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| Kujo |
First off, I’d like to apologize for my long absence. It was partly due the Internet never being in working order when I go to use it and mostly due to such an overwhelming amount of notable things happening I became too involved in the things themselves to write about them. So get ready for one lengthy update.
In the last update I mentioned the generous drum donation from Bruce Hering and the Eau Claire North High School bands. Today I’d like to bring you into the whole ordeal of getting the drums. This whole story takes place with my friend Harrison, the man who had the connections to the drum village where we had the drums made. Harrison and I set off in the afternoon of Tuesday, February 7th to retrieve the drums. We had traveled to the village a week and a half before and placed the order, emphasizing that they needed to be done by Monday the 6th, as Harrison was leaving the country to fly home on the 9th and he was planning to come teach the kids how to use them. He had gotten a call from the man making the drums, Atakofi, on Monday saying, “Hello friend, I’ll see you Wednesday when you come to get the drums”. That was NOT the news we were waiting to hear. After a phone call and a bit of arguing, they agreed that we would wait until Tuesday afternoon to go pick up the drums. Already frustrated that things were running a day behind, we set off.
The trip should have been fairly straightforward but then, this is Africa. We should have been able to take a tro-tro from Legon to Achimota Station. From there we would buy a ticket straight to the drum village, Okurasi (which is one of many Twi words for “village”) were we would get the drums, find adequate transport back to Legon and set off again. The whole affair should have been no more than 3 hours but things didn’t quite work out that way.
First, we chose a bad tro-tro. I don’t remember if I’ve explained this before, but tro-tros are the major public transportation here in Ghana. They are large vans (think Tendercare van or something similar) with at least 4 rows of seats, ¾ of them being one big seat and each seat on the right side (where the door is) is a “mate seat”, meaning the back folds down and it folds into the larger seat to allow people in and out via a tiny passage. There are two workers on the tro at any given time, the driver and the mate. The driver’s job is pretty self-explanatory. The mate sits next to the door and yells the destination out the window, opens and closes the door for passengers, loads any “luggage” people have into the back or straps it on the top, collects money and notifies the driver when to stop for a passenger to get on or off. You can catch tros on the side of the road at junctions or at a tro-tro station. If you’re going to a station, you need to be aware that tros don’t leave until they are full. So if you’re going to a destination that doesn’t have a lot of traffic or you’ve just missed the last car, you have to be prepared to wait in your seat in the hot sun for the rest of the passengers to arrive.
Anyway, we chose a bad tro. Between Legon and Achimota, accelerating from the numerous bus stops meant all the passengers being thrown about violently as the gears struggled to do their job. We eventually jumped out of that car (Not literally. Well yeah, literally, but it wasn’t moving) and caught another to take us the rest of the way to the station.
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| Mercy with "Obama Biscuits"-his face is on the packaging |
When we finally arrived we purchased tickets to Asamankese for 3.5cedi each. Though Okurasi isn’t the final destination for this car, it would pass through it and drive directly past the drum shop we needed to visit. As I mentioned before, cars don’t leave until they are full. It seemed we had just missed the previous car, so we were passengers #2 and #3 on a car built for 14. After waiting ½ hour, we were still the only 3 people on the bus with little hope of leaving in the next hour or even two. We’d noticed that the car next to us was filling much quicker and thanks to Harrison’s knowledge from growing up here in Ghana realized that that car would also pass through the village. We went to the man with the tickets and discovered it would cost us another 2cedi each but we figured our time was worth at least that much. By the time we left, only about ten minutes later, only 2 people had joined our previous car. Needless to say, we were happy with our decision.
At last we were on the way from the station. We bumped our way along heavily trafficked roads on what I would later learn was the first day of hamatan, an “extra” season between their winter and summer characterized by excessive dryness. I have never seen a sky so full of red dirt. All day long I was thirsty despite how many bags of water I drank. My skin, lips and eyes ached to find any moisture and were only met with dusty air. While the absence of the usual humidity was a somewhat welcome change, the dry weather certainly wasn’t ideal for travel.
After over and hour and a half on the road our car suddenly turned around without explanation. Harrison asked the driver what was happening and got no answer. Being accustomed to customer service and business thought processes as they are in America; this sudden unexplained change of course was another frustration on top of an already irritating day. After this 20-minute stop accompanied by a whole lot of yelling in a language not my own, we made the last 15 minutes of our trip.
When we’d arrived at Atakofi’s drum shop a week and a half earlier, there were at least 6 men hard at work. When we arrived that Tuesday it was completely deserted. We took this as a bad sign, particularly considering what our luck had been like already that day. Harrison called Ata and was told we should wait “small”, another bad sign. Africa time is a bit more lax than Western time. A “small” wait is very rarely less than ½ an hour. We waited for a good 15-20 minutes before Harrison placed another call in which he was told “I am coming from another place, I will be at the shop in 30 minutes.” 30 minutes in Africa time is MINIMUM 1 hour in actual time. We were not ready to commit another hour of waiting around, especially since Harrison was meant to be teaching a class in a few short hours. We didn’t have the time to wait around. Remembering Ata’s house was about a 5-minute walk from his shop, we set off in that direction. Upon our arrival, we discovered Atakofi and all his workers polishing and working on the 5 drums I ordered, only 3 of which even had the hide attached.
