beating the gongong

28 February 2005

Friends and family:

I hope this message finds all of you in good
health and high spirits. I'm in Tamale for a
Gunea worm meeting so I have a brief opportunity
to reconnect with the outside world. I just
found out "Million Dollar Baby" swept the
Oscars and Morgan Freeman won for best
supporting actor. Its about time that
guy gets some long overdue recognition for his
acting. But c'mon, "Napolean
Dynamite" didn't win anything. I swear justice
on earth exists only in name.

As I reflect upon another month living in west
Africa, I'm finding that this
place feels less and less exotic and more and
more like home. The confusion
and novelty of the transition is wearing off
and the stress of being a
stranger is subsiding. Community integration is
coming along steadily as I
find my place in scheme of things. For the most
part, the locals are
realizing I'm not an outsider with a lot of
cash to solve their problems
like most foreign aid workers that visit. I'm
just a poor dude like them
with an interest in their culture and some
ideas on how to improve their
quality of life.

Lately, I've been focusing my energy mostly on
improving the education
system of Agou. But to say  "education system"
is a bit deceiving as it
would imply something like that exists in the
community. Well, technically
there is a 3 classroom school building funded
by World Vision. There's a
beautiful new 8 seater latrine just finished
for the school (funded mostly
by the Danish gov't). There's even a full time
teacher paid a decent salary
by the district Ministry of Education. And yet,
every weekday I would pass a
completely empty school. It was mind boggling.
I could not understand why.

The chief, Nana Lucas, blames the teacher. He
claims Jacob is "a wicked man"
who either refuses or is too lazy to do the job
he's being paid to do. Jacob
claims the parents are to blame because they
send the children off to farm
rather than to school. According to him, the
misguided parents prefer the
short term benefit of farm labor (ie food) over
the long term benefit of
education. Its sad but true that children here
do a lot of work to help
their parents get by (both household and field
work) but the longer I lived
in Agou, the more I agreed with the chief.
Jacob, I think, is weasling his
way out of work by blaming the parents and the
district for not providing
enough teachers.

Its true that one person cannot be expected to
educate 100-150 primary
school children. But what about two or three
dedicated individuals? That's
the question I sought to answer last week when
I said I'm entering the
classroom. It was this question and a few
incidents that lead me to want to
teach. Two weeks ago there was a 3-day funeral
ceremony for this 30 yr old
man that died suddenly from an unknown cause.
Then just last tuesday, an 18
month old girl died after showing severe
flu-like symptoms. Tests are being
conducted to determine the cause of her death,
but the mother already thinks
she knows. She claims a "juju man" stole the
cloth her child was wearing at
the funeral and performed "juju"  (black magic)
on it. The girl was healthy
before the funeral, lost the cloth, then fell
ill shortly after Yaw
Okumasi's funeral.

This kind of ignorance is rampant in my
community. I have the chief's son
telling me if I eat too much cassava I'll go
blind. Now I always check the
change I'm given by market vendors because
often its incorrect. And they
told me not to worry when a fat 2ft ft snake
entered the roof of my house
because "green snakes are harmless; only worry
about the brown and black
ones." I read some snake literature and found
out, no, it very well could've
been a green mamba or a green bush viper, both
poisonous and prevalent in
Ghana. (btw- mom, there aren't any black mambas
in Ghana. they are only
found in southern & central africa) I didn't
get bit or anything but I did
get fed up with the lack of education in my
community.

So last Sunday, I told Nana Lucas to bang the
gongong drum and tell everyone
school is starting Monday, feb. 21. I didn't
see or hear the gongong drum
banging but I did see throngs of students show
up monday morning. The
message reached them somehow. I've never seen
Jacob so stressed out.
Suddenly, attendance mushrooms from eight to
eighty students at his school.
I had been talking to Jacob for a while about
my decision to teach primary
school so it wasn't a complete surprise. We
agreed that I would have to
teach upper primary (grades 4-6) because the
younger grades would understand
very little of my English. In theory, English
is the official language here
and thus is supposed to be the only language
spoken in class. In practice,
however, and esp. in remote rural villages,
english is rarely spoken in the
classroom.

