La vie burkinabe!

We promised ourselves we would never become those people who neglected our blog for extended periods of time...oops.  But we have lots of fun exciting stuff to share now!  We just returned from a week in Burkina Faso, the French speaking country about 15 minutes due north from where we are.  Our trip was motivated by two factors: one, our visas expire after 60 days, so we had to get them renewed; and two, FAVL is actually based out of Burkina Faso, so we wanted to visit some of the more well-established libraries to get some ideas for their younger Ghanaian counterparts.

After a relatively hassle-free trip (minus needing to backtrack 15 km to withdraw more money for the absurdly expensive Burkina visas) we were met at the bus station by the Burkina Faso FAVL coordinator, Elisee.  This is where the trip started to get surreal - we were picked up in a private vehicle by Elisee and FAVL's chauffeur, Francois, who would accompany us for the remainder of the week and drive us everywhere we wanted to go. So long, public transportation!  We were taken to the FAVL office, a well-decorated space (lots of cool African masks) with couches, a kitchen, and high-speed internet! Attached to the office were the guest rooms, complete with running water and air-conditioning!  A veritable palace!  Made even nicer by the security of a night watchman, and the presence of two goats and chickens living in the patio area.  For those interested, there is a video on the FAVL website of Lucas talking on the patio, while one of the goats mauls a chicken very loudly in the background - priceless!

We left at the crack of dawn for Bereba, a village about four hours away that is home to the 'mothership' of the FAVL libraries.  There is a guesthouse there where we stayed, along with Francois, and had all our meals prepared for us by a wonderful woman Avara - tough life, right?  Our itinerary for the week basically consisted of visiting two libraries every morning, sometimes staying to do activities with the children, resting until about 4:00, then going off to have cultural experiences with Dounko, the regional activities coordinator for the libraries.  I'll start with the libraries - there are seven total, all very well-stocked with French books.  We were surprised to find that there were a lot more adult books - a contrast to the Ghanaian libraries, which are very much oriented toward children.  The libraries were very organized, with each librarian taking the time to show us their bulletin boards and various notebooks used to record everything.  Their schedules were also drastically different from what we're used to - they are only open for about 20 hours a week, whereas in Ghana they are open for about 40, and often until 10:00 at night.  The decorations in the libraries were also very cool, ranging from local masks to children's artwork to murals done by local artists.  And Dounko was great fun to watch - he has an exuberant and energetic personality that allows him to excel at entertaining children with books, stories, songs, and dances.  I just wish my French were a little better so I could understand what was going on...

The cultural experiences were another unexpected surprise.  Dounko is used to playing tour guide because of the Reading West Africa program run through Santa Clara University, which has students spend six weeks in the villages assisting FAVL, and we greatly benefited from his expertise.  Our first visit was to a potter, who produced beautiful large pots ('African refrigerators', as Dounko called them) in a matter of minutes on a manual potter's wheel.  We learned how to play the balefon, an African xylophone in which different notes are produced according to the size of the gourd suspended underneath each key.  We watched and participated in a dance to the music of the balefon and snare drum, though our 'dancing' was little more than rhythmic shuffling.  We had 'arts and crafts hour', in which produced animal masks and elaborate 3D flowers.  The biggest surprise was when we heard music one night, went to see what it was, and discovered a generator-powered discotheque!  That was probably the last thing I expected to find in the middle of that village.

It was interesting that we spent a lot of time focusing on the differences between Burkina Faso and Ghana, yet when we came back, the first thing one of our Ghanaian friends asked us was, 'what are the similarities?'  A different perspective from ours, that's for sure.  To start with, Burkina Faso is visibly less developed - roofs are thatched instead of made of corrugated metal, and even walls are made of woven mats in some places.  We saw a lot more 'stereotypical African' scenes, such as trucks loaded with people and buses with luggage strapped on up to twice it's height.  The people are also very friendly, but they love to shake hands a lot more - I lost track of the number of hands I shook that week! 

You want photos? I'll give you photos...

Laura, Bernard, Lauren, and Lucas at wedding in Sherigu.

Drinkin' pito out of a calabash with some German friends at Mole.

We came, we saw...only elephant footprints and poo.

Local dancing at (belated) harvest festival in Sumbrungu.

He's on your shirt, your biscuits, your notebook...even your underwear (sorry no photos, but believe us it's true!).

Gowrie Kunkua Library Patrons.... lots of them!

Drumming with our new friend Rasheed

Sumbrungu Library inventory in progress.

Warning: Epically long blog post ahead....

The last few days have been extremely busy and exciting, so here’s all the details.

