Whew, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this! As usual, Ghana is treating me very well… The past few weeks have been fun and, at times, very busy. I had the chance to teach my first HIV lesson about 2 weeks ago to some farmers working for ITFC. I rode my bike out to the Dipale farm, about 10 km away from Gushie, at 6am to meet up with the farmers before they started work at 7am. They all gathered around and we talked about modes of transmission of HIV, the effects of the virus, and ways to prevent ourselves from getting HIV. I had them play a small game and I basically just encouraged them to think about the ways that they had personally decided to protect themselves against the virus, and more importantly, shared with them the importance of getting tested. The main reason I went out to the farm for this lesson was to encourage all of the farmers to come out to an event we had this past week, called a VCT event. I helped Shawn put on this VCT event, which stands for Voluntary Counseling and Testing, at the ITFC office, and it turned out to be a really big success. We brought in nurses from Tamale who offered free and confidential testing, and I handed out free condoms and certificates to those who got tested. About 70% of the employees came out to get tested, so I was very pleased with the way that the event turned out!
Besides the preparations for the event last week, I’ve been continuing to work on integrating in the community and meeting people. I still play a lot of cards and since this is harvesting season, I’ve been shelling a lot of ground nuts and eating a lot of yams! We had another festival last week, called the Yam Festival, in which we did exactly what the name of the festival implies and celebrated yams. How exactly does one go about celebrating yams? Well, basically all you have to do is eat yams in every way they could possibly be cooked. I ate fried yams, mashed yams, boiled yams, and Fufu. I ate yams until I couldn’t eat any more yams, at which point my counterpart gave me a bag of uncooked yams to take home and prepare for myself. I love the fact that basically every festival and event I have experienced here so far requires lots of cooking and eating, though I suppose it’s the same way in the United States…
I finally bought a radio a few weeks ago, and it has transformed my life at site! What used to be quiet evenings spent reading by candlelight have become radio-filled evenings spent reading by candlelight! I am more aware of the world news than I ever have been, and I have the BBC to thank for that. I listen to a lot of BBC and their various programs about all sorts of things related to science, health, news, culture, etc... I am beyond thankful for the way that the radio connects me to the outside world and gives me something else to keep me busy with when I'm in my house!
I wish I could write more, but 2 other volunteers are hovering over my shoulder waiting to use the computer, so I must hand over my rights :) I’ll try to get back to the internet as soon as I can!
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