I carried a stick to class the first day but I
did not intend on using it in
the way Jacob does. I use it as a pointer. He
uses it to smack disobedient
kids on the head. I cannot bring myself to hit
this cute little guys. I love
seeing them line up in the morning and sing
songs like "the devil is a liar"
in unison. They sing the national anthem and
say the Lord's prayer everyday
before class begins. Then they do this marching
song and march into the
classroom, swinging their arms in single file
lines. They keep asking me to
teach them songs, but I really don't know many
folksy tunes for them. All I
could think of was "America, the Beautiful"
which they liked a lot. I just
looked up the lyrics to "La cucaracha" and
can't wait to teach them that lil
jewel. If any of you have any suggestions,
please send them my way.

So I prepare a simple Math, English, and
Science lesson for 15-20 students
each day. There's 40 total in grades 4-6 and
every day attendence improves.
We're learning multiplication tables, parts of
a sentence, and nutrition
when I return. I also spend an hour or so just
reading lil books like
"Chichi and the Termites" or "Mustafa's
beautiful daughters." Discipline is
a challenge because I'm not a very
authoritative person and keeping their
interest is hard cuz they understand very
little of what I say (imagine
taking a physics class in Mexico, that's what
it seems like sometimes). Its
challenging but its I enjoy it. As long as G.
worm is not much of a problem
and my role as assembly member is on hiatus
(there's only 4 district
meetings a year), I will continue to teach, and
more importantly, recruit
more teachers.

As promised though, here's another Top 10 list.
Last time I listed 10 things
I miss most about America. Well now here's 10
things I love about Ghana.

10. ubiquitous breastfeeding women. Not that I
love seeing bare breasts --
which I do -- but I really like to see this
healthy behavior is practiced so
much and so frequently without any shame or
embarassment. There's nothing
more nutritious for an infant and yet so many
mothers in the US opt for baby
formula. Also, the mothers here carry babies on
their back using a cloth
wrap wherever they go -- cooking, sweeping,
fetching water, and so on. The
infant has a lot of intimate contact with the
mother, a very good thing I
vaguely remember from psych class.

9. Wood chewing sticks. For a long time I
wondered why the hell all these
people had wads of wood in their mouth in the
morning. it turns out the
sticks, made of some kind of soft wood and cut
into small rectangles, can be
chewed and then used as a toothbrush. I forget
to brush my teeth all too
often but now if I don't have time or forget, I
grab a wood stick from my
bag and chew it. hey, its better than nothing.

8. Communal care for one another. This is more
true in smaller rural
settings than the city (and probably similar in
the states) but in Agou, the
village is like one big family. When I hurt my
hand and wrapped it up,
everybody wanted to know what was wrong. It can
feel obsequious and annoying
to a Westerner like me at times, but when I
need something, like water or my
clothes washed, its not hard to find someone to
help.

7. Ghana time. No rush, no hurry. Everything
happens at a snail's pace over
here so you rarely have to hurry to get
somewhere or rush to finish
something. I am a slow person and I like this
pace of life very much. It can
be frustrating when setting up meetings though.

6. Castle Milk stout. you can't beat this cold,
rich, creamy beer. Its not
served cold in Agou cuz there's no electricity
but whenever I travel to
Nkwanta, you bet your balls I'm drinking a
castle.

5. Farm animals roam free. I eat meat here. I
don't have a problem with the
way they are treated   here before people eat
them because they are free to
go wherever they want. Cows do their cow thing.
A chicken can be a chicken.
The goats butt heads all morning and sheep cry
for their mother when they
get separated. They search for food during the
day and return to their
owners house at night. Then we kill and eat the
animals when we're hungry or
there's a special occasion. Its the circle of
life. hakuna matata

4. drumming and dancing. I'm not much of a
dancer but its hard not to dance
when everyone else is and there's a damn good
beat. At church, on holidays,
even funerals you find they bust out big drums
and dance the day away.
Learning to drum is one of my goals while I'm
here. I'm not too musically
inclined so we'll see how that goes.

3. The fruit. I've never tasted juicier, more
succulent pineapple, papaya,
and mangos than the ones over here. The oranges
have a lot of seeds and
bananas aren't that much better but the
pineapples alone justify the cost of
a trans-atlantic flight to this country.

