Strong as Oxen and Evil as Jinn

The Exorcisms

We were greeted at the door by the imam who told us that there were two different kinds of illness, one which can be cured by doctors and medicine and one which is caused by the jinns inside of you which can be treated by the effect of the words of the Koran.

We sat in rows across the floor, with an aisle in the middle and people sitting facing each other on either side. I got separated from Kay and Anrie and joined a group of women on the left aisle of people facing each other.

The Imam began to chant the words, the sound amplified by a mike connected with long wires which had to be held up by assistants when later he walked around through the aisles touching each of the people on the forehead.

Slowly, one by one, the screaming started. A woman at the far side, near the door, begun to scream and convulse. It spread, not to everybody- but to many people in the aisles. Soon the people infected with jinns were being held down in the middle of the inside aisle, between the groups of people who were facing each other until the layout was groups of people each assisting with their one respective convulsing woman in the middle. Near to me, a woman grabbed her young children and took them to the far side by the wall. Some women watched. Everyone did her own thing. One granny sat with her hands cupped together staring at the floor whilst next to her, her granddaughter punched the floor again and again and again. The granny put her hands on her granddaughters to try to stop her, but the granddaughter, perhaps infected by the jinn or at least by the words of the Koran, pushed her away, again and again until eventually with brutal force she pushed her granny’s arms back, twisted them, away. I could see the dialogue; the pain of the teenager, the granny trying to stop her, the pushing away- let me be with my moment and my pain and my life choices that you have forced on me, and my marriage and my cage and tears that you have caused me, stop trying to save me from myself.

I began to bum-shuffle closer the screaming woman in my group, on the floor in front of me. She was crying convulsing eyes fluttering head spasming. I could see her pent up pain and anguish being let free. Each of the excorsis-ing women got the incredible opportunity, infected by the jinn, to scream and push and squirm against all the bad things that they’d kept inside of them. The same way that when you watch a sad movie which makes you cry some, you could end up crying and shaking more than the sad closing scene gave way for, because it ends up being the chance of a bottled-up-sadness-detox and your body takes advantage.

Village woman deal with so, so much pain. They leave school in Grade 5, and are housebound until they are married. Then the go to their husband’s house. From then on, they can leave home with their husbands at their side, or go next door with their babies. Their dreams of going to another country, or to a waterfall in the region, are soon put away, something not to think about. I see the joy they get from their babies but I also see the things they wish they had, and have no chance of getting. They are strong, and they store their sadness under their heavy cloaks and scarfs. Maybe this is the Jinn. Perhaps the human body is a truly amazing thing, perhaps it reacts to pain that’s past its expiry date through eye flutters head twitches and body spasms.

The women held down the ones who were screaming. First I thought it was forceful, they are being held to the ground, sometimes tackled down to the ground as in the case of the one woman who started the wailing, who had tried to escape in her manic fit, and had been tackled down by a man who looked like a bar- bouncer. These older women who take each and arm, a leg, the head and press it to the floor may be saying ‘stay- this is your burden, you cannot leave’.

But still, there was much to envy in them. A beautiful woman ran towards us and grabbed my hand. She was pushed to the floor and I was rushed away from her, to the corner. But I watched her as another woman in a black burkah came and held her against her, on the floor, scarfs skew, sweat against their foreheads and wet-patched from the bottles of ice water that the older women splashed against the foreheads of the screaming jinn-infected bodies. To be given the opportunity, to have a tantrum so extreme that you convulse and push and kick and bang your head, and to be held so securely, kept safe from hurting yourself by all the women you love. They were practically on top of one another, giving back as much pressure as she was exerting. Holding her firm.

There was something in the air and it wasn’t evil spirits. It was closeness, and love, and understanding between all the women on the carpets in the dark room. It was in their grabbing for each other, in their pushing away from each other, in their wanting to escape, their wanting to be held, their tears, their force, their hands on top of one another, hands everywhere. There was nothing soft about it, nothing gentle, and nothing sterile or dainty. It was the sheer force of human being, these women were like a heard of oxen; muscular, powerful; strain and strength. 

The priest came around through our aisle. We adjusted the scarf on the squirming woman in front of us, he put his hands to the forehead of each of the woman he past. Many fell back after he had come, their eyes fluttered. Some dropped their heads and some shook and yelped. He pressed his fingers to my forehead. He pressed hard, his thumb in the middle of my head, where I have a small scar from when I fell of the change-table as a baby, and his index and middle finger against the top of my head. He shouted into the mike and stared into my face. I didn’t know whether to look at him, so I did- which is how I know he was staring. I dropped my eyes. When he let me go, my head dropped down towards my chest, as he was no longer holding it up. And that’s when I thought about these things, and these women, and these jinns. He went along the line, the woman next to me shivered and shook, and he took his time with Kay, longer than most others, perhaps because she had told him the day before that she was all for homosexuality. Anrie next, he pulled her eyelids up which is why she looked like she was tripping, eyes white and fluttering. The woman summoned me to rush to my friends, and we sat holding each other, a family.

 

Soon it was over. And people started to leave. I wanted to watch what happens to the woman who had been shaking on the floor one minute before. The one who grabbed my hand smiled at us, adjusted her vail and stood up to leave, kissing her friends on the cheek and greeting them. The one I was helping attend to, in my group needed to lean on someone to hobble out, I wonder when she’ll recover, or if she tells her family that she has been cleansed form the jinns inside her. It is Wednesday morning, and the rest of the day will be weirdly normal. These woman will go back home to cook lunch for their families, and then tea, and then supper. And tomorrow they will wake up and cook breakfast, and clean wheat, and do laundry, and scrub carpets, and visit their grandchildren and buy groceries and bake bread and watch some TV. And that’s just the older ones. I have no idea what the younger ones will do, but their husbands will be home in the evening and the exorcism this morning will seem far away. 

Everyone keeps asking me how I feel. I’ve never seen an exorcism before.

And I wonder where the Jinns have gone?

 

Heaps of Shit. We call it 'poops'

Aziz’s words of wisdom are: if you do something to hurt somebody purposely, then you feel sorry, but when you don’t know then its ok, haven’t it sometimes happened to you that when you’ve bought something to the house for your mum and its hurt her and she didn’t like, and then you learn. You can go and hug her and feel fresh and its alright, we learn, don’t worry its ok.

