Fuller Waterfall in Kitampo... this is at the top of the waterfall (you can see the whole thing in the other pics below). We climed up the whole thing... barefoot in our bathing suits... fun day!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
oh yeah one more
Fuller Waterfall in Kitampo... this is at the top of the waterfall (you can see the whole thing in the other pics below). We climed up the whole thing... barefoot in our bathing suits... fun day!
Moving on...
Training has finished, so has homestay and now swearing in as well so now we are all off on our own to our sites!! Since site visit life has been BUSY!! We had our language and sector exams. Language exam is a big deal, bc everyone has to pass, so our teachers were really stressed over us doing well. So between studying for language, we were busy planning our Thanksgiving feast and outfits for the swearing in ceremony. Some of us also got to go to visit a nearby waterfall to go swimming for the day... we also got to hike up the waterfall, great study break!!
So Thanksgiving was the day after our tests... we got a turkey and did a potluck. Daria and I made tortilla chips... a whole bunch of them! They turned out really good! We had so much food, it was great and I even got a 1/2 bite of turkey to go with it haha! We had some great fruit salads, salsa, stuffing, lost of mashed yams, macaroni and cheese, bread, a pinappleish pie, salad, stuffing and alot of other great stuff. It is crazy how creative our group was with local ingredients!! So it was a great Thanksgiving, got to relax and hang out for the day!
moving on... so my home stay family has been cooking for me for the past 2 months and they were really concerned that i didn't know how to cook and that I would starve when I went to site. So I had to cook a meal for them my last night at home stay. I boiled noodles with some carrots, fried up some garlic, onions and tomatoes and combined it all with tuna and laughing cow cheese. They loved it, well except they had to add some hot pepper! I gave them the presents I had bought for them; my sister a bracelet, my mother a small wall cross, my father a lighthouse calender and the little girl some crayons and bubbles from Becky's wedding! Well the bubbles were a big hit, and about20 min after they got their presents, my father who is still looking through the calender asks, now what are these? talking about the lighthouses. My brother also asks, well u gave my sister a bracelet and she is wearing it like that, now how is my mother supposed to wear this-- talking about the wall cross. hhaha. once they learned what it was for, she was so happy and hung it up in their room!
On Saturday we moved into Dery Hotel in Techiman for our last few nights together. We had a few meetings, but also got to have a day to relax-- on which we piled 15 people onto a bed and huddled around a laptop screen to watch movies! On Tuesday all of out homestay fa miles came to the hotel for the ceremony. Everyone had on their Ghanaian outfits and we had a great time. Our group put on skits and songs in the languages we learning, there was dancing and drumming group and a couple os speeches from Ghanaian officials and out Peace Corps directors. After lunch and lots of pictures later, our families when home and we were able to peel off our super hot, and lined Ghanaian dresses!! We spent our last evening together, had a good time and left early the next morning!
Right now im at the Tamale sub office on my way to site. About 15 of us traveled up here as a group and most will branch off from their. We had to buy a few things here that wont be available where I will be, but will have to buy most things closer since we have a very long day ahead of us tomorrow!
So Thanksgiving was the day after our tests... we got a turkey and did a potluck. Daria and I made tortilla chips... a whole bunch of them! They turned out really good! We had so much food, it was great and I even got a 1/2 bite of turkey to go with it haha! We had some great fruit salads, salsa, stuffing, lost of mashed yams, macaroni and cheese, bread, a pinappleish pie, salad, stuffing and alot of other great stuff. It is crazy how creative our group was with local ingredients!! So it was a great Thanksgiving, got to relax and hang out for the day!
moving on... so my home stay family has been cooking for me for the past 2 months and they were really concerned that i didn't know how to cook and that I would starve when I went to site. So I had to cook a meal for them my last night at home stay. I boiled noodles with some carrots, fried up some garlic, onions and tomatoes and combined it all with tuna and laughing cow cheese. They loved it, well except they had to add some hot pepper! I gave them the presents I had bought for them; my sister a bracelet, my mother a small wall cross, my father a lighthouse calender and the little girl some crayons and bubbles from Becky's wedding! Well the bubbles were a big hit, and about20 min after they got their presents, my father who is still looking through the calender asks, now what are these? talking about the lighthouses. My brother also asks, well u gave my sister a bracelet and she is wearing it like that, now how is my mother supposed to wear this-- talking about the wall cross. hhaha. once they learned what it was for, she was so happy and hung it up in their room!
On Saturday we moved into Dery Hotel in Techiman for our last few nights together. We had a few meetings, but also got to have a day to relax-- on which we piled 15 people onto a bed and huddled around a laptop screen to watch movies! On Tuesday all of out homestay fa miles came to the hotel for the ceremony. Everyone had on their Ghanaian outfits and we had a great time. Our group put on skits and songs in the languages we learning, there was dancing and drumming group and a couple os speeches from Ghanaian officials and out Peace Corps directors. After lunch and lots of pictures later, our families when home and we were able to peel off our super hot, and lined Ghanaian dresses!! We spent our last evening together, had a good time and left early the next morning!
Right now im at the Tamale sub office on my way to site. About 15 of us traveled up here as a group and most will branch off from their. We had to buy a few things here that wont be available where I will be, but will have to buy most things closer since we have a very long day ahead of us tomorrow!
Pictures!!!!
New Peace Corps Volunteers!!! Nov 27
Thanksgiving
Terri, me and Egan at Swearing in
WATSAN group at Swearing in ------->
Fuller Waterfall in Kintampo
Thanksgiving
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Terri, me and Egan at Swearing in
WATSAN group at Swearing in ------->
Thursday, November 15, 2007
training and site visit
Well this pic is from our "cooking session" Basically they want to make sure we wont starve or something once we get to site, so our assignment one afternoon was to get into groups and use local ingredients to make a meal. Daria, Joe and I made fajitas. We had the salsa, tortillas, chicken and veggies, rice and beans all made over open fire or charcoal burners. It took all afternoon but we had a blast, we were super proud of ourselves!
So right now it is 1:30 in the morning Ghana time and I am sitting in the Tamale Sub office enjoying free Internet yeah! There are a bunch of us here on the way back from visiting out sites for the first time! The nkwanta crew (the 6 Watsan people going to the Nkwanta district of the Volta region traveled with our counterparts (who had come to Techiman for a conference last week) to our sites on Friday of last week. We made it in one day bc we took one vehicle all day bc there were so many of us. I got to my site about 8:30 at night and after some initial awkwardness i got to sleep! Coming back was a little more difficult since i had to take 6 different vehicles and had to wait for up to 3 hours to the bus to leave a town. haha. We finally got to the office tonight! Site is great, I have a dog left for me by the previous volunteer at my site, I live with a family, im really close to Togo, um... yeah my first day I was sitting outside and a boy comes up to my with a pigeon in his hands. He says that the chief has given it to me. So i timidly take the pigeon, not wanting it to fly away, but also not really wanting to hold it. everyone laughed at me and the boy too the pigeon back. I was kinda confused until a few minutes later the boy came back with the pigeon, not dead and with no feathers, ready to be cooked. haha! Basically now we are headed back to Techiman for 2 weeks of training and the swearing in ceremony and then we are off to our site for real! Exacting! More later!
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