Last post from Africa!

I've been sort of busy in the last few days and also lazy, so I
haven't had time to post. Which means I have to talk about rafting
the Nile River, the Murchison Falls Discount Safari, my trip to the
equator, and leaving!

Last Saturday, over a week ago (!), I went with another volunteer to
raft the Nile River. We hit up to class five rapids and the last
class five, called The Bad Place, had me thinking I might drown for
a few seconds, but it was a thrill. The crew in my raft was great,
mostly British and then an Irish brother and sister (the brother, on
my recomendation, came on the Murchison trip Monday). This crew
of British guys were doing really interesting things - two were
interning at hospitals and two were doing research for their theses.
Between those two and some people on the Murchison trip and talking
to Leslie and reading the paper, I've got a lot to think about
regarding Ugandan politics, African-Western relations, and the
value and role of international organizations, especially the ICC.
But the Nile. The rapids were great fun, the lunch was excellent,
but my favorite part was probably laying back on the raft chatting
with the rest, or jumping into the Nile for the long stretches of
flat water to go for a float or swim down the Nile frickin river!!
It was quite exciting, and absolutely gorgeous. Fields on the banks,
people washing clothes etc, and long stretches of incredible scenery
plus all sorts of beautiful birds up close.

Sunday we went to see Madagascar, which was a great little bit of
the west here in Uganda, but also good fun because we knew we were
about to see many of those animals in the wild. We stayed in Kampala
at the Red Chili Hideaway, which runs the budget safari, and left
Monday. Our driver, John, was quite a speed demon, and he's the only
man I've met in Africa who will leave exactly when he says he will -
which meant we were first in line for everything, very nice. He had
20 kids from 4 women, not atypical here. The drive up to the falls
takes quite a while and for lunch I had the best sambusa in all of
Uganda. That afternoon was the hike around the waterfall, which
until 40 years ago was a 12 foot wide area that all of the water
pouring into the Victoria Nile went through. It broke out into
another tumbling mass but the falls are still incredibly powerful.
The accomidation was nice, tents with beds in them! Comfortable.
We had a great group of people on the trip and that night we sat
around the camp fire singing to the guitar, though nobody knew all
the words to anything the guitarist knew all the chords to.

(It brought back a good deal of camp nostalgia, and of course he
didn't know any of my camp songs! Hard to believe this was the first
summer in half my lifetime that I haven't been to camp!)

Tuesday we woke up quite early and went on the game drive. We only
saw one lion out of the pride of 11 in that area - the other cars
saw the rest - but she was gorgeous. Just chillin in the shade while
the antelope and deer roamed around. We must have seen 4 or 5 types
of deer, plus water buffalo. There were packs of elephants 15 at a
time, or more, and one got a bit angry at our car and started to
charge! He was shaking his head, flapping his ears, stamping his
feet, and threw his trunk over his tusks. The driver revved the
engine and the guide had his gun cocked. But he didn't actually
charge. Those things are HUGE. We also saw lots of giraffes which
are the most magestic animal I've ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.
It was a scorchingly hot day up there on the savanna. And the
scenery was great too.

Then there was the afternoon boat ride when we saw plenty of crocs
and hippos. But the great excitement in the hippo department
was that night. I'd gone for a walk to look at the stars - I've
never seen the milky way so clearly! - and was back at the fire,
about 10:30 or so, talking politics of Uganda and accademic
philosophies of interationally focused grad programs (I'm so ready
to get back to classes!) when somebody mentioned that there was a
hippo in the campsite. Hippos are not small animals, mind you. They
are as long as a car and as high as I am and they will charge people.
It was chilling by my tent, munching the grass, and lumbered around
the camp site for quite some time while everyone snapped pictures
of it. She didn't even seem to mind the flashes, or the Italian
tourists who'd all emerged from their bandas in the tightest boxers
you'd ever seen - we had a good laugh at them.

So then I wanted to go see the stars again before I went to bed,
and the hippo had wandered off into the corner of the campsite and
disappeared. As I start down the same road I'd gone down before,
out of the bushes she comes. I kept my distance, but she got mad
and made the angry hippo noise and flapped her ears so I backed
off and waited a good 10 minutes. I then continuted down to this
junction and took the same track I'd taken before to get away
from all the light polution. I figured with 4 main roads and all
the bush I wouldn't run into her, but sure enough there was a pile
of fresh hippo shit on the track. I proceded with caution to a
clearing with huts which had a brilliant view of the sky, but I
was a bit nervous due to the hippo munching noises I could hear.
I didn't get charged, and I made it back OK, but it was a bit scary.

The next morning was even earlier; we left in the dark. We drove
about an hour to a forest reserve where we went chimp trekking.
My god those things make incredible, hair raising noises, it's so
cool to hear them chatter. We could see them on the ground and
in the trees, and the guides took us off the paths to get close. It
was really cool, a good compromise for the $600 it would have been
to see the famed gorillas.

Thursday I went into school one last time. I was a bit disturbed
because Sarah told me that Tuesday, one kid had gotten every exam
question wrong and the teachers had made him beat himself to the
point of drawing blood while they sat around and laughed. Exams
created chaos in the school so I didn't get to say goodbye to all
the kids. Friday I went out to a village just to kind of get more
of a taste of that side of Uganda. And yesterday I was a big dorky
tourist and went to the equator. We brought bottles of water with
us to try and see if it would go different directions and straight
down on the line. Turns out there were funnels and buckets of
water there! And it does drop straight down on the equator. It
was my first time in the southern hemisphere besides the stopover
in Nairobi when I didn't get off the plane.

(Skipped the sese islands - oh well, I'll have to come back to see
Lake Victoria and a variety of other things. But I wanted to spend
a bit more time seeing real Uganda, not tourist Uganda. Don't know
how the equator trip fits into that logic...)

I'm currently shitting myself over British Airways who have sent me
an email saying that as of Friday they have no idea which fights to
and from Heathrow will be cancelled or delayed. Well, I've always
wanted to get bumped so I could get 600 Euros to travel with, but
now is NOT the time given that I have to be back at school Thursday!
So I'll stick to my current plan, leaving here (Mukono) after lunch,
going via public taxi into Kampala and then Entebbe, staying at the
place Leslie always does for airport pickups, and showing up at
the airport at 7am. I'm also fairly certain I'll be over my cabin
luggage limit, but they will have to deal.

What's really concerning is that the last Entebbe-London flight didn't
leave so all those people will be trying to get onto my flight. Gulp.
And I have no desire to get a delayed bag with clothes I need
delivered to Boston after I'm in Philly, full of dirty laundry.

On the bright side I've just seen the baseball standings for the first
time since Wednesday and boy are they pretty.

Anyway. Leaving. I'm certainly excited to get home, but there will
be many things I'm going to miss, even if I can't identify them all
right now. It's definately going to be shocking to be back in the
western world, and as much as I've missed many things it will be a
huge adjustment to make in a very awkward period of time, what
with having to go right back to school. I will not miss the latrines,
or having to walk with my head down to avoid the men, or the polution
that's so bad it makes LA's air seem pristine. I'll miss little
things, probably it'll be a very hard change to get back out of Africa
time and the "it's OK" attitude about everything.

And as I have only 4 minutes left, having spent an hour online, and
I haven't really packed at all, I'd better sign off. I'll definately
be posting a decompression post, maybe a post about adventures with
British Airways (hoepfully not!), and I do have a lot to say about
the politics here and international missteps and the difference
between the out of touch whites here and the on-the-ground local
NGO network...

Brief Update

I've just returned from my 3 day budget safari. The group
we were with was great fun and we saw lions, hippos (very
up close...more in my next update), crocs, giraffes,
elephants, and a variety of deer/antelope like creatures.
Plus some beautiful scenery.

