Junie's Online Thoughts
Friday, August 01, 2003
The weather here has been so mild. Its great. Feels like a mild June in Wisconsin. The sun shines, but a strong cool breeze creates a comfortable temperature. Love it.
My sister emailed me a pretty cool website. Apparently there was a crop circle in Wisconsin and the research team found a bunch of anomalies. Blogger is not letting me write the site right now...hang on.
The weather here has been so mild. Its great. Feels like a mild June in Wisconsin. The sun shines, but a strong cool breeze creates a comfortable temperature. Love it.
My sister emailed me a pretty cool website. Apparently there was a crop circle in Wisconsin and the research team found a bunch of anomalies. Heres the site if you are interested:
cropcircle.news.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=128 theres the usual httpwww stuff in front, but blogger wont let me write the whole address right now.
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Here's a story I cant remember if I already wrote....A few weeks ago, I was sitting in Jeremy's office on the sofa, reading a book. I heard the children next door (of our landlord), chanting and half singing. I assumed they were praying, although they dont really go to church much and arent overtly religious like others here. They were loud enough that I couldnt quite block them out, and I couldnt quite understand what they were saying. Then it dawned on me...they were all saying the words to Missy Misdemeanor Elliot's song "Is it Worth it?" (I think that's what its called...the one with the backwards talking bit in it.) I laughed so hard. The kids, even Sugar, the five year old, knew all the lyrics. Later, I heard more talking and figured out they had audiotaped themselves and were listening to part of it. Very sweet and funny. I just wonder if the kids really understand what Missy's talking about through that song....
I truly like that Ghanaians arent afraid to ask for help. When I left the internet cafe this morning, I walked to the grocery store. (I found out that my favorite store is permanently closed....booo hooo.) Then, on the way back, I saw a lady with veggies on her head. Great, I thought, this saves me a trip to the green grocer. I hissed at her to stop and saw her struggling. Do you need help getting that off? Yes, she stated. I helped her take the giant pan off her head, and good lordy that thing was heavy! How on earth does she keep that on her noggin all day, walking up and down the street, with getting a migraine or caving in her skull? I bought my carrots and cucumbers, then asked if she needed help getting it back on. Yes. Great. I helped her lift, and off I went. Back home, in that same situation, I imagine the seller saying, "oh no, Im fine," then giving themselves a hernia, trying to be a hero.
For some unfortunate reason, a bunch of people I know have been diagnosed with cancer. A friend's mom has breast cancer, another friend's mom has stomach/blood cancer and a family friend has liver/colon cancer. My thoughts and prayers go out to them....and I wish them good luck, increasing health and speedy recoveries.
Congratulations go out to Angie and Jay on finding a good house of their very own.
Short one today. Lots to write about...but dont have time. Groceries, then making a cake and veggie burgers for a dinner tonight. Then by 2 we need to stop by the Burkina Faso embassy to pick up our passports and Burkina VISAS. We're going there on Monday both so I can get my Ghana VISA extended and because we want to go to Burkina. Should be fun. Will be gone from Monday night until maybe Thursday, depending on when we can get the 24-hour bus back to Accra. Then Jeremy and I walk to Lufthansa so he can get his plane ticket straight. He needs to change the date so he can come home for my sister's wedding in October. It will be nice when that's all taken care of...then we just have to buy our return tickets back to Ghana......
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Conect was down yesterday, so I didnt get a chance to write. My hotmail box was totally full....again I'm behind on my emails. Oh well.
The big sad news is that Margaret, one of the landlords, hit their dog with her car two nights ago. She came barrelling into the complex and smacked the dog on its leg. It yelped like bloody murder, so loud and painful it made your heart wince. We went out to check on him, and Jeremy approached Margaret, who stood near the dog. She moved toward the dog and he nipped at her. Jeremy squatted and the dog let him touch him, mostly because we pay attention to the dog and attempt to pet him on a near daily basis. See, its weird. Pets in Ghana are not pets like we know them back home. Ghanaian pets..usually dogs and cats, are not family, not friends, not companions of any kind. They are not walked, not played with, not named, not given special bowls or toys or bones or fancy food. They serve a purpose. If the pet is a dog, its job is to guard the complex. If the pet is a cat, its job is to catch mice. Thats it. No more. We frequently see the workers in the complex try to kick the dog, scream at it, throw stuff at it, yet it hangs around the house. The foreigners, like us, try to be nice to the dog. We try to play, we try to pet him, but since the dog doesnt understand this type of behavior, all bets are off. It starts nipping, jumping, chasing...there is no frame of reference for coddling....when we try, he thinks we are fellow dogs and wants to roughhouse. Then we have to yell at him and tell him NO!, which he also doesnt understand (maybe if we said it in Twi....), and Im sure the dog is majorly confused. Margaret originally had four dogs, but got rid of three. The remaining dog was to be the watchdog. But the thing is, no one ever trained him. He never learned how to follow instructions, how to gauge who is a tenant and who is a thief, and he is mostly ignored throughout the day. Its not an easy life here for animals.....they get no special treatment.
