Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween at the Dance Club

It's one of my favorite holidays, no religious overtone or expectation to travel or do any specific thing except have fun. Ghanaians don't know about Halloween, which is unfortunate. The do get the concept of trick or treating, but they do it for Christmas when you are walking down the street. Anyway, i'm trying to help them learn.

I explain to friends that Halloween is an important American holiday where people dress up in costumes, go to parties and get drunk! It is also a time for playing jokes on your friends and also people you don't know, but i've never been that into that aspect. While all of you back home do it up big time, think of me as you roam State St. in the midnight glow of giant spot lights and greet the herds of riot gear-clad soldiers for me. But hold your breath when the tear gas hits.

Last night i went with some other volunteers to the opening night of Bolga's hottest dance club, Celebrity. My friend Kimo, who djs the AIDS radio show with me, also manages the club, so we got a discount, but others were paying more than I make in a day to get in. It was totally a fancy night club, like from anywhere. Lots of very skimpily clad ladies and fancied up dudes were getting down and drinking expensive small beers. The Music was really loud and the lights flashed and smoke machine periodically made way too much smoke. With all the air conditioners it was still a little stuffy. Over all fun, but i wish more of my dancing buddies were there (good times at IQ night). Ghanaians love to dance, and there was plenty of bumping, grinding and general booty dancing by men and women. There's no problem dancing with people you don't know, and i grinded on and was grinded on by some men and women. i think i was the only white guy there, but there were an assortment of white ladies around. I tried to explain to one very enthusiastic dancer that white ladies don't usually like being grabbed without permission. He thanked me for the advice.

The club is fun, but i can't do it that often. It's exhausting and expensive. Tonight there is a party at one of the new VSOs houses. It's a "fancy dress party" so I'm gonna get dressed up all fancy. You'll see pictures. Enjoy the all that don't be too bad. send me your pictures and love. greet old friends.

Love,
-Toby

Sunday, October 25, 2009

more facebook photos

it's been a while,

here on facebook, more photos from a while ago.

-Toby

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Mouse wars

So i've been having this little war with some mice in my room. I'm a lover of all animals, but i condone their killing for certain purposes (to eat for example) and I have a hierarchy of tolerance for certain animals that are often called pests. Mostly i just deal with insects in the house, though. it goes like this:

welcomed: i encourage their presence and protect them when i can. ex: spiders, cats
tolerated: I don't mind them if they don't cause a problem. i like to study them. ex: ants, dust bunnies, beetles that get into the flour
discouraged: i don't go out of my way to kill them, but i don't want them in the house. ex: crickets, scorpions, moths, little bugs that fly into lights
kill on sight: i am prejudiced against them and expect them to do harm and no good. ex: mosquitos, flys, cockroaches

Usually I would put the mice in the "discouraged" category, my fellow mammals, i want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but i don't want to share my food with them. and they like to chew stuff up. A while ago, I started hearing chewing noises behind my dresser late at night. I figured a mouse must have take up residence, but she wasn't bothering my food staches so i didn't do much about it. It got more annoying when the noises came more often. When you're lying in bed miserabley hot and sweaty, tiny scratching and chewing sounds get annoying fast. I did some investigations and found that mice had chewed a hole in the wood in the back of the wooden closet cabinet thing i have, and they had chewed up some plastic bags and foam stuff i had stuffed back in the corner. it was time to take action. The cat that lives at my house, Evander, doesn't come inside so often, so i couldn't really blame her for not taking care of it.


I asked around in the market and got some mouse/rat poison stuff. The kid that sold it to me said i should mix it with food and leave it for the mouse, but not to put the dead mouse outside afterward or the other animals will eat it and die, and then i'll die when i eat them. check. I cleaned out around and behind the cabinet and a little grey mouse escaped out from under, so i prepped some treats for his return. The stuff was chemically smelling but looked like dried fish, i mushed it on some bread and stuck it under there.

