Half way to home and the return of the Karaoke Kab!

I’d like to tell you a story. My last post indicated at the end that there was some tension in the house. While thankfully this only lasted an uncomfortable meal or two, it didn't fully remove the strain of the group. As you may also remember, I had alluded to things not quite going as we’d hoped. And this first leads me to confession time…

Those of you who were around me pre-travel knew I was trying my hardest to arrive in Ghana with few expectations. I’d like to think I did a pretty good job of that, being as I really only expected two things: 1. It would be hot. 2. I would be insanely busy. Before I proceed further, I need to make it perfectly clear that what I’m about to say is not an attempt to paint the organization I’m here with in a negative light. But, when it comes to my expectations for this trip only one has been correct – it’s friggin’ hot here!

I spoke with a "special friend" last weekend who excitedly asked what I've been doing, and all I could say was, “we did two workshops and a seminar.” He sounded almost as disappointed to receive this news, as I was to accept the reality that this is all that we had accomplished in nearly six weeks. Most days we are done by noon, leaving us ample downtime. At first it was nice, because we had an opportunity to explore Koforidua, and return to Cape Coast. But, this past week, I think the five of us had collectively had enough.

It’s Monday morning, we’re all at our usual meeting spot, knowing that our anticipated Friday activity had to be rescheduled. We arrived with the intention of developing a game plan, but were quickly greeted with the news that Tuesday and Thursday’s activities also had to be postponed. This meant that we had nothing going on this week, as Monday was to be used for preparations for the week’s activities, and Wednesday was planned for our Mid-Term Reports. I felt so deflated when I left that meeting. Well, I suppose I should say I felt even more deflated when I left that meeting.

Wednesday morning we met with William (the project coordinator) to discuss the current schedule we have for the remainder of our time. The goal of this meeting: to see what we can add to make us busier. I felt we left that meeting one a positive note. It was great! We brainstormed some more ideas that were relatively cheap to execute, and beefed up the calendar for the next six weeks. I think everyone was feeling pretty good about things, but we were anticipating a visit from Fred the next morning, so we were also feeling hopeful about the outcomes of our time with him. When Thursday came and went, the group was on a high only seen in the first week or two after our arrival. We made additional plans with Fred that gave responsibility to each group member, with an attempt to level the playing field.   

So, here’s where I wish the story to begin. A week ago we saw a huge divide in the group. This led to a bit of tension for a few days, that I, personally, found challenging. We collectively felt demotivated on Monday morning, and then two days later, we came together to make the situation better! Now we’re on fire again, with new activities in the books, and little down time (It’s Saturday morning, and after breakfast I have to get to work for next week’s activities!)! This is what I came here for…or perhaps what I was expecting!

On Friday we broke into teams and tackled several items. I had the opportunity to travel to Nsawam with William where I feel we had the most productive meeting I've been in here. The partner we met with was responsive to the questions and ideas we brought with us, and I’m looking forward to the remaining activities we have planned for the area.  And this, my friends, sums up the tale of making lemonade out of lemons!

Police Escorts, Untrustworthy Toots, and Other Ramblings from the Week

Well folks, it is Day 33, which means there are 54 that stand between me and my return to Canada! Crazy!

Monday started with a meeting at 9 am for preparations for this week’s Seminar. As per previous comments, we were left waiting for several others to arrive for 45 minutes to an hour. I was a little annoyed but made a conscious decision to just accept that this is a way of being. Following what should have been a very brief meeting (meaning, we should have been done by the time the first person decided to join us), 5 of us piled into a taxi and made our way to four different schools in Koforidua to deliver the letters requesting their students’ participation in the Seminar scheduled for Thursday of this week. Yeah, that’s right… we asked permission to have students attend an event that was to take place a few days later! Imagine if we attempted to do this in Canada! It is this aspect of life in Ghana that I appreciate, but am also perplexed by. As the theme of the seminar was pollution, the schools all seemed to be eager to participate, which was awesome. One school was extremely enthusiastic, by stating that the topic was so important, that anything they could do to make a positive impact on the environment was something they wanted to be a part of. This was exciting, until we left the school, and I was greeted with an array of garbage strewn about on the ground just outside the building! Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose! Haha

