"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.

BECE: Because Education Creates Epportunity

BECE’s are the entrance exams which students take at the end of Junior High School (JHS). Their scores determine what Senior High School (SHS) they will get into. In America, this is what I would consider the equivalent to taking the ACT or SAT for college, so it’s really important.

Before I go any further, here is a quick rundown of the school system in Ghana:

· 2 years kindergarten (KG1 and KG2)
· 6 years of gradeschool (Primary 1 through 6)
· 3-4 years of JHS (Forms 1 through 3)
· 3 years of SHS (Forms 1 through 3)
· Then University, Polytechnic, or Teaching College

Ghanaians are in school for a very long time…about an extra 3 years compared to America. So while SHS is still considered “high school” it’s actually more prestigious and difficult than most universities, and after completing SHS, you have the qualifications for a good job.

My observation during the weeks leading up to these BECE’s has been mixed. Somehow, Ghana becomes Korea during the month of April. There is no rest for the children, unless the child just don’t care. They take mock exams every day, attend after school lectures, and even get tested during the weekends. For some of the more rural or less disciplined schools with less disciplined students, this month is a game of catch up where teachers drill students day in and day out, trying to get them into shape after a year of laziness, goofing off, or skipping classes to go the farm. Form 3 in Besease was caned everyday for a week because of their poor performance on the National Mock exams. Including the best students. No one was spared. Even their parents were brought in to witness the caning, as a way to encourage the parents to encourage their kids. Or at the least, to encourage the parents to take better control of their kids (because some these kids just don’t care and defy their parents at every opportunity).

Ghana is developing. It is at the interesting stage of development where opportunities are beginning to arise for those educated and driven enough to harness them. Hence this push for education. For some people, the score received on the BECE’s can determine how their life will turn out. Sampson’s 15 year old kid brother, Rockman (coolest name ever), has to be one of the smartest kids I know here. He has taught me more Fante than anyone else and attends a very prestigious school on a scholarship. And he has been drilling himself to death. Literally. Sometimes he doesn’t eat or sleep. His dream is to study outside Ghana, and if he doesn’t perform, that won’t happen easily.

So to my serious students living in a Korea-Ghana, I wish you all the best on your exams this week. Kick ass. But don’t kick your own ass trying to kick ass. Remember to take care of yourself too. Because test scores can only bring you so far, especially in a country full of petty corruption. Sometimes it’s your creativity, critical thinking skills, networks, and gumption that get you the places you need to be.

The Toilet Bowl of Life

Strangely, though Besease is really only a hop, skip, and a 10 minute taxi ride due north from the ocean, I rarely go. In fact, a lot of the students and kids in Besease have never been to the ocean. Last winter a volunteer came and organized an excursion for the kids of Star of the Sea School to visit the local College in Komenda (which happens to look like a magical paradise surrounded by exotic jungle trees, perched atop a small cliff overlooking the wild sea). It was the first time that many of the kids had seen the ocean. Only three of the kids among the group knew how to swim. Can you imagine living so close to the ocean, but never going to enjoy it?

I miss swimming. It is my favorite form of exercise. I feel like when I am in Ghana, I don’t exercise much at all. Not like I do at home anyway. At home, I take night walks alone or with the dog, but here that would be considered dangerous for a young woman (especially a white one…I glow at night, so it would be easy to jump me). I go hiking in Minnesota, but in Besease the land isn’t for hiking, it’s for farming. I don’t own a bicycle, and the one that Star of the Sea owns has been used and abused so much over the years it is now just something to look at. If I had a bike here, I would bike everywhere, especially because I dislike running. So one day, feeling rather potato-like and restless, I begged some of the teachers to go to the ocean with me for a swim. And George, my really good friend in Besease, graciously volunteered himself.

