Girl Goes Ghana

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Life updates

- July 30, 2018

So I've obviously fallen behind a bit on blogging. I wish I could say that it's because I've somehow gotten incredibly busy and productive, but I'd prefer not to lie. It would be more accurate to say I've fallen into a bit of a groove. Things that used to seem interesting and exciting are now just pieces of my daily life, and don't feel as worthy of a blog post as they might have a year ago. Regardless, here are a few quick updates of what life has been like recently! Back in May, the group of volunteers that I traveled to Ghana with all met up in Kumasi, Ghana's second city, for a mid-service conference. That's right, I'm now well past the half-way mark on my 27 months in country! It's a little hard to wrap my head around the fact that I only have about nine months left before it will be time to wrap everything up and come home. It was awesome to see everyone again and hear what everyone has been up to. Even though we are in the same countr

A tale of two funerals

- June 21, 2018

If you showed up in Ghana with no knowledge of the culture and accidentally walked into a funeral, I imagine you might get the impression you had walked into a particularly raucous party. People drinking, dancing, singing, and hanging out? Seems like a good time. Funerals in Ghana are different than a typical American funeral in many ways. They typically do not take place until several months after the death, in order to give the family time to raise money and get organized. In the meantime, the body sits in the morgue. When the big day arrives, pretty much everyone who has ever known the deceased arrives. The family of the deceased will often post flyers and even billboards around town announcing the death and giving information about the funeral. So when my community has a funeral, our population booms from a couple hundred people to somewhere around a thousand or so. A thousand people I don't know roll into town, dressed in the traditional Ghanaian funeral colors of black a

One PCV's trash...

- June 07, 2018

One of the things that has been hardest for me to get used to in Ghana is my utter lack of privacy compared to what I was used to at home. One of the weirdest ways that this lack of privacy manifests itself? People dig through my trash. There is no garbage man in Ghana who comes around weekly to collect waste. In my community, there aren't even garbage cans. A few people burn their trash, but most (including me) throw their garbage into a specific spot in the bush which has more or less been designated a community dump. It actually works much better in my community than it does in many others; there is very little trash scattered around the village. This is a little stream in Ho, my market town. It smells about like it looks. Luckily, my community is nothing like this. However. The day after I threw away my first bag of trash, I was stunned to see kids running around town playing with things that I had thrown away. An empty floss dispenser, bits of paper, a piece of a br

A year in Ghana

- May 24, 2018

I have officially crossed the halfway mark on my service in Ghana. I arrived here about sixteen months ago, which means I have eleven months left in country. I have lived here longer than I ever lived in Korea, Austria, or Russia. So how am I feeling about this? Well. I am feeling a lot of things. I often feel frustrated by the fact that I haven't been able to accomplish much. I haven't managed to do much of what my community hoped I would do, and I also haven't managed to achieve many of the goals I set for myself. There have been a lot of moments over the last year when I have doubted exactly why I came, and wondered if I might have been better off staying home, where at least I would have things to do every day. Although it doesn't feel like a lot, I have managed to do one or two things over the course of the last year. I have held cooking demonstrations, tended my garden, taught adolescents about malaria and HIV, created a Grassroots Soccer group, and atten

I know how to do my laundry, thank you very much.

- April 03, 2018

I've been washing my laundry by hand for over a year now, and guess what? I'm not actually terrible at it. My clothes come out unstained, soft, and smelling of detergent. The women in my community cannot be convinced of this. I used to do my laundry sitting outside my house, but I got tired of the way that people would crowd around me and stare at me while I washed, so within a few months of coming to my community, I moved laundry day inside. Sloshing water around on the floor is a small price to pay in order to avoid stares, laughter, and people straight up trying to pull my washing out of my hand. However, although they no longer have the privilege of gawking at me as I clean, most of the women in town remain convinced that I am completely incapable of washing my clothes, and frequently offer to rectify this situation. Several people have come to my house to spontaneously offer me lessons in washing by hand. My friend Davi Aku gets mad every time she sees my washing on

Ask a Ghanaian, Part II

- March 22, 2018

A couple of months ago, I sat down with a couple of Ghanaian friends and interviewed them about their lives. The other day, I got the chance to sit down with another friend and do the same thing. Here's what he had to say. Just as a reminder, the views that he expresses are entirely his own and do not reflect my opinions nor Peace Corps'. Israel is a 20 year old kente weaver and farmer who lives in my community. He finished SHS (the equivalent of high school) last year, and since then has been working to grow his small kente business. Israel at work. Can you tell me about this community? As you know, we all are farmers. If it's dry season, some people won't be going to farm because of the lack of rain to produce their products. Sometimes I go to farm. I have a farm. I grow maize. My parents grow maize, groundnuts, yam, and okra. What is the best part about living here? I like how this community works together. For example, if someone is sick

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