And rafting the Nile on Saturday was great fun as well as
being one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. But as
I'm using limited internet at the Backpacker's place that
ran our safari, I'm going to cut myself off there. More later.

It's almost over!

I've just finished my last day of teaching. Thursday, between
the safari and the island in Lake Victoria, I'll go in and say hi,
but today was my last full day. Since Wednesday my replacement,
Sarah, has been shadowing/helping me. I've done some cool things
with the kids this week. Yesterday was my HIV/AIDS lesson complete
with a wooden penis to put a condom on. The kids were surprisingly
mature. I did the lesson for P6 and P7 which means ages 11-18 or so,
mostly 12-15, and I was quite angry that despite arranging it with
the headmaster, two thirds of those classes had gone to a sporting
competition. I wish he'd told me about that so I could have done
the lesson last week with all the kids. But Sarah is going to do
a revision/repete of the lesson in a few weeks. I've also done
some writing activities with the P5 and P6. P5 today I had write
a paragraph about themselves, age, where from, favorite foods and
activities and such. Also what they'd do or not do if they could;
surprisingly many of them seemed to enjoy doing clothes washing.
Yesterday I did an excercise with P6 on the board, calling on them
to come up with the who, what, when, and what happens of a story and
then I had them all write the story in their own words. It was
about a mother and her daughter, and the motehr was the daughter's
teacher. Today I had them write a half page to page about what
they would do if they had a day to do anything, what they would eat,
and also what they wouldn't do that they normally do. It was
interesting to see, they said they'd play or go to the zoo or spend
time with family, but they also included their normal chores. Some
didn't understand and just wrote about a normal school day which
was also interesting.

The language here is very interesting. I'd finally fell into the
Liberian and Ghanaian vernacular, adding an O to the end of certain
words (namely "stupido") and saying things like "small small" or
"plenty" or "alight" and other tiny little adjustments to sentence
structure and diction. Here I had to get used to a whole new
accent, where they annunciate such that the ends of words often have
an E added to them, and where vocabulary is again slightly different.

The two new volunteers are really nice, it's been a house full of
girls. We watched Hotel Rwanda last night on Sarah's computer, a
bootleg borrowed from Leslie (prog. director) on a tape that also
includes Franken Fish and other such pieces of garbage. It was
intense to watch it right next door. Esther, the house girl, also
watched, and I was relaying a lot of the dialogue to her because the
sound was bad but I knew what they were saying. it was interesting
to see her reactions to the movie. Also, watching it after 9 weeks
here, I could pick out the little details they got really right or
wrong. For the most part they did an excellent job with the little
things.

Sarah got hit on in the funniest way in Kampala. A man asked if
he could make her his asset.

Now that the vegetarian in the house has gone, the food has been
excellent. Esther really is a good cook but you don't appreciate
that if you are eating the same thing every day. Now we've gotten
incredible chicken and this mince meat spagetti sauce...mmm.

Wow looks like despite the commotion with Manny my Sox are going
good. It's always a relief to be off the internet for 4 days and
return to a headline about an 8 game winning streak and a rather
high number in the games ahead column.

So I've got a week of adventures ahead of me, seeing Uganda, and
then it will be hopping on a plane. I am definately excited to
get home, excited to get to school, and excited for this next week,
and I will be sad both to leave Uganda and Africa. The first wave
hit me as I was leaving school today, even though I've still got
10 days left.

August!

And so it's August. I've passed the 2 month mark a few days ago,
I'm 4/5s done with the trip (yay! I want to go home!) and halfway
done with Uganda (sad...I like it a lot here) and I've been in Africa
four different months. While I've been away London's gotten
attacked, a supreme court judge retired but not the one I expected,
the sox have made it to first place and Manny yet again is still on
the team, I've missed and will miss a variety of parties and
gatherings of friends at home, I've been homesick as hell (more
in Ghana but also here with new triggers - the guy who brought his
computer, etc), I've become ready to go back to school and read
and write papers, I've read a ridiculous amount of books here, I've
loved the experience, I've learned a lot about travelling in general
and Africa and refugees and poverty and sustainability and reality
versus our western impressions of the world..... Time's gone by
impossibly, unbearably slow and also unbelievably fast. In Ghana
the last two weeks flew by; here they probably will as well.

As I was walking down the side of the road to the internet, a herd
of cattle came at me. This guy was getting his 20 cows to cross
the street and I was walking by as there was a gap in the traffic.
There was an old woman right in front of me too, and I couldnt'
tell if she was just as unsettled as me or if she was laughing at
the herd of cows running at the muzungu being beaten by a guy with
a stick.

Anyway, this weekend lasted forever because of the day off Thursday
for the "election" which is in no way democratic or meaningful and
was held at a cost of 30 million US dollars to please overseas
donors. Meanwhile the president last week very very quietly
abolished the two term limit as he's served his two and the next
election is next spring. While he seems to be popular and he has
done a damn good job cleaning up Uganda from the mess Idi Amin made
of it, having no term limit is a damn bad idea in general and in an
African country especially (where, as a guy in med school here
whom I met on a metatu (taxi) was saying, a leader or wanna be
leader will often not concede that he has lost an election).

School's been good. I've done more art with the kids which is just
a blast - seeing them have a chance at creativity, handing out
stickers, etc. Today I tried to have the third grade illustrate
the stories I'd read to them, though many didn't remember most of
them. It was still fun to see them draw, and a whole bunch of boys
started doing football players from a newspaper they had and
"aeroplanes" which were actually helicopters.

We always have a break from 10:30 to 11 when the teachers have
snack and the kids are fed. The snack is an option of peanuts,
chapati (very fried, somewhere between fried dough and tortilla, that
they like to wrap around an egg and I like to put sugar on),
casava fries, and my favorite, sambusa or samosa - fried, delicious,
full of peas and crunchy around the edges and greasy as hell. The
teachers talk away in Luganda so I usually read a book though on
occasion they'll pull me into a game of Uno with a deck of cards.

I really enjoy my walk to and from school. After I convince myself
to get out of bed in the morning it's a really pleasant walk rambling
through beautiful scenery and I always want to keep walking when I
get to school. The walk back at 1 is a bit warmer usually so I am
glad to get into the cooler house and have something to drink, but
it's very relaxing and enjoyable. There's always animals to see
and kids waving and such.

At first I was really glad to be living in the flat in town and
having such a light schedule. I needed the break after Buduburam,
and getting imersed in a village at that point may have been too
much for my nerves. But now I kind of wish I was in one of the
closer villages. There's still opportunity to go to the pool
and come into town or go to Kampala for the weekend, and having
been out to Nagalama (half an hour's drive) this weekend it's
really nice. Leslie, the program coordinator here, has made
sure that even in the village volunteers have their own nice space,
a room or two in a compound, and it seems that in the village with
the outreach organization out there, there's a lot more to do and
a lot more impact to be made. Then I tell myself that someone
needs to be doing art and stories and games and creativity and
giving encouragement to the kids I'm with as well. And I do love
my cute little kids.

Adventures with African public transportation:
Friday I went to Kololo to meet up with a Swattie. Kololo's a suburb
of Kampala, so I got on a taxi at 8:15 on the side of the road.
Well it was empty which meant that in the next town it stopped to
fill up. After sitting there for over 20 minutes I wanted to get
off and pay just for that leg and they tried to put me back on the
damn taxi. A nice guy who had gotten on but also thought it was way
too slow helped me get off and we caught a taxi into Kampala. He
was the medschool guy who talked to me about politics and malaria.
At the first roundabout into Kampala I got off and got a bodaboda,
fixed the price, and told him wehre I wanted to go. I asked him
if he knew the place (it's a pretty big landmark in Kololo) and he
assured me he did, but of course he didn't so we rode around the
hills of Kololo in the dark for a while until I convinced him to
stop so we could ask a security guard for directions. Then he wanted
more money cause it had taken a long time. But I got there safely.

