watch out Mountain Goats

A weekend's work.


(mom and dad - it's blue - that means it's a link. Click it)

some things

Here's some random things about rural Africa that are unexpectedly familiar.

There are fireflies here.
Well. There are fluorescent bugs. While they occasionally fly, unlike their American counterparts they usually just hang out in the overgrown grass and glow. If you shine a blinking flashlight at them you can get them pretty excited.

They have avacodos here.
who knew? In the US one often forgets that in the real world agricultural goods are only available seasonally. I think we're just getting to avacodo time here. This past week when we were in Manukrom, a small village in our cluster, for an Antenatal Care outreach session, the villagers were kind enough to provide us with a meal (cocoa-yam leaf soup and boiled plantains -- one of my favorites so far) and some avacodos to take away. And I only became slightly ill the next day. I don't think it was from the village food, actually. Regardless, once my stomach had settled yesterday evening I made myself some homemade guacamole. Most everything else you might need (except cilantro) is easily available - tomatoes, onion, garlic. Put it on some bread and call it a meal! I did, and it was amazing.

When I actually make myself go running, I'm glad I went.
It's been hard here, sometimes, to find time to go running. Days here start early, and rarely end before sundown (which is around 630). I've haven't yet become foolhardy enough to go running at night. Sometimes if I'm in the office on a day when I know there will be evening blackout, I go home to take a long lunch and a run and return with the plan to stay late and enjoy the office generator's power. And while I've never been wont to run in the morning, I'm well enough rested here that I usually wake up before my alarm anyway (again: the roosters). On a recent morning I got up at 6 for a dawn run down a muddy farmer's trail through misty, forested hillsides. I was rewarded, as always here, with zen moments in dense dripping jungle, vistas from maize-covered hilltops and the sleepy looks of utterly confused villagers.

Coke tastes the same here.
As we know they formulate it differently for each country. But here it tastes the same, at least to my palate. There is no diet soda, of course, because why would you pay for a soft drink that has no sugar in it? Which is not to say that there isn't a need for it -- there is small but definitely present obese subpopulation here. A nutritionist in the project was telling me about the Nutrition Transition: as soon as a poor population accumulates a bit of disposable income they switch from micronutrient poor staple foods (here yam, cassave and maize) to highly processed foods which are equally poor nutritionally. I haven't seen a McDonald's yet, but I'm sure it'll appear as soon as the market.

hmmm. That's all I have for now. More soon.

Also, this weekend I decided to stay in Manso Nkwanta, and I discovered the wonders of GarageBand, the audio editing program that comes with Mac OS. Definitely some lo-fi productions underway.

The People's History of Emigration

Throughout my time here I've been working through Zinn's A People's History of The United States. I finished it yesterday. I highly recommend it for anyone moving out of the country for an indefinite period of time. The first reason is that it doesn't exactly foster blind patriotism, so (if George W. wasn't sufficient) it makes you feel a little bit better about being an expatriot. The second reason is that it's a damned long book, and if you're not sure when you'll be acquiring your next english-language literature, then you might as well go big.

Also it's really interesting.

It's been odd reading about the marginalized populations of America in a country that doesn't believe that these populations exist. Which is to say, as our project accountant did the other day: 'here we're led to believe that America is one step away from heaven. So if you're not sure you can make it to heaven, you better get to America.'

Another memorable comment about America was when my a hungry health coordinator turned to me and said (without the intention of jest and only of the most minor hyperbole) "In America no one is hungry for more than 2 minutes. You just lay your hand out, and it's there" as he blindly laid his hand down upon the invisible manna to his right.

At some point someone also proposed, looking upon a room in moderate disrepair, that There is No Dust in America. Seriously: There is no dust in America.

Where does one begin with a comment like that?

I've started a few times by discussing the ongoing problems with racism and segregation along physical and especially socioeconomic lines. I've told people about rural America, and it's lack of access to Health and various other services, not wholly incomparable to rural Ghana -- after all, no health care is no health care. I've told a few stories about my time in Shiprock and the problems on the Navajo reservation.

I'm not sure I'm having much effect, though. It's an uphill battle.

