Team Techiman

During my first year of service I had the good fortune to be about five hours away from a group of volunteers, more or less clustered around the city of Techiman. Things at site are going relatively well, and I think I can see a way clear through my second year, but that's largely due to the help I've gotten from them, both with projects and also just with the unique frustrations of living as an isolated American in Ghana. When I needed to hang out I'd bounce over to Techiman and see them, talk shop, talk life, drink, and laugh. My friends were in their second year of service when I started, and over the last couple months they've been packing up and drifting out of Ghana, making their way home by various routes. So here's to you, Techiman-fuo! Good friends, good volunteers, good people.

Teri talking to her counterpart Peter about HIV/AIDS work at Holy Family Hospital in Techiman

Chris (Johnny Cash style), Matt, and Erik - Bib Day in Techiman Market

The inestimable Mr. Will Bishop, my nearest neighbor, now traveling in Morocco

At the pito bar on Bib Day, Techiman Market. Greg ("Farm Manager") is in the striped bibs.

Erik and Chris commissioned a self-portrait

Mash-Up

So, today I biked down the road to Goka, a slightly larger town than Asiri with a much better market. The moringa project (which I haven't written about in months, but it's going well) has spilled over into some of the surrounding towns, and I'm in Goka pretty regularly to touch base with people there. I dropped in at the school to greet some of the teachers and students who I'm friendly with (that's the Junior Secondary School Form 3 class), and since their English master wasn't around I stayed to teach a reading comprehension class. The topic of the reading comprehension essay they were working through, straight off page 14 in their textbook: The history of communism. A sample dialogue from class:

SAM: "Okay, do you have any questions about the sentence that Kwabena just
read?"
KWAME: [raises hand] "Sir."
SAM: "Yes, Kwame?"
KWAME: [stands up] "Sir, what is 'class system'?"
SAM: [sighs] "Uh...okay...you know how the King of the Ashantis is very,
very rich, but some people are very poor..."

And that's my day, busting down the road through the bush to try and find some relevant way of explaining to African kids what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ("two German friends" in my version) could possibly mean to them. Ghana, a complicated place that is essentially built out of random pieces of colonial geographic heritage, is a mash-up of African culture, growing economic integration with the developed world, and a lot of hopeful imitation of institutions and practices from the U.S. and Europe. The mix of information and focus here is sometimes bizarre.

Ghana Gucci

Hey y'all,

Thanks for the phone calls, texts, emails, and Facebook messages on my birthday. I really appreciate it. It's somewhat hilarious to read my last blog post and then reflect on the last six weeks where...well...things were pretty rough. You know how in every war movie there's that one guy who breaks during the fighting and runs away, endangering the rest of the platoon. Yeah, it's probably a good thing I never joined the Army. Anyway, the one-year anniversary (which for my group was September 30th) is a milestone that sneaks up on you with a lot of thoughts of home, might-have-beens, and generally a sense of "what the fuck am I doing here?" But it's OK. On the lighter side, one very common way people carry extra baggage around Ghana is in these commonly available tote bags, the "Ghana Gucci" as we call them, which are all similarly wonderful. I have another with Winnie the Pooh.

Photo Link 2

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=91686&id=532984766&l=ccc2b73ec4

Well, that took 8 hours. Now I'm going to a bar.

Chilling Out In Kumasi, Posting Photos

So I'm spending the day in Kumasi, ostensibly to get some work done organizing a beekeeping training, but really for a single, solitary purpose: upload photos. I want you all to appreciate that this is literally an all day job, even with the relatively reliable internet of the KSO. Flickr wants my Yahoo Account info, which I don't remember, and Photobucket is down for maintenance, so I think they're going to be on Facebook. However, it looks like Facebook has added an "outsiders" access feature, so I'll post the URL on the blog.

As my Peace Corps life in Ghana becomes less something I'm enduring and more something I'm enjoying, it feels more important to share. This blog seems have become a way of maintaining what Malcolm Gladwell called in The Tipping Point "loose ties" with all y'all that I really care about a lot, but am not going to see very often for a while. I get random updates of what's going on in your lives, either by email or Facebook or whatever, and I want to trade you some context as well, so that later when we meet back up we can strengthen that loose tie again and comfortably catch up over a few beers.

So here's the first batch, they're all from our Pre-Service Training October to December 2008. There's a second batch of more recent ones I'll try to get up this afternoon, but just in case here's the first batch.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=91640&id=532984766&l=9ff65e8592