Greeting the Chief

Once I had been in Damanko a couple of days, Kofi took me to “greet the chief,” who is actually his uncle.  Every town and community has a chief and it is proper whenever you are in their community, to seek them out and say hello and what you are doing in their community.  Every community we have been in while training, while visiting volunteers or whatever, one of the first things we did was greet the chief.  Though the situation differs due to tribal practices or region, they usually proceed in this way: you approach the chief’s compound and seek out either him or one of his elders after having prearranged this meeting.  All official chief business takes place in a round concrete room with a large pedestal on which sits his official seat and that of the Queen Mother.  The individual or group must be “invited in” so once the chief situates himself on the pedestal and sorted out the cloth that drapes him, the group is invited into the round room.  For northern chiefs, the protocol is to squat when you approach and stay that way until he invites you to sit (which isn’t very long).  After the proper greetings of hello and how are you, you tell the chief your name and your purpose for seeing him and being in the community.  You say this to the chief, but he also has “a linguist” who repeats, translates, or summarizes what you just said so the chief doesn’t have to question in case he doesn’t understand something.  They also say the linguist is responsible for “polishing” the language—using the right words/language in the presence of the chief.  It is also proper to bring the chief a gift, usually something small like kola nuts or alcohol which you then present, especially if you need something from him—permission, knowledge, etc. 

Armed with these experiences, Kofi and I went to greet the chief.  Now I know for the Konkomba people (who is the predominant tribe in this village) their chief system is considerably less formal that most of other tribes in Ghana.  In this chief’s round room, sits his pedestal and throne and Queen Mother seat, but also a stack of DVDs, a TV and DVD player, a ceiling fan, and probably 20 large burlap sacks of groundnuts.  Three women were in there watching TV and shucking groundnuts, much like one would shuck peas.  Kofi and I sat down in the plastic yard chairs that are everywhere in Ghana, and a few minutes later, the chief came.  We squatted as he came in the room and he sat on the edge of his pedestal.  We exchanged greetings and I told him my plans for the next few months.  There was no linguist (I’m not sure this chief has one) so Kofi was translating, though I know the chief must speak at least as good English as Kofi does.  After that we presented him with the small gift of alcohol.  Now when alcohol is given to a chief it is usually the locally brewed gin.  It’s very strong and used for ritual blessings and the like, so when I asked Kofi what I should bring to the chief, he dithered then eventually said “Bring him a beer.”  The conversation went something like this:

“You mean like Star or Stone or something?” These are the Ghanaian brewed beers. 

“Yes.  Bring him a Star.”  Star is about like PBR, I think.  “And a biscuit.” 

“Kofi, are you telling me I should bring the chief a Star and Obama biscuits?”  I nearly died laughing.  Biscuits are cookies here, and because Obama’s name is on everything, there are Obama biscuits everywhere.  They’re small wheat type cookies that taste little sweet and how I imagine dog food would taste.  We didn’t get the biscuits, but we bought a Star on the way and gave it to him, still in the plastic bag.  The chief knew before this greeting that I was here, and has been expecting me to come for a long time and seems very excited for me to get started.  He’s rather young—in his forties—and pretty easy-going.  He was wearing a yellow anti-malaria shirt and denim jeans.  I think we’ll get along just fine.