I didn’t go and hug her, I went back to my room to burry my bright red face under a pillow of shame.

To hurt somebody whose house you are living in, whose hospitality you are taking advantage… I have never felt so terrible and so humiliated.

Here’s the setting. Lunch time, a debate about whether we are to accompany Aziz into the city that afternoon. Kay needs to go to the bank and Anrie and I don’t feel the need to spend hours there and would rather stay at home. Especially because the garden that we’re starting in the backyard needed work, and we had to practise our Arabic and prepare the presentation about the compost heap that we were creating for Aziz’s mom to explain the benefit of us chucking her organic garbage into the back yard, something she seems very disappointed about.

And so it began that Kay and Aziz left in a hurry for town, their day resulting in an argument about the connotations of ‘whatever’ and a debate with the imam about homosexuality- but that’s her story.

Anrie and I chilled, attempted to play cards with Rashida and cleaned our room, and then it was time to go and get the manure (which Aziz calls poops) from the next door neighbours. It turns out they have 4 cows in their house and we shovelled up a wheelbarrow full of grass and fresh manure.

We are beaming with pride at ourselves, what a cool thing to be, in a village in morocco with a skirt and a scarf wheelbarrowing poops from the house next door, through our front door, through the courtyard and towards the garden. Aziz’s mom walkes out of the kitchen and looks with distaste at the full wheelbarrow of fresh poops we’ve wheeled through her house. We struggle for a good 10 minutes, trying to manuvure it in to the small back yard (leaking a little all over in the process). Finally its in but as Aziz’s mother looks heartbroken about the situation, we decide not to put it into the compost heap until he arrives. We then attempt to make chalk to paint the periphery and leave to wash our hands.

 Suddenly I hear screaming “Rashida! Rashida!’ Aziz’s mom Fatima is calling from the kitchen. I run in to ask if there is anything I can do. She is sitting sobbing tearing at her face shouting in Arabic. I ask what I can do to help whats the problem who should I call should I get some water- but of course she couldn’t understand me and kept just mopping at her face, gesturing to the garden area. She was in crazy crazy pain.

Eventually the pain seems to subside and she gets hold of herself and continues to make the teatime meal. Woman here never cease to amaze me. I try to ask her what was wrong, what happened and I begin to get the impression that she is allergic to the manure…  I call Aziz again and again but I cant get hold of him.

Eventually she summons me. “Zhor” she calls, its time for tea. Most awkward tea time of my life.  She kept scratching at her face and anrie talked to me in English musing on what could have been the problem, whether she was just cutting onions or whether it was because of our compost heap or because of the flies and every time we said our chorus of lemekla zwina bzef’{ very nice, delicious food} she just looked at us. I eventually got hold of Aziz who said ‘don’t do anything I’ll be home in 10 minutes’.  Uhhh.. too late. . .

He came home, hurried angry conversation in Arabic, we get informed that she is in fact allergic to cow dung and strong smells.

Here, have an uncomfortable situation: There is one smell/ thing you cant stand in the world. A bunch of foreigners living in your house take it upon themselves to collect a whellbarrow full of the stuff and drag it through your house, dumping it in you backyard to add to pile they already created of trash which attracts flies to your home. Turns out your face feels like its falling off because you’re allergic, and although you tried to tell them to get rid of the stuff they couldn’t understand you as they don’t speak  your language. They even have the audacity to put a hand on you to try to comfort you when smelling them is the last thing you want to do.

We kept trying to apologize, but she couldn’t understand our pronunciation.

Turns out we have to return the pile of poops to the neighbours tomorrow. Here guys, thanks for the poops but turns out we can’t handle them, please feel free to take them back to your cows.

By the way they actually have cows inside their house. Now I understand it when people I ask say that their animals are and inside their house, they don’t mean in an enclosure next to their house or in an enclosure on a farm adjacent to their house.

 

Rashida out neighbour who is getting married, who btw I thought was 19 but is in fact 17, came  to visit during a moment of all of us venting and freaking out.  Oblivious to out English-bound stress she came with her uncles camera phone and made us pose for lots of pictures, and played us all sort of Arabic music and taught us to dance. We gave up on low whispered conversations saturated with problems and accepted her invitation to the roof where we hung up laundry and watched the stars. She sang me what she knew from the Koran and then Aziz brought up baby Fati-zala and I held her and suddenly Rashida shouted out and pointed up and there, right there was a shooting star, clearer then I could have ever imagined, whizzing past all the other shiny specks and finally disappearing.

No, I didn’t become a princess and marry a Moroccan king and live happily ever after, yes we eventually returned back to our room and its whispered grumbles and troubles and the stress of the day, but hey, there was that, and it mattered.

 

Next morning we went for a morning jog and came along a bag of dry sheep manure or poops along the way. Aziz wakes his neighbour asked for the poops and lifts the bag onto his head. It spills all-over his clothes and hair. I guess that’s what farm life is all about huh;

 It’s all in the smelly stuff.

You're where? Is that in Africa?

Here’s where I’m at right now. My tummy is round as we eat bread/wheat products at every meal, my hair is poofy as our neighbour came around to teach us to cook couscous and to do girly things in our room, like my hair, my goals are disjointed and my beliefs are in question and there is a big welt on my foot from a mosquito bite that never healed. My toes are tanned, my face is speckled and the rest of me is whiter than ever, my soul is at peace though my mind is on edge always and I cannot understand what my heart is saying but my abs are sore from the exercise yesterday and my ears are probably a little dirty.

Awkward Moments In Morocco

A.M.I.M
....

 

Looks like Lipstick:

 

Explaining what tampons are, in broken Arabic and gestures. AMIM

Paying for another mans’ sin:

When we have to pay for these guys’ bottle of wine, because they don’t want to commit the sin of buying the booze, as Muslims in an Islamic country.
It got awkaward, and then dangerous, when they started downing the wine, in the car, whilst driving 120km, on the way home.

