the Month of March

Hey sorry I've been seriously slacking on the blog front. I'll begin with the Indepedence celebrations of early March. On the night before Independence Day (March 5th) we went to another concert and fireworks show, essentially a countdown to Independence. For the concert, they'd blocked off one of the main streets of Accra and set a stage up at one end, a massive glowing set behind a quarter mile of people filling the road. Zach and I arrived at 10 pm or so and, unable to see much, we bypassed the crowd using a dirt path that ran parallel to the road and was less crowded. We ended up about 20 ft. from the stage, on the side. President Kufour was holding a private reception in the Nkrumah Mausoleum, a building behind the stage, and from our viewpoint we could see various motorcades of diplomats and dignitaries entering the compound's gates. There was an almost palpable excitement in the air, fueled by the sleek black and flashing lights slipping behind the stage and the massive crowd. The entire crowd were waiting to be galvanized; there was so much potential energy. Everything seemed to be building to midnight. Eventually, a bit bored with the concert, we snuck backstage and made our way to the gate of the compound, where armed soldiers held the crowd back. We could see the building behind the gates, where Kufour was giving his speech. We tried to convince the guards to let us in but by the time we did, the speech was over. We were standing just inside the wall when midnight struck. Fireworks launched from within the compound into the night sky as motorcades began leaving, passing within feet of us. Even the soldiers turned around and watched the fireworks show; it was pretty spectacular. As everyone gazed skyward at the fireworks, I could really sense the pride that they all felt in their country. It was a time to forget their problems and just celebrate Indepedence, a time for everyone to be part of something bigger, to be a part of the liberation. It was really nice to be a part of it.
The next morning, Independence Day, we woke up at 5 am in the morning and made our way in the early morning light towards Independence Square, a flat concrete expanse bordered by bleachers and with the ocean as a backdrop. Indepedence Square was where the official indepedence celebrations were to take place. Driving through Accra on a tro-tro, all the storefronts had Ghanaian flags hanging from the windows. As we neared Independence Square, even in the early morning hours, the sidewalks became filled with Ghanaians draped in flags walking briskly towards the Square, clapping, chanting and waving flags. We got out and joined the crowd. Soon the street widened and there was Independence Square. The crowd broke into a run and photographers and video crews huddled on the periphery, capturing the scene. Running for our lives and getting a tad bit nervous, we climbed over the Square's fence with the rest of the mob and sprinted towards the bleachers to get a seat. The Square itself was where the parade was going to occur, so it was blocked off and the crowd gathered around the outside. In the square was a formation of Ghanaian tanks so sneaking onto the square was thrown out as an option. The next hour was spent walking around the massive circumfrence of the Square trying to find a seat. But even early in the morning, the big concrete grandstands were completely filled. So we eventually stood on a slight hill near the back of the Square, unable to see much except the tops of the tanks and the rising bleachers filled with people, feverishly waving the paper flags they were distributing. We stayed for about two hours, waiting for the festivities to begin as the viewing areas became more and more packed. There was a row of large trees along the back of the square and they became so filled with people that the entire tree began swaying. By nine the celebration still had not begun and we were already exhausted, since we'd gotten about two hours of sleep the night before. Since we couldn't see anything anyway and had already accumulated a thin film of dust, we decided to head back and watch it on TV. Walking toward the tro-tro station, against the procession of people heading towards the square, taxi's and other cars screeched by dangerously, passengers hanging out the windows waving flags. Back at home, I watched the parade on TV, which was an endless procession of military personnel and equipment followed by a long, somewhat uninspiring speech by President Kufour. Soon after, I fell asleep. So the Independence Day itself was a bit anticlimactic, though the morning was intense.

Gwen visited later in the month and it was an awesome, packed four days. The house received her very warmly, considerably more warmly in fact than they received Zach and I. Zach and I were amazed at how much some of the female members of the house like Ablanyo and Mama opened up to Gwen, actually engaging her in conversation, asking her questions, and expressing general interest in her, attention that we are utterly deprived of. We like to think that, rather than us being uninteresting, their reserved manner is culturally dictated. But who knows. At any rate it was really fun to see that side of them and to have them be so welcoming to Gwen.

