“Will you marry me?”

Thankfully, for my sake, she said yes. Actually, it was more like “YES!!!”

Anyway, I am now engaged. That’s the first important question I have to talk about.

———-

The remaining questions I have to ask are from my students. We’ve been studying the internet this term, and at the beginning of the term, we did a group project where I posed the following scenario to them:

Pretend that you have been asked by the government to represent the youth of Ghana at a congress of world youth. Every country in the world is sending a delegation of their best and brightest students to represent them. As part of the congress, you will be asked to give a 20-minute presentation on any topic you like. There will also be a question period where you can ask 5 questions for the other congress attendees to answer.

I then asked them, in groups, to write down:

a.) the topic that they would present
b.) their 5 questions for the rest of the congress

I went around to all 8 of my classes and had the students vote on their favorite topics and questions, and told them the winners would be posted on the internet for the whole world to see.

So, now I make good on my promise, and let you see their questions. I’ve organized them by classes, so you can see the similarities and differences between each.

—–

3 Arts 1
Winning topic: Teenage Pregnancy
Winning questions:
1. What can we do to limit and reduce unemployment?
2. How can we make sure that the schools provide adequate ICT education?
3. How can we deal with the problem of street children?
4. How can we prevent deforestation?
5. How can we avoid teenage pregnancy?

—–

3 Business
Winning topic: Teenage Pregnancy
Winning questions:
1. What are the causes of increased teenage pregnancy in Ghana?
2. What can we do to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS?
3. Why do African countries find it difficult to develop?
4. Why should students have access to the internet?
5. Why are foreign industries developing faster than local industries in Ghana?

—–

3 Agric
Winning Topic: Teenage Pregnancy
Winning questions:
1. How can we avoid teenage pregnancy?
2. How can we bring teenage pregnancy under control?
3. As future leaders, what can we do to stop HIV/AIDS?
4. Is teenage pregnancy only an African problem?
5. What is the world doing to curb the effects of global warming?

—–

3 Arts 2
Winning topic: 3 year vs. 4 year high school education
Winning questions:
1. How can we prevent bush fires?
2. What punishment should be given to those who start bush fires?
3. Can the government of Ghana provide enough infrastructure for a 4 year SHS system?
4. What can we do to control teenage pregnancy?
5. Why is teenage pregnancy such a big problem?

—–

2 Arts 1
Winning topic: Teenage pregnancy
Winning questions:
1. Why is it important to educate our children?
2. What can we do to eliminate malaria in Ghana and the rest of Africa?
3. How can we support democracy in Africa?
4. Will there be enough security at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa?
5. Why do Ghanaians have freedom of speech, but other countries don’t?

—–

2 Agric
Winning topic: Girl-child education
Winning questions:
1. What can the government do to create more jobs?
2. Why do we put so much money into football?
3. Why are farmers poor?
4. Is HIPC a good fund, and should African countries join it?
5. Why can’t university graduates in Ghana find jobs?

—–

2 Business
Winning topic: Education
Winning questions:
1. How can we prevent corruption?
2. How can we prevent serious accidents in our countries?
3. Why don’t Europeans like Africans?
4. Why did HIV/AIDS spread so quickly?
5. How can we improve education?

—–

2 Arts 2
Winning Topic: Bush Burning
Winning questions:
1. How can we prevent deforestation?
2. Why is Africa the “poverty continent”?
3. How can we prevent bush burning?
4. What can we do to improve the standard of education world-wide?
5. How can we prevent HIV/AIDS from spreading?

—–

Now, it’s my turn. How would you answer these questions? What questions would you ask my students? What questions do you have for me? If you send me your answers, or things you want to ask my students, I will pass them on.

Cheers,
Grant

The rainy season has started. In fact, it just rained. The dust is gone, and fetching water has become considerably easier, but with the rains come the mosquitoes, and the humidity has returned, especially at night. Think June in the upper Midwest of the United States: beautiful days, miserable nights. If it weren’t for my fan, I would be pretty much useless due to poor sleep quality.

