..and i'll say that not having my Macbook for almost 3 months ..waiting for the Apple Reseller network to get their act together..which is maybe never...means that i can't access my photo libraries and that has always been a big part of my blogging.

But, in truth the last 2+ months, have been unsettling and difficult while i've gone through the will he/won't he extend in Ghana for another year dialogue.

i think that dialogue is at an end..but i rate it only 90% certain..and it has certainly gone back and forth.

I'm not extending!

There are good working/helping reasons to stay but there are strong 'fed up with the shit and politics' reasons to not extend. But in the end, i think the strongest set of reasons that i won't and should not extend for another year come from looking in a mirror and reflecting on how i am day-to-day. Africa is hard on me and i've been here now for almost 22 months. It's hard ..as i've said a number of times...on every aspect of one's being here..shoes, clothes, muscle mass...getting to be scary..books, anything /everything electrical, sleep patterns...probably overall health and longevity. I'm used to it here but my guess is that the deterioration..for such it is...would accelerate in a third year. I need some time to recover and get stronger....and not just a couple of weeks!

In the last few months of watching Six Nations Rugby in Accra at weekends, i've met quite a few ex-pats and i recognise that the ex-pat life in Ghana is quite nice..and i idly consider it. but PCV life in rural Ghana is very very different. I try to live on 300 GH cedis a month (about $165)..travel, electricity, food.. whereas they tootle around in SUV's, live in a-c apartments and shop for all their food in ex-pat supermarkets..and get paid 10 x 0r 20 x 0r 30 x times what i have. One's ex-pat dollar or pond or euro goes a lot further here in Ghana than in the US or Europe but $165 is not a lot. Of course, how one lives and survives as a PCV is also a function of where...in rural Ghana the only place i can shop is the open-air market ..every 4 days.

why ever then would i consider extending?

Because Africa, certainly Ghana, is a unique and very different experience for one who has lived a striving life in the Western world, and especially the US

Towards the end of what has to be recognised and accepted as my useful life, Africa represents either a different kind of 'challenge' or a different kind of 'finis'.

(and i do come out of this adventure with a clear intention to go on, to do something else like this..another country probably...and i like Africa for many many reasons.)

i would go on record, also, as saying that i like Peace Corps- i take great pride in being a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Despite what i've said about how wearing and grinding life as a PCV is, i would probably have extended if i could have got past the ...shit, the rural community politics, the small-town and small-minded pettiness and jealousies.

I like being here a lot/most of the time....although i've never been sure why.

Obviously daily life here is very different from any life i've ever led - including two years as a mostly lost PCV in Romania 2005-2007.

Given that i've noted many times that Ghana, rural Ghana, is not beautiful, charming, cute, picturesque...in fact it is fairly ugly-lots of half-finished, never-to-be-finished breize-block dwellings and plastic trash everywhere- then what is it?

It's the people and the challenge/opportunity of trying to understand a completely different culture or state in the years 2010-2012.

I am an observer...and this place and living here is very very interesting.

And as a yevu-white person-it seems OK to be an observer...people don't seem to mind being observed.

So, as i insist that i like it here, what is it that i like? I supose that it is the simple accessabilty of the people that i'm with..and especially the children. In the US..even in a small community like Bar Harbor, Maine...for one reason or another people of all ages, including the very young, are very reserved and cautious-and certainly incurious- of strangers, or even people who might be vaguely familiar. But people in rural Ghana, especially, are definitely curious...and with their constant 'yevu, yevu..' cries almost respectful of one's presence amongst them. They are open..no agendas-apart from the occasional '..give, me, give me..' hands-out opening. and they smile and they love when i do my usual stunts for them. So in every day in my new 'adopted' small town i have many fun interactions.

I will miss these interactions more than i can possibly know just now..because there are dozens and dozens of such every day and i enjoy each and every one.

They are fuller and more frequent than ever i could have imagined...and that's before i talk about the reception/interaction at schools!

I am an everyday presence at these schools..imagine that in the good ole USA!

and maybe what i'm doing in establishing Libraries is genuinely useful and long-lasting.

so what's the hard part? That comes from the description of my role here and being caught between the NGO that built and funds the Library and the community and its self-appointed rulers who think that the Library is theirs (they focus principally on the monies in Ghana that are used to operate the Library on an ongoing basis)

In the work i've done with Lumana, the micro-finance operation here, and with the schools for the additional Libraries that I/we have established, i've had no problems at all. Sometimes it takes an age to get things done and it can be frustrating but nobody (incl. me) gets really upset and there is overall a mutual 'understanding' of what we're trying to do here amongst all the parties.

But the relationship with almost everyone associated as 'advisors' with the Whuti Community Library has been much more complicated.

On one hand the WCL is seen as an ongoing source of funds/money to (be distributed by the chiefs) be locally spent on Library Services, and on the other hand, i am seen as the access/gatekeeper to the ALAD riches and therefore the person with whom they need to arm-wrestle to get Mo' Money.

This last creates many problems with the mostly-uneducated people who run or think that they run Whuti.

It creates a complex relationship with, let's say, the Library Committee Members, who want access to the money..and this PCV who stand old-fashionedly between them and the money (the ALAD accounts) but also since they're always talking about someone else's money (...and they're VERY MUCH lacking in financial expertise) they are very difficult to deal with and they think that i am blocking them from the money..and virtually cheating them of what is rightfully theirs!

I'm not cheating them..i am trying to show them the realities of the financial situation that 'we' are in but they don't get it...a function of poor education and some hopeless belief that yevu money will last forever.

And so as a PCV, i find myself constantly at odds with them..about money and control of the LIbrary. They make no contribution of time or money or energies vis-a-vis the Library..but they think they should control all these aspects. And i think that being at odds with a community about money and control of a local establishment as big as this Library is very very unusual for a PCV.

Additionally, they have a very selfish and parochial attitude towards their PCV... I am theirs and should barely even set foot in adjoining communities no matter the cause!

These are frequent squabbles which i can't win and which leave me feeling awful and unmotivated and i often feel as if i'm being watched and that my daily behaviour will be censured.

That then is really what drives me away..because they are too often what i take 'home' in the evenings and it is them and their pettiness and their squabbles that wake me up in the middle of the night. And it would not change if i extended.

Either as a group or as individuals, i have very little respect and good feeling for the people of the Library Committee who have never ever cared about the children and who only care about power. Power..what a joke...but i suppose within a small community, being chairman of the Library Committee is a big deal.

There have been too many bad days with these people. I have to work hard to see past them and to focus on what has actually been done.

My last post was six weeks ago when I was raging about local politics....but i didn't know the half of it then ...probably not even the quarter of it. The 'system' here is patronage..and at the rural level, it is dispensed by chiefs.

Almost every piece of contracted 'business' that is transacted locally..be it an agreement to build walls, or permission to put up a wayside food stand, or (let's say) an NGO hiring a local person to work in the new Community Library, or the 'fees' charged for operating a little stall in the Anloga marketplace is a 'transaction' that, as a matter of course, goes through one of the local chiefs. They decide who gets hired and who gets black-balled (a meritocracy it isn't). They decide who can set up a business and who can't.

It's a very old-fashioned system and before colonialism and before independence it was the way it had always operated-tribalism. In Ghana/The Gold Coast, the colonial system and the tribal system co-existed side-by side and the colonial system really only operated at the high end and the tribal system continued as before..with only the occasional war between the two groups. Unlike colonies in East Africa or South Africa where large chunks of land were given over to white farmers the tribal system controlled the lands all along.

After Independence, in 1957, Ghana tried to impose a few different systems..progressive nationalism, socialism, maybe even extreme socialism, and now what would we call it ... a vaguely Western-style democracy..with reasonably fair multi-party elections, a powerful presidency but no presidents-for-life, an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch and a 'market economy'..if one is being reasonably generous. But the tribal system still operates underneath that because the reach of the government and the civil service doesn't really extend to a community or an area like ours...some government monies are spent here but not much. There is very little evidence of government here in Whuti apart from its single Primary School run by the Ghana Education Service. There is no Health Service here (and no doctors), no Post Office or Police presence ..hell, the district capital even ordered that our speed bumps be removed as unauthorised .

In return, of course, the community pays no taxes..there are no property taxes; i would be very, very, very surprised if there is a single Personal Income Tax payer residing in Whuti ;and i would be equally surprised if there is any business in Whuti paying Business Taxes.

In other words, the government barely exists at this level.

So back to patronage and the tribal system of disbursing it...how does that affect me, why do i care?

i want to get this right and i want to get this said clearly..and it hasn't been easy for me to see the Library's future through the mists.

So maybe, first a few facts.

The Library (and the Computer Centre) is wholly funded and always has been, by a small, committed NGO in the US which has operated in Ghana for fifteen years and this could be called Act III..the Last Hurrah. Indeed Acts I and II (set in other parts of Ghana) are over and did not end well. Because of the NGO's founder's age and other concerns, this work is likely to be ALAD's final effort. (ALAD = African Literacy, Arts & Develop)ment Association

The Library has been operating successfully on a daily basis since 22 September 2010 i.e. 16+ months ago. And the Computer Centre has been operating on a daily basis as a revenue-generating internet cafe since 15 November 2011 (Thomas' 10th birthday). Less than three months and the revenues are very small because we have no high-speed connection and because there isn't a lot of disposable income round here. But it might get better.

Notwithstanding the fact that we have been operating the Library for 16 months..with as many as 500+ users a week...it will be officially opened on 21/22 July 2012 with a ribbon-cutting and speeches, and dancing and drumming, etc. It will be a fine occasion with (hopefully) lots of dignitaries, including ALAD's founder.

It costs between $450 and $600 a month to operate the Library and Computer Centre. The founder has committed to funding the Library's operations through at least the end of 2012 and possibly into 2013, but he has a declared intent to step down as ALAD's president in mid-2013.

And then what happens?

There is neither a plan nor a probability.

The community's (or ALAD's in a death spiral) have no ability to come up with a deep-pocketed external funding source to the tune of a committed $7000+ per year.

Only a resourceful, enterprising, imaginative, concerned (Ghanaian) organisation could possibly do that. and if such does not exist then the Library is on a downhill slide.

It is possible to conceive of such a (Ghanaian) organisation with the Whuti-Srogboe or Srogboe-Whuti diaspora ..and certainly Dr Sam's wonderful work in nearby Atorkor say it is doable.

But...try to superimpose that on Whuti and the chiefs and elders of Whuti and it just doesn't work.

They are intellectually dull, they are poorly educated, they are committed to the old ways, and they do NOT care about the children which is surely why we're doing the Library.

The PCV has been lucky. He has got things going..and, believe me, 500+ Library visitors for a community library in Ghana is HUGE! And computers too, for children who've never seen them.

But..to recap, the Opening Ceremony is in July 2012, which, not coincidentally is my COS date, and the founder will be here to discuss the future...knowing that he and ALAD will not fund the Libray much longer..

..and knowing that it will take a Mighty Heart to come up with the 'deal' that will ensure the Library's future.

In fact, there is no such deal.

And we are foooling ourselves to think that the local chiefs and elders will ever come up with the money to run the Library.

So whatever is said, there is a time-limit on business as usual at the Library.

How long? six months to eighteen months is my guess.

And disintegration of 'business as usual' is not an overnight thing..it happens gradually, day-by-day, week-by-week.

What does that mean in the Library...well, books go missing, the place gets messier, salaries/wages don't get paid, computers go walk-about.

This is the future..this i know. And so, the only question is how long i stick around to watch this.

The counter-balance is that on a day-to-day basis i am helping children.

It will become more and more difficult after the end of this school year in early July. Diminishing returns. Probably impossible.

I don't want to leave..how can i stay, how long can i stay?

It's different here..duh, that's news? My emotional attachment to the community and its people goes up and down, round and round.

I consider extending for another year and then i reject at the prospect of an impossible year dealing with the rural community politics and the jealousies focused on the Library ...built by the yevus..dig up the floor and there has to be gold underneath. and the NGO's funding (as with all NGO's eventually..) dries up.To some and too many..yevu = money and if that 'some' aren't getting it then someone else is..and why him, why them ..AND WHY NOT ME?The factions in the community with different families, different funeral groups, disgruntled individuals (yes..you know who i mean) become clearer the longer i am here and the more they sap any go-forward energies that the community might have. To spend so long in meetings arguing over the inconsquential..who is recognised on the Library's appreciation wall and who isn't? And whether this self-appointed committee should have authority and budget control over the Library ..even though in truth it is 'he who pays the piper who calls the tune' and so far these committees have not supplied cedi one to actually operating the Library...ALL the money to date and for the next year or so comes directly from the US.The petty jealousies that surround the Library and its funding from the US are truly disturbing and take a lot of understanding.It is hard for me to accept that a voodoo-curse has been placed on anyone because he must be getting lots of money from the white man and they who sought out and placed the curse want that money. And yet, i see with my own eyes the effect it has on the cursed individual who seeks a spiritual cure from that which make him seem so scared and so sick. This is here..and if he and his family believe that he is cursed in this way then it surely doesn't help for me to say..fooey, can't be real. If he believes then it is real. And so I can not ignore it especially when his cursed person is integral to any real improvement in the literacy levels in the community.

In my clearer moments, i say..ignore it, it truly is nonsense..and of course, it is..but the effect on the community politics is not nonsense. The man, my friend, is vulnerable and can be attacked.

For a community with no money, pays no taxes to the District, no market, no speed bumps even, can't even ante up the rent money to pay for this PCV's accomodation which by 'contract with Peace Corps' they are obliged to do, they have some amazing arguments and circuitous discussions over control of a purse that does not exist...the yevu NGO's funds to operate the Library.Factions and animosities go back a long time...the biggest expense that any family will ever incur is funeral expenses..so much so that people contribute for years to funeral co-operatives..and still families go into hock to pay for funerals even after bodies of the dearly departed have remained on ice for months and years while money was raised to properly send them off on their Calls to Glory. I still don't get funeral co-ops...but on the other hand, who on the other hand wouldn't go for full colour posters bemoaning the tragic departure or 15-foot high erections (oops) lamenting the loss. If i die..then please..etc

But anytime there is money then there are jealousies and plots and murders most foul..and bubbling cauldrens and so funerals are highly politicised and stories abound of funds going astray etc.

i'm just trying to help the children and build libraries and find ways to actually teach children but it gets complicated...fund-raising becomes impossible; grand openings get hijacked and then postponed indefinitely while the non-worthy, non-contributing groups argue as to who runs the show. Cruelly, i wonder why more of the people I know don't rise up and say 'enough..what about doing something for the children?' but they can't, they have no power and they aren't listened to..small wonder they get disillusioned .The more i know, the less i understand.

..there is no easy answer to that question..but I do.perhaps the answer gets lost in time for i've been here for 551 days (tho, again, who's counting) but to not know why is copping out.

I like it because...

i like it well compared to...

it's different and new and i'm young and therefore i like it.....well, that one isn't right!

I came here, as opposed to there, because i wanted to see if i could hack it in the heart of Africa and also based on the experience of the last few years, i wanted to help and to try make a difference. Even if i didn't know what 'help' or 'making a difference' really meant here i thought that it was worth a try.

