Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Settling In...

Well, I finally made it! I swore in as an official volunteer on August 12th, marking the end of the first (short) chapter of my life in Peace Corps. It was a bittersweet day, as I was very excited to start my service but also sad that I would be leaving most of the friends I've spent so much time with over the past few months. The ceremony was great (pictures are on Facebook...), and it was an awesome moment when we all took the oath and celebrated our hard work.

After swearing-in, I took the loooong journey up to site with several other new volunteers who were also heading to the North. Once I finally got to my site, I was overwhelmed with nervous energy and, of course, excitement about what's to come. It was strange to set my stuff in this new house with the knowledge that I will be living here for the next two years. Plus, for the first time in my life, I'm living entirely on my own with no roommates, so that's another strange feeling to add into the mix. As I have mentioned before, my house has no electricity, but I do have gravity-drawn water, a luxury that I'm certainly thankful for. For the most part, I have been spending my time unpacking my things and settling in, putting items where I think they belong and trying to make the place feel like home. I have a lot of work left to do, and I'm hoping to buy some paint, rugs, and fabric this week to decorate the place so it doesn't feel so bare.

When I'm not cleaning, organizing, and decorating my place, you can usually find me sitting with the young men at the tiny roadside store across the street from my house or playing with babies in my friend Sanatu's compound. This is what the first three months at site are supposed to be dedicated to, more or less: meeting people in the community, learning Dagbani, and becoming comfortable with my surroundings. Of course I have plenty of ideas for future work, and I'm excited to start some projects, but right now my time is devoted to sitting around with the people of my village and just enjoying life here. It has already been a process of growth for me, as my personality in general makes me want to start projects and keep busy. I can already feel my impatience crumbling, and I'm learning the value of just sitting quietly and living entirely in the moment. I have my frustrating moments, when time feels like it's crawling by or I think my head will explode from all of the Dagbani that everyone is trying to teach me, but for the most part, life here is simple and quite beautiful. I can already tell that Gushie is going to be a great fit for me, and the people have amazed me with their hospitality and openness to a stranger in their community. Even when I'm staring blankly at them as they rattle of sentences that I can't even begin to grasp, there is an incredible amount of patience, and I'm learning the power that laughing at yourself can bring to diffuse awkward situations, which I too often find myself in :)

So that has been my life over the past few weeks, and I am beyond excited to see what the next few months brings as I continue to settle in and get to know my community! As always, I LOVE receiving letters and any sort of mail, so keep it coming! :)

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Glowsticks and italian spaghetti...

I don't have too many important updates since my last blog post, besides the fact that I passed my LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) and will finally become a volunteer in a few short days! The language exam went much more smoothly than I thought it would, and I got somewhere in the Intermediate range (we get our official scores tomorrow), so I was very happy about that!

The past week has been crammed with last minute training sessions, tests, and rehearsals for our swearing-in ceremony. At the swearing-in ceremony, we as volunteers do some drumming and dancing, as well as perform short skits in the languages we have been learning. All of our home-stay families, many current Peace Corps volunteers, our trainers, and some local dignitaries will be there, so it should be a fun, celebratory day! My family, along with most of the other home-stay families, bought me fabric and is paying to have a traditional dress sewn for me. The tailor is finishing it tomorrow, so I'm excited to see it! (pictures to come, I'm sure...)

Besides wrapping up training, I have been enjoying my past few weeks with my home-stay and sharing as much as I can with them before I leave. A few nights ago, I opened up a package of glowsticks that I brought from the states because there were several young children playing in my compound and I thought they would enjoy them. Needless to say, the children absolutely LOVED the glowsticks! (though I think my home-stay father might have loved them more...) They ran around with them, absolutely mesmerized by the whole idea of a stick that glows simply by snapping it. My father was giggling and waving one around too, and he said to me, "Oh, Ya, there is no electicity in these. They are fine! I think these sticks will glow forever!" After I explained to him that they would only last a few hours, he stared at his glowstick for a while, and declared, "Then when they go out, we will turn them back on!" All I could do was laugh and revel in the moment. These misunderstandings and innocent comments comprise one of my favorite elements of being here with Peace Corps. Two of the three goals are Peace Corps are cultural education, which means both educating Americans about Ghana and educating Ghanaians about America. These moments of discovery and cultural exchange are not only amusing, but they are also the foundation of the work that we do and what makes us somewhat unique in the world of development. One great example of cultural exchange happened last night and spilled into today. I had asked my home-stay family if I could cook some food for them that I enjoy in the states. They agreed, so last night I prepared Italian Spaghetti with garlic bread. I warned them that they might not like the flavors and the sweetness of the sauce, but they were adamant that they would love whatever I cooked. They did indeed love the garlic bread, and they heartily ate most of the spaghetti with a tiny bit of marinara on the side, saying that they liked the flavors (I believed some of them, but I think they were mostly just trying not to hurt my feelings... ) We had a great time throughout the process, as I taught my sister how to make the sauce and told her about the different flavors that we use in the United States compared to Ghana. I ended up leaving before the spaghetti and sauce was finished, so I told my sister that she could do whatever she wanted with it and I wouldn't feel bad (I figured she would dump the sauce out to the goats). I walked away feeling pleased with the way I had shared a little bit of American culture by teaching them what we eat and having us all sit down together to eat a meal the way we would in the states (this is rarely done in households in Ghana). However, the cultural exchange came full circle when I sat down for my lunch today and discovered that my sister had transformed my marinara sauce into a Ghanaian stew by adding tons of spices and a few pieces of fish. She then served the marinara remix with boiled yams (called ampesi) and proudly presented it to me. "Here," she said, "It has become a dish of Ghana!"

I share these anecdotes with you because I think they perfectly depict the beauty of my experience here in Ghana. Every day I make cultural mistakes: I say the wrong greeting to my neighbor, I accidently grab something with my left hand, or I forget to wrap fabric around my waist and walk outside in my shorts. But it's all part of the experience: making mistakes, teaching each other, and laughing at ourselves until we better understand one another's culture and therefore change, grow, and develop TOGETHER.

Much love to you all!