08.9.2006 | 3:19 pm | Background
Superstition – A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance.
Myth – A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal
How to Eat an Elephant
When God created all the animals of the world, including man, he started with the primary colors of life. Then she began to mix and match colors creating other kinds of animals. As an afterthought God said to himself ‘why don’t I take bits and pieces of every animal and make one big animal!’ And so she did and the result was the elephant.
This information was somehow disclosed to man so that when she kills an elephant she is allowed to take away and eat all of the parts of the elephant except for the side in which the elephant fell on, because that is the human side. Eating that part of the elephant would be in fact cannibalism, and most people aren’t into that.
Clean Sweep
In the case that you are sweeping a floor and you happen to sweep near another person’s feet you must immediately step on the broom.
Reason: Your broom may have swept the person’s power away from them, and you must step on the broom to give it back.
Divine Justice
If you are struck by lightning and happen to survive, don’t expect to get any help even from your friends, who by the way are no longer your friends. When you got hit by lighting that was God’s way of punishing you for being a thief, and nobody wants to be associated with a thief.
No Whistling After Dark
Snakes are attracted to the sound of someone whistling. Whistling after dark is therefore just asking for trouble.
Don’t Travel With Ducks
Ducks are extremely unlucky creatures. If you find yourself riding in a vehicle with a duck on board you stand a high risk of being in an accident. Such duck related accidents are often fatal.
Struck Limp
If a woman hits a man with her stirring stick or spoon the man will be impotent for the rest of his life.
Don’t Eat Guinea Fowl Heads
It’s just unlucky to eat a Guinea Fowl Head, but the reason for this probably stems from the common idiom “you are what you eat.” And let me tell you Guinea Fowl are perhaps the dumbest creatures on the planet. If they did not taste so good I would have no clue why the poor creature hasn’t gone the way of the dodo. So if you eat a birdbrain you are a birdbrain.
Side Note: Last week five Guinea Fowl decided to take a swim in a recently built latrine in Kulkpong. Moral of the story: Guinea Fowl can’t swim. And yes the latrine owner (and consequently the Guinea Fowl owner) did fish the unfortunate birds out, and yes he did eat them.
Don’t Eat Eggs While Pregnant
If you eat an egg while pregnant your child will become a thief.
Reason: Your guess is as good as mine.
First-Born are Not to Eat Fowl
The first-born male should not eat fowl his entire life.
Reason: He will eventually become the leader of the household. He will eventually need to make all the important decisions and speak wisely. If he eats a fowl the act of chewing it will cause his jaw to slacken, allowing untruths and poor decisions to come out.
No Sex after Menopause
This subject came up during the HIV/AIDS and Sex Education forum I had in Kulkpong a few months back. During the Q&A portion of the forum one of the women asked the question ‘Can you have sex after menopause?’ The nurse who was there to facilitate the meeting promptly replied, yes. However the rest of the women in the group sternly shook their heads in disagreement. “Why don’t you think you can have sex after menopause?” asked the nurse. One women replied “there is no longer anything to push the semen out. So it will just build up in there and make you sick.” “Okay” said the nurse, ” why not use a condom to capture the semen?” The answer was simply “No” without explanation.
After the forum I asked the nurse and various other people why the older women were so hard lined against using condoms. The answers I got have produced two possible theories. The first reason is perhaps religious. The holy books say that sex is for only making babies. When you can no longer make babies you should no longer have sex. The second theory however makes the assumption that sex for most of these women isn’t all that pleasurable. Not a shocker when you consider that there are people all around the world, including men, who would not put sex down on their favorite things to do list. But what did come as a shock to me was to find out that it is likely that many of the women, particularly the older ones, have been circumcised or as some people call it Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
According to Janet, the local nurse, laws against FGM were not strictly enforced in the region until 2001, and it continues to persist to this day since traditionalist families can still get the procedure done just by hoping the border to Burkina Faso. Explanations to why FGM is still practiced are many but here is one supporting superstition: During childbirth if a child touches the clitoris he/she will go blind.
No matter what a woman’s reason is – ignorance, piety, discomfort or other – given the option she would much rather not have intercourse, and menopause is a good excuse. But the husband, being a men and all, continues to desire sex and often times the wife will encourage him to seek it elsewhere to stop bothering her. In Muslim and Traditional households the husband can go out get a new younger wife. Men of monogamous faiths will go and get a “girl friend.” And this is yet another reason why AIDS is doing so well. According to Newsweek 80% of women worldwide who contracted HIV last year had been faithful to their husbands.
The moral of the story: Men Suck.
Two Days
In most of Ghana’s Upper West languages if someone has not seen a friend or a family member for a long time they will first warmly greet that person and then say “two days.” Something must be said about a culture that believes if you haven’t seen a friend within two days it has been too long.
So to my friends and family everywhere I say…
TWO DAYS!!!!
Comments (3)
07.10.2006 | 8:22 am | Uncategorized, Projects
Hi folks. This is just an update to let you know what’s been going on. No story this time and I promise it won’t be as long as the last one.
The rainy season has fully kicked in. The Upper West is looking a lot greener, and Kulkpong has become a ghost town during the day as just about everyone is busy on their farms. I have more opportunities to be in Kulkpong now that Carter Center has hired a TA. I help the new guy out every now and again by helping him to write monthly reports and keeping tabs on the project in my district, but most of the burden has lifted off my shoulders.
With my new found time I’ve been helping a neighboring community go through the steps of forming a Water & Sanitation Committee in order to get a borehole (hand-pumped well). On Fridays I meet with the Kulkpong Women’s group and we’ve been working on strengthening the group and brainstorming for business ideas. Next Friday the group and I will be learning how to make soy-milk (sounds wholesome eh?). About once a week I have some kind of health talk in the community. Last week it was HIV/AIDS and it was very interesting to do condom demonstrations in my own village. It was kind of like watching a sex scene in a movie while sitting next to your parents. And then there are my normal activities of Guinea Worm and Trachoma inspections and education.
