September 5, 2007- Afternoon at the Library

September 5, 2007- Afternoon

The older kids took forever to get ready to go to the library.  Elikplim, Israel, Isaac, and Justice had to finish eating and wash the breakfast dishes.  Minua, Lebene, Rosemond, Ernestina, and Juliet pranced around giving the younger children a hard time for not being allowed to come with us.  And then they all had to change into nicer clothes.  I’m not sure I could tell much of a difference, but at least they all had shoes on.

When we finally left the gate the boys marched off ahead of us, counting the peswas in their pockets, thinking they could sneak into a shop for some sweets without us knowing.  Minua, Lebene, and Rosemond walked three-abreast, hand in hand, giggling and gossiping a few steps behind us.  Juliet reached for my hand, and tiny Ernestina shyly took Sonjelle’s when it was offered. 

Before reaching the main, paved road, we passed many small shops: a young, svelte, shirtless carpenter sanded a chair on his outdoor workbench; a plump hairdresser wearing a fancy wig braided another plump woman’s weave while they gossiped behind the lace curtain of her wooden shed; broken fans sat outside the door of the electronics repair store; a young boy sat on a blue cooler, his small display of crackers and candies protected by a veil of chicken wire.  On our right, goats grazed and a few men sat on benches playing Mancala, which Edem says is called Oowari in most of Ghana, and Adie in Kpando.   

The paved road was much busier.  The shed-shops butted up against each other on both sides of the road.  The shops on the right, strangely, all rested on the ground two feet below the street-level sidewalk.  Some stores had steps, but some required a bit of a courageous jump for anyone interested in more than window shopping.  Ladies with purses on their heads perused the racks of fabric and men congregated around grills piled high with plantain chips and corn cobs.  Folks stared as we walked past, most in curious fascination, and a few as if we had just shown up to a wedding wearing black.  Children with papaya juice dripping off their chins stopped slurping to chant “yavo yavo, bonsoir!” 

Sonjelle tells me that the connotation of “yavo” is a little unclear.  People use it to mean “white person,” but any non-native African, such as a black person from America, is a yavo.  Fair-skinned locals can also don the nickname.  In general it may or may not be a compliment.  One person told Sonjelle that it translates directly as “dirty scoundrel dog,” but that hasn’t been verified.  Either way, it’s a bit unsettling.  At home, you certainly wouldn’t shout “hey whitey!” down the street to someone and expect them to greet you back with an enthusiastic smile and a wave.  And absolutely no one would respond with “hey blacky,” as is apparently acceptable here, as Sonjelle exhibited.  She sang back, “amebo amebo, bonsoir!” and the children doubled over in laughter.  I was still trying to wrap my brain around this cultural phenomenon when we arrived at the library.

The library, mercifully, had ceiling fans.  As my thick film of sun block and sweat dried, I perused the bookshelves.  One side of the room was for adults and displayed decade old encyclopedias, dusty world-history series’, and remarkably outdated medical and law reference books.  In the middle there were a few shelves for adult and young adult fiction and on the other end of the room sat a short table surrounded by shelves of children’s books.  Not one inch of one single shelf was organized in any sort of order, alphabetical or otherwise.  The librarian napped behind his desk.

Justice found a picture book about geography.  Elikplim, Isaac, and Israel stuck their noses into a short chapter book about a soccer player.  Minua, Lebene, and Rosemond each chose children’s narratives and read elbow to elbow at the table.  Juliet, with help from Sonjelle, found a picture book, which she held an inch from her nose. 

Ernestina sat quietly in a chair by herself, hands in her lap.

Little Ernestina, or Nestie, looks to be six or seven, and although her date of birth is unknown, Sonjelle says she’s at least twelve.  She’s never been to school.  Her father died of AIDS in 2000.  Three years later her mother carried Nestie to an orphanage a few miles from their home, passing away within minutes, also due to AIDS.  The little girl, sick and on medication for the disease herself, was passed from place to place, indifferent caretaker to indifferent caretaker.  One such caretaker cited turning her away due to a “bad odor,” which was most likely caused by malnutrition or her body’s reaction to her medication.  Finally, an elderly woman allowed Ernestina to sleep in her home, but only fed her now and then.  When a social worker finally intervened and took her to a hospital, doctors diagnosed Nestie with “failure to thrive,” which is a delicate way of saying that she had given up her will to live. 

