Food (a blog from training)

I know someone who starts every meal with a prayer of appreciation for the hands that have touched her food before she did. Beginning at the farmer, the truck drivers and purchasers, the preparers and chefs, she makes her way through the chain of produce commerce before ending, neatly, with gratitude for the food in her hands. While I would never openly say it, except now because the internet is the great anonymizer, I found it rather silly. It was dozens of hands that had picked her food, miles that it had traveled, by the time it was something edible, it was incomprehensible to picture its beginning.

Yesterday I ate an egg while looking at a chicken. It was a well cooked egg, and I was extremely grateful for it. But I also know, looking at that chicken, that it was most likely her egg I was eating. Having that sensation is so rare in America (unless you are a farmer), but oddly gratifying. The egg had moved from the chicken to my host mother, from my host mother to my sandwich, and then to provide nourishment for my body.

Sometimes I go with my host brother to the fields where they grow sugarcane. He cuts it down and gives it to me. I’ve become adept at removing the green outside to chew the sweet center. I’ve drank sugar cane juices in America, but never sat and chewed on one that was grown feet from me.  I watched pineapple grow out of long bushes; I’d had no idea where they come from. Besides a vaguely formed idea of a pineapple tree, I assumed they appeared magically at the grocery store.

I don’t know the effect of becoming so separated from our food. Tellingly, our distance from our food is neither just physical or just emotional, but like all good conundrums, both. I feel a duality and connectedness I hadn’t known before; rain is both beautiful and life giving, the earth is both a stable landscape and a ceaseless provider, and my village is kind men and women, who have bent to the ground to provide the food that I receive.

Perhaps it is acceptable that we are so distanced from our food. I know nothing of the latrines the workers on farms in America use; I am unconcerned about whether they wash their hands. But the gratitude and connectedness that I am able to experience here is so different. Lately I’ve been sure, before meals, to bow my head and picture the path my food took to come to me, and be thankful.

The Small-Girl

I'm losing my ability to make light of ending. Death here is closer, like the sun, and just as indiscriminate and unforgiving. A girl with a face youthful and round grows a belly to match. I watched her expand from my safe distance. Last week I went to see her and found her belly sunken, and her eyes empty. They call you a small girl here until you've had your first baby. I wonder if you're still a small girl if your baby dies. I've never seen eyes grow so old so fast.
There are a thousand ways this place could kill. I won't let it. I promised my mom I'd come home. Being adventurous strikes me as the best way to survive. I'll climb trees, race down bush paths on bicycles and sit in the front of trotros. Make it a staring contest; I won't blink first, and my lorry always makes it home safely. Please come back, the letter from my nephew says. I will.
I want to relearn small children without heavy burdens. Sometimes I tire of babies with leathered feet and ancient eyes. Sometimes I think my soul is growing old. Sometimes I miss home.

Sometimes nothing feels more welcoming than riding the red dirt sand road home. Sometimes the sight of my village growing out of the bush is a symphony. Sometimes the only hard thing is being away from loved ones. Sometimes the hardest thing is falling desperately in love with sweat on my chest, dirt under my nails living know that one day, not even so far from now, I'll put down the mild mannered infant that sits in my arms like home and walk, knowingly, back down that red road out of this village forever. 

