Well I finally made it home. After a week of anxiety like I've never seen before, I got a temp passport, got a plane ticket, packed by bags, took some ant-acids, and flew three flights to Canada.
A part of me feels like it was all a dream, and a part of me will probably stay in Ghana forever. Digesting this experience is going to take a few months, to be sure. I'm happy to be employed, registered for summer school, and back in a world that makes sense to me and I'm not anxious to leave it again.
Thanks again to everyone who supported me through these trying eight months, I could not have done it without knowing I had people back home to rely on.
xo Claire
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Surf's Up!
I spent all last week hiding in my room in front of my fan writing my report, which went relatively well considering it was extremely labour intensive. On Saturday my friend Julie came to Accra and we left for Cape Coast – a beautiful coastal town in the Western region. We arrived a few hours later and walked to our beachside hostel which had really loud reggae playing and a shocking amount of foreigners. The day went on, we swam in the ocean and ate shrimp at a seaside restaurant and headed back to our hostel for the evening. The problem with alcohol in Ghana is that it’s extraordinarily cheap, so there’s very little holding you back from having too much of it. Julie and I, even being the diligent students that we are, were not exempt to this temptation. The next day (Sunday) we woke up mangled, and I think a combination of not so good shrimp and too much cheap local liquor hit me and we left that quaint town with a bang: me puking over a railing in front of about 700 Ghanaians worshipping the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, while Julie hailed a taxi about as fast as she could so we could hightail out of there.
After some coconut juice I was feeling better and we hopped in a tro tro to Takoradi, and arrived there mid-afternoon where we had lunch at a uniquely Western restaurant and found a Barclay’s Bank before heading to Akwidaa on another tro. There was a frustrating lack of public transportation running because it was Easter Sunday, so we were stuck without a tro and had to get an expensive taxi to take us to our next destination – the Green Turtle. It was worth it in the end because Green Turtle was one of the most beautiful and well run places I have been in Ghana. It’s all powered on solar power, has self-composting toilets, food that is out of this world, a huge beach, and inexpensive accommodation. There we met up with our colleague Leah and spent a couple days reading on the beach and drinking ground coffee out of a French Press. We also were able to take a canoe tour through the mangroves which was fascinating and educative, however terrifying because the handmade craft was beyond tippy and I was on constant bailing duty for fear of sinking all together.
Green Turtle, in all its glory, is quite inaccessible. After walking for a while down the beach with our huge backpacks we realized we’d have to sit for hours waiting for the tro in this miniscule village with a crowd of children staring wide-eyed at us if we didn’t figure out another plan. I went back to Green Turtle and got us a cab, which after much cajoling took us to an even smaller village called Botre, which was about a half hour East of Green Turtle and was also on the beach. Near Botre was The Hideout, which was nice but I mentioned to Julie I felt that if I died no one would really notice, and that’s a level of seclusion that’s a bit too high for me. It was worth it for the amazing breakfast we got served, and the fact that there was electricity so we could charge our phones and use our laptops to do schoolwork.
After traipsing across the rickety bridge from hell where I was sure we would drown – all the planks were on mismatching 40 degree angles – we sat and waited for a tro to come to Botre. (You may notice sitting in villages and waiting for a tro is our number one activity.) We headed back to Agona junction, hopped in a shared cab, and headed to Busua where we finally found:
The Black Star’s Surf Shop!
(…which is what we’d been looking for the whole GD time.) We got a pleasant, clean room at a hostel, beetled over to the surf shop, and a polite young man from New Zealand and an equally respectful Ghanaian man agreed to give us some lessons. I was worried about the bottoms of my bikini blowing off in the waves so we all agreed that should that occur none would take offense. Luckily that never happened and I learned two surprising things: I love surfing, and I’m good at it! (Although we only used the boards that are equivalent to having training wheels.) I was pleasantly surprised as I had anticipated total failure. The surf shop people were so lovely, I had some excellent conversations about literature and development, and before we knew it, it was time to leave.
Longest Day of Traveling Ever (Friday April 9)
• 11 vehicles
• 12 hours
• 300 km (give or take)
• one broken down tro where the gas pedal blew straight off
• one delicious lunch on the coast of Elmina
• one acquired head cold
and we made it! Back to Tema in time to prepare for our presentations next week. This week will consist of seeing all my friends that I have been away from this semester, presenting my report of my placement, getting some take-home gifts, giving away a lot of clothes I have collected here, and packing my things for the anticipated return flight home. For a while I truly believed we would be here forever, I can’t explain why I felt that way, but I was so sure. I guess I’ll be proven wrong in a week or so.
I can’t wait to see everyone; I miss my family so much. I will miss Ghana, but not as much as I have missed Canada. See you all soon!
