Ghanaian Visa Triumph

In the midst of teaching classes, sponsoring NHS, and tutoring, organizing a trip for Ezekiel and me to see each other has been an additional full-time job with the potentially incredible payback of getting to hang out for 3 weeks in Ghana!!!  After participating in Ezekiel’s US visa application on two separate occasions, I have become acutely familiar with painstaking processes, and I am trying to leave as little as possible regarding this Christmas break meeting to chance (i.e. no US Customs Officials are involved in the process).  While one may balk at the vacation potential of spending 3-weeks in Ghana, compare it to Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Iraq and Ghana looks like an outright tourist trap complete with centuries of peace, a coast and elephants!  Plane tickets are relatively inexpensive (from Nigeria…nowhere is cheap from El Salvador), Nigerians can travel there visa-free and there are hippos!!!  What more could we ask for?!?  Each step of “Destination Reunification” could be its own convoluted drama but I’m going to simply focus on a task that has now been successfully completed: obtaining a Ghanaian visa.

“I’ve gotten visas before; it wasn’t that bad.”  Why must I set myself up like that?  I forgot when I got a visa before, I wasn’t living in a foreign country.  After getting permission from the US Embassy here in El Salvador to send my passport to Houston via courier service, (which I learned is simply a fancy, general name for FedEx…I definitely thought it was an actual person you sent with the envelope!)  I started my paperwork investigation.  However, before I could send my passport to Houston, it had to first spend some quality time in Salvadoran immigration offices to ensure my legal status here.

I got my trusty passport back on a Friday afternoon from Salvadoran authorities and naively thought I would be able to go to the bank, get a money order, take it to FedEx and send it off that day!  Being unrealistically optimistic means that set-backs can really blind-side you.  When I arrived at the bank, I was informed that Citi Bank of El Salvador doesn’t have any money orders.  When I looked dismayed, she made a couple of calls only to inform me that all of El Salvador did away with money orders a few years ago.  I settled for a giro, which I know from past experience is a 30-minute process minimum from start to finish, but I had personally cashed one at a US bank, so I figured it was a good alternative when there seemed to be few others.  No problem, I reassured myself.  I was there, it was getting done and of course the Ghanaian Embassy would accept this instead of a money order.  It’s guaranteed money!

As I was leaving the bank, I realized I had forgotten my passport photos necessary for the visa application at my house.  Instead of a 5 minute walk to FedEx from the bank, I had the opportunity to walk 20 minutes back to my house first and then 15 minutes to FedEx…in the rain.  I tried to convince myself since I was missing my run, this brisk walk was a good replacement.  My umbrella was conveniently sitting right next to the pictures when I got back to my house.  My sweet roommate offered to give me a ride to the FedEx office, but since I KNEW that it was open until 6pm every weekday, I declined knowing that time wasn’t an issue and now I had my umbrella!

When I arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief that the door confirmed it was indeed open until 6pm on Friday.  The relief quickly vanished when I saw the employee clearly closing everything down.  They had changed the Friday closing time a few months ago without changing the sign on the door.  Giving me a look of equal parts pity and annoyance, she told me that they closed in 3 minutes, but she was willing to execute the transaction until she realized I wanted to send my passport to the states at which point she gingerly told me that she couldn’t do that, but the office next door could.  With hope quickly diminishing, I went next door only to be told that they can send it, but I would have to arrange ground service in the states after it arrived in order for it to be shipped back here.  Feeling completely dejected, I happened to catch the glance of the FedEx manager that I’ve come to know well through my Nigeria visa shipments and she came out to greet me!  I explained my situation, and she said though they’re not really allowed to ship passports but if I could guarantee there would be no problems, she’d do it!  Having no idea what problems there could be, I assured her it wasn’t even a possibility and excitedly followed her back to the first FedEx office to ship my visa application!

Unfortunately, by that time, the 3 minutes remaining before had vanished and all systems had been shut down.  They informed me I could come back on Tuesday and send it.  Fine.  After binge grocery shopping (buying everything you see in sight that looks at all appealing, indulgent and out-of-the-ordinary which resulted in new trail mix, a $3 pomegranate, bad-for-you plantain chips and milk), I remembered that the school was being fumigated that night and had to walk home an extra-long way.

