February 1, 2010
A standard farewell in Ghana is to say “I will come visit you there” so when a cab brought me home last week I wasn’t surprised to hear the driver say that. We had talked briefly about how it was for me in Ghana, and he had said he wants to visit America, and etc. Everybody wants to visit America, and almost every time I am on a tro someone says the same thing. Earlier that same day a man traveling with his young son, but who might have been drinking, said he thought I could get him there somehow. After much discussion about how expensive it is to fly, hard to get a visa, etc., I told him that frankly there aren’t any free tickets to the US, and he was on his own as far as I was concerned. I reached home and forgot about both conversations. That’s just standard stuff you get all the time from Ghanaian men, who frequently also say they want to marry you. I usually tell them I have too many husbands already, and it’s kind of a game, but sometimes you just get sick of it. My latest response is that I have two husbands at home, but if this guy has a good enough job to support all of us I will consider it.
So imagine my surprise when the cab driver showed up yesterday, with a female classmate. She didn’t speak the entire time they were here, so I don’t know what that’s about. He couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize him right away, and had to keep reminding me of our conversation. As in, you are the grandmother, so you are too old for it to work, but I know you have many young white women in the Peace Corps and I thought you were going to introduce me to them. I ask, “Are you saying that you want to meet one of the white women so you can get to America?” “Yes,” and he was so relieved that I finally got it. Again, however, he had to emphasize “..but you are too old for it to work so you must introduce me to a younger woman.” I asked about his studies, he is probably around 22 or 23 and goes to high school, which is not uncommon here. He is studying agriculture, but wants to study engineering. I showed him on the map how far away from my site the younger white women are (just the ones really far). But he insisted he has seen them around Kukurantumi, so I was probably holding out on him. I explained there had been several week-long training sessions last month, but they are all back at their sites now, as I am. He realized it was probably a lost cause, but he is really disappointed. By that time I was cranky, and I advised him that maybe he could get to the US on his own. He should study hard, learn to read and speak English well, and try for a scholarship to study engineering at a university in the US. He thought that would be much too hard, but I think there’s a better chance of that than there is that some white chick with an extra ticket would stop him on the street and take him home with her. They left, and I would love to know what his companion understood or thought of all this. And I sort of wondered what he has that won’t work because I’m too old. But I’m not curious enough to want to have another conversation with him.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Turtles, December 19, 2009
Turtles December 19
I just learned that turtles are nesting on Ghanaian beaches during November and December. Too late for me now, but I will see them next year. I was on the first plane into Costa Rica after a hurricane during nesting season, but the roads to beaches were still closed. Missed nesting in Mexico by days, and Carolina coast by default. But I will see them next year,
I remember a book, but don’t remember the author or title. (Bryant and Ken go, “Yep, that’s Dorothy’s World.”) But what I do remember is reading it in one afternoon, and the light in my room seemed to be filtered through aquarium glass. Then they made a movie, (Glenda Jackson, maybe?) and for days the light around me was filtered and I could summon the feeling of being underwater.
Now, behind my eyelids, I am swimming in that grey-green opaque water, alongside a turtle who is already older than I will ever be, as she steadfastly continues to do her part to keep the universe in balance.
I just learned that turtles are nesting on Ghanaian beaches during November and December. Too late for me now, but I will see them next year. I was on the first plane into Costa Rica after a hurricane during nesting season, but the roads to beaches were still closed. Missed nesting in Mexico by days, and Carolina coast by default. But I will see them next year,
I remember a book, but don’t remember the author or title. (Bryant and Ken go, “Yep, that’s Dorothy’s World.”) But what I do remember is reading it in one afternoon, and the light in my room seemed to be filtered through aquarium glass. Then they made a movie, (Glenda Jackson, maybe?) and for days the light around me was filtered and I could summon the feeling of being underwater.
Now, behind my eyelids, I am swimming in that grey-green opaque water, alongside a turtle who is already older than I will ever be, as she steadfastly continues to do her part to keep the universe in balance.
