French West Africa? Non, merci!

Voodoo Chief in Lome, Togo

Last weekend (Thursday morning through Sunday night), a group of four of us traveled through Togo and Benin. Alana was our French-speaking saviour, as we couldn't even order breakfast without her. Pointing and gesturing only get you so far... for example, I could ask for the "toilette", but miming "toilet paper" is not as easy as it sounds. It was a fascinating experience, and I'm glad I made it before leaving the region: it gave me a broader perspective on Africa, West Africa. And, ultimately, it made me appreciate Ghana!

We spent only one night in Lome, the capital of Togo. It's a fascinating place: very European architecture, with spiral staircases and ornate facades (things I would never, ever find in Ghana), but all dirty and crumbling, with a lot more trash in the streets than in Ghana. We checked into an adorable bright pink hotel at night, the "Mawuli" (Mawu is the Fon-Dahomey word for "God", by the way, and I can tell you all about their myth surrounding eclipses and deity-sex if you're curious). It was less cute by daylight the next morning, not only because everything turned out to be cracked, peeling, and dirty, but because there was no fan and no running water all night. Oh, and, the hotel management broke into our room, stole the equivalent of US$40 (but not our passports, thank god, or the rest of our money) from Molly's bag, locked the door again, and thought we wouldn't notice. (We did.) When we went out that night to explore, we had to walk around a big trash-heap/clearing to get to the main road; two police men on motorcycles pulled up, and decided to escort us across. We thought they had too much time on their hands, and just wanted to chat with the girl foreigners... until we passed the same way an hour later, and were suddenly swarmed by a half dozen young men who yelled and propositioned us in French, grabbing our arms and trying to pull us away from each other, stroking our skin and touching our faces. One of them slapped Molly's ass and she hit him (hard), and we were all clinging together and telling them "no!" (Alana was yelling at them in French), but they were unfazed. And as we walked around the main street, men kept approaching us and harassing us (I was grateful I couldn't understand any of it); we get a lot of attention in Ghana, but it is always curious or friendly, and nothing like what we experienced in Togo. I couldn't believe how different the experience was, and how we were treated... I'm not taking my Ghanaian interactions for granted anymore.

Realizing that we were safer with escorts than traveling alone, we went barhopping with some flamingly homosexual Lebanese men (who kept trying to feed us bar nuts and propositioning us, and didn't realize how gay they were as they danced, stroked pool cues, and sat with their arms around one another, wearing tight polyster zipper-shirts). We knew we had to get a little drunk to fall sleep in that hot, sketchy hotel. And I crossed the language barrier (since they spoke very little English, and that's all I've got) by having them teach me some friendly Arabic. (For example, "hello", "I love you", and in response, "No!" and "Go away!")

The next day we rode on visited a fetish market. Did I mention that Togo and Benin are the original birthplace of voodoo, and (unlike Ghana, with something like a 60% Christian population) still a heavily traditional-religioned population? The place was basically a tourist trap, and everything was expensive and we were obliged to pay a guide to enter (who explained the uses of everything, which was nice), but it was absolutely worth it. I paid a little too much for a travel fetish (charm), blessed in a ritual by a Beninese voodoo chief with crazy red eyes and a business card (pictured at the top of this post), but again--worth it. Wooden tables sagged under the weight of the disembodied heads, skulls, tails, and wings of every creature found in West Africa. There were horse heads, dog heads (which I found the most disturbing), cheetah and leopard heads, all with the skin still on, but dried so that lips pull back from the teeth in an agonized snarl; a bucket of dried bats; necklaces made of snake vertabrae; an aardvark without a head (I had not idea they looked like that); porcupine quills and chamelions and elephant pieces and pufferfish and owls and a hippo skull and various mammals dead beyond recognition and hedgehogs (which are still cute when dead and curled into little balls) and rats and huge feet from an unidentified mammal and crocodiles and.... I have a million disturbing pictures on my computer (what's your favorite animal? I'll send you a picture!), but I'll just give you a little taste:



I wanted to buy everything for Anna (the roomie, not the sister), but I also didn't want to carry a horse head when backpacking in Europe, and I figured customs might not be pleased about it. I realized I'd made a wise decision later in the day, when I developed a splotchy red rash on my foot, perhaps because I actually knocked this over with my backpack and it rolled down my leg, landing on that same foot:



Let's see, other highlights. That morning, before the market, I had to run into a well-lit alley and (in front of the half dozen people sitting around, watching curiously) painfully vomit neon yellow. Now I understand why you don't take anti-malarials on an empty stomach. Also the food in Togo and Benin is completely amazing: avocado baguette sandwiches on the street; fresh-baked croissants; espresso; salads; everything I've been deprived of for months (except Mexican food). But everything is crazy expensive compared to Ghana: I spent twenty dollars a night for a twin bed in Benin, compared to the five I would spend at most hotels in Ghana, and easily $10 a meal (compared to $2-5 here). Leaving Ghana is going to be really, really difficult for me, in some ways; I was furious at shelling out that kind of cash.

We went to Benin, and it was fairly uneventful, although we visited a python temple:



and walked around a really interesting village and watched a festival in the early afternoon with dancing and tables full of gin and everyone wearing amazing traditional clothing that matched (by families? couples? coincidence?) but we couldn't figure out what they were celebrating (an "homage" to something or another).

And everywhere we went in Togo and Benin we rode zemijons: motorcycle taxis! SO MUCH FUN.

...and it turns out that Beninese children (or at least, some of them) are as cute as Ghanaians:

Ghanaian Relay Races & Runways & Waterfalls

[[six days remaining...]]

The West African Aids Foundation (WAAF) "Freedom for the Future" celebrations went really well, two Fridays ago. We spent the entire week organizing intense last-minute details (though it was the culmination of a semester-long project, for a group of students), and I scarcely slept; then Friday the 29th dawned at last. Keep in mind, 100% of these events was organized by NYU students... there was basically no adult involvement whatsoever. We were up at dawn, and held a Kids' Fair all day: the kids had already started showing up when we arrive to set up, two hours early. We had a couple hundred kids, and it was a chaotic, rewarding blast. The highlight for me was the water-balloon toss a couple of us held: maybe a hundred kids in school uniforms, from about five years old to 20ish (and a random man who seemed older, but we couldn't call out on it, as some adults are still in elementary school if they start late enough on their education), none of whom had seen a water-balloon before. After the first toss--when they were standing literally two feet from one another, and could reach out and hand the balloon--the entire crowd erupted into screams and shouts; the two lines disappeared immediately as everyone ran towards to embrace in groups, with laughter and congratulations all around. It was chaos and like nothing I have ever seen before: they were so excited and proud of each other. It was incredible. And my camera was dead all day, which kills me; I still have to get copies of the pictures from the Fair.

And then the winning pair, out of the hundred kids who swarmed the prize table excitedly, chose their prize: they could have had squirt guns, candy, jewelry, stuffed animals, any number of things. They each chose a shiny pencil.

The MC battle and dance contests were also indescribable. These kids have talent I cannot begin to convey; you have to see it to believe it.

Immediately after the Kids' Fair, we had to clean and then finish setting up the Fundraising Gala. For me, that "setting up" meant mostly clothes & makeup & a little bit of wine. And makeup for me really meant intense stage makeup and fake eyelashes twice as big as anyone else's, for some reason. The over-the-top getup made it easier to get onstage, at least: I didn't have to worry about the look on my face, since my face had a look of its own without me having a say in it. Backstage was chaos, as all backstages are, and everyone (makeup artist, designer, assistant bringing the clothing, EVERYONE) was about 30-50 minutes late. Fortunately, because the event was held in Ghana, the guests were equally late, and no one noticed that we were 45 minutes behind schedule.