Okay so I think I almost sound like a goodie goodie busy super Peace Corps Volunteer. So let me tell you straight out that I do a lot of slacking off. Most of my community meetings happen in the morning before people go to farm, so the rest of the day I mostly read, sleep or rearrange furniture. Why don’t I go to farm with everyone else you may wonder, because it’s F’ing hot out there that’s why. Given the option I would much rather take a nap.
In other news, thanks to my wonderful sister and brother-in-law I’ll be coming home for two weeks. My arrival date is August 25th and I will be in the Buffalo/Syracuse area until September 9th. If anyone has any specific request for items from Africa, now is the time to do it. And to all those who are going to be in the area during that time please email me.
Until then I miss you all.
Comments (3)
05.16.2006 | 9:32 am | Uncategorized
“Excuse! Excuse!”
By 6:45am every morning someone wakes me.
“Excuse! Excuse!”
It’s part of Ghanaian culture to greet your friends and family every morning, afternoon and evening, but it’s part of my culture to stay in bed as long as I possibly can.
“Excuse! Excuse!”
It’s not like it’s always the same person who comes to my door either; it varies. Sometimes it’s Lawrence, my counterpart. All too often it’s Abudan, a lazy kid who likes to come over to my place to avoid doing housework. It could also be Oldman and Abudi, the Starsky and Hutch of Kulkpong (Oldman’s real name by the way is Alhassan and he’s only thirty three years old). It’s also not unusual for Chief or any of the other village elders to stop by.
“Excuse! Excuse!”
Sometimes I ignore them. I pretend to be in a deep sleep, dead to the world.
“BIMBO!”
But most times the world refuses to be ignored.
“Bimbo, are you sleep?”
I got up and opened the door. On the veranda stood Abudi, and with him were two men I had never seen. One of the men looked plain and slightly overweight but only because the other man was so shockingly thin. The slender man wore a brown duster jacket, which did nothing to hide his figure, and a gold Kufi skullcap. The gold hat accentuated the gold front tooth that hung in his mouth like an oil lamp in a dilapidated tent. He spoke with an airy voice, “Is-salaam ghaleekum, peace be upon you.”
“Wa ghaleekum is-salaam, and upon you be peace” I replied (see basic Arabic 101), and then the gold tooth grew larger as the folds of his mouth stretched into a wide smile.
“Good morning. We’re here to deliver the cement and the pipes.”
“How many?”
“250 bags and 250 pipes.” Up until that moment I was trying to appear professional. I stood in front of the three men wearing a pair of running shorts and a stained white tee shirt. My hair was well tossed and I’m sure there was some drool crusted on my cheek. What little professional façade I had was completely ruined when I let out a ‘HELL YEAH!!’ followed by a small victory dance.
It was obvious that I wasn’t prepared for this. I knew the materials to build household latrines were coming, but I had no idea when. It had been only two weeks since Lydia, the Carter Center Trachoma Director, had come to Kulkpong to hold a meeting to get community acceptance of the project. And it was only one week ago that I had turned in a census of participating households to Lydia. Then without warning there I was, standing outside in my pajamas staring at a tractor-trailer truck filled with cement and PVC pipes. My excitement was justified for two reasons: first of all this was unbelievable, NO project in Ghana moves that fast; second, this was a Water & Sanitation Volunteer’s dream come true!
A couple days after the materials arrived I received a hand-delivered note from Lydia instructing me to have at least five households ready by the following day. ‘Ready’ meant that for every latrine a household should gather twelve head-pans of aggregate and nine head-pans of sand. In Kulkpong we have plenty of sand but as for stones…not so much. That afternoon, Abudi, Oldman, a couple other people from the community and I walked two miles outside of town along a bush path to Kulkpong’s version of a rock quarry. For six hours we dug rocks out of the ground using locally made hoes and pickaxes. We sieved out the dirt using perforated pans and cornstalk mats. Larger rocks we broke apart with other rocks and makeshift hammers.
By the time we finished, the sun had set and the first stars appeared. My hands felt raw, but I felt great. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself about how this was such a cliché Peace Corps moment. Oldman looked over and asked me why was I laughing. I was about to tell him but I stopped myself because it occurred to me that he probably wouldn’t understand the novelty of the situation. Instead I smiled at him and told him that I was just happy. He returned the smile and then we began our walk back home.
The next day Lydia showed up with Chief and two masons that she claimed to have hired from the Wa District Assembly. To me the men looked more like escaped convicts, but over time I got to know them fairly well. First there’s Adams. He’s a slender chain-smoking loudmouthed know-it-all with an anal-retentive work ethic that makes him an excellent mason. The other man’s name is Dean. He works just as hard as Adams but talks significantly less, except around children. Whenever there is a baby around he turns into a goo-goo-gaa-gaaing chatterbox. It’s cute but also slightly disturbing.
Lydia got out of the passenger side of her truck wearing high heels and an elaborate African dress. In her hands she carried her purse, a clipboard, and a tape measure. I pointed her towards the first house and she immediately took charge and ordered the two masons, the homeowner and one of his wives to follow her. Chief, Abudi, Oldman and I tagged along as they circled the house several times looking for the optimal place to stick a latrine. When they finally decided on a place, preferably close the bathing area but away from where they cooked, the masons demarcated the site by using two nails tied together with string and drawing into the ground two circles with the same center point, one with a 18-inch radius, the other a 24-inch radius. Adams then went and found a twig and divided it into a 6-inch and 9-inch piece. He handed the pieces over to the landlord and instructed him to dig out the space in between the two circles to a 9-inch depth, maintaining a 6-inch width. He went on to explain to the landlord that the dugout ring would be the mold for the latrine’s foundation, or ‘rim beam’ as it’s called in the business. Except for the tasked homeowner, we were all quickly herded by Lydia to the next house to repeat the process.
