break the promise and the words that surrender you to this trend – basing what you know on your own outer skin – try living inside out; defeat what you know – for the sake of a better mind, not outside in

we’re scared of the strangest things- yet we regret them with more shame, blame, fame, we’re insane - when all we need is to think, try, reach, love, live, die – and is it so hard to just let go and know you're better off- living inside out

- Katie Costello, Inside Out

my students (teaching, clubs and the like)Nothing has given me more joy in Ghana than my students. Every moringa tree planted in the ground, every piece of trash we picked up, every not-so-pc play about HIV we performed and hand-washing song sung (cuss when you waaaash yuwr haaands, you won’t git sick, sick, sick!!) and every new shiny book read has been worth the stress that we call being a PeeCeeVee. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like in every other village on the face of Ghana. I always decide that not-a-one has students as funny, quirky and bright as mine. I really believe that.widows associationMonths before Avi passed away, him and Obey formed a widows association. I happen to walk by the school right before each meeting, which I then somehow was roped into running. As Avi was dying, he was adamant that I receive a message: his last wish was that I take on the widows association. No pressure. I spent my last month working tirelessly with these 80 women. My goal was to get each able woman in one of the three income generating groups in the village, shea butter, groundnuts and rice. Working with these women may have been some of the most fun I have had in Sankpala, for sure one of the most rewarding. All the women are in groups, and meeting more frequently then ever. By the end of the month I received a sampling of their best shea butter and finest rice and groundnuts with pride.SAYAI think SAYA forgot I would be leaving eventually. They are terrified that without Avi and I, SAYA will cease to be productive. I beg to differ. I am so proud of the work they do in Sankpala and I am truly at peace leaving them to continue to serve the community. Every PCV wants to leave behind a group of passionate and self-sufficient youth who will continue two years worth of projects. I consider myself pret-ty lucky.The library that hath many a nameEvery class, both Primary and JHS, received introductory library classes, and now the school is waiting for the long-ago promised librarian. Until then, my man Joshua will be the temporary librarian, and in my opinion there is no better man for the job.During the opening of the library, the chief sent a message that the library would be named after me, in honor of the work I have done in the community. “Omigawd!” Kimmie squeals to my left. “Weren’t you going to name it after that…dead guy?” Kimberly whispers to my right. So, yea. We worked it out:AzaraThis girl has bounced back and forth between Accra and village life every few months since I have been here. She came to terms that she is truly a city girl, one after my own heart. In March, while I was traveling with Ciana and Krista, Azara packed her things one last time and moved to Accra for good. While she told me she would be back in a month or two, I knew this was it, she was ready to start her life in one place. It is hard to describe life in Sankpala void of Azara, Avi John and Adams (who is in school in Tamale). The people and families I spent all my time with were all elsewhere. My last month was looking a lot like the first month, and in all the wrong ways. My very last week in Sankpala, Azara just showed up at my door. “I had to come home,” she said “My sister is leaving Africa!” She stayed with me for a week and hoped on the 14 hour long bus the very next day after I left.Azara continues to dream of a better life for her and her son. She is living with relatives and is pursuing beauty school. She has never seemed happier and so sure of herself and where her life is going.AdamsAdams spent the last ten months getting his pharmaceutical license in Tamale. He is taking the exam at the end of November, wish him luck! There is officially nothing that he cannot do. Saying goodbye to Adam is completely heartbreaking. For a month now, the boy will pause in the middle of our conversations and say, sorry, I was just thinking about you going. Who will love me when you go? (I will always love you Adams)AzeAze has enrolled himself into school. He is now the biggest third grader on the planet. His teachers report that he beats the children more than he learns (that’s my boy!), but at least he is keeping busy.My last week, Aze’s mother sent me more yams than I could ever eat. Azara and I went to his house the following day to thank her for the gift. We sent there and talked a little bit, and she told me that when Aze was born, he was perfect. He was more than perfect, he was the most beautiful child she had. She told me her enemies came together and put a curse on him. This explanation did not surprise me, Aze has scarification, which are little but deep cuts, all over his body including on his forehead. His family was trying to protect him, heal him, maybe reverse the ‘curse’. Azara told me that most families would never have kept a child like Aze.I told Aze’s mom a story. After Avi passed away, I had gone to his house every day for weeks to spend time with his grieving wife and children. I can’t begin to describe the sorrow and fear on this woman’s face. Usually she would break into tears just at the sight of me, which would then make her two young daughters cry. One morning Aze came along. I don’t remember what he did, but whatever it was, it made Avi’s wife giggle. And then the girls started giggling. Before I knew it, the room had erupted in laughter. Once Aze realized he had an audience, ooh boy, he had them going for quite some time. It was the first time I saw her so much as smile since Avi’s death.“A boy who can make someone laugh when all they want to do is cry, that is something special,” I told Aze’s mother. “He’s not a curse. He’s a blessing. We are so lucky to have him.”Musah NaaMusah has grown a foot since that first night I showed up in Sankpala, when him and his brother frantically swept my empty room and fetched me a jerry can of water to keep me till morning. I can’t tell if he is more or less of a troublemaker, he is for sure a full-fledged teenager. He has formed a hobby of writing letters to my Peace Corps friends and me. While my friends receive clever and heart warming letters, mine usually go something like: “Madame. Hello. I am very happy to write you this letter. Please, me and Aze want an apple from Tamale. And speakers. Why did you go to Kumasi and not bring back apple? Musah.” I finally confronted him, demanding a nice letter. The next evening, he slipped this behind. Here is the transcript: Hello Maria. I am very glad to write you this. How are you? I hope you are fine. The reason why I write the letter to you am want to said you hello, because you are my Best Friend and my Best LOVE in Sankpala. I don’t want something. Do you? So goodbye Maria. Who me? What’s next? Hek if I know. (But its probably gonna be good)

Peace Corps aint easy. A special thanks to the following for making it a little easier. Kimmie, I don’t know what to even say to you lady (are you sure dead bats don’t give rabies?). Andy, I love you endlessly. Dan, for saying all the right things at the right time (and those much needed midnight dates). Adam Martyn, for having my back anytime, anywhere. Luck, for slow dancing. Ama Cynthia, how is it you showed up all those times I needed you most? Lets always be friends? All the northern volunteers, especially Hannah, Camberly, Liz, Shauna, Ana, Cat Cat: you are my family. To the cast of Glee. My Mac, for holding on. To my front porch during the hours of 5 and 6 am. Brett Dennen for reminding me not to fear what I don’t really know. To Point 7 for 1 pm cold beers. Heather, you have no idea. Sarah Witty, for all the calls and packages till the very end. Ciana and Krista, my sisters from other misters, thanks for living my life during the most miserable part of the year. Mom and dad: I owe you, big time.

Sankpala officially opened the Sankpala School Library (finally) on October 2nd, 2010. Here’s a glimpse:I first want to thank all of you for coming out today, to celebrate the inauguration of the Sankpala Youth Association, and the opening of the Avi CK John Library. I want to take a moment to recognize the man who Avi was. He was the father of SAYA, and without his wisdom and guidance, we would not be here for the inauguration today. Avi made it clear that he would take on the role as my own father while I was living so far from home. His love and encouragement pushed me to continue with the construction of the library, with teaching at the school and several other programs when I felt I didn’t have the patience or energy to continue. He will be greatly missed, and I am incredibly blessed to have had him in my life, even for just a short time. May his memory live on with every book read inside these walls.I would also like to recognize all the hard work of the members and executives of the Sankpala Youth Association, specifically in regards to the construction of the library. When a Western volunteer takes on a project this large, we have a fear we are doing so because we believe that it is important, and the community just doesn’t want to say no to a gift. The members of SAYA worked so hard, and with no compensation besides the completion of this library for themselves and generations to follow. The pride they have for this work has made it clear that they believe in literacy and the future of Ghana as much as I do. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Congratulations on finishing such a big project. I am proud of you, and you should be proud of yourselves. May this building be used to inspire your youth for years to come.I would additionally like to thank others who have supported this project this year. The Chief of Sankpala and Assemblyman Ibrihim Haruna, members of SCAN, The DCE Salisu Yusef, and the Central Gonja Education Dept. May you continue to support the Library when I am homebound.Lastly, I want to personally dedicate my work for this project to my JHS students. You are the future, and therefore, the future of this community and this country is very, very bright. Thank you for who you are, this building stands because you inspire me. May you read and read and read. May you love learning as much as I love all of you.Thank you. Some hi-lites of the inaugurationHip bumping women 3x my age, aka dancing the torah torahThe assemblyman cracking himself up as he swore in the SAYA executivesHonoring Avi John. The looney Arabic teacher leading the school children in some Arabic chant at the most inopportune timesThe chief’s wish that the library be named after me: “the maria library”. Yea, we’re working on thatPhoto –op with half my communityThe look on their faces when we opened that door. I will never forget that for as long as I liveThis library took a couple of continents to build. I want to deeply thank all of those who were involved. A big thanks to the PTA of PS 32, to Flushing Christian School (who also had a hand in teaching me to read, may I add) and my little brothers, for donating all the books to the library. Liz, thanks for the sanity checks and your endless help and support. Also to USAID, Martin Levine, Billy Greenberg, Peter Gündling, my family at The First Presbyterian Church of Flushing, The Murray Hill Neighborhood Association, and many more of my family and friends who donated so generously to the project. You have made a major difference in the lives of children who thirst for knowledge. And dad, I would give up a limb for you to see these kids reading in the library. The day of the inauguration, you were there. The last book placed on the shelves, you were there. The first finished book, you were there. Thank you for loving children you don’t even know.Check out the photos of the construction and inauguration of the library! Enjoy!

