A fine mess of contradictions

One Week

2009-04-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the movie One Week recently and it got me thinking. Yes, it was so nerdily Canadian but I loved it.

It got me thinking that I really do love Canada. Granted, the movie showed mainly beautiful scenery during the summer and avoided the terribleness that can be a Canadian winter but I finally feel like I'm putting down roots.

I can't remember who I was talking to about this but it seems like all of a sudden you accidentally put down roots and then whoops, what happened? How did I get here years later with a savings account, a career and a contract that are holding me in place?

The movie also spurred the thoughts of what I've done thus far. The main character, Ben, rides across the country seeking new experiences and thrills and fulfillment he has never had because he settled for a girl he wasn't in love with and a job he didn't like. He finds out he has cancer and decides that should be the impetus for all these self-revelations. And yes I guess it does usually take something negative like that to create positive changes.

I feel like there are many reasons why I spent so much time travelling. I needed to know I could do it on my own (or without a guy more realistically) and it also gave me the chance to fulfill some of the big "wishes" I had on my life list.

Some of the first conversations I ever had with someone pretty special were about life lists. Bucket lists if you will. I think they're pretty important. Everyone should have one and find the means to achieve everything on it. Mine continues to grow. So despite my rooting moments and newfound love for Canada I have no regrets at the moment. I'm happy where I am. Growing in one spot instead of a dozen, enjoying my profession, having weekly get-togethers with great friends. All of this makes me happy because I am secure in the knowledge that my list-fulfillment is far from over, that what I'm doing now is merely a portion of it. Hell, what I'm doing now is on the life list.

The film also reminded me that you just need to tell people you love them no matter what the consequences. Sometimes you need to get on a bike and go somewhere. And being alone is important for everyone at some point.

The other day, I felt frustrated as I shoved my way through people to work. If only I could just see that sunset once a day perhaps I wouldn't feel so pushy. This film wasn't the best I had ever seen but it just hit little neurons in my brain, reminding me of beautiful scenic moments in this country I have grown to love again and made me think a little harder about where I am right now.

Look in a book...

2009-03-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've been on a search for the ultimate novel for pretty much my entire life. I would scour the library thinking that today would be the day that I would find it. A novel with the perfect characters, amazing plot line, life lesson and I guess the holy grail of knowledge that I could carry with me forever, that would make me understand the world in a different way. I guess for some people this book is the Bible, and though it has many great parables I don't know if that's what I'm looking for. I've read many great novels thus far, I have yet to truly find a book to fulfill all my needs.

So, I want to write a novel. Then again, who doesn't? A lot of the journalists I've come across are all just wannabe novelists. If you could pay me to sit at home and write all day then hell, that's my dream job. And yet the older I get the less I know what to write about, the more I fear that I don't have the creativity, the imagination, or the skills. Like if I had started writing and publishing books when I was about five and at my most bizarre and creative then I would be a hell of a lot farther ahead in life than I am now. I feel like journalism has really reinforced this hamburger model of writing, so much so that it has sucked the joy out of my writing so much so that I almost hated it when I was done my program. As my master's progressed I eventually specialized in radio to avoid having to plug my words into the carefully crafted boxes of the model that inevitably included: entertaining human-interest opening, boring story background, some fun facts, and then never ever a real conclusion. (We are supposed to be story tellers, oh the irony.) Writers like Stephanie Nole and Jane Armstrong manage to tell real stories, not hamburger ones but I'm clearly not there yet. And I am so long-winded I need more space to write than a column of a news article.

But also, I don't know what to write about.

I have a million ideas but they all stem so much from my own life that I don't know how to separate them. I don't know how to make it not about things I've felt. I feel like I've lost some of my imagination that would have allowed me to create the story of something completely different. Because as much as I want to use my experience to fuel my characters, my dilemmas, my climax and plot, I fear that I am too over-involved, too confused still to separate them enough so that they would be unrecognizable, so that I don't offend those closest to me with my portrayals of pieces of their lives.

I want to imagine myself another life I could not and may not ever lead. I want to create people that I could love, that because they are my creation can be who I want them to be, to be able to envision places and events that may never happen but that could fulfill my insatiable wanderlust. Like connecting the R.E.M. of my dreams and pouring it onto paper. I need the confidence to write from my heart, to take the ideas that my 10-year-old self poured into notebooks and make them a reality with my ever-expanding vocabulary. I'm just not sure how, or if I want the guidance of a class, or a structure at all. Because maybe some of the best writing is practically poetry, breaking rules, ignoring grammar, creating a piece of art out of letters. And I feel like you can't teach that.

A while back, on a whim I read the book Chasing Harry Winston and it really got me thinking. (No, not the book itself, but more what it was lacking.) It was a book one could read entirely in the bathroom. Hypothetically speaking of course. I'd describe it best as one of those easy-to-read but mind-numbing Us Weekly types. And though the book was entertaining, it had almost zero longevity. In about a month no one will catch half of the references to The Hills or designers or swanky New York hot spots. So while the author will make some good money on a fun piece of entertainment it's not the notoriety I want. It was candy floss for the brain. It sickens you a bit but you keep going because it is fluffy and endearing somehow. But I want to write something that can be read generations from now and will still be relevant, will still make sense like The Alchemist or all the hilarious novels by my beloved childhood favourite Roald Dahl.

I feel like if I keep reading the ability to be a good writer will just happen, will be absorbed through a waterless osmosis, like if I slept with MJ Vassanji or Paulo Coehlo under my pillow that I would just wake up and know where to begin. But I'm just not sure. And will perhaps just keep finding excuses and dead ends and not know where to start.

So I'm going to try to just keep writing and see what comes out.

Oh the irony of this blog's title

2008-09-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

So, I know I need to write more. It's fully necessary and I need to get my writing going again. If you don't use it you lose it right?

Basically I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Again? Oh yes. This always happens to me. My life direction is never clear. It's exciting but it's also terrifying. Like if I choose the wrong path I may end up somewhere terrible, shallow, horrifying, where I will die alone with no friends just by picking the wrong route. Highly exaggerated obviously. But a legitimate fear. I know it's not so black and white. One way isn't amazing and one way isn't crappy but I just never know which will make me happier which is part of the problem.

So these are my interests and dilemmas: I want to do a job that contributes something to the world. I want to wholeheartedly throw myself into something. I want a job that I care to go to every day and that will enlighten me. I want to be able to travel and help people and learn and volunteer. But on the other side, I'm a raging consumerist. Every time I get a paycheque of any kind I can barely let the cash cool in my bank account before I'm rushing out the door to pick up the newest pair of boots I saw in Vogue. (Okay so not the exact pair but something similar in my price range.) What is wrong with me? Shouldn't I either be a hippie-loving, Birkenstock wearing, hemp clothed NGO do-gooder or a gladiator sandal-wearing, credit card swiping fashionista? Why do I have such weird and conflicting interests?

It's not normal. And it makes a career path confusing as hell.

But what I have learned is that everything happens for a reason. Back in the day when I was killing myself to get into magazines I had a series of interviews with a big Toronto fashion magazine. Now in the long term they were totally unprofessional towards me but I was conflicted because I was debating between them and a stuffy well-paying corporate job. In the long term, the stuffy job may have gotten me farther in life and I used that time to save money to travel the world, meet a great guy who was exactly what I needed and have a really awesome summer. So I know that happened for a reason. Sometimes it's just really hard to see.... Oh perspective. I guess that's why they call you perspective.

True Beauty

2008-07-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

I often spend my day surrounded by beautiful things. Shiny, glossy, sparkly, gorgeous man-made creations, all formulated to make people look taller, leaner and more avant-garde. But as I'm wrapped up in a tornado of things I sometimes remember, hmmm oh yes.... the real world, the outside world. And articles like this one are why I have grown to love the Globe and Mail so much, because it is the string to my balloon of a life.

Check out these photos linked below. They are so amazing. I have always wanted to go to Rwanda. In the midst of everything this small nation has gone through it has strangely retained so much beauty. I love photo number three and wish I had more photographic talents.

http://www.photosensitive.com/- Go into Projects and click on Rwanda.

Shopaholic

2008-06-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Sigh, spring fashions from style.com.

Big news: I am going to give up shopping. Yes. Who am I and where has Kate gone? But today as I was thinking of all the things I was looking forward to buying on my next shopping trip I realized that I waste a lot of my life consuming things that I don't need, that don't make my life any better and that don't make me any happier. I think for the past few years buying something new seemed to be the key to "being better". I seemed to just keep buying things in hopes that that one final purchase would make my life complete and stylish. But funnily enough I actually think the more I shop the less stylish I get. Like the more stuff I have the more random my wardrobe becomes and I've realized that half the crap I buy I never wear or I buy it for a life I no longer lead.

I've come to the realization that my overconsumption is really adding to my stress levels. Every time I swipe my credit card (sweet, sweet credit card) I have a mini-panic attack thinking that it won't go through, or that I'm going to have to sneak the bags past my loved ones so they won't judge my habit.

My closets are overflowing, as I've realized that I own at least 10 dresses I've never worn, about five pairs of shoes I've worn once and decided I hate, and drawers of fun jewelry that I now think is too tacky to wear. It's great for costumes- I have an endless supply- but for everyday life my excessiveness is actually bogging me down. For anyone who has ever helped me move, they will know, I am a heavy traveller. I once missed meeting a cute boy because I was checking out January sales, use my food money on purses and have even put myself into debt for the sake of style. At the moment I am kind of working in the business of consumption- fashion magazines sell endless amounts of things- and it will be harder than ever to do this but it's necessary even for a little while. Most people live on nothing, without basic necessities and though me not consuming won't give them any more I think there are better ways to spend my money and energy and they could include donations instead of more fabric crammed into my drawers.

So I'm trying to be realistic but practical. I can't stop buying food- obviously- and my new insane health issues have led me to become a crazy organic food store shopper. (It's me in leopard print among hemp-sack-wearing customers buying vegan quinoa cookies which are actually amazingly good!) So I must buy nutritious items or I will die, and I am allowed to buy products that I already own, use daily and need to be replaced- this includes face wash, moisturizer, etc.

But basically, I'm not allowed new things- I considered bending this rule for vintage but it's hard to say. They are old things but still, I don't really need anything. Literally. Nothing. That is what travelling taught me that my stasis in Canada has helped me forget- you need very little to survive so I need to cut out my excessiveness. I was happier with less.

I tried to "quit shopping" in third year for Lent. I lasted three weeks until I had a bad day and ended up at the mall for some retail therapy so I think I'll need a sponsor for this.

I'm going to try to make it until August- fall fashions come out in August so I can't just ignore them. But I will try to wear the clothes I already have until then (shocking development) and make a list of the five things I really want for fall and then invest in those. Instead of accumulating bags and bags of clothes that I really don't need.

God, I'm so self-improving I'm annoying myself. I actually think I'm becoming more hippie-like every day. If anyone's looking, you can find me going not-shopping and eating vegan food- oh and dancing somewhere, sober. Sigggh. I'm going to fall off the wagon, hard.

With or Without it

2008-06-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some thinking about love. The Sex and the City Movie kind of started it and also I seem to encounter a lot of interesting opinions about it. Check out this one. WTF. Way to make a rainy Thursday slightly more shizer Sarah Hampson.

So while the SATC movie was filled with amazing fashions (Eiffel Tower bag anyone?) and endless hilarious fun it also, when pondered more thoroughly as I am wont to do, made me feel kind of depressed? Obviously anyone who knows me knows I'm a die-hard pessimist (get over it), but it wasn't a stellar conclusion. If you really look at all of the relationships in the movie you'd have to wonder, well how appealing were any of those? Is that really the best there is? Seriously? Okay well then I'm not in for that, because that sucks. Large.

The imperfection of it all makes me feel more disgruntled than sad. Without giving too much of the movie away, the ending left one woman with a distant "guy-that-you-broke-up-with-ten-years-ago-that- you-should have-left-in-the-past-because-he-doesn't-love-you" type of guy that she had to coerce into matrimony, one with a cheating not-so-appealing guy who had to coerce her back into a relationship, one girl seemingly single and fabulous until she's too old to have random sex, and one with a husband who is nice and all but is not someone you aspire to be with because he's kind of gross and creepy. So I'm mean but those are my shallow and rude observations.

Obviously the movie played on the Cinderella theme. I'm sure many others have had these sentiments before but did someone think all those romantic stories up just to mess with women? Do men feel the same way? Why in God's name did my parents let me read stories like that, watch movies like that (Disney does it again) if it was never going to be replicated in real life? If it was only going to be hard work and compromising and settling and no glass slipper, prince or perfection?

In Sarah Hampson's article above she talks about people who "settled for less." So it seems that the alternative to dying alone and childless is marrying someone who is okay, mediocre at best and trying to produce a life out of just getting along. Wow that sounds amazing doesn't it? Why don't they make more fairy tales and romantic movies about that? Because that SUCKS. I understand there are many places in the world where arranged marriages happen and people do find happiness but I just don't get it.

And now back to where I started. Basically the SATC movie made me feel like love was so imperfect. And I know it can be and will be at times. I know relationships and marriages can be hard work but sometimes the work is worth it if the person cares about you enough to not do stupid things that break your heart. How can people settle for cheaters, people they have to change for, plead with, or coerce into caring?

And that, damn it, that makes me an optimist.

And now for some fun. Check out these amazing photos. They make me happy.

Sundown

2008-05-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

....is a highway

2008-05-27T14:35:00.001-07:00

Every time something doesn't work out I feel like running. Like I don't really have anyone or anything stable anyways so I might as well hop on a plane, get in a car, throw some things in a pack and just run. I find it to be much easier than having to face this sort of imminent doom of eventually being alone or uncertain. Because if you never stay in one place you can blame it on that. A lot of people do. And when I have good days I can see why people stick around. Because you could have weekly plans, a set date with a set activity, a specific corner of a specific bar where you meet every saturday night with old friends. That always seemed so terrifyingly static to me but maybe it could feel really comforting. But when I have bad days I figure why bother? Nothing is here for me so I might as well just keep on moving.

Like a vagabond who plans on escaping reality for as long as possible. There are lots of them wandering around and I always wonder about them, how they keep moving, when they will slow down.

I think that's what's so amazing about travelling. You instantly bond with the people around you because you're stuck on a ferry, or on a plane, train, tro-tro and everything is new and different all the time so it's exciting. But it's also exhausting. I wish I was feeling well enough to go somewhere but at this point I can barely make it to work every day.

I just miss the feeling of being utterly alone and yet not, because around the next corner is another backpacker, another beautiful sunset over a different land, and then suddenly you're more alone than you've ever been in your life, thousands of miles away from friends and family but you're so complete and so happy without any of it. It feels like true freedom. There is no panic to fill your life with plans because you are somewhere outside of it all.

The Lovely Life Detox

2008-05-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.

So this summer is obviously the summer of detox. Hell, Oprah's doing it and so am I. But it's not just a liver detox where I sip tea with lemon juice and do a little abstaining. This is a whole other anti-toxin revolution that has thus far lasted over five weeks. Sound pretty easy right? Well it's really not. It's a "no bad things" life change that I seriously don't want to do but I seem to have no other option.

You see, I would love to do the following: DRINK. Yes, drink a lot. Beers to be exact. To go out, drink beers, take shots, down some classy wine, fall over maybe, follow all of that up with some pizza or poutine, pass out and wake up and go for a greasy breakfast. Hell and then maybe do it all over again.

Follow that up with some chocolate, cookies and a bag of candy. But alas, my body has decided that though I could do this for years, it will take no more. It is having none of it. So after feeling terrible and being incapacitated by this sickness for months now- since January to be exact- I have decided since no doctor can fix me or figure out what's making me so sick I must go about fixing myself with the help of a naturopath and a lot of health books. Thus far it is involving a lot of vegetables, rice, beans, nuts, vegan food and well, things that taste like dirt but don't make me feel like curling up in a ball and dying.

Instead of just fixing my body though, I've decided to fix a lot of other things as well. Like people and things that make me unhappy. I'm cutting them out. If they make me feel bad they can get the hell out of my life. I'm tired of caring about people, being trusting and then bam it all goes to hell, so screw it, they're out too. Hopefully as my body learns to live without sugar my mind will learn to let go of the other negative things as well. I told myself almost three years ago that I will not accept bullshit. I still don't and thus have made my life a lot harder but I also think a lot better in the long run. So I'm sticking to that as much as I can. I have some truly amazing people in my life and my recent time at home has made me realize that.

