One too much.

May 10th 2006

Joyce is one of our long term caregivers who has proven her quality and reliability with the kids. She is quiet and keeps much to herself, being from an earlier generation than most of the other staff. Joyce joined the community after Mercy left, in 2001, and took over the care of the paralyzed girl Innocencia. Starting with Mercy (who now lives in Italy) and increasingly with Joyce, Innocencia became an attractive girl who smiles and sings instead of that 'heavy thing in a wheelchair' who sleeps if she does not cry, convulse or beat her head against her chair. Now Innocencia hardly has a fit because of the latest medication (thanks to Cordaid) and more important she does not self destructively bang her head anymore. So she must now have understood that she is a sweet human being who is seen and loved and not forgotten. Her mouth used to always have its corners down and it was hard to differentiate between her crying and her laughing. Now she can laugh out loud and has a contented look. Thanks largely to Joyce.
When two years later we were asked to take PaaYaw up in our residential community, we decided to place him with Joyce as well. PaaYaw too, though very different from Innocencia, cannot walk and has to be carried from one place to another. The intelligent PaaYaw has cerebral palsy. Yes, naturally Joyce was the one to ask to look after him as well, as Joyce did so well for Innocencia and is so quietly loving and so strong.
And so it happened and that little household of Joyce became even more a joy to look at.
Since Kojo Evans moved to his 'own place' and lives more independently his old room was emptied out and given to Joyce, so that she had more place for living, playing, occasionally cooking and sleeping. Two round huts side by side for her and her family.
In December 2004 Emmanuelle joined us after much pressure from desperate midwives in the hospital who did not want to see this baby die. Emmanuelle has no arms and no legs. Before Christmas that year we met and discussed and decided to let the baby live in our community and ...ask Joyce! Joyce said: Yes.
Oh and she did marvels with the little tiny baby who had one problem after another. Much had to do with her not being able to move her bowels spontaneously. Guessing it was from lack of natural movements because of the absence of limbs her little belly had to be massaged over and over again. Strange fevers made her have to be admitted in the hospital almost each month, and of course when a baby is admitted the mother goes with her. Joyce did everything and did it well. The baby now thrives and is able to turn and starts to talk with her one-and-a-half years. All thanks to Joyce. The second room came in handy and what was given less in attention to her other two children, Innocencia and Paayaw, the other caregivers filled in.
Yet... more requests to take off, a child that gets a harsh response, one of her children silently forgotten somewhere in a wheelchair, signs that there is something wrong with Joyce. Is she loosing her caring attitude? Ema is the one in charge of 'child development' and in one of our meetings he promised he would talk with her. Oh the importance of talking! The following is what Joyce had to say:
"I was the only one of the caregivers with two wheelchair-children. Yet you asked me if I could function as the mother of a third child, another one that cannot walk. I did not know what to say so I said yes. But you said it was for only three months, the first three month, that I would have to care for Emmanuella. Then all of you kept silent afterwards and you never even asked me if it was not too much for me. Three children and none of them can walk! That is one too much. It is. I am very tired.'
When Ema brought this feedback to the last Friday meeting I winced. She was so right about the few months for Emanuella and how could we have forgotten to relieve her or even ask her about it. Thoughtless day to day living and taking someone for granted!

Sophia helps with Innocencia and Mary helps with Emmanuelle during the daycare.

Everybody helps with PaaYaw!

But who will help Joyce?

So tomorrow we will make a decision on how to relieve Joyce and thereby do her and all the children justice again. It may be PaaYaw who goes with a caregiver to the other round-house and start a separate household, it may be Innocencia, it may even be Emanuella even though Emanuella and Joyce are really bonded like mother and child. It has to be one of them for three is too much!

Snake Bite

May 3rd 2006

Last weekend-duty at the hospital was an intense one. As usual I made my Saturday morning rounds and proceeding to the emergency room I found an empty bed with the patients-folder laying on top of it. "Where's the patient?" "Oh, he is outside. His father wants to take him home because they have no money." This 'no-money' thing is costing a lot of lives, recently more than ever before I believe. The policy in the hospital is such that patients need to pay a deposit before they will be served medication and again a higher deposit if they need admission at the ward. There are exceptions for emergencies, but I have found that there are different definitions of 'an emergency' going around in the hospital. The reverend father who is the hospital administrator says that of course, all emergencies should be treated. However if a requisition for urgent medication is sent to the hospital pharmacy no drugs will be issued unless receipt of payment can be shown first. So...lack of clarity in the policies and a lot of problems for poor people like the boy on bed 4 of the emergency room. I found them, after rounds. 'What's wrong?' Well it seemed that father and son, a boy of eight, had come all the way from the Upper-West corner of Ghana because the boy was bitten by a snake. That journey took a day and a half and they had arrived here on Friday afternoon, stopping at each hospital for help but none of them had anti-snake-venom in stock. That's why they had come here where we have a good supply of it. "So you came yesterday and till now you have not received treatment?" Well, no, they were told 'no pay, no treatment' and they had not brought enough money. Besides now they were so far from home that they could hardly send for more money.
The boy had a badly swollen hand and the site of the bite was bleeding. He looked anemic and a bleeding in his eye suggested that he might have clotting problems due to the snake venom, a situation comparable to hemophilia.
The nurse in the emergency room was dismissive about the boy and his father so I asked her: 'But should we not consider this as an emergency? He's been here for almost 24 hours already, without being attended to?' 'Oh Yes! It's an emergency but they simply don't issue the medicines so what can I do?' Her tone changed from scorn to worry. She too could see that the poor little guy was in a bad state. Well, Maame, yes, it is horrible but this is what we face every day! We are told not to treat those that cannot pay. The management says they should have bought health-insurance for themselves. We, we have no power in this.
I have faced this dilemma increasingly over the last few years and ...I'm in a different position from a nurse in that I do have power and mean to use it in these situations. 'Ok, you and I agree to help this guy so let's admit him and order all that he needs right now. I sign it up against my name'. I do not know what that actually does, writing: 'against my name' but it works and does wonders! I write the admission papers and all the medical orders and sign against my name!
Saturday 1pm the boy was at the ward and laid on a clean sheets, with an IV in his one arm and a piece of bread from one of the nurses in the other hand. A nice side effect of doing something well is that a whole lot of good people enjoy that and join in! For example nurses buying food for the patient and other patients cozily standing around the bed and listening to the story and interpreting it for others on the ward (as the boy's language is quite different from our language here in Nkoranza).
During the evening rounds I see that he is still oozing from the bite wound and getting more pale. The anti-snake venom may have come too late. I order more of it, together with higher doses of steroids. But blood it is that he needs, blood, a lot of it and fresh blood. Here in Nkoranza we cannot just infuse the clotting components of blood so we give whole blood.
The father gets sad again. Where do I find donors, I am miles away from home. After a long search he finds one, a man from the same tribe who lives in Nkoranza town. We need a bunch of them, not just one! Normally speaking it is hard to find donors because giving blood is a little bit like giving up your spirit and sometimes still literally considered that way. I beseech him please look for more donors, go to your own people here again, go to your church, try!! I also try. There a many visitors at our community! The boy has blood-group O and I ask Charity. Charity oh Charity, can you ask your guests for a good deed, please. Blood? Urgent?!
I too go around. All Aline's family members who are visiting are A's and B's and AB's, no one from group O! Wait no, there comes Charity! Yes, she found a Frenchman, nice guy and group O! He is 'but naturellement' 'toujours' 'pas de probleme' willing to give blood and I bring him to the laboratory. Oh and another donor is also waiting at the lab, great. But now...where is the lab technician? The watchman goes to town to find him, but he is far away in a village, for a funeral celebration. OK, there are three others working in the lab that are not on call, try any of them...but all are out! I'm no longer polite but furious, although I pledge to myself each weekend to take it easy and not get emotionally involved. Furiously I take the Frenchman (Maurice? Marcel?) back in my little car over the bumpy road and in my anger I smack into a pothole and damage the exhaust pipe.
Ok, sorry, listen, as soon as the lab-man is back I come for you, OK, do you mind?
'Oh of course, pas de probleme!'
Two hours later the lab man is back from the funeral and our little boy on the ward gets two real fresh pints of blood! Great! He sleeps while the blood runs in and the clotting process resumes it normal ways. Sunday morning: Stable. No further bleeding. Good. And the boy is eating tizet, a northern type of breakfast received from one of his fellow patients. Nice! In the evening I see him one more time and Monday my call is over.
But that Monday afternoon a delegation comes to the house: the father of the patient accompanied by a nurse. The nurse is from the same tribe and characteristically he was asked by the father to 'Help him thank me' as they call that act of going to thank someone 'with fortification' for a special something.
Sometimes I wonder what that 'sign against my name' actually does in the system. I think that one day I may get this compilation of patient-bills from over the years. What I will say then is 'No problem' just like that nice little Frenchman who is now traveling another part of Ghana. 'No problem, it was my pleasure... '

