Finally

Ok, so this is going to be a long one. A lot has happened in the last week and a half, and I really haven’t had a chance to post until now. So go get a snack or a cat to pet because this might take a while.

So after orientation we all got picked up by our host mothers. So another girl and I got in a cab with our Auntie and drove to the house. When we got there, two other girls who have been here for a month greeted us. So there are four of us, one host mom, her daughter, and a friend that visits almost every night. We sleep in the upstairs, and the family sleeps downstairs, and we eat separately also. But everybody is really nice and fun to be with, so even though we’re literally detached, it’s all okay. Plus, the location is great. We’re smack dab in the middle of downtown, so I can walk to work, to the castle, to Melcom (the closest thing to a Wal-Mart in the area), to the ATM, to the El Mina taxi station, anywhere. Woah, right now I just had déjà vu, isn’t that weird? Like somehow I know I would be in this house writing this? Well, even if that is the case, I don’t remember the poorly dubbed Mexican soap opera playing on the TV, or the vanilla cookie I’m eating, so never mind I guess.

Anyway, so I’m interning at the Department of Social Welfare (DSW), Cape Coast District. There are three other interns in my office, but I work in partnership with only two, since the other girl lives with me and has been here for a month, so she already has her own project. The three of us had an orientation with our boss, and he told us about what the office does and everything. Actually, there’s only 4 people who work there currently, and only two that I see there all day long. In fact, our boss started working there in February this year, and he hasn’t been paid once! That’s happening a lot right now, nurses, teachers, a lot of people aren’t getting paid by the government. Yet, people are still showing up to work and still doing their jobs. What else are you going to do?

Man, the soap opera keeps cutting out. Oh well.

Okay, so this is what happened:

My two office partners and I were given a document called “Children’s Act 560: Section II: Day-Care Centres”. It is all the laws set by the DSW governing the operation of a day-care in Cape Coast, such as the qualifications of the attendants and the necessary equipment like a first-aid kit and drinking mugs. The Act hasn’t been revised since 1979. Yeah. That’s like, 30 years. So we took it upon ourselves to rewrite it to better meet today’s standards; our boss gave us until the end of the week.

Wait, sorry, what? One week for three American interns to rewrite a set of Ghanaian laws that haven’t been considered for 30 years? You betcha. And we did. It’s finished now. We even wrote up eight example forms for the centers to refer to, forms like medical and personal records, attendance sheets, examples of a daily schedule and nutritious meal ideas, and a visitor sign-in sheet. But there’s still a lot of work to do. We have to get this new version put into law. See, the original issue was that the right people haven’t gotten together to review this, and I think a lot of different branches need to take a look and sign it for it to be passed. So we need to make sure we get all of them on board, which probably entails a lot of phone calls.

Also, more immediately, we need to take a look at the day-care attendant training manual written by the DSW. At least one attendant at a day-care must be trained by the DSW to perform childcare. Our boss tells us that the current training model it’s too lecture intensive, so it’s kind of boring, and that he wants us to try to incorporate the same material into a more interactive and activity based way so that the sessions are more engaging. He said we could look up some ideas online, so that shouldn’t be to terribly difficult… until we need to start training the attendants ourselves! (Which is optional, the interns don’t have to, but we indeed might end up doing it.)

Tuesday I got sick in the morning. Probably my fault. I couldn’t sleep so I decided to just eat some wafers instead, which sort of messed with my stomach, but the point is that after that and only one hour of sleep, I couldn’t go to work. Too bad, because I really wanted to. The other interns got to visit two day cares and do an inspection, like looking around at the facility to see if it was properly ventilated, that the children had enough space and all that, and they got to ask questions to the proprietresses to make sure they were doing everything necessary. Then they wrote up a report about what they saw, and made suggestions about how to improve the day care. These reports were official and the DSW is going to do another check in the future to make sure that the improvements have been made. So basically, we are doing really cool and important stuff.

Well, by the time I had gotten some sleep and felt better, I called in to see if I should come to the office, but they were just writing the report and said I didn’t need to come, so I took the opportunity to head to Eguafo. For some reason, I have always been miserable at trying to get a taxi, even though it’s pretty easy here, but anyway, I paid a ridiculous price because I didn’t really feel like waiting around for a better deal and risk getting lost or getting home after dark, so whatever, the point is I got to Egaufo. And I learned how to take a taxi by myself since then so I should be good on that from now on.