In the past few years I feel like I've been pushing myself so hard that I've kind of just run myself into the ground. So I'm trying to relax a bit, do hot yoga, take really long walks with my dog, read, go out dancing and drink lots of green tea. And for once I'm actually fully unpacking, which to me is really weird. I also have a huge list of books I've been meaning to read and am finally getting around to doing it. I've thus far read What is the What- an amazing, amazing story about a Lost Boy from Sudan, and a ton of other books. I'm starting on Love in a Time of Cholera, can't wait for Late Nights on Air and am plowing through a variety of hilariously dumb books that make me laugh on my way to work. I also have to get on the huge list of classics but I need a bit of a break first. I've also been working my way through my stockpile of magazines and newspapers. I brought home about 50 Globe and Mail's from school and went through them in one weekend up north. I strangely enjoy reading the news again now that I don't have to for school. I also now love listening to the CBC and perusing the pages (for FUN!) of the Economist, Vanity Fair, Vogue (the SJP photo shoot in the most recent issue is breathtaking), and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on.

So that's what's new. Cutting out toxic people, things, foods, and reading, seeing old friends and generally enjoying the sunshine.

Coming to an end...

2008-04-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

So finally this long year has come to an end. Admittedly it has been one of my most painful in memory. Not necessarily emotionally but more mentally. It was a constant barrage of endless assignments, evaluations, events, and who could forget the festivals, carnivals and other such scary things that take place around Southwestern Ontario that we were forced to attend.

But it has also been filled with many amazing things.

After a professor would tell you that you suck at writing/editing/reporting you would leave enraged and disheartened. But then standing outside the door would be some of the brightest, coolest and overall fun people you've ever had the privilege to meet. These girls (and some boys but very few) are what made the year worth it. Even if none of them end up becoming the editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail (though I have no doubt many of us will reach such success) or help me land a sweet job someday like this networking business is all about, I thank them and love them with all my heart.

When I was in Ghana last year and I found out I got into my master's in journalism I knew I was up for a rough year. I would like to refer to it as one guest speaker did as "eating your peas." You don't like it but it's necessary to get where you want to go. So hopefully, through strange twists of fate and luck I will end up going to where I actually want to be. I'm not nostalgic- someone please remind me of the hell we went through if I ever claim to miss school- but it's just another milestone I'm passing on the way to.... well that is yet to be determined.

There are so many things I still want to do and this year has kind of helped me figure that out and kind of made me more confused. I just have so much I want to do before I settle down, get a mortgage, have kids, find a husband. Maybe I'll never have any of those things but isn't that supposed to be some sort of natural progression? I guess this is just another building block in my life, and someday it will be completed and maybe I won't even recognize what it looks like, maybe it will have changed from what I thought.

But I still want to live and work in Africa for a year, learn to play the guitar, become fluent in French, move somewhere in France and live on baguettes, work for an NGO, write for a fashion magazine, and there are about a million more things but I don't want to list them all. But I guess I just have goals and hopes and am looking forward to getting to those, though I'm sure it won't be easy.

If anything this year has taught me perseverance. In the midst of failures and successes whenever someone told me I couldn't do something, it only made me want to do it more. If anything I guess I'm just proud of that. It's not to say I didn't cry tears of frustration but I did the things I thought were important. I did a documentary on a student refugee from Southern Sudan, a radio story on HIV/AIDS research, I wrote about Western's financial investments in Sudan, and I did a documentary on domestic violence in immigrant women. I wrote about things and reported on topics that I felt were important and learned how to do it more effectively. So this program has given me that, and the opportunity to meet everyone from a wedding planner for gay weddings, politicians, heads of communities, people in need and just overall interesting people and that has a value in and of itself.

So now I continue on to other things, hopefully exciting, and see where they take me.

Back from Eire

2008-01-28T03:50:00.000-08:00

The beautiful bay on the Irish sea

Malahide Castle

So it's 6 something in the morning and I can't sleep. Mostly because of the time change, partially because I can't turn off my brain. So I thought I would share some of my experiences abroad for the entertainment of others. I arrived back in Canada in a typical manner. It was snowing, bleak and cold. But I was rushed off to a bar to see 7 of my closest girlfriends from university so my intiation wasn't quite so horrible, though when I arrived home at 3 am Canadian time I realized it was the next morning in Ireland. Ouch.

As I was driving back up to London I started to get overemotionally depressed. I think it was partially because I was exhausted and partially because I feel like going back to school at this point is a giant step backwards- though a necessary one so I can finish this damn Master's. But at least it's a nice buffer before the horrible real world and jobs and all that.

But as I was driving I suddenly saw something amazing. A huge orb of pinkish orange was hovering on the horizon. The sun was so close to the ground it looked like an optical illusion, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it. I'm sure there is some scientific explanation dealing with gases and air masses but the sun has never looked weirder or more mesmerizing. I got completely lost in it- yes I remained in my lane on the 401- but it gave me a little bit of hope for these next 3 months of intense schoolwork. And then as I got on the off-ramp for London one of my favourite classic rock songs came on. I think things like that are little bits of fate, and I took it as a sign that I can make it.

And now on to Ireland. What an amazing, mystifying place it can be. I think I'll share some of my more hilarious revelations about Irish culture while I was working at the Irish Independent newspaper and living in Ireland for the past month.

- First, you would think that Ireland's customs would be fairly similar to those in North America. You would be wrong. The smallest things are so dramatically different that I end up looking idiotic or just confused half the time.

- People wear their shoes indoors. Yes, this is the strangest custom to me. "No honey, you're in Ireland now, leave your shoes on," they would say. But why? It is raining and dirty out and I'm going to track crap all through your nice carpeted house?!!! So you end up sitting there- and everyone else has theirs on as well- in someone's nice living room, drinking a beer wondering, why for the life of you you're so uncomfortable until you realize you have boots on indoors. Strange. I know.

- Corn. It is in everything. The Irish put it on pizzas, in salads, in tuna (BARF, and thus ruining all sandwiches) and it is creeps into daily food. I like corn, but not on my pizza. Yuck. Why? I have no idea.

- On my daily bus rides in the morning it seemed like everyone in the Ireland had a horrible cough. That would be all fine and well except that NO ONE covers their mouth. So the person in front of me and beside me would just hack all over me while I cowered in a corner covering my mouth with my scarf. Terrifying for a germaphobe like myself, but you get used to it.

- The Irish are exceptionally friendly. Not everyone obviously, but most people go out of their way to give you their phone number, take you out for a drink, stuff you full of food and then continue calling you and making sure you are doing alright. Not even just relatives- friends, coworkers, everyone. It's really nice. And people say hi to you on the streets. Whereas in Toronto or London I would put up my hood and walk quicker, there it was just lovely. And you'll never go hungry or thirsty- which is an understatement.

- I've never eaten more in my life. Maybe when I was in Ghana I had equivalent amounts of carbohydrates, but never so much dairy. I actually think butter is in everything in Ireland. You know what I cannot digest? Large amounts of dairy and alcohol. Guess what I had every day? It pains me to think about it. I think even the chocolate has butter in it- and everything is like 5xs the amount of fat that it would be in Canada. Milk is like cream. I think even the orange juice had cream in it. And they would make Irish coffees mixing, alcohol, coffee and cream in ONE drink. It was insane. And my stomach was very defiant and by the last week I was barely able to digest water and bread, so I guess it was a great diet? Feeling too sick to eat anything in the whole buttery country? I dont know how people stay alive there past 30- it is the heaviest, most intense diet ever. But the Irish are a hearty peasanty type and they have defied the odds somehow. I cannot wait to eat some soy beans and sushi. yaaaay.

- Swearing. Now I have quite the sailor's mouth. I can compete with the best of them for rage-induced streams of expletives but the Irish are something else. In the workplace it was all "fockin eejits" and "feck this" and "feck that" and "arsehole" and just streams of insane words that I was shocked one could use in a professional situation. But surprisingly you can. And that is why I like Ireland. Because you can say whatever the fock you want.

- The Irish use a completely different vocabulary from the English language. I was copy-editing some of their pages and like half of the words weren't in the dictionary, nor did they make any sense. When I would point them out, everyone would reply, well that's just the word we use for coffee, appliances, a poor person, etc. Confusing, I say. And the sentences were written the way people speak. I wanted to flip around almost every sentence, but alas I would only try to point out the most blatant sentences and phrases that were completely unintelligible. Only to be told, that no, indeed that phrase made perfect sense. Hmmm...

-Craic. The Irish word for fun is pronounced "crack". So people would say, hows the crack? And I'm like, what the shit, I dont do that kind of thing. It was some good crack last night they would say. Oh you arent actually doing crack, you're talking about having fun? I heard a story about a guy at the airport who said he came to Ireland for the good crack. Oooops. haha Bet he got a nice takedown for that one. I also cannot pronounce any Gaelic words to save my life, leading me to embarassing situations where I would have to ask my office mates where the hell Laois was- when it was pronounced Leash. Who would have known? Not me.

- In one my lovely office gaffes I used an Irish swear word in a meeting. Little did I know that this word was a complete insult, slur, swear word because everyone I know used it when talking about people from Limerick and other such unsavoury types. So I throw it out there when discussing a story idea in a meeting and people just started cracking up and laughing and clearly I did not and still do not understand what this word means.

- The weather is INSANITY. Ireland is so beyond gorgeous but you just never know what to expect when you leave the house. The weather report on TV is always hilarious because it shows a swirling mass moving over the island and basically says "we have no freakin clue what the weather will be today." It was always rainy in the morning and then the second I got indoors it would become incredibly sunny. Figures. But it's so hilarious and beautiful that you can't hate it for being windy, cold, drafty, hot, or whatever the hell it chooses to be on a matter of days.

So that's all for now. I love Ireland. It does it for me. I could move back but would have to import things from Canada that don't include lard or butter in the ingredients. I miss it already.

Oh and here is a lovely picture of my poor puppy in a leprechaun costume. I'm a jerk who dresses up their pet, but it was too funny to resist.

World AIDS Day

2007-11-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

I feel ignorant. I am ignorant. But I am less ignorant than most of the world. I don't mean large areas of the developing world where there are HIV/AIDS rates of up to 35% in one nation. These people have witnessed the devestation of AIDS on their own. They know the dangers, but there may be social stigma, financial problems, lack of medical facilities, or male/female relationships that allow a virus that people know about to spread. I believe education is vital but I also know there must be something more. You can scream at the top of your lungs that AIDS exists but it doesn't cure anyone and maybe no one will listen. That is why journalism is increasingly hard for me, because without this profession people might not even know about AIDS devestation, but it still continues, exists and isn't going away and I don't know if talking about it and not doing anything is where I should be right now.

But here in Canada do people really know? Do people care? There are 58,000 Canadians with the virus. When I spoke to people at the AIDS Committee of London for a radio story they told me that immigrant populations are at increasingly high risk because they think that Canada doesn't have an HIV/AIDS problem so they contract it here because of unsafe sex. Females are also increasingly at risk. And everyone makes bad decisions and gets into bad places in their lives, but we know about it, we have an obligation to help those at risk.

I have been home from Africa for about a year now and I still think about it every single day. I want to go back, see how things are changing, see all the positive things that have emerged. I read the BBC and all it talks about is death and devestation, which may very well be true, but maybe because of all of this many of the people I met have a voracity for life that I have witnessed nowhere. Because they have had to fight for it and we haven't, at least not in the same way.

So I guess World AIDS Day is a reminder for people to keep trying. I don't have HIV or AIDS myself so I cannot judge or pretend I understand but I pray for courage for those affected. For children born and unborn, for mothers, for fathers, for grandmothers who are holding down families. I want to tell everyone affected here in Canada, or India, or Africa or the many other places affected worldwide that no one is giving up. Not here. So you all can't give up either. I'm not an optimist by any means, but there is hope.

No Fears of Flying

2007-11-30T20:22:00.000-08:00

I am reading a book by Salman Rushdie called The Ground Beneath Her Feet and I came across a passage that I just loved. I kept re-reading it and I thought I would write it out here if Mr. Rushdie doesn't mind. I might help explain a bit about how a lot of us feel right now.

"For a while I have believed...that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as 'natural' a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identites beneath the false skins of those identities beneath the false skin of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

No sooner did we have ships than we rushed to sea, sailing acorss oceans in paper boats. No sooner did we have cars than we hit the road. No sooner did we have airplanes than we zoomed to the furthest corners of the globe. Now we yearn for the moon's dark side, the rocky plains of Mars, the rings of Saturn, the intersteallar deep. We send mechanical photographers into orbit, or on one-way journeys to the stars, and we weep at the wonders they transmit; we are humbled by the mighty images of far-off galazies standing like cloud pillars in the sky, and we give names to alien rocks, as if they were our pets. We hunger for warp space, for the outlying rim of time. And thi si sthe species that kids itself it likes to stay at home, to bind itself with- what are they called again?- ties.

That's my view. You don't have to buy it. Maybe there aren't so many of us after all. Maybe we are disruptive and anti-social and we shouldn't be allowed. Your'e entitled to your opinion. All I will say is sleep soundly, baby. Sleep tight and sweet dreams." - Rushdie

I feel like every small decision we make changes our lives dramatically but we just don't know it. That there is some special channelling of destiny that changes everything. I also believe you have to make it happen, you have to dream and have ideas and you need to follow them because you only live once. Cliche but true. So that's what I say to anyone reading, do it, work it, fly there, jump without a net, try.

The Emerald Isle

2007-11-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about Ireland, but it just seems to run through my blood. I feel at home there.

It may be the mass amounts of pints I ingested in that country but it just made me happy. I couldn't understand half the people there, making it a little hard to figure out what was going on at times, but that made me laugh all the more.

It rains a lot and the weather changed four times a day, requiring one to bring an umbrella, a sweater, and waterproof shoes everywhere. Don't even get me started on the problems this caused for one's hairstyle. Why even bother with a hair dryer? Nothing ever dried- not even in our lovely dry summer. The clothes we hung in our living room (you couldn't possibly hang anything outside with the unpredictable clouds that float over the island) would take at least three days to dry.

And I can't wait to go back. It won't be the same because I won't be living in a house with four other girls. I won't be getting right drunk four nights a week either. I will actually care about my job this time. But I'm excited. I don't think I'll ever permanently live there- well at this point I can't see myself living anywhere permanently- but I think I could spend a lot more time there. When your distant cousin invites you out to their farm and gives you a wine glass full of brandy how could you not love it?

The memories come back to me all the time. Mostly in pubs. But nothing equates to the craziness of things that occur there.

So in January I get to spend a month there. And it might be cold or rainy or not amazing. But it will be amazing to me. The Irish Sea does something to me (knock the wind out of me) but there is something so comforting about a lovely Irish day and lovely Irish accent.

And I can't wait to get started... on a flight... in a different place... feeling something different....

My love for Eddie...

2007-11-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

Words cannot even express how I feel about Eddie Vedder. I don't research him, I don't really look up the band's website. I'm not one of those fans. I just memorize the words to every single one of the songs he sings and feel happy. Or sad. Or whatever emotion he brings out in me that day. Sometimes it's anger. Mostly a happiness. I can probably play every song in my mind but I couldn't tell you their bio. I don't even know if he writes all the songs himself. I really hope so. Because there is something about his voice that just grips me in every way.

Pearl Jam has been there for me through the thick and the thin, through the bad and the good, to speak in pure cliches.

I've listened to their music through breakups, in emotional moments, when I was running along the Grand Canal in Dublin, on a bus in Ghana, all since my older sister first introduced me and it was instant. There is something about his voice.

I just love them. I saw Pearl Jam in concert and it was one of the happiest moments ever- mind you I had drank a lot- and I was so far away I could barely see Eddie, but just the fact that he was there made me happy. He has a beautiful soul. There is something so serene about him. If I look at Pearl Jam's photos I don't find Eddie incredibly attractive necessarily but there is just something so enthralling about him. Like there is a spirit running through him as he drinks red wine onstage. Like he would be my husband in another life where he wasn't a million miles away from the life I lead and I wasn't the anal retentive stresscase I am. You know?

I have taken to listening to Pearl Jam almost every day. When you're drinking a bottle of wine there is no one better. Seriously. And I'm not obsessed with them in some Beatlemania kind of way like I want Paul McCartney to take me on a date, I just love him from afar for his art.

But I feel like usually I watch musicians and they make me feel a bit awkward, like they are trying way too hard to fit into some random bad boy or lame-ass teen boy image. But not Eddie. He just jams. And I like that. And I don't think musicians are my type either, they seem entirely too emotional. But he does it for me. He is someone that could transform my life in an amazingly positive way.

I once said I wouldn't marry anyone unless they could play Yellow Ledbetter and I think I just might stick to that. It's a sign I think.

Things that make me happy...

2007-10-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

A lovely day in Ireland

My arts soph team...made my undergrad amazing

My favourite picture from all of Europe after 7 hours of hiking in Cinque Terre..check out Meghan's unamused look

The past... a girl's best friend

The present...a new baby in the family

A summer on the lake

Elephant watering hole in Northern Ghana

Rasta sista's for life in Ghana

Elephants in Africa... never cease to amaze

Feyiase girls in Ghana

On a grumpy day there is always a rainbow....look closely.

In these times of extreme stress I need to remind myself of the important things in life. The things that make me happy that don't involve paper, pens or insanity. So here are some of my favourites from the past and present.

