The biggest water fowl ever

“Kristi, you need to come to the riverside right now.  Hurry.”

“What? Why?”

“There’s something I want you to see.  There’s a…a…a fowl in the water.  Come and see.  Hurry!”

“Okay okay, I’m coming.”

This was the early morning call I got from Kwesi soon after a phone conversation I had with the Peace Corps doctor about my mind numbingly painful sore throat, which turned out to be strep.  Luckily, my energy wasn’t suffering any ill affects, so I made my way to the river, because Kwesi never calls me with a cryptic message like that telling me to be somewhere without coming to get me himself.  So I shuffle my still sleepy self through a deserted Damanko on a Sunday morning toward the river.  It seems half of Damanko was lined up along the riverside, at the water-fetching area that was functionally created by the last rainy season’s flooding.  Even during the busiest water fetching times there’s not even half that many people standing at the riverbank. 

The spectacle was a hippopotamus.  (“Kwesi, you know fowl means ‘bird’ right?”)  Silly me and my American-ness and my embedded NPS identity had me wondering if they were gazing at a live one, perhaps foraging in the river.  I had memories surfacing of visitors encroaching unwisely into the personal spaces of bears.  I envisioned a similar scenario here since Ghanaians don’t know how to keep a safe distance from ANYthing.  Then I remembered where I am and, of course, the magnificent animal was already dead.  Hippos live in many large rivers and lakes in Ghana, especially in the national parks, and there is even a sanctuary in the Upper West.  But I don’t think anyone in Damanko, even the elders, remember ever having witnessed one, though there are tales and traditional beliefs surrounding them.  The places my Ghana guidebook says hippos can be found are a long way from here, though the River Oti runs right into Lake Volta.

So Kwesi insisted I remove my sandals, and I rolled up my pants and waded into the shallow water.  I let Kwesi elbow his way through the crowd surrounding it and I got my first glimpse of a dead hippopotamus.  She was a magnificent beast, pale gray and pink in color, her elegant eye rolled into the back of her head, her lips surrounding her massive snout peeled back slightly to allow small glimpses of her massive gray and dirty tusks.  Her head was as big as my torso, her body massive, her feet as small as my hands.  Mob mentality was rapidly setting in so there is not much opportunity for contemplation and reverence, but I was able to snap a few pictures (and everyone is extremely happy to let the White Lady do so) and I got out of there quick.  After a lot of gawking, the men assuming responsibility of it towed her back out into deeper water with ropes and anchored her there and covered her with bush branches.  Everyone either dispersed or hung around.

Later the chief will come and see it, and the appropriate traditional belief leader will perform a ritual, then the hunters will do what they will.  Hippos mean lots of money, because they mean lots of meat, and how many people get to say they’ve eaten hippo meat?  Hippos are very dangerous animals—they kill more humans in Africa than any other mammal.  If there is one or two hanging around in the River Oti, how many fisherman or women and children fetching water would be in danger?  They also graze on rice and okro crops.  Konkomba lore says these animals have a bad spirit, that when gazed upon by pregnant women, a child will be born with a deformity of the mouth (“looking like” a hippo—I’m guessing maybe a cleft palette?).  The ritual performed by the elder takes away that bad spirit and makes it safe.  This is yet another brush with African juju that I have yet to untangle—of course anthropologists dedicate whole careers trying to understand such beliefs.

After this I went back to the house, because I needed water for my throat and I needed to rest and cool down lest my fever return.  I went back in the early afternoon, and the crowd of people had doubled.  The proper rites had all been performed and the small group of men were trying to figure out how to move it.  This posed a problem.  She was easy to maneuver in the water like a boat, but even a hundred men pulling on a rope couldn’t budge the great beast.

