Last Chance to Be…

UPDATE! My mobile phone sucks. I have missing messages all over the place but only just found out. I will try to get a new one soon.

Tuesday 5th December 2006

On my first morning in Ghana I woke up and walked around the room naked for a few seconds, before realising the hotel room had no curtains and two windows overlooking a busy street. I was initially concerned about how my naked hairy body might offend my hosts. This was their first view of me and mine of them. The first thing I saw was a woman standing in the street, pissing. Women pee in the street in the same way men do in Britain, on a Friday night, men do too. The only difference is it’s Friday night all the time here. Suffice to say, my minor faux pas, went unnoticed.

Ghana has almost no public services, even in Accra. There are no street cleaners and no bins. There are open sewers everywhere. These are also used for waste disposal and urination. There is rubbish everywhere. Where the open sewer is not used as a type of amenity, the street is instead, and this is the first thing I saw of Ghana in daylight. The women don’t squat Western style, but have developed a rather less elegant (if elegant can be used to describe public urination) standing pose.

Abor is no different to Accra. Yesterday I saw a small girl of perhaps two years of age, climb up onto a pile of waste and defecate. I keep telling myself that Ghana is a ‘beacon of development.’ The HDI (Human Development Index) may have improved here but I was not expecting it to see that.

This morning I was invited to school assembly and was presented by the Director to the children here. He said how happy he was for me to be here and explained a little about VSO. I was then asked to stand up and say something so I just repeated what he had said, introducing myself as Mr Jon, formal but casual. I then got a big round of applause, which was nice. I should mention after my whinge, that the school is very clean.

I was finally provided with an iron last night, saving me the chore of finding one. Thank you Director. So after assembly I did my first bout of ironing in 30 degree heat. With the ceiling fan on, it wasn’t too bad. Given the whole Mango Fly debacle, it goes without saying that I was very thorough, perhaps overly so. The temperature here has actually dropped a little due to the Harmattan.

The Harmattan is a North Easterly wind from the Sahara. It should last for the next month or so. It brings with it a ‘coolish’ breeze, which you can feel at night. Overnight, it probably drops to about 26 degrees, rather than the usual 30 or so.

During power rationing the school has a generator, however, if the power rationing happens at night, then the generator is turned off. This makes sleeping a challenge. At the moment I have a standing fan pointing down at my bed and with this on full and earplugs in (thank you Clare!) I can sleep ok. During the rationing, sleep is impossible as after about 30 minutes of no fan, I wake up boiling hot. The annoying thing about this is that the school would be quite happy to leave the generator on overnight, however, the electrics are metered in such a way that they actually get charged for electricity they generate. I don’t think this is policy, just a fault with the electricity metering that has never been fixed.

Today I also went to Akatsi market. It is much much better than Abor, which is very good news. Unfortunately I got a lift there and the person I went with didn’t seem too happy about letting me wander off, so I ended up buying nothing. I might be able to get some household goods here, such as toothpaste. I plan to go back Saturday.

Akatsi also has an Internet café, which is unbelievably poor. It has a 28k modem, shared between six computers. It took twenty minutes before the kid working there got it to work. I could see that the switch was not connected, so after much whining by me that waiting wouldn’t solve it as something needed to be done to resolve the issue, the boy working admitted that the power adaptor which supplied the switch, also fitted another computer, which he was using, so we would have to wait.

I gave him a look which said, ‘This is an Internet café, therefore I would quite like to have Internet, failing that, I’ll have a coffee.’ As the café didn’t have the café part of ‘Internet Café’, the boy realised Internet was actually crucial to his business and turned his computer off.

After another twenty minutes I managed to upload something to my website. I gave up on everything else as my lift was waiting. I realised afterwards that I left my email logged in on the PC I had been using. Fingers crossed. The only benefit of the excursion was the cost. Internet cafes are cheap in Ghana and all he faffing about only cost 2000 Cedis, about 15p.

I plan to come back to the market and the cafe on Saturday, alone.

