Letters Home From Ghana, August 2008
Nick Confer

Hi there,
 
Our hotel has internet, so I can check email and whatnot.. i brought my laptop and they have wireless i can connect to, but within the first 10 minutes, my transformer (the giant box on my power cord) took a crap and now my computer is useless until i get back to states and can try to fix it, buy another or build another. So now i am using the ancient machine they have in the lobby for us to use. The hotel is actually very nice.
 
the trip over was uneventful except for the FIVE hours we were waiting on the tarmac at JFK for weather to clear before we could take our 10 hour flight. Turns out that my plan worked perfectly: i stayed up all the night before packing, slept the entire flight over, then was on the schedule here without any jetlag.
 
yesterday, we met with the village elders at the two places we are working this time. One village was rather formal about the whole proceedings, but were friendly enough. The other one was less formal, but far more grateful and gave us fresh coconut after the meeting. It's rather handy having our professor know the local language since he grew up in ghana, and also have a widely respected businessman from the area to help guide us. For much of what we accomplish, we have to go thru the 'assembly man'  He is basically the representative to the assembly for the area where we are working. From other EWB folks working in Ghana, we hear they are all the same: assembly men want only what's best for them, but fortunatly, that usually involves keeping their voters happy, which is what we are also aiming for. We just need to do enough politic-ing for them to see it that way. Good thing Dr. Sam is good at it.
 
Since today is Sunday, there isn't much business that we can do. So this morning, we are going to go and visit Rachel. Rachel is Dr. Sam's 7? year old daughter that he brought with him to stay with family he has here. Oddly enough, both his brother and sister and their families have lived in the US for a time but both moved back here relatively recently. This afternoon, we plan on staking out the sites so we can hopefully get straight to work tomorrow.
 
Everyone is having a blast; we have a good group.
 
more books to follow,
Nick

 
Hello everyone,
 
The weather here is supposedly a little bit cooler than normal.. it sounds like it's supposed to be hot and ridiculously humid, but it really hasn't been any worse at all than back home. Especially in the evenings and early mornings, it is nice and cool and wonderful.
 
There has been a sort of unspoken rule: everybody along on the trip is trying as much as they can to avoid eating anything that isn't "local." So far, there hasn't been much that has displeased our pallette. Today, we had something that was about the consistency of stiff mashed potatoes, but it was really sour and somewhat citrus-ey. There was so much flavor, we were amazed to find out that it was nothing but corn and salt. I have a horrible memory for language and had to ask what it was called about ten times, but.. well, i still don't remember it. It was served with a baggie of spicy (almost cajun) sardines. Only a couple of the group were brave enough to try it. We also eat a lot of fruit like coconuts, mango and papaya. Staples here are rice, various yams, cassiva (which is really starch-ey and has many uses as such, like a potato, or flour), and meats such as goat, chicken, or fish. We avoid finding out just exactly what "bush meat" consists of.
 
Our hotel is really nice. It costs roughly 30 dollars a nite, and we enjoy it a lot. The employees are friendly, and the environment is pleasing. We eat both breakfast and dinner there, sometimes outside and sometimes in the sudo-indoors of the dining area. It is both secure and beautiful. The owner is very friendly and worked as a postman in New Jersey for twelve years.
 
Work progresses sporadically. When work is being done, we are completely astounded at the community participation and what they are able to accomplish in a short amount of time. Other times, we are left twiddling our thumbs as we wait on and on for one thing or another. Such is 'African time;' I try to not let it bother me.. there is a reason i purposely chose not to bring a watch or anything to tell time.
 
The work we are doing is basically erosion control. We are doing extensive work at a school in the area to solve many various erosion problems there, and there is difficult work being done in another village to replace a culvert that was in danger of washing away, along with dealing with the water both above and below it. It is a difficult task to deal with storm water in a place that has sandy soil, will not easily grow grass or anything in spots that get any traffic at all, and will get torrential downpour for days at a time.
 
The roads are beyond crazy. It is weird.. there is such progress; some remote villages are now getting electricity, there are plenty of resources and heavy machinery to build infrastructure, the inner city of Accra (the capitol) is very modern and developed... yet only miles away, the roads are more terrible than anything you have ever imagined or been through. Our advisor, a professor from school, is origionally from Ghana, and his brother has a house in Accra that we visited. It was a beautiful house and was very modern and American, actually. He had lived in the US for a  number of years, and had a flat-screen TV with satillite, granite counter-tops, a better shower than i've seen anywhere in the US, razor-wired wall around the property.. it goes on. The point is, it was a very no-expense-spared house, but the road outside of it was in such disrepair, our 16-person van could hardly make it; and that was quite nice compared to where we've been in other parts of the country. We are only working 20 miles away, and it feels like another world. Everywhere in the country, all business is run from the side of the road. There are random stands for anything from food to clothes to lumber to hiring heavy machinery. In the villages we are working in, it is hard to distinguish household from storefront, and it is all small huts and very 3rd-world feeling, except for the fact that almost everyone has a cellphone and is wearing nicer clothes than i am. The people are simultaniously quite intelligent and rather naiive about American life in many respects.
 
oh dear, i seem to have rambled on into oblivion,
--nick
 
 
I'm going to try and not to go on forever this time; i promise.
 
Yesterday was our longest and hardest day yet. I was going to tell you about it, but it made this email a great deal longer than the last one. Basically, it was a get up early and work into the night sort of day; collectively mixing and pouring around 8 cu. yds. of concrete by hand after 2:30pm.
 
The work at both sites has been going quite well, due largely to the help we get from the locals. You would all be amazed at what they can carry on their heads. Coconuts are also one of the best things on the planet during a long day of working in the sun. Due in part to the daily gift of many coconuts, but not entirely, we are becoming fast friends with several of those in the community that help out the most.
 
In Nsumea, the expertise of the carpenter and the mason have been a godsend, and a few of the guys in the village that are our age might actually be working harder than us. The villagers usually ask us to give them tasks to accomplish before we get there in the morning because a lot of them have jobs or chores and things to do during the day and they like to organize and do things early in the morning. Not surprisingly, last nite they didn't seem to mind the idea of having the morning off.
 
Sorry if i've bored you this time,
Nick


Sadly, today will be our last day here. Tomorrow we have to leave by 6:30am local, in order to catch our flight at 10:15. Traffic here is totally insane. It's only maybe 15 miles to anywhere we want to go in Accra, the capitol, from our hotel, yet once we get to the outskirts of the city, it usually takes about an hour to get where we're going. I've mentioned the condition most of the roads are in; well, add to that the fact that there really are absolutely no rules about driving. It's every vehicle for itself out there. For example, people only generally drive on the right side of the road, and we've even seen a lane of oncoming traffic in between to lanes of traffic going with us. Other vehicles and motorcycles will zip by less than an inch from contact with our vehicle. The only rule i've managed to notice is that liberal use of the horn is necessary. It is in constant use to let others know of your presence, especially when traffic is light enough to go faster than 20mph. It is a defensive strategy to keep oblivious vehicles and people alike from stumbling into your path. It really helps that our diver is awesome. You see, we are renting a van, and it came with a driver. To our total amazement, he's somehow managed to keep any harm from coming to our vehicle. He helps us with the work at the sites, and has even gone off on some 12-year old kid to haggle us a good price for some goods. I'm sure we'll be giving him a call the next time we come.
 
Which reminds me. At the beginning of our stay here, we decided to just buy a pair of phones to use here, since we plan on returning time and time again. They're pay as you go; i don't even know if it's possible to do a contract plan like we do in the US. It's a little hard to get over seeing little stands selling cellphone minutes in almost 3rd world villages. It's also a little hard to get over how remote and primitive the villages can seem, yet they are only a few miles from modern civilization. More evidence of this is seeing taxis driving through and around the primitive villages. Also, as primitive as some of the villages seem, there is more than meets the eye. Many of the villagers wear jeans and either a nice t-shirt or a button up shirt. I actually felt out of place with the rags i was working in. 

In Nsumea, the Royal Youth Organization seems to be a coalition of the youth in that village. It is ran by people in their mid-twenties, who are looking to build a school in their village. We asked them to write up a formal letter telling us the situation and what materials and labor they can offer. The next day, they had it ready for us. We were surprised that they had gotten to a computer somewhere to type and print it. Thinking about it again, i guess we shouldn't be all that surprised, considering some of them will soon be going to school at a university in Accra or one of the nearby tech school sort of things.
 
time for breakfast,
--nick


I'm back now, so this is the last you'll probably hear of Africa until the next trip, at least through email.

On Sunday night, we went to the botanical gardens the British put there about 130 years ago. It was very impressive and awesome. We got to try some cocoa beans, which are nothing like you would imagine. We also got to chew on the inner bark of a cinnamon tree, which is just like chewing on a piece of big red.

About half of our last day, Monday, was spent driving. We visited each of the villages one last time to formally hand the projects over to the communities. One of the most awesome things was throwing a brand new soccer ball into the field and watching about 100 kids pop out of nowhere and chase it around in a huge mob. We made a lot of friends there, and we hope to see them again the next time we go.

Some of our friends we will be in touch with in the meantime as well. One of our contacts is a pineapple farmer who makes pineapple juice. The custom is to water it down and add a bunch of sugar, but he thinks more like us and refuses to cut anything into his product, not even preservatives. The pure, simple, fresh pineapple juice is probably the best juice i've ever had. He's looking to expand, and we're looking to make some cash for EWB, so hopefully, we can find a way to make it the most popular drink on campus. The biggest problem is that without preservatives, it is good for only one month.

At the end of the day, we managed to spend an hour or two at the market in Accra. If you've ever been to a market in Mexico, it is pretty much exactly the same thing, only different merchandise. Having a few of our local friends along to barter for us really saved us a lot of money. One of our group ended up trading his old worn out shoes for a big awesome wood carving and walked the rest of the day at the market in only his socks. Next time we plan on wearing all sorts of extra old clothes, maybe have a bunch of cheap watches in our pockets.

Last year, security at Accra was a joke, and back in the US is when security happened. This year, it seems Ghana somehow heard about how lax their security measures are and stepped things up a bit. Our checked luggage was searched twice before we could even check in. Our passports and tickets were checked about about 7 different points, my carry-ons were searched twice, and everyone flying got frisked, regardless of their success with the metal detectors. The most intimidating part of the ordeal was the little pile of rubber gloves i saw at most check points. Once we got to the US, it felt like we were part of the security ignores you club; there was no questioning, no searching of bags, no.. anything really.. just the friendly customs guy stamping our passports. About 20 hours after leaving the hotel in Ghana, We finally got back to Platteville.

The full weight of an experience like ours really doesn't begin to set in until the return to what our normal lives entail. Nobody escapes unchanged; though for one reason or another, and somewhat unexpectedly, the change often doesn't really fully take place until after getting back to the old life and seeing it in a new light.

Hope i get to show you pictures sometime,
--nick