That frustrating moment...

That frustrating moment (or month) in the development worker’s career 

Yep, it’s happening. The honeymoon stage is over and I’m hitting walls and falling on to my butt in the dirt. The paths I thought I was going to explore are closed or I’ve realized I haven’t even made it far enough to enter them. But let me give you some exciting updates before I delve into the frustrations.

Wow. It’s been almost a month since I last blogged... time is flying here. I cannot believe it’s been over 3 months since we landed in Ghana. I also cannot believe that Christmas is just 5 weeks away! Normally, around this time, I would be preparing to sing Christmas carols as the snow flurries fell and Pennsylvania cuisine would transition to hearty winter foods. Because I’ve never lived in the tropics during fall/winter, I’ve been missing those key aspects of my favorite time of year: fall colors, pumpkin stuff, apples, cool weather, scarves, sleeping under several blankets, and fires in the fire place. However, I have to be content with the hot, sunny weather here and rejoice in the little things... like green beans!

The “minor” growing season is coming to an end here in Ghana, as we end the second rainy season within the coming month. Then comes the dry season: meaning more sun, more heat, and more dust. Right now, our 4-H garden is producing some small green beans, planted about 2 months ago. While there aren’t enough to market them, 4-H gave the first harvested handful to their white advisor yesterday – and man did those green vegetables make her evening! Vegetables are not often eaten fresh/semi-fresh here but are rather cooked down into stew or sauce. I’m super excited for when the lettuce comes! Plus, there may be some orange sweet potatoes ready for our AgriCorps Thanksgiving dinner next week! #thelittlethings

Well, the strike sort of ended about 2 weeks ago, so we’ve only missed 2 weeks of the 13 (ish) weeks of the first term. I’ve enjoyed being in the classroom again and am thankful for all the work that got done on the pig barn construction during the strike! It’s looking pretty snazzy with the walls and roof up. We’re almost ready for the pigs!

Check out the splendid 4-H Enterprise Gardens and Piggery Barn (we had just weeded the garden, hence it looks so nice)

In other news, Saviour 4-H was able to go on an educational field trip during the strike. We traveled to the next town over (about 7 miles away) to visit the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG). The 45 students who attended got to learn about the major cocoa varieties, see coffee trees (something that made the white people very excited), experience different cocoa seed fermentation methods, and visit the “flavor lab” where the wafting aroma of chocolate filled the air as they did some quality tests on the final product. If you want to learn more about cocoa, check out Dustin’s latest blog post.

Various Cocoa and Shea varieties grown in Ghana. Little did I know, shea is a completely different plant from cocoa, but its butter is often used as a filler in chocolate/candy bars (without you knowing)

4-H Saviour members on the trip to CRIG

Traditional sun-drying method for cocoa seeds

In other obroni news, the AgriCorps team got to see some pretty cool agriculture lately. We traveled to the Ghanaian version of the mid-west by visiting the African Atlantic Enterprise Farms in Afram Plains (region of Ghana around the Volta lake). The huge farm has several pieces of modern agricultural equipment not often found in Ghana: of these is a massive pivot irrigation boom that pumps water from the lake to irrigate the 40 acres under cultivation. Although the farm is still in its development stage, it is a very interesting approach of how Africa can capitalize on local resources (i.e. a lake and irrigation system) to maximize rural agricultural production.

The first thing that caught our eyes as we approached the farm... you'd think you were in Kansas, not Ghana

One of the village cattle, grazing as the sun set over Volta lake

This is Trip, the Ghanaian mascot of the Afram plains farm - he made my weekend even more enjoyable as he accompanied me on all of my explorations of the farm and surrounding area (note: I miss my dog, Bella)

Another exciting event was traveling to Kumasi (the second largest city in Ghana, behind Accra) for FAGRO (the Food and Agriculture Expo of Ghana) this past week. With over 30 vendors, some of which seem to be great partners for 4-H Ghana and AgriCorps, we had a successful trip. We also were able to tour a bit of the city, eat some good food, and stay in air conditioned hotel rooms for a couple nights! It was definitely a great get away.

I don't think I'll ever have another blog post with so much JD Green in it, but this still was exciting to see! John Deere has a great vision for African agriculture, and they're patiently waiting for mechanization to take hold.

A nice evening view of Kumasi from the walk to our hotel

Now time for the deeper reflections:

Change is hard. Period. Even if it is something small, humans usually have a difficult time adapting to change. Now think about coming into a completely new culture and trying to implement something that has never even been considered before. Sure, at first people want to change their habits because they are excited to have a foreigner working with them. But then they realize I am just another human with different ideas and they soon lose interest in change: so things start slowing down, going backwards, or hitting me in the face. Skills I thought I was sharing with the 4-H members have disappeared and I’ve begun to question my purpose here.

