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.

I haven’t spent much time on the computer over the past few days, but I wanted to throw a quick Christmas post up here because… Well, it doesn’t seem right not to.

I didn’t ask for much in the way of gifts this year. I realize how cliche and lame this is gonna sound, but after seeing how little people in Ghana had (and how they were still happy) I really couldn’t justify asking my parents to buy me something like a Wii – So I just got the usual: clothes and etc, which is fine. I don’t get as excited over Christmas as I used to (obviously) so it’s no big deal that I don’t have some shiny new toy or gadget or whatever to play with all day. I do wish it would snow though… I haven’t seen a single snowflake since I got back from Ghana.

To be honest though, for Christmas, I’d really like nothing more than to be forced to play this game all day. It just looks so easy, doesn’t it?

I heard they’re celebrating Christmas in Japan… And by celebrating, I mean dealing with a magnitude 6.0 earthquake. That must be fun.

I rarely see movies in the theater (I probably see less than 5 a year), but over the past week I’ve seen three. Juno was pretty good – I knew next to nothing about it when I saw it, and it definitely held my interest, which a lot of movies don’t tend to do. It’s not for everyone, but I think a lot of people would enjoy it. I also knew next to nothing about Sweeny Todd when I saw it. I knew that it was a musical, but I guess I just didn’t prepare myself (or whatever) to sit through 117 minutes of pretty much nonstop singing. It was pretty gory and had some funny moments, but I don’t know if I’d want to sit through it again. And this past Sunday I saw I Am Legend, which was pretty badass. That’s a pretty mature way to describe a movie, right? It was definitely entertaining, and I’ll probably end up buying it on DVD (or downloading it) when it comes out. I could probably do a much better job writing actual reviews of these movies if I put some time into it, but I’m too lazy, so that’s all you’re getting.

I really will try and get the next part of my Ghana experience up in the next day or two, I just need to set aside a couple of hours (and an adderall). Have a wonderful Christmas (or non-denominational holiday) everybody.

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.

I will hopefully be posting in the next day or two – Been super busy with the holidays, looking for a job (I have an interview in 2 hours) and trying to find out if I have malaria. I just thought I’d make a quick post letting you all know that my plane landed safely (exactly 1 week ago actually) in NYC and I’m back in the states, enjoying the ice cold weather. I never thought I’d miss the climate over there, but I do. In the meantime…

Forget Christmas music this holiday season. Rock out to SickAnimation.com’s Ultimate Party Collection Volume One instead… You can grab it here. And this might be one of the gayest things I’ve ever seen.

Oh yeah, and if you wanna check out some pictures from Ghana, the first half are here, and the rest of them are here. I ran out of room on Flickr – I had no idea they had space limitations, that’s pretty lame.

Let’s face it: America is overweight. Actually, overweight is an understatement… We’re fat as shit. Most people do have good intentions and want to lose the weight, but they’re not ready to commit to any type of diet or consistent workout regime. Thats why there are so many “weight loss pills” available, they cater to the laziness (fear?) in all of us, and to those individuals that are dumb enough to believe that you can lose weight just by taking a pill without making any changes to your lifestyle. Err… Yeah, anyway, there is a new miracle cure, and it works. Lose weight today with the miracle beer diet!

For the smart urban baby… BulletProofBaby.net’s baby stroller is “the ultimate in style, comfort and extreme combat protection.” It’s 100% bulletproof (as you may have guessed) and can even stop armor piercing rounds. Check out the video on the website… Wow. While I’d tend to doubt the legitimacy of that video, I suppose if it were real I wouldn’t be all that surprised. Stranger things have happened.

So now Demonoid is down too. This is the second time that this has happened in the past six weeks or so. It’s not really a big deal to me (as I’ve been pretty busy lately so I haven’t been downloading much) but I still don’t really understand how these sites are shut down if they aren’t hosting any infringing content. Anyway, the site should be back up eventually, and you can read more here. In the meantime, SumoTorrent is a good alternative, even though it’s a public tracker.

We leave for Ghana on Sunday… Our flight leaves JFK Airport at 3. So I’m heading to my friends house tomorrow afternoon and her dad is taking us to New York on Sunday morning. My computer is about to get the longest rest that it’s ever had.

When it was decided that I was definitely going to Ghana, my dad put me in touch with someone who had done an internship at the company he worked for. This guy was about the same age as me, and grew up in Togo, which is right next to Ghana. He graduated from Temple and now lives in the Philly area. This guy invited Cortney and I over to his place for an ethnic dinner and to tell us about his country and all that. So we ended up doing that on Tuesday night, and it was much cooler than I expected. I thought it would be awkward and very serious, but the guy was very easy to understand and he definitely had a good sense of humor about the whole thing. Two of his friends were there as well, and they all told us about what to expect and sort of put our minds at ease about certain things we were worrying about. I’m definitely glad I did it, and after I left there I was more excited to leave than ever.

When you talk about a month, it sounds like a long time, but I know that this month is going to fly by. Before I know it, I’ll be back here in the same routine, going to job interviews and etc. I went to a sports doctor yesterday and they did x-rays of my knees and he said I shouldn’t run for 4 weeks, so by the time I get back here I’ll be good to run again. Not that I expect anyone else to care about that, but I’m actually kind of excited for it. Anyway… Check back in about a month to hear about my trip and hopefully I’ll start posting regularly again… That is, if I’m not cooked and eaten by a tribe or something equally ridiculous. In the meantime, have a great Veterans Day, Armistice Day (!?), Thanksgiving, and whatever the hell else I’ll be “missing” while I’m gone. Between the Buried and Me. PAYCE.