John's Next Step

Warning: In the post I describe a minor medial issue that other PCVs may get using bicycles – the only independent mode of transportation allowed in Ghana. I'm posting this embarrassing condition in the hope that it will help someone else. Market Day The area around Nandom is farming communities with mainly dirt roads. Bumpy dirt roads. The town center and part of a road south to Lawra is paved or partially paved. The roads are dusty or muddy depending on the rain – a reddish brown color that has increased the amount of laundry I'm doing. I have to travel about 3 miles one way to get food. Our market day is Sunday. Each town has a market day and the market women generally travel from town to town. Lawra, a town about 20 miles away has a market on a 6 day schedule. Market day is the day of the week when you can get the most food. However, in the case of the Upper West Region the selection is rather limited. There are a lot of rice and beans, corn, yams,...

Road Trip I went from Accra to Nandom on an overnight bus – waited at the station for 5 hours with a couple of volunteers and we were on the bus for 15 hours. The bus had reclining seats and in theory you could sleep on it. However, we had seats in the back row that did not recline and the bus played loud music videos or movies all night long. The extra people sitting or sleeping on the floor along with the luggage in the aisle made it nice to have long legs at the toilet breaks. Future note: Bring earplugs, eye mask (thanks Sam), and make sure to get a ticket before number 25. Still the trip was worth it because I'm finally at site. My site The corn and millet is considerably taller than at my last visit so the paths look different. We are getting a fair amount of rain so the crops look pretty good. I'll post more about farming once I learn more about West African agriculture. The people are great and Roger, my neighbor, is very helpful showing...

I'm now almost done with Preservice Training (PST). I don't know when I will have enough internet to post this message but I'm writing it now. After site visit I pretty much spent all available time learning, attempting to learn, the language at my site – Dagaare. I spent almost every available hour not otherwise consumed by Peace Corps with flashcards, studying, and reciting words, phrases, and paragraphs. Please ignore the Facebook photos on my birthday or otherwise at “the spot” - (local slang for a resource center (slang for a place that serves drinks.)) Missing out on spending time relaxing with others in the group was a sacrifice. I passed the language proficiency interview (LPI) at the minimum level required. In Ghana that means intermediate mid. So higher than novice, lower than advanced – in the middle of the intermediate rank. I'm happy I passed but I have a lot of work once I get to site. I could function fine with minimal Dagaare at my si...