George and I immediately had a disagreement when we arrived at the sea. I wanted to go off to the west, toward Komenda college, where it’s hardly populated and very few people swim. Because when I swim in Ghana, I get stared at and the young men bother me, and I just felt like being left alone for the day. But George, being a man of old-time tradition and a good friend, said that area was too dangerous for swimming and insisted we stay where all the people were, nearer to town and the fishing boats. He couldn’t have me drowning. “But I am a good swimmer!” I complained. “But you haven’t grown up around the ocean,” he’d say. And we went back and forth like that until finally I gave in and said, “Fine, I’ll sit with you and wade around a bit.” I was, in fact, a bit miffed and had stubbornly decided to not swim. This was mostly because, by the time we sat down, a crowd of kids had already formed waiting to see what the Bruni would do, and I wasn’t in any mood to be their entertainment for the day. As I said, I felt like being alone, but being stubborn is sometimes stupid and despite your best efforts, something can crack that stubbornness in two. George was wading around, and sulking in my own toilet of stubborness alone, on the beach wasn't doing anything for me or making any points (especially since George took no notice), so I walked down to join him. And instantly, as thought the ocean were laughing in my face, a huge wave came and drenched my skirt. So I thought, to hell with it, and I plucked off my shirt. (Though I had my one piece Speedo on, I left my skirt on as well, since none of the other girls swimming were revealing their legs.) And I jumped in.

George warned me not to go too far, and as the tide was coming in and the waves were rough, I decided to obey. A few girls came and joined us, watching me, then imitating me. And despite my mood earlier, I enjoyed having them there. The kids on the beach lounged around the fishing boats or sat gathered in the sand like they were at the movies. Old men were taking dips completely naked. So as the kids stared at me, I stared at these old men, hanging out in the water and walking around naked as jaybirds, everything free to hang. Sometimes, life is funny. In Ghana, old men swimming naked goes, but kissing in public does not. But in America, kissing in public is expected, old men swimming naked (at least in Minnesota) in a public area, is not. Also, taking a dump in the ocean in Ghana is okay. Well…..it used to be. Justin told me there are now strict laws about it; however, the police don’t go striding up and down the beach in small towns enforcing their no-pooping law, so it still goes on. I asked why in the world people poop in the ocean, because it all just washes up on shore in the end, and you have to gingerly make your way across the beach. He said it was because, the kids mostly, think it will get washed out to sea. Into the ocean, our giant toilet.

(Let me pause here to wonder at humanity. Ghana isn't the only place with people who hold such sentiments. In fact, most people hold these sentiments. It is why we have giant plastic islands made of bags and bottles swirling in the middle of the ocean, caught in cross currents suffocating and poisoning some air and sea animals and turning the males into females. It is why the Gulf of Mexico has a dead zone and ships coming into harbor find themselves running into old refrigerators and other marine sludge. We treat the ocean like our toilet, sometimes indirectly without meaning to, because we don't think first. I thought we were the most evolved animals, and therefore the smartest, so with all of our education, why do we still shit where we eat? Next time you think about getting that plastic bag at Wal-mart, think of it as a piece of poop that will get washed up onto shore because although you think it might end up in a landfill and so it doesn't matter, it is estimated that nearly 80% of marine debris is blown into the ocean from the land or washed down storm drains into the sea.)

At one point a young man came sprinting down the beach, straight into the water, swam to a huge rock, climbed up, and hurled himself off the other side into the depths and dangers of the oncoming waves. Foolish, stupid, crazy, daring boy. George could see the look in my eye. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “He’s just tempting you to follow.” I wouldn’t have thought about it, but it looked fun and I had been wanting to climb that rock since I saw it. But I knew, that he knew this ocean. That that boy had lived here, gone out on the fishing boats everyday, and I would be mangled to death on that rock with the way the waves were coming in despite my 11 years of swimteam. One of the small girls swimming with me mimicked George and in all seriousness said, “He’s just tempting you.” So I stayed where I was, watching the boy with awe has he flipped himself off the rock into the danger of the untamed sea being, actually, quite a showoff.

The few Ghanaians I have talked to that can swim are curious about floating, as though it is the swimming skill that completely escapes them. Every one of them has specifically asked me if I can float. And I can, it’s as easy as breathing (or not) to me. But as I watched George, I realized it really is a skill. There is a technique: you fill your lungs with air and just relax, lie back in the water as though you are falling asleep on a cloud. The more you tense your body, the less you will float....

I think this can be said about life too. If you find yourself sinking more often than not, take a deep breath and relax. Climb on top of the current instead of struggling against it. And then you'll find, when you need to, you can float atop the toilet bowl of life. (Which reminds me of the Modest Mouse song Float On.)

