Girls Club, If you know the secret handshake you're in...

The lovely ladies of "The Girls Club"

I’ve started a girls club. I’ve creatively named it, “The Girls Club” so hopefully soon they’ll rename it something more original. We’ve had 2 meetings so far. The first consisted of laying out mats in the courtyard, learning names, and playing with play-dough (scented and flavored with a Kool-Aid packet!). We also played a name game that required the girls to think of adjectives starting with the first letter of their name. For English being their 3^rd language they did well with a little help. I now will remember the girls by one of their adjectives; it’s sort of like a nickname for them, which makes them feel special. I am Terrific-Tricia. We then played with the play-dough. I tried to explain it before handing them all a chunk, but after a few moments of awkward silence, they said, “please, madam, we don’t understand.” Maybe it was because the staple of their diet is a food called fufu, which the play-dough resembles. Maybe it’s because as children growing up in this village, they didn’t have time to play, let alone be creative. So, I taught them the word mold, and showed them how to mold the play-dough into a shape or an object. Eventually they understood, and giggly and excited conversation ensued. One of the girls had a pretty severe creative block, showing me each of her creations, an orange, a rock, a ball, a ball of fufu, a mango… while another impressed me by making a watch and flip-flops. It was a lot of fun. Our next meeting I invited them to watch a movie for fetching a barrel of water for Kris and me. Luck had it that a projector, rented for an HIV/AIDS workshop, was not in use that evening. We were able to watch the episode “Pole to Pole” of the Planet Earth series on “the big screen.” They were amazed, not speechless, as they were trying to help each other figure out what amazing creatures and landscape they were viewing. They saw polar bears, ice, snow, wolves, elephants, penguins, elk, millions and millions of birds in a single frame, and brightly colored dancing birds.

Why did I start a girls club? Most girls don’t even finish primary school here. Most women in my village have never gone to a single class of school. Many girls are married by the time they are 17 or 18, and they have a child right away. Teenage pregnancy is an epidemic here, and there is no choice but to drop out of school and raise the child; their education is over. Many parents won’t bother with their girls’ education, because of the last three reasons, “it’s a waste of time and money.” I believe if anything is to change for the better in my village, it will be because the girls and young women are educated. If all they know is cooking, farming, fetching water and baby making, that is the life they will lead and teach to their children, a never changing cycle.

My 6 girls range in age from 14-17, they range in class from Primary 4 (4^th grade)—Junior Secondary School 2 (8^th grade). They have between 4 and 7 siblings. At the end of our first meeting, I taught them what the word goal meant. I then had them write what their goal for 2011 was. All of them mentioned going to school. My main objective for the girls club is to keep them motivated to go to school; to model for them that they can do more than become a young wife, mother, and farmer if they want. I also want to teach them about health, safe sex, and HIV/AIDS. We only meet once a week, but every day at least two of them come to the house to “greet” me. I ask them about school, and the subjects they were taught that day. I offer them help with questions and schoolwork, fully aware that they will be asked nothing about their school day at their own home.

This week I plan to play Apples-To-Apples Junior with the girls. (Brief description: Select the card from your hand that you think is most like the card played by the judge. If the judge picks your card, you win that round. And, everyone gets a chance to be the judge! For example, if the judge picks Loud, which card from your hand would you choose to describe it best: Parties, My Mom, or Doing the Dishes?) I thought it would be a good way for them to expand their English vocabulary. Before I brought out the cards, I thought I’d open them up and look through them to make sure they were relevant. Unfortunately, 75 were things unknown and mostly unexplainable. Of those, I’ll share 25 with you.

1. Grassy Hill

2. Cleaning your room

3. Going to a movie

4. Cinderella

5. Fireworks

6. Cotton Candy

7. Mittens

8. Mail Carrier

9. Going to the Dentist

10. Root Beer

11. Macaroni and Cheese

12. Finger Painting

13. Babysitters

14. Jell-O

15. Flying a Kite

16. A Fairy

17. Playgrounds

18. Picnics

19. Pajamas

20. Summer Camp

21. Recess

22. Lifeguards

23. Gummy Bears

24. Treehouse

25. Sledding

In addition to the 75 that will not be played here, I adapted some like, Hot Chocolate==Cocoa Drink, Birthday Cake==Birthday (still a stretch), Grocery Stores==Market, Baking Cookies==Baking, and Cherry Pie==Meat Pie. It’s easy to take your childhood for granted. I no longer do, at least I try not to. I played a lot! Often I even played with homemade play-dough and until recently my mother thought I didn’t snack on it, I played dress-up (I had a bin of clothes just for that purpose!), and had time to think creatively and to be inventive. More importantly, I had parents who cared a lot about my education. If you are looking for an inspirational story about girl child education, read Three Cups of Tea or Stones into Schools, both by Greg Mortenson. Sorry if this post is a downer, it wasn’t meant to be. It’s realizing the true root of many of the issues of this area that is most important to my village’s steps toward better health, education, and prosperity.

