The mountain hike

I survived the mountain hike (in case you were worried)! Here are some pictures from the trip. The whole trip took over four hours! I wasn't able to get to the town as early as I hoped, so it was very hot and I saw no monkeys...sad. But it was amazing regardless. I went with a guide and he was hard to keep up with given he does this hike on a daily basis. There were about five areas where ropes were needed in order to climb up the steep rocks (see the pic below). It was one of the most physically challenging things I have done in a long time and halfway up I thought I wouldn't make it to the top. But I kept going and it was beautiful and a cool experience!





This is the view from town
(this is when I began to think I was crazy)!










View from the start of the trail. We went to
the very top peak.









This is one of the rope climbing areas,
this was about 2 1/2 hours into the trip and
I was at the bottom questioning my ability to
make it up this one, but I did!










Here I am at the top, very tired
and sweaty! The village below
is from where I took the first pic.










The trail on the way up was filled with lots of banana trees!

More church, my offenses, and Angelina Jolie (ha, no I didn't see her)

I've added some more pictures below this post to convey what Ghana looks like, more of the kids, and some showing what the schools look like! Tomorrow, I am taking my first official sightseeing trip! It is just to a place less than ½ an hour from my home, but it is one of the mountains in Volta Region (these are really just large, large hills) where there is guided hiking to the top of the mountain and the possibility of seeing some monkeys in the forest! Wish me luck, the hike ranges between 2-4 hours roundtrip and I am going to try to get there early in the morning so I don’t pass out from heat exhaustion!!! =)

I haven’t been back to the kids' church, but I do keep getting invited to attend church with other people. One man that I always seem to run into on the street has been trying to get me to attend the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon church) and I keep putting him off. But finally last week, I felt bad turning down his offer because he was very helpful in getting me a ride to a nearby town when I was completely confused at the tro tro (bus) station. So I agreed to meet him at his church last Sunday. One problem though, I thought I knew where the church was, I didn’t. I asked three people on the street for directions and they all pointed to the same church. So I entered this one church thinking I would see my friend and a bunch of the white Mormon missionaries that I always see around town, but no, it wasn’t the right church, it was a Catholic church. Of course, I didn’t realize this until after I entered the church and then felt bad getting up to leave, so I stayed. Plus I’m use to a Catholic service….uh, normally, this one was entirely in Ewe and probably about halfway through when I entered the church. I was expecting some kneeling, standing, sitting, etc but for the two hours I sat there I heard what I think was a sermon and then an hour of a song lesson (after an hour, I still couldn’t sing the song)! I eventually couldn’t handle it anymore and just got up and left and of course, everyone stared! One cool thing, all the women wore these beautiful white veils over there hair during the mass…kind of like nuns, but with such gorgeous material, it made me want to have one too! I don’t know if it was offensive that I wasn’t wearing one, but that couldn’t have been any more offensive than the fact that I didn’t realize I was suppose to remove my shoes at the door or that I sat on what I think was the side of church for boys only! Oops!

I started taking my orphan friends out on the weekends. It is hard at the orphanage during the week to give all of them the individual attention that they are craving since there are so many of them. So, I take three of them at a time on Saturdays and walk into town, look around at the market, and buy them each an ice cream and soda. You would think I was buying them something amazing, they love it. But of course, choosing which three get to go each week causes a little chaos, but I try to be random and make them pick numbers and assure them that everyone will get to go eventually. The vendors at the market get a kick out of seeing a yevu with so many little Ghanaian children and like to ask me if they’re mine. Maybe they think I am Angelina Jolie…you know without the tall, supermodel looks and a hot male companion, named Brad!

I also have made friends with a fun young British couple from London who also volunteer with DiVOG; they have been here 5 months. They live in a village in the Volta region working on building an IT center. They are married, quit their jobs, sold most of their things (I believe) to come to Ghana and volunteer, travel, and maybe go on to South America, which of course I think is very inspiring and is very adventurous to do especially as a couple! They are going to be ending their volunteer time in the next month or so and then heading to Ghana’s coast to manage an eco-lodge (that has sea turtles!) for several months. So, they have invited me to come down and visit the place; I am very excited to see the lodge and beach! I think all the volunteers get fun, random questions about our homes from the Ghanaians, but Maria and David asked me their own fun questions about my living in the US, such as, do I know any famous people and how many have I’ve seen? Yep, we have tons of them in the Midwest, don’t we? (Sorry David and Maria if you are reading this, it was just too cute not to share!).

