You Can't Take a Picture of the Camera

Sometimes when I write these posts, I wonder to myself, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, why do I spend time writing a thousand words?”

There are a few answers. One is that I like writing. It calms me down and gives me an excuse to have some much needed alone time. Also, I generally dislike having my picture taken and taking photos. I’m usually happy once I have the picture, but the act of getting it seems weird and fake and stressful to me.

Perhaps mostly, though, is that even if I showed you a photograph, you wouldn’t get my opinion on it. You wouldn’t experience the scene the same way I did. I can’t show you a picture of that because it’s inside my head. Or in a blog post… I get that people like pictures and that it helps us understand situations better. So, sorry, but I don’t have many. My friends do, so I’ll show you those when I get back.

Ok, just to clarify: Auntie and Uncle are the married couple who aren’t always around, and host mom and sister are the friend and her daughter who live here all week long.

“In Africa, we don’t eat some. We eat all”… Is what my coworker stated in the office one day. He’s right, too. In the U.S., if you can’t finish your food, you just don’t. That concept doesn’t exist here. I’ve had waitresses ask me to try to finish everything before they reluctantly take my plate away. It’s not like… insulting not to finish it all, but I think it’s disappointing to the person who worked so hard to make sure that you’re well-fed. You also have to understand that food takes a long time to prepare here. None of that 60-second stuff. When I didn’t finish my meal once, my host mom said “I don’t want you calling your mommy and saying, ‘Mommy, I’m hungry! They don’t feed me here!” She wasn’t mad at me. She just wanted to make sure I was okay. It’s to the point where she will sometimes feel my stomach to make sure it is round and full. If it’s flat, lunch is one the way!

And um, by the way, when I say we everything, I actually mean everything. Skin, fat, bones, you eat it all. In fact, my Auntie says her favorite part of eating meat is the bones. I have tried to eat the bones, and I can a little, but I can’t eat half a chicken rib cage. Not that I’ve ever really tried very hard. I told my host mom that I struggle eating the bones, so she promised not to serve me pieces of meat with bones from now on. I think I’ve taken a liking to goat liver. Intestines aren’t bad either.

When my host mom asked me if I liked okra stew I told her that I didn’t know because I’d never had it before. She spent all day making it. I’m serious. One of the family friends even skipped school to help her make it. I sat down to a big heaping plate of it while my host mom and Auntie watched me eat it…

My auntie asked if I liked it and I said, “I like it a little”. I was 100% lying. She told me that I would like it the more times I tried it. Maybe. But I don’t want to try it again. A little while later, my host mom asked me again if I like it and I had to say no. I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but that same morning she told me to try and tell her if I didn’t like something. This was after I couldn’t finish both my peanut butter sandwich and my porridge for breakfast and still fit into my skirt (which I will explain later). She didn’t seem mad about the soup. She just gave me some rice instead, which I did like.

So I was eating my rice with my host sister, even though I wasn’t hungry. With a few bites left, I told her I was full and did she want the rest. She said, “No, I’m full too. But I must finish it. Someone in my Sunday school told me that if you eat food and you leave some, it’s bad. But if you’re full and you go for another plate, then it’s a sin.” So I shut up and finished my rice. I see the point of not stuffing yourself, but I also see the point about not being wasteful.

At one point, though, I had to stand my ground. It was the next morning, and after having eaten the plate of rice when not hungry the night before, I was really not feeling breakfast I came downstairs and found a big bowl of cream of wheat waiting for me. “Phew,” I thought, “as long as there’s not bread, too, I can handle this.” Enter host mom. “Is it ok? Or should I add more?” She was holding up a fourth of a loaf of bread.

That was the first time that I was stubborn in this house. Eventually she gave me just two slices, but I only managed to eat one. She said I would cry because I was hungry, so I should eat all. I said I would cry if she made me eat all. I tried to end on a good note by saying that if she reduced my portion size, I would definitely eat all next time.

