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Posts Tagged ‘Ghana’

Too many men, too much time

Posted in Too many men...too much time, tagged on August 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

The past week I’ve been lounging on the beach doing absolutely nothing. Well, maybe not nothing since I’ve been fending off the amorous attention of unwanted suitors. About two weeks ago, I began to make up an imaginary boyfriend, thinking that would deter the constant marriage proposals. But how could a boyfriend allow me to travel alone to Ghana! Why don’t I have a Ghanaian boyfriend while I’m in-country? This is the logic of Ghanaian men. Ghana is either super-Christian or super-Muslim. Both religions don’t really take kindly to gay people, so I’ve been pretty closeted with locals.

I spend five days in a lovely beach town, Busua. Unlike many hotels that practically sequester tourists, I am right in the middle of this fishing village. Young men play soccer on the beach. Young girls and women sell peanuts and fruit for pennies. Men bring the catch of the day to sell to the hotel, including squirming lobsters and mammoth fish.

There is one main street and I meet many locals, including men. The constant complaining about being single and wanting a woman gets old, fast. They all want a foreign girlfriend, which also doesn’t sit right with me. There are some men I begin to avoid, or always make sure another male friend sits between me and these frisk, almost desperate men. I become friends with the hotel manager, and he is always bemoaning his single status. My friends decide to set him up and after the leave Busua, email me photos of the intended woman. He seems excited to meet her, and starts to plan their life together. I head off to another beach town, and he promises to visit me on his day off. The day I leave Busua, he suddenly starts to send me romantic texts, I am the one for him, I will make his life perfect, He will give his life to me, on and on. I almost wonder if it’s a joke since it’s totally out of the blue. After consulting with my friends on the etiquette of coming out via text, I break the bad news to him. He still doesn’t get it and continues to beg and plead with me. I repeatedly tell him not to visit me, and almost alert the hotel security guards. In a display of sheer cowardice, I leave my phone off on the day he had originally planned on visiting me, worried about getting into an uncomfortable conversation. He doesn’t contact me and the crisis is averted. However, awkward moments are on the horizon since I’m returning to his hotel next week! Fortunately, I’ll be with a friend and she’ll ensure the boundaries are crystal clear.

I laugh at the wackiness of it all. The irony is I’m finding it harder to call myself a lesbian since I’ve had so many attractions to men in Southeast Asia. But how the heck do I explain all of that to these crazy Ghanaian guys? For now, it’s easier to tell them I have a fake boyfriend or that I only date women.

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Faith in humanity

Posted in Faith in humanity, tagged on August 9, 2010| 7 Comments »

 It’s so soon since my last blog posting because I have to write about my day, share it with others. Somehow get it out of my system. I’m in Cape Coast, Ghana, one of the big tourist centers of the country. There is a beach and a national park, and most people visit the fort/castle. It’s a strange word, since it was a hub for the transatlantic slave trade for 400 years.

I psyche myself up for the visit, since I know it is going to be intense. As always, I make friends with the tour guide. He is wearing a shirt plastered with President Obama’s face. Obama visited the fort in 2009, and he was also his tour guide. I ask him what the President said to him and he replies, “Many things.” After the 2 ½ hour tour, I can’t even imagine what Obama said to him.

The tour immediately starts in the male slave dungeon. There are about 25 people in our tour group, including Europeans, Americans, Africans and Ghanaians. We feel our way through the dark, slowly edging along the bumpy stone paving. There are two small windows twenty-feet high, but they don’t provide much light. After groping our way through the dark for a few minutes, the guide turns on the light switch – he just wants us to get a glimpse of how people lived for many months. There are several rooms that housed thousands of slaves for an average of three months, while they were waiting for the ships to take them across the Atlantic Ocean.  They were kept in deplorable conditions, with feces and urine that would pile up one foot high.

The guide shows us a small cell for slaves that were troublemakers. And then he takes us to a room with no windows. It is a small room that they put the persistent agitators, a room that is deathly still. They didn’t feed people and just waited for them to die. I feel a shiver as I imagine someone sleeping on top of a dead person, waiting to die. Female slaves were kept in separate quarters, with a special entrance for soldiers to enter and rape them.

And above the dungeons, they built a Church. They sang hymns while thousands of people were beneath them. Unfortunately, religion and exploitation has a long and uncomfortable history in the world.

There were 38 slave forts in Ghana, and hundreds in West Africa. There were an estimated 12 million to 25 million slaves over 400 years in the Americas. One-third were sent to Brazil, one-third to the Caribbean and one-third to the rest of the Americas, primarily the United States. I curiously asked how much slaves were sold for, or how they valued a human life. I learned they didn’t deal in currency. It was the beginning of a transatlantic triangle – Europeans brought goods (gold, spices, used clothing) to Africa to exchange for slaves, slaves were brought to the Americas as laborers, slaves produced goods that were sold to Europe. The guide pointed to a young man, said he looked strong and healthy and he would be sold for 12 guns and gun powder. And then he turned to me, sized me up, did a quick valuation probably similar to being on the auction block, said I was young and beautiful and would garner six guns (women were worth half the amount of men).

