“You should never take more than you give.”

What is development?  Who decides?  When the whole world is “developed,” what will it look like?  Will everyone have electricity and running water?  Enough to eat and clean drinking water?  Nutritious food?  A fifth grade education?  Literacy?  In what language?  TV?  A family to care for them?  Love?  What do people need?

Life in Nyinampong village (where I stayed from March 4-17) is simple and very complicated.  Most people are subsistence farmers and sell their surplus yams, cassava, tomatoes, and onions at the market on Wednesdays.  Women have as many as ten or twelve children and the children entertain themselves with whatever they can find.  (An onion makes a fairly functional soccer ball, and empty tomato paste cans covered with plastic work effectively as drums.)  Now that public education is free (a new policy instituted this year), many of the kids go to school, but they have few books, and the books that they do have are in English, a language which most of them do not understand.  In the Primary 6 class I observed (13-15 year-olds), only about half of the kids could understand English and fewer could read. I was paralyzed, wanting to help but knowing that the problem was so much larger than me. 

In the first few days, the children would swarm around us, escorting us everywhere we went in the 600-person village.  We finally were able to get them to understand that “Ye be hyia,” see you later, meant we needed them to go away.

The dietary staple in Nyinampong is a Ghanaian favorite called fufu.  I am doing my best to be open-minded about food, but I cannot understand the appeal of fufu.  Fufu is made from boiled yams, cassava, and/or plantains pounded into a sticky dough in a giant mortar and pestle.  Potato mashin, our closet equivalent,  cannot be compared to this activity.  A strong, muscular woman or boy (men do not help in food preparation) holds the pestle with two hands, raises it overhead, and drops it, full force, onto the ingredient of choice.  A second person, usually an older woman, scoops the paste while the pestle is overhead, adding water for the perfect gooey consistently.  Amazingly, this woman does not get her hand crushed by the pestle.   After about a minute of pounding, I had to be relieved by a 10 year old girl.  Then, after all this work, you put the ball of fufu into a soup and eat it, breaking off small pieces with your hands and swallowing them without chewing.  In the village, many people eat fufu three times a day, and there are never any leftovers to reuse.  Think about that next time you do your bicep curls and tricep presses.  You could just pound all your food into a paste before you eat it instead.

Needless to say, fufu is the staple in the village because it is made from their most plentiful crops and because it makes you feel extremely full when you eat it.  Now, the people in the village did not seem hungry, but I can assure you that there is little nutritional value in fufu.  The big bellies and toothpick legs of the children under 10 bear witness to this.  Most people in Nyinampong are poor, I guess.  They don’t have much cash or many posessions.  Many do have TVs, which they use at such an extreme volume that I have no comical explanation for it.  When it isn’t “light off” (the power is out about fifty percent of the time), many people leave TVs and radios blaring all night long.  Combined with screaming goats (yeah, I didn’t know they could scream either), 4 AM church bells, and early morning fufu pounding, Nyinampong is surprisingly noisy.

Most people in Nyinampong seemed to share the commonly held belief that all obrunis are rich.  One woman I interviewed was surprised to learn that there are any poor people in America.  Only a few times did people ask me for money or my posessions in ways that made me uncomfortable.  Women would often say things like, “I like your shirt, give it to me,” but it was pretty easy to laugh that off.  When a man asked me to tell my people about the poverty in Nyinampong and how they have nothing and only have one water pump, I could not laugh it off.  In comparison to the people in Nyinampong, all the obrunis they see are rich, especially those of us shelling out big money for a college education.  So, we donated building materials and school supplies to the village on the day we left.  After expressing their thanks, the village elders asked us to send computers once we graduated and had more money to give away.  They offered us two chief positions, King and Queen of the Youth, which we found out would entail a regular financial responsibility to the village but no decision making due to our living in America.  Feeling honored, a little used, and humbled, we did not accept these regal positions.  None of us wanted to make a promise to Nyinampong that we could not keep.

Despite occasional pleas for money and aid, my overall impression of Nyinampong was one of humbling generosity.  My sistah Macall (a close friend from high school), also known as Mami Serwaa, lived in Nyinampong this past fall, and when I introduced myself to her homestay mother, she welcomed me warmly into her family and called me Mami Serwaa after Macall and after her own mother.  She ran inside to show me pictures of Macall from her photo album.  Macall left a characteristically wonderful impression on the people of Nyinampong, and the love I was recieved with was clearly inspired by her.  To be accepted so instantaneously and so completely by people who “have so little” took my breath away sometimes.  It is not too often that a new acquaintance throws their arms around you and says, you are my daughter, welcome.  It made me reconsider how we define the haves and the have-nots.

