It’s all about football

Ghana is all about football (soccer)… Each village, school, neighborhood and town has a team, and during evenings people go out to local football fields to play. If there is no local game, people disappear into their homes and watch a football championship on their TVs. Stickers of such prominent teams as Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester United adorn taxi cabs, and every school kid dreams to be on Ghana’s national Black Stars team. As for me, even though I grew up with football all around me (my father and both brothers would watch the World Cup and would play in their spare time), I was in no way a football expert, or a fan of any particular team. I did, however, knew the famous “Ole-ole-ole” chant.

Living in rural Ghana is definitely different from living in the States. This includes socializing. For example, I purposely did not make any close acquaintance with young nubile men for various reasons: most common one is that being somebody’s “friend” may have led to various sexual innuendo, propositions and uncomfortable situations. I knew some of them through my counterpart, and I would greet them when I had a chance. On their part, they were actually polite enough not to constantly proposition me (as it usually happens every time I go to market town, tro station and any other public place). Some of them I knew through various business transactions (an electrician, a carpenter, couple of taxi drivers) but I would not purposely hang out with them in the evenings, if you catch my drift. Being a girl in Ghana is not easy-o...

But one Sunday morning I overheard that the local football team was playing an away game at a neighboring village. As I was already doing some Grassroots Soccer activities with school kids, the football bug finally let itself known: I’ve decided to go to the game and cheer for “my” team. Besides, being in another village would be a nice break from my site and a market town. After all, you only live once.

So, we piled into a Sprinter mini-bus (while designed for about 20 passengers, we’ve had about 40 people literally squeezed into it) and took off. The players and the fans were singing and chanting throughout our trip along the familiar bush road, potholes and all.

Something changed that day. I became one of the guys. It is a familiar state of mind and place for me in the US where I’ve been one of the guys for years. I admit – this type of attitude was not very helpful for me in the dating department, as I would size guys up not as potential snuggling/kissing partners but as potential running buddies, concert goers or band members. Being a Caucasian female in Ghana created an opposite effect: I could no longer approach guys easily and be friends with them, I literally had to hide from them and their constant propositions. I was no longer perceived as a potential friend who would go to a concert and then grab a beer and discuss music genres and world news; I was perceived as a potential “friend” with all the benefits (minus a concert and a beer!).

But the football team guys were not that bad. First, upon arrival, they included my name into their sport chant, and we danced small-small. Then, we walked around the rival village, and finally, we high-fived each other every time the team scored a goal. Finally, after our team’s victory, we piled up into a mini-bus where the guys continued chanting and singing. In those moments – cheering for the home team, riding the mini-bus back home - I felt a quirky emotion, which does not have a name in the English language. It is something called amae , which roughly translates from Japanese as a “a kind of oceanic joy” or a “feeling of acceptance”. It is quite evasive and fleeting (at least for me here in Ghana), but when it strikes you, you feel all warm and fuzzy inside as you realize: “Aha – I’m being accepted.” Many sports fans and church goers would recognize the amae emotion. So, it finally happened to me as I cheered for “my” team and became one of the guys.

One Year...

October 8^th marked a one-year anniversary of my staying in Ghana.

In a nutshell, it has been a whirlwind of emotions, events, traveling, cultural guffaws, friendships, sweat, tears and satchet water.

What have I accomplished so far? According to the American result-driven paradigm, not much. But on another hand….the fact that I am still in Africa is an accomplishment of its own.

What else? Here are some main milestones:

1. I’m healthy. I’ve been living in a hot tropical climate without too much exposure to air-conditioning, refrigeration and fans, and I have yet to suffer from heat exhaustion or spoiled food. I have not gotten any serious tropical diseases – whether it was a dreaded ebola or wide-spread malaria. I’ve been spared from road accidents that are rampant here. I maintained healthy weight through running (I even completed one half-marathon and one full marathon), walking on my bush road instead of taking a taxi, and alternating sparse diet of boiled plantain and stew with home-cooked meals from ingredients found in care packages, fresh fruit (nowhere else will I eat such delicious pineapples, mangoes and bananas), and occasional “fattening up” days when I would go out for a Western meal or succumb to temptation of picking my plate clean during training sessions. I drink less alcohol (a demise of many volunteers – we are constantly warned of administrative problems if we are to be found drunk or hangover), but you know what Billy Joel sang: “….it’s better than drinking alone.” I admit, I do go out for beers when I meet my colleagues after not seeing them for a month or so, but, as ever a responsible first –born goody two-shoes, I have not gone on crazy drinking rage (maybe there was no legitimate reason for it yet?). In other word, I am a somewhat boring drinking buddy. But give me a guitar or take me to a karaoke, and that’s when the real fun can begin J).

2. I’m doing what I want. It sounds a bit selfish, but, on another hand, it puts my previous structured career path into a new prospective. While in the US, I had to adhere to certain physical constrains and schedule, here I can design my day in any fashion that works for me and others. If I traveled all day on a dilapidated tro, the next day I can relax, do my laundry and recuperate. If I schedule a training session, and everyone is late for it – oh, well, I can always read more books while waiting or do some errands. My office can be my courtyard, or a drinking spot at a market town, or a cocoa tree in the bush. Without constant rushing that I’ve experienced in the States I’m also less stressed (as we all know, stress contributes to a cause of 90% of diseases). I’m also VERY happy that I do not have to sit in a cubicle in an Office Space-esque setting and listen to colleagues complain about traffic, long line at Starbucks and other first-world problems. True, I miss the absence of fresh brewed coffee and bagel Fridays, but you cannot have it all. Besides, here I can always eat a bofrut (a semi-sweet donut).

Here I’m learning to create my own schedule and stay motivated. I’ve learned how to make batik and soap, as well as HIV-prevention training designed to be fun and non-preachy, and so I feel like a consultant from a summer camp sent to Ghana to teach kids and adults various fun camp activities. Yes, if you think about it, I’m a glorified camp counselor. Which makes total sense because back when I was a kid, I breathed pioneer camp stuff, and later in the US, worked at a girlscout camp and, of course, Kazakh Aul. Maybe it is my destiny – being an ever-chipper girlscout leader? We’ll see when I get back.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, African way of life is very relaxed. People do not rush, they take their time with greeting everyone they know on their way to work, they do not show up on time for appointments, and everyone seems ok with that. For time-conscious Americans, it can be torturous. But with time, Western people learn to ease themselves in into some type of worry-free state of mind. Tro broke down and stranded  in the middle of nowhere? Oh, well. People are an hour late for a meeting? Whatever. On another hand, this state of mind can also create a complete state of idleness, which plagues volunteers from another side of spectrum: being too lazy to do anything at-all. I admit, there were some days when all I wanted to do was to watch movies on a laptop, drink tea and be left alone. But some kind of inner engine has yet to give up on humming into my conscience: do something. And so I do. According to my abilities.

3. I’m still here! As of now, about one third of our original training group has gone home for various reasons. One person left during training, several others – during the first three months of site restriction. More would be gone closer to the one-year  anniversary. Sometimes I feel like we are all on this elaborate Survivor game: one must outlive and outlast other volunteers. Yet at the same time it is understandable when someone misses their family so much they cannot stand being away from them, or has to go home for other reasons – whether personal or professional. I’m not saying that I have absolutely no bouts of homesickness or thoughts on “what if…” should I have gone to America right now. I, like many others, struggle with loneliness, boredom, frustrations, lack of infrastructure and first-world amenities that make our lives so much easier. I wrote about these frustrations before, so I will not bore you with the same laundry list. But I will say that I see more clearly that Peace Corps is not for everybody; Africa is not for everybody; living in the bush without a fridge is not for everybody. It makes me wonder if upon returning to the States I will continue with a low-budget low-maintenance travelling-hippie lifestyle, or if I would want to surround myself with creature comforts after two years of deprivation. My guess is both: I am used to simplified life, but will embrace all necessary fruits of civilization that will help along the way. For example, I see myself buying a nice new car and driving across the States. At the same time, I would be fine sleeping in that car if I were not able to find a place to stay for the night. I see myself getting a new pair of nice jeans (it’s been a year since I wore jeans, unbelievable!), but I would not shop till I drop at TJ Maxx and buy 20 other garments. Or would I? Time will tell.

And finally, I can carry things on my head! I am not as graceful as Ghanaians, but I am able to carry a huge tub of water from the well to my house. When I first moved to my village, I could only carry a small bucket, so there is definitely some progress.

Overall, a year in Africa will be one of the most memorable years of my life. On to another year! It is already ticking away.