Waking Up In Ghana

(I will never forget of you. I promise.)

2010-11-16T04:53:00.001-05:00

in summary

2010-11-11T04:07:00.002-05:00

break the promise and the words that surrender you to this trend – basing what you know on your own outer skin – try living inside out; defeat what you know – for the sake of a better mind, not outside in

we’re scared of the strangest things- yet we regret them with more shame, blame, fame, we’re insane - when all we need is to think, try, reach, love, live, die – and is it so hard to just let go and know you're better off- living inside out

- Katie Costello, Inside Out

final distings update

2010-11-02T05:07:00.010-04:00

my students (teaching, clubs and the like)

Nothing has given me more joy in Ghana than my students. Every moringa tree planted in the ground, every piece of trash we picked up, every not-so-pc play about HIV we performed and hand-washing song sung (cuss when you waaaash yuwr haaands, you won’t git sick, sick, sick!!) and every new shiny book read has been worth the stress that we call being a PeeCeeVee. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like in every other village on the face of Ghana. I always decide that not-a-one has students as funny, quirky and bright as mine. I really believe that.

widows association

Months before Avi passed away, him and Obey formed a widows association. I happen to walk by the school right before each meeting, which I then somehow was roped into running. As Avi was dying, he was adamant that I receive a message: his last wish was that I take on the widows association. No pressure. I spent my last month working tirelessly with these 80 women. My goal was to get each able woman in one of the three income generating groups in the village, shea butter, groundnuts and rice. Working with these women may have been some of the most fun I have had in Sankpala, for sure one of the most rewarding. All the women are in groups, and meeting more frequently then ever. By the end of the month I received a sampling of their best shea butter and finest rice and groundnuts with pride.

SAYA

I think SAYA forgot I would be leaving eventually. They are terrified that without Avi and I, SAYA will cease to be productive. I beg to differ. I am so proud of the work they do in Sankpala and I am truly at peace leaving them to continue to serve the community. Every PCV wants to leave behind a group of passionate and self-sufficient youth who will continue two years worth of projects. I consider myself pret-ty lucky.

The library that hath many a name

Every class, both Primary and JHS, received introductory library classes, and now the school is waiting for the long-ago promised librarian. Until then, my man Joshua will be the temporary librarian, and in my opinion there is no better man for the job.

During the opening of the library, the chief sent a message that the library would be named after me, in honor of the work I have done in the community. “Omigawd!” Kimmie squeals to my left. “Weren’t you going to name it after that…dead guy?” Kimberly whispers to my right. So, yea. We worked it out:

Azara

This girl has bounced back and forth between Accra and village life every few months since I have been here. She came to terms that she is truly a city girl, one after my own heart. In March, while I was traveling with Ciana and Krista, Azara packed her things one last time and moved to Accra for good. While she told me she would be back in a month or two, I knew this was it, she was ready to start her life in one place. It is hard to describe life in Sankpala void of Azara, Avi John and Adams (who is in school in Tamale). The people and families I spent all my time with were all elsewhere. My last month was looking a lot like the first month, and in all the wrong ways. My very last week in Sankpala, Azara just showed up at my door. “I had to come home,” she said “My sister is leaving Africa!” She stayed with me for a week and hoped on the 14 hour long bus the very next day after I left.

Azara continues to dream of a better life for her and her son. She is living with relatives and is pursuing beauty school. She has never seemed happier and so sure of herself and where her life is going.

Adams

Adams spent the last ten months getting his pharmaceutical license in Tamale. He is taking the exam at the end of November, wish him luck! There is officially nothing that he cannot do. Saying goodbye to Adam is completely heartbreaking. For a month now, the boy will pause in the middle of our conversations and say, sorry, I was just thinking about you going. Who will love me when you go? (I will always love you Adams)

Aze

Aze has enrolled himself into school. He is now the biggest third grader on the planet. His teachers report that he beats the children more than he learns (that’s my boy!), but at least he is keeping busy.

My last week, Aze’s mother sent me more yams than I could ever eat. Azara and I went to his house the following day to thank her for the gift. We sat there and talked a little bit, and she told me that when Aze was born, he was perfect. He was more than perfect, he was the most beautiful child she had. She told me her enemies came together and put a curse on him. This explanation did not surprise me, Aze has scarification, which are little but deep cuts, all over his body including on his forehead. His family was trying to protect him, heal him, maybe reverse the ‘curse’. Azara told me that most families would never have kept a child like Aze.

I told Aze’s mom a story. After Avi passed away, I had gone to his house every day for weeks to spend time with his grieving wife and children. I can’t begin to describe the sorrow and fear on this woman’s face. Usually she would break into tears just at the sight of me, which would then make her two young daughters cry. One morning Aze came along. I don’t remember what he did, but whatever it was, it made Avi’s wife giggle. And then the girls started giggling. Before I knew it, the room had erupted in laughter. Once Aze realized he had an audience, ooh boy, he had them going for quite some time. It was the first time I saw her so much as smile since Avi’s death.

“A boy who can make someone laugh when all they want to do is cry, that is something special,” I told Aze’s mother. “He’s not a curse. He’s a blessing. We are so lucky to have him.”

Musah Naa

Musah has grown a foot since that first night I showed up in Sankpala, when him and his brother frantically swept my empty room and fetched me a jerry can of water to keep me till morning. I can’t tell if he is more or less of a troublemaker, he is for sure a full-fledged teenager. He has formed a hobby of writing letters to my Peace Corps friends and me. While my friends receive clever and heart warming letters, mine usually go something like: “Madame. Hello. I am very happy to write you this letter. Please, me and Aze want an apple from Tamale. And speakers. Why did you go to Kumasi and not bring back apple? Musah.” I finally confronted him, demanding a nice letter. The next evening, he slipped this behind.

Here is the transcript: Hello Maria. I am very glad to write you this. How are you? I hope you are fine. The reason why I write the letter to you am want to said you hello, because you are my Best Friend and my Best LOVE in Sankpala. I don’t want something. Do you? So goodbye Maria.

Who me? What’s next?

Hek if I know.

(But its probably gonna be good)

i and love and you

2010-11-02T04:56:00.012-04:00

Peace Corps aint easy. A special thanks to the following for making it a little easier. Kimmie, I don’t know what to even say to you lady (are you sure dead bats don’t give rabies?). Andy, I love you endlessly. All the northern volunteers, especially Hannah, Camberly, Liz, Shauna, Ana, Cat Cat: you are my family. Dan, for saying all the right things at the right time (and those much needed midnight dates). Mikey, for two years worth of tears and snot on your shoulder. Adam Martyn, for having my back anytime, anywhere. Luck, for slow dancing. Ama Cynthia, how is it you showed up all those times I needed you most? Lets always be friends? To the cast of Glee. My Mac, for holding on. To my front porch during the hours of 5 and 6 am. Brett Dennen for reminding me not to fear what I don’t really know. To Point 7 for 1 pm cold beers. Heather, you have no idea. Sarah Witty, for all the calls and packages till the very end. Mina, Mo and Tee, for all the detailed updates. I'm comin' home! Ciana and Krista, my sisters from other misters, thanks for living my life during the most miserable part of the year. Mickey, my little bug, for reminding me what's important (I love you more than the sun and moon and all the stars in the sky). Mom and dad: I owe you. Big time.

and I have

2010-10-26T06:21:00.005-04:00

I didn’t come here with goals, with expectations. Simply because an American cannot even fathom what living and working in a rural Ghanaian community would look like. In the beginning, my only goal was to get through it. But here I am, at the end. And I can’t help but wonder if I should have done it all differently.

I wonder if I should have spent more time with the community, gone to more funerals and weddings – shucked more corn – cracked more groundnuts. Maybe I should have watched less movies and taken less naps. I could have worked at the clinic more, at the school less. I could have taken the girls club more seriously. I never did that sanitation campaign. Could I have accomplished more? You know, of the little things that I won’t have the opportunity to do ever again?

These past couple of years have felt like a lot of one chances, and I’m sure any Peace Corps volunteer can attest to this. And then there are the bombarding greeting cards, songs and speeches that preach drinking life up. Do what is uncomfortable. Have no regrets. Maybe I just take it all to heart, just a little to seriously. Those songs are for people with unsatisfying office jobs, people without passports, not for the restless girl living in West Africa.

Or maybe I did fail this experience. Like it is so easy to do.

Ghanaians have this phrase, and it cracks me up. I remember the first time it was directed towards me. I had spent three days in the same paint-spattered t-shirt and khakis, knocking out cement slits for light in my kitchen, painting my rooms and organizing the few things I owned. I was very proud of myself and unveiled my new home to Azara. Her eyes glistened with delight, she took a deep breath, smiled wide and whispered, “Mariam…you have tried!”

I have what?

In these parts, no one is asking for perfection. The phrase “you have tried” is in fact a high compliment. It’s what I was showered with when we opened the school library. This is so unlike the culture I was raised in, it is uncomfortable. Trying is not enough, you get the job done and you do it well. And the next time, you do it better. Whether my projects fail or flourish, my community embraces me, knowing that I have done the best that I could. I have nothing else to offer than that, which is quite okay with them. Now that I am on my way out, every day these people I have grown to love are telling me I have tried. And I have.

I want to think I have failed my community and myself, not because I did a bad job, but because I could have done better. I could have done better if I was this volunteer, or that one. I take a great deal of comfort in the fact that the people I am here to serve would never think such a thing. They are just glad I am here, being myself, trying my best.

2010-10-26T06:19:00.001-04:00

Oi! Is this what you call love?

-Obey

oh, you have tried

2010-10-08T05:38:00.008-04:00

Sankpala officially opened the Sankpala School Library (finally) on October 2nd, 2010. Here’s a glimpse:

I first want to thank all of you for coming out today, to celebrate the inauguration of the Sankpala Youth Association, and the opening of the Avi CK John Library. I want to take a moment to recognize the man who Avi was. He was the father of SAYA, and without his wisdom and guidance, we would not be here for the inauguration today. Avi made it clear that he would take on the role as my own father while I was living so far from home. His love and encouragement pushed me to continue with the construction of the library, with teaching at the school and several other programs when I felt I didn’t have the patience or energy to continue. He will be greatly missed, and I am incredibly blessed to have had him in my life, even for just a short time. May his memory live on with every book read inside these walls.

I would also like to recognize all the hard work of the members and executives of the Sankpala Youth Association, specifically in regards to the construction of the library. When a Western volunteer takes on a project this large, we have a fear we are doing so because we believe that it is important, and the community just doesn’t want to say no to a gift. The members of SAYA worked so hard, and with no compensation besides the completion of this library for themselves and generations to follow. The pride they have for this work has made it clear that they believe in literacy and the future of Ghana as much as I do. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Congratulations on finishing such a big project. I am proud of you, and you should be proud of yourselves. May this building be used to inspire your youth for years to come.

I would additionally like to thank others who have supported this project this year. The Chief of Sankpala and Assemblyman Ibrihim Haruna, members of SCAN, The DCE Salisu Yusef, and the Central Gonja Education Dept. May you continue to support the Library when I am homebound.

Lastly, I want to personally dedicate my work for this project to my JHS students. You are the future, and therefore, the future of this community and this country is very, very bright. Thank you for who you are, this building stands because you inspire me. May you read and read and read. May you love learning as much as I love all of you.

Thank you.

Some hi-lites of the inauguration

Hip bumping women 3x my age, aka dancing the torah torah
The assemblyman cracking himself up as he swore in the SAYA executives
Honoring Avi John.
The looney Arabic teacher leading the school children in some Arabic chant at the most inopportune times
The chief’s wish that the library be named after me: “the maria library”. Yea, we’re working on that
Photo –op with half my community
The look on their faces when we opened that door. I will never forget that for as long as I live

This library took a couple of continents to build. I want to deeply thank all of those who were involved. A big thanks to the PTA of PS 32, to Flushing Christian School (who also had a hand in teaching me to read, may I add) and my little brothers, for donating all the books to the library. Liz, thanks for the sanity checks and your endless help and support. Also to USAID, Martin Levine, Billy Greenberg, Peter Gündling, my family at The First Presbyterian Church of Flushing, The Murray Hill Neighborhood Association, and many more of my family and friends who donated so generously to the project. You have made a major difference in the lives of children who thirst for knowledge. And dad, I would give up a limb for you to see these kids reading in the library. The day of the inauguration, you were there. The last book placed on the shelves, you were there. The first finished book, you were there. Thank you for loving children you don’t even know.

Check out the photos of the construction and inauguration of the library! Enjoy!

think try reach love live die

2010-09-23T12:48:00.009-04:00

After five days of beach hopping in Togo and Benin, I get several calls from Obey. I had been unable to pick up when I reached the border, but I had a feeling something was wrong. “Everything is fine,” he assures me. “Except Avi John passed away last night.” My legs shatter beneath me. Mikey and I had been discussing just the night before how we had yet to lose someone we loved. And here I was, unable to catch my breath.

“He talked about you as he was dying,” Obey wants me to know. “Yea?” I respond, sniffling and feeling a bit dizzy. Those last 48 hours Avi was slowly losing his mind and was desperate to get a hold of me. He asked if I had come home yet hourly even up to his last moments of life. That’s what happens when you turn off your phone for a nice relaxing beach vacation.

It took me a few days to make it back to my village. I walk the path to his house, the one I have walked almost every day for two years. And I talk to him on the way, because when I reach he won’t be there. “The paint is already peeling in the library,” I tell him. “And yes, Togo was wonderful.” At this point, a little part of me believes that it is all some practical joke. That he would be there in his purple gown, waiting, laughing. His wife, covered head to toe in shiny black, fell out of her chair when she saw me. Like I was a ghost. We met at the doorway and stared at each other for a few seconds, not quite knowing what to do with the other. Then she collapsed in my arms and wept. And wept and wept and wept. I don’t know what to say. What do you say to a widow? “It’s going to be okay mommy,” I manage. “Everything is going to be okay.”

When I left Avi’s house, I met Razak in the library. Last time I was here, him and Avi were sitting on the floor (the furniture was not made yet), chatting about the inauguration that was just weeks away. “I wrote something to read to you at the inauguration,” he tells me. But he couldn’t wait, so he has me read it right then and there. It’s the same old with Avi. How the children shriek my name when I pass. How hard I work. How much I love this community and how much they love me. It was the same nonsense he told my mother when she came to visit that brought tears to her eyes. I feel blessed to have read this letter before he passed away. Razak and I do what friends should do when they lose someone. We laugh at the best memories we can conjure up.

Avi John was the father of the Sankpala Youth Association. He was a source of strength and encouragement to all of us, most especially to me. But that doesn’t even bring justice to who the man was. There has been an ongoing debate on what to name the library. Sankpala Community Library might send the wrong message to the Education Department, whose financial support we are dependant on. Sankpala School Library may leave the community feeling unwelcome. This week we finally made a decision once and for all, that we would honor Avi and name the building after him. The Avi C.K. John Memorial Library.

This might be the first time we have all agreed on something in the history of SAYA.

10 reasons I love Ramadan

2010-08-28T06:05:00.003-04:00

Because it gives us a chance to think back on our year’s transgressions and wipe the slate clean. That’s why we fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Mmm, err, that’s why my village is fasting. I can’t afford to lose a pound that this library has already taken from me. Call me sadistic, but I have been rather enjoying Ramadan this year. It’s the most – wonderful – tiiiiime….of the year!

10. Now I’m not the only one sleeping 12 hours a day. Everyone is! They are sleeping because of lack of energy, but who’s counting?

9. I’ve been eating better than ever! I can’t do any programs while people are fasting. So I have all this time to cook and eat. I have snuck in a fourth meal if that’s ok. I’m eating more than I have in months!

8. Market days are less crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I do like market day. But with far fewer meals to make, market is a bit scarce. Less heckling makes my shopping easier.

7. Less visitors. Not for me, for Alhaji. There is less of a chance someone is going to bang on my door all hours of the day mistaking me for my landlord when people are too tired to leave their homes.

6. It just so happens to be right smack in the middle of the rainy season. And we all know, maria <3’s the rainy season.

5. With school closed and everyone quite busy not eating, I have all this free time to catch up on my DVD collection. Again.

4. Aze hasn’t asked me for food in weeks!

3. People like to break their fast with figs. So there are figs, figs, figs, everywhere!

2. Naps. Guilt free naps all day because everyone is doing it. I know, this is the same as number 10, but who’s counting?

1. Door to door food vendors! Every night as the sun sets a women waltzes in with a basket on her head full of fruit, figs and nuts like a girl scout. “You want a ba-na-na?” she asks me. Do I?

the thing about books is

2010-08-25T12:45:00.008-04:00

They mean something. I know, brace yourself, this might get sentimental. The reason I say this is because I didn’t know it before Ghana. I never really understood this whole, what do you guys call it? : reading-for-fun - thing. I joined the Peace Corps right out of college and never had the time for pleasure reading. Or should I say I would rather fill that time with America’s Next Top Model marathons. But now that I have 12 hours of awake time to fill in a village that only really works (farming) a couple months out of the year, I have all the time in the world. After watching all my DVD’s, thrice, with director’s commentary and then in French, I gave in and started reading books: as all good Peace Corps volunteers do. I have formed quite a habit of it. Now when they start talking about books (one of 3 topics we talk about), there is a half a chance I can join in! I even recommend books sometimes! Crazy world.

This week my students and I spent the better half of the day unpacking those boxes of books, and blowing our noses (it got a bit dusty). I opened one box to find that it was chalk full of my own children’s books. At first, I was delighted and announced it for all to hear. How neat, my students from a world away now have the opportunity to read the same books I grew up loving. But the more I unpacked the box, I started getting a bit panicky. I realized these books meant a lot to me. I was flooded with memories of footie pajamas, reading books in the arms of my mother or father. It wasn’t special anymore, I was intrusting my childhood memories to a bunch of kids who would surely scribble on them and rip the pages. It is one thing to raise a few thousand dollars, convince two schools and several families to donate boxes of books and motivate a community to build themselves a library, but this was asking too much of me. I’ll be honest, I even snuck two books into my bag. I know I can re-buy a lot of these books for my own children one day, but I was afraid I would never see a few again. One was a book of European fairy tales that I remember reading over and over again when I was pint-sized. Another was The Family Under the Bridge, a Christmas story that I would read to my four younger brothers every Christmas Eve for years to help them sleep when the anticipation of stacked presents to open kept them awake.

Ok, here’s where I get a little mushy. My childhood was blessed. I’m not saying these kids have it all that bad, and they do have their own oral storytelling. But they didn’t have a box of childhood memories between pages. The few who can read learned how to do so in their early teens. They have no idea the world of adventure that comes with loving to read books. I realized as I unpacked, literally about a thousand books, that most probably had childhood memories attached to them before they were packed in a box and shipped to Ghana. I also realized that there is a chance they will become a part of these kids here too. That makes up for this never-ending project. And for that, I may even give back my book of fairy tales. Maybe. I’m not making any promises.

2010-08-10T15:49:00.010-04:00

No human, nor any living thing, survives long under the eternal sky. The most beautiful women, the most learned men, even Mohammed, who heard Allah's own voice, all did wither and die. All is temporary. The sky outlives everything.
Even suffering.

