I live in a compound, which is a large concrete rectangular building. All the rooms open into a central concrete courtyard, which is used for cooking, laundry, drying flour, kids and goats running around, and pretty much anything else my family might want to do. Compounds are a common thing of African life, and sometimes they will be shared with several families or tenants. My compound is only my family, which is nice. They seem to be a fairly well to do family in the town. Although living in this luxury doesn’t really fit with old EWB ‘integrating and living with the poorest’ mantra, fortunately for me EWB has realized that a volunteer is only effective if they are with their sanity, and volunteers have started to live wherever they feel comfortable.
All of our cooking is done over coal pots in the courtyard. We have a tap for running water, but it’s only used in the morning to top up some steel drums where the water for the day is kept. It’s hauled from here to do all the cooking, cleaning, and toilet flushing.
We have one toilet in our compound, which is a godsend every day at 4am when my stomach cramps wake me up like an alarm bell and I bolt for the toilet. It’s relatively clean, even has a seat, and I haven’t seen any cockroaches in the toilet room yet.
Our house is connected to the electrical grid. This is excellent news, I can use my computer in my room and I have a ceiling fan which allows me to sleep at night. There’s a single fluorescent light in the courtyard so you can make out shapes of the food you are eating. Most of the family has televisions in their room (I go without), and my host brother even has a satellite dish.
My family is about 15 or 16 people at the house currently. Come September, it sounds like the family size will change as some will leave for university and some will come back from other towns because they are school teachers in Bole. Apparently we’re getting another four or so kids, bringing the total to somewhere between 10-12 kids. The reason I don’t know the exact number is that it can be tough to figure out who actually lives there, and who just spends all their waking hours there.
My host father is about 70 years old and has a good life of teaching and politics. He was the District Chief Executive for our Bole District (probably equivalent to the mayor of an area of about 150,000 people). He is also the Chief of a village on the border of Cote D’Ivoire. When I told him I wanted to visit his village, he said it would not be a good idea because in addition to people living there, there is also a ‘symphony of mosquitos’ and the roads are impassable this time of year. Fair enough, I don’t really want to go to a place where I need to swim down the roads to get there, only to be eaten alive by potentially malaria infested insects. Anyway, I usually just call him Chief, and he speaks excellent English and is a very kind and intelligent man. He even tells me I cannot pay rent to stay with his family. His wife is my host mother, who seems very kind but does not speak English. She is trying to teach me some Gonja, and I’m trying equally hard to learn (not hugely successful as of yet, but I’ll be patient!).
My four host ‘brothers’ (an assortment of brother, cousin, and friends that live there), are between the ages of about 22 – 25. They speak English fairly well and are very interesting to talk to. Since they are on break right now until going back to University, they spend their days watching politics and sports on TV. I think my one host brother will actually be a prominent Ghanaian leader one day – and it’s very inspiring to hear him talk about his vision for his country. I’ve had him write up some things for me that I will share on my blog – watch for it!
My two host sisters are 24 and 37. Their English is not too bad, and they’ve adopted me to teach me Gonja and how to cook meals and wash my clothes. I even spent a whole afternoon with them at the salon where they had their weaves redone – quite the process! They’re really sweet and they make coming home after work a treat. I can ask them questions about why Ghanaians do what they do, and they can ask me about the behavior of crazy white people. They are both school teachers, and have invited me to spend a day with them at their schools when school starts again in September.
The kids are adorable. Right now there are about 7 between the ages of 4 and 18, and they do the majority of cleaning and cooking (depending on who is around). They greet me outside the house when I come home and insist on carrying my bags and pushing my bike to its parking spot. When I first arrived with my huge and very heavy backpack full of everything from Canada, there were about 8 kids who swarmed me, grabbed my bag, and hoisted it onto the heads of about 4 of the kids! I couldn’t stop laughing.
The neighbors are numerous, and they will come over to use our courtyard to dry their various maize or cassava flour, etc. They seem nice, and no one seems to mind me taking pictures of the motions of their daily lives. 
I hope you enjoy the pics! Sorry about the photo quality - necessary to compress them so that my internet connection actually works. As time goes on and my new family members arrive to replace those going off to school, I’ll update some more on my living situation. I’ll also post some photos later with pics of my room, etc. since I don’t seem to have any of those right now.
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