Language Class

(I have a lot of somehow-pretyped blog entries from the past few months, as I get online I will try to post them. Consider any misspellings and typos a bonus - I’ve become lazy.)

Wed, 16 July 2008

“En kye; Braa ntem. — Don’t keep long; come back on time.” It’s 7:30 when I bid my homestay family goodbye for the morning. It took me many weeks to adjust to hearing their parting admonitions, regardless of my destination, as standard phrases of parting. As I walk out of the courtyard, I cast a glance eastward, towards the mountains that send this little valley town its daily dose of rainy season goodness. This morning our rolling green hills are shrouded in fog. The maize fields usually visible are obscured by a misty screen of rain. I have maybe an hour. Language class is scheduled for 8:00-12:00, so with a smattering of luck I should stay perfectly dry. Downfalls here rush in hard and fast, but rarely last long. As my gaze shifts, I catch the eye of a magpie in a nearby nut palm. I love these giant birds; they’re the black-and-white crows of Ghana. This one cocks his head to stare disdainfully at the street before us both.

This street is alive with activity, the threat of rain granting an extra buzz of electric energy. It’s early yet, but the neighborhood’s rhythm is already in full swing. Tables and stalls materialize along the roadside: you could tether yourself to a ten foot radius and still live for a month on the cornucopia of merchandise within arm’s reach. Fruits and vegetables, fish and maize, phone credits, soap, rat poison, water sachets, fabric, shoes, ice cream. Lizards scuttle brazenly between the legs of swarming goats who, in turn, are stalked by ever-present chickens. Beady eyes watch for any and all edible spoils of the goats’ movements. A dropped maize cob is set upon by a furious mess of feathers and squawking dust.

“Amma Sara, Ma kwe-oo!” The shouts assail me as soon as I enter shouting distance. I shift my water bottle self-consciously to my left hand, freeing up the “polite” right hand to wave in return. The call-and-response greetings swirl and meld around me until no one is sure where one set ends and another begins. No matter. The phrases we send bouncing back and forth, the market ladies and me, are stilted. Dusty, perfunctory, rote exchanges. The smiles and laughter that accompany, though, are not. Below the cacophony of socially correct greetings, connections are being made without a word. If I look carefully enough, I can see it happening — but too often it’s something I don’t notice until I’ve passed on by. Like watching life breathed into the world through the retrospect of time-lapse photography. I see it in the shy grins and boasterious giggles of my Small Entourouge, in the good-natured teasing from the women selling oranges… in the shuffling dance steps of a toothless old woman who shows her appreciation for my garbled Twi by grabbing my hands and whirling me around.

“Ashe bofro anopa”. I flag down a bofro seller, spending 10 “cents” on a hot chunk of sweet fried bread. After the first week of interminably long language classes I learned to plan ahead for snack breaks. Bofro and a handful of groundnuts, maybe a miniature banana or two, and my mind is able to think and learn in Twi for a few more hours. The exchange takes only a few moments; the vender stops and swings the box down off her head in a deceptively simple maneuver. We exchange coins and bread, and I attempt to move on. Too late; the seconds I spent standing still were enough to allow a fairly large contingent of my Small Child Army to gather. A few nights ago my host mother warned me for the nth time that if I don’t take my porch chair indoors at night it might get stolen. I countered with the comment that if anything were ever stolen from me, I have enough Smalls to send an army to beat the thief and rescue my stuff. She laughed, and the idea stuck. Every obruni here has their respective swarm of smalls — I, apparently, am blessed with my own Army.

“Amma Sara, wo ko ahe?” I’m going to class, I’m going to class, I’m going to class! The question and my answer is repeated incessantly as I continue down the street. An inquiry and answer that weaves through the constant greetings until it’s indistinguishable from itself. Everyone is going somewhere in Ghana — and if you’re not going somewhere at this second, you’re still going somewhere eventually. If a destination isn’t immediately apparent, the polite thing to do is ask, at least once. As the local white girl, I get more than my fair share of curiosity. A gaggle of Smalls reply, unbidden, that they are going to school as well — a fact made obvious by their faded yellow uniforms.

“Obruni, ba baaaaai!” The last echo of a dozen Smalls too young for school chases me around the corner. It’s nearly 8am. I’m not late, just on time. It has taken the better part of half an hour to walk only a few blocks - I can actually still see my house from here, if I climb up a flight of stairs to look. Between the greetings and smiles and impromptu dances; the conversation and questions and introductions and partings — I’ve walked a few hundred meters from my home to language class, yet feel as if I’ve already had a full mornings’-worth language practice. And, I hope, I’ve extended my roots a little further. Built upon a few relationships, shared a little more of myself. Found a little more comfort in my own identity here among my family of strangers.