-Bowa Johar, Baltic Poet

distings update

2010-07-30T08:25:00.009-04:00

Sankpala Library and SAYA
Almost done! Hoopah! Planning, fundraising, shipping, building and painting has been going on for over 8 months now. Family and friends raised over $2,000 to ship the books and cover what the USAID funds fell short on. AMAZING! Seriously, amazing. I must add that all the labor to put this library together was done absolutely free. That is unheard of, it is so rare to see a PCV manage to build anything without somehow paying for labor in one way or another. That is just to say how proud I am of the Sankpala Youth Association, my students and other community members who believe in literacy as much as I do and who have come out day after day to see this project through. Inauguration of the Sankpala Youth Association and the Library will take place in August or September. Stay tuned…

Reading Classes
Still going strong, now that the books are here (but still in boxes until the library is painted), I have been sneaking a few Dr. Seuss books away for reading classes. They love Green Eggs and Ham as much as I do. I cannot wait to have these classes in the library, and either can my students.

Health Club
We have been doing a lot on sanitation and hygiene. We continue to have community clean-up days. We also spent a few weeks making posters encouraging good sanitation and hygiene practices, we will put those around the primary school next term.

Girls Club
They don’t know it yet, but I have a fun weekend planned for them in Tamale in October. A few PCV’s and I are going to have a Tie-Dye workshop for our girls as a last project before I am home bound.

Guinea Worm
The lovely Red Cross women and myself continue to check guinea worm filters weekly. There hasn’t been a case in ages. Go Central Gonja! Last year we were the most endemic region in the world or something. I consider myself lucky to have been able to work eradicating this disease while its on its last leg. (we hope!)

Other distings
I spent some time at the STARS conference a few months ago, a week long conference for the brightest high school students in every region of Ghana. Andrew and I ran the HIV/AIDS day, which was a lot of work but so fun and worth it all. A week like that really gives one hope for the future of Ghana, those are some good kids. Andrew’s community made a film in Dagbani about family planning as a follow-up to our Men As Partners workshop, which turned out great. I will be having a few viewings throughout August.

I am at the tail end of my service, which fills me with a slue of emotions. I will finish up in November. Where did the past two years go?

I am really sad to see the end of the World Cup. I’m so proud of the Black Stars, as painful as that last game was to watch. That month might be tops for my time here. Musah and Aze are still by my side daily, helping with the library, my garden and just generally playing with my sanity.

Oh, and the rainy season is here. Le sigh.

a rose by any other name

2010-07-26T07:00:00.004-04:00

Afiya Opensah, Mariah, Whokohin?, Wunterah, Patron, Sister Miriam, White Lady, Mooriah, Madame, Sssst Sssst, Parsibila, Marian, Sistah, Dutch?, Cobroni, Marianna, Obruni, Yes!, Salimingapa, Sister Moringa, Mariama, Mary-a, Mma, My Daughter, sometimes, every now and again... Maria

dragonflies

2010-07-03T05:51:00.021-04:00

I woke up because there were screaming children outside my window. They weren’t screaming in pain or fear - rather in absolute delight - as if they were spending their afternoon eating watermelon on the lake in sticky-hot July. It was the kind of unadulterated delight that I knew was simultaneously being locked into their bodies and minds as a moment that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. Memories in the making.

But it was too late for this kind of delight, this kind of memory making. It was, in fact, in the middle of the night. So I wrapped a cloth around my waist and dragged my still-sleeping body out of my home to investigate.

All at once I was consumed with the sound of hundreds and hundreds of flapping wings. The compound floor was littered with sleeping goats and their sleeping kids. And right across from me shone one lone light bulb, the epicenter of the flapping. It was overwhelmed by insects larger than life - the kind you only experience in the depths of Africa. They were over-sized dragonflies. There were so many, it was almost fantastical. A black kitten sat under the bulb, looking straight into its sun, wings between its teeth.

I turned out of the compound, following the screams of laughter. It led me to the streetlamp. The streetlamp was swarmed with the over-sized dragonflies, more than your mind’s eye is picturing right now, I promise. From its source down to the circle of light it threw on the ground were a thick stream of insect. The over-sized dragonflies were swarmed with children, jumping and grabbing handfuls, shoving them into their mouths as if they were cream filled. Some had sheets that they parachuted up and down, up and down, as if they were catching miniature fish deep, deep in the sea. And the children were swarmed with their own screams of laughter.

And the sky was so dark, so black and the dragonflies were so large, and the streetlamp cast just enough light on the children to convince me I was still in my bed - actually - sleeping. Even in this strange place, these kinds of things don’t happen in the middle of the night. Only in dreams.

I woke up late this morning. I put on hot water for tea and stepped out into my compound to get a feel for the morning weather. I almost forgot about the night’s eerie dragonfly dream. Until I saw the over-sized wings that covered the ground, for as far as I could see, like powdered sugar on French toast.

2010-06-27T07:22:00.005-04:00

You mean USL...United States of LOSERS! aghhahahaha!

-a Black Star fan while watching the game yesterday. This might have been the same one that kept wrapping my face with the Ghanaian flag. Good game, we held our own.

Address Error! Sorry-o!

2010-06-26T10:12:00.005-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that some donations have been returned and have not made it to my father's office. Unfortunately, the post office may not recognize 'Books to Ghana' as an adequate recipient to the address (Books to Ghana/144 E 44 Street Suite 710/New York, NY 10017 ). This is a major pain.in.my.bum. SO… If you have sent a donation to the above address and it was returned to you, I offer my deepest apologies, and beg you to resend it to my father's home address: Joe Karlya/35-35 162nd Street/Flushing, NY 11358. If you have not heard from me, I have not received a donation from you.

You may feel this is completely annoying, as I do, but please know that every single donation is uber appreciated and needed to both ship the books and to pay for customs once arrived (both about the same amount).

Let me express my sincere gratitude to those who have donated. You rock. My world. I read Dr.Suess to a classroom of my students this week. And for the first time, I got a taste of my students not only having the opportunity to read, but loving it. Very soon, they are going to have access to more books than they could ever dream of. Thanks for making that happen.

And in case you were wondering where my loyalty lies, GO USA!!! (common people!)

Go Ghamerica! Yea!

2010-06-22T09:35:00.007-04:00

Experiencing the World Cup in Ghana as an American is interesting. The fact that the World Cup is on African soil is no small thing. Football in general is no small thing. When Ghana made it to the last game of the African Cup, we thought a civil war broke out. “Nope, just the game,” we were told.

Let’s be honest people, we’re not really into football. We are so pretentious about our own football, that we are the only ones on the planet that refer to the sport as ‘soccer’. A handful of us PCV’s met in Tamale to watch the first weekend of games together. Someone needed to roam the streets with a face painted with the American flag. We erupted into cheers when the first goal was scored for USA’s first game, until someone goes, “Wait, guys…that was England.” (We may have been here a little too long. Y’all are all starting to look the same.) “Ohhhh,” we all groan in unison, and go back to our beers and burgers.

But I’ll admit, almost two years in Ghana and I got the World Cup bug. You want to see a bunch of Ghanaians going absolutely nuts? Watch the Black Stars whoop Serbia in a Tamale bar. I have no problem finding a crowd to watch the Ghana games with. I almost slept through their second game, until a resounding “gooooooaaaaaal” spread through my usually (almost eerily) quite village, waking me from my afternoon nap. I caught the tail end, thank Allah I didn’t miss that Black Star drowning his shirt in nosebleed. How exciting! Go Ghana!

Finding anyone willing to watch the USA games is a different story. Alhadji felt enough pity on me to let me watch the game on his TV, and he proceeded to take a nap leaving me to watch it by myself. He missed out, that was a good game. Why don’t we have a crazy Slovenia victory dance? Seriously. I’m doing it right now. Hoopah!

Anyway, hope you guys are catching the games. I fear for my life that Ghana and the US will have to play each other. Scary thought. Until then, Go USAna! Good luck tomorrow, both a'yous!

2010-06-03T04:57:00.018-04:00

Children of Sankpala,

I received your thank-you notes and I liked the kind words and pictures. It is a pleasure to be one of the many people who are sending you these books. There are many, many books- more books than you have ever seen. You will honor me by using the library many times and reading many books. Some of the books are funny, some are silly, some teach new things.

Maria has told me about you and she is very fond of you. As you know, I am very, very fond of Maria and because of this, you have become very special to me. Whenever Maria tells me about Sankpala, I listen very closely. I have seen many pictures of your village and I feel it is a special place.

The books will be there soon. Have fun reading the books and learn more.

One more thing. I know in Sankpala you not only read stories, you also tell stories. In our family we tell a story about a hero. He is a blue, flying dog named Jocko. Make Maria tell you this story many times- especially the young children for I told her this story many times when she was a young child.

With Fondness,

Joe (Maria's dad)

We are still collecting funds for books! You can sponsor a box of books for 50 bucks. Please send in checks (made to MHNA) before June 15th to Joe Karlya/35-35 162nd Street/Flushing, NY 11358. A big thanks to those who have already sponsored books!

2010-05-12T08:18:00.000-04:00

More pictures are finally on my tumblr. Enjoy!

mtn'ed

2010-05-11T12:26:00.015-04:00

Brilliant. I guess.

Cell phone providers fight for advertising space in Ghana. This isn’t much of a television watching culture, being that, you know, they’re poor and all. So they take over billboards and storefronts, and pepper the streets with banners and flags. In any given week, Tamale may be adorned head to toe in red (Vodafone), bubble bee yellow and blue (Mtn), or my favorite, Barney purple and green (Zain). To the misfortune of those living on the main road, (the one that stretches the whole country) they will probably have their house painted, in exchange for cell phone credits and t-shirts by one of the providers. This is especially the case in the south. I have a feeling they don’t mind the free coat of paint, but we PCV’s think it’s a little ridiculous. We like to play, would you rather be mtned, vodaphoned or zained? (Zain, all the way)

Passing through Sankpala while traveling with Krista and Ciana, I discovered, to my utter horror, that a number of homes had been mtn’ed in my community. Martyn’s house! The tailor’s house! Come on! Abukari’s shop, Latifa’s shop… Wait, no, not the mosque! Is anything sacred? Oh Gawd, Alhaj. Don’t tell me.

Yep, our entire compound: bubble bee yellow. A dozen mtn emblems stamped everywhere. I guess it was only a matter of time. That’s what happens when you live on a major road. So if you ever find yourself in Northern Ghana and need a place to crash, I’m in the mtn house.

And I didn’t even get a t-shirt.

2010-05-11T11:30:00.009-04:00

thats my place

and that's my mosque

Aaagh-ze!

2010-05-04T08:37:00.008-04:00

I’ve realized I haven’t adequately talked about one of the most special people in my life. A boy born with mental retardation, hands, feet and soul far too big for his gangly teenage body, has adopted me as his mother. I say this because he has a mother, a wonderful one I might add. But I don’t have a son, which is shameful for someone my age in a little Ghanaian village like Sankpala. Did I ask Aze to be my son? No, I had no say in the matter. But at this point, when I am away from Sankpala, I have dreams that he has spotted me across the street, between overgrown mango trees, frantically waving his arms in the air yelling “Miriam! Miriam! Miriam!” And when I wake, I feel a little empty inside.
Aze is sitting outside my home before I drink my morning coffee. He sits with me as I eat my breakfast and we take in the cool morning. He waits outside as I dress, asking, “Te chang shukuru? (Are we going to school?)” Bella, bella, I respond, which in so many words means, Give me a minute, will ya? He takes my bag off my shoulder, whether I want him to or not. Being that he is far stronger than he knows, I give in. We walk to school and talk about how hot it is and how we want it to rain. He sits in the corner of the classroom and watches me teach, until he decides he wants to be the class clown, which is when I throw chalk at him and throw him out. We play this awful game I hate, and my students love, where he repeats every word I say until I completely lose my mind.
He follows me home, or to Azara’s house, or to the dam. If I’m doing laundry, he sticks his muddy hands in there with me to ‘help’. He breaks into a roll of laughter as I take a deep breath, dump out the water, cleaning his hands in the process and start new. At lunchtime, he announces “Miriam, go home!” He is telling me he is going home to eat, which is kind of funny because when I am really mad, I yell “Aze, go home!”
I take advantage of the silence, and try to take a nap. Very little time will pass until he is back and sticking his big eyes through the slits in my kitchen, chanting, “Miriam, Miriam.” I stumble out of bed, pull the curtain aside and ask what he wants. He will then show me a crack in a chair, or a pile of ants on the floor, or ask me for every item of food in my kitchen.
In the afternoon we play games. One is body tricks, when we take turns contorting our fingers and faces in weird ways, all the while viciously clapping for ourselves. This will go on for hours. Sometimes we play, what’s in Aze’s bag? , which is more fun for me than him. I dump out everything in his bag, almost all being items he found in my garbage, ie. my income tax manual, 2 Peace Corps manuals, empty candy wrappers, birth control dispenser, water bottle, 3 American flag pencils and a green heart-shaped sharpener. Another game I enjoy more than him is Sa Kana! (it’s raining!), which is when I pour handfuls of water over his head while washing my clothes. Aze’s favorite game is what I like to call MBora (I want), which is when he happens to want everything I am either holding or eating. He wins when I give him a spoonful or two, he loses when I say “Aze, go home!”
I make dinner and have learned by now to make enough for the both of us. We watch the footballers create a dust storm outside my window, until I decide its time for a walk. We talk about how beautiful the sunset is, and whether we think there will be crocodiles at the dam. Sometimes Aze decides we are going to run, which lasts about 20 seconds because neither of us have very good lungs. Sometimes we march like soldiers. Sometimes we dance. We stop by the clinic and greet the midwife since it is on the way home. “How is your body guard?” she asks. He’s fantastic, I say, watching him slink into the corner. The clinic reminds Aze of childhood shots, he’s not a fan of the place. And then she asks me what everyone asks me. “How do you communicate with that boy?”
Oh, forgot to mention that. Aze doesn’t speak a lick of English. And my Dagbani is comparable to that of a three-year old. And yet he knows clearly when I am tired, when I am sick, when I am on the verge of tears. He knows when I am having an amazing day, when I’m looking forward to a trip, when I just had a great phone conversation with my mom. And I know everything there is to know about Aze. He is pretty predictable. He is happy, he is joy, he is, shall I say, all encompassing glee. Every morning, there he is, with that oversized goofy grin on his face, excited for how crazy he is going to make me that day.
We walk to my compound, and I tell him its time for him to go home and sleep. Yo, he says, agreeing. Aze, I say after him, Nawuni ti beow (may God bless your sleep). Biane, (tomorrow) he says.
Biane, I say back. Bright and early.

2010-04-20T09:59:00.002-04:00

Africa has made you more beautiful.

-Azara

(or as Krista says, like I've just given birth)

back a box ’o books!

2010-03-19T05:35:00.007-04:00

The construction of the Sankpala Community Library is on its way, and surprisingly going very smoothly. Every day students and community members have been coming to the site, fetching water, hauling bricks and mixing cement. It’s amazing to see the progress we have made in just a month. I am simultaneously trying to find a librarian and have him or her trained and on salary.

Now, we need books! My father has set up a sponsorship program to get the boxes of books from our garage to the school here in Sankpala. You can sponsor a box of books for $50. So, call your friends and family, put a couple of bucks together and sponsor a box. I’m thrilled to finally have an opportunity to involve my family and friends at home in a project that is very close to my heart.

Make checks out to MHNA (Murray Hill Neighborhood Association) and mail them to:

Joe Karlya

35-35 162nd Street

Flushing, NY 11358

Thanks in advance! Let’s get this library rolling!

2010-03-06T13:24:00.001-05:00

ghana,

Happy Independence Day!

all my love,

maria

ms. Amos & ms. Humpherson: thank you

2010-02-23T05:41:00.004-05:00

I overpaid for the cab. I had never been to Kalpohin before, hadn’t heard of it until the day previous, and the driver had obviously made note of it. Adisa had me tell the driver to bring me to the last stop, which I figured was as far as he was willing to go. And then he screeched in front of a little blue storefront called Last Stop, which sold toothpaste and tin tomatoes. The sign for Africa2000 wasn’t much further.

There is a shea butter mystery for the centuries, and I was going to solve it. A small pink building with several shea butter producing machines had been locked for years. The district, adorned in traditional smocks, threw the community a massive celebration for the opening of the factory five or six years ago, I’ve seen the faded photos. There were sodas and tents and everything. The thirty-woman strong shea butter group were trained and trained again, a few even sent to Tamale. But the factory was never used. Africa2000, an NGO that has been empowering people, especially women, to be self sustainable for decades stepped in. Seeing that the district lost interest in the factory after the celebration music died down, they brought the women two bags of shea butter, some money and more training to get started again. They made a couple barrels of shea butter and locked the doors yet again for another three years. Shea butter continues to be whipped by hand under trees, an incredibly long process, before it can be cooked with or made into soap. For over a year, the women have been asking for my help to get this group back on their feet. It is difficult to help people who don’t know what kind of help is actually needed. “We need money,” they keep telling me. “Lot’s ’o money!” My thinking was that Adisa, from Africa2000 may have a better idea.

I walk into the office, and am greeted with a smile mile wide. The creases in here eyes prove that she smiles like this often. Do you remember another volunteer named Michael? He lives in the Upper West, and he is the one who gave me your number. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I meet a lot of people.” Her smile is still there. She speaks slow, but with purpose. She is wearing a traditional dress and head wrap, and typing on a new laptop. Her English is perfect. “Maria, I have sons and daughters from all over the world. Hundreds of sons and daughters,” she tells me. “Hundreds.” I was hoping she would extend an invite to be my mother also, she looked like the kind of woman that would fatten me up and give me great guy advice. She pulls up pictures of some Japanese volunteers that she just traveled to Yendi with.

“Where are you from in the States?” New York. “Where in New York?” Oh, from Queens. “I’ve been to Queens,” she says dreamily. “Usually they have us stay in these fancy hotels in Manhattan, but I had a daughter whose parents insisted I stay with them in Queens one year.” Do you travel to the US often? “Not anymore. I’m near retiring, I don’t have the energy for it anymore. But I used to go about three times a year. They send me all over the world.” I’m impressed that this Northern native has landed a career that brings her all over the world, collecting sons and daughters as she goes.

Do you like America? I ask. She tilts her head, squints and grates her teeth. That was answer enough. “Americans aren’t very nice. You know, they were nicer after September 11^th. They had to be.” A shame that New Yorkers are the only America Adisa knows.

I got right to the point, and explained the tricky case to her, and it turns out she knew all that was happening with the shea butter group in Sankpala. “Your community has more shea nut trees than any village I know.” She says, shaking her head. “Maria, here is the problem. Making shea butter is a social event for these women. All day, they are in the house serving their men and children. They can’t discuss their problems, because the men will hear. They have no privacy. But when they are under the trees making shea butter, the men won’t mind them. That’s when they can talk and talk and talk. They give advice to their daughters, they share ideas and discuss all their troubles. They cherish that time. Those machines are incredibly loud, and only a few can use them at a time. The process ceases to be social. You can keep bringing in more machines. They will never use them. They won’t tell you why and you will think they just don’t care. But they are smart, they know. ”

I wouldn’t have conjured that up in a million years, but it made perfect sense. Case closed. This was worth an overpriced cab ride.

