First...could someone please teach me the metric system. Ok...I learned it in school but why remember it when no one uses it in the US. But almost everywhere else in the world uses the Metric System. It is so frustrating to try and remember how to convert measurements. 

Other than that...things are going really well here. I have always hated fundraising. But here...I am either good at it or I just had good luck. I now raised enough money to put on an HIV Anti-stigma Kid's Fair at the end of July. On Friday I met with a guy and he asked how much we needed. I told him we had all but 1500 and he said, "ok, you can take 1500 from us. I was so excited. Now I'm really busy planning this event. We have 500 kids come and invite the media and representatives from AIDS organizations in Ghana. I have a lot of work to do but I am excited for it.

I will start visiting the orphans Wednesday so I'll have an update on that soon. I'm also doing quite a bit of micro-enterprise advisement with the Almond Tree (the group of people living with HIV). They are having a bit of difficulty with their products so I am helping them come up with new ideas to expand their businesses. This is really difficult when resources are limited. I'm learning to help them come up with their own ideas and empower themselves to work hard. It's definitely a good learning experience.

So there is a short update. A lot of you knew I have been sick but I am feeling much better. My antibiotic cost me $1.80. 

A short, frustrating story....I was in a taxi yesterday stopped at a stoplight. The driver suddenly told me to look at the motorbike passing us. There was a man and a woman both wearing helmets. But the woman had a baby wrapped on her back with no helmet (obviously). The driver looked at me and said, "If they crash, that baby is going to die." Now I know that here no one follows the traffic laws, and the police don't enforce them. But I decided to ask the driver anyways so I said, "If the police see that, will they stop them." And he said, "Well, he could stop and arrest them because it is illegal, but the police won't pay them any attention. They don't care." 

These are the things that can be really frustrating when you are in a different culture. There are bad things in the US obviously, but when you enter a new culture, it is easy to see the flaws that make no sense and are completely ridiculous. But this is the process of learning to respect a new culture and also seeing where major improvements need to be made.

An update on me...Work is going well. I went around to all 10 schools yesterday to pick up posters the kids drew for the anti-stigma poster competition we are doing. I was overwhelmed with the response of the kids. We got so many posters and it was so encouraging to look through them and see how they think HIV stigma can be stopped in Ghana. I'm excited for the Kid's Fair that will be the beginning of August to celebrate anti-stigma and give the winner a $500 school scholarship.

I'm also about to start doing home visits to the orphans that WAAF supports. Most of the kids were orphaned because their parents died of HIV. Some of them also have the virus as their mothers passed it to them. I am sure this will be a very interesting learning experience.

I can't believe I've been here almost 7 weeks now. It's going so fast and I'm still loving it.

I am traveling a few days right now with my friends from Norway. We went to a beautiful Green Turtle Lodge on the beach and now we are in Kumasi. I've seen some interesting things. It's kind of weird to feel like a tourist for these few days because I have been working and living in Accra for over a month now. It's weird to be a white person just traveling around. But it's ok.

I am pretty sure that my food poisoning was actually Malaria. I went to Ho in the Volta region last Friday. We went around and took some HIV educational tools to different VCT centers and spoke with the directors of the centers. It was really interesting. However, on the way back I got a fever and felt very sick. Fifi, a guy a work with, said it was probably Malaria so he took me to get the medicine and I just started taking it right away. Saturday morning was awful. I could barely walk. But by Saturday night I was able to eat, so that was good. I felt much better on Sunday. They say when you start the medicine, it kicks in really quickly. I think they were right. I think the sickness last week was just the start of the Malaria...not food poisoning. But I am much better now...thankfully.

One interesting thing...when I first came to Ghana, I found I wanted to greet everyone. They all say O'bruni and I wave. But I realized that after a while it gets really tiring. I noticed that other white volunteers that had been in Ghana longer just kind of ignored the attention. I find myself wanting to do that now. So I'm trying to figure that out now. How to be friendly when I just want to blend in sometimes. It's difficult. But i still love Ghana. It's a good country.

So I have now experienced food poisoning in Africa. And I was sick all day yesterday. I won't go into all the details...but lets just say nothing was left in my stomach at the end of the day. Thankfully I think I got all the bad food out and I'm feeling better today. I'm still a little weak but at least I'm not still sick at my stomach. It was quite the experience because the water is off at my house...so....everytime I got sick in the toilet, I then had to carry buckets of water into the back of the toilet to get it to flush. Not quite as convenient as in the US. But I managed and I'm alright. 

At work I have mainly been calling potential sponsors for the kid's fair at the end of the summer. I was surprised on Friday when Anna and I went to a company and the guy offered us $500 on the spot. I was shocked and didn't really know how to react because I didn't expect to get money right away. I know fundraising is not always that easy. But that is what you have to do for projects...get money.

Friday I am going to Ho to do some VCT and CD4 testing. We will also being giving out information on healthy living and HIV prevention. The whole community will take part so it should be a great experience. 

You know...It's hard when real life kicks in. Real life is that people get HIV and then their lives change. I've been hanging out with some of the The Almond Tree, a group of people living with HIV that are participating in an income generating activity to become self sufficient. Yeah they make things and are bonding as a group, but their lives are still so hard. They have to take medicine everyday. And finding ways to sell what they make is difficult. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a disease that I knew would never go away.

Real life is also when a mother passes HIV to her children. Yesterday a boy came in...very sick. He was maybe five years old. He was infected with HIV at birth from his mother. Now his mother is dead and his aunt takes care of him. But she has not been giving him his medicine everyday so now he is very sick. Seeing this little boy crying with a high fever, my heart broke. He will never be able to live a normal life. He will have to take medicine everyday for the rest of his life. If this is not injustice...then I don't know what is. Working in another country is great. It gives a picture of life different than what I've grown up knowing. It's exciting and a great adventure...but when real life sets in...it gets tough.

I've recently been learning a lot about the culture here. The following is an example of how you just have to go with the flow here.

Anna and I have been doing Anti-stigma HIV workshops in Accra schools. So last Friday we had scheduled one at 9am and then a combined workshop with 2 schools at 12pm. I called to confirm the times on Thursday. When I called the first school, the teacher said he had to go to a village so he was not in town. But he said the headmaster knew about it so I said ok. Then I called the next two schools that were supposed to have a workshop at 12. One said that they wanted to change it to 1pm and the other said that 3pm would work better. So then we talked about it and called again to confirm these new times. This time...the one that said 3pm now wanted it at 12 and the one that said 1pm now wanted it at 2pm. This kind of thing is very common in Ghana. You can plan but that doesn't mean it will really happen.

So on Friday we went to the schools. The first one went well and we arrived at the second school around 11:45 for the workshop at 12. We sat outside in chairs waiting and didn't start until 12:45. The funny thing is that I've heard that a lot of international volunteers get frustrated when things like this happen. But to me...it's part of the culture. Getting frustrated makes no difference. If we did more workshops, similar things will happen. It's good to be aware of this and learn how to really adapt to a culture. You have to adapt, or you won't really be happen somewhere other than your home. It's a good learning process.

On a different note, life is good here. I haven't gotten sick at all yet but I hear everyone gets some kind of sickness when they are here. I hope I escape this. I had a relaxing weekend with rain and cooler weather. It was nice. The only problem is I now know where the "good" coffee shops are and I'm tempted to go there often...especially know that I can get around easily now.