Kristina's Ghana Blog

Caution

2007-06-01T23:48:00.001-04:00

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to let the people who are reading this, interested in the Peace Corps, should read the first few months of my service first. October, November, December. The last 4 months were really difficult, so read the first months, first! :)

Also, I'm back in the States. I arrived on August 18th, 2006. My apologies for not updating the blog sooner. This should be the last post to this site.

Please visit http://www.myspace.com/ashanti_carvers to learn more about my time in Ghana and what I'm currently doing in regards to my service.

Upper West End (things looking better)

2006-07-10T08:43:00.000-04:00

OK so I’ll try to sum up the last two weeks in 6 min flat. Think I can do it? me either....

July 4th, it was all right. Went to Jirapa to spend it with Jenell and the other upper westers but it was hard getting out of James’s village and then getting to Jirapa was a long ride. But it was fun and I got to see Jenell's site, she's the one that offered me to be site mates...but Jirapa is a small city of 15,000 people...too big for me...I def'ly don't want to upsize......

Oh did I write about biking 30 km in one day? haha, that was fun, it was the day before the 4th, so that would make it the 3rd wouldn't it?
Anyway, we had to go to Loggu to ask the nurse if he could help with our HIV talk and James had to talk to the masons about the latrine project. Man did my buttocks hurt from that trip. If I move up here I’ll be in much better shape :)

Ok, the HIV AIDS talk.....Friday, it went really well 74 men and 65 women showed up. We had a male nurse talk to the guys and a female nurse talk to the women. We did condom demos and passed condoms out.
The old ladies didn't like it but the men and the younger women enjoyed the talk. Some interesting questions were raise like "Can a woman have sex after she stops menstruating?" Apparently the women believe if they have sex after menopause they'll fall sick because the semen won't come out (apparently, menstruating helps cleanse all that semen out of their bodies) and they didn't believe the nurse when she told them that they can have sex after menopause. And they asked “Can you have sex when you are three months pregnant and going?" And again, they thought it was bad for the baby to have sex. Now this explains a bit.....Men go after young women cuz women refuse sex after menopause, plus the men pro'ly think the women can't have sex either. And if a woman won't have sex while she pregnant that's a long time for a person to without....anyway, it makes more sense, even if it's not perfect.... So it went really well and made me have hope that I could be a good PCV given a half way decent community.....

Oh and there's a teeny tiny community called Motigu that about 757 people that's looking for a PCV and is connected with the Carter Center so I’ll have more structure and stuff, but I don't know. I need to see it. Who knows? These are all just options. But the technical assistant for Carter Center up here seems to really like me and is pushing for the house to be ready and also talk to John, so we'll see
:)

Let's see what else, oh! We were searching for condoms in WA on Thursday and we couldn't find boxes of them, then this dude at a cell phone store asks us what we're looking for. me feeling safe with a white man by my side (thanks James) tell me "boxes of condoms....we need condoms" and lo and behold, he knew of a place....it's an STI clinic in WA we got 100 condoms for 4,000 cedis...that's basically 50 cents :) so we could give them away and use them for demonstration....just a nice example of how important it is to ask :)

Ok, so I think you can see I took longer than 5 minutes, I added some.....

But I don't know what to write anymore. I feel back to my old self. I feel like I can do this again. Now we just gotta talk to the bosses and stuff......this was an incredibly therapeutic trip :)

Kris

The Upper Best : )

2006-07-05T08:15:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

I'm in Wa right now the capital of the Upper West region of Ghana. It's wonderful. It's a very nice quiet town. It makes me loathe Kumasi even more than I already do :) So I got 17 min of Internet time, lemme try to dqueeze it all in.

Monday, I bought my ticket to Wa at 930am, the bus did not leave Kumasi until 2pm. Fun fun. The bus breaks down twice on the road, luckily while it was still daylight. Whenever the bus stoped I got up or out and walked around.....everyone thought I was in a hurry, no my legs were just cramping up......When we reached the Upper West region, it was 830 or so, i think, anyway it was dark and it'd been a long journey....we stopped for food and when we came back to leave, the mate and some passenger started fighting.....(why do i always see fighting? watching violent films, i can't do anymore cuz i've seen enough real violence that it just gets to me) serious fighting, the driver started driving away and the mate climbed on and the passenger was trying to pull the mate down....me and my wonderful thoughtfulness, told them in Enlugh and in Twi to "stop, i don't like that" which recently has worked for me, but not this time, so I wnated them to stop so bad I srayed my ginger and red pepper drink in the passengers eyes! thank god he didn't know it was me....what was i thinking? i wasn't.....anyway, this was even more close seeming as how the mate sat on the stairs of the bus and i was sitting directly behind the stairs....so it was righ in my face....anyway the bus doesnt pull into Wa until 230am....but James was a great friend and was waiting for me since 10pm! so i waasn't out in the dark alone :)

Now. Tuesday, i got to walk around Wa see Sarah B, Lexie, Jenell, and Mike and we watched the Ghana Brazil game......tsk tsk tsk on the refs....there was at least one goal that Brazil was offsides and the refs ok'ed it......so that was a real bummer. And then it was too late to catch a car to kulkpong James' village so we spent the night in Wa again.

Wed we caught a "tro" it was a pick up with benches in the back, to Kulkpong. that was fun, but a little long and my legs we cramping up again . haha. And it was market day, I got to try Pito! if you swallow it fast, it leaves a taste like Cider, but it you swallow it slowly to savor the taste, gross! We also bought pig meat and made light soup that night.....pork is good :) espeocially fresh pork and damn i can make a good light soup now :)

Thursday, didn't do much started p[lanning our HIV/AIDS talk and stuff. I got to try T-Z, it was good!

and this morning i had milk....cow's milk....they just boil it up here and add sugar and milllet.....it was tasty......not pasturized, but i'm ok right now......

NOw i'm in Wa and James has to help some ghanaians write a monthly report on Trachoma, or Guinea worm, i forget....anyway, so i'll get to experience what writing with Ghanaians is like. That reminds me, this morning, there was a suspect case of Guinea worm, so i got to go and see....the worm hasn't come out yet, so we don't know for sure, and the woman claims to have only been drinking bore hole water but you can't be guinea worm from bore hole water, so she's lying, anyway, it was fun.

So that's the jist of my week. Oh i'll be herer until next friday......

happy 4th everyone

Krisi

Wait, maybe not so soon

2006-06-16T11:41:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

THank you for all your emails regarding my last email. Here's the update:

I went to the sub office to collect my mail (yes i got your package mom and dad, thank you thank you thank you) and Jen, the PCVL was there (PCVL just means she's in charge of the office, she lives there and stuff).....and i wasn't gonna tell anyone my problems, cuz i didn't want to hash it all out again, but the good lord (however you want to bleieve in it) works in mysterious ways.....I ended up telling her about everything, and she asked if she could call john and advocate for a site change for me.

So she did. and John told her, he's behind me, the only problem is there's no sites available right now. He's doing site development for the new volunteers coming in in September, so he's working on stuff. and he told her to have me call him the next day.

So I did. and He told me the same stuff, and he gave me permission to get away from site for a while so here's my itenerary: tomorrow, June 15-june 20 i'll be in cape coast with dixie and angela and ang's boyfriend. June 21 to June 24 I"ll be in Anumso with Sapisco (my best friend from Foase, also my boyfriend) June 24-26 I'll be back in Foase with Sapisco to collect some woodcarvings for people who ordered. June 26 to who knows when i"ll be in the UPper West region near Wa with James doing HIV education with the women in his community and visiting Lexie, Sarah B, and Mike and Jennell......

Someone told me that if you ET in Ghana, they send you home immediately, that you don't even get to go back to site to pack......i don't know how true that is, but that puts a bit of a damper on my plans (is that even a word?) so I'm not sure......

Right now......I don't know if I want to give the energy of being the new Bruni at a new site. But I think the next couple weeks away from site will help me out and possibly give me more energy and get my mind ready for more Africa.....or it could just let me know that 2 years in Africa is too long for me......there are plenty of things i like in Ghana.....and plenty of things i don't like.....Let's just say that i'm confused, and as of right now i still want to go home, but i have small hope of regaining the optimism i once had. SO anyway, i need to have a real chit chat with John.....cuz basically, it's like oh you're not happy, let's switch you sites, cuz you're a good volunteer and you integrated so well into your first community, etc......but it was never, is switching sites the best option? so i guess i'll come to that after i travel....at least PC gave me permission.

We'll see,

Kris

Tough Times

2006-06-12T08:40:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

Last week from Monday to Thursday morning, I spent with Sapisco at the village where he teaches, it's called Anumso. It's a small village with no electricity :) The highlights of the stay are:

bathing in a bathhouse that is made of sticks and tin.....open roof so if it rained I could have bathed in the rain.....

also the latrine was funny, I took pics of it....it's a big hole in the ground, with two by fours over it, so I got to stand on two by fours, squat and shit in the space between the boards, lol......let's just say it took my body a few days to get used to the idea, haha. And how funny to be able to talk about my bodily functions with a man, who never once thought it was disgusting or that women just don't do that, lol....

I saw the most pregnant goat ever, I also took a picture, I'm telling you, you will laugh when you see how pregnant she was.

The people of the village have to cross a river to go to farm so there's a canoe at the riverside (also took picture)

there was a traditional priest doing an offering to the river, so I got to talk him for a second, also took picture. Sapi does not like traditional priests at all....he says the people worship the actual priest and not the the "river god" or "sun god" or something, I don't know. I don't think Foase has any traditional priests left....

I caught a baby lamb....still with its umbilical cord...also took picture! yay! lambs are very beautiful but when they turn to sheep they get dirty and ugly.....

Sapi's school is run down, but it's very nice in size....his class is only 28 students.....wow. I wish Foase was like that....but no the smallest class size in Foase is 45.....(why don't African men realize that having babies is NOT productive? god.....that's their excuse, "god will provide. the bible says to be fruitful, that women should bear as many children as possible and not to worry about the environment cuz god will provide. I got this explanation from the Foase P4 teacher who told me if I didn't have children I was going against the bible) Anyway, Sapi's school is nice and small :)

So Wednesday or Thursday I will be traveling to Cape Coast to visit my friend Dixie and Angela and her boyfriend from the USA. Dixie works at Kakum national park or forest or something like that. Anyway it's supposed to have swings bridges up in the canopy, I can't wait :) I will come back to Foase around Tuesday. Unless I talk to John about Foase then I'll go to Accra to talk to him and then back to Foase.....

The last week in June I will be heading up to the Upper West to do a Sexual and Reproductive health talk with James. He wants me to talk to the women while he talks to the men. Good idea, no? :) So I’m really excited about that.

After doing some major thinking, soul searching, and problem solving, I have decided I must come back to the US sooner than planned. I came to do work in Ghana and with the way my village operates, the men who are my counterparts, and Kumasi being my market town, I have no energy left to even try to change sites. And after emailing with the previous volunteer, I don't think my peace corps boss will move me anyway....there's something fishy between him and my landlord.....A man that I hate and have visions of beating his head in with a stick and watching him bleed to unconsciousness.....bad huh? Def'ly need to get out of there. But, I have these fun things to look forward too...and I’m building relationships and contacts for the next volunteer. ...Also before I leave I must get carvings made for people :) (sorry, I’m very broke, being a volunteer and all, so I can't get EVERYONE something, but I’ll do my best) So wait for more updates, maybe a miracle will happen and I’ll be moved to live with Angela or something, but that's highly unlikely.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ghana. but I simply cannot stay here for my physical, mental and spiritual self......

I will travel after I quit being a volunteer for a month or two, just to spend time with Sapi and Angela and a few others before I leave.
....

I love you all and miss you.....

Kristina

Forgive me, but the Ashante people as a whole...

2006-06-05T09:04:00.000-04:00

@#$%!......

How racist is that? What's sad is most non-Ashanti’s feel the same way in Ghana and the Ashanti's don't like anyone else.....

SO why do I say that? On top of all the violence I've already seen. I got to see two men fight each other while sitting on a tro riding to Kumasi yesterday. They even got themselves in the middle of the road one sitting on top of the other punching the other dude face. Damn human beings, why? why?

