General Life Update

Things have been slow since I visited my friend in Europe up until about a week ago. I didn't seem to have too much to do (not that I ever do), but now an influential man from my community who now lives and works in Accra has come to visit the village fr a few weeks' time. He's a member of our TMT and was very upset to hear how the TMT was running. Apparently, many people in my village thought that TMT were using tourism funds for their personal purposes. Well, he asked me to write a report of my own recommendations for the improvement of the TMT. I did and we had a TMT meeting this past Sunday. People actually showed up! Its' amazing -- the power of 'Big Men'. There was a lot of arguing with the Financial Secretary about record-keeping and accountability. Then, we decided that Wednesday we would all bring suggestions for new members of the TMT -- to start fresh. Then the Financial Secretary withdrew. I know he wants to go to school in September and he was complaining at the meeting how he is not getting paid for the work he is doing. I guess a combo of things made him quit -- he was really coming under fire too. He's a really hard person to deal with both outside of the TMT and on the TMT. Maybe things will run smoother now?

Other than that I am lonely because my boyfriend has gone to the US for vacation. Thought I would get a chance to see whether I would spend more time in the village if he wasn't so close. Well, it turns out so far that there's really no difference in how much time I spend in the village. I'm just a lot lonelier. Now I know how most other PCVs feel.

Oh, a few weeks ago a woman in my village gave me bananas and some cloth. Nothing surprising or new except that cloth is a very generous gift. Well, when my friend Mawuli heard about the gift and who gave it to me he became worried. He told me that the woman used to do witchcraft. She once turned into a wild beast in the bush and when a hunter from our village was about to shoot her she said, "Don't shoot, it is me" and she turned into her human form. Well, as the story goes, the hunter told everyone in the village this. They now call her, 'It's me' in the local dialect. Apparently, she has repented for her witchcraft and now attends church, but no everyone is convinced. So, she may have been trying to put witchcraft on me. I was a little worried and was scared to eat the bananas. Ha! My boyfriend told me I was crazy, so he took some of them. He's OK, as far as I know. Haha. The cloth is on top of my fridge because I'm waiting to sew it. Mawuli told me that he would pray over the cloth, but then he left for Accra! Crap! I don't believe in witchcraft, but guess I'm a bit superstitious!

This leads me into another topic: 'brain drain'. First, a good girlfriend of mine left to live in the nearest city, Mawuli just left because he got a job in Accra through a friend and soon my counterpart will be leaving to Cape Coast to attend training college. Serious!

I got a cat from my counterpart. She's a cutie -- white fur with black and brown patches. One patch is over her eye. I got her about 2 months ago. She was only the size of my hand, her fur was pretty ragged and her hind-region stunk! Now she's very healthy-looking (I feed her well. Ghanaians don't keep pets, so animals only get scraps) and she doesn't stink! I'm really happy about that. ha.