Blogs from Ghana, Africa - page 16

My eyes are hallow, empty without the life and happiness that they had just yesterday. My host mother saw me yesterday evening when I returned home and merely said, “I see that you’ve cried, your eyes tell that you have felt pain, what happened?” Having cried for an hour straight earlier in the day, only a few tears were left in my tear ducts as I retold my day, I had not been the one who had to endure physical pain itself, but had been a witness to it, a bystander to what I felt was wrong. With the crack of a stick, I learned that I was powerless. I have been so privileged to be told that “I can do anything that I put my mind to,” “If I can dream it, it can come ... read more

This very morning I almost stepped on a dead, squashed into the ground, teenage chicken (that in between what’s considered a chick and a chicken). I started to laugh hysterically as soon as I looked down just in time before getting dead chicken on my shoe. It was a sad sight to see but not the first or the last. At that moment, it was just the most shocking thing to wake up to on my walk to the University. It takes 30 minutes to walk from my host family’s house to the North gate of the University and then another 10 roughly to get from the gate to the CIEE office, but I ended up getting a ride from a faculty member at the gate. So far, my class times have not been posted, even ... read more

I landed in Accra, Ghana on Friday, January 11th 2013. Stepping off the plane from my lovely upgraded business class seat (where you get real silverware and hot towels), a rush of humidity hit my face. Remembering to not pull out my camera to take a picture of the plane, like I did in Russia...I jumped into the shuttle bus as quickly as I could to avoid the mosquitoes. Then the line to get through customs grew and grew...making what I expected to be a fast trek through, more than an hour long wait. Once through and my luggage pulled off of the conveyer belt, the quest to find the hopefully still waiting there CIEE sign to take me to their safe haven began. Weaving through men asking to take my luggage for me and if ... read more

My Trip to Goldfields Tarkwa Mine has been a rather interesting introduction to a number of new Things. My First Business Class Flight. My First trip into Africa outside South Africa. First Time that I live inside a Mine Compound.... read more

Since our return from the US last April I feel like my life is experiencing a Polar Shift. It is bitter/sweet to think that this particular season of my life is passing. For the past 6yrs the Child of Excellence students, families and village have consumed 80% of my time, thoughts & energy. Time and energy very well spent. Now with a full staff of teachers, I’ve worked myself out of a classroom and a job. Though I am very welcome, I rarely make the 1hr drive to even pay a visit. Staff, students and I have a multitude of fine memories. Amazing volunteers have left their footprints on our lives and those of the students. Trials, challenges and new experiences stretched and reshaped volunteers, students and myself in ways we couldn’t have dreamed. When I ... read more