Akwaaba!  Posting more pics!  I got a lot of wonderful ones today, but I haven't been able to put them on my hard drive yet... next week!  Plus Easter is apparently the biggest holiday in Ghana, so I'll have lots of pics from that too.
As far as news goes, things are going along as usual here.  Last week we had a little excitement, though.  It was lights out, and a tenant living in one of the apartments downstairs knocked a candle over onto the mattress and it went up.  We heard shouting, and thought everyone was going to watch a fight or something outside, then we were told the house was on fire!  My first thought was to get my passport, but it wasn't bad.  We brought in buckets and put it out, and spent an hour or so helping them clean up the mess.  It really turned out pretty well, all things considered.  There is no such thing as 911 or a fire dept, and the homes are so close together it could have easily taken over the whole neighborhood in a heartbeat.
We are planning a trip up north for next weekend.  It'll take a week, and we'll be going north to visit Kumasi and Tamale (major cities) and go to Mole National Park for a mini safari, Lake Bosumtwi which was created by a meteor and sacred since there are no water sources or outlets, and a couple of waterfalls.  Should be really fun, and interesting, to say the least.  Traveling is very time consuming here, since the roads are quite poor in most places, so we'll spend a lot of time on tro tros (15 passenger vans which hold 17+ people!)  Should be quite the adventure to say the least!
Hope all is well with everyone, and please, if you have any questions or requests let  me know. I'm getting to the point where things are normal now, so I may not remember to take pictures or write about them!  :)

This is the private Anglican school right outside the music school.  We hear them yelling obruni at us everyday during their lunch break!

This is Abba, my favorite student.  She is 7 years old and learning violin.  We go to their house to teach her and her brother, Kwesi, twice a week.

This is our house.  We live on the second floor.  The porch faces front, and there is another porch that faces out back too.  The van in front belongs to the school but hasn't run in years.  It's going to be my job to find a new mini van when I get home to send one to Ghana.  Which reminds me... anyone have one for sale?  :)

Sledding in Ghana!  Yes, that's into the sewage river thing... luckily it's the dry season and not too messy!  These guys are out here every day doing this!  One day one of them even had a motorcycle helmet... smart!

This is the living room in our house.  Pretty western, eh?

This is the piano room at school, the main room really.  There is one other room with a dilapidated drumset, and two office rooms.  The place itself is pretty nice, but the building is a dump.  That's part of the problem in getting students... no one wants to come.  Our space was newly painted right before I came, so it's pretty snazzy.  We have a variety of instruments, (violins, keyboards, a few brass, guitars, bass, drums) but most people come to learn keyboard.  Most of them want to learn to play in their church bands.

This is some construction outside of the school.  Basically, the guys mix the concrete, and hand it up to the guy in a bowl, which he dumps into the mold for the support beams.  It's a little shoddy looking, but apparently the method works... I haven't seen a crumpled building yet!

This is the site for the new school.  Construction has come to a grinding halt, though.  There's no water to mix the concrete.  We are in the process of trying to raise money to dig a bore hole.  This was we can continue building, as well as have well water for the school's toilets/sinks/ etc.  It's going to cost around $6,000 for the system, so unfortunatly it'll be a while until construction can continue.  We've been going around to big companies in town seeking sponsorship, but no takers yet.  I suspect lots of people come to ask for money, and a music school would seem rather frivolous in comparison to an orphanage, or whatever.   Understandable, really.  In a country where many people don't have drinkable water, violin lessons are not a priority... still I hope it gets going soon!  The building will have a kindergarten and accommodations for the volunteers as well.  Plus it's right outside of the middle of town. 

An incoming storm at sunset... this was taken from the front porch.  It looked like a major storm on the way, but no rain came!  Apparently it's raining all over Ghana and excluding Takoradi!  But Jessie (house mom) says it always rains on Good Friday, so we'll have to see about that!  

This is the walk we take to school everyday.  

The walk we take above cuts through the grounds of a Methodist Elementary School.  These are their toilets... sand pits really.

We got invited to a very fancy dinner (still don't understand what it was about) that was incredibly Ghanaian. It took hours to start, and then hours to finish.  Katie was asked, as an honored guest (ie white) to pop the champagne!  

Have a happy Easter, and keep in touch!

Love, Ecua

Week 6/ Photos!

