Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Amaraba Akwaaba Welcome


I have written a few blog posts that I have never posted.

I wonder if it is because after I write them I realize that nobody probably cares about anything I have written at all. (A feeling I get often on facebook and am  motivated to use free internet at our offices to de friend them) I also am myself benefiting from organizing my thoughts and “venting” so it is probably better if I keep my lack of writing skills to myself. Plus who knows who will be reading this.

I wonder if maybe I do not post them because I am worried what people will think of me. (This however has been disproved by how comfortable I feel in floral hammer pants and a geometric print top  sweating profusely waltzing through town completely aware of a giant hole in the lower portion of my hammer pants pretending not to notice because I am not ready to finish my walk and go back to the office)

this is a problem I can fix tomorrow when I have spare pants. And these pants are so comfy it is worth days with large holes.

Note: nobody told me “madam you are having a large hole in your trousers”
Or maybe they were but they were saying it in dagbani so I just replied “I slept well”, “no thank you” or “I go come” because those are the responses to most questions and my dogbani is limited

the problem is I speak enough dogbani that people assume I understand everything but about after 5 sentences I nod/smile/guess. When forming sentences based on vocab and words that have multiple meanings I have accidentally said things VERY wrong. luckily some dogbani speak Twi to avoid the impromptu sign language sessions of mimicking and dog-twi-nglish.

And just to clarify you could only see my lower leg. You know hammer pants. The hole was in the central region but far below any off limits zone because of the hammer style. Another reason I continued my walk. I mean, I don’t want to be a dutch girl waltzing around in shorts inappropriately but I feel my inner knee is not to risqué.

If I appear completely unaware it is not my fault right? They do not know that I know *wink*

plus I have no clean pants so I will do wash tomorrow pinky swear


Or do I not post my blogs because I wonder if what I have written will not convey my real feelings and thoughts properly because I have never been good with words. Almost like I was not doing justice to my experience here by trying to explain it to you with my……(as of right now I am searching 
for the right words to convey my thought, but I cannot seem to find them)

Emily is a bad writer. (third person=tacky=proof of bad writing)You think I would have improved with all the books I have read I mean yesterday I was in a tro tro from 9am to 11:30pm and finished 1.5 books. I forget some of the last part of the book due to dehydration and sleepiness. You cannot drink water when traveling because there is nowhere to pee. Being a girl you are screwed here.  You can ask the driver to stop 4 hours into the bus ride if you need to pee but then you may have to somehow have 15 people packed like sardines to maneuver to let you somehow get off the vehicle that is jammed to capacity. (now this is not how it always is….but let me tell you I have been on some pretty intense rides). Sitting scrunched with my feet off the ground and one women next to me breastfeeding a baby and another child on her lap vomiting while the overweight dude next to me is drooling on my shoulder. Luckily this makes the “normal” tro rides a piece of cake.


The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.


So let me help promote a better understanding of these peoples for all you Americans out there.

Now that I have showered and put on some purple hole-less hammer pants and have a stomach full of lettuce, yes lettuce. Perks of Tamale….internet, lettuce, yogurt….I am getting side tracked. Let me back up.

VIEW OF TIGLA my home is on the lower right with the pin

Drying shea nuts in Tigla














When my counterpart found out I had no food he brought me yam and tomato paste (4 yams is expensive to a farmer with little to no income)....i didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't have a stove to cook with.

Fulani a few miles outside Tigla



Micro flush toilet built by Dave Peterson 



The white volta river
















I am just a few hours north west of Tamale


I was living in the Eastern region just a bit north west of Accra
but now I am in the Northern region. I just moved into a new house. I am busy starting new projects learning dogbani because they do not speak Twi up here .


Aiysha boiling shea nuts

I live in a compound with a few other teachers so I have a room and we share a bathroom. We are building a garden together and we all get along well. Unless when they are speaking dogbani and I do not understand they could be saying other things like how bad I smell (which is true).  But I think they like me. If I do smell so does everyone else because it is so hot. I am getting used to it though and thankfully it cooled down with rains so I went from sweating 24 hours a day and not being able to sleep to just sweating 23 hours a day and sleeping. I got an extra mosquito net so soon I will be sleeping outside on my yoga mat under a net because it is much cooler outside than in a room.




Not so exciting facts but in case you want to know:

I am now in the Water/Sanitation sector
I am partnered with ITFC an organic mango out grower
I work with a primary school feeding program and am working to improve nutrition
I am also still working on my thesis for USF
My community has 16 compounds I am guessing less than 400 people
I live down by a river (the white volta)
My village has no chop
There is one mosque no churches (or speakers!!!!)
No toilets (other than one for the teachers and at school)
No electricity
My new name is Pumaya
It means free and outgoing
Then I was told it means cool/relaxed
Then I was told it means expecting child
Then I got upset and they said it means respectful child
Then when people say pumaya they rub there bellies and smile….so maybe they did mean expecting child?
Then I was told they are not calling me fat because they mean expecting child in a different way

What way?
I have a wedding ring on
I do not have fufu belly
I do not plan on having a baby

I am going to stick with respectful child. I say please “dimsolo” and “Mpa_a” (thank you has an upside down fish symbol that makes an ych noise so I cannot type it) I say please and thank you a lot….mainly because my dogbani is terrible so saying please and thank you constantly makes me feel better and people then think I can speak dogbane.

