Ghana Day 11 032312 I Didn't mean that.

Ghana Day 11, 032312, I didn't mean that

The third thing that can really distance us white people from our local friends is our unpreparedness and ignorance about the norms of this culture. Everything in Ghana, or in any society, works smoothly because there are a set of underlying social expectations and assumptions that everyone has in common. In the US, we walk and drive on the right; in the UK, the left prevails. I can't tell you how many people I smashed into in London when I bounded down the right side of a crowded subway staircase into “incoming traffic” who had other expectations.

The social norms in Ghana, however, have some tribal roots, that are largely unfamiliar to Western visitors. I downloaded a sort of “Cliffs Notes of Western faux pas” that I found myself re-reading over and over to try to comprehend what they were even describing. I discussed one of these social issues previously, the expectation and courtesy of greeting everyone that you meet. Even if you are in a hurry. Even if they are at a different station of life than you, or are in a service role. Everyone gets the courtesy of your time and your smile. Not to do so would offend. Asking help from someone who was initially socially dismissed is doubly rude.

From deep tribal custom, the left hand is considered unclean. There are no left-handed people, left handed scissors or left handed bass guitars here. Everything is done with the right hand – greeting gesturing and eating. Using the left hand to summon someone is the equivalent of giving them the finger. This is a culture that eats some foods with their hands, the local equivalent of finger foods. Using one's left hand to eat shared food is the equivalent of a waiter sneezing on your food as he/she presents it. End of sharing. Things are passed or handed right hand to right. The next time you are passing the ketchup at your dinner table, have a glance at which hand yoou are using. It is not something that we are even conscious of. For our ambidextrous society in the US, it is most difficult to make the shift to right-handed ness. The easiest thing is often just to sit on your left hand to immobilize it so as not to offend.

It is best to also lose your dependence on time and timeliness here. I mentioned earlier that greetings take precedent over promptness and that scheduled transit vehicles leave when they are full, not by the clock. We did once leave on a bus trip on a coach bus that ran on a schedule, but that is rare. Air conditioning and spacious reclining seats, even rarer. Anyway, the 6:00am bus left at 6:15.

As important as greetings are, the expected response to Wo ho te sen (How are you?) is Me ho ye ( I am fine). Greetings are culturally important, but this is not a time to talk about your upcoming colonoscopy or your chronic acid reflux condition. You are fine. The world is fine, and all is well, end of story. Save the whining and details for your doctor or your diary.

A little local language from the tourist goes a long way toward neutralizing the rich American stereotype and inviting the local people to possibly open up to considering you to be a fellow human instead of a walking wallet. Just the simple word Midaase (thank you), like they promised us in kindergarten, helps to break the curse. Some one once told me that the most money-per-hour that you will ever earn in your life, are the few minutes that you spend negotiating up your starting salary for a new job. In the same vein, probably the most valuable phrase that you could learn in Ghana would be Te so (reduce it), in the marketplace. Those two short words will save you a quick 60% on everything, and they quickly communicate in the native tongue to change your focus from my wallet to my eyes. 

We are constantly learning, and learning that the familiar ways of our own culture don't always apply elsewhere.  But, that is perfectly alright.  Different isn't necessarily bad 

Ghana Day 10 - 032212 - White in Africa

Ghana Day 10 032212 White in Africa

Yesterday we spoke of the difference in pace between Western and Ghanaian culture. Today, I'd like to explore a second issue, being white in a black country. As I'm sure many dark skinned people feel in a white culture, there is no way to hide skin color. To my knowledge, only Michael Jackson has even tried to attempt this, and imho, something went terribly wrong with that process.

We are strangers here, and we stand out from everyone else. Our skin is fair and burns easily. Our hair is fine and sometimes long. And we have sometimes have fine hair on our arms and legs that is unfamiliar. Without even addressing any issues of racial bias, we just look different.

On a very simple level, the unfamiliar is interesting, and people are just plain inquisitive. Whites in Ghana are called “Obruni”, which I think literally means foreigner, but carries the implication of “one who does not look normal like us”. I was told, prior to our arrival, that we would hear the word, I assumed in quieted conversations as we passed by. Instead, people more or less point and yell “Obruni” at us. The school children in our local neighborhood, make a kind of nursery-rhyme chant out of “O – broon – ee, Oh - broon -ee” and over time, we've come to offer them a high-five to appease them as we break down thhe barrier of differences. This can sometimes mean an endless stream of 30 or 40 such interactions as shyer friends come out into the road from their homes as we pass. We are weird and different and of great interest, and sometimes I feel like ET walking down the street. Nothing threatening, but certainly warranting attention.

At our orphanage, where we have had the chance to build familiarity and extended family, the kids just love stroking our long hair, and gently running their hands over and over the hair on my arm, like a blind person exploring a new object. Similarly, we've found that cutting African hair is a process quite different from our Western long locks. One woman at a public transportation tro-tro station was wandering and loudly polling anyone who would listen, “Does anyone know a stylish who cuts Western hair?'

There is a ironic double (or maybe triple) standard at work here, and I'll do my best to try to unravel it. It is based on a few premises, that result in a confusing collision of gestures and values.

The first is that Ghanaians are inherently culturalyl friendly and welcoming. This was one of the decision points for us deciding to visit this country over several other choices. In Ghana, if you have something, you help someone who doesn't. It seems that many, especially in the lower income groups, do not integrate savings into their aspirations. Their income and situation largely forces them to live for the short term, hand to mouth, and day to day. If they should receive the blessing of short term resources, they are likely to share it with others in need, believing that in some future time of need, someone will aid them. I spoke earlier about the cultural need to acknowledge each other and to greet. This is a land that values human interaction and that is filled with general good will towards others.

The second point is less positive. As with any people, physical differences can be interpreted as threatening, and there is some timidity and puzzlement with confronting the new and unknown. I suppose, like viewing one's first solar eclipse or snowstorm, no amount of reading or intellectual understanding can prepare one for the actual experience. There is a word in the language for us white folk, but it doesn't begin to cover the nuances of meeting one in the flesh. Our eyes are not brown, our skin is fair, our hair is fine and long, and we walk around in a stupor trying to understand the rules of a different culture, bumping into norms like a person navigating an unfamiliar room in the dark, with consequences that range from clumsy to downright inadvertently offensive.

There is a also history of white people arriving here from Europe for the past 400 or so years, and exploiting West Africans, and that promotes a sense of historical mistrust. This is a land rich in spices, cocoa and gold, as well as a brisk trade in human slaves for over a century. There is pretty much no limit to the lengths that European nations have gone to in the quest to achieve dominance over thhe resources of this region. Much of it is brutal and wholly historically embarrassing to a person like me who has been unwittingly saddled with being an ambassador of whiteness in a land of black skinned people.