On the Road to Damanko

8/17/10

So this is it.  I am sitting here in my new house in Damanko.  Now the work begins for real.  I have hit the deep end of the water now.  It seems to me that training has been an act of removing a series of safety nets one by one until you’re finally left alone, standing on your own.  From what I have now observed and experienced, Peace Corps training creates a continuum for us new trainees to move along from “fresh off the boat” to “fully integrated.”  When I first arrived, I was enmeshed in a large group of people in my same situation—here for the same purpose, from the same country/culture, and similar walks of life.  Though we all came from different experiences and backgrounds, we all became comfortable in our shared backgrounds and sense of purpose that stood in stark contrast to our new surroundings.  Peace Corps kept us more or less isolated, restricted our activities on our own pretty severely, carefully monitored our food, provided for much of our transportation by private Peace Corps car, and made sure every place we stayed for any length of time was highly fortified for our protection.  And all around treated us real delicate-like.  At first it was a little aggravating, having been used to striking out and exploring things on my own, but they repeatedly told us it was for our safety, and for our comfort, so as not to overwhelm us too soon and increase somebody’s risk of terminating early.  After a time of careful isolation, time used to get to know our fellow American and develop bonds we would use for the next two years, Peace Corps gave us a little language skill and sent us out in groups to travel to a current volunteer’s site as our first introduction to life and operation in Ghana.  Upon return we were placed into homestays which incurred a higher degree of culture shock than previously encountered, but was still closely monitored by Peace Corps.  The homes are carefully chosen, the family members instructed on how to properly cook for their new American children, and language and cultural facilitators placed in the villages themselves, should there be any friction between the American, their homestay family, and the integration into Ghanaian life.  Still, I was not far from my fellow volunteers, my trainers, or other support staff and still spent most of my day with these people while we were receiving the necessary skills for the next two years.  After a time in homestay, getting used to living at a different standard, getting used to a different rhythm of life and family structure, but still having an escape in my own room and with my American counterparts, we were introduced to our assigned Ghanaian counterparts and given a chance to visit the place we would spend the next two years.  On my second opportunity traveling in Ghana, I was still not required to do it on my own, and was guided by people who have been navigating this scene their entire lives.  After site visit, there was technical training at a different village, more remote, more rural, more underdeveloped before going back to homestay and preparing for the official swearing-in.  Afterwards, when they have fully grown their new volunteers, Peace Corps stands at the door and waves good-bye, wishing you luck, and promising to be there at the most critical times, but otherwise will remain at an arm’s length to let you succeed and falter by yourself.  You’re welcome back anytime, but your bedroom will now be converted into the craft room.  And with that, they send us off to our sites.  As many of us were traveling the same direction—through the Volta Region—we could begin travel as a small group, and one by one as we got farther, people would drop off, making the group smaller and smaller.  I am one of the furthest away, so one of the last to get to site.  It has taken me two days, but even so, I arrived here with another new volunteer, my friend Nhial, who waited here until his counterparts in the next village could come pick him up signaling the real end of training.  As he left, I suddenly had this vision of my last safety net being surreptitiously pulled away.  It reminded me of one single moment after moving to college for the first time.  When my parents walked out of my dorm after moving me in, the transition to adulthood hit me for real.  I was on my own now and completely responsible for everything I do and don’t do.  One safety net right after the other has been peeled away as training has progressed, until now I am here in Damanko, by myself, and starting from nearly scratch.  I know some language, and know some of what to expect; I have a good APCD (Peace Corps acronym meaning Boss) and good counterparts I can rely on.  These are safety nets I still have, they are just further below me and I have farther to fall before I hit them.  I am not too overwhelmed by the newness of it all anymore, but it is still jarring to finally be the only American anywhere around and without the comfort of time and experience in a place.  It’s definitely a challenge that I want to look back on and be proud I conquered.  It just takes time.

Anyway, that said, I have a long, interesting, and exciting road ahead of me.  I have a great house for starters.  Housing is provided by the communities that request volunteers and have to meet certain Peace Corps requirements, like: a concrete or plaster structure with two locked rooms, exclusive latrine and bath room, and a place to cook.  My house is my own little Fortress of Solitude.  I am quite amazed at its presence and functionality.  I have my own small compound, which can be closed off with a locked door, and that, in turn, is surrounded by a plastered wall with a closeable and lockable gate.  I have two large rooms, one for sitting and one for sleeping, my own latrine and bath room, and a kitchen room with a storage room.  I am the fourth generation Peace Corps Volunteer to be here, so I have the benefit of piggy-backing on previous volunteers’ accumulations.  It’s quite the Peace Corps jackpot really.  Others I know that are at brand new sites have only the rooms and the bed and must otherwise acquire their household needs (which PC does give us money for).  This means I have furniture, a furnished kitchen with propane to cook with (which is proving a task to get currently since there is an apparent nationwide shortage at the moment), even drapes and flooring.  In the middle of my compound is a vine that reaches up to the roof and provides a nice canopy in the small courtyard.  I’ve called it my White Tree of Gondor.  My house sits on the edge of the market space, a space which every six days is overflowing with people, merchandise, meanderers, loud voices, vehicles, livestock—the chaotic bustle life which comes like a wave and splashes against my wall, flowing around the sides of it like a tide.  However, once past that gate, the world washes away (well, except for the noise), and I have a respite from the stares we PCVs refer to as “being in the fishbowl.”  This is a rare privilege for a PCV, and I hope that the temptation of hiding that the house offers does not impede my work or my integration.  I go out in short spurts at time, allowing myself to take it slow, because who says I shouldn’t?  I go out once or twice to buy food for me—and the cat. 