HardtHaven took her in that week, despite the dispassionate doctor’s reluctance.  “She will only live six more years, at best,” he explained in a tone that meant “don’t bother.”  Edem looked at the beautiful little girl, and without hesitation he resolved to make those few years as happy and as comfortable as possible. 

Nestie is the only child at HardtHaven who is on ARVs.  She naps often during the day, and wakes at night with stomach pains due to her distended belly and medications, but she doesn’t cry.  On good days Sonjelle has seen her sing and dance, and even play tricks on the other children.  In three short months HardtHaven cured the little girl of “failure to thrive.”  If only there was a way to cure the rest of her ailments.

I knelt by Ernestina and asked if she’d like me to read her a story.  She looked at me blankly, not knowing much English.  I chose a book, held out my hand, and we walked together to the porch at the front of the building.  She sat in my lap as I pointed to pictures, telling her the English words – “Duck.”  “Boy.”  “Red.”  By the end of the hour she was pointing out ducks and boys and reds to me with pride.  

Ernestina

September 5, 2007- Good Morning Kpando

September 5, 2007

Morning

This morning I awoke to the sound of snoring in the bunk above me.  Looking around my new room in the daylight, I realized that someone else’s things were strewn all over a small plastic bistro table and chair in one corner.  As I started to unpack on the floor next to the empty crib in the other corner, Sonjelle (Sone-yell), my roommate, woke up and introduced herself.                                                                                                                                                     Her long hair was clean, but messy.  I got the feeling that she reveled in not having to brush it as she threw it into a wadded bun on the top of her head.  She slid a pair of stylish Lisa-Lobe-esque glasses onto her pointy, freckled little nose and leapt like a gazelle to the floor.  She was all angles and points, and legs and arms, like a Tim Burton character, if Tim Burton drew dirty-blonde bohemian girls in baggy pajamas.

Sonjelle

She’s been here for five weeks and goes home in one week (on the 12^th).  She’s from NJ and plans to come back to HardtHaven in January for a full year.  I could tell from her tone that she was in love with Ghana and the children here, and that her twenty-something years have left her jaded from consumerism and American bureaucracy.  An ex-pat in the making.  As I searched for my toothbrush she put on one of the dresses she had had made at a tailor shop during her stay – this one was a lime green and fushia number, which hung a little awkwardly on her boney hips and tan shoulders.  One strap may have been shorter than the other, the waistline was a bit high, and the twirling power of the pleated bottom was sure to be the envy of every schoolgirl.  If nothing else, she was ready to rock the electric slide.  She caught me staring and said “yeah, I liked the leafy pattern, but the tailors don’t really have the hang of western styles.  If you pick an African style they’ll do a better job.  But the whole thing only cost me seven Cedis.”  That’s about four or five dollars, I think.

Once we were dressed, we walked out through a big empty room called The Hall and continued outside across the small compound to the porch for breakfast.  Each room we passed was bright blue and green, with cartoons, letters, and numbers hand painted on the walls.  Each bunk bed was canopied with a white mosquito net.  The outside of the two one-story buildings, like most cement block buildings, were painted peach with a red boarder around the bottom that went up about knee high.  Sonjelle told me that the colors were to disguise the dust and dirt that flies around during the dry seasons.  Our building is L-shaped, and has three bedrooms for boys, two bedrooms for girls, our volunteer room, the volunteer bathroom, The Hall, and a porch facing the front footpath.  Along the side of the building is a staircase to the roof of our building.  The children are not allowed up there, making it a bit of a haven for overwhelmed adults.  From the roof you can see that HardtHaven sits at the corner of an intersection of a dirt road and a busy foot-path.  The walled soccer stadium across the road has a large fenced-in green grass field where the local team practices and plays, their clubhouse, a dirt patch where children kick around handmade balls, a paved handball court, and a small paved basketball court.  Following the road to the right takes you to town, and you can see a few small shops past the stadium on the left, and a small park on the right.  Following the road to the left seems to go straight off into the bush.

