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