February 26th
The hospital has gotten much better since I last posted. On Thursday we cleared up the miscommunication about observing the doctors. They had said I could watch the doctors do their rounds, and I hadn’t actually seen any doctors since I’d been there. After figuring out that they had thought I was asking about sitting in the consulting room with the doctors, we determined that for the most part the doctors do not come to the children’s ward until around 11:30. As this is when I have class, I hadn’t seen them come through. On Monday I was able to go in later to the hospital since I don’t have class until 3. A young nurse showed me how to fill out the temperature chart form when a patient is admitted. I was also able to observe as a newly admitted patient was hooked up to an IV and given treatments. When the doctors came around, the nursing students and I followed to each patient. We were able to look at the x-rays of a child who had broncho-pnemonia. We also learned what the typical temperature drop looks like on a child who has malaria. He showed us how if the child also has another sickness (often gastroenteritis), the temperature will drop and then climb again slightly, but in the case of just malaria, it drops off quickly and returns to normal with treatment.
The same young nurse showed me the record books where they document when each patient is admitted, the diagnosis and notes. Somewhere around 95% of the patients in the children’s ward are there because of malaria. Other common diagnosis include Urticaria rash, anaemia, sepsis, dysentery, abscesses, convulsions, and there was a boy there who had severe burns on his face and some on his arms. The blanket treatment for almost every child is an analgesic, antibiotic, and anti-malarial. The record-keeping system seems to be a bit out of date, and people end up writing and re-writing patients conditions on different forms. I haven’t seen any computers in the hospital.
Last weekend we went to Cape Coast with the CIEE program. We toured Elmina castle, which is the oldest European building outside of Europe. It was built by the Portugese (I think) and was originally used for the gold trade. It then passed to the hands of the Dutch who used it for the slave trade. We were taken into the different slave dungeons and the ‘room of no return’ which was where the slaves exited to the ships. The tour guide told us that when the men in charge wanted to sleep with one of the slaves, they would line the women up in the courtyard and they would pick one. These women were fed a meal (it could have been about a week since the last meal) and bathed before they were taken to the men’s rooms. Those we got pregnant from situations such as this were not shipped off for slavery. They were moved to a specific place along the coast to give birth. The children were then treated as almost a whole separate race, somewhere between the ‘superiority’ of the Europeans, and the ‘inferiority’ of the Africans. The last names of some of these lines of ancestry are still present today.
That night we stayed in a hotel that cost 75 ghana cedi a night (60$). The hotel had a pool and air conditioning! After dinner we tried some palm wine. Cape Coast is supposed to be the place to get palm wine, but we had forgotten to get some fresh when we were out earlier. The less fresh wine tasted slightly carbonated, coconutty, with an aftertaste somewhat like deli meat. It actually didn’t taste that way until someone made the comparison, and then it inevitably tasted like salami juices. Needless to say, I didn’t have any more that night. The next day we were able to get some fresh palm wine that was quite good, and did not taste like deli meat.
The following day we made a trip to Kakum national park rainforest. Although there are animals present in the rainforest, they told us not to expect to see any. The monkeys have been made shy of human presence, and only one picture has ever been taken of the forest elephants (who are apparently quite stealthy). Instead of looking for wildlife, we hiked for about 10 minutes up to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of 7 rope bridges from the high beginning point out into the forest where there were platforms at various tall trees. Some people had a lot of trouble with the height, but it wasn’t very scary for me. They test the ropes more than once a day, so it is very safe and unlikely that you will fall. Pictures of the whole weekend will be posted this weekend hopefully.
This week Rachel and I made a trip to the post office. This was quite an adventure. To get there we had to take a tro-tro to circle (Kwame Nkrumah circle, but all the mates just call it circle since it’s the biggest one). There are a huge number of vendors on the streets here so we were hassled quite a bit to buy things as we walked through. When we finally made it, I bought a couple envelopes and sent a thank you letter for my scholarship to Lehigh Financial Aid. Rachel was picking up a package that her mother had sent her through the US mail. Sending it this way had its pro’s and it cons. Pro; it was cheaper than fedex (which would be delivered directly to the school for us to pick up). Con; she had to bargain on how much tax to pay for the contents of the package. This means that she had to open the package in front of the postal worker. He then used some crazy logic to tell her that on an estimated value of 45$ and 41$ to send it, he wanted her to pay 23 cedis as tax. Our friend Carly had gone to pick up a digital camera that her parents had sent the week prior. When they told her she had to pay 70 cedis tax, she left and came back with Mr. Gyasi (our program coordinator). He bargained them down to 30 cedis. We told the postal worker this and he said she should have paid 56 cedis. In any case, we told him we only had 15 cedis and he gave us the package for that much. This was still over-priced but it can be hard to bargain when you are a white woman in Ghana.
Often people think that you don’t know how much things should cost and try to overcharge you excessively. Sometimes a taxi driver will say that a ride that should cost 1.50 is going to be 5 or 6 cedis. Quoting a price this high is sometimes funny because it is so ridiculous that they would try to charge that much for such a short trip, but it can get very frustrating because it is clear they are only saying it because you are white and that is associated with wealth and naivety.
This leads me to another interesting topic of discussion. Although most people told us as part of the introductory and orientation material that race is not as much of an issue here in Ghana as it is in the United States, almost all of us have experienced a much different illustration of racial attitudes. For us, racism has been defined over and over as oppression and aggressive behavior (almost exclusively toward people of African descent). However, being here and being in the minority makes one rethink these notions. As Rachel and I experienced at Birdies’ International School, sometimes Ghanaians have a lingering perception (most likely from the colonial education system) of white superiority. White customers are commonly seen to be treated better at restaurants etc. At the school, Rachel and I could tell that they believed us to be highly qualified and knowlegable solely because we were white. Although our past experiences haven’t prepared us for a racial experience like this, it made both of us extremely anxious and uncomfortable to be thought of that way and judged superior because of our skin color. It seems that there is also a pervasive attitude of self-sufficiency among Ghanaians. They are one of the most developed countries of sub-saharan Africa, and want to be seen as progressive and given credit where it is due. These types of attitudes sometimes lead Ghanaians to treat us as if we are pretentious as I experienced in the hospital. It seems that they resented me for being white in a situation where they could feel superior to me. It was as if they were refusing my help on the basis that they didn’t need it, proving to me (and therefore the ‘whites’) that they were doing fine without it. The most common types of racial attitudes are those that assume we are promiscuous, naive and wealthy. The taxi example I gave is a very common example of this. Further, although some Ghanaians are truly genuinely friendly, many of the most ‘friendly’ are men between 16 and 45. Sometimes the first three things they say are “what’s your name? What is your phone number? Where do you live?” Easier to brush off at first, this assumption of stupidity and promiscuity can get to be very difficult. The program coordinators have told us that we have to not be afraid to get rude with people who do this. It is difficult sometimes because one must be very blunt and rude in a way that people really don’t do in the United States. In the US, cultural understandings allow rejection to be a more unspoken subtle action in the case when two people meet who don’t know each other. The question that we go back and forth about among ourselves is whether or not these attitudes and assumptions qualify as racism. In many cases it is difficult to determine whether or not you are being treated the way you are because of your gender, race, or cultural differences.
