I arrived in Ghana on September 23 with all of the other 47 trainees in my group. There are 3 different sectors of people who trained together: Environment, Small Enterprise Development, and Water and Sanitation/Health Education (Watsan for short). Even though I have a specialty in HIV/AIDS, it falls under the category of Watsan so in the last 10 weeks I have been learning a variety of different skills related to Water and Sanitation work, as well as skills relating to health education. I know more about how to get a community a borehole for safe water access and how to get a latrine project going than I ever thought I would. When I envisioned what I would be doing, it was different than what I am actually doing. But that is not a bad thing at all, I have always enjoyed learning random useful skills.

The last 10 weeks have been intense, we have had 50 – 60 hour work weeks and only 1 day off every 14 days. A typical day has been like this:
-get up at 6:30, greet my homestay parents, eat breakfast, get ready for school. We stayed with a homestay family for the 10 weeks we were in the Techiman area.
-7:30 walk across town, greeting 10 – 20 people as I go, saying “good morning, how are you, I am going to school, where are you going”, etc
-8:00 start language for 4 hours. I learned Dagaare, which is what they speak in the Upper West where I am going
-12:00 go back and review the language lesson and eat lunch
-1:30 to 5:00 technical training. Each week was a different theme like basic sanitation, HIV/AIDS, women’s health, or school health education. Our technical training including visiting NGOs on field trips, visiting local clinics, practicing taking a census and other techniques they teach us to integrate into our community, and teaching lessons on basic sanitation and HIV/AIDS in the local schools.
-5:00 come home and eat dinner and hang out with my homestay family
-6:30 practice language or work on projects for an hour and a half.
-8:00 relax a little bit before going to sleep, sometimes meet up with the other volunteers and hang out

We had three main projects during the 10 weeks. One was to plan 2 health education lessons to teach in the local Junior Secondary School (the Ghanaian equivalent of Junior High). The second project was a cultural one, we had to pick an aspect of Ghanaian culture that interested us and report to all the trainees. I did my project on the Black Stars, which is the Ghanaian World Cup team. The Africa Cup is happening in 2008 in Ghana which the Black Stars will be playing in. The final project we had to do is called SCOP, or the small community outreach project. By the way both the Peace Corps and Ghana in general are addicted to acronyms, I will try not to expose you to too many of them. For our project, we produced an education flyer for the community clinic on basic concepts on HIV/AIDS prevention and transmission.

For 3 days out of the week we had training within our sector with other Watsan volunteers only. There were about 15 Watsan volunteers total. Then for Thursday and Friday every week we had general training sessions with the other 47 volunteers on a wide variety of topics. We had a medical session every week, since they could talk to us for hours about the various fungi, diseases, water borne bacteria, and generally scary things we could contract during our 2 years here. Then we had more uplifting sessions on different aspects of Ghanaian culture and societal structure, which is complex, diverse, and fascinating. For example, something which is fairly standardized in the West like how 2 people go about getting married varies from village to village, tribe to tribe, and region to region. Finally we had a lot of general sessions on how to run groups, do interviews, and adapt to another culture. These last type of sessions were very tedious for me as I have a lot of work experience and have been traveling for years and know how to integrate into another culture. Overall, I am grateful that the Peace Corps taught me a lot about the language and culture, these are the things I most took away from training.

We also had 3 trips during our 10 week training period. The first was the second week we were in the country we had what the Peace Corps called a “vision quest” and shadowed a volunteer in the Volta region. The volunteer I was with did Guinea Worm eradication work and lived in a tiny village of a few hundred people. We split into groups with 2 or 3 people staying with each volunteer. This was good as it gave us a glimpse early on of what we were getting ourselves into. The second trip was a field trip to the Northern region to a volunteer who was also doing Guinea Worm eradication work. We had thus far been in the southern half of the country and it was good to get a perspective of what life is like in the North. The Southern half and the Northern half of the country are pretty distinctly different. The South is the more touristy and developed area and has a hotter and more humid climate. Therefore, it is has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that you get a better variety of food because there are 2 growing seasons a year and the roads are better. You can also find some things more easily since it is more developed. The disadvantage is that most foreigners around are tourists who are coming on vacation and have money, so they equate white people with being rich and expect you have money. The South is also predominantly Christian. The North is drier but hotter, so even though the temperature is higher, especially during the 2 months a year where it can get up to 120 degrees every day, it doesn’t feel as hot to me because it is not a wet heat. The food variety is less there, but the people are more calm in the North. And the traditional drumming and dancing culture is more preserved in the North because it has been less developed and, therefore, less modernized. The North is predominantly Muslim, although in both regions there are pockets of the opposite religion.

The final trip we took was to our site where we will be staying for the next 2 years. I will be working in Lawra in the Upper West region. Lawra is a large spread out village of 50,000 people. It is the district capital and the hospital and the local government offices, which is called the District Assembly, are located there. There are a lot of educated people in my village and many people in the town speak English. The other language spoken there is Dagaare, which I now have a basic understanding of. Unlike most of the Northern half of the country, Lawra is predominantly Christian. My assignment is with the Methodist Integrated Health Project, located in Lawra and affiliated with the Methodist Church. The project I am working with has 3 main components: there is a small orphanage, a live-in malnutrition center for severely malnourished children and their mothers, and a group of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). My job will be to assist the project with whatever they need. I will also be doing computer trainings for the hospital staff and other community members. I would like to do HIV/AIDS education in the schools whenever I can as well. I know about the different aspects of the project, but I won’t know until I get there what the specific type of work they want me to do. Also I will be spending the majority of my first few months just hanging out with different people and trying to get to know my community.

My house is nice. Sorry to disappoint those of you who envisioned me living in a mud hut, but I have a 2 bedroom self contained house with electricity. I do have running water that is piped into my house, but they only open up the pipes once a week, so I have 2 large water barrels that I will fill up once a week. I will take bucket baths and have a toilet that I will bucket flush. I have a small refrigerator and propane stove that I will cook on. I am very happy with my house, it is basic but nice and I think I will be comfortable there.

Overall, I have been really enjoying my time in Ghana and the time I have gotten to spend with the Ghanaian people. I have heard many people say it is the friendliest country in West Africa and I understand why. People on the whole are willing to help you out if you ask them. Also, Ghanaians love to laugh and have a great sense of humor. I have met many Ghanaians who are really focused on getting to the US and I consider it part of my work to help them understand what is wonderful about their country and why they should be happy to live here. Especially since the States doesn’t grant many visas to people from Ghana. Even though I have spent the majority of the last 10 weeks with mostly Americans, I have still picked up on some of the great things about Ghanaian people. One is definitely their extended family structure. Even though people have little money compared to the West, everyone is taken care of more or less under the extended family structure. After spending day after day seeing the mass of homeless people on the streets of San Francisco, this has been a welcome change. Also the world could learn a lot from Ghana about the coexistence of Islam and Christianity. There are some interfaith networks in the North, and some of the people who are involved are both Priests and Imams and are recognized as leaders in both the church and the mosque. There is not such a sharp divide between the 2 religions and intermarriage between Muslims and Christians is common.

Well I suppose I should close for now. Sorry this is so long, but it really is several entries compacted into one. I have finally got some extended time on the internet today. Thanks again to all of you who supported me in my quest to get here and through training. It is an interesting time for me, I am excited to get to site and started on my work. If you would like to write me a letter, here is my new address in Lawra:

Liz Gharst PCV
P.O. Box 44
Lawra, Upper West
Ghana
West Africa