But then I realize this is an occurrence for anyone in development: change is gradual and patience is more than a virtue - it is essential for success. Perseverance, too, is a requirement to pursue these long-term changes. Although I find myself often discouraged after being in my community for over 2 months, I must remind myself that I still have 7 more months and these people have a lot of potential. The piggery project isn’t going as I envisioned it, club meetings are still disorganized, people aren’t keeping records, and teaching still seems to be about using the cane to subdue “disobedient” youth. Some of my goals have been met, but so many more sit untouched, taunting me as though they will be unattainable. Sure, it is discouraging, but I picked this career. As many of you may know, I am normally a results-driven person, but results look really different here: I must remember that patience and time are required for them to come. Then again, do I really need to see results to feel successful or of value? My mind tells me that I do, but my heart and faith tell me that I should not feel that way. My value doesn’t lie in what I do, but rather who I am and who I love. Development work isn’t about projects or products; it’s about people and processes. I’m not really in the business of agricultural development. I’m in the business of loving and investing in people: while they may be frustratingly different from myself and slow to develop the skills I know will help them, I must be patient and graceful in working with my community.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson

I'm just learning to live where I am.
Sometimes its the little things that get you through the day... like helping John fetch water when I went to visit him. I'm thankful that I don't have to carry 4 gallon buckets of water on a 5 minute walk up a hill on my head every day like he does! But it still was a fun experience!

The best time to blog is when there is a national strike.

Well, it has been crazy busy here in Osiem, Ghana... until this morning, that is. Starting yesterday, a nation-wide strike of 12+ workers unions has ensued. The two national teachers unions are included in this, thus, teachers are not coming to school. With no teachers in school, there is no point to bringing students, so school was closed this morning with no certain re-start date. I honestly have no idea when the strike will end – it seems the unions are looking for pension benefits, so let’s see how long the government will hold out on the majority of its workforce.

In the meantime, a lack of classes gives me a brief chance to blog! Mind you, I am not sitting idle – especially since, as an AgriCorps volunteer and unpaid teacher, my job is still intact. But we’ll come back to that.

So it’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve last updated you – I thought I would have much more time to blog in Africa, but it seems this is not the case. Since classes started 3 weeks ago, I’ve been moving from sunrise to sunset. Between planning and teaching five 35-minute classes a day, two 4-H meetings a week, a district 4-H advisor training, test taking (for the students), a weekend AgriCorps training, day-long power outages, and visits to my fellow Corps members, I haven’t had much down time. But I suppose this is better than being super bored and feeling deficient – something that may creep up on us if this strike lasts long.

Amidst all the activity, I am continually being affirmed as to why I am truly here – I’m here for the students. How is this different than being an ag teacher/FFA advisor in the states? Well, it really isn’t that different – young people are hungry to be seen, heard, and invested in. It doesn’t matter if they are poor Ghanaian middle schoolers or middle class Pennsylvanian high schoolers. They simply desire to be valued. Teachers all around the world have the extremely significant task of loving on youth. Here in Ghana, I’ve found that this does not look the same as in the U.S. The hierarchal structure here has children as inferior to adults and therefore completely submissive to the teacher’s authoritative role in the classroom – this can be visualized by the “cane.” Teachers in Africa (similar to teachers in the U.S. about 50 years ago) are the center of the classroom, thus instruction is centered around them. If there is a learning disruption or lack of submission to the system, students are “caned” (whipped in the backside with a long, flexible wooden rod). Teaching usually involves lecture and copying of notes, with question asking as the most common method of checking for understanding. However, in classes of 40-60 students, not everyone gets the chance to answer questions – so the stars shine and the slower students sit quietly.

Mind you, teachers are not heartless beings – they generally care about their students. But caring about youth here means that you teach them to be disciplined and respectful to their elders – something that we often neglect in the U.S. I’ve come to respect the way that children are always willing to serve their elders (even if it is another youth just a few years their senior). I feel as if I don’t deserve the service from these children since I didn’t really have to serve my elders in the same way when I was a youth...

Regardless, student-centered instruction is scarcely seen here. Thus, the student learning “activities” I have utilized so far have been widely accepted by the youth and even misunderstood at times (i.e. these students have never been asked to “teach” their peers, so a small group teaching activity wasn’t quite grasped at first). One of the most rewarding results of my desire to use experiential, student-centered learning has been a comment by one of the 9^th grade students. He came up to me about 2 weeks ago and said, “Madam, the way you teach agriculture in class – it makes me want to study agriculture at university. I want to learn more and become a successful agriculture scientist and you have made me believe I can do that.”

