I’m sorry to all my faithful readers (yeah, right) but keeping this updated is just too much of an ordeal. I’ll try to update when I can, but it’s just not going to be regular… I apologize. I’m keeping notes on everything that’s going on and maybe I’ll write a nice, long update once I get home or something…
I’m still getting used to the heat and the pace of life here, and still getting rid of my jet lag. We began with a regular breakfast – here in Ghana they have porridge, usually, which is a kind of powder that they mix with water, which produces a sweetish, sourish paste that is difficult to describe and even more difficult to consume. Not only is it hot, but you suck it out of a little plastic bag. It also isn’t very tasty. At Nana’s house, we eat oats, which is what they call oatmeal – a high-class version of porridge.
After breakfast, our team had our official introduction to Ghana meeting. We talked about what the next six weeks are going to look like, how our teaching is going to work, what the school is like, what the town is like, how our projects are going to go, and we all shared a little bit about our expectations and our general first impressions of the town and of the country in general.
Generally, culture shock hasn’t been drastic by any means. We all kind of get the feeling that it will be more difficult returning to the states than it’s been coming here. I actually really like the simplicity of life here… At present I feel like I could stay here for a long time (live here?) but I’ll have to rethink that after I’ve been here a bit longer.
We walked to the school after our meeting and again were flanked on all sides by these beautiful children. As we approached the main teacher’s room (like a break room or administration room) and waited outside for the headmistress to arrive, the children had brought out their drums and had a miniature introduction ceremony for us! Two girls wore their traditional dresses and the boys played amazingly. They danced and sang for a few minutes before the teachers shooed them away and we entered the building.
We talked a bit about what teaching will look like, and we visited some of the classes. One thing you notice right away about the school is the constant noise. There are a few reasons this may be: all of the rooms, because of the heat, have open doors and windows. Also, the classes don’t break at the same time, so there are children yelling and playing outside while other classes are in session. If that isn’t enough, Ghanians just seem to be noisy people in general. No matter what the deal is, the classes are so loud that teachers cannot be heard and I don’t think they even care… It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to keep order in the classes.
Another thing we noticed (that Mike did mention before) is the use of caning. The only way, it seems, that the teachers can get the children’s attention is by whacking them with a wooden rod. It works pretty well, too, as I’m sure you can imagine. Usually they just have to smack the cane on a desk and the noise scares the kids into obedience, but they will hit the children as well if they deem it necessary (which means whenever they want, which means often).
Mike told us straight up that we were not going to be caning. So it’s up to us to figure out how we’re going to control our classes (some classes have up to 70 children, by the way) without using the only method they’ve ever known.
Afterward we visited last year’s library and it was both amazing and a little disheartening. It was tiny, there were almost no books in it, and it was just so… simple. I want to bring this state-of-the-art experience to this community, you know? Obviously it isn’t possible, but there’s still that desire. I mean, I should be content with doing whatever we are doing, you know, because it’s still just so much more than they’ve ever had. And, I mean, there were tons of kids in there, and some of them are super smart and will do amazing things for this community… I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel. I’ll write more about that library later.
We came home and napped, I read some, we had dinner, and then some of the guys taught Nana Opoku how to play blackjack, which was hilarious because he won a bunch of hands! Tomorrow is the introduction ceremony, which promises to be amazing.
One of the other things you notice first in this country is the incredibly ubiquitous impact that Christianity has made here. Many years ago, Pentacostal missionaries came and spread their faith. There are small pockets of Moslems, but from what I’ve seen (and what I’ve heard of other regions) the religion has permeated every nook and cranny of this country.
While this sounds great to many a traditional Christian, upon closer inspection you really begin to see how much of Ghanian Christianity is colonial religous syncretism instead of sincere conversion.
Every converted culture will mix its old, traditional beliefs with the ones of the colonial power. It also makes sense that religions that blend more easily with the traditional faiths, which makes the syncretism easier, will spread more rapidly.
It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario, but Ghanians tend to be very superficial, but I only use that term for lack of a better one. What I mean is that they tend to show off – everyone wants to be the loudest, or the best, and they want everyone anywhere nearby to know it. You see this all over the place – every chop bar will point its speakers outside, blasting music at the highest volume out into the street instead of into the restaurant for the customers. Pentacostalism fits well with this – the louder you get, the more speaking in tongues you do, the crazier you writhe on the floor, the more you’re praising God.
