Last night was a big game of Red Rover! Since I practically live with a football team, games like that are much fun to play. I taught them a few nights ago, and now they just can't get enough of it. The culture here is much more violent- kids constantly hitting each other, a routine form of punishment, etc- so games like that go over much easier. The parents seem to find it pretty amusing. It has kind of become the nightly form of entertainment. Actually, last night we had a dance party. It was so much fun! One of the children here dances like a mini-Michael Jackson. It is hilarious! When I first arrived in Ghana I was constantly being asked to dance for people. I am coming to realize now that is because dancing is so enmeshed in the culture here- most of the dance moves the children have are derived from traditional Ghanaian dances. We don't have so much of an equivalent in America. I guess most of us learned how to do-si-do in elementary school, but there is no way in hell I am doing that again.
Luckily, we all have begun to learn traditional Ghanaian dance! Saturday at training a professional dance/drum troupe performed for us. They also began to teach us how to drum and dance ourselves! Apparently, at the swearing-in ceremony (when we make the official transition from PCT to PCV) we will be putting on a traditional Ghanaian performance for our homestay families. I am so excited! It will likely be nationally televised- how crazy is that? At first I was attracted to the drums. They were lots of fun. Eventually though I was bitten by the dancing bug. Oh what a blast it was! I am so pumped that we will be doing this every week. A lot of the dancing was surprisingly dirty by American standards. When I first arrived at homestay and saw the children dancing I was taken aback by their moves. I thought to myself, "My God American culture is ruining these children." I thought they had picked up the dirty moves from American television! Ha, apparently not. Those moves are actually from the traditional dances. I am a bit more comforted by that. I am hoping to learn soon the different stories that are told through dance. I think we will get to that next week.
So dancing has become quite the past time here. What a great workout! I actually got quite a bit of dancing in Saturday. After training a few of us hit up a "spot" (Ghanaian for bar). We kluged together some very tasty milkshakes! We mixed some Fan-Ice, Coke, and sachets of whiskey together. I think it was the best tasting thing I have had in Ghana so far. It is amazing how much I have come to appreciate cold things (ice really doesn't exist here). Lots of dancing at the spot, and then the kids wanted to have a dance party when I came home!
What is Fan-Ice? It is a Fan product! Fans are Ghana's answer to ice cream. Young boys ride their bikes around town that carry around packs frozen the night before. If you get one in the afternoon, it will likely be almost entirely melted. The earlier in the day, the better. Most things here are drank out of plastic baggies (see my picture of the water sachet on the Flickr page). This "ice cream" is the same way. There are 3 varieties that come in small bags. You just rip off a corner with your teeth and suck. Fan-Choco tastes mostly like chocolate water. Fan-Ice is a lot like vanilla frosting. Fan-Yogo is close to strawberry yogurt. It is probably the closest thing to dairy that I will find here. When it comes to calcium, bone chewing is the popular way to go. I haven't been able to bring myself to sucking the marrow out of bones yet... Needless to say, it was quite a relief to receive calcium supplements in the mail (thanks again, Mom!). Dairy is really hard to find here. Probably because refrigerators are pretty expensive and electricity is often intermittent. And if you do find some milk (likely goat milk), it certainly will not be pasteurized. It's only been a month and I have already started to daydream about cheese. And snow. (Speaking of snow- Samantha...........)
Anyway, training so far has been ok. Often frustrating, but I have learned a lot. As many of you know, Ghana is in the GMT time zone. I have come to learn that GMT actually stands for Ghana Maybe Time. Seriously. Nothing ever starts on time. I am slowly learning to adjust, but I have been pulling my hair out in the process. I am making a conscious effort to not complain about this too much and just roll with the punches. It really grates on my nerves though. I've ranted about this a few times to my father already.
We began our teaching practicum last week, and will continue throughout this week. I am teaching 11 periods/week of Form 2 Physics at GHANASS (in Koforidua, the district capital near my village, Suhyen), the premier Ghanaian secondary school. Because it is such a competitive school (to enter secondary school you must pass a very difficult test and pay a large sum of money), the students are very bright and have a decent grasp on English. I haven't had much difficulty with the students. The biggest gripe I get from them is complaining about my No Calculators rule. My biggest difficulty with the teaching has been a lack of resources. The books I was provided with are pretty much abysmal. Once I start teaching at my site school I will hopefully be able to use my own textbooks from home. I spent last week teaching Coulomb's Law, Electric Fields, and Electric Potential. Tomorrow I will finish Electric Potential and continue with Capacitors/Capacitance. Luckily I just finished the MCAT, so much of this is still fresh in my mind. I also had a wonderful resource this weekend. One of the PCVRFs here has a PhD in Physics Education (from OSU actually!), so he has helped me to map out my lesson plans. Voltage and electric fields are some pretty abstract topics, which is tough enough to deal with, but combined with their mediocre English and poor educational background it is a hurdle (even though GHANASS is a good school, there are still many, many flaws in the design of the education system here.... more about that later). Not a lot of critical thinking or inductive reasoning going on- and especially no hypothesizing. Anyway, it was very helpful to have someone with a lot of experience help me out. I should also say here that many of the skills I obtained from leading workshops have been of great help (thanks Ralf).
