Another day in Voradep

Undi and Woezo! My name is Molly and I am currently on my sixth week of being in Ghana volunteering at the school International Achievers. The school is composed of about 30 students from the age 2-7 that live in the local village called Voradep. I currently am teaching in the nursery which is composed of 2-5 year olds. The children are eager to learn, and absolutely love singing and dancing. Frequently throughout the day one of the older children will burst out in song, and soon after the entire class will burst out with a chorus of "See See See" or "Every Cell in my Body is Well". While some songs are the same, or slightly different, from American songs, there are many songs that are unique to Ghana. For example, "See See See" is a song about seeing a bird that goes as follows:

See See See
I can see a bird
Standing on a tree
ah ah ah
where is my gun
If I see my gun I will shoot shoot shoot and SHOOT
and the bird
will be mine
and the bird
will be MINE!

The kids at the school are a tight-knit community. They come from a small village, and they know each other well. They take care of each other: the older kids walk the younger ones to school and bring them to buy their lunch.If a child is missing for a day the other children will know if they are sick and when they will come back to school. Overall, the experience of the community life is much different than America. These kids rely on each other for support. Siblings or older neighbors frequently drop the children off at school because the child's parents have already left for work. Older classmates walk other classmates home who have parents who are still at work when we get out. 

International Achievers is a small school, but every day is full of comical events and unexpected happenings. There is never a dull moment in Voredui, and I can thank my young nursery students for that. I will update with more of my adventures at the school and beyond soon but until then miadogo!

Celebrations of Life

Time for another update! It is now our fifth week here in Ho, and the last few days have provided with us with yet another set of eye-opening experiences to share. On the Saturday after we returned from our trip to Mole, our group got invited to visit the village of our friend, Linda, who cooks for us at the volunteer house. It was the one year anniversary of her mother's funeral, so we returned with her to her village in the Eastern Region of Ghana, just about an hour and a half or so from Ho, for a memorial celebration.

The village was fairly small, with probably only a thousand people, and it seemed as though everyone knew Linda's mother well. We were introduced to many of the locals, and we were repeatedly invited into homes and offered all kinds of food--Ghanaian hospitality is unmatched. It was a very cool thing to be welcomed so warmly by literally every one we met, including Linda's large extended family, who were very gracious to our group of 11 previously unknown white people. We then went with Linda's family to the cemetery for a prayer service, which was very moving--I never would have believed that we would be invited to participate in such an intimate moment in Ghanaian life. I think my favorite part of the whole thing was experiencing the closeness of the community, who all came together to support Linda and her younger, (16 year-old) sister after both of their parents had passed away.

We returned to McColin's on Monday, and have been teaching there as usual this week. I'm not sure if we've mentioned this before, but a new volunteer, Caroline, joined the program a few weeks ago, and she is also stationed at McColins. On Wednesday, during the final class period, the three of us teamed up to teach english to the sixth graders. We were attempting to teach them similes and metaphors, but their attention kept slipping, and we could tell they were getting antsy. They kept bugging us to teach them a song, so we decided to come up with a song for the material we were teaching. We made a simile song to the tune of "We will rock you" and had them go around the room free-styling similes about each other. Here is one example: Clifford is as short as a squirrel / Annelise is as white as a pearl! It was hilarious, and their teacher seemed to think so too. It was definitely one of my favorite experiences teaching thus far!

Annelise's 20th birthday was Thursday! And we celebrated in style at Bob Coffie's, a hotel in Ho--one of the most "American" places you'll find here. We both ordered steak and french fries and ate by the pool. We made her an "ice cream cake" of sorts by pouring 5 FanIce's into a bowl and adding a few wafers. She loved it!

One final note, Annelise and I have taken up a new project this week...we're building basketball hoops, with backboards, for the students at the school. Using only a handsaw, 1 hammer, and some plywood and two by twos, we've actually made a lot of progress! Pictures will definitely follow shortly..

Hope all is well in the States; we were definitely missing the USA on the fourth!

A Week In the African Bush

It is hard to believe another week has gone by already... especially since this week marks the halfway point of our volunteer experience. It is the end of session one of two sessions of the Ghana ACT summer program, and while Molly and I are staying for both sessions, many of our fellow volunteers are not. While it is sad that some of our friends are leaving, it is fun to meet the new volunteers that continue to arrive. This past week we went to Mole National Park, which is located in the northern part of Ghana. We volunteer in the southern part of Ghana, so we trekked across the nation, which is quite an adventure. 

