the stalk.

oh well.

traveling (and why i avoid it)

i'll just be honest.  i hate having to travel in ghana.  many volunteers love it, or at least endure it, to see all the things and people they want to see, but i have become a real homebody since i arrived here.  

traveling is complicated, dirty, uncomfortable, and exhausting.

for instance, i was just in kumasi this week for a meeting.  i traveled with my friend elyse.  

on our trip south, we were thrilled that we managed to get on a metro bus at 7am that left within minutes of our arrival.  this never happens.  let me repeat:  this NEVER happens.  usually, to travel on a metro bus (among the safest and most reliable bus lines, though last month a metro bus accident killed 19 people), you have to buy your ticket a day in advance.  then the day you are traveling, you show up at the reporting time or within an hour or so after it, and you sit a while.  then they start loading the goats and suitcases under the bus.  eventually you get on board, sit a while more in the insulated miserable heat of a parked bus, and eventually get going at some point.  

for us here in wa, the metro trip averages seven hours to kumasi.  metro buses are created to be efficient.  instead of american-style four seats across, they have five seats across, so the seats are narrow enough that not all passengers can sit back in their seats at the same time; they have to sort of alternate leaning forward and back.  and in ghana all of the seats are sold on all buses.  there's no stretching out across multiple seats.  in fact, on some journeys, they sell tickets for standing in the aisle, even for an 8 hour dirt road journey.  

anyway.  so our trip was so simple and smooth.  the only two minor complaints we had were that it was raining and started leaking in a window, but we managed with that.  and then there was the minor accident we were involved in.  i'm not sure whether we hit the taxi that was tipped into the gutter or whether we hit a curb trying to avoid that taxi, but we swerved and thudded a couple times.  when we stopped, we all stuck our heads out the windows to see the damage.  the driver got out, looked around, urinated off the side of the road, and got back on and started the bus again.  so it must not have been too bad.

now.  coming back, we tried the only other option available to those traveling from kumasi to wa.  other than the metro bus, you can go to a station called racecourse and test your luck there.  any connotations that "racecourse" might have, such as speed or efficiency, or even paved roads are WRONG.  racecourse is a muddy maze of old buses and vans.  i think we have now identified at least three separate wa "stations" within this one station.  none of them work together.  basically you walk up to one, some pushy men insist you buy their ticket, you weigh your other options (none), and buy.  today we got a fast car.  again, the term "fast car" was somewhat misleading.  don't get me wrong: the car (mini-bus) did drive FAST (frighteningly so at times), but that only started after we waited the four hours for all 14 tickets to sell.  because, again, you DO NOT ever leave a station with a seat unsold, even if it means a whole busload of people waiting an additional two hours to sell one ticket, you just don't.  

another point worth mentioning about travel in ghana is children's fares.  if your child can sit in your lap, you don't need a separate ticket.  so today, a ten year old girl sat on her dad's lap for the entire six hour trip.  on the way down, i was seated next to a lady with two big toddlers.  needless to say, there is no such thing as personal space.

on the wa-kumasi trip, we usually make several stops.  we of course stop every couple hours for people to urinate (just line up in the grass on the side of the bus), and there is one long rest stop halfway in a town called bomboi.  this is my favorite; it is our ghanaian equivalent of a truckstop.  all wa-kumasi buses stop here, so the entire town's economy seems to be built upon the eggs, bread, and pure water sold from women and children's heads.  we can also get many delicious ghanaian snack foods, such as fried yams, fanice, biscuits, egg sandwiches, bananas, or whatever else.  but after our snack and stretch break, its time to cram ourselves back into our bus for the next few hours.  

so for the return journey, we left for the station at 6am; i finally got home at 4:30pm.  

i immediately took a shower and crawled into bed.

Fountain Square Art Fair

The earrings and note cards that my students have been making will be available for purchase at the Fountain Square Art Fair in Indianapolis on Saturday the 18th of September.  Information about the fair is at http://www.discoverfountainsquare.com.  They will be available at the Info Tent, near the Entertainment Stage.  