2. People are very resourceful. You have to be
when you don't have much.
Coke bottles are not given to consumers. You
drink the liquid then return
the bottle to the seller. Old bikes tires are
cut up and used in innumerable
ways as elastic bands. Food containers are
constantly re-used, eg the jam
jar becomes the sugar storage jar after its
finished. My roommate Max would
be very impressed.

1. Respect for elders. It actually exists here
and it is a beautiful thing.


My internet time is almost up but before I go I
want to make sure y'all have
my new mailing address:

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

I visit Nkwanta weekly so I will be much
quicker in replying to your snail
mail now.

godspeed,
Kris

honorable Kofi daTeri

27 January 2005

Friends and Family:

I am now in Tamale in route back to my site, Agou fie.
I have one last chance to send out an email before I leave
civilization and return to the bush tomorrow morning.
I wrote a lengthy mass email in Accra last night only to
lose the entire thing due to a late night power outage.

It was entitled 'death and discombobulation' and it was about the
overwhelming exposure to death I've experienced lately -- mostly plant &
animal death, but plenty of human death as well. My heart goes out to the
family of Sarah McNeil, a close friend of my brother Ben and a genuine
sweetheart to everyone, who died last month in a car crash in northern
Arizona. I also expounded upon the existential crisis and confusion
resulting from such loss of life, but it was a somber and morose message and
perhaps someone upstairs didn't like the negative tone. Thus, I promise to
make this a happy one and focus on the good that's happening in my new life.

So I am feeling 100% better as I write this email. I had been in Accra for
several days at the request of our Peace Corps Medical Officer. Last week I
had a fever, sore throat, and acute pain when swallowing. All were symptoms
of a painful, pussy blister on the joint of my right thumb that had become
severely infected. The blister was initially a second degree burn I got from
a hot coal that landed on my hand as I fanned my coal pot -- its a little
square grill you fill with charcoal that I use to heat water and cook my
meals.

The burn was no big deal, but then I bought a big 20" machete (cutlass they
call it here) and decided on Xmas eve I needed a more direct route to my
source of water, a hand pump borehole well. So I set out to clear 300 ft of
2m tall grass. I was successful in killing the grass and clearing a path
Indiana Jones style, but I also managed to kill my hands. I was having so
much fun whacking the weeds I was completely oblivious to the blisters
forming on my fingers and the ruptured bloody blister from the burn. The
problem came when I tried keeping the thumb blister covered and clean. It
was in a bad spot and the region of Ghana I now inhabit is particularly
dusty and dirty this time of year. Long story short, antibiotics saved the
day and now I can return to my work in Agou.

What is my work? Well, everything but Guinea Worm eradication it turns out.
Guinea worm is the least of their problems in my community. It *was* a big
problem but an NGO called the Carter center has drilled several dozen
boreholes in the Nkwanta district and people are by and large using them.
Borehole water comes from groundwater below and is naturally filter'd by the
soil and sand, producing a remarkably clean drinking source. It is also
completely free of Guinea worm since there is no way infected people can
contaminate the water below ground.

Agou fie has two boreholes. They are both much more convenient than fetching
from the Bonakye river, ie potentially contaminated water. but one was not
working when I arrived. I met a borehole technician in the nearby town on
Nkwanta (pop. approx 20,000) the first week I arrived -- along with about
500 hundred other people... remembering names has been a constant challenge.
But my community could not afford the repair. Unfortunately, I found this
out after I had him come out and repair it. It was like $60 for parts,
labor, and transportation but 500,000 cedis is a lot to ask from poor ass
peasant farmers.

So my holiday season consisted of going door to door with the chief's son,
greeting the people of Agou fie, and then asking them to fork out 2,000
cedis. We were successful and even collected more than enough to start
saving for the next project -- a 10 seater public pit latrine. Right now I
watch in horror as people pretty much shit wherever they feel like it -- of
course, not too close to main paths or anyone's house but not always.

Moreover, they elected me to be the treasurer of their WatSan committee. The
beauty of moving to a new place is you can re-invent yourself. Back home, I
was horrible at managing money. I was constantly selling books/cds and
borrowing from friends to pay for groceries. But they don't know that and
now I'm actually much better at managing my finances. I have to be. I only
get $30/week to live on... which makes me obscenely wealthy compared to my
fellow villagers.

