John’s Crawlspace

Okay, back to Ghana. One of my first days of teaching science, I remember the subject was about personal hygiene. I was teaching the kids about staying healthy and keeping themselves clean by brushing their teeth after meals and taking a shower everyday. Teaching them these things seemed very strange to me because I don’t even think they each have their own toothbrush. I also had to teach them about the environment and keeping it clean by not littering. This was even more bizarre because it is contradictory to what they have been doing their entire lives. There are no trash cans anywhere because, like I said before, they have no organized public waste system. So to stand in front of a classroom and tell kids not to litter when it is their only option is definitely odd.

Later that day, one of the children told me to follow them, and they took me to an area where they had a boiling pot of water over fire and were preparing to cook a “grasscutter“. I’m picky when it comes to eating new kinds of meats, so what I was about to see was probably not entirely conducive to me trying this meat later: The grasscutter looked like a big beaver or something, and they were using a machete to cut all of it’s hair/skin off, and then using their bare hands to pull its eyes out and stuff, it was pretty gross. I’m sort of a baby when it comes to that sort of thing though.

That afternoon we took a tro-tro to Hohoe. This was the first time that we did it by ourselves, without someone’s assistance. This was also our first (but certainly not last) experience with the term “yovo” – Which we were told means “white man”. Whenever people (almost always smaller children) see you, they get excited and yell “yovo!” It sounds like they are saying “yobo” though. I thought this was cute, and it never really annoyed me at all, because as soon as they realize that they have your attention, they get all excited and smile and wave to you. Sometimes older people would yell it though, and that annoyed me, because it just seems immature, and in my experience it’s just a term that is only supposed to be used by kids, though I could be wrong about that. While we were in Hohoe, we found an internet cafe (which I’m honestly convinced used a shared dial-up connection, it was just ridiculously slow) and bought phone cards. Margie got a message from someone in the DAVS organization that said they needed us to come back to Ho that Friday for a meeting.

That evening was spent the same way that most weekday nights were: Sitting around with the children outside, just messing around and talking or playing cards. It was always enjoyable, but like I said before, sometimes the kids were just too much, especially when they were in “climb all over you and touch every single part of your body like you’re an alien” mode. This particular night, one of the kids was sitting on my lap for awhile. At one point he said “look what I have” and held his hand out. He had something small and white in it. I asked him “what is that?” and he told me “my tooth”. When I looked at his face, I saw that there was lots of blood in his mouth. This freaked me out and I went back to my room and immediately used some of that anti-bacterial moisturizer stuff. It might sound insensitive or ridiculous, but I felt like it was better to be safe than sorry. This happened a few other times, when children would be sitting on or near me and have large open sores (which they constantly pick at), sometimes it just really bothers you.

That night I had a particularly vivid and disturbing dream about the drug jenkem. In the dream, the jenkem was in pill form, and somehow it ended up in my mouth and I was freaking out and woke up in a panic, and was so disturbed by this dream that I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I know the dream sounds dumb (there was more to it than that but there’s no reason to get into all the details) but it really upset me for some reason. I never have dreams like that at home, so it was definitely the malaria medicine.

After the first week or so of teaching, I feel like I was beginning to get better at it, but I definitely wasn’t getting any advice or feedback or anything. It was frustrating because the classes we were teaching were already being taught by other people before we arrived; so we basically relieved them of their duties for the month that we were there. But they had been teaching these classes for who knows how long, most likely several years, and therefore were probably much better at it than we were… Which kind of makes you question, how much is my being here really helping these kids out, if they’re not learning as much as they probably were before I took over the class? I tried not to let this bother me too much though, and just concentrated on writing better lesson plans, and coming up with activities that the kids would enjoy.

We left around 7:45 am that first Friday (the 16th of November) to head to Ho – I mentioned earlier that someone from DAVS called Margie and told her that we needed to be there for a meeting. When we got there, we met Jerusha, a new volunteer. She wouldn’t be at the orphanage with us though – She was there to do HIV awareness programs at schools. We were told that she had a program later today (at Ola Secondary School in Ho, an all-girls high school) and that we’d be helping her with the program.

We arrived at the school and met the headmistress – It’d been a long time since I sat down in a principal’s office, and certainly one of the first times that I had ever been there and was not in trouble for doing something stupid. After some introductions and etc we headed to the church (this was a Catholic school) where we’d be giving the presentation.

