Well another month down and man it was quite a month. I got my puppy Jata, I got sat on by a crazy lady, I received numerous marriage proposals from my delightful farmers, packed jewelry for hours, I rearranged my kitchen, I was really broke for a week and towards the end I hit a point in my experience that has made me stop a rethink things a bit.
I think throughout this experience you are continuously learning about yourself and what it means to be yourself in a new place. You have to take all things into consideration, the facts are I’m a woman, I’m trying to help farmers, the other volunteers I know are over 3 hours away from me most are over 5 hours, my living situation is odd for Peace Corps and my personality, the way I was raised is very different from the Ghanaian norm. I am very independent and am very good at taking care of myself and usually good at filling my time with being outside, doing projects, or hanging out with friends.
But recently I have had a hard time filling that time. Being outside means constantly having to respond to kids and adults yelling “obruni”/ ”blafono” at me and expecting me to respond in some fashion. I get tired of yelling “ah che me Abiekey, ah che me wi obruni/blafono”. The Krobo people are very loud and persistent in their need for my attention. This is part of my struggle living in a larger town. I cant connect with everybody, ive tried, most kids that I walk by know my name, but Nkurakan is larger than you would think and since it is so close to Koforidua there are many visitors that think its so great that an Obruni is living here.
To fill my time I have been helping out at the bead office but honestly I’m kind of over it. They are very well off, got the finances in order, they have a process for producing and shipping off. I am just an extra set of hands. I’m ready to start my assigned work, working in the field with farmers. And that is just what I’ve decided to make happen. The NGO that I’m supposed to work with is setting up a training facility that will centralize efforts to train farmers in the district, its coming slower than expected. When it is up and going there will be many things happening which means theoretically I’ll be busy but who knows! So I have decided to try to meet some local craftsmen and women that make Kente cloth and clothing. I also want to start looking into starting some programs at local schools if only to say hi once in a while! I have to remember that I have only been at site for two months and I can’t get ahead of myself here things take a long time to happen. I think this is something that most peace corps volunteers relies it we just all take different routes. I started when I first arrived at site with the holidays it was a matter of waiting until people went back to work, back to school, back to normal. Now that I am settled in my place I actually am motivated to start projects but it’s still a matter of waiting for the NGO to get their act together.
At the end of this month I do believe things will start to happen with the NGO and with Peace Corps events. Until then I will pursue my own motives and to keep trying to push my own boundaries by meeting new people and learning new things. I’m liking this step back, readjusting my outlook. It’s needed, I had high expectations of getting to work like most new volunteers, eager to start projects and make progress, but that’s just not the way things work here even with all the gumption in the world. Don’t get me wrong I still have high expectations for my time here I have just readjusted the timeline.
Just the other day I met a man that keeps bees in the village after my community and this weekend I took it upon myself to visit him. He was of course at a funeral (it was a Saturday), but I only had to wait a little bit for him to show up and give me a little tour of his farm. He uses boxed with wires for the hives and not the standard top bar that you see most often here. He even opened one up for me to peek inside although he was sure I would run away, nope not me. He also has a cocoa nursery going and is joining as an association soon. I don’t want to get into cocoa at all but he was mighty proud of it! He kept saying how he was getting to be old and wanted more bee hives because they are easy and can produce easy profit for him. Things like this that I hope will fall into place as I start working with farmers.
So it is now time for me to head home for dinner which I think will be banku or kinkey with tomato and onion sauce. My favorite! I’m sure Jata will be anxious to play around and for me to clean up after her! The joys of having a puppy!
Until next time,
Live in love