As I already mentioned, we had expected the drums to be finished the day before. Now here we were, one day late already, looking at at least another 3 hours of work. We’d taken an exhausting and expensive trip to retrieve the drums and we were doomed to return home empty handed. We left. After making it back to Legon, Harrison contacted Atakofi and instructed him to bring the drums, finished or not, to his house in Legon the next day by 8am. He told him to bring along what materials he needed to finish the drums and to do so there, so that when they were finished I could leave directly for Dodowa. Finally, something went right. He arrived just before 8am and set to work. About 3 hours later we finally had the finished products.
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| Foster climbing trees, as usual |
That Friday I intended to take one or two of the drums to the orphanage for the kids to play with, planning to return with the other 3 once we’d cleared a specific place to store them. I’d forgotten that the boys who would be most excited about this donation had been informed that the drums were coming, and when I set off to the volunteer house with only 2 boys, we were followed by an entourage of 4 others, all of them intent on carrying home a drum. We arrived at my house and I asked the boys to wait outside. I brought one out and was met with hands ready to play. I could hear the music resonating in the halls of my house as I brought the drums out one-by-one. They were so excited. J While I was stopped locking the door to my room, the boys waited for me in the middle of the road, crowded around their drums making music on our little lane. They rested the drums sideways on their heads to carry them back to the home and their happy fingers drummed as we traversed.
That evening we had a wonderful impromptu musical performance. The boys on the drums traded around and their drumming was punctuated by a tin can being played like a cowbell. The girls and little kids danced around and a good time was had by all! When I come home I will post videos of that night so everyone can see what I did.
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| Nathaniel teaching the girls the dance to accompany the drumming |
In the words of Bob Marley, “When one door is closed don’t you know, another is open”. It seems he was right. Though the late arrival of the drums made it impossible for Harrison to come teach, other opportunities presented themselves. The week before I got the drums, a man named Nathaniel approached me just down the road from the orphanage, where he happens to live. His brother told him that the “obrunis”(white people) were working for the orphanage. He asked if we would be interested in having him come teach African drumming and dance for our kids. All he wants in exchange is publicity on our future website as the man who taught them and thus boost the popularity of his already existing dance troupes. He wants to create a drumming and dance troupe at the orphanage that will in future help them to sustain themselves. He has started to come every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to practice for a few hours each day. The kids are enjoying themselves quite a lot. I’ll be posting videos of these lessons as well as the fruits of their labors when I get home.
On a less cheery note, one of my favorite little girls is no longer at the orphanage. Chucu baby left nearly two weeks ago along with her cousin Prince and her grandmother. Ma Maggie left the orphanage after a few years of working there with the ambition to start her own orphanage, which seems fairly unlikely, as she has no money to speak of and can hardly read and write on her own, let alone fill out all the required paperwork necessary to apply for certification. She began causing problems at the orphanage early this year, shortly after the first newborn arrived. She stopped doing any housework as she was required and started lying in the room all day presumably “caring for the baby” though he was fast asleep. Patience, a 14-year-old who delivered a little girl in late January, took over many of Ma’s responsibilities. She cared for Kwasi and all the kindergarten children in the mornings, while Ma milled around. She constantly complained to volunteers that she wasn’t getting paid. Though money is short and the workers do not get paid as much as they should, they do get paid. They also get a place to stay and food to eat provided for them daily.
Anyway, as she talked to incoming volunteers she planted seeds in their minds about how mistreated the workers were and other nonsense and caused a great many problems between volunteers and Mama Jane. Ma Jane and I both agreed she needed to leave as quickly as possible, and I knew the implications of that suggestion as the pertained to Chucu. She announced at the beginning of February she would leave at the end of the month. Then less then a week later, she took off. She left both her grandchildren behind. Not knowing if she was coming back or not, I hoped and hoped that Chucu would stay at the orphanage. In my time here she has talked to my family many times to tell them “I’m coming to see you in America!” and would tell me daily “Jayne! Your baby is me!” I never thought she’d be gone. Two weeks ago yesterday Ma returned for Prince, her grandson. She tried to take Chucu but she begged to stay and Ma left. I heard about this and wondered how long it would last. That Wednesday night, a child arrived to our house and told us that Ma had come for Chucu while the volunteers were home for dinner. All the children had cried. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I miss her giggle and the goofy way she’d run toward me every time she saw me. I miss her stories and watching her learn more and more everyday. I miss hearing her sing to herself and repeat the songs I’d taught her. I love all the children at The Potters Village, but my heart is still a little broken.
As a volunteer who has been here before and has a very good relationship with Mama Jane, upon my arrival I was endowed with the responsibilities of a “head volunteer”. A great deal of volunteers seem not to understand that they need to communicate with Mama Jane or Beatrice if they have questions about what is needed or how things work. I’ve been “training” new volunteers when they arrive for most of my time here. I teach them the ins and outs of the orphanage, show them around Dodowa, and various other things. Unfortunately, until the middle of this month I had a force working against me.