(As a sidenote, the pets by foreigners is also a big, big problem in my eyes. Someone will come from the U.S., or Europe and join a company for a year. They rent a house, see an ad for puppies or kittens and think, "Gosh, I miss my cat Sparky from home. Im going to get a pet here." So they get the animal, name it, feed it canned food from the grocery story, walk it, play with it, tame it to the standards of pets back home. Then, when their year is up, oops gotta go. Sorry Ghanaian Sparky. Hope you find a home. Well, what happens to Sparky? More than likely, the foreigners ask around to their friends, and if no one wants the pet, they desert it. What an awful thing to do. First of all, this pet has become your responsibility and now you've left it like discarded clothes. Shame, shame. Secondly, this pet is not equipped to deal with Ghanaian reality. There is not a single Ghanaian, I would wager, who would treat this pet anywhere close to the way the foreigners do. Can this animal fend for itself? Find its own food? Find shelter? If so, Im sure it will be a very traumatic adjustment....It makes me mad. There's my soapbox for the day.)
Anyway, back to the story. So Jeremy is petting the dog, trying to calm him, looking at his leg thats all twisty. He feels one of the ticks that have been living in the dog's coat for months now. Margaret asks, what is it? A tick, Jeremy replies. She gets the heebie jeebies and ooks out. Thats nice. See, as a pet owner, you're supposed to care about this crap and remove the tick. Nope, dog's on his own in tickland. Then Margaret reemerges. Jeremy says, If you dont take care of his leg, its never going to heal right and he probably wont be able to walk properly. She mumbles and askes if he thinks she should give him a Valium. Well, he replies, if you know the dosage. If you give him a human amount, you will probably kill him. (She's some sort of medical personnel...cant figure out if she's a nurse or dentist or what...thats probably why she has the Valium on hand.) It makes me shake my head.
Yesterday when we were sitting in Jeremy's office, he on his laptop, me on the sofa reading, we heard the dog let out a series of serious yelps. ARgh, I said. I bet you a million dollars that Margaret is not going to take him to the vet. I figured a whole host of reasons...cost, lack of interest, whatever....would just cause her ignore it and hope the dog healed himself. BUt when Jeremy went outside, he found that she had indeed taken him to the vet and they'd put on a soft cast. The dog was starting to bite at it, so she spoke of taking him the following day for a harder cast. Miracles! For now, the dog is hanging out behind Margaret's house. He looks beaten, all curled up on his side, food in front of him on an old paint bucket lid, forlorn face. Poor thing. He eats fish bones, so hopefully that will boost his calcium and make strong new bones.
Jeremy and I did some driving practice yesterday. I needed a refresher. Its been a while and its really about confidence. Once I drive more, I will become accustomed to traffic here. I remember enough to work the gears. Jeremy has learned really quickly. He's only been out three times before and he's driving stick like a pro. He even took the main thoroughfare last night without a hint of problems. Yeah him!!
Today I decided to start running. Erin dropped me off by La Palm, a hotel down Labadi Road, and I walked/ran home. I didnt run as much as I wanted to. Right next to the hotel, it was apparently garbage burning day. I watched the traffic disappear into an acrid, sooty haze. I didnt really want to gasp in that air, so I waited until I passed the beach burning area before running. Its hard...and the distance was not as far as I thought. It wasnt even a mile. I wonder how Im going to manage running 13 miles come Thanksgiving....if I cant even run a mile straight. Oh well...I've got four months to train, if only I can get serious. Wish me luck....
Monday, July 28, 2003
God damn piece of shit computer. Argh. I want to scream. Just wrote a long blogger over the last 45 minutes and the damn machine ate it all. Okay. Deep breath. Let's try this again.
While we were eating breakfast Saturday morning, we heard our landlord screaming her head off. I had no idea what she was going on about. It was only later that we realized what happened. Apparently she had asked one of their workers to go out to the Osu intersection and buy some wakye for her. (Wakye is a mixture of beans and rice with pepper in it.) But he had gone to the wrong intersection. She was hollering at him, wondering why he had gone to the wrong seller, barking that she wouldnt feed this wakye to her dog. I cant imagine a situation where I would act so hateful over something so stupid. But so it goes with rich Ghanaians. I've seen this type of behavior before. They are very, very important people and when things dont go according to their wishes, they feel entitled to throw a tantrum. I hate it every time I see someone act this way.
Then Erin, Terry, Jeremy and I went to Trade Fair. Trade Fair is a giant building across town. Usually it sits empty, but every once in a while they host an event. Vendors of every kind show up and the whole thing feels like a huge flea market. Clothing, furniture, cloth, jewelry, handicrafts, art, herbal medicine, food, all that stuff. I'd never been before, so I immediately slipped into hyper buying mode. Everything I saw I wanted. But I ended up only buying some cloth, an Esquire magazine, some small gifts and hand drawn notecards. Erin and Terry ran out of money (they bought a $200 painting and didnt have the cash on them) and I couldnt decide between a few big ticket items. We decided to come back another day.
