Same... but different

On Saturday mornings I wake blearily in time for Football Focus… I wake at dawn here, partly due to the noise of farmers hollering to each other across the village, partly coz there’s so little to do in the evening I’ve usually been asleep since 10.30pm the night before, and partly because I like to nurse a brew during the coolest part of the day. Often the village loudspeaker will crank up at 6am. Generally this is mundane local news read in a strangely vituperative manner but on Saturdays, I am brought tantalizingly close to my dressing gown and sofa at home as news of the English Premier League rattles on at the usual deafening volume. Although this is in the local language, they use lots of English phrases to add colour and sophistication, so stories that tell of ‘Young Wayne Rooney’ and ‘bar brawls', or 'Big Sam' and 'wads of cash' can be heard if you can stand to listen.

People are labeled … If you ever wondered where the ill-fitting t-shirt you eventually decided to give to charity ended up, then Africa is probably the answer. Though not quite as widespread as in East Africa, the phenomenon of Granddads sporting tees that say “I’m with the band” and women who are displaying that to them ‘college football is all that matters’ helps to make the curious surroundings of Humjibre as semiotically surreal as a boozy dream.

Kids swear at their teacher… Don’t know if they picked this up from a previous teacher but whenever one of the older students gets a question wrong they invariably blurt out “shit!” Trying hard not to laugh, I explain that only stupid people swear in the UK. (One of the benefits of them never having been out of Humjibre is that they’ll buy anything.) Gotta watch my language however, as I’ve been muttering some choice French at the rubbish blackboard we have whilst it squeaks or cracks our precious chalks.

People knock to enter… but here they just make the noise and not the action. I try to explain that it is an onomatopoeia (partly because i like to see the look on their face when I try to spell it), but it's a bit of a lost cause.

Fad today gone tomorrow… Though they have very few things to play with here, when one of the children do come up with an idea of making something, it spreads like a virus. First it was cars made of a 3ft bamboo pole and wheels cut out of flip flop foam, then it was cardboard box toy guns, now some kids have managed to beg, borrow or steal the required materials to make a cart. Especially when it rains, you can see this thing hurtling down the hill outside our house with some screaming pre-teen barely hanging on by his fingernails. So, in my idle moments, I think about what cheap craze I could start. Palm nut conkers came to mind, but any ideas from people more creative than me would be appreciated. Suggestions to the usual address please.

Mob Rule

One thing I like about rural Africa is the execution of community justice. Take the example of a vast log that has been sitting by the side of the road in the village since my arrival. In the past couple of days the normal peace and quiet (that is unless there’s a funeral or the deafening loudspeaker is in full flow) has been replaced by the mechanized grind of a chainsaw cutting the thing up into planks. I went to investigate. Seems the original owner got wind of a plot to charge him with illegal logging and decided to cut loose the log and return later. As a plan, this is all well and good, until you realize that the log is waa waa timber 4ft in diameter and 40ft in length, and so not too easy to shift on the quiet. So the giant log has lay there for quite some time acting as, at 2million cedis or 200 quid, a rather expensive climbing frame for the local school. In step the elders, ordering the slicing and dicing and, due to my timely intervention, we hope to get our share for the construction of the community library. And the rightful but illegal owner of the wood? Well, he gets to remain anonymous, or at least as far as the fuzz is concerned, and even gets a few consolation planks to sell and cover his costs. The job is, as they say, a good ‘un.

Crimes against Humanity

Why is it that across Africa the choirboy quintet Westlife is held in such revered and sacred esteem? Is it their cherubic priest-baiting good looks and holier-than-thou pronouncements? Is it that someone from Christian Aid brought a tape and then it insidiously worked its way around the continent by some evil charm? And why, when I tell people that only girls and nonces actually listen to this foul sacrilegious twaddle in the UK am I met with either stunned silence or angry threats? Why do I take such pleasure by breaking said nonces’ hearts by telling them that the band broke up ages ago? Enjoy inventing facts like some of them have been arrested on charges of child molestation? ok, so the last two you could say are fictional fronts in the guerilla war on inanity, but the answers to the rest remain a profound and disturbing mystery. Time to call Hanks perhaps.

