A Day In the Life of Kwambi

Now that I am settled for 8 weeks, I thought I would share with you what my day looks like. First, let me start with our group that came over from the US. We started with 67 volunteers, and now we are down to 63. Not too bad of drop out rate considering the vast variety of ages. Three of the folks that ET’d (Early Terminate) where in their 20’s and one in her late 50’s, I think. We are divided into two basic groups; education and omnibus. Education includes Math, Science, Visual Arts and Tech. Omnibus includes WATSAN (water and sanitation), SED (Small Enterprise Development, and Environment and Health. Because we are such a large group, they have split us into different villages, where, for the next several weeks, we will be learning language, culture, and aspects concerning what we will be doing over the next two years. 

Imagine a circle.  There are four different villages around the perimeter of the circle and one in the center. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get to any of these villages. We live in the village by the sector we belong to; I live in Masse, with the other SED volunteers. However, we will go to many different area’s in Ghana when we graduate from training. There are about 70 different languages in the country and we have 6 or 7 different language classes collectively. I have been very fortunate- the area will I am going speaks Twi, which is what I’ve been learning before I even arrived in Ghana. Twi is the national language and spoken in much of southern Ghana. I am also fortunate that the language class for Twi just happens to be in Masse, so I do not need to travel to get to any of my class. Some of my friends however, have to drive an hour to language class, then more time to their other classes before returning home. Keep in mind the condition of the roads and taxis (see my earlier journal entry), they have a very long day. 

As I said, I live in Masse and Masse is in the center of that circle I talked about. It is a very nice village, probably with 2,000 residents. There is a downtown with small shops, and a market, 2 or 3 schools, and a gazillion churches. It’s a very close knit community, I feel very safe here. There is power, and water is readily available in bore holes and wells. I live on the outskirts of town on the main road. My family consists of my Mother; Auntie Rose, my Father; Adjei, and two of their grandchildren (my brother and sister) ages 16 and 15. My father is 73 and is semiretired. He works as an Managing Director in the electrical business in Accra for the last 50 years. When he worked full time there, he would travel to Accra and spend the week there, returning Friday night. He is very nice, speaks some English and although he is friendly, he tends to keep to himself. My Mother is a hot ticket. She is a strong, very hard working woman with a heart of gold. We laugh a lot together. No, let me rephrase that. She laughs at me, as do most Ghanians. Everything I do is funny to them. They way I talk, do laundry, the clothes I wear, it’s all new to them and they laugh a lot. It’s OK ‘cause I laugh at myself as well, I have to!

Before daylight, the roosters start crowing. Everything you’ve heard about the rooster starting to crow at dawn is hogwash. Around 3:30 or 4 am one will crow. And once one starts, they all start. I wear earplugs but it does not help much. by 4:30, my family starts to wake up. They start the day by sweeping.... the yard. Yes, the yard. They do not have grass, it is just dirt, and they want to make sure that their dirt is um, well tidy dirt. Then they start a fire, and do a whole bunch of other things that include banging, pounding and all around general noise making. So by 5:45 I lay in bed and plan my day. I usually get up, go pee in my INSIDE LATRINE (oh yeah baby!!! I have an inside latrine. Most people have an outside one, sometimes several yards away. I am living high on the hog.) I then take a nice refreshing bucket bath, sweep out the water out and get dressed. 

I come downstairs and greet my family. “Maache, Kwami!”, they say. My name here is Kwami, which means I was born on Saturday. Everyone here has a name signifying the day they were born; ie, Kaffi is Friday. Eating here is very different than the US. First of all, I am left handed, but here you can not eat with your left hand, it is considered unclean. You use you left hand to go to the bathroom. You don’t ever hand anyone something with your left hand, it is considered an insult. So, I am learning to eat with my right hand. Actually it isn’t too bad to learn, because most of the time I don’t use silverware. Most of the time you eat with your hands. Another cultural difference is that you don’t usually eat as a family. The man will eat at the table, the women will eat outside on a bench, and after they have finished the kids will eat the leftovers. So I usually eat alone, although sometimes my mother will sit with me a talk to me as I eat. 

I usually leave for my language classes around 7:30, class starts at 8:00. I try not to speak any English on my way to school, just Twi. Greetings are very important here, so just about everyone I meet. Here is a typical conversation:

Me: Maache

Them: Yaa,Agya. Wo ho te sen?

Me: Me ho ye, paa. Na wo nso e?

Them: Me so, me ho ye. Woto sen?
Me: Meeko school.

Them: Yoo, akyire yi yebehyia.

Me: Yoo!!

Which means, Good morning! Yes Sir. How are you? I am fine and you? I am fine as well. Where are you going? I go to school. Ahh, we shall meet again. Yes, we will.

