It's Not Easy Oh

Miriam won the science fair!

You know, I could have played the hermit yesterday but I didn't and on my way to the shop for eggs, I ran into Miriam, she has been living with a sister in town.

Miriam’s solar oven won the science fair!  Out of all the twenty-eight districts in the Northern region, Miriam won!  And I helped her/taught her how to do that solar oven.  I could not believe it.

All is well here.  I ran into the woman whom I gave the demonstration plot to.  The rice still is not transplanted.  I  could not even care.

When I first came here, the farmers complained about being called out of the fields all the time to come be at some meeting that did not benefit them at all.  They get called for meetings all the time by this NGO or the other, either to give information or to talk or to just be seen.

And if the farmers ever say anything about what a waste of their time it is, the NGO comes back and says “How dare you.  I am here to help you.  And you cannot even give me a moment of your time?”

And so it is with demonstration plots.  Two sides.

The NGO would say:  We gave you all the inputs.  We are working and trying to help you.  And you won’t even get the rice in the field at the right time?

And the farmer’s aspect would be:  Well the tiller wasn't ready for two weeks, and then I fell sick, and then I had to go to market, and then I was called on a church retreat.  It’s not easy oh.

And the NGO sees these as excuses and the farmer sees it as life.

And like I said before, maybe the rice will get planted and maybe it will not.  Either way, they will make it.  They will borrow money from a family member, or just have a really really lean season; maybe school fees will not be paid.  But no one ever looks back and says, I really should have done whatever I could to get the rice planted.  They say, Its not easy oh. 

Most everything is attributed to God and whether he favors you.  God make you sick or not sick.  It's nothing to do with sleeping under a mosquito net because I never sleep under a mosquito net and I only sometimes get malaria.  So God decides when to give me malaria and therefore, God decides if my rice gets planted.  And if God did not want to rice planted, there is a reason.

I have washed my hands of it.  I gave the information and the tools.  They can do what you want with it.

So there was a time when I was on the farmers side and I thought yeah!  Those NGOs are ridiculous and they do not understand culture and they do not think of the farmer.  And then I worked with the farmers and realized, you guys are just helpless.  And I tried to be that in between, because I am in just the right position to be that.  I could be the one in the field, culturally aware and understanding and still bringing helpful knowledge and practice.   

There is only one thing I can say about that.

It’s not easy oh.

The Struggle

A couple weeks ago a neighbor came to me and asked me if I did Agric.  I said yes.  She asked if I would come to look at her rice nursery and asked me if I knew how to ride a moto.  I said no and as it turns out she doesn't either because we rode for five miles in first gear.

Thing is I do…kinda.  In high school when Dad let me ride his motorcycle to the end of the street and back.  But that was once, and it was terrifying and it was probably five years ago.

Her nursery did not look to hot.  It looked like she planted a couple different varieties and some pest, probably mice, had chopped it.  She was disappointed; she was going to have to find more seed.

Judith’s husband had a stroke a couple years ago.  He is still pretty weak and stays in the house.  He cannot speak but I go to greet him anyway, he does his best to communicate with hand gestures.  Judith is now responsible for the house and the farm and she has never farmed because that was always her husband’s job.

The next day I found myself in my AID project’s office and I ran into the rice business facilitator.  I told him the story and asked if there were enough inputs for maybe one more demonstration plot.  There was and he gave me enough seed for a whole acre.

I asked my other neighbor, an agriculture extension agent, to help us because this was a demonstration plot and I too am learning about rice production.

He totally took the lead.  He taught us how to soak the rice for twenty-four hours, changing the water every eight hours.  Then how to put the rice in a jute sack for a couple days and turn it and water it so it will germinate but not get so hot as to cook itself.

The seed pre germinated fabulously.  Then we cut open some jerry cans, drilled holes in them, filled em with soil and nursed in them so we could keep them in the house where mice would eat them and we could easily transport them to the field when needed.

Tomorrow is two weeks since we nursed.  That means we should transplant tomorrow.  Problem is, out of the three power tillers in the area, only one is available.  The man was supposed to till on Tuesday but it was market day, so he couldn't.  He was supposed to do it Wednesday but he was doing Mr. X’s instead.  He was supposed to do it Thursday but he had to do Mr Y’s field and after he did Mr.Y’s field the tiller broke.  And now it is Friday.  Ideally, we would transplant at twelve days.  Friday is fourteen days, but acceptable.  If we get the tiller Saturday, no one will work on Sunday and it’ll be Monday before we transplant, that is, if it doesn't rain.

This is the struggle of agriculture development work.  And when all of Judith’s struggle first started I was annoyed.  You just want to tell Ghana to get it together.  But then, you just chill out.  It’s been two years.  I've been here, I've done this, this is life, this is Africa.  The struggle.  The rice will get transplanted.  It will be late and it might suffer because of it.  The rains might come, they might not.  The power tiller might come, the harvester might come, and we might have thirty percent post harvest loss and we might have more we might have less.

I do not know if Judith’s being a woman and new to farming has anything to do with her being put dead last in the cue of who gets their land tilled.  I was there when the man told her he would do it Wednesday.  And then he tilled two men’s fields instead. 

I am a little biased as to one of the men.  This man, he gets a demo plot every year.  It seems to me, that if your project’s purpose was to increase the number of farmers using improved practices, you would choose different farmers every season.  But no, he gets free inputs every season.  I’ve been told that it’s because men like him who are literate and English speaking are easier to work with, they actually do what they are told.  Sometimes the illiterate and poorer farmers simply do not do the demonstration plots well, maybe they never get around to getting the field tilled, or they do not plant as instructed.  And too, when Ambassador’s or AID people come to meet the farmers, it always helps to have someone who can speak intelligently about what they have learned.

