It's been a while!

Hello M'Adamfo (my friend)!

It has been quite a while since I last posted, but much has been going on. Last weekend, I went to a Ghanaian play at the National Theater called Romantic nonsense. It was in a theater that seemed to be cross between my high school theater and broadway-the theater sat about 2000 in nice seats but the lighting was very minimal. The play was based around short scenes dictating a relationship between a Ghanaian man and woman and brought up a lot of interesting perceptions of relationships in Ghana. Some of my favorite lines from the play were: one song that the whole audience knew and chimed in with everytime it was sung was "God man the man, man made the woman, woman made the devil, devil made fire, Oh fire, fire fire fire, fire down below", another of my favorites was "marriage is the only institution in which the man looses his bachelors degree and the woman gains a masters degree" and "women are like hot palm nut soup, if you stick your face inthe bowl you will burn yourself, you must drink from the edges" and "marriage is the only war where you sleep in the same bed as your enemy". Perceptions of relationships don't differ so much here as from the US, they move much slower and you are not to show affection in public. There's a strong emphasis on women being able to cook and clean and take care of the chores of the house, while the man provides through work. Nonetheless the play focused on similar challenges as we would find the in US marriage like a relative unannounced staying with a new couple, a random woman walking is accusing the man of having an affiar with her but mistakenly getting the wrong person. In between each scene there was a 5 minute pause where the same song was played and people laughed and talked about the last scene.

The next day my host family, Dave, and I went to MaxMart to pick up some supplies for Valentines Day. MaxMart is a mall similar to what you would find in the US and I was amazed to find a supermarket with cornflakes, frenchfries, and salsa. Juxtaposed with the poverty right outside of the mall, it really brought my attention to the fact that in our world it's not just rich countries and more countries, there are very affluent areas of developing countries. I didn't realize the extent to which these exist, but seeing Ben and Jerrys sold for 16 sidi ($20), I realized that there is a strong desire in the affluent places of developing countries for the same products that we eat in the developed countries. On Sunday, I pounded Fufu with my host family and realized that American skin is very weak, I came out it with several blisters and was tired after a mere 10 minutes of pounding.

The rest of the week was fairly routine. I'm working on a number of proposals at my internship in water projects for slum communities. I attend my classes, one of which I hardly pay attention to because the professor is literally reading from a book that I now have a copy of. Apparently, no one in the class has gotten a copy of the nonrequired readings, which explains why no one else realizes he is reading word for word from a book.