Adisa won’t let me leave until she feeds me lunch. She leaves the spoon next to her laptop, and eats the greasy rice and beans with her fingers. “Americans are very special to my heart,” she tells me. I nod, not knowing where she is going with this. “I have had a few Peace Corps teachers in training school.” Really? “Yes, in the 60’s.” These had to have been one of the first groups of volunteers, ever. “Ms. Amos. She was my literature teacher. She had us translate Shakespeare. She loved me. And Ms. Humpherson, she was a geography teacher. None of our teachers took us seriously in the North. Can you imagine, when I was in teachers training college, I had never seen a map. I told Ms. Humpherson this, and she took an interest in me. She taught me everything she knew about geography, and now I’ve been to many of those places.

If it weren’t for Ms Amos, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with languages. That’s what I was for years, a language teacher. They both told me I could be something. And now look at me. I am something, I have been trying to reach them for years. Even if they have passed on, a family member at least. They need to know I made something of my self, because they told me I could.” She gave me that eye-creased smile again.

I thanked her for lunch again and for the insight on the shea butter group. I caught a cab, who charged me the right fare home.

I have had some rough days in Ghana. I could tell you a number of times I was ready to pack up my bags and head home, to the land of sushi, espressos and reliable electricity. I know Ms. Amos and Ms. Humpherson had those days. I know they looked at the students before them, many of whom had never seen a map in their lives, or had even heard of Shakespeare, leaving them to think “What am I doing here? This is such a lost cause Kennedy! You don’t even know!” They may have no idea the woman Adisa is because of them. They probably don’t know the number of lives she has touched, in her own corner of the globe and all over the world.

On behalf of Adisa, and all the other women Ms. Amos and Ms. Humpherson have touched: thank you.

Go Team!

2010-02-11T13:54:00.012-05:00

Tomorrow’s opening ceremony kicks off the 2010 Winter Olympics! I’m trying to find a reliable place in Tamale to watch the games. Any excuse to see an obscene amount of snow. Vancouver, watch out!

Team USA, do us proud!

2010-02-04T07:54:00.002-05:00

time is tickling!

-Alhaji

2010-02-04T07:48:00.002-05:00

meat-a-pies-ah

distings update

2010-02-04T07:41:00.004-05:00

Sankpala Primary & JHS Library

As many of you are aware (or not), the PTA at my brother Michael’s school, PS 32, collected over 20 boxes of books for my community (!!). As a teacher who cares deeply about the future of her students, literacy has been a priority for me. We continue to have reading classes weekly with the few books we have. The primary and junior high school students are insanely excited about these books. My father is working tirelessly to find the funds to ship these books to Ghana. If you are interested in helping with his endeavor, shoot me an email.

While home, I was able to see the pile of boxes stacked at our home. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of families in my home community. I also realized that there is no room at my school to fit all these books. Actually, there isn’t enough room for the students. The Sankpala Youth Association and I had a meeting my first week back and decided to take on the building of a school library. I am in the process of getting funds from USAID, and my community is committed to all labor required. This is a project I have had in the back of my mind for a year now, so…here we go!

Sankpala Youth Association

SAYA and the PTA built pavilions at the school so that the students without a classroom have some shade (which are most). The initiative they took with this project was quite impressive, and the reason why I ultimately decided that building a library is something they will seriously commit to. We are simultaneously planning an inauguration, which I think will take place in May.

Literacy Classes

I continue to have 60-80 students every week for literacy classes. Some teachers are (finally) helping me this year, which is great because it is really hard to handle that many tired and hungry students alone, and more so because hopefully they will continue these classes when I’m finito.

Health Club

Sanitation. This is my goal for the year, and coincidentally is the same goal for the Sankpala Clinic, the health sector of SAYA, and the Central Gonja Ministry of Health. How nice. Yesterday the district dropped off hand washing stations at the school and I I was a little over-excited. My health club will continue to have clean-up days, and we are trying to find ways to get the community involved. I am hoping to have some hooplah for environment day: parade, drums and all. Furthermore, we are hoping to get incinerators/ rubbish bins around town and build more soak-away pits.

Girls Club

After Sahada took over my kitchen to make mini meat pies for us girls, they expressed an interest in selling them at the market and roadside. I gave them a small loan to get started, and already they are on a roll and making a profit. So when we aren’t stuffing our faces with popcorn and watching chick flicks, we will be making meat pies.

Moringa

Dead. I don’t know what else to say. Some communities they grow like weeds and some they just don’t. We tried-oh.

Other distings

Ghana lost the Africa Cup to Egypt. But that’s okay suckahs, you can shine your trophy real nice while we are on the way to the World Cup.

My village is bracing themselves for a little visit form Ciana and Krista the Barista the end of March and April. That’s happening.

And Musah Naa continues to drive me crazy. Every. Day. (while being the best thing to ever happen to me.)

If interested, here are my predictions for 2010.

dry season, come and get me

2010-01-29T05:26:00.000-05:00

me: hmmm. I think it's going to rain today...
musah naa: you don't know anything.

heartbreak for haiti

2010-01-20T17:33:00.007-05:00

Home. I have successfully had my fill of pizza and bagels, and most especially, love from family and friends. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring in the new year and mark my halfway point of service than spending it all with my biggest support system. I also have been overwhelmed with the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. It reminds me of how fragile life is. It reminds me of how small our human family is, and in a time like this it makes me feel proud to see the incredible outpouring of support, whether that be prayers, donations or the journalists and emergency relief workers from all over the world that are there right now. I see how frustrated America is concerning the food and other materials reaching the people of Haiti. As a volunteer that has lived in a developing country for over a year now, I can imagine the chaos that relief workers must be struggling with day in and day out and the immense pressure on them to meet needs that seem impossible. A word to all of you: I am so proud of who you are and what you are doing. Keep fighting the good fight, we support you. To those in Haiti who are dancing and praying in the streets in light of your loss: You inspire me. Your resilience is why I am who am and why I do what I do.

To those of you at home who want to help in some way, I encourage you to donate to the International Medical Corps. This global, humanitarian nonprofit has sent an emergency response team comprised of doctors and nurses to Haiti, and they greatly need your help. They are treating crush injuries, trauma, substantial wound care, shock and other critical cases with the few available supplies, and about 80% of patients are desperately in need of surgery. According to IMC- they are in it for the long haul.

Donating $10 to help the people of Haiti is as simple as sending a text message of the word "haiti" to 85944.

For more info, go to their site.

Oh, and Ghana, I’m back and ready to roll! (and pssst. I missed you. a lot a bit.)

2009-12-19T05:56:00.003-05:00

you are real!

- dad picking me up at the airport, with brothers in tow

Nchang ka kana (I will go and come)

2009-12-11T05:32:00.007-05:00

I’ve wrapped up two days of World AIDS Day events, graded finals, said some painful goodbyes to volunteers on their way home for good and packed up for a much needed American vacay. I will be home for a month relaxing, eating myself sick, catching up on Twilight and Jon and Kate phenomenons and hugging little brothers. A heads up on some things before I come home:

I don’t have any money. I’m living far beneath the poverty line. Buy me a drink? Or a bagel?

My vocabulary has regressed to that of a second grader. That is because my daily conversations usually go something like this: Good morning. Good morning. How is it? It is fine. How was the night? The night was fine. … I hope it rains today. Oh, they won’t come. Are you sure? Oh madame, I am sure. Ok then, small time. Small time. Bye bye-o!

I get scared when around large groups of white people.

I may be using Ghanaian catch phrases, like, ‘small, small’, and ‘is that so?’ or ‘Are you suuure?’ and ‘sorry-o’, ‘bye bye-o’, ‘trouble-o’.

My humor has become more tasteless than it already was.

When you complain about anything in my presence, I will roll my eyes and remind you I don’t have running water. You can roll your eyes back, I’ll understand.

My wardrobe is a year behind the times, it’s kind of embarrassing. And by ‘my wardrobe’, I do mean the purple tank top and black gauchos I wear every day.

I will talk very fast. Like, what did she just say? fast. I don’t know why, maybe because I feel like I have so much to say and so little time to say it. But every time I come in contact with another American its like I’m listing the medical side effects in a Viagra commercial.

I may be more affectionate than you remember. Muslims don’t hug.

If I seem tired it is because I usually average 12 hours of sleep.

I may be unreasonably cold. One night it got down to like, 70 degrees, and I fell asleep shaking. But, snow…swoon. So worth it.

Hey, see you soon!

World AIDS Day

2009-12-11T05:11:00.003-05:00

Kayayo/HIV film in Dagbani.

I think just about everyone came out
HIV football match at school. My JHS students kicked butt.

Kayayo/HIV drama at half time

Kayayo/HIV talk

World AIDS Day: Success!

A Man in a Women's World

2009-11-27T06:00:00.007-05:00

Ghana is a man’s world. This is tradition, this is culture, this is a reality, one that is hard for an American woman like myself to swallow. Andy and I held two-day men’s workshops, one in our respective villages, that would confront issues present as a result of the appalling inequality between men and women. We discussed everything from sex, how our bodies work (and how complicated women’s body actually are. Wish you could see the looks on their faces as I explained the menstrual cycle), gender inequality, fatherhood, family planning, romance and love, sexual consent/rape and domestic violence. We were incredibly impressed by how honest these men were, even when it was hard to hear. It was not until day 2 when most of them were, possibly for the first time in their lives, able to see how harmful and real this inequality is. One of the more powerful exercises proved to be reading the following guided fantasy, A Man in a Women’s World. It left them uncomfortable, anxious, and most said, made them feel pretty sad. You know, when I look at my strong willed female students, I dream for them a world where they don’t feel inferior because that is what they were told all their lives. I hope that their daughters have all the opportunities that their sons will have.

And there is this crazy idea that it starts with the men. Andy and I did what we could to open their eyes to what life is like for the other half, and it made their skin itch. We’ll let them take it from here.

Read my This Is Diversity article on the workshop (please and thank you).

I would like to guide you on a trip. It is a trip to a place very different from the society you live in today. This trip will put you in a place that might make you feel uncomfortable at times. Even though you may feel this way, try to follow along with the trip and concentrate on the feelings it touches in you.

Find a comfortable position, and close your eyes. Let your body relax. Listen to your breathing, and begin to take deep breaths in and out. Relax all of the muscles in your body.

I am going to ask you to imagine a world that is very different from the one you are living in now. Because it is different, it requires you to stretch your imagination. Let yourself imagine as fully as you can. If you become distracted at any point, just notice that and return to the process.

Imagine for a while that you live in a society where women have much more power than men. The entire society is set up to favour women. Most people in positions of power are women. This has been the case throughout history. This includes presidents, traditional leaders, police officers, military leaders, church leaders, and businesspeople. Men would like these positions of power, but women know this and are determined to keep men from gaining too much power. Occasionally, a man holds one of these positions, but most are held by women. When men complain about the inequity and lack of representation in these positions, many women leaders tell men this is nonsense and cite the occasional male leader as an example.

Most women believe that they are superior to men because women have more power. Many men also feel this way, not because it is true, but because it is what they have heard from other men and women all of their lives. Men and women believe there are certain things that only women are capable of doing. Women often say, “That is a woman’s job. A man would never be able to do that.”

The job market favours women over men. It is much easier for women to get hired in jobs that pay well. Men are usually left with jobs that pay very little. Often, these jobs include taking care of children or other domestic duties. Although men feel that they are just as capable of doing the work that women do, many women do not believe this, so opportunities to prove otherwise are rare. Even when men hold the exact same position as women, they make significantly less money than their female counterparts.

Women are generally physically stronger than men. Because of this, women often use their strength to control and abuse their male partners. Many men know that this is not fair, but they have very few other options. If the men complain about the abuse, they are often abused more. Many men would like to leave these relationships, but they cannot because they are financially dependent on their wives. Furthermore, their mothers and fathers tell them that they would disgrace their family name if they left their wives.

Within the home, men do the majority of the chores. Even when both members of the couple work outside of the home, it is the man who must prepare the food, take care of the children, and clean the house. When men prepare meals, they serve their wives and daughters, no matter how young, before themselves and the sons. When a family does not have a lot of food, the men and boys eat less food than the women and girls. The father will feed the sons before himself and go without food if necessary in order to give what little is left to the sons. In addition to receiving less food, the boys also receive less health care than the girls. If both a boy and a girl have malaria and the family has enough money to treat only one child, the girl will get the treatment, or more of it if it is divided between them.

In part as a result of malnutrition, and in part due to a system that favours girls, boys do much more poorly in school than girls. Boys are not encouraged to learn, and if a family needs to take any child out of school for work, a boy will be removed for many reasons. One reason is that a boy’s education is not worth as much as a girl’s since his chances of getting a good job are small. Also, it is not as attractive to a prospective wife to have a well-educated husband as it is to have a controllable hard worker. Finally, since almost no boys go on to higher education, primary school is seen as a wasted effort for boys.

Parents usually treat girls and boys differently. Girls are given more freedom, whereas boys are treated more strictly. When boys misbehave, they are punished, but when girls misbehave, parents often expect such behaviour and simply say, “Girls will be girls.” Also, girls are allowed to do things that their brothers are not allowed to (stay out late, walk to town alone) even though the children might be the same age.

Women see men as sexual objects. Because of this, men feel incredible pressure to look attractive. As a result, men spend much more time than women concerning themselves with their appearance. Women, on the other hand, care much less about how they look. Also, because men are thought of and treated as sexual objects, women often try to have sex with men. While men might be interested in these opportunities, they quickly learn that society does not accept men being sexually promiscuous. While women are applauded for their sexual exploits, men who have sexual exploits are stigmatized for theirs. In fact, such behaviour is known to lead to disapproval from family and friends.

Increasingly, children of all ages are living on the streets, trying to make their way without the support of families or national welfare institutions. Although both boys and girls fall into prostitution as a way to survive, boys use this method much more than girls do. This is due in part to the sexual objectification of men, and to boys’ feelings of powerlessness (created, again in part, by the messages from school, family, and society that they are not as worthy, smart, capable, resourceful as girls). Boys are also desirable sexually because they are perceived to be less likely to carry disease. Women are increasingly looking for younger and younger boys, and because a woman is so powerful in this interaction, the boy often has no chance to insist that she use protection. The rates of HIV and other STIs are growing exponentially among street children because of this situation, especially among boys.

These are examples of the way life is in this imaginary world. Women have more power than men, and men suffer greatly because of it.

This excerpt was taken from the Men As Partners Manual, created by Peace Corps in association with QHP, CHPS-TA, CEDEP and GHS.

2009-11-27T05:54:00.003-05:00

En Eye Dee

2009-11-13T04:19:00.004-05:00

National Immunization Day! Everybody hates NID. It just sucks. The kids hate it, the parents hate it and us health volunteers and nurses: we abhor it. I am used to kids screaming and running when I enter a compound (oh, because I’m white, and that’s scary. Imagine you are four and a green person walks into your home. That’s what I tell myself), but this time it’s not the sight of me. It’s Foazaia and her icebox of vaccines. For three days, health volunteers and nurses all over Ghana go house-to-house, squeezing cheeks of incompliant children and dropping pink drops of polio vaccine on their terrified tongues. And then we hand them vitamin A and a dewormer and say “Denyasa! Toffee, toffee! (yummm! Candy, candy!)” By the way, in light of the rows of medicine lining most American bathrooms, telling a child that vitamins are candy is not a good idea. But here we’ll let it slide. This is all no easy feat, we have to leave the house early in the morning and spend the following six hours walking under the African sun. And then we spend the second half of the day sleeping it off. Ok, I’ll just speak-for-myself.

While I am not very fond of NID, I’ll admit it was a good time today. After spending a month in Volta and the majority of my days at the school, it was nice to be out and about in the community again. It puts things in perspective; reminds me why I am here.

There are more NID pictures on my tumblr, and another article on this is diversity, so please check them out. Also, Adam Martyn, I think you are a rock star. Safe journey-o!

2009-11-07T09:46:00.003-05:00

Ok, so tell me how much you love and miss me. Then tell me again.

- mom

day in the life

2009-11-07T01:34:00.001-05:00

Sometimes life in Ghana can be so mundane it physically hurts. Sometimes I drag my weary body to bed, locking the door tight behind me. Either way, this is an emotionally and physically exhausting and truly 24/7 job. Here are two actual days of my life.

Day 1
8:00 am: I wake up, successfully getting 10 hours of sleep.

9:30 am: I have just finished eating banana-walnut pancakes. Life is good. I finally put clothes on, grab some paper and write letters home.

10:30 am: I head to the clinic, which I could practically spit on from my window. Note: this is one of two times I will be leaving my room for the day. The nurses annoy me, but I force myself to stay for half an hour.

11:00 am: Lunch time! Right?

12:00 pm: Nap time!

2:00 pm: I have reached 12 hours of sleep for the day. That’s half the day my friends. It’s still too hot to leave my house, guess I’ll watch Slumdog again.

4:00 pm: Musah is outside my house trying to get my attention. Musah, I’m working! “Madame, you never work, you just eat and sleep all day.” What? What makes you say that? Oh, Moose, Can you bring me water? And buy me bread and oil and weed my garden? Thanks! Maybe that will prevent him from disturbing my afternoon routine. The nerve. I start making a pure-carb dinner.

5:30 pm: I have eaten dinner and am now washing dishes outside. Aze is drying them for me. I bring out a book and read until the first call of prayer.

6:00 pm: I take a long walk to the dam with Aze and Musah. Aze and I are talking to bugs in Dagbani, which distracts me long enough not to notice that Musah has ran on ahead to tie weeds together in hopes of me tripping and breaking my nose. Nice try Musah. You are the worst small boy in the world.

6:30 pm: I take a hot bucket bath and climb into bed.

7:00 pm: I watch another movie until I fall asleep.

Day 2
5:30 am: Family calls from home. Her heart is broken in four even pieces. “I think it’s time for you to come home now…” she sniffles. I know, I’m coming home soon.

6:00 am: Obey calls. “That NGO is coming to the school at 9. Can you be there?” Yea I’ll be there. Our school is in such pitiful condition it has gotten national attention. A film crew had come earlier this month to film children having lessons under trees because there aren’t enough classrooms and the electric poles that lie at the marketplace that the district has been promising to connect to the school for years now. No lights, no books, torn uniforms and a handful of teachers that sit around selling ice cream and gossiping instead of teaching.

7:00 am: Me and Aze eat our breakfast and I start my laundry (that boy doesn’t leave my side). This is the only gap of time that I will have all week to do it. I try to get him to read a book, but he just puts it down, grabs a bar of soap and scrubs away.

8:30 am: I find the form 2 English book and scan for a teachable lesson. I am teaching form 3, but we don’t have those books. Then I cut up large pieces of white paper for my form 1 Health class.

9:00 am: I make my way to the school, I know this NGO is not going to be there when they say they will so I take my time. I mosey over to my form 3’s. Take your break now, because English is at 10. DO NOT BE LATE FOR MY CLASS! TEN O’CLOCK PEOPLE! We have gone through 3 headmasters at the JSS this term and didn’t even have a timetable until week 7. They have been playing more volleyball that learning. For the first week, they came 30 minutes late for every one of my classes and I almost lost my mind. So above auxiliaries and conjunctions, I’m trying to teach them to be on time.

9:55 am: The NGO shows up. Nice to meet you, I have heard so much about you. I have to go teach now… Oh, Ghana time.

