Last weekend I didn't really go to a funeral. Friday night when I was planning on going, it
turned out that my family was actually going to the funeral. Only my brothers Appiah and Kwame were going,
and they were going to dance. As almost
everyone will tell you, I'm no dancer (unless I've put back a couple/a lot of
drinks...SigEpSigEp!) Well getting drunk
at funerals is totally acceptable here, but as an ambassador (note the small
"a") of peace from the United States of America, I would rather
not. Funerals are a big celebration
where the dead are honored for their greatness in life, and their failures and
shortcomings are forgiven or overlooked.
I did go to a funeral for a few minutes last Saturday morning (June 30),
but I didn't get the full experience of dancing and drinking.
On Sunday, I went to the Vodafone internet cafe in Koforidua
where the internet is actually decent. I
can get downloads of about 1MB/s, but it takes about 1 hour by taxi and trotro
to get there from Anyinasin. On my way
back to Anyinasin, I got some fried rice, spaghetti, and chicken from a street
vendor. I probably wouldn't have bought
it normally, but some Ghanaians on the trotro bought some so I figured that it
must be good.
I should have stopped eating it right away when I noticed
that it was kind of cold, but...I didn't.
That tro ride was pretty rough; 45 minutes of bouncy roads in the back
of a cramped van in which I couldn't even sit straight because I'm too tall
with 15 other people did not make my stomach feel too great. We I got off I knew I needed to get to a
toilet pretty quickly lest I wanted to "join the club" aka poop my
pants. It happens often enough to Peace
Corps Volunteers that it's just called joining the club, and a few people in my
training group have already joined.
I got home with clean underwear, but my brothers immediately
started harassing me about going to the funeral. I said that I wasn't feeling well and needed
to use the bathroom and probably lie down for a while. I told them I needed at least 1 hour. After 15 minutes they came and knocked on my
door and asked me if I was ready to go.
"No, let me sleep for a small time." I said. Then they told me that my bankou was almost
ready (bankou is the fermented corn flour ball that I'm not a huge fan of). I told them, "Men co didi! I'm
sick." (Translation: I'm not going to eat! I'm sick.) About 10 minutes after that I went outside
and vomited.
My brothers kind of (note: in Ghana they don't say
"kind of," instead they say "somehow" to mean the same
thing) understood that I was sick; they asked me if now I was ready to go to
the funeral. I had to explain that I
would not be attending the funeral, and that I needed to stay home because I
was vomiting and running (if you are jogging you need to say jogging or
training because here running means diarrhea ).
I then went to my room and took a nap.
I awoke to my mom knocking on my door. She had returned from
the funeral with her sister, and was trying to get me to go with her. However, once she saw that I was sick, she
asked me what happened and if I had taken medicine. I managed to explain that I had eaten some
fried rice and spaghetti in Koforidua, but I was unable to explain that if I
tried to take medicine, I would just vomit everything right back up. I eventually just left it as yes, I'm going
to take medicine. I did try to drink
some water then, but I was still ill. So
about 30 minutes later I went and threw up again.
Enough details though, you get the idea. I was miserably sick from 3:00pm to 8:00pm in
a foreign country because I ate some street food, and I was unable to tell my
host family exactly what was happening.
I was pretty unhappy, and I definitely thought, "This wouldn't have
happened if I were in America, and being in America would be really nice right
now." My family was genuinely
concerned for my health, and there were a few people visiting our house
(because of the funeral) and they also seemed genuinely concerned. It was a pretty tough afternoon for me, but
thinking about it now confirms that Ghanaians are just nice people. Most people seemed worried that I was going
to die or needed medical attention, but usually I was able to explain that it
was just something I ate making me sick.
Here's a list of some things that are tough and other
setbacks I've experienced in no particular order: it's hot, my $5 Walmart
speakers broke, my iPod decided to stop working for a day, I had to reinstall
Windows7 on my computer because it wouldn't start, my external hard drive
decided to quit functioning (but I was able to recover almost everything on
it), I have to handwash all of my clothes, it rains almost every day so it
takes two days for my clothes to dry, I got food poisoning, I forgot all of my
books at home, there's no running water, I have to greet everyone I see because
I'm a celebrity, and my house is a 10 minute walk from town.
It's really not that bad, and I've gotten over pretty much
everything on the list. That being said,
I do miss running water, constant electricity, nice roads, and American food.
This post is supposed to include some celebrations too, and
I think that will be good to lift my spirits a bit after all this talk of
sickness and things that kind of suck. The
first and only celebration that I have to talk about is the Ohoum
Festival. No one was able to figure out
exactly what it is or why they celebrate, but these are some things we
know. The timing of the festival changes
every year depending on the growth of palm trees, but we don't know what they
look for or why it depends on palm trees.