This outing, I’m sure, seems really exciting to those of you reading, but I haven’t even shared with you the best part of this little adventure. The cab we took came equipped with a few television-esque screens, and music videos that had the words written out. This is a little something I now like to call “The Karaoke Kab”! I’m sure everyone who was smooshed into that taxi was surprised by the joy that I experienced upon the first song I happily belted out. It was Joe’s “I Wanna Know.” Pretty sure that was circa high school for me, meaning no one else knew it (it’s great to be so old! Haha)! The taxi rides throughout the rest of our time delivering letters transitioned from a sampling of Joe’s discography, to The Lion King soundtrack, and ended with the sweet, sweet jams of Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits. Friends, I’m afraid life will never be the same. This was Monday, and today, as of Friday, I have yet to see Karaoke Kab since. Let us all please take a moment of silence…

The days in between letter delivery and Thursday’s Seminar were fairly slow. We spent a few hours each day putting together the outline of the two-hour event (that like everything else we've done so far ran well passed that!), and researching the latest information on the three main topics: Land, Water, and Air Pollution. I’ll give you one guess as to which theme I was assigned to talk about. If you guessed water, you’d be right. If you guessed either of the other choices, I’m questioning whether you know me at all! For me, this was a good challenge. The subject of water pollution is huge, and with only 20 minutes to present my section, it meant I had to make some pretty big decisions of what should stay and what should go.

The day of the Seminar I woke up so hyper I had trouble containing my energy. This was most likely the result of a few factors: a) it was the first time I slept through the night without waking up and b) it was the first activity we were doing that dealt with a subject I was actually interested in! The day was to start at 9:30 am, with students being picked up starting at 9:00. When a few of us arrived at 8:45 am, we were surprised to be greeted by William, and about half of the sixty students we were anticipating! This made for an exceptionally awkward set up, particularly as setting up the projector did not go so smoothly. Seriously, why am I always the “tech-savvy” one?!

Overall, I think the event went fairly well. There were, of course, those anticipated hiccups that occur with things like this, but the students seemed receptive to what we were saying. I started my session with a grim story about how much water we have on the planet versus how much we can actually consume. I’m pretty sure some kids had nightmares last night as a result of what I shared… And, for the record, using 1 liter of water to represent all of the water found on Earth, only one drop is what we have to use for human consumption. So… you should probably consider that for a little while (especially those of you who might be reading this that are known to take daily 45 minute showers… You know who you are!)!

After the seminar, I spoke at length with the representative from (and our main contact at) the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana, Cyril… *swoon*

As I've alluded to in this and previous posts, I’m finding we are enjoying more free time, and less time concentrated on project related things. Sometimes this downtime is nice, but being as I came to Ghana to actually work, this has been a huge source of frustration for me. So, my chat with Cyril was an inquiry about what I can be doing in this spare time to help them out. The answer – guess who’s the new head of the EPA?! Yeah, not me, and it turns out there isn't a whole lot that I can do, well, at least that is associated with the EPA. However, there are some potential outings that I may be able to tag along for, such as site- scouting for pending EIAs, tree planting, and other agency related things. Hopefully this will work out, because it would be an awesome networking opportunity, AND I’m interested to learn more about the practices here in the Eastern Region. Two topics I spoke to Cyril about in detail were the possibility of designing a plan for a recycling program start up, and looking into fog-water harvesting as a means for providing drinking water to the residents of Koforidua (thanks, Alice, for bringing that topic to my attention! The paper I wrote for you is proving to be quite useful!). Perhaps my time in Ghana will not end in two months…

So, as I stated in the beginning of this post, we've been in Ghana for a full month. The five of us are all quite different, but for the most part, I feel, that all things considered, we get along well. However, as can be expected in any group work situation, each of our work styles are also quite different. This has presented a few tensions between us to date, but not in any great way… that is until 10 minutes after the Seminar. I’m not going to go into detail about it, but we had our first outburst (which I’m actually surprised hadn't happened sooner given the fact that we didn't know each other prior to our arrival, and our obvious personality differences). Was it handled in a way I would have approached it? Not really. So, it’s going to be a very interesting few days. Well, it’s already been an interesting 24 hours. It’s been a little awkward, particularly as I seem to be torn by both sides of the indifference. If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s conflict. Being the Mama Bear sucks in times like this. I just want everyone to get along…

Well, that’s about all I've got. My tan is continuously improving, my slight sunburn has disappeared, and I am still lovin’ the fact that I am in Africa!

