Week #13 – three month progress report

I wrote most of this on Sunday which was the first day since our arrival in Ghana that the sky was completely clear.  There was not a cloud visible all of the day!   It was exhilarating.   BLUE SKIES.  And the night was clear.  We could see Orion near the west horizon.  Today is Thursday.  The daytime overcast returned on Monday. 

We have been here three months as of this past weekend.  This week’s blog is going to be a three month progress report.

I went back and looked at my first week’s blog.  Quoting from that entry:  “We are confident that we will be able to find meaning and fulfillment in our daily lives once we can get beyond the sights/sounds/smells of our surrounding and the inconveniences of living here – having to wash every fruit and vegetable (and eggs) and all the dishes in Clorox, having internet which works sporadically, having to drive with white knuckles, and getting used to the heat – the oppressive, moist heat of the day, and night (it changes very little at night.)”

I would give us a solid B or maybe a B+ grade for getting “beyond the sights/sounds/smells of our surroundings.”   We don’t notice the dirt, the garbage, the torn up roads, and the incomplete construction as much as we did in the beginning.  If we notice anything, now, it seems that we see the people much more than the surroundings.  We often find ourselves commenting to each other about the beauty and elegance of someone that we see.  Just this morning on my drive down Independence Avenue I noticed one of the street vendors selling water bottles.  I watched her for the few moments the cars were slowing at an intersection.  She was probably in her early twenties.  She was tall and slender wearing a halter top and a ¾ length cotton skirt and sandels.  Her top was blue but her skirt was bright yellow which stood out against her black skin.   Her hair was cropped and she carried a large aluminum saucer with one liter water bottles balanced on her head.  As she approached our line of cars she smiled to each car and offered water.  Her teeth were ivory white and perfectly straight.  Her forehead was smooth, her eyebrows thin, barely visible, her nose was narrow, her lips were small.  She had no visible makeup but didn’t need anything to enhance her natural beauty.  She walked briskly, very erect, carrying the load on her head as easily as someone would wear a hat.  As she passed my car I noticed that the skin of her neck, shoulders and arms glistened in the sun due to her sweating.  It was a moist reflection, very much like the condensation that occurs on a cold water bottle placed in heat.  Yet her clothing did not appear moist.  She could have easily been a model or on the cover of a fashion magazine. 

We have noticed that most Ghanaians dress very well, despite their overall poverty, with modest, clean, clothing.  We do not see immodest dress on the women; they do not allow any midriff skin to show.  The Brittany Spears fashion line is not popular here in Ghana.  The men dress equally well, with a surprisingly large percentage who wear long sleeve shirts with French cuffs.  I have only seen one person with a tattoo (very difficult to distinguish because of the dark skin), and it was on the ankle of a young woman.  I’m not sure that she was native to Ghana.   All of the children and young men/women have short hair.  Some of the older women have beautiful hair styles, most of which are braided hair extensions put up on top of or behind their heads.  (I’ve asked the women about the hair extensions.  They have them rebraided about every three to fours weeks.  It takes 3 – 4 hours to do a complete head.)   Some of the women wear wigs.  The men are clean shaven with close cropped hair cuts.  I have seen only a few “Afro” hair styles and I suspect they are non Africans.  No one smokes, here.  Isn’t that amazing.  None of the Ghanaians, at least.  The only smokers are non Africans.

 

I would give ourselves an A in getting used to the inconveniences of living here.  It seems natural, now, to wash all the fruit/vegetables and eggs in Clorox.  Ditto for the dishes.  Out internet is not a problem.  We have a satellite modem that is always connected.  It is not fast, but at least it keeps the internet available at all times.  I don’t drive with white knuckles any more.  I do drive more defensively than at home, not taking my eyes off the road and surrounding vehicles.  But I’m not exhausted after driving to work or home.  And the heat, well, it remains hot but I (we) don’t seem to notice it as much.  We still sweat large quantities when in the heat but are not as panicky looking for airconditioning as we were three months ago.  

I would like to comment on two items that I’ve been thinking about a lot.  The first relates to malaria.  Having never been in a malaria endemic area Marsha and I arrived with a mental image of needing to take exorbitant precautions daily against the disease: DEET all over our bodies, mosquito repellent clothing, not going out at night, etc. and worrying incessantly about the enemy – the anopheles mosquito.  We both laugh, now, as we recall our first night here.  We were staying in temporary housing and had prepared for bed.  As we were turning the lights off we noticed a small flying insect in the room (the anopheles mosquito is very small, almost not visible, quite unlike the large mosquitoes of the American West).  We tried to kill it but could only catch fleeting views of it.  We were not able to eliminate it.  So, we prepared for bed both of us convinced that it was a malaria bearing mosquito and we were its next victims.  We covered ourselves with DEET and slept very restlessly, awakening to check to see if we had been bitten.   Now, three months later, we don’t worry very much about malaria.  We use DEET occasionally, but for the most part don’t take the onerous precautions we did in the beginning.  We are not as fearful of malaria.  We have become Malaria Russian Roulette players.  We carry our malaria medication, Artrin, with us all the time.