Not only that, but I have been emailing with the previous PCV at my site. I'm not crazy. I'm having the same problems he was and John did nothing for Jeff (the previous PCV) in terms of moving housing, etc. SO that means I have to put my foot down and say, look, move me. I must be moved. I will not work in Foase, you leave me there, I will travel like Jeff did and never be in the village. And if it comes to being Admin Separated or ETing, I think I will choose ETing (early termination is on my terms....I think an Admin sep would be worse on the record)

Good news? My good friend James (a Master's International PCV, from Mich Tech U) has invited me to do a Sex/Health Ed seminar with him for 4-5 days at his site in the Upper West Region. So I will be able to leave site, and still work :)

Also, I believe Erin posted some new pics. You can see me again :)

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/binghamkristinal/my_photos

Woodcarving is going well. I've stopped learning, but I’m selling :) and I think I’ll be able to continue it after I leave Foase.....

SO that's that,

Kris

Medical, Cultural Issues, Rednecks in Africa....

2006-05-23T11:14:00.000-04:00

18-05-06

Time for super mass email, since it's been about three weeks now?

My housing issues:
1. Everyone in my house thrives off shouting and yelling,
2. I've been woken up in the morning more than once because of yelling and shouting in the courtyard.
3. My landlord is a power hungry controlling demanding bitch of a man.
4. My ear got to witness him beat his child, while minutes later my eye got to witness the child's busted lip.
5. He has told me in several non-direct comments that he expects me to raise his child, that's why he brought me here. (I'm in Foase because of HIM, yes siree didn't you all know that?)
6. He also has a gun that he likes to shoot off in the mornings to scare away the armed robbers. You know, so the Armed Robbers will be scared of a person being armed with a gun? Dear lord…

Thus, I don't feel like I have a home, there's no quiet place for me to run too, and the walls are thin, so I've woken Akwasi up in the middle of the night with my asthmatic coughing…..And, I don't feel entirely safe….

I'm in Accra, for medical, again.
I believe the mild asthmas that I was diagnosed with in high school and went away in college, has now come back full force. I have a very hard time breathing…..my smoker's cough is back, and I’ve had 3 chest infections since I’ve been here (none of which did I seek treatment, I know bad Kris) and I feel like I have a 50 pound weight on my chest. So I'm back in Accra so the One Peace Corps doctor for the entire region of West Africa can see me while she's in town.
Something interesting about the situation….We have two nurses. One American and one Ghanaian. The American nurse told me it's ok to go to the clinic in Foase for treatment. So, I went to the clinic on Tuesday because my lungs were not happy, oh and I found out I’m allergic to mangoes, at least the ones here……anyway, they give me drugs, but I want to double check with the PC nurse before I take them. Well when I call I talk to the Ghanaian nurse, and she says "Why didn't you go to Kumasi or Accra?" I told her I don't like traveling (which is true in Ghana, and I don't' like traveling every other week in the states either) Then she tells me to take my meds and call her in the morning. SO I do and she says, she wants me to come to Accra cuz the regional doc is in town. Ha! So I have to travel anyway (and I didn't budget this last pay period and ooops, I’m down to 150,000 cedis for the rest of the month! (we get paid 1.5 million every month, but they pay us quarterly. anyway that's approx 156 US dollars……sounds better in cedis doesn't it?)
So about those mangoes……a fruit which I LOVE…..I ate one and the next day my lips felt dry and itchy and so did the sides of my mouth. I reminded me of the time I ate too much pineapple many years ago and the doc said I had a mild allergy….anyway, so the next day I decided to experiment on myself, I said ok, I’ll eat these two mangoes today and if the "rash" gets worse, I’m allergic to mangoes. Yep it got worse, annoyingly worse, but luckily it was just an itchy rash on my face and so I have some meds to make it go away…..

break time, how nice just as the page finishes. must get ready to see the doctor…..

Can I just tell you. Praise the Lord for American University education? This Doctor is effin amazing! So…..apparently there's a compound found in poison ivy that's the same in the Skin of mango! so that's what I'm allergic too most likely….most likely I can eat mango if someone else peels it. And that would explain my reaction this time cuz I've eaten mangoes before but in Ghana they squeeze the juice out of them while sucking on one end…..so I did that way, so the skin touched my skin ….and voila "poison ivy" response….so Erin you should be able to eat mango skin just fine, right?

Now on to my mysterious ear…..remember the damned ENT who told me just to take some pain killers? Welll……I don't have any infection but my ear drum is dull and pull back a bit, indicating that there's some inflammation in one of my tubes…..pro'ly allergy related and if I take the psuedofed it should go away……that's my basic paraphrase of what she told me….but thank god someone figured it out…..

Now my asthma. It's most likely allergy induced. She gave me a new rescue inhaler, since the albuterol makes me crazy shaky, a steroid inhaler and suedofed. and if the pseudofed is not working well call the nurses and I'll put me no Allegra or something.

She also told me, that I am going to be one of those people who just has problems the whole time they're serving, and no matter what PC country I served in I'd still have these same problems. Looks like my body was made only for the rich, lol…..without modern medicine, I'd be in a lot of pain…..and then people wonder why I don't want to give birth (maybe my genes aren't too good :0) not saying that I'm not a good person, just saying maybe I shouldn't reproduce that's all)

oh and if things don't get better I may have to get rid of Obolo and Nestle….but they're such good hunters……cuz I'm allergic to the mites and stuff they have…but I told the doctor they're strictly outside cats, which is true. so she seemed less concerned after that….I just can't pet them so much. L

So that's that. If things only get worse, then I can't stay. no sense in killing myself to live in Africa. There's plenty of volunteer work to do in the USA too….but do NOT think that means I'm coming home early…..I’m just saying the possibility is there. so no one get excited or freaked out, ok? J

Foase:

They chopped down the trees at my house (not completely chopped down, but enough that the 6 trees look dead now). You know why they killed off their shade? Because the birds were too much disturbing. That's right, the birds were making too much noise, so they cut the trees down. (errrrrr…..killing dozens of unhatched eggs and just hatched baby birds in the process……dozens of nests were in those trees) Anyway, so now it's a little warmer at the house.

Sunday, Mother's day. Happy mother's day to everyone. I decided to make good use of the fallen trees and use part of a branch as a baseball bat. So I walked to the JSS which is on the outskirts of town and used my branch as a bat and rocks as balls and let me tell you it was fun J . Batting all by myself…..I miss that. I just wish I could swing the bat at something and damage it, without hurting it, like a punching bag or something. cuz if I do it to a tree I'll damage the tree, and I can't hurt a sheep or anything. I can now easily kill ants though…..easy as pie…..especially since they bite you…..

That's plenty for now. It's 1045pm…..very very much past my bed time.

write me back,

Kris

Love, from Ghana

2006-04-26T14:03:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

let's see, what has happened since last week? first the tragedy....

my best friend Sapisco, his cousin was walking to a friends house on Easter Sunday during a storm, and a tree branch fell down and killed her! she was 23 years old! It was very sad ( this key board is funky so forgive the typos please) It was a bad storm and the tree branch was very high, even with the make up on you could still see where the tree crushed her skull....oh my......she was all set to go to university next term and that's even a bigger accomplishment that in the states, cuz it's really difficult to get indoor university and then be able to pay for it here......so that's what i did on Saturday, I went to a funeral from 7am to 4pm and it wasn't finished yet :) man, but since she was young and had many young friends, the teenage boys were rainmaking and smoking (basically, no one smokes in Ghana so it was really strange smelling that) and causing some trouble.....why do people have to do things like that at a funeral when people are mourning? anyway, that was that....

OH my gosh! Friday night, I had the carpenter make a shelf for me, it has 4 drawers in the middle and a section of shelf on both sides, I’ll have to take a pic of it, anyway, Sapi carried it on his head from the carpenter, which is at the complete other side of the village, completely downhill, all the way to my house in the dark!!!!! he said it was the heaviest thing he's carried, i can’t believe it made it! wow....i wanted to take a pic but i didn't have my camera....it was a sight, wish you all coulda seen it :)

oh and that reminds me, Shaza asked me about prices in Ghana.....she didn't understand when i said i got something for 40,000 cedis and that's cheap so here's a small list

the approx exchange rate is 1 usd to 9,000 cedis

one 300ml coke (about 10 oz) is 3,000

one loaf of bread is 5,000

one orange is 500

one apple is 3,000

8 small onions for 1,000

one package of spaghetti is 3,000

internet is 6,000 per hour

to get from Foase to Kumasi costs 2,800 (one way)

a soft toothbrush in Accra costs 18,000

an extra hard toothbrush (the only one in Foase) costs 2,000

a medium toothbrush in Kumasi costs 5,000

my hair gel is 14,000

a tin of powdered milk is 25,000

one roll of toilet paper is 3,000

energizer batteries are 15,000 for 2

batteries in Foase are 2,500 for 2 (but my camera and speakers dad sent need energizer strength)

i bought the iron for 130,000

a calculator, scientific, for 95,000

nice STC bus ride from Kumasi to Accra 65,000 (one way)

so that's that......i could give you many more prices but i'm sure you’re bored already

ohh and i started drawing the map on my guest bedroom wall, so when all you wonderful people come to visit me, you'll have the world to look at :-D

pics of wood carvings are coming.....give me one month.....

ok, I’ve run out of things.......oh James and Lexie came to visit me~! they live in the upper west, near way....in Kulkpong and Kaleo respectively....i love them!

miss ya'll....but i'm healthy and happy, i'll stick around :)

krisi

Back to Foase

2006-04-26T14:02:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone.

this email has to be short and sweet cuz it's going to get hot outside and i have tons of shopping to do......i have to buy an iron to help this folliculitis, at least according to the nurse.....and it's a good skill to learn.....and i need to buy food and some other things too.....I’ve decided to stop trying to "protect" Akwasi from getting insulted....the boy does not respect, nor does he listen, and it's not my job to be his parent, so i'm letting that go, and wow! So much stress relief from that....after talking to my boss in Accra. I’ve decided that for my own sanity i have to do projects that i'm interested in.....regardless of their relation to health and water sanitation, so i'm going to start the world map project....which my boss gave to me......i'm going to get students to ain't the world map on the side of the school :) yay! i love maps and then they'll have something to do geography with.....and maybe when that's finished to on of Ghana......also i'm starting a health club with the jss students, i'm excited about that. i am finally feeling healthy.....when i get sick i want to go home, when i feel healthy i want to stay......so pray for my health, cuz we all know I’ll be a better person if i stick out the two years than if I ET hehe...but i miss you all very, very, very much, come and visit me.....keep yourself sane and me too! It'll just cost you 1,500$ hehe....that's not too much, is it? haha....anyway, i must head out before the heat gets too bad....love ya'll

Kris

10 Days in Accra

2006-04-12T16:09:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone,

This is my last day in Accra for a while. It's been a nice break from site, a much needed one. My ear is fine, just an irritated canal.....apparently i need to start bathing with cotton balls in my ears.....and what i thought was acne on my back turned out to be some kind of skin infection. That's a funny story....let me tell you about going to the doctor in Accra....

Ear doctor first, technically the ENT specialist at the Military Hospital near the office. First, I get 'Bruni' privileges....I walk into the office 5 hours late.....for various reasons....and get to see the doctor right away......he briefly looks into my left ear.....mind you my right ear also pains me, just not as much.....tells me there's no infection, let's give me a hearing test....i take the hearing test......i pass...whoohooo.....doc says i hear as good as a 14 year old......yay!.....but why does my ear pain me?...so i go back to Agnes, the PC nurse and give her the report and then I ask her about what i think is acne on my back, hopefully she can give me something for it....and she takes one look at it and says....that's not acne, you need to see the skin doc.......thus the beginning of my 10 day stay in Accra.....