Insanely Overemotionally Involved

2007-09-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go grocery shopping I feel ill. Today was no exception. I love food, don't get me wrong but there is something so bizarre about the plethora of selection we have that it is scary. I was reading an article for my International Reporting class (yay I got in finally!) and I remembered why I feel so panicked all the time. Because everything I have is so pointless. Not pointless necessarily, but excessive compared to what others have and what I actually need. When I fill my cart with the vast array of cereals, vegetables, and organic products that I have come to love so much I feel strange.

The article I read was discussing a woman who grew up in Sudan and fled to Ethiopia during the civil war. She and her children drank from dirty mud puddles and ate whatever they could find. Her first experience at a grocery store in Canada must have been bizarre.

I guess I felt this way when I got home from Africa- why do we have all this when people all over the world have nothing? And yet I consume more than the average person. I feel overwhelmed and panicked and just buy and buy to make myself feel like I have some sort of control over the world, my life and myself. But it all means nothing.

There is a passage in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brother's Karamazov that struck me the moment I read it and I will never forget it.

"For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance."- The Grand Inquisitor

I guess this kind of describes my panic. As I live every day as something I don't think I am. I read all of these articles and they touch me more than they should. Or maybe that is the whole point. I feel stunted, like I need to get out there and help and report and give. That is kind of why the more I read I know that I want the responsibility of a journalist- to tell the world about the stories they cannot see with their own eyes, to let them know that people are starving, women are being raped, people are losing their families, but I worry that they won't do anything. Most people don't. And then it would all be in vain.

I watched Farenheit 9/11 the other day and Michael Moore was filming a woman in front of the White House whose son had died in the war in Iraq. She was sobbing so hard that she doubled over. All I wanted was for the camera man to set down the camera and go and hug her and help her with her grief. I'm not sure I can be that person who films, records and watches as the world falls apart. That maybe I need to work for an NGO, move somewhere and do something about the way I feel, even if it only feels like a small impact.

People may pay more attention to the passing of someone like Princess Diana, but Mother Theresa should have had a far greater impact. She is a role model. She actually lived in the slums and cared for those who had nothing. And I'm coming to realize that is so much more important.

And our lives of contradictions continues.

Ohhh Ontario...

2007-08-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ontario, Canada. How I have come to hate you, and yet every time I really do, you suck me back in.

So I've been frustrated obviously at being stuck in the same spot for so long. I felt really suffocated in undergrad and was thrilled when I graduated to escape off to Dublin for a few months. But then inevitably I had to come back and then I spent the next 4 months planning my next escape.

So then I went away for a few months again.

But in the past few days I have realized why I used to love it here so much. I guess sometimes I feel like the only way to not feel trapped, bored, scared of the future, controlled by the past, is to run away. I know that people say this is no solution to anyone's problems, but I must say that I disagree. And I intend to prove that it is possible. More on this later...

The point issss: I love cottage country. What a revelation eh? But seriously. I spent a summer working up north and though there were tons of issues with that summer (crappy boyfriend, mean boss, bad working conditions, long and painful hours) I had one of the best summers of my life. And the reason for that was that no matter how bad of a day I was having, I woke up every morning to the most beautiful scenery. And this is a part of my theory that one's environment is really important to their mental health. Some think that I'm just a complainer (this is true) but when I have travelled to different places (strangely beautiful places) I have truly been much happier. And working up north proved this to me.

I worked on Georgian Bay and I grew to love it. It's a little too big for me, a little too deep and little too cold but it is truly lovely.

I would walk outside and look at the sunrise, the amazing bent trees made famous by the Group of Seven, and smell the sweet mixture of wood and water. That smell always brings me back to those mornings. I spent all day outside in the sun lifeguarding and watching the clouds and boats pass by. And I loved every minute of it. I loved the cold bite of the nighttime up there. I loved the sound of the cicadas that buzzed during the day and the crickets that tweeted all night. I loved the sound of the waves hitting rock, the boats buzzing along, and the creaks and groans of old wooden buildings.

These past few days have brought me back to that.

I've gone running, fended off giant horse flies, gone swimming in the cold seaweedy water, done yoga in the sun, gone kayaking, and watched the sunset from my boat. I've seen a muskrat, a small dying mouse, many strange bugs, my favourite toad who hides nearby, a red squirrel, a groundhog, and a crazy little chipmunk. I've read every newspaper, magazine and book I can get my hands on, and my brain actually has room to absorb it all!

All of these things made me remember why I loved this place so much when I was little. I used to hate travelling. My parents constantly remind me of this whenever I moan about how trapped I am and love suggesting places nearby that I could work in the future (ahem, nooo thank you, at least not for a long time.) But yeah, I just love it up there. I used to spend hours swimming, reading, and making clay sculptures out of the mud on the bottom of our old lake. We had a one bedroom cottage that we would rent for a few weeks that had bats and birds living in it but I loved that place more than anything. We were always running around barefoot and dirty and had competitions to see how far we could spit our watermelon seeds.

And even though I've seen a million sunsets up north, I still find them beautiful. And even though I've seen a million trees and a million bushes I still feel like a child in a fantasy inside the forest. And even though I've seen a million rocks I still like the way they are curved and crafted by the nature around them, and how the moss grows on them in pathways.

I guess it is easy to hate on Toronto and London but I forget that there are these places that I really used to love and still do that will always draw me home. They have their own beautiful aspects- Toronto has some awesome niches, but I forget these easily when I'm frustrated and rushing around. So I'll run away for a while but I'm guessing I'll be back. Eventually. Perhaps.

See? Even a clear pessimist can make something optimistic out of all their complaining.

The biggest health issue of our generation

2007-08-10T20:05:00.001-07:00

I hope to report some day on the biggest issue- not just health issue- of our lifetime. I don't know when I became interested in HIV/AIDS but it has only grown in multitudes throughout the years. Pretty sure everyone is tired of me writing about it and talking about it but I cannot stop. I think when I first learned what it was I was shocked that it was affecting so much of the world, and the world's most vulnerable, because it is preventable. I had been thinking about becoming involved for a few years- signed up to volunteer for World AID's Day at Western (twice and never once got contacted) and looked at volunteering at Stephen Lewis' Foundation if I could find the time.

But I had always wanted to go and try to help or at least see what the situation really was firsthand.

Someone who really inspired me to pursue my interests in travelling and learning about this deadly virus was my friend Dallas. Yes, lame I know because she does read this blog, but I don't mean this in a sucking-up kind of way. Initially, I vaguely knew her through the student newspaper The Gazette and began dating one of her friends. Adam told me about her blog that summer when I was stuck working in a soul-sucking bank job and I began to read it religiously. Her writing was inspiring. She worked with Western Heads East, a program through UWO that works in Tanzania in East Africa with probiotic yogurt.

My friend Rob also did the program and though I think it sounded really challenging they both definitely got something out of it. It was a life-changing experiences for a few people that I respected. Reading Dallas' blog I felt like I could relate. Like if she could handle all the pressures placed before her, such as malaria, aggressive men, being a single white female and clear minority alone in a foreign country, that I could face my fears and do the same. I drew courage from reading about her experiences.

So when I look at someone like my pseudo-role model Stephanie Nolen and think that she has captured some of the biggest stories in our generation, I feel like there are many doing the same, and yet there needs to be many more. In the book signing I saw her at she said that her AIDS stories weren't just about reporting on the virus, it was also that she was reporting on the biggest news story of our lifetime. And she was right. I hope that there is a solution, a vaccine, a magical drug to fix it all but I don't know if it will go away while I am alive. Because it is not as simple as a cure.

I did my last radio story on a professor at Schulich at Western who has been working on a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Dr. Yong Kang is three years away from a therapeutic vaccine and six years away from a preventative vaccine if all goes well. He is less than a year away from human clinical trials of the vaccine and currently the drugs for the first trials are being manufactured in the United States. I read this in a former issue of the Alumni News from Western and almost couldn't believe what I read. I knew that I wanted to incorporate him into my journalism stories if I could. Speaking to him was so exciting and inspiring I almost didn't care if I got good clips for my radio story. He amazed me- that after twenty years of research he could be that close to a vaccine for a plague that is literally ravaging half the world.

But even if he does solve the scientific aspect of the virus it is not that simple, as a representative from the AIDS Committee of London reminded me. He said that he does not want people to think that there is a simple cure for HIV. He told me that 25 to 30 per cent of Canadians already think that there is a cure. This is ludicrous to me, but I can see how misinformed the general public was and even how misinformed I was before I worked at the HIV/AIDS clinic in Kumasi.

There are an estimated 55,000 people in Canada living with HIV/AIDS and many of these people may not know they are infected he told me. It is not necessarily something that drugs can solve and it is not so simple. Besides, there are no guarantees that the vaccine will succeed or that it will be able to fix those already infected. I was cautious in my story about these scientific innovations in the field of AIDS research to include these statistics, so that people know that it exists in Canada, that they are vulnerable and that AIDS is not an African disease.

Dr. Kang also inspired me in another way. I didn't get the full story out of him because he is a busy man, but basically I understood that when and if his HIV/AIDS vaccine succeeds he has made a deal with a Korean-based company to distribute these drugs to developing nations such as those in sub-saharan Africa for free. I don't think that eliminating AIDS will transform developing nations into developed ones, but I cannot even imagine the impact it could have. It could be revolutionary. It could be like a miracle. A Lazarus-effect for a continent, nations, halves of the world.

But there are millions more problems in the developing world. There is still malaria, tuberculosis, corruption, countries in debt, serious health care issues, safety, human rights issues, and things as simple as diarrhea that kill thousands of children. But a way to solve a world-wide problem that kills parents, vulnerable children and women, the middle-aged population and leaves grandmothers as primary caregivers could transform the economies and social settings in many nations. There is always hope of such a transformation. And I hope to follow this story throughout my life.

I don't know where I'm going with this as I often don't, but I have been mulling this story around in my head for a few weeks. I want to tell more, do more, see more. I need to do that wherever I am.

1/3 Master's...how 'bout that

2007-08-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Soooo, I'm done the first semester of my Master's degree. And to be quite honest I'm underwhelmed. I had a lot of extreme frustrations these past few months and they have really made me doubt my educational decisions. I think that getting into Ryerson's journalism program last week really threw me off because I was just getting into the work, and then all of a sudden I wasn't sure if I was in the right place anymore.

I think that I decided to do a Master's in journalism because I love writing. And yet I hated the first section of print more than anything. Like swearing, ranting, angry hatred of what they made writing become for me. I didn't enjoy writing anymore. It had become hokey and frustrating. But my faith was renewed when I started television and my profs were so amazing and experienced and excited about their jobs. Sure, we were still covering very local stories but they weren't so boring- they were challenging. Radio, something I had never thought I would enjoy, I absolutely loved. We were encouraged and got to do live broadcasts and I was able to write and read about international news and local news. I was able to focus on things I found interesting.

So this past week after making a really tough decision about whether this program was going to put me in the right direction I got kind of thrown for a loop. I didn't get into the only international reporting class available throughout the whole progam. It sounds totally stupid I agree, but I was trying to tell myself that this program was right for me and not getting into one of the only classes I truly wanted to take made me so upset. Crying in the bathroom, freaking out at the administration upset. What the hell am I doing this program for if I can't even get into a course that I want to take so badly? It is the only reason I am doing this program- not the course- but the fact that I want take my skills abroad.

When I got the text message in Ghana from my sister saying I got into my Master's at Western I was shocked. I was loving life there, writing like mad, re-thinking life all the time, and not sure if I was ready to be back in London, Ontario. But I hoped that a degree would further my academic love and help me to articulate the feelings I had and lead to some sort of future career.

And yet it has left me feeling discouraged rather than accomplished. I feel trapped and angry and my rageaholism is at an all-time high. I was happy this program was only a year so that I could try to do a Journalists for Human Rights program and go back to Africa. People think that living there is hard- and it is- but living there gave me something to smile about every single day. I would feel sick or be extremely hot and a child or a person would say something or do something that made me smile. And I don't have that right now. I feel upset and people ignore me. I feel angry and someone honks and cuts me off while driving. I'm trying not to be bitter but I'm just feeling really stuck. Hopefully this break will give me some perspective.

I really didn't realize how badly I wanted to do international journalism until people told me that I couldn't. When our print professors told us that we would be lucky to work at the St. Mary's Times I was like, what the hell? It made me angry. It made me more determined than ever. I know a degree means nothing and determination means everything. So I just have to keep on track, pull myself together, control my anger, and push forward and do what I want despite the fact that people or administration don't think I can or don't feel like letting me.

Intellectual obsessions and all that....

2007-06-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

When I saw the Vanity Fair Africa issue I was filled with glee. Literally. I love any opportunity to immerse myself in information, pictures or stories from a place that I fell in love with. Perhaps I loved my experience there so much because it was the biggest escape of all. We had almost no internet access, my phone barely worked, and we were lucky if the power even did! But I have found myself a little obsessed. Ever since my post-colonial class I have begun to fill my room and bookshelf with works from African writers, post-colonial books, magazines, pictures, any information I can gather on this interesting continent. It is huge, and encompasses so many different cultures, wildlife, habitats, languages and I just think I could study it and learn about if for years and still know almost nothing.

It really just gives me some perspective in my life. When you read about what some people endure every day it makes you step back and not worry so much about what you were thinking about. How selfish is that- that it takes the suffering of other people to give me some enlightenment? It blocks out concerns about schoolwork or boys and seems to fulfill a great purpose- that there are 54 countries somewhere that people don't often talk about, that many people might never visit, that experience things we could never imagine and that are filled with vibrant and vivacious people who from my small experience have an incredible will to survive. I think this is enforced as I've been methodically reading Stephanie Nolen's book about AIDS in Africa. Almost every story takes place in a different country where AIDS has taken a devastating toll. There is one sentence she wrote and reading it really encapsulated how I felt about AIDS.

"...there is a particular distaste saved for those diseases where the sick are viewed as the authors of their own misfortune..."... I thought this was such a moving way to put it. The "authors of their own misfortune" is how many people view HIV in developing countries as well as in Canada. It is easier not to use a condom, not to get tested, to let yourself die without ever knowing your status, but it takes courage to try to live through an extremely stigmatized disease. I admire people like the woman who won the Miss HIV Stigma-Free beauty pageant that Nolen describes in Botswana. Cynthia Leshomo tried to kill herself when she found out she was positive, but in doing so realized she had much to live for. And then she became an icon for the PLWHA community. The book is full of inspiring stories. And as I work my way through them and the Vanity Fair I'm sure I'll have much more to say...

I wrote a letter into Flare this month about a woman that they featured who was HIV positive in Canada. The magazine didn't treat the disease like it was nothing, but they also showed that you can live with HIV and live a full life. That if you get tested and you are positive you can survive and teach others the lessons you learned-because I could never even imagine how hard that would be. Stigma as I mentioned is what keeps this disease alive.

I just wish I could do more, learn more, and immerse myself in everything I'm thinking of all the time, and that I could understand things from a different perspective. Because no matter what I didn't grow up in a village, I was given free medical treatment and I will never understand someone who grew up with nothing the same way they could never understand me. But I love learning about it, and I'm hoping that will make all the difference because education is key right?

I just feel like the problems have many solutions. And what I love about the Vanity Fair issue so far is that it is not negative. Yes, many negative things happen in Africa, as many negative things happen all over the world. But the focus of the media is always on these aspects. And I hope that this sheds some light on the many, many positives I have experienced, so the world knows a little bit more.

Yeah I know, negative nelly is my name

2007-05-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I'm going to survive another 11 months here. Oh my God is it that long? It's not that the program itself is all that bad, a little redundant to say the least, but not horrible. It's just the feeling of being trapped back in this city again. Yes, huge cidiot snob, but it's not even just London, it's this whole country. I've already spent 4 years of my short life in this town that I mostly hate. It can be really fun- great bars, university lifestyle, favourite post-bar foods- but then there is always that horribly suffocating feeling that it's all closing in on you and you can only walk the same block over and over again being plagued by things you thought you'd left behind.

I'm so dramatic, I know. Maybe this is why I'm more than a little determined to leave behind everything familiar. I want to go somewhere where I don't know anyone and I don't see a single thing that has any memory attached to it. I want to live somewhere where I experience something new every single day and something that makes me smile. I feel the same negative way about Toronto. People seem to think "wooow Toronto, big time" which I guess makes sense if you have lived in a small town your whole life but I feel like it's just a pretend New York or L.A. where everyone acts like they are some indie trendy cosmopolitan drinker. I'm just not into it. I don't know what has happened to make me hate it here so much.

Maybe it's because every time I'm in Toronto I'm doing something really stressful. Like when I was in high school- wasn't a huge fan of private Catholic school, and when I worked downtown in the summers- not so relaxing. And I just feel like I go for a run through my neighbourhood and go back through this cycle of, wow I am doing the same thing over and over every single day.