I had the confidence of Romania and Itaca in Napoli to convince me that if the opportunity was really there then i would be able to grasp it. And that is basically how it has worked out.

It is, of course, very different from Maine and the USA and one's daily life is laughably so sometimes.

You think to yourself sometimes as you haul water from the well to flush the toilet or to take your 'bucket bath', can this be me? Then you remind yourself..yes, this is you ,and every day for 2+ years it is one of your daily chores.

After Romania, I had figured out that it isn't the privations that get to you..it's something in your head. So one can get past the heat, the bugs, the power outages, the lack of running water, the lack of good diet variety in available food, the Spartan accommodations ..because these are just how it is a small rural community in Ghana and you can't change it. From Romania, i know what destroys one's resolve is not being able to actually do anything useful and that, I learned, is partly luck in one's assignment but largely, it is whether or not one finds good, local people to work with. For the first 8-9 months on site here, I was carried by having a good site with a clear set of 'To-Do's' but for the last 7-8 months it has been finding some really good people to work with.

In truth, I've never had any of the bad times here that I had in Romania..given that i am allowed to forget getting mugged in Tamale and getting robbed of my Macbook..and getting attacked by my lunatic counterpart, Cephas, in the library here in Whuti one morning.

And i have a lot of really pretty good days here..like one after another.

It is hard to properly describe them and i doubt that i can do them justice but there are simple, unique, heart-warming, funny, childish, laughing, encouraging bits to every day here..not just an occasional Tuesday or Saturday, but every day. and although each day has many, many bits that are the same as yesterday each day also always has completely unique bits that make me laugh or think or cringe or simply not understand.It's hard to describe or explain though.I am not integrated here..not really. The gap is too massive but i certainly feel that i am an accepted and enjoyed part of the community. The community, for example, seems to know when i'm gone for even a couple of days and welcome me back when I return. That makes me feel good because surely it means that they know why I am here and what I am trying to do at the Community library and in the schools. And all the daily greetings from people of all ages say the same thing.And too, at the level of my 'sponsors', there is a clear recognition that I am doing my best and working hard for the community - which is a substantial change after the 'difficulties' of the Cephas era.Do I love Ghana, the country..its colour, its culture, its geography? Nope..i don't but I do like the friendliness of the people and in trying to understand the country and its people, i've tried to understand the complexities of independence and the struggle to keep up with the competitive world. And in the course of that, one develops a lot of sympathy for the country and its people. I can not honestly say that i ever really developed much sympathy fro Romania.

So what is it that i like so much?

Well, it's the people and my daily interactions with them.It's a life I've never known before and it is fun. Cautiously we'll say that it is good, and it certainly make me feel good.Some of the interactions in the Library and the Schools are serious, trying to help or trying to understand...but others are just informal and fun but I believe currently that fun interactions with children are actually good for them and for me also.This amount and this variety of interaction is simply something that i have not had before in my life...and I like it very much.

Pretty interesting...maybe my last FB birthday since i'm not a huge fan but my guess is that i will still be curious about the lives and loves of my 200 FB 'friends' after i leave Ghana ( in 247 days but really who's counting!) and so I will stay with it. Might change my birthday though, so it is always just past.Note...i did NOT include the Year of birth in my Profile!As we know, Richard, does not celebrate birthdays at all! and has not for many years. Indeed if it wasn't for the fact that Thomas Kelman-Brown shares the day then it would be a distinctly non-favourite day! He hasn't been high on B'days (wait, maybe i should reword that!) since Joe DiNunzio and Alan Rosenwald had him 'b'day greeted' at ADC by a young lady wearing apparently only a raincoat! Prior years in this his dotage were greeted with only surly 'thank you's' to the persistent few who seemed to delight in reminding him in the addition of one more year to his age.

Then along came FB!

FB gave me B'day greeting for 24 message-filled hours from all over..in many languages..English, Scottish, American, Brazilian, Romanian, Moldovan (separate language?), Italian, French, German, PC-speak, Persian(Farsi?), Ghanaian..with GOD also invoked from there and who knows what language she speaks! The first in yesterday was Tricia Petersen Rasmussen..one of my my 72 new best friends from 01 June 2010..the new batch of PCV's headed for Ghana. I like Tricia..she's a committed, strong PCV here ..and that was nice but wow..thank you FB! but Tricia..will you still need me, will you still feed me when i'm 64? And lots more from the ranks of the Ghanaian PCV's ...really, haven't they better things to do with their time!!! (well, yes..but FB says it's your Birthday!!!)then they just kept pouring in..from a Royal High School friend who has a memory of a sometimes ill-behaved young lad (did he say 'tear-away?) in school..he musthave me mistaken for someone else!..from Carola in Napoli who sent me a lovely picture of the Bay of Naples and then gently corrected my bad Italian and made me hungry for spaghetti con vongole verace and the best espresso machiato i ever had.

From Moldova..via Ellsworth and Shaw's...And from two of the (very-well) Bred girls from Lugoj..cel mai frumos orasul in toate lumea- (please don't correct my Romaneste)From Baharak who always finds me on my birthday...xxxxxxx..and she can be in some pretty hairy places.From Billie..my favourite young lady, fortunately not old enough to get on FB..she'll set records for numbers of friendsOh and from banks and credit cards companies and my contact-lens supplier, and a support forum for a piece of dongle-unlock software that i could never get to work...eh????

and on and on...but the capper was my friend Noah, here in Whuti. Now believe me, i do NOT go around here advertising my coming birthday but when i went down to the JHS yesterday morning for Library time..the 'Library' comes to the classroom since we don't have our super stools and tables yet ( a bit like Macbeth and the Forest...) .he had made up a huge Happy Birthday poster and got all the classes and all the teachers to sign it and THEN took me round each class and had them sing 'Happy Birthday' to me while i stood in front with a silly grin on my face..pretending to weep. while Noah almost split his sides laughing....and how did he know it was my B'day..FB of curse! (int. sp)

..altogether a very odd but funny (even memorable) birthday...wow, thank you FaceBook!

..sometimes it feels as if i've been here forever. Having recently figured out that i have had a life-long ...we'll call it fascination with numbers and the measurement of them against various things..umm-statistics? ..i will admit to this being day number 524 of my current PC adventure.

I figured out the stuff about me and numbers/measurements because i recognised how readily i accepted the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Yup...my kind of challenge..like training for a marathon! Then i extended that a little...i have recorded every mile i've run since i (re-) started in Feb/Mar 1977...with time, place, and some 'performance' comment ..and thus the weekly, monthly, annual totals also. And despite the advance of years and the deterioration in performance, I have set mileage goals for each year. And ..sort of working back from the goal...i have figured out what a week should look like to meet that goal and thus i know exactly (to the 10th of a mile) how far i am going to run that day.Somehow i don't think most runners are this way tho i might be surprised.And chewing over this i then remember that some of early (good?) work with Univac was in performance analysis..and that was all numbers and statistics...and that a lot of my initial and still-consuming interest in Track & Field was in its statistics ..and i could still probably search through my memory, assuming most of it is still there, and spill out the performance statistics of every 'best time or mark' that i've ever personally witnessed.And when i drive long distances, i'm constantly computing my average speed or distance covered as i go along..for example, i've driven from my house in Bar Harbor to Fi's place in Framingham (on the Boston marathon course..Framingham, not the house) many, many times but i still do my trip calculations and when i'm 2/3 through i call her and tell that i will be there by 5.22 or 6.16 or what ever i've calculated.

Interesting? Nah, not really, but maybe unusual? Certainly i don't think many of the people i've met in Ghana are labouring under this affliction!

Oh BTW..here in Ghana, at the Whuti Community Library, each user logs in and logs out and the time is recorded in each case. Thus I maintain..number of users per day and their total number of hours 'reading'..and thus can recite max number of users and hours per month, per week, per day.

Actually when i sat down to write this blog today, i was going to write something else but i've had the numbers thing percolating in my head for week or so and it is time to let it out!I was going to write about how different life is for me here. I interact and communicate each and every day with lots of people in the community and neighboring ..from children to chiefs and obviously with lots of students.It's both the way it is here and the role that i'm on (yevu living in smallish community). I would have to say that Ghanaians are much more friendly and friendly in more ways than any set of people that i've known..Make that MUCH MORE FRIENDLY!This thought was prompted by something yesterday.We are celebrating Hogbetsotso this week/weekend here. This celebrates the arrival of the Anlo tribe ...in the 17th century, it is believed...to this area, driven out from ??? by wars. They settled in and around what is now Anloga..so the principal place of the Anlo Ewe.There are thousand and thousands of people in the area..including the Prez, John Atta Mills who visited yesterday. I saw him and waved as he sped by in his cavalcade of black SUV's ..tho his was 'GHANA 01'... a stretch SUV? with flags at the front and bizarrely, Ghanaian 'Secret Service'? guys running alongside the vehicle..pretty funny i thought....especially when they stopped so that the Prez could get out and take a pee at the side of the road (OK..i made that bit up ..but you never know). It was all such a huge scrum in Anloga that although i knew that the President was supposed to be there that day it seemed impossible to figure out where or when and there were, of course, many, many chiefs wandering around. If there was a programme or a schedule i wasn't aware of it.Anyway, here we are, standing in the middle of the milling crowd, chiefs,etc wandering by. I was chatting to some of my JHS 'friends' when suddenly not more than 6-8 feet away, the crowd parts and sort of scatters and skittering across my vision is a woman in fine native costume but she's attempting to stab a similarly attired man with a long knife..not a cutlass but like a carving knife almost..long and straight-edged..she had the knife in one hand and was lunging at him while in her other hand she had the scabbard. Needless to say the crowd was quickly parting to allow them to roll on by..and then coming together again after they passed and so they were only in vision for few seconds really. i have a recollection of her throwing the scabbard at him, but not the knife and there was another guy or guys trying to grab her. But Here's the funny part..this happened very quickly..and they were gone very quickly, but no-one was screaming or yelling for the police and afterwards it was really as if it never happened - but this one i did not make up. It reminds me of how much closer i am to 'life' here ..and of how volatile the Ghanaians seem to be. I've seem more violent arguments and fights here than i've ever seen in all the rest of my life....many, many more. Some of that is due to the fact that i 'live' in the streets and markets much more than i have in any other place. I still take a fair number of pictures ..and yes, i will add some Hogbetsotso pictures to this post when the weekend is over and i've sorted through them....but often when i look at the pictures i am dissatisfied ..and i've begun to understand why...when i look at the pictures, i don't 'see' the noise..the hubbub (sp?) of so much of life here...the cries of the traders, the enthusiasm of the greetings, the animated conversations over the heads of people.There are many many things i will miss when i leave here..it will be as if the kaleidescope (sp?) has stopped..and in a way that is what one least expects when one signs up to be a PCV in Africa. ..and yes, i'll add pictures!

'I come in Peace', he said. 'Peace..' she nodded and smiled her crookedy, sad, hungry smile. But she didn't get the attempted humour. Not very surprising, no-one did here, difficult when it's delivered by a strangely-accented yevu in a language, English, that isn't what most people think in. Ask a question..'Yes', they say which means ...ummm- i heard you speak. Ask it again..'Yes' which means ...i'm trying to understand what it is you said. Ask it again....'Yes' ...which means, i don't really understand what you're saying but is this the answer you're looking for?

He had gone out running as usual that Sunday morning on the scrub-land that bordered the beach. As it wound round, his path intersected with teams of fishermen hauling ropes attached somewhere out to sea to their nets.They had their rituals...no fishing on Tuesdays and he had his...helping the fishermen at weekends after his run, showing 'solidarity' with an unspecified 'cause'. He did it because it felt good, looked good, gained him some unnamed respect though they'd never figure out why, at his age he would run every morning..even on Tuesdays!There were fewer crews out today than yesterday..he could never figure out why it varied and so when he finished he had to walk down the beach before he ran into the crews. It was always the same..he just went to the head of the line, wrapped his black running top round the rope and started digging in and hauling. They probably never knew or cared whether he actually pulled hard - they just appreciated the gesture - but he did and it felt good to haul and feel the different muscles pull. Not so old, not so past it all , he would say to himself.He would generally share out his efforts amongst as many crews as were close together. Maybe they'd care if he didn't!Over time he'd come to recognise a few of them. Weekends were different because kids and even out-of-towners would be on the ropes too but the regular guys were recognisably different. Older, generally..but certainly harder and,despite acknowledging him, they rarely smiled. Not hard to understand that really.He worked that day with two crews.he did one shift on the net that was closest to him as he walked down the beach. A small crew, a lot of grunting, but not much talking. He joshed with the older women who were coiling the rope as they pulled it in. sometimes he would wonder what they thought of this strange person, this topless yevu hauling on the rope...surely he didn't need to do this..he's a yevu, he's rich. Likely no-one could imagine that he did it for fun and to show support.The other crew were in the final stages of bringing up the fish and that was always the best time..the most fun. He'd taken off his shoes and parked them up on the beach near a buoy ...he'd find them again, he always did, tho rarely where he expected. Pulling in the nets always moved them much farther and faster down the beach than he thought.He liked splashing into the surf, grabbing and wrapping the net, pushing the young boys out of the way..let a man do this!

Despite the number of men on the net, sometimes he'd get knocked down by the drag of the net when a big wave came in, and they'd all be yelling and pulling and laughing.

He supposed that after 3 or 4 hours of hauling on the net, there was a giddy anticipation when the sac that was where the fish had been trapped became visible. There was for him, though he had no stake in it. The end always came quite quickly as everyone ran and grabbed and pulled and lifted.

He could never tell initially whether the catch was good or not. The men, especially those who'd been out on the boat and those who'd been swimming with the nets as they brought them in, stood around the end of the net where the catch was trapped.He didn't push in. He had no right. But they'd let him in to look.He looked at the catch..silver, flapping, twitching mass. Then he looked at the faces. He supposed that they'd been doing this for so long that they'd hardly be surprised.This day, however, he could read the disappointment in their faces. They didn't say anything. They just looked. Each in his private thoughts. There was almost a resigned expression as if to say, who could expect anything different. He knew catches had been bad for a long time now but still to see the disappointment etched on their faces was sad. He didn't know where to look so he looked at the fish like everyone else.

She tugged at his elbow. 'Fish', she said. Though it sounded more like 'Feesh'.

'Peace', she'd said the last time he'd seen her. 'My name is Peace.'

He'd run into her on the streets a few times in their community. He assumed that she lived there also but she was mostly on her own, wasn't carrying anything on her head to sell and no infant on her back.She was a little different. it seemed as if she would make fun of or with him. She didn't speak much English so he didn't really understand but she would grab his arm and look fierce and then laugh at him.She always looked hungry. To see her made him sad. For a Ghanaian she was probably skinny and he had wondered if indeed that was hunger.She reminded him of a street woman that he'd tried to help when he lived in Manhattan.

