Weekend at Begoro and other things

This weekend I went to Begoro (1-2h drive with the Trotro away from Koforidua) to visit some other volunteers. They live and work in an orphanage to teach the kids, keep everything clean and to do any other upcoming duties. It's basically a 24/7 job, but as far as I can see, they enjoy it.
Begoro is a very small town. There is one main street and the way to get to the orphanage is not too easy:

It actually looks easier than it is or maybe just at night it's not easy.

I came on friday evening and left on sunday afternoon. The drive to Begoro is 'breathtaking' :-P. Not just because there are soooooo many huge holes on the way that you constantly shake around, but also because of the view. Amazing nature, like a jungle. (I filmed a lot, so I can't show it now, because I already tried to upload a film but it didn't work. But I will film a lot here and at the end, when I'm back in Germany, I will edit a whole film out of all the little ones I make here.)
It was a very nice stay. We actually wanted to go to the waterfalls 30 minutes walk away, but because of too much rain we couldn't. Still I enjoyed the weekend a lot. We chilled, helped the three women, who are the staff from the orphanage, a bit with cooking - actually sorting out corn:

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we watched some films (the other volunteers here have laptops with them, because they stay a whole year). And we walked around the very little city centre of Begoro and bought sweets and sausages.
On sunday morning we went to church. This was actually my second time at church, because I already went last weekend in Koforidua.
Here in Ghana you dress up for church.

This is me and my guestmum dressing up for church last weekend.
Church here is not boring preaching for hours and hours. You sing and dance a lot! I filmed a bit so you'll see how it is, when I edited the film. (so in a half year when I'll be back - sorry! :-D)
Then we also tried to go to the tailor to get my african fabric done, but it was closed the entire weekend. So I'll do it here in Koforidua. Going to the tailor here is very cheap and the african fabric is beaaaaaautiful!
I got one yard of a very nice fabric and I'll get a high waste pencilskirt 'til the knees. A bit more smart, so I have something for church. And with other fabric I'm gonna get a traditional dress - either a dress or a skirt + a shirt - both is common here. And I want some trousers, then I'm happy. :-3
 

That's at Begoro. Goats and chicken are running around here all over the streets. In Begoro as well as in Koforidua and Accra. They are like the pidgeons in Germany.
Another thing about the streets is unfortunately the rubbish. There is a lot all over the streets and people just throw stuff on the ground because nowhere are bins, because there is no proper trash system.. I still have to find out more about that.

When I came back from Begoro I went out with my hostmother and some friends of hers because her birthday was during the week. We went to a spot as I also did with Paula and her guestbrother on the last weekend. Both spots (how they call it here) are like bars, but with chairs and tables in the open. Nice music and a lot of dancing as always. :-P

First week of school

My first week of school at the Samplet school in Adweso (a part of Koforidua) and with that my time to observe is over. Monday was a holiday over here, today on tuesday I talked about the classes I'll get and tomorrow I start actually teaching. Unfortunately for now I only got 8 times 40 minutes, which is - as you can count yourself - basically nothing. Maths and I.C.T. (Information and communication technologies) for class 4 and 5.
But I can prepair the classes in the rest time and do other things or I just go home. And next week, if I did well, I'll try to get more hours. Maybe some english lessons as well and I would actually like to have some older classes - especially in maths. Let's see how it looks like in 2 weeks.

Last week was actually already the second week the kids were in school. In that week I observed class 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 and from time to time I also taught a little.
School starts at 8 am and finishes around 2:30 pm for everyone.
Especially the first two or three days were very confusing for me, because the kids had to sit still for the whole 7 hours - except for during a long break at around 10 and a lunch break around 12 - without even having any lesson. The teachers make the teaching plan during the first two weeks and until then teachers teach the kids anything they want or just nothing at all.
It's tough to make the younger children be quite, but the method, they sometimes use here to do so, is still not ok: The cane to hit the children's fingers/hands. It's not always used, also sitting on your knees (with sometimes your hands up) in front of the board is a method. Let's see if I can introduce the method: Extra homework if not silent.

