Oh Baby Baby

I have a fellow PCV friend named Kendra and like most people I know from Kentucky, she is a character.  One of Kendra's goals for her Peace Corps service was to help deliver a baby.  I must say, I never had much of an interest.

Today after church, one of the nurses that lives near me approached me and said if I would come with her to the clinic, she would get her keys and we could walk home together.  When we arrived at the clinic there was a very pregnant women on the floor writhing around and breathing.  They sat me down in a room where I heard them say she was 8 cm.  And when I asked if the woman was going to deliver they said "Yeah, do you want to watch?"

And I said yes but I soon regretted it.

Growing up,  because we were vegetarians, Mom always made us get blood drawn and iron checked.  This is when I found out I could not be a nurse.  I'm not good with needles, blood doesn't bother me much.  Soon after watching this woman in such pain and trying so hard to push this baby out and she kept saying "Madame...madame..."  That is when I started to get really hot and sweating and light headed and I went deaf in one ear.

Okay I do not know much about delivering babies but whatever drug or saline drip they had on her was not going in...in fact the blood started coming through the line and into the pouch...is that supposed to happen?

Then they told me to put gloves and a smock on and they gave me a bowl and told me to fill it with water and what I think was antiseptic and wash the scissors.  So I did.  Then they told me to stand by the Mom and when the baby came I would clean it off.  And then I did.  I do not want to talk about what I saw.  The baby came, they gave to me, they laughed at me when they thought I was going to drop it.

I wrapped it in a wheat seed bag.

Hello!  I have to make this fast.  This is the only time we have off for weeks.  I am in Techiman for technical training, then back to Kukurantumi for a week, then we swear in and I'm off to site!

Ok let me tell you about my project!  I have been to site, I am seen my house and met my community.  I have to outline all I need to say.
My neighbors
My house
Meeting the chiefs
MY PROJECT.

K.

I am working (I think this is what my position will look like) as an Agriculture Extension Agent for the Bontanga Irrigation Scheme.  In the 80's a British (I think) company built this big dam that surrounds 495 hectares (about 1200 acres) of land that 500 farmers can farm during the dry season, or all year round.  Point is they have access to water.  This is funded by ADVANCE, which I think is funded by USAID.   Not sure how all that works, not having google readily available stinks.

I have complete faith my house will be done by the time I get there.  Right now it looks like an abandoned old house.  The carpenter left the back door open so goats started living in there.  There was goat poo everywhere and old broken furniture and open wires hanging from the ceiling.  The PC needs to fix the toilet I guess and thats officially the only thing that needs done.  OH YEAH I HAVE RUNNING WATER.  AND ELECTRIC.  I am very lucky and I know it.  Lemme tell you why else I consider myself lucky: Although I am in the middle of no where (I'm NOT in the village, I am 3 miles from) and I was honestly scared the first night, my community is awesome.  Across the road there are Assemblies of God missionaries, the wife is British, the husband Ghanaian and they have two CUTE kids and because they spend half the year in England they have cute accents.  I stayed at site for 3 days and I borrowed many DVD's from them and they say I can borrow their hammock because they never use it.  I was staying in their guest house. (To my family, living in the guest house reminded me a lot of the old house at the farm, you have what you need but everything is very old.  And you're seriously isolated from town and you think you hear scary noises, but in Africa there IS someone outside your house screaming bloody murder but its always a goat.)

So on that note the Kings Village is a school the missionaries run and 300 kids go there and they're all sponsored by people in the UK and US.  Note:  330 students go there and 100 still need sponsors, just saying.  ALSO, they have set up a medical center that serves people 24 hours 6 days a week.  Its closed Sunday but like all things in Africa, if you need attention, you just go to the Dr.'s house and he will help you.  For 12 GC (about 6 dollars) a year people get unlimited health care.  So that is within walking distance.  Also, the community is so used to white people, no one looks at my twice.  Apparently white people stay in the guest house all the time.  There is a British couple coming in January to stay for 6 weeks, and they come twice a year.  I cannot wait.

So I net my neighbors, one is an extension agent!  Okay I have to say there has been discussion among volunteers about assignments, like our encouraging hybrid corn and improved variety.  So I asked my neighbor who is growing corn behind our house, what he thought of the improved variety.  He said he will not grow it because while you get more corn, the protein content is lower.  AND with the native corn, they can do all the things they want, it has many uses but the new variety has limited use, like you cannot use it for all the different foods they make.  As we stood in the field, shucking corn and talking varieties all I could think was "Gosh, this is all I want to do!"

I have lots of land around my house and they've offered me a plot inside the Irrigation Scheme that I will use for demonstration.

Today we had a lesson/overview of extension and I got so overwhelmed.  I just feel like all the agriculture that comes second hand at home, I do not know here and there is so much I need to learn!