I had seen the director of the Sankofa orphanage in the streets of Cape Coast on Monday, which was really exciting, and I told him that I would come to Eguafo Tuesday. So, some of the kids knew I was coming and some didn’t. For those who didn’t know, it was kind of fun to see the looks on their faces of shock and then smiles to see me again. And it was so good to see all of them again. A boy I volunteered with last summer came back for the third time this summer, so I got to see him, too! But I have to say, you can’t repeat the past. It was a little awkward, you know? Because I’m not living there, I’m not working there, so what am I really doing? Hanging out? I haven’t been there for a year, and a lot has changed, so it’s sort of hard to know what to talk about. But all of them are doing well, which was good to see.

Thursdays are intern dinner days, so all the Proworld interns (there are volunteers and interns) get together to talk about sustainable development, how things are going, go somewhere fun, and generally just hang out. Nothing much to say about that, just thought I’d mention it.

Do you remember “Obruni”? Kids call this to me in the streets. It’s kind of cute… well, it was cute when I thought it meant “foreigner”. But one of my self-proclaimed husbands has informed me that actually, it means “white person”. Okay, I’m not really offended by it, but I already stick out, and that just makes it more obvious. And, strangers actually refer to me as “white person”. Example: I was getting out of a trotro (taxi-van), and I think what happened was that while I was hopping out, a taxi was trying to go by on the narrow street and I had “gotten in his way”. Well anyway, whatever happened, I didn’t see or hear him until I was walking away and the taxi driver yelled, “HI OBRUNI HI! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!” Translation: Hey white person, stay out of my way or I’ll run you over. Lovely. Although I do have to admit that even if a Ghanaian had done the same thing, she probably would have been treated somewhat similarly. But let’s be real. I’m not a huge fan of my neighbor standing outside my window and looking in while I’m in my underwear, then when I duck out of the way, calling, “Obruni obruni”, as if that’s going to make me come back to the window instead of army crawling across the floor to my suitcase to find pants. Which is what I did.

Another point about my color: I passed by some little girls on the street and they said the usual, “Obruni, good morning”, then one of them sort of grasped my arm, then said to her friend, “I touched one!” See, this is what I’m talking about. That’s what makes me feel so alien… “I touched one”, like I’m a sting-ray at the aquarium or something. It doesn’t help that some babies literally cry when they see me, or if I try to bend down to say hi, they pull away in fear. To be fair, I’d freak out too if some human shaped being that looked like her blood was drained and her life was sucked out of her body suddenly approached me. We’re talking ghosts here. So I understand… Besides, little kids in the U.S. are told to be quiet about race, so we repress the obvious, which only makes it worse. Here, it’s out in the open, there’s no real tension about it besides the stereotype that white people have money which causes little girls to gang up on you in the street, surround you and try to open your bag until you have to shout “JAI!” (stop) in mispronounced Fante, only to leave them behind in a confused stupor. So there you have it. 1 and a half sentences of pros, 2 full paragraphs of cons for the word obruni. From my perspective.

In other news, Ghana is a great place to come if you want to be sweet-talked. Seriously. Here are some examples:

Man1: “Ekuwa! Hahaha, my chosen one! I am Ekuwa’s husband!”

Me: “Ok.”

Man1: “Hold my hand! Hahaha!”

Man2: “You have agreed to marry my son.”

Me: “I don’t think I did.”

Man2: “Yes, you did. I have told him about you, what you look like, that you’re from America. And he said okay.”

Me: “Have I ever met your son?”

Man2: “No.”

Guy1: “You have a pretty face.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Guy1: “I gave you all my love and you have disappointed me.”
Me: “Oh. Sorry.”

Guy1: “No, I was translating the lyrics of the song that’s playing.”

Me: “So many guys propose to me here, but nobody ever did in the United States.”

Man3: “That’s because your love is in Africa. Don’t you see? It’s a sign from God; God is wonderful. Do you know why you are proposed to so much here?”