It was also awkward when we had a muffled yet angry debate outside the liqour section when Aziz told us we had to take off our headscarfs whilst the buddy insisted on us just marching in. I felt like I did when I was 16 trying to by tiquilla or something. The vailled women stopped their shopping to give us death stares. AMIM

What comes in, must go out:

The first day when we were awake all night desperate for the loo and had to demand from Aziz in the morning the REAL explanation of toilet etiquette and where to shit, and where it goes and what to wipe with and how to flush. AMIM

Praise:

Kay is showing her parents the view from the roof over skype. She whirls around computer in arms, raised. Rashida the neighbour stares; these people are obviously religious computer worshiper creeps. AMIM

Exposed:

It’s a very hot day, anrie is wearing her wife beater. Lying down on the couch laughing at the coputer screen. Aziz walks in and discusses plans, and leaves. Turns out her whole bra is sticking out of her top. AMIM

Kay loves you bye:

Kay is talking to Rosa’s friend on skype. 1 hour later and the conversation needs to be over. K,lovya,bye says kay. Awkwardly my friend repeats: “Kay loves you Bye…?”
Creeper. AMIM

Shukran:

Rashida, the neighbour has been in the kitchen. The south Africans are in their disgustingly messy bedroom, chillin’. Rashida walks in carrying a bowl of icing: in an awkward flurry of responses to having a visitor in their messy room, Rosa runs for a shawl, Anrie is moving the shoes out of the way, and kay gladly accepts the bowl that Rashida has been working on with big smile and ‘Shukran’.(thankyou) Turns out she’s only coming to say bye and probably now thinks we’re so weird that she wont come back. AMIM

Third time lucky:

Well whattta you know; turns out she did come back. Today she comes by to visit many times and keeps popping in to see what we’re doing. We’re on skype. She watches for a while and as we’re about to call Lil to introduce her, she has to go. When she returns we’re talking to lil again, and again we summons her to see the screen. It is too dark but when lil goes to find light, the internet cuts out. She leaves one more time. We go and sit on the roof to continue our skype-sess, the video off for speech clarity. Eventually Rashida returns from her roof, and we call her to come see this time, now you can meet my twin. We ask her to turn on her video and the picture flickers on…  Lily is sensually lifting her shirt to show us the injection mark on her stomach… Laughing hysterically and awkwardly we try to tell lily to show her face and put her shirt down…which she probably does but the screen happened to freeze. For a good 3 minutes Rashida, adored in headscarf and modest skirt stares at me turning red shouting at the extreme close up of lily’s belly and positioned hand. AMIM

Salaam:

People are coming past the door, Anrie puts her head out just above the floor and says, in her strong accent “Salaam”. The kid had never been as freaked out. AMIM

When prophesies come knocking

Aziz spent a good 10mins teaching me to answer the door. I ask who it is alright but then I fidget with the door for 7minutes, laughing embarrassedly and banging the looks whilst the beautiful Mohammed stands awkwardly on the other end awaiting the end of my flustered reign.  AMIM

Café for the Soul?:

Our host tells me to put down baby Fati so I can eat. For the first time I cheekily decline, and say I’ll hold her instead. Soon there is coffee down my lap, and all over the newly washed carpet. AMIM

Wish that was all:

Miriam has left, we’re trying to charm Aziz’s mom. She has baked bread on the fire in the morning, and made us a delicious tea and lunch. However, the awkward communication attempts were stifled somewhat when Kay spills all her coffee on the fresh bread. AMIM

The Other Side:

Kid knocks on the door. When we ask who it is and figure out how to open it, the poor boy looking for our Host he sees 3 grinning white girls, and one’s bare chest from the low tank top that I forgot I was resting in. We rate it was probably more than he could cope with considering he ran to the other side of the road without a moment’s hesitation and refused to come any closer again. AMIM

Yes. Yes. Yeees. You understand? Yes.

When after 8 days of living with his family, we finally discover that every time our Host says “yeees” it actually means he doesn’t know what we’re saying because we’re talking too fast… AMIM

Leave your message after the Bleep:

When we give Anrie’s number to a waiter (who gives it to his friends) and proudly tell Aziz to see his reaction. Turns out “the worst thing you can do is give out your number, they track you down, like people from Israel or Iran, and they are out to get the tourists, the police track the number, they start with saying how you’re lovely or how beautiful you are you must never give out your number…” Also, it’s actually his brother’s number that we’re using. Things got pretty awkward after that. AMIM
 

 

 

 

 

Wa Aleikum Ssalam from the other side of the Equator

As I write.. (always a good place to start when you don’t know where to start)

I’m sitting on the roof of the house we’re living in. Its in a village of 200 houses and its called Smayer. This roof is connected with 5 neighbours roofs, and everyone hangs their washing up here to dry in the hot hot Moroccan sun.

Neighbours rock up all day, and all planned activities of any importance stop in the name of hospitality. Luckily we have by now perfected (well..kinda) the simple dialogue of salaam aleikum- waaleikum ssalam-kif deyer(howa you)-bichor hamdullah(good thanks be to G-d) so we can participate in neighbour visits too.

We also know how to say things like “I’m full” and “wonderful breakfast”. The food here is incredible. A vegetarian’s paradise. Regardless, the others are craving meat but I am so very satisfied.

We eat bread made from wheat grown here on the farm and dried here on this roof. You can also hear the muezin’s calling from alkl the neighbouring villages. It makes me feel quite at home.

The one thing we struggle a little with was the ablutions. Even me. Ok, especially me. Despite my travel experience I remain quite a prude. But I’m trying ok. I mean, its not like I have a choice..

Our Host has prepare d us this whole program: its involves: Organic farming (making compost and planting beans and picking olives
Sustainable Ecological Development( which is what he calls picking up the litter in the river. There’s lots of it)
Cultural Exchange (learning to say ‘im full’ in Arabic and meeting locals (tea with neighbours)
Sport and Excersise (something like that. It means maying playing soccer with the boys and doin hikes)
Tourism and Travel Time

 

That’s the 5 pillars of our time here and its going marvellously. We have talked about everything under the sun; religion, homosexuality, language, dating, marriage, olives, soil, food, animals, family, tradition, babies, atheism, terrorism, stars….

The taboo subjects are all anrie and kays conversations with aziz and the marriage and babies ones are all our Host’s. I talk about the olives …

I have made best friends with Fatima (the baby) and her mom, Miriam who is my age. I thought Miriam and the mother(her and my Hosts’ mom, also called Fatima)  talked about me all the time in the kitchen before learning that Rowse is actually rice.