There is a sign that states, “The point of no return.” This was the exit for the slaves onto the boats. We go out the door, and now it’s a thriving fishing port. There are men and women steps away from the door repairing their nets. They have all moved on.

After the tour, I feel like a total wreck. I stumble out of the fort, buy pear soda and walk down the street towards the fishing boats. Every few feet, a child or grown man asks for a sip of my soda. This just breaks my heart. To survive slavery, live in poverty and be demoralized into asking foreigners for a sip of soda.  

But then I meet a Rastafarian. We stand in the sun talking for a long time. He wants to start an NGO for street youth. So many children drop out of school to work for their families. We talk about politics, self-help and selflessness. He sings me a song about determination, helping others and not sitting around like a baby waiting for help. I feel renewed and inspired. Hours later, a friend’s co-worker’s brother calls me. He lives in Ghana, and has been trying to reach me for days. He wants to be sure I am doing well, and offers to have me stay with him and his wife, or he can travel many hours to come and see me. The perfect Ghanaian gracious host. Later, I am standing on the street waiting for a taxi. A car pulls up, but the driver doesn’t know my destination. He points up the road, telling me where I should stand to catch a taxi or tro-tro. He can see I don’t know where to go, and asks me to wait while he runs an errand. A few minutes later he loads my backpack into his car. Before I get into the car, I ask him how much the fare will be (taxi’s don’t have meters and you always want to agree on the fare in advance). He tells me not to worry, and I ask him a few more times but he says to wait and see. So I climb into the car. And it takes me a few minutes to realize he is not a taxi driver and I’m not in a cab! He is just another friendly Ghanaian wanting to help me. I am laughing at this discovery. An American would never drive a stranger on the street to an unknown destination. He drives me quite far to the next city, and refuses my attempts to give him gas money. He writes down his phone number, and I know if I call him tomorrow for anything he will be there to help.

This morning, I glimpsed into the total depravity of man. But this afternoon, I spoke with three Ghanaians gave me faith in humankind. I’m going to pick faith and hope every single time.

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Defiance and Endurance

Posted in Defiance and endurancce, tagged on August 4, 2010| 6 Comments »

My last days in the village were so sweet. Most of the cooking occurs behind my bedroom. I listen quietly as women sing songs while they were preparing our food. I will always remember the sounds of the village, like women humming while working, wind rustling through corn and bleating goats and clucking chickens. The village elders come to formally welcome me and say goodbye. Fortunately, two other volunteers have arrived and will carry on my work and the elders greet them as well. They present us with beads and tie them onto our wrists, reminding me of the Baci ceremony in Laos.

I head north with a friend to Mole National Park. The journey takes us two days, and I receive various wedding proposals along the way. Most of the proposals are made before men even know my name. But one proposal has stuck with me. Everywhere I go, children and girls are laughing at me. I don’t think walking along the streets is very humorous, but my presence is somehow hysterical to people in Ghana. A group of girls start talking to me at the bus station.  Later, they signal for me to join them, I thought it was to meet their mother. Instead, it is another suitor who asks my name, where I’m from and immediately proposes. I take these proposals lightly, and laugh telling him he is too young for me. He shows me his ID and we are actually the same age. So I tell him I would make a very bad wife since I’m so independent and want to do my own thing. He doesn’t mind my protests. Finally, I tell him I live in Vietnam, not the United States and don’t think he would like to live in Asia. He tells me he wants to be wherever I am.  Wherever I am sleeping, he will crawl up beside me and be very happy. Somehow, I find him to be very earnest and totally authentic. Although I refuse to give him my phone number.

Everyone always asks for my phone number! Girls I meet on the road, shopkeepers, students on tro-tros, men selling paintings. They ask where I’m volunteering or which hotel I’m staying in and promise to visit me later. I really don’t understand the culture and wonder if they really would call or visit me? I don’t know but think it’s very sweet to even make these promises.

The final leg of our two-day journey to Mole National Park is the most expensive and the absolute worst. Our tro-tro is late, so we miss the last bus to the park. We haggle for 30 minutes to take a 3-hour taxi for $70. The rear window is totally shattered, and once we hit the dirt road it starts to fall apart. Every few minutes, I have to delicately brush dozens of shards of glass from my seat. I can’t believe we’ve paid so much money for glass in my ass! It is so comical that we laugh most of the ride to the park.

The next morning, we go on a safari walk. Our guide has a rifle and I ask him why. He says it’s for eminent danger but doesn’t expand. Could be animals or poachers? We walk for hours and see so much vegetation and wildlife, including warthogs, waterbucks, bushbucks, baboons and elephants. I’ve seen elephants before, but never outside of captivity. It is absolutely awesome to watch the elephants eat, as we crouch low in the bushes. Later, we see another herd of 11 elephants bathing in the pond.

In the afternoon, we take a canoe ride. The river is a still and brown, but there are women with buckets to carry water. Our guide tells us the village uses the water for drinking and cooking, and they don’t boil the water, just strain it with cloth. Every day in Ghana, I see women carrying buckets of water and I’m just awestruck by the lack of infrastructure. I feel so lucky in the United States.