She whispered in his ear and tugged at his elbow again. She had her tin basin with her to get fish but she would be at the generous mercy of a crew who had brought in a poor catch.'Feesh, you give me!'Once before he had seen her at a catch and that time a good one and the fishermen had offered him a couple of fat fish for his help. He'd turned the offer down..their need being much greater than his and she'd been stunned and argued and pulled at him.This time she was making sure that he knew what was expected of him and he said 'OK, OK...fish' but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He hadn't helped that much this time and the catch was not going to make the fishermen feel at all generous.He hoped for her and so he helped her find some scraps and her bowl had some fish - small fish, tiny really, and small shrimps but he knew that it wasn't going to happen.He moved around to the other side of the net...he felt bad for her as if he'd let her down.He slowly turned away and started to look for his shoes. He turned and looked back and she was watching him with her arms folded. He shrugged and waved and she turned away with her sad, hungry eyes. Peace.

..one of the nice things for me (surprisingly..and surprising you!) is that one always chats with and is chatted to fellow yevus that one comes across out in rural Ghana. And the conversations seem to happily cross nationalities and ages which too is unusual and ..ummm, nice!But the same is true of meeting visiting Ghanaians and that is equally nice. I am the person, the yevu, the volunteer who operates the nice new Whuti Community Library. Fair enough..that is who and what i am here.

Of course, now i'm also the person that they see getting the JHS Library up and running ..and that's a little different. It puts me in a slightly different light.

People i meet or people i'm friendly with here ask me when they hear about the JHS Library efforts..getting a school library up and running in less than two months!...don't i feel very proud of my efforts? It 's a nice question, of course, but it surprised me the first couple of times..it wasn't what i felt.

It wasn't and isn't what i felt/feel because i've come to understand that opening the JHS Library and running the Whuti Community Library for 55 weeks now are not, in and of themselves, achievements.In a sense i learned that the hard way..i had naively thought that simply opening the community library would immediately change things around here..and be of immediate direct benefit to all the children here. My guess is that lots of 'library-openers' think that too!

I now understand that opening the Library is only the first part of doing something meaningful.And that there is much work to do in making the Library popular, useful, fun, important in children's lives...and actually beneficial in helping to raise children's literacy levels. In fact, maybe opening the Library is the easy part!How, in the short-term of a PCV's time here, for example, do you 'sell' the Library, how do you get children to develop a Library Habit, how do you convince them that improving their command of English has to be their number one priority ..RIGHT NOW...and that developing the Library Habit is how they achieve that? Especially, if you're pretty much the voice in the wilderness?

Well, in the case of the Whuti Community Library, perhaps you achieve this indirectly by banging on those who seem to have influence in the community- the chiefs, the elders, the ministers/pastors, the head teachers, the teachers - really, anyone who will listen, and 'encourage' them to use their influence and positions to get children to come to the Library AND THEN,THERE ..make it a fun experience for them if you can so that they will want to come back again.

And maybe it is working..in this last week, we have had 476 ' Community Library Visitors' and they have 'read' for 422 hours. These record numbers are big and the impression is that indeed the children are having fun. Now we have to make sure that this momentum continues. These numbers are twice what we had in May and June. So, highly encouraging!

Our Libraries are still works in progress but having almost 500 users in a week is HUGE!

And, i believe that as long as we make visiting the Library fun then we will be able to get many more Library visitors for whom learning is fun.

And the JHS Library, the 'son of the Whuti community Library' is progressing well also!

Now , exactly two months since we started working on the project..and started sorting through the book donation that we had received from the U.S. ..the JHS Library..VERY MUCH a Work in Progress and mostly lacking in tables and seating for the students ..is up and running and being used by the JHS students.

In the new curriculum, each class has two scheduled Library periods, and as of Thursday, 13th October, since the library isn't quite ready enough, and the students can't come to the Library, then the Library comes to them with a selection of the Library's books delivered to the classroom for their use!AND...we've started training the Student Library Volunteers who will be responsible for and who will run the Library in its After-Hours mode (MON-FRI 2.20 - 4.00 p.m.) such that we can open it in this mode next Wednesday or Thursday!Exciting. The Student Volunteers, two per class, were elected by each class.We haven't the faintest idea how the JHS students will actually respond to this 'opportunity' and i'm sure that the process and procedures will have to be modified and improved..but it's a real chance, a real opportunity.

Emmmm..occasionally, i realise that i seem to be doing most of the work here..both in the WCL and the JHS Library..and i wonder sometimes. And i say that i 'wonder' because that makes thing less sustainable, at least in theory..and i'm conscious now of the fact that i only have 9 months or so left in my scheduled Ghana effort. (And i worry about and would be truly heartbroken if what i did here collapsed after i left)

But..i recognise the difference between efforts that have real support and those wherein you feel that you are pushing against community habit (inertia) and i have very real support in the JHS Library and there is no way that we could have made this progress without that support!And even the very best people here are unused to people working with them, stirring their community improvement spirits, setting the right examples, and making things happen and so it takes time to become a team and share responsibility and direction. I've been very lucky here in finding some people to work with ..and i must continue to take the long view. it has been an amazing learning experience. How do i put all this learning to future good use? I don't know but i can and will learn over the next nine months and if the result is that we have three libraries up and running- the Whuti Community Library, the Eastridge JHS Library, and the Whuti primary School Library- and we have applied the lessons we learn to improve our process in each place, then i believe that we will see improved exam results in all the Whuti-Srogboe community students!And i also believe that these results and the processes that we have developed will enable us to make the Libraries self-sustaining and -supporting.

And it's fun doing this shit..it really is!

I've been on a 'mission' for the last week and a half...button-holing whomever i meet..strangers or the 'weel-kent'..to get them to 'see' that part of the solution, if there is going to be one, to the crisis of the awful, disastrous exam results at the Primary and the JHS this summer, has to be improved English Literacy and that therefore ALL the children should be encouraged/pushed/driven to develop the Library Habit. And since we're still the only Library in town(s)- that means coming to the WCL (Whuti Community Library)...right?(Maybe i have that crazed, driven 'Ancient Mariner' look about me now?)

I can see that the logic doesn't get through..they understand the 'bad' part-the exam results but not the potential improvements that imbuing the children with the Library Habit could achieve. It is as if, and it probably actually is, that they hear the bad news and they start looking around (..in their minds/in the discussion) for someone to blame or some political advantage or prestige to be gained. So today, after another conversation with one of the chiefs, who shall remain nameless (..and it isn't as if they act differently..they tend to all play and know the rules of their 'game' much better than i do) it was in fact suggested that the failure to get more children to the Library on an everyday basis is in fact, partly my fault.The Library is not 'officially open', i'm told..this despite the fact that it has been operating Mon-Fri 0915 t0 1730 for 54 weeks now! What does 'officially open' mean to the children..ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN' NOTHING. Parents, etc don't encourage their children to develop the Library Habit because the Library hasn't been officially opened..they didn't notice it was there??? Or is it that the chiefs and elders-the (self-) important people haven't given their blessing for use of the Library because not having held the naming ceremony/the inauguration, they have not been sufficiently 'acknowledged' for all their work in making this happen and in operating the Library for the last 54 weeks? Wot a joke!But nonetheless it is real..because it has come up before....so is it a reason (a cultural requirement, a historical/tribal relic)..or just an excuse for not really caring, a cop-out, for not getting off their (mostly ample) back-sides and actually doing something to help. Well, yes, we know what i think but why couldn't it be that the 'cultural' bit is to not actually care about the community and the children (cos there's so many??) and to downplay and not endorse the benefits of education (because it is a threat??). And the 'cultural' bit is still just the same old male power struggle?The other 'reason', quoted second-hand, was that that the Library is of doubtful benefit because we don't have copies of all the Ghana curriculum text-books available. I'm willing to bet that if there are 100 community libraries in Ghana..and there aren't..there is not a single one that has all the current curriculum textbooks..and in the WCL, wherein i have been diligently and aggressively trying my damnedest to work every person/every avenue to get these damned textbooks, we will have them some day.. if our new Accra friend, Fui Segbedzi, comes through!But these excuses, for such they are, are so transparently false. I don't honestly know why the people, who could and should, don't 'support' the Library and why they don't aggressively encourage the children to develop the Library Habit...and yes, my frustration is because I recognise that i never will know..and therefore can never change.

It seems so obvious..the children are always the losers..why don't you people see that and accept it and swallow whatever it is that sticks in your throats to prevent you from HELPING AND ENCOURAGING YOUR WON DAMN CHILDREN!!!!

I got angrier today, as a culmination of a number of things about/like this, than i've ever been here. Writing helps because i can better put things in perspective..Africa's tribal structure in place for so long; the impossibility of layering globalisation, etc on top of this centuries-old culture; the here today-gone tomorrow nature of most aid to Africa; and, by definition, how we must always see things differently. mine through a prism of Western 'process, society and civilisation' and theirs through??

Africa, perhaps, flatters to deceive..and (Arghhh...No! Can this be true??) i've always been a sucker for that kind of flattery and deception!

I'll add some pictures of progress to date on the JHS Library. We're getting close...next Monday perhaps. It doesn't have the same political football problem ...perhaps because of Noah..but also because it is just a school!

..so, as ever, thanks for listening. What would i do without you!

..when i confess that i don't really miss much between life in the U.S. and life in rural Ghana? Oh, i miss family big-time and to some extent, friends, but most of them are e-friends now so, apart from connection frustrations, that is no different.

My 'sporting' interests are running..and that's still get out of bed, go to the loo, put on shoes, go out the door.. and the rest are best followed on-line, i'm sad to say...tho i do get to follow Man U up in Anloga with my 50 new best 'Red' friends every weekend.

And the rest..food is food..books can always be found/or i find them.

I miss conversation..but i probably actually meet more new people here than anywhere/anytime in a comparable period..so maybe that's not so much to miss?

Comments?

..that this PCV stuff was something I was doing...now i begin to understand it is who i've become. Now it isn't important what that 'become' is..old guy working in far-off places trying to help?...but it is quite real and it (I?) can go on and continue to develop as opportunities arise. After all what i've become is slightly different/more advanced/helpful/useful/confident/ comfortable than the person that i was six months ago and there is no reason to think that this graph angle can not continue upwards for the next ten months...and then?Well, part of it is understanding what it is i can actually do to help..that is really actually useful..and continuing to learn form all of that ..and part of it is continuing to accumulate good contacts for the present and my work here and now, and for the future also.Just sayin', you know ( ..and that's the last time i use that phrase.)

..and why not? after all, i do have oodles of relevant experience and most people that i interact with here don't..and once you find some folks who really do want to improve things/resolve things, then it's OK to lead as long as you make it 'we' and not 'me' ..and you recognise and smilingly accept that this is indeed Ghana, and rural Ghana at that, and so some limitations on expectations have to be understood....and you have to be patient, etc.A time ago, when i was waiting and waiting on PC to decide that i wasn't really too olde and decrepit to come to Africa as a PCV, i would tell myself that PC was '.. just a platform..' and that if they finally said 'No' then I would find another platform to come to Africa on. I would tell myself that whereas PC would give me some good training, some financial support, some contacts..and GREAT Medical support, what i could do here would be entirely up to me..and Lady Luck..and that once i was placed then it was always going to be a question of what i could make of the situation...PC or not-PC.Now i recognise that, for me, that is exactly the right 'attitude'.There is no such thing as the ideal, the perfect, the 'normal' PCV..but i was never going to be interested in PCV group activities or committees..partially because...hmmm..partially because...emmm, partially because 'younger' PCV's don't have much respect for (much) older PCV's (the U.S. youth worship thing?) but also because it never seemed to be a real part of why I came here as a PCV and i was never willing to fake it. I would have 'joined up' if I'd thought that there was a real desire to share across the generations but there isn't and there wasn't. Does it hurt a little..sure..and one is conscious of it at all PC functions to some extent.But I knew coming in (coming back) that my PC life was always going to be what i could make of it, what i could make of the opportunity.

Easily then the best part of my current 'situation' in Whuti-Srogboe is that i'm working exclusively with Ghanaian people whom i can begin to call 'business associates or community-development partners' and to that extent then having to go up to Accra next week for a 2-day Mid-Service Health Check seems like a pain in the ass and negatively impacts (only really a very small amount) our progress here. ..although now that i'm here and editing this post, it seems like a nice little break where i can work on some other aspects...like a SPA proposal to fund the Primary School Library. And it's done and delivered to the new SPA co-ordinator, basically in two days..and it's good and the timing is good too ...and, and... there are two other possibilities for getting funds for the Primary School Library..which is great because we can't do it without funds.

Overall hereI may end up being disappointed (...and that may have happened in my life before!!!) but I feel very optimistic about the broad potential of our efforts now AND most encouragingly the feeling of real support and enthusiasm from some community members, some teachers AND some students. What we're doing if we can fully realise it, not just in terms of setting up the two Libraries but in actually developing and operating them as Learning Environments with student Library Volunteers ...is a low-cost replicable model for many schools and communities in this area and perhaps at 3-4,000 GH cedis per Library there could be organisations with deep pockets (like Nivole's Hong Kong bank ) who could fund us/them.

Of course, too, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it isn't as important what we or other 'elders' think of the work, etc ..what is important is the effect on student literacy at the Primary and the JHS. This has to be measurably improving by next year's exams..and then has to continue to get better. Then we won't need to worry about justifying ...just pushing on, widening, improving.

I have to control my excitement and expectations but this all makes me feel very good about being here, coming here...and staying here.

I will add some JHS Library-Work in Progress pictures..and some Whuti Primary Library..this is the space we start with pictures also.

For a while now, I've tried to find the famous Osu Children's Library in Accra on my trips down there..but the directions that i had were vague. Embarassingly, as i now find out, the start point or the directions was a bar called the Honeysuckle which 'all PCV's know'...except me, so i could never get the start point and direction right. Address?-sure but that is of limited, make that very limited, use in Accra because most streets have either no name or no street signs. And City Maps are not very detailed, and there is no handy grid pattern like Manhattan, etc. Eventually by locating a building that showed up on Google maps and guessing where the Library might be from there, i used my first afternoon in Accra last week ( in town for the big 50th Anniversary of PC Volunteers arrival in Ghana) to determinedly strike out for the Library. A couple of tentative turns and some confusion but i found it at last.... and it is a good 30 minute hike to get there from the top of 'Oxford Street' in Osu.... but five minutes after it had closed for the day! No matter...it looks interesting, formed as it is by putting three big shipping containers together. And now i know how to find it.So next day, after our PC celebrations in the plush surroundings of the US Ambassador's Residence, which turned out to be quite close to the Library, i headed back there.

The Library was started on a shoe-string by a Canadian lady in the mid-90's and has been very successful and the NGO now has many (how many..?) children's libraries in Ghana.

I spent a couple of hours there and was warmly greeted and treated.And it was VERY ENLIGHTENING AND THOUGHT PROVOKING!

Ever since i came back from my trip back home to the U.S. over 4th July, I've been struck by the fact that my time in Whuti is halfway done ..and that now i have to consolidate the work here and leverage it to really reach and help the community's children.

