aripeskoe
(living in ghana)
Light Off!
A quick lesson in Ghanaian English: electrical power outages (aka blackouts) are called "light off" in Ghana. This phrase can be used in the following way: 'The Internet cafe is closed because [it is] light off.' In this example, "it is" is optional and is often omitted depending on the preference of the speaker.
This phrase, light off, is really cute when spoken by Ghanaian children. For example, when there was a blackout at my homestay house, my little sisters would yell 'light off.' And it was cute. However, it sounds kind of silly when adults say it. Nonetheless, it's a common phrase these days.
All of Ghana's electrical power is generated through a giant hydroelectric damn on the man made Lake Volta in the eastern part of the country. Although international aid has its many critics, this project, which was either funded by some Europeans or the Japanese (I can't remember) seems like a big success. It continues to power the country in an environmentally friendly way and I've read it normally generates a surplus which is then sold to neighboring countries.
However, apparently it has not rained enough in that part of the country. So there is some sort of power sharing scheme in effect. I don't know the details but the bottom line is that everyone now only has power for 12 hours a day. For me, that meant no power from 6 PM last night to about 6 AM this morning. No worries, I have nothing, other than an overhead light, that would need power. And I kind of like walking through my village in the dark. But, different parts of the country, and even different parts of the same town, are on different schedules. So when the internet cafe was closed yesterday because it was light off, that was not cool. I've been told that this sort of power scheme was last in effect 4 years ago. It lasted for 2 months.
To back up a bit, I have finally moved into my town where I will be spending the next two years (countdown starts...now!). Peace Corps volunteers in this country often go on short vacations between the end of training (August 19 for me) and moving into site. These vacations are "unofficial" because they technically violate a policy that I won't go into here. So if I did go on a vacation, it would be pretty foolish of me to write about it on the Internet. Nonetheless, I've heard that a beach on the edge of a jungle is a beautiful site.
Addendum #1: I've heard the Mets are doing pretty well. That's good.
Addendum #2: Thank you Jon/Mike/Dan/etc for your hilarious questions. I'll try to get to those at some point. And thank you for the reminder about toenails. I took care of it this morning. But I am in the process of growing my Peace Corps beard. Not sure how long I'll keep that for.
Addendum #3: Classes start on September 11 here.
Live from a Yam Festival
Two yam festivals in two days are too many yam festivals. On Friday, about half of our group went to one of the villages, as we occasionally do, for a light evening of merriment. We stumbled on a dance party in a house (the standard Ghanaian house being a large outdoor courtyard surrounded by isolated rooms). It was kind of like a crowded frat party, except that it was all in honor of yams.
When we came in, everyone kind of stopped to watch us and see what we would do. A few people danced with us, but then the novelty seemed to wear off for everyone but the 10 year old kids. So that left us dancing with the 10 year old kids and everyone else either watching or dancing somewhere else. Bizarre. So I left pretty quickly.
That may have been a breakaway unofficial Yam Festival party. I'm not sure. The official Yam Festival party happens at the chief's house. So I headed to another village the next afternoon to the chief's house (where a friend of mind is staying). During the day, the chief and his elders sit in the front of the courtyard, which is filled with chairs. People come in and greet the chiefs and elders and then sit down. Music playing loudly in the background, so there is not too much conversation. Rather, people sit silently waiting to be greeted by the next people to arrive, who make their way around the room greeting everyone who has similiary already greeted the chief. This continues...So I left quickly.
At night, the chief's house also turns into a big dance party with too many 10 year olds.
I don't really know anything about the history or cultural significance of the local Yam Festival, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with yams. This suspicion was basically confirmed when I saw a large pile of yams sitting in front of the chief's throne throughout the precedings.
It's also maize harvest. I don't really know about my village, but in some places this is a big deal (life or death type big deal). In my village, it means everyone is shucking and kerneling maize. A few days ago, an amount of maize that can only be measured in truckloads was dumped right outside my window. Once this maize was shucked, there was then a truckload of maize shuck an earshot away. This was great for the goats, who like playing in maize shuck, but seemed like it would be horrible for my sleep. The next morning, I woke up to the smell of burning maize shuck, which is far and away the most foul thing I have smelled in two months here.
My family only bought one large bag of maize, which they then kernel (it came pre-shucked) and then soak in water for 3 days. They bring the soaked kernels to the town grinder who makes a dough. The dough is then made into banku, which is large balls fermented corn and my least favorite Ghanaian food.
Today, about twenty of us went to a nearby monkey sanctuary. This is basically a forest next to a village where monkeys have been considered sacred and are not killed. So tourists like us come to watch monkeys in the forest and take way too many digital pictures. Supposedly the monkeys also come into the village and walk around like dogs, cats, goats and chickens do in every other Ghanaian village, but we didn't see that. Nonetheless, monkey are fun to watch...
Next time you're in Kumasi, skip the Manhyia Palace Museum...