 We all have Arabic names. Mine is Zhor. it sounds like a warrior. I like it.

Retrospect Perspective and many line-breaks

It sounds better now they say

But you’d stopped singing a while ago

And you’ve only been mouthing the words

 

Was that yesterday?

Or a video from your childhood?

But you’re too afraid to ask

Because they don’t know the answer either

So you’d rather keep pretending

That its still just an arm’s reach away

 

Click, bent over forward with your head

Between your legs

There’s more than one way of looking back

But look at where Lot’s wife ended up

The seasoning three-point- observation violation

 

When you’re balancing right on the

Edge

Its all relative

And perfection is a matter of perspective

They say that symmetry

Is what beauty is all about.

Mr Openminded views that from all-angles.

Thought there’s always Three truths,

But one right answer

When you measure opinion with a protractor

 

The trouble arises not when there’s no one else

To pat you on the back

But when you’re not flexible enough for such self-satisfaction.

 

Too soon the houselights are on

And you blink out the light

But you keep on blinking

Because

It turned out that no-one

But you

Ever really cared about your holiday snapshots

Anyway.

 

We are the activists wondering where to begin

We are here to get the government
out of your bedroom
the kids off the street
the men in the kitchen



we’re the couple in the café
with the paper
with the paper and the ideas about freedom
with shouts bout democracy/ suffrage and leaders
we tipped over latte’s to raise fists to the ceiling



we are the wanderers
with dreams and ambitions
the glo-in-the-dark stars on our ceilings
speak of communism, brotherhood
neopluralist living



Occupy, fight, stand for whats right
Free palastine, build zion, take back
Our farmland; sit-ins, rallys, hunger-strikes
Eradicate poverty, and drugs, and men,
And animal-killers; eat a rock, save a child



We’re here to put ‘organic’ back into your salad
To roll up the boarders, and send them to the laundry,
Our night shift is dreaming social justice for all
But you can’t eat ideology for breakfast

And we can’t find the haystack
Under all the worlds sin
We’re the activists wondering where to begin
 

I can hear the drip drip from the shower from under my bedcovers

I will not become one of those people, my people, who are miserable. Who have crisis’ far deeper than my jokey ’existential-crisis’ and who feel they have no purpose to their lives, who mill at home doing nothing, and have lists of things to complain about, starting from their past lives and working their way up. Yet… I have not showered in 3 days. During this time I haven’t been in for supper, nor have I  been out of bed before midday. What do I do all day, people ask me. Nothing I respond. I don’t do anything with my life. I joke about all the free time I have, ‘you tell me when you’reavailable because it’s not like I’m doing anything with my life, ha de haha’.

I push away the people who know me best, perhaps because I don’t want them to see me like this, or because I don’t want to see them like this.

In retrospect I can judge others for falling into this trap. How, why can they just sit at home doing nothing all day. There is so much to do in joburg you only have to go out and find it. No wonder they’re having breakdowns, what with staring at their bedposts all day, and living for nothing. Putting things off until you can’t even remember what was supposed to be preventing you from doing them in the first place. Waiting for things to happen without making them happen. Complaining. Wishing. I promise I’ll be pro-active when….

Things I’ve always wanted to do/explore/experience/experiment with… such as delving into the refugee issue in Joburg, volunteering from home, getting exercise, practising soccer, cooking, exploring joburg CBD, planting… I’ve always been too busy to do these, but now that I have time…

I don’t know what’s lacking, perhaps motivation. I don’t know whether it is because I’ve tired myself out doing and doing and doing this year, and that I need a break OR, and most likely, because I’ve stopped. After-all, sleeping is what makes you tired.

There is only so long that I can blame it on the Space. And say, its joburg, it’s the transport problems here, I need to leave, once I’m elsewhere, things will be ok. And I will learn again, and I will do again. Because at some point, I have to stop running, and let my roots get a little soil, and use that to nourish myself to grow and built and photosynthesise. Though it’s not self-growth I’m worried about, its productivity. You’re only young once ne, so make the most of your time.

But it’s all about a catalyst, something to ignite a process. Because I do have some ideas and theories waiting to be put into practise. I do have some clean clothes in my cupboard waiting to be tried on. I do have a full geyser of warm water, and I can step into the shower any time I want. It’s a scary world out there, past the warm soapy water, and once I get in, I’m committed to trying out that world again, and holding on, and not letting go again, not falling back into the realm of dirty pyjamas. That’s the hardest part, it’s easy to try half-heartedly to clean up my act, but to stay out there, to put on fresh jeans and a bra EVERY SINGLE DAY, is hard work. But I’ve got it in me, we all do, and I won’t fall into that existentialist trap, because there are things to be done, and places to go.

Not a Foot over The Line

Holy shit I just looked around me and noticed that there were 4 females in the room. Just to think that for a good few weeks I was the only one, the gangbitch with my 3 burly gentlemen. This is balanced.

Everyone’s scratching, mosquito bites all round, toes and ankles, noses. The occasional clap of someone aiming for the little bugger. The hum of the fans. The faint odour of the evenings pungent meal of Ochra Stew and Banku, no-ones favourite-lingers in the air.

My Canadian housemate; a bundle of fun whom, ironiocally along with my other favourite homo; inspired me to go out independently into the world of Ghana; to have my own adventures and fly; has just left Ghana. As he flies across the seas, towards Quibec, Canada; thousands of Liberians in Ghana are crying, packing their bags, defeated, again. Due to the Cessation Clause of the 30^thJuly 2012, when their refugee status in Ghana ceased to be, those who remain do so without rights, without protection, and without a home; as Buduburam, “Liberia Camp” the massive, thriving amorphous of Liberian haven that has been home to the refugees for many years is being closed down. Thousands have applied for exemption; for a chance to say ‘hear my story again, I AM a refugee, I AM in need of international protection, ‘my country’ CANNOT give me the protection that a nation owes to its citizens and I am here, in Ghana, without a home.

In Two weeks I will smoothly navigate my way through the airport bureaucracy and return home too. All these weeks I have been waiting for that shot of urgency to kick in, for the adrenalin to pump away the lethargy. I think I’m slowly becoming addicted to the feeling of leaving; the cravings, the need- to do everything under the sun, the fear, the anticipation.

