MAILS!

I get mails every Thursday. I don’t know what Christmas morning is like, but I can imagine it to be like mail day when we all anxiously waiting to see if any of those packages are for us, so send me letters, packages, inappropriate pictures of yourself in compromising positions J ect.

I can also use/in need of:

-Ramen (Shin bowls! – I miss asian food so much, this might be the closest thing I can ever come to Asian soup here)

-Non-scented liquid body wash  

-Hair conditioner ( I only packed on bottle and had to leave it behind at the airport out of fear that my bags were overweight)

-Special K/Chewy/Granola bars (people don’t snack very much here, and I’m constantly hungry)

- Baby wipes, also non-scented (I’ve realized that I can never have enough baby wipes here, or just toilet wipes in general)

- triple As batteries (I packed a ton of double As but it turned out that all my head lamps use triple As…)

- Powdered drinks like iced green tea powder or Crystal lights.

- Gummy Vites!

My address is (for the next 3 months):
 CHAU NGO
P.O BOX 5796
ACCRA NORTH
GHANA

It takes somewhere between 1 to 3 weeks for the mails to get from the states to here, but it will stay in my heart forever if you send me something. Cheesy, but I’m okay with it. Miss you all.

Meeting da chief and speaking Dagaare like a pro.

Last Sunday we were scheduled to meet the chief of Aniyasin. Being that it was a serious deal, we all got up extra early and put on our best frocks, or at least, the best frocks we brought to Africa with us. Our families were suppose to come with us, but when I headed out in the morning, my sis was nowhere near being ready to hit the road. I was worried that she forgot and I would have been the only person in the entire group who didn’t come with a family. I tried to remind her, and she just said, ‘I’m coming’ which is Ghanian English for, I’ll be back/I’m getting there/hold on.

When I went and meet up with everyone else, it turned out that no one else’s family was there with them either. So once again, there we were, 24 obrunis gathered in one spot in town for all the locals to stare.

We seriously were there for an hour waiting before things moved along. It turned out that the chief wasn’t even awake at 6 45am like we were told to meet, but at 8 am, so our families had the right idea about coming later. The second we started moving toward the chief’s house, my sister popped out of nowhere.

The ceremony was to introduce the new PCVs to the chief since we are guests in his village. There were drumming and chanting and pouring and drinking of alcohol aka terrible schnapp. There were several customs we had to follow during the ceremony, but I had already forgot about them by the time we arrived, so when the glass of alcohol was passed to me, I accepted it with my left hand without even realizing it. In Ghanaian culture, the left hand is considered a vice, and one should not be using it for any reason. So I pretty much already insulted the chief and his clan before breakfast. How am I not stoned to death already, I don’t even know.

Since Monday, we’ve been divided up into different language groups to learn the local language of the region that we are going to be at after training. I was placed in the Upper West region, which is the youngest and newest region for all the sites. The language there is Dagaare, and there are just three of us who are heading there including me so our group is small though not the smallest since there is the Ewe language group for Volta region which only has one person.

The language learning is super intensive. 6 hours a day every day. When Monday started I didn’t know a single Dagaare word, but now I know how to introduce myself and talk about my family. Crazy. Beside language we also have technical training, which I should pay more attention to and shouldn’t dread so much since it’s only 2 hours a day, except that going to this class after language training is super gruesome.  Then I go home and have to deal with my fan club, aka, the neighbors next door who like to shout my name whenever they see me regardless of the hour of the day/night. That’s definitely another post on its own. Wait for it. 

Greetings and salutations.

Our homestay began on Monday the 13^th. It was a 5 hours drive from Accra to Kukurantumi where one of the Peace Corps Offices is located.  

After almost a whole day of traveling and anxiously waiting, we finally made it to the little village where we’re going to spend the next 3 months. I was completely overwhelmed (and probably dehydrated) so much that I don’t even know how I made it through the entire event without passing out. My heart was pounding a mile a minute up until the second when I found out about my host family. Only my sister was there to pick me up, so everyone, including me, thought she was my mom. She seemed super eccentric and definitely lived up to that image (but more on that later). 

After the reveal, we had some awkward moments of sitting and getting to know each other. Of course, my new sis and I didn’t have much to talk about and at this time, I was still thinking that she was my mom. I think at one point, I asked her how old she was, and she said 50, and I couldn’t believe it. I told her she was too young to be 50. Later, I realized that she told me that her mom is 50, which makes more sense now. My sis is only 25… or so she said. She has 3 kids, and the oldest is 13 so you do the math and tell me about it.

I had two giant bags each about 40 pounds in Ghana, and even though she needed help putting it on, my sis carried one of them on her head like it was a fucking hat. And she walked the entire 20 mins walk to our house with it and left me trailing behind with my 16 pounds backpack. To put me to even more shame, a small child, probably the age of 12, took my other 40 pounds bag and propped it on her own head. She only went half way though because then we ran into Dennis, my oldest nephew who is 13, and Dennis then took the bag over with his head. Just the whole thing about people carrying a anything/everything on their heads deserve a post all on its own.

My host family is relatively small. Mom, pop, sis and 3 nephews and we all live together, and I have my own room as per requirement by Peace Corps. It’s pretty cool, I get a bed and a table, and they gave me a fan. It’s an old old old fan and needs like a 2 hours head start to run full speed but it helps get me through the night so it’s been great. Compare to some of the other volunteers who don’t have electricity or even a bright light bulb (i.e: dim blue or green light in the room) I’m living the high life. Location wise though, I guess I’m in the backwoods boondocks because it takes walking up a dirt path for 15 mins before hitting the town’s main (and only) paved road.

Back to my family, they are pretty relaxed. I joke about how we are kind of the hicks of the town because we are kind of living in two sets of bungalows and our court yard is pretty much a second road for bystanders, but I actually really like them. My sister and my mom speak great English, which apparently isn’t the case for all host families. This is not their first time hosting so they are now used to the volunteers/trainees’ antics and habits and actually have made my homestay experience relatively pleasant, i.e: not setting up a curfew, not putting too much palm nut oil in my food, not giving me too much food, not feeding me all meat no veggies.

Anyway, my sister is youthful and somewhat crazy (the fun crazy, not crazy crazy) and she thinks that I’m hilarious, which is always a plus for me.  I think it valentine’s day the 2^nd night I was there, and she wanted to take me to a spot, which is what people here call a bar. I asked Heather to come with me, and we planned to meet up after dinner. Sometime between me eating and showering, Heather had to go with her family somewhere, and for about 20 mins, I was in panic mode because I texted a bunch of people but no one else was around/available to go with me. The last thing I needed at the time was being alone in a spot on Valentine’s Day with some drunken Ghanaians. Lucky for me though because as we were about to head out, Heather came back, a total life saver moment, so the three of us set out for the Lover’s Inn Spot (not even the tackiest names I’ve seen here).

On our walk to the spot, we picked up Adam, another volunteer So there we were three obrunis, aka white people, and a local heading out for a night on the town. The spot was still empty when we got there, and my sis got us some cold Fantas to drink, and literally the second our drinks came, she paid and announced that she was heading into town for the night, but we should enjoy ourselves here.

Yeah… definitely didn’t see that one coming.

And so my sis left and then it was just the three of us obrunis sitting there outside drinking Fantas and chatting and pondering about what just happened, us being dropped by my sister who was supposed to show me the town. It was nice until a group of drunken young men came and wouldn’t leave us alone after that so we had to leave.

Since the people have been so polite to us during the 2 days we were there, it was sobering to experience this bit of negative attention. Foreigners stand out. Women stand out. You always have to watch yourself. And leave it to me to get the one family with the partying sister.

three obrunis walked into a bar

Our homestay began on Monday the 13^th. It was a 5 hours drive from Accra to Kukurantumi where one of the Peace Corps Offices is located.  

After almost a whole day of traveling and anxiously waiting, we finally made it to the little village where we’re going to spend the next 3 months. I was completely overwhelmed (and probably dehydrated) so much that I don’t even know how I made it through the entire event without passing out. My heart was pounding a mile a minute up until the second when I found out about my host family. Only my sister was there to pick me up, so everyone, including me, thought she was my mom. She seemed super eccentric and definitely lived up to that image (but more on that later).

