I feel like it was just a few days ago that I was afraid of the lizards in my bedroom and was amazed to see women carrying huge items on their heads or goats and chickens crowding the roads. These things and so many more have become second nature to me here.
I've thus far devoted my minimal blog efforts to the exciting things happening here and have yet to simply set the scene of my day to day life in Ghana. So, from the beginning...
While planning my trip, I decided that I wanted to stay with a host family rather than a home or hostel with more volunteers. I wanted to experience the Ghanaian lifestyle and understand daily living firsthand. I was told by the Cheerful Hearts Foundation coordinator that I would be staying with an older woman who runs a school and has a teenage granddaughter.
When I arrived in Ghana, I was brought to the home and introduced to a girl who seemed about my age. It turns out that my arranged hostess decided to travel in the fall. Once in Europe, she opted not to return. Her granddaughter, Leah, stepped into the role of hostess. Leah is nineteen and takes care of my roommate Sarah and I. She does the cooking and cleaning and helps with her grandmother's school, which is actually located at our house. At 19 I could barely keep track of myself, let alone two other people and a household and a school! Props to Leah.
Our house is located in an area in Kasoa called Blue Top Estates. "Estate," however, is decidedly an exaggeration. There are three units in the house: one for Sarah and I, one for Leah, and one occupied by a couple named Gloria and Frances and their exuberant and permanently naked toddler son Henry. We have a well from which our bathing water is drawn each morning and night. Cooking water also comes from the well, so I'm extra cautious about boiling it before consuming any to avoid parasites.
The kitchen is a tin-roof addition to the house with a steel-grated door, cement floor and walls, and lack of electricity. A propane tank and camp stove sit on a wooden bench under a barred window and a pile of various pots and pans is stacked against a wall. We chop vegetables and do other food prep outside on the well. The refrigerator is in mine and Sarah's entryway. There are no shelves so it can only hold what can be stacked on the floor of it or piled into the door shelves.
The kitchen is just to the left of this scene. The entrance straight ahead leads to our rooms. The photo is taken from the well.
Sarah and I share a bedroom equipped with two twin beds and one small book case. Correction: one twin bed and one hospital bed, and one small bookcase. I've learned to sleep in a partially-upright position (the hand crank that adjusts the angle is broken), and sometimes I'll wake up a few inches further from the wall than when I fell asleep due to my nighttime movement rolling me away (the brakes on the wheels are apparently also broken). Sarah and I sleep backwards on the beds, with our feet at the wall and our heads in the middle of the room, in order to be more directly cooled by the ceiling fan.
And finally, saving the best for last. The lovely ladies' room. The latrine is located outside and around the corner of the kitchen in the courtyard. That conveniently places it directly outside our bedroom window. I'll keep the aesthetic details to a minimum, except to say that one is never alone out there and can always expect the company of several cockroaches.
I've transformed the complimentary sleep mask I received from Turkish Airlines into a gas mask suitable for my latrine trips. I've actually managed to minimize these trips quite well by locating the few other restrooms on my day-to-day paths and befriending the people who grant permission to use them.
Overall the house is definitely not modern, but I can adapt for the most part. The worst is when the power fails though, especially at night. This means the fans don't work, and when it's 90 degrees with 80% humidity, sleep is absolutely impossible. Unfortunately power outages are pretty frequent.
The Cheerful Hearts Foundation office is located about a quarter mile down a dirt road. There are a few residences along this road that are typically bedroom-sized metal edifices with cement foundations and porches where the families congregate. The adults will call out "Good morning/afternoon/evening" (never "hi" or " hello" - it feels very proper) or "Ete sayn" (how are you?) to which we respond "eyeh", or "fine." The children will run after us yelling "Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!" then "Obruni bye bye!" as we pass.
One of the roads leading from my neighborhood to Kasoa
"Downtown" Kasoa is another 15 minutes from the office. The clinic where I work on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as the bank, an Internet cafe, the market, and taxi and tro-tro (bus) stations are all on the bustling, dusty paved road that constitutes the hub of the city.
The other volunteers live in the director's giant house another 20 minute walk away in an area called Peacetown. There were 3 people when I arrived, 5 as of now, and 4 more scheduled to arrive this week. The house is equipped with running water, a flush toilet (what!!! It was 2 weeks before I saw one of those in Africa), a television, couches, and a kitchen that doesn't require going outside to access. Basically a palace.
During my first weeks here I requested to be moved to the volunteer house because the cost is the same regardless of where you stay, and the reasons I had wanted a home stay were not really fulfilled (to live with a family and gain an understanding of the workings of a family unit). However, as summer break in the Western world approaches, more and more volunteers are signed up to arrive and pack the volunteer house. I have decided to stay put in my not-so-luxurious but more private location and to brave out the less than ideal amenities while I am here.
I have my whole life to watch movies or be surrounded by other Americans... I'm learning to appreciate the quiet and simpler life in my African home. I have so far read more books in the past three weeks than I probably have in the past year combined:
- The Paris Wife by Paula McClain
- Eat and Run by Scott Jurek
- Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
On a typical morning I get up between 6 and 6:30. Monday and Wednesday I rinse off with a quick bucket shower, have a mug of Bran Flakes and shelf-stable milk or a banana with groundnut spread (basically peanut butter), and make the thirty minute walk into Kasoa for work at the clinic starting at 7:30. Other days I don't have to be at work until 8:30, so I'll usually go for a run through the dirt roads in the nearby neighborhoods.
These runs are always entertaining; the Ghanaians think I'm insane and will holler out, "Obruni! Are you for the excercise!?" or "Obruni! You like the jog?" There is one Ghanaian who also runs and I see him every morning and stop to say hello. Tony runs in long pants and a knit cap and always has a very complete warm up consisting of jumping jacks and showy stretches in the middle of the road. I asked him if he is training for anything, and he said "No, but the exercise is good for the cholesterol!" (YAY! Health-educated!!) I also asked about the knit cap and if he gets hot while running. He said "Oh yes, yes but it's for the sun on my head." Love this man. One person aware of health issues like high cholesterol and overexposure to sun is better than zero.
We usually finish with work between noon and one. Sometimes Claire, the other Public Health project worker and I will find lunch in Kasoa and then head to the office to use the internet and do some of the research side of our work. I generally arrive back at our house around 4 or 5, and we aim to eat dinner at 6:30.
A typical dinner in Ghana consists of rice or some form of yams, cassava, or cornmeal and some kind of oily stew. My roommate Sarah and I are trying to teach Leah to incorporate vegetables (rare in Ghana) and other nutritious aspects. This was a collard green stew served with rice, black eyed peas, avocado, and a little tomato stew leftover from the previous night.
The days are slow. I am often antsy with an unfortunate combination of boredom and lack of desire to do anything based on the exruciating heat and humidity. This is where the reading comes into play. After dinner there's usually more reading, another bucket shower, and I'm in bed by 9 or 10:00.
Weekends are a different story. So far I have traveled to Busua Beach (see previous posts) and have made shorter visits to the capital Accra, the nearby touristy Kokrobite Beach, and another beach town called Winneba. We sometimes make trips to ShopRite, the American-esque grocery store about 40 minutes away, just to have air conditioning and the familiarity of supermarket shopping. This is where we find items like cereal, milk, and anything else we can't purchase from a stall on the side of the road.
All said, Africa is most decidedly not America. But I'm learning to adjust, and am starting to feel more at home here than I did in my first and second petrified weeks. There are times when I wish I could just spend a day in America to recuperate then head back here to finish out my time, but unfortunately that's not an option. So I can make do.
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