A Slow Start

the place that United Planet and its volunteers have in Putubiw is hard to understand. the oddity that is our presence here is certainly a door for cultural exchange but is also extremely brief. We're caught in a paradox: we're here to use our own knowledge and skills towards projects we can accomplish but are also tethered to PUSU. And any indigenous development project must demand that their volunteers work with its own vision. It's hard to balance enacting PUSU projects and filling in idle time.

It's easy to notice how far I've ventured into unfamiliar territory during the down time in week 1. Afternoons have been saturated withreading and apathy. Helping PUSU figure out what to do with us is mostly a trial in patience.

But there's hope yet. Rebecca and I will begin teaching at the Junior Secondary School (JSS) on thursday. In the evenings there will be a session for primary students. Yesterday we accompanied the students to a day of athletics (a track meet) in a nearby village Acrofo. It was fun, even as an unaffiliated spectator, to experience the unabashed joy of a hundred students whose years don't outnumber their fingers cheering for one of their classmates. The women, on reprieve from selling snacks, often yelled the loudest and jumped the highest. I guess some aspects of motherhood are universal.

Back to slow internet

Hi all,
We're in Cape Coast for the afternoon basically to check email. It's only about 20-30 minutes by taxi (which from Putubiw is a regular sedan). The keyboard is a bit troublesome, but if all works well, there should be two posts below from my first week. I'll be sharing a phone with the two other ND volunteers, the number is 00233248493396, just in case I can't email it. Wishing for some AC,
Sarah

The Place Where the Yams Are Kept

re The intrigue of travel often lies in the juxtaposition of foreign and familiar: what attracts, what is relevant to the known, what frightens or bewilders. Today, after watching A Cinderella Story, something staring Amanda Bynes, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I walked to the porch where I was immediately spotted by a band of pointing 5-year-olds. The transition from watching American films to waving at Putubiw"s youngest made me realize why snippets from my own life in DE felt like scenes from a TV show when i got back from Uganda. White people are "abruni" here; I heard that a lot today.

Ghana is beautiful. Trees are tropical, the non-major roads are peachy tan earch eroded by the rainy season, the coast is in places both rocky and sandy and always alive with breaking waves. Putubiw, which means "The place where the yams are kept" was named for its useful location atop a hill. It overlooks plenty of green and 4 other villages. Our first task upon arrival (after a jaunt to Cape Coast to pick up mattresses) was to meet the chief. Observing tradition, a "linguist" was present to speak for us, though the chief Nana is a seemingly welcoming and reasonable leader and spoke to us directly as well. Having been accepted into Putubiw officially by the chief, we"re protected, are part of the village of 2,000, and are freen to move around. Putubiw,while rural is what would come of a Kampala suburb chipped away from the city and transplanted a 20min drive away. The first thing we were shown upon arrival was the open air distillery (series of covered water tanks and containers of fermenting sugarcane juice) where "apatuchi" is brewed. One constant during the days has been the putter of the machine 100m from our house pressing sugarcane to extract the juice.

At the bottom of the hill lies "Beatrice"s House" where we"re staying. It is a concrete structure with water and electricity both larger and nicer than my homestay in Kampala. There are 5 bedrooms, a spacious living room, small kitchen, and a bathroom with a working shower (!). The issue of hot water is not relevant. We spent most of today with the kids of the house watching movies on the desktop computer set up there. We also walked to the school, about 10min away. PUSU"s Ben, Kelvin, and Joseph seem very nice and dedicated to the project; PUSU"s been working with volunteers from UP since they began arriving about a year ago. It is still a tiny operation, and I"d guess about a dozen volunteers have been through. On monday, we will go meet the head teacher and will know more about the teaching which will begin Tuesday.

Accra

"Ghana is what people see in their dreams. Those who are here are the lucky ones." That's how United Planet's young assistant describes his country to volunteers.