After the reveal, we had some awkward moments of sitting and getting to know each other. Of course, my new sis and I didn’t have much to talk about and at this time, I was still thinking that she was my mom. I think at one point, I asked her how old she was, and she said 50, and I couldn’t believe it. I told her she was too young to be 50. Later, I realized that she told me that her mom is 50, which makes more sense now. My sis is only 25… or so she said. She has 3 kids, and the oldest is 13 so you do the math and tell me about it.

I had two giant bags each about 40 pounds in Ghana, and even though she needed help putting it on, my sis carried one of them on her head like it was a fucking hat. And she walked the entire 20 mins walk to our house with it and left me trailing behind with my 16 pounds backpack. To put me to even more shame, a small child, probably the age of 12, took my other 40 pounds bag and propped it on her own head. She only went half way though because then we ran into Dennis, my oldest nephew who is 13, and Dennis then took the bag over with his head. Just the whole thing about people carrying a anything/everything on their heads deserve a post all on its own.

My host family is relatively small. Mom, pop, sis and 3 nephews and we all live together, and I have my own room as per requirement by Peace Corps. It’s pretty cool, I get a bed and a table, and they gave me a fan. It’s an old old old fan and needs like a 2 hours head start to run full speed but it helps get me through the night so it’s been great. Compare to some of the other volunteers who don’t have electricity or even a bright light bulb (i.e: dim blue or green light in the room) I’m living the high life. Location wise though, I guess I’m in the backwoods boondocks because it takes walking up a dirt path for 15 mins before hitting the town’s main (and only) paved road.

Back to my family, they are pretty relaxed. I joke about how we are kind of the hicks of the town because we are kind of living in two sets of bungalows and our court yard is pretty much a second road for bystanders, but I actually really like them. My sister and my mom speak great English, which apparently isn’t the case for all host families. This is not their first time hosting so they are now used to the volunteers/trainees’ antics and habits and actually have made my homestay experience relatively pleasant, i.e: not setting up a curfew, not putting too much palm nut oil in my food, not giving me too much food, not feeding me all meat no veggies.

Anyway, my sister is youthful and somewhat crazy (the fun crazy, not crazy crazy) and she thinks that I’m hilarious, which is always a plus for me.  I think it valentine’s day the 2^nd night I was there, and she wanted to take me to a spot, which is what people here call a bar. I asked Heather to come with me, and we planned to meet up after dinner. Sometime between me eating and showering, Heather had to go with her family somewhere, and for about 20 mins, I was in panic mode because I texted a bunch of people but no one else was around/available to go with me. The last thing I needed at the time was being alone in a spot on Valentine’s Day with some drunken Ghanaians. Lucky for me though because as we were about to head out, Heather came back, a total life saver moment, so the three of us set out for the Lover’s Inn Spot (not even the tackiest names I’ve seen here).

On our walk to the spot, we picked up Adam, another volunteer. So there we were three obrunis, aka white people, and a local heading out for a night on the town. The spot was still empty when we got there, and my sis got us some cold Fantas to drink, and literally the second our drinks came, she paid and announced that she was heading into town for the night, but we should enjoy ourselves here.

Yeah… definitely didn’t see that one coming.

And so my sis left and then it was just the three of us obrunis sitting there outside drinking Fantas and chatting and pondering about what just happened, us being dropped by my sister who was supposed to show me the town. It was nice until a group of drunken young men came and wouldn’t leave us alone after that so we had to leave.

Since the people have been so polite to us during the 2 days we were there, it was sobering to experience this bit of negative attention. Foreigners stand out. Women stand out. You always have to watch yourself. And leave it to me to get the one family with the partying sister. 

white people on the street

Accra Quest is the event in which all the Trainees are divided into groups and let loose in the city to complete and scavenger like task list. We were given 10 cedis each as transportation fee and were supposed to figure out how to get there and back ourselves within 3 hours.

Yeah, it is as fun as it sounds. Especially if counting Saturday, we would have only been in Ghana for 3 days, and most of our time was spent on safe and roomy AC busses. Our Twi was limited and our sense of direction non existence.

I have to admit that out of all the activities I have done in Peace Corps up until now, Accra Quest is still tied with homestay revealing as the most nerve racking event. Though I have taken crazy bus rides by myself in Vietnam, being in Ghana in which you obviously stand out felt a little bit different. My group had Grace, Olivia and myself, the three smallest girls out of all the PCV. I was pretty sure that one of us were gonna get kidnapped.

