We Crave a Different Kind of Buzz

It’s always the slowest days that are the hardest. All the other interns traveled to the Volta Region this weekend, and I stayed behind to do laundry and work. Usually I like my free time, but the days are always too long. I am always up at least by 5:30 or 6:00, and my day doesn’t get started until at least noon. I tried to make my laundry last a long time, but I rubbed my fingers raw and had to finish up the last of my laundry quickly to avoid the horrible stinging of soap on open skin.

I’m also pretty sure I have a parasite by now. At least, I like to think that I do. Sometimes it makes the world seem more humorous, that there are disgusting little creatures that have learned to thrive off living in a larger organism. Pretty gross….but pretty fascinating, you know?

This past Tuesday I was supposed to wake up early and travel to Kwamoano to teach about nutrition. I woke up in the middle of the night with my abdominal muscles cramping so hard, I couldn’t tell if I needed to puke or go to the bathroom. My nausea made me almost delirious with pain. I remember texting my proworld coordinator, Sarah, asking her if she could take me to the clinic in the morning even though I hadn’t waited the recommended 24 hours to see if it would pass. I thought I had texted her at almost 6 in the morning, but it turns out it was around midnight, and I writhed in pain for hours.

I must have dozed off enough to sleep, because I woke up with the sun shining and my mouth watering from the onslaught of nausea. I remember stumbling to the clinic with Sarah and my coworker John, where they admitted me and the doctor said, “You don’t look sick”. I think I just stared at his mustache. I don’t remember what I said.

He had me lie on his examining table, and I remember I started crying when he started poking my stomach. It hurt pretty badly, and he said it was really tight in my lower bowels. He would have taken a stool sample (which dad very much wanted), but I hadn’t brought enough money with me and he didn’t want to keep me at the clinic for too long. So he decided I probably have been eating contaminated food and he would put me on an IV drip with Ciprofloxacin, a common antibiotic for bowel inflammation. I was already feeling a lot better with the IV drip, but when the nurse put in the Cipro, my arm started burning all the way up from the needle to my neck. I remember itching and scratching at my shoulder, and the doctor came in to tell the nurse to take me off it completely. I was having an allergic reaction to the Cipro, and dad was on the phone (at 3:00 AM Utah time) alarmed at why I was hooked up to an IV without further tests. So to make a long story short, the doctor prescribed me an oral antibiotic and sent me home. My sweet auntie saw me on my way back, gave me a hug, and a Ghanaian energy drink that’s the equivalent of Gatorade. So I did nothing all day but lay in my bed, thinking about those parasitic bugs that eat off a fish’s tongue and attaches itself to the stump.

Sarah took a picture of me before I left the clinic. I think I was laughing because I was a little giddy from the Cipro freaking me out. I was also probably trying to laugh off the thought about whether I had enough Cipro in my system to kill me...

It’s hard to imagine that I’m counting down at this point. I will miss Ghana and my friends here so much, but time is no respecter of persons. The world will continue to move and the sun will rise and set whether I like it or not. Each day lasts forever, and then it doesn’t last long enough. Before I know it, I will be on that plane ride home to Utah. How do I know who I will be when I go home? Am I supposed to know? I hope I am courageous and loving. I hope I am smart and make good decisions. I hope I make and maintain good relationships, and do my best to heal those relationships that are hurt. I hope I can be a better person when I come home.

Take the Pain, Ignite It

I haven’t written for awhile because I frankly haven’t known how to write what I feel. I can honestly say that these past couple of weeks have been hard for me because of homesickness, but it’s been a different kind of homesickness than what I felt when I first came here. My first week in Ghana was really rough. My homesickness was potent hatred and resentment of being away from home. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I would be here for three months. That quickly died, although lately my homesickness feelings have been more of an underlying longing, and this feeling of defeat in finding something familiar. That’s the funny thing about homesickness. I don’t have to be missing something specific. It’s just this weird settling into your environment and realizing that you’re not going to get that cold glass of milk or brownie you crave, and the only things reminding you of home is your clothing that says BYU on it and the expired box of Chips Ahoy that you bought in the market. Listening to music sometimes makes me nostalgic, but there is this separation of what the music meant to me before and what it develops for me now. It’s hard to explain, homesickness. I feel like homesickness was some sort of raging demon inside me when I came to Ghana, roaring and lashing out in fear at every experience I had. It was alarming trying to adapt to a new country, and in some ways, it felt like defeat in order to adapt. My homesickness was "tangled too tight and too long to fight."

But now I see that adapting wasn’t defeat at all. Adapting has not only brought me peace of mind, but it has become a source of joy and confidence. All I want is to have new experiences to adapt to, because now I thrive off of adapting. It’s only been two months that I’ve been here, but I feel so much love for myself and for the people I meet. I love how everyone is so welcoming and loving to me. I love how people will come greet me, putting their arm around me, kissing my cheek, teaching me phrases in Fante. I feel loved when villagers I’ve met only a handful of times will affectionately brush my hair out of my face when it’s windy or rainy. I love when people teach me new Fante, because it gives me a sense of bonding with them. I love having new Fante phrases turning in my head and tongue until I have the opportunity to use it. Sometimes I have forgotten how it is said, and in my eagerness to speak it, I trip over the phrase and butcher it past recognition. I get laughs most of the time in response. Sometimes I feel embarrassed, but more often than not, I glow under the light-hearted laughter. People love that I am trying to learn, and they love teaching me. Because of this, I always try to at least greet people in Fante, and if I don’t understand, I say “Mentasse” and then “Me pa wƆ kyew sido” (please repeat). People like that I at least try, and when I dive for my pen and paper to furiously scribble the phrase before I forget it, they guide me with the spelling. Lately when people call me Obruni on the street, I’ve been responding “WofrƐm Obruni” (my name is not Obruni). I get good laughs in return and good ice breakers for conversation. It also lets me have my sass incorporated into Fante, so that’s a bonus….but it’s the little things like these that make all the difference for me. It lets me feel a sort of kinship, despite our different colors and cultures.