The sexism in Northern Ghana is more apparent. I’d noticed that women tend to sit in the back of tro-tro’s and men occupy the front which is more comfortable. Yesterday, I asked if the front seats of a tro-tro were occupied and was immediately dismissed with a brusque, “The front seats are only for men.” I was frankly  shocked he was so direct. So we pile into the very back seat for the 7-hour journey. And underneath our seat are five goats. They are constantly scuttling around our feet and it’s another humorous ride!

Today, we are in Kumasi, the heart of the Ashanti people. We visit the National Cultural Center and there are artisans everywhere. We talk with textile weavers, woodworkers, metalworkers, basket weavers and painters. My favorite purchase is a painting by Joel, a 32-year old wheelchair-bound man that paints with his mouth. The painting is the Ashanti symbol for the fern. It is the symbol for defiance and endurance and means, “I am not afraid of you.”

Tomorrow, my friend returns to her volunteer work and I start my solo travels. I have been travelling with friends or become friends with locals and haven’t travelled alone for many months. It feels good to have some time for more reflection. And I am not afraid.

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You Are Welcome!

Posted in You are welcome!, tagged on July 29, 2010| 5 Comments »

I only have a few days left in my village and am feeling a bit pensive. The last week I have felt particularly embraced by the local community and it is sad to say goodbye. As I walk down the road, there are many elders, men, women and children who I now know that stop to greet me. Ghanaians are big into greetings. Instead of saying, “Hello,” they say “Welcome,” a very charming and Ghanaian greeting. They love to shake hands and the handshake ends by grasping the other person’s middle finger and snapping each other’s fingers.

A friend and I purchase school uniforms, shoes, toys, school supplies an diapers and visit the orphanage.  As soon as the children spot us, they start yelling, jumping up and down and run down the road to hug us. We open the first package of toys (13 used stuffed animals for <$8). This is the biggest crowd-pleaser, even for the teenage girls, and they are all screaming with joy! The other big hit is the notebooks, pencils and crayons. Ghana is crazy about Obama and the notebook covers have photos of President Obama and the Obama family. They want us to write on the notebooks, so I write enthusiastic phrases like, “You always make me smile,” and “Be a good boy in school.” Next, they ask me to draw pictures in their notebooks, like a tree, airplane or house. And then they proceed to duplicate my drawing – so cute!

Last weekend, I went to Accra, the capital of Ghana. It is big, crowded and expensive. In Ho, the city near my town, it always costs 25 cents to take a taxi anywhere in the city. You don’t even need to ask the taxi for the price of the fare since it’s always the same. Granted, it’s a share-taxi so you pick and drop people off along the way. In Accra, taxis were $3 to $11 which is a steep increase. I’d made hotel reservations in advance and when I open the door was a bit disappointed by the dismal room. But I am more alarmed when I realize they haven’t changed the sheets. When my friend finds a used condom in her garbage we decide to leave. It’s hard to find a mid-range hotel in Accra since the city is designed for business professionals staying in $250+ hotels or budget hotels with rooms that make me want to cry. So I blow my budget and splurge on $55 rooms the entire weekend. It is definitely worth the money.

The hotel owner tells me about a witch doctor down the road. I am immediately intrigued and we go for a quick visit. It’s a full moon, and we wind through a maze of houses and onto the beach. My stereotypes were surprised to meet a young 36-year old man, instead of a decrepit old man. His name is Eleven-Eleven and I ask him about the various objects. He explains about love potions and how to win court cases. Afterwards, we sit outside by the beach chatting. I start to doubt his authenticity when he keeps proposing to me (my fifth proposal in Ghana) and his hand starts inching up my knee. Later, I hope he’s not casting a love spell on me!

A friend from Seattle is in Accra and invites me to attend a Pan-African Cervical Cancer Conference. The conference is also hosted by the Forum of African First Ladies Against Breast and Cervical Cancer. It was a star-studded event and included the First Ladies, Queens and Princesses from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Niger, Swaziland and Zambia. I am so ill-informed on the issues that I didn’t even realize HPV causes cervical cancer. Eighty-five percent of cervical cancer deaths occur in the developing world, with 20 percent in Africa. Due to the lack of prevention, screening and stigma, most women wait until they are at very advanced stages and die from preventable deaths.  There is a dizzying array of information presented by NGOs, academics, governments and clinicians. The most impressive project is occurring in Uganda by PATH. Many countries are piloting prevention and screening activities, but are challenged to get women to participate due to stigma. In Uganda, women are collecting self-samples that don’t have to be refrigerated for up to two weeks, and PATH has developed an affordable battery-operated device that tests the samples for HPV. Due to the labor market, it’s challenging to recruit and retain doctors and nurses, and the project doesn’t even require skilled medical staff.

This weekend, I leave my village to venture out for one month of travelling in Ghana. During me first week in Ghana, I’d contemplated changing my plane ticket to leave Ghana as soon as my volunteer work was completed. But now I’m excited to travel and experience more of this lovely country.