To prepare us for the quest, the night before, the trainers presented to us a skit of what could possibly happen during the quest on the tro, and it was hilarious, especially when one of our PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders) got too into it and broke a table (pic). 

We started out by walking from the dorm to the main road. The plan was to take a tro-tro straight to Accra, then walk around the city to find our scavenger spots. A tro-tro is pretty much a cheaper more crowded and bigger version of a taxi. It’s not quite like a bus because often time it is only a 12 persons van but would go longer distance. The van is often run down and cramped with passenger, and by run down I mean it one of two sockets away from being a metal pile at a junk yard.

Anyhow, to pick up a tro, you just have to look to see if there is one going the direction you’re going and flag it down. If it’s not full, it will stop for you. So our group slowly walked toward the direction of Accra, and tried to flag down the tros as they rolled by. Apparently that day was a busy day, since none would stop for us. I think it took us about 30 mins of walking to finally get one. I was real nervous about all the harassments that could potentially take place in the tro, but once we got on, it was surprisingly peaceful and quiet. Everyone minded their own business, and though they stared, I was fine with that. I guess the plus side of traveling outside of America these last few years is that I am not that bothered by people staring at me anymore. Especially since I know that no matter what I do, I will stand out anyway, so I might as well play the part. And at least, in Ghana, no one calls/tells me that I’m fat (Vietnam), so Accra quest started to look a little positive for me.

It turned out that our plan of taking one tro straight to Accra did not work out well since there was no tro that goes that length. We had to take a tro to the next town, and from that town, take a tro to Accra. When we got to Accra, we decided to walk to our locations by foot because taking a taxi was not permitted for this quest. I should mention that prior to this we had only walked in Accra once, for 15 mins around the Peace Corps office neighborhood, which is in no way a correct representation of Accra. And street signs are sparse around here.

By the time we stopped and asked for direction, we were already lost, but then we found ourselves again, and even crossed path with this. From a far, I thought it was a broken bicycle helmet, but Grace’s scream assured me that it wasn’t.

Yeah, about that… there are a lot of bats here. And during the day, they sleep on trees, in publics, on the streets. All of them, just hanging upside down looking like fruits in the daylight. I don’t know how this guy managed to fall off the tree nor do I know if he was at all alive after the fall, but I have never seen a bat up close before, and I wasn’t too glad of seeing one now. Another first for this journey.  None of the Batman movies prepared me for this.

But yeah, running across the sleeping bat on the ground was the most eventful thing that happened to us. We weren’t harassed that much and nothing freaked us out massively. We didn’t make it to all of our spots because we wanted to head back in time, so we took the same route the way we came, and this time, the most eventful thing was that we got stuck in a alley between a stream of on-coming cars and a cement wall for about 20 mins while we were stuck in the back sweating.

Compare to America, the tro-tro is a terrifying experience if you’re there alone for your first time so I was glad to be in a group and had someone else there with me. Compare to the ridiculous traffic in Vietnam, the tro-tro is still one level below. I expected it to be more cramped, but tro-tro stop picking up passengers when it is full. I recalled being on a 3 people seat with 5 people in Vietnam so this experience turned out aiight.

glowing ball of fire

Though I’ve only been in Ghana for 11 days, so much has happened that I don’t even know where to begin. From Philly, we bussed to Newark for our flight to Frankfurt. We spent 6 hrs waiting at the Newark airport playing Uno, card games and eating terrible airport food. I saw snow for the first time in my life in Frankfurt so that is now crossed off the bucket list.

The flight to Ghana was uneventful. Ghana airport in Accra was the most chaotic airport I’ve even been on. It makes the Vietnam airport in Saigon seem like some high class place. The people were chill though. I was the last person to go though custom and the agent dude asked me to marry him after getting my finger prints and taking my head shot. I laughed and told him I’ll think about it.  Definitely didn’t see it coming even though I knew that this type of flirtatious stuff is common in Ghana, I didn’t expect it to happen so early in the game and coming from an official. I guess airport people here don’t worry too much about terrorists so they have more time to fuck around and hit on foreigners.