But my farmers farm on an irrigation scheme.  This is a hot spot for farmers.  Northern Region, Ghana, Farmers, the poorest of the poor.  AID agencies flock here.  They bring demonstration plots and inputs and sometimes equipment and services.  And I have been in the room when a project comes and says “We want to give five demonstration plots.  Here are the names of the farmers we have chosen.”  And I have seen this man, the one who always gets a plot, say “My name is not on this list.”  And everyone laughs and it’s a joke but in the back of my head something tells me it is not entirely for humor.  It’s like when you leave the village and people say “Bring me bread!”  They are half joking but also kind of saying “Hey, it’d be real nice if you brought me something from town.”  Or when people say, “Those are nice shoes.  Leave them for me when you go back to the US.”  This is also kind of a joke but kind of saying, “Seriously, I like them, give them to me when you leave.”

I do not have the heart for the work.  I admire those that do.

There is beauty in a community that fully relies on one another.   The village raising a child.  But there is beauty in hard, honest work.  Generosity.  Fairness.  These are luxuries right?  Generosity and giving and fairness are things people give when they can afford to give them.  Can we judge people for looking out for number one and getting all that they can while they can?

It is no ones fault that you had seven children and are paying for each of them to go to University.  Its no one else’s fault that you have two motorcycles, two refrigerators, a television and satellite dish, and no toilet in the house.

But everyone struggles.  So what is poor?  Who is poor?  And who do we choose to help?  And who is worthy of the help?  And at what point do you give up on the poor farmer that will not take up improved practices and give to the intelligent, pretty well off farmer that will simply do what you say and allow you to count him in the number of success stories you send to your donor?

I will say that every farmer at the scheme is supposed to be on profile and Judith was not.  It was this man's job to profile the farmers in his area and she was not profiled.  There is no way she could have been chosen to participate in a demonstration plot because no one knew she existed. 

If this one demonstration plot, done in the last three months of my two year service is the only legacy I leave behind I will count myself successful.  Just a few morsels of knowledge, just one woman put on the map.

On Friends, On Different

Today I said farewell to a friend.  This post is a long time coming as this experience is full of goodbyes.

In the Peace Corps, volunteers go home after two years of service.  In Ghana, Agriculture volunteers swear in in December.  Four months later, the Health volunteers do the same and four months after that, the Education volunteers too, raise their hands in pledge.

This means that every four months, you say goodbye to good friends.  Today, it was Jac Paul.  Jac is quiet but her words are always well chosen. 

Jaclin Paul can prepare a meal like no body’s business.  She taught me just how glorious food here can be, how creative you can be with seemingly limited options.  Birthday after birthday, celebrations and holidays and just-because-it’s-the-weekend, you could be sure Jaclin Paul was involved in it and she was going to plate something fabulous.  Chocolate cake, sweet and salty snacks, carrot tops!  This girl had it all.  She is impressive to say the least. Jac also listened more than she spoke, which is a great characteristic for a PCV because we all want to talk about ourselves all the time.

And today we parted in town and I watched her walk away in her rice straw hat toting probably all the material possessions she owns.  She is done here.  She has served the time and now she is on to the next big, grand, glorious adventure that is America, grad school, a new city, and a new challenge.  I try to imagine what that feels like.  I get jealous, scared and sad.

I think about home, and I think about then and those relationships, and how good it was.  I had this friend named Sarah and this girl she is Rock and Roll.  We worked at a coffee house together where I was pulled into a local music scene hidden away in little house basements and church attics.

Today I bask in memories of porch shows and summer time.  Sarah and this crowd  were unlike people I had ever socialized with.  These girls wore fringe.  They were hipsters but this felt like more than a trend, it was more, this was rock and roll—this was different.  It was some kind of freedom, another world from what was happening next door or across the river.

We would sit in our coffee shop talking about who knows what, boys probably, the future, Friday night.  I would sit in that shop at three in the morning talking to my Botany professor about the genetic mutations in orchids.

I revel in the fact that I got to have these experiences.  That I got to know those people and that place and that I got to take part.

Last Friday night, I found myself at Tacorobama, the best pizza place in Tamale.  And there I sat with my friends:  Beth, the veteran, Fahimeh, my friend and Wade, the boy, engineer and dreamer.

Wade cautiously confides in us a new idea he wants to push and see it become a reality in Ghana.  He talks of 3D printers and a training centers and free ideas and information and sourcing.  We talk through the idea’s strengths and faults leading us to problems and successes in our past projects, problems with the Education systems in Ghana and America, governments, corruptions, failures. 

We talk Peace Corps, Teach for America, AID and home.

We laugh at organizations giving laptops to illiterate farmers in order for them to start keeping records in hopes that they will become better business people, therefore increasing yields, and thus increasing Food Security.

I think of Molly, a friend back home doing that West Lafayette thang.  The girl is not in the Peace Corps, and she isn’t working for AID and she is not getting Feed the Future funding.  But Molly is at the farmers market every Saturday collecting fresh vegetables and taking it to low income housing.  Working, doing and making a difference.

I take pride in those in my generation standing up, being change makers.  People are doing things.  People are doing things differently.  They are dreaming, they are working and they sometimes see things change.

Then think of that past place, the basements, the music, and these guys that just did what they felt like doing, music.  And I look at all these kids that come into Peace Corps and they try and they do, and I look at Wade being passionate about this idea I do not even fully understand.

And I thank God.  I thank God for all of it and all of you.  I thank God for my parents understanding my coming here to do this, and supporting a child that went in a different direction.  And I thank God that my life has been what it has. 

In four months I will be in Jaclin Paul’s shoes, and I will choose to stay, or to go.  My group, The Stonewallers, is 14 left of the 21 that came to Ghana in October of 2012.  We itch to see November.  People talk of spiritual journeys, of sailboats, Europe, of amber waves of grain. 