Not long after class begins, the skies open. Shouts and squeals pulse past the windows like phantom butterflies, as disembodied shadows run to take cover. My language instructor raises her voice to be heard over the sudden noise, but class goes on despite the interruption - there are only 4 of us here, so we just crowd closer. Machine gun drops beat a tattoo on the tin roof over our heads.

Which state am I in, again?

Seriously, I’m not entirely sure. I’m spending the week in this goofy little corner of the Midwest, where OK-AR-MO meet and mingle. I’ve crossed multiple state lines throughout the day. I’m pretty sure I’m in Arkansas right now. I’m here, by the way, for a lot of reasons — but having a week to travel with my mom and middle sister is a big part of it. I’ve got about six weeks before I leave, so we’re cramming in “girls’ time” where and when we can.

I’m posting this as my Photo-of-the-<insert time frame> not because it’s a strong shot, but because I totally love it. I had fun taking it and it is the photo that “began” this trip. I took it a few days ago as we crossed the Mississippi River, from Memphis into Arkansas. My sister was driving, my mom was in the passenger seat… and I was breaking multiple laws, hanging out the back window with my camera. Fun times.

PotD: something…blue?

If I keep up this Photo Of the <insert time frame> thing, I’m going to have to come up with something better for the post titles.

Today was another long day of running errands, etc, with my mom — I’m not complaining about that or anything, in fact I really appreciate the time we’ve spent together lately. Just not much opportunity for “interesting” photography when your shopping/sitting in doctor’s offices/visiting people/driving around. Or maybe there is, I’m just not able to see it. Yet.

In any case, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Highs in the 80s, winds out of the east at 10 mph, broken clouds in an incredibly blue sky, no rain falling but the taste and smell of it in the air: the kind of weather that makes animals and people alike restless. My favorite kind. This was taken in the parking lot of Hasting’s — picked up Sweeney Todd.

Really, I’m just killing time until bureaucratic enigmas solve themselves

For the past few weeks I have, semi-successfully, combated the drudgery of existing in a 9-5 window with weekend (or longer) escapes. This last weekend I turned a trail on Mt. Cheaha into an overnight trip. It was my sister’s birthday, and for some reason she decided she wanted to go hiking too. And then my other sister decided the same. I’m still not sure why: this is not exactly within their realm of comfort & familiarity.

It was an… interesting… trip.

The drive was long…

…but the weather was perfect.

Mystical abilities to remain always fashionable extended even to the wilderness.

It was cold; we experimented with a new recipe. There was much rejoicing.

…and ultimately, I think they had a good time, but intuition led me to believe they were happy to make it out of the woods. Call it a hunch.

Practiced at the art of deception

An infinite number of conundrums continue their approach, the good and the bad coming in together.

On the good hand is the fact that unimportant mountains made of insignificant molehills have begun to lose size. Problems that never truly were make their return towards slightly more managable proportions. The bastard child of hindsight and retrospect laughs in your face.

And on the bad hand is the hurt, the pain, the bleeding that no one sees. I don’t want to hear your daggers, to know your words. I don’t want to fall into the nothingness of existence that shoves itself forward to guard against your intrusion. I don’t want to be called names and given labels, to hear the ones I love doing the same to others I love. If I can’t talk then they use needles to bleed the words out, but what they can’t see is that the words aren’t there to begin with. Their lights are too bright to see through the darkness and their words are too sharp to love.

I want to buy an island to avoid the world, to live life without interacting with it. I want to run forever while never moving again. I want to tell you everything and not utter a sound.

But what I want is rarely what I am told I need.

Unwelcome complex

There are people I need to fix, and things I want to help.

There are mistakes I want to stop, and changes I need to make.

There are lessons being learned ‘the hard way,’ and I am powerless to stem the tide.

Because the people are not me, the things are not mine, and the bad cannot be changed through my own influence - yet that never stops me from desperately trying.

…and more often than not, such desperation only adds to the downward spiral, the lessons, the flood of inevitability. The need to do all but shake shoulders and scream I LOVE YOU BUT YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE! only leads to worse. Remaining powerless against it all, and still the feeling that - with enough effort - resolution can somehow be granted.

…but I’m full of mistakes.

Beaten to the punch

My grandma is now a great-grandma: Sis and Josh have been officially beaten to the “first great-grandbaby” mark. And it makes me feel seriously old to know my baby cousin has… a baby. She’s pretty dang cute, though.

Paige Lei [photos]
Yes, I fully recognize the over-abundance of names and such, plenty of stalker-fodder. You stalk my family, I’ll send Gerry the Gnome after you.