I had a much-needed break from teaching classes today. Wednesdays are fun/play days (as if every other day isn’t also all fun and playing) which means beach trips/movies/free time to play outside. I luckily didn’t get recruited to help out at the beach, so I had some time to work with Debbie on our next activity for class.
We’re doing a scavenger hunt-type quest through Chilca, and I had to edit/simplify a Google map a bit to get it to look how we wanted. We came up with some things for them to do as we walk through the city. The older class will have to label a bunch of buildings and put the symbols into their map legends (because that’s what we talked about last class). The younger class has the symbols already printed on their maps, but they still need to trace our route and answer some questions as we go. I think it’s going to be cool! They have to do some sketching, talk about what sounds they hear, describe their surroundings, etc. Plus, it’s out of the classroom, so that automatically gives it an extra fun factor.
How beautiful is this handout?? Vanessa told us we still have some grammatical issues, but I’m not too worried about that.
One of my other daily duties is helping to get the cafeteria set up for lunch. The kids all have assigned seats, so I’m responsible for putting out plastic chairs for the kids who are in school (and the little kids use two chairs stacked on each other, so I have to put those in the right places), setting out forks (spoons for the little ones), and distributing meals and juice. This all supposedly happens in a half hour, but we have yet to get it done on time. I’m starting to get into a groove with the chairs and forks, so we just need to work on the food and juice distribution. Getting the food put out for everyone just takes a while because Delia, the chef, basically handcrafts each meal for each kid based on how old and big they are and how much food they need. It’s kind of amazing, but as you might imagine, it also takes forever. Then, I need to search the seating chart to find where that kid goes because I obviously haven’t memorized the names and seats of all the 50ish kids yet. It’s just the first week though! I’m sure it’ll all be under control after a couple more attempts.
Debbie and I finished up our handout in the afternoon, and I spent the rest of the school day helping with Julie’s class. She has 7 kids, ages 1-3, so as you might imagine, things can get interesting. She’s great with them, but sometimes it’s nice to have an extra set of arms and legs to capture the ones who are trying to escape (which is always at least one of them). I spent about 20 minutes playing with Mr. Potato Head, 30 playing with blocks, and the rest attempting to communicate with the kids. Between the fact that my Spanish is a work-in-progress and that they’re a bunch of 2 year olds who are on their own quests to master the language, I’m sure you can understand where some communication issues might come into play. Two-year-olds speaking English are hard enough to understand.
My churro in all of its sugary glory
Once school ended, Debbie and I walked to the town across the highway, Benjamin, (much closer than going into Chilca) and made copies of our maps. I bought a churro on the way back from a man with a churro cart under the pedestrian bridge. It was 1 Sol (so about 30 cents) and was, no contest, the best churro I’ve ever eaten (don’t ask how many churros I’ve ever eaten because it’s probably less than 10… but that’s just because I didn’t have access to THESE churros. Expect that number to skyrocket). It was so fluffy and donut-y, and inside there was a caramel-like filling. Plus it was obviously covered in sugar. I love sugar.
Anyway, we’ll see how the trip to Chilca goes tomorrow. Pray that we don’t lose any kids!
I’m exhausted. So far, one of the main things I’m getting out of this year is a massive appreciation for actual teachers. My feet hurt from standing, and I only had 4 hours of class today. My head hurts from thinking and trying to come up with ways to entertain the kids. I’m seriously ready to pass out. Like I said yesterday, the kids are so well behaved though… I can’t even imagine how I would be feeling right now if they were out of control. Some issues come up, of course, but they’re manageable. It’s a beautiful thing.
Towers in progress.
The morning class today was C4, the oldest group. They’re 10-12 years old, and after meeting them and seeing them work today, I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the projects we’re going to do later on. We did mostly the same thing as yesterday’s class. The paper tower challenge was definitely… well, a challenge… but I was happy because the reason some groups had trouble was because they had big dreams that just weren’t quite realistic. Even though they didn’t “succeed” if you’re just measuring how tall their towers were, they were trying to problem solve and be creative and make their ambitious designs work. The winning team used their scissors as a weight in the base of their tower. Technically, we never said you couldn’t, so it was legal. YAY for kids thinking outside the box!