I remember seeing a huge group of missionaries on the plane I took from JFK to Accra. I sometimes see missionaries buying food in the market, and some sister missionaries even chatted with me on the street a while ago. I remember I once felt sadness for those missionaries, wondering how on earth they could cope with the idea of staying here for two years and I felt secretly grateful that I only had to endure three months. But now….I envy them. Three months is hardly any time at all. It isn’t nearly enough time for me to learn as much Fante as I want. Three months is hardly any time to develop solid relationships, so the people I have met and grown to love will see me go and will forget about me in time. My work with the schools, the children, with HEPENS, and with the villages will be left in a few scribbled notes and excel documents that incoming interns may not even look at.  My wonderful coworkers and friends, Jonah, John, Nicholas and Eva…how I will miss them and their friendship. How I love to make them laugh. How I will ache to be just another Obruni intern that comes and goes, like the rest of them before me. Eva will perhaps be getting married next year, and I regret so much that I will not see her on her wedding day, that I will not be there to dance the traditional dances rejoicing her union with her husband. It makes me feel immense gratitude for the most perfect and beautiful opportunity of coming here, and it makes me feel deep hurt for the reality of my ever coming back

My auntie and I were standing outside tonight after work, watching storm clouds roll in. We do that often, just standing outside watching the world pass by. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just enjoy each other’s company. Tonight while we were outside, a little boy near our house dropped his sack of tomatoes. I got tomato juice all over my hands when I went to help him pick them up. When I turned back to the house to go wash my hands, I was surprised to see my auntie with a bucket of water she had prepared for me while my back was turned. She ran the water over my hands as I told her, “WƆ ye mu yie” (You are very kind). She laughed and said “medasse” (thank you), and then said something else in Fante while handing me a towel to dry my hands. I didn’t think twice on it, but she all of a sudden burst out laughing, and I had to inquire. She said,

“I talked to you like you were Ghanaian, I said Fante words to you thinking you understand.”

I laughed and said, “Auntie, you forgot I was Obruni!”

 We shared a good laugh at that. I felt so much love for her then. Deep down, I also felt a little twinge of sadness, wishing I could be a real person she could converse with instead of in our casual conversations in broken English.

But perhaps knowing that my time here is short is what’s making this such an amazing experience for me. I have learned to love all that I experience, because I know I won’t have the chance to decide if I love it or hate it later. The tro-tro rides where I think I’m meeting my death, the battles with my germiphobia, the awkward moments when I stare blankly at someone speaking Fante to me, the taxi drivers trying to cheat me, the smell of sewage running in open drains outside my work, the constant stream of sweat dripping down my face and back, the hundreds of bugs biting my butt when I go to the bathroom, the unreliable electricity, the hot sun prompting cancer growth on my skin….I love it all. I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it. And I will miss it when I'm gone.

You're Not Slaying Dragons

One week til my half-way point, and I can’t help but feeling like I’m in some sort of limbo. I have found that I’ve adapted well enough to get myself around and to successfully do my job, and now I don’t know how to make this a successful trip. My perspective has changed in so many different ways, it’s hard to know how to make decisions with it.

When I first arrived in Ghana, I very much had the American “if-it’s-broken-I-can-fix-it” attitude. I think most American’s have this attitude. In a sense, we’re raised with it. We’re taught to be ambitious and think outside the box in order to succeed. Our own government does it, deciding to march into Syria or Iraq to solve their civil disputes, putting everyone with little money on welfare, etc.

Coming to Africa with that kind of perspective was not going to help anything, I quickly realized. There is too much to DO with that kind of perspective. You see open sewers with black sludge going down the streets. You see people dumping and burning their trash on the side of the road, with no organized trash collection system. Half-completed buildings lay scattered across Ghana’s villages, uncompleted due to the government forcing people to come in and get permits before they build and no one comes in. I go to these schools where children are taught math, science, social studies, English, French, and other subjects, yet no one knows about how to appropriately wash their hands or brush their teeth. I go to the Junior High with kids ranging from 15-18 years old, and most of the kids don’t know how STI’s work or how you can get them. Because of this, many of the kids are already having unprotected sex and already have symptoms of STI’s.

