Barcelona Photos, Part I

Out of Africa

Think of the worst airport traveling experience you've ever had.  Maybe delayed flights?  Missed flights?  Troubles with security?  Lost luggage?  Take that experience, multiply it by ten in terms of stress levels, put yourself in a developing country, and take away internet access, with minimal phone access, and there you have what happened to us on Saturday as we tried to depart for our European fall break to Istanbul, Nice, and Barcelona.

Let's backtrack: in September, the three of us set about planning our week off, since we are here for 15 weeks, work for 14 weeks, and get a one week break.  We also have to leave the country at some point during our stay in Ghana in order to reactivate our visas.  Since our immediate neighbors of Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso don't offer particularly appealing destinations, we settled on flying somewhere farther from here.  A search of flight prices showed us that flying into Nice and out of Barcelona through Istanbul would be our cheapest option, so our Euro trip was born.  One week of hot showers, gelato, cheese, reliable electricity, paved roads, and cool weather awaited us, and we eagerly anticipated the break it would provide from what is admittedly sometimes a mentally exhausting way of life in Dodowa.  Therefore, when we arrived at the Accra airport on Saturday afternoon, we couldn't wait to get on the plane for what would surely be a great trip.  Well, that didn't happen.  Erin and I were informed that our tickets had been refunded, so we didn't have seats on the plane, while Hannah still did.  Basically, since we had bought our tickets online in Ghana with a credit card, they don't trust that since there are a lot of problems with fraud.  Hannah had had someone at home buy her ticket, which was why it wasn't cancelled.  Our main objection to this whole thing was that they didn't TELL us that this refund had been made, so we showed up with invalid confirmation numbers and papers marked "E-ticket" that were no good.  Our argument that we hadn't been informed and therefore couldn't be held accountable for the fact that we showed up expecting to get on a flight that they sad we couldn't be on.  The Turkish airlines representative then informed us that we could still get on our original flight, but that it would cost double of what we originally paid.  No me gusta.  After some tearful conversations with our parents, Erin and I both reluctantly agreed to pay for the ticket.  Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  We're still in a cash economy, remember?  So the fact that we both want to pay for the new tickets with credit cards, because we could never withdraw that much cash at once, posed a huge problem.  For four long hours, we waited at the airline office and argued with the representatives, as they unhelpfully gave us random phone numbers to call and sent us to the internet cafe in the airport to try and fix the problem ourselves.  My calls to the airline office in Istanbul did nothing, and since the internet in the airport was not working, all of our efforts were futile, and as our take-off time drew nearer, it began to sink in that we weren't going.  For the first time that I have been in Ghana, I truly, truly wanted to go home.  All of the small frustrations of living in a developing country suddenly boiled to the surface, and I legitimately cried for the first time in seven weeks.  I pictured us heading to Togo for our week off to re-activate our visas instead of to Europe, which, to three girls alone in the Accra airport with all of our plans cancelled, seemed a depressing prospect.  We all love living in Ghana, especially because we are actually LIVING in Ghana.  It's the three of us, in a house in a rural village, and that's it.  No big school group of twenty students who have weekends nicely planned or have classes to take at the university.  If we travel, we're on our own.  When we go to work, we're on our own.  We eat dinner with our host family five nights a week.  We have gotten to know many of the fruit sellers, seamstresses, research center employees, and random strangers that introduce themselves on the street.  I'm proud to feel like we are a part of the community, instead of being isolated and removed from everyone.  Our program is so unique in that aspect, and even the Dodowa site itself is unique within the international health program, since I feel so integrated into the community and that we at least share some of the hardships that our neighbors share.  When Auntie Esther's family doesn't have water running, neither do we.  If the power goes out at the research center, it also goes out at our house.  Laundry day comes around if we're lucky enough to have the water on that week and enough buckets to soak and rinse.  The idea of having air conditioning or running showers is laughable.  My point is not to say "our lives are so hard, feel bad for us".  My point is that through all of those little hardships or inconveniences, it still is the best abroad experience that I could have asked for, to truly live in a different country, not just happen to be in a different country and live like we do at home.  However, we're only human, and after seven weeks, we understandably needed a break.  So this is why our cancelled travel plans seemed so devastating at the time.
We still needed to leave the country somehow to reactivate our visas, so we needed a new plan, and fast.  Credit Erin for making sure we re-planned our week after dinner on the same night, so that we had new tickets booked for just Barcelona by the time we went to bed.  We stayed in Accra, woke up at 1:30 AM on Monday morning, and flew out to Barcelona through Casablanca, arriving in Spain by Monday afternoon.  We have been enjoying hot, running showers, gelato, fresh berries, cheese, nightly shopping sprees, and the some delicious Spanish tapas.  Can you tell our happiness is directly correlated to food?  Pictures to follow!