Humjibransania (with apologies to Peter Andre and the rest of you for the reminder of his existence)

1) Walked into the seamstresses the other day and there amongst the needles and pins I noticed a bottle selling ‘Stop Holy Evils and Demons Water’. The back read, ‘This water is highly recommended against the forces of darkness. It makes witches, wizards, and enemies-to-be afraid after using it for bath regularly’. Hmm, not seen that product in the pharmaceutical aisle at Tesco’s.

2) The village’s only breakfast/lunch time street sold snack is a beans, rice, red sauce, gari and fried plantain, bundled together and presented in a miniature black bin bag mashup called ‘red-red’. On the other hand, the only thing you can get for dinner is an omelette butty. Both equally tasty but up-side down in timing surely. ok ok nil points for cultural understanding, I hear you scold.

3) Funerals are a time for reflection and mourning, right? Well maybe in your tame lame ass country, here it’s time to bring out the 10 foot speakers, crank the mother up to 11 and kick out the jams by playing yer latest hiplife/Westlife/Shaggy cassette at tinnitus inducing levels. And OH BABY IS IT LOUD!!?@#?! Perhaps the idea is that there may have been a mistake and the dead dude in situ will be woken up to moan about the racket. Proceedings generally kick off at 10am on the Saturday and don’t wind up till the Monday, by which time our condom sales have gone through the roof. The women love them since ‘it’s the only time they have to drink’. Bless ‘em, they only have the chance once or twice a week. The usual deal is that the mourners pay their respects by sitting. Unable to converse or hear themselves think due to the deafening thud thud thud of the boom box they just sit in their traditional garb (an off the shoulder wraparound number for the blokes and the usual in any colour as long as its black for the ladies) passing the time of day or night. It seems that in a time rich and money poor society, you give what you can by sitting around for hours in respect and mournful remembrance. Not once have I heard so much as a tribute or brief passing mention of the dead dude in the garish casket. All this would be mildly diverting if it didn’t happen on the footy field just outside my front door every third weekend.

4) The most heroically tone deaf brass band in the known world blow their horns every night from the Anglican church up the hill. On the odd occasion a melody is discernible in the din, it is vaguely reminiscent of the little drummer boy, but generally they just blow in seeming ignorance of each other. Freestyle Afro Jazz Wigouts yaaah!

5) What serves as loo roll round these parts is actually a Palermo based Sicilian newspaper. I’d love to follow the circuitous route this rag must pass from (I’d guess) mafia bent recycling scheme to the bums of West Africa. Plus, though we manage to buy proper bog roll for our own pampered derriere, I’m sure this lends an added piquancy to those idle moments the villagers spend on the throne, perusing world events, 4 months late, through the eyes of the eyeties, as it were.

6) My Sunday league football team is called the terror squad, effectively making me a terrorist. Thankfully, unlike the Denbighshire Summer League, there are no bone-crunching stud on skin challenges as there are neither studs nor single minded menace present. They are incredibly skillful but don’t yet the know the value of a good hoof to clear their lines.

7) Wednesdays are market day in a slightly larger village near ours called Bekwai. Since they sell more than standard staples and our post is sent there, we generally go every week to get supplies of pineapple, avocado, mayonnaise and coconut. There are one or two characters worth mentioning. Firstly, we have the dude in Ali Baba sparkly pants who walks round with a boombox on his bonce touting for tips. Sadly enough, I think I was excited by the sight of mangoes but I made the mistake of dancing to this guy’s tunes. Since then, he tends to find me out and follow me round so it sounds like I have my own blaxploitation incidental music accompaniment. I like the post office as it has a vintage red British telephone box outside it. Inside, the wizened old post master welcomes you in a quite correct and formal manner, learnt during colonial days, and passes you the post for the village. In addition to the child who works with him in the office, they look like a grainy old black and white film made real. The other dude to mention calls me Mr Hot, perhaps because of the streams of sweat running down my face, and is my Tae Kwon Do partner. All going to prove that the currency of random is indeed strong in these here parts.