I didn’t come here with goals, with expectations. Simply because an American cannot even fathom what living and working in a rural Ghanaian community would look like. In the beginning, my only goal was to get through it. But here I am, at the end. And I can’t help but wonder if I should have done it all differently.

I wonder if I should have spent more time with the community, gone to more funerals and weddings – shucked more corn – cracked more groundnuts. Maybe I should have watched less movies and taken less naps. I could have worked at the clinic more, at the school less. I could have taken the girls club more seriously. I never did that sanitation campaign. Could I have accomplished more? You know, of the little things that I won’t have the opportunity to do ever again?

These past couple of years have felt like a lot of one chances, and I’m sure any Peace Corps volunteer can attest to this. And then there are the bombarding greeting cards, songs and speeches that preach drinking life up. Do what is uncomfortable. Have no regrets. Maybe I just take it all to heart, just a little to seriously. Those songs are for people with unsatisfying office jobs, people without passports, not for the restless girl living in West Africa.

Or maybe I did fail this experience. Like it is so easy to do.

Ghanaians have this phrase, and it cracks me up. I remember the first time it was directed towards me. I had spent three days in the same paint-spattered t-shirt and khakis, knocking out cement slits for light in my kitchen, painting my rooms and organizing the few things I owned. I was very proud of myself and unveiled my new home to Azara. Her eyes glistened with delight, she took a deep breath, smiled wide and whispered, “Mariam…you have tried!”

I have what?

In these parts, no one is asking for perfection. The phrase “you have tried” is in fact a high compliment. It’s what I was showered with when we opened the school library. This is so unlike the culture I was raised in, it is uncomfortable. Trying is not enough, you get the job done and you do it well. And the next time, you do it better. Whether my projects fail or flourish, my community embraces me, knowing that I have done the best that I could. I have nothing else to offer then that, which is quite okay with them. Now that I am on my way out, every day these people I have grown to love are telling me I have tried. And I have.

I want to think I have failed my community and myself, not because I did a bad job, but because I could have done better. I could have done better if I was this volunteer, or that one. I take a great deal of comfort in the fact that the people I am here to serve would never think such a thing. They are just glad I am here, being myself, trying my best.

After five days of beach hopping in Togo and Benin, I get several calls from Obey. I had been unable to pick up when I reached the border, but I had a feeling something was wrong. “Everything is fine,” he assures me. “Except Avi John passed away last night.” My legs shatter beneath me. Mikey and I had been discussing just the night before how we had yet to lose someone we loved. And here I was, unable to catch my breath.“He talked about you as he was dying,” Obey wants me to know. “Yea?” I respond, sniffling and feeling a bit dizzy. Those last 48 hours Avi was slowly losing his mind and was desperate to get a hold of me. He asked if I had come home yet hourly even up to his last moments of life. That’s what happens when you turn off your phone for a nice relaxing beach vacation.It took me a few days to make it back to my village. I walk the path to his house, the one I have walked almost every day for two years. And I talk to him on the way, because when I reach he won’t be there. “The paint is already peeling in the library,” I tell him. “And yes, Togo was wonderful.” At this point, a little part of me believes that it is all some practical joke. That he would be there in his purple gown, waiting, laughing. His wife, covered head to toe in shiny black, fell out of her chair when she saw me. Like I was a ghost. We met at the doorway and stared at each other for a few seconds, not quite knowing what to do with the other. Then she collapsed in my arms and wept. And wept and wept and wept. I don’t know what to say. What do you say to a widow? “It’s going to be okay mommy,” I manage. “Everything is going to be okay.”When I left Avi’s house, I met Razak in the library. Last time I was here, him and Avi were sitting on the floor (the furniture was not made yet), chatting about the inauguration that was just weeks away. “I wrote something to read to you at the inauguration,” he tells me. But he couldn’t wait, so he has me read it right then and there. It’s the same old with Avi. How the children shriek my name when I pass. How hard I work. How much I love this community and how much they love me. It was the same nonsense he told my mother when she came to visit that brought tears to her eyes. I feel blessed to have read this letter before he passed away. Razak and I do what friends should do when they lose someone. We laugh at the best memories we can conjure up. Avi John was the father of the Sankpala Youth Association. He was a source of strength and encouragement to all of us, most especially to me. But that doesn’t even bring justice to who the man was. There has been an ongoing debate on what to name the library. Sankpala Community Library might send the wrong message to the Education Department, whose financial support we are dependant on. Sankpala School Library may leave the community feeling unwelcome. This week we finally made a decision once and for all, that we would honor Avi and name the building after him. The Avi John C.K. Memorial Library.This might be the first time we have all agreed on something in the history of SAYA.

Because it gives us a chance to think back on our year’s transgressions and wipe the slate clean. That’s why we fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Mmm, err, that’s why my village is fasting. I can’t afford to lose a pound that this library has already taken from me. Call me sadistic, but I have been rather enjoying Ramadan this year. It’s the most – wonderful – tiiiiime….of the year!

10. Now I’m not the only one sleeping 12 hours a day. Everyone is! They are sleeping because of lack of energy, but who’s counting?

9. I’ve been eating better than ever! I can’t do any programs while people are fasting. So I have all this time to cook and eat. I have snuck in a fourth meal if that’s ok. I’m eating more than I have in months!

8. Market days are less crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I do like market day. But with far fewer meals to make, market is a bit scarce. Less heckling makes my shopping easier.

7. Less visitors. Not for me, for Alhaji. There is less of a chance someone is going to bang on my door all hours of the day mistaking me for my landlord when people are too tired to leave their homes.

6. It just so happens to be right smack in the middle of the rainy season. And we all know, maria

They mean something. I know, brace yourself, this might get sentimental. The reason I say this is because I didn’t know it before Ghana. I never really understood this whole, what do you guys call it? : reading-for-fun - thing. I joined the Peace Corps right out of college and never had the time for pleasure reading. Or should I say I would rather fill that time with America’s Next Top Model marathons. But now that I have 12 hours of awake time to fill in a village that only really works (farming) a couple months out of the year, I have all the time in the world. After watching all my DVD’s, thrice, with director’s commentary and then in French, I gave in and started reading books: as all good Peace Corps volunteers do. I have formed quite a habit of it. Now when they start talking about books (one of 3 topics we talk about), there is a half a chance I can join in! I even recommend books sometimes! Crazy world.

This week my students and I spent the better half of the day unpacking those boxes of books, and blowing our noses (it got a bit dusty). I opened one box to find that it was chalk full of my own children’s books. At first, I was delighted and announced it for all to hear. How neat, my students from a world away now have the opportunity to read the same books I grew up loving. But the more I unpacked the box, I started getting a bit panicky. I realized these books meant a lot to me. I was flooded with memories of footie pajamas, reading books in the arms of my mother or father. It wasn’t special anymore, I was intrusting my childhood memories to a bunch of kids who would surely scribble on them and rip the pages. It is one thing to raise a few thousand dollars, convince two schools and several families to donate boxes of books and motivate a community to build themselves a library, but this was asking too much of me. I’ll be honest, I even snuck two books into my bag. I know I can re-buy a lot of these books for my own children one day, but I was afraid I would never see a few again. One was a book of European fairy tales that I remember reading over and over again when I was pint-sized. Another was The Family Under the Bridge, a Christmas story that I would read to my four younger brothers every Christmas Eve for years to help them sleep when the anticipation of stacked presents to open kept them awake.

Ok, here’s where I get a little mushy. My childhood was blessed. I’m not saying these kids have it all that bad, and they do have their own oral storytelling. But they didn’t have a box of childhood memories between pages. The few who can read learned how to do so in their early teens. They have no idea the world of adventure that comes with loving to read books. I realized as I unpacked, literally about a thousand books, that most probably had childhood memories attached to them before they were packed in a box and shipped to Ghana. I also realized that there is a chance they will become a part of these kids here too. That makes up for this never-ending project. And for that, I may even give back my book of fairy tales. Maybe. I’m not making any promises.

No human, nor any living thing, survives long under the eternal sky. The most beautiful women, the most learned men, even Mohammed, who heard Allah's own voice, all did wither and die. All is temporary. The sky outlives everything. Even suffering.

-Bowa Johar, Baltic Poet

Sankpala Library and SAYA

Almost done! Hoopah! Planning, fundraising, shipping, building and painting has been going on for over 8 months now. Family and friends raised over $2,000 to ship the books and cover what the USAID funds fell short on. AMAZING! Seriously, amazing. I must add that all the labor to put this library together was done absolutely free. That is unheard of, it is so rare to see a PCV manage to build anything without somehow paying for labor in one way or another. That is just to say how proud I am of the Sankpala Youth Association, my students and other community members who believe in literacy as much as I do and who have come out day after day to see this project through. Inauguration of the Sankpala Youth Association and the Library will take place in August or September. Stay tuned…

Reading Classes

Still going strong, now that the books are here (but still in boxes until the library is painted), I have been sneaking a few Dr. Seuss books away for reading classes. They love Green Eggs and Ham as much as I do. I cannot wait to have these classes in the library, and either can my students.

Health Club

We have been doing a lot on sanitation and hygiene. We continue to have community clean-up days. We also spent a few weeks making posters encouraging good sanitation and hygiene practices, we will put those around the primary school next term.

Girls Club

They don’t know it yet, but I have a fun weekend planned for them in Tamale in October. A few PCV’s and I are going to have a Tie-Dye workshop for our girls as a last project before I am home bound.

Guinea Worm

The lovely Red Cross women and myself continue to check guinea worm filters weekly. There hasn’t been a case in ages. Go Central Gonja! Last year we were the most endemic region in the world or something. I consider myself lucky to have been able to work eradicating this disease while its on its last leg. (we hope!)

