I survived my first work week!! Woo! I know, not that impressive considering it was only one day, but let me have this little celebration anyway. Week #2 is definitely going to be much more challenging, so I’m building up my confidence in preparation for that.
A picture from our afternoon run
Debbie and I planned to go for a run this morning, but our plans had to be postponed when we woke up to rain. Everyone was confused because apparently rain isn’t common here during the summer, and when it does rain, it’s usually more of a mist rather than raindrops. Well, it was definitely raindrops this morning. This is what happens when I try to run… I think that means it’s not meant to be.
Instead, I spent some time getting mentally organized. I made a list of what I want to do each day (go for a run, practice Spanish, read my Bible, write in my journal, etc) and then tried to translate that into a rough schedule so that I can plan my time better. I always run into trouble with trying to pack too much into one day, and often the things that are most important end up getting pushed out because I’m too busy wasting time. I’m turning over a new leaf though! No more time wasting for me!
Feel free to marvel at my Spanish skills. I couldn’t find anything that was exactly what I wanted in English OR Spanish, so I decided to make my own (and swiped some graphics from the Crayola page linked to the left for the sake of time). Those street names though, those are all mine. Bear Avenue? Genius.
Debbie and I met again in the afternoon to try to make a more detailed plan for the first day of classes. We’re going to do some activities with the kids that are focused on maps, discussing what maps show and how to use them. I made a worksheet for the 7-9 year old class (C3) (with some help from THIS Crayola coloring page), and Debbie cleaned up a plan of the compound to do a navigating activity outside with the 10-12 year old class (C4). I’m feeling good about the first class now, so we’re 1/15 of the way there!
We all ended up going for an afternoon run before the sun set. To sum it up in one word: ugh. But we went! That’s accomplishment enough for me. We’re going to try to run 3-4 times a week, and I know that after 2 weeks I’m going to feel exponentially better. It’s that knowledge that will keep me going, but it doesn’t make getting there any easier.
Here’s Chilca, near the coast, south of Lima. We’re located a little bit north of Chilca.A Catholic church in Chilca that’s located right off of the main square.
For dinner, Debbie, Julie, Eddy (one of the local staff members), his daughter, Dasha, and I went into downtown Chilca. We went to this place that serves “pollo a la brasa” or roast chicken cooked on a rotating spit (basically a rotisserie chicken). It’s considered a typical Peruvian dish and is often accompanied with fries. There are also some sauces involved that vary depending on where you get it (mayonnaise is typical, plus some hot pepper sauce). My picky eater self was happy that the meal wasn’t much of a stretch for my food habits. I did try the sauces though… and decided to stick with the Peruvian “ketchup”. The quotes are required because no one does ketchup like the USA. The stuff here is similar what they had in Ghana. It tastes okay but is just not quite right… It’s too thin, and there’s something about the flavor that’s off.
Look at this place! So trendy. Not shown: the nonexistent 4th wall because when you have bearable weather year-round, you can do things like that.
After dinner, we roamed the streets of the downtown. In general, being here doesn’t feel like as much of a stretch as being in Ghana did. At times, I can even fool myself into feeling like I’m still in the USA… and then someone talks to me, I have no idea what they’re saying, and I remember where I actually am. We went to this new ice cream place (VERY new – they’ve been open for one day!) in town that seriously looks like it could be in the middle of a city at home. Feeling sufficiently stuffed, we loaded back into the Esperanza de Ana van and headed back to the suburbs.
Tomorrow, we’re going into Lima for church. It’ll be my first time seeing the city in the light, and I’m excited! Now I just need to figure out how to fall asleep… Our neighbor is having a party and the music is incredibly loud. Don’t they know that their old person neighbors are trying to go to sleep at 10:30PM on a Saturday?
After having some time to relax and settle in yesterday, today we got to work! The morning started off at 9AM with a staff meeting… in Spanish. I’m going to put my comprehension at maybe 50%? And if I’m being completely honest, that might be a little high. Either way, I was proud of myself because I at least got the general idea of what was being discussed. I’m sure that more than a few details fell through the cracks, but expectations of my language skills are low, so no one is really expecting me to know much after group discussions and meetings.