When we landed again in Toronto after being in Italy I looked outside the plane and it was so bleak I was actually overcome. Granted the airport overlooks Mississauga so that isn't all that flattering, but seriously, it just make me want to cry. I'm just having a breakdown that I have to be here for so much longer. I just need to get out. Even though I did have a great weekend with old friends- maybe it's a case of the Mondays?

I have three weeks off in August so I must escape at some point. Vegas? the real London? British Columbia? Who knows, but I will be okay. oyyyy. Look how big the world is and how small a part of it I'm trapped in?!

2007-05-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

I was walking home in the sun today and I began thinking about a lot of things I've been reading lately. Don't worry this post won't be too long- I've already spent half my day in front of a computer doing an irritating assignment.

I was reading Stephanie Nolen's book last night, 28 Stories, and I also caught an article of hers from Monday's Globe and Mail. She made me think about how brutally hard it is to live in certain parts of the world. I think that statistics say that about 90 percent of the world live in extreme poverty- with intense climates, food shortages, no health care, and terrifying political situations, while 10 percent live in the comfort and prosperity I enjoy every day. I'm not trying to generalize, but I suppose that anything I just said is pretty much that, but it just seems like our lives in the Western world are so simple. I know they aren't all the time. There is depression, loss, illness and a million other stressors in Canada, I guess it just seems so easy in comparison.

The third story in Nolen's book was about a truck driver in Kenya. She travelled with the man across the country and her story filled me with memories of Ghana. I don't think it's as extreme as many of the other African countries but it seemed to have some very similar elements to what her story told. The lack of water and power for long periods of time, horrible,if any facilities, the scary prospect of eating unknown foods. Hell, I really admire her for reporting the way she does. It takes a lot of guts to get in the car of a truck driver and go into the night with them, and potentially risk your life and at least live uncomfortably for a few days, just to get a story. It made me feel a little sheepish for complaining about having to talk to locals in Barrie to get information for an article.

I have been reading a lot lately about people who report in war zones and politically unstable climates. I admire these people, while asking myself, what are they doing it for? Are they doing it for personal gain, for the sake of their careers or because of a true passion for the people they are writing about?

I guess with all this journalism talk, and all of these stories about horrible life-threatening diseases it has got me thinking that it takes some real balls to go into such a profession (pardon my expression). Nolen reported on a South African town that had highly infectious and deadly drug-resistant TB. The very fact that she had pictures and one-on-one sources means that she probably visited this place and this clinic. That is extremely risky behaviour to be quite honest. But I admire her because if she hadn't how would people ever know about it? It is hard to live in a hot climate, where water is most definitely not clean, and where you are exposing yourself to diseases that are virtually non-existent in the Western world. I guess it is just scary to me, but also so full of possibilities. Trying to gain some courage to do the things I always dreamed of without getting scared away. That's all for now.

Oh, and the day was sunny today and I downloaded some of the hip-life, high-life and Ghanaian reggae that Aziz gave me and it was so awesome to go out on a great hot day and just enjoy it. Reminds me of some great times. And some great friends...

Newsworthy Idealism

2007-05-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

There are many things that I want to get out of my Journalism Master's program. I am still so excited for what the future holds. It seems like many journalists are very jaded about the profession and I'm sure I will be, but right now I expect so much. I don't want to forget why I went into this program in the first place.

I want to travel, explore and learn new things.

I want to thrive in my instability.

I want to use my neutrality as a reporter to expose the indignities of the world.

I don't want to end up settled in Canada immersed in politics, bullshit, and my own frustration.

I have to remember why I am doing this- to tell stories, to use my writing skills, to meet people, to travel, and to learn.

Whenever I read the newspaper I am so drawn to the international news. Anything that has to do with the new Northern Ireland political situation, or Somalia or Uganda instantly catches my eye and I quickly bypass the many paragraphs of Canadian political gripes and scandals. I guess news is all situational- some people are interested in a local news story about a pickpocket because that is their reality, that is what they live in and for.

I suppose I am simply a Canada snob at this point. I don't want to stay in Canada, and I don't know why but the news from here just doesn't seem important in comparison to things that are going on everywhere else like wars, genocides and children dying of AIDS.

So, that's all for now. Nothing new besides a little idealism.

P.S. That prof I met with at Carleton was in the Globe and Mail for his genocide book! Ordering it online as we speak, pretty nerdily excited.

A mere glimpse...

2007-04-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

You know when you go to something and you just want to run home and write down all that you were thinking in your diary? Well that's kind of how I feel about tonight.It was my first real "celebrity" encounter where I was actually really excited to meet the person- not just on a superficial level such as having their signature- but just to hear what the person had to say.

I went to a book signing by journalist Stephanie Nolen.(http://www.stephanienolen.com) She is the chief correspondent for 54 countries on the continent of Africa for The Globe and Mail. Pretty amazing job I must say. Pretty damn jealous. She recently published a book called 28-Stories of AIDS in Africa. It is a book that tells the story of 28 Africans living with HIV/AIDS dedicated to the 28 million people living with the disease in sub-saharan Africa today.

I read about it in the paper and I got really hyped up. I don't want my experience in Ghana to pass me by and be a blip on my map of travels. I am putting in an effort to keep in touch with everyone from there (got an email from my host mother- miss her so much!) and to try to raise funds and awareness for the organization here in Canada. When I heard about the opportunity to meet Nolen I jumped at it. She is doing a job that I would love to do. Traveling and living in Africa, writing about issues that affect so many people, and raising awareness about the issue worldwide. Essentially I want to be her- or at least maybe I do.

She was an amazing speaker and it was a privilege to meet someone I admired. But I found myself a little disenchanted when I was actually able to speak to her one on one. I understand that I am young and she knows much more than I, but I found her tone a little condescending towards myself, as well as audience questions and people's attempts to argue about some issues. I asked her about doing a Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) program and she basically told me that by no means should I try to do one of their programs. "Why would you mix human rights and journalism? It doesn't make any sense. Move to Ghana and freelance," she said. Okaaay, but I thought that maybe journalism and human rights did go together? I felt a little confused, but it fuelled how I felt about what I had read a few moments earlier. There is a section at the back of her book entitled "how you can help".

I eagerly flipped to the back of the book and this is what I read: "First, people want to go to Africa to help in a hands-on way...It's a commendable idea but not always the best solution...Western volunteers can be a drain on the communities they go to help: if they don't speak the language, they cannot assist with education or AIDS awareness, and usually they don't have the particular skills that are needed...All too often, the already overburdened and under-resourced community that the volunteers want to help ends up translating for them, figuring out their housing and food needs, and taking them to the expensive clinic in the city when they get malaria or jiggers or dysentery" (Nolen 387-388). Hmmmm.....I must say that I wholeheartedly disagree.

I do not feel that I was a drain on my community. I was actively involved in the events around me, I did not demand special foods or fancy health care from my host family, and while I did not speak the language fluently I contributed as much as I could. I was a valuable part of AHFOGH's HIV/AIDS presentations, I taught at a school that barely had a teacher half the time, I was able to help and learn at the clinic, and I am pushing to contribute to the organization from Canada. I did get sick, but I did not force my host mother away from her work. I also used the basic skills that I had, as well as all the energy I could muster to contribute wherever I could.

Nolen's basic dismissal of volunteering abroad really bothered me. My experience in Ghana pushed me to learn more about HIV/AIDS, and hell, it was the reason I was there watching her speak. It is different to read the statistics splashed on the pages of newspapers than it is to actually touch an emaciated woman with a young child on her back, inevitablely dying of a preventable wide-spread disease. Volunteering lights a fire inside people who are already interested in something and teaches them what they are passionate about so that they can work to pursue it.

I left my encounter with her feeling kind of stupid. The problem with people who are very intelligent or in powerful positions is that they cannot dumb down their knowledge for others, or in doing so can make people feel inadequate. Nolen seemed very well-informed and I understand that she knows much more about the continent as a whole than I do. But I am trying. In retrospect, I have fond memories of the meeting I had with Carleton Professor Allan Thompson back in January. I went to discuss their journalism master's program, and though he was leaving for Rwanda the next day he found time to meet with me. His office was covered in beautiful African art, and he encouraged me to learn more about the genocide, excitedly discussed my upcoming travels to West Africa and fuelled my interest in the media's role in conflict and the imagery of developing nations. Even a person like Stephen Lewis seems to be someone who encourages others to become involved in a basic way.

In regards to Nolen, I someday hope to work with her, or under her, or even in the same area as her. I'm still excited to read her book, and hopefully it will raise awareness even more, and turn HIV/AIDS from something on a faraway continent into a real and important issue here in Canada.

Moving onwards and upwards?

2007-04-09T12:32:00.001-07:00

So as many of you do or don't know, I'm going back to London to start my Master's in May. Yes, I am going back to Western. I'm so happy that I got into a Master's program that I'm interested in but not so thrilled to be back in London. BUT it is only a year and I'm making plans to escape Canada already. (With my invisible money so potentially should get a job before leaving again.) I am doing my Master of Journalism and it is a twelve month program starting May 4th. AHHH! I know. Must find a place to live and figure out what one needs to do before starting another degree. Actually, I'm really not that stressed out. Yeah I have a lot of stuff to do, but it is also not a huge deal that I have to get a loan and make a budget and blah blah blah.

Also, on another superficial note or professional note or whatever this is constituted as- I got some of my work published! Now, its nothing academic or groundbreaking, but I was pretty excited. In the April issue of Wish Magazine my name is published 3 times! (I'm such a nerd but come on, its hard to do!) I got a big blurb published about paying your bills online with my name beside it in big letters, and my buzzword on lucite shoes for spring was published right above the editor's note on the Fashion page! I spent weeks mailing and packaging expensive Tod's shoes and Chanel purses with little credit and a lot of stress so I'm pretty excited that I got some of my very small ideas published! As a fashion intern I know not to expect much, but I also worked on an organic fashion list and I just found it on the website! AHHH.

http://www.wish.ca/fashion/regulararticle/176/ (This took me soo long to do!)

Wish has over a million readers so I was really pumped! I read it in Italy because my mom managed to shove it into her suitcase and I was jumping up and down with excitement. Okay, enough shameless self-promotion, its totally not a big deal, I was just excited. And for anyone that was lucky enough to experience my extreme stress there (Adam, Bethany, Aileen) you'll know how important this was to me.

Now to completely swing the other way, one of the projects I really want to do is a journalism- related internship in Rwanda. Leaving Ghana, I had already decided that this wasn't it for me. I wanted to come back to this amazing continent and there were so many options. I would love to work for an NGO or maybe freelance and write from abroad. Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) has a lot of programs that I might apply for when I graduate. It would enable me to travel, work and potentially even go back to Ghana if they are hosting another program there. But Rwanda is next on my list. There is an internship there that works on cataloguing the genocide, writing for a local newspaper and teaching journalist classes so I really want to do it if I can get in. It was started by a Prof that works in Carleton's journalism school that I met with in January who seems really amazing. He just wrote a book that covers one of the topics I want to basically write a book on when I have some sort of established career in the future. His book covers the influence of the media on the Rwandan genocide and I need to find it (it just came out). http://www.idrc.ca/rwandagenocide/- check out his book online! I wrote an essay on the media's impact on genocide and world conflict in 4th year and my research really didn't find enough resources on this extremely interesting topic. I'm hoping to someday contribute to some scholarly work on this topic, because I've become a little obsessed about it.

So, that's life with me. Random, all over the place, and yet somehow organized. I'll be in Toronto for the next month so hopefully I will get to see all of you who I have missed for the past few months and then don't worry I'm sure I'll be road tripping back for visits.

Agnes Opoku...an amazing woman

2007-04-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

There are no words that accurately describe Agnes Opoku. Energetic, hilarious, caring, loving and motivated are some that could try. She started African Hope, had five children, works twelve hour days with the school kids, sex workers and PLWHA's and still goes to church at night acting as a local pastor. I don't know how she does it. But I love her for it.She treated me like one of her daughters and didn't care about me just as a volunteer but really made me feel like one of her own.

She normally didn't have time for breakfast because she was always running late. In typical Ghanaian fashion, things never happen on time, and it was one of the things about her that made me laugh.

I was driving in my car the other day loving the high life music CD's that Aziz made me in Ghana and I started having some great memories. I decided to take my braids out one day because Femke told me they were getting fuzzy, and they were definitely getting itchy, so I spent a few hours trying to get them out on my own. Braids are impossible to take out- they took almost 4 hours to be put in and about 8 hours to take out! Femke and Saskia came over to my house to help me, but by 11 pm, we were all exhausted. I had to do a presentation the next morning and half of my head was in braids and the other half was a complete fuzzball so I was starting to freak out. I woke up at 4 in the morning and started unbraiding again. At 8 am I still wasn't done! Agnes came out of her room, took one look at me and said, "okay we aren't going to do our presentations today because I have so much laundry and housework to do, and you need help!" She hadn't taken a day off all weekend- I went with her on the weekend to show a potential donor a plot of land for an orphanage- and trust me, laundry and chores take at least half a day here! So she plopped down and helped me unbraid my hair for over an hour. It is those moments, where she sat with me and chatted and was so motherly, that I will never forget about Agnes.

Another morning, at about 7 am on a Saturday my cell phone started ringing. It was Agnes so I figured she was already out and about. We chatted for a bit and she asked if I could go to a meeting with her that morning. I agreed and asked her where we should meet and then things got very confusing. Speaking to Ghanaians on the phone is always a bit challenging because they pronounce their words quite differently and there is not the greatest reception. She said we would meet Mike at the tro tro station, and for about 5 minutes I tried to ask her where WE should meet because I didn't know where she was. Finally she said, "oh Kate, I am in the house, in bed!"... hahaha she was calling me from her room in the same house because she didn't want to bother me! So funny, that one had me laughing all day.

I really miss her and so many things about life in Ghana. The weather, the music, the people and the general attitudes. I don't miss some of the smells, but I do miss some of the food. I hope to go back and visit Agnes and the family in the next few years, or maybe even end up working somewhere in Africa. I am trying to get started on raising funds/getting grants for AHFOGH so if anyone has any places they suggest applying for funds let me know!

"I was smitten for life."

2007-04-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

When I was really sick with malaria (or whatever tropical disease it was) I had a lot of time to think. I couldn't do much for about 3 days so I read a lot and wrote a lot. I thought a lot about what the trip meant to me- so far I had been in Ghana for just over 7 weeks. This doesn't sound long at all in retrospect.

I realized a lot about myself while I was there. I did not want to walk away from my experience and go back to Canada and fall back into the exact same patterns I was in before I left. Yes, I will still care about stupid insignificant things, but they don't matter as much as they did before.

I learned that by trying to escape myself I have truly become more of who I am. I was joking around with Femke and Saskia about how I thought that Ghana would teach me to relax, to go with the flow of life, and help me to get over all of my fears. Indeed I have conquered many of these fears such as: African toilets (dear God did I find some horrible ones), peeing in public (a whole village saw me once), working in areas with terrifying diseases, foreign foods, lack of running water and electricity, open sewers and a completely different culture. I've learned that I'm still a huge hypochondriac and germaphobe and I still get stressed out about things - but I'm okay with that. I've learned how to be alone, and yet being alone made me realize how many people cared about me. The random emails or messages or blog posts from friends and family made me feel like I was really cared about, and like I was doing something important with my life.

I feel like I contributed something real in Ghana. I was afraid that I would go and simply get stuck doing something uninteresting and pointless and I got the complete opposite. Granted, I didn't speak enough Twi to do the presentations alone and I didn't do any medical procedures that brought people back to life. But you think, well I taught a group of men on Valentine's Day how to use condoms to protect themselves and their partners. I met some commercial sex workers who may have had their questions about HIV answered and put their minds at ease. I may have encouraged a pregnant woman to get tested for HIV and changed the life of her baby. I got to have fun with a little boy with HIV and show him that he is still a little boy even though he is sick. I think that everyone should do something like this at some point in their lives. I am so fortunate to be able to have the time and resources to volunteer because I know that everyone does not. I just think that if you are able to go abroad and face your personal demons and help another culture then you can re-evaluate whether you have been doing the right thing or the wrong thing all the years of your life. I'm not saying I'm less materialistic or capitalist or selfish- I'm just saying that it put all of these things into perspective and I was able to think about which things were actually important.

It's not so much that I'm leaving my heart in Africa , as it is that I will take a piece of it with me always. Not in some exotified, mythologized way, but as a true memory of a time in my life where I felt truly happy. It wasn't that I woke up every moning in luxury to some amazing sunrise - it was that whenever I felt bad there was always something right around the corner that made me so utterly happy.

I re-read Stephen Lewis' "Race Against Time" again while I was sick and it made me cry. The first place he ever visited in Africa was Accra, Ghana. He was supposed to stay for 7 days and he stayed for a year. I can see how he fell in love with it. So many of his experiences have paralleled the things I've seen- in the HIV clinic, in the schools, and in my travels, though obviously not to the same extreme. "I was smitten for life," said Lewis. This is exactly how I feel. His writing encompasses so many stories and ideas that I wonder how he managed to compact so many experiences into one book. But I've been thinking a lot and there will be more to come...