This weekend was particularly interesting. I attended a funeral this weekend that was very different that what funerals are like in the US. It began in Friday night, we arrived around 4:30 to Kotobabeh in downtown Accra. Kotobabeh is a community dominated by shacks and makeshift structures, there's a nearby river the runs through that is a cloudy green because it is used as the main urination and defecation spot for most village residents. So, we arrived outside this large house where 7 canopies and about 400 chairs had been setup. We sat for about 2 hours chatting with the family and then went with my host aunt and her friend to get some drinks. After a couple beers, we came back and as we were walking back I started dancing to the music. The whole time there had been a large set of speakers setup amongst the canopies that had been blasting music. I started dancing and the kids thought it was particularly funny, so I pulled one of the kids in to dance with me. Soon enough, I was dancing a combination of the African dance moves I know and some American style with about 15 kids around me. After about 15 minutes they were all copying every move I made. So I had all the kids go low to the ground, count to three and then we'd all jump into the air, 5 minutes later I had the idea to have us dance in a circle so we danced in a circle with Ghanaian dance moves and I'd periodically switch directions and we'd rotate the circle the other way. Then I had the idea to have us dance in a circle holding hands Hora style, so we did. Afterwards I was quite tired so I sat down and chatted with Dave and my host mom for a while. The music continued to blast so conversation was limited, but around 9:30 a man comes over the microphone and says, "Please be seated, we're going to start the wake". Everyone sat down and he started speaking in Twi, suddenly he started singing a prayer and everyone joined in. Then the same thing happened for a second prayer. Then a small brass band started playing and a third prayer was started. A token drunk guys was dancing to the whole thing, standing in the front row, and "conducting" the bands. As the brass band concluded a couple songs a small African band with three drums, a shaker, and a tamberine started playing and the first 12 rows got up and started singing, swaying and dancing. Apparently, it was the church choir. The speaker then introduced the next group, the Kotobabeh boys who went to the front and started shouting and dancing together and singing. As these three groups were exchanging songs, it got to be about 10:30. I had been told earlier by my host family that we'd be leaving around 10:00, so my host Mom turns to me and says "Yen Kaw"-meaning let's go. As we were leaving, we started filing in a house which was unexpected given I thought we were leaving. As we were filing into the house with much of the family, the drunk was holding onto my ass and I remarked to Dave "Dude, the drunk guy is holding my ass", Dave turns around and says politely, "Shhh.." I was slighly confused by immediately realized why because as we walked into the room there was an open casket with Wisdom, the deceased. Wisdom was the son of my host mother's brother. He was wearing a nice suit with white socks and just laying there. Having never seen a dead body before (since Jews tend not to do open casket funerals), I was shocked and had the strange urge to touch him. At that point, I had been barely briefed by my family and didn't know the deceased's name of why he died and I was walking in the room with a group of people I barely knew in a country I had come to a bare 6 weeks ago. To say the least it was a very strange experience. The only time I saw a person cry the whole weekend was as they were filing through the room with the casket. At that point, I realized I was at a funeral not a party. Up until that point it had been singing, dancing, eating, and drinking. After viewing the body, the dancing and singing continued-most of the members stayed there until 4 in the morning dancing and singing. Periodically they'd give us sweets and drinks. Me and my host family stayed until about 12:30 and headed home. Saturday the body was taken up to Wisdom's home village to be buried and only a couple of the family members went. Sunday, which was the day we were to wear all black was a very strange experience as well. This was the day of the actual "funeral". We arrived at 1 and sat around talking with the family until 4, for some reasons I thought that were were going to have some sort of ceremony or service of some kind, so I asked my host mother Auntie Rejoice, when the service started. She responded, "There is no service" so I asked, so what are we doing the rest of today and she said, "This". This consisted of loud blasting music, periodic dancing, eating and drinking. I was quite confused, but shortly afterwards was pulled up by Aunti Jo to dance, so I did. Me and her were the only peope dancing, as while we danced all the Ghanaians sitting were watching, I broke it down to the best of my ability. As we were dancing, a Ghanaian man came up and put a sidi in my pocket, then another women came up and put a sidi (about $0.70) on my forehead. I never expected that dancing in Ghana could be profitable!

So in between the days of the wedding I went to Aburi Gardens, a Botanical gardens a couple of hours from Accra. with one my friends, Kristen, we rent bicycles and biked through villages on our way to a waterfall. We biked through the jungle, past a church playing volleyball, past dozens of kids who called Obruni as I passed by, and got to the beginning of the hike. So we got off the bikes and were accompanied by two new people who kept demanding money from us, they hiked with us all the way to the waterfall (about 10 minutes downhill) and continued to accost us as I played in the waterfall. I decided that it would be a good time to read the Shema (a Jewish prayer) as it was Shabbat, so as I was reading it the man told us that we should leave now. I looked to our guide and he motioned that we were OK to stay, so I ignored the annoying man. He again persisted and I stupidly said, "My friend, please leave". Not taking this comment too likely he marched up the rock I was sitting on and shouted, "You ask me to leave one more time and I'll show you what kind of man I am". The tension was intense and if he had touched me, I probably would've hit back. So I finished the Shema and waited for the annoying man to leave on his own, finally realizing that we weren't going to pay him any money. We hiked back up the mountain and biked back to the shop about 5 km mainly uphill. On the way back I stopped to buy some Aborawbeh, pineapple and let some little kids ride my bike. It was a very pleasant bike ride through villages, past most of Ghana that rarely sees tourists.

Well I think that's a good enough entry for now. Take care and I'll keep you posted!

Yebehyia Bio,
Ben

Awesome update!

Hey guys!