For one month no one is allowed to pound fufu, make excessive noise, or
play music after dark. If you live in
town this month is noticeably quieter because Ghanaians are pretty loud at
night compared to Americans. When
something happens with the palm tree, the chief of Old Tafo and the village
elders walk through the stream for a few hundred meters. Lots of people join them in the stream, and
then the whole procession moves to the street and they parade through town.
Parades here are pretty cool. There's lots of drumming, dancing, and
waving. Anyone at Lawrence or who knows
Sambistas can think of that kind of drumming.
After the chief passes by, or really whenever you feel like it, you can
join the parade. The chief was carried
through town on a big platform, and he would occasionally stand and dance on
the platform for a while. This sent the
crowd into a frenzy and everyone would start dancing furiously. When the parade ends, there's a dancing
competition. I think this is pretty
standard, but it might be only for Ohoum.
Most people were nice, but a few weren't so happy to see a
bunch of white people parading through town.
Victoria and I also got dragged into a dance spot by our counterpart
teacher at RCJHS and immediately felt uncomfortable. For one the place was packed; we were the
only white people there and everyone knew it; and people tried to pickpocket me
and take my backpack. Luckily I didn't
have anything in my back pockets, and we left in less than a minute. It was crazy in there, and we didn't like it. All in
all the festival was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got to see it and
participate.
4th of July Party!
All of us PCTs decided to have a potluck to celebrate Independence
Day. We held the potluck at our favorite
spot in town which happens to be owned by Mandee's (a fellow volunteer)
mom. The day before the party I decided
that I would make some vegetarian chili, something I've whipped up many times
working at Magpie. I knew it wouldn't be
too hard to find tomatoes, beans, onion, chiles, and garlic, but finding cumin
proved to be impossible. Also, I had to
settle for some white beans. I'm not sure what kind they were, but that was the
only kind available.
I soaked the beans for half a day, and when I returned home
at 4:00pm, I was ready to cook. I should
take a little time to explain our kitchen facilities: we have a fire pit (3
walls) that you feed firewood into; we have a charcoal grill with no grill that
you just set pots upon, and we have no cutting board (though I brought
one!). Everything works surprisingly well,
and my mom is a pro at cutting things in her hands.
I started boiling the beans on the fire pit, roasting the
peppers on the charcoal, and prepping my tomatoes, onions, and garlic. Everything came together nicely, and my
family loved me stew. However, since I
couldn't find cumin or get chipotles in adobo sauce, my chili turned into a
spicy tomato soup. As anyone at Magpie
will tell you, I have a tendency to overdo the spiciness of soups, and the same
thing happened with this chili. As one
fellow teacher put it, "Your chili's on fire!"
I ended up being late to the party, which I knew would
happen because cooking beans and chili takes a lot of time, but my spicy tomato
soup was still quite popular. That
brings me to another topic at our 4th of July Potluck, the Trainee survey. A few girls decided it would be fun to put
together an anonymous poll to decide who had the best smile, best eyes, and who
was the best dress, and most likely to do certain things...a lot like a high
school senior yearbook thing, except we've known each other for less than one
month. Anyway, I pretty much ran the
table for the guys: smile (#2), eyes (1), best dressed (1), most likely to get
a Ghana tattoo (2), most likely to integrate into the community (1), most
likely to become fluent in the language (1), most likely to become a volunteer
trainer (2), most likely to become a country director (1)...etc. There are more but I've already bragged
plenty. I should mention that you could
not vote for yourself, so these things were determined by my fellow
trainees. Not going to lie, it made me
feel pretty good about myself :)
Then we sang the national anthem, and it was awesome.
'Merica!
Funerals are a big celebration, so I'm sure I'll write about
them more once I actually go to one.
I'm excited to announce that my sister Cynthia had her baby
the other day (Wednesday). Because he
was born on a Wednesday, he will be named Kwaku. I already have one brother named Kwaku, but
his full name is Kwaku Aguday (I have no idea how to spell it). They don't name babies until they have a
party a week after they are born, but my family is already talking about naming
him Kwaku Peter Vanney Anokyewaa!
Apparently they have a family member named Peter, so they aren't naming
him only after me, but still...it's pretty cool. I guess that means I would be the godfather. I'm not so secretly really excited about
this.
Unfortunately I think I won't be around for the naming/birthing
celebration because all the Peace Corps Trainees are going to Kumasi to meet
our counterpart teachers for our sites.
This means that they'll finally tell us the name of the town/village
we'll be teaching in for two years!
After we meet our counterparts everyone will go to their sites for a
short visit, and then we'll shadow a current Peace Corps teacher for a few days
too. It's going to be an exciting 2
weeks, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to find internet. Hopefully it's
soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment