Elections and Churches

Greetings Friends,

Things here in Ghana are just fine, thanks for asking. I'm getting into a groove with my teaching schedule, although I still feel I have a lot to learn about Ghanaian culture before I can say that I truely understand the rhythm of life here. I've been here for over 5 months, now. That's the longest period of time I have ever lived outside the US, longer than my study abroad experience in Ecuador. It seems like the time has simply flown by. In reality, I still am only beginning, 5 months out of 27 to go. wow.

I hear that the weather is getting colder in Wisconsin, some snow even? Here it is getting dryer and dryer. The plants are turning brown, trees are starting to lose their leaves. No exciting fall colors here. The harvest is mostly over it seems, and the fields of millet that normally surround everything have been cut down. The stalks get used for cooking fuel. It seems that suddenly a lot of buildings and things have appeared where they weren't before. Really I just couldn't see them. Now I can see for quite a way, and when all the grasses and plants are gone, and all the trees are bare, I will see for miles and miles... The land is mostly flat here, so it really opens up when everything is dead. It's getting dustier. Now, rather than setting, the sun just sinks into the red haze on the horizon. I'm told it will get much worse, and when the Harmaton winds come from the north, there will be dust everywhere. A good thing though, is that they will bring cooler air with them. I'll let you all know how "cold" it actually gets here. Ghanaians tell me it gets really cold, but my descriptions of frozen lakes and snow in the US are amazing to them.



I'm happy with the results of the Presidential election in the US, and Ghana will soon be having its own Presidential election, on December 7th. There is propganda all over the place for the major political parties, the NPP and the NDC. The situation is similar to what the US had: the incumbent president has served for two terms, totalling 8 years, and cannot run again. The two main parties have candidates that have been campaigning all over the country, and one of them will win the election. The challenge here is that Ghana is a very young democracy. There is a real danger of violence if a change of power doesn't go smoothly, or if the elections are not transparent, and foul play is alleged. The radio is constantly playing messages of peace and encouraging people not to cause violence or problems. It is quite different than in the US. We don't really consider the possibility that the Republicans won't give up the White House in January, they will because that's how the system works. Here, the system is young and not as established. The worry is that the incumbent party will not hand over power if they are not reelected. Everyone is pledging to be fair and transparent, including the incumbents, but it will be a real test of the system to see if Ghana can have peacefull elections this year, or if problems will erupt like they have recently in other African countries. The Peace Corps is taking no chances with us volunteers. We will all be together at the All Volunteer Conference during the week of the elections. We will be secure there, and if neccessary, they can wisk us away to safety if a crisis happens. I really hope everything goes well, it would be a shame to have to leave so soon after establishing myself here. I am growing to like this place a lot. All of you at home: don't worry about me. Follow the Ghana elections and hope for the best.

Churches. I'm not a particularly religious person and never really have been. I don't go to church in the States, but here I visit once in a while as part of the cultural experience. Ghana is very strongly christian, and in the north here, the is also a large muslim population. I've been to the large Catholic church in Sirigu a number of times, and the familiarity of the ritual is comforting, even though I'm not Catholic. Most of the service is in Gurune, but they translate some of the sermon for me when I come. Mostly I go because it is an important part of community involvement, and I want to interact with my community. Last Sunday, I went to a smaller church called "Assemblies of God." It was really fun because the first hour was all singing and dancing with drums. I love to dance, so I had a great time. Many of the church members are my students, and it was really neat to see them talking in front of the congregation and leading songs and prayers. Church is much more fun here than I've experienced in the US. It's also a lot longer. 3 hour services are not uncommon. Another cool thing is that when someone is singing or dancing, if you really enjoy the performace, you can go and stick a coin on their forehead. The money goes to the church and it shows how much you appreciate their effort. It also looks funny to see people with coins stuck to their foreheads. I'll continue to visit other churches in my community, and I want to go to a mosque as well. People here are very religious, and I'm learning to go along with that.

I hope everything well with all of you. Thanks to everyone who has sent me mail and packages. I really, really appreciate it.

Love,
-Toby

Seasons

It is starting to get drier here. It hasn't rained in about 3 or 4 weeks, and the locals say that we might get one more good storm before the real dry season happens. Already the grasses and fields of millet are looking brown and some have been cut and harvested. the stalks get used for cooking fuel or animal fodder. When everything is really dry, all the plant life dies and you can see far far far. I'll take some pictures. The change is coming surprisingly fast, and I'm excited about it mostly, except for the whole dryness thing. My nose feels funny in the low humidity, and my heels are dry, but I'm taking care of myself, so I'll be fine. I'm told that the borehole nearest my house dries up in the driest dry season, so that is not so good. I'll survive, I have students do fetch water for me!