What I’m getting at is that in Ghana, religion has manifested itself in an extremely disturbing fashion. It’s become another way to show off. Throughout the day you will hear churches blasting their worship music across town (and when I say throughout the day, I mean from 5am until 2am). Religion has pervaded every aspect of life here, but not in an Islamic theocracy kind of way, where everything is controlled or even consistent. Every single car (literally, at least 95%) has some kind of bumper sticker with a picture of Jesus or some kind of Christian phrase. Every single establishment has a Christian name – from Repent hair salon to The Blood of Jesus plumbing supplies, to God’s Love fast food (I’m being entirely serious, all of these places are within a kilometer of where I’m staying). You see this in the classroom as well. If anyone mentions God or anything in class, every single student from that point on will try their hardest to say something more Christian than the last student. One of our teammembers mentioned how a student told her that he has a cat, and that it’s named Jesus. Wow.
Another troubling (yet understandable) aspect is the corruption. Not only do churches ask for offering five times (yeah, five times, and you are expected to give during all of them) during services, but they aren’t accountable as to where the money is going. Many a church is interested solely in profit. We would see huge, expensive banners advertising a sermon series (headed up by “prophet” so-and-so – not pastor, but “prophet”), while underneath people are scraping by, trying to sell enough breadfruit on the side of the road to feed their family.
We also went and took a look at a traditional shrine, where Ghanians would, before the conversion, practice their animistic religions. Adu, who is one of our helpers/translators, mentioned that nobody uses them anymore. But Mike disagreed with him, and Adu eventually acknowledged that they are still in use.
What does this mean for missionaries? Religion becomes something bombastic and superficial, or people don’t accept it at all. I was talking with Lisa about what it’s like in Thailand and she said it was extremely similar. Are missions worth it?
I feel like there’s so much more to say about this topic but I just don’t know yet what to think. It’s disturbing but maybe it’s just different? One goal for this trip is to look at the culture here with new eyes, to not try and project my values onto their lives. I hope I’m capable.
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obruni→ White person.
football→ Called “soccer” in the USA.
jollof rice, banku, fufuo→ traditional Ghanaian foods. Banku and fufuo are types of strange paste made from corn or rice or something. I don’t know. They’re usually eaten with a stew, either with fish or goat meat. The texture is the difficult part, it’s kind of sticky and soft, and it slides around in your mouth… I don’t really know how to describe it.
Today was both extremely annoying and amazingly fulfilling. Basically, 70% of the day was spent in travel; we got on an extremely slow trotro and didn’t seem to go more than 50 km/hr for the more than 300 km drive. It took forever, and the weather seems to get hotter and hotter as the days go by (though I do feel that I’m beginning to get used to it).
On the way over to Kumasi we got a chance to shop around and try some of the normal Ghanian street food – I had breadfruit, porridge, some delicious pineapple, and some not-so-delicious coconut. Travel was both terrible and amazing, as I mentioned. The terrible part was the actual travel – 17 people packed into one van no larger than one of those Volkswagen vans. It was extremely hot and extremely uncomfortable. Luckily I got a seat in the front and could stretch out my legs a bit, but it wasn’t great. The amazing part, though, far overshadowed the difficult part – the scenery was amazing and the experience when we got into town was just so crazy.
Mike was telling us about a certain part of the city where women selling bread would run up to the car, yelling, and try to sell some of it. He didn’t know where this part of town was. Five minutes later, twenty women with huge bowls full of bread loaves ran up to our car, yelling. I bought a couple of sweet rolls and they were delicious. Another food item sold to us in our trotro was Fan Ice, which is like an ice cream-like snack, but it’s more like frozen, then melted sweet cream, I guess. Either way, it’s delicous, especially on a hot day.
We continued our trip from Kumasi to Asenamaso, and arrived at the home of the Chief, Nana Opoku. He’s the third most important chief of the Ashanti tribe, and he is a massive human being. He’s almost as tall as me but he’s easily twice as heavy, and not because he’s fat. He’s such an impressive person. He speaks English well, but he is a man of very, very few words and you can tell that whenever he says anything, everything he says is taken seriously and followed.
A chief is like a mayor here; they preside over a certain town (Nana Opoku presides over Asenemaso). But there is also tribal structure, and the Ashanti tribe is prominent over most of Ghana. So chiefs preside over their own certain towns, but they also hold “offices” of importance in the tribe as well. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that Nana Opoku “adopted” Mike as his son during his trip here last summer. Mike goes by “Nana Poku” in the town. I don’t know how official this adoption was; I don’t think it’s like on legal record or whatever but everyone recognizes it and treats Mike as such (as royalty, I guess you could say) and the name literally means “Prince.”
