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.
