It's been a while..

..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.

I think I begin to understand...and I DO NOT LIKE IT AT ALL!

My last post was six weeks ago when I was raging about local politics....but i didn't know the half of it then ...probably not even the quarter of it. The 'system' here is patronage..and at the rural level, it is dispensed by chiefs.


Almost every piece of contracted 'business' that is transacted locally..be it an agreement to build walls, or permission to put up a wayside food stand, or (let's say) an NGO hiring a local person to work in the new Community Library, or the 'fees' charged for operating a little stall in the Anloga marketplace, is a 'transaction' that, as a matter of course, goes through one of the local chiefs. They decide who gets hired and who gets black-balled (a meritocracy it isn't). They decide who can set up a business and who can't.


It's a very old-fashioned system and goes back long before colonialism and before independence. it was the way it had always operated-tribalism. In Ghana/The Gold Coast, the colonial system and the tribal system co-existed, side-by-side, and the colonial system really only operated at the high end and the tribal system continued as before..with only the occasional war between the two groups. Unlike colonies in East Africa or South Africa where large chunks of land were given over to white farmers the tribal system controlled the land all along.


After Independence, in 1957, Ghana tried to impose a few different systems..progressive nationalism, socialism, maybe even extreme socialism, and now what would we call it ... a vaguely Western-style democracy..with reasonably fair multi-party elections, a powerful presidency but no presidents-for-life, an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch and a 'market economy'..if one is being reasonably generous. But the tribal system still operates underneath that because the reach of the government and the civil service doesn't really extend to a community or an area like ours...some government monies are spent here but not much. There is very little evidence of government here in Whuti apart from its single Primary School run by the Ghana Education Service. There is no Health Service here (and no doctors), no Post Office or Police presence ..hell, the district capital even ordered that our speed bumps be removed as unauthorised .


In return, of course, the community pays no taxes..there are no property taxes; i would be very, very, very surprised if there is a single Personal Income Tax payer residing in Whuti ;and I would be equally surprised if there is any business in Whuti paying Business Taxes.


In other words, the government barely exists at this level.


So back to patronage and the tribal system of disbursing it...how does that affect me, why do i care?


i want to get this right and i want to get this said clearly..and it hasn't been easy for me to see the Library's future through the mists.


So maybe, first a few facts.


The Whuti Community Library (and the Computer Centre) is wholly funded and always has been, by a small, committed NGO in the US which has operated in Ghana for fifteen years and this could be called the NGO's Act III..the Last Hurrah. Indeed, Acts I and II (set in other parts of Ghana) are over and did not end well. Because of the NGO's founder's age and other concerns, this work is almost certain to be ALAD's final effort. (ALAD = African Literacy, Arts & Development Association )


The Community Library has been operating successfully on a daily basis since 22 September 2010, i.e. 16+ months ago, six weeks after I arrived in Whuti. And the Computer Centre has been operating on a daily basis as a revenue-generating internet cafe since 15 November 2011 (Thomas' 10th birthday). Less than three months then and the revenues are very small because we have no high-speed connection and because there isn't a lot of disposable income round here. But it might get better.


Notwithstanding the fact that we have been operating the Community Library for 16 months..with as many as 500+ users a week...it will be officially opened on 21/22 July 2012 with a ribbon-cutting and speeches, and dancing and drumming, etc. It will be a fine occasion with (hopefully) lots of dignitaries present, including ALAD's founder.


It costs between $500 and $600 a month to operate the Community Library and Computer Centre...and the internet cafe earns less than $20 a month. The founder of ALAD has committed to funding the Community Library's operations through at least the end of 2012 and possibly into 2013, but he has a declared intent to step down as ALAD's president in mid-2013.

And then what happens?

There is no real plan just the vague hope that the community will find ways to sustain the library financially.

The community have no real likelihood of coming up with a deep-pocketed external funding source to the tune of a committed $7000+ per year. It is also highly unlikely at the moment that ALAD will be able to come up with a committed long-term funding source.

Only a resourceful, enterprising, imaginative, concerned (Ghanaian) organisation could possibly come up with the necessary funding and at the moment such does not exist for the Library.

It is possible to conceive of such a (Ghanaian) organisation with the Whuti-Srogboe or Srogboe-Whuti diaspora ..and certainly Dr Sam's wonderful work in nearby Atorkor says it is doable.

But...try to superimpose that on Whuti and the chiefs and elders of Whuti and it just doesn't work.