Then yesterday, coming back from this village, the guy who is
volunteerign was sitting in a window seat of the metatu with his
elbow hanging way out. All of the sudden we here a crashing noise
- the side mirror has just been taken off by a car passing the taxi.
I don't understand how in the world his elbow didn't get taken off
as well given that it was sticking out as far as the mirror.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my last week of teaching and then it'll be off
to raft the nile river, do a brief safari and then Banda Island on
Lake Victoria and then home!

Comparisons...

Geisha Soap: For the whole family: New Geisha Lasts Longer! That's
a billboard painted on top of many buildings.

I guess I've felt like writing less here because there's less to
write about. Conditions for the kids are bad, there are mosquitos,
it's dusty and bucket showers suck, but the kids have a better
education than in Ghana, there are far fewer bugs, there's no sewage
in the streets, and I can go to the pool for a real shower. So in
comparison it seems like people are well off here and life is
luxurious. Of course it's all in comparison.

I've been going to school, reading, doing art, doing geography, and
with P6 and P5 I've done a mini Uganda history lesson to explain why
there is an election tomorrow. The election will decide if Uganda
will have more than one party. It's pretty important as there's a
lot of international pressure on the president to open things up.

It's amazing how much faster the internet is in the afternoon
versus evening. Yay.

This weekend will be relaxing with Thursday off. Like last Sat.,
we'll hit up a club in Kampala as Thurs. is the last night for some
of the volunteers. It's amazing how western/international the
clubs are. And there's this incredible Indian restaraunt that grinds
the spices fresh. So it's a high life here...

The Debate

Swatmail is again inaccessable, it can't find the server. lovely.

School is going well, everything is very enjoyable. Today I witnessed a
very interesting debate among the P6 and P7 classes. Another school had
challenged them to a debate for tomorrow and they were practicing. There
were 4 students on the Proposers side and 4 on the Opposers side, a
Chairwoman and Timekeeper and a Secretary who was one of the teachers and
the judge, though all she did was tally the unique points each side made to
come up with the winner - there was no clash or counterargument, just each
kid standing to deliver 2-3 "reasons" in 2 minutes. They did have. The
resolution was "Science has done more harm than good." But before the
debate began they had to pick 8 kids to argue, and nobody would
volunteer. So I witnessed an entire double class of 65 or 75 kids
beaten. Every single one of them was whacked, and with such a volume
the teacher didn't bother to aim, so some got hit on the back or
shoulder but some on the bare neck or arm. It was disturbing, and
had the kids been younger I don't think I could have stood to watch.

Then as the teams were prepping the teacher had the kids in the room
brainstorm points for each side. One of the pro points was that
scientists have created diseases like AIDS. At which point I stood
up and gave a 10 minute lecture on AIDS and also decided to do a
lesson in a few weeks for both the teachers and P6-7 on AIDS, condoms,
etc.

The actual debate was interesting, again no clash, but kids brought
up interesting points. Proposers said there were nuclear weapons,
disease, fertilizers that spoil soil, Africa being forced to change
traditional ways, people not believing in God, etc. Opposers said
that new medicine saves lives, living conditions have improved,
machines make labor more efficient (then there was a POI - can't
we get cows to do it, no cows can't dig holes, well we can teach
them, much laughter), communication and transportation are better.
One kid proposing kept saying he'd heard weapons kill people or car
accidents kill on the radio. Though opp didn't pick up that he
was advocating the radio, a piece of tecnology, a kid did stand
to ask him why he'd heard everything on the radio and the
questioner hadn't, which brought lots of laughter. All around quite
interesting.

More contrasts with Ghana. The food isn't at all spicy - but also
not so overly salty. It's pineapple and peanut butter and jelly for
breakfast, perhaps an egg, and lunch and dinner always include beans
and either rice, spagetti, mashed potatos, or some combination
thereof, with avocado and maybe cooked cabbage or mixed beans and
carrots. For lunch Esther sometimes does fresh orange passion fruit
juice which is the freshest thing I've ever tasted.

The language. Everyone speaks Lugandan which seems to be preferable
to English. School is conducted in English and the road signs and
such are in English, but the younger children are still learning.
The accent is much clearer than the Ghanaian accent, they
annunciate their words much more even than I do sometimes.

The weather. It's really nice, though of course the proximity of
swimming pools helps. It's usually cool in the mornings and
evenings, some days I've even put long sleeves on. It heats up
in the mid morning to mid afternoon which makes laying out by the
pool or going for a dip a nice activity. The walk to and from
school is really really enjoyable and not a bad workout with the huge
downhill then uphill hike.

And the clothing. An even greater percentage here dress in
western clothing, but it's less of the T-shirts you know they don't
get (Boston Garden, XYZ school field day) and more of nicer,
dressier/business casual clothing. The local clothing for this part
of Uganda is pretty ugly, with these upwards pointing shoulders on
the dresses that look like something out of Star Trek.

And not nearly as many funny signs; they are few and far between.
So far it's
- B.O. Cleaners
- Value Supermarket "Pocket Friendly Center" (complete with a logo
for PFC)
- Something Secondary School "No Way Through"

Uganda! for real this time

Well, with my health better and my email finally working I can take
some time for a post.

The rest of the trip was pretty miserable, the Addis Abada airport
was dreadfully cold (as it was outside) and then I was in the back
row of the plane, feeling sick and with a fever, where there's
bathroom and kitchen noises and smells and the seat doesn't recline.
But I got to Uganda, and I had all my luggage.

I'm in Mukono Children's Home, which is for the most part an
orphanage (sponsored by a Danish organization) that also has needy
children with one or both parents and a few who live nearby and pay
to go to school there. The grounds are modest but there are
dormatories with triple bunks (the bed wetters sleep on bottom),
gardens tended by the older students as their agriculture lessons,
the building with classrooms, a kitchen, and a few other buildings.
I'm teaching from 8:30 until 1, when they serve lunch and I go
home for mine. I'll be seeing a bit of every class, from Nursery
and Kindergarden to P-7. I decided this, because I was sick of
doing math day in and day out. Today was great fun, I did stories
and geography and then hangman with countries for P-5 and then went
and sang songs with Nursery and Kindergarden and had Nursery draw
pictures. The kids are absolutely adorable and very, very well
disciplined compared to CBW - but they do beat them here. Mostly
I'll be doing age appropriate activities, a variety of outdoor games,
indoor educational games, stories, art, etc - fun stuff.

School is half an hour's walk away, through village roads and up and
down a great big hill. Or I can take a bota-bota, passenger
motorcycles that along with minibus taxis (trotros!) comprise the
public transit here. The afternoons are free. This cafe is pretty
slow but 10 minutes from the flat, and just past here is a hotel
with a pool (and western toilet and shower that you can use as well).
There's even time for a trip into Kampala - which I did yesterday
and...

VICTORY IS MINE...on the 18th, and it could have been the 16th, in
Uganda, I purhcased a copy of Harry Potter. And finished it in 8ish
hours. And was quite disapointed in the storytelling, though not
the plot. It's my least favorite of the 6. Oh well. Still for sure
worth having bought and read so soon, and I had to force myself into
another book today so I wouldn't immediately read it again - I'm
going to take a break and then do it again in a few weeks and see
if I like it better. A sub-par Harry Potter is still a compelling
and fun read.