Putting together the Library and running it for the last ten or eleven months has obviously been a learning experience...for me and for the community. Initially, of course, i thought that once we opened the Library, children of all ages would come, would 'discover' the library and books and make it a regular part of their lives. And some did, and we're happy about that and the number of users has steadily grown and we have quite a few regulars. But many children don't come, aren't encouraged to come..and none of the schools, churches, or parents seem to be pushing them towards the Library.That is addressable and with the start of the new school year, we will aggressively reach out to children via the schools and teachers and the churches..and via the not very activist Library Advisory committee. We should be able to get three or four times as many users as we had at the end of the school year.But the other part of the resolution is to use the Library to actually help children...and simply having a nice place and lots of books isn't enough.I can't radically change the literacy levels of the community's 1000+ students but we can use the Library to establish an alternative process (group-based remedial reading?) that will immediately improve literacy for some students and if we catch them young enough, we can really begin to solve the problem over time. The Library then needs to become a Learning Centre and we need to find older students who are willing to work with small groups of younger children to help them in their reading. That is doable but difficult and i should point out that it isn't easy for me to figure out how to put that together ...it surely involves pedagogical skills that i don't currently have (and that are so far from the teaching model in Whuti that there is no point in asking)

It was in this uncertain frame of mind...am i on the right track, can the Library be put on the right track?...that i visited the Osu Library.

I will try to attach some pictures but the first thing one notes is that it is quite small, has a free-form feel and uses covered outdoor space to extend its area. Small...it is built round three big blue shipping containers (..not unusual in Africa!) ...two end-to-end and one across the way from the 'other' two.But it works..or seems to.The Library is run by one Ghanaian lady, Joanna, who has a few volunteer helpers (high-school students?)...and it probably doesn't run without volunteers.

When i was there there were probably 20-25 children present..doing a variety of things and relatively few sitting reading. There was one group of ten or twelve younger children, (aged 5-10? guessing. )who were sitting mostly on mats on the floor, 'working' with two young volunteers. They were practicing spelling with a book that they were clearly familiar with. It wasn't a sophisticated process but it was working and most children were eager to try to spell the words and success was greeted by rhythmic applause, which i've seen/heard before. Then there were a couple of smaller groups in the other container and they were playing board games... Scrabble was one. These students were older but maybe 12-15..so JHS level? Hmmm.Scrabble..can't imagine Whuti-Srogboe children having that mental dexterity or confidence yet..but it would be a very strong improvement indicator...note to self...take a look at this..get Scrabble sent over plus other similar games.Additionally there was another group or perhaps two working outside ...art and crafts, putting together ...emmm,stuff, you know, gluing bits of paper to a a sheet, etc..children's play stuff!!! Maybe it was finger painting?

The children seemed happy, were enthusiastic and were learning and gaining confidence.

Cute stuff...they had simple 8-12 piece wooden jigsaw puzzles made...African animals, a country map of Africa (wow!) to engage the 5- and 6- year olds. They had slots of educational stuff on the walls

And they publish their own books!!! There is a serious shortage of African/Ghanaian children's books here ...a shortage of titles that is. And so the Osu library has published their own. They have 20-30 titles, and they're really nicely produced..and cheap at 3-5 GH cedis each (so $2-$3.50) I bought 8 and the kids here really like them

Duh, yes, richard..to really teach children you need to engage their minds in a collaborative fashion. You need to make it fun..and supportive..etc, etc, etc

I sort of reeled away after a couple of hours...and headed over to 'Honeysuckle' to listen to 'my site sucks, they don't love me or let me love them ,etc '. In truth, after Romania, i can easily enough identify with this ...but i don't want to.

So now i'm back in Whuti..where over the last two weeks, 'we' have committed to renovate a space at the JHS as a Library (and possibly a Computer Lab) and inspired by generous donations, we've also committed to finding and renovating a space at the Whuti Primary as a Library also!!! Yea, don't ask....i don't know where the money will come from. Maybe a SPA grant?

But here's the thing...i somewhat despair of turning the Community Library into an interactive Learning Environment. The physical set-up is not conducive at all and i really don't know how to do it there....maybe... yet? But with the two school spaces, we start from scratch and it may be less expensive in terms of set-up and furnishing to make them less-formal Learning Environments?And the children deserve every little tweak that we can make!

so..no wonder my little head is spinning. Libraries 'R Us..sure, but where's the money going to come from?

all ideas cost money here..some cost less than others and are way more cost-effective...i think

Fun though and having three libraries here would be cool and get us noticed

It's hardly news but it's been news to me. Ghanaians are very, very big on funerals...bigger than i know, bigger than i've ever seen. You don't have to be living here very long without figuring that out.

I've got one more year...i should be able to understand/learn more about why. (hmmmm...i mean..one more year in Ghana!)

so, yesterday, i attended my first formal funeral..as in was invited to attend, previously i've seen but floated round the edge.

I've come to understand that families will put themselves in serious debt to pay for funerals; that bodies lie in morgues for months, even years, perhaps before they are buried..for financial reasons.

I've come to know ..though not to understand ..that people/families are members of funeral clubs which operate like susu's?..such that money is 'saved' on a regular basis within a group to pay for funerals.In a small community, issues over funeral financing are very, very political.

When one is invited to a funeral, one is expected to make a cash contribution towards the funeral expenses. It seems to operate like paying tribute at a Mafia wedding. People stop off at a nearby house.....or at a table and an envelope is passed over. Like a Romanian wedding though not such a celebratory occasion (the giving).The funerals then take place over a number of days..and in fact, there can be multiple funerals occurring in different parts of the country e.g. Accra and the deceased's rural hometown.I do not yet understand the sequence of events that occurs over the three of four days of a funeral. Some days are celebratory, some days involve the delivery of the body from the morgue...not, it should be noted, in a coffin but wrapped...let's leave it like that.There seems to be a wake involved but the Saturday is the big day. That is the big day for celebration and paying one's respects.It's not yet clear who attends but it's as if ...each community/area has their dance/church/funeral groups and no matter who the deceased is..they will be there in their finery..and indeed it is.

So Saturday is the big dancing, singing/chanting, drumming day...and the big day for paying one's respects. The burial itself is a low-key event..on the Sunday?...and there are rules about where the body is kept and who can view. And no hallowed ground hang-ups here either.Nope, i don't understand on what basis the dancing/drumming groups perform..but the groups have a significant identity...and 'outfits'.

Overall the dancing and drumming is not choreographed..just a succession of free-form happenings but eventually after each 'group' has had their say it begins to disintegrate.

And so. I was formally invited to attend my first Ghanaian funeral this weekend.

It was for the mother of a friend of mine and took place in a small community over on the other side of the Keta Lagoon- as in, difficult to get there from here! Atiavi is probably about the same size as Whuti...but it's the end of the road-this side the Lagoon. As compared to Whuti which does sit astride the W-E highway. It took six hops to get there..tro's and taxi's...and three and a half hours. A ride like that gets slower and slower..and oddly. more and more expensive and with longer and longer waits between hops as on goes on..tho, i think the total cost was less than 8 cedis i.e. $5.50.

When i arrived, things were in full-swing...a large space with covered enclosures on each side where different groups sat between 'performances' and then a couple of satellite 'performance' spaces.

I was invited and expected and so after a short while, i was invited to attend 'Madame Millicent', my friend and taken to a nearby house.Very quiet..ah, funereal.I do not understand anyone's role here..not mine, not the dancing groups, not Millicent's..for example, i was told that she could not go to the house where her mother's body lay?i was given an escort who helped and explained and yes, of course, it is OK to take pictures.Except when it isn't.

clearly I was and felt at odds culturally...it is very different and although i was invited, i'm still the yevu..and the yevu with the (somewhat obvious) camera.

Ultimately i felt uncomfortable .. i was part of something i did not understand. i didn't feel threatened but i was seen, watched ...people wonder..who, why? My 'escort' said that everything was fine..perhaps i couldn't sit there but it was fine to take pictures.

After a while i saw things i'de never seen before ...they were explained to me as women who were possessed. They acted very strangely..maniacally ..and if i hadn't been somewhat intimidated by it all, i might have seen the funny side!If you look at the women's costumes...and there are many, many more women than men present..you'll see that they're not good for running in ..and many of these women are past their athletic best. And so to see these women running across the dancing/performance space is..scary!But possessed by the devil they will run at each other, their friends, like NFL linemen; they will seize each other like Sumo wrestlers; they will beat and gnash and wail, etc; and they will pour buckets of water on themselves; they will hurl them selves upon their seated friends and pass out to be held up by others.

Yup...new to me and scary, almost intimidating in that they seemed out of control.

i pretty much stopped taking pictures for a while partly because i felt intimidated but mostly because i felt as if i was intruding.

It was an odd experience for me..unsettling but educational...integration in any real sense is really impossible but this was how i always saw it.

Almost every day in Ghana is unlike every day of my prior lives (i don't know why i say 'almost every day'..hedging my bets...it's silly..every day is unlike every day of a pre-Ghana life!!!!..)

Today (Saturday)..slept badly because i have a streaming cold...a cold in Ghana..yup, doesn't happen that much but it happens..and i know exactly how i got it...Teaching/tutoring on Thursday. Mawusene was sniffling and coughing and i should have sent her home but i didn't. And at this point in our CompSci class they all need lots of individual attention. And i probably have no resistance to West African cold viruses.

so i have a cold..the coughing, spluttering, sneezing variety...nice...get by on tea and chicken soup? Hmmm, oh yea, no propane..tho word has it that it will reach the region 'soon'. Can hardly wait.

Not going to run...bit pointless..i feel fairly awful and i'm ahead of my 2011 'goal' mileage. (yup, at my age..)

I do decide to go down to the beach and walk a little after taking as many drugs as i can find and end up showing the faith/solidarity by hauling on nets for a couple of crews. My ulterior motive is, i suppose, that they will feel entirely comfortable with me taking pictures of them. I want close-ups of the surf wrestling as they bring in the end of the net...and i want the faces as they survey the catch..these days you can see the disappointment, the quiet anger..

then, back to the 'house' which isn't a house..two rooms, a well, and a mango tree in a compound..and no, doesn't feel like home.

eat something..cold, drink lots of water, shower, etc..then do my weekly laundry, and wash the dishes accumulated since the last time i washed them.

pretty hot today..in fact very hot..and it hasn't been. I read for a while outside...i always read..i read 3+ hours a day...i'm trying to burn off my cold..it won't make a difference, and drugs won't either..i'll be better in 2-3 days, relax.

Then i pop up to the market in Anloga..and take some more market pics..attached. I like the market very much..it's unique, it's fascinating, it's friendly, it's very colourful and it's noisy!!!! AH, that's what my pictures lack..they don't capture the sounds!!! Not grating, not disturbing...just constant cries of hawkers, wandering through the marketplace with 'stuff' to sell on their heads.At this point in time, i'm a generally accepted and recognised market buyer..there's the lettuce lady; the egg lady; the bottle of Pastis guy!; the general store(front) where i go for staples-OK, my staples-ready for this??...Lucozade, juice, ginger snaps..and i make them guess what i'm buying today; the old tomato ladies...no, it's the ladies that are old, not the tomatoes!; and, of course, the Togolese bread ladies..now up to four every market day..and they compete for my custom..now i have a "4 x mini-baguette plus one 'sandwich' with avocado" habit (every market day)..i'm a addict! and they all love the 3 or 4 Ewe phrase i drop on them...my favourite is 'ga mele asinye o'..they all love that (me too)..it means ...i have no money!!! and it's generally true!And I run into people..who'll hail me variously...Kofi or Yevu are pretty much it..no-one seems big on 'riccardo'. But they're happy to see me...i'm integrated..just another Ghanaian shopping in the market.

Hot today, i hide in the shade and take pictures..better than usual, i think. I'm more relaxed..during the week, i feel then that i have to get back to the Library, etc.

Then back 'home', wander over to buy my 'diet' Coke...no, it isn't actually a 'Diet Coke'..it's just that a Coke while i read under the mango tree is my regular tipple after 'work'.

Still feeling crappy, but relaxed too..i was very good yesterday..sorted through all my notes, memos,lists, etc and put them tidily in a couple of binders.I wander down to the Library- recognise that, increasingly, every 'wander ..to' is a pantomime of greetings with children of all ages..i don't know why but they'll rush out to do hi-fives ...oooh that hurt so much!!!...or shake hands or jump up and down or sing 'yevu, yevu..your mama swims out to meet troopships..' or whatever it is they are singing. I really am a shoo-in for dog-catcher in this town at the next elections.

I like working..why is that, richard? ...and today i'm preparing for next week's classes/CompSci..an Intro to PowerPoint ...and Excel

..and now home to blog, to eat a cold sandwich..but the bread is so good,

So ...the attached pictures seem better..see what you think.

I never had a day in my life quite like this..and for a day with a shitty head-cold it was pretty fun.

baci e abbracci

Home again, home again, jiggidy-jog (or however it is spelled)On the back of an 'interesting' (useful???) week, this was my Sunday..which wasn't much different from my Saturday.

it wasn't a bad day..i actually haven't had a 'bad' day since i came back here three weeks ago.

so let me tell you ...this is a (weekend) day in the life of this PCV in Ghana....

i was up by 6.30.. later than usual because i'd woken at 4 and started thinking about library/computer problems..and that always takes me 40-60 minutes to get 'past' and back to sleep. That and thinking about Sharon Stone.i haul water from the well for the 'toilet' and for my 'shower'..just like every day!i check e-mail..i check the Braves..i check the world ..ugly US politics..i have a bar (no, not that kind..a chinning bar, is that what they call it?) so i do pull-ups..both sides..and then go out to run.Every day..gbe sia gbe..i go run...i go down to the beach.. i run..sandy paths along the edge of the beach and i'm now officially ahead of my '1200 kms in 2011' target..the usual cheery waves, and 'good mornings' and 'efua's' (how are you?) ..20..30 different people of all ages?..and then since it is the weekend, i have time to help my brothers in arms..the fishermen.

Usually, i haul rope but today..with my friend-and Assistant Librarian, Bright ...i was involved in launching a couple of boats. they know what they're doing..i don't. But we get the boats launched..it really is hard work..they're used to it..i'm not but enjoy it! And they enjoy my enjoyment..they love my running shoes..and my watch too!I stop off (this is 8.45-ish) to buy a couple of eggs for brecky.. i guess i don't understand life here..a couple of young guys..20's...knocking back shots at 20 pesewas for breakfast before nine on a Sunday..maybe it is to face church?I see it morning and night..i wish i understood..perhaps i will.

MY breakfast..i'm such a boring traditionalist..is two fried eggs, fried tomato, bit of fried bread and a bit of bacon!!.. I recognise that such is how i 'eat' weekend mornings wherever i am!! And it was good!

today..as opposed to yesterday, Saturday being '(hand) laundry' day', i ended up washing all the dirty dishes...and then finishing off the 'planting' of my 'garden' ..seven packets of 'stuff'..basil..rosemary..thru 'wildflowers'. So now i have a garden..or perhaps a garden..i can hope. It would be nice..and rosemary and basil too?

Then back to the grindstone..the Library-the Computer Centre

it isn't work or hard work..but computer stuff takes time, lots and lots of time.