Zeinab

Zeinab gets up in the morning while it’s still dark. Her mother is sleeping, young twins curved into her body. She is hungry; she eats what is left from last nights dinner, whatever sits in covered bowls. Zeinab sweeps the courtyard, careful not to wake her family. She piles the dust and trash into a large basin, and carries it across the road, jumping carefully to avoid gutters. She starts the fire, blowing on coals black as the night, and her mother stirs, half asleep, holding first one twin then another to her swollen breasts. Zeinab grabs her machete and leaves for the bush. She walks, barefoot, not noticing the unyielding ground below hardened callouses. She finds a small neem tree, leaves at the top reddened, slowly yellowing and turning green as the trunk thickens to roots. At the base she hits it with her machete, careful to hit the same space each time. The tree falls, and like a hunter skinning prey, she removes the branches until just the trunk is left. Finding a second tree is easy; neems litter the bush like trash. She piles the trunks on her head and returns home. The cool water makes her shiver, so she baths quickly; one twin is crying. One twin is always crying. Pulling on her school uniform, orange and brown, she plays with the baby until it coos with happiness. The other becomes jealous, begins to cry. Zeinabs mother sighs and ties her tightly to her back, letting the pressure of her body soothe the baby. Zeinab can hear the boy pounding a tin can in the distance, her call to get to school. She kisses the babies and dodges a swat from her mother. “Hurry up!” her mother yells, but Zeinab is already out the gate, tree trunks balanced on her head. “Run!” the teachers yell from their compound when they see her “fast! Yomyomo!” One hand to steady the trunks, trying not to trip on old shoes, she runs. She works hard, she learns fast. For four hours a day, Zeinab is a star. 

Fulani Rain

When the rains come, they don’t mess around. They are dust in skin and goats hiding from the wind. At the Fulani house, they’re preparing for the end of the world. The women hide under their tin roof, peeking out and finding excuses to brave the water, my smile mirrored in a dozen faces. The only one who truly hides is the man made real only by the frail bones holding on his loose clothing; otherwise he would slip from this world, leaving only silence where there had been the fluttering of the heavy pages of his Koran.

I knew all I had to do was get here. I knew once I got here I’d be welcomed. I knew they’d give me a seat out of the storm, an umbrella, nervous reverence, undeserved. I could be in any century. Should the world cease tomorrow and leave just this small village, they may only notice the new quiet of market. 

Ramadan

The teachers are playing football, running and kicking their new red and white ball. They haven’t eaten since four in the morning, have refused water; have even refused to swallow their own saliva, sending streams of liquid between parched lips. It’s Ramadan, and all but the smallest children spend the sunlit hours abstaining.

Jeff observed Ramadan. He was a college football player, and would pride himself on returning to his playing weight. He could still work, and well, running after angry kids despite occasionally going pale with the effort. It’s good to remember that all over the world, this community is tied into a greater community of Muslims fasting for their faith.

Still, children with arms thin as sticks and hanging from shirts that are always too big, regardless the size, they make me pause, just a little. So, when an old mother tells me she doesn’t fast because she is breastfeeding, well, I could kiss her.

I walk a fine line. Being an unmarried lesbian without a recognizable faith, a lot of what I do is smoothing out my rough edges with small white lies, which have the cumbersome habit of growing and turning grey.

Choosing not to fast is something I know I have to do, both for my physical and mental health. Explaining that not drinking water will make me sick lengthens the distance between me and the community, which wasn’t initially small.

Telling nursing mothers and small children its ok to eat may have consequences. Maybe next year. Maybe after they stop asking why I have no photos of my husband. Maybe when I’ve established praying in the mosque as a nice gesture, and not a sign of coming conversion.

The men on the field have muscles lit with sweat in the dripping sun. Their veins protrude, their lips are dry, but I hear no complaining; even children have lined up to chase the ball, kicking shoes from hard feet. There are cries of “mani! Mani!” on the field, each player vying for the ball, with thrilled laughter at each success and rambunctiousness and each missed kick. The women are pounding corn, cooking the meal they will end their fast on, and gossiping sweetly from house to house over short walls.

Rain is moving in quickly from the south. If I look left, the sky is an endless sweltering blue, but to the right are thunder clouds, dark as night with rain. The wind kicks up, pressing fear and excitement into my pores, drying the sweat I’ve spent the day accruing. Tonight I don’t want to sleep. I want to sit up while the teachers cook and eat the meal they’ve planned all day, and let the whole world melt away in a storm, rebirth disguised as annihilation.

