My Blog Post on Blue Kitabu

So today was my day to update Blue Kitabu's blog. It's actually a really cool blog; each of us posts once during our trip. Check them all out at www.bluekitabu.org. Here's mine:

"Wow where do I begin? These past two and a half weeks have been incredible, challenging, adventurous, enjoyable. The time has sped by, yet at the same time, my life at home seems so far away already. There have been some lows – lack of electricity and lugging buckets of water up the hill to hand wash my clothes for example– but my overwhelming feeling here is contented happiness and excitement to learn. I am really enjoying the slow pace of life here; what a change from living in the center of Los Angeles!

My absolute favorite part of Ghana though is the people. I had heard they were hospitable before I left, but that doesn’t even do it justice. They are the friendliest, nicest, happiest people I’ve met. They are quick to smile, quick to laugh, and always greet you with a friendly wave. One of the most memorable moments was when Aron, Lauren, and I met this woman on the way home from town. Within two minutes of conversation, she invited us to visit her home. Once there, she introduced us to all of her family, gave us the only three chairs in the house and insisted we sit down, and then after, showed us all over her farm for two hours. She gave us fruits and vegetables to try, and had her cousin climb a palm tree to cut down a cocoanut to drink. We were complete strangers, yet she acted like we are the best of friends. These situations happen all the time here and it blows me away each time.

I could go on about how much I love Ghana for a long time (and I actually do on my own blog www.MeganLambertGhana.blogspot.com), but I’ll talk about my research now. I’m studying female education in Ghana, focusing on the critical transition from junior high school to senior high school. Only one of four girls that start formal school end up finishing junior high school (8^th grade in America), and for that one girl that is lucky enough to finish JHS, her chances of attending high school are only abut 15%. My goal is to find out what factors affect her decision to attend high school, and what can be done to encourage other girls to as well. I really believe that educating females is the best ways that Ghana can improve. By giving half of their population an education, the business sector will double, health will improve, family planning will be more prevalent, domestic abuse will decrease, and a whole host of other benefits. The school I visited yesterday had a statue that summed it up well: “Educate women, educate the nation.”

My research is split into three parts. The first is to meet with officials in charge of public education. I’ve talked to the Minister of Tertiary Education, the district Minister of Education, and the regional Girls’ Education Officer, as well as gather all available statistics on the subject. This part was interesting but it was largely idealistic – what the government would like to see, rather than what is actually happening. To find out the reality, I went into rural villages and surveyed 200 primary students, 140 JHS students, and am currently surveying SHS students. With the help of a translator, I ask them about their career goals, educational path, and what problems they face in school. Yesterday I analyzed the data for primary and JHS and it was really exciting to see patterns emerge. Now I’m on the third part of my research, which involves one-to-one personal interviews with students where they can openly tell me about their experience with the educational system. This part is my favorite, since it gives the students a chance to speak and be heard in their own words. I’ll be doing interviews for the final two weeks and wrapping up my paper after that. I love learning about the educational system here. The students have so much to teach me, and each day I go into it with an open mind, not sure what I’ll find out but excited all the same. I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to learn and expand my mind like this; it’s definitely been an once-in-a-lifetime experience."

Wow where do I even begin? So much has happened since my last post.

I'll start with my weekend since it was incredible. Last week I had a bit of a low moment. I was doing laundry by hand after hauling buckets up and down the hill until my arms ached, and then individually scrubbing and ringing out each item. It took over four hours to do a small bag of laundry, and I was sweating in the beating sun. That was my grouchiest moment of the trip. I was thinking of how easy laundry would have been if I had stayed home and was really ready for some amenities.

Luckily the next morning we had plans to go to Accra, so we boarded to a Tro Tro and headed out. We got to Accra at around 9pm, and stayed at the hotel we had stayed when I first came in, the simple but bright and friendly one on the beach. It has the most beautiful view overlooking the ocean and you can hear the waves at night, and look at the stars. I was so happy to be there. I took a cold shower (almost running water -- there was a short tap in the wall to fill up a cup with) and felt like a new person. We had fresh veggie wraps and I called my family and I felt really happy to be in Ghana again.

