Worst Blogger Ever

Wow, everyone, my apologies for not having written a post in weeks! In my defense, I had no internet access at home in the new apartment I moved to, and for reasons unknown the modem at my office decided it no longer wanted to work consistently so I had a total of about 20 minutes of browsing time Monday to Friday. ("This is Ghana!")

Well, I have officially flown internationally ALONE. Boy, have I impressed myself. As I was readying to leave the AFS office yesterday afternoon, I realized at the last moment that I'd forgotten to print my e-ticket, so I ran back inside and took care of that. Then, when I reached the Accra airport, I realized I had forgotten to take my passport from the safe at AFS. (Minor heart attack, as I'd had a nightmare the week previous that I'd forgotten it.) The AFS employees that brought me were able to get in touch with the office and another employee brought it to me about 20 minutes later. Security, immigration, etc., took ages and felt thoroughly disorganized. Also, with the lax Ghanaian punctuality, passengers late for their flights were constantly jumping the line, so it felt as though the line wasn't really moving. Once I finally got through, I picked up some Pebbles (Ghanaian peanut M&M's) and Blue Skies (fresh pineapple juice), peed, and waited to board. Taking the bus out to the tarmac was so incredible; I can remember vividly how alert my senses were to everything around me, how incredibly hot it had felt. How heavy my backpack was from packing so much useless crap into my carry-on. On the plane, I changed into sweats, put my eye cover on and passed out till a flight attendant put a tray of food in front of me. (I found it very ironic that the chicken meal included rice.) The weirdest thing about that meal was that there was a piece of chocolate cake that I didn't pay 7 Cedis for. I watched a movie and managed to doze a bit more and here I am - back in Schiphol.

I always tended to think people who said "oh, it feels like yesterday!" were a little full of it, but sitting here in the airport I finally understand that feeling. It feels like yesterday that I was sitting here, agonizingly nervous and expectant. I cannot believe two months has passed. I feel that I was just getting the "groove" of things in Accra, and I have to admit that I regret having changed my ticket. All I can do is be grateful and proud that I stuck it out to 8 weeks. And now I know (1) I can live in a foreign country, even an undeveloped one, by myself (2) that you cannot die of homesickness and that if you can stick out the first 4-6 weeks, you wont even remember you were homesick in the first place, and (3) to truly benefit from traveling to a foreign country, you need to live there for at least 2 months, in fact I would say 2-3 months is the minimum. I hope I've learned more than just those three, but those are the ones my overtired, soggy brain has come up with for the moment.

Now, I am off to clean up a bit, caffeinate myself, and walk around Amsterdam. (I can do that now, because I'm not afraid. How cool is that?) I miss you all and cannot WAIT to bore you to tears with pictures and stories of my time in Accra!

Much love,
Emily

Haatso

I've moved into the spare room in the flat that a fellow University of Ottawa-ian is living with an Australian expat and another Canadian. I still have about half my things at Kobby's as I have not yet been given official approval by my hosting organization to live there. I have a meeting with them this Friday, during which I'm assuming we'll discuss the fall-out with my last host, and whether I am "allowed" to stay living in the flat. By this Friday, I'll have only a week left so I doubt they'll try to fix me with yet another host family for the sake of being nearer to work, but there may be problems with me being at the flat, since the organization is built upon the connection between exchange students and hosts. I can only hope they empathize with how much it sucks to sit in a sweaty trotro for 2 hours at the beginning and end of every day and let me stay where I am. I also desperately hope I am not blamed or criticized too harshly for the termination of my homestay in Dome...
Work, at least, continues to be fantastic. I've written the first draft of the proposal to N.E.D. to fund a leadership and political involvement training program for women here at the Women's Law and Human Rights Institute and moved on to editing and reformatting a training manual for republication.
To update you on how I'm doing, I can tell you I no longer wake up and find my surroundings surprising. And using trotros have become totally normal. I don't even think twice about doing laundry or showering with buckets. My fascination with the sheep, goats, chickens, and dogs everywhere has worn off. The little shops along the roads are extremely convenient and going to a grocery store is a huge hassle. I can't imagine living in any other temperature that what it is here. I definitely can't imagine blow drying my hair or putting on makeup. I've gotten really good at French-braiding my hair so it's off my face and neck. I'm breaking out fairly consistently on my face, yet the frequency of times I forget to look in the mirror is constantly increasing, and, likely as a result, I feel comfortable and attractive pretty much all the time. I eat lots of whatever I want, including ice cream 3 times a day if I feel like it (and I often do). In fact, I rarely let myself get to the point of feeling hungry I eat so much. My mouth doesn't burn quite as violently when I eat Ghanian food, and in fact I was quite disappointed by my PB&J sandwich today with everyone around me eating  local foods. I had it on whole wheat bread and it tasted dry and cardboard-y and I can't wait to go buy a loaf of (white) butter bread. My digestion is completely back to normal. I eat rice with my hand because switching to a fork is too much of a hassle when you're eating chicken. (Plus forks are just stupid!. No, think about it, if it doesn't need a spoon, why bother? The tangs are just little fingers anyway...) It's weird to see white people. The clothes I brought now seem really boring and monochromatic. But, most of all, I'm shocked that I've only been here six weeks. I'm not sure if it feels longer or shorter, but something about that portion of time just doesn't seem accurate. Even more shocking is the thought that I'll be back in Canada in two weeks. I was convinced I'd never adapt to living here, that I'd feel a constant anxiety to get out of here until the second before I boarded my flight out of Accra. But now, I'm starting to feel a little sad knot in the pit of my stomach when I think about all I'm leaving behind...
Regardless, I look forward to seeing you all.
A special bundle of love from across the big blue to my Gramma. I hope you're healthy and doing well.
Love always,
Em xoxo