Chaos was mounting.  More people were coming wanting to get a glimpse, of this thing they had only heard of or seen in pictures.  In Ghana, when an order has not been established by tradition, or something has to be done or grabbed on the fly, its every man, woman, and child for themselves.  This means you have to fight for what you want when you are in a crowd, because chances are, there’s not enough for everyone—special foods, seats on a certain bus, space in the obroni’s pictures, a space from which to see something (like a football game or a hippo).  Personal space looses all meaning.  Crowds begin encroaching to close to breathe.  When this happens, the cultural answer is a stick.  Everyone is afraid of a stick—they’ve all had one used on them throughout every part of their lives.  Even 2 year old Blossom has started practicing his stick swing for self defense.  So when the crowd gets too close—steps over the foul line of the soccer pitch, say—some appointed adult takes a thin, flexible stick and starts whacking a shins and feet.  This is usually enough to send people flying.  The crowd moves surprisingly quick.  Pretty soon I could see the bush branches over the crowd’s heads disappearing as it desperately tried to keep the crowd back.  Because the water covered shins and ankles the branches grabbed the silty mud and was slung at the crowd repeatedly.  Having already seen the hippo that morning, I was perfectly happy to observe from the bank.

Eventually, defeated by simple ways of moving her, a tractor arrived.  They somehow hooked the great hippo to a chain and drug her onto the riverbank a ways.  The crowd, and the branches, moved along with her.  Kwesi was determined how to get me through the crowd again to take more pictures.  Before I could argue, he barged through in typical Ghanaian fashion.  Then we were again at the edge of the crowd where about six men with branches were trying in vain to keep the crowd back.  Several people around me tried to get me to pose with it, or get closer, but I didn’t want to get smacked.  “They won’t hit you” they said, which really I knew to be true (at least intentionally), but how do I explain to them the guilt of taking advantage, big or small, of any white privilege the give me?  It may seem insignificant, but anyone else who approached it would get hit, but I wouldn’t, intentionally, because I am white.  These small instances occur sometimes and hard to explain the complicated web of feeling around equal treatment, hospitality and friendliness, and skin color.  So I let Kwesi lead me around to the head, quickly took a few pictures and got out of there.

All in all, as I watched the whole episode today, it got me thinking about a theme that was often present in grad school—that of culture and environment—and our expectations of its intersections.  After a history of white Europeans dismissing the environmental knowledge (e.g. balance, natural medicines, cultivation, etc) and the destruction of much of that knowledge, in many ways, we have made a complete 180 in our perceptions.  Instead of demonizing (patronizing?) them, we now romanticize them.  Anthropologists are probably guiltier of this than most.  Romanticism is the genesis of our profession.  Thing about Native Americans, how persecuted they were (in many ways still are), but now how romanticized they are in the subject of nature and environment.  Don’t we now expect these cultures to have great spiritual knowledge and wisdom about the Earth that somehow goes beyond science?  How much of a trope is it to have a sweeping camera shot of a vast landscape in the Western U.S. with a voice over of an old Native American man reciting some ancient poem or proverb with drums and singing in the background?  Part of the Green Movement chases this romantic ideal of harmony with nature and tries to recapture this idea that native cultures all over the world have a deeper understanding of the Earth that industrial nations lack/have abandoned/lost.  As Kwesi and I were leaving, some women were discussing the breakdown of tradition—how in “the olden days” women and children were not allowed to set eyes on it until the bad spirit was exorcised.  But now everyone runs to see it regardless.  White missionaries overwhelmingly succeeded in the “dominion over the Earth” lesson, so now everyone’s response to our questions of bush hunting is “God put them here for us” without looking much further.  How much traditional knowledge did that erase?  Christianity, Islam, and juju get all mixed up around here.  Why should I expect them to revere this awesome creature with ceremonies and celebrations and prayers of thanksgiving, or possibly worship that didn’t enlighten my cultural experience?  I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sad that this event was not met with some great unique cultural grandeur, just jumbled chaos and curiosity, but then mad at myself too for expecting them to conform to my idea of how they should behave and regard nature based on my Western ideas of how non-Western people should act.  Isn’t that just as prejudiced?  I’m not saying that what they did was without reason or mistake—there’s definitely some education that could be done here—but it is obvious to me that this experience of contact with a big part of Mother Nature showed some fault lines in the structure of current society.  This interaction between Mother Nature and no longer completely isolated African village manifested in the hippo shows the haphazard dance of community/village/country in development.  Some new ideas get mixed in with old ones, and newer trends of thinking haven’t taken hold so loosely controlled chaos ensues.