The next day we had an appointment to meet with the Minister of Education for Ghana. I was a bit nervous, because this is the most senior person in all of Ghana for Education and I'm just a college kid. I wore a button down and some slacks and headed over. Unfortunately, she was not in the office and wouldn't be back until 11am. We went back to the hotel to check out, and at 11, we called the office to see if she was in. She wasn't. We ate lunch, then called again, and finally she was in the office. We walk two miles back again to the Ministry and sit in the waiting room. The waiting room was air-conditioned, which is the first time I have felt air-conditioning on this whole trip, and it added to the meeting's sense of importance. We waited and waited for over an hour before someone told us that she would be in a meeting until later that night, and since we couldn't wait that long, we had to leave. They showed us to another office and had us wait for an hour to meet with the Minister of Tertiary Education.

It was a bit frustrating, but as my dad said, "Welcome to Africa". Their sense of time and schedules here is so insanely different than ours in America that you can't do anything but go with it. It's funny, at home, if you are five minutes late to an official meeting, it looks really bad. In Ghana, if you are an hour late, no one bats an eye. It's normal even. I've been pretty good at just going with it though. Most times it's out of your control so no use fussing over it.

Anyway we eventually got to meet with the Minister of Tertiary Education and she was helpful, but also showed me how removed from reality the government is. She had all of these glowing reforms that the government has done or hopes to do for girls' education, but I've gone to the rural villages and talked to the primary students there and the glowing reforms are no where to be seen. It's weird how big the discrepancy is.

After the meeting, we met up the rest of the fellows who didn't go to Accra (only Casey, Lorenzo, Liz and I had meetings in Accra, the rest came later). It was great seeing everyone again; even though it had been less than 24 hours apart, it felt like a long time. I guess that's what happens when you spend nearly every minute of every day for two weeks together. We are all becoming super tight.

We took a TroTro (small, cramped van btw) to Hohoe which was an eight hour drive. It took forever getting out of Accra traffic. It may even be worse traffic than LA traffic, believe it or not. Finally we got to Hohoe at 11pm where another TroTro was waiting to take us to Wlia for the waterfalls. Tired and silly-looopy from being too long in the car, we boarded and drove. It felt like a horror movie -- it was midnight, winding through the jungle, with a car full of obrunis (white people) who have no idea where they are going. Oh man.

We finally got to the hotel and are looking around for what to do since there is no obvious front adminitration building or anything. Just little huts and an open-air pavilion. Out of the shadows comes a skinny, German lady with gray hair that looked like Albert Einstein. She is wearing a tie dye shirt and looks a lot like a meth head. She asks who our leader is and we all push Casey forward, since he's the one that made the travel plans. She starts ripping into him about getting there late, screaming at him for not calling her, yelling that this isn't a four star hotel, and that we are spoiled kids, and what is the world coming to, and threatening to kick us out into the jungle to fend for ourselves....it got pretty intense. Casey sometimes has a temper, so even-keeled Rob had to push him aside and discuss matters with her.

Finally we settle into our rooms, while she continues to grumble and mumble about us. At first I was pissed that she would talk to customers like that. But then I thought about it from her point of view -- she is the only one at the hotel. She does cooking, cleaning, and managing all by herself with one Ghanian and we pulled her out of her bed to settle us into her room. That wasn't that nice of us. So I can understand her anger, even if it was a bit disproportionate to what we did.

The next morning we got up early to hike the waterfalls. You have to pay for a guide (no one is allowed to hike it without a guide -- first red flag). We start along a wide winding dirt path and I'm like ha this is easy. Then we make a sharp right, and the guide starts handing out walking sticks, picking them out for us based on our height and build. Aron, the sassy one of the group, thinks, "what a cute novelty" when he sees the sticks. However, they don't turn out to be novelty -- they are absolutely necessary. We spend the next three hours climbing straight up a cliff. It's 95 degrees out and I'm breathing like mad. I don't think I've ever sweat that much. I joked that my body was the waterfall.

We keep climbing and climbing, splitting up a bit as some people go faster and some go slower. At one point I hear shrieks and the guide says, "listen! some of your group is already there!" I don't know whether the shrieks are happy or scared and they sound a bit like a wild monkey so I hurry up. After a few more minutes, I walk into a clearing, and see the most beautiful natural sight I have ever seen. A wide, shallow pool has collected at the bottom of the most enormous waterfall imaginable. It's not gently cascading over rocks -- it's shooting off the top of a cliff and raining down, at least 60 feet of airborn water. I strip off my sweaty, dirty clothes (I'm wearing a bathing suit), and run straight into the water. Some of my group is already there, standing on a clump of rocks, about five feet from the base of the waterfall. I join them and look up, arms outstretched. All around me was water pouring down and i could barely see with all the water on my face. It was so beautiful. I don't even know why, but it made me incredibly happy.