There are not subsidies here.  They do not have crop insurance.  Someone said today that Ghanians think you cannot grow corn without fertilizer and they apply way too much.  Everywhere I turn I feel like there is work to be done, but OH WAIT I do not know enough about the issue to do anything.  I wish I had text books.  I wish I brought my soils text book.

Okay, now the chiefs.  Since I am in the middle of no where, I will be working with a few different villages.  I went to meet the Wabu chief.  He was sitting on a reclining chair outside his hut surrounded my other elders.  We crouched on the ground and say "Naa, naa, naa"  Which is what you say when someone greets you.  And then we sit and my counterpart Alhassan explains who I am and what I am doing and that I am staying for 2 years.  The PC said I should bring cola nuts or money or alcohol to meet a chief, but the chief gave ME cola!  Its a red bulb kinda that you break in half and bite into.  It is very bitter and everyone laughed when I ate it, but apparently its really high in caffeine.  They planned a big party for me but then someone died and they decided to postpone till December.  Later in the week I met another chief.  I walked into his BIG round hut, thatch roof.  Tell me why there were LARGE barrels of Calcium Chloride in his hut?  And 2 motorcycles and half a dozen men on the floor shelling peanuts.

k I have to go! 

Toto - Africa

October 27, 2012

I have been in Ghana for 25 days.  Today is the first day I choose to blog, though many note worthy things have happened.  Here is long over due update of life here:

I am living with a Muslim family, Sista Vic, Mr. Adams, Aziz 12, Ibreheem 8 and Mustafa 4.  Yes I said Mustafa, not to be confused with Mufasa and no, they have never seen The Lion King.

In the first week there was a spider the size of my fist in my room.

Umbrooni is the word for white person, everyone calls you that. It is usually accompanied with “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!”  And I say “School!”  or “HOME!”  This happens twice a day with every person you pass going to and from school.

I live in a small village.  Addo Nkwanta.  I have cell service and can call/text to the states relatively cheap but have to go into town for post or internet.  I only have Sundays off so I never get to go to the post office.  But PC staff brings us our mail, so send me letters! 

I am learning Dagbani, a Northern Region tribal language.

I had to post today because I just fetched water for the first time.  The boy showing me to the boar hole said

“Where is your rag?”

“Rag?  I don’t have a rag.”  So we walked to the other side of the village (I think the village is about the size of Purdue campus.  It is a series of small houses and shacks.  No running water and electricity is sporadic) I can make out three roads in my village, everything else are small paths cut through peoples courtyards, latrines and around houses. 

FETCHING WATER IS HARD.  And I was made to carry it on my head.  I thought that was optional but it really isn’t and honestly, the best option is on your head because although I spilled A LOT (all over me)  I spilled more when I tried to carry it with my hands.  By the way, I used my bandanna as my rag.  Bandanas: not just your head band.  Oh and by rag I mean a rag that you put on your head when you carry water.  I had to walk across two what I call “planks” on my way home.  With a bucket on my head!  There are lots of planks that serve as bridges as it rains a lot and there are many hills and deep valleys the water has cut in the red clay.  I think I can get 3-4 bucket baths out of the one bucket I fetched today.  I spilled everywhere.  You have to laugh at yourself though because Ghanaians are laughing at the Umbrooni constantly.  Get used to it and take it in stride because laughing with people is so much more fun than getting any negative feedback like dirty looks or silence.  That does not happen here, the silence bit.  As much as I wake up homesick somedays and just want to put in my ear buds and walk to school in my own world…you can not.  That is really rude and I would not dream of doing it.  But by the second interaction:

Me: Mache! (Good morning.)

Them: Mehoye, Wo ho te sen? (Good morning how are you?)

Me: Mehoye, na wo nswey? (Fine, and you?)

Them: Mehoye!

Me:  Yooooooh. (Ok.)

There are hand gestures that accompany this, I think I will vlog later.

This is the perfect place for me.  I am happy here.  People, meeting people makes me happy.  Everyday when I come home from school I am accompanied by children.  At the first house there is always a group of 4-5 boys about 3 years old.  They never have pants on.  I have taught them to high five so now every time I see them, we do a couple rounds of high fives.  Then I wave like mad and say “Good bye!  Good bye good bye!  And run away.  I pass Adam, another umbrooni’s house and greet his family, the house behind his is another group of kids, they are friends with my brothers. There is one little girl that comes running every single time and screams “MADAME ALYSSA!  MADAME ALYSSA!“  To announce my presence to every child in hearing distance.  By the time I reach home, I have an average of two children holding my hand on each side.

Last week I was on my phone in the backyard and Ibreheem yelled “Ubrooni” at me from the window and I said “Ibreheem!  You know my name, why are you calling me that?!”  And I think Sista Vic heard because the next day when I left for school and all the kids yelled “Ubrooni bye bye!”  Sista Vic yelled at them and told them my name was Madame Alyssa.

There is one little store that sells something close to ice cream.  (Dairy products do not really exist here.)  Some of my fellow ubroonis frequent this store for other umbrooni items like groundnut paste (peanut butter) and t-roll (toilet paper).  One of the women there is friends with Sista Vic, so she calls me Victoria because I am Victoria’s daughter.