Raid Insecticide Presents another episode of: Life in the Bush

3/12/11

So yesterday I was tidying up the house in preparation for a visitor.  This exercise includes the magnificent (but fortunately brief) task of scrubbing the latrine seat.  This unpleasant task done and based on the last few days' observation, I decided to complete the further unpleasant task of Operation: Cockroach Annihilation.  Since few alternative options, few tools (including lack of traps), and little know-how on my part exist here, the roach genocide has taken this form:  either a powder or spray insecticide is put inside the latrine (aka pit hole toilet) in the hopes that it might kill some on contact.  However, rather than suffer and die in the comfort of their favorite hidey-hole (my latrine) they opt for a mass exodus, where instead, they meet a slow death by broom--and possibly ants.  So, on the rarest occasions humanly possible, one can come through the compound door and observe me in a whack-a-mole competition (hand-held Ghanaian broom aloft) with God's most disgusting creatures shouting "Die roach die!"  They are then swept into the garden to be transported to an unknown location by the ever present Ant Army. 

However, between the insecticide introduction and the mad escapre runs of the cockroaches, some few minutes passes.  As I was occupying myself with another task, I heard a desperate flap of wings and saw the cat run out of the latrine room.  Surprise was my first reaction--Starbucks likes bugs (usually spiders and crickets and dragonflies) and lizards, but never before a cockroach.  Second thought was Damn!  Why didn't didn't you do this the other times cockroaches have appeared?  Maybe you're having some weird cat-pregnancy cravings?  Surprise then led to--Oh shit! That roach probably has insecticide on it!  But by that time, she'd already gobbled it up, cuz, you know, my thoughts are rather slow.  Now I have grown to really like this cat.  She's a lot like my Boo! in affection, temperment, and company, but a vastly more accomplished hunter (not hard to do), and now I was honestly afraid that what she just ate might kill her.  So sat for a moment oscillating between "do something" and "am I overreacting?"  So after a minute or two of this, I called my friend Tricia, a volunteer in the next town, a fellow Ghanaian cat owner and a nurse too.  The Conversation went a little like this:
--Hey, how's it going?
--Good, you?
--Pretty good. Hey, you ready for silly question?
--Sure, shoot.
--How do you induce vomiting in a cat?
--(And without hesitation) Salt.  Or salt water.  Just force it down her throat.
--Great.  Thanks.
--Sure.
Okay, well it went a little longer than that, but you get it.

So I mixed up some salt water and spent the next hour chasing the poor cat around the compound with various combinations of a cup, a spoon, an eye dropper, and a two-yard (a fabric--blanket-like, you know, for wrapping a struggling, panicky cat in) and trying to force-feed her salt water.  And after all that--copious amounts (well it felt like it) of salt water, and undeserved aggravation, I only succeeded in making her very thirsty.  The cat never vomitted and she didn't die.  So I am either the owner of Mutant Super Africa Cat or there was little to no insecticide on the cockroach.  AND dear Starbucks bears no ill will, so either she has a very forgiving nature or just no memory.

A Day in the Life of a Ghanaian Household

Funerals in Ghana are big celebratory affairs when done properly.  There's a procession, a wake, a burial service, a soothsaying ritual and a celebration afterwards--and the whole proess can number in the days rather than hours--and with lots of pito (fermented guinea corn, tasting vaguely like warm, sweet beer) flowing from numerous calabash bowls in between.  Normally, things are going on much of the day, but since everything comes in it's own time in Ghana, most of the day was spent waiting for this particular funeral's activities to start.  Today was the celebration and the soothsaying part (more about that later), which meant that mostly there was going to be lots of drumming and dancing--Kinachung dancing.  Since the funeral was being hosted by Kwesi's household and the dancing didn't get started until late in the afternoon, I spent most of the day hanging out and observing the activity in his house.  Hence you get: A Day in the Life.

