The Dutch Way

I met Mo last September in Ghana, and we spent four months basically doing everything together--we lived together, ate together, worked together, traveled together and laughed together! We also talked about home, about people who are important to us, places, and much loved pets. Last week I got the chance to see all those things we talked about so much!

And in the meantime, we did many very Dutch-like things. We went to a cheese market (I was in heaven!), and then to a factory where they make cheese,
(yes, that's all cheese)
and then a factory where they make wooden shoes! Mo lives in northern Holland, in Friesland, in a beautiful house next to a canal with a windmill in the backyard. That's right--she has a windmill in her yard. We got to sleep in it one night, which was incredibly cold and incredibly fun. We basically took out every sleeping bag we could find and all the blankets we could carry, and slept on the 3rd floor of the mill. Here is a picture of the mill, and then where we slept!




Holland is very beautiful- it's flat (and actually a few meters below sea level, which is held off with a very big dyke) and colorful with beautiful old buildings lining the many canals. It's also very cold. It was snowing, quite hard, when I landed, and I didn't really ever warm up.

It was a great trip, and then I had a nice relaxing weekend back in London- with lunch in Wimbledon with some family friends, and more exploring London with Robin. On Tuesday, I packed up my things and headed for the airport. Everything ran smoothly, and I arrived in DC (with all of my luggage!) to a very welcoming crowd with balloons and signs and flowers, big smiles and even bigger hugs. Now I am home, and slowly recovering and rediscovering life in Richmond.

Thank you all for reading my blog over the last 7 months, your thoughts and comments were very important to me; I will certainly never forget the support I received. This will probably be the last post (at least for now...who knows what the future holds!), so if want more information, you're just going to have to talk to me in person! :-)

Becca

change of scenery...

I recently went from living on about $5 a day to staying in probably the most expensive city in the world, and it has completely blown my mind. Not to mention everything else that seems strange, absurd, and/or exciting. I don’t really know how to describe what I’ve done and how I’ve felt since arriving in London 4 days ago, so I think I’ll just give you a short list of things I have observed.

-there is way too much stuff
-a burger can cost $12
-I am mesmerized by shiny things
-I haven’t warmed up since I got off the plane
-I blend in
-there is an enormous amount of selection, especially with food
-there are trash bins
-the newspaper is all about the latest robberies, murders, and car wrecks
-the internet is REALLY fast
-the food is extremely flavourful
-the toilet paper goes in the toilet, not the trash bin
-there are nice people here too
-the buildings are really tall
-cheese is delicious
-I have a very hard time making small decisions
-strangers are more respectful of your personal space
-it’s not very sunny
-I wake up earlier than most of the city
-the streets are clean

There are tons more I know, but that’s a start. It has been really great to hang out with Robin again- we realized it has been 2 _ years since we have seen each other (we studied together in Melbourne, Australia in 2005). He has done a great job in helping me to adjust, by taking me to the most shocking places so the rest doesn’t seem so strange anymore. The first day I was here, we went to Camden- a crazy market type place with every genre of style and person represented, and on Friday night, we attended an all-night psy-trance rave where we danced for about 7 straight hours and stepped outside again after the sun came up. It was more like being on another planet than anything. The rest of the time we have spent relaxing, staying warm, and catching up.

Here is us being silly (hooray for other people with digital cameras!)


Tomorrow I head to Holland to see Mo! I have a feel it’s going to be equally shocking and even colder…

Saying Goodbye

I left Tafi Atome last Thursday morning with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. I spent the last week there making sure I had everyone's information, feeding the monkeys at every opportunity, and playing with the kids as much as I could. As I left, I really felt like I had tied up all the loose ends, and was ready to take the next step, but it was still hard!

The hardest moment of all was when I said goodbye to my sweet little girl Patience. She is 6 years old, full of life, and extremely smart. She is a single child, with a single mother who runs a shop. She rarely goes to play with the other children; she must tend to the shop and help her mom by going to the market and fetching water (yes, at 6 years old). Just about every day, I would spend at least an hour sitting and talking with her in front of the shop. Though she spoke very little English, we were able to communicate easily enough, mostly through games and laughing, and she quickly memorized any English word I gave her. She was always smiling and excited to see me.

When I went to say goodbye to her on Thursday morning, she was sitting in a corner, looking very sad. I made a funny face at her and told her to come to me. She did, but did not smile and run to me like she usually did. I picked her up and hugged her, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. I told her not to worry, that I would come back, and she just hugged me again. Though we do not speak the same language, 'goodbyes' are universal, and this one was really tough!

