Eh! 10 months in Ghana, and we are somehow fine
I'm coming up on being in Ghana for 10 months, seven of which I've spent in Tamaligu – a larger village of mud-constructed homes and stores based around a dusty three-way junction. The town size is quite small for the 3,000 or so people that live here, and is abruptly surrounded by farms and bush. I suppose this is a reflection of my time here as I enter the double digit months. As time and our activities move forward, this is about the totally different concept of time and work.
Life goes on in a much slower sense and pace than I've experienced before. Or, I suppose, a slower pace than most Americans are used to. Growing up and through high school, I had busy, working parents and always some after-school extracurricular or work. College gives you more to do than there is time to do it. Then, in my “Peace Corps limbo” at Bart Homes I worked full time, and often over-time. Peace Corps' training was also an all-day schedule six days a week, or seven days a week in some cases.
Everything I've ever done was on a busy schedule until I moved to Tamaligu. It was a bit of a shock to move to a village where it's ok to sit under a tree and do nothing when all you know is to stay busy and productive. To be comfortable doing nothing for the better part of a day isn't easy. To apply the American concept of hard work simply doesn't work. There is no sense of hurry.
Unless, of course, you're a woman of working age and not in school: 16-40, or even just a kid. Then you're probably busy every waking minute of the day: cook breakfast, take care of the kids, fetch water, go to farm and pound fufu. That's not easy. People joke of gender equality in the U.S., or groan about taking a gender education course in college, but our jokes that are a reality here aren't so funny.
Men go to farm too, but not every day. But it's different for me – people don't know what to expect from me. I technically have a farm too, but it's no problem if I decide not to go. My farming group doesn't even ask why. I guess that's the luxury of having $150 dropped in my bank account once a month. Not that people know this, but they do know that farm is optional for me. Being so, I suddenly become a high-status member of the community – on par with the teachers and nurse, who can afford to buy every meal, unnecessary snacks and choose to send a child to fetch water, or even to cook or buy food. If you compare me to teachers and nurses, I can proudly say I'm the only one that fetches my own food and water all the time. At least for now. Some of our American anti-child labor righteousness persists beyond borders.
The pace of life causes weekends and weekdays to be virtually indistinguishable, sometimes really causing you to think about what day it is. Fridays and the every-sixth-day-market days are the only days where different activity is noticeable. Fridays are the one day of the week of which I'm occupied to something like that of an American-schedule, the Muslim day of rest when most people are available to meet with us, and the teachers leave school early enabling me to teach. When I get home after our night meeting with some kids, I can count 8 or more hours of strict work-related activities, and I'm exhausted!
In America, people feel guilty for being lazy on a Sunday. Not only that, but you have to try to do nothing, or schedule to plan to sit on the couch or relax. I don't think that's true relaxing if you feel guilty about it. Here, it just happens, but I wouldn't call it relaxing because we get plenty of it, and it's not boredom. Whatever it is, it's liberating not having to worry about a schedule or planning every part of a day. Instead, time just goes. This took a while to come to terms with. Even on Fridays, there's not one set meeting time. I go to school sometime between 9 and 10, but may not meet a class until 11. We meet a group after the 3 p.m. prayer, but leave enough time before sunset prayer at 6:30. We meet the kids sometime after the 7 p.m. prayer, but not too late.
The slightest alteration of the weather or general atmosphere will jeopardize a meeting. Rain is obviously an automatic cancellation. Night meetings are particularly vulnerable to this. One day it rained and the rest of the day was colder than normal. It came time to meet that night, and few people came and nobody could focus because it was too cold. Maybe 72 degrees, if I had to guess. We cut it short. If the lights are out, which is common, it's grounds for cancellation. One time it was even too windy – and this is reasonable because of the dust. There could be an important soccer match – maybe Chelsea is playing Real Madrid or something. If the Ghana Black Stars are playing, why would the thought to schedule a meeting even cross your mind?
I've also come to terms with the extent of the impact that I'll leave here, which, at least visibly, isn't a very large one. Peace Corps' health mission is broad, and the basic health work required in the village is drastic. It thrills me to see my groups understand why they should use latrines even if they open defecate, or express motivation or comprehension in some health related area, but this will very well be the extent of what I can do. That is, unless we decide to write a grant to build latrines. I could do that, but have reserves in doing so. The money is there in U.S. foreign aid for projects like this, but at some point it's left to people to do it themselves. As I said, the time is there, and people are even getting satellite TV. How can I write a grant for latrines when people have time to do nothing, money for satellite TV, and a latrine costs less than satellite TV? The educational component is all I want to do, and people can choose to do whatever they wish with the facts they have. I suppose this is a case of knowledge being more valuable than money. Living with the understanding that you have the capability of doing something better for yourself carries more of an impact than handing out latrines or condoms. I believe this is why many of the educated Ghanaians I've met are incredibly cynical and complain about typical standards.
I read a previous post from months ago that I wrote within a week of moving in: “A New Health PCV Adjusting to Life in Tamaligu.” I sound incredibly ignorant, but I suppose that was the point of the post since “adjusting to life” is part of the title. A lot of the observations are physically-based, something like maybe a visitor would experience. But, you quickly overcome the fact that you don't have a sink, shower, or bed frame. Even a toilet seat. These are missed, but aren't high on the list of things I miss. You don't really consider the fact that it's not here when at site.
Other things are not so easy to overcome. Peace Corps has actually mapped out a timeline of the ups and downs of a volunteer's service, determined from surveys of emotions and attitudes. At around one year in, PCVs reach a low point for some months, which I believe I may have reached. Or maybe I'm expecting to reach it? I'm a bit cynical, or at least more than I was before. Maybe this has come out in my last couple of posts. Just like working anywhere, after a while you learn the way things are and begin to more clearly see your role. It's not that you become upset or depressed (I think that part was within the first three months of moving to Tamaligu), but rather you begin to realize that it's been seven months at site, and you see that you're just a teacher and really can't visibly make or change anything substantial. I don't want to change anything by myself or with my counterparts because I want it to come from the people. This sounds something like Peace Corps' famous (or infamous) “definition of success.” It's the only way we'll move forward.
