New Placement = New Problems

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a kafuffle while trying to get to Peter Piper's as the host (let's call him "The Chief" for anonymity) wanted Kim & I to stay at his new secondary school Golden Gate for a week and then, and only then, decide whether we wanted to teach there or at our original placement. But as soon as I arrived at Golden Gate I realized that it was not where I wanted to spend my next 5 months and, after confirming with Kimberly that she felt the same, proceeded to subtly let The Chief know that we were set on Peter Piper's. However as soon as they realized we did not want to stay at their preferred placement, The Chief and the Head Pastor began persistently to try and convince us that it would be in our best interest to stay, not understanding that we were uncomfortable teaching 17 and 18 year olds, that their approach to discipline was distressing and that the isolation of the school was suffocating. The only positive part of the "Golden Gate Experience" (apart from the children who really were lovely - we played a huge game of soccer with them on our first day and they where ecstatic) was Juanita (or as Kim insists it's spelled Whaneta), The Chiefs 2nd wife who treated us with respect and made sure we had everything we needed, and her 8 month old son O’Hara, who is the cutest baby boy I have ever laid eyes on and enjoys pinching my "Ghost Skin" and squealing delightedly.

By Monday we were so overwhelmed by the situation at Golden Gate that we called up our closest mates in Takoradi, Sam (The Stud) and Robbie (The Daddy), and went out for a drink telling them our sob story, and then forgetting all about it with Star Beer and good conversation such as:

• Uncomfortable Movie Dates (Which led to a demonstration of the "Yawn and Stretch” technique.)


• First, and worst, Kisses.


• Traditional Scottish Dance Moves (The YoYo, and Boomerang ect.)


• Ghana, and how much we love it here.

Unfortunately it gets dark in Southern Ghana very quickly and we had a lot of trouble getting back to the school, upon arrival we discovered that the message we gave to the Head Pastor, about our night out, was not given to The Chief and he had no idea where we had been. It just added insult to injury the next day when, being so frustrated by the situation at Golden Gate, we had to bring our problems to a higher power and were finally moved to Peter Piper's, where we belonged.

I will now strive to use all the skill I gained during my fruitless year as a writing major, in order to paint a picture of where I will be; eating mangoes for breakfast, sleeping under a mosquito net and teaching literature for the next five months: Painted a dull yellow, the school is built in a rectangle around a dusty courtyard. The walls surrounding the property are topped with shards of broken glass in order to discourage thieves from entering, though I doubt any criminal would dare challenge Christopher, the Warden who has a constant frown plastered across his face(though he explained to me yesterday this is only because he is so hungry.)

The school is constantly expanding, and a new building on the far left is slowly being built by day workers, many of them siblings of the students, right now it is a pale stone grey with spike shooting out of the top waiting for more layers to be added.
The classrooms are 3 walled and consist of the mere basics, a chalkboard 40 chairs and 40 desks, every time I walk past, or DARE to step into one of them, the children run at me waving their arms in the air and screaming: “Madame! Madame Glowy!” – They have great difficulty pronouncing the “Klah” in my name, “Madame Kim” they manage with great fervor however.
In one corner, beside an old broken-down Ferris wheel is a large cage where Mr. Darcy, a large white monkey with an erectile dysfunction, resides (Not knowing his true name Kim & I decided to christen him after the brooding Jane Austen Hero as he often looks rather pompous & morose). The children enjoy taunting him by throwing garbage into his cage and yelling in Fante, which has unearthed a fear a humans, but yesterday he allowed me to approach his feed him water out of an old margarine case. Today he shocked us all by grabbing a bird that was hopping nearby and happily biting its head off! This is not good news for Jesus (Hay-Zeus) the cocky Parrot, whose cage is adjacent to Mr. Darcy’s.
Kim & I share 2 rooms – a small chamber consisting of a bunk bed and table which frequently has the odor of urine as it is beside they Boys urinal. And a living area, which we have made quite homely with pictures of friends and family, fake flowers and colorful scarves. This room contains a fridge (which FINALLY works!!! Cold Bagged water all around!), a wardrobe (Kim and I picked up hangers and clothing baskets for a couple Cedi in Market Circle* in order to organize our few outfits.), a table with two chairs and a silly lace table cloth, and a shelving unit which we have filled with our various belongings (Mostly books and a ridiculous amount of fist-aid materials). Over all is a beautiful and cheerful place and I couldn’t be happier.

