Surprise Post-Ghana Blog!

So my friends, it has been a month and 1 day since my return from Ghana, and I keep getting the feeling that I’ve got one more blog update left in me.

It took me almost exactly 34 hours to get from my homestay in Cape Coast to get to my house in Corvallis.  All of my flights went really smoothly, and unlike my travels to Ghana I made it on time.  I did get the somewhat hilarious experience of riding in a tiny tiny tiny plane from Seattle to Portland.  It felt like a trotro as it shook and rattled its way towards my home.  I may have laughed out loud, having to immediately attempt to cover it with a cough. 

 I noted a couple of things in my journal that were almost immediately slightly alarming to me as I was dunked back into US culture.  These included;

White people - we are EVERYWHERE around here!

Whiney white girls - also everywhere!

Safe running water – why do we buy water?  We have some of the world’s safest water and I couldn’t find a drinking fountain, I had to buy a bottle of water.  This is a well thought out scam. 

Automatic flush toilets - Really everybody?  First of all those are scary, secondly, how lazy are you?

Everything is sooooo expensive - snack mix for 5 bucks?! Where is some 1GHC street meat when you want it?

People don’t greet each other the same way - I awkwardly told quite a few people good morning/afternoon before realizing that wasn’t always normal. 

Grass/fresh air – I never realized that there is a smell here.  Well, there is, and it is AMAZING.  I was walking across the tarmac to get to my trotro plane in Seattle and although it smelled like jet fuel it smelled amazing, and crisp, and clean, and so good that I felt like I was going to hyperventilate for a little bit because I was gulping down air faster than was likely appropriate/safe. 

Skymall- Just…. Skymall. 

Also; no one here has limps, its frickin’ COLD here, peanuts cost the equivalent of 80 packets of groundnuts in the airport, people need to calm down and slow down. 

People keep asking me if I will be going back to Ghana.  It’s a difficult question to ask given the fact that I’m not a fortuneteller.  On the surface, of course I would go back.  The people, the food, my friends, the sun, the whole experience, would make a repeat trip more than worthwhile.  However, as many of you know, life is generally not so simple.  As for the time being, I’ve taken a job at Oregon Health & Science University as a researcher in the department of Behavioral Neuroscience, and just a week or so ago signed a lease for an apartment in Portland.  I’ve gone through a couple of grad school frenzies where I spent multiple hours researching schools, and freaking out about the GRE.  So do I want to go back to Ghana?  Yes!  When?  Well folks, I don’t really know exactly what I am doing next week.  So… ask me again in 2-10 years.  I might know what the hell I’m doing by then. 

 It is amazing how life continues to move along at the same blistering pace, even after big life events.  Sometimes as I’m driving my car, wandering around feeling cold, or eating yogurt I have a hard time believing that Ghana ever really happened to me.  I think that is partially because I spent just enough time in Ghana for that life to become normalized to me.  And after 20-some years in the Pacific Northwest that life holds a good deal of normalcy for me.  The confusion for me comes when those two normal lives meet and as I’m driving I realize I’m tailgating like a Cape Coast taxi driver, that I’ve turned to heat up so high that I’m sweating like I would in Ghana, or eating yogurt and feeling sick because I didn’t have milk products for three months.  I wonder how its possible for those two lives to coexist and it is odd to realize that just like how life in Oregon continued while I was gone, the life I knew in Ghana will continue in my absence as well.   

I will bring this whole blog thing to a close with another excerpt from my journal.  It’s the last one I wrote, and I wrote it while on my little tro tro plane as we sputtered closer and closer to home.