We also met Nana Poku’s ”entourage” (this is the word they actually use), which included Charles, who is an extremely important and informative helper and cultural guide (the Lawrence of Asenemaso) and Adu, who is Dr. Boateng’s (the creator of the Ghana Rural Library Project’s) half brother and is the strong arm of the group and the guy who gets things done (though he’s far more abrasive and far less likeable than Charles).
After those meetings, we walked with Adu through town and to the school we’ll be teaching and building the library at. We all heard Mike tell us about the way he’s treated in town and the fact that he’s a prince and everything, but we didn’t fully believe him until we saw it with our own eyes. We didn’t walk for five steps into Asenemaso before we heard “Nana Poku!’ on the left and “Nana Po!” (a short version) on the right. Kids would run up to him and attempt to hold and shake his hand. Naturally, because we were with him and we are also obruni* we enjoyed the benefits of his celebrity.
We walked through to the school, flanked by tens of children hanging from our arms… It was madness. I don’t know if I can really describe it. They were so excited to see us, I felt cheap, I felt… just so humbled, I guess, because I really don’t know what I have to offer. I feel like we’re deceiving them, I just feel (and I still feel this way, and I think it’s legitimate, and maybe by the time we actually get started on the library and stuff it’ll change but for now I still feel it) like we don’t deserve this acclaim, that we don’t deserve their love or whatever. They would yell and scream, try to learn our names, grab our arms and never let go; they would dance and sing and turn cartwheels and try to show off their football* skills; they loved us unconditionally from the first second they saw us, basically. It was flattering and maddening and exhilarating and depressing, all at the same time.
After coming home, we had dinner at Nana’s house. The food we’ve been served at Nana’s has been delicious, 95% of the time. Traditional Ghanian foods include jollof rice*, fufuo*, bread, fish (whole ones, of course, including both tail and head), chicken, and my personal favourite, banku*. In fact, one taste of banku makes me sick to my stomach, and I don’t understand it. I literally can’t eat a bite without getting nauseous! Almost everything else is delicious, though. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about eating meat over here, and I have to tell you I love the chicken. I haven’t seen much beef, and I really don’t like fish (just the smell sends me overboard as though I’d eaten some banku). I’ll say this – my vegetarianism is an affront to the American meat industry, and thus eating chickens that these people bought locally and were farmed free range (I’ve seen them running around) is not a problem for me.
Almost everyone has gotten at least a little sick, though. It’s just like, a one-day ordeal, usually; your stomach hurts, you go have a little diarrhea action, maybe throw up some of the water you drank earlier, and then you’re fine an hour later. I’m sure this is going to happen a few times while we’re getting used to everything. I hope nothing more drastic happens; I need to keep reminding myself to take my malaria pill because I almost forgot yesterday.
So we ate our dinner and then just hung out and sat out in the extremely hot but altogether enjoyable Ghanian evening. So far the sky has been overcast and we haven’t seen many stars, but the sky here is HUGE. I’ve heard it’s like this in the south, that you can just see for miles and miles… but I’m not used to it and it’s just magnificent here. We all talked for a bit, shared our experiences, and then knocked out again. Jet lag’s a killer.
Grace & Peace,
Elliott
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Trotro→ van-like vehicle with about 16 seats including the driver, available for rent as a sort of private taxi for transportation throughout Ghana. Seatbelts are not required.
Chop bar→ small bar on the side of a main road where sit-down meals can be purchased and eaten.
The flight was long. Long, long. I forget how long it is from San Francisco to New York, but from JFK to Accra it’s something like ten hours. I don’t fit on a plane normally, and every time I take a flight I try to remember for the next time that I need to request an exit row. Being cooped up for ten hours is just brutal… I did learn a lesson, though – earplugs are golden. I would put in my earplugs, and then wear my headphones over them turned up pretty high. All I would hear was my music, and though I couldn’t get it loud I didn’t need to because it was all I could hear. I found out that a lot of the team ended up sitting next to Ghanians and having great conversations, but I didn’t get the pleasure. I’m sort of glad, though, because I did, at the end, end up getting a little bit of sleep.
