Week 7 and 8.

On Friday the 30th of July, we threw a party for to commemorate a few different occasions. Brittany, Ashley and Qu Qwa (That’s like koo-qua, she lives with us to watch the house while we arn’t home, and do a number of chores around the house) were having a birthday and Ryan, Katy and Karen were all leaving back home.

The only problem with the how the night ended was that Brittany (aka. Brit) got malaria and was really sick for her birthday.

You know, the strange thing about malaria is….almost everyone gets it a couple times year here. It is so common it’s more common than the common cold. I have been around at least 3 people who have had malaria in only the past 2 months.

When you have it, it can be really serious, but it’s usually nothing to worry about. That is, if you get medicine for it. For those people that have access to the Malaria drugs, the sickness is not usually life or death. My friends were all pretty safe because they have access to the drugs. But having the drugs is not always the case and many people do die.

The party was held at a bar called something like The Stop Aids bar. Very interesting name. It think it got its name because it is a affiliated with some organization that’s campaigning to Stop Aids in Africa.

As usual, there was a little hassling involved in getting to be able to throw the party there. The Ashanti guys went down and told the bar owner that we were planning to bring a bunch of people tonight to throw a party. The owner asked them for a donation. And really impressed that it was required.

In the end there was no donation given. But interestingly, he didn’t seem to get the more obvious problem with what he was asking for. We had planned to bring a bunch of people to the bar to drink, and he was about to turn all the profits from that down for a donation.

Whatever. We partied there for a long time and had a good time.

At first we all just showed up and sat around a big table. Everyone had a couple drinks. Then, once the right people showed up from the Ashanti dance group that they needed to perform a drumming beat and sing-a-long song, they did. While they drummed many people got up and danced on the dance floor, individually or with one other. I enjoyed watching my friends (mostly the Ashanti’s) dance and enjoyed it as usual. Not to long after this all started, one of the dance members, Frita pulled me up to dance with her. We danced for a while then i went and sat back down. Then more people danced some more, and ended after the second song.

Once we all started to chill out, the guys pulled out some Ghanaian food that they had prepared earlier in the day for the party. Unfortunately i couldn’t eat much because I was really full from the dinner that we had just a couple hours earlier at the house. But what i ate was really good.

After we ate dinner, the DJ started jamming some good music and everyone started dancing. We danced the entire night through.

Some time in the middle of all this, we cut the birthday cake that the girls got from Hans Cottage. Which turned out to be a completely different cake than the ordered. But that was not a surprise, and it was still pretty good. Anything was good enough for us at that point because it had been so long since any of us had had cake. Cake is very difficult to come by here in Ghana.

I ended up leaving around 12 because i had to be up by 6 the next morning to go to Accra to see off Karen and Katy. But had a blast while i was there.

I had not stayed in Accra very much at all until this trip. I was there for a few hours when I arrived in June. But this time I ended up staying for four days.

Those of us who went were Ranae, Katy, Karen, John and I. Dave lives in Accra. And Patience was to be arriving on the day before Katy was to depart to bring the contents of an order that is being shipped to a customer in the states. Katy is taking it with her and so it needs to be completed before she has to leave to the airport. The volunteers Katy and Karen are leaving within the next few days. And so is John, a very random guy who just finished his peacecore term of service in Gambia.

One day a couple days back, John wandered into our office looking for a place to burn CDs. He was about to embark on a 4 or so month journey in South Africa. Renae was pleasured to help him. She was a peacecore’r at heart and always will be.

The short story is this. He ended up staying the night for a couple days until we went to Accra and when we went, he went with us. Then at some point he left to embark on his journey.

The first night we stayed in Accra was delightful The first thing we did was go to the house that we were staying in to drop off our things and take it easy.

When we got there I was struck by how nice the place was. It was a villa. Two story, air conditioned, marble floor, hot shower, three fridges, and guarded 24/7. The owner was a Canadian embassy employee. Dave, Ranae’s husband was house sitting. Similar to the house I stayed during my first night in Ghana. And like i will stay again after a couple days stay.

Right when we walked in the door i found the couch and fell asleep because I had not been feeling good during the 4 hour trip from Cape Coast. I felt like i had a balloon in my intestines. I had some serious gas. Explosive.

While i was sleeping on the big comfy couch in the living room. Four hours slipped by when i woke up. After which the whole of us just sat around and chatted about different things for a few hours.

One of the things we talked about was that Dave has a Masters in Teaching. He taught in a university soon after college for one year. After which time, he never found himself teaching in any institution the US again. He did however teach in African schools for a while. Now he works doing a lot of work with computers. He does web development and has a job in Accra at a Digital Printing shop.

There were many stories about the old days in college, peace core Zanzibar (which incidentally is where Dave and Ranae met. Very sweet story)

We talked about food a lot. Which seems like a very common topic. We talked about the peacecore in Gambia. We talked about GeekCorps, which I will explain more about later. And who knows what else.

Around 8 PM we went out for dinner to a Ethiopian restaurant and had authentic Ethiopian for. I have never seen anything like it.

The brought the entire meal out on one big piece of strange sour dough tortilla (best explanation i could come up with). We had a wide selection of about 8 different sauces to dip the tortilla in. And that was dinner.

We ended up talking for another couple hours at Dunkins Pub. Then we went home. Finally, we went to sleep. End of day one.

We sleep in the next day. Then we hit the streets. Our first stops were at a couple of vendors on the road selling avocados, tomatoes, mangoes and coconuts. John bought some them all for dinner. Except for the coconut which he bought for use to drink.

After we picked that stuff up we went to the beach. We found a few lay-out beds and layed-out in the sun. There were hundreds of people at the beach because it twas sunday. After church, no one seems to have anything to do (well, the younger generation) because very few people work on sundays. So they go to the beach.

Soon after we parked in our ‘lawn-chairs’ we got hit up by the hawkers. These are the people who try to sell you stuff. I believe the first guys that came by were selling cigarettes. Then, Katy had a women massaging her feet and painting her toenails. She wanted to do mine too, apparently my toenails are to long. I said no. Katy’s soft for the massage though and couldn’t refuse. The women wanted 50,000 cedis, but Katy claimed to only have 20,000. After some negotiation, she left happily with the 20,000 and left Katy happy with the deal. After that, a few more people came by trying to sell random things. Some did songs and dance for us and ran around with a tip jar. Some people were selling food, like plaintain chips, peanuts, fan-ice cream (different in many ways but still similar to our ice-cream) and more. And there was also a guy selling what seemed to be silver rings. I honestly did not think i wanted one. But somehow i ended up seeing one i liked and began to bargain.

The game began. How could i trust that they were really silver? He explained that the way i know it is really silver is by comparison. He pointed at a ring that was not silver but look similar to it on Katy’s finger. Then he pointed at the ring i had chosen and said, in a nutshell, - look, it’s white, that’s not. White means real silver.

Ahhh..how was i supposed to know. I didn’t. So i moved on to other things. Like the fact that I knew nothing about what i was buying and how much it should cost. And the fact that i know he’s hawking it to me so i must be getting ripped off. I put one and one together, and bullshitted. After a few minutes of it, he gave in and sold me two for about the same price as the original price for one. I was happy.

After a few hours we left the beach and went home. John cooked up some mean guacamole. He also cooked a pot of beans, and brought out the pita bread.

After dinner we went upstairs to watch a DVD.

Have we left Africa or what? Yes. Almost completely.

