Village life pt.2

Our revels are ended. Those our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
-William Shakespeare (The Tempest, IV,i)

How do you put a month and half of village life into one blog post.Simply put, you don't i finally have to succumb to picking and choosing, I'll live. I'm just going to start randomly typing about things in no particular order. So lets go to the school. The caning was hard to watch and it did get to me but it was a part of their schooling no matter if i agreed with it or not. The one thing tat bothered me the most was the teachers inherent lack of caring for their education. When students would get things wrong, he would laugh and scoff at the fact they couldn't comprehend the work. When i was teaching it was hard because of the language gap but still fun to do regardless. When i noticed that that some of the kids were completely of base i tried to take them aside and teach them one on one but most of the time it was to no avail. It was hard and bewildering to see the answers that some of the kids would come up with for math equations. Simply put some students had no idea how to properly add pass the use of both hands. I'm not going to gone about school because i don't want to seem entirely negative about it. It was a great thing to do and i loved playing with the kids and taking pictures of them. It was hilarious. You would take one picture of them and they would scream. Then they would demand to see the picture and scream. I think i took a few hundred(5-600) pictures of them and each one was worth it. O ya i forgot to mention, one day in class when the teacher wasn't there the kids kept telling me to cane other children and they handed me his cane(one of two). So i took and said"While I'm teaching their will be no caning" and then i proceeded to break it into pieces. They laughed and later they wanted me to break the other one but I knew I couldn't. If I did that I would have caused a much bigger problem. The teacher never talked to me about the cane.


While in the village i was a able to do some of the farming that takes place. Weeding is hard work. Your back bent over for two hours and the constant ripping out of plants that don't do you any good. I'm pretty sure I'd moved some muscles that have never been moved in their life (or at least that's what it felt like). Farming Cassava is my favorite. Its a long stem(red) and you pull it out of the ground. Attached to it are anywhere from 3-6(or more) pieces of Cassava(shaped like yams but bigger) which then chop off with the machete. So you continue to uproot and chop and then when you have all you need you bring the Cassava back to your compound. O ya and would you like to know how you replant the Cassava. Take the stems and break them into 12 inches and BAM plant those suckers back in the ground.DOPE. How cool is that. So after your done all that you still have to peel the Cassava. Grab your cutlass and start peeling. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it because i was afraid i would cut to much off. But underneath is a thick amount of skin that needs to be cut of before its good. Once thats done it can be used, once boiled and pounded, to make Fufu. Or you can bring the Cassava to the grinder and get it ground and then it can be made into Banku. It can also be made into cocote(i know i didn't spell this right) which is Cassava Porridge but its liquidy and can be either sweet or a bit spicy. You can also make Cassava cookies and many other things with Cassava. It's a pretty solid plant. I also tried this tea which is made from a root(same one used for watchi), it's called blood tea. It helps increase your blood flow and looks like blood. You make it by squeeze the root with your hands in water for a while until its blood red, next step, drink. It's the craziest thing, you get the liquid in your mouth and there's no taste. One second after you swallow it BAM your hit with this intense, kinda sweet taste, but there was only so much blood tea that i could handle. Another thing i got to do a lot of, besides peeling Cassava and school, was picking the tops off Pepe. I hate to say it but i never actually got to go and farm Cassava. There were many times where i was told that i would be taken farming or weeding but no one came to get me. Picking the tops off Pepe was all ways welcome in my books. One by one you grab and tear the tops off each tiny Pepe. Simple and a good to busy yourself.

Did Mark get sick you might be asking yourselves. What a silly question!! Of course he did is the answer. Just a quick discretion for people here if you don't like bodily functions and descriptions of how they some times go haywire, skip this paragraph. So i only got super sick about 3 times. 1. I felt really weird one night, bloated and queasy and not sleeping. I decided to take 2 constipation pills, no luck, followed by an anti-nausea pill, which I secretly hoped would make me puke. No for those of you that know me i hate puking and haven't for a few years(I'm serious). I got my wish though and let me tell you i got it in abundance. I puked 6 times one after the other the last 2 weren't so bad. The first for times i would describe them as upside down geysers. I felt much better and like I'd lost some weight as a bonus. 2. We were in Nkaw kaw(I'll mention later)
and i had constipation. In the bowel world of mark thats been a normal thing in Ghana. But it had been 9 days and one time that i went during those nine days only produced a pebble with blood(and the medication the gave me didn't work). So reluctantly I went back to the hospital where i was given fluids to line my insides and other things. It worked but very painfully and funnily. While sitting on the can the meds kicked in. As my body shock, as if I was turning into the hulk(painfully lets not forget it had been 9 days), I puked-great times. Now if your complaining about the grossness of this description, remember I warned you. 3. I got Malaria but didn't realize at first. I spent one day in bed with a headache so bad eating hurt, listen hurt, moving hurt, my eye sockets hurt. It hurt. And then my dependable constipation turned into unpredictable diarrhea. In less than10 hours i went to washroom 20 times. Now I can finally say I crapped my self thin. I'm serious I used to weigh around 180 and now its around 160. Hooray?? So the next day i went to clinic and got meds but in the end i went to the hospital in Battor cause i had a fever of 102-103 which went to 104.4 once i started the meds. But I'm good know well i guess i should say for now. Don't if i get sick again at least I'll be at a medical clinic for the next 2 months (volunteering).