Maybe she was right, though. By 10 am I was feeling rather puckish. Since then though, the food situation has been fine.

As promised, here is the explanation of the skirt. My host mom was explaining to me that she sells fine Ghana style clothing and that she would give me an outfit. She pulled out a big bag and showed me all the colors. Then she took out a deep blue shirt, skirt, and head wrap set and told me to try it on. It fit quite nicely, but you have to wear your skirts really tight here. It’s just the fashion. I told her I would pay her for it but she refused my offer. I wore it on Wednesday and boy was I lookin’ fly. I don’t usually like dressing up, because I don’t like being stared at and I look good in everything so that’s hard to accomplish (yeah I just said that). But that day, random people stopped me on the street to say, “I like your outfit”, or, “You are looking beautiful, because of the cloth”. Even an Assembly Member stopped me right before I gave my presentation to announce to the audience that he liked my outfit. Which leads me into the next subject…

FINALLY we’ve completed our meeting with the Assembly Members. It’s been a long time coming and it was seriously stressing me out, like, getting prepared for it, but the actual event was not stressful. Except that it got a little confrontational and heated for some reason. I didn’t expect so much argument at a meeting about Day-Care Centres. My boss said that the audience was being “passionate”.

Actually, I haven’t written about work for a while. I guess I’ve had other, more urgent and personal things on my mind. Like dental floss. Something I haven’t informed you of yet is that we bribe. Oh yes. The way my director put it was, “in the U.S., you have to pay to get information. In Ghana, you have to pay to give information.” What this means is that if you want people to know how to do their jobs, you have to give them an incentive.

We ended up spending about 1,000 Ghana Cedis just on this one meeting. We had to provide the attendants with folders, pends, and of course, copies of the agenda, our bye-law proposal, and our day care inspection checklist. We also had to get lunches and water for everyone, so 30 in total, even though not everyone showed up. But our biggest expense was for our “Inspection Feedback Incentive Fee”. Let me explain.

One of the duties of an Assembly Member is to conduct regular inspections of day care centers at least once every six months. The problem is that they don’t do it. There are only two full-time employees at the Cape Coast Metropolitan Department of Social Welfare, and trust me, they have a plethora of tasks. They don’t have time to be doing someone else’s job, especially since there are over 70 day cares in the area. Up until now, us interns have been doing the inspections, but the point of the meeting was to uhm, ‘encourage’ the Assembly Members to do what they’re supposed to be doing. Some of the Assembly Members showed up on time, were ready to engage, and were nicely dressed. Others strolled in late, even tow ours late, wearing sunglasses or t-shirts and red pants and acted bored the whole time. They generally seemed interested in the topic, but I couldn’t really tell if many of them would actually do the inspections. That is…. Until I had the pleasure of informing them that we would give them 10 Cedis of phone credits every time they brought a report to our office. I wish you could have been there when I said it. The benches practically exploded. It was like excited school boys in an Anime cartoon. I’ve never seen a more excited group of politicians. They were literally rising out of their seats with gleaming eyes and cheering and shouting questions over one another. But not to fear – we video recorded the whole ordeal. So you will see my presentation and my skirt soon.

In the middle of me typing this, my auntie told me to get up and touch the TV screen. It was Emmanuel TV. So I kneeled on the floor, pressed my palm to the screen, bowed my head and closed my eyes. And so we prayed. Don’t doubt the connection between you and God.

I should have prefaced that with, “Sometimes, viewers are instructed to ‘Engage with God’ by performing a certain act”. I seriously want to write an ethnography of this channel.

So there are some really cute watch dogs that live in our compound. I don’t really want to be friends with them, since they’re trained to bite thieves, but I still greet them saying, “Hello, cute dogs!” and knell down to say hi and smile. Two are puppies. Awwwww. They always become really sharp when the gates open, just in case a suspicious person walks in. But they see it’s me so they still pay attention, but they relax a little when I start walking up the stairs. And they get scared of me and pull away when I come close, especially the puppies.