I wasn’t expecting to see many fruits of my service here, but that one was pretty huge – powerful enough to motivate me for another 8 months!

Another exciting event has been the success of the 9^th grade class on their animal digestion exam. They took the test this past Friday and, as opposed to the normal test average of 50-60%, the class average is 79%! I was so proud to give so many stickers to those who scored an A (80%) or higher and especially proud that some of the top scorers were the executive officers of the Saviour 4-H club!!

Okay, I’m done bragging about the 9^th grade class. But I really am proud of them – I have a lot of fun teaching them, even if it is a class of 64 students. Let’s hope this strike ends soon so we can get back to the unit on soil and water conservation (one of my favorite topics)!

What else is happening? Well, 4-H Saviour is receiving funding from the head church pastor (who is also a nationally renowned cocoa farmer and member of the Ghana presidential council) to build their pig rearing structure! We hope to break ground next week so that the piggies can arrive in early November! Hopefully we can be productive with the free time during the strike to really get moving on this project, along with several others. However, I do realize this isn’t a sustainable model (wait for school to be canceled to do all the work...). Oh well, we’ll be opportunistic! More updates/photos to come on the pig project!

As I observe other teachers and get frustrated with them beating children, I realize that I cannot make them change their ways. I am attempting to demonstrate student-centered, youth empowering strategies that will hopefully be picked up and adopted here. Thankfully, I have a very understanding and adaptive counterpart who I hope will continue to use innovative teaching methods. I’ve been telling him, any time he complains about Ghana or poverty, that change starts with him changing his actions. This is how I am trying to live... You all know the famous Ghandi quote, and its ironically painted on the wall of our school library (by a previous U.S. educational volunteer group): 

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Students will be successful. Students will be seen and heard. Students will be life-changing leaders. It starts in a student-centered classroom. 

Here are some long-overdue photos to update you on other exciting things!

4-H members planting seeds in the nursery of the school garden! Not all the seeds germinated, but it definitely looks better than it did in August!

I do enjoy African food... but this was super special. I made an American dish with boxed mac n cheese from Koforidua, sausage (hot dogs) and a fresh vegetable salad!

2 week ago was a special entertainment event (AKA dance party) for the whole school, as planned by the 4-H Saviour Entertainment/Recreation committee!

This may not seem like much, but it is me using my first ever personal machete!! And I am making a mound for pumpkins in my first ever personal garden!! 

Dustin and Blaze leading some Parli Pro discussions at our district 4-H advisor training

My first ever Ghanaian wedding! It only lasted 3.5 hours :)

Eunice is another 4-H advisor - here she is reviewing all the Parli Pro concepts I had just taught to our members... but in their local language. I think it went well!! 

"Do you understand what I am saying?"

When I asked the 9th grade class how my English is different from theirs (referring to the fact that they spell esophagus with an "o" because they speak/write in UK English), I was told that "you speak fast" and "please, madam, your English is very deep." Because I had previously received the "deep" English speaking comment from a taxi driver, I knew it meant my accent is simply very different from theirs. However, I don't want this to get in the way of my time here - so I constantly ask the question above: "do you understand what I am saying?"

This week is my first week of teaching students!! Time for another student quote:

 “You taught so different than what we were used to. The African teachers, they don’t do what you did. What you did – when you gave us the papers to match them and made us work through the processes in groups – I know I will remember the content better. I will think back to the lesson and say ‘this is what madam taught us.’ And the lesson, it went by really fast... we enjoyed it very much.” ~9^th grade student and 4-H member referencing the first lesson of a unit on animal digestion

Time to throw some credit to my wonderful teaching preparation program – Penn State Teach Ag (Agricultural and ExtensionEducation)! Without such great advising and emphasis on diverse teaching styles, I would not have received such encouraging remarks from these students – Thanks PSU AEE!!

A lot has happened since my last blog post – I am surprised to find myself claiming that I have been pretty busy over the past few weeks. Actual teaching (for me) began this week, and thus far I havem taught the first lessons of the 9^th grade animal digestion unit and the 8^th grade human reproduction and growth unit.