Paintings, dancers, and HIV/AIDS work

2007-04-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some information on the amazing paintings that my Ghanaian friend Adams does. He has no formal training and paints these gorgeous works that I will soon have hanging all over my house. Or will get framed for my future house because my room is too small to fit them all!

He has a website address:http://adamsartservice-adams.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-01-25T14%3A37%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7

Click on the link at the bottom right for older posts of pics. I actually think I bought half of the ones on the webpage- and you can order them from Canada I'm pretty sure so if anyone wants some great art for a very good price send him an email at ziuj2003@yahoo.com.

Junior, who makes all of the necklaces and some drums, also has a website so check it out. He makes me laugh so much.(Apparently his realy name is Shadrack- who would have known!)http://gbetorartworks.blogspot.com

The Africana Dance Company were unlike any dancers I have ever seen. This is the dance team that we went to watch because Adams, Junior and Aziz are members. My dad was utterly amazed. It makes you feel like the laziest, most uncoordinated person ever. But they offer dance classes and in no time you will be shaking it like the best of them. They have a website, and I have some videos so I might try to post them if I can get them to work. I'm sure they won't do them justice but just in case anyone is interested. (Someone hire them for a corporate event in Canada so I can bring all my friends over and you'll never have a better time in your life, I promise!)

http://www.africanadancecompany.com

And finally. The African Hope Foundation of Ghana website. The most amazing organization I could have ever asked for founded by my host mother Agnes Opoku. The website is actually pretty good and I'm going to try to apply to some foundations in Canada for funding for the organization. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions let me know. Also, they would love more volunteers so if you want to do some hands-on HIV/AIDS work let me know and I can tell you what it's like!

http://www.ahfogh.org

Things that make you go hmmm.

2007-04-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

I don't want to forget a single thing that I learned in Ghana. Everything was so different and when something is so dramatically different from what you're used to it is a great way to contemplate the way that you live your life. There were a lot of things I noticed, from fashion to food patterns and I would love to share them with whoever is interested, but I'm just laying them out more so I can think them over.

Fashion in Africa. Ghanaians sure know how to dress. Gill was right, we did look like tools in our Western outfits that were mainly composed of sporty camping gear. A quick-dry shirt might keep you from being really sweaty but you kind of look like an idiot there. The batik tie and dye, kente and GTP clothes were so gorgeous and most women had full outfits made out of them. A full outfit costs 30,000 cedis to make. Thats about 3 dollars US. I got some outfits made by the end but seriously felt under-dressed all of the time. Also, I think every shirt I've ever given away ends up in Africa somewhere. They ship large containers of clothes there from North America, women buy them in bulk and then sell them in the market. I passed so many people with shirts from the Toronto Blue Jays, random American universities, charity runs, and hilarious shirts from somewhere at home.

Shopping here is another interesting dilemma. It's been said that you can find anything in the Kejetia market in Kumasi. It is the largest open air market in West Africa and the longest I was ever in there was maybe 3 hours and I was still in the clothing section! The problem is if you are looking for something specific it could take hours. Instead of walking into Wal-Mart and finding the aisle you want, you have to roam and hope that you might encounter the product you need. Bargaining is another hard tactic. I am really really bad at it. I hate bargaining down some woman who probably needs the money more than I do from 3 dollars down to 1 dollar for a shirt. I'm horrible- I just feel so bad. But after a while you realize that as an obruni you're a walking dollar sign and if you don't stick up for yourself you're going to get ripped off every five minutes. So I tried to learn. I ended up shopping with my host sister one day and it was so weird. You pick through a giant pile of clothing and find random things that you can't try on and then just buy hoping they fit. It boggled my mind how anyone could find anything nice to wear, but people really do! It must take more skill than I have because I was always a little too intimidated.

Food. My sister sent some magazines with my mom to give me in Italy to help me catch up on the cultural scene at home. What struck me first was the models. They were so thin, and so sickly looking. There were also a few articles focusing on anorexia since there has been a lot of publicity about models dropping dead from anorexia -related heart failure lately.

People in Ghana are not thin. Yes, there are definitely people who do not have enough to eat, but I don't think I would say that I saw a lot of people who were starving. An attractive Ghanaian woman is fat. Not obese, but has a healthy appetite and eats a lot of food. It doesn't take much in Ghana to make you fat. All they eat are hydrogenated oils, heavy meats, and tons and tons of carbohydrates. Femke said she gained so much weight, but it's really hard not to. You can't really exercise (people here work all day in the sun) but if I did that I would probably have heat stroke and die. Victoria, staff at the hospital, implied that she felt almost insulted when people thought they were going to lose weight in Africa. "We're not all starving you know," she said. People here eat because you have to eat a lot in the heat to keep going. To have the energy to work for twelve hours a day you have to eat what you can get. The kids at the school would never turn something down that they were fed. Food is precious. I really didn't think twice about the hundreds of loaves of white bread I consumed there, except to note that I didn't really think I was getting any vitamins anymore. You don't think, man is this fufu making me into a big cow, you think, man I'm glad I don't feel sick today so I can eat this whole meal. It was nice to have a break from the stress in Western society that is around every corner about dieting and cutting carbs.

Saskia was talking to her host family about how some people in Western countries starve themselves and they didn't understand it at all. Why would someone do that they asked? She tried to explain that there are these mental disorders where people try to become thinner and she kept trying to tell them the many reasons why and the kids just didn't get it. It doesn't seem to be a concept that people understand. It was so weird to come back to Canada and think, wow I never really think over why I do some of the things I do, in the sense that I have the option to do so. I am obviously not trying to downplay the seriousness of eating disorders- they are very complex and horrible- I'm just trying to illustrate how our society feeds such illnesses (for lack of a better word) while others have very different societal issues. We have so much food. We can just pick out whatever we want and eat it whenever we please. The kids at the school get rice for lunch. If they don't get fed they won't come to school. If Agnes doesn't provide food at the PLWHA meetings, she told me people won't show up. It is an important part of their culture to eat and eat a lot.

The only people that I saw that literally looked like they were starving to death were the AIDS patients at the clinic. In stage 3 or 4 of HIV/AIDS people start losing more than 10% of their body fat. Many of the patients had severe diarrhea or vomiting every day so we would encourage them to try to gain as much as they could because it was very hard to hold on to. The blood pressure monitor doesn't work on people if their arms are too small, and many times we would try and try and their arm would be only bone and the machine would fail to give us a reading. Being thin is not a goal in Ghana, and I hope that their society stays that way.

Their society just worked so differently than ours and in many ways they have many positive societal norms that North Americans could learn from. I'm just rambling now and this is too long, but I'm trying to just think things out before they disappear into normalcy again.

Culture Shocking All Over the Place

2007-04-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

Life outside of Africa so far seems too cold, sanitary and quiet. It feels almost lonely. Yes, I don't think anyone would ever describe Italy as any of these things but it really felt that way. Ghana was so bright all of the time- the clothing, the people, and of course the amazingly hot sunshine. Walking into a hotel in Milan was bizarre at best. I walked in carrying this striped plaid plastic bag that cost a dollar that Gill advised me to get to lug around my drum. I was really travelling like a Ghanaian with this bag, it was so funny, everyone had them at the airport. I looked so ghetto compared to all of the Prada-clad Milanese. (Mind you Louis Vuitton made a bag for spring that is identical to my dollar bag and it costs $3,000 dollars - but I dont think anyone would mistake mine for his.)

Anyways, walking into this hotel and having a shower was so weird. I felt like I was in a dream. First of all- running water, second of all- being clean. I showered every day in Ghana (bucket showers of course) but I felt like the second I stepped out I was dusty and sweaty all over again. Scrubbing down in a hot shower almost felt wrong. I didn't want to wash away the dirt that I had everywhere. It felt comfortable. My mom walked into my room though and told me that me and my father smelled, and proceeded to open the window to try to air it out, haha. Kersten said that she stayed in a hotel when her mom came to visit Ghana and got in a hot shower and freaked out. She hadn't expected it to be hot (I've never had hot water there, ever) so she was screaming and getting burnt and couldn't figure out how to turn it off and that story really makes me laugh. Sleeping in a clean bed was also hard. It was all white and tucked in and I felt so uncomfortable and cold and there were no bug nets and it was utterly soundless in there.

Culture shock is like having a cramp in your brain. You can push through it and start to feel normal or you can make it worse by trying not to get over it. I was kind of stuck between whether I should just not think twice about these things that were once normal and get over it, or whether I should really just hold onto how I felt. I always knew that Western society was drastically different but it's worse coming back. We waste so much. The amount of water, food, electricity and resources that we have and don't give a second thought to is unbelievable. You don't realize how important something like water is until its a sacred commodity. The house in Accra had run out of water before we left and they had to get a truck to bring some in or find a tap somewhere that is running. If you are poor you don't have this option. And here I am wasting the water away scrubbing myself clean. I guess it just felt weird to me to come from so little to so much excess. I actually liked it the other way around. And I know that is because being in West Africa was my option- if I was born there and had no other choice but to work hard all day to get what I had I might not prefer it. Life just seemed a whole lot simpler there. Probably because I could literally escape everything. I didn't know what was going on in the world, I had internet maybe once a week, my cell phone rarely had reception, and I only talked to other people who also had no idea what was going on at home. It was really nice. I don't think I've been as happy as I was there in a while.

Italy of course was absolutely gorgeous. Downtown Milan was dramatically different from Ghana, but it was still beautiful. We spent the day in Milan going to church and wandering around and it was really nice and really weird. I almost threw up in Furla while my mom was looking at purses. The world started spinning and I couldn't look at one more shiny bag or key chain and I just had to get out of there. I couldn't handle it quite yet. We drove up to Lake Como the next morning and it was amazing. It is surrounded by the Italian alps, but I couldn't get as many pictures of it as I wanted because my dad was freaking out driving on the winding roads and wouldn't stop. It was chilly there- I've been freezing since I left Ghana- but the mountains were so nice. We stayed in Bellagio along the tip of the lake and had a view of the alps and some of the other small villages. Everything I ate felt weird going down. I was so used to eating bread, rice and more bread that when I had vegetables or cheese my stomach was none to pleased with me. I was sure I was getting fat in Ghana because I only ate carbohydrates for 8 weeks and people would compliment me by saying I was looking bigger, but since I had malaria I haven't been able to eat the same and I think I've actually lost about 10 pounds. My mom said I looked thin, so I got fat for most of my trip and then got so sick that it reversed it. Not bad! Malaira is not the best diet ever though. Also there was a time change, so now I am going through about 3 different time changes and I feel very strange. We took a boat around to the different towns and explored and went to villas and drank cappuccinos that made me feel even sicker. I thought it might make my transition to home harder, but I think it made it better.

Toronto is pretty freaking bleak right now. We arrived yesterday afternoon (I have no idea what time my body thinks it is?) and it was rainy and depressing and I can't wait to get out of here again. I had a mini panic attack on the plane thinking about coming home. I'm not ready. The more I travel, the less I want to come back. I keep thinking that I will get it out of my system but it won't go away.

My last day in Ghana was so great- I couldn't have asked for a better send off. My phone rang about an hour before my flight and it was one of the girls from the school at Feyiase! She wanted to say bye and to thank me for teaching them. It was so sweet and she really made me feel like I made an impact on them. I had been trying to teach them some geography and history of Ghana in my past few weeks. They couldn't find Ghana on a map (you were right Gill) and they didn't know a lot about slavery or any of the Gold Coast's beginnings. I had been working hard trying to show them where all of the European powers were on a globe and the influence of history on present day Ghana. Hopefully it worked! It was just so nice to hear from Mercy because she probably had to go out of her way to call me. Then Daniel, the Ghanaian staff at the Volunteer Abroad house called me into his room. He had a glass bead bracelet for me and the most hilarious sandals. I will have to post a picture because they are pretty much the best gift ever. They are hand crafted leather sandals with fur all over the tops that is dyed bright neon yellow. He had bought them for me that day! I was so happy- I couldn't believe he would spend his salary on a gift for me. I gave him my crocs when I left- he really loved them and I think it was a good trade because he seemed pretty pleased. Then Adams, the amazing artist and dancer who is a good friend of Kersten's, biked all the way over just in time to see me off to the airport. He's so funny, and played Ghanaian dance music in the taxi all the way there. Saskia, Kersten and Adams all shoved into a cab (as they do in Ghana) along with me and my dad and all of our luggage just to give me a hug outside the airport. I'm going to miss them all so much!

Mosquitos Don't Need A Visa to Enter Ghana

2007-03-31T03:56:00.000-07:00

This is an actual headline from a newspaper here in Ghana. Well they finally got me. That's right, I have malaria. I thought I might get away without any serious illness here, but a part of me knew I wouldn't escape without something. "It's your welcome gift to Ghana," said the doctor at the hospital. I've been here for almost two months, I wanted to yell! But yes, malaria was actually quite worse than I thought so I guess I just didn't catch it early on. I felt weird for a while, but I mean everyone feels weird with the heat and the sun and how can you tell if you have a temperature if you're constantly sweating?

So last Thursday I started to get a really massive headache. I thought I was just tired because we had been out for Femke's goodbye party and a bunch of the volunteers had some drinks (though I only had a little) and so I just figured that I was tired. The headache didn't go away all day no matter how much I drank and that night was lights out so I just went to bed early hoping it would go away. I was supposed to meet my Dad in Accra on Sunday and go to Kokrobite a beach near Accra on Friday night for the night to say goodbye to some of the volunteers that were in Swedro. But, I woke up Friday morning and I was in really bad shape. I think I can honestly say that I had to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes for about 4 hours. I know, I'm so graphic but it was a serious problem. My host sister was also home from school because she was sick, so Agnes my host mother decided to take us both to the hospital. I was in no shape to be in public but she wanted to get us both there. I told her that I really couldn't walk the twenty minutes to the hospital, so she flagged down the neighbours and told them to hurry us to the hospital because her daughters were sick and that I had only 5 minutes before I would need a bathroom again. It was so funny because both of the men in the front just looked at me and everyone started laughing and Agnes managed to make my horrible illness into something hilarious.

At the hospital Agnes just marches to the front of the line and announces that her daughters are sick- this woman is so great I can't even describe how much I love her. I'm just trying not to throw up in public and I manage to get in to see a doctor fairly quickly because I work at this clinic and know the doctors. He says of course, you have malaria, but I insisted on a blood test in case it was something else. They give malaria drugs for everything so you really have to make sure you don't have typhoid or some other random disease. So I get a blood test and wait in the sun for about an hour and just deteriorate to the point where I'm this sweaty mess and I can't stand and Agnes offers to carry me, but I just collapse on a bench and lie there trying not to be ill for another hour waiting for the guy who does the lab results to come back from lunch. Agnes was amazing- she was running around trying to get me a bed- I really just needed to lie down anywhere. People were walking past the half conscious obruni and just staring at me. I put my face down on this dirty hospital bench and couldn't have cared less. I couldn't even climb the stairs to get to the staff bathrooms. I was dizzy and tingly and I couldn't drink water because it hurt so badly when it went down. I ended up waiting at the hospital for about 3 hours which is not a fun place to be when the world is spinning but frankly I didn't really care. Anyways, so the results came back with parasites present - clearly- and the doctor gave me 13 pills. I wanted to die from all the pills- still not even sure what I was taking but after 3 days in bed barely moving I felt a lot better! I read 4 books, so it was nice that I got to finish everything so I could give it away before I left.

Agnes brought me food in bed that I couldn't eat and kept checking on me- she kept saying she didn't want her daughter to be sick. She is the best Ghanaian mother I could have ever asked for. Some of the other volunteers came to visit, and I was surprised at how long it took me to feel better. Derek the other Canadian got malaria on the same day so he didn't make it to the beach either- I guess that's the way it goes in Ghana. You can't leave without getting it, says everyone I talked to. But I feel a bit better now. I still feel really weird and have had a headache for the past few days so I'm kind of worried that I still have it. Buttt I'm leaving Ghana tonight so hopefully I don't get sick again in Italy or I will have to brave Italian hospitals and potentially a much greater lack of knowledge on malaria! (I'm just praying I dont get it again before I leave or I'll get sick in Canada). I was actually surprised at how sick it made me because Gill seemed to be okay for most of it. (You're one lucky duck Gill!Oh and James came in and shook my head around praying for Jesus to take the poison out of me so I can imagine how you felt when he said it was God's will that you were throwing up in a bucket. Hahah oh my preacher host father.)