They are intellectually dull, they are poorly educated, they are committed to the old ways and the old system, and sadly they actually do NOT care about the children.... which is surely why we're doing the Library! (..or I thought it was!)

The PCV has been lucky. He has got things going..and, believe me, 500+ Library visitors for a community library in Ghana is HUGE! And computers too, for children who've never seen them.
And a JHS Library and a Primary School Library also!!!

But..to recap, the Community Library Opening Ceremony is in late July 2012, which, coincidentally is my COS date, and the ALAD founder will be here to discuss the future...knowing that he and ALAD will not fund the Library much longer..

..and knowing that it will take a Mighty Heart to come up with the 'deal' that will ensure the Library's future and knowing that he doesn't have such a candidate.


....and knowing in his heart, as I know in mine, that the local chiefs and elders will never come up with the money to run the Library and that they'll simply wait for a miracle from outside.

The founder will be between a rock and a hard place at the Opening Ceremony. He will be under extreme pressure to turn over the Library and its operating accounts (..the money!!!) to the community.Under all the possible scenarios that I can come up with, he will be obliged to do that.
From that moment on, the Library will begin to deteriorate ..maybe almost imperceptably at first but it would get worse over time and I shudder to think of the Library in 18-24 months

Disintegration is not an overnight thing..it will happen gradually, day-by-day, week-by-week.

What does 'deterioration' actually mean in the Community Library...well, books will start to go missing because the current levels of care and attention will slip; the place will get messier because there won't be anything like the current attention to keeping the books on the shelves in order and maintenance will be downplayed; computers will go walk-about as the chiefs and elders claim their privileges...and then as the money runs out..no payment of salaries, etc..and the Library won't be able to stay open the same number of hours, etc

This is the future..this i know.


Does it have to be this way? Not if the Founder was willing to put his foot down and refuse to turn over the Library and the accounts to the community..the self-appointed committees..until a new organisation with strong Accra representation and a commitment and ability to raise funds was established. But when he comes here in July he won't be willing to go head-to-head with the chiefs and elders. He wants a Love-In and so he'll agree to turning things over to the community without receiving any evidence that they can raise funds for ongoing operations.

And so my situation...

I have an option to extend here in my current assignment for six or twelve months..perhaps even longer.

I don't want to leave because I enjoy my work, I feel proud of our efforts to-date but I would be EXTREMELY uncomfortable and MUCH less effective after the Community Library has been turned over to the community simply because the staff would no longer report to me and I would then have no authority to stem the deterioration. Currently the staff reports to me on all operations and I work hard (some might say very hard) to keep our standards high. I would be completely sidelined as far as the Library is concerned and these standards would slip. Yes, I could continue to help at the JHS Library and the Primary Library and in the ordinary way that would be OK though it would hardly fill my time.

I have been very seriously considered extending for another year where the goal would be to establish and implement a plan for long-term financial sustainability for the Library.....and that would certainly fill my time and be rewarding. But it has always been clear that long-term financial sustainablity for the Library depended on bringing in outsiders and creating a new, small, committed organisation with fund-raising capabilities to operate the Library.

Unfortunately, it has become very evident over the last six-eight weeks that the wolves are gathering and the chiefs and elders are deliberately excluding those who stand between them and control of the Library and its accounts ..the money!!(and that includes me, of course) and those excluded are in fact the ones (again, including me) that I had hoped would be a part of a new organisation to run the Library.
It isn't a surprise that they would be excluded AND that I would have thought of them as the right local people with whom we could have gone forward because, of course, the qualities in them that appeal to me are those that the chiefs and elders fear...independence, clear thinking, activist, and owing no particular loyalties to any local chief. And that description pretty much applies to me also!

And so I can't extend, I won't extend..it would be too hurtful to stand and watch after July without any influence to correct or shape things.

I can walk away from Whuti with the Community Library and the Computer Centre ..and the JHS Library and the Primary School Library ...all running and probably as good as they could ever be. And probably Whuti-Srogboe now has better and better-run Libraries(3) and aComputer Centre (free to students for 3 hours per day) than any community in Ghana!!!!

I will be sad for the children for whom so few seem to care..because i certainly do and they know it.

And I will miss my daily life in Whuti for a long, long time and it will be difficult for me when I return to the US but I will learn to live with that and I will focus on the next 'thing' whatever (and wherever) that is and I will accept the fact that i could never have changed the system here and that it was my success that made that apparent.









And so, the only question is how long i stick around to watch this.

The counter-balance is that on a day-to-day basis i am helping children.


It will become more and more difficult after the end of this school year in early July. Diminishing returns. Probably impossible.

