What's that in the sky??? It's a bird!... It's a plane!... it's rain?...

'Change, life-altering change rarely comes through the front door... Change occurs when you're trying to decide if this week is garbage and recycling, or just garbage.  Change is a sneak.'

This is paraphrased from, in my opinion (and probably a lot of peoples), Canada's best story-teller, Stuart McLean from one of his Vinyl Cafe Story's on CBC.  I write this today, because I was reading some previous blogs of mine from the beginning of this trip (which seems like ages ago!).  I guess what I'm saying is, I think I've changed (or at least my views and thinking have) more than I know.

As a sidenote, I brought along a copy of Stuart McLeans Vinyl Cafe Stories in which we took turns reading to eachother out loud... for those of you who don't know the Vinyl Cafe, its a series of short stories about Dave and Morley and their familiy and friends.  Now we've finished the book, which is sad because I looked so much forward to these stories at night before bed. (It has come to be a comfort thing for me so I'm rereading it on my own...)

 Anyway, the point of this blog when I sat down was to write about interesting things I've found (mainly just an incoherent ramble of things I've been meaning to write about).

-This morning I saw a goat tied to the back of a motorcycle (on the seat, not dragging behind, but still wailing, at first I thought it was child form the sound)...
-The other day while I was walking to work, I got tangled up in a sheep stampede... it was pretty cool.
-It is amazing to see bulls being herded down the street (50 or 60 of them at a time).  Now this is still a soft spot for me and I must admit it does scare me ever since the charging of the bull last month!  They've got big horns! So I walk on the other side of the road.
-Three days ago, I was out to get my dinner (Banku!) and a kid hollered at me and said 'Obruni, look up'... didn't quite understand what it meant... but I looked anyway.  There was a plane.  Now this seems insignificant, but then I noticed on my way home that litterally everyone was looking up to the sky... then I realized, I hadn't seen a plane since I was in Accra in October.  So yeah, it was kinda a big deal.
-It's amazing and baffles me how many people can fit inside (outside and on top of) a trotro.
-Speaking of driving, I could never drive here.  People are very aggressive, and it seems to work, though I have seen my fair share of accidents.
-Two weeks ago I was awoken by a fight in my apartment building at midnight... turns out it was a man refusing to pay a woman money owed to her... nervewracking at the time.
-My Grandma Saide always says, 'you make friends everywhere you go'.  And how true.  I've realized you just gotta put yourself out there... and it helps that Ghanaians are very outgoing.  I met a lot of friends here in Cape Coast, especially from Germany where a lot of volunteers of volunteers come from.  I miss my group, but its nice travelling on my own because I'm forced to make these new connections.  

-Yesterday I went to the bank to cash some travellers cheques, and they wouldn't beleive that I was me.  It was very frustrating trying to explain that just becuase my signature is slightly different than it was 4 years ago in my passport, it still is clearly me.  Then they had me sign what my signature used to be (the one in my passport which is very similar to my signature now!) and I was so nervous I messed it up... Anyway, after all the trouble and an hour later, they finally gave me the money. 
-Also yesterday it rained.  May not seem like a big deal, but I haven't seen rain since November (Maybe early December).  I was hoping it would bring the temperature down a little, but alas no, still sweating through my shirt on the walk to work at 7 am.  (Mind you it's an hour and half walk)... and I guess I shouldn't complain... it beats shovelling :)
-I've been able to listen to alot of Canadian Music lately which is nice, but I am also listening to a lot of ghanaian music.  A friend of a friend named Lord made me my very own Hi-Life CD, with some of my favourites on it!

I guess that's it for my rambles now, I thought I had more to say, but apparently not!  This weekend I'm heading to Kakum National Park which I'm super excited for.  It'll be interesting seeing how the Park System differs from Canada's (as this is what I studied) and they have this sweet 20 metre rope bridge Canopy hike in the jungle.

Work is going great! We just hired a new office adminsitrator and work together closely and he's really nice!  We also had our first outreach program on Saturday and it was a complete success!!!  Over 60 people came, along with doctors who checked out all the people who showed up for free.


Time is flying by, I can't beleive it's almost February, and we all know how fast that month goes by.  I have a lot I still wanna do here, so I'm trying not to think about home too much, though I do find it hard not to.  I am so excited to see everyone!  And to eat alot of Cheese, which as you may know is my favourite, and I haven't had any here (except for this pseudo cheese thing 3 months ago.)


Peace and Love, I'll see ya sooner than ya know it.

Matty

PS My office is attached to a school classroom (I came in early today to write this blog) and the kids are very cute.  The thing is, they are watching BARNEY right now... who woulda known barney was popular in Ghana?