Back in the compound, the second, and smaller building, is rectangular and houses the kitchen, storage room, office, and a porch facing the middle of the compound.  The surrounding wall supports half a dozen laundry lines, and a tree in the middle is clearly fighting a losing battle – branches whittled and scattered about.  

A few of the smaller children welcomed us with hugs while the others sat around the compound slurping up porridge with hunks of dense white sugar bread.

Sister Francisca greeted us with fried eggs on sugar bread.  She’s not a nun – the kids call the two matrons “Sister,” as a sign of respect.  The volunteers are called “Auntie” or “Uncle,” which is even higher on the social hierarchy.  

Sister Francisca

Sister Francisca looked just as you might expect a sweet, motherly Ghanian woman to look (although she never had children of her own).  On the one hand she looked like she could be very stern and on the other hand you wanted to cuddle up in her lap for a nap.  The cloth tied around her waist contrasted with the cloth tied around her head, which both contrasted with her thin, but clean, tank top.  Her face was smooth, her eyes soft, and her mouth showed a hint of a shy smile. 

Sister Matilda, the other matron, is scheduled to be here at lunchtime.  Sonjelle explained that Sister Matilda is a bit too harsh with the kids, and Edem wants to speak with her before it goes on too long.  Today is payday for them, so it’s a good day for a meeting.  They make 500,000 Cedis each month (or 50 “New Ghana Cedis,” since the currency has just been changed and people are still getting use to it), which is roughly equal to a little under $50, and they sleep here on a weekly rotation, both coming in during the day to cook and oversee the children’s chores. 

Nancy and Minua (in doorway)

As I ate my greasy, salty egg sandwich I was entertained by Nancy, a bright-eyed two-year-old girl with a buzz cut, a pink t-shirt, and a pair of saggy underwear.  Nancy is an attention hound, and loves to sit in your lap.  She mimicked the songs I sang to her while she danced.  When Sonjelle scolded her for refusing to wear her pants, she just looked at us with a furrowed brow, pretending to not understand.  Sonjelle told me that Nancy and her older sister, Minua, came from terrible conditions.  She showed me a picture of their home from their file.  It was an old, grey mud hut with a dirt floor and crumbling walls.  There was no door, not even a sheet, to keep out the weather and the animals.  When their mother passed away from AIDS and their father disappeared, their Grandmother became sole caretaker.  She sold palm nut oil (that red oil I’ve been seeing) for a living, but mostly spent the little she earned on herself.  Since moving to the home, the girls have not only grown to healthy weights, but Minua has really started excelling at school, and Nancy has become a delightfully typical “terrible” two year old.

After breakfast, walking to the volunteer bathroom holding my towel, my shampoo, and my soap, one of the children called out “Auntie, will you bath?”  That’s how it’s said – you bath.  You don’t bathe.  “Yes, I will bath.”

The bathroom has a full-sized tub with a shower head, a toilet, cement block walls, and plastic rollout flooring printed to look like tiles.  If I squint a little bit, I could be in any bathroom anywhere, and it feels nice.  Ahh, a shower.  I hadn’t even noticed how grimy I was from traveling.  It’s been days since my last shower.  Next to the tub are two one-hundred-gallon plastic tubs full of water, and a ten-gallon bucket, which I ignored.  And then I tried turning on the faucet.  It grumbled and spat out a little brown blob of dirt, then started to roar horribly.  So much for the faucet.  So much for this being any bathroom anywhere.  So much for my shower.  This, I realized, is what those huge plastic tubs are for.  I found it works best to fill up the bucket of room-temperature water, hop in the tub, squat down, dunk my head in it, splash around, soap up, and stand up, and use a small cup to rinse off.  It was surprisingly refreshing, and after the initial shock of cool water, it was actually really nice. 

The toilet, thankfully, is a toilet.  It flushes, most of the time, and there’s a little roll of actual toilet paper next to it.  I had been worried.

