Wednesday

Tanzania Blog

I went to Tanzania for 4 months in summer 2012.

The adventures are on a separate blog: http://kickininkili.blogspot.com/

Monday

Rediscovered Journal Entry from Ghana


Here is a journal entry I recently found from the April - August 2008 trip.

When "Grandpa" was a baby, his mother came in and saw a black mamba sleeping next to him.  Black mambas have enough venom in one bite to kill 40 men (at least according to my friend Clive who owns a snake farm in South Africa).  Somehow, the mother snagged the baby (who was grandpa) and got the baby out, got a hunter to shoot the snake, and scared the baby nearly to death because of the petrified expression on her face. I’ve seen black mambas before in South Africa and they are creepy.  They are probably the only snakes that will stare at you in the eye, follow your eyes with their heads, and look like they want to strike out even though they are completely unprovoked.  

 On another note, the Lever brothers (of Lever soap) built the compound we live in.  There was a factory nearby and one of the executives lived in this compound.   

This week the water was off again (it happens more often than I thought it would) but unfortunately it went off in the middle of me washing my face.  I had to walk out of the bathroom with my eyes closed, find my water bottle, get back to the bathroom, and wash it off.  The day was also unfortunate because I sat in office doing absolutely nothing except dealing with stupid technology.  The email was extremely slow, and my computer’s memory was completely eaten up so Solomon and JJ recommended I save everything I want to and completely wipe it.  There were all kinds of other technology problems as well. I felt so unproductive, but in the end realized things will run much more smoothly with these problems fixed.  The electricity is always going out as well (it happens throughout Ghana, at the office and the house).  It was actually kind of funny last year staying at the temple dorms because the temple would go out and come back on immediately with the generator whilst everything else remained dark.  Anyhow, when the electricity goes out at the office it is a bit hard to work because my laptop battery doesn’t last very long, and the computer there won’t turn on.  But there is nothing we can do about it… that is Ghana!  I am just ungrateful because it is the norm for me to have light and water.  I should think of those in the villages who always have to use lanterns or fetch water from boreholes.

While we were driving in a busy part of Accra, we saw a gated complex.  The wall had golden symbols on it and the words that said something about it being a palace.  We asked Kweku about it, and he told us it was the chief.  We also saw some chiefs walking down the street in the city.  I had assumed chiefs were only a rural thing, but we found out that complex in the middle of busy Accra was a chief’s palace.  In fact, the city is split into sections where different neighborhoods have different chiefs.

Three random people came into Kweku’s house and sat on the couch.  We had no idea who they were and thought they must be relatives.  Apparently, no one else knew who they were either, but they were “siblings.”  “Cousin” is a new word in Ghana.  Since Kweku was supposed to be the chief, he has a lot of distant “relatives,” apparently.

Another interesting tidbit.  Mommy means “mother.” “Maahme” which sounds the same to me, is “give me.”  In addition, if you wave at a child the way a lot of Americans wave, wiggling the fingers with the hands lowered, it actually doesn’t mean “hi,” it means “come.”

Wednesday, JJ, Solomon and I visited Sunil (the energy expert) at the World Bank.  The most valuable thing we got from him was a long list of other people’s contacts.  Let the goose chase begin!  I also made an application for the rural schools so there can be some competition among the schools in receiving a merry-go-round, and hopefully in turn have them take better care of the equipment.  The most memorable thing that happened at the office was that some of the shop workers picked us some coconut off the trees outside the office and we got to drink the liquid straight out of the coconut while working.  Once again, they chopped them open with a machete and we got to eat the meat as well.

The taxis and trotros all have stickers on the back windows that are usually religious such as “Redeemer” or other words.  Some of them are not religious but very random.  For example, we saw one that said, “Happy Yourself.”  I wasn’t sure at first if this meant, ‘you can be happy alone’ or ‘make yourself happy.’  Solomon then told us he knew a man named “Happy Yourself.”  And the man would tell everyone, “No one can make you happy except you.”  I think I will start selling “happy yourself” bumper stickers.