Worst-Case Scenario....Again

Well, I've officially experienced the feared "worst-case scenario" host family. If one thing can be said about this trip, it's that I'm experiencing the extremes of everything! It's Extreme International Exchange! As I've had to explain what happened to several people, and because they're really quite horrible to relive, I wont go into detail about the events here. Suffice it to say, I've moved back to Kobby's and intend to move again (hopefully for the last time) into a spare room with some other Expats for my final weeks in Accra, as the commute is 2 hours one way from Kobby's to my work.
This past weekend, I went to Osu with a fellow Canadian and her Australian roommate. We went to this bizarrely Western supermarket, a fantastic store called Global Mamas that sells handmade clothes, jewelery, bags, etc, Ryan's Irish Pub (another bizarre experience to have in central Accra), and a truly amazing African arts and crafts store.
This weekend I hope to visit an area called Asylum Down with some friends, where we'll be going to Ghana's National Museum, a shop called Sun Trade Beads and, if my friends and I are feeling brave enough, Accra Market. Markets are very intimidating here - you get swarmed by people selling everything from pineapples to custom bracelets, and "no thank you" is either met with increased effort or offense.
More to come!
Miss you all very much!

Typical Day in Ghana

I thought you might be interested in what a "typical" work day is like for me over here. It struck me this morning how normal it's become for me, and that it's pretty similar to a work day anywhere else, except in the details... Here's what I mean.
I wake up at 6 AM to lock the gate after my host sister who has a driver take her to school at this time (I live with a wealthier family; Allison - she goes to Montessori and is just finishing grade seven). I have cereal for breakfast, because I can't do spicy rice and meat first thing in the morning, iron whatever I will wear to work that day, boil some water and pour it into a bucket in the showering room, adding some room-temperature water from the big storage bins of water to make it warm, and bathe by pouring water from the bucket over my head with a big ladle. I get dressed, braid my hair, and brush my teeth with more stored water (being careful not to swallow and spit it all out). If I have something for lunch I pack it up, otherwise I take my bag with my work things, unlock the padlock on the inside of the gate, return the keys to the house, and lock the padlock after me on the outside of the gate when I leave.
The trotro station I go to is a short walk up the road. It's called Pillar 2 Oheneho (or something like that). I take a trotro direction Dome and after an extremely bumpy ride, get off at a main intersection between Dome and Dome Market. Sometimes I buy some bufloat or cake for a snack later in the morning. Next, I take a trotro directoin Madina and get off at "Carpenter's Shop" in Haatso. This stop is tricky because for the longest time I thought they were saying "Carpington's Stop" because of the accent and when I tried to repeat it no one had any idea what I was talking about. Eventually, I was told it was actually Carpenter's Shop, and now I have a pretty easy time of getting off where I need to. So, next I walk past the carpenter's shop and a brick factory, and turn down Queen Street (a.k.a. Why My Feet Are Always Dirty Road), a dirt road that is extremely potholed and usually flooded with small lakes that are filled with garbage that I attempt to walk around without slipping on the mud.
I work from 8:30 AM to 4 PM. At lunch a young woman named Beatrice, or Bee, goes into Haatso Station up the road to pick up food for people here in the office. Sometimes I give her some money and ask for rice and chicken, or I go with her for the trip.
The return trip is rather funny because I can't get a trotro at the same place I get off in the morning. I have to go into Dome Market and get a trotro for Pillar 2 there. Both commutes are around one hour, and costs 85 pesewas each way. I'm always the only white person on the trotro, but people are usually friendly and appreciative when I try to use the few twi phrases I know. I can't tell you how many times I've got lost or on the wrong side of the street trying to "pick" a trotro going the wrong way, and been redirected by a friendly Ghanaian who can tell how confused I am.
Well, I hope that was mildly interesting. Feel free to let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about!

So what the heck am I doing over here anyway?