Marathon training is proceeding on schedule. I am working on building a base, which means getting my body used to the idea of running to nowhere in particular for long periods of time. Once I have a solid base, I start training my body to run to nowhere in particular for ridiculous periods of time.

Alright, it’s time for me to go off and prepare my lesson plans. I leave you with the next installment of Caroline’s and my Christmas adventure.

———-

On the Sunday following Christmas (Feast of the Holy Family) we said our goodbyes at the monastery and set off for Bui National Park. We managed to catch the last tro-tro for Bui out of Wenchi, and spent 3 dusty hours on the road. We finally arrived in Bui Camp, the worker’s village that houses all of the park staff and their families, as well as the main camping area for the park. After a quick discussion with the caretaker of the camping area, we were able to locate the nearest provision store, as well as secure the use of a coalpot (charcoal cooker) so that we could make dinner for ourselves. In the process of making dinner, we managed to impress and fascinate a Dutch woman and her two daughters, whose dinner plans consisted of cookies and whatever drink they could find. We did the dishes, took warm bucket baths, and then retired to our bed for the night.

The next morning, we awoke to discover that we had overslept. We had arranged to share a park guide with the 3 Dutch ladies and set off early so that we could all hopefully see the hippos at Bui and get back in time for lunch; they would then try to leave on the afternoon tro-tro so as to get to Techiman by nightfall. We hurriedly packed a day-pack and set off with the guide for an hourlong walk to the river. When we arrived, we contracted with 5 boats to take us out on the river, where we proceeded to look for hippos.

We saw part of a hippo. Two, actually. The guide and the boatmen spent about an hour an a half tapping on the sides of their boats, trying to get the hippos to come out of the water. Unfortunately, it didn’t work; all we saw were ears and the tips of noses. Eventually, we gave up and headed back to the landing.

That’s when the nickel and diming began. We ended up paying each boat crew GHC10 (we were told it was going to be GHC5 per boat). We then walked back to Bui Camp, where the Dutch ladies proceeded to grab their packs and try to head out, only to discover that they had missed the afternoon tro. After frantic consultation with the caretaker, they decided to try and charter a taxi to Nsawkaw, which Caroline and I decided to join. After all, Bui didn’t really have all that much to offer in the way of hiking or sightseeing. We settled up our bill with the caretaker, who proceeded to add on the park entry fee, the guide fee (per person per hour!), and the camp site fee. All told, caroline and I paid GHC39 to see 4 hippo ears and two noses.

Needless to say, I don’t plan on going back to Bui any time soon.

Anyway, we settled up and then crammed into a Tico (think Geo Metro) with our 3 Dutch companions for an hour and a half long ride to Nsawkaw. 5 people and a driver, plus all of those people’s belongings (more Dutch belongings and less PCV belongings, by the way) makes for a very crowded Tico taxi. After a bumpy, dusty, but surprisingly expedient taxi ride, we arrived in Nsawkaw. Luckily, we were able to catch a tro leaving for Wenchi, and filled the last 5 seats (it’s amazing how quickly you can travel by tro-tro when you can fill close to half of any given 13-seat vehicle). On the way, we discussed our plans with our companions, and they decided that Kumasi was as good as anywhere.

Upon arriving in Wenchi, we met up with a Metro Mass Transit bus that took us to Techiman. We then took another Metro bus to Kumasi.

We got to Kumasi just after nightfall; around 6:30 or so. When we arrived in Kejetia, the ladies looked expectantly to us for the next step. When we announced we were parting ways with them, there was an ever-so-slight note of panic in their voices.
“You aren’t going to the Guestline Lodge?” they asked.
“No, we’re going to the Peace Corps office.”
“Oh… is it far from the Guestline?”
“It’s on the other side of town, actually.”
“Oh… Are there any hotels around there?”

