John’s Crawlspace

I would like to have gotten this up earlier, but I’ve been busy with the holidays and all that stuff. I had a job interview yesterday, and another this morning – They actually offered me the position right after the interview (the lady seemed pretty impressed actually) but I don’t think I’m gonna take it. Anyway, enough about that.

So let’s see… Ghana – Where to begin? People keep asking me how the trip was, and I say “great, it was a real eye-opening experience” and etcetera, but beyond that I’m not really sure what to say, or where to start.

We (Cortney and I) got to JFK Airport in NYC around 12 noon on November 11th. Wasted money in the bars until our flight left at 3 pm. The flight lasted around 10 hours, and I think that the complimentary drinks helped it go by rather smoothly. We arrived at Kotoka International Airport in Accra (the capital of Ghana) at about 4:45 am. We were told about the “kiss of Ghana” – When you first step off the plane and the warmth hits you – And it was definitely there, even that early in the morning.

We went through customs and baggage and all that annoying stuff, and when we stepped out of the airport, there were tons of people holding up signs. When we finally saw the sign (“and it opened up my eyes”) with our names on it, we went right up to the guy – But it turned out that he (Appiah) wasn’t the guy we were told was going to pick us up. That’s one strike against the organization that we chose to travel to Africa through – No big deal, but definitely not very professional, and it could have been some ridiculous scam where our organs ended up being harvested and sold on the black market. Stranger things have happened, am I right?

So Appiah gets a taxi (and doesn’t bother to tell us where we’re going, keep in mind that we have no idea where this orphanage is in relation to the airport) and takes us to a “tro-tro” (van/bus) station. When we arrived there, I saw a dude with a Slayer “South of Heaven” shirt on and got all excited… I wanted to say something to him. In retrospect it’s probably better that I didn’t – I would soon learn that people don’t usually “choose” their clothing… They wear whatever they are given or can get ahold of. This leads to seeing boys wearing ironic shirts like “Everyone loves an Italian girl” and things like that – Really. So that gimpy-looking kid most likely had no idea who Slayer was.

Anyway… Appiah tells us to get on this “tro-tro” and we’re the first ones on it. Little did we know that these things don’t leave the station until they are packed so full of people that it’d be next to impossible to fit any more on. We’d eventually learn to use the tro-tro system on our own, and it was our main form of transportation no matter where we went in Ghana, but it definitely sucks compared to public transportation in the states. While we were on the tro-tro waiting for it to fill up, we got out first taste of street vendors in Ghana. Here in the states if you want to get someone’s attention, you might say “excuse me” or “yo!” or whatever. There, they either hiss at you (like a snake, but very loudly) or they make a kissy noise. This isn’t just what they do to foreigners, they do it to each other as well. So people come up to the tro-tro windows balancing bowls/boxes/whatever of all kinds of things on their head – Food (including lots of fruits and vegetables that I didn’t even recognize yet… Oranges are green or yellow there), drinks (some in bags), and all sorts of mostly useless stuff like cheap watches, cell phone cases, bandanas, knockoff 50 Cent shirts and “wife beaters”, you get the picture. It was very strange at first to hear all that hissing, but we got used to it pretty quickly.

So we’re on the tro-tro for about an hour, drenched in sweat (it’s probably about 6 am by now) until it’s finally packed full of Ghanaians (and us). The guy who picked us up from the airport (Appiah) is the last one to get on (he was keeping an eye on our luggage that they loaded in the back, which was completely out of our site while we were sitting on the tro-tro), and we take off.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we were heading to Ho. Ho is the modern capital of the Volta Region, and in my experience, the busiest town in that part of the country (along with Hohoe and Kpandu). It took us about 3 hours to get there. The things that initially stood out to me were the animals (goats, chickens, and lizards) and the piles of burning trash everywhere. I would soon learn that there is no public waste system in Ghana. People throw their trash everywhere (you have to… there are no trash cans) and when it piles up, they just set it on fire and walk away… That is literally what happens.