After some coconut juice I was feeling better and we hopped in a tro tro to Takoradi, and arrived there mid-afternoon where we had lunch at a uniquely Western restaurant and found a Barclay’s Bank before heading to Akwidaa on another tro. There was a frustrating lack of public transportation running because it was Easter Sunday, so we were stuck without a tro and had to get an expensive taxi to take us to our next destination – the Green Turtle. It was worth it in the end because Green Turtle was one of the most beautiful and well run places I have been in Ghana. It’s all powered on solar power, has self-composting toilets, food that is out of this world, a huge beach, and inexpensive accommodation. There we met up with our colleague Leah and spent a couple days reading on the beach and drinking ground coffee out of a French Press. We also were able to take a canoe tour through the mangroves which was fascinating and educative, however terrifying because the handmade craft was beyond tippy and I was on constant bailing duty for fear of sinking all together.
Green Turtle, in all its glory, is quite inaccessible. After walking for a while down the beach with our huge backpacks we realized we’d have to sit for hours waiting for the tro in this miniscule village with a crowd of children staring wide-eyed at us if we didn’t figure out another plan. I went back to Green Turtle and got us a cab, which after much cajoling took us to an even smaller village called Botre, which was about a half hour East of Green Turtle and was also on the beach. Near Botre was The Hideout, which was nice but I mentioned to Julie I felt that if I died no one would really notice, and that’s a level of seclusion that’s a bit too high for me. It was worth it for the amazing breakfast we got served, and the fact that there was electricity so we could charge our phones and use our laptops to do schoolwork.
After traipsing across the rickety bridge from hell where I was sure we would drown – all the planks were on mismatching 40 degree angles – we sat and waited for a tro to come to Botre. (You may notice sitting in villages and waiting for a tro is our number one activity.) We headed back to Agona junction, hopped in a shared cab, and headed to Busua where we finally found:
The Black Star’s Surf Shop!
(…which is what we’d been looking for the whole GD time.) We got a pleasant, clean room at a hostel, beetled over to the surf shop, and a polite young man from New Zealand and an equally respectful Ghanaian man agreed to give us some lessons. I was worried about the bottoms of my bikini blowing off in the waves so we all agreed that should that occur none would take offense. Luckily that never happened and I learned two surprising things: I love surfing, and I’m good at it! (Although we only used the boards that are equivalent to having training wheels.) I was pleasantly surprised as I had anticipated total failure. The surf shop people were so lovely, I had some excellent conversations about literature and development, and before we knew it, it was time to leave.
Longest Day of Traveling Ever (Friday April 9)
• 11 vehicles
• 12 hours
• 300 km (give or take)
• one broken down tro where the gas pedal blew straight off
• one delicious lunch on the coast of Elmina
• one acquired head cold
and we made it! Back to Tema in time to prepare for our presentations next week. This week will consist of seeing all my friends that I have been away from this semester, presenting my report of my placement, getting some take-home gifts, giving away a lot of clothes I have collected here, and packing my things for the anticipated return flight home. For a while I truly believed we would be here forever, I can’t explain why I felt that way, but I was so sure. I guess I’ll be proven wrong in a week or so.
I can’t wait to see everyone; I miss my family so much. I will miss Ghana, but not as much as I have missed Canada. See you all soon!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
We're About 2km Past Where Jesus Lost His Sandals
I spent the last week at my NGO participating in a four day long conference on gender based violence. It was, for the most part, information that I had already acquired from University however it told me so much about what the true barriers are behind achieving gender equality in Ghana. It also gave me so much hope to see women and men that spend all of their time and energy advocating for a balance between the religion, tradition, and culture that make up the main frame of the country, and the struggle to dismantle the extremely pervasive patriarchy embedded within those systems. In addition there was an overwhelming amount of delicious food provided for us, and my colleague Anita and I got to lodge in the beautiful hotel where the conference was being held. The hotel room was glorious and sweet, and quite surreal with all it's luxuries. I had the first hot shower since I went to Portugal and our room was air conditioned. Even though it was a nice break I was glad to come back home, I felt like an impostor trying to live such a posh life after months of latrines and eating with my hands.
I'm nervous about coming home. I think I'm scared of facing the reality that eventually I will forget how good I have it in Canada. Privileges become so clear when they are taken away, but it's hard to appreciate tap water when it's flowed continually your whole life. I know at first I'll be shocked and overwhelmed but of course, over time, it will dull and I will easily slip back into the habit of taking things for granted.
This is one of my favourite quotes from Salman Rushdie, which accurately sums up why I try to diligently log and analyze my experiences and feelings:
"I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious dust. This is why I have resolved to confide in paper, before I forget. (We are a nation of forgetters.) " - Salman Rushdie.