Going anywhere in Africa at night can be tricky; after all, streetlights and headlights are optional. However, Kejetia station at 6:30pm is hardly challenging. Still, we remembered our first days and weeks in country, smiled a knowing smile, and continued our good samaritan routine.

“Not really… Would you like me to help you get a taxi?”
“Would you? That would be very nice!”

We got them on their way, with slightly relieved looks on their faces, and proceeded to find our own way to the office, where showers, fried rice, and the internet were waiting for us.

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Yes, I’m learning Esperanto. I want to learn a bunch of languages, and I might as well get the one everyone will laugh at out of the way. There are practical benefits to it; there are studies that suggest studying Esperanto before studying other languages greatly reduces the amount of time and effort needed to learn subsequent languages. AND: there’s an international directory of Esperantists who are willing to open their homes and host other Esperantists who are traveling in their country. Any language with people who are willing to host complete strangers can’t be all that bad. My plans are to get a good grasp of Esperanto, and then move on to French, followed by Spanish.

Next up…

*deep breath*

I’m going to run a marathon this year.

There. I said it.

My plan is to run the Twin Cities Marathon in October, or an equivalent one depending on what travel plans Caroline and I have after our COS (Close of Service). I’ve been thinking about running one for a long time, and now I expect all of you to hold me to it.

Speaking of COS: I’ve started to mentally prepare myself for the whole idea of coming back to America. The truth is, America scares me a bit. Grocery stores, freeways where the traffic laws are enforced, a 10:30 appointment starting at 10:30; there’s a lot of things I’m no longer very familiar with. Then again, there are a lot of things that I am very much looking forward to: cheese, fast Internet access, cheese, libraries, cheese, bookstores, cheese.

At the same time, I’m really going to miss Ghana. I love going out and having banku and groundnut soup after my Saturday morning run. I love the look of understanding that dawns on my students’ faces. I enjoy dickering for cloth and furniture in the market; the way that the kokoo and koose lady always dashes me an extra koose; the way that a tro-tro that takes two hours to fill can leave the station in 10 seconds flat.

I feel more wonderfully alive and aware of myself here than I’ve ever felt before. Despite the setbacks and the delays that come with every day life here, I feel like I’ve accomplished something meaningful. I’m beginning to feel like I’ve found something that is more important that I am, and while coming back to the U.S. for a while is probably in order, I don’t think I’m done working in the developing world.

Anyway, I promised a breakdown of my Christmas vacation. I’ve decided to do this in installments so as to get the maximum blogification value out of it. If it worked for Charles Dickens, maybe it can work for me. Today, we’re talking about Kristo Buase.

Caroline and I, along with our friends Jennifer and Vicki, decided to spend Christmas this year at Kristo Buase Monastery. Kristo Buase is a Benedictine monastery that was founded in the late 1980s at the request of the Archbishop of Sunyani. The community was founded by the Prinknash, Pluscarden, and Ramsgate Abbeys in Scotland, though eventually it is hoped that it will become an entirely Ghanaian community.

Caroline and I arrived at Kristo Buase on Christmas Eve; Vicki and Jennifer went early so as to avoid the crazy Christmas travel and to confirm that, in fact, we had a reservation to sleep there. The monastery is located just north of Techiman, outside of the village of Tanoboase. It is surrounded by over 80 acres of cashew trees, undeveloped forest, and some of the most beautiful rock formations I’ve seen in Ghana. Caroline and I dropped at the entrance to the monastery grounds and had a delightful 20 minute walk to the monastery cloister itself. We were greeted by Brother Gabriel, who showed us to our rooms – all guests sleep one to a room. The rooms were very spartan – a desk with a chair, a bed, a small closet, and a shower area with a sink – but very well kept.