Am i competent/trained to be a network admnistrator..NO!

..but one gets by..you go back to first principles..and kind of try to imagine what the designers, etc were trying to do..or something like that

But i think we have a potential REAL solution to our network implementation problems and so i'm back to prepping for class. I have to set up my 13 desktop computers to 'support' my 'Learn to Program in MS Visual Basic' class which starts on Monday..yikes, this Monday!!!! ('my'..getting very proprietary it seems)

..And so my first task is to set up another download of Visual Basic Express.... 157 MB!! takes forever..the only nice thing is that if you lose your connection , which is almost guaranteed, the download doesn't go back to the beginning.

with the poor, unstable and slow internet connections i have here, i spend enormous amounts of time waiting for downloads, etc . Maybe it is character building?

And then while that is going on i'm off the Market..it's fun, they like me, i like them, i take pictures, i make smiles..i buy garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, Pastis, garlic, a pineapple, eggs..and bread from Togo..mini-baguetttes. There are three Togolose ladies who come every market day to sell bread and by now they HUNT me ..to sell! it is a good feeling! And the bread is great. I'm searching for my ..tune or groove with respect to photography here. i don't know what i'm seeing and so there is no rhythm in my efforts here yet..i'm not understanding what i'm seeing and so i don't know why i am taking the pictures. I need to work at it more systematically.

The market is very colourful, happy, friendly..it is very much what i understand as Ghana, West Africa

..and today, for sure, i like it

(i try to take pictures..i am not inspired...but i should be

i often think about and have begun to understand HCB's 'decisive moment'...and i believe that i could aspire to it but i'm very far from that state just now. Part of the problem is that with digital, one isn't so concerned with setting up the shot..you just fire away literally and that isn't right. )

Then back to the Library..check in on the world..Hungarian Grand Prix..yea, Jensen!! Cricket..what????...Track...better..after all in just 365 days we'll be in the middle of the London Olympics..and i'll be there!!!and wince at the slow file download.

I have some prep work for the VB class to finish. I'm nervous about it because i have no real idea what they know and whether they can learn..from me. I've prepared some hand-outs for after class..that will surprise them! They don't do hand-outs in Ghana.

I leave about 7-ish, go back to the 'house' and sit outside to read for an hour or so..and drink my daily coke (what??? yup...one a day..just like a vitamin)..and since i felt good i had a Pastis too. I'm reading a biography of Dorothea Lange and perhaps that is what is moving me to take more pictures and to try to think about what i'm doing. I just finished Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about LBJ for whom she worked. It was really good. the book was published about 35 years ago but she's wrote a new foreward in 1991 which has a funny (to me ) story. Apparently she was offered the position of Peace Corps Director at one time..but she turned it down because she had just got Red Sox season tickets and didn't want to miss out on seeing them!! pretty funny, i thought.

Dinner.. was straight from the market..a mini-baguette filled with avocado salad..very good..and some fresh pineapple also..very healthy ..cost me all of about $0.80.

then early to bed under my cute virginal white mosquito net..and what will my malaria-medicine driven dreams be tonight!!!

probably not Sharon Stone..more likely ..some echoes from my past work life..boring.

..so not a bad day, interesting, useful (helping the fishermen, working in the computer room, being a smiling, buying presence at the market) and healthy too!

..and i promise to add more pictures to this blog this week also!

(1)..on going home.

Yup..in approx 298 hours i will be leaving Whuti and heading back to the U.S. for a couple of weeks.

I've been counting the days .. the hours even for quite a long time.

I've been (back) in Peace Corps now for just over a year. It has been a completely different experience for me.

..Losing my mind more like!!!!

I posted a completely-ignored bit of wisdom on FB a few months ago ..a story about my good Lumana friend,Chad,who noted that Ghana is very hard on electronics..and i agreed but noted that it was also hard on PEOPLE (ME ESPECIALLY...I'M NOW DOWN TO WHAT I PROBABLY WEIGHED IN FORM 4 (OOPS FORM IV) AT THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL OF EDINBURGH), on clothes, on books, on shoes, on bags/packs..everything i brought here..and yes, Electronics.

OK, so i'm a Pece Corps wimp..and back in the old days of snail-mail (and jungle-drums and runners with messages in cleft sticks here)life was a lot harder but i am completely dependent on my laptop..it is my blood, my breath, my heart, my mond, my soul, my way, my escape. and oh btw..i can't imagine doing what i'm doing here and in teh way i'm doing it without my laptop...hmm, yea, that one, the expensive replacement for that one torn from my grasp in Northern Ghana just six months ago.

So big day yesterday! As we know, I've been operating our swish 2,800 sq ft Community Library (that's big for a community library) with its 4,000+ books in 12 categories...etc, etc and open ( a minimum of) 35 hours a week, single-handedly for the last 3 1/2 months and virtually s-h for the prior 3 1/2 months (cue..applause, hosannas, flowers, dancing girls..).

Well yesterday, given the impending arrival of the Library's US NGO President next month who is desirous of meeting with such as the Library Advisory Committee, the community 'leaders' decided to have the first meeting.

Scheduled for 1000 in the Library..are you sure that you guys know where it is, it's not as if i've ever actually seen you in the Library! (..cynic)...it started promptly at 1100.

..and lasted until 1345! About average for a Ghanaian meeting. I wish I'd been here before cell-phones. They're chiefs, they might have more than one, and no-one would ever excuse themselves to take a call or not take one.

The meeting was conducted in Ewe..fair enough..and sitting beside Michael, my PCV 'supervisor' in the community (every PCV has a 'counterpart' and a 'supervisor' in the community) he would fill me in on decisions, general drift of conversations.

You wouldn't think it would take 2 hours to come up with the list of members of a community Library Advisory Committee and to vote in a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer (hmmm ?), Secretary, but it did. And at c. 150 books per member we have some 25 members on the Committee.

There was some discussion as to how often the Committee should meet..quarterly seemed the consensus ..though i did point out that at that frequency their impact on the Library's day-to-day operations would be minimal.

But they all seemed quite happy with the results of their first meeting until....

my friend Victor (i have two, maybe three, Ghanaian people i consider to be real friends so far) who is somewhat scorned because firstly, he is not originally from the community, and secondly, because Victor hauled himself up from his nearby village, got himself through Teacher Training College and impressed enough to have Dr Nkrumah send him on a scholarship to university in the U.S. He graduated there and then worked at SUNY Albany? for a number of years before returning to his native Ghana. Thereafter he was head of the Sociology Dept. at Cape Coast University, the most prestigious in the country, until his retirement.He has been my friend and advisor thru some tough times for me here..and (perhaps it's the country) i find him to be the a very wise and good man (..and i don't know that i have been able to say that too often in my life).

anyway..Victor glanced over at me and asked in English...so now that we have all the positions filled, what exactly is the Committee going to do?

Victor!!!

i almost fell on the floor laughing..as i had been dying to ask that question..but couldn't, of course (..and not because of the language barrier!).

Pregnant pause-hint of laughter round Victor's eyes. Victor you are bad. You're showing your life's voyage too obviously. No wonder they don't properly respect you here!

Resolution...nah, nothing really; let's adjourn (with the post-meeting prayer) before Victor can think up some other difficult questions!

It's all posturing...whoever heard of a 24-person rural community Library Advisory Committee. But the protocols must be observed, mustn't they?

(mostly i resent giving up that block of time..and them telling users as they wandered in..no, you can't use the library..we're having a meeting!)

..sigh...

Don't you just love border towns? Must have been what the Wild West was like? OK, perhaps not. But border towns have their own feel; money-changers..Arab?; more wheeling/dealing than you'd see elsewhere ; and dirty, dusty, everything coated with red sandstone dust...awful roads; swarms of humanity, women all laden down with huge bundles on their heads, men- eyes going from left to right, looking for an angle, trying to make a buck...or a cedi or a franc.It finally appears that if one 'looks' West African, then one doesn't even need to show any form of ID..just follow the swarm through the gates. For 'foreigners', visas, clearances are a major source of income and so there are controls to pass through for the exit part and the entry part and they all 'seem' to have their hands out.Interesting, the capital city extends right up to the border..and it's not so big. One could just keep on walking after 'crossing' the border, all the way to the city centre.Lovely wide boulevard sweeps along the Gulf..beach on one side, remnants of colonial glories on the other...lots of palm trees swaying in the breeze.Moto's are preferred form of transportation...anything with two wheels and some space on the back is for hire..and there are probably thousands of them.I search for the right words to describe what i see...a fallen colonial charm, a very definite French colonial feel. Poorer than i've seen before with more people living in the streets..families, or at least women with young children, and lots of squatters in abandoned buildings. Views are not helped by the fact that most of the streets are torn up..for 'road strengthening, putting in drainage system?The world has moved on and left peeling posters, faded signs..having moved on does it ever come back? How could it...but maybe why should it anyway?..triste, mais encore exotique..But then you come across a real 'Patisserie' that could have been transplanted from any French suburban ville.A line of huge container ships parked out at sea, reminds me of the mouth of the Bosphorus..waiting for space to unload?, more likely load..someone's minerals. I guess that there are very many deep-water ports in this Gulf...and the rusting piers jutting out from the beach are way past their sail-by date.A French restaurant...seafood...trop cher, but interesting senior staff and clientele..faded colonials, young African women. Worth it for the bread alone..and du vin rouge, s'il vous plait!

Night in a West African city is always exotic and slightly dangerous (or more than slightly?).There isn't a lot of light but there is a lot of life. After night falls the streets are much busier than before..maybe the heat? but more that people eat outside, sidewalk vendors so there is smoke (..with fire) and sizzling smells and lots of curious stuff in pots and pans and on grills.

There is probably more traffic on the roads then in the daytime but it is crawling along and nobody minds.So there are lights from the cars and the motos and there is some light from shopfronts or bars/restaurants but in the huge space between the roads and the shopfronts there is little light..except from cooking. Everyone is sitting around eating...brochettes, meat, fish, i really want what he has but somehow it doesn't materialise. It's a bit of a shambles but no-one seems upset. The 'space"..hard to call it a restaurant with only alfresco dining ..seems to be 'served' by two or three different food vendors so what you get depends on the affiliation of the person that takes your order? Separately there is a long table with bottles of wine...wander over, make your choice. Great music too, loud, pulsating.

So it is all pretty much how it is supposed to be here!

....and in the morn ...pain au chocolat ...but no cafe au lait! quelle domage...but i can get a quiche to go (ouf..why not) and a few loaves of french bread..will that be smuggling?

...a la frontiere, s'il vous plait. Mais vite, vite!

..with apologies to David Letterman (tho come to think of it, why should i apologise?) and anyway..maybe it was really the Tonight Show and Johnnie Carson or Jay Leno..i'm confused.

Anyway..i have been thinking for a while how wonderful it would be to bring Thomas, my fun-loving 9 and a bit year-old grandson..with whom i share a birthday!

Thomas would be like pig in clover (hmmm..is that the nice version?) if i could bring him here this summer for a couple of weeks.

Really, you ask, why would that be???

OK ...

#10..it would separate him from his sister, Billie Christine, for few weeks and he would LOVE that.

#9..he would love the beach and being able to swim every day..but stay out of the surf, Thomas.

#8..he could live on my bacon sarries and egg (first-bite) sarries for a few weeks... easy!

#7..he'd love sleeping under a mosquito net every night..very EXOTIC!!

#6..he would love the fuss they would all make of the little yevu at the market!! Especially when i teach him to say, E(hoh) asi..when they quote the price!! (literally ''Too Much!")

#5..he would love Fan Ice..we all do..and a bargain at 50 pesewas( 35 cents)

#4..he'd love fufu and banku.hey it's white food..and you eat it with your fingers!!

#3..he would be a star in school..after all he can actually read tho he's only 9..and the girls would love him and let him play jacks with them..and teach him their strange, jumping, skipping game!

#2..his football game (emm..soccer) would improve immensely..he could play with other boys for hours each day..and find out how good they are..but it would be character building.

and #1...yup, you guessed it, he could pee anywhere, anytime ....!

observations..(see the picture to the left...betcha most of the people who read this blog won't know what it means but someday i will do a photo essay on the toys of Ghanaian children...blows your mind..everything from sardine cans on 'wheels' to leaves on the end of a stick as windmills..makes you really think)

Take 1...Like most of us who are living the life in Ghana, i try to ignore the bugs. They're (probably ) not going to kill me and there is no way that i can avoid them or make them go away. And so, one tries to pretend they don't exist.

But all my life (the US part) i have HATED these big brown flying cockroaches..i remember first encountering them one strange afternoon working in the garden in Minneapolis and they scared the bejeebers out of me then.In Houston, of course, they're part of the rich fabric of Texan swamp life and i spent quite a few dollars and hours trying to beat back that brown tide. They are scary..they're big, they're tough, they're arrogant..and they intimidate me!So i wasn't too happy to find out that they're an ever-present here in Ghana..not as populous as Houston, tho that might be because there are so many other bugs here.

They're bad enough outside, when i will sling rocks and blocks of concrete, mangoes, coconuts at them but inside the 'house' they can drive me bonkers.They are fairly large here..probably bigger than in Texas...what ...bigger than in Texas!!! but fortunately they are just as dumb as their Occidental cousins (i live on the right-hand side of the Greenwich Meridian) and if one pursues doggedly then one can usually win through.

Last week, in the late evening, i was pecking away at my laptop when i saw this 'thing' scuttling across the lino. Massive, huge, massive..so i went after it ...dodging in and out the furniture (what furniture..two counters/tables, two plastic chairs and a stool that cost me $2.50..oh yes, plus the sometime fridge) i chased after it. Whacking it wasn't so easy so i got my can of Raid and blasted away like it was a video game. Bugger...it doesn't even slow it down and i drenched the sucker. And again...and i hate the smell of Raid and i'm sure i'm allergic to its toxins even if the cockroaches aren't.

But with Raid i finally got the sucker and killed it!!!

I cornered it and used the can to beat it to death! Another victory for modern technology.

Take 2.. Ghanaian workmanship (we unfortunately can't call it craftmanship). My work in the library covers a wide range of tasks,needs, etc and recently has involved getting people in to do some carpentry..lowering the table-tops/counters in the computer room so that we (me and the children/users can actually type comfortably). They did a sort of OK job..sort of OK...but when they did the lowering they left holes in the ..nope, not plaster (we don't use that here)..in the concrete and their tasks and skills didn't run to patching them. So i called in the mason... nah, if you want to knock down the wall and build a new one, he's your man, but delicate patching isn't his bag. So we called in a painter...patch the holes, paint over them.