My village is beautiful. The flat grasslands full of bright green grass and farms stretch for miles and are full of shea trees (luckily I missed dry season…probably wont be so nice). I bike to nearby villages and am within hours biking distance of other PCV’s when I return home my new neighbors yell my name “pumaya!” and beckon me over and greet me. I sit with them and they teach me to boil shea nuts, crack them, and make shea butter. They laugh as I try to keep up with the old women and copy their routine that they make look so easy. They then try to take my nut cracker paddle thing away and tell me to go rest but I continue to finish the work with the other girls……they laugh……I am the entertainment of my village. I am happy to entertain such beautiful people.

Also if you are ever in a bad mood or need to release some energy paddling Shea nuts is a great release….invigorating and relaxing at the same time somehow.

They take me to farm and we plant watermelon and groundnuts. We collect shea and I made the mistake of saying “the fruit is sweet” so now everyone brings me gifts of shea fruit (which is okay but makes me a bit ill and is hard no eat without the fake “mmmm thank you *gag*”

the little nuggets come to my door pants-less with t shirts full of shea nuts so I wash them and put them in a bowl and pretend to eat them while I convince them they have to help me.

FYI nuggets are the adorable bobble head 3 year olds but i consider all cute babies to 12 year olds nuggets. most kids look a few years younger than what we are used to in the states. I often get nuggets carrying nuggets. 7 year olds or younger carrying their baby sibling on there back who is half their size.

yet they smile. I get out my flash cards and they help me pronounce dogbani words and we reenact them and laugh and practice english and dogbani.


I go to school to help the women prepare food for the children when I come all the kids poke their heads out and yell Puuu----myyyy-aaaaaa! I apologize for disturbing but the teachers they greet me and help answer all my questions. If a class is not having a teacher I go and play with the kids. I am trying to learn Dogbani and they are learning English so I figure hey we can help each other out…..it mainly turns into them laughing at me and looking confused and then we play the banana raison game which they love…and….then….I got nothing….sooo….. m chaη k aka na…..I go find something else to do like garden, read a book, or explore the bush paths on my bike.

I do not have electricity so I use a solar panel to charge my lights, ipod, and speakers. The teachers also do the same. I can leave my bike outside, my hammock, my solar charger, and no one will touch them.  People are respectful.

Whenever I greet anyone my age or older I drop to my knee or a crouch and ask for their health or if they slept well. Everyone I pass on my bike waves and we bow to each other. When the children come over after school and I bring out my art supplies they stare at it. I give them paper. They stare at it. I give them a crayon. They stare at it. I help them write their name. They place the crayon exactly back in its spot in the box.

My coloring party was a fail. In the south kids would have been grabbing and fighting over the crayons and destroying them while coloring as much as possible.

After a while I had drawn all the kids different animals and their names in block letters and they colored them very diligently (or their older siblings helped them). Later when I was sitting with some of the women their children came up holding their pictures smiling and laughing rambling in dogbani.

The Fulani are in my area right now. They herd cattle and migrate from Niger and Burkina. They also have milk and cheese. Due to lack of food (and electricity) in my village I have been on a diet mainly of wagashi, mangos, and groundnuts. I learned quickly how to bike out and find the Fulani houses and say "afternoon, how are you, please, I want wagashi, please, thank you....i am happy....thank you...buhbye" I was sick the first few days from massive wagashi intake and nothing else but honestly in the south my favorite foods were wagashi and mangos which are hard to get and right now I am in the land of wagashi and mangos....I pictured the north as some desolate desert (I haven't been through hot season and harmattan here yet so my perspective could change) but so far its more of a shea savannah.But also shea is seasonal so that will be over soon too. I hope my lavender I planted grows fast so i can get to work on my homemade lavender shea butter.

I love the north.

but also I do not have a fan and it is hard to sleep when its 100+ and no fan...I have used a folder to fan myself while laying my bed trying to sleep and its not even hot season. If they can do it I can do it.

fan...sigh....
 positive note:
yoga mat +bikram sessions on my solar charged ipod= free hot yoga! 24/7 I even have incense!

Peace Corps isn’t always peachy keen. If I were to generalize it is constant amusing weirdness (no...thats not it...but i will behere for hours if I try to sum it up in a few words). I don’t hate all the terrible things that happen because it makes life exciting and interesting. If I were not so easily amused peace corps may not have been the best place for me.