After the movie, i preceded to hit the sack. My bed for the night was the same as it was for my nap. The living room couch.

The next morning, was Karens last. Around noon she left to the Airport. We wished her a wonderful journey and gave a round of hugs.
She is off to stay in Germany for a week and then back home to Canada.

John went out to get his Visa situation figured out and Katy and I went to town.

We went to breakfast, and to lunch at some point two very western restaurants. And we traveled into the central market area to find the Obuni Waywoo section. In English, that’s the Dead White man section.

Yup, they call it that. The reason is simple too. The locals consider all the second hand cloths they receive to have come from a dead white mans wardrobe.

I found some pants that i had been looking to buy since i got here and a shirt as well. Katy got a new (very old) belt. Other than that, while we were in the market area all we did was walk around and check everything out.

At some point we went to the Art village. It’s what appears to be a village that has a art market inside. They sell everything that you can find from all over ghana pretty much.

I bought a few things and so did Katy. And i believe that was all we did that day.

The next day was cool. We hung out with a guy that is a friend of a friend of a friend of Katy’s named Fidel Castro. He curses his parents for naming him that Just joking of course. He gets asked about his name a trillion time. But he takes it very light heartedly. Though seriously. On his passport, Castro is not present. Luckily that’s his middle name so he was able to leave it off.

We met with him and a friend of his for a couple drinks. I was really happy to have met him. The time was even to short.

That’s was really just about all we did that day.

The next day was Katy’s last. She wasn’t leaving until the evening though so we pittled around in the city and went out to eat. The pressure was on back at the house while we were eating. Patience, WIP’s…uhhh…2nd in command (?) was on her way with the rest of the order that was to be leaving in the next hour.

She ended up making it with only 20 minutes to spare. The quickly packed everything up and headed off to drop Katy at the airport.

After that, i did not really do much at all in Accra besides going to the International Trade Fair and a book store.

We left the next day at around 3 PM. We were back in Cape Coast around 8 PM. Damn does that drive suck. The roads are absolutely horrible. The good thing is though, they are having the entire stretch of highway replaced. A Japanese organization has donated the entire thing. Pretty intense donation if you ask me.

Once in Cape Coast again, everything went back to normal, except for one difference. I was now in a new home and some of my friends were gone.

So far, i enjoy the change very much, but i miss those who left.

I am very glad things worked out as they have when it comes to my living situation. I loved staying with the family, but i felt isolated from most the WIP group. They lived a good 20 minutes away from us and at night it is a pain in the ass to get taxi’s back and forth from my home to theirs. So now i get to spend time with the volunteers group. Perfect balance.

When i went back to work, I got right back into working on my lesson plans. I was able to complete the first draft for the first 5 weeks or the course.

Basically, the outline is something like this.

The first 5 weeks cover the basics of using the computer, an introduction to Microsoft Word, and an introduction to graphic design (using MS Paint).

Each student has two, two hour classes per week. Each of these days will be comprised of at least learning/reviewing and possibly an assignment, journal entry or exam. Depending on the progression of the student with each lesson.

I am pretty happy with the results. I just have given Renae a copy of the lesson plans and am waiting on what she has to say.

I also tried to tackle a virus on the office W2k server. I was unsuccessful. I spent about 4 hours working on that damn thing, but wasn’t able to finish. I did however successfully remove about 3 other viruses. I just was not able to get the big papa.

I will have to tackle it again soon.

The only other thing that has happened this week of any significance (that i can think of right now….) was that we painted the new office again on sunday and it is looking really good now. We are not yet done, but we are definitely getting close.

I don’t know how much i have already spoken of the bargaining, but here’s a musing on bargaining as a sport.

I feel that sport is something that is considered an acomplishment if you win and is played repeatedly. It has no real value in its activities except that when you win you expect to earn something and if you lose you are supposed to lose something. For example, that something might be a prize or gift, acknowledgment, appreciation or pride.

We bargain for a better price to win a better deal. When we win, we get a ‘gift’ of what ever amount you were able to have chopped of the original selling price and the satisfaction of winning.

In Ghana, for me, there is really no reason to bargain except to win acceptance and self-satisfaction because when I bargain, i am usually doing so to take only a few pennies off the price. My typical bargaining experience revolve around taking taxi rides. And it almost always happens about like this.

* Me - Him

* “PSSSST!! PSSST!”
* “Driver, You go to Elmina?”

- “Yes, Elmina, come come. We’ll go.”

* “How much?”

- “Come come, we’ll go.”

* “Tell me how much first? ”

- “25,000 cedis, it’s late. I might not be able to pick anyone up on the way home. …. bla bla bla…excuses….”

* “Ah! Why? That’s to high. How about 12,000 cedis. That is fair”

- “Ah! That’s to low, 20,000″

* “Oh why? I will pay no more than 15,000. Final offer. Otherwise I will wait for another taxi.”

… - “Come Come”

* And we go.

So, in the end, i saved about $1.00 US. And that is high for a typical bargain. Most of the time i am bargaining for taxi rides around town for something like 5,000 cedis, give or take a few thousand cedis (remember, 1,000 cedis is about $0.10 US). Some of the other examples of bargains where i was able to save a bit more than a few bucks was one time when i was trying to buy gift for my brother Ryan. The original price was 250,000 cedis but i ended up walking away with it for 105,000 cedis.

I will certainly miss some aspects of bargaining when i return back to the US, but i will not miss others too. I really enjoy the fact that when you are bargaining, you are being given a chance to be ripped off less or maybe even get a good price for something. But when you can’t bargain for a price because it has a price tag, then you just know you are being ripped off a maximum amount and there is nothing you can do about it except simply not buying it.

The thing i don’t like about bargaining is that it is such a hassle. It’s never easy to just say, ‘give me your best price’ and expect someone to actually give you their best price. Even at their best price, you can always continue and bargain for a better best price. Sometimes it just gets old and you really just want to be able to do something without having to go through so much hassle. Also, it sucks to try and bargain for something that you have no clue how much it really should be. You can only go into something assuming that you are being ripped off. The way i have handled this is that i just cut the said price in half or sometimes even more than half. Then, usually the seller says ‘Ahh!, no no’ and then gives me another prices that just a little bit lower than the price they said originally. Then i say, no…and go up only a little from what i said originally. I then judge by the sellers reaction to my stubburnness and work up on the price to come closer to his asking price or walk away. It’s when i begin to walk away that the truth comes out on how badly the seller wants to make his sale and if he will still make money off the amount i am walking away from offering. I have had many instances where when i walked away the seller would just let me go because my price was in fact to low and there were even more times where the seller would tell me to wait and he would give me a offer closer to what i was asking.

Ahh….Ghana. It’s interesting to say the least.

Speaking of Ghana and things that are kinda annoying. When i walk on the streets, no matter where i might be but espeically when i am in town, i regularly have people demanding money from me because i am white. While some beggers beg, and i respect that, other’s just demand. I mean, litterally, they say, ‘give me 5,000!’ ‘give me bla bla!’ ‘I know you have money’ ‘White Man! Give me Money!’ Arg. It’s frustrating for obvious reasons. One of them is the guilt of having money. Another is that the people are demanding something from me. Another is that the people have this idea that all foreigners (all foreigners here are considered to be white, whether or not they are in fact white…it’s strange) are so rich that they do not even have to work. Many honestly can not understand that white men can be poor, and not everyone that’s traveling is rich. Their perception is understandable to a certain extent because of the how the media portrays America and such as well as the fact that the locals understand that one plane ticket out of Ghana costs hundreds to thousands of dollars. So it’s reasonable that they expect the people who could afford to fly to Africa should have a lot of money. But it is not reasonable that they expect those people to give some of it to them just because they have it. But whatever, i just tell them no and walk away. I try
not to be bothered by it to badly. So far so good, but today right before i started writing this i had an encounter with a women demanding money…so that’s why it is on my mind.