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Daily Life in Ghana

Posted in Daily Life in Ghana, tagged on July 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

Now that I’ve been in Ghana for three weeks, I’m really savoring my time and appreciating all the everyday occurrences that make Ghana so special. Wisdom is the 15-year old nephew of my host family. Many parents name their children after the emotions felt during pregnancy, and I just love hearing these names, like Courage, Joy, Wisdom, Patience and Precious. Wisdom brought me to the village Kindergarten class. When we enter the one-room schoolhouse all the children stand up and politely greet me, dressed in brown and white checkered uniforms. The teacher states the name of a verse and they recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” and “Ghana, Ghana, Ghana” in sing-song voices. Afterwards, Wisdom brings me to the road. Its seems like half the village is there working. It takes 30 minutes by car to get to my village, 13 kilometers on a red, dusty dirt road and the final 2 kilometers on an uphill rocky road. Several times a year, the village works on this last 2 kilometers. Men dig rocks with pickaxes to fill in the holes. Women carry buckets of dirt on their heads to pack between the rocks. They could wait forever for the government to help, so instead the community bands together to improve their lives.

I am in Ghana for over a week when another volunteer expresses dismay over being yelled at by children on the streets, “Yevu!” She told me it meant white, and I immediately start noticing this daily refrain from children everywhere.  Countless times a day kids are always yelling “Yevu” at me, while smiling and waving. A fellow Honduran-American volunteer is also peeved by this call, since she isn’t white! We ask a Ghanaian friend to translate yellow and brown for us, since we think it would be funny to yell this back at children while pointing to ourselves. He told us that Yevu is used for all foreigners, even African Americans, and the literal translation is “tricky dog.” Somehow, I am immediately comforted by this new more appropriate translation. 

The transportation system in Ghana is ruled by tro-tro’s or public vans. There are no timetables and tro-tro’s leave for their destination when they are full. Yesterday, it took me three hours to get from my village to town, and it’s only a 30 minute drive. Frequently, I have to wait for hours for my tro-tro to show up, and then wait longer for the passengers to fill the van.  Along the route, people get off and on, accompanied by an unbelievable amount of cargo. On the roof of the van, women load huge burlap sacks of corn and ground-up cassavas to sell in town on market day. Also furniture, generators and livestock. Besides the driver, there is another staff person yelling at people on the road to hustle up more business and collect fares. I’ve taken enough tro-tro’s to realize the premium position is the front window seat, next to the driver. They can squeeze a lot of people into these vans, including six people into seats made for three. But they only put two people in the front seat because of the driver and stick shift. I get to see so many interesting things in the front seat too. On a four-hour ride, we pass through 12 police checkpoints and I witness bribes at half of them (adjacent to huge signs stating it’s an offense to bribe police). When tro-tro’s pull into towns, the windows are swarmed by women and teenage girls selling products in metal bowls balanced on top of their heads. Passengers always share food with me, and I happily accept their offerings of smoked fish and donuts.

I go to the market to buy fabric and the choices are staggering. After I select a beautiful material, I don’t even haggle since it’s only $14 for six yards. We go to a tailor and I’m overwhelmed by the design choices. I pore through the designs and the 18-year old dressmakers are already giggling at me. One of them asks if we can be friends and slips me her phone number. Madame Regina takes my measurements. At one point, she pauses and someone from the back yells, “Yevu, have you eaten lunch yet?” I laugh and slap my stomach saying maybe I’m pregnant. This immediately evokes a flurry of questions like do I have children, why don’t I want children, etc. I tell them I’m too old now and plan to adopt in a few years. Madame Regina grabs my breast and says, “Don’t you want a baby to suck here?” The entire experience is hysterical, much like many of my experiences in Ghana. I don’t understand the culture here at all, so just try to be my authentic self and laugh a lot.

A friend and I visit an orphanage two villages away from me. When we arrive, the staff members cheerfully greet us. The kids start to arrive from school and peel off their uniforms. They each have one uniform and daily wash the dust and sweat from their clothes. At first, the children are a bit reticent with us, but soon they are laughing and playing and hamming it up. The facility is lovely, supported by a German NGO. It’s quickly apparent that although theses kids are well fed and taken care of, they don’t have any extra amenities. There are no toys and they are all playing with rocks and old metal bike wheels/spokes.  We ask them what they need, and immediately agree to buy a second school uniform, shoes, baby supplies and arts/crafts/toys. We measure each of the children’s feet on paper and they are getting excited. Most of them only have flip-flops, and they need sturdy enclosed shoes for school. There are fifteen children from newborn to 17 years old. The only babies are twins. When we are visiting, the mother is nursing them. She had premature triplets and one of the babies died. Her family is too poor to take care of the children, and she frequently visits – it must be heartbreaking for her to leave her children. Most of the other children are ages three to six years old, with three teenage girls. I can’t wait to visit next week, our arms laden with presents for these kids.

