"Let me tell you about my boat"

I actually do not have a boat. This is the name of a song from the Life Aquatic soundtrack, which comes from the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou directed by Wes Anderson (probably my favorite Wes Anderson film). This song narrates a scene in which Bill Murray shows you around his massive expedition boat and describes life on the sea.

So, let me tell you about my village.

The market square in Besease

I spend almost all of my time in Ghana in two places: Besease (where I sleep and teach) and Kissi (where I go to see friends and hang out). The area is mostly farmland, probably not the type of farmland you are thinking of, but farmland full of plantain and banana trees, orange trees, cassava trees, coconut trees, yam plants, tomatoes, peppers, pineapple, onion, and yes, even corn (but not sweet corn, feed corn that is soaked in salt water and sold with coconut pieces). The next biggest city to Kissi is Cape Coast. This is where I do most of my shopping, go to the hospital, and get 3G internet.

Kissi, Flooded

Komenda College

Each community in the stretch from Besease to the ocean, has a very different character and feel to it. Besease is furthest inland, sitting highest among some low rolling hills, with hard packed clay earth that gets dusty in the dry season. From the government school in Besease, you can look out across the farmland and see the waves of the land, like a frozen terrestrial ocean, and the scattering of silk cotton trees towering among every other tree in the area. It’s really beautiful. You can watch the sunset there. As you walk south to Kissi, you walk into flat, waterlogged land. Kissi was basically built in a giant, shallow bowl. When the heavy rains come, it floods, and trash and debris and refuse get washed all over town. But it’s more lively and bigger than Besease, being closer to the highway. Heading further south still, after crossing the Cape Coast-Sekondi highway and driving through a flat, green stretch of undeveloped land with tall grasses, you reach Komenda sitting on the ocean. It has the distinctive laid-back feel of a beach town. The ground is a mixture of soft sand and dark dirt that sifts between your toes when you walk.

The road to Besease

To get from Besease to Kissi I have to walk along a pot-hole ridden, dirt road that no taxi in his right mind enjoys driving down. Taxis do come to Besease but it’s not without a price, which is why I walk or bike (if I have someone’s bike at hand). In fact, from the highway to Besease a taxi will charge 3 cedis, which is rather outrageous and too much for most people to afford considering it's a really short distance. Also, once darkness falls, good luck finding anyone to come to or leave Besease no matter how much you are willing to pay them. So, where I find myself when night hits is usually where I will sleep. If I find myself stuck all the way over in Cape Coast at night for whatever reason, getting back to Besease becomes a great, expensive adventure. One night, another volunteer and I hired a taxi to take us all the way to Besease for 15 cedi. After driving halfway up the road between Besease and Kissi he stopped and refused to go any farther saying, "This road is shit." And he made us pay him 17 cedi. Another time, after I was released from the Cape Coast hospital at one in the morning, due to a lack of taxi's, Sampson and I had to walk all the way to the highway. After an hour of waiting we got a car that only took us as far as the police checkpoint near Ayensudo. After waiting there for 45 minutes, and being heckled a bit by the police, a large truck decided to take us to Kissi. And from there we walked the 35 minute walk home. I love transportation here, but sometimes it's not easy. Or the safest.

The sun sets at almost the same time everyday: between 6 and 6:30 pm. When I was here last year and missing out on summer in Minnesota, I found this agitating and felt robbed of my summer evenings.

I stay in a renovated Cocoa shed/factory. It’s rather nice since it has a flush toilet, kitchen and shower room, and running water fed by a large tank. Most people in this area live in one room houses and store their bath/cooking/drinking water in large buckets with lids. Sometimes the style of the living quarters reminds me of older motels who have a one level strip of rooms all connected to each other. Except that the buildings here are made of clay and cement blocks with tin roofs rather than plastic siding and asphalt shingles.

Science at the government school

Dancing at Star of the Sea

Star of the Sea School

During the day I go to the Besease government school, which completely lacks electricity (except for one classroom that has a single light bulb wired to the nearest house for a church which makes use of the room in the evenings), to teach science to unwilling JHS (high school) students. After dusk, I go to Sampson's evening enrichment school (called Star of the Sea), where many children from the day school come for further studies and other children that can't attend government school come to learn. I teach what I consider a genius mixture of ICT (computer) and science lessons at Sampson's school. Sometimes Sampson teaches the children culture, and we sit in a circle with the drum and sing and dance until we feel like falling asleep on the ground.

Goats at the governement school

Goats, sheep, chickens, and dogs roam the village free as can be. At night I sometimes see packs of dogs playing with each other in the market square. During the day, I see goats nearly walk into classrooms up at the school. I see sheep sleeping in the shade of houses. They are ubiquitous, and I barely notice them anymore, unless there are baby goats around. I luuuurve baby goats. Sometimes the puppies here are afraid of white people (like the small children that think I am a ghost and cry when they see me) and their sharp teeth snap at me, but baby goats don't bite no matter what color I am, so I can chase them and hold them and pet them as much as I want. If I can catch them, that is.

Toilets. I know you are all wondering about toilets. But I will save that for a later post because it requires quite a lot of description. Let me describe shopping instead. In Besease we have a very small market (Kissi’s is larger) that consists of people selling things at tables under a lean-to, or from small three-sided shacks. Most items don’t have prices and it is up to the owner to tell you how much things cost. When it comes to fresh food, you buy based on how much money you want to spend. For example, “ I would like 1 cedi of onions.” And the shop owner will grab what she deems is 1 cedi worth of onions and put them in a bag for you. My favorite is street food. People at taxi and trotro stations (these are like minibuses) sell things from pans and boxes they balance on their heads. Anything from boiled eggs, ice cream that comes in plastic wrappers, baked rock cakes, loaves of bread, goat or chicken kebabs, fresh crabs, even toothpaste, can be sold this way.

Food being sold to people in Trotro's

I eat with and and am hosted by a wonderful family that lives in Besease. They are the Yahans family. Here are the usual suspects so you know who I am talking about in future posts:

Ama, Gladys, and Efua preparing fufu for dinner

Sampson Yahans– My number one. He started Star of the Sea School and has been an amazing friend and guide in Ghana. He is my age.

Ama – Sampson’s older sister. A wonderfully shrewd and smart woman. She cooks dinner for me in the evenings while I teach, and makes some of the best food. (Francis is her husband and Ryan is her 1 year old son.) Her dream is to own her own restaurant one day.

Rockman and JJ – Sampson’s younger brothers. Rockman is 15 and JJ is 9.

Efua- Sampson’s mother. An extremely awesome, self-sufficient, hard-working woman that reminds me a bit of my own mom.

Elkana - Sampson's cousin. He helps out with the school a lot, and since his parents are no longer alive, Sampson's family helps him out too.

Gladys - Sampson's younger sister who can be a bit moody

Also, here are the teachers I work with and the friends I have in the area:

George – My fake facebook husband from my last visit. Also one of my very good friends and confidants.

Justin – My teaching mentor. He is the Ghanaian science teacher in Besease. He is probably one of my best friends here.

Janet - One of the only woman teachers up at the government school. She is a very smart, popular, driven woman.

Michael, Gabriel, Fred, Kampoh, Twumbee, Patrick, Ike, Pizzaro, JJ, Stephen, Eric, Clara – Other awesome people, fellow teachers, and friends


This is my home and my family while I am here. This is my boat. My crew keeps me afloat.