Lucky is: humid.When we touched down in Accra at 9:30am, it was 84F. Now at7:30pm, the heat of theday has at last escaped the buildings but it's still ridiculously muggy. Yao, the assistant, met Rebecca, another ND volunteer, and I at the airport and took us to a hotel in
Osu, a smart part of town with plenty of restaurants and a Wrangler Jeans store. After a briefing, we ate lunch at a cafe on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Guinea. A flight of steps, tall and steep, led to multiple levels of tables which were protected by a wall from the drop-off and the spray of the waves throwing themselves toward the coast. We visited the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, and a small museum about the history of the slave trade in an old fort. Accra is hot, roads are paved and relatively clean, named shops sell specialized types of goods, and people stare much less than in Kampala.

Tomorrow we'll travel with Raj, the UP coordinator, to Putubiw in the central region, west of Accra and just northeast of Cape Coast. Rebecca and I will most likely be co-teaching English in the junior secondary school (~middle school, lucky us indeed) for 1-2 classes each morning. After a free afternoon, we'll help with the review sessions run in the evening by the Putubiw Student Union (PUSU). the Union is our host in the village. We'll be living in a home (essentially as boarders) with a family just out of the center of Putubiw. What all of that will be in actuality once we reach the village is yet to be seen...

Goodbye, Fort Portal, I'll miss you

a glimpse of my last week and a half

Can you believe it?

Fort Portal has a small, tight expat group. We met them all within the first week. It’s important to find people experiencing life in a way similar to you and to “speak fast English” with. (Uganda has certainly taught me the importance of annunciation.) That’s why it’s was great to visit the part of our study abroad group still stationed in Kampala last weekend.

Halfway between Kampala and Fort Portal, the bus pauses while approximately 87 hawkers attempt to sell chipati, gonja, water, or meat on a stick through the windows. In more rural stretches, peddlers instead sell produce and live chickens.

We got into the city on the day that taxi and boda drivers were on strike and without public transportation Kampala is a different place. I’ve never seen so many Ugandans walking. It is probably safe to say that Emily’s 21^st birthday in Uganda is not what it would have been in the US, but a dozen of us spent a fun but casual night sharing practicum stories.

Saturday turned out to be one of my favorite days of the semester. The biggest ordeal of the morning was walking down the mud road from the girls’ house. The Uganda-red muck caked on the bottom of our shoes and crept up the gentle curve of my black flats until there was danger of it overtaking the tops of my feet as well and I lost all hope of looking smart. A few of us had brunch in town just down the block from Christ the King Church where my host sister, Barbara, was getting married in the early afternoon. I was early (and of course they were late) but eventually I sat with the boys from my homestay: my brother Derrick, Ibram, and my neighbor Charles. The wedding was a long mass in Luganda for two couples, each with their own side of the church. The priest’s vernacular homily was occasionally interrupted by key Ugandan English phrases such as “can you believe it?” or “by the way…” Though the wedding party was outfitted in white dresses and suits, the colorful traditional garb that filled the pews ensured that the day felt truly Ugandan. The family was less central to the day’s events than I expected: the parents of the bride didn’t have an air of importance, Barbara’s sister Jackie acted as wedding coordinator rather than bridesmaid, and her brother Derrick was sitting halfway to the back of the church. The service was beautiful and it was wonderful to see everyone again after a break and with such a cause for celebration. After saying hello and goodbye to those I knew, I walked through Kampala and caught up with Katie before returning to Emily’s for a quiet night of cooking and watching DVDs.

Barbara, her husband Daniel, and the wedding party on the steps of the church. Can you spot the apple?

On Sunday Kimberly and I got in the same taxi as Yvonne and Eve, the sisters we’d met the previous weekend, and I knew F/P was a small town. For the last 90 minutes of the 4hr trip, we were 5 across in the front row of the taxi. Did I ever think 19 adults and 2 small children could go that far in one van? Nope, but we did. The walk home felt great. Now the countdown has begun: less than a month left.