Grant Dobbe

Greetings, everyone. It’s been a quiet week in Seikwa. I’ve been spending the majority of my time improving my home, working on the school computer lab, and getting to know my way around the community.

For the last two weeks or so, it’s been decently hot during the day, pleasantly cool at night, and the skies have been relatively clear. When combined with the near-absence of light pollution, it makes for some incredible stargazing. It’s incredible (and also somewhat sad) how much of the night sky we miss due to the constant intensity of street lights. Words can’t describe it, so I won’t even try.

Last night, however I experienced one of the most violent rainstorms I’ve ever seen — I actually had to close my shutters because it was blowing into the house, and I discovered that I have a couple of holes in my roof. I woke up around midnight when the storm was at its apex, closed everything up, deployed a couple of buckets, and went back to bed. When I woke up this morning at 6am and it was still raining, I decided to forgo the morning run and sleep in a bit.

Thankfully, the rain stopped shortly after I turned off my alarm clock, which means that the market grounds were dry enough to allow for a full-fledged, no holds barred market day.

Market day is a grand tradition here in Ghana. At least once a week, any town big enough to warrant its own transport station holds a market day. It’s a delightfully eclectic mix of commercial and social activity, and I’ve really grown to enjoy it.

Most markets are about the size of a couple of football fields, and they are always open-air with some free-standing stalls or kiosks around the perimeter. They tend to be roughly divided into sections, but with no clear delineation between them. In addition, there are usually women or children walking around selling food from their head — most often bowfruit (think donut holes the size of your fist) or FanIce, but also sometimes grilled sausage and soy kabobs.

The mix of things you can purchase on market day is truly astounding. Within the first 30 seconds of walking into the Seikwa market this morning, I saw people selling shoes, fabric, bednets, flashlights, radios, pots, pans, plastic basins, backpacks, battery-powered toys, and  tomatoes. Today, I bought a little battery-powered light for my closet,
two yards of fabric for a shirt, two pair of socks, a pair of trousers, some 1 penny nails, and a package of hangers. The only reason I didn’t buy vegetables is because I already had leftovers.

The rest of the week, one can buy vegetables and other culinary necessities at the smaller, daily market. This, while tiny in comparison to market day, is still a grand social affair. Old women sit with their produce, carrying on conversation and giving little children hell for making trouble. Part of my daily routine is to stop at the market to buy whatever vegetables I need or can get, stop at the cold store if I’m feeling like having meat for dinner, and then buy bread from whoever happens to be selling it. I usually do this after I come back from school, where I have had ample time to contemplate what I want for dinner while working on computers.

Which brings me to my MacGyver reference. I am literally building a computer lab from scratch with whatever I can find. For the last week, I have spent a fair amount of my time sitting in the staff common room of my school putting together computers out of whatever parts happen to be there, sorting out working and non-working equipment, and installing Xubuntu Linux on the machines that I can get to boot. When I started this little endeavor, I had 14 computers, 2 of which worked. This afternoon, I had 6 working. Of course, working is a relative term — I have 6 computers and 3 hard drives. Next week, I’m going to Kumasi to get computer parts, namely hard drives and memory, and after I return I’ll concentrate on *where* to set the computers up so that I can teach somewhere other than the staff common room.

Well, that’s enough out of me. You can expect a report on my Kumasi excursion next week. As always, keep the questions and news flowing.

That’s right. I’m now an honest-to-God Peace Corps Volunteer, worthy of my
Birkenstocks and everything. I took my oath on Tuesday, the 19th of August,
2008 at approximately 10:45am. The ceremony wasn’t all that grand of an
affair, but it wasn’t exactly a slouch, either: we had a brass band and a
group of us presented some traditional African drumming and dancing.

I played the cowbell, which is the equivalent of the conductor’s or
bandmaster’s role in Western music. The  cowbell ties all of the other drums
together, and helps to make order out of what would other be a chaotic mess.
It was loud and happy. As soon as I talk to Patrick, who has one of the most
awesome digital cameras I have ever seen, I’ll get some pictures up.

Tuesday night also marked another milestone: my first African beer. On a
lark, I decided before I left for Ghana that I wouldn’t drink anything with
alcohol until after I swore in. The benefit of that decision was that the
Castle Milk Stout that I had tasted *really* good.

Ghanaian beer – Castle, Star, Stone, Guinness Foreign Stout, and Guilder are
the major varieties — is 6-8% alcohol by volume and is sold here in 22
ounce bottles (that’s about 750ml for those of you playing the metric game
at home). It took me one Castle and a rum and Coke to get a very nice buzz
going.

Wednesday morning was our last event as a group — a farewell breakfast,
after which we all took off for our sites. I got to Kumasi, spent about 3
hours downloading email, uploading pictures, and helping a friend set up
their computers for the wireless at the Kumasi sub-office (the more things
change, the more they stay the same). I also spent that time waiting for my
obruni lunch to be delivered — a double cheeseburger with french fries
which was well worth the wait.

With a cheeseburger consumed, Andrew happily enjoying internet access, and
nothing else to do, I said my goodbyes and made my way to Kejetia station,
which is the station I go to in Kumasi to get a trotro to my site, and which
also happens to be the biggest station in Ghana. Words don’t do it justice,
but just imagine a Greyhound bus station, taxi stand, and tailgate party all
rolled into one that is the size of a football stadium and is surrounded by
traffic circles and high-rise buildings. It’s incredible.

And now, I find myself at site. I got in late last night, made myself some
macaroni and cheese, boiled a gallon of water to hold me over until morning
(my water filter hasn’t made it yet — boiling and bleach for the time
being), and promptly went into a tidy little coma.

I woke up this morning at 8am, fell promply back asleep simply because I
could, watched movies on my laptop, got out of bed at the crack of noon, and
hauled water. I spent the rest of the day deciding where everything  is
supposed to go, and carrying things from room to room as a result. Tomorrow
is market day, which means that I will go to the town market with my wallet
and a list of things I need for making the house comfortable and happy, and
return with full hands and an empty wallet. You may expect a full report
next week.

A quick note on the subject of pictures: I had planned to upload a bunch of
pictures, as well as every email I’ve sent to this list, to my blog when I
got to the Kumasi sub-office. However, because no plan survives first
contact with the enemy, and because everybody who arrived at the KSO had the
same idea that I did, the internet connection slowed to a crawl and was only
useful for email and some token web-browsing. They’re coming. I promise.

Tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. (Holy pop culture
reference, Batman!)

Greetings, everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the Olympic coverage as much as I am. For those of you who watched the opening ceremony and saw the Ghanaian Olympic team, I have a little trivia. They were wearing kente cloth, which is a traditional cloth that is made only in ghana and is woven in strips about 6 inches wide and 9 feet long. The pattern of kente bears special significance, and certain patterns are only allowed to be worn by dignitaries or royalty — I’m told that that pattern was woven especially for that team.

I’m experiencing one of those things in life where I am forced to do something that I have absolutely no desire to do. I liken it to going to the DMV, sitting through a bad movie, or going back to school at the end of the summer.

In fact, that last one is pretty much it. I went to site, did my thing, enjoyed doing my thing greatly, and then had to get on a tro and spend 8+ hours getting back here. Why am I back here? To spend another week taking some tests, do the swearing in ceremony, and then go *back* to site. I’m ready to get to work, and to use a term my mother can appreciate, I’m chomping at the bit.

On a more positive note, it was really cool to see everyone again, share pictures and stories about our sites, and commiserate about traveling. It was also good to see my host family, who have become a second family to me here.

It was also interesting to see how different life at site was from life here. People in and around my site are much more subdued; they’re still friendly, but they aren’t as insistent to know everything about you. I wonder if that comes from the fact that there have been two volunteers at this site before me (the third white guy isn’t nearly as interesting as the first), or if it is just a difference in the regional culture. My site village is also much more remote — it’s about the same size as Old Tafo, if not bigger, but the road is much rougher and a 30 kilometer trip to the nearest big city takes about 45 minutes to an hour. Old Tafo, on the other hand, is right on the main road to Koforidua, which by comparison is much nicer and makes for much quicker travel.