I don’t know where I am going.  But I hope I never stop.  I love being a part of something, a something, a community, a group of people that believe in an idea enough to sacrifice of themselves.  A people who do to see change for the better.

“Do the job first.  Worry about the clearance later.”

Sgt. Shriver

Fulani

This week I am back in the village for the first time in months.  From All Volunteer Conference to Grassroots Soccer Camp in Bimbilla to Mushroom training in Accra and an all staff conference for my supporting project.

I’m met by everyone with, “I’ve been missing you.”

“Yes I know, I traveled.”

“Are you here?”

“I am here, now.”

Being away makes you appreciate things.  I was happy to throw myself into this life again, knowing in a few short months it’ll all be history.

My site has changed a lot in the last few months, we have lots of new neighbors.  One lady does hair so I go out and sit under the neem tree while she ties up hair do’s.  We sit and talk and remove greens from their stalks.

Yesterday I walked down to the Fulani house to buy milk.  Its rainy season and milk are producing!  This is one of many reasons rainy season makes me so, so, happy.

The Fulani are the nomadic tribe, you can find them all over Africa driving cattle across every landscape.  If they settle, the settle apart from the main village.  At our place, a few Fulani families have built huts across the road from the village of Wuba.

I love the Fulani the most.  The are the ultimate homesteaders.  They hold their own and never ask anybody for anything.

 

They also get hated on a lot, like most traveling tribes of the world.  Aaaand as much as I admire them, they kinda earn it.  They marry young, thirteen and fourteen year olds and they rarely send their kids to school, especially the girls.

I’ve heard things said about the Fulani, like how they belong in the Bush, how they can speak to the plants and animals.  But this is why I adore them, especially when I think how the Fulani, they must know every bush path in our district, every path they’ve ever walked.

Anyway, I went down to buy milk from them.  They make me feel so welcome in their home.  Somehow, I never feel awkward or misunderstood at their compound, they love that I am there but they do not dote either or try to make me feel comfortable by offering me seating or drink or food.  We just sit on the concrete floor of their circle mud huts talking in my broken Dagbani.

Today I took a visitor down there as it was on our way to the dam side.  She was so impressed with my language although I stressed how little I actually know.

It is fun talking to them.  We gave them two bottles and I told them, “Milk, tomorrow.”  And we bargained a little on price, but I didn’t know that’s what we were doing until a few minutes into the conversation.

They are always so happy to see me at their place and its only just occurred to me that it ls probably because no white person has been to their house, ever.

They have come to my house selling a raw cheese product called wagashi.  Maybe they have seen me in their village when I come to teach Numeracy.  And I think white people have walked through Wuba when they come to Kings Village and want to see what a real live African village is like!  But no one visits the Fulani.  Why would they?  The Fulani don’t own land, so its not like they are big farmers.  No aid comes to the Fulani, no whites.

Then I came!  They adore it, I adore it, and I’m going back tomorrow.

On that note, today I made my own butter!  And this week I made English muffins.  Since the cedi is dropping rapidly due to inflation, I can no longer afford brown bread and could never afford butter in the first place.  I feel so pampered.

You Do You.

Hannah,

    One of the new volunteers is from Purdue!  We only have one mutual friend but he looks familiar.  Said he came into Vienna a lot, so I’m sure that’s why I felt like I knew him.  He just looks like hes from Purdue, the Midwest, home.

I meant to call you this week.  I decided that it was just one of those days that I needed to talk to my best girlfriend and I was going to switch out the Mom talk time with Hannah talk time, but then I clean ran out of credit.  So!  Next week, promise, you are the first on the list.

Today is my first day bout of food poisoning.  I was so stupid Hannah, how could I have been so stupid?

I was invited to this fancy lunch with some VP of our implementer, flown in from DC to see our project.  And all the other white people were sure to throw out their ice, but I cracked open my coke, poured it over the ice and didn’t think about it.  One, I like to think that even though I run my tap water through a filter, I feel like the filter isn’t 100 percent and you know, I’ve been here over a year and surely I am immune to anything in the treated water.  Two, in all my time over here, I have never been served ice and honestly didn’t think about it until it was too late and I wasn’t about to waste Coke.  And too, it could have been the fact that I ordered the salad.  THE SALAD.  Everyone knows that’s a dumb decision.  All I know is, I saw the words Greek, salad and feta and I was like, yep!  That’s for me.

I knew things weren’t right today when I woke up and downed a jar of Gatorade off the bat.  I mean, it’s hot season and I’m always a little dehydrated/nauseous/not 100 percent, but I’ve never been that out of it.

You know in the movies when people have the flu or hangovers and they’re heads are in the toilet and you just think, ick, why is your face so near that TOILET?  That’s how I feel.  You know that exhaustion that makes you lie face first on a public restroom floor, happy to just be able to put your head down?  I’m there.

I cried for my mother. 

There is a group of 20 New Jersey kids here for the week. 

This is an area I should tell you about, how PC’s react to other white people.  The fact is, we don’t.  I never realized this until I visited Vince down in Kumasi and he said it was so weird how I reacted to other white people I saw on the street.  You kinda look at them, then avoid and them.  Mostly because I can tell immediately if they are anyone I want to talk to, and honestly, if I don’t know you, if you’re not PC, I don’t want to talk to you. Here is a list of the white people types you see in Ghana.

1.          You’re a Northern European girl here “volunteering” i.e hanging with rastas.  No interest in talking to you.
2.          You are here for the week on missions.  No interest in talking to you.
3.          You are here as an AID/Embassy worker.  No interest in talking to you.  Some PC’s like to use these people for good food, a nice bed, I don’t.
4.          You are here on vacation. 
5.          You are here to make money.  Mining, road construction, oil, staple crops or other, my opinion, you do you, keep it legal.
6.         You are here on study abroad.  This is rare, but more common in the south.  These kids are doing their thing and I’m gonna do mine.  We don’t have much to say to each other.