Instead of taking tro-tros, we took the Metro buses, which are part of a government initiative to make cross-country travel safer. We left last Sunday at 4:00 am and drove 8 hours to Kumasi, which is a bustling town with quite a different--more aggressive--feel to it than Ho. Molly and I did a long run in Kumasi, weaving around the vendors and dodging taxis and curious pedestrians. We stayed overnight at the Methodist Church, where we were greeting warmly by Mama Suzie's brother. (Mama Suzie is one of the administators of McColin's School--Molly and I eat lunch with her every day.) The next morning we woke up again at 3:30 am for the bus to Tomale, where we got another bus to Mole. This last leg of the journey was the bumpiest ride I have every been on. For 4 hours our bodies were jostled all over the place in a bus that was going way too fast on a washed-out dirt road that must never have been maintained. At some points, we were thrown 3 feet up in the air (there are no seatbelts!) We didn't arrive at Mole National Park until 8:00 pm. It was a LONG two days of travel, but Mole was definitely worth every minute of it!

Mole is over 4,000 square kilometers of the wild African bush--it was begging to be explored! The first morning that we were there, we went on a safari with a guide. (The guides always carried a rifle just in case an animal got too close). That night we stayed in a treehouse in the middle of the jungle. (We had a guide with us the whole night.) While we were in Mole, we saw countless warthogs, baboons, red monkeys, antelope, crocodiles, and ELEPHANTS!!! The elephants were everywhere--we even saw them in the moonlight when we stayed in the treehouse. Needless to say, while we were in Mole our runs were adventures! This week, I think the pictures will do most of the talking... Though the trip there and back was long and, at times, brutal, we will never forget our once-in-a-lifetime experience at Mole--as you will see from the pictures.

--Annelise

Warthogs sleeping in the shade

Elephants bathing

An elephant that got within 100 feet of our room

The treehouse we stayed overnight in

Our safari guide

Thirsty? 

An elephant greeting

So many elephants!

They were so close to us!

Crossing the river

In Sickness and In Health

Bout a week since our last post--time for another update! Annelise and I are still having a blast, experiencing new things everyday, and treasuring every moment here in Ho, but I have to say there were a couple of days this last week that we both wished we could've pushed the fast forward button. But let's start with the good stuff! Last Saturday we went on a daytrip to a stunning town, high in the mountains, called Aburi. We traveled with the other volunteers, as well as our Ghanaian friend, Linda, who cooks for our house everyday, and another volunteer from the US, Mike, who works right across the street at an orphanage. Funny sidenote, Mike is a VMI alumni. Small world! Anyway, we all left bright and early as usual and roadtripped it via Tro Tro for about 3 or 4 hours. Our first stop in Aburi was the Botanical gardens, which were beautiful, with giant trees, lots of flowers, and an old helicopter that had actually crashed there some twenty or thirty years ago. Today people just take pictures of it and climb around inside.One of the trees in the garden was taken over by a fungus and hollowed out, so now its possible to climb inside the tree and look up all the way up to the sky--you can even climb up the trunk from the inside! Also, I thought trees in S.E. Alaska grow pretty big but there were a few in Aburi that would have put them all to shame.

So after exploring the botanical gardens, we all rented mountain bikes and were lead by a Ghanaian guide on a route through the town and the rainforest to another gorgeous waterfall. Swimming in the water felt sooooo good after the long, hot ride. I'm definitely not a very experienced mountain biker so adjusting to the rocky, uneven, and steep terrain took a little while. It was pretty fun though once I got the hang of it and got over my initial apprehension. And the lady that rented us the bikes had cold fresh pineapple waiting for us when we got back---best surprise EVER. Another highlight of the trip was the fact that we found a place that served real pizza and burgers. REAL PIZZA. AND BURGERS. with CHEESE!! Haha the food we've been eating as been quite delicious for the most part, but we've certainly had to adjust our diets, and I swear that burger was one of the best I've ever tasted. It was a good end to a great trip.

On Sunday, the whole group traveled out to a village near Ho, called Saviefe Deme, where a large portion of the volunteers are stationed, who aren't working at McColin's. The village was celebrating Children's Day, and the students put on a big performance for the whole community. It was really sweet and very fun to watch. They sang, danced, and recited poems and bible versus. The mothers of the town cooked food and brought produce to auction off as a fundraiser for the school. Then they came up and sang and danced themselves, inviting us to join in. It was really cool to get a chance to see a community that was so close-knit and so invested in their children. Getting there was really fun too, as first we all took a half hour taxi ride, and then we all hopped on the back of motorcycle "taxis" that took us the three miles down the dirt road that most normal taxis won't drive down. It was a beautiful ride the whole way, as the city faded away and we moved higher and higher into the mountains.

