Light Off

I was sitting outside last night journaling when suddenly -- light off, a power outage swept through Aflao.

In the blink of an eye, the world became dark and quiet.

After the initial (somewhat humorous) cry of dismay echoed throughout the entire city, everything fell eerily silent. I hadn't realized how loud the sound of a dozen different radios blaring gospel music was until it cut out. I hadn't realized how bright our house lights were until they were gone either.

It was the most breathtaking moment I have had in Africa so far.

The shock of the sudden light off jerked me out of my self-absorption. I was totally engrossed in my journal, concentrating on writing down everything so I wouldn't miss a single detail- but that moment forced my chin up and said,

"Look at what you're missing now."

There was a split second I was tempted to grab my flashlight and keep writing,  but I realized that would've been sacriligious somehow.

Instead I gave in and let myself be in the moment.

For a long time I laid back on the benches in front of our house and just soaked it all in- the dancing black silhouettes of the coconut trees, lightning flickering in the distance. As the darkness saturated the night, I watched the stars appear one by one.

My host father returned from some errand and we talked for a long time. Some of my best moments in Ghana have been simply sitting with Worfa in front of our house. There is no doubt that the relationships I have made have defined my experience here. He taught me a song in Ewe and told some old Ghanaian stories that were neither history nor legend, but something in between. My host mother Victoria returned from market and some of our neighbor women came over. We sat eating Triscuits and laughing uproariously at nothing.

After they left, my host parents and I spread our mats in the sand and laid down to marvel at the night in comfortable silence. Several airplanes flew overhead and I wondered what Aflao looked like from the air. Was it even visible without the glow of electric lights?

It was a moment of exquisite freedom.

No Nollywood movies spouting their drama on the television.

No emails to answer.

No texts buzzing in my pocket.

No Holy FM blasting hiplife on the radio.

No light to tempt me to lose myself in a book or a crossword puzzle.

Light off.

Flower Mode

After our rough week, Julia and I decided we needed some serious R&R. We headed off to Mountain Paradise, a lodge near the Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary that touted beautiful mountain views and organic coffee.


The tro-tro dropped us in the little town of Fume at the base of the mountain. A sign at the junction informed us that Mountain Paradise was "4 km -- uphill." We briefly considered walking, then came to our senses and asked some locals to call us a couple of motorbikes. While we waited, a nice pick-up drove by. I happened to notice a hand emerge from the window and, with a subtle upward flick of the wrist, make the Ghanaian gesture for "where are you going?" I pointed up the mountain. The truck stopped and we got in.

Our good luck had begun!

The hand belonged to John, a high-ranking government official from Accra who had come for a friend's mother's funeral and was on his way to spend the night in his hometown. He was with Patrick, another government official, who I came to think of simply as John's sidekick.

The road up the mountain was steep, in bad condition and full of sharp curves; I can't imagine having ridden it on a motorbike...yikes.

I. LOVE. GHANAIAN. HOSPITALITY!

We spent the evening with John and Patrick. We stopped to see the tail end of the Rice Festival going on in Biakpa, one of the lower mountain villages where Mountain Paradise is. Then we stopped to check out the lodge itself. Julia said it wasn't so bad, but I was deeply disappointed with our anticipated...well, paradise. It was small, dark and only about halfway up the mountain. John must've seen my expression, and kept insisting we needed to see his cousin's hotel further up the mountain. We proceeded to John's hometown, the village of Vane. He took us to meet a bunch of relatives and friends, who fed us dinner. Then we went to the summit, where, perched on the edge of the cliff, sat the Abraerica Hotel.

If you are ever in Ghana, GO THERE.

The view is astounding, the rooms are comfortably modern, and the food is delicious. And because John's cousin owned it, he arranged for us to get free breakfast the next day and a room for ridiculously cheap. Then, without further ado, he and Patrick left.

Julia and I dropped our bags in our rooms, looked at each other and did a happy dance.

It's common to meet Ghanaians who will do nice things for you - hospitality is very highly valued here. However it is less common to meet Ghanaians (men) who will do those nice things without any romantic overtures or expectations.