Yes, I am teaching 8^th graders about human reproduction. But I am super thankful that the first lesson wasn’t as awkward as I expected it to be: I drew the male reproductive system on the board (on my first day of teaching) and taught them about each part and its function... and nobody giggled! Either they didn’t really know much about the system before I taught it or they are super afraid of this obroni (white foreigner) and don’t want to risk laughing in class. Regardless, it was a pretty successful lesson! I know I still need to speak slowly for these lessons, but I was surprised at how much the children actually got from the first day’s content! I’m praying that they continue to be interested, I continue to think of creative teaching methods, and they remain respectful so that I don’t have to discipline them...

Just to brief you on discipline in African schools, it usually involves “caning” – using a flexible switch (wooden rod) to smack a child in the back or buttocks. While I cringed at first sight of this act, I soon realized it is an accepted means to discipline youth. Many people (students included) have asked me if I “cane” and, although I never want to have to hit a child with a wooden stick, I have told them that I am not afraid to discipline: this is where the cultural norms and personal ethical philosophy may clash a bit... so let’s just hope the kids are good and I never have to punish them (I know, I am dreaming)!

I said I have been busy – with what you might ask? Well, 4-H is in full swing! Since my last blog post, we have had 5 4-H meetings with member attendance averaging around 50 students! Students registered their home projects, I gave a lesson on record keeping, we had committee meetings (a new concept that seems to be pretty effective! Committees are animal husbandry, crops, and recreation/entertainment), and I facilitated the “human knot” activity. It was quite amusing considering boys and girls didn’t want to touch each other and they initially thought they were supposed to simply “pull” themselves apart... nonetheless, they achieved the goal after a few more tries and we had some entertainment.

First class - group time for the 9th graders!

Human knot!

Yesterday, we spent several hours preparing the school garden for planting. A fence was erected around the sides, ditches were dug, the compost pile was turned, and the children cut down all the weeds. Then, upon completion of the work, we had some “entertainment” from the recreation committee – the chairman had a radio/speaker in the shape of a car and, with a USB jump drive plugged into it, he played various Ghanaian hip-hop songs while students danced in the garden. It made my night! Then I danced in the middle of the 40 or so children and they fell to the ground laughing... needless to say, seeing an obroni dance made their night: especially when I taught the “fisherman” dance move to my fellow 4-H advisor, Richard, and I reeled him across the garden.

There have been several other exciting things happening, but for blog length’s sake I think I will just list them for you!

• I got a dresser! After “custom” ordering a simple dresser from the carpenter in the next town 3 weeks ago, I now have a legitimate wooden dresser to put all of my clothes and things in (rather than living out of suitcases for a year). It’s not nearly as high quality as my father’s handiwork, but it will certainly do its job (especially for the price I got it!). My room now definitely feels like home.
• My little “brothers” now have American toys – I gifted some Hotwheels cars to them that my mother sent in a care package with Dustin (when he went back to the US) and now they only play with them. While they enjoy them, I am noticing they were content without these toys and didn’t fight as much before I gifted them... an interesting discussion on materialism to be had later.
• Over 60 students came to the house the other day to clear the grass in the front yard as a favor to Richard. While cutting, someone injured and killed a decent sized lizard and they brought it to me... so I did what any science teacher would do and dissected it (using 2 machetes wasn't the easiest way to do so, but it worked)!
• One of the 9^th grade JHS students, who is the chairman of the animal husbandry committee, gave a wonderful speech to over 200 people at yesterday’s PTA meeting, requesting support from the community for our piggery construction project! I was so proud.

Today marks 1 month since moving into Osiem... time has flown by. And I know if I don't keep my eyes open and on our goals for the year, these next 8 months will disappear before I know it!

My dresser... strapped in the back of a tro tro for the 20 minute ride from town. I was super nervous...

First day of school... in Ghana

Not to be confused with my blog post from the first day of school as a student teacher in Wellsboro - because there are several differences between the two places:

1) School started Tuesday... but there was no teaching. In fact, there were few students in classrooms. Most students were outside, either playing (elementary school) or cleaning the grounds. This includes:

• cutting the knee-high grass around the school buildings with machetes (boys, ages 8-18 were partaking in this)
• sweeping the classrooms, corridors, and sandy areas with hand brooms (girls of all ages were doing this)
• cleaning up the litter (the waste management system in Ghana is still developing... thus waste is commonly tossed on the ground)
• organizing desks and classrooms 

In Ghana schools, there are no custodians: the kids are the groundskeepers. I will reflect more on this aspect of Ghanaian culture in a future post, but let's just say it is a pretty ingenious structure to build life skills and a sense of responsibility for these kids and their place of learning. However, that does not negate the fact that learning wasn't actually happening on the first day... 

Anyways, all of this was readily occurring with a gentle roar of children uniting after 2 months of vacations. They were all in their pink and green uniforms (which coincidentally match the colors of the school buildings) and seemingly all hard at work... until it rained. 