Canoeing in Circles

Although these blogs may make it seem like all I am doing in Ghana is playing with cute children and traveling to monkey sanctuaries, I actually do have to do work while I’m here too (shocking, I know).  Our first month here, we basically had the opportunity to become oriented with the different areas of research at the DHRC by going into the field and talking to different staff members.  We were also simultaneously writing a short, 20-page paper about an aspect of the Ghanaian health system for our academic program back at Georgetown.  Once we were done with that paper, it was time to start focusing on our big research projects aka, the main reason we are here in the first place.  These projects amount to what is essentially our senior thesis, so they’re no joke.  Unfortunately, as soon as we began the process of writing our research proposals to submit to the IRB (Institutional Review Board-necessary protocol for any research done here, especially to have any chance of the work being published), the majority of the DHRC staff left to go to the field for a qualitative study of the UNICEF bed net hang-up campaign, leaving us in the dust.  This was quite problematic, because the point of us being here is to learn how to do research, including steps such as writing proposals and going through the IRB process, so with no one left behind to show us how, we were quite concerned.  In order to have enough time to collect data and analyze it without rushing at the end, we had planned out a schedule with Sheila, Irene, and Dr. Gyapong to submit to IRB before leaving on our fall break to Europe (!) on October 13^th.  Determined to stick to that plan, we have been writing our proposals for the past two weeks and seeking any help we can, with such limited human resources here at the DHRC.  Between some help from previous year’s girls (thanks Isabelle!), meetings with individual staff members that happened to still be around the office, and imploring emails to those who were out of the office, all three of us now have legitimate drafts of research proposals today that, with a little revision and polishing, will be ready to submit to IRB by the end of the week.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I will be conducting a qualitative and quantitative study of the school feeding program here in Ghana and how it contributes to the nutritional health of primary school children.  I’ll be conducting my study at the school right next door to our house, and will be interviewing pretty much everyone there: teachers, students, lunch cooks, the head of the school, and select students’ parents.  I’ll also be taking a small sample of kindergarten students to travel with them to their homes after school to find out their 24-hour dietary intake, as well as take some basic anthropometric measurements: height, weight, mid-upper arm circumference, and head circumference, in order to assess their nutritional intake and growth.  All this will come together to form a picture of the health of kindergarten students, who, at the beginning of their school years, can be positively impacted by this school feeding program if it is, in fact, a nutritious and balanced lunch that is being provided.  I cannot wait to get started, especially because it means I get spend the entire week at the school with the kids, and judging from the amount of waves and screams of “blafono!” that greet us everyday during their recess, I will surely make many new little friends.

In the middle of all of this crazy stress about writing research proposals with basically no guidance, we were also getting pretty stir-crazy here in Dodowa.  Between Oti being gone in the field and us staying in town for two weekends in a row, we needed to get away from the monotony (plus our water turned off last Sunday, and the electricity had been spotty since Tuesday night).  So we were all too eager to hop on a tro-tro after work on Friday and head towards Akosombo, which is right along the Volta River and Lake (largest man-made lake in the world, by the way).  We got to Rhozo Hospitality, our hotel, with almost no trouble, but the issues started right after we arrived.  Turns out they thought we wanted three rooms for three people, not on room for three people, so the double room we were shown was quite inadequate for all of us for the whole weekend.  The kind manager offered the chalet to us, for only about $10 per night more, and though one of us still had to sleep on two chairs pushed together, it was much more spacious and accommodating.  The next morning, when we met Rhozo, the owner, it became very clear how our request for one room with three people became muddled.  We were offered oats for breakfast, and I asked if I could have eggs instead.  Not a problem.  However, then Rhozo turned to Erin and Hannah and asked if they wanted an egg in their oats.  Um, no?  We also asked for a bottle of water to drink with breakfast.  Rhozo asked if we wanted a bottle of water boiled to drink.  Again, not exactly.  My scrambled eggs came out with cabbage (?) in them, but otherwise it was a solid breakfast.  Once done with breakfast, we set out to go to the bead market we had heard about.  However, some tro-tro miscommunication had us miss the market and only realize it when we saw a sign for Cedi Bead Industries, which we knew was further away than the market.  We yelled for the mate to stop so we could get off, and figured we might as well check it out since we were already there.  My skepticism mounted as we walked a half mile or so down a deserted dirt road, but when we came upon the factory (misleading name), we were treated to a pleasant exploration of how the beads are made.  Cedi himself gave us a demonstration of how they make the different kinds from the powder of crushed glass bottles and other materials, and expertly demonstrated how the intricate designs are laid out before firing the small beads.  We saw the kilns (made of ant mound clay, since it can resist such high temperatures), the girls working on stringing the beads into necklaces, and the technique for polishing the beads.  

