cogitations: Ghana, Marriage Season, and Life Skills

I see that my last posting (a long time ago, woops) ended with the awaiting of my parents arrival. Picking up where I left off, they arrived safely and immediately greeted me with a moore greeting they learned from my mini moore/french guide i'd sent them which they apparently studied on the plane ride over. Needless to say, the others waiting for people at the airport who heard this greeting were quite entertained by the two old white people coming off the plane and greeting their white daughter in Moore.

I'm still awaiting guest blog posts from both my parents and sister, but in summary, let's see...they got to see a lot of elephants, and my villagers were extremely excited to see my creators. They danced for 2 days to welcome them to our village. Even over two months later now, everyone is still talking about when Ilana's parents came to visit. But really, I'd rather my parents explain it from their point of view, because all you people who actually read this ever get is my narrow perspectives.

Mommy and Abba with some of my family in the courtyard

With the CSPS staff who just presented my parents with a chicken and some traditional clothing. (from left, Aguiratou the midwife, me, Abba, Mommy, Parfait the head nurse, and Aguera the pharmacist)

So after my parents left, the visits continued in February. The next set of visitors were Anna Goldman, Lily Fender, and Lindsay Lindenbaum; three CCC kids who were setting out on a 4 month adventure of their own, and decided to stop by West Africa before continuing on to the South and East of the continent. I met the three of them in Ghana for an awesome vacation.

What can I say about the trip to Ghana? I found it surprisingly hard to speak English there. I realize that my maternal language is English, and I have little to no problem speaking English to people in America or other Americans here, but it's not really the same thing trying to speak English in Ghana. I guess I'm so used to speaking French and Moore to get around here in Burkina, that there are a lot of things that I don't necessarily know how to do in English because I've never done them in Africa in English. For instance, the first time I got a cab in Ghana, the driver pulled up and rolled down the window just as they do in Burkina, but I started to greet him in French, and then stopped because I knew that wasn't right, but I didn't know what the proper greeting to say was. I just kind of paused then, and stared at him with my mouth gaping open. It took me way too long to realize that the right thing to say was probably just "Good Morning". If i didn't live in a French speaking West African country, I probably would have just realized this right away; but i'm just not used to it. Lindsay had to step in and save me, because I completely froze. It was embarassing. On another occasion, we wanted to find something to eat for breakfast, so I suggested omelettes because that's an easy and nutritious thing to get in the street in Burkina, so I figured it'd be the same in Ghana. So we went around asking everyone where we could get omelettes and nobody was understanding until Lily asked for "fried eggs" instead. As soon as she said that, everyone was like "ohhh yeah of course!" and they showed us where to get them.

In any case, Ghana was beautiful. As soon as I saw the ocean I felt this magnificient sense of freedom. Like I could escape so easily if I wanted to; that I wasn't confined by the limits of the land. I don't know what i'm escaping from. Nothing, really, but seeing the vast expanse of water with no visible boundaries gave me a sense of tranquility and security.

So after touring the beaches, castles, lakes, and cities of Ghana for 10 days, the three girls came back to Burkina with me to see my village. The Burkina-bound bus was supposed to leave Kumasi, a city in Ghana, at 5:00 PM, so we got to the station to wait at about 2:00, mostly because we were already in Kumasi and had no where else to go at that point. When the bus still hadn't shown up at about 7:00, I asked the people at the station and they said it should be there by 8. So when it still wasn't there at 9, I asked again and they said that actually it hadn't left Accra (capital of Ghana) yet. Of course, they didn't feel the need to update us about this. If they had told us, maybe we would have gone out for dinner; but instead they kept telling us that it should be there any minute. Well, i guess any minute can really mean ANY minute. The minute the bus finally got there was no earlier than 1:00 AM, meaning we had been sitting waiting at the station for 11 amazing hours. That wasn't awesome to say the least. I was already feeling guilty for inflicting this painful journey on my three travelling buddies when the bus broke down at around 8:30 AM, about 4 hours from the Burkina border. I heard this really loud sound, resembling a gunshot (which i guess lindsay, anna, and lily didn't hear for some reason) and then everyone on the bus started clawing to get off, jumping over seats, yelling to open the back door, and generally acting chaotic. I joined in the chaos, jumping over seats myself and pushing people to get off the bus, as I had been startled by the noise, and saw a ton of smoke coming out of the back of the bus...forgetting about my three travelling buddies, who were, i found out later, yelling my name, trying to get my attention because they didn't know what was going on, but I was so busy trying to save myself (from nothing) that I didn't hear them at all. Everything turned out fine anyway, and there had really been nothing to freak out about, but I did feel bad after the fact that I had abandoned ship without thinking about my fellow travellers. We all made it to Burkina fine, and the three of them had a great visit in village. We taught the elementary school kids how to sing a camp song (la la leyo), which was a huge hit. I can't walk anywhere in village now without the kids screaming it at me actually, so that's good.

SO that was pretty much February.

March could probably best be described as the month of marriages. We just kept having marriage after marriage in village, which meant lots and lots of staying up til the sun rises and dancing. So basically, from my observational research as well as some purposeful questioning, here is what I have ascertained about the way marriages work here:

The prospective groom goes to a village nearby or a different quartier of his village when he is ready to look for a bride. He makes a scan, talks to some people, chooses a girl. The old men then have a meeting to talk about it. The girl is eventually promised to the prospective groom.

When it comes time for the wedding (when the groom has enough money) the bride is dropped off in her new village, but not in the quartier of her groom. She is first brought to the quartier of someone who she is related to in the new village (she is bound to have at least one relative in the village). She stays there the night before the marriage is to begin, and then is accompagnied by all the women of that quartier the next day to the groom's quartier, where she will now live. The women dance through the village in order to accompany the bride to her new quartier.