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Feels like home

Posted in Feels like home, tagged on July 15, 2010| 8 Comments »

My first week in Ghana was rough. I feel homesick and out of sorts. It’s not the language or culture, since I’ve spent many months travelling in Southeast Asia in similar circumstances. I attribute it to the total isolation. No electricity means no internet, so I’m not connected to my friends or family. It means I go to sleep when it gets dark at 7pm and wake up with the chickens at 4am. No running water means no flush or squat toilets. It takes me two days to figure out how to wash my hands! One night I stumble to the outhouse through the dark with sleep still in my eyes. I brush the grass from my legs once, twice, and then shine my flashlight down on my legs when I realize something is very wrong. There are rivers of ants everywhere. Swarms and seas of big black ants, and medium sized red ants. And they are all over my legs. I am jumping up and down, and now I really know the childhood chant, “she’s got ants in her pants!”

Ants aren’t even the worst insect in Ghana. One morning, I wake up with over 50 mosquito bites. I scratch them repeatedly. Douse them with Chinese green medicinal oil. And then itch some more. Apply hydrocortisone. And itch them again until they turn into angry red welts. Deep breathing is the only temporary cure. One day, all the village women see my mosquito bites and cluck in sympathy. An old woman leans over and lightly scratches them one at a time. It’s soothing and comforting and I want to hug her. Instead, I thank her and ask if there’s a local plant remedy. She laughs and says, “No, try long sleeves.”

My host family is very sweet, and it takes me days to figure out they are giving me the blandest of meals because they are worried about my stomach. A typical lunch or dinner is rice with a dollop of bland tomato paste. After I tell them I eat street food in Vietnam, they invite me to help make fufu, a staple of the Ghanaian diet. It’s a laborious process that includes boiling cassavas and plantains, and then pounding them in a huge mortar with a four-foot pestle. It usually takes two people to pound it into a paste. You eat fufu with your fingers served in a spicy soup. The strangest part is you do not chew fufu, just swallow it whole. This is hard for me to adjust to, so I make very small portions of fufu. My host family laughs and says I am eating baby-sized bites. The laughter is comforting and Ghana finally starts to feel like home.

After one week in the village, I crave comforts like electricity, toilets and running water and head to the beach for my birthday weekend. Seven volunteers make the trek to a wonderful seaside lodge. It’s a long bumpy ride and when we arrive at our destination, I’m laughing and dancing and skipping – so happy for a holiday weekend! I tell all the staff it’s my birthday weekend, and they promise many festivities. And they don’t disappoint me at all. There are African drumming circles at night, and they sing happy birthday in the local dialect. On my birthday, we take a boat up the river. The drums join us on a huge wooden boat built for 70. It’s the local transportation between villages, and as the drums play, the children from the villages hear the music, run to the shore dancing and waving at us. Old women climb on board, laden with baskets and bags. Young men with fake Dolce and Gabana shirts also join us, and sing along with the chants. The next morning, we walk to the beach to see the fishermen bring in the catch. Fifteen people are pulling on a rope from the mouth of the sea. One kilometer away, is the other end of the rope with another 15 people and a huge net stretches between them. They invite me to pull the rope and it’s really hard. After two minutes, I give up and they ask me if I’m tired. I show them my red palms and they laugh at my soft hands. The man leading the crew is missing one hand, and I can’t believe he is pulling away for hours and I can’t even last a few minutes. They chant as they go along, inching closer to the other rope and eventually meet. They pull in the catch and everyone is happy with the amount of fish, shrimp,crab and cuttle fish. They will sell it for 200 Ghana Cedis, or less than $5 per person for many hours of hard labor.

After three days at the sea, we go to a Monkey Sanctuary. We wake up at 6am to meet our guide and he starts making kissy-noises. The monkeys hear his call and the trees shake as they leap along the branches to meet us. I hold a banana tightly in my fist, and the first monkey jumps on my arm, eating the banana and then prying my fingers open for more fruit. I feel his fingernails scratching my skin, yelp, laugh and throw the fruit down. We travel a few more hours to Wli Waterfalls. It’s located in a tropical rain forest and we cross nine streams and lush vegetation, like bananas, pineapple, cocoa, coffee, papaya, and avocado. We get to the waterfalls and it’s huge. Just as I’m about to get into the water, we hear screaming and laughing behind us. Suddenly, a group of 75 teenagers are running up the path. They are visiting from a few hours away and the boys immediately jump into the water. I convince one of the girls to join me. She is laughing and splashing and tells me she has never been swimming in her life. In fact, most of the kids here have never been swimming. The girls ask if they can snap me (take my photo) and when I pose beside them, they ask me to take off my sarong and reveal my bikini – ha!