Coloring their maps and making symbol legends for them.
They also did the same coloring/map legend/giving directions activity as the group yesterday, and everyone caught on really quickly. We had them do another activity outside with a map of the Esperanza de Ana compound. We had some numbers written on the map, and they had to walk from number to number, proving that they understood what the map was showing, and drawing their routes as they went. It’s such a relief when you make up an activity, have no idea how it’s going to go, and everything turns out well! I feel like the kids learned something and weren’t miserable doing it, so it’s getting counted as a win. High standards for success, right?
Lego “houses”!
The afternoon was a whole different adventure. I had an hour with each of the younger classes. Julie’s class has seven 2-3 year olds (C1), and Ligia’s has eleven 4-6 year olds (C2). Julie gets about 15 million gold stars for helping me (and by “helping” I mean basically carrying me because without her I’d be as useful as a broken rubber band – aka still capable of doing something, but only if there’s no other option). In her class, she explained some basics about what engineers do and then we had the kids build “houses” out of those big legos for an hour. That was probably my favorite part of the day because we just played with blocks, and the kids had a blast making crazy structures.
Future engineers at work!
For the C2 class, Julie and Ligia switched places so that Julie could stay with me. We had the kids draw their dream houses after Julie explained that engineers make plans before they get to work actually building things. My two favorite drawings (which I realize now that I should have taken pictures of, but alas I didn’t) were one where the kid put his house on stilts and had a ladder to climb to the front door, and another one where the house was tiny and drawn in the corner, and the rest of the paper was filled by a drawing of a person riding a dinosaur that kind of looked like a llama.
Tomorrow we don’t have any engineering classes to teach because it’s a beach/movie/fun day (that’s the plan for every Wednesday). I’m not sure if I’ll get sent along on any beach trips as an extra chaperone, but I’m crossing my fingers for getting a recovery day and having some time to finish creating our activities for the rest of the week.
Happy first day of summer school! This was my first day experiencing a schedule that’s more structured and closer to the school year schedule, though that still has some differences from what we’re doing now. The summer school is from 10AM – 4PM and involves two 2-hour class blocks each day, plus lunch and some free play time. It’s cool because one of the main goals of the summer program is to get the kids to think creatively, so the teachers are all doing interesting things with their classes. For example, the little kids had cooking class today and there are movies and beach trips and science experiments and crafts planned. Heck, if I was a kid, I think I would be all about this summer school.
Our classroom! I didn’t know that we got our own classroom and was beyond excited. How cool is this??
Our morning started at 6:30AM. Julie, Debbie, and I went for another run. I’m impressed that we made it to day 2! Everyone seems interested in keeping this going, so I think there’s a good chance of it happening regularly. The current plan is Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one day over the weekend. We’ll see! The run was miserable, but it was nice to have some wake up time and run through the neighborhood without many people around.
After we got back, we ate breakfast, showered, had some personal quiet time, and then did a mini staff worship time to get our heads into the right place before starting our days. Then, Debbie and I used the rest of the morning to finish pulling together our plans for our first Mini-Ingenieros class!
We decided that the best way to do the map lesson was to have a big version that everyone could see. I did my best without a straightedge to guide my lines.
We had lunch at 1, and at 2PM, it was time. Eek! Okay, deep breath. I know I keep saying this, but I think it requires repeating because it’s easy to forget when you’re not here. Our class is in Spanish. My Spanish experience is as follows: 5 years in middle/high school (which was almost 8 years ago), 2 weeks in college while contemplating a Spanish minor (the idea was clearly rejected), and about 9 months of semi-consistent Duolingo/reading my old textbooks/Spanish grammar internet searches after I decided that I wanted to come to Peru. In summary: my Spanish is kind of ehhh. Especially when it comes to speaking.
Debbie judging the finished towers.