September 4, 2007- Wouldn't Mom Freak Out if She Knew!

Evening

When we arrived in downtown Accra, Edem took my suitcase in one hand and my hand with his other (apparently he and I are now friends, and that’s what he says friends do… they hold hands) and talked as we walked to the bus station where we picked up our tro tro to Kpando. 

The tro tro station was like a bus station, but more insane.  The tro tro’s zipped into the parking lot and the drivers seemed to be playing a game called “almost hit everyone you see.”  Edem told me to stay put, walked away with my bag, and came back empty handed.  I tried not to look alarmed.  Travel Rule #1; don’t lose sight of your bag.  He handed me a scrap of thin, grey paper with a number printed on it which served as my ticket and we walked together to the tro tro.  Miraculously, my bag was still in the back.

Tro tro station in Accra

Edem in our tro tro

Ahh, tro tros.  The U.S. equivalent of a tro tro is a Greyhound bus, which aren’t exactly the most luxurious mode of transportation.  However, after seeing our tro, I longed for a fuzzy blue adjustable seat of my own with an armrest and a headrest and a footrest and a little mesh pocket to hold my water bottle and reading materials.  Sigh

The tro tro was green.  Or at least it was at one point.  Now the exterior was grayish and rusty.  When I first saw it I thought it had been abandoned in the 1980s and was still waiting to be towed.  All the windows had cracks—      the windshield had an impressive one spidering from the top right all the way to the bottom left.  The four greasy faux-leather bench seats had stuffing popping out of each ample crack, and the glue no longer held the dingy fabric to the ceiling very well.  Two brown, frayed, pathetic looking toothbrushes were wedged in the passenger-side visor.   A thin blue rope tying the trunk door to what was left of the bumper was the only thing keeping my suitcase from bouncing down the pothole-ridden highway and into the jungle.

I had to climb up and push some ceiling fabric out of my face when I climbed in.  I clutched my backpack to my chest as I slid into my middle seat in the third row.  The woman to my left was snoring against the window, feet up on a lumpy zippered plastic bag, a five-gallon tub of margarine in her lap.  My feet rested on a large tractor tire which held up the seat in front of me, and my right knee jammed into a metal bar no matter how I angled myself.  There was no room for my backpack anywhere except my lap, and with my legs jammed up as they were, I had to lift my head up and over it to look from right to left.  Edem sat to my right, and another man sat next to him after folding down a little stool in the isle.

As we settled into our seats Edem explained that Kpando is a medium sized town in the Volta Region of Ghana.  He is the Executive Director of a children’s home called “HardtHaven,” which he opened three months ago in partnership with a 22 year old girl from Spokane, Washington.  There are 14 children living there and the organization supports a dozen or so other children and families in the community.  It’s technically not an “orphanage,” as some of the children still have family members who are alive, and some even visit.  Even if all of the children were bona fide orphans, the term “orphanage” is frowned upon by the Ghanian government as it refers to institutions rather than a home-like environment.  The government is working toward shutting down “orphanages” in favor of funding smaller children’s homes and foster care programs, so HardtHaven is planning to keep the numbers small, and purposefully put the words “Children’s Home” in their name.  Regardless, each child has his or her own humbling story as to why they qualify to live at the home.  Some families have been ravaged by HIV/AIDS and the parents or grandparents are not well enough to care for the children.  Some of the children are “sick,” which is how the home refers to children who test positive, and their remaining family members or entire community will not take care of them because of the gross stigmas attached to the illness.  Some arrive relatively healthy, and some malnourished, hosting tapeworms, and covered head to toe with ringworm.  Edem loves nothing more than to turn sad skinny kids into giggling little butterballs. 

Thirty or forty minutes in, once all the people in the four back rows and the front were seated four across, the creaky door slammed shut in a cloud of dust and flakes of rust.  The trip to Kpando was only supposed to be a three-hour tour, and so, of course, it took over five and felt like an eternity.    

The first two or three miles out of Accra took an hour, but at least then it was light out.  The last stretch toward the highway provided some solid entertainment.  The tro tro would inch along, revealing a new on-foot vendor selling something delightful or revolting, but always random, and usually from a bowl on the vendor’s head.  Plastic bags full of whole dried minnows or other shredded and smoked fish, Ghanian flags, freshly picked mangos, regional maps, baby clothes, belts, day old soggy fried chunks of dough, pink hardboiled eggs with a dollop of hot sauce, foam take-away containers oozing with red oil, cell phone credit, bright plastic cheaply made children’s toys, biscuits, bread loaves, tomatoes, Nigerian films. It was like a drive-through Wal-Mart.

We made it to the open highway just as the sun went down and my ass went numb. 

The relief that came with knowing where I was headed and that I seemed to be in good hands was forgotten once we inched outside the city.  The “highway” opened into one wide paved road with no lines, and pothole after pothole.  Staying on our side of the road was apparently optional.  The driver preferred laying on the horn while flying around sharp turns in the wrong lane rather than returning to his side of the road.

This was sort of novel for the first two hours.  Look at me on the other side of the world zipping around in a death trap on the wrong side of the road, wouldn’t Mom freak out if she knew!  Once the sun went down and the rain started pouring from the sky it was harder to keep up that charade. 

After seven eternities we skidded and splashed into the Kpando tro tro station in one thankful piece.  A take-away container of food some how materialized in Edem’s hands, and we took a cab to the children’s home and carried my bags through the night and into my room.  I ate and passed out under my mosquito net on the bottom bunk.

September 4, 2007- Internationally Known Stereotypes

Morning-

After surviving breakfast (some sort of sugary fermented corn porridge that I politely choked down) Joyce’s friends picked us up. 

We stopped for gas at a station that doesn’t use electricity.  Apparently a lot of gas stations here have manual pumps.  The pump was a large glass cylindrical vessel with a long rubber hose coming out the bottom, perched on a skinny metal stand that sticks out of a large barrel.  Friend #2 cranked the KoolAid-red gasoline out, old-time water pump style. 

After getting gas we pulled in to the Ghana Police Headquarters.  I have no idea why.  I was told nothing.  Joyce’s friends exchanged envelopes with some stiff-looking men in a very sparsely decorated office and we went on our way. 

Our next stop was at a quiet intersection – somewhere.  Friend #1 took the envelope and disappeared while we waited.  Joyce and Friend #2 got us some fried yucca to snack on, which were like tasty tasty dense steak fries, and then Friend #1 returned.  We weren’t ready to go home, though – we apparently had more envelopes to trade around town.

As we all sat waiting in the Jeep at the next stop, Joyce started asking personal questions while the two men looked on.  “What do you do for work?  How much money do you make?  Who do you live with?  Do you have a boyfriend?”  I’m not sure she came up for air once.

When she tired of questioning she leaned in and whispered, dripping with scandal, “One volunteer told me that it is LEGAL to be GAY in Massachusetts!”  I confirmed the rumor, which sent her on another chatter rampage – “They just do not have gays in Ghana.  It would not be legal.  It is not normal to be gay.  Gay people are not normal.   My favorite volunteer was gay.  He told me all about it.  He told me about Massachusetts.  We are still friends, and I will visit him in Massachusetts, but he is not normal.”

Then Joyce smirked and leaned back in to cluck “When I come to the U.S. I will go to Las Vegas and have a drive-though wedding, then a drive-though divorce, and then I will go spend the night with a woman in Massachusetts!”

I told her that it hadn’t, until now, occurred to me that I should consider indulging in such extravagancies.

Not wanting the conversation to die down, Joyce went back to pressing me for details about JB.  I showed her the pictures in my purse – dressed up for a fancy dinner, making stupid faces together.  I started to tell her what he does for a living when she cut me off.  “No.  I want to know if he is… romantic or not.”  The word “romantic” came out of her mouth as if a lounge singing snake had said it – whispered all throaty and slithery, driving home the point that she wanted the gossip, not these inane, banal pleasantries. 

