Chicken with it's head cut off!

The past few weeks have been kind of stressful and hectic to say the least. I feel like I’ve been running around like a “chicken with its head cut off”. On Thursday November 22^nd (Thanksgiving) I left my village for Accra (the capital of Ghana) for Thanksgiving dinner at the US Ambassadors house. The last Ambassador started a tradition of inviting all of the Peace Corps Volunteer’s to his house for an amazing dinner so this year the new Ambassadors decided to carry on this wonderful tradition. By wonderful I mean the menu included turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cheesy cauliflower casserole, ginger carrots, green beans, mixed salad, cranberry sauce, and gravy! For dessert we had pumpkin, apple, and pecan pie! The new Ambassador is also super nice. He and his wife are both from NY and he even graduated from U of R. I also got to meet a ton of volunteers that I haven’t met yet. When we travel to Accra for the holidays we have the option of staying with a homestay family. I was a little apprehensive about this option at first but I heard great things from other volunteers so I decided to try it out. All of these families are Americans people living here in Ghana, mostly working with Peace Corps or with the US Embassy. Well let me just say they were amazing. I won’t mention their names, but if they just so happen to be reading this I want to say thank you! They were so welcoming and completely opened up their home for us. Their home, by the way, seemed like a palace. AC, a hot shower, washer and dryer, swimming pool, fridge, couches, etc. My living conditions at my site aren’t poor by any means, but this really seemed like heaven. In the evenings we would just sit and chat for a few hours, and it was really nice to be able to do that. They took us to the commissary, which is like an American supermarket reserved only for the government workers, and I know we looked like kids in a candy store.

After we left their house on Saturday the 24^th we traveled to Kumasi, which is in the Ashanti region. We were able to stay at the Kumasi Peace Corps Office, which has sort of a hippy vibe to it. There hammocks, gardens, awesome murals painted on the walls, and a very laid back atmosphere. Volunteers often use their vacation days to go and hang out here for a break. When we got there the water pipes weren’t working properly, but we got lucky and it poured that night so we all put on our swimsuits and bathed in the rain, which was FREEZING! We had our reconnect In-Service Training (IST) from the 25^th-1^st. This is the first time since we’ve been to site, that all of us from my group are reunited. We also come with our counterpart teachers. My real counterpart wasn’t able to come because he had lectures at his university, so I brought another teacher from my school. The training/workshop focused on topics like behavior change, learning disabilities, writing grants, standardized testing in Ghana, and sharing experiences from the last few months. The first time we all met our counterparts we were still pretty new here in Ghana, we couldn’t speak the language, we didn’t like the food, and we really hadn’t integrated much so every day the volunteers usually stayed pretty segregated from all of the counterparts. It was completely opposite this time, which I loved. We are all close with our counterparts now so we were all talking, hanging out, eating together, and playing ultimate frisbee, which was a blast! We also put dreadlocks into one of the volunteer’s hair and got like 3 Ghanaian counterparts to help. The whole time we just chatted and explained different American/Ghanaian customs/beliefs. If that’s not integration then I don’t know what is. I even celebrated my 22^nd birthday (I know I’m getting old) during IST. Everyone sang happy birthday to me, I got a few bottles of alcohol, cookies, and we all just hung out, listening to music and had a good time. On the last night of the IST we all went to a night club that plays live music. Our counterparts were the first to get up and start dancing, but after they started we all joined in. I’d say we all danced for a good 2 hours, and it was such a good time! Leaving Kumasi was bittersweet. I was anxious to get home, but it means I won’t be seeing a lot of my friends for a while because they live so far away.

Coming home was nice. And yes, I am calling it home. I really am starting to consider this place my home now. When we got in the car that was headed to Volta and I started to hear people talk in my language I was relieved. Many people in Ghana (or at least the Volta Region) say that the Voltarians are the nicest people in Ghana. I don’t know if I’m biased because I live here, but I agree! I was able to talk to people again and I was a lot more comfortable. Not to mention all of the welcome backs I received.

While I was gone for a week and a half I missed a fundraiser that the School Management Committee (SMC) had in town. They ended up raising 6,000 Ghana Cedis, which is amazing! We’re going to use the money to build a computer lab for the 24 laptops that were donated to our school by a political party. I’m excited!