Shia

I am just getting used to the village life. I’ve learned to keep my cell phone off, drew each hut in the village so I know the layout, and spend hours a day walking from hut to hut, bent at the waist like a movie maitre’d, greeting. From what I’ve seen, there is one English speaker. Her name is Karima, the same as the word for reading. Her hair is cut short for school, covered in what seems to be a winter scarf, transplanted from some chilly elsewhere. She ignores the boys who court her, telling me she must finish school before she marries. She adds that she hopes she gets an educated man so he won’t beat her. She is from bustling Tamale, and says she hates the village. She only comes back to visit Zeinab, her closest friend. When Zeinab tells me she will be a nurse, Karima nods so quickly her veil falls to the side “me too, I will be a nurse” she says. Zeinab seems pleased. She tells me that the Fulani, a nomadic tribe currently living outside of Tunaayili, have had a baby. We decide to visit. Fulani children tend to have bright eyes, set in beautiful triangular faces. They are lighter than their dagomba neighbors, with hair that curls long. Outside of the village sits a Baobab tree, flanked on all sides by neem trees. It seems to touch the sky, and the neems are so thick that the ground is always in shadow. It hums like a living being. I’m drawn, but Karima stops me. “Our ancestors live in that tree” She says. “The humming?” I ask “Shia” she says softly, like a prayer, “bees.” As drawn as I am to the brilliant baobab, I never feel quite right crossing the trunks of the neem trees that protect its roots. But I walk just on the other side, letting the hum pull me in as far as I dare. 

American letters and Dagomba charm

Inside the day seems too hot, sun baked like concrete courtyard. Outside is cool and undemanding. Azara and Drissa come over for alphabet lessons. Drissa wasn’t initially included, but his big love-me eyes and boney elbows tug my heart, and so I pass him a pen. He is behind his sister already. He can sing the alphabet-he loves the tune and I’ve caught him humming it while milking cows. But he can’t write the letters like she can, pen moving, fearlessly crooked Cs sweeping across her page; the lines are ignored. I let them. I remember the lines once feeling confining. He combines the letters he remembers, forming something like a complicated 8. I hold his small hand and trace, over and over, the shapes that I want to give him, the power of language I want him to feel. When I think of the letters left to teach them I am overwhelmed. I want nothing more than to give up. But when I trace an F on Azara’s hand, a reminder of the letter for after I’ve left, she impatiently takes the pen and, flawlessly, quickly, she draws it on the paper. Then I know I can’t stop yet. I grab her shoulders, squeal and babble pride at her, all Dagbani and American ebullience, and she smiles at me shyly, American letters and Dagomba charm.

Moto

Sometimes the sky seems too big, and sometimes a football pitch seems useless, like when there’s no ball, or shoes. Today I ran the pitch, marveling at the clouds rolling in and out like the high packed lorries on the main road. At some point, I don’t know when, we became motorbikes, bumping and vrooming and beeping into one another: a tall pale seliminga among small dark dagombas. At some point, I don’t know when, it stopped seeming so foreign here. Maybe it was when I gleefully held two watermelons like breasts in market and dagomba women smirked at batted my hands down. Perhaps when my first sentence became, not a greeting, but rather a request to eat the children, making yum yum noises as I tickle sweet soft bellies. People are the same everywhere, just as hope is, or hatred, or love. I love this place like fighting, with a ferocity borne of knowing I’ll leave, one day. Long after I stop pretending I came here to save them realize it was I that was saved. 

Simpa

He’s a normal guy in the village, a farmer. Usually he is dirty, covered in old clothes marred by his father’s farms dirt. But when the village dances a boisterous simpa, glowing yellow under the solar powered light in a village untouched by electricity, he is a hero. The children pull him from his home, ten children tugging each of his fingers, more pulling his sweat and dirt stained pants while he laughs and complies. Set up under the yellow light, modernity barely touching, glowing the crowns of their heads a halo hue, the drums begin centuries old rhythms. Light heartbeats in the night. “Salaam Salaam” he sings, and the children, in voices sweet with innocence reply “Salaam Alaikum”

Seliminga

When I first see my home, I am relieved, then immediately disappointed. Driving north, I watched the land become sparse, the manic rainforest greens of the south becoming subdued yellows in the dry north. The houses change, too. From concrete blocks with tin roofs come structures so basic the ground itself may have grown them. Round huts, orange red as the dirt, set low in to the ground and then topped with intricately woven thatch. It’s the Africa of magazines, of safaris and elephants, though I’m told that any big game has been hunted out of the open spaces.