Damanko sits nestled in the curve of the River Oti that feeds into Lake Volta.  Its main social center is marked by a two story green mosque next to a filling station.  Throughout the day, the call to prayer rings out above the chatter and clatter and hubbub of life in the town.  Behind the mosque is a large open space surrounded by small enterprise sheds making small businesses.  This space holds the Damanko market every six days, but it is so large that it snakes along through improvised alleyways and into a different market space behind with shelters make of rudimentary logs and thatch.  The food sellers tend to be in the open, laying their produce on burlap sacks separating them from the dirt covered ground.  They sell tomatoes, oranges, garden eggs (which taste a lot like eggplant), hot peppe (not pepper, but “pep-pay” as it is locally pronounced), brofut (fried cornbread balls—yum), seeds, beans, fish, okra, onions, and some other things.  The back space is left for clothes and cloth sellers and other ready-made products. 

I have been amusing myself the last week or so by walking all over.  I walk to the large steel bridge that crosses the river and watch the men go out in their long fishing boats, paddling along and setting their nets, their silhouettes dark against the bright river.  I’ve walked to the clinic which is just behind the many school buildings which are empty and quietly peaceful while the students are still on vacation.  The clinic sits out in the bush outside the hubbub of town with a beautiful view of the valley.  It beautiful and quiet place to heal, I think.  Right next to my house in the market square is Grace’s hair salon.  It is only a room with chairs, hair products, and a couple of mirrors.  I sit with her while she does women’s hair trying to coax her 13 month old daughter to like me.  Connected to my house is another small building which holds a sewing school.  In Ghana, if you don’t buy Western clothes, you buy yards of cloth and take it to a seamstress or a tailor who will sew a dress or shirts and trousers for you.  This is a trade many men and women participate in, and next door to me is a government run school.  It’s very informal and the teacher and I get on really well.  The girls there enjoy helping me brush up on my language skills.  I watch the teacher sew men’s trousers.  Man, I never realized how complicated they are.  Sheesh.  Now that I’ve been here a little while, the people who were friends with the previous volunteers (a married couple from Ohio who left a year ago) have started to stop by and make themselves known.  Young Joseph comes by in the afternoons and though he’s only 13, I think he knows everything about the plants around here.  Rebecca comes to sell me bread.  She is my “tea bread” hook up, and I’m happy for it.  She’s really smiley and happy and I liked her immediately.  The bread she sells pays for her school fees (you have to pay to attend high school in Ghana) and hopes to go to nursing school afterwards.

So slowly I am settling in and beginning the slow process of integrating.  Kofi and I finally got the leaks fixed in the roof and now I can begin to organize my things.  If only I could get that darn propane so I can cook something.

Just.....water

8/10/10

Water/nsuo/nnyun/aqua/wasser

There we are.  “Water” in every language I know.  English/Twi/Likpakpaln/Spanish/German.  We all know so much relies on this single element; so much of life and activity revolves around this simple liquid.  Take a moment and think about your daily interactions with water.  No, really.  Do it.  I’m not talking about how much your body relies on it, but how you interact with water.  How do you use it?  How do you think about it?  When do you think about it?  What do you use it for?  How much do you use?  Do you use different kinds of water for different tasks?  Are there different kinds of water?  Do you like the way it tastes, feels?  Is it comforting, refreshing, dangerous?  How do you use water to interact with other people?  Do you?  Where does it come from before your body touches it?  Where does it go when you are finished with it?  How does it get from one place to the other?  How do we as a civilization get it from one place to the other?  How does it get to your house?  My host father asked how we get water up to the top of very tall buildings.  Do you know?