hard at work (written Jan 9)

This week (the week of Jan 10-14) will be a busy one for me*. The village baby weighing Monday, yay babies! I’m helping another PCV with an HIV/AIDS workshop for the next 2 weeks. I’ll be conducting a review session at the end of each day consisting of Q&As and a truth or myth presentation. I’ve also organized a communal workday on market day for the village to mold 500 of the local bricks. With the bricks, we’ll make two bathhouses and a latrine for the nurse I’ve been working to get in the village. My original goal for having the clinic open was January, now I’ll be lucky if we’re open by March. I also will be meeting with the District’s new Medical Director to discuss ideas and goals for the district. I’m looking forward to seeing whether we have similar ambitions. I’m also working on making another garden off the back of our house. It will be a model garden for the clans in the village who want to have a Moringa garden. I’m planning to get funding for enough bamboo for a garden large enough for 40-50 trees for each clan to have a Moringa garden. Kris and I will make our own for reference.

We’ve been at site about 5 months and in Ghana about 7 months and I can tell the rest of our time here will fly by. Kris and I are slowly becoming known for our cooking and baking skills. It’s a pain for other volunteers to travel to our site for a visit, but with mango bread, fresh cow milk and chili, they might keep coming back, I hope so, we love visitors. I keep saying this, but the days do go by slowly, but the months seem to fly by. Before I know it, it’ll be June and there will be some new Peace Corps Trainees in Ghana, I won’t be new anymore, I’ll be one of those older, wiser, tougher and unshakable volunteers. I hope you all are enjoying the New Year. I know it’s cold back home, quit complaining and come visit me! I promise you won’t need to bring more than t-shirts and shorts; you won’t need a sweater like me.

*(written January 12) Lesson learned, don’t overextend yourself. As some of you know, I got dysentery this week. It was not planned into my busy schedule, yet overtook all of my plans. Let’s just say I didn’t think 20 trips to the latrine in one day was possible, especially with no food in ones stomach. I am now into day 3/3 of antibiotics and think I’m beginning to feeling better. I doubt I’ll be at full strength for awhile, but will do my best to take it easy and return to normal. I’m starting to eat again and have been trying my best to replace fluids in greater amounts than they are lost, seemingly impossible without an IV. Kris is holding up his part of the sickness/health bargain (once again). Even though it seems like I’ve been a magnet for illness, I’d rather it be me than him, I’m perfectly fine distracting myself from feeling sick by watching endless amounts of TV shows whereas he’s not quite as patient. Thanks for all of the thoughts, concern, and prayers. I have an amazing support system back home and couldn’t do any of this without you.

Snake! (written Jan 9)

In other news, Kris killed a black cobra yesterday (Jan 8). I’ll let him share the details of the actual slaying, I’ll just tell you what I saw. Another PCV and I were biking back from Kpassa so she could share a meal and company with us for the day. We arrived nearly unrecognizable due to, you guessed it, dust. Kris went to put our bikes in the room attached to our house; he jumped back out of the room proclaiming he saw a black snake. I remembered there are no black mambas in Ghana, but unluckily we have a similarly poisonous black snake in the black cobra. He started in the room after it; I picked up the phone and called a friend in the village. I told him we had a black snake in our house, he said, “I’m coming,” and in a minute he arrived.

The other PCV and I were observing from a close distance (me with camera in hand) while the men were seeking out the snake in our cluttered room. After several minutes I could hear a loud thumping noise (Richard with his large strong stick) and a clanking of metal on concrete (Kris with our small garden shovel). Once it was deemed dead, Kris brought it out, dangling from a couple small sticks. Snakes have blood inside them, this was the first time I visualized said statement. The snake was sentenced to death by beating, then cremated. We did not eat it, and I think the rationale behind burning it was to protect the kids who would inevitably poke around in our trash pile. Certainly a venomous snake albeit dead should be neither a child’s toy nor dinner.

