Agape in Translation

Each month our organization's volunteers participate in a mini-project, or Impact Project, as we have been instructed to start calling them. Most often these Impact Projects involve community-building activities. When I was a volunteer at our site in Peru last fall for six weeks, the one mini-project I participated in was helping build a new museum of ancient Incan artifacts in a rural village. We spent a Saturday morning painting the museum walls, sweeping the floors and dusting the glass cases. Two weeks later the museum opened and we attended the inauguration, which was followed by a cultural dance performance and a feast.

Currently our NGO uses three Impact Projects on rotation: We host a community-wide beach clean-up in Cape Coast and help with the construction of a vocational training school for at-risk teens and a primary (elementary) school and library; both schools are in rural villages.

Our local staff members Lawrence and Kofi supervise and help volunteers complete the Impact Projects; Kirsty and I are not in attendance for such activities because we are delicate expat workers and need our weekends to be stress-free. Don’t get me wrong – back home in Nebraska I laid bricks and packed cement whenever possible, but hey I can’t take all the fun jobs around here. Hafta share the love. But the main reason it's okay for Kirsty and I to "bugger off" (I love living and working with a Scottish girl (lassie)!) while Lawrence and Kofi lead the Impact Projects is because it's part of their duties as Volunteer Coordinators to organize and lead the volunteer affairs during the weekends. One day, one day (common Ghanaian phrase/substitute for “eventually”) I will join a couple Impact Projects and get my hands dirty alongside the volunteers, but I’ve been saving myself for when things kick up in January when we have nearly 50 volunteers arriving and we’ll need all hands on deck.

Due to the curveballs Life sometimes throws, two people had rotated through the role of Country Director before Kirsty in the year and a half that our NGO has been in Ghana, and unfortunately a few relationships developed in the beginning have fallen through the cracks during those transitions. Neither Kirsty nor I have met the leaders of two of the three Impact Projects; we know the main contact of the beach clean-up mini-project because he is a project partner – the founder of a local health and sanitation NGO. Therefore, Kirsty thought it would be a good idea for me to meet with them to reintroduce them to our organization.

My first meeting was with Douglas, the headmaster of a nursery and primary school for about 185 students ages 1-11. I was aiming to reestablish our business relationship by explaining we’ve had a few changes in leadership since we first became involved with the development of his school, which is the unfortunate reason he and I had yet to meet until this magical moment. I also needed to get a better grasp on how his school runs, the extent of our volunteers’ monetary and physical contributions to the development of the school, the headmaster’s future goals for the mini-project and how we can help facilitate those goals. Above all I wanted to get an idea of the headmaster’s feelings toward our organization and volunteers.

I learned that Douglas uses a van to pick up and drop off students who live up to 7km from school grounds. He said the van serves as the main means of transportation for nearly two thirds of his school's students.

“Wow, that’s great you’re able to help so many students go to school,” I commented.

Douglas nodded proudly.

“How did you get the funding for the van?”

Douglas looked at me gravely and asked, “You know what happens when you get stabbed in the eye?”

I wanted to laugh because I knew this was going somewhere completely unrelated to my question - one of the many characteristics I adore about Ghanaians.

I stifled a smile and responded in my most solemn and encouraging voice, "No."

He continued, "When you get stabbed in the eye and your friend cups your eye socket for you like this - " he covered his right eye with his hand, " - to stop the bleeding. If your friend should run away, you must cup your eye socket yourself." 

Ah, nope - can't say that's ever happened to me before. I made the conscious effort to close my gaping mouth. “I..don’t understand,” I said slowly, hoping to sound apologetic and serious rather than thoroughly amused.

Douglas tried again, “Or you know when you break your jaw – ” his hand slid from his eye to his jaw, “ – and your friend has to hold your jaw in place to keep it from falling...”

Racked my brain forward and back but to no avail - oddly enough, I had no recollection of such an incident happening to me. Or anyone, for that matter. I figured he wasn't speaking from experience but couldn't believe he thought these analogies would help me understand how he had paid for the van. 

