Homestay- Asafo

Just a few pictures from my room in my new home. This is where I will be living for the next 8 weeks during my intensive language training and subject training. My homestay family is amazing! Very hands-off but really supportive when it comes to anything I need. My homestay sister also speaks Fante, the language I need to learn for my site in the Central Region. What great luck!? And despite a pricy taxi ride to get to my classes in another town (which I am eventually reimbursed for), I have no major complaints. Life is good in Ghana.

Site Placement

Site Placement is one of the most anticipated events of all of Peace Corps Training (second to the swearing in ceremony when we are finally free to go to our sites and let the fun begin). It makes or breaks friendships (or burgeoning crushes, yes people love is in the air, and the coupling bets have already been placed) and most assuredly determines who you will be seeing on a regular basis once at site.
The ceremony goes something like this: you are brought to a large open area and sat down on some benches around a giant chalk drawn map of Ghana. From there you are called one-by-one to go stand on the map at the place of your future site. This gives you the opportunity to physically look around and see who you will be close to and who you will probably never see again.


With my fingers crossed and my thoughts wishing for the Northern Region, which I had grown to love during my VQ. I sat and began waiting for my name. I was probably the 6th or 7th person called so it didn’t take long. I was placed in the coveted Central Region!


Although, it was not at all what I expected, as I talked to some trainees who went there for their VQs I realized my site was just 25 minutes from Cape Coast, a notorious resort town. The Central Region has the reputation for the nicest accommodations and proximity to many creature comforts. Although, I cannot confirm or deny any of these things as I have not visited, it certainly changes my perspective about what the next two years will be like.
It also means I am close to Accra which makes it much easier for everybody to come visit me! Who wouldn’t want to go stay in a resort town for a nice vacation in Ghana!? Start buying your tickets now, my bungalow is your bungalow.

W.A.W.A

I am not joking. In an effort to impart certain American customs to Ghana (Peace Corps 2nd Ojective), one of the trainees brought along some Solo Cups and ping pong balls for some good old fashion drinking games. That’s right folks! Beer Pong is alive and well in Ghana. Shortly after a team of two Ghanaians were taught the rules, they proceeded to beat every team with the gall to stand up to them that night. As a wise old ex-pat told me at the Ambassdor’s event, “Sometimes you will just have to say W.a.w.a. and let it go.” W.a.w.a., he explained to mean, West Africa Wins Again.

One of our Ghanaian friends killing his third adversary of the night.

Shower Power

While even the existence of this thing would have brought a smile to my face the fact of its location in a hotel room in Kukurantumi, Ghana puts me in an infinitely better mood. Enter, “The Shower of the Future”.
Yes, this shower was in my hotel room complete with: foot massager, overhead shower, clock-radio, and sink (yes, a sink in the shower!?) Hilarious, right?! I am not saying that it worked to its full potential, (sure, the running water was turned off at most hours of the day and night) but just the mental image of 6 or 7 Ghanaians carrying this monolithic cleaning device up the stairs will make me smile for years to come. I mean really, how else did it get there?

I should mention the room I was placed in (along with my roommate Katherine) was clearly the honeymoon suite so maybe a shower like this is common suit for honeymooners in Ghana. The room had many other interesting features, for example, it came equipped with a conference room, balcony, bar, and refrigerator, although these amenities paled in comparison to the shower.

Vision Quest

Vision Quest is a 5 day trip designed to show us trainees exactly what it is like to be an old and sometimes jaded volunteer who has been at site for a while. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to go to a great little town called Nalerigu in the Northern Region. Despite the size of the Northern Region (it takes up more than half of Ghana’s land mass) it is considered much more remote and undeveloped than the Southerly regions. Some volunteers dread being banished there but I had sort of had my eye on this region as I heard it could deliver a serious cultural experience and I was eager to dive in.
The trip was long. In fact it took two days. Day one dealt us an 18 hour bus ride from Accra to Tamale and Day Two a few colorful Tro-tro rides (more on these later), and a little hitchhiking delivered me safe and sound and in record time to Nalerigu.





Luckily, it was market day and my host was more than eager to go buy some supplies and (if you know my host) of course, take some new fabric to her seamstress for a new dress. I have personally nominated her as the best dressed Senior High School Madame in all of Ghana. She had a gorgeous dress for each day of the week I was there, and am pretty sure she could have kept up the pace for many weeks after I left. Everybody spends their salary on something or other, why not a great wardrobe!?


The next few days were very busy. Caroline took me to her computer lab where we began to install Ubuntu on many of her computers (apparently it is virus proof in Ghana which is a huge problem with ICT labs). I also had the opportunity to watch her teach a few classes and snap some photos. Pepto pink happened to be the color of her students’ required uniforms, which made for some nice photos.




Alas, Vision Quest was over and it was time to begin the long journey to Kukurantumi where our next 9 weeks of training would be in or near. We got back and compared our stories and it seemed that the people who went to the Central Region had the most fun what with their proximity to some gorgeous beaches.

The Ambassador

After a few days at Valley View enduring some basic training lectures and activities it was time for our big night at the Ambassador’s house. It was posed as quite the event as there would be an open bar, and since most us were in desperate need of a drink by then, we were more than happy to bucket bath our dirty selves and put on our best duds. Proudly we drank the ambassador out of house and home just in time for our Vision Quest trips early the next morning.



Here is a picture of me and some of the other trainees posing with the ambassador.

Working on it!

I wanted to post just a short message to let you all know that I have many posts written and ready to go, I am just working on finding an internet cafe with internet that is fast enough to upload pictures because as we all know, a picture is worth more...

arrival in ghana

I have arrived safely in Ghana. Our plane arrived at the Accra International Airport at approximately 8:30am local time.
The new volunteers and our more than 2 tons of luggage filled up the baggage terminal. It was a zoo making sure everybody was reunited with their luggage but in the end no bags were lost!






We were piled onto busses and brought to the Main Office.
Exhausted and overwhelmed from the flight, we were forced into a full day of work. We were given tours of the Peace Corps office, surrounding Accra area, given some vaccinations, and lastly language lessons and more than 8 hours later finally taken to a University about an hour outside of Accra, called Valley View to finally sleep. As you can imagine I was more than happy to see my bed that night where I would be staying for the next few days before the infamous “Vision Quest”.