Although I'm struck by a question -- how many people in America know about these problems?

albino

As I've mentioned. I get a lot of attention here. I can often tell the kind of mood I'm in by my responses to the sudden calls of children - sometimes a smile, sometimes a wave, sometimes a few words of Twi, sometimes they're ignored. If I'm not in the mood to expend energy on a response, usually the children are purturbed, and scream (Oboroni!) with increased volume.

They're not saying Oboroni (white man) just to call their friends. As far as the average rural Ghanaian (at least the one who chooses to talk to interact with me) is concerned, this is my name. So much so, that it's not unusual for a young Ghanaian to translate literally when they address me in english: "White man, good afternoon." Thus, when a child calls Oboroni and I don't respond, they call louder -- that's what you do when someone doesn't hear you calling their name. While I'm occasionally subject to partially comprehensible purportedly enlightened discourses on the nature of race, development, and what I think about black people (I'm listening, not speaking, mind you), it's clear that the folks here are far more concerned with color than the average American urbanite.

This is reasonable. We see people of different races all the time. So, regardless of what we think of them, their presence isn't surprising. Here, of course, the case is different - their exposure to non-african races is at best a bit of television, and perhaps occasional glimpses of foreigners. So it's not really fair to compare my reaction to various races to that of the Ghanaian's. The context is wholly different.

Then it hit me - their reaction to me would be more comparable to my (or the average American's) reaction to an Albino - a distinctive appearance which we may know exists, but with which we have little or no experience. This insight may well have something to do with my recent enjoyement of the Hip Hop artist Brother Ali (an albino rapper of african american descent - check him out). Regardless, I was doing pretty well with this explanatory scheme.

And then yesterday, in Manso Nkwanta (remember?), I saw him: the town Albino. What the hell?! Seriously, they have an albino! I only saw him or her from a distance -- probably 8 or 10 years old, unmistakable complexion and shock white hair.

And no one seemed to be staring. Now they have no excuse.

My next home-made T-shirt will read: My name is not Oboroni. Maybe in Twi on the back.

The Coast

So. This weekend I went to Cape Coast. As Ghana goes, it's a fairly touristy destination, but after 3 consecutive weekends in Kumasi, I was ready for a change (and perhaps even some expatriate company).

Cape Coast is about 4 hours south of where I've been living. It has the dubious distinction of having been the main export point for the majority of Africa's slave trade. It's hard, though, to know what this history means in to the townsfolk who perch in the shade of the Cape Coast Castle while they mend fishing nets and go about their daily business, as I imagine they must have when the dungeons on other side of the thick chalk walls were more than a tourist attraction.

There is something universal about the ocean. Something forgiving. Ocean people are somehow the same. Every market packed with pungent catch, crab and sea-salt remains familiar.

I might have been on any coast in the world when I decided to go for a run. I ran West along a steep beach, an hour before a foggy sunset as a peaking tide lashed me up and down the sand.

The beach was largely deserted. I smiled to pass a couple perched on a bit of driftwood and a few kids, standing a stone's throw apart, but each leaning into the sea-wind from atop the palm-root shelf and spitting freestyles to the ocean.

And when I turned to return along my path I beheld no less than....two guys pooping on the beach within a hundred meters of me. What the hell? I had just run what must have been 2 or 3 miles down the beach without coming across any such sites. It was like they were following me down the beach and decided to drop trow right as they saw me turning around so they could be like: HA you just ran barefoot down our toilet.

Awesome. So maybe I couldn't have been anywhere in the world. But a little imaginative thinking never hurt anyone. Neither will the ample doses of deworming medication I will take upon my return to the US.

That's enough scatalogical humor on this blog for a while. But hey - these things happen to me.

Like any good trip to the beach, the remainder of my trip involved wandering semi-aimlessly through the streets of town, reading in the shade of a palm thatched roof and meeting the collection of local youth who own trinket stores, teach traditional drumming and hang out at the town's only beachfront bar to befriend travelers and throw about rastafarian epithets in the classic haze of beach youth.

