Week Eight

The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I am well into the training program with about a month left until I am recognized as a Peace Corps volunteer and not a trainee. The most difficult portion is ahead for me, the continuation of language training and the final language proficiency examination. I will interviewed by a native speaker and respond at an intermediate level of proficiency. It is difficult comparing my progress to the young trainees that just seem to have the memory to make things stick. This is all part of the deal and I intend to do my best.

I am visiting my expected assignment location in the Region of Brong Ahafo, almost in the center of the country. I will be near a large market city and have come here to find an inter net cafe. Once I get permanently to my new home, I will be able to use this site more frequently to access the internet. No internet in my school or the small village where I will live for the next two years.

I am still comfortable with my decision and most grateful for my children who I love and trust to take care of themselves as well as each other even while I am gone.

I invite you to share this blogg site with others.

Thanks again for your interest in what I am doing in Ghana.

Starting Week four in Ghana

The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

It has been three weeks since I became a Peace Corps Volunteer. After departing Washington DC on June 8, I am now in the country of Ghana. After three days of adjustment in the city of Accra, we have moved to a training site some distance to the north, Kukurantumi. I am practice teaching maths and science in a local Junior High School, learning about methods and conditions for teaching in Ghana. They are different. The language of the education system is thankfully English, but in another week the intensive language training begins for six weeks. I feel the anxiety building. I have received my assigned teaching site for the two years. It is almost in the center of the country near a town called Thieman, in the region of Brong- Ahafo. I will teach maths and maybe science at a small Catholic Junior High. Living conditions sound spartan, but certainly adequate. You are invited for a visit. Not sure when I will get in front of a computer again as this one is at a cafe a 15 minute taxi ride away and time is taken up six days a week with Peace Corps training. I certainly feel completely in God's capable hands as I work all this out. To the small children we are known as Obroni, the man from over the horizon or just the white person. All the best from Ghana.

Departure Day

I am now a Peace Corps Trainee and will not be an official Volunteer until I successfully complete the three months of training in Ghana. I am scheduled to depart from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington DC this evening on a direct, 10 and 1/2 hours flight to Accra, Ghana. The experience of preparing for this new career has been full of wonderful times with my family and exhausting times preparing my home and life for 27 months in a much different location and environment. I am ready to go.

May 21, 2011

Two weeks until departure.