I will make you something beautiful, and then they’ll be dead...

This week I find myself once again in Cape Coast. We made a team decision last week when we left, that we didn't have enough time to fully enjoy all that is this beautiful area of the country. It’s Friday night, and we have a fully packed day ahead of us tomorrow. Tonight, however, I feel tired. But, I just had the most amazing bowl of spaghetti I have ever eaten, so life is actually pretty great! Seriously… that spaghetti was great. It was so full of garlic. I may never leave this resort.

The past week has been slightly uneventful. Our return from Cape Coast last week was a little stressful, as we took a different type of bus from Cape Coast to Accra, and it took double the time, meaning we almost missed the last trotro to Koforidua. I’d like to think I handled it well, being as back home Emily would have likely had a complete meltdown the second I found out that there was a chance we wouldn't be able to get back home that evening. Instead, I just let things happen, and luckily, it all worked out. But, it was late when we returned.

Thankfully, Monday started with a fresh cup of coffee, from one of the packets of instant I had been given with my breakfast the day before (I know, I know, individual packaging is awful!). I think this is the time to inform you all that the cup I had on the Sunday was the first I had consumed in nearly three weeks. Instant or not, it was pretty amazing, and I happily drank it! Boy, do I ever miss Java Blend’s Dark Aztec (and you lovely folks reading this back home, as well…)! The thought behind saving this extra packet was so that when I felt I needed that caffeinated boost I would have one available. But, being as we got in so late, I threw that out the window and drank it with my breakfast. I put too much water in. And this was only the first moment of frustration for the day!

Look, I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining about my experience, but there are times when I’m in a meeting or working towards a particular project and something will happen, and it literally takes everything in me not to have the biggest temper tantrum ever. Monday morning, after my failed cup of coffee, I was sitting in our meeting room with my four other teammates and our program co-ordinator, waiting for our ‘mentors’ to join us, and nothing. No one shows. I get that things are different here. In fact, I actually don’t mind the “Africa way of life” as many like to point out, I think the thing that I found so frustrating was that the week previous we were 7 minutes late getting to our meeting point, and they made a big deal over it, and here, an hour past out planning meeting time there was no one. Grrr...

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent researching and preparing for a workshop, where I was scheduled to discuss budgeting and fundraising. Remember when I went back to school so I could leave the business part of my life in the past? Yeah, that hasn't happened yet! Haha! Thursday and Friday were supposed to be for our workshop in Nsawam, but when we arrived we were told that the venue had only been booked for one day, instead of two.  This of course, after we tried to convince the partner there that we could do it in one day, prior to this last minute decision. So, we learned to be flexible and go with the flow, and I have to say that under these circumstances, we did quite well. But seriously, I need to stop being the business-savy one in the groups I am a part of (not just here in Ghana – in ALL group work!). And also, that was a great bowl of spaghetti.

Because I feel like I’m being overly negative this time around, I feel now is the perfect time to say that had the workshop gone both days, we wouldn't have arrived in Cape Coast as early as we did. Things surely happen for a reason, and the need for sleep and sightseeing is most definitely it! Night for now…big day tomorrow!

Day Two/Take Two:

I try to live my life in a way now that includes doing something every day that scares me. Sometimes this is as simple as getting out of bed in the morning, other times, it’s straddling a crocodile, while patting his jelly-like belly, and attempting not to get eaten. Today was filled with lots that both scared and challenged me!

