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Mouse in the Bread Bag

The other day I went to go and buy some bread from one of the neighborhood provisional stores (if you can call them stores. they are more like holes in the wall, wooden shacks or metal shipping containers). When the lady was pulling the loaf out of the bag the bread was in there was a mouse running around inside. She saw it and poured the contents of the bag (bread) into a basket. I stood there sort of disgusted and contemplated not buying the bread because there was a mouse in the bag she pulled it out of and there were nibble marks all over the loaf she was handing me. I bought it anyway and ate it the next day with some eggs. If I were in the US, I would have never bought or for that matter eaten the bread. But here in Ghana, food is food and I could have done a lot worse.

What Happened To Me?

The other day some kid that I never met came to the back of my house and told me that he was hungry. I told him that I didn’t have any money and went inside. When I got inside I felt kind of bad and went back out with some money hoping he was still standing out there. He was, and I gave him the money to go get something to eat.

Later in the night he came back around 11pm and knocked on my door. He asked me if he could sleep in the empty room across the way. At this point I got pretty annoyed and told him that it wasn’t my house so I couldn’t give him permission to sleep there. After that I went back inside my house and locked my door.

When I was back in the states I don’t think I would have thought twice about giving this kid some money or possibly even letting him sleep in the garage/storage room, which is basically what the room across the way is. I’m not really sure how I became so de-sensitized to poverty and people less fortunate than I am. You would think after spending nearly two years in Africa surrounded by poverty I would be more sympathetic, but I’ve become the opposite. And I don’t know if it is a good thing.

United States of America

Before I left for Ghana to join the Peace Corps I became disillusioned with living in America for some reason and all I wanted to do was get out and get away from the US for a while. There was no specific reason why I wanted to leave, and it may have been a combination of things. Working at a job I didn’t like, going out and basically doing the same thing every weekend and possibly getting tired of being around the same people/type of people all the time. I just became tired of my life in America and needed a change. I just wanted to get away.

After a month of being in Ghana I realized that running/getting away was not going to solve issues that I had and wanted desperately to come back home. I began to miss the job that I had, going out on the weekends and meeting up with friends and I began to miss the people that I wanted to take a break from.

I recently had a conversation with a person with somewhat of a similar background that I have had. She also immigrated to the United States at the age of 3 and has lived her life in the US since then. We shared our stories of how our parents ended up in the US and how they initially had to cope with living there. Our parents struggled, but from it seemed like both of our parents worked hard in America to get to the place that they are at now.

There are countries in the world today like the European Union that may be doing better than the US in the economic sense, but I am proud to have lived and be a citizen of the United States of America. I don’t know why I never realized it before, but I guess I had to be here in Ghana to realize this. When you ask a Ghanaian why they all want to go to America instead of some place in Europe most of their responses are that they feel that Americans are a lot more open to having people of different races and ethnic backgrounds in their country.

I may not always agree with the current US government policies and how it operates, but I am proud to be an American. I feel like that there is no other places in the world that would and could have afforded my family the opportunities that it has had.

Written on September 4, 2007.

Handicap Fighting

The news on TV here regularly show pretty graphic videos that you would not see on network television in America. I’ve gotten pretty numb to seeing breasts, dead corpses as a result of mob justice, bodies that had been burned alive, and some other pretty gruesome images flash across the screen while watching the news. I thought I had seen it all until I saw a news story about two handicapped men both in wheelchairs getting into a fight in the middle of the street.

Apparently one of the men owed the other one 50,000 cedis (the equivalent of US $5), but the other man said that he didn’t owe the other man anything. They started arguing and then all of a sudden one of the men punches the other one in the face. This video went on for about 2 minutes. Two handicapped men in wheelchairs fist fighting each other… They eventually both fell off their wheelchairs and were rolling on the ground. I know how wrong I am for it, but I actually found it pretty amusing. At the end of the news program they showed the video of the fight again as they were closing the show. Television programs that they play here in Ghana are typically pretty boring, but when I can I always try and catch the news just in case they show more stories like this.

Written on November 12, 2007.

MTV Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life

During certain times of the day they show music videos and random shows from MTV. They call it MTV Base here in Ghana. Lately they have been showing the MTV Diary show with Jay-Z. Apparently Jay-Z is some sort of spokesperson for the United Nations for access to clean water here in Africa. The episode followed Jay-Z around Ghana going to places that the UN is helping to put in boreholes so that people can have access to clean water.

It’s nice to see that some celebrities are using their fame and fortune to do some sort of good where it is really needed.

If you want more info regarding the plight with the water situation here in Africa go to http://think.mtv.com.

Written on June 11, 2007.

Fighting the Scourge of the Guinea Worm

Just wanted to highlight some of the work that other Peace Corps Volunteers are doing here in Ghana. A friend of mine just got an article published on time.com and I thought I would share it with everyone.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1707059,00.html

New blog entries and pictures from my end will be coming soon. I promise. I've just gotten lazy about posting the past couple of months.

Killing a Mouse

Having mice is part of the life here that I have not really gotten use to. I’ve had mice in the places I’ve lived in back in the US, but not with the consistency and regularity that I have here. I keep my house and kitchen clean as possible to avoid attracting mice, but having them around is inevitable.

Today while I was using the bathroom I saw a mouse in the space between the door and the wall. After I was finished taking care of business I went and got the stick that I use to chase/kill bullfrogs out of my shower/toilet area. The mouse was scurrying around and I was trying to crush and kill it by smacking it against the wall. This wasn’t working and the mouse made its way to the top of door and just sort of stared at me in a mocking way. I got pissed. I stood on the toilet and took a swing at the mouse. I didn’t care if I killed it at that point. All I wanted to do was inflict as much pain on this mouse that I possibly could. I got lucky and I hit the mouse. It hit the wall in the next room and landed in a bucket of rainwater that I had collected. I stood over the bucket of water and watched the mouse swim around in it for a while. I was just going to leave it in there to drown, but then I saw it jump and actually come close to getting out. I wasn’t going to let this mouse live after it had mocked me so a couple of minutes earlier. I grabbed my stick again and started toying with the mouse and pushing it into the water. I don’t know if many of you know this, but mice are pretty resilient creatures. They can swim and actually hold their breath for a pretty long time. After toying with it for about 5 minutes I was getting tired of standing there watching the mouse struggle. I took my stick and pinned it to the bottom of the bucket until it drowned. Killing the mouse today was the highlight of my day. I feel like I actually accomplished something by killing the mouse today and may put it in my quarterly report for the Peace Corps.

Crazy Guy & Crazy Girl

Today I was sitting in my town talking to someone while watching the local crazy guy dance to Tupac in the middle of town. I watched him for about 5 minutes until some unknown crazy girl started walking down the street. Crazy guy saw this and started following her and dancing on the other side of the street to the music. It was pretty amusing watching this because it was the perfect scenario to be put in a hip-hop music video except for the fact that both crazy guy and girl were in no way attractive in my opinion.

Picture me rolling…
- Tupac Shakur

Television in Ghana

I was watching TV the other day when I noticed that 2 out of the 4 channels that they have here in Ghana were playing the same soccer match. This is pretty typical and I didn’t think anything of it until I saw this message scrolling across the bottom of the screen on one of the stations the game was being televised on:

It has come to our notice that GTV is illegally taking the feed for the FIFA Under 17 Match between Haiti and Nigeria from providers AUB. GTV are advised to desist from this or face legal action.

I just found it funny so I thought I would share. What is even funnier though is that GTV is the state owned television station of Ghana. I love watching television in the developing world. You never know what is going to be shown...