Worms

February 6, 2013

Dry season is a b@$%*. It’s like ten thousand degrees every day and there is hardly any water or breeze. It kind of sucks. Especially when the power goes out and I have to sit in the dark, sweating and hoping I don’t melt.

I am really starting to feel the effects of not going to the gym in 8 months. My muscles are jello. Not even the good lime jello, like gross grape jello that everyone snubs. .  My muscles hurt from being lethargic. I am trying though. My room is so small and stuffy it’s hard to be motivated to work out in here, but at some point I am going to have to before I turn to mush. Outside is not an option, I think I would anxiety overload from all the attention I would draw. I keep thinking about running, but I just hate running so much. A friend showed me how to do a handstand (the actual steps, not just throwing her body upside down and hoping she stays), so that is my new Peace Corps goal. Be an expert on hand standing by August 2014. I mastered (I use that term loosely) the first step of doing this half tripod upside down thing. I tried to get the rest of my body upright but I crumpled on the cement floor and busted my knee. Tonight I will try again.

Being in Ghana has turned my body weird shapes. I have lost weight, but I am about 98% sure I have a bacteria/worm colony in my belly. My entire life I have had a paunch right below my belly button, but now it seems to be much shapelier. I drew you a diagram.

It would almost make me feel better knowing I had a spaghetti wad of worms than this is my actual body shape. I have a one year check-up at some point so, if they do exist, they will be murdered and I can see whether I lose this paunch.

Today I was teaching Graphic Design and the lesson was on block lettering. Lettering is a dead skill in America, due to computers, so I have never learned this stuff in my entire life. The books I have are almost no help so I was talking to the teacher that will teach my kids next year, trying to figure out what was the most important knowledge they needed to know before getting to him. He started explaining block lettering and I realized it was much more complicated and precise than I thought. So today he stopped by my class and offered to teach it to me and the kids at the same time. As I sat in the back of the classroom, taking notes, I started to feel really bad for my class. This teacher was awesome. He made the kids laugh, they understood the lesson completely, and he was really knowledgeable about the subject. Comparing it to when I teach it was like night and day. When I teach the kids hardly ever answer questions or participate. Why? Probably because they can’t understand me or the words I use (like today when I said something about polka dots and one kid shouted “Madam, what is polka dot?” How many times has that happened where no one spoke up and I just kept right on going?) . I talk so freaking slow I can barely get through the lesson. I have no idea what I am teaching. It takes me forever to do the technical work cause I am learning it too. I know that I look like I have no idea what I am doing, and that makes me feel bad for my students. They really enjoyed having this teacher in the class, I think it was fun for them to move at a fast pace and learn something quickly. With me, between the accent barrier and the fact I don’t know anything, we move pretty slowly. I don’t know how to fix this and it makes me depressed.

My neck is achy; I think I hurt it doing hand stands.

I went to the district assembly yesterday, to discuss the water problem Coaltar has during the dry season and what can be done to fix it. I had in mind I would plop a borehole across the street from the school, so the town has access too, and call it a day, maybe move on to other projects. After talking to the assembly men it turns out they have done the research and even if a borehole is built it will dry up during dry season and the problem would persist. The idea they have to fix the problem for good is to drill a borehole in the neighboring town (they have a better water table) and build a pump system to pump water here. This pump has the capacity to pump water to 6 towns. This sounds great and they seem to know what needs to be done, there just aren’t any funds. The problem is what was going to be a $3,000 borehole project has turned into a jillion dollar pump project ( I have a meeting next week with a lot of high up people in the water and sanitation field here in Ghana to get the figures and learn more about how this is going to work.  Wish me luck and hope I don’t stick my foot in my mouth). After next week’s meeting I should have a much better idea of what needs to be done, who to contact, and what is expected of me. Best case scenario is they have everything logistic figured out and they are just missing a few thousand cedi. Worst case scenario is this is a great idea but no one knows where to start, who to contact, and I end up spending 2 years either focusing all my energy on this or doing little stupid things because a lot of my ideas won’t work if there isn’t year round water. And I don’t even have 2 years, more like 1 year 6 months.

On a more positive note, after 8 weeks of waiting I have 2 new dresses waiting on me at the seamstress. Why it took her so long, I have no idea, but I have about 6 more dresses to drop off so let us hope she gets motivated. I’m debating on whether to take her everything and just say “I’ll come every 2 weeks and at some point you will be finished.” Or just take her few things so as not to over whelm her. She is an awesome seamstress but the fact it took her 8 weeks to make 2 dresses and fix a skirt of mine is worry some. At this rate I’ll have to extend my service just to get my dresses made.