After taking it easy for a few days when we got back from Accra, me and a couple other volunteers went on a little vacation. Our original destination was to go to a village called…well i don’t remember what it was called but the cool thing about this village was that it rested on stilts over the water. The only way to get to the village is by boat (or canoe more like) and we thought it would be really cool to check this place out.

So, Brit, Tamica and I all set out mid afternoon to reach our destination for the night in a town called Axim, which layed about 2 hours out from the village. We tried to catch an STC bus for the ride but it turned out to be to much of a hassle so we just took a Tro-Tro bus. These are probably the most dangerous form of transportation in existance but we took our chances.

We filed into our seats and prepared ourselves for the couple hour ride. In the end, the ride was extremely pleasant. Our driver drove very well and not once did i feel my life was in danger (which is an anomoly). We we made it to the next big town over from Cape Coast called Takaradi, and had to transfer to another tro-tro that would take us to Axim. This tro-tro was a bit more scarey but overall i felt rather secure. I figured we might break down if anything bad was to happen, but nothing of the sort occured.

When we arrived in Axim, we got a ride to a hotel that we knew of and secured ourselves a room for the night. The hotel that we stayed in was super comfortable. The room was large and self-contained, clean, and had running water and toilet paper. :-) These things can all be hard to come by at times. Even better than all that was the fact that we were no more than 100 feet from the ocean. All night we could here the sounds of waves crashing against the shore. It was very nice and relaxing.

What was not nice about the night (and day…and a good part of the next day…) was that i was sick, again. Or might i say…still. Hehe. Something i had eaten the night before was not aggreeing with me and my intestines were again filling up with gas and felt like i was going to explode. The entire night for me was uncomfortable to say the least. At times i could do nothing but sick on the toilet, grip my thighs and grunt until the pain passed. It wasn’t very fun.

Other than that though, everything was perfect. Well, one other thing wasn’t perfect actually….that was the fact the the weather had gone to shit too. It was misty and cold all night and all the next day.

So after we all woke up and had our breakfast we had to decide what we should do for the day. Our plan was to go to the stilt village but because i wasn’t feeling very well and the fact that it was raining, we ended up deciding not to go. Also, we choose not to go because between the three of us, we had less than 200,000 cedis in cash and that meant we would have been taking a huge risk in going because we likely would have run out of money.

So instead, we hoped that the sun would come out soon and headed to a town called Busua that we had heard had some of the most beautiful beaches in Ghana.

Again we took a tro-tro, and again, we got lucky and had a really good driver, and he was driving a relatively nice vehicle . Once we made it to Busua we went in search of a place to stay for the night.

There was one slight problem. We still had very little money. The one things was though, Brit actually had brought a $20.00 US bill with here, but because we were traveling in and out of really small and undeveloped areas, there were no banks or forex’s around that would change the money to cedis. Well, the slim chance of finding a place to exchange our money did not deter us from trying. Brit eventually found a Canadian run hotel that exchanged the $20.00 for us. Whew, that made things a lot easier!

So, because we had some money now we could search out for some reasonable accomidations. The first place we checked out was this really ghetto guest house. It wasn’t horrible considering some of the rooms i have seen since i have been here, but it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. So then we went and checked out a hotel and decided to take the room they offered because it wasn’t to expensive and it was plenty big. As a matter of fact, the hotel room we stayed in that night was more like an apartment. There was a dining room, a living room, a bedroom with two single beds and a bathroom. We were shocked by it’s size. We paid only 80,000 cedis for one night (about $8.00 US)

So, by this time i was beginning to feel much better and the fun began. We found a place to have lunch and ended up meeting a couple locals. We chatted for a while, then went to our rooms and broke out the bottle of vodka we had bought before we left on this trip. At this time is was about 3 in the afternoon. A bit early to start drinking, but we ignored that and drank anyway.

At first we mixed the booze with some juice that the ‘juice-man’ had sold to us when we got into town. (He had helped us find the place we exchanged the 20.00 at and felt obligated to buy the juice, plus he was claiming the juice was freshly squeezed Mango and Pinapple) After a glass or so, i started to wonder what the hell it was that we were actually drinking because the juice was tasting a little strange. Then, at the same time, Tamika realized we had just been scammed! She determined that the drink was really just a mix of Tampico Orange drink (kinda like Tang, but tastes like Sunny D., not very good) and a few chunks of whole Mango. The ‘juice-man’ got us good. He sold us a bottle full for 15,000 cedis and it was probably worth only 5,000. The funny thing is though, while we were eating lunch earlier, we had seen in the owners guestbook that someone wrote about the juice-man. They basically had written, He’s a con! Hehe. But it was to late for us. We had actually gotten it before we saw that. But the person was right, he definately is a con. And a good con artist at that.
After we realized that, we stopped drinking the juice and decided we were ready to go out and hit the beach anyway.

Even though things were looking up for us at this point–i was feeling much better, we had a good hotel room, we had money, we were near a beach, we had eaten some really good food for lunch, etc…there was still a slight problem. It was still really gloomy outside and the mist was non-stop. We just ignored it though and hit the beach.

We walked along the beach for an hour or more. The view was spectacluar. There was a beautiful mountain jutting out to the sea, covered with lucious green trees, and a beautiful layer or transparent fog drifting over it. The three of us just soaked in the beauty as much as we could, until we got to cold and wet and had to head back.

Instead of going back to the hotel room though, we instead hit up a local resort. We went to the bar and got a drink, chatted for a while, and then decided to head home. When we got back to the hotel, we went up to the room and grabbed our bottle of vodka and found that the olympics were on down stairs in the restaurant area. So we chilled and drank some more.

Then, eventually we made our way over to where we heard what sounded like live music. To our surprise, there was in fact a live band. It was at the hotel that Brit had found to exchange her money. We brought our alchohol enjoyed the music all night long. I danced with the owner, and the three of us danced for a good while too. None of the other customers were very much into dancing apparently, but we certainly were. It was a lot of fun.

Then, when the bottle ran dry, we went home and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up, found a tro-tro, and started on a journey home. Much to our surprise, during the entire trip, our transportation went extremely smoothly. It’s a very rare thing to have as few problems as we did during this trip. We were pleased.

At work during the next couple days, i was able to tackle the Virus problem on the server and was able to get the internet back up and shared across the network. I also touched up a number of areas in my lesson plans. Now, i find myself sitting at Cape Cafe, having lunch and writing in my journal. Yep, it’s Aug 17th, 1:52 PM.

As of tommorrow, i will have only 2 weeks remaining before i have to go back home. The days are counting down, and this will all be over. What an experience i have had. Wait…i am having! It’s not over yet!

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General, College Of The Atlantic, Personal Endeveavors at 1:09 PM PDT

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Week’s 4, 5 and 6?

The days keep going by faster and faster and I am having trouble keeping up with my journal. So as i write about what i have been doing, it might not be in chronological order because i am losing my sense of time.