“Oh, sure.  Of course, he’s romantic.”  Pointing at the picture of Katelyn, “and my sister works…”

“No,” she cut me off, “I do not care about your sister.  I want to know if your boyfriend is romantic.  Ghanian men are very- you know (winks, raises her eyebrows and directs her eyes toward her friend’s crotch) ROMANTIC.”

I felt my cheeks turn pink.

“And,” eyeing the photo she continued, matter-of-factly, “I hear white men are not as romantic, and bald men are not good in bed.”

My armpits started to sweat.

As a defense mechanism I tried to turn it back on her by spittering out “He.  He’s um.  He’s ro.  Mantic…  So, you want to know if he has a big penis?” I finished strong at the end.  “Is that what you’re asking me?”

Joyce and the two friends just laughed.

She looked at the photo again and asked if he was Spanish. 

“No, he’s Italian,” I croaked.

“OooOOOOHHHhh, then he’s very romantic!”

Thank you, internationally known stereotypes, for getting me off the hook.

Just then, Friend #1’s parcel was delivered to us at the intersection by a man with bare feet and we drove on.  We spent the better part of the morning stopping at indiscriminate office buildings and various ministries to shuffle documents.  The man-friends did the dirty work while Joyce and I drank coconut milk and ate bananas and peanuts in the car- she topping herself with inappropriate question after inappropriate question (“No, Joyce, you can not spy on my lesbian roommates if you visit the US.”).

Finally our morning of delivering what were most likely bribes had come to an end and the man-friends drove us to a tourist’s market.  We perused, and everyone was completely dumfounded that I was not interested in spending money on tchotchkes.  I told Joyce that I was hoping to buy some music, and she excitedly told me that her cousin worked at a radio station and could make me some mix CDs.  She was on the phone with him before I could answer, and the next thing I knew I had inadvertently ordered three “very professional” mix CDs and would pay $30.  Joyce assured me that I would collect them before getting on the plane on my way home.  I tried to wipe the skepticism off my face as Friends 1 and 2 watched, smiling and nodding, as I forked over the cash.

At lunch, Joyce was adamant that I could not leave her home without learning to eat like a Ghanaian.  She showed me how to pick up the spicy-spicy-spicy green okra goo, which was reminiscent of You Can’t Do That On Television slime, by scooping it up with a blob of corn dough that I held in my finger tips.  When the elusive Elvis and Edem arrived to pick me up and take me to this place called Kpando in the Volta Region, I was busy licking my lunch off my arms like a toddler with a slice of birthday cake.

I packed up my things and then Elvis sat me down on the porch to give me an “Official Cosmic Volunteers Orientation” which lasted about 15 seconds:

1. Ghanian people are nice.
2. Don’t swear.
3. Don’t offer or use your left hand.  It’s dirty.
4. Call him if I need anything.

I have a feeling that Joyce, in her own way, better prepared me to expect the unexpected while adjusting.

Elvis put me, my things, and Edem in one of those mini-van busses, called a “tro tro,” and disappeared.

September 3, 2007- The Cosmic Volunteer

Made it to Accra!  The second flight was on a small aircraft so we exited the plane using a staircase like in the photos you see of the President climbing out of Air Force One, then piled into a bus, which drove exactly thirty feet down the tarmac to the door of the airport.  The baggage claim was a free-for-all.  People just grabbed a cart and pushed it as close to the conveyer as humanly possible, smashing though ankles if necessary.  No one could actually get their bags off the belt.  I pointed and hollered from three carts back until someone fifteen feet down the line grabbed mine and passed it, crowd-surfing-style, back to me.

Customs was a joke.  It was harder to get out of the States than it was to get in to Ghana.  They let me, and my two bananas, skate right though. 

Exhausted, dragging my luggage behind me, I heaved open the manual glass doors.  The oppressively thick hot air engulfed my body like a slow moving wave.  I could feel it ooze over my skin as the air-conditioning became a memory.  The sweat was instantaneous.  I hiked up my backpack and pushed outside.  Almost as quickly as the swampy-air hit me I was surrounded by taxi drivers, swarming.  “First time in Africa?”  “You need taxi?”  “Pure water, 1 Cedi!”  “Use my phone, five dollars!”  You know in the movies, when the camera does that swing-around thing, going in circles, showing you how overwhelmed the protagonist is?  Cue swing-around thing. 