The compound is located in a part of town where the properties are bigger and everyone’s lot is surrounded by walls. I never realized how nosy I am until I saw how much it bothers me not to be able to see what’s going on behind the walls. It also makes for a sort of ghost town feeling because everyone is hidden from view.
To give you a better idea of the dynamic, there are currently 5 of us who are from the US: Jim and Tony Kay (the directors who I mentioned before), Debbie (a Penn State architect!), and Julie (a teacher). Everyone besides me can speak Spanish, though they all mostly learned after arriving in Peru which gives me hope that I’ll at least have passable skills by the end of my 10 weeks. The national staff members obviously speak Spanish and have varying levels of English knowledge. When the group is together, Spanish is the language. Even though it makes it much harder for me to have any clue about what is going on, I’m happy that’s the case. It’s forcing me to work on my Spanish, and I can see how much better my experience will be once I feel more confident and can actually communicate back to people rather than just semi-understanding what they’re saying to me.
A five-week summer school is starting next week, and Debbie and I are teaching a “Mini-ingenieros” (mini-engineers) class together. We met once around the holidays when she was in the States to come up with some ideas, and today we had to actually plan out the classes and fill in some details. We have a much better framework now, but there’s definitely still a lot of work to do. To give you the gist, we’re going to talk about urban planning, transition into talking about building types and space planning, and have the kids each design the exterior of a building that takes up a “city block”. The hope is to inspire them to make some funky designs and interesting shapes and decorate them, and afterwards we’ll put everyone’s together to make a “kid city”.
Here you can see the one green part of the neighborhood up ahead to the right. Bright green grass looks very out of place in the middle of the desert!
Part 2 of the class is a robotics project that may or may not go well… Theoretically, we’re going to have the kids build these little, simple robots and then set them free in the city like it’s a robot takeover. That’s the current/still somewhat a work in progress plan, and Debbie and I are going to test build a robot next week. Cross your fingers for us because it should be interesting.
We have two classes of older kids (7-9 and 10-12 years old) and two classes of younger kids (2-6 years old). Obviously the younger kids aren’t going to be doing these projects, and we thankfully have only 30 mins – 1 hour with them each week. We’ll have three 2 hour classes each week with the older kids. The big challenge now is coming up with “engineering”-ish projects to do with the younger kids. Now accepting suggestions…
Besides planning our classes, I got to use some of my technical knowledge today! That was exciting because I was feeling a bit like this whole year was going to be me out of my element and not really using my education for anything. It wasn’t anything complicated, but they’re planning to add fans into some of the classrooms here, and I helped with some electrical investigation and gave a few options for how it could be done. Like I said, nothing too exciting or complicated, but I finally did something that made me feel like my knowledge from 5 years of college and 2 years of working could be useful in this context!
I didn’t do a great job of taking pictures today (aka I took zero), so the ones above are just more that I took while walking around yesterday. I’ll be better tomorrow!
Welcome to Peru! Somehow, the trip here felt like an eternity even though I had a direct flight from Miami. I’m definitely happy that I didn’t have to come all the way from Pennsylvania in the same day… Instead, I flew to Florida a week ago, spent some time with family, and started adapting to warm weather (it’s summer in Peru!). Even without the additional flight from Philly to Miami, it was a long day. The flight from Miami to Lima, Peru is about 6 hours and then I had to go through immigration and customs. It was about midnight by the time we landed, so thankfully there were no lines and I probably got through everything and out of the airport in under half an hour.
Here’s Peru! Lima, the capital, is on the coast.
Someone from Esperanza de Ana met me there, and our connection went smoothly despite the fact that we didn’t know what each other looked like. We were counting on him recognizing me based on my clothes (which I tried to pretend wasn’t stressing me out at all). It all worked out though! See? No need to worry. I have to stop stressing about things that are beyond my control.