*The power went out for a few hours the other night and I began to worry about how I was going to sleep without a fan (since that is almost impossible). HOWEVER, the water has been running for two days now! A record.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
more pics!
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=255544133/a=158961882_158961882/t_=158961882
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
February15th
On Sunday the 8th, Rachel and I went with Dedei to her church. It is a pentacostal church called “Deeper Life of Christ”, a group of born-again christians. It is not charismatic in the way that many pentacostal churches are. They did a lot of reading from the bible, and verbal praying. By this I mean that while one person (a prayer-leader?) sermonizes from the heart/mind, the congregation will say their personal prayers aloud. Some people get really into these prayers and include gestures and movement, but for the most part they just stood and prayed aloud. Dedei gave us scarves to cover our hair, which we were thankful for because all the other women had scarves covering their hair. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly and wanted to meet us. Dedei was the proud mom. No one pushed us to become of their faith, but all of them were encouraging of our return and presence at bible study. Most of the CIEE program members went to Labadi beach on Sunday evening to get dinner to celebrate Victoria’s birthda. She goes to Princeton at home, and just turned 20 (she’s a sophomore). A surprise to us, there was a sort of beach party going on when we got there. Some acrobats were performing, and Rachel and I recognized one of the young boys as a boy in Dedei’s first grade class. We had noticed that one of her students was abnormally muscular for a young child and had asked her about it. She told us that he did acrobatics, so it was funny to see him performing.
On Monday I went to the hospital for the first volunteer experience. A woman showed me around the children’s ward, and I saw an abandoned baby boy who had a cough they were checking on before putting him in an orphanage, a couple other young children with typhoid, and malaria, two cases of cellulitis, a girl who got hit by a car, a girl with sickle cell anemia, and a babywith jondice undergoing photo-treatment. The girl who had been hit by a car had a broken femur that had been splinted for a while. She still had her leg resting on a wedge of pillow, undergoing skin traction. She had been there for more than two months and had all her schoolbooks with her. A nurse taught me how to take temperatures by putting the thermometer under the childs armpit for some time. The temperature was of course taken in celcius. I knew that body temperature is 37º because that is the temperature of many incubators we use in the lab. The nurse told me that the normal range is between 36-37º and that anything 37.8º and above is considered a temperature. There wasn’t much to do since the children were in recovery, but I hung out with the abandoned boy for a while. He seemed kind of scared of me because of my skin color, but he soon got over that when he realized that I was the only one willing to pay attention to him. Later in the week when I went to the hospital the boy was gone. This time, there wasn’t anything at all going on so the nurse supervisor told me to come back in the morning when I don’t have classes. She said I would be able to follow the doctors around on their rounds that they do in the morning. This should be much more interesting than the recovery room!
In class this week one of my professors was absent because she has come down with typhoid fever. We were assigned some reading from a West African History book. We’ve read about the tribal empires and conflicts that went on before the Europeans decided to colonize. This related nicely to the international setting class in which we read an article detailing the reasons for colonization from the European perspective and its effects on African society. In leadership we began to watch a movie about Mahatma Ghandi, as a case study for effective leadership. In Twi we had a quiz on the alphabet. In music and dance we began to learn another dance style and song. The songs are often a call and response type of song that includes a clapping beat. Our professor split us into three groups and had two or three callers and the rest response. The challenge was to see who could have the most fun. Each group had to make the song their own and really get into it. It was really fun to hear the different sounds people would make with their mouths and include parts of the dance into the singing. Dance is a lot of fun, but the class sometimes dreads it because it is so hot. During the summer at home the hottest part of the day is usually between about 12:30 and 2, and the sun sets around 8. Here the sun sets at 6:30, so the hottest time of the day is around 9:30-12, and our class is from 8-11, of which we spend the latter 2 hours outside dancing.
On Thursday, Jocelyn’s friend came to braid my hair. Many African women wear their hair in braids. It allows more air to reach the scalp, so it is cooler. It is also a style because black women’s hair is very brittle, and breaks easily. It is also hard to manage. To do the style, someone will braid hair pieces (other than your own hair) into your hair. They can do it in cornrows (tiny French braids close the head), rasta (just straight braids from the head), or twists (two pieces of hair twisted around each other), or a mixture of any of them. My roommate Antwiwaa has just rasta, Jocelyn has cornrows the the crown of her head and then twists, and I decided to get cornrows to the crown of my head and then rasta for the back part. The style of the cornrows in the front will also vary from person to person. Typically someone will keep the style for 3-4 weeks. They try not to get them wet (because it takes forever to dry and can mess up the braids faster). This isn’t too difficult for most of them because excersise isn’t a very common Ghanaian practice, so they don’t have to worry about sweating from that (they are so used to the heat, they don’t sweat as much as we do). I’ve had them in for almost 4 days now, and have washed them once. I haven’t run since Thursday morning, and am nervous to try it tomorrow. The braids are really interesting to have. I like the style, although it is quite uncomfortable. The first day, my scalp really hurt from how tight they were. They loosened up overnight quite a bit, but I’m still not used to the feeling. The wind does certainly cool off my scalp more though which is nice. I also get a lot of comments from Ghanaians about how they like my hair. It cost me 15 cedi’s to get it done (~12$).
On Friday we left for Winneba. A bit up the coast to the west, Winneba is another town. To get there, we took a taxi to Kaneshi market where the mass transit busses wait. The ride to Winneba was only 1 cedi. The busses just wait until they are full to leave, so there isn’t a timed schedule. When we got out of the taxi a man asked us where we were going and showed us to the queue for that bus. (the English the Ghanaians use is British English so they use words like queue, chips for fries, centre, theatre, colour etc.) The bus arrived shortly and filled up quickly. While we were waiting, many of the market women came up to us trying to sell us biscuits, water, etc. Even when you’re sitting on the buss they will sell you things through the windows. It seems that on one hand the marketing system here is really great because it is so convenient for the consumer. You can pretty much get anything you need delivered to you while you’re waiting in traffic. It also keeps the prices down and affordable for the majority of the urban population (I haven’t been to anywhere really rural yet so I’m not sure about affordability for them) due to the high competition between vendors. The downside is of course that sales cannot be taxed. This is even questionable as a downside because I am unsure of how capable the government is of using tax money efficiently and effectively. It seems like corruption is a real issue in that department.