We splashed around and played in the water for an hour, until little Liz's lips where purple, even though she was bundled in the boy's clothes. There was a strong breeze coming off the fall and the water was cold, so we all got a bit chilly and decided to hike back down. It was a long hike down, but my body felt less hot and we (Lane, Divya, Lorenzo, and I) played 21 Questions on the way down.

That night we had a party in our hotel rooms, all hanging out together. I brought out my friendship bracelet thread at one point and we started making bracelets for each other. Lane made me a red, yellow, and green one (the colors of Ghana), that I told her I will wear until it falls off.

Sunday we headed home. It was a very very long TroTro ride (like 12 hours) and I was on the make-shift seat that was 80% broken so it wasn't that comfy. It's okay though. We got home, and settled back in.

Today has already been interesting. It was my first day setting off alone, with no other fellows with me. I was happy to have a bit of time alone to relax and think. I walked to the Asuansi Tech School to ask if I could interview the students for my project. I got bounced around from office to office finally settling on Mr. Fin the counselor (a bit like Margo's job!) and Rebecca, the lady in charge of the female students. She told me that the girls were all in class right now but that tonight was their session. I guess she holds weekly discussions with the girls (there are only 81 girls out of 1,200 students in the school) to discuss self-esteem, career, health, etc. A bit like WYSE. She welcomed me to attend tonight and to talk to the girls then. I'm stoked to do that, I think it will be really beneficial. She also gave me a whole handbook on female education in Ghana, with what the nation, regional, district, and local officials are doing to help more girls attend. It's everything I need to know for my essay, in one handbook, and I couldn't believe my luck. I'm having it photo-copied right now while I type this. It was very helpful.

So now I am headed to meet the other fellows for lunch in Cape Coast at our favorite vegetarian restaurant, Babao House. It's become kind of our central hub in Cape Coast. They have delicious fresh salads and veggie pizzas, which is a nice break from rice and oil-laden meat (that's yummy too, just nice to have a change). So Casey and I are headed there now.

Living Rugged, Creepy Critters, and My Plan for the Week

I had the worst dream last night. I dreamed that it was my fifth birthday but everyone had forgotten about it, so I threw a tantrum. Margo led me outside to where she and David were sitting. Suddenly I was all grown up in the dream, and Margo explained that we were moving to Ghana to live in Asuansi because my dad has cancer and he wants to die there. I woke up when she said that. Isn't that an awful dream?

I really want to talk to my family but the power has been off for the last four days so every electronic is dead. I'm posting this from an internet cafe in Cape Coast. It's been a struggle to deal without my phone, laptop, iPod, camera, or Kindle but also makes me realize how much we depend on electronics. All of us kids had Sunday off to relax but there was lightening and rain outside, and being indoors without electronics, we didn't really even know what to do. We read books and played card games and took a nap. I made pudding for everyone with some instant milk we found in the pantry. It may have been the first time I've been bored in two years, and I actually kind of enjoyed being bored. What a novel feeling haha.

Today I had an appointment with the Minister of Girls' Education at 9am, so I woke up early for it, but when I got there, it turns out she wasn't in. I went up to the Statistics Office and got lots of great statistics on education, so that was helpful. Their statistics are kind of funky though -- like they don't even really know how many people live in the district. I guess with so many people living in mud huts, in the jungle, eating what they grow and not going into town often, it may be hard to get an accurate population count. That and the crazy numbers of babies born every year. Seriously, like families are enormous here. There are babies running around everywhere you look. Sooo cute. So anyway, after I talked to the Statistics office, I stayed around waiting for the Minister of Girls' Education and waited for Lorenzo to finish with his meeting. The Minister never showed up so we left. Now I'm in Cape Coast to print out my surveys, photocopy them, and exchange money (and update my blog :).

We had the best food for dinner last night -- spicy beans and plantains. Then this morning we ate mango, pineapple, oatmeal, and fried plantains. I'm getting used to the food here and really actually enjoying it. Especially the fresh fruit. Nothing compares to the mangos and pineapples. We are all starting to crave home food though too. My small supply of peanut butter M&Ms from home are in hot demand -- Lorenzo offered to trade his snickers he bought today for 3 peanut butter M& Ms. We also all want coffee (especially me...Starbucks sounds so nice) and some of the boys want steak. For Liz's birthday Saturday, the girls all brought out their secret stash of chocolate from home and we had a chocolate party trying each others' different types of chocolate. The winner (according to me) was a salted toffee milk chocolate bar. Mm. They sell milk chocolate here but it's different, it's powdery and dry, with much less milk, so that it won't melt in the heat. Not the best.

