Site Placement and Vision Quest

We made it back to the training site to start our training for real. It was good to see everyone again but they made us wait 3 days in hotels before we found out where are site would be and what our home stay family would be like. First we got to find out our site place and region. They took us to a local school where they had drawn a huge map of Ghana on the floor. Then they read our names out one by one and asked us to stand on our region we would be living in for the next two years. It was all extremely exciting I really had no preference and was read for anything. I was assigned to Atiavi in the Volta region and I would be learning Ewe. I am actually living in Atiavi-Glime one of the towns which makes up the community of Atiavi. It is located near the coast and the town is something of an island in the Keta Lagoon which happens to be the largest lagoon in west Africa. I was really excited about it but I will tell more about my site and job description in later posts. Then it was on to our being matched to our home stay families. Home stay is where they put us in different communities centered around Kukurantumi to live during our language and technical training. We were grouped based on our assignments because I am an environment volunteer I was placed in Addo-Nkwanta the smallest, most remote town but I think the best community. This was more nerve racking than waiting for our site placement. Because the families had started to show up and everyone was wondering who would be living with whom for the next few months. While we were waiting I remember looking around at the different families and not having a clue who it could be and seeing a woman who looked really nice and thinking man I hope I get to live with her. Then sure enough they called her name and then they announced I was chosen to stay with her. I felt very lucky and then after I met her and her family I knew that I was.