Other distings

I spent some time at the STARS conference a few months ago, a week long conference for the brightest high school students in every region of Ghana. Andrew and I ran the HIV/AIDS day, which was a lot of work but so fun and worth it all. A week like that really gives one hope for the future of Ghana, those are some good kids. Andrew’s community made a film in Dagbani about family planning as a follow-up to our Men As Partners workshop, which turned out great. I will be having a few viewings throughout August.

I am at the tail end of my service, which fills me with a slue of emotions. I will finish up in November. Where did the past two years go?

I am really sad to see the end of the World Cup. I’m so proud of the Black Stars, as painful as that last game was to watch. That month might be tops for my time here. Musah and Aze are still by my side daily, helping with the library, my garden and just generally playing with my sanity.

Oh, and the rainy season is here. Le sigh.

Afiya Opensah, Mariah, Whokohin?, Wunterah, Patron, Sister Miriam, White Lady, Mooriah, Madame, Sssst Sssst, Parsibila, Marian, Sistah, Dutch?, Cobroni, Marianna, Obruni, Yes!, Salimingapa, Sister Moringa, Mariama, Mary-a, Mma, My Daughter, sometimes, every now and again... Maria

I woke up because there were screaming children outside my window. They weren’t screaming in pain or fear - rather in absolute delight - as if they were spending their afternoon eating watermelon on the lake in sticky-hot July. It was the kind of unadulterated delight that I knew was simultaneously being locked into their bodies and minds as a moment that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. Memories in the making.

But it was too late for this kind of delight, this kind of memory making. It was, in fact, in the middle of the night. So I wrapped a cloth around my waist and dragged my still-sleeping body out of my home to investigate.

All at once I was consumed with the sound of hundreds and hundreds of flapping wings. The compound floor was littered with sleeping goats and their sleeping kids. And right across from me shone one lone light bulb, the epicenter of the flapping. It was overwhelmed by insects larger than life - the kind you only experience in the depths of Africa. They were over-sized fireflies. There were so many, it was almost fantastical. A black kitten sat under the bulb, looking straight into its sun, wings between its teeth.

I turned out of the compound, following the screams of laughter. It led me to the streetlamp. The streetlamp was swarmed with the over-sized fireflies, more than your mind’s eye is picturing right now, I promise. From its source down to the circle of light it threw on the ground were a thick stream of insect. The over-sized fireflies were swarmed with children, jumping and grabbing handfuls, shoving them into their mouths as if they were cream filled. Some had sheets that they parachuted up and down, up and down, as if they were catching miniature fish deep, deep in the sea. And the children were swarmed with their own screams of laughter.

And the sky was so dark, so black and the fireflies were so large, and the streetlamp cast just enough light on the children to convince me I was still in my bed - actually - sleeping. Even in this strange place, these kinds of things don’t happen in the middle of the night. Only in dreams.

I woke up late this morning. I put on hot water for tea and stepped out into my compound to get a feel for the morning weather. I almost forgot about the night’s eerie firefly dream. Until I saw the over-sized wings that covered the ground, for as far as I could see, like powdered sugar on French toast.

You mean USL...United States of LOSERS! aghhahahaha!

-a Black Star fan while watching the game yesterday. This might have been the same one that kept wrapping my face with the Ghanaian flag. Good game, we held our own.

It has been brought to my attention that some donations have been returned and have not made it to my father's office. Unfortunately, the post office may not recognize 'Books to Ghana' as an adequate recipient to the address (Books to Ghana/144 E 44 Street Suite 710/New York, NY 10017 ). This is a major pain.in.my.bum. SO… If you have sent a donation to the above address and it was returned to you, I offer my deepest apologies, and beg you to resend it to my father's home address: Joe Karlya/35-35 162nd Street/Flushing, NY 11358. If you have not heard from me, I have not received a donation from you.

You may feel this completely annoying, as I do, but please know that every single donation is uber appreciated and needed to both ship the books and to pay for customs once arrived (both about the same amount).

Let me express my sincere gratitude to those who have donated. You rock. My world. I read Dr.Suess to a classroom of my students this week. And for the first time, I got a taste of my students not only having the opportunity to read, but loving it. Very soon, they are going to have access to more books than they could ever dream of. Thanks for making that happen.

And in case you were wondering where my loyalty lies, GO USA!!! (common people!)

Experiencing the World Cup in Ghana as an American is interesting. The fact that the World Cup is on African soil is no small thing. Football in general is no small thing. When Ghana made it to the last game of the African Cup, we thought a civil war broke out. “Nope, just the game,” we were told.

Let’s be honest people, we’re not really into football. We are so pretentious about our own football, that we are the only ones on the planet that refer to the sport as ‘soccer’. A handful of us PCV’s met in Tamale to watch the first weekend of games together. Someone needed to roam the streets with a face painted with the American flag. We erupted into cheers when the first goal was scored for USA’s first game, until someone goes, “Wait, guys…that was England.” (We may have been here a little too long. Y’all are all starting to look the same.) “Ohhhh,” we all groan in unison, and go back to our beers and burgers.

But I’ll admit, almost two years in Ghana and I got the World Cup bug. You want to see a bunch of Ghanaians going absolutely nuts? Watch the Black Stars whoop Serbia in a Tamale bar. I have no problem finding a crowd to watch the Ghana games with. I almost slept through their second game, until a resounding “gooooooaaaaaal” spread through my usually (almost eerily) quite village, waking me from my afternoon nap. I caught the tail end, thank Allah I didn’t miss that Black Star drowning his shirt in nosebleed. How exciting! Go Ghana!

Finding anyone willing to watch the USA games is a different story. Alhadji felt enough pity on me to let me watch the game on his TV, and he proceeded to take a nap leaving me to watch it by myself. He missed out, that was a good game. Why don’t we have a crazy Slovenia victory dance? Seriously. I’m doing it right now. Hoopah!

Anyway, hope you guys are catching the games. I fear for my life that Ghana and the US will have to play each other. Scary thought. Until then, Go USAna! Good luck tomorrow, both a'yous!

Children of Sankpala,

I received your thank-you notes and I liked the kind words and pictures. It is a pleasure to be one of the many people who are sending you these books. There are many, many books- more books than you have ever seen. You will honor me by using the library many times and reading many books. Some of the books are funny, some are silly, some teach new things.

Maria has told me about you and she is very fond of you. As you know, I am very, very fond of Maria and because of this, you have become very special to me. Whenever Maria tells me about Sankpala, I listen very closely. I have seen many pictures of your village and I feel it is a special place.

The books will be there soon. Have fun reading the books and learn more.

One more thing. I know in Sankpala you not only read stories, you also tell stories. In our family we tell a story about a hero. He is a blue, flying dog named Jocko. Make Maria tell you this story many times- especially the young children for I told her this story many times when she was a young child.

With Fondness,Joe (Maria's dad)

We are still collecting funds for books! You can sponsor a box of books for 50 bucks. Please send in checks (made to MHNA) before June 15th to Books to Ghana/144 E 44 Street Suite 710/New York, NY 10017. A big thanks to those who have already sponsored books!

Brilliant. I guess. Cell phone providers fight for advertising space in Ghana. This isn’t much of a television watching culture, being that, you know, they’re poor and all. So they take over billboards and storefronts, and peppered the streets with banners and flags. In any given week, Tamale may be adorned head to toe in red (Vodafone), bubble bee yellow and blue (Mtn), or my favorite, Barney purple and green (Zain). To the misfortune of those living on the main road (the one that stretches the whole country) will probably have their house painted, in exchange for cell phone credits and t-shirts by one of the providers. This is especially the case in the south. I have a feeling they don’t mind the free coat of paint, but we PCV’s think it’s a little ridiculous. We like to play, would you rather be mtned, vodaphoned or zained? (Zain, all the way) Passing through Sankpala while traveling with Krista and Ciana, I discovered, to my utter horror, that a number of homes had been mtn’ed in my community. Martyn’s house! The tailor’s house! Come on! Abukari’s shop, Latifa’s shop… Wait, no, not the mosque! Is anything sacred? Oh Gawd, Alhaj. Don’t tell me. Yep, our entire compound: bubble bee yellow. A dozen mtn emblems stamped everywhere. I guess it was only a matter of time. That’s what happens when you live on a major road. So if you ever find yourself in Northern Ghana and need a place to crash, I’m in the mtn house. And I didn’t even get a t-shirt.

I’ve realized I haven’t adequately talked about one of the most special people in my life. A boy born with mental retardation, hands, feet and soul far too big for his gangly teenage body, has adopted me as his mother. I say this because he has a mother, a wonderful one I might add. But I don’t have a son, which is shameful for someone my age in a little Ghanaian village like Sankpala. Did I ask Aze to be my son? No, I had no say in the matter. But at this point, when I am away from Sankpala, I have dreams that he has spotted me across the street, between overgrown mango trees, frantically waving his arms in the air yelling “Miriam! Miriam! Miriam!” And when I wake, I feel a little empty inside.

Aze is sitting outside my home before I drink my morning coffee. He sits with me as I eat my breakfast and we take in the cool morning. He waits outside as I dress, asking, “Te chang shukuru? (Are we going to school?)” Bella, bella, I respond, which in so many words means, Give me a minute, will ya? He takes my bag off my shoulder, whether I want him to or not. Being that he is far stronger than he knows, I give in. We walk to school and talk about how hot it is and how we want it to rain. He sits in the corner of the classroom and watches me teach, until he decides he wants to be the class clown, which is when I throw chalk at him and throw him out. We play this awful game I hate, and my students love, where he repeats every word I say until I completely lose my mind.