I was a little concerned about the unpleasant smell of a decaying mouse, so i kept checking to see if it worked, but nothing. maybe he left and didn't come back? that would be good, but no. I left for the conferences and such in Southern Ghana, and when I came back it was obvious that the mouses were still around. Someone had chewed on my candles and even dragged one behind the cabinet. droppings and chewed plastic confirmed the new residents where rodentia. Seems the poison didn't work so well. They had eaten it all and expanded their domain to on top and the side of the cabinet too. I found their reason for all the work when i pulled the bags and stuff out again. The urge to reproduce is so strong, nestled in one of my chewed unwanted backpacks, were four tiny blind mouselets. They were about an inch long each, just growing a bit of black fur, but they squirmed around and huddled together when i exposed them.

My dilemma was this: I don't want them here, they can't survive anywhere else, seems a bit cruel to kill helpless creatures like that, but i also didn't want them to suffer undully. Also, they shouldn't go to waste. I thought about just tossing them outside, but then they would starve/freeze to death. I thought about stomping them, but that would be a little extreme, and not appealing to me. (it would also make a mess to clean up). I decided on a course of action that would lead to the mousies quick demise and anothers benefit. I put them, squirming, in my cats food dish on the porch. Once she found them, Evander was pleased, and so were her children, wild kitties that also live around the house. I do think she was a little insulted at the percieved insult that she couldn't catch her own food. I don't think the babies suffered much.

The next day it was time to clean out the nest for real. I have to empty out the cabinet everytime i want to tip it and get underneath, so it's a chore. when i did, two fat mice ran out and out of the room. I pursued and Evander was there to intercept one. Way to go kitty! She had no problem with a fiesty live prey animal. The other (daddy) mouse escaped for the time being. I thought he was gone, i cleaned up the place good with bleach and all. I didn't expect him back, but then one night i heard the chewing scratching again, so i went back to work.

I tipped the cabinet again, but no mouse came out. I didn't see him, so i tipped it back down. Then I noticed a tail sticking out from under the corner of the cabinet. I poked it and it wriggled around and went under the cabinet, but when i poked under there, i could feel something alive and wiggling. I put a little more weight on the cabinet and there was a little crunch, the tail stopped wiggling. I tipped the thing up again and was able to fish the ill-fated creature out from under the cabinet finally. The tail was a big tail, connected to a big mouse, and his head was squished. I had caught him under the edge of the cabinet when i moved it, and that was the end. I put him in the cat's dish and called them in. This time Evander acted like she had killed the mouse herself, all protecting her catch and growling.

A rather longwinded account of my mundane, if not mildly gruesome adventures. I found it amusing enough.

I also found a baby sheep in a street gutter and lifted it out to be reunited with it's mother. That story is a little more uplifting. as you wish.

love,
-Toby

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Still here

The other day i ate mac and cheese and spam with a titanium spork. It was awesome.

love,
Toby

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Travel

Like I promised some time ago.

I've been traveling around a lot lately, briefly: I went to PEPFAR IST with Robert. It was in Kumasi, but not a the KSO, at a fancy hotel with a pool. The only APCD there was John, Wat/San. It was a good conference, learned about HIV/AIDS, hung out with other northern PCVs Some COSing PCVs stopped by too, nice to see them. After a week of that, Robert went back to Sirigu and I went to Accra for National VAC. It went fine, but I spent too much money on food and alcohol in Accra. That's how it always is. Also, some volunteers ran the Accra Marathon and did awesome. I spectated and got a sunburn. we went to a cool little place called Honeysuckle and had bear fights. Bear fights are good times. Now i'm on my way back home to start up the old teaching schedule. it will be good to get back to normal after all the irregularity and debauchery. (Yeah for acronyms! don't worry if this part is a little opaque, it's not really that important.)

