My bathhouse is a cement cube, with no roof, and with a groove along the base wall with an opening to let water drain out. So recently I have found this nice, tidy, pile of droppings strategically placed at the drain. Not sheep or goat, which are everywhere at my site, but kinda similar. Not quite rabbit pellets, either. The night screamer has been back, and locals tell me it looks like a small rabbit, which might be close. They say the screamer is nocturnal and lives in trees. So before it comes down at night to feed it sends out about 20 minutes of bloodcurdling screams, to scare away any predators that might be at the base of the tree. When I first came here it was just terrifying, but I got used to it, And he apparently moves around, because there will be weeks at a time when I don't hear it.

But I wondered about snakes. I've seen only two since I've been here, and they seemed kinda small compared to the size of the pile, but maybe. It's just so damned TIDY, I can't think of an animal so fastidious. Well, actually, we once had a Siamese cat that got locked in the house one day by accident. She very carefully pooped in the garbage disposer in the kitchen sink. But Siamese cats are not like any other animal I know. Needless to say, we didn't lock her in again.!

I'm promising one blog update a week until I leave here, which is in about nine weeks. So this one is short, but it's a start. And I'll have something more interesting next week. In the meantime, if you have any ideas about the mystery pooper, let me know.

When PCVs were working with students for the calendar competition they mostly worked with a few students in their class, a school club, etc. Because I went to so many different schools, and got so many entries, it was easy for me to spot work that was copied. When I got three identical versions of the same piece, I started asking questions, and learned that many students here don't see any difference between original art, a copy, or even a tracing. Many of the pieces that were submitted to me were copies of earlier HIV education materials. One young man did an identical piece of "original" work for himself and two of his friends, and one girl actually traced a picture of Cinderella in a coloring book - but she put a soccer ball in her hands. So I rejected anything that I was sure had been copied. The kids just didn't get it. "But Madahm, it is my hand that held the pencil, so it is my work!" "But it is not your vision, and it did not come from inside your brain." Round and round, but I held firm. If it was copied from an earlier poster, or a teaching manual, it was out.

So time went on, we finally got names of the winners and then the actual calendars. You can imagine my consternation when I saw that at least some of the winners submitted the same copied work that I had rejected! January was sort of a copy, but had enough new detail added that it seems OK. Same with April. July is not only flat-out copied, it might have been traced. Same with December. So I have calendars to distribute to the participating schools, and then the visits began. Students saw that someone won with the same work they had copied and I rejected! The head mistress at my winning student's school agreed that it is a problem she deals with over and over. But, she said, "Some times in Ghana when you do the right thing you make somebody angry." I assured her it was the same way in my country, but I still took a lot of flak. From an angry parent, an uncle who had paid for the photograph that accompanied work that was rejected, another parent, a weeping child, etc. A lot of unhappy campers, let me tell you. And I am sort of cranky, also, because some of the work I did turn in was much better than the copies that won...only nobody realized they were copies.

We were already talking about a different approach next year, so that a nine-year old girl isn't competing with a 20-year old guy, and hope to find a better way to handle the categories. And now this. I don't see any way we can memorize every piece of HIV info that's been published in Ghana over the years, but all the teachers agree that we should not accept work that is copied. Maybe just some sneaky interview with each student, along the lines of What a good idea, how did you ever think of that, etc., etc. But I won't be here for the next competition, so somebody else can wrestle with that one.

We had a similar problem with the applications for the GLOW camp last year. Each girl had to submit an essay about her best role model, and some of them were flat copied from somewhere else, like an encyclopedia, a news article, etc. One of the main purposes of the essay was to determine a girl's English skills; we didn't care about spelling or grammar so much as ideas and comprehension. So this year the essays will be written in the presence of a teacher, a PCV, etc. It sorta makes sense, because almost all teaching here is done by rote and in unison. An art teacher told me that when he gave the kids blank paper and said it was free time, they just sat there. "But you didn't tell me what to draw!"

There has been a lot of HIV/AIDS education in Ghana, but there is still a lot of misinformation and stigma surrounding the entire topic. There have been cases where someone who tested positive went home and drank DDT because he believed his life was over. Others who tested positive and were open about their situation have been evicted from their homes, driven from their villages, etc. I even spoke with a pastor whose Christian congregation made him leave their church.

There is a US Presidential funding source for HIV education, and last year Peace Corps in Ghana developed a theme and had students around the country design posters or other art to promote that idea. They then chose twelve and published a calendar for 2010. This year the theme is MY FRIEND WITH HIV IS STILL MY FRIEND, and volunteers were asked to help spread that message as part of a national effort to reduce the stigma attached to the condition.

I went to the headmaster of a nearby school, and asked if he would be willing to let me speak to his students about HIV sometime. He called them all into an assembly on the spot, and I just started in. My intro was like, “your pastor, your teachers, and your parents have told you all the different ways you can contract HIV. Today I want us to talk about all the ways you WILL NOT contract HIV.” It was pretty successful, I thought, and the kids seemed interested and involved, but I figured they were also glad to get out of regular classes. However, before long other teachers and schools asked if I would come talk with their students.

Before it was over I spoke at nine schools, including public and private, Catholic and Muslim, with between 30 and 65 kids at each session. I had about a 30-minute talk, which was then translated by the teachers into Twi and Krobo, so the students heard the message several times. They were always quite shy at the beginning, but someone would ask the first question and we would then get into some pretty good discussions about playing, eating, and working together. Then I offered them the opportunity to design a poster for the 2011 calendar. Peace Corps provided the art supplies, and the first version was done with colored pencil and crayon. I got drafts from 82 kids! Last year each student who applied got top quality art supplies, but there was such a good turnout this time that PC let us submit and give poster paints and good quality art paper for only 10 entries. I chose what I thought were the 10 best, and each of those students then did a full-size poster that I submitted.

I don’t know how many students from all over Ghana submitted work with their local PCV, but it was well over 300. I was relieved that a committee in Accra had to make the final decisions, and it turned out that one of the students from my village won a place in the calendar on the month of May. His school is very proud, and for me it is one tangible thing I can look at. I often have to remind myself that whatever we can do, small-small, can make a difference.

The whole topic has some built-in dissonance. You want people to get tested, do the treatments, and live the best lives they can free of hassle and discrimination. The Ghanaian government supplies the anti-viral meds for only five Ghana cedis a month and there are good counseling services available. On the other hand, HIV is damn serious and you want everyone to recognize that fact and protect themselves in all the ways they have been taught.

What I said about our role in the industrialization of human misery is true, and the guilt is properly shared by Brits, Americans, and other Europeans. But I always thought it was Americans who put an end to it. Although I never believed that crap they taught us in school about states’ rights, I always thought it was our citizens, a combination of the Suffragists, Abe Lincoln, and a few pinko liberals in the North, who were determined to stop the human suffering. But not so. I recently learned it took the whole of Britain, at great personal and national sacrifice, to put an end to it. So this little piece is just an attempt on my part to be fair and historically accurate. According to Kristof and WuDunn, it was almost single-handedly a Brit named Thomas Clarkson, who was just doing a little research while a student at Cambridge. It was he who documented the actual implements of torture and gruesome restraint, and brought the information to the British public. Profiteers tried to have him killed, but he persevered and in a single decade the British people were so revolted by the facts that as a nation they demanded an end to the suffering. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and freed its slaves in 1833. France followed in 1848, and we as a nation eventually caught up.

In Half the Sky the authors also tell us that Saudi Arabia did not make slavery illegal until 1962, and Mauritania in 1981. Even if you are a teen ager now, and those dates seem waaay back, you should make them part of your basic history lesson. Maybe, as we internalize this stuff, we can find a path to make some changes in our own world. We can at least think about it.

The castle is really grim, and it is almost as tough to write about it as it was to walk through it. We went there in March, but I’m still not able to tell you everything I saw and felt. Slavery has long been a part of human history; defeated warriors became slaves, the father asked his slave to prepare the Fatted Calf for the Prodigal Son, etc. The Greeks, the Romans, the Visigoths, and Native Americans all captured or held slaves and whatever women became the spoils of war. However, it took the Brits and the Americans to industrialize it, and the stain is with us still.

We had a terrific guide, a young Christian Ghanaian man, who was very professional and knowledgeable, and who never glossed over the fact that it was other Africans who raided villages and sold their kinsmen for the best price possible to the slavers. You can even visit another site where the prisoners were held and evaluated for strength and capability before being moved to the castle for the final sale. The guide’s professionalism slipped a bit, just once, when he talked about white men and women worshiping in a chapel they had built directly above the women’s dungeon. Somehow he was personally offended by that. Me too. But we all came out of the dungeon with such strong images that it was hard to blink in the daylight. A young black woman from the US wept openly, and I also would have but felt she was more entitled to her tears than I was to mine. Then the guide asked us to read an inscribed marble plaque at the exit. It asked us all to remember what we had seen, and to pledge that we would never permit such a thing to happen again. Ever. To anyone.

I couldn’t speak, because I knew that even as we read it a 12-year old girl was being pimped out of a 4-car garage in Southern California, a 9-year old was being molested by her father in Iowa, some parents somewhere in Asia were selling their prettiest daughter in order to buy food for the rest of the family, and other parents have locked their daughter in a small room until she agrees to marry her cousin. So it is happening, not again, but still; and we don’t really want to know, because we feel so helpless to change it. Please at least just think about it, and maybe our collective energy can fashion some kind of global change. The book, Half The Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, is a bit hard to read at first, but it’s not sensationalistic and they do offer hope and some real strategies that could make a difference.

Back to the castle, being witness to such commercialism of pain and squalor is pretty tough. And I’m not saying that slavery was ever a good thing for any nation, so don’t be sending me any hate mail. But sometime later, when I was alone at home, I lit a candle to honor the ancestors. I wanted to celebrate the fact that they survived such horror, and to express my gratitude that because of their strength and courage their descendents, my black friends in America, are living where they are.

But just barely amused. Yesterday I rode three hours on a rickety tro with no springs to interview some girls who have applied to attend our leadership camp. Just a few basic questions, and got mostly the same answers from all. Tell me some qualities that you think a leader needs to have. “Neatness, punctuality, and dependability.” Tell me one or two things you know about the United States. “Obama is president, and Ghana beat the US football team.” One girl also said she had heard that two men got married to each other? And had to go to court? But that probably isn’t true. Then three and a half hours back, on three different tros, and it’s the end of a long day. My backside does not have enough padding any more for such long rides in such dilapidated vehicles.

