One of the few times so far that I do not have anything in particular to post about. Everyone is walking around here at the hub site in Kukurantumi and enjoying the blessings of a very sweet and delicious dessert brought to us courtesy of the food workers that are hired on certain days to cater lunch. I am not sure where they got their recipe but it was highly sought after. People are still milling about licking their plates clean.
The feeling is more relaxed among the members of the class as the LPI is mostly finished. Some have to do theirs again since the tape recorder did not function correctly when their interviews were conducted. At some point we will learn how we fared and some of the comments of the staff on our strengths and weaknesses. I have already fallen off the language practice bandwagon since there is no test in my imminent future. With that being the case I have reverted back to asking my family for Twi lessons which still come too fast for me to keep up but are fun ways to pass the time at night.
This is the final week for the home stay portion of training. If all of us have done our homework correctly then we should be swearing in shortly and then off to our sites for two years of hilarity and insanity. I am anxious for it with all the unknowns still lurking about in the back of my mind. What kind of a teacher will I be, how will I get along in the new community, where am I ever going to find the time to read a book? Well, the last question is a bit of a tongue-and-cheek comment as I have already had more than enough time to finish all the books that I brought along with me. Plenty of time to get more books and do some writing in the coming months.
But those are some serious questions there. I don't know what to expect and since that is something that I cannot control I had just better let it go and figure it out when I get there. We are to take on other projects while in our community and report on them frequently while serving in the country. HIV/AIDS education is one prominent topic, gender youth development programs are another, and it can be something that you yourself find that the community needs and will support during and then after your term of service. I haven't the foggiest notion of what I might be doing for that yet. I think that there are a few avenues that are of interest right now to me, but not much can be decided while I am still so far away from the site.
Some other small things (please recall that this post had no theme so I get to just rattle off odd stuff) that I am finding are necessary. I enjoy seeing my old photos that came with me digitally here on the netbook. If ever I just need to relax and smile I will go to the photos and just rummage through them for a while. I left the old Rebel at home so my shots don't turn out so dark, but that is a good thing. I am not lugging around a giant camera in the hot jungle climate waiting to lose it or have it be stolen when I am not looking. One minor glitch in my export of the images was that not all of the photos came over when I used the thumb-drive to copy files. Some are just not there. Bummer. Yet the result of me smiling at my photos still remains accomplished. Add to that my MP3 collection playing in the background and you have a pretty successful night.
Doing laundry isn't nearly as much fun as you would think it without a washing machine and dryer at your easy command. I have been made fun of by other volunteers by being one who lets the family do the washing but that changed recently. I had some extra time at the end of one of morning sessions to do some laundry and I took that opportunity to do some laundry with my sister, Ronney. She is absolutely fantastic at this job. I am horrendous at it. When I would get half a shirt done, she was finished with 75% of her own clothes. Still, she was able to teach my some more techniques and get me pointed in the right direction. To put it mildly, it is not easy to do your laundry by hand with just a bucket and some soap. It is possible, but not easy. Drying is done on the line in about three hours if the sun stands tall and bright in the sky.
One thing struck me the other day as I was eating a dinner in my home: the food is good and tasty, but it will be an entir plate or bowl of the same thing. I don't know why this took so long for me to realize but when I was in the states, I am very accustomed to having a dinner that might have some green vegetables or salad accompanied by a single serving of meat and a starchy food item all on a plate. I get to pick and choose what I eat during the meal. Here, if you are eating fufu and soup, that is all you will be eating. It is a giant portion of course, but the flavor will be the same bite after bite. Just different. When I get the chance at my site I will experiment with Ghanaian/American combinations to see if my taste buds like that better.
Lastly for this post of random observations, in Asafo I live right next to a highway called Accra Road. The traffic on the road cruises at about 60 miles an hour for the faster trucks and taxis, but there are a few very heavy rigs that will go lumbering up the long hill next to where I cross. The point here is that the road is where many adults and children cross to go to town. So this means that horns are honking as drivers believe a pedestrian is nearing to close to the road. It is only two lanes wide and has a breakdown lane running on the outside, but that is pretty much the sidewalk so if there is an emergency some people walking will need to jump into the grasses for safety. I sense this country reflects more of what a libertarians' dream society looks like. Not much government interference or regulations. It still works, just watch out before crossing that road.
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