The view from the compound
The drive to Chilca (it’s on the coast, south of Lima) from the airport was about an hour and a half. I attempted to stay awake for the drive and failed pretty miserably. I did, however, stay awake long enough to decide that I also have no interest in driving in Peru (the same decision was made about Ghana within minutes of experiencing life on the road). From my initial impression, it seems that the lines on the road are considered more of suggestions than anything else. If, for example, you’re on a three-lane, divided highway and the road bends, you can just drive straight and use all three of the lanes rather than taking a turn as dramatic as the road’s bend. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of driving anyway so maybe this statement doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I am absolutely not going to be seeking out ways to drive while I’m here.
We got to Esperanza de Ana probably close to 2AM (my eyes were only half open at this point though, so I can’t be sure), and Jim and Tony Kay, the directors, met me at the gate and showed me to my room. Get this – I get my own room for the first month that I’m here! And after that, I only have to share with one person. AND they have flush toilets here. AND you can even flush toilet paper! AND there are hot showers! AND there’s cell reception! Are you overwhelmed by the luxury? I sure am (no sarcasm… I really am).
Our street
Today was a combination of attempting to get oriented and organized and recovered from staying up until 2:30AM last night (what has happened to me? I’m such an old person). Tony Kay and I sat down and went over some information to get me acclimated and up to speed on the organization, and the rest of the day was spent trying to put my things in order, taking a nap, and walking around the neighborhood just to get a sense of where I am.
I’ll talk more later about what I learned today, but for now, I’m off to bed!
After two long, relaxing months at home, it’s finally time for me to get going again! I’m currently sitting in the Miami airport, waiting for my flight to Lima to start boarding.
Ready to go!
You may recall that I was somewhat of a mess before leaving for Ghana, and you’ll be happy to know that I am doing much better right now. I am still thinking rationally, I don’t feel like there are multiple Lara’s existing in one body (see pre-Ghana airport post), and while I am a little nervous, it’s the normal, healthy nerves that happen when you’re doing something new.
Beyond that, I’m excited! I’m excited to get going again, experience another culture, and attempt to speak some Spanish. I’ve been working on my Spanish in preparation for this trip, and I’m feeling okay-ish. As far as being able to navigate and understand signs and stuff, I’m not worried. If someone is expecting me to speak, that’s a whole different story. I think I have enough of a foundation to be able to pick it up if I keep working at it though. That’s one of my major goals for this trip!
Anyway, there’s not much else to say, so bye for now. I’m going to organize my snacks and activities for the 6 hour flight ahead, and next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Peru!
P.S. Just a note about contacting me. You can comment here, email me, text me (normal texting will work and you won’t be charged extra), facebook message, etc. I’ll have internet access, and my phone will work (but don’t normal call me… whatsapp, Skype, fb messenger, etc calls are all fine!).
Here is a random collection of funny/interesting things I learned and experienced during my time in Ghana that I don’t think I mentioned previously in my blog. Note that I tried to make these all as accurate as possible, but some of the cultural things especially are what I was told by various people, so who knows if my understanding is completely right. It wouldn’t be the first time some things were lost in translation.
Greetings
Everlasting walked me through the traditional greeting process (in Ewe) once, and it was amazingly long. I don’t remember every question exactly, but here’s the general gist.
Person 1: “Good morning/afternoon/evening”
Person 2: “Good morning/afternoon/evening. Are you fine?” (“Are you fine?” is how their “how are you?” equivalent directly translates)
Person 1: “Yes, and are you fine?”
Person 2: “Yes. Is your household fine?”
Person 1: “Yes, and is your household fine?”
Person 2: “Yes. Are your parents fine?”
Person 1: “Yes, and are your parents fine?”
Person 2: “Yes. Are your children fine?
Person 1: “Yes, and are your children fine?
Person 2: “Yes.”
Obviously replace any of the “yes”es with the appropriate answer if that’s not the case. I asked about the children question because what if you don’t have any children? He said that it’s just assumed that there are children in your household, whether they belong to you or a sibling or some other relative.