So today I want to just take it easy, and I am sick and tired of insects, goat poop on the porch, ants in my closet, warm beer, no electricity, petty village feuds that are just like office politics at home, and, mostly, sick and tired of kids. These kids have definitely taught me the difference between status and authority. I have lots of status here, and so does the kid who can talk me out of a biscuit, a pen, or an empty water bottle. However, I have absolutely no authority. None. Zilch. So no matter how many times I tell them not to go through the garbage, they do. If I catch them they run away laughing, but always come back. And there is nothing there they want, so they just leave it scattered all over the ground and the porch. I have fantasies about rattlesnakes, or mouse traps, or thoughts of botulism, etc. I know you are all proud of the work I am doing here, and especially the mature, adult ways I have learned to deal with conflict resolution. So you will be pleased to learn that I called an eight-year old boy an asshole. At the top of my lungs. And then threw the rest of the garbage on the ground and slammed the door. Way to go.

Talked to Colleen later, and she reminded me that at home scavengers go through their recycling, and then leave what they don’t want on the ground. And she often wants to shout that they are assholes, but it’s two am and she would have to get dressed and go outside so she just shines it. So all things are the same, and I giggled a lot while we were talking, and then it was late enough I let myself pour a glass of box wine and count my blessings.

July 4, 2010

Today is better. Last night I made a nice soup for dinner, and yesterday in the lorry station I actually found some fresh green beans. I am cooking them with some cocoa yam and bacon bits, so it smells sort of like the way my Texas grandmother cooked green beans, ham hocks, and potatoes. I think maybe I’m homesick, as well, but didn’t realize it. I am prepared for that at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and my children’s birthdays, but not the Fourth. Sometimes I do feel like such a stranger in a strange land, but it’s because EVERYTHING here is different, and I usually get over it. I remember spending July 4 in Paris alone, not the best way to be in Paris, ever, but I joined a bunch of strange Americans. Not weird strange, you understand, just travelers who were mostly unknown to each other. There was a restaurant that put on a little celebration for American tourists and ex-pats, and it was a nice way to spend some time. Another time I was in Peru at about 14,000 feet with some other American hikers, and we had some wine and a lot of laughs. Then last year, here in Ghana, I and some other trainees were at a tourist site at a small hotel at the top of a mountain. No wine, but the staff built us a bonfire and we sat around and told stories. Ghanaians don’t get the thing about bonfires. Everybody has a burn pile in their yard, and most people cook outside using wood or charcoal, so they don’t understand why we would waste wood just to sit and look at the flames. So ordinarily I wouldn’t be so nationalistic, or miss home on this particular day. But it’s Sunday morning, the church drums are really firing up, and I will go eat some distinctly American food. So Happy Fourth.

Dead Fowl, No Water June 19

KB has come to help me work with my computer. The drillers have not returned, and we are wondering if another ceremony will be required when they do come. Sunday morning we find that the chicken is dead, and then we really wonder. Where you wait for transport is just outside the Presby Church and Kathryn is waiting to return to her site. When church is out we are talking with my counterpart and the committee chair, and the fetish priest joins us. All three assure us that nothing more is required when the crew returns to work. Everything is OK. KB says it’s certainly not OK for the chicken, the chicken is dead. Everybody laughs, but I explain to the priest that although we are laughing we recognize that what he does is serious. He then assures us that the fowl knew her role in the process and accepted it. I can certainly testify that seemed to be the case. During the course of several days she was tethered to a rock, then moved to a tree, to the porch out of the rain, and then to another rock. She scratched around in the dirt, but she never squawked, flapped her wings, or gave any sign of complaint. Interestingly enough, a dog that roams around the site sniffed her out a couple of times, but always wandered away. It seemed to me that the fowl was quite sanguine about the entire process, so don’t be calling the animal rights people, OK?

I am learning more about how all this works, but the drillers started in another spot on Sunday and today they took their equipment off to another job. They have not found water. They will have their hydro-geologist come back to site and do another analysis, and then they will return. It is the geologist who failed them, not the fetish priest. They began this job without the proper rituals, and it was for this reason the earth seized their drill pipe and broke it off underground. After he did the appropriate libations, they were able to remove the broken pipe from the ground and resume drilling. The fact that they did not find water is because the geologist did not point them to the right spot, and has nothing to do with the need for libations. However, after the geologist does another analysis, and they return with the drilling equipment, we will pour more libations before they begin work. That’s really just a precautionary measure, but I will insist on it.

It seems that this village is actually located between two rivers. The smaller one, down the hill to the northwest, is protected by a goddess who cares for the women in the village. Because of her concern she always releases enough water that they can do their work and take care of their families as they have always done. (But that was before giant poly tanks entered the picture.) The larger river is up the hill on the other side of the road, deeper in the forest. It is that river that feeds the groundwater supply, and it is guarded by a male god who is very concerned about what is happening to the environment. He is particularly disturbed that mineral deposits are being moved around and depleted, and is reluctant to let just anybody come in here and do whatever they want in his domain. It was probably he, or one of his lesser gods, who seized the pipe as a small warning to the villagers to do this properly. And I’m with him. A few months ago I visited a small village where a company is mining for gold on the surface. You could see the chemicals, including arsenic and cyanide, going right into the small river and then seeping through to the groundwater supply. The chief of that village knows what is happening, but has brushed away the concerns of a few obrunis who always seem to worry about something that is not their concern.

So we will wait for the geologist to do his work, the fetish priest will then do his, and when the drillers return they will find water. My friend has another bottle of lavender scent that she has offered to donate to the cause if we need it. I also bought some lavender silk flowers (made in China) that we can use as well, so I think we have it covered. Will keep you posted.

This was the last leg of my journey in Ghana. On Good Friday, April 2, I awoke at about 5am to the sound of drums from the nearby churches. We had coffee and packed up to go to Cape Coast. Patience helped carry our bags down the hill to the taxi station where we caught a taxi to Osien. We then caught a Tro to Koforidua and transferred to a Tro to Asamankase. Beyond that point, we weren't sure where we needed to go next, but the driver told a young man to take our bags to another station because we wanted to go to Cape Coast. I went and bought tickets to Agon Swegwu. We weren't absolutely sure we were on the right Tro, but my compass indicated that we were headed in the right general direction. Unfortunately, DeeDub discovered that she no longer had her cell phone. There had been some jostling around with people getting on and off the Tro, so she may have dropped it, or someone might have stolen it. At Agon Swegwu we got on a more traditional bus that we knew was headed for Cape Coast. From there we were obviously in a more developed, more tourist oriented area than I had been in up until then.

In all, it took us 6 hours to get to Cape Coast from Adjeikrom. When we arrived, we took a taxi to "The Mighty Victory Hotel." This hotel was very nice, with a small refrigerator in the room, air conditioning, ceiling fan, warm water, a large lobby and dining area. After a short nap, we made an appointment for dinner (lobster) and walked to a store nearby that sold wine. The dinner was quite tasty.

The next morning, we had breakfast and started out walking to find a cell phone store. We were too early and stores weren't open yet, but we soon found ourselves near the ocean, walking by what are called fish ovens. Dried fish are a big staple in Ghana and you see women with large bowls full of them on their head. As we went along, we spotted some brightly colored canoes in the ocean. We cut between some buildings to walk down on the beach. We walked by a couple of young men who seemed to be searing and scraping the hide off of what looked like a small pig (I didn't really want to look to closely). Once we got to the beach, we could see many, many people in fishing canoes. The oarsmen would paddle the canoes, catching waves, until they could get close enough that people could get out and pull the canoe up on the beach. I've posted a video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ6l4GnEj00. There you can get a better sense of the sounds and activity that surrounded us.

We soon realized that most of the fleet was located at the foot of Cape Coast Castle; a place that had been recommended to me by Kathy Moroney at Distinctive Destinations in Sacramento, California. http://www.distinctive-destinations.com. By the way, Kathy was enormously helpful to me in preparing for this trip.Cape Coast Castle was one of the largest slave-holding sites in the world during the colonial era. It is a fascinating place to visit, but you can also see a lot of videos on YouTube that people have posted.

So, even though it was already incredibly hot and humid, we decided to take the tour. This a model thatshows the layout.

There are three dungeons where people were held in the most horrible conditions. They were dark, dank and totally stifling. The guide turned off the lights so we could get a sense of what it must have been like. I couldn't get a picture that really captured how awful it was.

Slaves were herded through "The Door of No Return" down to the beach where they were loaded onto canoes, probably not a lot different from the fishing canoes. Then they were taken to ships anchored off shore in which they would be taken to the Americas and resold. This was an amazing experience and profoundly moving. After taking a nap, we went to dinner at the Oasis Beach Hotel, which was the most tourist-like place I'd been to in Ghana. It reminded me of Jamaica. The next morning we took a taxi to Kakum, a national park where you walk on suspended bridges in the jungle canopy. The tours were a bit rushed and I understand you can arrange for early tours that would likely be more interesting: more time to look around and perhaps see birds and monkeys that were certainly not visible when we were among a large group of tourists. I started this draft in May and am just finishing it on June 29. I should not have waited so long; it's all that much more distant. However, I still think and dream about my trip and am so glad that I went. It was a huge adventure and one that DeeDub lives every day!

Several worried villagers arrive at 6:30 am to tell me the problem is not with the pipe. The problem is that we did not do the proper ritual before we began the work, and they will never find water until we rectify the situation. The fetish priest has told them he will perform the necessary ceremony if we give him 450 ghana cedis, a fowl, a bottle of schnapps, and lavender. Someone explains the lavender must be six blossoms. The committee chair, Mr. B, is a Christian and an officer in the local Presbyterian Church, but he says we must follow the local custom. If we don’t, and they don’t find water, then the

villagers will blame us. The shaman, Mr. M, arrives, there is much negotiation, and he finally agrees to 250 cedis. Everybody says the contractor must pay the money, because he should never have started the work without the proper libations being poured. I call Mr. A, owner of the company, who says he is a serious Christian and “…doesn’t hold with that stuff.” Just let him know when his men can come back to work.