From there, we drove to Next Door, an ocean-side restaurant and hotel. We ate, chatted and had a nice lunch. That evening, I played Fashion Show. Fashion Show means that I try on everything in my wardrobe and prance around in front of Jeremy and the mirror. I dont like doing my hair. I dont like putting on makeup. But I love playing Fashion Show. Its probably one of the truly girly things I do, and boy, its fun. Then we were supposed to go to a jazz club, but none of us could figure out where it was. Instead I went to bed.
The next morning, I defrosted the frig. Jeremy and I cleaned the apartment. Then we met up with Erin, Terry, Mark, Lucien and Tycho to go to the stadium. One of Accra's most popular soccer teams, Hearts of Oak (also known as Phobia) was playing the Mine Stars. I'd never been to a football game, so I was excited to see what it was like. Jeremy even wore his new shirt and shorts set decorated with guinea fowl. We entered by the pretty good seats (30,000 each, or about $4) and watched as the crowds came in.
Before the game, a little old lady stood on this balcony area. She wore a two piece outfit, a woolen sweater around her waist and a rasta scarf with a pot leaf on her head. (Im assuming she wore the scarf for its colors, which matched those of Hearts of Oak--red, yellow and blue--rather than for its pro-pot message.) She carried a small stuffed animal bunny and waved a big Hearts of Oak flag. She'd also covered her bare feet and legs with a bunch of white powder. As other fans chanted and clapped in preparation for the game, she proceeded to do a constant dance. She shook her booty, shook the bunny, waved the flag, stomped her feet...in a sort of conjuring kind of way. When Phobia made their first goal, she dumped a load of powder over her shoulders and chest. She continued her jig, squatting, shimmying, and always shaking the bunny. Soon after, some audience members told her to move. I didnt know if it was because she was blocking the view or because the complainers were fundamental Christians who didnt like seeing an old juju lady. Either way, she sat down, but was then harassed by folks sitting around her. When I looked over a short time later, she was gone. Pity. She was interesting to watch.
The game itself unfolded much like a bad WWF match where Hulk Hogan plays against Joe Smith, and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. The Mine Stars sucked on every front--defense, offense, running. They seemed afraid of the ball. Every time Phobia scored a goal, the audience would stand and shriek. Also, about every tenth guy in the stands had a radio pressed to his head, listening to commentary on other games going on at the same time. When all was said and done, Phobia won--five to zip.
After the game, we ate chinese food and returned home. Jeremy joined Erin and Terry in their place for a game of Scrabble. I stayed home. I realize how short my time is here and in order to put a dent in my long to-do list, I need to get organized. In the past, when faced with a big life change, I get out a big piece of paper and draw a giant calendar. To visualize my life as little boxes and dates comforts me, and gives me the illusion of being able to control all the details of my days. This time, however, the calendar did not comfort me. Instead, it terrified me. I couldnt look at it for more than a minute, without feeling my chest tighten. I find this very funny. I spent so much time assuming I would dislike my time here in Ghana. I figured I would suffer out my days, then count down with glee until I flew to Atlanta. Quite the opposite has happened. I love my time in Ghana...and Im not ready to go home. There are plenty of things Im excited to do and people I want to see in the U.S., but right now I just dont want my time in Ghana to end.
So I switched to distraction. I wrote some overdue letters. I cleaned my desk. I started my notebook for my sister's wedding. I made grocery lists. It helped for a bit. Jeremy came home and I read three chapters from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Fabulous book. Part of the reason why my head was so cluttered last week. I still dont have the words to describe the way I was overwhelmed.....someday I will explain what I mean. But for anyone who wants to get a real image of what the Congo was like and parts of Africa are still like, how the U.S. and Europe can completely screw up a country, how culture shock and adaptation affect a family, this book will give you the whole shebang. (The first few chapters are a mite confusing, but it gets better and better. Keep in mind that the father is a righteous, hateful, vile bastard who nearly wrecks the whole book, but the wife and four daughters, whose voices tell the story, more than make up for his character.) Then we slept.
This morning Jeremy and I exchanged dreams. The ending of his had him looking at a blue rose. He moved to pick it so he could give it to me, and the leaves became corn husks. He took the rose and tried to find the cabin I was in, but couldnt ever find his way back.
My dream had me discovering that I had been included in a Glamour magazine article on weight loss and I wanted to buy a bunch of them to mail home. When I stopped at the grocery store, every copy was 230,000 cedis (about $25) and I couldnt spend that much. Then I was staying with a family in Africa/Wisconsin and a killer was moving from house to house, killing everyone inside. By the time he reached our house, he'd gone to 19 houses. I found a gun and shot him. Instead of being happy, the townsfolk acted like they wanted to kill me, so I snuck off, sending coded messages to the daughter of the family I stayed with, and urging her to meet me at a cafe. At the cafe, we wanted to go skiing on these giant chopsticks. Weird, huh?