It's been an awesome past couple days and so eventful that I decided to post early! So this weekend we went to Cape Coast. Cape Coast is an area about 2 hours east of Ghana and is home Elmina and Kakum National park. Elmina is one of the largest slave castles in West Africa and we walked through the dungeons of the castle where slaves were held, saw the governors quarter, heard stories about the horrid treatment of the slaves. The castle itself is a large structure ironically with a church squarely in the middle. The church was one of the strangest things to me that inside it was God's place but right outside was dehumnization and evil. Regardless, in the room of no return the tourguide asked us to say "never again" together, which evoked memories for me of the week I spent viewing concentration camps after Junior year of high school. I haven't said those words since talking about Darfur and the Holocaust, so to here them again was powerful. I realized that humans have an incredible ability to justify any action, no matter how inhuman, and that we are a very regretful species, we have said "never again" so many times about so many things in history, and it's a guarantee that someone will look back at today and say that our generation regrets not having acted for something.

So the next day we went to Kakum National Park and walked along a canopy walked that was about 100-150 feet off the ground. As my friend Robyn described "it was hammock material with a ladder on the bottom and pieces of wood sitting on top". It was shaky but sturdy and it was very exciting to see the jungle from so high up.

We got back last night and I passed out at my homestay after watching a Thai movie called Body Gaurd that was entirely in Thai, my host family bought it being told it was in English. Yesterday I went to my internship for the first time. It was a great day! It began with a battle for the tro-tro. At 6:30 in the morning, there were about 100 people at the tro-tro stop and tros came every 5-10 minutes only with 5 or 6 empty spots. So as the tro came by people would run towards it and elbow, push and chove to get on. Because I wanted to get to my internship on time, I was on the front lines. So when one tro-tro came really close to me, I dashed towards it and was at the front of the line. I tried to step onto the tro-tro but the force oe people also trying to get on prevented me. I was elbowed in the ribs and eventually pushed and choved my way onto the tro-tro sitting in the second to last seat available. The person in the seat behind me remarks, "Oh, Obruni, how did you get here?!"

The day at the internship was fascinating. The organization People's Dialogue (PD) works as a facilitator in the slum communities around Ghana. The organization helps groups of slum dwellers come together to establish a savings program. The dwellers have regular meetings and discuss about their problems, needs, and savings. PD operates on a self-help model, in which the groups discuss their own problems and come to the organization for help when they identify a need and have a way to solve it. For instance, a group in Old Fadama will meet and realize that they have a need for a water system, so they will talk to PD about it and PD will bring in a professional to train some community members on how to do community mapping. These community members will interview other community members and map the water resources and use in the community based on the training. Upon completion of the mapping, PD will provide expertise in water production and help the group construct the water system on their own with technical assistance from PD. It's a very effective method that empowers slum dwellers to solve problems themselves. Other methods create a system of dependency, in which organizations will give the water system to the dwellers but it won't be maintained because people didn't identify the need or feel a particular sense of ownership for it.

With that in mind, the project I worked on yesterday was writing a proposal for a women's rights, inheritance, and property project. One of the groups has noted that there are large issues with women's rights in regards to land in Ghana. First of all, women are afraid to put their names on the registration for land even if they have inherited it because they fear they may be killed or harmed so they put it under their husbands name. As a result, if the husband takes a second wife (as is common in Northern Ghana), and that second wife has kids the husband may take the land for that wife and kids eventhought it was the first wife's inherited land. The goal of this project is to educate women about their rights, that they can register land under their name and to map out the issues in the community about women's land and inheritance rights. So I wrote up this proposal to Women's Land Link Africa for PD to undertake a project for this purpose. It was an awesome project to start off with and I got to meet some fascinating leaders in the organization.

I'd say that's about all for now. Nante yie ne yebehyia bio (a safe journey and we will meet again).

Week in Review

It has been quite a week filled with physical growth, broad perspectives, and good experiences. I have gotten acquainted now with my daily routine. I wake up early, around 7, walk a couple of blocks past my friends who I saw good morning to and practice by Twi and catch a cab to campus. I have my courses during the day, which I'm kind of enjoying. The classes are nothing like the US, my first class Africa and the Global System the professor has prepared note for the class and literally reads them word for word while the class copies it down. Nonetheless, the class has brought up some very interesting questions for me. One day we talked about African states focusing on survival and that the political elite don't control much of the country in Africa and therefore must focus on what will preserve their power. My other class, Strategies of Development in Africa has also been interesting. The first day of class the professor went through a set of statistics setting the groundwork for explaining why Africa is behind in development. In the US, we tend to look at the US first and then pity the other countries, for instance the Mortality rate for children in the US is 6/1000 and then we look at other countries and see Sub-Saharan Africa at 157/1000 and say "Wow, that's really bad". But in Ghana, the professor prefaced the statistics by saying "I'm really sorry to have to share these damaging statistics with you. But only through seeing how bad it is can we be compelled to change it".

Classes have forced me to open up my eyes to how different education is in the developing world. For these classes, books aren't available and course packets take weeks to complete and prepare. As a result, the professor spends a god portion of their time going over readings or reading things outloud that in the US we could've covered in 10 minutes in a powerpoint if everyone had done the reading. Because resources aren't available here it has also led to a system of rote memorization in classes, there is very little critical thinking and discussion even in 300 level classes.

Nonetheless, I've definitely been growing, well at least my stomach has. Everyday I come home from classes to a nice large meal. Last night it was a large ball of sticky rice with palm nut soup and chicken, some nights it's a 8 inch high mound of joloff rice with vegetables and talapia. I have eaten quite a lot and my host Mom continues to tell me that she wants to send me home to America with big cheeks.

This past weekend was very interesting. On Saturday I went with my family and neighbors to the beach, a typical Saturday activity for Ghanaian families. We jumped around in the water and I noticed that none of the Ghanaian women would go above their knees unless forced and none of the Ghanaian men would go above their shoulders. Ironically, most Ghanaians don't know how to swim, women especially. Nonetheless, I was lent a boogie board by a nice Ghanaian man and rode the waves for a while. When I came back I taught the family how to play Uno, and it took almost 3 hours to complete the first game because it just kept going. While playing my family bought a dog for about $50. Two interesting phenomena in Ghana. The first is that anything is for sale on the beach: people walk around with dogs for sale, horses to ride, snakes to take a picture with, little 6yr old acrobats doing tricks for money. The second is that "pets" are treated very differently here. They aren't pet or domesticated-they mainly stay outside and the interaction with people is just being fed or if they come to close to our dinner a fake motion of kicking. My family has 4 dogs now, three of them are pretty much guard dogs as in they make a ton of noise when someone opens the gate too late at night. So also this weekend was the superbowl which I went to an American sports Bar and watched with 5 of my friends. It was an extremely exciting game eventhough we were in Ghana, minus that fact that it was on ESPN so there were no superbowl commercials just the same adverts for ESPN shows and sporting events over and over. I saw at least 5 clips from the strongest man competition, lol. Regardless, there were certain things that I thought I would miss by coming to Ghana, but I was fortunate to still be able to experience it.

I started at my internship last Monday, working with an organization called People's Dialogue that works in slums communities creating groups and regular meetings, savings and loan programs, education programs, facilitating cooperation with the government. I've realized that the slum population is a mainly forgotten problem tied to urbanization. In Ghana, there are thousands living in slums, the biggest of which is Old Fadama which houses about 30,000 people. This slum in particular is tied to the KLERP project by the government to turn that area into an ecological preserve so the Ghanaian government can evict the slum dwellers at any time. The problem is that the government has offered them no alternative housing. So People's Dialogue is working to raise people above the slum life, create infrastructure for better slum conditions, and work with the government to ensure housing alternatives. I'm not sure yet what I'm doing at the internship, but I'll keep you posted. Things moved quite a bit slower here than in the US.

Nonetheless, it's really nice that everyday there's something for me to look at as I go home, new words to learn, new places to explore, and new thoughts developing just while sitting in class. I have almost no homework here and frankly most of the time I still feel like I'm on vacation. Regardless, I'm growing significantly as I learn about life as a Ghanaian. Thank you so much for keeping with my blog and I'll update you again next week. Yebeshia Bio- we will meet again.