4) Thinness equals health.
This is circumstantially true in Ghana, particularly on the University of Ghana campus where I work. Indeed, in my simple skirts and plain (UV-shielding and insect-repelling!) shirts, I sometimes feel like a naive country girl in the middle of a land of high-fashion supermodels when I meander around during my lunch break. However, in other situations, health is judged not by thinness but by having a little extra cushion, especially in the older generation.
Since coming to Ghana, I have been conscious about eating as healthily as I reasonably can when many foods are full of starch or carbohydrates and almost anything (fish, yams, chicken, rice, dough, plantains, cassava...) can be fried, and I have also be running 20-30 minutes most mornings each week. This, as well as the fact that the tailored dress and skirts that I bought soon after arriving are slowly becoming looser, leads me to believe that I have lost at least a little weight since coming to Ghana. However, on occasions when I dress up by braiding my hair or wearing some of my African clothing, without fail at least one of my host family members (and more likely two or three of them) will tell me, "Jessi, you look so nice and fat today!" Indeed, the following conversation took place between me and my 13-year-old host brother just last week...
Kwesi: "Jessi, you are looking very nice and fat today!"
me: "Hmm. Well, that is what you and Sister Adwoa [our house help] want, isn't it?"
Kwesi: "Yes!"
me: "Why?"
Kwesi: "So that when you go you will be big and you can sit on your brother's leg!"
Of course, this is not the most logical of reasons, but an alternative reason that my host family so vehemently wants to "make me big" is, as my host mother described to me, that when you become ill, it is usually helpful to have some excess weight as a buffer while you heal.
Regardless of the reason that being "big" is considered by some to be desireable, I suspect that all it really means when I am "looking nice and fat" is that I look pretty, me ho yε fe paa!
5) Making friends takes effort.
Most days when I am walking to or from work or my tro-tro stop, I make a new friend. People are pretty forthright, and so after approaching me and engaging in the usual pleasantries, they direct the conversation thus:
"Wofiri he?" Where are you from? (Mefiri America.)
"Wote he?" Where do you stay? (Mete Adenta.)
"I would like to take you as a friend. May I have your number?" / "I will take you as a friend. Give me your number."
More on social dynamics in a future post, but for now suffice it to say that this method of social interaction has been somewhat disconcerting for me, since I cannot predict who is genuinely interested in my friendship, who is just intrigued by my obroni-ness, and who has sketchier motives.
6) To buy food, you should go to the grocery store or a restaurant.
In Ghana, although I rarely do because I have either just eaten breakfast or am on my way home from work, I can buy the following things from vendors along the route that my tro-tro usually takes:
Chilly Yoghurt (a yogurt smoothie drink)
cashews
sachets of water
whole loaves of fresh bread
doughnuts (large or in doughnut hole form)
sugarcane
papaya
chocolate
FanMilk (either ice cream, yogurt, or frozen chocolate milk in a sachet)
meat pies
cornmeal scones
Malta Guiness
Sprite, Coke, or Fanta
The list is larger, of course, but where would the intrigue and suspense be if I revealed all the intricacies of my Ghanaian life in contrast with my American life all at once? (Plus, the internet cafe time I have bought is dwindling...)
So here I leave you in love and with many good wishes from Ghana. I hope you are all looking very nice and fat! :)
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
(a post-script to the "time" post)
P.S. As a side note, if I have whetted your language appetite and you are interested in learning a little bit more about Twi, click here for history and here for an English to Twi dictionary. Twi study is going well, but one thing I have learned is that understanding conversations from context clues is very tricky, as many common words have multiple diverse meanings. For example, "te" can mean to stay, to understand, to hear, or to smell, while "yε" can mean we, to become, to make, to be (well), or to do, among other things. Nanso mesua daa εfiri sε mepε sε mete Twi paa! / But I study every day because I want to understand Twi very well!
Time as Suspended and Fluid
Here in Ghana, we run on what is playfully regarded as "African time." Take the following example:
Last weekend I went with my host family to a wedding in Tema, a suburb of Accra which--dependent upon traffic--is about 45 minutes from my house in Adenta. Although the traditional marriage (the formal marriage agreement and requisite exchange of gifts between the two families involved) had occurred months earlier, I, along with my host family, was invited to attend the wedding ceremony on Saturday and the thanksgiving service on Sunday. The Saturday ceremony was lavish and joyful: family and friends crowding the elegant Catholic church, high ceilings and wide open interior not simply inviting but commanding us to sway along with the music as the gospel choir joined the highlife band to lead our singing, the bride and groom seated at the front of the church as they ignored the heat and trickling perspiration and just beamed. For what Onyame has joined together, no one should separate.