Finally, there is is a definite, knee-jerk association with white people being rich and stupid silly with handling their money. The Ghanaian economy, like many in rural America, just operates at a lower, simpler level than that of the large city. I can get far greater value in services and housing and goods for my money in my hometown of East Hampton, CT than my son can in the middle of New York City. Similarly, visiting Westerners don't have a clue initially just how much value their dollars can buy in this simpler economy, so otherwise smart people make blatantly stupid buying decisions. Many marketplace goods are offered at about 500% over their anticipated sales value. Negotiating is culturally expected and accepted. Most Westerners are not used to offering 10 cents on the dollar, and in the resultant clash, end up paying laughable amounts for items without blinking. And so, the “myth” of wealthy white skinned people is driven one story deeper into the West African culture.

As an example, we just purchased 5 dozen eggs for about $8 in the local market, 18 pineapples for $4, a 20 mile taxi ride for $2, a custom made dress for $19, and the work of a mason with two assistants for a full 8 hour day in the hot sun for about $50. Bottled water is 13 cents a liter, you can rent a 1500 sq ft house for a few hundred dollars a month, and a clean hotel room with A/C at a resort for $50. Of course, some things are expensive. My wife, Penny, aptly commented as we drove past a roadside electronics store, “Now I know where all the tube TVs ended up!” Computers and furniture (wood is scarce) and appliances are costly. Fuel is around $8 a gallon. Time is cheap however, and this abundance of seemingly inexpensive labor and lack of money turns everyone into a handyman.

Back to the main point. Outsiders from expensive Western cities are foolhardy with their money. The culture is inherently welcoming, but white skinned people carry a historical legacy of suspect behavior. The net result produces a confusing Ghanaian response. Elder people are warm in their greetings, but can turn cold quickly when a Westerner makes and unintentional offensive gesture, perhaps using their left (unclean) hand in greeting. Street-smart Ghanaiains exploit white tourists by opening with warm greetings, only to disarm people long enough to steal their wallets and watches. Similarly, young local men will go to nearly any length to get the name and phone and address of a white coed. We are traveling with a beautiful 18 year old young woman who is a testosterone magnet. She is constantly getting pulled and touched and approached and invited, as though she is a celebrity making her way through a sea of fans.

The bottom line is that it is confusing being white here. Once we've met people, all is well. People are people, and at our core, regardless of skin color, we are all interested in the same things – family, health, hopes and dreams. For the reasons listed above, though, it seems that the average Ghanaian in commerce, feels like they are walking past a lost opportunity not to overcharge a white person. I think that there is a decision-point, that usually goes sour, when interacting with a white person in a business transaction. It is kind of like that morality tug of war when you find a hundred dollar bill on the ground and quickly realize that the person ahead of you at the airport dropped it. There is the greedy impulse of some kind of windfall profit, tempered by the higher conscious act of doing the right thing.

This situation happened to me at JFK airport in New York, when an Asian gentleman a half dozen steps ahead of me pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and unknowingly ejected a flurry of US currency on the the terminal floor behind him. I stopped him and helped him gather it up and get on his way. Somehow, I'm longing for that same higher urge to prevail in the Ghanaian market place with vendors when I shop. I'm still waiting.

Ghana Day 12 032412 Food

Ghana Day 12 032412 Food

I don't know that I'm any kind of expert on food, and we've been living with local families in just the south region, but I'll share a few observations. I understand that there are some regional tribal dishes that differ throughout the country. There are a few basics.

Some staple foods here are yams, rice, potatoes, tomatoes, casava, beans and corn. These starches form the basis of most dishes, soups and stews. Yams are basically a sweet potato variant, and taste pretty familiar. The main new food that is inexpensive and pletiful here is casava. Casava is basically a white root, and it makes its appearance most often in either a ground, dried powder, or in a thick moist paste, sold in bulk. This has the consistency of bread dough, and one can find huge bowls of it in the (outdoor) marketplace, doled out in bags by the kilogram (2.2 pounds).

The fruits that are in season now are “po-po” (papaya), pineapple and bananas. All are flavorful, juicy and delicious. The bananas are smaller and have greener skins (even when ripe), making me suspicious that the ones in our supermarket are somehow cosmetically altered in some way. In a few months, mangos will be ripe. We experienced a great snack-food fruit, known as “yoy”, that was delicious and a mind-numbing eating process, like shelling peanuts or cracking pistachio shells. Yoy berries grom on a tree, and they are hard brown pods, about the size of a pecan. They are a bit furry and the shells are tender and split open easily. Inside is the fruit, which is has the texture of the fuzz on a ripe peach (but the size of a large raisin). In your mouth, it dissolves with a slightly tart flavor, hinting of raspberry. Apparently, it is one of those 'superfoods', rich in antioxidants, like pomegranate and acai. Inside the fruit is a small, very hard pit, with the texture of dental enamel. Look for it at your local Whole Foods in a year or so once someone discovers it and markets it to an upscale, health conscious market.

The overzealous dairy industry hasn't made inroads in Western Africa yet, so we are spared milk and cheese, for the most part. No “Got Mik” billboards here. I enjoy such stuff in my morning coffee, and the best that I could find is a can of condensed milk, with its characteristic caramel color. There is an ice cream (of sorts) sold frozen in a sealed bag, and consumed (like the “bottled” water) by biting off a corner of the plastic and squeezing it into your mouth like astronaut food. The ingredients reveal that it is also made from condensed milk, sugar and a bunch of oils and such. Tastes pretty good, especially if it is really cold and you are really hot. We had a peak at a small “farm” of around 40 bulls that lived a block or so from our residence home, behind a stockade fence. They were quite thin, and the first reference image that came to my mind was the Bible story of Joseph in Egypt, forecasting years of famine via his dream of 7 lean cattle. Like many people, and most wandering animals, these guys looked pretty hungry. From a different standpoint, these guys were one day going to become a very disappointingly small portion of steak. It is probably best that these folks don't go into the dairy farming business just yet.

Chickens (and their noisy rooster friends) and goats are pretty much everywhere. They do apparently “belong” to individuals, but they roam freely in the roads at all times. More on the broader issues of animals in Ghana later, but chicken and goat products are also a part of the local diet. Chicken is expensive (a whole “broiler”, sold live, is about $15), so it is used more as a garnish than a main dish. Many of the carb-loaded main dishes had a small protein token off to the side, such as a hard boiled egg, or small (buffalo-wing size) drumstick. These were prepared with delicious local spices, but I found them to be more work than meat. We saw chicken and goat, both live and ready to cook, in the marketplace. My antenna was up to avoid local foods, especially raw meat, that had been sitting in the 90 degree sun all day, so I can't comment on how these tasted. They didn't look too appetizing because of the flies, that kind of prismatic green sheen that older meat takes on, and the presentation, often decoratively placed behind a goat head. We'll just have to use our imagination about some things.