The youth of this town are remarkable for their decision adopt ridiculous names, like Fishbone, Kish Bone (whose rapping you can enjoy here) One Stone, and Joe Shark. The latter of these youth is remarkable for offering me his sister. Rather crudely. She was not present, of course, and I'm sure she would have taught him a lesson if she were.

While there are many times in which the semi-language barrier is a burden, there are also times when it comes in handy. When someone says something awkward, for instance, you can just say: "That's really awkward. No. It's really weird that you said that. That's really not Ok." At this point you can feel free to either walk away or continue half-mocking your new friend with the relative certainty that they won't really understand what just happened, and will continue to think of you with the blind xenophilic admiration with which they began the conversation.













Other happenings this week:
- I discovered that after a month without dairy, UHT milk is amazing.
- I found that my camping gear (tall cup and short cup which fit into each other) make a great mortar and pestle for ghanaian peppers.
- I've become worried that all my suspicions about my health coordinator are correct.
- I found out that Fagerstrom lives.

More to come....

things to do.... addendum

A new caution advisory regarding the use of the stethoscope-ceiling fan-flashlight combination: be sure the power is not going to come back on unexpectedly, lest you inadvertently create a whirling stethoscope-flashlight projectile of death.

An Open Letter...

An Open Letter To Whoever Keeps Pooping on My Stuff:

Please stop.

Or at least identify yourself and request permission to continue to poop on my stuff.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to say anything.

The first day I noticed your little gift - perhaps a centimeter long, tapered ends, white on brown coloring - I was merely confused. It was your placement that threw me: a little raisin perfectly in the center of a piece of white scrap paper in the middle of my desk. Is that--right there--really?

The second day I thought we were going to have a problem--again, in the middle of a white piece of paper on my desk. Clearly you were enjoying the freedom and solitude of a locked nighttime office.

Perhaps you intuited the possible repercussions of daily gifts -- or perhaps you saw that glint in my eye from where ever it is you live in my office. Whatever happened, you wised up. No more poops.

But I underestimated you. I thought that a lack of mid-desk poop meant that you were gone. How wrong I was--it merely meant that you had followed me home to make your bed (and your business) inside one of my clean shirts, folded neatly on the floor.

Judging by the size of your poops and the whitish coloration, I think that you're a lizard. I've seen you around. Don't worry, I'm not going to step on you. But really: inside my shirt?

This needs to stop. Or do you want Bite-ey to get involved?

things to do....

Things to do during a 6pm to 6am blackout:

>Play guitar in the dark until you hear the neighborhood kids lurking outside your window
>Read The People's History of the United States by the light of your crank flashlight until a) the flashlight runs out of batteries or b) you get a crick in your neck from trying to balance the flashlight on your shoulder while aiming it at your book while lying in bed
>crank flashlight
>use your stethoscope, looped over the blade of a powerless ceiling fan to create a nifty little hook for your flashlight
>Go to sleep at 9pm
>Cook. Gas stoves still work.
>Stub your toe
>Curse like noone speaks your language.
>realize that everyone here speaks your language and quiet down
>Leaf through useless Twi language book you bought in Kumasi
> wonder what genius would create a Twi language book in which pages three through five have random selections of two, three and four letter Twi words, without definition, translation, pronunciation or context (seriously, a page of random two-letter combinations).
>Try to remember when the sun came out over the weekend, because you KNOW that you didn't really get a sunburn while it was cloudy
>Miss yogurt
>Stand in the middle of the corn patch that might have been your front yard and marvel at the stars until you're sure you have malaria.
>Decide whether or not you should resolve to never again drink Ghanaian Gin (a.k.a. Pusher - pronouced Poo0-sha if you're a good Ghanaian)
> decide to make no resolutions you can't keep. After all, it was a good party (Someone I didn't meet got engaged to someone else I didn't meet).

>Inflammable? Really?

>Wonder: is Aids real? and if it were, what could I do?

>Oh.


>Wonder if they have halloween here, and if you could really find your soulmate by finding the one person who recognizes your costume, The Condom Police.


> Stay in the office late and blog.

...inflammable

it seems that I'm not the only would-be doctor confused on this issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiAPsh9RGKc

Thanks to Kei for directing me to the link. What country does Dr. Nick come from again? Perhaps that's where I belong.