..and i'll say that not having my Macbook for almost 3 months ..waiting for the Apple Reseller network to get their act together..which is maybe never...means that i can't access my photo libraries and that has always been a big part of my blogging.
But, in truth the last 2+ months, have been unsettling and difficult while i've gone through the will he/won't he extend in Ghana for another year dialogue.
i think that dialogue is at an end..but i rate it only 90% certain..and it has certainly gone back and forth.
I'm not extending!
There are good working/helping reasons to stay but there are strong 'fed up with the shit and politics' reasons to not extend. But in the end, i think the strongest set of reasons that i won't and should not extend for another year come from looking in a mirror and reflecting on how i am day-to-day. Africa is hard on me and i've been here now for almost 22 months. It's hard ..as i've said a number of times...on every aspect of one's being here..shoes, clothes, muscle mass...getting to be scary..books, anything /everything electrical, sleep patterns...probably overall health and longevity. I'm used to it here but my guess is that the deterioration..for such it is...would accelerate in a third year. I need some time to recover and get stronger....and not just a couple of weeks!
In the last few months of watching Six Nations Rugby in Accra at weekends, i've met quite a few ex-pats and i recognise that the ex-pat life in Ghana is quite nice..and i idly consider it. but PCV life in rural Ghana is very very different. I try to live on 300 GH cedis a month (about $165)..travel, electricity, food.. whereas they tootle around in SUV's, live in a-c apartments and shop for all their food in ex-pat supermarkets..and get paid 10 x 0r 20 x 0r 30 x times what i have. One's ex-pat dollar or pond or euro goes a lot further here in Ghana than in the US or Europe but $165 is not a lot. Of course, how one lives and survives as a PCV is also a function of where...in rural Ghana the only place i can shop is the open-air market ..every 4 days.
why ever then would i consider extending?
Because Africa, certainly Ghana, is a unique and very different experience for one who has lived a striving life in the Western world, and especially the US
Towards the end of what has to be recognised and accepted as my useful life, Africa represents either a different kind of 'challenge' or a different kind of 'finis'.
(and i do come out of this adventure with a clear intention to go on, to do something else like this..another country probably...and i like Africa for many many reasons.)
i would go on record, also, as saying that i like Peace Corps- i take great pride in being a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Despite what i've said about how wearing and grinding life as a PCV is, i would probably have extended if i could have got past the ...shit, the rural community politics, the small-town and small-minded pettiness and jealousies.
I like being here a lot/most of the time....although i've never been sure why.
Obviously daily life here is very different from any life i've ever led - including two years as a mostly lost PCV in Romania 2005-2007.
Given that i've noted many times that Ghana, rural Ghana, is not beautiful, charming, cute, picturesque...in fact it is fairly ugly-lots of half-finished, never-to-be-finished breize-block dwellings and plastic trash everywhere- then what is it?
It's the people and the challenge/opportunity of trying to understand a completely different culture or state in the years 2010-2012.
I am an observer...and this place and living here is very very interesting.
And as a yevu-white person-it seems OK to be an observer...people don't seem to mind being observed.
So, as i insist that i like it here, what is it that i like? I supose that it is the simple accessabilty of the people that i'm with..and especially the children. In the US..even in a small community like Bar Harbor, Maine...for one reason or another people of all ages, including the very young, are very reserved and cautious-and certainly incurious- of strangers, or even people who might be vaguely familiar. But people in rural Ghana, especially, are definitely curious...and with their constant 'yevu, yevu..' cries almost respectful of one's presence amongst them. They are open..no agendas-apart from the occasional '..give, me, give me..' hands-out opening. and they smile and they love when i do my usual stunts for them. So in every day in my new 'adopted' small town i have many fun interactions.
I will miss these interactions more than i can possibly know just now..because there are dozens and dozens of such every day and i enjoy each and every one.
They are fuller and more frequent than ever i could have imagined...and that's before i talk about the reception/interaction at schools!
I am an everyday presence at these schools..imagine that in the good ole USA!
and maybe what i'm doing in establishing Libraries is genuinely useful and long-lasting.
so what's the hard part? That comes from the description of my role here and being caught between the NGO that built and funds the Library and the community and its self-appointed rulers who think that the Library is theirs (they focus principally on the monies in Ghana that are used to operate the Library on an ongoing basis)
In the work i've done with Lumana, the micro-finance operation here, and with the schools for the additional Libraries that I/we have established, i've had no problems at all. Sometimes it takes an age to get things done and it can be frustrating but nobody (incl. me) gets really upset and there is overall a mutual 'understanding' of what we're trying to do here amongst all the parties.
But the relationship with almost everyone associated as 'advisors' with the Whuti Community Library has been much more complicated.
On one hand the WCL is seen as an ongoing source of funds/money to (be distributed by the chiefs) be locally spent on Library Services, and on the other hand, i am seen as the access/gatekeeper to the ALAD riches and therefore the person with whom they need to arm-wrestle to get Mo' Money.
This last creates many problems with the mostly-uneducated people who run or think that they run Whuti.
It creates a complex relationship with, let's say, the Library Committee Members, who want access to the money..and this PCV who stand old-fashionedly between them and the money (the ALAD accounts) but also since they're always talking about someone else's money (...and they're VERY MUCH lacking in financial expertise) they are very difficult to deal with and they think that i am blocking them from the money..and virtually cheating them of what is rightfully theirs!
I'm not cheating them..i am trying to show them the realities of the financial situation that 'we' are in but they don't get it...a function of poor education and some hopeless belief that yevu money will last forever.
And so as a PCV, i find myself constantly at odds with them..about money and control of the LIbrary. They make no contribution of time or money or energies vis-a-vis the Library..but they think they should control all these aspects. And i think that being at odds with a community about money and control of a local establishment as big as this Library is very very unusual for a PCV.
Additionally, they have a very selfish and parochial attitude towards their PCV... I am theirs and should barely even set foot in adjoining communities no matter the cause!
These are frequent squabbles which i can't win and which leave me feeling awful and unmotivated and i often feel as if i'm being watched and that my daily behaviour will be censured.
That then is really what drives me away..because they are too often what i take 'home' in the evenings and it is them and their pettiness and their squabbles that wake me up in the middle of the night. And it would not change if i extended.
Either as a group or as individuals, i have very little respect and good feeling for the people of the Library Committee who have never ever cared about the children and who only care about power. Power..what a joke...but i suppose within a small community, being chairman of the Library Committee is a big deal.
There have been too many bad days with these people. I have to work hard to see past them and to focus on what has actually been done.
