Some free time

 Saturday, December 04, 2010 AM

I am thoroughly enjoying the morning to myself, with no itinerary today, except to go to town to pick up my dress later with Julianna! Julianna has her friend visiting from Cape Coast which means she is worrying less about me and taking some time for herself. I have puttered around, cut up some fresh mango to make up a fresh fruit plate for my inevitable visitors, swept, tidied, and made an egg salad to give to Julianna. She said the other day after tasting one it for the first time that “my daughter is a good cook”. Ha! That was easy.

I did have Linda at my bedroom window again this morning saying “Kym, Kym, Kym, Kym”. I spoke to her about the inappropriateness of doing this and that I had gone to bed late and was sleeping. She returned later on her way to church and we had a good chat about her “Sunday School” (it’s Saturday, so not sure what to call it) book and lesson of the day. It reminded me of my lessons with Terry Paquette (our family friend, Lachute High School religion teacher, monk and priest). He used to being me the greatest story books on the bible stories and we would discuss the lessons. I “ate it up” back then, being very much the devout Catholic at that point of my young life (this ended right about the time I discovered boys).

Few thoughts/observations:

• Interesting comment Julianna made the other day when I mentioned wanting to invite some young students along with us to the butterfly forest reserve and wondering if the protocol was such that  should visit and make the request to the parents/guardians. She said that this was definitely necessary and that “In Ghana, you must be very careful when offering to do something for someone. If something bad happens, they will stretch you out like an elastic”.  OK then, duly noted. It turned out only Elisabeth came along so Appiah and I both went over to ask permission of the grandmother (for good measure I brought over a dozen eggs).

•   I have already mentioned , I believe, the increased responsibility here on children, even the very young. You see even 4-5 year olds fetching water or food from the market for their parents. The older siblings are expected to help with the chores and caring for the younger ones. Here generations of families and the extended relatives often live together, so job sharing is n essential way of life and caring for one another.

•  I am not sure if I mentioned this already, but electricity is not common in the rural areas, so, by nightfall (now 6pm), most people are huddled by their cooking fires outside their homes or by candlelight. This week in Arundel and Harrington, the wet, heavy snow caused power outages and when I described to the students who were visiting that night how we are almost debilitated being without electricity, they were astounded. Here most live as though camping (the closest thing I can relate it to), where they cook, wash clothes, do dishes, just as you would camping: with cold water unless heated on a fire (here they use either round metal cook bases, with holes around to stick firewood, or little square metal sawdust or coal stoves), up with the sun and winding down with the sunset.

• At 5:30 am or so on most days the local radio broadcast comes on over a loud speaker which I muffle out with earplugs. This usually plays until 8 or 9 am and then starts up again around 4 or 5pm until sometimes as late as 10pm. It is the background drone to daily life here. I may not appreciate this sound at 5:30 am, but I do love to awaken each morning to the glorious sound of birds chirping, chattering, squawking and warbling. It is incredible he numbers of species who make their home here or who migrate here from further north this time of year. This is accompanied by the scratching and clucking of chickens and a regular cockle doodle doo from one of the many roosters wandering about. Inevitably, day or night, I can hear the rustling sound outside of some foraging animal; clutches (is this what they are called?) of hens and their newly hatched chicks, dogs, goats or sheep (most famers let the sheep and goats roam wild, to the disapproval of some, who have to fence in their agricultural land as a result).

• I have discovered that black women here don’t shave. They think body hair is beautiful (it is actually fine and not noticeable, unlike a European white woman’s black fur!). They, do, however, trim their eyebrows, as I have seen, along the roads in esthetic shops (most usually no more than a table and an umbrella), with razor blades. I will stick to my tweezers and wax methods thank you.

The power has gone off again (second time this morning), so must post this and get off the computer. I was hoping to do some research on the laptops I saw for sale here, but may have to wait on this. It also turns out that 3 of the 4 refurbished desktop computers in the computer lab at the school don’t work. Appiah/Samuel told Fei/Prince yesterday. I hope we can sort this out next week. I don’t even know when the exams are next week (I think the first thing the junior and senior schools needs to do is increase their overall organization and teacher accountability) so can’t schedule with Fei our remaining visits and getting these kinds of things taken care of before I leave. I will speak to Julianna’s assistant, Dorothy, Monday about when my exams are so I can effectively plan the remaining time I have here (sorting out a few more resource donations (printer etc..), fixing computers, maybe getting the school set up on Broadband for internet access, laptop options for Fei, Samuel and Julianna).