There is a local delicacy, known as grass-cutter, that I haven't yet had a chance to try. These are also sold live and one needs to go to a grasscutter farm to purchase them. They are a kind of rodent, rounder than a large rat. Again, it is supposed to be tasty, but I haven't yet had the opportunity to eat this under controlled conditions.

Lots of onions, green peppers and tomatoes in the mix. Lots of cayenne pepper for seasoning. And a ton of bright red palm oil in nearly everything. Palm oil, from my memory, is on the “Most Wanted List” of artery clogging, saturated oils. It is made from pounding and grinding these pretty nuts, about the size of chestnuts). One of our volunteer tasks, at our orphanage/school, is dishwashing, and we've come to despise palm oil because there is no known dtergrent or anionic solvent that we've yet found that really cuts through this stuff. It seems to leave a light residue on everything, not unlike dipping cookware in transmission fluid or gear oil. From that unscientific experience, I'll deduce that this stuff probably isn't that nurturing to blood vessels.

So, the dishes that we've come to love here are rice dishes called RedRed and Joloff Rice. The former has onions and peppers and lots of seasoning, the latter is similarly spicy, but has a mild curry base. Redred is a classic dish, always served with companion fried plaintain (which looks like a banana and tastes like a sweet potato). Ghanaians are pretty serious about their deep frying, so these are quite heavy, but delicious in small doses.

Another classic set of local dishes involve a balled up starch, paired with some kind of soup. The starch might be fu-ful, a pounded casava ball, banku, a blend of casava and corn flour, similarly stirred and pounded into submission, or a rice ball (self explanatory). The soups are always spice, heavy on the red palm oil, and usually have some protein like fish or goat. These are “finger-food” dishes, eaten by hand with no silverware. One pinches off a piece of the starch, and dips it into the hot-oil soup, trying to sweep up a morsel of the soup solids on the way to your mouth. It is all swallowed whole, no chewing. Ghanaians like the socail part of eating together, and these dishes are sometimes served “family style” with everyone dipping into a common large bowl. We were pleased (like in Israel) to see that hand washing usually prefaced a meal, with the difference being that Israelis wash both hands and Western Africans only wash their right hand, since it is the only one involved in eating.

The food is spicy, delicious and plentiful. For the most part, a real treat!

Ghana Day 8 032012 Chickens

Ghana Day 8 032012 Chickens

Our host, Patrick, has an inner calm and peacefulness and trust in God about this orphanage/school project. Just to recap, based on a vision that his wife had multiple times, he rented a home and converted it into a residence for local orphans (34) and a day school for additional students (90) who weren't able to afford an education. He has little income from this business, and the kids need everything from clothes to food to books, but the atmosphere is bright and sunny. As though increasing his family size to 125 wasn't enough of a challenge, he got into his head that raising chickens would be a good thing. He rented a barn about a half mile away from his home in the opposite direction from the orphanage, and got started about 8 months ago with 1500 chickens. Best to start small, right? He purchased these "broilers" as day-old chicks and raised them to adulthood 6 months later.

We expressed an interest in seeing 'the farm', as Patrick calls it, and took several trips to help with the newest batch of chickens. Now, Penny is vegan, and I've taken to purchasing free range chickens when possible. We've viewed documentaries like Food, Inc, exposing the overcrowded coop conditions of American Agribusiness. so I wasn't sure what Ghanaian chicken farm conditions would be like. I was pleasantly surprised how clean and organized the barn was, reflecting Patrick's attention to detail.

He has untertaken the chicken enterprise because he views it as an income opportunity to fund the school, and also as a backup for food if necessary. Currently there are 300 broilers, seriously scaled down from the 1500 there previously that I sense was a bigger project than anticipated. In a space designed for 750 birds, this smaller group has plenty of space to roam about. Patrick makes his own feed to save money. He buys bulk corn (maize) and has it ground locally. To this he adds some dried fish protein, also ground, that he has sitting on a large drying tray near the front door of his home. The barn is also without its own water "pipe" so the 50 gal or so that the birds require every two days muct be "fetched" by bucket from a home a few "doors" down. A taxi helps to bring the 50 Kilo (110+ pounds) bag of grain from market in town (Tuesdays and Fridays) directly to the barn.

Once the grain has been stirred and mixed, the birds are fed twice daily by filling about a dozen feeder containers located around the coop space. Similarly, there are a half dozen, gravity feed water containers that each hold about 2 gallons, that must be replenished. Sunday (we found out too late) was cleaning day, so we hand washed all of the water containers with a disinfectant solution, and helped to sweep out the feathers and dust and waste from the barn, out the window into "the hole", a trench that has been dug just outside that will later be covered over with dirt in a kind of composting activity.

Patrick is toying with purchasing a second group of "lay-ers" to provide eggs to sell. The day old broilers cost about a dollar, and sell at market for about $20 in 6 months. Layers cost twice as much, but will produce eggs nearly daily for over a year, yielding well over $75 per bird. 

Many readers have asked if they can help to support the orphanage project, so we set up a webpage for the orphanage, fundraising for some of the recurring expenses like food, shelter and utilities.  We also have a donation page for several special projects including the opportunity to help the school by making a one time donation to purchase chickens..  You can find out more, or support the school at: WestAfricanSchool.org

That is about all that I know about chicken farming, but it is quite a bit more than I brought over in my brain from the States. My final point about chickens, is that they are roaming everywhere, kind of like pigeons. On the side of the road, in every ditch, and scurrying in all directions at all times, there are chickens. And roosters. Roosters, you will remember, wake up with the sun, and with about 100 roosters in this neighborhood, there is quite a morning symphony. The problem is that not each rooster is exactly sychronized with the sun, and the cacaphony begins closer to midnight than dawn. Just another part of the audible palatte of our new neighborhood.

Ghana Day 9 032112 Ghana Time

Ghana Day 9 032112 Different Clocks – Strangers in a Strange Land

I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about being a Western white person dropped into this rick African culture. Penny and I selected Ghana as our first volunteer destinations, in part, because we found that their culture was welcoming and hospitable. In that regard, we have no regrets and certainly made a great decision. Still, there is no easy way for us to blend in here, and that creates some interesting issues and dynamics.

These cultural clashes and interchanges fall into three different types, I think – being Western in an African culture operating at a different pace, being white in a world of black skinned people, and sometimes, just being ignorant that we are doing or saying something stupid. I'll try to address each of these in a separate blog.

The Western clock in us, especially living in the somewhat fast-paced Northeast US culture (Connecticut, midway between New York and Boston), brings some cultural clashes of its own. Our own lives lean towards the scheduled, the impatient and the hurried, three values that are not a part of Ghanaian culture. Nothing good or bad or judgmental, mind you, just different than our time oriented instincts from back home.