So this used to be what you were supposed to say anytime you saw anyone, even in passing. Everlasting said that it was cause for a lot of misunderstandings because if you didn’t have time for the whole thing and moved on without finishing the full greeting, the other person would think that you were mad at them. Now, in passing, you can get away with just saying “good morning/afternoon/evening” and asking the other person how they are. If you go to someone’s house to visit with them though, you would still go through the whole thing.
Handshake
This is something that I never managed to master. Can you snap? If so, good for you. If not, you have no hope of being able to properly shake someone’s hand. You shake hands normally, and on the release, you slide your hand back so you’re both pinching the other person’s middle finger between your middle finger and thumb. Then, you both make the same motion as a snap, so your middle finger hits your palm and makes a snapping noise. I can’t snap like a normal human, so I could never get my handshake to make a sound. Instead, I just went through the motions and hoped that the other person could do it right and make a sound to cover up my failure. Usually that worked, but on the odd occasion that neither of us could do it, we were left with an awkward silence.
Right hand
This is another thing I struggled with. Your left hand is considered unclean (hooray for lefties!), so you aren’t supposed to use it for much of anything. Anytime you’re interacting with another person, whether shaking hands, exchanging money or goods, or even just waving, you’re supposed to use your right hand. If you are unable to use your right hand for some reason, you say “sorry for left” so they know you’re not insulting them. You’re also only supposed to use your right hand for eating which is quite a challenge. Luckily, we usually ate in the house, with the other volunteers, and with silverware, so this wasn’t a challenge we often had to face. The waving thing though… that was hard. I had to make sure if I was carrying something to put it in my left hand so that my right would be the one free for waving. And next time you buy something, try giving the money to the shopkeeper and accept the item you just bought with the same hand. Not very easy!
The Ghanaian hiss
A common way of getting someone’s attention, whether it’s a waiter or a bartender or just someone walking by, is to hiss at them. It’s kind of a “TSSS” sound, and while you’ll probably get smacked for doing that anywhere else in the world (at least anywhere I’ve ever been), in Ghana it’s just a way of saying that you want to talk. I felt super uncomfortable doing it at first, but it really is normal there. Shopkeepers in the market (when they weren’t yelling “obroni” or “yevu” at us) sometimes did it to get us to come over and talk.
A lot of tros have things written on the back windows, and this one quickly became our favorite when we saw it parked in Kumasi. Excuse my finger in the picture. Oops.
“Are you sure?”
This was one of our favorite Ghanaian questions. People asked this all the time, even about things that you are definitely sure about. For example:
Person 1: “What did you do this morning?”
Person 2: “I went to the farm.”
Person 1: “Are you sure?”
Person 2: “Yes?” and thinks: I was there wasn’t I? I don’t think it was a dream. Was it a dream?
Or
Person 1: “How are you?”
Person 2: “I’m good, thanks for asking!”
Person 1: “Are you sure?”
Person 2: “Yes?” and thinks: Am I sure?? Do I not seem okay? WHY ARE YOU ASKING THAT??
After we realized this, we all started asking each other “are you sure?” after every question, no matter how ridiculous. I still think it’s funny and have had to catch myself from saying it since I’ve been home.
“You are invited.”
When someone is eating and is in the company of someone who is not, it’s polite for the person who is eating to invite the other person to share their food by saying, “you are invited.” This is one thing that really caught us off guard because it’s a rare occasion at home when someone offers you some of their food. At home, it’s usually when you’re finished eating and have some fries left on your plate. In Ghana, it’s whenever the other person is there. To say no politely, you just say “thank you”, NOT “no, thank you”.
Here’s one of the water bags. To drink, you just bite off the corner and do your best not to spill it on yourself. (Photo credit to Avy)
Water
The locals could handle drinking the well water in our village, but we, with our weak Western bodies, couldn’t. Instead, we used spring water anytime we needed water for drinking or tooth brushing. You can buy bottled water, but the cheapest option is to get water in sachets (you can buy a sachet of 500mL of water for about 5 cents US or a bottle for about 25). A sachet is basically a plastic bag of water, and it’s one of the things that I consistently thought was funny. Rare was the occasion when someone managed to drink out of one without getting water on themselves, and I mostly just poured mine into water bottles to avoid the trouble.