Funnily, though many of my Ghanaian friends can't seem to float in water, they are very good about floating on the currents of life when need be. I, on the other hand, seem to like struggling against them. But the odd thing is, when I swim, when I float in the water and stare at the sky, all the struggle leaves me and I feel carefree, letting the current take me. Dusk started falling, so George and I gathered our things. We gingerly made our way across the beach, sidestepping poo droppings, followed by a few children. I watched other children more interested in their games, also naked as jaybirds like the old men, playing football on the beach, running and screaming after each other in the ocean. While this day my mood had been stubborn and terrible, after a good swim in humanity's toilet bowl, I found myself going with the flow again.

I am Bruni

If I am going to be honest, sometimes I really Really REALLY hate being a bruni.

Bruni means foreigner (or white person but anyone who isn’t black can be called a bruni). I’m tired of being noticed for the color of my skin. I’m tired of being pointed out and singled out. I’m tired of the assumptions that come with being white. Usually I like being different and I honor the differences between individuals, but here I would prefer to be like everyone else. I would prefer to be black. I would prefer to know how to cook every Ghanaian dish. And I would prefer, above all, to speak the language like a local. At least if I could speak the language, my white skin might not glow so bright.

I can’t even begin to imagine how Black Americans, Latinos, Hmongs, Indians, and so on feel living in America surrounded by white people who are told not to be racist, but inwardly harbor such sentiments and outwardly show it in some hostile or demeaning way. Or worse. Because at least the type of racism I experience here isn’t detrimental to my well-being.

The more I experience being a bruni, the more questions I am asked, or facts I am told about myself or where I come from based on my skin color, the more I think of the Regina Spektor song, “Ghost of Corporate Future”:

People are just people. They shouldn’t make you nervous. The world is everlasting, it’s coming and it’s going. If you don’t toss your plastic, the streets won’t be so plastic. And if you kiss someone nice, then both of you get practice. The world is everlasting, put dirtballs in your pockets and take off both of your shoes because….

People are just people like you.

Please remember this. There might be some things that are inherent to certain races, such as skin color, certain diseases, even certain practices and beliefs based on culture and tradition, but in the end people are just people like you. We might not be able to understand everything about each other, but we all love, and lose, and feel pain, and laugh. We all eat, and shit, and have sex like the animals we are. And we are all individuals with our own realities, so generalizing doesn’t do much good. Just because you're a certain color and someone else is the same color, doesn't mean you'll understand them, feel solidarity, or get along with them any better than you would with someone who is a different color. In fact, I am white but I am utterly confused by many white people in America right now. I may be able to speak the same language, but I have no idea what you are saying when you speak racial slurs or commit hate crimes.

You know? Life should be sweet. We are all people, made of the same cells and atoms. We are all trying to get by and survive, because even though there is beauty in our flesh and five senses, living in the flesh can be a struggle. So why the hate? This is something I don't understand. If your small mind can't comprehend the difference between you and someone else, that doesn't give you the right to ostracize that person. Open yourself up, set aside what you think you know is true, be a part of a different culture, try to understand. And if you can't, learn some respect or tolerance. Because it is our differences that make the human species beautiful.

People are just people like you.

Cake Time

I’ve never had Ghana cake as it turns out. I’ve had different sorts of ‘cake’ here, but not the cake. Ghana cake is used to make wedding cakes, and birthday cakes, and the like, so it’s an important type of cake. You can buy it in small, undecorated, single-servings (like a muffin) while waiting at the trotro station, or you can get it in sheets, fully decorated and layered for a special occasion. It surprises me that it has somehow managed to pass under my radar, because if you know me at all, you know I love cake.

So here we are chatting between classes at school, at the tables we drag outside and set behind the building to catch some breeze. It’s a hot day and Justin says, “I could really go for a drink and some cake right now.” And, like Cartman from South Park (minus the ‘beef’) I said, “Caaaaaaaaakkkeee.” And then suddenly it was all we could talk about. All you have to say is the word and instantly you crave it, such is the power of cake. But, as it turns out, the cake I was thinking of was not the cake George and Justin were thinking of. When it became apparent I had never had Ghana cake, there was only one thing to do: find it and eat it. Mission Cake was a go.