Sunday morning, a lingering happiness in my heart, I arose punctually for my morning run through my neighborhood. The sun peered through a bit of haze and the air, as usual, was humid, but the morning was fresh and my house was engulfed in preparations for the post-thanskgiving service reception: cooking outside in large pots, donning the kente cloth finery in celebration. I had been advised that I would attend a Pentecostal church with my two older host brothers, Junior and Kwabena, before meeting the rest of my family and our gaggle of houseguests in Tema for the thanksgiving service between 9:00 and 9:30. Expecting to leave around 8:00 for church, I had run, bathed from the usual bucket, and eaten and was ready to go by 7:30 (which fortunately afforded me enough time to do some last-minute ironing of my new African print dress!). But 8:00 came and went, minutes slipping by until around 8:35 when the three of us finally set off for church. Already skeptical that we would make it to Tema in time for the thanksgiving service to begin, I mentally calculated that we would have to leave church by around 9:00 to be able to attend a reasonably large portion of the thanksgiving service. We arrived at the Pentecostal church at 9:10, just as the sermon was beginning. (Since the service had already been going on for about an hour, the vibrant singing and praise portion was nearly over.) Around 10:45 we set off for Tema, but not before I was introduced to the pastor and offered a bottle of papaya juice at a small "first timer welcome" meeting.
In the end, we arrived at the Catholic church in Tema just before 11:30--scant minutes before the end of the service. Yet we had arrived, and we jovially greeted the bride, the groom, my host mom, and the myriad houseguests without even a hint of sheepishness or apology: we were there, and the time at which that became true was inconsequential. African time.
It would not be fair to say I am "subject" to African time as if I were an unwilling participant; rather, it has been easy for me to discard my usual preoccupation with timeliness and embrace the chance to be there when I am there. If my younger host brothers, Kwaku and Kwesi, want me to walk with them to school, I will, though I know waiting for them will make me arrive at work at 8:20 rather than 8:00. εyε bכkככ, it's cool, it's easy, it's all good; my coworkers will be trickling it around then, too. When my tro-tro is hopelessly mired in traffic during the morning commute, εyε bכkככ; although I hesitate to be that tourist by snapping picture after picture of my every day routine and that of my tro-tro comrades, at least I can record these moments mentally.
In contrast to this view of time (εyε bכkככ!), regardless of individuals' political affiliation, economic status, career, or any other factor, it seems that one thing that wields power over Americans' collective existence is the clock. Evidently, this is simply not true in Ghana, and over the last two months, it has not been true for me. (Rather than the clock, the thing that seems to wield an analogous power over my existence here seems to be the mosquito.) Time exists--it must, as part of God's natural order--and yet in Ghana it is no imposing taskmaster. Rather, its application is fluid. Words for precise times were not even part of the Twi language until European influence was established in Ghana, attested to by the facts that "Abכ sεn?", what time is it, literally means "It [the clock, introduced by Europeans] has struck how many?", and "כprεm ato" (noon) refers to the cannons (כprεm) that were fired from European forts at noon every day during the colonial period. Time has always been, but its precise measurement has not.
And so here I am in a place where clocks are not revered and time is fluid. I am suspended in time. Most days, I am aware on some level that I will be going back "home," back to the United States and pancakes and winter and calcium from dairy products, after some time--and yet εyε bכkככ. When I think of home or my mind meanders to May 31, I have no internal countdown clock. I am not uneasy, confronted by dread that someday I might have to leave or overwhelmed with a yearning to get back to all things familiar; time has loosed its grip in that sense.
In a way, part of me (the part that has taxes to pay or party invitations to respond to) is still in the United States, and that part is subject to the hurry of the clock and the press of the daily planner. The other part of me--the real part, the one that breathes, gets dusty feet, prays, and likes waving to the children who cry out, "Obroni!" when I pass them in the street--is in Ghana, though, and this part lives by time, not the impositions or demands of the clock. Rather than being commanded by the clock, I am suspended in time. African time.
