Junie's Online Thoughts
Thursday, April 17, 2003
So Ive been thinking about my dad alot lately. Several times in the last few weeks, Ive watched guys cut grass here. I dont think dad would like lawn maintenance so much if he lived in Ghana. Due to cost, upkeep and availability, there are no mowers (riding or push), no weed wackers, no chain saws here. Instead, men use giant machetes and whack the tall grasses by hand. Its hard, hard work and takes two to three hours to do a stretch that would take 10-15 minutes on a sturdy riding lawn mower. When Jeremy's friend and her husband stayed here last year, they rented a house to themselves. They had to hire security guards, cooks, and lawn boys. Devin, the husband, thought that if he paid some small boy a minimal fee to cut his lawn, he should at least help them. So he grabbed a machete and started chopping away. Ten minutes later he was nearly dying, and raised the white flag of surrender. Im sure to the small boys, who have done this work all their lives, he looked absolutely ridiculous. But to us, who use comfortable tools to do our work, its nearly impossible to do these tasks by hand.
Ive also been thinking alot about comforts and how we take them for granted. Our friend Sheila, met this gal named Heather, who works up in the Volta region as a sex-ed/AIDS teacher at the SSS school. Heather came down to Accra for the week, and Sheila is leaving for Morocco. We've been showing her around to restaurants and took her to Makola market today for fabric shopping. We hear her stories of her village, where she lives without electricity, without running water, without supermarkets or refrigeration or flush toilets. They dont even have a kitchen. THere's an outside cooking area and someone cooks for them (although she doesnt know how to cook for white people, so they have chicken, red sauce and either white rice or noodles every single day. It took them three months to convince the lady that they liked potatoes, so now they get those too.) As a side note, Heather is teaching and living with the only other "obruni" named Che Yen, a Chinese guy, whose had a really miserable time there. In his six months in Ghana so far, he's had malaria twice, typhoid, several intestinal conditions, a skin rash since his first week there, his passport was stolen, he hates the weather, the food and not having creature comforts. Its a bit hard for Heather to live every day with someone so negative, but he's cutting his trip short to go home. Later she was telling us about how if they want a cold beer or a cold COke, that they have to fetch a small boy to ride a bike to the next town to bring back ice blocks. They put the ice blocks in the cooler, then walk to the other next town to buy beers and minerals. After six hours in the cooler, they can enjoy a cold beverage. Here, I can walk anywhere in a 300 step direction and get a cold drink.....such modern conveniences we have!!!
Anyway, after eating at Southern Fried Chicken last night, we took her to Koala, one of the bigger supermarkets in Osu. She reacted much like I think Im going to when I go home and my family takes me to Woodman's to shop. She was like, Oh MY GOD, they have potato chips! Wow, look at all the cheeses!!! (no refrigeration = no dairy), Wow, they have microwave popcorn! There are so many different kinds of salad dressings! And hummus in a can! Just staring open mouthed at the dairy case.....and I know that I will do the same when I go home....all those choices......even now, I remember how many different kinds of hamburger helper there are on a shelf in a U.S. grocery store, and here, theres no such thing. Most people in most villages dont have access to many of the things we do in Accra, and even here, I still take these things for granted. I do it even more when Im back in the U.S.. I dont think twice about walking past literally hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of cereal, or candy, or snack chips or whatever. The proliferation of both wealth and waste in the U.S. is daunting and sometimes wonderful and sometimes horrifying. So that's my request for you all as you enter into your weekend. Take a few moments to be really, really thankful that you have light switches that work, that you have tv and a refrigerator, that you can drive five minutes to a store to buy whatever your heart desires, that you have money and access to health care, that you have hundreds of options for restaurants, that you can read the menus at these restaurants, that when you turn on the faucet that you have clean potable water and you dont have to drink out of a contaminated river, that you wont be dead tomorrow from malnutrition or malaria or typhoid or countless other curable diseases. Its not Thanksgiving this Sunday, but take a minute anyway to be thankful of all the wonderful convenient rich things you have in your life.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Slow slow computer today. Its been a pesky couple of days. While we were gone, millions of tiny tiny ants have overtaken the house. They started in the bedroom, where they attacked two balls of shea butter, chewing through the bag and turning one sticky ball into fine powder. Streams of them went up the walls. Thousands were running across the stovetop, across the sink, everywhere. I freaked out and massacred them all with squirts of bleach. Cant help it. Hate ants in the kitchen. Since then, I keep finding hundreds of them everywhere and if we leave the smallest bits of food anywhere, they will appear immediately. Not like the big ants who only had a few of their friends around and didnt really bother me that MUCH. Not I have millions of ant deaths on my karma....it cant be good. Then our water keeps going out....we still have floating slug cooties in our tap water, and then when I bought oranges for juice the other day, as I was bringing the glasses to the table, I realized that things were swimming in them....little worms that lived in the oragne. I really dont want to have to inspect every single oragne I buy for drinking......we have been over taken by cooties and bugs.
French is going okay...we dont have class on Friday or Monday, but have passed through introductions, numbers to 12, months, alphabet and three tongue twisters. I like the teacher and the students are getting their shit together. Erin brought us back a puzzle...its one of those super hard mosiac puzzles and that is driving me crazy. Thousands of pictures of pooh bear stuck in his hole, piglet laying down or a few other characters to make one giant pooh. Found more ants on the kitchen counter today when Jeremy didnt wipe off the crumbs from his breakfast....more massacres......they should really communicate amongst themselves to know that our house is a house of ant death.