I'm nervous about coming home. I think I'm scared of facing the reality that eventually I will forget how good I have it in Canada. Privileges become so clear when they are taken away, but it's hard to appreciate tap water when it's flowed continually your whole life. I know at first I'll be shocked and overwhelmed but of course, over time, it will dull and I will easily slip back into the habit of taking things for granted.
This is one of my favourite quotes from Salman Rushdie, which accurately sums up why I try to diligently log and analyze my experiences and feelings:
"I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious dust. This is why I have resolved to confide in paper, before I forget. (We are a nation of forgetters.) " - Salman Rushdie.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Last Four Weeks
This week: wrap up my NGO, attend going away party for yours truly.
Next week: write report and prepare final presentation
Week after that: travel west to lay on beaches and read lots of novels
Final week: present my final report, listen to other people's presentations, pack, try to wrap my head around the fact that I am actually leaving this country and going to the homeland.
Next week: write report and prepare final presentation
Week after that: travel west to lay on beaches and read lots of novels
Final week: present my final report, listen to other people's presentations, pack, try to wrap my head around the fact that I am actually leaving this country and going to the homeland.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Let's Wrap This Up
With one month left to go of my placement with CEPEHRG, and mid-terms now behind me, the finality of this last month and a half are starting to dawn on me. Over the past week all of the students in the TIG group came to Accra and met up at the IAS (our headquarters) and collaborated on presentations that helped us all to understand where everyone was at with their placements. It was really interesting to hear how everyone else was doing, and telling to witness how many similarities everyone can find with each other’s NGOs. The weather is hotter than ever before; it’s borderline indescribable, but I’ll try and deliver some examples. When I cry whilst talking on the phone, my whole body is so wet from sweat I can’t tell if my face is wet from sweat or tears. I have found parts of my body that sweat that I never before knew could (i.e. my forearms, my calves, behind my ears). Every time I bend my elbow sweat pores from the crevice down my arms. If I kneel on the floor I slide around because my knees are so sweaty. I can see the reversed imprint of my face on my pillowcase when I sit up from a sweaty nap. I don’t know how many times I have fallen as sleep on my concrete floor, or the floor of a friend, too hot to do anything but sleep through the wilted afternoons.
My Ghanaian friends don’t seem to mind all that much, although they sweat as much as I do and mention that the heat is “too much” frequently. They continue to wear dark, baggy jeans and long-sleeved shirts no matter how much I scrutinize them with disbelief for it. Now that the Ghanaian people in my life far outnumber those who are not, I have noticed myself slipping into their slang and speech habits. I use the response “Yooooo” a lot, whereas before I would have never been inclined to do so.
My organization is very busy and I’m doing my best to figure out all the comings and goings of the office. I’m nervous about writing my end of year report because it’s such a daunting task at first glance. I was reading over some papers from years past, and they are all about 30 pages with indexes, footnotes, pages of acronyms, and copies of the Ghanaian constitution. Not only do I have to delve into my personal experiences and the experiences of my organization in the broader sense of development, I also need to research and analyze human rights at the local, national, and international level as it pertains to the country and to West Africa. Obviously I will have to start watching less Sex in the City and spend more of my time poring over the constitution.
It was really nurturing to spend the last few days with friends I haven’t seen since the Christmas break, and entertaining to hear everyone’s individual stories about their trials and the general hilarity and confusion that tend to follow us in our lives here. We remark often when someone uses a sentence we would never, ever thought we’d use 6 months ago. For example a phone conversation I had yesterday morning, 0:800.
Kiri: Hello?
Claire: Hey, how are you?
Kiri: I’m good, how are you?
Claire: Pretty good, what are you up to?
Kiri: Oh just rubbing anti-fungal cream all over my body.
Claire: Heyyy, me too!
It seems like everyone is getting some sort of equator-related infection due to the heat and humidity, and there’s a certain amount of comfort in that solidarity.
There’s one thing I can say about this trip that I’m sure of, and that’s the unbreakable substance my backbone has turned into. I’m assertive in ways I never thought I could be, and these past months have taught me how to stand up for myself in every situation. Obviously I am still frustrated with that lack of respect I often receive as a girl here, but not an insulting person gets away without me chewing them out, believe you me. I know I’ll never lose that skill and it is certainly a priceless one to have obtained.
One last thing before I sign off: the Vagina Monologues. The day came that I thought I’d never see, with four Ghanaian women performing heartbreaking, hilarious, and controversial monologues about vaginas, relationships, orgasms, and queer love. It was incredible and surprisingly well attended with both foreigners and Ghanaians a like. Even though I had already read the book I split a gut the whole time because they did such an amazing performance. I saved my ticket stub and will forever remember it as an evening of hope and anticipation for the future of Ghana.