10:03 am: My students are running into class, beads of sweat are running down their faces. Except Manna, he is walking across the football field. Are you kidding me Manna? Why aren’t you running, you have two seconds to get to class! I give them a minute to catch their breath and we take another dive into report writing. They don’t seem to get it the first time around. I make them rewrite the 5-sentence assignment over and over again until their fingers shake. Yes, I am the English Nazi of your nightmares. And you spelled afternoon wrong. Aze is sitting in the corner reading a Peace Corps handbook he found in my trash. Extra reading classes are at 1:00, you all should be there! I say before heading to the adorable new form 1’s.

11:10 am: I quiz form 1 about proteins, carbohydrates, fats and oils. They are rock stars. We talk about vitamins and minerals, and I hand out the sheets of paper with a fruit or vegetable written on each and colored pencils. They pull out their rulers and protractors, they take this assignment very seriously. Extra reading classes are at 1:00, you all should be there! I wave goodbye to the headmaster and head home.

12:00 pm: I have 30 minutes to eat lunch before turning around and walking back to the school. I down a banana-pineapple smoothie and swallow and handful of groundnuts. I flip all my clothes over on the line and head back to the school.

12:50 pm: The JSS teachers are wrapping up their classes and run home before I can ask them to help with literacy classes. Three primary classes are coming our way, and all three forms of JSS students pile into one classroom. I have 80 students at all different reading levels to manage. By myself. And they are all falling asleep. I hand my top three JSS students a pile of books and they split the primary students among themselves. I hand out 8 books among 40 JSS students and I ask Latif to start reading the children’s books out loud. After every paragraph I ask them the simplest question I can conjure. Who is the boy’s name in this paragraph? Where does the maiden live? Not one of them can answer. Although the book is probably at a first grade level, these teenagers don’t comprehend any of it.

2:00 pm: Musah helps me put all the books away and walks home with me. I call Obey on the way. Can you just call me when the SAYA meeting starts? I know its not going to start on time, and I don’t want to be sitting at the school for hours. “No problem.” I stop at the clinic and complain to the nurses about how dreadful the reading level is for my students. “They are competing with the top students from Accra, Tamale and Kumasi for senior high school, they don’t have a chance,” Sister Bima reminds me. The reality of it kills me. I have a meeting in 30 minutes, I’m going to lie down.

2:30 pm: I crash on my bed with my flip flops still on. For once, I am grateful for Ghanaian time, I wonder how long I will be able to sleep.

4:15 pm: My phone rings “Ok, we’re all here!” I walk over to the school again.

4:30 pm: Only half the executives are there. For an hour they argue about all the problems with our baby association, and the president Razak says, “Patron, what do you advise?” And everyone looks at me as if I hold all of life’s answers in my head. I take the opportunity to talk about the Men as Partners workshop that will be later that month. I need to have commitment statements from all of you by next week. They nod, and we all begin to fight again.

5:30 pm: I walk home day dreaming about the dinner I’m about to eat. “Mariam! Mariam!” Aze has discovered me. He grabs the bag off my shoulder and we walk home together. By the time I start boiling yams, the first call to prayer starts.

6:30 pm: I’m washing the day’s dishes in the dark while waiting for water to boil for my bucket bath. I finally have time to take my clothes off the line. After I bath, I throw on a t-shirt, grab Middlesex and jump into bed. Thank God the day is over.

8:00 pm: I hear a light tap on my door. You have go to be kidding me. It is three of my students. One of them told me she is afraid she has an STD and I have been encouraging her to go to the clinic since. She finally found the courage, but wanted me there for support. I throw on some clothes, grab a flashlight and we make our way to the clinic. I’m proud of you honey. You are very brave. As her best friends and I wait in the waiting room, I tell them what good friends they are. “Thank you Madame.”

9:00 pm: I am passed out. WW III couldn’t wake me up.

The American Dream

2009-10-24T05:53:00.006-04:00

I came home. My brothers and parents were there at the airport, balloons in hand. We had a nice little family embrace. “First things first,” my dad says, and he whisks me away to a Target or Walmart. I am completely overwhelmed. He hands me a cart. “Fill ’er up. Get whatever you need.” We start at the hair product aisle and all I can think is, I don’t need any of this. I pick up every bottle and smooth my fingers over each. My dad is getting impatient. A black father and his two children recognize me. He backs up his cart. “Maria! Welcome back! How are you?” Eh! It is good, I’m managing. And how is it? He looks at me slightly offended. His toothless daughter laughs and her brother smacks her on the back of the head. “Well, it’s good to see you home,” he says with a nod and goes on his way. I’m hoping my father isn’t behind me, that he didn’t witness me talking to a black family with a Ghanaian accent. He is. I am completely mortified.

“You know what, take your time,” he says. “I’m going to do my own shopping.” I reach into my pocket and dig out my beat up Nokia phone. The screen is blank, this phone won’t work here. I’ll just be right around here. You know, when you’re done. But I’m really thinking, Don’t leave me.

I need a break from product. I turn the corner, and as I do the room suddenly gets eerily bright. I have stumbled upon the candy aisle. Small colorful and neat packages, all in order, all in their place, they are going on for miles. They are magnetic, I can’t help but walk towards them. As I get closer I start to feel dizzy.

We have rows of food here in Ghana too. Yes, we do, at market. Rows of stacked tomatoes, rows of stacked ochre, rows of onions and ginger. Sacks overflowing with sugar and flour, rice and beans, each with a woman sitting crossed legged behind it, yelling “Salamingapa, allibasa, allibasa! (White lady, onions, onions!)” “White lady! White lady! Won’t you buy rice?” And to each I’ll say Na Da, the market greeting. “Mariam!” one cries. It’s a line of red cross women, those ladies stick together. Antire! Na Da! My students are peppered everywhere. Sahada is frying local cheese, Nuhu is selling telephone units, Zuleha and her little sisters are selling waist beads. “Madam,” they all say “How is market?” The sun is too strong today, I respond, trying to hide under the same thatch that covers a pile of pure MSG. I continue to try to process the chaotic colors, smells and sounds.

I pass rows of second-hand jeans and shirts and satin pajamas. “White lady, this one for you!” I pass an elderly man selling fetishes, piles of metal rings and coins and shells, and a few cow tails. I pass a medicine man who promises me fertility if I take a shot of black goo. I pass Musah, who is fixing shoes. His supplies are in an empty pancake mix box I gave him. Hey Moose! He pretends he doesn’t know me. Moose! How’s market? He’s chewing on cold pieces of tofu on a kebab. Fact: Musah likes tofu more than his own mother. “It’s okay.” Alright Musah Naa, see you later.

And I weave my way to the back of the market, almost tripping over a few goats. There they are. Crates of oranges, bananas, avocados and watermelon. I fill up my market bag for less than a couple of bucks. I pass tables piled with bread, covered in flies. The drummers have caught up with me. They surround me and my heartbeat matches that of their drums. A man serenades me with his ancient song, in a high-pitched shrill. He bounces from one side of me to the next. I stick my fingers in my ears and shout “Godfadda, nka loury! (Sorry, no money!)” I duck away. I pass a row of spices, I don’t even know what most are. Sacks of earthy powders, all smell like Ghana to me.

I then pass some men hacking away at a massive hunk of meat. The air is thick with the smell of animal flesh. There is a neat line of jaws and hooves and ears. I hold my breath and leave the marketplace. Outside, women are selling chop. Na Da! I say to Azara’s older sister, who is selling rice and beans. I am standing a few yards away and I pivot to leave. She puts her hands on her hips and scowls. She doesn’t want me to leave until she gives me enough food to feed a small family. She fills a plastic bag with rice, throws on a few tablespoons of oily pepper sauce, some furry chunks of goat meat and spaghetti. Mma, nawundesu (Mamma, thank you). As I go, the sounds of drumming and dancing and bargaining and goats being whacked with sticks and megaphones broadcasting deals and women yelling at children all die down behind me.

But here, here in my dream, there is no smell. If I were blind, I would never know the endless bags of chocolate and gummi bears that lay before me. No sound. Not even elevator music. A woman slowly strolls her cart across the aisle in front of me. She turns to me and smiles and the sound of the wheels of her cart are echoing all around me. My head feels heavy, it may topple over. The perfectly white shelves, holding perfectly neat rows of packaged sweets start to spin. I swallow and my knees give way beneath me. The store is swallowed into a black hole and I faint.

I awake in my dark cement room, trying to catch my breath. The smell of burning groundnut shells consume my nostrils. The crickets outside my window are making a hell of a racket. I stare up into my helicopter wings of a fan, which reminds me where I am.

And I feel safe.

2009-10-18T06:21:00.001-04:00

check out the article I wrote for This is Diversity, please and thank you.

2009-10-18T06:06:00.001-04:00

explaining what HIV does to the body
waiting to get tested
me, mac and cait
sandy, adam and cam

shipwrecked

we call that murphey's law

2009-10-13T06:57:00.011-04:00

“How was the boat trip? I’m so going to try to do that next year,” Ana says to Andy, Cam and me as we are sitting around the TSO, more specifically, on solid ground. The boys look at me and smirk. Where do we even begin?

Well, here’s a start, the trip in numbers: 1 boat, 5 out-of-their-mind Peace Corps volunteers (Adam, Cait, Andrew, Cameron and yours truly), 1 hunk of a translator, 1 sarcastic nurse, 1 gawd-awful driver, 1 poor navigator that got roped into this trip, 10 days, 9 communities, 1,000 people, 300 tested, 15 tested positive for HIV, 80 packets of ramen, 2 tents, 1 hammock, 4 storms, 1 fishbone lodged between 2 rivets in my throat, 1 panic attack ensued, 30 and some odd late night scary stories, 1,001 maggots, 1,002 obnoxious inside jokes, 1 dam that created the biggest man-made lake in the world, over a forest, 1 tree that ripped a gash through the side of our boat in the middle of Lake Volta, 1 foot of water in the boat, 2 buckets that bailed us out as we sped to shore, give or take 100 “Wait, did that really just happen?”

The trip started off rocky. We were packed and ready to go four weeks before we were actually able to launch because the tarp needed repairs (which could only be repaired on the other side of Volta, which could only be picked up by a certain person, whose car broke down. As did the second car). After a few migraines and frustrations, we were on our way into the depths of the Volta Lake. Many communities had only heard rumors of white people. Most had only vaguely heard of the disease. For those we tested, between 5% and 7% were HIV positive, which is staggering considering that USAID statistics indicate that Ghana has a 1.7% HIV rate.

We couldn’t have asked for more hospitable and open-minded communities. They fed us and let us camp out on their football fields. They let us bathe on their shores. They thanked us profusely for coming across the Volta to educate them. While Murphey’s law was at its best, the actual HIV/AIDS programs could not have gone better. We all concur, after volunteering in Ghana for a year, these past two weeks we have really felt the impact of our work. (The mathematical equation for that is Haagen Dazs rockyroad ice cream + gooey out-of-the-oven brownies with walnuts x 3)

Ghana bureaucracy was at its finest, as it is for any program a PC volunteer may want to implement. We had one community with two chiefs, meaning of course the two hated each other. After half a day of fighting over which community would get the program, they agreed to both come (as we were ready to pack up and head out). So we literally had one community sitting on one side and one on the other, no one daring to sit on the benches in the middle.

After showering in the rain one night, we all sat down to eat a meal a local woman had prepared for us (we provided fish that boys had fished for us in the previous village, rice and ramen. Its amazing what a Ghanaian woman can come up with with those ingredients). I swallowed gulps of fish, rice and stew without so much as chewing, until a bone pierced the bottom of my throat. I excused myself without a word and tried to dig in out with my fingers. I came back, turned to papa Cam and said,There is a fishbone lodged in my throat. What-do-I-do? He asked if I could breathe and I knew that the only thing preventing me from breathing was the panic I was experiencing. I turned to Mac, our translator. Is this normal? He says it’s very normal, that the locals just use small sticks to dig it out. He hands me toothpick Are you serious! What am I supposed to do with this? “Pick it out of your teeth.” It’s in my throat Mac, not my teeth!

I go back outside, try to breath, and then again try to dig it out of my throat while vomiting. I come back and everyone is calmly eating their dinner. I ask Cait to see if she can at least see the bone. I look up and open wide, causing the bone to go deeper into my throat, also causing me to throw up again. I assess the situation. It is too deep to get out my self and we are on an island 4 hours from the closest town, which is 8 hours form Accra. It is almost 9pm. “Try swallowing food,” Mac suggests. I swallow golf ball size wads of rice that just pushed the bone deeper and deeper into my throat. Finally I call the medical officer in Accra.

Hi Albert, this is Maria. Maria Karlya. Yea, I’m on an island and there is a fishbone stuck in my throat. Yes, I tried swallowing food, it’s not working. For about 20 minutes. No, its not a scratch, the bone is making me gag. Ok. Ok. Alright, I’ll call in the morning.

So Albert just said I need to get to Accra to take x-rays and then they will surgically remove it.

I would have cried but I was afraid it would make me throw-up again. Mac comes over to me, massages the bottom of my neck and the bones releases its clutch on my throat and slides into my stomach. Oh. My. God. You just saved my life. For the next hour all I could do was say, That was really scary guys!

At village 8, the community prayed for safe travels before we loaded and was off to the next. Halfway there, our driver ran into a tree underwater trying to avoid another. Bags fell off benches and Adam was nearly knocked to the floor. Umm, there’s a lot of water coming in, I say to no one in particular. Within seconds, our boat is filling with water and we are frantically pulling all our items on benches and bailing out buckets of lime green water. Once we make it to shore, a 5 foot gash across the bottom of the boat reveals itself. So we boiled peanuts for a while and then took off our clothes and went swimming. We made it back to Dumbai at 9pm that night on a wooden canoe, watching a lightning storm follow us. Which finally hit when we reached, as we were carrying 10 days of camping supplies and program materials the 10-minute uphill walk to Caits home. “Wait, did that really just happen?” Needless to say, the trip also ended rocky.

We were able reach one last community on our list, we made a day trip from Dumbai. Our trip finished with a bang, it was the largest group we had and the highest number of people that got tested. We made it to 9 of 10 villages, all because 1 day got rained out.

Go figure.

Oh Ghana, you so crazy.

distings update

2009-09-10T09:57:00.005-04:00

Moringa
As of now, my students, the headmaster and myself have planted 60 trees at the school, and 20 at the clinic. They are still baby trees and tempting goat food, so time will tell if they become big-boy trees. But I am very proud of my students, they worked very hard to get these trees planted and have been checking on them often.

Girls Club
My girls have been working on water sachet wallets, and they look great. When rainy season slows down, we will be trying to sell them at market and if that goes well, we will try to sell them at other markets. Almost all of my girls met my mother (actually, most all my students had) which was really special to all of us. My mother really hit it off with Sahada, which didn’t surprise me, they are both firecrackers.

Health Club
School has been out for almost a month, as is health club. But as I had said, we did a lot of moringa the last month of school. I gave them a sanitation project to work on over holiday, but I think in light of rainy/farming season, they have been really busy. I am looking forward to teaching again, I miss those buggers. We have a lot of projects to look forward to this coming school year.

Reading Class
I think I mentioned that I started literacy classes for my students and some of the upper primary students. This has been made possible by my father, who has sent me a few boxes of books and the head master and his unfailing dedication to his students. The students enjoy these classes more than any other club I have and in the short time that we started them, I could already see small improvements. This school year term I think I will start a second class. My father, the headmaster and myself are working on starting a library for the school.

Clinic
Sister Bima and I are going to a weeklong HIV/AIDS workshop held by Peace Corps in a few weeks, which will give us some great ideas for future programs. We have also discussed planning family planning and nutrition programs come the end of the rainy season.

Guinea Worm
We have a strange case right now that may be another kind of parasite or worm (I know, gross). Nazeed and I had a very inspirational meeting with the Red Cross mothers on Friday, so I think we are all going to start taking surveillance as serious as we did months ago during the break out in Fulfuso. Did I mention Raymond went back to America? That was a month or two ago, there were many tears. He will be very missed by all in these parts. Hannah and I have been trying to get funding to paint Guinea worm murals in our communities, and I think we will get that soon. That is something I would like to do right before or after Christmas before the dreadful dry season comes around again.

new distings

VOICE Tour
This is an incredibly exciting project that I haven’t yet mentioned because I just didn’t believe was actually going to happen. Five PC Volunteers, including myself will be spending a couple of weeks on a boat doing HIV/AIDS programs in island villages in the Volta region, to educate about AIDS and break stigmas surrounding the disease. My role is to organize the actual HIV/AIDS program, which I am thrilled to be doing. We launch September 30th, so wish us luck.

Sankpala Youth Association
When headmaster mentioned that the youth were forming an association, I figured he meant a boys club. Turns out, SAYA (Sankpala Youth Association) is a group of 21-35 year olds who have got together and really want to make a difference around here. There are about 10 executives and 80 members, and a whole lot of really great ideas. I was invited to one of the executive meetings several weeks ago and was asked to be the SAYA patron (no friends, not matron, patron). This is really a PCV dream come true, to be a part of a project that we are facilitating and not leading, so that it will sustain when our service is over. I am incredibly honored. Ok, so I don’t really know what it means to be a patron. “Kind of like a patron saint?” asked Kimmie. Probably. Pretty much they have these long winded meetings, then come to my house and tell me all their ideas and then say, “Patron, we have come to seek your advisory.” And I put my book down, quickly swallow the peanut M&M’s before they notice I’m eating mid-day during Ramadan, and pretend that I know the first thing about development. There is going to be an inauguration ceremony on October or November, I’ll keep you posted.

meetings

2009-09-10T09:50:00.005-04:00

Avi John: The association is having a meeting tomorrow, at 5pm, at the house.
me: Ok great, I'll make sure to go. Whose house?
Avi John: Your house.
me: Oh. OK, I'll be there...

rainy season

2009-09-10T09:45:00.003-04:00

I realized I never went into how miserable the dry season really was. Think of the most uncomfortable you have ever been- 8th hour into a long flight, air conditioning broke down during that heat wave, those heels you wore to work that now reside in the depths of your closet, just the sight of them sends a chill down your spine. Ok, got it? Think about it, think about it... Ok, now, imagine feeling that way consistently for about 5 months. No break, not in the middle of the night, not first thing in the morning. I was sweaty, hot and tired 24 hours a day and covered head to toe in heat rash. There was no real sleeping, just closing my eyes and pretending that I wasn’t roasting under my tin roof but rather roasting on a Caribbean beach. No one moves during the dry season, forget moving, no one even really talks during the dry season. We all just stare and nod, as if to say with out words “yes, it really is that miserably hot right now. It hurts a little bit.”
All that to say, it is now the middle of the rainy season and I may be the happiest I have ever been in my life. My village has turned into a paradise of lush greens, yellows and red. Corn, tomatoes, groundnuts and peppers grow in neat long rows all over the place. There are little birds and butterflies fluttering everywhere. Young boys spend their afternoons fishing and swimming in the small creeks and streams that were just a floor of hard dirt a few months ago. Everyone, cows included, are just a little bit plumper, a little bit happier. I could be living in an entirely different village.
The best part of the rainy season, well, is the rain. The sky gets incredibly dark, and the wind picks up and we all know to retreat to our homes. For the past few weeks it has been raining all day and all night. That may sound miserable in New York, but here I can make a hot cup of tea curl up in my bed and read all day and think nothing of it. All week! Yea, life stops when it rains here, and I kind of like it. While some volunteers are trapped in their villages because their dirt road to freedom is flooded, I happen to live on one of the major roads in Ghana. This time of year, I really have no complaints. So when I mention it being a beautiful day here in Ghana, I mean thunder and lightning. Music to these little ears.

dear mom,

2009-08-31T05:22:00.009-04:00

I’m back home, as are you. It took me a week to trek back to Sankpala, I needed a bit of recover time. Something about you telling Sahada that she can come to America when she finishes high school, or telling Razak that you will send him books and supplies for his make-shift preschool of 9 students, I-don’t-know, I was a little afraid I would come home to a line around the corner asking for your contact information. But alas, the only one that discovered me (I tend to sneak back home) was sweet little Aze, who desperately wanted to show me the shuck of corn he was munching on. Wo-ow, I say before I sent him home, locking the door behind me.
Your goat is just fine, by the way. The one you thought was on its last breath that night, the night you tried to get me to check on its mother at 1 in the morning. Those two were rather symbolic of us, don’t you think? You were so concerned about the mother, who hadn’t moved for a good day from hovering over its child. And I was concerned about the child, who was too sick to concern itself of its mothers nudging. Well, anywho, they are both running about now without a care in the world, clueless to the trauma they put us through. Goats can be such selfish creatures.
Sankpala is different now, not to the rest of Sankpala, but to me. Once your mother trots around your village in heels and Tiffany’s bangles with a small, dark boy and girl attached to each hand, it’s hard to look at it all the same. Because for eight months now, I have been a fly on the wall here, just watching people live their lives. Quietly and desperately trying not to shake things up too much, don’t mind me, just your average white lady who needs a placed to crash for a couple of years. But transporting the loudest part of my life home into my life here made me come to terms with how strange we are, how strange they are, and how strange I am to be living, breathing, sleeping, and eating here.
So although I woke up in a panic each morning because of the left over dishes from our late dinners the night previous (you didn’t get that from me or your father), although we never could agree on a movie to watch, although I had to wait for you to put on a few layers of makeup before we ventured into my mud hut village, although each time you had to use my latrine it became an ordeal as tragic as a dentist visit, even though you blew smooth rings of smoke into the air, took a sip of your Campari and said to me, “Maria, I could never, ever do this. There was this smidge of a moment earlier this year when I thought, hmm, maybe I could do something like that. But now… No. Not for me,” and you looked at me with a strange pride, like you do love me, but you don’t really know where I came from. Although now more then ever mom, we seem like we live on two different planets (because we do) and seem to lead such different lives (because we do), I realized that week how, in fact, we are oddly the same human being. Watching you stroke the faces of each child we passed and awkwardly greeting every person we crossed was like an outer body experience for me. The jokes you made and the jokes you didn’t get. The beauty you saw in people that most others would not. I was watching myself mom, it was the weirdest thing.
So you survived a week in rural Ghana, moreover you survived a week with me. Mazal tov.
Sankpala sends its greetings.