The bus sat 2 on one side and 3 on the other, no air conditioning, but comfortable enough with the windows open. Everyone around us was really helpful in letting us know when to get off and how to get to where we were staying after that. Once we got off the bus, people would say hello to us and ask where we were going and point us in the right direction. When we got to the Winneba Lagoon Lodge, it was so beautiful. The sun had begun to set and the mountain behind the lagoon was lit as if it was a movie. We spent the weekend with Ashley, Carly, Erin, Lily, Becky, Edward, Nana, Tiffany, Adrian, Jake and Taye. We spent most of Saturday on the beach, where three little boys came to sell us biscuits. Then, they decided they wanted to stay and hang out and began singing and dancing just to entertain themselves and us (they weren’t asking for money). Ashley and I walked down to the end of the beach where there was a rock area jutting into the ocean. It seemed to make a pool that was filled with ocean water that people were playing with a ball in. This area was much more crowded than the section of the beach we were sitting on. Walking into this crowd was a bit daunting because everyone stared at us shamelessly. Outside of Accra and the bigger cities, it is less common to see white people. Some people even called to us as ‘white woman’, they didn’t even say Obruni. It was hard to tell whether or not they meant it derogatorily, or if they just said it as a direct translation to English of Obruni, in which case it wouldn’t be offensive.
Carly, Edward, Nana, and Rachel stayed up all night. I went to bed from 2-4 in the morning. It was hard to sleep though because Rachel and my fan was broken, so I was too hot to sleep. I got up at 4 and walked with them to the beach to watch the sun rise. It didn’t end up rising until about 5:45, but didn’t peak out from the cloud cover until 6:30. The waiting paid off though and I got some really nice pictures. Some people began to come out and fix up the fishing boat at about 5:30, and soccer teams were jogging on the beach around the same time. On our way back from the beach we saw a boy climb up a palm tree. He was cutting down some fronds for burning maybe. On our way back to the lodge we saw the police training students working out in the clearing we used as a shortcut the night before. We stayed another night and got more sleep that night. At dinner I had an interesting talk with Taye about his Ghanaian experiences. As an Ethiopian, he even gets called Obruni sometimes. Typically Ethiopians (and Eastern/Northern) Africans are lighter skinned. In the North (like Egypt/Morocco) this leads to a separation in African unity. Oftentimes Northern Africa is considered middle-east because of skin color and religion (Islam). Taye said that he understands some Arabic just because he grew up around it (the same way many people in the US live near Spanish speakers). On the way home this morning Jake and I talked about the differences in social culture here and in the US, and what aspects we will and will not miss. Jake made a good point about it being more obvious here that everyone appreciates each other as having value. It seems that in the US people are quick to dismiss someone as being useless or lazy, whereas here, everyone has a contribution and people aren’t dismissed as easily. This may be because they place a higher value on human connection, and a lower value on productivity. In the US, people are so focused on getting things done that they only have connections with those they are most immediately and commonly in contact with. Here, people are genuinely interested in having a conversation with anyone. They make time to hang out with others, and aren’t as focused on completing the next task. This has taken some getting used to, but it ultimately a much more comfortable way of living. It allows you to really enjoy each day, without getting to ahead or too focused on planning the next course of action. The downside are things I’ve already talked about, like being seen just as money. It is also different being a foreign female than a foreign male. A lot of Ghanaian men will say hi as a woman passes, and then the second or third thing they ask will be your phone number or where you live. Sometimes this is harmless and you can joke it off, and other times it is obvious that they see you as an object, which can be uncomfortable. We have become better at discerning who means what when they talk to you, and being clear about what we’re willing to tell them or not. Some of our Ghanaian friends had said we were too naïve about which of them are genuine, and too nice about saying no. This has become more obviously a cultural thing that we have picked up on. In the US most of us understand so well the expected interactions that we don’t have to say no for someone to know we aren’t interested. Here, it is a bit different and you have to be more forward. It is difficult to say no though because Ghanaians don’t like to be embarrassed so they will almost pretend like you haven’t said it at all. The best way to go about it is to not yield to their requests, but to joke it off without making any promises. It is a bit of an art that many of us are beginning to perfect.
*Another interesting cultural aspect of Ghana is how people get another’s attention. They will often make a hissing sound, or a sort of course kissy noise. People are very tuned to this noise, especially those who are selling things. At first it seemed really rude, but it is just another thing to get used to. It works much better than yelling ‘hey’ at someone you want to buy something from.
*Also, because the water from the pipes isn’t clean enough to drink, most people drink what they call ‘sashe’ water. These are plastic bags that hold 500ml of drinkable water (about the size of a small water bottle) that are sold for only 5 pesewas each. If bought in bulk they are even less expensive. A bottle containing the same amount of water is typically 50 pesewas. With the steri-pen that Nick and Gina lent me, I usually just purify my own drinking water from the taps.
Feb 16th- The hospital was really frustrating today. They had said on Thursday that I would be able to follow and observe the doctors while they do patient treatments. On Monday Julie told me that I could sit and talk with the patients about why they’re in the hospital. There was only the girl, Henrietta, who got hit by a car, left in the recovery room. I found out that she just turned 10 (on Chelsea’s birthday). Part of the way through my time there she said the doctors hadn’t come to the children’s ward yet, but that they were on their way. At the time when I had to leave for class, the doctors still hadn’t come. She then told me that I wouldn’t be able to follow them because usually it is the students who have had some medical school who are allowed to work with them since they know more, and wouldn’t hold the doctors from their work with questions. I told them I just wanted to observe as we had originally decided, but they said that it would be best if I stayed in the recovery room and watched the nurses and learned to do what they do. The disconnect in communication is really starting to frustrate me. I am told one thing one day, and then it changes (even in the same day!). They seem to forget that I’m in school and expect to see me every day, though I don’t do much while I’m there. No one seems to take much interest in telling me what I could do that would be helpful. I once offered to help a nurse who was just cleaning and tidying up, and she said asked me to let her do it. It is hard to know when I should step in and see if I can learn, and when it would be rude to do so. Often, the nurses speak Twi, or Ga to each other, so I can’t understand what they are saying or what is going on. I even once asked if there was a tissue or handkerchief I could use to wipe the baby boy’s nose with, and they laughed at me. It is really difficult to know how to place myself so that I can be of some use, while learning, without getting in the way. I’ve talked to one of our program coordinators about it today, and she was really understanding. She said she doesn’t see why it would be a problem for me to just sit and observe since that was what we had originally determined.