My Ghanaian friends don’t seem to mind all that much, although they sweat as much as I do and mention that the heat is “too much” frequently. They continue to wear dark, baggy jeans and long-sleeved shirts no matter how much I scrutinize them with disbelief for it. Now that the Ghanaian people in my life far outnumber those who are not, I have noticed myself slipping into their slang and speech habits. I use the response “Yooooo” a lot, whereas before I would have never been inclined to do so.
My organization is very busy and I’m doing my best to figure out all the comings and goings of the office. I’m nervous about writing my end of year report because it’s such a daunting task at first glance. I was reading over some papers from years past, and they are all about 30 pages with indexes, footnotes, pages of acronyms, and copies of the Ghanaian constitution. Not only do I have to delve into my personal experiences and the experiences of my organization in the broader sense of development, I also need to research and analyze human rights at the local, national, and international level as it pertains to the country and to West Africa. Obviously I will have to start watching less Sex in the City and spend more of my time poring over the constitution.
It was really nurturing to spend the last few days with friends I haven’t seen since the Christmas break, and entertaining to hear everyone’s individual stories about their trials and the general hilarity and confusion that tend to follow us in our lives here. We remark often when someone uses a sentence we would never, ever thought we’d use 6 months ago. For example a phone conversation I had yesterday morning, 0:800.
Kiri: Hello?
Claire: Hey, how are you?
Kiri: I’m good, how are you?
Claire: Pretty good, what are you up to?
Kiri: Oh just rubbing anti-fungal cream all over my body.
Claire: Heyyy, me too!
It seems like everyone is getting some sort of equator-related infection due to the heat and humidity, and there’s a certain amount of comfort in that solidarity.
There’s one thing I can say about this trip that I’m sure of, and that’s the unbreakable substance my backbone has turned into. I’m assertive in ways I never thought I could be, and these past months have taught me how to stand up for myself in every situation. Obviously I am still frustrated with that lack of respect I often receive as a girl here, but not an insulting person gets away without me chewing them out, believe you me. I know I’ll never lose that skill and it is certainly a priceless one to have obtained.
One last thing before I sign off: the Vagina Monologues. The day came that I thought I’d never see, with four Ghanaian women performing heartbreaking, hilarious, and controversial monologues about vaginas, relationships, orgasms, and queer love. It was incredible and surprisingly well attended with both foreigners and Ghanaians a like. Even though I had already read the book I split a gut the whole time because they did such an amazing performance. I saved my ticket stub and will forever remember it as an evening of hope and anticipation for the future of Ghana.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sighted: Real Coffee
Chris and I have once again schlepped our bags and our weary bodies to a new home in an area of Accra called Tema. We had a stroke of luck finding the place, and it is extremely posh and spacious, not to mention less expensive than the last place. We each have our own huge empty rooms with tiny mats on the floor where we sleep. Because I have so few belongings and it all fits in the one dresser provided, it’s basically an empty concrete room with a bug net in one corner. It’s relatively easy to get to and from work and basically takes the same amount of time as before, however now I am coming from an Easterly direction rather than Westerly. At my NGO I’ve been attending meetings, editing and proofreading reports, and spending time with lots of interesting, smart people.
This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity. The plan was for me to go to Kumasi, meet Julie, and for us to head to Bui National Park in the Western Region to see some hippos. I got up early on Friday and headed into the city to find a bus that would take me to Kumasi (the trip should take 4 or 5 hours) and found one that was leaving at 11am. Six hours into the trip I was thinking what an unbelievably long time it was taking (Julie insists the drivers get paid by the hour) and I heard a loud pop and the bus broke down on the side of the road. After about 40 minutes the driver got us fixed up and we were back on the road, which meant that I didn’t get into Kumasi until much later than I had expected, around 6pm. I met up with Julie, we grabbed a bit of food, and found our way by taxi to the tro tro station that would take us North to Techiman, and from there we would get yet another tro tro to Wenchi. It was dark by then and we were ripping down the road, giggling to ourselves in the back, and the trip took about two hours. When we arrived in Techiman I was starting to get a bit hopeless about finding a place to sleep, and we somehow managed to get a tro to Wenchi.
At this juncture I would like to point out that when I am traveling I often deliberately dehydrate myself because there is no where to urinate in Ghana other than the odd awful and very public urinal. By the time we had arrived in Techiman, I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in 14 hours, and had been traveling for equally as long.
So we were on the tro to Wenchi and we got off at the last stop (by this time it was 10pm), which was when I realized, bewildered, that my phone had disappeared. I searched my bags, searched the tro tro, but it was gone. Gone, along with all my contacts and my super organized cellphone calendar.