One of the last things i was talking about was that we have no running water at the house i am staying at, and how at least i could be glad that we had electricity. Well, i spoke to soon because that same night we lost our electricity for a day. And since then, we have lost it for a few more days. Like for example, just last night (July 26th) we had no electricity all day or night and we had to use lanterns, plus we still do not have running water. :-) I felt like a pioneer walking around in the dark with my lantern.

Over the past weekend, me and the two volunteers that are staying in the same house as me all went to Kakum National park. I have been there once before to sleep in a tree platform in the forest, but this time i went for a different adventure. We went for a walk across the tree canopy’s. It was really amazing. The view was amazing because we were so high up. Basically, there were about 7 trees that were linked up together by bridges. I would estimate each bridge between the trees was 50 feet long, and all were about 100 feet above ground level. Truthfully, it was a bit scary. I was never exactly worried that i would fall, but the bridges nature of the bridges themselves made me a bit worried.

During the previous weeks at work, I have been training a number of women on how to use computers. As the we progress through the course, i have been developing lesson plans. As of right now, i have 4 weeks planned out. I have been working off a general template where each day the student has large part of their time (about 30-45 minutes) alloted to learning new concepts. Another large piece of the time (about 30-45 minutes) is alloted to reviewing concepts learned during the previous sessions. Then, almost every day the student will spend about 30 minutes or more practicing their typing skills. And, depending on the day, and the week, there will be an assignment given to the student to test their understanding and to give them a chance to work on the computer on their own. This i feel is one of the most important aspects of the training. It gives the students a chance to work on the computer to accomplish real world projects, while they also get a chance to review the concepts they have learned and it gives them a chance to explore things which have not been covered previously. I feel that so far my teaching style works pretty well, and i can only hope the lesson plans i create to organize and assist with the future computer training that takes place at WIP after i am gone.

The week before last, or more like the end of week 4 to the beginning of week 5, i went on a trip to the Northern regions of Ghana. Specifically, me, Katy, Ryan and Karen all went to Tamale, then to Mole National Park and Game Reserve, then to Larabanga, the to Tamale again, then to Kumasi, then home.

The first leg of the trip was really easy. The four of us went to the STC (state transport company) station and luckily got our tickets for 74,000 cedis each (about $7.50 US). The journey was a long one, but uneventful, just how i like it. :-) The travel time was exactly 12 hours from Cape Coast to Tamale.

Once we arrived in Tamale, the adventure began. Immediately after we stepped out of the bus many people began to ask us where we were going and they all tried to help us (it is very hard to tell who is trying to help us genuinly and who is trying to get money from us). We were directed to get into a taxi that would take us to a hotel that was close. As we were walking toward the hotel, this man that was on the bus sitting near me ran up to us and starting shouting to us. He was telling us that we should not enter the car that we were about to and that we should only get into a certain type of taxi for our own safety. He also got us a better deal….or so we thought. We ended up getting into a taxi that he had recommended and we told him thanks and left.

We were on the road for only about 5 minutes when the taxi driver stopped and jumped out of the car because the tire had blown on the drivers side. We also got out of the car. The driver started walking and was like, come come! So…we followed him. Right when we began to walk down the street, about 6 kids all came up to us and started talking to us. I answered a few of their questions and then just started to ignore them. I knew they just wanted money. We walked for only about 3 minutes when we made it to the hotel, and the kids followed us all the way to the receptionists desk. After we got there, the driver was told us to pay him. We had agreed to pay him 10,000 cedis up front to take us (which was way more than we should have settled for, but we did not know at the time that we were already so close to the hotel). But there was a problem, at least Karen thought there was. She was upset because we arrived by foot. He did not drive us to the station, he walked us there, and it was only like five minutes away from the station anyway. They battled back and forth for a while, as the kids sat around bothering us all. We eventually caved and gave the guy his 10,000 and told the kids to go away. This type of confrontation became the norm from here on out.

After we arrived in the hotel and settled in, we went out to get a drink on the town. We walked around and eventually found a tiny little pub called Point 7. It did not stay open long, and we were tired anyway, so we only stayed for one drink and then went home and slept.

The next morning we went into town and ate breakfast. And wholly crap did that take forever. As has also become a common theme in Ghana, it takes for ever to get your food at a restaurant. We ordered our food, which was extremely expensive, and an hour and a half later, it arrived. Even though it was good, it was not worth the time or money, at all.

By 11 or 12, noon, we were on the search for a ride to Mole National Park. Our plans at the time were to go to Mole, then in the same day go to Bole (which i do not know much about). But, as also became usual on the trip, plans weren’t able to stick very well.

We went to the taxi park in Tamale and negotiated for a taxi ride to the park. We knew the roads were bad, and we also knew that it would take about 3 hours. But we had no clue what the price should have been to get there. We ended up paying 350,000 cedis (about $35.00).

The ride wasn’t to bad, but it poured down rain the entire time, and the car we were driving had a leaky windshield and the windows did not roll up properly. Luckily the driver had a number of towels so we were able to stop the water from leaking on us eventually, but still, we got a bit wet.

Once we arrived to the park, we had to hassle the guards to let us get away with entering as students so we could get the discounted price, even though we don’t have a international student ID card. Which, until i got here, i never knew such a thing existed. We got in and went straight to the hotel, and again, with luck, got room without much trouble.

After we settled into our room, which cost us 250,000 cedis ($25.00), we went to the restaurant and ordered our food ahead of time, had a few drinks and played cards. This time, when we ordered our food around 4, they were able to prepare it and have it ready when we wanted to eat.

There ended up being a whole ton of people staying at the hotel that night. I do not know how many, but the entire restaurant area was full. I was quite surprised. We met a couple people and chatted the night through. Then, because we had plans to go on a walking tour early the next morning, we went to bed around 10 PM.
We woke up the next morning around 5:30 and went to meet with our guide. While we were there, we also put in our food orders so that when we returned from our walk, we would be able to eat breakfast.

The journey through the game reserve was pretty exciting. Unfortuneatly, because it had rained so much the day before, there were not nearly as many animals running around as there normally would be, but nonetheless, we saw a few good ones. For example, we saw quite a few elephants right up close and personal.

The elephants, which were the first animals we saw, and all of the rest of the animals in the park are wild. There are no fences, and no one takes care of the animals in any other way. With the one exception that they try and protect the animals from poachers.

The other animals we saw were warthogs, a couple different types of antelope and a baboon. Normally, the baboons are running around all over the place, but again, because of the rain, we only saw one.

After we went on the tour we came home and ate breakfast, took showers, and relaxed for a little while. We discussed what our plans were for the day, and right as we were about to check out, we noticed that there was an elephant in our backyard. Literally, there was an elephant no more than 20 feet from the patio. It just sat there, munching on grass for a good 20 minutes while we watched it. It never seemed bothered by us at all. This short time that I spent next to the elephant made up for the disappointing fact that there were not many animals to be seen during our walk.

Then, after we checked out, we found a ride to Larabanga. From Mole, Larabanga was only a short distance away. I would estimate it took us only 15 minutes to get there. And when we got there we were once again bombarded with children.

Everyone wanted to ‘help’ us, or sell us something. Our
plan was to not stay in Larabanga for very long because everything that was in that town was also in Bole, but the guide book that we had said Larabanga was more trouble than Bole would be. But, unfortunately for us, we had missed the bus that would have taken us.

So, our plans changed. We were just going to explore Larabanga and wait until we could find a ride; either hitchhiking or paying someone.