A bunch of Makeba's models swarm Jamie (who organized the Gala and went through HELL) on the runway after the show:


And these were my eyelashes (though the picture doesn't do them justice):


I could talk about the anxiety and excitement and close-calls and fun for hours, but we'll leave it at that. We survived it all, and made some money for a good cause, and celebrated the kids who won the Freedom for the Future Poster Contest (raising awareness about HIV/AIDS stigma, and its consequences and solutions).

We got out of there about 11:30 pm, and went out barhopping for a couple hours before reaching the after-party. Now, for the record, I'm not the after-party/barhopping type, historically. But we were definitely still inebriated and dancing at 5 am (though we hadn't eaten since 11 am, for lack of opportunity), when we had to rush into a cab to make it home... in order to leave for a day trip to the Eastern region, and a hike to Wli Falls, the largest waterfall in West Africa. (Which isn't as big as you'd think, really, but is absolutely stunning.) I ran upstairs to my room, pulled on a bathing suit, painfully tore the Eyelashes-O'-Doom from my face, grabbed a jar of peanuts for breakfast, and got in the car.

Nothing wakes you up and snaps you out of a hangover like walking underneath a pounding waterfall, that feels like it is pelting you in the face with pebbles. Invigorating and amazing and worth going without sleep and hiking still drunk for.



I didn't get to sleep until late that night, and it was pure adrenaline for more hours than I've ever experienced.

It was a long 48 hours.

The Habitat of Birim Agje

Sometimes I worry that I haven't had an "authentic" enough experience in Ghana, since I have running water and relatively reliable electricity, unlike the vast majority of Ghanaians. But I've come to the understanding that, yes: over the past months I could have struggled more, sacrificed more, experienced more. But I could have done so much less, as well: there are others here in Ghana (not to mention those NOT in Ghana) who don't make even the effort I do, to go out and experience a taste of what life is really like here....

These past few weekends offered both extreme ends of the spectrum. First, I spent an intense couple of days in a tiny village called "Birim Agje", doing a Habitat for Humanity build and subsequent homestay with a family that spoke no english. The following weekend I tried traveling, but we stayed in a hotel and I don't have much to say about it. And then the last four days I didn't leave my house, and watched Kyle's Simpsons DVDs with A.C. [I literally could not leave the house, so while it wasn't necessarily "Ghanaian", I also never get stomach parasites anywhere else.... And only in Ghana can a breakfast consist of six different pills and a pinapple.]

Now, I've done one or two Habitat for Humanity builds in my day. I lay speed bumps with Kat, whitewashed walls, installed some hopefully-not-asbestos insulation. None of them were in a village that looked like this:


And none of them left me as tired or triumphant.

In Birim Agje, we made bricks out of freshly-turned earth (harder but more fun than it sounds), carried sun-baked bricks long distances to the building sites... on our heads (easier than it sounds, but heavier), and then lay the bricks (about as hard as it sounds) with cement mortar which we mixed and shoveled (harder than it sounds). All of this was scheduled directly in the heat of the day. So please excuse the sweat dripping down my face in every picture.


When we first arrived, before the build began, I made friends with the huge group of kids that gathered: they were curious but shy, peeping at us from behind things, and only emerged once I started hiding from them. Soon they were chasing me in circles around the village, and I was shrieking and pretending to faint in terror as they approached and tried to touch me. By the time I was carrying bricks, they were following me in flocks, fighting over which two would get to hold each one of my hands (when they weren't full).


When the build was over, everyone packed up and headed home, leaving eight of us behind to spend the night. First we set our bags down and unrolled thin mats for the cement floors (each house was two cement-box rooms, nearly empty, with outdoor pit latrine and shower); my house had posters on the wall of Jesus, Bob Marley, and Roger from Sister, Sister, the latter labeled "Superstar!" and "Y2K BOY!". The children and a man from the village then led us down to the nearby "nsuo-tri". [In Twi, there is one word for "river", "creek", "lagoon", etc., meaning "long water"; this was really a creek; and I'm making up the spelling.] The villagers depend entirely on this narrow, shallow body of water: they carry buckets to and fro atop their heads, for the maybe seven minute walk, and this is what they drink, bathe in, wash clothes with.... It is no wonder the village is named after "Birim", their river: it means, "guardian/father of Birim".
As I leaned over and took off my second shoe, so I could wade in and splash around with the kids, I suddenly heard a gasp from behind and felt a gentle hand on my head, pushing me slightly downwards and pulling me back a step or two. Curiously, I followed the gazes of those all around, and saw--in the tree directly above where I had just been standing--a long, silent black snake, slithering in the leafy green branches. "Adder!" the man next to me exclaimed.
"Is it dangerous?"
He laughed. "Very!"

