Monday, December 12, 2011

Integration? Understanding? Experience..call it what you will it is a roller-coaster ride

It's different here..duh, that's news?
My emotional attachment to the community and its people goes up and down, round and round.

I consider extending for another year and then i reject at the prospect of an impossible year dealing with the rural community politics and the jealousies focused on the Library ...built by the yevus..dig up the floor and there has to be gold underneath. and the NGO's funding (as with all NGO's eventually..) dries up.
To some and too many..yevu = money and if that 'some' aren't getting it then someone else is..and why him, why them ..AND WHY NOT ME?
The factions in the community with different families, different funeral groups, disgruntled individuals (yes..you know who i mean) become clearer the longer i am here and the more they sap any go-forward energies that the community might have. To spend so long in meetings arguing over the inconsquential..who is recognised on the Library's appreciation wall and who isn't? And whether this self-appointed committee should have authority and budget control over the Library ..even though in truth it is 'he who pays the piper who calls the tune' and so far these committees have not supplied cedi one to actually operating the Library...ALL the money to date and for the next year or so comes directly from the US.
The petty jealousies that surround the Library and its funding from the US are truly disturbing and take a lot of understanding.
It is hard for me to accept that a voodoo-curse has been placed on anyone because he must be getting lots of money from the white man and they who sought out and placed the curse want that money. And yet, i see with my own eyes the effect it has on the cursed individual who seeks a spiritual cure from that which make him seem so scared and so sick. This is here..and if he and his family believe that he is cursed in this way then it surely doesn't help for me to say..fooey, can't be real. If he believes then it is real. And so I can not ignore it especially when his cursed person is integral to any real improvement in the literacy levels in the community.

In my clearer moments, i say..ignore it, it truly is nonsense..and of course, it is..but the effect on the community politics is not nonsense. The man, my friend, is vulnerable and can be attacked.

For a community with no money, pays no taxes to the District, no market, no speed bumps even, can't even ante up the rent money to pay for this PCV's accomodation which by 'contract with Peace Corps' they are obliged to do, they have some amazing arguments and circuitous discussions over control of a purse that does not exist...the yevu NGO's funds to operate the Library.
Factions and animosities go back a long time...the biggest expense that any family will ever incur is funeral expenses..so much so that people contribute for years to funeral co-operatives..and still families go into hock to pay for funerals even after bodies of the dearly departed have remained on ice for months and years while money was raised to properly send them off on their Calls to Glory. I still don't get funeral co-ops...but on the other hand, who on the other hand wouldn't go for full colour posters bemoaning the tragic departure or 15-foot high erections (oops) lamenting the loss. If i die..then please..etc

But anytime there is money then there are jealousies and plots and murders most foul..and bubbling cauldrens and so funerals are highly politicised and stories abound of funds going astray etc.

i'm just trying to help the children and build libraries and find ways to actually teach children but it gets complicated...fund-raising becomes impossible; grand openings get hijacked and then postponed indefinitely while the non-worthy, non-contributing groups argue as to who runs the show.
Cruelly, i wonder why more of the people I know don't rise up and say 'enough..what about doing something for the children?' but they can't, they have no power and they aren't listened to..small wonder they get disillusioned .
The more i know, the less i understand.









Friday, December 2, 2011

why is that i seem to like it so much here in Ghana?










..there is no easy answer to that question..but I do.
perhaps the answer gets lost in time for i've been here for 551 days (tho, again, who's counting) but to not know why is copping out.


I like it because...

i like it well compared to...

it's different and new and i'm young and therefore i like it.....well, that one isn't right!

I came here, as opposed to there, because i wanted to see if i could hack it in the heart of Africa and also based on the experience of the last few years, i wanted to help and to try make a difference.
Even if i didn't know what 'help' or 'making a difference' really meant here i thought that it was worth a try.

I had the confidence of Romania and Itaca in Napoli to convince me that if the opportunity was really there then i would be able to grasp it. And that is basically how it has worked out. And that, of course, is hugely encouraging when i contemplate the future (argggghhhh!...the future..does one have such at your age, RWK?)