There were only a few things to check out in this small town. One was a Mosque. The town is supposedly 100% Muslim, so this Mosque is pretty important. We got a short tour around the village and saw the Mosque. A bunch of kids followed us the entire time. They asked us to buy stuff from them, some asked for money directly, and one kid even asked me to exchange a US quarter for the Cedi equivalent.

After that, we waited and waited for a ride. Only a few cars passed through the entire day! The one guy that did pass through wouldn’t give us a reasonable price to take us to Bole so we denied the ride opportunity, thinking we still might be able to find a ride. But, we couldn’t. So, we stayed at the only guest house in the area, for the night. Katy and I slept in a bed in one of the rooms, while the other two slept on the roof. The reason everyone did not sleep in the rooms was because they got extremely hot. The only reason we slept in the room was because Katy was feeling sick and got a fan for the night.

Before we went to bed however (i am getting ahead of myself) we still had a long day ahead of us. We sat around, chatting with the Salia brothers, who are the owners of the guest house. They are local Larabangians, who after they went to university, ‘decided to move back to their home town and try to improve the living conditions.’ I put it in quotes, because i am skeptical of their intentions.

One of the brothers is the head politician (that’s what i would call him, something like a governor, but it’s not really the same) in the community. He has a lot of power and influence over what happens in the community and where the money is spent. Plus, he is a businessman. Those two, as far as i am concerned, do not mess well when both are being pursued simultaneously. I feel there is a inherent conflict of interest, because the political influence will be pressed to improve one’s own business (profits), rather than to do what’s best for the community.

There were a few things about the Salia brothers that bothered me, but i can’t be sure about any of them because i was only there one day.

But, another thing that caught me off guard was the position of women in their community. Prior to being in Larabanga, i had known that women had a very low status, but i had not confronted the situation up close, and so blatantly as i did in Larabanga.

During the entire time I stayed in town, i saw lots of men of all ages on the streets. Not but a handful of them all were doing anything productive. Most were just chatting, playing games, eating, or just sleeping. While, on the other hand, the women of all ages that i saw were all working very very hard. The were cooking, taking care of the children (most of the time, taking care of the children in addition to working) carrying water from the wells, carrying wood for the fires, carrying food, selling food and other stuff out of shops, and much more. It was a bit depressing. I also learned that in the community, women are considered to be evil, simply because they have a menstral cycle. And from that, many conclusions can be drawn as to the women’s position in society.

Even though i only noticed this in Larabanga, the sad part is that it is more common than it is not in Ghana. But, luckily, this is changing, albeit slowly, but it is changing.

Here is another interesting and disturbing example of the mistreatment of women. In certain areas of Ghana, when a man commits a crime and runs away, so that no one can be punished for the crime, the chief of the village still requires someone be punished. Can you guess who it is? Well of course it is a women in the man’s family who committed the crime, usually a sister. The punishment for such an offense (that is, being a women) is that they must marry the chief and devote their entire lives to him. They are forced to have his children, and do everything thing else he demand of them. There is nothing that they can do either. They even are banned from using their own mother tongue, and are forced to learn a specific language that only these women and the chief are allowed to speak.

That’s about as shitty as it gets. Women are treated like animals, are used like animals as well and have the power and influence of them as well. It is very sad, but it’s good to know that there are things being done to curb this type of cruelty.

Moving on, after we stayed the night in Larabanga, we woke up really early to try and catch the ride back to Tamale (we changed our plans again, we didn’t want to go to Bole anymore). However, when we got outside to jump on the bus, we realized it would be impossible. The bus was packed fuller than a can of sardines. Seriously, the bus probably was meant to carry only 30 people, but 50 were in it i am sure. We were just like, F-that! So, frustrated, we went back to waiting for another ride.

After only about an hour, we got lucky. We found a ride from some men who worked with the Ghanaian Tourist Agency. They actually had plans to go to Tamale, but were not going to be going there for a couple more hours. The place they worked though was not Larabanga. It was in the next town over. So, just to get out of there, we hitched a ride with them. If we could find a ride to Tamale before they finished working, we would take it, but otherwise we would get the ride from them.

After a couple hours passed as we waited in the town of Damango, we finally found a ride to Tamale. It was on a small bus. It cost us only 12,000 cedis each. In total, 48,000 cedis. Compared to the cost of our trip from Tamale to Mole, this cost us nothing! (350,000 vs 48,000) The inconstancy of prices is phenomenal, and is very hard to wrap my head around, still! Even after being here for nearly two months.

Whatever, we were on our way to Tamale. Uncomfortably, but cheaply, and we felt as if it was also relatively safely. That was good enough for us.

Once we made it back to Tamale, we went to the STC station and bought tickets to go to Kumasi. That cost us 60,000 cedis each. But we rode in a luxury bus. It had AC and TV’s! I felt really out of place riding home in that thing, but it was quite a treat. We left Tamale at 6 PM and arrived in Kumasi at midnight.

It took us not even 30 seconds before we were hit by offers to get rides to a hotel in the area. We told them to back off for a little while while we decided what we wanted to do. They decided to just sat down next to us, but stopped talking to us. As we were figuring out what to do, a new driver came up to us and told us that there was a new hotel in the area that was really nice and that that was a really good choice. We just went for it.

We picked a driver and took his first offer of 20,000 cedis to take us. We knew this was generous, but we didn’t care to much. We just wanted to get to the hotel.

He took us to the hotel that we asked him too and things were looking good. Just in case though, we asked the taxi driver to stay until we were sure we had a room. Then we walked up to the receptionist’s desk and asked if there were any rooms available. We told them that we needed a room for 4 people. One employee said that they had a room with two double beds. So, Karen went to check the room out. As she was away though, another employee said that there was only one problem. He said that they couldn’t allow more than three people to stay in any one room.

Obviously, this does not make ANY sense. Why in the hell do you have a room that fits four people, but not allow four people to stay in a room? I can’t explain it, and neither could they. After we fought for a while over the absurdity of this claim, we left, and so did our money. The thing was, if we were to stay, we would have had to pay double the amount that it would have cost to get the one room that fit four people. The one room that fit four would have cost us 270,000 cedis, but to get two rooms that fit two in each would have been 440,000 cedis, at 220,000 each. It was all very frustrating.

After we left, we jumped back in the taxi and went to another hotel. We got two rooms, which fit two in each for 120,000 total (60,000 each). Then, once we got our rooms, the taxi driver added to the drama. He wanted us to pay him 60,000 cedis now, instead of the 20,000 we agreed with in the beginning. Okay, it was fair for him to ask for some extra money because he waited around for us and he drove us more than he had expected, but to triple the price was ridiculous.

I got really upset with the guy and fought with him for at least 15 minutes. He was like, ‘eh! I will not take your money’ ‘30,000, no, listen to me…i was very good to you….bla bla bla’. Eventually, he acted like he was going to leave. But i know that he really just walked back to the reception desk and asked the receptionist to come and join the fight. I knew he would return soon, because there was no way he was going to leave without taking any money, so i just waited outside of my room. He came back bitching and moaning, and i continued to hold my ground that he was cheating us.

To begin with, the ride should have only been 10,000 or less to take us to the first hotel. In addition, he only waited at the hotel for about 15 minutes before we left to the hotel we ended up staying at. And the total drive time was
only about 15 minutes. Which means that he spent about 30 minute with us all together. The fair price should have been around 15,000 cedis. The standard rate for chartering a taxi (which is what we did) is 30,000 per hr. And he wanted 60,000! Arg! What an ass.

We eventually settled on 40,000 because i just got tired of the endless loop of bitching back and forth. He left, and we all went to sleep.