Mr Scruff

One rainy day, a few weeks back, whilst sitting on the verandah, we noticed a tiny dog trotting behind a sheep and her lambs. It appeared to be under the misapprehension that the raggedy shit-tailed creature ahead was its mother/guardian. We were laughing about the silly little sod, when it turned and came bounding over in a distinctively unsteady fashion which we’ve come to identify as its own. Despite (or more likely because) her being a flea-ridden, mangy, runtish little specimen, we fell in love with the scruffy little thing. I started calling her Mr Scruff long before we identified that those tics on her belly were actually teats and her ‘willy’, a strange and still unidentified growth. No prizes owed for veterinary skills certainly but I’m hoping for a slice of karma for saving this diminutive doggy from assured extinction. After washing with shampoo and feeding her tasty scraps like teriyaki jerky and curried yam mash, she appears to be gaining in vim and vigour. When she arrived, she was afraid of her own (curly upstanding) tail, and was constantly trying to back away from herself and the scary shadows this unknown assailant would throw. Now she’s biting fingers, chasing chickens and we’re currently training her to bark at children. The ever empathetic I wants her to sleep inside at nights but I’m resisting due to the realization that this is merely the first stage in my eventual usurpation.

Reasons for writing this blog

- to vent my spleen/valve
- me me me (thankks to Dan for this suggestion)
- primary research for the possible continuation of a doctoral idea I had about conceptualising the blogging phenomenon through the normative Habermasian notion of the public sphere
boredom
- so my so-called-friends can get a laugh out of my hardships
- because seeing it out of context makes me realize how strange it all sounds
- to serve as a reference for possible Teachers/volunteers in West Africa

The Resting Place

I live and work in the village of Humjibre in the Western Region district of Ghana. Geographically speaking the village is located in the humid semi tropical south west, bordering Cote d’Ivoire. Humjibre translates as ‘the resting place’, so named because travelers from the north used to stop here to sup from a reliable and still-sacred spring. The village is set in lush green surroundings and due to the importance of the spring there are large swathes of ‘pristine’ rainforest on the hills overlooking it. The main cash crop is cocoa, but maize, groundnuts, palm oil, tomatoes, oranges and plaintain are also in abundance. The people are as odd as any other remote African village, but then they think this of the ‘obruni’ (white man) also.

I live with my ‘concubine’ Ilona, aka the hungry I, the never sufficiently praised I, the bean-counting I, etc etc. We have a fan, a radio which can occasionally pick up the world service, a chess board, a water tank, two guitars and a deep pit toilet. It’s not luxurious, but its home.

We work for an organization called Ghana Health and Education Initiative (http://www.ghei.org/). I oversee a library, computer centre, supplemental English programme and vocational training centre. The resourceful I is in charge of health education projects such as outreach events, peer education, World Aids Day celebrations, and administering Band Aids to my blistered fingers. The organization is one that would that would cheer up most development pessimists, including ourselves, and is run by an urbane, intelligent, ABBA fanatic Ghanaian who generally goes by his ‘slave name’ of Clement Donkor (alternatively, he is called ‘Assembly’ by the villagers due to his former political career and Yao Gyapong by his family, because, well that’s kinda his real name, which is a long story). We are confronted by problems shared by NGOs across the ‘south’, i.e. power shortages, political apathy and corruption, chickens disturbing your meetings, local indifference, technological isolation and lack of pens. In the next year, we hope to build a new and bigger library, expand the computer centre and extend the health education projects to local villages. In the medium term, the ambition is to turn management of the project over to the Ghanaians that are working with us. Or at least, that was the original aim, but Clement now has this crazy idea that we should turn the place into an eco tourism venture, but then, he’d be bored without access to a regular stream of foreigners with their strange ways.