It’s overwhelming. If I wanted to change the Ghanaian culture to what I perceived as the superior “Americanized” way, nothing would ever happen. The thing is, most Ghanaians know that they could have life better. Most desire to have an easier life. But they don’t know of anything different. They don’t know that they could have those sewage systems covered, for instance, or that they could have cheap, easy access to health care and their child wouldn’t die of malaria or tuberculosis. America is seen as the golden country of opportunity and wealth, but no one can afford to travel there, and America makes their visas difficult to get because the government knows people won’t go back once they get to the UnitedStates. As an American, I definitely am a picture of extreme wealth. Just my being here says that I had enough money to travel, whereas most Ghanaians could never make enough to afford a plane ticket in their lifetime. Everything I have says I’m wealthy. But what I’m trying to say is that if I want change, it is simply too big to handle on my own, and I am too much of an outsider. I’ve realized that if Ghana/Africa is going to have a higher way of living, the people have to want it and demand it on their own. Change has to come from within. America tossing them financial aid may help temporarily, but even that has a negative element because it encourages the attitude of hand-outs. I talked with my dad about this on the phone the other day, and he gave me a lot of comfort. He said that not every day is going to be like “slaying dragons.” You listen and observe so you can better understand how to apply yourself, then go from there. With the “helping profession”, you must look at your successes from the small changes people make. In my case, if I can get a boy to think twice about using a condom, then I’ve done my job. “Even Mother Teresa got discouraged”, my dad said.

I have found that I feel a lot of fulfillment when I teach, despite the discouragement and not knowing how to fully help in this county. I’m not sharing anything super complex or profound, but it feels really wholesome to me to stand back and watch how the children have participated and absorbed what I have taught. I like to think I did a good job when people ask a lot of questions, because I see that as their mind solidifying around the subject. There are such simple things that people don’t quite understand, and I’m sure has everything to do with culture. Last week I taught about Typhoid Fever to the village of Nyame Bekyere (Nyahmeh Bechray=God Provides). When teaching about how and when to wash their hands, a lady told me she saw on TV that you should wash your hands with running water, and she was asking if it matters whether or not you use a bowl to wash your hands or if you always use running water. For someone who came from a country where I ALWAYS had running water, of course I never personally asked this question. Just yesterday I was teaching HIV/AIDS/STI’s at the junior high, and I got so many questions about menstruation that my mom or teachers had answered for me years and years ago. Girls asked if pain in the abdomen was normal during their periods or if breast tenderness was normal. Girls who had just started their period didn’t know if it was normal to have a little blood one time, a lot another, or to go a few months without having a period. They didn’t understand ovulation or what hormones were. A junior high kid asked me if blood in his urine meant he was sick, and he didn’t know what I was talking about when I mentioned his kidneys or bladder (I was using a translator, for the record). I even had a teacher ask me what it meant when you pee and you have two streams instead of one, and that the popular belief meant that if you had two streams, you were having twins. There are so many small things that people never get to ask questions about, and it simultaneously shows to me just how many potential health problems people have here. It’s sad to see how much knowledge people miss out on. Heck, if I ever wanted to know something, I had a library full of information or I could get the internet at any time at school or home, not to mention I had educated parents and siblings who taught me well. They only have their teachers, their parents, their peers, and centuries-worth of myths, suspicious, and taboos to learn from. So in a way, it’s reassuring to know I can teach with my basic knowledge. Heaven knows how unqualified I feel for this job.

Baba Yetu

I’ve been having some potent thoughts lately this past week that I wanted to write down. It might come across as racist or judgmental, but I swear I mean no harm by it. What I want to say is from thoughts formed with profound respect and admiration, not condemnation or superiority.

I’ve been in Ghana for one month now, and I’m convinced I’m walking among the people most in touch with their ancient ancestry. Africa was where we can first date back to our earliest human life, and from what I’ve observed and experienced, Ghana’s rich in culture because they were the start of it all. Africa is where we all began, where we can mark the beginning of human life. Everything that man experienced to become the dominant, intelligent life form is manifested in the African culture. Maybe you can call it being “earthy” here, but there isn’t such a thing when your entire existence, your entire culture is submersed in what Americans call “earthy”. It seems like all that ancient knowledge of survival is still ingrained in the people.

Ugh. Let me see if I can explain better what I’m trying to say.

Ghana’s culture is very different from America’s. At first I thought of it as a little sexist, simple, and a little behind on the times. Now when I look at it from another perspective, I realize their whole culture revolves around the same type of early survival we believe early humans experienced. For instance, I was really humored by how Ghana is largely a Christian nation, but it’s still infused with their traditional beliefs centered on superstition, taboos, witchcraft, spirits, sacrificial rituals, and paganism. My friend Emmanuel tells me how he goes to Catholic and Methodist church, but he also has scars on his arms and hands where he cut himself for “protection against evil spirits.” Does this not show a deep level of adaptability? Maybe I’m stretching it, but it makes sense to me. After being the earliest wanderers, completely vulnerable to the changes in weather, food source, and shelter, you had to learn to adapt. When white men came to imprison and torture you, you adapted to their religion in hopes of a better life and a shred of mercy towards you. Even when it comes to the amount of violence Africa is well-known for, was there not violence between clans and tribes to eliminate competition for resources and danger for your family? Not that I’m saying the violence is good, it just makes sense for how it’s always BEEN. Africa is a difficult, changing country. In a country where you have to survive malaria, drought, hunger, and heat, you had to be incredibly adaptable. You were always on the move, and you survived by having small clans or tribes that could move together.