Julia and I luxuriously laid in bed and watched CNN for a while (TV that isn't in French! Woohoo!) before forcing ourselves to go back to the terrace and enjoy our surroundings. It was too dark to see much, but we happened to meet two Americans. They were NYU students doing a semester abroad in Accra and invited us to see the waterfall with them the next morning.

That night I took an actual shower and had access to the third functional flush toilet I've had in two months. We watched more CNN- which incidentally ran a feature about one of the Detroit Lions. Now the Lions are nothing to get excited about...unless you're in a hotel on some remote mountain in Africa and Detroit happens to be your 'hood :) - and had the best sleep! Cool mountain air made a fan unnecssary and it was SO QUIET! Aflao wakes up before 5 am, but there- no roosters, no gospel music, no screaming children, no Keta whining for breakfast. I slept straight through to 6:45...which is impressive. I haven't slept that long without waking up since August 30.

The next morning we met up with the Americans for breakfast and went to the Amedzofe Waterfall. The hike to this waterfall is significantly shorter than that to Wli, but in its own way much more treacherous if you can believe. It's lined with ropes that you have to use to lower yourself down or pull yourself up the trail because it's so steep and slippery. I'm pretty sure I almost died at least seven times, which makes it that much more impressive that Julia made the climb in flip-flops. Thatta girl, way to be Ghanaian. The watefall was worth the near-death experiences. (Everything in Ghana so far has been worth the near-death experiences......not that there have been a lot of those, Mom...)

We waded around in the water and climbed over the slippery rocks to stand directly under the spray. The thrill of it made us all euphoric. We were just laughing and prancing around like little kids.

Thoroughly soaked, we hauled ourselves back up the ropes. At the top we split off from our new friends and Julia and I hiked to signature cross at the top of Mt. Gemi. It was an easy 20-30 minutes hike from Vane, and well worth it!

We stood at the top in awe for a long time.

It seemed like the entirety of Ghana was spread out below us. Lake Volta sparkled in the distance. Vane could've passed for a painting if it weren't for the sound of drum music floating up to us from the church. Biakpa sat nestled in a valley lower down. Beyond the lush foothills clustered below us, rust-colored dirt roads threaded through a gorgeous patchwork of farmland and scrubby African bush.

My only regret is that there aren't adequate words to convey the beauty of Ghana.

Hunger finally drove us back to the hotel. I HAD FRENCH FRIES! Legitimate french fries, salted and everything. With ketchup no less! Talk about not having adequate words, heehee. I love, love, love Ghanaian food (too much), but I enjoy the chance to eat some American food occasionally.

Almost as soon as we were done eating, a man said he would take us to Ho in his private car because he was going to pick up his sisters and didn't feel like driving alone. So for the second time in one weekend, a man did something nice for us without expecting anything in return. Forget good luck - that is nothing short of miraculous.

I wore a seatbelt for the first time since I've got here. Blech. A road accident truly is the most likely way I will get injured or killed in Ghana, but I have to admit I hate how restrictive a seatbelt is. Then again I'm also very used to riding motorbikes without a helmet now too. (Pfft, they can't be more than 250 cc anyway...)

I get endless grief over the fact that my "pouffie" camera has a setting just for taking pictures of flowers. Which is admittedly a little stupid...then again I have some glorious photos. As Julia and I sat in the tro-tro on the way home, eating genuine chocolate chip cookies that we had found for unusually cheap, we agreed that if life has a flower mode- this was it.

Nyamekye

November 3, 2010


One of my students died suddenly yesterday morning, from sickle cell anemia complications.

I don't know how to describe death.
I don't have the right words to tell you how the grief has affected all of us.

We hear so much about orphans dying in Africa from AIDS, genocide, human trafficking - catastrophes that play on the world stage and kill by the thousands. We do what we can, but such problems are so far beyond our personal capabilities to fix that our pity remains abstract. More so than the victims, we can only grieve the concept.

But this isn't some fundraiser to support Darfur.

This isn't a campaign to stop AIDS.

This is a real little girl whose head I stroked and told to feel better soon just two days ago.

