Sunday, October 31, 2010
Some Thoughts ..after 150+ days back in PC..and in Ghana.
..i've been thinking a lot recently about what i've learned, what i've done since coming to Ghana, and especially, what i've learned and done since coming to my site, Whuti, in early August. (..so almost three months at site)
i compare my experience to date with my prior experience in Romania. I have to do that and it was always my plan.
Every PCV has different and strong personal reasons for joining Peace Corps ..and then perhaps some different, modified, or additional ones for staying the course.
Unlike my prior experience, i felt that i had very good and strong and well-thought out reasons, not only for re-joining, but for 'insisting' on Africa. And after being invited in early January, i worked hard to be as well prepared technically and emotionally for the effort as I could possibly be..and this included going back over Romania journals and a few e-mails and seeing the...err..pitfalls that i had encountered in my first tour.
One of the things i said and noted this time was that ..whereas my mostly young colleagues might have career or CV reasons for staying the course and that 'success' might be measured in terms of staying the course and then leveraging that (which might be a bit unfair...i think everyone has to have strong idealistic goals in enduring the application process alone)...i had to be willing to look at the trade-offs on an ongoing basis. I had to feel that my staying was worth it in the sense that i have nothing to achieve by simply staying the course and putting up with the hardships. 'Worth it' means that the plusses exceed the minuses.
The 'plusses' are mostly the things that i am able to achieve and the good effects that i have in my community and district, some very small, some hopefully not so small. The minuses are ...hmmm...the difficulties and how they affect me, the reduction of contact with my family and friends. the missed opportunities (..like my 50th Royal High School reunion!), the reduction in quality of my life..that quality which i could say i had earned or worked for.
Some of the minuses are pretty obvious but much of 'reduction in quality of life' and 'difficulties' are perhaps less so.
( In some sense, it is a surprise that i seem to have already reached this point in my thinking although i said that i would be monitoring the trade-offs on an ongoing basis. i think this is partly because this is my second tour (..i do remember that i spent most of the first year or more in Romania wondering what i was doing and not knowing how or where to help..)..and partly because it is Ghana which is a lot different for PC service than was Romania. )
Back to minuses...'difficulties'...i think that they are mostly health-related as i'm not really worried about getting eaten by a lion or chomped by a shark or put in the village cooking pot ...although i should (and do ..) worry about riding around in tro-tro's. Health-related?..no, i'm not going to get Aids and i'm not going to die or go blind from drinking local moonshine, and i'm not going to get malaria because i'm sensible and take my weekly pill and make sure i sleep under a mosquito net (mine is, unusually i think, white and on my four-poster bed it looks positively virginal!). But, i know already that living for a long period in rural West Africa is wearing, very wearing and that the longer i'm here the more worn i'm getting. i won't know until maybe tomorrow when i go up to Accra and stop off at the PC office and cop a shot at Dr Albert's scales, but i reckon i've lost somewhere in the region of 20 lbs so far and i think i'm still losing. Sadly (to vain old me, anyway) i seem to be losing upper body muscle mass and tone..even though i stretch and lift some free-weights (a bucket of water) and do pull-ups on my Mango Tree (hilarious for neighbours) every day before and after i run. I guess that it is partly diet? not getting the right mix of ..proteins, carbohydrates, etc? But also i think that the climate here is debilitating ( love that word..and now i get to be it!). Don't they talk about the White Man's Burden or something? I've already had a few comments about losing weight and i dread to think how Billie Christina is going to react...Hey, Old Man!!..if i go home next summer for a visit (oops..'when'). I have a biggish mirror now and i'm a bit surprised when i look..but when size 31 shorts fall over my knees i should know that it isn't all that good...they don't even make size 28 in most men's clothes in the US!!
So there is that...and with regard to 'quality of life'... i suppose that the internet (for news and newspapers..and tracking sports) and occasional book parcels (including The Economist) and the fact that i do have my own library here is enough to get by there...i surely don't miss TV..except sports...but i do miss FOOD!!!!!!
Food has basically become that which i ingest every day cos i know that i have to...i can occasionally get relief from that with stuff from home..first time that's happened ..but so good...and when i can get something in my monthly-ish trips to Accra where i can shop in the ex-pat supermarket near my bank. But i have to get what i buy back down here to Whuti and much would melt...and then i always have to worry about perishables because although i do have a small fridge, the power is on and off and when the room temperature where i live never gets below 90F then i have to be very careful about stuff spoiling. But i can get OK bread, and canned stuff..soup and veggies, olive oil even (hideously expensive), Turkish pasta (who knew?).
So what do i eat? well, part of the 'problem'..or the reality is ...that the only places to buy food are open-air markets and between market days, road-side stalls selling what wasn't sold on the market days. the markets are big and sprawling and colourful and fun but the variety of things that i could buy is not huge. There is a lot of smoked fish for sale..all sizes, but the stench isn't enticing and so far i just haven't been able to do it..and i've tried beef at the local carve your own bit of cow place (..and may not again!) ..and occasionally i'll see (is it ?) roasted chicken or goat for sale but these are not Frank's chickens and you generally end up with a mouthful o f bone and gristle. Most of the eatables for sale are local produce...tomatoes, okra, onions, shallots, spinach-like leaves, garlic, dried peppers and little green ones, ginger root..and fruits, bananas, avocado, pineapples, even apples (imported), oranges, plantains (are they a fruit) and yams...and dried grains, millet, beans, corn....and English biscuits, of course....ginger snaps are my favourite.
I live on fruit, eggs, rice, pasta with garlic, red peppers and olive oil, tea, water (2-3 litres a day), bread (olde English soggy style..ugh), tomatoes, occasional onions or shallots, the occasional dinner of beans on toast or sardines on toast (both canned). The beer is awful...tastes like washing up liquid although maybe its my taste buds now..i bot a bottle of red wine in Anloga (Chianti, it said, i think that the bottle had floated down from Italy) ..but i can buy Pastis at less than $3 a bottle so i'm developing some taste for it.
Yes..you're absolutely right...i could be doing a lot better on diet, being more adventurous, knocking up a dish of fufu, etc or fetri detsi (whatever that is)...and i could try the local restaurants (or chop bars, as they're called) if there were any...although there are a couple of roadside places in Whuti that offer rice or fufu with 'light soup' (i kid you not..it has egg in it, i think) but i just never seem to pluck up the courage..but i will one day.
so there you have it..the difficulties and the reduced quality of life...
Survivable, but they are probably an ever-present for my time here..the climate isn't going to change, Wholly Foods are not going to open a branch in Ghana, Peapod (is that what it was called?) won't deliver to Whuti.
Yes..my diet can improve...and slowly but surely with the combination of food parcels, Accra shopping trips, and more courage it is improving!
But as i look ahead or do my trade-off ongoing..i know this is pretty much what it is going to be like!
And so the plusses..if you're still with me..and haven't called the Good Samaritan hot-line for me!.
The most interesting thing, especially vis-a-vis the Romanian experience is that i have a very good feel for what i will do and what i can achieve here over the two years.
My work and the prospects and possibilities are so settled, obvious, clear that i can easily map out the next two years.
A lot of that, i think, comes from my preparation for this and from my Romanian experience.
It is amazing to me that i have already made such progress for my community.
My situation is unique (hey..they all are) and i feel that i have been incredibly lucky in getting this assignment..but in so many ways, i am the perfect PCV for this slot.
i have opened the community library ..a new 2,800 sq feet facility with almost 4000 books from the World Bank Book Project ...we have been open for over 5 weeks, are open for 25 hours a week currently and have peaked at 80 users in a session. When i arrived the building was done, and there was a what-do-i-do-next librarian on staff who had never been in a library, and bookcases, and boxes of books. i got everything out of the boxes, organised, figured out the categories/sub-categories, put the books on the shelves. ordered them within categories where appropriate --no, we're not ordering all of these 1800 childrens' books! Wrote the library rules, counted all the books (3, 896), created the procedures...and opened the library.
yes..i recognise that opening the library cuts into the librarian's internet time and his work in impressing prospective brides with his smarts..but what the hell, the community needed a library!
Actually, of course, to one who loves books and loves (he discovered in Romania) to work with children, opening, running and working in a library is truly like died and gone to heaven..but it's hard work too!
I have to think about how we staff it for more hours..ah, library volunteers...of course! About how we modify our process so that we will actually have some books for users still intact in a year or so. About how we market the library to schools...i foolishly thought that i we 'built it, they would come' but when thee never has been a library in the area before we have to sell it. How do we do Library Outreach..to get to the 14, 15 and 16 year-olds who can't read and are afraid to come in? Adult Literacy classes also? Reading Circles.
Oh and figure out what operating and maintenance budget this library needs such that at some point in time it becomes the community's/district's to maintain/sustain!
The bottom line is that i could spend all of my time over the next two years just running and improving and USING the library for the community.
But i can't because there are other things to do...and so without compromising or cutting back on the dream and the opportunity i have to train/coerce others into running it, etc.
I am very excited about the doors this opens for the community and i enjoy my time as a librarian very much.
So what else do i know that i have to do and can do for this community over the next two years.
Well, as many of you know, MicroFinance..making small amounts of credit available to micro-entrepreneurs in rural Africa was one of my strong interests in coming here and finding a GOOD MicroFinance operation for Whuti was one of my highest priorities. I, of course, got incredibly lucky on this at my site visit in july when i ran into (literally) a visiting student from the University of Washington in Seattle who was working in a nearby community with a young NGO, Lumana, www.lumana.org, started less than two years ago by would-be social entrepreneurs at UW's B-school. They are so good, so impressive, so unique (..use of smart/very smart phones in their process..their own apps) and a lot of fun to work with and, i suppose, the best part is that they are the perfect answer, both now and for the foreseeable future, for Whuti's and the district's MicroFinance needs and they will continue to get better and better and more and more effective as time goes by. I already have 28 names of interested borrowers from Whuti on their immediate waiting list for training and funding, and i have about 130 more who are waiting to go on the list!
i like them..they have a constant flow of students/new graduates coming here for 1-6 months to work on apps and process...and i really enjoy working with them. i could spend all my next two years full-time with them and thoroughly enjoy it but i have to find some way to divide up my time!
And i have met my objective of finding a GOOD MicroFinance source for Whuti.
What else do i see..
...well, there was a residual (as in floating around without anything actually happening) suggestion that the US Ambassador's Self-Help Fund could be tapped for funds to rennovate a nearby building as a Community Guest House. the problem is ..it's a super idea but the community wouldn't apply any brain cells or effort to actually producing any kind of plan on which to base the application...until i 'primed the pump' so to speak by ante-ing up a consultant fee! And so that application for funds will go in before 31DEC and has a pretty good shot at success.
..and i'm about to run out of power on my laptop and the electricity is off..so, dear readers, you are saved
..and we didn't even cover the computer room/internet cafe..to be a self-sustaining business..a first in Ghana?
..or the SPA grant for a veggie garden with the PTA and local school
..or the 2nd year plan for a Whuti Development Council..
..or
but it doesn't matter, yes-these are real things and real achievements but they aren't why i would stay
i will stay for the look in a young boy's eyes when i'm teaching him to read..dog, ball, water, jump
the rest will crumble to dust anyway..even the books (..and me)
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