As a general experience that many of the students have had, it is actually difficult to volunteer here in Ghana. Becky has begun to volunteer in an orphanage. She said that it is hard for them to let her actually help. She has found that she is treated as a guest, or celebrity observer- similar to the experience Rachel and I had at the schools (although somewhat different at Dedei’s school). It seems like at the hospital, they don’t have any tasks they are ready to entrust to me, but also seem like maybe they feel that they don’t need my help. This may be a function of my being white, and not wanting to accept charity. Ghanaians seem to be a somewhat proud people. As one of the more developed countries in Africa, they want to show off all the ways that they have advanced. When learning about the situation they are in and where they have come from, it is easy to see where this frame of mind has come from. However, another property of Ghanaians (and African’s in general so they say..) is lacking punctuality. This makes it hard to rely on someone when they tell you they will be somewhere at a specific time, or even that something will happen then. You learn to sort of take what they say with a grain of salt. This seems like something that directly relates to their laid back, non-progressively oriented attitudes. It also seems like it is something that holds them back in the further development of their institutions. This is especially obvious in the hospital, where things could deffinitly run more smoothly. It would be great if I could help in this way, or just observe treatments. I have ended up spending 3 hours sitting talking to a 10 year old girl, so it frustrates me that they can’t think of something more useful for me to do for them.
I did meet two young nursing students today in the hospital who were interested in nursing programs in the United States. I told them that there were certainly programs that they would be interested in, but that they would be very expensive. I’m not sure what the financial aid programs for international students are like.
On Sunday the 8th, Rachel and I went with Dedei to her church. It is a pentacostal church called “Deeper Life of Christ”, a group of born-again christians. It is not charismatic in the way that many pentacostal churches are. They did a lot of reading from the bible, and verbal praying. By this I mean that while one person (a prayer-leader?) sermonizes from the heart/mind, the congregation will say their personal prayers aloud. Some people get really into these prayers and include gestures and movement, but for the most part they just stood and prayed aloud. Dedei gave us scarves to cover our hair, which we were thankful for because all the other women had scarves covering their hair. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly and wanted to meet us. Dedei was the proud mom. No one pushed us to become of their faith, but all of them were encouraging of our return and presence at bible study. Most of the CIEE program members went to Labadi beach on Sunday evening to get dinner to celebrate Victoria’s birthda. She goes to Princeton at home, and just turned 20 (she’s a sophomore). A surprise to us, there was a sort of beach party going on when we got there. Some acrobats were performing, and Rachel and I recognized one of the young boys as a boy in Dedei’s first grade class. We had noticed that one of her students was abnormally muscular for a young child and had asked her about it. She told us that he did acrobatics, so it was funny to see him performing.
On Monday I went to the hospital for the first volunteer experience. A woman showed me around the children’s ward, and I saw an abandoned baby boy who had a cough they were checking on before putting him in an orphanage, a couple other young children with typhoid, and malaria, two cases of cellulitis, a girl who got hit by a car, a girl with sickle cell anemia, and a babywith jondice undergoing photo-treatment. The girl who had been hit by a car had a broken femur that had been splinted for a while. She still had her leg resting on a wedge of pillow, undergoing skin traction. She had been there for more than two months and had all her schoolbooks with her. A nurse taught me how to take temperatures by putting the thermometer under the childs armpit for some time. The temperature was of course taken in celcius. I knew that body temperature is 37º because that is the temperature of many incubators we use in the lab. The nurse told me that the normal range is between 36-37º and that anything 37.8º and above is considered a temperature. There wasn’t much to do since the children were in recovery, but I hung out with the abandoned boy for a while. He seemed kind of scared of me because of my skin color, but he soon got over that when he realized that I was the only one willing to pay attention to him. Later in the week when I went to the hospital the boy was gone. This time, there wasn’t anything at all going on so the nurse supervisor told me to come back in the morning when I don’t have classes. She said I would be able to follow the doctors around on their rounds that they do in the morning. This should be much more interesting than the recovery room!
In class this week one of my professors was absent because she has come down with typhoid fever. We were assigned some reading from a West African History book. We’ve read about the tribal empires and conflicts that went on before the Europeans decided to colonize. This related nicely to the international setting class in which we read an article detailing the reasons for colonization from the European perspective and its effects on African society. In leadership we began to watch a movie about Mahatma Ghandi, as a case study for effective leadership. In Twi we had a quiz on the alphabet. In music and dance we began to learn another dance style and song. The songs are often a call and response type of song that includes a clapping beat. Our professor split us into three groups and had two or three callers and the rest response. The challenge was to see who could have the most fun. Each group had to make the song their own and really get into it. It was really fun to hear the different sounds people would make with their mouths and include parts of the dance into the singing. Dance is a lot of fun, but the class sometimes dreads it because it is so hot. During the summer at home the hottest part of the day is usually between about 12:30 and 2, and the sun sets around 8. Here the sun sets at 6:30, so the hottest time of the day is around 9:30-12, and our class is from 8-11, of which we spend the latter 2 hours outside dancing.
On Thursday, Jocelyn’s friend came to braid my hair. Many African women wear their hair in braids. It allows more air to reach the scalp, so it is cooler. It is also a style because black women’s hair is very brittle, and breaks easily. It is also hard to manage. To do the style, someone will braid hair pieces (other than your own hair) into your hair. They can do it in cornrows (tiny French braids close the head), rasta (just straight braids from the head), or twists (two pieces of hair twisted around each other), or a mixture of any of them. My roommate Antwiwaa has just rasta, Jocelyn has cornrows the the crown of her head and then twists, and I decided to get cornrows to the crown of my head and then rasta for the back part. The style of the cornrows in the front will also vary from person to person. Typically someone will keep the style for 3-4 weeks. They try not to get them wet (because it takes forever to dry and can mess up the braids faster). This isn’t too difficult for most of them because excersise isn’t a very common Ghanaian practice, so they don’t have to worry about sweating from that (they are so used to the heat, they don’t sweat as much as we do). I’ve had them in for almost 4 days now, and have washed them once. I haven’t run since Thursday morning, and am nervous to try it tomorrow. The braids are really interesting to have. I like the style, although it is quite uncomfortable. The first day, my scalp really hurt from how tight they were. They loosened up overnight quite a bit, but I’m still not used to the feeling. The wind does certainly cool off my scalp more though which is nice. I also get a lot of comments from Ghanaians about how they like my hair. It cost me 15 cedi’s to get it done (~12$).