In a place where your water does not come from the lift of a tap or the twist of a knob, your interactions with water completely change.  They have to.  Water now becomes a major task to acquire and use.  As a Health/Water and Sanitation volunteer, water (like shit in the previous post) becomes a major part of my work.  For weeks I have been learning about the different water systems in place and observing the different interactions around water.  The infrastructure for running water does not yet exist for all places in Ghana, in fact, it is rare to have a house with running water.  Most households possess several large water barrels where the water is stored and accessed.  Here, in Anyinasin, there are three sources of water—the rain, the river (more like a large stream), and the borehole.  Each is collected at different times and used for different tasks and thought of differently.  When it rains (which it hasn’t done very much recently), the barrels are placed in strategic areas in the compound where the water runs off the roof.  It is fairly clean if you allow the water to run off for five or ten minutes to let the rain wash off all the dust, dirt, and lizard poop.  And…rain water is free.  Collecting from the river is also free, and you can guess how clean and healthy that can be to use.  Most people will also tell you it has a different taste from the other waters, and is usually preferred.  “It tastes sweet.”  Borehole water is a different matter.  A borehole is essentially a simple mechanized well.  Hand-dug wells still exist in Ghana, but many have been upgraded to boreholes.  A hole is drilled deep into the earth where the ground water is clear and (mostly) clean.  The top of the hole has a metal hand pump that must be, well, pumped any time one wants to access the water.  Collecting water from the boreholes tend to cost money because there has to be a fund for when parts break (which they inevitably do) and someone has to be paid to fix it.  Development agencies have finally realized that they can’t just come in and build boreholes and expect people to use them and upkeep them without education and funds.  (Okay really, I’m going to write that post on sustainability one of these days.)  Especially when the taste of river water is preferred. 

We use this water for everything.  There are three cups in the house that are used for dipping into the barrel to get water.  We use these to fill bucket for bathing and laundry, for cooking, for hand washing, and whatever else comes up.  The river water will be used mostly for dishwashing or other kinds of washing, or my host father may bathe with it after he comes back from the farm.  Water is moved from pumps to buckets, to barrels, to buckets, to dishes, to body, to clothes, etc.  It’s amazing how much less water everything takes.  I really don’t need more than a bucket of water to get clean, even if I wash my hair.  Clothes don’t need nearly the amount of water that machines use either.  In fact, I think my host mother has been able to get some of my clothes cleaner than they have been in many many machine washes.  It’s almost like the further and further we get from the source and act of acquiring such basic essentials, the more we forget how little of it we actually need.

Okay, so I’ve briefly described the sources we can get water from when we need it, so how do we get it, and what do we do after we get it?  So, the water barrels in my host family’s house are getting low.  My little sisters get a couple of buckets and head to either the river or the borehole.  Usually the river water is contained in one barrel and filled first because the river is closer.  I, however, am not allowed (nor do I want to) ever use the river water, (both as a HWS volunteer and by Peace Corps itself), so the barrel by my room and usually another one, is only for borehole water.   If the barrels are low, this is usually the first task of the morning.  So, I go with Prinsla and Adua (ages 8 and 10 respectively) to the borehole with the buckets.  It’s a short walk, really, down the path and across the road to the borehole pump.  Morning is water collection time, so there are already several women and children there, with the occasional man or boy.  Everyone is standing around waiting their turn amidst the strewn buckets and containers, the queue somehow worked out in their heads.  The pump has a large pipe faucet and the pump is a lever that is pulled up and down like one of those railroad carts from old Mickey Mouse cartoons.  One container is left underneath the faucet as a catch all as other containers are filled and/or poured into other containers.  When your bucket is filled, you put a small rolled cloth on your head arranged like a bird’s nest and with the help of another person, the bucket goes on your head and off you go.  Once you have walked back to the house to empty the bucket into the waiting barrel, you stand a foot or less away from it, and without taking the bucket from your head, bend your body in such a way that you pour the water from the bucket on your head into the barrel.  I have watched Adua do this many times without spilling a drop.

So, last week, I woke up to water being poured in the barrel.  I got up and got dressed and walked out of my room as the girls were ready to go for another round.  On a whim, I thought—I’ll go too.  And though it struck them as weird, they weren’t about to turn it down.  I wasn’t going to collect any, well, because I didn’t want to spill it on the way back, so I amused them and the rest of the town by trying to balance the empty bucket on my head.  Several mornings ago, the same scenario occurred, but this time, my host mother had to go too because we needed more water than just what the girls could carry.  So, with her encouragement and the amusement of the other women at the borehole, I risked the spillage.  Mame filled the bucket and, after a couple tries, placed it on my head.  I had a death grip on the rim of the bucket so I didn’t have to worry about balancing and with my old marching band skills called out of long retirement to a completely unforeseen situation, only managed to spill half of it down the front of me on the ten minute walk back.  Then, the best part of all, I get to pour it into the barrel from the top of my head.  Well, needless to say, I did spill a drop—several million in fact.  But at least most of the bucket got in the barrel!