So we went to Nkaw kaw for a week retreat. It was time to be together as a group and relax and figure out where we were. It was a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and made all the more amazing in the morning surrounded by the mist. We stayed with Father Paul. On grounds was the church, a school and the hospital(close by, i know this). Father Paul was a really nice guy, a little infuriating at times but solid. He would chuckle all the time when he talked. Each day he taught us about traditional religion and life in Ghana. He also took us around to see sights around the area. He was one crazy speeding driver though, I loved it. If you want to read more about Nkaw kaw i believe the others blogs may have more in depth. The one thing i loved about him was his openness. We disagreed about things to do with religion and when he asked our opinion he did not get offended. For example i told him something i think the church should change is there stance on Homosexuality. Later he asked my about this because i agreed that it was a sin. But i meant it like I agree its a sin according to the bible and i didn't agree. I told him that it was interpreted through the bible that it was a sin but it wasn't really. Now I've had people freak on my for saying this and they were just church goers. But I'm happy to say that he took this with what seemed to be genuine consideration. All in all a solid dude and a solid place to go to.

One thing I loved was the nights in my village. No matter how that day went whether I was feeling up or down, I had the sleeping mat to look forward to and the stars to look up at. After dinner as it would start to get dark Vida would bring out the sleeping mat and then I would lie down and look up straight into dark of the bright stared night and get lost in my thoughts. Some nights were filled with sounds from the radio, some with conversations in Dangme, some with conversations with the people around me, some with me and my "mother" Ataa, some with me and Vida fooling around and some nights the mat was filled with children. I always look forward to the night. You might be noticing that I haven't talked about specific people or relationships. It's not because I don't have any, I do. It's not because they've been negative, some have others haven't. I just don't feel like it at the moment, another day maybe. I haven't felt like updating my blog for awhile being discourage by my increasingly slow typing and just blanking when I go to do it. Even in my journal that, surprisingly to myself, I had been writing in a few times a week consistently, I haven't' written in for a month. I only yesterday started writing in. My stay in the village has been an amazing time/experience but it has been a struggle. Not one I wasn't prepared to face, just one I wasn't expecting. Comparing yourself to others is not the best thing to do so I won't. For the longest time I've felt like I had failed the program, been doing something wrong, not trying hard enough, closing my self off somehow. But I know that I'm not, I've done nothing wrong, I have been trying and didn't try to close my self off. I know this may sound bleak or something but you gota type what ya gota type. I've had so many happy/positive/informative/great times that were amazing(children are amazing, thank you very much). But I had many times where it hasn't been like that and the great times didn't last. That's not a bad thing though, as a friend told me happiness is something you have to work for. When it comes its the sweetest reward(we'll they didn't say that part but its a nice add on). That's how life works, there's ups and downs; if everything was great all the time that would suck. I don't regret anything and I'm thankful for being here everyday.

One thing we talk about in the program is need and wants. I don't need e-mails from friends back at home, I want e-mails from back at home. I know that I can't get back to everyone but i would appreciate. I want to hear how people are doing, whats new and actually news stuff. I have no idea whats going on in the world. I did get some time to read about Iran and about a peace conference in the middle east with Israel. But if anybody has any news about this particular newsy thing, whether now or in the future, let me know. The world currency is situated under the US dollar(I don't know if said that right). I read that China,OPEC and others may take there money out of the us dollar and put it into the EU(European Union), the Euro. This would be devastating to US because that would mean they would have to pay back their debts they owe(to China they owe the most) and the US is the most indebted country(pretty crazy huh). That would mean that at some point, if enough people put their money under the EU, the US would actually be in debt because they can't actually afford to pay back all the money they owe. For once they would be in the same shoes of some many of the countries they helped to get to that point of poverty. Anyways whatever people send me, I'd really appreciate e-mails from home. Man I'm hungry. Your lucky, this time your going to get two quotes. Well I'm heading out. O ya i forgot to mention, I got dreadlocks but they're gone now. My profile pic is of them, they're not the best pic I have but i can't upload my pics. They were done with fake hair overlapping mine. I think I may get dreads when i get back to Canada. They won't be as long but they'll still look good. PEACE AND LOVE.

You must always be intoxicated.
That sums it all up; it's the only question. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time which breaks your back and bends you down to earth, you must be unremittingly intoxicated
But on what? Wine, poetry, virtue, as you please. But never be sober.
And if it should chance that sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you wake up and your intoxication has already diminished or disappeared, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock ask everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them what time it is and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: It's time to be intoxicated!
If you do not wish to be one of the tortured slaves of Time, never be sober; never be sober! Use wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please.

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire