4th Post: Catching Up

So I must apologize for my laziness (note the 20 day gap) and for leaving some people hanging at my last entry.

I am actually doing very well.

Most of the frustrations I expressed in the previous post have subsided and I have begun to accept my way of life here. Many changes will soon be upon me however. First of all, my volunteering partner and good friend Larissa will be heading back to Sydney on November 12 and so I will find myself teaching without another volunteer until at least January. This prospect makes me a little nervous but I think it will only intensify my experience here--force me to focus more on the teaching aspect and whatnot. Second, my other good friend and traveling buddy Emily (who teaches at another school) will soon be leaving not long after Larissa so if I don't make some more friends soon, my social life looks as if it might subside a little! That's not to say that I haven't made more friends--simply put, Larissa and Emily have been my confidants. I'm really going to miss them.

Another upcoming event is my week long trip to Togo and Benin! I'll be leaving this coming Saturday with my friend Tom (ok, I lied, I do have a social life) and we will make our way east through Ghana into Togo and then to Benin. I'm really excited at the idea of visiting some other African countries (I didn't really consider traveling around the continent) and even more so at the prospect of trying to pull some French out of my brain (both countries are french speaking). Luckily, Tom is french so I guess I don't have to worry too much about remembering the few bits of french I learned in high school. We'll see how I do!

Anyways, the weather here is only getting hotter as the dry season approaches and I can't help but think that maybe I'm actually losing tolerance to the heat (it just LEACHES the energy out of you!). I mean, shouldn't it be getting colder?? You know, like winter time? Christmas? I have to say though, it's definitely nice not having to worry about bringing a jacket with me everywhere!

Hm... anyways, there's not much more to be said other than that I still have yet to embark on ANY of my planned projects (including additions to this blog) and that I should probably stop taking so many naps. Like I said, the heat just knocks me out!

Hope all is well with everyone at their respective homes.

Love,
Kristina

3rd Post: What It's All About

I'm not exactly sure how to start this as nothing monumental has happened, today isn't any sort of landmark date and I don't have any strong themes that I'd like to convey. That's not to say that life here at Lotus is stagnant, far from it. In fact, my life seems to be in a constant state of flux.

The challenges I thought I would confront now seem miniature compared to the actual hurdles that I face every day. I don't want to be too specific out of respect for those who run my project but I'm definitely feeling the plight of the idealistic "20's something female college student turned international volunteer". Coming into this experience, I had a vision. I saw myself making an impact (even if it were in the most simple way) on the lives of those I taught and interacted with. I imagined myself giving to a community of those in need and eventually reaping the benefit of knowing that I somehow made a change. Now, if you asked me what exactly it was that I thought I was going to change, well... I probably wouldn't have been able to give you a clear answer but as I've recently learned, I wasn't alone in my idealistic visions.

After coming here and settling into a routine, I quickly began to see that I in fact wasn't (in the words of my good friend Alex) going to "save Africa". I know that is a pathetic realization to come to but look at it this way: one or two people cannot stand up to a thousand years of culture. One of the biggest frustrations I have is dealing with the Ghanaian (and pretty much non-western) practice of corporal punishment. I hate it. In fact, I think that beating kids with sticks is probably the worst form of discipline because it simply encourages the victim to continue the cycle when they get older. It also makes it impossible for any non-Ghanaian teachers/volunteers to discipline children because come on, how can a shout or a command to "sit in the corner" hold any weight to the imminent threat of being lashed across the face with a stick?

And it's not like I can just tell the teacher to stop. Oh hey, do you think you can stop disciplining the kids the only way you know (and the only way it has been done in Ghanaian culture) in favor for my more advanced western methods?

The last thing I want to do is to tell people that they're doing their job wrong. But like I said before, how can you stand up to a cultural tradition in the name of doing what you think is right?

My other frustration resides is the feeling that no matter what I do, most will be forgotten once I leave. Sure, the children might be having a blast coming to school to do epic art projects and practicing silly yoga poses but in all actuality, where is the evidence of the techniques passed on by all the previous volunteers? Why can the kids recite the alphabet but become confused when I ask them to identify the letter "p"? Why do I feel like I'm working from scratch?

I understand that the lack of uniformity and follow through with the lesson plan is due to the sporadic nature of the "volunteer" and I'm not accusing those who came before me as ineffective, but without strong communication and concrete direction, every volunteer who comes after me will feel as in the dark as I did. And this doesn't just go for my project but with the majority of volunteering programs in countries across the globe.

