Today is a red-letter day.
Not because it’s World Malaria Day (which it is).
Not because I’m posting two blogs in a single day (although I hope to – as long as the internet cooperates).
Not because I’m almost out of the groundnut roasting business (which I am).
He has malaria.
Joseph casually mentioned the reason for a colleagues’ non-attendance at a meeting. Most likely the person had a flu-like symptoms: a high fever, vomiting, sweating and shivers, muscle aches and pains, diarrhea. Malaria? It’s hard to tell without a blood test. A rapid-response blood test can identify the presence of the malaria-causing parasite in humans. Treatment is a three-day dose of twice-a-day medication.
Ghanians say “he has malaria” as often as Americans say “he has the flu” each winter. Except malaria is not seasonal. It’s caused by mosquitoes infected with the Plasmodium parasite. In hot-humid tropical climates, mosquitoes breed and feed on human blood year-round.
Malaria can cause serious, long-lasting health problems, even death. In 2010, 90% of all malaria deaths occurred in Africa; almost 600,000 children died. Every minute, a child dies from malaria.
Scary facts from WHO (World Heath Organization).
My nephew’s wife had malaria when she was pregnant. She had high fever. Convulsions – shaking all over. We tried to get her to go to the doctor. She wouldn’t go. Her baby was stillborn.
Pregnant women are at greater risk for getting malaria and at high risk of dying from the complications of severe malaria. Malaria can cause spontaneous abortion, premature delivery and stillbirth. Preventive malaria treatment is available for moms-to-be in high-risk areas like Ghana.
Kofi’s daughter was three years old. She had a fever – a high temperature. Malaria. She died painfully.
Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of malaria could have prevented her death.
It’s easy to ignore the symptoms.
It’s just a fever. It’ll go away.
But malaria doesn’t go away without medical treatment.
Preventing malaria is easy. The female Anopheles mosquito that carries the Plasmodium parasite is most active at dusk or at night. Wearing long sleeves outside in the evening and sleeping under a net treated with a long-lasting insecticide minimizes the chances of being bitten by an infected mosquito.
Bed nets have been widely distributed across Africa. Most people in Jumbo have bed nets and say they use them. I recently saw a newborn napping outside – protected from mosquitoes and flies by a rectangular self-supporting net enclosure that looked like something used to keep flying insects away from a outdoor potluck meal.
All Peace Corps Volunteers in Ghana receive bed nets. I feel like a princess sleeping under my white canopy net every night. PCVs also take a preventative medication. I take my weekly anti-malaria pill on Saturday night; the major side effect is incredibly vivid dreams each Tuesday night. Although several PCVS have gotten malaria, I’m still malaria free.
And you might be curious about the title. BAMM? You were perhaps expecting a collision or a gun-shot story. But, no. In honor of World Malaria Day, I’m joining many PCVS in Blogging About Malaria Month – adding facts to the quotes I’ve heard in Ghana.
I hope you learned something. I hope you and your loved ones stay malaria free. I hope I never hear your version of the words spoken by my Ghanaian friends.
During our Peace Corps pre-service training, one (what I consider to be very wise) instructor told us, “If you don’t do anything but live in your community for a couple of years, you will have done a great service.”
I took those words to heart.
There are many days when all I do is live in my community.
Today was one of those days.
A woman about my age walks from the borehole near my house with a metal bucket of water balanced on her head. She moves the bucket to the footpath. The small coiled printed cloth remains atop her head to protect her crown when she replaces the bucket.
She smiles and greets me with a friendly “Ahn-new-we!” The “good noon-time” greeting is used from about eleven in the morning until two or three in the afternoon. I respond with “Law-fee’-a-bay” which might literally mean, “I acknowledge you.” and is used as a reply to almost any greeting comment or question.
She points to her head and motions toward the bandana that’s keeping my hair away from my face and neck. She then makes an elaborate gesture with an arcing hand from me to her. Without using any words, she’s telling me, “Give me your bandana.”
The “African Friends and Money Matters” book I finished last week notes that “Compliments are frequently given indirectly in the form of requests for gifts or loans and are often formulated as questions. Examples are: ‘Why don’t you give me your blouse?’ Or ‘Give me your trousers.’ These mean that the blouse and trousers are really nice.”
