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Explanitory Ramblings
Relentlessly the pleasant afternoons push on, hardly giving me a chance to fabricate excuses as to why my blog posting has been sporadic, inconsistent, and largely strange. I won't make up for last week, and this will be the only post this week, but I expect to be back on track in the near future (likely not next week though). This post is to explain what is going on with me in general, and what I'm up to for the next few weeks.
I'll start with an excerpt from an e-mail that I sent to my parents recently. They were noting my unsatisfactory communications and I felt compelled to be verbose. Instead of the entirety of the e-mail, I give you just a few paragraphs:
"I'm sorry my blog posts have been strange, but it's very difficult to write right now. I want to write about the real experience I'm having, but I don't want to convey only the de-motivating, uglier aspects of the placement. I can't seem to find a balance that will be read clearly. Whoever said there were two sides to every coin was probably not referring to life here. I'm pretty sure a dodecahedron still wouldn't capture the multiple facets that I'm trying to depict. While a coin may have two sides, it also has a circular edge that it may land on from time to time. So while I struggle to depict what it means to be constantly confronted with moral dilemmas until you are desensitized, what integration means, how an outdated department is actually a sign of progress, and how to cope with people asking you to take them to Canada when your first thought is "you'll never, ever be able to go" but your second thought is that the person asking wants to go to Canada so they can make a better life for themselves; it's not a cry for help, but a search for opportunity.
For example, I tried to write about the roads here. If I say a road connecting two villages is like an abandoned logging road what does that mean to you? Does it explain the distances involved, the number of people that live in those villages, whether they live there seasonally or permanently, what means of transportation they have available, how the road effects education and educated people staying in the villages? Does it explain when the last time the road was worked on, who paid for it, who did the work, why it fell into disrepair, when it will be fixed, or why it hasn't been fixed yet? Does it explain the depths of the potholes, the stagnant, algae filled surface water, the growth the covers it, the streams that flow across it? Does it explain the wide variation of road conditions even on the same road, why there are variations, how citizens hold their governments and contractors accountable?
I can't even convey what a road means here. You may think you know the answers to some of those questions, but you'd be surprised at how often (and how extremely) you would be wrong. I can't assume that the reader will understand the context behind what I'm writing, because the context is very different. Things to do with people are rarely logical or universal. Instead you rely on your experience in dealing with people to understand the meaning of what's said.......So I'm left with a frustrating inability to communicate to Canada in any manner except an exceedingly strange one. I'm not de-motivated in my work. I'm not disillusioned with life here. I'm not angry or sad or homesick or anything like that. My moral alarm system is a little exhausted, but I find lighting a nice pile of litter on fire helps with that (or maybe that's just the carcinogenic plastic fumes)."
Okay, so that's that. Writing about Ghanaian life is very difficult because the context is so different. When I say I went to the store to buy some Wagashi (deep fried cheese) and it was delicious, I'm not depicting what that means here. First of all, that store is a stool, a plate, and a frying pan/stove set-up and it only sells Wagashi. It doesn't mention that because most of the cows in this part of the country are tended by one particular ethnic group (that happens to have a lot of tension between it and other people) and that I'm probably buying from them. It doesn't tell you that there isn't much in the way of milk products at all, especially not cheese. It also doesn't explain why I am craving cheese in particular. There is so much attached to every statement and I used to feel obligated to explain it.
Fortunately I don't anymore. For all the blog posts I've written and will write, you may not actually be able to understand what I'm saying. Instead of worrying about how to explain life over the internet, I'm just going to keep on writing how I feel like it. I don't always have time to write two posts a week considering I have quite a lot of work to do (I effectively have 6 different bosses: the district assembly, my (Ghanaian) family, the EWB long-term staff, the EWB in Canada staff, my chapter, and myself). We all have different demands on my time, and although posting these blogs is included in that, it doesn't always fit into my schedule. Nevertheless I actually enjoy most of the work most of the time and I'm not particularly aggravated by my work schedule.
