R.I.P. Eric's Headphones

Hello World!!

Well first things first --- I have fully recovered from malaria, hooray!! I got very lucky all in all. I caught it early and was able to get to the doctor before it did any real damage. So with the exception of being on bed rest for a few days having the achy joints of an 80 year old man I wasn't too miserable. I just hope that the drugs killed all the little parasites.

Even if they didn't I don't have much to complain about...my friend Kristine who I have wrote about in the past went home yesterday because of how ill she was and has been. The poor girl had some crazy mutated strain of malaria and then a Parasite of Doom (not the medical term) that has kept her in bed for like 16 hours a day minimum. She's been ill in one form or another for more than a month and it just got to the point where she needed to go home. It sucks for us -- she was a cool girl and we were all glad to have her around -- and I feel like I'm watching a soldier getting sent back home from a war after being wounded. She doesn't have the physical scars but mentally I can't really imagine how she's handled it. She has been told at one time or another that she might have the worst Africa has to offer: typhoid, malaria, cholera, strange parasites. At least if she had typhoid they would know what it was; it seemed like the doctors here were incapable of pinning down what was actually the source of her misery. I can honestly say though that she is without a doubt one of the toughest if not the single toughest person I met here. I don't think any of us can really understand the pain and frustration -- physical, mental, emotional -- that she had to deal with. So big ups! And feel better if you are reading this (you can feel better if you aren't reading too...I suppose I would be okay with that)!

In more tragic news, my headphones died. I was out on a jog and my right ear bud crapped out which was very upsetting. I've had these head phones since I was like a sophomore or junior in high school so I suppose 5 or 6 years isn't a bad run but they were like...perfect. What's worse, is that being in Ghana and all I'm forced to make any necessary repairs to electronic equipment myself...I tried to open the headphones up a bit to see if I could fix the wiring but alas...they now sit in my drawer...mangled...and still not working *sniffle*. So in the meantime, I'm going to have to find a crappy pair of headphones to get me by and I'm officially throwing a decent pair of headphones on my birthday/Christmas list (that's directed at you parents!!).

At least I was feeling up to traveling a bit this weekend...at least I did before I went. Anna, Rachel, Sammy, and I all headed out to the Akosombo Dam for a little overnight trip. The dam holds back the Volta River and is the primary source for Ghana's electricity. We set out late on Friday and didn't get into the Volta Region until dusk. I can say that the area is beautiful. It is incredibly green and lush, which is saying something for Ghana, and the Volta Bridge -- an arched suspension bridge that reminded me a good deal of the Fremont bridge in Portland -- spans the banks. The water runs fast, cold, and dark and it was fun to sit on the bridge and watch the fisherman in their hallowed out wooden canoes pull in their catches under the setting sun.

We set out early the next day to actually see the dam but of course, since its Ghana, it was more complicated that it needed to be. We drove up to the dam before being told that we had to go back down to get a permit before driving back up to the dam where we were told our taxi couldn't come through the gate and that we would have to wait for a director of some kind to show up and take us up for the tour, but of course this guy was destined to never show up, which meant that I had to get into another argument with the guards about how we were being treated, increasing my stress level and decreasing my zen!!! (Can I just say...what a fantastic run on sentence!!). The issue was annoying in its own right but more so because of the general perception that we were getting hassled because we were white (an issue I'll get to shortly). We finally had a security guard take us to the top of the dam but the tour we were supposed to get never happened and we got to snap a few pictures at the top of the dam for about 20 minutes before being escorted out. The dam itself was actually pretty cool from what we could see but I'm always a geek about stuff like that. It was no Hoover Dam, that's for sure...but the earthen walls, turbines, and spill ways were all very cool.

We left the dam to go to the nearby Krobo Mountain Reserve...at least we thought. The guide book said that the reserve/tourist aspect of the area was shut down in 2002 but had started up again....well it must have gotten shut down again cause when we arrived the only sign of any sort of organized endeavor was a run down, rotting old hut. This was after being stopped at two separate police check point with in 10 minutes of each other, both for an interminably long period. But at the point, we were all a bit annoyed and tired and decided to climb the damn thing anyway. It was nice to move around a little bit and we did come across an area that we think had some spiritual significance (Krobo Mountain is the spiritual home of the Krobo people) but that may only have been because it reminded us of Indiana Jones.

There was nothing during the weekend that we haven't dealt with before in terms of hassles, inconveniences, and having the story change on us constantly but I was more annoyed with it than usual. The issue at the moment is that I think I am hyper-sensitive to my own whiteness...which is a weird feeling to have. The thing is I don't really feel like a 'minority' per se even though I am. I feel so much more like a novelty in this place almost like the bearded woman in a traveling circus. But that doesn't change the fact that there are numerous moments throughout my days and weeks that I've been treated notably differently because I'm white -- taxi drivers trying to take advantage of me, hawkers, fruit and vegetables sellers, and shop owners all try to overcharge me because I'm white...I'm the rich guy...I can afford it. And I haven't even gotten the worst of it. Poor Holly was in the Night Market one day playing with the children (These kids are adorable and she loves them...one boy Emanuel had a fungal infection on his head and took him to the hospital, paid for his medicine, and administered it every day) when some Ghanaian guy started yelling about how a white woman shouldn't care for black children. Luckily, the women in the Night Market came to her defense and chewed this guy out but it was easily the most blatant form of discrimination that I've seen here. And its a bad mindset to get into because then you think everyone is trying to rip you off or discriminate against you and you develop almost a paranoid/irrational perspective in your interactions with people. And the worst part for me is that I know that what I've experienced frustrates me and enrages me (consequence: a lot of cabbies have been getting yelled at lately) but NONE of what I have experienced can even compare to the plight of other minorities both in the States and across the world. I think about how angry I am at these minor injustices and I feel sick to my stomach that anything of the sort goes on anywhere. Its a vexation that I can't describe and a tragedy of epic proportions that anyone should have to, least of all me.

Anyway...I am heading off to Osu, sort of a suburb of Accra to locate the UNAIDS office before my meeting tomorrow...Lord knows if I wait till tomorrow to figure out where it is I'll never find the damn thing and probably miss my meeting. So goodbye again until I have something interesting to say.

Love and miss you all!

---

---