 Perhaps this loyalty and closeness with tribes also brings about how people interact here. Family heritage and ancestry still plays a big part in their major belief system. It is believed that their ancestor’s spirits can help or punish the living considering their daily acts. There is no sense of privacy or personal space when it comes to your village. If there is one, it is far more relaxed than the American perspective and I have yet to find the personal boundary line. Everyone wants to know your business, and if you don’t tell them directly, they’ll find out anyway. Maybe this is more because I’m an Obruni and I am a very curious specimen here, but everyone seems to know everything. Taxi drivers know I live in Essuekyier with Auntie Matilda. People know I am with ProWorld when I haven’t told anyone, and they know I work in Kakumndo with HEPENS. Everyone knows the ins and outs of my host mother’s life, and they tell me all they’ve discovered about my fellow interns that are stunningly accurate. Word gets around, you see. People just talk. Villages are unified together, and there are still Chiefs elected to represent the village and care for the villagers when Ghana has actual presidents to care for the country.

I’ve been impressed with the deeply ingrained wisdom Ghanaians have about the earth, and their sense of unity with the earth. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word unity because it implies equality….what I mean to say is that Ghanaians/Africans have been here longer than anyone, and know this land better than anyone. They have a deep understanding of how easily the world can change, and how we are all vulnerable to the earth’s changes. There can be no rain for months and months, which means no food. Fisherman are susceptible to the every changing tides of the sea, and may have prolonged months where the fish are rare. You use every part of the animal and eat every part you can, for you know not when you might get it again. You cultivate as many crops as you can in a season in hopes that they will all grow well, because if the rains don’t come this year, how will you feed your family and village? And if it rains come without ceasing (the “season where the clothes never dry”, my coworker says), then your crops are flooded out of their gardens and disease becomes rampant. The vast, untamed nature of Africa delays and inhibits trade and commerce, so you buy and eat when you can. Perhaps that’s why being fat here is a compliment, because it means you are well-fed and food has been in plenty.

These are photos from HEPENS Beach cleanup on Friday. When we were finished, we watched the fisherman pull in their nets for the morning.

They pulled for almost 2 hours. The net was bigger than I could have imagined, and they couldn't let go or the tide would pull it back in again. I was mesmerized by the fisherman's stamina.

There is so much humility and grace in Ghanaians. You wake up between the hours of 3 and 5 in the morning to beat the sun. They are constantly cleaning, traveling, lugging water, and selling until the sun goes down, and even then they are still cooking and working into the night. . I never see Ghanaians shy from hard work, because it’s just what has to be done. There aren’t any options of having someone do it for you. If society is going to function, everyone has to do their part.

This was considered a small load of fish for the day, but the big fish would go for higher prices.

 I really am growing a profound appreciation for Ghana and their culture. I love watching people work, I love seeing how they move and interact, and I love learning from them. And oh, they have so much to teach me. I have a feeling that when it's time for me to return to America, this post will be need to be edited for all the new things I've learned and new perspectives I've had.  I still have so much to observe and think about.

It's hard to dance with a devil on your back

It’s overwhelming trying to describe this past week. How can I successfully describe what it’s like living in another country? Everything you experience from the moment you wake up is new and different. The sights, the sounds, and the smells are not the same. Every waking moment there’s something new to your senses, whether or not you want to be experiencing them. Everything that stimulates my brain IS the experience, and every part of me that can sense something is sensing unfamiliar things. How can you possibly describe what that’s like? Ugh. It’s all spewage and un-collected thoughts. I know I’m not very good with words and I wish I were a more eloquent writer, but I definitely have too much to share to avoid expressing it.

This week started normally, waking up at the crack of dawn to every rooster in the village crowing and every goat bleating for food. I ate my breakfast and waited for John to walk to HEPENS together for work. I travelled and participated in our school out-reaches for the day, met up with the interns afterwards, maybe got a little internet in between, went home for dinner, and went to bed. I was just trying to go through the motions and keep myself from being too overwhelmed every day. I was still trying to adjust and take it one day at a time. This last Friday, however, the ProWorld interns got work off early to gather at the castle for dance and drumming lessons. Of course we were all joking before-hand, laughing about how silly and uncoordinated we were going to look, especially to the locals who wouldn’t be able to resist watching our lessons. I think we all felt deep down that our lessons were going to be almost unbearably awkward, but who was going to back out? We’re in Ghana, and this was supposed to be part of the experience.

We started first with the drum lessons. Learning the rhythm was SO much harder than I expected, and I couldn’t stop staring at our instructors hands so I could mimic him. He followed us through different rhythms, had us all play it with him, then let us play solos if we wanted while everyone else kept the same sequence together. I had no idea what to do with my solo. I felt like a baby banging on pots and pans with no sense of a beat. Our instructor was kind and didn’t make fun of us, which I appreciated since I felt so awkward (like i’m-an-uncoordinated-american-white-girl-awkward). I guess I beat it pretty hard, though…I ended up bruising my hands by the end of the lesson. J

Look at that stiff concentration! I barely had time to enjoy myself!

Picture with the group and our instructor. 

Next was our dance lesson. We had a different instructor for this part, while our drum instructor provided a rhythm for us to dance to. This was the most uncomfortable part of the night at first. We all laughed at each other at our horrible skills at jiggling our legs and stomping our feet and clapping in time. We mimicked her as best as we could, but we were a mess. Again, our instructor was patient. She kept going over different sequences with us until we could perform it all on our own. I was facing a wall at the front of the group and was gratefully turned away from all the locals who were watching us from behind. I think not having to face the embarrassment, physically and mentally, was what gave me the opportunity to let loose. I was all by myself, facing that wall. I realized that the more uncomfortable I felt, the more resentment I would feel at being taught to dance. If I was going to have fun, I had to let myself have fun. I had to let it go.

