As per request, I have decided to compile a list of things
that no longer phase me about everyday life.
Getting into Town
I live a few kilometers from the village of Tongo where I do
most of my shopping. As long as I
have my bike, getting there is fine.
If the tire is blown, it’s still possible, but the very slight and
gradual incline makes it very annoying.
Walking there takes about 30 minutes.
Getting into Bolga
First, I have to get into Tongo to catch a tro tro. Now, there is a market day every 3 days
in Bolga so I plan all of my tasks around this schedule. Waiting at the taxi stand in the
village can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. If you are fortunate when
you arrive, there will be one spot left in the tro, you take it and leave
immediately. If you are unlucky
enough to be the first person in the tro, you know there is a wait ahead of
you. Plus, it is very common to
have a full tro but still have to wait for 20 or more goats/sheep/dogs/small
children to be strapped to the roof before leaving. Today is the first time I have been to Bolga on a non-market day. Getting here took 1 hour. Who knows how I will get home.
Market Day
These days are a mixed bag. I always go to the huge market in Bolga to buy veggies and
wagashi cheese, which is similar to fried feta. Some days, the city is packed and it becomes difficult to
cross the road, other days everything is closed.
The Bank
The 3-day schedule makes some things difficult to
achieve. Say it is Saturday Market
Day, and you have 2 cedis in your wallet.
It costs 1.50 to get to Bolga so you know that will be fine. Once there, you head right for the
bank, only to find it is closed even though the sign on the door says it is
open on Saturdays. True
story: The bank manager herself
told me the bank is closed on Saturdays despite what that sign says.
So now I only go to the bank during the week. Mondays are off too, because everybody
needs their money and you are likely to find hundreds of people waiting in
“line” and it would take hours to get your money. Fridays are a similar story. So now that leaves mid-week days the only days I will
attempt to go to the bank.
Now all of this sounds silly, why wouldn't I just use an ATM to
get my money. Luckily, they do
have them in Ghana, but the card I applied for 6 weeks ago is still floating
around somewhere.
School
I guess it is surprising that I teach 50+ kids in each
class. That is something you get
used to very quickly and before long, I stopped realizing how challenging it
used to be. Add the fact that the
students cannot hear me if I try to add a detail while they work, and I had to
reform the way I teach everything.
Oh, and the fact that my Sign Language is effective enough to get by,
but I can only do a basic amount of explaining anything.
I also teach IST which is mostly about computers. The kids love it and I don’t. Simply put. It’s not their fault that they don’t know much about how to
use a computer. It has been
difficult to teach them basic things like clicking and dragging things
around. I teach about 25 kids at a
time with 7-8 computers. I have 30
minutes to teach them all so I have to plan about a 4-5 minute activity to
allow enough time for everybody to try it out. It takes about another 5 minutes for the student to
correctly turn the computers off.
The language barrier and my complete lack of technological sign language
knowledge makes these classes stressful.
But the students are making progress and it is becoming easier.
Bathing, Washing
hands
I am still bathing with a bucket. It sounds like it would be annoying but after a while this
too becomes normal. I boil a
little of my water first so I have a nice warm bath. Or if I take a second shower, I sit the bucket in the sun
for a bit to heat it up.
Washing my hands is done by pouring water from a cup over a
large bowl. I probably miss a nice
sink the most.
Cooking and Washing
Dishes
I use a 2-burner gas stove to cook everything. I make pancakes just about every day
for breakfast. Varieties include
but are not limited to: original,
cinnamon, coffee, chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter and chocolate,
strawberry, and rum. I think I may
open a pancake stand when I get back home. Lunch is usually something easy like IndoMei, which is very
similar to Ramen. I always have
some soup for supper, either groundnut soup, chicken noodle, or tomato
soup.
I have developed an interesting method for washing
dishes. I pour about 1 cup of
water into a bowl and use that amount of water to wash everything. Then I rinse the same way by pouring it
from thing to thing. It’s shocking
how little water you can use when you have to ration what you have.
