Two years later, whatever happened? (2/2)

Hours go by in peace corpse

(2/2)

March 2016

Part 1/2 here: Why we drink

Another moving scene from The Big Lebowski:

The Stranger: "How you doing there, dude?"

The Dude: "Not too good, man."

Stranger: "One of those days, huh? Well, a wiser fella than myself once said, ‘Sometimes you eat the bear. And sometimes the bear, well, he eats you.’”

Dude: “Is that some kind of eastern thing?”

Stranger: “Far from it.”

A view from under the tree

[Back to America] My training group, the group that I came to Ghana with (PC Ghana usually has about six groups in country on a rolling basis, so we’re the next ones out), was coined the “Shades of Batik” by our trainers, apparently after observing a group obsession with purchasing batik fabric to be tailor-made into clothing and writing adult stories while in training that were read aloud after sessions in the village’s local spots (bars). I can’t take credit for either of these. At least not too much. Every group has a name, so this is our great legacy. I feel like this is one of those things you look forward to telling your children one day.

Our original group of 23 went through training together, and slowly people left the program for a wide variety of reasons. At the Shades of Batik Close of Service (COS) conference about a month ago, as tradition, Peace Corps treated the remaining 14 of us to this beautiful, mountain-side hotel in the south – sort of like “Welcome back from the bush. Here’s some French fries.” The rooms were air-conditioned, had hot water and refrigerators to put our cheap booze in. It was such a nice place that the staff even stayed at the same hotel as we did. That’s when you know it’s nice. People in the group brought $3 wine boxes and bottles that we couldn’t afford, and other special drinks we planned on saving for special occasions, all as a cheers to celebrate our near-completion of service. I lugged a bunch of mead all the way from my house. It was a good idea until I was actually engaged in carrying this mead across the country, but from what I know, it seems like that’s love.

[How was Africa?] To the point, at the conference, a small group presented a skit about what coming back home would be like. It was a setting where a fresh Returned PCV was at a social event, a bar or something, meeting old friends and being introduced to new ones. She was asked, “How was Africa?” and “How was your trip?” among other general, or perhaps low-level questions about giraffes, living in a mud hut and other such “happy Africa” topics. I think the objective was to get us thinking about how we would react in these happy Africa situations, or what to say in response to something like “dude, do they like click with their tongues like they do on Discovery Channel?” without wanting to change the subject to that game last night or whatever happened to that one nice girl. If I remember correctly, I believe this is why I decided to write this, in attempt to answer how Africa was.

Since it’s our job to integrate into the culture, we can indeed empathize with people in our communities. In fact, if we do nothing else in Peace Corps, at least try and peacefully live in your village and we’ll still somehow stamp it as a success, even though you just made some friends and said America isn’t exactly like it is on TV, and Star Trek is not real but science fiction, and then attempted to explain what science fiction is. What it comes down to is that Peace Corps is generally best at achieving its overarching mission than any technical aspect: to promote world peace and friendship. And I mean it too. Peace Corps reverse brainwashed me. It made me realize how ineffective this organization is, how stupid the rules are, and placed me in a situation where I’ve almost given up all hope, but I can still confidently say that its mission accomplished in the end. We put in the effort, just by living there, and I think our communities recognize that. The technical part – for us being health education, community mobilization and whatnot – is to give us something to do in my perspective. If you achieve that or something else, great. The work you attempted to do looks better on your resume than saying you made friends for two years, even if that’s what you did best and got the most out of.

The truth is most Americans might as well know just about as much about Africa as most Africans know about America. While a villager may not actually believe that Star Trek is real, many Americans make equally low, sweeping generalizations about Africa. The difference is Americans theoretically shouldn’t have to because we go to school five days a week and study world geography – not such a tall order. That drill at the COS conference was to start considering how we could quickly and accurately communicate a very different and complex idea that people are not familiar with – Peace Corps Ghana – like an elevator pitch while trying to remain at least a little positive and not overly cynical. This isn’t very easy to do, at least as I see it now.