One of the things that strikes you about the monastery is how well things are kept in order. There is no chipped plaster, no flaking paint, no crumbling bricks; everything is kept up very well. That’s not something I’ve see very often in Ghana, because many people either don’t have the money or don’t care enough to repair their houses. The gardens and orchards surrounding the cloister are well-tended, and full of wonderful, delicious things like star fruit, oranges, papaya, lemons, avocado, and grapefruit. It was very wonderful to see everything taken care of in such a considered, deliberate fashion.

The monestary does a lot of work with cashews, including working with local farmers to do education on how to best maintain their cashew plantations. The brothers also make several tasty jams and chutneys that they sell in a small shop just off the cloister. We ended up buying several jars of jam from Brother Patrick (the chief jam-maker), which is not only cheaper than the stuff for sale in grocery stores, but much better tasting. Cashew apple and star fruit jam… mmmm.

The brothers were all very warm and inviting, and we not only enjoyed celebrating mass with them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but also enjoyed playing a number of games of Scrabble and shared several wonderful meals with them. Caroline and I spent a great deal of our time talking to the prior, Father Giles, who is originally from Scotland; he has a great deal of interest in technology, and I promised to send him several CDs of software and public-domain books. When not relaxing or spending time with our friends, we went and climbed in the gorgeous rock formations that surround the monastery. I have several wonderful pictures of the climbing, and was sore for several days afterward.

Next time: the Tale of the 39-Cedi Hippo Snouts — or Hungry, Hungry Park Service.

Now, it’s Esperanto time. Ĝis revido!

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That’s right, I’m going to talk about lawns.

Lawns suck.

I mean, seriously. It requires large quantities of water and fertilizer to keep a lawn in good condition, it takes up a lot of time and effort, you can’t eat it, and it takes up arable land that could be used for things that you can eat. Unless you’re going to do something fun with that green grass, like play football or Frisbee on it, why not put in a garden?

One of the cool things about Ghana is the way the government is going about the issue of food security. About 10 years ago, they started a program called “Operation Feed Thyself” in which they encouraged everyone — not just poor villagers — starting small personal farms. The program was very successful; it’s difficult to find people who *don’t* have a farm, and there seldom outbreaks of famine or wide-spread malnutrition. Recently, the government decided to expand the food security push into the area of urban agriculture: specifically, the use of arable land that would otherwise be planted in grass or left to grow weeds.

Very rarely do you see a large patch of land near a house, office, or school that is used as lawn space; more often than not, people will plant maize or cocoa yams (which require very little supervision) or put in a more conventional urban garden with tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and plantain trees. It may not seem like much, but a 10 foot by 5 foot patch of tomato plants puts out a lot of tomatoes. The same is true of maize, and doubly so for plantain trees. And especially in urban areas, where not everybody has access to enough land for a traditional farm, it makes sense to use the boundaries, medians, and otherwise open, wasted patches of land for something useful.

These little urban agriculture experiments not only help to feed people and reduce the amount of money spent on food, but they help communities take ownership of the land around them, and beautify an area where there would otherwise be nothing. And it’s just plain cool! Can you imagine how awesome it is as a kid to grow up in a city and get to play hide-and-seek among the rows of corn next to your apartment building? To taste real tomatoes — not crappy, unripe, flavorless supermarket tomatoes, but real tomatoes — that you picked yourself, right off your balcony? To plant a tree as a kid and watch it grow as you grow up?

It fascinates me that such a simple idea — plant vegetables instead of grass — can have such a big impact. And it’s an example of something the developed world can learn from the developing world: when in doubt, plant things that you can eat.

Alright, time to go do other things. Until next time…

However, near the Koala supermarket on the outer edge of Osu, there used to be a corridor of ad-hoc chop stalls. Instead of going into the “authentic” African restaurant to pay GHC10 for a plate of food and GHC2 for a beer, you could go to the chop stalls to get much better food for about a tenth of that, with infinitely more flavor and a much more interesting experience.