He follows me home, or to Azara’s house, or to the dam. If I’m doing laundry, he sticks his muddy hands in there with me to ‘help’. He breaks into a roll of laughter as I take a deep breath, dump out the water, cleaning his hands in the process and starting new. At lunchtime, he announces “Miriam, go home!” He is telling me he is going home to eat, which is kind of funny because when I am really mad, I yell “Aze, go home!”

I take advantage of the silence, and try to take a nap. Very little time will pass until he is back and sticking his big eyes through the slits in my kitchen, chanting, “Miriam, Miriam.” I stumble out of bed, pull the curtain aside and ask what he wants. He will then show me a crack in a chair, or a pile of ants on the floor, or ask me for every item of food in my kitchen.

In the afternoon we play games. One is body tricks, when we take turns contorting our fingers and faces in weird ways, all the while viciously clapping for ourselves. This will go on for hours. Sometimes we play, what’s in Aze’s bag? , which is more fun for me than him. I dump out everything in his bag, almost all being items he found in my garbage, ie. my income tax manual, 2 Peace Corps manuals, empty candy wrappers, birth control dispenser, water bottle, 3 American flag pencils and a green heart-shaped sharpener. Another game I enjoy more than him is Sa Kana! (it’s raining!), which is when I pour handfuls of water over his head while washing my clothes. Aze’s favorite game is what I like to call MBora (I want), which is when he happens to want everything I am either holding or eating. He wins when I give him a spoonful or two, he loses when I say “Aze, go home!”

I make dinner and have learned by now to make enough for the both of us. We watch the footballers create a dust storm outside my window, until I decide its time for a walk. We talk about how beautiful the sunset is, and whether we think there will be crocodiles at the dam. Sometimes Aze decides we are going to run, which lasts about 20 seconds because neither of us have very good lungs. Sometimes we march like soldiers. Sometimes we dance. We stop by the clinic and greet the midwife since it is on the way home. “How is your body guard?” she asks. He’s fantastic, I say, watching him slink into the corner. The clinic reminds Aze of childhood shots, he’s not a fan of the place. And then she asks me what everyone asks me. “How do you communicate with that boy?”

Oh, forgot to mention that. Aze doesn’t speak a lick of English. And my Dagbani is comparable to that of a three-year old. And yet he knows clearly when I am tired, when I am sick, when I am on the verge of tears. He knows when I am having an amazing day, when I’m looking forward to a trip, when I just had a great phone conversation with my mom. And I know everything there is to know about Aze. He is pretty predictable. He is happy, he is joy, he is, shall I say, all encompassing glee. Every morning, there he is, with that oversized goofy grin on his face, excited for the how crazy he is going to make me that day.

We walk to my compound, and I tell him its time for him to go home and sleep. Yo, he says, agreeing. Aze, I say after him, Nawuni ti beow (may God bless your sleep). Biane, (tomorrow) he says.

Biane, I say back. Bright and early.

Dear blog (and lindsay), I know I’ve been neglecting you. It’s not that Ghana had become mundane, it’s anything but. It’s just, I had these two college roommates of mine who I romped all over Ghana with for a month. And you know, I’m building this library that has taken over my life. Oh, and I know I haven’t put up pictures on the other blog in a while. I don’t have much of an excuse for that, just really slow internet I guess. Anyway, I’m sorry. Really I am. Expect more posts from me soon.

All my love,Maria

Africa has made you more beautiful.

-Azara

(or as Krista says, like I've just given birth)

The construction of the Sankpala Community Library is on its way, and surprisingly going very smoothly. Every day students and community members have been coming to the site, fetching water, hauling bricks and mixing cement. It’s amazing to see the progress we have made in just a month. I am simultaneously trying to find a librarian and have him or her trained and on salary. Now, we need books! My father has set up a sponsorship program to get the boxes of books from our garage to the school here in Sankpala. You can sponsor a box of books for $50. So, call your friends and family, put a couple of bucks together and sponsor a box. I’m thrilled to finally have an opportunity to involve my family and friends at home in a project that is very close to my heart. Please email my father at Joe.Karlya@uscm.org, and he will inform you on where and to whom to send a check to. The subject box should be ‘Sankpala Community Library.’ Thanks in advance! Let’s get this library rolling!

I overpaid for the cab. I had never been to Kalpohin before, hadn’t heard of it until the day previous, and the driver had obviously made note of it. Adisa had me tell the driver to bring me to the last stop, which I figured was as far in he was willing to go. And then he screeched in front of a little blue storefront called Last Stop, which sold toothpaste and tin tomatoes. The sign for Africa2000 wasn’t much further. There is a shea butter mystery for the centuries, and I was going to solve it. A small pink building with several shea butter producing machines had been locked for years. The district, adorned in traditional smocks, threw the community a massive celebration for the opening of the factory five or six years ago, I’ve seen the faded photos. There were sodas and tents and everything. The thirty-woman strong shea butter group were trained and trained again, a few even sent to Tamale. But the factory was never used. Africa2000, an NGO that has been empowering people, especially women, to be self sustainable for decades stepped in. Seeing that the district lost interest in the factory after the celebration music died down, they brought the women two bags of shea butter, some money and more training to get started again. They made a couple barrels of shea butter and locked the doors yet again for another three years. Shea butter continues to be whipped by hand under trees, an incredibly long process, before it can be cooked with or made into soap. For over a year, the women have been asking for my help to get this group back on their feet. It is difficult to help people who don’t know what kind of help is actually needed. “We need money,” they keep telling me. “Lot’s ’o money!” My thinking was that Adisa, from Africa2000 may have a better idea. I walk into the office, and am greeted with a smile mile wide. The creases in here eyes prove that she smiles like this often. Do you remember another volunteer named Michael? He lives in the Upper West, and he is the one who gave me your number. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I meet a lot of people.” Her smile is still there. She speaks slow, but with purpose. She is wearing a traditional dress and head wrap, and typing on a new laptop. Her English is perfect. “Maria, I have sons and daughters from all over the world. Hundreds of sons and daughters,” she tells me. “Hundreds.” I was hoping she would extend an invite to be mother also, she looked like the kind of woman that would fatten me up and give me great guy advice. She pulls up pictures of some Japanese volunteers that she just traveled to Yendi with. “Where are you from in the States?” New York. “Where in New York?” Oh, from Queens. “I’ve been to Queens,” she says dreamily. “Usually they have us stay in these fancy hotels in Manhattan, but I had a daughter whose parents insisted I stay with them in Queens one year.” Do you travel to the US often? “Not anymore. I’m near retiring, I don’t have the energy for it anymore. But I used to go about three times a year. They send me all over the world.” I’m impressed that this Northern native has landed a career that brings her all over the world, collecting sons and daughters as she goes. Do you like America? I ask. She tilts her head, squints and grates her teeth. That was answer enough. “Americans aren’t very nice. You know, they were nicer after September 11th. They had to be.” A shame that New Yorkers are the only America Adisa knows. I got right to the point, and explained the tricky case to her, and it turns out she knew all that was happening with the shea butter group in Sankpala. “Your community has more shea nut trees than any village I know.” She says, shaking her head. “Maria, here is the problem. Making shea butter is a social event for these women. All day, they are in the house serving their men and children. They can’t discuss their problems, because the men will hear. They have no privacy. But when they are under the trees making shea butter, the men won’t mind them. That’s when they can talk and talk and talk. They give advice to their daughters, they share ideas and discuss all their troubles. They cherish that time. Those machines are incredibly loud, and only a few can use them at a time. The process ceases to be social. You can keep bringing in more machines. They will never use them. They won’t tell you why and you will think they just don’t care. But they are smart, they know. ” I wouldn’t have conjured that up in a million years, but it made perfect sense. Case closed. This was worth an overpriced cab ride. Adisa won’t let me leave until she feeds me lunch. She leaves the spoon next to her laptop, and eats the greasy rice and beans with her fingers. “Americans are very special to my heart,” she tells me. I nod, not knowing where she is going with this. “I have had a few Peace Corps teachers in training school.” Really? “Yes, in the 60’s” These had to have been one of the first groups of volunteers, ever. “Ms. Amos. She was my literature teacher. She had us translate Shakespeare. She loved me. And Ms. Humpherson, she was a geography teacher. None of our teachers took us seriously in the North. Can you imagine, when I was in teachers training college, I had never seen a map. I told Ms. Humpherson this, and she took an interest in me. She taught me everything she knew about geography, and now I’ve been to many of those places. If it weren’t for Ms Amos, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with languages. That’s what I was for years, a language teacher. They both told me I could be something. And now look at me. I am something, I have been trying to reach them for years. Even if they have passed on, a family member at least. They need to know I made something of my self, because they told me I could.” She gave me that eye-creased smile again. I thanked her for lunch again and for the insight on the shea butter group. I caught a cab, who charged me the right fare home. I have had some rough days in Ghana. I could tell you a number of times I was ready to pack up my bags and head home, to the land of sushi, espressos and reliable electricity. I know Ms. Amos and Ms. Humpherson had those days. I know they looked at the students before them, many of whom had never seen a map in their lives, or had even heard of Shakespeare, leaving them to think “What am I doing here? This is such a lost cause Kennedy! You don’t even know!” They may have no idea the woman Adisa is because of them. They probably don’t knoe the number of lives she has touched, in her own corner of the globe and all over the world. On behalf of Adisa, and all the other women Ms. Amos and Ms. Humpherson have touched: thank you.

Tomorrow’s opening ceremony kicks off the 2010 Winter Olympics! I’m trying to find a reliable place in Tamale to watch the games. Any excuse to see an obscene amount of snow. Vancouver, watch out!

Team USA, do us proud!

time is tickling!