We were bused to a dorm room at a college a couple of hours away from Accra. It is called Valley View College and we stayed there for 3-4 nights I don’t really remember. I got a new roommate, Sheila, and somehow signed us up for the room with the creepiest location. I’m kicking myself now for not taking a picture of it because my description might not do justice to its creepiness. Adding insult to injury, our room was number 8, and for some reason, on the signup sheet, room number 7 was skipped so while Sheila and I stayed in number 8, no one was in number 7 and the closest people to us were number 6. Our room was in this dark corner that has no hallway light or natural sun light while all the other rooms face the open court yard. And apparently there was a spider living above the door which freaked Sheila out so that was also a negative.

The other volunteers told me that living there felt like living at summer camp, where you’re told when to eat and when to meet up and what activities to do. I’ve never been to camps (growing up in the jungle) so I guess that was pretty fun for me.

i'm alive

13 days in Peace Corps, 11 days in Ghana. Seriously it's only been 11 days? Feels like an eternity and back already.

It's ridiculously hot here... and it's still winter time probably. HOW DO YOU TURN OFF THE SUN?!?!

Here are a few things that went on (in no particular order):

-Got proposed to by the custom agent at the airport, first in my group. I'm not that proud.
-Asians don't exit in Africa, here I am known at 'white person' as everyone else.
-Found out my site and language training two days ago. Upper West of Ghana aka Upper Best -- best region to be at in term of weather I think. I'm quite glad. Though it is the youngest in term of developments so the work will be hard, but I'm down for it.
-Latrines are my worse night mare. Though I don't think that's going to be improved soon. Thank goodness I haven't experience the diarrhea rite of passage yet, something that all Peace Corps volunteers must go through. I would like to thank all the weird Asian food that I ate through out my life. Best preparation for Africa so far.

... uhh I have more but can't think of anything right now. Gotta head back soon. Will update more. Maybe with pics.

it's the night before

...my official departure for Ghana is tomorrow. Newark, Frankfurt and then Accra.

I spent most of Sunday flying/sleeping on airplanes and Sunday night getting tipsy at some dive bar in downtown Philadelphia with an old friend from middle school. The  evening started with some good Italian food (note: if you know me at all, you would know that I hate Italian, so this was a big deal) and took a total spontaneous turn with a slight touch of peer pressure and ended with me having a great conversation with a 27 year old Somalian cab driver about life. Totally worth the 11 dollars ride (that's the upside of having a low alcohol tolerance again, thanks NIH meds!)

This morning I did a short walk around the Historic District of Philadelphia. Actually, more like, doing an extensive tour of the Liberty Bell and skimming everything else, i.e: Independent Hall, Ben Franklin's house, Bessy Ross's house. If it wasn't for the excessive amount of police siren through out the day, it would have been super romantic.  

Anywho, our training was the usual pre-country departure talk, safety, food, cultures. Most of this I have heard before from AB training and orientation as well as Peace Corps materials so it wasn't too a too exciting event. The rest of the people finally arrived for the training and there are 25 or 26 of us, I'm not too solid on the number. There is a sprinkle of ethnicity here and there but the majority are white and apparently 4-5 of us are from CA. Something about this liberal hippy state I guess. 

We're not leaving until 1pm tomorrow so there is a group of twenty something Peace Corps peeps getting drunk in a karaoke bar somewhere in downtown Philly as I'm typing/joining in 10 mins. 

mothers always cry

The worst thing about saying goodbye to someone is when one party gets emotional. Voice breaking, shoulder shaking, tear spilling. A very disheartening sight really.

This morning, my family got up at 5am so we can have me make my 8am flight, my mom cried when we said good bye as she told me to don't forget to have my meals regularly. I knew that it was gonna happen, but I couldn't prevent it. Last night, I said good bye to my grandparents. My grandma teared up as she told me to be careful and don't forget to eat. I didn't see it coming and didn't know how to make her stop.

Knowing that someone cares is a lovely feeling, seeing that they care so much that they cry feels almost like guilt. Watching my mother and grandmother trying to hold back their tears make me feel like I have just gone and broke their hearts.

27 months is a long time, but I will be back soon. Please don't worry.