So the past week has been fun and tiring because I still feel like crap. My dad came in on Sunday and made it to Kumasi on his own (he hired a car for the week because otherwise with the bus system here we might never see anything) and he stayed with my family. It kind of sucked for him because there was no running water and the power was out and I was sick, but by Monday I felt well enough to show him around. I took him to the AIDS clinic and then we went to the Kente village and got lost trying to find the Bobiri butterfly sanctuary in the rain. Then Tuesday I took him to see the kids at Feyiase for my final day and we had an exhausting and fun day with all the girls. We went to the lake in the afternoon for some relaxation and Saskia came along. Wednesday we headed out to Ellis Hideout this amazing isolated beach area. We stayed in these huts along the water and my dad couldn't believe how beautiful it was- he kept saying it was like "The Beach" the movie. It was really gorgeous- maybe a little nicer than Green Turtle- and we relaxed there for a day and a bit. He took a canoe ride in the village but I wasn't feeling well enough. Also, I met all of the Swedes there! The friends I had made in Cape Coast were the only other guests at the "resort" and so we all hung out and I got to spend some time with them before I left. It was so random that they were all there! From there me and my dad headed to Cape Coast and went to Elmina Castle. It was similar to Cape Coast but really beautiful in a strange way that a place is when it was used to capture thousands of people and send them to their deaths in the Atlantic. It was a good tour though and I'm glad my dad got to see some of the history of Ghana. We also went to Kakum National Park and got to do the canopy walk and hike around in the rainforest which he really liked. I felt horrible yesterday but we made it to see all of the Africana Dance Team perform in Accra. They are the most amazing dancers ever so I really wanted to show my dad some real dancing here. We went out for drinks with some of the guys last night to say bye. I made my dad stay at the Volunteer Abroad house to make sure I could see everyone before I left and luckily a lot of the volunteers came down for the weekend so it was nice to get the chance to say bye. I have forced my dad to stay in places with no water and no power the whole time so he definitely got the real Ghanaian experience. (Yup, the house here has no water and of course the power was out all yesterday)

Wow, I summarized a lot really quickly sorry it's so jumbled, I feel like I haven't been online in a while. So from here I am spending 4 days in Italy before I head back to Canada for Easter. I am meeting my mom in Milan and then we are going to Lake Como for a few days. It is going to be the weirdest culture shock of life and I only have African clothes and camping outfits here so I'm going to be the weirdest looking person there. I just can't imagine what it will be like to go to the fashion capital of the world after being here in West Africa. I love it here so much. I thought maybe if I got really sick it would make me ready to leave. But it hasn't. I still love it, I love the people, I love my friends, and I just love what I'm doing here. I really want to work in the HIV/AIDS area in Canada and hopefully I can still contribute to AHFOG when I go home. I did get my dad to bring a digital camer a for Agnes (so don't worry about trying to mail one Gill) and a jump drive and a donation for the organization because it just does so many amazing things. I will definitely come back here to visit and I'm not ready for my journey to end. But, I can't wait to see everyone at home and just to warn all of you I'm going to be culture shocking all over the place. I hope everyone is doing well at home and I'll see you soon.

Bless the rains down in Africa

2007-03-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

"The rain is a blessing," said the taxi driver. Well to us it was like the apocalypse. It started on Thursday night at around 11 and I thought the whole house was going to come down. There was lightning that lit up my room every other second, thunder shaking the bed frame and rain so intense I was sure the room was leaking. It was my first rainfall here in Africa and it definitely wasn't my last!

Derek (a new Canadian volunteer), Saskia(the Dutch girl) and myself decided to meet some other volunteers at Green Turtle lodge this past weekend so everyone slept over at my house so we could take the 4am bus out to Takoradi together. The rain of course started that night. Luckily it let up enough so we could walk up to catch a taxi at 3 in the morning to get to the bus station, but then the second we stepped off the bus in Takoradi the sky darkened again. Me, being the eternal pessimist said, um so it looks like it's going to rain. Derek thought otherwise and a second later this torrential downpour started. We were trying to get a tro tro out to Green Turtle because it would be way cheaper but when this intense storm started we decided to catch a cab for part of the way. The taxi ride was hilarious. The roof above me leaked so every time we took a sharp turn rain poured down on me so it looked like I wet myself. The driver was blasting music but his connection kept going out so it would go really loud and then turn off completely and you couldn't see a thing out the front window! We actually managed to get half price on this insane water-logged drive and arrived at our beach paradise soaking wet. We changed, got some Star beers and decided what the hell, lets enjoy ourselves and played Monopoly, haha. Then we decided that swimming in the rain wouldn't be so bad, so we ventured out into the truly amazing water. It was warm and gorgeous despite the rain. Then a huge fork of lightning hit the water and I decided it was probably best to retreat! The other girls arrived and we had a great dinner of curry and chip(it's owned by Brits clearly).

The next day was gorgeous. We had french toast with honey (Gill it was so good!) and then spent the day going on a canoe ride through mangroves and chilling out on the spectacular and isolated beach. We even had guacamole and plantain chips and oh, wow, was it great. That night we celebrated St. Patty's with some other backpackers and drank some of the green cocktails they had. It wasn't an insane party, but it was relaxing and a little piece of paradise. Our way back on Sunday sucked because the bus was delayed three hours but we did have a hilarious tro tro ride where the mate sat on the top of the van! We could see the roof creaking under his weight and were sure we were going to end up sitting in a pile of scrap metal any minute now when all the nuts and bolts gave way. It was hot as hell in there but so funny especially because he had an "I love Jesus" hat on. At the bus station we met a Ghanaian who overheard me and Derek talking about Canada, and he interrupted us to tell us he had studied in Moosejaw Saskatchewan! It was so funny because he asked us a million questions on how Canada was different now and we didn't know any of the answers. He was there 30 years ago and he knew more about it than us. He was so nice though, it was fun to talk to someone who travelled to Canada, not too many Ghanaians have!

This week has been busy. On Monday, Femke and I gave all the HIV/AIDS clinic patients juice and cookies to say thank you for our last day. My last day is next week but it was easier to do it together. I think they really appreciated it and everyone was so nice. I just feel bad that we can't do more for them when they have to wait all day in the heat to be seen by the doctor. Yesterday at the Feyiase school I had a very weird day. It was boiling and almost none of the kids showed up (only the really insane ones of course) because their teacher has stopped showing up for school and they had no rice. So no rice= no lunch= no children at school. I taught the remaining kids how to write the alphabet but then they continued to beat the crap out of each other in-between songs and "learning". I'm not giving up though, I actually got them to sit down and colour for a bit! Agnes came later to try to fix the situation and the kids were insulting each other in front of her. She started yelling at them and I couldn't figure out what they had said to each other. She told me they were insulting each other's mothers vaginas! hahahah that's what they were saying Gill! We could never figure out what made the kids so angry with each other, but I guess "yo mama" jokes are international. I could not stop laughing so of course Agnes started to think it was funny too and we just ended up giggling over these wild children. I think I'm going to buy the school a big bag of rice before I leave- at least then the kids might show up !

On Monday after work I went to a funeral party. It was the one week celebration after Chief, our neighbour's father died. So I went over in my blackest outfit (consisting of some hideous clothes from the market) and we danced and met the family. It was so weird to dance when someone dies but I really liked it. I danced with this really cute old woman. It makes the whole thing into a huge party instead of something horribly depressing. Then me and my host brother and some of his friends took the neighbour out to a local spot for a drink. It was a really fun night actually- celebrating someones death.

I feel like so much has happened but I just don't have time to tell all of it. I'm really not ready to come home yet. I think it will be really strange and potentially very stressful. I don't know if I could live here forever but there are a lot of things I will miss. The fact that you can buy toilet paper from someone while you're driving, that you say hi to everyone everywhere, and that I just saw a taxi full of goats on my way here are just the most hilarious and amazing things to me. My dad is coming to visit this Sunday so I'm excited to show him around. It will be a culture shock for him too I'm sure, but it will be great for him to meet everyone. I miss all of you and I'll be home just before Easter.

Lots of love,

Kate

Random at best

2007-03-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been the first time I could get to a fast enough internet connection to blog in a while so I'm going to try to remember everything I was going to say. I have been pretty busy since Gill left- Agnes has so much for me to do, I've been working about twelve hour days! Last week after I took the bus back to Kumasi (by myself, go Kate!) I was exhausted but decided to join Femke for this performance. The group was from Cape Verde (small islands off Africa) and it was performance art. Femke and I just stood there not really understanding anything- there was yelling and jumping and shrieking. It was actually quite terrifying, but then there was some nicer dancing. Still, very weird. Me and Femke have been going out and doing things a lot at night, which is nice but also exhausting because this place just drains your energy so you need to sleep a lot!

I think it's getting hotter every day. Last week I went to PLWHA meetings with Agnes for about eight hours straight. PLWHA's (said plowas) are people living with HIV/AIDS. I feel like every time I do something with her, it turns out there are a million more projects she works on. Agnes is amazing and basically never sleeps whereas I go to bed at 8:30 every night because I'm so exhausted! So the PLWHA meeting last week was about 3 hours in the morning and it was a meeting of NGO's and PLWHA's so as not to stigmatize individuals who had the disease. It was all in Twi though and very hot so I kind of spaced out. What I did get from it though was that they are trying to do some census on how PLWHA's and their families are living and how close they are to clinics. Right now there are only twenty HIV/AIDS clinics in all of Ghana (I think -I was getting translation but only randomly). So they are trying to figure out how to get clinics closer to people and to make sure that their children aren't starving because they can't work or that they aren't being turned out of their homes. It is hard though because you can't even go into a neighbourhood without stigmatizing somebody if you are an HIV/AIDS worker so they are trying to make the census broader so that people won't assume it's only for those infected. Stigmatization is one of the biggest problems in regards to HIV/AIDS awareness here. Some people won't go to a clinic near their house because then people might find out they are sick, so they travel very far away.

From there Agnes had to go to the bank to take out some money for the NGO. There was a huge lineup at the Ghanaian bank and I was the only obruni there and Agnes was in a rush so she left me to take out a few million cedis alone! I was like, um, I'm sorry can I do this? I have no clue what its for, I'm not a signatory on the accounts and I don't speak any Twi. Plus everyone in the bank now knows how much I'm taking out and is staring at me. Louisa my host sister was left with me, but she never translates what the hell is going on so I just stood there thinking, huh? The lineup was over an hour and half, and I really wanted to just leave because I figured we could just get it later. People were yelling and budding the line and I couldn't figure out how their banking system was even working. Then some random guy I've never seen in my life ,who doesn't speak English or work for the organization, came up and stood near me with the same money order. I was like, um who are you? Did you find this cheque on the ground? Are you a total weirdo who is going to rob me? So I called Louisa over and she didn't clarify anything, and I couldn't get in touch with Agnes, so I just stood there and wondered what was happening. My life here consists of not understanding pretty much anything. Finally I got the money, ran to the office out of fear of being mugged by everyone at the bank who just saw me take out all the money and threw it at Agnes. Turns out- it was anti-retroviral treatment money for the PLWHA meeting we were having! It made so much more sense, but of course no one tells me anything. And the guy was sent by Agnes to take out more for the group- ohhhhhh he was a PLWHA. If only someone had just SAID THAT then I wouldn't have been so freaking confusedddd. Agnes gives out food and ART drug money each month for everyone that comes to the meeting. Once again it was all in Twi so it was long and hot.

There was a woman at the meeting who freaked out right in the middle. She had a young son with her so I couldn't really figure out what was going on. Agnes told me after that she hadn't know what the meeting was for. She was his stepmother and the boy's father was away so he told her to take the boy. She only knew he was sick, she didn't know he had HIV. He was ten years old and so smart, and I think it probably scared his stepmother because the boy's real mother had died- presumably from AIDS, so she probably figured she could also have gotten it from the father. I hate not speaking enough Twi because so much happens around me, and so many people have these life-changing experiences and I can't help them as much as I want because I can't tell them I'm sorry or that they will be alright. But the boy was amazing. He waited for his stepmother to finish counselling and he told me he wanted to be a doctor. Mike said he used to be very thin but he was looking much better. Then we played thumb wars and soccer with a piece of garbage, and it quite honestly made my day. Whenever I get frustrated something small like having fun with a little kid makes up for it. You just have to try not to think about the fact that this boy was already on ART so he probably had a low CD4 count and he was only ten years old- he may never make it to being a doctor. But you must keep hopes high and think that if he's this smart and this healthy he might be okay.

The next day was another super long day. In the morning I went to the hospital and then me and Femke met Agnes to go visit some sex workers. We went to a hotel this time that is known for the women that frequent hotels and bars for foreign men. We gave a talk to two girls and their guy friend (pretty sure he was a pimp), and they were so nice. One of them was absolutely gorgeous and she spoke english very well. The girls were sisters who had come from another region and only told their parents they were working in Kumasi. They had a nice television and speakers and cell phones, but they did live in a crappy room in a hotel. They can make so much money- one girl told me she can have up to ten partners a night . That is a lot of money for a young girl when most people can make under a dollar a day here. The only place to sit in their room was on the bed- you should have seen me and Femke hesitate when they offered. We laughed about it afterwards- lets just say you should really hesitate before sitting on a sex workers bed, but I'm sure we'll be fine. The girls asked us a lot of questions and even invited us out to Vienna City- a club in Kumasi. Femke had been there once and said it was all prostitutes and old white men- one of the girls actually recognized Femke from that one night! So I guess it really is filled with prostitutes. They said they mostly slept with obruni men, either vacationers or people working here. I thought that was really interesting because these old white men probably go home and have sex with their wives later who have no idea that they have could a deadly disease. It really freaked us out. The girls also made some hilarious comments about penises and tried to illustrate that some men are the size of air fresheners by trying to put a condom on one! She said she charged double for those one. Agnes, Femke and I were in hysterics. They were so funny and we are hoping they will come to meet us at the hospital to get tested.

So much is new here but I've been online for too long so I will sum up some quick funny things of recent. I got peed on the other day. I was trying to cross a sewer and wasn't really looking and a little boy had started peeing and I walked right into it. At least I didn't fall in the sewer though- everyone is afraid of that! And then 5 seconds after that I spilt a yogurt all over myself- hahah people were already laughing at me for stepping in pee.

At the hospital here there is a new nurse from the States. It's so nice to have her around because she really tells me what makes sense and what doesn't. They tell pregnant mothers with HIV that it's alright to breastfeed for the first 6 months. Jill was a nurse with HIV patients at home, and she was like, um nooo they really shouldn't do that or they will transmit the virus to the baby for sure. The nurse explained that women often couldn't afford not to breastfeed and if they ran out of money and their breasts had gone dry the babies would starve to death. We both decided that we should try to get some powdered formula donated to the hospital because if you deliver the baby safely and it doesn't have the virus, it is competely preventable if they have safe milk for the child. There seem to be more and more patients lately and less that we can do- they need more doctors and specialists here so anyone who knows anything about health try to volunteer here!

I'm going to go now, but this weekend I am going away to this beach area that is supposed to be like paradise. I have a cold but hopefully it will pass because I really don't want to get sick in a remote area like that! So I miss St. Patty's day, but I get to relax on the beach and I'm okay with that!I'm doing a lot of stuff on my own- such as teaching insane children, and taking tro tros and I miss Gill a lot because I always have funny stories and think of how she would really appreciate them! I can't believe how soon I'm leaving (3 weeks)- I'm definitely not ready yet. I haven't done enough work, I hvaen't travelled enough and I haven't had enough time with these amazing people! I really do think this place is so beautiful, it will be hard to walk away from. I miss everyone and have a pint for me at home!

Lots of love....

Ghana @ 50..Independence Day!

2007-03-07T02:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm still in Accra. I decided after the insane bus ride Gill and I endured to get here that it was worth staying here for a few more days. Sure I'm sleeping on the floor without a bug net, but who really needs sleep anyways? Also, the Dutch volunteer that I mentioned earlier is quite ill and in the hospital so I decided to stay so I could visit her and spend some time helping out if she needed it. She is having some sort of allergic reaction to her malaria pills and has been sick for the 5 weeks since we got here and is really deteriorating. She has open sores now, and blisters all over her up body and I'm really freaked out. She needs to go home because the doctors here have done almost nothing to help and if anything they have made her worse. She is really depressed about going home I think, but everyone is very worried. I spent the past few days in hospitals pretty much, and I'm not a big fan of them at all! Kersten our coordinator here is also very ill, so it hasn't exactly been the best of times, but hopefully things will get better for everyone.

There was a party at the house thrown by one of the tenants on Saturday and it was nuts. Half of the backyard was filled with people dancing and having a good time and the other half of the house was inside lying down beside buckets. It was not the best party ever to say the least. It seemed like so many people all got sick in one night, it was a fight for the buckets, and people were resorting to anything! I'm not a fan of people being ill, but everyone seemed to have something different, from malaria to food poisioning or who knows what, so I tried to help out. I could never be a nurse, but I'm trying.