Unfortunately I missed revision week at school because of the IST and we’ve started term exams this week. I’m a bit nervous about that because I wasn’t able to cover all of the material that I was supposed to and the term exam is worth 70% of their term grade. We’ll see how it goes though. This Friday is the Ghanaian Presidential Elections so that has been a popular conversation point recently. In general, Ghanaians seem to be way more informed about their political issues than most Americans, which is interesting. Most of them actually know more about American politics than I do. We are on “standfast” for two days before the elections and three days after, which means we can’t leave our sites. Although Ghana is a peaceful country, it is better for us to be safe in our village than traveling around during the election times. In Ghana they have two main parties, but they have a ton of smaller parties and the winning party needs to have at least 50% + 1 to win. A lot of people are saying that it is likely there will be a run-off election because of this, in which case I will also be on standfast from the 25^th-30^th of December, which means I’m just planning to stay in my village for Christmas.

So on a more fun note, I’ve been eating lots of new things recently. A few weeks ago I went out to the bush around 6:30am and started drinking palm wine (not so alcoholic) and akpeteshie (very alcoholic). By around 10am we started cooking lunch. I was with a few hunters and they said they were going to find some bush meat so they left with their sling shots and 4 dogs. Meanwhile we pounded fufu and started to prepare for the soup. The hunters returned with a rat (not grasscutter, which is like a giant rodent, but a legitimate huge rat like you’d see in NYC). I helped to clean the rat and we made some awesome food! After we were done eating a few of the guys said they were going to do some tapping, but I was feeling really sleepy so they made a makeshift bed of sorts our of some wood planks for me, and before I knew it I was fast asleep. Three hours later I woke up super dehydrated. I told some of the people that I needed to go home because I didn’t bring any water with me and I was feeling very thirsty and they said that we would be leaving soon. 4pm rolls around and I haven’t had anything but alcohol all day so it was pretty easy for them to convince me to drink the river water. Yup, I drank two cups of river water. They assured me that I would be fine, and magically I haven’t died yet. Next time I’ll bring a water bottle though. When I came back from IST I had another volunteer staying with me and we decided to buy a chicken to prepare with my fellow teachers. So the brought the chicken and I thought it was dead when the handed it to me upside down by the feet. I was thinking “wow this thing was just killed it’s still warm!” Well that’s because it was still alive, which I found out when it started squirming. Anyways we had to kill the chicken, which is done by plucking the feathers from the underside of the neck and then cutting the neck to drain the blood. For a few minutes it didn’t move and I thought it was dead. Then it started flapping around in front of my feet, and I’m not going to lie, I freaked out a little bit, which was hilarious to all of my friends. This is where the inspiration for the title of this blog came from. I thought that phrase was kind of just a joke until a few nights ago. Eventually the chicken died, and I helped to pluck all the feathers which is done by soaking the chicken for a few minutes in boiling water to loosen the feathers. The most interesting thing I’ve eaten is snake. I’ll divert here a little bit. It is taboo for most Ghanaians to eat snake. When you ask them about this there are a few different reasons. Some believe that snakes are kind of evil and they carry bad juju so if you eat them then you will be cursed. Some believe that if you aren’t careful when preparing the snake then the poison will leak into the meat and spoil it which will then kill you. I don’t actually think that’s possible, but to be honest I don’t know. In my opinion this fear comes from the fact that yes, snakes in Ghana are poisonous, and many people have been killed/injured by snakes here. This means they don’t want their children messing around with the snakes, so from a very young age they teach the children to fear snakes proper. So we found someone to prepare the snake for us, but me and the other volunteer were the only ones who would eat it. It was actually really good. There is a ton of bones, but they were all about 3 inches long. I had assumed that the bones would run perpendicular to the snake’s body, kind of like our rib cage, but they actually form a diagonal cage around the snake.

Needless to say I’ve changed a lot. I’ve experienced so much that I never though possible. Giant spiders on my wall no longer faze me. I have learned to appreciate everything I have. I respect people of all ages more than I ever have. I’ve slowed down a bit, and learned to go with the flow. I’m able to find some humor in even the most terrible situations. I’ve learned to compromise and choose my battles. I’ve learned to improvise. And most importantly, I’ve learned to live life to the fullest, everyday, all the time.

Until next time!