So…I did. And I had fun. A LOT OF FUN. Once my inhibitions were gone, I could feel the rhythm of the music. I could loosen my body and move it the way the instructor showed us. My body felt open and I could move it in ways that just came to me, so I had my own flare to all the steps she showed us. We pieced the whole dance together and performed it on our own as a group, and had the chance to do little solos again afterwards to complete the dance. Although I’m sure we still looked a little silly and awkward to all the locals, I felt confident. I felt ALIVE. I felt energy and warmth in my body and heart, and I just let go. I danced and jumped and twirled all around and moved my body in whatever way it felt good to do so. I just trusted what my body could do and let anything happen that came to me. I remember hearing cheers and clapping all around me, but I was in my own world, free of inhibitions. And I was relishing in it.

It feels like a haze since that moment. We were finished with the lessons and were going to go out to eat to finish off the activity. But I remember wiping sweat from my eyes, and in the haze hands were patting my back and I was hearing compliments pouring all around me. I remember kids were coming up to me saying, “You ahr a good dancuh!” My instructor came up, touched my arm with a kind smile and remarked, “My best dancer.”  Walking home through town and through the market, kids I hadn’t even seen at the castle came up to me with baskets balanced on their head and told me that they liked my dancing. I realized that I couldn’t even remember what dance moves I had performed, but I felt so good. I felt whole. I felt like I had found my niche, or I had found a little corner of Ghana were I could fit in.

Saturday morning, I woke up early to prepare for a community outreach with the interns where we were going to help mix bricks to make a clinic in Kwamoano (one of the villages I teach in, the one with the soccer game). It ended up being cancelled due to too much rain, but I got ready that morning listening to music. I haven’t allowed myself a lot of time for spiritual musical moments since being here, but it ended up being a crucial time for me. I listened to a lot of songs, but then I hit Florence and the Machine, “Shake it Out”. This song was one I had chosen to be in my playlist of songs meant to give me courage as I arrived in Ghana. I remember listening to it as our plane broke through the clouds and I saw my first view of Africa. I watched in wonder at the hundreds of colorful rooftops, and I remember this song didn’t mean much to me then. Not just was I hard-core jetlagged, but I was too full of nervous anticipation. I was too full of expectations, and too full of fear.  But this morning, these lyrics struck me.

“I'm always dragging that horse around
Our love is pastured, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn
But it's always darkest before the dawn…

…And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off…”

  

I felt like EVERYTHING at this point changed for me. Every mental and emotional road block cleared for me. I could see myself clearly back up at the castle the day before, trying to drum and dance with a scrawny, filthy goblin-looking thing with evil eyes clung to my neck. I could vividly see myself trying to move my body with that thing cackling at my embarrassment and discomfort, its weight only adding to my awkwardness with every hesitant step I took. I could see that evil little devil clinging to my neck as I greeted people in the villages, as I taught in the schools, and as I walked through the Abura market. I could even see that devil sniggering around my neck as I cried to myself, hurtling across the sky at thousands of miles per hour on the plane from New York to Accra.

The realization was as clear to me now as it had been the night before at the castle. It’s hard to dance with a devil on your back…I shook him off.

So here I am. That song has been my attitude theme for the past few days, and it's made all the difference. I’ve hit a point so clear and happy, it’s hard to remember what it was like living my past life. It’s hard to remember what it was like living in Springville, sweating in my bed, seeing Chai and Sparrow every morning, the smell of the cows and the monotonous drive to Provo every day for school, counting every fly I swatted with triumph, waiting to hang out with Brian or babysit in the evening. I feel cautious of being so high because I want to be realistic with the lows, but oh, I feel good. I feel ready to love this country and everything in it. I feel ready to love myself, and to love my life. It’s not that I wasn’t happy before, but my reality blinded me from recognizing the devil on my back. I’m ready to shed that devil of self-loathing and fear.  

I’m ready to see where this new month takes me, and what new things I can experience with a lighter heart. It’ll be interesting to see what new devil may potentially take up residency on my back. I’m excited to see how I’ll shake off that one, eh Pacha?

Me and John (my coworker) at church in Nyame Bekyere

Enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the beach.

I love you all so dearly and miss you all so intensely. Here are the rest of the lyrics if you’re curious. Don’t forget me, I’ll be seeing you all again before you know it.

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

And I've been a fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I'm always dragging that horse around

Our love is pastured, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn
But it's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
And given half the chance would I take any of it back
It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone
It's always darkest before the dawn

Oh whoa, oh whoa...