So Wednesday I go to the skin doctor....this time I arrive one hour early! Ooops, thought it would take longer to get there. I get in 30 min late....not too bad....the doctor is an extremely large woman, with coke bottle glasses.....she can't see and tells me to come near the window where the light is better....she doesn't know what it is.....we sit back at her desk, she asks me, have i had chicken pox before, when? I told her when i was 10...she says "oh that’s a long time ago, maybe this is chicken pox" !!!!!!!! Can you believe that? So she gives me Rx for about 4 different things, including a mega dose of antibiotics.....i don't want to take all this medicine so i read the inlet of the Anti Biotic and the dosage she prescribed for me is for severe infections (which i don't have) so i took the dosage for non-severe infection, which is half as much.....anyway, yesterday i had my follow up appt and no it's not chicken pox (are you sure, doc? haha) it's most likely Folliculitis or something like that....when i ask how to prevent it, she tells me that given the right conditions is just happens......gee wiz, I’d like to know the conditions so i prevent them, but by that time all i wanted to do was be done with her....ms. banker in the morning and dermatologist in the evenings........anyway, the little bumps are starting to go away and I’m not contagious or anything....

Plus.....I got to spend a week with Angela! Her site is much different from mine. Her village is about 1,200 people...mine 6,000. There's no paved roads by her and hardly any traffic.....my village is divided by a main paved road with plenty cars. She's about 25,000 cedis away from Accra, I'm 2,800 cedis from Kumasi.....her village is known for its Salt....there's a lagoon there. Mine is known for wood carving....her "smalls" are 17 and 20 mine are 11, 13, and 14 years......so it was different, quiet relaxing. oh! and she has her own house, while i live in a compound house...

Since, her village is known for salt....her friend Vincent gave me about 5 kilos worth! Talk about heavy! But it'll be my gift to my friends in Foase....everyone needs a little bit of salt, and this salt is good salt! I’m telling you! hehe....

oooh the exciting part of being in Accra....real Ice Cream!!!!!! oh my goodness, heaven! Real Pizza...it's thin crust, which is not my fave, but it's still pizza and it's still real pizza cheese! And Angela’s site has cream soda :) Yummy! And we also made Corn Bread (thanks for the Jiffy Mix! Send more!) and black beans and rice, since we didn't have red beans.....mmmMmmmMmmm good.....and we made chips from Ga Kenkey with a nice salsa....I tried Akpetishie for the first time....( i spelled it wrong, but it's close) it's def'ly hard hard liquor, but it's smooth.....much smoother that whiskey, etc......Oh! and Anglea's counterpart has a TV and VCD player, so she bought 4 movies!!!! and we had a movie marathon on Sat, how wonderful! Original Sin, Dance with Me, Troy, and Robin Hood prince of thieves, it was a wonderful relaxing, rejuvenating time :)

So, yes, I'm feeling better, oh! and he mom sent her this book called "the velveteen principle : a guide to becoming real" it's a really good book about being true to yourself and how this woman realized the meaning behind the velveteen rabbit story when she heard her daughter read it to the other daughter.....if anyone of you feel lost, you should check it out :)

And after reading the book and talking to John, my supervisor, I’ve decided that when I get back to site I must start my young person's club.....and teach about reproductive and sexual health.....that's my passion, that's why i wanted to join peace corps was to educate people about sex, and keeping your mind body and soul healthy, and i wanted to learn more of that along the way as well.....gotta start doing work that makes me happy, not just what i think the community or the children need......cuz the community needs a lot!

Oh! and about the computer center....we just switched it over to my name.....so please donate now, hehe. I talked to john about my concerns and he said we can tweak it a little to make it more of a community center, or youth center, kinda like FreeZone (is that was it's called in A2?) anyway, the kids do need a safe place to go, and i am excited about getting that set up, and having a few computers wouldn't hurt.....so hopefully the next volunteer can put up latrines since this project is already half finished. John’s pretty certain we can have the building up and running before i leave, which would be amazing.....so donate whatever you like and remember it's tax deductible....:) and to donate go to peacecorps.gov website and click on donate :)

ok, i think I’m finished, for now :)

Miss you! please keep sending emails, cards, letters, and I’ll try to do the same....

Kris

Still ailing a bit, and homesick...

2006-03-31T12:34:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone,

It's been about two weeks...I've finally gotten my energy back. But my ear is still paining me and feeling plugged up (after I took ten days worth of Augmentin, an antibiotic) and I went to the clinic in Foase but their instrament to look inside the ear is broken so I had to call PC nurse and she said I must come to Accra. But this is not so bad. I wanted to visit Angela on April 13th anyway, so now it's just a little sooner, And I can stay with my father and brother (the MPs house!) on Sunday night before I go to the office Monday morning. Let's hope it's nothing serious, and everything will be fine.

Although, I am getting insanely homesick. And going through that stage of culture shock when everything in teh new culture seems wrong and bad, and everything about my own culture seems perfect. So I'm trying to keep my head on my shoulders and hang out with the women more and simply tell men that I don't like that when they look me up and down and t ell me i'm a nice girl, among other things....my poor friend angela has men straight up ask her if she like porn!!! what's wrong with men? arrggggh. Anyway, I keep dreaming about home. I miss you all very much, I miss having friends who understand me, I miss having girl friends who speak the same language i do. Anyway, i miss food being readily available....haha. where's McDondalds when you need one, eh? I miss ordering pizza, and I miss most of all, opening up a box of wheat thins or triscuits or cheeze it and haivng a snack without having to cook and dirty dishes. ugh. hahah.

But 29 March, was a solar eclipse in Ghana, it was a total eclipse on the coast, near Takoradi I think, and up by me, it was almost total, but still it only felt like the sun went behind a cloud. But the exciting thing is, they've been selling these "Eclispe Shades" for 10,000 and i thought they were a hoax, but my landlord bought me a pair and oh my goodness they worked like a charm~!!!!! holy crap! so i ran thorugh the village sharing my glasses with everyone so they could see the eclipse too.....cuz without the glasses you wouldn't've noticed anything.....and it was great to see people say " it's true!" they didn't beleive it would happen....one person even said, "god is coming" and the distrcit cheif executive bought some shades for the schools, so my school got 38 shades for 318 studens, but still, to provide one school with 380,000 cedis worht of goods, is damn nice of teh DCE plus the entire thing lasted about 2 hours from start to finish, so there was more than enough time to have everyone share.

Oh! and on Tuesday, the 28 the school had a road march to do an enrollment drive, they were marching and holding picket signs about why you shoulc send your child to school....i had my camera and was marching wtih them....it reminding me of marching in college and high school. except the marching style is very different, i like Ghana's better, they swing their arms :) And there was a TB durbar at the clinic, which was the district health people came and performed a skit on TB and how it's pread and what you should do to prevent it, although the whole thing was in Twi so i only understood bits and pieces. i also learned that AOB means Any Other Business, at which time a women got up nd spoke about Malaria and misquito nets. So it was a long day, but a good day, i was very happy about the march. oh boy, was I tired though. haha.

So that's teh jist of the week. So long as I make sure to leave my house and stay away from my landlord i'm ok....he's such a bully......he's used to having everyone do what he says, and i'm getting fed up.....good thing i'm going ot Accra and can talk to John, my boss about it. H'ell give me some ways of dealing with him. Lemme tell you, i wished for my own single person house this past weekend....he brought 30 people to the house for a funeral and all i wanted was a nice quite relaxing weekend! oh my.

Here's a huge hug!

oh teehee......not fora ny hurry, but for easter or my birthday if you feel the need to send me a package here's a new list, haha:

-Handi-wipes

-Sapandex shorts (aka bike shorts) i think size Med (i wear them under my skirts so i don't have to worry about pepole seeing up my skirt, and it's still much cooler than pants....i would say 2 or 3 would be fine

-Bras (mom knows the kind i like......the bralettes, mine are starting to fall apart from the vigourous hand washing)

-Victoria Secret Binki style size small underwear.....that can wait for my b day or christmas...but they're also just starting to show some wear and tear, and after not fitting into an XXXL I just assume not try to fit into any Ghanaian underwear....but this is not an urgent need

-Gatorade! PLease! Crystal Light is nice....but I need something to rehydrate myself, and ORS just tastes bad

-More Stickers.....i think the kids like them

-Coloring Books, of anything

-"Wifebeaters" aka A shirts, i think. Size Boys XL i don't know what i was thinking when i only packed one!

Ok thank you all for everything you've sent me already! everyone in Foase also thanks you! They say you are good people and that I am blessed :) I tell them, i know ;)

Pray for me ot get through these next two years.........it's def'ly a challenge...

HUG

kris

Kris and her little brother, Elton John

2006-03-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2006-03-17T10:36:00.000-05:00

From a country that doesn't know what a Four leaf clover is :)

First of all.....THANK YOU to all of you who have snet packages.....9 packages showed up at the same time.....so yesterday Peace Corps delivered them to me....Christmas in March! how great! :) The packages ranged from being sent NOv 8th to Jan 22nd. Funny huh?

Becky! THanks for the food...was it left over from burning man? the toffee crunch cookie was amazing :) Bad news though.....the package said it was supposed to contain Tuna and a battery recharger....but neither was in the package, and the strange thing is a peace corps rep is there when the post office opens the packages so really nothing should get stolen....are you sure you put the recharger in the package? I'll try to email the PC mail room and see if they know what happened to it....i really wanna use my digital again, it cost 56,000 cedis to devleop a rol of film.....but thank you even if it got stolen :-/

MOm, thanks for the candy, pics, markers, pens, magazines and history book....it's really up to date, i can't wait to start it :) ( i think i got three packages from you, maybe four!)

Selena, you effin rock! the body shop stuff will come in handy fo'sho' :) and oh does it smell good :) you're an angel!

Erin.....I finally get my jump drives back! yay!! now i just gotta be able to use the digital again :) and the chocolate, mmmmmm THANK YOU!

Aunt Linda! the stencil book is AMAZING! the novel looks incredibly interesting! and the pic is gorgeous! no one can believe only 3 people live in that house....i have a wonderful 14 year old who wants to come live with you....she can cook, clean, and wash laundry by hand superbly....you wanna invite her? oh and she speaks very good english too :) Her name is Grace :) hehheehe.

Dad and Jan...wow! what a package! thank you! SPeakers! you found some very nice compact speakers! Kwasi says they look like a phone, which htey kinda do.....they work just fine too:) The smelly markers! awesome! the kids love em! and the MAp!!!!!! what a great map!!!!! whne I leave i'll give it to the school and let the school use now while i'm here....the file, thank you! and the handsanitzer i'm starting to run out of that! so much appreciated

To everyone! THANK YOU for the tampons and pads! I have just about run out and now i think i have enough for one year! Bless you souls! And the candy! my oh my, just in time, i promised the school kids the top 5 studetns from each class will get ot go to a party with american food and candy, so there you have it! madaase pa!!!! (thank you very much....ma-daa-see pah)oh and i'm soo sorry i can't remember who sent the pasta sides or jiffy mix...but thank you!!!!! i can't wait to eat them .....

NOw that' you've all fufilled my previous wishes, here's a new list ( no rush by any means)

More pasta sides, rice sdes, jiffy mixes,

cup-of-soup.....can of chicken noodle soup would be nice, but they're heavy so i think the instant cup-a-soup will be more than satifactory.

hand sanitizer :)

sugar-free chewing gum

jerky even

ok i tink that's good....oh underwear could be nice, but not really until birthday or christmas.....mine so far is holding up.......

