Four walls and a keyboard: Hellooooooo Ghana!!!!!

Four walls and a keyboard

'I love talking about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.' ~ Oscar Wilde

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Hellooooooo Ghana!!!!!

Friday morning I found out that I was offered an internship position in Ghana through the Canadian Co-operative Association. I will be working in Kpandai, a town in the northern region of the country, near one arm of Lake Volta, and close to the Togo border. Apparently it's one of the more isolated positions in the program- it's hard to communicate in and out of the region- but I'm more than up to the task!

The group I will be working for is SEND, and I will be a reproductive health officer. I am helping them do a baseline survey on reproductive health among young male and female artisans in the region. I'm going to be rooming with a family in Kpandai so that is somewhat of a relief!

I leave for Ottawa for five days of training at the beginning of September, then fly out from there. The pay is not exorbitant- but when my rent is about 30 dollars a month, I think I'll get by!

Right now it's still sinking in- there's so much going on right now that I am a little distracted. I'm sure once the summer starts to wind down I'll get a little more revved up. My mom is less than pleased though. I told her about it yesterday as soon as I got off the phone with Erin and she was kind of bringing me down! But Moms is pretty protective- she cried when I went on my trip to Italy in high school- which was only 10 days long!

So a note to all of you: there will be copious amounts of beer and good times before I leave in September. If I defend in June I'll have the whole summer to carouse and get into hijinks! I expect to have the shakes the day after I arrive in Ottawa! So be warned, and be prepared.....

This evening I had an international experience of another kind: my friend Rui had me, Amy, Chris and Mat over for traditional Chinese food. It was soooooo good and I am so full right now. We had bok choy and mushrooms, mussels, chicken wings, sushi, lotus with some vegetables I can't remember the name of, and another type of vegetable I can't remember the name of that reminded me of asparagus. I made the attempt to use chopsticks, but I can't seem to get past my feeble hand-eye coordination, and my left-handedness. I resorted to the fork at times throughout the meal- but the food still tasted awesome!

This weekend I'm busy preparing my meeting agendas for Co-op Camp training which starts Wednesday and goes to Friday. I don't know what the hell I was thinking- saying I'd be the staff co-ordinator. I feel a little over my head with this, and a little worried that I'll have the final say on any disciplinary action for any bad co-op youth- and be solely responsible if anything goes bad with the kids, like food poisoning or injury. Jeez louise. At least the training days are just planning out the seminar agendas for July, and deciding who does what- there I get to use my authoritaaaaah and tell them staff beotches that they'll like what they're assigned to do! ahaha! Just kidding! Then I've got the rest of the summer to develop an ulcer over the actual camp! But I've got V-Dawg and BruceChen to help me out here and they're old pros at this shite!

I thought that I'd have enough piss and vinegar in me to read some more of the Co-op manuals but I am tappin out. It's been a long day. I was up around 5 to get my face on to go down to Regina for 10am. Nicky had a fitting that morning and I had to pick up my dress. It's really sweet and actually too big! I was a bit worried there for a while that the opposite would be the case.

So after we did some more shizzle in the Queen city we headed back up to Saskatoon, where I had the ultimate search for a Mother's Day gift for me Mammy. I got her the creamer decanter for her china set. She'll have a full set-one piece of china at a time! Then after some wedding earring shopping, and getting some drinky-poos for the ultimate feast tonight, and getting my Good Food Box from Rebeka, I only had about and hour to read Co-op stuff before I had to go over to Rui's.

So, sweet dreams y'all!

posted by angelina @ 9:16 PM

1 Comments:

At 1:55 AM, Fluffica said…

wow grammy! you are the official jet setter now. that is so awesome!