On Wednesday, the 4^th July, 4 days after the passing of the cessation clause, I (along with a fantastic 16 year old who was doing research for her fancy IB High school curriculum!)  was given the opportunity to take the other interns of the Human Rights office I’ve been volunteering at to Buduburam ‘Liberia’ Refugee Camp. After struggling to put together a request for permission to visit the site, organising (with much help) a vehicle (a tro-tro) to take the 15 interns,  copies of the surveys and interviews.  Trying to make up a reason to tell the other interns about why we’re going there “due to the cessation clause, after which Refugee Status for all the Liberians living there will be terminated, we {at our human rights organisation} are expecting to get a great influx of refugee clients and we need to do research at the camp in order to find out what sort of problems are likely to come up in order to be adequately prepared” where-as infact, the reason we were going was out of our own interest, too see the place, to understand, and- most importantly I rate, to talk to the peeps in order to get things from their perspective, because most of what everyone hears about nationless peoples, is gossip from the nations.

Angel, my Liberian woman (with a accent typical of Rastafarians?) whom I interviewed came to Ghana when she was 4, brought by her aging grandmother to escape the civil war. She’s been living in the camp ever since. She has 2 kids (the youngest, on her back during the interview). She picks up littered water sachets for a living and has never received any sort of education. She, along with the other Liberians cannot go and work in Accra because they feel threatened as Liberians. ‘Its no good here (Ghana), its no good there (Liberia)’.  She wants ‘to fly’, to move to a mythical land {which starts with A and rhymes with ‘freethinker’ or ‘swastika’)

Which doesnt surprise me; given what people see on TV. Its almost like Cold War West Germany here off the side of Africa...

Out of the Nest and into the Deep End

I fell head first out of the nest, and landed in the Deep End
How?
It went something like this

 
We called the Commision who are in charge of handling the visit, to no avail. We called 2 dozen hostels, hotels, gueshouses, twice- to no avail, either. We almost didn't leave; but the stakes were too high not to.
We left our friends in the Cape Coast, a city by the sea where we'de gotten mugged the night before (our Japanese friend has a big tourist camera). Our housemates were going to explore the area, but I'de wanted to make the most of the long weekend; have an adventure without 6 other people who may not even want to be there, and to prove to myself that I could adventure out without 3 big burly men by my side. The newest volunteer, a Californaian youngster, with peroxide hair and home-made tattoos, who's never left home before; accompanied me.

It started with a tearful conversation late one night when my good natured med-student came to visit my room to tuck in my mosquito net. It was such a nice gesture that we got to bonding about our fears and life’s plans. The discussion made me unearth the way that my need for solitude has been devouring me these days. I feel so dependent on the safety and security that my little life here has, to offer, my housemates presence everywhere I go. It relates to my future plans to rock up in Ethiopia myself; a country on the Horn of Africa, a notoriously unsafe place streaked with beauty and culture - of which I have been having sudden councerns (myself, late at night) about. And so after many adventures with hoards of housemates, it was time to prove to myself that I can do without 4 adams apples amoungst other things;

Late Saturday Night we left the others to continue to explore Cape Coast, and travelled to Takoradi, a transit-town linking the West Coast and the Cote deVoir boarder to the rest of Ghana. {The hardest part of the 'travelled' was most likely the trek to the into-city tro tro; which involved asking AT LEAST 13 people instructions and directions at different intervals}

The adventure begun succesfully, where a lady promised to walk us to the hotel we'de eventually gotten hold of. She walked us to her husband, who (half naked) walked us back down the street we'de come up, right to our hotel. Everyone here is so nice!! We settled down in our hotel room, washed and brushed, and went down to the 24 hour hotel restuarant to buy water to take our malaria pills. Met some nice people, got talking. It was great untill they tried to follow us to out hotel room, and we literally had to turn our phones off and lock the doors and windows because a) we were paranoid and b) they were calling us from outside.

No adventure is complete without everything going counter to ones expectations (and by expectations I mean the guidebook). But 4 modes of transport later we were exactly where we had planned to be (and by transport I mean 1 trotro 2 charter taxis and 1 canoe ride). That is, at Nzulezo; the City on Stilts.

Photos are not wellcome; but I'll do my best to share the imigary:

Click: Tall muscular 'tourguide' standing at the rim of a sleek wooden canoe (give or take a few holes) tall pole for pushing the boat through the endless black lake, pauses for a moment to answer his cellphone...

Click: village sighting!! A long unorganised strip of houses sitting above the water, aurrounded by nothing but the dark lake

Flash: The only accomodation, the house of a man (he owns a guesthouse but it's temporarily under water) who sold homemade gin with tree extract that is the equivallent to viagra;for prolonged "jiggy jiggy". After much exploration of the town we discover that he is our only option.

Just like in Accra, where women walk down the {road} with pots on their heads, washing strewn between houses, children sucking water from plastic packets, and even street dogs and chickens. However the houses between the drying laundry are all wooden, as are the roads, the chicken cage is a seperate stilt structure (connected by a wooden bridge) and the entire seen seems to be floating, but is raised slightly off the surface of the water. Click.

Flash: A women bends down to scoop some water into a bucket to wash clothes. Flash: a girl dives into the water and surfaces a few seconds later. Flash: an elderly man at the back with his small son in front, as they head off from the village. Flash: youngsters crwched carving into oars, and threading reeds from into sleeping mats.  

After having a 'look around' and seeing these incredible sights, but being greeteted by no one and seeing nothing further than the wooden walkway under our feet, i wondered how we were going to pass the time untill our boatman came to collect us the next morning. Soon the last stragglings of tourists left, except for us.

We took the canoe onto the lake whilst the sun made its way down the sky,

we swam in the black water (which is actually reddish at a nearer glance) and observed the women set off in their canoes to behind the reeds where they went to bath.

We did sumersaults in the lake with a 14 year old girl, and met an 18year old called Lydia who said she wouldnt join us because she was cooking. . . So we rushed out of the water to learn to cook. But by the time we were dry and had located her; she had finished and the youngsters of her family were eating.

2 young teachers gave us a tour of the school, also in the village. the 'soccer field' seemed a good 2metres under, but apparently in the dry season its ok.