We figured there may be some beads to buy, but had no idea what we would find in the little shop on the grounds.  Rows and rows of necklaces adorned the walls, and racks and bins held individual large beads as well as countless bracelets.  Another item they had really excited me, but I’m not going to mention what it was because it may or may not be a gift for somebody J Cedi patiently waited while we browsed and debated and slowly filled our bowls with bracelets for us and some special people back home, and told us how he has been to the US to do bead making camps before.  When the reality that we could only fit so much in our backpacks to take home, we cut ourselves off and paid and thanked Cedi for such a wonderful experience.  

Off we went to find our initially intended destination, the bead market.  We finally found it, nestled in the middle of the surrounding busy market selling everything from food to fabric, and browsed those aisles with interest.  However, after seeing Cedi’s beads and their quality, we felt that we got what we wanted already and wound our way out of the market, to the dismay of many of the vendors.  We headed to a resort that is actually right on the Volta River, unlike Rhozo’s, called Aylos Bay, and hung out before dinner on one of the tented docks over the water, before the torrential downpour started, and we had to move inside. 

For the second night in a row, I ordered chicken (protein is hard to come by during the week-we eat a lot of rice and yams), and we were eagerly anticipating ordering ice cream, since it was on the menu.  It had also been on the menu the previous night at dinner at Rhozo, but they looked at us like we were crazy when we asked for it, so this second night we were more hopeful.  However, we unfortunately got the “no-we-don’t-have-that-why-would-you-ask” look again, despite the fact that IT WAS ON THEIR MENU, so we got pretty desperate for some ice cream.  How desperate, you ask?  After dinner, we proceeded to flag down a cab, climb in, and ask the driver to take us where we could buy ice cream.  Shockingly, a gas station just down the road was where he took us, and though at first we only saw FanIce (frozen milk, not ice cream), we then laid eyes on the most beautiful tub of chocolate ice cream I have ever seen.  Without a moment of hesitation, we bought the ice cream and three spoons, which went into my backpack to sneak back into our room at Rhozo.  The next morning we struggled again in ordering breakfast from Rhozo, but managed to get passable oats and eggs again, then went back to Aylos Bay in hopes of going out on the river.  We asked the lady if we could rent a canoe, and she said it was 15 cedis for half an hour with a guide.  We asked if we could go without a guide, and she gave us the “skeptical obruni” look, which basically is what anyone looks like when we try to do something they know we can’t do.  Without a guide, it was only 20 cedis for an hour, so we immediately asserted we could go alone and save some money.  After all, between the three of us, we have our fair share of experience with boats-Erin did crew, I have kayaked a lot, and Hannah knows how to canoe.  They reluctantly showed us to the big wooden canoe and shoved us off into the water with the requisite orange life jackets.  For the first fifteen minutes, we were doing great.  It was a beautiful day and the surrounding scenery was not to be believed.  Then, well, things started not going so well.  When we turned to start heading back the way we came, the river current had other ideas.  In our large, bulky, wooden canoe, with two paddles that resembled a crushed soda can attached to a metal pipe, we stood no chance.  Let’s put it this way: if you ever need a good team-building exercise to teach people how to solve a frustrating problem without ripping each others head off, send them canoeing on the Volta River.  It was hot, sunny, the current was basically pushing us in circles, and people on the bridge above us were laughing and taking pictures.  Not an amusing situation.  All I wanted to do was get out to swim and pull our boat back in, but my lack of bathing suit and desire to avoid water-borne diseases stopped me.  Finally, we managed to inch away from the crazy currents, and zigzagged our way to shore slowly.  Let me be the first to admit that the lady was correct in assuming we’d need a guide, and was not just assuming incompetence based on our obruni status.  We had a delicious lunch to refuel after the harrowing (but still pretty awesome) canoe experience, then packed ourselves into a tro-tro to head home, with what was a blessedly quick ride.  