Last weekend I went with my host family to a wedding in Tema, a suburb of Accra which--dependent upon traffic--is about 45 minutes from my house in Adenta. Although the traditional marriage (the formal marriage agreement and requisite exchange of gifts between the two families involved) had occurred months earlier, I, along with my host family, was invited to attend the wedding ceremony on Saturday and the thanksgiving service on Sunday. The Saturday ceremony was lavish and joyful: family and friends crowding the elegant Catholic church, high ceilings and wide open interior not simply inviting but commanding us to sway along with the music as the gospel choir joined the highlife band to lead our singing, the bride and groom seated at the front of the church as they ignored the heat and trickling perspiration and just beamed. For what Onyame has joined together, no one should separate.
Sunday morning, a lingering happiness in my heart, I arose punctually for my morning run through my neighborhood. The sun peered through a bit of haze and the air, as usual, was humid, but the morning was fresh and my house was engulfed in preparations for the post-thanskgiving service reception: cooking outside in large pots, donning the kente cloth finery in celebration. I had been advised that I would attend a Pentecostal church with my two older host brothers, Junior and Kwabena, before meeting the rest of my family and our gaggle of houseguests in Tema for the thanksgiving service between 9:00 and 9:30. Expecting to leave around 8:00 for church, I had run, bathed from the usual bucket, and eaten and was ready to go by 7:30 (which fortunately afforded me enough time to do some last-minute ironing of my new African print dress!). But 8:00 came and went, minutes slipping by until around 8:35 when the three of us finally set off for church. Already skeptical that we would make it to Tema in time for the thanksgiving service to begin, I mentally calculated that we would have to leave church by around 9:00 to be able to attend a reasonably large portion of the thanksgiving service. We arrived at the Pentecostal church at 9:10, just as the sermon was beginning. (Since the service had already been going on for about an hour, the vibrant singing and praise portion was nearly over.) Around 10:45 we set off for Tema, but not before I was introduced to the pastor and offered a bottle of papaya juice at a small "first timer welcome" meeting.
In the end, we arrived at the Catholic church in Tema just before 11:30--scant minutes before the end of the service. Yet we had arrived, and we jovially greeted the bride, the groom, my host mom, and the myriad houseguests without even a hint of sheepishness or apology: we were there, and the time at which that became true was inconsequential. African time.
It would not be fair to say I am "subject" to African time as if I were an unwilling participant; rather, it has been easy for me to discard my usual preoccupation with timeliness and embrace the chance to be there when I am there. If my younger host brothers, Kwaku and Kwesi, want me to walk with them to school, I will, though I know waiting for them will make me arrive at work at 8:20 rather than 8:00. εyε bכkככ, it's cool, it's easy, it's all good; my coworkers will be trickling it around then, too. When my tro-tro is hopelessly mired in traffic during the morning commute, εyε bכkככ; although I hesitate to be that tourist by snapping picture after picture of my every day routine and that of my tro-tro comrades, at least I can record these moments mentally.
In contrast to this view of time (εyε bכkככ!), regardless of individuals' political affiliation, economic status, career, or any other factor, it seems that one thing that wields power over Americans' collective existence is the clock. Evidently, this is simply not true in Ghana, and over the last two months, it has not been true for me. (Rather than the clock, the thing that seems to wield an analogous power over my existence here seems to be the mosquito.) Time exists--it must, as part of God's natural order--and yet in Ghana it is no imposing taskmaster. Rather, its application is fluid. Words for precise times were not even part of the Twi language until European influence was established in Ghana, attested to by the facts that "Abכ sεn?", what time is it, literally means "It [the clock, introduced by Europeans] has struck how many?", and "כprεm ato" (noon) refers to the cannons (כprεm) that were fired from European forts at noon every day during the colonial period. Time has always been, but its precise measurement has not.
And so here I am in a place where clocks are not revered and time is fluid. I am suspended in time. Most days, I am aware on some level that I will be going back "home," back to the United States and pancakes and winter and calcium from dairy products, after some time--and yet εyε bכkככ. When I think of home or my mind meanders to May 31, I have no internal countdown clock. I am not uneasy, confronted by dread that someday I might have to leave or overwhelmed with a yearning to get back to all things familiar; time has loosed its grip in that sense.