Coffee, January 12, 2010
Coffee January 12, 2010
In the 50’s I was a Chemex coffee snob, and with good reason, and got Thanksgiving Coffee from a fishing village on the Northern California coast. I have been buying coffee at Coffee Works in my home town since they started roasting their own sometime in the 60’s, and my daughter, bless her, sends it to me here in Ghana. But recently a friend, who has in the past referred to Starbucks as the K-Mart of the coffee world, sent me some of their little tubes of instant. And it’s really good! For as long as I have been traveling, Nestle has had a lock on coffee in most of the developing world. I have had Nescafe in Mexico, Greece, Thailand, Ireland, even in England before the Italians taught them how to make proper coffee, etc. It is always accompanied by a slight shrug and the question, “Is Nescafe all right?” The VIA may not be quite as good as fresh roasted and filtered, but it’s pretty darn good. This is not a plea for anyone to send me more, I just want to share the good things. Easy to pack, or to mail, great for camping, and you can even carry a couple little tubes in your pocket. Score one for the Pacific Northwest!
In the 50’s I was a Chemex coffee snob, and with good reason, and got Thanksgiving Coffee from a fishing village on the Northern California coast. I have been buying coffee at Coffee Works in my home town since they started roasting their own sometime in the 60’s, and my daughter, bless her, sends it to me here in Ghana. But recently a friend, who has in the past referred to Starbucks as the K-Mart of the coffee world, sent me some of their little tubes of instant. And it’s really good! For as long as I have been traveling, Nestle has had a lock on coffee in most of the developing world. I have had Nescafe in Mexico, Greece, Thailand, Ireland, even in England before the Italians taught them how to make proper coffee, etc. It is always accompanied by a slight shrug and the question, “Is Nescafe all right?” The VIA may not be quite as good as fresh roasted and filtered, but it’s pretty darn good. This is not a plea for anyone to send me more, I just want to share the good things. Easy to pack, or to mail, great for camping, and you can even carry a couple little tubes in your pocket. Score one for the Pacific Northwest!
African Sounds, January 14, 2009
My living room is in the corner of the guest house, with windows to the west and south. I leave them open all the time, to catch any breeze there might be. (They are glass louvers, with rebar across about every six inches up, and screen over the entire thing.) The bedroom has a window on that same west wall, and there is a path about 10 feet away that leads from the main road to the river. There is another path on the far east side of the guesthouse that circles down the hill and below to the river, so there is a lot of foot traffic. Kids go to fetch water at first light, and others off and on all day. Water is carried in huge aluminum saucerlike pans, in empty gas cans, or anything else that can be found or purchased. There are also farmers carrying bananas in from the farm, or hunters who look for bush meat in the forest by the river. There is something called a grass cutter, that looks and tastes pretty much like wild rabbit, but without the ears. And they find (and sometimes farm) huge snails here, about nine or more inches, and about four inches high. They are prized meat, but I can’t quite go there.
There is always a sheep somewhere with a full bag of milk crying to get the young ones to come feed, and there are always goats calling to each other. There is one goat that calls in the evening, and sounds exactly like a frail old man going “Hellllpp, heellpp.” The first few times I heard it I really thought there was a problem, but now it’s just part of the fabric of the day. Five or six kids in the field under my window have a pick-up game of futbol going almost every day when they should be in school but aren’t. I think they must hear radio broadcasts, because if someone makes a goal they all shout these huge cries trying to sound like an entire stadium. There’s usually a kid crying somewhere, and Ghanaian kids have very structured cry patterns. You eventually sort out if someone is really hurt, or being caned at the school across the street or by a parent, or he is just going to keep up the cry until someone comes to comfort him. Nobody ever does, and eventually the kid gives up and goes on his way.
So there is always someone drumming on his bucket on the path, or roosters crowing ALL day starting at about 4am. There is a church up the hill and on either side of the main road, and there is drumming and/or music almost every night from at least one of them, often both. Recently one has had a generator and amplifiers for special events, which go sometimes for an entire week-end, both day and night. Both congregations assure me they are praying that we will succeed in getting electricity all the way up the hill. The downside to that is that they will immediately get amplifiers to improve their services. As it is now I go to sleep to drumming, often wake up to the muslim call to prayer, and doze until the second or third rooster alarm goes off. And for now it’s really nice, and I just work all the sounds into my dreams, or some kind of meditation.