Aside from practicum, we have language class 2 hours per day. My group consists of 4 people, including myself, and our trainer, Esther. I think my Twi is coming along quite nicely! It's almost entirely phonetic at this point, so I can't write out much. So far I can navigate easily through greetings, basic verbs, say where I'm from, and explain what my family members do. I also have picked up a few other choice phrases (mostly related to marriage). I hear more than I speak.
(Somewhat graphic paragraph) Two days per week are actually spent at the PC training site in Kukurantumi (Suhyen is right in between Koforidua and Kukurantumi). Every Friday afternoon is a 4 hour medical session with the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer). Two weeks ago we went over malaria and all of the different kinds of diarrhea we can get (no, I haven't joined the club yet- I think the African travelers here will know what I'm referring to), as well as the garden variety tropical diseases (giardia, yellow fever, etc). Oh, and worms/amoebas. I had no idea there were so many different kind of worms. Apparently it is quite rare for an African PCV to return to the States without getting worms at least once. Great, something to look forward to. Tapeworm, whipworm, roundworm, pinworm, and on and on. They seem to be transmitted mostly through fecal matter and improperly cooked meat. Food for thought- if you think you have pinworm, put tape on your butt before you go to sleep and see if there are any stuck to the tape the next day. Those worms are supposed to be quite small. Lovely. Along those lines, we also learned how to take our own blood and take our own stool samples! Oh it was so much fun (sense the heavy sarcasm). Oh but the activities in this week's lesson were much more exciting- we had the condom olympics! This week's session was on sex, HIV, and STDs. They actually brought us a bunch of bright pink devices (read: dildos) to put condoms on in front of the group. And then we had a competition between 2 teams to see who could put one on properly (open the package, grab the tip, unroll correctly, remove, and tie off) the fastest. My team won by a landslide. I have a picture of Ralph (the 85 year old) putting one on his "penis stick" model (pronounced pen-ISS in Ghanaian English). It was pretty hilarious. Needless to say, the PCMO has forced us all to become very comfortable talking about sex and BMs (I'll spare you all the discussion on the latter). It's really a good thing, because as teachers we are resources for students to ask questions. Actually, this week we are all required to give an 80 minute HIV/sex lesson/discussion in our classes (and a possible condom demonstration, depending on the school). We are also expected to have HIV education as a component of our secondary site projects. Sex doesn't seem to be talked about much here, so healthy and honest discussions are very important. A common misbelief here is that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. Really, I'm not kidding. Another prevalent comment from the men is, "If you tie a condom after it's used, you can't get the sperm out. I am strong, so my sperm is very valuable. I can't waste it, so I put a hole in the condom for the sperm to come out." Seriously. This is pretty important stuff. Facts like that tend to be pretty sobering for the group. I'll report back how my lecture this week goes.
Also, if you look at my body you would think that I have the chicken pox. The mosquitos love me. I am constantly saying, "Mtomtom ka me!" ("The mosquitos bite me," in Twi) My family laughs at me because I am constantly slapping or itching myself. They hurt so much! I guess most Ghanaians are used to it, so they don't itch much. I hope I get to that point. At last count I had 27 bites. They get everywhere. God forbid I wear a skirt or dress. Those mosquitos have no modesty. I am seriously doubting the repellent I have been using. Maybe it's time to switch to a new brand. I'm sure my liver is full of plasmodium right now. At this rate I'll have malaria soon. (Ok, a bit melodramatic, but this biting stinks big time.) Whenever I get a new bite the younger kids like to come up and point it out to me. Or, for that matter, if I get a zit on my face. They just walk right up and touch it! Needless to say, all of this sweating isn't conducive to clear skin. Come to think of it, my mosquito repellent probably isn't working well because I sweat it right off when I step outside. Oh well.
All in all, this week has been better than last. I am adjusting pretty well. I was measured this week by the adipumni (seamstress) for my first Ghanaian outfit! I'll have to get pictures up of that when it is finished. It's been a good week. Tiring, but satisfying. I've made some pretty fun friends here, and I am lucky to have such a wonderful host family. Those kids keep me on my toes. They've even been exercising with me in the morning! They can sort of sing "Merchandise" by Fugazi now! It is hilarious. I'm trying to use the same mix each day so they can pick up some of the songs. Good times.
Thanks for the packages and phone calls! It is so wonderful to hear from you all. My first letter arrived this week, from Caroline! Thank you, I was so happy to read it! Really, nothing beats a letter from home. Mail call is every Friday- everyone is in anticipation Friday mornings. People were pretty envious of me this past Friday- three packages and a letter! Thanks for everything. I miss you all and hope you're doing well. Cheers.
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