2) Major differences also lie within responses to weather. In the U.S. (Wellsboro) we have snow days. In Ghana, we have rain days. Because 95% of the kids are walking to school and 80% of those kids don't have rain coats or umbrellas, school doesn't happen when it is raining. How hard must it rain for a rain day? Well, I would say if it is any heavier than what we would consider a steady "spring" rain, students aren't expected to be at school. There is no notification system, but they handle things well: if it is raining at 8 AM (school start time) and stops at 9 AM, you should come to school ASAP (i.e. 1 hour delay). If it keeps raining past 10 AM, you aren't penalized for not coming to school that day (i.e. more than a 2 hour delay). The weather here is about 75 degrees and pretty humid. I will note that it rained pretty hard for 1 hour this morning, then mildly hard for 3 hours this afternoon. It got pretty cool this evening (72 degrees) so I wore a jacket to go out... mind you, this is nothing compared to the -15 wind chill that welcomed me in Wellsboro this past January. :) 

3) I didn't have much to do during my first day. Teachers were running errands/registering new students. Kids were all over the place. My colleague/fellow 4-H advisor left me for several hours... so I just chilled in his classroom with some of my 4-H girls for the majority of the day, teaching them some songs and looking at pictures. I know this was to be somewhat expected due to the Ghanaian culture and sensitivity to time, but I would have hoped to do a bit more. Classes are actually expected to start next week (after a Monday holiday) so I will hopefully see some pedagogy then. 

While my first day of school in Ghana wasn't anything like my previous first days of school, I have had some awesome successes over the past week! Now all moved in and a week-long resident of Oseim, I have been able to engage with 4-H and the community almost every day. 

Last week I visited some more farms with Dustin, a fellow AgriCorps member, as he came to visit my village. We also helped set up the first "home entrepreneurship project" of the year! Samuel is the 4-H lead secretary and he set up his project on a small plot of land outside his house (which is about 300 yards from mine). We constructed about 8 raised beds for carrot production, with the 4_H advisors, Dustin, and the larger kids sharing the hoe and pick axe. Because everything is about community in Ghana, we had about 30-35 observers at all times. We put the small children to work picking trash out of the garden, and I got distracted by some of the babies... but it was a beautiful success! 

Later in the week, I met with my 2 other 4-H adviors to review some key aspects of the club and some major goal areas for the year. I am super excited about what is to come! While I know it will be hard to stay on track with some of the dates I designated for goals, I know there are motivated and supporting people here to make things happen. 

Saturday was the Sabbath at Savior Church (the church that founded the school) and it was also my prepared "Community meeting." AKA about 80% of my 4-H members and their families go to church and were present among the 500-600 people at the service where I introduced myself. I spoke to them a bit in their local language (they laughed), said that I loved their food (they clapped), shared about my 4-H and farming background, then stated my purpose for being here for the year (they seemed to fall asleep a bit...). Overall, however, I think it went well! The community is seriously very welcoming and gracious - I already feel at home here. 

On Sunday evening, we worked in the school garden for a bit... then continued into Monday morning: weeding, cutting, clearing the land. Based on a recommendation from myself about the mass amounts of green cuttings/weeds they were pitching, we made a COMPOST PILE on Monday! My first ever 4-H "lesson," to about 30 students, was a success! I shared that compost = air + water + nitrogen + carbon + microorganisms then, after they all correctly answered the "quiz" questions to check understanding, we got to making a 8 ft by 4 ft compost heap! It's pretty massive... I hope it turns out well! 

Wednesday was quite a bit more productive compared to Tuesday - we had a 3 hour staff meeting for the teachers to be assigned their classes, then a good 4-H executive meeting! I am getting excited for Friday's general member meeting, the first of the year! More to come later!

On the edge of the diving board

You know that moment when you are standing on the edge of the diving board? It’s when you’re hovering over the 12 foot deep pool of water deciding how to best execute the dive – there is excitement, anticipation, a vision of how your dive will look, and maybe a bit of anxiousness over the potential for messing up.

That moment is now.

The past 6.5 weeks of training, transition, excitement, stress, and growth have brought us to this point – we have been training to dive in to our true year of AgriCorps service. While we may have been mentally preparing ourselves for a Liberian pool filled with post-war problems, little to no educational structure, and a very physically challenging environment, we are now finding ourselves standing at the edge of a decently attractive Ghanaian pool – this one with a bit more educational structure, a strong 4-H foundation, and much more room to swim around. I can already see the positive impact of diving in and I can clearly see myself diving deeper than I would have expected to in Liberia.