As you must sometimes do when you are in Africa, I listened to the Lion King on my iPod, and Elton John’s cheesy lyrics actually felt relevant.  “You should never take more than you give.” I promised my family and friends in Nyinampong that I would come back before I leave Ghana.  I gained so much from my time there that I have unfinished business in Nyinampong.  I keep asking myself, “What can I give?”

dear fans,

i am alive and well and living in cape coast (until tomorrow).  my life has been about a thousand times more hectic than usual (usual in terms of Africa time), so i am writing up some entries and will post them as soon as i can.  you may not hear from me again until april, because we are traveling around eastern ghana for the next week or so, but please know that things continue to be wonderful, difficult, and very hot.

would love to hear about your lives, wherever in the world you are now.

all my love, sarah

Tell me More, Good Sister, No Hurry in Life…

Ghana gives new meaning to the concept of bumper stickers. Every taxi, tro-tro, bus, and truck has phrases in big letters painted on the front or taped to a windshield. Many are religous, and most are cryptically philosophical, like the ones in the title. It is like naming a boat, but more poetic. What would you write on the windshield of your tro-tro?

Tamale is filled with Muslims and motorcycles. There is one main road through town and the pace of life is slower than in the South. This is very important because it is extremely hot. I treated myself to a chocolate bar yesterday and it almost melted before I could finish it. (This is miraculous given my chocolate eating speed and capacity.) Tamale is also filled with NGOs. Northern Ghana is the poorest area in Ghana and is “developmentally” behind. The villages in this area are the poorest in the country, largely because Northern Ghana was ravaged during the slave trade and period of forced labor that followed.
The sounds of Tamale, and of all of Ghana, are a mixture of traditional and modern. In Tamale, the call to prayer from nearby mosques woke me at 4 am. Roosters, which hang out with goats everywhere in town, crow often, regardless of the time. Drivers honk their horns constantly to say hello, to see if you need a taxi, to warn people and animals to move out of their way, or to prevent collisions. Everyone responds to car horns instantly, even the goats. Cell phones ring constantly, and people almost always answer them. Mid-lecture, professors will excuse themselvesand take a call. The ring-tone selections are impressive.
We are back in Kumasi now and will be heading out to the villages for the next two weeks. I am apprehensive and very excited, the usual combination. Our group will be split into a few smaller groups and will live with families in the villages while we do a mini Independent Study Project of our choosing.

I leave you for the next two weeks with this, our program’s motto:

Enjoy your life.

Life in this Ghana: Part 3

    Every morning, we have a brief check-in about how our lives are going. Yemi writes “Life in this Ghana” on the chalkboard and then we talk.

People voice health concerns, and on many days someone goes the the hospital to get tested for malaria. I went when I was sick, and the hospital staff was very nice and competent, but I was hyper-aware that I was not in America anymore. They drew my blood in the lab itself, and I cried, despite a tremendous effort to remain calm and suppress my feelings that Ghanaian medical care is inferior to that at home. If there is one thing that Ghanaian doctors know more about than American doctors, it is certainly malaria. Most Ghanaians get malaria several times per year with little disruption to their daily lives. (My test was negative.)

After health issues are addressed, we have an opportunity to ask any questions about culture or experiences that confused or frustrated us.  Adjusting to life as an outsider in a new culture has been even more challenging than I thought it would be.  A few days ago, while watching a really wonderful performance of dance and music from the Northern region, I realized that for the first time since arriving, I was feeling more inspired than overwhelmed. I have felt inspired by art, performance, and humanity since I arrived, but that feeling has finally begun to overpower the overwhelmed-ness that has often dominated my daily lifein my first month here.

I am currently reading “Doubt” by John Patrick Shanley, and want to share a quote from Shanley’s preface. I read this last night and felt re-affirmed in a wholistic way.

…When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. 

