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