For those of you in the area, stop by and check it out!

"i will capsize your name."

in ghana, names are written backward to how americans write them.  the surname comes first; the given name comes second.  

at the post office, the workers are often confused by this and usually call me by my last name.  

however, today, one lady noticed that i go by "joy." as she was writing my name out on a form, she explained to me that she would write it correctly, since i am called joy.  

"i will capsize your name."

animal life

some volunteers have trouble with mice.  some have cockroaches.  some have bats.  some have too many mosquitoes.  

for me?  if anything, i have trouble with geckos.  baby geckos to be more precise.  they come in through the cracks under my door.  those little guys are fast too.  and they are good at leaving their tails behind as souvenirs of the visits.

but there's no denying that geckos are way better than the other options!

what i've been working on

it was really frustrating for me to watch an entire school year go by with some teachers not teaching an entire class. our vocational department has not had the money for supplies for this whole year. the teachers of those classes just don't teach; the students of those classes just sit around bored.

i got to thinking about things, and i have a lot of art supplies available for my students. i was able to teach my classes. but once my supplies run out, unless others donate more, that will be the end there too.

but we have so many students sitting around bored, why not use the supplies i have available to make things, sell them, raise money, buy supplies, make more things, sell more things, raise more money, etc?

so that's what we are doing. this last term i started my students on two main projects: earrings and stationery. the earrings are bottlecap earrings (like pictured above) and beaded earrings. stationery is notecards with drawings by the younger children.

for the first round, to get some good start-up supplies, i've mailed all of our products to america, where my family is helping me to sell them. when they have been sold, my mom is going to use all those profits toward new supplies and shipping to get them back to me. they should arrive with enough time left in this term for us to make a good amount of new stuff, which we will also sell and get more money for more supplies! eventually i want to find places in ghana where we can sell these items as well, so the school can continue this project past 2011 if they want.

for now, my focus is the jewelry and notecards, but if i can keep this going enough and get other teachers excited and involved, i want to branch out into batik cloth dyeing, leatherworks, tailoring, and maybe other things too!

but first things first: if you are interested in supporting this project or would like to purchase some beautiful earrings or notecards, please contact me and i will get you in touch with the right people!

thank you!

the passing of time

the passing of seasons, the changing weather, the different seasonal displays at the store:  it's amazing how much they influence your view of time, your memories of the seasons, and your awareness of dates.

being in africa, where it's always hot, where there are no "back to school" or halloween or easter bunny displays, it is so hard to keep track of the dates.  

in america, if i remembered an event, i'd think, oh, yes, there was snow then, it was last winter.  but now, i have to really think about it.  was it raining?  what other events happened near that same time?  and even then it is usually surprising to me how much time has passed.

after my first 3-6 months here, even when i knew that it was winter in america, i often joked that i still felt like it was summer break, simply because of the heat.  but now that i've been here fifteen months, i clearly understand that time has passed.  it is just really hard for me to figure out how much time.  i think that is one of the reasons that peace corps' 27 months tend to pass quickly.  even though we are aware of days passing, they run together so quickly, and without a break or change in the calendar, they just form this clump that we americans cannot understand.

i didn't think i would miss those tacky, consumeristic displays at stores, but i guess i kind of do.  and i DEFINITELY miss the changing seasons, and winter especially.

music

in ghana, when people play music, they play it loudly.  

at one peace corps training event, we had a cross-cultural session where ghanaians could ask us about some of our cultural quirks, and vice versa.  one of our questions was why the music is always so loud.  their answer was that each individual tries to share his music with all his neighbors, because he recognizes he is fortunate to have the technology and means to play it, so he tries to let all around him enjoy it.  

that's a nice thought, i guess.

but a new drinking spot just opened about a hundred feet from my house, just on the other side of the wall surrounding my school.  they have the technology and means to play music.  loud loud music.  anything ranging from local dagaare chants to gospel songs by a choir to a song whose only words i catch are SEX MACHINE to of course, bob marley and celine dion.