When I came home the other day, I saw my host mom in the courtyard of the compound so I went over to her. WE were talking and this was our conversation:

Her: “So, do you like Ghana?”

Me: “Yes. I came back here, remember?”

“Ah… that’s why I love you.”

“Aww I love you too!”

“I love you because you like Ghana.”

“Do you like Ghana?”

“Uhh… yes.”

“Well then I love you too.”

She laughed at that and hugged me.

I took a long walk with my host sister in an area that neither of us knew. It was pretty eclectic, but not like the city at all. It was very lush, like trees and maize and grass. We passed a petrol station, and brick makers, and even a place where people break big rocks into smaller rocks, which I’ve heard about but never seen. We also headed towards Abura and saw a big group of obrunis doing a cultural dance while Ghanaians looked on in what I expect was probably amusement. After our walk, she helped me clean my shower. It dawned on me that I had never cleaned a shower before. That was a pretty strange realization.

My host sister is so cool. She likes to play and talk and make little jokes.

Allow me to be a bit self-indulgent and talk about one of my favorite topics again: advertising. I’ll be brief.

Best slogan: (for a company called Donewell) “If it must be done, it must be Donewell.” HA! I don’t actually know what Donewell does.

Best company name: Franko (a phone company). What do they sell? Frankophones.

Best product name: Frytol (cooking oil) Is it just me, or is that just “fry it all” said really really fast? Fry it all… FRY IT ALL!!

Ok, thanks. Back to being normal now.

On Friday, the Proworld volunteers/interns took off work to go to a village. I had never been anywhere like it before except in anthropology books and films… Palm frond roofs. They were expecting us because one of our Proworld leaders helped install a water pump for them a few years back and had formed a relationship with the villagers, so she told them we would be coming. The pump now churns out muddy water or nothing at all, and the village is facing some other challenges, too.

So we split up into smaller groups and conducted a community needs assessment. What happened was, my partner and I introduced ourselves and did an icebreaker where everyone teaches the group a dance move. Then we asked the group to describe any problems they were facing, or anything that would make their daily lives easier, or something that they wanted their children to grow up with that they never had. Then we wrote down each issue and also drew a picture on a piece of paper. For instance, one of the suggestions was a school, so we had a drawing of a school building on one paper. We came up with 8 problems and scattered the drawings on the floor. We gave each person 10 dry beans and asked them to go around the corner. One by one, our group members were called in and they put their beans on the pictures of the problems that they most wanted to see fixed. They were allowed to place all ten on one picture, or five on two, or one on each, or really any combination. Then I would tally the number of beans per problem, and clear away the beans so that the next person could vote without being influenced or judging others.

Make sense? Good. So, after a lunch break we reconvened and discussed a possible solution to their top three elected needs, which were, in order, a palm oil/corn mill, a community center, and a new water pump. The solution they came up with was that everyone in the village should pitch in little by little to save money and that an NGO should also provide aid money for the projects.

Other small groups had different top three needs and different solutions, but the palm oil machine was the top pick of I think 5 of the 7 groups. I think that we’re coming up with an action plan, but it will be future volunteers who will put that plan into action. But it was a really cool and empowering experience. Er, well, we all sort of noticed that the women in our groups didn’t say much, even when prompted.

On Saturday my host fam said we were going to the village where they keep their goats so we could kill one and eat it. But just before we left, they said to me, “Ekuwa… Uh… Do you have anything… White?” So I changed into a mostly white dress and off we went to the village, not only to kill a goat, but also to attend a naming ceremony.

It’s what it sounds like. It’s when a baby gets his/her name. This was a baby boy and his name became Samuel, which I think means ‘humble before God’, but don’t quote me on that. There was a lot of head bowing from the audience, praying from the parents, shouting to God from my host mom leading it, and crying from the baby, who was getting rocked around a bit.

