The last couple of weeks have been pretty fruitful. About a week after I got back to Damanko after returning from America, we had a community meeting about the direction of the library project. I told the various teachers, headmasters, and PTA people about the library program we had an option of participating in. Everyone was very excited about the prospect of getting some help furnishing the library. I told them the biggest obstacle was getting the books from Accra to Damanko. They took that problem and immediately went to work figuring out how to solve it. Somehow, they got all the tribal leaders in the town to pledge some money for the transport. If they can actually collect the money for it, it will be an amazing step of good faith by a community in a country that expects the white world to provide all the funds for everything. I am very proud of them. I don't want to say more about the library project at the moment in case I might jinx it. I'll save it for when it actually happens.
I also started a Girls' Club to talk about issues teeage girls face around here. Teenage pregnancy is one of the biggest problems in many communities in this country, so here is my small little stab at it. The purpose of the club is to be a kind of youth group to talk about those life-things that seem quite abstract here since nobody really talks about them. Subjects like: goal planning, decision making, self-esteem, relationships, boys, sex, being assertive, gender roles and equality issues, how to spot inequality and fight it, etc. The hardest part I've found already is how to talk to them about these issues so they understand what I'm saying. I'm so used to talking to educated people who are familiar with these issues, how do I approach these complex and complicated issues so that young girls with a basic but usable grasp of English can understand me? I have so much knowledge to give them, how do I keep it from going over their heads?
So anyway, that's a short update about the most important things I'm doing currently. One of these days I'll a detailed write up of them.