Today, I’m back in my village without electricity, running water or toilets. And there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

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From Asia to Africa

Posted in From Asia to Africa, tagged , on July 5, 2010| 12 Comments »

I had a dreamy three week vacation after my volunteer work. Three days at the beach in Mui Ne, Vietnam stretched into a lavish nine days. I’m travelling on a $50/day budget and my maximum hotel budget is $30 which buys me the top-of-the-line budget accommodation (air conditioning, private bathroom, TV). I’m not 20-years old anymore and can’t handle a shared bathroom or rooms that make me want to cry when I open the door and the wave of mildew wafts over me. My remaining $20 is spent on transportation, food and of course, massages! Mui Ne was an absolute dream because our budget hotel was on the beach and I’d fall asleep and wake up to the sounds of the surf. Then we’d walk a few steps to the most glamorous restaurant and pool and felt like I was in a 4-star life. Cabanas surround a pool and the interior design feels like I’m a movie star in the South of France. Even though it’s super-fancy, there is a down-home family feeling with children and dogs running around.

We get to know the Vietnamese staff and ex-pats and even get invited to the local poker tournament and receive complimentary meals and drinks. We play endless games of cards, swim in the beach and pool, read and do absolutely nothing for hours at a time. We take a break from this life of luxury for the big tourist attraction in Mui Ne and visit the sand dunes. An 11-year old girl guide walks us to the top of the white sand dunes. We each have a long piece of plastic and the girl shows us how to use it to slide down the hill. When I get stuck a few feet down, she jumps onto my back and we zoom down the hill in a fit of laughter. At the bottom, we cool off in a lake filled with lotus flowers. This respite in Mui Ne is exactly what I need, and I feel a bit sad to leave.

Next up is Dalat, a cool retreat nestled in the hills. I have to pile on every item of clothing to stay warm (one long sleeved shirt, long pants, scarf) in the seemingly freezing 60 degree evenings. In my younger travelling days, I shunned fellow backpackers. These days I’m much more open, and Tiffany and I pick up travelling companions along the way. Neil accompanies us from Mui Ne to Dalat, and the two of us go on a three-day 300 mile tour of the Central Highlands on the back of motorcycles. Neil is half-Japanese from Canada and everywhere we go people ask where we are from. I begin to tell people in Vietnamese we are hai lai (two mixed people) because everyone thinks this is absolutely hysterical and it evokes an easy laugh. It’s Neil’s first trip to Vietnam and it’s fun to expose him to new things, like the amazing fruit of Southeast Asia. First time eating mangosteen and custard apple – YUM! I get to eat passion fruit for the first time and it’s tart and delicious. After a hot morning, our driver cuts open several passion fruit, scoops out the innards into a glass, adds sugar and ice and it’s the most refreshing thing I’ve eaten in years!

Our first night, we have a homestay in an ethnic minority village. The communal village toilet is across the road and I start to wonder if this is what Africa will be like. I fall asleep to the sound of gongs from a funeral, and wake up to the squeals of pigs. We visit many ethnic minority villages, most of them have access to water through wells, and have only recently gained access to electricity. Everywhere we go, the women are working so hard. It’s the same all over Vietnam, and it’s common to see men during the day in cafes and in the restaurants at night. Women are never around because they are working. Working all day and taking care of their families at night. We visit a brick factory, and again it’s women everywhere in what seems like the most masculine job. One of the women tells me her husband also works there and I ask where? She points to the one lone man, sitting smoking and watching all the women on the line. We walk through the factory and I find all the missing men – they are sleeping in hammocks in the shade.

In Nha Trang, our threesome becomes a foursome with the addition of Michel, a Swedish-Serbian traveler we met in Dalat. The next few days feels golden. We lounge on the beach, swim, get massages, play cards, eat street food and visit the pagoda orphanage for the last time. We go on a four-island boat tour which perfectly sums up my experience in Vietnam. The scenery is gorgeous with mountains and crystal blue water. We are all packed into a small boat and when we get to each island it’s pure chaos debarking amidst the throngs of other boats. After lunch, they convert the benches into a makeshift dance floor. The band is comprised of a drummer and guitarist, who are also the driver and deckhand. The emcee starts it off with a heartfelt song with his eyes closed. A 9-year old boy sings to his father. The father sings about Hanoi. When the emcee reaches his hand down to me to dance (I’m still wearing my bikini from the afternoon swim), I am feeling it and go with the moment. He spins me around this tiny dance floor and my head grazes the ceiling. We are laughing and the audience is clapping and smiling. He goes to dip me and I’m so relaxed that when he drops me onto the guitarist, we fall into a heap laughing and I emerge without a scratch. I coax my friend on stage and he plays the guitar and sings a rousing rendition of “Johnny Be Good.” I get a bit teary-eyed because I LOVE VIETNAM.

It takes me over 48 hours to get to Ghana, with four flights, 24 hours of layovers and a near panic attack when I discover there are two airports in Kuala Lumpur and I need to travel 20 kilometers to make my connecting flight. I have a 13-hour layover in Cairo, and unexpectedly go on a day tour of the pyramids. I am absolutely awestruck by the pyramids and the sphinx and happily pose for many cheesy photos.

