Another two weeks of fufu

So, two more weeks and what do we have to say for ourselves?  Well on the positive side we’re starting to get the hang of things and are really settling in.  On the less positive side our settling in has been sometimes tough going, with so many foreign things (the weather, the language, the food, the place, the culture) to adjust to all at once.  While these weeks (and consequently this post) have been somewhat dominated by a few recurring negative themes as we struggle over the first hump, even as I write this I feel the need to mention quite optimistically that I think in the last few days we’ve started to turn the corner.

Starting with the positive; things we are getting used to…  We have definitely come to consider the EDYM Village our sanctuary – our home away – to which we’re always pleased and comforted to return.  We are generally untroubled by our relatively sparse accommodations there and have even learned to bathe – relatively happily – African-style (with a bucket) when our shower water shortages extend for longer than expected.  (I will admit, though, for all my camping know-how, that I exhibited some consternation upon my first African bath at being instructed by Sam to wash my hair by sticking my head in the bucket.  This is done, I will say, with very little grace.)  The only real complaint we have is that Florence’s cooking continues to leave much to be desired.  But it should be said that to this our approach has remained one of steadfast politeness and so, given our host’s oft-stated request for honesty, we only have ourselves to blame.

The heat – our foremost foe early on – improved greatly after our first week and, although we seem in these last few days to be in the thick of another wave, our bodies and minds have become much more accustomed to it.   We’ve also benefited from some nights of stormier weather which have brought the perfect combination of cool winds blowing in from nearby storms accompanied by actually very little rain (all the cooling of a storm with none of the sogging).  In fact, the reservoir is so empty that the frogs have nearly all shut up!

When he’s not too busy with all the business of the farm or tearing around town on errands on his motorcycle (sometimes with us on board), Paul laughs a lot and has been kind to let us enjoy a good deal of his company.  He has been very generous with his time with us, especially given all of his commitments, and has helped us greatly with whatever assimilation into this community we have managed.  A highlight are our refreshing trips to a small hotel in the next town (owned by a friend of Paul’s and consisting of a few nice small buildings in a gated property, located preposterously at the end of an extensive lane of mud huts) where we have been a few times to enjoy bottles of local beer, a refreshingly air-conditioned room, and occasionally television programmes from South Africa’s AfricaMagic! Channel (which really deserve a blog post all their own).

I’m still going to the library each day and, after a few days of chaos, I have managed to establish a relative calm and a generally good rapport with even my most snot-nosed patrons.  The crowd is kept to a minimum and kids are, good-naturedly, kicked out often, and everyone gets their turn and is invited back tomorrow.  The small group of children who so vexed me in my second week (who’s staring at the door turned into a great game of who could get me most worked up, climaxing in sticks being thrown repeatedly through the entrance) leave me mostly alone, or actually visit the library properly, after I told on the oldest girl to her mom.  Maybe it was that, or the progressively more mundane regularity of my appearance there, or possibly some more forceful instruction from their teachers (who also visit regularly), but the children are treating me much more like an adult of consequence rather than an alien with no bearing on their behaviour or, if necessary, punishment.  I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Still, for good measure, I’m practicing my “Keep Quiet,” “Go Home,” and “Come Back Tomorrow” in Ewe.

Sam’s life continues along the relatively same path as in our last update.  A notable change to his poop-shoveling routine is the addition of a helpful club (the discarded handle of an old hoe, found by Chachu), which Sam uses to pulverize the more reticent clumps of dirt.  To the outsider observing Sam – sitting by his poop pile, spade in one hand, slowly thumping the poop dirt with the club in the other – this gives him the rather amusing appearance of a somewhat depressed caveman.

Just as I am the subject of much curiosity (especially from children) at the library, Sam too occupies his little zoo habitat of the nursery, for which the nearby road is a ready observer’s gallery.  He is also practicing his “Alright, yes, hello, that’s enough, clear off now!” in the local dialect.

Chachu still provides most of Sam’s company and when he’s not – sort of subtly – asking Sam for money to start his farm or – expressly – asking Sam to take him back to Canada (because “Chachu is a haaard worker!”) he is using seemingly any excuse to take time off work to rest or complain (about life, love, or work we guess) to any passing friend who would likewise, presumably, appreciate a break.  Chachu also takes Sam frequently to gather water at the local water pump where they stand around and watch everyone else pump water but never take their turn, while Sam takes abuse from the local women and children while trying to figure out just how the order of water-taking is decided.  They often wait a long time, likely more out of Chachu’s mild enjoyment of being the procurer of such a strange curiosity as Sam rather than out of any ladies-first politeness.  The charms of Chachu’s company are endless.

