Daily Life

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.