We met Lydia again, who then invited us to her meal. Cassava dough and groundnut stew and fish (from the lake). We sat on the wooden floor with them, and ate the most delicious meal of our stay, or our lives perhaps. "Eat, eat fish, here, eat more" she kept saying. Because my Canadi-merican travel-buddy was not yet competent at the art of eating with ones hands, she took us for entirely incapable and kept assisting us with deboning our fish, to ensure we ate it! And then she helped us wash our hand with a bucket and river water.

We watched Spain kick Italy's butt in one of the teachers tiny loft's overflowing with futball fantics of all ages, and we celberated all over the little village, as if the noise didnt wake everone in the beginning, because the walls were thin, in this magical town.

Lydia took us and taught us Ghanain dancing (not traditional, dont let your imaginations go wild. It was controlled, systematic, like dancing in the centre of one of those talent circles)

The house shifted slightly ever now and then as we slept. We left at 7 the next morning, (7:30, after the 'tourguide' had had a glass or two of Palm Wine, which resulted in the ride back to the mainland taking an extra hour, the steering pole breaking, and the guide falling into the lake)

It took the whole day to get home.

I have adapted a fine statement that I heard once from a Mozambican, in reference to Nzulezo, the city on stilts.

Nzulezo is not a place to live; it is a way of life.

When It Rains

·        The Rain

I read my guidebook the night before, woke the others up to confirm their attendance, and woke early the next day for our semi improv adventure. This time, it was a Real adventure. We got to Aburi, a small transport crossover town where we negotiated transport and then hopped on the vehicle that was to take us to the wrong place. People were complaining, lets go, come on, lets just get in, and I was debating the Right place and so we ended up in Memfe, an even smaller village, with only one way out. A helpful man’s son took us (six) squished into his tiny taxi to an unmarked path through a corn field. With my weak Twi, and many hand-gestures all ‘round we negotiated for him to wait for us to return (as there were no other taxi’s on the road. At all) And lo and behold, there stood the object of our missioning; the palm tree with 6 heads. It was amazing, we all played, climbed jumped from it, fitted all 6 of us onto it, one person per branch. I spent a little more time then I wanted to being the group photographer, the one who must stay down whilst the others climb up. I tried not to let it make me sad. Because it was very beautiful.

And then back on the road (we were SO pleased to see our driver when we came out from the cornfield) and to the next town North. This one has tons and tons of fruit and vegetable stores, and for some reason, tons of white tourist types. We got out of there and headed to the big town on the region, Koforidua. It was great, bustling with this and that, I love seeing these things through the eyes of the first timers, like our newest housemates. I got to get excited again over the coconut system, and the street mielies, and the beads, and markets. Once satisfied in our tummies and souls it was back on the road for the Boti waterfalls. (We had had to change our mind from the other Falls we were heading to as the only way to get there was from the first city, Aburi which we’de long since left behind. Boti was supposed to be most beautiful, but this title makes in to be flooded with tourists, something that all tourists like myself hope to avoid…) We got there, successfully enough but were greeted by an outrages entrance price. The handy guide-book mentioned another Falls, 2km’s away and we decided to check that out instead. And so we walked, and walked, the tar road on which trucks occasionally sped down was bordered by thick and lush forest, or jungle even. Impenetrable it was so thick. But, out of the corner of our eyes, a mysterious path jutted out. We went to ‘take a look’ which turned into our real adventure. Wound down paths, racing after the promise of the view, which we’d glimpse between patches of thicket. Suddenly the sky growled with thunder (not to be melodramatic or anything) and we all pretended not to hear it. Untill it started to pour down. Because when it rains in Ghana, it pours.  We raced back, and took shelter under a tree 101# not to do in lightning storms. We ate chocolate and planned our lives. It settled down and we voted to head back into adventure land, leaving the prospect of a waterfall behind us, and a quest ahead. We slipped and slided through the mud, saved a bird trapped in a spiders web, found a hidden corn field, a tiny snake, and the most incredible view, layers of mountain above us with clouds coming in to nestle between the valley cleavages. We headed back before it started pouring, which meant ofcourse that we were on our way back,( through mud, above a cliff, and between thorn bushes) when it actually was pouring. Because in Ghana when it rains…. I have no idea how we all made it out of there in one piece (six pieces?) because, thinking back, it was a bit of a silly thing to do, but a successful one, so we can call it an adventure, and not a mistake. We trekked down the tar road, flagging down any vehicle, going any direction. Unsuccessfully. We looked pretty stupid. Eventually we walked past a commune of sorts and were invited to take shelter. We waited out the storm, and I got to help them crush dried mielies to make traditional food like Banku and Kenke. Eventually, they put us into a tro- tro, heading back to Koforidua. We were permitted into the University bathrooms to change out of soaking clothes, and headed back at nightfall.

The Gates

·        The Adventure

4 Hours later and not yet done

The Adventure was to be the trip to Cape Coast, the trip that our Director has been promising to take us on since our arrival. Finally, after 4 weeks of postponement; we were in the car and ready to leave. I fell promptly off to sleep (something I was to regret later), and was awoken 2 hours later as the car came to a stand still. And still in continued to stand… for another 6 hours. I’ll not bore you with the details of the broken engine cover incident (2 hours) or the replacing the battery process (2 hours) or the engine-starter-issue (3 hours, and the problem all along) or the other 5 individuals who came and went to help, and add feedback, and stand around peering into the bonnet, as men do. I tried this out for a while as well, it did make me feel like I was significantly contributing to the repair process until I got sunburned, and returned to my musings in the shade of the vehicle interior. As you’ve probably already got the point, I needn’t continue to mention the treacherous towing journey, or how the tow-truck, too, broke down, or how after arriving in Accra we got lost for a good 50 minutes at the wrong tro tro station.. Cape Coast will continue to be a myth, and aspiration, a mirage

The Obruni's and Ghanains at the wedding

·        The Matrimony

Vul'indlela wemamgobhozi  (Open the gates, Miss Gossip)
He unyana wam (My baby boy)
Helele uyashada namhlanje (Is getting married today)

Vulindlela- by Brenda Fassie

It reminded me of my Matric Dance and I avoided putting my dress on until the very last minute. When we were ready, three of us, in matching fabrics we awkwardly stood around taking pictures to send to family before walking up our road, ducking and dodging the comments from passerbys. Although, Obruni’s in matching traditional attire were no more out of place then those in your average shirts.  The only surprise people expressed was at my bare feet, but this I’m used to. We arrived and looked for the people with whom we’d find camouflage.