I backed away, “No… no… no thank you, nothankyou,” and slunk along the sidewalk, dragging my suitcase, away from the main crowd.  People hugged and negotiated rides.  Newbies, not unlike myself, got scammed into giving “small tip, maybe $10” for having their bags carried.  I just watched, and waited for Elvis, the Cosmic Volunteers Ghanian Coordinator, and my point person should anything go awry during my trip, to pick me up.

I waited.

He’ll come.  I’m not worried.  I’m only on the other side of the planet at the crack of dawn having just escaped from a nest of persistent local entrepreneurs with an affinity for fresh blood.  And, “Cosmic Volunteers” is a legit business, even if I did find them through a Google search.  I’m sure it’s fine.  It’ll be fine.

Cosmic Volunteers.  If ever there was a company name that screamed “we’re going to drop you in the middle of no-where and steal your money,” this is it.  Months ago I spent an hour or so perusing past volunteer blogs and conducted a thorough investigation through the Better Business Bureau which left me feeling secure.  However, when no one is standing on the other side of the rope line holding a card with your name on it, you start to wonder if sending a couple thousand dollars to an internet company you’ve never heard of before was such a great idea.  And getting picked up by a guy named “Elvis?”  Geez.  Possibly not the best decision I’ve ever made.

I sat on my suitcase, took out one of my contraband bananas and ate.  It was enormous and tasteless, thanks to exorbitant western fertilizers.  The cabby just down the walkway was staring at me. Actually, he was staring at my banana.  I held out the other- “you want one?”  He walked over, took it, said thanks, walked back, and just stood there rolling it over in his hands.  How embarrassing.  This guy lives in a place where bananas actually grow.  Naturally.  They’re small and radiate quality that New Jersey Flavorists only dream about.  And now I’ve given him this colossal disaster of a banana, which will represent America in his mind forever.  Oh well. 

And I wait.

Vladimir and Estragon have nothing on me.

Finally I decided to pull out the Cosmic Emergency Phone Number and waived over a cell phone wielding taxi driver.  For a mere $3 he let me place a fifteen second call (he wanted $5, but I didn’t give in!).  To my amazement, Elvis answered the phone (He exists!  It’s not a scam!)  Convinced that I wasn’t to arrive for another two hours, Elvis let me know that Joyce would be there to pick me up as soon as she could and hung up without saying goodbye. 

Who the hell is Joyce?

About 30 minutes later a plump, middle aged Ghanian woman strapped into a “Blondes Have More Fun” t-shirt, sporting a sleek, almost shaved hairdo and red lipstick bounced toward me.  Joyce.  My host for the evening. 

After giving me a squeeze and grabbing my suitcase with her worn, but manicured hands, she chirped “I will give you Ghana Orientation!  Edem will pick you in the morning to go to the Volta Region.”

Who the hell is Edem?

Joyce chattered about past volunteers she’s hosted, where they’ve been from, and how much they enjoyed staying with her, while I watched out the window of her Jeep as this strange new place flew by.  The Accra roads were paved and we passed two and three story buildings, billboards, taxis, and mini-van sized busses that never came to a stop, yet people kept jumping in and out.  People were walking and riding bikes and sweating standing still.  They carried baskets full of vegetables on their heads, pulling their children along behind them.  They wore western clothes, and they wore long cuts of bright, wildly patterned fabric wrapped around their waists and shoulders.  They sold water in plastic baggies, dirty used shoes off of blankets under trees, individually wrapped crackers.  Business men and women in tailored suits bustled along, chatting on their phones.  Twenty-somethings in imitation Dolce & Gabana jeans strutted and flirted.  Haggard, weather-beaten, frowning parents in shredded coats dispatched small armies of filthy children to beg at the elbows of passersby.   