On Monday we had a good day of teaching and coaching basketball, but on Monday night both Annelise and I started feeling really sick. We were up most of the night and by Tuesday morning we both felt really weak and really miserable, and were showing symptoms of malaria. Since we both got sick at the same time though, we figured it was probably something else, so we just stayed home and rested and drank a ton of water. I can honestly say that it was the sickest I've ever felt in my life, but luckily I was starting to feel better after about 24 hours. By Wednesday we were both feeling much improved, so we think it was probably food poisoning of some kind. We took it easy the next couple of days, returning to school Thursday, which was a shortened day due to a PTA meeting during which we were introduced to all the parents. We went back to Saviefe on Friday because McColin's didn't have classes, so we got to see more of the village and experience more of their unparalleled hospitality.

We are thankful that we were able to recover quickly from our illness so that we could continue to have to have these wonderful experiences!

The children dancing during Children's Day at Saviefe Deme

Children's Day

John, the Ghana ACT program director, and Enyonam at Children's Day

Jumping out of the (crashed) helicopter at Aburi

Molly climbing up the hollowed out tree at Aburi Botanical Gardens

McColin's PTA Meeting

Students' Day

Beautiful Milli.

Last Sunday was one of my favorite days spent here in Ghana. We all woke up early and got dressed up and headed to Saviefe Deme to the school where Vanessa and I teach. It was wonderful to show all the other volunteers the amazing village where Vanessa and I spend so much of our time, and we got to introduce them to all our Ghanaian friends and students. When we arrived at the school for Students' Day (basically a giant fundraiser for the school), we were given special seats with the togbes (chiefs), which was very cool. Then we got to watch all the kids do their performances which was way cool because they were all dressed up in traditional African clothing which was absolutely gorgeous. A very nice change of pace from their usual uniforms. I took so many photos and videos, and I can't wait to show them off to everyone when I get home. I felt like a proud 

Promise, being sassy 

Mom watching all the kids getting up and singing and dancing in front of the whole village. I made a point to get photos of each student in class 6 (the class that I teach). At several points, the villagers invited Vanessa and I (and the other volunteers, too!) to get up and dance with them all. We happily obliged. It was such a joyous day and I was so happy to see the whole village being so invested in their students and the new school. Saviefe Deme is without a doubt one of the best communities I've ever had the pleasure to get to know.

Sarah

Rejoice and Rose

Banku, Fufu, and FanIce--Oh My!!!

Wow! We've had another eventful week here in Ho--so eventful that the U.S. Embassy in Accra has issued a traveler's advisory for our area. There has been some Muslim riots in a neighboring village, and a few lives have been tragically taken. Fortunately, the violence has been isolated and we have not been affected by it. There has been some violence in Ho, though. Just down the street at the market, a police officer shot a man who attempted to rob a shop. The other shoppers turned against the officer because they thought he had shot the man for no reason. Due to this incident, the police have had a heavier presence here lately. The police depo is across the street from our house, so we feel pretty safe.

We have had quite a few things to adjust to since we have arrived. For instance, the city of Ho randomly turns off the electricity and/or water in an effort to conserve. (The first quesiton the children asked me when they had an opportunity to ask me about America was whether the cities randomly turn of the water every day. They were shocked to hear that it doesn't happen in America.) Many times I have returned from a long, hot run excited to take a shower, only to be disappointed by a lack of water. We have also learned how to cope without a toilet, as the students at McColin's School do not use one. Also--and this may be the most difficult thing we have had to adapt to--is a lack of a washing machine and dryer. We scrub our clothes by hand with a soapy bucket of water. Depending on how many dirty clothes I have, it takes about two hours. Molly and I have had a lot of dirty laundry due to running every day, sometimes twice a day. Maybe this why the Ghanaians laugh when we say we run simply for exercise. The concept is unheard of here. Also, because it is rainy season here, it rains almost every day... So sometimes our clean clothes take a LONG TIME to dry outside!

Along with handwashing our clothes, we have had so many new experience since coming to Ho. A few random examples: We have both had several marriage proposals from strangers. We often see goats, and chickens run alongside the road. We have had to sit on each other's laps in the taxis because the taxi drivers literally fill the car as full as possible with passengers to travel across town. We have tried fufu, banku, red red, and other traditional Ghanaian dishes because we have a local woman, Linda, come and cook for us every night. She teaches us about the dishes as well. The food here is spicier than I originally expected. Another first time experience for me is having a meal consisting of all carbs--rice with yams and a side of bread was a meal we had recently! There is no milk and not much animal meat here... Molly and I have started to eat quite a bit of FanIce for calcium, which is supposedly "vanilla ice cream" but it tastes so different--it is such a smooth, refreshing treat.

