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.