Which, I guess, brings us to some of the things we’re not getting used to.  This is most prominently (before or after the food?) being gawked at all the time and our every movement being followed by curious stares and a chorus of “Yevou! Yevou!” coming from, mostly, children. (Literally this means, “White man! White man!” but apparently it’s hollered at any foreigner.)   One little girl yelled herself hoarse about ten feet from us with just this word the other day while we waited to catch a tro-tro from our language lesson at the library. Sam also had the distinct pleasure this week of being addressed as White man” in English by a man he was meeting. Suffice it to say, what little charm the words hold in Ewe doesn’t translate to English.

Perhaps more aggravating than the ever-present “Yevou!”s (they’re only kids after all) is the readiness with which adults justify this habit to us, particularly by explaining the curiosity we must see that people find in every conceivable (and inconceivable) difference between us and them, which they will readily and earnestly point out.  In fact, it is perhaps this readiness to point out our differences (physical curiosities mostly) that has taken us most by surprise and which sometimes leads us to believe that people must think we are nothing short of extra-terrestrials landed, most curiously, in their community in Ghana.  At the very least, it’s tiresome and awkward; at most, it can really tax even one’s most charitable and enduring feelings about a universal brotherhood of humanity, which you might begin to wonder if they would even conceive of here.

On the bright side, any negative encounters (and there are many positive ones too) only increase our esteem for Paul and his incredibly warm and welcoming family, who are outstanding ambassadors for the community and his work.

To break up some of the routine, we have enjoyed a few excursions to local sights.  Some are planned (like out trip to Ho two weeks ago, where we used the internet and ate pizza) and some are unplanned (with every day comes the hope of one of Paul’s impromptu motorcycle adventures – I’ve gotten to go up to see a town in a mountain with a view, and Sam has been to the lake).  After our first successful independent trip (to Ho) we had our first and only pre-paid, Village Volunteers-organized “Tour of the Volta Region” this past weekend.  The highlights included visiting a wild monkey sanctuary at Tafi Atome, swimming under the highest waterfall in West Africa at Wli falls (which was truly sublime), and climbing Afadjato, Ghana’s highest mountain (right next to and across the border from some taller mountains in Togo).  The lowlights included almost everything else, mostly on account of our “guide” Edward.  Let’s just say about him that when it was not his seemingly singular and determined preoccupation to wrest us of as much of our money as possible, he was utterly unhelpful, uninformed, aggressive, nosy, obtuse, and inappropriate, not to mention completely ignorant and wrong-headed in his approach to tourists and volunteers.   A real prize.

Paul (who genuinely understands and appreciates the value of tourism and volunteers) expressed some reservations about Edward, but in the interest of not interfering with the arrangements made we decided to go ahead with the tour as planned, trusting the presumably good judgment of our sending agency.  Perhaps needless to say, in such a foreign environment our frustration in stressful situations can sometimes be out of proportion with what the situation merits, but we think we saved our griping for each other.  At any rate, with no more like-torture planned we will look forward to Paul’s knowledgeable guidance on our future tours.

Otherwise, we have started our language lessons with a teacher from the town and goodwill seems to follow our mangled attempts at communication in the local Ewe.   So far, apart from having difficulty hearing – let alone producing – some of the required intonation and sounds, we are progressing decently.  (For example, all of our Ps sound the same, whether they’re Ps or KPs, we have trouble with anything coming out of our noses, and the not-quite-a-W-not-quite-an-F-sort-of-WH-as-in-whale-“open F” is an eternal enigma.)

Also progressing decently, if not too quickly, is the speed at which we’re burning through our novels.  Sam’s breaks on the farm have seen him all the way through all 1095 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo.  I’ve burned through all 930 pages of Shantaram, all 125 pages of The Time Machine, and over 300 of the 550-odd pages of The Cider House Rules, not to mention a good part of Britain in the Twentieth Century: A Documentary Reader (all except the first courtesy of the Have Community Library).  Together we’ve also covered all of Bill Bryson on Shakespeare, most of the Bradt Guide to Ghana, the Lonely Planet Guide to Africa (at least the relevant bits) and have started in on Journey to the Centre of the Earth.  With all the contents of the library at our disposal, we can safely expect to run out of time or patience for reading before we run out of material.   So far, I’m winning at Rummy.

And thank you for all of the comments and the well-wishing emails!  We appreciate the notes immensely, even when we have not the time (what with all of this blasted blog-typing) to respond.