Some different impressions I'm getting ;)

Greetings, beloved family and friends!

Life has been good since last I wrote. It’s Passion week on the Christian calendar, and therefore tons of Ghanaians are busy. Churches are extremely active at this time, and most kids are off from school (though we only get the latter half of Good Friday and all of Easter Monday off). This is part of a six week break for primary school kids, and my brother Paa Kweku is also home, which is nice. He and I get along well.

In response to earlier things and comments: yes, Tristan sent me that music :) I think that families sometimes name their pets in Ghana, but not always. I think that one of Giftie’s dogs is named Patience, but the second one (the one in the picture) was one of Patience’s puppies. Giftie never intended to keep her, so that dog never got a name. She says it’s harder to get rid of female dogs because of the possibility of them having puppies. Spaying dogs is expensive.

The most pressing thought at the moment is that the power situation in Ghana is ill-managed. The electricity is run by the government, and it’s very cheap, but goodness gracious I find the current circumstances ridiculous. Part of the issue is that there’s still not enough power because there’s not enough water behind the dam. THE dam. The Akosombo dam, on the Volta river, that as best as I understand it supplies power for the whole country. Apparently two generators are also running at the moment, just because. If the water level behind the dam sinks another two feet, then there won’t be power at all. Recently, the dam has been losing water at a rate of 1 foot every two weeks, and this even with power sharing. Even in this state the dam is barely operational.

However, none of this is a problem for me. In fact, I could entirely go without power if necessary. It’s current main functions in my life are keeping me cooler, allowing me to stay up later, and allowing me to communicate through this travel log and my cell phone. These are all luxuries, and I very much understand that. My personal frustration is that the power doesn’t go on or off when it’s supposed to. In fact, recently at least three different schedules for power sharing have been announced, and yet no pattern has emerged from the madness. If I only knew when the power was going off and on, I could arrange to do my work and charge things at that time. But no such luck. I’m currently typing on battery power, so this letter may be somewhat short ;)

However, I have a larger frustration for other people. Interestingly, it’s the radio stations that have the responsibility of announcing these schedules of power sharing, just as they announce pretty much everything else going on in Ghana. Not that I can understand them, because announcements are usually made in local languages and I’m nowhere near that good in Fante, but all the same, radio is big here. It’s an important means of communication because radios *can* operate on batteries, they’re cheaper than televisions, and you don’t have to be literate in English to understand what’s going on. But apparently the radio stations in Accra have to spend 4 million cedis a week on fuel for their generators right now. This equals out to maybe $450, but that’s far more money here than it is at home. Similarly, with an outage schedule that’s running roughly 24 hours on, 12 hours off, all kinds of industries are suffering. The internet café I use is doing alright because they have other investments, but though generators can power their bay stations which channel the signal to the café and other businesses that are their clients, a generator can’t produce enough power to make operating one at the café worthwhile. Also, while they provide internet for some schools and businesses, Ocean View also provides for other internet cafes in the area who don’t have generators, and probably won’t be able to make ends meet during the power shortage. So, this situation is extremely rough on industry and technology-based jobs. This also makes Ghana unattractive for foreign investors, though bringing them in is debatably a rotten idea anyway. More on that later ;)

That said, this affects most Ghanaians very little. Lots of people just don’t have electricity, and most jobs don’t require it. They do occasionally require fuel in some capacity or another (fuel for the oven that bakes bread, fuel for the motors on the fishing boats, fuel for trucks that move vegetables and fish around, etc etc), but not necessarily electricity. So it’s an interesting situation.

Ironically, as I have finished this section, the power just came back on after being off for an hour ;) I wish that there was logic behind it.

In other news, I’m going to Takoradi this weekend to stay with the Dean’s brother (also an Anglican priest) and his wife Ellie. They’re really nice, and have extended a generic invitation to me multiple times. I was planning to go a couple of weeks after Easter, but they specifically asked me to come this weekend, so I’m going. I had expected to stay at the seminary, but maybe I’ve been getting too complacent. Our program actually has a trip planned to the Akosombo dam & the surrounding areas for the next weekend, but it’s true that I haven’t gone out on my own much. I just really like being a homebody, even while I also like traveling.

Another thing that happened this week: I got a quiz back in my Muslim Ethics class. I had felt pretty good about my answers while taking it, but these things are tricky and in such a new context one can never really tell what grades will be like. I was not to be disappointed on that front: I both did fine and was surprised. It happened like this: I came into class right on time, and was greeted by the TA (Teaching Assistant), who was holding a stack of papers and called me to come over. Everybody said “You have done well!” (a favorite Ghanaian phrase). The TA handed me my quiz paper, and I saw that I had received a 15 out of 20. This is 75%. Where I come from, this is bad. Sub-par. But, no, everyone kept congratulating me. The TA said that I had one of the highest grades in the class, and then said that he and the professor had both been very surprised. The professor had not thought I could write so well, and the TA thought I would fail because he never saw me taking notes, but he said this in the most nicely sincere tone that I knew he didn’t mean anything negative by it. In fact, he and the professor had always been nice to me. So it’s interesting first to know what people expected of me and why, and also the way they behave to me along every stage of the way.

