Working things

In case you didn't know yet, I have a job! I am working at the Burnsley All-Suite Hotel in downtown Denver. I work the front desk as well as an occasional shift as a bell hop. At the front desk I check guests in and out as well as taking room service orders, making reservations, chatting with people who walk by, and being an all around resource person for guests (including being a concierge). As the bell hop, my duties include driving guests around in our complimentary shuttle and delivering room service orders. I really love my job. It's currently only part time, but I am hoping for it to become a full time job in the next few months, and that is a strong possibility.

I also held an internship for the last two weeks, but that's over now...let me tell you the story. I got this internship at the Colorado Division of Housing. I am looking at urban planning as a possibility of where I want to go next in my life. The Colorado Division of Housing does not do urban planning specifically, but since they are involved in the urban development field and I have a friend who works there, I thought I would give it a shot. Unfortunately, the internship was not working out very well - the conditions were frustrating in that there was not enough space in the office for me to have a desk/computer/phone on a regular basis (they started hiring right after I started), and, although things were starting to improve in terms of my discovering what exactly I was supposed to be doing there, it was overall a difficult situation. I was dreading going in everyday and felt that it could not continue in that vein. Luckily, my supervisor recognized the frustrations and realized that at this time it was not feasible for me to be in an internship that I was not benefitting from. He realzied this without my having to bring it up, which was really nice for me! I got out of a frustrating situation and saved face! He said he may call in 2-3 weeks if he can get a work station set up for me, but if the hotel job does give me more hours then I will not be accepting the offer. We'll just have to see what happens if and when the offer comes again. I would still like to consider urban planning, but there must be a better way to go about it...

Oh, and p.s., the engagements continue! My sister Sara and her fiancee John will be getting married on August 15, my friends Sarah and Joey will be getting married October 3, and my friends Jeremy and Laura are not far behind! Congrats to all of these couples on your engagements!

Next Steps

Just because I'm done with my semester in Ghana, it doesn't mean this blog has to end. The title of my blog (not all those who wander are lost) refers to a journey. I am still on a journey, though it's no longer happening in Africa. One of my new life mottos: Life is a journey, not a destination. It makes it much easier to deal with the fact that I don't know exactly what I want to do or where I want to live for the rest of my life.

So what does my life consist of right now? Well, I am currently living in Denver, Colorado. My sister who owns a house out here was nice enough to offer me cheap rent as I am still looking for a form of employment. I would love to find some sort of urban planning or community development job, but am flexible as to what form that job will take. In fact, I am also applying for retail jobs that offer benefits and would love to spend time volunteering doing something I really enjoy. That seems to be the most likely way to get involved in this field with the economy where it currently stands...

I have been in Denver for 2 weeks now, and have taken the time to get to know myself a bit more (I watch more tv when I'm bored and lonely than I ever thought I would), getting to know the city and state better, and meeting people at church. I went snowshoeing for the first time yesterday with my sister and her boyfriend, and really enjoyed that though I am a bit sore today! I have also really jumped into life at City Presbyterian Church here in Denver, already attending a few church events! I am glad I have found a community there already, because I am missing my community in Grand Rapids quite a lot. Thanks to my friend Sarah, who is also leaving Grand Rapids right now, I am starting to remember the value I originally saw in moving away as well - getting some new life experience. And just because I moved away now doesn't mean I'll never move back!

end of the semester?!?