Gwen and I spent some time in the batik, where we stamped and dyed t-shirts and skirts (hers came out much better than mine). Then we left with some friends to Senya Beraku, a coastal town about an hour west of Accra. We arrived at dusk, turning off the main road onto a red dirt road that wound through the coastal plain. It was dark by the time we reached the outskirts of town and soon the road ahead was filled with figures, eerily gray from the harsh headlights. The little wooden shacks along the road all had candles or lanterns hanging out front. We arrived where we'd be staying; an old slave fort on the beach converted (by Ghanaians) into a hotel of sorts. We soon went in search of food, up the main street. As we neared the town's center, the road became filled with people mingling. The candles on the vendors' tables lining the street made up for the lack of street lights. Little children were everywhere, darting in and out of the dark alleys between shacks. Soon we were surrounded by probably fourty kids screaming, "How are you? How are you?" It was fun but made being inconspicuous difficult. Perhaps I've mentioned this in the blog before, but the community feel of these towns is really impressive. Because people often don't have electricity, much less televisions, people mingle and interact with their neighbors instead of being holed up in their house. One of the effects of this is how socially at ease Ghanaians are; they can really talk with anybody. I'm always amazed when I with a Ghanaian friend and he or she meets another Ghanaian and before you know it, they're talking and joking like old pals. Anyway the next day we went to a beach and relaxed then headed home. That night Gwen and I went out to dinner and had a great time then returned so Gwen could pick out some fabrics from Grace's shop then off she went to the airport.

That week I got quite sick and went to the hospital to get checked out. To my dismay, soon I was admitted and hooked up to an IV. By that point I was feeling better and did not like the prospect of spending the night in the hospital. My discontent and boredom grew until around 9 pm when, after careful planning and consideration, made a somewhat feeble escape attempt. I unhooked the IV and stood, finding myself not quite as strong as I thought I was. I got as far as the hallway when a nurse yelled and asked what I was doing. Mumbling excuses, I hobbled back to bed. As I told Gwen later, I felt like an old man who was trying to escape the nursing home.

