One Month Anniversary: Part 2: Torgome and Community Service

This Friday I visited the West African AIDS Foundation to find out about the community service opportunities there, and I'm really excited about getting involved in their program as well. There is so much to do there, whether it be HIV testing, counseling, home-based care, child care, outreach, education, the list goes on and on, and the staff there is willing to train us in whatever we're interested in helping out with. I am really interested in the outreach program there, where they go out into the communities and do HIV testing and provide counseling. I am going to ask to be trained as a counselor, where I will get to speak to patients for 30-45 minutes, about whatever they want to talk about, and talk to them about HIV testing and treatment options, and so forth. I know it will be very intense, but I really feel like I can make a difference here. I really want to do it all, but I can really only dedicate Fridays at this point, which is annoying because community service is really why I came here. But I have full days of class Tuesday and Thursday, and I need Wednesday afternoon to develop film for photo, and Monday afternoon for "Flockstaff Mondays," so one day a week will have to do for now.

On Saturday morning, we rose bright and early and climbed aboard a tour bus headed for Torgome, a rural village about an hour and a half outside of Accra. When we arrived, a group of young children greeted us warmly as we exited the tour bus. The local dialect spoken in Torgome is Ewe, so the few Tri words we knew were of little use, but we did learn "Wazoola," meaning "Welcome" and "A-pay," meaning "Thank you." And if you don't know how to respond to something, simply answer "Yoooo," which doesn't have a direct translation, but pretty much covers all bases. The Torgome village had organized an entire program for us. We took our seats and local children wearing white grass skirts and adorned in red and blue and white body paint performed a dance.



We then filed in line to shake hands and exchange greetings with the Torgome chief and elders. It is important to remember that when in the presence of a tribal chief, you always sit with legs un-crossed, because crossed legs are a sign of disrespect. And when shaking hands, you shake right hands, and place your left hand on other side of his right, almost as if you are holding his right hand with both hands. This was followed by the chief's welcome speech, which was read by the chief's linguist, because the chief never directly speaks to the public. Then Christa and Esi, two of the NYU in Ghana staff, presented a box of school supplies that our group had compiled as a gift to the Torgome community. This was followed by more dancing and a drill performance by the village's scout group. Then they conducted a naming ceremony, in which we each received a pot with our village name, based on the day of the week we were born. My name is Delali, which means, "Our Savior is Alive."



After the naming ceremony, our group split off into three different groups to learn about three different trades in the village - either pottery making, weaving, or fishing. I chose to do pottery making, which was really interesting. It's all done by hand - sans pottery wheel - and it's so much harder than it looks! The ladies we were working with were so patient with us all - mine especially. While some people ended up having the pots made for them, the lady I was working with would show me how to do a certain step, wait while I tried it out, and show me again and again until I understood and could do it on my own. After pottery making we walked with hundreds of kids to the river to watch the group that was fishing.



Then we returned to the central area and danced and made friends until it was time to get back on the tour bus. The whole community gathered by the bus to see us off and wave goodbye.



The bus drove a little further to the Shai Hills, home to babboons! We stopped for lunch, and then trekked through the reserve for some babboon sighting.



The bus was unable to take us through because it had been raining and we didn't want to risk it getting stuck in the mud. Our guide said that those who brought proper walking shoes could trek further to see the caves at the top of the hill. Of course, all I had were my flip flops, but that didn't stop me. Most of us were without tennis shoes, but we trekked on through, muddy sandals and all!



When we got to the base of the hill we needed to climb to see the caves, it was too steep for shoes any more, so we trekked it barefoot! And it was SO WORTH IT! The view from the top of the hill was absolutely breath-taking, and the caves at the end of our trek were simply phenomenal!



With dirty feet and full camera memory cards, we returned to the tour buses way past schedule. But we're on Ghanaian time here, so it's all relative.

The rest of this weekend has been very chill. I intended to go to Jamestown today in hopes of meeting the Theatre for a Change community there and getting more involved with the program, but instead woke up and made "Happy Anniversary" brunch with the girls in my house. I'm kind of nervous as to whether this community service opportunity will work out, because what they really need right now is help with fundraising, and while I'm always more than happy to help, I really want to do something more hands-on, like doing theatre with the kids. The only issue is, I've learned that most of the kids in the James Town community do not speak English. And while I am more than ready to become more fluent in Twi and Ga, the fact remains that it will be very difficult to teach theatre when I have yet to speak the language. I'm still going to take a chance and try it out though, because that's just how you do things here. And with one month down, and only three to go, I don't want to miss out on anything!