Debbie took the lead on a lot of the talking, which I appreciated. We started out having the kids introduce themselves, and then we talked about what an engineer is (“we” meaning mostly Debbie, but I did say a few words). When we got to our first activity, a paper tower competition, Debbie told me to explain it and she would translate. I felt kind of stupid doing it that way, so instead I decided that I was going to just try to explain it myself. Yes, I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what my brain decided. The result was… well, not terrible at least. I didn’t provide a lot of details, but Debbie and the class’s teacher, Vanessa, were there to fill in the gaps. I felt pretty good about myself actually. I just have to keep pushing, and I know that, but knowing it doesn’t make doing it any easier.
The paper tower challenge went so well! It’s only of those things that I’ve done a million times, generally for some engineering-related team-building activity. Each team gets a few sheets of paper, a 2-ish foot piece of tape, scissors, and 20 minutes to build the tallest tower that can stand on its own. The kids all participated and even seemed like they might be having fun! They clearly put thought into their towers, and I was proud of what they came up with.
The rest of class was spent attempting to teach the kids about maps. We used the map I made on Saturday and talked about what it was showing, colored it in, and then created a key. We also tried to explain how to give directions, and it seemed like the kids were getting it by the end, but who really knows? All in all, I was very happy with how everything went. The kids are, for the most part, well behaved and engaged. I know it’s only day 1, but I’m thinking that this is going to be the case for the rest of the time as well. These are some well-trained kids. Like all kids, I’m sure they’ll have their moments, but they know the expectations and how they’re supposed to act.
Tomorrow is the first day of trying to teach the little ones, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I hope that it’s as painless as today was.
For the last two days technically being “off” days over the weekend, we certainly did a lot of work. I think that’s the teacher life though. You work whenever you need to in order to be ready for class. Good work, teachers of the world. I don’t know how you do it.
This is the inside of church. Check out that hip LED lighting!
The morning started off with a trip into Lima for church. The church (Camino de Vida) that the team goes to is pretty cool. It was celebrating its 28th anniversary this week! The mood was relaxed and welcoming, the people were passionate, and the music was great. We sang some songs that I know in English which was nice because then I had a much easier time mentally translating while singing (not the easiest thing to do, as you might imagine). Also, the pastor is originally from the US which meant that his Spanish during the sermon was easier for me to understand than if he was a native Spanish speaker (that’s a generalization, I know, but he talks more slowly than a lot of people here and says things in ways that make sense to me). I’d put my overall church comprehension at about 80%, and that’s being completely honest. That was also with me focusing extremely hard and not letting myself get distracted for even a second. If I had lost his train of thought, it would have been game over I think. I’m happy with that though!A picture from the ride homeWe went grocery shopping after church but had to keep an eye on the time because the southbound side of the main highway is closed at 2PM on Sundays during the summer to accommodate beach traffic. People in Lima go south on the weekends to go to the beach which means that the northbound traffic on Sundays is horrible. To try to help with that, for part of the way the southbound lanes are closed to southbound traffic and are used for northbound traffic. That’s crazy! I mean, it certainly makes some sense, but it would have been a big inconvenience for us to have to find an alternate route home if we hadn’t made it in time. I can’t even imagine how much people would freak out at home if anyone even SUGGESTED doing something like that. At 2:05, we drove past all of the police officers who were just about ready to start redirecting traffic. Phew!
Sunset over Chilca
During the afternoon, Debbie and I went into Chilca to get the materials prepared for class tomorrow. We’re only teaching one class in the afternoon to allow time for the students to settle in during the morning (after this week, we will have a morning and an afternoon class on Mondays) which is a relief because we’ll have some time tomorrow to do some final planning. We got our maps printed out and then drove around and planned some stops and a route for the scavenger hunt we want to do in Chilca during our second class.
The town of Chilca is behind us in this picture. I’ll never get sick of the mountains in this place!
I’m getting excited about this class! I think it has the potential to be really cool, and I hope that we can pull it off. By “we”, I mostly mean “I”. I’m not worried about Debbie. She is going to take the lead on the explanations since obviously the class is going to be in Spanish, but I’m determined to help out. Hmm you know what? This could be perfect… Probably the best people I can talk to are kids because they’re the closest to my level of Spanish (probably like a 2-year-old kid, that is… they can mostly understand but don’t necessarily talk that much).
Keep us in your prayers (my Spanish skills especially)… I’ll let you know how things go tomorrow!
