Greetings from Techiman

Hello Everyone,

Everything here is going really well. I moved into my home stay on Wednesday and my family is extremely nice.
I am really lucky because I just so happen to get placed in the house of the Queen Mother, who is essentially the
female version of the Chief. She serves as the counselor to the women in the village. Because of this, I live in the
center of town in what has been named that palace and I have a flushing toilet, a shower, and intermittent electricity.
This is extremely rare. Both of my parents are teachers and also speak English. On top of that, my Dad teaches Twi, which is the language I will be learning, so he has been helping me a lot. I am worried however that
my Mom thinks I don't like her cooking. I generally only eat about 1/19th of the portions she gives me because the food
here is so starchy. The good news is that the food is never wasted and the kids eat what I don't finish.
I also learned that Ghana is matrilineal in the south and patrilineal in the north. Because my household operates under a system of matriarchy,there exists no aunts, uncles, or cousins for children through their mothers line. Only moms, brothers, and sisters. Each person has many of each.

I play with the kids a lot at night. I can't even begin to tell you how cute they are!! They only have seven playing cards,
but we played with them counting over and over for hours the other night. I am always awed at how well children can learn to
have fun with so little material possessions. I think I am going to bring out my deck of cards tonight and give them to the
kids so I can teach them how to count higher. We have also been using chalk to go through the ABC's and to spell their names
in English.

That brings me to my next topic of discussion. We found out our site placements and I AM SOOOOO EXCITED. So I am going
to be living in the Eastern Region, only about 2 hours from Accra and about 3 hours from the beach. THIS MEANS YOU CAN
COME VISIT ME VERY EASILY. On top of that I am moving into a site which has previously been used by other volunteers,
(although they were environment ),which means that I am moving into a fully furnished house. I have two bedrooms,
both with beds (YET ANOTHER REASON TO COME VISIT!!!), a bureau, shelves, a gas stove, a living room with a couch and chairs
and a desk. I don't have electricity but the volunteer before me bought solar lanterns so I do have light for about four
hours every single night. I am going to give some of my move in allowance to the previous volunteer who left all of her
stuff for me (she extended a year and now lives in the Tamale Sub-office) and then I am going to use the rest to buy a pump
sowing machine so I can pay a seamstress in the village to teach me how to make all of my own clothes.
I also have a bucket flush toilet, meaning you use a bucket to send the water through (which is way nicer than a whole),
and cell service is near bye. My closest neighbor is a PCV named Evan, figures!!! (this is a reference that only some will get)

My village has 2350 people, 596 men, 954 women, and 954 youth. It is made up of the three major ethnic groups including the
Akan, Ewe, and Muslim. The major religions are Christianity and Islam. I may attend church or mass to hang with those in the
community, however church here is 2 and 1/2 hours long so that may not actually go down so well. Religion here is huge. Almost every
store is named something with religious meaning such as God Loves You Electronics, etc.

On top of all of that, I live 4 km from the Oda Big Tree, THE LARGEST TREE IN WEST AFRICA and also a waterfall and natural
swimming pool, which is safe to swim in all year. I also live near the biggest bead market in all of Ghana and I am not going
to lie that makes me pretty happy.

In addition, I am so pleased with the work that I will be doing. The program I am entering focuses on family planning, antenatal
care, old age, disabled, postnatal care, and minor ailments. My job is to develop community outreach programs ( e.g. Queen Mother
Youth Group and/or school youth group); assist with education (e.g. HIV/AIDS, sanitation), and support sanitation initiatives.
I honestly think it sounds perfect for me and am sort of glad that I will be doing something I am familiar, as opposed to fighting
the Guinea worm for instance.

I am learning Twi (which is pronounced Tree), which is the widest used language in Ghana. Most folks learn some Twi and then another language, however they
speak Twi in my village. All of the current PCV trainers and the native Ghanaians are wonderful. My language teacher Moses has
worked for the Peace Corps since the 1970's. He decided to do so because he was taught by Peace Corps volunteers in his village when
he was young. He told us that most people would not give up the comforts of life to live without electricity and running water and
because of this he wants to give back to those who sacrifice to help his country. Many people that I have run into in Ghana thank
me for coming to help their country and then tell me about how a Peace Corps Volunteer changed their lives and helped them, it is always
very touching and rewarding.

I am a little sick now but not bad. I have some stomach issues (to be expected), a cold, and a weird foot thing that I won't go into detail
about cause it's gross. All in all pretty good.

I miss everyone very much. I just got a cell-phone today and I will send you the number and such in a few weeks. I am going to try to email a few times
a month at least, but an hour cost 12,000 cedi (a little over 1 US dollar) which is more than half a days pay during training,
so I have to be careful.

I suppose that's all for now.

Much love,
Alexis