Life in the village

November 12^th, 2008

Today is Wednesday and I'm a few days into my stay here. So far (and I say this with my fingers crossed that I'm not jinxing my luck) I have not gotten sick or home sick for that matter. Although yesterday my two caretakers Mary and Eunice thought that I was sick because I slept until 8am. Here in the village people fall asleep around 9pm and wake around 6am. But this morning I woke up around 6am, ate some breakfast (oatmeal) and me, the other volunteer Sarah, and Dela (our counterpart) rode bike into the town of Ho. It took us around 1 ½ hours to do this and was so exhausting, but I was happy to get my workout on. Plus, it was such a beautiful day and I just soaked it all in and felt so blessed to be where I am. When we got to town we went to the internet cafe, where I sat and wrote a posting for my blog and right as I was finishing up, the electricity went out. Sarah was like “Welcome to Ghana”. So I'm on my second attempt at writing this blog. We have a old ass computer in the village in Sarah's room so she said that I should just start typing out my blogs here, save them to a flash drive, and bring them with me to the internet cafe; so thats what I'm going to do from now on.

On Monday night Dela took me with him to his bible study. His group meets three times a week and he invited me to join them as much as I would like. It was really similar to any bible study I've ever been to with the exception it was in Ewe (the language spoken in this region). Dela did a good job translating for me so that I could understand the message being spoken.

Real quick I should probably give a brief description of Dela since I will be talking about him a lot throughout my stay here. Dela is my counterpart. All the volunteers that come to Ghana with Global Volunteer Network (the organization I am with) stay in a village surrounding the town of Ho, and in the village they are assigned a counterpart. This person's role is to teach them the language, the culture, introduce them to people, and go with them anywhere they would like to go or invite them places they are going. So Dela is basically my new best friend. He is a really great man of what I have came to know so far. He is 35, he has a wife and three children. He is originally from the village I am living and although he has traveled a lot throughout West Africa, he has resided here is entire live. At this time his wife and children stay in Ho, about 45 minutes away. This is so that his children can have a better education. The reason he stays in the village still is because that is where he is able to make the most money for his family. This scenario is not uncommon here. Many families are broken up to increase the wellbeing of everyone. He still sees his family about twice a week though...

Tuesday, I met with my committee. There are 6 members and they are all from the village I'm staying. They are called A.I.E.C. and they are in charge of getting donors to support the needs of orphans in the village so they are able to go to school. Right now they are sewing 300 school uniforms for orphans so that these children can continue their education. Here in the region I am staying and I think all of Ghana, if you don't have a uniform, you can't go to school. Also, after 6^th grade, each student has to pay $150 a year to go to school. This might not seem like a lot to us, but to them this can be unfordable (especially if they have only 1 parent or no parents at all). So they also give scholarships to orphans to go to Junior High School and High School. I am going to be assisting this group by helping them write proposal letters to different businesses and organizations. My main goal while I am here is to get as much outside founding as possible so that more children in the 9 villages are able to attend school. I'm also going to be volunteering in the schools while I'm here. I don't know exactly what I will be doing yet, but it should be a good experience and help me a lot in what I want to do with my career.

Later on Tuesday night, after meeting my committee members, I was sitting on my porch playing with the children. The children come over everyday after school and play with me and Sarah until bed time. One boy that was over here had a horrible cut on his knee. It was full of dirt and the flies kept getting into it. So finally I went and got my First Aid kit and cleaned it and bandaged it up. He had the biggest smile on his face when I was finished. Next thing I knew, I had bandaged up 5 kids, and they all called me nurse Laura. It made me sad to see them running around with these cuts that were so easy to clean up yet were on the verge of infection. So I did what I could. I'm going to have to go buy some more ointment and bandages while I'm here cause they all want to come to me now when they have a cut.

The children here are so appreciative of the most simplest things. That same night I showed a bunch of the kids how to make paper airplanes and they were so entertained and so happy. They also are so excited whenever I pull out paper and pens so that they can practice writing and doing math problems . Its so interesting to see how the most simplest things make them happy. I love being around these children cause they have the warmest and brightest spirits.

So after a few days here, I am still loving it. It is so peaceful and everyone is so friendly. Living in a village is something that everyone should experience in their lives. It makes you realize how people should treat each other. It is so communal and everyone treat their neighbor like their brother or sister. They feed each others kids, they give each other warm greetings when they pass one another, and they live in harmony with one another. It is a beautiful thing.