So Sunday at church, where normally I am the only White, I was one of many.  Despite being a little curious about them, my plan was to get out of church ASAP.  But then I was pulled over and introduced and invited to dinner the following week to talk to the kids about what I do.

I worried a little about this.  Mostly because I avoid mission trips, especially youth missions abroad.  I never exactly understood it, and honestly it always appeared more selfish and miseducated than anything else.  I never understood going to a needy country and building a school.  I mean, why wouldn’t you employ a local to build it?  Someone who, I don’t know, has built a school before.  I’ve never built a school, therefore I feel a little silly travel thousands of miles to do something that is not my specialty, and that honestly, someone else could do better.

And are they gonna put teachers in that school??  Are you gonna build teachers quarters where teachers are going to want to come and live and teach?  Because if you’re in the Bush, you’re gonna be hard pressed to get a city person teaching there.

Oh you brought toffee?  That’s brilliant, kids are gonna love that, but then what?  What did you bring that will last them?  That will honestly better their life?  What did you really come to do?  In talking to other PCV’s it comes down to, what is your purpose?? 

I sat in church and counted them.  Added up how much they probably spent on airfare.  30 grand, at least and I thought, who funded this?  Your parents gave you that money?  You raised it?  Okay.  I thought about Singa, the community I went to visit the previous week.  I murky water I saw them drinking.  The well I saw half dug, in a desperate attempt to find water.  I wondered the price of a bore hole, a well, a pipeline from the river.  I thought about my farmers begging for a rice mill.  Not that I would agree with giving a rice mill, but honestly, you want to give?  Give ‘em what they want, oh they’d love you forever.  Instead, you fly over and bring toffee.  So who is it for really?  Is your purpose to better other lives, or is it to better yours?  To make you grateful for what you have.  To make you well traveled, to give you stories to tell and a warm place in your heart for the good that you’ve done.

And so I questioned if I should even go to dinner.  What if I said something offensive?  What if I got on my high horse?  What if I told all the good PC poop stories over dinner?  What if this negative side of AID that I’ve witnessed comes out?  What if all my negative about all the crappy things in this life come out and I’m a terrible guest they just see as sweaty, swollen and sad?

I was in town a couple days and after the fated food poisoning meal, I grabbed a tro tro back home, hoping to make it in time for dinner.  It was the slowest tro tro, I swear.  We stopped everywhere.  The driver only ever went about 15 mph, and we stopped to say hi to his friends and pick things up and drop things off.  The 20 mile ride home took 2 hours.  I was on the window, had forgotten sun screen, and ended up putting a hankie over my head and pretended to be asleep.

That night when I entered the guest house, oh Lord.  It’s a great guest house, theres a big screened in veranda and a big table that can easily seat the 25 of them.  Hannah, there were boxes and BOXES of 1.5 liter pure water, there were envelopes hanging from a wall with each of their names, like mailboxes.  On the table were 20+ water bottles filled with every different color of Gatorade.  There were those giant, clear tubs of assorted nuts that you get from Sam’s club.

“How long are you guys here?” I asked.

“Till Sunday.  Ten days.”

They weren’t refilling the water bottles.  They brought enough water, in bottles, for 20+ people for ten days during hot season.  I was surprised, but again, no judgement, they can do them.

And as nervous and awkward as I thought it was going to be, Hannah, they were the coolest kids I’ve ever met.  So nice and respectful and caring.  Highly organized, they were in teams, there was a dinner shift, a cleaning crew, one kid assigned every night to announce what dinner was, and always one assigned to pray and it was such a nice, caring prayer!

They had so many questions.  I was honest about everything, the dark side of AID, my reservations about giving, even hinted I think at my misgivings about mission trips.  But their leader was so great and kind and patient.  They told me about their work, how they fully believed in teaching men to fish, and how that day they were digging soak away pits.  Soak away pits are a place for urinal run off to go to, so they don’t create a giant pool of festering green sludge.  I was proud of them.  Spirits were high and it was at the very least up lifting…and fun.  And it made me resent PC for not allowing more than one volunteer in a community.

They sent me home with a granola bar and get this, OREO’s!  As much as I denied them, I told them they could gift me everything after they left but I didn’t want anything now, they wouldn’t hear it.  I seriously almost cried.  That might have been the hormones.

As much as I do hope they gift me some Gatorade as they leave, honestly, I don’t want anything else. 

That night, I left their house and walked home with my neighbor Judith.  Judith always takes care of the missions teams.  She makes sure the food it ready and to their liking.  Makes sure they have everything they need and their schedules solid.  It had to be nine o’clock when she was returning home to her family and I knew she would be out of the house by 6 the next morning, earlier if it was staff devotional day.  I felt guilty leaving the house with oreos.  Why did I deserve those?  I didn’t.  Judith WORKS, the woman works hard.  I felt so gross.  But then Judith told me that they brought her the laptop she has been trying to get here from the States, so I think she is happy.

All the PC’s told me to try to get the missionaries left over hair supplies.  And in my first year, I would have.  And given that they probably don’t care to take it back and that none of the Ghanaian women would use it, maybe it’s an okay idea.  Here again, I don’t need it.  I’m doing fine without it.   But it was nice.  Oh man, they were so nice.  But I wouldn’t care if they didn’t give them to me.  I’m happy to just have dinner and talk.

Once again, it reminds me of how much I feel restricted here.  Like I can’t be myself or I’m too tired to be.  I loved talking about myself all night, answering questions, talking about country music.  Saying funny thing, hearing funny things, laughing and meeting new, nice people.  They said they have devotion after dinner most nights and I was welcome to take part.  I would LOVE to take part.