So, now I am sitting in an Internet cafe in the middle of Takoradi listening to my roommate Kim chat happily with her best friend for the first time since we've arrived. It's an astonishing 38 degrees, I've been bitten to bits by mosquito's and haven't had a proper shower in 6 days - Before you start picturing my as a blistered filthy mess I must explain that the water tank connecting my placement is empty and therefore I have had to become fully Ghanaian and wash myself with buckets of water that we collect from the other side of the property (that is we collect it when we can, there is always a student anxious to help us out who refuses to take no or "Dhabi"* for an answer).

* “No” in Fante

T.I.A!

It’s been less week since I’ve arrived in Ghana and it already feels like home. At the moment I am severely sweating in the bedroom I and 7 other volunteers share, having just cleaned up a massage suncream*explosion. So much has happened since I left I don’t even know where to begin, But I suppose I should start in London where I met 3 of the volunteers Wilf – the exceedingly clever and Star Wars obsessed Oxford bound Brit, Emily – the opera singing, ballet dancing and far to old for her age co-blogger, and Kimberly Ann, or Kim as she likes to be called – my other half for the next 5 months, the funny friendly red head with a heart of gold. They patiently showed me the sights around London, Big Ben, The Thames, The London Eye ect.while I snapped photographs like a crazed tourist and listened to their various accents with awe (F.Y.I if you close your eyes, Wilf sounds like an very posh, old Brtish man, most likely wearing something in tweed.). After a lunch of proper British Fish and Chips, Emily, who lives as she puts it on the “Dodgy Side” of London, invited us back to her place for tea. I, finding this marvelously British, agreed enthusiastically and we all caught a train to New Gate. Once we had drank a pot of Builders (Which is English’s every day Tea, Wilf claims only snobs drink Earl Grey) we proceeded to freak out about the fact that we where about to embark for Ghana “THE BLOODY DAY AFTER TOMORROW!!!”

Finally the “THE BLOODY DAY AFTER TOMORROW.”arrived and I had to say goodbye to Mum and meet up with the fellow volunteers.

Problems occurred before we even left the ground – My luggage was overweight,which they let slide with a warning, and my carry-on too large, and although I stated profusely that Canadian Customs let me through with the exact same size backpack (or “Rucksack” as the Brits call it), I was met only with a “Well you’re not in Canada anymore you are in the United Kingdom!” After which I had to struggle greatly not to salute and exclaim “Long live the Queen!” However the other volunteers immediately came to my rescue shoving various books and soccer jerseys into their spare rucksacks. This is just one of the many obstacles our Odd Obrouni* family has had to face.

Now, may I just advise to anyone who is setting out on a totally new and terrifying experience NOT TO WATCH The movie “Milk” on the plane!!! Because I was so emotional, I sobbed like I had just cut onions then listened to “All by myself” when **Spoiler Alert** all the Gay rights supporters walked through the streets of San Francisco morning Harvey Milk. However following the credits and about twenty minutes of Post Grad (which I also do not recommend just because it’s complete Shite.) we landed in Accra where we where greeted by a wave of overwhelming heat & Henry out Host for the next week, and Mentor for the next 5 months.

The first week was all about adjusting to life in Ghana and bonding with the other volunteers. The heat was often so unbearable it zapped all our energy. So we spent a great deal time just sitting around and discussing everything under the sun – the TV shows we watched as children (Arthur, Transformers, Art Attack!), the food we missed the most (cheese and milk mostly, though I could really use a Frappacino at the moment), as well as our most listened to, and more importantly most hated music (Emily & Wilf: Classical, Kim: Anything but crap Boy Bands, Robbie*: Josh Groban!). The day I recall the most was the Sunday we Spent at the beach. It was the day after we’d arrived and we were woken up at 6am by a blast of Italian opera the reverberarated through through the entire house. Immediately wanting to be the first to claim the single shower that the 14 girls have to share, we quickly jumped up in order to bag one of the more coveted spots (I was, of course, 13th in line but the time I rolled out of my mess of sheets and sweat.) After we were all relatively clean – as soon as you step out of the blissfully cold shower, you are consumed by an onslaught of sweat and dust giving you the appearance that you are relatively tan - we climbed into the tro-tro (large vans which carry you to specific locations) and headed to Le Beach (Do not confuse this as a bad french translation, as it is it’s genuine name). Though Ghanaian men often do not stoop to blatantly touching you, except for your hands which they will shamelessly grab and frequently kiss, as soon as you step into the Atlantic Ocean you are free game. The will pick you up, hug and hold you, touch you wherever they jolly well please, and expect you to do the same. This is all happening while enormous waves are crashing on top of you and the undertow is pulling you every which way. At first we tried to use the three Men we had to "Protect" us. But Wilf refused to get wet, Robbie laughed a little to much at the situation, and Sam who tried, bless him, to pretend we were all his wives was bombarded by a hoard of children who wanted piggybacks. So we were left alone to fend off about 30 hand happy Ghanaians. This was all in fun however, and once we had explained that we were all married , they headed towards the next group of available Obrounis.After that pleasant introduction into Ghanaian culture, spent the following 6 days learning about what to expect form our placements and how to teach our various lessons in the morning, and practicing in Ghanaian dance and drumming in the afternoon.

