A Good Ghana Day

Today was just a wonderful day. My heart is full. It has been all day. I am happy. I want to bring my family to Ghana. Mommie, Cameron, Julian and I will have to come spend a summer here. Nothing more to say. Today is too magical to waste it away in an internet cafe. Later!

Also, shout out to Helen's mom! Thanks for finding and following my blog! Helen has a funny story to tell you about her attempt to get her hair braided in Ghana. Long story short, it resulted in a piece of purple hair being glued in your child's hair. I would love to show you the pic but my camera is broken.

Menstruating in a Developing Country

I have been on the lookout for my period for over a week now. I expected her to make her monthly visit about a week ago, but I think residing in a room with six other women caused her to lose her way. I have started drinking a lot more water to combat the constipation I was experiencing earlier this week, so this morning at the school I desperately had to pee. I pulled a piece of tissue from my purse and walked to the back of the school to "go" on the rock pile that is designated for the teachers (the area for the students does not have rocks, they piss on the dirt). I was especially dreading having to go because I wore jeans and pissing outdoors in pants is a lot harder than hiking up a dress. After a few drips, I aimed my stream of pee in the middle of two rocks (this reduces splattering on your legs) and I felt pretty good that this was going to be a quick and successful "restroom" visit. I whipped out my little piece of tissue, used it, looked down to discover that my period started. There I was, squatting, over a pile of rocks, with insufficient tissue. No toilet. No toilet paper. No trash can. No purse. I was screwed. I pulled up my pants and left the teachers "bathroom". I was disgusted. I walked over to purse and searched for the necessary equipment. Of course, it was not in my bag. I proceeded to ask every woman of menstruating age for a pad/tampon. After 7 attempts, I was successful in finding a tampon. Quick Advice: If you are a tampon user, bring a full supply of tampons with you to Ghana. They don't really sell them here. I headed back to the rock pile. I was disturbed and highly irritated with the situation. I finished my business and still had my "trash" in hand. I had to walk halfway across the school, to the one trash can, to dispose of my garbage. Imagine my discomfort at this point. This was not okay.

So here I am, in the internet cafe with slight cramps. I am hot. I am now resenting that I don't have air conditioning. The fan will not "get it" tonight. I am internally hot. Bucket baths just don't seem sufficient today. I will see how I feel about that later tonight. There are not enough clean/safe toilets in Ghana for me to look forward to the next four to five long, very long, days. I wonder how they local women deal with this EVERY MONTH! Fuck.

Quiet

I love being away from home. I rarely get homesick, and if I do, it doesn't last very long. I just like being abroad. I enjoy the quiet of it all. I have a lot of time with my own thoughts and without the hustle and bustle of Atlanta. I read a lot more books when I am away. I take more time to just sit around and talk about nothing. Sometimes I just join the locals and sit in silence. Very cool. I walk a lot more in Africa. When I am in the states I walk fast. Here, I stroll. Cool. I am no longer tempted with an abundance of packaged foods and McDonald's on every corner. The fastest food I can get it a slice of watermelon, friend plantains, grilled kabobs or fresh baked bread from the street vendors. I wake up with the sun. I usually can't sleep later than 6 a.m. as the rooster insists that I get up. I really like it in Ghana. I wouldn't return except, I miss my friends and family a lot...that's the only reason I plan on coming back...Unless of course, they would be open to coming here...

Also, I need to start making plans for next summers travel abroad. I am thinking Asia? Any suggestions?