The place used to be like this: you walked into a space no wider than a garage door, and immediately you were surrounded by a thousand vibrant colors of vendors selling handmade batik and tie-dyed cloth. Walk 10 feet, and there are at least 4 people selling fresh-cut pineapple, mangos, bananas, and oranges. Walk another 10 feet, and you’re now surrounded by a million different wonderful, tasty smells, and about as many different types of local food. Delicious banku with groundnut soup and chicken; fufu with light soup and goat meat; jollof rice with fried chicken and salad (think coleslaw); all of it cheap, and all of it delicious. And to top it off, every primary school child in Osu ran and played while their mothers and fathers sold you food and drink. The place was clean, well-kept, and relatively safe, because the people who were there were willing to make it their own.

I say “used to” because as of last Monday, the Accra Metropolitan Authority cleared out that corridor and destroyed 90% of the chop stalls. Not only can you no longer buy really good banku, but now there are a large number of unemployed street vendors who formerly had a steady income with which to support their families. Needless to say, I liked this corridor. I liked it not only because I could get really good jollof rice and fried chicken for GHC2 (nearly impossible on a PCV salary in Accra), but also because it represented for me the way development happens in Ghana and other developing countries. I mean this: If there is no good chop, you get some boards and sheet metal, set up your coal pot, and start cooking. Over time,you get neighbors, and what was formerly a dark, empty, dangerous alley becomes a clean, open, inviting, lively place.

So much of development work is about building infrastructure — roads, utilities, buildings, services — and often, we consider the informal structure that springs up in place of formal, official structures to be a type of malignancy. If it wasn’t officially sanctioned, it must be cleared out in the name of progress. I think that’s the wrong way to go about development. Instead of eradicating the existing infrastructure because it doesn’t meed certain requirements, why not find a way to make it meet the requirements? If the chop sellers are illegally connected to the electrical grid, why not offer them an amnesty period to get connected legally (and safely)? Instead of demolishing and setting back the development of a neighborhood, why not find a way to work with what’s already there?

In any case, I’m back to wandering around Accra in search of good jollof. If anybody knows where Baby Girl Fried Rice and Jollof Special has gone to, please let me know.

There are 49 periods in a week on our school’s timetable. I was teaching 10 of them.

God saw this, said “What? NO! That Dobbe kid isn’t working hard enough! Give him the most out of any teacher on the staff!”

And thus, I went from teaching 10 periods a week to teaching 40 periods a week.

Joy of joys.

Luckily, that time table had some problems, and (surprise, surprise) because I was in charge of the timetable software, I cut myself down to 32 periods a week by introducing the concept of study hall. American culture for the win.

I actually don’t mind teaching 32 periods a week. It’s enough to keep me busy, and not so much that I can’t get out and do stuff like eat or brush my teeth. It’s nice.

So, I was going to talk to y’all about my daily routine. Having had one for almost a month now (it’s nice not to travel all the time), I’d like to spend some time going over what exactly it is I do during the day.

 5:30am – Wake up. Get out of bed (run a comb across my head…). No stairs, so that’s it for obscure song references. Make the bed, throw on some trousers, stumble into the kitchen and start boiling water for tea. Let the cat in, feed her something, and turn on the radio. Once the water has boiled, I make tea, scrounge up some breakfast, and read a bit while waiting for the tea to kick in.

 6:15am – Make self presentable: wash face, brush teeth, shave, finish dressing. Listen to the BBC and go over my agenda for the day. Tidy up the house, if time permits and I feel industrious.

~7:00am – Head for school. Morning assembly starts around this time. Required for masters on duty and students, otherwise optional. I will observe if I have nothing pressing to do. Otherwise, I run minor errands, print my lesson notes, and open the computer lab.

 7:30am – The timetable rolls into action. If I’m scheduled for class, I teach. If the students have practicals, they come to the lab. Otherwise, I work on lesson notes/projects, fix hardware problems, run errands, or just sit and talk to people.