Then everybody agrees that the NGO must pay the money. They had this same problem with another bore hole a couple of years ago, and the NGO paid then and should have known they would have to pay this time. I call Alex, the NGO rep who is working with me on this project. He says absolutely not, no way, no how. They have never paid for magic, and they never will. The villagers say not so, Mr. L, another NGO rep, has always paid the fetish priest for the seven years they were doing work here, but never told the NGO director. I ask Alex to check with Mr. L. Alex calls back, to say well, ok, but they’ve never paid more than 100 cedis (and this is all news to him). The NGO director authorizes 100 cedis, we hand over some money, the schnapps, and the fowl, but are stuck on the lavender. I have a spray bottle of lavender that a friend brought back from Rome, that I use when stuff in the closet gets just too musty. We spray me, the priest, everybody else, and I point out that it was made from real lavender in Europe, and he decides it will work. He will do the ritual at midnight tonight (Tuesday) and the crews can come back to work tomorrow. We’ll see, and that will be the next update.

They brought their equipment in yesterday afternoon, and started work this morning! Dozens of villagers come and sit for hours watching them work. The chief is being installed tomorrow, but they say they will continue to work. Even if there is a lot of traffic and activity down the hill in the village proper, they will be here. The NGO is still adamant that there will be no submersible pump, and the women must continue to carry water up the ladder to fill the polytank. The chief says we must trust the NGO, they know what is best for us. Just another form of colonialism as far as I am concerned, but nobody wants to go against their chief. The committee members are thrilled to see the work begin, and so am I.

The owner of the drilling company has assured me privately that he knows how to get around these NGOs, and there WILL be a pump. Says he has heard what good work the committee and I are doing, and he will be sure we get what we need. I’m not sure how that will work, but I’m really glad to hear it. I think he is a really good guy, I trusted his information a lot during the struggle to find a contractor, and I was really glad when they gave him the contract. (I heard that the NGOs reluctance about him was because they thought I was getting a kickback! They call it chop here, and it’s so common that it’s a regular part of the Ghanaian mindset.)

Big Delays on the Bore Hole! Tuesday. June 1.

One of the pipes has broken off in the ground, and they can’t get it out. They must wait for a different kind of pipe to come from the factory, so they pull their equipment off to another job. I think they are probably just juggling worksites, which happens routinely with contractors at home, so I am not too concerned. Mr. A, the owner, assures me it won’t be too long before the stuff they need arrives from the factory, and they will drill until they reach “ancient water”.

Monday, June 14.

Mr. A says his crews will return Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. He assures me they will install the underground plumbing to the two poly tanks, so there will be no need to retrofit. He also tells me not to worry, that everything will be the way we want it.

Two newbie Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) came to spend five days at a working site, mine. They had been in country all of five days, and got here on their own via public transportation. Tro-tros, shared taxis, etc. So they got here early afternoon, and we walked around the village, brought home cold beer, had a proper dinner, and made an early night of it. They probably hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since they got here. Next day Grace, a runner who has done several marathons, ran early morning, while it was cooler, but she was followed by a whole parade of kids who were fascinated. Then we went to a nearby market town, checked out the (stone-age) internet café, ate Ghanaian food at a chop bar, and got totally soaked by a sudden rain. In bed by nine, but remember it’s dark here by 6:15.

So my cell phone rings at 10:30, which seems like the middle of the night, and Osa is calling to tell me I have a visitor. He is bringing the visitor up the hill. I’m thinking it’s some crazy friend who came to surprise me (I can always hope), but it is five women loaded down with produce and other market goods. They had purchased goods at a village beyond us, on a very treacherous road, and were on their way to Accra when their vehicle lost its steering and went over the side. They made their way, carrying all the market goods, a couple of kilometers to town, where someone took them to Osa who then brought them to the guest house. Great hubbub on the porch outside the room where the newbies were sleeping. The women were telling Osa what happened, and he was translating for me in English, but everybody was very voluble and Osa kept saying how lucky they were to be alive. It was Grace that saved them, he kept saying, great Christian that he is. Only by Grace are they alive, and etc. Meanwhile PCT Grace, who doesn’t understand any of this, hears a lot of shouting and hears her name over and over. She is afraid she has broken some taboo of the village and they have come to complain. She ran in shorts, could that be it? Maybe she said something wrong to one of the children? Osa and I scramble around to get mattresses so they can share one room; they were pretty traumatized and didn’t want to be separated. And probably had enough money for only one room, since they were on their way TO market, not from. But we finally have them settled in for the night, and the newbies creep out to find out what was going on. Great confusion, many explanations, and much laughter. Poor Grace, however, has pumped so much worry-induced adrenaline that she can’t get back to sleep, the roosters start right on time, and soon it’s time to get started on the rest of the quest.

We go to the Bead Market in Kofaridua, visit the living quarters of another PCV and another village where jewelry is made from the beads, have chicken and real vegetables for late lunch, and call it a day. (But it was a 15-hour day, at least, and all done on tros.) Next day they did bucket laundry, some Peace Corps home work, and Osa took them on a three-hour Cocoa Tour. Everybody got overheated, which only confirmed their love for the bucket bath. Patience made us a splendid dinner of Ghanaian recipes that Westerners like, and the next day they headed out on their own to make their way to the PC Training Hub in Kukurantumi.

Because I write this stuff sometimes and can’t get to the internet, I am posting several today. I hope. So they will be new, but should have a title and a date so you know what you’re reading. Hope it all works. Cheers, dw

It may be that the wonderful feelings we experience about that nature connection are a Western luxury. Wasn’t there a guy, maybe Maslow, who said you can’t appreciate nature, or any other kind of beauty, until your other needs are met? I sort of remember a triangle, with food, sex, shelter, comfort, etc., tapering up to the top. But I always thought he missed the point, because the cave paintings to me represented a basic need for art that I think is universal. My time here in Ghana has made me re-examine all of that. I was immediately surprised by the lack of landscaping, color, etc., in a place where I expected to see a profusion. Maybe I expected it to be more like Jamaica, based on climate, British colony, etc., But it’s not. (On the other hand, because of that British influence I expected good gin, excellent tea, and tonic water. Not happening here.)

It may be cultural, but I just can’t figure it out. For about seven to 10 minutes at a certain time in some evenings, the light changes everything into this luminous glow that is like nothing I have seen. And I thought the violet glow from the sun setting behind Haleakala was as good as it gets. There are sometimes sunsets visible from my porch that just take my breath away, but people don’t understand what I am excited about. There is also their curiosity about my home, and they sometimes overlap. For example, a genuine question, Do you not have sunsets in your country? And, Is this moon the same one you see at home? There is a huge lack of knowledge about just basic geography, but there seems to be something else in play as well.

Some of the Peace Corps art teachers have given a good example. They announce this is individual or independent art time, give a kid blank paper and paint or colored pencils, and wait for the result. There is none. The kid explains, but you didn’t tell me what to draw. Our teachers are absolutely the best, and they are making changes and modeling different ways, but they have all commented on the same experience.

Since I have been at site I have seen few if any birds or butterflies, but that is changing with the season. I recently saw eight butterflies in one day, and each of them was spectacularly different from the others. And there are now more than 100 small yellow birds in one palm tree outside my front door at six every morning. I just stand and gawk, and people going to fetch water ask what I am doing. I point out the birds, and the response is a Ghanaian version of, “Yeah. So what’s your point?” And the last two weeks I have seen things starting to bloom, so there are big swaths of color where there were just various shades of green.

I get letters from hikers at home about the fall colors, or from kayaking friends about being on the delta with the herons, and I get a visceral kind of jealousy. It’s not that there isn’t beauty here, there is, but maybe there’s just no one to share it with. In the way we would share at home, as we both or all experience one of those moments. A single heron, or a flock of geese heading south, or the way the trees on some Sacramento streets explode with beauty in the spring and fall. I remember when I was on campus, I would have a severe attack of hyper-aesthesia at the way the fall colors blended with each other as I walked the quad.

Maybe this business about being one with nature is hard to get to if the regular experience is one where you are losing. The ants, the termites, the mosquitoes, the house that’s melting in the rain, the crop that is failing because now there is no rain, etc. I know at home we think farmers have a special bond to the land, and I still think so…even in the days of agri-business, but the guy picking grapes for minimum wage may not think so. I just don’t know. But I wish you were here, and we could have a real conversation about it all.

When Christo wrapped a lot of the Napa Valley in white parachute silk, I took Kelley out of school and we drove to see it the last week when they were taking it down. We were stopped on a dirt road at the end of a long driveway, and the farmer walked down to get his mail. He was a lot like my dad, dark from the fields, not very communicative, eyes taking in everything. We howdied and shook, and I asked what he thought of the fence. He had started back up the drive, but he turned around and said, “Well, I thought it was pretty stupid.” Long silence, then , “But I sure am gonna miss it when it’s down.”

Enough for today. The whole point of a blog is to be here now, not come back and edit, and polish, etc. Have a good day. And enjoy the sunset.

Things do bloom here after all, and it is wonderful. Even the plain green stuff has new growth of brighter crisper green, and there are blossoms in trees and plants that I thought were dead. The rainy season isn’t here yet, but it’s on its way. The nights are really sticky hot and new insects are making themselves known. But so are birds, and butterflies, and millions of baby chicks. They are so adorable when you watch them follow the mom around and learn how to scratch for food; but then you just turn around and they’ve turned into teenagers, and they leave their mess all over the front porch, and make noise when you’re trying to sleep. And baby goats! They wrestle each other like puppies, roll around, charge after each other, butt heads, etc. And so many different markings I have never seen. Pinto goats, striped goats, grey speckled goats, etc. There are some brown ones with sorta pointy ears, and once in a while I will see one almost hidden behind a shrub and for a split second it’s a deer and I’m back in Volcano. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s a trip.

There are lambs as well, but the sheep here are big with really long skinny legs and look more like ponies than the sheep we know. Their wool is more like dreadlocks that have never been groomed, and some are black with that really bad henna job on the ends. Not good. And they lose each other all the time so they are constantly crying for a mom, or a baby. Not like those cuddly things in the hills around Stinson. And somehow I don’t think I would ever want to eat one of these, although I have no compunctions at home. I remember when we would be driving to the Coast, and Sheila would get all mooney, and “Oh, nushka, look at the babies!” and Annie and I would go, “Right. Let’s eat ‘em!” Not here, but I have learned to make a good pasta sauce from tinned mutton. The food nazi in retreat.