With renewed vigor, I signed out of school during my planning period on Tuesday and went back to FedEx sure that I would have my visa in no time!  I was greeted the same friendly FedEx faces only to be told, “Why didn’t you come this morning, the flight has already left for today.”  I didn’t come in the morning because I was working!  They told me the next flight was Wednesday morning, but when we started calculating that it would arrive on Friday, I knew that wouldn’t work because the Ghanaian Embassy in Houston is only open Monday through Wednesday from 1-3pm.  If sent Wednesday, it would be returned to San Salvador after three days.  Finally, we decided that I could fill out all the forms, pay the money.  My FedEx friend would keep it for me and mail it on the Friday shipment so that it would arrive on Monday.  That’s right.  I left my passport in a FedEx envelop with the friendly employee trusting that she’d keep it safe for 3 days and send it out on Friday.  I made sure to tell her “Please keep it safe, and don’t forget to send it!” as extra insurance! :)

Over the next few days I dutifully tracked its movement from San Salvador to Houston.  On Monday, I received a call from the person with whom I’d been in contact about my rush visa telling me that everything arrived and had been processed successfully, but she was worried that the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington DC would have problems with my Salvadoran giro check I’d sent, so she asked if I had any family in the states that could get a cashier’s check from the bank and send it made out to her name and she’d just send a check herself for me and return the giro so I could redeposit it in my bank account.  I was overwhelmed by her kindness and trust that I’d actually send her the check for $60!  I enthusiastically and gratefully agreed to her suggestion and promised I’d get the check to her as soon as possible.

My passport complete with a shiny Ghanaian visa sticker returned to me in El Salvador safe and sound two days later, so I went directly to pick it up, happy to be in the same country as my passport again only to receive a bonus surprise that they had over-charged the return shipment price by $50, and I get a refund!  Sweet, except, I had to have the detailed receipt, and it was definitely at home.  Two weeks later, I finally had a free Saturday morning during banking business hours to do redeposit my ill-fated giro and obtain my reimbursement.  After explaining the giro situation to a customer service representative, under her advisement I wrote a letter explaining the Ghanaian Embassy wouldn’t accept this perfectly good giro, waited in line to speak with a cashier banker, watched her dutifully fill out three more forms and staple my letter of explanation in Spanish to all the forms the $60 was officially redeposited.  I was feeling overly confident thinking I was going to accomplish the FedEx and banking task in the same day, but alas I was wrong.  The person who needed to issue the reimbursement isn’t in the office on Saturdays, but I should come back during the week.  Needless to say, the following Tuesday, I once again signed out of school during my planning period went back to FedEx and was given my hard-fought $50 reimbursement.

Interestingly enough, this was only one part of planning for the Ghana trip.  However, this one (long) snapshot is pretty representative of how each part of the process has been.  Trying to find malaria prophylaxis here in El Salvador that works in West Africa, trying to buy a plane ticket with an American credit card, Salvadoran IP address, for a Nigerian passport holder, the surprises never cease!   Filled with more obstacles than I could ever imagine but interspersed with unexpected and extravagant acts of kindness, goodness and helpfulness by friends and strangers alike, this is more than trip preparation…this is life! 

Show up!

Many days I wonder why I agreed to be the National Honor Society sponsor, namely when I’m resolving the 4th miscommunication in two days or listening to the 18th valid excuse why a student can’t participate in an activity at the last minute or searching unsuccessfully for that illusive place between relinquishing leadership and responsibility to the students, but still being aware of everything that’s going on.  However, brief but illuminating moments can provide affirmation that transform feelings of helplessness and inadequacy into peace and enlightenment.

Saturday we had an NHS event meant to develop leadership skills at a retreat center about 45 minutes from the city.  After a busy week, I was not looking forward to chaperoning an event from 7:45am to 4pm.   Despite being a part of multiple planning meetings, I didn’t really understand the program we were to be working with nor did I grasp our role in it.  I only knew that it didn’t seem as organized as I would have desired, but I am the club sponsor, so I showed up.

The first hour was filled with complete confusion: listening to questions that I couldn’t answer, realizing forgotten supplies, and wondering where the illusive contact person was.  After I realized I was being snippy with the students, I decided to remove myself from the set-up situation and go listen to the lecture being presented by two of the officers to try to figure out what was going on.  Over the next 5 minutes, I watched my students lead an interactive presentation regarding the importance education with a group of 25 students, who were a part of an after school program for underprivileged students where they learned English, computer and leadership skills.  While the leaders and the audience were the same demographically, they had clearly come from completely different worlds.  It became quickly apparent these two groups of involved, passionate, and articulate students had incredible potential to impact their community and a unique opportunity to affect each other throughout the day.