Me: “I can guess. Probably because I’m an obruni.”

Man3: “NO! Don’t say that! Haven’t you seen mixed couples before?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Man3: “It’s not that. It’s because you are beautiful, and your love is in Africa.”

This next conversation took an hour, but here’s a summary.

Guy2: “Emily, I love you. I really love you.”

Me: “I don’t think you love me. You don’t even know me.”

Guy2: “If we go out, then you will get to know me.”

Me: “How about the other way around?”

Guy2: “I really need you in my life.”

Me: “You don’t need me. You don’t need anybody.”

Guy2: “I want to marry you.”

Me: “I can’t cook. I can maybe make toast.”

Guy2: “I will cook for you. Please, I love you.”

Me: “Well I’m not interested in being your girlfriend. Or your wife. Or you fiancé. I just want to be your friend.”

Guy2: “I hope you will change your mind as we spend more time together.”

You might think that this is all very flattering, but it’s not. Well, maybe it is a little. Okay, it’s like this: I like the culture of calling here. I think it’s nice that guys call me once, sometimes three times a day just to say, “Hello, good morning, how are you? Are you fine? I am so happy to hear that. So what are you doing today? Okay, good. See you.” Right? Like, if I called someone in the U.S. just to say that, they would say that I’m wasting their time. But people make time for each other here, which I think is great. However… the reason that attention from men isn’t all that nice here is that you KNOW that they’re saying the EXACT same thing to LOTS of other women. They have practice. And they steal each other’s lines. I learned that last year when two guys gave me the same spiel about their families’ acceptance for their natural attraction to white women, word for word. So… ladies, don’t be naïve. There are good guys out there, but they probably won’t start a conversation with you with, “Hello, I like everything about you. You are special.” My advice is to take the compliment and be on your way. I actually find that I like the ones who don’t propose to me better than the ones who do. And of course, I like the women, too.

On Friday, all the Proworld volunteers/interns went to Kakum National Park, which is a short hike and then a canopy walk, which is a series of shaky bridges 40 meters high, above the trees. That was really fun. Then we ate lunch at a hotel that has seemingly very heavily sedated crocodiles that you can touch and pay if you want a picture with one. Sorry, but any picture of me with a crocodile is going to have to be when we are both conscious. The birds there are beautiful though, small yellow ones in spherical nests, and big white ones in regular nests, with little babies crying out for food. One bird “fell out a tree and broke both its legs” which we figured meant that it was a sacrifice to the crocodiles. (What fully-grown bird just falls out of a tree…?) Well, I’ve done both of those things before (Kakum and the lunch spot), but in the afternoon we had a drumming and dance lesson. I’m awesome at drumming, but I am a sad excuse for a woman when it comes to dancing. Anyway, then I met up with one of my friends that I met last year, and we hung out, ate dinner (fried plantains, fried plantains!!) and then the Proworld peeps met up again at Goil.

Goil? Oh, it’s a pun, like, Go Oil. Goil. Your next question might be, “Why did you all meet up at a gas station?” to which I answer with another question, “Why does a gas station also serve as a bar and club?” Yes indeed, the party was pumpin’ (I deserve a pun prize for that one) with drinks and music and dancing and no shortage of men seeking to procure a dance partner and a phone number. One of the volunteers saw me suffering from this and offered his assistance by claiming to be my boyfriend of 3 years, asking if everything was okay or whether he should get jealous, kissing me on the head and walking away. Well, that didn’t much change anything, but I guess the gesture was nice.

On Saturday the Proworld peeps went over to Assin Manso, the place where the slaves were brought from the North to have their last bath. It was basically a river, but we also saw a ball and chain that was used when the slaves were chained together and forced to walk there. From there they had to walk to Cape Coast Castle, which took over a week, 36 miles I believe. We also saw the castle, which I could go to again and again, it’s so fascinating. Did you know it’s the youngest of 19 slave castles along the coast of Ghana?

After a long day of trapsing around and working and touring, trust me, a bucket bath is a blessing. I’ve always liked bucket baths, but I preferred taking them outside instead of inside, where it’s cooler. Not that our house is cool at all. We don’t have fans. As long as I keep my window open, though, I can hope and hope for a breeze to come, or for it to rain.