Ghana will be celebrating 50 years of independence on March 6, so hopefully I be able to share some of their celebrations with you soon!

I have had a few people ask about things that they could send to be helpful, honestly, the kids at the orphanage need a lot. Storybooks for ages maybe 12 and below would be great, and workbooks to help them with all forms of math and practicing writing their English (their spelling is really bad) are also needed. I have an address directly to the orphanage and some shipping info that I will post next time if anyone is interested. Thank you to everyone that already donated stuff before I left; the kids have been devouring the coloring books (thank you Kathy!), crayons, and pencils. I bought some kids books from Goodwill before I left, but they really do need more.

Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you!

Pics of Ho

Here are few pics around town. So last Sunday, the street by my house was really quiet and not a lot of people were around, so I got these first two shots of what the stores and really what the town itself looks like. These little shacks line the street with people selling things, the only difference is there are usually lots of people...the shops are closed since it was a Sunday.

More pics of the kids

Here are some more pictures of the kids at my orphanage...they all like to to group in together for these pics!

Pictures of the school

Here are some pics of one of the elementary schools in a nearby village called Kpedze (pronounced Pedjay...you know just how it looks). This is not the school I teach in, but it is very similar, all the buildings are open to let air blow in, we have no electricity, old/crappy desks like these that some kids share (two or three to a desk), and the good ol' black board and chalk!

Pics from the orphanage

Here are a few pics from the orphanage. The first is the whole group of kids with Sister Bernice, her sister, and mom who run the home. Then we have Elolo, Noble, and Matilda. I'm not sure about their poses???? I have more to share later.

Teaching, church, and color

I am in the full swing of teaching as part of my volunteer work. Again, I am teaching biology to high school level students. I have five classes throughout Monday through Thursday. So, wow, teaching really is hard! I give all my teacher friends that much more credit. Teaching in this setting is really hard as well for many reasons. One the kids are caned and are now used to being caned. The teachers have actually stated numerous times to me that the kids can’t learn if they are not caned, because they are not disciplined enough to want to learn. Many of the teachers are fairly intense with this discipline. They will cane students for very minor things in my opinion, for example, it is common to cane students for not being able to answer a question in class or for performing poorly on an assignment (talk about pressure)! You all know me well, so I have no problem speaking my mind on this issue to the other teachers, but after so many conversations, it's just exhausting. Many of the teachers actually agree caning isn’t the best approach (oh, did I mention it is illegal in the country) and know the psychological research on the issue, but they feel they have no other way to control the students (though some have stopped). Unfortunately, the kids don’t have many incentives to do well other than not being caned. The grades kids earn in class on homework, quizzes, and test only represent 30% of their grades and the other 70% comes from one test at the end of the semester. Additionally, if they fail a class most will never have to repeat the course before going on to the next level. Because, most times the school won’t even try to hold them back if they have passed other classes and their parents have to sign a form agreeing their child should repeat the class, which means they have to pay more money, so they don't sign it. Overall these kids don’t have to try hard during the school year, they can just hang out and keep moving through the system until they are done. Now most of us were probably motivated to do well in school to be able to get into college, in Ghana grades in high school are a very minor component of what universities look at for acceptance, mostly acceptance is based on a national exam taken at the end of high school.

So all this said, I’m trying to find ways to motivate my kids…..ways that don’t involve beating them! So far, I think I’m new and different enough to hold their attention (at least enough to make it through a class period), but I have had a few that are testing me. I just hate having to mean to kids and man, they are little cheats!