I came to a realization though, after feeling incredibly conflicted about this for weeks. For even though I might not be making much of an impact on the kids, the lessons I learn from this experience are really what it is all about. As selfish as it sounds, my purpose for being here was never (and could never have been) about changing the lives of others but about changing my own.

It's about growth and Ghana.

2nd Post- New Beginnings

Written September 24th

It will be a month today since my departure from home. A month of foreign smells, new faces, countless names to be memorized and a whole new way of life to be lived. It was a month of intense strain and worry but not without the delight of making the small, daily achievements that count for so much when trying to carve a new niche for oneself. I can now say that I know the difference between 90 peswas and 9,000 Cedis (there isn’t one) and I can hand wash and hang dry my clothes like no ones business. I’ve discovered that a single bucket of water is sufficient for a shower (hair washing included) and that when one of my students says “I rinate,” they need to make a visit to the toilet. Routine is quickly setting in and daily life seems to be much more livable now. Speaking of daily life, here’s a brief rundown of a normal weekday for me:

7:30am: wake up

8:00am: actually wake up

8:15am: drag myself to breakfast and dine on bread with peanut butter, pineapple, tea/coffee and sometimes porridge

8:30am: discuss the coming day’s lesson plan with Larissa (the other volunteer)

9:00am: appear in the classroom, round up the kids, read a story and then hold an arts and crafts session

10:00am: have a cup of tea with Larissa while the kids go on break, discuss the plan for the remainder of the day

10:30am: bring in the kids and either take the little ones or the big ones (depending on the whim of the teacher that day) and teach accordingly

12:00pm: lunch for about an hour and discuss with Larissa how exhausted we are

From there on out, I might or might not take a really long nap, go for a Fanta at the corner store with Larissa, make an appearance in town, spend an hour or so on the internet, hang out with the girls at the home, eat dinner, read a book, combat mosquitoes, bathe, try to tame my hair, give myself a tarot reading, edit photos and attempt a number of other mundane tasks that are actually really enjoyable after a while. Routine and repetition is very comforting when trying to survive in a foreign environment.

Concerning the school itself, it’s been quite an adventure to say the least. I came here with absolutely NO formal training or teaching experience and guess what? I’m handed a class and told “here’s the class, now teach them what you know.” I don’t think there’s any other term to describe the state of mind I get into every day besides “survival mode”. I suddenly remember countless childhood songs that I haven’t thought of in years, I can decipher the childrens somewhat muddled English based on intuition and deduction, Hmm, they either want to eat, drink or pee... and the thought of panicking slips from my mind entirely. Panicking is DEFINITELY not an option. It's hard sometimes because though half the time I'm thinking, Wow, how did we pull that off so well?, the rest of the time I'm wondering exactly how much of an impact I'm actually making. Am I really influencing these kids? Am I making a difference? How effective is a time-out when the children are normally used to getting beaten? What does the color "red" really mean to them? It's questions like these that make getting through the day difficult.

It's not all hopeless though. I think that for every apparent "failure", there are just as many "ah-ha!" moments, the little achievements that I mentioned before. And they happen every day.

~

It’s funny how time has treated me since my flight out of the country. I see “September 24, 2008” and think, Has is really been a month since I left? And yet when I talk to my friends and family at home, they say, Has it really only been a month since you’ve left? It saddens me at times to think that time is passing so much slower for those at home and that my 7 month absence might end up feeling more like a year to some. I know it’s silly but I have this irrational fear that I’m sorely missing out on the lives of my friends and that when I return, things will be so different that none of us will be able to relate or connect with each other on the same level anymore.

Silly, I know.

But then again, how many other people have the opportunity to teach a bunch of awesome kids in AFRICA of all places??

Someone slap me silly now please.

First post!

Akwaaba!

It’s hard to believe that almost two weeks have already gone by since I arrived in Ghana. No longer am I awoken by the 6:30am sweeping outside my door, by the whoops and shouts of the girls getting ready for church and by the packs of stray dogs that seem to turn into howling wolves during the night. Routine is setting in and I am very fast becoming acclimatized to my new home.