A couple kids came up asking questions after, very interested in the PC.  They are so…passionate about God and service.  Yet to be phased by all the, well to put it literally, shit. 

This week too brought the new installment of PCV’s fresh off the boat, talkative and ready to hit the ground running.

I’m jealous of them and their…excitement.

I’m annoyed by them and their…naivety.

The only question worth mentioning during dinner was when I was asked if I ever thought about missions.   My answer?  The truth, no, I have never felt called into missions.  Why do I feel like contemporary religion puts less… "call" into missions than I do?  I feel like to be a “missionary” your heart has to be in that 100 percent.  That’s one of those things you can’t go into because you have nothing better to do.  Its something that you have to know without a doubt that God wants you to do.  That’s a really serious thing to me. 

I felt like bringing up how I feel about converting the Muslims in the area to Christians.  It’s not that I’m against people finding Jesus, I am happy to hear that people are!  Truly.  I guess wanting people to be true to themselves and their culture and wanting them to “do them” makes me a bad Christian if it means them staying Muslim? 

The truth is I question it all.  I think Christianity offers an out for women oppressed by the Muslim faith and their husbands that interpret it as they will.  I think Christianity offers women a voice, a place, equality and a sort of freedom and respect.

I want people to find Jesus, is it wrong to want to them to want Him for other reasons?  What about the idea that people choose Christianity because it is the White Man’s God?  And maybe our God will bless them as He has blessed us?  More than their God has blessed them?  It’s all the same God.  I know.  And   I don’t know that that is a thing that people do, but when I put myself in their shoes, it makes sense.  And when you think about all these white people coming to give you things, and send your kids to school?  I see where it could be a tempting or easy transition, in individual or community.

What if they come to the Christian church for the social aspect?  Or for the electric fans?  Or the fancy decorations and sound system.  Or because they like to dance around with their girlfriends.  Or they like being told how much there is a God that loves them and will take care of them.  Maybe they are told that at mosque too, but from what I understand they go to mosque and pray, but they pray in a language they don’t understand.  They don’t even know what they are saying, but they follow along.

I’ve rarely heard salvation preached, or seen any kind of, I can’t even remember the word it’s been so long, communion, that’s is.  Church is singing, dancing, feeling good, some healing, some screaming, some good words and done.  It all comes down to if you believe you can repeat some words and be saved, if you can lose salvation, if you can be talked into joining our group by someone who knows something you don’t.

Where is the good and where is the bad?  And what’s the other option?  Not letting people know about Jesus?

I just don’t know.  Maybe I should figure out what I know and where I stand and stand up for God and my beliefs, and yet, no.  This is their culture, this is how they do things and they are happy in it, and I’m going to let them be happy, because who am I to do otherwise.

What do I deem a worthy reason to come to this faith?  A call?  A true heart.  Maybe even sheer curiosity.

Church is a theatrical show I would rather not take part in.  When I think about extending a third year, the idea of being away from my kind of worship stops me.  I thought I could get over this, see God in everything, in every faith and person and to some extent I can, but I don’t know if its enough.

Ghana feels like one big country trying to be the first world but holding on to the fact that they still want to poop in the Bush.  You can’t have both.  Ghana, you have to come around. You have to stop putting such emphasis on appearance and wealth and status and put first things first.

You have to learn that the point of giving and tithe is NOT just to receive more in return.  You have to give to bless, not just to be blessed, despite what you are told in church.

I’d like to see what Ghana can do if all the first world just left them alone.  But then where would the AID industry that we’ve created go?  Americans would be out of jobs.  Billions of dollars used elsewhere.

Bringing all this to a point and a close, the NJ team restored my faith in youth group mission trips, those kids are doing it right.  And they did more in a week than I did in a year.  It was great to be around them and painful at the same time.  I was restored and broken down.  Just seeing them gave me hope, hope of home and relationships and opportunities that wait there.  But this is my time to be here.

I’ve jumped around in these last few pages, sorry about that.  Seems I couldn’t find a place to stop and one thing leads to another.  I’ll leave you here.  I need more Gatorade anyway. 

Haven’t heard anything about March Madness, heard Duke got beat and Louisville meets UK sometime. 

Enjoy the season, spring is the best.

AB

Dear Home

Dad,

     Got the cupcakes yesterday!  Thank you so much!  You have no idea.  There is nothing like that here, and because there is nothing like that here, I think my sugar allowance is a little low and I found them sickly sweet.  Not that that kept me from eating them or enjoying them.

They make us open the packages at the post office for the customs people and when I opened it and pulled out those cakes there were ants in the box and they asked, what are those?  And I said Birthday Cakes!  Ha!  Thanks so much, sweet gesture, sweet cakes.

Sorry I have not been in touch.  I have been out of credit for days. 

ADVANCE has a new project leader in the North.  He is Ghanaian and really great, Lauren and I got to sit down yesterday and talk about what this next year could look like for us.

I told him I was no longer working with the farmers at the scheme and that I focus on forming and teaching womens groups.  I put a picture on facebook this week.  I taught Rabi and the Dalun women how to make soap, this is mainly used as income generator, maybe used during dry season when there is nothing to do and no other income source.

So I taught that group and they liked it so much, we’ve done it for the last three weeks.  Thus far, we have only been making it in a bucket, but they are so into it that this week I am having a soap box made.  This way they can be making more and have nice, uniform square pieces.  For some reason they really want to make yellow soap.  Yellow is the color of soap, also there is a certain shape people love, its called key soap and I have heard you can buy the moulds for it, I’m looking into this.

My friend Fahimeh came back this week!  Great news as half of my group has terminated early.  Ghana used to have the best E.T. early termination rate out of all Peace Corps and my group alone has taken that title away.  Anyway, Fahimeh tore her ACL and had to go to DC for surgery and no one thought PC would let her come back, but they did!  And she brought me a big bag of coffee!!  