First, as Laura mentioned, we got to attend a Frafra literacy class with Uncle Benedict, our new BFF. Uncle Benedict is a nonformal education supervisor, and this is a class he checks up on. The class is held at night at someone’s home not far from our library, outside in their courtyard. It’s mostly women who attend. It sounds stereotypical, but to describe the scene: dim light comes from a kerosene lamp, the facilitator writes on a blackboard painted onto a courtyard wall, about 20 women sit on mats on the ground surrounded by their children and babies. I thought about how awesome it is that after all their hard work they do farming or weaving or just taking care of the house (still a huge task), these women find the energy to come learn to read and write the language they’ve only spoken their whole lives. And they are super enthusiastic about learning. Lots of people volunteer to write phrases on the board or go over the pronunciations. For Laura and I, the class was a big step towards Frafra and we finally know what sound some of the funny vowels make (ex. backwards “c” = “aw” sound). We also learned some new important phrases like “I do not want meat”. This was a special experience and we’re hoping to go to another class soon!

You also know we were invited to a wedding on Saturday! Turned out that Bernard, the Sherigu librarian, was coordinating this event for Francis, his friend/coworker/secretary of Sherigu library committee and groom-to-be. We arrived on our bicycles just before noon when the service was supposed to start (haha…), in our dresses, already dripping in sweat from the heat of the mid-morning. It was going to be a Ghanaian-style Catholic wedding, and Bernard showed us to some nice seats in the rear of the church. And so we waited, until around 1pm (an hour after Bernard announced to the congregation that “The bride will be arriving very soon”), when the singing started up and in came the bride.

What followed was unlike any other Catholic wedding mass I’ve attended; the words spoken by the priest/bride/groom were the same (and, to our surprise and delight, in English not Frafra), and the bride wore white, but the feeling and the singing (and dancing!) was completely different. Much more jubilant! The heat in the fan-less church also made me think that this is what it must have felt like on July 22, 1978 (ok, now it's right!) when my parents got married…which I’m told was also in a fan-less brick building in dead heat. To top it off, the church was PACKED. We estimated there were about 300 or more people crammed into and spilling out of the church.

The service was very long (about 2.5 hrs, start to finish), which was par for the course here in Ghana. There’s a lot of extra singing in Ghanaian Catholic masses (most things we speak in church at home are sung here), so they take longer and the wedding was no exception. This time there was a huge choir (dressed in caps and gowns…we’re not sure why), a full drumming/percussion band, a lot of extra dancing (we danced too!), hooting and hollering for the bride and groom after they exchanged vows, and the entire homily was repeated in English and in Frafra. I think most people (ourselves included), went outside at some point during the offertory to quickly rehydrate mid-mass with a bag of nice cold pure water.

After the service, there was a presentation of gifts to the new couple, photo time, and then the entire congregation piled into the Catholic Social Center next door to take part in the reception. This was no invitation-only, write-down-if-you-want-meat-or-fish affair. No, they started handing out tons of food cartons (jollof rice) and sodas and bags of water, to all the people in attendance. The important ones were served first, but they were trying to get at least something to everyone. We were told that not all weddings are that open, but it serves as yet another example of the importance of community that permeates Ghanaian culture.

The bride and groom had a first dance (shorter and not a song they picked), fed each other cake (cleanly and politely), and had a champagne toast. There were also speeches we couldn’t hear, but there was plenty of people-watching and chatting with the bride’s sister to keep us occupied. We were told the dance floor would open up soon and the party would go all night, but we had to exit at 5:30pm to get back home before dark. A tiring, but absolutely amazing experience. We were very grateful to have the opportunity to peek in on this slice of Ghanaian life. Oh, and we happened to sit next to Darius’ mother, Agnes, who invited us to dinner at her home sometime. Score!

The next day was 6^th of March, or Independence Day. We woke up super early to go to the English mass in Sumbrungu, and to get to Bolga in time for their 6^th March celebrations and parade. As soon as we arrived in Bolga, we were befriended by Millicent and Clara, two sisters who were nice enough to show us to the parade grounds (sadly we only caught the end of it) and tried to help us find a Ghanaian flag for purchase. This was actually really hard to do, which seemed strange to us. Turned out Independence Day in Ghana is not as big of an affair as 4^th of July at home, which was kind of a disappointment. But, maybe that’s just here in Bolga, who knows what happens in Accra.

In Bolga, students from surrounding schools marched in a circle around the grounds to “God Bless Our Homeland Ghana” (national anthem) played by a sharp military band. After the marching was over, there were speeches by local and regional officials, which were drowned out by the noise of hundreds of children milling about and trying to get their photo snapped with the “white ladies” wandering through the crowd (who could that be…). The one thing that did live up to my expectations was the abundance of street food and snacks! I want to try everything here (exception: dog meat), so I had the chance to try a few new snacks like a peanut butter brittle-type delicious morsel.

After the parade, we came home and rested until the “jams” started. This was the same “middle school dance” that happened before, but this time there were a lot more people (and older ones too). We went to the bar for some liquid courage, took a deep breath, and entered the jams by ourselves. Soon we were surrounded by a crowd of little children encouraging us, “Solmia Dance! Solmia Dance!” This morphed into an intimidating crowd of young men trying to show us their dance moves. We finally ended up with a great group of teenage girls who kept the boys at bay and were eventually escorted by the girls and the children to the library when we decided we were too hot, sweaty, and tired to go on.

Last but not least, we biked to Gowrie-Kunkua Library on Monday to finish inventory….success! We’re very excited to have completed our first library inventory, and celebrated with a Sangria toast with Lucas last night. We’re also very excited to know that we can bike to Gowrie in far less than 2 hours, which was our original estimate. Now we’re beginning the inventory here at Sumbrungu Library, and we can’t wait to revamp this thing. It was kind of a mess, particularly in the back storeroom. The library continues to be closed due to the construction (which is looking more complete by the day!), so it’s a good time for us to lock ourselves in the room and count some 2000 books.

Pictures!

Parade commemorating Ghana's Independence Day

Second-graders dancing with Ghanaian colors

Our 5th graders!

More Tales from Sumbrungu

Well it looks like I've got a lot of ground to cover in this post!  I'll start with our library projects.  We're having a couple of setbacks, the biggest one being the construction project underway at the Sumbrungu Women's Center, the building that currently houses the library.  It has become unsafe for children to be near the area, so the library has been closed until the project is completed.  Fortunately, we have access to the adjacent women's community center, so we were able to complete our two-week Reading Session with our 5th-grade students.  We think the class went really well, and that the children enjoyed the class and learned new strategies to improve their reading comprehension.  And, perhaps most importantly, we taught them how to play WAH!  It will become an international phenomenon someday, I just know it.

We've been thinking about a lot of new ideas for activities to do with various age groups that will be different from the reading strategies taught in the summer camps.  We're looking to organize two-week after school mini-camps with 4th-graders that will focus on the mechanics of reading words (phonics, pronunciation, syllables, etc) so that they will have a solid foundation for learning the comprehension skills that come later.  We do have a lot of constraints that we need to work around in organizing these camps though - for example, our number one priority right now is doing inventory at all three libraries, a process which takes 2-3 days per library.  We also need to renew our visas before the end of the month, so we are planning a trip to Burkina Faso for the 3rd week in March to visit some of the libraries there.  So right now, we are looking to start up three evening programs with 5th graders, 6th graders, and 7th graders, respectively.  We hope to combine reading activities, word games and puzzles, arts and crafts, phonics, creative thinking activities, and writing in these classes.  We have so many ideas and not nearly enough time to do them all!  We also need to figure out a way to recruit students for these activities - we were originally planning to visit the schools and talk to the headmasters and teachers, but it seems the teachers will be staging a protest on Tuesday, and it remains to be seen whether they will commit to a long-term strike over wages, benefits, etc.  I'm having flashbacks to my time volunteering in Santiago, when I showed up for three weeks to volunteer at a high school, only to find the students and/or teachers on strike.

So this past weekend was our trip to Mole National Park, a sanctuary renowned for its elephant population.  We had an amazingly easy trip, by Ghanaian standards - even when we found all the seats sold out on our bus to the park, we hitched a ride in an air-conditioned pickup truck from an entrepreneurial local and arrived 5 hours ahead of schedule, without having to stand the whole way.  We met a lot of volunteers from different parts of Ghana, mostly German and British, which was fun.  Despite our best efforts, we did not see any elephants.  We planned our trip for the dry season, since this is when elephants come to the watering hole near the hotel, but the rain came early this year, and the elephants had already scattered.  But that's okay - we had a lot of fun lounging by the pool with a vista of the watering hole and warthogs wandering around, drinking 'pito' (a local alcoholic brew somewhere between a wine and a beer) from a calabash, and getting caught in a freak rainstorm.

The bad part of the weekend was that Elena and Trisha, who were traveling from Spain and Takoradi respectively to meet us, had horrendous travel luck (bus broke down at 1AM and stranded them until about 10:00) so they didn't arrive at the park until after we had left.  But that was okay, because we were able to give them insider tips, and then they came and spent a couple of nights in Sumbrungu with us.  They helped out with our class, which was great, especially since Elena has a lot of experience with ESL kids.  They got to witness 'Rasta Coco', a friendly local with a guitar-like instrument and pito on his breath, serenade Lauren with a song that featured the words 'Lauren', 'United States', and 'Barack Obama'.  (Have we mentioned how Obama-crazy this place is? We ate 'Obama biscuits' a few nights ago, passed several 'Obama hotels' in Accra, see children taking with notebooks bearing his face, and routinely see shirts with his face (boys) or 'Obama's girl' written on them.)

Well, that might be it for now.  Some things we're looking forward to are: attending a Frafra class tonight (the local dialect), attending a wedding tomorrow, and celebrating Ghana's Independence Day this weekend.  The celebrations started this morning with a marching demonstration by all the school children of the area, complete with drumming and streamers with the Ghanaian colors.