The next day, we went to the market. The market in Kumasi is OVERWHELMING! And i am serious about that. It’s like Ghana’s New York City. Thousands of people combing the streets. Every inch of ground is covered by someone selling something. Just so much going on! Chaos is a good way to describe the experience.

We only had a short couple hours to look around and i was again amazed by what is there. There is so much happening at once, so many people on the streets, so many people selling so much stuff. Used clothing is everywhere. It’s in heaps on the roadside, strung out on shelves and hanging on walls and racks. Electronics such as cell phones, radios, TVs dvd players, and other stuff were being sold all over the place. There were tons and tons of shoes. Seriously, there were shoes galore! Consider being in an underground world of shoes that was the size of a football field. More shoes in one place than i have ever seen in my entire life all combined! Then there was the food. The smell of the areas where food was being sold was intense to say the least, as was the sight. We walked by people selling tomatoes, onions, peppers and many other veggies. As well as spices, rice, noodles, big tubs of hand made peanut butter, fish that was smoked, fried, freeze dried, frozen and fresh. They had goat meat and their heads, beef, pig, chicken and all sorts of other stuff. They was also a boatload of cloth. Traditional Ghanian styles and all sorts of western styles. And they sold clothing accessories such as jewelry, wallets, belts, purses and the like. The sold lots of fresh fruits and cooked foods on every corner and off the top of peoples heads. They had luggage, backpacks, bandanas, towels, kitchenware, and oh so much more that i can not even recall. Wait, carvnings too. Really neat stuff like masks, statues, candle holders, games and others cool stuff.

Overall, or in the end, I wish i had more time there, again. There is just to much to do in only a few hours. I did not get a chance to see even a forth of the entire market. I did not even have any ideas for what i wanted while i was there. But luckily i was still able to find a few things to bring back home a gifts. But as i sit here writting, I can think of some things that i wish i would have gotten while i was there.

Oh well, it is only a 4 hour trip anyway, possibly i can make a day trip in the near future.

Then, after a couple hours in the market, we left Kumasi. We simply jumped in a taxi, told them that we wanted to go to Cape Coast, offered him our price, bargained, then ended up with an agreement at 400,000 cedis. Between the four of us, we each payed about $10.00 for a four hour taxi ride.

At first, that seems cheap, which i will admit, it is. But for being here in Ghana, that’s actually very expensive. Normally, if we were to take an STC, it would cost 33,000 cedis, or if we took a Tro-Tro (a small, cramped, overcrowed bus that is usually litterally falling apart piece by piece as you are driving) it would have cost us probably only 15,000 cedis. But, we coughed up the extra $375,000 for the comfort of a rather nice car.

We made it home without any problems.

I had hoped that upon our return, we would find that the water was working again, but not much to my surprise, it was not. So, back to the cold bucket baths and well….bucket everything.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I worked more on my Lesson Plans and fixed up the computers some more. I designed a layout for the new office space WIP will be moving into. And I helped paint one of the stores that WIP is opening (that is part of the same space that the office will be relocated too)

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 5:19 AM PDT

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I am losing it. It’s now the beginning of week four, and I am having trouble remembering what happened in the beginning of the week.

Right now i am sitting over at my host family’s house. I just ate some dinner, and now i am hanging in the living room with Erasmas and Kojo. They are sitting over my shoulder as I write this, and we listen to a Rap/Hip Hop MP3 cd Erasmas has insisted I put into my computer.

The entire family is really into music, especially Rap/Hip Hop. Actually, the entire Ghanaian Nation is obsessed with the music. Not only that though, music in general. Everywhere, from Cape Coast to farther North in the big city of Kumasi, music is constantly ringing in the air. And where there is music, there is dance. The rhythm and beat is in the air and it fires your soul. There is nothing that can stop anyone (well, maybe that’s not true, but nothing that can stop me) from dancing all the time while I am here.

As a matter of fact, while at work, there is a Sound shop that is positioned right across the street from the office. They are ALWAYS jamming to music of all types. I regularly find myself moving uncounsiously, grooving to the music.

Speaking of work. It’s been great. The enviornment is very relaxed, and all of my workmates are exceptional people.

On a typical day, I arrive to work by 8 or 8:30 AM. Usually, the only person that is here is Ranee. If anyone else is here, it’s the only paid employee, Patience. She’s a local Ghanaian and has worked at WIP from nearly day one. The wage is meager to the US standards, but livable and relatively high for Ghanaian standards. I do not know what it is, just that that it is better than the average.

Once i arrive in the morning, i usually go immediately across the street to grab some breakfast from either the ‘egg lady’ or the ‘bead and jam lady’. I get one or the other, depending on how i am feeling. If i am hungry and feeling good, i get the egg sandwhich, which is very good and filling. It costs about 3000 cedis, about $0.30. (Which, by the way, i have been saying the term for what the money is called here wrong up to this point. I thought is was credis, but it is actually cedis. When pronounced, it sounds just like C-D’s.) Otherwise, if i am feeling on the sickly side, just not very hungry, or both, i get some bread, butter and jam. It also very good and only costs 2000 cedis, about $0.20.

Then, after i eat, i usually go straight to work. What i work on changes daily. At first, i was working for the first week on getting the network up in the office to share the internet to all the computers. After i completed that job, i shared the printers to all the computers also.

Almost everyday, i am troubleshooting someone’s computer problems. Generally they are problems which turn out to be really easy for me to fix. Other times, i have to mess around with the problem for an hour or so. I have not had a problem that i have not been able to fix, yet. That generally only takes up a few or more hours a week.

After i got the network up, i started working on setting up the server to act as the domain controller on the network. The reason for this is so that i can restrict access to each of the computer on the network to people who have login names and passwords. Also, this then allows me to set up user space on the server that each user can access from any of the computers on the network.

I have been doing research on setting something up that will allow us to restrict the amount of time each user can have access to the internet, and also lock down access to the rest of the computers files so the students don’t erase or makes changes accidentally to other peoples files or to the computer system itself. I will try very soon to setup the computers with Open Source Internet Cafe software. I believe this is the best option to take.

Other than the computer stuff, i made a logo stencil. I then stenciled the logo onto 32 shirts that will be sold at the upcoming Peace Corps 2004 conference in Ghana. One of the women we work with will now go ahead and batik (i explained what this process was before…ask if you need another explanation) the shirts and ready them for their sale.

And just a couple days ago, i started training my first student. Right now, i have 3 students scheduled to train. Each student will come two times a week, for 2 hours each time.

My first student has already come twice, and she’s doing very good. It was the first time she had ever touched a computer. She had only seen her workmates use the computer before now. She’s probably 50 or 60 years old, and i anticipated she’d be a slow learner, but I am extremely impressed with her abilities! She’s learning very quickly. She understands many basic concepts and can repeat what i have taught her without to much trouble at all.

Today we reviewed what we had learned the day before and also i had her practice her mouse skills. I decided to teach her to play solitaire so she could have fun while she was learning. She had never seen solitaire either, but by the third game (which she won!) she pretty much had it down. I think that will be part of the lesson from now on. Maybe next i will teach her hearts, or minesweeper! :-)

So, for this being my first experience with teaching, i am so far pleased with how things are turning out. I am afraid that this will become very tedious very quickly, and i am surely going to get bored. But, that is only if i do not continue to get creative. My plan is to actually develop lesson plans and such to guide me and the students in their training and my learning to train. That though, is a topic for another day.

