meet the smalls

12 September 05

Friends & Family:

The good times keep rollin in Ghana. The rains have arrived and the yam harvest is bountiful. Ghana defeated Uganda 2-0, making it virtually inevitable at this point they will play in their first ever World Cup finals. I am presently in Accra preparing for the arrival of 50 Peace Corps volunteers on Sept 23.
I can't wait to see all their anxious faces at the Accra airport. And most of all, I can't wait to hear all the latest celebrity gossip, like what's up with Brad and Angelina. I hear she's moving into his Malibu bachelor pad. How could he do this to Jen so soon after their breakup?!

September also marks my one year anniversary overseas. Believe it or not, yours truly is no longer the newbie asking questions but the bushman answering them (or at the very least looking cool and pretending to know what I'm talking about). I have mixed feelings about the year remaining. At times I feel like I'm serving a prison sentence, shackled by poverty and deprivation. I go to bed dreaming of snowboarding and Monday Night Football and caramel frappacinos and Arby's curly fries. Other times I feel like I'm living in a tropical paradise. I wake up when I feel like it. I nap when I feel like it. I set my own work schedule. I don't have a professor telling me what to read and part of my "job" is simply hanging out with the locals -- lately I've been teaching several how to play texas hold'em poker. I guess you take the good with bad and just remember the grass on the other side isn't always as green as it seems.

To everyone I terrified about the vicious blood-sucking black flies, I'd like to set the record straight. A while back I wrote in my top 10 things I dislike about Ghana that the small biting flies can transmit a disease known as river blindness. I raised this concern with one of our Peace Corps doctors because I was getting bitten by these bastards a lot lately. She told me I have nothing to worry about because river blindness is not like malaria: one bite does not cause an infection. It takes many bites over a long period of time before one experiences the degenerative eye disease. It's more like the connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. One cigarette won't kill you, but smoking a pack a day for 20 years might. Bottom line: it's really only a problem for permanent residents, not visitors.

I'm happy to report all is well in Agou fie. The Agou-Kabiti soccer tournament is in full swing. Games are being played every Sunday, either against a nearby village team or between two groups in our village. Like a couple weeks ago, the Christians played the Traditionalists to a 1-1 draw. Married vs. unmarried players is also a fun one to watch. Scott, your village Potripor was supposed to have played Agou fie yesterday. To the winner I promised a new soccer ball. I wish I was there for that one. The games for prizes are intense (ie constantly on the verge of an all out brawl).

So what else has the newly enstooled development chief been doing besides organizing soccer games and playing Texas hold'em? Well, the bread oven construction has begun. We've found a friendly mason to show us how to make the dome-shaped mud oven. I've also found a few people in Nkwanta willing to share with us their bread making expertise after the oven is built. Producing the bread on a profitable basis is the main challenge left.

The community decided to purchase a sphygmometer for the health clinic. A sphygmometer is an instrument used to measure blood pressure, aka upper arm squeezer thingy. High blood pressure is probably not the biggest health problem in Agou but both the nurse and our stool father Nana Lucas argued that it is an essential component of an effective health clinic.

Secretly, I fear that the 77 year old Nana Lucas doesn't have many days left on this planet and the nurse wants to keep a close eye on his heart condition. He's lost a lot of weight and coughs incessantly. I wanted to take a picture of him before I left for Accra. He refused saying he didn't look good. Then everyone else within earshot was like, "well you can take a picture of us." So I got my camera and the people got in place. Just before I snapped it I noticed Nana Lucas stand up and sneak into the corner of the group. It was so moving I wanted to cry. Like a little kid, he just couldn't resist the excitement of getting his picture taken. I promise to say more about this remarkable man in the future.

Mostly, what I've been doing this time of year is spending time with my smalls. Smalls is what volunteers here call their small boys and/or girls who gladly help around the house with tedious chores. In return for fetching my water, clearing weeds, and doing the dishes, they get to eat with me, play American games, listen to my music, and their favorite past time: private tutoring or "do school" as they like to call it. I spend most of my time with three kids in particular: Kuma, Yema, and Mansa.

I did not choose my smalls so much as they choose me. When I first got to site I detested the idea of some kid half my age doing my housework. It reeked of child labor, like the tales of young children working in dangerous mine shafts you read about in history books. I wanted no part in what seemed a shameful aspect of African culture. I took pride in hand-washing all my clothes and fetching my own water -- both taboo for adult men to do.

But the smalls just kept showing up at my house. There would usually be a dozen or so. They don't have TV or Nintendo so watching the white man was somehow entertaining. This is a common experience for Peace Corps volunteers. Its known as the fish bowl phenomenon. You feel like you are Truman in "The Truman show." Unfortunately, the language barrier is particularly hard to overcome with smalls. Most have had little exposure to English and only occasionally speak it in the classroom.

