metamorphosis

30 November 2004

Friends and Family:

First off, I just want to thank everyone who responded
to my last email. Your support was overwhelming and
very much needed as I headed through the last three
turbulent weeks of Peace corps boot camp. I missed y'all
very much on Thanksgiving and hope you had a wonderful
time stuffing yourself with turkey and whatnot. Ghanaians
don't celebrate it at all.

For anyone considering joining the peace corps, know that
the pre-service training is torturous. The time schedule is
very structured and rigid. Language training in the mornin.
Technical training all afternoon (eg. what is a borehole,
soakaway pit, how do I apply for funds from the District
Assembly and so on). Language & cultural training after that.
Then you walk home and the local Ghanaians shower you
with attention. Everyone wants to what you're doing and
where you're going. Wu ko hee? Wu ko hee? It can be
annoying after you've already answer'd it twenty times.

But I made it. I was sworn in as an official Peace Corps
Volunteer (PCV) last Friday, Nov. 27th in an elaborate
ceremony -- I apologize for not snapping any photos. I
gave my homestay brother, Charles, his camera back the
day before. But I will be sending some photos home to
Gilbert, AZ soon. (mom, a small digi cam would make a
great Xmas gift :) The swearing in ceremony was a
combination of feeling like high school graduation, all the
fun of african drumming and dancing (both by locals and
by us, volunteers), and the somber mood of a funeral.

The somber mood was due to the fact that we had to say
goodbye to our homestay families. Surprisingly, I grew
very attached to my homestay mother Akosua Amponsah
despite the fact that she spoke minimal English and I spoke
very little Twi. And despite the fact that I had only lived
with them for two months, saying goodbye was tough. She
cried, I cried. I will miss her care, her cooking, and her
thunderous laugh whenever I attempted to speak Twi.

She was very strict with my drinking. I was only allowed
to go out after sunset for *one* drink. One time she actually
walked to the drinking spot I was at and pulled me out in
front of ten of my peace corps friends becuz it was 8:30p a
nd I had said I'd be back by 8. She wasn't mad, just
concerned for my safety.

I sat with her and watched her cook many meals. Ghanaians
love to deep fry food so the food isn't bad. I watched her cook
fried plantains in a pool of palm nut oil (yum), egg omellettes
w/ onion, tomato, and cabbage (very yummy), fried yams,
groundnut stew, and my favorite: fufu. Fufu is a doughy, slimy
yellow ball comprised of cassava, plantain, and coco yam
pounded together in a bowl for about an hour. Fufu is the pizza
of Ghana. Its extremely popular despite the bland flavor (in my
opinion) and fact that you don't chew it. You grab a piece with
your fingers, dip it in a soup, and just swallow. I hated it at first
but I also hated beer at first. Over time, you learn to love it.

In response to many of your emails, I will briefly explain what it is
exactly that I am supposed to be doing over here. I am a PCV in the WatSan
sector (WatSan = water & sanitation). My focus will be on Guinea Worm
eradication in my community. What is Guinea Worm you ask? Well, let me tell
you. It is a long, string-like worm that emerges through a blister on the
body. It incubates in the body for a 8 - 12 months and can emerge from any
part of the body: hand, foot, legs, genitalia and so on. The emergence is a
slow, painful process since these worms are typically 3ft long and cannot be
pulled out. They must be allowed to emerge slowly or the worm will die and
the dead parasite's corps causes all kinds of problems for the body's immune
system.

So its not a life-threatening disease. But painful blisters produced by the
worm's emergence can lead to secondary infections. Secondary infections can
incapacitate victims for 2-4 weeks, meaning no work, no school for a month.
Entire communities can suffer from a lack of food for a year because GW
inhibits them from farming.

And remarkably, Ghana has 76% of the world's cases of GW. The nearest town
to my community, Nkwanta, reported 1200 cases in 2003. Fmr US president
Jimmy Carter visited Tamale in north Ghana last February to address the
issue and pledged a large sum of money to eradicate it. Go Democrats! The
saddest part is that it is so preventable. Just filter your drinking water
and you're cool. Drink borehole water and you're okay. But the water table
is very low in northern Ghana and borehole wells are rarely successful. So
people have to go and scoop water out of stagnant bodies of infected water.
If that water is infected with GW, then they get GW. And to my knowledge,
there is no cure for GW. Prevention is the key.