and they are so generous that they play the music from 6am to at least midnight or 1am every day.

i am eagerly awaiting the day they pay their first power bill and realize they cannot or should not continue.

goats in the garden

i have this garden.  it is really wonderful.  

or rather, i had this garden.  it was really wonderful.  

my garden was great until some unidentified neighbors refused to tie up their very hungry goats.  those goats came, and they ate.  and they ate.  and they ate.  i used to have huge vines of green beans overtaking the whole plot, but now i just have some dried withered stems.  

well, we arrested the goats.  the goats remained tied up for two days outside my house, but no one claimed them.  at last we had to release them, because we weren't up to the task of adopting strangers' goats, and it seemed a little bold just to kill them and eat them without even finding the owners.

so they went free.  

and came back and ate some more.

ugh.

but, before my beans were destroyed, i picked FIVE green beans.  and they were delicious.

long vac

the students have now all left for their long vacation.
peace and quiet in wa.

calabash art

this term i did calabash art with my jhs classes.

they loved it. here are pictures of our final products.

jhs2

dongwiir
dorothy
jhs1
abdul-rauf, demonstrating how to "use" a calabash
hissan
jhs3
moses
nafisah
pagae
adatie
nice work, huh?

campus tour

here is a photo tour of my school's campus. it's fairly random, so bear with me.

this is the girls dorm room. all the younger girls sleep in this room, probably 30 or so 5-9 year-olds.

this is the other corner of the same room. piled against the wall are the mats that the girls sleep on.
this is the p5 classroom. there is no p5 teacher this term, so this has become a student lounge, where they all go to hide and sleep when they don't want to go to their own class.

this is daballah teaching social studies to jhs1. in my opinion, he's the best teacher at the school. he knows sign language and actually cares about his students...
this is how teachers get to school. on the left is a wheelchair. on the right is a bike. some teachers ride motobikes. some walk. one teacher has a car.
i don't know why this picture suddenly flipped, but this is a picture of a typical lesson by the technical skills teacher. the kids don't have a lot of textbooks, so teachers draw a lot of pictures on the board.

this will be the new classroom block. they're finally making progress on it, which is so exciting.

football field.
carpentry class.
the urinals/another reason classrooms smell so bad...
a student teaching the other students. sometimes teachers just give the kids lessons to write on the board and teach themselves...
general view of campus.
jhs3 class, hard at work.
jhs2.
hope you enjoyed the tour!

bats

i think i have mentioned in the past the problem with bat infestation in the classroom block of my school.  i would estimate the building to be 20 or 30 years old, and i think there is approximately 20 or 30 years' worth of bat excrement in the ceiling of the building.  between the corrugated metal roof and the thin plywood ceiling must be piles and piles.  and, as you can imagine, when it's hot, that metal roof...well, anyway.  it's gross.  

so the other day, in one of my jhs classes there was a large dead something on the floor in the middle of the classroom.  at first i thought it was a huge cockroach, then as i got closer, it looked like a mouse.  with wings?  EWW A BAT.  i, of course, was disgusted, but my students had just been ignoring it for several hours already.  

when i couldn't handle it anymore, i asked one of the boys to sweep it away.  

instead, he reached down, picked it up WITH HIS BARE HANDS and tossed it onto the grass outside.  

he walked in, brushed his hands off on his shorts, and continued with his work.

