Ben in Ghana

“Ahh, you see there? Four people will ride that motorbike into town!”

“O!”

“It’s family car hey! Heh heh heh, a family car. Sometimes you’ll even see five.”

It is little moments like these, where Mr. Tahidu will make some obvious observation, that remind me of the differences between Canada and Ghana. Looking at what we would call a family car in Canada and a small motorbike is an interesting comparison. This particular example illustrates one of the most difficult questions I find myself constantly asking while living in Tamale. What defines actual inadequacy in terms of poverty, and what just appears to be so, based on the Western definition which assumes excess comfort? Functionally, the motorbike is a perfect means of transportation for the four people. It is much cheaper than a taxi or car, and much faster than walking however many kilometers to school. In this way the father can affordably make sure his children have made it to school. At the same time, only the father has a helmet, and the way some people drive motorbikes here makes me nervous when I’m driving in the truck. Certainly there will be some risk of accident, but such risks exist in Canada walking down the street as well. If the girls each had a helmet, would the motorbike then be an adequate means of transportation? The question applies to so many daily experiences, and it is never an easy one to answer.

It has been some time since I’ve written about any specific event, because life has been much less fantastical than it was for the first few days, so I’ll skip out of the first person narrative and give you a general description of my day to day life and experiences over the past few weeks living in Tamale. I was going to try to put everything in one post, but I think it makes more sense to post what I've written so far. Hope you enjoy!

Home Life

I’m getting to like home life more and more, and my family is both amazing and a lot of fun. A standard day goes like this:

~5:20 am: The mosque two lots down starts loudly blaring the morning call to prayers. I roll over and unsuccessfully try to block it out, while Mumin hauls himself out of bed to get ready to go for prayers. This is usually accompanied by a few loud calls from his mother ‘Mumin! Mumin!’

~5:45 am: The roosters are usually wide awake and letting everyone know at this point. Mumin is sleeping again, so I try to ignore the sun for a few more minutes

~5:45 am - ~ 6:30 am: Mix of being asleep and awake, the noises of the roosters and the people outside get louder and louder, and there may or may not be several people in my room talking already. At some point in here, I manage to commit to sitting up and starting the day.

6:30 am – 7:00 am: A bag of hot Koko (which I now thoroughly enjoy) and a piece of bread are already waiting for me on the desk. I eat quickly, and before I finish someone always comes in to tell me that my bath water is ready.

7:00 am – 7:25 am: Ahhhh, a bath (well, not really a bath, a shower like I described before) with cool water to wash away that shirt-stuck-to-you morning stickiness.

7:25 am – 7:50 am: If I’m lucky, it only takes me 25 minutes to iron my clothes.

7:50 am ~ 5:00 pm: Off to work.

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm: Free time to play guitar, football, read, hang out with Mumin and the guys from the neighbourhood etc. Relaxation time in general. This time has recently also turned into cooking time with the women, which is even better than relaxation time. More about this below.

6:30 pm – 7:30 pm: Dinner time! Usually TZ, but the odd day we’ll have rice (see food section below).

7:30 pm – 8:30 pm: Wait for everyone to finish dinner (those who go for prayers usually eat later than the younger kids and I) and then wash dishes with the girls while they teach me Dagbani.

8:30 pm – 9:30 pm: Catch up on the latest football match, Nigerian film, or Ghanaian TV show if I can manage to stay awake through the whole thing.

~9:30 pm: To bed early because it will be early to rise the next morning!

Despite my somewhat sarcastic remarks when it comes to the morning, I love having a family to live with. I’ve learned so much in terms of language, local food, Ghanaian family life and local customs.