We drove by crooked little hand-built fences, supporting dirty brown burlap sacks full of rice stacked six feet high.  Faded orange, blue, red, and black fabric hung on lines to dry in the sun.  Row upon row of tires were piled next to bench seats that had been removed from flooded minivans, but still seemed to be for sale.  Every corner had a little table the perfect size for a child’s lemonade stand back home, with the words “Space to Space” painted on the front, and seemed to sell cell phone credit.  Living room sets were displayed roadside, a man at the ready to towel them off for potential customers.

And then there was the smell.  Like burning tires, campfire smoke, and body odor.  And something sweet, like fried starchy potatoes.

Joyce turned onto an unpaved road where cement buildings were traded for metal transport containers and sheds with painted wooden signs for “God is God Electronics,” “Allah’s Fast Food,” “Modern Creation” fashions, and “All Mighty Ventures: Rent Chairs and Tables.”  “Anointed Supermarket,” like every single foodstuff shop we passed (and there were plenty), sold bunches of bananas, small green oranges on wire displays, tins of tomato and fish, black bags of charcoal, individually wrapped candies, toilet paper by the roll, single serving instant coffee, used water bottles full of red oil, and plastic buckets.  

We arrived at Joyce’s building; a comparatively fancy bungalow made of cement blocks and a tin roof.  She and her family lived on the second floor above a shop.  Up the stairs, from the porch, I sat with her brood of four and watched the stray dogs trot by.  After eating a dinner of rice and spicy-spicy-spicy “stew,” which was mostly tomato puree, red oil, not-quite invisible bits of onion and enough chili “pepe” to make my lips and my entire right hand numb, I went to bed on my foam mattress.  I barely heard the chickens squawking me to sleep.

September 2, 2007- Three Dead Bodies

The goodbyes weren’t as bad as I expected – ever since Anthony Bourdain survived a trip to Ghana, Mom’s been much more relaxed about the next two weeks, and I don’t even have plans to eat street food in the form of tubular meats.

When I finally plunked down my internal frame backpack and looked at the long line ahead, I felt like I had severely under packed.  People were dragging luggage the size of queen-size mattresses.  One woman was walking up and down the line trying to find someone who would check her third bag, which could have easily fit three dead bodies.  When she got to me I had a flash of Claire Danes in “Brokedown Palace,” where she helps a charming new friend and unwittingly smuggles drugs, landing in a dismal jail cell in Thailand.  Or China.  I can’t remember.  Either way, I just didn’t feel comfortable checking that bag, even when she offered to show me all the diapers she was taking to her grandson.

It was pretty good for a 10-hour flight.  They played the final Pirates of the Caribbean and I made this Top 5 list of fun things I want to do to make the most impact possible while I’m there:

1. Share my knowledge about nonprofit management and fundraising with the home’s administrators so they can run it more effectively.
2. Tutor and read to the kids, get them jazzed about learning.
3. Expose the kids to U.S. culture through exchanging artwork with children from back home.
4. Teach the kids my favorite games when I was their age.
5. Really just, you know, make an impact.

Eff you, buddy.

Technically I suppose I’m not an actual Peace Corps dropout, but I still feel like one. I went through the entire application process. I jumped up and down in my room when I got the call to set up an interview. I sent in the paperwork and suffered through an extra dentist appointment; all motivated by thoughts of the Greater Good. I was jazzed for the adventure, pumped about making the world just a little bit better, and pleased with myself for the opportunity to be a Better Person. But then the interviewer was a complete jackhole, and the process took 8 months longer than I had expected and I was in a completely different life-place. These are the reasons I tell people when explaining why I turned down two years in Armenia (unless said people were actually in the Peace Corps, in which case I don’t mention it at all because I got sick of the judgey looks).

After turning it down, I felt disappointed in myself. And I felt guilty. Guilty for not following through (I follow through to a fault). Guilty for not making a difference. And guilty for saying to that Jackhole that I would prefer not to go to Africa when he specifically asked where I would and would rather not go. “This isn’t a travel agency.” Eff you, buddy.

Now I’ve been twice.

And I might even be a slightly Better Person for it.

This blog is a collection of my memories and journal entries from Ghana.