Travels

Throughout the year, my PCVL position gave me a good opportunity to travel around Ghana and visit various volunteer sites in Brong Ahafo, Eastern, Western and Ashanti regions. Our main job is to find a good site for health, education or agriculture volunteer, talk with a community about expectations and inspect the housing. We would meet with school headmasters, chiefs, nurses, students and farmers.

Kwahu Mountains in the distance.

Afram Plains.

We would wake up early in the morning to use bumpy bush roads among cashew groves or go on the top of the Kwahu mountains. We even went to my village where I happily discovered that people still remembered me.

Uncle Sam chatting up a counterpart.

We took a smoky ferry to a remote Afram Plains area, and stayed at seedy hotels where the only things that matched were my pair of shoes. We drove through scary rains and during glorious sunsets.

It's coming!

Rain and logs - double jeopardy.

We would eat fufu and bread-and-egg sandwiches at chop bars (a canteen, which is just a wooden shack on the road), took schnapps with village chiefs and danced with a group of Ivorian refugees.

Chop bar

Local church.

Ooops -- this happens a lot.

Street sellers in a traffic jam.

"Be Nice to Me" spot -- love the name.

Tractor peeps giving directions.

Breakfast on the road -- kosi bean cakes.

An inquiring look.

Play ping pong!

Everywhere we went, people helped us to get around, and asked me to talk to them in Twi. I am not fluent by any means but I can actually tell them a bit about their future volunteer – that it can be anybody – “bebya”: a man or a woman, tall or short, young or old, shy or confident. A volunteer may like to eat fufu or not, they may want to fetch water by themselves or ask for help, and they may or may not know the local language well. A volunteer may also tell about America – not the America from movies and music videos, but the America of their family, home town and state. Their America may be hot or cold, urban or rural, religious or non-religious, stressful or relaxing.

Our stalwart driver Aikens in front of Bui dam.

A volunteer's kitchen.

Once we got a live turkey as a thank-you gift! It is now living in our compound in lieu of a peacock.

Below are some random pictures from different villages I visited.

Shade is essential during the dry season.

Teachers' lounge.

Chief's entrance.

Fish market.

Talking about Peace Corps.

If you look closely, the saying on this tro is "Control your mouth." :))

A successful talk

Biking and moto-ing.

This volunteer extended!

Mosquito net - an important part of a housing decor.

Our brave car taking a break.

Dancing with Ivorians between site visits.

Drumming

At an opening of an ICT lab.

Z and his counterpart.

Going, going, gone...