A side explanation about note-taking in Ghanaian schools, and then we’ll get back to the issue of expectations: in Ghana, much of the education is done through rote-learning. The kids do a lot of copying from the board and from their few books, and are expected to regurgitate things well. Most lecturers also have a set of carefully written notes, written in full sentences, which they use to teach their classes. They may also do some side explanations, but generally they recite their notes word for word, and the students copy them down word for word. I knew this, but was still amazed the other day when a student asking a question wanted to cite what the professor had said in class, so he read at least a full paragraph from his notes that was verbatim what we had heard in class. Unfortunately, this does not mean that Ghanaian students write faster than anyone else, so it often takes an excruciatingly long time to cover something in class – sometimes because the professors will interrupt themselves to explain, the students get lost in the official notes, or the professors will go much faster than the students can actually write and are therefore obliged to start from the beginning yet again. Personally, I can’t handle that kind of note-taking. I know that Ghanaian students often go back through and reinterpret what their professor was trying to say into more reasonable terms, but I don’t want to write down their words in the first place: they’re often too convoluted. So, I always look like I write less than other people because I wait until the professor has finished saying something, and then I write it down as I understand it, adding on the side my own commentary. This also often makes my notes take up different amounts of space from my colleagues, because they write in paragraphs while I write in lists, add things that aren’t in the official notes but are from the explanations, and sometimes leave things out that I already know. It’s just a very different philosophy on how one should learn.

But anyway, sometimes people’s expectations of me come out in other interesting ways. One common misconception: people rarely initially guess that I’m from the United States. I’m not saying that this is a good or bad thing in any way, it’s simply true. I personally think that I exhibit many markers of my origin: my accent, the way I dress, the way I behave, etc. But though I don’t ever solicit guesses, people often think I’m from the UK or Germany. Possible reasons for this: people from the UK and Germany often come to Ghana. Goodness knows I haven’t met many, but I know they’re around. Also, one Ghanaian said he thought I was German because of my blond hair, and a bank teller thought I was from the UK because I seemed more friendly and open than most Americans. My first thought to that was “Really?” That’s sort of the opposite of what I would have expected, having always heard that US folk have a reputation for being friendly (even presumptuous) whereas UK folk have a reputation for being reserved. Maybe this just isn’t true in Ghana, though. People might also expect me to be from Europe because A) it’s closer, B) the UK and Germany colonized different parts of what is now Ghana, and C) maybe they really can’t tell the different accents apart. I had assumed that this final aspect would be the largest giveaway of my origin, but no. I’m a bit surprised.

Despite this small amount of confusion, however, it’s very clear that I’m a “Westerner”. The glorious thing about that is that no one expects me to be Ghanaian, so when I pull off Ghanaian things (pounding things like fufu, doing well on a quiz) people are amazed and happy. Also, when I do completely strange things, like wear pants that are slightly too short, or say things that are out of the ordinary, no one can tell because I’m already so strange. Because there’s no possible way for me to blend in, in *some* ways I can be far less self-conscious. It’s really nice.

Things people inquire about that they find strange:

1) My bandanas. It may surprise you to learn that I wear them far less frequently here than I do at home. Instead, they often work as sweat rags. But, when I do wear them, people are very curious. They consider it very American, and tell me it looks like a fan.

2) My bracelet. I have had a bracelet on my right wrist since the late July 2006. It’s made from a twisted piece of bandana, and is very important to me because it’s a symbol of solidarity with my summer staff from last year (Joshua Youth Camp, Carolina Cross Connection ’06! :)). People simply ask me about it a lot more here than they do at home, and so I tell them. I think they’re partially curious because I don’t wear anything else resembling jewelry besides a watch, and it stands out all the more because I never take it off.

3) My hair. People are curious about it. I know very little about hair apart from my own, but whereas I always thought that “perming” involved curling, it apparently can also mean permanently straightening. So, several of my friends here are curious about the way my hair works. They all have to perm their hair if they want it to be straight (and SO many of them do. This is cultural discussion topic all on it’s own) so people want to know how I take care of my hair, whether they can touch it, whether it’s naturally this color, etc. I get the impression that it’s difficult for people to imagine blond hair actually growing on a person.