Wednesday 6th December 2006

I spent most of the day on the loo. Although this is to be expected, it’s still unpleasant. In a way it’s a good thing to get it out of the way early and while I still have some Koala toilet roll left. Hopefully I will make it back to Akatsi market before I run out.

Despite the dehydration caused by diarrhoea, I had to walk to Abor today. I was accompanied the entire way by a man who told me he was the Chief of Abor. He was drunk and on his way to work. He told me his name was Frances Conde and that he was a Librarian.

He said that walking with a white man would help to elevate his status and give him more power, which seemed to please him. I wonder if he was trying to abuse his power as he shouted his way to Abor, at passers-by. Apparently we are now very good friends and he is expecting me to visit him at work in order to help elevate his status there too. He said he would visit me too. I get this a lot from people I meet. I don’t want to be visited by random people who befriend me because I am white. I hope I don’t offend too many people by telling them to go away if any do actually turn up at my door.

Because I am white, I am normally approached in two different ways. Firstly, there is the over-friendly approach. Within five minutes of talking to whomever, I am asked to take them back to England so we can be friends. Befriending a white man here, is seen as a way out of poverty, hence why a lot of ladies smile at me here.

The second approach is just to shout Javu at me. Javu is Ewe for ‘white man’ and has its roots all the way back to colonial times (as do a lot of things here but I will come back to that on a no news day). On a typical walk into Abor somebody will shout Javu at me about twenty or thirty times. The kids even have a song, to which I have yet to learn the words, Javu Javu something something. There is, fortunately, no malice to Javu. Comparing it to shouting racial abuse to Pakistanis in the street in 70s Gravesend isn’t really fair. (I hope it’s not too idealistic to think we stopped doing that in the 70s?)

I am wondering if I should aim to make friends with the ladies who shout Javu at me instead of those who smile. At least is seems like they are expecting nothing from me. There is an exception to this, a lady I walk past most days and shouts, ‘Javu give me some money – then laughs.’

So, the reason for my walk to Abor, was so that I can open a bank account, in order to get paid. Sadly, I anticipated ridiculous beaurocracy before entering and was not disappointed. Just think how boring this diary would be if everything went smoothly. Anyway, within a few minutes, which was pleasing, the manager told me that the letter I had from VSO was not good enough and that I needed to provide a photocopy. I tried to explain he could have the original to no avail.

‘You may need the original to open an account elsewhere, therefore I must be provided with a copy.’

‘Do I need anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Ok I will come back tomorrow with a copy’

‘Yes and also bring with you a letter from the Director of the Centre and a copy of your VSO ID’

Despite the obvious gaff, the fact he had told me as I was leaving was a good thing. He could have waited until I came back the next day.

I spent the rest of the day drinking ‘Oral Rehydration Salts’ and sleeping. I also agreed to give English lessons to Hisa, a Japanese Volunteer here. This is really to help pass the time.

Our first lesson was pretty much hopeless. She showed me her Japanese textbooks. They are all the same and teach English in exactly the same way by learning and regurgitating sentence after sentence. I asked Hisa what happens if she needs to say something which isn’t in one of the books and she didn’t know the answer.

I spent about two hours explaining that the way to learn a language was to learn how the language is formed, with verbs, subjects, objects etc and that we should start by learning verbs and conjugation. Later on we could learn prepositions, pronunciation, vocabulary and whatnot. Eventually, she would be able to form her own sentences using the tools she had learnt.

When I asked if she had understood she said, ‘yes so now can you teach me some sentences.’

I sometimes wonder if the whole world is insane.

Thursday 7th Dec

Today was horrible.

I spent hours filling up the loo with water (bodily water), flushing it with more water, filtering water and drinking water. Eventually something had to give and it was the toilet. Being confined to quarters as I could only walk about 10 feet without needing a dump is not nice. When the toilet got blocked it was even more unpleasant.

I considered the options of running for a loo elsewhere, using the sink or the shower and eventually decided to put my hand up the U-bend. When I pulled a frog out I thought about the insanity question again and thought perhaps this was one big Larium trip and that I hadn’t actually left the UK.

