In about 48 hours, my plane to London will take off from JFK, carrying me to a connecting flight to Accra, and I'm as excited to be heading off as I am sad to be leaving McGill. I'll be spending the next five months in Ghana, a country on Africa's Gulf of Guinea. My home for the next half-year is in the western region of the country, in a village called Humjibre, located between the major city of Kumasi and the border with the Ivory Coast (the nearest city on this map is Awaso). It's a community of cocoa farmers, from the Sefwi ethnic group- distant cousins of the nearby, famous Ashanti.
My job should not be so different from what I did in Kenya. I'm working for an NGO in Humjibre as the health program coordinator. I'll be helping two groups of peer educators spread messages about disease prevention and treatment, family planning, nutrition and other health issues, and I'll also be helping to coordinate the stay and work of some short-term volunteers from North America and Europe. There are other projects and duties, but I'll talk about them as they come up.
Anyway, I don't have a whole lot to say at this point. I really just needed an excuse to post these maps while I still have an internet connection with the capacity to do so. I'll write again from the other side of the ocean.