There was a mortifying, confusing upset over dinner, when I was offered a huge chicken and fish dish that must have been ridiculously extragavant considering my host's means.... My program coordinator had explained my vegetarianism, but he then switched me into a new house so he could room with a girl in my program he was trying to date, and embarrassing chaos ensued. How do you tell someone who doesn't speak your language why you are turning down the best meal she could possibly offered? I even tried a bite, but the fish was so pungent I couldn't swallow.

One last significant saga, for me at least, although it may not make a good story, and may not be for the faint of heart/squeamish of stomach:
About a week earlier, what looked like a mosquito bite appeared on my inner arm. I ignored it; happens all the time. A few days later, it turned into what looked like a pimple: it came to a big white head. The head came off, but showed two distinct holes beneath... so, a bug bite after all. The day before the build, it swelled again, and looked again like a big pus-y pimple. I tried to ignore it, and put a bandaid on.
Over the course of the Saturday build, my mysterious bite continued to swell, and hurt at the touch. I didn't know what to do, but neither did anyone else (we've discussed the medical systems here, haven't we?).
That evening, after I bucket showered (more like a spongebath without a sponge... water is not be wasted here!), I was sitting on the porch examining the swollen, pus-y lump on my arm. It was incredibly tender, the head was mostly green, and the entire surrounding area was streaked with angry red tentacles: not great signs. Auntie Helena, the woman I was staying with, peered politely over my shoulder. The next thing I know, she has grabbed ahold of my arm, and with a firm thumb and forefinger is squeezing the shit out of the bite, which I had been so gently coddling for the past few days. Sweet jesus, I can't tell you how much it hurt; I thought I was going to pass out as the thick, murky contents squirted out and poured down my arm. "Alright... iz alright... iz alright" she kept muttering, to calm my fears. "Yes, I know it's alright, it just hurts like [insert violent swearing here]", I thought, and smiled weakly. She squeezed and squeezed.
And you know what? It helped a lot. And now, two or three weeks later, it is just a little purple bump that may or may not scar. And I don't think I'm going to lose my arm after all.

[EDIT: Months later, while I've had four more of these, it looks like they are finally out of my system. And it appears that they may have come from the orphans I volunteered with in Osu, since they spread more like a virus or skin infection than like bug bites. Spilt milk, however; only the tiniest scars remain.]

So, for a weekend here and there, yes, I do live in Ghana. Undeniably.

The Lumberjack Has Landed

Spring break turned into two full weeks (since Kyle and I each played hooky for a week, to get the full experience; every other NYU abroad program seems to get more time!), and so much happened even in the first five days of intensive travel that I don't think I can do it justice here. Instead, I guess I'll let the pictures do the talking, to some extent.

Kyle was a hit in Ghana. I would estimate, to the most exact approximation possible, that Kyle is about 2 times the size of the average Ghanaian man, and 6.7 times as hairy. This means that children danced around him in Kumasi, men at tro-tro stations addressed me instead of him, asking first, "is that your brother or your husband?", following up with "why is he so big?", and a baby started sobbing when he smiled at it. Even in his limited time here, he definitely got the true Ghanaian travel experience, spending fifteen hours straight in a bus--and many, many more crowded into tro-tros made for people much smaller than him (for example, we spent five hours in the small tro-tro below, which was crowded with--I counted--FORTY people). He was a good sport about all of it, but it made me realize how adjusted I've become to these conditions: I'm officially accustomed to being cramped, dirty, and made to wait for hours in the claustrophic vehicles before finally starting off.



