I’ve been at my site for a week and a half now, and my massive house painting project is finally finished. It’s amazing how these things snowball in proportion as soon as they are started. I ended up buying something like 7 gallons of paint, and I really didn’t even have enough. At one point, I accidently bought the wrong shade of blue paint, but rather than ride my bike with the paint back into Savelugu, I just went with it, so now my house is two-tone blue plus green. I think it worked out quite well, actually. In addition, I was literally scraping the bottom of the barrel at the end, adding water to the paint buckets to try to squeeze a few more drops out. But 12 days later, it looks great…that is, until the first bit of moisture or light hits the paint, and it looks terrible again. They say that ‘electronics go to die in Ghana,’ but many other things suffer here as well, including paint, which is no match at all for the insufferable conditions.
Having finished all that I could possibly do with my new home, I emerged and walked across the soccer field to my classroom where I began to sort through the dusty supplies available to me. I was relieved to find that there are indeed some supplies left by previous volunteers, years ago. Paper seems to be the most scarce resource, but I have loads and loads of crayons, and some pencils, colored pencils, oil pastels, scissors, powdered tempera, brushes, and a crusty assortment of other random crafty things. I haven’t poured through it all yet, but at least there are some things to work with.
Just yesterday, I picked up a giant roll of donated poster board from another volunteer at the other end of Savelugu. In my efforts, I became like some sort of white person comedy routine, waiting (forever) for two separate rides to get me back to my school. The roll kept unraveling, and flopping on the street, and it was almost too heavy to carry; by the time my second ride came along, the market ladies were so sympathetic, they helped to shovel me and the paper into a bus. This is just a taste of the difficulties of logistics in this country, particularly without a private vehicle or a large wallet. With a little extra money, I could have chartered a taxi, door to door, no problem, but I’m working with about $7 a day here, so I can’t do anything extravagant. I mean, really, I can’t even buy fruit with my stipend because food is so expensive. Three shriveled, tiny, rotten bananas are 1 cedi, more than 1/10th of my allowance for the day. I have to be very careful with money.
A few notes:
--So, the word for ‘white person’ is different here in the Dagbani-speaking Northern region, but no less annoying, I assure you. The continuously screamed, “Silaminga, buy toffee (i.e. buy me candy)!!!!” that I hear from every child in Savelugu is, to put it mildly, wearing thin. I swear that the first thing I’m going to learn in Dagbani once I get a tutor is how to admonish these kids for begging.
--The women vendors in the market in Savelugu and Tamale speak exclusively Dagbani, to the point where I’m hardly able to complete a simple transaction with them. They also use the old currency figures, which are terribly confusing—I’m just beginning to catch on that 5,000=50 pesewa (new currency). When someone tells me that a pile of tomatoes costs 10,000, I pause with a blank look on my face, and then stammer, ‘One cedi?”
--I observe many interesting things being carried on motorcycles in Ghana, like two men and a 3-foot speaker, or a man and his goat straddled with two legs on each side of himself (this is actually quite common).
--How can they have all the ingredients for guacamole easily available in this country, yet Ghanaians don't make it, and don't like it?!? I'm dumbfounded.
