Birthday Fun!

Just to let you all know that I had a fabulous birthday thanks to all my great friends here in Ghana! I don't have time to write about it all now, but check out the pictures that Amanda has posted! Good times! :)
Thanks for all the birthday wishes! And a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dad today! Love you!!

Good Friday

Just like at home, we have a four day weekend for Easter this weekend. We had to go to Kumasi, a big city about 2 hours away to meet with a Canadian lady working on another CIDA project that we may be able to collaborate with, so decided to get out of Sunyani on Friday to meet with Cassandra. One of our team mates with the project, Vincent, is from Kumasi and was heading home to see family anyway, so we decided to all go together and then he would get us to a tro-tro (mini-van sized bus) in the evening back to Sunyani.

So we arranged to meet with Cassandra in the morning at the Cultural Arts Centre, and kill two birds with one stone (which is really a terrible saying when you think about it!). We had a great meeting with Cassandra who is from Bow Valley College in Calgary, which has a few international projects going on, but that I was shocked to find out has no students working on any of them! She said she is trying to change that, but isn’t really sure how to make it work yet. I tried to really get across to her the benefits of having students working on projects, as we three students sat across from her all telling her about our learning and involvement with this project. I think she was really surprised and impressed when we told her how Malaspina University-College has really taken a great stance on their undergrad student involvement in projects.

Then we had a wander around the Cultural Arts Centre which was pretty quiet as it was a holiday, but it had some interesting crafts and what not to check out. After that we went to see the famous sword that is stuck in a stone (kind of like Excaliber!). The story tells that a man came to see the Ashanti King (one of the main tribes in Ghana) and commanded this sword down from the heavens saying that when the sword was taken out of the stone it would be the end of peace in the Ashanti Kingdom. The sword has been there for more than 300 years. It was pretty cool. Apparently many people have tried their strength at pulling out the sword with no luck, even Mohammed Ali when he visited Ghana many years ago.

We then went to visit some of Vincent’s family. First we went to his cousin’s house to see their baby, who is their first born, a little boy about 11 month old. Very cute! They also brought us a huge plate of rice, pasta and stew to eat, as it is custom to always feed your guests when they come to visit regardless of the time of day, or if they have already eaten. Did I mention that we had a big plate of fried rice for breakfast with Cassandra?! Vincent tried to warn us that there would be food at our stop, but we were so hungry at breakfast that we had already eaten quite a bit. Anyway we managed to eat most of the food at his cousin’s house, although I was seriously struggling with the last few bites. Then we went to some friends of the family’s house who is like Vincent’s second mom, and guess what!? There was MORE food!! A whole table full! And she told us we had better clean the table because if we didn’t it meant that the food wasn’t very good! Talk about pressure! I was SO full, and was struggling so badly that when the hostess left the room I started laughing so hard I was crying! …which didn’t help my very full tummy! We most definitely did not clean the table although we tried hard to get Vincent to eat more so it didn’t look so bad, but we did have a nice visit. We are going back there next weekend and will stay with them for the weekend which will be great.

The last stop before heading back to Sunyani was at Vincent’s mom’s house which is in an area called the Zongo. Many communities in Ghana have a Zongo area which is the poor part of the community. A building is built around an open courtyard with rooms that open onto the courtyard. These building are then homes to many people potentially from all areas of Ghana. Neighbours will cook, clean, and do laundry together in the courtyard of this newly formed community of housemates…for lack of a better word. A Zongo can be a quite large community or area of a town or city. We were warmly welcomed by his mom and all the other ladies that were around the courtyard. We had begged Vincent prior to arriving to let his mom know that we didn’t need to eat again! We actually did have to leave fairly quickly, so there wouldn’t have been time to eat, much to her disappointment, but we promised to return next weekend when we go to visit again. We’ll be better prepared for the whole eating at EVERY stop next time!

Tid-bits & Update

Wow! A whole week has gone by and no post! It seems the initial novelty of it all has worn off, and daily life seems more and more 'typical' and so I'm having a hard time knowing what to write about!

Everything is going relatively smoothly. The project is moving along and we are getting ready for our first radio shows next week (after Easter Weekend). That will be pretty exciting I think! The team has all been working really hard to get ready for the shows.