All my love,
Maria

peace corps cuisine

2009-08-25T15:01:00.003-04:00

me: what's that?
tristan: It's onion, tomato, garlic, ketchup and mayonaise.
me: mmmmmmmm

Mma Kana

2009-08-11T03:36:00.007-04:00

My mother is coming to Ghana for a week. She has no idea what an honor it is for this village to have “your mother, your real mother?!” come to Sankpala. I have not seen her in almost a year, which has been somehow unbearable at times. I sat with one of the Red Cross women and planned a cultural dance that she will organize for when she arrives. For the umteenth time, she turns to me and asks what I will bring to Sankpala before I leave. She doesn’t mean education, which is all I am here to do, she means the borehole one previous volunteer raised funds for. Or the half built ‘accommodation for strangers’ from the first volunteer almost a decade ago. Why don’t you go to the school and check out all the moringa trees we planted. A look of horror creeps onto her face, am I kidding? Trees? Is that a joke? Well, what does Sankpala need, you have electricity, three dams, numerous boreholes. Sankpala is just fine. She goes on to tell me how poor the people of Sankpala are. I shake my head.

I dealt with a lot of guilt being a middle class white American in college. But lately, I have come to realize that, while Americans have far more material wealth than Ghanaians, we work very hard for it. Just an observation, something to think about. My mother for example, who runs preschools in Queens and is raising 6 kids on top of a stack of Masters degrees and licensures to show for herself. I woke up today thinking about my mother, and Zelia, Abukari’s wife. No one works harder in Ghana than women, and still the comparison of their lives are stark. Can’t help but shake my head.

Ghana: Zelia wakes up at 4 in the morning, shortly before the call to prayer. Her and her husband’s junior wife sweep the compound with the help of Amina, the only girl awake. They start to wash the dishes from the previous day as the sun begins to rise.

NY: My mother is also awake by 4. Not because she has to be, but because there are so many things racing through her head, she just can’t lie down anymore. She shoots out of bed, makes a cup of coffee, and starts making lists. Grocery lists, to-do lists, menus for holidays months away. It helps.

Ghana: Now it’s 6, everyone is awake. Her and the other wife bath their (jointly) 10 kids, I’d be surprised if they remember which ones are their own by now. The girls make breakfast while the boys wrestle over nothing in one of the rooms. Once they have eaten and are off to school or farm, Zelia is pretty much free for the next 10 hours. She may shell some groundnuts while gossiping with a dozen women she has known half her life. She may farm her plot of land for an hour or two before it’s too hot. If it is the day before market day, she will probably prepare the rice she will be selling. She will also take numerous naps.

NY: It’s 6, she is dragging her four boys out of bed by their ears. “Well, you shouldn’t have stayed up all night playing those Nintendo games!” “Maaaa, it’s called Wii,” John responds from under his covers. “I don’t really care, get downstairs and eat breakfast.” She kisses her baby on the forehead, who is stumbling across the hallway in his Spiderman tighty-whities. “Good morning Michael,” she whispers, then opens the door to the attic and yells “Frank! I’m not asking you again to WAKE UP. If you miss anymore school you are grounded again, for real this time.” She gets no response.
She throws lunches in paper bags, ham sandwiches for everyone except John, who is on this vegetarian kick, so he gets a PBJ. The bags are overflowing with juice boxes and little baggies filled with cookies and chips. Stephen is at the kitchen table, finally doing his homework. She quickly combs through all their overgrown hair (they refuse haircuts because all the cool kids are growing out their hair), check their teeth for grime, and throws them all in the Mercedes as they are still dressing themselves. She drops them off at their respective schools. “Take care of each other!” she yells after them, as John knocks Michael over the head with his book bag. The little guy is too tired to respond.
She stops at the bodega around the corner for a pack of cigarettes and another coffee, and drives to one of her schools. There is a cell phone pressed to her ear, she is talking to the assistant director, mentally reading off some of the to-do lists she wrote that morning and seeing if the special needs children arrived ok. “Heidi, were the assistant teachers outside to get them off the bus?…Are you sure?… I mean outside, not on the stairs but actually on the sidewalk to bring them in…Good. OK, I need a head count for all the classes.” Heidi rattles off all the numbers, she did a head count seconds before she called. She reassures her that there is a new cup of coffee sitting on her desk waiting for her.
Just as she steps into her office, a series of unfamiliar numbers show up on her phone. It is probably her daughter, the one half way across the world. “Maria?” huhuhuhuhuhuh. “Maria, what is WRONG? I can’t even hear you, you’re crying so hard.” Hold on, just give me a a a a momomoment. “OK, honey,” she says, as she sits at her desk and mouths to Heidi that it’s her daughter. MOM, the girl finally is able to blurt out Alhajihasatoilet,hehasatoilet! ThiswholetimehewasmakingmeusethatDISGUSTINGlatrineandIjustnowsawthathehasatoilet! HESNOTEVENUSINGIT!“OK, calm down, I can hardly understand you. Remember honey, you are in the Peace Corps, were you expecting to use a toilet for two years?” But that’s not the POINT! ::sniff sniff sniff:: “I really have to go, is there anything else that is bothering you? You sound really upset.” YES. Implat. ::sob::. “You, what?” I’m ppppplaaaaaaaaaat. ::sob, sob:: “I really can’t understand you.” The girl attempts a deep breath. I’m FAT mom, I said I’m fat!. F-A-T, F-A-T. fat fat fat. “You are? I mean, ok, let me call you tonight when I’m out of work. Then we can talk all about it. But 125 pounds is not fat in the real world, darling.”
She takes a sip of her third cup of coffee and walks around to each classroom to do another head count. The next five hours consist of endless meetings with the lawyers and human resources, budgeting for numerous programs, more head counts, meeting with grumpy parents and dealing with the lines of teachers outside her door with their lists of complaints. “Come on your break!” she hollers “You have 20 kids in your classroom!” Her personal line rings, few have the number. It’s Whitestone Academy. “Mz. Karlya, your son hasn’t come to school again today, this is 8 days in two weeks. If he doesn’t come tomorrow he may face expulsion.” My mother grates her teeth and assures the nice lady that she will talk to Frank that night.

Ghana: It’s noon, Zelia makes lunch for her few kids that don’t want to buy chop at school. She sits on a prayer mat under a tree and watches her youngest daughters make dirt and stone soup out of tomato tins on their own little fires.

NY: It’s 1, my mother has forgotten about lunch and is about to faint because her blood sugar levels are to the floor. She sneaks away to one of her other schools. “Heidi, I’ll be back at 4.” She enters her other office and there is an array of olives, cheese, crackers and fruit on her business partner’s desk. Angela is online looking up another pyramid scheme. “I’m going to be rich!” she exclaims as she offers my mother a shot of whiskey. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right? Angela’s assistant pokes her head in. “Jeanne, your son is on line 3, he has been trying to reach you all morning.” My mother puts Joe on speaker, who is awaiting his next class at law school in DC. “Mom, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning!” he cries. “Sorry, I’m all yours,” she says between bites of cantaloupe and cheddar cheese. He talks fast, highlighting the exams he just conquered, the fact that he is thinking of moving to a new apartment and the next trip with his girlfriend. She throws in affirming ‘uh-huh’s’ as she reads over curriculums. “So I just need a few hundred for this trip we are taking. Mom. Are you listening?” She takes off Heidi’s reading glasses (she can’t find her own), and leans toward the speakers, “Can we talk about this tonight when I get home from work, I can’t think about it right now.” She listens to him roll his eyes, “Ok, mom, love you.” “Love you too, by-ye.” She turns to Angela, “The lawyer is coming in an hour.” Angela’s eyes light up. “Ooh! What should I wear?”

Ghana: It’s 4, Zelia and her daughters fetch water before preparing dinner.

NY: It’s 4, my mother pops another Valium. She is driving to her third school, where they are doing construction on the back rooms. Her cell phone, which lies on the bottom of her over-sized purse, is ringing in the back seat. She digs for it while her eyes are still on the road and flips it open with her chin. “Mom?” Michael squeaks. “What’s wrong?” she moans. “Mooooom, John was throwing rocks at me the whole walk home.” “OK, put on Mary.” She rattles off in Spanish to Mary, the nanny, making sure that the boys are not watching TV and that they get an after school snack. “Ok, gracias para todos,” she says as she pulls into the driveway of the school, and hangs up.
As she opens the door, her phone rings again. It’s Heidi. “We had an incident,” she says. A teacher opened a can of beans and left it on the table and one of the children sliced his curious little fingers on the lid. “We had to bring him to the ER. Here is his fathers number.” My mother sits at her third office and calls the father. She is able to explain that a three year old slicing his hand on a can of beans is as normal an occurrence as bumping your knees riding a bike. But, she will reimburse him for the months tuition, if necessary.

Ghana: 6 o’clock, Zelia starts the hour process of making TZ, what I affectionately call play-dough, that is served with stew. I stop by and bring the oil that she needs to make dinner for the cultural celebration we will be having when my mom comes. I tell her I will be leaving in a few days to pick her up, and in Dagbani she asks me what I will be bringing back for her. The junior wife laughs, who is washing clothes, and asks me the same thing. Bye-bye! I say without answering them. By 8, all her children are fed and bathed and they are all sitting in the compound under the stars, listening to the radio before they pass out one by one.

NY: 7 o’clock. My mother drives to her apartment, pours herself a glass of red wine, and checks her emails to see if anyone has sent in resumes in response to the Monster ads she posted that day. She reads through a dozen and then opens a bag of Tostitos for dinner. She smokes one last cigarette and passes out while watching a movie-on-demand.

Goodnight beautiful women that make the world go round. Tomorrow is a new day.

reality check

2009-08-01T07:58:00.005-04:00

Growing up, I thought we were rich. I thought this, because to a child, ones world is very small. They only know what they see, they only know what they are told. I grew up outside of the projects. My friends shared their bed with several siblings, couldn’t afford school supplies and wandered the streets of Queens instead of piano lessons. My friends were poor. That made me rich, in my eyes, when in reality my parents were just barely making ends meet. Reality is funny, isn’t it?
I had all my female JSS students at my house again yesterday, all except Abibba, whose mother just passed away and so I can imagine is rather busy at home. I brought up Kayayo again. “Two have left yesterday for Kayayo,” says Sahada, usually the only student I can get to speak. And then there is the trouble of getting her to stop. Do their parents know that they have left? I ask. Sahada opens her mouth to answer. Someone besides Sahada… “Madame, their families are not aware. They just left,” answers Howa. I just don’t understand one thing. You have been telling me about the lives of these girls, and how Kayayo is so terrible. So why do they do it? Why are girls leaving Sankpala to live in the slums of the cities for pocket change? Salmata picks up a couple of watermelon seeds and throws them at Zuleha. Latifa giggles as Zuleha searches for seed in retribution. I’m about to have a food fight on my hands. Ladies, I asked a question. Sahada takes a breath. “I can’t think of how to say it in English,” Howa says. “But they… they don’t like life here. They are given to their aunts and uncles to work as small girls. They want. They want.” They want some freedom?
“Madame, you don’t know how hard it is here. How hard it is on our mothers and fathers. Oh! How we are struggling. You have to pray for us Madame. I pray for our people, that one day we won’t be struggling.” Bite your tongue Maria. Bite. Your. Tongue. “In America, you people don’t struggle.” Sahada, there are plenty of people that struggle in America, they.. “But Madame, those who struggle in America are like the ones in Ghana who are very wealthy.” Is that so? I challenge. I have countless conversations like this, people who think we sleep on beds made of cash. That Americans haven’t had a hard day in their lives. Sometimes I let it go, some times I get on my soap box only to be talking to deaf ears.
Girls, you have NO idea how lucky you are. Now I have their attention. The watermelon seeds slip out of Zuleha’s hands and she straightens her back. There are girls your age in America who are less educated and are having sex for money to feed their children. I’m talking about America. There are hungry people in America and people without homes. There are children your age in Africa who are soldiers. There are children who could only dream of an education in Africa. There are villages next to this one who don’t have electricity or boreholes. Am I right? My girls all nod their heads. There is no one in this community that doesn’t have a home. There is no one in this community who goes without food. And there are six girls in this community that have gone on to the JSS level. Six. Except Abbiba, that is all of you. Do you have any idea how lucky you are? So, as of now, I don’t want to hear about how you struggle. I want us to find ways to help these girls know that they don’t have to leave this community for freedom, for hope of a better life by means of Kayayo. Listen to me, you need to take care of each other. Do you understand? “Yes, Madame.” All right ladies, I think its time for you to go home. You have to be fetching water right? As they swept away our mess of watermelon seeds and crusts and were on their way home, Sahada turns to me. “We will see you on Monday Madame.” Yes, smallest time.
I love my girls, I love all my students. I love my community, the 3,500 of them. But I don’t pity them, not for a second. They may not have all that I had as a child, but either did my childhood friends. We all had enough. I, for one, know how lucky I am. Sometimes I just want to ask, Who told you people that you got it so bad? Where did you get this idea that you are all struggling so hard? I obviously struggle working in a fairly stable country knowing that there are travesties taking place all over Africa. At the same time, I am eternally grateful to be working in such a brilliant and proud country that tries to do what they can to develop their country and people. I’m living in a haven, among poor but very fortunate people, even if they don’t know it. I offer. “Yes!” says Sahada. And then she gets that look in her eyes. Like I don’t have the first idea what it’s like being Ghanaian. Like it’s about time I get some education on the subject.

Kayayo

2009-07-21T06:25:00.004-04:00

Just as I finished slicing up the whole watermelon, I could hear the drops like bullets on my tin roof. Of course. Now it rains. Every Friday after school, a group of my girls come to my house. “Why can’t we come!” demand my testosterone-filled students. Because we are talking about girly things. You can come over any other time. And today, I wanted to address one certain girly phenomenon that has affected girls in rural Ghana for some time now: Kayayo. The word originates from Nigeria, meaning porter. Young women from all over Northern, Upper East and Upper West Ghana travel down to the big, bad southern cities in search for a better way to make money than they could in their villages. Most times, they are even encouraged to do so by their families. Girls from all over the north can be found on city corners, hoping to help wealthier Ghanaians carry their heavy baggage on their heads, even for a few blocks for mere change. They slumber in warehouses that end up accommodating up to a couple hundred girls, or makeshift shacks too small for the number of bodies they hold. They are confronted with the realities of living in slums, poverty, sex, drugs, hunger and desperation. These girls will come home, often times pregnant or infected with STD’s from rape or men who offer to protect them in exchange for sex. Kayayo is a paradox of taboo and a completely acceptable means to an end. Because the girls I work with are all in school, it was hard for me to know how exactly Kayayo is affecting my village.
“Oh, it affects Sankpala, it’s a big problem here,” my closest friend Adams assures me. “Many, many girls form this village go to the cities.” He starts naming families that I know like he’s reading off a roster. And then he mentions Azara’s family. “All those women have done Kayayo.” And it hits me. All that talk about leaving school to find work in Accra and coming back at age 19 with a baby boy. There was a name for that. I know that desperation that is swimming in the heads of these girls. To get out of this dry and hopeless, Podunk village. Maybe I will be different. Maybe I will actually make it. That was my Azara. That still is Azara.
Anyway, it was raining, so I guessed my Kayayo talk would have to wait another week. As I lay in my bed, watching Slumdog Millionaire for the umpteenth time with cup of hot chocolate in hand (no I promise, I have a very hard life), I hear a quiet knocking on my door. It’s Zuleha and Rahama, two of my students. Well, I didn’t think you were coming because of the rain. I have a lot of watermelon for us to eat. When we have finished stuffing our faces, I start the 21 questions. I’ve quickly learned that that is what it takes to get a response from young Ghanaian girls: keep asking questions while they look increasingly alarmed and confused, until the right one come along, and “Madame!”
Bingo. Someone has something to say!
Do you know what Kayayo is? … Do you know anyone who has done Kayayo? … Isn’t Kayayo when girls leave the village to go to the cities? … So you don’t know what I’m talking about? … Why are there so few girls in school? … Are. There. Other. Girls. In Sankpala. That. Aren’t. In. School? … A grab another slice if watermelon. Want some more? … No? …The girls that don’t go to school, do they go off and do Kayayo?
“Madame!” YES, Rahama? “They do. Their families send them to make money.”
The conversation is short, but we continue to talk about how their childhood friends seem to vanish over night. The overwhelming majority of girls in Sankpala who cannot afford school fees turn to Kayayo, a last resort in hopes of making something of themselves. Somehow, my female students, as few as they are, all have these fantastic heads on their shoulders. “But I’m going to finish school,” Zuleha says. “I want to be an engineer.” Oh yea? I ask with a smile. “And I will finish school so I can become a nurse,” chimes in Rahama.
Unless the rain stops me, I will continue to have open dialogue with my students about Kayayo and how it affects our community. Two Peace Corps volunteers have tirelessly put together a film about the realities of Kayayo, written and acted by Ghanaians, which I hope to show to my village soon.