Awkwaaba!
So I've finally figured out how to do photos!  I'm officially 1/3 of the way through my 4 month stay here in Ghana as of Wednesday.  So I think that this post is going to be mainly explanations of photos!  Also, feel free to email me if you have any questions about Ghanaian life...  I'm starting to run out of things to talk about, since I'm getting used to things and (almost) forget what's novel!  :)

This is a view from the back of our house.  We live in Effia-Kuma, which is a neighborhood outside of Takoradi.  You can see next to the laundry line where the water pump is for most people.  We have running water in our house, but many people don't. The water from this pump is clean and drinkable.  In the mornings there are lots of people filling up buckets to bring home.  Those are banana and plantain trees.  We could reach off the back porch and pick bananas if we wanted to!  

This is the view from the front of the house.  The section of the street right next to us is where the little kids often gather to play.  To the left of this picture is a bigger area where the "big kids" and young men come to play football.  Almost everyone here has goats, sheep, cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, etc.  They all run around during the day, and at night they come home to their coops.  You wouldn't think a goat would be smart enough to run around town all day and then return home, but apparently they do.  Many of the animal have strings on their ankles to show what family they belong to.

This is the view from the school.  We are on the third floor of our building which is in the middle of Takoradi.    The streets are even crazier then they appear!  There are little to no traffic laws, as far as I can tell.  Except, if you honk first, you have the right of way!  Also, the streets are lined with shops and stalls selling everything you could possibly imagine.  Quite interesting!

This is the house directly across from us.  No one has washers and dryers, so everyone washes in buckets then hangs the clothes out to dry.  It's a lot harder than you'd think, especially since everything is SO DUSTY!  You scrub something, then it's dusty again just from hanging outside... alas. 

Kids playing outside the house.  I was trying to be sneaky photographing them, but this guy busted me!   

These girls live across the street.  The little one is my friend.  Every morning we'd wave and jump and do a variety of mirroring actions.  But, when ever I was near her, she'd burst into tears and run away.  Scary obruni!  Unfortunately, she was hit by a car and killed last week at the junction.  Terribly sad.

This is the bridge that we cross every day going to and from school.  It's sketchier then it looks!  All the sewage lines from the area drain into this creek thing... it's pretty disgusting.  Plus just to the right of the bridge is the local trash deposit.  The dumpster probably hasn't been emptied in years, so it just overflows, covering about half an acre in solid trash, which of course blows into this creek.  The solution?  Light a series of small fires in the trash to burn up what you can.  The smell? Exactly what you can imagine...

Wednesday March 6 was Ghana's Independence Day!  Pretty cool.  We came a little late to Jubilee Park where they had the parade.  Got there just in time for the eternal speech, though!  The schools are selected to choose a group of students to march, and there were soldiers from the army, air force, navy and police forces, too.  

Market lady carrying things on her head.  You wouldn't believe how skilled they are with this!  It's unbelievable how  much they can carry and still walk around!  This is how a lot of people make their living, selling oranges, pastries, etc from their head.  Hard work in the heat, that's for sure!

These guys were far more interested in the obrunis (and having their picture taken) than playing football!  They followed us home for a bit, until we got boring too!

These are some kids from a near by school.  We've been doing instrument demonstrations at schools in order to try and start after school music programs.  This school has open air classrooms, which shoddy roofs over them.  I can't imagine what they do in the rainy season!  It's amazing the things teachers can do with 40 kids in a class, little to no materials, and children who don't really speak English that well!

This is at Agyiba International School, one of the fancier private schools in town.  We go twice a week for an hour and teach lessons to kids.  It's pure chaos, really.  There are 12 kids, each learning a different instrument in the same room.  We're trying to figure out a better way of doing it, but that's where we're at now.  

This is us (me, John, and Katie) learning to some African dances!  A man named Edwin has a group of street kids and orphans and such and gathers them every weekday in this abandoned colonial outdoor cinema.  He teaches them traditional drumming and dance, and he's brilliant.  He's slightly out of his gourd, but it so much the "crazy artist" type... he reminds me a lot of Beethoven!  The kids are so talented.  The thing with African dance is there is no "vocabulary" like we know.  You learn a series of steps for each dance, and the lead drummer plays a call, and you change steps.  Each step has a different call, and each dance has different calls/steps.  It's a lot to learn, but these kids know tons of them!  It's amazing!

I've now figured out how to post pictures, so from now on I'll be posting like this!  This is way more fun to SEE Ghana then it is to hear about it!  More to come eventually!

Mi do paa!

(fante for I love you very much!)

Briana

Week 4

Akwaaba!

I have officially completed my first month in Ghana!  It's crazy really, it seems like such a long time ago that I left home, but it also seems like yesterday!  I'm 1/4 of the way through the trip, and that's a strange thought too!