We have been in Ghana for 3 weeks now. So far, we have had cultural/language training, agriculture training, and we got to go to our our villages for a set-up/scoping visit this past week. Then, after the 4-day village visit, we reconvened as a team in Koforidua for a weekend of review/final training. Although all of us were ready to “get to our village” for so long (because we literally have lived with each other for 6 weeks straight), we certainly were excited to see each other after just a few days apart – mainly because we were all so anxious to share about the awesome things we learned from our placements!! Let me share some of 

• My new home is great! My “host family” is a young couple with 2 small boys under age 6. The father, Richard, is my “counterpart” and one of the 4-H advisors for Savior Junior High School (JHS). He is great to work with and his wife is eager to teach me Twi and how to cook, etc. so I am super excited about this new home and my cheery, spacious room.
• My 4-H club is rocking – it is seen as one of the most advanced in the region in terms of size and scope. The kids have been so welcoming (AKA at least 5 visited the house every day I was there last week) and one of my officers has even started a home garden project even before school started!!
• The community is fantastic. Oseim (my new town) is a genuinely welcoming place and the Savior church community seems like a great area. People are kind and always willing to greet me or help me. I held a successful stakeholder meeting last week with some key persons in the school and community and everyone was willing to work with me and 4-H to improve the lives of the youth and farming community.
• There is already stuff happening... just because they have a foreign volunteer! While at first I doubted that my presence or work would bring much visible “fruit,” I learned quickly that the fruits are already present... even before my official start time! There is a very prominent Cocoa farmer in my town who is also head of the entire Savior church in Ghana. He is currently in the U.S. for a conference or event (as he is the World Cocoa Foundation President) and will be back soon, but he apparently is excited to meet with me. Plus, he donated about an acre of land for our school 4-H to expand its garden program... and he did this before I even arrived! Even more, there are some larger animal farmers in the area who are willing to donate pigs and rabbits for our 4-H to start one of the first school animal raising projects in the region!
• My school and community have high expectations of my time in Oseim – this is where the “anxiousness” of diving in is sourced. I know I will not have all the answers: I will mess up. But I am still so excited to work WITH the youth and community to empower them for sustainable agrarian and economic change... and let’s not forget how many awesome public speakers will come from Savior 4-H by the time my year is over!

I am sincerely excited to dive in to my year of service. There will be problems and barriers: I will get frustrated with the relaxed culture, especially in professional settings. I will miss home and I will feel lonely. I recognize these things, but I embrace them for they will allow this new “job” to be an all-encompassing growth experience.

So what next? Well, after a lovely weekend of team reflections and preparations (and some down time at an ACTUAL pool at a local hotel), I am ready to head back to Oseim tomorrow to GET STARTED! Classes start next Tuesday (September 16) and I have no idea how school will look or what my teaching will look like, but I will be teaching integrated science classes.

Here I stand at the edge of the board. The pool of opportunities is huge. Room for impact is unknown yet promising. I am ready to dive in.

And now you get to enjoy photos of the last 2-3 weeks, since I was unable to upload them for my last blog!

This is my school's 4-H garden!! Check out that welcome sign.

Ag training in Atiwa district (2 weeks ago) with extension officers

That time I wanted to do individual farmer interviews and my counterparts set up a meeting of 11 farmers with me and 14 farmers with Melissa... It didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped but it was fun to talk to them!

Piglets we may be getting for our 4-H program!! I am SO EXCITED! They have pretty nice structure and genetics!

Another local hog facility - some pretty nice stuff... 

Dog breeding at a local farm! They weren't quite pure bred, but they were cute.

This chicken farmer has 15,000 layers at his farm - he has been to ag trainings all over Europe and imports his chicks from Germany... crazy.

That one evening a herd of cattle made its way through our school yard... (note: cattle are NOT common here)

My cheery room and my new mosquito net! It makes me feel like a princess... really!

Good reflection and brainstorming occurred this past weekend in Koforidua with my AgriCorps family!

Check it out: I am starting to develop my own head carrying skills! I am excited to learn so much more while I am here!

"We are each other's keeper"

Day 10 in Ghana...

Ghana? Yes, Ghana. So I’m in West Africa? Yes... finally?

This is how my mind has been working lately. I am here: I see the people, smell the smells, taste the food, and see the array of incredible things there are to see... but what do I feel? That’s been an interesting concept; I think I will come back to that in another blog post.