What else?  Oh okay, so I have always known that I had mice.  But I never saw them and they stayed in two bottom kitchen doors and I let them and that was fine.  Then one moved into my underwear drawer.  And then.  One fateful night, there was one IN MY MOSQUITO NET WITH ME.  That was it, the next day I bought poison.  Its zinc phosphate and I really hated to use it, especially because after I mixed it with rice and sprinkled it around the house, I still had a bunch of poisoned rice left over.  What was I supposed to do with that?  So, I got my shovel and went to bury it outside.  Pretty good idea I thought.  The next morning, the chickens had scratched it up.  Bastards.  Just like they scratched up my cucumber seeds and my sweet pepper nursery.  So all in all, I think they deserved it, but they have not died, so.

I found one dead mouse.  And I can only smell the others.  I cannot find them.  This house is pretty terrible, there are a number of places they could be, like behind pointless woodwork, in the giant concrete hole my toilet balances over, the doors, the bottom of door frames.  But I really think they are in the ceiling.  As it is hot season, I think I’m just gonna deal with it.  They’ll bake for a few days and then it’ll be done right?

Along that line, I got a kitten, he is pretty awesome.  I never liked cats but this one is pretty entertaining and I hope he scares away any potential mice.  I have taken back the bottom two kitchen drawers; I store water there now.  I put a box of dirt in the kitchen and the cat went right there to pee, he eats rice, and he perches on my shoulder when I am on the computer and he likes to chew on computer cables.  But too, he likes to walk on my keyboard so that’s annoying.  Don’t know how this is going to work with the allergies but I have concrete floors and a very drafty house so I think it’ll be fine.  He doesn’t sleep with me but he wishes, he slept on the very corner of the bed but outside the net last night.

Also, Dad, I know you are not going to want to put the effort into this, but I really want you to.  I want you to go to the post office and try to track the packages you have sent that have not come, like the phone and the red pepper seeds.

At the post office yesterday, the package man brought us back to his office, picked up and box and asked us if we knew the person.  It was a package belonging to our friend Diana.  They had lost some slip and her package had been there for months without her knowledge.  It was a hassle getting that package out of the post office but we got it for her.  So I brought up the fact that I have been waiting on two packages.  They said it should have a tracking number, which I’m sure you did not keep, but if you went to the office you shipped it from, I mean I don’t know, but if you gave your name and the date maybe?  Or something?  They have to have a way to pull up the record, and get the number.  Because even if things like the phone was not insured, if US post tracks that it came into Ghana, Ghana is responsible for reimbursing/finding it.  That’s what the people said.

That’s all for now really.  We had a great sermon Sunday.  Kings Village has a couple new administrators from Accra that do the sermons now.  Assemblies are very…enthusiastic worshipers and I find myself an observer.  Not only do they speak in tongues and run around and dance but yesterday was especially powerful in that three people got laid out in the spirit.  Some of it I believe, some of it I don’t.  There is power there of some sort anyhow.  Do you know the scene from Blues Brothers?  Think that but far less coordinated.

I should tell you I cleaned up all the poisoned rice before I got the cat.  Cat is still unnamed.  I’m leaning towards Sugar or Babycakes.  I will name this animal, as the last time I let a Ghanaian name my pet they named it God Knows.  Speaking of naming, the Tamale Office/House got a new kitten too and we are going to have a naming ceremony for it.  The cats at that house tend to get named after powdered milk, first it was Nido, and this one we think will be Milo.  Not MI-lo but MEE-lo.

One last thing!  Thank you so much for sending the packages!   But I’m sorry I have ONE MORE request, but this one can seriously go in an envelope…or maybe with Brother Samuel if you see him?  I am out of drink mixes and its hot season.  There is one a friend gave me that is very nice, it’s the Great Value Peach Mango Green Tea.  I seriously drink 150 ounces a day, effortlessly.  I have the Gatorade Liza sent with me and I use it but like to hoard it for when I am sick/really dehydrated.

Oh wait, I do have more!  Last week was March 6, Ghana Independence Day.  That was okay, fun festivities etc.  Lauren lives in Bimbilla where there are chieftaincy issues already.  Well, a chief there died and then things got out of hand and people were shooting at each other and one person was killed, so Lauren got evacuated.

Yesterday I was in Tamale shopping and I stopped at a friend who sells shoes.  This guy, he is finding American flag All Stars for me.  He told me he had them but when he came with them, they were Vans and a men size 9.5 and he still tried to get me to buy them for 50 cedi!  But I refused and went to leave when he told me not to continue down the road, that some politician had been shot and killed and they were fighting and the military was there.  He told me to get out of town fast, so I went about my business and found my way through the market to my station where I did see the military, and they were not happy.  It was a lot of trucks full of uniformed men swinging big guns around and yelling at people.  But no big really, nothing else happened, I went home.

That’s all the excitement I have for now.  Soap making, dead mice and military involvement.

No Wool on My Eyes

Last Friday I taught the after school science classes that the third year students take in order to prepare for the BECE, the exam that will get them into senior high school.

The Headmaster/science teacher could not teach them, he was called away but gave me a mock exam and the answer sheet to go over with the students.  At the end of classes he showed up and as we talked, I was in a good mood and in my infinite wisdom agreed to help mark the exams.

I only had to do the first part, the multiple choice.  But in everyone I marked I got more and more angry, why was I doing this?  This is not my class, not my responsibility.

Today I ran into Headmaster again, I told him the exams were finished and could be picked up.  He said he had the key to the second part and would bring it by my house later.  I suggested that he could do the second part, because I did the first.  He said he will come to my house.

I had minutes to work up the lady balls to tell this man I was not going to mark his exams for him.

I came out with the exams, “Here you go!”

We argued for the next half hour.

I know I can be a push over.  I know I can be too nice, talked into things, walked on.  I know.

But this IS MY THING.  Teaching?  I know there.  I’ve been there, I’ve done that. 

We hit this problem from every single angle. 

This is the mock exam given by the District.  Headmaster says he cannot mark it fairly, he is biased because he wants to present his students better than they are.

He was surprised to hear that I would never, NEVER ask anyone to grade the tests of my students.  He wanted me to grade the written part.  It would take ages.  No.

I told him I understand the fear of not being a neutral grader, I do.  But he is a teacher, and he should be able to do it.  The answer is right, or it is wrong, you mark it that way and that is your job, your responsibility. 

He told me more about the district and he talked and talked and talked, trying to talk me into marking them  and every time I thought he had a point and almost gave in to his request, I looked at the stack of exams and thought about how I would simply never ask anyone to do my grading.

When he asked why I explained how if someone messed up marking the exams, it would reflect on me.  How when I grade exams, I see patterns, which questions most students missed, and what I need to cover again.  And how grading is no one’s responsibility but mine, and I simply would not put that on anyone else.

He said he wants an outside examiner and is using his resources.

He would never let someone who does not know science mark the papers.  He, he can mark English and Religion and History, but only people who know science can mark Science.  He cannot give the exams to anyone else to mark.

I told him its JHS science, and the person would have a key.  Everyone knows JHS science because everyone took it, and there is a key. 

I said I had Peace Corps reports I had to write and ADVANCE reports too, and I do not have the time.

“Oh, it is not urgent.  When will you be finished with your reports?”

I said a flat no, many times and at first it was hard, but the more we talked about it, the more I knew I was right and stared him down about it.

I understand the need for an outside examiner, I do.  I also see the need for a teacher who can grade fairly.  That is your job.

In the end he said “I want you to help me mark this.”

“I know you do.  I think you need to mark this.”

“Just help me.”

“I think you need to mark this.”

 I must say I am proud of myself for coming up with such a solution to this problem.

“Okay, I understand you do not think you can be a neutral grader.  But as a teacher, you need to be able to mark fairly.  You take these.  You mark them.  Bring them on Monday and I will go back and look at the way you marked them.  Then we will decide together if you are a fair marker.”

“Oh but that will take so long.  Maybe I will take two weeks to mark them and then you will take two weeks after that.  That is four weeks.”

“You said it is not urgent.  I think this is the best plan.”

More talk.

“I will not do this.”

More talk.

“I will not do this.”

More talk.

“We have talked too much about this.  I need to get back to my work.  Mark them by Monday and bring them to me."

“I just want you to help me mark them.”

“I did the first part.  You grade the written.”

“I will grade them, I want you to mark them.”

“You grade them.  You mark them.”

Talk talk.

“No.”

In the end he left with his exams. Score one for the girl who stands.

Wrong Way

Last night I dreamt I was swimming.  Swimming, swimming, swimming trying to swim to Mexico.  And I kept pulling a 10 pesewa coin out of my pocket because it had an arrow on it that showed me which way to go. 

Finally I see lights.  And I see a fenced in compound all lit up maybe with barbed wire around it so I keep swimming until I come to a group of young adults sitting on the shore and I go up to them, explain that I’m trying to get to Mexico and ask where I am.

The girl looks to the boy who says “Someone’s gotta tell her.  You’re in Canada.  You went the wrong way.”  And I just stood there wondering what to do next because I had plans, maybe some epic swimming the world adventure, but now I did not know what to do because I went the wrong way and swam to Canada and not Mexico!

Then I woke up to the Call to Prayer.  But all I could think was how clever my mind was, what a curve ball my own mind just threw at me and how dumbfounded I was in the dream.

How does one make such a huge mistake?

Where is my Grandmother Willow?

DAMBA and Richmond Big and Strong

DAMBA was this weekend,  it is the Dagomba tribe New Year festival.

Everyone told me to go to Kumbungu Damba celebration because he is a big Chief and the celebration would be big.  Instead I went to Dalun, even though its further, it is where my women are and they invited me to come.

So I show up at Rabi's house.  Rabi is the leader of the To Bom Yem VSLA group.  Rabi gave me a black and white woven two yard to wrap around my waist and a matching piece to go across my shoulder.  Then she wrapped my head with a white scarf and I backed baby Richmond Big and Strong.

So off we went to greet the Chief but we greeted the wives first and  never got around to the Chief.  This was m y favorite part.  Walking into the Chief's compound, there are a number of thatch roof mud huts, one for each of the ten wives.  The Chief is old, probably 100 years old and his wives ages range from probably 25 to 90?  I'd guess?

We went into each hut as the women here getting ready for the celebration.  It felt a lot like college.  Being a Chief's wife, its like being a sorority.  Everyone was getting their hair done, or their make up, or running to bath.  Each hut had a four poster bed, closets full of clothes and cabinets full of decorative cook wear. 

In one of the houses I met Sanatu.  I totally forgot she was a Chief's wife.  I have worked with her on the farms this past year.  We came to greet her in her bra and underwear but no one seemed to mind.  All the wives were so beautiful, each with pretty gold jewelry on and pretty fabrics with golden threads.  

So then the celebrations start.  On big circle of onlookers with dancing and drumming in the middle.  Then Chief comes out with his entourage and they sit in a big group, all the Wives follow and sit in a line in the chairs of the circle.  It just so happened that I got to sit next to all the Wives!  Right next to Sanatu.

There were two other white girls there, I'm sure they are teachers or volunteers here for a couple weeks.  They looked a little clueless.  I sat opposite them with Rahima on my lap and Rabi to my right and as the festival went on I was greeted by most of the women in our VSLA group.  Everyone loved my outfit.