The volunteers here, in the more laid back situation, are more laid-
back. The flat that I'm staying in has 4 people and the house girl
who cooks 3 meals, does laundry, etc. Then there are 5ish other
volunteers in nearby villages that often stay in the empty beds on
weekends. There's plenty to do, I don't know what I've mentioned,
but gorillas are way too expensive so I'll compensate with a 3 day
safari on which people usually get to see 2-4 of the 5 big game
animals, and rafting the Nile (class 5 rapids, a waterfall) probably
my last weekend here. I expect time will fly by and it's also
just so much more relaxing and less stressful than camp. I enjoyed
and learned a lot from my time there but this is a nice way to wind
down and avoid severe culture shock when I get hime.

Comparisons...well, it's cleaner. The people are as friendly, the
men like to stare but more quietly, I find the children cute instead
of annoying when they say "Muzungo," there's plenty of tempting
cheap jewelry to spend money on as in Ghana, the capital city is
more modern and cleaner (no open sewers in the city that I've seen)
with more ice cream joints but slower internet - no broadband - and
the cars are all newer and don't look like they are about to fall
apart (did I ever mention seeing a tire fall off a taxi in Ho?).
However pedestrians have zero rights here, it makes New York City
look like a small town in the midwest and my jaywalking skills
acquired as a lifelong Bostonian are pretty useless. It's scary to
just cross the driveway of a gas station let alone a street.

I'm about out of time but I am definately enjoying myself. When I
arrived sick I was a bit pissed to be here and not home, to have to
start over, but there's no culture shock and now that I'm better and
into the swing of things it's really nice.

swatmail SUCKS

I am very, very unhappy. Not only have I just been to a clinic to discover I've got an unknown stomach bacterial infection, but Swatmail has locked me out. I've typed the password about 10 times. It worked last night. AAAAAAAARG.

I made it to Uganda, and I was going to do a nice initial comparisons post (it's cleaner, the accomodation is nicer except the latrine, the

So, a few public notes:
-Happy birthday to my sister
-Mom, can you call my school IT desk at 610-328-8513 and request that my email be unlocked. My student ID if they ask for it is 901320493.

That's about it I guess. I'm pretty angry. They're supposed to send a "change your password now the deadline is in 10 days" email which I never received.

A WARNING.

If anyone so much as mentions to me a word of Harry Potter 6, who
dies or doesn't die, that the half blood prine is griffyndor or harry
is his heir or not, that dumbledore takes another leave of absense,
that ron and hermione are or are not shacking up...etc. ANYTHING...
if anything down to the cover art at the beginning of chapter 17 is
mentioned to me in any way shape or form by someone I know I will
enact the silent treatment against the culprit for all eternity.

Thank you.

Bole Int'l Airport

Here I am in Addis Abada, waiting until 2am local time to board a
flight to Nigeria and then on to Kampala, arriving at 7am. It's 21
hours total, not 27 as I've previously stated, but usually I'm good
with time zones. If the flight were 2 hours later or something, I
might fall asleep in the airport but I would get to hear part of the
Sox game here, I think. It's slow but a good machine.

Anyway. The departure ceremony went well, and faster than previous
ones thank god. They cut out the whole bit where departments you
never worked with give speaches as well. I was thanked, and wished
a safe journey (in Jesus' name) and the like. I gave a speech, the
jist of which was...

I wish I could have been here longer to see more things happen, but
I know the Int'l volunteers are an extremely capable smart etc. group
of people. CBW does such important work that no one else is doing
and we IVs can be homesick and look to 3 weeks, or 5 days, until we
go home, but you LVs are also away from your homes and yet you do
this incredible work. I'm Jewish and we have a traditional holiday
called Passover, at the end of the ceremony we say "Next year in the
promised land" to symbolize a desire to be together in peace and
unity. So Next year in Liberia.

(I changed Jerusalem to promised land....)

Then we went to look for goat soup and they were all "finished!"
I was heartbroken, having loved it the one time I had it - it's spicy
enough to burn your whole lower face but it's a delicious spice.
Wed. was packing and reading and napping - Tues. two houses down from
us was a booming party until 1:30 am - and then dinner with all the
IVs and the leadership of CBW, which was a first.

And then Thursday to Accra. Found Moses, went online, got ice cream,
was stuffed to the brim with food at his house. I mean I felt sicker
than thanksgiving. After meeting his neighbors at like 8pm he wanted
to give me eggs and bread and I flat out refused. My stomach has
been terrible the last few days anyway; wonderful timing to travel.

Woke up at 3:30am what is now yesterday, Friday, at Moses's
insistance. Got in the taxi at 4:45. ugh. At the airport I had
to wait a bit for the check in counters to open, and when they did I
was first in line for Aero, my Nigerian airline. I then proceeded
to have a calm heart attack as my name was not on the passenger list
and they told me to step aside. Luckily this was true for the next
two people in line, and they then got the right list. The departures
side of the Accra airport is much, much nicer than the sketchy
arrivals side. Moses followed me in his uniform right through
customs.

The plane was like a 40 seater, and I was in row 5 or so with a
propellor attatched to the wing right outside my window. The hour-
plus flight was straight vibrations from the little engines. On
the ground I was accompanied by an Imigration officer as a transit
passenger without a visa. He took my passport and tickets and
disappeared while I waited for my bag, which was quite frightening.
But he saw me to the Ethiopian Air counter, cut the line with me,
got my baggage checked even though it was over the weight limit,
then asked me for my card. arg. The airport was larger than Accra
and the wait flew by with a Clancy novel. I went through the metal
detector immediately - in Accra it's not until you're about to board -
but when it was time to board they took every passenger through a
line to hand check the luggage. In both cities you had to also go
to the curb and identify your luggage to be put on the plane, though
it had already been tagged. They also announced in Lagos that the
seat numbers on our boarding passes were to be disregarded - open
seating. Thus ensued pushing, chaos, and crowding waaay too close
together, especially for someone who at 5'2 is about armpit height
of many of the men who could have used some deoderant...

The flight was fine though, I got a window seat in the 6th row and
first class was nearly empty so I almost just went up there. Wish
I had, my back feels brutal from the heavy backpack alternating with
sleeping on the plane. The food was comparatively good, it was
about 5 hours, and then I was here. Addis Abada is yet a bigger
airport with plenty of duty free shops. It being past midnight,
July 16, I checked every store in the terminal for Harry Potter (I'd
finished my book and stretching my legs was in order) but most
didn't even carry books nor understand what I meant by the word.

And here I am killing time until 2am at the ridiculous rate of $5
an hour. It was sad to leave Accra/Ghana, to pass the Kollege
High School on the way to Knieshie forthe last time, etc, but I'd
already sort of found closure with leaving Buduburam and CBW.
I'm psyched for Uganda, so here goes...

Full Circle

I'm almost out of time so I'll have to cover the departure ceremony
etc when I get to Uganda, but I'm brousing in Tower Internet in Osu
where I first went online in Ghana. Full circle.

A few last funny Ghanaian signs:
-Stomach has no holiday (a store)
-Wisdom Spraying Co.
-Facts Writing Services
-Rich Pee!!! (on a taxi) and Grory be to God (on a taxi)

That's all for now, folks. Hopefully I'll get to Uganda with all
my luggage...

The rest of Kumasi was OK, relaxing. Saturday we went to Lake Bosumtwi
which actually was a bit of a let down. It's a meteor crater and it
was quite pretty but there wasn't much to do or see. And no beach,
we lay around on the cement "lawn" of a hotel. I did wade in but
despite the guidebook's declaration that there is no bilharzia I was
too afraid to swim. The guidebook was right about an old shabbily
dressed man who pretended to be the chief and asked for money.
We spent a few hours there and returned to Kumasi where we had ice
cream from a Western style grocery store. Missy did some craft
shopping and though I thought I was done I fell in love with one more
item. Tried to listen to the sox game and, surprise, failed. Couldn't
even get \gameday up. And Sunday we went out to a shrine that was
supposed to have a fetish priest but the priest had died and his
replacement had been found to be a fraud and "sacked" by the chief.
A bit of a bust, but we got back to Accra earlier than I'd dare hope
and I had some delicious street food for dinner, just tried a random
stall and got three different kinds of meet kabobs for 5000 cedis. I
have to find fried plantains before I leave, they were supposed to be
cooked for us weekly or biweekly and we got them once but I loooove
them.