This was a traditional Muslim Wedding. In Ghana how the party works is that every person who gets to invite guests gets an amount of fabric, which they offer out, an invitation. Therefore, every group of people at the wedding is identified. The groom’s mother’s guests were extensive in number, 30,40 women decorated in greens and blues with competing headdresses, each ones bigger than the next. The groom’s friends, all young and beautiful men in flowing jalabiyas with shiny brown head coverings. We, along with my colleague who invited us, and all his equally extravagant gay friends were adorned in pinks and greens and sat with the friends of the bride’s mother. The wedding was massive, it took place in a square in town that I think usually funtions as a trade and transport centre, and inbetween the wedding happenings, the usual hawkers with plantain-chips on their heads walked by. The bride sits at one side and the groom at the other and then they are together to walk from the one side to the other, whilst all around them their adoring guests gather with iphones, and cameras and kisses and children to see the beautiful couple. And they were completely gorgeous. And if I thought the guests looked extravagant, the couple looked even more so, 10 times. For each of their walks they change into another amazing outfit, the number depending on their wealth. I reckon these guys were pretty wealthy because we’d left the wedding before they’d gotten close to their tenth. On my side however, it was a little disastrous. I ended up eating a whole load ’a meat hidden in my rice, when I returned to the table after a pee-break and found my housemates having eaten the plates with the plain rice… (This isn’t the first time here that I’ve carnivored it up, and each mishap results in 3 days of sickness). Also, my dress ripped a little when tripping over an elaborate woman on my way to the table, but sitting cautiously and draping my scarf casualty over my shoulder ensured that not too many people saw my ass. That is, until I got into the tro tro, at which point it proceeded to rip from the slit under the butt, all the way to the clasp at my back. That’s right, Fully. I covered myself in scarf, and missi

oned home, but it was the most uncomfortable I’ve been in my life. Obviously. My roommates didn’t seem to care either, or allow me to stop to buy cloth of some sort.

Looking good comes at a price, dahlin’.

·        The Power

We got off work nice an early because the power was off for the first few days of the week. It was great. Finally got a bit of time to sit, and do nothing, and BE, at home.

This is Sowah Unity Rasta. On the way home from some Live Regae

It was so relaxed that I even recruited a mission with my housemates to meet up with my Rasta (from the beach, and the Reggae night) a place called Bywells, an outdoor bar with a dance floor and a nook where live musicians play away the night. Thursday Night Live Jazz had many old school classics (we arrived to a jazzy ‘Lean on Me’) and watched aging expatriates, mixed Ghanaian/European middle-aged couples, a few student types, some hookers, and a few Ghanaian Rasta’s dance together. I even got up to dance with a Jamaican Jew to Brenda Fassie’s Vulindlela!

·        The Asylum

On the only day that I did real work in the office, I interviewed my client, the Liberian Refugee again. On my previous trip on his behalf (to the Refugee Board) I had learned of the holes in his application, how he had had not appealed his rejection of Refugee Status application, how he had not shown up to the interviews, how he had taken years before trying the processes. I was ready to meet a fellow who didn’t put enough effort into his appeal for Refugee Status in Ghana; however this was not the case. All the gaps turned out to be from lack of information, no way of knowing the procedures. It infuriates me how much people can screw with those without any status.

·        The Education

The last 2 days of the week were spent in the conference hall of the Coconut Grove Hotel, for a conference on the role of Community Organisations (NGO’s) in Education. That’s right, two days. It took a lot of time, me and my South African were by far the youngest people there. I learned a lot about NGO’s as a whole, but as Education is something I know very little about, the rest I struggled to remain focused in. However, despite my lack of knowledge, I noticed that I was no further behind any of the older folks in Group Discussions or Partner Discussions. I think I was just lucky enough to be in the weaker groups, but I was a little disappointed by the innovativeness (or lack thereof) in ideas there. But I was impressed with the power that NGO’s seem to have as a whole body. The theme of the day was how the government NEEDS the NGO’s in order to do their work properly, interesting perspective, and would be very inspirational, if I hadn’t been falling asleep..

·        The Additions

 We are one house-mate down, and 2 new additions. My Canadian homo bilingual law student, who was my favourite person with whom to have late night conversations and vent-sessions has departed for his own adventures. But we now have one more girl (I struggle to remember the time when it was just me and 3 burly men) who is an 18year old (the youngest in the house) Californian-Canadian, who reminds me of the Berkeley-ites of my past, with peroxide blond hair, a tattoo on her chest, and a face piercing. She’s cute and quite but also seems to have a big soul. The other morning, to my surprise I was awoken by a phone call to ‘Open the Gate!’. A new gay boy (what is it with Ghana, the homophobic Christian state and all these Western homo boys??). He’s of Japanese origins, but attends Brown University.

This Sunday was the first day since my arrival where we breached the conversation topic on Love Life

Bebesithi angeke ashade vul'indlela -- People said he would never get married but open the gates

Its crazy how after spending a month with some of these people we had all avoided the topic entirely.  I enjoyed the one on one interrogations but when it resulted in the usual debates about open relationships and human social programing, or long distances and the effectiveness thereof I floated in and out. We drank a lot of sweet box wine, and ate pasta which the New Yorkan Social Justice housemate cooked. It was interesting to learn of the rural Ohio doctor boy’s past loveless relationships, how the first person who said “I love you” to him was a man we’d met on the side of the road, who wanted money to buy ice cream. And of Brown, the Japanese kid who spoke for hours on what love feels like, even though we’d only met him two days ago. But I suppose, adventures bond people in amazing ways.

The 6 Headed Palm Tree

 

Walking the Walk

This week tumbled through the wind in a gentle flurry.  The weekend was supposed to be strategic relaxation. We all needed a Weekend In, especially after being away all week after an adventurous weekend out just before that.  Friday night, another where I missed the spirituality of Shabbat Services, even home-made ones, maybe especially those. We spent the evening doing… shopping, in Thema Station. This is the picture; a maze of minibus taxi’s (tro-tros) parked in clumps at various angles, unified chaos. Directions to the places in question responded to by key words and hand signals, the same system that the tro-tros use, is used in the station. The plain white collard shirts, found up the 5^th Aisle on the North-Easter Side of the parking lot is at ‘Circle’*, whilst the belts and boots can be found at ‘37’ or, if that doesn’t meet your needs, also between ‘Teshie’ and ‘Accra’.