2009-07-21T06:06:00.007-04:00

Remember when we used to have adult friends?

- Dan

awww shucks, Obama

2009-07-13T18:30:00.007-04:00

"You going to Obama?" Kimmie texts me. "Hmmm. Well, yea. Maybe. Nah. Nope."

Yea, so el Presidente, the one and only Barack Obama came to Ghana for a day. What an honor, to be serving in Ghana during the time when our first black president comes to pay a visit. Especially in light of the fact that we missed the excitement of inaguration. I can't help but feel like I am missing history take place while in this little village. Anywho, so why didnt I go to see Obama speak? As if seeing 80 other volunteers wasn't insentive enough to get away for the weekend. Well, it was a long week and a weekend in Accra, including the 12 hour bus rides, amount to about half a months salary. (I happen to be living beneath the poverty line.)
Ghana has gone ape. People have renamed their resturants and hotels after him. People are dressed in Obama attire from head to toe. Obama Kana!Omama Kana! (Obama is coming! Obama is coming!) We didn't write an Obama song, becasue we ALREADY HAVE ONE, that has been playing daily on radios for 10 months. Volunteers here have gone ape. I mean, like have lost their minds with the President being here. Enough to travel cross country to see him within a days notice. And those who went were all deeply touched by his presence and words.
So, you didn't see me on CNN because I was with Kimmie in Zoggu, shoving my face with cookies and reading People Magazines. Hey, listen, I bought 4 Obama watches to support the cause. Yep. And they are great watches.

oh, to be ten

2009-07-13T13:08:00.007-04:00

Dear Maria,
Sorry I didn't write to you so long, guess I've been a bit lazy. So, how's Ghana, sounds like you've enjoyed there. You're unlike me, I wouldn't last a minute because of homesickness. I've heard of, whats it called? Oh right, Ginniworm. Sounds horrible, a 20 feet long worm squirming through you're intestines. I've heard of it on House before. It has been a very complex couple of months, not difficult complex like Ginniworm. I seem to squirm through, then getting pulled out by a couple of sergens. I've just installed a T.V. in my room, I just hope dad allows it. Guess what?! Do you know about the swine flu? Well, my school is one of the schools in new york that will be closing because of it. Cool, huh? Well, keep me updated on you're adventures in Ghana, I'll send you soon!

The Boy Who Loves You,
Michael

PS: Sahara wanted to say hi.

a million words

2009-07-04T04:29:00.010-04:00

The quality of my pictures are not so hot on this site, so I have set up a tumblr for them (which are actually a little better than flickr I think). Anywho, a little bit of Ghana through my eyes. Please check it out from time to time. Wakingupinghana.tumblr.com

(Happy 4th of July! Eat a cheeseburger off the grill for me!)

2009-06-23T02:15:00.001-04:00

me: you laugh too much
musa naa: you eat too much

Know Your Status Week

2009-06-19T07:13:00.003-04:00

The HIV/AIDS campaign here in Sankpala has come and gone and was fantastic. Well, everything except the football game. The political tension escalated and the day before we had no choice but to cancel the game. It was like that time my dad drove Joe and me to the beach and we fought the whole way and finally as we pull into the parking lot, my dad turns around and says, “That’s it! We’re going back home!” And it just sucked, because I had my bathing suit on and everything. It could have been so good. Anywho, as expected, everyone that I needed to come through did, mostly at the very last minute. By the end of the week our programs reached almost 2,000 people. My students rocked the drama and ran the whole HIV/AIDS day at the school practically themselves (I couldn’t be prouder of them). All of Sankpala truly enjoyed the programs, they are still buzzing about them and at times even come to my home to ask more questions. Since the AIDS rate for the Northern Region of Ghana is fairly low, the most important aspect of the week for me was breaking stigmas, which I think we were affective in doing. Verdict? Success. Give me about 5 months of sleep and maybe we’ll do another one.

There are plenty of pictures, click on older posts to see all of them. Enjoy!

Know Your Status Workshop

2009-06-19T06:38:00.020-04:00

Sister B & Adams giving an HIV talk

Mohammed talking about life with AIDS

Market Day

2009-06-19T06:33:00.001-04:00

JSS HIV drama

Adams giving an HIV talk

Prenatal Day

2009-06-19T06:28:00.002-04:00

the wonderful Adams giving an HIV talk

Rein talking about life with AIDS

Sister B answers some HIV questions

HIV/AIDS Day @ school

2009-06-19T06:18:00.007-04:00

HIV/AIDS games

meet Elyse, who will kick some WatSan butt in the Upper West

Hannah Banana

JSS HIV/AIDS drama

Frank & Mohammed talking about life with AIDS

teachers vs JSS football. yea, we killed 'em

My students. Yes, they are as cool as think they are

Testing Day

2009-06-19T05:55:00.004-04:00

students waiting to get tested

Musa Naa

2009-06-08T06:21:00.006-04:00

Musa sits up straight in my blue lawn chair, large stick in hand, surrounded by all his hoodlums. “As of right…now, I am chief. Chief of the small boys. These are my boys.” Musa Na (chief Musa). Shall I bring you chief shoes? Musa narrows his eyebrows and nods his head without looking at me. I dust off the Ashanti chief sandals that my host family bought me months ago, I have been waiting for a reason to get rid of those things. Musa grabs for the sandals and forces them on his feet, they are clearly too small for him. They don’t fit you. Musa does a little dance and replies, “Oh, they fit. Are these for me to keep?” Musa Na, chief of the small boys, they are all yours.

Most young professionals, nurses, teachers, PCV’s and the like, will have a child or preteen that is kind of like their right hand man, someone who will fetch them water, sweep, cook or run errands for them. While all children are considered small boys and small girls, if you find yourself in this particular role, you are their very own small boy or girl. Sometimes a small boy or girl will even live with that person. They tend to worship the ground they walk on, hoping one day to aspire to be a young professional themself. Musa is my small boy, and while I love him dearly, he hardly worships me. As we go on almost daily crocodile hunts to the dam (followed by all his hooligans), he frequently and quite randomly tells me that he will beat me up. And if I trip on a root or branch, which is often, like clockwork he says, “Madam, I was hoping you would have tripped. Aghahahahahaha.” Our conversations usually go like this: “Madam, where is your laptop?” I don’t have a laptop. “Madam, lies! You are telling lies!” It has spoiled, I sent it to Tamale. “You have greed. I know you have one” Nope. “Then swear to Gowd!” Or like this: “Madam, why can’t you fetch your own water?” Musa, I don’t know, it’s too heavy. “Ha! You have no strength! You have no energy! You are weeeeak! I am the strongest one in the world!” And then there was the day that he chased after me with a freshly decapitated lizard and in turn I threatened to end his life. He regularly bullies the small boys that follow him around like lost puppies, which is when I shout, MUSA! Enough! Someone bigger than you is going to come and beat you one of these days! It’s called karma!

Despite his charming mouth, Musa is the world to me. I can count on him for anything. He often brings by a small basket of guinea fowl or duck eggs and we fry them up for dinner. Usually one of three has a little bird in it (oops), but that’s how free food is here in Ghana. He has made me a small guitar that I proudly display on my kitchen shelf. He played it outside my window for half an hour while I was trying to take a nap, until I finally came out to acknowledge it. And there was that time a bat flew into my kitchen as I was washing dishes. Instead of running outside, I ran into my room and screamed until someone came. Musa heard me from probably a mile away and wasn’t so impressed by the source of my terror. We have just started a garden together outside my house, which now only has a small mango shoot that he stole from someone’s farm. He spent an hour chopping down garden sticks to build a fence around it. “Tomorrow morning I am coming again, and we will plant maize and tomatoes and ochre.” Sounds good to me. “And then you will make me tea and we will eat bread. See you in the morning.” Whatever Musa. See you tomorrow.

One afternoon, I sat on the grass, leaning against the tree that Musa had climbed. As he threw down berries for me, he asked, “Am I just your water boy? Who am I to you?” He was referring to hours previous, when he told me his grandfather is sending him to a school in another town. He always talks about this grandfather, who makes all these unmet promises that Musa holds on to. I told him it was out of the question, who would fetch my water if he was gone? He never answered me.

Musa, I replied, looking up into the tree. You are my family. And If you ever left me, I would cry and cry and cry and cry and… “Madame!” What? “Don’t cry.”

maria has a meltdown

2009-06-04T06:27:00.006-04:00

If there is any purpose of this little ‘ol blog, its to let you know that I am no hero. Being a Peace Corps volunteer is a daily struggle. I have been thinking about how I should write about the Know Your Status Week that has taken over my life (and begins tomorrow), and I think I will do so my explaining the breakdown I had on Tuesday.

Sister Bima asked me to help her start an HIV/AIDS program. Fantastic, that’s what I’m here for. We decided to squish a series of activities into one week (as opposed to a month, which were the initial plans). I started the dreadful task of writing the proposal weeks ago, and was told that because I was only needing a couple hundred buck, I could get it within days. Fabulous. I drafted it, brought the clinic staff together and read it off. Here is a snippit, feel free to skip this part if you just want to read about when I became a basket case:

Workshop
The whole community will be invited to an HIV/AIDS workshop, which will be the first event of the week. The workshop will be run by clinic midwife Fuseine Bima, with the help of clinic staff and PCV. During the workshop, topics of interest will be simple HIV/AIDS theory, HIV/AIDS prevention, addressing misconceptions and stigmas surrounding the disease, and of course, the importance of getting tested. The Journey of Hope Kits will be used to engage participants in hands-on HIV/AIDS educational activities. Finally, a PLWHA will speak on his life’s experiences as one living with AIDS. Minerals and water will be provided for those who attend the workshop. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a baseline understanding of HIV/AIDS to the community. Continued education, breaking stigmas and fielding HIV/AIDS questions will take place throughout the week during other Know Your Status activities.

Football Match
We will hold a Know Your Status football match between Sankpala and nearby village Wanbong (the match will take place in Sankpala). The football match will attract mostly men, ages 15 and up. We have invited the Wanbong community to also come to the match, so we are expecting a large turn out. During half time, we will have a short HIV/AIDS program and condom demonstrations. Condoms will also be distributed at this time, and a PLWHA will speak on his life’s experiences as one living with AIDS. Water and minerals will be available for players and the winning football team will receive a football.

Prenatal Day
Pregnant women from all 10 communities Sankpala CHPS zone serves comes to the clinic on prenatal day, which will attract women ages 20 and up. Following baby weighing, the JSS will perform an HIV/AIDS drama and midwife Bima and the clinic staff will have an HIV/AIDS program, including female condom demonstrations and distributions. A PLWHA will speak on her life’s experiences as one living with AIDS.

Market Day
As previously stated, Sankpala is a market town that attracts people from throughout the Sankpala zone. On market day, the JSS will perform an HIV/AIDS drama several times during the afternoon. The clinic staff and PCV will be available throughout the day to field HIV/AIDS questions. Women, men and children of all ages will be present for this event.

HIV/AIDS Day- Primary School & JSS
The clinic staff, JSS health club and PCV will be having a fun-filled HIV/AIDS day at the primary school and JSS, to cover children up to seventeen years of age. We will use the Journey of Hope Kit to facilitate HIV/AIDS activities among other games and an HIV/AIDS quiz. The JSS will also perform an HIV/AIDS drama. Toffees and notebooks will be distributed as prizes. Finally, a PLWHA will speak on his life’s experiences as one living with AIDS. This event will be a capstone of a few weeks of in-school HIV/AIDS education.

Know Your Status Testing Day
The last day of the event the clinic will hold an open and free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling day. Condoms will be distributed to those who get tested. The last objective of this campaign is to encourage as many people as possible to come to the clinic and get tested this day.

I looked at them, and asked if they were in. I couldn’t possibly do it myself, I needed to know that they were committed. They all nodded and the next day I sent it off. That was the easy part. Now, to write a program for each event, teach my JSS an HIV/AIDS drama, train them to lead HIV/AIDS day at school, train the staff about HIV/AIDS activities to be done during the workshop, inform both football teams about the match, meet the beautiful people living with AIDS that will be so gracious to tell their stories, buy all needed materials, order t-shirts, invite hundreds of people, pick up t-shirts, oops, a Peace Corps trainee will be staying with me that week (forgot about that), go into to town and buy food for both of us. Oh, and fill my gas tank for my stove, running dreadfully low.

I met with the PLWHA (Persons living with HIV/AIDS) days after submitting the proposal, and realized that the money I had agreed to give them (travel, per diem) was a joke. The thing about Ghana is that it is impossible to ask one how much their services are. It’s all about guess work, and this was one hell of a sensitive service. Meeting someone who is living with AIDS is going to blow these people away. It is going to change lives. I will be damned if I don’t get the money to get them here. I call my friend Swalisu, (soon to be district chief of Central Gonja) and ask with him to come over for a chat. I word vomit my problem, in my pj’s mind you, and plead with him to help me finance this part of the campaign. Not exactly the most appropriate way to ask the district chief for money. He tells me to write a proposal, and invites me to come to his swearing in ceremony that Tuesday. “You can give it to me there. It will be my first assignment,” he says and winks. Although it is days before the event, time I can’t afford, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

So, Friday, a week to go, and I find out that Kamal hasn’t started practicing the drama with my students yet. Fabulous. Only half my students are showing up for training for the HIV/AIDS Day at school. I make my way to the clinic, and try to get input on specifics for all the programs. It seems like they are clueless on how we should run it, and I become filled with the fear that I will be running the show. Oh, by the way Adams, which football team will be playing Wongbong? “The team by the school.” Yea, that would be Adams team, why would I think otherwise? I think I already told the team that plays outside my house, the one I have used for several Guinea worm games that I would have them play this game. Guess my afternoon will be telling coach that we aren’t using his team.

I finally get a hold of coach by Sunday. Several football players from both teams have been frequenting my home, asking who will be playing. Coach, I know I told you I would be using your team, but I think I’m going to use the other team for this game. I want to invite you and your players to come for the program. Maybe I should set the scene a little better. Coach is easily 8 times my size. I have had 3 football games with his team by this time, and have lost my mind at all three games. Sister Bima calls him the Lion of Sankpala. He is the most difficult person I have ever worked with. In. My. Life. As we were making our way to one game, I turned around to him and shouted, OK, enough! If I hear one more complaint from any of you, ANY of you, you are getting out of this truck AND WALKING BACK TO SANKPALA! I am not kidding you! And coach, that goes double for you! (I did tell you a lose my mind sometimes, didn’t I?) Anywho, I tell this to coach and he looks at my like I am joking. “What other team? There is one team in Sankpala, and it is my team.” And it all comes out. There was one team in Sankpala, just around the time I came. Then when the election happened, all the NPP players left and started their own team up at the school. I had no idea the politics, jealousy, tension and down right drama wrapped up in football (the extent of it anyway). “And if you use that team, Sister Mariam, we will never be apart of any of your programs ever again. You have come from America to bring a divide in Sankpala.” After I picked up my jaw from the dirt and put it back in place, I let coach in on a little bit of the stress involved in planning a week long HIV/AIDS campaign. So if you think I have the time to sort through politics, I don’t. This is not about football, it’s about HIV. It’s about this community. And don’t you dare tell me that I am causing a divide in Sankpala. Coach nervously laughs, as his little lion friends picked up their own jaws from the ground. “You talk to much,” coach responds. Well, I don’t know who is going to play Wongbong, but it better be peaceful. I’m not having trouble at this game. I walked back to my home knowing this was going to be the start of a lot of trouble.

I call Peace Corps headquarters about my proposal. I should have had the money days previous. “John has it, he needs to ok it, and then the country director needs to ok it, and then we can have the money in your account.” Oh. Ok, so the week that the new group of 70 trainees come, my Watsan director and Country Director are going to read and ok my proposal. It dawns on me, this program is days away, and I might not see the money for weeks. Until then, I’m going to have to withdraw my month’s pay, which might cover half. So much for eating.

Before I head to Tamale on Monday, I call Nazeed. Listen, I need to ask you a huge favor. I am up to my elbows with the HIV/AIDS program. Can you pick up my gas tank and fill it for me? “Of course.” That was easy, one less stress. I spend the rest of the day withdrawing all the money I own, ordering t-shirts and printing out another proposal for Swalisu. I come back and run to the school to meet with my students. Once again, only half show up. I make dinner for myself and watch the football players practise. Three come up to me, again asking who will be playing. I’m canceling the game, I say between bites. I don’t look like I’m joking. Am I joking? They have no idea.

I pass out by 8:30. The next morning, I wake up and make my way to Tamale again for the swearing in ceremony. As I’m sitting there, listening to speech after speech asking the new DC’s to be honest and just, to be a positive force in Ghana, I realize how glad I am that I came. As they line up to take their oath, it is plain that Swalisu is the youngest of them all. And the pride in his parents faces, god I couldn’t get enough of it. I’m able to get a ride back, and decide that it was a day well spent, and I’m taking the night off.

As I talk to Alhaji about the swearing in, I reach for my phone in my pocket. I look at him in horror “What?!” My phone! I left it in the car! I run across the street to Swalisu’s father, and ask that he calls someone to get my phone back. Crisis averted, the phone was found and will somehow make its way back to me by the end of the day. “Did they find it?” Alhaji asks me. I nod with relief. “Oh, someone brought your tank, it’s on my porch.” Things are just looking up today. I have Musa help me put the regulator back on, and every time we try to turn it on, gasoline starts spewing out of the nozzle. Green oil was oozing everywhere. I call over Foazia (the other nurse at the clinic) and we try several different regulators until we realize that the problem is not the regulator, but the tank. Sister Bima and Adams make there way over. My room and kitchen are now filled with the scent of gas and as they all talk about my dilemma, I think about how I will probably die of fumes by the morning. “Well,” Sister Bima says. “You will have to go into Tamale tomorrow and get it fixed.”

But that’s exactly why I gave it to my friend to fill! I don’t have the time to get it fixed! And I can’t even carry it, it’s too heavy! I don’t have the time or money or energy, our program is in DAYS! And I’m having a guest! I can’t handle this! I don’t even have a phone!!! “Mariam, your guest is coming in a week. You have plenty of time,” Foazia reminds me. This is no time for reason. I slip into my room, and lose it. Sister Bima comes in after me, and is appalled to find me crying. I think I have expressed before how not okay it is to cry in Ghana. They don’t even cry during childbirth. “Oi! Why?” I ca a a a can’t. I caaaa. I caaaan’t handle this ri ri right now. I I I. I can’t. I can’t handle this ri ri right now. Sniff sniff. I don’t think Ghanaians know how to stress, they would never begin to understand that I am not actually crying because of my stove, but rather it was the last winning red chip in Connect Four and so the rest come crashing to the floor. Sister B literally slams my and starts yelling that I am crying. Foazia and Adams peek in to confirm. Alhaji starts laughing. I start crying louder. Sister B comes in again. “I will send Adams with it tomorrow. You don’t mind it. You stop crying.” Adams comes in “Mariam, I will take it tomorrow, you don’t worry.” I nod and fumble in my pockets for a couple of bills. “No, I will pay for it, you keep your money,” Sister Bima says.