“I can’t believe this adventure is about to come full circle.  It all feels like a dream right now, like it couldn’t really have happened.  I spent three whole months working in western Africa, living with a Ghanaian family and having the experience of a lifetime.  I’m so lucky for so many things in my life and while I know things are going to be tricky for a bit when I first get home, I wouldn’t change a thing.  On top of a killer tan/sun burn, I’m bringing home a whole set of experiences that simply cannot be summarized.  I’ve made a couple of the best friends of my life, and even just that is a feeling that cannot be rivaled.  I know I mad an impact too, which feels just as good.  And talk about personal growth.  Nothing like flying across the globe by yourself to a country that doesn’t exactly speak your language, eat your foods, have much of the basic infrastructure that you are used to, and then starting a full time job on your third day there.  From sever malaria to going out drinking, learning how to azonto, how to eat soup with my hands, hail a tro tro, negotiate a taxi fare, succeed in a shopping trip to the market, give directions, speak (a little) fante, rock a sarong, fend off Ghanaian men, take a bucket shower, break open a coconut in less than three minutes, do emergency field medicine, reach out to people with HIV, teach girls about healthy relationships, how to sweat so profusely that you are just constantly dehydrated, I really can’t think about it without feeling at least a little sad about leaving but also pretty frickin proud of myself.  I told myself that I wouldn't chicken out.  And three moths later, touching down in Oregon I’m proud to say that I didn’t.”

Thank you for reading my blog everybody.  It has meant the world to me to know that you’ve cared.  

Watch out Bradt Guide!

Things the guidebooks didn’t tell you about…

GHANA

1. Sundays are unique days in Ghana-
1. First of all, there is lots and lots of church going on.  People tend to be pretty dressed up and you can hear preachers either yelling at their constituents, or trying to yell over each other pretty much all the time.  However, there are some really important things to know about Sundays. 
                                               i.     You will NOT be able to get a tro-tro without going to a station.  Everyone goes to funerals all weekend, but specifically Sundays.  You can spend hours standing by the side of the road before paying an obscene fee to take a drop taxi on Sundays. 
                                             ii.     Want a fresh coconut?  God’s most amazing food? Want to buy one on the street for the equivalent of about 30 cents?  After days of unsuccessfully attempting to figure out the coconut system here (sometimes they are there, sometimes they aren’t), we went out on Sunday morning and BAM!  We saw 7 coconut carts in like 5 minutes.  Luckily I was carrying a big bag so we took some home with us.  But now you know.  Sundays=coconut day. 

2. Fake names are not only fun, but useful-
1. It all started when Liza and I were walking home one night and a friendly guy on a bike rode up to talk to us.  Asking us what our names were sparked something deep within me and I produced the names Janice and Lindsey.  We’ve adapted our names over the past weeks to become Janass and Betty, who are from Ontario and New York respectively.  Its been great to be able to basically mess with people for prolonged periods of time without a) doing any harm, and b) without giving any real personal information.  WARNING: if you can’t keep a straight face, some people will begin to get suspicious, and ask you to repeat yourself, so stick to your story. 

3. When talking to men, lie!- 
1. Tell them you are married!  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  They might just ask if you have consummated your marriage, or if you want to have a Ghanaian husband too.  Chances are if they have gotten this point, they’ve already proposed, so really the only defense is to declare your undying love/commitment to another.  Lying also helps when you asked for your number!  Can’t remember your digits? Perfect.  Don’t have a phone?  Better.  Lent it to your huge, handsome husband?  That could also work. 

4. Don’t pet the animals-
1. Ok, so the guidebooks told you this.  And we told her not to as well.  She did anyways.  She had to get rabies shots.  Solid work. 

5. Bring a headlamp!
1. Well, you told me.  Specifically Sean Hunter, and Emily Helpenstell.  Guess what happens?  Sometimes the power goes out in all of Ghana.  And although I did have a flashlight, Liza had a headlamp, and while funny, it’s not easy to share one of those puppies. 