As best as I can tell, Ghana has its own clock and pace that is more relaxed than ours. I recently was reading, I think in a book called Einstein's Dreams that was discussing the elements of “time” in our lives, that some people are schedule oriented, and some people are more experiential. The “schedulers” are constantly checking their watch, and day planners to see what comes next. To generalize about them, they might check their watch, see that it is noon, and feel that they “should” eat, because it is time to. The “experiencers” however, will feel hungry and, without caring about the time, eat to satisfy the urge. I found it interesting to step back and examine activities in my life that I get engaged with, not because I needed the experience, but because it was “time” for it to happen. Think about your own life and examine how many “times” you might have. Time to rise, time for lunch, time for a coffee break, time to eat, time for bed. None of these “times” have anything to do with our body's need for the experience.

Here, the main means of public transportation is a shared van system, known as the tro-tro. It is a large cargo van with five rows of seats, potentially carrying about 20 passengers, and the fare is fixed from point to point, per head. We took a “tro” yesterday on a 25 minute, 20 mile ride that cost the equivalent of about a dollar (1 cedi, 50 pesewas). They are run by a team, the driver and the “conductor”, who collects fares and is constantly “hawking” and screaming the destination as they pass pre-established stops on the route, flying by at 50 mph, watching for interested roadside passengers to raise a finger, indicated that they want to board. The goal is to overfill the van, maximizing income for the trip. Like a subway car at rush hour, I've seen a full tro, carrying 14, impossibly “absorb” an additional 5 passengers. Sometimes the door closes, sometimes not quite.

Related to time, these vans don't depart from their origin until they are full. We rushed to get to the departure point of a tro on Sunday morning, and our group of five got comfortably seated in an empty van. About 35 minutes later, when the van was filled with 18 passengers, it left. The trip was about 90 minutes, the departure was delayed (to us) by another 35 minutes because it wasn't full. Kind of the opposite of a scheduled bus or train in the Northeast US. I've missed a train back home from New Haven to New York by being 30 seconds late, and it was nowhere near full.

The aspect of Ghanaian culture that we anticipated, friendliness, also impacts anything scheduled. It is of primary importance for people to stop and greet. Unlike the fixed stare that one might adopt in New York, to avoid being harassed by strangers, it is just plain rude not to acknowledge another human being in your path, and doubly insulting not to stop and greet someone that you know. People talk, meet eyes, exchange greetings, and arrive everywhere late.

We ate our 1pm scheduled lunch at around 1:30, because both we, and our host, stopped to talk along the way. Our Internet cafe session, which is billed by the hour, was interrupted by a power outage and the need to start up a gasoline generator and re-boot everything, so we settled for a negotiated rate. Our morning trip to the local market was extended by a few hours, in order to introduce us to several vendors. Our host canceled a meeting with his client because our “field trip” to visit local kente-cloth weavers, (a kind of Amish, blast to the past, traditional wooden loom process) was extended by a few hours to also visit a dressmaker in the area, who offered to measure Penny and Hannah for a dress.

To a highly scheduled person, who values productivity over personal contact, these values of timing can clash. After participating in the adaptation process to slow down, the change is actually quite refreshing, although different. One important way that we can blend in and integrate into Ghanaian society is to just slow down, and that has been nice and richly rewarding. It wouldn't work too well back home, leaving salon and medical appointments unattended, but the underlying basis for this is rooted in valuing human contact above all else. That is truly refreshing.

Ghana Day 7 031912 Gets You Thinking

Ghana Day 7 031912 Gets You Thinking

I wanted to share a few topics with you that I'd have to put in the category of cultural "priority shifts." In trying to adapt to any new place, we take what we know to be true, our values and priorities and experience, and we try to integrate new information with the stable and time honored things that we know to be true.  In Ghana, and particularly in our local community, many underlying beliefs are different than the ones that I carried over her on my flight.  Until one understands the whole belief package that supports the decisions that our Ghanaian friends are making, very little makes sense. Here is my attempt to quantify some of these alternate cultural assumptions, that work just perfectly here, but that are quite different than our own.

Human Interaction. In Ghana, everyone is warmly greeted. Things run on "Ghana Time", meaning that ther are no appointments set in stone.  One the way to anywhere, especially since most are walking, you will pass and stop and greet people in the street.  Not to do so would be highly insulting, and in doing so, you will take longer doing everything than you anticipated and you will be late.  Fortunately, those that you are meeting will also be late, and it all works out.  But the underlying premise seems to be that there is great value placed on human contact.  I remember having to learn to "look away" from people on the Ny subway or streets, lest they lock eyes with you and mark you for harassment.  There, it seemed best to ignore.  In Ghana, the people that you pass are enriched by a quick word of greeting, Good Morning, Hello, and both parties move on from the brief interaction elevated, and smiling for having made the connection.  Those of you who have seen some of my other writings know that I value "making everyday moments holy", adding a bit of consciousness to the mundane and ordinary to raise it to a memorable experience.  Acknowledging the people around us, and returning a greeting and a smile accomplishes this.  It is probably a more difficult task nack home, to bypass our natural pull toward human contact, and to "learn" to ignore those around us.  So, Rule One, Human contact has a higher value than most anything else.

White Money. Even in the medium sized city close to us, called Kosoa, it is uncommon to see a white skinned person, and we are oddities.  In this beautiful, richly dark skinned country, adorned with festive and bright fabrics, we stand out quite a bit.  The economy here operates at a different level, and Westerners just plain have more buying power than Ghanaians do.  As well intentioned as they might be, it is extremely difficult to un-link the association that these strange looking white folk are clumsily transporting large amounts of currency, and using it unwisely.  Americans don't do well in the bargaining game in a country where locals know the inherent value of items with no posted prices.  Even in local trading, there is some flexibility in lowering the price depending on quantity.  There were only three instances where there seemed to be a fixed price, the familiar taxi ride to town, the tro-tro vans between town, and the hourly fee at the Internet Cafe (remember, minus the food).  Although I am not a driver here, the cost of fuel is also fixed at the pump (sold by the liter, at approximately $9 per gallon).  Every thing else is negotiable.  Either you know what you should be paying, or you do a lot of extra paying.  

The 140 Cedi ($80) leather handbag was negotiated down to a purchase price of about $9.  I was asked to pay about 1 Cedi (60 cents) for a pint of water, where the street vendor price is 10 for that price, and the marketplace is 20 for the same price.  There is this kind of tug of war in the mind of the locals, when seeing an "abruni" white person, that is genuinely friendly but also feeling like they don't want to pass up making a day's wage selling you a pencil or a hat or a coconut.  So we make friends local friends who we can send in to beat the jackpot mentality back down to reality, and slowly we learn the inherent value of goods.  But it is difficult and frustrating because the next vendor or store keeper will try again to overcharge.  We're marked people, and we just need to convey that, although we look different, we aren't stupid. And then some Western tourist comes buy and gladly overpays and undoes all of our effort. So, the next rule is that everything has a pretty common value, but it is not posted, and up to the purchaser to know.  Caviat Emptor, Buyer beware.