I thought we were going to dramatically perish on the ride home.  The taxi driver was nuts.  We had so many near collisions.  My heart was palpitating wildly the whole way, and since it’s over an hour drive I think my blood pressure increased notably.  People drive extremely close to the cars in front of them so no one else can squeeze in, but everyone sticks their nose in anyway. I guess it was better than the taxi ride in the village when there were 8 people in a 5-seater, and one door was completely missing so I was hugging the person next to me so I didn't fall out, and part of the floor was missing (so I could see the ground below us).

I had mentioned my gum bleeding problems to Lydia, so she picked up some “chewing sticks” for us.  They are just small chopped up chunks of a certain kind of tree that contains natural antibacterials apparently.  So we’ve been chewing on those nonstop.  JJ says they are bitter but I cannot taste it.

The home teachers came for the Anno family one day, but JJ and I were the only ones home.  They told us we are family now so they would just teach us instead and we could teach everybody else after they left.  They gave us a lesson and I’m sure they checked ‘the Anno family’ off the list on the way out.  I’m glad to be considered part of the family.

Thursday we (Solomon, JJ, and I) visited the West Africa Aids Foundation to ask them how to get a good auditor and get our finances in order.  We followed up on the contact list from Sunil, continued to deal with technology problems (we have internet access for 1-2 computers for the three of us). 

I thought the day was comparatively boring until we came home at night and there was no electricity, although this time it really stayed off for a long time, as in, more than a day.  We had decided to cook spaghetti, but the gas stove was not working so they pulled two coal pots from outside into the kitchen.  It was pitch dark in there besides one “torch” (a citronella candle) and one other torch (a small flashlight).  We waved the coal pots with a big fan to get them going and cooked spaghetti and sauce in them.  It took more than an hour and was quite the experience.  The whole family was in the kitchen, some sitting on the floor, others fanning, others stirring, some standing around.  We ate by light of a small lantern and it was interesting getting ready for bed with no electricity and no water.  I used my cell phone to read scriptures and brush my teeth.  Once again, I am completely convinced the work we are doing here is valuable!

Friday the most enlightening thing that happened was visiting Cyril Kattah at the IFC (International Finance Corporation).  Kattah is in charge of the Lighting Africa competition I wrote about earlier that JJ and I caught the last day of.  We want to enter it next year if there is a contest, but now they are still looking for funding.  They cannot help us fund the project because they are looking for businesses with returns, not nonprofits.  They did an extensive survey in rural areas of Africa to see which type of lighting is preferred (LED, what type of lantern, kerosene, candles, etc.) 

It was Lydia’s birthday on Friday.  She went to Nigeria in the morning so we were supposed to leave the house at 6am to get her to the airport but didn’t end up leaving until closer to 7am (time here is sometimes like the traffic laws.  It supposedly exists).  We did not celebrate her birthday that day, but JJ and I had gotten her a card and some English chocolate bars, which she really appreciated.  After we gave it to her, she started telling us about her cross-stitch and showing us her patterns and the things she has done.  I think she took heart because she saw that we were actually interested in her.  I felt bad though because the rest of the family hadn’t done anything… although her friend gave her some money so she could buy a cake for herself.  Maybe birthdays are not as big of a deal here. 

JJ tried to get drunk off the fermented orange juice (remember the Thursday coal pot cooking adventure you just read about unless you are skimming?)  It stayed off the whole night and he didn’t realize until after he’d had a swig.  The banku eaten often here is a very common fermented dish.  I really wonder about it sometimes.