6. Don’t bring it, if you want to bring it back-
1. Everything you own will be really nasty.  It collects; sweat, dirt, the hand prints of small children (ok, curious adults too), bug spray, any food you’ve eaten recently, and all sorts of other nasty things.  Also, hand washing your cloths is nice and all, but I have to be honest it doesn’t work as well, so the nastiness just kinda builds up.  Liza and I have a popular phrase which is “not the grossest thing you’ve touched/eaten today”. 
2. This also has a sub-category of ‘don’t wear money belts unless…’ you are wearing an entirely khaki outfit, a bucket hat, think you are about to go on a safari, want to look like tucking into your pants for an entirely different reason.

7. Don’t look at the other white people-
1. We’ve talked about it a lot and we aren’t quite sure why, but when white people pass each on the street, there is an obvious aversion of eyes, and attempt at avoiding each other at any cost.  We suspect it is that we get so much uninvited attention at other times that we don’t really feel like making shallow connections solely based on the amount of melanin we happen to have in our skin.  Or maybe we are trying to change the impression that people have here that all white people know each other. 

8. Ghanaians don’t know some random things-
1. Remember dinosaurs?  Well, some Ghanaians actually don’t even know what they are.  I attempted to explain my point by exclaiming loudly “Not even t-rex?!” at which point I realized that was likely not going to help. 
2. The questions of  “how do you make fufu in the US?” is a surprisingly common type of question.  Explaining that we don’t eat fufu, jolof rice, kenkey, or many other Ghanaian foods is tough because some people actually don’t know what other foods your might be eating.  Try explaining the concept of sushi, raw veggies, or coffee that isn’t instant.

9. There are new touching rules-
1. Just think for a second.  How weirded-out would you feel if a random person on the street of say Portland Oregon walked up and touched you.  Maybe they just tapped you with their fingers as you passed, or maybe you are in a taxi and they press the back of their hand to your face as they walk by.  Reasons?  What to know what a white person feels like?  I had a woman once exclaim “you have soft skin!” in more of an alarmed and confused manner than I felt was really necessary. 
2. Additional changes to the touching rule- hand holding.  Go in for a hearty handshake and you may be alarmed to be confronted with (wait for it…) a hand holding situation.  People may just stand there for an alarmingly long amount of time simply holding your hand.  In addition, if you are with someone who feels comfortable with you, or likes you (not even romantically) they may try to hold your hand while walking, or talking.  Stay calm, and try the ‘going for your phone in your bag’ method if you are too alarmed, or even the ‘is someone calling me?’ quick turn away.  

Almost ta-ta to Ghana time

Hello dear blog followers, 

It genuinely doesn’t feel like three months since I wrote that first blog talking about preparing to leave for Ghana.  It is odd to feel like the things that seemed so strange, or specific to Ghana are now so normal that I know I used to find them to be out of the ordinary, but now I can’t quite remember why.  I’m spending the weekend with my girlies here shopping for souvenirs, taking photos, and keeping up with our new addiction of One Tree Hill (Thanks for that Liza.  We found that you can buy entire seasons of shows for 2 cedi on the street.  That’s actually less than how much you can buy one episode in the states.  BUT IT’S ALL OF THEM.  So that’s cool beans.)  

I will admit that I’m getting a little stressed about returning to real life, probably just like I felt stressed about leaving for Ghana in the first place.  Three months feels like forever, and then BOOP!  It’s over!  Nothing like doing the whole ‘where am I going to live’, ‘what am I going to do’, and from a distance at that.  I know I should probably just be patient and wait until I am at least in the same hemisphere to sort this out, but as you all know, I’m not good at waiting when there is planning to be done.  

