Just Another Manic Monday

Monday June 18, 2012  Africa:  Day 8

            I can’t believe it has only been a week since I left Provo.  That almost seems a different lifetime ago.  I have, however, had many moments over the week where I think to myself that experiencing the chaos of Accra has been fun, but crawling back into to my comfort zone would feel pretty good.  Oh, well.  I know that the weeks will fly by and I will be back in the States missing the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feel of Africa. 

            Today we got up and headed to the main office the NGO that we will be working with at the refugee camp.  We thought we had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the headquarters in a neighborhood in Accra, but we ended up having to walk for about 45 minutes (hoping we were heading in the right direction) before we finally found a taxi driver that was willing to take us there.  The traffic is horrendous in Accra, and none of the other taxi drivers wanted to go there because the traffic was so bad.  We ended up only about 20 minutes late, which is pretty good when you are going by Ghana Time (which is very similar to Mormon Standard Time).  

      We were all a little confused when we saw a naked man just standing on the side of this very busy main street in town.  We later asked a man at the psychiatric hospital how that situation would be handled, and he explained that most likely nothing will happen.  If a policeman picks him up and takes him to be observed at the hospital then the policeman suddenly becomes responsible for that man and all the accompanying paperwork.  So, most likely the man will just be left on the streets. 

            The woman at the NGO was a very entertaining woman who is very passionate about her work with women and children regarding sexual and gender-based violence.  We are going to the camp later this week to learn more about our specific responsibilities, but from what we learned from the overview today, I am very excited to start this work. 

           She also mentioned that supposedly on June 30^th, the government is no longer going to allow anyone living in the camp to keep their refugee status.  The camp has been around for so long that Ghana wants the people to either repatriate back to Liberia and their other original countries, or begin to assimilate into Ghana.  The problem is that many of the people still feel that returning to their countries is not safe, and without their refugee status they will not be allowed any kind of support or rights within the country of Ghana.  She says they have threatened to do this before, generally Ghana is very friendly to refugees, and it is an election year, so there is a possibility this change will be postponed.  She also mentioned that if the change is made and it doesn’t happen peacefully, then there is a possibility we will be pulled from working there.  I guess we’ll wait and see!

            That afternoon we went back to the Accra psychiatric hospital and talked with the nurses in the ECT ward and to another psychology intern.  We have one Ghanaian intern that will be working with us at our various locations, so he and the other hospital intern tried to take us down to a nearby street food vendor to try more Ghanaian food for lunch.  Unfortunately by the time we got there, it had already closed.  This was also my first encounter with street kids since I have been here.  A few different times here and also around Osu today little kids would come up, grab onto our arms and walk with us, sometimes asking for money or food, but mostly just following along waiting for something.

            Then, the girls and I went to the Osu neighborhood and walked around the area for a bit.  We found a fast food restaurant that served amazing roasted chicken, and then justified some gelato for dessert in the name of self-care.  While we were walking past the various shops and street vendors, a guy came up, shook my hand, and asked my name.  This is very common, but then he started weaving a bracelet with my name on it.  I told him he didn’t need to do that, and I had no intention of buying his product.  But, he would not go away and in the two minutes I finally got the other girls to walk away with me, the guy was almost done weaving my name.  He walked along with us, the whole time promising that I didn’t need to buy the bracelet.  He just wanted to do something nice for me because that’s who Ghanaians treat their visitors.  Finally, I gave in and let him finish, and I also gave him a couple of cedis.

                                              (The finished product)

            We were still so full from a late lunch that we came home, that we each went and grabbed a couple of bananas from the Night Market.  This seems to be our tradition now- a banana to go with dinner, and one to go with breakfast the next morning.  We also stopped by the little store next to the Night Market for some laundry soap and brush so I could go back and wash some clothes in the sink, and a box of chocolate chip cookies to satisfy the one thing that I have been craving the most.  Of all the American foods I might miss, I didn’t realize it would be warm, chewy chocolate chip cookies.