The Ark Foundation is a huge organization in terms of the scope of services they offer to Ghanaian women and children. The two main divisions of the NGO are (1) the Women's Law and Human Rights Institute (WLHRI), which runs training programs on leadership, human rights, gender equality, social development etc., and offers legal advice and free legal representation, and (2) the Anti-Violence Program (AVP), which provides counseling, a 24 hour crisis hotline, the only women's shelter in Ghana, and a lot of outreach projects regarding safe sex to stop the spread of AIDS, prevention of child and spousal abuse, etc.
I intern in the WLHRI. So far I've written two letters requesting institutional affiliation, one to the Coady Institute in Nova Scotia and one to Spelman College in Atlanta, because the Women's Law and Human Rights Institute (WLHRI) here at The Ark is seeking accreditation as an educational/training institution, and to become accredited in Ghana (and internationally) they need to be affiliated with an already accredited institution. Then I did some research on other social justice-based NGOs called "Ark" so that we can send out invitations to become affiliated with each other. Then I drafted a letter The Ark can send to future interns regarding what they can do to prepare, and what to expect and so on. Then I did some research on the electoral process of Ghana, which required a fair amount of background research into the history of Ghana to understand it, and currently I'm drafting a proposal for the National Endowment for Democracy to fund a program to promote Ghanaian' women's participation in government and democracy. I've also done some administrative type stuff - make lists of contacts, joined a couple of the project officers here while they made a presentation on Women's Human Rights to the female officers at the Fire Service and handed out pamphlets.
It's pretty dry, considering my personal and scholastic interest is more in the area of what the AVP does (and direct contact with women/children), but they recently lost the financial support of their major donor (Ghana is now considered on the "almost developed" end of "developing" and many donors are withdrawing funding) so they need major help finding grants elsewhere. So, I may not be on the "front lines", but I'm still helping, I think.
The Ark Foundation has a website (www.arkfoundationghana.org) if you want to take a look, and feel free to ask me questions! With my shared internet connection here at work, it's difficult to upload photos on Blogger and Facebook, but I promise I'm taking TONS and I will share them all when I get back!
Hope you're well! As always, I miss you.
Much love,
Emily

Checking in!

Well, hello again! Sorry for the delay since the last post, I don't have internet access at my new host family's place so the only chance I get online is at work when I should be, well, working. (I've made a little exception for the moment.)

As I said, I'm at a new host family, which I'll be staying at till I fly out Saturday July 2nd. The head of the household is a single business woman, Yvonne. Also living there are her 12 year old daughter, Gabriella, and her fiance's 3 year old son, Kwaku. I got my own room after about a week of living there, but even still there are a lot of cultural differences regarding privacy (and nakedness) that I've been addressing. The house is in an area called Dome (pronounced dome-eh) that is a lot less developed than were I was living before in Tesano (Kobby's) so the roads are dirt and really uneven with huge pot holes and rifts that the heavy rains form. I got my hair done the first weekend I was there in Ghanaian style at one of the many salons in the area, though I had to take it out after about a week because the extensions were giving me a painful rash on my scalp.

This past weekend I went to the Central Region of Ghana to visit Cape Coast with another Canadian volunteer, Amanda, and her Australian roomie, Loretta. We left fairly early Saturday morning for the bus station and got tickets for a noon bus, but did not leave until after 3 PM. (They also made us pay 3 cedes extra because the bus that finally came for us was a fancy coach, making the total cost 12 cedes. Amanda and I were losing our minds.) We arrived in Cape Coast as it was already getting dark, but after getting a room at Flying Victory Hotel, we walked through the town a bit taking pictures, down to the shore where we had delicious burgers at the Blue Oasis Resort and watched a traditional singing/drumming/dancing troupe perform. Next day we went to Kakum National Park for their Canopy Walk, unfortunately the largest creature I saw was a massive spider on a tree because the visitors were making so much noise. After we went through Cape Coast Castle, a British fort that was one of the first to stop trading in slaves. We saw an awful isolation cell, dungeons, and the Door of No Return through which slaves were led to board ships bound for the Americas and Europe. Then we boarded a bus (from a different transport line for which we waited only 45 minutes this time) and we back to Accra.

This weekend, I will be going to the market and Osu area with Amanda and Loretta for some shopping and sight-seeing. After that I have two weekends left, and I'm hoping to travel out of Accra at least once more, to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region or the Volta Region where there are lots of wildlife in the National Park there.

In the meantime, I've been given a rather daunting project at Ark to keep me busy, though I will try to post again soon. I hope you are all healthy and doing well.

Much love,

Emily

African Union Day

A very happy African Union Day to all!

I have moved into my host family's house and will remain here until I leave on July 2nd. When their current guest leaves I will have my room, which I'm very thankful for. Until then I'm sharing with my host sister Gabriella. She's got shelves along one entire wall of her room packed with shoes. I can see our friendship going a long way.

Right now, we're watching a football game of a bunch of the Black Stars and other amazing world footballers in a game of Africa vs. the World. There's lots of Ghanaian music and dancing, it's pretty cool.

Hopefully, after, I'll be getting some more clothing for work. I should have trusted my gut and packed at least twice as much clothing and fancier shoes. Ah, well. The fashion here is amazing so I'm sure I'll get some good stuff. I'm hoping to also have at least one African-style dress made - they're so beautiful, I can't pass up the opportunity.

Well, I hope you are all happy and healthy. I miss you, as always.

Much love.