It is going to be difficult to say goodbye to everyone here too.  After living with Aunti Doris and Rosemond for 3 months I know it will be strange to go without the experience of being given advice on everything from washing my cloths, to how much food to eat at each meal.  I recall writing in one of my first blogs too that I was excited to meet the other people that I’d be spending my time with here.  I know that it is going to be ridiculously hard now to leave them.  Maita and I have been together since the very first day here, finding out that we came in the very same day, and leaving within minutes of each other.  Such a wonderful partner in crime for this whole visit, and a beautiful person all around.  And Liza… oh Liza.  After living together and working together for 2 months we joke that we only need to take bathroom breaks from each other, but to be honest, it is not a joke.  Practically 24 hours a day, and not only do we not hate each other, but we actually still like each other quite a bit.  The other girls have been wonderful too, and it’s been sweet to be able to randomly meet up and go to our favorite restaurant, wander around the market, play bananagrams, and sit for hours and talk.  

So as I roll in on my last week I’ve still got about a million emails to respond to (sorry guys…) and I’ve been working on my capstone presentation (a little), and preparing to get my work ready to leave.  Hopefully there will be a little goodbye get-together at the end of the week (or as Liza calls it the “I’M SORRY, YOU DID NOT JUST SAY SOMETHING ABOUT LEAVING?!” party) and I think I finished all my shopping today.  It may be sweet and sour leaving Ghana, but let me be honest with you all, I can’t wait for cheese its, my bed, Kevin, yogurt, berries, my boots, my car, and all sorts of other things.  And those things might be important, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to be back to the people I love.  

Bam! Didn't see that coming, did you?

Hello beauties!
I had a couple of extra minutes at the cafe and I thought I would throw together an impromptu blog post!

Things are going really well, keeping busy with work, and with being a social butterfly and all.  This weekend a couple of the girls and I are headed out to the beach again where I plan on celebrating my birthday.  The plan is to spend the weekend surviving on a diet of coconuts, and pancakes (because they have them there!) swimming all day, damaging my skin, and hanging out with some of my favorite people.  I believe there is likely a long list of other people I wish could be there with me, but there is always next year :)

Liza and I cooked dinner for our family last night and some how managed to throw together kind of a Mediterranean style eggplant pasta with fruit salad and garlic bread.  It was surprisingly delicious, and considering we just at it cold for lunch I am beginning to seriously miss eating cool foods on hot days.  Speaking of which, its AMAZINGLY hot here right now.  I made the mistake of asking how hot it was when I called home the other day.  It was about 6:00AM here and if I recall correctly it was above 80 with 91% humidity.  Holy shit folks.  I've probably never felt this continuously gross in my entire life.  Thankfully its nice and cool in the court yard of our house, and Claudius got the fan working in the office, which is a god sent. (Hey Claudius!  I thought I'd give you a little shout out since I know you are reading my blog now!  Tony, you too!  Bernard, I wouldn't forget you either!  Glad to know I can entertain y'all with my huge generalizations and judgments of Ghana!) But luckily you just kinda get used to the heat.  It might be a little shock to the system to hit Oregon in April in a couple of weeks, but I think I'll survive.

Anyways, I've got big souvenir shopping plans for next week, and am beginning to feel a little anxious about wrapping up my time here, and returning to my real life at home.  But, I think I've already talked about that :P  As always, I miss and love you all, and if I owe you an email, I'm still sorry, and I haven't forgotten about you.

Gotta go!  Its trotro time!
PS, I've been thinking about chocolate chips and cheese-its all day today.

AND PHOTOS!

 One of the things HCI does is support people with disabilities in Cape Coast.  So on Saturday there is a wheelchair basketball team that practices on our court.  That is Sam in the blue, and Kofi with the red shirt.  He is married to Joyce who is my partner for running the girls group. 

 I woke up at about 6 (every day...) and went out to the beach to make a call home and watch the sun come up.  There were fishing boats coming to shore to load and unload things and I got quite a few good photos. 

 I love the ocean.  A lot. 

 This was not posed and is actually me being so excited that I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. 

 HOLDING.  A.  MONKEY. 

MONKEY.

 Hiking in Volta Region rainforest

 Maita being a badass and powering through her injury the next day to finish the hike. 

 This is Liza and I with Mercy right after we finished the run.  I will point out that while I was sweaty, Liza soaked me when I crossed the finish line.  Just saying. 

