The Home Life

I have been living in Diare for about 3 weeks now and I am definitely happy with my decision to move out of Gushei and live with a family.

Recently, I found a group of people to play soccer with. I bought a ball in Tamale and brought it out to the field one day. I thought it might be difficult to get a game going, but once some of the kids saw that I had a ball they all came running towards me. At first I was overwhelmed but once one of the older boys split the kids up into teams and we started playing, I started to feel more comfortable and was able to just enjoy it. Later on some older boys showed up, so the quality of soccer was much better (it can be frustrating when the kids all run after the ball at once). I left my ball with one of them when I went home for supper and told them I would meet them again tomorrow. Now there is a group of boys who are out on the field every day and I can just show up and join in. It is a nice thing to look forward to at the end of the day.

I found out that Amina, my host mother, not only cares for chickens and has 1 acre of mango farm, but also 4 acres of cotton, 5 acres of maize, 1 acre of groundnuts (inside the mango farm), and 1 acre of “henna”. I don’t think it is actually called henna, but there is a plant that grows here that can be turned into a dye. The women use it to dye the bottom of their feet a deep reddish-black color. Maybe I will try it out sometime. It would look pretty ridiculous on my white skin, but apparently it shows that you are married so it might help with fighting off the marriage proposals.

Amina does not do all the farming herself. She usually hires others to do the weeding, which is extremely difficult when all you have is a cutlass, and the entire family helps out on the weekends when the kids are not in school. But she works hard! Just to get to the farms it is at least a 30 minute bike ride, depending on how flooded the road is. Amina goes almost every day, is probably on her feet under the sun the entire time, and returns to the house limping because she has been having knee problems. Then it is time to make the TZ and soup for dinner.

I have been going to the farm with everyone on the weekends when I am not at work. It feels pretty good going with the family out to the farm, carrying one of the kids on the back of my bicycle. I feel like I am living a more “normal” life here; I guess I feel more Ghanaian and less like a tourist. The first time I went to the farm it began to rain around 2 in the afternoon. Rains here are different than back at home. The clouds begin to shift, the sky turns dark extremely fast, you feel a strong gust of wind, and then it just pours. It is not the kind of rain where you can just sit outside and enjoy the drizzle; you have to take cover and wait it out. When we saw that it was about to rain, we gathered our things as quickly as possible and sped off on our bikes. We were not fast enough and the rain started to come down on us. We ran into a round mud-hut with a thatched roof that was built for the purpose of sheltering the farmers during the rains. Take a bunch of sweaty farmers, soaking wet from the rain, put them all in a small hut, and you get a pretty smelly, but pretty entertaining little party. Everyone just started laughing when I walked in; startled that a “Salamingpa” was out farming and got stuck in the rain. Some people were eating rice or yam chips, they passed their bowls around because you must always invite people to your food. I understood almost nothing of what was being said and had a sore bum from sitting on a jagged log, but I really enjoyed the time I spent in the mud hut during the rain. I think that it will always be a memorable experience for me.

Once the rain lifted, we biked back to the house. The road was now completely flooded so it was a long, tiring ride (Amina must have been dead tired). I have been enjoying farming on the weekends. Most of my summer jobs in the past have involved physical labor of some sort and I have always found it satisfying to have a hard day of work and go home tired. But I have always known that this sort of lifestyle is only temporary for me. I will have many options when I graduate and will be able to choose the type of work I want to do. Most people here do not have that luxury. I think 70% of Ghanaians in the northern region are subsistence farmers… that is pretty incredible to me. I will never completely understand Ghanaians or see things from their perspective because I have lived such a different life. I can’t imagine thinking that my life would always be the same as my mother’s, and her mother’s, and so on. Every day there is work to do just to make sure that you can support yourself with the basic necessities. And when there is a drought or flooding and your crops are destroyed, it just makes things that much harder. The hope is that things will change and people will have more opportunities. But if I was Ghanaian I might feel trapped in the cycle and it would be difficult to believe in change if you can not see it.

I don’t want to sound too pessimistic, but I try to put myself in people’s shoes when I am frustrated or don’t understand why things are the way they are here. I think it is important for me to remember that I will never fully see things from a Ghanaian perspective; not in 4 months, not even in 10 years. I think there has been positive change; it just seems slower and more gradual to me. Within my household, there are 3 boys who live in Tamale so that they can attend a good school. The oldest daughter can read and write English pretty well and works at the guinea worm containment center. She wants to go back to school so that she can learn how to use a computer (I have spent some time with her teaching her to type and use Microsoft Word). There are 3 teenage girls in the house, 2 of them are still in school and have been learning English. The other 2 children are too young for school but I am hopeful that they will get some sort of education. From what I can tell, Amina never went to school; so there have been some improvements in just one generation. I hope that these children will be able choose whether or not they want the same life as their parents.

Sorry for the lack of photos, the internet is VERY slow today, hope you are all well

A Weekend "Off"

Half-way through our placements, all the volunteers in Ghana get together. We went to Damongo for 3 days, which is west of Tamale and close to Mole National Park. We spent Sunday at the park where we went on a walking tour and saw some elephants, a water buck, warthog, crocodile, and some birds. Then we had a few days to talk about what we’ve been up to so far and where we are headed over the next couple of months.

As I was hoping, this trip was very re-energizing. It felt so nice to not have to be “on” all the time. We have all been having different experiences and have different stories to tell, but when it comes down to it we are all going through more or less the same things. Almost every one of us had an embarrassing story about fetching water, a funny story about getting around with the transportation here, a story about someone who has inspired us, or a story where we were incredibly frustrated and angry. Oh, and we have all become very comfortable talking about our bowel movements, but that’s all I’ll share about that.

We each gave a short presentation on what we have been doing at work and had time set aside to give feedback and ideas to one other. Most of the long-term volunteers were there so it was really nice to get advice from them and see how our work is contributing to the overall goal of EWB.

Not only am I working with a new partner, but this is the first time we have worked in the private sector (at least in Ghana). So there are pros and cons to my placement, just like any other. The difficult aspect (for me) is the lack of information and structure I was given going into this. We did not know anything about this company, exactly what kind of work I would be doing with them, or whether we will work with them again in the future. This makes it more difficult to do something that we can follow up on and will have a lasting impact. On the other hand, all I have to do is learn as much as I can about how things work around here and I will be helping EWB determine where and how we should focus our work in the years to come.

It was great hearing about what the other volunteers have been doing and getting excited about their work. I think we have all been doubting ourselves a bit too much and constantly asking ourselves “Why am I here?” I read something by the author Eric Dudley, who wrote The Critical Villager and he explains: “The greatest leaders, whether in politics, the military, business, or science, are those who manage the paradox of confident action tempered by profound doubt.” This really sums up how I feel sometimes. There is always this tension that I feel between getting things done while I am here, and questioning the things I am doing and trying to make them flexible and sustainable. I have found that it helps to remind myself that, in the end, we just have to keep going and do the best we can with the situation we have in front of us.

Me with the elephants at Mole Park

This is Steph, another volunteer in Ghana working with a women's group in Tuna, we found a giant beetle that we thought was dead. We realized it was still alive after she pretended to eat it