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| Kwabena carrying water home |
As I told you, we had a very useless volunteer here who stayed for 3.5 months, the useless Canadian(or UC). He had absolutely no respect for Mama Jane, never greeted her when he saw her. Greetings are very important here, even for strangers and especially for the person who is your boss. He very very rarely went to the orphanage, he spent most of his time visiting the internet (multiple times a day), traveling to Accra to see films (multiple times a week), and telling new volunteers that going to the orphanage was optional and spouting lies about Mama Jane. I don’t understand people who come to “volunteer” who behave as though they are on a holiday. I witnessed interactions between Mama Jane and UC where she was polite as all get-out and he refused to make eye contact with her or even acknowledge her existence. On the first of the January when some new volunteers arrived, he pulled them aside and told them that Mama Jane was a horrible woman who steals from the kids and only ever asks for money, both completely unfounded. So I had to talk to all the new volunteers and tell them that UC was not a credible source of information and fill them in on the circumstances that led to that opinion and urge them to make their own decisions. Many of them listened, and only a few bothered to take UC’s advice. Had I not been here to defend her, UC’s unfounded testimony could have stopped the collaboration between volunteers and the Potters Village altogether. In fact, just a few days ago I was informed by an IVHQ staff member that while UC was in the process of leaving the country, he met another volunteer who was meant to come here and told him “You don’t want to go there. Mama Jane only ever asks for money and Jayne is a huge bitch.” Well. Of course the person urging you to do work you’re too lazy to do won’t be one you like. I don’t take his opinions to mean a darned thing, but the fact that he would deter people coming here to help because of a personal vendetta is shameful.
As a side note, a big reason he so disliked me is because I had the key to a second bathroom that he used to use regularly. Auntie B locked it and gave me the key, telling me that UC would poop in it daily and refuse to flush the toilet. She was sick of cleaning it up. So I took the key and the people living in my room used that bathroom and kept it clean. I think he thought I made this decision to spite him when really I was following instructions from his favorite person here in Ghana, that being the woman who fed him.
I’ve found my second trip here particularly exhausting. I spend a lot of time going to and from markets buying things for the kids and a lot of time teaching the volunteers. The anticipation of new volunteers used to excite me, now it just makes me worry for how much those people will or will not want to work. Our last batch of humans has been lovely. There are two in particular, John and Aude, who will be here more than a month beyond when I leave and are very anxious to keep the home moving forward, not just keeping their head above water. I’m so grateful to have these people to take over for me when I leave, I would do nothing but worry if it wasn’t for them. Though, I’ll probably worry anyway.
George, the eldest boy at the home, has been causing problems for volunteers for a while. He doesn’t listen, takes discipline into his own hands and shirks his responsibilities. After many discussions about how we could fix this problem, we decided we would publically take away his responsibilities. He used to be prefect of the home, responsible for waking people in the morning and helping things run smoothly. He no longer has that power, it’s been shifted to Ema and Famous for the boys and Elizabeth and Anita for the girls, and thing have been moving SO MUCH BETTER in the mornings thanks to that. One problem solved!
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated donations. So here we go!
30c-Pay debt at bookshop
15c-Flip flops for a few kids
11.5c-School shoes for a few girls
35c-3 months worth of salt
32c-Pepper
40c-Palm nuts
18c-School bell to wake kids up in the morning
29.7c-Pomade
88c-1 month worth of baby formula
50c-Tinned fish
32c-Soap
12c-Maggi (similar to bullion cubes)
18c-Dry fish
5c-Guiding egg(a pepper-like vegetable)
5c-Peppers
10c-Ocra
20c-Laundry basket full of fresh tomatoes
6.5c-Ginger
45c-Half bag of onions
71c-Tinned tomatoes
146c-Vegetable oil
31c-Dustbins
11c-Buckets
8c-Market helper (carried all the above goods to the roadside where we would meet a cab)
20c-Taxi back to Dodowa with all the goods
1300c-2 bags garre, 1.5 bags beans, 2 bags corn
The above items were all purchased the week of February 20th
Backdated donations include-
330c-Drums
35c-Antibiotics for Elizabeth
5c-Antiseptic for Elizabeth
22.5c-School bags
22.5c-Notebooks
10c-5 brooms
70c-10 backpacks
77.5-Notebooks for all the kids
20c-Soap
27c-Soap/pampers
36c-Term 2 fees for all Catholic school kids
9.5c-Johnson’s exam fees
14c-School books for Malwine and Yvonne
42c-Drum transport from village to Dodowa
16c-School shirts for Malwine and Yvonne
15.5c-Pampers
20c-Beans (on day worth)
5c-Ocra (for one batch of soup)
20c-Palmnuts(small bag)
30c-Exam study books-one set for the home
14c-Lunch containers for those not served at school
57c-Dewormers
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| A small portion of the donations purchased with your gifts in the last week |
100c-Fabric for uniforms for children who have none