By the time I get to Ghana, I am feeling pretty wrecked. I collapse in a guesthouse, and when it starts to pour rain I start to wonder if I’ve made the right decision. Many of my friends and family have told me how brave I am to go to Africa and I didn’t think anything of it. My volunteer assignment is fundraising and my homestay is in a local village. I obviously didn’t read the fine print because I’m surprised to learn that the home doesn’t have running water or electricity. The house is a beautiful bright blue, with a courtyard of sunflowers and okra. They have brought a generator to watch the World Cup game of Ghana vs. Uruguay. It seems the entire village is here, with about 75 people crammed around a 19 inch TV. When Ghana makes the first score, everyone is screaming and dancing and jumping up and down with joy. Everyone shuffles out silently when they lose.

On my first morning here, I wake up feeling very homesick. But I’m homesick for Vietnam, not Seattle.

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The Heroes of Vietnam: Volunteers, Dentists and Buddhist Nuns

Posted in Dentists and Buddhist Nuns, tagged , , , on June 18, 2010| 5 Comments »

So much time has passed since my last blog entry because I’ve been jam-packed busy. I finished five weeks of volunteering in Central Vietnam, and finally have a moment to write. Well, the truth is after my volunteer work I’ve been mostly lounging by the beach since I really needed the down time. A friend recently said, “Live first, write later” so I’ve been living it up!

I divided my volunteer time between three cities in Vietnam: Tam Ky, Danang and Tuy Hoa. Tam Ky was just good old-fashioned, heart-warming fun. My days were mostly spent at two orphanages changing diapers and loving babies, teaching English to 5- and 6-year olds and playing games with older children. There was an outbreak of chicken pox at one of the orphanages and it’s impossible to quarantine children with such limited staffing resources. The kids are constantly leaving the restricted area and I’m just happy I’ve already had the chicken pox when they are jumping all over me. We also started to paint classrooms in a rural fishing village and murals at an orphanage. There was always one quiet, dedicated kid that helped with the thankless task of cleaning, scraping and priming, and many other kids that just wanted to jockey for the camera. Vietnamese children are the biggest HAMS for photos!

In Danang, I helped with fundraising and it felt like old times. I wrote 60-second elevator speeches, developed an annual fundraising plan, wrote fundraising solicitation email templates, assessed staff/volunteer fundraising capacity/roles and reviewed budgets.  There are power outages constantly in Central Vietnam so it gave me a convenient excuse to slip away from the computer and have fun. The highlight of my volunteer work was during one of these goof-off sessions (life lesson: have fun, don’t work too hard, or life passes you by!).  

One of the Danang volunteer sites is a large compound of 200 people, including seniors, babies, disabled children and adults. The residents almost never leave the grounds, except to go to the doctor or when volunteers organize field trips.  One morning, I accompanied three other volunteers to take one of the residents, Tam, to the beach. Tam is a 28-year old man with cerebal palsy. He’s a funny, sweet guy who happens to have no control of his body and is bound to a wheelchair. My friend, Tony, organized the expedition and I’d just assumed he’d taken Tam to the beach on prior occasions. The two big male volunteers lifted Tam into the van and we all chatted during the 10 minute drive to the beach. Tam said he didn’t want to go in the water and we all instantly shot that down and he finally conceded. It was another hot day in Vietnam, and the men took turns carrying Tam the 200 meters from the van to the beach chairs. Tony was prepared and had goggles for Tam, and they carried him to the ocean. When we got into the water and the waves crashed over us, Tam was visibly agitated. However, within minutes he relaxed and we were all laughing, joking and splashing water, taking turns holding Tam. It was such a simple thing and brought us all so much joy. In fact, I think the volunteers may have enjoyed the field trip more than Tam. On the ride home, it was revealed that this was the first excursion to the beach with Tam. And then I realized he had never been to the beach in his life. He didn’t want to go in the water at first, because he had never been swimming. I instantly got all choked up with the realization that Tam has lived minutes away from the beach his entire life, and yet this was the first time he had been in the ocean. He spends his days confined to a sweaty wheelchair, and must have experienced such a sense of freedom floating in the cool, salty water. Even as I write this I get teary all over again. 

In Tuy Hoa, I was honored to participate in a one-week dental mission co-sponsored by the East Meets West Foundation (www.eastmeetswest.org) and the Global Volunteer Network (www.globalvolunteernetwork.org). East Meets West (EMW) is a US-based NGO working with disadvantaged communities in Southeast Asia. EMW operates a dental program in Central Vietnam since over 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas where access to direct dental services is extremely limited. Children who suffer from poor oral health often have difficulty eating, talking, sleeping and growing properly. EMW operates a dental clinic in Danang and also conducts outreach missions in rural areas. An amazing ten-member Vietnamese dental team works side-by-side with volunteer dentists, hygienists, assistants and dental students from around the world to provide free dental services to thousands of poor children annually.

As soon as the EMW team arrived in Tuy Hoa and started to unload the truck to set up the equipment and supplies, I was immediately impressed with their operation. We were conducting the mission at an elementary school, and within hours they had transformed two classrooms into a full-scale clinic with eight dental stations and an infection control room for sterilizing instruments. The conditions aren’t optimal: it’s 95 degrees, no air conditioning, cramped spaces, and loud generators and air compressors are used to power equipment due to constant power outages.  The air compressor breaks down daily and I’m stunned to see one of the dentists in his scrubs taking a break from extractions to fix the machine.  In Vietnam, dentists learn how to repair equipment in dental school since this is the reality of their working conditions.