Having dealt with malaria on a daily basis for three months I want to offer a medical observation.  The incubation for malaria is about 10 – 14 days.   When malaria becomes clinically apparent it does so with the onset of a sensation of being “ice cold” – the cold phase --  characterized by shaking chills usually accompanied by headache/bodyache, fever, and gastrointestinal disturbance.  This lasts up to six hours then passes into the hot phase when the infected patient describes a “burning up” sensation accompanied by profuse sweating.  If the current medication for malaria (the Artrin, a combination of artesunate and lumefantrin) is given during the cold phase the patient is usually better within four hours of taking medication.  If started later than four hours after the onset it takes longer to work.  I am amazed that this combination medication is so effective for such a dramatic disease.   In reality, the medication makes it easier, and more successful, to treat acute malaria than a viral URI.   

My second comment relates to the changes I’ve experienced in my concerns about being white in a black society.  It is hard to describe the evolution of this change in attitude, but I have become much less aware of my whiteness in the past three months.  I remember being in ShopRite the first weekend here and noticing three white women near the fruit section.  By reflex I started to push my cart toward them, I guess wanting an unconscious sensation of being among my own.  I don’t do it anymore.   In fact, I hardly pay attention to the presence of white people at all.  I obviously don’t feel as self conscious of being white as I did on arrival. 

Along this same line I have also come to appreciate that the Ghanaians have very little awareness of skin color.    Let me tell you why I can say this.  (This happened to me about a month ago and I’ve thought about it quite a lot since then.)  Marsha was looking at fabric at a vendor’s shack and I was standing in the background watching her look at the different patterns.  The owner and I started chatting about trivial items and he offered to show me some men’s shirts made of Ghanaian fabric.  He brought me a number of them and held them up to me and commented each time how good I would look in the shirt.  He then said that if I were wearing a Ghanaian shirt I would “look Ghanaian.”  I looked at him and laughed and said, incredulously, “there is no way I would look Ghanaian wearing this shirt.”   He kept insisting I would.  I thought he was just trying to make a sale.  But I don’t think so.  I started thinking there, and have rethought about it a lot since then, that this man was serious in his assertion that if I would wear a Ghanaian shirt I would  “look Ghanaian.”  He didn’t see my whiteness as the determining factor in whether I looked like the locals or not.  Think about that for a moment.

By the way, I bought the shirt.  And I’ve worn it several times.  A couple of the native Africans have commented that I have looked very “Ghanaian.”  It amazes me!  To think that a shirt of African fabric is all that’s required to make me look like a native of Ghana.

I can’t think of anything funny this past week.  I guess I’ll close with a shopping experience.  This is to serve as an example of the Greatness to whom I am married. 

Marsha and I were at the Accra Mall on Thursday of last week grocery shopping.  I knew that I had only a little money with me.  As we were going through the store, adding more to the grocery cart, I kept asking Marsha if we were going to have enough money for checkout.  She would look at me and calmly say “yes.”  As we added more and more to the cart I kept asking about our amount of cash on hand.  She seemed confident we were not beyond our means.  I need to interject here that I dread the day when I have a check out confrontation – the checkers are not friendly at all and customer service here in Ghana is not a principle taught, let alone understood.  I fear having to disagree with an unfriendly checker.  And I fear worse having to explain why I don’t have enough cash, and begging her to take a credit card, which, by the way, is not safe to use here.   As we approached the check out stand with a full cart and an unknown amount of cash in our wallets I envisioned us having to ask the checker if she could take back some of our items for credit to get us within the amount of our cash on hand.  As we started through the check out Marsha calmly asked me how much money I had.  I told her Ghc 16  (sixteen cedes).  She was watching the running total and doing some mental calculations.  She asked for my Ghc 16.  As the grand total came up she handed all of our cash to the checker.  We received  Ghp 68 (68 pesowas,  about 50cents) as change.  As we loaded the items into our cart she looked at me with the look of “you are such a skeptic, did you really doubt me?”    I bow to her shopping Greatness!

Talk to you next week.   (This is papaya cut cross wise instead of length wise.)