My home is south Ghanaian excellence, out of place in the north; a reflective tin roof, concrete walls (four, not circular) and windows bearing smudged glass. I’ve seen rougher apartments in Denver. My home has a bathroom, complete with porcelain fixtures, and I stand in it, turning the faucet on and off in awe; running water.

My home is the only square one in my village, the only one made with concrete and not clay, the only one with doors that face east and west, instead of a careful north and south, to discourage the sun. It is also the only one to contain a seliminga, a white person. It’s the only one whose walls protect not just a person but a laptop, an iphone. It is the only one where shea butter is kept fresh in a Maxwell house coffee tin, the only one where a hand-thrown pot contains pens and stickers I initially bought to give as gifts, but now can’t bring myself to lose their hopefully bright colors, their American efficiency.

I recall my uncle scoffing at people who requested a village without electricity, in order to have a real peace corps experience. If you are in the Peace Corps, he’d said, then it’s the real experience.

Remembering that tempers my disappointment. I’d hoped to blend, I think, forgetting that I wear my differences on every inch of my skin. I think my community forgets, too. When people excitedly shout “Seliminga!” I am not the only one to look around, confused, to see who they’re talking about. “O ka seliminga” I’ve heard them explain “O nyela dagbang paga” She’s not a seliminga, she’s a dagoma woman. They paint my face with tribal markings, long liquid eyeliner lines down my cheeks, dots between my eyes. They ask to trade my American pants for their ankle length cloths. I can dress up and pretend, will speak the language and curse the children, because at night I come home to my four walls, my window and curtains, and watch the sun set while I hug my differences close.

The Baobab

There’s a tree, a powerful baobab. It’s over one hill next to the village. It is far enough away that you can pretend you are alone, but if you close your eyes and listen you can still hear the soft village noises; corn winnowed into open calabashes, the mimicked mechanical sounds of children playing motorbike and laughter, always laughter.

The bark is warmed by the sun, and soft, and touching it you can almost feel it breathing. You spend stolen moments there, pressed against it and feeling like a hug. One day, you find white cloth wrapped around the trunk, midway between two branches. Fearing that it’s marked for removal, you go to the community. You tell them that they cannot cut down the tree. They listen politely as you explain desertification, fragile eco system, any half remembered science to justify your concern.

A woman waits until you have finished and then places a hand gently on your arm. “The tree is a woman, and every night she comes out to dance. It’s getting cold; we've given her cloth to keep her warm.”

That night you dream of a woman, old and scarred and wrapped in a white cloth. In movements agile for her age she is dancing, eyes closed like she doesn't care who is watching, and smiling.

Greetings from Ghana!

So, I have been in Ghana for about five months. I am learning to love things I never thought I'd see, like an African sunrise, like a rainstorm that comes in like the end of the world, like children with big eyes and children on their backs. This country is nothing if not beautiful, and I am reminded of it every day. Near one of my favorite local homes there are hills as green and rolling as one can find in books on Ireland, and out my window is the yellow bush or national geographic pictures.

Many people have sent me their kind thoughts and words, via Facebook, whatsap, text message and that dethroned king of communication; snail mail. Thank you all so much. I am doing the best I can to represent my country and display kindness and respect. As my projects develop I will try to keep updated, although since this is the first actual post since I got here, that may be more wishful thinking than possibility.

For those of you who have asked what to send me, I love letters. I love pictures. I am working to cover one of my walls with photos from home, and when the children are especially well-behaved I allow them into my room to look at the pictures. They love the one where I am an infant in my Grandma Cannon's arms. "Tungteeya bilyow" they request "Tungteeya baby" (they named me Tungteeya). However, if you are wanting to send things that are scarce here, that would also be wonderful. I'll post a quick list of care package items, and some tips so that customs doesn't wind up grouchy. 

Thank you again for keeping in touch with me, without love and support from home this would be way less fun!