The first thing you notice upon arriving in Africa is, of course, the heat. Ghana’s just above the equator. It’s searing, it’s humid, it’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced (if you grew up in the Bay Area, or southern California, I suppose. I’ve heard the South is pretty hot too). As we arrived I thought that Mike had exaggerated about the heat, as it was only about 75 degrees out; I realized soon that it was about 7:30am and I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet. The second thing that you notice is how friendly the people are. Ghana has a reputation as being one of the safest and most hospitable countries in Africa, and I haven’t been anywhere else, but I can see how it would deserve that. Even the folks who aren’t trying to scam you give you a huge smile, introduce themselves, and try to help you in whatever way they can.
After arriving at the airport in Accra, and clearing customs (which only took a few minutes – though we were saved by Laura, as the immigration papers required we put down the address at which we would be staying and only Laura had thought to jot it down in her notebook), we met up with the four members of the team who had been waiting for us in Ghana. Two of them arrived the day before because they found a cheaper flight, and two of them arrived two weeks before because they flew standby (Kat’s father works for Delta) and that’s just the way it worked out. We also met up with Lawrence, who was our Accra guide/helper/translator/saviour. Literally this man devoted two entire days just to helping us acclimate, get adequate transportation, not get cheated by girls selling SIM cards, etc. He did everything and anything for us and we are so grateful. Lawrence was the man.
From the airport we took our bags out to the trotro* and then drove to a hostel near Accra to wait for Mike, our team leader, who was at the time in the Sudan and would be arriving in Accra the next day. Accra is a major city, and it’s huge – while we got a decent peek of some of the scenery in our ride from the airport to the hostel. Accra is the spitting image of Tijuana, only it seems bigger and more crowded. It’s filthy, everyone is poor, there are miles upon miles of shanty towns. What you find, however, and what I’ve heard from my brother, is that the poverty in developing countries is different from the poverty in the States because it’s so widespread and pervasive. When you’re poor but everyone around you is as well, that’s one thing, but when you’re poor and the rich people walk over you every day and don’t acknowledge your presence that’s something else entirely. (Luckily, later we got to see more of the countryside – and Ghana is freaking beautiful!) We arrived at the hostel and met some other people our age – two from England, one from Scotland, and one from Minnesota. They were in Ghana for a variety of reasons – from doing research for a thesis, to teaching English for four weeks in a local school, to just being on vacation.
Because of the time on the plane and the time changes, it felt like we had been awake for two full days. We still managed to stay up and explore the little section of Accra a bit. Ghana’s town layouts are interesting. All along the main roads are little two feet by three feet shops and stands made out of plywood, selling food or car mufflers or cell phones or herbal medicines or whatever. There are some bigger stores that are about as big as your master bathroom. Almost all side streets leading off of the main road lead to residential areas, where people live in shacks and one-room buildings. They aren’t like the tribes you’ve seen on television in mud huts or anything like that – we aren’t that rural – but it’s alarming, the conditions these people are content, even happy with. Everyone in all stores is extremely helpful and extremely friendly, and everything is, as you would probably expect, extremely cheap. The currency in usage is the Ghana Cedi, which is roughly one-to-one with the US dollar. That night in Accra we went out and had dinner at a chop bar*, and for a hearty meal of rice and chicken and a coca-cola, we paid about 1 Cedi each.
Afterward, we all got placed in our rooms at the hostel, set up our mosquito nets, and knocked out. Jet lag’s a killer.
Grace & Peace,
Elliott Jones
This is my 2008 reading list. If Mike is to be understood, there will be a lot of time (nights, mostly) for reading while I’m in Ghana; there won’t be a lot of electronics or computer or anything else for entertainment. I’ve read two books since I’ve been home from school, so I think I’ll get through quite a bit while I’m over there
[/] Beloved by Toni Morrison
[x] Sula by Toni Morrison
[x] Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
[x] The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
[x] The Brothers Karamosov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[x] Martin Luther by Martin Marty
[x] Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
[x] Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
[x] Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
[/] Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
[x] The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
[ ] Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
[x] Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller
[x] Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King
[ ] The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
[ ] I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
[x] The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
[x] Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
[x] How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
[x] Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
[ ] The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
[ ] Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
[x] Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne
[x] Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
[x] Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
[x] The Tipping Point by William Faulkner
[x] 1984 by George Orwell
[x] Three Cups of Tea by William Faulkner
[x] The Prophet by Khalil Ghebran
[x] The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus
[x] Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus
[x] Traveling Mercies by Anne Lammot
[x] Congo by Michael Crichton
[ ] Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
[ ] The Lost World by Michael Crichton
[ ] The Stand by Stephen King
[x] Under the Overpass by Mike Yankowski
[/] Anam Cara by John O’ Donohue