This has been a rather slow week.  We did go into a few of the local schools to try and set up music programs through Mansek, and a couple seem prospective! Aside from that, it was a pretty average week.  Because I don't have a whole lot of news, I'm going to describe a bit about Ghana and how things work here.  I have taken a lot of photos, but like a jerk I left my cord for my camera at the house... I'm going to post them in the next couple of days with explanations, etc.  Also, if you have Facebook, another volunteer posted a bunch, and you can see some on there!

Ghana Time

It's a bit of a joke among Westerners, but Ghana Time is a very real thing!  It essentially means you arrive at approximately the right time.  A general goal is within two hours of the scheduled time.  It's a bit shocking at first, but since everyone runs on Ghana Time, it's nice to know being a little late is no big thing!  We've had a couple concerts here, and even the performers show up an hour or so late!  Craziness...   But you can't really blame them, things in general run at a slower pace, and I think it's a heat thing.  The last thing you want to do when it's 100 degrees is rush around!

Government

From what I can tell, and what I've been told, Ghana has the most stable government in Africa.  They've been solid and peaceful since gaining independence in 1954.  It runs pretty well, and is really trying to build infrastructure, provide affordable healthcare, and enforce compulsory education.  It's a hard thing though.  Many of the people still live in the past, and many struggle to make a living.  Taxation is hard to enforce, as lots of people make a living peddling oranges, etc.  Additionally, it is rather corrupt.  You can get out of most anything with a bribe.  Police barriers in an out of town check cars for a variety of things. Once we had a taxi  that was one over the limit of passengers, and it cost a cedi (like 60 cents) to get through.  For the most part, the government is effective.  Funny quip:  There are bill boards with the new president and Barack Obama on it that say "Change has come!"   :)  It still cracks me up every time I tell someone I'm from America and the first thing they say is "Obama!"

Speaking of independence, Ghana Independence day is Wednesday 6th!  It's a national holiday, much like ours I gather, so it should be a lot of fun... I'll write all about it next week.

Schools

Elementary school is compulsory, but a lot of kids still aren't able to attend for a variety of reasons.  The government subsidizes schools, and most are through churches which fund them as well.  There are fees, though, which aren't very high usually, but can be enough to keep kids out, once you add shoes and uniforms.  Upper schools are private and relatively expensive, so most kids get around a 6th grade education.  There are several technical schools and universities in Ghana, and attendance is growing rapidly.  

Relations with Obruni

Obruni is the term for white people here.  We hear it... A LOT!  The kids shout it at us as we walk by, and it  's the way anyone gets our attention.  There hasn't been a lot of whites in Takoradi until just recently, when there was an oil boom off the coast about 7 years ago, so we're still kind of a novelty.  There seems to be age divisions... babies until the age of about 4 are terrified of us!  They often cry or just look at us in fear/confusion.  Children think we are really interesting, and want to talk to us and play with us all the time.  Then older adolescents/young adults see us as a visa opportunity!  I can't tell you how many proposals I've gotten!  It's silly.  Flattering at first, then sickening.  We've developed strategies, but one thing is for sure about Ghanaians... they are persistent!  For the most part everyone is incredibly friendly, and very rarely rude.  The only irritating thing is they assume all obruni are rich.  Kids just randomly ask us for money, etc.  We had a kid ask for a cedi, then think about it for a second, "No, obruni give me 100 cedi!"  We also get "obruni prices" a lot.  Really nothing is a set price here, so people charge/bargain as they please.  Taxis fares, food, nearly everything goes up when they see obruni!  Luckily, we've been coached in the fair prices, so we know what we should be charged, and have walked away from many a taxi trying to charge us double!  Over all, though everyone is very kind, very helpful, and very enthusiastic to spend time getting to know obruni!  The other volunteers and I always joke about how depressing it'll be to go home and not be a novelty any more.... our ego-ometers will go drastically down when we don't get 3 proposals a day!   ;)

Names

I've mentioned before that middle names here are based on the day of the week you were born.  I'm still investigating to figure out exactly why.  Many people have very Western first names, and ghanaian last names.  But lots go by their Day Name, which can be quite confusing in groups!  Figure out your Ghana name!

                              Male/Female

Monday        Kwadwo/ Adwoa

Tuesday        Kwabena/  Abenaa

Wednesday  Kwaku / Acua   

Thursday       Yaw / Yaa

Friday           Kofi  / Affua

Saturday       Kwame  / Amma

Sunday         Akwasi / Akosua

Well, as I said I'll hopefully be posting pictures in the next couple of days!  I send my love, and I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Love, Acua