Yesterday it rained so hard t hat it flooded our kitchen and bathroom with inches of water. The rainy season has begun. It cut internet connections (thats why I didnt write or blog yesterday...couldnt find a connection) so Im thankful that this computer works today. Hopefully we can find a way to keep the flodding undercontrol. I dont really want to mop up the grungy bathroom floor by hand every single day, although I love the sound of rain and thunder.
Car battery dead again for the thirdy time....Maybe going to the beach this wekend.....happy late birthday to Courtnay......more blog tomorrow about my dad and how they cut grass in Ghana. Computer is too slow and crappy to write now. Buh bye. Auvoir!
Monday, April 14, 2003
Wow...long time. I typed a blog last Wednesday, but the computer crashed right before I posted it. Actually, the power went out....not surprising given how slow and painful the internet services were in TAkoradi. Very different than Accra. Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, there is no daylights savings time in Africa.
So....here's what I was going to write last week, but in shortened form: Walked all over creation in search of a non-existent cheap beach hotel. Met a slutty Ghanaian girl named Ester who stole 40,000 cedis from my purse. (long story) Felt depressed about this theft and walked home to a sick Jeremy. Bought a bunch of wacked out Ghanaian children's books and felt much better. Accompanied Jeremy to archives in Sekondi (really this tiny little room amidst the dreary ministries buildings). Met Auntie Faustina, a woman who worked across the street in the Ag building and was impresed by Jeremy's Twi. She insisted that she make fufu for me since I reminded her of her other white friend from Sweden. Left Jeremy to work while I visited the Arts & Cultural Celebration (by luck it was going on at the same time). Saw Greater Accra day--religious singing groups, a long nonsensical play all in twi, and four drumming/dancing groups. Met Eric, a dancer, and his two strange friends, who insisted that I go with him to his village to meet his family and friends and fellow dancers. Reminded Eric twenty times that I was married. He repeated that he was happy since I was his first white friend. Met Jeremy at the junction, bought some pottery and went back to the hotel. Accidentally spent all of our money on mediocre overpriced Chinese food and didnt have enough for a tip or a taxi back home. (It must be the bad karma corner of TAkoradi...slutty Ester lived down the street from Joy Chinese....) Again accompanied Jeremy to Sekondi to get Auntie FAustina's fufu for me. Didnt realize that Faustina was talking about hypothetical fufu and just wanted me to visit her. Thought I would stay for 30 minutes to chat. Three hours and fifteen minutes later, (after watching her type a letter and talking about grandmothers, family, my sister's wedding, being married, having kids, VISAs to the U.S., job salaries, bank loans, her Swedish friend and her Swedish friend's love life, Jeremy and my time in GHana) I could finally leave Auntie FAustina after an extended goodbye. Walked to cultural celebration with Jeremy to see Ashanti day. Watched procession of chiefs, the Queen Mother, their entourages, their stools, drummers, singers, dancers and the rest of their posses. THankfully Eric and his strange friend didnt push the idea of us having to go to his village. We were really tired. He did give me three 5 x 7 photos of himself and his address and his friend asked me for money.
Left TAkoradi on Friday for Busua beach, a little tourist town southwest of TAkoradi. Stayed at a dirtcheap hotel called SAbina's that was fine (bucket showers and pit toilet...I'll never quite get used to those). Walked along the ocean, ate pizza, met some fulbright gals from Accra and got happily pummeled by the ocean. Stayed all day Saturday....on Sunday we had great timing and caught a shared taxi to Agora, then immediately caught a trotro to Takoradi, then the discount bus to Accra. In by 4:30 pm. Erin came home with many things for us. Then, when Jeremy checked his email, we got the big news: JEREMY GOT THE FULBRIGHT!!!!!! That is totally awesome and makes things both easier and more complicated. But all in all, its a wonderful, wonderful thing. He will find out more about money and training and timing in July. Yahoo!
Whew! I wrote this down in my notebook to blog: On the trotro to Takoradi, I was again reminded how Africans dont fear touch the way Americans do. At home, each person is equipped with a personal space bubble and frown on random touching from strangers. (Im not talking about inappropriate touch, here.) Here, touch is normal and okay--by market women, by kids, by trotro mates, by strangers--and I see things here I would never see back home. The trotro had one seat empty, but picked up a woman with three kids. The oldest boy squeezed in between two men on the seat behind, the woman handed her daughter to a stranger to hold for the duration of the trip and she kept the baby in her lap. I dont think anyone back home would willingly hold a stranger's kid on a bus without some big scene by one of them. WHy are you touching my kid? or Get your kid off my lap! Here, its all part of life.
Today I woke up at 6 to run with Stephanie. Then I made my way to Alliance for my 1st day of French class. There was only one other white gal...an Australian, I think. The rest were Ghanaians. And boy, did they ever complain about everything. They complained that the teacher's accent was too strong, that they didnt like the sound of his English, that the French words looked unfamiliar and they couldnt get books from the reception. Seven people came in very late...then two more came in when there was only 30 minutes left in class. Both a student and the teacher took a cellphone call during class and about ten people interuppted the class to either talk to the teacher or take a chair or poke their heads in. ARgh. Thankfully, the teacher said that in his classroom, anyone who comes in late has to buy the entire class toffees. I like it. Since only two people had books, we just asked general questions today, learned the alphabet and three tongue twisters. It should be fun if everyone else gets their shit together. Thats it for now...long enough for today.
