One Last Thing...

I was ready to leave Ghana, but apparently Ghana was not ready to leave me.

I woke up on the day of my flight with a fever, terrible diarrhea, and aches and pains all over. Barely being able to get out of bed, I was determined to make it to my flight.  To see a doctor was going to be too long of an ordeal, I was determined to get home to see a doctor there.

Ibuprofen/Cipro/Peptobismol party all day I made it to my 11:15pm flight somehow and back to America in one piece this morning, feeling better.

I went from the airport straight to the doctor. A lovely experience with stool samples, results are pending, but the most likely suspects right now are cholera or typhoid. (Turns out the typhoid vaccine is not 100% effective)

Thanks, Ghana. My welcome-home party is now with fabulous antibiotics.

I am feeling much better though, fever is gone, and I feel tired, but that's probably just the jet lag. Thanks for all the continued support and prayers.

Goodbye Ghana

I think it's time I say goodbye.  Interestingly enough, there actually isn't a word for goodbye in any of the Ghanaian languages, but nevertheless time for goodbye it is. I feel like it is too early to truly digest the last four months, all I can be is grateful for such an extraordinary experience.

Thank you for following along my crazy anecdotes, for your prayers and immense love that brought me here and will now bring me back. I simply could not have done this without your support, and I certainly wouldn't be able to do what's next either.

Coming back is always so much harder than leaving. It's a difficult process to make this experience fit into your being and return to an old life being undoubtedly changed. It's not something that can be accurately described, from simple things like returning to seeing grass and White people, shampoo that doesn't make my hair feel all sorts of strange and non-mentholated pads*, but there is the deeper realization of your immense material and psychological wealth, having to go back to an individualistic culture where people will not laugh, point, or react at your mere site, to be able to literally understand the world around you again, to friends and family that have changed and grown, as have you. And most importantly, figuring out a way to incorporate this entire experience somehow into your life. 

It's nice to know this time around I'm not alone, I have 17 new friends to go through this reverse culture shock with.   For some it will be harder than others, most of my friends are very well off financially (this program's tuition is $16,000...), I can't imagine going back to real life of luxury. Izzy, for example, the daughter of a major Hollywood producer, who had never been to a developing country before, will not be going back to America, but to Prague where she will spend the summer on the set of her Dad's next movie, in a luxurious apartment eating lavish $500 dinners. How do you go back to that? I really don't know. I walked through the Accra Mall last week and it felt truly traumatizing. I hadn't seen a shopping centre, restaurant or cinema in ages.  The luxurious cars, the aisles and storefronts of crap, the brands, seeing a courtyard of restaurants was incredibly difficult after spending the last five weeks studying hunger. I had to just walk out. To think about all my luxuries back home is not easy. We each have our complex life to somehow fit into, to re-learn whoit is that you are now.

It's a process that could never be fit into a single blog post, not in years of writing.  I'm still digesting my first trips and they were four years ago.  But nonetheless, it's time for goodbyes, to return to the people and things I love so much, to familiar and deliciously nutritious food, to a new chapter of my family with my first niece being born (hopefully later rather than sooner**), to a boss urgently seeking my return, a Warrior Dash to train and run, TV shows and new music to catch up on, a college career to finish. It's time for goodbye and that's all one can do, whatever comes next shall come.

Thank you to each of you for your invaluable support, I hope that I've provided enough entertainment and insight to just scratch the surface at the complexity and beauty of this incredible country.

When I left China and Brazil I ended with a miss/won't miss list of the little things of my experiences. So to follow on with that tradition, here's the miss/won't miss list, Ghana edition:

Won't miss:

~Constant non-stop OBRUNI calls

~ On that same note,the children. I really dislike children, dozens of them constantly after me for months, makes me hate them even more.

~The marriage proposals and unwanted touching- self-explanatory.

~ Living out of a suitcase-  In the last four months I have unpacked and repacked my bags a whopping 21 times, lived in 11 towns and have ridden innumerable tro tros and buses. Going back to a sense of permanency I am much looking forward to.

~ Tro Tros- crammed with 20 people in what's really a rattly van as they laugh at you is not exactly on the top of my list of favorites.

~Dearth of toilets- as much as one may get used to it. I'm not gonna miss it!

~Hand in hand with the last one, the constant reoccurring diarrhea/ stomach illnesses. Oh Ghana, your food is lovely, but my bowels really dislike you.

~Dirt and dust- everywhere, including you, taking of a layer of dirt everyday as you bathe is really not so great.

~The slowest and crappiest internet connections. Ever. Makes life difficult.

And on a nicer note, what I will miss:

~People genuinely caring about each other- everyone truly cares about each other, everyone greets, welcomes, invites you to eat with them (seriously, random stranger just bought an ice cream next to you, he'll turn around and say: you're invited. Always, for all foods, no matter the situation). It is truly incredible to live in a place like this, even if at times it can get frustrating as a stranger.

~SEX MACHINE song- this song plays everywhere all the time and the lyrics of it consist of- do do do do do do SEX MACHINE  and repeat. It has the catchiest beat, it's just hilarious. I  don't even know who sings it, I'm gonna miss it.

~Dancing at Church-  there is something really wonderful about praising God with your entire body, in true joy and bringing everyone together. It's really nice.

~Nature- safaris and fluorescent plankton aside, everyday there is a time when I see something naturally breathtaking. The trees, the birds, sunsets, the smell of nature, it's wonderful.


~Eating with my hands- that's just simply fun. Not always great if there isn't water to wash your hands afterward, but just fun.

~Mangoes & Pineapples- Ghana has the most incredibly delicious mangoes and pineapples I have ever tasted. I'm sure they're cheating with something. Ghana is trying to make mangoes their next big export, and they really really should.

~Handshake- Ghanaians have a particular way of shaking hands in which the middle fingers snap as you are separating your hands. I will always remember my first time I finally got that snap, it's the greatest feeling, especially because it was with a stranger. In the North, the handshake is followed by touching your heart. It just feels very cool, like Ghana has its own little secret handshake.

~Getting lunch and transport money- sure the price tag of this program is absolutely astronomical that it doesn't compare to getting $40 a week, but there is still something nice to your professor handing you money every week.

~Washing clothes by hand- I never came to dislike this. There is something wonderfully refreshing about living with six days worth of clothes and every few days having to grab your bucket and soap. An ipod on an early morning and it can be very relaxing. It's also astonishing the stains you can get out with just a bar of soap and your knuckles.

~FanIce- it's this soft serve ice cream sold in little sachets, it tastes like cupcake batter. Delicious. It's cousins: FanYogo (frozen strawberry yogurt), FanChoco (frozen chocolate milk), FanDango and FanPop (frozen fruit drinks) are also lovely.

~The absolutely amazing staff of this program that have truly become my family. From Dr. Yemi who's like that embarrassing dad when you take him out of in public, Papa Attah's antics and everyone else's fun and never ending support, they are just wonderfully dedicated. I will miss them dearly.

~These crazy classmates of mine- they were annoying, crazy and embarrassing 17 White people that I did come to love and appreciate very much. It's been a fun ride with them.

~Granny,Auntie Vivian, Auntie Maud, the lovely ladies of my Accra homestay- the outdoor shower and eating fresh fruit from the farm in the porch. A lovely home.

There are so many people and things that have made a place in my heart, I will never be able to list them all, I really won't be able to realize them all for a long time. Thanks Ghana for this incredible roller coaster of a time. It's been fun.



* I thought the mentholated sanitary napkin was solely a China thing, turns out they're here too.Granted here they are clearly labeled as "minty", you know what to expect, but in China, unable to read the packaging (or much of anything for that matter) I mistakenly figured these things were pretty standard worldwide. I soon found myself trying to entertain 50 seven-year-olds while the back of my mind going "What the hell is going on in my crotch??"

**My sister is out of the hospital by the way, in complete bedrest and hopefully she will last for three more weeks when it's safe to deliver.

A (Crafty) Late-Night Robbery

I'm all about the common sense and over-protection when it comes to personal belongings (you don't survive the slums of Rio without it).  I keep fake wallets*, have a steel-mesh knife-proof purse and portable safe, hidden money belts, door stopper alarms, and the more. But I never imagined I'd get robbed in my own room, in the middle of the night, especially not in one of the safest countries in the world.

But nevertheless, I got robbed, at 2am, in my own room, by some really crafty ballsy robbers.  To be honest I'm not angry or scared, just impressed, if I were to give these thieves a grade I'd give them an A for ingenuity. The tale goes something like this:

It had been one of those evenings you come home exhausted, but with things to do so you fall in and out of sleep when trying to work. Without bothering to really prepare for bed in the day's clothes and the light on I would proceed to try to work on something only to fall asleep, a bit later get up and organize things, and fall asleep again.

At about 1:14am to be exact, I received a text message from my sister. It was an important one about her being in the hospital and a possible premature C-section this Friday (Stefanie, that baby better still be in there by Saturday. My niece is not being born without me!). I've been following the low-amniotic-fluid, early dilation ordeal the last couple of weeks so it wasn't a surprise, in my half-asleep state I read it and just put the phone down again by my pillow (I keep my phone next to my pillow so the vibration wakes me up, it's perpetually on silent mode).

10 minutes later I wake up remembering I have to reply to the message and I can't find my phone. Figuring that I probably just dropped it in my half-asleep state, I start searching all around for it. I get angry very quickly when I can't find things, especially at 1:30am, so I'm moving sheets, mattresses and books, cursing every deity in every language looking for the damn phone.  And it's nowhere to be found.

Then I start thinking that maybe I dreamt the text message and start blaming it on the mefloquine (the malaria prophylaxis drug I'm on is infamous for its neurological side effects, possible psychosis aside, the most common side effect is very vivid dreams). I start pinching myself and walking around the house trying to trace back my steps of the evening in search of the phone. Nothing.

In that I remember that earlier I was setting out my things for the next and official final day of the program. My desk is against the window and I had set out a kente purse that Dan was buying from me the next day. That purse was gone, now I really think I've gone crazy, but I know that I had left that purse out, and it's nowhere in sight.

Then I see that the window screen has been slashed open at the bottom. (There are bars on the window so they can't actually come in that easily, thank God).  It being 1:30am I don't know if that slash was there before, but I start wondering, is it possible? Did somebody slash the window and take it? Then it dawns on me that I had set out a pile of cash on the desk. Probably the only time I've ever left cash out. I had neatly piled it knowing the different things I had to pay the next morning. It was gone.

Then I really get it. I've been robbed.

Going back to the tale of the phone, I go to the other end of the window and sure enough, there's a slash there too. They took the phone inches from my face on my pillow.  They probably used some kind of long stick with glue at the end or tongs. It was about 1:35am at that point. They had been quick and crafty, in the few minutes I dozed.

Waking up Granny she was shocked, in her 13 years of hosting dozens of students she had never had a problem like this. She says they were probably tracing me for awhile, seeing that I came and went from that house.  She mentioned that about 10 years ago a neighbor, who also hosts foreign students, had a similar robbery.

At the moment we could only be glad that I was okay and they didn't harm me. Losing $60, an empty purse and an old phone really aren't that bad. I cursed having the light on, realizing that I made their job easier, but the next morning I would find that it probably saved me.

It turns out I wasn't their actual target, they robbed the house next door, but they didn't just slash the screen and take a couple of things, they bent window bars, broke in and did a full robbery.  My guess is that they were probably armed if that was their line of attack, but seeing that my light was on and I was clearly not in deep sleep, they took what they could and went.

The next morning we also found that they quickly realized the purse was empty, and very nicely left it by the window, and they took the SIM card out of the phone and left that too. ( They might have taken an old broken phone, but at least they didn't take my SIM card with hours worth of call credit).  The phone did have a sentimental value to it, it being my travel phone, it had every single contact of every single person I have met in all my trips, it was full of text messages of China and Brazil, like a time capsule. When I got to Ghana and activated the phone again I was so surprised that I could really write Portuguese so well, I kept them to remind myself I really was trilingual.