I don't want to leave..how can i stay, how long can i stay?

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.

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.

My first Facebook birthday...

Pretty interesting...maybe my last FB birthday since i'm not a huge fan but my guess is that i will still be curious about the lives and loves of my 200 FB 'friends' after i leave Ghana ( in 247 days but really who's counting!) and so I will stay with it. Might change my birthday though, so it is always just past.

Note...i did NOT include the Year of birth in my Profile!

As we know, Richard, does not celebrate birthdays at all! and has not for many years. Indeed if it wasn't for the fact that Thomas Kelman-Brown shares the day then it would be a distinctly non-favourite day! He hasn't been high on B'days (wait, maybe i should reword that!) since Joe DiNunzio and Alan Rosenwald had him 'b'day greeted' at ADC by a young lady wearing apparently only a raincoat! Prior years in this his dotage were greeted with only surly 'thank you's' to the persistent few who seemed to delight in reminding him in the addition of one more year to his age.

Then along came FB!

FB gave me B'day greeting for 24 message-filled hours from all over..in many languages..English, Scottish, American, Brazilian, Romanian, Moldovan (separate language?), Italian, French, German, PC-speak, Persian(Farsi?), Ghanaian..with GOD also invoked from there and who knows what language she speaks!

The first in yesterday was Tricia Petersen Rasmussen..one of my my 72 new best friends from 01 June 2010..the new batch of PCV's headed for Ghana. I like Tricia..she's a committed, strong PCV here ..and that was nice but wow..thank you FB! but Tricia..will you still need me, will you still feed me when i'm 64?

And lots more from the ranks of the Ghanaian PCV's ...really, haven't they better things to do with their time!!! (well, yes..but FB says it's your Birthday!!!)

then they just kept pouring in..from a Royal High School friend who has a memory of a sometimes ill-behaved young lad (did he say 'tear-away?) in school..he must

have me mistaken for someone else!

..from Carola in Napoli who sent me a lovely picture of the Bay of Naples and then gently corrected my bad Italian and made me hungry for spaghetti con vongole verace and the best espresso machiato i ever had.

From Moldova..via Ellsworth and Shaw's...

And from two of the (very-well) Bred girls from Lugoj..cel mai frumos orasul in toate lumea- (please don't correct my Romaneste)

From Baharak who always finds me on my birthday...xxxxxxx..and she can be in some pretty hairy places.

From Billie..my favourite young lady, fortunately not old enough to get on FB..she'll set records for numbers of friends

Oh and from banks and credit cards companies and my contact-lens supplier, and a support forum for a piece of dongle-unlock software that i could never get to work...eh????

and on and on...

but the capper was my friend Noah, here in Whuti. Now believe me, i do NOT go around here advertising my coming birthday but when i went down to the JHS yesterday morning for Library time..the 'Library' comes to the classroom since we don't have our super stools and tables yet ( a bit like Macbeth and the Forest...) .

he had made up a huge Happy Birthday poster and got all the classes and all the teachers to sign it and THEN took me round each class and had them sing 'Happy Birthday' to me while i stood in front with a silly grin on my face..pretending to weep. while Noah almost split his sides laughing....and how did he know it was my B'day..FB of curse! (int. sp)

..altogether a very odd but funny (even memorable) birthday...wow, thank you FaceBook!

I've been here quite a long time...

..sometimes it feels as if i've been here forever. Having recently figured out that i have had a life-long ...we'll call it fascination with numbers and the measurement of them against various things..umm-statistics? ..i will admit to this being day number 524 of my current PC adventure.

I figured out the stuff about me and numbers/measurements because i recognised how readily i accepted the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Yup...my kind of challenge..like training for a marathon! Then i extended that a little...i have recorded every mile i've run since i (re-) started in Feb/Mar 1977...with time, place, and some 'performance' comment ..and thus the weekly, monthly, annual totals also. And despite the advance of years and the deterioration in performance, I have set mileage goals for each year. And ..sort of working back from the goal...i have figured out what a week should look like to meet that goal and thus i know exactly (to the 10th of a mile) how far i am going to run that day.

Somehow i don't think most runners are this way tho i might be surprised.

And chewing over this i then remember that some of early (good?) work with Univac was in performance analysis..and that was all numbers and statistics...and that a lot of my initial and still-consuming interest in Track & Field was in its statistics ..and i could still probably search through my memory, assuming most of it is still there, and spill out the performance statistics of every 'best time or mark' that i've ever personally witnessed.

