Advertisement
Published: February 27th 2006
Sunset Over Teteman
The Africian Sun setting ablaze the lush forest the surround Teteman. Africa: The Complete Experience
The past two weeks have been a mix of the greatest and worst aspects of traveling. Setting up a library in such a beautiful and friendly place as Teteman is one of the memories we will cherish. Throwing up repeatedly on the ride home will be, unfortunately, another memorable moment. In addition to some bad fufu it looks like I (Ryan) finally got the completion of any African experience: Malaria. Before our mothers worry much, it really wasn’t that bad and I am fully recovered and already looking for more trouble. Malaria may not be just the common cold, but it is very, very common and the doctors are extremely used to it here. The doctor hardly looked at me before saying “Oh yea, malaria”. Well, I’ll get to all that later. So now we are back in Kukurantumi taking it easy. We have some amazing pictures of Teteman to share, so we will start with the good part first!!
Teteman The small village of Teteman is situated high up in the mountains of Ghana, isolated from the western technologies that inundated the communities in the valley below. The climb up is
Enjoying the Sunrise
This was the front porch of our accomidations in Teteman. Check out the view behind me, you can see over 30 miles into Togo. I am wearing the Ghanian shirt that was given to me as a gift my the community of Swefi-Dwunasi. so steep that the lorry carrying all the books could not quite make it, requiring several trucks from neighboring villages to come and help. Once you have made the climb up to the town you are instantly rewarded with rich views of lush mountains and valleys that extend 30 miles to Togo. Teteman is also a throw back to an older way of life. The houses and buildings are older (except the library) and rarely do you see a car, stereo, or a TV here.
Putting a Library Together One thing I quickly learned is that there is
so much more to this project than just getting used books to Africa. Each library is given a complete and comprehensive library. We loaded the Teteman lorry with 222 boxes containing what works out to at least 5550 books, but probably reaching well over 6,000. The books are anything but random. Kirt and Hilda separate out the books using the Dewy Decimal System. So all the books are assigned a number based on subject. The books are marked with there appropriate number with the help of volunteers in the US (Kirt and Hilda will start sorting again almost as
Working Hard
Katelyn is helping to shelve some of the 6,000 books in the new Teteman Library. soon as they get home, so those in the Akron area…). The hard part is making sure all the libraries are as complete as possible. In Kukurantumi they separated over
26,000 books into boxes marked with one of 85 categories ranging from 140 philosophy to 970 American history. When the towns come to pick up the books we load them up according to how many shelves we counted during the inspection tour (more shelves means they receive more books) and then divide that between the categories. The end result is that each library has a very comprehensive collection and is of real value to the community.
Put to Work Upon arriving at Teteman we were right at it. In order to get nearly 6,000 books shelved properly in a single day you have to start by unloading them in order. Everything needs to get organized from the get go. It not a way to make friends when you are holding a box full of 100’s and the shelving has already gone past 400. This means you have to shuffle
hundreds of books to make room (and oh how many times it still happens).
The next day the shelving
Grand Opening
This is what it looks like in the end as the community gets there first look at thier new library. begins. The library is divided into adult, children/youth, and a reference section. Katelyn and I oversaw the creation of the children’s side. Every library gets over 500 children’s books divided by reading level. Next on the list is to shelve the more than 750 non-fiction youth books. Once this is done it is up to completing what is left of the adult non-fiction. When its said and done it is well organized, complete, and it even looks good!
Rewards of Our Labors It is hardly all work and no play though. The communities we are serving are required to house and feed us. Teteman does this in style. The house we are staying in comes complete with a fridge stocked with minerals (soda), beer, and water as well as a porch that offers astounding views. Breakfast was pasta with spicy vegetable sauce, Spanish omelet, fish steaks, fresh pineapple, tea, bread, cheese, and all this is in addition the traditional Ghanaian fare (I am not sure what it was called). Lunch and dinner were both just as good.
Every library is also required to have an official opening ceremony. While this differs
from place to place, there
Feeling and Looking Ill
This was takend as we were about to leave. I think the look on my face portrays how I felt! 3 miles later it all hit. The others in the picture are the board of directors of the library and took great care of us while we were there. are a lot of similarities…for better or worse. A library opening typically includes speeches by officials, some who only just heard of the library the day before but are more than willing to come and give a speech about how they helped make it happen. Their speeches are typically self-promoting and if we are lucky we may here a little about the library during their dissertation recitation. The trade off is getting these big wigs here helps the town gain exposure and can bring regional attention to the new library. They get a political platform and back slapping, we get the word out to the public the library is here.