I was both ashamed and proud of my blank stare - better that than bursting out in laughter. I gave up trying to understand the relationship between payment for a vehicle and gouged eyes and broken jaws, and Douglas gave up trying to convince me they were one in the same - or he ran out of body parts to list and all the horrific things that could go wrong with them.

A small part of me was disappointed when Douglas succumbed to a practical answer (he took out a loan to pay for the van). Isn't it always a nice surprise when the means justifies the end?

Case of the Mondays

Besides a failed attempt to go to the medical lab last Saturday to get tested for malaria and typhoid (see previous post for details), the rest of the weekend was alright. Then Monday graced me, and everyone else in the world except a few continents, with her presence and gave me an entirely different perception of the glorious line from Office Space, "Uht-oh, sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays."

Monday morning before work I made my second attempt to go to the lab to get tested. I walked down the hill in my neighborhood and continued along the road past the drop-taxi-only station to the gated entrance of University of Cape Coast. I stood across from the gate, where I normally go to get picked up by shared taxis because of the high traffic from UCC. I pointed forward in the direction of Abura each time I saw "taxi" signs erected from the top of cars with mustard yellow side boards. Mondays are busy days for the roads in Cape Coast for whatever reason and most of the taxis driving by were full or heading toward town, as shown by the taxi drivers' left hand out the window pointing to their right, the opposite direction of Abura. A taxi driver pulling out of the UCC gate flipped his left hand out the window to expose his palm to the sky, indicating, "Where are you going?" I made my intention more visible by jabbing my index finger forward a couple times. His left hand changed into hand signal most Westerners understand as "stop" or "stay there." I noticed he had a passenger in his backseat, which proved he was a shared taxi. I got inside and said "good morning" to the driver and passenger, two men who looked to be in their 20s.

The man next to me paid his fare and indicated he wanted to get out. The driver pulled over to the shoulder of the road and slowed to a stop. It was a barren area about 50 meters from the gas station with no shops or people or side roads. The man moved to his side of the backseat to the door but the driver insisted he exited from the right door instead for safety. I was in the middle of fishing out 40 pesewas from my money purse for my fare when I realized I needed to get out of my side of the car for the man. The door handle was jammed, as many are here, so I reached outside the window and opened it. As I got out, the driver asked me where I was going. “Abura,” I said, confused why the driver hadn’t pick up on that earlier from my hand signal. The driver shook his head, “No, I’m going to town.” “Then why did you pick me when I was pointing to Abura?” The driver shook his head and looked forward again, indicating he was done with the conversation. The man in the backseat hadn’t gotten out on my side but was listening to our conversation. Then he shut the door and they drove away. That was strange, did he change his mind about getting out of the taxi there?

I was annoyed and confused why the driver misread my hand signal, the foolproof language used by taxi drivers in Cape Coast and the language I’d made a point to learn when I first arrived to Ghana. Misinterpretation of the hand signals has happened to me before too – taxi drivers pull off the road to where I’m standing and ask where I’m going. “Look at my hand,” I want to tell them, “I learned these hand signals for you!” I have a vague feeling some of the drivers pull over for me regardless because they think, "There's an obroni, she must be lost."

I flagged down another shared taxi and made sure the driver knew I wanted to go to Abura. When I got to the medical lab I told the front desk clerk I wanted to get tested for malaria and typhoid. She slid a torn piece of computer paper across the desk to me. “Write your name, age and where you’re from on this.” I did and slid it back to her. “Seven cedis,” she said. I couldn’t find my wallet in my bag – I had my ProWorld money purse, but not my own. I got out of line and sat down on the lobby sofa to search some more and concluded it was nowhere to be found.

The last time I had my wallet out was in the first taxi when I was getting 40 pesewas, which I kept in my hand during the taxi switch and used to pay the second driver. That's where it was! My wallet was in that damn taxi that shouldn’t have picked me up in the first place! I must have gotten distracted while opening the car door for the homeboy next to me and then forgot to replace my wallet in my bag, and even more distracted when the driver asked me where I was going.

I felt sick to my stomach – I had 55 cedis in that money purse, enough to get me through 2-3 weeks in Cape Coast. Unless I’m traveling I never carry that much money on me, but today was an exception because I didn’t know how much the two lab tests would cost and after the lab I was making a detour at the pharmacy for two packets of dewormer pills for Kirsty and me (we were due for a deworming), which I also didn’t know the cost of.