We sat down in chairs on the altar as the students all showed up (there were probably between 250 to 300 of them). Clayman, who was in charge of DAVS, gave a quick speech and then introduced us one by one to the students. After saying each person’s name, they’d stand up and the girls would all clap. I think he introduced me second or third, but after I stood up, the girls went crazy: They were all yelling and cheering and it seriously took them a good 45 seconds to stop clapping. I was laughing because I didn’t know how else to respond, it really took me by surprise, I suppose it’s just because I’m a white guy and they don’t see too many of them there to begin with. Either way, it was pretty amusing, especially since the other volunteers only got like 10 seconds of applause: clearly I was the star of the show.

We didn’t really do a whole lot to add to Jerusha’s HIV presentation, she basically talked to the kids about chastity and different forms of contraceptives, and debunked some common myths about HIV. They have some terrible myths over there, stuff like “if you rape a virgin child it will cure you of HIV”, that was actually printed in some of the literature that she had. I have no idea how a myth like that could get started. After she talked to the kids for awhile, she and Cortney (along with the help of a volunteer from the audience) demonstrated how to put a condom on – Using a banana. The fact that this was all happening on the altar in a Catholic church was a little strange to me at first, but I guess its better that they learn.

After the presentation, we were outside and the kids were coming up to us and asking for our email addresses and phone numbers – most of them were asking the girls though, only a few asked me for mine. I actually have received a few emails, and thankfully zero phone calls.

Later that day we went for dinner and drinks in Ho. While we were sitting there, Nana (one of the members of DAVS) told us that giving the “thumbs-up” (followed by putting your thumb down) meant “I will shit inside your mouth”. I couldn’t believe this, as I had given the thumbs-up so many times since my arrival. It’s not something I do often (if at all) at home, but when you come to a new country you find yourself resorting to hand symbols/gestures when there is any type of language barrier – Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, this blew my mind, but other people would later verify that it did indeed mean specifically that. So from that day on I made a conscious effort to avoid hand gestures for the remainder of my trip.

While we were in the restaurant, there were tons of people outside marching down the street. They were all clapping and singing, and some had instruments, it was some sort of procession. Nana explained to us that this was part of a funeral. Funerals in Ghana can last up to a week (they’re usually at least 5 days long if I remember correctly) and what we were witnessing was the part of the process where they are “searching” for the deceased person. It’s basically a procession to the mortuary, where they will “find” the body, and its part of the acceptance process that the individual is, in fact, deceased. He also told us that this was likely the 3rd or 4th day of the funeral.

The following day (Saturday, the 17th of November) was their “Thanksgiving”. It has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving that we celebrate in America though. It’s celebrated as a result of some long legal battle that the village father was involved in, he explained the story to us but I didn’t write it down so I don’t really remember all the details. Anyway, the case was dismissed on November 17th, so they celebrate that day every year. So we had to sit through a 3 hour long church service, which I wasn’t too crazy about, but I guess it was interesting. Afterwards, everyone in the village got a soda (which was such a treat for the kids) and some rice. That (along with some singing) was basically the extent of the festivities, but they were all pretty excited about it.

Later that day, I decided to do some laundry. Obviously there are no washing machines there, you wash the clothes yourself using your hands and some buckets. As soon as the children noticed, they took over. I tried to do it myself but they wouldn’t let me. I think it rained that afternoon so I ended up drying my clothes on some string hanging in my room. Cortney and I drank some Ghanaian whiskey that night before bed.

The following day (Sunday, Nov 18th) we (Cortney, Margie, Jerusha, Jerusha’s friend Lizzy, Appiah, and myself) traveled to Wli Falls. Since we invited Appiah to come along, we had to follow the tradition (which he didn’t tell us about until after we had invited him) where we pay for everything for the guest. Since there were 5 of us chipping in, it wasn’t a big deal, but was still a bit annoying. We took a tro-tro into Hohoe and bought some food to take to the falls – Bananas, bread, crackers, and water. I also found a lady who was selling fresh pineapple, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I’m not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but all fruit over there tastes absolutely amazing.

We argued with taxi drivers until we arrived at a reasonable price. As soon as we got into the taxi my stomach started acting up. This was the first of many times that this would happen, but it got pretty bad, to the point where I didn’t even want to move – You could call it “doo-doo pains”, but we’re all mature here, so we won’t. The taxi broke down on the way to the falls, so we actually sat on the side of the road for 45 minutes or so while the driver repaired whatever was wrong with the engine – I think it was a fan or something. After he got the car running again, he was driving like a madman (most drivers over there are pretty ridiculous, and don’t obey speed limits at all). We passed a tro-tro with a bunch of people standing outside of it. One guy had all his belongings sitting on the ground next to him, and the taxi got so close to him that it ran over whatever he had sitting on the ground. I couldn’t believe our driver did this, and he didn’t so much as even tap on the breaks after he totally destroyed all of this guy’s stuff. There is no way that he was oblivious to what happened, there was a really loud crunching noise as we passed the dude and the entire car shook. It was funny, but I felt bad for the dude too, I sort of think the driver did it on purpose.

When we got to the falls, we paid 8 Ghana cedi to get in. It would have been cheaper if we just wanted to see the lower falls (as it only takes like 15 minutes to walk to them, and there is no uphill hiking required) but we had been told that the upper falls were much more spectacular, and were well worth the hike. We were assigned a guide, and began our journey.

After about 15 minutes of walking on flat ground (and crossing bridges) we took a right turn (instead of going straight, which led to the lower falls) and started to climb uphill. The hike was much steeper than I expected. I had originally planned on wearing flip flops, and had I done that, there is absolutely no way I would have made it to the top. We took several breaks on the way up. At certain points during the hike (as we got closer to the upper falls) you could see the waterfall through the trees, which made it more exciting and provided some motivation. I don’t think I’m in amazing shape or anything, but I run often enough that I’m confident in my “hiking abilities”, or whatever you want to say. But even for me, this hike was pretty damn tiring, so for those in the group that don’t get any sort of exercise, I can imagine it was pretty rigorous.

The mountain that the falls are located on is Agumatsa, and at the very top of the mountain, there is apparently a village with around 400 people living in it. I was also told that when we were at Wli falls, we were technically in Togo, the country to the east of Ghana. We ended up traveling to Togo again later on in our trip.

When we finally arrived at the upper falls, it was more magnificent then I imagined it would be. “Powerful” is probably the best single term to describe it: It’s so enormous and loud, and the wind and water flying out of it are just – Like I said, powerful. When you get within 10-15 ft of the actual waterfall, it feels like you are in a hurricane or something, it’s just an amazing feeling, and it really puts you in your place, and kind of makes you feel insignificant (but not in a bad way). After swimming, wading, and climbing some ridiculously slippery rocks for a while (in surprisingly cold water), we had some lunch there.

After we hung out for a little while, we decided to hike back down the mountain to check out the lower falls. The hike back down wasn’t as bad as the hike up, but it definitely wasn’t easy, either. I found that it’s harder to have good footing when going downhill, and at many points, if you lose your footing, you honestly would have fallen off of the side and died, so that was a little scary.

When we finally got to the bottom, we spent about 20 minutes at the lower falls. They were pretty cool, but paled in comparison to the upper falls. The lower falls weren’t as big, and there were tons of annoying bugs that swarm around your head – These bugs weren’t annoying us when we were at the upper falls. On the walls of the lower falls are thousands of bats – More than I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s kind of gross to think that all of those bats crap into the water that you’re swimming in, though. One cool thing about the lower falls was the rainbow. Like I said, we stuck around for about 20 minutes before we left. Checked out a few of the gift shops at the visitors center, and then we headed back to the village.

Once again, that’s all I have time for right now. I don’t know how many parts this Ghana experience will be separated into, but I’m using my “journal” from the trip as a reference guide, and it looks like I’m about 25% of the way through it, so who knows?

On a separate note, if you like Atmosphere, he has a free internet-only album that just came out, I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but you can grab it here.

I hope you’re all enjoying the holidays, and I’ll be posting again soon – I’m driving to Albany on the 29th to visit a friend, and from there heading to Montreal on the 30th (for New Years), so I don’t know if I will get around to making a New Year’s post or not, but I’ll try. From what I can remember, this site started in 1998, so its 10th burfday is approaching. GET EXCITED! No, you probably shouldn’t. Anyway, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next chapter, or something like that.

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