The past few weeks have been quite busy indeed. We had another PC training with all of the volunteers in country, but this time our village counterparts came along to learn with us. 

Some parts of this training were helpful, but other parts were frustrating because we were supposed to be having open discussions with our counterparts about what they want in village, and all my counterpart wanted to talk about was how much the villagers need money and other physical objects which I can’t provide for them. Peace Corps approach to development is entirely education based and is meant to give capacity building skills to villagers, not just giving them material things and leaving. Overall though, the training wasn’t too bad.

After training I went back to village for about 2 days to meet with a French NGO called SPESS that was visiting my village to see about potential education projects and to provide some training at our local health clinic. They’ve done a lot of awesome work in my village so far and I look forward to seeing what they accomplish in the future. They spent about 3 weeks total working in my village, but unfortunately I missed out because I was busy at our training and then rushed off to vacation in GHANA!

The Ghana vacation was great. Michael and I crossed the border and hung out on a beach for a couple of days and relaxed, and then went to the capital city of Accra and met up with his parents who flew over from the United States for a visit.

On a boat ride to our beach hostel in Ada Foah, Ghana

Once his parents arrived we stayed at a fancier hotel with a pool in Accra which was absolutely wonderful. We then proceeded to cut West along the coastline of Ghana, and then headed up North. En route we visited a slave castle, a national park, some museums and craft centers, and some different memorials. Michael and I went to another beach and he surfed for awhile and then we lounged and had margaritas.

Kakum National Park Canopy Bridges

Michael’s parents were incredibly generous in letting me tag along on their family vacation and we had the luxury of traveling in a rented car with air conditioning and got to stay in hotels much nicer than what we are usually used to staying at in Togo and eat foods that I didn’t think we would ever be able to find in W. Africa (onion rings and mozz sticks? Yes please!)

Beach Art Guy trying to get us to buy his beach art

Ghana’s national language is English and overall it is much more developed than Togo so traveling there was quite pleasant. Their rainforests were gorgeous and so much more lush than anything I have seen in Togo thus far. They also just have a more developed tourist industry and they have better preserved their cultural heritage in the forms of monuments and museums.

We learned a lot more about the slave trade in W. Africa which was really eye-opening and it is really quite horrific to think about the part we as Americans played in not only the buying and selling of Africans, but also the torture and pain they went through in the process just to get to the Americas. They were forced out of their homelands and had to walk great distances to get to the coast where they would be shackled and chained and kept locked up in terrible conditions for extended periods of time until the next ship would come to port to pick them up and cram them into ships so they could serve the rest of their life in servitude to their white masters on plantations in the new world. We visited one of the main forts/castles where slaves were picked up, and also visited a memorial dedicated to all the slaves who were forced out of their homeland.

Eventually we crossed over into Togo, and I headed back to my village, and Michael continued farther North with his parents so they could see the village where he works and lives.

Overall I think Michael’s parents enjoyed their visit here. It was neat getting to see Africa through someone else’s eyes and see how they experienced and felt about things. We have gotten so used to so many of the things here that it doesn’t even phase us anymore. We recently passed the 9 month mark of being in country which means our service is 1/3 of the way done, which seems absolutely crazy to me. Some days I feel as though I’ve lived here forever and I totally know what is going on, but I still have days where I feel as though I know nothing at all and I never will understand everything that goes on here. Our vacation was a well needed break, but it does feel good to be back in village!