Tougher skin all over, except the soles of my feet! October 24, 2006

Two weeks or more have passed since my las post, but definitely not for lack of adventure. I’ve been to ethiopia and back and not one day has ended without catastrophy, surprise, outrage, disbelief or total hilarity.

Highlights include:

1. Sneaking out of boring (only because I con’t speak/understand Twi) elder’s meeting in remote Ghanaian village to play volley ball with soiled, shoeless, joyful village children.

2. Regared as foolish by elders until presenting the Queenmother with a personal box of Lindor Chocolates.

3. Awarded ceremonial scarf by Queenmother. Reputation regained.

4. Fought off a weak case of the ‘Laria or a string of persisent cases of Traveller’s DI.

5. Transformed a traditional Ethiopian dance night into Val’s one-woman salsa show. Two bottles of imported wine had nothing to do with it.

6. Ingera, Kitfo, Yebeg Tibs, Shiro Wat extravaganza

7. Obesity

8. Wallet stolen out of purse in Internet cafe by employee

9. Fear and shame carefully instilled within said employee

10. Contents of wallet returned two days later

11. Chewed endemic Ethiopian narcotic plant. Similar to Buckley’s: Rotten taste, great effects!

12. Spent 9 hours in a beauty salon having my head braided. A kind woman took it upon herself to give me a pedicure… Evidently she did not know what she was getting herself into. It took her a good hour to scrape off the 2 decades worth of dead skin on the bottom of my feet. I had no idea that pedicures were more than just aesthetic. I actually felt sensation in my soles for the first time in years! Now, I can’t walk on hot coals anymore, but at least I won’t have to fake laughing the next time a boyfriend tickles my feet to try and woo me!
I love everything about Ethiopia. It is by far my favourite country that I work in. Coming back to Accra sucks. It is too hot. Of the 2 Twi words I know, I found out that one isn’t even a word. There are rolling blackouts, which means that there was no power in the office and I’m a day behind.

But Sweet , Sweet Ethiopia….ahhhhh …. Ethiopia is Valhalla. Ethiopia is the promised land where one can drink REAL coffee as opposed to that damn Nescafe that pollutes all of West Africa.

Three days and I leave for home. I’m actually looking forward to my return this time. I’ll only have 3 weeks before leaving for Mali and Senegal, but I am going to sit in my bathtub and soak for at least 65% of that time to retain the effects of the pedicure.

Love to all,

Tir

No Itch? Halleluiah! October 6, 2006

Ok, so where was I? Oh yes. I wake up on Sunday morning, scratching the flesh off my left leg. From my ankle to my shin, I’m covered in bites–20, maybe 30. How is it possible that in EVERY BED I’ve ever slept in Africa I have gotten bedbug bites?! Huh? Ok, I don’t stay at the Hiltons and the Radissons, but come on! A 3-star hotel should at the very least have some pest control mechanism. Whatever. I actually invested in “Afterbite” this time–a purchase I decided to make since my inability to control my scratch response causes ungodly blemishes all over my legs. So I’ve been carrying my Afterbite in my lapel pocket beside my pen and my daily malaria pill, and applying liberally.

On that Sunday morning, I slathered up, put on my best suit and shoes (cause I know how fancy African ladies get when they go out) and headed off to church. The building was nothing fancy. It was a concrete building with some mosaic decor on the wall behind the altar. The rest of the sides had no walls. The roof was tall and met at a peak in the middle. Half of the church was lined with pews. The other half had plastic chairs neatly arranged. I followed my friends in. Asamoah, the father of the family, went and sat on the other side of the church while Agnes, his wife, these two Dutch girls and I sat in our pew, specifically assigned to us. At this point, I had no idea what this all meant. There was no evident divide between men and women. But it was clear that Asamoah and Agnes were meant to sit in separate areas. The two teenage children went to a warehouse-like building across the field for the youth service.

The service began. A guy started to speak. The guy with the priest collar just sat on his chair on the altar. I’m not up on my Methodist hierarchy. During the first part of the service, the unmarked man just stood on the pulpit and told us repeatedly to pray to God through Jesus for all of his graces. He was relatively calm for about 3 minutes and then the show began.

“We have got to pray brothers and sistas to the good lord, for he is mighty and he is great and he has given us his son, brothas and sistas! We have got to pray!” he shouted.

As he told us all the things to pray for, a loud buzz began in the church. I thought we were being swarmed by wasps, so fearing for the rest of my unblemished skin, I looked around and noticed that everyone in the church had their heads lowered and were whispering things to themselves. Some people had their hands lifted, some were nodding their heads vigourously and some were crying. “The Lord will not forsake us. What did I just say?”

“The Lord will not forsake us!” yelled the congregation.

“I say AMEN!” he preached.

“HALLELUIAH!” everyone yelled.

“AMEN!” he cried.

“Halleluiah!” they yelled.

“Amen! Halleluiah!” The calls continued.

“Let us stand and show the Lord our gratitude!”

This is when we all got up. The band started up. The drums sounded. The songs began! Then the clapping. Within minutes the whole church was dancing. Beautiful, colourful women went up to the front of the church and danced in a circle, singing in harmonies and shaking what the good lord gave them. I was loving every moment.

We sat down after a couple of songs. What will possibly come next? By now an hour had gone by and the priest guy still hadn’t said a word. A lady goes up to the microphone and says,

“The time has now arrived where we welcome all the new members and visitors to our church.”

Great, I think. That’s real nice. Thanks for welcoming me, I thought in my head. I was never formally welcomed to any other religious service.

“Please, all the new people stand up.”

Oh god, no. I’m one of 3 white people in this place. I already stand out enough. Don’t make me stand. Agnes signals to me that I have to stand now. Fine. So I do one of those half stand, half sit, where the quads are holding all your weight. We get a clap. I start to sit down when:

“Now we’d like to invite all of you up to the front to tell us who you are and why you are here and if you will be worshipping with us every week.”

You have got to be kidding me! There are five of us. We get to the front and I’m thinking, “One of these things is not like the other…”.

Ok. I’ll just listen to what everyone else says and then make-up some thing appropriate.

The first guy goes. He speaks in Twi. His speech is way longer than what it would take to say my name is and I’ll be here every week. The audience gives his a resounding applause.

Ok. Fingers crossed for number 2. Twi again. Damn! And not only Twi, but everyone is laughing their tats off! What could this chick be saying? She goes on for several minutes.

Number 3. TWI again! Now people are clapping and laughing as this guys talks. Who are these people and what are they saying?! Obviously the fourth guy also speaks in Twi, so I’m totally FUBARed. The good lord was obviously forsaking me today…

They pass me the mike. Throat cleared. “Ehem. My name is Tir. Um, I’m in Ghana for a week on business.” No reaction from the crowd.

“Uuummm, I’ve never been to a Methodist church before so my friend Asamoah invited me here today.” Ok, I got a few smiles.

“Well, I really love it! I love the dancing and the singing and the energy!”

The church goes wild! Claps and shouts! Wow, is that all I had to say?

“And I hope to come back every time I’m in Accra!”

“Amen! Halleluiah!” The people shout.

Ok. That wasn’t so bad.

The service goes on for 4 hours. Seriously. It started at 9:30 and we left at 1:30. I kinda fell asleep when the priest-like guy was giving his sermon. I was awake and interested during his comparison of tadpoles and faith, but then lost the gusto during the last half of his hour-long speech.

Well, I’m off on a trip to Kumasi at 4 am and now it’s 10pm. One of the professors I work with here is a Chief in a village outside of Kumasi so he is going to take me there tomorrow. It will be about a five hour drive. We will come back tomorrow night and I will leave for Ethiopia on Sunday. So I’m gonna sign off. I’ll take pics of the village and such.

Then end.

Who’s playing Accra? October 4, 2006

God, where to begin…

So I’m in Accra, Ghana. Africa has become sort of routine now. I can’t believe that I just said that. I never thought I’d actually feel that. But tonight that is kind of how I feel. I’m staying at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel. It’s the place I usually stay when I come to Accra. So when I checked in four nights ago, it felt like I’d arrived home. The folks behind the counter were the same. “Miss Valeria! You’re back!” in their welcoming Ghanaian accents, “Akwaaba! You are welcome.” I wish there were a way to write accents into these quotations. That is half the fun of retelling stories about people you meet in Africa…or anywhere for that matter. Ghanaians love saying Akwaaba to all the foreigners cause that is usually the only word we know. I pride myself on knowing two words in Twi: Akwaaba and Nganganyeah. The second means Bat and I know that word because I’ve made a promise to a good friend to eat a Nganganyeah before leaving Ghana.
So I’m travelling with this colleague, Teebee. He’s a 65 year old guy who lived in Ghana for 8 years between 1965 and 1995, so he fancies himself a local. “Whoa there big fella!”, is what I want to say to him an average of 43 times a day. Things change in 11 years and that is an understatement in a developing country like Ghana where not only are they developing industrially and technologically, but also undergoing democratization. Anyway, Teebee is driving me bananas with constant quest to find his old haunts of yore. The other night we went on this epic adventure in search of Chez Marylou, some European style restaurant that he used to eat at in the 70s. We ended up taking three taxis from our hotel, each one dropping us off at another location where Chez Marylou may have been 30 years ago. That’s right, not where it may be now. To find this place, we had at our disposal Teebee’s prehistoric memories and a five-year-old yellow pages. Needless to say we never found it, but ended up at Hin Lone, a chinese restaurant that he also used to frequent often.

Now Teebee thinks he’s hilarious and he often cracks himself up when he retells these blockbuster tales of his time in Ghana. “There was this one time, in 1975, when I lived in Accra, that I went to Cheese Marylou and they boiled a live turtle in front of my eyes, right on my table. Chuckle Chuckle… Cheese Marylou is the only place I’ll eat fried frog legs.” You see, the point of the stories was not in the substance but in his replacing “Chez” with “Cheese”. He thinks this is prime comedic material. Well, let me tell you, if you find his humour compelling, there are plenty more stories within his antedeluvian memory. I’m trying to get him to start a blog–mostly because then that may be his story outlet rather than my aching ears.

On Sunday morning, I decided to take in a Methodist church service with my friend and his family. I had never, surprisingly enough, been to a Christian service of any kind in an African country. I’ve been to Muslim weddings and Muslim holy day celebrations (of course never in a Mosque), but never to anything Christian, so I thought it was due time. Well, was I ever knocked off my Christianity is boring pedestal.

Stay tuned for the riveting sequel to this story… It’s way passed my bedtime.

Love to all,

Val resigned to mosquito bites

The VBC and other misappropriations October 2, 2006

September 29^th in Canada, although it is most likely September 30^th in Accra, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I ceased to wear a watch years ago.

Tonight, KLM is my home. Turbulent skies are my cradle. Exotic lands are the backdrops of y dreams. Africa is my destination.

Funny how one only feels the speed of her jetliner chariot when it is being tossed about through unrelenting pockets of air.

Our seatbelts have been fastened again. The feed service has been truncated two rows from where I am sitting. Damn! I’m hungry! And all because of a little turbulence. Pshaw! What are the chances of the plane actually crashing? Ok! Ok! I know. Maybe I just tempted the fates. But really… Those Royal-Blue-Clad girls could have pushed their trolleys 2 extra rows to feed me before stowing the food cars and fastenings their belts.

Aside: Other than sailors and pilots, who actually “stows” anything?

In my carry-on bag I haphazardly threw 2 books from my “still-to-read” shelf. Ironically enough, both books seem to be the natural sequiters to the week of the VBC—Val’s Broadcasting Corporation.

I don’t know why, but this past week, more than ever before, I lived and breathed CBC radio, and oddly apparent only to me, the CBC aired programs that tugged at every emotional string in my being—as though the producers hung hammocks in my spirit, chilled out there for about 12 months, absorbed all my subconscious thoughts, craftily masked them as radio programs and strategically aired them this past week, when I most needed to hear them, but least could handle them.

It is oddly amazing how the CBC can be one’s confidant and one’s tool for introspection on the one hand and one’s only connection to the world on the other hand—and all in the span of a one-hour program.

Last week on Wire Tap, Jonathan Goldstein, in his dry and sarcastically compassionate ways, explored the theme of unrequited love. I had the fortune of hearing the program twice—most likely as a reflection of the exaggerated proportion of misadventures of the heart that mark my life.

And yet, no matter how pathetic the Pos and the Blakes and the Alighieris have made this subject, Goldstein almost makes you feel exalted for being on the unrequited side of love. He has a way of appealing to the romantic, to the love-deprived lunatic and to the desperado in each of us. He profiles people whose desperation puts to shame regular people’s embarrassing attempts at seduction—midnight gay-club scavenger hunts and riding bikes in stilettos and a cocktail dress through downtown desolate streets in the hope of securing love, but instead hobbling home with a broken heal in one hand and a flat-tired bike in the other.

Then there is Stuart MacLean whose Vinyl Café this week was dedicated to reading testimonials on being Canadian—a wonderful response to a US middle school teacher’s request for letters on what living in Canada is like. But he inspires with this understated intellect. He has a way of appealing simultaneously to the child, to the intellectual, to the nationalist and to the elitist in each of us, while making us feel privileged and special and unique within our own individual selfishness.

The CBC unites this country in ways that no other entity does. Not only is it the one apparent common thread that weaves itself throughout, but it also renders apparent those unknown commonalities that escape us when we are overshadowed by our regional hats.

As such, in an ostensible knowledge-sharing activity with our neighbours to the South, Stuart MacLean brought this country together last Sunday through story.

And now, on this plane, I read a compilation of old programs aired on Ideas. And once again, the CBC reaches out to me as I move further and further away from my country.

I don’t know if it is ironic or totally predictable that as I head to Africa for the second time this year, I am consumed by thoughts of my country and how my travels always take me away and how little I really know about it. Like, what is the meaning behind the Canadian flag? Someone asked me that in Ethiopia last time I was there, and I didn’t know the answer. Aside from the maple leaf, why red and white? Why the two stripes? I keep forgetting to look it up but will do so as soon as I get myself to a computer with internet access in Ghana.

The turbulence has stopped. My food has arrived. We didn’t crash… See, I told you.