Before the presentation was finished, I rushed down inspired and excited to where the majority of my students were waiting around texting everyone in El Salvador.  Even though I felt completely unqualified as their leader and unaware of what was going on when the day began, my tiny peek into the mixing to two worlds gave me insight into my role.  These students have been exposed to charity their entire lives and are very comfortable “helping the poor” nearly exclusively in a hand-out and at a comfortable distance.  However, I challenged them to shift the focus from “leading” this incredible group of their peers, to joining them in the games, in the discussions, in the experience.  At first, they were resistant stating they needed to explain the games and put on the games FOR them since it’s THEIR day.  I said I was certain that they’d rather be participating as one large mixed group than being laughed at from the outside.  Then, my students contended they were supposed to be developing leadership skills.  I continued stating that often leadership is coming up next to someone and getting to know them, learning from them and eventually you will have the opportunity to share what you know.  I shared a few positive experiences that I’ve had getting to know people in Nigeria, Iowa and here in El Salvador in this way.  It might take a lot longer and not even happen at all in a 6-hour Saturday session, but they are valuable and effective leadership skills to learn.

Soon after I had shared my leadership epiphany with them, the participants came down to the field to being their games.  My students had a hard time joining in and during the first round, I went to each of the six different games reminding them 1 coordinator per game was enough, the rest of them should be playing!  Interacting with peers from a different social class on an level playing field was tough and placed them out of their comfort zone, but by the end of the game hour, they had warmed up a bit.  However, when lunch started, they immediately segregated themselves again, and I reminded them this is a great opportunity to hang out together.  They were less than enthusiastic, but humored me.

The final portion of the day included small group discussions about the role of education in maintaining democracy in El Salvador and increasing its transparency.  The schedule allotted 45 minutes, but I was skeptical groups of 6-8 high school students would really talk about the role of education in democracy for 45 minutes on a Saturday afternoon.  I was grossly mistaken.  When the student leader sounded the siren on the megaphone signaling the end of small group discussions, I had 3 of my students come up to me and ask why I cut them off so soon.  They were having “inspired discussions”!  I suggested that after each group presented their small group discussion it could be opened up as a large group discussion to end the day.

All of the discussion was done in Spanish, so I had to focus intently, but it was worth the effort.  Listening to all of the students grapple with difficult issues presenting meaningful stances and worthwhile counters was heartening.  One of the final comments was given by of the participants who called everyone to action.  “What good is a seminar like this if we don’t act and act now in our schools and communities?  We have the power to make change happen.”  My students were similarly inspired by the day and the interactions they had had.  “They really appreciate their education!”  “They are so passionate about their beliefs.”  “People at are school aren’t like this.”

The participants, my students and I all showed up, somewhat begrudgingly, on a Saturday morning having other things we’d rather be doing but knowing it was the right thing to do and we were all positively impacted.  Maybe it was in a way that we’d anticipated, likely it wasn’t.  However, it reinforced a belief that I hold.  You don’t have to be overly talented.  You don’t have to have all of the answers.  You don’t have to spend a ton of money.  You do have to show up.  You never know when something powerful is going to happen and you wouldn’t want to miss out!

Ants & Me vs. Cookies

Saturday night I was reveling in the solitude of being alone in my house with nowhere to go and no plans to fulfill.  It was heavenly in a way that can only be appreciated in a life full of enjoyable and worthwhile chaos.  After a most delicious dinner of popcorn and a fruit smoothie, I “needed” one last bit of sweetness (the smoothie had ended much before the salty popcorn) to complete the perfection.  Excitedly, I remembered that our maid, Mila, had made traditional cookies (alfajores) on Thursday, so I opened up the aluminum foiled-covered plate and found that the cookies were crawling with hundreds of tiny ants.

I would be lying if I said I was surprised.  In reality, she’s been experimenting with small different recipes of these cookies for weeks now and always places them on a plate with foil and I always find ants on them.  Curiously, there have been different sized ants with the different recipes.  However, one would think if I (and my roommate) knew this happened we would adjust storage methods, but it hasn’t happened yet.  Instead, I brush off the ants and partake.  This ant infestation was particularly abundant with significantly more ants than usual, so it was a challenge to brush them all off and to prevent them from crawling all over me, but after repeated turns and brushes, I was successful!  My meal had been a little short of protein, so I figured ingesting a few ants would just balance out my food pyramid a bit.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon which inner voice I was listening to, all of my ant brushing energies were used up after one cookie and I decided after some cost-benefit analysis that the efforts of brushing off a whole other cookie was not worth the payoff of eating a second.  I did transfer the rest of the ant-covered cookies to a sealed Gladware container and am going to see what happens to the remaining ants.  Many people here view ants as the enemy, but I prefer to think of us as a team working together to reduce my cookie intake!

