Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
When I was little (and not so little), my mom was fond of reciting a nursery rhyme to me: "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row." I don't know what a cockle shell is, but in all fairness, I do have a tendency to be contrary. I came to Ghana to be a volunteer in the Peace Corps health sector. Of all the Peace Corps sectors in Ghana (health, education, and agriculture), I would say that ours is the most loosely defined. At my site, I don't have any projects that I'm specifically assigned to work on. For the first three months, in fact, we are not encouraged to work at all. Instead, we are meant to spend time getting to know our new neighbors and friends and practicing the language. This is all well and good, but to be honest, there are only so many hours I can spend every day socializing and hanging out with people with whom I still don't share a common language. I have a ...