..now it is end-November, post-Thanksgiving (..and T'giving is every adult's favourite family holiday, isn't it?)
and despite the prediction of the last post..many, many moons ago..that i would not renew, I did and now i am 2 and a bit (less than 3 months) into my third year in rural Ghana....AND I'M WONDERING NOW IF THAT WAS THE RIGHT DECISION!!!!
Oh, It's Thanksgiving and i miss my family..and i had a bad spashdown yesterday in Accra when out running..asphalt, granite chips..and my six-point landing..heels of palms, elbows, knees...which i can still see in my mind's eye..really seems to have jolted my body..and gashed my knee, still bleeding 36 hours later..and bounced my psyche. What am i doing here? What is it that keeps me here?
Am I stubborn or driven or committed or stupid..? or addled, deluded..and my knee hurts like hell..from my ungraceful landing yesterday.
All of the above?
I like what i do..at the JHS school and i do recognise that i am making a difference in a number of children's lives...half the children in the school now are library book borrowers..some borrow 2-3 times a week. I've met the goal of making the Library a more important place, a more useful place in the life of the school and the students. But this is despite the fact that the school must be termed dysfunctional...a school that does not meet its goals to educate and support the student population. A school that doesn't even seem to recognise that such are its goals! Too many of the teaching staff seem to think that that school exists for them to operate their power plays, their plots, their own agendas. Students seem to be the last thing on the minds of most of the teaching staff. They routinely beat the students, they routinely send them off on their personal errands, they routinely don't bother to show up! The only clock in the school ..that the officially-appointed end-of-period bellringer goes by... was 12 minutes fast for a whole day..and nobody (but me..) noticed..and nobody cared!!!
It is depressing, frustrating (including/not including the theft of our/my DVD player and all the HP, Indiana Jones, Star Wars DVD's that i brought from the US) and sad.
But if i keep telling myself that ANYTHING that i can do to help the children is a good use of my time and my life, it should be OK to continue, right?
Maybe not?
What effect does this time here have on me...physically, emotionally, intellectually..socially/personally (whatever that means!). Hmmm..not so good and there is a cumulative negative effect over time. AND 2 1/2 years is a LONG time to spend in rural Ghana.
I'm skinnier, lost a lot of muscle, I've learned to be more patient and to handle alone-ness better and i have no doubts about what i've done..BUT i feel tired and fed-up now.
It is impossible to be truly successful here. It is impossible for me to be truly successful here. No matter how one defines it for a volunteer. And maybe more so for an unaligned volunteer (ex-PCV) like me.
What would be success, though? Impossible to define but wouldn't it have to be something more than just helping some children. And is there an 'enough' factor in this? Have i helped enough with enough children? I suppose that i could reasonably say that I have left my mark with the libraries (all of them) and they will endure...mostly. Isn't that enough? Why did i come back? Because i didn't think i had done enough? If so, have i now done enough?
I find it hard here.
It's a cultural thing ..a collision of unknown and different cultures.
No matter how hard i try..and i do try..it's a thoroughly different and for me, impenetrable culture here. I'm always on the outside looking in. Oh i learn things about the culture almost every day but learning about and understanding are two different things.
But what does that mean? It means that where i am, in rural Ghana, i'm the complete outsider, the yevu, the odd-looking ostrich, and that no matter how friendly i am, and how friendly they are, we are so different, we're of such different worlds and we communicate so poorly that it is almost impossible to have an interesting and substantive conversation here ..one with depth... and that even ignoring the fact that it often seems impossible to spend any length of time talking to someone here without constant time-outs for phone-calls and messages! Of course, maybe that's the way the whole social media thing has taken over in the US now? Or the UK?
But that's very difficult and suffocating for me.......i like to converse, to debate, to argue even and i'm certainly interested in and involved in the outside/the whole world. I have lots of interests in things outside my life in Srogboe. And i'm slowly dying from lack of good conversations!
And to the extent that it is impossible to have good conversations ...i find myself diminished.
Other times, places when i've travelled i have been with, met lots of people of whom the meeting enhanced my life...getting stoned with a French arbitrage guy who lived in Switzerland and whom i met at a caravanserai in Urumqui (western china) or a French guy, a professional clown?, who was researching routines in Kyrgyzstan..or some/a few PCV's along the way, my friends in Italy, people i've sat beside on planes........or the people that i met and was 'traveling with' in London for the Olympics. Even meeting Brian A in Edmonton!
Here..nothing.........I've been divorced from fellow-PCV's for my entire service ..in this neglected corner of Ghana..
It seems impossible for me to have a real friendship here. But why? Because i'm a yevu, i don't speak the language, etc. Nope..its that our interests, backgrounds, experiences, hopes and dreams, and priorities are completely different.
And this comes out strongest now means when it comes to community help, community activism, community funding. We are at cross-purposes or cross-expectations because we are from different worlds.
And i'm so tired of the expectations of me...sure PC, i know you warned me. But it seems that even more so since i became an ex-/ a non-PCV that everybody expects that i will ante up the money for whatever it is anyone suggests needs to be done..for the school, for the library. A couple of people from the Director of Education's office in Keta were at the school recently and visited the Library..Oh they liked it fine but they said, you need more light, better ventilation! Shit, i know that but did you bring any budget moneys? Nope..the yevu will get it done! They're not the first people to note this either! I'd say..hey, gift horse and mouths, folks, but i think no-one would get it!
There is always, always, always the expectation is that i will come up with the money..after all it was mostly my idea to do this library.....but, but, but..isn't this the community's school??????? Well, yes, but that doesn't have real meaning.
And so i'm tired and unhappy and my knee hurts..yes, Paul, Godsway, Michael, Nathaniel, Sanity, Divine, Martha, Vivian, Satsufui, Loveth, Gabriel to name but a few..all benefit from my being here and helping and teaching classes and i have fun doing that..but aren't there limits??? don't there have to be limits..or is there a point in time when one says OK..i've done as much as i can do?
Dunno..
are there?
I'm tired of the heat, i'm really tired of the school nonsense, i'm tired of petty pilfering, i'm tired of bugs, i'm VERY tired of the community's unwillingness to get their sh-t together to actually do something good for the community....as has been done in the community down the road (proves it is possible..right!)
I'm tired of the ..expectations, the assumptions.
How tired?
Hmmm, not sure on that. I can leave any time i want..and will
i feel sometimes that this is destroying me..not just muscle mass, but brain cells..and there has to be a point when one says '...no mas..' (to quote Roberto Duran)
There does have to be a point in time...right????