However, there is one animal (locals say ah nee mall) that freaked me out for a long time. It is the most agonizing cry I have ever heard, and it sometimes goes on for as long as an hour. Always at night, it starts and stops in a pattern, and you wake and remember where you are; then you hear the scream again, then your mind hears the scream, the silence, the lash, the scream, the silence, the lash, etc. Villagers just reassured me it was an ahneemall, but nobody knew what kind. Recently, however, one man tells me it is a nocturnal animal that looks much like a rabbit, but is not a grasscutter. He doesn’t know the name, but says it lives in trees, and before it comes down at night to feed it makes those horrendous screams to scare away any predators that might be lurking about. It certainly works for me…I would let him have just about anything he wanted, just to shut him up. Then he stops, you begin to hear the drums again, and know that all is well in your village.
My living room is in the corner of the guest house, with windows to the west and south. I leave them open all the time, to catch any breeze there might be. (They are glass louvers, with rebar across about every six inches up, and screen over the entire thing.) The bedroom has a window on that same west wall, and there is a path about 10 feet away that leads from the main road to the river. There is another path on the far east side of the guesthouse that circles down the hill and below to the river, so there is a lot of foot traffic. Kids go to fetch water at first light, and others off and on all day. Water is carried in huge aluminum saucerlike pans, in empty gas cans, or anything else that can be found or purchased. There are also farmers carrying bananas in from the farm, or hunters who look for bush meat in the forest by the river. There is something called a grass cutter, that looks and tastes pretty much like wild rabbit, but without the ears. And they find (and sometimes farm) huge snails here, about nine or more inches, and about four inches high. They are prized meat, but I can’t quite go there.
There is always a sheep somewhere with a full bag of milk crying to get the young ones to come feed, and there are always goats calling to each other. There is one goat that calls in the evening, and sounds exactly like a frail old man going “Hellllpp, heellpp.” The first few times I heard it I really thought there was a problem, but now it’s just part of the fabric of the day. Five or six kids in the field under my window have a pick-up game of futbol going almost every day when they should be in school but aren’t. I think they must hear radio broadcasts, because if someone makes a goal they all shout these huge cries trying to sound like an entire stadium. There’s usually a kid crying somewhere, and Ghanaian kids have very structured cry patterns. You eventually sort out if someone is really hurt, or being caned at the school across the street or by a parent, or he is just going to keep up the cry until someone comes to comfort him. Nobody ever does, and eventually the kid gives up and goes on his way.
So there is always someone drumming on his bucket on the path, or roosters crowing ALL day starting at about 4am. There is a church up the hill and on either side of the main road, and there is drumming and/or music almost every night from at least one of them, often both. Recently one has had a generator and amplifiers for special events, which go sometimes for an entire week-end, both day and night. Both congregations assure me they are praying that we will succeed in getting electricity all the way up the hill. The downside to that is that they will immediately get amplifiers to improve their services. As it is now I go to sleep to drumming, often wake up to the muslim call to prayer, and doze until the second or third rooster alarm goes off. And for now it’s really nice, and I just work all the sounds into my dreams, or some kind of meditation.
However, there is one animal (locals say ah nee mall) that freaked me out for a long time. It is the most agonizing cry I have ever heard, and it sometimes goes on for as long as an hour. Always at night, it starts and stops in a pattern, and you wake and remember where you are; then you hear the scream again, then your mind hears the scream, the silence, the lash, the scream, the silence, the lash, etc. Villagers just reassured me it was an ahneemall, but nobody knew what kind. Recently, however, one man tells me it is a nocturnal animal that looks much like a rabbit, but is not a grasscutter. He doesn’t know the name, but says it lives in trees, and before it comes down at night to feed it makes those horrendous screams to scare away any predators that might be lurking about. It certainly works for me…I would let him have just about anything he wanted, just to shut him up. Then he stops, you begin to hear the drums again, and know that all is well in your village.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
New Year's day