I prefer the older classes. They are easier to handle and the topics to do with them are more interesting.
I learn a whole lot here. About teaching, about psychology actually as well and about children and education in general. But also about the Ghanaian school system and about - me just having finished the school myself - the insides of a staff/teachers room. Very interesting seeing the other/the teacher's side of view so shortly after finishing school yourself.
I'm looking forward to the next days and weeks to come. I hope I'll learn some more about teaching and that I'll get more hours in the upcoming weeks.
If you want more details about e.g. the Ghanaian school system or anything else just comment here or ask me elsewhere.

Hostfamily

Tuesday I came to my new home town Koforidua. When George, Paula and I arrived in town we went first of all to Paulas guestfamily and stayed there for a few hours, because it had started to rain heavily! But staying there was actually a lot of fun. The son (Percy, 24) was very funny and we started to make some music. He played the drums on a keyboard, I played ukulele, George guitar, Paula sang and another volunteer who was already living with the family since a few days filmed us with my camera. We were shit, but it was a loooot of fun :-D I'm not sure if I upload the video because we were so bad but maybe just for fun I'll do it.

When the rain was over, George and I left. But I got invited to come back as often as I want. And I'll probably do, because my school I'll teach at is very close to their house.
My guestfamily isn't really a family yet. It's a young woman who's husband went travelling for 6 months. She is in her early twenties, so she doesn't have kids yet. Her flat is one of others in a compound with many families. The flat has one little sitting room and a little bedroom with a big bed we're both sleeping in. The kitchen is on the other side of the compound (maybe 10-20 meters) as well as the washrooms and toilet holes. To wash yourself you use a bucket and if you wanna pee, you do it while washing yourself or in another bucket. The holes are for something else... if you know what I mean.
(I'm not gonna say any names or too much details about herself because everyone can read this. If you wanna know more, ask me in a private message.)
I like my guestmum a lot, I'm getting along with her very well. She showed me everything. How to wash yourself with a bucket, how she cooks, how to wash your clothes and anything else you need. Even though the conditions seem not that luxury, I'm happier where I am than some other volunteers are, because some families don't show the volunteers anything and let them alone, so they don't really have anything to do until the project on monday starts. A lot of other volunteers are also together in two, three or even more in one family. I'm actually happy that I'm the only volunteer at the compound. There are enough opportunities to meet other volunteers. For example three others are also in my city (Koforidua) and some others in a city very close (Begoro).
My mum has a good job and good technical devices at home. Often she tries to teach me Twi (the most common language besides english and loots of others), but whenever I try or learn how to wash clothes or learn anything, everyone laughes at me. One time they even talked across the whole compound in Twi, laughing a lot (my mother translated afterwards) if I already made it to use the toilet holes. haha! But it's ok, you just can't be too proud and when you keep learning, everyone really appreciates it. So just don't take everything too serious and don't feel ashamed, that's really what I learn here the most.
A lot of families with children live in the compound. For the kids especially I'm a real attraction. They wanted to know my name, always come to me and when I once touched one of them on the shoulder, all of them got excited and wanted to touch me as well. Does an Ubruni (White person) feel like a normal human, too? It's so funny and the kids are so sweet! When I came home on my own yesterday they all ran to me and "attacked" me (I mean surrounded me, called my name and didn't want to let me go).

On tuesday, when I arrived, a friend of my hostmother was there and we all ate together and watched America's got Talent. :D
On wednesday I washed clothes with her (or better I watched and learned and she did almost everything), ate [Grießbrei] for breakfast (hadn't eaten that in a long while!) and then went with my mentor and 3 other volunteers around Koforidua to get to know the city. (I noticed I have the perfect location - very close to the center. Koforidua is beautiful and you can also go hiking at one of the hills surrounding the city.)
I ate for the first time Fufu (very famous ghanaian food, I'll tell later more about it) and David (volunteer) showed me the little shop of his host family.