Daily Rhythm.  In this land of two or three power interuptions each day, there is no certainty that your home will be lit beyond dusk.  Sometimes, yes, sometimes no, but planning on electricity is a bad plan, subjecting one to repeated disappointment.  Perhaps for this reason, people are up with the sun.  Actually, given the number of roosters walking the neighborhood, and the certainty of the morning Moslem blaring call to worship at 5am, it is just easier to get up around 5:30, and maybe call it a day at 8:30 or 9pm when you get tired of reading my flashlight.  There are other distractions.  In our host family's "hood" there is a small 10x10 ft "barbershop" that has two six foot speaker enclosures aimed down the road at us that blares the local Reggae station beyond distortion levels starting at around 6am, until around 10pm. No one seems to mind.  There is a funeral tradition to play 24 continuous hours of music in the neighborhood, celebrating the persons life.  (When the time comes, you could do that for me and I would be honored).  My point is that this is a vibrant (noisy) place and with it not being wise to lay odds on the evening power, it is easier to rise and sleep with the sun. 

Personal Hygiene.  Ghanaians are extremely clean and fastidious about their dress.  That said, it is also 95 degree Fahrenheit and humid 24/7, so this is not the land of excessive makeup and feeling your driest.   We met a young volunteer who had been here for a few months, and had her backpack ripped off.  When we were consoling her, she said that it mostly contained makeup from home (Idaho) that she had no use for.  Deodorant is a good thing, and showers 9sometimes multiple times a day) are welcome, but there is just a certain amount of honest sweat that one needs to tolerate.   No one really seems to smell bad.  Unlike other cultures where garlic or curry seem to leach out in perspiration, these foods are basic, tasty and satisfying.  There is no air conditioning and there are no sweaters or jackets or turtlenecks.  Everyone is hot and sweaty and that is ok.

Water is a valuable commodity in a hot climate like this, and it comes in one temperature, lukewarm.  There is not hot water (sometimes people have black solar heating tanks to imitate this).  That means that the sterilizing idea of running something through the dishwasher doesn't exist.  Showering, laundry and dishwashing are all cold water sports.  The latter two involve multiple buckets and lots of bar soap, manually scrubbing and moving from bucket to bucket in a gradient from dirty to increasingly clean water.  It works perfectly, but one is more "in touch" with laundry and dishwashing activities when you find yourself face to face with hand washing.  

For our volunteer work, we assist with the serving and cleaning up of 125 lunches each day at the orphanage/school.  There are only about 50 bowls and spoons, so the younger kids eat first and their utensils and dishes are washed quickly for the next hungry group.  A popular cooking ingredient is the locally grown red palm oil, that seems largely soap and dishwashing resistant, leaving a greasy red film on things, kind of like leaving spaghetti sauce in a Tupperware container too long, when that red never really comes out.  On our first day here, we walked into this lunch cleanup, and (bringing our Western lysol mentality) were frustrated that soap and cold water weren't leaving everything squeaky clean.  Did I mention the flies?  There are small houseflies everywhere, thousands of them, and in the end, they do their own thing in their own airspace, we try our best to keep them from landing in hot pots of porridge or beans, and life goes on.  Worst case, a bit of free protein.  We did the best that we could, on the premise that this was an orphanage and low budget.  Weren't we surprised when we each were offered a large bowlful of the rice, beans and palm oil dish that was being served from the dishes that had just benefited from our own handiwork.  Everyone wanted the "abruni" to taste the local dish.  Bottom line, immune systems grow strongest when challenged, and this began our journey, now in its seventh day.  Our host offered to do our laundry, which came as clean from hand washing as any that I've ever seen come out of a washer.  The kids stand in the dish bowls to get their showers each day, then they get soaped down well for "kitchen use" We continue to drink bottled/bagged filtered water, but the cold water hand washing of dishes, with a little added sand and dust, has just become a normal part of the experience, "the way things are."  No one has gotten sick, and I'm sure that we are somehow strengthening our immune system.  It makes me think what a silly marketing driven idea the Lysol chlorine clean society we have been sold.  Clean is important and necessary.  There just isn't much more than a bar of soap that we really need to accomplish that. With the 34 resident kids in the orphanage, most are perfectly healthy.  A few runny noses and coughs,  but that seems to resolve in a day or two., and these kids have nothing.  I'm thinking that humans are really naturally much healthier and resilient and resistant to disease than the medical world has led us to believe. 

Ghana Day 6 - 031812 - The Orphanage and Our Duties

Ghana Day 6 031812 The Orphanage and our Duties

Our program, sponsored by a New Zealand company called International Volunteers HQ (IVHQ), is one of many that seeks to place volunteer help with schools, clinics and orphanages who could benefit from the help. They also provide a standardized set of living conditions, food, lodging and guidelines for us, the workers. For those arriving and departing their assignment, they provide a central volunteer center in Accra, the capital city, to welcome and house people coming and going. IVHQ also sets up housing at the various programs, which are typically in more rural areas, outside the city. Volunteers prepay a weekly fee for room and board, which varies greatly between companies competing in this business. Our cost was about $220 per person per week. This money goes directly to the host families, and represents a more than adequate compensation.

So, here is the story of our orphanage, the West African Foundation School. To the right, is a photo of the day program, about 120 school kids, lined up for the four classes, covering K - 9, with about 30 in each class.. Our hosts, Patrick and his wife Pat, live a five minute walk from the school with their three boys. They have reconfigured their home a bit, to accommodate volunteers living amidst their family, The boys are all sleeping in one room in order to free up two bedrooms for us. Potentially, they hope to house up to twelve volunteers, who would arrive on a rotating basis, staying for a period from 2 weeks to over 2 months (above that requires a Ghanaian Visa renewal.) God bless them for they have placed the success of the orphanage far above their own needs and comfort.

The welcoming entrance to the house has a large porch and swing, and a beautiful patio area with two large mango trees (which are not yet in season). The whole property, probably a half acre, is walled with an ornate iron gate.

Their home has a central, ceramic-tiled living room/dining area of about 25 x 25 ft. Surrounding this are five spacious bedrooms and their kitchen. There is a toilet room and a separate shower room, with a sink just outside these. We mentioned earlier that there is electricity and running water, but no hot water. Each bedroom and the toilet have a hanging curtain for privacy. The photo is of Patrick, who was saying a blessing, sort of giving a toast over some soda that we were drinking to celebrate the birthday of his 16 year old son.  (Happy Birthday sounds the same in every language.)

Pat, Patrick's wife (who only speaks the native Twi language and French) apparently had several visions and dreams during the past few years, impelling Patrick to quit his teaching job and start an orphanage and school for needy children. We asked about the availability of public schooling. It is indeed available, however class sizes are often over 30 per grade (kids join grades by ability, not age). A further obstacle to participating in education is the requirement that each child pay money to "purchase/rent" a desk. This is out of the reach of most in this community. There are private parochial schools as well, but again, these are unaffordable as most families are just one day's work away from poverty.