So, my departure ceremony is tonight. I've done a bit of pre-packing,
planning how to maximize my carry on space as I am pretty sure over
the course of 5 airports, 2 airlines, 3 flights and 1 stopover in 27
hours my bag is going to be lost. I'll spend a little time this
afternoon thinking about what to say, and I've also got a project with
the librarian to help organize the place a little better. I'd also
like to finish my book - with it I'll have read 9 while here.

I have had times where I've longed to have my departure so
near and times when I've just enjoyed myself and the work and the
kids and the camp and all that. Now I am definately excited to go,
and Uganda will be very interesting both in and of itself and as a
comparison on many levels with here. The last week with exams has
been a good end as my departure coincides with the end of the school
year but also the work has kind of petered out and that isn't the
greatest feeling.

Time's about up. I'll try to get online Thurs. in Accra, and then
hopefully Uganda will be fairly well connected.

Trotro shopping and street food

I was just in the middle of typing a moderately long post and the
computer in this cafe closed all my windows.

Here I am in Kumasi. Missy and I took a bus this morning and just
finished exploring the largest outdoor market in Africa. It was
a sensory overload, with sections for clothes, shoes, fabric, food
including live chickens in cages or baskets on people's heads,
veggies, fish that stank...NOt that much hassle, a bit of Obruni
calling and occasionally a hand grabbing my arm. We're sticking
mostly to city center so it's cheap for taxis. OUr hotel is
absolute crap - last weekend I paid 51k for a nice bed, good sized
room and bathroom with water and a shower and all that, with a fan.
This weekend it's 60k for selfcontained small room with a fan and
the bathroom is basically built into a corner of the room, kind of
unsheltered.

I've been meaning for a while to describe the street food options
here in Ghana. In camp, you can walk up as it's getting dark and
see all sorts of grills out with corn that tastes like popped corn,
chicken or beef htat's really spicy, fried plantains or yam chips,
and sometimes rice or casava or egg bread sandwiches. Also there's
tables out with candy and cookies. And they sell the most delicious
coconut sugar cookies that I'm addicted to for 200 cedis (2 cents!)
as well as donuts and dough balls (the former also in the morning)
and some other less appetizing cookies. We've got our favorites on
camp. You can get fruit and vegetables but usually that's in the
morning and afternoon; I've got my favorite spots for tomatos or
mangos etc. And my two favorite kinds of cookies, one that's really
gingery and with Arabic writing, the other that has delicious nutty
chocolate paste inside.

As for the trotro shopping. Basically, vendors stand with things
on their heads or in their hands on the sides or in the middle of
crowded streets. You can get pastries or FanMilk (line of frozen
yogurt like treats that are fairly good, considering), candies,
cookies, fruit, and nonfood like hankerchiefs, shirts, bags, etc.
I've grown quite addicted to Mentos as they are always waving in my
face and it's the only Western candy they sell - the fruity Mentos,
with an Arabic wrapper.

A few more signs...

-Decent Haircut, also Decent Mobile Phones - really great advertising there,
guys!
-Amalgamation Bank - Amalbank

That's all for now. I might try to listen to a Sox game here
depending on time.

Tema, oops!

So I come into Accra, go get bus tickets for Friday to Kumasi, and then ask for Tema Station, which is right near the cultural center where I had planned to pick up a few last souveniers. Well, after paying a fare that seemed too high and then after being on the trotro nearly an hour, I knew something was wrong, even though I'd said Tema Station I'd been pointed to a trotro to Tema the city. So that was 2 hours of my day. Which I'm really happy about. I did meet a nice woman who helped me get back to Accra and a woman on the returning trotro who goes to school in Georgia so talked to me with an American southern accent. She tlaks in her local accent usually to avoid getting ripped off.

Let's see, this week has been mostly exams. I thought they would be easy and boring, just sitting there, but turns out the problem of illiteracy is so bad that 5-8 teachers are kept busy reading questions out to the kids over and over and over again because they can't read them themselves. It's really sad. My kids are failing math tests when they got all the (very similar or identical) practice questions right.

Last Sunday after I got back I met all the new volunteers, six total and three in our house. Two in our house are a honeymooning Dutch couple. Not my idea of a honeymoon, but they are really nice people. Before we all left for the weekend we scattered their beds with condoms. Then that night we got a note at the house saying that our Irish and English friends from Kosoa were both at the UN clinic. I went running up - Ailish had gotten Malaria two days before she was due to fly home, then Emily had fainted watching them put a needle into Ailish. Eventful night.

For the fourth I made rice pudding out of leftover rice and canned milk and cinnamon with bananas. I'd been wanting to do that for a while and it was both easy and good. The Americans sat around and played card games and missed fireworks after the 1.5 hour Monday information sharing meeting for CBW.

At the meeting they said my goodbye ceremony will be Tuesday. I can't believe I'm leaving in a week. It's so unreal. I finally got settled here, about last week, and now I'm getting ready to go. I'm excited for Uganda but so sad to leave. It will be an interesting comparison both with culture and conditions and schools, and also the organizations GVN chooses to work with. It'll be Kumasi Friday-Sunday, two more days of exams (they should have ended Monday but they weren't copied in time to start this Monday), a day of packing and taking pictures and helping the library with an organizing project, and then Thursday I'll go into Accra and Friday depart. Time goes faster as it gets closer.

Thanks to everyone who is donating to CBW. The organization really appreicates everything.

Back. Earlier than I'd planned because I got a ride most of the way back.

I had a delicious salad in Ho, awoke the next morning and failed
miserably in a search for a mango, and went straight on to the
monkey sanctuary. I walked the 5km in to the village of Tafi Atome
in a little over an hour and was there before 1. On the way for a
bit a few kids followed me for a while asking for water (I was
drinking from a bag) money and pens in high pitched voices. The
village was very nice and I got a room -pricier than I'dthought
it would be, which left me with far less money for Kente cloth.
Sat around by the office/reception area watching the monkeys play
in the dirt and reading and such. Just after I got there a group
of 6 arrived to stay the night, british volunteers at some drama
program. THen a truckload came from Chances hOtel, very expensive
place in Ho - Habitat volunteers from some NY church that it turns
out donate money to this methodist church in Buduburum. They left,
thankfully cause there were 20 of them, and meanwhile I tagged
along with the Brits to see the village kente weavers and then the
making of Palm Wine - alcohol from palm trees. they chop down 8
year old trees (which they do replace) and burn certain places to
bring up the sap, tap them, get 45 or so jerry cans of sap, which
ferments, then 4 of these at a time go into a barrel over a fire.
The barrel is sealed except a tube (bamboo I think) that comes out
and goes through another barrel of cold water - the alcohol in
vapor form is turned back into liquid and drips out the end through
a cotton filter into a jar. It takes 6 hours for 4 jerrycans (I
think bigger thn the tapped size) to turn into the hard liquor,
which is a whopping 78% alcohol said the guide. They had us try
both, the fermented stuff with bees in it. It was sweet and
fizzyish but had the worst aftertaste, undescribable - maybe the
bees? The hard liquor was perhaps like vodka but not quite,
peppery and STRONG. Then a night of storytelling, and dancing
and drumming performed, all after a delicious dinner. While the
drumming was going on some of the village girls started to play
with my "Obroni" hair. Then this morning up at 6 for the walk
in the forest, wherewe saw more monkeys and fed them bananas.
Breakfast, and I hitched a ride with the Brits in their
leather-upholstered spacious trotro all the way down near Tema,
from which I took 4 more trotros to get back to camp, earlier
than I'd have liked but it was a good weekend. Volta is gorgeous,
the whole region, the river and hills and everything.

