Christmas and Fire Festival

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! This week has been tiring, but great. We started off the week with Camp BALL (Beat AIDS, Love Life). Which was a football camp put on by two other peace corp volunteers. About 12 PCV's came to be the coaches and to help out with the camp. We had 3 members of the Tamale professional football team come to actually coach the kids in football, since I don't know anything about it. We were able to lead them in a few drills during the morning, but it was great having the RTU guys to actually give some validity to camp. During the afternoon we did HIV education, Team building, and goal/future planning. We also had 3 wonderful guest speakers come talk with the kids about a bunch of different topics.

I was coach for the Blue Eagle Stars, which comprised of 9 wonderful girls. It was great to watch the girls grow from being shy and not knowing anyone to having confidence and meeting a bunch of new friends. They were able to break down a lot of the social barriers that are enforced on them everyday. I'm hoping that they maintain the friendships that were formed and that they really do reach the goals that we all planned for.

One of the bummers of the camp was sleeping on the floor for 5 days, that was pretty rough. I'm pretty use to non-ideal conditions, but floor sleeping is still not my most favorite thing. It was pretty great coming back to Tamale and getting a mattress.

Christmas here was a potluck affair. JB and I made Kal Bi-ghana style. Since we can't get short ribs here, we went to a butcher and just got some beef and made skewers that we grilled. They were amazing. Best meat I've had in Ghana so far. And the other PCVs enjoyed it as well. For breakfast we made fried rice, which was also very tasty. A bunch of other volunteers made other food. We had homemade Lasagna, green bean casserole, quiche, mashed potatoes, and salad. It was very tasty and just great to be around a bunch of friends. We had a white elephant gift exchange in the evening, so people were able to open a present.

We missed having Christmas with family and friends, but this was a pretty good time. I hope that everyone else had a joyful holiday time! Thanks for all the lovely wishes!

Long Time

Sorry to everyone for not writing for a long time. I can't believe I've been in country for 6 months already. Time has been flying by and we've been having a good time. There have definitely been stressful times, but they're small and easily overcome. We have fallen into our own routine here and have made a little home for ourselves. When I'm traveling, I long to come back home and be able to relax in my personal space. I believe that's a good sign for a home and means that I truly feel comfortable here.

The US Ambassador was very generous by extending invitations to all PCV's in country to have Thanksgiving dinner at his home. So JB and I traveled down to Accra for that. It was marvelous. We had a wonderful dinner and were able to see a bunch of our friends from all over the country. We were able to stay in the home of an ex-pat and are very thankful for feeling welcome in her home. She was amazingly generous and kind to us. It was definitely a great mini-vacation. There is definitely a fishbowl affect here and it's truly wonderful to let down our guards and just be ourselves for a little bit.

Following Thanksgiving, JB traveled back up to Zabzugu while I stayed in southern Ghana and then attended my Inservice Training (IST) down in Kumasi. JB went through is IST before Thanksgiving. So now that we've done our IST's we're both really motivated to start up our real work. Well, JB is already doing his job and has just finished his first term as teaching. But for me, I now have a direction that I'm aiming for. Before, I was just integrating into our site and with my villages that I'm working with. But it was difficult having motivation, but not knowing what I should be doing. Kind of like treading water, knowing you want to swim somewhere, but unsure which direction you should go in. Well now I know my direction, so I'm not just treading water. Whoo-hoo!

This week is the Fire Festival up in the Northern Region. So I'll be taking pictures and giving a more detailed post on all that later this week. I'll hopefully be getting pictures up this weekend as well. I'm sorry for not being very good at keeping everyone up to date. I'll be trying to be better at that. :) Sorry this is a short post, but more will be coming soon!!!