Saturday I woke up feeling absolutely awful; Thursday and Friday I didn’t feel great either but Saturday it was worse!  We visited Linda (remember the one with the two kids from Nigeria)?  I really felt like we should visit.  Lydia dropped us off at the chapel, where we met Linda.  We took two trotros (vans tons of people cram into) into town.  It is hard to figure out the trotros because there is no written system.  You just have to know where they allow you to alight and which ones are going in which direction (which is still a mystery to me).  The first stop was this crazy market where people were selling refrigerators and random car parts and even kitchen sinks.  There was also a lot of food being sold—people were pounding fufu or making redred and wrapping it in leaves as a plate.  There was one part of the road that would get flooded a lot when it rained, so the people found a good solution by dropping coconut husk on the part that would flood (one of the shops sold a lot of coconuts which produced a lot of waste).  What a good idea!  It turns into road after a while and is pretty clean to walk on (especially compared to the other things we were walking on—both animals and children sometimes relieve themselves in the middle of the road).  We saw some kids playing with Styrofoam as if they were cars.  It was very crowded and very very dirty.  It is kind of fun to see really poor people so happy, such as kids in nothing but underwear dancing around in the rain.  We saw some guys pushing a broken down trotro, and the saying on the window of this one was “Never give up.”  The stores never cease to crack me up.  For example, there was one called “Tourist Attraction” that was just a normal little shop selling roadside food.

Riding in the trotros is interesting in itself.  There are two employees, the driver, and the ‘mate’ who has a little fold out seat right next to where the door opens.  The door often stays open, even while driving and the trotro doesn’t really come to a full stop before you jump out of it at your stop.  We took a second trotro to Linda’s house.

We took a trotro with Linda to the hospital where Lydia was, and went back to McCarthy Hill to celebrate Lydia’s birthday.  She found an EFY song she is particularly fond of and has been playing and singing it nonstop, kind of like my mom does when she gets a new CD (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?).  She would even close her eyes and sway and sing over the conversation during her party, to the point that she wouldn’t even respond to her name.  We had some cake and ice cream for Lydia but I noticed they didn’t do presents.

Sunday I didn’t even fast because I was still having sickness issues and figure it’s not really a good idea to combine that with the heat.  I was supposed to teach Relief Society, but suddenly another teacher showed up, so I didn’t.  Sunday School was very interesting because Lydia was teaching about Alma the Younger and the class started to get into a discussion about the people they have not seen at church for a while.  An American missionary raised his hand and said, “Whatever happened to Hilda?”  Then others in the class blurted out other names, and Lydia made a list as well.  Lydia asked who would visit who.  Then she said they will all meet in a certain spot after church, divide up the names, and everyone will visit after church.  It was amazing!  So much more effective than ward council meetings where you talk about someone, maybe organize an activity around someone scheduled for the next month, or assign a friend.  They just went.  Lydia, Kweku, Essie, Adwoa, JJ, me, Papa, Narki, Nati, their parents, and a few others went to see one man.  I think 14 people went to visit total.  He cried and cried.  I didn’t know what was going on because they were speaking Twi (or Ga, I still can’t tell the difference) of course.  At the same time I was so touched I just about cried.  I think he has sickle cell and used to bring candy for the kids every week and no one had visited him since he became ill.  They said he looked a lot better though.  It reminded me of the mission where we visited one less active member and he told us, “thank you for remembering there is a Stephen.”  After that we went to visit the former RS President who had recently given birth.  Kweku, Adwoa, Papa, Nati, JJ, and I walked home up a big hill.  

Cultural Blunders

After having spent nearly two years in Africa, I kind of prided myself on being culturally competent and generally knowing what was up. One day there was a nice little breeze outside, so I lifted up my arms to the sky and put both hands behind my head to enjoy it while tilting back my head.  A Ghanaian man came up to me and said, “No, no!  Don’t do that!  It means your mother has died!!!”  He explained that is the mourning/grieving stance, especially when the mother dies.  We actually laughed about it pretty hard because he was so intense and I was so shocked.  Also, here we don’t wave with our left hands, because it is offensive.  


Also, there was a day nobody went to work. I asked why, and was informed that it was "African Unity Day." I went around wishing people Happy African Unity Day and got some strange looks. According to the people I talked to, it is (1) ironically only celebrated in Ghana and (2) celebrated exclusively by nobody going to work, but still getting paid for it.
 

Trip to Fishing Village

Lydia (my host mother's) sisters were taking her children into the village to get fish, and they invited us to come along with them, which was really nice considering how crowded the vehicle was.  There were five kids, the aunt and uncle, JJ, and me.  In an eight passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t as bad as last week Sunday, but when they picked up a big momma in addition (some sort of relative), and I became wedged right up in between her and Nati, things got a little more crowded.  We stopped at ShopRite (there is a big mall) and got some pies (the kind with meat in them).  We all ate in the car and arrived at the fishing village.  It reminded me of last year’s visit to Cape Coast.  There were canoes all along the shore, and fishermen and their children everywhere, and huts on the other side, and a gorgeous but polluted beach.  Adwoa, Essie, Naki, Nati, Papa, JJ and I took off our sandals and ran near the ocean line when the waves went down and ran away from them as they came crashing back towards us.  I can’t explain why it was so enjoyable, but it definitely upped my jolly-meter.  We also raced across the sand.   

The fishermen’s kids were all gathering behind us.  I think because of the two obruni (white people). They were watching us and laughing with us.  Because it is not a touristy area and we were with an African family, I think it was quite the novelty.  We saw ‘gas stations’ which were basically a bottle of gas.  Some kids had tied some sticks together to make a ‘high jump’ and were jumping over it.  There were two very small boys pushing a wheelbarrow full of things around.  I don’t know how they were strong enough to do that.  And there were many carrying wood or fish on their heads.  That isn’t much different from any of the other villages, though.  We went to the uncle’s lab and changed into swimwear and went to another beach.  This one was still a public beach but secluded.  This time JJ, the five kids, and I were able to swim, jumping with the waves and letting them carry us to shore.  It was very rocky though, so we couldn’t go out too far.  The others buried Essie in the sand up to her neck, which was great.  Meanwhile, the aunt and uncle were buying fish from some fishermen.  It is cheaper to go directly to them then let the sellers buy and get it through them.  The fish were HUGE!  They had sharp teeth and were several feet long.  

Starving Children

Short story from during my time living with the Annos, my Ghanaian host family:

Essie, my "little sister," was picking at her food. Lydia (my "mother") turned to her and said, "EAT IT! There are starving children in China!" To which Essie responds, "what can I do? Can I mail it there?" I started cracking up. It was very inappropriate of me. I hope you see the irony in this as much as I do.


Essam


Morning:  After our night visit, JJ, Solomon, and I left the hotel at 4am to observe what happens in the villages during the dark hours of the morning.  There was a group of children walking to the farms to gather cocoa beans to bring back to their homes to dry at about 4:30am.  There were also men collecting firewood to sell at the market (they had a truck).  The same seamstress that we saw the night before (she works until 11pm) was getting ready to start sewing again around 4:30.  There were a few women cooking banku or other dishes that morning as well, some for their families, and some to sell.  One was putting sugar she bought from town into bags to sell and holding the flashlight in her mouth.  We saw a woman sweeping the dirt with a small flashlight in her mouth.  It was generally much quieter in the dark morning hours than in the evening when everyone was still awake (even though some were just sitting in the dark).  Nearly everyone we saw awake in the early morning when it was dark were women.  By 5:20 it was light enough to see fairly well and by 5:40 it was light enough to read without straining the eyes.  By this time many children were busy fetching water from the boreholes and more people were up sweeping and cooking.  I pumped a bucket, too.  It was a workout.  My guess is that lanterns will primarily be used at night, by children.  However, if we could identify some hardworking parents of students such as the seamstress or others who wake up very early, it could be helpful to them.  We saw a lot of wells while wandering around the villages.  Most were buckets but one was a purse with a hole in the corner.  We were passing along a narrow dirt path through the jungle when we ran into a 103 year old men who was just standing by the path near his house.  He greeted us and looked rather healthy for a 103 year old.