-Alhaji (sure is alhadj)

Sankpala Primary & JHS Library As many of you are aware (or not), the PTA at my brother Michael’s school, PS 32, collected over 20 boxes of books for my community (!!). As a teacher who cares deeply about the future of her students, literacy has been a priority for me. We continue to have reading classes weekly with the few books we have. The primary and junior high school students are insanely excited about these books. My father is working tirelessly to find the funds to ship these books to Ghana. If you are interested in helping with his endeavor, shoot me an email. While home, I was able to see the pile of boxes stacked at our home. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of families in my home community. I also realized that there is no room at my school to fit all these books. Actually, there isn’t enough room for the students. The Sankpala Youth Association and I had a meeting my first week back and decided to take on the building of a school library. I am in the process of getting funds from USAID, and my community is committed to all labor required. This is a project I have had in the back of my mind for a year now, so…here we go! Sankpala Youth Association SAYA and the PTA built pavilions at the school so that the students without a classroom have some shade (which are most). The initiative they took with this project was quite impressive, and the reason why I ultimately decided that building a library is something they will seriously commit to. We are simultaneously planning an inauguration, which I think will take place in May. Literacy Classes I continue to have 60-80 students every week for literacy classes. Some teachers are (finally) helping me this year, which is great because it is really hard to handle that many tired and hungry students alone, and more so because hopefully they will continue these classes when I’m finito. Health Club Sanitation. This is my goal for the year, and coincidentally is the same goal for the Sankpala Clinic, the health sector of SAYA, and the Central Gonja Ministry of Health. How nice. Yesterday the district dropped off hand washing stations at the school and I I was a little over-excited. My health club will continue to have clean-up days, and we are trying to find ways to get the community involved. I am hoping to have some hooplah for environment day: parade, drums and all. Furthermore, we are hoping to get incinerators/ rubbish bins around town and build more soak-away pits. Girls Club After Sahada took over my kitchen to make mini meat pies for us girls, they expressed an interest in selling them at the market and roadside. I gave them a small loan to get started, and already they are on a roll and making a profit. So when we aren’t stuffing our faces with popcorn and watching chick flicks, we will be making meat pies. MoringaDead. I don’t know what else to say. Some communities they grow like weeds and some they just don’t. We tried-oh. Other distings Ghana lost the Africa Cup to Egypt. But that’s okay suckahs, you can shine your trophy real nice while we are on the way to the World Cup. My village is bracing themselves for a little visit form Ciana and Krista the Barista the end of March and April. That’s happening. And Musah Naa continues to drive me crazy. Every. Day. (while being the best thing to ever happen to me.)

If interested, here are my predictions for 2010.

me: hmmm. I think it's going to rain today...

musah naa: you don't know anything.

Home. I have successfully had my fill of pizza and bagels, and most especially, love from family and friends. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring in the new year and mark my halfway point of service than spending it all with my biggest support system. I also have been overwhelmed with the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. It reminds me of how fragile life is. It reminds me of how small our human family is, and in a time like this it makes me feel proud to see the incredible outpouring of support, whether that be prayers, donations or the journalists and emergency relief workers from all over the world that are there right now. I see how frustrated America is concerning the food and other materials reaching the people of Haiti. As a volunteer that has lived in a developing country for over a year now, I can imagine the chaos that relief workers must be struggling with day in and day out and the immense pressure on them to meet needs that seem impossible. A word to all of you: I am so proud of who you are and what you are doing. Keep fighting the good fight, we support you. To those in Haiti who are dancing and praying in the streets in light of your loss: You inspire me. Your resilience is why I am who am and why I do what I do. To those of you at home who want to help in some way, I encourage you to donate to the International Medical Corps. This global, humanitarian nonprofit has sent an emergency response team comprised of doctors and nurses to Haiti, and they greatly need your help. They are treating crush injuries, trauma, substantial wound care, shock and other critical cases with the few available supplies, and about 80% of patients are desperately in need of surgery. According to IMC- they are in it for the long haul.Donating $10 to help the people of Haiti is as simple as sending a text message of the word "haiti" to 85944.For more info, go to their site. Oh, and Ghana, I’m back and ready to roll! (and pssst. I missed you. a lot a bit.)

"you are real!"

- dad picking me up at the airport, with brothers in tow

I’ve wrapped up two days of World AIDS Day events, graded finals, said some painful goodbyes to volunteers on their way home for good, and packed up for a much needed American vacay. I will be home for a month relaxing, eating myself sick, catching up on Twilight and Jon and Kate phenomenons and hugging little brothers. A heads up on some things before I come home:-I don’t have any money. I’m living far beneath the poverty line. Buy me a drink? Or a bagel? -My vocabulary has regressed to that of a second grader. That is because my daily conversations usually go something like this: Good morning. Good morning. How is it? It is fine. How was the night? The night was fine. … I hope it rains today. Oh, they won’t come. Are you sure? Oh madame, I am sure. Ok then, small time. Small time. Bye bye-o!-I get scared when around large groups of white people. -I may be using Ghanaian catch phrases, like, ‘small, small’, and ‘is that so?’ or ‘Are you suuure?’ and ‘sorry-o’, ‘bye bye-o’, ‘trouble-o’. -My humor has become more tasteless than it already was. -When you complain about anything in my presence, I will roll my eyes and remind you I don’t have running water. You can roll your eyes back, I’ll understand.-My wardrobe is a year behind the times, it’s kind of embarrassing. And by ‘my wardrobe’, I do mean the purple tank top and black gauchos I wear every day. -I will talk very fast. Like, what did she just say? fast. I don’t know why, maybe because I feel like I have so much to say and so little time to say it. But every time I come in contact with another American its like I’m listing the medical side effects in a Viagra commercial.-I may be more affectionate then you remember. Muslims don’t hug. -If I seem tired it is because I usually average 12 hours of sleep. -I may be unreasonably cold. One night it got down to like, 70 degrees, and I fell asleep shaking. But, snow…swoon. So worth it. Hey, see you soon!

Kayayo/HIV film in Dagbani. I think just about everyone came out

HIV football match at school. My JHS students kicked butt.

Kayayo/HIV drama at half time

Kayayo/HIV talk

World AIDS Day: Success!

Ghana is a man’s world. This is tradition, this is culture, this is a reality, one that is hard for an American woman like myself to swallow. Andy and I held two-day men’s workshops, one in our respective villages, that would confront issues present as a result of the appalling inequality between men and women. We discussed everything from sex, how our bodies work (and how complicated women’s body actually are. Wish you could see the looks on their faces as I explained the menstrual cycle), gender inequality, fatherhood, family planning, romance and love, sexual consent/rape and domestic violence. We were incredibly impressed by how honest these men were, even when it was hard to hear. It was not until day 2 when most of them were, possibly for the first time in their lives, able to see how harmful and real this inequality is. One of the more powerful exercises proved to be reading the following guided fantasy, A Man in a Women’s World. It left them uncomfortable, anxious, and most said, made them feel pretty sad. You know, when I look at my strong willed female students, I dream for them a world where they don’t feel inferior because that is what they were told all their lives. I hope that their daughters have all the opportunities that their sons will have.

And there is this crazy idea that it starts with the men. Andy and I did what we could to open their eyes to what life is like for the other half, and it made their skin itch. We’ll let them take it from here. Read my This Is Diversity article on the workshop (please and thank you).

I would like to guide you on a trip. It is a trip to a place very different from the society you live in today. This trip will put you in a place that might make you feel uncomfortable at times. Even though you may feel this way, try to follow along with the trip and concentrate on the feelings it touches in you. Find a comfortable position, and close your eyes. Let your body relax. Listen to your breathing, and begin to take deep breaths in and out. Relax all of the muscles in your body. I am going to ask you to imagine a world that is very different from the one you are living in now. Because it is different, it requires you to stretch your imagination. Let yourself imagine as fully as you can. If you become distracted at any point, just notice that and return to the process. Imagine for a while that you live in a society where women have much more power than men. The entire society is set up to favour women. Most people in positions of power are women. This has been the case throughout history. This includes presidents, traditional leaders, police officers, military leaders, church leaders, and businesspeople. Men would like these positions of power, but women know this and are determined to keep men from gaining too much power. Occasionally, a man holds one of these positions, but most are held by women. When men complain about the inequity and lack of representation in these positions, many women leaders tell men this is nonsense and cite the occasional male leader as an example. Most women believe that they are superior to men because women have more power. Many men also feel this way, not because it is true, but because it is what they have heard from other men and women all of their lives. Men and women believe there are certain things that only women are capable of doing. Women often say, “That is a woman’s job. A man would never be able to do that.” The job market favours women over men. It is much easier for women to get hired in jobs that pay well. Men are usually left with jobs that pay very little. Often, these jobs include taking care of children or other domestic duties. Although men feel that they are just as capable of doing the work that women do, many women do not believe this, so opportunities to prove otherwise are rare. Even when men hold the exact same position as women, they make significantly less money than their female counterparts. Women are generally physically stronger than men. Because of this, women often use their strength to control and abuse their male partners. Many men know that this is not fair, but they have very few other options. If the men complain about the abuse, they are often abused more. Many men would like to leave these relationships, but they cannot because they are financially dependent on their wives. Furthermore, their mothers and fathers tell them that they would disgrace their family name if they left their wives. Within the home, men do the majority of the chores. Even when both members of the couple work outside of the home, it is the man who must prepare the food, take care of the children, and clean the house. When men prepare meals, they serve their wives and daughters, no matter how young, before themselves and the sons. When a family does not have a lot of food, the men and boys eat less food than the women and girls. The father will feed the sons before himself and go without food if necessary in order to give what little is left to the sons. In addition to receiving less food, the boys also receive less health care than the girls. If both a boy and a girl have malaria and the family has enough money to treat only one child, the girl will get the treatment, or more of it if it is divided between them. In part as a result of malnutrition, and in part due to a system that favours girls, boys do much more poorly in school than girls. Boys are not encouraged to learn, and if a family needs to take any child out of school for work, a boy will be removed for many reasons. One reason is that a boy’s education is not worth as much as a girl’s since his chances of getting a good job are small. Also, it is not as attractive to a prospective wife to have a well-educated husband as it is to have a controllable hard worker. Finally, since almost no boys go on to higher education, primary school is seen as a wasted effort for boys. Parents usually treat girls and boys differently. Girls are given more freedom, whereas boys are treated more strictly. When boys misbehave, they are punished, but when girls misbehave, parents often expect such behaviour and simply say, “Girls will be girls.” Also, girls are allowed to do things that their brothers are not allowed to (stay out late, walk to town alone) even though the children might be the same age. Women see men as sexual objects. Because of this, men feel incredible pressure to look attractive. As a result, men spend much more time than women concerning themselves with their appearance. Women, on the other hand, care much less about how they look. Also, because men are thought of and treated as sexual objects, women often try to have sex with men. While men might be interested in these opportunities, they quickly learn that society does not accept men being sexually promiscuous. While women are applauded for their sexual exploits, men who have sexual exploits are stigmatized for theirs. In fact, such behaviour is known to lead to disapproval from family and friends. Increasingly, children of all ages are living on the streets, trying to make their way without the support of families or national welfare institutions. Although both boys and girls fall into prostitution as a way to survive, boys use this method much more than girls do. This is due in part to the sexual objectification of men, and to boys’ feelings of powerlessness (created, again in part, by the messages from school, family, and society that they are not as worthy, smart, capable, resourceful as girls). Boys are also desirable sexually because they are perceived to be less likely to carry disease. Women are increasingly looking for younger and younger boys, and because a woman is so powerful in this interaction, the boy often has no chance to insist that she use protection. The rates of HIV and other STIs are growing exponentially among street children because of this situation, especially among boys. These are examples of the way life is in this imaginary world. Women have more power than men, and men suffer greatly because of it.