4) My skin color itself. I’ve had one or two conversations with people my age about it, and I’ve had conversations about moles and freckles with my younger sisters here, but mostly this comes up in taxis where I’m sitting next to small children. It’s just not true that kids don’t care at all about skin color. If you take a child who has only seen Africans his or her entire life and then put them next to a white person, one of two things generally occurs: they either want to touch your skin (this is extremely cute), or they get scared and upset because they’ve never seen a creature like you before, and no one has proven to them that you’re ok. So, in either case, I try to make the little one feel as comfortable as possible. Generally we end up being friends for the brief time that we know each other.

I’d like to talk about some interactions involving commodities I brought to Ghana: flashlights, a laptop, an MP3 player, a nice bag. I know that I’m extremely fortunate and privileged to have them. However, it’s interesting to consider the interactions I have surrounding them. Occasionally, my sisters will ask of the flashlights and such “can I have that?”, and people will ask me how much I would sell the laptop or the MP3 player for. To such queries I always reply “I can’t, it was a gift,” and it’s true. Everyone is amazed that I could have received all these things as gifts, and even I know that in some sense it’s crazy, but what can one do? I certainly like and appreciate these things, and in addition to the fact that I don’t want to part with them, I really dislike the idea of giving or selling gifts I’ve received. I can’t even tell people how much they’re worth, because I’m not great at estimating costs and I’d rather not even try to figure such things concerning gifts. But people often want to know. It feels odd to me that I can so easily use their status as “gifts” for excuses, but at the same time it reminds me of how truly fortunate I’ve been. The one other thing that people have asked after is my watch, which is nothing glorious, but simply has an interesting design. I simply don’t part with that because I need it and like it, and because watches aren’t hard to get here.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot: important words and phrases in the Fante language. I’ve been thinking about them because I wish we were taught this vocabulary earlier and more thoroughly ;) but anyway, one major thing is the issue of coming and going. Here are some examples of things that are said all the time:

Meriba- I am coming
Moroko- I am going. Ex: Moroko asur (church), moroko skuul (school), moroko fie (home)
Eroko hen?- Where are you going?
Bra- Come.
Kobra (or) Ko na bra- Go and then come
Akoaba/ “Awaaba” – You have gone and come back/ welcome
Yebehyia- We shall meet

In this culture, you need to announce that you’re leaving. However, this allows for more polite forms of saying “I feel like leaving now” than the English language usually does. Also, whenever someone calls for you, you’re expected to come. Usually older people call younger people, but not always. People will often say “bra” if you give an indication that you understand them, because they want you to come and talk. But it’s such a conventional thing that it’s very simple and straightforward. People also always acknowledge that you’re leaving. The thing about Akoaba/Akwaaba is that it’s translated into English as “you are welcome”, and that’s how it functions, but it means “You have gone and come back”. Because of a general belief in reincarnation, no one is considered truly a stranger. You might have known them in a previous life, or they might have been here before in a previous life, and even beyond that you want to make them feel included – so you say “Akoaba”. It’s taken me awhile to be able to say this, because I feel strange welcoming people into a home that is only sort of mine, but I think that I should welcome people more, so it’s coming along. As for “Eroko hen?”, people always want to know where you’re going. It’s particularly useful around taxis, but I hear it all the time elsewhere too. Yebehyia (pronounced “yeh Beh shia”) is just one of those handy things you can say that will tickle people to death, because Ghanaians say it to each other, but don’t expect foreigners to learn it. Okyena (pronounced “o Chen a”) meaning “tomorrow” is much the same. Similarly, there are advanced ways of asking and responding to the question “how are you” that people will ask all the time, and will be happy if you answer correctly.

Forms of “How are you?” from most simple to most culturally specific
Otse den? – How is it?
Apow mue? – how is your health/are you strong?
Wo ho tse den? – How is your body?
Woho yie a? – Are you ok? (you must answer “yes” or “I am good”)

Forms of “I’m ok” from most simple to most culturally specific
Bokoo- Cool
Moho yie- I am good
Moho yie paa- I am very good/ strong
Nyame n’adom- God’s grace/ by the grace of God, I am fine

I apologize if I’ve said some of this before, but hopefully now at least it’s more fleshed-out :)

Anyway, that’s it for this week… Maybe next week I’ll get to taxis. As I knew I would, I owe them a partial apology, and now I know enough to make an informed on along with a thorough explanation of how they work ;) I also really need to explain names (like Giftie :) what people’s names mean, how and why they’re given), and many other things, like Gye Nyame. Don’t worry, there’s a list, but even if I lost it I don’t think I could run out of things to say. Sometimes I just have to be careful of the frame of mind in which I say them ;) So, thanks for thinking of me and praying for me. Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring. I’ll talk to you soon, and I love you all!

Again, love,

Rachel Rose