Free at Last! (Sundried Tomatoes)

When I moved to El Salvador, one of my friends talked about mini-pizzas that she often made using sun-dried tomatoes as one of the ingredients.  I decided that sounded yummy and proceeded to purchase a jar back in October.  Since I live in El Salvador, I was only able to get the GINORMOUS jar (varying sizes of imported items isn’t a priority).  I figured, they don’t go bad, no problem.

One night not long after the purchase, I decided to open the jar to partake.  The jar was wet with condensation from being stored in the fridge, so I dried it off and made a few unsuccessful attempts at opening the awkwardly large jar.  I was extra hungry so I decided that a pizza could be just as delicious without sundried tomatoes and I would enlist outside help with the jar later.

As time passed, despite having 30 neighbors within a 100m radius, I consistently forgot to enlist outside help with the jar.  It was always just a little too late to go knocking on a door, so I started trying out different techniques: prying with a knife, pounding the heel of my hand on the bottom, running hot water underneath the lid, and letting it sit out of the refrigerator.  These techniques were not only unsuccessful each time I applied them to my jar but when I applied them to my roommate’s identical, unopened, awkwardly large jar, as well!

This past week, we decided we were going to wage war against the sundried tomatoes and WIN and enlisted the help, not of a man, but of Google.  Science was going to help us conquer the stubborn jar.  Many of the suggested techniques were not helpful because we did not have required materials such as rubber gloves, dryer sheets, triangular-shaped bottle opener, wooden hammer, nut cracker or screw-driver.  The others had already been tried unsuccessfully, except for one.  Place the jar upside down on the stove and turn the burner onto low heat.  We were a little concerned that the tomatoes were going to explode everywhere but decided they would at least be opened!

After a few minutes of heating, I took it off the stove and because the metal lid was hot to the touch, I used a towel to attempt the opening.  My roommate watched with great anticipation as I applied every ounce of strength in me to turn the lide and it still wouldn’t budge.  We were highly disappointed as we stood looking at the jar feeling nearly defeated.  How can the jar win?!   I decided to give it one more try and before I could apply any ummph, the jar popped right open!  The jar didn’t win; we won!  Science was our assistant!  The heat had reduced the vacuum inside the jar and it had simply just taken a few more seconds once the jar had been turned over to work.  Celebration ensued in Casa 4D!  The following evening, I made the most delicious pita pizzas with sundried tomatoes, pesto, artichoke hearts, and olives!  They tasted EXTRA delicious because of the nearly 8 month, hard-fought battle with the jar of tomatoes! :)

Drop by Drop

In January, while I was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, I saw many people carrying water and realized outside the city many do not have access to running water in their home. I wanted to contribute to the efforts of these people to improve the quality of their lives.  There is a never-ending list of opportunities to donate money to a variety of worthwhile projects through my school; however, when I recognized the obvious connection of water quality to the chemistry curriculum, the opportunity to attempt a more involved, hands-on project with my chemistry students seemed propitious.


Though I have always loved the concept of service-learning, which goes to great efforts to ensure both service and learning components are seamlessly integrated throughout the course of a project, I had never had the opportunity to be involved with one before.  Now is the perfect chance!  Though ideas had been bouncing around in my head for months, I knew I had to do something to commit myself in some way, so I contacted Habitat to initiate the partnership. 
In my initial musings, I thought this would be a 3-week project but I recently discovered a hiking trip to Monte Cristo, (national park in El Salvador that includes a cloud forest!) the weekend the culminating trip to Ahauachapan would take place.  I really wanted to go, so I decided to spend 4-weeks on the project solely based on Monte Cristo.  The Sunday before starting this month-long project, I went to school for 6-hours and finally put together a rough outline.  After all the planning, I was thankful to realize 4-weeks was actually much better educationally-speaking as well! J


The project contains 4 main components: chemistry content, water testing, committee work and reflection.  Within the chemistry content component, the students do a majority of the work at home from notes and practice worksheets posted online with dedicated in-class time for questions, lecture over the most difficult topics, a quiz at the end of each week and a lab or demo to support the material each week as well.


A water testing component required the students to research a particular water test, then in groups, perfect a particular method of testing based on water testing materials we had in the science department so they can perform the test when we go to Ahuachupan.  I definitely created this entire project without first actually searching and seeing what water testing materials we had available.  Whoops!  Thankfully, people found random water testing kits in the back of their closets, attachments to previously under-utilized electronic probes and kids were able to create testers from sundry items laying around the lab.  I hope the quality of the water is good, and we don’t find anything suspect!