I still wasn't feeling 100 percent when Zach, Arielle and myself traveled up north to Mole National Park. The bus ride up to Tamale was about 14 hours in extremely cramped, smelly nearly suffocating quarters. We spent a day in Tamale, a predominantly Muslim, courteous and dusty city. A plump, jovial teenager named Mohammed took us around Tamale, first into a large, covered market. The beautiful, wrinkled faces of the old women vendors glowed from the light filtering through holes in the roof. After that we walked outside under the burning sun and walked in an outdoor network of alleys and huts. As we got farther from the road, I felt more and more like I'd stepped back in time. Goats wandered around the rough dirt paths past huts with thatched roofs and cookfires. It was quite odd to be in a place where everything was made from natural components; from the houses to the benches to the tools, I didn't see plastic once. Unfortunately, my ailment resurfaced and I became increasingly overheated and light-headed. Then Mohammed, whose idea of cultural sensitivity was different from ours, took us to the city's mosque to pray. Zach, with his dark skin, black hair and beard, was an infinitely more convincing Muslim than myself and I was dubious that they were going to believe Mohammed's story that I was a visiting Muslim also named Mohammed. We did the ritual bathing across the street from the three story, pink mosque, washing each limb three times as well as our face and head. Especially in my overheated state, the bathing was a very pleasant ritual. Then Mohammed led us into the first floor of the mosque, a quiet open space with prayer mats arranged in rows on the concrete floor. Lounging Muslims in the back eyed us with curiosity. We knelt on prayer mats and began the praying, me watching frantically out of the corner of my eye for the next move. I then realized that I was wearing the Christmas boxer shorts my mom had bought me and that they were exposed every time I knelt towards Mecca. I tucked my shirt in but Mohammed hissed at me to untuck it. Luckily the praying was soon finished and, after touring the roof, we departed for Mole National Park. As our bus bounced through the increasingly barren and dry savannah I began to feel sicker and hotter. The complete lack of infrastructure would've been interesting under normal circumstances, but as I was feeling sicker and sicker it was the last thing I wanted to see. By the time we got to Mole I couldn't stand for more than thirty seconds or so at a time and couldn't let any body part touch another because they were so hot. Being a good ten hours from the nearest decent hospital, I was terrified. I've never had such a bad fever in all my life and it just kept getting worse. All types of worst-case scenarios were running through my head. It was one of the first times in my life when I actually thought I could die. It was a very long night of dousing myself with water and wrapping towels around my head but by morning I really felt a great deal better and that day went on a game walk into the savannah with a small group and a guide. We stood on the banks of a watering hole where elephants bathed then saw antelope hiding in the brush and warthogs fearlessly grazing. At one point, while walking on a path through some brush, we stumbled across some more elephants and one of the elephants raised its ears and made all types of grunting sounds. The guide looked nervous and shouldered his rifle and told us to get back. Many, seeking a good photo, were reluctant. I think if the elephant had charged, half the group would've kept filming and snapping photos right up to the bitter end. Things just look like a movie through the viewfinder of a camera. Anyway we returned to the motel and took a nap. We were awoken by a somewhat frantic housekeeper who explained that the oranges we'd left outside had been shredded. "The baboons! The baboons!" she yelled at a bleary-eyed Zach who could only reply, "OK." We were dubious but as we stepped outside to head to the pool, a monkey dashed around the corner. We pursued it around the building onto the porch on the other side, which overlooked miles and miles of flat, green savannah. At the edge of the drop down to the savannah, more monkeys, were perched on branches and fallen logs, including a mother and baby monkey. We watched them intently and were thrilled initially when two drew closer. They spread out and walked towards the porch, where we were standing. Suddenly two very small hands grabbed onto a board of the porch's fence and a small, angry monkey's face appeared shortly thereafter, staring right up at us with beady, angry eyes. We all shrieked and turned to the right, but another monkey blocked our path. We sprinted towards our room as the monkeys pursued, me grabbing a large, unwieldly branch for self-defense. We got into the room and slammed the door. One monkey jumped up on the screen window. We stayed in the room for a good hour or so until finally leaving, armed with sticks. We didn't see any monkeys on the way to the pool but there were plenty of baboons strolling around, with their pretty, black, solemn faces and weird butts. The next morning we headed back to Tamale, where we had dinner on the roof of a large building, watching the tro-tro station gradually settle as the sun set. Then we counted down to my birthday with two Germans we'd met by drinking and playing cards at a table outside of our hostel. While they had few card games to teach us, they had plenty of drinking games with great names, including "carten-blasten" where you lay a deck of cards on top of a full glass of beer and try not to blow the last card off. The next morning we boarded a bus back to Accra.

The next morning Mom arrived and we had a really nice week. She brought a tape of various friends and family saying happy birthday. It was a lot of fun to listen to, thank you all for your contributions to that. It was excellent to see her and to catch up; we had some really nice talks. We walked around Jamestown (the colonial center of Accra) taking in the sights and smells of the fishing port and went to Ada Foah, the place at the mouth of the Volta River mentioned earlier. She also spent some quality time with the family, who, like with Gwen, took an instant liking to her. One night we went took Alex (my host brother) out to dinner and had an awesome time; Alex seemed to really enjoy himself. The last night she was here we went to dinner at Ama's sister's house (Ama and Kwaku are our Ghanaian friends from home). It was a very pleasant dinner, we sat outside as chicken grilled on the barbeque and the late-afternoon light filtered through the leaves and chatted with them for a good two or three hours. Ghanaians are so sociable they can really talk to anybody and make anybody feel at home. One thing I noticed about when my Mom visited was how much more respectful people were. There were fewer shouts of "obruni" and people were much more courteous in general. Age is really much more respected here than in the States; it must be nice to live in a culture where respect and societal recognition are something that's ahead of you and are accessible to virtually all instead of something that is fleeting and rare. Another thing that's much more common here is three-generation households, where the grandparents, children and grandchildren all live together or in close proximity. The grandparents thus play an important role in raising the kids and their acquired experience and wisdom are more accessible to the kids. It certainly seems to me like a model to emulate.