Her name was Nyamekye Hanna. It means "God's Gift."

She was nine years old. She couldn't have even been four feet tall. She struggled in school. She had adorable chubby cheeks. She wanted to be a police officer when she grew up. And she had a family waiting for her in America.

As I sat with Esther through that terrible first night, she looked at me and said everything that was on my heart in one simple sentence: "It is beyond my understanding."

19,000 Words

Ketastrophe

Africa has already forced me to grow up. I simply have no choice but to be self-reliant, because if I don't take care of myself, nobody will do it for me (except Julia sometimes). So I spent six weeks being very responsible and adjusting to my new position as an independent adult.


Then the real Katherine, the one who is a highly impulsive, typical eighteen-year-old, broke free.

In other words, I bought a puppy. With about the same amount of forethought I take to decide which color to paint my nails. And I'm down to one bottle of nail polish, sooo....

I talked about our trip to Keta. What I didn't mention was that when we were sitting outside Tony Blair's house after visiting Deborah's island, I saw some half-grown puppies chasing their mother in the distance. Being the animal lover I am, and missing my chihuahua at home, I said, "Awww, I want a puppy!"

Tony Blair disappears into the house for a moment and drops a little bundle of fur into my arms.

That was it. I was done for. Katherine on toast.

"Nene?" How much?

"Seven Gha'a"

"Done."

In retrospect, I should've bargained- and they undoubtedly expected me to because I found out later that a dog here is 3 or 4 cedis, 5 at most. However, I didn't know that at the time and I would've paid much, much more. Roughly $5 for a puppy is nothing!

As far as I can tell, she is about 8 weeks old now.

In the week and a half that I've had Keta (named after the town where I bought her), I'm already amazed by how much she's grown! I swear she's gained almost a pound already.

At first she could only crawl a few feet awkwardly. After a few days she could walk with the clumsy, drunken swagger of someone who still hasn't gotten their sealegs. This morning I had to hurry after her as she took off across the courtyard with her humorous, bouncing run.

Her teeth were just barely poking through and she wasn't even fully weaned when I got her. I fed her powdered milk with a spoon and worried obsessively that she wasn't eating enough. But now she has almost a full mouth of teeth and it actually hurts when she tries to use my ankle as a chewtoy. She attacks her bowl of bread and milk, comically bracing herself with her front legs while she devours the whole thing. So now I'm worried that she's getting fat...

Now I have a confession:

Buying a puppy with about 3.6 seconds of consideration was probably bad enough. But don't worry, it gets worse.

I didn't exactly...precisely...ask my host family.

In my own defense, I TRIED - twice even - but Worfa and Victoria were in Accra and didn't pick up the phone.

So I was counting on two things: Ghanaian culture and Worfa's personality.

In Ghana, animals aren't viewed the same way as they are in the western world. Animals here serve a purpose - food, protection, etc. A "pet" in the same sense we would use that word is very rare here. So my guess was that bringing home a puppy unannounced would not be the huge deal it would be back home.

And Worfa is an extremely easy-going man. I didn't think he'd mind.

I spent an hour sitting outside our house with Keta in my lap, waiting for them to get home and reassuring myself that I wasn't insane and they weren't going to freak out and really, it was all just fine. And for 30 seconds I'd believe myself and then I'd start thinking about what would happen if I brought a puppy to my parent's house without asking and I'd have to start my pep talk all over again.

Worfa and Victoria come home. Worfa looks at Keta. "What is this? A puppy! Oh, you like it? Very fine!" and continues walking inside to change his clothes.

MWAHAHAHA. It really was that easy...at first.

You see, the problem with my stupid decisions is that they always seem to work out ok. (One day I'm going to wake up with a tattoo of Brad Pitt on my forehead and realize this isn't always the case.)

Worfa loves her. He didn't hesitate for a second in letting me keep her. He's already blocked off a corner of our courtyard to use as a pen and helps take care of her. There's something very endearing about watching him sit on the ground and play with her, or just laugh tolerantly when she starts gnawing on his ankles.