The most surprising part of the whole trip to site wasn’t even at site itself. I stopped at the Kumasi Sub-Office to check the place out, and I was pleasantly surprised. The place is svelte. It has wireless internet access! and a full kitchen! and hot running water! and books that I haven’t read yet! It was incredible. I downloaded email, grabbed about 17 books, and talked to a couple of PCVs who were enjoying some downtime, and then got back on the road. Now that I know where it is, you can expect pictures in about a week and a half.

Alright. I have to get ready to cook this afternoon — Peace Corps is making us prove that we can actually make edible food so that we won’t starve to death at site. My menu is grilled chicken sandwiches with tomato, cocoa yam leaves, and a carrot, onion, and eggplant tapenade… I’m feeling pretty confident that I’ll pass. As always, keep the questions coming.

Greetings, everyone. I’m writing this email from my guest bedroom/office in my new house. I’m at site, and while I still have quite a few things to do before it’s actually livable for long periods of time, it already feels like home.

That’s right, I have a house. With multiple bedrooms. To myself. I know what you’re thinking — sometimes, this Peace Corps gig can be really rough.

First, a description of where I am. My site is in the community of Seikwa, in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana. Seikwa is a small, rural town that is about 90 kilometers from the regional capital of Sunyani. The nearest large towns are Sampa (the border town — I’m within a good day’s hike of Cote d’Ivoire) and Berekum, but my best guess is that Seikwa itself is home to around 1,000 – 1,500 people. They have their own market, police station, fire station, and full-service transit station, as well as a full primary school, junior high, and (my new place of employment) senior high school.

My house is located on the grounds of the local health center — in lieu of a full hospital, my community has a clinic and basic pharmacy, and provides housing for health workers that travel around the area to provide services and education. (I know some of you are likely interested in how this scheme works — I’ll let you know as I have more information.) Because the health center is about 200 yards from the school campus, and because the school campus has no housing for teachers, I get the benefit of having a quiet, private home within walking distance of my school.

The structure itself is similar to a single-story duplex — there are two homes per building, and each home has the following: enclosed courtyard, 2 bedrooms, sitting room, indoor kitchen, bathroom, and pit latrine. There is a small indoor hallway connecting all of the rooms, and there is also a small back porch which looks out onto the forest behind me. As far as size goes, it’s plenty for one person — I’m guessing that the indoor area is about 280-300 square meters (850-900 square feet), and the main courtyard is about 30 square meters (100 square feet). I do have electricity, but no running water. The nearest borehole (public well) is at the school, and I do have a large aluminum cistern for collecting rainwater, but I’ll be in the business of fetching water from here on out.

With regards to furniture, I have a desk and chair, a full-sized bed, a bookshelf, a large sitting/lounge chair, 1 kitchen-style chair, a couch, a large banquet-type table, and a small cooking table on which to prepare meals. Both bedrooms have built-in closets, which is a definite improvement from storing my clothing in Space Bags. I still need to buy things like cooking utensils, buckets extra chairs for guests, a mattress or some kind of padding for the guest bed, and

I spent most of Saturday cleaning, doing laundry (by hand — no Whirlpool appliances), arranging furniture, and unpacking. It surprised me how quickly I slid back into the routine of being “at home” — after a month and a half of eating whatever was put in front of me, it felt really good to cook and eat a meal of my own choosing, even if that meal was only baked beans from a can and toast made over the gas burner. One of my goals for Sunday and Monday is to scout the markets in the neighboring towns to see what I can find for fresh produce and household supplies. Market day here in Seikwa is on Fridays, and the market is very sizable; however, I will need to figure out where I can buy fresh vegetables throughout the rest of the week.

I’m only here for a week. I go back to Old Tafo on Thursday, and I’m there until 19 August, when I swear in and become a Peace Corps Volunteer in earnest. After swearing-in, I make my way back here in a slow, leisurely fashion to make my home more… home-like. In the meantime, I’m going to have a walk around and see about fetching some water.