Damba Festival, World Map Mural, Self Portraits

Well, I've been in Ghana for almost 20 months now, and I should be home by late July, a little over 5 months from now.  February will involve consistent, daily, teaching, but March will bring my HIV Awareness competition (and the stress that goes along with organizing, planning, and running a school-wide event), plus Ghanaian Independence Day marching festivities (that's right, marching in March), and then in April is the All-Volunteer conference and our term break, and in early May is the Close of Service conference.  That's right---Close of Service, and it's coming right up, just around the corner.   

Damba festival happened again, but this year I missed the main dancing day because I was teaching, but the following day the chiefs from all the surrounding villages come riding into Savelugu on their horses, and big crowds gather around to see them.  Horses are a serious status symbol here.

This is the Savelugu Chief.

Hand-made paper twirler in the crowd.

The students are working on self portraits using photographs that they gridded and enlarged.  I took photos of each student last term and printed them.  Seeing photographs of themselves is a big treat, so this is a project I had been wanting to do for a while.  Most of the students didn't really understand how to following a gridded image, so they just used the photograph and drew it, but those who did understand did an amazing job.  It was a good process project nonetheless.

Sheeda is a great painter.  Great.  

In fact, Sheeda made these two paintings.  (Thank you, Steven, for the guache paint, it really makes a huge difference)

Yeay! Finished world map mural, with the students who painted it, Rahim, Kwabena, Sheeda, and Ganiyu!

I really like this tissue paper fish drawing.  

David, showing off his pattern relief.

Camels, home visits, etc.

One of the perks of living in northern Ghana is that once a year some camels coming walking down the road from Mali----and this year they stopped at my house for water!  My neighbor kids were terrified of these animals, and only one would get anywhere near them.  

David, the brave one.

Oh my, so much white skin!  How inappropriate.

Scott, another volunteer, turned 30.  Like the candles?  They don't have electricity at their house, so they used what they had lying around...

My neighbor kids, with Jessie (front and center), my little angel.

My previous headmistress (second from the left) at her retirement send-off, with my new headmistress on her right.  Notice the woman on the left---that's her baby Wisdom's feet and head you can see straddled around her.  So cute.

Some teachers at my school, Dan and Alhassan Mohammed, with my retired headmistress and my best student, Kwabena.  

The light of my life----my new bunny, Paa Wuni.

I could watch her eat all day.

I visited my student, Amina, at her home village.  This is us with her grandmother.  

Amina's father and others.  Unfortunately, the guy in the middle kept saying he wanted to marry Amina, and I told him 'no', and that she needed to stay in school.  Later, I told Amina that she should protect herself from this man and refuse him.  It is tragically common for deaf individuals to be sexual abused by members of their family or community.  

Amina's sisters (another one is also deaf)

Enjoying an afternoon beer, cake, and cheese dip with my favorite northern region volunteers.  

Coal pot pizza!

Me inside of a tree.

This is how pineapple grows----who knew?

Some kids killed a giant bush rat, and came to show us.  

Drinking pito with the Elder Father of the Nawuri

Kpandai

The Peace Corps sub-office in Tamale has been rearing rabbits, and I've had a few days recently to spend with them (i.e. chase them around the yard in the desperate attempt to feel their soft, furriness upon my skin.  I've decided that my idea of a utopian society definitely involves the harmonious union of rabbits, cats, and possibly voiceless chickens.  

  

There is nothing more wonderful than watching a rabbit eat.

This week I visited my two best students' families in their home village of Kpandai, 8 hours from my site down a dusty, deteriorating road heading south toward the Volta river.  It was an incredible experience, and one of the most profound of my PC memories. Kwabena, Foster, Mark (PC volunteer), and I took the afternoon Metro Mass bus to Kpandai, and arrived around 10 pm.  We stayed in another volunteer's house (he's in America right now), and coincidentally, my student's sister and aunt live right behind the volunteer's house. Small world. The following day, we were taken around the village, from compound to compound, meeting extended family. I can't count the number of brothers and sisters I met.  We even met the Elder Father of the Nawuri kingdom (the oldest man, who is over 100 years old).  He is blind and has no teeth, but he is very wise, lucid, and quite a talker when you get him going.  One of Kwabena's older brothers interpreted for me, and I asked the Elder Father why two of my best students are from Kpandai village.  Is it the water?  He said something about the good values that the parents have bestowed on the children.  In the afternoon, we travelled another hour or so down an even worse road to the banks of the Volta river, where my student's father is a headmaster at a school in Kitari.  We were generously gifted two live roosters, and three giant sacks of yams from the two families.  Thankfully, everything is possible in Ghana, and we managed to get the yams and chickens back to my house with the help of a few strong-necked women.  Somehow, the chickens survived the 8 hour bus ride (underneath the bus!), and now they will be enjoyed by some neighbors who appreciate cooked flesh more than I do. 

Me and Kwabena waiting at the Metro Mass station.  Kwabena, especially, was so thankful that I visited his family, and I only hope that now that they have been told directly what a stellar student he is, that they will do everything to support him into high school and beyond.  Of all the great people I have met in Ghana, he is the most hardworking, smart, humble, trustworthy, and kind.  I cannot say enough good things about this young man, and I tried to make that clear to his relatives in the hope that they will push him to succeed.  I don't want this kid to spend his life on a yam farm, and I know he doesn't want that for himself either.    

Elder Father of the Nawuri kingdom (left), blessing the pito we are sharing (or something like that).

Me, Kwabena, the elder Nawuri, and another brother, Kofi Andrews (an english teacher).  The elder was wearing three layers of winter hats...as we sit a few inches from the equator.  

Kwabena, his grandmother, and me.

Kwabena and his brothers, in the family compound (I'm not sure why they insist on looking so sullen in photos).  Kwabena's brothers (all named Kofi Andrews) were very warm and talkative, and I really enjoyed sitting with them.  

My two students and I with Kwabena's mother and other family members.

Some neighborhood kids in Foster's compound

Volta river in Kitari

Scale shot of some of the yams I was gifted.  That's a 12 inch ruler.

My gifted rooster being tied up by Foster.

I have never seen as many yams as I saw in Kpandai.  Huge farms, and trucks filled with yams headed to Accra.  

Foster's grandmother is the headmistress at a nursery school.

My student, Foster, and his grandmother.

I'm showing way too much leg in this photo...but look at those colors!

Me, Foster, Foster's father, and Kwabena.  Foster's father was the typical Ghanaian anti-conversationalist, who listened to his radio and stared into space for most of the time that I was visiting, despite my desperate efforts to stir up some dialog.