Life here is, of course, very different from Maine and the USA and one's daily life is laughably so sometimes.

You think to yourself sometimes as you haul water from the well to 'flush' the toilet or to take your 'bucket bath', can this be me? Then you remind yourself..yes, this is you ,and every day for 2+ years it is one of your daily chores.

After Romania, I had figured out that it isn't the privations that get to you..it's things in your head. So one can get past the heat, the bugs, the power outages, the lack of running water, the lack of good diet variety in available food, the Spartan accommodations ..because these are just how it is a small rural community in Ghana and you can't change it. From Romania, i know what destroys one's resolve is not being able to actually do anything useful and that, I learned, is partly luck in one's assignment but largely, it is whether or not one finds good, local people to work with which may well be related to the approach that one takes to one's Peace Corps asignment. For the first 8-9 months on site here, I was carried by having a good site with a clear set of 'To-Do's' but for the last 7-8 months it has been finding some really good people to work with.

In truth, I've never had any of the bad times here that I had in Romania..given that i am allowed to forget getting mugged in Tamale and getting robbed of my Macbook..and getting attacked by my lunatic counterpart, Cephas, in the library here in Whuti one morning....all so last year now!

And i have a lot of really pretty good days here..like one after another.

It is hard to properly describe them and i doubt that i can do them justice but there are simple, unique, heart-warming, funny, childish, laughing, encouraging bits to every day here..not just an occasional Tuesday or Saturday, but every day. and although each day has many, many bits that are the same as yesterday each day also always has completely unique bits that make me laugh out loud or think or cringe or simply not understand and so go on the 'think about this sometime' list.
It's hard to describe or explain though.
I am not integrated here..not really. The gap is too massive but i certainly feel that i am an accepted and enjoyed part of the community. The community, for example, seems to know when i'm gone for even a couple of days and welcome me back when I return. That makes me feel good because surely it means that they know why I am here and what I am trying to do at the Community library and in the schools. And all the daily greetings from people of all ages say the same thing.
And too, at the level of my 'sponsors', there is now a clear recognition that I am doing my best and working hard for the community - which is a substantial change after the 'difficulties' of the Cephas era.
Do I love Ghana, the country..its colour, its culture, its geography? Nope..i don't but I do like the friendliness of the people and in trying to understand the country and its people, i've tried to understand the complexities of independence and the struggle to keep up with the competitive world. And in the course of that, one develops a lot of sympathy for the country and more importantly its people.
I can not honestly say that i ever really developed much sympathy for Romania.

So what is it exactly that i like so much?

Well, it's the people and my daily interactions with them.
It's a life I've never known before and it is fun. Cautiously we'll say that it is good, and it certainly make me feel good.
Some of the interactions in the Library and the Schools are serious, trying to help or trying to understand...but others are just informal and fun but I believe that fun interactions with children are actually good for them and for me also.
This amount and this variety of interaction is simply something that i have not had before in my life...and I like it very much.

The huge change is that for the last few months and for the foreseeable future, i will be working with a diverse group of Ghanaians on community projects ..the two new libraries and raising funds to make the Community Library sustainable.
For me, that makes life a whole lot easier..not fighting city-hall all the time, and it means that others who also have choices, understand and are willing to involve themselves and to support in many different ways, the work that WE are trying to do in this area.

...and yes, that will make it doubly difficult to walk away in 7 1/2 months.

I think liking it here as i do also relates to why i came here, why i signed up for Peace Corps again but this time with only Africa in mind.

I still want to think that my life still has purpose (small 'p') and Peace Corps gives me both the opportunity to 'help' if i can and if i'm lucky and the situation wherein i can gain a unique perspective and even insight into life in Africa by the way it sets up assignments...2 years
in a rural setting, living as a sort-of ordinary person.
With that in mind then, being 'productive/helpful' as i have been here makes me like being here more and affording me the opportunity to meet and interact with many, many people, often on an everyday basis, and to be in homes and in the schools on almost a daily basis, and in Whuti's workplaces-the Library, the fields with farmers, and on the beach with fishermen, also make me like the place more.
And i am getting that unique perspective on what it is really like here...though i am a long way from understanding it.