So first let me recap my last post: food and medical condition. Peace Corps reads all of our blogs (rightly so), so when our CD (country director) was here at training to give a talk Saturday, he reminded us all that we choose what to put online and once it is there it will be there forever. He also mentioned that he read a "certain person's" blog that described a medical condition (it must be me because when he brought it up everyone in our group not-unobviously looked at me), which will be online forever. I'm okay with that because I plan on simply describing my experiences, observations, and thoughts while here in Ghana.

The past week has flown by. Basically just learned Ewe and finished our teaching sessions at local JHS schools. This upcoming week is language intensive (around 5 hours a day devoted to Ewe) with some other random sessions. Actually training seems very well organized and everything is done for a purpose. I am extremely glad that it is well organized because that way I can focus on integrating with Ghana and not worry/complain about training.

Yesterday we went on a sweet hike to visit a waterfall and a super-cool rock. A rock is not an accurate description, maybe more like a 40 foot giant boulder perched atop a skinny neck with an 8 foot diameter. You can climb up a ladder to get to the top and we (trainees, and there were about 60 of us that went) had a photoshoot of sorts with some really great scenery in the background.

Saturday - this was our day of training at hub site. One of our discussions involved Ghanaian beliefs in ancestors, witches, and herbal remedies. I personally believe in only some herbal remedies (mainly due to the placebo effect) and not witches or ancestors. We were asked if Americans believe in witches. I do not believe I have even ever met anyone in the US that believe that witches are real, legitimate people that can transform and cast evil spells on people. However, I am in Ghana: everyone (let me stress, EVERYONE even if he or she is educated) believes that witches are real and can perform sorcery and herbalists can cure any known ailment. You may have heard about Salem witch trials (there is no punishment for being a witch, just to be shunned), but Ghana as a whole and as individuals believe that witches and sorcery are real issues. And with all due respect to Ghana and its people, I just do not believe in witches and I find it fascinating that Ghanaians do.

Miscellany:
I now take everything out of my pockets watching pass the primary school across from my house because they try and reach into my pockets for money.
GOAL is a sugar cane liquor that comes in plastic shot-sized bags for only 20 pesewas (about 15 cents). Smells good, tastes bad, hangover ugly.
The town I will be in for site (my two years) is Saviefe Gbogame; check it out on Google Maps.
I thought doing laundry in the US with a machine was bad, but here every stain you accumulate on your clothes you spend hours (2-3 hours average for all my stuff) scrubbing it out by hand.