Merry-Go-Round:  Before school, the kids chop the grass, sweep up the chopped grass, or collect wood.  I predict they won’t play in the mornings.  They will definitely play on it during break times and after school, though.  They love it.  The village kids sometimes come and play while Golden Sunbeam is in session, but I got the feeling that the teachers chase them off when they see them.  Because the mgr wasn’t fixed by the time we left in the evening, we didn’t get an idea about how long the kids will play on it during the evening time.  I figure we won’t know for sure for a while since it’s been locked in the evening and can still be considered a novelty.

We wandered around the village even after it was light, talking to some people about what they typically do in the village.  Although palm oil and cocoa are the cash crops, there are actually a lot of rice and cassava farmers as well.  Our day interviews were fun and I got to give a lot of kids stickers.  They were the sparkly kind, and one very small child was shy and didn’t seem to know what to make of it and went back to her mother to steer clear of the obruni.  However, whenever I glanced back she was moving her hand back and forth slowly, I assume to catch the light and see the sparkle.  We were all pretty tired by the time we did the day visits, so the late night and early morning visits were much more memorable.  I was finally able to sleep in the car on the three hour ride home.

Trip #2: JJ and I visited Essem again and were able to take a short walking tour this time, guided by Robert, one of the Ghanaian teachers. We saw a lot of cocoa and palm farms, as well as families drying the cocoa beans.  They typically have a long table outside made of wood and spread them out along the table and move them around.  There was also a family working on getting the palm oil.  It is quite the process.  We saw the village tailor (there is only one, and he works with one sewing machine).  We ran into some young men digging a 12-foot hole for a latrine.  We also saw a LOT of goats wandering around randomly, but they even do that in town.  The houses were mostly made of mud.  The people were so nice and one of the cocoa farmers gave us a cocoa pod to try.  They work so hard!  All these people living in mud huts with no lights, pumping their water from pumps, rotating cocoa beans in the sweltering sun so we can drink our Ovaltine.  

Our lunch that day was some cookies, juice, dried cherries, and the inside of the cocoa pod, all of which we had brought from home and ate in the exam room, which was just a dark, concrete, boxy room with one table in it.   

There was an exam written on the chalkboard asking questions such as: what is a buffet?  Name three types of oily fish? and other food-related practical questions suitable for farmers but never taught to students in America.   

It was interesting to read their beginning reader books too.  There was one in Kweku’s car.  It was kind of like a “See Jane run” book.  Except instead it was, “See Uncle Sofi hit the snake on the head with a big stick.  The snake does not want to die.  Uncle Sofi hits it harder.  Can you hit a snake with a big stick like Uncle Sofi?”  Or… “Adwoa is pushing a wheelbarrow full of wood.  It is hard.  Why is it hard?  Because Adwoa is a girl, and not strong enough.”  Or, “Kojo is climbing a mango tree.  He falls down.”  Or, “Grandmother is chasing a big dog.  She wants to throw a stone at it.  Why?  Because it stole her fish.  Can you throw a stone at the dog?”  I am glad to see that they had books fitted to their culture. I always get concerned when people have Americans donate all their old books and ship them over to Africa. Just thinking about a young Ghanaian girl reading Sweet Valley Twins or getting a hairstyle book (for white people's hair) makes me shudder.

Send your Girl Child to school

Moving around rural Ghana, I often saw posters that read: "send your girl child to school". I also saw kids at Adenkrebi, under the direction of their teacher, perform a skit in which a girl wanted to go to school but her "father" (fellow student role playing) wouldn't let her. At the end, two male students teamed up, picked the child playing the father up off his feet, and carried him out the door announcing "we are going to arrest you because you will not let her go to school!" It was pretty classic.

I met a man working for an NGO that helps girls.  A lot of girls cannot learn like the boys because after school they have to go home and help with the cooking and cleaning, and by night it is too dark to do their studying.  Also, a lot of girls, are "afraid to be discovered" during certain times of the month at school because they don't have the hygiene products.  If they have to cross a stream or river, they won't go, because traditionally they are told they will contaminate it.  So a lot of girls don't go to school as much as the boys.  He is working on awareness there and it is fascinating.