It's been one full month since I last blogged. As much as I would like to say, "I'll
blog more." I have a feeling that this will be the norm. Maybe as I run out of television shows to
watch (currently watching Doctor Who and really enjoying it), I'll blog more,
but who knows. Luckily I have a pretty
good memory, so I should be able to get into some detail.
Last time I wrote it was election day, but due to some
technical difficulties (voting machines and fingerprint scanners breaking),
voting continued on Saturday. The
election was really close, and the last constituency could have swung the vote
either way, but in the end the incumbent John Mahama won. Mahama is associated with the New Democratic
Congress party (NDC), and leaned heavily on the votes from Volta Region, Accra,
and the northern regions to win. His
main opponent Nana Akuffo Addo was the New Patriotic Party's candidate, and he
didn't take the loss very well. He made
the comment, "All die be die." which some people took as a call for
violence, and he made lots of claims about being cheated out of the
election. (My favorite theory was that the
NDC hired Chinese hackers to change NPP votes).
Some NPP supporters protested in Kumasi and Accra, but I don't think
anything turned violent. Today is the
Inauguration Day, so most people agree that this will end the talk of foul play
cheating.
The end of school wasn't too eventful. The continuous
assessment forms for recording grades suddenly made their appearance, so all of
the teachers had to scramble to record and calculate end of term grades. I hope that this term we'll have them the
whole time so I can record selected homework as I grade it. The students spent the second to last day of
school moving sand from the stream to a house so they can plaster the inside
and outside walls to make my computer lab.
Since I haven't heard any word about it, I'm assuming that no more work
has been done. We raised money for the
lab one day in church though, and I think we got over 200 Ghana Cedis.
I traveled around Bodada a little bit: jogging almost to
Jasikan, jogging half way to Amenor, walking a little ways on the Teteman
road. It was good to get out of the
house, but I still didn't do as much as I had hoped. My walks on the Teteman road were nice
because the pastor joined me in the evenings, and we had some good chats. Another time I ran into the former headmaster
of my school Gyamebi, and we went to visit his palm wine farmer friend named
Ski-Doo (okay it's actually 'Squito -like mosquito- but it sounded like Skidoe,
and I prefer to think of him as Ski-doo).
I'm fascinated by palm wine farming, and after asking a lot of questions
and watching Squito intently, I asked if I could watch him tap some fresh trees
that he had recently felled. So one
Sunday morning I went over to his house at 5:00am (he lives close to town so he
has to collect it early because people will come and steal his palm if he lets
it sit) and we walked to his farm. As it
turned out he didn't have all of the tools necessary to properly trim the
fronds, so I had to settle for trying my had at cutting the tapped tree and
drinking the sweet palm wine.
One day I went to the Ewe village of Awoma (about 15km away
from Bodada going towards Kute) to visit one of my students Kofi Agamah Prince
who also lives in the compound with me and the pastor. Awoma is a small village with one school
(primary and junior high) and a large Muslim population. I got there in the morning because I had
hoped to do some farming, but it turns out that they weren't going to farm that
day, so I helped put the metal roofing on a kitchen. That afternoon Prince took me out to his farm
and gave me a bunch of ginger and papaya, then his mother cooked us a big
lunch. His mom was the happiest that I
came to visit, so she took me around to visit all of the EP church members in
the village. We ended up walking around
for a good two hours, and I was ready to fall asleep by the time we got
back. They were really disappointed that
I didn't stay for dinner and spend the night, but I had already told the pastor
that I would be back that night for fufu.
It was a great trip because I don't get to see true village life in
Bodada; in fact people consider it a very big town (population of around 1,500,
supposedly). Awoma doesn't have any pipe
water, electricity, or paved roads, but the people are no less friendly to a
white person who can speak a little Ewe.
Christmas came next, and although I've heard it can be a
difficult time for volunteers, it didn't feel too different to me. I miss the cold and the snow, but because the
Harmattan has set in I get chilly nights that have forced me to use a second
sheet to keep warm. Last night I even
shut my door to keep out the breeze (I still left the window open, so it got
nice and cool). I've been loving
Harmattan because the dusk-to-dawn temperature is perfect, but Ghanaians
freeze. Most people around me have
broken out their sweaters and winter coats, and they don't understand how I
stay warm walking around at 6:30am in shorts and a t-shirt. If only they could experience a nice
Midwestern winter...
I went to church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Christmas Eve service was pretty short,
and five different groups of people just sang songs. The pastor had told me that singing was
pretty much the only reason for the Christmas Eve service, so I told him that I
would sing them my favorite Christmas song, "Silent Night." When he announced that the congregation
should expect a song from me before we closed for the night, the few people who
were there (30 or 40 only) clapped for me.
I was pretty nervous since I was just going to sing it by myself, but I
knew that people wouldn't mind the quality and they would just be happy that I
was singing. However, just before it was
my turn, the youth group (of whom only 2 showed up) sang "Yen Agyen Kwa,"
the Twi language version of "Silent Night." My thunder was instantly stolen. The whole congregation joined in, and I sang
along too. Then it was my turn, and I
stood up and walked to the front of the church and told them that even though
they just sang my favorite Christmas song, I was going to sing it again, but in
English. Of course I started way off
key, which wouldn't have been as much of a problem if I were singing solo, but
the keyboardist knew the song and was playing along, so it sounded terrible. I just laughed and asked him to restart, and
I got it right the next time. Everyone
clapped when I finished and there were shouts of "Wofa Yaw!" so I
just laughed and waved. Then to top it
off, we sang another song before leaving for the night, and guess what it was...yep,
"Yen Agyen Kwa"...again. So
all in all we sang it three times that night.
Not to mention the time that we sang it the next day at the Christmas
Day service, which by the way lasted a good three and a half hours. I recorded the Christmas Day version and
quickly made a movie with the pictures I took that day, and I posted it to
YouTube. Here's the link if you want to
check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3pPhYbTfls
You'll notice that the end of the video is a picture of a
respectable pastor and a goofy looking man from the '80s with a nice mullet and
a terrible moustache, and I'm sorry to say that it's me. Or at least me from two weeks ago. The mullet looks the same now, but the
moustache has gotten a bit thicker. I've
posted an updated picture on Facebook for your enjoyment. If you were able to remember anything before
that picture, you might have noticed some nice waterfall pictures. That's the famous Wli Waterfalls. Shortly after Christmas I made a quick day
trip there and hiked up to the upper falls.
The hike is pretty steep since Ghanaians don't really believe in switchbacks,
but the upper falls are pretty cool. I'm
not sure how high they are because the "guides" who go up with you don't
really know much information about the area and mostly just try to get money from
you. That was a fun trip, and anyone who
visits me can easily visit Wli. Did I mention
you can swim in the pools formed by the waterfalls? Well you can, but as you get closer to the water,
it gets windier and windier until the water is stinging your whole body. It's what I imagine a hurricane to feel like.
My most recent day trip was down to the Gulf of Guinea near Keta
for New Year's Eve. I couldn't stay for too
long because it's a long trip, but it was a lot of fun. Great waves (I need to learn how to surf) and a
beautiful beach.
The second term of school "starts" tomorrow, but who
knows when we'll start effective teaching (aka teachers and students show up on
time), it might be a while. 15 more weeks
of school. I think I'll become a dedicated
ICT teacher and work on getting the computer lab open and the laptops set up so
students can't destroy them. Who knows. You probably were drawn here from Facebook, but
I've uploaded a couple more pictures there for your enjoyment.