As you can well imagine, there are always language problems. And kids who always ask for money, or biscuits,or a pen,or whatever. I always say, "I thought you came to give ME money. How much will you give me, etc." I think it's pretty funny, they don't always. So New Years Day two guys, young adults maybe 20-25? stopped me on the road with a basket of food. I didn't know what they wanted, exactly, but I did the usual, Oh, food for me? And they explained again they wanted me to put food in the basket. Something about Hagar, death, and whatever. But for the new year they take food to the village. Did I mention these guys were covered in white powder? Hair, faces not so much, shoulders and bare chests, etc. I got that it was some NY thing for the village, so we went back to my place and I put some things in the basket. (Trailmix, yes, Pkg Tuna, no.)After they left, a smallboy nearby explained that Hagar had tried to kill them, and they had escaped. More mystery, but I remember there is a Hagar in the bible so I thought it was some bible story. WrongoBongo. In my very village a woman named Hagar wanted to get rid of her boyfriend, so she prepared a "special holiday meal" for him and his friend. For some reason they did not eat it. One person says the friend was suspicious, another person says the friend just wasn't hungry and it would have been rude of the boyfriend to eat if his friend did not. But you don't waste food in Africa, so they gave the food to the dog. Who died. Well, Hagar couldn't think of another way to get rid of her boyfriend, so she could go off with her new boyfriend, so she tried to poison him. (Isn't there a movie she could have watched, or a song about ways to leave your lover?) And the white powder is to show that they were with Death, but they escaped. And there is a Krobo tradition that you collect food for everyone in the village on the first day of the new year to guarantee that there will be food for everyone in the coming year. They just took it a step further, because they HAD escaped death, and wanted us all to rejoice for them, and with them. I was sorry I didn't get the whole picture right away, but they did look pretty bizarre covered in gray ash and asking for food. A villager told me that the district police did go to arrest Hagar, but she has gone away and they don't know where. Probly with the new BF, dontya think? Anyhow, that's it for NY. And I didn't get to eat any black-eyed peas, but I didn't eat lunch with these guys, either. And doesn't this just beat all?.
What I did do New Year's eve is stay up past midnight (probably the first in a long time) with a friend who spent the night. We drank a superb bottle of Australian wine, and watched the most incredible full moon I've seen in years. Some time after we went to bed, so it must have almost been morning, villagers burned tires in the middle of the road through town...some New Age arrangement with them and the tire companies. But it was all very grand, and I am sure we had a second full moon that month simply because we were to appreciate it. More sooner than later, I promise. See ya. Cheers, dw
What I did do New Year's eve is stay up past midnight (probably the first in a long time) with a friend who spent the night. We drank a superb bottle of Australian wine, and watched the most incredible full moon I've seen in years. Some time after we went to bed, so it must have almost been morning, villagers burned tires in the middle of the road through town...some New Age arrangement with them and the tire companies. But it was all very grand, and I am sure we had a second full moon that month simply because we were to appreciate it. More sooner than later, I promise. See ya. Cheers, dw
Monday, December 21, 2009
Pictures from Ghana
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Click on the picture to see more from Ghana
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Required reading
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the home/pool/yard of the Ambassador, and he and his wife could not have been more wonderful. I want to tell you all about it, but first I want you to hear this true story. You will understand why I can\t give names, locations, or dates, but trust me on this one. One of our PCVs, hereafter known as Saint PCV, was assigned to a small village. We went to our sites August 15. We were expected to spend our first three months integrating into our villages, finding out who the players are, where to shop, how to shop, etc. Certainly interact with everyone who might be involved in your project, but no specific activities yet. Well, after a while in his village he asked about a small girl he had seen several times, and who seemed in dire straits. He said she was so thin her bones were like sticks, with not even flesh left for the potbelly that signals malnutrition, she was dirty, and seemed totally neglected.
Because she was. Her mother was dead (don\t know those details) and one day, probably not for the first time, her father beat her. Perhaps in a frenzy caused by an aneurism, who knows, but the next morning he was dead. So obviously she took her revenge. The people in the village believe she is a ju-ju child who caused the death of both her parents, they were afraid of her, and the village decided to completely shun her, not give her access to food, and she would eventually die. If not from starvation, something else. Saint PCV, a man probably in his late thirties, not one of the new grads, knew he had to step in here. He realized he couldn\t move her into his quarters, but he brought her food, bathed her, got her clothing, etc. Villagers warned him that he could jeopardize his position in the village, but he did what he had to do. He just kept feeding her, and the week before Thanksgiving, after working his way through all the cultural and bureaucratic jungles, he got her settled in an orphanage where she will be cared for. Saint PCV saved a life, and we can all give thanks for that.