Early one morning though, when I was at the beach, I saw a man washing a flock of sheep in the ocean. One guy kept the rest of the flock off to one side, and the other man would pick up a big sheep and carry it out into the deep waves. Some were fairly passive, but some really struggled to avoid the water. There was no stopping him, he was big and strong, and he kept each one up to its neck in salt water for a really long time while he washed away at it. Go figure.

On March 30, we went to visit Jennifer, DeeDub's home-stay mother. When DeeDub first came to Ghana, she went to stay with a family for a period of time. Jennifer, pictured left, is a school teacher and lives with her extended family in a matriarchal compound. Below is Jennifer's mother and her daughter, Patience. Another daughter, Faustina, is trying to get into nursing school. Jennifer is very entrepreneurial and is growing cocoa plants to sell. She also raises chickens.

The compound is made up of several buildings surrounding a central area (shown above). Patience is ill and has lost an enormous amount of weight. Doctors have not yet been able to diagnose her illness, but Jennifer has prepared a herbal root and dried cassava to help treat her.

We stayed for a short visit and then caught a taxi back to Osien, where DeeDub was trying to see Madame Teresa about providing pizza for a girl's camp DeeDub is planning. Madame Teresa was not there, but it starting pouring rain, so we decided to share a beer and wait it out before catching a Tro back to Adjeikrom.

On the morning of March 31, we ran out of propane. DeeDub had been hearing that there was a significant shortage of propane and that people were having a hard time getting it. Osa came and took DeeDub's tank and the tank from the kitchen building and embarked on the project of trying to find some. DeeDub had to give him travel money (Tros and/or taxis) in addition to money for the propane so he could travel around on his search.

In the meantime, we set out to go to a dedication of a new kindergarten building that a couple of Peace Corps volunteers had built (both by raising money and through their labor). This couple, Marian and Alan Ruge, are stationed in Brekumanso and the school is in KwakuSae. We caught a Tro from Adjeikrom to Koforidua, where we changed to a Tro going to Asmankese. After a lot of confusion regarding how to pronounce the names of the various destinations, we were let off at the junction to KwakuSae. We then started hiking up the dirt road (in the noon-day sun, of course) to the school. I think we walked a good 20 minutes before I started hearing drums in the distance. We were quite relieved when the Peace Corps Country Director, Mike, and his driver, Kofi, stopped and picked us up to drive us the rest of the way. Whew! Air conditioned splendor!

There were quite a few people there singing and dancing. The building in the background of the first shot is the existing school building. The second picture is the new kindergarten building.

We retired to the room on the far right and had meat patties and soft drinks. The event was starting much later than originally planned because the dignitaries were late in arriving. One group was from the Presbyterian Church. Apparently the school was founded by Presbyterians. Below are some women wearing fabric that commemorates their church. Apparently it is quite common for the "church ladies" to have clothes made of fabric made to order by churches.

Once they arrived, there was a series of speeches, all of which were quite moving. Everyone praised Marian and Alan for their dedication and very hard work and encouraged residents to continue to support improvements to the school system. They even got the main political figure that was there to commit to providing computers!

Mike and his driver gave us a ride to Koforidua, where we spent the night at the "Partners May" hotel. What a trip!

We went to the restaurant and asked if they had white wine. All they had that was anything close was warm champagne. We then asked if they had gin and tonic. The man said he'd have to call the bar. So, we walked to the bar which was down the driveway, close to the road. A young woman was finally able to serve us each a jigger of dry gin (they don't know what gin is) and a bottle of fruit juice (no ice). We enjoyed it! DeeDub went back up to the restaurant and got a menu so we could decide what we wanted and allow plenty of time for food preparation. She very wisely suggested that we choose backups as it turned out all of our choices were "finished." The only thing available was fried fish (tilapia), which turned out to be quite tasty. It was a challenge eating though, since we decided to eat outside at the bar and there was no light. Picking around the fish heads and bones was slow going, but it was good.

The morning of April 1, we went downstairs and had the breakfast before taking a cab into the part of Koforidua near the Krobodan Internet Cafe. Kathryn, a Peace Corps volunteer, has an office at this facility. In addition to the internet cafe project, this organization (Dutch, I think) has women who make jewelry. There are tons of non-profit organizations that are set up to help Ghana develop. Volunteers come from all over the world, not just the Peace Corps.

We met Rebecca (another Peace Corps volunteer) at the internet cafe and she took me to the bead market. Rebecca also works with women who make and sell beads. Anyway, her assistance was great and I was able to buy lots of beautiful beads at a very reasonable price. She's a monster bargainer!

Rebecca also helped me buy some beautiful fabric.

Later, after we returned to the internet cafe and met Kathryn, the four of us went to lunch.

These women are great (Kathryn left, DeeDub and Rebecca right)! They provide enormous support for each other: exchanging magazines, picking up mail in Accra for each other, and texting each other to exchange ideas. Although they are stationed in different villages, they get together periodically. Neat!

On March 28, the day after the engagement ceremony, we went to the Wedding Blessing in Bosuso. Again, Patience came to escort us to the event. We walked down the main street to the area where taxis, Tros and busses stop and caught a taxi to the neighboring village. The blessing, by three different clergymen, took place in an Apostolic Church. We were given front row seats, so had an excellent view of the entire ceremony.

The ceremony itself was very much like an American church wedding: the bride is lead down the center aisle by her father and turned over to the groom and they exchange vows and rings. Again, I was able to understand very little of what was said, but because the various aspects of the ceremony were familiar, because some English words were used, and because I had Patience to explain to me what was going on, this ceremony was a little more like home. This is a picture of Mary, Richard, and Mary's father.

Aside from three different clergymen being involved in the ceremony, there were some other unique characteristics. The most remarkable was a series (three, I think it was) of people parading up to put money in a box for the bride and groom.

The people sing and dance throughout these offerings and other parts of the ceremony. The excitement generated by their energy and joy was really quite remarkable and at one point I felt absolutely dizzy. Of course it was hot and humid, but that couldn't account for my heart beating so wildly.

You can get a better sense of how exhilarating it all was by watching my video of the blessing ceremony on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWr8C7s3cE.

The picture above is of Patience; Dorothy's Peace Corp counterpart, Osa; and our wonderful DeeDub, more commonly known in Ghana as Mama Dee. It was taken outside the church after the ceremony. by the way, it appears that sometimes you can click on the photographs to see an enlargement. I can't figure out why it doesn't always work.

The village where Dorothy lives and works does not appear on any map I've been able to find. Adjeikrom is northwest of Koforidua, which is almost directly north of Accra. Dorothy is currently involved in compiling a census of the village; no one really knows how many people live there. There is one main road through town. The picture to the left is taken from the north end of town, near the guest house where Dorothy lives.

The guest house was built by Cadbury and is part of a campus that includes a visitors' center, a screened canteen, a kitchen building, a four-shower bath structure, two latrines, and a large yard. I have posted a video of where Dorothy lives on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hjL9Sj6vVY

This is Dorothy standing outside the two rooms in the guest house that she lives in. One room is her bedroom and the other is a living area that includes a cooking area, a desk, a single bed/couch, and a couple of chairs.

We were very fortunate to be invited to a couple of events: a traditional engagement ceremony and a wedding blessing for Mary Tetteh and Richard Narketey. The engagement ceremony took place at Mary's father's house in Adjeikrom on . Patience (a young woman who sometimes works for Dorothy) came to escort us to the engagement ceremony. We walked down the main road and then walked off to the right between several mud buildings. The ceremony actually took place between several buildings, under canvas canopies that had been set up. When we arrived there were already many people there. There were two groups facing each other. One group was the bride's guests and the other was the groom's guests. I estimate there were more than a hundred people in all.

Soon after we arrived, a "door-knocking" ceremony began. This involved many of the groom's family/guests asking permission to enter and present gifts to the bride's family. I have posted a video of the engagement ceremony at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69xs5sP6eEA

Because the ceremony was not in English, I had to rely on what Patience told us about what was going on. The ceremony involves a lot of negotiation and numerous appearances of the bride in different outfits. I noticed that the bride's hair arrangement changed with each outfit, but I don't know if there was any significance to that. The negotiations appeared to concern "bride price" or what the groom's family was offering to give the bride's family for the couple's wedding. At one point representatives from both families retire to a building where they apparently "audit" what the groom's family is giving. During another part of the ceremony, several women get up and sing to the groom's family a song that apparently questions how the groom will "perform" as a husband.

After the families arrive at an agreement, Mary looks for her husband to be. She obviously knows that he is there, but at this point he is hidden behind a cloth. As you can see by watching the video, everyone is obviously very amused by this trick.

The last part of the video shows Mary presenting a "libation" to her father. Her father asks her if he should accept the libation. By telling him to accept it, she is telling him that she wants to marry Richard.

The ceremony that day was an abbreviated version of the truly traditional ceremony that apparently can last a very long time. This version lasted 3 or 4 hours and was actually interrupted by a rain storm that filled the canopies and flooded the packed mud floor. The ceremony was then moved to the chief's palace. Dorothy & I went back to her place because Kate and Tony (teachers from Tafo) came to exchange books with Dorothy.

I flew into Accra from Sacramento on March 24. Dorothy checked into our room at the Afia Beach Hotel early and rode with the hotel's driver to the airport to meet me. The hotel was modestly priced, quite comfortable, and within easy walking distance of the National Cultural Center (a huge craft market). I was overwhelmed with the heat and humidity so was quite pleased that we could return to an air conditioned room after changing money and getting lost in the craft market.

Osa, Dorothy's Peace Corps counterpart from Adjeikrom (Odd-jay-chrome) came to Accra on my third morning there to help us get all of our luggage (and us) back to Adjeikrom.

Osa went with us to find a coffin-carver studio that Dorothy had read about and the Artists' Alliance Gallery on Labadi Road. We went to the gallery first and it was quite good with a beautiful, large collection of art and crafts, including some beautiful examples of the exotic coffins. Unfortunately, the gallery does not permit photographs. But, these coffins are amazing. They come in a variety of forms: a large red fish, an airplane, a small lion, etc. I was able to take a couple of pictures of coffins that were on the second floor of the carvers' studio.

After checking out of the hotel, we took a cab through the streets of Accra to the station where we would catch a Tro that would take us to Adjeikrom.

As Dorothy described in an earlier posting, Tros are vans that provide transportation throughout Ghana. They are typically packed with passengers and the back door must be tied shut to hold all of the luggage and products being transported. The station was wild: lots of people carrying a huge variety of wares on their heads. Everything from pure water in small plastic satchets, to food, to sandals, to toothpaste. It was total chaos.

If you are interested, I have posted a video of Accra at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frcOsR9_yrs

At the end of the trip, we returned to Accra for my departure back to the US. This time we stayed at Beachcomber Guesthouse in Nungua. This was less expensive than the Afia and quite nice.

I would recommend both of these hotels. However, the Afia had the distinct advantage of having cold white wine available at the bar!

Ann Campbell

April 1, 2010. Just a quick update, and I think I may have sounded more morose than I actually felt. A friend from home is visiting me, and it is just wonderful. Also, the projects are taking hold. So here's a brief review. 28 kids showed up for the English club, and didn't even have to be bribed. I'm thinking of word games we can play, and they had a spelling bee that was a lot of fun. More later.

The grant money that we did get includes funds to drill a new borehole on campus, with an electric pump that would fill both polytanks. They are now filled by women, one bucket at a time, from a borehole about half a mile away. One tank will flush the toilets in the visitor center, and the other will provide water for the kitchen and have a standpipe close to the gueshouse. My house water, stored in a large garbage can, now is filled separately but from the far borehole. So we are getting bids for the work, and it's pretty fun. Apparently old ladies, or women of any age, don't ask questions like:

What size pump? What's the hp? How deep will you drill, and what kind of guarantee will we have that the hole won' t dry up three months later? The first bid we got was like 6800 ghana cedis for drilling, 500 for development, and 200 for plumbing. When I asked the director what he meant by development, and what size pipe he would use for the plumbing, he hung up on me. So I am seeking new bids now, and have talked with a couple of guys that seem really promising. One says they will drill through bedrock to deliver *ancient water*, and the other says at least 300 feet. The members of the committee were as shocked as I was that the first bid refused to provide any real information, and each said (with no prompting from me) that it was totally unacceptable.

I am also working with the pastors of four churches in the village, three of which do not have electricity. For one Sunday a month we will ask each member of the congregation to contribute one cedi to the electricity fund. I also had a census done, and just got the results. Five men in the village went to every household and asked how many adults, how many kids and what age, do they go to school, and whether there is light in the house. I am trying to put it all into an Excel spreadsheet, and use the information to convince the District Assembly that they should help. Then I can show that X number of kids in this village don't have electricity at home, that the two schools do not have electricity so kids can't learn computer skills or study at home, etc. Everybody is excited about that, because we don't even know how many people live here, and they are checking with me to be sure they got included, etc. We will try to raise the money locally, and try for matching funds from the government and/or with an NGO. I want it to be THEIR project, not mine, and not just so the white lady can have electricity in her quarters. It requires a lot of money from people where the minimum wage is 3 cedis a day, but people are working together to see it happen.

A friend lives close to a church that often has all-night services, and she reminds me that as soon as they have power the two churches across the road from me will install amplifiers, but I'll deal with that when the time comes. In either event I'll be ready to go home by the time we get this done, but I'm not leaving yet.

February 27, 2010. Redistribution in Ghana

This time we’re talking about weight. I now weigh exactly what I did when I first married, but the distribution seems to be quite different. The waistline has definitely not gone back to that magic number of yore, and my new bra size appears to be 36 long. But people want to know the secret, and I am glad to share. I am pretty sure any of you could lose 35 pounds if you just gave up bread and dairy for a few months. We’re not talking here about wheat toast and a little yoghurt for breakfast. We’re talking about crusty French bread smothered in drippy cheese, or that good Italian bread soaked in olive oil just before the rich, creamy parmesan sauce appears on the pasta. Or scones with real butter. Or that second bowl of ice cream just before bed. I can do a version of mac and cheese here, but it involves powdered milk, wedges of Laughing Cow, and mustard from one of those little packets from the hot-dog stand in the US. It’s not the same. The other problem involves cooking for one with no refrigeration. I have lived alone and eaten very well for many years, some might say too well. But I could always make a great stew, or a ratatouille, and if I didn’t want to eat it for a week I could freeze the rest for later. Now, putting more than three ingredients in a single recipe makes too much for one meal, and there is no way to keep it safe. It’s also possible that one- or two-item dishes just don’t seem that appetizing, day after day and I now understand why Ghanaians do not eroticize their food the way we do at home. So give it a try, but this is probably just a temporary state of affairs. I like my new body, however, and really hope that when I get home and have access to all that good stuff I can hold the line at no more than 10 lbs. We’ll see.

February 22, 2010. Just came through a really hard two weeks, but I think it will all be fine. We knew that the Cadbury Foundation had approved funds for our grant, but didn’t have any details. And it would come to us through another NGO that seemed to be obfuscating. At home most, if not all, non-governmental organizations operate as non-profits. We know that it’s pretty easy to not make a profit…just fly all the execs first class, or buy a new limo, or whatever. But in Ghana the profit thing isn’t so clear, and I know of at least a couple of NGOs that are making money. It’s all very confusing.

Anyhow, it seemed that the priorities were shifting around, and that a big chunk of the grant will come off the top for management fees, or whatever, for the NGO and because of “budget constraints” there is nothing left for the electricity project. Then I was “disinvited” to the meeting where all would be explained. That whole scene actually felt like the time in Seventh Grade when you’re in a stall in the girls’ lavatory and you hear the other girls planning a party but trying to figure out how to do it without specifically inviting you. Remember that one? So I was in a pretty dark tunnel for a while there, but I think I’m past it now. And of course, it feels so good to be getting any money at all that nobody wants to make waves by questioning anything. And I get that, as well, it’s just so frustrating.

So I just started thinking about secondary projects I could be doing, and I’ll be so busy I won’t have time to think about the crummy stuff. I am starting an after-school English club, and am prepared to bribe kids with snacks and juice boxes to get them to show up. For one hour we will speak only English, but they can choose any topic. A movie, a TV show, a book, what somebody’s little sister did, etc. Just as long as it is English. The kids in my village need a lot of help with that, but it is the official national language and they will never make it out of the village without better skills.

And we are hosting a Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) conference here in August! I am really excited about it. Five days, girls ages 13 to 16, with some older girls as quasi-counselors. They have to be good English speakers, and be recommended by a teacher, but can come from anywhere in the Eastern Region. We will have workshops on everything from setting goals to five different ways to say no. And it will be the first time my village has been entirely on their own to host a conference. No NGO, just us. It will be great!

February 1, 2010

A standard farewell in Ghana is to say “I will come visit you there” so when a cab brought me home last week I wasn’t surprised to hear the driver say that. We had talked briefly about how it was for me in Ghana, and he had said he wants to visit America, and etc. Everybody wants to visit America, and almost every time I am on a tro someone says the same thing. Earlier that same day a man traveling with his young son, but who might have been drinking, said he thought I could get him there somehow. After much discussion about how expensive it is to fly, hard to get a visa, etc., I told him that frankly there aren’t any free tickets to the US, and he was on his own as far as I was concerned. I reached home and forgot about both conversations. That’s just standard stuff you get all the time from Ghanaian men, who frequently also say they want to marry you. I usually tell them I have too many husbands already, and it’s kind of a game, but sometimes you just get sick of it. My latest response is that I have two husbands at home, but if this guy has a good enough job to support all of us I will consider it.

So imagine my surprise when the cab driver showed up yesterday, with a female classmate. She didn’t speak the entire time they were here, so I don’t know what that’s about. He couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize him right away, and had to keep reminding me of our conversation. As in, you are the grandmother, so you are too old for it to work, but I know you have many young white women in the Peace Corps and I thought you were going to introduce me to them. I ask, “Are you saying that you want to meet one of the white women so you can get to America?” “Yes,” and he was so relieved that I finally got it. Again, however, he had to emphasize “..but you are too old for it to work so you must introduce me to a younger woman.” I asked about his studies, he is probably around 22 or 23 and goes to high school, which is not uncommon here. He is studying agriculture, but wants to study engineering. I showed him on the map how far away from my site the younger white women are (just the ones really far). But he insisted he has seen them around Kukurantumi, so I was probably holding out on him. I explained there had been several week-long training sessions last month, but they are all back at their sites now, as I am. He realized it was probably a lost cause, but he is really disappointed. By that time I was cranky, and I advised him that maybe he could get to the US on his own. He should study hard, learn to read and speak English well, and try for a scholarship to study engineering at a university in the US. He thought that would be much too hard, but I think there’s a better chance of that than there is that some white chick with an extra ticket would stop him on the street and take him home with her. They left, and I would love to know what his companion understood or thought of all this. And I sort of wondered what he has that won’t work because I’m too old. But I’m not curious enough to want to have another conversation with him.

Turtles December 19

I just learned that turtles are nesting on Ghanaian beaches during November and December. Too late for me now, but I will see them next year. I was on the first plane into Costa Rica after a hurricane during nesting season, but the roads to beaches were still closed. Missed nesting in Mexico by days, and Carolina coast by default. But I will see them next year,

I remember a book, but don’t remember the author or title. (Bryant and Ken go, “Yep, that’s Dorothy’s World.”) But what I do remember is reading it in one afternoon, and the light in my room seemed to be filtered through aquarium glass. Then they made a movie, (Glenda Jackson, maybe?) and for days the light around me was filtered and I could summon the feeling of being underwater.

Now, behind my eyelids, I am swimming in that grey-green opaque water, alongside a turtle who is already older than I will ever be, as she steadfastly continues to do her part to keep the universe in balance.

Coffee January 12, 2010

In the 50’s I was a Chemex coffee snob, and with good reason, and got Thanksgiving Coffee from a fishing village on the Northern California coast. I have been buying coffee at Coffee Works in my home town since they started roasting their own sometime in the 60’s, and my daughter, bless her, sends it to me here in Ghana. But recently a friend, who has in the past referred to Starbucks as the K-Mart of the coffee world, sent me some of their little tubes of instant. And it’s really good! For as long as I have been traveling, Nestle has had a lock on coffee in most of the developing world. I have had Nescafe in Mexico, Greece, Thailand, Ireland, even in England before the Italians taught them how to make proper coffee, etc. It is always accompanied by a slight shrug and the question, “Is Nescafe all right?” The VIA may not be quite as good as fresh roasted and filtered, but it’s pretty darn good. This is not a plea for anyone to send me more, I just want to share the good things. Easy to pack, or to mail, great for camping, and you can even carry a couple little tubes in your pocket. Score one for the Pacific Northwest!