While it’s been less than 2 weeks since I’ve blogged, a lot has happened! Just that things are finally happening is an excitement in itself! We’ve been waiting so long for arrival in country, and here we are! But what have we been up to? Rather than just list events, I have found myself casually recording intriguing quotes by key persons over the past week and a half, so I will “reflect” with them.

“We are each other’s keeper”

~Mark, our awesome cultural and language trainer (who is also a pastor)

Ghana is so culturally different from the US: People smile and greet people. You feel safe around people you’ve just met. You are comfortable asking anyone for help, because they will help you. Kids run around the streets because other parents are watching them. Goats are frequent...

But really, people care about each other. They want us to feel at home. They offer up generous yet not overbearing services and kindness to welcome us. They care for each other in genuine and visible ways. I already can tell I will love the people here, which is great because people are what make cultural and international experiences so incredible!

 “YƐ frƐ me Akosua, me firi Pennsylvania wƆ Amerika.”

~Me, introducing myself in Twi; translated: My name is Akosua, I am from Pennsylvania in America.

We have been learning Twi, the predominant language in Ghana and you can BET I am SUPER EXCITED to use it to incorporate with the people! It really is not that difficult of a language so far, with only 2 unique letters and a few non-phonetic spellings. We had 3 intense days of training and I will definitely be learning from my host family shortly...

Oh, and Akosua is not Allison in Twi. Here, people take a general, gender-specific name that reflects the day of the week you were born. I was born on a Sunday and I am a female, so I am Akosua (along with 1/7^th of all Ghanaian women).

“4-H is a concept, it can be used for any organization”

~Regional 4-H director, giving training on how to start a 4-H club in an area

I found this to be a humbling ideal for development work – we don’t need to brand everything. 4-H is doing great things. When we get to our communities and have the opportunity to add 4-H esque concepts to an existing youth organization, we should do it!

AgriCorps is officially collaborating with 4-H Ghana for our year or service. This is pretty exciting, as 4-H Ghana is doing a fabulous job so far at creating positive change. However, they are only working in 2 of the 10 regions (provinces/states) of the country. We are focusing on one of the existing regions to further the reach of the current, “hub,” programs to surrounding rural communities. Given their strong foundation, we will be able to make a more sustainable impact than in Liberia, where all that we would have done would have been new and exciting, yet perhaps not as acceptable to the post-conflict culture. (P.S. keep praying for Liberia, it’s bad.)

We will be working with existing club advisers and 4-H enterprise gardens to improve practices, develop the youth leadership components of the clubs, and reach out to the homes with improved home entrepreneurial projects. More of this to come...

“What you do is just build on what they have – that’s where the magic is.”

and

“If we see you as part of us, it is easier for us to get what you have.”

~Eric, Eastern Region Public Relations Officer for the Ghana Education Service, speaking about the standards used for teaching and working in schools in Ghana

I will leave you to pick through these quotes yourself, and I will use them to dig into the entire concept of our being here and what my year will actually look like!

Ghana is actually a hub for development organizations. As one of the more developed West African countries, the development work seems to have been paying off. With that said, Ghanaians are still incredibly excited to see us, invite us in, and have us help them. Recently, an agricultural extension director from another district actually seemed upset that none of us would be placed in her district. In my mind, development is a positive thing, but feeling as though you need it and actively seeking out an oboruni (“foreigner” in Twi) to help you is not something I would expect. Then again, Ghanaians do not have the sort of American pride I am accustomed to. So, it has been refreshing to feel so “desired.” Nonetheless, I need to keep humbling myself with the truth that I do not have all the answers, for many of them already lie in the mind of these wonderful people with whom I will work. All I must do is “shut up and listen” (another quote, this one from a Ted talk we watched during reflections last week).

Well, there has been some more exciting news with all of this training and preparation. We finally learned where we will be stationed!!!!!

I will be living in the small town of Oseim, located in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This town is about 40 minutes north of Koforidua, the capitol of the region and headquarters for 4-H Ghana. I am going to be working with a decently large and developed 4-H program in the Savior Junior High School, a 3-year school of about 250 students.

The most exciting piece of my entire time in Ghana so far is that I got to SEE my town and school already! Part of our training included a visit to a local program and “4-H meeting” and it just happened to be mine! We even chilled out at my host family home for an hour before the 4-H meeting as we waited for the downpour of rain to stop (something that prevents much from happening here).

I am really pumped. But still a little “bleh” overall – I am not sure what to feel. We have seen awesome things so far. Last week, when we arrived, we toured some cool areas in the capital city of Accra. Then we got to stay in a pretty nice hostel in Koforidua for training. Now we are in another town for agricultural training. Next week we get to do a 4-5 day “site visit” to gather data about our towns and move in. Then, after a few days reflection, we begin. We begin? Hmmm, what does that mean? I am still not sure, and I am still figuring out how to feel about it. Nonetheless, I am content with where I am and I am learning new things daily.