I saw the biggest spider of my life yesterday. It was a solid three inches long and thick too, not a spindly Daddy-Long-Leg. It only had six legs which was weird. The boys wanted to leave it on the wall to catch mosquitos, but I said there was no way I'm sharing a house with that monster. We currently have a smaller spider living with us, only about two inches long, that rests of the handrail so it's pretty startling when you realize all of the sudden it's right next to your hand (eekk!). Also on the critter trail --- we've had a large lizard living in one of our toilets for a few days now. We were hoping that it would go away on it's own, so we didn't have to kill it, but it didn't. Isabel, who grew up in the Amazon in Colombia, was horrorified that we wanted to pour water on it to push it down the pipes, so she grabbed a plastic bag and scooped it into it, then released it outside. What a bad-ass. Other than that the critters are okay. Everyone's bed bug bites are healing and we've left our clothes outside in the sun to kill any eggs that may be in them. Wow this is a disgusting post, sorry. Let's talk about something else.

This week will be super busy. Tomorrow I am visiting two schools to do surveys, hopefully. I go to the schools with two British people, Matt and Cyndel, but I guess Cyndel got malaria over the weekend so I'm not sure if we will make it to the school tomorrow. Hopefully we can. I compiled all my data so far and am excited to do more. I wish I had brought my statistics book though because I'm not sure what statistics tests to run, and since I don't have SPSS or any stats programming on my laptop, I'll have to do everything by hand. Whew! It will be fun. Wednesday I am working on my essay in the morning, and visiting the primary school in the afternoon. After doing a bit of research, I plan to just play with the babies with Comfort, a nice woman I met in the Tro Tro. She runs the nursery at the school and said that I can come help out for a couple of hours Wednesday, which would be really fun. Thursday I am either going to more schools with Matt and Cyndel, or traveling to the Volta region. I really want to visit the FAWE compound, which is one of the premiere NGOs working on female education. Since it's on the way to the Volta region, I'm hoping that I can make a stop there, even if I have to go on my own for a day or so. It would be really cool. Then this weekend we are going to visit the waterfalls near Hohoe, which are supposed to be legendary. It's an all-day hike through the jungle, but at the end you can swim in the clean pools and splashing near the waterfalls. I can't wait.

That's it for now. I'm off to lunch at my favorite vegetarian place (Baboa House) in Cape Coast for a veggie pizza..mm :) More later

Finally, an update!

Wow so we have been having the toughest time getting internet here so I haven't been able to update my blog the way I was hoping. Darn! So I may only post a few times while in Ghana, but I'm keeping a journal for the memories.

Where to start......first off, I LOVE it here. I am so happy to be here. I'm learning a lot, both about Ghana and about myself. It's much more rugged than anywhere I've ever been. We shower with a bucket and there is no running water for the bathroom. Plus there are bugs literally everywhere including giant three inch long spiders. And it's really hot here so I'm getting used to being sweaty all the time. But those are the only negatives I can think of.

The positives are many, starting with my travel companions. The other fellows are amazing; we have the best group chemistry. I really enjoy hanging out with all of them, and we vibe well together. There are four guys and five girls, with most of us from USC but some from the East Coast as well. Ghana time moves very slowly here, so there is a lot of time that we spend chatting or playing games together while we wait for an appointment or for the Tro-Tro (which really deserves it's own post). I think these people are going to still be really close friends when I get back.

As for the research, it is going so incredibly well and I can't wait to see what comes out of it. I created surveys for primary school students, junior secondary, and senior secondary, as well as a survey for their teachers. I found a photocopy place in Asebu (which means a family owns a 20-year old photo copier in their mud hut that you can print on), and got a bunch of surveys printed. Then I went with some new friends from England I had met earlier to the school with them. They, along with their translator Antony, teaches HIV prevention programs to kids. I tagged along with them on a school visit and Antony helped me find girls to take my survey. By the end of the first day I had 80 surveys completed! I had gone into it hoping for 5-10. Woo hoo! That was really exciting.

I'm going next week to administer more surveys, and then the week after that I'm going to do narrative taped interviews with students about their educational experience. That way I have both numbers from the surveys and personal stories for a more complete picture.

It's so exciting to be doing research, I feel really grown up, and it's fascinating to see what I can learn from the students. The girls were so sweet taking my survey, they really wanted to do the right thing and smiled so broadly when I said they did a good job.