Today (thursday) I had to go back to Accra with some other volunteers because one volunteer had told his German organization that he didn't have an orientation seminar and we had to confirm/varify that we actually got one. That trip was pretty annoying and stole the whole day, but well.. it happens, I'm not here on my own, so I can't just do what I want. Therefore/On the good side I have mentors and people who are there for me, if I need something.
That's for now, my internet time is over (I'm in a cafe right now), so I'll talk to y'all soon!

Pictures and explanations

So that's the terrace I was talking about. Nice, he? ;)

The first one shows how to eat an orange in Ghana. You basically drink it by sucking all the juice out of it and at the end it looks like that.
The second one is called Kurikuri and is a very nice snack, which tastes a bit like crunchy bread.
The next one is sugar cane - very sweet and delicious!
And the last one is just spaghetti with a ghanaian kind of sauce and vegetables.

That's the group which was remaining after lots of volunteers left last sunday.

...and that's ghanaian money. Ghana Cedi. :-D

That little water package is how everyone drinks water here. You bite off a little piece on one corner and then suck out the water.
The rest of the pictures are from the streets and landscapes of Accra and on the way to Koforidua. Do you see the huge gutters on the second picture? Now you can imagine how strong it's sometimes raining over here! But I only experienced it once and not even that heavy.

And that's my guestmum - I'm so lucky! :-P

I love Ghana! - First 4 days

The first 4 days are over and I'm already in love with this country!

I don't even know where to start. Let's start with some Infos, my flight and what I did the last days.
I applied for my project in Ghana through the German organization Auszeit-Weltweit and got connected to the Ghanaian organization ARA (Agriculture and Rural development Association).
Right now I have a Ghanaian SIM-card in my phone, but my whatsapp still works with my old number and I have internet on my phone. To upload the photos from my camera I need to wait to get to an internetcafe - so for now just bad quality phone pictures.

I landed at the airport after two comfortable flights with more or less sleep, nice food and I even watched a film (The fault in our stars). The aircraft really provided a lot of luxury - e.g. a huge variety of films and music - and I felt a lot more comfortable than expected. Also the stop in Addis Abeba (Ethiopia) was very interesting being now almost the only white girl. Actually a lot of Asian people where there (even one with a Badminton racket case on his back!!) and almost all Asians wore those masques to cover your mouth against germs. Kinda weird... anyway!
A lot of black people had an European way of dressing but some also traditional long ropes(?)/dresses with lots of colours. One guy seriously had a tight see-through-net-shirt on. Yes he was fat. Yes that was the worst clothing style I had ever seen. :-D But the other outfits I often really like.

When I arrived at the Accra airport in Ghana the nice warm (not too hot) weather welcomed me and right away one of the airport staff "ripped me off" 10€. He helped me with a Tourist Form everyone had to fill in and kept asking for more and more tip and didn't let me go until he started laughing and I just left, a bit confused but laughing about myself for making myself look so stupid. But now I even learned how to bargain at the market! No one ripps me off anymore! :P

From the airport a driver, who was sent by my organization, came to pick me up. Very interesting ride through the center and later the outskirts of Accra and I had no clue yet where the journey went. But the destination which was wating for me was the paradise of the last 4 days.

Yes, paradise. A house with rooms downstairs and a huge terrasse upstairs with e.g. a tablefootball, 24 other cool German volunteers, so nice people from my organization, nice food and fun things to do all day.
I arrived and it didn't take long that I felt like home straight away. Just ten minutes after I arrived I went with some to the beach only around 100 meters away. After that I got to know some of the mentors, which are Ghanaian people from the organization who will be there for us during the whole time whenever there is a problem or anything we need to know. Nicest funniest coolest most open minded people I've ever met! (Little shout out to my broder from anoder modder! :-D)
The rest of the day we talked about do's and don'ts in the host families. That was one of a serial of other seminars which most of them I had missed, because I arrived on friday, but the other volunteers where there since monday. Therefore the others already went to their host families and projects the day before yesterday (sunday) and me and six others who also came later were staying there until today morning. But we all exchanged numbers and will meet from time to time.