Though I still have just under a month left on this side of the Atlantic, I know that it's gonna fly! It's even stranger, because I am going to be done with classes (and thus with my college career!) as of next week Wednesday! (or Friday...depends on when I finish the final paper, but I'm shooting to be done BEFORE Thanksgiving! So what will the last 3 weeks here contain? So much fun! We are doing some traveling before we are done here. We have two more trips with our group - one to Kumasi and a final trip to the Akrofi-Christaller Institute, the bible college in Ghana that we've visited twice already. That's always a fun trip because the people there are amazing and the accommodations are fabulous! In between these trips we have just over a week of free travel. I am going with 3 other girls, Elisabeth Risch, Katie Sytsema, and Steph Lasota, to Togo! We are going to stay with a pastor-friend of the family of Elisabeth's family in the capital of Togo, Lome, for a few days. We will also spend some time on the beach perfecting our tans before we return home and some time hiking and seeing beautiful things like butterflies and waterfalls. All in all, it will be a great end to a fabulous trip! Suffice to say, internet access may be lacking from here on out... at least after next week... so I'm not sure when more updates will come. I love you all, and if you're in GR I hope to see you December 19 or around New Years, and if you're in Chicago, I hope to see you December 22, and if you're some where else, then get to a place I can see you, oK?

The Volta Region

It seems that all I have posted about recently have been the trips we’ve been on, but they are definitely the most interesting things that are going on! Being in school and our life here has become routine. Not to say that it’s boring (no way!) but finding new things to describe in a blog becomes difficult when it’s all so normal to me. So, I will talk about the trip we took this weekend. We were actually only gone Thursday and Friday, and Saturday became a day to catch up on homework and organize pictures and write this! We took off Thursday morning and drove to a fishing village on Lake Volta (which, at the time it was made in 1960, was the largest man-made lake in the world). The water is inundating this village because the lake is rising right now. It’s causing a lot of problems for the people who live here. Many of them only moved into the village when the lake was created. The lake was created by the building of the Akosombo Dam, and people who had previously lived along the Volta River had to be relocated. The people in this village had been relocated and were finding life difficult. Their main occupation is fishing, but the fish supplies are very low. The dam has hurt the livelihood of these people as well as the environment they lived in. Most people in Ghana and especially the government have ignored these negative effects of the dam that provides much of the electricity for the country. Next we visited a village where they weave Kente and saw those weavers in action. If you don’t know what Kente is, do a Google Image search for it. I’m sure you will see the bright and beautiful patterns that characterize Kente cloth. We stayed in a hotel in the town of Ho, the capital of the Volta Region. I had the best banku that I’ve had yet in Ghana! It is a meal of crushed yam and cassava. I had it with groundnut soup, which is like a peanut soup. It was delicious! I ate it at a chop bar, which is a little “restaurant” that serves local dishes for very cheap prices.
Friday we went to Wli falls, the highest waterfall in Ghana. We went only to the lower falls, but the walk and the falls were BEAUTIFUL! There were so many various butterflies I saw on our 45 minute walk to the falls. The enormity of the water cascading down was overwhelming; the spray misting our bodies was cool and refreshing. Afterwards we had delicious club sandwiches and then stopped by a monkey sanctuary on our way back to Accra. The monkeys would peel and then eat the bananas we would hold in our hands. Unfortunately I never got to try it, but it was really cool to see other people do it!

The North

Two weeks ago we spent in the North – the major reason why I have not posted anything in the past 2 weeks. I’ve been meaning to post since I returned, but internet time has been coopted by reading (for fun and for class), playing a computer game my roommate got me addicted to, going to visit a chief’s house for farmer’s day, going to Makola Market in Accra to buy fabric and going to the Bush Canteen on campus to get clothes custom made :) Yesterday I took a picture that would be my new facebook profile pic if I could ever get a picture loaded – it’s me in a dress I had made here, with my hair braided (I now have brown extensions and I like it! I’ve never been a brunette before!), drinking fresh coconut milk out of a coconut! You can all see this picture once I get back to the States and have an internet connection that can handle loading pictures.