FanIce is especially refreshing after a long day of teaching and coaching the children. Here is a typical day for us: Begin running at 5:45 (this is considered late by many Ghanaians, who are up before dawn washing and sweeping), shower (when there is water), eat breakfast, and leave for school by 8:00 (school is about a mile from home), teach math, English, citizenship, religious and moral education, art, or computer skills to either third, forth, fifth, or sixth graders throughout the rest of the school day (which ends at 3:30), coach the children in basketball, football, or soccer during breaks, coach the children after school until 5:00, and then return home to eat, and get ready for another day. We are extremely exhausted and DIRTY at the end of every. The red African dirt coats our clothes and skin from head to toe! I have dirt stains on my feet and ankles that I can't wash off, no matter how hard I try.

Although Molly and I both started off teaching the younger children (kindergarten-1st grade), we have been teaching older children more lately (3rd-6th grade). This is our preference, as the younger children are not as well behaved, and we have trouble controlling them due to somewhat of a language barrier (our American accents) and also due to the fact that we refuse to beat the children. In the Ghana school system, beating is customary. Sometimes they use branches, and they aren't afraid to hit children on the head. It is painful for me to watch. The children expect it, though, and since neither Molly or I do it, we have trouble getting control of a classroom full of younger children because they don't respond to any punishment that does not involve a whip or stick. Anyway, we can pretty much teach whatever subject and class we want to teach, because the teachers and the students like us to come and teach their class at any time. During breaks, we usually help Michael, a teacher, with a script that he is writing for a Christian movie he plans to direct one day. 

Our after school program is off to a great start! At first, it was utter chaos as we tried to organize which of the 270 kids would play each day. We have had several discussions with the school's sportsmaster, who believes that only the most talented kids should have the opportunity to play. We have worked out a 3 group rotation. There is a group of younger kids, a group of girls, and a group of boys. Each group has about 20 children in it. Each day, one of the groups stays after school to play. The sport we have been working on lately is basketball, or "handball," as they call it. We have been going through basic drills and games dealing with passing, shooting, and dribbling. We have not started playing any real basketball games yet, as we are in the process of getting the materials to set up two hoops. Eventually, there will be a boys team and a girls team that will play against each other and the other schools. The girls are especially dedicated and responsive to coaching because in the past they have not been given the opportunity to play, let alone to be coached. Also, they are not as interested in "football" (soccer) as the boys. Some of the boys have been trying very hard to learn basketball, and they are doing a great job. But many of the boys become too distracted by a game of football to learn anything during basketball practice. Anyway, of the boys and girls that are serious about basketball, I think we will be able to put together competitive teams. After basketball, we will move on to coaching soccer, football, sprinting, and distance running. Also, at the start and end of every practice, we lead the children in warm-ups and cool-downs. The children LOVE to run with us! We have also taught them stretching, agilities, and some exercises, which they also seem to enjoy because we see them practicing on their own during recess. In fact, many of the children practice ball-handling skills during recess, which is really fun to watch. The children really prize the sports equipment and jerseys (which they wear when it is their day to practice after school), and they seem to take pretty good care of everything. 

Our cross country training is going well! Whoever told us that Ghana doesn't have hills was mistaken. I have never run so many hills in my life! They are gradual hills, but they are so tiring! We have started to incorporate some two-a-days and a medium-long run into our training, so I think this week we will run close to 55 miles. Later in the summer, we will run about 70 miles a week.We have also been doing some body weight exercises. I think the neighbors think we are crazy. Some of them gather on their porches to cheer us on. They're probably thinking, "Those crazy Yavus!!!" Anyway, sometimes we lift rocks (because the terrain is sooo rocky here!) and the neighbor children join in with us. We have some video that we will try to upload eventually of them doing synchronized squats with rocks. They are so cute! Some of them have even helped us with our laundry when they saw us struggling for hours to get it done.

Last weekend our volunteer group took a trip to Cape Coast, which is located in the Central region rather than the Volta region, where Ho is located. It took us about 6 hours in a tro-tro--(Ghana's form of mass public transportation, which is a normal sized school van that has 18-20 people crammed inside-)-to get to Cape Coast. It was much more tourist-y than Ho, and we actually saw some other Yavus--or as they call us in the Central region "Obronees." We got to tour Cape Coast Castle, which is a 400 year old slave castle that Britain used to hold slaves that would eventually travel on the Middle Passage. We got to walk down in the male and female dungeons. The conditions were horrible... We were literally walking on petrified feces and urine. Many of the captured West Africans died before they ever stepped onto a ship. After the fascinating but depressing tour, we went to the beach and went swimming. The tide was strong, so we didn't go very far out. We ate dinner on the rooftop of the student housing building. They actually served American food, so I was able to get a plateful of spaghetti with BEEF!!! and... A SALAD!!! Yes, a salad. It was the first salad I have seen since I came to Ghana. The next morning we went to Kakum National Park to do a canopy walk. We walked along the rickety bridges high up in the tree tops. It was such a beautiful experience!!!

