Well folks, it is Day 33, which means
there are 54 that stand between me and my return to Canada! Crazy!
Monday started with a meeting at 9 am for
preparations for this week’s Seminar. As per previous comments, we were left
waiting for several others to arrive for 45 minutes to an hour. I was a little
annoyed but made a conscious decision to just accept that this is a way of
being. Following what should have been a very brief meeting (meaning, we should
have been done by the time the first person decided to join us), 5 of us piled
into a taxi and made our way to four different schools in Koforidua to deliver
the letters requesting their students’ participation in the Seminar scheduled
for Thursday of this week. Yeah, that’s right… we asked permission to have
students attend an event that was to take place a few
days later! Imagine if we attempted to do this in Canada! It is this aspect of
life in Ghana that I appreciate, but am also perplexed by. As the theme of the
seminar was pollution, the schools all seemed to be eager to participate, which
was awesome. One school was extremely enthusiastic, by stating that the topic
was so important, that anything they could do to make a positive impact on the
environment was something they wanted to be a part of. This was exciting, until
we left the school, and I was greeted with an array of garbage strewn about on
the ground just outside the building! Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose! Haha
This outing, I’m sure, seems really
exciting to those of you reading, but I haven’t even shared with you the best
part of this little adventure. The cab we took came equipped with a few
television-esque screens, and music videos that had the words written out. This
is a little something I now like to call “The Karaoke Kab”! I’m sure everyone
who was smooshed into that taxi was surprised by the joy that I experienced
upon the first song I happily belted out. It was Joe’s “I Wanna Know.” Pretty
sure that was circa high school for me, meaning no one else knew it (it’s great
to be so old! Haha)! The taxi rides throughout the rest of our time delivering
letters transitioned from a sampling of Joe’s discography, to The Lion King
soundtrack, and ended with the sweet, sweet jams of Whitney Houston’s Greatest
Hits. Friends, I’m afraid life will never be the same. This was Monday, and
today, as of Friday, I have yet to see Karaoke Kab since. Let us all please
take a moment of silence…
The days in between letter delivery and
Thursday’s Seminar were fairly slow. We spent a few hours each day putting
together the outline of the two-hour event (that like everything else we've
done so far ran well passed that!), and researching the latest information on
the three main topics: Land, Water, and Air Pollution. I’ll give you one guess
as to which theme I was assigned to talk about. If you guessed water, you’d be
right. If you guessed either of the other choices, I’m questioning whether you
know me at all! For me, this was a good challenge. The subject of water
pollution is huge, and with only 20 minutes to present my section, it meant I
had to make some pretty big decisions of what should stay and what should go.
The day of the Seminar I woke up so hyper
I had trouble containing my energy. This was most likely the result of a few
factors: a) it was the first time I slept through the night without waking up
and b) it was the first activity we were doing that dealt with a subject I was
actually interested in! The day was to start at 9:30 am, with students being
picked up starting at 9:00. When a few of us arrived at 8:45 am, we were
surprised to be greeted by William, and about half of the sixty students we
were anticipating! This made for an exceptionally awkward set up, particularly
as setting up the projector did not go so smoothly. Seriously, why am I always
the “tech-savvy” one?!
Overall, I think the event went fairly
well. There were, of course, those anticipated hiccups that occur with things
like this, but the students seemed receptive to what we were saying. I started
my session with a grim story about how much water we have on the planet versus
how much we can actually consume. I’m pretty sure some kids had nightmares last
night as a result of what I shared… And, for the record, using 1 liter of water
to represent all of the water found on Earth, only one drop is what we have to
use for human consumption. So… you should probably consider that for a little
while (especially those of you who might be reading this that are known to take
daily 45 minute showers… You know who you are!)!
After the seminar, I spoke at length with
the representative from (and our main contact at) the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana, Cyril… *swoon*
As I've alluded to in this and previous
posts, I’m finding we are enjoying more free time, and less time concentrated
on project related things. Sometimes this downtime is nice, but being as I came
to Ghana to actually work, this has been a huge source of frustration for me.
So, my chat with Cyril was an inquiry about what I can be doing in this spare
time to help them out. The answer – guess who’s the new head of the EPA?! Yeah,
not me, and it turns out there isn't a whole lot that I can do, well, at least
that is associated with the EPA. However, there are some potential outings that
I may be able to tag along for, such as site- scouting for pending EIAs, tree
planting, and other agency related things. Hopefully this will work out,
because it would be an awesome networking opportunity, AND I’m interested to
learn more about the practices here in the Eastern Region. Two topics I spoke
to Cyril about in detail were the possibility of designing a plan for a
recycling program start up, and looking into fog-water harvesting as a means
for providing drinking water to the residents of Koforidua (thanks, Alice, for
bringing that topic to my attention! The paper I wrote for you is proving to be
quite useful!). Perhaps my time in Ghana will not end in two months…
So, as I stated in the beginning of this
post, we've been in Ghana for a full month. The five of us are all quite
different, but for the most part, I feel, that all things considered, we get
along well. However, as can be expected in any group work situation, each of
our work styles are also quite different. This has presented a few tensions
between us to date, but not in any great way… that is until 10 minutes after
the Seminar. I’m not going to go into detail about it, but we had our first
outburst (which I’m actually surprised hadn't happened sooner given the fact
that we didn't know each other prior to our arrival, and our obvious
personality differences). Was it handled in a way I would have approached it?
Not really. So, it’s going to be a very interesting few days. Well, it’s already
been an interesting 24 hours. It’s been a little awkward, particularly as I
seem to be torn by both sides of the indifference. If there’s one thing I hate
more than anything, it’s conflict. Being the Mama Bear sucks in times like
this. I just want everyone to get along…
Well, that’s about all I've got. My tan is
continuously improving, my slight sunburn has disappeared, and I am still
lovin’ the fact that I am in Africa!
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