After school, I walked to Komenda Junction from Besease (a 20-30 minute trip by foot). Then I boarded a trotro to Cape Coast (a 45 minute ride). I walked all the way down to George’s brother’s place of work from the trotro station (15 minutes by foot) to pick up a computer from him. Then I asked him if he knew where I could get cake. But such a broad request confused him a bit ("Exactly what kind of cake?" "Oh you know, the kind used to make birthday cakes and the like."). So he walked me down to a shop where he thought my question could be better answered. A large woman sat behind a table piled with candy and chocolate and instant coffee and between the three of us, my lack of knowledge about the type of cake I was looking for, Fante and English and translation, I accidentally ordered a grand sized birthday cake complete with decoration. All I wanted was a personal sized cake, but I was in goofy mood and Janet's birthday had been a week before and Justin's was a week away, so I figured, why not? A cake with frosting was better than a cake without.

So I was supposed to come three days later to pick it up. Great! Mission cake completed. Then it dawned on me as I was reaching the trotro station to go home, that I told Justin and George I would come back with cake for them...today, right now. It was getting late. Shops were closing, the sun was setting. I frantically made my way through the maze of the market trying to find cake and found none. As I came out onto the street, I saw one of my favorite vendors dismantling her fruit stand. She saw me glancing around at all the shops, trays, and stands still opened and asked what I wanted. "I'm trying to find cake!" And like a fairy godmother, she grabbed my hand and led me into the trotro station to track down a girl walking around with a plexiglass box often seen on the heads of street vendors. The girl took the box off her head and there it was! I had seen it so many times before, but for some reason I had never bought it. In fact I'm pretty sure I thought it was meat pie. Sometimes you can't be sure about the breaded items in Ghana. I've tried to buy a different kind of cake before and instead got a savory something that had an egg surprise in the middle. It was good, but it wasn't cake. So I bought two for two cedis, and went home. Mission cake completed.

Three days later I picked up the birthday cake. It was marvelous. And expensive. But marvelous nonetheless. So that night, just after the power had gone out (a typical occurrence in Ghana), Kampoh, Patrick and I sat in Kissi and sang happy birthday to Justin. Then entertained ourselves with self-made music and dance until we felt sick from eating.

Notes on Healthcare

Afterthoughts: All I have to say is thank god for Sampson. And for Justin. When you’re sick the last thing you want is to go it alone or have some stranger help you, especially in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar language. So thank god for my friends. Thanks to Sampson for everything he did to get me to the hospital and back out. And thanks to Justin for taking care of me until Sampson came.

Healthcare in Ghana has its shortcomings (like many healthcare systems). The places and clinics I have been lack the shine and modernity of developed America, but in some ways I find it more responsive and proactive than what I'm used to back home. And the system lacks the crazy maze of red tape and paperwork that wastes so much time and resources in America. Which I don't understand at all because we use computers and many clinics in Ghana do not...how does that work? So, kudos to Ghana for that efficiency.

The only other healthcare system I've experienced was at Otago University in New Zealand. And even they score higher on my healthcare rating scale than America. So, if you find that I am in the hospital again, please, rest assured that I am being taken care of. Maybe the nurses need to work on their bedside manners and listening to their patients, but the doctors are knowledgeable, there is good medicine, and frankly I like being fed fish soup with rice for a hospital dinner more than I like being fed some microwaved airplane meal with jello at a hospital in the midwest.

The only thing that hasn't changed from all the places I've been is the waiting. Unless you're dying, you will always have to wait.

Adventures in Hospitaland

I had these grand plans not to get sick again. I was going to exercise regularly, take probiotics, do after dinner yoga, and use sheer mental strength to fight any parasites that might come my way. But less than three weeks in, I have gotten malaria and enteric fever and landed myself in the hospital.

I haven't quite been in my right mind the past few days. Within the span of three hours, I went from feeling like "maybe I just overdid it a bit yesterday", to feeling weak, to having severe body pains, to severe fever, to frequent and sporadic vomiting. I had to be carried from my room to a taxi and then wheelchaired all around a hospital and then made to stay there for four days.

 It is seriously the closest I have felt to death through an illness.

The fever did it. I could barely stand by myself. I was trying to sing the pain away or moan it away like a tone-deaf dog. And I found myself lost in thoughts of Scottish highland streams when people were asking me questions. The fever was causing me to lose my faculties and motor control, so when the vomiting racked my body, I couldn't help but urinate on myself. While leaning out the taxi door. In front of the hospital. I didn't tell anybody. I was embarrassed. I find it funny that I at least had the mental capacity to feel embarrassed, if not to control my bladder.