We see 100 children daily through two four-hour shifts, and collapse with exhaustion during the lunch hour. In the mornings, the children happily arrive, sometimes dressed up for the occasion. They’ve never seen a dentist before (and probably never will again) and have no idea what’s in store for them. Each child gets an oral exam by the chief dentist. She fills out a chart to notate their treatment plan, including fillings, extractions, sealants, scraping/polishing, x-rays and fluoride. My role is basically crowd control – seating children in the appropriate line to wait for their treatment, and then moving them along to their next waiting area.  

On the first day, all the patients are from a deaf residential school. The kids are incredibly brave, patient, learn how to decode their charts (X = extraction), and provide constant care and support to each other. It isn’t until the second day with hearing children that I realize why the deaf children were such troopers. As soon as the first scream erupts from the room, the ripple effect of terror spreads throughout all the waiting lines and many children start crying. Of course, the deaf kids couldn’t hear any screams! I start to term the treatment room the “Palace of Pain.”

I love and hate every single day of the dental mission. It is physically and emotionally draining. I have to maintain order in the treatment room and am constantly keeping terrified children in their seats and preventing them from running out of the room. We have limited time and space, so there are waiting areas outside and inside the room to expedite the process and the dental stations are never empty for more than  ten seconds for a quick sanitized wipe-down between patients. The kids on the inside have to actually watch patients  screaming, being restrained, get injections and extractions – I almost vomited on the first day after watching an extraction. I can’t imagine being five-years old, waiting for hours, witnessing the torture and being frightened of their fate. There are language barriers as well and the children are constantly asking me questions. I try to comfort kids with my limited Vietnamese, and usually just hug them, hold their hand and say “khong dao” or “it doesn’t hurt”(although I feel like I’m lying when kids are screaming everywhere). One little girl keeps trying to ask me something in Vietnamese but I can’t understand her. She runs out of the room before I can catch her and returns a few minutes later and shows me the words written on her hand: “Can you do tenderly.” 

On my second day, I peer into one of the children’s mouths during the initial exam and see fillings. I’m surprised since I thought these kids had never seen a dentist. But then I look again and someone tells me they are rotten holes in their teeth, not fillings. I can also see abscesses from poor dental hygiene which is why they are crying so hard from seemingly non-painful procedures (besides the sheer terror of the experience).  I love every day because the team is incredibly dedicated, efficient, professional and kind. I’m exhausted after the first day and have the easiest role compared to the dentists. And these dentists do this non-stop year-round!  Even though these kids are crying, when it’s all over they are so thankful and happily give us hugs and wave goodbye. I know they will probably never see a dentist again and these services are invaluable. It only costs $10,000 to conduct each rural outreach mission and serve 500 children with emergency and preventative dental care.

Once my volunteer work is completed, I head south to visit my friend, Tiffany, in Nha Trang, Vietnam. She has been volunteering independently for three months at a Buddhist pagoda, orphanage and school, Chua Loc Tho. Fifty people live at the pagoda, including 20 Buddhist nuns and 30 children from babies to teenagers. Another 80 children from the surrounding villages attend school six days a week at the pagoda because they can’t afford to pay for school fees and supplies in their own village.

The head nun is 80 years old and is always working, she never sits still. The pagoda doesn’t have any affiliations with NGOs or the government and runs entirely on donations. Local markets, businesses and individuals donate fresh produce, soy sauce and rice. Occasionally, tour groups stop by and donate money. I had thought the orphanages in Tam Ky were under-resourced, and am astounded to learn about the meager budget of the pagoda. They are too poor to cook with gas and use firewood to cook 230 meals daily. But they are so poor that they use scavenged wood from the grounds including broken branches, bamboo, and discarded wooden boards from buildings. Tiffany has raised thousands of dollars from her family and friends, including $180 for quality long-lasting firewood for seven months. I am continually amazed that such a small amount of money can have such an impact in Vietnam (you can still donate to me on Paypal!).  I’m in awe of Tiffany since she has constructed a new classroom and bathroom; dispensed medicines; and provided food, sporting and school supplies – all without the support of an NGO.

Poverty is relative, and as I’m visiting one day a friend tells me how lucky these children are compared to kids in the rural villages who don’t have access to the pagoda. I spend the morning in the orphanage, and wonder about the fate of these children that will never get adopted. Hours later, I see children playing on the street and know they are the same as the orphans, but have the good fortune to be living with their parents and have a roof over their head. It seems ironic that these lucky children probably still don’t have access to regular electricity and toilets, and are living on a few dollars a day. Every day in Vietnam, I think about how lucky I am to have been raised in the United States.

Today, I’m in Mui Ne, Vietnam enjoying a fabulous beach holiday. I need this time to decompress and relax, and am getting ready to head to Ghana, Africa to volunteer in July.

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