I am working with a teacher in Wisconsin and we are doing a pen-pal letter writing project to connect her students to mine in Ghana. I sent the first package of letters from my students today, so they will be arriving in WI in a few weeks, i guess. It will be exciting when we get the responses. My students where happy to write to their "American friends."

I bought a guitar today. I don't know how to play it. Yet. I'm going to teach myself, so if you, my friends and family, have any songs you would like me learn and play for you, let me know. Send me tabs, i guess.

I stepped on a 3 inch scorpion with my bare foot the other night, it was outside my bathroom. Surprisingly, it didn't sting me, just crawled along the wall. My housemate, Robert, was pretty scared of it, and he wanted to kill it, but I wouldn't let him. I examined it for a while and then let it outside. It will be much happier there. It had really cool long claws like tiny hemostats and a big curled barbed tail. cool, cool.

Love to you all,
-Toby

Life goes on

I'm still living in Ghana and I'm still teaching science in the middle of no where. I'm doing well, keeping busy mostly and still adjusting to a culture that is very different my own. I posted a bunch of pictures on facebook here.

A story: One night, i was up late reading or preparing my lessons by candlelight when I heard a big commotion, barking, whining, puppy crying. When it didn't stop right away, I rushed outside to find out what was going on. Kraman Baa sleeps out on the porch and it sounded like she was being attacked or something. I struggled with the door longer than I should have, it was locked, duh. When i finally got outside, I found three of the watchmen from the school standing over the body of a dead dog...(dramatic storytelling, huh?).

The dog wasn't my puppy, she was hiding in the corner crying piteously and appeared to be wet. I comforted my dog and was able to make her stop crying. She was very scared, but fortunately she did not appear to be injured. She had peed on herself, she was so scared. Poor thing! The intruder dog must have come in the night and attacked Kraman Baa and scared her, waking up the watchmen. These guys are just local farmers, but they didn't hesitate. They carry wooden clubs and they literally beat the dog to death in front of my house. When I got there the strange dog was already looking very dead, but the men were giving it the occasional whack in the head just in case. They were very excited, but concerned for Kraman Baa, saying that the strange dog was sick and that she needed to get medicine. I explained with relief that Kraman Baa had gotten her rabies vaccine and everything should be fine.

The watchmen were also excited because it meant that they were going to have a party the next night. They dragged the dead dog away from my door aways, gutted it, and hung it in a tree in my front yard. There it stayed all the next day until the evening when they butchered it and cooked it in a really big pot over charcoal outside. Eating dog here is actually pretty common. People even buy dogs at the market to have a party and eat it. It also didn't seem to bother these guys that they didn't know whose dog it was. I don't know if the dog really had rabies or not, but it didn't matter to them. Kraman Baa seems to be fine, now.

Eating dog, or cat for that matter, sounds strange and horrible to us, but it's only our culture that says there is some difference between a dog and a cow, pig, or chicken. People here don't treat their dogs and cats like we do in the States. Dogs are animals, not part of the family. And it's hard to get too worked up about animal rights or excessive cruelty to animals when there are people here who are so poor they can't always eat. It's just the way things go in Ghana I guess. Life goes on.

Animals?

My mom sent me a picture of a cute little tree frog tucked into a big dahlia flower. I don't see any frogs around here, although I'm sure there are a few. It's just that most places, the ground absorbs the rain very quickly and leaves it dry. There are some marshy areas around with water lilies in them. Mostly I see toads hopping around. I was sitting with the night watchman one night and a toad hopped by. It was a normal sized toad, maybe 2 inches long, and he taught me the name in Frafra. I forget the name, but i remember that it meant toad-child, meaning that the one we saw was a little one. He showed me with his hands how big the big ones get, making a shape the size of a grapefruit. I'll keep my eyes open for one of those. I saw a really big spider 4" and some really big cockroaches 3" in my house, and there are ants all over, some pretty big and fast.

I don't see too many animals here, except farm animals. There is the occasional lizard scurrying around, but considerably fewer than in the southern part of the country. They like to climb trees, and we don't have as many trees here. Mostly I see birds. There are vultures, doves, some kind of crow, a big grackle type bird, and a handful of small multicolored bird species. There are also the occasional larger bird with a big curved bill, some kind of toucan or horn bill, I imagine. I have a bird book, and eventually I'll take the time to look them all up and make a list for you guys. I just haven't had the time for as many leisure activities here.