I still think she really WANTS my bandana instead of telling me, “Your bandana is nice.” – especially since a dozen children have earned bandanas by completing various chores.
“The girls earn a bandana for fetching water.” I say in English, trying to explain with elaborate hand motions. She shakes her head; that’s not the answer she wants to hear. She repeats her body language which I interpret as, “Give me your bandana.” I say, “Not today.” and add a cheery “Bye. Bye.” She smiles, places the water bucket back on her head, waves, and walks on towards her home.
I make a mental note to bequeath all my bandanas to Jumbo women when I leave Ghana.
Three children play Uno on my patio while I wash clothes. The oldest boy (seven year old Dankwa) consistently wins. When I watch them, I learn his secret. Instead of taking turns by going clockwise or counterclockwise, he takes his turn between each of the other two players. I’ll have to remember that trick. They also aren’t too picky about matching colors or numbers.
As I hang up the clean clothes, Baba snaps clothespins end to end while Dorki hands me one clothespin at a time to secure the clothes to the line. Dankwa counts the Uno cards – 102.
Later I hear fast light footsteps that stop at my living room window. “Good afternoon!” sings a sweet voice. I turn from my computer to see a nine-year-old girl in her orange and brown school uniform. Both hands form a tunnel-cup near her eyes and her nose almost touches the window screen as she peers in to focus.
“Hello. How are you?” I ask.
“I am fine.” she responds. I wait a split second, expecting the next standard phrase used by younger children, but the “Thank you, Madam.” doesn’t follow.
She smiles again. “Bye-bye” she chirps before turning away. I hear her fast light footsteps trail into the distance.
“Linda” calls a man as I ride my bike past the front of a hardware store.
“Hello, James!” I say to the man who sold me chicken wire to make a burn bin and “carpet” (super-light-weight linoleum) to cover my wooden tables. We chat (in English!) for a few minutes – mentioning how we’ll both miss Nate when he finishes his Peace Corps service and returns to America – before I ride on.
I park my bike in my standard shady spot near the small shop where I buy t-roll. Behind the counter, a women sits near the aluminum cash bowl while three girls between the ages of five and nine stand around waiting to help customers. When the seven-year-old sees me she taps her siblings/cousins on the shoulder to make sure they notice the arrival of an Obruni (foreigner). We exchange hellos and I ask their names in English and Twi. “May din-day LIN-DA.” I say. Their mother/aunt helps out and says each child’s name in turn.
When the woman says her name is Afia, I say, “Me, too!” We were both born on Friday. I repeat the three girls’ names a couple of times (“Regina. Ma-may’. M’-bee-ba.”), trying to make new connections in my already-bursting brain. After I pay for the t-roll, we all say goodbye – smiling and calling each other by name.
“Good morning, Mama Tae!” I say to my favorite Kpassa cook as she pulls items from her chest refrigerator. Mama Tae reminds me of the main character in the Number One Detective Agency book series: ample size and a keen observer of human nature. I purchase lunch from her small roadside stand at least once a week. I order the same thing each time: rice and beans with a salad and hard-boiled egg. She serves me a generous portion and then adds more to a take home container so I don’t have to cook supper.
After exchanging pleasantries, she asks, “Will you cook today?” It’s only 9:30 in the morning – much too early for lunch. When I reply yes, she looks at the small head of lettuce she has in her hand. “I will dash you.” she states.
A “dash” is a “little extra” thrown in when you purchase items. After purchasing eight tomatoes, the shop owner might throw in an extra tomato or two. When selling a large basin of groundnuts, the seller throws in a couple extra handfuls. Mama Tae dashes me for stopping to say hello. She tears off a few of the wilted lettuce leaves and places the head in the shopping bag with t-roll. Then she slices a cucumber in half and adds the big half to my bag. I stammer my sincere thanks and say, “See you on Sunday.”
Maybe I’ll take her some home-made cashew candy.