I was so defeated.
We found a place to stay though, and I reasoned with myself that I would rather have a place to stay than a cell phone, especially considering cells come pretty cheap around here. It’s more of an annoyance and an inconvenience than anything. The place we stayed at was very shady and minimal – two beds, no sink – but we were happy to have anywhere to lie down at that point.
The next morning we hopped on a trotro going to Bui and waited about an hour and a half for it to fill up before it finally exited the lot. We were preparing for about a two and a half hour ride, and they had crammed 4 extra people in the tro so we could barely breathe never mind extend our legs. Half way through the trip I started feeling a fiery sensation on the top of my right thigh, and thinking it was just something to do with being overheated and cramped, ignored it. It got hotter and hotter until it felt like someone had poured lighter fluid on my leg and lit a match. I tried to figure out what had happened when I realized: my pepper spray had got jostled around and the safety came off, and it discharged through my bag and my shorts, all over my thigh.
It burned, it burned. But there was nothing I could do except sit there and bounce along and hope against all odds the burning would stop.
It didn’t.
Eventually we arrived at Bui, and after about a half hour of seeing no people and no vehicles, we finally talked to a man who said he was a guide and could take us on the tour to see the hippos. It was midday at this point, and excruciatingly hot. We dumped our bags and hitched a ride into the wilderness, got in leaky canoes, and saw some real life, terrifyingly big hippos. I was bailing out the boat nervously the whole time. We brought only 1.5 liters of water for the trek, thinking it would be enough, and it didn’t even come close. It was around the same time as we realized that we had not brought enough water, that we realized we had to walk about 3km back to the camp where we were staying.
By the time we were half way back, I could barely drag one foot in front of the other and I thought I was going to vomit from dehydration. Julie said she thought she might pass out and I was starting to wonder what exactly the guide planned on doing if one of us hit the dust. There was a period where the end was no where in sight, and I said out loud, “This is what I imagine hell to be like. The sun bearing down on us, with no end in sight, with no fluids left in our body.”
Eventually though, the end did arrive, and we bolted for our room and chugged down the warm bottle of water we had left there. We were both so dizzy and covered in filth and sweat all we could do was sit on this little wooden bench they had provided for us and feel pity for ourselves. Julie then mentioned she had brought two apples and my jaw hit the floor, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I grabbed the apples out of her bag and we devoured them, I was moaning with delight and I ate the whole thing, even the core, and then I ate her core. I haven’t eaten an apple in 5 months, and I will surely never eat one again as tasty as that one. It tasted unbelievable; it tasted like deity or something out of this world.
There was no electricity where we were staying, so we ate some raw noodles and went to bed early. Our tro tro left the next morning at 5:30am and I didn’t get home that night until 6. It was an exhausting weekend and the heat of my mace hasn’t left my mind, and I had to buy a new phone. But we saw hippos and it’s a good story, and I guess that was the point after all.
Midterms are coming up at the end of the month and my NGO has kicked into overdrive applying for grants, getting a new office, and struggling over revamping their accounting methods.
10 more weeks til my plane takes off.
Claire
This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity. The plan was for me to go to Kumasi, meet Julie, and for us to head to Bui National Park in the Western Region to see some hippos. I got up early on Friday and headed into the city to find a bus that would take me to Kumasi (the trip should take 4 or 5 hours) and found one that was leaving at 11am. Six hours into the trip I was thinking what an unbelievably long time it was taking (Julie insists the drivers get paid by the hour) and I heard a loud pop and the bus broke down on the side of the road. After about 40 minutes the driver got us fixed up and we were back on the road, which meant that I didn’t get into Kumasi until much later than I had expected, around 6pm. I met up with Julie, we grabbed a bit of food, and found our way by taxi to the tro tro station that would take us North to Techiman, and from there we would get yet another tro tro to Wenchi. It was dark by then and we were ripping down the road, giggling to ourselves in the back, and the trip took about two hours. When we arrived in Techiman I was starting to get a bit hopeless about finding a place to sleep, and we somehow managed to get a tro to Wenchi.
At this juncture I would like to point out that when I am traveling I often deliberately dehydrate myself because there is no where to urinate in Ghana other than the odd awful and very public urinal. By the time we had arrived in Techiman, I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in 14 hours, and had been traveling for equally as long.
So we were on the tro to Wenchi and we got off at the last stop (by this time it was 10pm), which was when I realized, bewildered, that my phone had disappeared. I searched my bags, searched the tro tro, but it was gone. Gone, along with all my contacts and my super organized cellphone calendar.
I was so defeated.
We found a place to stay though, and I reasoned with myself that I would rather have a place to stay than a cell phone, especially considering cells come pretty cheap around here. It’s more of an annoyance and an inconvenience than anything. The place we stayed at was very shady and minimal – two beds, no sink – but we were happy to have anywhere to lie down at that point.