Cheers!

To my right a castle, to my left...

Good Day Folks!

I've arrived safely in Cape Coast and have been here for 5 or 6 days now.  It's the time in this program for the group to go our seperate ways for our volunteer placements.  So where to begin?

We had an amazing retreat in Kumasi and a good time reflecting on our experiences in the village... This made me remember how much I love facilitating workshops and debriefing things (good ol' Katimavik)...  The wekk there was so good for group bonding!  And we got to watch oprah...

I'm now living in a small apartment called the Baobob House.  It's really nice!  The organization that owns it runs an orphanage that teaches kids various skills in arts and more.  It's a German NGO that started in 2001.  They also have a vegetarian restaraunt and craft store to help raise funds.  They are doing some pretty great things.  And my room is.... cozy!  But great!  It's all I need, and you can't beat the view.  Cape Coast Castler is to my right and the Gulf of guinea crashes to the shore to my left.  Very beautiful, and I get to watch the fisherman go out and come in everyday.  (Also, I've heard that if you go and help them bring in the nets, they give you free fish.... I'll have to check it out!

Now, more importantly than that, I've begun my work placement at the Ghanaian National Deaf Children's Society.  It's located about an hour and half walk from my place downtown (I enjoy the walk, gives me time to think, and excersise).  I'm really enjoying my time here thus far!  It's risen beyond all of my expectations.  They are doing such wonderful things and I'm learning so much already.  Things about successes and challenges (ie lack of funding, lack of assessment tools, society's view, etc).  It really is a great place to work.  The people are fantastic (I'm going over to my bosses house for dinner right after this!) and I'm given a lot of responsibility and autonomous working.  I get to research funding, attend meetings, do outreach programs, make partnerships and more.  It's awesome!  And Mom, they could really use someone like you here!  I've told them all about your job.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it at that for now.  I'm in a good head space and embracing this new part of my journey.  I miss the group though, it was so nice having people to bounce ideas off of... but hey, i guess that means I need to make new friends!

One interesting (bad?) thing is that the price of gas essentially went up 30% overnight (or at least what seemed like overnight to me) and has increased significantly the cost of transportation (at first I thought they were just trying to rip me off cause I'm a tourist, but no! Prices have gone up!)  It will be intersting to see how the rest of society copes with this and how prices will change for food and other things...  And all this when Ghana has just begun its dealing in oil... Anyway, I don't know enough about it, I'll have to find out more.

Anyway!

Love and Miss you all, I hear there's alot of snow.

Live. Laugh. Love and Learn.

Matty

A fee she yay paa!

The title means Happy new year! Spelled phonetically of course (I don't know how to spell it in Twi)... it's always interesting saying that to Ghanaians and they Laugh because they are so excited that I can speak Twi!  (It's equally interesting eating Banku on the street and having all the trotros drive by and people stare at you and laugh!)

Things are going very well here! I'm know in Kumasi on a week long retreat to reflect and debrief and prepare for the upcoming work placement period, where we will all separate as a group until March.  I'm very much looking forward to this part of the trip.

Before I get into that, let me start from where I left off.  After leaving Ho, we headed to Akwidaa Beach and the green turtle ecotourism outfit.  They do some really cool things there and a lot of the profits go directly to helping the turtles.  It was a BEAUTIFUL place and we camped on the beach.  It was awfully strange being completely surrounded by foreigners... but we befriended some folks from Syngapore and had a real good time.  We spent alot of our time at the lodge exploring the town nearby, which was a quaint (and amazing) fishing village off the coast... (we also ate here because the lodge was charging 10 Cedis a plate... where we can eat all 3 meals for far less than 2 in town... and better food.)

This experience at green turtle helped me appreciate the awesome experience I'm having here in Ghana... though it was a great experience in itself (a 20-foot bonfire at midnight on New years on a beach... very nice!)

Anyway, we changed our plans and headed to Cape Coast for a night after having spent enough time at the lodge.  Cape Coast is VERY exciting.  It's a big city, but smallish.  Right on the ocean.  I'm looking very much forward to moving there!  While there, we visited Cape Coast Castle.  It was, in a word, intense.  The Castle is where slaves were kept during the slave trade.  It was powerful to see, I'll leave it at that.

That's it for now!  Only three more months here and I know it will pass far too quickly.  I hope everyone had a great and safe new years!  I can't wait to see you!

Oh and how can I forget! For all you Katimavik employees who know us, I met up with Steve Day for a couple days!  It was nice to hang out with someone from home!

That's all for now!
I'm still happy, healthy, learning a lot and having fun!  What more can I ask for?

Peace and Love!

Matty