OK now the email for everyone :-D

Let's see... yes, yesterday was a nice day, treated to 9 packages, and when my landlord came home, he brought a new kitty for me. He says this kitten is close to three months old but it looks more like one month to me....i'm praying it stays healthy. I ca'nt believe I knew Obolo when he was that small.....the kitten fits in my hand! Obolo is at least 2.5 times the size of it:) So, I told Kwasi that if his father brings me a replacement cat, Kwasi can have it.....It's an adorable cat, hate to say it, but it's more beautiful than Chingy, it's black and grey striped, and has Socks! white socks! and it has the same pattern on its face as chingy, anyway, i'll take a pic soon. But, earlier that day Kwasi had seen the pics of Mom's new dog Nestle, and liked the name so much he named the new kitten Nestle, i think the cat is a girl, but not 100% sure yet, it's still super young and nervous since it just arrived yesterday.......so now there's NEstle and Obolo :)

March 3rd, was that a Saturday? anyway, the staurday around that time, boy oh boy, what a story, and i'm exhauseted.....short version....general cleaing day in Kumasi, didn't realize that meant everything, including tros, were to be shut down until noon, that way everyone will have nothing better to do but clean! and i was in Oduom at the Peace Corps office, took me one hour to catch car from peace corps office to tech, which isn't far, then no cars were coming, had to beg a ride to railway staion and walk to kejetia station! all in the 9-1130am sun! with only one litre of water and one peice of bread eaten....and i couldn't buy any water or food cuz everything was shut down. I get to Kejetia and they tell me the deal no cars till noon. Anyway, I was tired, thirsty and hungry, i finally get home and collapse on my bed, no the brightest idea cuz i was hungry and dehydrated, i wake uup buy water and some food, feel like shit....i try to eat and drink, and make some Oral Rehydration solution and go to bed. I have a fever, i wake up in the middle of the night with a fever of 102.6!!!!! and i go to the kitchen to get some drink, i see stars, getting tunnel vision my limbs feel heavyt, oh shit i'm gonna faint....i sit on the ground and call for kwasi! thank goodness he's there, he gets me water, sqeezes an orange for me and he sleeps on the thermarest pad in my room just in case. I was shivering and singing to keep my self sane...oh and when the fever reached that high i took tylenol to lower it, did not want it going any higher. Fever all day on sunday too, but it peaked at 100.8 that day. next day no fever. cleaned my room and tidyed up some stuff. Tuesday, still feeling exhuasted, but knew i needed to go to the bank and i had a mysterious package to pick up at EMS (some postal service) so i came to kumasi with Mabena (Mavis) but the line at the bank was too long and i was too tired, and the package was only from peace corps....it was only 6 news weeks (all PCVs get newsweeks while serving) and a few letters. Ugh! so i realy wasted my energy, on top of that! all internet cafes were busy or slow...i teach wendesday and clean and lesson plan, i teach thursday and rest, i teach friday, and nearly kill myself (figuratively) i called the PC nurse on wed told her i htink i have an ear infection and that can i get a fever from htat, or from being dehyrated, yes to both. So friday i try to go to kumasi to buy the meds for the ear infection, after teaching i'm so tired that i can barely make it to my house let alone kumasi so i just stay home. Saturday Cate comes ( a fellow PCV) and brings me my meds (bless her) and i'm just thoroughly exhausted. And i have been ever since. She thinks I may be anemic, if i don't feel better by monday i'll call the nurse again, Ivy is supposed to come to my site on the 22nd, so hopefully she can help me then. as for teaching I only taught one day this past week, wednesday, and it exhuasted me to the point where i went home and slept and read and thursdayu morning i had no energy and no voice.....i feel a little better today, but i'm very tired from traveling to kumasi and going to the bank.....but! i found a new branch of Ghana Commerical bank...one that opperates like the ones at home, AND i learned I can get an ATM card!!!! so then i'll never need to stand in line again!!!! whooooohooo!!!! praise god! (living in ghana makes you start to say stuff like that.....by god's grace i hope you're doing fine......nyame adom eye = by god's grave i'm fine....and that is the response to everyon'es e te sen? =how are you) anyway, now i must go to the peace corps office for the Peer SUpport and Diveristy committee meeting. We're getting trained to be Peer Support this weekend....basically informal shrink for fellow pCVs, everything we hear is confidential and the PC shrink is training us....also, we get to watch Crash......if any of you hgaven't seen it....see it...it's an excellent movie about race relations in the states....no super uplifting, but fabulously done.....and seriously....you can't pass up a chance to see LUdacris bashing HIpHop :)

ok email long enough. Kris, tired enough. Kafra (sorry) to Shaza ,Erin, and all the apckage sencders, i wanted to send you personal email but my energy has hit rock bottom and i still have an hours tro ride ot the office. hopefully sunday on my way vback to Foase i can hit the internet cafe.

Love and mIss you all.....

Kris

March 3rd, exactly 3 months since I first moved to Foase

2006-03-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

Another slow day at the internet café….

March 3rd, exactly 3 months since I first moved to Foase.

February 28th, the day that Chingy Lingy died L It was a very sad day and I cried hard, and it was even harder because my friends didn't know why I was crying, My cat died! Come on now……Mabena (Mavis) she seemed to understand….thank goodness….and to make matters worse, when Sapisco came home from Kumasi I asked him to put Chingy out of her misery, she'd been suffering for 5 days now and she was getting worse, her eyes were full of mucus, she couldn't see, she had no strength, when you picked her up it was like she was dead already. But he says he broke her neck before her threw her in the bush…..but that's all he did…..threw her in the bush!!!!! Didn't bury her, just threw her away…..that made me sad too….especially since I didn't see him break her neck, so I was thinking, there she was suffering in the middle of the bush, waiting for a dog to come a tear her to shreds……but after a good long cry and a rainy night….god cried for her that night J I'm positive she's dead, and I did the best I could. Stupid ass vet ignored me!!!!! What kind of vet is that? If there was nothing I could do for her, she coulda at least text messaged me that! Errrrrrr……anyway, so it's just Obolo now L

I taught on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday actually…..go Kris J We had a teacher's meeting on Monday and we changed my schedule to teach every morning from 8am-9am and do one class per day….that means one class per week doesn't get taught. But that's really good for me, cuz it frees up the day to visit other schools, and carve wood, or work on lesson plans, exercise etc……The handwashing stations will be in school next week! The children will wash their hands J

Today there was no school cuz there was a SSNIT meeting in the next town over, Twedie. SSNIT is the social security office of Ghana….I got to learn about pensions and what not….it was interesting and thank god it was all in English! So I actually understood everything that was said J But after the meeting, there was about 45 teachers waiting for a tro tro …..so me, being not pushy, waited with my supervisor, Mr Oppon, from 11:30 to 1:30 for a car!!!!! And for some reason it's been really hot this week. Yesterday I could hardly move because of the heat, thankfully, the electricity was on so I could enjoy my ceiling fan.

Also, yesterday, I tried to sub again for P4 teacher……the problem this time was my lungs…..the dust and the smoke from town plus the dust from the chalk kill my lungs…..it got to the point where it hurt to breath and I was doing my smoker's cough ever few minutes. So I had to leave the children at noon and go home and sleep and then lay in bed all day…..but that felt good, really good. I haven't had a nap in a few weeks. With the African heat and the culture differences, I just can't push myself like I could in the states….which is probably a good thing for my health…..everything is slower here….sometimes it's annoying, but sometimes it's nice….

I'm on my way to the Peace Corps sub office so hopefully I'll have a few of the 15 packages you all sent to me. And if I do, I'll be sure to stop by internet tomorrow on my way home to let you know. Thank you in advance for the packages…..everything is mucho appreciated!!!!!!

Big Fat Hugs to you all……oh! Did I tell you about my valentine's gift of the XXXL underwear, that didn't fit, cuz I'm too fat!
Haha…..funny…..

Miss you all,

Sister Yaa Amoakoa

PS, how's the RSB UMich crew? Haven't heard from you in a while.

PPS ther'es a chance I"ll switch to my binghamkristinal@yahoo.com email cuz ghana doesn't like gmail, 40 min to open my inbox today.....whereas yahoo is the opening page....so just make sure you don't let it go to junk mail ;)

Poor Chingh Lingy, one of my cats....

2006-02-27T15:29:00.000-05:00

27-02-06

So Chingy Lingy may die very soon. I'm very sad. Here's the short story….Thursday the vet came to the house to give Chingy and Obolo their rabies shot (finally, I was two months late on that) and the vet noticed that Obolo was having some skin problems, so she gave me some pills to give to the cats. Two now and Two two weeks later, I do not believe she told me to wait until morning…so I gave the pills to CHingy and Obolo Thursday night. I wake up Friday morning at 530am and hear the cats mewing, I'd accidentally locked them in the kitchen through the night (which is not uncommon) and when I opened the door, Obolo was fine but Chingy was lying on the floor barely breathing and having convulsions! So I was terrified, I called the vet and the result was she said I was supposed to wait until Friday morning to give the cats food and that it's too much stress on them and this is bad, oh jesus this is bad and then my phone ran out of units and she didn't call me back! Ah! Well, chingy is still alive and it's Monday, but she's barely alive, and I tried to call the vet on Saturday, but she wasn't home so her daughter answered and said the vet would call me back. Well she didn't, and I tried to call again this morning and she refused to answer the phone. If chingy is still alive when I get back home I'll try the vet one more time, cuz I don't know if CHingy has ODed or perhaps has Rabies anyway, that's been an emotional stressor for me and homesickness has finally started, haha, 5months later……I miss being anonymous and I miss knowing what to expect when I do something, I miss men not always asking me to marry them, etc. But I have a job to do, and I"ll complete it.

As for the weekend, Brother Freddie came to Foase! That was nice, I went with him to visit his secondary school, an all boys school….can you imagine what that was like? A white woman walking around an all boys boarding school? But it was good to finally see an SSS (high school).

(Who added me to M-Ws word of the day? I can't check my email often enough nor do I have time for that. Please no one add my name to any lists, I barely have time to respond to the people I love, and I don't open Fwds either)

Handwashing stations should be in place (the temporary ones) at school no later than next week. I'm praying anyway

I"m really tired now, so hopefully i'll write more in the next email. HOpe you're all doing well. I miss everyone...

HUG

Sister Yaa

Keeping my word, culture shock, and trust

2006-02-15T08:27:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone,

It's been a little while, I guess only 13 days, but it feels longer than that. I've taught three lessons now, and things are getting easier, as is expected. But I have a question for everyone, mainly the teachers, but I can't seem to remember how kids get punished in American schools, here, they get caned, and I'm opposed to that, and I need some help remembering other techniques. So please be as detailed as you can, and I'll take everyone's advice into consideration. Thanks!

Since the day after I last wrote, I've been tutoring 2 JSS girls, math. That's been a lot of fun, they're my adopted daughters anyway, but teaching math is easier cuz there's less of a language barrier, even when I sub for the Primary school I tend to teach math instead of health, cuz it's much simpler to talk numbers than biology to 8 year olds. Let's see what else? My landlord played the overprotective jack-ass again and yelled at my wood carving teacher for something he did not do. Oh that made me very angry. I went to talk to Appiah (my counterpart) about it and he could tell I was pissed. See, this is what happened. I told Ema, my wood carving teacher, that if I cut my hand while carving I would pay him 100,000 cedis. Cuz Ema kept telling me to watch my hand, he doesn't want me to get cut, and I got annoyed so I thought if I told him that then he'd stop saying it, cuz he knew I'd watch my hand. Well, two weeks ago, or almost, I was using the knife and ooops, a teeny tiny baby cut! Well, I'm a woman of my word and Ema doesn't even charge me for the wood let alone to teach me, so I figure it's all fair, he deserves the 100,000!

Well, as I'm brining him the money my counterparts senior brother asks where am I going, and I think the story is funny, so I tell him…. I mean seriously, this cut is worth 15,000, it's that's small…..but I'm a woman of my word…..anyway…..the senior brother goes and tells Appiah that Ema told me I have to pay Ema 100,000….so they thought he was taking advantage of me, as in I'm white so I must be rich…..no no no no no….Ema is the last person to take money from me, he still kept telling me to watch my hand cuz he thought if I cut myself I wouldn't come back to carve and he'd rather me learn carving than have a 100,000. and mind you, 100,000 is 2 days pay for me, but it's like a month's pay for him.

Anyway, Appiah yelled at Ema and made him feel small and told him to give the money back to me. I refused. Seriously, I had to put the money on Ema's lap for him to take it. And then I went to Appiah and sternly told him that my money is my money and what I do with it is my business, and if Ema told me to give that much money, I would tell Ema no…. Appiah should know better than that, he knew I put a knife in a very large man's face for beating his ex-girlfriend, he should think I could tell someone no to money. Anyway, I was pissed, but the silver lining is, at least there's someone powerful in the village who will stick up for me, but really, I don't need that, and I have plenty friends who will do that for me. SO I was angry!!!!!!