The next morning we hopped on a trotro going to Bui and waited about an hour and a half for it to fill up before it finally exited the lot. We were preparing for about a two and a half hour ride, and they had crammed 4 extra people in the tro so we could barely breathe never mind extend our legs. Half way through the trip I started feeling a fiery sensation on the top of my right thigh, and thinking it was just something to do with being overheated and cramped, ignored it. It got hotter and hotter until it felt like someone had poured lighter fluid on my leg and lit a match. I tried to figure out what had happened when I realized: my pepper spray had got jostled around and the safety came off, and it discharged through my bag and my shorts, all over my thigh.
It burned, it burned. But there was nothing I could do except sit there and bounce along and hope against all odds the burning would stop.
It didn’t.
Eventually we arrived at Bui, and after about a half hour of seeing no people and no vehicles, we finally talked to a man who said he was a guide and could take us on the tour to see the hippos. It was midday at this point, and excruciatingly hot. We dumped our bags and hitched a ride into the wilderness, got in leaky canoes, and saw some real life, terrifyingly big hippos. I was bailing out the boat nervously the whole time. We brought only 1.5 liters of water for the trek, thinking it would be enough, and it didn’t even come close. It was around the same time as we realized that we had not brought enough water, that we realized we had to walk about 3km back to the camp where we were staying.
By the time we were half way back, I could barely drag one foot in front of the other and I thought I was going to vomit from dehydration. Julie said she thought she might pass out and I was starting to wonder what exactly the guide planned on doing if one of us hit the dust. There was a period where the end was no where in sight, and I said out loud, “This is what I imagine hell to be like. The sun bearing down on us, with no end in sight, with no fluids left in our body.”
Eventually though, the end did arrive, and we bolted for our room and chugged down the warm bottle of water we had left there. We were both so dizzy and covered in filth and sweat all we could do was sit on this little wooden bench they had provided for us and feel pity for ourselves. Julie then mentioned she had brought two apples and my jaw hit the floor, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I grabbed the apples out of her bag and we devoured them, I was moaning with delight and I ate the whole thing, even the core, and then I ate her core. I haven’t eaten an apple in 5 months, and I will surely never eat one again as tasty as that one. It tasted unbelievable; it tasted like deity or something out of this world.
There was no electricity where we were staying, so we ate some raw noodles and went to bed early. Our tro tro left the next morning at 5:30am and I didn’t get home that night until 6. It was an exhausting weekend and the heat of my mace hasn’t left my mind, and I had to buy a new phone. But we saw hippos and it’s a good story, and I guess that was the point after all.
Midterms are coming up at the end of the month and my NGO has kicked into overdrive applying for grants, getting a new office, and struggling over revamping their accounting methods.
10 more weeks til my plane takes off.
Claire
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Workin' 9 - 5
Here's my day in a nutshell:
7:30 - Wake up, strumble around my room and start getting ready for work
8:00 - Eat bread and boil water for Nescafe
8:45 - Stand outside my house and wait for a sharecab to take me to the junction
- From the junction I catch a tro tro that follows the oceanside to my second stop
- At a different junction I catch another tro tro where I go to the last stop
- Walk for about 30 minutes through sandy garbage laden backyards to my workplace
10:00 - arrive at work and work on my laptop in the office with my boss and Nii until about 3
12:00 - go across the way to the woman selling fufuo, bring it back to the office and eat
3:00pm - walk back to the main intersection, buy some vegetable and get on a tro tro going home
4:30pm - arrive at my house, say hi to my creepy watchful neighbours, buy a huge bag of purewaters, carry it back to the house on my head
5:00pm - do washing while watching a movie (usually If These Walls Could Talk 2)
5:45pm - start cooking supper (sweat like a maniac on speed) and wait for Chris to get home
6:30pm - eat, and watch True Blood and/or read
9:00pm - do our exercise routine of pushups and situps
There you have it. It's an average day of sweat, grime, people yelling OBRUNI at me, and trying to make sure my room doesn't become completely submerged in ants.
All for now.