Now onto the focus of this post--an actual update of what I'm up to. I won't provide updates like this often, but here goes:
I've been hard at work for the past month, but it's mostly been exploratory phase type work. This is a weak sounding excuse for my lack of tangible outputs, but regardless of how feeble of an explanation it seems to be, it still is true. I've been learning quite a lot about quite a lot. This applies to work and home life (I make three divisions for my time spent--work, home and Canada). The things I've done require two months worth of recap, but it's been fun. The highlights are running a store, playing and watching football (Go Ghana Go!), meeting people, exploring the town, tech support and organization at the office, building relationships, learning about the government, developing databases, learning the language, writing blog posts and other communications, eating lots, and generally having a good time. Keep in mind what I said about context--it's difficult to understand what that list actually means.
This week I'm off to do my village stay--I'll spend a few days living in a (very) rural village. When I get back I'll head off to Tamale for a workshop and then back to Walewale for a meeting the next day. The day after that are the mid-placement retreat (SOOOOO SOOOOOON!!!!!) and the country meetings. Basically the point of this paragraph is that I'm busy for the next two weeks with stuff not directly related to what I have been doing up until now (and I may not be able to post next week as I might not have internet/computer access).
Although this is a good place to end this post and I have some other things to attend to I'm going to keep on writing a little more to tell a story.
Two friends-- a goat and a sheep needed to go from their home town to a neighboring village for a friend's wedding. They didn't have much money but the village was too far to walk to. They each agreed that they would pay their share of the fare and so they waved down a taxi, hopped in and went on their way. About 1 km out of town the goat suddenly asked the driver to stop--"I need to free myself (a Ghanaian euphemism--I'll let you guess the meaning)" he said, and so the driver pulled over. The goat got out and bolted! He ran away from both the driver and his--rather surprised-looking--friend the sheep. Of course the driver wasn't about to accept the loss, so when the sheep went to pay for his share of the fare the driver didn't give him his change--instead he took it as compensation for the goat's free ride and he sped away. The sheep was now left all alone and broke. And to this day when a goat see's a car he'll run because he is worried that he'll be charged his fare while the sheep will just stand there and wait for his change.
Quote: "I'm going to South Africa/the stadium"-the most common explanation for people leaving the office early
Briskly Moving On,
Tom
The United States would only benefit from the reconnection with the Native Americans because there is far more to the world that could be better understood through their eyes rather than the shallow scjp opinions of today's society. Native Americans have always been known to be earthy people who maintain a healthy relationship with the earth. If society would reconnect with the Indians it would help in better understanding the present because in order to understand the present fully microsoft certification one must know the past and understand it completely. The society of United States would greatly benefit from learning from the past mistakes done by either United States or Native Americans. Americans and Native Americans didn't get along very well in the past, but with a little more help and determination a bond may form cisco certification through personal matters. Personal matters affect all people no matter what race they are. All humans are affected by their surroundings in some way and this is a way in which all humans relate. To reconnect with the Native Americans would mean that the United States would become closer to the environment and in a way more spiritual ccvp towards the world. Indians teaching Americans to be more spiritual isn't like a religious spiritual; it is a strong relationship that is constantly growing.
Who are your best friends in Ghana so far?
I have a few, though my circle of friends is fairly small. In my office I spend most of my time with one of the world's best people named Abigail. Also my planner is so incredible that it's kind of intimidating-- not everyone can do a masters thesis over the internet while farming and planning the infrastructure projects single handedly for 150,000 people. I just recently my my director and we may become besties. He's pretty awesome. At home I talk a lot with my host mother and host brother, and when he is around I have some excellent conversations with my host father. Apart from that there is victoria the lunch lady/semstress extrodinaire, the blacksmith guys, the game house guys, and the neighbors. Last week I also made 3 more friends on my village stay-- the assembly member/teacher/farmer, the teacher/farmer, and the teacher/petty trader. I've spent hours talking to all those different people. I just came home recently and I had people all over welcoming me back home (I live in a town of about 20,000--it's very possible to be anonymous, but I guess I stand out). I'm currently drafting some stories about a few of those people--they'll be up soon.
I have just now discovered that I need to put in a better effort at reading your guys' posts at a regular frequency since failing to do so and reading three of your posts in rapid succession is probably bad for my mental health.
That said, I can't help but feel utterly compelled to read more.
Happy Canada Day!
Haha--I want to emphasize that I'm not sad or demotivated-- I just can't communicate the experience very well. I hope that I stop portraying something so confusing and demotivating. I'll try to talk about bunny rabbits or something cheery. They make rather a good stew-- I have a picture of one about 5 minutes before it was slaughtered and about 2 hourse before I ate it.