This excerpt was taken from the Men As Partners Manual, created by Peace Corps in association with QHP, CHPS-TA, CEDEP and GHS.

National Immunization Day! Everybody hates NID. It just sucks. The kids hate it, the parents hate it and us health volunteers and nurses: we abhor it. I am used to kids screaming and running when I enter a compound (oh, because I’m white, and that’s scary. Imagine you are four and a green person walks into your home. That’s what I tell myself), but this time it’s not the sight of me. It’s Foazaia and her icebox of vaccines. For three days, health volunteers and nurses all over Ghana go house-to-house, squeezing cheeks of incompliant children and dropping pink drops of polio vaccine on their terrified tongues. And then we hand them vitamin A and a dewormer and say “Denyasa! Toffee, toffee! (yummm! Candy, candy!)” By the way, in light of the rows of medicine lining most American bathrooms, telling a child that vitamins are candy is not a good idea. But here we’ll let it slide. This is all no easy feat, we have to leave the house early in the morning and spend the following six hours walking under the African sun. And then we spend the second half of the day sleeping it off. Ok, I’ll just speak-for-myself.

While I am not very fond of NID, I’ll admit it was a good time today. After spending a month in Volta and the majority of my days at the school, it was nice to be out and about in the community again. It puts things in perspective; reminds me why I am here.

There are more NID pictures on my tumblr, and another article on this is diversity, so please check them out. Also, Adam Martyn, I think you are a rock star. Safe journey-o!

Ok, so tell me how much you love and miss me. Then tell me again.

- mom

Sometimes life in Ghana can be so mundane it physically hurts. Sometimes I drag my weary body to bed, locking the door tight behind me. Either way, this is an emotionally and physically exhausting and truly 24/7 job. Here are two actual days of my life.

Day 1

8:00 am: I wake up, successfully getting 10 hours of sleep.

9:30 am: I have just finished eating banana-walnut pancakes. Life is good. I finally put clothes on, grab some paper and write letters home.

10:30 am: I head to the clinic, which I could practically spit on from my window. Note: this is one of two times I will be leaving my room for the day. The nurses annoy me, but I force myself to stay for half an hour.

11:00 am: Lunch time! Right?

12:00 pm: Nap time!

2:00 pm: I have reached 12 hours of sleep for the day. That’s half the day my friends. It’s still too hot to leave my house, guess I’ll watch Slumdog again.

4:00 pm: Musah is outside my house trying to get my attention. Musah, I’m working! “Madame, you never work, you just eat and sleep all day.” What? What makes you say that? Oh, Moose, Can you bring me water? And buy me bread and oil and weed my garden? Thanks! Maybe that will prevent him from disturbing my afternoon routine. The nerve. I start making a pure-carb dinner.

5:30 pm: I have eaten dinner and am now washing dishes outside. Aze is drying them for me. I bring out a book and read until the first call of prayer.

6:00 pm: I take a long walk to the dam with Aze and Musah. Aze and I are talking to bugs in Dagbani, which distracts me long enough not to notice that Musah has ran on ahead to tie weeds together in hopes of me tripping and breaking my nose. Nice try Musah. You are the worst small boy in the world.

6:30 pm: I take a hot bucket bath and climb into bed.

7:00 pm: I watch another movie until I fall asleep.

Day 2

5:30 am: Family calls from home. Her heart is broken in four even pieces. “I think it’s time for you to come home now…” she sniffles. I know, I’m coming home soon.

6:00 am: Obey calls. “That NGO is coming to the school at 9. Can you be there?” Yea I’ll be there. Our school is in such pitiful condition it has gotten national attention. A film crew had come earlier this month to film children having lessons under trees because there aren’t enough classrooms and the electric poles that lie at the marketplace that the district has been promising to connect to the school for years now. No lights, no books, torn uniforms and a handful of teachers that sit around selling ice cream and gossiping instead of teaching.

7:00 am: Me and Aze eat our breakfast and I start my laundry (that boy doesn’t leave my side). This is the only gap of time that I will have all week to do it. I try to get him to read a book, but he just puts it down, grabs a bar of soap and scrubs away.

8:30 am: I find the form 2 English book and scan for a teachable lesson. I am teaching form 3, but we don’t have those books. Then I cut up large pieces of white paper for my form 1 Health class.

9:00 am: I make my way to the school, I know this NGO is not going to be there when they say they will so I take my time. I mosey over to my form 3’s. Take your break now, because English is at 10. DO NOT BE LATE FOR MY CLASS! TEN O’CLOCK PEOPLE! We have gone through 3 headmasters at the JSS this term and didn’t even have a timetable until week 7. They have been playing more volleyball that learning. For the first week, they came 30 minutes late for every one of my classes and I almost lost my mind. So above auxiliaries and conjunctions, I’m trying to teach them to be on time.

9:55 am: The NGO shows up. Nice to meet you, I have heard so much about you. I have to go teach now… Oh, Ghana time.

10:03 am: My students are running into class, beads of sweat are running down their faces. Except Manna, he is walking across the football field. Are you kidding me Manna? Why aren’t you running, you have two seconds to get to class! I give them a minute to catch their breath and we take another dive into report writing. They don’t seem to get it the first time around. I make them rewrite the 5-sentence assignment over and over again until their fingers shake. Yes, I am the English Nazi of your nightmares. And you spelled afternoon wrong. Aze is sitting in the corner reading a Peace Corps handbook he found in my trash. Extra reading classes are at 1:00, you all should be there! I say before heading to the adorable new form 1’s.

11:10 am: I quiz form 1 about proteins, carbohydrates, fats and oils. They are rock stars. We talk about vitamins and minerals, and I hand out the sheets of paper with a fruit or vegetable written on each and colored pencils. They pull out their rulers and protractors, they take this assignment very seriously. Extra reading classes are at 1:00, you all should be there! I wave goodbye to the headmaster and head home.

12:00 pm: I have 30 minutes to eat lunch before turning around and walking back to the school. I down a banana-pineapple smoothie and swallow and handful of groundnuts. I flip all my clothes over on the line and head back to the school.

12:50 pm: The JSS teachers are wrapping up their classes and run home before I can ask them to help with literacy classes. Three primary classes are coming our way, and all three forms of JSS students pile into one classroom. I have 80 students at all different reading levels to manage. By myself. And they are all falling asleep. I hand my top three JSS students a pile of books and they split the primary students among themselves. I hand out 8 books among 40 JSS students and I ask Latif to start reading the children’s books out loud. After every paragraph I ask them the simplest question I can conjure. Who is the boy’s name in this paragraph? Where does the maiden live? Not one of them can answer. Although the book is probably at a first grade level, these teenagers don’t comprehend any of it.

2:00 pm: Musah helps me put all the books away and walks home with me. I call Obey on the way. Can you just call me when the SAYA meeting starts? I know its not going to start on time, and I don’t want to be sitting at the school for hours. “No problem.” I stop at the clinic and complain to the nurses about how dreadful the reading level is for my students. “They are competing with the top students from Accra, Tamale and Kumasi for senior high school, they don’t have a chance,” Sister Bima reminds me. The reality of it kills me. I have a meeting in 30 minutes, I’m going to lie down.

2:30 pm: I crash on my bed with my flip flops still on. For once, I am grateful for Ghanaian time, I wonder how long I will be able to sleep.

4:15 pm: My phone rings “Ok, we’re all here!” I walk over to the school again.

4:30 pm: Only half the executives are there. For an hour they argue about all the problems with our baby association, and the president Razak says, “Patron, what do you advise?” And everyone looks at me as if I hold all of life’s answers in my head. I take the opportunity to talk about the Men as Partners workshop that will be later that month. I need to have commitment statements from all of you by next week. They nod, and we all begin to fight again.