Every time a Wife danced the people went crazy.  One time a daughter danced, she was so beautiful, she wore this woven cloth of light blue, light yellow and gold stripes.  She didn't even have the cloth sewn into a dress, it was just wrapped around her like a two yard, and she had yards of wrapped around her head.

Then they starting shooting off the guns and babies started crying and the sun started setting so I rode home.

On my way home I stopped by Coni's shop again, told her all about Damba.  She said she went to Kumbungu but had to turn and come back because the bees were really bad and stinging people.  In fact, people had to be hospitalized.

This is a crazy thing because Kumbungu Chief is known for his bees.  Kumbungu has the bees, its their thing.  At ceremonies, Kumbungu Chief takes bees with him in a pot.  Coni said people were insulting him because he could not control the bees and Chiefs are supposed to have some kind of power over that.

Today I came into town and stopped for a coke at my friend Memuna's place.  She said some wicked people had shot the hive at Kumbungu and disturbed the bees.  She said no, Chief cannot control the bees but these bees that attacked, and the Kumbungu bees are different.  She said the Kumbungu bees, you will never see, they do not come out.  They are not the same as the wild bees.  The Kumbungu bees only come out in times of war or trouble.

She said the bees have been with Kumbungu since "Chief, Chief, Chief, up until now.  You understand."  I nodded.

As I left Memuna's place she said "Friend, you are getting fat."  I nodded.

Thanks Memuna.  

Success

Last night I found myself in town having just missed the last bus to village.  There I was thinking about stressing when I saw the Kings Village truck.  I had to make some calls but got the drivers number and was able to come home in the truck.

I have begged rides home in the truck before, but usually the truck is full and I feel guilty for asking a favor.  Last night it was just Joe and I, he had to run last minute to pick something from town.  We were also picking up our friend Judith.  There was such comfort in riding back to village in the truck.  But the comfort wasn’t from the fact that it was a private car, a goat free car, a noise free car, it was something else.  Joe is my age and here we were in town, on no ones schedule, free to pick all the things we needed without worry as to carrying it from the roadside or on our lap for the ride home.  And yet, it is still more.  It felt good to drive out of crazy town into the country, back to home, to calm, to dark sky and yellow moon.  But what occurred to me in the glow of those glorious little working dashboard lights  is how much I do miss real relationships.  Just being, just chilling, not feeling guilty about taking or asking, or guilty for cultural insensitivities, just to sit in this truck and drive home with my friends talking about what is happening in their lives.  It felt good.

SUCCESS.  The only project I have going in Peace Corps right now is weekly meetings with a women’s group in Dalun, a village five miles away.  After everyone learned to write their names, and we learned numeracy, we started a Village Savings and Loan Association VSLA.  I love these women because they are always there when I ask them to be.  They named their group Ti Bom Yem, We Seek Knowledge.  They are the best.  I was discouraged recently because after we set rules for the group, women must run to the roadside and back if they are late, people did not show up.  The first week it was market day so I understood low attendance, but the second week just made me fear for the continuation of the group. 

This week, it took an hour but everyone showed up!  I did not care, I did not even tell them to run, I was just thrilled they were there.  We elected a Chair Person who will run the meetings, we handed out personal record books and every woman gave a thumbprint for every two cedis she has contributed.  The money counter counted the money, everyone memorized the amount, the three key holders locked the box and done!  We had completed our first successful savings meeting.  In a couple weeks we will talk about how to borrow loans from the group.

These women are the only reason I am still here.  Their group name alone gives me hope for them.  Oh you want knowledge?  I will bring the knowledge!  They want to learn how to make soap.  I’m also going to show them/talk about mushroom cultivation AND show them my bread baking solar oven when it is finished.

On the way home, I was so elated.  Then I saw my friend Alex, he is the Kings Village handy man, broken down on the bi-water road.  So I stopped and talked to him for a little bit while a small boy fixed his flat tire.  I thought about how nine months ago, I would not have known Alex and I would have ridden right by him.  My bike seat keeps falling down, he says he will fix it and that he likes fried rice, so have some when he comes.

Riding into Kings Village, I decided to stop at Coni’s shop.  Usually I am so tired or hungry and I just want to get home so I can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie or something totally reclusive.  But Coni was sitting there and we were talking, so I bought a coke and I sat there for hours with her.  She shared her dinner with me, I bought eggs, we talked and then I helped her close up shop. 

This is what killed me a little bit.  Closing up Coni’s little food stuffs and cold drinks shop felt a lot like closing up Vienna Coffee Shop all those late late nights in college.  She has complained about being lonely at the shop.  She was going to start selling kabobs just so she could hire someone to run it and she would have someone to talk to.

I honestly enjoyed the evening.  It felt like integration.  I’ve a fellow PCV who said “It’s all about the relationships.  This experience, it’s really just about the relationships you make.”  It’s true.

I feared loneliness before coming and come to find out, I just wanted to be left alone.  I feel like people want to talk to me all the time.  When people are knocking on your door all the time, calling your phone all the time and you just want to be left in peace, you think “I’m not lonely, in fact, everyone leave me alone!”  But until you have a truly social moment with a friend, and you aren’t there because you have to be or because you want their food or because you feel it is your duty to socialize and you are strategically planning when it is acceptable to leave and what excuse you will give to get away, you do not realize how lonely you are.

Coni says I can run her shop sometimes, but she cannot pay me.  I do not mind this idea at all.  This is community.  This is giving.  This is living.  It is social and it is love and I am lucky.  That thought came to mind while sitting and chatting tonight.  How lucky I am to have done this.  How proud I am to be a PCV and be among my peers.  As much as I hate it sometimes, it is my dream job.  Even though I thought about leaving when I thought the women’s group was on the edge of collapse.  Or when my full grown garden was dug up and replaced by my neighbor’s onion nursery.  Or any number of things that happen on a daily basis that you just hate.

Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson