Where do I even begin? What an eventful two weeks. In fact, there was more “event” and, well, drama than I care for. It’s funny how there’s months of nothing then all of a sudden BAM! The shit just hits the fan.
Kwesi and I (well, especially Kwesi) had been looking forward to putting on these football tournaments for weeks. We gathered soccer teams from smaller villages all around to host a tournament and give education about HIV and gender equality. Peace Corps staff is busy with training a new group of volunteers and because training was to go an extra two weeks this year they decided to inject a bit of field training into the trainees’ schedules. They asked us to plan PEPFAR (HIV/AIDS) events for a set of dates and they would send us trainees as minions to help with the projects. The timing worked out so well that Peace Corps asked us to do two tournaments in two weeks, which we were able to do. It was very exciting. We were planning a big event and I was going to be able to be involved in the training aspect of Peace Corps. I was looking forward to it. Until our little hiccup. Our grant was approved and I collected the money and brought it back to my house. Kwesi and I spent a couple of days buying things mostly for the first tournament—balls, sodas, teaching materials, etc—until that Sunday when I opened my wooden chest in my house and found 500 cedis (400 something dollars) missing. In the middle of planning for the arrival of 7 new people, the educational planning, and getting all the tournament ducks in a row, I now had to deal with this huge violated feeling. Someone I trusted had come in and taken the money. That was the only explanation. An entire bundle of 5 cedis was missing.
After a few days it became obvious who the culprit was. A boy I had trusted and worked with closely for over a year, a boy who through a track record of good behavior had earned my trust enough to be left in my house alone for a few minutes, a boy I had invested many hours into trying to show him he had a future bigger than the village by showing and teaching him things he wouldn't get in the village. Apparently all that meant nothing. These are not decisions I make lightly, but nevertheless, it came back to bite me in the ass. I made the mistake of thinking he was more mature than he actually was. He began spending the money so it was easy, by then, to involve the chief and Joseph, when confronted, confessed to the act. The things he bought were able to be returned and we recovered about two-thirds of the money and were able to avoid canceling the second tournament. The feeling of violation and betrayal is quite overwhelming.
Once we were able to set—mentally—this event aside, the tournaments went on without a hitch. I am not really sure how impactful we were with the education, but I know everyone had a good time. Each tournament was to span 3 days. The first day was devoted to focused education for the players. We had 8 teams of 11 twenty-something young men all in a room together. Since there is a lot of HIV education here and a relatively low prevalence rate (for Africa) it’s common practice to inject other topics into PEPFAR events. Since I had this specific demographic here, I decided to let them discuss gender topics relevant to their lives—roles, relationships, and sex. I hope it was as illuminating for them as it was for me.
It has been obvious to me for a while that I am witnessing a country in transition. When many go outside the Western world, they are confronted and frustrated by a people rooted in traditions and old, oppressive ideas, especially with respect to gender. Ghana is right in the middle of that old and new tug-of-war, and the catalyst, very vocally stated, is education. When one attends school and finishes they enter into this elite rank of Educated which immediately marks you as having certain beliefs and certain behaviors. To be uneducated means you have no idea how to operate in a modern Ghana. Educated Ghanaian men have certain beliefs regarding the rigidity of men and women’s roles and expectations in life. They want to fit in with the modern world. The “uneducated” ones as you can imagine are less enlightened. Yet they will still follow their educated brethren up to a point.
After talking about the expectations of men and women in this culture, we read some statements to act as a catalyst for discussion—whether they agreed or disagreed with them. The one that was most interesting was whether it was easier to be a man than a woman. One group said that their lives are so different there’s no comparison. Life is difficult for everyone. For others it was a little difficult to draw an honest answer. Most of them see that Ghana is changing; it’s impressing them with the awareness that they are at the forefront of that change and to do that role justice that’s hard. And that if they choose to keep the same roles they have always kept—men the breadwinners, women the house—then they need to do those jobs with the utmost integrity and respect, and allow people the choice to live outside those roles.
But you can only keep their attentions so long when there’s football to be had. Everyone played well and magnanimously, except for one team whom I nearly disqualified for threatening the referees. I had left 99% of the football up to Kwesi to completely organize and run, so I only looked on with a perplexed look when he started officiating one of the matches. If I had known sooner why he was doing that, I would have disqualified the team, but instead, I laid the smackdown on them before their second match (shaking and squeaking with anger) and they shaped up.
The second tournament went a lot smoother than the first one, yet the first one seemed to have more glory. The championship game was a real nail-biter too. Several of the matches (including the final match) went into penalty kicks which really turns into utter chaos. Even though Kwesi was almost entirely responsible for organizing the football matches, it was incredibly satisfying to see so many turn out for something you had a hand in. That and the vanity in me is just happy to know I’m capable of organizing such a massive event. The trainees I had really stepped up too. During the games we did some impromptu, small group education using pictures about proper sanitation and malaria. They really jumped in there and were a big help. I was really impressed with their lack of timidity. Maybe that’s because some of them are just crazy.