Oh and last Monday I went to the sub-office…Shaza I got your package and three months worth of letters!!!!! I wrote you back, now I just have to mail it. I also got a letter from Kim and Angy, and Grandma and Mom…..thank you!!!!! All very appreciated. Oh and I wanted to let you all know that I was a little bit too quick too ask for money….All of the money is greatly appreciated and I'm saving it for when I really need it, but really, I'm ok, and money for Christmas and birthday is fine. I don't need money all the time. It makes me feel greedy especially since I don't need it. But thank you for the understanding and the quick sending of cash.

20 min later, and I'm finally getting into my mailbox….thank goodness for Word, right? I can type while waiting for the pages to load J Oh and the elecitricity is so funky in Ghana that even in the 2nd largest city in the country the light goes out almost everyday….and something about the current being low so this particular internet café switch to a different something so they had to shut down all the computers for a minute. Iiishh…. oh well……I'm really tired, I spent the day riding around Kumasi with the PCV who runs the sub-office and she told me there was an internet café in the tro tro station but alas, she was mistaken, so after walking around the tro station I had to walk up and down a hill to get to the closest internet café, to sit and wait for a computer, and then to wait ten minutes before my email would go, and then have a woman ask me to finish right now cuz she needs to save her work on a disk, and then after I told her please wait 10 min I just got to my email, the worker comes and tells me to finish my work they have to shut the computers down….errrr……haha….

And for 5 min the page has been loading. And there's much mail in my box. I'm sure of it...

Hope everyone is doing well….oooooh scary news, they've found bird flu in Nigeria, but no cases in Humans yet……I can't touch birds and if there's a case of human bird flu that close peace corps will pro'ly evacuate us, so no need to panic, but it's a little scary…..

So I've taken to eating cows….haha. mad cow, bird flu, maybe I should learn to love the smoked dried fish…..ewwwww. it's really gross though……

Miss ya'll!

Oh! I went to a funeral on Saturday. Oh my dern, I need to write you all about it and I'm all tired now. Well, let's start by saying the woman died in October, and her body was on display at the funeral (yes, this past Saturday, MONTHS later) needless to say, the amount of makeup on her face was ridiculous, but I think there's a reason for that….do human bodies keep that long? Anyway, she was on display on a bed, that was in the center of a room with the casket against the wall at the foot of the bed and there were 4 women wailing around the room. I think that was their job, while a line of people walked around the bed. Very interesting. Next, everyone wears Black, or Black and rRed and my very good friend gave me some black cloth for Christmas and his mother sewed it for me, so here was an Obruni wearing Mourning cloth, lemme tell you how many people stared, it was unnerving, plus we all know I look like a ghost J Anyway, then the herse is sort of like a pope mobile……and it was painted purple! Chrissy, rich bitch purple! Haha and this chick was rich, but that's not the point……the point is you can see the casket through the glass….i'm having pics devolped so hopefully it came out….i used my SLR….( 30 min later and I still have not been able to see my inbox……3,000 cedis down the drain cuz of slow ass connection, haha,….that's one coke! Hahahahah, it's all good) Oh and it's funy in Ghana they have pictures sizes 5x7 or 3x5 hahah no 4x6……so I'm getting 3x5s cuz they're cheaper and then if there's any I want to enlarge, then I can, plus 3x5s will fit in my American photo album, 5x7s won't. J still no inbox, oh my……So when I started writing this letter, I had 100 minutes, now I have 44 min remaining and I still haven't been able to open my inbox. This is mad! Gmail is good mail but it takes longer to load than yahoo or hotmail, but it shouldn't take this much longer. Jesus………

over one hour....no gmail......hotmail not working either.....going to walk to another internet cafe, i'm vexed!

Kris

15th Feb,2006

So after I left the Buzzy Net cafe I tried two more internet cafe's and neither one was working! So I'm here again. Finally internet is working, but it's still somewhat slow. Happy Valentine's day (yesterday!) And I began to teach the P6 students "50 nifty united states" song, but I forgot a line, can you help me out?

50 nifty United States, from 13 original colonies
50 nifty stars on the flag that billow so beautifully in the breeze
each individual state contributes a quality that is great
(and i know there's some more lines here, but i just skip to the singing of the states in Alpha order)

So Erin, I know you learned the song in the 5th grade, I hope someone else has too.

Also, last nite was a culture shock experience with something so small as passing around photos! Who ever would have thought that there's cultural differences between shareing photos? But there is! and that's how i got shocked! YOu all know that in the states, when you get pics developed you look at them and then pass them to the next person, usually to your right, but it doesn't matter and then the last person in the circle gently puts the photo down and keeps it in order. Right? Well, i got doubles cuz i was going to give the photos as gifts to the people i took, and send a few home. and well, Nana Ama, Sapisco's sister (i'm very angry with her right now, very angry) she was trying to steal some of the pics of her and was making all the pics out of order. Not to mention that the children picked up the pile of doubles that i had set aside for me, so then all my pics were out of order. Now get this....Nana Ama comes over to my house only for Pure Water sachets (filtered water from a bag, you can get 30 for 6,000 cedis or pay 300 cedis for one) not something i'm fond of but i will not refuse water to anyone. Then she goes and I see that she's taken a few pics that i took of her, and I tell her she can keep those as her valentine's gift....not only does she laugh like it's not good enough she also tells me next time get the big size. See in Ghana you have two choices, 3x5 or 5x7......welll I wanted the pics to fit into my photo album and I figured the ones i really like i can blow up in the states. Plus i had three rolls of film to develop which cost 100,000 cedis and was giving her the pics for FREE when if you buy them from teh photographer in town he charges 6,000 for the big size! so you see how nice i am? TOo damn nice. Anyway, i was angry, and feeling taken advantage of and was taken agback by what happened with the sharing of the photos, so I started to cry and Sapisco was kind enough to let me cry on his shoulder, even though in Ghana that's unheard of. Usually when someone cries they just leave the person alone and tell them to stop crying, but luckily he's a good friend and understands that in my culture we like to give hugs when we cry :) And i talked with him about it this morning too. Ugh, I was even more pissed when I was sorting my pics last nite and realized Nana Ama took BOTH sets of the pics of her, and some other piucs that i don't remembe.r From the funeral roll, out of 24 i have 14 pictures! But that's the thing, people here steal all the time, even from there best friend, i don't understand. and me, miss little trust worthy, i got lots to learn.

Anyway, it upset me.

I hope you all had a wonderful valentine's day. I cooked shredded beef with green peppers....very good :) i actually enjoy beef again, scary eh?

Friday I'm going to Takoradi, Western Region to visit two PC friends :) Tim and Angela.

HUG

Kris

What color Jesus?

2006-02-01T09:21:00.000-05:00

Hey there,

So I'm in Kumasi sooner than I thought cuz alas, I ran out of money, but don't worry, I hadn't been to the bank in one month, so I just had to go to the bank and take some more money out. Thank goodness peace corps pays us quarterly, then i only have to go to the bank 4 times a year! I hate going to the bank here. First, there's no privacy laws. Second, there's no lines, just a bunch of pushing and shoving. And then there was somewhat of a line, but when the system went down for a few seconds some people started to panic and rush to the front of the line and gave the teller their paperwork, and what's crazy is the teller took it!!!!!!! God! how frustrating! i was really angry by the time i left the bank, but it's ok. i don't have to deal with it very often.

I did my first full day of teaching yesterday and now my voice hurts. P6 P5 P4, that's grades 6 through 4. I taught the P6 first cuz they have the best english. Man oh man, teaching in your own language and culture is hard enough, let alone teaching in a new culture to students who speak another language at home. Ahhh! challenges, but that's why i joined peace corps.....for the challeneges :)

I'm sorry my emails have been so short lately. I just get tired, and life is becoming more routine so there's less to say.

I tutor some JSS 2 students, approx. the 8th grade in math yesterday, teaching them distribution and foiling....it got too late to teach them factoring so i hope to do that tonite. They have a serious national exam coming up the end of Aprill so i hope to make sure their math scores are proficient, cuz right now they're confused. Man the math program here in Ghana sucks......really. The teachers don't give enough examples and they don't explain well at all....makes me wish i came with the teacher group and taught math to studetns. It's easier to talk numbers than to talk health with a language barrier. Oh well... i do enjoy my work.

OH!!!! Please! can you all send me some Black and Arab and Asian, etc. Jesus'.... People in Ghana keep telling me they like my skin, it's the same color as Jesus', and I keep telling them that the pictures are wrong. SO if you could send me some and then i can show them that Jesus could be any color, but since he was born in Isreal (right?) he most likely looked like this..... whatever, picture you can find. And then black Jesus' too, just so they know that the white pciture can be wrong. Ugh......somtimes i feel like Ghana is the US during the 40s and 50s, at least how i learned about the US 40s and 50s... gender inequality, no black pride, no woman pride, so much admiration for the white man.... There's a lot of learned helplessness around here. Oh my. But so far, i've taught a 3 year old to put his trash in my trash can and not on the ground, and i'm teaching the 2 girls math, so i'm doing some good :)

HUG

Kristina

Teaching is a hard job....

2006-01-27T10:28:00.000-05:00

i spent too much time looking at pictures that i have to go meet my friend now. but everything is going well. i started teaching this week.....teaching is a hard job, let alone to teach children who speak a different language and have a different culture, anyway, i'll write more next friday. please keep the emails coming!!!!

kris

First Pictures Have Arrived!

2006-01-22T15:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Erin there are 236 photos for all of us to view.
Enjoy!

Karen

Tax Deductible Donation (finishing someone else's project)

2006-01-20T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hey All,

So my Peace Corps boss came to my site yesterday. It went very well. I'm being a good volunteer and I've accomplished a lot more than I thought. Anyway, the previous volunteer (who was a crappy ass volunteer, he was never in the comunity, didn't make any friends, etc.) set up a proposal to get a Computer Lab built in the community. He left the people of Foase with the impression that the money for the computer center was all raised and set to go. HOwever, there's still 5,777$ left to be raised through the Peace Corps donation process. JOhn, my PC supervisor, explained to me about how to donate and that it's tax deductible.

First, go to http://www.peacecorps.gov and click on DONATE NOW

Next, select the Africa region.

Then scroll down a bit until you see Ghana, "Community Resource Center and Computer Lab" the volunteer#s name will say J Levine, that's the previous volunteers name. And then just read the rest of the instructions and voila, you've donated and hopefully we can get the Computer Lab built in Foase. I don't know why Jeff thought that was the best thing for teh community, I mean, learning how to use a computer is important, but the schools need latrines and handwashing stations. Anyway, I also think it will be bad for Peace Corps if a volunteer promises something and does not follow through, so that's why I'm trying to raise the money for the Lab. So please, pass this info on to anyone who may be interested, even to your churches, etc. Foase is a very christian town, in case that helps.

So that's that.

I'll write again in about a week or so.

Kris

School has started....

2006-01-18T09:25:00.000-05:00

Hello

It's been a few week I believe. This past week school actually started, techinaclly it started one week ago but the students took wednesday to sweep and clean the school compuond and then not all ooof the teachers showed up until Monday! Schooling is much differnt here. Every class is at least 40 studernts, some as big as 63! for one teacher! can you imagine 63 first graders to one teacher? oh my. on top of that only one or two students has a textbook, so the teacher must spend countless hours writing on the black board form the textbook so the rest of the student can have the material. NExt, ther's still caning. I saw a teacher whip a child hard yesterday and i'm told that was small and minor. I don't konw. So many challenges.

So something not nice that happened this wek. Someone in my house stole my rechargable batteries from my solar charger and broke my solar chagrger. Dad said taht Becky has sent me a new charger already, so thank you Becky, and the rest do'nt worryt. But it just made me sad that someone would touch mystuff, someone from my own compound house. Ugh. Anyway, i guess solar power isn't the best when you do'nt have the house to yourself.