The speeches are separated with traditional singing, dancing, and drumming. And of course speeches and music means that nothing less than a P.A. system as high as the library itself (this is regardless of the fact that everyone present can here without a microphone).
This is the Part Where You Will Not be Jealous Anymore The festivities came to a end and the closing prayers are said. We were on our way. We made it about three miles before I realized this was going to be
Katelyn and Junior
This is Katelyn with her new found friends. I just have to make sure this one doesn't make it into her luggage when we leave. a long trip. I broke out in a fever, nausea, and body aches. We stopped in a clinic in a near bye town who helped to bring my fever down for the trip back (free of charge thanks to the town Teteman). Still the ride was pretty miserable. Aches and pains mixed with an occasion vomit here and there for some spice.
We made it back to our good old’ St. Josephs Hospital, where Katelyn had gone just last week. The doc took on look at me and said the magic word “malaria”. Since this was my first time he recommended I stay for while to keep the nurses company. They got me hydrated and brought the fever down in no time. I was sent on back home but had a rough night in Kukurantumi. This turned out just to be a reaction to the malaria meds. So they kept me for a couple more days for observation and for a little I.V. antibiotics just play it safe. While not the best of times it could be worse. There was an older American women two doors down. She was on her way out of Ghana when he trip over a box and broke her hip. She had a hip replacement surgery here!! That attests to the high level of skill and capability of this hospital.
So the story goes something like this: I got bit by a mosquito at some point and the malaria parasites were running around inside me. This is pretty much unavoidable in much of Africa. We take Lariam once a week to help kill the little buggers. However when I had the suspected bad fufu (fufu itself is safe, but the last process is made with water and we suspect they probably used the local tap) I got your run of the mill Traveler’s Diarrhea (TD). The TD in accumulation with working to get the library running weakened my immune system just enough for the malaria to throw a party in my gut. Katelyn came out untouched since she was already on antibiotics from a TD bout the week before. Kirt also came down with the same thing, but he has had malaria many a time so it did not affect him as quite much, though he was still pretty miserable for a day.
In the end I promise mom that I am doing better than ever. Now my immune system will have a natural resistance to malaria as well, so I am actually kind of fortunate to get it where great care was available.
Plenty of Time to Kill During my time recovering I grew very fond of the radio that Dave Crum got us for Christmas. Everyone commented that it was a “very beautiful” radio. Our neighbor, Yaw (He says hi Elle) was brought in to keep me company through the nights. He too fell in love with the radio. Unfortunately his favorite program seemed to be on every morning at 4 a.m. “Sleeping in” is NOT a Ghanaian thing. I pasted the rest of the time with excessive dreams about fresh salad bars and Don Pablo’s.
My first night back in Kukurantumi again was interesting. Now that I was completely healthy and had no 4 a.m. radio programs, I was ready for a full nights rest. Well this happened to be the night of the all night Christian Sing Along at one of the local churches. As I have said in the last couple blogs, no party in Ghana is complete with out a big P.A. system. Not even ones that last until 5 in the morning. It was loud enough to be heard for miles!!! Well I had slept too much in past week anyway.
Stay Tuned Till Next Time Our next blog should really be a good one. We are headed North once more to the towns of Mim and Ta’am Puraam. We are promised a hike in the jungle at Mim and will be stopping by Mole National Park where baboons, hippo, warthogs, elephants, white tourists, hartebeests and other such charismatic mega-fauna roam. We will also see one of the oldest mosques in West Africa. The mosque was built in Sudanese style with mud and sticks and dates back to 14 or 15 hundreds. Tune in next time….
Advertisement
Tot: 0.203s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 10; qc: 61; dbt: 0.1018s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mintri
non-member comment
Ryan, on top of all the pain that you've been through, you forgot to mention that you still had to keep up with your blog; I really know what you mean by feeling ill in a warm country, it did happen to me in the past, not a very pleasant experience but you'll laugh about it when you come back home (I don't know when but I guess you will) Good work guys, you're doing a great job. Now, can you tell me if all the books are in english or are there any other languages involved, let's say french (yeah!) or any local dialects ? Katelyn, take good care of Ryan and take care of yourself too of course, nice to read you again !