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to me, yeah

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

A'soalin'

It is7:15 AM in Cape Coast right now, 1:15 AM back in Utah. Roosters are crowing and goats are bleating outside my window. I can hear pots banging, taxi’s honking their horns, the sound of sweeping, and people singing hymns in english. In the hallway by my room, I can hear my host sister-in-law washing her clothes and listening to a Christian radio station. It is a calm morning for Esuekyir—usually there is far more chaos to wake up to. Auntie Matilda told me yesterday that “too much sleep is bad for you”, and I’d say that Ghana (from what I’ve seen so far), has maintained that mentality pretty well. There’s not much to do once the sun goes down, unless you go out to the bars to drink and dance. Otherwise, people are in bed between 8-10 PM, and then wake up to start their day between 3-5 AM. I can hear people bustling around by 4:30, and taxis are running by 5. Emmanuel tells me that he usually goes to bars with his friends every night, and his average amount of sleep is 2 hours, from 4-6 AM. I don’t know how he does it, but Ghanaians are so BUSY. There’s so much to do in your day when it comes to cleaning, cooking, shopping, and visiting. A lot of it probably has to do with the habit of getting things done before the heat of the day. I was always an early riser at home, but I’ve been proud (and surprised) to find how rested I feel once I wake up around 5:30.

This week has been a lot better. I think I’m reaching the point where people tell me you start to acclimate…but I’m not sure if I’m all the way there yet. I feel like I’m in sort of a limbo. I don’t yet feel so much ease that I can do whatever I’d like, but I’m not horribly homesick anymore. I didn’t think last week was that bad at the time, but when I look back on it now, I was having a REALLY hard time. I remember how I kept staring at my clock and felt like I was going to bash my head against the wall in insanity from watching the minutes pass and think about the hundreds of thousands of minutes yet to pass until I go home. I remember sitting on the front steps on my home, trying not to cry in front of the locals while I read the book my family wrote notes in for me (oh, how could I have known how much I would need that book??). I couldn’t imagine that I had only been here one week, when it had felt like eternity. But now another Sunday has come….and I feel like I will be okay. I will hope that by next week I will feel contentment, and by the next I will be on top of the world (hey!).

It’s high time that I talk about the work that I do here. I came to Ghana through ProWorld, but the organization I do my internship through is HEPENS. It stands for HEalth Protection and ENvironmental Sanitation.

It is managed by Nicholas Baidoo, who is a nurse and my internship supervisor. He provides for a lot of the funding to keep HEPENS afloat, but isn’t there often because of his other work schedule. The other HEPENS personnel, John, Eva, and Jonah, are volunteers and are largely the ones who keep HEPENS afloat. What they do with HEPENS (and what I do as an intern), is they travel to different villages or communities and schools to teach about different health topics. To be able to reach out to more villages, they also do weekly night classes. Sometimes, if given the supplies, they go to these villages to do various health testing, ranging from blood pressures, to weight, to diabetes, to HIV/AIDS, etc. All of them serve as translators for me and Jenna when providing the counseling or doing the presentations. They also provide counseling services for people with health issues to figure out what is their best options for them, in terms of going to the hospital or working on their health at home. In most cases I would advise people to go to the hospital, but I’ve found that (1) most people lack the money to even travel to the hospital, much less afford the medications they need, (2) the hospitals sound like they’re over-crowded and don’t give much time to counseling patients for long-term health maintenance, and (3) there’s still a lot of taboos and superstitions about hospitals and causes behind and illness (i.e. someone getting sick as the result of sin). It’s hard to know what advice to give people when you have these kind of cultural differences, but it’s crucial to understanding how this society works and how to successfully help people.

From Left to Right, Jon, Nicholas, Jenna, Jonah, and Eva

So I help participate in the outreaches that HEPENS does. The first week we were here, I went to various villages to introduce myself into the community, then take blood pressures and weight. It was customary for me to meet the Nana (or Chief) of the village to get his consent and support to teach there. I took all the blood pressure results from the 30-80 people we saw (a small fraction to the hundreds who actually live in the village), and got percentages of the amount of people who are pre-hypertensive and those who currently have hypertension. This week Jenna and I prepared a presentation on Hypertension to present to the village of Kwamoano and Ansemanso. The first in Kwamoano was a huge success. Not very many people came, but the women who did listened attentively, asked a lot of questions, and enthusiastically joined in on a game of soccer to finish off our presentation. Oh, how much fun that was! I have a lot of inhibitions coming to a new country and letting myself go when I don’t know what’s culturally appropriate, but there were no inhibitions with these women. They were running around in their dresses and flip-flops, getting aggressive and getting in loud, but playful disagreements about who fouled who and what-not. I realized that these women probably had tons of work to do throughout the day, but they took the time to support us and participate in what we had prepared. That meant a lot to me.

Jenna providing counseling on hypertension

Ansemanso didn’t go so well, however. Our tro-tro (a small van taxi that goes long distances, and has a higher rate of crashing than the rates of getting malaria) arrived late, so only a handful of people showed up, and most of them fell asleep during our presentation or just left. The Nana told us we would have a better turn-out if we came earlier in the day (it was roughly 10 AM at this point).  Our presentation also took much longer than normal because about 30 seconds of presenting is equal to 3-5 minutes of translating. I was so exasperated by the end. We decided the just end there and not even do the soccer. I will remember to do shorter presentations that are more to the point in the future….and get up earlier.

Village of Ansemanso

The teaching in schools is by far my most favorite part of working with HEPENS. On Mondays, Thursdays and some Fridays, we travel to various school districts and teaching kids ranging from 6-12 about proper teeth brushing, hand washing, and bathing techniques. I felt overwhelmed and disgruntled at being thrown into it at first, but the children are forgiving of my insecurities and are eager to learn and participate. I start by asking questions (while Jonah, Eva, or John translate), to test their knowledge on the subject. I draw the mouth for them to label the teeth, gums, and tongue in English, then demonstrate whatever I am teaching. I then have two participants come up to repeat what I’ve taught them, and then ask questions at the end to help review what they’ve learned. The donations I came with (thank you Mom!!) serve as prizes for those who participate. The children call me “Madame Mary”, and it’s customary for them to say “God bless you” to me whenever I leave. Old students will run by the classroom I’m teaching in to whisper my name and wave before the teacher smacks their cane at them. It’s sweet that they seem to like me, but I’m sure a large part of it comes from me simply being an Obruni with fascinating skin and hair.