*Circle refers to the transport heading towards Kwame Nkrumah Circle, the major transport nucleus of Accra

**37 refers to the tro-tro’s heading towards the “Number 37 Military Hospital”.

However, the products one wants to potentially purchase are not necessarily grouped in categories. Walking down the potholed tar trail toward say, ‘37’, one can step over shirts spread over a sheet in the middle of the road (to me moved when vehicles hoot to pass), glance over to the sugar can sellers, blink and then there is a woman selling chillies and hard boiled eggs. On the other side a man with cellphone accessories and hairdryers. And pegs. And then more clothes, this time socks and men’s suit jackets, around the corner from the woman who had piled soap and ointment onto a table in front of her. I bought 2 smart skirts which I can wear for work; one black and knee length and one black and white and high-waisted. Our fantastic metro-homosexual friend came to join us, and I bought collard shirts to go along with it. We then ran around missioning for a black shirt for my South African, black clothes was the main purpose of this expedition but things in Ghana seem to be that everything is on offer, except the things you really need at that moment.

Getting home exhausted, it was good to sit and catch up with the housemates after a seemingly long period of absence (from our week away) but everyone was dying. We had one heart-burn, one vomiter, a diarrhoea or two, a slight fever, and many mosquito bites.

Saturday morning would have been a day for waking up late and having a long and leisurely breakfast. However, it was not. We had been invited to the funeral of the brother of the lady who cooks for us all, he was in his 20’s when he died. He is her little brother, she is 27ish and it was due to illness. People tried not to cry, funerals here are supposed to be celebrations of peoples lives. Some people have parties with drinking and dancing (my boss, the high profile lawyer even said to me ‘oh I hope you get to go to a funeral during your time in Ghana). But this was a funeral as I know them to be, with sadness seeping out from under the lids. I didn’t know the system with conduct and condolences, but human instinct, wrong or right took the lead; with hugging holding blessing wishing.

After the funeral, 3 of us; me, my South African, and the medical student from Ohio, set off on a mission to Kasoa, where I had planned to meet a woman with whom I’ve been in correspondence but never actually met. Her brother and her and a brother in law were planning to start up an NGO for Health and Education for children under five, and we had offered to help out. She was younger than I expected, and we were certainly younger than she expected, although I’m not sure they worked out exacly how young we really were. Unfortunatly that had had the impression that we were experts in things like Human Rights, Education and Health and whilst we each had a great passion (respectively) for these things; we had expected THEM to be experts, and to tell us what they want from us, what kind of general labour we could do for them. Neither party had a plan; what I’m beginning to learn is that there are so many good hearted people in Ghana, with high hopes and dreams of starting organisations and projects that help people, but they don’t know where to begin. And this both scares and inspires me; echoing my personal plans in a nerve-racking manner. Both the organisation I’m in the program with (under the Director I keep referencing) and now, these pure-hearted people in a rural neighbourhood outside of Accra. We planned to keep in touch, but until they know what they want, we can’t really help them, as much as we would like to. They want us to provide a network of volunteers, start-up advice, legal and business tips. I’d hoped that they had that, and that we can do the ground work. However, the meeting was hopefully not the end of our correspondence; the woman is so lovely and invited me to come visit her home, stay with her one day. I hope we can help, somehow.

Monday, I went to the Human Rights court, to the Registry, to the court to see the Court Clerk, to the documents office. It was really exciting because before that little adventure I had heard of none of the above-mentioned things. I’m learned that Human Rights interns do a lot of missioning to the far-out and complicated places, that the lawyers are too qualified to do. Which works great with me. It involved meeting all the people, wearing posh suits, and making politie demands. But for me it involved seeing the people who are ‘qualified’ enough to make decisions on other people’s lives, seeing how they are as humans.  And how these decisions are made. And seeing how the papers get lost along the way. And how life-affecting cases are adjourned, and people remain in prison, for months, years without even being found guilty or not.

On Tuesday I missioned to the Immigration Office, although this was personal- I needed to extend my visa that the incompetent Embassy in South Africa had issued me. And here I learned the power of power-dressing. High-waisted skirts and well-ironed shirts, got me through the process at 5x the speed of my attempts in South Africa. A bussines-man even sat next to me and discussed things like the slowness of the system, and how if ‘they can do it in the UK, why cant they do it here’ and I was like ‘ehh uhh I’m actually kinda impressed with this’.

See, just because I pretend to walk the walk, I cannot forge the talk-the talk.

Wednesday was back in the human rights court.

On Thursday I missioned, with 2 of my colleagues, also both (unrelatedly), Refugee people(!) to 3 different national news and media centres, each more official than the next -for research on a project of spousal murders.  It seems like we’ll need to return with identity documents, letters of invitation, and the incentive to read through all newspapers of the last 2 years….

But it was fun trying to find these places, with no address, or knowledge about which tro-tro to take, where.  People here are so willing to help. They will walk you to the ends of the earth if you’re lost enough, and then offer to pay your return trip to Mars. (Except for some of course, whom point you to the wrong solar system before demanding a fee. But so far these earthlings are in the minority.)

On Friday I went to the Refugee Board, it involved 6 tro-tros altogether. The biggest of missions, although not unpleasant. These things are pleasant enough if you can be patient and relaxed. I’ve been practising.  However, once I was there, it was really scary. I guess I want prepared, and they gave me all this information that I hadn’t been told of before, basically about how the client is wrong and they are right, and I said what I had come to say but I was shaken. They threatened me, they said “oh, well we should really report him to immigration to be deported” and I tried to be brave, but I was petrified. I left without saying goodbye. 

That night we went to fetch our dresses for the wedding from the weird little town we had them made. On the way back me and the American social-justice-and-dance housemate stopped at a gas-station store. I bought a bottle of wine for Shabbat and chocolate. We didn’t end up doing Shabbat, which brought about the usual unbearable nostalgia, and soon woke up at 4.30 for the adventure of the weekend…