Peru: A Whirlwind Overview

As I've fallen behind on Ghana posts due to a certain trip abroad, I feel it's necessary to share some pictures from that trip with you in exchange for your wonderful patience.

Acknowledgement: Many, many thanks to my dad for loaning me his camera, a Nikon D3100.

Cusco's Plaza de Armas, its central square

Cusco's Plaza de Armas

Cusco's main pedestrian-only street

Imagine the Inca life working these terraces.

Dad, this one's for you.

The view from Chinchero, our last stop on our Sacred Valley tour

Ah, Monday

There will be more Ghana posts to come (hint: I was there for 35 days and kept my journal for the entire time), but I'm no longer ahead on posting due to recent travel (I'm back from Peru; it was beautiful and wonderful) so I leave you today instead with the following from Ovid:

"Against the bold, daring is unsafe."

Day 24 - Sunday (continued) on America

Monday, April 4 - Day 24

The second hour (actually close to 90 minutes; the longest a volunteer has sat through in recent memory was 2 1/2 hours) was the sermon. This week, the standard sermon was replaced by a series of testimonials by (non-WORCSA) members of the congregation, mostly older students at Word of Faith. (Many of the high school students, including two older WORCSA girls we never see except at church, board at the school.)

The testimonial portion was interesting. Most of the speakers referenced Bible passages and spoke of a renewed awareness of the need to love God and Jesus. One speaker told us he had realized, “Egypt was like America - the most beautiful country, the strongest, the most powerful, everything.” It was an enlightening perspective on my home nation, an entirely accurate representation of the Ghanaian perception of America as I’ve observed it thus far.

Day 23 - Sundays and School

Sunday, April 3 - Day 23

We went to church today! Exciting, I know. Emily, Sarah, Zach, and I, along with Marilyn and Claire before their afternoon departure, accompanied the kids to their usual Sunday Christian church held in the Word of Faith school chapel.

The experience began with all the orphanage girls crowding into a trotro designated especially for taking them to church. There were over 30 people in a trotro meant for 15, including seven adults and many small children. Fortunately, the little ones are stackable and fit well on laps. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty bad and vaguely unsafe way to get to church. [Note from the future: This would be a very unsafe way in many countries, but gets ‘vaguely’ due to the slow vehicle speeds, short distance traveled (perhaps 2 miles), and low number of other vehicles en route.] The boys rode (also squished) in a separate trotro. We all arrived safely shortly after nine and the fun began.

Sunday School was first. I went to the KG (kindergarten) room with Marilyn, Claire, and Emily because that’s where the ten or so youngest ones go. I sat next to Ma and enjoyed watching Beauty in one of the closest chairs at the nearer of the two long tables. Her face came just above the child-sized table and she spent about a quarter of the class leaning forward and resting her mouth on the table edge as if biting it. Across the room, Godwyn’s head bobbed up and down, moving in and out of visibility behind the low table. Most of Sunday School involved the four adult women who ran the KG room asking various kids if they had learned a song in their heart then leading all the kids in that song. A low moment was them having all the other kids stand and crowd around Kojo then shout (mostly the adults) “Help him Jesus!” because he didn’t have a song to offer from his heart.

After Sunday School, we all headed to the big hall that functions as a chapel on the opposite side of the school complex (a few separate long buildings around a small main square). We settled into plastic chairs near the back, having been warned against sitting too close to the front as we already stand out and would likely be the only ones without hands raised in the intensity of prayer. This was good advice.

The first hour was singing, with song lyrics projected on the front wall for the benefit of the 200-ish attendees. I was able to sing along here and there; most of the songs repeated themselves quite a bit. I learned for next week never to sit near the single big speaker of the PA system because three of the 20 or so people leading songs had microphones and one held hers very close while singing.

Day 22 - "Maybe They Will Come"

Saturday, April 2 – Day 22

“Maybe they will come.” That was Emit’s response to our question of whether the other kids would be arriving soon for their “3 PM” soccer game with some other local boys. Welcome to Ghana time.

