Mural Paintings

Yesterday (March 31, 2012) we traveled to another PCV's site near Tamale to paint educational murals.It took about 1.5 hours on the bumpiest dirt road of my life...but at the end of the day, everyone's mural turned out to be awesome and it was a really fun project!
Here are some pics:

My group's mural on hygiene 

Wear a condom to protect yourself from HIV

People doing healthy things

Cool Border

Use a net to keep mosquitoes away!

Road Trip to Site Visit

So remember how I mentioned that transportation here was really crazy. Here is a story about that:

Last week we left training to go on a site visit. We travelled with our counterparts (the community local that we work with on our projects) to site. Since Olivia and I were going to the upper east region, we waited for the bus heading closest to our destination.  

We woke up at 3:45 am. First of all, our bus was running really late and we ended up waiting at the bus station from 5am to 8am when the bus finally got to the station. Once it backed up and nearly ran over Olivia’s counterpart, we had to wait another 30 minutes to load the bus and get everyone and their belongings packed in with us. In Ghana, there is nothing that restricts the isles from being blocked…there were bags of rice and grain, big metal buckets, boxes, and even a chicken stashed in a box under my seat!

About 2 hours into the ride, the bus hit something and we had to pull over and repair a hole in the tire. So I figured that while we were waiting for the repair I should go ahead and take a potty break in the bush somewhere. As I made my way down the path, people were taking squats left and right…I still wasn’t comfortable doing this, but the next place to go out of site was WAY down this dirt road. Suddenly everyone was telling me to hurry because the bus was about to leave. WTF! How did they do that this fast?!…so I had no other choice than to piss right there on the side of the road, bearing my bare white Obruni ass to the world. I don’t think I’m going to go back to America with a bit of shame after my PC experience.

About 30 minutes after the tire repair, we pulled over to this little market center where people were able to grab lunch and use public LATRINES! I wish someone informed me of this designated stop before I pissed in the bush! Oh well.

Maybe two hours after this break, we had to pull over on the side of the road so that some old man could use the bathroom. Well, he fell down the hill and it took forever for him to get back…This lasted another 30 minutes.

About 3 hours after that, we pulled over again so people could get food and use the bathroom. While we were there, the same old man was having bathroom issues so we had to wait again. During this time, the driver also informs us that our bus had an oil leak. GREAT! We expected to either switch buses, or patch up the hole in which the oil was leaking, but no, they just added more so that it would last until we reached our destination. 

This is why I feel SOOOO safe on transportation here.

Around 6pm that night, we reached Tamale…which is still about 2 ½ hours away from our sites. But in two hours, we reach another bus station and still have a while to our sites. THIS time, half of the passengers got off the bus and new people got on. When a worker got on to check tickets, everyone started raising hell, telling him that they paid some guy but he never handed out a ticket. Still the man requested that everyone show their tickets. This made people even madder. Everyone started screaming at him and getting others to refuse to show their tickets. Olivia and I sat there, having no clue what was happening…and apparently this stuff always happens to me. This is we basically witnessed a riot on the bus.

There was no other choice but for the driver to take us to the police station to settle the dispute…keep in mind this is 12 hours into the journey. So when we got to the police station EVERYONE had to get off the bus and talk to the police. The ones that had tickets were sent back to their seats and the rest stood outside. Basically everything was settled JUST BY the policeman asking each passenger standing outside if he or she really paid the man. If he or she said yes, they were allowed to get back on. SIMPLE AS THAT! Sometimes Ghanaians do things that are funny to me.  Later we found out that the man that took the money works at the station and many people know about him…I’m curious to know if he is still alive right now. Seriously…People here hate thieves!

When I finally arrived at site (14 hours later), electricity was out and I had to lug my stuff around in the dark. So I had no clue what my site even looked like. I had a hot, hot room, hadn’t peed in hours because I was so dehydrated, my door wouldn’t close, and my land lady barely spoke English.

Anyway, it was literally the WORST day trip of my life!