Well, first thing you learn is that when you employ a craftsman, you have to front him all the money to 'prepare' for the job..so for the 'painter' that was money to buy sandpaper, paint, paintbrushes, and before i was finished i had to supply the masking tape. And i had to give him the 1.20 ghana cedis ($0.80) to go to the next town to buy the stuff. He wasn't really very good, tho he worked cheap but the funny part was his process for patching the holes which were really just large screw holes in concrete. he has a quick-drying plaster compound which he mixed and proceeded to apply with his fingers!!! Well, yes, i could have bought him a spackling knife too...but he didn't ask!! It took all day partially because odds and sods would wander in to sit and chat with him. Everything is relative, of course, but his work was fairly awful, and despite the masking tape ..very messy.But cheap..he worked (sort of) from 0700 to 1600 and his fee was 50 Ghana cedis..(about $37). It's a trade-off..try hiring a painter for 9 hours work in the US for $4 an hour!!!! But you gets wot you pays for..when i go back home for R&R in June (less than 100 days!!!!) i will stock up at Home Depot with an interesting set of 'stuff')

So then yesterday in the library ..about 4 p.m...i was sitting at the Librarian's desk..and there were few serious users/students still reading..when suddenly there was this almighty crash from across the library!

A fluorescent light fixture had come crashing down...missed a student by less than three feet. Now that is the serious downside of Ghanaian workmanship..cheap Chinese fittings and sub-standard (wot standard!!!!!) finishing. Happened once..will it happen again??? Liability, Accident Insurance?? Uh, wot, are you kidding!!! Sigh.....

Take 3..my Ewe (native Volta region language) skills are laughable (tho it must be said that anytime i exercise my 20-30 word vocabulary, the locals love it..but a conversation? impossible! (oh my goodness, i hope that PC don't read this....after all they declared that i tested out at 'Intermediate-Mid' in my PST language tests!! Could they have been so wrong!!)

They love it when i throw in a startled 'Ex(oh) asi!!!!' when they quote me a price in the market..the older the market ladies are, they more they cackle!! and by and large, you get some kind of break..price or they will throw in some extras..tomatoes, okra (okra..he lies..he's been buying it for months and never tried cooking it yet!!)

But more and more...i find myself speaking with the people in the street..tho not people at the Library or in meetings with the 10-20 people with whom i socially and professionally interact in Whuti (WH-oo-teee) ..and perhaps children in general...in a vague 'pidgin english'. Where you say things like...where you go? i go Accra, i go Anloga. i buy eggs...how much (nenie)? you help me carry? why you no fish today? i buy this or that! It reduces life/survival to its basics which is fair enough.In a way it is the 'basics' level of life in Whuti that i feel most comfortable with..i generally feel less comfortable with Ghana when i go up to PC or just to Accra.

The life that has me run every day at the beach..that has me haul rope with the fishermen a couple of times a week.. that has me walk through the community and wave, slap hands with more children than ever, that makes me make women laugh when i pantomine carrying stuff on my head, that works with children of all ages every day in the library , that spoofs when they sing yevu, we love you ..that lets me sit with Miss 9-year old who can't read and help her with D-O-G.

..would it be better if i spoke Ewe..probably........................won't happen!

But do i feel comfortable speaking 'pidgin english',...no, big-time..NO!

Take 4.....

ah, Thomas' favourite subject..

peeing.....

hard to get used to..hard to ignore..hard to figure.

both men and women 'pee' standing up???

and i suppose that there really is such a scarcity of toilets that the nearest patch of open ground becomes the 'place'.

There is one (sort-of ) public toilet in Whuti ..but it has fallen into disrepair. I'm amazed that 'we' built this swish 2,800 sq ft Library with no toilet facilities. I feel embarassed when in our long meetings there with the chiefs and elders, generally including a couple of women, people will exit and go behind or alongside the library.Travelling or walking through the community you see so many people..men, women, children that you realise that they don't think twice about it..the side of the road is for peeing...that's it.

I've even seen (and sat beside!) women who will open the window of the tro-tro and will have their little boys pee out of the window!!!

Dis be Ghana..so imagine my surprise when i went to the public 'washrooms' in the Accra Mall and not only were they flush toilets, etc but there was a washroom attendant with his little saucer out of tips!!!!

Truly from the ridiculous to the sublime.

that's it..nothing heavy..Dis be Ghana1

Hmmm..well, Peace Corps lecture us from Day One on the importance of taking our scheduled Malaria PROPYHLAXIS on a regular basis and even after we leave Ghana for a few weeks.

The one I take, and that was prescribed for me by the PC medical staff here, is Mefloquine and so I have a running entry in all my diaries for 'Malaria Friday'....and every Friday, without fail, i take my meds and mark it off in the diaries.

It isn't guaranteed that i won't get malaria but my chances of avoidance are much improved. Good.

But here's the catch...Prophylaxis is prevention of a disease or infection..but Mefloquine doesn't prevent malaria. It does NOT act to prevent or stop initial malarial infection, rather it acts later, once one has been infected by the pesky Anopheles Mosquito, on the parasites that infect erythrocytes once they have been released from their initial maturation phase in the liver!So, we are now blithely informed that our Mefloquine Prophylaxis is in fact a suppressive treatment..once you've got early-stage malaria. And the pill acts to prevent the infection from getting out of hand (a 5% parasite level in one's bloodstream) and perhaps (1 in 5 chance) of being fatal if not correctly and quickly treated.

So in other words, during the mosquito season..almost all year here... and notwithstanding our diligence in always sleeping under a mosquito net, our rural locations and (mostly) healthy outdoor lives are such that we have a starter-level of malaria in our bloodstream all the time!

Comforting, isn't it. Might well explain lots of things..since flu-like symptoms and stomach..errr....disorders are early malaria symptoms..and that about sums up how most of us feel here most of the time.

Ah well, all part of 'the toughest job you'll ever love' definition, i suppose!

..sometimes i get so carried away with myself. I think i'm sooooooo smart, so renaissance...so bullshit!!!My very dear friend, Jackie, once fondly known as the Reading Raver, has succinctly reminded me that giving jobs to ones totally unqualified relatives without any open search for real candidates: then, making sure that they're paid not just more than they're worth, but more even than the job would pay a qualified person; then, being aghast that job performance is any basis for anything...like keeping the job;then going ballistic when the completely unqualified job-filler gets fired and screaming cultural insensitivity and the 'r' word.........ALL of this is simply institutionalised, small-scale corruption!!!!!

And to dress it up in other smart-ass terms just makes it more difficult to recognise, and to fight.

..so there..i DO get it!

(..course, what i actually do, and how i actually fight it are yet to be figured out...but they will)

Whew..a short post..aren't you pleased for me?

Course, i could talk about the strange weather. It is the season of Harmattan ..one of the winds discussed in 'The English Patient' and it is full of dust and sometimes quite cold.

But enough, RW..just press the 'Publish Post' button and consign this latest insight (blather) to posterity.

I'm starting this with a view to editing it over the next few days.

I keep thinking that my situation here in Ghana as a PCV is unique but I suppose at any given time a number of PCV's in Ghana are thinking exactly the same. But, no matter.

What makes mine different is that i am working, as in performing a job, on an everyday basis in what might be some day a Ghanaian 'business' or profit centre with my Ghanaian colleagues, all of whom have..or did have..defined jobs within this same structure.And, although my duties and responsibilities were less clear-cut than theirs, as time went by they became more and more clear.Additionally, of course, outside this, my primary assignment, I have very real secondary assignments, most of which I have selected myself.

My primary assignment is to get the US NGO-sponsored Whuti Community Library up and running and then to bring to life a revenue-generating internet cafe..backed up in the same complex with a revenue-generating Community Guest House.From a small business standpoint it is probably as complete an opportunity as one could imagine for a PCV in rural Ghana....although that doesn't make it easy.

In some senses, given that it involves working intimately with the U.S. NGO and the community, ..and laying out a plan that juggles time, money, activities, people it is ready-made for a person like me, indeed me, who has years of project development, planning, and execution experience ..and can still walk the walk. The only flies in the ointment are....This Is Africa..not Frankfurt, London, Milan, New York ..and I, the PCV, have no actual status, except as an advisor, a catalyst, a facilitator.

Whuti is a rural community, in a forgotten corner of West Africa, and that means so much.

I am the first PCV to be assigned to Whuti and thus I am the only white person (yevu) that has ever spent considerable amounts of time here..5 months and counting. In fact for most i am the only white person that they've ever interacted with on any regular basis...and this is true not only of the children and the fishermen and the toothless old ladies but of the chiefs and the elders ..those who might be considered as 'running' the community.

The point is that in order to go forward with this primary assignment i am and have always been in a very intimate day-to-day basis not only with the Library staff (let's define that..the 'staff', despite plans to add over the next twelve months, has been the Librarian, unfortunately lacking in any Library experience..and come to think of it, any business experience, and two fishermen/farmers who are uncles and cousins of the Librarian who were 'hired' as Security Guards/Maintenance Men/Cleaners) but with other members of the community who anxiously awaited the arrival of the famous PCV as an extension of the largesse of the US NGO....

..and more later..on differing interpretations of accountability and responsibility, on the importance of the extended family, on never letting one's job responsibilities come before an opportunity to help an extended family member..or just a friend, on the importance of face, and the small-town jealousies that resent the success of anyone who has been successful especially if that has meant leaving the community....and the vulnerability of being the yevu

I'm sitting outside in my compound, night has fallen..the African night which is very dark but i always find the night sky here disappointing compared with say MDI or the rural Texas..or maybe it is just that the stars one sees here are different..i have no idea. After the heat of the day, every day, it is cool and i pretty much spend a couple of hours out here every evening, reading a book and i probably read more here than i ever have in my life..which is quite a statement! I read and drink my daily beer or coke...sometimes it will be cokes for a few days, sometimes beers for a few days, and very occasionally a glass of wine or even a pastis. Wine can occasionally be be found, and it isn't really much good but has the almost-redeeming value of being pretty cheap! Pastis is just as it should be and is quite genuine..hell, the bottle says "Pastis" not 'Pernod' or 'Ricard' and it is good (tho i recognise it is an acquired taste and might take years to acquire) and cheap (Four GH cedis is about $2.60 for a litre bottle) which is about 10% of its US price...one of the advantages of being very close to the border with Togo (French West Africa) and probably brought in without any taxes being paid. BTW..that for 'hard liquor' still makes it much more expensive per drink than the local Ghanaian hooch...sold mostly in small plastic envelopes/sachets ..and with enticing names like Mafia and Goal. i've yet to try this stuff which might be the daily diet of other..emmmm ex-pat Americans in Ghana..and it is highly possible I will be here for my entire tour of duty without trying it..probably depends on the company i get into at PCV conferences?

It has been an interesting year..when i think back, at this time last year, i had just had a long telephone interview about a possible PCV posting in Africa and was waiting to hear the result. The interview had been good but....no-one seemed so happy about my insistence on West Africa but in retrospect perhaps I was being tested. who knows, who cares...i don't think I will ever have to go through the full, agonising, frustrating application process again. If i decide to stay and extend or apply for somewhere else in West Africa then it would be before I COS'd or right after. I idly think of post Ghana but not seriously. I KNOW that i am going to go to London around the time of my official COS date to be at the Olympics. If i extended here for a year, i would get a month off with return airfare to/from the US included and so...that's possible. Idly, i think it would be interesting (still) to go to a French-speaking country like Senegal or Cameroon but who knows..a lot of water and a lot of bridges before that needs to eb thought through.Once i got the Ghana invite ..a very, very happy day..although they are so pissy at PC in Washington. They're so nice and call you to tell you that you will be receiving an invite to go to Sub-Sahara Africa and it will go out in the mail 'today or tomorrow' but 'Oh, No..we can't tell you where...we have rules...' Hmmm...i know you do!Anyway, once i got my invite, i worked hard to prepare myself and to re-examine everything i wrote and remembered from Romania so that i would ...gasp, be a better and a happier PCV!

I re-read my Romania Journals...interesting and embarassing. This time round, PC sent us a little booklet entitled "Just a few cultural adjustments.." which is really pretty good. Comparing that with my journal confessions, i realised that i had fallen into every conceivable cultural trap in Romania ..and some more than once. so much so that i had to change my Will to ensure that my Administrators in the event of... would locate said journals and deep-six without reading!I resolved then to be better prepared before i left and to be more thoughful and aware when i finally arrived in Ghana.As to preparation..a combination of research and reading and endlessly preparing lists of things to do before i left and things to buy. Towards the end..through April and May ..i felt that i had to get the hell out of the US just to stop buying stuff! I did three trial packings and yes, i did bring less than than the three mule-loads that i brought to Ghana but, as dear Fiona can attest, i still had too much shit when i eventually staggered and tripped (yup) my way onto the train to Philadelphia and Staging! Again, as always, too much formal, semi-formal clothing..and too many books/paper..next time, RW, no formal stuff and ignore what is said about how PC and the Ghanaians frown on PCV's wearing shorts!!! Next time???

I felt comfortable in Staging...been there, done that. Let's go!!!!