After I refused to hold the goat by its front hooves, my uncle decided to drop it back in the pen and not to kill it after all. We ate some fresh coconuts and headed home and ate lunch.

Then my uncle and sister and I walked around El Mina, which I’ve been wanting to do. But I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked. Maybe? I’m not actually sure how much there is to see. I got to see the houses, some cafes, the outside of the castle, the ocean with fishing canoes on the water and some empty ones on shore, a bridge painted by the MTN phone company, and the fishermen in the harbor and the fish sellers nearby.

On Sunday I went to church with my uncle. Most of the service was in English. You know something……. I’ve never seen women here have so much fun. They were singing and dancing and smiling… it was nice. I even got into it in the beginning during a catchy gospel song. There were some dancers and it was pretty entertaining. And I generally found what the speakers had to say to be nice or interesting.

I was kind of spacing out when I heard the pastor say something like a recently wedded woman’s mother “suddenly collapsed and died”. Cue blood curdling scream.

You can watch Emmanuel TV all you want, all day, every day, but you haven’t experienced a deliverance until you’ve experienced one live. I nearly started crying I t was so scary and confusing.

 

Sigh. I don’t trust anybody anymore. Only a very few select individuals whom I either work or live with. Stop taking my picture. Stop touching me!!!!!!!!!! Don’t touch my leg, don’t touch my fingers, don’t hold my hand, don’t touch my nose, don’t grab my face and turn it to look at you, don’t even hug me. Don’t whisper in my ear, don’t tell me to get up and “shake it”, don’t try to get me to stretch in provocative ways while you watch…..

If you’re wondering why this post is so long, it’s because I like hiding in my room. And trust me, I do not type fast on my iPhone. Well, I had to retype it on the computer this time, anyway. So this has taken me like, 4 hours total.

My life is full of question marks.

So you remember a million years ago when I said I feared that my foot would get run over? Well, it hasn’t. But the heel of my shoe did while my foot was in it.

I haven’t had a chance to go to Eguafo in weeks. I’m not really sure what I could do there anyway except talk to my friends there. I will definitely go once more before I leave. I did give the director the donation money that I collected last year when he was in town. He told me he would use it to buy food for the children. So if you donated, that’s where your money is. It’s good if you ask me.

Sometimes I get seriously stressed out here. Like, for long periods of time. But when I go for a walk with my host sister, it all melts away and I forget everything. By the time we are through, I have forgiven.

By the way… I know I write a lot in this blog. But there are also a lot of things I don’t write. I don’t usually sue the word “things” in my writing. It’s too vague. So I’m being vague for a reason… I could tell you a lot of things. Maybe I’m trying to spare the person/people it’s about. Or maybe I’m trying to spare you. But it sure isn’t about sparing myself…. Actually, now that I think about it, it probably is.

“My people” vs. “your people” conversations make me really mad.

In case you don’t quite understand what Ghana time is, let me give you an example. This happened last week: my uncle was supposed to drive me somewhere and I was getting ready upstairs. My auntie called me, “Ekuwa, your uncle is ready!” So I grabbed an over shirt, forwent brushing my teeth, and rushed downstairs.

My uncle looked at me and said, “Ekuwa… You didn’t iron your shirt.”

“I know, I didn’t have time.”

“No, we have an iron here. Give it to me.”

Host mom: “The strap on your bag is torn.”

“Yeah, but it’s ok, I can still carry it.”

“Let me fix it for you.”

Auntie: “Why don’t you sit and watch TV while you wait.”

Oh. Ok.

Also, watermelon with vanilla ice cream sounds weird but tastes amazing.

Today I will leave you lovely readers with something amusing. Twice now, someone has said you me, “You are wet,” and I have responded, “Yes, it’s raining”. Nobody got the reference.

Yoh, yen koh!

Ekuwa

(P.S: it’s a Rocky Horror Picture Show reference.)