Monday Joshua and Wojay brought me a couple of yams to cook. They sat on my patio to peel the yams using a large kitchen knife; they used a small paring knife to chop the yam into cooking-pot size pieces. I cooked the yam on my stove and carried the steamy yam pieces to their house. Their mother pounded fufu and made a light stew (sauce) to eat with the mashed-potato-consistency yams. The two boys brought the fufu and stew back to my house and we ate it sitting on the floor in the kitchen.
Tuesday Joshua borrowed the “small cutlass” (my green-handled paring knife). When he brought it back, he also brought GHC 2. (Two Ghana cedis is worth about one United States dollar.) He wanted to buy my knife. I told him I couldn’t sell it to him, but he could buy one in Kpassa. “You go to Kpassa.” was his response – knowing I go to Kpassa regularly and each time he “helps” me by riding my bike from my house to the road.
I took his two bills and told him I would buy a knife for him in Kpassa.
Today I buy a red-handled paring knife from our local “WalMart,” one of the larger stores in Kpassa that sells a wide variety of items. The shop is about the size of a small Seven Eleven store and the primary link to either large US chains is the eclectic collection of merchandise available. The knife only costs 70 pesewas – about 35 cents.
When Joshua, Wojay, and their mother (with her youngest son strapped to her back) return from the farm using the footpath by my house, Joshua runs to my gate. I give Joseph the knife. He’s surprised to get change and initially hands it back to me. I convince him to keep the change and he hands the change and new knife to his mother.
What else happened today?
I cooked water yams that Dankwa peeled and cut.
Two girls fetched a couple of buckets of water.
Three girls helped me repair my water sachet fence.
Solo returned the needle and thread he borrowed yesterday.
I sent a few emails.
And what’s still to come?
Ten children are giggling and playing in my front yard – waiting to add another couple pages to the books they are creating.
Nate will be here in a couple of hours – on his way from a training class back to his home. We’ll have dinner – with a lettuce salad – and probably watch a movie.
I’ll write “four words” before I crawl into bed.
I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. If my “job” is to “live in the community,” I did a good job today.
And even if living in the community of Jumbo in Northern Volta is not my job, today was a great day.
Most days are!
Solo knelt on the ground. “My ball” he announced, handing me a hand-made tennis-ball sized sphere. It almost floated in my hand. When I handed the feather-weight ball back to him, he added another round of inch-wide strips of thin stretchy/foamy plastic.
With elaborate hand motions and a few words I asked where he found the plastic strips. Using his tongue and jaw, he move the straw-width chewing stick (used in place of a toothbrush) to the side of his cheek. “Moto.” he explained. The foamy strips had a previous life protecting shiny motorcycle parts during shipment.
Solo made elaborate hand gestures to demonstrate how high the finished ball would bounce when thrown on the ground. I repeated his hand gestures adding a sing-songy “Boing.” as the sound effects of a bouncing ball.
He stretched another small strip around, adding a layer to the ball. The thin foam tore. He dropped the small pieces to the ground. “Put it in the trash.” I suggested as I handed him a plastic bucket from my patio.
His eyes lit up when he saw the crumpled duct tape in the bottom of the bucket.
“Thank you, Madam!”
Solo held the ball together – trapped between his left toes and the ground – as he ripped apart duct tape for the ball’s outer covering.
He pulled the sticky tape apart – transforming the wad of trash into a usable adhesive strip.
He tossed the new ball to his younger brother Baba who threw it to the ground. Baba watched the ball bounce above all of our heads.
I forgot to say, “Boing!”
After each of us tested the bounce several times, Solo and I threw the ball back and forth, trying different types of throws: high arcing graceful lobs, quick tosses and catches with our palms facing down, hard and fast bullet thrusts.
When I took a self-portrait with Kwami under the mango tree, Solo added the ball to the composition.
“In America,” I said (using my standard “here comes a bit of American culture” sentence starter), “we play a game called “Hot Yam.” Solo, Baba, Kami and I formed a small circle. We threw the “hot yam” around the circle “fast, fast” so we wouldn’t burn our hands.
“Volleyball!” Solo identified a new use for his small ball. We batted the ball up in the air with our hands and put the palms of our hands together to bump the ball up using the inside of our arms.
