The first days ...

In short: I'm doing great and might really start to like it here  (still fluctuates a little every day)... First 5 days in Ghana: Power outage on the first day, check. Culture shock, check. Adjustment, check. Nice people, check. Being the only white person around, check. Good food, check. Mosquito's, check :S. So far, so good  people tell me that they are happily surprised with how fast and well I adjust, yay!

Practical note: got internet most of the time during work hours (it's also 2 hours earlier here), but from next monday I'll be in the forest for at least 2 weeks.

Funny facts: (1) it turns out that I'm two-handed! I write with right and do all else with left, which is great for multitasking and a big challenge if you're only supposed to use your right hand for eating and passing items. (2) in people's private homes they always turn on the tv when there are visitors (to make sure they feel comfortable?), which is quite disturbing for the first few days. (3) The food is great, because I like spicy! (thanks to my awesome Ghanaian supervisor and her family who introduced me to a whole variety of it).

The longer version:

Everything is alright here and thankfully I like the Ghanaian food a lot! I’ve already had a real Ghanaian lunch: Kenkey. That is a fried fish, with a saus of tomatoes and hot peppers. These are eaten with kenkey, which consists of ground corn (maïs) which is boiled in a heavy compact dough. De corn-dough is wrapped and then served in the corn leaves. And yes... here you eat everything with your hands. Well, actually, only your right hand. Also, all meat and fish is served whole. Meat is cooked very thoroughly until it’s quite hard, including bones and tendons etc. Fish is just a complete fish (head, tail, fins, skin, bones), from which they only removed the organs and gills. And since you can only eat with your right hand (more about this later), I’m proud that I’ve actually managed this challenge quite well (in public!) :D especially knowing that (1) I am a flex-vegetarian, (2) I started to eat fish only recently and then normally white fish, and (3) until a few years ago had a fear for bones in the meat! Hihi. Luckily I try everything and so I have already discovered the amazing Jolof rice, a kind of spicy rice with vegetables. I plan to find someone who can teach me how to make Jolof rice and ‘gravy’ (tomatoe-hot pepper saus), so you can taste it too some day!

It is definitely overwhelming, polluted, noisy and completely different than home. And it’s not easy to find other white people or students. I realised this especially when Lucy and her husband John, who everyone calls Kodwo [‘kotjoh’], drove me through town to give me an impression of a large city and my surroundings. It’s actually quite a few kilometres from here! After that I felt so incredibly tired from all the new impressions. And I am the only white student here. The other European students have all returned home. Apparently there is one Swiss girl here since 4 months, but she’s on holidays until the week that I’m already in the forest reserve. Luckily it turns out that there is a post-graduate student from Nigeria in the room next to mine: Uyi. And Uyi helped me to know my way around this place a little, such as the ‘guesthouse’ which is sort of an empty bungalow which rents the rooms. He’s really nice and funny. 

We went to buy mobile phone credit, water and some basic foods in the ‘village’. It’s a kind of unpaved street with little houses and shops behind the back entrance of the compound, a little like the slums. People don’t have much money here.

Also, since a few years the Forig institute is actually not situated at the university compound (KNUST, or ‘the green bubble’ as we called it first). However, apparently Google Maps is not aware of this yet, so it was a surprise for me. Luckily it’s not far from here, just a ‘trotro’-trip of 60 pesewas... a trotro is a small bus (size hippie-van) in which they stuff at least 15 people. Each trotro has their own biblical motto showing on the windows, with brightly coloured stickers. And pesewas are cents, whereas Ghana Cedi is the name of the coin (like Euro for us). Uyi also showed me around at the KNUST campus, which is huuuuuge and also contains a lot of other facilities, such as houses, a medical center, sports complex and other type of schools. It was actually fun to be in a trotro for the first time, and it goes quite fast. The most happy thing was the bank though... after a few days I reeeaaally needed to get my hands on some more local money.

By the way, the day that I didn’t feel good, might also have been because of being tired and the malaria pills. Because I had a terrible headache for two or three days and I wasn’t hungry at all. Luckily I feel good since yesterday, I drink a lot of water and was able to wash my hair (cold showers only). Also, even though I really like the food here, it was nice to have a ‘Dutch’ breakfast once, with some bread, jam and coffee. Much better than the white-beans-in-tomatoe-saus from the day before that :P hihi. Oh btw, water is either bottled or in sachets, these are little plastic bags and you use your teeth to make a little hole in one of the corners so you can drink it.

Now that I’m typing anyway: yesterday I felt great and happy, but the day before was really a bad evening with home sickness. 

So, yesterday I went into town together with Uyi, after we went to the KNUST. I proposed to go to the central market, because that’s a place where I wouldn’t go alone (at least not now) and I know that Lucy doesn’t like it because it’s so busy. It was a good thing, because he hadn’t been there yet and it was a great experience. The central market is really big and extends into numerous little allyways and upstars-shops that we skipped mostly. It was really funny for us that everyone assumed that he’s a local! Apparently, if you’re a black guy on the market with a white girl, you must be local and speak Tree, the language. Since he will stay here for a year Uyi was really happy that he blended in with the locals so he pretended to understand them, but it did make it a little difficult to bargain prices when the sellers switched to Tree every time! Haha. I was happy to find an old lady who sold fresh lemons and ginger, next to a lady who sold garlic.. perfect for a strong tea! My stomach has to adjust to the spicy food and fish, so the prospect of making garlic-ginger tea really cheered me up.

And now... my main challenge... using my right hand! In Ghana, as in many countries, the left hand is considered impure. In the plain I actively started to practice only using my right hand for eating, accepting anything offered and also passing anything to anyone, but it still remains a big challenge. I know from myself that I do a lot with my left hand, but didn’t realize how much. Apparently I’m considered “double handed”, because I write with my right hand, but I use my left hand for almost all other things. For example, in the market I made a bargain over the garlic and when I wanted to give them the money my left hand was automatically the one with which I reached to them. When I saw the lady’s eyes get big with an offended expression I quickly changed hands and then she would accept it. Also, Lucy and Uyi noticed in the first days that I eat with my left hand, so I am very happy that they also noticed my improvements :D. Actually, while writing this email I had a long conversation with Lucy about all the research preparations and the first 5 days in Ghana.. she said several times that she is very happily surprised with how fast I adjust to the local ways and how open I am to try and learn J yay!

After all the information and experiences that Lucy, her family and Uyi have helped me to gain in such a short time, I feel confident that I’ll manage well here. Getting some independence really works great for me.

Well... I have written enough for now and it’s time to quickly find my mosquito spray! Luckily the mosquito net from Hannelore works very well, but still some stingy animals know their way to my precious white-girl’s skin.

Liefs!

P.S. Here is my postal address:

Saskia Sportel
C/o Mrs. Lucy Amissah
Forestry Research Institute of Ghana
P.O. Box UP 63 KNUST
Kumasi, Ghana / West Africa