Kwesi, his wife and two young boys live in what's called a compound house.  Think of it as a village apartment building.  Three rectangular buildings surround a large cement courtyard with a wall making the fourth side.  These 3 buildings are split equally into separate rooms with one door opening to the courtyard.  Each of these rooms acts as a sleeping room and quasi-, semi-private living room for each occupying family.  Kwesi's family sleeps all in one room as do the other small families in the compound.  A couple empty rooms act as storage spaces.  Cooking areas, washing areas, playing areas, bathing and latrine areas, are all shared in a desgnated place in the courtyard.  In fact, most life happens in the courtyard; most of life is spent outside.  They even set up the tv outside where everyone can sit around and watch it.  Now this compound is owned by Kwesi's father--who also owns/has built two or three other neighboring compounds to accomodate his ever-largening family.  And I mean VERY. LARGE. Family (especially since his grown children are bringing back spouses and children and so on).  Well, those that are still living in Damanko anyway.  Father Taka, like many other obedient Muslims, has four wives (a tradition Kwesi assures me will probably die with his father's generation--"The young ones, we don't make like that") and 22 children between them (it was fun making Kwesi count), among which Kwesi is the 3rd oldest and the first born of his own mother (who is wife #2).  Twenty-two siblings may seem a lot until you realize the extent of the extended family system.  Many of Father Taka's own brothers live nearby or in his other compounds with their own offspring.  These children are not considered cousins, but complete brothers or sisters.  Sometimes, it's hard to discern who's nuclear and who's not.  But that only matters for my own Western-oriented systematic pigeon-holing of everybody.

Anyway, about as far as I can guess, the people living in particular compound besides Kwesi and his family is his elder brother Joseph and his wife and baby, Kwesi's mother and Wife #1, Kwesi's father, another couple of girls/women/sisters I don't know, and another (unmarried?) brother  There ther are several rooms empty or used for storage, endless streams of children running in and out as well as goats, chickens (and their babies), pigeons, dogs, and Father Taka's tom turkey (I think I'll name him Herman).

So anyway, the Day in the Life started as I started walking towards the house.  Almost as soon as I got out of my house I nearly stumbled upon Mpwon, Kwesi's four-year-old son following Aku, one of the girls in the neighboring house.  Kwesi doesn't like his young son to "roam" far from the house and I knew that he was much further out of bounds than he should have been and I knew they'd be missing him.  Luckily, the little tyke adores me, so I had no problem convincing him to go with me.  Halfway there, he wanted to get on my back, so I obliged and he got a few precious minutes of undivided attention from his neighbors as they stared at little Mpwon on the obroni's back.  As we walked into the house, there was no alarm, just the requisite finger-shaking.  Though he'd been MIA most of the morning, no one was really alarmed because they knew he'd eventually come back and he's in no danger, because, well, it's a village--and a village of which Mpwon is related to half the residents.

So, anyway, after walking in and the greetings finished, I sat down next to Lingamwe, Kwesi's wife, who was in the middle of unraveling hair pieces.  I had just sat down to help her with it, when there was Kwesi's mom with a mug of pito in her hands, insisting that I take some.  Now, I like the stuff, but it gets old on the tongue after a short while, and it would taste much better cold.  So, anyway, I took some, and set to the hair pieces.  The compound looked like it did on any other day, save for the headless goat meat hanging from the rafters in the kitchen area--the morning's wash, including Mpwon's school uniform, hanging from the overhang beams; the roosting hens in the corner of the compound; random make-shift children's toys in the courtyard; the water barrel propped up on an old tire; drying bits of yam, cassava and whatnot drying on the roof; a small girl sweeping out a room; a group of boys sitting around a pot of groundnuts and cracking them; Mpwon playing his favorite motorcycle game where he says "bye-bye", then revs up and runs out of the compound and back again and says "Ayikoooo". 

