During the drive up into the Akuapem Hills on my first day in Ghana, I stared out the window and it started to sink in that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. However, by the time I made it to my new home, my eyes went from barely staying open to being wide with excitement. My host mother, Comfort, greeted me with a warm smile that made me feel instantly welcome. I spent the course of my two months living with Comfort and her family, which I soon realized was going to be one of the most rewarding parts of my Ghanaian experience. At any given time there were about eight members of Comfort’s extended family living in the house with me. However, the members cycled through constantly and I do not think there were any two weeks where the exact same family members were present. At first I was overwhelmed. There were no other volunteers living there at the time of my arrival; using a bucket to shower and figuring out how to navigate the neighborhood were still a mystery to me. I was terrified that I would never figure it out, until I realized how willing my new family was to help me. They showed me the ropes on how to wash my clothes, which tro-tro (Ghana’s minibus public transportation vehicles) to take to work, and how to eat Ghanaian food (which mostly consists of form of starch and an oily stew with some protein if you are lucky – the picture to the left is fufu which is a mashed up gooey ball of plantain and cassava that they take terms pounding). My host family taught me more than I could have ever imagined. And not just about the basics, but they also helped me to grow as a person and showed me how to enjoy life and not take things for granted.
During the drive up into the Akuapem Hills on my first day in Ghana, I stared out the window and it started to sink in that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. However, by the time I made it to my new home, my eyes went from barely staying open to being wide with excitement. My host mother, Comfort, greeted me with a warm smile that made me feel instantly welcome. I spent the course of my two months living with Comfort and her family, which I soon realized was going to be one of the most rewarding parts of my Ghanaian experience. At any given time there were about eight members of Comfort’s extended family living in the house with me. However, the members cycled through constantly and I do not think there were any two weeks where the exact same family members were present. At first I was overwhelmed. There were no other volunteers living there at the time of my arrival; using a bucket to shower and figuring out how to navigate the neighborhood were still a mystery to me. I was terrified that I would never figure it out, until I realized how willing my new family was to help me. They showed me the ropes on how to wash my clothes, which tro-tro (Ghana’s minibus public transportation vehicles) to take to work, and how to eat Ghanaian food (which mostly consists of form of starch and an oily stew with some protein if you are lucky – the picture to the left is fufu which is a mashed up gooey ball of plantain and cassava that they take terms pounding). My host family taught me more than I could have ever imagined. And not just about the basics, but they also helped me to grow as a person and showed me how to enjoy life and not take things for granted.
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