I really like Sista Vic, we get along great.  She knows very little English but we get by and laugh really hard when we fail miserably to communicate.  This week she said “Alysssaaaaaa ma baby girl.  Ma baby girl Alyssaaaaaaa.  I have three boys and a baby girl.  Alyssaaaaaaa."  Then yesterday I was studying at a friend’s house until 6.  When I came into our courtyard, Sista Vic was walking my way and communicated to me that she was coming to find me, I was late.  It was six and I got out of class at 5.  I laughed and said “Sista Vic!” and she said “MY PRECIOUS!”  Aaaand then I really laughed.

Yesterday was a big Muslim holiday.  Before I went to school I noticed the large goat tied to our clothes line but didn’t think anything of it until Sista Vic asked me if I eat goat and I hesitated but said no.  When I came home for lunch at noon, my dad had all the intestines sitting on coconut tree leaves and the skinned goat was hanging in a tree.  Little kids were fanning both with palm fronds to keep the flies off.  As I sat observing Mr. Adams braiding the intestines I found myself recalling ANSC221 material, the omasum, abomasum and the defining characteristics of the different rumen compartments.  They cut up everything.  I mean I think everything, I didn't watch all of it but I’m pretty positive they cut up all the organs and put it in a pot.  They did all the rumen compartments and the intestines.

Mid December after I swear in and become an official volunteer, I will leave this village for my site where I will start my real service in my own community with my own projects.  I can already tell that I am going to miss this place very much and saying goodbye will prove difficult.

This is becoming a very long post but I must mention Elizabeth and Hannah, 14 and 12 respectively, they are the oldest of four girls and they live across the courtyard from me.  They are very, very smart girls and they help translate when I cannot manage.  Sometimes they hang out on our porch and read out loud in English “The Watch Tower” a publication given to me by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is about how they can be successful in school.

Last week I had to visit a farm and they took me to their friends.  We started walking on the main road, then we walked across a plank and into the forest.  We walked for a half hour through a low canopy of coco trees.  I felt stupid to not know what they were at first.  Coco are so funny with the fruit growing right on the trunk like!  Children of all ages carry machetes.  We call them cutlasses and I have come to use it as a verb, like when I wanted coco, they would cutlass one off a tree no problem, cut it open and we would walk sucking on coco seeds.  They taste a little like mango with a consistency of snot.  We came to our farm, but they wanted to play in the river first so they splashed and played for a long time in a paradise of a hidden river under palm and coconut trees.  The girls told me of a boy, Timothy “He goes there,” points “It is very deep!  He fears nothing!”  Soon, Timothy came down the path and dove into the water where it was quite deep, at least five feet.  Lots of splashing then some crying and we were on our way again to go farm.  Farming was sending Timothy up an orange tree where he threw oranges down to us, we filled my backpack and a bucket.  They were very impressed by my ability to catch oranges with one hand as they only catch with two.  I told them about baseball.  Then we planted some cassava. 

To plant cassava you have to find it growing.  It looks like a long stick, you cutlass all its twigs off and chop it in about 12 in segments and bury it vertically about three inches deep.  PC training says 3 nodes have to be in the ground.  We were eating oranges the whole time.  They were also impressed that I use my nails to peel oranges, they NEVER use their nails, they peel with a cutlass.  Always.

Then we found a palm tree.  Took some of that.  We is Elizabeth, Hannah, their two little sisters ages 8 and 3, Ibreheem, Timothy 14 and a couple other kids we picked up.  My morning farming was seriously hanging out in a tropical forest eating oranges with machete swinging kids.  It was probably the best day in my life.  On the way home, Ibreheem carried my backpack and I carried on of the little girls on my back.  Elizabeth, Hannah and I cutlassed a tree down and they chopped it for firewood.  Then they took palm fronds, and made rope, used it to tie their firewood into bundles and carried it on their heads the whole way home.  I was so impressed with them.

American women, you have it made.  Ghanaian women do so much work.  So so so so much work that it blows my mind.  They are so strong.  And so smart.  And so very capable.  The entire time, the girls were pointing out crops to me.  This is plantain.  This is cassava.  This is garden egg (it is like eggplant but little).  This is sugar cane. This is maize. 

Then!  They asked me if I wanted to get crabs.  I was so confused.  We were not near the river.  One of the girls knelt near a hole and started pulling out mud until she bam!  She pulled out a crab, a good sized one too.  Then they showed me how to fix them so their pinchers so they could not pinch and they put them in my backpack. 

As we walked back into the village everyone we passed told us “Good work,” in Twi and we thanked them.

I like the village life.  I like the Ghana life.  Yes sometimes I wake up homesick and craving breakfast cereal.  Yes, I wish I did not bath in the place I am supposed to pee, but it’s all good.  It is all good, and honest?  I wish you were here to experience it.