This Saturday begins our European fall break to Nice, France and Barcelona, Spain!  Some of the things we are eagerly anticipating: cheese, bread, wine, showers, and fresh vegetables that we can eat without worrying about getting dysentery.  Then we’ll be back in Ghana for seven more weeks before coming home!  I can’t believe it-exactly two months from today I will be back in New York en route to Pittsburgh with a (hopefully) nearly completed senior thesis in hand!                   

Henry

Henry is our neighbor here in Dodowa.  I don’t know if I’ve specifically described the layout of our house and surrounding yard, but basically we share a yard inside the same gate and wall as Henry.  For our first two weeks here, we were positive that Henry was going to murder us.  The first time we saw him, he was shirtless and carrying a machete.  He also has no less than seven dogs that bark and growl all night not three feet from my window.  These two things put together convinced all three of us that he was some scary man with crazy dogs and that he would come and kill us with his machete.  We have since re-formed this opinion, for many reasons. 

First, he has these dogs as pets, which is highly unusual, especially when we see him taking them on walks.  This would be a large/unusual amount of dogs at home, in my opinion, but it is even more unusual here because no one has dogs for pets.  We see the occasional stray dog wandering around from time to time, but no dogs live as pets with people.  Except for Henry.  And he loves his dogs-my room is nearest to Henry’s house, and I hear him talk to them and sing (yes, sing) to them.  His vocal skills aside, we still were apprehensive about making friends.  Some guys are super creepy around the obrunis-I’ve lost count of the number of marriage proposals I’ve received so far.  Then, he started inquiring about our weekend travels.  When we returned one Sunday, he was walking his dogs and seemed very glad to see us.  “Did you travel this weekend?  I had noticed you weren’t around.”  This was oddly comforting, knowing that a very intimidating man with intimidating dogs had 1) noticed we were gone and been worried about where we were and 2) been keeping an eye on our empty house when we were gone.  Finally, our breakthrough in becoming friends with Henry was George.  About a week or two ago, a new dog showed up in our yard.  It’s huge, but when we open the gate and all of the little annoying dogs run up and bark, the big one just walks up and kindly looks at us with interest.  We looked at him and immediately agreed his name should be George, and one of the annoying dogs always with George should be named Sparky.  George greets us without fail every night when we come home after dinner and every afternoon coming home for lunch.  A couple of days ago, Henry was outside when we were coming home.  We said our usual pleasantries, and asked what the new dog’s name was.  He didn’t have a name for it, so we told him we thought it was George.  Without a moment’s hesitation, he smiles and says “Ok, I will keep it.”  So now the dog’s name is actually George.  After this exchange, Henry asked what our names were, and how long we’d be staying, so we got to chat a little bit.  The next morning, there was a note on our doorstep.  It said “Good morning!  I have left for the day but I wanted to leave you my number so we could get to know each other better.  Henry”.  We immediately wrote back and left him our names and numbers, which led to possibly the best text message I have ever received.  This past weekend, we traveled to Akosombo, which is along the Volta River.  Henry called us on Friday night because he noticed we weren’t home, and wanted to check on us.  He called Hannah’s phone, and when she said we were in Akosombo for the weekend, he goes “ok yea, you’re just chillin!”.  The next afternoon, I got a text from him.  Verbatim, spelling and all, this is what it read:

“Gud afternun nd hope al is wel?  I really appreciate d way u go about doing ur things, it’s so amazing nd I want u 2 keep it up. My prayer 4 u is dat may al ur heart desires kom thru. May god adorn u with d garment of praise and load u with his benefits. Take gud ker or urselves nd neva allow anything 2 kom in betwn ur strong friendship. I ker, henry.”   

I actually thought it was a text from Oti at first, because he has a tendency to send very deep, intense texts as well.  Hannah was sick last week and he was out in the field researching, so he sent her one that said “hi sweet girl, how r u? I know u r strong and can’t be broken down. It might just be a little stress or maybe you miss me.  Rest a little and u’ll be fine. Take care.”