Anyways, what I am really enjoying here is the work I do with the orphans. I am including a few pictures of the kids at the orphanage (there are around 16 or so). They are great! I went to church with all of them this past Sunday. My first time to church here in Ghana and I have been wanting to experience it. We went to a Pentecostal church but I think the experience is the same as other denominations here. We got to church at 8:30am and left at 12:30 (and it was still going on, but I think they felt sorry for me, so we got to leave early)! Now, Sister Bernice (the lady that runs the orphanage; she isn’t a nun, that is just how they refer to people often…I’m sister Alicia) told me service normally only last THREE hours and they don’t usually ask for money FIVE times! The majority of the service was basically us being forced (yes, forced) to walk up and give money! But they were fundraising for a special project going on this week, so I think maybe three offerings may be the norm. The music and singing was the best part and completely fit the stereotypical African church setting…we were dancing and clapping for at least an hour, it was wonderful! Then, the other really good part was that during the singing and parts of the service, people would come up to the front and collapse on the floor and usually scream or thrash around. Now, when I first saw this, I thought we needed to call 911 (of course that doesn’t exist here), but then Sister Bernice informed me this was normal. These people are having the Holy Spirit enter their bodies and drive the demons out, so there is much struggle in their bodies as the spirits fight. There were probably about five or so people that had the Holy Spirit take over their bodies…but only during the singing and offering times, never during the sermon…..now I am religious and believe this could happen, but I find the timing and the number of times it occurred interesting and why doesn’t this ever happen in my church? Anyways, there is also a women who the Holy Spirit overtakes and she prophesizes…this I was interested in..but she spoke in Ewe not English. All Sister Bernice translated was that God was mad that they hadn’t been fasting and they were supposed to for five days. [2011 UPDATED NOTE: It is interesting for me to read back over my blog posts several years later. So much has happened in my life and walk with God since the time of this original post. The fact that I even used the word 'religious' in describing myself makes me cringe and is telling of the place I was in when writing this. I'm not going to lie, that church experience is still suspect to me since much of it was very showy, but I also have much more awareness and awe of how the Holy Spirit can manifest.]

The HIV work is also going well, though teaching is taking me away from doing more. I'm trying to help this group raise some money, because they have none coming in and there are many people in the area needing food and meds. Four of the group's patients died this past week so everyone is really down. One of the three little girls I visited the first week also passed away. It was a big surprise to me, she had been attending school everyday. Education on HIV/AIDS occurs, but there still is little behavior and attitude change about transmission.

I know this is getting long, but a lot happens in one week. This should be no big surprise, but this experience has already been such a huge learning opportunity about the color of skin. Now, I have always felt that I am a very open person and would like to think I see people as people, not defined by the color of their skin. But being here, I am truly starting to see people as people. Not that I ever defined someone by their skin, but the visual difference is always there, even though it means nothing. But here, I only see a few white people throughout the week, so mainly everyone I see is black and there aren’t a lot of mirrors or windows around for me to see my own reflection (which is good because I am without a hairdryer and make-up, yikes). So for me, black skin is the norm and I don’t think of people here as black, not white, they are just the people I live with and are my friends. Essentially, I see no difference between everyone here and myself (you know other than they can squat and pee anywhere and don’t mind bucket showers), but when they look at me, they see the difference! This is the part that is the eye opener for me. I see them as the same as me, but they see me as different from them (and it makes me sad). I stand out in the crowd, I don’t look like everyone else, so people often stare at me. I get a lot of attention for being white. This attention can be considered as positive (even if it is being asked for money), random people simply want to talk to me or be able to email me, some of the kids want to touch me, etc. My difference and the fascination I cause is sometimes uncomfortable to me and I often get frustrated because people only see my skin color! Most people don’t want to talk to me because of me, it is often just because I am white. More and more I wish that the Ghanaians wouldn’t see my color when they look at me. So you see, I feel being here has reversed things. Now, I am feeling this way even though the reaction to my skin and difference is positive and friendly, I can’t even imagine what it would be like for this reaction to be opposite, such as it has been with racism in the US. My situation I know can’t even compare to what people with other skin colors have experienced with racism, I’m not trying to compare, I just have gotten this little taste of what it is like to viewed and treated in a certain way based on my skin and it is teaching me a lot about myself.

So these are my thoughts….I am happy I’m here, but miss you all and I miss my cell phone (well, kind of)!!!=)

I hope everyone is well and thanks for checking in on me!

Random info from Ghana!

Life in Ghana is good! I am busy with my many volunteer placements and learning more about my area and the culture. I've seen two funeral processions so far and they are amazing, tons of cars driving very slow like in a parade, honking, and people walk along side of them and then there is usually a truck with the back end full of guys playing trumpets and drums and then they end up partying, singing and dancing all night and some I've go all weekend!!

I know most of you are experiencing snow and I've heard a high in the 20s that seems wonderful! Well, it is hot, hot, hot here! I sweat a lot and it is gross, I take two showers a day but could probably use more! It doesn't seem that the Ghanaians sweat anywhere to the amount I do, which just makes me feel really gross! But I am working on a nice tan!

I have a bunch of random things about Ghana that I want to share to try to describe the region and my time here.

