December Holidays

12-30-2014

At the beginning of December, (and Hamatan), Natasha and Emmanuel hosted their transplanted  American Thanksgiving feast with their extended family, who love it and ask about it.  We celebrated on December 5^th with 40 guests.   Natasha wisely made food assignments.  We had ostrich and pork kebabs, pizza, pork and rice, salad, mashed potatoes, rolls, cream of mushroom soup, pie and ice cream.  Michael, Sam, Mariah and I made five pies:  banana cream, coconut cream, chocolate cream, pumpkin and lemon meringue.  

  

In preparation, Natasha took me shopping at an “obroni” (Twi for “white-man”—as opposed to
“bebini”, which means black man) market—a beautiful, American-style, overpriced market that is so busy with expatriate business that we could hardly find a parking space.  (Natasha commented that this is the store where we, in true Obroni style, see and ignore each other.  If Africans meet each other in America, they visit and invite each other over to their homes.  No so with the Obronis.  I wonder why.)  Cream was about twice the price as in Alaska; I just closed my eyes and paid.  (We also found and bought mousetraps—a huge coup, as we have been searching for traps for months in vain.  Here we also found Obroni hair conditioner and European cheeses.  You pay, but at least you can find it.)

Family  began arriving around 11:00 a.m.  Several of the women began assembling and grilling the kebabs; first pork, then ostrich.  Food was placed on long, vinyl covered tables in the school assembly hall.  We started feasting at noon; everyone on staff was invited, too, from the Ghanain cook to the college registrar.  As we ate. we asked everyone to share what they were thankful for.  Health, family, friends, spouses, the gospel.  Some English I could hardly understand.  Others spoke in native tongues, and had to be translated.  After the meal, while the adults digested and talked, the children, hosted by Mariah and another family teen corralled the 10 or so children and prepared a short Thanksgiving play.  Joyfully the children played dying Pilgrims and feasting Indians in turn.  We laughed as Grandpa protested, “Now you are alive again!”  Then it was time for pie and a huge tub of ice cream.  Everyone wanted a taste of every kind of pie—we got good at making very thin slices.  We lingered over the dessert, then cleaned up, chatted more, and families began to go.  A lovely holiday.

Making Ostrich kebabs for our Thanksgiving feast

On Christmas Eve, Natasha and I and Mariah and Sam spent much of the day at the chapel preparing for the evening Ward Christmas party.  (I found it interesting that the ward leadership felt that this was the perfect time for a ward party—no one really objected that it intruded upon their family time.)  The menu included Froggy Yam—originally a dish made with frogs--we substituted chicken, sobelo: a spicy drink made with boiled hibiscus leaves and lots of grated ginger, tiny hot peppers, sugar, cloves, and allspice, jalaf rice—very like (and probably the origin of) jambalaya and fried spicy pieces of plantain.  We cooked the food under the spreading branches of mango trees in front of our tiny chapel in huge cauldrons over coal pots—charcoal cookers about 2 feet tall that put out enough heat—if constantly fanned—to boil vats of juice or cook a cauldron of chicken.  It took us—about 10 RS sisters and several youth who helped with the many babies—almost the whole day to prepare the vegetables, fry up the yam, the plantain and the chicken, cook the rice and the sobelo.  It was a pleasant time to get to know the sisters and to prepare different kinds of food.  Light was off—no electrical power—but we managed to do everything without it.  I wish I had brought my camera.

Our ward chapel, under the spreading mango trees.  this is where we sat and cooked, and later, sat and ate.

In the evening was the ward party.  The men had set up chairs under the same mango trees and put up a TV/ video setup and some lights (electricity was back on again).  After a few brief words from our leaders (our high councilor taught  the round “Make New Friends”, and we sang it in four groups beautifully—though he had to tell them exactly how to sing a round first) we watched the old “Johnny Lingo” movie from BYU.  Meanwhile, sisters were busy inside, getting the food ready.  Suddenly lights went out!  Nearby, someone launched a few fireworks.  We oohed and aahed (though one toddler screamed in sheer terror), fumbled for lights and got ready to attach the generator when—hooray—light back on! (Natasha told me later she suspected the fireworks shooters had put out the neighborhood lights so they could see their display better.  Perhaps.)  Then, very like the Tongan farewell party in the movie The Other Side of Heaven, we all sat together and watched another movie: Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration.  Bottled sobolo was distributed, as was food, served in take-out style styrofoam clamshells.  It wasn’t light enough to see what we were eating, so every forkful was an adventure.  I was sleepy in the dim light and dozed.  Sam stretched out on the chairs and slept with his head in my lap.  Halfway through, at 8:30 p.m., the bishop paused the film, thanked us for coming, said we could stay and watch if we wanted, but it was late, and time to close.  Suddenly, pitch blackness:  light was off again.  Perfect timing.  Out came the big flashlights and we all cleaned up and stacked chairs, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and went home.