In contrast, Victoria hates her. She is completely convinced that Keta is going to make her sick. I actually got scolded because I poured some porridge out of a plastic bag into Keta's bowl, and then stuck the bag in a mug so it wouldn't tip over and spill the leftover porridge. Now Victoria says she can never use that mug again. She keeps walking around the house muttering, "The sickness, the sickness" in her humorous if not somewhat frustrating Victoria way.

Ironically, I did get sick for the first time the Monday after I brought Keta home, which unfortunately has only confirmed Victoria's suspicions that we are all going to die of the dog plague. It was very mild- I ate something that didn't agree with me, threw up twice and felt fine. But, predictably, when I came home and said I didn't want dinner and was just going to bed because I didn't feel good, Victoria shot Keta a death-glare and muttered, "It's 'cause you touch dem thing." I swear Victoria mutters everything.

Things came to a head last Friday, when I'd had Keta for almost a week. Victoria approached me when it was just the two of us at home and spoke to me at length, telling me how she loved me like a sister and didn't think of me as someone who was simply living at her house. But she hated the dog, didn't want the dog, if she'd wanted a dog she would've bought one, etc etc. And she asked me to get rid of her.

What else could I do?

This is her house and even though the way she'd handled the situation really frustrated me, I value my relationship with Victoria more than Keta.

So I spoke to a couple friends and found a guy across the street who agreed to take her.

That same afternoon, Keta left for her new home.

I tried not to be angry with Victoria. I can actually understand why she doesn't like dogs and I respect her opinion. I tried to focus on how well Victoria takes care of me every day, and all the sacrifices she has made for me. But I was just so frustrated! You could say I got what I deserved because I brought a puppy into the house without asking. The problem is, even if I'd asked ahead of time, the same thing still would've happened: Worfa still would've said yes, I would've brought Keta home and Victoria still would've been unhappy with the situation.

Then Worfa came home and found out what had happened. In the deliberate, thoughtful way that is so characteristic of Worfa, he waited until I had eaten and was sitting at the table reading until he approached me. We ended up talking for about 45 minutes. I've never been so nervous at the beginning of a conversation, but by the end of it I respected Worfa even more than I did before- who knew that was possible.

He said we all need to be upfront with each other. He said he knows I have parents back home, but he still tries to be a good father to me in Ghana and sees me as his daughter. However that does not mean I am not obligated to do what they say if I disagree with something. He told me I have equal rights in this household, so If I'm unhappy about something they want me to do, I can just say so. He said that if I want a dog, I can have a dog. He didn't like that this had all happened without his knowledge. I told him I was worried about straining my relationship with Victoria or making her unhappy, but he assured me that she would get used to Keta and that once she was grown, it wouldn't be as much of an issue anyway.

So almost as quickly as she had left, Keta came back home.

And thankfully, everything seems to be alright with Victoria. She still shakes her head disbelievingly when she sees how much fun I have playing with Keta or how gently I carry her around. And sometimes she still mutters. But she doesn't seem to be mad.

For the first week I was able to take her to school with me. My students loved her and I was able to take care of her without neglecting my teaching. She's a little too active now though! She isn't content to stay in her basket anymore! I asked Worfa to get me a leash so I can start taking her everywhere with me again, because I feel bad leaving her in her pen for 10 or so hours everyday.

Plus, taking Keta around Aflao with me is good protection!

Instead of men asking me "White lady, what's your name? Will you marry me?" now they ask me, "Yevu, what's your puppy's name? Can I have it?"

She doesn't even have all her teeth and she's already a good guard dog!
 

Piece of Cake

Sunday, October 24

When I was 15, I went on a hiking trip with my Dad in the mountains in New Mexico, at a place called Philmont. About halfway through our two-week trip, as we ascended to the highest point of our trek, debilitating blisters forced me to seriously consider returning to base camp.

Now it's an unfortunate truth that I have no discipline when it comes to putting myself through physical discomfort. Like working out? Forget it. I will not run for more than 6 minutes at a time unless an angry rhinoceros or a yetti is chasing me.

Luckily, somewhere between sniffling in self-pity and blaming the world for my dilemma, I realized how much I would regret quitting. I started pounding the offending hiking boot on the ground and bellowing,
"You're not taking me off this mountain!"