So offiicially, that's what I'm working on: guinea worm eradication. But as
I talk to more and more experienced PCVs in Ghana I've learned you can do as
much or as little as you want when you get to site. I have been told its the
only time in your life you won't have a boss, so enjoy it and make the most
of it. Some volunteers are super-volunteers with 10 secondary projects, like
income-generation bead makings workshops, composting workshops,
elementary/junior high school teaching, fish farming, planting trees, etc.
And other volunteers treat the peace corps like a 2 year vacation. They just
kick it, hang out with the locals, never put any effort into learning the
lang., and spend a lot of time visiting/partying with other American PCVs.
The peace corps experience is truly what you make of it. They give you
training, a living allowance, a livable house, and competent medical service.
The rest is up to you. I will find a happy medium somewhere in between
super volunteer and slacker.

I came here a slacker who read the minimal amount to do well on a paper. I
liked to sleep in and I sometimes enjoy'd the alcohol a bit too much :P But
being over here - a Heavily Indebted Poor Country HIPC - has taught me a few
things. I've changed small small. Being in a HIPC country is like living in the
Depression of the '30s.

You learn to be resourceful when you have very little. Peace corps gives us
$2/day to live on for training; then approx. $4/day after swearing in. One
example is I was throwing away these empty platic water satchets they sell
that look like silicon breast implants until one day my mom saw me doin it
and said 'debbi, debbi' [no, no]. Those can be used as packets to hold seeds
in. Friday night I stayed in a cheap hotel in Kumasi with some buddies. It
was $5/night for a double.. we split it among three guys. So we had a double
bed, a table and 2 chairs. Ryan slept on the floor using the chair cushions,
and I used the tablecloth as a blanket cuz there wasn't one and I can't
sleep without a blanket. I know I'm weak :P

I've also learned a lot about American culture over here. One of the most
important lessons I learned in training is to remember there are two
cultures here: Ghana & America. Its crucial to our sanity to remember our
own culture and not be overly sensitive to Ghanaian culture. For example,
its common to hit, kick, and generally mistreat cats and dogs over here.
They see them as rabid, flea infested vermin. I want to change that attitude
and I plan on having both cats and a dog at my site. Also, teachers here
commonly carry a stick and hit misbehaving students. That's not cool in
America and I'm not cool with that. I will approach the issue delicately
with my school headmaster and try to lead by example, rather than preaching
to a man twenty years my elder. Homosexuality is absolutely not tolerated
over here.. don't ask, don't tell is what PC tells LGBT volunteers at their
site. unfortunately, intolerance to a person's sexual orientation is
not much better in much of the US either.

I want to wrap up this email with some bad news. My neighbor and
good friend Scott recently decided to go home. He got malaria after site
visit (Nov. 8-10), then got hit with Hepatitis A after that. He was a strict
vegan and it was a constant struggle for him during training when other
people were always cooking for him. [sidenote: its hard to be vegetarian
over here, but not impossible. Bread, rice, beans, papaya, pineapple, yams,
and tomatos are plentiful. But when you tell people you don't eat meat, they
think you're crazy. a lot like most Americans actually.] He's okay now but
he decided to return to Rancho Mirage, CA and focus his energy elsewhere.

The people of Potripor will miss him. I am going to miss him. I am now
probably the most remote volunteer in terms of PCV proximity. No one is
nearby. I've had some counseling and I'm totally ok. I fully support Scott
and his decision to return. Living in the developing world ain't for
everybody.

I am in Accra now getting my phone repaired (that's a long, bitter story
that I'll save for another day). I leave for Agou fie tomorrow and I really
can't wait to see the faces of those villagers. The Ghanaian election is
Dec. 7 so we will be on standfast from 12/5 to 12/12. Standfast is like a
yellowish- orange security level meaning watch for danger and I cannot leave
my community. I am not concerned. The incumbent John Kufour is expected to
win in a landslide. And fortunately, Ghanaians are very friendly, peaceful
people.. unlike our neighbors to the west in Cote d'Ivoire and nearby Nigeria.

Please keep in touch. Tell me about your lives. Write letters, send
newspaper clippings from US. I will do all I can to stay in touch when I get
to site but I don't have cell service anywhere nearby, nor are internet
cafes nearby. I truly live in the bush. Write snail mail letters to:

Kris Huston
PO Box 68
Nkwanta, V/R
Ghana, West Africa

I promise I'll write back. until then, take care and happy holidays.

peace. love. happiness.
-Kristopher Kwabena Amponsah


...........................................................
"True friendship glitters when polished by hardship."
--Nigerian proverb

great white hope

10 Nov. 2004

Friends and Family:

Hello. I recently acquired a mobile phone (011.233.24.328.4116 from the US) but overseas calls are very expensive. I will try to call but I've had the most success with text messages. So with the brief time I have here, I will do my best to give y'all a glimpse into my life and what it is like over here.

