Some of you were wondering what is it I do every day in
Ghana: Soaking up the sun? Wondering in the bush with a cutlass pretending to
be an explorer? Hiding from the heat?
Fending off marriage proposals?.... Well, although every day has its unique
moments, right now, during my first three months of an integration period, I’ve
been mainly staying in my little village with an exception of going to my
market town for some provisions and visiting volunteers who live nearby. So, as
of now, I have a certain daily routine going, which I provide below. Note –
this can change in April, as I’ll be off my site restriction, and will be able
to travel more for more training, grant work and friendly visits to other
regions. [Note: by the time this blog entry got finally posted, my site restriction officially ended. Yay!]
6.30-7 – wake up, go for a run in the bush (if I’m not too
lazy). Sometimes after that, I walk to the main street of the village and greet
people on their way to farms.
7.30-8 – breakfast (coffee, fried eggs, fried bread, or
bofrut, which I buy in the “downtown”), reading, listening to some tunes,
watering my little garden. I’ve got some cabbage, basil, aloe and carrots
planted in various containers (including new coffee mugs that I already managed
to chip and break). Some of them I inherited from previous volunteers who
served several years before.
8-12 – going to a farm with one of the farmers (once a week
– going to a local school to teach a couple of integrated science classes). So
far I helped with weeding (with my cutlass!), harvesting cocoa and planting
tomatoes. With a rainy season coming up, there will be a lot of cocoa planting,
so I want to help with that too. Since I live right next to the school (and
since my mother is a teacher) I felt compelled to do something at the school
as well.
12-2 – lunch (usually stew, or fruit, or gari with
groundnuts) and an afternoon nap. Sometimes farmers feed me bread, apesi
(boiled plantains and yams with a fish or tomato stew), or a pear (this is how
they call avocado). It’s getting hotter around here, so an afternoon siesta is
a requirement, not an option J.
I’m more lucky than other volunteers, though – it does not get 100F in the
shade around here, and there is a fairly pleasant breeze.
4.30 - 6 – a visit from neighboring kids to help me fetch
water or sweep a courtyard in exchange for fruit, or a game or a craft. So far
we played frisbee, sang songs and learned how to make a skipping rope from used
water satchets.
Sometimes I wonder around and greet people as they prepare
their dinners and prepare for bed. Greetings are very important in the
Ghanaian culture, plus there may be a possibility that somebody may feed me. I
also walk to the big tree where men play board games – usually dam, which is
just like our checkers.
6-7 – dinner (red-red, pasta, stew, sardines, or salad), or
whatever I’m being fed.
7.30 – 9.30 – watching a movie or reading a book, writing in
a journal, writing letters, trying to write new blog entries.
9.30-10 – lights out (I’ve already experience the official
“dum-sor”, or “switch on-swtich off” of the national electrical system where
the entire districts lose power for up to several days.
On certain days the routine changes a bit. For example, on
Fridays I go to the district capital’s market to stock up on some food staples
(tomatoes, onions, sardines, cabbage, mushrooms etc.). I also visit my friend
Abdulae, who, despite being from Burkina Faso, is fluent in Russian. We cook
lunch, drink box wine and talk about life in Ghana, Russia, Ukraine, Canada and
other countries both of us managed to live in. I also go to the internet center
where I post my blogs. Finally, I get my sweet fix – FanIce ice-cream, which is
not sold in my village, take a bush taxi and head back.
On Saturdays I go to church (I sing in a Seventh Adbentists’
Church choir), and on Sundays I usually do chores (laundry, sweeping,
cleaning), and also run our soap-making group’s meetings. We already made
moringa soap, moringa ointment and key soap. We learn as we go – as people say around
here, small-small.
That’s pretty much it….No traffic jams, no rushing to work,
no open mics, no late-night drinks with colleagues. Technically I work everywhere I
go because even talking to someone fulfills a purpose of being a Peace Corps
Volunteer. Which I don’t mind doing.
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