African Sounds, January 14, 2009

My living room is in the corner of the guest house, with windows to the west and south. I leave them open all the time, to catch any breeze there might be. (They are glass louvers, with rebar across about every six inches up, and screen over the entire thing.) The bedroom has a window on that same west wall, and there is a path about 10 feet away that leads from the main road to the river. There is another path on the far east side of the guesthouse that circles down the hill and below to the river, so there is a lot of foot traffic. Kids go to fetch water at first light, and others off and on all day. Water is carried in huge aluminum saucerlike pans, in empty gas cans, or anything else that can be found or purchased. There are also farmers carrying bananas in from the farm, or hunters who look for bush meat in the forest by the river. There is something called a grass cutter, that looks and tastes pretty much like wild rabbit, but without the ears. And they find (and sometimes farm) huge snails here, about nine or more inches, and about four inches high. They are prized meat, but I can’t quite go there.

There is always a sheep somewhere with a full bag of milk crying to get the young ones to come feed, and there are always goats calling to each other. There is one goat that calls in the evening, and sounds exactly like a frail old man going “Hellllpp, heellpp.” The first few times I heard it I really thought there was a problem, but now it’s just part of the fabric of the day. Five or six kids in the field under my window have a pick-up game of futbol going almost every day when they should be in school but aren’t. I think they must hear radio broadcasts, because if someone makes a goal they all shout these huge cries trying to sound like an entire stadium. There’s usually a kid crying somewhere, and Ghanaian kids have very structured cry patterns. You eventually sort out if someone is really hurt, or being caned at the school across the street or by a parent, or he is just going to keep up the cry until someone comes to comfort him. Nobody ever does, and eventually the kid gives up and goes on his way.

So there is always someone drumming on his bucket on the path, or roosters crowing ALL day starting at about 4am. There is a church up the hill and on either side of the main road, and there is drumming and/or music almost every night from at least one of them, often both. Recently one has had a generator and amplifiers for special events, which go sometimes for an entire week-end, both day and night. Both congregations assure me they are praying that we will succeed in getting electricity all the way up the hill. The downside to that is that they will immediately get amplifiers to improve their services. As it is now I go to sleep to drumming, often wake up to the muslim call to prayer, and doze until the second or third rooster alarm goes off. And for now it’s really nice, and I just work all the sounds into my dreams, or some kind of meditation.

However, there is one animal (locals say ah nee mall) that freaked me out for a long time. It is the most agonizing cry I have ever heard, and it sometimes goes on for as long as an hour. Always at night, it starts and stops in a pattern, and you wake and remember where you are; then you hear the scream again, then your mind hears the scream, the silence, the lash, the scream, the silence, the lash, etc. Villagers just reassured me it was an ahneemall, but nobody knew what kind. Recently, however, one man tells me it is a nocturnal animal that looks much like a rabbit, but is not a grasscutter. He doesn’t know the name, but says it lives in trees, and before it comes down at night to feed it makes those horrendous screams to scare away any predators that might be lurking about. It certainly works for me…I would let him have just about anything he wanted, just to shut him up. Then he stops, you begin to hear the drums again, and know that all is well in your village.

As you can well imagine, there are always language problems. And kids who always ask for money, or biscuits,or a pen,or whatever. I always say, "I thought you came to give ME money. How much will you give me, etc." I think it's pretty funny, they don't always. So New Years Day two guys, young adults maybe 20-25? stopped me on the road with a basket of food. I didn't know what they wanted, exactly, but I did the usual, Oh, food for me? And they explained again they wanted me to put food in the basket. Something about Hagar, death, and whatever. But for the new year they take food to the village. Did I mention these guys were covered in white powder? Hair, faces not so much, shoulders and bare chests, etc. I got that it was some NY thing for the village, so we went back to my place and I put some things in the basket. (Trailmix, yes, Pkg Tuna, no.)After they left, a smallboy nearby explained that Hagar had tried to kill them, and they had escaped. More mystery, but I remember there is a Hagar in the bible so I thought it was some bible story. WrongoBongo. In my very village a woman named Hagar wanted to get rid of her boyfriend, so she prepared a "special holiday meal" for him and his friend. For some reason they did not eat it. One person says the friend was suspicious, another person says the friend just wasn't hungry and it would have been rude of the boyfriend to eat if his friend did not. But you don't waste food in Africa, so they gave the food to the dog. Who died. Well, Hagar couldn't think of another way to get rid of her boyfriend, so she could go off with her new boyfriend, so she tried to poison him. (Isn't there a movie she could have watched, or a song about ways to leave your lover?) And the white powder is to show that they were with Death, but they escaped. And there is a Krobo tradition that you collect food for everyone in the village on the first day of the new year to guarantee that there will be food for everyone in the coming year. They just took it a step further, because they HAD escaped death, and wanted us all to rejoice for them, and with them. I was sorry I didn't get the whole picture right away, but they did look pretty bizarre covered in gray ash and asking for food. A villager told me that the district police did go to arrest Hagar, but she has gone away and they don't know where. Probly with the new BF, dontya think? Anyhow, that's it for NY. And I didn't get to eat any black-eyed peas, but I didn't eat lunch with these guys, either. And doesn't this just beat all?.

What I did do New Year's eve is stay up past midnight (probably the first in a long time) with a friend who spent the night. We drank a superb bottle of Australian wine, and watched the most incredible full moon I've seen in years. Some time after we went to bed, so it must have almost been morning, villagers burned tires in the middle of the road through town...some New Age arrangement with them and the tire companies. But it was all very grand, and I am sure we had a second full moon that month simply because we were to appreciate it. More sooner than later, I promise. See ya. Cheers, dw

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the home/pool/yard of the Ambassador, and he and his wife could not have been more wonderful. I want to tell you all about it, but first I want you to hear this true story. You will understand why I cant give names, locations, or dates, but trust me on this one. One of our PCVs, hereafter known as Saint PCV, was assigned to a small village. We went to our sites August 15. We were expected to spend our first three months integrating into our villages, finding out who the players are, where to shop, how to shop, etc. Certainly interact with everyone who might be involved in your project, but no specific activities yet. Well, after a while in his village he asked about a small girl he had seen several times, and who seemed in dire straits. He said she was so thin her bones were like sticks, with not even flesh left for the potbelly that signals malnutrition, she was dirty, and seemed totally neglected.

Because she was. Her mother was dead (dont know those details) and one day, probably not for the first time, her father beat her. Perhaps in a frenzy caused by an aneurism, who knows, but the next morning he was dead. So obviously she took her revenge. The people in the village believe she is a ju-ju child who caused the death of both her parents, they were afraid of her, and the village decided to completely shun her, not give her access to food, and she would eventually die. If not from starvation, something else. Saint PCV, a man probably in his late thirties, not one of the new grads, knew he had to step in here. He realized he couldnt move her into his quarters, but he brought her food, bathed her, got her clothing, etc. Villagers warned him that he could jeopardize his position in the village, but he did what he had to do. He just kept feeding her, and the week before Thanksgiving, after working his way through all the cultural and bureaucratic jungles, he got her settled in an orphanage where she will be cared for. Saint PCV saved a life, and we can all give thanks for that.

And this could still play out a lot of different ways for Saint PCV. The village might find it hard to trust him...maybe her evil rubbed off on him, maybe his ju-ju is stronger than hers, which could be another problem, maybe he is just a crazy obruni and they will all go right back to where they were. Its hard to know. I have lived in two villages, each with a large Christian presence, but in both there was a seamless acceptance of the fact that someone had been cursed, or had put a curse, or something. In one case the elders, including the methodist pastor, worked to have the woman agree to remove the curse, and she did. There are at least two "camps" in Ghana for women who have been cast out of their villages for witchcraft. Usually old, but not always, no job, no source of income, and even the family is afraid of them..or afraid to help them because they might also be cursed. A female PCV has actually started a beadmaking class at one of the camps, so the women may have a skill and a source of income, although they will probably never be allowed to leave. And that wasnt even her project, either. She just started it on her own as a second project. And the Daily Dispatch, a regular newspaper in Ghana, had a story a couple of weeks ago about a pedophile who had been arrested, and who they quoted as saying, *I never had a hankering for young boys until after my stepmother put that curse on me." (I think the translater might have been watching too many cowboy movies, because *hankerin* just doesnt sound Ghanaian, but thats another topic.) And we know its always the stepmoms fault, but the point is witchcraft, sorcery, etc., is as real to many people as their daily bible classes. Or their Koran, because there is the same sort of parallel belief system further north where the villages may be almost totally muslim. Not just uneducated people, or people in the bush. It's part of the fabric of life and acts as a subtext to a great deal of thought and action, and should not be dismissed as just tribal nonsense. I have at least two other such stories that I will post when I have better computer access, but I want you to have this one for the holiday season. That child is being cared for, and the universe is a bit shinier for that.

Sorry its been so long between updates. I will have a new computer soon!!! and will be able to write at home and then just download here. Until then, love what you do and do what you love. Cheers, dw

The conference we hosted last week was totally different from what we had been told, but was great! We had been told it was a board meeting of some different NGOs. But it was a team of top managers from Cadburys eastern region, come to Ghana to check out and recommend ways to improve the Adjeikrom Cocoa Tours site. They were a wonderful group, interviewed villagers, the chief, elders, shop owners, the tourist committee, etc. They stayed one night at our guesthouse, and some put up tents in the area around. The one and only night that week that it didnt rain. Then we all went to Koforidua where they did a presentation of the conclusions they had reached, and broke them out into short term, medium, long term goals, etc. Of course the first thing they think we should work on is electricity to the site, which was great because thats what I have already been working on.