~11:30am – Lunch! If it’s a busy day, I go buy kenkey and beans (or send a student to bring it back for me) and eat at school. Otherwise, I go home, warm up some leftovers, tune into the BBC or Voice of Nigeria, and eat. The cat usually insists on covering me in cat hair while I do this.

~12:30pm – Head back to school. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 3:10pm – School closes for the day. If there’s staff class or Open Lab scheduled, I stay and take care of that. Otherwise, I go home, exercise, do chores, go into the market, or visit people. If it’s been an especially mentally taxing day (read: Oh, by the way, we need you to spend 4 hours programming the timetable software. And the power keeps going out. Have fun!) I do nice, mindless chores, such as dishes, sweeping the floor, etc.

~6:00pm – The sun is down, so I start cooking dinner. More house chores to the dulcet tones of the BBC. If it’s lights out, I light candles and kerosene lamps.

 6:30pm – Dinner is served. Cat eats hers, then comes and bugs me while I eat mine, eventually falling asleep and/or bathing in my lap. I usually read *and* listen to the radio while eating. (Attention Deficit Disorder: Hey, this book is really interesting, and so is that story on the radio. By the way, that car needs a new muffler and your fly is unzipped. Where am I?)

 7:30pm – Bath time. Listen to the news, brush teeth, floss, do stuff.

 8:00pm – Read, write, plan, review the day, play the harmonica, watch a movie, or something along those lines. I really try to empty my head during this time, which helps me sleep better. I’ve also been trying to meditate more often, which helps with the ADD and the sleeping.

 10:00pm – Cat goes out, and I go to bed.

That’s the basic gist of it, anyway. On Saturdays and Sundays, replace “school” with “whatever I feel like doing” and/or various and sundry chores like laundry and dusting. There’s also a nice long bike ride in there somewhere as well.

Sunday mornings are my church service, which consists of me getting up and going for a nice 10km walk. I can hear all of the local churches from my house, which is impressive because the closest one is 1/2 a mile away. That kind of hearing damage doesn’t interest me, and I can’t really understand it that well because it’s in Twi. So, I go play Unitarian for awhile. God’s just as much out there as he is in any building.

Anyway, that’s a day in my life. Until next time, stay classy.

Anyway, things are rolling along here in Ghana. I returned, went to the PEPFAR IST, and then headed home to a house full of cobwebs and musty smell, as well as an internet connection that needed to be turned back on after not paying the bill for a month. Still, it’s good to be back. I’ve only got 11 months left, and I intend to enjoy it.

There’s a lot about this life that I enjoy. Yeah, it’s a pain doing laundry by hand, and travel is annoying, but all things considered, I am happy. My clothes get clean, my food is tasty, and my electric bill is about $10 a month. Teaching can be a bit stressful, but that’s true of any job; and I still end up with a ton of time to read, write, and tinker with stuff. And after being completely overwhelmed by the snack food selection at Target, I’ve come to appreciate buying whatever brand of biscuit the shopkeeper bought that week.

About the only gripe I have is internet access. I could live in a shack in the middle of nowhere so long as I had a garden, a root cellar, a bicycle, a solar panel, and a connection to the internet. I get most of my news via shortwave radio; the rest comes from the internet. The software updates and anti-virus definitions for my school come from my internet connection (though they’ll have one by the beginning of October or whenever I next get to Sunyani) and if I had a faster (and more reliable) Internet connection, I’d probably get more of my entertainment that way, too. Not that I don’t mind reading; I’ve read more good (and bad, and downright mediocre*) books here than I’ve been able to read in a long time, but it’s also nice to be able to listen to a new album or watch a movie a little sooner than 6 months after it’s released.

