More Culture Stuff

In my first blog, I know I talked about a few culture things that I had learned, but since I've been here for about 10 days and I've been living in a rural community for about 6 days, I've learned a lot more that I'd like to share!  Some of these things I've already mentioned, but for some reason, pictures are uploading a lot faster so hopefully my pictures give you a better idea of the culture!

Mud House

A House in Process

 In all of Africa, it is extremely common to see homes that are half built.  We have learned that people do this because they build their homes as they get money.  The homes build of stone are better quality and more expensive, and people basically build them brick by brick.  It's funny because it reminded me of my daddy's cabin.  He is just building it as the money comes hahaha.  Except these homes can take 10-15 years to build! That's a longgg time.

Turkeys

These chickens & roosters climbed all the way up into a tree and then jumped off, which was pretty hilarious.

Steven Abu made a noise and ALL the animals came runnning, even the chickens. It was the oddest thing i've ever seen.

Like I mentioned before, there are animals just roaming the streets, especially in the rural communities.  Here in Abomosu, there are TONS of chickens, roosters, goats, sheep, a few turkeys, and dogs.  It's funny because all the dogs look exactly the same. Since all the animals literally roam around free, we asked if people just take the animals they want, or if they are owned, and we learned that people own them all.  They mark them somehow, like putting something in their ear, kind of like in America.  Also, people have a certain "call" that they do, like a whistle or kissy noises, that their animals just know, and they come running to their owners, even the chickens!  It's pretty interesting how it all works. Steven Abu, who is our neighbor and works for World Joy, did his noise as we were walking to his house, and all the animals ran towards him, like in the picture above! It was so funny! I recorded it but it would take too long to upload.

 So I know that I mentioned before that everyone carries everything on their heads, and they really do! And they start out young! The girl in this picture looks really young and she is carryinng that HUGE bowl full of a bunch of Plantains! That HAS to be heavy.  It's so amazing.  A few people from our group have tried to walk with these on their heads, and it does not look easy.  Not only does i have to be perfectly balanced, but it is so heavy! Kids start carrying things on their heads by about age 6, and I guess they are just super good at it. People carry produce, water (which I can't even imagine carrying water steadily as its sloshing around), things they are selling, laundry, and even luggage!

A woman going through Palm seeds

The school in one of the nearby villages

Most of the buildings are located outside, with a roof, and the school is no exception.  It is summer vacation right now, so the school isn't in progress, but it was amazing seeing the school.  There are just a few rooms with these kinds of desks and a chalkboard.  It is extremely dirty, too.  Can you imagine going to school in these conditions? I know I can't. 

A borehole

This is where people pump their water.  In this village, they have one in the middle of the town that everyone relies on because it is the best one.  People will wake up as early as 4 in the morning to fetch water, and will wait in line for hours.  Fights are not uncommon while waiting for water, and it is usually the children that have to fetch the water before school.   We have tried pumping the water and it isn't super hard, for one bucket, but I can see how filling up multiple buckets at a time and being a child could get very hard.

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 It is extremely common to see signs like this - advertising the next football (soccer) game.  Here in Abomosu, I think I saw 3, which was surprising because it is such a small village! Since not everyone has a television, they pay about what is equal to 25 cents to watch the football game, and football is SUPER important in Ghana.  Everyone plays, and everyone is GOOD.  I hope we get the chance to attend one of these football games on tv!

Just like people carry items on their heads, mothers ALWAYS carry their babies on their backs! They always have their hands free!  I haven't gotten any good pictures of babies on a momma's back, but in this picture, you can basically tell that the baby is on her back.  She looks super young, so maybe she is an older sister or something, but she could be very well be a mother.  It's really hard to tell the ages of many people here.  We met 20 and 30 year olds who literally looked 15.  But anyways. They use a scarf type thing to tie them up.  To get them there, they bend over, slide the baby from their arms to their back, and just wrap the scarf around the baby and tie it in the front.  It looks so easy yet so hard at the same time.  It's interesting because the babies are always with the mothers, unlike the US. And the babies are rarely crying. They seem so contempt just relaxing their with their mommas.

Another interesting thing about mothers and babies is breast feeding. You can just walk down the street and you see mom's with their shirts lifted, just breast feeding in front of the whole village.  Since we have been conducting so many interviews about the boreholes, we talk to many women, and probably about 5 of the women we interview would be breastfeeding DURING the interview.  It seems so odd to us, but it is so normal to them.  They aren't embarrassed and they don't try to hide it, its just natural.  It's the baby's bottle and it needs to be fed.  

 There are a lot of other cultural things I have learned that I don't have pictures to go with them, but I thought were pretty interesting to share.

So a little bit about personal hygiene here.  Everyone lives in dirt, so everyone is obviously dirty.  It's really sad because some people just have flies buzzing around them, especially kids.  It's weird seeing that, because we are used to flies buzzing around cows and horses and poop, but not people.  And the people don't really seem to swat them away or anything, they are just used to it.  Yaw told us that the guys shave their armpits here to prevent B.O., but it must not work very well because the guys definitely still stink.  Especially when we went out dancing, they all smelled pretty darn bad. They use lemons or limes for deodorant, but from what i've heard, they put it on before they take a shower.

Another thing that is interesting is their use of the word "fat."  In America, calling someone fat is considered rude, but here fat isn't good or bad, it's just a fact of life. When someone here says "you've gotten fat," they don't mean anything rude by it. Here, being fat basically means you are well fed, and therefore healthy.  One of the nurses called another nurse fat, and we told them that that is considered mean in the US, which they seemed surprised about, and when talking to locals, they refer to people as "the fat one."  It's pretty weird to hear, but it is normal here.

Marriage is important here.  We have been told by some nurses that NOBODY gets a divorce, but then another man talked about his parents being divorced. It might vary from village to village, but I'm not sure.  Marriage costs a lot of money and the people don't usually get married until their late 20s or early 30s, which I was kind of surprised to hear.  Weddings cost a lot of money, so couples usually spend many years saving up to have a wedding, so they date for a long time before the wedding.  Few people have wedding rings or wedding bands because they are so expensive.  Yaw, our driver, told us that in Africa, it is okay for men to have multiple wives, but not okay for women to have multiple husbands.  I dont' know how common it is, but he said it happens.  As for gay or lesbian people, they are not accepted at all.  One of the nurses told us that nobody is homosexual, and if they are, then they hide it so nobody knows.  Some people could get killed for being homosexual.  It's interesting because we have noticed that people are very close with each other - guys will hold hands and be close with other guys, but they aren't gay. They are just close friends.

There are many other cultural things I have noticed that can't think of at the moment, so hopefully you will also get to hear more about those later!