"Everything you see I owe to spaghetti."- Sophia Loren

September 21, 2012

Why is it when you get fall and bust your knee so bad you’re pretty sure you shattered your kneecap and you will never regain full knee movement, you look down to see your first layer of skin in slightly scuffed and you squeeze it to make blood come out so it can look as epic as it feels, but when you nick your ankle while shaving (didn’t even feel it)  you leave a blood trail throughout your village and 4 hours later, when it still hasn’t clotted, you’re pretty sure you’re going to bleed out.

School “started” on Monday. Funny thing about school is the first week is spent waiting for all the kids to arrive and the students who were nice enough to show up early get to machete the grass, burn leaves, and fill the water barrels. I sat with the other teachers and finally worked on my lesson plans. I got most done but its takes so long and I get distracted so easily……….. I think this is proof getting my masters would be extremely hard. Plus most of the art content is different from what I know so I have to research and write everything out because it isn’t a part of my brain knowledge yet.

It was decided that I will teach Form 1 General Knowledge Art and Form 1 Graphic Design.  Forms 1 are our equivalents to freshmen. Another funny thing is these kids won’t be here till October. So I still have 2 weeks until I start teaching.  From what I can understand I think this has something to do with someone placing them in schools according to their exam scores and this always takes until the end of September. After talking to the other Art teachers we decided the best thing for me to do is observe and help out in the other art classes. Oh! And I get to be the classroom teacher for Form 1! This means I am in charge of attendance and I get to have classroom meetings to hear from Form 1 about what they like and don’t like and I guess other stuff. I’m pretty excited because it affords me the chance to really get to know my students and be a liaison between them and the people in charge.  It also means I will have more stuff to do and I won’t just be sitting around after class (I can’t really start any projects till after my first 3 months at site because Peace Corps wants me to get to know my site and talk to them about what they think they need before I start asking for money and starting projects.)

I have the most exciting news! I. Have. Finally. Gotten. Propane.  Do you know what this means?? I can cook, no more cold bathes cause I can heat up water, and I can cook! I am just really excited about cooking :). If you have been following along, you might already know I was very frustrated with my diet here because, despite the fact Ghana grows veggies year round, all I was fed was rice, fish, soup, and whatever other starch could be thrown my way. Until now I have been living on bread and fresh veggies (delicious but it gets old and I didn’t get any protein).  Already I have made noodles and sauce (the sauce was a hodgepodge of dejected food), chips (more likely classified as flat, hard biscuits), and curry (this was LEGIT and so good).  I have so many plans for so many good meals. I am hoping that my use of mostly fresh veggies when cooking outweighs my need to constantly eat everything all the time.  

I started an experiment.  There is a small cat that lives in my compound. I came up with the wildly appropriate name of Small Cat. This is Small Cat.

 I don’t think Small Cat belongs to anyone in particular. Emotionally, she loves attention, is the sweetest, and loves to slip into my room when I open the door and explore all my things. Physically, she is small, has a pot belly (probably full of cooties), and has constant diarrhea. The diarrhea thing is an issue because I like to love on her when I sit and read, she likes to climb up and sit on my lap. 3 skirts and 1 shirt had to be washed immediately before I learned my lesson and now I don’t let her sit on me anymore.

I have 2 huge Moringa trees in my backyard. Moringa leaves are miracle leaves full of nutrients and vitamins and they might save the world. Just google Moringa tree and read the awesomness.  

So what I have done is collect, wash, and rinse a ton of Moringa leaves. When they got shrively and dried up, I morter and pestled  them into powder. I mixed a ton of the powder with some fish, bread, and oil and fed it to Small Cat.

My hypothesis is that Moringa will cure Small Cat, giving her all the missing nutrients she needs so her body can fight off the cooties she has.  I started this experiment today so I will let you know if there is marked improvement in Small Cat’s condition (also if anyone wants to throw some de-wormer in an envelope and send it to Ghana, that might also help).

 So that's pretty much all that's been going on lately. Working, cooking, and experimenting. I'm going to dive back into painting this weekend, so if something comes out of it worth sharing, I'll let you know.