Also I have to brush off a lot of things. I have had a hard past few months and it has definitely been a rollercoaster. Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy because I feel like I should be upset. I am moved, my computer breaks, I cannot write my quarterly report, I lose everything from my old site, I show up to my new site and have one bottle of water and no filter, no way to cook and nobody around. No furniture and it rains and the roof leaks and all my thing are on the wet ground. It is weird thinking about all the bad things that have happened. For some odd reason I am not upset. Other people feel sorry for me and have been helping me with my problems, and that is the one thing that makes me feel bad. My problems are nothing. My site evacuation rocked my world and I do not think I have ever been through anything harder in my life but I made it through, and most the women in my village have endured things 10 times worse than what I did. I know the world has problems but when you are sitting with a group of women who have been kayayo’s and been put through things I cannot imagine and we are laughing and singing and I cannot get enough of there beautiful smiles and something inside you changes.

This is the most important part of my peace corps experience

But also I have my thesis and I am lucky enough to have the training and resources to help my new home as well as the surrounding villages. Behavior change is a hard thing. Why not sh*t in the bush when you are surrounded by bush? Why would you sh*t near your home? I cannot just come in and tell them “hey OD is BAD, STOP, DO this instead”…..it is hard. I cannot just say you shouldn’t process shea this way. Look at all the wood you are wasting?the carbon! The deforestation! But it is tradition, and there is plenty of wood. SO why improved cook stoves? Why change what my mother and great grandmother and ancestors did. Sustainability is hard. Writing my report for future research is hard because this takes time and I do not have time. I have to be patient and take many precautions to try to make the largest impact I can by empowering my community to improve themselves instead of me trying to improve them.


I better get back to writing my quarterly report I am working with a new toilet design that will be making a large impact on the developing world thanks to Dr. Mecca and I am also looking into improve shea processing to reduce carbon emmissions as well as food storage and drying. But in-between all of this my life is full of moments I will never forget.

We just had a PCV media IST and I would encourage you to watch our videos

The shea video was shot about an hour bike ride from where I live so it gives you a good idea of what spending time with my girls in Tigla is like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V95gT6fHZHU


4th of July is coming and in Peace Corps 4th of July is a big deal. I will hopefully have lots of photos of me in my new northern smocks at our celebrations soon. It is funny how in America I was never really a big fouth of July fan but man, let me tell you, when you are a minority, we congregate and do justice for the sake of our independence day….I hear warriors and a parade may be in order….as well as potato salad and fried chicken of course.

To all my pen pals here is my new address

Emily Adams
Peace Corps Ghana Tamale Sub Office
 PO box #962
Tamale, Northern Region
Ghana
West Africa

I also apologize for those of you who sent letter during my evacuation I asked if they could get my mail for me but I think many of you sent letters that never made it to me at my Asamankese address.

I wish I had more pictures but because I am trying to fit in with my community I don’t like bringing out the camera. There are so many moments I wish I could capture to share. I really believe the PCV media videos are worth watching. I am so proud of what they have done and I hope I can help with producing more throughout my time here and hopefully soon make more videos of my personal expriences for you to see.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PCAVGhana


****organizing photos, text, editing, and everything else is very hard with practically non existent sketchy internet...so I apologize for the spelling and photos not going in the right place

Deal with it

Emily/Pumaya......the un-pregnant hopefully not looking pregnant Pumaya. I will get down to the bottom of it eventually. It is hard when it is a language where one word means 500 different things in different context

yours truly



appendix I

the other day we had a long discussion about jokes/sense of humor here. Here is a Ghanaian joke for you (stolen from another volunteer)

a man says to another man from the north "ayy! what happened to your face?"

a moto accident?
a robbery?
a fight?

the man replies: "no boss, it is my fathers signature"

NOW this is the point where ghanaians laugh hysterically....and I think to myself....everyone in the north has facial scarring and tribal marks....it is the signature of their family/tribe......why is this so funny....maybe I should laugh but why?......often times someone is talking to me and looking for a response and I realize "oh no, was that a joke? I should probably laugh...otherwise they will keep starring at me waiting and wondering why I am not amused...


In defense....I do not think jokes translate well....it is probably deeper than we realize...i hope.

in a sense they fly right over my head not because of comprehension but because of the fact that common knowledge is not funny in most cases unless used cleverly with a pun (a good pun at that)

or it could be comprehension....most likely. I should not judge because our jokes make no sense to them. also you cannot say "making sense here" it is derogatory.

Let me sum up this rant by saying: I am jealous of bi-tri-multi- lingual people. going to ashanti and speaking twi like a boss then hearing the radio and not comprehending the message.....then 6 hours late I can impress people with dogbani but then they continue and I cannot understand what they could possibly be talking about. Often I translate as much as possible and ask what the conversation was about and am completely off.

tonal languages.


and to end on a happy note (for the second time)



“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”

Einstein