Please Help the Students of Aburaman Senior High School!

As many of you are well aware, my school is in desperate need of sports equipment, field hockey sticks being our number one priority. STX, a very nice field hockey stick manufacturer, has donated 50 sticks to my school but has asked me to raise the money for shipping.

It will cost around $700, which my school simply can't afford.

If just 35 of you out there, donate $20. We can get the sticks here and make some seriously wonderful students lives a lot more joyful.

I've created a fundraising project online so you can make your donations directly to me through Paypal. I will then send the money to STX and they will send us the sticks!

A little goes a long way here in Ghana, and I will be infinitely appreciative of any little bit of help you can give, even if they are just some words of encouragement!

Here are some pictures of the students in need:

Setting up our bamboo hockey net

Smiling for the Camera

Wearing their house colors!

Ghanaian Hamburgers

Ingredients for an Obruni BBQ- Ghana Style

*2 lbs. of beef fillet from Cape Coast Butcher
*2 loafs of bread
*Onions, Garlic, and Ketchup
*One hand crank meat grinder
*3 of your nearest neighbors
*Charcoal Pot with Wire Fencing

Arjun playing grill master

Where there is a will there is a way.

Keeping it Cool

Since my arrival in Ghana, after a slight adjustment period, the weather has been entirely bearable. The rain has been rolling in every few days to fill up my water buckets and cool things off a bit so sleeping has been a breeze. But recently, the rains have stopped and each midday is getting hotter and hotter. Well, now that electricity has been restored to my house and the gigantic freezer has been turned on (to store some corn dough for my headmaster’s daughter) we PCVs are really figure out how to stay cool.


Although, I too have hopped in the giant freezer for a little cool down it is kind of hard to take a good picture of yourself in a freezer. Instead I invited over a nearby Obruni neighbor to take a dip.

Arjun on Ice

Village Opinion Leaders

I think this photo speaks for itself. But my possession of it may warrant a brief explanation. The photo and frame was given to me by one of the Village Opinion leaders. I couldn’t help but giggle and do my best to share it all with you. If you can read the text it is even funnier. I am sure, the gifter has no idea what it says, which is probably better. I am just happy to be in good favor of opinion leaders of my community.

Ants!

So it has come to my attention that ants are eating my home as fast as they possibly can. Their work is quite easily noticed from the outside of the house. The front door has been snacked to oblivion as have many of the window frames. But that is outside, fine…Ants belong outside.

This is the ceiling in my hallway

When the moon is full and I am feeling especially exhausted and lacking of Insecticide, the ants invite themselves in for a little midnight snack. I snapped a few photos on one exceptionally busy evening in my house.

The ceiling in my bedroom, Gulp!

I am hoping I can convince them to postpone consuming the entire house until my work here is done. I guess we shall see.

ANTS!

Well, Aren’t you Sweet!

A new personal record for the strangest bouquet was unarguably shattered today! A good friend of mine Sam, whose wife is quickly becoming my favorite seamstress, presented me with a most beautiful bouquet this afternoon. Sam is an unbelievably generous friend, as most Ghanaians are and has gifted me many consumables from fresh okra to palm oil for cooking. But this time, a bouquet arrived at my house via taxi of not flowers, not chocolate covered strawberries, but Plantains- still on the stem. So many plantains, in fact, I had a rather difficult time carrying into my house after it was delivered. I think when all was said and done, there were around 30 plantains and I managed to consume 20 of them before they began to ripen quickly and were gifted to just about anyone who walked past my house.

Shortly after announcing to Sam I had managed to finish the plantains he assured me another bouquet would be headed my way shortly. Looks like this week’s menu will include plantain pie, plantain juice, plantain bread, and plantain stew.

Enjoy the photo, I think I had already removed several at this point and only then realized the sheer ridiculousness of the matter and went about documenting it.

Sweet New Ride

I don’t think I’ve described the layout of my school and town but it is certainly not for the weak or lazy. I live at one of the points of an equilateral triangle where each leg is approximately 1 mile. The other two vertices are the administrative block of my school (where my ICT lab is located) and the classroom buildings of my lab (where just about 50% of my classes take place). The journey from the ICT lab to the classrooms is so arduous that students actually refer to the location of the campus as “Sweat To”, as in you will break a Sweat To get there because it a mile away and uphill nearly the whole way.

I tried very hard when making the timetable to condense ICT classes to either the beginnings or the very ends of the days so that students needn’t make the trip both down and back. As a result, I on the other hand am walking the Sweat To trail twice and sometimes three times a day. Luckily there are plenty of pure water sellers along the way and snacks too- should the journey require a little blood sugar booster.

Well, walk in the midday sun no more- this PCV just snagged herself a bicycle! A deal, at 30 Ghana Cedis purchased from the school bus driver, who upgraded to a motorcycle. Don’t get too jealous when you see the picture despite its shiny paint job, online the lowest of the 21 gears work. So virtually every time I ride it I look like a cartoon character, pedaling ridiculously fast to keep up with the ups and downs of hills. Like I don’t already look ridiculous enough for a million other reasons. This trusty Blue soldier, is saving me oodles of time!