School has started again as of last week, which means that my students started showing up as of this week and we have a timetable as of today. It seems inefficient and wasteful, but consider that it’s hard to have motivated students when you don’t have motivated teachers, and it’s difficult to have motivated teachers when your paycheck is a pittance and arrives anywhere from 2 days to 3 months late.  Still, I’m excited to teach this term; I’ve got a dedicated lab (which means NO! MORE! PRACTICALS! AFTER. SCHOOL!) and a good solid stack of lesson plans from which to work. The ICT fee has also finally been added to the student bill, so we should be able to get something a little bit better than the dregs of technology to work with. As much as I’ve enjoyed the challenge of making Pentium Pros work in a modern computing environment, I think it’s time to move on to more maintainable and responsive hardware.

Alright, that’s about all I’ve got this week. Next week: what I do all day.

* I’m looking at you, Clive Cussler. Oh, and Mr. Clancy: whoever’s writing the Op-Center series of books these days is pretty much phoning it in.

Culture shock is something that you expect to encounter upon entering a culture different from your own. It’s not something you expect to experience when you return to your own culture. You get used to doing things a certain way, buying things in a certain store, or having a normal morning routine, and you return to find that this business has moved, the dishes aren’t in the same cupboard, the road is closed for construction, and it’s shocking. Some things are easy, like taking a shower or washing the dishes. Some things are hard, like remembering to turn on the vent fan when you take a shower. Other things are just plain overwhelming.

Take department stores, for example. When you go to Ghana, you get used to having only a few choices. Your laundry soap is either Omo, Klin, or an off-brand; you brush your teeth with Pepsodent, Close-Up, or whatever off-brand they have that week. Jam is a delicacy, the bread is all the same, and the peanut butter you buy in your market comes in a small plastic bag. No Jif, no Skippy, no store brand. Your day is still busy, but you only have about 600 options when you do 100 things. You also get into a habit of impulse shopping — I see basil, I need basil, and I might not see basil for another 2 months, so I buy 3 jars of it.

Thus, when you walk into Target and see 25 varieties of Tide, 120 different types of toothpaste, and jar upon jar of strawberry jam next to 16 different types of wheat bread, you feel a bit floored. And because you see stuff you “need” and you are used to it being gone when you turn your head, you put all of these “needed” items in your cart. You see everything, you want everything; at the same time, you see everything and want nothing. Because when it comes down to it, you don’t really “need” all that much. Jam is nice, but peanut butter and banana sandwiches are just as tasty and just as filling. And as long as the soap gets your clothes clean, the washing powder is a commodity product. So you take the $600 of stuff out of your cart and get only the stuff you really do need.

Internet is another one of these things that floors you. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, one gets used to having slow, unreliable internet. And even though I’ve had internet access through my cell phone at site, I’ve grown used to using it for checking my email, researching topics for lesson plans, and downloading software updates. So, when I get to an internet connection and download anti-virus updates that normally take 4 hours in Ghana, but take 15 minutes in the U.S., I’m faced with the dilemma of “OK, now what?”

And throughout all of this, I find myself at the mercy of two conflicting emotions: I want to do lots of stuff, because I’m only home for two weeks and once I get back to Ghana, there will be no chocolate cake with coconut topping and no Target. On the other hand, I know that once I get back to Ghana, I am going to be working hard at site to accomplish projects, write lesson plans, and work with my students. So if I don’t take this opportunity to just sit down and do nothing, I will have taken a vacation for nothing.

I apologize if I haven’t seen some of you, or spent as much time with some of you as I would have liked; but I thank you all for your kind words and wishes and appreciate the time you have spent in supporting me as a Peace Corps Volunteer. For those of you whose spam filters like to eat friendly messages, Caroline and I will be having lunch on Saturday at 12:30pm at the Chatterbox Pub in St. Paul. The Chatterbox is located at 800 Cleveland Avenue South. I understand that some of you have prior plans or live too far away to make a trip up to St. Paul, but all are invited anyway.

3 days from now, I return to Ghana. I’ll have a new sense of perspective, a renewed well of energy, and  a better idea what I want to do when I grow up. For now, I close again with thank you and a promise to see you all again real soon.