Funny signs...
-Ashaiman Metal Fabricators
-Best Brains College (BBC) Remedial Classes
-billboard: Buy to insure your health. Help the poor to have health care.
-Fool to Pee Here
-in accra, do not really small and then PEE HERE huge

Anyway I'm hoping tomorrow, the 4th, will be fun with 7 americans
now among the volunteers.

I just met a girl who's volunteering here 3 months with this
new empowerment organization, found it through idealist.org, is on
a homestay and got here tuesday - she's so happy to have met a
white person and discovered there's a bunch of us.

Here I am in Ho...

Which is the regional capital of the Volta region. I had planned to
spend the night in Akosombo but I made such good time that I went on.

July 1st is Republic Day, so I took off Thursday at about noon and
it took forever to get into Accra. Then I caught a trotro to Aburi
where I had to get a shared car to Mamfe to get a trotro to Kofuridua.
I think I could have gotten accra-kofuridua straight but I didn't
know at the time and the guidebook implied that my route was the only
way. The roads were twisty and hilly and it was foggy and at times
rainy, so a bit scary plus half the time the beautiful scenery was
blocked by the fog. In Mamfe the taxi driver tried to tell me it
was snowing. HA. Then from Kofuridua another shared taxi to Boti
Falls where I spent the night in a very dingy dark room with no
electricity and a fan and lightbulb and toilet and bathtub that I
think were just there for show or in hopes that the tecnology would
make it eventually - made me wish I'd spent the night in Kofuridua,
but it was worth it in the morning because the caretaker arranged the
hike for me so I got an early start. I saw the falls, which are
pretty but just down a ton of steps (on which I received a marriage
proposal and had to tell him I had a boyfriend, then he wanted to
marry my sister so I said I have only brothers...). Even at 7:30 am
the falls were crowded with food vendors and Ghanaian tourists - this
isn't usual; it was all for Republic Day. Luckily my hike started at
8 and ended at 10 and we only ran into the throngs on the way back.
The hike goes to a kind of interesting natural cave - just a rock
that justs out, not caverns or anything - and a spectacular "Umbrella
Rock" that is like two huge round rocks balanced on top of eachother
but it's actually one rock and the top is flat. Gorgeous views.
Also this three-trunked palm tree, but the umbrella rock was the cool
part. The hike was quite strenuous, scrambling up and down sometimes
very steep places, and we kept up a fast pace. Anyway, I bought a
bag of rice back at the falls and snacked on that all the way through
Kofuridua and then on the way to Kpong (K is silent) where I rode
in the front seat of the trotro which made for marvelous views. From
there I went to Akosombo, a short ride, got ripped off by a taxi driver
taking me to the dam tour, took a pretty cool tour of the dam, decided
the canoe ride was way too expensive, had a drink at the luxurious
Lake Volta Hotel (I paid 9000, but for the view and the AC and the
bathroom and soap and hot water it was so worth it) an then went back
to Kpong and on to Ho. My hotel here, Tartu, has a nice manager
who just walked me all the way to the internet cafe. So that's been
my busy two days...tomorrow I'll poke around the markets here and go
to the Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary and the nearby kente-weaving village.

Some signs along the way...

-Guinness ad both on a sign with an arrow to a primary school and
on a sign for the ghanaian army officers' mess in Accra
-Last Stop Prayer Camp on the way from camp to Accra - note that
there are churches every 20 feet.
-Maggi Shitto ads all over Knieshe (where trotros from camp to accra
stop) often with the frame cutting the o off - it's some sort of brown
canned food
-Benji's sexy hot spicy tilapia on the way from camp to accra - I think
i saw this right, I had had my eyes closed so my contacts were a bit off
-all over Accra and scattered all over Ghana are Latex Foam: Your
Partner for life ads
during the rest of my travels...
-Miracle Child Accademy
-Don't mind your wife chop bar
-variety of joint Hair salon and comm. center places
-My Life Depot
-Winners' Chappel (and the other churches are for losers?)
-Understanding Fast Food
-To Be a man of God poultry birds for sale
-blood of jesus comm. center
-god and sons mobile phone co.
-slow but sure tailor's

Then there was the sign that said something like "AIDS is real, women
and girls protect yourself, use a female condom" and had a six-part
graphic diagram of just how to do so. Also, all over Ghana there's
ABC campaign signs - that's Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom Use, but
one said Condomise instead.

This place has such a nice fan. I'm not eager to leave because I'm
not that nhungry, on the trotro I had corn on the cob. Usually you
see what looks like it in camp but it has the taste and texture of
bad popcorn, but this was the real, slightly chewey, thing.

I'm so excited about the sox - Johnny beating Ichiro for a starting
spot, first place, all that. Definately I'm missing being at games.

Something to think about

Today's been busy. Despite having no school today I worked until
3pm, first on making the exam schedule and then finishing typing
the exams (35 or so) which I've been chipping away at for the last
week. It was quite satisfactory to finish, even if it did then take
over an hour to print just the original copies - not because the
printer was slow, it's a very good printer, but because of the
computer. Hopefully while I'm gone to Lake Volta/Boti Falls for
the weekend the copies will actually get made.

Anyway. I'm writing with a request to all those blog readers out
there. I know I've complained a lot about the state of the school,
the quality of teaching, etc. But an Italian organization, RC,
with a Catholic affiliation, has built a new primary school for us
that is to open next term. There are, gasp, seperate classrooms,
and it will be a lot easier to teach and keep classes orderly. Plus
the principle will stop teaching and there will be a push to hire
only qualified teachers, and lesson plans will be checked and tests
will have to go on file in the office. The end of this school year
has been a bit frustrating knowing it will be so much better after
I leave and there's little to do about the situation now.

But there are two places where money is needed. One is the library
in the new school. CBW already has a community library that is staffed
by the most wonderful young woman and kids love to go read in there.
But RC built the school with a large room for a library and CBW filling
it is conditional for the school to open. The UN will furnish it
but I'm asking for cash donations to buy books. Shipping gets too
expensive and we want books that are culturally and materially
appropriate. Any donation will help. All of this, the push for the
new building, the library, the ridiculous school ode, the qualified
teachers, is in an effort to get CBW recognized by the Ghana board
of education.

The other place where donations are needed is the scholarship fund,
which is newly started. This will be the first year of giving
scholarships, previously volunteers just sponsored kids but there
was no accountability and the kids could go a year and then there
was no way to renew. Now the fund will select kids whose parents
applied on the basis of attendence, grades, and disciplinary record,
with less emphasis on the latter in the younger ages. For the three
terms CBW charges a total of about US $4, but uniforms are becoming
mandatory so the scholarship will be subsidizing those. With the
exchange rate I can get at a bank, $6 will due to give a scholarship
to one kid for a year of education.

So, any amount for books or scholarships would be wonderful. As I'm
leaving in two weeks, I ask that if you want to donate, you a) send
me an email pledging the amount and specifying what for at traizen1
@ swarthmore.edu and b) send a check to my home address (I can email
it to you if you don't know it, just ask in the initial email) made
out to me. I'll take the money out of my account now and when I get
home deposit the checks. The deadline on this is next Tuesday
midnight your time, so Wednesday I can get the money out in Accra.

The Lord is my Shepherd Frozen Foods

That's a sign that you can see twice on the way from camp to Kokrobite,
clearly a chain of some sort. Other funny signs I saw this weekend,
or recently:
-"Original I see you" on the roof of a buildign selling timber
-"I saw doctor" on a shack right next door - eye doctor?
-"Mobile Water Industries" with a picture of a mobile phone
-"Expensive Contents" on the side of a truck
-"Highly Inflamable: no smoking" on the back of a gas truck

So, some random different stories and thoughts and such.