5:30 pm: I walk home day dreaming about the dinner I’m about to eat. “Mariam! Mariam!” Aze has discovered me. He grabs the bag off my shoulder and we walk home together. By the time I start boiling yams, the first call to prayer starts.

6:30 pm: I’m washing the day’s dishes in the dark while waiting for water to boil for my bucket bath. I finally have time to take my clothes off the line. After I bath, I throw on a t-shirt, grab Middlesex and jump into bed. Thank God the day is over.

8:00 pm: I hear a light tap on my door. You have go to be kidding me. It is three of my students. One of them told me she is afraid she has an STD and I have been encouraging her to go to the clinic since. She finally found the courage, but wanted me there for support. I throw on some clothes, grab a flashlight and we make our way to the clinic. I’m proud of you honey. You are very brave. As her best friends and I wait in the waiting room, I tell them what good friends they are. “Thank you Madame.”

9:00 pm: I am passed out. WW III couldn’t wake me up.

I came home. My brothers and parents were there at the airport, balloons in hand. We had a nice little family embrace. “First things first,” my dad says, and he whisks me away to a Target or Walmart. I am completely overwhelmed. He hands me a cart. “Fill ’er up. Get whatever you need.” We start at the hair product aisle and all I can think is, I don’t need any of this. I pick up every bottle and smooth my fingers over each. My dad is getting impatient. A black father and his two children recognize me. He backs up his cart. “Maria! Welcome back! How are you?” Eh! It is good, I’m managing. And how is it? He looks at me slightly offended. His toothless daughter laughs and her brother smacks her on the back of the head. “Well, it’s good to see you home,” he says with a nod and goes on his way. I’m hoping my father isn’t behind me, that he didn’t witness me talking to a black family with a Ghanaian accent. He is. I am completely mortified.

“You know what, take your time,” he says. “I’m going to do my own shopping.” I reach into my pocket and dig out my beat up Nokia phone. The screen is blank, this phone won’t work here. I’ll just be right around here. You know, when you’re done. But I’m really thinking, Don’t leave me.

I need a break from product. I turn the corner, and as I do the room suddenly gets eerily bright. I have stumbled upon the candy aisle. Small colorful and neat packages, all in order, all in their place, they are going on for miles. They are magnetic, I can’t help but walk towards them. As I get closer I start to feel dizzy.

We have rows of food here in Ghana too. Yes, we do, at market. Rows of stacked tomatoes, rows of stacked ochre, rows of onions and ginger. Sacks overflowing with sugar and flour, rice and beans, each with a woman sitting crossed legged behind it, yelling “Salamingapa, allibasa, allibasa! (White lady, onions, onions!)” “White lady! White lady! Won’t you buy rice?” And to each I’ll say Na Da, the market greeting. “Mariam!” one cries. It’s a line of red cross women, those ladies stick together. Antire! Na Da! My students are peppered everywhere. Sahada is frying local cheese, Nuhu is selling telephone units, Zuleha and her little sisters are selling waist beads. “Madam,” they all say “How is market?” The sun is too strong today, I respond, trying to hide under the same thatch that covers a pile of pure MSG. I continue to try to process the chaotic colors, smells and sounds.

I pass rows of second-hand jeans and shirts and satin pajamas. “White lady, this one for you!” I pass an elderly man selling fetishes, piles of metal rings and coins and shells, and a few cow tails. I pass a medicine man who promises me fertility if I take a shot of black goo. I pass Musah, who is fixing shoes. His supplies are in an empty pancake mix box I gave him. Hey Moose! He pretends he doesn’t know me. Moose! How’s market? He’s chewing on cold pieces of tofu on a kebab. Fact: Musah likes tofu more than his own mother. “It’s okay.” Alright Musah Naa, see you later.

And I weave my way to the back of the market, almost tripping over a few goats. There they are. Crates of oranges, bananas, avocados and watermelon. I fill up my market bag for less than a couple of bucks. I pass tables piled with bread, covered in flies. The drummers have caught up with me. They surround me and my heartbeat matches that of their drums. A man serenades me with his ancient song, in a high-pitched shrill. He bounces from one side of me to the next. I stick my fingers in my ears and shout “Godfadda, nka loury! (Sorry, no money!)” I duck away. I pass a row of spices, I don’t even know what most are. Sacks of earthy powders, all smell like Ghana to me.

I then pass some men hacking away at a massive hunk of meat. The air is thick with the smell of animal flesh. There is a neat line of jaws and hooves and ears. I hold my breath and leave the marketplace. Outside, women are selling chop. Na Da! I say to Azara’s older sister, who is selling rice and beans. I am standing a few yards away and I pivot to leave. She puts her hands on her hips and scowls. She doesn’t want me to leave until she gives me enough food to feed a small family. She fills a plastic bag with rice, throws on a few tablespoons of oily pepper sauce, some furry chunks of goat meat and spaghetti. Mma, nawundesu (Mamma, thank you). As I go, the sounds of drumming and dancing and bargaining and goats being waked with sticks and megaphones broadcasting deals and women yelling at children all die down behind me.

But here, here in my dream, there is no smell. If I were blind, I would never know the endless bags of chocolate and gummi bears that lay before me. No sound. Not even elevator music. A woman slowly strolls her cart across the aisle in front of me. She turns to me and smiles and the sound of the wheels of her cart are echoing all around me. My head feels heavy, it may topple over. The perfectly white shelves, holding perfectly neat rows of packaged sweets start to spin. I swallow and my knees give way beneath me. The store is swallowed into a black hole and I faint.

I awake in my dark cement room, trying to catch my breath. The smell of burning groundnut shells consume my nostrils. The crickets outside my window are making a hell of a racket. I stare up into my helicopter wings of a fan, which reminds me where I am.

And I feel safe.

check out the article I wrote for This is Diversity, please and thank you.

explaining what HIV does to the body

waiting to get tested

me, mac and cait

sandy, adam and cam

shipwrecked

“How was the boat trip! I’m so going to try to do that next year,” Ana says to Andy, Cam and me as we are sitting around the TSO, more specifically, on solid ground. The boys look at me and smirk. Where do we even begin?

Well, here’s a start, the trip in numbers: 1 boat, 5 out-of-their-mind Peace Corps volunteers (Adam, Cait, Andrew, Cameron and yours truly), 1 hunk of a translator, 1 sarcastic nurse, 1 gawd-awful driver, 1 poor navigator that got roped into this trip, 10 days, 9 communities, 1,000 people, 300 tested, 15 tested positive for HIV, 80 packets of ramen, 2 tents, 1 hammock, 4 storms, 1 fishbone lodged between 2 rivets in my throat, 1 panic attack ensued, 30 and some odd late night scary stories, 1,001 maggots, 1,002 obnoxious inside jokes, 1 dam that created the biggest man-made lake in the world, over a forest, 1 tree that ripped a gash through the side of our boat in the middle of Lake Volta, 1 foot of water in the boat, 2 buckets that bailed us out as we sped to shore, give or take 100 “Wait, did that really just happen?”

The trip started off rocky. We were packed and ready to go four weeks before we were actually able to launch because the tarp needed repairs (which could only be repaired on the other side of Volta, which could only be picked up by a certain person, whose car broke down. As did the second car). After a few migraines and frustrations, we were on our way into the depths of the Volta Lake. Many communities had only heard rumors of white people. Most had only vaguely heard of the disease. For those we tested, between 5% and 7% were HIV positive, which is staggering considering that USAID statistics indicate that Ghana has a 1.7% HIV rate.

We couldn’t have asked for more hospitable and open-minded communities. They fed us and let us camp out on their football fields. They let us bathe on their shores. They thanked us profusely for coming across the Volta to educate them. While Murphey’s law was at its best, the actual HIV/AIDS programs could not have gone better. We all concur, after volunteering in Ghana for a year, these past two weeks we have really felt the impact of our work. (The mathematical equation for that is Haagen Daz rockyroad ice cream + gooey out-of-the-oven brownies with walnuts x 3)

Ghana bureaucracy was at its finest, as it is for any program a PC volunteer may want to implement. We had one community with two chiefs, meaning of course the two hated each other. After half a day of fighting over which community would get the program, they agreed to both come (as we were ready to pack up and head out). So we literally had one community sitting on one side and one on the other, no one daring to sit on the benches in the middle.

After showering in the rain one night, we all sat down to eat a meal a local woman had prepared for us (we provided fish that boys had fished for us in the previous village, rice and ramen. Its amazing what a Ghanaian woman can come up with with those ingredients). I swallowed gulps of fish, rice and stew without so much as chewing, until a bone pierced the bottom of my throat. I excused myself without a word and tried to dig in out with my fingers. I came back, turned to papa Cam and said,There is a fishbone lodged in my throat. What-do-I-do? He asked if I could breathe and I knew that the only thing preventing me from breathing was the panic I was experiencing. I turned to Mac, our translator. Is this normal? He says it’s very normal, that the locals just use small sticks to dig it out. He hands me toothpick Are you serious! What am I supposed to do with this? “Pick it out of your teeth.” It’s in my throat Mac, not my teeth!

I go back outside, try to breath, and then again try to dig it out of my throat while vomiting. I come back and everyone is calmly eating their dinner. I ask Cait to see if she can at least see the bone. I look up and open wide, causing the bone to go deeper into my throat, also causing me to throw up again. I assess the situation. It is too deep to get out my self and we are on an island 4 hours from the closest town, which is 8 hours form Accra. It is almost 9pm. “Try swallowing food,” Mac suggests. I swallow golf ball size wads of rice that just pushed the bone deeper and deeper into my throat. Finally I call the medical officer in Accra.

Hi Albert, this is Maria. Maria Karlya. Yea, I’m on an island and there is a fishbone stuck in my throat. Yes, I tried swallowing food, it’s not working. For about 20 minutes. No, its not a scratch, the bone is making me gag. Ok. Ok. Alright, I’ll call in the morning.