Our Christmas tree that Mariah painted--beautiful--with Dante and Iris and Sam

Once home, the children were jazzed—it was Christmas Eve, after all—so we gathered in our little family room around the Christmas tree mural that Mariah had painted, and pulled out the towels and robes and belts and sheets for a Christmas Story play.  Everyone had a part, with Iris trying on all the other costumes when it was over, just for fun.  Bedtime.

Iris and Dante in our Christmas Eve play

Sam begged to get up early:  “3:30, Mom, please?”  I wasn’t interested, but he persisted, and we agreed on 3:45.  However, in the morning, the power had gone out again, so both kids slept in a little.  They came in after 5 to waken us with a silly Geico commercial, and we came out to—snow!  During the night, Sam and Mariah had hung paper snowflakes from the family room ceiling.  It was beautiful.  Our lovely Christmas present from Sam.  So sweet.

We hustled together the gifts we had made for Natasha’s family and quietly put the box of them on their porch in the early dawn—but they were still there when we went over and hour later to start breakfast.  The children were still sleeping—busy late night the night before, so N set up her gifts with ours, and we got to see the children get up and see the little pile.  They were so excited!  They opened their gifts, then we waited for Opa to dress so we could watch them open the things from us.  So fun to see their happy smiles—I loved seeing Iris’ face when she saw the colorful scarves we had for her.  Dante spent the rest of the day kicking his soccer ball to Sam, and Raina enjoyed chasing her smaller ball.  At dinner, we cooked with Natasha’s new pan.  (Emmanuel’s gift will come with the interns this coming weekend—some lectures on tape.)

Sam played Santa.   Though he had no money and little more than paper and tape, he prepared nice gifts for everyone—an essay for Emmanuel, a Styrofoam bat for Dante, a special Styrofoam box for me, writing tips for Mariah, an origami jumping frog for Natasha and science quotes for Dad.  For Iris, he rescued, cleaned, and returned her lost doll from the roof.  For our little rooms, he created a magnificent “periodic chart” of family quotes (“whobody ate my cookie?” “Eggs, milk, wheat, Nutrition!” etc.)  So fun, so creative, so amazing.  I felt humbled by his persistence and desire to make Christmas wonderful for all of us.

We cooked up poloo for breakfast (a local delicacy—a kind of deep fried biscuit dough with lots of shredded coconut in it. Mmmmm.) and had a lovely day eating treats (banana cake, roasted peanuts and leftover poloo) and playing Frisbee, Quirkle, and bananagrams.  Power was out most of the day, so when it came on in the evening, we cheered and enjoyed the light during the evening by watching a rare movie with popcorn.  Even went to bed early!  Really a delightful day.

Sam after too much holiday cheer

Powerless

Jan 3, 2015

Caught with my pants down.  Again.  And I knew it would happen. 

ECG—Electric Company of Ghana—the company everyone in Ghana loves to hate.  So capricious that you must always remember that, though you have electricity now, you may not have it tomorrow—or in an hour.  The power goddess may be your friend or your enemy today.  Who knows?

And I got too comfy.  Since Christmas night we have had power all day and night, every day, for more than a week (only a few odd minutes of light off for eight days)!  Wow—I don’t think we have experienced such a run the whole time we have been here.  So I let my guard down.  I left my laundry unfinished overnight in the washer—I finally had to rinse it by hand this afternoon.  The refrigerator doesn’t have enough water chilling in it.  Luckily we ran the pump last night so we could have water in our apartment, otherwise, we would be hauling buckets to flush, shower and wash.

We knew it would happen.  A run like we have had would never last.  Sam has been commenting on that for a few days now.  I knew it was true, but I didn’t act.  Oh well.