In a way, part of me (the part that has taxes to pay or party invitations to respond to) is still in the United States, and that part is subject to the hurry of the clock and the press of the daily planner. The other part of me--the real part, the one that breathes, gets dusty feet, prays, and likes waving to the children who cry out, "Obroni!" when I pass them in the street--is in Ghana, though, and this part lives by time, not the impositions or demands of the clock. Rather than being commanded by the clock, I am suspended in time. African time.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Things I Understand as Normal in the US
1) Continuous song play on the radio.
The radio seems always to be on at my house. The station varies, but it usually is tuned to either a gospel station with intermittent sermons dispersed between the songs or a "hiplife" station. (Hiplife is the modernized, hip-hopified version of traditional Ghanaian highlife music, which is has something of a Caribbean feel to its mellow, keyboard-enhanced, smooth sound.) Curiously enough, when I am listening to a song, usually on a hiplife or American pop station, the songs are interrupted every 20-30 seconds either by a DJ's announcement or the station's jingle, or perhaps even by clips of the daily news. "...you can stand under my umbre-'It's Kwame B!'-ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, eh-eh-eh..." I guess Ghanaians' attention spans can be as short as Americans'.
2) Calcuim from dairy products.
Luckily for me, my host family is very hospitable and tries to make me feel as comfortable as possible, whether by permitting me to occasionally forgo the traditional fufu with smoked fish stew and eat chicken nuggets instead or not laughing too hard when I spew forth some serious(ly flawed) Twi, and so I actually do get calcium from dairy products such as the milk and cheddar cheese they buy specially for me. However, one evening after finishing my meal--a mound of rice garnished with a deliciously spicy tomato, garlic, and ginger stew, some frozen peas, and a chicken leg--our house help said to me, "Jessie, it is okay that you don't eat the chicken skin, because there is so much fat there. But why do you never eat the bones?" Perplexed, I responded that I don't usually (ever!) eat bones in America, but she informed me that I ought to because they have "so much calcium to make [my] bones strong." Crunch, crunch! I can now add to my list of new foods I have tried in Ghana chicken bones.
3) American table manners.
I came home late the other evening to find my host mom, Helina, sitting on our porch and enjoying the cool breeze along with a meal of kenkey (mashed fermented corn with a consistency somewhere between smooth grits and mashed potatoes, but a little firmer) and pepper stew.
"Ena, maadwo, good evening," I greeted her. "Yaa nua," she replied, "Mepaakyɛw, bra ne yennidi, please, come and eat with me." So I sat beside her and took in my fingers a glob of kenkey pinched from the lump from which she was eating, and dipped it in the stew where she had dipped her glob, and wrangled away a piece of the sardine she was eating, and put it in my mouth. "Only very close friends eat this way," she told me.
Eating with one's hands is normal here in Ghana, and I have quickly learned that it is not a pleasant experience to consume a steaming bowl of omo tuo ne nkateɛnkwan, rice balls and peanut soup, on laundry day after my knuckles are rubbed raw. Yet there's something comforting about just eating, not worrying about whether this fork is indeed for the salad or whether I should have saved it for dessert. Of course, Ghanaian table manners are different in other ways (eating with the left hand is inappropriate, so I have learned to be proficient with a fork in my right hand on the occasions when I use one; savoring one's food by eating slowly is uncommon; belching at the table is not viewed as particularly offensive), but no matter who you are with, you will probably be invited: "Mepaakyɛw, bra ne yennidi."
These are just three of a multitude of differences I have discovered over the last 6 weeks (6 weeks?!), and there will be more to share. Tomorrow and Sunday I am going to a wedding, which I expect will highlight even more cultural differences for me. For now, enjoy the few pictures I have been able to upload, and I assure you that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Yɛbɛhyia!
The radio seems always to be on at my house. The station varies, but it usually is tuned to either a gospel station with intermittent sermons dispersed between the songs or a "hiplife" station. (Hiplife is the modernized, hip-hopified version of traditional Ghanaian highlife music, which is has something of a Caribbean feel to its mellow, keyboard-enhanced, smooth sound.) Curiously enough, when I am listening to a song, usually on a hiplife or American pop station, the songs are interrupted every 20-30 seconds either by a DJ's announcement or the station's jingle, or perhaps even by clips of the daily news. "...you can stand under my umbre-'It's Kwame B!'-ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, eh-eh-eh..." I guess Ghanaians' attention spans can be as short as Americans'.
2) Calcuim from dairy products.