On Friday we left for Winneba. A bit up the coast to the west, Winneba is another town. To get there, we took a taxi to Kaneshi market where the mass transit busses wait. The ride to Winneba was only 1 cedi. The busses just wait until they are full to leave, so there isn’t a timed schedule. When we got out of the taxi a man asked us where we were going and showed us to the queue for that bus. (the English the Ghanaians use is British English so they use words like queue, chips for fries, centre, theatre, colour etc.) The bus arrived shortly and filled up quickly. While we were waiting, many of the market women came up to us trying to sell us biscuits, water, etc. Even when you’re sitting on the buss they will sell you things through the windows. It seems that on one hand the marketing system here is really great because it is so convenient for the consumer. You can pretty much get anything you need delivered to you while you’re waiting in traffic. It also keeps the prices down and affordable for the majority of the urban population (I haven’t been to anywhere really rural yet so I’m not sure about affordability for them) due to the high competition between vendors. The downside is of course that sales cannot be taxed. This is even questionable as a downside because I am unsure of how capable the government is of using tax money efficiently and effectively. It seems like corruption is a real issue in that department.
The bus sat 2 on one side and 3 on the other, no air conditioning, but comfortable enough with the windows open. Everyone around us was really helpful in letting us know when to get off and how to get to where we were staying after that. Once we got off the bus, people would say hello to us and ask where we were going and point us in the right direction. When we got to the Winneba Lagoon Lodge, it was so beautiful. The sun had begun to set and the mountain behind the lagoon was lit as if it was a movie. We spent the weekend with Ashley, Carly, Erin, Lily, Becky, Edward, Nana, Tiffany, Adrian, Jake and Taye. We spent most of Saturday on the beach, where three little boys came to sell us biscuits. Then, they decided they wanted to stay and hang out and began singing and dancing just to entertain themselves and us (they weren’t asking for money). Ashley and I walked down to the end of the beach where there was a rock area jutting into the ocean. It seemed to make a pool that was filled with ocean water that people were playing with a ball in. This area was much more crowded than the section of the beach we were sitting on. Walking into this crowd was a bit daunting because everyone stared at us shamelessly. Outside of Accra and the bigger cities, it is less common to see white people. Some people even called to us as ‘white woman’, they didn’t even say Obruni. It was hard to tell whether or not they meant it derogatorily, or if they just said it as a direct translation to English of Obruni, in which case it wouldn’t be offensive.
Carly, Edward, Nana, and Rachel stayed up all night. I went to bed from 2-4 in the morning. It was hard to sleep though because Rachel and my fan was broken, so I was too hot to sleep. I got up at 4 and walked with them to the beach to watch the sun rise. It didn’t end up rising until about 5:45, but didn’t peak out from the cloud cover until 6:30. The waiting paid off though and I got some really nice pictures. Some people began to come out and fix up the fishing boat at about 5:30, and soccer teams were jogging on the beach around the same time. On our way back from the beach we saw a boy climb up a palm tree. He was cutting down some fronds for burning maybe. On our way back to the lodge we saw the police training students working out in the clearing we used as a shortcut the night before. We stayed another night and got more sleep that night. At dinner I had an interesting talk with Taye about his Ghanaian experiences. As an Ethiopian, he even gets called Obruni sometimes. Typically Ethiopians (and Eastern/Northern) Africans are lighter skinned. In the North (like Egypt/Morocco) this leads to a separation in African unity. Oftentimes Northern Africa is considered middle-east because of skin color and religion (Islam). Taye said that he understands some Arabic just because he grew up around it (the same way many people in the US live near Spanish speakers). On the way home this morning Jake and I talked about the differences in social culture here and in the US, and what aspects we will and will not miss. Jake made a good point about it being more obvious here that everyone appreciates each other as having value. It seems that in the US people are quick to dismiss someone as being useless or lazy, whereas here, everyone has a contribution and people aren’t dismissed as easily. This may be because they place a higher value on human connection, and a lower value on productivity. In the US, people are so focused on getting things done that they only have connections with those they are most immediately and commonly in contact with. Here, people are genuinely interested in having a conversation with anyone. They make time to hang out with others, and aren’t as focused on completing the next task. This has taken some getting used to, but it ultimately a much more comfortable way of living. It allows you to really enjoy each day, without getting to ahead or too focused on planning the next course of action. The downside are things I’ve already talked about, like being seen just as money. It is also different being a foreign female than a foreign male. A lot of Ghanaian men will say hi as a woman passes, and then the second or third thing they ask will be your phone number or where you live. Sometimes this is harmless and you can joke it off, and other times it is obvious that they see you as an object, which can be uncomfortable. We have become better at discerning who means what when they talk to you, and being clear about what we’re willing to tell them or not. Some of our Ghanaian friends had said we were too naïve about which of them are genuine, and too nice about saying no. This has become more obviously a cultural thing that we have picked up on. In the US most of us understand so well the expected interactions that we don’t have to say no for someone to know we aren’t interested. Here, it is a bit different and you have to be more forward. It is difficult to say no though because Ghanaians don’t like to be embarrassed so they will almost pretend like you haven’t said it at all. The best way to go about it is to not yield to their requests, but to joke it off without making any promises. It is a bit of an art that many of us are beginning to perfect.
*Another interesting cultural aspect of Ghana is how people get another’s attention. They will often make a hissing sound, or a sort of course kissy noise. People are very tuned to this noise, especially those who are selling things. At first it seemed really rude, but it is just another thing to get used to. It works much better than yelling ‘hey’ at someone you want to buy something from.
*Also, because the water from the pipes isn’t clean enough to drink, most people drink what they call ‘sashe’ water. These are plastic bags that hold 500ml of drinkable water (about the size of a small water bottle) that are sold for only 5 pesewas each. If bought in bulk they are even less expensive. A bottle containing the same amount of water is typically 50 pesewas. With the steri-pen that Nick and Gina lent me, I usually just purify my own drinking water from the taps.