Then Kuma came along. He is a 7 yr old second grader who understands more English than most Ghanaian adults. Initially, I overestimated his comprehension ability because he just said "Yes" and smiled a lot even when he didn't have a clue what I was saying (actually you probably do this too when you don't understand people). I had a special affinity for Kuma though because, like me in middle school, he was the hapless lil runt picked on by bullies. I would constantly hear "Kofi, Kofi, they are beating me. Sack them. The boys, they are beating me." I would allow him exclusive access to my porch as a safe haven from the bullies. He would just sit there quietly and smile as I did whatever. When I asked Kuma who he would kill if he had to kill somebody (I thought it would be funny to ask him because he's the happiest, most friendly kid I've ever met), Kuma smiled and said, "Mansa.” Really, why Mansa? “Because she do me the thing no good." Translation: she beats him.

Mansa is a smart, tall, giggly third grader. She was the first kid I tutored in Agou fie. I made a deal to teach her Math & English if she helped me with laundry (self-reliance is overrated). I'll never forget our first session together. I asked her to write her name at the top. She wrote, "My name is bad." I'm like no, no, no you're not bad. Then she goes, "well that's what my parents always call me." Later I realized her family name is Badu. She was just misspelling it.

Kuma has a half brother they call Yema (long e as in Yee-mah). I didn't like Yema at all at first. He is a skinny, tough little third grader who was usually one of the kids beating up Kuma. On top of that he's bossy and barks orders at others all the time. I understand why he's so bossy one day when I visited his house and met his mother. She was yelling at everybody to do this or that, barely cracking a smile to say hello to me. She also subscribes to the old school style of parenting with a stick. Once she was going to fetch water and she yelled something to me in Challa from 50m away. I had no idea what she said but her tone terrified me. I asked Yema to translate. He was sitting above me in a mango tree. Yema sheepishly muttered, "My mother says you should beat me for removing unripe mangos." I didn't know what to say to that. Never before had I met a mother who took joy in other people hitting her child.

But Yema is my boy now. Mostly because he understands my English better than anyone in Agou but also because this 11 year old is a damn hard worker. For almost every major project around my house Yema is my right hand man, my apprentice, and my homeboy. His favorite songs are Elton John "don't go breaking my heart," 50 Cent "in da club," Franz Ferdinand "40oz," and absolutely loves Lil John & Eastside boys "get low." And his bossy nature works well with my laid back demeanor cuz I'm not as good at yelling when kids misbehave. We're a good team. I lay down the law and he enforces it.

There's much more I could tell you about this trio of troublemakers but I'll wait until I have some photos to show you. For now just promise not to report me to UNICEF. I swear I never coerce these kids to do anything nor even to come to my house. Quite the opposite, it’s very tough to get them to stay away and give me privacy. These smalls are my friends and the relationship I have with them is probably the most meaningful aspect of my peace corps service thus far.

At the one year mark I really can't brag about much. My farm has been destroyed by hungry cows and goats. My partnership with the District Assembly has materialized nothing more than a long list of broken promises -- electricity is coming, another borehole well is on its way, household latrines will happen soon. Most of my students still don't know what 7 x 8 is. And the dramatic reduction of Guinea Worm cases is largely due to my predecessor, Steven. He's this guy from Ohio who worked for an American NGO that gives field workers motorcycles and money to actually put development projects into motion. But if I can touch the lives of a few little guys while I'm here, maybe help one or two of them come closer to realizing their full potential, then I'll return home happy because all was not in vain.

btw- I am coming home December 17 to celebrate Christmas and New Year's with the fam. Then back to the bush Jan 3.

I want to try a new format for the fun portion. Instead of another top 10, I present to you a "What’s hot, what's not in Ghana" list. Check it out and let me know what you think. I can elaborate on any you don't understand but for the sake of time I'm gonna leave that out right now.

hot: going topless
not: going bottomless

hot: Celine Dion & 50 Cent
not: Radiohead & Mozart

hot: Football (soccer)
not: Football (aka real football, sometimes erroneously called American football)

hot: national lottery
not: poker (outside Agou fie, of course)

hot: Jesus
not: Buddha

hot: holding hands with the same sex
not: holding hands with the opposite sex

hot: littering
not: trash cans

hot: your right hand
not: your left hand

hot: gin & schnapps
not: vodka & tequila

hot: carrying things on your head
not: backpacks

hot: flip flops
not: socks

hot: pito (millet beer)
not: Budweiser

hot: funerals
not: birthday parties


My condolences to the victims of the Katrina catastrophe. I think the disaster has made two things crystal clear: (1) the richest, most powerful nation is still no match for Mother Nature; and (2) America is still a developing country with many problems of its own, like say responding to a crisis the day it happens or maybe the next day. Maybe one of you can explain to me the slow response and utter incompetence of our elected leaders cuz I'm at a loss when I try to explain it to Ghanaians.

toodles,
kristopher