Of course they are laughing at me the whole time. They think we all are very funny. And then they ask me more questions, to which I mumble something and just smile. 

There is only three of us in my language class and it usually lasts 2 hours. Then I have a culture course for a couple of hours. I walk back home for lunch, then we have classes from 1 to 5. By then my brain is fried. It is all very interesting and I am learning a lot. We are learning about business, how the government agencies work, and much, much more. 

I usually have dinner around 6. My Mother is a great cook and I have enjoyed all of the meals here. It is quite different foods, lots of starch, but all in all it is quite good. I don’t know when the last food was that had MSG, partially hydrogenated oil, artificial flavorings or anything like that. I can’t say I miss it, although a steak with mushrooms, mashed potatoes with butter, and broccoli would be really good right now. I do miss the fresh veggies, and I am pretty sure the strawberries are ripe back home....  And, I miss milk; we have powdered, real coffee; we have instant, no dairy products. Mmmmm chocolate, or snacks, there is no snacking here. Oh, and cheese....mmmmmm... Ugh, I have to stop. The good news is that there is one kind of beer that is acceptable. It’s called Castle Beer, it’s a dark beer, and pretty tasty. The only problem is that right now I am only getting $2 a day and the beer costs $1.50. Every once in while I will go out to “The Spot”, a small bar, with some other PCT’s and we will have a cold one. 

After dinner, I usually visit with my family for a bit, then go upstairs to read, do home work and I am usually in bed by 9. Pretty exciting, huh? Well, that is the day in the life of Kwami. This Saturday, we go on a field trip for 5 days. We will be visiting sites of other PCV’s and take a look at how businesses run here. I will let you know how that goes when I get back.

I think Chris posted on Face book, where my site is. I will be living in a town call Wenchi, which is a fairly large town, or medium size city. I will be working with cashew farmers. Over one third of the world’s cashews are produced by 14 African countries, one of which is Ghana. Over 90% of these cashews are produced on small farms. The majority of the cashews are shipped raw to India and Vietnam to be processed and then sold to the US and Europe. There is a push to process the nuts here.  I will be working with local cooperatives to market their products. I will also help them get more organized, set better pricing structure and train managers. Peace Corps is big on sustainability. What I mean by that is that we are not here to do projects for the people. We are here more as facilitators, training them to do the work themselves. I am looking forward to checking out my site and getting involved with my work here.

This is a description of the “house” I will be living for the next two years. “Your housing is a single room in a compound house. There is a water closet to share with one family (husband/wife and 2 children), electricity, bed, table and chair. There is pipe borne water available.” Hmmmm...... I wonder what that means. I will give you a better understanding of a typical “house” here in Ghana. Most houses are built in a compound style. So picture a strip hotel, that makes is shaped like a horseshoe. In the middle is a courtyard, usually just concrete. All the doors are facing the courtyard. Usually the doors opens to a square room, maybe 10‘X15’. There could be anywhere from 10 to 15 rooms. This is where the people live. Somewhere in the compound will be a room that t will serve as a kitchen. Another room is the bathing room; it will have a small hole in the wall at the bottom for the water to escape. Somewhere outside the compound will be a latrine. I will dedicate a whole new blog just on the latrine. But, for now just let your imagination take you....some of these latrines are a lot worse than you can imagine. 

It’s the rain season here. Since I’ve arrived, it has rain most every day. It’s been a nice rain though, refreshing and cool. The last two days however have poured. Today is has come down in buckets most of the day. In some areas, all the roads have washed out. My language teacher told me today that he heard on the news that due to the rain the snakes have come out seeking shelter. In one area 5 people have died from snake bites. Nice!

I’ve only been able to get to an internet cafe about three times since I’ve gotten here. It is an extremely frustrating experience. To load my yahoo mail page takes anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes. Most of the time I can not even get to my face book page. I usually write my blog ahead of time then just post it when I get there. It is because of this, I have not been writing to you all individually as much as I would like. I want to thank you all for the kind words of encouragement and support. It is very comforting to know that I have a loving family and friends back home. Once I get to Wenchi, I hope to have better internet service. In the meantime, if anyone would like to write me my temporary address is:

Wayne Tilton PCV

Peace Corps

PO Box 5796

Accra-North

Ghana, West Africa

Oh, I also have a cell phone. It doesn’t cost me anything for you to call, but you will want to check your rates. Chris told me that it is expensive. Someone here though told me that their parents got an African calling card and it’s like 17 cents a minute. I will try to get more information later. Here is my number: 054 237 0021. I think you need to dial 011 then 233, then the number but you want to double check that. Chris knows and she will let you know if you contact her.

On that note, I will leave you. I hope you all are doing well and you are in my thoughts and prayers. Cheers~ Wayne