ghana, you so crazy...crazy awesome!

Ha, so last week after I left the internet, I found the whole first season of True Blood on DVD for 2 cedi, 50 pesawa (roughly $1.80!) on the street in Koforidua...and it works!!! And today on my walk to the internet cafe I found season 2 and 3!!!!!  3 is playing right now on HBO in the U.S....so I hope these seasons work too...thank you Ghana for supplying PCV's with kick ass, up-to-date, cheap, pirated shows.  You have made my cranky heart sing!!!!! 
So last week when I left Koforidua the taxi I was in hit a goat between Old Tafo and Maase (the village I homestay in). It was completely the goat’s fault, he turned right into us, but it still made me freak out. The others in the taxi thought it was hilarious, including Nivole, another trainee, who was cackling hysterically at my disgust. I turned around and the poor thing was tumbling down the road backwards…the driver didn’t stop, so I don’t know what happened to it. But I will count myself lucky, as one of the PCT’s was in a taxi yesterday that hit a goat (it was ok), saw a big truck hit a sheep yesterday (the sheep exploded and people ran to get the meat), and then this morning her taxi hit a chicken (it also was ok). Craziness.

Oh yea, our taxi got a flat tire this morning on the way into Old Tafo...first car I've ever been in when the tire popped. Check that one off the list.....

The only other item of interest is that Friday night we had to do an AIDS/HIV presentation. So TK, David and I did ours at the Methodist Church in Maase…where my homestay father preaches. So we don’t know what age group would show up, who really knew about it, and we really didn’t know what to do. There are AIDS kits with games and stuff in them…but that’s about as far as our training goes. It went fairly well. We had about 50 people by the end. A group of older women, some teenage kids and only a couple of grown men…one of whom was my homestay father. We played some interactive games and then asked for questions. One of the older ladies asked about condoms breaking, then she stated that some men are very big, and wouldn’t the condom break? Of course this all goes through an interpreter; so the church bursts into laughter/giggles and we (the presenters) are like, oh shit, what did she ask? As you all know, I’m a hand talker anyway, but also to help bridge the language gap (Twi) I just said, “Oh, they stretch. It can be this big (two fingers about an inch apart) or THIS BIG (hands about 3 feet apart)!” The old ladies rolled. What else can you do? So, 2 condom questions in a row…and we were not supposed to do a condom demonstration since we were in church and it preaches abstinence. Yes we actually do have wooden penises (A-yours is better!!!) that we put condoms on, but we were not supposed to show condoms in the church. After 2 condom questions, one of the other presenters yanks out a condom and goes, “This is a condom!!” Me and the other guy start cracking up. Anyway. The whole experience was pretty good. It’s hard to do a presentation and have to wait for everything to be translated…it makes you lose your train of thought and it’s hard to keep your energy/excitement up to entertain the crowd. Oh well.

So, that’s about all that happened this week…pretty bland. Oh I PASSED MY EWE TEST!!!!! I am happy. We swear in on Thursday and I will be a full fledge Peace Corps Volunteer.   It'll probably be a couple weeks before I post again as I'll be travelling to my site and stuff next weekend and then getting it set up...sooo next post should have some good info and pics.

Love ya,

j