The Family and my first Sunday service

 

I moved in with a host family around the beginning of June, they are a slightly conservative Christian family of the tribe Basari. Extremely helpful, humble and a few of them speak excellent English. The head of their household is Father Latom (sp?), a 70-80ish farmer who seems to hold a great deal of respect both amongst the family and in the community at large. The woman I speak most often with is sister Elizabeth, a women I have yet to see simply relax. My two companions in the compound are Ezekiel and Sandy, an interesting pair, both of them 16-17 and attending school. I’ll speak a bit about Elizabeth and my ‘two friends’ as she refers to them.

 

Elizabeth speaks very clear english, her vocabulary is not as extensive as my ‘two friends’ but she is much easier to understand and speaks with little noticeable accent, I almost never have to ask her to repeat anything. From the day I walked into the compound it was apparent that she is the backbone of the place, always in command, always looking to help out in some way and seeming to go 24 hours a day. I do not know how old she is, she seems to be around 60, but still strong as an ox. She typifies the African woman, resilient and compassionate, she is the first person I let help me with my laundry and I swear she must be bionic to get those stains out. It seems almost misogynistic to recall the washing power of a woman as a sign of her strength or worth, so I’ll explain a bit more. I started washing my clothing by hand before I left Canada, so by the time I arrived at the compound I had been washing my clothing everyday for over a month. When I arrived in the compound I didn’t feel comfortable having someone else do it for me, so I agreed to work with the kids on my laundry, we never got around to it and the weekend was approaching.

It was a daily discussion point, these kind people really wanted to do my laundry! Maybe I was getting disheveled to the point of embarrassing them? I don’t think I was doing that poorly, sure there were stains on my white shirt, but hey, what is a stain but the sign of a shirt one has lived life to the fullest in? The weekend came and I hadn’t done a wash in 4 days, so Saturday I made an agreement with Elizabeth, I’d go farming and upon my return she and I would go through the smelly mass of cloth on my floor. I went farming, and returned to the cleanest crispest clothing I’ve had in years, the whites were white and it smelled good, not just like cloth but of freshness. She had done it while I was gone, and done it better than I could have if I’d taken a full day to scrub each piece. In some sense it was a violation of trust, but when she did it I realized I was going to have to temporarily dispel with my views of household chores, I was going to have to respect the way things went in the household. It was odd and I haven’t gotten quite used to it, she has done my laundry twice now, without me being aware (she snuck in my room while I was travelling to Tamale). That’s just the way it is… I’m not allowed to do laundry in the compound, I not allowed to fetch my own water (the older males simply don’t do such things), I haven’t been allowed to help with the cooking, she manages those operations in the compound and takes pride in what she does. I have more to say on her, but not to post online for others to see. Interesting woman.

 

My ‘two friends’. Interesting pair, both intelligent and well spoken, both diligent in their studies. They both have a lot to learn about this world and it would be interesting to have a conversation with them when they reach their 20’s.

One of my first interactions with Ezekiel, during one of my first visits to the compound revolved around an evangelical healing preacher who’d come to visit Kpandai, he enthusiastically recounted the 200+ blind and 200+ crippled who had been healed by the power of Jesus! I approached our future discussions cautiously, afraid that I had landed myself in a mad house, but besides that one conversation and a few jabs sent my way concerning a white mans ability to farm, or clean, or do anything besides type on a computer things have been great. He is soft spoken and honest, and has provided me with many useful insights into the life of a Ghanaian youth.

Sandy is equally interesting, more reserved and slightly less clear in spoken english, he is also one year younger than Ezekiel, which may explain the roles they play in the compound. One interesting thing about Sandy is that he gives English lessons to younger children almost every night. I have seen him in the morning ironing school uniforms for the younger children and then at night they set up a chalkboard and go through man,woman,men,women,person,thing over and over and then over again. It’s pretty damn cool.

So yeah, those are the three people I spend most of my time with in the compound, there is also a little boy who sometimes follows me around, he speaks a bit of english and is an interesting little dude.

 

Oh yeah, before I forget. I went to church and it didn’t burn down from the wrath of an angry spaghetti monster. The family is part of the evangelical church of Ghana (ECG), one of the older males in their extended family is a pastor, and their family plays a key role in the activities. I went last Sunday (not sure what date), it was almost great. When they sang and clapped I clapped along, when they prayed openly; each person saying his own individual prayer out loud, the room filled with Basarai, Konkomba, Twi and English prayers. Which was almost touching, it would have been great if the guy behind me wasn’t screaming in english and spitting foam on the back of my pants, “BY THE POWER OF JESUS! YOU SHALL REPENT!! (splash) BY THE POWER OF JESUS YOU WILL OBEY!!”. It was almost cool that one church member made the effort to translate the service into English for me, interesting hearing a service in two foreign languages(the church is mostly Basarai and Konkomba) then softly spoken in English, it would have been better if I could have gone without the English translation.

I’ll say this about music: when the singer is speaking english you listen to the words, they become an integral part of the song, and you can’t hear the song without the words. When a singer is speaking in a foreign language you can accept their voice as an instrument, and appreciate the nuances of the audible experience. I wanted the experience without the words.