I finally come outside, to the crowd of children who think my summer hut is their new home. Musa is devastated that I’m upset. “Madam. You can cook on a coal stove for now.” No I can’t Musa, I say and start tearing up again. I don’t know hahahahooooow. “Madam, I will help you,” he says, looking at the ground, refusing to look me. We sit in silence as Sister Bima, Adams and Foazia make their way home one at a time. “Madame?” Musa says, still looking at the ground. Mmhm? “When you get your phone again, you should call your mom.”

And that’s what I did. I called mom and dad. Gawd, what would I do without parents? I talked through all my anxieties and came to realize this: if these people are willing to come through for my stove crisis, they are going to come through for the HIV/AIDS week. Simple as that. It just took a few tears. Ok, a lot of tears, but who’s counting?

let's talk about sex

2009-06-04T06:23:00.004-04:00

Well, we can’t really talk about HIV/AIDS if we aren’t gong to talk about sex. Right?

Alhassan ducks his head and giggles. Everyone else looks at me in shock. They cannot believe we are about to talk about sex. What 16 year-old doesn’t wait for the day when sex comes up in health class. Eh, you talk about it when you are not in school. Is it true? We are going to talk about it here.

These past few weeks I have been teaching nothing but HIV/AIDS. It is leading up to a huge HIV/AIDS campaign that we are having here in Sankpala the second week in June. We will be calling it “Know Your Status Week.” Sister Bima suggested that we start some kind of program and somehow the campaign burst forward. More about it in the near future, but we think a few thousand people are going to face the reality of AIDS and will have to unravel a whole lot of stigmas and misconceptions. Those of us planning it are thrilled.

So, back to talking to a classroom of hormonal teenagers about sex. It was one of the most enlightening classes I have had, probably more so for me than for them. We started by talking about all of the reasons people have sex. Children. Yep, you are right. A major reason people have sex is to produce children. What other reasons. They all looked at me like I had three heads, I get this quite often. OK. New question. Why are JSS students having sex? I’m not a JSS student, so you have to tell me. And then it all came out. Pleasure. Peer pressure. For money. For grades. For employment.

This is all very close to home to the six girls I teach. In Ghana, it is not unusual for a young teenager to have sex with older men with money, teachers and headmasters because they feel they have no other choice. They often feel stuck and don’t know how else to get ahead in life. It is a phenomenon that affects mostly village girls, as opposed to girls who grow up in middle class families in the city. The reality of it has been lying heavy on my heart. I look at these beautiful girls and I see so much potential. I don’t know exactly how to pull it out of them, but I will.

You are right. These are all reasons why people have sex. But I think you are forgetting one. They all watched in awe as my shoulder grew another head. LOVE. They all smile. Love? Ghanaians are not quite as romantic as Americans are, sex serves a purpose as most everything else in life. I know there is love here in Ghana, they just don’t talk about it. I almost threw it in there as a cultural exchange. If you are buddies with some teenagers, ask them why teens are having sex in America. I promise you love will come up, if not first.

So, I say as I am erasing the board. What consequences can result from having sex when you are too young and not ready? Death, says Fataw. Woah, ok. I’ll put it up here. What else? Teenage pregnancy. Drop out of school. HIV/AIDS. STD’s. Yea. Ok, tell me about your dreams, I ask as I write DREAMS in huge letter on the board, underlining it as I swirl around to face them. We have had this conversation before. I love asking them what their dreams are. In America, a child believes that they really can be president if they wanted to. They can be anything they want to. The world is theirs. In Ghana, in the village, it really is just a dream. And then you wake up and think of practical ways to get through life. Not my students. I am trying to drill into them that they really can follow these dreams if they work hard enough. And they can, I’ve seen it. My friend Swalisu, who grew up in Sankpala is now the District Chief of Central Gonja, the highest position in the District Assembly (this took place last month, and I couldn’t possibly be prouder of him).

They all shout them out, Doctor. Lawyer. Engineer. Nurse. Soldier. Teacher. Judge. Bank Manager. No one wants to be a health volunteer? No. Alright, whatever. I then gush about how smart and wonderful they are and how all of them are capable of obtaining these dreams. We then discussed how the consequences of sex for the wrong reasons, and when you are not ready, could get in the way of their dreams. I think they got it.

OK. You have done well today. What is HIV again? Very good. See you in class again tomorrow.

will the starving children come out and play?

2009-05-25T02:42:00.006-04:00

I saw a starving child today.

I know the children here are malnourished, its as plain as day. But I hardly ever see a child that I know will not live to see adulthood. I’ve been told they exist, that the families hide them. And if I’m lucky, if you can call it that, I’ll discover one. As I walked from house to house, inspecting Guinea Worm filters, he poked his head out from behind a door. He stepped outside long enough for me to get a glimpse of his frail muscle-less frame. His ribs were protruding from his body and his thin arms and legs looked as if they might snap at any given moment.

His brothers and sisters, all healthy, played in the sun as he watched. Were they hiding him? Or was he just too weak to play? I don’t know, either is plausible. I looked away embarrassed, as if I wasn’t supposed to see. I uncovered a secret I didn’t want to know. It’s not a matter of ignorant bliss, no, not at all. It’s the fact that you can’t look a child like that in the face and do nothing.

I could take him home and feed him myself, but what would that help? I can’t save them all, and it would do nothing in terms of behavior change. I could tell the mother what she already knows. Her child is very sick and needs special care. I could plead with her to take him to the clinic and feed him a protein enriched diet that she cannot afford. I could spend my life educating mothers on nutrition. And then their children would live. All of them. Each family, with the three wives, each with their own set of numerous children. They count on a few not making past much of their childhood. Quiet frankly, they can’t afford for all their children to live. If I see to it that they do, overpopulation will bring its own suitcase of problems, socially, economically, the list could go on. So what good is keeping these children alive if family planning is not taking place? Ok then, I’ll have to educate them on the importance of family planning. Then you could be just like us. Small, educated and healthy families. Wouldn’t that be for the best? Isn’t that what you want? I don’t think I can successfully convince a culture and place that is not my own to change a way of life that they have been living for hundreds of years.

Is it better just to leave them be?

What am I doing here?

I’m not supposed to see this.

This has all raced through my mind before the boy slips back into the dark room he came from. This is what goes on inside my head when I see a dying emaciated child. It’s the worst kind of hopelessness a development worker can feel. And the irony of it all is that it’s the first time I have seen this child. I have been living in this community for all these months and he has been out of my sight the whole time.

The child lives in the compound next to my own.

first day back at class

2009-05-18T05:03:00.005-04:00

Me: Good morning class

Class: Good morning Madame!

Me: how was the break?

Shefui: It was fine Madame!

Me: And how are your moringa plants?

Silence

Shamsu: Madame, mine has not grown.

Washwu: Mine has also not grown.

Matin: Sir, mine has also…

Me: It’s Madame, not sir.

Martin: mmhm, Madame, my moringa had not grown either.

Hawa: Mine has grown. But a goat chopped it.

Zuleha: Mine has grown, and I put it in the sun. It has died.

Me: Has anyone been able to grow their moringa?

Silence

Fataw: Madam, were we supposed to chop (eat) our seeds?

Me: What?!? No! Who ate their seed?

Fataw: Noah, Madam.

Me: Noah! Did you eat your seed?

Noah: No…

Abukari: But the seeds are sweet! Aghahahahahaha.

Washwu: Aghahahhahaha

Shefwu : Aghahahahahaha

Me: Noah, you are to plant your seed, and when it grows it will produce many moringa seeds. And then you can chop all the moringa seeds you want. ::deep breath:: Ok class I am giving you all new moringa seeds. They are new, fresh seeds, so plant them today. Ok?

Class: Yes Madame!

dear mom,

2009-05-18T04:53:00.004-04:00

Six months. I have lived in a little Ghanaian village for half a year. With goats and chickens and lizards and really big spiders (and a scorpion, but that’s another story) and my little kitten Rosie Thomas. With gusts of wind, unbearable heat, roaring thunder and rain so hard and thick I wanted to hide under my bed with my cat. I have been robbed, cheated in numerous ways and countlessly lied to. I have been so sick that three days had gone by and I didn’t know it. I have screamed and laughed and cried and cried and cried. I have swam under waterfalls and danced until it hurt. I have traveled the length of Ghana, and to me, he is more beautiful everyday. I have struggled with my faith, my values, my beliefs, my worldview, my class, my race, my gender, my thoughts on development, my role in Sankpala and if I should even be here at all. I have gained weight and my hair has grown a couple of inches. My skin is darker, my feet dirtier. I have learned what it means to be truly alone, easily the scariest thing I have yet to experience. And thus I am capable of anything, really. I can now recognize the difference between mosquito bites, bed bug bites, ant bites and spider bites. I have learned that we all come into this world exactly the same, who we become is then dictated by our culture and surroundings. I saw a child born and have witnessed the grief of lost life. I have been lost and scared and home and safe. I have seen a starving child and could do nothing. I have given a child his very first book of his own, ever. I have lost my mind, more than once. I have missed home. I have dreamt of being back in NYC once again, where I belong.

I love you very much and miss you more everyday. Thank you for that day when you told me I have what it takes.

All my love,

Maria

sister moringa

2009-05-08T04:46:00.007-04:00

“Where are you going, Sister Moringa?” Wahabo asks as I pass him on the way to the dam.

Ha. Ha. Ha ha ha. So, so fun-ny. Sister Moringa kind of sounds like Sister Mooriah, which most call me here in Sankpala. Interchangeable with Sister Mariah, Sister Miriam, Madame, and my favorite, Wuntera. The reason Wahabo calls me Sister Moringa is because for the past few weeks, I have been in the very beginning stages of bringing moringa to Sankpala, otherwise known as The Miracle Tree. It’s what all the cool PCV’s are doing.

You can use every part of the moringa tree, from the roots, to the bark and seeds. But it is the leaves that store incredible medicinal and nutritional value. It is said to have more nutrition than any other one vegetable. It is packed full of protein, which is the nutrient most lacking in diet here, especially among pregnant mommies and the kids. So, I can try to convince a few hundred families to buy eggs and chicken, which they will never be able to afford. Or I can Johnny-Moringa-Seed, and spread the word that this little tree can drastically improve the health of families here. The prospect is very exciting, but it is going to be a lot of work.

First I have to plant the moringa. People, are we forgetting that I’m from the land of concrete? What does this Queens-bred girl know about planting (hundreds of ) trees? My dad still won’t let go when I forgot to water his tomatoes while he was in Florida that one fateful summer a few years back (I know daddy, I really am sorry). So I gave each of my health club students a seed and wished them luck. “So, do we crack it from the shell? Do we soak the seed over night? How long until it germinates?” Oh, Lord if I know, you guys are the farmers. Just keep it away from the goats. I have planted 10 myself, in little plastic sachets. Only one has grown. C'est la vie.

We will be planting them at the school and we have already started to put up fences. I thought the fences would be the easy part (ok, guys, bring garden sticks and build your own fence), but between John, the primary headmaster, Kamal and myself, there were far too many cooks in the kitchen, and by the end of the day we had only built two small fences. School is on break right now, so it is hard enough getting my students to come out, especially to do more farming than they have been doing all day. But by the end of May, we are hoping to have about 80 little trees in their little fences, 40 for the primary and 40 for the JSS. We will then plant another 50 or so at the clinic.

Once the clinic and the health club get the hang of taking care of moringa trees, we will start the process of giving out seeds and educating the community about planting, taking care of, and the tons of uses of moringa. This probably won’t happen for another year. There are even organizations that will be able to come and give cooking demos with moringa. If all goes well, this may even be another source of income for women here, they can sell the dried leaves or seeds at market easily.

So, friends, just another project I will be working on while I am here. I’ll keep you updated.

PS. Update on Commander. He was whisked away to Tamale, finally, because he wasn’t taking his Guinea Worm seriously. Sakara informed me this morning that he hopped on a tro and is hiding somewhere in Sankpala. Good grief.

2009-05-04T06:45:00.003-04:00

Oi! You are growing big!

- yam chips lady

small talk

2009-05-04T06:39:00.007-04:00

I stare into space, speechless and stunned. “Are you okay?” another volunteer asks me. Yea. I say and fake a smile. I’m just not used to so many…Americans. I have officially run out of thinks to say. I spent Easter with a slue of other PCV’s, an event full of American food, swimming and even an Easter egg hunt. But I found myself wanting to hide. Having spent months with Ghanaians, I forgot how to carry on a normal English conversation. I can spend an afternoon with someone, and not say more than a few words. Even when I write this blog, I have naturally Americanized Ghanaian conversation so it would be easier to understand. I have decided to give you a feel of a very normal conversation I have on a day-to-day basis. This is today, waiting for the yam chips lady to return from God-knows-where. I am sitting with about 4 men my age, a woman plaiting another’s hair and my good friend Shahad. He is translating; everyone else present speaks little to no English. So with everything I write as one saying, it is actually Shahad saying, “He is saying that…”

“You never came to the home,” says the man sitting right next to me. I look confused, so he adds, “I am the one with Guinea Worm.” Oh! A yulie Seidu? (your name is Seidu?)

“Uh haaaaah.”

Seidu is our first Guinea Worm case of the year. We have had two others, but they had moved here from Junction, where the Guinea Worm havoc lies.

Oi! I didn’t come because Sakara knows. You were at the market yesterday, I remember. How could I forget, the man runs up to me and all he can say in English is “I, the one, Guinea Worm (and a bunch of Dagbani. All that I understood was that he did not want to go to Tamale).” And sure enough, there is his worm, hanging right in the dirt. Why aren’t you bandaged! I cry. He doesn’t understand what I am saying. I throw up my hands and go to the market.

“He likes to be called Commander, not Seidu,” Shahad says to me. “He says in Yapei, they bring soap to the ones with Guinea Worm.” I will not bring you soap. Why should I reward you for drinking unfiltered water and getting Guinea Worm? No. I will not bring you or anyone soap with Guinea Worm. He has nothing to reply, there is chance he might even be embarrassed.

Commander, why was your foot not bandaged. And why will you not go to Tamale? A jay Tamale? (you don’t like Tamale?)

“I don’t want to go.”

Well, stay away from the water sources. Or you will bring Guinea Worm to all of Sankpala.

“There is no one to fetch my water,” Commander says. My heart beats a little faster as I search his eyes for truth, if he is just testing me or if he actually dares to go to the dam with Guinea Worm hanging from his foot. “If you marry me, then you can fetch my water.” Here we go.

If we were married, I would not fetch your water. So you should just go to Tamale where they will take care of you.

“Oi! You will not marry me because I am a black man. If I was a white man you would fetch my water.” Our audience is growing and they are all rolling with laughter.

No. I would not fetch my white husband water either. If he is having Guinea Worm, I would send him to Tamale.

“I luff you,” he stutters in English. And with a crooked grin he adds, “Come to me bay-bee.” I can’t help but laugh myself. Eh! Is this the only English you know? Mmalie yidana! (I have a husband), I inform him. It is a lie I keep telling the men who ask me to marry them on a very regular basis. Commander pretends to be distraught. “Amale yidana? (you have a husband?) Oi! I will beat him. When he comes, I will beat him!” He is very strong, I warn. “You won’t take two husbands?” No, I only want one.

An elderly man starts giving his two-piece to the crowd. “He says he has been praying for Guninea Worm for many years so that he can go to Tamale. But it won’t come,” Shahad translates. I am mortified. Commander, tell this man how much Guinea Worm pains your foot! He rattles off Dagbani for a while and Shahad is laughing so hard he can hardly catch his breath to translate. “He says he also would like to go to Tamale. They have many things. They have nice beds, plenty food, even TV. But, they are lacking one thing, the ladies.” I shake my head.

So, if I send ladies to Tamale, you will go? Commander nods his head in agreement. Then I will send them.

“Oi! This boy is bad,” Shahad informs me. “He goes to the dam to fetch. I know it.” Is it true? I ask sternly. He nods between laughs. I am again hoping he is just kidding. Are you serious! You will bring Guinea Worm to all of Sankpala! You know that Junction has plenty, plenty Guinea Worm. It started with one person like you. And now there are over a hundred cases! He doesn’t seem to be taking me serious. The chief will charge you if you go! Still, nothing. If Guinea Worm comes to Sankpala, we will know it is from you, because you are the first case here. It is very serious! He continues to laugh. All the work I do here as a Guinea Worm volunteer, and you will ruin it all by going to the water source with Guinea Worm! All my work for nothing! If I see you go to the dam once, just once, I am going back to America! The laughing ceases, and everyone looks up at me.

“No,” another man pleads. “We love you here.”

“OK, I won’t go to the dam side,” Commander promises. “You are very serious about Guinea Worm. It isn’t serious.” It is serious, I say. Do you want your children to have Guinea Worm? “No.” All you have to do is stay away from the water sources, and soon there will be no Guinea Worm in Sankpala. But you are a stubborn man and you want the Guinea Worm to stay.

“Amale yidana…,” he whispers, shaking his head. I laugh. This conversation is futile, I’m sure he doesn’t actually go to the dam. “Can he really bring all the Guinea Worm to Sankpala, Mariam,” Shahad asks quietly. Yes, if he fetches water at the dam side. “What should we do? Lock him away until his Guinea Worm is finished?” Mmhm. We can lock him in that freezer until it is finished, I say as I stand and make my way to the yam chips lady who has finally come back. Teto bealla (literally ‘small time’, or I will see you again soon).

Their laughter trails behind me as I make my way to a long awaited lunch.

a memoir of Africa

2009-04-26T12:55:00.005-04:00

In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With most Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.

Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That's what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of it's tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life's alibi in the face of death.

-Peter Godwin, When A Crocodile Eats the Sun

2009-04-25T18:09:00.002-04:00

Wow. You are growing big.

-Imam of Sankpala

Dear Diary,

2009-04-16T13:01:00.006-04:00

This weekend we went to Accra. I went to the mall and then had cheeseburgers and then went to the movie theatre. And just about had a stroke from it all. Too much excitement for this village girl.

My eyes hurt.

hugs and kisses,
Me

PS I kind of miss Sankpala.

evolution of the palace

2009-04-01T08:28:00.012-04:00

As requested, here is the development of my place. It may have taken three months, but finally, its home.

home sweet home

2009-03-27T08:31:00.002-04:00

You are growing big.

-Chief of Sankpala

In the beginning

2009-03-27T07:57:00.005-04:00

In the beginning, when Maria came to Sankpala, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered Maria’s soul was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded, “Let there be Azara.” – and she appeared. When God saw Azara, he said, “It is good.” So did Maria. But with a little more oomph.

“Hello? Maria. Akeem’s father came tonight to take him. And I’m going to Accra tomorrow.” I know, I’ll come in the morning to say goodbye. “Are you sleeping?” Yes. Sorry, I’m really tired tonight. “Ok, bring that picture of you I like.” OK. Goodnight. "Nawuni ti beow." Ami, Ami.

I didn’t even know Azara had a son for about a month, he blended in with all of her sisters’ children. And he doesn’t call her mom, he calls her Azara. More like Azaaarrrrraaaa, because he is always begging her for something or another. A few weeks ago she told me that the father decided to take Akeem to Accra so he would be could go to a better school. Azara was thrilled. Almost too thrilled. “I know Akeem’s grandparents will take care of him well. It will better for him. And then maybe I can do something with my life.” Teenage pregnancy is no easier for Ghanaians then it is for Americans. Coincidentally, the father came to get Akeem the day before Azara was off to Accra for her sisters wedding.