Litter/Trash
It’s amazing how well trained we become to live in our societies without even realizing it. Until I went to a place where recycling and trash cans aren’t as prevalent as they are here, I didn’t realize how reflexive my actions regarding trash have become. I can’t even make myself throw something on the ground without feeling horrible and having to go back to pick it up. In contrast, in Ghana there is a lot of trash everywhere. Everywhere. I only know of one dumpster in town and it was always overflowing with trash. I assume it got emptied at some point, but I don’t remember ever seeing it less than full.
Here’s a picture of the beach in Ada Foah. Yes, some of that stuff is normal beach debris, but a lot of it is also trash. As you might imagine, I didn’t make a habit of taking pictures of trash so this isn’t even close to the worst trash pileup, but it’s the best I have.
At home, from the way my conscience reacts to throwing a plastic bottle in the trash, you would think that one bottle alone is going to destroy the world. Recycling, as far as I saw, is pretty nonexistent in Ghana. The only thing that we separated out from our trash was our water sachets. Everything else was thrown away, and then the trash was thrown into a pile in the woods. Which leads us to…
Fires
You know how when you see smoke, you instinctively panic a little and assume the thing that’s burning probably shouldn’t be? Yeah, I’ve lost that reflex. It maybe lasted two weeks in Ghana before I realized that almost every fire is intentional, whether it’s a field being burned to get ready for a new crop, a fire for preparing a meal, or pile of trash being burned for disposal. Yes, you read that right. Lots of toxic chemicals are being thrown into the ozone from Ghana.
A funny and also somewhat terrifying story – when we had only been in Ghana for a couple weeks, we were planning a bonfire and asked Joe if there was any firewood at the farm that we could use. He said, “no, but there are some old tires you could use”… crickets… “oh I guess it’s not very good to breathe that in.” Ha. Haha. Hahaha. I mean, it was so ridiculous that we couldn’t help but laugh, but at the same time it’s like… what the heck is happening here?
A herd of goats behind our house.
Goats and chickens
When you arrive in a village in Ghana, one of the things that sticks out first is the fact that there are always goats and chickens all over the place. It seems like they’re all just roaming wild and that they don’t belong to anyone, but that’s not the case. They all have owners, and when their owner calls, they know how to find their way back home.
One day, Avy and Fernanda wanted to take a picture with a baby goat. We went to a house near ours where they usually have a big pen of goats, but none of them were home. We started walking away, disappointed, when the woman who lives there saw us, asked if we were looking for the goats, and proceeded to call them home. Her goat call was a combination of Ewe words and some clicks and other sounds, and within seconds, we could hear them all running home. It was insane!
Photo credit to Avy. Thanks Avy for all of your pictures!!
Drive through markets
I know I’ve talked about these before, but it’s one of my favorite things and I finally have a picture, so I’m going to talk about it again. When you’re on a tro tro and are driving through a village, stopping in traffic, or doing anything else that would cause you to slow down, there are often people selling things off of their heads. Now, if you followed my journey at all, you know that carrying things on your head is not the easiest thing… for me, at least. For a lot of the people here, it’s as easy as carrying nothing. People are chatting and walking around and running like they don’t have, for example, a bowl of drinks on their heads. How? That’s something I can’t explain. Best I can do is carry a stack of books on my head.
Anyway, I digress. It’s totally normal to buy something through the window of the tro. Why is this not a thing everywhere? I don’t know, but all I’m saying is that it should be. If you want something in particular and there’s no one in view who has that thing, you can ask anyone and they’ll go get the appropriate person for you. Talk about customer service!
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So there you have it! A few (okay, more than a few) fun facts for you to remember Ghana by. I’m off to Peru in just TWO weeks, so start preparing yourself for more culture shock!