Travel in Ghana is easy if you know a little about how it works. For our PST, we went out and figured out how to travel around Accra on our second (maybe third?) day in country. If you are in the south and going short distances, the easiest thing to do is catch a trotro. A tro is a mini bus or big van that holds about 15+ people and cruises along set routes, picking and dropping passengers. The "mate" hangs out the side of the tro and calls to people telling them where the tro is going and encouraging people to get on. example: "AccraAccraAccraAccra!" You wave at the tro and it screeches to a halt, then you jump on and it goes again. You give the mate a few coins, the prices and routes are set, so it pays to know where you want to go. When you want to drop, you yell to the mate or the driver and they stop. The tro is one of the cheapest ways to travel, not too comfortable, and pretty fast. Be prepared to deal with overcrowding, breastfeeding mothers, goats on the roof, crazy loud music and honking horns, reckless driving, and less than water tight windows and roofs (hopefully only rain falls on you.) Tros come in all colors and styles, mostly old and rebuilt, lots of stickers on them with wierd sayings on the back window like "Still Innocent Boy" or "Think Twice".

Around cities, you can charter taxis as well. Agree on a price before you get in, because there's no meter. If you don't, you're likely to get ripped off or cause an argument. It's appropriate to bargain with the driver, and it again it pays to know the local standard. You can also take a line car, which is the same as a taxi but it runs a set route and picks and drops people along the way for a low set price. You won't be as crowded in a line car, and if you want, a line car can turn into a dropping car (chartered). Before you get in, you should ask the driver where he's going and if he's a line car. Taxis are mostly little sedans or hatchbacks and have yellow side panels front and back.

For longer trips, you can also take tro. Go to the area of the station where you can get a "filling tro" to your destination. You buy a ticket in advance and wait for the tro to fill up. You can wait on the tro or sit at the station, but sometimes you can be waiting for a long time... like many many hours! there are certain routes that fill faster and times of the day which are better, so learn this stuff if you can before you travel. Once you're full, they'll load lots of stuff on top and take off. It's still crowded and fairly uncomfortable but a pretty good price, and if it fills fast, can be very convenient. I take a filling tro always from Bolga to Tamale, leaves in about a half hour, 4 cedis for 3 hr ride. not bad.

For longer rides still or for more comfort, there are lots of bus companies in Ghana. They go from city to city, leave at set times and make few stops along the way. For many, you can get advanced tickets the day before. The nices buses, like STC, have air conditioning, comfy seats, play movies and are generally very nice when you have a 9 hr bus ride. Bolga to Kumasi on STC is 14 cedis. Cheaper options like Metro (9 cedis) lack AC, movies, and have harder seats, but sometimes I prefer to sacrifice comfort for money. (5 cedis is three beers!) Some buses leave in the evening or afternoon and go all night. PC says we shouldn't travel at night, so of course i never do.

All of these travel options bring with them the possibility of a beakdown. If it's just the tire, the driver will get out, change it and get going again. If it's the axel, you're walking. If it's with a bus company, you're waiting for another bus to come and take you the rest of the way (i waited 7 hrs with STC once).

A little travel story: When Rachel was here, we were riding on a metro bus and our bus hit another truck! we were in the back, when suddenly swerve and smash! It was rather scarey. We didn't die, our bus was only minorly busted: crunched front corner, cracked windshield, scrapes along the side. The other truck was pretty smashed up, right ont he drivers side. It turns out the driver of the other truck (bigger than a pickup, smaller than a semi) was parked going our way, then started to turn into us and we swerved and clipped front corners. The truck spun off and a lot of the rice bags in the back broke and spilled rice all over the road. They took the other driver to the hospital before i saw him, so I don't know how bad it was, but there wasn't any blood in the busted cab, so i think he might have survived. We the passengers of the dented bus had to wait 6 hrs for them to bring a new bus to finish our trip. Luckily Rachel and I used the time to go visit the Kintampo Water Falls. worth it if you have 6 hrs to kill at the falls rest stop. So why didn't I tell you about this incident sooner? I didn't want you to worry, and really, time is relative, so it may as well have happened yesterday from your point of view. Rachel posted some pictures of me and the bus on facebook, check em out.

Love to all yall,
-Toby