I have returned to the Peace Corps training site in the middle of the
country and am once again staying with my host family. Two more weeks
of this and then we are officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers
on August 18 and I will go back to my permanent site. As part of the
swearing-in ceremony, I will be performing a dialogue in Fanti about
the Peace Corps with my friend Andrew who is also learning Fanti. We
were told when we arrived in June that the President of Ghana would be
attending the ceremony and we were continually told this until
recently when suddenly Peace Corps staff was not sure if he was
coming. Now, we know he is not coming and he is not sending anyone
from the capital to represent him. The best we'll get is some regional
minister. This is roughly equivalent to being told that President Bush
is coming (for better or worse) and then getting Charles Gargano (feel
free to Google that if you don't know who he is).
Which brings me to the Manhyia Palace. The Palace is home to the king
of the Ashantis, a tribe that used to control much of what is now
Ghana. The tribal system has not really left Ghana, it's just changed
form. Ghanaians still talk about what tribe they are from and they
have various stereotypes for each tribe. In that sense, it's like
people from the US talking about what state they are from. But, each
village/town/city in Ghana has a chief. Chiefdom is passed down
through the mother (there's a word for that, but I can't spell it).
The role of the chief is to settle local disputes and to assist in
development projects. And, like any good bureacrat, the chief sucks up
local money building a nice house, buying a car, etc.
So Peace Corps told us a month ago that we were going to the palace in
Kumasi, the second largest city in the country, to meet this king.
But, he ditched us for Morocco and we ended up not seeing his real
palace and not meeting him and instead going to the palace museum.
"This is where the king sat down and wrote letters." "This is where
the king ate breakfast." "These are the dishes the king used to eat
with." etc. etc. And it's not even particularly nice stuff, even by
Ghana standards. And none of us care at all about the Ashanti King!
It would be like visiting the home of some obscure American president.
Who would want to travel 3 hours to visit the William Henry Harrison
museum??
After the museum, we went to the Kumasi Cultural Center which sells
various crafts. I still can't differentiate between actual indigineous
Ghanaian art and tourist crap. I finally bought some fabric so I can
have clothing made for me. It costs about 35000 cedis for 2 yards of
fabric and I will probably have to pay the seamstress about another
20000. That's about $6 for a custom-made shirt...
Addendum #1: There have been a lot of amusing questions posted
recently. I'll try to address a few of them...
1) Medication is often surprisingly cheap. Example: someone in my
group bought Valium - I think it was a few hundred cedis per pill.
That's a few pennies each.
2) People in Ghana claim to be way older than they really are. A
friend of mine attended a funeral recently of a woman who died at the
age of 180! Of course there are no records to prove or disprove that,
but she probably was not 180.
3) Birthday celebration was fun. People made a cake for me and then we
went to an outdoor hotel bar. My homestay family bought me a birthday
card, which hopefully I'll post a picture of one day. Ghanaian cards
are kind of like the really gloppy religious cards that they sell in
the US only much more poorly designed.
4) The large town about 15 minutes from my permanent site has a
basketball hoop! At least I've been told. I played basketball a few
times when I went to visit a volunteer at his site when I first
arrived. Ghanaians are surprisingly absolutely awful. But very good at
jumping.
5) I do wear a Jurassic Park style hat and I do occassionally wipe my
brow with a hanky.
6) I do have a new address, but you can keep sending mail to the
address in Accra that I emailed around a while ago. Eventually, I'll
email around the new address, but it should only be used for letters.
Packages should always go to Accra. Thanks in advance for sending me
stuff.
7) I do need to get the keys to all of the rooms from the owner. I
don't anticipate this being a problem once I return to my permanent
site. Would be really weird to live in a place with 15 or so locked
doors.
8) Luke rides on Taun-Tauns on Hoth. Close. But now every time I get
on a tro tro I will think, "and I thought these things smelled bad on
the outside." Generally applicable to tro tros as well.
9) Wadi told me that Bloomberg declared a yom cham and made everyone
drink a lot of water and go to free swim. So I guess you still are not
allowed to turn the air conditioners back on.
10) There are hospitals that we're allowed to go to in Ghana. There
are 10 or 11 regional hospitals that Peace Corps has inspected and
accepted. Mike, they're waiting for your application.
11) I would not be the richest person in Ghana, but working for a
Western company and living in a developing country is a sweeeeet deal.
You earn enough dollars to live in a Western country, but you pay for
everything in cedis. Imagine making the salary you make now, but only
paying 30 cents for a cab ride...25 cents for ice cream...$1 for a
bottle of beer...etc.
Addendum #2: Jared Kushner bought the New York Observer!!! Moche, why
aren't you keeping me informed? This is HILARIOUS. Please, email me
more info (I just read the New York Times article on it).
Addendum #3: I'm horrified by the formatting of this website. Line
breaks are all off. Font size changes. Different type faces. It's a
disaster.
So this is where I will be spending the next two years...
I'm on site visit now. This means that I've left the Peace Corps training site in central Ghana and traveled to the town that I will be spending the next two years in.
The town is different from any other place I've visited in Ghana. It's not quite a city but it's far more developed than any villages I've seen. The village I stay in for training is completely flat with nothing but one-story homes and one paved road through the middle of the village. The town I will be living in for two years is very hilly, it has buildings that are taller than one floor (!!) and it has paved roads all over the place. The narrow streets, red rooves and the fact that the biggest building is a church, which looks like it was built by colonists a few hundred years ago, gives the town a bit of a European feel (but only a bit).
The town also has a lot of nice houses, meaning they would almost be appropriate in America. The volunteer who just left my town stayed in such a house. It was known as "The White House" and was just a few minutes from the school. For better or worse, this house was not available to me. But, not having stayed in it yet, I'm happy with what they gave me.
My house was built by "a prominent citizen of the town" (that's how he was introduced to me) for the local Pentecostal (sp?) church. It was built with large funerals in mind and was meant to house guests that travelled for such occassions. Apparently, it's been used only 3 times since it was built 9 years ago. So, the house sits empty, except for a 23-year old watchman, who happens to be in his second year at the secondary school I'll be teaching in.
The house has a large porch and opens into a sitting room. The sitting room actually has couches, chairs and two ceiling fans. These are things that most volunteers don't get. The sitting rooms opens into a corridor, probably about 30 feet long by 10 feet wide. There are doors everywhere. All doors look the same but not all rooms are equal. Most of the rooms are empty, except for a bed and some are used for storage. One of the rooms will be my bedroom. There is also a kitchen with a fridge (another luxury, although it was broken, but they said they would fix it). And there is a bathroom with a shower (yet another luxury) and a flush toilet (check). In the back right of the corridor is yet another door which opens to...more doors! There are another six rooms, all empty I'm told, situated around a very small (4 feet by 2 feet) open space. There's also a second shower and another bathroom, although it's the pit latrine type.
So, that's my house. Very large, but very awkward because it's just a bunch of empty rooms. As of now I don't have the keys to them, but I'll have to work on that. They said they would clean it and fix it up a bit before I return in a few weeks. It's far larger than the average Peace Corps accommodation and has some nice amenities. My theory is that this town has a long history with white colonists (which is true), who generally live in the biggest houses in town (also true). So, they're initial thought is to give me (the white man) a very large house. Also, the section of town that I'm living in is called Broni Krum, which means White Man Town.
The town is in the southern part of Ghana. By public transportation is about 2.5 hours from the capital of Accra. More importantly, it's about 45 minutes from a beach and 2 hours from a beach that I visited on Saturday. The beach is small, beautiful and it's so close!! So, in theory, if I wanted to I could easily have a quick tropical vacation every weekend. I'm not sure if I'll actually end up doing that, but it's VERY EXCITING that this option is available. Also, the large town about 15 minutes from my site has a resort-like hotel (reasonable rates available - come and visit!) with a pool that I can swim in for $2. More importantly, there's no such thing as a quiet place outdoors in a Ghanaian village/town, so this is a perfect place to come and sit outdoors without being bothered.
I go back to training early tomorrow morning. Training is still booooring and generally a waste of time, but it's almost over. My site seems like it has potential, which is exciting, but it's impossible to imagine what 2 years here are going to be like...
Addendum #1: About the rest of my visit here - I'm staying with my headmaster. Awkward. For better or worse, he won't be the headmaster when school reopens on September 11. I've been speaking a lot of Fanti. I still can't really speak it, but I know enough catch phrases that people seem impressed (but mostly they just laugh). There's another volunteer who came over with my group who lives just 30 minutes away. He lives in a shared house with other teachers but he has his own private sitting room and bedroom. His big perk is that the school kitchen will cook every meal for him. In Ghana, school food is generally not a bad thing.
Addendum #2: So we took a series of tro-tros to get the village (they're like mini-buses). On the second tro, a preacher got up. This sort of thing happens in New York, but in Ghana everyone else on the tro gets really into it. Almost everyone prayed with him and gave him money, including my headmaster. The preacher talked about how he used to smoke pot, but by the glory of god he has seen the light. I really wanted to get up and say something like, "Dude. You're preaching on a bus. You're probably even less productive than when you were smoking because at least then you weren't taking money from well meaning travellers." Argh. This made me mad. But what made me even madder was when the "herbal specialist" stood up. He was wearing a white lab coat with "herbal specialist" written in marker on the pocket. Real official looking. He was hawking some herbal medicine - it costs 100,000 cedis in the clinic, but I'm selling two for 30,000! (he actually said that, but in Twi). He claimed that it cured Typhoid Fever. The best part was when some guy on the tro got up and claimed that he used the medicine and it worked. Once that happened, everyone bought, including my headmaster. Again, this made me upset.
Addendum #3: American Idol is on Ghanaian television every Sunday night. Need that, Ghana does not.