Relationships

Bad news. My camera is broken. I am not sure why it won't work, but the lens won't extract and it keeps saying "lens error" when I attempt to turn it on. That means that this blog is very unlikely to include anymore cool pictures. Just know that Ghana and I are still well and beautiful, even though you can't see us on this blog anymore. *tear*. I have formed many new friendships/relationships with the local people. I will first start with the two market ladies that I always buy from. Unfortunately, I don't know either of their names (I will correct this soon). The first is a young lady who always lights up when she sees me. She teaches me a few words in Fante while she fills my bags with veggies. She never seems to have the correct change for what I purchased, so I am usually forced to buy more than I planned to reach the full amount. She is a smart market lady. The other market lady is a bit older. After I leave the young woman's stand I go to her stand and practice the Fante I just learned. She is always impressed with my attempt to learn the language. She then proceeds to correct my pronunciation. Each day I only request a few fruits and veggies but she always fills my bag with much more than what I asked for. Of course, I pay her more than her quoted price. She always acts surprised. She is a very smart market lady. I have also started helping braid hair at the local salon. I really like it. The shop owner is a young woman named Adiza. Her clients are always surprised that I know how to do hair. Adiza's English is limited but her clients usually speak English very well. Often, the clients speak English while I am in the shop to include me in the local gossip. I love it. Yesterday, a lady came to the shop having to get her hair done urgently because her "husband would beat her if she did not get home quickly". Another lady said that she always says that and she just wanted to skip the line. Everyone laughed. Then Adiza and I moved from the other client to her...just in case her husband really was going to beat her. I love the small ways that women look out for each other. At the end of the day, we are our real protectors. Then of course, there is Christina and Gabriel. I eat at their house for dinner about 4 or 5 nights out of the week. Christina seriously thinks I am somehow obligated to eat at their house because we are friends. I have been trying to make her understand that I have to go home and eat with my group but she just let's me know she expects me for dinner as she walks away. I shout to her back, "Seriously, Christina I am not coming today!" and she shouts back "Then I guess you are not my friend". Guilt. It is a an overused social weapon in Ghana. Then there is Ricky. The owns the Kakumado Guest house. He spent a few years in Germany and married a German woman. He speaks fluent German and English and considers himself different from the locals since he lived among Europeans for many years. I stop by Ricky's place at least a few times a week. I go to say hello and to use the clean bathroom. Today I met Ricky's girlfriend. She is a lovely woman who lives in Kumasi and comes to see Ricky on the weekends. They plan to marry soon. I had pinned Ricky as a lonely old man until I met his woman this weekend. She makes him happy. I can tell. Ricky also has a "maid" (their words not mine) named Mary. Mary is amazing. When I stop by she and I just talk the way young lady's talk when they haven't seen each other in a few days. Mary is always badgering me about getting married and having children. It's a bit ironic because she has two children and is divorced (very uncommon for a young woman in Ghana) but she can't stop talking about the joys of marriage. Whenever I am leaving Mary she touches my stomach and says some nonsense about blessing me with a billion babies or something. I yell at her and tell her to stop putting her voodoo witchcraft on me. We laugh. The Rasta's are a treat as well. I especially like eating at Kenya's co-op restaurant. He gives everyone a huge plate of delicious food for 1 Cedi. I always like to pay him a bit extra...just because I can. I like eating with the locals. We sit around. A bunch of hungry young people trying to satisfy a basic need and save a buck at the same time. It is nice. The family that we live with are very nice as well. I have gotten to know the children very well. Gabrielle is an especially well-behaved and helpful young man. I taught his class at the school. I always tell him that I will marry him when he grows up. He responds with a defiant "NO!" and then laughs. I ask him why he doesn't want to marry me. He says "NO!" and runs away. I want to do something nice for Gabrielle before I leave. He is a good kid. He deserves it.