The week before Christmas was more true to form for ECG.  Power was off and on sporadically, sometimes for days at a time. No power on Christmas Eve in Dodowa, the nearby town.  No power for us until 3:00 p.m. on Christmas Day.  Thankfully, we have a generator, but the generator is very expensive to run, and some tasks, such as making soy milk, require full electricity.  And, of course, we need power to run the pumps that get water to the farm.  Finally, Emmanuel called the power company office.  “Hey, we have been without power for more than a day!”  he complained.  “What is going on?”  The bureaucrat checked.  “Oh,” he replied, “we turned power back on to your area some time ago, but it looks like we didn’t get it all the way to you.  We’ll get it back on for you soon.”  Sure enough, power came back on in a few minutes.  A few days later, Emmanuel had to call again.  “Why is the power off again?” he queried, “our area needs very little, yet you keep turning us off.”  Again, the electricity came on a few minutes later. 

Today, however, we have been in blackout for more than 15 hours, Emmanuel has called twice.  Still no light.  Somehow, it makes you listless.  You cannot think of a task you can do without power.  Often, when it comes on, I realize that I could have hand watered our small garden plot, or done some simple cleanup or food prep.  But without electricity, everyone—farm workers, kiosk owners, and I feel—excuse the pun—powerless.

Ghana is powered by one source: a hydroelectric dam on the Volta River—a huge river/lake that runs the length of about half the country.  There are discussions about how ineffective the current setup is, or how other power production companies have been put off, but over the years, nothing has changed.  Michael has decided that the inconsistency of electricity is a major reason why Ghana doesn’t progress.  You cannot plan, you cannot predict.  You can only prepare against the time that you will go light out at the least opportune time.

We read in the paper that the Ghanaian government wants to sell ECG.  On principle, I think having a corporation running it would make it much more efficient.  However, if I had the money and the skills to acquire such a company, I wouldn’t be interested in buying.  The government here is so unpredictable and corrupt that the purchase would be fraught with dishonesty.  And owning such a hated company is a death wish—recently we heard that when the current political leaders had a convention, ECG turned off their power because the leaders hadn’t paid their power bill for last year’s convention.  Everyone laughed about it, but I wonder if someone was threatened or hurt because they chose to challenge, albeit electrically, the leaders.  The censored press wouldn’t report any backlash.  If a corporation had been in charge, certainly heads would have rolled.  There is so much animosity toward ECG, that despite the peaceful nature of Ghanaians, I could imagine the CEO’s life being in constant danger. 

Perhaps there is a more sinister reason for wanting to sell.  We spoke to a local pilot recently who noted that the dam is currently lower than he has ever seen it in the 20 years he has been flying over it.  As we are in the dry season, with no rain until summer, he predicts many power outages through November, when the dam is typically refilled.  I hope he is wrong.

Meantime, we must make sure our bathroom water buckets are filled, the laundry isn’t left overnight, electronics are charged, flashlights all have batteries, internet tasks are completed, food is prepared or refrigerated early, and little ones dressed for bed before sundown, because light off may strike at any mome

  

The Ostrich

Natasha and Emmanuel told us an incredible story about an ostrich that they raised in the spring and summer of 2014.  Apparently, Emmanuel's mother likes to try new projects, and decided ostriches would be an interesting new kind of cattle. Ostriches eat only grass like geese, yet grow to produce massive amounts of red meat. They are raised in male-female pairs as the females have a calming effect on the males.

So a pair of young ostriches was purchased and brought out to the Aiyukama farm.The ostrich corral was in the cattle and aquaponics enclosure with brick walls on three sides and a strong wooden fence for the fourth. Though the pair of ostriches survived the trip, the female didn't live into adulthood--she was kicked by a cow and lamed, causing an early death.  The male grew full size-seven feet tall with a huge body and strong legs with clawed feet.  He was very gentle when young and was given liberty to wander the cattle enclosure with the cows and geese. But as he grew, he was occasionally more aggressive.

Ostriches are said to need regular human contact and kind attention to keep them friendly, but the farm workers were intimidated by the growing animal, and took to throwing stones or sticks to scare it away if they needed to work in that area. However his behavior was not often aggressive, and most of the time it just grazed with the geese.