We demarcated all five households that morning and by the time we finished the sun was at its highest intensity, but that didn’t seem to slow down Lydia. She gave the order to return to the first house with a bag of cement in order to cast the first rim beam. I left Lydia and Chief who were discussing lunch, and raced ahead to catch up with the masons to watch them mix the cement and cast the first rim beam. I was impressed with the masons’ workmanship up until a point. They were using the correct cement to sand to aggregate ratio, but when it came to applying water they were using way too much. In my head I could hear the voices of two of my professors back at Michigan Tech, Tom Van Dam and Jim Mihelcic, repeating over and over to me that too much water will weaken the concrete. It became almost painful to watch.
I was starting to make subtle hints to the masons to ease up on the water when I was interrupted by Chief calling me back to where I had left him and Lydia. I turned around and immediately noticed that Lydia was kneeling on the ground and Chief was behind her holding up her upper body. I quickly ran over to them and watched as Chief and another man picked Lydia up and put her into a chair underneath the shade of a mango tree. I asked for cool water and a handkerchief and when it came I applied the damp cloth to her face until she regained consciousness. Abudi who had witnessed most of the event later reenacted the scene. First he played Lydia, talking talking talking, walking around in circles and then fainting. Then he played me, running up and falling to my knees beside her with my arms stretched out and my face looking up to heaven screaming “Nooooo!”
“Abudi, you watch too many movies,” I told him.
Lydia had to be taken back to Wa to rest in her air-conditioned hotel room. That evening she wanted to meet with Cory, the Carter Center Guinea Worm Technical Assistant (TA), and myself to discuss the future of the project. I left with Lydia and her driver leaving everyone else behind to sort things out. Later on at the meeting Lydia went over everything with Cory and I. Kulkpong was receiving household latrines from Carter Center because it is a Trachoma-endemic community. There are, however, many other communities throughout Kulkpong’s district of Wa East and the neighboring district of Wa West that are also endemic. Carter Center was in the process of hiring a Trachoma TA to help facilitate the latrine promotion project in those communities but had yet to hire anyone. So, she asked me to stand in for a while and, without really knowing what I was getting myself into, I said yes. Lydia was to return to Tamale the next day, and in a week I was to meet her there to pick up the monthly budget and to be assigned a Carter Center truck and driver.
The week before I left for Tamale, I spent most of my time in Kulkpong making sure things were running smoothly there. Abudi and Oldman had organized the young men of the village into work teams in order to excavate the latrine’s pit. The work teams were receiving a small incentive of 45,000 cedis (~$4.25) per completed latrine. Which meant that the pit has to be at least 10ft deep, the cover slab has to be made and put into place over the pit, some kind of housing has to be put up around the latrine and the PVC vent pipe has to be installed before a work team can receive their money. Although the sum was small it was enough motivation to get them to work, and work they did!
There were five work teams in total. Amongst them grew a rivalry to compete for which team could dig the most latrines. Some of the teams would work day and night, taking shifts. As soon as they were finished with one hole, they moved right on to the next. By the end of the week the teams had completed excavating nearly fifty latrines.
The teams didn’t work without complaint or mischief. Everyday each team would ask me for money to buy better tools, batteries for their flashlights and radios, food, or tea and cigarettes to keep them productive. As much as I sympathized I didn’t have the money to provide them with such things. After they got the hint that I really did not have the money, they turned to asking each household for a donation of 5,000 cedis (~$0.45). At first I thought this was a good idea, community ownership and whatnot, but then I found out that they were refusing to dig for anyone who didn’t pay the donation. There was also the matter of digging the pit to the full 10ft. Many of the teams didn’t have tape measures, so I found a bunch of long sticks and cut them to 10ft lengths. I gave each team a stick and went away to check up on the masons. When I returned one of the teams told me they were done. They put the stick down the hole and sure enough the stick was fully submerged into the pit. I took the stick out and measured it to discover that they had cut the stick down to 8ft. It was funny the first time, but as I went around all five teams had done the same thing!
That week was the last time I spent any lengthy period in Kulkpong, and that was during the month of February. I’ve gone back to check up on things but only, at the most, for two or three days. My relationship with Kulkpong is deteriorating. The other day on one of my brief stays an elder came up to me, “Mini-cogu…err…Mini-bimbo (I often get called Mini-cogu which means ‘God’s Gift’ rather than my given name Mini-bimbo. Being mistaken for God’s Gift is understandable and I usually let it slide.) you go and come but you never stay. Why? Did we offend you?” It was a total guilt trip, precise and effective.
What has kept me away from Kulkpong has been my promise to fill in as the Upper West Regional Trachoma TA until Carter Center hires (a real) one. Since February my days have been filled with setting up and attending meetings with District Directors and their respective communities, hiring masons and working out the logistics of transporting them to the communities along with enough cement and PVC pipes, troubleshooting when problems come up – and they do come up – and then reporting it all back to Carter Center monthly. So, in essence, my role has changed from a Project Manager in Kulkpong, to being a Project Manager for 15 communities spread out over two districts.
My worries about the overall success of the project are growing. Before the project began, I was told that this was an opportunity to provide Trachoma-endemic communities with household latrines to improve hygienic conditions. All communities selected were to have received plenty of health education about Trachoma and the benefits of latrines prior to bringing the project to those communities. This was true for Kulkpong, but certainly not the case for many of the others. Before I had time to raise the caution flag I found myself sitting on enough cement and vent pipes to build well over 1000 latrines. What I definitely did not have was the resources to move the materials to the communities they were intended for, or the time to provide the communities with the proper education and supervision. This has become my first experience with what many aid groups call the “Donor-Receiver Gap.” Apparently those who provided the funding for this project gave it under the strict conditions that at least 1000 latrines would be constructed in the Upper West by the end of 2006. Now the goal of the project has turned to building 1000 latrines as fast as possible without much regard to its initial goal of controlling Trachoma or towards sustainability. I haven’t kept my anxieties to myself. I’ve notified all parties, except for the donors, of my concerns and I will continue to work as hard as I can to help the project reach better ends. I just hope that I’m not doing more harm then good…
Comments (4)
03.7.2006 | 10:57 am | Uncategorized, Background
This entry was intended to be made in January…Sorry I’ll explain later.