Harmattan (written Jan 9)

When I gracefully dismount my mountain bike (read: awkwardly near fall from) after biking home from my market town and I say to myself, “huh, it’s kinda cool out today,” I check the thermometer. 98 degrees. Kris hung the thermometer on the back of a 2x4 in our courtyard exactly so that the sun will never touch it. We’re taking actual temperature. Warmer than my average body temperature. How is it then after a 3-4 mile bike ride home on sandy/gravely, rut filled dirt road up 2 impressive hills, might I not feel like filling my entire courtyard with ice cubes (what are these mystical things I speak of?) and laying under them until the sun goes down? This, is the harmattan. Last week I thought it was here, with cool nights and mornings and dry hot afternoons. I was wrong; harmattan came this week bringing gifts of sand and hot breezes from the Sahara desert. It’s like a camel is standing over your shoulder breathing dusty hot stinky camel breath down your back. The end result is crunchy dry lips and dust covered clothes, shoes, feet, cats, goats… you get the picture.

They tell us that in February and March it’s even worse in that the nights no longer get cool. It’s just hot, all the time. Right now the coolest it’s been was 64 degrees in the morning. I’m not embarrassed to say I stepped outside the house, shuddered, yelled out loud enough for the chicken roosting on my garden fence to hear, “It’s freezing out here!” I then put on my sweater (yes I brought one, yes I’m happy to have done so), and huddled up with Sanja on my lap trying to keep us both warm. I’ve even lost feeling/had some numbness in my fingers as I bathed with cool water in the windy night. Silly right? I used to laugh aloud seeing piles upon piles of winter clothes in my market for sale. You can buy everything from snow pants to winter hats with earflaps (many may know I have several of these hats in the states; I’ve refrained so far from adding to that collection). I never understood why such things would sell here, it’s Africa! Now I get it.

Kris and I now don the look of bandits when we travel. Dust magnifies x 1 million when traveling in a tro-tro on our road. So, we wear our Milwaukee Brewers ball caps (represent!) and equally stylish bandannas tied up over our faces subjecting only our eyes to the thick air’s brutality. I’ve also perfected the art of sensing a car coming in the opposite direction, then closing my eyes and not breathing for “just long enough” to let the dust settle to an acceptable level. Fuel costs in Ghana have recently increased, so fares have become more expensive. A round trip to my district capital used to cost as much as 4.40GHC (Ghana cedis), it will now cost 5.40GHC. When you make 8GHC a day, it’s a noticeable difference. Don’t worry Mom; we still have plenty of money for food.

Dear Blog

I think an apology is in order.  We have fallen off the wagon and failed to add a post to you for over a month now.  It's not you, it's us.  We've just been so busy...  I have been on term break from Dec 17 to Jan 10, so no teaching, at least not officially, though I did teach a few extra classes during the break which were voluntary for the form 2s (8th grade).  Tricia and I went to Atimpoku, just below Akosombo dam on the Volta river, for Tricia's birthday.  We also sneaked in a trip to Accra for our flu (H1N1 and seasonal) vaccine and Hep C shots.  Then we went back to Kpassa for Christmas, which was spent in the house the whole day, opening presents (thanks!) and eating a boxed homestyle bake ("turkey stew and stuffing" - delicious), cranberry sauce and brownies.  Even though it was just the two of us, we had plenty of things that made it feel like Christmas at home, and we also talked over the phone with family back home.  After Christmas we hosted 6 other PCVs that were on a marathon trek up through the Volta and Northern regions.  They are all serving in the Eastern region of Ghana, and were surprised with some of the regional differences (dirt roads, naked children).  But we wowed them with chili and mango bread and watermelon, and we were grateful for the company.  In other news, apparently our house is capable of sleeping 8 people.  They left early the next morning, and we started packing for a stay in Nkwanta the next two days with some other PCVs in the area (plus a German volunteer with a British NGO).  We relaxed, talked about our service so far, and, of course, made some awesome food.  Tricia and I contributed cheesy enchilada casserole and homemade fudge (thanks to my mother-in-law for the ingredients!).  Then we came back to site on New Year's Eve, as promised, to experience how people in the area celebrate the new year.  At night on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (and on the 4th a bit too), they played jams (hip hop music) from giant speakers, well into the night.  They also wore their "Christmas clothes," which is an outfit they buy leading up to Christmas so they can wear it and parade around the village looking good.  Everyone from age 1 and up was decked out in new fabric.  Some wore more traditional dress, others went for more of a Westernized look, with blue jeans and bright "Aeropostale" or "gucci" shirts, which are considered just as formal.  Western culture is permeating Ghana, but it sometimes manifests itself differently.  After the series of sleepless nights from the never-ending thumping bass, the New Year was sufficiently celebrated, and everything went back to normal.  And by normal I mean guys walking by on their way to farm (out in the bush) with their machetes, women fetching water from the boreholes and firewood from the bush, and children running around, unsupervised, naked or in underwear. 

So, I guess we were busy, but not busy enough that we couldn't write.  So we'll make it up to you, blog.  Promise.