I’m a yavu! So, yavu is the Ewe (the local language of this region) word for white person. I probably hear this word easily 100 times a day. People call it out when I (or other white people) walk down the street. Children do it the most, but sometimes adults are just as bad when trying to get my attention. It is not meant to be disrespectful, it is just the truth, I’m a white person and it does get my attention. The kids will scream it from far distances just to get me to wave to them, some will run up and hug, and oh there are the few that are scared of white people. The adults do it because they usually want me to stop and talk, tell them my name or try to greet me in Ewe, but I’m still really bad with their language and they usually just laugh at me.

My house-so I don’t think I covered a whole lot on this front. I live with one of the volunteer coordinator’s (Richard) aunt, who I creatively call auntie. She is married but her husband lives in some village and only comes to visit every once in a while. I’ve yet to meet him. Auntie has taken in two kids to help raise them, it seems she has done this a lot over the years, she also helped raise Richard. She also has live in house help, which appears common here. The girl is only in high school though and her parents don’t live in the area. I included a picture of the house, like most places here, it is set up as a compound (don’t think Waco), so auntie has the main house with the toilet and shower (and most importantly a great front porch that is the local hang out), and then there are about 10-12 rooms around the house that she rents out. Most of them are literally just single rooms.

The more I hear from other volunteers from this group, the happier I am about my living arrangement. First off, I live in a relatively large town (called Ho) where all the other volunteers live in small, small villages. A few don’t have electricity, and most all of them don’t have running water, which means bathing with a bucket and outdoor toilets. I have running water and an indoor toilet, it is like Africa’s version of the Ritz! Now, you may be thinking oh I should experience the village life, no I am perfectly okay experiencing Ghana in Ho. I travel Monday through Thursday to teach in a small village 30 minutes from Ho with no running water….so I’m experiencing enough. I also will be traveling to a number of other small villages throughout my time here. Plus, even in Ho it is completely clear that I am living in a developing country.

My town- Ho is a busy, busy place, but not anywhere nearly as crazy as the capitol. It is the main business center in the region and they have a huge market day every four days, so people from neighboring small villages travel to town to buy there food and spices, etc. Actually, for some of these people, market day is the only time they can get a taxi or tro tro at a reasonable price or at all. The market sells tons of food, but also a bunch other random things like shoes, cloth, soap, etc. The African cloth here is beautiful and can be bought and taken to a seamstress to have clothes made for a really cheap price, something around $5-9 US dollars (but here paying that much for most things seems like a lot of money). Not many people have their own cars, but I have seen a few and really question what business they’re in, given the lack of money here! Most seem like government officials maybe. So everyone else relies on walking, tro tros (the little bus that has to be a major safety hazard) or taxis. Let me tell you these taxis are crazy (actually all drivers here are maniacs). They are these run down cars from late 80, maybe early 90s and they are everywhere in Ho. I think I came all the way to Africa, just to be hit by a taxi! There aren’t always real sidewalks so people are always walking along the sides of the road and the taxis just speed along honking for pedestrians to get out of the way. They also honk to alert people that they are coming and see if you want a ride. So there is a lot of honking going on constantly. Luckily auntie’s house is located in a less populated side of town and is touched back away from the main roads.

Bathrooms: People have actually emailed asking about this...so here you go! You have to refer to the restroom here as toilet or people just stare. Well, regular restrooms are hard to come by outside of my house. The popular theme here is the ‘ladies urinal.’ Okay, men reading this probably don’t have a clue…but ladies, come on, who thought this concept was a good idea? This may be way too much detail, but these experiences pain me and I have to convey my experience. So sometimes, maybe it is a closed in room with a drain, that is the best, but many times, like at my school, it is a pile of rocks with three walls around it, no door and no toilet paper! Typically in the real ‘toilets’ there is old newspaper or an old book to use. I know I should really embrace this idea more, given it is recycling and conserving, but I’m not quite there yet! But again, all this is much better than the small villages with outdoor toilets and there a number of disgusting stories I've heard about these places!

Food: The food so far is really good. They use lots of spice, but mainly it is just really hot spices. Common breakfast is sweet bread and tea or coffee. Most all other meals are served with some type of meat (chicken, fish, or goat) or with beans and sauce. The fish can either be fresh or dry. I can’t eat the dry fish, though I’m trying to be open to everything, but this I can’t even swallow without gagging. It is extremely fish and I’ve seen the numerous fish vendors in market and walking on the street. They sell the whole fish (including the head--ANGEL, you understand this) and it just sits in the sun and heat for hours. Besides meat, there is always a lot of really starchy, filling things like rice, yams (which I enjoy; taste similar to potatoes), plantains (by far my favorite), then they also have these very traditional fillers: fufu and banku. They take cassava and corn for the second and mashed them, no cooking involved, until it becomes this sticky dough texture. They are used to scoop up food and the sauce and are supposed to be swallowed not chewed. Banku I can handle, but fufu is an acquired taste. The sauces usually have a tomato base.