“Hey did you hear about Haroon?” Tim asked me as we waited in line for a much anticipated submarine sandwich.
“What about him?”
“Okay, well you heard about what happened to him when he went to his site for the first time…when he killed the chief?”
“No wait, what? Refresh my memory.”
“During his Site Visit he met the chief of his village. Things went well, especially when the chief and the other elders found out that Haroon was Muslim. Two hours later t he chief was complaining of an upset stomach, and an hour after that the chief was dead.”
“Oh yeah,” I laughed. Sorry, but it is kind of funny especially if you know how gentle and harmless Haroon is.
“It gets better” Tim continued. “After training Haroon got to site rather late one night and there was a boy there who helped him bring his stuff into the house. A week later the boy was dead!”
“Whaa!”
“When I found out I text him; I hear u killed again o-dark 1. And here is his reply.” He took out his phone and scrolled through the phone’s menus until he found the text message and showed it to me: Yeah and my cat died last week. I don’t understand all this death.
“Oh my god! That’s awful,” I chuckled. “Haroon the angel of death. You know I shared a room with him in Philly and in Accra.”
“Oh man, you better watch out,” Tim laughed. “You could have cancer!!”
“That’s not funny Tim.”
A week before Christmas I was lying in bed one night and I decided to do a self-examination (yeah that’s right a ‘self examination,’ the one recommended for males ages 15-35 to be conducted monthly, so Grow Up People!), and I found a bump. Not a very big bump, hardly noticeable really, but a bump nonetheless. Following Peace Corps protocol I called my PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) to notify and get permission to leave for Accra to get the bump checked out. Following Ghanaian protocol I arrived in Accra a month later.
To my friends and family in the medical business I say; I know, I know, I know. I should have gone to get it checked out a lot sooner, but first of all it was Christmas and there was no way I could see someone until after the holidays. Not to mention I wasn’t looking forward to the twelve-hour bus trip on the mostly unpaved road that is the “Wa-Kumasi Highway.” It’s because of that road that Upper-West PCVs are considered ‘Geographically Unavailable.’ And besides I had no idea how long that little bump had been there so what’s a few more weeks?
My timing getting into Accra was…well…timely. After recovering from buslag, which requires two aspirin and an hour of uninterrupted sleep for every hour spent on a bus, I made a phone call to my friend Emily who lives near Accra. “Hey!” she said. “Are you in town to meet Mrs. Bush?”
“Mrs. Bush?…Barbara?”
“No, Laura.”
“Which one’s is she?”
“The First Lady.” Emily said rather condescendingly. “Barbara’s their daughter and she’s here too. Laura wants to meet PCVs at the Ambassadors house. You could probably still get on the list.”
God…why would I want to meet the wife of a tyrant? I mean what do you say, ‘Oh nice to meet you. So how does it feel to be married to the Anti-Christ!’ What kind of sellout would I be to go and snap a PR picture with the First Lady of the most destructive, war mongering, economically irresponsible U.S. administration of all time. Why should I even show the slightest bit of support for this mother of devil babies, while everyone else’s babies are dieing in an un-winnable oil war.
“There will be free food and an open bar.”
“I’ll be there!”
Twenty other PCVs and I congregated at the Peace Corps Ghana HQ to get briefed on the First Lady’s itinerary and subsequently our own. Early that day I actually worried that because I had left all of my ties in Kulkpong I might be seen as looking too casual for the affair, but looking around at my Peace Corps brothers and sisters I felt almost over dressed in my white dress shirt, brown pants, and brown shoes. I should have known to bring my African tie-dye shirt and Chaco sandals (just kidding, I don’t own Chaco sandals).
We arrived at the ambassador’s house to be greeted by Secret Service agents with metal-detecting wands and wires coming out of their ears (I was going to make a ‘hey buddy what’s the score’ joke but I decided that would be a bit too tasteless). As soon as I was done being frisked I made a beeline to the patio where food and drinks were to be served. Much to my disappointment the food being offered was nothing more than peanuts, Fritos, and Combos served in small finger bowls with hardly enough to go around. Fortunately however I was able to get a vodka-tonic even though it was only ten-o’clock in the morning, but come on it was free.
For an hour I moved from finger bowl to finger bowl, occasionally being interrupted by State Department employees trying to make small talk. “So you’re Peace Corps. I was Peace Corps Mali in 78’, that was before Peace Corps volunteers had cell phones.” One of the side effects of five years of engineering school is an inability to make small talk, or say anything remotely interesting at parties, so I don’t. “Yup, I’m Peace Corps. Hey can you pass me those Fritos?”
When the First Lady finally showed up, the Ambassador gave her a small introduction before she took the podium. Her speech took maybe five minutes tops. She thanked us all for our hard work as ambassadors of peace, and she especially thanked all of the women for showing Ghanaians that American women were not all “Desperate Housewives.” I’m afraid the pop-culture reference would be lost to most Ghanaians.
A typical housewife in Ghana wakes up at 4:00am every morning to begin her daily activities of fetching water, gathering wood, making the morning meal, bathing the children, cleaning the house, washing the cloths, washing the pots and pans, and then she goes to work. Work could be going to the farm with the men, making charcoal, or making some sort of craft or food to sell in the market. On a market day it is most likely she who will carry whatever it is her family has to sell, but any money made in the market will no doubt end up in the hands of her husband. After work she prepares the evening meal and then cleans up afterwards. She of course does all of this with a baby strapped to her back and or pregnant at the same time.