While I was reaching outside the window of the taxi for the door handle, it could’ve fallen off my lap or the guy next to me could have taken it. I knew it didn’t fall out of the car because I would have seen it and heard the coins jingle as it hit the ground. I bet that guy next to me was about to get out of the taxi, saw my unattended money purse and took it. Then when he realized I wasn’t getting back in the car, he didn’t want to get out with me in case I would realize I was missing my wallet and would suspect he had taken it. If he was on foot, I could track him down. But he was a smart thief; he stayed in the car. Or what if the driver and the passenger knew each other and the whole thing was a conspiracy, a trick they play on obronis? Or maybe they were both just bad people, strangers who read each other's minds and conspired to split the winnings of an obroni’s wallet.

Still sitting dumbfounded on the couch, I realized I hadn’t paid for my malaria and typhoid tests yet. Not wanting to waste my taxi rides from the morning by retreating to the office without testing at the lab, considering the trouble I went through more than the expense of the cab fare, I resorted to using my work money which I would pay back when I got home at the end of the day. I got up from the couch in a daze a handed a 10 cedi bill to the front desk clerk. Noticing she looked busy and figuring she would call me over when she found change for my bill, I returned to my seat to sulk. Only a few minutes later my name was being called from somewhere far away. After the third call, I discovered the voice was coming from the nook on the right through the lab doorway. I pushed aside a ceiling-to-floor curtain and found behind it a Ghanaian man in a white coat with needles. He greeted me. He was sitting at a table facing a white wall – the area of the compartment was about the size of a photo booth. I sank into my chair facing him and surrendered my left arm. As he stuck a needle into my vein I couldn’t think of a single worse thing to be doing after getting my wallet stolen. (Side note: Ghanaians don't use gloves when dealing with patients, but if you make a fuss about it they will find some and put them on. I can't remember if he was wearing gloves while drawing my blood - my mind was elsewhere. Another side note: They don’t give you Band-aids after injecting you, which is a bummer because the only thing that could've cheered me up at that point was a kids' Band-Aid.)

“All done,” he said. “It should take one hour to get the results.”
I examined my puncture wound. I've never had abnormal reactions to shots - nurses always tell me I have great veins - but this man bruised me and there was a dime-sized bump emerging around the puncture. I needed to get out of there.

Remembering one of our volunteers mentioning he had gotten his lab test results by phone the same day he was tested, I asked, “Can you call me with the results?”
The man smiled as he stored my blood tube in a kit. “What if I don’t have any phone credit?”
I was not in the mood to play games or flirt. “I can call you then,” I took out my phone. “What is your number?”
He recited it and I stored him as “Lab” as he told me his name.
“You should flash me,” he said. (Yes, “flashing” has a different connotation in Ghana than in America.) "Flashing" is when you dial a number and hang up, so it shows the person your number. Sometimes people flash each other as a way of saying, "If you have phone credit, call me, because I don't have any and I want to talk to you."
“So, this is your number," he said as I flashed him. "I can call it any time I want?”
“Actually I only use this phone number for work. So if you call me after today I won’t answer.”
“Oh, okay.”
Yeah right, I thought, like I have enough money or the organization skills to have two phones. From the look on his face it seemed he’s heard the same line from an obroni before. Whatever, this white lie has saved me more times than I can count.
“The results will come in one hour so you can call me in one hour.”

After not finding the brand of deworming pills recommended by an expat friend at a pharmacy down the way, I took a taxi to work. I was riding out my “high” from scoring a cheap taxi ride to the office (if a Ghanaian has left a bad taste in your mouth about Ghana and other Ghanaians hear about it or witness it, most will feel guilty or responsible for the bad deed and some will bend over backwards to make it up to you, so if you've been stolen from, tell your plight to those you know are trying to rip you off) when I was brought down to my third or fourth low of the day by discovering the electricity wasn’t working. No air conditioning in Africa is no problem when you’ve got windows/open doors and a working fan. No fan? Especially in the middle of the day? See ya later, good mood.