Today is the last day of the program,and what a special goodbye did I get, Ghana! But really, it was not a big loss. It could've been much worse. So many more important things in this world, and sometimes it takes a crafty ballsy late-night robber to remind you.




*If you get mugged and are asked for a wallet you then give the  "fake" one with a couple of bucks in it, and all your actual money is somewhere else like your sock or bra.

101 Days of Ghanaian Food

Today is my 101st day in Ghana, and a reflection on food is very long overdue, given that I  just wrote a 53-page report on issues of food.  One thing I don't know if my body will ever recover from is the absolutely terrible diet I've been eating the last 101 days.

All Ghanaian dishes, every single one, from the North to the South, East, West, rural or urban, can be summarized like this: a giant hunk of starch with an outrageously oily soup or stew. The starch can be corn, cassava, plantain, wheat, yam, rice, and they are prepared with astonishing diversity: boiled, fried, fermented, pounded, mashed, stirred, baked, broiled, balled it's really quite incredible.While stews sometimes have vegetables in it, they are entirely overcooked, and the outrageous amount of oil really cancels any nutritional they may have.  There are times that I can literally pour out a cup of oil from a bowl before I start eating, in general it is a 3:1 oil to food ratio.

This diet is so devoid of anything truly nutritious it's just amazing. Within five weeks, when I got malaria, my blood work showed I had already become anemic. (I've been taking supplements ever since)  I've never had iron issues, but I can seriously count the number of times I've eating something green and fresh in the last 15 weeks in under one hand.

This infatuation with starch goes hand in hand with cultural desire for fatness and feeling full. In a place where historically food is so scarce, people strive to be big, to feel full is the ultimate luxury and that's behind all modern food issues. Every major Ghanaian face, every leader, every role model, the bigger the better. Women often get 'fattened' before weddings by sitting around prohibited from doing housework and just being fed repeatedly.  In rural areas, a bloated belly might be a sign of protein deficiency, but it's also beautiful, and it is a sign that you can feed your child. There is very little nutritional education formally or informally. The very young population of Ghana (about 40% of Ghanaians are under 25), makes it worrisome to think what a public health crisis this could be in a few decades. Right now, despite all encouragement from the outside bodies, this issue is simply not deemed important by Ghanaians.

One must eat until you feel ready to explode and the easiest way to do that is with starch.  In fact ,these starchy dishes: banku, fufu, kenkey, abole, TZ, etc, they generally don't even have much of a taste at all. Fufu, for example, is made from cassava and yam, pounded into a ball that has the texture of silly putty, it really doesn't taste much like anything, in fact, it's not even chewed, you just grab a piece and gulp it down like a shot. People will eat a massive bowlful of this with some soup as a meal. And it's simply cheap and accessible.

While Ghana may have the perfect climate for growing fruits and vegetables, it doesn't have the storage capabilities, farming techniques, or demand for them. A bowl of fufu might cost 50pesawas (about 35 cents), but a mango costs twice as much: 1 cedi (80 cents). And when you're trying to feed a family, there is simply no way that fruits and vegetables could be incorporated for the average household.

While many of these dishes I've come to appreciate and even enjoy, after awhile it just feels disgusting to eat, to know what terrible things your putting into my body. And I always had the ability to buy the little fruitsa nd vegetables available, I can't imagine not being able to at all. Whether I'll ever physically recover, I don't know. I haven't seen a mirror in weeks so God only knows how much weight I've gained, my attempt at running the Warrior Dash in 35 days after I return shall be interesting. (If I end up stuck in the mud or with burnt legs trying to jump over fire we'll just blame it on the Ghanaian starch...not on the fact that it was insane for me to have signed up for the thing in the first place).

Fufu & groundnut soup (after pouring out the oil layer)

Bangku & okra stew. Starchy and slimy. 

TZ & soup

Yam & stew.

To end on a lighter note: The day I made guacamole for my friends. (That sparked the conversation on gender roles I described in The Voice)

PS: Family please please please please welcome me with something green and leafy when I return. Please?