First Hello!

Since I finally have a few moments spare time, I thought it would be nice to send out a quick I arrived email. At the moment I am writing you from an internet cafe in a town of Nkranza, outside of Techiman. I am here on what is called a 'vision quest’ which means I shadow another volunteer for a few days. The internet cafe is called, "Redeeming Blood of Jesus Internet Cafe." I rode here on a bus with a bumper sticker that read, "Though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death." It wasn’t very reassuring… I feared evil. Roads are scary here. Despite my fear of transportation, I am still deriving ample amusement out the window in the form of shop names. Need a hair cut? Why not drop in at the "to err is human hair salon?" I am told these names are more of an anti-theft mechanism than anything else. So if you send me emails, pepper the envelope with bible sayings, it seems to add a level of guilt to potential thievery.

Thus far things seem very even keeled. No major happenings yet, but slowly I am feeling like, yes I can do this. Now that I am out of Accra, the capital, I am also starting to feel more like I am in Ghana as opposed to "some third world city anywhere." I am beginning to notice more things distinctly Ghanaian or perhaps even “African” (to generalize) like the bright colored clothing, and the way women balance things on their heads, often chasing down buses to conduct business through the windows with amazing agility.

Training is so far very time consuming, but once I settle in with a host family, I think I will have a more regular schedule and be able to write more. I almost feel bombarded with too much information at the moment, but I know it is important. We covered just about all the medical stuff, receiving everything short of 'cyanide to end it all if it gets tough' (as one volunteer joked) in our emergency medical kits. (We're talking fecal staining and preserving kits, malaria blood smearing slides, mosquito treated bed netting, syringes... the whole nine yards). Plus we've gotten loads of immunizations. I stopped keeping track, hopefully the medical unit is not so lackadaisical with their record keeping.

We've also covered basic cultural stuff, including language. I am studying a local language called Twi, spoken by the Ashanti peoples of the central parts of Ghana, but will potentially switch depending on my site placement (which I will find out October 6). It's not too difficult to pick up basic phrases, most everybody is willing to help. At one point I had a spontaneous language lesson on the street with an elderly man, and walked away thinking I had learned to say ‘Hello’ in Ewe (the language of the Volta region). In actuality I had learned to say, “White man give me money.” Turns out my teacher was a beggar and had been patiently asking me for money as I, in turn, repeated his request all the while attempting to perfect my pronunciation… over and over and over. Oh well. It must have been entertaining to the onlookers.

The volunteer community, what I have seen of it so far, seems very close. There are 160 of us, and we all gathered at the US ambassadors house last Wednesday to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps. Ghana, in case you didn’t know, was the first country in the world to receive volunteers. I met/saw the president of Ghana, enjoyed some traditional foods mixed with western comforts, and became generally enthused to spend more time with the people around me, who will be a wonderful social support system. I am learning that Peace Corps is one big happy gossipy family. It took all of four hours for the news 'Mary fell into a gutter full of feces' to spread throughout the country. And now, as volunteers meet Mary for the first time, they comment, “You’re the one that fell into the gutter, right?” (Gutters are quite deep here, 4-5 feet, and usually contain a decent puddle of goo at the bottom. I think it’s a testament to our commitment that this is a hilarious story to everyone, most of all Mary.)

Well, I'm running out of time, but send my love to you all! You remain vivid in my malaria pill induced dreams.