So Albert just said I need to get to Accra to take x-rays and then they will surgically remove it.

I would have cried but I was afraid it would make me throw-up again. Mac comes over to me, massages the bottom of my neck and the bones releases its clutch on my throat and slides into my stomach. Oh. My. God. You just saved my life. For the next hour all I could do was say, That was really scary guys!

At village 8, the community prayed for safe travels before we loaded and was off to the next. Halfway there, our driver ran into a tree underwater trying to avoid another. Bags fell off benches and Adam was nearly knocked to the floor. Umm, there’s a lot of water coming in, I say to no one in particular. Within seconds, our boat is filling with water and we are frantically pulling all our items on benches and bailing out buckets of lime green water. Once we make it to shore, a 5 foot gash across the bottom of the boat reveals itself. So we boiled peanuts for a while and then took off out clothes and went swimming. We made it back to Dumbai at 9pm that night on a wooden canoe, watching a lightning storm follow us. Which finally hit when we reached, as we were carrying 10 days of camping supplies and program materials the 10-minute uphill walk to Caits home. “Wait, did that really just happen?” Needless to say, the trip also ended rocky.

We were able reach one last community on our list, we made a day trip from Dumbai. Our trip finished with a bang, it was the largest group we had and the highest number of people that got tested. We made it to 9 of 10 villages, all because 1 day got rained out.

Go figure.

Oh Ghana, you so crazy.

Moringa

As of now, my students, the headmaster and myself have planted 60 trees at the school, and 20 at the clinic. They are still baby trees and tempting goat food, so time will tell if they become big-boy trees. But I am very proud of my students, they worked very hard to get these trees planted and have been checking on them often.

Girls Club

My girls have been working on water sachet wallets, and they look great. When rainy season slows down, we will be trying to sell them at market and if that goes well, we will try to sell them at other markets. Almost all of my girls met my mother (actually, most all my students had) which was really special to all of us. My mother really hit it off with Sahada, which didn’t surprise me, they are both firecrackers.

Health Club

School has been out for almost a month, as is health club. But as I had said, we did a lot of moringa the last month of school. I gave them a sanitation project to work on over holiday, but I think in light of rainy/farming season, they have been really busy. I am looking forward to teaching again, I miss those buggers. We have a lot of projects to look forward to this coming school year.

Reading Class

I think I mentioned that I started literacy classes for my students and some of the upper primary students. This has been made possible by my father, who has sent me a few boxes of books and the head master and his unfailing dedication to his students. The students enjoy these classes more than any other club I have and in the short time that we started them, I could already see small improvements. This school year term I think I will start a second class. My father, the headmaster and myself are working on starting a library for the school.

Clinic

Sister Bima and I are going to a weeklong HIV/AIDS workshop held by Peace Corps in a few weeks, which will give us some great ideas for future programs. We have also discussed planning family planning and nutrition programs come the end of the rainy season.

Guinea Worm

We have a strange case right now that may be another kind of parasite or worm (I know, gross). Nazeed and I had a very inspirational meeting with the Red Cross mothers on Friday, so I think we are all going to start taking surveillance as serious as we did months ago during the break out in Fulfuso. Did I mention Raymond went back to America? That was a month or two ago, there were many tears. He will be very missed by all in these parts. Hannah and I have been trying to get funding to paint Guinea worm murals in our communities, and I think we will get that soon. That is something I would like to do right before or after Christmas before the dreadful dry season comes around again.

new distings

VOICE Tour

This is an incredibly exciting project that I haven’t yet mentioned because I just didn’t believe was actually going to happen. Five PC Volunteers, including myself will be spending a couple of weeks on a boat doing HIV/AIDS programs in island villages in the Volta region, to educate about AIDS and break stigmas surrounding the disease. My role is to organize the actual HIV/AIDS program, which I am thrilled to be doing. We launch September 30th, so wish us luck.

Sankpala Youth Association

When headmaster mentioned that the youth were forming an association, I figured he meant a boys club. Turns out, SAYA (Sankpala Youth Association) is a group of 21-35 year olds who have got together and really want to make a difference around here. There are about 10 executives and 80 members, and a whole lot of really great ideas. I was invited to one of the executive meetings several weeks ago and was asked to be the SAYA patron (no friends, not matron, patron). This is really a PCV dream come true, to be a part of a project that we are facilitating and not leading, so that it will sustain when our service is over. I am incredibly honored. Ok, so I don’t really know what it means to be a patron. “Kind of like a patron saint?” asked Kimmie. Probably. Pretty much they have these long winded meetings, then come to my house and tell me all their ideas and then say, “Patron, we have come to seek your advisory.” And I put my book down, quickly swallow the peanut M&M’s before they notice I’m eating mid-day during Ramadan, and pretend that I know the first thing about development. There is going to be an inauguration ceremony on October or November, I’ll keep you posted.

I realized I never went into how miserable the dry season really was. Think of the most uncomfortable you have ever been- 8th hour into a long flight, air conditioning broke down during that heat wave, those heels you wore to work that now reside in the depths of your closet, just the sight of them sends a chill down your spine. Ok, got it? Think about it, think about it... Ok, now, imagine feeling that way consistently for about 5 months. No break, not in the middle of the night, not first thing in the morning. I was sweaty, hot and tired 24 hours a day and covered head to toe in heat rash. There was no real sleeping, just closing my eyes and pretending that I wasn’t roasting under my tin roof but rather roasting on a Caribbean beach. No one moves during the dry season, forget moving, no one even really talks during the dry season. We all just stare and nod, as if to say with out words “yes, it really is that miserably hot right now. It hurts a little bit.”

All that to say, it is now the middle of the rainy season and I may be the happiest I have ever been in my life. My village has turned into a paradise of lush greens, yellows and red. Corn, tomatoes, groundnuts and peppers grow in neat long rows all over the place. There are little birds and butterflies fluttering everywhere. Young boys spend their afternoons fishing and swimming in the small creeks and streams that were just a floor of hard dirt a few months ago. Everyone, cows included, are just a little bit plumper, a little bit happier. I could be living in an entirely different village.

The best part of the rainy season, well, is the rain. The sky gets incredibly dark, and the wind picks up and we all know to retreat to our homes. For the past few weeks it has been raining all day and all night. That may sound miserable in New York, but here I can make a hot cup of tea curl up in my bed and read all day and think nothing of it. All week! Yea, life stops when it rains here, and I kind of like it. While some volunteers are trapped in their villages because their dirt road to freedom is flooded, I happen to live on one of the major roads in Ghana. This time of year, I really have no complaints. So when I mention it being a beautiful day here in Ghana, I mean thunder and lightning. Music to these little ears.

HM John: The association is having a meeting tomorrow, at 5pm, at the house.

me: Ok great, I'll make sure to go. Whose house?

HM John: Your house.

me: Oh. OK, I'll be there...

I’m back home, as are you. It took me a week to trek back to Sankpala, I needed a bit of recover time. Something about you telling Sahada that she can come to America when she finishes high school, or telling Razak that you will send him books and supplies for his make-shift preschool of 9 students, I-don’t-know, I was a little afraid I would come home to a line around the corner asking for your contact information. But alas, the only one that discovered me (I tend to sneak back home) was sweet little Aze, who desperately wanted to show me the shuck of corn he was munching on. Wo-ow, I say before I sent him home, locking the door behind me.

Your goat is just fine, by the way. The one you thought was on its last breath that night, the night you tried to get me to check on its mother at 1 in the morning. Those two were rather symbolic of us, don’t you think? You were so concerned about the mother, who hadn’t moved for a good day from hovering over its child. And I was concerned about the child, who was too sick to concern itself of its mothers nudging. Well, anywho, they are both running about now without a care in the world, clueless to the trauma they put us through. Goats can be such selfish creatures.

Sankpala is different now, not to the rest of Sankpala, but to me. Once your mother trots around your village in heels and Tiffany’s bangles with a small, dark boy and girl attached to each hand, it’s hard to look at it all the same. Because for eight months now, I have been a fly on the wall here, just watching people live their lives. Quietly and desperately trying not to shake things up too much, don’t mind me, just your average white lady who needs a placed to crash for a couple of years. But transporting the loudest part of my life home into my life here made me come to terms with how strange we are, how strange they are, and how strange I am to be living, breathing, sleeping, and eating here.

So although I woke up in a panic each morning because of the left over dishes from our late dinners the night previous (you didn’t get that from me or your father), although we never could agree on a movie to watch, although I had to wait for you to put on a few layers of makeup before we ventured into my mud hut village, although each time you had to use my latrine it became an ordeal as tragic as a dentist visit, even though you blew smooth rings of smoke into the air, took a sip of your Campari and said to me, “Maria, I could never, ever do this. There was this smidge of a moment earlier this year when I thought, hmm, maybe I could do something like that. But now… No. Not for me,” and you looked at me with a strange pride, like you do love me, but you don’t really know where I came from. Although now more then ever mom, we seem like we live on two different planets (because we do) and seem to lead such different lives (because we do), I realized that week how, in fact, we are oddly the same human being. Watching you stroke the faces of each child we passed and awkwardly greeting every person we crossed was like an outer body experience for me. The jokes you made and the jokes you didn’t get. The beauty you saw in people that most others would not. I was watching myself mom, it was the weirdest thing.

So you survived a week in rural Ghana, moreover you survived a week with me. Mazal tov. It was really special, thanks for that. Send me that Parmesan cheese when you have a minute.

Sankpala sends its greetings.

All my love,

Maria

me: what's that?

tristan: It's onion, tomato, garlic, ketchup and mayonaise.

me: mmmmmmmm