Hand washing: As I mentioned before, using the left hand for many things like greeting, waving, and eating is a big no-no. Eating all food with your fingers and eating from the same plate/bowl as other is custom here (but they usually give the yavus there own and forks), so they make a big deal about washing your right hand first before dining. But here is the thing, they only take a bowl of water and rinse their hand. I’ve seen people use soap when washing their hands rarely, this includes after someone uses the restroom. It is also disturbing to me because everything is very dirty here due to the dry season and lot of dust blowing in the air. To make matters worse, there is no hot water. There are too many public health issues here to even let my mind give them to much thought. Sorry for any Ghanaian reading this, it is not meant to be offensive, just an observation!

Light out: The electricity source of the Volta Region of Ghana (where I live) is Lake Volta and the lake is at low water levels due to less than normal rain last year, so there is concern over having enough water to serve the region’s energy needs. To help conserve, the government has put in place a black out or what they call light out here, every five days from 6pm to 6am the next day, we have no electricity. It is not much fun on these nights though a few places in town have generators. It is dark by 7pm and on these nights I may be in bed by 8pm! Electricity is a really, really nice thing! So is air conditioning……oh how I miss it!

Thanks to everyone for the fun emails and updates! I'm sorry if I haven't been able to respond to you yet, but please know that I love reading them all and I'm very appreciative!

A few pictures from my house, town and the last one is from a nearby village we visited this week

Two weeks in!

I'm finally able to post again! Well, I'm feeling more and more at home here in Ghana. My first week I began work with a non-profit HIV/AIDS group that does care and support activities. They have about 80 families they visit in and around my town, Ho. I went on three trips to visit, all of which involved little children infected with HIV. The hardest part about this is that these people lack the money to buy the drugs to help treat them and the proper food, I feel like I should just open up my purse and dump out everything that is inside. I did already give away some cortisone cream I had for mosquito bites. One of the little girls has some kind of rash on her arms and can't go to school because of it. The mom hasn't been able to buy any cream to treat it. Also, it is amazing and unbelievably frustrating that so many people are very behind in HIV/AIDS education.

I also started this week teaching at a high school in a small village 30 minutes from Ho. I teach 5 classes Mon-Thurs in biology. I didn't really think this would be a great job for me, but the education system here is lacking. Many teachers don't show up for class on a regular basis. When this happens, there is no substitute teacher, the kids just sit there for an hour! So I think I may actually be a fairly good teacher, relatively speaking. The kids are fun so far...though I spent half of each class doing introductions and answering their questions about the US. Being asked my age, if I'm married (or why I'm not married), and if I have kids is getting a little old. The kids in their high school (called senior secondary school) range from 13-over 20 years old. They go for three years and at the end take national exams. Apparently, this school only has a 20% pass rate on the exams....it is a real problem. Also, I've talked a lot about caning this week. Caning....as in hitting kids with a stick. Yep, they do it, though luckily I haven't seen it. I've heard some other volunteers in other schools have started crying when they see it. So the Peace corps girl working at the school (and now me) have been talking about that maybe that isn't the best approach to getting kids to learn. A couple of the teachers have actually stopped doing it!

Then in the evenings I have been spending a couple hours at one of the orphanages. There are about 15 kids ranging in age from 5 to 15. I help them a lot with there homework, have them read to me, and have been making them practice math problems. They eat it up, I always have a hard time leaving at night because there are too many of them to give enough attention. But I love these kids already, so, so cute! My favorite is a little boy named Elolo....pics to come.

I made it, I'm in Ghana!

YAY! I wanted to write much sooner than this, but I have had the hardest time with the internet here, but I think I've figured it out! I've been in Ghana only five days now and don't know what to say! It is wonderful, but a little scary! The flight(s) were fine, but long. I arrived in Ghana's capitol, Accra late Thursday night and was greeted by two of the volunteer coordinators. The airport arrival area is a crazy place! I wasn't sure where I was going at first and panicked for a moment thinking they had forgotten about me! But I found my Disaster Volunteers of Ghana (DiVOG) friends, Richard and Mypa outside waiting along with proabably 100 other people waiting for friends. People were everywhere outside waiting, some brought blankets and food. I guess with customs you never know how long it will take.