I've thought of mroe carepackage stuff:

Skittles

Starbursts

Crystal Light

Chocolate (snickers, mars, three muskateers, you konw a variety)

Mocha Mixes

-Nuetragena Oil Free Acne wash

-dove sensitive skin soap

-Tampons: OB green

-Pads: Always yellow or green

-Maps from AAA or other fgree places of the World; Africa; and Ghana. (the P5 teacher was teaching geography and didn't even have a map! so i loaned him mine, but i think if the school can have its own, it'd be best)

Coloring Books, Activty book, Children''s stories for the kdis.

Stickers

Bic Pens....the white ones.....those pens are so good :)

Is that enough stuff to ask for? haha....the only things that are really important are the bathroom supplies.

Wood carving is going well. Mrs Bush was in Ghana on tuesday, but i din't go to see her. I think i sprained my left ring finger so now it's hard to grip things, which makes wood carving hard, but i think today i will do well. My Associate Director (APCD) JOhn Addipa is ocming to Foase on tomorrow. My wellbutrin ran out on sunday and just todayt will my meds be ready for pick up. but i'm ok :-D And I"m gaining weight, so i'm trying to eat more veggies and less oil....very difficult here, haha. OH! i got my harid braided iwth fake hair, but boy did the fake hair ITCH so i took it out 4 days later. but it was fun while it lasted.

miss you all

Kris

Africa gets cold?

2006-01-09T09:35:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year to all!

It's been awhile since i've written. Too many things have happened for me to tell you everything but i'll do my best. And I'm tired i've been on the computer for close to two hours now. haha, but don't worry, it's not expensive, two hours is the same price as one hour in Techiman.

So, yes Africa gets chilly. SO chilly that some mornings i can see my breath!!!! Can you believe that?! I sure couldn't the morning that first happened. So Harmattan is upon us, cold in the night and morning and quite warm in the day. It's drier, but still doesn't feel as dry as a Michigan Winter, although the dust makes up for it. My poor lungs are crying with the dust, smoke, and exhuast fumes.

For christmas my landlord bought a goat and killed it, Although i didn't get to see that becuase christmas afternoon i went to the peace corps suboffice and had a nice americna meal, complete with pot roast and carrots and potatoes, stuffing, green bean cassorole, and snikerdoodle cookies! mmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!! and i also picked up the lastest copy of Harry Potter! I was very sad at the end, why's she gotta kill everyone? The last what, three books, someone good has died? Oh well, it was nice to read it, but it also made me homesick. People in Ghana think it's strange I'm reading a book about wizards and even more strange that in this book there are good wizards and a school to learn about magic, cuz in Ghana, there are only bad witches and wizards, and only bad magic, maybe someone will read Harry Potter and start doing good magic? but when isay that, i'm only laughed at! haha

Then on the 27-29 i went back to Krobo to stay with my homestay family. It was almost like going home. It was really nice to see everyone, I wish i could've stayed longer. My father, being MP, has got a lot of money now, so Freddie the eldest (21) has a brandnew laptop! NICE! Just like in the US with a CD burner and everything! haha, so i got to help teach him how to play the games, spider solitaire, free cell, solitaire, hearts, minesweeper.....but then he spent the whole time playing the games, boys, the same everywhere! hehe. And I got to finally see my Maame's farm, and help pick tomatoes, but she would only let me pick about 15 and then told me to sit down! So i tried! it was a very long walk, up and down steep hills to get there! I was again surprised at how far it was. So it was a very nice visit, and i hope to visit them again.

Oh! while i was away at Krobo, my cat, Obolo, got run over by a taxi!!!! well only his leg did, but now i think his left back leg is broken! the vet is supposed to come soon. you know, i'm really annoyed with my landlord. he's worse than a parent. he doesn't let me do anything on my own and he told the community if someone wants to invite me somewhere they must first ask him!!!!!!!!! what is that about? he's not my parent, and he's not my supervisor. I have fine judgement in people and if i make a mistake and something bad happens then it's on me. i feel like i'm in prison in my own home. i have to get up the courage to talk to him. you see he's very scary, he wants things done his way, he's always right, he always has to talk, god. anyway, i'm having some difficulties with that. He also told some people I said somethings which i did NOT. anyway, he only comes to Foase onteh weekends, I can't wait for him to go back to work, he's been in Foase for teh christmas, ugh.

So new years' eve, i didn't do much, i went to bed at 8pm. But New Years Day was a busy day. I went to the Presbytarian CHurch with my friend Abena and her mother, and then i came home before church finished becuase it was supposed finish at noon but i left at 1240 and it was still going and Appiah, my landlord, said i was to have lunch with him at the house between 12 and 1 anyway, when i got back to the house, he gave me a short lecture on Ghanaian time and being on time, etc. I think he was drunk by then. He was very drunk the whole day. OK here's the good part. the happy part. Marbollo, a youth club (youth meaning 20s) put on a New Year's Party! It was amazing! Chrissy, you remember the CSA conferences? It was like that, with guests and food, and then dancing! And yes I danced, and yes people were surprised and said that i've done well...and oh my,the Obruni is dancing, haha, so many pictures were taken. But it was a good time and i hadn't danced in a while. SO that was nice, I didn't stay for the whole party cuz it's like miami and lasted until about 5am. and well, i need to go to bed by 12 midnight as we all know, haha, actually 12 midnight is the latest i've seen in Ghana, i didn't think i could stay up that late here, haha. But it was very very nice.

So, besides feeling like a trapped little girl at my house, everything is going well.

I miss you all!

Kristina

In God We Trust

2005-12-15T08:55:00.000-05:00

That's the motto of a Junior Secondary School in the town next to
mine, it made me chuckle :)

So, the first week of moving to a new town is quite busy! Lemme try to
say as much as I can....

It's exams week so there's no work or observation to be done for my
primary project at the school, which is ok, since there's a lot to be
done within my house and the internet:-D. National Immunization Days
for Polio were last Wednesday through Saturday. I woke up and had to
be at the clinic at 6am, and that's not early for a Ghanaian. We
needed to get to teh students before school started. So this lovely
vaccination for Polio consists of this bad tasting liquid that is
squirted, two drops, into the child's mouth, from 1 week to 5 years of
age. And to make sure they don't get it twice we dye the nail of their
left ring finger. I was the dye-er :) and my hand became very dyed
becuase we all know how messy i can be, haha, it's just now coming
off, one week later :). OH and we walked from house to house, this
wasn't sitting down in the clinic and the children coming to you....so
i got to see a lot of Foase, and it's a much bigger town that I
previously thought! So on Wednesday morning we vaccinated 150 kids in
3.5 hours, not bad eh? Then on Thursday we vaccinated about
10....there was some miscommunication between me, my friend's sister,
and my friend about going to Kumasi and so I was told he was waiting
for me at my home and Abena, the woman i was vaccinating with, told me
to go home to see him. So that was that for the day. (but when i got
home he wasn't there, oh my, the miscommunication....) Then on Friday
morning, Abena walked around the same place we went to the previous
days, said she was tired, and we sat down on the main road for 2.5
hours, just resting, not doing any vaccinations. THen she said it was
time to go, so we went to the clinic without doing any vaccinations
that day and the head nurse guy was ok with that! Of course Abena
conversed with him in Twi, so I don't know what she told him, but that
was that. Strange to me, it was quite the learning experience. Oh and
to mark the house that it's been visited, we write S2 with a circle
around it with chalk on the outside of the house! can you bleieve
that? and the people are cool with it.

Earlier last week, i believe it was Monday, i went to Kumasi with my
counterpart Mr. Appiah to do some food shopping, he took me to the
"European" Market and guess what was there? Meijer toaster
pastries!!!!! no lie!!!! how funny is that? I got really exicted
though when i saw Meijer, although I didn't buy them becuase i didn't
feel like toaster pastries AND who knows how old they are if MEIJER
toaster pastries are in Africa, you know? Oooh, but i did treat myself
to some grapefruits and mandarin oragnes....fresh, not canned mandarin
oranges.

I'm learning how to be a wood carver! I've had a total of three
lessons already. Last nite I carved a fertility doll aka simple doll.
Tonight I'm supposed to finish it and make the simple male doll too. I
can wait, it's a lot of fun, and i think i mentioned this before my
teacher is also left-handed, so it's great!

OH! haha, two nights ago I finally got to eat a vegetable dinner in
Ghana, raw and lightly steamed :) Well, here the coco yam leaf aka
Kontomire, is Ghana's spinach, so i was gonna eat it raw, but when i
did that, something told me there was a reason that Ghanaians boil it
so well, so i pan steamed it wiht salt and black papper, well
apparently that's nearly a sin in Ghana, cuz my counterpart's son,
Albert, who's 11 years old, what shocked at what I had done to the
Kontomire and said it made him sad....so sad taht he went to bed right
then! LOL oh my, i was cracking up....i luagh just thinking about it,
i mean seriously, like stir fried spinach, it was good and he was so
sad, and when i tell this to other ghanaians they also look at me with
shock, haha.......but i like my vegetables :) oh but cooking, i do
like ot cook my own food, but it's so time consuming, lately i haven't
been able to cook until late and by then i'm so hungry i can hardly
think straight, i have to get into a better schedule.......it's nice
haveing a kitchen though, oooh i made pancakes the other day :)

ok, there's something wrong with my right thumb and palm....i have
some kind of irritation, it's slightly swollen and hitting the space
bar it aggravating it, so i must go. Also, i'm very hungry :-Dit's
130pm and i haven't eaten since 8am.

I miss everyone please keep writing.....

oh! and i learned that if you send anything the cheap way.....by
boat....it will take at least 6 months to get to me, so the best way
is through Air Mail, but that is expensive. Also a few people asked me
about type of tampons, OB the green kind. And if you're really itchin'
to send me a present a NiMH AA battery recharger that plugs into the
wall would be great! I brought a solar one and it doesn't charge the
batteries very well, i've lost many pictures becuase the batteries
died early. And, I may try to purchase a CD player here, but COmputer
speakers to hook up to my discman is also something i've been missing.
It'd be nice to share my music with my friends.

OH! and Jim, thank you very very much for the iPod, just recently i
got an adapater and was able to charge it, tons of great music, thank
you! and Mom, you can take 50$ from my savings account to give to Dad
to give to Jim for the iPod.....or something like that.

Anyway,

I miss you all. Merry holidays.....

Kris

Welcome to Foase

2005-12-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

From email dated: 12/4/05

Yesterday I officially moved in to Foase! And Friday I was officially
sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! Yay! now it's time to move in,
plan, learn, and start working, ahh! scary! but it'll be good. Foase
is a beatiful village. James and Angela spent last night with me,
since they needed to stay in Kumasi anyway, cuz the trip from techiman
to their villages is too far for one day. 3 hours in a tro is long
enough, eeek. haha, time and transportation, among many many other
things will be much different when i return.

my kittens seem to be adjusting just fine, but then again, it's only
been one day.

oh, and i went to the sub-office to day to upload my pics from my
camera, but someone was using the computer for work, so i couldn't
bump her off, maybe when i get back from the internet i'll be able to
do that. 240 pics, it's about time i uplaoded them! haha.

on that note, sorry to do this in a mass email, Jan and Dad, I don't
need another memory stick, this one is not full and i have 240 pics,
and me and erin already worked something out. Thank you very much for
the thought :).

ok 8 min left and the internet is begin slow. it's really strange
right now. i'm sure i'll have more to say next time. still in teh
settling in mode.

merry holidays!

it's nice and toasty here :) harmattan is well on its way :)

kris (sister/ maame Yaa)

OH!!!! PS Christina Quetel! you moved and never gave me your new addy!
how am i supposed to mail your b-day letter without your addy?! :-*

I'm Alive!

2005-12-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

From email dated: 11/26/05

Hey Everyone,

Happy BeLated Thanksgiving! The internet cafe in Techiman broke down
while I was at site visit, and it's still down...apparently the server
busted, ouch for business!.....so i took a taxi to Nkronza for the
internet! I've been missing everyone! So much to say......