EWW.

braces

i was recently showing my students some pictures of students in their penpal class in america.  several of the american students had braces, and this was bewildering to my students.  

what is that on their teeth?  

are their teeth rotten?

how do they eat?

is it like nail polish?

and really, explaining braces and explaining why so many american children wear braces to children in ghana IN SIGN LANGUAGE is very difficult.

garden!

i am really looking forward to fresh green beans, zucchini, squash, and corn in the next few months!

pictures!

i mentioned earlier that i would try to post some pictures of my kids with their fertility dolls, the latest and greatest art project success. so, here you go!

this is class p4.

this is class p2.

these are some of those beautiful children.
here is tang, a really shy girl, but very proud of her creation.
this is dafaar, showing off his doll.
i will try to edit more pictures to post again soon. as soon as i pull out a camera in class, the kids go nuts and all order is lost, but i got some good pictures the other day!

world cup mania

the world cup begins on friday.  this is the first world cup to be held in africa (south africa), and ghana is one of only five african nations to qualify.  

everything right now is world cup mania.  

so, since america doesn't really care about football (soccer), don't support america.  support ghana.

go black stars!

life is normal.

several of you have been commenting lately that i need to post more often.  i know i do.  i just don't have a whole lot to say.  to me, life here is normal.  at this point, it is hard to me to remember the things about ghana that would seem exotic to you in america.  i just sat here for several minutes and could not even come up with a good topic to write about.  

so, if you can come up with some ideas of things you would like to know about, please tell me.  sometimes my internet connection is difficult (especially now starting the rainy season...), but i'll do my best to keep up with my blog.  

i'll try sometime to upload pictures and post some of my most recent art project with my lower primary kids (first to fourth grades).  

we took empty toilet paper rolls, pieces of cardboard, scraps of cloth, yarn, and markers and made fertility dolls.  it was really fun, because i felt like this was a rare project that actually allowed them to be creative.  so often the children here are afraid to be creative.  if i show them an example of the project we are working on, they all want to copy that example exactly.  if i don't show an example, it is often difficult for me to communicate to them what it is we are working on.  so it's a tricky situation.  but this time, i did show two examples.  one, an actual fertility doll (a wood carving that is traditional here), and the other, a simple one i made.  and then i just let the kids make a mess.  and they made some really fun dolls!  

so, i will work on taking some pictures with the kids and their dolls and let you see them.  

until then, let me know what i should be writing about!

a year in review

the 4th of june marks the one year anniversary of my training group's arrival in ghana.

so, for this historic day, i decided to let you know what has happened during the last year.

 

out of the ten regions in ghana, number i have visited: 9 (upper east, i'm coming soon!)

number of times i have puked: 4

number of times i have been puked on by a small child on a bus: 2

have i joined "the club?" no!

number of times i have been to a mall: 1

number of phones i have had: 4

number of hamburgers i have eaten: 3

largest number of people who have slept at my house in one night: 11

number of miles i have walked: millions

number of marriage proposals i have received: way too many

number of babies i have made cry because of my skin color: a lot

number of times i have had my hair braided: 3

number of times i have blow-dried my hair: 0

have i fallen in a ditch? not yet!

number of times i have worn my jeans: 1

number of 3 inch long crickets that i killed in my house in one day: 8

number of dresses or skirts i have had made: 10

number of times i have been to the beach: 2

number of students i have taught: 132

number of fields i have set on fire (accidentally): 1

 

 

 

 

music!

i wanted to share some popular music with you. the first two are songs that you hear all the time here in ghana, along with celine dion, of course. they are both nigerian, actually, but just like movies, nigerian music is very popular in ghana.

first up, my favorite, is yori yori. it's catchy. it'll get stuck in your head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnDlN7R73oQ

next is fall in love. my favorite lyrics are "sweet potato" and "sugar banana." they alone make this song amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KhxmAD74Ck

the last one isn't played so often now, but it's one i still enjoy. this was popular last summer, when it was announced that obama's first african trip would be to ghana. some of the biggest ghanaian musicians came together for this song to welcome obama to ghana. akwaaba is the twi word for "welcome," and you'll hear that a lot in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9b9XZOERJU

enjoy!

drumming & dancing

here is video from the drumming and dancing session we had at school a couple months ago. the kids can feel the vibrations of the drums through the ground, so that is how they know the rhythm for dancing.

good afternoon!

my jhs1 class sends their greetings! they are signing good afternoon, and of course some other stuff too...

visit ghana!

i know most of you can't actually come and visit me here, but i've heard of a way you can come close.
on the 31st of july is ghanafest, held in chicago.
now, i've never been, so i have no idea what this will be like, but it says it transforms washington park into a ghanaian market, with colorful african dress and wonderful crafts.
those of you who can go should.
let me know how it is.
eat fufu if they have it.
http://ghananationalcouncil.org/ghanafest2010.htm

teenage pregnancy

in ghana, i suppose women do sometimes get married and have children very young, and it is normal.
but i am really sad that one of my p2 girls (second grade) is pregnant. she is an older student (14 years old), but that is still too young for a baby. and it almost certainly means the end of her education, at the level where she can barely spell her own name.
last term, a jhs2 (9th grade) girl got pregnant, and that made me sad too, but she at least got some amount of an education first.
but now these two girls, audette and lika, are probably just beginning a really hard life. so sad.

koko

my new favorite food in ghana is koko. it makes me laugh that i now like this so much, because when i first saw it and first tasted it, it was disgusting.
it is served in a clear plastic bag, and it is a brownish-gray color similar to that of dirty dishwater. and it is thin and runny like dirty dishwater too.
koko is made out of millet and has ginger and i think even some hot pepper to flavor it. it is a breakfast food, add a little sugar and eat it like porridge. and it kinda burns your throat a little bit because of the spice, but it feels so good on a sore throat.
it is SO good. i find myself craving it for breakfast.

totally worth it

there might be some very civilized, very polite way to eat a mango, but i have not discovered it. 

whenever i bite into the wonderful, juicy sweetness of the mango, right away my teeth fill with the fibrous pulp.  as i try to pick the bright yellow vampire-like fangs of mango threads from between my teeth, the juice starts dripping into my hand from the piece i'm still holding.  then it starts dripping down my arm.  if i'm lucky, i can catch it before it gets to my elbow, and i lick the juice back all the way to my hand.  then, when i've eaten through the peel, the insides get so slippery that it slides all over and i almost drop it several times, all the while picking at my teeth and licking to my elbow. 

i know every time that this will happen, but i just can't resist the mango.  i need to start hiding in my house when i eat them, i think.

i have good news for you

thanks to the massive rainstorm last week, the field i burned down a few months ago is now starting to sprout new grass!
i'll try not to burn it down again this time.

yum

there is just nothing better than a mango freshly picked from the tree in your backyard.

seriously?

this term, for my jhs classes we studied calabash art. calabash art is using decorative gourds for different purposes. we focused mostly on the theory end of it for the term, taking a lot of notes and doing a lot of reading.
so after an entire term of calabash everything, notes every week, quizzes almost every week, i finally gave my exams this week.
and one boy called me over and pointed to the word calabash on his paper and asked me what it meant.

something to think about

i was recently reading a document discussing poverty in ghana. some of the statistics in it really shocked me. i mean, i live here, and i see "poor" people, but i had no idea even that what i see is as extreme as it is.
poverty in ghana is defined as having less than 90Ghc (about $60) per year. Extreme poverty is defined as having less than 70Ghc (about $45) per year. PER YEAR.
when i read those numbers, i thought maybe they are just being extreme in their definitions, but then i read on.
the prevalence of poverty in my region is the highest in ghana, which i knew, as i am in a very rural, very poor area of the country. but this article defined the prevalence as 88%.
that means 88% of the people in the upper west here earn less than $60 a year.
wow.

juluis

p2 is one of my favorite classes to teach, both because it is my last class of the week, and because the kids are well-behaved and so darn cute. it is a small class, so i am able to get the know the kids better than p1 and p3, which are huge classes.
one of my first weeks teaching p2, i came early and observed the classroom teacher for a while before my class began. they were working on spelling, simple words like "dog" and "ball." students were taking turns coming to the blackboard to spell the words. one little boy named julius had an especially hard time, repeatedly spelling "bog" and "dall." as much as he tried, he just could not understand the difference between "b" and "d". the teacher made him stay at the front of the class, over and over making him rewrite the words, but little julius could not get it right. the teacher grew frustrated, but julius just kept trying and trying and never gave up.
and that's just how this little guy is. he's deaf and also has vision trouble. one eye is clouded, so he probably can't see out of it at all. since his only method of communication is visual, and he probably only has half vision at best, he obviously has a lot to overcome. plus, it seems that he has a learning disability.
but he never gives up. he spends at least twice as long on every assignment as the other kids do, but he keeps trying.
i noticed that he tends to misspell his name on a lot of assignments. he transposes the "u" and "i." i corrected him a couple times, but then i figured out why he was getting it wrong. he can't remember how to spell his name, so when he went to write his name on is paper, he flipped the hem of his shorts up, and stitched upside-down on the hem so he could read it right side-up was "JULUIS."
so that's just what he writes on every paper.
juluis.

long time

i just realized that it has been almost a month since i last posted here, and i do apologize to all my loyal readers for that.
i don't have much new to say right now, except it is hot. that's the only news over here.
for the recipe i posted last time, there were a couple questions. on the ginger, get a couple pieces of the root. they should be the size of a couple fingers maybe. also, i think i overestimated the rice amount, so cut back on that.
please let me know if you make it; i am so curious what americans will think of this dish!

a recipe

most of the foods we eat here cannot easily be made in america because it would be difficult to find things like yams and cassava and such. but my favorite dish is rice balls with groundnut soup, and i realized that every ingredient in it is available at your local kroger store.
i wrote out the recipe american-style, since ghanaians never use recipes. you should make this. it is DELICIOUS.

rice balls and groundnut soup
rice balls: cook 4c rice with extra water until very soft and mushy. when cooked, mash rice so it loses the rice texture and looks more like mashed potatoes. place a handful in a bowl and shake/roll the bowl around until rice forms a ball, baseball/softball size. continue with all the rice.
groundnut soup:
2 fish or 2 chicken breasts
6 medium tomatoes
2 pieces ginger root
2 c water
1 1/2 c peanut butter (all natural: no sugar or oil)
2 bunches spinach
spices to taste: curry, nutmeg, salt, red pepper, etc
in a blender, puree the tomatoes until smooth. set aside. puree the ginger with the water, set aside. steam the fish or chicken in large pot until thoroughly cooked. remove from pot and set aside. cook the peanut butter in the pot until it thickens and starts turning darker brown. add the pureed tomatoes, mix completely. add the ginger/water, mix completely. boil for 10-15 minutes. clean spinach and cut into small pieces. add the spinach, fish or chicken, and desired spices to soup. boil five more minutes.
to serve: place one rice ball in bowl; spoon soup over the top. do not use a spoon to eat; pick up bits of rice with your fingers and use that to scoop up the soup.
makes 4-6 servings
YUM!

under the mango tree

yesterday was cultural dancing class for the kids. so for the afternoon, we all gathered around the mango tree. several teachers drummed, and a few led the way teaching the kids the dances. their ability to follow the rhythms varied, based mostly on feeling the drums through the ground and watching the others move.
all in all, it was a very entertaining time.

the girls bench

the boys bench. notice the difference in behavior/excitement. specifically notice the boy in the bottom, with the random foot sticking up. he saw my camera and LEAPT into the picture just in time, and he cracked up when he saw the picture.
this is one of my favorite little boys. his sign name is a W on the side of his face, but no one can tell me his english name, so i think of him as william. he's the smallest boy at school, a nursery student, and he was so scared when he arrived but is now confident and playful and CUTE.
two more nursery boys. the one on the left always wears that jacket, and it always makes me smile.
and just to show you some things are universal, this is the big boys, preparing for their turn to dance. teachers had to grab them and pull them up there, they were all so self-conscious about it.