This is the work that I will continue to do for the next 3 months. Because the organization is still so new, I have a lot of freedom in terms of what I want to teach. There’s a lot of problems with prenatal health, so of course I’m going to find some way to talk about birth…although I didn’t expect to be at the opposite end of the paradigm and actually be in a place where I would wonder if giving birth in a hospital is better than giving birth at home...of course that has to do with nutrition and the infant mortality problems here already. Different people, different situations I guess. Either way, I’d like to focus on prenatal and postnatal nutrition, especially since many women don’t have access to certain food or vitamins needed.

I am happy and healthy here, despite my down days. It’s the little things that make my days go well, like Eva showing me how to buy my own laundry soap to wash my clothes by hand, or having a familiar dinner of French-fries and fruit, or finding an orange-flavored fan ice as a treat on a hot, sweaty day. I love you all back at home, thank you for thinking of me and remembering me. Can’t wait to see you again.

*I wanted to post more pictures, but ran out of time at the cafe. There will be more next time!

Bite your tongue and smile

So I’ve been in Ghana for a little over a week now. Approximately 9 days, to be exact, and I still have a hard time identifying how I feel about being here. All of my senses are completely overwhelmed all the time. I know that I will adapt and everyone tells me that it gets easier, but right now, I’m just trying to make it one day at a time. I feel like no amount of preparation could have prepared me for what it felt like to be completely uprooted from everything familiar and be plopped down in a country where everything is completely different. A part of me wishes I could break down and just go home, but I realize that though each day feels like it drags on to eternity, my time here will be short and I must make the best of it as quickly as possible if I am to survive, and perhaps thrive here.

             I don’t mean to sound so bleak.  I recognize that what I’m experiencing is important for growth. I also recognize that it’s important for me to express my fears and discomfort with the change in culture. I hope that by addressing it and laying it on the table will help me process it so I can move on and adapt more quickly. For instance, I can’t believe how weird it is being a minority here. My mom asked me on the phone a couple of days ago what it must be like “walking in a sea of dark faces”, and I told her I didn’t think much of it. But really, it is overwhelming. It’s intense knowing that everyone’s eyes are drawn to you simply because of the color of my skin. I’m going to stand out no matter what I do. They even have a word for people like me that everyone likes to call out, even the children. “Obruni” is technically translated as “English Person”, but it is used for anyone who is not Ghanaian, even if you’re African-American. It’s not meant to be an offensive term, but when you are walking down the street and you hear people saying it, they ARE talking about you and they DO expect you to respond to it. Having a specific name that people call you by adds to the overwhelming sense of being a foreigner, and that people identify you as such. I do recognize that this experience is really valuable for empathizing with people who experience the same thing in America. How disconcerting it is! Especially with the language barrier. English is considered the national language, but there are hundreds of local dialects spoken in different regions of Ghana. In the Cape Coast area where I am, the local dialect is Fante with a little Twi. I’ve been taking biweekly Fante lessons with my ProWorld group. It has helped, but people have a hard time understanding my pronunciations. That’s something difficult to adjust to, as well, and I fear that I annoy people when I don’t understand what they are trying to say. This is especially hard when managing the taxis, since most of the time the taxi drivers can’t understand what town I’m trying to tell them to go to (I live in a village called Esuekyir, but it can be pronounced Ehswecheh or Ehswehchee). There is no concept of personal space when it comes to merchants wanting me to buy things, and that was alarming for me when I first got here. The main food staples are yam, plantains, fish, and palm oil without a lot of variation. However, interns don’t often get meat because there are guidelines the host parents have to abide by when preparing food, since you can’t guarantee the cleanliness of meat you buy at the market. The same goes for fruits and vegetables. You can’t afford to eat any of it unless it’s been thoroughly washed or if it can be peeled. I often find chopped-up hot dogs in my meals, or my other intern friends have had other packaged meat products like sardines. There is no milk except sweetened condensed milk and soy milk, which is expensive. The lack of variation from the oil and starch has been hard on my stomach, and I feel queasy most of the time. I can’t believe how much I crave things like peanut butter and cow’s milk. My mind dwells on peanut butter toast with honey and a tall glass of cold, 2% milk more than is probably healthy.    

