Move in

Sue and I moved into our three-bedroom bungalow on Monday, Jan. 11 following a week of renovations (new air-conditioner, security gates, some lighting, etc.)

We have been assigned a 24-hour security guard (3 8-hour shifts), not on our request, but we have no problem having them around (there are still a few spots in the bungalow that are a bit too accessible from the large back yard). Must confess to a bit of “post-colonial” guilt here – the guards, like all KNUST staff, are incredibly deferential, insist on carrying anything you have up to the house for you, call us “Sir” and “Madame,” and two of them even salute me when I come in and out. It’s a little weird.

Our yard consists primarily of extremely dense vegetation, and we were happy to see mango, orange, papaya (paw-paw), pears, cocoa, bananas, cassava, and other fruits and veggies growing in the cleared areas (the papayas have been outstanding; the mangoes are not yet ripe). We also have several large palm trees, and a woman came and cut off a few large palm branches, hacking on them for nearly an hour, then turned the job over to a young boy who cut away hundreds of individual palm nuts that we learned would be used for palm soup. Beyond the back yard is the “valley,” which is uninhabited and consists of impenetrable trees, shrubs, grasses and who knows what else. We also have two small outbuldings known as the “boy squatters’ houses” on the property, wherein a small family that we have yet to meet or even see lives. We were told it was our decision whether they are allowed to stay or not.

The acoustic ecology of our surroundings is amazing. Between 5 and 6 am, thousands of birds circle the yard and create a contrapuntal cacophony of mammoth proportions. We hear other assorted chirps, caws, croaks, and tweets throughout the day. The enormous flock of bats that appears at dusk makes its own unique symphony, and the goats that our neighbor is raising let loose with their yelps around our dinner time (maybe theirs, too). We also hear the large number of neighborhood loose dogs raising a ruckus from time to time (day or night), and the sound of an avocado falling from a tree onto our slanted tin roof adds an always-surprising entry into the ongoing environmental ambient performance. We heard gunshots this morning and learned that people were shooting the bats. Our daytime security guard, a very sharp Ghanaian who is fluent in French from his years studying in Cote D’Ivoire, told me that they are shot to be eaten; he had bagged two on his way to work.

Ghanaians typically have two or more media playing simultaneously; we have been to many restaurants, hotels, bars and other establishments where a TV and a radio are both on. Soccer matches run nearly 24/7 on one or both of the devices and religious programs are also ubiquitous.

We sprang for cable TV to boost our channel access from the 5 locally available to 50, and of those, at least 45 are religious (predominantly Christian, but a fair number of Muslin as well). Occasionally, those stations will switch to some sort of rural/ethnic programming, and we watched an amazing video of a live ceremony, in which each of a large number of clans (a clan is a social unit larger than an extended family but smaller than a tribal ethnic group) performed in costumes that exemplified their respective animal totem (symbol). These included bats, dogs, buffalo, birds and more.

The only three non-indigenous channels are BBC, Fox Africa (which shows old Simpsons, Scrubs and Buffy repeats), and MGM (old movies – the same ones run everyday for a week). Al Jezeera (sp) and National Geographic Adventure (with Arabic subtitles) fill out the roster. The local channels run a series of “rural-based” (village settings) soap operas, complete with traditional dress, the best of which is Africa Magic. Fortunately, we have a large collection of unread books, and catching up on regional news in the paper is always fascinating. We have also been waiting most of the week for our Internet service to be installed, but we’re not expecting much. The service we purchased (for almost $50 per month!) runs at 128 kb, and unless I read the specs wrong, that’s about the speed of a modem I used 15 years ago.

We’re in the dry season now, and the harmattan winds blow dust all the way down from the Sahara; clean up is pretty much a constant endeavor. We are fastidious in every respect – even a single crumb of food will draw ants in an instant. We have to boil the tap water to use it even for washing dishes, and preparing food (mostly fruit and veggies – there is no meat at the local “super” market) is a time-consuming affair. Our commitment to the environment has taken a step backwards – we go through about a case (12) of large bottled water bottles per day, and I am not aware of any recycling efforts anywhere in the area (we’ll keep looking for a 5-gallon dispenser). We also use only paper plates in order to reduce the amount of cleanup. We keep in our (small) fridge just about enough food for a day or two, pretty much mandatory, as the power goes out randomly, at times for a few hours. We also learned this week that water is being rationed and that it will be available for only four days per week for the near future. We've both given up coffee for tea - instant coffee is the only thing you can find anywhere.

The fellow who picks up our garbage every morning (in a wheel barrel!) asked me to save out the bottles for him, and when I asked, he said he had an (undefined) use for them; like every Ghanaian we have met, he seems to be very industrious. The plumber who came to fix a clogged drain had no snake with him; he simply went into the back yard, cut a few long bamboo branches from our tree, and whittled them down to the size he needed. It’s amazing what people accomplish using only natural resources.

Logistics
I picked up a used 125cc Piaggio motor scooter this week (Piaggio makes the Vespa brand, which is what mine is), and it has been a huge help in getting around our very large campus. We have also been assigned a driver who takes us in a pickup truck to get large items, groceries and the like. There’s a very small commercial area on campus with a bank, a post office, and a couple of stalls selling dry goods, and a small town right outside the gates that has a small grocery store. For most things, we head into the Adum (city center) area of Kumasi, about a 20-minute ride. At every stop light along the way, people come up to the truck to sell numerous items, ranging from paint brushes to toilet paper to bags of fried plantains to Golden Tree chocolate, my favorite brand.

Adum sits just above the Central Market (aka Kejetia), which, at 10,000 stalls, is the largest in West Africa. Sue and I ventured around the market today with no trouble; there’s a mass of humanity even on the outskirts.

Travelling after dark is like entering Dante’s Inferno. In additional to the smoke from factories burning charcoal (for sale) and the ever-present diesel-fuel exhaust filling the air, there are small, individual fires burning down every alley (and of course, the ever-present burning garbage). There are no street lights or street signs (mail is not delivered), and only some of the larger potholes can be seen before being entered. Wheeless tro-tros (public transportation vans), broken down semis, and stalled cars are found at every turn, both in the middle and on the side of the road. Like everywhere else, patience is the required response. If a driver doesn’t know the way somewhere, he will lean out of the window, address the next person he sees as “Brother,” “Boss,” “Champion,” “Chief,” “President” or some other familiar term and request directions.

I'll be visiting an orphanage this weekend where I might be working. Stay tuned!
-DHM