Right now I'm driving to Koforidua with Paula, another volunteer, and George, one of the mentors, where I'll meet my host family for the first time. So in the next days probably the tough part starts when I'll come to the project (mine is teaching at a school) and in case I don't get along with my host family straight away - but let's see, I'm very optimistic actually!

Well but now I have to tell you why I'm in love with the country!
First of all I love the food, even though most of it is too spicy for me, but I'll just have to get used to it. I'll soon post some pictures of Kurikuri, Batong, sugarcane, how to eat oranges here and other nice food (with explanation ;-)) And whenever you want a snack you just get it everywhere on the streets for very little money!
I love the attitude of the people, always friendly and open and even when you think at the beginning they are being angry sometimes (at the market, when you're bargaining for example) they're never really as serious as you think, a joke is almost always appropriate - everyone has a lot of humour here! Everyone is so friendly! And besides the fact that lots of men want to marry you (which can get really annoying), you can talk to everybody and ask everything (- obviously there are also bad people like all over the World, but I'm talking about the majority). But if you ask for directions better ask at least three people because everyone tells you something. Even if they ain't got no clue. It's 'cause nobody wants to say: 'I don't know'. Especially not to an Ubruni (White Person).

I love the whole atmosphere of the country, the weather, the way the people all live outside their houses. They just go inside when they sleep or go to school (at least in the outskirts it seemed to me like that).
On the streets you can always buy everything (literally everything) and people always sell you stuff while you're in the car.
The traffic is as every European imagines it here - horrible chaos - and the streets in the outskirts have so many huge holes. In the city though the streets are good and have huge gutters for when it rains very strong. The highways I saw until now are quite good as well, but there aren't many.
The rides in the Trotro (one way of transportation like Taxis or buses) are always cool and a mean of public transportation.
On friday and saturday evening/night we went out to a beach bar (drove there with the Trotro) where you could play pool, smoke shisha and dance dance dance.... I love how everywhere you go there is loud music all day. And also on saturday morning, when we attended a school opening (Building the school was a project by another German organization working together with ARA. Around 50 people and the future students - little kids - were coming to celebrate the opening.), music was played after a few speeches and everyone was dancing dancing dancing - I love that!

Now just a few general things I find interesting: First of all I'm not having any cultural shock - maybe it will come once I'm at my family, let's see.
Before I came here I had heard the sun would go down very very quickly, but that's not true. I mean it goes down very early and always between 18 and 18:15h, but you can still see it going down slowly, it takes like 30-60 minutes I think.
Also at the night you don't hear a lot of cicadas (Zikaden) as I expected, but even louder you can hear frogs, they are crying all night long - very loud. But it actually doesn't bother me, I fall asleep very easily and it's not too hot to fall asleep either.

Talking about living things....  Mosquitos. You know I use a mosquito spray every evening for skin and clothing, I have a mosquito net and try to wear long bright clothes. But I get still soo many bites, I wouldn't be surprised if I get Malaria. But no worries, the people here know how to treat it quickly in order to avoid long term effects. And it's so normal here that they really are experts.
Alright I think I talked enough. I'll try to upload every week, but probably not as detailled or long as today, because now I really had a looot of things to tell. :-D
My first conclusion is: I love Ghana!
Let's see what my next one will be! :-)

Talk to y'all soon! :)

PS: Right now we're in a Taxi stuck in a huge market not being able to move, eating Ghanaian ice cream and doughnut. :-D
Two hours later went from Taxi to Trotro and now we're on the road! :)

Aircraft

Not Bad... Ethiopian Airline.. I expected less :D

Let's go!

Nothing much to say, I'm ready!
At 22:05 german time my flight takes off, in the morning I will land in Ethiopia and at 11:20 (GMT +0) I will arrive in Accra, Ghana. Can't wait!