Here in Ghana, things happen when they happen. If you arrive three hours late for a meeting, that’s understandable. Maybe your trotro broke down. Perhaps it took an hour to fill up and leave then got stuck in traffic. These things happen. Worst case, you’ll reschedule for a day or weeks later. No worries.

Today, the fickle nature of Ghana time manifested itself in the form of variable football match start times. The older boys had told us yesterday that they had a game at 8 AM on the field near our house against some local boys; a bunch of us expressed interest and they said they’d contact us at game time. Emily said she’d once gone to an “8 AM” game that started at noon and another time attended a “10 AM” game that began at 3 PM so we figured waiting all morning for the game was a distinct possibility.

The outcome? I woke up naturally at 6 AM, the other girls planning to come slept in, and we found out from Marilyn and Claire at breakfast that the game had kicked off at 7 AM and we had missed it. Adjazam (the older Samuel) had stopped by the house partway through the game but only spoken to Zach. Ultimately, it all ended well. The boys had another game at 3 PM that they informed us of mid-morning. We were there for that one. In true Ghana fashion, it kicked off at 4 PM as the heat of the sun began to fade.

We did fill the morning time easily, taking a big group trip to the waterfall within walking distance of town. All the female volunteers (i.e., everyone except Zach) and the older boys plus Yvonne walked the two-ish miles (40 or so minutes – we use timepieces sporadically when out and about) along quiet dirt roads. The waterfall itself was beautiful; the walk was stunningly gorgeous true Africa. We reached the top of a mild rise in the road and Africa opened before us. Lush green foliage covered every visible surface up to the not-so-distant mountains except for the winding dirt road we traversed and a solitary hut with a conical thatched roof. That is the landscape of Africa to me. There are occasional cities and numerous villages, but everywhere else is so much nature. I love it.

Swimming at the waterfall violated the traveler-in-Africa rule against spending time in any sort of body of fresh water (schistomyosis is bad), but we all went in anyway. There we were with a 40-foot waterfall sliding and crashing down onto our backs and shoulders in rural Ghana. Amazing experience.

Sophie and I walked back from the waterfall with Joshua shortly before lunch. After the meal, Sophie, Sarah, and I spent the afternoon picnicking and watching football. The picnic was a bread-and-jam affair under a tree by the field because Sophie was hungry after barely picking at the lunch of rice balls with Thai-like ground-nut-butter soup. We bought bread at a nearby shop then enjoyed our shady snack. As 3 rolled into 4, we prepared to forgo waiting for the football game and walk up to the orphanage. A whole passle of children met us at the far side of the field and we happily settled in for the match (after Emily and I went with Eto to the police station, where I met an officer named Fred who offered to be my ‘friend’ then was super-friendly and sent warm regards to Beatrix when I politely declined). I spent the entire match with Kojo settled contentedly on my lap, missing much of the game action to focus my attention on him and the other kids and my fellow volunteers on the sidelines. I did catch some of Bismark’s fancy footwork and George’s diving kicks.

The game ended as dusk settled.

Day 21 - On Greetings

Friday, April 1 – Day 21

Welcome to April! In honor of April Fool’s Day, Emily emailed her friends back home that she’s gotten malaria. These things are funny in our Ghanaian humor.

I was thrown up on again this morning by Beauty. She has now left every non-blood bodily substance on me, vomit twice. She’s easy to forgive, though, because this was after she reached for me to pick her up immediately upon my arrival at 6 AM, when she and all the other little ones were clustered around Ma. Ma smiled at me and commented on how much Beauty has taken to me. Aww.

Our morning break has been a productive one. After breakfast, I took the essential hour-long morning nap before Emily and I hit the (two) streets of downtown Dodowa to look for fabrics. She found one at the seamstress so is now getting shorts made. It’s 3 cedis for one yard of fabric and the shorts-making itself brings the grand total to $4 US for a pair of custom-made shorts. Absurd.