Feb 16th- The hospital was really frustrating today. They had said on Thursday that I would be able to follow and observe the doctors while they do patient treatments. On Monday Julie told me that I could sit and talk with the patients about why they’re in the hospital. There was only the girl, Henrietta, who got hit by a car, left in the recovery room. I found out that she just turned 10 (on Chelsea’s birthday). Part of the way through my time there she said the doctors hadn’t come to the children’s ward yet, but that they were on their way. At the time when I had to leave for class, the doctors still hadn’t come. She then told me that I wouldn’t be able to follow them because usually it is the students who have had some medical school who are allowed to work with them since they know more, and wouldn’t hold the doctors from their work with questions. I told them I just wanted to observe as we had originally decided, but they said that it would be best if I stayed in the recovery room and watched the nurses and learned to do what they do. The disconnect in communication is really starting to frustrate me. I am told one thing one day, and then it changes (even in the same day!). They seem to forget that I’m in school and expect to see me every day, though I don’t do much while I’m there. No one seems to take much interest in telling me what I could do that would be helpful. I once offered to help a nurse who was just cleaning and tidying up, and she said asked me to let her do it. It is hard to know when I should step in and see if I can learn, and when it would be rude to do so. Often, the nurses speak Twi, or Ga to each other, so I can’t understand what they are saying or what is going on. I even once asked if there was a tissue or handkerchief I could use to wipe the baby boy’s nose with, and they laughed at me. It is really difficult to know how to place myself so that I can be of some use, while learning, without getting in the way. I’ve talked to one of our program coordinators about it today, and she was really understanding. She said she doesn’t see why it would be a problem for me to just sit and observe since that was what we had originally determined.
As a general experience that many of the students have had, it is actually difficult to volunteer here in Ghana. Becky has begun to volunteer in an orphanage. She said that it is hard for them to let her actually help. She has found that she is treated as a guest, or celebrity observer- similar to the experience Rachel and I had at the schools (although somewhat different at Dedei’s school). It seems like at the hospital, they don’t have any tasks they are ready to entrust to me, but also seem like maybe they feel that they don’t need my help. This may be a function of my being white, and not wanting to accept charity. Ghanaians seem to be a somewhat proud people. As one of the more developed countries in Africa, they want to show off all the ways that they have advanced. When learning about the situation they are in and where they have come from, it is easy to see where this frame of mind has come from. However, another property of Ghanaians (and African’s in general so they say..) is lacking punctuality. This makes it hard to rely on someone when they tell you they will be somewhere at a specific time, or even that something will happen then. You learn to sort of take what they say with a grain of salt. This seems like something that directly relates to their laid back, non-progressively oriented attitudes. It also seems like it is something that holds them back in the further development of their institutions. This is especially obvious in the hospital, where things could deffinitly run more smoothly. It would be great if I could help in this way, or just observe treatments. I have ended up spending 3 hours sitting talking to a 10 year old girl, so it frustrates me that they can’t think of something more useful for me to do for them.
I did meet two young nursing students today in the hospital who were interested in nursing programs in the United States. I told them that there were certainly programs that they would be interested in, but that they would be very expensive. I’m not sure what the financial aid programs for international students are like.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
February 7th
Classes were as usual this week. We didn’t have leadership because the professor is out of the country on business with the UN. Music and Dance class was really fun this week because we almost finished learning the dance we’ve been working on. I also got to try using the drums when the other students were dancing, and that was really fun. Although I have experience creating music and rhythms from playing piano, it is much different to create them in the context of dance where usually I am the dancer. It was really fun and interesting to see it from that point of view. In my cultural values course we watched a Senegalese film called ‘Black Girl’ that was in French, with English subtitles. It was about a girl from Senegal who went to Paris to care for some children, but ended up being treated very poorly and like a slave. We also talked about patriarchal themes in a lot of West African communities and cultures. Although the Ashanti’s have been revered for their matrilineal system of inheritence, our reading in a West African history book showed this to be false. The matrilineal system of the Ashanti’s only strengthened patriarchy. A king’s sister’s son would be the next king. The reason for this passage of power (still between men), is because the king could never be sure that his wife’s son was his own. His sister would have had to give birth to her son, and so they could be sure he was a blood relative of the king. Therefore, because they did not trust a wife to stay loyal to her husband, the king’s own son would not inherit the monarchy.
In the Pan-African themed course on Africa in the International setting, we read a couple chapters on the movement in Brazil, the UK, and the Caribbean. We had a student from Trinidad in class who just came for the day, so it was really interesting to hear the inside perspective on skin hierarchy and colonial education systems that are still pervasive in the Caribbean. The Twi course is entertaining because our professor is very funny. It is hard to actually learn much of the language though because he is told to use a specific book and teach us according to the order of the lessons. For the most part though, it is not the Twi we would use everyday. So when we ask him how to say things like “I’m buying …” and “stop” (used when you’re sick of being haggled by the street merchants), he tells us what they mean but then we have so much vocabulary that it is hard to remember any of it. I find it is best to learn the Twi in context, and use small bits with the people you are buying things from on the street. Our Twi professor was teaching us the words for family members this week. He was saying that it is a bit difficult to do a literal translation because your mother’s sisters, are also called your mother. Or your mother’s brother’s wife, is also your mother. It works the same way on the other side, in that your father’s brothers, and your father’s sisters husbands are your fathers.
In Twi this week we also got a little off topic talking about the education system in Ghana. Although there are laws that primary school students have to be in school, there is almost not enforcement of this law. Many times the parents cannot afford to buy the students books and uniforms. The kids are made to stay home and help make money to buy the next meal. The system of taxation is one of the most difficult problems that Ghana needs to tackle. The structure of marketing is such that people will buy in bulk straight from the source and sell for cash on the street. This makes it almost impossible to tax sales. If the taxmen come to collect taxes, venders can just lock up their doors and run away. There are no records of who is living in Ghana because most people don’t have permanent homes. There are no birth certificates either, so some people don’t even know their exact birthdays (although most do know what day of the week they were born, since they each get a name for it). If the taxmen do succeed in collecting money from people, they tend to pocket 60% of it. This makes it even less likely that people will want to pay taxes. If the corruption could be eliminated, and the money used to benefit the masses, they might be more willing to pay taxes that could improve public schools.
The woman on the corner by the school where I usually buy my vegetables and fruit taught me the other day that what we call chives, they call spring onions. I think I have heard that before in the US, but she didn’t know what I meant when I said chives. Also, Dedei cut us up what she called a Pear the other day. It was an avocado, but twice the size of the ones we typically get in the US. Tomorrow we are going with Dedei to church. She goes to a pentacostal church, but she said that it is less focused on the entertainment aspect than most.
On Thursday I went to the Police Hospital, where my resume and proposed hours for volunteering were approved. I met the head administrator, who passed me off to another lower administrator called Viera. He gave me the introduction on the hospital. It was started in 1976, and it’s original purpose was to treat police personnel. Now they also treat civilians, and have an executive wing that holds the VIP’s if they are treated there. He was working on a roster for me, but the general gist is that I will be in the children’s ward for the first month, the maternity ward the second month, 2 weeks in the outpatient department, and I forget what the last 2 weeks were. So I will be there 2 days a week until May starting on Monday. I’ll be sure to write about it next week.