This has become a legendary moment between my Dad and I, a sort of tangible proof that little by little I'm learning to stand on my own in the world.

Well anyway, the point is that I climbed a very difficult mountain today and couldn't stop thinking about that moment - though thankfully there were no blisters involved in this hike. My Keen sandals are by far the most valuable thing I brought to Ghana. Seriously, I do everything in them: run, climb, swim, think, eat, sleep.

Saturday morning, per usual, found me off on another adventure. Julia, Laura, Lula, Karina and I travelled from Aflao to Ho to Hohoe to Wli (Vlee) in order to visit the Wli Waterfalls.
We got the Waterfall Lodge where we were staying and went that same afternoon to see the lower fall, which is an easy 30 - 40 minute hike on a basically flat trail through the rainforest. Butterflies swirl in clouds around you. The air is filled with the sounds of birdcalls, trilling frogs and trickling water. The forest smells pleasantly of damp earth. And just as you reach the point where you can hear the awe-inspiring roar of the waterfall, you see...that the entire place is crawling with university students on a field trip from Accra, who have even brought an enormous sound system and are blaring hiplife music in the middle of our nature paradise...

Laura turns to me and goes, "Look, we get a nightclub and a waterfall all in one."

Goody.

After about 20 minutes of trying to ignore the rowdy teenagers, we finally decided to go swimming like we'd originally planned. So Lula, Julia and I waded into the chilly water, while Laura and Karina agreed to wait for second shift so they could guard the bags. We were happily shivering about 50 feet away from the waterfall when some random boy comes up, wraps his arm around my waist and goes, "Let's go." ...Uh, sure. So we actually went under the waterfall.

The lower Wli fall has got to be nearly 100 stories tall, and I'm truly awful at estimating so don't put too much faith in that, but the point is it's nothing to be trifled with. As we got closer, the spray hit my skin so hard it hurt. By the time we were directly under the falling water, I was getting pummelled so hard I went numb. Karina, who was waiting on the bank with Laura, said she could hear me screeching madly. I don't think I was making quite as much noise as she said- although I know I was making some- but I couldn't actually hear myself. I couldn't open my eyes either. Every single sense was deadened.

For a few minutes, the entire world was the roaring white water crashing on top of us.

Emerging from the Waterfall

It was exhilirating.
And a little terrifying.
The water under the fall is not even knee deep (and, irritatingly, I still had rando holding onto me), so I wasn't overly worried about drowning, but the sheer power of the waterfall inspires a healthy amount of respect.

A huge colony of fruit bats lives on the cliff face next to the fall, and one of the first things I saw when I shook the water out of my eyes was that an enormous cloud of them had taken off and was circling over the clearing, probably disturbed by the music. Pretty cool looking.

That night I had the rare opportunity to sit and hang out with my friends. We rarely stay out past 7 in Aflao, so it was nice to be able to sit outside at the Lodge and visit without any time restrictions.
I love this group of girls. Between the 5 of us we represent 4 different countries, and only 2 of us speak English as our first language, so conversation is always interesting!
This trip in particular, we kept mishearing each other all over the place.

"I need the banana money."
"Banana monkey?"

"Where's the bug spray?"
"What butter spray?"

"My mom sent me chocolate milk in my package!"
"What?....Fried...?"
"What??"

My favorite was Laura though, who kept inexplicably saying "Cake" in places where it not only made no sense, but there wasn't any word that even sounded remotely like cake.
Like, "We climbed the cake" instead of mountain.
So now whenever one of us mispeaks or can't remember a word, the others helpfully supply, "CAKE!"

We also have the best system of loaning money. People always make us pay as a group, and you can rarely get more than 5 cedis in change, so we have to get pretty creative.
Julia owes Laura 5 from the tro-tro, but Laura owes Lula 3 from dinner, so in the end Julia owes Lula 3, but they all owe me 6 from the waterfall tickets, except I owe Karina 12 for the hotel room, so they have to partially pay her instead...
It gets pretty hilariously confusing, but we haven't made a mistake yet!