Tomorrow I am off to my placement, Peter Pipers (See previous Posts) where I will begin to learn what it is like to live like a true Ghanaian.

T.I.A!

*Notice my use of the word “sun cream” All the volunteers are picking up on each others foreign vocabulary.. I now say football instead of soccer, trousers instead of pants and roll my R’s in the word “great” copying the Scottish P.E teacher Robbie (whom we have labeled the Daddy).

* Obrouni is White Man/Woman in Fante the most popular language of Southern Ghana.

MY version.

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I'm standing here by the mini-van door, I hate that my suitcases can only weigh 50 pounds. But the dusk is breaking, it's almost eight, My mum's impatiently waiting, were running late, I can't believe it I'm finally Ghana bound. So hug me and laugh for me, Tell me that you'll facebook me, now stop hugging me so tight cause I really gotta go. You see, I'm leaving on a British Airways plane, I know I'm going to be back on exactly July 3rd again, Oh, everyone I truly care a lot about and will really miss, I so freaking excited to go!

Gone to Ghana, Will be Back in July.

I'm writing in Superstore, sitting in the Deli section my Laptop on my lap, I've finished all my last minute shopping and am waiting for Mum to finish hers. I would go help her but whenever we get separated here I find it's best to just  sit and wait in the Deli, our choice meeting place. I learned this at a very young age when I was found by one of the stockers on roller-blades, sobbing between the ziplocs and mr.clean at the back of the store.

Oops an alarm just went off in the fish department.

Maybe someone free the crabs and lobsters, I've always thought of doing it - but I CAN'T go back to juvy, I am of course being facetious...or am I?. 

I toted my Mac (or rather my fathers Mac, but as he never uses it I have commandeered it as my own) to the Super market because I type up all my lists and do not see the point of writing them out when I can just bring the Mac - also because it is somewhat lengthy and I am lazy and do not want to write it all down.

Anyways. Thanks to this last minute and rather unexpected Superstore excursion, I was in the middle of making curry and apple pie for dinner when mum announced she was going for a shop, I now have everything I need  for the next five months:

  

• Batteries?  Check.
  
• New (and adorably lacy) Underwear? Check.
  
• Gatorade powder? Check.
  
• Tums? Check.
  
• Taboo? (a ridiculously fun card game) Check.
  
• Chocolate for the plane ride (I refuse to consume airplane food) Check.
  

And Yet...I'm not ready! I leave the day after tomorrow and I'm not ready to Go! By this I don't mean that I haven't finished all my shopping (which I actually haven't I still need to get a camera bag), I mean that I am NOT READY! When I think about leaving I want to bawl my eyes out then do a cart wheel* and run around Fort Langley screaming. I'm going to miss my family and friends profusely and don't know how I will cope without them. But to use a cliche (Sorry Mrs. Knittel), this is the opportunity of a lifetime and I will not let myself worry or become upset, I intend to enjoy every minute of this adventure and come back with a new understanding of travel, culture and (hopefully, but this may be asking too much) myself.

* Having no upper body strength and great fear of falling on my head, much as I would love to, I have never actually been able to carry out a cartwheel. 

Death Resulting in Baboon Feces

I'm writing in Starbucks, waiting for Lindsey to pick me up and take me to the Hindi Movie Store near her house so I can but some boot-legged Bollywood DVDs for the trip (about 1$ each!). I just paid a massive library fine, from all the books I took out when my leg was broken (most of them on travel & Africa ironically enough), which has set me back quite a bit with my Ghana money. My brain is going though the worst case scenarios if I'm not frugal with what cash I have. I can see myself running out of money and not being able to afford any bagged water, dehydrating, dying in my little cement hut and then, my roommate, disgusted by the smell of my decaying flesh, throws me into the street where my dry carcass is slowly eaten by the undernourished baboons they use to help sell street product. Now I know the likelihood of this happening is quite rare (25 out of 100 to be exact), most likely I will not be able to travel as much as I intended. But sometimes I think I would let a baboon nibble at me for a bit if it would mean than that I wouldn't miss out on any of the amazing experiences I'm sure to have while traveling around West Africa.

11 Days till take off.

Just recieved the news that Mum is now joining me on the trip to England so she can visit with Granny (who has been suffering for seizures and memory loss episodes), but really I think it is so I do not burden any of  my British family members with my wild Canadian ways and excessive luggage. Not that I mind, I havn't seen the De Little family for 4 years and hopefully this will make the five day reunion a little less akward. 

It's really starting to sink in that I'm leaving, that I'm not going to be able to wake up at 12pm, leisurely drink lattes at Wendels or watch endless episodes of Bones with Mum. Instead I'm going to be waking up at 5am, drinking bagged water and teaching the difference between a simile and a metaphor to my students (Note to self look up difference between a simile and a metaphor, I joke, I joke). And I couldn't be more excited!

At the moment my life is completely devoted to not forgetting anything I will need, down to the last Q-tip. I have been to Wal-mart & Best Buy more times this weeks than I have in my entire life, and I still don't feel prepared. It helps that the other UK volunteers and I are constantly communicating about everything under the sun. It all started about 2 weeks ago with a message from me asking if anyone wanted to show me around their lovely Island state, and has evolved into a whirlwind conversation about scrabble, swimsuits and the amount of weight of each of our suitcases (they all use kg to which can be quite baffling sometimes).  And of course because of the time difference this is all going on while I'm asleep, they have a whole conversation about Malaria Medication:

"What medication are you taking? Lariam. Whats Lariam? The medication I'm taking."

"How many months should I bring, 2 months or 3?"

"When do I start taking them? Do I start taking the medication now?" 

"What about the side-effects?"

and so on.

Meanwhile I am dozing off and hours later, after they have finished their discussion on the side effects of the prophylaxis, I add in any questions or quips I have to offer on the subject. But I digress; It has been very helpful to get many other volunteers insights into the matter of packing and what not, and also very therapeutic to have someone else to go crazy with and say "I'm Freaking Out!" "Man, I'm freaking out Too!" with. It's nice to know I'm not going through this insanity alone.

I'm Insane for Doing This.

It's hard to grasp the situation. Right now I am sitting in the antique armchair with the horrible floral pattern, my legs crossed underneath me and a cold latte from Wendels in my left hand*, and in exactly twenty days I will be flying into Ghana, my country of residence for the next five months, in order to teach at a co-ed boarding school.

How does such a drastic change occur? It's very simple...I'm insane.

Pending graduation I decided that I didn't want to go back to school right away, though Uvic was expecting me to show up in September my mini fridge and "I Heart 420" T-shirt in tow, and instead went completely mad and had the daft idea that I wanted to travel across the world; to the city of Takoradi and teach prepubescent Ghanaian children English and Music (though Ryan insists I should teach "Feminine Sexuality 101"). And now, it's really happening. 

The first five minutes, after I was told that I was accepted into the Lattitude program, were something resembling this.

 "Chloe, Stuart just e-mailed. Your going to Ghana in January!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

After this there was an excessive amount of high-fiving and  spinning around in circles, then I was able to calm down and read the information the Lattitude Canada coordinator had sent me.

I've been placed at Peter Piper's Learning Ways, a boarding school on the outskirts of Takoradi, near the coast of Ghana.  As soon as I discovered my placement I persistently harassed the two former volunteers via Facebook in order to uncover as much information about my future accommodation and pupils as I could: The school is 10 years old and  is still in the renovation process, it opened early because the previous building collapsed unexpectedly. and consists of approximately 1000 students, 200 of them boarders. I will be sharing a small cement hut in between the girls dorm & the boys washrooms (which should give my living-quarters a pleasant aroma). This building consists of a bedroom which is fitted with all the necessities, namely two beds, closets, a fridge and a broken TV; and a bathroom which I will share ONLY with my roommate. Ah Luxury!

So instead of spending my time studying philosophy amidst bunnies at Uvic, or taking an absurd amount of illegal substances with 2010 Olympian snowboarders I find myself  heading off Africa in order to experience something entirely new.

* The left hand has limited functions in Ghana as it is traditionally used for unsanitary acts.