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Published: June 10th 2008
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OK OK, I know that I haven’t been updating for a while, let’s blame it on my time is wrapping up, I have had serious writer’s block, and I was trying to make an AMAZING entry (which this is unfortunately not, but stay tuned)! Save yourselves for the amazing entry in the coming weeks :P.
As for life, as always in Ghana it’s cool. Hard to believe I only have 5 weeks of work left! As much as I don’t want to leave Ghana, I won’t be too sad about leaving work - while the Coalition has been a wonderful learning experience, I think I have gotten all I can out of it due to insufficient leadership of the organization over the last 8 months and my lack of professional experience to truly use me in a programs capacity. Alas, I have definitely learned a lot, met some wonderful, inspiring people, and have been able to fully use GNECC to continue my thesis research! We began doing monitoring of the regional branches of GNECC in May and continuing into this month which is an amazing opportunity for me to conduct my interviews with a wide variety of stakeholders in the
Panoramic view of Cape Coast from the roof of the hotel
I forgot to mention I did some traveling on the east coast with Kate, Katie, and Jen (WUSC Students without borders) -- I joined them in Cape Coast for a few days of beaching and checking out Kakum National Park. Coalition from Executive Council Members to Regional Coordinators to Regular members. I have done about 10 interviews and a few focus group discussions thus far, all of which are leading me to more sound questions to be asking in my thesis.
Aside from thesis, on the work front it’s been pretty slow. We have had a few activities, such as Global Action Week for Education in which GNECC is the lead agency coordinating the effort for this international advocacy campaign in Ghana. We also just finished a prepatory workshop for civil society to create an independent assessment on the Ministry of Education’s Annual Sector Review of Education. It was actually quite interesting as there were a wide range of civil society stakeholders in attendance, some very interesting presentations on education in Ghana, and ultimately they created a position paper which they will bring to the review - only 10 civil society members are invited to this review, all seats which are granted through GNECC as it is seen as the most credible civil society group on education in the country. The official event is coming up next week, so it will be interesting to hear about the results.
The Rope Bridge
Picture of part of the rope bridge we walked at Kakum National Park in the Central Region -- it is insanely high and long, but lots of fun! As for my life, well, I love it here, what else can I say?! I am constantly feeling more and more at home and am wondering why life always works out like that - just when you feel you belong, it’s time to leave! I keep getting the question from all my friends “When will you be back?!” and I think that within 2 years I will be back. I know I will be heading back to this continent as soon as I can and a stop off in Ghana for a while would be a great way to kick it off . I can’t believe how long it has been since I’ve updated, I can’t even think about all of the things that I have been doing and most likely left out! But for the most part, I enjoy a pretty quiet life, full of friends, neighbours, laughter, FOOD, and drinking beer. I would say the majority of my friends are beer drinkers, so that just means constant excuses! I have been hanging out a lot with friends and neighbours that live near me which is very convenient, especially the “shop crew” (Marie, Frank, Annette - the neighbours) as
Panoramic shot of the tree trops from one of the bridge platforms
absolutely breathtaking -- clear unbroken tropical forest canopy as far as the eye can see well as with Favor, the girl who used to work at Marie’s shop, and Michael, a new friend who lives across the street. He happens to be Nigerian as well as another friend of Favor’s, so the four of us spend a lot of time hanging out - I am slowly picking up Pidgin English, complements of the “Nigerian Convention” as I affectionately call them. I wish I could speak it better to come home and confuse all of you :P. We have a good time and have been going dancing occasionally at a new club that opened up in Botwe which is always fun. I love surprising people with my dancing ability as the common conception here is that “white people look funny when they dance”. Which lets be honest, we sometimes do! Ghanaians can dance, that’s for sure! In other news, I have a new seamstress and am completely re addicted to getting clothes made - Marie is always laughing at me when I bring home new things each week! Although I am not much better at cooking, I continue to relish the spicy food - there are a few people I think I am going to want
to challenge when I get home! (Melhem - you, me and a date with suicide wings!). I am trying to learn a few recipes so that I can bring back some of the delicious Ghanaian dishes with me! I have come to the conclusion that I need to get on finding the African community in Toronto so I can buy some of my favourite staples, and maybe even make some friends! Other then that, I am just enjoying life in the all the crazy traffic, noise, roasted corn, and obruni’ness that follows me everywhere! Oh! And I have also been attending church on a regular basis… this time it is much different from my original experiences! I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I started going to Catholic church with my friend Marie Nkiru, but over the last month and a half a switched to the local Catholic church in Botwe - its easier to get to, I go with my neighbours, and I just like feeling more a part of the community! I feel like it is one place that I can go and actually feel like people are constantly staring at me. While I wouldn’t say
I am now deeply religious, I have been using the opportunity to really question my own ideas of faith and to take in the whole experience. It’s a constant learning one, that’s for sure.
In other news, I am expecting a visitor in the wonderful form of Andrew Newman in less then 3 weeks! I can’t believe how fast time is flying by…. He will arrive on June 26th and will be here until the end of July with me. Although I technically have two weeks of work to finish up when he gets here, its pretty laid back around here and we are planning some weekend excursions to the Volta Region to do some seriously untouristy beaching along the west coast and then some hiking in the hills of the Volta region. On July 11th we are flying out to Dakar, Senegal for a little over two weeks of travelling Senegal and the Gambia, which I am very excited about! Some travelling will be a great way to end the placement experience. We come back to Ghana with about 5 days for me to somehow wrap up my life here and then I fly back to Toronto on
August 2nd. So yes, that will put me back in North America for the month of August! I will be all over the place from Ohio to Guelph to Northern Ontario and back but I am looking forward to seeing everybody! Although I get sad thinking about how my time is winding up, I am also getting excited about coming home because I miss all of you wonderful people, my laundry machine (so my towels can stop smelling like wet dog and my whites will actually be white again!), and gorging myself on western food until I become “obolo” (twi term for fat, which everyone here keeps telling me I am getting :P)
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