The third component is committee work: fundraising, service learning and water quality.  Fundraising has the task of raising money.  It costs $500 to connect one family to running water, the kids wanted to have a goal of $500.  I told them they need to think bigger.  They said, $1000?  I said, “Really?!”  I told them we need to think big.  They decided on $5,000.  They started making a list of the companies I see all over San Salvador.  There were a few I didn’t see up there, so I suggested them.  They informed me the owner of those don’t have 10^th grade kids.  “Wait, all of those companies are owned by your parents?!?” I asked.  Yep.  Wow.  We’d better raise more than $500.  


The Service Learning committee is in charge of creating activities for the class (or student body) to do to raise awareness of the life of a person who doesn’t have running water.  My students have maids and drivers.  They have seen poverty their entire lives because they are used to living around poverty and they feel bad about people live in poverty.  However, they have rarely experienced it. This is their chance to simulate situations to feel the strain of carrying water and the mental dilemma of realizing this isn’t an activity for many, but a daily reality!


The final committee of Water Quality is in charge of communicating with the community leaders to find out the needs of the community with respect to water quality and education and they are then going to make posters and brochures for people to share about purification sanitation practices.


The final piece of the project is reflection.  They are answering a weekly survey providing me feedback about how the logistics of the project are going, and they are responding to a weekly blog to help them connect the different portions of the project to each other.  It’s my hope that the blog responses and in-class reflection sessions are helping them process what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it.  Then, we are attempting to reflect on how to take these skills and apply them in a different context so the serving and learning don’t stop here! 


When I started this almost two weeks ago, I was pretty nervous about how it was going to work.  I had NO IDEA!  I had been emphasizing collaboration between the different committees as well as collaboration between the common committees from all 4 of my different classes.  Unprompted, the kids from various committees arranged for all of the students to get passes from me to meet in my room during study hall to subdivide all the tasks within the different classes.  They created an email address, facebook page (“Like” it at Gota por Gota [Drop by Drop]) and twitter account (@Gota_por_Gota) for the project and are making a video to show to potential sponsors.  It’s super exciting to see what kids will do when you give them ownership and an opportunity to make a difference.


It will be interesting to see how many students elect to go on Saturday, May 19^th when we culminate the project by going and starting to dig the trenches for the pipes and provide some educational materials and brief demonstrations.  I have decided it will be optional and I’m not going to offer extra credit.  These students need to have the chance to feel good about doing something purely for others and receiving nothing for themselves in return.  Let’s see if they’ll go help a community because they’ve become invested, and it’s a good thing to do!

Denied, but Hopeful!

Well, my child-like hope was temporarily dashed when Ezekiel wasn’t granted a visa to come to the US this summer.  However, after some tears and 24-hours of complete frustration, we decided even though it wasn’t our plan to get denied, it must have been God’s.  Therefore, we are moving forward with more knowledge and experience and going to reapply for a visa for Christmas break.  This time we are enlisting the help of my senator’s office and trying the Abuja office to see what happens.  The relationship is too valuable to abandon.  The lessons God is teaching me through this process are innumerable.  While I’m waiting to see what the future will bring in this area of my life, I decided that I needed to add some more purpose to my life that has been filled with countless adventures since moving to El Salvador (see next post)!

Waiting with Anticipation

After successfully gathering important financial, identification, and educational documents from three different countries Ezekiel finally has what he needs to take along on the 19-hour van trip to the US Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria where his interview with the US Consulate will take place on Thursday. He is requesting a Tourist/Business Visa to visit the US for a month this summer and we are praying that it is granted!

I have some friends who have gone through the US visa acquisition process and all warned me of the steep challenges ahead. I’m pretty sure that ignorance is bliss because I just nodded in agreement that I’m sure it’s difficult, but I figured I’ve navigated plenty of bureaucratic processes through college, living abroad, traveling and doing taxes. How hard can it be?! I missed one minor yet important detail in my thought process: I’d always been navigating the system as a US citizen which gives one a plethora of invisible and often overlooked advantages, not as an outsider!

However, after all that work, now all I get to do is wait! The last time I remember being this excited about waiting for something in a very child-like way was 3rd grade. I was anticipating Beach Day at school for weeks because not only did we get to bring towels to school and do beachy things, but both sets of my grandparents were going to be coming that night after school to celebrate mine and Alex’s birthdays. It was the best thing EVER for an-almost 9-year old girl! As an almost-30-year old girl, I’m looking forward to hearing the news that Ezekiel has been granted a US visa at his appointment at the US embassy in Lagos tomorrow at 9am in that same ridiculously child-like hopeful way. The only difference is that I was sure that my grandparents would be there when I got home, but this time I can only hope and pray!