religion in ghana

religion in ghana
i thought it would be interesting to tell you all a little about the religious beliefs in ghana.  i feel like before i start though, i should give a little disclaimer.  these are just my observations based on people i've met.  i don't think all ghanaians believe these ways, and of course my observations may not be quite accurate. 
ghanaians are very religious.  the two main religions in ghana are christianity and islam.  in southern ghana, people tend to be more christian; in the north, there are more muslims.  the town where i live is probably a 50-50 split. 
in ghana, there is no separation between church and state.  there is no subtlety or political correctness regarding religious beliefs.  it is perfectly acceptable to ask a stranger: are you muslim or christian?  and it is generally assumed that you will answer one of those two.  often pick-up football (soccer) matches are divided into teams, christians vs. muslims.  it's very casual. 
in a recent conversation with some teachers at my school, one of them described ghanaians as very tolerant.  while there are definitely some things they are not tolerant about, the statement is absolutely true about religion.  i think a huge reason that christians and muslims coexist so well here is they don't see any reason for tension or competition.  i've heard both muslims and christians tell me that they all believe in the same god; they just worship him in different ways.
as far as the ways that they do worship god, those are quite different.  for the muslims, when the call to prayer comes, shops close down for those few minutes.  if you are in town, you'll see rows of men bent kneeling in prayer right in front of the shop where they are. 
for christians, worship is on sunday mornings, and you'll see women in beautiful colorful dresses walking or riding to church.  there is a variety of denominations of churches here.  some of them are quite charismatic, some a bit calmer.  church services can last anywhere from probably two to six hours. 
the church i have attended a few times is a catholic church that meets in the lecture hall on my school's campus.  it lasts about two hours, the shortest among ghanaian churches i have attended.  while the service is a mass, it is quite different than any american mass i've seen.  for one, this particular service is in three languages.  there is the english, then the dagaare, and then sign language for the deaf students who attend.  music is accompanied by drums and xylophones, with a choir of women singing.  the music is loud, fast, and often accompanied with shrieks and screams.  it is quite beautiful.  when it comes time for the offering, people bring forward their usual monies, but then there is usually some group that presents the church with a gift.  so a couple times, a line of people have brought in offerings of tea, soap, toilet paper, fruit, onions, yams, etc.  it is all arranged neatly on trays and set carefully at the front of the church. 
i have to admit, my favorite part of the ghanaian catholic mass is the dance-off.  yep, that's right!  this is a time when the priest (usually an old, white, european man, though sometimes a younger ghanaian man) sits down for a while and lets the women do their thing.  the music gets louder, and one brave woman starts by geting up and dancing her way to the front.  as others are moved, they go and join her, shrieking and screaming and laughing and having a wonderful time.  children start rushing forward to join in, and the front of the church is filled with laughter and exuberant dancing.  the priest and all the rest of us who remain seated just watch, laugh, and enjoy.  i've only ever seen two men join in the dancing, but they received cheers and laughter the entire time. 
so there you have it.  religion in ghana.  quite different than religion in america!

weather

where i live, you can't just turn on the news and see the weather forecast, so i've never really been quite sure what temperatures i'm actually enduring. i just know it is hot, and this is the cold season.

so you should check this out to see the weather forecasts for my town.

http://weather.weatherbug.com/Ghana/Wa-weather.html?zcode=z6070

and check it again in may, when i'm going to be baking in excessively excessive heat.

glass beads

my favorite of our workshops was the glass beads.

basically, they start with broken bottles from beer or minerals; women pound the glass until it is a fine powder.

the powder is then poured into ceramic molds. each mold has dozens of spaces for the beads, and each space has a piece of cassava stem inserted in to hold the spot for the bead hole.

this is some of our counterparts working on that step.

then filling the molds with the glass.
then it goes in the oven, which is built of dirt and has two holes on the sides to put logs in.
they baked for a couple hours, then we had to let them cool of course for a little while, and the end result was really great.
we got to keep our beads!