After a short time, Blossom, Kwesi's two year old son, woke up from his nap and peeked out of the room door at me.  This, of course, prompted an immediately fun game of "peekaboo" of which Blossom never tires.  After a while of this, Lingamwe got up and fetched a bucket of water and set it down in the middle of the compound.  Before I knew it, both boys were naked and ready for their bath (not before Blossom peed on the side of the bucket, however).  I watched as she soaped them both up real good--teeth and all--with the omnipresent Ghanaian scrubby bathing cloth (takes the dirt and, if you scrub hard enough, the top layer of skin right off) and rinsed them off.  Whodda thunk one bucket of water could make two little boys clean?  Afterwards, Mpwon came out of the room with his everyday blue shorts and his favorite pink parka.  Yeah, that's what I said.  I think it was probably 100 degrees that day.  Doesn't faze him though.  After I snapped it up for him, he picked up an old bike tire and rolled it out of the compound (a favorite game for children around here--the rolling tire with the stick thing; it involves lots of running).

Since Blossom was all clean, he wanted to sit on my lap.  I can't resist, so we sat there with the other girls still unraveling hair and talking.  The open fires in the kitchen area were going as women were cooking the mid-day meal and pounding fufu.  I saw Kwesi's mother head out with an empty silver basin and plastic meaning she was headed out to fetch some water.  Lingamwe and another small girl were washing some pile of dishes.  One of brothers came in to collect some eggs from the chickens who made quite a retaliating racket.  All in all, it was a day of some lazy chores, just doing the things that keep a household running.  People (most of them women) work hard, yes, but it's punctuated with breaks of pito-drinking (especially on funeral days), sitting and shelling something, or what have you.  Most of the work takes place in the cool hours of the early morning, and, if they're not at farm, by the time the heat of the day comes around 11 am or so, people are more sluggish and doing less activity until it's time for the Water March at around 4 pm.  Then it cools down some and all the women migrate to the river to fetch water.

So anyway, a Day in the Life.  It wasn't a very active day this one, but maybe now you have a little better idea what one looks like.

Initiation of the Discovery Club

I've become frustrated at my other projects, having found out too late that the monies for this year have finished already.  So the latrine project and the computer lab project are on a hiatus right now until we can think of another strategy.  I've scaled back to doing things that require little to no reliance on outside resources and coordination of motivation and deadlines.  I've refocused myself, for the time being, to Peace Corps' basic ideological core--presence, exposure, and inspiration.  Rather than trying to "fix" all the problems--or at least finding solutions for them--I've just jumped in with the students and trying to find ways to show them things that they don't normally have access to, but I do.  So, hopefully, if I can get all the right tools, it will be successful.

I've just finished with the second meeting of my junior high school club, which I'm unofficially referring to as the Discovery Club.  It's got no real form yet, or real agenda.  I just wanted something really informal and fluid; a venue or somewhat organized time that I could use to expose them to some new things when I get them, a time to relax and get to know them, help them with whatever they need--school or otherwise, and when the mood is right, talk to them about bigger things--help them learn what they want to learn.  I want it to be a place and time of discovery--especially at this time in their lives when they're on the verge of adulthood.  Many of them, in fact, will be adults in the next few years, such is the rate of growing up around here.  I have art supplies they aren't familiar with.  I can show them Planet Earth, so they have some idea of the world outside of Damanko or Ghana.  I have seeds for plants they don't normally see.  I can introduce new sports games (like Dodgeball or Capure the Flag).  Maybe we can do some simple science experiments.  We can read books and magazines; do roleplays or some dramas or watch movies or do crafts.  We can make pen pal opportunities, learn about constellations, or just do riddles and puzzles.  Anything really, once I have the materials.  If you have an idea, don't hesitate to tell me or help me!  The people that fascinated me the most when I was a kid were the ones who could bring the world to me--exchange students, groups from foreign places, etc.  And that's the kind of volunteer I want to be.

From here I can also start my girls' club.  When I know a few of the well enough, it can be made of girls who want to be a part of it and show promise, but have a tougher time succeeding because of other obstacles.  We can talk and learn about other important "girl stuff"--role models, gender roles, how our bodies work, life skills like decision making and goal setting, watch sappy romantic movies, and so on.

Oddly enough, I'm beginning to find it easier to work with the school kids than the adults, and kids used to scare me.  Young children do still to some extent, but I'm learning to enjoy them in packs of only 2 or 3.