The rest of the morning before a ramen-and-cabbage-with-egg lunch was filled with the latest load of washing and meeting our newest volunteer. Washing-wise, I’m definitely improving. George gave me some tips yesterday when he was doing his washing at the orphanage, especially helping my scrubbing form with regards to using my stationary wrist actively in the process. Volunteer-wise, our newest is Jackie from Chicago. She’s here for a month and has survived the initial information bombardment quite well. I like that she’s nice, especially as it’ll be just the two of us and Zach for five days while everyone else is at Mole. (Mole – MOH-lay – is a town sixteen hours north of here by tro and bus, nearly at Burkina Faso, where an hour-long walking safari (with an armed guard, of course) costs only 3 cedis.)

Let’s switch tracks for a brief lesson on Ghanaian culture. Whenever you walk past someone on the street, you must greet them as you come into close proximity (within a couple of feet). Failure to greet is considered very rude. Greetings are very structured. Recall that this is a land of rote memorization; this fact permeates all aspects of culture.

The greeting should reflect the time of day. Your four options are “good morning”, “good afternoon”, “good evening” (used from about 4 PM), and, rarely, “good night”. This is optionally followed by the proferment by the greeted party, after replying in kind to the offered greeting, of “How are you?” The correct response to this is “fine” or, alternately, “I’m fine, thank you.” One is never good or okay or well, always fine. (That said, the occasional unorthodox “good” serves as the exception which proves the rule.) The truly bold, or anyone feeling a smidge reckless, may even extend the response to “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?” The acceptable response, of course, is “fine”. Here, then, is a standard pre-noon greeting (extended version):

• Good morning.
• Good morning. How are you?
• I’m fine, thank you. How are you?
• I’m fine, thank you.

Along the way to the orphanage (use greeting here)

Day 20 - On Markets, Americanized and Otherwise

[Note from the future: American readers, happy Independence Day! I'll be hiking Machu Picchu tomorrow (thanks, blog-post scheduler for allowing me to share this from the past), so I'm adventuring in high-altitude Cuzco today, but have a wonderful reasonable-altitude day for both of us!]

Thursday, March 31 – Day 20

Sophie, Emily, Niki, and I spent the morning on an excursion to Makola Market, the so-called “Cultural Market” in central Accra. We left at 6:30 AM in an attempt to beat traffic, but failed miserably on that count and spent three hours on (three) trotros making our way to Tema Station (in Accra) and the market. On the way to Madina, Emily and I spent some time observing tro culture. Unlike in Israel, unacquainted men and women frequently sit side-by-side. Children up to about age twelve, any possibly small enough, are often put on laps to accommodate additional passengers. Our first tro was a big one, a 25-seater. Three schoolgirls boarded at one point; one sat on another’s lap and the third was placed on the knee of some random guy who boarded a couple of stops after her. Later, a mother dropped off her child aged about 3 years with brief directions to the mate, the driver’s right-hand man who collects fares, calls for stops, and determines who can board (space-wise). The child was passed from arms to arms as people boarded and departed then eventually swung down to the ground by the driver from his door. He walked away happily to the house in front of which he had been dropped.

The Cultural Market was a fun place to spend an hour or so. It’s housed in an arts center complex and mixes a corridored, open-sided building with open-air rows of shops. There are hundreds of beads, fabrics, wooden statues, traditional musical instruments, and paintings. Bargaining is essential. It was a quiet morning there and we’re obruni, so every shop owner greeted us and most encouraged us to come into their shop and look around (“just to look”). The in-your-face aspect was a big change from Dodowa, but we survived and emerged with success.

We stopped at Max Mart on the way back through Accra. Max Mart is a rich-foreigner-oriented supermarket to which Marilyn and Claire introduced the rest of us. It has such novelties as brown (wheat) bread and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Emily reveled in a non-instant iced coffee from the market café, then she, Sophie, and I all got delicious yogurt for a midday treat. So good.

It thankfully only took us two-ish hours to get home. We rested for a short while then headed up to see the kids. I spent much of the afternoon helping Kokomeyao read simple words (e.g., ‘cat’, ‘ship’) as he worked his way through a basic-phonics-game activity book. He had surprisingly sustained focus, staying on track for well over half an hour. His ability to write letters was very high for a six-year-old here.