When we got to Ho, we went to a bank to exchange some money… I exchanged $100 and got around 92 Ghana cedi. Their currency took me a bit to get used to, it’s a little confusing… 10,000 cedis is equal to one Ghana cedi… The old currency is cedi, the new currency is Ghana cedi. Got it? Good. After that, Appiah took us to a hostel. He got us both separate rooms, even though each room had 3 beds in it. I remember thinking that the showers at the hostel were crappy… I had no idea what was in store for me though. Had I known ahead of time about the toilet & shower situation that awaited us in the village, I would have probably spent hours sitting on the toilet in the hostel just to savor the porcelain feeling.

The next day, we went to the Dream Africa building (Dream Africa Volunteer Service, or DAVS, is the organization that we went through) to meet the rest of the staff. They gave us a rundown on Ghana and the different regions. They told us about some cultural differences that we should be aware of… Like not using your left hand for things, since it’s considered dirty. It’s a hard habit to break, and if you accept something from someone with that hand or point to something using it, it’s very offensive. Another thing… If you invite your friends somewhere, you foot the bill – For everything. Travel costs, food, you name it. How much does that suck? Also, if someone prepares a meal for you and you don’t finish it, that’s considered very offensive. So they told us a bunch of stuff like that. They also gave us a rundown on the orphanage. They dropped the bomb about the bathroom situation: No running water… That means no flush toilets, no showers, etc. We paid the remainder of our fees to the organization (another $150, we had paid $250 before we left the US), and then went back to the hostel.

Later on, Appiah started to tell us about his “beef” (so to speak) with the organization. How he didn’t know where the money went, and he told us that he wasn’t paid very well for his work. He actually asked me to buy him a stereo for his apartment, which definitely caugh me off guard. He suggested that maybe next time we’re in town, we sleep on the floor of his apartment, and use the money that we saved by not staying in a hostel to buy him things. Later, he’d ask me for money to put him through university… Really. Everyone there thinks that Americans are filthy rich – And I suppose most of us are, compared to what most people in Ghana make… I think I remember hearing that the average working person makes around $400 a year. Anyway, we didn’t want to be caught in the middle of this drama, it definitely made for a slightly uncomfortable situation.

That night, some of the DAVS staff took us out for dinner and drinks. We taught them to play an American drinking game, and they added their own rules (which didn’t make any sense at all, but were funny). For the majority of the day up to that point, Appiah had been asking me if I was a big drinker, and if I drank much in the states. My tolerance has gone down a bit since I graduated, but I can still hold my booze, so I told him yeah. Well when it finally came time to drink, he was hammered after 2 or 3 beers (I should probably mention that the beers there are 21 ounces each). I thought that was pretty funny, only because there was so much buildup beforehand. He actually left the bar early because he was so drunk, and we (Cortney and I, and the 2 other DAVS staffers) left with only a slight buzz. I’m not one to brag about my drinking abilities, but I thought that was worth mentioning. Over the course of the night, they asked me about what kind of music I liked, and I tried to explain heavy metal to them, but they didn’t understand. They talked about relationships, and we tried to explain the differences between relationships in the US and Ghana. In Ghana, men will come up to foreign women and propose to them on the spot. The whole “courting” process is just so different.

The next day, we met briefly with the DAVS staff again, and they told us that we wouldn’t see them again for 2 weeks, at which point they’d stop by the orphanage to check on us. Up until that point I thought that their involvement would be much more frequent than that. So that caught me off guard. We took a taxi to another tro-tro station, and then got on a tro-tro to Hohoe (ho-ho-way), which was about 2 hours from Ho. I was literally drenched in sweat while waiting for the tro-tro to fill up, but I was starting to get used to it.

When we arrived in Hohoe, we walked around for a bit. I bought as much bottled water as I could carry, since I was told by many different people not to drink water from anywhere but a bottle (not even to brush your teeth). After we couldn’t take the heat anymore, we got on yet another tro-tro which dropped us off at “Ve Junction”. When we got there, some children were waiting for us, and they took our luggage and led us down a road to the orphanage. I should mention that I was still adapting to Ghana in every sense possible. Everywhere we had been so far, I was just experiencing total sensory overload – All the new sites, smells, and sounds were so much to take in.

When we arrived at the orphanage, all the children said “you are welcome” as soon as they saw us, in very cheery voices. They all had such big smiles on their faces; it was hard not to smile in return. We met Margie, the other volunteer who had been placed in the orphanage; she had arrived a week earlier. I was shown my room: It was in a mud building (with plaster on the outside). I was greeted by some rather large spiders and lizards that I would soon get used to seeing crawling all over the walls. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me too much though, which is definitely good.

Soon after arriving, we ate some dinner. It was noodles with tomato and fish sauce. I’m not a big fan of seafood, but I tried it and it wasn’t that bad. Little did I know that we would be eating this same dish (occasionally with rice or yam instead of noodles) for lunch and dinner almost every single day for the rest of our stay. And when it wasn’t the same dish, it was either fufu or banku, neither of which were much of an improvement. I’ve never eaten the same foods that frequently before in my life, but it gets to the point where, even if you have an appetite, you just can’t stand eating it anymore. And what we were being served was considered a treat in comparison to what the kids usually ate.

Later that day, I was opening some of my things that I had brought with me. I took my flashlight out of its packaging, and the kids were fascinated by it. They have flashlights there (they call them “torches”) but mine was small and they were so interested in the way the batteries went in and how bright it was. A good example of how little these children have: A few days later I saw some of them playing with the packaging that the flashlight had come in. That really made me realize how much we take for granted, that something I would just throw away without a second thought is actually a source of entertainment for them. The same thing happened with things like airline literature: I’d throw it away and find kids playing with it a few days later, fascinated with the color pictures inside.

That night, Cortney and I polished off a bottle of some cheap strawberry liquor that I picked up in Hohoe earlier that day (for like $3). I think that allowed me to be a bit more comfortable in these new settings. I also had the comfort of my iPod, which I actually almost didn’t bring with me. The sounds coming from the jungle outside my room were very unsettling (mostly because I couldn’t identify them) and had I not brought my iPod with me, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. I’m a very light sleeper, and even if all the crazy sounds coming from outside my window were familiar to me, I still think I would have had a lot of trouble sleeping through them. I also remember hearing singing and drums coming from the jungle, which seemed odd to me at the time, but I’d soon get used to it. Sound Tribe Sector 9 put me to sleep every night for the first week or so of the trip, until I couldn’t stand to listen to that particular recording anymore.

When I got the prescription for my malaria medicine, the doctor briefly mentioned side effects that included hallucinations and crazy dreams. I definitely had some very disturbing, surreal dreams that were like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Not gonna go into details here, but I remember a few times waking up in the middle of the night very shaken and upset and actually sweating, and not wanting to go back to sleep for fear of continuing the dream/nightmare I was having. So that was interesting, to say the least.

My room already had a mosquito net over the bed (I actually brought one with me too that I didn’t end up using). Even still, I managed to get bit pretty badly that first night. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but malaria is so widespread in Africa that you really have to be careful. I learned to put on bug spray before bed, and to wear long sleeves, long pants, and socks – Which was ridiculous in the heat, but I’m assuming it’s better than malaria in the long run.

The next morning I woke up around 6 am. It actually gets bright out around 5:30 or so, and from what I can tell, the entire village is usually up and at it before sunrise, doing their chores, showering, and preparing for the school day ahead of them. The roosters and pigs pretty much guaranteed that you didn’t get any sleep after 6 am. I’m not at all used to the sounds pigs make when they feed (it honestly sounds like they are being slaughtered, it’s super-loud and blood-curdling) so once I heard the first set of unsettling pig shrieks I knew I was awake for the day.

I somehow managed to miss breakfast that first day, so I headed straight to the school building. The children were all out in the hallway (both those that lived in the orphanage and those that came from other nearby villages just for classes) and introduced themselves one by one. I have trouble remembering even one persons name, so 60-something odd names, especially names I never heard before, was just out of the question. Can’t say I didn’t try though. They sang some religious songs for us – We’d hear these many more times during the length of our stay. They were accompanied by some boys on drums (the kind you’d picture).

The DAVS staff told us that all the volunteers would be in one classroom teaching together, sort of a “group effort”. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? They also told us that we’d have two days to “observe” before we started to teach. That was not the case at all. The orphanage “mother and father” (the husband and wife who run the place) were told by the DAVS organization that we were teachers (and therefore we obviously had experience teaching kids) so they expected us to know exactly what we were doing. No syllabus or anything, they just handed us a book and expected us to know what to do from there.

I was originally supposed to teach math, but the books were so poorly written, and it had been so long since I did any of that stuff (factoring and etc) that I just didn’t feel confident in my ability to teach it to others, especially when none of the answers to the problems were in the book. So I decided to go with science instead.

I taught two science classes: “Class 4″ and “JSS 1″, which is like 6th grade. The first day of teaching was pretty bad. It took me like half an hour to even figure out what classroom I was supposed to be in (there were 6 of them). When I finally got there, Isaac (one of the teachers that lived at the orphanage) taught for the first 20 minutes or so, and then said “brother John is going to take over” – He handed me the science textbook and walked out. I had no idea what to do, so I just started copying notes on the board. I was sweating so much that the book got all wet, and I had to keep wiping my sweat off on my shirt – Needless to say this first day of teaching was pretty bad, and didn’t leave me with high hopes for the future, but I quickly learned that wearing anything more than a “wife beater” results in lots of sweating, and to bring large amounts of water (and a sweat rag) with me to class.

I could tell the kids weren’t really paying attention, and I had to walk around the room and tell each one of them to copy things down, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. I soon learned that I needed to talk much slower for them to be able to understand me (I probably should have mentioned that they all know varying degrees of English, but tend to speak to one another in their native tongue, Ewe, which I actually ended up learning a small bit of).

After class, I was sitting outside. The kids warmed up to me super quickly, and before I knew it they were climbing all over me. They have had white volunteers at the orphanage before, so we’re nothing new, but they still loved to touch my hair and skin. It bothered me a little at first, especially since some of the kids have open sores (some are rather large, and they don’t know not to pick at them until they’re huge) but I just got used to using the disinfectant hand lotion stuff that I brought with me, and rather frequently at that. I noticed that the kids didn’t do this to Margie very much, they tended to leave her alone for the most part, but that’s presumably because she’s stern with them, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them to go away. Plus, I didn’t really mind all that much, playing with them was fun, I just didn’t like being suffocated by 20 kids all touching me at once.

Later that day, Cortney, Margie, and I went exploring, and three of the kids came with us, just to make sure we didn’t get lost. They showed us some pretty cool stuff – I was a little intimidated by the enormous termite mounds that we saw all over the place. We walked for about an hour or so in the blistering heat (did some climbing, too) and eventually ran into a fellow white man named Jim, who felt the need to welcome us to Ghana by treating us to some palm wine. I had learned about palm wine prior to my departure from the states, and was excited to try it, but the stuff that we tried that day was very bitter and tasted like it was old. There were a ridiculous amount of flies buzzing around the area where we sat down to drink the wine, so many that it pretty much ruined the experience. That’s not to say that the wine itself was at all pleasant, though. It was served in a half-coconut. There were lots of little black things floating around in the wine, and they really looked like bugs to me, but Jim told me they were nothing more than burnt embers left over from the process of creating the wine. I still think they were bugs, but I didn’t want to offend him so I drank them anyway – I still think they were bugs. Based on what other people told me, palm wine is supposed to be served fresh, and that stuff definitely wasn’t fresh. Still, I got an unexpected mid-day buzz from it, which probably wasn’t what I needed in that heat.

I’m gonna stop for now, and post the next “chapter” of my experience in a few days. I’m heading down to Harrisburg area to visit some friends, some of whom I haven’t seen for a while. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna make you wait another week until I post again. I hope you’re all having a great holiday and staying warm – Well, those of you in climates similar to mine here on the East Coast anyway. Take it easy everybody.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Comments links could be nofollow free.