A fine mess of contradictions

"Obruni? HOW ARE YOU!!!"

The phrase "obruni" haunts my nightmares. I don't know why but for the past week the children in the neighbourhood have been going insane over us. I know that I stand out and that I'm a foreigner, but I have been here for a month now! They see white people or foreigners all the time, so whyyyy why do they feel the need to yell at me whenever they see me? In Kumasi I maybe see one other obruni a day but they still exist. We scare little kids, who always cry when they see us. Gill thinks its our blue eyes that they don't understand. Sometimes its funny, and I wave and sometimes I'm harassed in kind of a mean way. I hate it when kids ask for money. I dont know who teaches them to say "obruni? MONEY!" but almost every kid knows this phrase. I tell them no I don't have any money, and one kid actually called me a liar! Other than that most kids just accept it when I tell them I won't give them money. I want to explain to them that in Canada I'm technically unemployed and that I have no income at all so while I do have a lot more than anyone here, I personally have a limited budget that I have to live by here. I would also rather give my time and energy to the school and hospital than hand out money to kids who may or may not need it.

I guess its been a little bit of an insane week. When me and Gill were on our way home on Tuesday we got mobbed by a group of twenty children outside out house. We saw them down the road and thought, oh God, and then all of them started running towards us, yelling what is your name? and how are you? and then they started grabbing us. Lots of kids want to touch us because we look different but when there are over twenty grabbing at you, and pulling your hair it starts to get scary. I was getting a little panicked and Gill had to actually shove kids out to lock our gate and they all waited there for us to leave again. We had to get our host brothers friend to yell at them and then we just ran out the gate through them while he told them off. Eric, my host brother says they want to talk to me because they can see that I'm a good person, but seriously, it scares me when they run after me. It hasn't really happened that often but it seems that the past week if we pass a school or a bus that's letting kids out we have to run just to avoid the mobs of " howww are youuu? obruniiiis!". I know that they only know that basic english and I can't fault them, I only know the same equivalent in Twi, but its just funny because they have no clue what to say if you say "I'm fine, how are you?". Most kids just stare at you! So the nutty week continues...

On Tuesday morning to backtrack a little I had a truly horrible day at Fiayse. The language barrier between me and these kids is pretty rough. Gill leaves tomorrow and then its just me and them. I can tell them to sit and come and stop doing something, but thats it. I can't explain anything to them, so when we teach them the alphabet or to how count they just don't seem to know what they are saying even though they can repeat it. I decided to bring out some of the supplies I brought thinking they could do some quiet drawing. These kids have no fine motor skills as Gill would say, and most don't know how to hold a pencil because they never write anything. I brought out pencil crayons and gave one to each child. Then they went nuts. They all wanted more, or wanted someone elses colour and it became mayhem. One kids actually crawled up me trying to grab the box, they started ripping at my shirt, hitting me, yelling at me for more. Then when I wouldn't give them another one, they started to beat the crap out of each other. It was insane and I almost started to cry (I didn't though, can't let them see my weakness!) because I just couldn't stop them, and I couldn't tell them to share because I dont know the word in Twi. I managed to grab all the pencil crayons back (no one was actually using them they were just beating each other over them) and put them back in the storage room and then they continued to yell at me, running after me trying to get them back. It was horrible, because how am I supposed to teach them anything, even basic drawing ,if they can't even use a pencil crayon?! It was really discouraging that it caused a complete uproar, but I guess if you don't have very much then anything seems pretty exciting. I'm going to keep trying, but it was a really bad day because I really felt attacked. Then they started ripping apart the school wall and throwing parts of the rock through the windows at kids outside who clearly weren't in school and were trying to see what was going on. It was just a bad, bad day. But I think these kids are cute, and very smart, I just need to figure out how to structure their "lessons".

So enough about the insane interactions I've had with children in this country. The rest of the week went alright- we did some HIV/AIDS presentations to pregnant women and the doctor came in early to the clinic so she helped a lot of patients. One patient that had been really sick- a middle aged man who was basically a skeleton- was admitted to the hospital. He could barely stand, talk or swallow he was so ill. I felt so bad. "He will not live long," said another volunteer. It was really strange to look at someone that might die, but you kind of have to detach yourself a little so you don't sit there crying because that's not going to help anyone. I took notes for the doctor for the first few appointments, and the first few were all the really really sick patients. One woman just sat there and cried the whole time. A lot of them have shingles or tuberculosis so they really feel horrible, and the doctor is an amazing Ghanaian woman who does her best to relieve their symptoms. One man had CD4 count of only 46 but he looked perfectly fine, it's so bizarre.

This post sounds horrible, but this week wasn't actually bad just full of really bad sounding events. Femke, the most invincible volunteer I've ever met actually got sick. This girl eats kenke off the streets (its like fermented maize balls wrapped in leaves with a fish juice and it would probably kill me if I ate it ), she had sketchy lobster that didn't look like lobster- this girl can eat anything and everything. She's been here for 6 weeks and this week she got sick! I couldn't believe it, but she's finally better. Linsey the other Dutch volunteer that I did my orientation with who has had a horrible rash from here malaria pills, then got malaria, and now has an infection, ended up in the hospital because she was so ill. I think she is doing better now, but I haven't seen her yet. Her mom almost came over from Holland because she was flipping out. Sounds like something my mom would do! I was like, what is going on this week! Gill had been doing alright as well with the malaria, but then yesterday morning she woke up very ill. We couldn't figure out whether it was something she ate, but she was violently ill. And everyone who knows me well knows how well I like vomit. We also had to get on a bus that morning for a 5 hour bus ride to Accra so she could catch her flight out tomorrow.

The bus journey started with us actually getting an earlier bus and ended with it taking over 10 hours of the most unorganized transportation system ever. The bus kept stopping on our way there, and then after about two hours died at the side of the road. We managed to get it cooled down to make it to a rest stop where we waited for another two hours for them to send another bus all the way from Kumasi. They sent a really crappy city bus with no air conditioning so I sat by the open window and inhaled about a tonne of diesel fuel, burning garbage and dust. I told Gill I just might throw up a pile of sand in a minute. When the bus finally came we sat in traffic for over 4 hours. We just didn't move at all. Traders came around selling stuff and one guy tried to sell us some dead alligators that he had hanging by the tail. At this point things had started to get so ridiculous that it was funny. Gill managed to take enough pills to stop her extreme illness but she must have felt like crap. The bus decided to start off-roading around the traffic and so did a bunch of HIGHLY FLAMMABLE tankers. So we were competing with them while we weaved in and out of oncoming traffic. It was insane. And neither of us had the chance to go to the bathroom for about 5 hours so I was starting to get extremely frustrated at the end. Luckily we made it to Accra, Gill is feeilng better and we have a hilarious story to tell.

I miss everyone at home, but its never dull here.One minute I love this place so much and the next its the most insane moment of my life, but I really just think its such an experience. I will never ever forget all of the amazing things that I've seen and done. I'm going to miss Gill. Now I spend a month here by myself but I've made some other volunteer friends so I will try to update soon and hopefully it will be a much better post!

posted by Kate @ 3:21 AM