7:30 - Wake up, strumble around my room and start getting ready for work
8:00 - Eat bread and boil water for Nescafe
8:45 - Stand outside my house and wait for a sharecab to take me to the junction
- From the junction I catch a tro tro that follows the oceanside to my second stop
- At a different junction I catch another tro tro where I go to the last stop
- Walk for about 30 minutes through sandy garbage laden backyards to my workplace
10:00 - arrive at work and work on my laptop in the office with my boss and Nii until about 3
12:00 - go across the way to the woman selling fufuo, bring it back to the office and eat
3:00pm - walk back to the main intersection, buy some vegetable and get on a tro tro going home
4:30pm - arrive at my house, say hi to my creepy watchful neighbours, buy a huge bag of purewaters, carry it back to the house on my head
5:00pm - do washing while watching a movie (usually If These Walls Could Talk 2)
5:45pm - start cooking supper (sweat like a maniac on speed) and wait for Chris to get home
6:30pm - eat, and watch True Blood and/or read
9:00pm - do our exercise routine of pushups and situps
There you have it. It's an average day of sweat, grime, people yelling OBRUNI at me, and trying to make sure my room doesn't become completely submerged in ants.
All for now.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Bring On February
This month, like those past, has gone by very fast indeed. I have spent most of my time editing the book by my boss is attempting to get published - his life and times as a gay, Christian man in Ghana. It is both heart-wrenching and hopeful, and I have learned so much already from his experiences. Chris and I have made some realizations about the neighbourhood we live in: that it is too isolated and too unsafe. We are starting the stressful process of trying to get refunded and find a new, safer place but everything here takes a long time to come to fruition.
A big part of what has made up my happiness this month has been our kitchen. I have been cooking up a storm and experimenting with Ghanaian ingredients - such as fresh plantains - and I'll be so sad if we move to a place with a less accessible kitchen. This is likely considering this is the first time all year I've had a working fridge.
There's not really much to update right now, still very hot, still going to work, still living with Chris and having lots of good times.
xo
A big part of what has made up my happiness this month has been our kitchen. I have been cooking up a storm and experimenting with Ghanaian ingredients - such as fresh plantains - and I'll be so sad if we move to a place with a less accessible kitchen. This is likely considering this is the first time all year I've had a working fridge.
There's not really much to update right now, still very hot, still going to work, still living with Chris and having lots of good times.
xo
Friday, January 8, 2010
CEPEHRG
The name of my NGO is the Centre for Popular Education on Human Rights, Ghana, and so far I am really enjoying working with them. I have to take a taxi and then two tro tros to get to work, so it takes a while in transit even though geographically the location is close enough to where I live. I catch a taxi outside my house that takes me to a junction, from there I get on a tro that drives along the beach by the ocean, and from there I get another tro that takes me to an area called Teshi. My NGO is hard to find (it's in an unmarked, gated house) and yesterday I got lost and my boss had to come find me, but hopefully since that happened I will be able to get there with relative ease.
So far my duties have included a lot of editing and proofreading, along with writing emails and taking notes on the activities of the organization. I love the guys I work with, they are smart and kind and have a good sense of humour. Yesterday Chris and I got to move into our separate rooms which was fantastic, and so far living in the house is going smoothly.
Although, yesterday Chris and I were talking about how it's our dream house and what that actually means.
This house:
- is at least a tro ride and a taxi ride away from anything
- as of yesterday had almost no gas to cook with and almost no water
- is not near a place to buy phone credit
- is unfinished
- has no door to the bathroom so when you go you have to just hope no one walks in
- has some ants (but not many!)
- is in such a dusty part of town we can't really open the windows and everything is covered in a fine layer of red
- the shower has the water pressure of a slow pee.
- has no beds, just mattresses on the floor
BUT overall the living conditions are spectacularly posh compared to the other places we have stayed and to the majority of Ghana. I think our standards have shifted so low that this place seems like an oasis in the desert simply because it is clean and has a working fridge and nice love seats.
We are so happy buying groceries and being able to stock a fridge for the first time all year and I even bought a sassy tiger print mug to celebrate our last move.
Yesterday we had a bit of a scare where our watchmen (who we didn't know was our watchmen, just thought was a creepy rando) was knocking at the window and acting really strange, saying things that made no sense. I was outside and Chris was poking his head out the window and it was pitch black so neither of us could tell what was going on. We were getting freaked out by his behaviour and eventually I got inside and locked the door and both of us were like What Is Going On?? We were so terrified because (a) if it was our watchman, why was he acting so strange? and (b) if it wasn't our watchmen, who the F was it?? So we hid in my room under the fan with the lights on until we heard banging at the door, when Chris picked up one of my high heeled shoes with a spiky heel and approached the door cautiously. Turn out it was Serge and he was all, why are you guys acting so spooked? The dude was in fact our watchman, and no conclusion as to the bizarre behaviour other than perhaps a result of a solid language/cultural barrier.
Anyyyyyways. Glad that got cleared up because I honestly about had a heart attack.
Chris and I have come to the conclusion that we truly look forward to the time when we go home and generally have an idea about what is going on at any given time. We laugh about it now.
Will keep updating on NGO activities and experiences that change from terror to hilarity.