 The HCI crew.  From left to right, Bernard, Claudius, Me, Skinny, Mercy, and Liza.  Lots of fun. :)

 Oh Jude.  The ridiculousness. 

Couples selfie photo! We spend a bit of time together.  This is also the view from our house at night.

  Pretty amazing. 

Long Slacker Post

Hello loved ones!!

I’m so sorry that I haven’t been able to update my blog recently.  I haven’t had an opportunity to check out the interwebs for quite some time and honestly I’ve just been slacking pretty bad. 

On a side note; if I owe you an email, I’m really sorry.  You are on my to-do list and I promise it’ll happen soonish. 

SO!  I am absolutely back to 100% after that whole malaria thing, which is really nice!  It took about 3 weeks in total, but all is good now, and I’m happy to be leaving Malaria in my past as just a great story from that one time when I went to Africa. 

Home life: pretty fantastic!  There is a new intern living in our house now and while at first it was a little odd to be sharing my homestay with another American, Liza and I are now having a fabulous time.  We also work together, which means we spend about a butt-ton of time together, but we share something very special in common so that makes it significantly easier.  That special thing is sarcasm.  The frequency of crippling laughter has actually left me with regularly sore abs. 

I do have to say however that no matter my experience with children (lets say 6 years of working with special needs children) I cannot stand my host brother.  He literally pushed all of my buttons, and … that’s all I’m going to say.  He is 8.  I genuinely despise an 8 year old.  That’s kinda sad though, so I’m trying really hard. 

Work: also pretty fantastic!  I’m doing practically no work in the schools like was originally planned because the director Claudius (what sort of awesome name is that?) realized that outside of teaching the secretary how to read and write (that still cracks me up when I think about it) I tend to be very organized.  Many of you have encountered my planning and organizing skills or at least been caught up in my planning or organizing skills in the past, and so you might recall that once you get that started there is really no stopping it.  So grants, and newsletters, and logos, and spreadsheets, and templates, and to-do lists, and program reviews, and forms, (these are a few of my favorite things…) are all being created and it is just going really well.  Also.  Yesterday (March 6^th) was Ghana’s 55^th independence day so HCI put on a youth ‘Race for Peace’ which was a short race and some speakers who were promoting peace and tolerance in Ghana’s upcoming election.  Liza and I ran it and it was pretty hilarious.  Just imagine two white girls and a crowd of about 70 kids and teenage boys running through the streets yelling, and, well, at least in our case, sweating A LOT.  It was fun.  Pictures will come soon. 

Traveling!  Since I last wrote I’ve done quite a bit of traveling around Ghana.  I went back to Busua beach (the place with the island) which is about 3 or 4 hours away (depending on your trotro driver) with a whole bunch of girls and we basically sat on the beach all day, drank coconuts, swam in the ocean (I LOVE SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN), read, and listening to music.  Pretty damn fabulous.  Again, pictures will come soon. 

More traveling!  Margarita and I spent this last weekend traveling to the Volta region of Ghana to the east about 7 hours (again, depending on your trotro driver).  We stopped in the capital of Accra for a night first, which was fun and we got to chat, and wander around, and eat cereal (yeah.  That’s actually really exciting to me these days.)  We then managed to get to Volta the next day where we were staying at a lodge in the rainforest.  It was so beautiful.  It reminded me of home a lot as it was cooler, cleaner, the trees were lush, it rained in the afternoons, and it was it was way less humid so my hair was actually straight for the first time in about 2 months.  I also took my first running water/real shower in over 2 months too.  That was also very exciting to me.  We had a minor accident (calm down.  It wasn’t me, and thanks to some wonderful friends, I was able to handle it pretty well.) as on our first day Maita took a little tumble and got a cut on her leg.  We were pretty far in the middle of no where so I took care of it until we could get to a clinic, but that didn’t stop us from having a wonderful time.  People.  I held a monkey.  Lots of monkeys.  It was AWEEEEESOME!  We also managed to complete that hike that was cut short by the fall, and then swam under a waterfall in a canyon of a rainforest in Africa.  So… I guess that was pretty cool too.  Maybe. 