Care package ideas, tips and tricks

Ideas;
-Instant juice mix (I drink a lot of it, but I also trade it with a local nomadic tribe, the fulanis, for milk)
-Chocolate (m&ms and sixlets do well in the heat. Individual packages items are especially hlful, there is little storage, so once it's opened, I have to eat it or forget it. So having Hershey's minis or small Halloween type candy is also good)
-Instant coffee (I love the flavored kinds!)
-Tea 
-Protein or granola bars
-Smarties
-Batteries (AA or AAA)
-sriracha (I didn't realize I missed it until I was sent it!)
-High quality chocolate, with high cocoa content, melts less quickly
-Dried fruit survives well
-Sauce mix travels well (if I could get Kraft cheese, just the packet of cheese, I can buy pasta here and make Mac & cheese! It saves on space)
-Probiotics or emergen-c
-Books
-Yummy spices
-cornstarch
-Instant anything (like just add water, but I don't have an oven, so there's that)
As I think more I'll continue the list

Tips & tricks
-Individually packaged or small items 
-Baked goods can (apparently) be vacuum packed and sent. If you are brave and try it, it sounds better to have a bunch of small things, as customs may want to sample some
-Glass items are not recommended. Even glass spice jars, they are too likely to break
-Small bugs love food items, so packing things in plastic (like Tupperware or ziplock bags) is helpful, and then I can use them!
-For the small space left in the box, I recommend plastic bags, ziplock bags, sauce packets or anything light
-Apparently US postal service has a $30 flat fee box with a very high weight limit

New Address!

So I can be reached with mail or packages or whatever at the old address still, but I also can be reached more quickly at this one!
"My Name" PCV
PO Box 962
Tamale, Northern Region
Ghana

My (Uncomfortable) Goodbye

There is a parlor game where you decide whether you would rather be hit by a car and die suddenly, or at the end of a long illness. I used to say that I would choose the illness. I had Pollyanna-like visions of me wrapped in blankets, receiving visitors and crying delicately at all of the sweet things they have to say. I’ve changed my mind. I am no good at good bye. I do not excel at letting go. No matter how well rehearsed my goodbye, I always feel as though it is not enough.

As uncomfortable as the teary goodbye tends to be, it doesn’t compare to then running into your loved ones at the grocery store, at a party, walking in the park. It has all of the distasteful markings of making an impassioned speech after a dinner party, only to find you’ve left your sweater and returning, hangdog, to stutter less eloquent adieus while the hosts load the dishwasher and sweep up crumbs.

The goodbye themselves are no less difficult. The only difference between the casual “talk to you soon” or “see you later” and the formal “goodbye” is the hope. I know I will see you again, and so I do not need tears. Do not demean our relationship by behaving as though our parting is forever. As you’ve reminded me, we’ve been through harder than this. Don’t pretend you believe your letters will be abandoned with bills and dental reminders. Don’t act as if, after the first few, well-intentioned letters you will eventually forget to write me; sit down pen in hand and remember all of the more important things you have to do.

Goodbyes are not my forte. Emotions are hardly comfortable for me to sit with. I will see you soon Denver. I will miss you, but it will seem these years passed like days when I’m sitting with you again.

Packing!

My checked bag is packed! Now I'm going to go sit in the corner and hyperventilate a little.

Just So You Know...

Afri-Coat!

Afri-Candy!

Ameri-Cat.
Who's not invited? You're not invited.

A Sweet Sign

Growing up, I admired my mother’s mother. She was smart, funny, quirky, and always treated us kids like adults. I felt an affinity with her; she was someone I could be myself around. My memories of her are old and indistinct, but she glows in anecdotes. She refused to drive below five miles over the speed limit, so that no one would think that she was a slow old lady. She pulled my older sister into the basement to share a mug of Bailey’s with her. The last thing I did with her before she died was watch Reno 911, a terribly crass TV show about bumbling police officers. She loved it. There was a day when I was young that she and I went through an old trunk of hers, holding each memory in our hands, much as I am doing now. She always kept a tray of York peppermint patties on the table by her couch, and she handed them out to us like kisses, until we were stuffed with their sweetness. For years after she died I was unable, and unwilling, to eat these candies. 