Apparently, ostriches have a five-day memory—you mistreat one, it will be five days before he lets you approach him again.  So relations, as they say, began to break down.  A security man was knocked to the ground and kicked by the bird so hard that a doctor checked him to see if he had broken ribs.  Worse, a young farm worker, cleaning up the cow manure, was attacked more viciously—she was knocked down and kicked multiple times.  Four men, bearing sticks, came to her rescue, driving away the bird and possibly saving her life.  When she was taken to hospital, she told nurses that she was attacked by a large bird (she didn't know the word for ostrich in the local language). Nurses frankly didn't believe her, telling her that she needed to report to the police that her husband had beaten her badly. Needless to say, after these incidents the ostrich was kept in his own corral behind the strong wooden fence.

The wooden fence surrounding the ostrich's corral

Then the ostrich "went into heat," his beak and neck reddening , his temper flaring, his strength increasing. One day during a school vacation, Natasha, Emmanuel and the three children came out to the farm and went through the chain link gate into the cattle compound to check on the aquaponics plant. After looking around a bit, the children became restless and asked to walk somewhere else, so Natasha led them out of the enclosure while Emmanuel continued to work with two farm workers on the aquaponics system.

Suddenly the ostrich kicked down the wooden fence and ran at Emmanuel, holding his wings out beside his massive feathered chest.  Thankfully, the moats and gates of the aquaponics area deterred the creature, who then ran to the fastened chain link gate, kicked it down and ran out onto the school campus.  Emmanuel was terrified-where was his family?  Playing by the fountain or the basketball courts?  Were they in his office or out by the kitchens?  Would the bird attack them or run away?  Emmanuel watched the bird run out into an open field behind the classrooms, then out an opening in the walled compound.  His family was nowhere in sight.  Later, to his great joy and relief, he found them happily reading in his office library.

The chain link fence he kicked down

 

Once through the fence, he ran along this parking area to the fields beyond.  Emmanuel's office is in the building to the left.

But there was work to be done—immediately Emmanuel and his staff called the police, the nearby school, animal control, and all the neighbors.  A dangerous ostrich was loose.  People needed to protect themselves.

Animal control wanted to capture the creature with sleeping darts, but where to find him?  They searched unsuccessfully for three nerve-wracking days during which time the bird terrorized the local school and some neighbors. The family knew only too well the damage it could inflict, and feared the worst.  Finally a local hunter asked for permission to kill the menace. "Yes, please!" replied the Opare family, and he began tracking.

Eventually he came upon the exhausted beast, resting in the grass.  He shot it in the chest-unfortunately the least effective place to shoot an ostrich. The bullet bounced off the bony, leathery chest area, and the enraged ostrich charged.  Incredibly, the hunter kept his cool, and fired twice more before it lay dead.  Thankfully, no one had been hurt.

The hunter was rewarded with a generous share of the good, red meat.  The remaining meat filled two empty grain sacks and was happily stashed in the Opare freezer to be savored at family dinners.

Now months have passed, the excitement has died down and the question arises:  Shall we try ostriches again?  However, Natasha and Emmanuel, with memories longer than five days are adamant: NO!

Hamatan

December 10, 2014

It is the Hamatan—the Ghanaian winter when hot, dry winds from the Sahara blow south, bringing flies, haze and disease.  Temperatures get hotter during the day, rain is rarer, and the earth  is parched and cracked.  However, because it is winter, mornings are cooler; this time of year people actually don jackets or sweaters in the early hours.

The skies are hazy from red dust and smoke— breathtaking red sunrises and sunsets everyday keep me running for my camera.  On the other hand, this same sun causes naturally occurring fires in the dried vegetation everywhere.  The nearby hills, once sparkling in their nearness, are cloaked in dust.

Apparently, the 1969 Hamatan brought particularly bad pinkeye—the locals call it “Apollo” even yet, because this condition was blamed on the moon landing of the same name.  My grandchildren stayed home from school for several days in an effort to avoid contracting it from multiple infected classmates.  Even though parents were instructed to keep children home if they had it, most with Apollo simply donned sunglasses (to hide their infection?) and came to school anyway.

Snakes, who love the heat, are said to be more active at this time—better to wear shoes, and not the ubiquitous flip-flops or “slippers.”  Watch where you walk, avoid long grass, and certainly don’t put your hand into a hole!

Skin is dry, lips chapped, dust is on my floor, piano keys, face.  Asthmatics struggle to breathe in air heavy with sediment and smoke.  Sunrises glow second-coming scarlet.  Rare rain.  Hamatan.