As my stay here comes to a close I’m feeling both good and a little weird about going home.  While I am (obviously) enjoying my experience here, and I’m learning and experiencing new and awesome things every day, I am reassured by the fact that I am ready to go home.  I like Ghana, but it is not my home, and that’s alright.  I’m so ready to see all of you, and to be able to do things like drive my car (Dad, I’m glad to hear that you’ve been taking Lucille out.  I appreciate that, but please choose better driving music than the grateful dead next time.  Try B.B.King.) eat fresh veggies safely, exercise, and use reliable internet.  I am however a little curious I guess about reverse culture shock, or the experience of returning to your own culture after experiencing a culture vastly different from your own.  At this point Ghana not only seems normal, but I am becoming aware of the fact that my memory of what is normal in the states is becoming surprisingly hazy.  Going to Accra this weekend was a little shock to my system as it is significantly wealthier than Cape Coast, which I’m pretty used to now.  This made me start thinking about how my first day in Ghana was in Accra and at the time it was pretty eye opening.  This time it was almost shockingly wealthy, and I guess westernized, which just isn't any more to me.     

Ok, I know I’ve written a ton, and next time I promise I will update sooner (with photos hopefully, with the help of the internet gods).  Miss you all! 

Arch-Nemesis

Quick little update for you all this evening.  Malaria still sucks, but at this point it’s probably just a waiting game. 

I’m just going to take a little bit of time to share a thought with you all that has been on the forefront of my mind for a long time. Mom and dad have been encouraging me to share these thoughts for a while, and I thought now might be a good time.  

I wanted to dedicate this post to my African arch-nemesis: ants.

            I never really had developed strong feelings towards ants until I got here. Almost immediately I was forced to rapidly take a stance on the small insect that seem to crawl out of everything.  I mean everywhere, popping up at inopportune times like so many other unwanted entities of this world, like the person you sat next to on the bus who really does intend to talk to you about the color of your aura.  At first, it was just annoying.  My host mom wouldn’t let me lean on the wall because there are ants, and they would crawl on your skin feeling like a bad acid trip.  They also bite, as they are like sugar ants, but red and sent directly from hell.  Then I started finding them in my room.  Once they make an advance into your personal space, just like the nutter on the bus, it is time to put your food down.  Literally. 

 I began committing ant massacres on a daily basis, taking my slipper off and squishing the whole sickening line of them as they weave their way across my wall/floor/desk.  I got some ant repellant from my host mom, which kept them out of my books (why?… why do you want to get inside my books?), but then it got serious.  They got into my peanut butter.  Words were exchanged.  Then they ate a hole through a freezer zip lock to eat my wheat thins, decided they liked my socks and underwear enough to eat a hole through my wall (Yes.  My wall), and they got into my mail.  Ironically deciding to jam themselves into a package containing chocolate, and ant killer (thanks mom!)  I actually cannot express the anger bubbling up as I set the bag of chocolates on the ground and repeatedly stomped the stuffing out of it.  When I see the layer of ants marching across my wall and down onto my floor after choosing the most appropriate language to use, I realize that they all must die.  And now. 

            It officially got serious just a few days ago when I sat down to write an email and realized that they had taken up camp inside the vent of my computer.  They were crawling out from beneath the keys, and all over my bed and lap.  I was so angry. I was angry enough that I was trying to think of how I could make my computer overheat to bake them inside of it, but then realized that would cause some damage I wasn’t willing to incur.  Eventually I sat patiently and waited as each one made a run for it.  I then I squished it with a single vindictive finger.  It took me more than 20 minutes until they were all dead, but it was worth it.

I will not miss you ants.