The rest of my students will be starting classes next week. All of them are at different skill levels, and so i have no clue where i will start with them yet.

On Wednesday of week three (june 30th), i went watch the Euro Soccer match, Netherlands Vs. Portugal (which i was routing for Netherlands, but they lost), then i went to a big double Australian birthday bash! It was so much fun!

All the volunteers met up at a local pub in Elmina (this is the town where the other volunteers are living) called Elimax. We, and about 10 other Ghanaians crowded into a little room around a little TV and had a few drinks and screamed bloody murder

It was Liz’s birthday, and Kara’s. Besides the 10 or so Australians at the party, there was the entire Ashanti Dance Company (about 10-15 dancers,drummers,crew) and Mayvous (host sister), Erasmus (brother), Desmond (brother), Ashley (volunteer), Rachel (vol..), Lisa (vol. who was leaving the next day) and I. The entire night was filled with dancing, drumming, singing, and a talent show! :-) I can’t explain how much fun i had, you would definitely had to have been there. I will hopefully have some pictures at least, but i will have to get them from the Australians because my camera can not take pictures unless there is plenty of light. I can not wait to do it again.

The next day, Thursday, was Ghana Republic Day. This is equivalent to our July Fourth, Independence Day. Me, many other volunteers, and Desmon and Erasmus all went the where the party was! Every year there is a huge party at the Brenu Achyn beach (which i had been to once before). There was a live hip hop/rap/high life group performing and tons and tons of locals living it up. We got a taxi around 1 PM and bargained with him to take us to the beach and to pick us up again around 6 PM and bring us home. We settled on 100,000 cedis and had no problems with the trip to the beach, or the trip home. Once we got to the beach, we grabbed up a couple tables and started enjoying ourselves. Almost everyone had a couple beers, some went swimming, and others just sat around talking. Then, around 4 PM, the Australians showed up, and so did the Ashanti Dance company. That’s when the party really started. Those guys are so full of life. They busted out their drums and started jamming away, singing and just having fun. Many went swimming, and played in the sand. At one point, one of them was buried up to his face under the sand.

Then, after an hour or so of playing in the sand, the performers got on stage a crowd quickly formed near the stage. It was interesting to note that for the first 15 minutes, no one went near the stage. Everyone stood around in a half circle that left a big hole between us and the stage. Then, one brave little boy started went into the center and started dancing. Then, after 5 or so minutes, another brave little boy, me, went and started dancing with the kid. :-) After only a couple of minutes, the entire audience began to come closer to the stage. The dancing picked up quick. Almost everyone was dancing. A couple of girls from the Ashanti company who i had danced with on Wednesday came up and began to dance with me again. We grooved for a good 15 minutes. At one point, when i was dancing with one of the girls only, Frita, i was surprised by a random second girl that approached us and started dancing with us. I ended up being sandwhiched between Frita and this other lady, who i would guess was over 40, and was quite large. I was being freaked from the front and the back. I was like damn! And just went along with it. I wrapped my arms around my back, and held onto the lady and just danced. The lady was really enjoying herself, laughing histarically, and then she left. Then for the next 30 minutes or so i just danced among my two Ashanti friends and then went over and found the Australians and danced with them.

At 6:15 or so we left and found our taxi driver waiting patiently for us at the gate. We went home and I went to bed pretty much right after
I ate dinner because i had a long day planned for Friday.

I woke up around 7 to pack for a trip to Kumasi. The plan was for a few of the volunteers and I to go and explore Kumasi with the Australians for a few days. We were for sure going to get a ride with the Australians on Friday and then, after that, it was unclear as to what activities my group of volunteers would actually partake in alongside the Australians. What ended up happening was this.

On Friday, we left on the Australians bus around 9 AM and got to Kumasi around 2 PM. After we settled into our rooms we went to a cultural center complex (i think) and watched some traditional Ashanti dancers perform customary dances to some awesome live African drumming. It was very cool to watch. And then, it became even cooler when one of the lady’s dancing pulled me up on stage (well, not exactly a stage….) to dance with her. I assume this happened because i was the only male in the group out of like about 20, at least. Then, after that dance was over, the leader explained that the next songs would be ones in which everyone was invited to participate in. He taught us the moves and the words that we were supposed to sing and we danced for a good 15 minutes all together. I really enjoyed that a lot. Actually, so far, i believe my favorite part of this trip so far is all the dancing. It is so good to be free. The rhythms sooth my soul.

After we danced, we went back to where we were staying and ate a wonderful dinner. It was to be the last wonderful meal i was to have for a few days. Not because i did not have a chance to eat more good meals, but because i got very sick.

I had been a little sick for a few days prior to Saturday, but it really got bad on Saturday.

Our plan for the day was for the 4 of us volunteers to go early to the Kumasi central market. Kumasi is the biggest city in Ghana, and is the central location for trade and commerce. The market is just rediculously big, and has everything you could imagine. Everything that is found anywhere else in Ghana can be found in the market, and more than likely, came from the market.

And we followed out plan exactly. At first, i was feeling shitty, but no more shitty than i had been for the previous 3 days. I had diarea and stomach pain, but nothing i was not able to live with.

After we made it to the market, it started getting worse. We walked around, and around, and around, and around. So much to see! So many people! So much going on! It was intense. I wish i was feeling better, because i would have definitely enjoyed it much more than I did. There was so much going on, but i could only pay attention to my sick stomach.

So, after we saw a lot of the market (but only a very tiny bit relative to it’s entirety) we went and had lunch. I ate some lunch, and then things got even worse for me. I mentioned that i was not feeling good, but i decided to continue on with our plans.

We went to see a Fetish Priest, which in Ghana, is equivalent to a black Voodoo priest. It took us a long hour on crappy roads to get there, and when we arrived, we took a seat and waited for someone to greet us. A lady came out and sat to talk with us. She informed us that the priest was out for the day and would not be returned for another couple of hours. So, we decided to go, and we would come back early in the morning to see him again.

So we walked a good 15 minutes out of the village to find a taxi, and got in to start on our way home. Or…what i thought was to be home. The girls decided to take a stop off at a cultural center to by some more sourvieniers. By this time, i was feeling extremely shitty. But, i decided to ride it out for another hour or whatever. Damn did i make a mistake. All i could do was lie down while they looked in all the shops. They just assumed i was only really tired and not feeling to well, i guess i should have made it more clear as to just how bad i was truly feeling. Because after they were done, and we got into another taxi to finally head home (around 6 PM) the sickness peaked. My entire world slowed down, all i could feel was pains in my stomach/instestines, and my body just began to feel extremely weak and weary. I realized rather quickly that i was probably very dehidrated, because i was not drinking any water all day and i had severe diareah. Which, doing only one of those is risking dehydration. I immediately asked the girls to grab me some water from one of the people who sells in on the street. After 5 minutes, we finally came across some and i drank it. It was definetly refreshing, and it stopped the pain for like, 30 seconds. Then, after we made it about three quarters of the way home, i began to feel like i was going to puke. At this time, our taxi driver realized he did not know how to get to where we wanted to go and started driving down the wrong street. I wasn’t even able to consider just how inconvient that was for how i was feeling, but i knew it deep down without even having to think. So, i gave up, i told the driver i really needed to stop and i stepped out of the car ad squatted and prepared myself for a pukefest. Luckily, or unluckily, i am not sure, i did not puke. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, and i began to cry. I could not stop either, and both were intense. After a minute or so, the taxi driver walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “i’m sorry’ which is the common saying for when they hear that someone is sick or in trouble. Ghanaians are very considerate. After a couple minutes of squatting, without trowing up, i decided to just get back into the car and try to make it back home. We drove around for like 5 more minutes, stopped to ask a couple people if they knew how to get to the place we were staying, and one of them told the driver. We made it home within about 5 more minutes and i went straight to my room to go to sleep. I missed dinner at 7 PM and slept until around 8 the next morning. I woke up quite a few times throughout the night, and had a bad dream at some point too. It was no fun at all. I believe it was the most pain i have felt from diareah (and dehydration) ever.