So, I decided I could either take a bus back to Kumasi and brave another potentially insane bus ride or stay in Accra and go visit Linsey (very sick Dutch girl) and celebrate Ghana's 50th anniversary. The former Gold Coast- now present day Ghana -was the first African country to gain independence from colonialism. We were here for the momentous event of their 50th anniversary of independence from colonialism. I'm such a nerd, but it seems like I'm actually getting to experience things that I learned about in school and it's really exciting. The celebrations were so great. I just can't believe the way things work here- half the time I'm shocked and the rest of the time I just can't believe how amazing people are. The celebrations were held in Independence Square, and over twenty five presidents were there as well as chiefs and ambassadors and other such important people. The square was packed and all of us felt a bit nervous that if something went wrong that we would inevitably be trampled. But for some reason, and I don't understand this and I think it's because I grew up in pushy Toronto, but people were nice to us. At a concert or event or even the subway at home, people will shove you and push you just to get by, and yes it happens in Ghana, but at this event it was so different. This one Ghanaian woman took us under her wing and kept trying to get us to go inside the gates and pushed us to the front numerous times. She really wanted us to see the celebration- their celebration- because we were foreigners. They were so proud of all that Ghana has done. A lot of people were very angry that the government spent over 24 million dollars on 3 days of celebrations, because hospitals are closing down, roads need work, schools need support, but some were just happy to have a day to celebrate. It was hot and we couldn't really see or hear much, but the crowd was wild. There were people jumping fences despite guys with machine guns and people were blocking everyone's view by crowding the fences. So of course the crowds in the stands decided that if they couldn't see they would have to entertain themselves. They started buying sachets of water and throwing them at the people crowding the fence and blocking everyone's view. It was hilarious, people being pelted with basically water balloons from above. The crowd was just so lively and so happy. People called to us from the stands and helped us move up to the top so we could see more (I could still only see the military marching back and forth for about 3 hours which wasn't very exciting). I just couldn't believe that people would help us out in a huge crowd to show us how proud they were. And some fights broke out among people blocking each others views, and the crowd would get so rowdy and start cheering, it was so funny. Everyone had a Ghana shirt on, braided hair in Ghana's colours and people were giving us all flags for free. It was fun, but hot and we actually had no idea what was happening in the ceremony! The sound system sucked so people at home probably had a better idea of what was going on that day than we did, but we don't have a television so we couldn't watch it on recap on the news.

We decided we couldn't take much more sun and on our way home we were called into a backyard by a group of women. They gave us free Cokes and Fanta's and were so excited to hear us speak a little bit of Twi. My name is Akua in Twi (because I am Wednesday born) and whenever people ask me I tell them that name and they just freak out. Clapping, and laughing and they think it is great. One older woman there had been around for the first independence day and had a cloth skirt on from the celebrations. They were so nice to us for absolutely no reason. Still getting used to the Ghanaian kindness, it really throws me off sometimes- it's just so different!

Well tonight I head back to Kumasi- it has been a holiday so I will have to get back to work tomorrow. I also forgot to mention that I got my hair braided. It took 3 and a half hours, but I get so much funny attention. It's much cooler despite the fact that its hard to sleep on. Rasta's love it, and yell "hey rasta!" or "rasta baby!", and people seem to get a good laugh out of this obruni with braids. I don't look too bad, a little like a pumpkin head, but its really fun to have while I'm here. Me and Gill did it together and had our heads pulled in a million directions at once, each of us surrounded by 4 or 5 girls ripping at our hair! When in Rome...

I will post some pics- it has been next to impossible with the internet here, but check them out if they work! I really don't know how to rotate, and I know its dumb, but the internet isn't so great and I just can't be bothered in case I lose my whole post. The pics above are from Mole National Park and Kakum National Park. Sorry there aren't more, I will definitely post lots when I get home of the insane children that I kind of love!

"Obruni? HOW ARE YOU!!!"

2007-03-03T03:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-02-26T04:54:00.000-08:00

One day, on a nice hot afternoon when all of the chickens and roosters are fast asleep in the sun, I'm going to run outside and start screaming at the top of my lungs for 3 hours. This is exactly what they do to me every single morning at 3 am! It's NOT sunny at 3 in the morning. It is not even close and yet every day I hear those stupid birds starting up and then its all over. Its actually funny, and I think by the time I leave here I will be able to sleep through anything!

Life in Kumasi has been interesting, hot and very educational. Last week we went to the clinic as usual and saw a lot of very ill patients. Some of these people have to wait for 8 hours in the clinic for the one HIV/AIDS specialist doctor to come and give them their medications and check-ups. It must be so hard.

The kids at Fiayse, the school for vulnerable children are the cutest things- though quite insane. They get us more dirty than I could imagine. I left last week and my whole outfit was brown- and I'm not exaggerating! I brought them some little dollar store jungle animals and they were so happy! They usually spend the whole day beating the hell out of each other when we don't completely occupy them, but when you give them toys they actually sit down and stop hitting each other. They don't have anything here- so it was really fun to watch them play. They are also learning the alphabet- though I think they understand the song- they definitely don't understand the concept. I could definitely see myself adopting when I'm older- these children need so much love and there are many people who could offer them an education, and proper health care. I'd never really thought about it before but with the amount of orphans in Ghana and worldwide I would definitely consider it . There are these twin girls here that I'm in love with and would love to take home with me! The other older girls at the school are also apparently getting pregnant more frequently so we are trying to increase our sexual health talks and teach them how to prevent pregnancy. It think it is very discouraging for Agnes the coordinator because she works so hard trying to teach them skills that they can use instead of just having babies. It is a "country without fathers" as she said, because most men want nothing to do with the babies they are creating so the woman is left to look after the children alone.

I wasnt feeling well last week (I'm pretty much the same this week and though I dont feel horrible by any means my stomach is not happy to be here and will probably stay like this for the next month!), so me and my host sister who was also not feeling well were convinced by my host mom Agnes to see the doctor while we were at the hospital. Let me just say that I am praying I never get very sick here because I think I would have a huge freakout if I ended up in the hospital. These poor people wait in line all day to be seen. The dark waiting room was full of crying babies, had a vomit bucket in the middle of the room, and people with bloody stumps were just sitting and waiting for the doctor. It was not a place I could have spent a lot of time without going insane. Because I was a volunteer and sadly I think because I'm an obruni I got in to see the doctor ahead of a huge line of very sick people. I felt really bad because I was definitely in better shape than most of the people there. The doctor asked me about 3 questions, asked for my address in Canada (he wanted help getting his son a Visa apparently!) and gave me a prescription without any tests. I went to the pharamacy and asked what the prescription was for and it was for blood thinners and malaria pills! Note: I have literally no symptoms for malaria. It was very strange so I'm definitely not taking them, but I think its the norm here. If youre sick, its malaria no matter what. Funnily enough, Gill (my friend from Western who is here with me) just found out she has malaria today with only one week left. It totally sucks and I think she's disappointed, but at least she caught it before she got really sick and she seems to be doing okay. I will do my best to look after her!

This weekend me , Gill and Femke another Dutch volunteer all went to Cape Coast. We took the 4 am bus so we had to get up really early to make it to the depot across town. After almost getting stuck in a very sketchy motel we managed to get a room in a beach resort for only 60,000 cedis a night- about 6 USD. It was nice, had outdoor bathrooms and a shower but the rooms were clean looking and it was right on the water. We went to the Cape Coast Castle- a major port for the translatlantic slave trade. It was really interesting because I had learned a lot about it in my postcolonial classes so it was really informative to be there. We went to the dungeons where they held slaves and got to see "the door of no return". It was quite the bizarre experience, but they had a really good display on the history and it was such a sad and yet really educational place to visit. I would definitely recommend anyone interested in the slave trade to visit this historical site. It was unbelievable how many people went to their deaths in this place, or were completely ripped away from the only life they knew to travel to the Caribbean and Americas. We also met a huge group of European volunteers and went to Kakum National park. We did a canopy walk over the rainforest that was so beautiful and was built by Canadians!

It was nice to meet some other obruni's because we do stand out quite a bit and it was nice to share our hilarious travel stories. We also ran into 3 medical students from Germany, Austria and Sweden. You should have seen us when we found out they were medical students. We literally jumped all over them, showing them rashes, telling them symptoms, asking questions. As I learned from my 30 second doctor appointment its hard to get good medical treatment here so the whole group was asking them questions. We even coerced them into going to see one of the Swedish girls who had been having a horrible fever all weekend. It was a truly funny experience and I've never seen people happier to encounter doctors!

The beach at Cape Coast was really beautiful, but as I've learned beaches in Ghana are basically public bathrooms and dump sites. So while you see the beautiful ocean you look to the side and see a small child going to the bathroom and a huge pile of garbage. Its very sad and not great for their tourism.

Thats all for now, I have to run but will try to post or edit this later so it hopefully makes more sense. I miss all of you!

Jesus is my seatbelt...

2007-02-18T09:36:00.000-08:00

Holy crap. The internet in Kumasi, how do you say, SUCKS. It takes an hour to open up one email and its making me insane. Luckily I only get the chance to use it once a week, haha. Well life in Ghana is wild as usual.

I wrote a blog update earlier this week but the computer crashed and it was all lost. Things have been really busy! I have now been in Kumasi for exactly a week, and I actually like it a lot better than Accra. It is very green, and full of lots of lizards and beautiful plants and its actually cooler- if thats possible at 40 degrees in the shade. My homestay is really cute- at first I was a little freaked out because it was so different, but my room is nice and fairly cool, and the kids are all super nice. There are 5 kids in the family, some of whom are away at school or in and out of the house. The house has power sometimes, and rarely any running water. We get our water from a well outside. I feel like I'm in Little House on the Prairie, but the water seems clean and is great for some classy bucket showers. The Opoku's are also all super religious. If I hadn't had a fairly strict Roman Catholic upbringing their zeal for God would probably terrify me, but I'm dealing fairly well.

I went to church for 3.5 hours last weekend! A guy named Lord, I kid you not, was translating the Twi mass for me. It was a lot of people shouting to themselves for a while, but then they read the bible and it was nice and cool in there so I didn't mind sitting and listening to scriptures in another language! My host mother Agnes is amazing. She is so sweet and concerned about me, and even made me a salad! I got kind of sick this past week and she brought me oatmeal in bed, haha.

My work with the African Hope Foundation of Ghana is going really well. This past week I had quite the orientation. My first day I got to sit in with one of the nurses while she did HIV tests on pregnant mothers. They have a strip here that can give you results within 5 minutes. They prick the patient's finger, get some blood on this strip, put some drops for a chemical reaction, and then call the person back in. I was so freaked out- I've never been happier to hear the word "negative" before! I sat in with her for about a half an hour and none of the pregnant woman tested were positive. I was literally watching a moment that could have altered their lives and those of their children forever. I am learning a lot about HIV/AIDS. We helped take the vitals of patients waiting to see the one doctor at this HIV clinic- the patients then wait all day until she comes in later in the afternoon. We saw patients that looked completely normal, and then some who were wearing sweaters in the heat and were so thin. A CD4 count is the level of someone's immune system basically- I'm not in science so I'm stating what I know and am aware it is very amateur. A normal person has a CD4 count in the thousands so I'm told- patients go on ART (antiretroviral treatments) when their CD4 count drops below 300. Some people who came in had ones as low as 8- Gill saw one with a count of 3. I don't know how they are still alive. One ten year-old girl came into the clinic and it was just beyond my grasp, that someone so young is battling something so scary. It is quite the amazing clinic.

I also get to teach at two different schools for vulnerable girls- they really want to learn more English and sex education so I'm going to do my best. Many of them have had parents who have died of AIDS or are at risk for behaviour that could lead to their infection. Wednesday was one of my favourite days this week. We went to the area of commercial sex workers to give a presentation on HIV/AIDS. The women live in small blue dorm style rooms with curtains so their customers merely need to stroll through. Think, red light district of Kumasi. There were kids running around and it seemed to be pretty cramped. The women were so nice though, offering us food and coming out to say hello to Agnes. We did a presentation on how you contract HIV, how you can prevent it, and how you do not spread the disease. We also demonstrated how to use condoms on a lovely wooden penis that always get a few laughs. They all knew to use condoms, but many had no idea about a lot of ways to become infected or may have had sex with many men without one. The women all wanted condoms, and we barely had enough for them. NOTE: if someone can get in touch with Western they always gave out free condoms, maybe they would be interested in donating some? We also take women to the hospital to be tested for HIV or if they are sick or think they may already have it. One woman had just had a baby and found out that day she was negative, even though if she'd known earlier she could have tried to prevent mother to child transmission...things work very very differently here. We also did a presentation to the men in the area, and so many started to crowd around us- so many questions that they had no answers to. It actually felt great to clarify the fears of so many people.

This is getting long, but I'm almost done- so much has happened! This past weekend we went to Mole National Park. It took 8 hours of driving on a very bumpy dirt road, but the organization organized a driver for us so we didn't have to take the public bus and it was not exactly cheap so we won't be doing that again! The Mole Motel where we stayed was cute- it overlooked a watering hole where all the elephants came to bathe and drink. It took about 3 hours to get your food though at any meal, and they usually got it wrong, but it had its perks I suppose! We did a few walking safaris and saw baboons, warthogs, bush bucks, birds, and tons of elephants! They were so majestic and beatiful. It was a really cool opportunity. Well thats all for now, who knows when I will write next.

Oh and Jesus is my seatbelt is because of Kersten my supervisor. To explain Ghana's roads in one phrase- she asked a taxi driver if there was a seatbelt and he responded "Jesus is your seatbelt". It's less than safe on these roads!

But I miss all you guys, and hope things are good at home. I can read most emails if I can open them but responding takes sooo long!

You can also call/text my cell at (233) 024924 5944 and hopefully I can get it, reception is not great.

Lots of love and wish my tummy a better week!

Madness in the Market

2007-02-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

"I need to get out of here," gasped the Dutch girl. "I am going to freak out." This is the only way I can describe the market in downtown Accra. Yes, I am posting again, because the power AND water is out at the house, so enjoying the internet at a cafe with a generator is pretty much my only option besides sleeping with the mosquitoes right now.

Things have been WILD here, to say the least. Today we had our first "real" market experience. The last time we walked past I was terrified. Let's just say that I almost had a nervous breakdown. The smells, the amount of people, the different things to look at- it was so overwhelming. There are many dark alleys filled with random things to buy, people sleeping, children playing, bathroom areas, and anything and everything. It is also extremely hot. Everyone is carrying their possessions on their heads and you have to duck to avoid getting hit in the head with a giant bowl.

We walked past food I didn't even know you could eat. My supervisor Kersten warned us about the "food section" of the market and I think she vastly underestimated. Can I just say that I owe Dallas a huge hug for her shoe advice! These Keen sandals have kept out dirt, sewage, glass and would probably protect me from real toe damage in the open sewers I am so afraid of falling in. I am a huge germaphobe, and this experience has made me realize that even moreso, haha. Back to the food section- I saw pigs feet melting in the sun, tons of dehydrated or "fresh" fish all over the place, giant slugs, cured bats, and bush rat. You heard me, BUSH RAT. I was like, "um Slyvia, I think I just saw some beavers for sale over there." Hahaha, that is what they looked like, until someone told me what they actually were. It was quite the experience to say the least. I would need a lot more time to get accustomed to that. I can deal with the rusty tro tros and eating with my hands, but I just can't eat cow skin that is rolled up in a bucket at the market. I just cannot. I'm sure everyone at home is getting a kick out of this. But I did learn to pound fu fu today and everyone laughed at me, but it tasted good- especially with meat-free ground nut soup.

Oh, quick sidenote. The language most people speak in Accra besides Twi is Ga. Did you hear that Patrick? You could be "Gaaaa! ing" all over the place. Sorry random Ga joke. Twi lessons are improving.

There is no way to describe reggae night besides amazing. We got together with a bunch of Kersten's Ghanaian friends who took us there and we danced until 4am! I know, potentially sounds unsafe, but we had a whole entourage or I would never have attempted that. We listened to Bob Marley, Regga (sp?), high-life and lots of grooving tunes while dancing away on the beach. I got a few bug bites, but the cool breeze and warm sand were hard to resist. It was such a good night. If we hadn't had a lot of the local guys with us though- it might have been trouble. As an obruni (white person), Ghanaian men will want to marry you because they think you are rich- said one guy I met that night (but of course he just wanted to give me his email... riiighht). Whether or not this is true, we got attacked by dancing reggae lovers about every 3 seconds. The guys we went with were part of an amazing dance team though so they did their best to protect us from potential booty-grabbing guys. It would have been hell had we not had some "protectors" who took taxis with us there and back home. I am definitely learning how to shake it- and I am practicing like mad at the local places. Reggae night was like a huge hotbox outside. I inhaled more ganja (sp?) than in a cafe in Amsterdam and it was not at all by choice. Besides some 7 foot tall guy who took a liking to me and tried to "take me to the other side of the beach to write down his phone number" we were safe and had tons of fun. Our cabbie almost killed a dog on his way home, and didn't even slow down, but I think my screams made him realize it was not a good idea.