I just got back from my site where I be living for the next two years. It is called Agou fie [Ah GO fee ay] and it is nestled in between the mountain border of Togo and the mighty Lake Volta. If you're looking at a map it lies between the towns Kpassa and Nkwanta in the eastern most region of Ghana. It is marked 'Bush Area' on our big Peace Corps map and I am the first volunteer to be placed there. Scott is another volunteer in our training group who will be living nearby (~5 mi away). Scott is an adventurous surfer from Torrence, CA and we are stoked to be pioneers for this new area.

To give you an idea of what it looks like, think of the mountaneous tropical regions of Colombia. The last movie I watched in the states was 'Maria full of Grace' and the scenes of her community in Colombia are fairly similar. Except there are no sweat shop factories.. no factories at all. Just a loose collection of mud brick houses with straw roofs.

I am fortunate enough to be livin in a tin roof, concrete brick house. It was built by a cattle rancher and former Attorney General of Ghana, Obet Simwa. There are two rooms, each 12' by 12' and a covered front porch. I have my own Mozambique ventilated lined latrine to crap in ... basically, an outhouse with a 2 ft deep hole in the ground. Sadly, it is more than most large families have. There is a rain gutter connected to a large concrete tank that stores my drinking water. An ingenious design for an area that gets pounded almost daily with rain in the wet season (May - Oct) and not so much in the dry season (Nov. - March).

It's a wonderful home, but unfortunately its home to many small creatures as well. So far, I've seen beetles, black wasps, spiders... a lot of big ass spiders, fireflies, and lizards in my room. I've heard mice and what I believe are bats above my room, in the space between the ceiling and the roof. There's a thumping on the ceiling that wakes me up in the morning. my neighbor Jacob said its most likely bats returning from their nights feast.

Then, there's the mosquitos. After two days at my site I looked like I had chickenpox. I was covered. To top it off, my neighbor Jacob -- headmaster of the primary school -- had malaria. Remarkably, he still went to school and taught that day. Over here, getting malaria is like catching a flu. It slows you down but its not a big deal... that is, if you're African. I've yet to suffer anything beyond intestinal difficulties, fatigue, and mild diarhhea. knock on wood.

The chief of Agou fie, Nana Lucas Sachepou, welcomed with me with a traditional prayer to the ancestors. I could not understand it all since they speak Challa where I'm at. It can be a little disconcerting when you say 'Amen' to a prayer you have absolutely no idea the meaning of. But then they poured the libations, a green bottle of Schnapps... alcohol, now they were speaking my language. Interestingly, when you drink a shot of the liquor, you leave a little bit at the end to pour to the ground, in remembrance of their ancestors.

The drumming and dancing ensued. I watched as the Challa performed their dance, then the Konkomba, and finally the Bassary. There are three tribes that live in and around Agou-fie, comprising close to 800. They all speak different languages but somehow they live together harmoniously. Amazingly, half are under the age of 14. When I spoke with the chief and community elders about the most pressing problems facing their community, they all said children's education was numero uno. There is only *one* teacher, Jacob, for approx. 200 school age children. Primary school 4-6 (like grades 4 - 6) are taught in English so I pledged to assist him in teaching them.

They also lack electricity and sufficient clean water -- one of the village's two hand pump borehole wells is broken. But despite all these problems, the people of Agou-fie are happy people. They laugh all the time, even at funerals. It just goes to show that happiness is a state of mind that can be attained without great wealth.

One more thing I have to share is the rules the chief had for me upon my arrival:
1. don't have sex with women in the bush
2. don't steal our wives
3. don't beat anyone in the bush
The bush is the tall grass that surrounds the village. I have to say it was hard not to laugh when they were telling me this b/c they were deadly serious about this.

I laugh but my skin color and my gender has given me remarkable power and prestige here. I'm still not used to the kids that gawk and stare.. there was a bunch of six kids that sat outside my house just waiting for another glimpse of the white man. Its a little like being a celebrity. I have a new sympathy for the plight of the public figure and the perpetual plague of the paparrazi (as you can see i love alliteration :)

The gender privilege is very obvious here as well. Our peace corps medical nurse, Ivy, told a group of us males that when we stepped foot off the plane in Accra, our stock went up 300%. She said that if we came to Ghana a virgin, we will most likely not leave one! Its true, esp. in the smaller villages. gender roles are much more traditional. women wash, cook, clean and tend to household affairs. Men farm, govern, drive cars, and make the important decisions. I will have much more to say about gender inequality in Ghana, but for now lets just say I don't have a wife but I've been offered one several times.