So far my duties have included a lot of editing and proofreading, along with writing emails and taking notes on the activities of the organization. I love the guys I work with, they are smart and kind and have a good sense of humour. Yesterday Chris and I got to move into our separate rooms which was fantastic, and so far living in the house is going smoothly.
Although, yesterday Chris and I were talking about how it's our dream house and what that actually means.
This house:
- is at least a tro ride and a taxi ride away from anything
- as of yesterday had almost no gas to cook with and almost no water
- is not near a place to buy phone credit
- is unfinished
- has no door to the bathroom so when you go you have to just hope no one walks in
- has some ants (but not many!)
- is in such a dusty part of town we can't really open the windows and everything is covered in a fine layer of red
- the shower has the water pressure of a slow pee.
- has no beds, just mattresses on the floor
BUT overall the living conditions are spectacularly posh compared to the other places we have stayed and to the majority of Ghana. I think our standards have shifted so low that this place seems like an oasis in the desert simply because it is clean and has a working fridge and nice love seats.
We are so happy buying groceries and being able to stock a fridge for the first time all year and I even bought a sassy tiger print mug to celebrate our last move.
Yesterday we had a bit of a scare where our watchmen (who we didn't know was our watchmen, just thought was a creepy rando) was knocking at the window and acting really strange, saying things that made no sense. I was outside and Chris was poking his head out the window and it was pitch black so neither of us could tell what was going on. We were getting freaked out by his behaviour and eventually I got inside and locked the door and both of us were like What Is Going On?? We were so terrified because (a) if it was our watchman, why was he acting so strange? and (b) if it wasn't our watchmen, who the F was it?? So we hid in my room under the fan with the lights on until we heard banging at the door, when Chris picked up one of my high heeled shoes with a spiky heel and approached the door cautiously. Turn out it was Serge and he was all, why are you guys acting so spooked? The dude was in fact our watchman, and no conclusion as to the bizarre behaviour other than perhaps a result of a solid language/cultural barrier.
Anyyyyyways. Glad that got cleared up because I honestly about had a heart attack.
Chris and I have come to the conclusion that we truly look forward to the time when we go home and generally have an idea about what is going on at any given time. We laugh about it now.
Will keep updating on NGO activities and experiences that change from terror to hilarity.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
New Years
Chris and I have been staying at a really cheap hostel situated in a ritzy part of Accra, and the juxtaposition is highly amusing. I was getting bitten all over my body every time I lay in my bed, I think from bed bugs, so I took it upon myself to wash the sheets (which smelled...fermented). The water came out brown. So brown in fact that Chris looked at me and said, "But why is it so milky?" After that the bites decreased, but I was horrified at having slept in that for 2 nights. New years was interesting and ridiculous. Everyone here sets off really loud but not so bright fireworks which sound like gunshots if they are within a block radius, which made us all jump in fear every 20 minutes or so the whole night. Three of our friends met up with Chris and I and we went out to eat and bought some dusty champagne at the gas station to bring back to the hostel with us. We ended up getting locked out of the room and having to get a Ghanaian woman to hipcheck the door open for us with only ten minutes to spare before midnight, allowing us to pop our bubbly and eat our tiny Danish snacks and set of the dangerous firecrackers we bought of a guy on the street. We almost lit the hostel on fire with one stray firecracker, but luckily that was a false alarm. Yesterday the same group of us went to a beautiful beach called Kokrobite outside Accra for the day, which went quite well up until the way home when our tro tro couldn't get up a hill and we had to get out and walk a piece in our sundresses and flip flops until we found another going in our direction.
Chris and I have had some extreme luck this week. We are working at different NGOs that are relatively near each other in Accra so we were hoping to somehow find a place to live together. We met a girl from England who was staying in our hostel, and she used to live here and knew a guy who rented to foreign volunteers. So she called him for us and we met with him today and his house is amazing, with luxuries such as running water and our own rooms and a gated property!! We were so happy to have made that connection and we are hoping to move in by Tuesday. He is an incredibly nice man named Serge who is an artist and a model.
Will keep this blog updated with how my first week at the NGO goes and the new place. I hope everyone is well and staying warm (god knows I am...)
xox
Chris and I have had some extreme luck this week. We are working at different NGOs that are relatively near each other in Accra so we were hoping to somehow find a place to live together. We met a girl from England who was staying in our hostel, and she used to live here and knew a guy who rented to foreign volunteers. So she called him for us and we met with him today and his house is amazing, with luxuries such as running water and our own rooms and a gated property!! We were so happy to have made that connection and we are hoping to move in by Tuesday. He is an incredibly nice man named Serge who is an artist and a model.
Will keep this blog updated with how my first week at the NGO goes and the new place. I hope everyone is well and staying warm (god knows I am...)
xox
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