We woke early, as we had to be ready for the day no later than 7 am. Our driver from the previous day was waiting for us when we got to the top of the road. First stop – Kakum National Park, an approximately 40 minute drive away from the resort we were staying at. Our objective – walk along the canopy of the rain forest on sketchy walkways 14 feet off the ground. Now, I am not someone who would consider themselves to be afraid of heights. However, when the walkway you are encouraged to use is nothing more than rusty ladders with planks of wood that seemed like they would snap at any second, I was a little hesitant to participate. But, as of that point in the day, I had to do one thing that scared me, so off I went. There were seven walkways in all, and the views from each platform were incredible. We didn't see any animals while on our walk, but it didn't matter, the vegetation alone was breath-taking. It was so quiet and calm up there!

Next we made our way to the aforementioned crocodile pond. I actually don’t know what this place was called, only that I paid 3 cedi (a little more than a dollar Canadian) to snap some photos of a bunch of crocodiles, and then have the chance to be up close to one. This made me a little nervous, I won’t lie, but I also felt like I was in pretty good hands! I was surprised by the way it felt. I guess I was expecting something more hard and dry, not flabby and soft!

Our final stop was to the Elmina Castle – the largest of the three remaining slave castles in Ghana. The tour for this one was not as good as last week’s at the Cape Coast Castle, but the size and history within this place was far more difficult to grasp than the other. We learned that the Elmina had approximately 3 million slaves enter the castle, but only 1 million left by way of slave ship. The remainder died within the walls of that castle. It was pretty intense, and the same sentiments I found myself with last week returned this time around. How was this a thing that happened? And, how did it go on for so long? I just can’t get my head wrapped around this!

The highlight of the day for me, however, was none of these activities (although all three were pretty awesome!). The best part of my day happened as I explored the market near our resort, when all of a sudden, the sky turned dark. The clouds pretty much melted into liquid form, and I, soaked, walked slowly back to my room. I felt like I was five. It was amazing. I think I giggled creepily throughout the entire walk. When I returned, I sat on the porch of our room and watched the rain fall and the waves crash, all while taking in the sounds of the loudest thunderstorm I have ever heard! If anyone wondered what true happiness was, this is it.

The rest of the evening was pretty dark. Seriously, the power went out, so it was really dark. It was bedtime anyway… at 6:45 pm.

Day three:

We returned safely to Koforidua. It felt like forever since I had last been there. I was greeted at the door by our home stay Mama, who gave me a big hug. It’s good to be home. (…even if I did get my first sunburn after nearly a month. Who wins the bet?)

PS: Sorry…I know this one is long and rant-y, but I thought I should mention that there has been a lot of flooding taking place, particularly outside of Accra, and on the way to Cape Coast. The drive to and from was at times hard to witness, since it was evident that the rains from the last few days have devastated some areas. In one village there were houses and a car submerged. I am thankful to be in an area that isn't prone to this sort of thing, both here in Ghana, and back home in Canada. Be safe, my friends!

Oh, and also, I peed in a hole this week... so... I can pretty much do anything!

Oh! There's so many obrunis here!

Last time I posted I was doing so during an incredible rain storm, and I was pretty happy. Tonight I am sitting on a chair outside overlooking the Atlantic, watching and listening to the waves crash against the shore. I feel so close to home and yet so far away. I feel homesick, but at home all the same. It's weird. I tried to call a few of you at home, but like usual none of my calls went through, until I got a hold of Scott. There are amazing things happening here - and I will share them in a minute - but today for the first time on my long, knee-crushing trotro drive to Cape Coast, I started to question what I'm actually doing here...

This week was set to be short, given the Public Holiday we had on Monday, and especially since our Tuesday plans were cancelled due to an unexpected illness. Who remembers me saying that it wasn't me, that I was fine? Bonus point if any of you heard me jokingly say "the only thing I'll probably be able to add to my resume is 'had heat stroke for 12 weeks'"? Well, Wednesday after a long, hot, frustrating day, I returned home only to feel a massive headache. It wasn't the beginning symptoms of heat stroke, nor did it turn out to be anything too serious (thankfully), but what ever it was kept be bed ridden for a day and a bit. As a result, I also missed Day One of our first workshop. From the symptoms I was showing at the beginning, I was convinced that I had Malaria, but again, thankfully I did not. Luckily, as well, I wasn't presenting until the second day of the workshop.

