The teacher's strike and the lack of electricity every 2 days.

Last year doctors and nurses went on strike The government thinks that if it caves to the teacher's union it will lose its power with every government union. So far it has failed to recognize the existence of the striking union and is instead just now beginning discussions with the other teacher's union (the bigger one that is not officially striking).

I think everyone involved recognizes that at some point shutting down a significant part of the nation's education system becomes a bad thing for the country. I don't think they agree on whose responsibility that is. Through all of this, the teachers still get paid. The union president said they're prepared to strike all year. Teachers do get low salaries. With more than 50% of the country's workforce in agriculture, any job with a salary is atypical, especially outside of the major cities.   Two years ago, the striking union had made an agreement with the government which the government ignored, for reasons that I don't know.

Of course, Peace Corps (and therefore me) are neutral. Government? Union? All I can is shrug and occasionally ask questions around school like, "Is this ever going to end? Seriously, because it's going to be weird once there's normal school going on."

As for the electricity, it's usually on for 48 hours and then off for 12. I don't really mind it that much. If it's off during the day, it means I don't have to open the lab for the students (which right now is a chore I took on that maybe has some potential). And at night my town is so peaceful without electricity. When there are no clouds and the stars are out it reminds me of New York (a New York in which I shut off all of the electricity, remove the people, flatten all of the buildings and surround it with green jungle).

All of this because some body of water in the eastern part of the country is too low. And the dry season has not even started yet. I think they said the problem can be traced back to some other body of water to the north of Ghana, but I guess it really doesn't matter. It's probably not raining there either.

But the price of gasoline came down! Woo! I think the only way this directly effects me is that cab drivers no longer tell me that the price of gas is forcing them to rip me off. (they just don't provide an explanation any more).

Addendum #1: Someone from my group decided to go back to home to Alabama. He's not dead, so I won't eulogize him. He just decided he had seen enough of Ghana .

Addendum #2: Every computer at the Internet café has some Internet café software installed that keeps track of how long each user has been on, etc. Each customer has a "username" that the cashier (because that's what she is – a cashier. If she thinks she's managing this place, she's doing a horrible job) puts into the system. My name, always and every time, is "white." This makes perfect sense, unless she doesn't realize both that this username is easily accessible to me on my computer and that it's absurd to call me "white" in front of my face. Or she may just not care. I'm usually not upset by the whole obruni thing anymore. It's now kind of hilarious when someone comes up to me and just says, "Hey white." But I still hate this Internet café.

Addendum #3: National holiday today, so no school. It's the last day of Ramadan, a great way for everyone in Ghana to lose all the weight they gained during the yam festival (that line really kills over here). About twenty percent of the country is Muslim. My house is right on the border of my town's Muslim district (called Zonga District).

¶ 12:01 PM