Last night I realized that all the carbohydrates were sitting like rocks in my stomach. I wasn't able to have much fun because of this at a local place, but everyone was so concerned. One of the guys wouldn't let me and the other Canadian girl go home early on our own so he took a cab home with us to make sure we were okay. We also realized we had no way of making sure we were going the right way in the dark. But so far I am safe and well and will post some pics now if I can get them to work. Some are of the local kids, who absolutely love having their pictures taken. Sooo cuteee!

I miss everyone and am scared for Kumasi because it is most definitely different than Accra, and because there is one bathroom break on a six hour bus ride, and it might be at the side of the road. Ah, public toilets/no toilets. The bane of my existence. Enjoy the pics that I can't figure out how to rotate or format!

Learning how to move my bum

2007-02-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

So I think its day 6 of my trip? I'm not sure, I'm definitely losing track of time. I miss everyone at home, but have thankfully been busy enough not to freak out. I keep forgetting I am in Africa until I leave our house and look around me. Its the weirdest feeling to think I will be here until April.

I've tried lots of Ghanaian foods so far such as banku (its like a ball of maize that you eat with your hands), red red (fried plantains and spicy beans) and lots of fried rice. I am going to be a huge fatty when I get home. All I eat is literally carbohydrates- white carbs- which are fine but not exactly nutritious! I have decided to go back to being a full vegetarian while I'm here because I do not see any refrigeration of meats. Like none. So besides the chickens eating raw sewage, the fish they sell on the streets sits out there and isnt refrigerated all day? Hmmm, so I'm skeptical to say the least.

We have been taking drumming and dancing lessons and I'm actually not bad! I have never seen such amazing dancers. We went to the cultural centre to see some of our friends dance and HOLY. They danced for about 3 hours non-stop and it was the most intense thing I have ever seen. I can't even imagine moving that way! But a friend has been coming by to teach us, and he's really patient, and I'm learning! It's a hilarious and a hot way to pass the time. The power keeps going off - as it did all day in our house. We also keep having our water turned off, so bucket showers are necessary. I am more concerned about the handwashing and using water that has been sitting outside collecting bacteria in buckets for such emergencies. I dont mind the power being off except that it means the fans don't work- so if the fans don't work the water better work so you can at least shower off the buckets of sweat that are happening! And the mosquitoes aren't deterred if the fans are off. I have random bites on my back- I guess its the one spot I forgot to put bug spray. One of the girls got sick last night- one volunteer down so far. Another guy in our house potentially has typhoid. Yes the shot only works 70% of the time! So, I don't want that at all- and malaria is huge here. I am being cautious but also trying to enjoy myself- I can't even tell you what we talk about at dinners! The most digusting stories of everyones illness and bathroom adventures, haha, especially while eating. But the people here are amazing. Just the nicest, friendliest people.

A guy said to me today when I told him it was my first time in Africa that black and white go together like a keyboard, haha. Hilarious. We get a lot of that. But not too many creepy people, just a lot of people that want to meet us. The Ghanaian handshake is my FAVOURITE. You shake hands and as the handshake ends the person uses your middle finger to snap- it makes me laugh every time. We spent last night playing with the neighbourhood kids- sooo cute, and I realized my concept of poverty here is so much different than actualy poverty here. What I consider poor is nothing compared to the reality. But people here don't seem to dwell on it. I get lots of advice on how to remain happy in life.

Tonight we are going to the reggae night at the beach- Kersten has lots of Rasta friends that make sure we are alright if we go anywhere at night so they are coming with us. I am grabbing the opportunity because once I get to Kumasi I dont think I will be going out much- especially when Gill is no longer there. Going out at night alone or even with another white girl is not recommended by pretty much everyone. That's all for now- my internet might stay up or I might disappear when I leave the capital on Saturday. I am getting a cell- if it ever happens- and will give people my number so they can text me or call and I can keep in touch. They are really big here. Wish me luck, and I will talk to you all soon!

I miss everyone!

Pythons and some culture shock

2007-02-05T05:35:00.000-08:00

I know I just wrote only over a day ago-I'm now on day 4 of my stay here, but I also dont know how reliable the internet access is so I want to write whenever I can. We had a twelve hour power outage last night that is now going to happen every 3 days so its hard to say when we will have power. That means no fans, which means, I woke up at 3am because I was sweating myself awake. Sounds disgusting, but its a reality. My bug net keeps falling on me because its precariously tied to the bunk bed above me and its completely not working. So I had about 3 hours of sleep last night because someone got really sick and I could hear them, and then a preacher came by at literally 4am, and started singing and playing a tambourine and yelling at the top of his lungs outside our house for over a half an hour. Everyone was awake and swearing under their breath, praying he would leave. It was kind of funny, and if it hadn't been so hot it would have been a lot more funny, but seriously it was the middle of the night. It is a loud place all the time, Kersten told us, and that we live in a quiet area. Roosters woke me up as well, who seem to all talk to each other and extremely loudly. haha, I hope I get used to it or I'm going to come home a basketcase.

Other than my tiring but interesting night, things are actually amazing. The town is so cool, and the people I've met are just so great. We went to a beach yesterday to clean up some garbage- it was everywhere- but people don't get it. They told us to leave it there- because you have to pay to have your garbage picked up- so I guess people just dump it down there. But we cleaned up as much as we could, it took about 5 minutes to fill tons of bags. Then we went home to clean up, and headed to Labadi beach, a pay beach that is a lot cleaner and was full of foreigners. We saw lots of performers, went swimming in the water that was kind of garbage free and had an awesome day in the sun. Every time a garbage bag or piece of floating "something" hit my leg in the water, I screamed, haha. There were a lot of very forward Ghanaians at the water, which we hadn't really encountered who wanted to "show us around" but I pulled the whole, "sorry I'm married and my husband wouldn't like that" line. We did get our picture taken by some random guys who jumped in with us and asked, and took one even when we said no. So me and some Dutch girls are probably floating around the internet somewhere in bikinis with guys we dont know, hahaha. I also put a python on my neck. Yes I know, what was I thinking? It was kind of asleep and it only cost a dollar to take a picture so one of the Canadian journalists convinced me, and I have the pic to prove it, haha. It tightened on my neck a little, but I managed to get out alive.

We went out last night with Kersten and some of her Ghanaian friends to Lizzy's, a local bar. It was so much fun, drank a Ghanaian beer that was pretty good- they come in huge bottles, and talked to some of her friends. One of them is the most amazing artist. They are getting a website and I will post a link because he does the greatest stuff and I'm definitely bringing some home. He has had no formal training and I've never seen art like it. So good. His name is Adams and he is part of a local cultural centre dance group. The other friend, Junior , also does woodworking so I'm going to get some from them instead of getting ripped off at a market. Junior had 15 brothers and sisters that he has to support. His dad got married 5 times so he has tons of different younger siblings and because he is the oldest he has to support all of them and his mother. He told me that he wasn't going to be with lots of women like his father did, and that the practise of marrying a women and then moving on is not as common anymore, but it has happened. It was interesting to hear how he lived his life, trying to support so many people. Literally, it was just amazing, and I really admire the talent and tenacity of the people I met. He gave money to begging children when he barely had any himself. We are going to see them all dance today at the cultural centre.

And now for a little sidebar about cultural difference that we got to experience first-hand. I wasn't sure how long I could have avoided this but we got thrown right in. Last night at the bar, me and Linsey another girl from Holland had to go to the bathroom. So Junior took us to the back and we just looked at each other. It was so dark and it was outdoors and we didnt even know where the hole was. A few girls went in ahead of us, and I got out my flashlight. After debating for a few minutes, we decided just to go for it, and it was quite intimidating because it was sooo dark and so um, scented? hahah but we survived and figured we'd have to do it sometime so thankfully we went through it together, haha. Thought people would think that was entertaining that I'm braving African toilets and blogging about it.

This morning we had dancing lessons and drumming. I'm not bad at the dancing, but the drumming was a lot harder. I want to bring home some music from here, I love it. I could never move my body the way our dance teacher did, but I can work on it. I'm also working on my Twi and whenever I say something people look surprised and then start speaking to me and I'm forced to just stare blankly at them, ahah. Anyways, might not have power again soon, so I don't know when I'll blog next, but I hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss all of you, and thanks for any advice I have gotten so far... much love for now.

Akwaaba

2007-02-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Africa! These were the first words I heard as we landed on Ghanaian soil. Ghana is unlike anywhere I have ever been. The plane ride was definitely one of my better. I flew a small plane from Toronto to New York (like under 30 people!) which actually made me kind of nervous but on my 10 hour flight from NYC I sat beside a really nice guy going to Liberia for his dad's funeral. He was born there but he hasn't been back in years and he honestly seemed more freaked out than I was! So we chatted for a bit about what it was going to be like, and how he wasn't sure what to expect. He left Liberia during the civil war, so he was not only nervous to be going to Africa he said, but nervous to go to Liberia, a place he barely remembered after living in the States for so long. The flight was spacious and there seemed to be other volunteers around, and I had a decent meal that made me feel slightly ill because I never eat plane food but ate the whole disgusting thing to take my malaria pill. I managed to sleep a little too. I woke up in the middle of the night seeing our plane on the monitor move closer to our African destination and had a mini panic attack realizing I couldnt go back!

The airport wasn't bad at all. That was one of my biggest fears because everyone told me it was super intimidating, but besides the woman questioning my visa for a while, I got through okay and customs joked around with me. I still have a Canadian apple with me- take that US security and Ghanaian! haha I just really wanted to have it around in case. Anyways, Sylvia the Ghanaian coordinator was waiting for me and we took a cab ride to the house. The house originally scared me a little- not because it wasnt nice, just because I had potentially expected it to be nicer? I don't know, but then once I explored the area I realized we were really living in luxury. I share the bottom bunk with another girl from Toronto, so its pretty decent. And the food they make is actually really accomodating to my sensitive stomach so far! (SO FAR, everyone who lives there has been sick or had a horrible story so I'm not counting on staying healthy for too long, oh God).

But my first day my supervisor took me around Accra and we even found a place where we could eat the salad, so I had some of that and some hummus and the town is pretty wild. We took a tro -tro which is like a cab/bus . Basically they put about 15 people in a car thats supposed to seat about 8 people max and then they try to close its rusty door and you pay for as far as you go. We went into Osu, an area of Accra and we wandered around, and I was able to go to the bank, which thankfully was air conditioned because it is going to be a very sweaty trip I'm sure. I met a lot of her local friends as well, who are all really nice and really cool. Ghana is hot- all the time- you sweat non-stop, in your sleep, practically the second you step out of the shower. So, I'm going to be going through a million water bottles a day.I'm also definitely going to have to learn more Twi- everyone here mixes it with english, so its going to be a lot more necessary in my placement in Kumasi.

Let me just give you a little description of Accra. Traffic is madness. There are areas so impoverished that its actually impossible for me to comprehend. Raw sewage flows in gutters and CHICKENS, yes chickens are swimming in it- making me very reluctant to eat any chicken while I'm here if they are eating garbage and poo. But the neighbourhood kids are all the cutest things I've ever seen, and just run around with no shoes and stare at me. I havent really stuck out here because there seem to be a lot of NGO's and a lot of foreigners around. We obviously have to be careful, but its not bad. The place is beautiful in such a different way. People in the area we visited today - Jamestown- live in housing I cannot even imagine. Like no roofs, garbage everywhere, nothing I've ever seen in real life. We visited a beach as well, that was just coated in garbage. They dont have recycling and I dont think they have a sustainable place to put garbage either because its everywhere. As a Canadian, I realize how naive I've been about the world. It is so dramatically different that its actually incomprehensible, like I could not even imagine if I lived my life like that. Ghanaians are super friendly- obviously not everyone- but in general I have met a lot of nice people. For the next week we will be here in Accra doing some cultural training, learning what to eat, and where to go and how to be safe. I'm actually terrified to take a tro-tro on my own- I would screw it up right away with the 10,000 cedi's etc conversion I'm almost always in the dark about the money. But it will come to me. Everything here is cheap- we took a cab all around the city for a few hours and it cost us 6 Canadian and my supervisor thought it was a rip-off!

Kersten my supervisor is from B.C. and she's really great. Knows a lot about the culture, but also recognizes the doesnt know everything. She's taught me a lot, just about safety and dealing with locals. There are twelve other people living in the house- some from Journalism for Human Rights and some from other NGO's. Everyone is young and pretty nice, from all over Canada and the world. Some girls from Holland are going to be travelling to Kumasi with me - thankfully- so we can brave our new city together and maybe travel at some point? Right now, things are sooo different, but I think I could grow to love it here with a little adjustment. I miss everyone at home of course, but I'll keep you all updated. I'm eventually going to get a cell phone, it just might take a little time. Nothing moves quickly here- especially not the traffic! But if I can get internet - if the power works which it tends not to do- I will send emails and updates to you all....Wish me luck!

And so it begins...

2007-01-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

This is my very first blog post. I created another one, but for some reason am now locked out of it, so here is my new one. I feel like a lot has changed in the past few days, and this blog will try to keep everyone up to date with my life and its happenings.

Now I guess I begin...

As most of you know, I am traveling to Ghana in February for 8 weeks.

I’m excited, afraid and nervous. I will probably have nightmares for a week before I go. Before I left for Ireland I didn’t sleep for a week, especially because I have no idea what to expect.

AFRICA. I have always wanted to go here, and I’m not exactly sure why I’ve been drawn to it. I am in love with post-colonial novels, race and gender studies, and am deeply moved by diaspora studies. But all of that goes out the door when you go somewhere to volunteer your time and efforts with people you hope will care for you like you hope to care for them.

The other day, while sitting in the doctor’s office awaiting the first of many immunizations, I was drawn to a huge map of the world on the wall. I decided I should buy one, put it up on my wall and track where I have been. In the past twelve months I will have been outside of Canada for six. A little insane, I am fully aware. But as I looked at a map of the African continent and how huge it is, and how many countries it encompasses, it made me realize how gigantic and unknown the world is to me. There are vast areas of the planet I have never been to and that most people have never even heard of. I feel like people are really scared of “that part of the world” and I hope to dispel any misconceptions while I’m gone.

I am quite the mess of contradictions right now. My sister seemed to understand it perfectly. For Christmas she gave me a subscription to Allure, one of my favourite beauty magazines, and my own copy of Stephen Lewis’ Massey lectures. Finally, someone understands! I know that going from a fashion internship in Toronto to working for an HIV/AIDS organization in Africa is going to be quite the transition. But I also do not feel that my separate and very different interests cannot someday come together into a very fruitful career. Hey, Fashion Cares mixes AIDS and fashion so who says I can’t find something that involves many passions?

Some might say that I’m trying to cram everything I’ve ever wanted to do (travel Europe, intern at a magazine, volunteer in Africa) into one year. But I have a huge list of things I want to do in my life and while many of them I can do throughout my life, many of them are also potentially limited to my youth. I keep telling myself that when I go to do my grad studies and finally find that job of my dreams, I am not going to be able to leave it on a whim to backpack for a few weeks. I will never walk away from a great opportunity, so I know that I need to take the chances that I have at this point.

Whenever I tell people about my little African adventures, everyone feels the need to share their own horror story with me. About how they know someone who got really sick, or how another saw lots of dead bodies and almost got killed. Interesting, but not necessarily helpful to a girl going alone across the ocean to live there. I just feel like I can’t write off ever going to a whole part of the world because it has problems, and is potentially scary. I am fully aware that Africa as a whole has its issues, I am not living in a dream world by any means. I am also more than a little naïve about perhaps how many problems, or the extent to which I can make any impact. But for me, this trip is partially selfish. Part of me wants to challenge myself, to change my perspective on the things I think are important, and I am cautious to describe my trip as some life-saving mission. I know that I will not go to Ghana and be some sort of saviour. Educating someone on HIV/AIDS or being able to work in a girls school will be far more rewarding for me than it will be for someone there (well I can hope it will make a big impact).

When I volunteered in Costa Rica this is what I learned. I will make a small difference, I will share my Canadian culture and any skills that I have, and hopefully I will help someone. They told us when we were in our orientation camp outside San Jose, that we were not here to save anyone. These people did not need us and we were a compliment to their lives, not the be-all, end-all. Perhaps Africa will be different as there is a definitely a bigger need, but I just don’t want to go there with some almighty lifesaving attitude, because I’m not a doctor. But I will give everything I have to give if the Ghanaians want it!

Blogging for me has always been a little scary- because as much as I want to share my thoughts, I am fully aware of the scrutiny such sharing has. But, I hope that everyone who reads this will gain a little more understanding into who I am and into what I am doing in my trip to Africa. Also, excuse any grammar problems, run-on sentences and general lack of organization. My personal ramblings can be slightly “all over the map” as one might say. haha, I'm so punny.

So bear with me, we're in for a bumpy ride I am sure. But I am so excited. I found out my placement with The African Hope Foundation of Ghana is for sure, and I'm living with the Ghanaian founder and her children. It is sure to be hard, amazing and scary, but I'm trying to get prepared. I'll keep you all updated as much as I can. Ta ta for now!