The biggest obvious difference between family life here and in Canada is the amount of household chores done by women as compared to men. The women of the house (Mr. Tahidu’s wife and his wife’s sister) do a lot of the cooking and some of the cleaning, but it’s the girls (Rashida and Azara, they are not Mr. Tahidu’s daughters, but rather his sister’s, and are staying here to attend school) of the house that are the most amazing. They are always sweeping, cleaning, cooking, washing or something, but despite this are always smiling, laughing, joking and singing. Hanging around with them and washing clothes or dishes is one of my favourite things to do (even though I’m horrible at both, the girls can wash everything from their feet and bending over, while they always make sure I have a chair to sit in before we start, there’s no way I’d make it otherwise). I’ve also recently been helping cook the nightly TZ! I had a couple of pictures taken when Madam Adisa (I think I probably called her Madam Yakubu in earlier posts) was in town, so hopefully I’ll have a copy of one of them to post here. The girls’ energy is infectious, and they love helping me with my Dagbani, which is always fun because they’re still young and their English is not perfect yet either. One of the best parts of the day is coming home from work and walking into the house to one of the girls’ huge smiles, and a “Mr. Ben! Aninula!” (good evening).

Spending time with the girls usually means that my youngest brother Rashid is also around, and he’s a bit of a goofball. He and the girls always get into friendly arguments, name calling and play fights, and I’m constantly told one thing by the girls, to which Rashid replies ‘Don’t mind them,’ and vice versa, so I’m always entertained.

I also enjoy just hanging around with my older brothers and their (well, mine now too I guess) friends from the neighbourhood. There is Mumin, who I talked about in the last blog and then Mohammed, who is in senior secondary school. We usually have a good time just sitting around chatting (they always want to hear about Canada), or playing football (soccer), and tossing the occasional Frisbee. I haven’t had a game of ultimate going yet but one of these weekends it’s going to happen; most people are pretty excited about the prospect of a new sport. Hopefully it’ll catch on and we’ll have a decent game by the time I leave!

Really spending time with the older women of the household has been difficult, since none of the speak English in any substantial amount, but they enjoy my attempts at greeting correctly (which are getting pretty good) and the simple questions that I can answer. It’s really tough to go from Canada where I can carry on a pretty good conversation with just about anyone, to here where I can’t even speak with my host mother, but more on language later. Helping with the cooking has been the best way to spend time with my host mother and have laughs with her (almost always directed at my cooking attempts), and has been a highlight for me recently.

The single most important item I packed (other than my malaria meds) is my guitar! I brought it out on the second day and since then I can’t go an afternoon without requests for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” which is by far everyone’s favourite song. At any time in the day one of the girls will be humming it or singing made-up non-words along with the chorus, although they’re starting to sound more and more like English. I’ve even had requests from my host mother to teach her the words when I get the chance! I wrote the lyrics for some of the older boys who can read and so sometimes I have a pretty good chorus of voices behind me. A couple other favourites are “Brian Wilson” and “Wonderwall”, which are next on the list for me to write out.

I’ve also met a ton of people in my neighbourhood, and most people seem to know who I am and that I’m staying with Mr. Tahidu, despite me never having talked with them before. People are always eager to sit and chat and teach me a little more Dagbani, so the 5-minute trip to the Internet café usually gets drawn out to about 20 minutes each way. I’m still absolutely horrible with names, and usually can’t pronounce them on any of my first five tries, let alone remember them before I get to the end of the conversation.

Family life has easily been the most important and influential part of my stay here so far, especially if you count Mr. Tahidu under family instead or work (he gets his own section later). The initial break-off from the group living in Tamale was difficult, and my first few days were frustrating, but now it is so obvious the richness that the challenge has brought to my stay here. Even spending time with a few other EWBers in town on weekends makes me feel like such an outsider and out of place compared to my regular walk down the stretch in Lamashegue. Cultural integration just doesn’t happen by hanging out with other Westerners.

Food

Well, I’ve been experiencing a lot of local Ghanaian food since I’ve moved in with my family and started work, so it gets its own section! In general I’ve been doing alright with the food, but the constant barrage of maize-based dishes that I eat for almost every meal does tend to get a little monotonous. All in all I can’t complain however, as I enjoy the food for the most part, and after hearing the daily diet of some of the other folks that aren’t in town, I’m extremely thankful.

Breakfast is the same every day (koko and bread) so I’ll jump into lunch. I usually have one of about four choices for lunch, kenkey, banku, fufu, or rice, which makes it easily the most interesting meal of the day. Kenkey and banku are both maize-based, and although I’m not completely sure of the difference between them, it seems to me that kenkey is drier and a little less fermented than banku. I usually take my kenkey with a fish and some sort of soup to dip it in (I still have no idea what the different types of soup are), and the banku with soup and beef. Fufu is basically mashed potatoes made from yam that you then dip into whatever soup you happen to have selected. Rice is the same idea, and is extremely wet and sticky, so you can make proper little balls from it to dip you’re your soup. Despite not enjoying banku the first time I tried it in Accra, it’s becoming one of my favourites because it actually has taste! Once the outer layer of soup has come off in your mouth, the chunk of starch that you’re left with is actually still interesting, unlike the others, especially fufu I find, which becomes less like enjoying food and more like trying to swallow the leftover paste.

TZ is the dish we have pretty much every night with almost no exception. It’s a maize-based dish (of course), and is eaten like every other Ghanaian dish. It is not sour at all like banku, and is a lot less sticky. At least there’s usually some variety in the soup that we take with the TZ, but I’m definitely happy on the off night when I open my dish and find rice.

I’m still horrible when it comes to eating technique. I take a long time and can never manage to finish off my soup with the amount of TZ I’m given like everyone else. I’m also usually a complete mess by the end of the whole process, and very thankful for the near complete darkness that I’m eating in by the time dinner is served. I was trying to learn the proper technique for using my hand as a spoon so that I can finish all of my soup, but it seems that I always end up with soup on my face and a thumb in my instead.

Meat in general is always interesting too, and I’ve become a pro at sucking every last bit of whatever supposedly edible part of the animal that is floating in that meal’s soup. Beef skin is also very popular here, and that’s always interesting to get through. There’s no way to swallow an entire piece whole, so there’s always a good couple of minutes of chewing hunks off before you can get the entire thing down. Another one of those things that is usually best to get into your mouth before looking at it for too long. On a positive note I’ve recently been introduced to Guinea Fowl, which is extremely good, kind of like fried chicken but less fatty. I still have to find someplace close to my house to sneak away and grab some on those nights when TZ for the fifth time in a row just isn’t sitting right.

The snacking food here is really excellent. I love my fried yams, and definitely give in the temptation of the various forms of ‘junk food’ whenever I’m in the market. Deep fried balls of dough almost like donuts go for about 1000 cedis (<15>

I don’t get to eat fruit as often as I probably should, or would like to, but when I do it tends to be excellent. Some days I’ll bring home a pineapple and split it with Mumin, or pick up mangoes, although there seems to be a certain correlation between me eating a large amount of mangoes, and me being sick, so I’ve held off on that a little bit lately.

I think that’s about it in terms of food, overall I haven’t been disappointed, and I’m generally satisfied despite the odd cravings for Western food. So far I haven’t given in and spent the ridiculous amount of money that the one place that serves pizza here charges, but we’ll see how much longer I last.

Football

Ah, one of my biggest frustrations and challenges that I’ve faced so far is my complete and utter lack of football skills! Every Sunday, our neighbourhood team heads out to play a match against some other team, so I’ve got to participate in a couple of games now. I have no field sense, ball control, passing ability or defensive skills, and I generally feel completely useless on the field. My usual objectives during the game are to try and avoid being completely embarrassed by the other team on defense (which happens frequently, and results in the home crowd erupting in laughter), and if the ball happens to bounce somewhere near me on offense I pass it away (hopefully to someone on my team) as quickly as possible.

Despite reassurances from team members that I’m doing well and that they’re impressed, I’ve got a long, long way to go before I’ll be a help to the team as opposed to a hinder. It has been way more of struggle than I had ever imagined to go from being competent and even a leader on ultimate teams I have played for, to the worst player on the field.