I can't even believe how friendly the people are here and how willing to help you they are. I met this woman named Patience in town and with-in 2 minutes of speaking, she invited me to visit her house. Once there, she introduced me to her whole family, and took me on a cool two hour tour of her family's farm, all the while piling up my arms with free fruits and vegetables to try. She had her cousin shimmy up a 40 foot palm tree to cut down a coconut for me and we drank the juice together. She showed me how the woman made Casab (I think that's how you spell it) and palm oil by squeezing the palm nuts. Here she is a perfect stranger, and she took the time out of her day just to entertain us. It was so sweet.

We are staying in a small village with less than 1,000 people so the people all recognize (also we are the only white people for like a 15 mile radius, so we stand out to say the least) us when we come into the village and yell out "Welcome home!" It feels so nice to be accepted into the village. They call us "obruni" meaning white person and the children follow us around everywhere. I feel like a cross between a celebrity and a zoo animal. When I did laundry outside on morning, kids on the way to school stopped to watch the strange obruni doing her own laundry. It's a bit strange to be stared at all the time, but it's not often hostile stares (never actually), only curious. Some of the babies cry when they see us, because they get scared since they haven't seen a white person and the village women all laugh when that happens. The men here can get pretty pushy though, yelling that they love you and want to marry you, or just overtly staring at your body. To avoid weird situations, the female fellows all chose a male fellow to be our "fake husbands" in case people ask where our husbands are.

The dynamics between men and women here is very bizarre. The women do all of the work, both cooking, cleaning, farming, and taking care of the babies. Often you will see a woman with a huge bowl of something perched on her head, a baby strapped to her back, and something she's working on in her hands. They are amazing like that. The men on the other hand, you often see sitting around talking together, huddled around a small TV, or occasionally farming. Our Ghanian friend, Elvis, told us that's the way it works a lot of time, even though it's not fair to the women. He believes that the way to end domestic violence, inequality, and a whole host of other problems is to empower the woman economically. He's created this program (along with like 20 others, he's incredible) where he donates a goat to a woman that she can use for her livelihood, and when a calf is born, she donates it to another woman. He also explained that the key to economic empowerment begins with education. An educated woman will have a better job, and will be in a better position to stand up to a man if he tries to force her into marriage or rape or abuses her. It makes a lot of sense to me. He explained that the main reason girls don't often attend secondary school is because they don't believe that they will be able to do anything. They reason that they will become a housewife anyway, so they drop out and get pregnant as teenagers. Also parents are less willing to support a girl in her education than a boy; they need her to help out on the farm and with the other babies, so they prefer to send a son to school. It seems to be a cultural mindset, in addition to extreme poverty, that contribute to the low female secondary education rate. Of course, I'll have a much clearer idea once I finish my research.

Okay, let's see, what else. The food is good here, especially the fruit. Fresh pineapple, mango, and bananas are available everywhere for like 15 cents max. We've been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly for lunch and breakfast to save money so I'm pretty bored of that, but the dinner that the Asuansi Farm cooks for us is often good. My favorite is the peanut soup with rice balls and chicken, as well as the vegetable stew, rice, and chicken.

Oh also, I don't think I have ever looked as unattractive as I do now. I'm like all sweaty, no make-up, and REI clothing (although my REI pants are the best invention ever!! I wish I could wear them all the time). The pictures from this trip may never make it up on facebook, but I have to say, it's kind of fun to go totally natural for a while. No hair styling, no make up, wearing whatever I want (but yes, I am shaving my legs still -- not ready to go that natural haha). 

We are doing a lot of traveling on this trip. Each weekend we are headed to a different city so we can see everything Ghana has to offer. Right now I am in Kumasi, a city about five hours north of Cape Coast. We are visiting here for a few days to meet with a professor about research and to explore the city. It's a busting city, I have never been somewhere that felt so full of life and activity (at times too much so). Everywhere you look is packed with people mingling, trying to get somewhere. We went to the market yesterday which was extremely chaotic. Picture a square mile of stalls, only a foot and a half apart, packed to the brim with Ghanians. None of us could handle it for more than an hour, but it was cool for that hour. I bought some pretty handmade fabric that I am going to get made into a dress. Most of the clothes here are hand-made by a tailor, so you just bring in fabric and they measure you and do the rest. Isn't that cool? Couture African dress. Haha.

Well I'm getting kicked off the internet now (we are at an Internet Cafe), so I'll have to post more. I have so many stories to share, but they will have to wait.

Lots of love,

Megan