The next thing they think we could do is make the visitor center a destination of its own, which we had been working on. I had borrowed lots of crafts, baskets, jewelry, tie-dye, etc, from other PCV sites and made a wonderful display. We have a kente weaver at our site, so they got to see him weave and then buy some of his product. I also sold beer and wine to the team at the end of the day, and they think we could make that a regular thing as well. Stop, use the new flush toilets, have a cold drink, finger the display, and be on your way. But maybe come back next time for the actual tour, which takes you on a trail through the cocoa forest, and shows you every step of the production, from the seed to the final chocolate bar. Anyhow, it was great, and the best part was that everyone from our village who went to the presentation got so jazzed!. They are more invested in the project than before, and I think that will continue. There has been increased activity and interest just since I came, but this whole team made quite a splash! And their report adds weight to our work, and should be helpful when I start working on a grant, or grants, to fund the electricity. I want to do the whole village, and my supervisor is holding out for only the guest house and center, but I will keep fighting for the bigger project. Actually, I think it makes it easier to get funding, since it brings power to more than 40 homes that are without it, but she is going for the quick buck. I get her point, but Im still working on it. Well see.

I dont remember if I posted earlier about the flush toilets, but that turned into kind of a mixed bag. The minister of tourism has set flush toilets at all visitor centers as a goal for the country, and our NGO sent a contractor to make it happen. The plumbing and porcelain was already installed, but that was all. So they made a septic tank and installed a huge polytank to hold water that uses a gravity flow down to the toilets. I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but the contractor came two weeks after I did so I get all the credit. And Im happy to get it wherever I can. I have major complaints, but Im picky. Soon I hope to show you a picture of how the polytank got filled up. A series of women, carrying huge buckets of water on their heads, came up a 15 foot ladder to dump the water into the top of the tank. I know theres a better way, but I didnt get to be in charge. And there were two men holding the ladder steady, so it wasnt all up to the women. And the pump at the nearest bore hole is broken, so they had to carry much further than usual, but...

But its still Ghana, and its still beautiful, and I dont itch any more and life is good. See you all next week.

They are everywhere, all the time. There is some cultural thing about not carrying anything exposed in your hand. I was scolded by my house mom when I carried an apple out the door with me to class, but I didnt even then get the full understanding. A PCV whose been here a year used by scarf to cover an apple she was carrying. A young girl returned a book I had loaned her in a black plastic bag. The idea that there is a spot in the ocean bigger than all of Ghana and composed of used plastic doesnt compute at all. So I heard, from a good source but have not confirmed, that the UK has banned all plastic shopping bags. Totally. No more. We care about the environment. But wait,we do have this machinery we cant use any more. I know, lets sell it at a good price to a manufacturer in Ghana! And they did! Why am I not surprised? Remember all those outlawed pesticides? And even those had some redeeming social value for a country where people are hungry, but plastic bags? Gimme a break!

We all know that language evolves both cross culturally and generationally. When an American says hes pissed he means that hes really annoyed. A Brit who is pissed is too drunk to drive. Although I did once hear an Aussie say that he was pissed at his friend who got too pissed the night before. And the word thong conjures an image of a rubber sandal for me, and something quite different for my 19-year old niece. Actually, post Monica its a new image for all of us, but I digress. People in Ghana use thin black plastic bags for everything. The market lady puts two carrots in one, a green pepper in another, and then both of them in a third bag. And you absolutely cannot just put something in the bag you are already carrying, or in your pack. The locals call these plastic shopping bags rubbers. Who knows why? And as a woman of a certain age, that has a totally different meaning for me. And no, not on the foot...those are galoshes. So Im in Accra, at the Global Mammas retail shop which is full of beautiful things hand made by Ghanaian women who are paid a fair wage or a fair trade price for their work. Imagine my confusion when the cute young volunteer says, Come, let me show you the wonderful handbags the women are making out of used rubbers!. Well, I looked, and they are wonderful, but you get the picture.

I really thought that sometime last week somebody would look at a calendar and say, Hey, Deedub has a birthday coming up. But I went to the big city with a friend, whose 62nd birthday was the same week, and we checked into a 3-star hotel. Then went to PC office to check on mail, and had to take a cab to get everything back to the hotel! Cards, letters, all kinds of food treats. And some of it was actually mailed in August..I have the best friends and family in the world.

And the hotel. What can I say. I had been in Ghana four months and two days, but that was the first temperature controlled shower in all that time. When we first arrived we were taken to a school dormitory, two to a room, with an adjoining bucket-flush toilet and a shower. But the water didnt work, and there is never hot water in a shower anywhere here...or at least not where we have been staying. So I took several a day, actually got all the shampoo out of my hair, pooped in a flush toilet, and swam three times in a real pool, which was absolutely grand. And drank a G^T w/real ice. What a great two days. I kept crying when I opened mail, so I finally took it all back to my site, and opened a few each day.

Sidebar story: Before we first got to the dormitory we had a formal ceremony at PC HQ, with libations, speeches, coconut water, etc. By that time we had been up for more than 37 hours, and it just kept droning on. We were given first aid kits, containing condoms, and a lecture about how you cant be too careful. And our medical officer made a point of telling me that the last PCV she treated for HIV was 72 years old. So get that smug look off your face and keep this kit with you at all times. We finally got to the dorms and had food, and crashed. Our rooms surrounded a rectangular compound with a big cement porch all around. So in the night I wake up to the sounds of a huge party going on outside my door. At least seven of the kids were playing poker, using the condoms as chips. I have no idea how it all worked out, because I went back to sleep, but I still love the image.

ALERT JERRY SPRINGER: I finally have the news on the boys who were turned into snakes. A fetish priest has confessed that he staged the whole thing, hoping to enhance his reputation. He stole the snakes from the zoo, paid the kids some pettypetty money, and I think had some help with the photos. Anyhow, the kids are in the hands of the juvenile authorities, the voo-doo man has been arrested, and the snakes have been returned to the zoo. Whew! what a relief.

On the science front, I have learned that if you leave two to three inches of steaming water in a bucket on the porch, at least a thousand mosquitos will immediately commit suicide by diving in. You wont notice this until you have added the cold water and carried it up to the bath house, and are starting to pour the water over your body. Still, I think the mosquito vector people should be interested in this bit of info.

Good news on the job front. We are hosting a conference for 24 people at my guesthouse on October 21 and 22. Coming right up. They are bringing in their own cook and food, but apparently no generators. I think its candle time, because although there are kerosene lanterns at the site there is no kerosene to be found anywhere around! I am gathering up "product" from my fellow PCVs, hoping to have baskets, jewelry, shea butter soap, etc., on display in the visitor center as an idea of what we can use to make money for the center.

This is my first crack at on-line since my birthday, but still have to go because I am meeting someone with beads for me. You should not worry that on-line time costs me money...it's about 60 pesua an hour. The ghana cedi, composed of 100 pesuas, is currently trading at about1.46, so its no big deal. It's getting here that is hard. Although at the obruni hotel there was a functioning business center, but they wanted 60 pesua per MINUTE.

We are paid six cedis a day, and I am really struggling to live on it. *But I do have some other resources, so its more the challenge than the reality. Anyhow, when I was making $27 US an hour I would never consider paying that much for a bottle of wine. Here I have found a very nice Argentinian sauvignon blanc for 3.75 cedis, which is more than half a days pay, but it doesnt even make me blink! It's all relative. More later.

Miss youall more than I can say. And Hotmail still doesnt work here, so I cant reply to anyone with that e-mail. I can download Facebook at this site, and plan to spent a lot of time next week doing that. XXooXX Cheers, dw

To answer some questions, a tro-tro is a 12 to 15 passenger van (often holding as many as 25 people) that make regular runs between villages, towns, and cities. From my village I usually have to take a taxi to Osiem, 60p, and then a tro to Kofaridua, 1 cedi 70 p. Today I caught a tro in my village that was coming all the way here, so It took less than three hours. They are sometimes brand new with AC, and sometimes not. On the way we encountered a problem on the highway and the PCV I was meeting here had to help push their tro to get it started halfway here. Ours had no problem, but I thought you would be interested in this part. I have not been on any road in Ghana that is more than two lanes, except for the ones that are under construction and may be four lanes of dirt or mud. Anyhow, if your vehicle breaks down and will block the lane, or if there is an accident. the procedure is this:

Take your cutlass and cut down as much greenery from the roadside as possible, and strew it in the lane for at least 50 yards on either side of the accident. Whaddaya mean you dont have a cutlass? At home we call them machetes, but here its a cutlass and everybody has one, including little three-year olds who arent as tall as the cutlass is long. Anyhow, thats the drill. No flares, no traffic cones, but everybody knows what the signal means and it seems to work. We wormed our way around the stalled cars, and had no problems.

Talked with the kids this weekend and got most of the news from there, but there is some local stuff here that I need to get updated on. The Ghanaians, Christian and other, have an absolutely admirable ability to accept the one true god along with the other ones. So heres what happened a couple of months ago, when I was in homestay in a different village. Two boys were doing something bad with the lottery. I dont know if the lottery itself is evil, or just what they were doing, and I have been told both. In any event, one of the river goddesses turned them into snakes to punish them. Somebody, maybe the parents, took them from the jungle, or the forest, because a real snake would recognize that they were not real and would kill them. So they were taken and kept for safety in a locked room while they contacted a fetish priest to try and reverse the spell, or undo the curse, or whatever. In that room, however, the snakes began to vomit money, both Ghana Cedis and US bills. (20, but Im not sure of that part. No euros.)It was a big deal in my homestay village, but there were big color posters at some of the news stands in bigger cities as well. I saw before and after photos of the boys (and snakes), and it was very sad. Anyhow, the last I heard is that it has taken the priest a long time, but he says it takes a lot of different items for such a big curse. However, some people are beginning to think that perhaps he is more interested in the money than in rescuing the boys. Ya think? I will visit my homestay family soon and try to get an update. I mean, Im sorry about Walter Cronkite and all that, but I think they ought to forget the money and get those snakes turned back into boys so their families can get some relief. I will keep you posted.