I mosey my way over to see Azara after teaching. She looks terrible. “I didn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking of Akeem.” It was harder to let him go then she expected. “I thought he would be crying. He didn’t cry when he left. He was just in the back of the car playing.” She looks up at me and doesn’t know what more to say. I thought you would have left for Accra by now, I say as I hand her the requested picture. “I’m leaving in a few hours.” I’ll miss you. When will you be back? This weekend? Azara bites her lip. “Maria, I think I’m going longer. I think I will be gone for a long time.”

Complete panic. What does she mean? What am I going to do with myself? I, I, I, I can’t do this without Azara. Who will translate what the sleazy old men are saying to me? Who will stay up watching terrible romance movies with me? Who will I sit with for hours at market and gossip with? I spend my afternoons with her and her family, will I be able to do that with her gone? Suddenly my day-to-day activities seemed impossible. I was paralyzed.

“I’m moving in with my sister. I need to go to school or learn a trade.” When did you decide this? I ask, with a hint of felt betrayal in my voice. “Last night. When Akeem left, I realized I have to start living for myself. I have to do something with my life.” So how long is long? “A few years.”

Azara is like my training wheels. When I first met her, I promised I would help her get out of Sankpala. I would help her live a better life. Our friendship was new, but I knew she was going to be unlike anyone I had met. Azara carried me through the hardest three months of my Ghanaian life. I would have done anything necessary to return the favor, one day. In Azara fashion, she helped herself. She didn’t want or need anything from me. And now it is was time to ride on my own without her. I was horrified.

Azara, you can’t leave me. You can’t leave me here. And I couldn’t cry. Because in Ghana, even when your best friend leaves you to make a better life for herself, you don’t cry.

I helped her pack and we went to market to buy the last few things she needed. I could suddenly relate to my best friends at home who spent weeks helping me get ready for the Peace Corps. That lump in my throat because I was so happy for her but desperately wanted her to change her mind so I could have her a little longer. A slight tinge of jealousy that she was off to do something so new and exciting and I was going to be here in Sankpala going on with my life. (Sarah, Krista, my Rocco girls, Tara, Krystin, mom, dad. Thank you.)

“Oh, the time! I have to go, I’m going to miss the bus.” This is really happening. Will you visit? “Yes Maria, I will visit.” She wraps her arm around me and kisses my cheek. Her brother slings her bag over his shoulders, which is really a purple guitar case. Azara. Azara, I am so happy for you. I want you to know that I wish you could stay, but I am so happy that you are doing this. You are so smart… you deserve this. Ugh! The tro is here! Mohammed runs ahead to get her a seat.

People come and go. Saying goodbye to all that is home killed me. Saying goodbye to my Ghanaian family was dreadful, I still think of them almost daily. One of the best parts of moving to Sankpala was knowing that I would have two years to develop relationships with people. Two years of mistakes and memories. Life here is just so mundane and yet so unpredictable. I was supposed to have Azara to share two years of Sankpala with. Things change. Over night.

I stuck my head in the tro as the mate tried to close the door. I really love you, you know that? “I love you too, Maria.”

I'll be fine without Azara. I actually get along in Sankpala all right without her. Life goes on, mine is still intact. What it all comes down to, quite frankly, is that I'm really going to miss her.

in regards to starving children in her village

2009-03-22T05:13:00.005-04:00

It isn’t my responsibility? What do you mean it’s not my responsibility? Someone has to take responsibility. These children are my children, they are everyone’s children. We are all human beings. They are my children. They are my responsibility.

-Kimmie Ellison

cattle

2009-03-22T03:37:00.010-04:00

“Mooriah, are you ready? The elders will be waiting…”

Shoot. Just give me five minutes. I’ll meet you at your house. I just poured water over some oats and was about to light the stove. No go. I threw on some clothes and brushed my teeth, and told the oats I would be back for them. I have got to start waking up earlier. The elders meet at the chief’s palace every Friday morning, and I had been meaning to meet with them to start discussing the needs of the community. Abukari said we needed to be there at eight, but suddenly 7:20 was a better time. I would have been ready, but as I literally rolled out of bed, Seidu was waiting at my door hoping for some tea. Just as he left, Abukari calls. As I reach his home, it is apparent he isn’t there.

I sat with his kids and thought about the soggy oatmeal on my stove as I waited. “Ok,” he says from behind me. “We can go.” As we make our way to the chief’s palace, we make a pit stop at the Assemblyman’s house. He tells us he we should wait for him, he just needs to bath. Really? Weren’t we in a rush? Abukari decided to take the opportunity to greet half of Sankapala. Let’s just visit this Red Cross mother. Let’s greet this elder. I grudgingly follow him around like a stubborn child who would rather be home watching TV. Or eating breakfast. Ghana is a whole lot of rushing just to wait.

I stare at the ground and follow Abukari’s feet from compound to compound. At one point I look up and realize he is bringing me to a large half-built hut, surrounded by a couple dozen men, ages ranging from 3 to 60, all knee deep in mud, throwing slabs of clay one on top of the other. I could cut the testosterone with a knife. Oooooh, no. no no no... Why does Abukari insist on thrusting me into these uncomfortable situations? All eyes stop and look at me. One man babbles to me in Dagbani, and the rest erupt in laughter. “They want to know if you will help them.” Nope, I say to the wind, because Abuakri is no longer behind me. I turn a full 360, and look across the way to see that he has rolled up his sleeves and has begun helping them build.

Oh, for the love of all that is holy. Abukari! I thought the elders were waiting! I breathe heavily out of my nose, shake my head and find some shade. After 15 minutes, we go back to assembly’s home and wait another 10 minutes before he is ready. We finally reach the chiefs palace; not a single elder is in sight. It’s now 9:00. Assembly looks at me and tells me that they will come, as if reading my mind. We sit for another 15 minutes, and slowly they all come wobbling over and find a seat on furry goatskin mats. The final elder is blind, he is clutching a stick that is being pulled by two small children. He almost sits on another elder. I smile. We finally begin.

The assemblyman is my translator; he reminds them that I am here to assess the needs of the community. All the men talk at once, until the chief starts to speak. Then all is quite, he gives his two pieces and the assembly summaries the chaos. “Well. First and foremost, our number one priority is the accommodation for strangers.” I knew this was coming. This is a project that the past three volunteers have worked on, I respond. Why do the elders believe that it still isn’t built? Assembly’s smile is uneasy. I’m not the moneybag he thought I was, this isn’t going to be that easy. He tells me the first volunteer raised the money and it was misspent. I ask why I shouldn’t be led to believe that it will be misspent again. He doesn’t dare translate this. The chief curiously looks at me. “We won’t misspend it this time,” he assures me. I start writing in my notebook. Numero uno. Accommodation for strangers. The community didn’t put a dime towards accommodating me as were the regulations for receiving a volunteer, I think to myself. I came to an empty room with a broken door. And yet, they wouldn’t mind if I raised the funds to house future ‘strangers’. I don’t bring this up, not now. What other needs does Sankpala have?

Another round of chaos ensues and when it settles Assembly turns to me again. “Sankpala is growing more and more everyday. We need more water.” I nod. That’s what I’m talking about. Needs. I’m a health volunteer. They are starting to get it. “We would like it very much if you could build another dam.” My eyes almost fall out of their sockets. I look at Abuakri in shock, and he isn’t fazed. You want me to build Sankpala another dam? “Yes” Do the elders realize that it is the dams that are the source of many, many diseases and parasites, including Guinea Worm, you know, the reason why I am HERE. Don’t you think I should invest in bringing another borehole, a source of clean portable water? “We would rather have another dam. For the cattle.” Oh. Ok. As long as there is enough water for the cattle. I jot down Sankpala’s second most pressing need, water for the cattle. And more Guinea Worm.

Anything else? I ask. This could start getting fun. Another rumble of Dagbani. “We would like a community center.” What would this look like? “A stage. We have nowhere for people to perform.” So this is for entertainment purposes? “Mmmm. Yes.” I look up from my notebook. The faces are kind and now familiar. These people may drive me crazy, but they are my family. I’ll do my best to meet the needs of this community. Thank you very much for talking with me. The chief nods. The elders smile. I take a breath and make my way home.

Before I came to Ghana, I told my self this: people of Africa are not stupid. Everything that I see, hear and experience is packed with hundreds of years of cultural implications that I don’t understand or am aware of. The elders of Sankpala sure aren’t idiots. They may be textbook uneducated, but they are smart and thoughtful and sly little devils. It took me some time and a few talks with other Ghanaians to realize that all projects that the elders deemed priority are all status symbols: Cattle, white strangers, a place for people to gather and socialize. They may not be health related, but they would rake in cash one way or another. And while money may be the root of all evil, it is what Africa is most desperate for. Maybe they are getting to the root of health problems better than I could. The wealthier the village the chubbier the kids.

I won’t be bringing in another dam to this community and I will definitely not be building an accommodation for strangers. While a community center sounds like a good time, I don’t think I will be investing in that either. It’s not what I am here for. I’m sorting through what all of Sankpala perceives as important, the women, the students, the soccer players (so what do you guys think are the needs of this community? A football. No, not for the team, for the community. There are many health needs in this community. But we really need a new football), and I am getting there. The process has been one hell of a ride.

fear of pasta

2009-03-14T07:27:00.007-04:00

Some Ghanaians won’t eat spaghetti. It resembles Guinea Worm just-a-little-too-much. I don’t blame them. After spending a day with Hannah in Fulfuso, the thought of a bowl of pasta would have made me queasy. We made our way to the containment center by 7 a.m., and a group of children were lined on benches, soaking their wounds in water and waiting for the volunteers to pull out the worm before school started. The worm craves water so that it can shoot out its eggs and perpetuate the god-awful cycle of Guinea Worm. Those who have the parasite must keep their wound emerged in water for about half an hour at which point a volunteer will wind the worm out little by little. The wound and hanging worm is then bandaged and the process will be repeated everyday until the worm is completely removed. It can take weeks, even months to extract a worm from a person. As you can see from the pictures, the whole procedure is excruciating, painful just to watch. There is a containment center in Tamale where suspected cases are usually brought, but because the cases in Fulfuso Junction are through the roof, they built a containment center right on site.

The thing about Guinea Worm is that it has not only been around since Bible-times, but it is so easily preventable. If communities continue to filter their water before drinking and if those who have Guinea Worm stay away from water sources, the disease can be eradicated. The Carter Center, community volunteers and Peace Corps volunteers like Hannah and myself continue to work toward behavior change.

Here's to the end of Guinea Worm. Cheers.

2009-03-14T07:18:00.002-04:00

living in the now

2009-03-05T04:39:00.008-05:00

I have to. Today I will pet my kitten, because tomorrow she may run away. Today I will hold Azara’s nephew in my arms and play with his miniature fingers, because he breathes like he is dying. Those miniature fingers may never grow. Today, I will read to Mafusu and his friends, because I love his toothless smile. I don’t know where he lives, so when he comes around whatever I do ceases to be important. Today I will stand in the rain and let it soak me to the marrow; God only knows when it will rain again. Today, my plans have changed. A young woman is in labor at the clinic. I will watch a human being open its eyes for the very first time. Today has been just like yesterday and may very well be the same as tomorrow. But today has changed my life.

You see, in Africa time goes backward, not forward. Who you are has little to do with who you aspire to be. Your 10-year plan is futile; you may not have 10 years. Who you are is a patchwork of your past. What you have seen, what you have heard and tasted, it all has value. It is why we get down on our knees and greet our elders. They are a treasure chest of knowledge.

So today I may laugh harder than I ever have before. My heart may shatter into a million little pieces. I may figure out how to cook rice without burning a layer at the bottom, who knows?

But today I am going to live for today. I have to.

show time

2009-02-27T13:29:00.008-05:00

“Ok Mohammad, don’t forget to face the audience. We want to see you when you are speaking,” I say. My final pep talk. I turn to the rest of the JSS students, all in ridiculous costume. “Oh, and have fun up there!” I hand each one a microphone as hundreds of Sankpalians, the Carter Center staff, and Sheriff Ghali and Sherifa Gunu, two of Ghana’s leading musicians all wait. “Show time baby, do your thing!”

And they were fan-freaking-tastic. I was like that over-zealous and obnoxious mother who was practically on stage taking pictures and throwing assuring thumbs up between scenes.

Last Thursday, the long awaited Guinea Worm concert ::heard we might get Sheriff to come put on a concert! Bagh!:: took place in our very own Marketplace. A slue of amazing performances (and a few pretty ridiculous, lip singing crazies), including myself being pulled on stage by a half naked dancer who motioned for me to give it what I got (no problem). My JSS performed a Guinea Worm drama, followed by a Guinea Worm Q&A by Seidu, Suli, Zachari and myself. Sheriff closed the show by bringing a bunch of kids on stage to help him sing one of his most popular songs. At midnight we finally finished, and mothers dragged their sleepy children home and giggled about the highlights of the night. The next day the whole village was buzzing about the concert. I couldn’t go anywhere without someone calling out my name while rocking their hips, imitating my debut. The 70-year old primary headmaster, John, put it best: “That concert last night was real groovy! Really, really groovy!”

The same concert took place the next night in Fulfuso Junction, which I also went to. Hey, free concert. As the show was about to start, a woman plopped down next to me, throwing all her belongings on my lap and frantically pulling beads on her wrists and neck. “I hope they have that guy who played the guitar like they did in Sankpala last night,” she says to me as she pulls out a compact mirror and smacks on some red lipstick. “He was good.” I hope they have that woman on again. Do you know if that woman and her crazy dancers will be here? She looks up from powdering her nose, and narrows her eyebrows. “You mean me?” A beam of light catches our chairs and Sherifa ducks. “Agh, they are filming the audience. They aren’t supposed to see me yet!” Ohmagash, you are Sherifa, I stutter, suddenly star-struck. Didn’t notice you without your Mohawk! She pulls off her headscarf and her wild thin braids pop into place. Ah. Now you are Sherifa!

The Fulfuso Red Cross mothers come on to do a Guinea Worm drama after some of the musical sets. Hannah pre-warned me that it might be the world’s longest drama. Forty-five minutes later I started mentally writing my will, because if it’s possible to die of boredom I was in trouble. Sherifa turns to me wide eyed and tells me she can’t take another minute of it. I text Raymond, who was somewhere in the crowd, Oh my god, this might never end. To which he responded, “They agreed to run the drama as long as there is still Guinea Worm in Junction. It’s a way to bore the worm to death. Unfortunately it has serious side effects on human beings too.”

Well said. Work continues to be more fun then it should be. Sometimes it pays to be living in the most endemic district in Ghana. (Whatever that means)

2009-02-27T12:31:00.005-05:00

Sheriff Ghali

Sherifa Gunu

my JSS!

passed out

distings update

2009-02-15T07:46:00.007-05:00

guinea worm

Living in the most Guinea Worm endemic district in the nation (Central Gonja) has, indeed, kept me rather busy. I am thrilled to be working so closely with the Carter Center, they do incredible work. Last year there was a reduction in Guinea Worm by 85%, which will be in your history books, kids. It is the greatest reduction for a moderately endemic country, ever. But like I said, right now Central Gonja is a real problem. As a matter of fact, the most endemic village in the nation is Fulfuso, Hannah’s community. They started crawling out of legs just as she got there, way to go Hannah.There are no cases in Sankpala right now (hey-oh!), but that could change anytime. Between June and August we had about 28 cases in Sankpala, which is why they requested a PCV.

I will let some of these pictures speak from themselves, but it is a real exciting time to be here in Central Gonja. NGO’s from all over are pulling together to help get things under control (Carter Center, IWASH, UNICEF). Hannah and I do a lot with case research in our villages, which entails a team of people that go from home to home checking Guinea Worm filters and making sure there are no suspected cases. This can take some time when your village consists of 3,500 people. Every Friday morning Zachari or Seidu, the red cross mothers (the most adorable elderly women in Ghana) and myself do a case search, and every Monday evening about 30 volunteers from all over come to Sankpala to do a night search. A few weeks ago I organized a Guinea Worm football match, bachelors vs. married men, with a short Guinea Worm program at half. It went real well, it was exciting to see so many people come out for it. This coming Thursday there will be a huge Guinea Worm concert in Sankpala (and one in Fulfuso the following day). My JSS students will be doing a Guinea Worm drama during the concert, which me and another JSS teacher will be putting together.

JSS

At least twice a week I teach health at the JSS (junior high). I LOVE it. I love the kids, they are smart and funny and eager to learn. I try to play a lot of games and to be as interactive as possible. They know it all, they can tell you about any health issue in Sankpala like they are reading out of an encyclopedia. But that doesn’t mean they are doing what they can to prevent these problems (Guinea Worm, diarrhea, malaria, nutrition, STD’s, teen pregnancy, sanitation, hygiene, the list goes on). Behavior change is the name of the game. I spent one whole class discussing the issues plaguing Sankpala, and the one that seemed to come up most was that there was no football club for the JSS. Good grief. I told them if they wanted a club, we could start a health club and I would buy a football for the members to use. Fair? So we will start meeting soon, I think I can get them real involved in the community; helping me do a census, cleanup days, planting Moringa, painting murals at the school and doing dramas at market are a few things I will do with them.

clinic

I also spend a lot of time at the clinic. I don’t do much work, but I do a lot of observing. Honestly, the nurses and Sister Beema are pretty amazing, they work very hard. One day a month there is baby weighing, which means women from about 5 villages come to get their babies weighed and to vaccinated. It is one of the craziest days and it’s a great way for me to assess the needs of women (family planning, nutrition, etc.). But for most of the time, I try to help them organize and ask Sister Beema and Adams a million and one questions about what goes on in the clinic.

We are encouraged not to do much work the first three months, but rather learn the needs of the community. The Peace Corps is absolutely right, I have a long way to go before I fully understand Sankpala and what the needs are. This week the assemblyman called a town meeting to officially introduce me to the community. I also had two meeting with the chiefs and elders to discuss their perceived needs of the community. Over the next few weeks I will be meeting with several groups to further discuss what Sankpala wants from me as a volunteer.

As of now, I will continue to teach and help fight the good fight against Guinea Worm (we use a lot of military jargon at the Carter Center, “the enemy is smart. We need to take out our big guns. Bang! Bang!”). I love my work and I am pretty excited that I will have two years to be with this community. There is much I can do. If you would like to be involved in any of my projects, especially my relationship with the JSS students, let me know. I would love to involve you guys.

PS Shout outs to Heather Nicholson, Amanda Rocco, Jordz Mollot and Daddio (dad, I had just finished the last jar of peanut butter when I got your last package. Close call!) for sending me amazing packages. Muchas, muchas gracias!

2009-02-15T07:29:00.005-05:00

bringing the platform to the dam so the women

don't have to step in the water.

well done boys!

measuring the dam

testing for presence of Guinea Worm pods

IWASH brought these rad SOKA pumps to Sankpala!

It's kind of like a stepmaster, and enables the women and

children to fetch water without going into the dam

Guinea Worm football match

GOAL!!!

some of the boys I work with.

And that's Azara, love of my life!

talking to the players about Guinea Worm at half

she meant it too

2009-02-07T05:20:00.005-05:00

If you were in a fire, I would pull you out with my own hands.

-Azara

2009-02-06T14:53:00.003-05:00