Ahem.

I've been trying to think of a good way to write a "development" post for days.  But, instead, I'm going to link you to one of my PCV trainee buddies who is far more articulate about it than I.  I will try to continue the discussion in a later post.

http://little-emmaline.blogspot.com/2010/08/slippery-slope-you-can-chew-on.html#comment-form

Channeling Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmerman---No Reservations for Bizarre Foods?

There is a certain, probably scientifically predictable, time that every Peace Corps group will experience.  There is a threshold which we all cross, somewhat unobtrusively, into the time when half of all our conversations revolve around food.  Usually they take the form of our current cravings—ranch dressing, Dairy Queen blizzards, red wine, pretzels, sushi, BLTs, guacamole, tortilla chips, CHEESE—but they all inevitably end up there.  “God, what I wouldn’t give for a (insert random grocery store item here) with some (add appropriate condiment),” or “I used to cook (blank) with (blank blank).  Man I would kill to have that now.” “Dude, I really want a burrito!”  Etc etc.  One of the institutionalized systems of culture shock, I can assure you.  As most of my friends will tell you, I quite enjoy my cross-cultural culinary excursions.  I kind of made it a hobby.  I looked forward to Friday nights the last couple years as they eventually became our ritual Ethnic Food Night.  After a week of sitting through classes, working on projects, reading articles that just went on for pages, my roommate and my friend down the hall and I would head out to one of our favorite non-American restaurants in the greater DC area.  Our favorites were the ones where we were the only white people in the place.  DC is a Mecca for every immigrant group in America, which essentially means you can find food from anywhere in the world—I mean literally.  I’m sure if you searched, you could find food from Greenland.  If someone immigrated to America from another country, there is probably a restaurant in DC that serves food from there.  The three of us would make the rounds between our Japanese, Vietnamese pho, Thai, Korean, Ethiopian, Caribbean, Lebanese, or Indian.  I’ve also had Moroccan, El Salvadorian, and Peruvian chicken.  Allison and I would sometimes head to Silver Spring for Ethiopian food and a film at the cultural center across the street.  I love DC for its variety.  You can find any kind of food from anywhere in the world—even Ghanaian.  There is a Ghanaian restaurant in DC.  I am no stranger to trying, adventuring, acclimating, and desiring food / meals / eating from cultures that exist in the world.  As feminist bell hooks has said, I quite enjoy “eating the Other.”  But it is the access to this constant variety that I became used to that is stressing me now, and the source, I think, of our expressions of the foods we miss.  It’s very difficult for many of us having a large menu of things we can cook, to having stewed vegetables and yams always.  I always thought I had a small menu to cook, because I can’t cook any of the ethnic dishes I named above, but at least one dish was vastly different from the other.  At its most basic level, 90% of Ghanaian food is oriented like this:  stewed vegetables in a sauce (usually tomato-based with lots of “peppe”) with meat + something starchy—yams, rice, noodles.  OR, one can make soup (palm nut or groundnut, for a couple of examples) with a chunk of meat and poured over something starchy that has been molded into a dough-like thing—fufu, riceballs, banku, kenkey, or T-Zet.  Fufu and banku function as unofficial (or maybe official—fact check, please) national dishes.  Fufu, as I described in a previous post, is made with cassava and plantains, or, if you’re in the North, yams and plantains pounded into a dough-like element.  Banku is essentially pounded or ground up fermented corn.  It may sound unpleasant but it tastes better than it sounds—much like boiled custard in Appalachian Virginia that actually tastes like non alcoholic eggnog.   Banku actually tastes a lot like sourdough bread.  Both fufu and banku are eaten in a bowl with the soup + meat (which for me is usually fish, but most often its beef and taken from just about any part of the cow) mixture poured over them.  As in most places in Africa, you eat with your hands, so you tear off a piece of fufu or banku, dip it in the soup and voila!—oh yeah, and, for some reason, you swallow it whole.  There is also jollof rice and fried chicken, waakye (rice and beans + pepper sauce + noodles + boiled egg), but these are really the bulk of the meal choices.  Other food exists—chop (or street food, “fast food”) other food made by women and sold from trays on their heads or from their stands such as boiled eggs, fried fish, coconuts, fried donuts, etc. 

