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Published: August 10th 2006
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Kweku helping American student Elisha sand chair
Taken just before he decided to paint his new shoes bright red! We unexpectedly find ourselves back in the UK. Claire's dad, Peter, has been taken seriously ill, and we've returned for two weeks to see him and to support Claire's mum, Janet. He's been very unwell for some years and this is the latest in a number of setbacks. Although he is terminally ill, he seems fairly stable for the moment, and we hope to return to Ghana on the 19th.
These two weeks back also give us a chance to reflect on our experiences in Ghana, and to update this blog, internet access not being that convenient or reliable near where we were staying!
Ghana is the least developed place we've ever been to. Poverty is all around, even more so than in Goa. There, mass tourism hasn't eliminated poverty in the least, but has provided many divertions away from the reality of it for the visitor. We saw absolute poverty in Goa, but were able to escape back to more comfortable and familiar surroundings anytime we wanted.
We feel privilaged to have been to Ghana before it being taken over by McDonalds and Starbucks, and being overrun with rich tourists, but being able to avoid
Peculiar Child Academy!
Near Sister's house in Kasoa the reality of poverty there makes for a much more difficult, emotional and as relatively rich travellers (compared to the local population) even guilt-ridden experience. There just aren't any tourists in Ghana. Every white person we've come across has been either a volunteer or a missionary. Its a very unusual feeling being the only white people about, and a few small children have been absolutely stunned at the sight of us! It certainly gives us a very slight taste of being in an ethnic minority, although in sharp contrast to the experience of many arriving in the UK we've faced no antagonism whatsoever.
Ghanaian children learn English by rote, and everywhere we go we hear the chant " 'bruni, 'bruni, how are you? I am fine, thank you!", white people being "obrunis". It does get exhausting being a focus of interest everywhere we go, with strangers introducing themselves and shaking our hands, or simply waving to us constantly. It would be nice at times to be able to walk around invisable and just take in the surroundings, but it feels like we're on show all the time.
The children we've met at Ahotokurom are amazing, they really are
so friendly and happy despite what some of them have suffered. We're still getting to hear some of their life stories, like the boy who was left tied up in his home, or the girl who's 5 year old sister died this year of malaria. We've both been left in tears by some of what we've heard, its been a very emotional two weeks.
Latest figures are that for every 1000 live births in Ghana, 111 children will die before their 5th birthday. Thats more than 1 in 10 children will not see their 5th birthday. Thats an obscene figure in 2006. Many of these deaths are due to malaria, for want of probably less than £1 of medicine. The children at Ahoto would receive any medicine that they would ever need, but outside though this is certainly not always the case. The boy in the market we saw on our first day almost certainly would have died if it wasn't for Sister Monica buying him medicine. We returned to his stall a few days later and were showered with tomatos to thank us for helping him (given to us in a bag that is, not pelted with them!),
Scorpion!!
Dead, luckily! At Ahotokurom his mum saying that he was happily running around at home. The thing that really got to us when we first saw him was how calmly his mum sat there cuddling him when he was so ill. She must have known how sick he was, but just couldn't afford the medicine so all she could do was hug him as he lay there dying. She seemed so calmly resigned to it.
Traditional customs reflect this high infant mortality. Babies are believed to be on a visit from the spirit world for the first seven days of life. For this time they remain unnamed and if they die they are buried in an unmarked grave with the minimum of fuss. Parents are expected to show little emotion as the spirit is believed to return again in another child. This time the spirit just didn't want to stay. On the eighth day, the spirit is deemed to have decided to stay in this world and there is a naming ceremony. This is followed either the same day, or sometime later, by the "outdooring" where the baby is first introduced to its relatives and neighbours. Prior to this, only very close family
would have seen it.
Funerals are times of great celebration. Traditionally, the body is quickly buried, and then followed often some days or weeks later by the funeral which is more a celebration of the person's life and of their spirit's return to the spirit world. Adverts are placed prominently in local papers, pasted on walls and on the side of cars. Headed "Home Call" (which has been explained to us as the spirit being called home), they show the number of souls left behind. One we have cut out and kept lists 6 children, 88 grandchildren, 206 great grandchildren and 53 great great grandchildren, a total of 353. Not bad for a lady who died at the age of 128! Many old people don't know what year they were born, so ages are often made up!
The spirits of ancestors are believed to live on, and are often consulted for advice or asked to help. Any meeting with an important person, for example with a village chief, starts with a gift of alcohol. A meeting with an ancestor is no different. The first few drops of the drink are dripped on the floor as the spirits are
believed to inhabit the underground. Then the elder leading the meeting will drink, followed by the other people present. The meeting is concluded with a few drops of water onto the floor for the ancestors who are remembered to be teetotal!
In preparation for our return to the UK, we were taken to Accra to buy our flight tickets, and then to a house owned by the nuns in Kasoa, just under an hour from the capital (compared to Ahotokurom about four hours from it). There we stayed a couple of nights before our trip home.
We still haven't taken many photos to really show Ahotokurom and its surroundings, we kept meaning to and then had to pack in a hurry and leave before the sun came up in the morning, so never got a chance to. We certainly hope that we will be able to return there on the 19th or therabouts, but obviously at the moment we need to be with Peter and Janet.
We were touched to hear that the children are missing us, and feel guilty that we had to cancel a trip to the beach that we had promised them. The
morning after we left, Sister Pat found Mariane (who's 9) sitting outside our room. Pat told her that we'd had to return to the UK, and Mariane said "I know, I'm just remembering the good times..." Pat said she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Little Kweku keeps hanging round our room too, and then when told that we'll soon return runs off around all the other children updating them!
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