And when i drive long distances, i'm constantly computing my average speed or distance covered as i go along..for example, i've driven from my house in Bar Harbor to Fi's place in Framingham (on the Boston marathon course..Framingham, not the house) many, many times but i still do my trip calculations and when i'm 2/3 through i call her and tell that i will be there by 5.22 or 6.16 or what ever i've calculated.

Interesting? Nah, not really, but maybe unusual? Certainly i don't think many of the people i've met in Ghana are labouring under this affliction!

Oh BTW..here in Ghana, at the Whuti Community Library, each user logs in and logs out and the time is recorded in each case. Thus I maintain..number of users per day and their total number of hours 'reading'..and thus can recite max number of users and hours per month, per week, per day.

Actually when i sat down to write this blog today, i was going to write something else but i've had the numbers thing percolating in my head for week or so and it is time to let it out!

I was going to write about how different life is for me here. I interact and communicate each and every day with lots of people in the community and neighboring ..from children to chiefs and obviously with lots of students.

It's both the way it is here and the role that i'm on (yevu living in smallish community). I would have to say that Ghanaians are much more friendly and friendly in more ways than any set of people that i've known..Make that MUCH MORE FRIENDLY!

This thought was prompted by something yesterday.

We are celebrating Hogbetsotso this week/weekend here. This celebrates the arrival of the Anlo tribe ...in the 17th century, it is believed...to this area, driven out from ??? by wars. They settled in and around what is now Anloga..so the principal place of the Anlo Ewe.

There are thousand and thousands of people in the area..including the Prez, John Atta Mills who visited yesterday. I saw him and waved as he sped by in his cavalcade of black SUV's ..tho his was 'GHANA 01'... a stretch SUV? with flags at the front and bizarrely, Ghanaian 'Secret Service'? guys running alongside the vehicle..pretty funny i thought....especially when they stopped so that the Prez could get out and take a pee at the side of the road (OK..i made that bit up ..but you never know). It was all such a huge scrum in Anloga that although i knew that the President was supposed to be there that day it seemed impossible to figure out where or when and there were, of course, many, many chiefs wandering around. If there was a programme or a schedule i wasn't aware of it.

Anyway, here we are, standing in the middle of the milling crowd, chiefs,etc wandering by. I was chatting to some of my JHS 'friends' when suddenly not more than 6-8 feet away, the crowd parts and sort of scatters and skittering across my vision is a woman in fine native costume but she's attempting to stab a similarly attired man with a long knife..not a cutlass but like a carving knife almost..long and straight-edged..she had the knife in one hand and was lunging at him while in her other hand she had the scabbard. Needless to say the crowd was quickly parting to allow them to roll on by..and then coming together again after they passed and so they were only in vision for few seconds really. i have a recollection of her throwing the scabbard at him, but not the knife and there was another guy or guys trying to grab her. But Here's the funny part..this happened very quickly..and they were gone very quickly, but no-one was screaming or yelling for the police and afterwards it was really as if it never happened - but this one i did not make up. It reminds me of how much closer i am to 'life' here ..and of how volatile the Ghanaians seem to be. I've seem more violent arguments and fights here than i've ever seen in all the rest of my life....many, many more. Some of that is due to the fact that i 'live' in the streets and markets much more than i have in any other place.

I still take a fair number of pictures ..and yes, i will add some Hogbetsotso pictures to this post when the weekend is over and i've sorted through them....but often when i look at the pictures i am dissatisfied ..and i've begun to understand why...when i look at the pictures, i don't 'see' the noise..the hubbub (sp?) of so much of life here...the cries of the traders, the enthusiasm of the greetings, the animated conversations over the heads of people.

There are many many things i will miss when i leave here..it will be as if the kaleidescope (sp?) has stopped..and in a way that is what one least expects when one signs up to be a PCV in Africa.

..and yes, i'll add pictures!

Practicing for NaWriNoMo...eh??? A Piece on Peace.

'I come in Peace', he said. 'Peace..' she nodded and smiled her crookedy, sad, hungry smile. But she didn't get the attempted humour. Not very surprising, no-one did here, difficult when it's delivered by a strangely-accented yevu in a language, English, that isn't what most people think in.

Ask a question..'Yes', they say which means ...ummm- i heard you speak. Ask it again..'Yes' which means ...i'm trying to understand what it is you said. Ask it again....'Yes' ...which means, i don't really understand what you're saying but is this the answer you're looking for?

He had gone out running as usual that Sunday morning on the scrub-land that bordered the beach. As it wound round, his path intersected with teams of fishermen hauling ropes attached somewhere out to sea to their nets.