Speaking of being dirty, however, it turns out that I have a lower tolerance than I'd expected. For the record, I think of myself as a relatively unhygenic, anti-fussy, filthy person, most of the time. (Well, at least, flexible. I'm a good camper.) And since being in Ghana I've become accustomed to perpetual clamminess, days without showers if need be, etc. etc. Yet I reached a breaking point after a five hour bus ride, immediately followed by a four and a half cab ride, as we headed to the Mole Wildlife Reserve. This cab ride was no ordinary ride, please note. We spent half an hour finding a car to take us out there in the first place, because dozens of men were screaming and hounding us and trying to charge us ridiculous rates; we finally found a boy named Mohammed who guided us into a cab, and soon made him pull over so we could escape (M. informed us that the man was planning on robbing us, and leading us in the wrong direction). The only "road" to Mole is not much of a road, and stretches for hour after hour with few other cars in sight: it is really a dusty, rocky strip that trees have been cleared off of. The cab windows wouldn't roll up (and it would have been too hot to try), so four hours of bumping along left us dirtier than I can honestly say I have been in recent memory. At first it was funny; what a good "oh, ghana..." story!


The situation was less amusing, however, as the sun set. Now we bumped along in total darkness, weak headlights lighting only a few feet in front of the car; we had to slow to 10-20 kilometers an hour. We pulled over every fifteen minutes or so (every five, at some points) so the driver could get out, climb under the car, and reattach the muffler with a screwdriver. Eventually the poor driver got TIRED. So, he asked Kyle to drive. An hour of this pitch-black, bumpy-as-hell, slow-motion pothole navigation took it's toll; Kyle knew that if anything happened to the fragile car, we'd be stuck for many, many hours until hopefully-not-bandits came upon us.


We finally arrived at the Mole Motel (the only lodging available), relieved and exhausted. But, hilarity ensued as the electricity (and thus, WATER) was out in the entire area! And, because the kitchen was in the process of closing (9 pm), all they could offer us after a day of foodless travel turned out to be two slices of reluctantly-given white bread apiece, and a pinapple that cost us $4. Hours of tro-tros I can handle; 90 degree weather is nothing to me. But being this dirty finally crushed my spirit. Temporarily.


However, the sun rose the next morning (as it is wont to do on the equator), and Kyle called out to me "There is a warthog outside our window! ...and her baby!" And as I grabbed my camera and ran outside, I also caught this shot (which is not zoomed in at all):


On the safari, we saw cobb antelope, warthog families, elephants bathing (and menage-a-troising; but those aren't pictures for the public), crocodiles lurking, and mongoose in the distance. And our guide--who was walking about two feet ahead of Kyle & I--dropped his presumably-loaded rifle, which thankfully did not maim either of us. Afterwards, we headed on our way back to Tamale, pretty much totally over Mole. After another eight hours or so of travel, we ended up at the Burkhina Faso border, and the sacred crocodile ponds of Paga. Legend has it that the founder of the village made a deal with a crocodile, generations ago: he was being chased, and in exchange for a ride across a pond on the croc's back, he swore that neither he nor his descendants would ever harm a crocodile again. Now, Paga has three large ponds, full of hundreds of the creatures, and children swim in them, visitors come and photograph them, and no one has been harmed by crocodiles since. Although, when one particularly large male crept out of the water towards us, mouth gaping open, our guide hurriedly asked us to "back away slowly, please please don't run..."


Okay, this is a long entry, I'm trying to weed through what is really that important. I guess the last noteworthy event would be that stunning eclipse. A total solar eclipse, visible only in select countries in Africa, and a partial eclipse was visible in some parts of Europe. I didn't really know what to expect; I mean, I DID, but I guess I didn't really realize how dramatic it would be. It started to get a little darker, as though clouds had come over the sun, about 9 am; Kyle and I were hiking across the rocks to Secret Beach (perhaps my favorite place in Ghana). It got darker as we reached the sand, but then it all happened quite quickly: the beach descended into almost complete darkness, and I couldn't even take a picture without a flash. Because we were directly beneath the path of the eclipse, it lasted for four entire minutes. I have plenty of pictures, none of which quite do it justice--so below I will post my friend Jackie's picture, taken with a much better camera.