A housewife is a servant to her husband and family. In return all she asks for is a roof over her head, food to prepare, and not to be abused or cheated upon. When one of those rights are violated she may try to leave, but the consequences of such a bold move could make matters worse. I once witnessed a woman trying to leave her husband. She had packed her personal belongings into a small plastic bag and was trying get into a market truck when her husband came running out from one of the houses screaming at her to get off the truck. The driver sided with the husband and ordered the woman off the truck. Even some of the other women in the truck decided to voice their opinion by telling her how horrible a wife she was to try and abandon her husband. Angry and ashamed she walked quickly back to the row of houses with her husband following closely behind. No Mrs. Bush, Ghana has it’s own version of Desperate Housewives.
So the next day I finally got around to having myself checked out. A nurse, an ultrasound, and a doctor and I have to say it’s the most action that I’ve gotten in a long time. The diagnosis: “a small build up of fluid. Nothing to be too concerned about unless it gets bigger.” Okay I think I’m officially bordering on too much information.
Comments (7)
01.1.2006 | 9:09 am | Uncategorized
As requested a brief word about how I spent Christmas:
Other than being in Africa without my family and loved ones, Christmas was not all that out of the ordinary. One of the other PCVs in the Upper West had all of the other volunteers and friends in the region over to his house for Christmas. We played Frisbee, drank beer and wine, ate rice with marinated beef.
Later on that night we played a gift exchange game in which all of us brought one gift that was under 20,000 cedis (~$2.00). I brought a sling-shot and chanted “You’ll shoot your eye out”, when the person who chose it opened it up. And I received 10 orange frozen popsicles, 8 of which I ate on Christmas morning the other two I gave away — because after all it was Christmas .
To top things off we scared the living crap out of some Ghanaians by marching with lit candles down the road singing Christmas carols. Then we went back to the house and watched Elf the movie, and it wasn’t that bad.
I really missed my family though, but I must say Thank You to my family for not calling me. I remember being called in Thailand and handed from aunt to aunt and uncle to uncle saying only “hello” and “Yes it’s damn hot here.” The experience however left me depressed for nearly two weeks. So the Christmas emails were just fine.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you.
P.S.
Please take note of the change of address and the addition of some more pictures to the gallery.
Comments (4)
12.23.2005 | 11:27 am | Projects
For most of the meeting I sat looking down at my bare feet. For a minute I actually thought I had tanned, but when I reached down and scratched the top of my foot the dirt fell away and with it my tan. Sigh.
Looking back up, I made another attempt at pretending I could understand the man who was talking. My counterpart, Lawrence, was sitting next to me translating most of the conversation but in a barely audible whisper. It didn’t matter because I’d gotten the gist of the man’s speech a half-an-hour ago and had lost interest five minutes into it. In summary the man was trying to explain to the Chief why he and his constituents chose not to assists the others in maintaining the Chief’s farm fields. His excuse was that in previous seasons other groups had not done their share of the work and he and his group were left to do it all. So this year when the call to work came, he told his people to ignore it and to mind their own.
The man was not the only defiant elder at the meeting; there were many others. In fact, a lack of cooperation and community unity had become the apparent theme. It started immediately after I had introduced myself and gave a short, sincere, yet candy-coated speech about looking forward to working with them to improve Kulkpong. When I sat down the Chief turned to his audience and asked why it was that the preparations for my house and my latrine had not been completed. And that’s when the finger pointing began and didn’t stop for nearly three hours.
Isn’t it funny how bickering still sounds like bickering even from a foreign tong?
While sitting there half listening and half day dreaming, I began to recall the fable of Stone Soup. I’m sure many of you remember the story: Stranger walks into an inhospitable village and tricks the villagers into cooperating and making the best soup they’ve ever had. Ring a bell? Well anyways…I’m not going to be presumptuous enough to say that I see myself as the Stranger, or even that I’m clever enough to trick just one person into committing a selfless act. The way I see it it’s the Chief who is the Stranger. In truth he is a stranger to Kulkpong. Christ! He doesn’t even live there.
In March of this year the former chief of Kulkpong passed away. The man who I now call Chief wasn’t “skinned” until August (the term “skinned” comes from the tradition of chiefs wearing and sitting upon animal skins as a sign of their status). Although his clan and the Kulkpong community have generally accepted his claim to the position, his chieftaincy has yet to be formally consummated. Putting ceremony aside, the Chief has been doing his best to make his presents and his position known in Kulkpong. As he once said to me, “I would rather see four million cedis (~$400.) spent on development in Kulkpong rather than on a parade for me.”
To further complicate his entrance into the community, he still has the commitments of a family and a full time job as Head Teacher Advisor for Wa Municipal in the regional capital of Wa, 26 miles away. However he is planning to retire in June of 2006 and move with his wife to Kulkpong. Despite being presently spread out, I do believe that this chief has the ability to bring the community together and further development in Kulkpong.
It was getting toward the end of the elders meeting, and I could tell because the natives were getting restless, when I looked over at Lawrence and noticed that he too looked anxious but for a different reason. I asked him what’s wrong and he just said wait, so I did. Lawrence sat up and got the attention of the chief. He said something to Chief that made Chief look at me with great surprise that I returned with a look of alarm. “You want a name?” Chief asked. I just looked at him completely bewildered and before I knew it he was already addressing the elders my request to have a name.
“What’s wrong with James?” said one of the elders.
“Nothing!” I said, “I like my Name, it’s my father’s name and I love my father. I don’t need another name. Really!” But it was too late. One of the elders had already thought of a name and the rest of them agreed that it was a good name. I swear to god it was the fastest most collective decision made that afternoon…if ever!
“They want to formally have a naming ceremony now”, said Chief smiling.
“Now now?”