Once she gets to the new quartier, the women is kept inside a hut and cannot be seen by the groom. On many occasions, she has no idea who the groom is, in fact. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline of events from this point on; however, I'm pretty sure that the day the new bride is brought to the groom's quartier, there is a big party with lots of food (rice and pasta!), zom kom (the traditional flour/water drink), and of course, dancing. Perhaps the next night, the new bride is washed by the women of the quartier and other surrounding quartiers, and then presented, with a shawl covering her head, to the groom. Again, the women accompany her in a line of jubilant dancing through the courtyard to the groom's house. Then for 7 nights, there is much singing, dancing, and celebration.

Marriage season is fun, but I don't understand when people sleep.

I just finished a two week spring break health camp for the elementary school kids of my village. I worked with the two oldest grades, so the kids ranged in age from 11-16. Yeah, there are still 16 year olds in elementary school. A lot of times kids don't start until really late, and then many many kids re-double grades because they don't pass the first time...or the second time. Anyway, the camp was a mix of life skills activities to encourage a positive and healthy lifestyle, and the HIV/AIDS workshops followed by integrated soccer/HIV/AIDS sessions (see the blog posting about Soccer and the Southlands if you want more details about this concept). All things considered, the camp went very well; however, it was not easy by any means. The kids unfortunately, even after some of them have been through 7 or 8 years of school, still do not understand French, and what's even worse is that they don't understand how to think critically. This isn't their fault, it's because of the way school is taught/not taught. Basically, all the kids do in school is copy complicated french phrases from the blackboard and memorize them, giving the illusion that they understand things, but if you ask any of of them to explain whatever french words they spought off to you in Moore, they can't do it. Meaning, they don't actually undertand much of what they learn in school, nor do they learn how to think for themselves. So I made a big effort during my camp to explain things very well to the point where the kids actually understood the concepts, in both french and moore. I was working with a counterpart in village who really really helped with the Moore translation part, though even he couldn't translate all the French into Moore because the appropriate words just don't exist in Moore.

It was just very hard, especially in the beginning, to get the kids to respond to questions, or do the role plays that I had planned (before I realized how impossible it would be to get the kids to do them). I know that they get hit in school by the teachers if they reply with the wrong answers to questions, so that, I'm sure was a big reason why they're so timid about responding; but they all know me, and know that I wouldn't hit them, and I said multiple times that there were no wrong answers to my questions. For instance, one of the activities I had them do early on, was describing their role models, in order to try to get them to start thinking about the qualities of people that they admire, and strive to mirror in their own lives. I told them just to discuss it first with whoever was sitting next to them, and they wouldn't even do that. I know they understood what to do, because both me and my counterparts gave examples of our role models, in both French and Moore, and then told them to think about their own role models and describe them to their partners. It got to the point where I just told everyone to get up from their desks and sit in a circle on the floor, because I thought that maybe if it were a less formal, classroom set up, they would feel more comfortable talking. This...kind of worked...but not really. I ended up, at the kids' suggestion, going down the attendance list, and picking people randomly to talk to the group about their role models, making it clear that they were free to speak in Moore. The kids who actually finally talked, had great responses, but as soon as they started talking, they hid their head in their hands or their elbow, or crouched into a fetal position, or rolled around all over the floor while they were talking. I had never seen anything like it. These are kids that I know well, too, and I KNOW are not afraid of me, because they barge into my house at all hours of the day and night.

Anyway, as hard as it was at times, it was absolutely worth it. I know that the kids learned a lot, and they got a lot more comfortable about responding to questions and trying to think for themselves instead of just copying and pasting responses as the two weeks progressed. We spent every single afternoon talking about HIV/AIDS; explaining all the modes of transmission, prevention methods, the biology of the virus and the immune system, talking about decision making skills, etc. Again, i'm sure they didn't soak up ALL the information we talked about, because it was a lot for them to take in, but, especially with the integrated sessions on the soccer field, they at least got a lot of exposure to the subject, and understand more about it now than they started off knowing.

Below: The kids playing a soccer game that demonstrates the effect of HIV on the immune system of a person. It starts off with only 3 offensive players (with red bandanas) and the rest of the group (15 or so) defensive players. Every time the offense scores, they can pick any member of the defense to come to play for them. As the game progesses, and more and more people are defected to the offensive team (and are given red bandanas) it gets easier and easier for the offense to score. This demonstrates that as the immune system (CD4 cells; the defensive players) gets depleted by HIV, the bacteria and diseases (the offensive team) have a much easier time defeating the human body (by scoring goals). At this point in the game (shown below) almost all the players have been converted to the disease side, and only two girls are left in the immune system.

Below: The kids playing a game designed to help them think about decision making. One player at a time goes into the middle and is passed the ball. They then have to decide if they want to make 1 easy point by dribbling over to a group of kids all wearing yellow bandanas (no defenders) and making 5 passes with them, make 2 points by dribbling over to a group of kids, two of which have yellow bandanas and three of which have red bandanas (defenders) and complete 5 passes with the kids in yellow bandanas, OR, get 3 points by dribbling over to a group of kids with only one player in a yellow bandana, and the rest in red, and sucessfully score a goal.

1 point

2 points

3 points

Below: The kids playing a game designed to demonstrate the importance of protecting yourself against HIV/AIDS. You are "protected" from the red bandana bad guys (HIV) if you have possession of the ball. There are many balls in circulation, and the kids have to pass to help each other out whenever they see that their friend is about to get attacked by a red bandana.