Moses, the soldier who picked us up at the airport, came to camp I
believe last Thursday (the 16th or so) in full uniform. Walking
around camp he got quite a few stares, of course, because the Liberians
saw a Ghanaian military uniform and were either scared or curious
or both. He complained that he was a nice guy, etc and the staring
seemed to bother him. He came back today and we ahd a nice chat
and a soda and he invited us to dinner for some real Ghanaian food.
He wasn't in uniform and he got confused a few times for a Liberian
so he's planning to wear it if he comes back to camp again. When
we went up to the top of camp to see Moses off today we encountered a
crowd in the trotro area. It's called the airport because every time
people are "repatriated" as they call it ehre (accepted by US, Canada,
etc for resettlement) they all depart from that place to a big crowd
of (jealous but happy) see-ers off.

I was going to type up some of my journal from this Thursday, the
day after I wrote that last entry. I was quite homesick that day,
but the next day I had a good day at school and was enjoying myself
so I wanted to show the positive contrast. But now I'm too lazy to
do that after spending two hours online here and at the other place
at the top of camp attempting to listen to the Red Sox game. First
I had to retrieve my password, then install a pluging several times
on several computers...no go. I can however watch on gameday and be
happy about how well we're doing and how many players we'll have on
the allstar team.

Friday night Alex, who's been going out at night with some LIberian
friends, took me out as well. Friday night on the town, refugee camp
style. Walking up camp around 10 it was interesting to see what
people were doing. Lots of clubs playing hip hop (American and African)
and people gathered around tiny TVs to watch old bad movies or play
video games. I even heard a bollywood song. Also about 40% of the
music they play is that god awful whiney song "Lonely" which is somehow
Ghana/Buduburum's biggest hit this summer just to torture me. Between
that and Amazing Grace pumped at 5am from the loudspeakers.... Anyway,
it was interesting to talk to these guys at night in a social setting.
Lots of playing pool, etc. The particular group we were with doesn't
immediately propose marriage, though they still hit on the white girls
a bit more than I'd prefer. I was able to talk to a few of the guys
about how they need to go out, even though some have no job, just to
maintain some sort of sanity and spend time with friends. I heard a
phrase along the lines of "This is real" over and over again. One guy
kept going on and on about how perfect America is with freedom of speech
yadayada...true that the US is far better than Liberia for that sort of
thing, but I kpet tellinghim it isn't perfect. He was going on as if
the streets were paved with gold...

Saturday, yesterday, was Beach Day for CBW. This was a fiasco from
before it even happened, when the international volunteers found out
it was mandatory and even if the locla volunteers didn't attend the
25,000 cedi charge would be deducted from their 150,000 monthly stipend.
Eventually after a ridiculous meeting in which Semeh tried to call
it a tax for the good of the organization and it seemed like they
were trying tomake money off of it they made it not mandatory. So
we showed up at 7am for the trotros that were to take us to Kokrobite
and of course they weren't there. We all left around 9, not the whole
organization but some of the teachers and various other staff and even
our cook for our hosue with her son. We went to Big Millie's where some
of the internationals were getting rooms for the night and I got a bit
of food, etc, but they kicked the locals off their volleyball court
and back onto the beach. I understood this - the place was booked for
the weekend and you don't want your paying customers disturbed, but then
they tried to kick the LIberians off the stretch of beach that is public
solely because they are Liberian. The owners of the place are Dutch
or something, but they still hadthis xenophobia, and the Ghanaian staff
were talking lots of trash. Of course the beach is clearly public, with
villagers sellign things and leaving their boats there, and the locals
even wander in and out fo the resort. It's too bad they are such
assholes as I really did enjoy the weekend I spent there. Anyway
peopel still seemed to have fun, good spicy rice and frolicking in the
waves like kids and playing football and this game invlving paths
and squares. Waiting for the trotro home I was comparing with one
of the local volunteers the prices here vs. america, but also
the salaries here vs. america. First he was envious fo the salaries
then he said with those prices it must be tough...didn't make the
connection that they're both higher so it works out.

Despite the rudeness, it's made for a relaxing weekend with lots
of reading and napping.

I'm almost out of time but quickly I wanted to note that I've been
thinking about the education here, how bad it is compared to the
education systems at home that I"ve spent my whole life complaining
about. I still will go on thinking it can be better at home, but
in America we're lucky to have what we do and it's good to have
gotten this perspective on things.

Many things....

Quite a few things to ramble on about today.

A few funny notes from Cape Coast that I forgot before. The canopy walk was built by a couple of rock climbing canadians or something like that with bows and arrows to get the ropes up around the trees. They told us because it's rainy season to be careful not to shake the trees because snakes might fall from the water-filled canopies. Also, in the town of Cape Coast Saturday afternoon, with Ghana playing S. Africa in the world cup qualifiers, a huge chear went up that we could hear reverberating throughout the town when Ghana scored. Kind of cool.

Yay, looks like my Sox have gone on quite the winning streak. Sort of. All green on the redsox.com week schedule. This keyboard sucks though. Also the screen is way too magnified, it's quite annoying.

Monday was World Refugee Day and so all our classes and work were shut down for the camp holiday. We got notice fo this Friday and then Monday morning we found out that Semeh Roberts, the CBW director, was to speak at the ceremony. We went to part of it, but it was quite hard to understand everyone with the microphones misbehaving and all of that. There was some sort of rehearsed coming together of the elders of the 16 Liberian tribes to make peace which was the most chaotic thing I've ever seen, a typical African ceremony I joked to someone.

That afternoon I decided to do my own laundry, or washing as they call it here. I was doing it just inside the screen door of the kitchen and of course with all those kids always staring into the house, two girls started making fun of me for doing it wrong. They invited themselves in to show me - except, despite my attempts to explain the concept of teaching and lettign the student practice, they'd keep snatching each item of clothing from me to do it themselves. I explained that we do our washing in machines and push a button and they said that's lazy. Funny, I always thought laundry was a pain in the ass, but it's true - and these girls were so used to scrubbing each item of clothes that they said it was nothing. I bought them each dinner and a soda.

Yesterday one fo the little candy/cookie shops I walked by had cadburry!!!! Here the chocolate is awful, though I have sampled a variety of cookies and do really enjoy the ginger cookies and a certain kind of shortbready-cookie filled with chocolatey-hazlenutty paste. The cadburry expires this month, which is probably why it was there, and it was only twice as much as a local chocolate bar (30 cents for cadburry!) but damn it is good.