One of the younger more mobile elders got out of his chair and sat down on the ground in front of Chief and I. He began to ramble on and on at a very fast pace while the other elders nodded their heads and threw money at him in agreement to whatever he was saying. I gathered that he was spouting out blessings and I tried to also nod my head in agreement and appreciation, but I kept missing my cue, which made some of the attentive onlookers laugh hysterically. I could only hope that no one noticed the white-man changing colour.
After not even five minutes the naming ceremony was over and everyone began to disperse. Chief looked at me and asked, “Do you know what your new name means?”
“What is my new name?”
“It’s Minibimbo, did you not hear?”
“No. My name is Mini-Bimbo?”
“Yeah”, he said.
Can I ask for a new name? I thought. Perhaps one that sounds less like a clown from Austin Powers.
“It means God’s Plan, or God’s Design”, the Chief explained.
“I like the meaning”, I said truthfully. So I decided I wouldn’t fight the name. Besides how could I? But man was I pissed at Lawrence for not consulting me before he made that request.
Lawrence is a young man of 23. He’s a teacher at the Primary school in Kulkpong. And he’s the one who’s idea it was to get a PCV in Kulkpong in the first place. Although he’s still applying to get into college, his knack for the English language has made him a pet among the PCVs in Wa. As my counterpart he tries his hardest to see that all my needs and wants are meet. He even goes as far as to make assumptions about what those need are, as shown from that Minibimbo incident. Another example of this is when he once said, “you need a dog.” To him I need a dog because ever other PCV has a dog. His intentions are good, and his concern over my well-being is for the most part endearing, but at times it can be down right annoying.
The day after the meeting Lawrence and I got a chance to sit down with the Chief at his home in Wa and openly discuss any issues or observations that I had made during my brief visit to Kulkpong. We talked about the lack of latrines and other sanitation structures like soak-away pits, women’s empowerment and planned parenthood, but for him his largest concern is the lack of education in Kulkpong, and I couldn’t agree with him more. I told him that the situation in the village reminded me a lot of Stone Soup. He had never heard the story so I was forced to retell it the best I could. Later that night as he was seeing me out the door Chief told me, “When you return from training we will make some soup.”
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12.23.2005 | 11:25 am | Projects
In training they told us that the first three months at site would be devoted to getting to know your community, learning the language, setting up your house, and doing community assessment exercises. Peace Corps told us outright that in the first three months it will seem like you haven’t done anything at all. I was looking forward to sitting around the village, doing nothing but greeting people and getting comfortable with the community. This however has not been the case for the last two weeks.
My first three days at site coincided with Ghana National Immunization Days (NIDs). This was perfect because it gave me the opportunity to work along side the village health volunteer and walk into, and meet, nearly every household in Kulkpong. For three days I helped administer oral polio vaccinations to every child in Kulkpong under five by maintaining the tally sheet. The best part about the three days was that when I walk around the village I no longer hear children screaming “Nan-Salah-Dow!! (White Man).” Instead I hear “Minibimbo!!” Trust me it’s a welcomed alternative to being called ‘white man’ five-hundred times a day.
After the three days I returned to Wa to pick up more provisions when I ran into Corey my Guinea Worm TA with Carter Center.
“Just the Volunteer I was looking for”, she said. “You know how we’ve been having a problem getting your latrine finished?” As if I hadn’t noticed every time I walked (sometimes ran) a quarter of a mile to take a crap. “Well Carter Center has a solution, we’ve decided to make you a Trachoma Volunteer in addition to your role as a Guinea Worm Volunteer (See Project Links). Which means that you will now be responsible for getting your own latrine finished as well as facilitating the construction of other household latrines in Kulkpong. And Carter Center is going to give you the funding to do it. You have a meeting tomorrow with the Carter Center Trachoma Program Director here in Wa. Oh…and I almost forgot you and I have a meeting in Ducie on the 3rd of January to discuss the mechanized bore hole project there.”
The meeting with the director went well, and I returned to Kulkpong the next day with a pretty long task list and less than three weeks to get it done. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. The director plans to come to Kulkpong with her team the second week of January to meet with the community to discuss the details of Carter Center’s Household Latrine assistance program. Before she comes my tasks are to inform the chief, elders and all the health volunteers in Kulkpong of the meeting. See to it that there is at least the beginnings of an organized Health and Water Sanitation Committee. And last but not least, educate Kulkpong’s Health Workers about Trachoma and the benefits and proper uses of latrines and get them to spread the knowledge to the rest if the community.
So I got right down to business and began by talking to Janet, the local nurse. She told me not to worry and that I wouldn’t have any trouble getting the community ready. But I was sceptical because in my limited time in Kulkpong I didn’t even know if there was a Water and Sanitation Committee. She introduced me to the Chairman of the Committee, and he informed me that there was already a specialized Trachoma group set. The group had existed for nearly four years, and they have put in an application two years ago with the District Assembly (DA) for household latrines, complete with a list of households and the number of requested latrines, and they hadn’t heard a thing since. But they are still ready.
So here is what I’ve gathered in the past week. The education about Latrines and Trachoma has been done. They have been waiting just for someone to donate the cement. On top of that, the University for Development Studies (UDS) has been conducting a three year study in Kulkpong. They’ve put together a report that maps out all of Kulkpong’s resources and possible development strategies. This sounds too good to be true, I thought to myself. It seems like everything is organized and ready to go. This is like stone soup in a can! With a peel off lid! I don’t even need a can opener!
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11.24.2005 | 6:42 am | Uncategorized
As part of training, trainees were divided up into groups according to their site assignments and sent to a PC-Volunteer already doing a similar job out in the field for five days. All of the other Guinea Worm volunteers (ten in total) were sent to the Northern Region to a village called Impaha. This was the site of a volunteer named Lauren. Incidentally this was Lauren’s last week in Impaha. She had completed her time and was in the process of her close of service (COS) while at the same time hosting us newbies. One of the members of our group would be replacing her once they finished training.
