September 15, 2007- Morning- Becoming a Women

 

This morning I awoke to Edem knocking on my door:

“Auntie!?”   BANG BANG BANG!  “Auntie, please?  Juliet has become a woman.”

Did I hear that correctly?  I’m not sure what that means.  Especially in my current context.  Did she get married last night?  Is it her birthday?  Has she lost her virginity?  Any of these seems plausible.  And what am I suppose to do about it at barely 5:00 in the morning?

I sleepily scramble out of my mosquito net and open the door, trying not to look annoyed. 

Juliet, it seems, has gotten her first period.  The first child to get their period at HardtHaven.  This is uncharted territory, and Edem feels that he is ill-equipped to handle the situation and he is concerned that Sister Matilda won’t be… empathetic. 

So, by 5:30AM, there I was, sitting in the girls’ dorm, surrounded by a half dozen wide-eyed, quizzical young women.  I suddenly became very aware of my own face, and tried to stop my eyes from bulging.  As Edem gave me an awkward introduction (“… Auntie… is a woman… can tell you about woman things…”) I wracked my brain, trying to decide what the bloody hell to say.

When I learned about “woman things” in school, we watched a cheesy video about a girl at a sleep over getting her period.  All her friends were jealous and the mother made pancakes as she talked about how delightful it was to be a woman before going into detail about shedding uteri.  My little friends and I disguised our horror by giggling incessantly.  But, when I got my period I was prepared rather than horrified, and my own mother just smiled, congratulated me, and took me to CVS to buy some pads and tinted chapstick.  Both are clearly purchases for mature young ladies. 

On his way out the door, Edem whispered, “talk about sex and the HIV AIDS too, Auntie… they have not been taught about this, and now it is time.”

Excellent.  Piece of fucking cake. 

The girls turned to me, and I put my eyebrows back into place and tried to smile. 

I took Juliet’s hands and congratulated her on getting her period.  Juliet looked to Rosemond, who translated, and then they both looked at me, even more confused.  Rosemond explained that none of them had any idea what I was talking about.  Lord knows what she said in her translation.  So, I explained.  I encouraged questions.  I got out a pad and demonstrated how the sticky parts and the flaps work.  I talked about biology and anatomy.  I drew pictures and answered questions.  I tried to be factual and pedantic, accessible but not cheesy.  No matter how hard I tried, though, the whole things sounded like a creepy science fiction novel: this thing inside your body sheds out of your vagina, and you have to use cotton pads to sop up the gore.  And this will happen every month.  Congratulations.

When Sister Matilda interrupted for breakfast, the girls spilled out of the room chattering away non-stop in Ewe, throwing me a look every now and again, as only pre-teen girls can. 

I, on the other hand, took an actual breath for the first time in an hour and went straight to John to regale him with stories of the early morning excitement- specifically the bit about my still-impending sex and HIV AIDS seminar.

We decided that if the girls were getting the talk, the boys should get one too, otherwise we’d just have more issues to deal with later.  While we stuffed down our egg sandwiches we devised a plan.  Fortuitously, Tim had come by with his parents and dropped off a box of donations, including pamphlets about sex and a box of condoms. 

We wiped the palmnut oil off our fingers and split up again by gender for Sex Ed 102.  The girls and I began by going over the pamphlets.  Drawings of anatomy elicited snickering, as expected, but they reiterated my previous claims about our midsections, so I think I gained some credibility.  I equated sex with love, and then we discussed all the dangers of sex with someone who has not been tested for sexually transmitted diseases- they were shocked because they had heard you can catch HIV AIDS from sharing bread.  No, I reiterated.  You can get it from blood, sex, and the breast milk of an infected person.  They didn’t really believe me.  We reviewed and discussed until I was exhausted, so I concluded by saying:

“While I have been here, we have played soccer, shared bread, and cooked next to each other.  I have hugged and kissed every one of you.  While I have been here, you have no idea if I am infected with HIV AIDS.  If I am, you don’t need to worry, because we have done nothing that would make you sick.”  You could hear a pin drop.  The ones who could understand my words stared at me, open-mouthed as I unhinged the door to release them. 

• Juliet is sick, and came from a conflict region.  She has severe vision problems and scarring in both eyes.  In the U.S. she could have surgery to correct it, but it’s not available here.  She is very sweet, and will join in games when invited.  She helps take care of the twins and will often carry them on her back.  She wants to be a beautician, but hasn’t finished class one because of her eye problem and transferring between regions.  She’s 10 years old.

September 14, 2007- Surviving without Sonjelle

 

It’s Friday.  Sonjelle left at noon.  The kids were in school when her cab bounced and bobbed away in a cloud of dust.  We slowly dropped our waving hands and, like zombies we turned back into the compound and sulked off to the office. I’d been too busy to clean it properly, but now I was too overwhelmed to worry about anything outside of that little room.  Sonjelle.  Left.  At noon. 

I whined to John about how I’d cleaned the office shelves a few days ago, made Justice and Lebene clean the whole room after they fought yesterday, and Sonjelle said she cleaned it twice this week herself, but it’s still a mess.  John grumbled about how there is no order, and no consequence for not taking care of things.  When we got to the medicines- the only things on the shelves that aren’t perpetually messy- we look at each other.  We stop griping about the messy room and discuss our plan for dispensing medicine we aren’t qualified to dispense to children who trust us with their lives. 

When the older kids came home, John and I went to the market with Justice and Elikplim.  My last market day.  I bought myself some cloth to take home, brooms for the boys to take to school, and coal for the kitchen.  The brooms and coal cost 80 cents.  The woman selling it wanted to charge us for the plastic bag.  Poor Justice was so irritated and had to argue and argue with her, but we ended up not paying for the bag.  Justice explained to us that people in Ghana like to cheat white people- then he re-stated – people from abroad, because they have more money where they come from.  I said that while it is true that I make more than I would if I lived here, things also cost more there.  And while that 10 extra peswas wouldn’t make me poor if I gave it to that woman for the bag, I’d rather give it to someone who is honest than be cheated out of it.  John added that meeting that woman didn’t make him feel good, but knowing the people at the home – our new friends – makes us want to come back and visit Ghana again.

On our way home we met Justice’s mom – she was selling kenke, and carried it on her head.  I was impressed until we passed a woman carrying a kitchen table upside-down on her head.

Rice and okra stew for lunch, which is not an acceptable combination.  Matilda said “oh” when I suggested it when she asked me “what will you take this afternoon?”  And “oh” means “no.”   I insisted and we got it.  But then for dinner we were only given plantains- no beans.  Mauwli said it was because we didn’t finish the exorbitant amount of food we were given for lunch.  I’m not positive, but I think we were being punished.  The kids did have beans.

Emma was particularly excited about his beans, in fact.  He sprinted-flailed (as only a toddler can) to the kitchen where Matilda plopped the slop into his bowl.  Since we weren’t given our own beans, I had tried to procure some of the children’s beans, but they were too spicy.  And I like spice.  So when I say it was too spicy, I mean I could almost feel blisters in my throat after swallowing.  As I watched Emma smash his little palm into his meal and smear the contents across his face, I couldn’t help but wonder how it didn’t melt his face off.  Then, to my horror, he picked up the bowl over his head and poured every last drop directly into his eye.  And then he started screaming bloody murder.  I scooped him up and dunked him head first into the metal water tank thinking about how I’ve just let the sick kid blind himself with his dinner and now I’ve contaminated the water source.  This is what happens when Sonjelle leaves us.  Once Emma calmed down he was fine, and a second peek into the tank revealed worse contaminants than spicy beans and toddler filth.

We all survived our first eight hours without her.