“We will stop when we get to twenty.” I started counting each hit. When we reached twenty, the three boys went home. Solo tossed the ball between his hands as he walked. I went inside to wash breakfast dishes.
“Pumpy!” Solo called as a greeting when he entered my yard fifteen minutes later. He held a tattered soccer-sized thin plastic orange ball. A piece of the duct tape taken from his new ball covered a hole in the deflated rubber ball. I pulled the bicycle pump from the nail in the rafter of my storage area. He attached his ball-needle to the pump and pumped air into the ball.
As soon as the ball was inflated, air started leaking from the not-actually-sealed duct tape patch.
I gave him a small piece of packing tape to create a seal for the dime-sized hole. He pumped the ball full of air and kicked the orange bouncy ball back to home.
A couple of thoughtful Texas friends recently mailed several dozen hacky-sack balls to me. I can already see the awe and joy on Solo’s face when he selects a colorful hacky-sack to add to his ball collection.
Next week marks the halfway point in the 27-month Peace Corps adventure.
I’ll “celebrate” by going to Accra for my mid-service medical and giving the Peace Corps doctors several body fluids for testing. A local dentist will clean my teeth. I’m sure I’ll be given a clean bill of health.
I’m also celebrating my halfway point by setting a personal goal: 500 before 500.
Five hundred followers before five hundred days.
Five hundred followers of http://pcghana.wordpress.com before my five hundredth day in Ghana – June 23, 2013.
When I started my journey from the United States to Ghana, a couple dozen friends and family members read my blog.
About 150 individuals now read about life in Ghana on my blog. Long-time friends and friends I’ve met in Ghana. Close and not-so-close relatives. People who have traveled around the world and individuals who don’t have a passport. Curious folks who stumbled onto my blog from an internet search. (Fufu, adinkra, Ghana Independence Day, reasons to join Peace Corps, haircut Ghana, Twi language are recent search terms.) Fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. People I look forward to seeing when I return and people I wouldn’t recognize if I passed them on the street.
I’m delighted and humbled.
I write; people read.
Amazing.
I’d like to extend my reach.
I’d like more people reading my stories about Ghana.
I’d like to help Peace Corps achieve its third goal: help Americans understand the people and culture of other countries.
I’m asking for your help to solicit more followers.
If you enjoy reading my blog, please send the link (http://pcghana.wordpress.com) to your friends. Tell them what you like about my blog. Add why you think they might enjoy reading about life in Ghana. You may want to include a few adjectives that describe my writing style. You might want to mention a few stories that touched you. You could be honest and write, “I’m just sending this in hopes she’ll reach her arbitrary goal and return to writing about her adventures instead of asking for more readers.”
And be sure to ask your friends and family to use the online instructions to “follow” my blog.
I won’t threaten you with dire consequences if you choose not to invite others to join my adventure.
And I won’t promise you incredible good luck if you send this to ten of your friends within ten minutes.
But I’ll be grateful for whatever you do to help me reach 500 followers by June 23.
Think of your support as your personal contribution to world peace and friendship.
Thanks!
Yesterday, March 6, Ghana celebrated 56 years of independence.
Dr. Martin Luther King, in an interview at Ghana’s independence, said:
I think this event, the birth of this new nation, will give impetus to oppressed peoples all over the world. I think it will have worldwide implications and repercussions-not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America.
As you well know, we have a problem in the Southland in America, and I think this freedom – the freedom in the birth of a new nation-will influence the situation there. This will become a sort of symbol for oppressed people all over the world…It renews my conviction in the ultimate triumph of justice. And it seems to me that this is fit testimony to the fact that eventually the forces of justice triumph in the universe, and somehow the universe itself is on the side of freedom and justice. So that this gives new hope to me in the struggle for freedom as I confront it.
Metty Markwei posted the text on her blog: http://thekenteweaver.wordpress.com
“Madam!” ” A teen called from her courtyard as I walked by.
I turned and waved.
“God bless you.” she continued.
I stammered a “thanks” and looked at her blankly. I didn’t remember talking to her before; I didn’t understand why she was blessing me.
“For the pipes.” she explained with a huge smile and a slight bow in my direction.
