Realizations

I tried to ignore the bleating goats and obnoxious chickens until it was light out. I got up at 6:30am and sat on our front steps. Soon Sema greeted us with porridge for breakfast. After we ate, Samantha and I headed toward the bath area for a bucket shower. Samantha quickly got over her stage fright of showering together, and we both gasped in shock as we poured the cold water over our heads. Now we were awake! It didn’t take long for me to remember the efficient routine of showering with a bucket that took me days to perfect the last time I was here. It felt so good to wash off the dirt and sweat from the sweaty night, the day of travel, the night in Ho, the tro-tros, and the airplanes. Clean never felt so good. We took the morning to relax, and had a short visit from Emil who peppered us with questions about life in the United States—farming, poverty, jobs, money, government, crime, prisons, divorce. After lunch (fried plantains with beans) I took a nap.

I spent some of the afternoon sitting on the front steps watching some kids play. The boys were between 4 and 6 years old, Kofi, Michael, and another, plus Fafali (the 18 month old who lives in our compound, sister to Kofi). They positioned a stick with one end on the wall ledge, and the other resting atop a tin can, creating an appropriate obstacle for them to jump over. Fafali often walked into the stick, wanting to join in on the fun, knocking it over and clapping with gleeful satisfaction. Soon they figured out how to raise the stick higher and higher, almost to their height, and took turns jumping off of the 5^th step across the compound.

Grace visited briefly, long enough for me to give her the gift I had picked out for her- a brightly colored bag, flip flops, and a red cotton dress. Kosi came by as well, and spent most of the afternoon in our front room reading the books we had brought—one after the other. Emil and Hans came to walk us around the community. Hans was fairly quiet with only his wide grin and smiling eyes to express himself since his English is quite limited. A local man who was mentally ill approached us, grabbed hold of my and Samantha’s arms at once and refused to let go. Once he started walking and dragging us along, Hans stepped in and pulled us apart, and walked deliberately between the man and us until the man gave up. Emil asked more questions: what did Americans do with the mentally ill; do we have villages like Saviefe in the U.S.; do we have goats running around, etc. The four of us walked to the library, which I was anxious to see. The library, only open during school hours, has obvious limitations as far as hours of operation. We discussed this, but Emil explained that no one is willing to volunteer their time without pay to oversee use of the library. This is extremely frustrating. If the community wants to use the library, they should be willing to take ownership of its operation and maintenance, and volunteer one afternoon per month. Obviously during school hours, the children are occupied in their classrooms, and adults are working on the farm. No one is using this library. We peaked through the open window slats to see a long table in the center of the room. One desk with an ancient desktop computer was on one side of the room, with two desktop computers on the opposite. I wondered where the 5 donated laptops were…The two computers were crowded together on one small desk. Note- there are no benches or chairs in the library at all. The right side had a long bookshelf spanning the entire wall, as did the left. It looked like mostly groupings of text books. It was clear the teachers were not making use of the text books or teachers’ guides that accompany them. We couldn’t tell much else because like in most situations in Ghana I’ve seen, books on a shelf are turned binding side in, facing the wall, so all you see are pages. You can’t tell what books they are unless you take them off of the bookshelf. I just stared through the window as I rested my head against my arm on the wall. I just don’t know.

We continued to walk through the village, visiting the chief and elders first. The chief was cheery, more welcoming than the first time I came. We got into an argument over whether there were fifty or fifty one states in the U.S. He swore that Hawaii was the 51^st state. I dropped it. He then gave Samantha and I two bottles of Star beer. We continued on our way, and visited Peace and Christine at the roadside store. We saw Walter very briefly and then visited with Richard at his house. Richard, Hans, and Emil spoke with us about our plan for the next few weeks. They then recounted their experiences with Kevin, the previous volunteer. I already had my biased views of the kid based on the street lamp outside our compound, but I was ready to hear what they had to say. Despite the fact that Kevin refused to learn any Ewe phrases, and that he bullied everyone in the village to do what he wanted, Richard and Emil still held Kevin in high regard and said they liked him. I wasn’t sure if it was because he contributed a flashy and tangible donation to the village, or if it was because he was a man instead of a woman. I rolled my eyes and exhaled slowly in suppressed frustration. It became dark so we walked home. I met Mama at the entrance of the compound who told me that because we had plantains and beans for lunch, we would only have bread and tea for dinner. *Sigh* After “dinner” I ran a wet washcloth, previously white but now brown from the night before, across my face and down my arms and legs. I intended to watch a movie on my laptop but my eyes were too heavy.