So again, the hardest adjustment is the lack of variety.  There’s essentially no dairy and without cheese, that cuts out a significant amount of dishes we can create here that resembles American food.  Laughing Cow has the market, evidently.  I like the taste of all the Ghanaian dishes alright (though I’ve learned the hard way that my body outright rejects a certain kind of yam—at least that’s the working theory from that one night at Bunso….), it’s just hard to have stew or soup every night—even if the ingredients are different.  I guess that is why I look forward to my everyday lunch of cheese-less omelet sandwich.  It’s just something sooooo familiar.  Eggs, with onion, pepper, tomatoes, and even some lettuce, then put on some bread.  Plus it caters to my well honed daily habit since childhood of having a sandwich every single day for lunch.  Who would have thought an egg sandwich would be so comforting?

While we were at technical training, a couple of our trainers who are current volunteers and had been here at least a year, made a couple of American meals.  One night was spaghetti and garlic bread, which can be made from stuff that’s really easy to get here (well, minus the cheese).  It was probably the best spaghetti I ever had.  The last night we actually devised a way to make cheeseburgers.  The key is the meat grinder, well, and the cheese.  We were in a place near Tamale which is a big city in the Northern Region and very cosmopolitan, and a place where one can find an “obroni” store (a store where they sell things white people like—catch the reference?) and the Peace Corps sub office there has a meat grinder.  So we ground up the beef, bought some cheese and ketchup, and threw the meat on the grill.  We had vegetable and fruit salad (FRESH veggies, with the exception of corn, are eaten rarely here and must be washed really really well).  We even bought bagged and frozen French fries!   You would have thought the 15 of us would have died and gone to heaven.  Shawn even cooked brownies.

So I challenge you, Anthony or Andrew, to come here and pound some fufu, stew some groundnut soup, and swallow all of it.  Every last bit.  Because it is huge.

Note about my new feature

So you may have noticed the new list to the right of this blog (or you may not).  I have created a list of things that would just blow my mind to see in a package.  But, I must explain about the food items.  You see, after about two months in country, it's amazing how half of our conversations revolve around food.  Ghanaian food is good, but it's biggest problem (for me) is it provides a lack of variety.  I miss not just American food, but ethnic food like crazy.  So, I know many prepackaged or otherwise vacuum sealed foods exist in America (even tuna and chicken from Chicken of the Sea--yes, volunteers do get them shipped over), so if any of you feel compelled to send me some fake cheese (like Velveeta or something) or Taste of Thai Peanut Sauce, you will get many good thoughts sent your way from Ghana.  Just PLEASE! don't send things that will go bad.  The other non-food items on the list are excellent for working with the kids and giving out as small gifts or prizes.

Another note on pricing.  If you use the cheapest USPS flat-rate box, it will cost $56 for up to 20 lbs.  If, however, you don't want to send enough to fill up a box, my dad sent a bubble envelope with light things for $12.

So that was my shameless plug.  But also, none of these packages would complete without a note or pictures from you!  I miss your personal connections more than the stuff!

Kristi

Some small life details:

This morning I woke up to a crowing rooster and a neighbor blasting Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”  Old 90’s pop music is very popular here.

Cars run on duct tape and miracles.

This is where Good Will clothes come for their last rites.  All those clothes you throw in a donation pile?  Yeah, they end up here.  That’s how you get five-year-olds with shirts that say “Fuck the Clock” and Mitt Romney for President.  It provides endless entertainment.

I picked up a worm yesterday and chased my sisters out of the compound with it.  That was fun.

The head is your basic carry-all.  Yesterday, my host mother needed both her hands to hang the laundry, so she put the wet clothes she was hanging on her head to hold them.  

All the dogs look the same, but I don't really want to touch them.

I have inherited a cat with my house in Damanko.  I decided that her name will be Starbucks.