~

For those of you who only vaguely know of my trip/move to Ghana, here’s a little introduction:

At the end of April 2008 when I learned that I wouldn’t be attending school for the following year, I decided that I wanted to volunteer abroad and gain some life experience that I might not have gotten otherwise. I wanted to see the world from a non-academic point of view, without the limits of teachers and assignments, without feeling forced to maintain a high grade point average. To be completely honest, I was burned out from school and with no other actual options I went ahead and began researching volunteering programs overseas.

Now why Ghana? Many people have asked. Well, it was as simple as noticing the option on one of the many websites I browsed though and going for it. I originally considered going to India but I felt that the county and culture were too familiar (due to my ancestral ties). I wanted to do something completely out of my element.

It took a month of deliberation but at the beginning of June, I made the final decision to leave the life I’d cultivated in Berkeley and to move to Ghana at the end of August to teach at a pre-school and children’s home. Knowing you only have 2 months left to spend with your family and friends is very sobering and so my summer turned into a flurry of “hanging out” (as we call it here in the States- evidently, people in the UK don’t) and traveling from place to place within California to see all the people I care about. Berkeley, San Francisco ten times over, San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Sonora-I must have made about 20 loops or more around just the San Francisco Bay itself. The rest of my time was spent volunteering at a pre-school in San Francisco where I read stories to the kids and made an attempt to mentally prepare myself to teach while observing how the teachers handled the kids.

Finally, August 16th crept up onto me and I was moving out of Berkeley down to my parent’s in San Jose for a week. It was humbling to say the least, to see my things packed up for a third time. Another reminder that I still hadn’t reached a point in my life where I could finally settle down. The next week was a whirlwind. It seemed as if 15 people had all of a sudden woken up and realized that I was leaving, Kristina, hang out with us before you leave! Complete and utter madness.

But before I knew it, I was on a plane headed for the UK for a quick visit en route to Ghana. England was a blast. Seeing my friends and family there was an interesting and positive buffer in regards to my move, sort of a nice liaison between one home and the next. But there was a lot ahead of me and before getting too caught up in the fun of it all, I was already on another plane headed to the capital city of Accra where I would be living for the next 7 months.

~

I am now sitting on my balcony; most of the view is obstructed save for the tops of the palm and banana trees that dot my neighborhood. I pretend that I am on an exotic beach and that the sound of the wind ruffling the leaves of the palms is really the crashing of the waves. The actual beach (a 30 min walk from here) isn’t clean enough to even walk on but I’ll eventually make the journey to a beach outside the city that I can lounge on for hours and soak in the West African sun. But until the, there is work to be done.

My first two days in Accra were hectic and over-stimulating. Everything was in English, but nobody seemed to understand what I was saying. The currency was a headache (one Ghanaian cedi is worth roughly one US dollar but everyone still speaks in terms of the old denomination so…How much does this cost? Oh, that’s 9,000 cedis. What? It’s 9), the smells were exhausting and the constant yells of hey obruni, what’s your name? started to grate. I’m not a white person! I wanted to yell back. (I later learned that though “obruni” roughly translates as “white woman” it doesn’t refer to a particular ethnicity, just someone who has lighter skin than a native Ghanaian).

My new home is a sanctuary though.

I reside at a girls home called Lotus Children Centre and Nursery School. The center itself is home to ten ‘orphaned’ girls ranging from 3-23 years of age who have either lost their parents or are at the end of a long line of offspring and are no longer within their parents’ capacity to be cared for. The lady who runs the project, Didi Shanta, is a Filipino nun who practices yoga and encourages the children to meditate and stick to a strict vegetarian diet. In return for the boarding and care they receive, all the girls carry out special duties that include cooking, cleaning, laundry and looking after the volunteers who in turn run both the children’s library and pre-school (both located on site).

I was initially really worried about being accepted by the girls (who are very close in age to me). But they soon saw that I didn’t pose any competition and that I was really here to spend time with them and learn about their culture. We now hang out and watch Mexican soap operas together on Friday and Saturday nights. They’re a hilarious bunch and deserve a whole blog entry detailing who they are and how they add to the experience. But there’s so much more to talk about!

Anyways, I’m here, I’m safe and I already have loads of stories but my brain is melting and the connection here is slow. So stay tuned for the next entry, due to come out within a week or so.

Reminder: I am on “Ghana time” which is a lot like “India time” meaning, if something should theoretically take an hour, a day, or a week, just double that time and you’ll have a better estimate.

Nanti ye!