I would go on to explain that the whole school then saw a crazy Englishman throw a frog covered in poo out of the door, but nobody saw me so I felt like the entire thing could have been a dream. The good news, however, was that I was able to continue filtering water through my body.

Oh yer, just for good measure, there was another frog in the loo brush holder.

As is about the norm, by about 11am, I felt up for going to Abor and the bank again, armed with my photocopies and letter from the Director.

I think that the whole Bank thing is going to be a long one. I shan’t labour the point with dialogue. All you really need to know is that, after presenting the Manager with everything he asked for, he asked me for some other things, namely, a utility bill and some passport photographs. He also gave me the forms which he was supposed to fill in but clearly couldn’t be bothered to and told me to come back. I laboured the point that if there were anything else he was holding back, now would probably be a good time to tell me. He assured me there was nothing.

I also tried to explain that a utility bill would be a good way of proving my address, if my name was on it, but as that as I live in a school, it wouldn’t be. He still wants to see one.

I have come to the conclusion that a developing country only needs one thing to kick-start everything else. In the circle of poverty this is often all it takes, one thing to turn the circle into an outward spiral of goodness. I have decided that this one thing is litigation. If I could take the Bank Manager to Court for wasting my time then he would think twice next time. Power abuse is a big problem here and really hinders development. My example is a minor one but mirrors the bigger problems.

When I go to dinner in the evenings, any post I may get will also be there. I got my first post today, the Guardian Weekly. (No sign of my other packages yet so if you’re thinking of sending me stuff probably worth holding back). My Dad paid for my Guardian Weekly subscription and am I glad he did (Thanks!). Having something vaguely connected to sanity to read is a real blessing.

At dinner I explained the frog story to everybody. I expected it to be of more interest than it was. I mean, we are in the middle of the African Bush, Mambas, Cobras and Scorpions are common and I have frogs in my room. Nobody seemed to care. I asked if anybody had anything to help block the gap under my door and nobody did. I was told not to worry about snakes because the noise of children frightens them away. I pointed out that in ten days time everybody except me leaves the school for three weeks and was told then yes I would have to worry about it then.

Somebody then told a ‘funny’ story about some guests who had a cobra in their room. When they asked for somebody to come and get it out the snake made a run for it and escaped down the loo. It didn’t come out of the loo again for another thirty minutes. It transpired this had all taken place in my room a few months ago. Hilarious.

I am willing to bet they aren’t bothered by all this as much as me as they don’t have massive gaps under their doors. I think they think I am a wimp.

I shall have to find something to plug the gap myself.

Before I came I was told that being VSO is full of ups and downs and today was definitely a down. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

My maggot is getting better, very slowly. It’s still there but much smaller. I think it is being broken down under my skin by my body doing its thing.

For anybody embarking on anything similar to this I thought I would list the items I could not have done without so far.

Earplugs!
Wind Up torch (Even if you have electricity a good wind up torch is awesome)
Short Wave Radio (Make sure it goes as low as 16m on SW otherwise you can’t get BBC World Service all day)
String
Small Rucksack
Fold Up Water bottle thing.
MP3 Player
Audio Books

I have been listening to ‘The Silver Pigs’ by Lindsay Davis on my mp3 player. It has been my saviour, my escape. Thanks Lindsay.

The protagonist to the Lindsay Davis novels is a Roman called Marcus Didius Falco. I agreed with a friend before I came that if I was fortunate enough to have a Gecko move into my room (Geckos are cool for several reasons but the main one is that they eat cockroaches) I would name it Marcus Didius Gecko.

Unfortunately, so far anyway, I have plenty of other amphibians and reptiles but no Gecko. I shall hold back on naming anything as Marcus Didius Small Lizard doesn’t have the same ring.

Friday 8th December 2006

Nothing at all happened today except for the fact that I ran out of loo paper. I hope tomorrow morning I am able to leave the house for Akatsi market without the usual two hour toilet break.