I could really tell the community appreciated my being there with their graciousness when I left. The orphanage gave me a going away 'party' with soda and crackers for the children, and personalized kente cloth and a necklace symbolizing unity for me. The committee gave me an outfit hand made out of 'Tafi Atome' cloth. The community gave me my fare to Accra and poured libations (basically that means they said a prayer then passed the gin bottle) for my safe travel and return home. Patrick's mother made necklaces for myself and Mama Jack (Patrick is the student my Grandmother is sponsoring through University). Sylvester gave me beautiful fabric, and Foster gave me a kente bag. I was completely overwhelmed. And now my suitcase is certainly full!!

Next time I write to you, I will be in the land of bright lights and expensive beer.

Happy "July 4th" in Ghana

The 6th of March is Independence day in Ghana and they do this celebration right. There was no school, but the school children put on their uniforms anyway and at about 9:30 each class of each school marched down to the football pitch where most of the community was waiting, including the chiefs in dress (wearing traditional outfits). After the national anthem, pledge, prayer, and flag raising, a few of the older students gave speeches in English about the importance of education, urging all of the parents to send their children (male and female) to school.

Then the assembly man and some other important people stood in front of the flag and each class marched all the way around in the field in turn, stopping to give a salute in front of the important people, chiefs and elders. For the salute, each class tried to outdo the one before it with impressively choreographed stunts, chants, dances, and moves. It was brilliant to see. Then it got silly, as a group of grown women marched and attempted an improvised salute, and the best--the guides marched and as their salute, 3 of them pulled out bananas and 'called the monkeys' while the rest got on the ground and ate them out of their hands. We even had a few guys attempt to ride bikes over a 'ramp' (a plank of wood on either side of a school desk) which was very funny and mostly disastrous.

After all of that (which lasted until almost 2:00 pm), the football matches began. The first one was the JSS girls against the "community youth girls", which seemed to be any un-married female in the village. Then a few, more serious, boys teams played, and the last match was the teachers against anyone in the community. Everyone played barefoot and had a great time. All day, there were women selling fruit, water, biscuits, rice, and other goodies (Mo, they even had groundnut cake!).

It was a great day to live in a small village in Eastern Ghana. Two new things I observed about Ghanians: they make marching look like dancing, and their applause has a definite rhythm to it. Rhythm and dance are in their blood here, and there is nothing in the world that compares to it.

Sadly, I will leave village life next Thursday, which is very quickly approaching! Though I know I made the choice to leave early, as my time in Tafi Atome comes to an end, I have more and more sentimental moments and I find myself wishing I could stay longer. But that is how I know I made the right decision; I will leave craving more, which will leave me with a good taste and bring me back as soon as I can come.

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!

Should I stay or should I go

Some of this post may sound like I’m arguing with myself, and that’s because I probably am. I have a constant battle taking place in my mind surrounding these decisions.

I always say that I only make plans in order to change them, and it’s true. When I decided to come to Ghana and started to prepare for the trip, I never excluded the possibility that my plans would change, perhaps drastically, in the course of the trip. And they have. I was ready to come to Ghana for eight months to work in an orphanage, live with a family, and travel on my own. Instead, I serendipitously met a wonderful friend with whom I did all of my travel for 4 months (that’s you, Mo!) and somehow ended up living in a monkey sanctuary. So life is full of surprises.

I feel that, although my goals seem to change regularly, I have accomplished a lot here. I experienced life living with a ‘middle-class’ family in Ghana and the many frustrations and heartbreaks involved with working in an orphanage. Since being at the monkey sanctuary, I feel I have truly left a mark. I helped change the percentage breakdown for the sanctuary’s profits, set up a new bank account, improve daily and monthly book keeping, set up a lock box for the daily profits, paint the office, put up a bulletin board of pictures, clean the desk (twice), begin a bike rental company, send a boy to university, and begin building an orphanage school for the village. And I’m not done yet. I still have some projects I am just starting or still working on. But for the most part, I feel I have accomplished what I came here to do (even if I didn’t know what that was at the time).

The sanctuary, as an eco-tourism project, is doing very well. It has a tourism management committee that, for the most part, cares deeply for the sanctuary and understands what must happen. The guides are arguably some of the best in the country. All money that comes in and goes out is recorded daily, calculated monthly, and distributed quarterly. Staying at the sanctuary is a wonderful tourist experience, and the majority of visitors thoroughly enjoy their stay, with no complaints to mention. Most of the problems that the sanctuary must still work out are not in my control to help. As far as the business of the sanctuary, I feel a bit like my work is done.

Likewise, Madam Charity (the one who runs the orphanage in Tafi Atome as well as one in the nearby town of Logba) is incredibly organized, motivated, and devoted to this new building project. Each of our meetings consists of her telling me what she has accomplished since the last time we met (which is always something). She seems to be giving me more advice than I am giving her! Though she asked me to keep the money and pay it as we need it, I wholly trust that she would use every cent towards its intended purpose if I left it to her.

I love this village. I love the laid-back atmosphere, the location, the welcoming attitude, the children, the food, the great friends I have made, the monkeys (of course), the seclusion, the magic of a small village, sometimes I even love the crazy politics and huge amounts of dust. Some days I want to live here for as long as I can. But that is only some days. Other days I cannot seem to accomplish anything I attempt for one reason or another, no tourists visit, and I find myself wondering what I am doing here. Some mornings I wake up with an ambitious to-do list and have a productive day; other days the only item on the agenda is waiting until it’s late enough to go to sleep again. Those days are hard.

A very wise man told me recently that I need to make sure I know what my personal goals are in being here. Those are the ones that are most important. Because, and I use his words here, “everything you fix will fall apart again after you leave”. I don’t think that is entirely true, as some things that we have ‘fixed’ they would actually have to try to break again, but it is a valid point nonetheless. So I tried to think back to what my personal goals were for this trip before I left, then what they were once I got here, then once I got to the sanctuary, and what they are now. In the beginning, I know I wanted to stay long enough to call the place home, to understand the culture, to experience life like they do, to challenge myself with the absence of known commodities (like fast internet, washing machines, and hot water), and to broaden my perspective of the world (sounds vague, but it happens automatically when you travel). I have done all of this, and more.

So the punch line is this: I am coming home earlier than I originally planned. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make, and I still question it about every 10 minutes. I think part of the reason it was so difficult was because as soon as I thought I wanted to leave earlier, staying became the new personal goal, the next challenge. But the purpose would only have been to say that I had, which is never a good reason to do anything. There are a few small projects I still want to work on here, and a few people I want to visit before I go, but nothing that will take me two more months. So I have changed my plane ticket and will now return to America in the first week of April. This allows me about 3 more weeks at the sanctuary, a week to travel in Ghana, and 2 weeks in Europe to acclimatize a bit before getting back to Richmond.

So I will see you soon.

How's the Weather?

I had a funny conversation about the weather the other day. It began with the guy asking me about the weather at home right now. I tried to explain to him how unpredictable it is in Virginia so you never know how it's going to be outside until you are outside. His response: "but don't you have people that predict the weather for you"? I said yes, but they frequently get it wrong. He seemed confused and told me that we should take after the weathermen in Ghana because they are always right. I laughed and told him that I could be a weatherman in Ghana; it's not hard!

I arrived in Ghana in September, the middle of the rainy season, and it strongly resembled a Virginian August, but perfectly consistent. The rain tapered off around October and completely quit by November. It was then that it started getting dusty--REALLY dusty. By the time I returned from Ethiopia in January, it was possible to look directly at the sun, without sunglasses, at any point during the day; it just looked like a large yellow moon. The blue sky completely disappeared, as did the horizon (no pretty sunrises or sunsets, the sun just dissapeared around 5:30), and we were left with a thick grey haze in every direction. This is the effect of the Harmattan, a wind carrying dust from the Sahara. I knew the dry season would be dusty, but I had no idea what it would really be like. Everything (including my skin, clothes, hair) was coated in dirt. It was impossible to stay clean. The perk was that the temperature dropped. Though it still got plenty hot during the day, the mornings were cool enough for a jacket. But the cool mornings lasted less than a month.

You may notice I'm using the past tense. A few days ago, I saw the outline of clouds in the sky. The next day, the clouds were clearer, and on Friday, it rained! I happened to be walking home from Logba (a town 5 km away) at the time, so I was caught completley off guard and got drenched. The road went from dusty to a river of mud in minutes and the air cleared immediately. When the rain stopped, the sun was bright and the sky was blue. We basically went from dry season to rainy season in 45 minutes. Since then, it has rained a bit, but nothing like that first day. The temperature is climbing and the sun has returned to it's brutally hot state.

So that's the story here; what's yours?