Abnormalities turned normal

I had a drink with some peace corps volunteers working in the area the other day and we had a funny conversation about things that have become completely normal to us. I thought I would share a few.

-The reason we could not go to the bank for 10 days was because it would be too busy with people depositing pay checks... for the entire first half of the month.

-In Tafi Atome recently, the members of one family blamed someone from a rival clan for the death of a cousin through the use of Juju (the cousin was in Mali at the time). So the chiefs and elders punished him in a 'traditional way'. This turned ugly when the convicted man took the chiefs and elders to the district court because there was no proof he was guilty, so his punishment did not 'agree with the law'...

-...The details here are a bit unclear, but in the end, the convicted man has demanded GHc 700 (about $735) from the chiefs and elders, or else someone will go to jail. This GHc 700 will, of course, come from the profits of the sanctuary (though the tourism project has nothing to do with the lawsuit)

-Last weekend, someone defecated in the Junior High School. When the teachers discovered it on Monday morning, they closed school and sent the children home. The school remained closed all week...

-...On Sunday (one week later), the priest and congregation gathered at the school after church to 'spiritually cleanse' it, which must happen before the doors are re-opened. School resumed on Monday, as if nothing had happened.

-This is the second time someone has pooped in the school since I've been living in Tafi; apparently it is a very common occurrence.

-Funerals in Ghana strongly resemble a celebration or festival. Recently, a young man died in a town nearby. His mother was from Tafi Atome and his father was from Kpeve, so there was much discussion on where he should be buried. It was finally decided that the body would be brought to Tafi Atome for the funeral then taken to Kpeve for burial. Apparently the father was not happy with this arrangement, so he went a day early and basically stole the body and took it back to Kpeve. So when the procession went to bring the body to Tafi Atome in style (the procession is a series of decorated tro tros full of villagers singing and drumming as loud as they can), there was no body...

-...nobody thought much of this; we simply returned to Tafi Atome and continued the celebration, without the guest of honor, well into the night.

-An education is hard to come by here. My friend is trying to go to school in Ho and has a friend in the states willing to help with his school fees, as long as he can prove he will use the money for school. So he went to Ho and asked his school for a letter stating he would be a student there. The school would not give him a letter because he was not yet a student, but he could not become a student without the letter for his sponsor. Catch 22.

-And my favorite. Each year during the dry season, there are 'controlled' bush fires all over Ghana. I have heard a few different reasons for this- to smoke out bushmeat, to fertilize the ground for farming, and to prevent out of control fires. Unfortunately, people are not all too careful about watching their fires, and have burned down most of the electricity poles in this part of the Volta region, leaving all of the villages in the area (Tafi Atome included) power-less...

-...We have been without power for a bit over a week now, and they say it will be at least another few weeks, maybe a month or two, before they are able to repair all of the poles. The best part is- this happens every year. Every year, bush fires destroy electricity poles and villages go without power for months. And nobody does anything about it.

These examples were a bit difficult to come up with for the very reason that they have become normal! It is not until I tell the stories to other people (tourists mostly) that I realize they are strange. I wonder what I will find abnormal when I return to the states...

**note: thank you for all the snail mail! If you have something to send and haven't sent it yet, just hold on to it--I will get it much faster if you just hand it to me when I get home!