The funny thing about the worst of the fever was that my mind would occasionally fall into lucidity.  For 30 minutes I would cry and sing and then my brain would suddenly become alert enough to think, "You are really sick. Find the phone. Call Sampson. Say you need help." And then I would start acting on this command and fall back into delirium. When Sampson gathered me up for the hospital, my mind cleared briefly, and like a champion remembered I had all my Ghana clinic cards in my first aid kit (important stuff, as they use the cards to locate your records). My memories of that time are odd. I remember seeing Justin's face through the taxi window before we drove away, but not how I got into the taxi, or what anyone said. I remember needing to vomit and seeing a bedpan on the floor, and the extreme amount of focus it took for me to make sure I made it to that bedpan. I remember people asking me questions, and in my mind I understood how to answer, but other curious statements would come out my mouth. I remember laying in the fetal position in the taxi with my head on Sampson's lap as we drove to the University hospital. I remember getting an injection and an IV and then I don't remember anything until my head hit the pillow of my bed in the women's ward. And then I remember thinking that pillow must be the cloud bed of a heavenly angel, it felt so wonderful and so welcome.

I remained half-conscious for a few days. I would get up and shower now and then with a green bar of soap. I would poke at my food (which almost always contained fish). I would vomit. I would sleep. I woke up lucid enough to check what was in my IV bag. Metronidazole. Quinine. I remember thinking, "Why in the world quinine?" There is supposed to be a resistance to Quinine in this part of the world. Additionally, I thought I remembered reading that is was the more problematic of the anti-malarials, causing a larger number side effects and complications. Then at some point my ears began to ring and sounded like they were full of cotton. And when someone spoke to me, I heard three voices talking at once. Then my eyes stopped focusing. And around my IV injection site, my arm started to swell like a shiny buttered loaf of rising bread. I poked it and prodded it absentmindedly even though it hurt. To my addled brain, it looked like the Pillsbury doughboy.

Sometimes I would get a strange nagging sensation and wake up to find students at the foot of my bed praying. A few girls brought me fruit and asked it it would be okay if they said a prayer over me. And though I'm not religious, I let them. I don't know if it was more for their sake or mine. Becasue although I was really sick, my mind never thought of turning back to religion or God or prayer, like many people in times of trouble find themselves doing. However, there was comfort in knowing someone was wishing me good health. And after the prayers I noticed this poor fragile woman, who couldn't be much older than me and who was in the bed at the end of the ward,  watching me. One day her skinny arm grabbed mine as I was going into the bathroom and she gave me her bananas, telling me I needed to eat more fruit to help the vomiting. Then the next day she gave me her bottled water and told me I shouldn't drink the sachet water that is so common in Ghana. She also tried to give me her toilet paper roll since I had none and hadn't been lucid enough to remember to bring money with me to buy any of these things (since the hospital doesn't provide soap or toilet paper). When all was said and done, she was in far worse shape than me and we could barely speak each others' languages, but she gave and helped nonetheless. I haven't met anyone like this woman in a long time. Selfless is the word that comes to mind. (When I was finally discharged from the hospital, I came back the next day with a bag of food and said to her in Fante, "God bless you. Please get better." I don't know what was wrong with her, but she was in such pain, the look on her face nearly made me cry.)

My arm wouldn't stop swelling. Slowly, I started to realize something wasn't right, and as I became more concerned, I became more adamant the nurses pay attention (which they weren't very good at). They finally realized, after the fourth time my IV quit dripping and the fourth time of painfully forcing it to work, that the IV needle had poked through my vein and was pumping into my tissue, hence the swelling. So they pulled it out and switched arms. But I didn't want the quinine anymore. I had the suspicion it was causing problems, an allergic reaction called cinchonism . Despite this, I got the full treatment and the kind words, "It'll be okay." But my eyes and ears got worse. So when the doctor came by on his one-time-a-day visit and noted I was having an allergic reaction, I scowled at the nurses (despite the fact they had a hand in saving my life).

Four days has felt like a strange eternity. It is my first day since wednesday night being able to get up and walk. I found the door to the women's ward and escaped outside for a bit. I feel like a baby toddling its way in the world. Im dizzy, my vision is blurred, my ears are ringing, but I found a patch of bouganvillea that I coudn't stop touching and a spot of sunshine to sit in. I feel like a baby penguin. Don't ask why. And I feel this strange calm. Right now everything looks nice, brand new, and just plain wondrous. What a curious planet we live on. What a nice place. I completely and totally own this moment right now, it is the only one that matters until the next one comes. Be here now.