The day Mom left the CIEE group departed for the neighboring country of Togo. We stayed in the capital of Lome, which had been described somewhat generously as the Paris of Africa. It had the odd feel of a European city left to decay. Crumbling colonial mansions and buildings faced the palm tree-lined beaches and well-planned boulevards had developed massive cracks and potholes. The French influence was unmistakeable, baguettes replaced sugar and tea bread and motorbikes were all over. It was very fun to practice my French in a setting where it only had to be good enough for people to understand. Also, since French is also the second language for the Togolese, they speak it slower and are more understanding of mistakes than I hear the French are. Anyway, some highlights were going to a fetish (voodoo) market where tables around a dusty square were covered with chimpanzee and dog heads, horse skulls, dead, enormous snakes, and elephant feet. All the various body parts, if crushed to a powder and ingested, supposedly cure ailments. Some of the claims were dubious, such as crushing and ingesting an elephant's foot to cure elephantiasis, but who knows, perhaps it does work. After that we toured the Grand Marche then Molly, Dan I strolled around the streets for a bit, eventually finding a very tall hotel and taking an elevator to the 37th floor where there was an incredible view. Lome, squeezed onto a strip of land between the ocean and the marshy Lake Togo, stretched ahead for miles, and plumes of smoke rose from a large fire to the North. Quite a sight. Then we rode motorbike taxis around for a bit which was a blast.

OK that's all the trips undertaken as far as I can think of. Some other developments... Maownefea, another of our host brothers, recently got a harmonica so we've had a couple jam sessions which have been fun, me playing chords and him soloing on top. Also, I've been actually doing work at the Dodowa Health Center which has been satisfying. Perhaps I've already mentioned this but I've been working primarily in the lab. One day, after just sitting there for two hours, I went up to the head of the lab and demanded to be given something to do. He responded really well and now I actually feel like I'm making a contribution. Directness is really important here; sublety doesn't get you too far. While it can be exhausting and frustrating to have to lay everything out perfectly clearly, there are benefits. For example, transgressions at the house at dealt with immediately with clear, verbal confrontation. A short argument ensues then the matter is finished. Such a communication system, which doesn't ask one person to try to read the mind and body language of another, prevents small disagreements from building into impasses.

Recently at Dodowa, I did some home visits with Pascal, a lab tech. We went to a village to check up on a patient. The village was only accessible by a series of increasingly narrow and rough dirt roads. By the end the Toyota 4Runner was bouncing over ditchs and rocks with branches scraping the side. The path eventually opened to a small clearing with three or four huts. The patient was a teenage, single mother who was quite sick with what appeared to be malaria combined with something else. The thing that really struck me was how concerned her parents were; they could've easily been parents at an Emergency Room in the States. For some reason, I'd callously assumed that people here were more desensitized to death because of its increased frequency. But finding that this was not case made the poor state of the healthcare system even more disturbing. I really wanted to be able to help more but like I've done most of my life, I just observed, unable to assist.

Life at the house has been about the same. I set up a basketball hoop using a cardboard box and rope and me and the two young girls Abigail and Stephanie and their friend played a very fun though highly dramatic game of basketball. While I may be technically part of the house, I still feel and am treated as a guest and outsider and sometimes get the impression they're thinking, "Don't you have your own family?" It will nice to return to a family that actually cares about me. I'm close with Alex and we often go across to the bar across the street to have deep, philosophical conversations, yelling over the blasting Celine Dion music.

OK that's it for now, I try to fill in some of the holes and add reflections one exams are finished. All's good though I'm starting to itch for the comfort and familiarity of home! Hope all's well!