And this could still play out a lot of different ways for Saint PCV. The village might find it hard to trust him...maybe her evil rubbed off on him, maybe his ju-ju is stronger than hers, which could be another problem, maybe he is just a crazy obruni and they will all go right back to where they were. It\s hard to know. I have lived in two villages, each with a large Christian presence, but in both there was a seamless acceptance of the fact that someone had been cursed, or had put a curse, or something. In one case the elders, including the methodist pastor, worked to have the woman agree to remove the curse, and she did. There are at least two "camps" in Ghana for women who have been cast out of their villages for witchcraft. Usually old, but not always, no job, no source of income, and even the family is afraid of them..or afraid to help them because they might also be cursed. A female PCV has actually started a beadmaking class at one of the camps, so the women may have a skill and a source of income, although they will probably never be allowed to leave. And that wasn\t even her project, either. She just started it on her own as a second project. And the Daily Dispatch, a regular newspaper in Ghana, had a story a couple of weeks ago about a pedophile who had been arrested, and who they quoted as saying, *I never had a hankering for young boys until after my stepmother put that curse on me." (I think the translater might have been watching too many cowboy movies, because *hankerin* just doesn\t sound Ghanaian, but that\s another topic.) And we know it\s always the stepmom\s fault, but the point is witchcraft, sorcery, etc., is as real to many people as their daily bible classes. Or their Koran, because there is the same sort of parallel belief system further north where the villages may be almost totally muslim. Not just uneducated people, or people in the bush. It's part of the fabric of life and acts as a subtext to a great deal of thought and action, and should not be dismissed as just tribal nonsense. I have at least two other such stories that I will post when I have better computer access, but I want you to have this one for the holiday season. That child is being cared for, and the universe is a bit shinier for that.
Sorry it\s been so long between updates. I will have a new computer soon!!! and will be able to write at home and then just download here. Until then, love what you do and do what you love. Cheers, dw
Because she was. Her mother was dead (don\t know those details) and one day, probably not for the first time, her father beat her. Perhaps in a frenzy caused by an aneurism, who knows, but the next morning he was dead. So obviously she took her revenge. The people in the village believe she is a ju-ju child who caused the death of both her parents, they were afraid of her, and the village decided to completely shun her, not give her access to food, and she would eventually die. If not from starvation, something else. Saint PCV, a man probably in his late thirties, not one of the new grads, knew he had to step in here. He realized he couldn\t move her into his quarters, but he brought her food, bathed her, got her clothing, etc. Villagers warned him that he could jeopardize his position in the village, but he did what he had to do. He just kept feeding her, and the week before Thanksgiving, after working his way through all the cultural and bureaucratic jungles, he got her settled in an orphanage where she will be cared for. Saint PCV saved a life, and we can all give thanks for that.
And this could still play out a lot of different ways for Saint PCV. The village might find it hard to trust him...maybe her evil rubbed off on him, maybe his ju-ju is stronger than hers, which could be another problem, maybe he is just a crazy obruni and they will all go right back to where they were. It\s hard to know. I have lived in two villages, each with a large Christian presence, but in both there was a seamless acceptance of the fact that someone had been cursed, or had put a curse, or something. In one case the elders, including the methodist pastor, worked to have the woman agree to remove the curse, and she did. There are at least two "camps" in Ghana for women who have been cast out of their villages for witchcraft. Usually old, but not always, no job, no source of income, and even the family is afraid of them..or afraid to help them because they might also be cursed. A female PCV has actually started a beadmaking class at one of the camps, so the women may have a skill and a source of income, although they will probably never be allowed to leave. And that wasn\t even her project, either. She just started it on her own as a second project. And the Daily Dispatch, a regular newspaper in Ghana, had a story a couple of weeks ago about a pedophile who had been arrested, and who they quoted as saying, *I never had a hankering for young boys until after my stepmother put that curse on me." (I think the translater might have been watching too many cowboy movies, because *hankerin* just doesn\t sound Ghanaian, but that\s another topic.) And we know it\s always the stepmom\s fault, but the point is witchcraft, sorcery, etc., is as real to many people as their daily bible classes. Or their Koran, because there is the same sort of parallel belief system further north where the villages may be almost totally muslim. Not just uneducated people, or people in the bush. It's part of the fabric of life and acts as a subtext to a great deal of thought and action, and should not be dismissed as just tribal nonsense. I have at least two other such stories that I will post when I have better computer access, but I want you to have this one for the holiday season. That child is being cared for, and the universe is a bit shinier for that.
Sorry it\s been so long between updates. I will have a new computer soon!!! and will be able to write at home and then just download here. Until then, love what you do and do what you love. Cheers, dw
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