Yesterday Rachel and I went to Dedei’s sister-in-law’s school called “Birdies of the Hill International Primary School”. It was clear that they had been expecting us, and they treated us like we were almost royalty, or school inspectors or something. It was interesting to see the differences in that school and in Dedei’s public school. It was so obvious that these students came from more affluent backgrounds (there is an application process, and tuition). They teachers did not use caning to keep the students behaving. For the most part the students were very well behaved without much reprimanding. The class sizes were much smaller, around 15 students. Each student would stand when they were answering a question, and when a student answered particularly well they would all clap for him or her (similar to the public school). There were students from Cote D’ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria etc. at this school. Rachel and I were given about an hour to play games with the students in the morning. We taught them the hokey pokey, and The Wind Blows For Those. These students understand much more English, and are closer in age in each of their grades. For lunch they served us boiled plantains and red red (black-eyed peas with a palm oil/tomato sauce). They were surprised that we liked it. We both got the impression that they perceived us in a much more authoritative, affluent position then we felt. They took pictures of us in almost every classroom we visited, and allowed us to do a short activity with each classroom. A strange experience, but we would both like to return. The man who hosted us, Asare, was saying that they would appreciate it if we could think of any lessons to teach the kids about Obama, or other international themed things. He was also saying that even if we just thought of a lesson for reading or math, it would be much more interesting to the students presented by new faces in a new way. It was clear that these students were very bright, and allowed to think more for themselves than rhote recitation of what the teacher had taught them. Asare also showed us a children’s book that he is in the process of publishing about Mosquitos and Malaria. He expressed that he thought it was a defecit that there are a shortage of local stories for students to read. His book included information about Malaria and how to save money, so it is educational as well.
After visiting the school, some of us went to an Indian restaurant near our school. I got a Malai Chicken Kebob that was really good. The rest of the food wasn’t as good as we have in the US, and quite overpriced. Although, in terms of US dollars, it was a pretty good deal. I worry that I’m going to think everything is outrageously expensive when I get home. Here you can get a good and filling meal for 4 or 5 cedis (which is 1.3 of a dollar). Yesterday was Bob Marley’s birthday, which is more celebrated here. We went to the beach for a couple drinks, and there were multiple people walking around with guitars and dreadlocks that would play his songs for you, hoping for some coins of course. Some of the people here who others classify as Rastas or who think of themselves that way are not fully Rastafari in their beliefs and practices. Rastafarianism was something I learned about in the class on the Caribbean I took at Lehigh. We learned that the dreadlocking of their hair is part of their religious beliefs, and they don’t cut them or show them unless with other Rastas in a reasoning session. Most of the people here who say they are Rastas show their dreads. It seems they use it as an excuse for not being a successful merchant or other businessman, or because they just like the aesthetics of the style.
*Points about the streets in Ghana*
-There are no pedestrian rights in Ghana. If you are going to cross a street, you have to look for a gap in the traffic and hurry across. Often, if there is no car in the lane closest to you and one passing in the one farther from you, it is helpful to step into the road in the empty lane until the other car passes. The cars will not stop for you. The exception to this rule is if there is a lot of traffic, sometimes people will let you through. The more obvious exception is children. I was in a trotro the other day, and a group of schoolchildren were trying to cross 3 lanes of traffic. The trotro stopped, and a motorcycle in the lane next to us stopped traffic in the outside lane so that the kids could cross.
-Along with no pedestrian rights, is the honking of cars. If you are walking along the street, any car coming behind you will honk before it goes by. It is sort of a courtesy thing to tell you that they are coming and to move over. I got used to this quickly, and the other day a car whizzed by me very quickly and kind of close without honking. It really caught me off guard, and I found myself wondering why he hadn’t honked.
-On that note, most drivers are men. All taxi drivers are men, trotro drivers are men, trotro mates are men, and people who have their own drivers have men drivers. My roommate Jocelyn doesn’t know how to drive at all, and her boyfriend Albert does the driving or her mother’s driver. Of course there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, men do the driving.
-The point about kids made me think of another thing that is different here, is the average age of the population. There are a lot of kids, and babies around. I don’t see many older people here either. I think I read somewhere that the average age that people live to is only about 70.
-I talked about how Ashesi students are older than college students in the US last week. I talked to a friend of mine Hafiz, who said that it is because students usually take a year off between primary and secondary school. They then take off another year before college if they go to college. So on average they are 2 years older than the students of the same year in school in the US.
Classes were as usual this week. We didn’t have leadership because the professor is out of the country on business with the UN. Music and Dance class was really fun this week because we almost finished learning the dance we’ve been working on. I also got to try using the drums when the other students were dancing, and that was really fun. Although I have experience creating music and rhythms from playing piano, it is much different to create them in the context of dance where usually I am the dancer. It was really fun and interesting to see it from that point of view. In my cultural values course we watched a Senegalese film called ‘Black Girl’ that was in French, with English subtitles. It was about a girl from Senegal who went to Paris to care for some children, but ended up being treated very poorly and like a slave. We also talked about patriarchal themes in a lot of West African communities and cultures. Although the Ashanti’s have been revered for their matrilineal system of inheritence, our reading in a West African history book showed this to be false. The matrilineal system of the Ashanti’s only strengthened patriarchy. A king’s sister’s son would be the next king. The reason for this passage of power (still between men), is because the king could never be sure that his wife’s son was his own. His sister would have had to give birth to her son, and so they could be sure he was a blood relative of the king. Therefore, because they did not trust a wife to stay loyal to her husband, the king’s own son would not inherit the monarchy.
In the Pan-African themed course on Africa in the International setting, we read a couple chapters on the movement in Brazil, the UK, and the Caribbean. We had a student from Trinidad in class who just came for the day, so it was really interesting to hear the inside perspective on skin hierarchy and colonial education systems that are still pervasive in the Caribbean. The Twi course is entertaining because our professor is very funny. It is hard to actually learn much of the language though because he is told to use a specific book and teach us according to the order of the lessons. For the most part though, it is not the Twi we would use everyday. So when we ask him how to say things like “I’m buying …” and “stop” (used when you’re sick of being haggled by the street merchants), he tells us what they mean but then we have so much vocabulary that it is hard to remember any of it. I find it is best to learn the Twi in context, and use small bits with the people you are buying things from on the street. Our Twi professor was teaching us the words for family members this week. He was saying that it is a bit difficult to do a literal translation because your mother’s sisters, are also called your mother. Or your mother’s brother’s wife, is also your mother. It works the same way on the other side, in that your father’s brothers, and your father’s sisters husbands are your fathers.