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!
Get ready, everyone. I’m about to attempt to do the impossible… bring closure to a 13-week, life altering experience in a blog post. I’m going to accept that this won’t do it justice and try anyway. To start, let me knock out two of the questions that everyone seems to ask: what did I miss most about home, and what will I miss most about Ghana?
Things I missed about home:
Okay so I promise you that this list is not at all what you would guess, but here it is. After 12 weeks in Ghana, these were my top 4 most missed things:
Our makeshift couch. Better than nothing, but no match for the real thing!
Couches – I love couches (the extent of my love was unknown even to me until this trip). There’s nothing better than wanting to sit down and getting to do it on a soft, comfy couch that holds you close and says, “Lara, I love you too. Stay here forever.” If you’ve never experienced this, you need a new couch.
Washing machines – I’m going to guess that I did laundry about 8 times when I was in Ghana. The first 3 or 4, my clothes smelled worse than when I started, still had soap in them, and/or inspired zero confidence that any “cleaning” had truly happened. By about halfway through my trip, I had the laundry technique perfected, but I probably also would have won the “slowest laundry washer in all of Ghana” award, if such a thing existed. Needless to say, perfected technique or not, I’m happy to spend some time in the company of mechanical laundry washing.
Napkins – Yes, napkins do exist in Ghana, but we never had any at the house. You never realize how much you appreciate napkins until you want and don’t have one.
Clean floors – Somehow, no matter how often we swept the floor in the house, there was ALWAYS dirt on it. Sometimes, I just wanted to walk around the house barefoot or in socks. The result? Dirty feet, dirty socks, and a still-dirty floor. Take me back to the land of vacuum cleaners and my parents’ house where shoes are removed on entry.
Beyond those things, I honestly didn’t miss too much. Yeah, sometimes I wanted some cheese or reliable electricity or a trip to the bathroom that didn’t require fighting off flies or mosquitoes (real life: bug spraying your butt before nighttime bathroom visits to avoid extra-uncomfortable bites), but those were all minor.
Things I’ll miss about Ghana:
The people – Both the locals and my volunteer friends. This is #1 by far.
Pancake day (plus Agnes’s cooking in general) – Pancake day is the best! There were a few dishes that I wasn’t a fan of, but for the most part, I really liked the food! (Two thumbs up for peanut soup, waakye, fried rice, indomie, and jollof rice.) If you missed my food post, you can check it out HERE.
Machetes – I think this one speaks for itself.
My bed – This one is weird, I know. Who likes a foam mattress (no, not fancy memory foam. Literally just a block of yellow foam)? Well, me apparently. My bed was the comfiest, my pillow was the perfect flatness, and there’s something kind of fun about having a mosquito net curtain around you.
Drive through markets – Fan Ice (ice cream) and bofrot (donut balls) delivered to you on someone’s head? Talk about living the dream.
Week 2… basically a lifetime ago.
Now, time for some real talk. When I started this trip, I was pretty sure that my long-term impact on any of the communities I lived in or people I met would be negligible. Now, I’m not so sure. I think it is possible for me to make a real difference, even if I only spend 3 months in a place. I was right in saying that I’m not going to save the world. That’s an idealistic approach to this experience that would certainly leave me disheartened and unmotivated. However, that’s more than enough time to build relationships, share ideas, and start moving towards improvements. I could name specific changes that occurred in me during my trip based on things that certain people did or said. If they could have individual impacts on me, why couldn’t I do the same for them?
With this new outlook, I’m even more excited about the rest of my adventure. I’m ready to keep practicing being comfortable with being uncomfortable (try to wrap your head around that one). I’m ready to take each day as it comes, celebrating the good ones and pushing through the hard ones. I’m ready to do my best in every situation and trust that God will handle the rest.
Oh yeah, and I haven’t consciously eaten any bugs yet, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of time. (Though I’m still strongly leaning in the direction of ‘not gonna happen’.)
I’m headed to Peru on January 18th, so you can expect consistent posts to restart then. In the meantime, I have a couple other posts in the works with some random Ghana stories, book recommendations (relevant to travelling and helping others), etc.