My uncle is coming out soon. I am so excited; this is the relative whose Peace Corps adventure beget my own. I grew up hearing about his time in Nepal, and knew from a young age that I would follow in his footsteps. In a token of my admiration for him, I got him a small gift. And as a token of my own recent refusal to budget properly, part of that gift came from the dollar store. When I returned to my home and opened the bag, I found two peppermint patties at the bottom. I know I hadn’t bought them. I believe they are a gift, a reminder of my grandmothers continued presence in my life, regardless of what separates us. 

Sometimes things are difficult, and sometimes nothing works out quite right. But sometimes the universe gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

Address

"My Name" PCT
Peace Corps Ghana
P.O. Box 5796
Accra-North, Ghana
West Africa

Poop in a Hole

This is not mine, but it's pretty funny

The Beginning of Good Bye

I've officially told most of my young clients about leaving my work, and by extension them, for Peace Corps. I chose about ten that I am particularly close to (those that would notice my absence if I forgot to mention it), and took them aside. Beginning by explaining where Africa is, I told them I was leaving and going to work on making water cleaner for people there. Simpler tends to work better. If there were questions, I tried to be as open as possible, and finished by telling them that I love my work, and only something really big would pull me away from it.
The responses were a huge surprise. Clients I'd been fairly close to were fine with it, and one client particularly-one I'd almost not even worried about talking to- cried. The younger kids gave me side-hugs (a hug with the absolute least amount of body contact possible) and talked about their favorite memories with me. One client I'd been particularly excited about informing. She'd heard a coworker teasing me about the video "Poop in a Hole" (funny video), and been asking me for months when I was going to poop in a hole. This lead to more than one extremely awkward situation, when professional moments were interrupted with her checking to see whether I'd pooped in a hole lately. Her excitement was touching, and it was with more sadness and nostalgia than hopeful anticipation that I closed out my workday.
Leaving anything tends to lend rose colored glasses to it. People tend to fear change, and I am no different. Walking into any change, a job change, a housing change, starting a big project or saying goodbye, it's terrifying. We tend to hold on as much as we can, remembering the great things about our current situation, like our minds are making excuses for us to keep everything the same. Even the times that work has driven me crazy, the times I've wanted to quit, the moments when Peace Corps seemed far away and I almost did, they seem distant to me now. In this clarity, I know that my work has taught me countless things about patience, resilience (the kids and mine), and humor. I am excited to keep learning, but there will always be a place in my heart for the years I've spent there.

The Discomfort of Generosity; Or, How to say Thank You When You Really Really Mean It

It's been a challenge lately to manage the generosity of my fellows. People who I am close to have given to me for this trip, and I've found it difficult to accept. Perhaps it is an Americanism; everything that I've learned of Ghana suggests that giving, and graciously receiving, are a huge part of the culture. My friends give to me because they believe in what I am doing, but I feel almost as though I am pulling the wool over their eyes; don't they realize that this adventure is one of the most selfish things I've ever done?
Some things are easier to accept. I can welcome pneumonic tricks to remember the language, promises to remain friends, advice for international travel or cultural customs, and fold these like love notes into my pockets. It is the gifts of material, rather than sentimental, heft that are difficult. I respond to these like an ungrateful child; discomfort manifesting as a tepid thank you and brisk exit.
So, my generous cohort, my giving colleagues, my gracious friends and my wonderful family; Thank you. Thank you and thank you and thank you. It's only because of the strength I get from those I love that I am able to begin this experience. It's only with the love that I receive from you that I am able to set my sights high and know you are with me.
While I may not be able to properly express it in person, I am overwhelmed with your kindness.

New Years!

This past year has taught me so much. It has brought me friendships that I intend to keep forever, self knowledge, love, understanding, and even some challenges in order to hone my character. I hope that 2013 brings me a year as wonderful and fulfilling as 2012 has been.