Tubthumping

This weekend is our last weekend in Kakumado. We decided to go out and celebrate our last weekend and a group members birthday. It was an awesome night. The night began with a nice dinner at the restaurant beside the Cape Coast Castle. We then moved on the "Oasis beach resort". It was rather slow because they had a local African group performing and the performance lasted too long. So we decided to go the the "Elmina Beach Resort". Beside the beach resort was a little hole in the wall club that we decided to stop by first. We ended up spending the majority of the night in that small club. It was awesome. They played the same five songs all night and we danced to them as if they were new every time. The hit song of the night was "Waist and Power". It was played over 20 times and each time the dance floor filled and everyone, Black, White, Yellow and Red, jumped around and threw up their beers and yelled, "I need an African Man!". It was hilarious. Perhaps that is the sign of a true hit record? I drank 3 "Club" beers. Club is the local beer. It is nice. The only problem was that the beers were served luke warm so after dancing for a few songs the beer became hot and nasty and I had to buy another one. Perhaps that was intentionally done by the club owners? The club did not have any bathrooms so everyone walked around the building and peed outside. Halfway into the night I finally got the confidence to join the locals in public urination. The beers lessened my anxiety and filled my bladder enough for me to finally get the guts to go outside. I hiked up my dress, made sure my feet were far apart, squatted in horse stance, looked over my right shoulder to make sure the coast was clear, looked over my left shoulder to ensure no one was around, gave myself a short pep talk, and then, I, Adrianne Pinkney the great, pissed outside. I went a total of 4 times before the night was over. By the end of the night I was public urination pro. We exhausted our fun at the hole in the wall and decided to make our way over to the "Elmina Beach Resort". Upon walking in the hotel, we were informed that we would not be allowed in the club because all of the girls had on flip-flops. We were joined by a lot of other Westerners who would not be admitted and allowed to spend our ready-to-blow-Cedi's in the club. We made a big scene and were really obnoxious about being denied entry. The bouncer eventually walked away from us. I asked a local girl if I could buy her shoes. She looked at me in disgust. But, hey, you never know until you ask? On our way out, Gabrielle accidentally dropped his entire bottle of beer smack dab in the middle of the lobby. A bit buzzed, All of us decided to run from the scene of the crime. The hotel security chased us and told us to come and clean up after ourselves. Christina turned back to pick up the bottle. I grabbed her hand and dragged her away. We were all laughing really hard. I didn't want to finish my last hot beer so I threw the bottle on the side of the Resort wall. We laughed even harder. My sides hurt. Being a renegade is awesome. We returned to the hole in the wall club and to our surprise a lady had set up an omelet selling stand. We bought omelets from the lady. That omelet was the best late-night-side-of-the-road-greasy-alcohol-absorbing-sobering-up food I have eaten in my life. While sitting on the side of the road I started to worry about getting malaria from the late night mosquitos. Then, a big police truck pulled up to the omelet stand and 3 scary looking police get out with machine guns. A scared/drunk White guy gets out with them. They buy him a bottle of water. The guy is not handcuffed. He drinks it. He gets back into the car. They drive off. It was very sketchy. Very scary. I then thought; being a renegade is stupid. I will save all my future lawless activity when I am in the fair, flawed, developing, unfair, sexist, racist, classist, justice system in America. I trust it much more than the one here in Ghana. I asked Chris and Gabrielle what they thought happened to the White guy with the police. They both shrugged their shoulders in disinterest. They said the police pick up drunk, high, White people all the time and scare them into paying really high bribes so they will not go to jail. They got that kid water so he could sober up enough to give them whatever money the wanted before they dropped him off at home. Based on what I saw, it seemed they were telling the truth. That guy had been at the hole in the wall with us just a few hours before I saw him in the car...We decided it was a good time to go home. All the White people had left, so it took us forever to catch a cab. They don't stop as much if you are not a Bruni. I was starting to get worried about the mosquitoes. Gabrielle finally stopped a cab, but it was going to charge us an exorbitant late night fare and Gabrielle let it pass us by. That happened about 4 times before somebody got the bright idea that we might actually just have to pay a lot to get home. 7 Cedi's later, we were all dropped off safe and sound. I went to sleep with a big smile on my face. It was a great night. This morning I woke up and made myself a big sloppy omelet...I just wanted to ensure that it would be another great day in Ghana.

Domestic Violence

Today Christina decided to have her hair braided like mine. I took her to the salon where I had my hair done. I knew it was going to take several hours to complete it, so I decided to help. Imagine the shock of the Africans when they discovered that I, with my "White" self, could braid hair. It was an ordinary Ghanian day and we were taking it all in. The goats lazily ate grass. The chickens kept coming into the salon. The villagers stopped by and talked to us for awhile. The day was totally typical. All of a sudden a little boy, around the age of 5 or 6, comes crying and screaming down the road. His voice was filled with terror. Everyone stopped and looked to see what, or who, was chasing the child. A woman, with a child attached to her back comes walking quickly behind the boy. She was enraged. She quickly grabbed the boy, who I later learned was her son, and begins beating him in his face. Repeatedly she slaps and punches the boy as he screams in pain and humiliation. Everyone is watching in shock. Finally the shop owner, lowers Christina's braid and runs over to the woman. She rips the boy from his mothers arms. The mother continues to chase after her and the boy, hitting him over and over again. Christina tells the boy to come into the hair salon. He comes into the salon and sits beside me trembling and sobbing. He seemed so small. So defenseless. He could not fight back. She was bigger. She was livid. She was his mother. His shirt and pants were torn. He had no shoes. He was clearly one of the many children in Ghana who do not attend school. The mother stood at the edge of the road yelling into the shop. Accusing the boy, "He has eaten all of my provisions. We will go hungry." (Christina later translated this for me). Then, it just ended. The boy stopped crying. He got up, on his own accord, and followed his mother home. Everyone returned to their homes. It was over. I wanted to cry. I could not believed I had just witnessed such violence. I could not believe I had just witness such violence toward a child. I could not believe I had just witnessed such violence toward a child by his own mother. What could that child do? Who could protect him? How many times had his mother hit him in his home and he could not run outside to seek refuge from the villagers? Why is it that we have this disgusting and warped idea that parents can be violent toward their children in order to teach them? or correct them? or, dare I say, love them? When I am speaking of violence toward children, I mean every "spanking", slap, "whopping", thrown book, push, shove that any child receives from any adult. It is wrong. This child's beating was no different than the "spanking" with a belt, spoon, switch, hand, electric cord that children get in America. This boys screams sounded just like theirs. This boys tears were the same. This boys desire for safety from such violence was the same. Something has to be done. If this boy had been an adult woman people would have been outraged. People would say, "No man who hits you loves you." Can we say the same to children? "No man/woman who hits you loves you". It seems a little disturbing to think of it that way...because for many of us that would mean reflecting on our own childhoods. Our very own parents would come into question. We would reply images of our 5, 6, 7, 8 year old selves being abused in the name of love. Perhaps some would question the way they interact with there own children. They might have many different reactions. Defense: "The bible says, spare the rod, spoil the child". Denial: "I spank my children but it is not abuse." Displacement of blame: "I was spanked, and I don't think there is any other way." Or maybe, just maybe, someone will join me in breaking the cycle of child abuse by choosing to interact with their own children in non-violent ways.

Ghana is Home

I know I have not been blogging as much as I once was. It is coming from the simple fact that nothing about Ghana is that fascinating anymore. I have been here long enough for Ghana to have become like home. Each morning the roosters wake me at about 5:30 a.m. I stretch. I lay there until 6:00 a.m. I get up, strap on my dirty, well-worn, tennis shoes and take a 2 mile jog around Kakumado. The locals wave at me. I say good morning in Fante. They laugh. They like me a little bit for trying. I come home and eat breakfast. One of two options. Oatmeal. Eggs and Toast. I then take a quick bucket bath. Cold water. I am well awake. I go to the kitchen and make my lunch. Steamed veggies. I get dressed and head to whatever school I am going to teach history in. This week I have been teaching in a high school. I say something unlike what their teachers say. They learn. They laugh. The students like me. I like them. A lot. I eat my packed lunch. School ends. I go to town and buy a few things. Fruits. Veggies. For lunch tomorrow. I buy some grilled beef of the street. It is good. Too salty. The market ladies teach me Fante. I repeat what they say. They laugh. It is hot. I take a cab. The cab driver trys to over charge me. I yell "BULLSHIT!" at his price. He laughs. He charges me like the locals. We are friends. I get in the cab. I get home. Read. Alice Walker "In search of our mothers gardens". Gabrielle and Christina call. They have made FuFu and I am invited. I eat at their house. I have fun. I leave late. Very late. I walk home. I am scared. I run home. I take a bucket bath. Warm water. I love it. I hold a group meeting. I brush my teeth with bottled water. I go to bed. I do it all again the next day. I am happy. I am loving it. Next time, you should come with me...