The time in the North was great. We spent a lot of time looking at NGOs and the work they do in Ghana. We visited CRS (Catholic Relief Services), World Vision, and a few locally-run NGOs as well. They are going great work in Ghana! We also toured the wildlife of Ghana. We went up to Paga and saw the sacred crocodiles who never eat people…so we sat on them and took pictures and sacrificed two chickens to them. We also went to Mole National Park where you’re supposed to be able to see elephants, but since it is mating season none of them were around :( We did encounter our share of wildlife in the bugs in our room – I was glad I had a mosquito net! We spent a ton of time in the North in our bus. The North is quite a ways from Accra – we rode 12 hours to get there. It’s not that it’s as far away as Florida is from Chicago, but the roads are not as good. Swerving around potholes and going through police checkpoints is not conducive to the 79 mph I’m used to going on the interstates in the States. The long dirt road to Mole made a few of our group members get carsick. I’m so glad I don’t suffer with that! The best part was pulling over into the bush grasses every time someone needed to pee. It was easier (and cleaner) than most of the urinals (i.e. hole in the wall – literally – is often the bathroom at gas stations and the like) we found otherwise!

Snapshots of Ghana

1. So there is this red dirt here. It’s all over everything. I think my feet are really tan, until i take a shower and realize that half of my chaco tan came simply from dirt. :( When it rains and there are mud puddles, the mud ends up all over my legs, and it doesn’t come off unless you scrub at it with a wash rag!

2. The sky here is absolutely beautiful. The season is changing (from wet to dry) and the harmattan winds are coming in. Thus every evening, along with a sunset, are these huge clouds moving super fast across the sky in these heavy winds. It really is a beautiful sight to behold.

3. My roommate gets up around 6 every morning which, for those of you who know me, is far too early for me! She goes to bed between 10:30 and 11:30 generally (which is usually fine by me – I’m usually wiped out and ready for an early bedtime!) but then is up at 6 without an alarm. In fact, the sun rises at 6 and the campus really wakes up then! There seems to be free reign to be loud once the sun comes up. One morning there was even a preacher in the parking lot with a bullhorn at 5:50 am! That was awful! And I used to think that a 9 am class was too early… Luckily, when I am woken up, I can usually go right back to sleep.

4. Mornings here make me happy, especially if I don’t have class till 10:30. Take last week Wednesday for example… I got up at 7 because my roommate was around that morning. I was able to take it slow, so I sad on my bed with my computer and played a computer game my roommate gave me, did some of my reading for my democracy class, drank a cup of French press coffee (which I brought with me so I could have real coffee every morning – otherwise they only have instant here, though there is a coffee shop in the mall which I got iced coffee at last week!) and ate cornflakes. I took a cold shower (no hot water heaters here) and then had to head to class. I stopped by the market on my way to class and bought a banana (you know, because they’re grown locally here. I actually saw banana trees when I was in Aburi!) Most mornings, when I don’t have as much free time in the morning, I buy and egg sandwich at the market for breakfast. They fry an egg and mix in some chopped veggies, then put it on bread (either brown bread or sweet bread are my favorites). And of course, I remember to take my anti-malarial pill every morning with breakfast. Usually I take a bag of water with me to class - yes, I love that I drink water out of 500 mL bags!

5. I just texted Dr. Patterson, my Calvin professor here. I love life in Ghana :)

Just a little taste of some of my daily schedule/life. In some ways very unique from my life in the States, but so fabulous!

Odwira

This weekend we went to the Odwira Festival in Akropong. I could not do this festival justice in a simple blog post. It is a festival in which they celebrate the New Year, the harvest of yams, a remembrance of the dead, a purification of the town, and a battle that was won sometime in the 1820s. The festival itself is a glorious mix of the traditional with the modern; simply another example of how tradition is not a static thing in Ghanaian culture, but rather something that changes and grows with the times. Things are not preserved for the sake of the tourists or for the sake of "history", but life and tradition are lived today, in a way that is best for those living today.
An interesting side note: a part of the festival is the Durbar, a time for the chiefs to tell their people of their town what has been done in the past year and what will be done in the coming year. Nowadays, with the democratic political system alongside the traditional chieftain system, the political leaders are also invited to join in the Durbar. Thus, we got to see the man running for president for the NPP party, Nana Akufo-Addo! In the states, he would be comparable with John McCain because his party is currently in power. The elections will be held here in Ghana in December, one month after the US elections. It has made studying politics here this semester that much more interesting!