They had their rituals...no fishing on Tuesdays and he had his...helping the fishermen at weekends after his run, showing 'solidarity' with an unspecified 'cause'. He did it because it felt good, looked good, gained him some unnamed respect though they'd never figure out why, at his age he would run every morning..even on Tuesdays!

There were fewer crews out today than yesterday..he could never figure out why it varied and so when he finished he had to walk down the beach before he ran into the crews.

It was always the same..he just went to the head of the line, wrapped his black running top round the rope and started digging in and hauling. They probably never knew or cared whether he actually pulled hard - they just appreciated the gesture - but he did and it felt good to haul and feel the different muscles pull. Not so old, not so past it all , he would say to himself.

He would generally share out his efforts amongst as many crews as were close together. Maybe they'd care if he didn't!

Over time he'd come to recognise a few of them. Weekends were different because kids and even out-of-towners would be on the ropes too but the regular guys were recognisably different. Older, generally..but certainly harder and,despite acknowledging him, they rarely smiled. Not hard to understand that really.

He worked that day with two crews.he did one shift on the net that was closest to him as he walked down the beach. A small crew, a lot of grunting, but not much talking. He joshed with the older women who were coiling the rope as they pulled it in. sometimes he would wonder what they thought of this strange person, this topless yevu hauling on the rope...surely he didn't need to do this..he's a yevu, he's rich. Likely no-one could imagine that he did it for fun and to show support.

The other crew were in the final stages of bringing up the fish and that was always the best time..the most fun. He'd taken off his shoes and parked them up on the beach near a buoy ...he'd find them again, he always did, tho rarely where he expected. Pulling in the nets always moved them much farther and faster down the beach than he thought.

He liked splashing into the surf, grabbing and wrapping the net, pushing the young boys out of the way..let a man do this!

Despite the number of men on the net, sometimes he'd get knocked down by the drag of the net when a big wave came in, and they'd all be yelling and pulling and laughing.

He supposed that after 3 or 4 hours of hauling on the net, there was a giddy anticipation when the sac that was where the fish had been trapped became visible. There was for him, though he had no stake in it.

The end always came quite quickly as everyone ran and grabbed and pulled and lifted.

He could never tell initially whether the catch was good or not. The men, especially those who'd been out on the boat and those who'd been swimming with the nets as they brought them in, stood around the end of the net where the catch was trapped.

He didn't push in. He had no right. But they'd let him in to look.

He looked at the catch..silver, flapping, twitching mass. Then he looked at the faces. He supposed that they'd been doing this for so long that they'd hardly be surprised.

This day, however, he could read the disappointment in their faces. They didn't say anything. They just looked. Each in his private thoughts.

There was almost a resigned expression as if to say, who could expect anything different. He knew catches had been bad for a long time now but still to see the disappointment etched on their faces was sad. He didn't know where to look so he looked at the fish like everyone else.

She tugged at his elbow. 'Fish', she said. Though it sounded more like 'Feesh'.

'Peace', she'd said the last time he'd seen her. 'My name is Peace.'

He'd run into her on the streets a few times in their community. He assumed that she lived there also but she was mostly on her own, wasn't carrying anything on her head to sell and no infant on her back.

She was a little different. it seemed as if she would make fun of or with him. She didn't speak much English so he didn't really understand but she would grab his arm and look fierce and then laugh at him.

She always looked hungry. To see her made him sad. For a Ghanaian she was probably skinny and he had wondered if indeed that was hunger.

She reminded him of a street woman that he'd tried to help when he lived in Manhattan.

She whispered in his ear and tugged at his elbow again. She had her tin basin with her to get fish but she would be at the generous mercy of a crew who had brought in a poor catch.

'Feesh, you give me!'

Once before he had seen her at a catch and that time a good one and the fishermen had offered him a couple of fat fish for his help. He'd turned the offer down..their need being much greater than his and she'd been stunned and argued and pulled at him.

This time she was making sure that he knew what was expected of him and he said 'OK, OK...fish' but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He hadn't helped that much this time and the catch was not going to make the fishermen feel at all generous.

He hoped for her and so he helped her find some scraps and her bowl had some fish - small fish, tiny really, and small shrimps but he knew that it wasn't going to happen.

He moved around to the other side of the net...he felt bad for her as if he'd let her down.

He slowly turned away and started to look for his shoes. He turned and looked back and she was watching him with her arms folded. He shrugged and waved and she turned away with her sad, hungry eyes.

Peace.