Rain: Part 2

And now, the rest of the story.

Rewind to last weekend. Xofa Eco Village was a bit of a trek. We went to Accra, fought our way across the city and found a spot on a trou-trou. The second trou-trou dropped us off at Boso. A small, small town 5km from Xofa. We hiked the 5k into Xofa, which was stunning. I have pictures and I will post them when I get a chance. I got to see a bird that had a beak like a Tucan, but shorter, crazy ants and an African scorpion. Marsha, I got a photo of a butterfly for you and can't wait for you to see it! I'm talking real tropical forest. Incredible. Literally three minutes after our arrival a huge storm came in. Eco village means extremely one with nature. A combination of eco village and rain means massive amounts of bugs in the cement and stone huts. Massive amounts.

May I just say that I am pro-nature. I am for the existence of wildlife. I want to help preserve the environment so that our ecosystem with all of its food chains and oxygen production can continue. I like animals, I like people and I love beautiful places. I just don't want to be smack dab in the middle of it. No millipedes in my bedroom or spiders dropping on the dinner table. Scorpions are fine, but may they stay far away from me. When we got to the village they had three beers in stock. That was rough for our group. A few of the normal staff members were dealing with a death in the family so a couple of the activities we were interested in doing on Saturday weren't available. The food was good, but took forever to prepare. Given the insects, lack of mosquito netting, shortage of beverages and lack of activities, we decided to take off.

We decided head for a nice hotel in the city of Ho, about 30km from Boso. We had to hike out of the Eco Village to get to Asikuma, a mid-size transportation station, where we could catch a trou-trou to Ho. Let me just say, in case you didn't already figure it out, I am not a hiker. No sir. This hike was extremely rigorous (esp. for the likes of me), but it was amazing. We were walking through the bush, through soggy wetlands, at one point even removed our shoes to walk through shin deep standing water. The bush opened up into a clearing and we found ourselves standing in the middle of a remote African village. Mud huts and the whole thing. It was absolutely amazing! We walked through the village and hit the hill. The hill was steep and came at the very end of our trek. The pathway up the hill was an old road, now reduced to a walkway of broken pavement, completely covered by a canopy of leaves. It was so beautiful. So beautiful that it almost distracted me from the physical pain I was having. I was breathing hard, dragging myself up the walkway. At the end, I was drenched in sweat. We all smelled gross and felt gross but it was wonderful. I will never forget that hike. I am so glad that I went.

When we got to Ho, we booked three rooms in the Freedom Hotel. The suite had, get this, hot water! The other two rooms were cheaper and shared a toilet with the whole floor. We each took a turn showering in the suite and spent a relaxing evening eating, drinking, chatting and eventually watching Love Actually on the television in the suite. TV! The hotel had a pool as well, which we enjoyed on Sunday.

Hannah got sick on the way home. May I just say that a 3 hour trou-trou ride is not the best when one is feeling sick. Poor thing. She handled herself like a champ though and we managed to get home in one piece. At one point, the trou-trou was made to stop at an immigration check point. All six of us were in the back of the crowded trou-trou and the immigration officers ordered the white people, (just us six) off the bus. Annie, the experienced traveler in our midst, suggested that we get off only two at a time. She and I were sharing a seat so I got up with her. Annie is extremely strong both in mind and spirit, but she is really small physically. In this country, I am huge. Tall and with some weight to boot. Malnutrition doesn't lend itself to growth and I am bigger than many of the people here, men included. So I figured Annie and I would make a good team if the guards wanted a bribe, which is the general consensus. She could make the agreement and I could lend some physical presence. None of us had our passports, so there wasn't much they could have done anyway. Annie and I had climbed our way down to the middle of the bus when the officers changed their minds and let the trou-trou pass. There were a couple more police stops along the way, but they were no big deal, the trou-trou driver and caller handled the situation.

On our way into Accra, I saw a mob of people on the side of the road. I asked Annie what was going on and she told me not to look. I kept asking what was going on and looking. She told me a couple more times not to look and then she told me that a man was being stoned on the side of the road. In Accra, if your bag is stolen, you shouldn't yell "thief!" because the person who stole your bag could get stoned to death by a mob. Annie has seen this before, in other parts of Africa. That was a very strange, almost surreal, upsetting experience. But what can I do? Turn around and not look. That's the best I've got for now. When Annie says "Don't look", don't look.

Last week, Annie and I started the tradition of going out for a drink on Sunday night, since it can be a bit difficult to come back to camp. This Sunday, Drew, Annie and I went to AB's bar. It is by far my favorite bar location on camp. It is away from the main road, it is really close to Guest House #1 and they play good music. Even better than Sunday night was Monday night. All of GH#1, plus the guys from GH#2 and some local volunteers turned out. I had my first experience dancing in Africa! I had such a great time. I'm not as good a dancer as the people that I've seen dance on camp. But I can hold my own, which is a cool discovery. I love to dance and find it to be an excellent outlet, especially when I am stressed out. Monday was a hard day, so dancing was the perfect remedy.

Monday was hard because of a few different reasons:
1) It was my first time teaching in a school where they allow corporal punishment. Hearing a kid crying and screaming because they are being switched is not good for my heart or mind. I don't think it is good for the kid either.
2) I've been having to deal with some unexpected obstacles, which I will not disclose at the moment.
3) The teacher I've been working with suggested that rather than creating the science posters myself, I should just give him the poster paper I bought and he would get his artist friend to make them.

Anyway, last Monday day = hard, last Monday night = awesome.

Yesterday, (Thursday) I had a really weird experience. I decided, (rather bravely) to go to the primary school even though it was raining really, really hard. I love it, as I indicated before and was quite enjoying my trek until I discovered that I wouldn't be able to make it to the school.

The way was flooded, so I didn't want to risk walking through mid-shin to knee deep water. The bathroom situation on camp is strained so the flood water is decidedly dodgy. Urine and people/chicken/duck/cat/dog poo, food, garbage and any number of other gross things are in the flood water. I was going to head back to Guest House #2 when I came across an area of the camp that was flooding. People's houses were filling with water, maybe about a foot? (I'm bad with measurements, it could easily have been less than a foot! Enough water to make furniture float, but a bit more than necessary). Anyway a lady was wailing and people were trying to help her empty out her house. I stood there for a minute trying to figure out if I could help without intruding in an unwelcome way. (This was a silly concern, people are generally very community oriented, but it is so strange to be so obviously an outsider that it does make me take extra care with my public actions). It was really, really strange.

I saw a lady struggling to lift a water logged mattress out of the house so I helped her. I was walking around in shin deep flood water, in sandles, momentarily worried about the cuts on my feet and the gaping wound on my knee. Hopefully, I won't have gotten jiggers, but what are you going to do? You help. I was helping to bail water out of two front porches and grabbing a sack of garbage to stack along the porch to help slow the water coming in. After everything died down a bit, this lady (the one who had been wailing) looked at me and said, "You see. Do you see how we African refugees suffer? We are suffering." I said, "Yes." She nodded her head.

My adrenaline was pumping during this experience. I wasn't sure how to leave after the rain had died down and there wasn't anything left to do. I ended up introducing myself to a man standing near me and asking his name. I asked what zone of the camp I was in (Zone 8), shook his hand, told him that I was with CBW. He said that I would be able empathize with their situation, said I was welcome there anytime and thanks for helping out. I said to all of the people standing around that I was so sorry. Then I left.

When I got back to the guest houses, I was basically in that weird shocky state the comes on after your adrenaline has been pumping. No one that I tried to talk to really seemed to understand why the experience had been so shocking and emotional. I so missed Joshua because he knows me well enough that I don't have to explain myself perfectly for him to understand why I would get upset at something like this and that my being upset was perfectly legitimate.