            However, I do have to talk about the positive things that have helped me adapt quickly here in Ghana. I have first off made fast friends with the other girls interning through ProWorld. There’s Laura Kate from South Carolina, Amina from Seattle, Jenna from Washington D.C. (who also works with me in HEPENS), and Lexie from Hawaii. We don’t see each other every day, but often we get together and go get food while having the chance to unwind from the stresses from our work days.  We’ve had a lot of fun bonding over positive and negative experiences while coming here. I also have a little puppy named Boots who lives in our home who is always so excited to see me, and whines for me when I close my room door. We were advised to not touch the animals around here because we don’t know what kind of diseases they might be carrying, but I remember Emily saying once that there are some crucial periods in a puppy’s life where it’s important for them to have human contact. I’m sure it’s not such a big deal here since wild dogs run around all over the place and are always around humans, but I think I needed Boots more than he needed me at the beginning. So I often sit with him and pet him while I read or practice Fante. Sometimes he will climb into my lap and will let me pet him there, and sometimes I share my unfinished lunch with him after a long day. I do try to be careful when I comes to getting germs, so I always careful to wash my hands afterwards. J

I need to say that I love the people here. I will even say that although I talked about feeling alienated from the people, it is the people that have made this experience worth it so far. You’re going to find good and bad people wherever you go, but for the most part, I feel that people have been compassionate towards me and have been understanding of my culture shock. The people I have formally met are immediately so open and welcoming. My host mother, Auntie Matilda, cares for me as if I were her own daughter. She practices Fante with me so I can travel with more ease by taxi. She gives me advice on prices in the market so people don’t over-charge me, and shows me how to wrap a sling around my waist to carry the children around as the other women do. Despite my best efforts to be clean, I got sick two days ago and when I did, Auntie made me soup, offered me extra blankets for warmth, gave me comforting hugs, and kept saying, “It makes me sad when I see you sick”. Her sister, Auntie Christina, is also a host mother for ProWorld interns and treats me like I am part of the family. I’m also in love with the neighborhood kids who come and see me when I’m home at night. There is a 20-year old boy named Emmanuel and a 19 year-old girl Diana who help teach me Fante until Auntie comes to tell me it’s time for bed. Diana doesn’t come often because she has a daughter she cares for (you get married young here), but when she does come, she tells me how beautiful and smooth my skin is. She is bold, beautiful, confident, and boisterous. She makes me laugh with her silly quirks, and she likes to talk about American culture and customs. Emmanuel is quieter and more careful with his English, so we cover a lot more with Fante lessons than what Diana and I cover. He does, however, like to talk about how Obama should be the president of Ghana instead of the U.S., since Obama came to visit Cape Coast in 2009 and now everyone here is OBSESSED with him.

 Another thing that I love about Ghanaians is how emphatic they are. I often hear people on the streets and at home talking very loudly towards each other, and I assumed they were constantly getting into fights. Now I realize that Ghanaians are slow to anger, but feel things very passionately, very deeply, and love to express themselves that way. I misunderstood mostly because of the language barrier, but now I can catch little laughs or tongue clicks that mark when people are speaking passionately, not necessarily argumentatively. I feel like that’s something I could relate to very easily, if I spoke Fante well enough. J

            Ghanaians seem to have very close and strong bonds with their neighbors. Auntie Matilda, for instance, is very popular in her neighborhood, so she has a lot of friends who come by and just walk into her house for a visit. When you are close to someone here, you call them your brother or sister. This gave me some confusion in the beginning and I thought Matilda simply had a massive family. More like she just has a lot of close friends. Every time a friend comes over, they emphatically greet me with “Akwaaba” (welcome) and “WfrƐ wo den” (what is your name). I can answer, “WƆfrƐ me_____” and then my name, or I can answer with my Fante name. You get a name according to the day of the week you were born on. From what I understand, it derives from long ago when babies often didn’t live past their first birthday, so Ghanaians would name their babies with a generalized Fante name until it was clear the baby would not die, and then would perhaps get a real name. I copied a small chart demonstrating the Fante names according to the day of the week you were born and if you’re male or female.

Day/Da	Male Name(s)	Female Name(s)
Sunday/Kwesida	Kwesi	Esi
Monday/Dwowda	Kojo	Adua
Tuesday/Benada	Kobi	Araba
Wednesday/Wukuda	Kweku	Ekua
Thursday/Yawda	Ekow	Aba
Friday/Fida	Kofi	Efua
Saturday/Memenda	Kwame	Ama

If you have twins, then you have the Fante name “Paniyn” for the older and “Kakra” for the younger. So according to google, Diana and I were born on a Thursday. That means I would be Paniyn Aba, and Diana would be Kakra Aba. When you tell Ghanaian people your Fante name, they love it. And I mean LOVE it. They laugh, clap their hands, and dance around with glee when they hear it. It was one of the first ice breakers for me here.

            I will talk later about the actual work I’m doing with HEPENS, as this post is already too emotional and too long. But thanks to anyone who read through this and doesn’t misjudge me. I’m healthy and grateful to be here, as difficult as adjustment can be. I love you all back home, and I hope you all are doing well. See you soon!

P.S. To those of you in my family who had complaints about my use of deodorant (RUDE), I’ll have you know that body odor is a minor complaint here compared to the odors of smoke, diesel fuel, and sewage. So la-ti-dah, I won’t have more of your teasing!

Sweet little Boots eagerly waiting for me in the morning

After eating nothing but fried, oily things day after day, I ordered a "Black Beauty" at a local restaurant, thinking it was some type of blackberry treat. This was my face when I realized "Black Beauty" is fried eggplant. That's Lexie and Jenna in the background laughing at my plight.

Holding a wee baben and being obsessed with his wee-ness. I couldn't contain myself. 

Here I am more under control of my emotions, eh Pacha? This little guy peed on me a few minutes after this picture was taken. Diapers are un-ordinary here. If your child goes while you're holding him, it's no big deal. Wipe it off and move on.