So good news: last year this time -- in dec of '03 and jan. of '04 -- there
were 120 documented cases of GW. This year we had one case in december and
none that I'm aware of yet this month. So I can focus on more pressing needs
like the primary school that one teacher for 200 students and the teacher is
in Cape Coast more than he's in Agou. A disease called Bilharzia is ravaging
the nearby river community of 2,000 named Kabiti. Bilharzia is a parasite
that causes painful urinations and even blood in the urine and sometimes
stools for 6-12 weeks. You get it by swimming or bathing in the water and
its spread by people urinating/defecating in the river. For this reason, the
PC tells volunteers we are not to swim in any of the fresh water bodies of
Ghana, which is might tempting during this hot, dry season with
temperatures of 80 to 95 degrees F everyday.

I was also able to branch out and visit ten communities surrounding Agou fie
to address their development needs. The opportunity came as I found out our
District Assembly member, Raphael Yahesu, is suing nine chiefs for a letter
they all signed expressing a Vote of No Confidence in the man. The lawsuit
claims defamation based on false allegations, but I happen to think he's
full of shit and a corrupt politician. Either these nine chiefs are
fabricating 11 allegations of corruption, ranging from stealing money from
school projects to selling land that did not belong to him to settling
police disputes without contacting authorities OR this one man of less than
forty is lying. The very fact that he has the money to hire a lawyer and sue
nine chiefs leads me to believe that at least some of the corruption
allegations are probably true.

Being an exotic American white man, I was invited to the end of the year
District Assembly by the paramount chief of Agou. The meeting is strictly
meant for elected officials but surprise, surprise our man is no where to be
seen. So I'm filling in for him. The assembly members are called 'honorable'
and my new Ghana name is Kofi da Teri because I arrived on Friday (Kofi is
the male Twi word for Friday as you recall) and "da Teri" is Challa and
means "for everybody." Hence, a running joke in Agou that I am the new
assembly member. Don't worry, mom and dad, there's no party affiliations --
its akin to a local city councilmember.

So I've being doing what Raphael should have been doing. I just finished a
10 page development project proposal for the Agou / Kabiti area (pop.
approx. 6000) based on my discussions with the chief, elders, and community
leaders of nine communities. I have a rad translator named David Bakapo that
fluently speaks eight languages and understands 15. He's 42 and has two
wives and three children. His English is excellent as he was raised by
Catholic missionaries from America in the northern region of Ghana. He also
like hard alcohol a lot. He likes to start the morning with a shot of
ampeteshie - an 80+ proof alcoholic drink made from distilled palm wine
which comes from palm trees. Needless to say, we bonded immediately.

All is well in Agou. I can't wait to get back but I want to apologize for
not communicating sooner. Its very hard to find internet anywhere nearby. No
mobile phone service for any time soon. and the roads are horrific. But
keeping writing letters. I received many encouraging letters when I visited
the Accra office and soon I'll have a PO Box in Nkwanta I can check weekly.

As promised, I want this email to be fun and happy so in honor of my fav.
late night comedian, Letterman, here is a top 10 list.

Top 10 things I miss most in America
10. my Ipod (music soothes the soul. luckily my mom sent a package full of
cds and I just bought a cd player so I can remain sane)
9. Movie theaters (I found movie rentals and vcrs/tv but no surround sound
auditoriums)
8. cheese. Real cheese, not the crap they sell in the local market called
'Laughing Cow'
7. Anonymity. Here I am a public figure. I get noticed and watched
everywhere I go simply because I am a novelty. In at least fifteen years,
there has not been one PC volunteer to live in this godforsaken district.
6. Jack in the Box. La Burrita in Berkeley is a close second. I've yet to
find any Mexican food restaurants in this country.
5. flush toilets and sinks. a rare sighting in poor areas, ie where I live
4. Ice - scotch just isn't as enjoyable at room temp, nor beer for that
matter
3. Internet accesss. Its hard to find and difficult to quit, much like crack
cocaine... not that I know anything firsthand but from what I hear its
like..
2. Pizza. hot, cheesy NY style is available but extremely rare and only in
big cities
1. New York Times. this is self-explanatory for anyone who knows me well.

Next time, look forward to Top 10 things I love about Ghana and Top 10
things I hate/dislike/ don't understand or am not accustomed to ( so as not
to sound ethnocentric).

take care and carpe diem cuz you never know when your day will come.

happy trails,
Kris