For breakfast today, I decided I wanted to be traditional
and eat some milk and cereal (regular unfrosted corn flakes). I was really
excited because it’s something that I would definitely conceivably eat at home,
so it was a good reminder of that. When I tried the combination, however, it
tasted like the milk had spoiled even though it hadn’t because it was goat’s
milk. From what I remember when I was little, I really enjoyed goat’s milk but
for some reason, there was no part of me that could continue to eat the sour
corn flakes that taste terrible. I’m not one to waste food often, but that was
completely inedible.
On our way to Ekumfi Akwakrom , the radio was playing a news
story about how some people in Ghana don’t even know that they’re pregnant
until they’re 6 months or so because of the lack of education and tests
available for them. Some women don’t know that they only have to have sex once
to get pregnant or that their stomachaches and lack of a menstrual cycle
indicates pregnancy. It’s so interesting to know because women in the United
States know they’re pregnant at least within the first two months because they
stop having a period but such basic information is lost to women who don’t have
the access to the education we do.
We were finishing the latrine today; we had just 3 layers of
bricks to finish stacking and the outside and insides to cover with a layer of
concrete to smooth it out. It would get too messy if too many people tried to
work on that at once, so there was a significant bit of downtime. Our driver,
Clifford, who has been with us for the whole time, came up to a couple of us
and started chatting. There were several topics that I thought was weird that
he brought up, but I enjoyed that he also talked a little more about Ghanaian
culture. Some of the things we already knew (not using the left hand to address
elders, etc.), but some, like the fact that children take after their father’s
last name because taking after their mother’s last name means that you have
somehow disgraced your father’s family.
He then asked about how I thought I was going to recount my
trip to Ghana because those people who can afford to travel to Africa are only
going to if they think the trip is worth it, and personal stories and accounts
are the most important factor in making that decision. It was really
interesting that he said that because I hadn’t yet thought of the importance of
my personal account of my trip, but Clifford’s right. If I go back and rave
about my experience, there are people that are inevitably going to want to
come. If I say only bad things about it, they may think twice about planning a
trip here. As with anything, the single story, no matter how true or untrue the
content is, can have more impact than one can ever imagine.
I also had the chance to talk a little more to Aziz, one of
two coordinators working with our internship, and since Regina, the other
coordinator, is sick, he’s been filling in a whole lot over the last week.
Somehow we got to talking about school in Ghana, and I asked him about what
they learn in history about British colonialism and the slave trade. He said
that the children learn way more about it than I think that children do in the
United States, which makes sense. He’s no longer in school, but when he learned
about the slave trade, his class apparently took a field trip to the Cape Coast
Castle, the destination from which hundreds of thousands of Africans left
Africa to be a part of the slave trade. It made me think back to the issues of
social justice and the historical context for so much of what the modern world
looks like. He also said that he works with his father on his gas station when
he’s not working for Global Brigades and would like to own one himself one day.
He doesn’t think that he’s going to inherit the one his father owns now because
he has a lot of siblings, but he wants to buy his own land and own a small
business someday.
During the day, one of the kids came up to me a started
braiding my hair:
There was also a kid that came by later with corn kernels,
cooked to look like popcorn kernels that haven’t yet popped. He started chewing
them and sharing them with other kids, which was really cute! He gave some to
me, but I didn’t know how clean his hands were (most likely pretty dirty), so I
ended up just giving them to another kid around me. Before I did, however, I
saw how hot they were. I would not be surprised if they had just been pulled
out of boiling water.
Some pictures of the final product that we built!
After we’d come back to the lodge, we exchanged some
information about the day. The group that built the other latrine apparently
had a really great conversation about Ghanaian culture, so they were able to
share some of what they learned with us.
Apparently, when a man wants to marry a woman (all homosexual
activity is illegal), the woman’s family provides a list of things that he
needs to buy for them as a dowry to get her. Since some people can’t afford
these things, there are many people who will start a life together as if they
were married, but just forgo the legal ties. We also have a clarification on
the goat-giving ceremony for women who birth 10 or more children; the goat is
apparently given to the man from the woman’s family as a thank you for
continuing that family’s lineage. For each child, the woman receives 2 chickens
from the man’s family.
When Muslim children are born, they are named with their
Muslin/Arabic name after a week after their birth. The first-born in a family
is named after the father, and the second-born is named after the mother. Any
subsequent children can have whatever name the parents desire, but the first
two always have a set name. Additionally, when female genital mutilation was
the common practice, it used to be part of a puberty right. When this happened,
females used to receive sex education at this time so that they were prepared
in the future. Now that mutilation has been stopped, the sex education is no
longer given and a subsequent rise in teenage pregnancy has resulted.
The father of the house that they were building for
recommended any health information be given through a community gathering of
children and parents separately because they require different information and
what they hear on the radio or through television won’t necessarily be
translated into action.
He also shared a little bit about the history of Mankessim,
the name of the market that we stop at almost every day. There are statues of
three men, as well as an eagle, an elephant, and a whale in a roundabout at the
equivalent of an entrance to the market. The three men, who started the market,
are recognized for their efforts. Each of the animals represents protection of
an aspect of the land; the eagle protects the sky, the elephant protects the
land, and the whale protects the sea.
When we were talking, Deanna also mentioned that only about
10% of people who live in the Ekumfi district, where most of Global Brigades
Ghana has worked, have education pas a senior high school level. Out of these
people, most of them leave the community for the cities, leaving Ekumfi
communities in a cycle of poverty.
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