Life in this Ghana: Part 2

I feel like I am not quite a college student, not quite a tourist, and not really a participant in daily life. I am certainly not a local, but I am beginning to feel like less of a foreigner. I don’t go to the library or do much homework. I don’t cook my own meals or earn money. I bargain with taxi drivers and know to take shared taxis and tro-tros (large vans packed full of people that run like buses along certain routes) instead of “dropping,” or solo taxis like most foreigners take.  Sometimes during the day we have lectures given by local professors or professionals about life in Ghana: history, economics, medicine. Other times, we have the honor to meet a chief, a priestess, and women from a co-operative that makes shea butter. I usually buy lunch on the street: roasted plantains, ground nuts (like peanuts), oranges, pinapple, coconuts, much-treasured Coke Light, or Fan Yogo (frozen strawberry yogurt). Sometimes I stop off for a hot meal of jollof rice and fried chicken. A wide variety of packaged crackers, available at little stores on absolutely every corner, smothered in fresh ground nut butter have been my staple when I’ve been craving protein. While we usually eat like locals, our 3 Ghana Cedi (1 Ghana Cedi = 1 US dollar) stipend is three times what many people earn in a day.

Our continual movement has prevented any long-term friendships with Ghanaians, but the constant attention we draw allows us some fun, friendly interactions with Ghanaians our age, usually men. Today, a few girls and I met up with two guys we had met a few days before and walked around the market. Now, by “met up,” I mean that they came up to us in the market.  This is because we are very easy to spot. Then, the two guys, Francis and Kofi, took us to see a big Baobab tree. We invited them out to lunch afterwards, and in Ghana, if you invite someone to join you for a meal or a drink, it is expected that you will treat them. Fortunately, we already knew this. Our academic director, Yemi, calls men like Kofi and Francis “professional boyfriends,” and they certainly are. Tamale is a small city, and they, and other men, find us everywhere we go and help us find what we want in the market or bargain with taxi drivers to get home. They are friendly and excellent company and seem to have none of the expectations that the term “professional boyfriends” might imply. Indeed, when I tell people I am married (People do not really date here like they do in the US-of course, many young people are exceptions to that-so generally speaking it is easier to say I am married than to explain further or talk myself out of an aggressively uncomfortable but joking marriage proposal.), they are still as interested as before in being my friend. I am constantly wary of being manipulated, but I am finding that many of these “professional boyfriends” are simply nice guys who make excellent short-term friends.

When people ask me, I always say I am a student, but I don’t feel like a student in terms of its typical connotations. Most of my learning takes place outside of the classroom, and it is really up to me to reflect upon it and motivate myself. I feel so far away from home and from my “real” world, but I wonder if this less structured life in which I am constantly learning but only sort of a student might actually be the “real” world.

Learn Twi: student – sukuuni

Life in this Ghana: Part 1

Please, take a moment to walk over to the kitchen sink and fill a glass with tap water.  Drink it.

It is the dry season now in Ghana, and in the savannah in the north,the whole landscape looks thirsty.  Red dirt is kicked up by everything that moves, and the refreshing breezes are clouded with dust.  The trees are mostly bare, and there is little green.  On the bumpy dirt road between Tamale and Mole National Park, much of the land has been burnt to allow new growth since the old plants have dried up.  Packed into a too-small bus (imagine, 5 people per row, stacking our shoulders sideways because we cannot all fit straight across, sweating), all 28 of us bounced out to Mole on a 4 hour, sixty mile ride through remote villages.  At each village, we would invariably pass a big group of women and children filling buckets of water from wells or holding tanks that are probably trucked out there.  Even little kids take good-sized buckets and carry them home on their heads.  Could you imagine your life revolving around fetching and preserving water?

In the cities, it is easier.  The taps flow sometimes, and when they do, people fill buckets and barrels to last them until the next time the taps flow.  My family in Kumasi has barrels and giant buckets of water in the kitchen and hallway that they refill with a hose from the sink when the water runs.  They leave the kitchen sink on so that if the water comes on while they are sleeping they can hear it and get up and refill their water store.  When the water ran low, the kids fetched more from neighbors whose pipse were on.  In Accra, my family’s taps almost always flowed, so kids from nearby (usually 10 year old boys) would come and fill buckets to carry home.

Watching the trees that I could not believe were still alive and villages of round houses with thatched roofs and the occasional waving child out the window of the bus yesterday, I was in awe that anything could live on such thirsty earth.

Learn Twi: nsuo – water

dear fans,

I will write more soon.

went on a safari today.

love, sarah