We went to the upper fall the next day, which was the hike I was referring to.
Two hours of literally crawling up the mountain. The trail was so steep I had to pull myself up using roots and tree trunks and rocks. Every 100 yards or so my muscles would start shaking so bad I had to sit down. I was also sweating so much I began to wonder where my beer gut and 3 day stubble was...The air is so humid none of it evaporates, so everyone was just dripping.
After that we had a 30 minute descent to the base of the fall, which was less physically strenuous but equally challenging in it's own way becuase you had to watch every single step. I placed each foot very deliberately to avoid tumbling head-over-heels down the same kind of treacherously steep path I'd just so painstakingly dragged myself up.
You might not believe this, but it was actually incredibly fun.
You're swaying where you stand and trying to look at the view through the black spots in your vision and every possible pore in your body is sweating and you're still having a blast.

And the waterfall was worth it.

It falls into a sort of natural basin formed by the sheer cliffs that surround it. The force of the water crashing down creates a wind that fills the basin, whipping back our soaked hair and forcing the plants into a perpetual bow.

 

The way back down was obviously the opposite from before- a 40 minute climb and a 90 minute descent.
We were as proud as Everest climbers when we finally reached the bottom.

I'd do it again any day!
Piece of...what's the word again? Oh yeah-

CAKE!

Oreo Overdose

I got THREE packages from home last week!

My mom and I had given them up for dead, but then all three arrived super late and inexplicably all at the same time.

Julia and I went Wednesday (Oct 20) to pick them up. That ended up being pretty nerve-wracking because we couldn't find a tro-tro to Ho until 2:30, which means we got to the post office with only about 10 minutes to spare before closing. The parcel guy remembered me- fondly, judging by his expression- from my first trip when I went to pick up Ryan's package a couple weeks ago. I guess most of his customers don't sing and dance while they're filling out the handling forms...Hmm. The customs guy, on the other hand, did not know what to make of me. We had to open all the packages for his inspection and he was shocked by the amount of sweets jammed into those three boxes. I grinned at him, "Don't worry, I'll have eaten all of it in two days." His eyes got huge. I laughed, "I'm just kidding!" He looks relieved. "...Five days."

MY MOMMY LOVES ME.
If there was ever any doubt of that, there isn't now.

She sent me a Halloween box with orange Oreos, tictacs, and Snoballs (my favorite!), themed napkins and stickers, and my weight in Halloween candy. The other boxes were stuffed with Nutella (!!!!!!), more Oreos, chocolate chip cookies bites, Propel drink mix packets, Nutrigrain and Nature Valley granola bars, graham crackers, cracked pepper and olive oil triscuits, gum, mints and other small usefull things like Ziploc bags and travel-size bottles of lotion.
I was like a pirate sorting his booty!
My entire bedroom floor was covered with piles of treats, dividing them up between what I want to share with my family/neighbors, what I'm giving to my students, and what I'm squirreling away for myself.
My host mom caught sight of it and her jaw dropped (as she snitched several rolls of Smarties from my student pile, tsk tsk).

It was like Christmas, my birthday, Easter, Halloween, MLK Day and 4th of July all squashed together. I was walking on air- and Oreo packages if I didn't watch where I stepped.

Her packages are even more useful than she probably expected. Like I'm using the empty Ritz Bitz crackers container as a pencil holder. And I stacked two of the boxes (the ones now containing my neighbor and my student piles) next to my bed to use as a bedside table. Haha, I'm getting very creative the longer I stay in Ghana. I'm probably going to go home and be one of those crazy people who saves every single paperclip and used staple because "It could be useful somehow!!!"

Thursday afternoon I brought some of the chocolate chip cookie bites to school. I explained that they were from my mother in America who sent them just for them. I gave out most of the package, but then- like a true teacher- I made them answer questions to earn the rest.
So now my kids absolutely love my mom and keep asking me if she can come to Ghana. I had them draw some pictures on the board for her.




Portrait of my Mom by Grace



So Mom, these are your thank-you's from my babies in Ghana! You have no idea how many smiles your very thoughtful packages have caused. : )