Training in Ghana was very different than in Romania..lots of reasons but mostly i think the influence of Mike Koffman, the CD. He, the ex-Marine Corps officer (Judge Advocates office?), runs a tight ship but supports and promotes a very rigorous training regimen. It was very different right from Day one. And one of the most interesting aspects was Vision Quest. Each PCV (ok, apart from the Teaching group ..Math, Science, Art/Visual Arts, and ICT) was sent off into the Ghanaian hinterland four days after we arrived in Ghana to find a PCV and spend a few days with that PCV 'shadowing' them and getting to experience what it is really like to live as a PCV in Ghana. One goes to a PCV in the same sector...mine is Small Enterprise Development with the accent on SMALL! Before we leave we get mostly humorous 'training' in finding one's way across Ghana by tro-tro. (There are some buses between major cities but mostly one rides in clapped out vans with nominal seating capacities of 10 plus the driver and 'pusher' but will never actually depart until there are at least 15..plus everybody's 'stuff'..which can be cartons for market, assorted livestock and small children aren't included in the count! To set out like this on your own with just the name of the town, some ideas on tro-tro hopping, and the name(and cell-phone number) of the PCV is just plain scary! I went deep into the Volta region..so two tro-tro hops from Accra ..and seven hours of bone-rattling roads with bags on one's knees! And then, as happened to me, you get to sleep on the floor! But it was fun...an incredible intro and worth more than hours of class work and lectures/discussions would ever tell us! And fun, too...i got to visit my PCV's primary assignment, go shopping in the market, prepare meals, visit the secondary assignments...probably always a school...and then we went to visit another PCV three more Tro-tro hours deeper into the Volta Region where my PCV, Amber was giving a talk at enother PCV's school! Priceless! Returning on the fifth day after 8-10 hours of tro riding was like finishing your first marathon! And to see the expressions on the weary, dust-lined faces, full of excitement and pride, back at our Training site was exactly like finishing that first marathon. I did it..i survived! I accomplished! I have to say that it made everything else so much easier!training was much harder, broader and more focused than in Romania. Two unique aspects..or three or four. Training was very sector specific and so i spent most of the ten weeks with my 11 (and right after Vison Quest 10 ) SED buddies...one could tell from Grace's face when we got back from VQ that she was gone..too much,way too much..and indeed she lasted only 3 or 4 more days. We went into our home-stay digs right after VQ and all the SED's were in one village in the lower middle of the country about 3 hours north of Accra..and 2/3 rds of all our sessions thereafter were SED only. We got some initial language sessions in Twi, the most common native language and my pre-departure research/reading/listening helped there but most sessions prior to our site placement were sector-specific on Business and general on SAfety and Security, PC Rules and Procedures, Health, and a bit of culture (oops, i mean Culture). Only 3 days after return fromVQ we had our placement interviews with our APCD's (sector managers). Beza is Beza and difficult to ...figure out initially but i had resolved to be very specific about what i wanted and didn't want this time round. In the interview i was (we all were) asked to choose preferences between four types of assignment...if i remember, it was working with eco-tourism, working with native craft groups, working with agricultural co-operatives and working with computers and business advisory opportunities... a no-brainer! i was not interested in 1, 2, or 3 mainly because (espec. after my VQ) i knew that eco-tourism, and native craft groups would be a hard slog...we';ve been doing it this way for years, etc and although i might be interested in agricultural it hardly plays to my skills. One never knows to what extent the decisions have already been made but these options turned out to very accurately describe the sites and i am the only one with a computer and real small business development background! I also said that i wanted very much to be in an assignment where i could use my centuries of experience (and oh, btw, i didn't really want to be placed in the northern half of the country).3-4 days later, e go our site placements.and it was handled beautifully!!! Kudos to Mike and the Training Staff! One afternoon, amid growing excitement and trepidation, we assembled out on the concrete at our Training site..all 72 of us..and all the training staff which must number 30 or 40 people! On the concrete was chalked a huge map of Ghana!!! And one by one, by sector, we were called out and pinned on the map...and Beza announces that Richard Kelman is going to Whuti in the Volta region and you get a packet with site assignment, etc and are led to your site....shit, holy mother, etc I'm going to spend the next two years at the beach..everybody claps and cheers..and you join the crowd in the Volta region....but i'm the one at the beach...yes!!!!! And you're trying to read your package and also see where everyone else is going..wow, Upper West (glad it isn't me!!!) and mine says computers, library, micro-finance!!! It was so well done...it made everyone feel very special. They do the site placement so early perhaps because each region or each part of a region has its own native language..there are 12-16 different languages taught to Ghana PCV's and it is critical that we start as soon as possible! Wow, i'm going to learn Ewe (well, in retrospect, 'learn' might be stretching it! but i did get the necessary Intermediate Mid level of competence when we were tested as the last step in Training). Five, including me, of our SED group, were assigned to the Volta Region and became an Ewe language group.the SED group had its very own instructor who was with us all the rest of the way. Ours was very, very good and a great guy. Instructors are not PCV staff but hired on a temporary basis for training. Ours was a local native Ashanti chief (but be warned there are a few chiefs in Ghana who was very well educated..to a Masters level in Business, had taught, and been in local and Ghanaian government, ad ran a couple of businesses, including a school! He also believed that there was a lot of business and entrepreneurial potential in Ghana which we could help unlock. Given the disparate experience levels of our SED group a lot of his training was pretty basic Business Development skills which i often didn't love but he had a strong interst in the value of MicroFinance and so we had some good chats. Our chief (in the Ashanti Region, a chief is called 'Nana') lived temporarily in our little village of Maase and so he would often stop by in the evening to chat...nice.The language training was tough ..our five Volta region SED's had one instructor, John, and we had language sessions every day..often from 0800 to 1600. There are two basic problems..or maybe three...first, there is nothing intuitive about native languages. you can't guess a meaning from looking at it or hearing it ...no Latin roots here and then you can't build on understanding one word to get to three or four more..adjectives from nouns, nouns form verbs, etc..in fact to this day, i still have no real notion of grammar..are there nouns or just thoughts, concepts, activities? Second, outside class, no-one in our home-stay village spoke Ewe so no after-class exposure. Third, we travelled around the country a lot and so were constantly uprooted and language training on the road was frequently an afterthought. However, we were constantly assured that as long as we didn't just give up on learning we would get through the Proficiency Test.We also worked very hard..we very rarely had a full day off..and i'm including weekend days. that was a surprise. We moved three times in our nine weeks after site placement, including once for our site visits...and we had moves within moves for Job Shadowing also. moves were by sector, so our SED group would up and head off in a PC tro for eight days in Ho. A lot of togetherness.In these out-of-town sessions we would have lectures by visiting groups...on Advocacy, on PCV's secondary assignments, on Tourism in Ghana, on Export Support groups, relevant/interesting NGO's ..and we visited organisations of interest to SED vols..the MunicipalAdministration in Ho, a commercial bank to learn about loans/credit facilities, a small microfinance organisation...interesting, of course. They were all interesting and gradually we built up a fairly good understanding of what business life might be in Ghana. Language sessions on the road we generally an afterthought and we began to worry about our language tests.A feature of training in Ghana is the use of experienced PCV's s session facilitators and we were forever doing group sessions (hugs, presentations, discussions, etc)....not my strongpointMy site visit which came on the back of our meet-your-counterpart sessions was phenomenal. Meet-the counterparts and supervisors was a bit of a mess simply because the group was too large. It was for all the non-Teaching sectors so SED, WatSan, Env, Health, AgroForestry ..almost 40 vols plus counterparts, supervisors (at each site a PCV has one of each) plus assorted staff and trainers..almost 200 people! But after two days of mostly milling around we headed off to our sites...much excitement.8 hours of tro riding later via Accra with Cephas (c-part) and Michael (spvr)... and too much baggage as ever, i fell out of the tro outside my designated digs...to be greeted ny a dozen our so chiefs and elders all of whom wanted to show me my accommodation..a blur! Then we solemnly and slowly all walked 5 minutes down the road ..what is going on here...to the new Whuti Library building which will be my primary assignment..there to be greeted by 300 or 400 of the assembled citizens of Whuti. I'm, rightfully so, in a daze but they have chairs set up on the library steps and various groups in native costume eagerly awaiting the PCV's arrival ..shit, that's me!and they have dancers and drummers and canned music, etc...and speeches and introductions (secret handshakes!)..and they give me a special bracelet (subsequently stolen in Tamale)..and endless speeches..and i have to say a few words (NOT in Ewe) about how happy i am to be in Whuti ..and more native dancing and more speeches...and then my honour guard of chiefs and elders walks me back to my house, with its nice sandy compound and we sit around for more speeches. Don't these people have homes to go to!the rest of the visit was a blur too...up early to run, on the beach..and what a beach, visiting the libraryThe last couple of weeks were somewhat anticlimactic ...the only important stuff was final prep for the language tests and preparation for swearing in which was a big deal...learn drumming, learn dancing, do little language demos... i designated myself as official swearing-in photographer but got roped into an Ewe language demo

I followed the day's fishing for Fafali which is the biggest pirogue in the Whuti fleet ...how big? It is 8 x the width of the big guy's arms..so that make it over 50ft.

I helped them push it out, and took pictures, from 5.45 on a sunny and going-to-be hot November morning, then helped them haul the ropes and ultimately the net..and took many more pictures..from then until 1 p.m. Then i helped bring in the net, divvy up the catch, admire the catch..and be stunned at how little they got in Ghana cedis for their large abd good catch at 2 p.m. ...and took final pictures

The nice pictures are in a separate album but up there's one of me..in my rope/net pulling period..i'm the yevu in the picture if you can't recognise me right off

Blog..10 AUGUST 2010

I often ask myself..for you, my enraptured readers..whether Ghana is beautiful.

If i had come here as a tourist for a three or four week trip then i might be able to say..Yes, Ghana is indeed beautiful; its slave castles, and hardly-visited national parks are indeed beautiful; and the birds and animals in the parks and sanctuaries are marvelous and so approachable..and the Ghanaian beaches are a little-known treasure ..and the food if one works at finding the right places is surprisingly good..and the sale of all these English biscuits..Rich Tea, Bourbon, Digestives..is really quite quaint! One could do three weeks in Ghana and see and do all these things without spending any time in crazy traffic-jammed Accra or having to brave the tro-tro transportation system..and one could even get by without trying fufu, banku or..grasscutter!

But that isn’t what happened...and so, perforce, the answer might be different..especially since i’ve never seen the slave forts or the national parks and i’m sure that i’ve never been to any of the ’right’ places to eat ...and i do have to endure the tro-tro’s and I do eat fufu and banku..and even grasscutter (..tastes just like chicken!).

But what i might not be able to rave about visiting as a tourist would be the people..meeting them as a a tourist would they be as friendly, as welcoming, as smiling, as helpful? Maybe not.

I can definitely say that the Ghanaians are beautiful people! I’ve known this from my first days here. It is true across the board, all ages, all the parts of the country that I’ve been in so far. More Akwaaba’s (Welcome) than one could imagine..from total strangers or new friends. More smiles of greeting than one would have thought possible ..even makes me smile in response! So, for example, going running in the morning is a constant smiling, waving, welcoming exercise! The total workout. The Ghanaians are without a doubt both the friendliest and (apparently) the happiest people I’ve ever met...and this is true across the country. They are unreserved about their joy to see us and to meet us and to talk to us..and this is true of all the PC staff also..and that’s kind of nice too.

As for the country, i would say that i’m too close to it now and its people to be able to assess its beauty!

There are trees and views down red roads and mist-covered hills and outcrops that are rapidly becoming so familiar and unforgettable..and there will be the amazing 25 miles of beach at Whuti..sometimes foggy off the sea in the early morning until the sun burns it off...long views of huge palm trees peering through the fog in the distance. To some extent I’ve stopped seeing the mess that the villages and towns and cities are in...half-complete buildings, ruins, delapidation, culverts along the roads as rudimentary drainage and sewage systems, buildings, shacks really, or stands that are put together any old way and are falling apart from the day that they are built...piles of stones, rubble, sand for some forgotten project, holes in the ground, terrible roads, asphalt patched with packed dirt, too much plastic garbage in the villages and towns and along the roads....tumbledown, falling apart, never properly completed, wireless towers growing like weeds, TV aerials on 20-foot bamboos lashed to each house. In truth there is very little redeemable in the current state of Ghana’s villages, towns and cities...and the roads in between...but at night, with limited street lighting, and with the flames of street food vendors, and the smiles of the people in the streets, it all seems very exotic.

I don’t know if i will ever think of Ghana as beautiful but i think it will always be exotic and welcoming and fascinating to

Blog.. 09AUGUST2010

Sorana...much impressed by my blogging and Facebooking..such signs of youthful life from one so old...asks some good questions......the people of Ghana (to the extent that i know..)....how do they live, what do they do every day, what are their activities, rituals.

Rituals might be hard except to the extent that their rituals are the way that they do things as they must have been doing them for hundreds of years

I have been living ..as PCV’s do pretty much throughout the world (the PC-occupied world, that is..) for the ten+ weeks of Training in a small village/town, called Maase, in the Eastern Province, about 70kms north of Accra, the capital, on the coast ....70kms that takes 3 hours by vehicle, tro-tro or whatever, to cover such is the state of the roads...and in case, you’re wondering there are basically no railways in Ghana..used to be..now they’re gone. Like everywhere else in Ghana, Maase’s population size is an estimate (read..guess) so maybe 5,000-7,000? It really has no industry although there is a small plant employing maybe 4-5 people ‘filtering’ water and putting it into the ubiquitous water sachets which have become Ghana’s/West Africa’s symbol of progress. It has schools...kindergarten through grade school but no senior secondary. Like pretty much everywhere else I’ve been in Ghana, people farm on bits of land surrounding the community but there is no commercial farming in Maase Most families would appear to do some veggie growing but mostly for their own consumption. The market..and stands, etc by the side of the roads..might sell fruit, veggies, etc but most are probably brought in for resale rather than being local.

I live in a typical compound ..a square of I-shaped, L-shaped single storey ‘buildings’ ...mostly just room + room+ room. Two extended families live in the compound..plus me and another ‘lodger’ a man who works as a ..hmm, don’t know...but it isn’t a 9-5 job. There are no other adult males in the compund.

My host family is grandmother, aged 83 but still fairly chirpy, my host ‘mother’, Jennifer, and, currently, three of her five daughters....Comfort, Patience, and Faustina. The other family in the compound is headed by Jennifer’s younger cousin and she has four children, including the 10-year-old Dancing Queen who has featured in many of my Maase pictures ....and another one on the way. Both of the mothers in the compound have had more than one husband and both currently are married but their husbands live (..and work) elsewhere..away from Maase.

Jennifer is a teacher’s aide and her cousin is a petty trader, selling whatever she can sell to make some money ..used clothes, used shoes, etc. She survives (we guess) on money from her husband who is a tailor in Accra (except when he’s not..) Jennifer supplements the family income with produce from the ‘farm’ which is a small plot carved out of the jungle about 40 minutes walk from the compound.

Patience has a small shack as a beauty salon in the compound but it isn’t much of a business and she has been sick almost my whole time here with a stomach ailment which doesn’t get much good treatment..a stomach ulcer, a kidney infection...opinions vary ..and believe me, there are a lot of opinions from the many local (all probably unqualified) medical practitioners and informed visitors. She is 26 years old.

Comfort, who is 24 years old, is married but... She lives in Ho, in the Volta Region, and is a teacher there. She came back to Jennifer’s about six weeks ago, three weeks before she was to have her first baby, and has stayed ever since. The baby was born while i was on the road..site-visit, etc and despite it being full-term and Comfort’s seeming good health and spirits in pregnancy, she died after only five days. She had a birth defect which apparently prevented her from feeding properly. It was seen as God’s will. Ghanaians are seriously religious..Christians of many different flavours in the south and centre and Muslim in the more sparsely-populated north.

Death seems to be an ever-present in Ghana and none of the family seemed overly upset about it. Funerals here are very elaborate affairs..celebrations of life really, with a wake, a lying in state, a funeral service and burial, and culminating in a ‘party’ out in the open air, some large space, with music and everyone dressed up in their funeral finery..mostly black but often white and these outfits may be the most elaborate and stylish outfits they have. Hmmm, yes there are men in attendance but one way or another there always seem to be a lot more women. Two weekends ago, there were nine competing funerals in the Maase area ..running from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening..six women and three men..women ranging in age from 90 to 33. They are ‘advertised‘ as ‘Going Home’ or ‘Called to Jesus’ with big posters and sometimes billboards..all very informative on the family connections, etc. Funerals are big business in Ghana and people must save or borrow a lot to pay for them! Whuti (my site) will be the same. When i visited a month ago there was a big funeral.taking place .actually outside the new library/community centre ..taking place on the weekend.

Faustina, who is 19 years old, is the one in the compound whom I know best and perhaps the most interesting. She seems quite bright, speaks the best English of anyone in the compound, prepares most of my meals, helps me (does) with my laundry, and pretty much all the other things i need help with....like starting a charcoal fire on the little stove to make expresso, etc. She finished high school and got all the necessary passing grades in the summer of 2009 and has a life-long dream to become a nurse. So why did she fail to turn in her application to go to nursing school..somewhere in the country...in March??? Nobody knows..the only explanationI’ve heard is from last year’s PCV with Jennifer who suggested that Ghanaians have such a fear of failure that they refuse to venture. Doesn’t seem like enough reason for Faustina. She says then that she will definitely (..not maybe) file her application this time. I hope she does and wish i had some leverage to help her get over this acceptance hurdle. She is a good happy person and deserves to move ahead.