Oh, and we also hiked around the Kakum Rainforest, and ventured out on the canopy walk.


Realistically, this may have been Kyle's favorite part of the trip, escaping as he was from "the coldest winter Prague has had in sixty years!", as he kept repeating:


And realistically, this sums up mine:

worst.blogger.ever.

i know, i know. i didn't mean to drop off the face of anything, earth or blog or whatevs. but i was traveling with the boyf for two whole weeks all over ghana and then i came home to my computer for serious broken (as in, entrusted to a ghanaian computerguy, as of this morning?), so i can't upload my pictures or spend more than a few minutes online at a time and there has just been so, so much to say...

for example, just today:
i watched a documentary on "the dark side of hippos". and a crazy ghanaian short PSA with the apparent moral of the story being "don't REPORT child molesters; prank them!"
i sang lullabies to an orphan in my arms to make her stop crying, and the only one that really worked was the one my mom used to sing to me.
i held hands with a three day old baby. her palm was the size of my thumb and she had perfect fingernails.
i just talked to elika and leila for the first real time, voices and all. and ALMOST emily, but skype was having none of us.

also, there was class and the gym and wtfever else. yawn.

so, how can i begin to describe the total solar eclipse that shrouded the beach kyle and i stood alone on in an eerie semi-darkness? or KY being compared to jesus in kumasi and driving a ghanaian cab in the middle of a night on a non-road? or how good it felt to wash my hair, a week after being dirtier than i ever have been (for as long as i can remember, at least) and then discovering that the electricity was out at our hotel and so was the water?

the sky just opened up and starting pouring rain. for the record, when it rains here, it comes in five to ten minute floods, with giant drops, and often lightning (which just flashed outside the window), and then clears up entirely for another week or so.

the point is, there is too much to say and too little time. it is 11pm and i was up at 6. (insomnia has infected my room just as it did to the town in 100 years of solitude). so i will write by the end of the week. i promise.

spring break '06!!!

for the record, "beach camping" last weekend actually meant "enrolling in the Kokrobitey Art Institute", complete with three all-day intense studio workshops and no opportunity to touch the water although it lay only a few hundred feet away. and a hippie camp leader named renee who made us hold hands in a circle to feel each other's pulses before every meal (which were amazing pseudo-norcal/ghanaian vegetarian concoctions; the best food i've eaten in months?).

and ghanaians all hate s'mores, for the record. "too sweet!"

in about 24 hours, the lumberjack will invade Accra, and we will snake-eye our way across the coast of ghana, through togo, into benin, and then all the way back again. there is plenty to do--python fetish houses and the home of voodoo; the largest stilt village in west africa; monkey sanctuaries; "rastaman's" beach cottage, which is only accessible by canoe; a wilderness preserve with elephants and antelope and crocodiles; tro tros galore--and we'll see how much we can get done before we have to be back at Secret Beach to catch the first solar eclipse visible from Ghana in sixty years.

wish us luck.

in three days i will emerge from the cocoon of Uncle Joe, reborn.

i'm about to embark on a crazy three-day beach-camping adventure with Crazy Uncle Joe and six other kids. he just told us this morning, really, and we leave at ten am tomorrow. in the bus (on the way to an amazing art collector's private home), i asked Uncle Joe what we will be doing. after a brief pause (during which his expression did not even register that he had heard me), his eyes suddenly widened and jerked in my direction: "have FUN!"

we will learn to batik, make paper, and paint; make s'mores and wrap ourselves in thick, smelly mosquito netting; the time in between will be at Uncle Joe's mercy. wish us luck.

oh, i think i might not have mentioned the praying mantis eggsack that hatched in/on my roommate's bed about a month ago, two feet from my pillow. or if i did, i didn't illustrate the point: