Girl Goes Ghana

Sometimes, I am very much taken aback by the difference between how many of my Ghanaian neighbors see me and how I see myself. For example, here is an actual conversation I had the other day: Neighbor: Why don't you have children? Me: I don't want any now. Maybe later. Neighbor: What?? If you wait, you will be too old! You will be an old lady! Me: I don't think so...I would prefer to wait until I am in my thirties or so to have children. Neighbor: What? You mean you aren't thirty already? Me: No... Neighbor: I thought you were at least forty. Me: Not quite. Neighbor: Then how did a young girl like you get to be SOOOOOO fat?? Good question, neighbor. Good question. I have encounters like this fairly regularly. If you pay too much attention to these comments, they can wear away a bit at your self esteem. However, I know that nothing bad is meant by them. I'm pretty confident that I don't look forty, anyway, and no one means to insult me by...

I thought it might be a good idea to share with you a list of the things I love most about living in Ghana and being in the Peace Corps. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully it will give you some idea of the things that have given me joy over my year in country. 1. The music!  I really love a lot of Ghanaian music. I don't know the names of half of the artists that I like, but I'll really have to get on top of that before I head back to America. I enjoy hearing it when traveling, out to eat, or just blaring from random radios on the streets in my market town. Here's one of my favorites by the very popular Shatta Wale. 2. Riding my bike! I can't easily access the town where I live by car, and there's no food for sale in town, so I end up spending a lot of time on my bike, usually at least a few miles a day. When I first got to site, I found this to be a huge pain. I spent a ton of money on taxis getting my room furnished and once carr...

Some of my friends and neighbors making gari, an extremely popular food made from cassava. It is difficult, sometimes, for me to share my experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer knowing that for many people, I'm their main source of information for what life in Ghana as like. I know that many of my friends and family extrapolate and assume that what is true for me is likely true for all Peace Corps Volunteers, or all Ghanaians, or all Africans. Here are some of my friends and neighbors hard at work making garri, one of the most popular foods in my town. I would like to take a brief moment to correct that and let you know that Ghana isn't poor. Neither am I, and neither are Peace Corps Volunteers in general. Let's start with me, since that's the easiest assumption to correct. In USD, our "salary" is a pittance. I could make more in a week at a minimum wage job in the United States than I live off in Ghana in a month. But that doesn't mean I...

A few weeks ago, there was an explosion in Accra, the capital of Ghana. It was pretty bad, and I thought my family might see it on the news and worry about me. I texted them to let them know I was alright, that the explosion was miles and miles away from me, and that there was nothing to worry about. The response? "We didn't hear about the explosion, but we've been worried about you every minute since you got on that plane to Ghana." I don't think this is uncommon for the families of people who join the Peace Corps. You're sending your loved one off for more than two years to a foreign country, and it ain't no Paris, France. Rightly or wrongly, I think many people have the perception that the countries that Peace Corps operates in are fundamentally dangerous in some way that the United States is not. Is there any truth to this? Not too much to be afraid of when this is the main road out of town. I can't speak for every Peace Corps country...

So if you're reading this blog, I'd imagine you are at least a little interested in learning more about Ghana. Or hey, maybe you just like to giggle at the image of me struggling to wield a hoe or flailing around trying to kick a soccer ball. Yeah, I struggle sometimes. But for those of you interested in learning about Ghana, I'm afraid maybe I've let you down a little bit. I've only been in Ghana for ten months. Moreover, no matter how integrated I may feel, no matter how much I learn, I will never, ever be able to explain Ghana like Ghanaians do. My perspective will always be that of an outsider. So I decided to interview some people who might actually know what they're talking about: Ghanaians. (Left-right) Noah, 20 years old; Bright,  23 years old. These brothers, Noah and Bright, are good friends with one of my fellow PCVs, and over the months I've been here, they've become friends of mine, too. I decided to sit down with them and ask s...

For the last two months, one of my counterparts and I have been going to the local school every Wednesday and Friday to deliver Grassroots Soccer sessions to a group of twenty-one adolescent girls. Since our sessions at the school will be coming to a close when the girls graduate tomorrow, I thought it might not be a bad time to clue you in on what I've been up to. I ran away to Ghana to become a professional soccer player. Grassroots Soccer (GRS) is an NGO that partners with Peace Corps in countries around the world. GRS is a method that volunteers can use to deliver education about HIV/AIDS, birth control, and healthy relationships, among other things. Although soccer (or football, as Ghanaians call it) is involved, the focus of GRS is using games and activities to help students talk about difficult subjects, and to help them feel empowered to take action in their homes and communities. A typical session goes like this: my counterpart, Evelyn, and I arrive at school aro...

I'm not too proud to admit this, but I'm maybe a little overprotective of my belongings. When I was growing up, if I loaned a book to someone and it came back with some of the pages wrinkled, it would earn my unending wrath. And I have nothing but scorn for those who decide they'd rather pick at my entree than order their own. That doesn't fly so much in Ghana. From the moment I came to my site, I was surrounded by people giving me things. People come to my house with mangoes, coconuts, plantains, buckets of peanuts, more tomatoes than I can reasonably eat. If someone is eating or drinking something and I happen to walk by, they more or less insist that I take some. I visited the Queen Mother a few weeks ago and left with a giant bucket of peanuts. People treat this like no big deal, but it really does improve my quality of life to have random portions of food handed to me every week or so. I think I've mentioned before that the market is not super easy to acce...