On sunday, the other volunteers left early to go see the Fetish priest, and then after that they went to a gold town about an hour distance away. When i met up with them in the office after we made it back home to Cape Coast, they said that the gold mine tour was amazing! I really wish i would have been able to go, but oh well, shit happens.

So, while the other volunteers were off having a good time, i stayed back with the Australians and had my own fun. Even though i was still feeling pretty crappy, i ended up going to the lake with them around noon. The lake that we went to is the biggest natural lake in West Africa. The location was very nice, quite beautiful.

Some of the Australians went swimming in the lake, and many of them (and me) did not. We instead went to relax outdoors at a restaurant that overlooked the lake. We ate lunch and chatted for hours. Then, around six we left back to our place in Kumasi, ate dinner, chatted for a bit longer, and went to bed.

At 3:30 AM, me and three of the other Australians woke up and went to the STC station to catch the bus back to Cape Coast. I had gone early the day before to try and get a ride home because i was not feeling good but all the seats were sold out. So instead, i bought one for the next day and had to be there by 4:30 to make sure i made it on the bus. Along with me, as i just said, three Australians decided to come home early too. Luckily we made it early enough to grab the last 3 seat available on the bus for them. After they got their tickets, we waited for 3 or more hours until the bus arrived. It was very late, but we were still very happy to see that it showed up all together.

The ride was straight forward. We stopped only once for a fifteen minute rest break. The seats were really uncomfortable. The bus was packed. But it was only a short 4 hour ride and we were dropped off only 5 minutes away from home. All for 33,000 cedis (about US $3.30).

Once i got home i immediately went to try and take a shower. In the past 4 days i had not had a chance to take a shower because the water at the place we were lodging at in Kumasi was having trouble keeping their water running. But was i in for a surprise.

As i walked in the front gate I met Desmond. I said hi and told him i was going to go take a shower and then i would tell him how things went. He started laughing and said that they had no water. I started laughing and said stop kidding around. He wasn’t kidding at all. We really did not have running water.

Instead, he got me a bucket of water and a cup and I took my first bucket bath. I have been now using a water from a bucket for almost a week, and flushing toilets and washing my hands all the same.
First, no hot water. Now water from a bucket. Man, what luxury it is to not have to worry about these things back in the US and in all developed counties. At least we have not lost our electricity! Which i have been warned is also rather unstable and could go at anytime.

After i took my shower, i spoke with the family about my trip and then went to the office to do a little work. As usual, the computers had some more problems that were awaiting my attention, and i fixed them.

The next day all the volunteers went to see another Ahanti dance show in Elmina. It was really amazing, again. There was even a fire breather. He was eating fire, rubbing himself down in flame and also doing some fire acrobatics. That was along side lots of really awsome afro dancing and drumming.

We had some new volunteers arrive, so for the rest of the week I mostly worked and just hung out
with all the volunteers. The new people are Katy from New Mexico, Tasha from New Zealand and Ryan from Colorado. They are all really cool.

During the week, in all our the hanging out, we went to a number of bars, restaurants, and we also went to a Shell station in Elmina that throws some really big parties at the restaurant that is attached to it. While at the party, i became pretty well known in the Elmina area. I was doing a lot of dancing with all the volunteers and the locals on the floor. The next day, when i was walking around in Elmina, a few people said what’s up to me and told me that they enjoyed my dancing. Hehe. It’s very funny, and flattering.

And really that is it for week 3. I am sure lots more happened that i have not written down, but really, those things are not major events.

Some ideas about the culture in Cape Coast area, Ghana.

Many Ghanaians have a very hard time understanding the concept that Americans and English, etc actually have to work, and there is such thing as poverty in America, etc. They truely believe that all Americans, etc (i will just say Americans, but i mean all white people and people from industrialized countries) are provided for, and wealthy. But obviously to those who know better, this is far from the truth. However, the locals don’t believe it.

The local cultural maintains a strong family/friend bonding, which is unfortunately slowly falling apart. The reason seems to be the industrialization and modernization of the country. Where before, when a friend, family member, or just someone from the same trip as you, found himself or herself in a bind, they would be able to find someone very easily to take care of you for a while. At least for a few days, minimum. It is the obligation that the host has for the guest. I would imagine the reason for this is because when the economy was based on agriculture, if a farmer has good luck with his crop one season, he might benefit the next near by helping out someone if his crop is bad the next. And, another reason i would imagine this has become a part of culture here is because living off a farm is hard work and so cooperation and support such as that makes life more bearable because people combine their efforts to sustain the community. The thing is though, this is changing because everyone is now beginning to look after only themselves. They are moving to the cities, and the suburbs are expanding. All the villages are becoming more modern as well. Such as, many villages did not always have running water, or even easy access to a stream or well. Same with electricity. Now these things are becoming more common, and the people are getting more specialized jobs. And in turn, the cultural tradition of helping out their neighbors is disappearing with the change. The people are having trouble enough making enough money to pay for food and transportation, etc, they definitely are not able to afford the extra burden of paying for someone that needs help only a little more than they themselves need.

Football/Soccer is huge here!

Music, dancing and drumming is even bigger!

Technology is hot. Education is growing.

Economy is stabalizing, but still very bad. The cedi to US dollar exchange rate in the mid-80’s was something like 4 Cedis to 1 dollar. Today, it is about 10,000 cedis to 1 dollar. But Ghanaian money still has more power than some of the other countries in Africa, which no joke, many times when someone goes to the market, they have to carry a large potato sack full of bills in order to just buys the essentials.

Corruption seems pretty rampant here. For example, every morning, monday through friday, around 10 AM, the police hit the streets and start to flag down every single taxi driver that crosses their road block. My first experience with this was very interesting. I was on my way to work, and i grabbed a taxi with a couple other volunteers. We made it only a couple minutes down the road and saw the police stopping taxis a little ways down the road. When we got to the road block, the police office flagged the car down and the driver pulled over. He got out of his car and in his hand was a 2,000 credi bill. I started laughing when i saw that. Then, without hesitation, he handed it to the officer, said a few words, laughed, jumped back in the car and drove off. Once we were driving again, i asked him why the police stopped him. He said that they stop them to check their tags and such, as he pointed to stickers in his front windshield. One of the other volunteers said something like, ‘you gave the police officer a tip, right?’ and the driver started to laugh and said ‘yes!’

Later on, i asked another taxi driver why the police do that. He said they are corrupt and have been doing it for years (he claimed that it only started when the new president took office…). They apparently do it every morning, and require every driver to pay 2,000 credi ($0.02) every morning, even if they have all the right tags and their cars are up to regulation.

There are other examples too, such as crossing the border. Apparently if you ‘dash’ the officers enough at the border (which ever one…) you are crossing into or from Ghana, you can get through without having the right papers. This is especially true for Bruni’s (white people, foreigners)

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General, Personal Endeveavors at 5:16 AM PDT

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