Luckily for me, my host family is very hospitable and tries to make me feel as comfortable as possible, whether by permitting me to occasionally forgo the traditional fufu with smoked fish stew and eat chicken nuggets instead or not laughing too hard when I spew forth some serious(ly flawed) Twi, and so I actually do get calcium from dairy products such as the milk and cheddar cheese they buy specially for me. However, one evening after finishing my meal--a mound of rice garnished with a deliciously spicy tomato, garlic, and ginger stew, some frozen peas, and a chicken leg--our house help said to me, "Jessie, it is okay that you don't eat the chicken skin, because there is so much fat there. But why do you never eat the bones?" Perplexed, I responded that I don't usually (ever!) eat bones in America, but she informed me that I ought to because they have "so much calcium to make [my] bones strong." Crunch, crunch! I can now add to my list of new foods I have tried in Ghana chicken bones.
3) American table manners.
I came home late the other evening to find my host mom, Helina, sitting on our porch and enjoying the cool breeze along with a meal of kenkey (mashed fermented corn with a consistency somewhere between smooth grits and mashed potatoes, but a little firmer) and pepper stew.
"Ena, maadwo, good evening," I greeted her. "Yaa nua," she replied, "Mepaakyɛw, bra ne yennidi, please, come and eat with me." So I sat beside her and took in my fingers a glob of kenkey pinched from the lump from which she was eating, and dipped it in the stew where she had dipped her glob, and wrangled away a piece of the sardine she was eating, and put it in my mouth. "Only very close friends eat this way," she told me.
Eating with one's hands is normal here in Ghana, and I have quickly learned that it is not a pleasant experience to consume a steaming bowl of omo tuo ne nkateɛnkwan, rice balls and peanut soup, on laundry day after my knuckles are rubbed raw. Yet there's something comforting about just eating, not worrying about whether this fork is indeed for the salad or whether I should have saved it for dessert. Of course, Ghanaian table manners are different in other ways (eating with the left hand is inappropriate, so I have learned to be proficient with a fork in my right hand on the occasions when I use one; savoring one's food by eating slowly is uncommon; belching at the table is not viewed as particularly offensive), but no matter who you are with, you will probably be invited: "Mepaakyɛw, bra ne yennidi."
These are just three of a multitude of differences I have discovered over the last 6 weeks (6 weeks?!), and there will be more to share. Tomorrow and Sunday I am going to a wedding, which I expect will highlight even more cultural differences for me. For now, enjoy the few pictures I have been able to upload, and I assure you that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Yɛbɛhyia!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Bridge Year Website is Online!
... And you can access it by clicking here. Go to "Meet the Volunteers" and find me under "Ghana Volunteers," or read the "Updates from the Field" to get a little better idea of what I and the other four Bridge Year students have been up and even see some pictures.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Just popping in...
Hey all,
I am at a loss of what to tell you, but take that as a good thing! To be succinct, life here in Ghana is good. Work is coming along, slowly and tediously but steadily. My homestay family is simply great; it is good to be staying with them! Yesterday after church I bought my younger host brothers a football (soccer ball), walked around the neighborhood with them, and got a fruit cocktail Fanta with my friend Lawrencia who lives one street over. My four best friends are doing well at their jobs and with their host families, and we are all settling in very well to living in Ghana.
For now, be assured that I am alive and well, and that my thoughts are percolating--if I shared them now, though, they'd just be watery and lukewarm.
And so I leave you for the time being, assuring you that you are in my prayers. Onyame adom, yεbεhyia bio. Nante yie! / By God's grace, we will meet again. Walk well!
Love,
Jessica
I am at a loss of what to tell you, but take that as a good thing! To be succinct, life here in Ghana is good. Work is coming along, slowly and tediously but steadily. My homestay family is simply great; it is good to be staying with them! Yesterday after church I bought my younger host brothers a football (soccer ball), walked around the neighborhood with them, and got a fruit cocktail Fanta with my friend Lawrencia who lives one street over. My four best friends are doing well at their jobs and with their host families, and we are all settling in very well to living in Ghana.
For now, be assured that I am alive and well, and that my thoughts are percolating--if I shared them now, though, they'd just be watery and lukewarm.
And so I leave you for the time being, assuring you that you are in my prayers. Onyame adom, yεbεhyia bio. Nante yie! / By God's grace, we will meet again. Walk well!
Love,
Jessica
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