Christmas and In Service Training
For the last month or so, with a few brief exceptions, I’ve been very busy. The end of the Fall term was a little hectic, as I didn’t really know what the hell I was suppose to be doing. Not long after that I my site to travel up north for Christmas and the New Year. For Christmas, I stayed at the Peace Corps sub office in Tamale with about ten other volunteers. The day after, I left with a friend for his village near Bolgatanga, in the Upper East. You could say we were without electricity, but that’s not an entirely honest statement. We both had laptops and iPods that were charged up, as well as headlamps and flashlights, so neither of us really missed the single, naked compact fluorescent bulb dangling from my ceiling that is, arguably, the biggest different between the interiors our two sites.
But unlike the insides of our homes, with the concrete walls painted in pastels and adorned with calendars, photos, and ornaments from the states, the surrounding landscapes could not have been more different. Up in the north of Ghana the climate is hotter and drier. There are no clouds in the sky and there are no rolling hills cloaked in jungle. The land is covered in loose dirt and dead, dry grass. In the middle of my friend’s compound, which he shares with several other families, there is a raised platform made of mud brick, with steep, narrow stairs climbing up to the top. I believe it’s used for drying foods and, during the unbearable heat of springtime in Ghana, sleeping. The view, when perched atop the platform as the sun sets in the evening, is surreal. You can stand in place and turn slowly, seeing a panoramic of the dry, grassy savannah stretching for miles and, as your eyes strain to make out the trees and mud brick houses the size of pin points on the horizon, the sun slips away leaving behind a fast fading trail of deep purples oranges and yellows.
Without divulging any potentially incriminated details, we had fun that week in the village, and in Bolgatanga on New Year’s Eve. I left on the morning of the second day of January for my home in Yefri and made it back by the evening. That week, most of my neighbors and nearly all of the other teachers at the school had traveled and were still away. I relaxed, watched movies on my computer, and read some books. That weekend, I had to leave once again, this time for Kukurantumi. Beginning on the following Monday, Peace Corps had scheduled an in service training seminar for all the education volunteers who had arrived last June.
Our Ghanaian counterparts attended the seminar with us and together we participated in teaching workshops and lectures on, among other things, Ghana’s educational system and the various fundraising opportunities available to us. By the end of the week I felt very satisfied with the information we had been given and the workshops Peace Corps had held for us. Obviously not all of what we were told was of particular relevance to me, and there were a few dry spots during the lectures, but I left that week impressed by the facilities Peace Corps made available to us and reenergized, ready to get back to work. And of course it was also very nice to spend time with many friends from training whom I had not seen since last August.
Since classes began a few weeks ago, I’ve been focusing on getting my plans for a new computer lab off the ground. My course load was severely cut back this term due to the fact that computer skills will not be tested on the WASSCE (the exam all graduating students take in the spring of their final year). I’m not at all disappointed by this. Teaching was perhaps the least interesting part of my job. My headmaster has been very cooperative with me thus far this term, as he was last term, and now I have more time to work on my grant application for the computer lab, as well as a few other secondary projects, all of which I’ll write about in another post in the near future.
I hope all of my friends and family had a great holiday season. And out of curiosity, are there are any Peace Corps invitees preparing to come in June 2010 that read this blog? I was thinking about trying to put together a post on advice that I wish I had heard before I came here. In the mean time, feel free to e-mail me with any questions.
Hey there! I was just browsing Ghana blogs and found yours! I am one of the volunteers coming to Ghana in June 2010 doing environmental education. I was wondering if you would recommend me to invest in a Ghana travel guide and/or West Africa travel guide? What kind of independent readings do you recommend?
Yo,
So I know a lot of people who bought travel guides, although I didn’t. My feeling is that while they’re useful, they’re not entirely essential. The main problem is that the information in the books falls out of date quickly, so phone numbers and prices are often not accurate. If you can find one for a decent price, pick it up, but don’t go crazy trying to find a good one. Last time I checked, there was only one company, Bradt or something like that, that made a guide specifically for Ghana. Lonely Planet and a few others make West Africa guides though.
As for independent reading, I’m assuming you mean novels and such for pleasure. I go through books pretty quickly and I’m always trying to think of more stuff for my parents to send me. My Dad gets Newsweek and the Economist in the mail at home and when he’s finished with them he sends them to me. Even though they’re usually a few months old, they’re still great to read and surprisingly relevant to what I (and probably you) do here. For fiction, I would recommend you pick an author you like, but whom you haven’t read from, and get a bunch of his or her books. Also, try and bring some things that you might not have had the patience to read back in the US. I read The Wings of the Dove back in the fall, which was a little tough in places, but I really enjoyed the book in the end and I’m glad I made it all the way through. I had never read Henry James before (and wings of the dove probably isn’t the best James book to start with) but I really felt like I got a lot out of it. I also like Hemingway a lot. I started For Whom the Bell Tolls on the plane on the way over here and it remains one of my favorite books. Generally, I would say pick books you want to read, and pick books that you’ve always been meaning to read but never got around to. You’ll have a lot of free time here and reading is a great use of it.