Monday, March 12, 2012

Busy? Maybe.

Lets see, how do I describe my current feelings right now? I have some successes under my belt recently -
A) I've found a neighboring teacher who fixes computers to come and repair three broken computer left at the school by a past NGO (note to all NGOs: don't donate if you don't teach people how to take care of it!)
B) I went to the March 6th independence day celebration (where students march around the field for a few hours in military formations)
C) We had a sports day at a neighboring town, and the students from our area won all 4 different sports fields.
D) A funeral was in town this weekend, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad - as people can either be troublesome if they don't know me, or nice. I stayed out to get maximal cultural exposure.
E) Snake meat tastes good, but with a lot of bones (though I've been cautioned against ever eating snake meat again by almost everyone that I tell I ate it - something about the meat being improperly handled and the snake venom contaminating the meat... luckily I'm still alive.)
F) Since doing aspects of P90X since September, and furthermore now that I'm running 3 days a week, ... okay, this is a prime example of a fragmented sentence. But sometimes there's just nothing else to do, so why not exercise a lot?
G) I'm tutoring some little kids, nearly 6 year olds, about basics like counting, the alphabet, basic English - wow, those kids simply will not sit still!! Climbing over everything (including me!) while I'm trying to teach them to read... crazy kids.
H) I had some interesting conversations with my students about taboo social matters, and some of the answers I received, and questions they asked were jolting. There's nothing like adolescent education for puberty, and generally the parents don't want to talk about those matters, so I received some upfront questions about 'growing up'. However, it is a very serious issue, regardless of tabooicity, and needs to be talked about - so that person to talk about it with them was me. I separated the boys and girls to make things easier and for kids to feel less shy. Some had to write their questions down on paper because it was too hard to speak about it with their teacher. As a direct result of this, I am looking into ways to further their education of sex and HIV/AIDS awareness in the future.
I) I'm still doing the next stage of FSO, which is my personal narratives. PNs (acronyms abound in gov't policy) are upcoming.
J) I've been trying to stay in town for a while, because I know I will be travelling in about a month's time for a bit - both for our Close-of-Service conference and for PC Ghana AllVolunteer conference in April. Unfortunately, this begets major volatility in my happiness, mood, and willpower. Its been about one month since I've actually traveled to another town (market town doesn't count), and the strain is showing, but I'll tough it out like usual - I'm taking a quick trip to Accra this weekend to recharge my batteries.
Not to end on a pessimistic note, but I have my good days. I have my bad days. Now its my good hours and my bad hours. I don't know what is going on with my mind - it had been almost a month since I've seen any other volunteers - am I going crazy? Probably yes. Do I want to get out of Ghana right now? Sort of, but there's still work to be done, and I am here to do it - I know I can deal with these last five months.
I want to end on a lighter note: I can't think of anything. So here is a bland statement: I'm reading a book called The Black Swan, which is about uncertainty and 'unknown unknown' variables and how it affects history and life. Recommended for any cerebral readers out there that want a book to digest, not just to skim through.

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