A ghana cedi is currently trading at about 1.46 for one USD. Peace Corps pays us six cedis a day, and I think minimum wage in Ghana is 3cedis a day. Even in the part of my village that has electricity, almost 2/3s of the families arent connected because it costs 175ghc for the meter and the hookup. My first project is the guesthouse and the visitor center, but my secondary project is to see what can be done about that. Will keep you posted, as well. Gotta go, last tro leaves in about an hour and I have to carry all this wine to the lorry station. Miss you all. Keep those cards and letters coming in!. Cheers, dw

And now that I can actually post something, I dont know where to start. There is a difference here between small boys, just what it sounds like, and smallboy, one word, which can be a 30-year old guy 6 feet tall. And the emphasis is on the small. They are guys without real jobs, who do chores, chop grass, go to farm, carry water, etc. It can also be a put down. But this morning I was dazzled by two small boys, no more than 5 years if that, who had obtained a big palm frond from some roofing project. Using a machete taller than they are, they cut off all the fronds and the spikes. Then, with two tin cans salvaged from the rubbish pit, they got to work. They pounded the cans open with a rock, using the machete for a little finish work. I cant explain the engineering, but the cans became wheels at the bigger end of this long stick. This was a two-day project, at least, but today was the finishing touches. So then they each have a long stick with two wheels at one end, and they go racing down the hill making zoom zoom sounds. Then they trudge back up and race down again! Dodging taxis and tros, and having a great time.

Someone asked me about thrift shops, etc., and they do exist in the bigger cities. But almost every small village has a big market place and market days once or twice a week. on market day you will see a guy with a blanket on the ground covered with heaps of shoes...new and not so new. Next to another vendor with a blanket full of clothing, both new and used, but I dont know the logistics of how it gets here. Ghanaians are extremely careful in their dress and style, and the local cloth is plentiful and not very expensive, depending on the quality. Hand stamped batik can be quite pricey, but you can get two yards of good fabric, actually called a 2-yard, for about 3 cedis. And dressmakers are cheap. But there is all this other stuff, and the locals call it Dead White Mans clothes. Sure enough, there was a sweet little housecoat with the label from the nursing home still stitched in the back. And one of our PCVs was wearing a pair of trousers that I am sure were Dead White Arizona Golfer clothes, but they fit and they only cost 2 cedis!

When I have a computer I will be able to write and then send, instead of doing it off the cuff like today. But it is great to be at a ICafe that works, and let me post this. I will try to do a weekly update, so stay tuned, but keep those cards and letters coming in. Somebody said they felt bad complaining about life at home, but it keeps me grounded and in touch, and I love hearing about it. I havent canceled Facebook yet, but find that it is too much even here. It is simply too big a file, and not possible.

A bit of local news, however, is that a district assemblyman announced that he was going to maintain contact with his people through his Facebook, and it created quite an uproar. The number of friends you can have is limited, only a tiny fraction of his constituency even has electricty, let alone a computer, and they were quite volubly annoyed at the very idea. See you next week, I hope. Cheers, dw

She is doing fine, except for the bug bites and the heat. She has tried to update the blog but ran into some problems with the password. We straightened that out so she should be able to update the blog soon.

Keep the letters coming, she really loves to hear from home.

It gets dark at 6:30 and she said that dark is "really dark" so she reads by a candle. I asked about her headlight for reading but she said all the bugs come to it and then go up her nose! YUK I don't know how she is managing such a glamorous life!

I am not sure I will get this right but she said the local kids call out to her when she is walking "hey white man where are you going?" they don't have male/female in their language. So she learned to say in their language "hey small black person, where are you going?" The kids get a big laugh out of that.

I really look forward to her calls. It is weird she can text Colleen and I but we can't text back. She can read all the e-mails everyone has sent but can't reply back very often......More later

This was sent to Connie from Dorothy. Slightly edited by Ken.

Lots of great detailed information about where my Mom is.

Kelley

Today I can actually access my e-mail AND blog. Last time I couldn’t post either, today I can respond to e-mail but not the blog. Thank gawd the kids are posting for me occasionally. I cant tell you how much I miss the humor, the conversation, and just the easiness of random conversation. Ghanaian English is a combination of Brit and local terms, and has a very different cadence. So I speak very slowly, and repeat a lot, and they must do the same for me. It’s easy to adapt to; we don’t bathe here, we bath, and there’s a flask and a torch, but some of the other stuff is more arcane. I have been so desperate for communication, and now I don’t know anything to say.

There are trees in Ghana that would be the perfect solution for outside Franks unit, but nobody knows what the name is! Straight trunk with branches that grown down so it looks like an upside down cone. I will keep asking, and somebody will know.

I have been at my site for a week today, and this is my third time in this big town that takes 2.5 hours by bus. But this time the internet is working! or almost working. The site is beautiful, in a small bowl kind of surrounded by mountains and low hills so it is cooler there. Surrounded by cocoa farms, which breed a really vicious little invisible bug. There is absolutely no ambient light, so when it is not overcast the night sky is astonishing. I don't recognize anything, but its stunning. That’s also when the bugs come out, so I don’t spend a lot of time out there after dark.

The guesthouse was built to house researchers working on cocoa agriculture, so when their project was finished they gave the buildings and the keys to the village chief and suggested it should be a tourism spot. Unfortunately they don't have any monkeys, or hippos, or crocodiles, and there isn't that much interest in watching trees grow. Except for people like you and me. I am the first peace corps volunteer there, so I have two empty rooms and a settling in allowance. Hard to know where to start, but right now I am sleeping on a cot and cooking on a butane tank with a burner on the top. Hard to do anything with more than one ingredient, especially since there is no refrigeration. If you don't eat it now, it won't keep, so I am doing pretty basic stuff for now. One of the other PCVs is living in a four-bedroom house with full kitchen, plumbing, etc., and says she doesn't feel like she’s even in the peace corps!

I don’t think I would trade, because she is in a big loud city, but sure wish there was some medium ground. The village elders had the local carpenter build a gorgeous wardrobe, with drawers, sealed doors, etc. Of course, you don’t want to put anything in there and close it all up because of the moisture, but it serves as a place for some stuff...and i leave the doors open. It has beautiful brass fittings. On the other hand, you cant lock the door to the latrines or the bath house, so life is full of tradeoffs.

I also have access to a room in the chiefs palace in the village, where there is electricity. The palace, like all other buildings in the village, is made of mud bricks covered with a stucco like paint that washes away over time. And the room is usually full of young guys watching soccer, or futbal and it is properly called. I don’t have a computer yet anyhow, and I can keep my phone charged there. Besides, my space is at the top of a long steep hill, and if I walk that a couple of times a day I will be in great shape when I get home. I have been going down every morning, buying two eggs, or fruit, or whatever, and coming home to breakfast. I was afraid that if I ever had anything but Nescafe it would just make me more homesick and miss my morning paper. However, Kel packed the coffee with copies of the Bee, so mornings are great!

Hope you will tell the Woodside ladies that the iPod has kept me grounded a couple of times. All Ghanaian sound equipment has two speeds, off and top volume. The guy in the room next to mine during my homestay used to turn on a religious program at 5AM, with some guy shouting how we are all doomed, real fire and Brimstone, but he always finished up by shouting what people could do to save themselves before it was too late. I couldn’t understand much beyond the shouting, which lasted a full 45 minutes. This morning somebody had that same station on an amplifier up the hill from my site, so I am again in danger of being doomed. But Neil Young and Richard Thompson will remind me of life’s truths.

I have to get an e-mail off my the non-profit that is supposed to be funding my site, because I want a bed and a proper stove, for starters, so will close now.

It feels so rich to have mail from you AND access to reply. Keep those cards and letters coming. There is a new internet site that is only 45 minutes from my home, should be up and running by next week, so I hope access will be much easier. Just in case this stops on me any moment, you might want to forward it to Bry and Colleen and see if they want to post part of it on the blog.

Miss you lots.

Cheers, DW

Hi everyone,

I talked to my Mom Friday August the 14th and she did in fact graduate, they had a ceremony and all!

(I am a week behind and I am here in the US) She passed all her tests with a 95% and had to give a speech in her "new language" at the graduation, she said it was a very short speech LOL.

She was on her way to the beach with the rest of the group for some much needed relaxation. She was drinking a beer which thankfully she can drink there with no Migraine, SUPER! She received my "care package" and was excited to hit the beach for 2 days with some books and coffee from coffee works. It has been pretty grueling and she sounded very happy and glad that this phase was done. She is excited to move on to the next adventure, I am so proud of her I can't even tell you how much!

By now she is probably getting settled into her new digs at her new project. Once settled she will figure all the stuff out and hopefully be able to get to the Internet regularly to keep us all updated........More later, Kelley

Hi Gang, it's Colleen this time with the latest on Dorothy's adventures! She has passed her Peace Corps Training and her language course and she graduates on Thursday.

Good work DeeDub! The rumor is that she and a few other volunteers are going to sneak off to the beach for a couple of days before heading to their new assignments on Monday. Sounds like she is leading those young people astray. Typical.

Next week she will move to her new home and begin work. Her first project is to find a way to get electricity to her end of the village. It's hard enough to deal with utility companies here...must be a real treat in Ghana. Good luck with that!

She's glad to hear from all of you so keep those letters and emails coming. More news as it happens, stay tuned!

Hi, Bryant here with an update on Dorothy's escapades.

I spoke to Dorothy last Saturday and she is doing well. She was visiting the village where she will beliving and working, beginning in two weeks. She was happy with the living conditions there and thinks they are much better than where she has been staying. She has two rooms in a nice, clean guesthouse. There are separate kitchen, outhouse and shower buildings, but they are all fairly new and nicely maintained. She will be working on a project at a coco plantation near Adjeikrom (I hope that's right) in the Fanteakwa district in Ghana's Eastern Region It's a ecotourism project started by Cabury-Schwepps, Earthwatch and a Ghanian nonprofit organization. If you google Earthwatch Ghana or Cadbury ecotourism or any combination, you should be able to find out about this project and maybe see some pictures of the village. It sounds like Cadbury buillt a nice visitor center and the guest house, left the keys and said see ya! Dorothy will be working with employees of a non profit organization and with Earthwatch volunteers to make it a working tourist attraction. This may involve getting local crafters to give examples of their work and, of course, selling it.

There is no electricity at her end of the village yet, but the Chief has electricity at his house and he will provide a room for Dorothy to work in at "The Palace". She likes the people she will be working with and is anxious to get started after all the moving around she has done during training. It will also be nice to have her own home after living with host families for so many weeks.

If you would like to write to her, use this address:

Dorothy Wooldridge

Peace Corps

P. O. Box 5796

Accra North

Ghana, West Africa

This is the central Peace Corps address in Ghana, they will distribute the mail from there. I know she would love to hear from you.

Her email is deedubsmf@gmail.com, but she doesn't often have access to a computer.