How do they live then..what’s their daily life like? Well, daily life seems highly predictable and has a set of activities that seem to fill the day. More time is spent in the compound than away from it for all members..including the goats and chickens..and most of the daylight hours and some of the evening hours are spent outside..sitting, talking, napping, doing stuff, preparing food, eating.

It’s all pretty basic.. Life begins about 5.30..the cocks crow, the chickens fuss, the goats awake and forage for food..and everyone..with me, last, at 6.10-ish..gets up and starts the day. The day begins with sweeping the compound and its surrounds..including the open-to-the-air shower enclosure which lies just behind the compound..‘shower’ means bucket bath..you take your bucket and plastic pail in and douse yourself..with cold water, of course... and the enclosed and roofed pit latrine area also. Sweeping is accomplished by three or four compound members and involves tied bundles of dried twigs held in one’s hand//not a broom. Sweeping is the process of smoothing the sand that is the compound floor and gathering up all the leaves, bit of stuff/food, plastic bags (that magically appear on the ground..i swear sometimes it seems to rain plastic bags) into a pile and then sometimes shoveling it all up and throwing them out back. This compound sweeping ritual would appear to be done all over Ghana every day..dirt street in town included..there you go,Sorana, a ritual! This sweeping ritual is repeated a couple of times during the day. Whilst this is going on the first food preparation begins..people eat at odd times realtive to each other it seems but generally three times a day. Food prep in the morning might be porridge making ...called ‘oats’..and boiling of water. This is done on one or more charcoal stoves..different sizes according to need. Charcoal is delivered in big bags and is very cheap. Charcoal stoves require some work..fanning..and so that is sit-down work for someone. My breakfast evolved over time to be a boiled egg..which eventually was soft-boiled ..some toasted white bread (Ghanaians seem to eat a lot of bread..it is for sale all over the place..haven’t quite figured that out yet.)..and i drink some tea. The others in the compound work on porridge and sometimes tea. All compound meals are taken outside..sitting somewhere, on something and are predictable noisy and lively. But it isn’t as if everyone always sits and eats together..it is as befits life in the compound a somewhat disorganised and disjointed affair tho Grannie always gets first bite!

Throughout the day there is always someone doing something..fetching water from the nearby artesian bore well which is busy for 16-18 hours a day, boiling water, getting wood from the forest, big limbs which are then cut up with an axe for firewood for the cooking pit, preparing food...chopping up plantains, cocoa yams, vegetables, adding peppers...chopping up fishes..and then two or three times a week we make banku or fufu ....pounding kasava, etc..and then boiling it when it is ready. With so many people in the compound and water used not only for cooking and bathing but for washing clothes they use a lot of water. When it rains, water is collected as run off from the roof in a big tank but when that runs out water is brought from the bore hole well nearby of which here are four or five in the village. Water is brought from the well in pretty large tubs, metal containers carried on the heads of the womenfolk ...girls learn from a very young age. They carry everything, including btw my luggage on their heads and so they put a small roll of cloth on their heads to cushion the weight and provide stability. it is amazing how much people can carry on their heads! I have to say that Ghanaian cooking means a lot of stewing...whatever is going to go with the plantains or fufu..with lots of peppers and garlic, onions and so it tends to be quite spicy. It might even be said that they over-stew everything ...but what do i know! Preparing the evening meal which seems to vary for the different members of the compound is a major activity. Jennifer, Comfort, and Faustina are all involved as are most of the other compound members. There always seems to be something that needs to be done. and preparing and eating will stretch over a couple of hours. Most people eat with their hands...you pretty much can’t eat fufu or banku any other way..i say ‘hands’ but, of course, i mean right hand only....and don’t give me any of this ‘i’m left-handed’ guff! There is an acquired technique to eating fufu and banku with your hand. Part of the technique is the eating part ...one doesn’t chew, one simply swallows and so fufu/banku ‘bites’ tend to be quite small. I’m learning. Washing one’s hands before and after one eats is a very important part of the dining ’ritual’ and before eating in a chopbar (indigenous food restaurant..often just one or two dishes..whatever is being cooked that day) at the family-style tables/benches one is offered a communal bowl of water, a plastic bottle of washing-up liquid soap and a tea-towel.

I take what i’m given...and by and large i’ve been OK with that! Do I love fufu or baku? Probably not but i will continue to eat them and perhaps take to some variations. I’ve never eaten as much rice as i have since i got here! It’s a major part of the diet. I don’t get the impression that people are going hungry here and there is always lots of food being prepared at the side of the streets in Maase...pretty much all day but more towards the evening..even a little stand that makes scrambled egg sandwiches! Walk through town in the late afternoon or early evening and there will be families pounding away, making fufu, stewing the evening’s accompaniments.

With so many people in the compound (..but this is typical here it seems..and families are much larger..and are of the extended variety) clothes washing is an almost daily activity. Not down by the river...wherever it is..but sitting in the compound ...scrubbing and kneading the clothes, etc, then rinsing and hanging up to dry on the web of clothes lines criss-crossing the compound. It’s the equator and although it isn’t breezy it is hot and stuff dries in a matter of hours. With so much sandstone dust in the air and from the paths and roads, etc everything, including PCV’s, gets very dirty very quickly..my day pack, my running shoes..truly everything!

We share the compound with six goats (including the newly higher-pitched one), an unknown number of hens and chickens, and a black and white cat...no dogs. Ghanaians in general do not favour dogs..dirty, spread disease..works for me! I have learned a lot about and perhaps even from these animals in my ten weeks in Ghana.

Finally, life in a Ghanaian compound is very different. It might vary form compound to compound but ours is generally a hive of activity in the evenings. there is a constant stream of visitors...commiserating with Gran on the recent death of her older sister; offering advice on Patience’ health; just stopping by to chat; selling stuff collected from the jungle and borne on someone’s head...corn, wood for firewood. coconuts, charcoal; and on occasion, a wandering minister or two for a short prayer session. My teachers would often stop by to see me or to see my host ‘mother‘ also! It is all very social and so i would bring my chair (plastic, of course) outside to sit in the evenings also and be introduced and welcomed by all the visitors...Akwaaba, Akwaaba!

So that’s it..life in my village, life in my compound. Obviously women do pretty much all the work but i’ve turned my hand to pretty much every aspect of the work involved...from early-morning sweeping to late-evening socialising!

08August2010

...i’ve just finished reading a book ...a professorial thesis ..on the “Informal Sector in the Ghanaian Economy”. It’s not a new book ..published more then ten years ago but it seems still very true and very relevant.

What’s the ‘Informal Sector’

It is that segment of the working or working age population who fail to find employment or lose employment in the wage or salaried sector of the workforce and who then resort to self-employment, doing what ever they can, to eke out a subsistence. In Ghana, the ‘petty trader’ is the of epitome this sector....a petty trader will buy or make (cook, perhaps) a number of items to sell on a daily basis and will survive on the mark-up, selling from a makeshift stand at the side of the road or carrying her/his stock around on her/his head...normally this is the territory of women or young girls.

Because of the deliberate policies of the colonial government prior to independence in 1957 and the actions of successive Ghanaian governments thereafter, ably abetted by such as the World Bank and the IMF, no substantial job-producing industrial or manufacturing sector has ever been created in Ghana. Both before and after independence the Ghanaian economy has been based on the export of raw materials..cocoa, gold, manganese..and the import from the mother country of all the consumer goods ..from shoes to cars..that the population required. This is an equation that now goes back almost two hundred years in Ghana ..and explains why there are so many olde-counntrie consumer goods, like biscuits, for example, that still exist for sale in Ghana!

OK..very interesting, you might say...if you’re still reading that is!

Well, it is and it isn’t...it is in a vacuum, i suppose, but here’s what makes it really interesting..and sad and frustrating and all these other despairing feelings!

THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN GHANA REPRESENTS BETWEEN 70 AND 80% OF THE GHANAIAN WORKFORCE/WORKING AGE POPULATION.

And once one sinks into the Informal Sector, one never or only very rarely gets out!

Most people leaving school at whatever age have never and will never have a wage or salaried job. There simply aren’t enough new jobs being created and there is very little vocational or job training carried on in Ghana..and Ghana is one of the best of the Sub-Sahara countries!

By its nature, too, it is a closed sector...who buys from the informal sector...why, mostly it is the people in the Informal Sector!

And don’t look to any welfare or social services safety net to help either! There basically isn’t any, apart from the Ghanaian Health Service ..which i don’t completely understand yet. And since those who fall into the Informal Sector rarely escape from it then they never accrue any state pension contributions, etc, etc. And so they are doomed to try to eke out an existence in the Informal Sector for the rest of their lives!

I already understand that the ‘development’ of the Informal Sector is not how economies like this one will grow and it is not the answer to the country’s poverty. It is indeed a trap and only through better education and job training programs for high-school age students and beyond will the economy be transformed.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the revenues from the new oil fields in the Gulf of Guinea were put into transforming the Ghanaian Education System!

Sigh..that isn’t going to happen. Education and Job Training will probably be last to get any oil bonanza hand-outs.

posted Wednesday 04Aug

My thoughts on having gone through the Language test and now entering the last week of Training. Training has been hard and like everyone else..and well recognised by the PC Ghana staff, especially Mike and Rob...the last two weeks have just been a drag..soooooo anxious for it all to be over. But Mike’s latest “CD Fireside Chat” was quite sobering. He asked us to consider whether we were truly ready and willing to be Peace Corps Volunteers at our chosen sites for the next two years. ( TWO YEARS!!! HE SAID ..TWO YEARS!!!!)

A sobering thought..i must admit to having been consumed by just getting to the next stage..oh, for the last 16 or 17 months..and haven’t always kept the end-goal in mind.

What’s so different (actually everything is different) this time for me as a PCV (oops PCT..don’t lets get ahead of ourselves..again) is that i know from my site visit and exchanges subsequently that this community, Whuti, is anxiously awaiting my arrival and they have a whole heap of things/tricks/projects/miracles that they need and expect me to ‘help’ them achieve/perform. I won’t slide into town unannounced..they’ll be there (again) to greet me and want to have meetings to discuss plans/ideas right off the tro-tro from Accra.

That’s good in lots of ways, of course, except for the performing miracles part.

Especially given that one is supposed as a PCV to play the role of Change Agent/ Facilitator/Teacher.

The other striking difference from “Life-Before-Ghana” .... hereinafter to be known as LBG..and not to be confused with LBL!.....is that there is obviously so much to be done..big, little, real, inconsequential ..to improve the lives of everyone that one comes in contact with..and i mean everyone from the smallest child to the grandmothers.

Two years often seems like a very long time but it may not be enough time to even make a dent in the life of my community of Whuti.

I used to walk through my community in Romania, Lugoj, and think to myself as a PCV..how can i help this community, can i help this community?

I don’t even need to get out of the house in Whuti to know a thousand answers to those questions.

So..yes, Mike K..i really am ready and willing to be Whuti’s PCV for the next two years but it remains a sobering question.

(..i was going to post some additional pictures from Maase today but since the selection would have included a randy little goat’s castration this morning..right after i came back from my run up into the jungle, i might add,...i’ll hold off on the pictures!)

baci e abbracci

Lorry Stations are organized by destination and you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll get where you’re going….eventually. There are, of course, no schedules, and the tro’s only leave when they are absolutely full and for the less well-travelled routes that could take a while. I’ve routinely waited for well over an hour but others tell of 4-5 hour waits. Waiting is fun, of course, assailed on all sides by vendors and noise, and heat, and pollution. There isn’t much redeeming about Tro riding except that it gets you where you want to go eventually ..and it is CHEAP!!!! Ride for 3-4 hours for $3-4! And it is a great way to get up close and personal with Ghanaian life and street cultures.

Impressions get pushed out and replaced by new ones.

Some constants…travelling is the same…a grind..and of course we’ve done a lot though my distances haven’t been bad compared to others headed up to the Northern Region or the Upper East/Upper West which often require an overnight stop in Kumasi or Tamale. Weighed down by bits and pieces of luggage..both the too-much we brought plus the stuff we get ‘handed’ ..a mosquito net (clunk), a water filter and container (CLUNK), a medical kit in a nice little (oops, not so little) box ..and various handouts, manuals, etc..and the bad news is that we actually need most of them over the next two years and anyway, we can’t just dump them as they must be returned to PC at COS…used medical supplies anyone??

Tro riding is awful..the worst travelling experience of my life certainly ..oh yes, the trip from Tblisi to Yerivan in a similar vehicle was pretty rough but nothing like this!

To describe…when you have clapped out Ford Transit like vehicles driven by crazy guys over awful roads…like the stretch around Keta where the road has been washed away by the sea…packed beyond the gunnels …if they’re supposed to take up to 15 people, including the driver, they routinely hold 20+. We drive for hours on these trips, scrunched up with this damn laptop and these damn cameras, etc in a backback on my knees which are in any case up towards my chin because I’ve got either mine or someone else’s bag..or simply just stuff…on the floor in front of me!

Your muscles cramp and go to sleep, you bounce around and find yourself praying out loud that this misery will end soon or that mercifully the tro will drive off the road and you’ll be instantly killed! Then the journey ends and you’re tumbling out in some whacky Tro station (quaintly called Lorry Stations) where your arrival is greeted with a flock of vendors carrying things on their heads, scuttling and nodding towards you, but beaten to you by the unencumbered tro touts who demand to know where you’re going next and start pulling at you, your bags to get you to their tro! See, each tro has two guys, the driver and the tout/pusher/door-opener/last in the tro..and sometimes

My five days/four nights there were action-packed…from the first moment of my tumbling out of the Tro-tro from Accra with bits of dusty baggage falling out after me to be greeted at my new front gate by an array of chiefs, elders, assembly-person. all in full ceremonial garb!

And then almost non-stop until my departure four days later after another three-hour meeting with my American ‘sponsor’/backer? ..and my counterpart, supervisor

and the same chiefs and elders!

Whuti is a farming and fishing community on the isthmus at the extreme Eastern end of the Ghanaian coastline. The isthmus, which is composed almost completely of sand, is about 25 miles long and from about 1km to 2.5 kms wide. On one side, to the north is the Keta Lagoon which is freshwater and is part of the Volta Estuary and on the other side is the lusty Gulf of Guinea . It ‘s a cross between Fire Island and maybe something in the Carolinas

well..maybe we've figured this stuff out now..that would be nice

As we know, I’m deeply interested in the possibilities for MicroFinance, preferably the classic “Grameen’ model, in West Africa.

Hmmmm..well, everybody and I mean everybody is very high on microfinance in Ghana. I’ve even had 10 and 12-year-olds sliding up to me in schools asking if I can introduce them to a good microfinance operation! OK, perhaps that is an exaggeration but you get the point – everybody has heard of it, has heard that it can work magic…Money For Nothing, etc.

The reality of course is that there is nothing remotely resembling a Grameen operation in the country and that with microfinance completely unregulated it is completely uncoordinated, mostly very small-scale, and pops up in one place but not in a neighboring village or small town.

here we are trying to create a blog and failing miserably so far