Stayed in a hotel that night in Accra. No running water, just a bucket of water for my bath! =) Welcome to Africa! Accra is a very busy place, with lots of people everywhere and people selling things all over the streets and yes, the women here carry everything on their heads! It is absolutely amazing!!! I saw a girl with at least 6 cases of soda on her head! Their strength and efficiency is unbelievable!

Made it to my town, the Ho District, by taking a tro-tro or bus (but is really like a winnebago) stuffed full of people for 2 1/2 hours. At all the villages along the way, women sell bread, water, oranges, all kinds of stuff on the side of the road; the bus just pulls over occasionally for the passengers to hand money out the window.

The country is beautiful! It is the dry season and it is very dry. They have a yearly event, the harmattan, where sand from the Sahara desert blows in a hangs in the air, forming almost a cloud of dust that lessens visibility and isn't fun to breathe, but it is almost over. Unfortunately, that means the sun will be that much more intense and it is getting hotter each day I am here.

While it is very dry and there really isn't any grass, the trees and other vegetation are beautiful! It looks more like a jungle intermixed with some Serengeti-like plains. And my town is surrounded by beautiful hills and trees. The people are wonderful, so friendly and welcoming! They do speak english but speak to each other in their local language, Ewe. They've tried to teach me the common greetings...but so far I haven't picked it up at all. All I know is the word for white person because I hear everywhere I go. They don't mean this is a bad way. The kids call it out when we walk by to get our attention and to wave at them.

I have one other volunteer staying in the same house as me, Katherine, she is part of a Danish group that has been here for almost 3 months. They leave next week though! Katherine has been a blessing. I ask her all kinds of questions and she shares what she has learned. A different group of Danish volunteers are also here and arrived 2 weeks ago but are all in a town an hour from here. I will be on my own soon, but I am staying with the coordinators aunt and the DiVOG office is next door, so I am in good company!

This place is extremely safe...much safer than home! People don't use locks and walking around at dark is no different than day time. Okay, I have much more to share, but this is already too long. I will write more this weekend. I have started my jobs already and that will have to be its own message! A few random things about Ghana, using your left hand to greet or hand someone something is offensive (I'm working really hard on that), many people have cell phones in town, they have absolutely no infrastructure in place for waste disposal, I do have running water in my house (though it is cold showers), they listen to some American music (a little taste of home), and there are goats everywhere!

I miss you all and would love emails to keep me company!
Alicia

Heading out

Well, the next time I update this site I will be in Ghana! The time is finally here! I'm about to head out on my journey and to my own amazement I think I am packed and ready with a little time to spare! The whole trip will take about 24 hours due to a lay over in Chicago and London. Upon my arrival in the Accra, Ghana's capitol around 9pm (their time, 6 hours ahead of CST), I'll meet the group's volunteer coordiantors. We'll stay in the capitol that night and then the next morning drive 2+ hours to the Volta Region. Everyone keeps asking if I'm nervous, which I'm not too much yet, but I'm sure the lengthy trip will give me plenty of time to get that way!


Thanks to everyone for their support to this point, I am extremely grateful to all of you! By the way due to all the great donations, I've have an extra suitcase filled solely with school supplies and other donations, so thank you to all who contributed in one way or another!!!

What I'll be doing and Where I'm going

In mid-January I am heading to Ghana, Africa for three months to work with a local volunteer non-profit, Disaster Volunteers of Ghana (DVOG) (http://www.estherwu.com/ghana/volunteer.html). DiVOG's mission is to assist rural and urban dwellers in times of natural or man-made disasters and as expanded to work on promoting education, health, environment, empowerment of women and cultural diversity.

I have thought about this type of service trip for some time and I feel like I currently have been given this opportunity and hope to make the most of it.

I will be staying with a host family and living in the Ho district of Ghana's Volta region (check out the map). My host family will not only provide me with a place to live, but also three meals a day. You can be sure that I'll be writing more about the food! =)

I am willing to help in any way possible with this group, but predominately I'll be working with the HIV/AIDS program. This will include outreach on HIV/AIDS prevention, providing support to families with AIDS, and working with the children in the local orphanages. Most likely, I will also be teaching and helping in the local schools, which I welcome.