Last night was supposed to be the goodbye ceremony for two girls who have been here 4.5 months and are leaving today, one of whom is the pioneer/shaper of the new GVN rep. position to maintain and facilitate the relationship between CBW and the international volunteers. I guess there's been a lot of turmoil and then improvement in the relations over the past three or four months. Anyay, we found out around the time it was to start that the administration (director, treasurer, volunteer coordinator, etc) had taken the CBW car (that's another story of problematic beuraucracy witout accountability) itno Accra and it had broken down. So the ceremony never happened, which really angerd both of these girls and rightfully so. There was one today at noon but their energy had gone out of it having done their personal goodbyes and speaches amongst themselves last night. I am writing this as sort of a launching pad into a rant about CBW in general. And my experience here. I mena, I'm hear for six weeks, nothing I do is sustainable in terms of leaving a lasting effect like those two girls have done. I can hopefully positively effect some of my students, teach some kids a little more math than they would have known otherwise, and get them through the schoolyear to next year when the new building and attempt for accredidation by Ghana will raise the standards for teacher hiring. But you really do have to be hear that long because things move so god damned slowly here. It is definately a cultural thing - people late to meetings, late on deadlines, casual about carrying out any sort of plan. And this adjustment is especially hard for me, with my direct, get-to-it approach. Even the saying hi and stopping to talk on the street is a problem for me - I've written about my reasons for not responding to many people, but a lot of the time with kids or women I'll wave but still rush on, maybe calling back "how are you" over my shoulder. Which is normal at home. I'm in such a habit of rushing from one thing to the next, which I will blame paritally on my northeastern, rushed boston upbringing. I like to walk fast, I like to approach tasks directly. In only 6 weeks here I just can't adjust to the "African way" of doing things. It's very foreign to me, so when it comes to getting things done it's so hard to see how little gets accomplished in a period of time. And my god all of the formalities at meetings, the thankyous and opening and closing prayers and all that - I get it, htat's the culture, but it drags on and on. Not the most efficient way to run an organization - at the same time I know that the more efficient way would work even worse here because of the culture we are in, becuase you do have to work with it. I'm not sure how much sense this is making, but I guess I'm trying to convey a sense of frustration about getting things done. I'm not frustrated at the culture, or CBW, becuase that's the way things are here, and I'm not frustrated with myself for not adjusting, because I know I've adjusted quite a bit (and more than I've shown in this little rant here) but there's only so far my habits and customs will go and my training and education and background has done that to me. Were I here months or a year I think I would make the adjustment to fit in, if only because I'd be forced to not to go insane. But in three weeks I'll be in another culture (thast will be quite interesting to compare) and then a month after that, back at school where I have to get things done bang bang bang.

Anyway, CBW. Despite cultural differences, there are certain basic failings within the organization. This car that they allegedly bought to pick up international volunteers, that didn't pick me up, that is often seen wasting fuel money driving around camp because it's a status symbol on camp to be driving a car. And driving it around the ditches of dusty camp puts it in horrible shape. In terms of money, they cut corners on picking us up and dropping us off and even our food (which has gotten miserable lately, but we're going to try and fix it tonight) and meanwhile where is this money going? International volunteers are like 95% of their budget, but we see little to no accounting of how it gets spent. I'm sure most of it is legitimate, but there's stuff like all that show-off fuel when they claim they can't drop us back at the airport. And they've made this beach day manditory saturday for all employees - yet everyone has to pay their own way, 25,000 cedis which is one sixth of most of the local volunteers' monthly salary, regardless of whether they want to go or whether they are going, and with a trip on your own costing half that.

At the same time, with my long list fo gripes about the management of the organization and finances and what's going on in school, I've on and off been totally amazed at what they are doing here. The sanitation programs are incredible and so needed, the aids education, the school that costs somehting like half of what other schools on camp cost. To persevere, to work for so little money at jobs many are overqualified for (clearly that's not most of the teachers, but many administrators have degrees, one worked in a hospital, one has a business degree, etc) serving their own people and tirelessly organizing various projects to improve the life of the camp. It's quite impressive, quite incredible, desperately needed, despite my complaints aboiut the slow pace of thigns they've managed to accomplish quite a bit and I know that many things just are slow here, it's just the way things work.

Another frustration today was in trying to go over the final exam drafts Mr. Johnson made. He drafted the four grades with 20 qurestions, 22, 25, and 30, then tells me there should be 15 or 20 for a 60 point score. Some of the questions were terribley confusing, had more than one right answer, or no correct answer. Given that they've only got an hour to do the test, I'm going ot shorten them all to 20 questions but I've got to rewrite much of it and to make half multiple choice like Johnson wanted but didn't do himself. That he took weeks to do this and then it's all wrong just depresses me so much - this is what the kids have bene getting. And now that I can see what I think is the curriculum for the year (though he left things out I know they've done that I had to add) I know why, for example, the third grade had such trouble with measurements: they hadn't learned multiplication and division and decimals, sequentially earlier in the curriculum for a very, very good reason. Meanwhile I'm suppo\sed to be typing all 50 or so exams for the whole school but the teachers haven't given them to the principle so he can't get them to me.

But life chugs on, I'm starting my little reading/geography class tomorrow and attendence should be good, I've gotten some nice clothes back from the tailor's, I do enjoy the kids, especially those around the house, and it is overall a good experience, just all of these frustrations come out on the blog. The same culture that seems so restrictive to progress within CBW and school is also one that gives much liesure time, cool music and clothes, great food, and though I may walk quickly, the politeness and friendliness is refreshing and nice.

One more complaint, though. This week has been terrible with the loudspeaker that goes on at 4 or 6 am and blasts on about religious stuff so loudly you wake up and can't get back to sleep. I go to bed early, but it's not an uninterupted sleep by any means.

Cape Coast! Kakum!

Quickly, because I have 15 minutes and don't want to pay for more time. I'm
writing from Hans Cottage Botel (not a typo) in Cape Coast, where the
restaurant and some facilities are on stilts above a pond with crocodiles.
Owned by some couple that had this idea, took the risk, and then the
crocodiles moved in. There's also a monkey in a cage that we played with
this morning and he actually tried to grab one girl's fake gold bracelets and
reach into our bags, quite a funny little fellow. More expensive and less
clean than big millie's last weekend, but the shower has running water.

Cape Coast, Kakum, wow. We arrived yesterday and just hung around, had
dinner, and got up early this morning to go to Kakum national park, one of
the protected remants of West Africa's rainforest. We did the canopy walk
high above most treetops, canopy to canopy (net and planks of wood, suspended
on cables attatched to the highest trees), which was great fun for people
like me who don't mind heights at all. Then some of us did the hour hike
through the rainforest. Let's see. At the beginning there were two trees,
similar rlooking but different breeds, growing right next to eachother that
the guide says are called Mr. and Mrs. because the "Mr." is used for pestles
and the "Mrs." for mortar/the large bowl in grinding fufu. Haha, quite
dirty. Another tree which has perfumey sap was the incest tree. We saw a
tree with spikes to protect its soft bark that's used to treat asthma, a
great big tree larger than a few cars at the trunk that doesn't have deep
roots but a huge base, another similar but smaller one with snake like roots
protruding from the ground, a tree that supposedly treats broken bones, one
for ulcers that's also addictive, a vine that will eventually kill its tree
that's poisonous, a tree that makes the ebony black wood used in piano keys,
and a few other useful trees as well as just the fact that I hiked through
the rainforest, ran over a few patches of ants and got bitten by them, etc.
Also talked with some peace corps volunteers taking a break from their
service in Mauritania.

Then we went to the Cape Coast Castle where we saw the slave dungeons and
governor's quarters and all of that. Quite intense. The tour guide was a
bit vivid at times which, this is kind of hard to describe, but seemed
disrespectful almost, just in acting out the way a slave would walk or
whatever. The gate where they used to ship slaves out of, called the gate of
no return, now leads to local fishing. We walked around but couldn't really
find a good market and we had dinner right by the castle overlooking the
ocean with foam and huge crashing waves and a cool, nearly cold breeze. The
service sucked but I tried ground nut soup and now I've had that and fufu
(just a taste, it's not good at all, gelatonous) and the components of red-
red though not together. It felt like a really busy day, and certainly very
cool things to see. Tomorrow we'll do Elmina before heading back to camp.

Travelling with us are an English girl (dead ringer for Kiera Knightly) and
an Irish girl who volunteer down the road in Kosoa and their host family is a
bit protective. They'll probably travel with us often. Very nice girls.

I've looked a bit at the Uganda guide book and I doubt I can afford the
liscence necessary to trek where the gorillas are, but I think I might white
water raft the mouth of the nile and there's tons of other wildlife to see.
Though if it's like here you can only see it at night or absurdly early in
the morning. We'll see.

Time to sign off, I've been online quite a long time here.