Famous corralled Claire and me in the late afternoon to help him and Ma, along with four of the little ones, gather firewood behind the Methodist school. He taught me to use the machete to cut off protruding branches so Ma could gather straight sticks into bundles for the children’s heads. Always up for a challenge, I agreed to attempt to carry a big log on my head all the way back to the orphanage. I survived the entire third of a mile back to WORCSA, past many laughing footballers sitting on the sidelines during a scrimmage at the field and numerous gawking children. I think one woman chanted, “Well done, well done.” I was covered with sweat and dirt by the time I returned home so enjoyed the comforts of a plastic chair as we ate actual, non-fried yams with a tomato-paste-and-vegetable (mostly carrots and cabbage) sauce for dinner.

Firewood gathering took place in the field (about 20 yards right of where I was standing to take this) behind the Methodist school. Here are a couple of the (about 5-6 total) school buildings.

A close-up of one of the Methodist school buildings. 

Famous wielding his machete 

The little ones all pitch in to carry back firewood appropriate to their size. Here's Chica, age 3.

Niki and I with our logs

Success! Back at the orphanage

Niki's hands ended up even dirtier than mine.

During our evening at the orphanage, Beauty actually came excitedly over and took my hand when she saw me. She had me sit with her through dinner, which she fed herself by hand. She even said “fine” when I asked how she was and repeated my name, both big steps from her usual princess silence. My flashlight disappeared, which made me unhappy. I loaned it to Eto for storeroom tasks and he ended up taking it out of the orphanage to the mill where they grind grains without telling me. He returned very late and said that two boys had beaten him up on the way home and taken it. When I had him repeat the story for George, George laughed and said he didn’t know whether this was the truth because Eto lies a lot. My flashlight could have been stolen or could show up in Dodowa Market someday soon. Lesson learned the hard way, I suppose.

On the flip side, Claire told me during log-carrying that she likes my optimism and willingness to try anything. This was after Emily declared when we were locked out of the house a couple of nights ago, “You’re probably the most positive person I’ve ever met.” A high compliment.

Day 19 - On Cross-Cultural Teen Traits

Wednesday, March 30 – Day 19

My morning (standard): Wake up at 5:30 AM. Head up to the orphanage & attempt to help the little ones get ready. Carry Beauty + Godwyn to school (Beauty on my back, Godwyn held in front). Wait for the bus with the kids + other volunteers. Return home for breakfast. Go to a Catholic school meeting (happily brief) with Emily + Sarah. Nap for 2 hours. Review pictures from this week. Practice ukelele songs with Niki + Sophie. Eat lunch.

This gets us up to about 2:30 PM. Life is good here.

The volunteer house, where there exist many productive naps. The volunteer house, the old volunteer house, and the chief's house are the only three gated properties in Dodowa. Disparities abound in many instances between international volunteers and the communities they seek to serve.

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I spent my afternoon and evening working with Stephen and Famous, both of whom Marilyn sent my way, on math(s). The day before their exam – all Word of Faith kids have math and ICT (Integrated Computer Technology) exams tomorrow – is not the optimal time to study, but both got some good practice time in on subject-specific problems. Stephen even had a couple of memory breakthroughs, including remembering how to “borrow” numbers during subtraction. Stephen is in form 6 (6^th grade) and Famous in form 5 so there was a lot of big multiplication and small division along with a good dose of decimals, fractions, and percentages. Their fundamentals are weak enough that even 6x8 (or 6+8) can be a hard-fought battle, but focus was high so productivity was achieved.

George, unfortunately, decided to forgo even the smallest modicum of maths in favor of ICT, but 18-year-old boys often make such decisions. It’s a cross-cultural teenager trait. Emit, on the other hand, joined our study table for an hour in the evening at the referral of Sophie. He tries to hide his work so he can never be caught making a mistake, but sharply corrects the inevitable errors (learning is a messy process filled with imperfection) and has fairly solid fundamentals.

George (left) - not studying - with his then-15-year-old brother Bismark. George and Bismark had major roles in discipline and shaping the orphanage culture. Their younger brother, age 13, is also at the orphanage. They hoped that their mother might have the money (a few dollars) to bring them up north to visit for the summer school holidays.