Doing well, getting by.
-Toby

Ghana quirks and a new Address

Thanks to all who continue to keep me informed of the outside world and send me positive energies and encouragement. As for mail, thanks to all who have sent me mail, although I haven't received it yet. I have joined some other PCV's in the area in using a post office box in Bolga, where I'll be able to check it more often, and hopefully, mail will be delivered faster. If you send something to the Peace Corps address, it will still get to me, it will just take some time. The below address is fine to send letters and packages. Thanks!!

Toby Koy
PO Box 743
Bolgatanga, UER
Ghana, West Africa

I'll let you know when and if I get something, that way you'll know it got to me.

I've been doing pretty good, here. The first week of classes at my school has just ended, but there is still plenty of organizing to do, and it will take some time for me to get the flow of the place. I'll address the topic of school at a later time.

The money in Ghana is called the Cedi, pronounced like "CD." Just last year the money was revalued, to stabilize the economy I suppose, and now there are two ways to talk about money: The old cedi and the new Ghana Cedi. The new GH Cedi is about equal to the dollar, and 1 GHC is equal to 10,000 old cedis. They have all new money, nice color coded bills and shiny coins, but half the time, people still refer to prices using the old numbers. In the market, the woman tells me that the heads of garlic are 3,000 each. She means 30 pesewas (or 30 cents). Since I buy a lot of things that are less than a GH Cedi, I often convert back and forth, and I usually don't get confused, many people do, it's new for everyone. People say "tousand" which means 10 pesewas/cents. It pays to have an idea of the approximate cost of something, so if the vender says "3" you will be able to guess if he/she means 3,000 (30 pesewas) or GHC 3.00.

Here are some common costs of things I buy: pure water satchet 500ml: 500 cedi (5 pesewas), freshtaste-like a fruity freezepop: 5 pesewas, corn roasted over coals by street vender: 20 pesewas (the corn isn't the sweet corn like in the states, but It's still pretty good), FanYogo-strawberry yogurt frozen treat: 40 pesewas, bag of ground-nut paste(peanut butter) 1/2 cup: 50 pesewas, dry local rice about 500 ml: 80 pesewas, big loaf of sweet bread: 1 GH Cedi, pint jar of fruit jam: GHC 2.50. A lot of food is not very expensive here, just the imported foods like the jam are more costly. Local produce and things made here(like the ground-nut paste) are pretty cheap.

In the market, and at food stands, you often buy food by cost, rather than volume. For instance, you wouldn't say, "Give me 3 tomatoes," you would say, "Give me tomatoes 2,000". Vendors will arrange there things in little piles, and then tell you the cost of each pile. Often they will have two or three sizes. With bulk things like rice or flour, they have different cups or cans and a price for each. When you buy food at a market, they will often put it in a bag for you, no matter what it is. They even put oil, honey, or kerosine in a plastic bag if you buy it. The plastic bag really is the only container that is used here.

People sell lots of stuff off their heads. Carrying things on your head here is standard, so it's not uncommon to see someone with a huge bowl of some product on their head. Sometimes it's a box with clear sides so you can see the food, or a bucket with a lid. It is impressive that people are able to balance heavy things so well, and the women (especially) all have good posture because they often carry heavy things on their heads.

As for me, I cook most of my own food now. I'm happy with that, even though ingredients are limited. I can always find garlic, onions, tomatoes and okra. Also dried hot peppers and a few spices. I mostly eat rice, pasta or bread with a veggie stew. The other common starch is yams and cocoyams. I cook them like potatoes, and it work out fine. I like to cook and I'm not picky, so I'll survive.

I'm tired of writing, so I'll just give you some more pictures. If you have topics you want me to cover about life in Ghana, or you have questions, feel free to comment, or email me. I can be sort of scatterbrained sometimes, and I don't know how well I'm doing at giving an accurate picture of what it's like here.

To all my friends and family: I miss you.

Love,
Toby

photos

I've added a few more photos at the end of this album on facebook.

There are some of my house and kids, and the swearing-in ceremony. I'm doing well, getting ready for classes to start. I'll ramble more later, I've been on the computer for a while now...


love,
Toby

Send me a care package!

If you miss me, then you'll want to send me a care package! Just kidding, only send me stuff if you want to. Feel free to send letters or anything as well, but don't spend too much on postage, I hear the flat rate boxes are the best deal. If you want to send me snacks, send stuff that can survive rough handling and temperature changes, and put stuff in ziplock bags. swedish fish, dried fruit, cliff bars, powdered cheese, and cookies are some of the things I crave. Send packages to the PC office, and they should find their way to me eventually. Thanks in advance!

love, Toby

Toby Koy c/o
Peace Corps Ghana
PO Box 5796
Accra North, Ghana
West Africa