Amanda and I are doing really well. We both got a bit sun burnt this past weekend…(she says sheepishly). We spent Saturday at a hotel here in Sunyani that has a pool…and ice cream!! We spent the day swimming (or should I say floating), reading, sleeping, eating and then repeat! Ya, it was pretty rough. We also met some Peace Corp volunteers that are working in the area. It was nice to sit and chat with some other obrunies, although I kept forgetting where we were!
Oh there was also a really funny incident that happened that day. We were in the pool chatting with some Ghanaians, and Michael Jackson’s ‘Make it a Better World’ came over the speakers, so we had a little inter-cultural sing-along! Too funny! (As I write this in the internet café one of the students has the sound track to ‘Grease’ playing! Love it! Where am I?)

Another thing I’ve been meaning to write about is about religion:

I knew before I got here that religion, specifically Christianity is very important to Ghanaians (although there are a number of Muslims as well). I didn’t realize just how important it is. While at home we ask people what they do for a living, or where they live in our first few questions upon meeting. Here in Ghana one of the first three questions that they will ask you is what kind of church you go to. It still sometimes catches me off guard, the bluntness of the question.

We attended our first class (or lecture as they refer to them) last week, and the instructor was late getting to class (in typical ‘Ghana time’ fashion). The first few minutes of waiting were spent with the students milling about and chatting. Then one of the students took the opportunity to go up to the front of the class and lead the class in a short prayer and worship time. The class all joined in and thanked the student afterwards. I am constantly amazed at their dedication and commitment.

We have also attended a few church services here on Campus. They have a student lead interdenominational service with a visiting pastor each week from various churches in Sunyani. The services are a bit like what you would see in a movie of a southern Baptist church complete with the singing, clapping, dancing, and shouting Hallelujah and Amen! It’s a cultural experience all on its own!

Well, if there are any topics that I haven’t written about that you are curious about please drop me a line. I would welcome some topic suggestions! :)

Happy St.Patrick’s Day!

Social Events

First of all, the internet connection has been a bit of a problem lately, so I apologize for the lapse in posting.

Thursday was Ghana’s Independence Day. 51 years of independence. Very exciting! We went to the town square to watch the festivities, and play 'spot the obruni' (white person)...you can spot one a mile away! Amanda has a nice write up about the day so check out her blog link at the top right.

This holiday also happens to be the same time that the forestry university organized its annual Faculty Week.

The forestry campus here in Sunyani is a satellite campus from Kumasi (a large city about 1 ½ hours away). Each year as part of Faculty Week, the three faculties from the two campuses, the Forestry Faculty here in Sunyani, and the Natural Resources and the Agroculture Faculties from Kumasi, get together for a day of sporting competitions. The winning Faculty of each event gets a trophy and bragging rights over the other two for the next year. This year the event took place here on Friday in Sunyani at the community football stadium. There were three sporting events; men’s football (or soccer as it’s known at home), women’s football, and men’s volleyball, with one team for each from each of the faculties. The teams and their fans from Kumasi were bussed in to Sunyani for the festivities.

It was an all day event at the stadium full of drumming, cheering, singing, and of course the games themselves. Even if you’re not a football fan, I think most people know about the type of fans that this sport has…very passionate, and very dedicated to the sport. This type of fan is definitely alive and well here in Ghana! Perhaps you can imagine the excitement and noise that happened when our own Forestry Faculty took the trophy in ALL THREE events! It was so much fun to witness and be a part of congratulating all the teams and players, although I think my ears are still ringing from all the noise! Definitely a cultural experience!

The Project team got together last Wednesday evening for a social get together. We realized that due to the fact that Amanda and I are living on the forestry campus, we’ve had lots of opportunities to socialize with those students. We haven’t had as much opportunity to get to know the students at the S.Poly campus, so we decided it was high time.

We arranged for snacks and beverages for the evening, and invited everyone on the team to the office (which is quite a large room) at 7pm for a games evening. The early part of the evening was spent listening to music and just milling about chatting, and then Amanda led us all through a game of ‘Telephone Pictionary,’ a very fun game which just as you would think, is a blend of ‘Telephone’ and ‘Pictionary.’ We then split into smaller groups and played some Canadian and Ghanaian games. I think everyone thought the evening was a great success, and we will make a bigger effort to have more social time with all the team members in the future.