To consider how “the trip to Africa” was and answer by saying “great” is certainly falling short. In fact, it’s lying. The trip wasn’t so rosy through some sizable portions. How was your life for the past two years? A village in northern Ghana has been my home for the past two years. The setting, the culture, the work – nothing is easy to describe. After training and getting dropped off in the village, you literally have a toddler’s understanding of your surroundings: “I need to baf, but I don’t have water. How do I get water? Where do I get water? That doesn’t matter, though I’d like to know tomorrow because I can’t put this can on top of my head. How do I just ask for water? I will go outside with my can and wait for somebody to pick it up.” This is a totally reasonable sequence of thoughts and actions, at least if you’re new, but it’s an example of obtaining any necessity with a process that isn’t as clear, and hella more time consuming than turning on a faucet. And that faucet conveniently drains, too. Does it drain right through the wall straight onto the ground and collect into smelly puddles like peoples’ bafs do here? And I have to step over them when I go buy food every morning? And avoid the flies. They’ll send you to the latrine. Too bad that’s impossible. It’s just hard to know where to start when you describe what you “did” for two years, of which you had diarrhea most of the time because the water that you have to go fetch yonder past an open defecation field drains onto the ground after you baf, which the flies chill out in until you walk by and they fly onto your food.

When everything around you is like this at first, this initial cultural/physical shock – the first week in the village – was something I’m sure you could call traumatic, at least for me and stories I’ve heard from others. If worse things have happened and traumatic isn’t the best word, many would call it the “one of the worst weeks of my life,” if not the worst. But, like I said, the learning curve moves quickly into other topics that are less traumatic, but more frustrating, sort of like what I’m writing here: two years of trying to figure out what happened. I don’t know. I’m trying to figure this out small small. I’m almost done though. I can even see the end. I’m not sure what there is to figure out anymore. Maybe it’ll come later.

The difficult task that nobody seems to completely understand is the overwhelming issue of how you are going to do your job in this setting. When you don’t know the answer to this question months or more than a year later, it can feel a little depressing.

[Working hard and feeling free (like that)] There’s the American version of my job description that of course is conveniently summarized in one sentence, and then there’s reality. A common theme for Peace Corps is the struggle of paper vs. reality. They seem to be misaligned more than other organizations usually are, and I believe most of these issues have been going on since its inception.

Peace Corps is a government agency following rigid guidelines, when nothing work-related is remotely as rigid in the village. I might ask someone, are we meeting today about some project that we’re doing? They’d say, coming off completely disinterested in whatever the meeting might be about, “Ah, you see, it is looking as if it might rain today,” pointing out into the dark eastern sky, “yes, it is looking as if that rain might come. It is important that it rains on my maize farm today. I am wanting it to rain on my maize farm, by His grace.” There’s no point in trying to meet when the maize farm getting rain, by His grace, is the first order of business. Then, we proceed to watch the storm come in. Hours go by. No work was accomplished, but we watched the storm come in, and we were happy because we are one rain closer to being able to chop tizet (eat) next year.

When you’re here for two years, tomorrow is tomorrow, and next week is still going to be next week. That’s the pace. I figured that out, and these moments that were frustrating early in my service turned into something that I would, in a way, look forward to. I once had a meeting that was cancelled because it was too cold. When you constantly don’t know what to expect, you start to learn to just go with it. Though I sometimes wonder if they’re making excuses, I really don’t think they actually are. It’s too cold outside; therefore, we’re not interested in meeting. That’s all there is to it. Alright, I guess I’ll go home and write this or something in the meantime, maybe check out the tree. The usual.

But on paper, I’m a health volunteer. I won’t elaborate on my American job description because it’s not reality in Ghana. But, we might as well wrap it up: malaria, water and sanitation, nutrition and family planning and making all those things better in a village, or really anything else you want to help the village with that you feel compelled to do or find motivation to do so in different groups or individuals. There is actually very little else provided for you before you leave, or that you can actually grasp, that goes any deeper than this short description other than, “you will need to integrate into your community and bring along a sense of humor.” That’s on point: remember to laugh at this.

Peace Corps faces a strange challenge where they need to be honest with people, describing the real experience and what we can expect, while also selling their ideological vision of what they want us to be. But it can be hard to communicate some things when there’s no understanding. I was relieved to discover that I wasn’t the only person in my group to not know what I just signed up for when we all met in Philadelphia two years ago. I thought I was clueless, but we all seemed to be on the same page. I guess if we’re all clueless together about why we decided to live in Ghana for the next two years, then it makes the decision justified.

Every PCV’s job description makes it sound like they’re saving the world. The missing piece is as though somebody forgot to tell you how you are going to save the world, or realistically accomplish the health mission. This communication struggle continues into training, which is less about health and more about community integration strategies and language learning. After all, the health topics are seemingly self-explanatory. Americans generally understand why shitting in the bush versus a toilet is bad (to the point where there’s no need to ever consider this in America), but obviously there are such places, such as the village, where it’s far from self-explanatory. In fact, there’s no need to discuss why I shouldn’t shit in the bush. It’s the way it is, it’s the way it will be. Why are you so obsessed about where I shit anyway?

Peace Corps marketed our jobs as health volunteers, not becoming community members (or that’s what it seemed like to me), which suddenly became the opposite once in country. When training is over, then it’s up to you to do whatever, and in the end, hopefully you can rely on your counterpart and “qualifications” and come out having done something good for the village. Good luck convincing your villagers about the toilets! Have at it. “You want us to use latrines? Oh! But you see, they are smelling bad! Ah, and they’re not cleaning them anymore. That is why we are not using them again.” Trust me, based on this, there is no obvious solution.

So, in reality, I’ve somehow become a member of this village. It’s cool to think of it that way, and all it entails. As a foreigner, the expectations of me are not always defined. The official job description from Peace Corps is the last thing on villagers’ minds. But if they did know, they would say that I actually work for Peace Corps, with an audible “p” on the end. Sometimes, when I’m sitting under my tree at night, I think of how funny “peace corpse” sounds, and I laugh. While this is largely just a pronunciation issue for people speaking English as a second language, it also reflects on how much is understood about the program in the very communities we work in. Granted, this falls on me to resolve, but it’s impossible to reach everyone, and not everyone needs to understand the program. So, generally, if asked who that white dude is laughing by himself under that tree, most villagers would not be able to say that I’m a peace corpse volunteer, but could produce my name or local name. Eyyy Masta Suhuyiniii, or Masta Jam (Jeff).

[Village work] I think for most PCVs, six months in and you’re still somehow clueless on many or most parts of the job. Your service is probably not yet defined, unless you’re an education volunteer, you can expect to have a job teaching. But everyone is clueless in one way or another. The feeling of moving to the village is like the first week of working in an extremely awkward job where no one actually works, and if they do, they wouldn’t ask you to do anything other than to just sit and relax. It’s still all day long, they have totally different values and behaviors, they’re unsure of what to expect from you and are afraid to ask. They talk about you in a language you’re not familiar with. Only a couple people seem to speak English who say you work for peace corpse, and you’re supposed to convince the whole village to change their ways because you know what’s best. World changing has commenced.

Even though you’re not busy at work, you’re stressed just because the instinct to occupy your time is not being met, along with literally everything else. You could say that PCVs reasonably come into country expecting to work hard and to be productive – already on the wrong foot. As a result, they start this project and that project in the village just to feel busy, even though they are likely not so well thought out.

A suggestion in training is to just observe and learn the village way of life during our first three months. Just think about that: we’re told to just exist and look around for three months – and only in the village. In fact, the instated policy on PCVs is that they must sleep at their house every night during this period, to really get that 90-day observation down. Everyone does so well at this – some better than others – and we make sure of it because if you’re “caught” breaking this rule, you get to do more time in your village without “approved” time away. Not that this happened to me or anything. It did though: the inconceivable thought came across my mind that I had observed enough in my little village, and so I figured I would go see some friends and get beers of course. But this was very bad; worse than I originally thought because I hadn’t lived in my house for three months. Doing extra time under my tree observing the stimulating life in action, the goats running around, children playing with scraps of something, the old man at night, I came to realize that it was wrong of me to have broken the rule. As a result, I became a much better PCV.

The rule does have merit. It’s just not always practical.

Anyways, perhaps what would seem to be dramatic is being alone in some village in Africa. Alone in some African village is an incredibly American worry, because in Ghana here you just feel freeeee.* In fact, it is likely that you are having trouble if you are not feeling free at all, which is precisely what encompasses your first month(s) at site. You’re taken aback by the concept of walking into people’s houses and eating their food. “But these people are supposed to be poor!”, so you think, but they don’t seem to act like it. Rather, they’re the ones that seem to feel free when you chop their food. For the first time ever, you feel as though you’re doing nothing, because you are indeed doing nothing. All of this at once is certainly a shock of trouble. But slowly, you devolve into the culture, learn how to buy food, and begin to understand this and that.

So, this is how the American’s idea of a “health volunteer,” and a lot of what you see about Peace Corps on paper, conflicts with reality. A PCV’s title is unique to the PCV. My service is very different from my closest PCV neighbor, despite having the same job description. Your work is defined based on the very different experiences we have, even being in the same program in the same country. I think this is why first-time incoming PCVs don’t quite know what they’ve signed up for until weeks abroad, literally getting a taste of the culture in some training village, and on their fourth run to the toilet at 3 a.m., come to face the realization: #changetheworld or #tia (this is Africa)? Or at least hopefully this realization happens in training, preferably at that very moment late at night. It’s a moment you probably won’t forget: an epiphany. That’s what it’s all about: making memories.

Much, much later, as much as two years after the fact, you start to realize that those days where you did nothing, when you sat confused under a tree, or when your meeting was cancelled to instead watch a storm come in were indeed working toward something – becoming a community member, the purpose of Peace Corps, the mission of it all. Under Peace Corp’s model, this is the only way to do an effective job. And it’s true. People really are much more comfortable with me, and take the things I do or say more seriously.

[Whatever happened?] PCVs are like Athelstan, the Franciscan monk on the History Channel’s Vikings, who is captured from his monastery in North Umbria by the conqueror Viking Ragnar Lothbrook and brought to the Kattegat, Ragnar’s Viking village as a slave. He lives with Ragnar’s family, and slowly, he helplessly loses everything he once believed in. He becomes a pagan and takes a mushroom trip. It’s not that he lost what he once believed in, he just doesn’t know what to believe in. Athelstan’s experience is without a doubt traumatic, and he changes immensely. Somehow, he does exceptionally well with the Viking language – he’s even fluent. Perhaps it’s just theatrical. But all the other Viking people think he’s weird and annoying until they get to know him. Some people flat out never trust him because he came from across the North Sea.

I guess the key difference with PCVs is we weren’t forcibly taken across the sea as slaves. We do make about $200 a month.

Athelstan becomes very acquainted with the Viking culture, and eventually makes it back to England, where he puts his experiences living the Vikings to good use in Wessex. At least while he lived in Kattegat, he did manage to at least influence Ragnar, Bjorn his son, and maybe a handful of others, mostly on accident. Influencing at least a few people is what it comes down to and what I hold onto.

By no means do I regret this “trip.” Or journey? Tour? This disting** we’ve done here? As expected and also not as expected, it was simply something else. After all of this writing, that’s going to be my generic response when you ask me about Ghana: What happened? Oh, something else, you know, it was hot and we did this malaria stuff. At least I try to be optimistic about Peace Corps at the end the day. If you’re not hopeful about this place one day realizing its potential and making all those health goals better, then, well, I think that would be the depressing thing, not this blog post. In the meantime, at least we are feeling free.

*To feel free: In Ghanaian English, “to feel free” or “to just feel free like that” is a common phrase that means something of a combination of feeling at home, comfortable, that you and your family are healthy, and not worrying because life is fine. It is important to feel free. It doesn’t take very much to feel free, but at the same time, it does. For me, it’s not so much exercising patience, but more so accepting your current situation or state, whatever that may be, and being at peace with it. If you’re not feeling free, then you’re not feeling well.

**Disting: The name of something you don’t know the name of, i.e. this thing. Very useful when English is your second language and you forget nouns. “Please, turn on the…ah! The disting (light).”