On the Canopy Walk!

At Cape Coast

The Castle

--Annelise

Yevu!!!

Hi all,

We've now been in Ghana for almost six days and are starting to get in the swing of things, but we wanted to share a little bit about our first few days here. Its been an overwhelming, exhausting, but truly amazing first week. After arriving to Accra from Turkey, we met the program director face to face for the first time. His name is |John Barber, and this is his fifth or sixth summer in Ghana. He and |Liam Lynch, the volunteer coordinator, have been really great--super supportive and helpful to all the volunteers, and have been sharing tips with us daily about Ghanaian culture and living in Ho..everything from the official Ghanaian handshake, to what spices to use sparingly ( they looooove hot food) to how to navigate the lively and chaotic city of Ho. Anyway, after we met |John we took a shuttle bus, called a Tro Tro, on a bumpy and hot but very scenic four hour drive from the coast, inland to Ho, where we are based. The scenery slowly changed from developed to rural tropical forest. It was a really great chance to get a feel for the geography of the region. Annelise even saw baboons racing along the side of the road!

Once we arrived in Ho, thursday evening, we met the other volunteers ( we make up a group of eight). Its been really fun getting to know them better; they're all very laidback and interesting people--students like us, though they are all from UMass, John Barber's Alma Mater. And then we got our first tour of the city. If I had to use one word to describe it, it would be "bustling." Taxis and Tro Tros are honking and swerving around everywhere, there are vendors of all kinds lined up and down every street, and the market place takes it to a whole new extreme. You may be wondering the meaning of the title of this post..Yevu means |"white person" and the kids (and many adults) always shout it when we walk by, which I find pretty hilarious. In Ghana its not meant to be offensive in any way, it's just what they call all white people. So thats probably the first Ewe word that we learned while we we've been here, but in the last week we've been slowly building our vocablulary. I now feel comfortable greeting people on the street and using thank you, your welcome..etc.


 Annelise and I have now spent about 4 days at McColins school, and its been truly a blast! The first few days we helped teach a class of 6 and 7 year olds. They are extremely energetic and love to play--when we brought out the sports equipment it was utter mayhem! But so much fun! During recess we taught students of all ages things like how to hold a football and how to shoot a basketball, and they taught us a few of their games, and A LOT of their songs. I learned how to play game called "Ampy" which involves jumping and clapping at exactly the right rhythm..they had to be very patient with me, but its so much fun now that I know it. During class Annelise and I taught the students "rise and shine and give God the glory glory" which was a huge hit. We've also been helping the younger kids with their abcs, and counting, and the older kids with math. Tomorrow, we will have our first group of students after school, which we are very excited about, because we'll be able to teach some of the sports fundamentals in a little more of a structured environment.




Last weekend we went with the rest of the group on a day trip out of Ho, further inland to Tafi monkey sanctuary and Wli waterfall. Annelise and I both agreed that the experience far exceeded anything we could have imagined or hoped for. At the monkey sanctuary, we all held out ripe bananas in our hands and made kissing noises to call the monkeys to us. After about five minutes or so, they slowly started to descend and check us out. Once one monkey dared leaving his tree for the banana, they all started jumping down unto our backs and arms! It was crazy and realllly funny! Especially when three jumped on Annelise when she wasn't expecting it. We then took about a four mile hike straight up a mountain cliff, to hike up to one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen, and the most powerful! It was a pretty tough hike, especially in the heat, but it was very very worth it. When we got to the waterfall, it felt like we were in the middle of a hurricane from the spray that was coming off it. Annelise and I both braved the wind and water though, and swam out to get right under the falls! It was incredible.

Already, everything has far exceeded our expectations.. The heat has been an adjustment, and we both miss our friends and family a little bit already...not to mention fresh vegetables and meat..which are somewhat limited here. Rice and more rice with a side of bread is extremely popular! But we love our volunteer group, and we've already made some Ghanaian friends! One of the teachers from the school, Gifty, even took us to her friend who is a seamstress, so we could get fitted for traditional dresses. We're definitely trying to immerse ourselves in as many aspects of Ghanaian culture as we can. We'll write again soon with another update. Hope all is well in the States!


-Molly O.