Enter Friday. Still not 100%, but to quote a one Mr James Pineo (my Mom's late father) "there's stubborn and then there's stupid..." I was being stupid. I'm not so sure I was being stubborn either, perhaps just guilt ridden for letting my team down, regardless, I boarded the trotro for Asamankese and tried to mentally prep for the day ahead. My part was small - discussing roles and responsibilities - but I pretty much wasted all of my energy leading the group stretch 30 seconds prior. Again keep in mind, 24 hours before this I was on hour 9 of 12 of dry-heaving. Thankfully I was finished and spent the remainder of my time trying not to pass out. The thing is...we were told it would end no later than 12, including lunch, yet here it was 2:30. And after all of that, the partner we were working with on this workshop and one of our main projects (for which we still have events to complete over the next nine weeks) turns to us and pretty much says "well, I got accepted to a Masters program, I start Monday." Insert the origin of my sudden "why am I here?!?!" moment.

But enough about that. Let's skip this afternoon. Cape Coast, found in the Western Region of Ghana, and home of the Cape Coast Castle aka my number one must see while here. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is an incredibly well preserved fortress used during the slave trade. I can tell you that stepping through its entrance gave me such an immediate overwhelmed feeling, such a heaviness. One the one hand it was amazing to be there, walking through this very real piece of history. On the other hand, I just felt incredibly sad and deflated think about what had to take place within the walls of the structure for it to be of such relevance. Countless men, women, and children taken from there homes. I thought about Mrs. Smaggus' grade 12 African Heritage Literature class and how this moment related to what taught, and how that very class reshaped my entire way of thinking and how I viewed the world.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole experience, was doing so with a Ghanaian friend, Freddie. Prior to the one hour tour that is included with admission, they direct you to the Castle's museum. We walked from display to display carefully taking in what each info panel was telling, with Freddie close by doing  just the same. It was fascinating to be reading about this chunk of history through a non-Western view. After we finished I sat down next to Freddie on the bench in the middle of the museum, and asked him what it was like for him to be there, to be reading and seeing all of it. This allowed us to have a brief chat about the current forms of slavery taking place today in not only Ghana, or even Africa, but globally. Powerful, powerful day. And once again I'm reminded of why I'm here.

By the time we left, it was nearing game time... Ghana vs. Netherlands...aka my first ever football match. So where does one go to watch the game in Cape Coast? A bus station, obviously...where we ate a "local classic" called pizza. But let me tell you about the most terrifying part of this story. I had to pee. Bad. So I make my way to the washroom where I'm confronted by this small child who insists I pay her. Fine. But then she looks at me, noticing my necklace, and says "next time, I want that." Needless to say, I held it in after that!

Well it appears to be nearing midnight. I'd better get some sleep being as this is the first time we have made it past the 8:30pm mark since arriving to Ghana!

***

Day two:
It's 5:45am. A few of us get out of bed, hop over the wall and head to the beach (which is maybe 10 feet from our room). With both feet planted happily in the Atlantic, I take a moment to look around. Garbage. Everywhere. On the beach. In the water amongst the waves. Those of you who know me well know that the unknown of the ocean terrifies me, while the power of it all completely fascinates me. Nothing makes me feel more insignificant, and yet it creates a charge within me - especially seeing unnecessary pieces of plastic tangled within each wave. Water in all of its forms is the center of pretty much everything, although we wouldn't know it from the way way we take it for granted. I maybe insignificant standing next to this body of water, but I care enough to want to seek change, and that in itself, to me anyway, is pretty significant. I just need to find away to make everyone else understand this as well.

Me in front of the Cape Coast Castle...and in the Atlantic!

So much garbage...

Those black chunks you see floating around are plastic bags... Just sayin'...

Signing off from beautiful Cape Coast, Western Ghana,
-the Orange Canadian

PS: Guess who's developping a bit of a tan?!?!?! ...and no, not of the red variety!