Speaking of which, on Sunday we were supposed to go to church with my host mom, but it was drizzling a little in the morning so we didn’t go. Ghanaians don’t want to go out when it’s raining. I mean, people at roadside shops still work, but if you’re at home and you were planning on going out, you just don’t. You wait for the rain to stop or you just cancel your plans. However, in the afternoon we went to a soccer game – Cape Coast vs. Takoradi – and halfway through it started raining. I was sitting under an awning, but nobody stopped playing, nobody ran for cover, everyone was still really into it. Soccer doesn’t stop for rain, I guess. The game was really lively and fun, although one girl stood up to cheer, sat back down, and found her iPhone missing. Nobody took my hat when I left it on a bench, though. Cape Coast Dwarfs won 3-1! (Yes, I spelled that right.) It was a great game. Basically everyone from Proworld met up there, but I went specifically with my housemate Kayla, who has announced that we will be friends forever, and a cool guy from my office, one who hasn’t proposed to me.

Pretty sure I’m sunburned… definitely tanner.

I already bought a gift for my sister and my mom, and many for myself but I’m still looking for one for my dad. I got some fabric to make more clothes and some fertility beads and a carved map of Africa and a painting. I regretted not buying paintings last time, so this time I’m stocking up. Also, randomly, I really want to buy a whole cocoa pod, not sure why, just to see what one looks like inside. And maybe more sandals…and some shorts. Yeah, I’ve been buying a lot.

Kinda running out of steam here, but here’s an amusing anecdote: on Sunday I ordered a cheese “beef” burger at one of my favorite restaurants and was definitely served a goat sandwich. 100% goat. It was like, fine, but it was also like, goat. Not beef. I did see some cool cows though! They had humps! And big horns! They were just taking a stroll along the side of the road.

One last thing. City life. It’s completely different from village life. Of course you didn’t need me to tell you that, but it’s something that I’ve experienced firsthand now. In Eguafo, we went into town one, maybe twice a week, and every time was an adventure. Now, I eat, sleep, work, and relax in the city. I can buy whatever I want, whenever I want, and I can do anything I want. Last year, I was so deprived of chocolate that I started mixing cocoa powder, sugar, and condensed milk together to make pudding. When we finally did acquire bars of chocolate, we set them in the fridge and saved them for the 4^th of July as a very, believe me, very special treat. You can’t even imagine how elated I was to have something that so many people have available all the time (oh my gosh I sound like Charlie Buket). Toilet paper was more valuable then. Good food was more appreciated. Bread was more sacred and people were more important. Now I can walk to the corner and buy kettle corn. Or a giant bottle of pure water. I could even buy fried chicken and rice if I wanted to (but I don’t want to – not from the street). Now, when my work is through, I can choose to go home and stop socializing if I want. Last summer, there were kids coming in and out of our house as they pleased. I’m not saying one is better or worse. Really, I’m not. The two are just different. Maybe I was a little more… delighted each day last year, but I was also volunteering, not working, and everything was so new and magical. Even if I went back to live in Eguafo, though, it wouldn’t be exactly the same; we were all younger then. And I am very content and grateful to be in Cape Coast. I feel extremely fortunate.

I’ll leave you, faithful readers, with something nice: I’ve been keeping myself very busy, as you can tell, but I also have time to relax at home with my three friends and my host sister. All of us and our Auntie went out to lunch and it was a blast. I generally just feel happy and relaxed and safe when I’m in Ghana, and whenever I’m talking to Ghanaians I just feel so accepted and happy, so maybe Man3 had a point. Well, if someone’s being too pushy or kind of creepy then that’s not fun, but in general Ghanaians are the nicest. My smile is also bigger and brighter whenever I’m here. I can tell in pictures and see it in the mirror. I just smile better here.

Thanks for being so patient,

Yoh, yen koh!

With love,

Ekuwa

P.S. I visited Eguafo again on Saturday and brought my good friend S a teddy bear, some headphones, some chemistry and anatomy sheets, a necklace, and my old laptop and charger. I’m teaching her how to use the computer herself.