Patrick rented a separate, gated home for his school/orphanage. The four room house uses three rooms for classrooms, one doubling as a bedroom for the overnight children. There are 34 permanent "residents", aged from 2 to 14, and they split up by gender, sleeping in two rooms on mats rolled out on the floor. One of Patrick's short term goals is to afford small mattresses, and to build some classrooms outside the house, so that the benches do not need to be removed each day. Building, in Ghana, is almost exclusively done with concrete block, and very little lumber. He is also in the early stages of building a separate structure for toilets and showers. The photo shows the roughly 15 x 15 foot, and 12 foot deep trench that they dig by hand in the rock, and the first day's work of lining it with brick by the masons. Currently there is one toilet, shared by the 34 residents, 90 day students and 12 staff and volunteers. I mentioned earlier that there is no running water at the school, and each day they "fetch' water in buckets from the distance of about a block down the road, filling up a 50 gallon storage barrel.

The resident children awake at 5:30 and have their bathing. One of our duties has been to help with these "showers", consisting of a naked lineup of the 15 youngest children, who stand in a large rounded metal bowl, and are hand washed with lots of soap, and rinsed with clean water from an adjacent bucket. Then they are dried, have a type of "pomade" shea butter rubbed into their skin, have their teeth brushed, and get dressed for the day. Many have gray and purple uniforms with a "tie" stitched on as part of the uniform. Most of the clothes are old and ill fitting, relying on oversized belts to secure their pants from falling. Similarly, their underclothes are in rough shape. Their clothing, however, is quite clean.

Each child is responsible for their own hand washed laundry, and they often can be found taking a few idle moments to grab a bucket, a bar of soap,scrubbing their clothing, and hanging it out on the line in the courtyard. They each have chores, from rearranging the benches outdoors for meals and then indoors for classes. There is a constant parade of these 10 foot benches being carried and swung by young children. It is surprising that no one has gotten clocked in the head, but God seems to be protecting them from such injuries.

Breakfast follows the morning cleanup process. So far, it has been composed of a large pot of porridge and some fresh baked white bread, purchased from a local vendor who carried a few dozen loaves into the complex on her head at around 7am. There is a cook, MaLizzy who does all of the cooking with the help of a few others. MaLizzy doesn't speak English, and could best be described as a "strong woman." She put us to hard work immediately, stirring, serving and dishwashing, as if to test our constitution. We are the first IVHQ volunteers to this program, so, the regular help are quietly watching to see how much real work we are going to contribute, or if we are just there to hold babies.

Around 7:30am, the 90 or so day students begin arriving, and there is a formal line-up of students into four lines (by class), a moment of prayer and some singing, followed by the morning classes.

Around noon, lunch is served, which, from a volunteer standpoint, is the most challenging activity of the day. There is usually a big pot of something based on rice or beans and often a soup. These portions are individually served in an eclectic collection of colorful plastic bowls, and distributed by staff and volunteers to each student seated outdoors at benches. Many Ghanaian dishes are served with a large starchy something, a rice ball, a sticky pasta ball called Fu-Fu, or a pasty maize and casaba ball called banku. These are immersed in soup, often with beans or dried fish, and eaten by hand by dunking a piece of the carb ball in the soup. The main dishes are nicely spiced and have a similar flavor to Carribean food, with a generous amount of spices and cayenne.The photo shows on the other volunteers, serving lunch from the large pot of banku.

Frequently, palm oil is used as a main ingredient in cooking. This locally made oil is pressed from the pounded nut of the palm tree, and it has a bright red color, not unlike transmission fluid. It has a slight hot spicy taste to it, and you may remember hearing about it towards the top of the "bad oils" list of high trans-fat oils. It lingers on everything, and I can tell you first hand, that it is nearly resistant to becoming soluble in any dish washing detergent. I will be dreaming of palm-oil coated dishes, long after this volunteer trip is over.

There is an afternoon class, and between 3 ond 5pm, there is a free time, recess of sorts, during which the day students are picked up. 120 kids can make a lot of noise when in free play, and they are a bit difficult to contain in each of the classes of 30+ students in the mid day heat. Yet, they are learning math, English grammar, writing, music, composition and writing, in a rapid-fire learning experience of memorization, individual presentation and much applause from classmates for a job well done.

At least once during the day, an entourage needs to head down the road to replenish the water supply by carrying buckets. It takes about 30, 2-gallon buckets, carried by head, to fill up the 50 gallon storage barrel and the large Igloo cooler used for drinking water throughout the day. Patrick purchases this water from a Moslem family down the road who have a "pipe" (really just a spigot coming out a wall). If he purchases a large containers worth (5 gallons) the cost is 15peswas (about 9 cents), but if he fills individual gallon buckets, he is charged more. So, we go through this inane ritual of filling the large container, then distributing it into smaller buckets to obtain this discount. A complete replenished fill of the water storage containers costs just over 1 Cedi, probably about 65 cents. On Patrick's short list of improvements, is to get a "pipe" at the school. This will save about 6-8 man-hours a day of water "fetching" as well as give him the ability to sell water to others close by, turning and expense into a small profit center. The cost of running this public water feed down the road to him is about 650 Cedis ($400).

At 5, the school begins winding down in energy a bit with dinner. Again, this is usually a pot of some soup or bean dish, served individually to each student by volunteers and staff. The dishes (again) get washed by hand in two large round pans (the same ones that we used for showers). Showers again after dinner, and another round of teeth brushing before bed at 8pm. Retiring at 8pm sounded awfully early to me, until we realized that everything in Ghana comes to life around 5am, so it is just a morning-based culture.

A few times a day, we take the walk to the orphanage/school to perform our tasks, and then return to our host home for our own delicious meals and a moment of renewal and rest. It is brutally hot and humid, and some of the chores are exhausting (today I helped Patrick carry 50 kilo bags of concrete for some of his construction). The work needs to be done, everyone smiles, the children are delightful and warm and full of love and hugs. Somehow, it is all worthwhile and satisfying.It is a different world, one that seems to have little bearing on the culture in the States that we left, but everyone has a purpose and the same human needs, and dreams and a family to care for and support.  it all works out, just in a different framework.

Donations:
Many readers have asked if they can help to support the orphanage project, so we set up a webpage for the orphanage, fundraising for some of the recurring expenses like food, shelter and utilities.  We also have a donation page for several special projects like completing the toilet/shower building, bringing in public water, classrooms and raising money for mattresses for the children.  You can even help by purchasing chickens for the farm project associated with the school.  There is a page for supporting Services and Projects.  You can find out more, and support the school with any size donation at: WestAfricanSchool.org 

Ghana Day 5 - 031712 - Water

Ghana Day 5 - 031712  - On Water

If anyone is actually reading this, I'm sure that you're tired of hearing where and when we have been, so I thought that I'd try to tackle a topic and tell you what we found different about it in Ghana, and what the culture and new rules were.