"Life is now, and so it shall continue to be as it goes on. I will continue to embrace it as it comes."

Akyire yƐbƐhyia (pronounced “eh-sheer-ey yeh-bey-shia”)!

See you later! 

(sorry for lack of photos - the internet is prohibiting that kind of data upload right now... hopefully soon!) 

Wait, we leave tomorrow?

WOHOOOOO I finally get to get on a plane and leave the country - TOMORROW!

While I have been learning a LOT about contentment over the past several weeks, I (and my entire team) am SO ready to get moving to West Africa and get on the ground in our villages. While I still don't know what village I will be working in, I know we will be in the "Eastern region" which is the area to the east and south of the giant lake Volta (largest man-made reservoir in the world). We will arrive on Sunday night after a flight to Amsterdam (and hopefully some "outside" time during our 7 hour layover there), then we have 2 days in the capital city (Accra) before moving to our region for cross-cultural training.

What has happened in the last week? Well... a lot. But it has been great. After a week of work and learning at the ECHO farm in Fort Myers, we had a nice day off on Saturday - so, being in Florida and all, we of course went to the beach.

Then we drove to Gainesville on Sunday - did you know I lived in Gainesville for 8.5 years? My mother worked at the University of Florida for those years between being born and (currently) residing in State College, PA. So to majority of my childhood occurred in that humid college town! It was weird being back under these circumstances, but nonetheless refreshing to visit my favorite childhood restaurant (Sonny's BBQ) and even SEE MY CHILDHOOD HOME (which is for sale if anyone is interested)!

The best BBQ restaurant ever. 

On Monday, we presented our agricultural lesson plans to some AEE faculty and PhD students at UF - in the same building my mom used to work in! Talk about deja-vu... it was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity to meet with (or re-unite with) the outstanding faculty at UF. We also got great teaching tips to take with us to Ghana!

My mom's old building - where we spent Monday morning

Lesson practice!

It was fun to have some of the experts serve as students for activities... 

Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon we were occupied with preparations for and execution of a "leadership day" at the Boys and Girls Club. Again, I experienced some flashbacks, as I had spent some of my summers at this exact club (not very fond memories, mind you) in NW Gainesville. However, we got some good "facilitation" experience with the group of about 30 kids, ages 10-14. While they went a little crazy and were hard to handle and several of us left very frustrated, I was pleased to get the chance to interact with them and love on them, as several of those youths come from low SES or struggling backgrounds. Also, working as a counselor for the YMCA day camp for 4 years probably left me with a greater patience level for these kids...

Tuesday night was a lovely evening with some great people - Lisa Heinert is a member of the AgriCorps board, and her husband, Seth, is a UF AEE PhD student. Their adorable 4-month old son, David, has been of great stress relief and comfort to us (they were present at the training in East Texas a few weeks ago), so I am glad I got to spend some time with all of them at dinner on Tuesday.

David is not angry - he just has the funniest facial expressions of any baby I have ever seen... he seems so mature in how he looks at the world! 

Wednesday morning we had some medical and safety training from a former Peace Corps medical officer (who happened to work in Ghana) before hitting the road! After 8 hours of driving, we arrived in our slightly planned mid-point overnight spot - New Orleans. It was a first time visit for 6 of us, so we wanted to be sure to see the city. It was quite an interesting night - there are very interesting folk in New Orleans, and Bourbon street is a fun place! Nonetheless, we got to unwind a bit after some crazy transitions. Then, on the road again to arrive in Dallas last night!

Melissa and Dustin were in as much need of a night off as I was! Note: Courtney in the background :) 

Twilight view of Bourbon Street, New Orleans!

While I love this group of people dearly, I needed some "away" time after 21 straight days in this group - and thankfully I get to see a friend tonight. She is living and working in Fort Worth and she is going to take me touring around Dallas tonight!

I am definitely ready to get on that plane tomorrow... but I am so thankful for the last several weeks of crazy travel, learning, and fun! It almost doesn't feel like we are leaving tomorrow - I have been so content just 'being' that it hasn't become a reality in my mind that we will be in a village, teaching, within the next few weeks... This year of service is not at all what I've expected it to be so far, but it has nonetheless been a great time for personal growth and new experiences - even if we still are in the U.S.

Let's just say that the inaugural group of AgriCorps will most likely never, ever be duplicated in their experiences...

With love from Dallas!!