Anyway, the text was from Henry, and we just about died from laughter reading it over dinner.  Returning home Sunday night, we received another text-"Thanks be to God that you are home safely."  So, to sum up, we are now best friends with Henry, the man we thought was a murderer, and may ask him to cut down the plantains from our plantain tree with his machete.  And he’s on our list to be our next dinner guest.  Don't worry, George will be invited too.     

Family Time

I love going over to Auntie Esther’s house.  Between Charity, Auntie Esther, Valentina, Lovelyn, Kwame, Ema, and Elvis, there is always someone to play with or talk to.  Lately, when dinner has been finished and we are relaxing outside, I have ended up in deep conversation with Ema, while Elvis commands the attention of everyone else with his antics.  Ema is seven and, like any seven-year-old with an imagination, can absolutely talk your ear off.  Lately our conversations have covered everything from Christmas to thunder to Spiderman to outer space to food to cartoons.  Last week, we started off talking about thunder, progressed through bodies cracking in half and God and Jerusalem and lightening in there somewhere, and ended up on Christmas presents that he would receive from us early before we leave on December 7^th.  I couldn’t even tell you how this progression occurred, because the conversations consist of 99% Ema and 1% Ally.  I nod along and ask “really?” and “what’s that?” at the appropriate times, but other than that, the floor belongs to him.  Erin and Hannah asked me how I can stand to listen to this seven-year-old chatter endlessly when we can’t even understand what he is saying half the time, but it hadn’t really struck me to be annoyed or bored when a little kid is explaining what an airbender is to you.  It’s clear that Ema has too many words to say-he can’t get them out fast enough, and I can see his brain working a mile a minute as he talks.  I’m excited for him that he has so much to share, and the other night I suggested something to him that seemed to get him thinking even more.  In the middle of a discussion of racecar games and wireless internet, I asked him how he thought of all of this stuff.  He shrugged, as you might expect, and said he didn’t know.  I told him how cool it was that he had such an imagination, and asked if he knew where the stories in books came from.  He had been reading a book called the Ugly Duckling to us all week, and I referenced that-“where do you think that story came from?”.  Again, he said he didn’t know, and I said “someone with an imagination just like yours thought it up and wrote it down.”  His eyes lit up in disbelief.  I said that someone, somewhere had an idea that came from a crazy imagination, wrote it down, and it became a book, or a TV show, or a movie.  I saw dawning realization in his eyes as he understood what I was getting at, and he bashfully grinned at the suggestion that one of his crazy stories was worth writing down.  “Writing something down makes it even easier to share with people,” I told him, and especially to him, that seemed to ring true, especially since I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be sharing all of this if he didn’t have us as an audience each night.  “What if you wrote down what you tell me-could you write it in the notebook I saw that’s for school?”  He shook his head no sadly…”but I could write it in another notebook I have!”  Two seconds later we were off on another conversation involving how far the sun is from the moon and what an esophagus is, but I was glad we had gotten a chance to talk about him-he’s clearly very smart (he just got moved from class 2 to class 3 in school), has a lot to say, and needs to share it, so maybe writing some of these stories and thoughts down will be a way for him to do that, especially when his obruni audience goes back home.

Speaking of smart kids, Elvis, who is three, recites his ABC’s, says his two times tables up to 2x12, and traces capital and lowercase letters for homework every night in his little school notebook.  All this without watching Sesame Street everyday or having dozens of books that would helpfully reinforce colors and numbers and letters.  He has one alphabet book that he is fiercely protective of, and hilariously points to C with a cat as the picture and says “pussycat!” as all one word in his funny little voice.  His other trademark phrases, pronounced crystal clearly, include “where is your camera?” “put this in your bag” “let me do the zip” “did you eat all?” “I’ll miss you” “I love you too” “I’m giving you an injection!”*

*this last one comes with its own story-he found a syringe cap in an extra room in their house where mothers can stay (Auntie Esther is a midwife), and proceeded to run up to us and do his best to plunge it into our arms before we realized what it was.  Needless to say, the cap was confiscated quickly and he got into some trouble for that one.   

Having these kids around is great, and to have a family here is even more of a positive thing than I originally thought it would be.  Lovelyn and Charity smiled with pride when we told them that none of our international health classmates in other countries have a host family, so we are lucky to have them.  Lovelyn asked me if they tell us where to go abroad, and I said no, I had heard from last year’s girls about how great it was in Dodowa with her family, and asked in my placement interview to come here.  Charity told us how she has a “Georgetown University Mom” t-shirt from another year’s group, which couldn’t be more appropriate.