In the short time we spent with Lauren, she showed us more than our previous month and a half of training. We gained the experience of working with the village chief and elders, as well as a functioning village Health and Guinea Worm Team. With the Guinea Worm Team we were taken house to house and showed how to conduct filter inspections and demonstrations. We were also given the opportunity to participate in Guinea Worm education at the local schools.
Now before I go any further I want to point out that Guinea Worm is no longer a major threat to the people of Impaha. This is primarily attributed to the excellent work of the village’s Guinea Worm Team and health volunteers. Last year Impaha had only one documented case of Guinea Worm and there was a good chance that the infected person had contracted the worm in another village and imported it into Impaha.
Okay so back to my story. One morning the trainees and the village Guinea Worm team were to face off against some of the other village’s young men in a friendly soccer match. Before the match I refilled a plastic bottle with treated water and brought it with me to the playing field. I set the bottle on the sidelines and went to warm up with the rest of the team (can see where this is going?). After running around in the sun for a short time I came back to my water bottle and took two big thirsty gulps, not really paying much attention to the small metal container that had appeared next to it. I then headed over to a shade tree, with bottle in hand, to wait for the game to begin.
Under the shade tree I took another sip or two and noticed that water seemed to have a rather milky taste to it. A small boy then came up to me and began gesturing toward my water bottle. This happens all the time, especially with water bottles. Impaha children had been coming up to us all weekend wanting our water bottles to take and reuse as containers or to make boats out of them. My friend Mike was standing next to me and noticed the boy’s actions. “Wow, he really wants your bottle dude.” Indignantly I took another sip and said; “Well he’s going to have to wait until I’m done with it.” However upon taking that last sip I really started to question the quality of the water. I first looked through the blue tinted bottle and observed a significant amount of particulate matter floating around. Then I looked at the boy standing there holding what appeared to be the same metal container I had seen on the ground next to the bottle. I set the bottle down beside me and tried not to think about it. I was distracted by a question someone else had asked regarding another matter and when I turned back around both bottle and boy were gone.
I tried to find the boy but I soon realized it was hopeless. A Health Volunteer quickly ran up to me and asked, “Did you drink that girl’s water?”
“Girl?!…Um yeah, I drank it by accident. Is the water clean?” The concerned look on the man’s face grew more disturbing. Without a word he turned around and ran off to find the endogenous child with the water bottle, leaving me with nothing but questions. Should I not worry about it or should I induce vomiting? Would it matter even if I did vomit? The thought alone of potentially getting Guinea worm made me nauseous. I decided to look on the bright side, if I did get Guinea Worm I would probably be the first volunteer ever to have done so, and that would be something to write home about.
A few minutes later the Health Volunteer ran back up to me and told me that the girl’s mother was one of the Red Cross Volunteers and that there was a good chance the water was filtered. “Besides” he said, “it probably came from a well.” Thank god I thought, I’d probably only get Gardia. Sure enough a week later I spend a day in the infirmary unable to keep any food or water in my body…but I’m feeling much better now.
The day before the soccer match the trainees spent the morning and afternoon with a guinea worm health volunteer doing education and filter checks in some of the surrounding villages. While we were away Lauren and two other PCVs were back at here place preparing a surprise dinner for us all. When we got back to Loren’s she had a massive amount of food laid out under candlelight (without electricity all dinners are candle lit dinners). There were green beans, yams prepared every way possible, plantains prepared every way possible, bread, a variety of different sauces and much much more than I can remember. Then to top it all off, a mystery meat was presented to us all. It didn’t take long to figure out that the mystery meat was a rodent of some kind. The answer to what kind of rodent came when one of the PCVs emerged with the roasted head of squirrel. What does squirrel taste like, you may wonder. Well…chicken of course.
Apparently that very morning, soon after the trainees had left to go to the other villages, Lauren had become fed up with all the small children that had gathered around her house who were there to gawk at all the white strangers. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the squirrel scurrying its way to a group of trees. She quickly picked up a rock, and instead of threatening the children with it, she began to chase the squirrel. The cheers from the children quickly drew the attention of a number of adults who also began to cheer at the spectacle. ‘Jungle Woman! Jungle Woman!’ they chanted. Without stopping to take aim, Lauren threw her rock and hit the squirrel dead on. Perhaps what makes this scene even more amusing is knowing that before Lauren came to Ghana she was a vegan.
I don’t want to give any wrong impressions so let me tell you that squirrel is not a common dish in Ghana. In fact I hadn’t even seen a squirrel in Ghana till one appeared on my dinner plate. At first I didn’t believe them because I hadn’t seen a single one. Then I started to think that maybe Lauren had killed and cooked the last remaining squirrel in Ghana.
The story of how Lauren had single handedly defeated the squirrel was continued through out the meal with details of the victory celebration and how it was cooked, followed by a description of the animal’s physical features, particularly its surprisingly large genitalia. “So let’s see these balls”, one of the trainees suggested. Those who were in on the joke just smiled and looked at Lauren; those who were not in the know quickly turned their attention to Lauren who sat at the end of the table grinning like Titus. “Where are the balls Lauren?” we all asked. She leaned over the table, eyes open wide, and delivered the punch line: “Guess which sauce they’re in!”
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11.24.2005 | 6:23 am | Uncategorized, Background
I was walking home from training along the shoulder of the main road where a young furry goat was grazing. When the goat saw me coming I suppose it felt it had only two options: to either jump into the bush or to cross the road. The dim-witted animal unfortunately choose the latter resulting in a collision with a taxi, despite my pathetic attempts to call the goat back which sounded something like “goat, Goat, GOAT!!? Perhaps my rescue attempt would have been more fruitful if I had remembered that it was a Ghanaian goat and probably only understood Twi. “Ah-bit-re-she! Ah-bit-re-she!? Of course being the dim-witted animal that I am, this thought did not occur to me until long after the incident.