Things started looking up after chatting with our nextdoor neighbors and coworkers Abusua Foundation, talking on the phone with a good friend from home who has a knack for comforting me by saying the right things, and then the electricity was reborn an hour later. The work day was a joke though – my attention span was shot from the morning. At least I tested negative for both malaria and typhoid, as I found out from my phone call to "Lab."

Mid-afternoon I had a meeting in town. When it finished I walked to another pharmacy to check if they had Wormplex 400 in stock; they did. I bought one for Kirsty and one for me, apparently all we needed. Must be a powerful little pill. Gross. I couldn’t believe they were each 1 cedi 30 pesewas – turns out I didn’t need to be carrying all that extra money this morning after all.

Then I remembered I didn’t go back to the front desk of the lab to get my change from the 10 cedi bill. There went another 3 cedis – just put it on my tab. (Dan in Real Life, anyone?)

The worst part about being stolen from isn’t the void of the item taken, it’s the fact that someone took something from me. Thus far in Ghana I had been "untouchable" when it came to bad luck. Except for when I killed my MacBook Pro in a freak accident after month numero uno. Don't want to talk about that. Back to my stolen wallet. I am determined to not let myself play the role of the victim by thinking, What have I done to deserve this? That’s a dangerous thought. Instead I’m looking at the situation like it was bound to happen at some point – unfortunately, having something stolen from you is a risk that accompanies traveling, especially in the poorer pockets of the world. I will focus on the idea that it was not a personal attack, and hopefully whoever stole/found my money needed it more than me.

Already in town, I decided to go to the market to look for avocados. Volunteers have been telling me they’re everywhere - you can't miss them, but I've been on a sporadic five-month-hunt for avocados and have yet to find any. Ghanaians call them "pears," which is confusing because vendors also sell pears. Why "pears," anyway? The avocados here look more like papayas. After 15 minutes of wandering through the dark and narrow walkway/maze/market searching high and low for avocados called pears that look like papayas, I gave up and asked a woman to give me three papayas. I handed her 3 cedis and she grabbed a fourth papaya and said, "I am giving you one from me," and put it in my bag with the rest. I think I could have kissed her on the cheek right then and there! How sweet, how kind, how wonderful this woman is - the world is! There is hope for this day yet! I thanked her repeatedly and gushed that she had made my entire day because I lost my wallet – I wanted to carry on and tell her more (as my friends know I tend to do, even with strangers) but figured she probably wasn’t registering my babbling anyway and most likely didn’t care, but smiled nonetheless. This purity of heart, this kind deed made me more emotional than I could handle - I could've cried with gratitude on the spot. I thanked her again, exited the tented market and shifted my attention to finding a taxi back to the office.

After attempting some admin work for a couple hours, it was time to head home. Since we've moved our office location about a month ago, some mornings and evenings I’ve been using our relative proximity from the apartment to the office as a means of exercise and to avoid taxi expenses. The walk is pleasant and scenic until the mother of a hill leading up to our apartment and the grueling climb at the end. A house is being built at the top of the hill, and its recent progress has made the climb very dangerous. I don't know why I keep climbing it day after day, I think I keep hoping the construction crew will even out the land one day. It's not too dangerous, though - when climbing the loose red dirt at the top, I've learned to dig my fingers into the loose dirt and lean toward the ground to keep from falling backward to my death.

So, here I was with my laptop in my backpack and two groceries bags in hand...doing well, truckin' along...and suddenly I lost my footing and slipped into a three-foot deep depression in the red dirt hill. As I fell I noticed my bag of papayas broke. I looked down the hill in just enough time to see one of the papayas rolling away and into the brush. I soaked up the silence of the fall for a few seconds and then laughed. My right leg still submerged in the steep depression, I hoisted myself up. My ankle was bleeding. I laughed again and looked down the hill where the papaya had rolled away. With every fiber of my being I was certain it was the one the lady had given me for free! So much for the kind deed... ha! I couldn't be sad about my runaway papaya or frustrated about the fall or how shitty my Monday had been because the irony of this final catastrophe was just too perfect.