independence and protection on the river volta

Now that I've been in Ghana for over a week, I finally felt like I earned my weekend. Jeong, Linden, Josie and I headed northeast of Accra to Atimpoku, just south of Akosombo where the dam that created Lake Volta and provides all the energy for the region is. The river itself is quite wide and calm. We rented a canoe for an hour or so from one of the waterside hotels and paddled around, enjoying the beautiful valley and the nicest weather I've experienced so far in Ghana. We were accompanied by Georgie, a former child soldier whom Jeong is pretty good friends with. There were certainly many benefits of having Georgie with us. He understands some Twi, one of the most popular languages in Ghana, which helped with communication. He was able to explain to us many of the food dishes that we were unfamiliar with. When we first got on the bus to Akosombo in Accra, hot and tired, he bought us all oranges and taught us the local way to eat them. He is also a strong canoer, which allowed the rest of us more time to relax on the river. Perhaps the greatest benefit of his presence, however, was that it saved us four white girls from a good amount of the comments we regularly receive from young African men. That alone made me feel a lot safer walking around.

But his presence also had its downsides. He is very charming and gentlemanly but it became too much after a while. He looked out for us and tried to help us a bit too much, thinking that as an African who has been in this country much longer than any of us and as a man, he knew better, he could and should lead us. Truth is, however, he wasn't very good at haggling and often ended up making communication with Ghanaians, who he did not trust, confrontational when such a response was unnecessary. And considering that to be a woman volunteering here you have to be strong and independent, we found him to be a bit smothering and chauvanistic. But then again, based on previous discussions we had had with him, we already knew he had a pretty twisted view on women, but that's a problem with this culture that will take more than the laws that make spousal abuse illegal to change. What I, at least, did get out of his somewhat overbearing presence was the sense that I don't need a guy to safely travel somewhere in Ghana, which is liberating to feel. I wouldn't feel safe traveling more than the distance between camp and Awutu, maybe Awutu and Accra, alone, but I don't need to have a man among my fellow travelers. It's a convenient feeling, considering only one of the other volunteers right now is male. However, we might be getting some more volunteers at the end of the week, which would be great.

Today Linden, Kyle, and I led a workshop for the Peace Cell leaders. I felt kind of awkward, telling them how things should work when I haven't even worked a full week here myself. Although not everyone showed up and most of those who did were late, the workshop went surprisingly well. I think our approach to how to run a workshop, at least the first day, was new and creative and actually worked. We simulated a peace cell meeting, changing the faciliation style a bit, and put the leaders as participants. As a peace cell meeting it went very well and the discussion we had in the second part of the workshop, about what they thought of the meeting, was very constructive. The three of us, at least, remain idealistic about peace cells, despite the cynicism voiced by volunteers who have been here longer and thus are more burnt out and bitter. The workshop will continue Tuesday and Wednesday with a more traditional lecture format, but we're going to try to break it up with some activities to actualize the concepts we'll be discussing. Although there are records kept of past workshops by international volunteers, those records are in a pile somewhere so we can only hope that what we teach is not too redundant of what has been done before.