When I finally turned my head back and reopened my eyes I was expecting to see blood and carnage, but instead found the goat standing on the side of the road where it has once been, and the cab continuing on down the road. At first I questioned whether the incident had ever really happened (damn Malaria drugs) but it became obvious that the goat had at least a broken leg as it limped into the bush. I figured it probably also had some internal damage as well and would probably die in a short time.
It wasn’t till the following morning that I found out that a similar scene had occurred the previous day in a neighboring village. This time however the victims were three young boys and the cab driver was my host brother and the consequences were far more tragic. From what I gathered the three boys had just gotten out of primary school and in their excited state began crossing the road. My brother seeing the boys run from the left side of the road into his lane (Ghanaians drive on the right side of the road, the same as the U.S.) swerved into the left lane, however the boys realized their mistake and instinctively doubled back into the left lane. One of the boys died instantly, the other two were rushed to the hospital one with head trauma and the other a fractured arm.
As for my brother, he was arrested and brought to a local holding cell to wait for the matter to be cleared up. By Ghanaian law my brother would not be eligible to be released for a minimum of three days. This is more of a protective measure for my brother’s sake rather than a punishment. Mob justice is all too common a practice and there is certainly a risk that a grieving family member would want to take revenge on my brother.
On a side note I should mention that in Ghana one has to be very careful not to falsely accuse someone of a crime even as minor as petty theft. The result could very well be the death of the accused by an angry mob. If you were to find yourself in such a situation you really only have two options: run like hell, or hope to god someone will through themselves in front of the mob on your behalf.
Fortunately for my brother he has friends and a father who happened to be staying with us to attend a funeral that week. Typically my host father stays with his second wife on his coco farm in the southern region of Ghana. He will sporadically come up to our neck of the woods for special occasions, to check in on his small bus transportation service, and of course to see his first wife and respective family.
Although he had originally planned on returning back to his farm the following day, my father instead spent an extra five days at home with my other brothers settling the matter of the accident. His first stop was to visit the hospital to meet and to voice his sympathy with the victim’s families. As a token of our family’s sympathy my father offered to pay some of the boy’s medical bills. What he did for the grieving family I am not sure of. I was told that on the day he went to go meet with them they were too emotional to talk. His second stop was to the holding cell to visit my brother and to pay his legal fees. When all was said and done my father ended up dishing out a total of 150,000,000 cedis (approximately $164.).
To add to the drama, on the day my brother was released, he and my father were retuning home from the holding center when their taxi driver fell asleep at the wheel. Before they realized what was happening their taxi had veered off the road and rolled a reported three times before coming to a stop. Here is where I begin to question whether my family is cursed or blessed, for somehow all of those in the taxi walked away with only minor cuts and bruises. When my father finally returned home he came only with a scraped up leg and a story to tell.
Since that time, nearly a month ago, my Ghanaian family has managed to avoid any further misfortunes. In fact just two weeks ago my host sister gave birth to a girl. Eight days later, as custom goes, the baby was given the Christian name Jessica. Now at first they asked me to name the baby. I told them that it was too large a responsibility for me. They continued to insist by asking me what my mother’s name was, so when I told them it was Betty, they changed their minds and decided to go with a name that the father of the child preferred and could pronounce correctly.
Sorry Mom.
As for that dim-witted goat, it’s still limping and grazing on the side of the road to this day.
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11.24.2005 | 6:15 am | Background
As I write this there are only two weeks remaining in training. I have mixed feelings about this but before I get into that let me start from the beginning. As many of you know already PC training is a three-month ordeal. It began the minute the other trainees and I got off the plane in Accra when our instructors grabbed our hands through customs and they haven’t let go since.
For a week and a half our trainers gave us lecture after lecture about safety, security, and health. All the possible ways that one could die in Ghana: motor vehicle accidents, malaria, dehydration, rabies, and HIV/Aids to name a few. Immediately following such a lecture they give us the statistic that there is a higher chance of kicking the bucket back in the States then there is in Ghana. I don’t remember the exact statistic but I’m just going to have to take their word for it.
After that first week and a half in Accra our trainers broke us up into groups of two and gave us over to a Peace Corps Volunteer to shadow for a few days. This is when I got to spend some time in the Ghanaian rainforest eating snails and oranges. From there my partner Adam and I were escorted to the city of Techimon to regroup with the other forty-eight trainees and to begin home-stay and continue with training.
Our large training group is broken up into three different sectors: Health and Water Sanitation (WAT-SAN), Business Development (SAID), and Environment. Each sector lives in a different community surrounding Techimon. My group, WAT-SAN, lives in the northern town of Krobo. Here we relax in luxuries such as electricity, treated water piped from Techimon, and an amble supply shops and bars to patronize.
If days had a set routine it would sound something like the following, but days are anything but routine around here.
6:00am Wake up and go for a run
6:45am Bucket bath followed by a breakfast of bread, bananas and oatmeal
7:30am Bike or take a taxi into Techimon for language lessons that begin at 8:00am
I use to be learning Twi, now I’m learning Wally as my language. Am I confused? Absolutely.
10:00am Return to Krobo to attend sector training
Sector training usually consists of learning various topics such as latrine construction and maintenance, specifics on wells and boreholes, woman and child nutrition, community needs and assessment techniques (known as PACA, previously known as Rapid Rural Assessment), and last but not least Health Education.
12:30pm Lunch
2:00pm More Language
4:00pm Run errands in Techimon
Go to the store for soap, toilet paper, and ice cream. Or go see if the Internet café is up and running.
6:00pm Return home for dinner
7:00pm Study, read or socialize
8:30pm Bucket bath then in Bed by 9:00pm.
So as training comes to an end, I’m eager to leave this drudgery and spoon-feeding for my site in Kulkpong. On the other hand I’m still unsure if I’ve learned enough to be an effective facilitator/educator. At least I know I’m not alone in my insecurities. There are at least forty-nine, correction forty-eight (one decided to go home), other people wondering the same thing.
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