In Twi this week we also got a little off topic talking about the education system in Ghana. Although there are laws that primary school students have to be in school, there is almost not enforcement of this law. Many times the parents cannot afford to buy the students books and uniforms. The kids are made to stay home and help make money to buy the next meal. The system of taxation is one of the most difficult problems that Ghana needs to tackle. The structure of marketing is such that people will buy in bulk straight from the source and sell for cash on the street. This makes it almost impossible to tax sales. If the taxmen come to collect taxes, venders can just lock up their doors and run away. There are no records of who is living in Ghana because most people don’t have permanent homes. There are no birth certificates either, so some people don’t even know their exact birthdays (although most do know what day of the week they were born, since they each get a name for it). If the taxmen do succeed in collecting money from people, they tend to pocket 60% of it. This makes it even less likely that people will want to pay taxes. If the corruption could be eliminated, and the money used to benefit the masses, they might be more willing to pay taxes that could improve public schools.
The woman on the corner by the school where I usually buy my vegetables and fruit taught me the other day that what we call chives, they call spring onions. I think I have heard that before in the US, but she didn’t know what I meant when I said chives. Also, Dedei cut us up what she called a Pear the other day. It was an avocado, but twice the size of the ones we typically get in the US. Tomorrow we are going with Dedei to church. She goes to a pentacostal church, but she said that it is less focused on the entertainment aspect than most.
On Thursday I went to the Police Hospital, where my resume and proposed hours for volunteering were approved. I met the head administrator, who passed me off to another lower administrator called Viera. He gave me the introduction on the hospital. It was started in 1976, and it’s original purpose was to treat police personnel. Now they also treat civilians, and have an executive wing that holds the VIP’s if they are treated there. He was working on a roster for me, but the general gist is that I will be in the children’s ward for the first month, the maternity ward the second month, 2 weeks in the outpatient department, and I forget what the last 2 weeks were. So I will be there 2 days a week until May starting on Monday. I’ll be sure to write about it next week.
Yesterday Rachel and I went to Dedei’s sister-in-law’s school called “Birdies of the Hill International Primary School”. It was clear that they had been expecting us, and they treated us like we were almost royalty, or school inspectors or something. It was interesting to see the differences in that school and in Dedei’s public school. It was so obvious that these students came from more affluent backgrounds (there is an application process, and tuition). They teachers did not use caning to keep the students behaving. For the most part the students were very well behaved without much reprimanding. The class sizes were much smaller, around 15 students. Each student would stand when they were answering a question, and when a student answered particularly well they would all clap for him or her (similar to the public school). There were students from Cote D’ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria etc. at this school. Rachel and I were given about an hour to play games with the students in the morning. We taught them the hokey pokey, and The Wind Blows For Those. These students understand much more English, and are closer in age in each of their grades. For lunch they served us boiled plantains and red red (black-eyed peas with a palm oil/tomato sauce). They were surprised that we liked it. We both got the impression that they perceived us in a much more authoritative, affluent position then we felt. They took pictures of us in almost every classroom we visited, and allowed us to do a short activity with each classroom. A strange experience, but we would both like to return. The man who hosted us, Asare, was saying that they would appreciate it if we could think of any lessons to teach the kids about Obama, or other international themed things. He was also saying that even if we just thought of a lesson for reading or math, it would be much more interesting to the students presented by new faces in a new way. It was clear that these students were very bright, and allowed to think more for themselves than rhote recitation of what the teacher had taught them. Asare also showed us a children’s book that he is in the process of publishing about Mosquitos and Malaria. He expressed that he thought it was a defecit that there are a shortage of local stories for students to read. His book included information about Malaria and how to save money, so it is educational as well.
After visiting the school, some of us went to an Indian restaurant near our school. I got a Malai Chicken Kebob that was really good. The rest of the food wasn’t as good as we have in the US, and quite overpriced. Although, in terms of US dollars, it was a pretty good deal. I worry that I’m going to think everything is outrageously expensive when I get home. Here you can get a good and filling meal for 4 or 5 cedis (which is 1.3 of a dollar). Yesterday was Bob Marley’s birthday, which is more celebrated here. We went to the beach for a couple drinks, and there were multiple people walking around with guitars and dreadlocks that would play his songs for you, hoping for some coins of course. Some of the people here who others classify as Rastas or who think of themselves that way are not fully Rastafari in their beliefs and practices. Rastafarianism was something I learned about in the class on the Caribbean I took at Lehigh. We learned that the dreadlocking of their hair is part of their religious beliefs, and they don’t cut them or show them unless with other Rastas in a reasoning session. Most of the people here who say they are Rastas show their dreads. It seems they use it as an excuse for not being a successful merchant or other businessman, or because they just like the aesthetics of the style.
*Points about the streets in Ghana*
-There are no pedestrian rights in Ghana. If you are going to cross a street, you have to look for a gap in the traffic and hurry across. Often, if there is no car in the lane closest to you and one passing in the one farther from you, it is helpful to step into the road in the empty lane until the other car passes. The cars will not stop for you. The exception to this rule is if there is a lot of traffic, sometimes people will let you through. The more obvious exception is children. I was in a trotro the other day, and a group of schoolchildren were trying to cross 3 lanes of traffic. The trotro stopped, and a motorcycle in the lane next to us stopped traffic in the outside lane so that the kids could cross.
-Along with no pedestrian rights, is the honking of cars. If you are walking along the street, any car coming behind you will honk before it goes by. It is sort of a courtesy thing to tell you that they are coming and to move over. I got used to this quickly, and the other day a car whizzed by me very quickly and kind of close without honking. It really caught me off guard, and I found myself wondering why he hadn’t honked.
-On that note, most drivers are men. All taxi drivers are men, trotro drivers are men, trotro mates are men, and people who have their own drivers have men drivers. My roommate Jocelyn doesn’t know how to drive at all, and her boyfriend Albert does the driving or her mother’s driver. Of course there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, men do the driving.
-The point about kids made me think of another thing that is different here, is the average age of the population. There are a lot of kids, and babies around. I don’t see many older people here either. I think I read somewhere that the average age that people live to is only about 70.
-I talked about how Ashesi students are older than college students in the US last week. I talked to a friend of mine Hafiz, who said that it is because students usually take a year off between primary and secondary school. They then take off another year before college if they go to college. So on average they are 2 years older than the students of the same year in school in the US.
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