We began our Ghana journey at the airport, and, related to water, all seemed normal.  They had adopted the UK labeling of "Toilets" rather than the US "Restrooms", but all was easily identifiable and functioned in a familiar way.  

We had been pre-informed that we would need to purchase bottled water, rather than to rely on the tap water that was available, but also contaminated with pond water little micro-creatures and bacteria, which also seemed easy to understand.  There are one-liter bottles of mineral water available in restaurants and in every market, but the most common form of water comes in cases of 24 half-liter bags which are sold everywhere, and unfortunately discarded everywhere after use.

These are pretty durable, square packets of filtered water.  One bites off the plastic of one corner, and drinks from them, either using gravity to dispense, or squeezing the contents into your mouth.  Somewhere between sucking on a water balloon with a leak, eating some type of astronaut food, or being on the receiving end of a pastry bag.  As silly as it sounds, this takes a bit of getting used to, avoiding too much pressure when the bag is pierced, resulting in a fountain effect on one's clothing.  No big deal, it's only water, and it is 95 degrees at all times. 

The country has a network of public or private water outlets that the locals seem to just call "The Pipe."  The volunteer center that we stayed at upon our arrival, as well as our host home, both have full plumbing and running water, so they are plugged into the system much as we are in the United States, with the exception that this public water is not potable and may contain bacteria and especially dangerous water-borne parasites.  For this reason, it is suggested that visitors use filtered water, except for washing and showering. 

Both of our lodging locations also had flush toilets, although they seemed concerned that one not flush toilet paper, and rather place it in a paper receptacle close by, similar to those used for sanitary paper products back in the States.  We've come to find that we were expected to provide our own toilet paper, which is considered optional, and not used by locals.  I don't know the mechanics of how that works, but it is becoming pretty clear that TP is a "visitors" thing. 

I previously mentioned that there are numerous street vendors, especially at traffic intersections, and these pags of water are one of the more popular items.  It is 95 degrees at mostly all times, and fairly humid, so one dehydrates quickly.  There is no air conditioning used in any vehicle that I ever saw, so the windows are all always open, making this traffic commerce easy to accomplish.  A pint bag of water is 10p or about 6 cents. These are constantly being passed through auto windows by vendors carrying a case of 24 on their head. 

The orphanage does not have running water, but luckily, there is a "pipe" down the street, about 2 blocks distance.  One or twice each day, we trek down the road with containers, pots and a large Igloo water container, and fill these at the pipe, carrying them back to fill up a 50 gallon plastic barrel of clean water in the yard just outside the main door.  This is used for drinking, from the Igloo cooler, for cooking, laundry and for showering the younger children, (a topc that I'll cover in a future blog).

There is a large quart-sized handled pot in the clean water to scoop it for various uses which include refilling the drinking water thermos container (not that it is cold), and filling various pots and containers for cooking, doing laundry by hand, and washing dishes. 

We washed dishes for a meal feeding 125 kids using about 2 gallons of water, half of it in a large wash bowl, the other half in a similar sized clean water bowl.  Using a steel scrubber and some pretty harsh bar soap, the dishes and pots were cleaned on the "dirty side" of things, and rinsed on the "clean side"  For the past two days, Penny and I have assumed this task of hand dishwashing, which is tedious, but frees up the staff to prepare for other activities or for putting kids to bed. 

By the way, we never came across "hot" water in our travels.  On the many sinks that had two faucets, the left one was disabled and dry.  Of course, the cold water is never ice cold because of the climate.  The showers, similarly, were just cold running water, but we came to appreciate that.  The alternative that some volunteers from other programs described is called a "bucket shower" and involves carrying a bucket of cold water from some distant location and using this gallon or so to wash and rinse, hopefully without a return trip.

Laundry, similarly, is accomplished using a multiple bucket system of increasingly clean wash water.  The first is used for soaping and hand washing, and the subsequent ones for rinsing, using a clothes line for drying.  In this weather, things dry quickly.   We also noted an ironing board present in  some central location in the home that we saw.  The men, primarily, were fastidious about ironing their shirt and trousers.

From time to time, for no apparent reason, the water shuts down for hours, or occasionally a day, so it is important to have a small supply on hand to cover this probability.

We will have a new perspective on our water resources back in the States.  Our tap predictably provides both hot and cold water, showers can be adjusted to any temperature, and there are no long walks with water containers on our heads.  The ground flight attendant at the New York Delta gate was correct.  We will really appreciate the US infrastructure when we return.

Ghana Day 4 031612 The Beach

Ghana Day 4 031612 The Beach

Our villa

Hannah relaxin

Friday, so we arrived at the ophanage/school yesterday, and did some initial chores and evening rituals.  This morning, we experienced the wakeup and morning/breakfast routines. 
In planning our time in Ghana, we also hoped to visit a few landmarks, including the beaches.  Ghana's beaches are on the south shore in the Bay of Guinea.  We've heard that the water is quite compromised with sewage and debris in many locations, and that the cleanest beaches are to the west, since the current flows west to east.  Today, even though we had barely begun our volunteer assignment, the timing was right to take 24 hours away to visit the beach.
We are still largely newbies in the travel business,  and really poor at the native language of Twi, so our IVHQ hosts were watching our backs and insisted on accompanying us in our travel.  The beach that we selected, because of its beauty and cleanliness, Kokrabite, also had the worst reputation for pickpockets and thieves, so we went along with the offer.
We found ourselves prebooked at a delightful hotel called Big Millie's Backyard, and after a taxi and short tro-tro ride, we arrived at a small resort, filled with fellow obruni (white people), comprised of small little freestanding villas.  We opted for the two room, accommodation, sharing this with Hannah, our teen Australian new family member.  We also opted for the 3 Cedi (about $1.80) Air conditioning upgrade, and spoiled ourselves.
The checkin/registration office carried strict warnings about not taking any cameras or valuables to the beach.  "There are bad boys there," we were told, and a walk on the sand revealed beach vendors selling brightly colored everything and many fishing boats pulled up on the sand, readied for the next day's work.
We easily shifted gears from the simplicity of our volunteer assignment existence, to this more indulgent tourist resort.  A circular tropical bar was the center of the small resort compound.   Penny and Hannah both booked an hour long massage session for 20 Cedi ($12) and we enjoyed several cocktails of the locally made rum and fruit punch. 
The beach was clean and beautiful, very windy, and the surf was up with a powerful undertow. The bay water was warm and refreshing and we played in the waves for a long while, drinking in the time of relaxation and leisure. The photo above shows the community pulling in the fishing nets that had been cast early in the morning.
We enjoyed a buffet dinner of local food, and had front row seats for a drumming concert at the resort, after a few more drinks we retired early, realizing that we had been up since 5 am.  Ghana really wakes up early, even before dawn.  We slept wonderfully on soft mattresses with the AC set very low.  A wonderful, relaxing day in the sun.
We checked out on Friday around noon, dragging our gear through some pretty sparse areas to get to the taxi, and had a suspension-destroying ride into Barrier, where we would get our tro-tro back to Kosua.  There we checked into the Internet Cafe, to connect back with civilization.  The Internet cafe is truly a misnomer.  The WiFi service was intermittent at best, and I found myself resetting the connection every 15 minutes.  There is no cafe component at all as signs read "No Food Drinks."  It is basically a small space with about 15 small computer carrels, half missing computers, the remainder with vintage equipment, and everything covered with the signature layer of brown dust.
Hannah was attracting boy attention at the "cafe" and when she logged into Facebook, discovered a backdrop of young men peaking at her logon, followed by a flurry of "Friend" requests from foreign names.  Everyone here wants to be our friend.  White, "Obruni", seems to be equated with money, and no one here wants to let the passing contact expire.  We packed up and left in a taxi back to our host home, but the driver stopped midway on the short trip because there was thick smoky engine exhaust coming through the firewall, front air vents and radio of the car.  After fanning this with his right hand and steering with his left, he suddenly felt that the promise of our fare wasn't worth losing his engine, and transferred us to a different taxi.  I kept wanting to measure distance with these taxi rides, but we were never in one with a working speedometer, fuel gauge or odometer. 
Only slightly impaired from the carbon monoxide infusion, we arrived back "home" and did our evening volunteer chores.  The kids were really anticipating our arrival. Penny and I have been nicknamed Mommy and Dad.  They call Hannah, "sister Hannah". Seemingly starved for touch and affection, they attach all of us us with open arms and smiles, even as we are newcomers, welcoming us with hugs.  "Daddy, me, hold me."