Thanksgiving! I'm actually happy that several of the trainees really
love holidays because they made a huge deal about celbrating
thanksgiving and convinced the trainers to give us thursday off to
make food and have a thanksgiving celebration! Woohoo! So it was
amazing, about 10 trainees bought and killed 3 turkeys, so we actually
got to eat turkey! And some people went the extra mile to buy a bunch
of real potatoes (those are expensive here) and made mashed potatoes,
others made mashed yams....pretty much the same thing.....I help out
with fruit salad, and other people brought green bean dishes, not
green bean cassorole, but still really really good, and people even
made stuffing and apple crisp!!!!! oh my! it was a wonderful day! and
people even talked about thanksgiving day football....the lions were
mentioned! haha!

Oh, my cat has an eye infection, to me it looks like cat pink eye...so
i took it to the vet! It was a surprisingly painless experience! Took
a taxi to the vet......i was the only "patient/customer" so I put
Obolo on the table (dirty table mind you) and the vet looked at him
(yes obolo is a boy) and told me the medicine i needed to buy from the
Chemical Shop....which is a drug store....and also told me about
de-worming pills....to de-worm all 5 cats cost 8,000 cedis, not bad at
all....and! there was no charge for the visit. I asked my language
teacher if this was normal and he said that the ghana gov't subsidizes
vets income as a way of encouraging people to take their pets to teh
vet, so the vets salary comes from the gov't. Cool huh? oh and Obolos
medicine was only 6,000 cedis so not too bad. comes out to about
$1.50. And his eye is already looking better! (i went on wednesday)

Oh that was funny too! So wednesday was the trainee cooking
competition. The language groups had to make a ghanaian dish. My group
decided to make Fufuo ne Nkrakra (Fufu and light soup), my favorite!
lucky me! Peace Corps gave us money to buy the food and we had to go
to the market and pick it out and make it. So I took Obolo to the vet
before my group went to the market, I carried Obolo through the
Market....he was not happy, mewing the whole time! I don't think he
liked being in a basket for 2+ hours......And I need to take pics of
teh market, it's one of the largest in West Africa.....think Art Fair
times 2, it's crazy! So it was a good experience buying food, and
we've had much more practice with language so we can chat more with
the sellers and get a semi decent price with the food. Semi decent,
haha. Damn white skin! = rich.
ohwell.....history....media....policitics....all play a part in that
one.....

Now for the cooking! You'd be very proud (maybe) we bought a live
chicken and Chris (who's also from MI, sagniaw and he went to MTU)
killed the chicken. Cassie held it's wings and legs while Chris slit
it's throat. I just watched. And when you go to pluck the feathers
out it's best to pppour boiling hot water over the bird, the feather
come out like a charm! (oh and we didn't let it run around, cuz our
language teacher didn't want us to, cuz the blood would go everywhere
and we were cooking at my house, but the bird does twitch for quite
some tiime) Then it was choping the chicken and gutting it, while
chris and cassie and laura were doing that i was grinding the hot
pepper for the soup. Anyway, long story short (it took us three hours
to cook) everything came out GREAT! and it was a goodlearning
experience about how to cook.

I'll give you the short version:
Fufu consists of boiled unripe plantains and boiled cassava
(different areas of ghana use different tubers and what not, but here
in Brong Ahafo it's made of this) and then you just pound the boiled
plantain as hard as you can and someone else turns it until it turns
into a nice cookie dough/silly putty consistency....then you do the
same thing to teh cassava and then you pound the two together. you
pound with a motar and pestle....very energy and time consuming, but
tasty, once you get used to it :)

the light soup is chicken, onion, hot peper, tomatoes, salt, ginger,
and water. really simple, really good :-D LOVE....shaza, if you put
some green beans in there it would remind me of your mom's greenbeans
soo much.....i know it's not the same, but it reminds me of her....

So that's the cooking deal....oooh! And before we started cooking i
made a handwashing staiton for my family. that was fun......it works
too, i'm gonna make one at my site. and i'll take pictures! man i
haven't had the opportunity to upload my pics from my camera.....i
have 202 photos saved on my memory stick already, and there's still
room! whoohoo for 512 mb :-D anyway, pics have been taken and are
coming, just not yet.

ok my site! Foase, is AMAZING! I love it! It's incredibly green! I
live in a compound house that's more like a U shape with grass in the
middle and a baby mango tree in the middle. my landlord is less scary
that i first thought, but he's got a lot of money and likes to show it
off, which i don't care for, but it works out good for me, I have a
gas stove, a refrigerator and a ceiling fan, oh and he even provided
me with a bike (he bought it for the last pcv). So that's nice. I
don't have running water, so it'll be 2 years of bucket baths! so i'm
really enjoying my cold showers at my homestay right now! As for my
job, I'll be a health teacher :) My supervisor is teh headmaster of a
primary school and so i'll be talking to each class KG1-P6 and there's
also a JSS (middle school) and another primary school that they want
me to teach at as well....so that's gonna keep me very busy, but the
town also needs a WATSAN commitee, to learn to put the toilet paper in
the latrine pit and not in a bucket, and handwashing stations i think
would be nice. Also, there's a dump and children play in it, gotta
stop that one. Oh! and there's a clinic! so i'll have my hands
full.....maybe i won't get to read so much, haha.......oh my! opening
a bank account in ghana! First of all there's no such thing as privacy
laws, second banks don't provide youwith pens to fill out their
paperworks, third, there's no such thing as a line/queue.....everyone
is just crowded around the teller and she's doing 5 people's
transactions at once.....thank the lord my supervisor came with
me....it was extremely overwhelming and exhausting. My banking town
and market town is Kumasi the 2nd largest city in Ghana, also in the
Ashanti region, and the Ashantis have a reputation for being
agressive, and in Kumasi they certainly live up to it. Man oh man,
will i be a different chick by the end of these two years! :-D

That's the short version of the last few weeks. I think this email is
long enough. I have Oral Proficiency Interview on tuesday, and
swearing in on friday, and saturday i'll be at Foase for 2 full years!
I'm going to miss my homestay family a whole bunch.....and all the
trainees :) But good thing i'm in the middle of the country, everyone
is just 3-10 hours away, not 18 or 20, ugh. .....

HOpe everyone is doing well. THANK YOU for your emails, keep them
coming, i'll try to answer personally next time.....

Kris

Wet Letters & Letters to a Classroom

2005-11-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

11/9/05

The internet has been exceptionally slow today.

Can someone please tell Grandma Genelda that I got her letter and I
wrote her back right away, but my friend who was gonna mail it for me,
spilled water on it and it earased 70% of the letter, so i have to
write a new one. (she felt so bad she bought me an oragne, how cute is
that?)

Shaza, I got your letter! Thank you Chicky!!!!! Keep them coming.

Jude, you said you don't have too much acess to computer, but I just
wanted to let you know taht I received your letter yesterday and wrote
you back, but i left it in my house, and i won't see mike tomorrow to
give it to him to give to you. So, i'll give it to him when he comes
back from site visit and he can give it to you when he moves up there.

Hellow everyone else :) Toomrrow i head off to site for one week.
Nervous and excited all at the same time. I met my landlord and my
surpervisor. My supervisor is a nice old man, headmaster of the
Methodist Primary school in Foase, and i think/hope things will go
well. My landlord kinda creeps me out, for no apparent reason. So i'm
just keeping my eyes open. Luckily he only comes there on the
weekends. I'll tell you more when i get back from site. And i'm
excited that the Head of the District SHEP program (school health
education program) is a femalE!!! Yay! so i'm expecting to become very
close to her. I hope she's a ncie woman.

I'm looking forward to cooking for myself....remind me to tell you all
about taht later.

i need to send this before i get timed out.

HUG

Kris

ps Uncle Kevin or Aunt Michelle, there's this program where i can
write a letter a month to a classroom, lemme know if you're
interested. more details, if you're interested.

The Taxi and the Goat

2005-10-17T09:20:00.000-04:00

Hey Everyone!

LOTS has happened since tuesday.

Wednesday, I think it was. I saw a goat get hit by a taxi.....or was it tuesday and I already wrote you about it? Anyway, that was disturbing. The taxi hit and ran, but surprisinly the child-goat only had a broken leg....it was a badly broken leg, but my wish is that the leg heals and the goat can still live. It was standing up when we left it. Man, and to make matters even more strange....later that night James' brother (james was with me when i saw the goat get hit) hit 3 human children with his taxi and one died! so now his bro is in jail.....(his homestay brother) how crazy is that? haha, i bet that doesn't make you feel very good about my safety with the transportation here....but i take good care of watching such things.....oh man, pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here and that is scary!

Then wednesday afternoon, me and my homestay sister Peggy went to Techiman market! It's the biggest in the region and oh my goodness, it's big. I've never seen so many piles of yams. Mind you yam here is not a sweet potato, it's more like a regular potato just extra large (like two feet long large). And of course everyone wants to touch the "obruni" (white person). It's really bizarre....but I'd rather have constant good hearted attention than to be ignored and stared at like a bug (like the US would) And oh what a sight when me and Peggy were trying to get a taxi back to Krobo.......i think there were 6 taxi drivers fighting over who would drive us home....and Peggy already knew who we were gonna get a ride from (a friend of our brother, Fred). So that was a little overwhelming, i just hung onto Peggy and let her do the talking, since it was all in Twi (although I'm getting better...SLOWLY). So that's market day.

Thursday we were supposed to find out about our sites in the morning. BUT this is Peace Corps :) and they kept postponing it all day! Finally after being there from 9am-3pm they set up the Cultural fair and we got to go to different stations, like games, clothes, music (yes they made the white people dance! haha), food (yummy.....i don't like so many fried foods, but coconut and sugar cane are to die for! ahah), disting (guess what the things are) and i think that's it. so that was fun, and of course, being a US agency, they made too much food for us....but beingin Ghana, there were tons of kids standing outside the church (the windows are just holes in teh walls, no screen or glass) so we just handed our let overs to them....so everything got eaten.....now it's going around town that when the Obrunis go to school they get fed. But that's only sometimes.

So after the cultural fair Noel, the training manager, comes in and tells us that they're STILL having problems printing off teh paperwork for our sites. But he told John (he APCD putting the sites packets togheter) that the engery and anxiety in the room is so much that if the PCTs don't at least find out where their site is, it will be dangerous! hecks yeah....it was funny until it was 415 and we were supposed to go home at 430 and we still didn't know our sites. I can handle waiting ALL day and hanging out chatting with friends, but to do that, and then have to go home without any info...that would be too much. SO! i found out I'm going to be in a village called Foase, just outside Kumasi, in Ashanti region. So I get to learn more Twi! (i learned teh alphabet, it's simialr to english except it's got 22 letters and 2 letters that are different from english)

Now friday morning we got our packets, so let's see if i can write you about it. Total population of the town is 6,600 themajor religions are Christian and Muslim, apparently this village disdains those who practice traditional beliefs....but I wanted a traidtional belief site, i guess i'll just have to make friends with the oucasts ;).....It's about 30km away from Kumasi, there's a PC sub-office there, and so I will pro'ly get a new addy, or have my Accra addy forwarded up to Kumasi, that will be very nice since Accra will be 7 hours away.

My accommodations! It's a house made up of a living room, a bedroom, and a separate room for a kitchen. I have a ventilated inproved latrine and a bathroom (meaning that's where i will bucket bathe). The landlord will use my potty when he comes to visit the village....oooh gooody, lol. My house is a part of a compound. I'll have to take pictures and show you then, it's hard to explain. Good News! My house is on the national eletricity grid....thus, i have electricity! yay! but, i will also have an electric bill, boo! lol.

My job description: I will work with the water and sanitation committee in the town. My duty will be to support and improve primary health delivery programs, sensitize the community on HIV/AIDS, support and improve the work of teh Watsan committee. I will also assist with HIV/AIDS awareness education, family planning education, evironmental hygiene. I will also participate with the Health centers immunizations, baby-weighing sessions with focus on nutriotion and hygiene practices. That's not everything, but that's the gist. So my assignment is pretty open, and i should have plenty to do. i'm very excited, not so much about the latrine cuz ever since I've been in ghana, i've had a flush toilet....but you know, i'll get used to it. (you should see the pee area near where we have class, it's just some bricks stacked up to form three walls and you pee straight on teh dirt. that's it, basically out in the open, whoohooo). Oh and I'm replacing a volunteerm, which i'm happy about because then i'll have someone to show me the ropes a bit, a few projects already started, and the community already knows what peace corps is. so those are all pluses to me.

Last night I found out my Akan name. I am Yaa, thursday born. My brother Fred (he's in university so he doesn't come home very much) has a book with all the years and dates and stuff. So August 12th, 1982 was a thursday.

Oh! and a wish list :)

If anyone gets the urge to send me something please send one of these:

ziplock bags (i left a TON at mom's house, i forgot to pack the empty ones! ahhh)

travel tissue packs (great for toilet paper while traveling)

crayons and color pencils, although i may be able to find them here

Money :-D

A gardening book, i'd like to start growing a few of my own veggies

An astronomy book (the stars are beautiful out here)

A Ghana, or west africa plant vegetation book

Yoga book, i'll have time to practice :) and a Ghana history book (there's not really any books strores here)

tampons....i'm not sure how well the Diva Cup is going to work with a latrine

speakers to plug into my CD player so I can have a "stereo" in my house.

no rush, i can get along just fine without, but all would be handy :)

Miss you guys!

Kris

First Week of Homestay

2005-10-10T08:43:00.000-04:00

Hello,

So it's finally the weekend! And the end of the first week of homestay. Well, I didn't actually get to my house until Wednesday night, but you know, same thing. I'm in a small town called Krobo, just outside Techiman. As I think I've said before my homestay father is an MP (member of parliment), so he just arrived from Accra last night, but I didn't meet him until this morning because last nite I was not feeling well. He seems like a nice friendly man, I was kinda scared of meeting him cuz he holds such a prestigous position.

Oh if my emails start having a different sort of english, I apologize, the English spoken here is a little slower and no contractions. All us trainees are starting to speak like it, it's funny and fun :).

So much has happened. but I have 1/2 hour to write, so lemme just dive in. My house is very nice. My bedroom is about the same size as the one in Mom's house. My very first meal was rice balls and groundnut soup,. very very good, only there was so much that I could only eat half of it....the servings here are so big!.....my room already had string from teh ceiling to hang up my misquito net (peace corps provided us with one) and so that was a quick and easy fix. I'm spoiled, I have electricity AND running water....but no sink. and the toilet doens't have a seat, it broke off or something, so it's still a squatting technique, unless i'm feeling lazy and i put toilet paper down on the bare ceramic, haha.....i had to do that last nite......

My mother is a very friendly beautiful woman. She's short, pro'ly 5 feet maybe 5'1", but most people here are pretty short. I have 5 brothers and sisters......Louis (2) Sheila (3) Etin (6) Rose (17) and Fred (20). There's also a cousin Kwasi who does all the chores for the house, he said he's 15 but he look 9 to me! it's crazy how young people look! but i'm told Ghanaians think Americans look young too, or maybe they just can't tell our age....i feel like we all look really old, haha.

So we started out Twi classes....I have to keep reminding myself that we've only been in town since wednesday and that I can't possibly have mastered the language by now....it's just hard for me to remember all the stuff we've learned....we have 2 two0hour sessions of Twi each day......and one two hour session this morning. once we figure out where our site will be (thursday the 13th) we'll stop Twi and learn whatever language is spoken at that site. I have no idea where I"ll be placed or what my primary project will be. I'll keep you updated.

It's true what they say about the little kids coming and staring at the Obrunis (white/foriegn person) while we're in class. We have Twi classes in the veranda of a fellow trainee's house and we have Watsan classes in a Pentecostal church I believe. and the windows are open, no screen or glass, and it has a dirt floor. it's nice. One thing i'll have to get used to is the hard benches everyone sits on...but with time, my butt will get use to it :)....ooooh! a family has a pet monkey near the church! i saw it today, i think next week i'll bring my camera to take a picture.....so that was pretty fun :)

Today the kids were really cute, they grab our hands and "helped" us to the church and then they sat on the empty benches and stared, but sometimes they started talking and got loud and Prosper, our teacher, had to hiss them quiet.

oh yeah, they Hiss instead of Psst here, but they also make kissy noises to grab people's attention, that i don't like....but it's just how it is.

I got to watch my mom and Kwasi make FuFu last nite! It's amazing how boiled yam and plaintain can turn so doughy just by pounding on them and adding only the slightest bit of water! i got pics, it's crazy, but that wasn't for me, I'll have FuFu on Sunday, or so mother told me last nite.

Everyday is up and down, but I know that this is right. I'm getting better at greeting people, and it's nice how friendly everyone is once you greet them....that's very important here, and i wonder if people in the States would be more frienddly if people startted greeting everyone they passed. but there's a lot of epople in the states, at least in cities, and i'm told in Rural areas in the states people greet one another too......i really like how things are here, it's a nice pace......already i'm scared to come back to life in the states.
haha. Def'ly makes me appreciate the little things more, and to take time to enjoy everything, it's great when ice cream or watermelon is a special treat! and luckily i haven't been craving a lot of American foods....but when people start talking about them, oh, then it's hard.

And did i mention? there's 5 one month old kittens at my house too!!!
they're so cute, i'm hoping to take one with me to site to be my mouse trap and my buddy. Cats are less work than a dog.

I'm excited for 5 weeks from now, when living with my homestay family will be more normal and i'llhave a better grasp on Twi and more Watsan knowledge......right now it's all a little overwhelming.

ok, i think that's all for now...i know it's jumpy, but hey, my brain gets jumpy!

Miss ya, write me (letters!)

oh and i'm gonna try to get to Techiman once a week to check email.

Kris

Kumasi

2005-10-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

Hey Everyone, I have 8 min remaining at this internet cafe in Kumasi. I'm on my way to Techiman now, staying the night at the PC sub-headquarters. 7 hours on a tro-tro today, my oh my. That's all i can say, it coulda been A LOT worse, but it's hard staying in the same position for 7 hours straight...and of course, I sat next to a man, who of course asked me if i was married....Thank you Marquez for allowing me to use you :-D so you all can call me Mrs. Griffin! LOL....anyway then he proceeded to ask me if i was a virgin! oh my, i'm not sure if i can handle these men....but i've only been here a week......

Lyz, I'm so glad you like the CDs!!!!! and Techiman, is not for sure my final destination, i won't know for a few more weeks...patience everyone :-D I'm startting homestay this week! hopefully i can write you over the weekend about that! And wow, girl, you sure know a lot about Ghana! I'm looking forward to the market and the monkey sanctuary

Well there's 4 min now and I want to make sure this is posted.

Kris

Safe and Sound in Accra

2005-09-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

Received this from Kris @ 5:59 AM our time Monday:

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I"m safe and sound in Ghana. Right now I"m at PC headquarters, gonna have a medical interview soon and get two more shots, for teh next month it looks like i'll be getting shots periodically. So far so good, there's 50 of us trainees! Which is huge! I def'ly deal better in smmall groups, but everyone is cool and everyone makes a point to sit with somenoe different at meals. so that's nice. yesterday while everyone but 4 of us went to town to go to a bar, me and 3 others stayed back and then hiked to a waterfall...it was beautiful and we saw slash and burn farming, and cassava plants and the makings of palm wine. Ghana food is really good so far.........it's defly stressful with everything needed to be learned, and just like in the caribbean you need to greet everyone you pass....which like in the caribbean is hard for me, but i';m making for of an effort. i only know how to say good morning how are you i'm fine....but that's a start....we don't know how to spell yet. I miss everyone....they say the 6 month mark is the pivotl point for homesickness and what not....hopefully i'll be ok. all right, i'd like to write more but there's people waiting for teh comptuer.

love

kris

Really On Her Way

2005-09-23T20:36:00.000-04:00

Kris called as she waited for the bus to take her to JFK airport in New York City. She was excited and confident about starting her training. She will only be in Accra a few days, have a short assignment, (it sounded like a scavenger hunt...here's the directions, now go find this village all on her own...) then do about 10 weeks of training in Techiman. This city/town is about 7 hours north. She thought it would be about 10 days before she had internet or phone access. We'll all just have to be patient.

Kris also mentioned there are 51 people being trained including 2 married couples and a woman who will turn 50 during her assignment.

I'll let you know when I hear more. Karen

2005-09-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

Karen, Larry, and I saw Kristina off Tuesday around 8:15 AM. We met at the Starbucks in the airport around 7:30 AM. Kris was excited, nervous, excited. She slept really well she said, even though she didn't go to bed until past 1 AM.

If you go to her YaHoo photos (http://photos.yahoo.com/binghamkristinal ) you can see the pictures of Kris at Metro Airport leaving for Philly. Just shots of me and Kris, and Karen, Kris, and Larry (Karen's partner).

Kris didn't cry, at least up until she was out of our sight, through the metal detectors. Lots of hugs, Karen cried, but was happy and excited for her. We're all very proud of her.

--Bill

Departing Tomorrow

2005-09-19T22:53:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know, I'll be leaving MI at 830am tomorrow (the 20th). I will be flying into Philly for 2.5 days and then it's off to Accra, Ghana for me!

Peace Corps would like me to inform you of a few things....

1) mail will take 6-8 weeks to get to me. Remember to write "Air Mail" and "Par Avion" on the envelope. it could get lost, or opened and valuables stolen. Post cards need to be in envelopes because postal workers like to hang up the pictures on the wall:
"We suggest that in your first letters, you ask your Volunteer family member to give an estimate of how long it takes for him or her to receive your letters and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he or she missed one. Postcards should be sent in envelopes--otherwise they may be found on the wall of the local post office."

2) apparently volunteers tend to like to their "war" stories....so if I happen to be like most volunteers, don't get too concerned if you only hear about the illnesses and lack of good food, I'll be taken care of....at least that's what PC wants me to believe, lol.

3)Phone calls:
When dialing direct to Ghana from the U.S., dial 011 (the international access code) + 233 (the country code) + the number. Volunteers generally set up phone calls with people in the U.S. in advance, and have the distant party call them, which is much less expensive than calling the U.S. from Ghana.

4) Sending Packages:
Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due the high incidence of theft and heavy customs taxes. You may want to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. We do not recommend, however, that costly items be sent through the mail. Even though Volunteers eventually get local post office boxes, you may always use the following address to send letters and/or packages to your family member:

John Doe, PCV
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 5796
Accra-North, Ghana
West Africa

It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. Packages can be sent via surface mail (2-3 weeks arrival time) or by ship (4-6 months). The difference in cost can be a factor in deciding which method to utilize. For lightweight but important items, DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Accra, but costs are very expensive. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to the Country Director, s/c Peace Corps, 26 West Cantonments, Switchback Lane, Accra, Ghana, West Africa. The telephone number for the Peace Corps office in Ghana is (233) 21 773 831, should DHL need this information. If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com.

There's also some more pics up on the yahoo site.

I can not believe I'm leaving MI in 9 hours! holy baloney crap :)

More pictures

2005-08-25T15:18:00.000-04:00

There's a new photo album on the yahoo site: http://photos.yahoo.com/binghamkristinal . It's pictures from when I went to the Warped tour and my Going Away Party, as well as Becky's wedding shower. Enjoy!

I got my staging kid on Tuesday! I leave DTW at 830am on the 20th for Philly! Will land in Ghana at 530pm on the 23rd! can you believe it?

Pics

2005-08-05T14:35:00.000-04:00

So, someone told me that actually check this periodically. So I thought I'd update it a bit more frequently now, didn't think anyone was coming here. Anyway, there's pictures on my yahoo photo albums at http://photos.yahoo.com/binghamkristinal. These pics are from when I went to visit Chrissy in DC (well Purcelleville, VA but close enough).

I also have a follow-up dermatologist appointment this afternoon, requested my PeaceCorps medical. Now, it's time to "pray/hope/wish/cross-your-fingers/whatever you do" for Peace Corps to say, eh, you'll be 100% a-ok in Ghana, no prob with getting eczema this past winter.
Oh! and yahoo chat groups are a GREAT way to get in touch with other PC volunteers and with your host country! I've met more people through these groups and they've sent me more links to other places than I ever could have imagined. There's also a yahoo chat group for friends and family of PC volunteers.

Have a great Friday afternoon :-D