Ghana Day 3 031512 Our Assignment

Ghana Day 3 031512 The Assignment

If you're tired enough, you sleep well.  Last night I had two roommates, an 18 year old young man named Chaz who was just completing his volunteer work, and a 20 year old rugby player from Ireland named Jon, who was, like us, was beginning his volunteer journey.  Jon had done extensive travelling.  Born in Australia, he told stories of hiking expeditions to South America, travels through Europe and his last adventure enroute to Ghana, a stay in Cairo, Egypt.  We found that he will be spending two weeks volunteering as a soccer coach with kids at a rural school in Ghana.
Wake up was at 5:30 with the roosters and the blaring mosque call to worship, as we prepared to move out to our assignment.  With a large group of both veterans and new initiates at the volunteer center of about a dozen, our breakfast was less elaborate, fresh bread and jam.  By 8:30 we were packed and ready to go.  An IVHQ employee, Francis, was our travel guide for the day, ensuring our safe arrival and passing us off to our host family that would be our home for the next two weeks. 
We took a taxi to Madina, which is a kind of transportation junction point in Ghana.  This is tro-tro (shared vans) central and from here, one can start their journey to anywhere in Ghana.  Picture a huge open space, maybe a fairground, and populate it with hundreds of well worn, mostly Japanese minivans, each with 4 rows of seats, holding about 20 passengers, intimately sardined.  each van had a handwritten label as to its destination, but these tro-tros each have a team, a driver and a conductor.  The latter collects fares  and generally has a big voice, hawking and inviting passengers to join their ride.  So, add to the fairground, about 500 vans with people chanting a mantra of the routes and cities of their destinations, in the local twi language.  Like an arcade hawker, or auctioneer, these repetitive callings take on a chant-like rhythm, and together, form a cacaphony of brutally loud noise.  Add to this, that some vans have employed a recorded tape loop of the same hawking, blaring from tinny and shrill speakers mounted on the hood.  For frosting, add about 4,000 people, and walking over a bed of wrappers and used plastic water-bag containers that has become kind of a signature of the terrain of this country.  Not for the faint of heart or undecided.  Reminded me a bit of an outdoor version of the bar scene from the first Star Wars.  Everyone, dressed in every color, generating every sound was blended into a cacophonous swirl of energy.
We brought a large suitcase of items with us to be donated to our orphanage, a lot of school materials, and fun stuff, a good deal of it purchased in bulk from Oriental Trading.  So, we were overloaded with 7 backpacks and bags between the three of us, Penny, Hannah and I.  Francis negotiated with the tro-tro driver, and we settled for paying for two additional passengers in exchange for the seats that our gear was taking up.  We stuffed ourselves into the van, and when it was filled to capacity with 20 passengers plus luggage, we began our journey.  On the right (aisle) side, tro-tros have fold down seats, similar to those that flight attendants might use for air travel, to completely pack the vehicle. 
Our ride was about an hour, through Accra road construction and traffic.  Apparently George W Bush pledged several million dollars to Ghana to cooperately improve the roadways in and out of Accra, which is the arrival point for most of Western Africa.  This massive cloverleaf three lane highway is adorned with alternating flags from the US and Ghana.  Right now it about 50% useful and 50% construction delays, but the future potential for order exists.
We followed the coast westerly, about 10 miles inland to the town of Kasoa, clearly much smaller that Accra and its suburbs.  There are main roads from area to area, but off these main roads, things turn rural quickly.  There are no street signs or house numbers, but a weaving of local roads, mostly unpaved, that interlace in no apparent order.  There is less distinction between residential and commercial.  A street might have homes, warehouses, farms punctuated by several storage shed sized road side businesses selling everything from a haircut to eggs to convenience items like juice and candy.  Street commerce is largely the domain of women.  One thing that we noticed is a tremendous amount of litter everywhere.  People drink water from pint sized plastic bags.  One bites off a corner, and drinks, and discards the plastic on the ground.  This forms a ground cover of black and clear plastic waste that I had a difficult time getting used to.  I never found a waste receptacle anywhere.
From Kasua, a taxi completed the remaining five minute ride to our home for the duration of our stay.

Our host Patrick, and his wife, Pat, live in a beautiful and a spacious home inside a gated courtyard. (pictured above with their three boys, receiving the gifts that we had brought). Patrick is a pastor of a small Christian worship community.  A few years back, his wife had recurring visions of them both opening an orphanage and school for local children.  Patrick quit his teaching job, and rented a home a quarter mile from his home for this purpose. Behind the gates of the "West African School," there are 34 children who are permanent residents, and an additional 90 day-students who come for class Monday through Friday.  Here is more info on the WestAfricanSchool.org

We jumped into our assignment by serving and cleaning dishes from lunch for 125.  The students, grade pre-K to about year 9, are merged into four classes at appropriate levels.  We spent the afternoon observing class, and watched the bewildering crowd of students thin out substantially at 3:30 pm when the day students were picked up.  We walked back to our home for a late afternoon lunch, then back to the school to assist with their daily evening activities which included dinner, cleanup, showers, teeth brushing and bedtime around 8:30 pm.
I'll write future entries here about any excursions that we may take, but will try to focus on just one aspect of this new culture and life that we have become immersed in.  So today, we begin our assignment.