April 21st.

Kintampo Falls

Yesterday Aline and Myrte treated our kids to an excursion. They loaded the bus from top to bottom and drove to the waterfalls at Kintampo. The happy group left at nine and returned at five, satisfied, tired, wobbly on their legs and of course as always hungry. The whites among the group showed a good sunburn as well!
That same evening we looked at the pictures, made possible by the 'digital revolution'! It was a fun day and I let the pictures speak for themselves.

How many can fit in the bus!?

The car of course gave trouble but still...they arrived safely at the falls.

Exploring the waterfalls...

The small ones prefer to keep some distance.

And now...how to get down again?

Halfway

Time for the prime event: picnic time!

Pakor's happiness is complete!

Dank je wel, Aline en Myrte!

18 April

Osei with Danielle and Oscar and family exploring Holland.

Easter 2006

It is supposed to be a festive morning. For the Christians because this morning Jesus' grave is found empty and the rumor goes that He has risen. For the Jews (of which there is one here in Nkoranza)because this is the time of remembering liberation from exile and for many others this holiday is about the arrival of spring and with it some kind of inner liberation and resurrection.
However the atmosphere here isn't very festive. It is hot and humid and the place looks deserted. The kids have been gathered together under the trees at the TV site to do...what? Watch a church service on TV? Drum and dance together? I hope the last is true but I hear no happy drumming sounds, just silence. An occasional kid walks into our house and sits down to listen to Chopin...is this what Easter morning is supposed to mean? I'm just back from rounds in the hospital and over there it is not so festive either. Two women on the ward died during the night and the place is crowded with sick kids. One child has ingested large amounts of caustic soda and cannot drink or eat (ever again?). The maternity ward has some scared eyed teenage mothers waiting for their final ordeal, the delivery of a baby that they did not plan on arriving so early in their life.
Many of our caregivers have of course gone to church; they will return late afternoon saturated with the warmth of celebrating together and meeting family and friends in and after church.
I feel left out and I feel for the kids who have been left out today but I don't know what to do and I also know that sometimes nothing needs to be done. Yesterday our celebration took place and tomorrow there will be another Easter Party. So let today be soft and a little bit forlorn, just a hot and dull Sunday in Nkoranza.

Good things happen all the same, I want to remember them now. Such as this: Joyce, one of the children that Salamata looks after, has found what she was looking for, a baby sister! Joyce is twelve and a little mother, always looking for babies and toddlers to hold and play with. I had written before that there is a running competition between Philo and Joyce about who can play with little Francis, the youngest of our community. Philo always wins and after all she has the right, as Francis is her 'brother' who lives in the same room with her!
Two weeks ago one of our caregivers left suddenly without prior notice so that morning Kwame and Amma were standing there, motherless! For the time being Kwame went to Angela and Amma to Sala, a temporary arrangement. However, the 'for the time being' has changed into 'permanent', as Kwame is all right with his new family and Joyce loves her own little sister in the house! The first night that poor deserted Amma stayed with Sala, Joyce opened the door all through the night and said to Amma: 'Go, go home'! Sala's answer that this is now Amma's new home would be met with Joyce's scorn. We were about to place Amma somewhere else again when Joyce changed her mind and discovered that Amma could be the pleasant presence, the so much wanted little baby sister, that she always dreamt about! The next night Joyce just looked at Amma but no more opening the door to get her out. And now...oh now! Now Joyce and Amma are sisters. Amma is a small meek girl who does not have a mean bone in her body and loves to be mothered. So Joyce sleeps with Amma, helps to wash her in the morning, plays with her and would lift her on her back if she could. Come to think of it, if this is not an Easter surprise, Joyce's baby sister realized and home delivered, then what is!

Joyce with Amma, her new baby-sister.

More good things happened! On Holy Thursday who arrived back at our community? Ellen with a new boy from Osu children home called Aaron. A six year old with a sweet reflective smile. He cannot walk because of cerebral palsy but he most likely will learn to do so in time and with exercises. He has been at Osu for quite some time and now we were able to transfer him to our home. The name had to be changed from Moses to Aaron, but that was not really to get him into our promised land but so as not to confuse him with the other two 'Moseses' we already have! (Moses and Nana Yaw also called Moses). What a gift to have Aaron (formerly Moses) with us. He is skinny but fast! Already loves the pool and yesterday he kept crawling into the deep side and under water... from which he had to be picked up time and time again to bring him back into safe shallow water. Reckless guy, this Aaron with his deceptive wise smile!

Aaron with Mary, his new caregiver.

Another festive thing: I keep getting these international telephone calls! First from Bielefeld in Germany then from Austria and yesterday evening from Holland. Andrew Osei Takyi in Europe! After a good conference organized by Ananse in Bielefeld with Rudiger and Susanne he was all over Europe and apparently arrived yesterday at Danielle and Oscar's place in Haarlem. Phonecall at 11 pm their time. Happy voices and an excited Osei discovering another world. Today Osei must be celebrating Easter in Haarlem with Daan and Oscar.
Is it a dull and forlorn Sunday or...did I hear some rumors about the resurrection? Yes I do hear them now... Happy Easter to you all!

April 11th 2006

Kojo from Chicago

It may be four or five years ago, one of the times when Bob and I traveled to Chicago, that we enjoyed a remarkable encounter in the taxi from the airport. As usual we dropped with all our suitcases into the first car that was available to be driven to our apartment. Jetlagged, tired, lucid and suspended between two worlds as people are when they come from far away I fell silent and Bob talked while we started to unwind. That is our pattern. As usual the taxi driver was a 'stranger' from foreign shores. 'Where're you from', Bob asked. 'Ghana', he said. 'Oh, we too, we are just from Ghana'. He looked over his shoulder to us, yeah right! 'Yes', Bob said, 'we come from a town called Nkoranza'. Now the taxi-driver jerked his head around again and started laughing. 'Noooo, Nkoranza?' He drove straight and expertly on while looking at us. 'Yes, my wife is a doctor there'. He looked again. 'I'm Kojo Apiah', he said, 'I'm from Nkoranza myself'. 'I'm Dr. Bosman', I said. 'In the hospital they call us Dr. Bosman and Bob', Bob laughed. He looked again. 'Dr. Bosman, really, YOU the one'? I talked my Twi and he almost fainted from pleasure. 'You operated on my mother, I know you! Dr. Bosman and Bob, welcome to Chicago! How is Ghana now...'
The dialogue became very animated! Kojo had lived in Chicago for over four years and not been home since. He studied for a bachelor's degree in graphic designing while driving a cab to make a living. It turned out that he even remembered having printed tee-shirts for our healthcare staff at Nkoranza before he left for Chicago! Small world. We exchanged addresses, had a meal together here and there, brought some parcel for his friends when we returned and gradually...forgot the remarkable encounter miles away from home.
Until...yes! He suddenly showed up a few days ago. Early Tuesday morning he was sitting there on the veranda of our house, with his mother and a gang of relatives and friends, all with fresh American baseball caps and tee-shirts and excited happy looks.
Bob recognized him first 'Our taxi driver friend! Kojo!!'
Plenty to talk about but it seemed that he did not just come to greet but had 'a mission' as they say here in Ghana. 'What's your mission, Kojo?' Well it had occurred to Kojo, on his home-visit to mother Ghana, to bring presents for the children of our community.

Kojo brings a present for his children

'I had to bring something for my children', is how he put it and I got tears in my eyes because of his use of that expression: 'my children'. Kojo had brought bags and bags full of stuff; shoes, clothes, shirts, toys, all of it with him on the plane. We were all stupefied. How could you even carry that much?! 'Oh, nothing', he laughed, 'for my children I can carry all I want'.
Usually Bob is the one with the wet eyes but this time we were both moved to tears. We know what it means for a Ghanaian to come home after so many years. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, schoolmates, villagers, everybody needs to be considered and often people from Ghana postpone coming home because they cannot meet the family expectations. Now this man brought not just some balloons but really much and beautiful things to HIS children that he had never even seen before.
'That's not all', he laughed. 'I'll be back. What is your logo'? 'Logo? Hand in hand, we have no logo'.

Our newly designed logo

Yes he did come back and he had made a graphic design for our car. Look at it. Kojo our Chicago man. 'Hey man, You done well for your kids!'

April 3rd, 2006

Eclipse and a Spin in the Air

What a thrill. My niece Maartje and her husband Ian were coming to visit us here in Nkoranza. Maartje is the youngest daughter of my brother and like the whole family she has practically always lived outside Holland. Dubai, England, France, Spain, America and back to England where she married her Scottish husband Ian. Finally now (but how finally?) they live in Switzerland and it was from there that they flew to Ghana to visit us. It was amusing to hear my niece speak English as her first language and portraying a slight but distinct British accent when talking Dutch. In contrast I too prefer speaking English rather than Dutch (simply a matter of what language is mostly used) but I have that undeniable broad Dutch accent which people have who start speaking a foreign language later in life. Do I speak Dutch with an accent too? Which one? African? Someone should one day tell me, people are so polite!
Be that as it may, because of the different countries we live in and all that, my niece and I are virtual strangers to each other. I was excited and a bit nervous meeting her, my beautiful but almost unknown niece Maartje.
They came in such an unusual way that it is hard for any future visitor to surpass it! Ian is crazy about piloting his own plane and so.... One wonderful Monday a week ago they arrived in a minuscule but real fairy-tale plane. It was about to get dark when they flew in and landed on that deserted airstrip in Sunyani (last time that airport was used and I flew from there was 25 years ago!) and our kids, who had wanted to meet them and climb on that plane, had to stay home and wait for their arrival here at Nkoranza by taxi.

Maarte and Bob

So they arrived that Monday-evening and when Bob and I saw them our nervousness melted as snow under a tropical sun. We sat down with things unpacked and had a drink and talked till deep into the night. The next day we celebrated that same natural connection. I showed them the hospital and the Hand in Hand community and the workshop and the internet-cafe and yes, they were impressed. We laughed and ate and in the evening threw one of our typical parties with the children. And then the next day they had to leave again. Flash visit, but a stunning flash!
It was Wednesday, the day of the solar eclipse, the day that I had to undergo minor surgery for my finger, that a bus and a taxi filled with over 15 kids and caregivers escorted Maartje and Ian to Sunyani airport. Kofi and Kojo were the first to sit in the bus to be sure not to miss their plane ride this time. They were dressed like an African prince and an American 'De Niro' in a white designers coat! The others were equally Sunday-dressed and excited! Ema had been given the task to select the group that was to fly and make a spin in the air. Imagine their excitement! Grand finale!

Passengers and crew!

They cruised the sky in 4 or 5 batches of three persons each, the cute little plane filled to full capacity. All large eyes and shouts of excitement. aaahhhs and oooohhhs! Best shoes. Best caps. Best clothes. Best moods! The only one who did not like the plane was the autistic Ema and in retrospect it was a mistake to have taken him. Not a big mistake for he enjoyed eating while the others were high in the sky!

Picnic at the airport

Such a memorable day. First the total solar eclipse at 9.30 am. I was then in the hospital waiting for my surgery. Dr Harry Wegdam had brought a blackened piece of glass with him to witness the eclipse and about three hundred people, included all the patients who could one way or the other ambulate, lined up to see it! Hospital in disarray! Aaaaahhhh's and Oooohhh's!
That's why my surgery delayed. But still, afterwards we jumped in the little car to catch up with the others at Sunyani airport. Too late to see them in the air but not too late to see them very happy! They were then all squatting on the airport floor having a picnic. A plastic bag with jallof rice for each of them. Ian is the manager of 'Guinness Beer Europe' and now we know why he is so good at his job! When asked what to drink he said is there any Guinness in the house and faithfully stuck to that drink during all of his visit. A natural! A natural sales promoter. He treated the kids to Guinness-Malta with their rice to make the party complete! (Malta, just like Guinness, is a real treat here in Africa)
Maarje and Ian wanted to take us next for a spin. Bob looked at the plane and his own body and said: 'No, I'll watch Ineke fly!' I have fear of heights but climbed into the little plane, albeit with pounding heart. The plane by the way looked comfy but old, like a large motorbike with wings. And a dashboard with numerous lights and switches. Luckily for me the battery failed. Oh God, did I escape my agony of heights...! I climbed out again with a sigh of relief and the goodbye's started. I was a bit scared for Maartje and Ian after the dead battery incident, but they fuelled the plane, hand-jumped the propellers and whoops we waved and they disappeared into the air.

Bye Bye...

The little happy but somewhat shaky bird was gone. We were still standing there open mouthed for some time and then said come, lets go and in a line of three cars we drove home. We felt so important that we should have military police on motorbikes hooting and escorting us on both sides! Thank you Maartje and Ian! We filled the fridge with Guinness and Malt for when you come back.

March 28 2006

Abena and her Treasury Box.

The new Play-House was completed and we moved the tables, chairs, beanbags and carpets inside. The play-house, we call it "House of Games", has become a beautiful intricate little building with three wings. The central wing is a kind of cuddle room where the small ones and those needing special care can play. The right wing is used for coloring and drawing and the left wing for wilder games such as 'bottle-bowling' and roll-ball. (Whatever 'roll-ball' means) It looks like a castle in a fairy tale, romantic, safe and conducive to play!

The New House of Games

So the large box with the little balls in it, the 'ball-box', was moved in as well. That large ball-box always stood near to our house in the old play-corner and was not only used by our small children! One of our dogs, Lady, had made it her special place for her afternoon beauty-naps. And it served as Abena's treasury box!

The ball-box, Abena's old treasury box.

Abena often walks around with plastic bags in her hands. Her 'stuff' is in it: tins, toys, beads and things like that. We had noticed before that she used the 'ball-box' to secretly hide some of her treasures. Safe and according to a plan which is only known to her and should not be deviated of. However we went against her rituals. We changed her hiding place by moving the whole big ball-box into the House of Games. This is indeed the best place for it, but not according to Lady and certainly not according to Abena. Lady has her tail between the legs and Abena, oh Abena, she is crying and crying and is generally very desperate about the change. Now Lady will find her way but last Friday we had a meeting about Abena's set back. What to do. She has lost her treasury box and now she's desolate. Eventually, following the advice of Emanuel, we decided to give Abena her own treasury box. We got a large wooden box, filled it with some of the balls and positioned it just behind her chair.

Abena and her new treasury box

Now we are waiting to see what Abena is going to do with her own treasury box. Nothing...so far!
She sits 'on watch' in front of her new treasury kit, with her bags beside her. The crying is less, that is true. Her eyes however are always focused on the distance, on the House of Games with 'her old ball-box'. Sometimes she rushes there to inspect the play-house and her box more closely. Are there possible ways to conquer her box back? Up till now Abena is still in limbo.
The situation reminds me of, if this does not portray a lack of respect, it reminds me of the behavior of bees. One puts a new bee box out, puts some wax and honey in it to give it the right smell and then one waits. Are they going to come, the bees? Or is there an unknown factor X that keeps them away and let them decide to build their home in the hollow of a tree or a rooftop gutter.
In any case we keep waiting. Hopefully we all follow Abena's eyes and movements for signs of acceptance of the new treasury box. In the meantime she knows that she has the attention of the group and that certainly agrees with her.
What else was discussed at that meeting? Joyce, among others. Joyce who so badly wants a small child of her own to play with!

Joyce	Philomena

Joyce and Philo competing mothers!

Joyce spends all her motherly, somewhat smothering, feelings on Lisa, and can endlessly bend over her and give her little kisses. Francis is the only other one who allows to be 'mothered', but there is a problem there. Francis has a protective, one could say possessive, big sister called Philomena. Competition between two ladies with motherly instincts! Philo does not allow anybody in the neighborhood of HER little brother Francis, and certainly not Joyce. She does not speak but her non-verbals clear. With crossed arms, angry looks and her jaw set on edge everybody knows to stay away from her little boy! If not it is at your own risk, you'll be hit! 'Go find your own small brother'! Because Philo's personality is so much stronger than Joyce's, who is a head taller than her, Joyce always looses and gruntingly disappears. What she does then is another problem: she becomes self-destructive. With little sticks she pokes her eyelids, and recently her ears, till they bleed.
Our solution is probably too simplistic: to give her a life size doll to look after and sleep with. Is it enough? Will it work? Or do we have to increase our large family with a small brother or sister for Joyce in order to heal her frustrated motherly instincts? A small one from the orphanage? As if we don't have enough children already! Not to mention the lack of sponsors for them.
But it happened before didn't it: extension of the family because of frustrated motherly instincts?
Ellen come back soon, we need your advise! All child-psychologists, social workers, babyologists, feminists, whoever has an advice to give: help us please. Joyce needs a baby brother and what to do now?

March 23, 2006.

Marion and Joti! They were ready to pack and say their good-bye's. For over two months they had been doing volunteer work with our children and now, before returning to Holland, they of course would take the opportunity to travel and visit some other places in Ghana.
On one of her last mornings before departure Marion popped into our house. "Is this normal?' she asked me, pointing at a little swelling of her umbilicus.
I kind of grumbled a bit. So what, a mosquito-bite, a pimple?...leave me alone...
But after having a closer look at the thing I realized that the pimple was an incarcerated umbilical hernia. Woops, a surgical emergency! No more sleepiness. I jumped into the plan- and organize- mode and became Mrs. Efficiency. 'Marion, wait, I'll call the surgeon in Techiman, right away'. On Fridays our regional surgeon, Harry Wegdam, usually operates in his own hospital in Techiman and I had to catch him before leaving the house. Thanks to the mobile phone revolution in Ghana I got him right away. 'An incarcerated hernia? Let her come right away. Send her straight to the operation- room or else she will sit there all day. No food'. 'Harry, thanks!'
Immediate Marion and her 'nurse Joti" went to Techiman. In the afternoon already Baffo could pick them up again. Back they came, relieved! Marion with a battalion of stitches to remind her of the hernia and all of us of course very happy that things had gone well.

Post-operative Marion is still amazed at how fast it all happened...

While Joti calls to Holland that all is well!

And for the rest: fun while visiting the patient.

So it showed once more that certain volunteers and visitors just don't seem to get away from our wonderful village!
That extra week has been very special for Bob and me. I really only knew Joti and Marion from a distance, at times observing how wonderful and playful they moved with our children. (Lazarus gained ten kilo bodyweight within the two months that they were there and even started to smile, later laugh out loud and finally, with great assurance, enjoyed burping and passing gas noisily! For this fearful shy boy it was something unheard of and a triple breakthrough!)
That last week. Suddenly good and deep conversations materialized and something very warm was born, something called friendship.
Safe journey, dear people, and thank you. Thanks for the surgical emergency because of which we got to know and enjoy you so much better still, and now miss you even more!

March 14th 2006

An unknown benefactor

It has been some time since Paul and Marianne Lamberts visited us. They came with coffee, toys and cloth for the children and they brought an envelope. 'For Africa' it said. Inside the envelope a card with these words, written in graceful old fashioned handwriting: 'Admire your courage and your work. Wish you success, strength and joy with your labors. Kind regards', undecipherable name. A good number of Euro's were stuffed in the envelope.
'That's the old fashioned unknown benefactor' Marianne said with twinkling eyes. They don't want you to thank them personally.
Emanuel, Ellen and I had just finished a Friday-meeting where we fantasized about how nice it would be if we could shower, soap and lather the children after the 4 pm swimming hour and wipe them dry in luxurious towels and then give them pajamas to wear before sleeping. One day we'll work out what we plan, we said. The problem is that after swimming the kids are dressed in the same old clothes pulled with discomfort over their humid bodies. If caregivers dry their wet kids at all it is casually with a tee shirt or whatever comes at hand. Often you see children the next morning wearing the same crumpled clothes that they wore before going to sleep.
On the whole plans are implemented slowly, depending on other priorities and means available, However in this case I think you might know what happened. The benefactor's money was pulled out of the envelope and we said: God, let's do it now, why not, how great!' Enthusiastically that same Saturday we called the plumber, and a mason as well, to make a stone pillar around the pipe. It had to be sturdy, the outside shower! Children like Ayuba and Piedu know how to climb pillars like monkeys, open and close and spoil taps and generally break things. By the way not only those two but almost all our kids, thank God, are exploring the world around them. The few who don't are really our problem children!
That same Saturday we started. Even before Paul and Marianne had left us, the outside-shower had been constructed and was almost ready for use. There should be unexpected problems in this country or else we would get seriously worried! One unexpected problem was that the original main pipe could not be traced. A lot of the grass of our beautiful lawn had to be uprooted in order to find it but we did and the connection could be made. The second problem was that the pressure on the water was not high enough and we had to buy a kind of electrical pump to increase the pressure. But then it worked and three forceful streams of water sprung from the outside shower. The kids had great fun showering there and to give it a final touch we painted the pillar green with blue for the showerheads


douche buiten

Ema onder de douche.

Lo and behold Ellen found pajamas for everybody in her container and so it happened that our vision was instantaneously implemented!
Some money was left! We used that too, and very well I might say. With our forty children the 'cuddle room', where the children relax and have siesta between one and three in the afternoons has become far too small. Waiting for means to build a second room, we decided to use the front room of the house of our three boys, Balloon, Piedu and Pakor, as annex cuddle-room.
Thanks to our unknown benefactor we have now placed a large mirror there. It is great to see how our children react to their own image when mostly they have not seen themselves before! A great success, this too!

This is me!

All this thanks to an unknown benefactor who might never read this...although maybe the handwriting is not that old fashioned type that stems from the twenties after all! Maybe these days that is what the children at school learn again.
And if our benefactor is a senior so what... don't many of our senior citizens browse the internet these days? They do. Thank you unknown person!

March 6th 2005

Friday Meetings

One of the most important innovations of this year is the 'Friday-meetings".
There used to be Monday morning meetings between all caregivers and other staff. The idea was to discuss the progress of each caregiver's children, but, one way or another, the meeting had watered down to something like this: 'My child is fine, he needs soap and toothpaste', 'My children are fine they need socks and pants and a pair of shoes', 'My children are fine I need pimple-cream, mercy-cream, Ma-Catharine-lotion, etc, etc!
Not too creative!
When last year the board was extended with Ellen and Emanuel, we reviewed everything: meetings, job-descriptions, responsibilities, all shifted to the benefit of the children for whom after all we have created this Community.
The Friday-meeting: a meeting between Emanuel, Ellen and myself (Ineke), where we discuss, one by one and in concrete detail the progress or lack of progress of an individual child.
The first meeting concerned Boadu, one of the forgotten children.
Boadu, though physically growing, seems to have regressed emotionally. He rarely if ever smiles again. Boadu is depressed, we said to each-other, what can the reason be?

Boadu is sad.

Boadu's situation is the following. He is fifteen years old. His caregiver is Kofi Asare, an adult who himself has a mental handicap. Boadu and Kofi Asare share a large bed in Kofi's big round hut. A nice place filled with this bed, a cupboard with clothes and many organs and other musical instruments. After all Kofi is the chief musician of the community.
We all brainstormed. What is Boadu missing that stands between him and his happiness? Of course he is autistic and deeply intellectually damaged. But still, emotions can be healed in spite of this.
'Is it the caregiver?' Of course Kofi, an abandoned child who has become adult, can possibly, however functional and responsible he is, not offer what an average adult caregiver can offer: safety, warmth, a kind discipline and of course playfulness. Maybe we ask too much of Kofi. But Kwaku backs up Kofi, Kwaku is the caregiver of a large number of adult children, Kofi, Kojo Evans, and so on. Yes, but Kwaku has a thousand and one other tasks as well!
What to do? Change caregiver? Get Boadu to sleep with another caregiver? We consider it and then reject the idea. It would be harmful to the self-esteem of Kofi Asare who prides himself to be the good caregiver of Boadu. OK, what are some of the stress-factors? Aha! Boadu sometimes wets the bed. Oho, it is one large bed, so when Boadu urinates then...Kofi gets wet! Nobody would like that, handicapped or not!
Now at least one cause of distress has been identified and we can solve it: Boadu and Kofi get single beds, one beside the other but separate. Boadu wet, Kofi dry! Here is the possible beginning of a more compassionate attitude of Kofi towards Boadu: the 'wet-factor' has been removed from his nightly life! Great, the solution is implemented over the weekend and from Monday onwards they sleep side by side, each in his own bed.
What else. Boadu is a large baby, a two year old in some ways. He needs to be hugged, talked to, walked with, played with, he needs to cuddle up into someone's lap. Furthermore we have to find out what exactly turns him on, what gives him at least the beginning of a smile.
Holding hands! He loves holding hands! Sometimes during parties Boadu and Cynthia sit side by side and hold hands (both of them, all four hands!) all through the party. What a comfort for both of them. And so sweet to see them like that!
We call Kofi. ' Kofi can you let Boadu sit on your lap and can you walk with him, hand in hand?' Enthusiastically Kofi starts right there and then...and is still doing it!

Kofi Asare with Boadu on his lap.

What else. He needs to be touched more and so Emanuel offers to bathe him in the morning together with his own child Peace and with Kofi. This is a feast of bathing and playing with water and soap in Ema's house. Works well! What else again. Ema suggests to take him by the hand and walk with him at the time the group does physiotherapy in the morning. Whoever walks with Inno, singing, also takes the hand of Boadu (who has his teddy bear in his other hand). Boadu is happy. His face is always slightly bent downwards, but if you stoop and look up you can see his face. Does he smile yet after doing this for quite some time? No, maybe, a tiny bit, the beginning of a smile, yes! Sometimes.
Later three volunteers, Marion, Joti and Sanne also help. Boadu is allowed to play with the volunteers who play with the smallest of the small children and he likes it. He goes swimming with them, while he is embraced and talked to like a baby. He loves it.

The good thing also about our Friday meetings is that before starting to discuss a new child we always go back to the children previously discussed. So every Friday Ema starts with telling us about Boadu: Boadu now doesn't wet the bed, Kofi walks with him more, etc, etc. Then we move to the next child already discussed. (Lazarus, about him later), and so on.
Disadvantage: meeting lasts longer each week, but as progress is made this is the least of our worries!
Ema leads the meeting and presents the child/problem to be discussed, Ellen is the resource person with all the experience, and I am an 'idea' and 'summary' person. That is how we work together very harmoniously.
In the meantime you may think that we have done away with the physical, or as we call it: the personal needs of the children. No, far from it.
Bob calculated that in 2005 the cost of personal needs amounted to a total of 3400 euro. This is almost 100 euro per child. Mostly this would go into soap, toothpaste, creams and cloth. Because of the renovations as described below we could lower our budget for 2006: 3000 euro (for more children).So our restructuring has also a significant financial impact.

Ellen had the wonderful idea to have monthly 'personal needs' days for each caregiver and his or her children. So once a month they must calculate how much soap, toothpaste and cloth they need for the next 30 days.
The creams now go 'through the doctor', me! That helps cut the cost and is an improvement for the child. Many of the creams which the caregivers demand are 'fashionable creams' that are loudly advertised on Tuesdays, the market days, through loudspeakers from all corners of Nkoranza town. And people being human often start to believe what they hear frequently and loudly repeated! The world over! So the factor fashion and advertisement is out, the factor professional is in.
Now not only did Ellen bring up the idea that once a month there would be 'requisition-day', but as soon as her dear friend Elja arrived the two went to work on a Boutique for Children Clothes! All from the last container. Nicely arranged by size and type, shoes, skirts, tee-shirts, evening-gowns! everything!
Today the boutique will open and the first caregiver is invited with her children.
She has to bring all the old clothes for inspection. Elja and Ellen and Ema (the three 'E's) will inspect the old clothes, take back what is too small, repair what is torn, and give out as rags what is irreparable. Then what and how much and when each child received what kind of cloth will be entered in a ledger.
And...there is a mirror and the child is allowed to shop around in the boutique for as long as she likes and 'buy' to her or his own taste!
Progress? Yeah!

Elja and Ellen at the Children's boutique

February 27, 2006

Interviews

These last three weeks we have been searching for candidates for the post of caregiver at our community. One of our staffs, Osei Ako, is leaving and needs replacement and anyway we are somewhat short of staff with our 39 children.
Three times we interviewed a group of young applicants. An average of five persons per session, or thereabouts. Of all the young people there were two girls who seemed the type that could work out well in our community and do a good job with the children. One of them is starting on March first.
But with the male applicants it was a different story. Relatively we are short of male caregivers. One boy applied for a job as messenger, the next said nothing and studied his Adidas shoes all through the interview, the third was a person with a wife and young children (we let applicants know beforehand that they need to be single or at least without young kids because it is a 24-hours job), the next a creep... Stereotyping maybe, but we search for quality youngsters to care for our children! Finally we had found two male candidates who seemed appropriate. Hurrah! Alas, the day the one would start he came to tell us: No, I've changed my mind. Of the other we found out just in time that he was living a sort of double life so we quickly declined him before it was too late.
("We' are the board; we like to interview with all 5 or 6 of us in order to compare impressions. Reason is that there is not much more to go on than impressions! Education is not important but honesty and specially the ability to be warm towards our kids is!)
'Why this time so few good candidates', we asked ourselves. Reply from Osei: 'All our young guys are on their way to Libya! Or else to the big cities.' True? Maybe.
Many people in our village have a 'Libya-past' and with many there is a strong urge to leave the village and go away, make money, find a life, escape boredom. Definitely the 'buggar' (from 'Hamburger' which means those first Ghanaians who hid in a cargo ship and ended up at the harbor of Hamburg) and the 'been to' (been to outside Ghana) play as popular role model in our local community.
I.m interviewing many people in Nkoranza who have an 'expatriate' past and hope to bundle and publish these stories one day. They are strong! Macabre even, sometimes, moving at other times.
Let me give you a taste: (with permission of Mr Darko)

I saw dead people, covered with dust, passport on top.
Interview with Mr. Darko from Nkoranza, 24-10-05

I'm Mr. Darko, 37 years old and married with two children. I'm from here in Nkoranza and I work as a car electrical mechanic in town. .
I will tell you about the experiences I had on my way to Libya.
About three years ago I went to Libya. I started from Ghana, passed Burkina Faso and went on to Niger and then straight into Libya. That's what I thought, but it happened otherwise.
From here to Burkina the road is acceptable but once in Niger the going is rough. From Burkina you get to Niamey which is the capital of Niger. There are many Ghanaians there waiting for their chance to get transport into Libya. In Niamey you wait till about thirty people have assembled, then you all get into an Urvan minibus. These busses take you to Agadez. Ghanaians wait for each other till they have enough money to hire the car together, we like to travel with Ghanaians only. Everyone pays about 300,000 Cedis (30 dollar) to the driver. The driver is not from Ghana, he is from Niger.
You take off and while the distance is not too far the road is so bad that it takes you three to four days to get to Agadez. This town is the second capital of Niger and lays at the edge of the desert. The military police stops you many times and each time you have to pay up. When they see Ghanaians in the bus they say: 'stop, out, pay.' If you don't pay they will throw you out of the car. You waste a lot of money on that stretch alone. Every time they stop you, you pay 50,000 Cedis. (approx 5 dollar), this is on top of the 300,000 which you already had to pay to hire the car. Every time the police stops the car they take your passports and documents and you don't get them back till you have paid.
So after three days and much money you get to Agadez.
After Agadez it is all desert, there is no more road. There is a trail which the drivers know but they miss it sometimes when there is a desert storm.
Whenever we stop we sleep beside the car. Really to be honest you cannot sleep. We don't feel sleepy for while you sleep anything can happen. People will grab your food and your money if you are not alert. So it is not sensible to sleep, so we don't sleep. It is also very cold the more you get into the desert so you could not even sleep if you wanted to.
There are Toyota land-cruisers and heavy trucks in Agadez; these are the only cars that can drive through the desert. With 30 other people I got into a Toyota Land-cruiser to start the journey through the desert. If you are less lucky you get into a large truck which takes two hundred people at the time! You stand like sardines in these large trucks and the sun burns and the desert wind fills your eyes and your mouth and even inside your ears with sand. Whatever type of car it is, it is overloaded and still, some people force to get inside by sitting on the edges and by just clinging to the car.
Once in the desert everybody is allowed a 7 gallons container with water to drink, and some small gari to eat, nothing else. The water-containers are tied to the car and hang outside, side by side. Everybody strictly keeps to his own water else there is a big quarrel. This water has to last you and all you eat is gari. When there is a stop you take your tin cup and put some gari in it and then add water and then you eat. Everybody loses weight but we Ghanaians are strong and we don't care. In fact we can do anything, anything at all.
From Agadez to Libya it is 'live or die'. Everybody becomes serious and has to struggle for himself. There are middle-men in Agadez who organize a car for you. You have to pay them to get into a car. Everybody likes to earn money from us and we have no choice but to pay. So you board your overloaded car! There is not any shade on the way and there is no road, some cars can miss the signs and get lost, in which case you die.
But we went in a line, a caravan of five cars from Agadez to Durku, which is near to the border of Libya. That trip is a four day journey through the sand. On the way the driver gets tired and makes a stop. Then everybody sleeps in the dust in the desert but no-one sleeps. However early morning the driver shouts 'hajaaa', 'hajaaa', which means up, up, and you go. You take some of your water from your container and mix it with gari and that is your breakfast. Every time there is a stop you eat the same you rest a bit and you go again.
When your car breaks down there is trouble. A breakdown is painful and then everybody just fights for himself to live. You try to get on some of the other cars. Some start walking but the dust covers everything and you panic and easily get lost with sand everywhere.
My car did not break down but another car gave up and we saw people in the desert from that broken down car. My car took up seven people from the desert trail who otherwise would have died. Nobody knew how they could still fit into our car but they did, they joined our car. The other cars also took as many people as they could. If you did not make it to a car you died.
I saw dead people there, and what they do is cover them with some dust and put their passport on top. This is because someone might pass who knows them and if they do they take the passport and show it to the relatives.
When we arrived in Durku we thought we had made it but then the big problem started!
It was in December, three years ago. The trip had taken more than two weeks in all, and we were close to Libya. But then in Durku we got stranded.
There is only one type of car that can bring you from there to Libya. The land-cruisers in the meantime return to Agadez. When I came to Durku it was just at the time that president Al-Qathafi had decreed that nobody could enter Libya through the desert borders anymore! We were all locked up in Durku, what could we do? We waited because the president could change his mind which he often does. But no, he never lifted the ban and we were stuck in Durku, which is the farthest village in the desert of Niger.
The food was running out. Only water was there in abundance because of a natural source, but there was no food to buy except very expensive bread.
With me there were over 500 Ghanaian people stranded and many others like Nigerians and those from Mali and Niger. The Ghanaians stayed together, waiting.
Every day more people assembled in that tiny village. The land-cruisers brought thirty to forty people each and the heavy trucks brought them by the two hundreds. It was a complete refugee camp and nobody wanted to turn around and go back to Ghana. We ate what we had and we bought when we had the money but there was little money on me.
I kept all my money safely on my body and counted it every day. Some people had not enough to return with. Some were too adventurous and tried anyway to force themselves with that one car into Libya. We all waited but they did not succeed. After a number of days the car came back with only a few people left, very few people left. Most had died from thirst. The driver said that heavy border guards were patrolling at the border of Libya and there was no way through.

All this happened because some Nigerians and Malians has smuggled cocaine and drugs into Libya through the desert. The president got to know of it and closed the borders just when I arrived. It was a very hard blow to my plans.

You count your money every day and the day you find you just have enough to return then you have to return. We stayed three weeks waiting. We were quiet because of those that died trying their luck crossing to Libya.
I decided to return, I had enough money for myself and I could pay for a young boy from Nkoranza. I looked after him and took him back with me.
A few women were there too but mostly all this is too hard for women. Women also cannot push a car when it gets stuck so the drivers don't want them.
I left Ghana in December and I returned with the young boy in February. I was forty days on the road and three weeks in that border town, waiting.
I could not call or send a message but the word went to Ghana that we were all coming back. My family and my wife and children were so happy to see me alive. They had all heard about the news that many people had died. So they rejoiced but all the same my wife was sad that I had failed to get into Libya.

If you help a friend who has no money you have to take a friend from your own town. That is the only way by which you will get your money back. If you see someone stranded from another town like Nkawkaw you don't help him for you never find your money again. Those who have no helper will die, they just roam around till they drop down in the sand. There we all have to fight for ourselves alone.
The boy from Nkoranza was lucky that he met someone like me who helped him. He is from my town. The boy paid back and he became a friend. His family is very grateful.
My wife was happy but sad. Happy for life but sad for the wasted money. We had lost. We wasted three million Cedis then, that would be five million now because of inflation. That is 500 dollar. We still cry about the waste. When I had the money now I would go again and this time I would succeed. I have to go for here in Ghana there is simply no future for me and my family.
Once in Libya you can either earn enough to start your own business here in Ghana or, if you are lucky, you get into Spain and then you get more money for you take any job you can. My brother is in Spain for over four years. He often calls me and tells me how to go about getting out of Ghana. He was the one who gave me money to travel to Libya when I failed and had to return. Right now last week he called me again and said 'Come! Try again!' Yes I am soon going to try again!

 

February 20th 2006

Reflections on Art and Love, Passion and Religion.

Monday morning dawn and here I sit behind the computer. Nana yaw sits on my lap; this early hour is his special hour too. It's getting to six and my duty in the hospital is almost over. I feel somewhat guilty because I did something that I would not normally do. Just now a phone call from the hospital about a possible second Caesarian and I shifted it to the next guy: "Wait till the ward doctor comes on rounds at eight, but call me if the fetal sounds get bad'.
Passing the buck, I think, it is called. Fair is fair, my duty lasts till eight and they called at six. I should have done it. But I'm tired and dizzy and don't want to be fair. Excuses enough, I have spent this weekend spitting and running diarrhea so much so that I was light in the head and walked my ward-rounds somewhat unstable. Bob too was sick, much sicker than I. Final excuse: I did a Caesarian at 3 am and thought that after that I was through, weekend duty over and time to enjoy my special early dawn hours in order to write. Then this phone call interrupts!
So, I write, however somewhat uneasy with the phone close beside me. I feel, dizzy, slightly guilty and yet inside very clearheaded.

In my thoughts I talk with a girlfriend while I write, for in your thoughts you can do a lot of things at the same time. Recently she wrote me about two themes in life: love and art. It was in connection with someone we both care for, but now I start playing with these mighty words in connection with myself. My spirit weighs these words, without any immediate cause, certainly nothing that has to do with sickness, breech position or where passing the buck is concerned.
I play with images from the past and see how passionately I have lived, always have, really.
How high my spirits were strung when this community came into being created without a big bang, but out of nothing. I don't think that in my life 'love' and 'art' are the leitmotiv's. I might have an artist in me, but am neither an intellectual nor a 'lover' so to speak. I sincerely never know what 'to love somebody' really means or if I am even able to do that, love someone. Bob and I often talk about these things. Love means different things for both of us, even though the outcome for our relationship may be the same: loyalty, a mutual homecoming together, being able to talk whatever the matter, intimacy and needing each other, which becomes clearer as we get older. Some would call that part needing part of love: 'co-dependence.'
Back to 'love' and 'art'. I believe they also form the keywords for Bob's mental make-up. While it becomes clearer than ever to me that I am from a different soul-group, my banner is made up of the words 'passion' and 'religion'. I could have written 'spirituality' instead but no, this sounds right. Less fashionable but closer to the earth, closer to heaven and closer to my old tradition.
With an awed smile I look back at my flying soul that would soar straight into God and seek to bring Him inside me. With passion, yes. There was no artist at work and using my mind could have brought my flying soul dangerously out of balance. My soaring soul which flew straight into God and sought to pick branch after divine branch out of Him, to construct something beautiful and mysterious. The last such creation was the 'PCC- Hand in Hand Community'. (So far!) No such thing as 'love for the abandoned mentally handicapped child' moved me,no. I was not even aware of that problem in Ghana. I soared and flew till branch by branch the vision begun to get woven like a bird nest woven out of rays of the sun.
Without a thought, without a doubt, relentlessly.
The ecumenical community, the land, the people who were flying with me, weaving the vision into being, the first cottages built from my savings, and then, finally, as if accidentally, a goal! That's how my friends and I were busy around that year 1992 when the community got established. A person from a Pentecostal group, whose name was Laurence, (where would he now be?) saw my vision in his own vision, he recognized what I could not yet see and encouraged me to hold on to that thing, to keep flying gathering branches. He said it will be an orphanage. ('Of course not an orphanage, what orphanage, I said!') Anyway he went to Accra and registered the community for us and we were real! Registered on 2nd February 1992. Days of passion, days of joy, divine madness maybe.
Many others called it crazy impulsiveness. There was a time, later, that I thought so myself. But I am proud that I flew so high! That's how we started here. That's how in December 1992 I brought Nana Yaw from the psychiatric hospital in Accra to my house, the first inhabitant of our dream-village. That's how I believed in and worked at my vision. That's how I met the shadow side of the Catholic Church, my church, which altogether seemed to have loathed what I was doing. That's how after I told the bishop about our community I was treated as a traitor, even scrutinized by diocesan search committees for corruption and abuse of my powers. Psychologically I was kicked out of the church and I at that time I did not even mind at all. Committees could not find fault with me apart from being insufferably charismatic and having started a project outside of Mother the Catholic Church! I did not even understand their problem, which was that the Church should have been the initiator of it.
Ahh. Sorry, did not think of it, too late now.
Plus, it has its definite advantages to be independent of any other institution included the Church.
Only when the community was founded and grounded and I left for two years to America to end my soaring flight back on the earth again did I understand more of the anger of the Church and the negative attitude of many people in Ghana.
I never forgave the church.
But I did forgive each and every player in it, included myself.
The church still scares me, I keep 'religiously' away from it in big circles.
Two years of studying psychology and theology in Chicago landed me on my feet again, after I crashed somewhat. It was good to be away from Ghana and the intrigues and even from our community, even from Nana Yaw, our first orphan who had found his home with us.

I met Bob. I did not want to return anymore, afraid of what I would find. I had inklings that our community was mainly held together by me and that not so much was happening, or maybe I was just afraid of the big bad church. Variation on "Who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe" by Albee. (A play Bob is directing with some of the volunteers and Cuban doctors, here).
'Who's afraid of the big bad church,
the big bad church, the big bad church,
the big bad church...?'
'I, Virginia Wolfe, I, Ineke Bosman, is afraid of the big bad church....!' (Exit play!)

In 1996 I went back to see how things were in Ghana. Not really flourishing. God, I then had doubts about what I had started. And then my new job as regional coordinator for psychiatry in all of Brong Ahafo! With my new diploma in counseling I had a new challenge there and the government (now my employer instead of the church) was glad I took it up. I had asked for it myself.
I lived in our community, in my house with the lovely scared little Nana Yaw who at that time might have been 9 or 10. Each Tuesday I would travel to Sunyani, the regional capital, and come home Thursday again. I taught psychiatry, did counseling and mostly enjoyed organizing group meetings with the mental health nurses to exchange experiences. It was tough but not as tough as building up that new PCC-Hand in Hand Community!
In case I would come home a day early I would sometimes find a child locked away or find the children, the handful we had then, hungry because X, our first caregiver, had found no time to cook for them.
One time I remember I was so boiling angry that I took the children in the car and parked them all on a stoop in the market, feeding them kenkey with my hand. The whole town was looking in silence! I was furious, foaming, desperate!

And now, now the sharp edges have gone, dissolved. It is 13 years later and the community seems to run like a train.
I'm sitting here with Nana Yaw on my leg, laptop in front of me and telephone at my side. It is eight, time for breakfast, my duty is over.
By the way I managed to pass the buck!
So, that was my reflection about love and art, passion and religion.

12 February 2006

Every day a banquet!

It started with Pieter's birthday. No, before that really. On the fifth of February Pieter celebrated his 80th birthday and it became quite a party! First pictures had to be made of Pieter and secretly brought to the local artist in town.
X foto 1 pieter
We had the idea to make a signboard for Pieter's house by way of his birthday-present.
De SMA Superior from The Netherlands, Fr. Jos Pijpers, came already a few days before the feast-day to visit Pieter in his new environment. The next evening quite a group of Pieter's SMA colleagues came to celebrate his birthday in advance. The atmosphere was so wonderful and the party so jolly that pictures can maybe best capture the spirit!
And doesn't Pieter's portrait on the signboard, which we unveiled that evening, looks just like him? 'House number one...Fr. Pieter's Residence'.

Fr. Pieter's Residence, House Number One! Fr. Pieter and Fr. Jos Pijpers

Garden party with the SMA group.

Wonderful festive days leading up, in good catholic fashion (the advent before Christmas) to the real thing, the grand birthday celebration on the fifth. I'll get back to it.
Osei heard that indeed in March he can attend a congress in Bielefeld in Germany. This conference is organized by our partner foundation "Ananse" in Germany, a foundation raised by our ex-volunteers Susanne and Rudiger. Osei has been invited to speak about our community and the fate of mentally handicapped children in Ghana. Of course he will take the opportunity to see one or two things and visits people both in Germany and in Holland. It was such a great surprise that within three days he had obtained his visa! We hear so many horror stories about embassies and travel papers that we get used to expecting the worst. But no, Osei was treated like the gentleman he is and returned from Accra with a visa, a ticket and a very broad smile!

Osei al in gedachten op reis naar bielefeld

In his mind Osei is already traveling to Bielefeld!
Saturday Ellen organized a disco for the children. Nice. Disc-jockey, giant speakers, a powerful sound-system and of course music which moved every single person into dance. Dance they did! The big summer-hut was used as a disco-hall. And so the huge round heavy table which needs to be lifted by ten grown men was put outside for the occasion. That is where I saw it the next morning. In all its beauty and its glory! I said Ellen, it is not possible to lift that heavy table in and out every week, why shall we not use it as dining table on the grass in the open? Yes, of course, Ellen said. Wonderful, these 'of course's by Ellen, for after all the workshop is her territory. Now the round table stands on the grass replacing two other shabby tables and it is just gorgeous! Kids at the table, dogs under it (or sometimes the other way around!)

ronde tafel , ronde tafel met hond eronder

Awesome in its simple beauty!
Then Pieter's actual birthday. He was placed on a seat with Kente and had his two favorite girls, Afia and Cynthia, at each side, He was so happy, look at the flowers behind his ears. All children in festive dress. Alina, Ellen and the workshop kids sung him a special song. Speeches, presents, kisses, toasts and joy! Dancing of course!

really eighty? , ovatie door Ellen Aline etc

Is he really eighty? Looks like a young volunteer!!
Yes every single day was festive. Take yesterday. All the (over fifty) kids of Bob's school, the ones he teaches English, was invited to come and play and swim at our place. Such invitation usually comes three times a year and is becoming one of Bob's traditions. Kids between twelve and sixteen. Bob is crazy about them and they are crazy about their teacher.

bob's klas

Bob at school. Fifty or more kids in one class.
Saturday the class came to us.

class with us

And now...it is Sunday and I am on duty in the hospital again. And yes, having started again with weekend duty only I enjoy my medical work again. How could I not, I'm made for it. And the Sunday is so quiet that I can even write my weekly column during duty. So much more needs to be noted down. We had exciting visitors, first the Maasland group, Nieske and all the 'Sport and Spellers", such nice times together, and last week Jan and Franca came, old friends though we have only met twice, this was the third time. Quality time! Also I am fully aware that I haven't written about our volunteers at all. Probably I haven't mentioned them as yet because the fuse in so perfectly with the kids and the caregivers. Ellen coordinates them perfectly. Paul has gone back to Switserland. Thank you Paul! Alina arrived in January and Joti and Marion a few weeks later. Another volunteer came, Sanne, to assist for a couple of weeks. Alina and all new volunteers: Akwaaba!

Aline: quiet, sweet and socially gifted!

The story goes on, we are sure to try and keep it this way: each day a sweet banquet!

5-2-06

The Cardinal at Work

After the meeting we shake it all off, plunge into the pool with the children, eat, drink, relax and look at a film. (Cassavetes: Woman under the Influence. Thank you Linda!) Then it is eight in the evening a starry night and as usual we sit in our inner garden.
'I enjoyed your cardinal at work today. He was excellent.' says Bob.
'Did you think it was all right? I was not too strong? Good meeting but sometimes I go over peoples head, too fast and all that. Too short, too challenging, towards Ema maybe? And too harsh with you, no?'
'Yeah, maybe, but it is OK to cut long digressions short, you are a master at that. I like your style of chairing meetings. How you handle the issues at stake. Intelligent, to the point, no nonsense. The leader in you is like the director of an orchestra, yes Barenbaim compares to you. You insist on hearing the voice of the quiet and putting brakes on the talkatives. Ends with concrete conclusions. I watch the cardinal with pride, I do! You do it with natural authority. Well done. Here is to the cardinal. Long live the cardinal!'
We laugh.

Why this cardinal business....

I know a woman who is a clairvoyant or a medical intuitive or how to say it. A counselor, who's name is Alice Ann Parker. I talk to her maybe once a year. The last time we talked I asked her insight into my obvious shyness bordering on social phobia. How better to handle it. Especially as there is an incongruence between how apparently many people see me (strong, powerful) and how I feel (shy, uncertain, anxious).
Alice Ann said this about it: 'Of course you know that for many life-times, again and again, you have spent in high positions within the Catholic Church. During several lives you have been a cardinal, I think you know that. In any case, you were at powerful places. Sometimes you used your power wisely and other times you abused your power and people suffered from you.
That's why you are not comfortable with power in your life here and now. You hide, you draw your personality inside of yourself. Your tend to draw your aura beneath your skin. Did you ever notice that? By the way that is a valid way of making yourself invisible, unnoticed. It is a fine way to protect yourself when, say, you have to walk in the dark inner city of London at night. That way you can even walk through a gang of murderers unseen!'

Hmmm. No I knew none of this.

'So, just know that. You carry a lot of power if you like it or not, you have played dangerous games with it as well as using it creatively. People have feared your power and now you fear your power. But don't fear your own power, play with it. Talk to the old cardinal, humor him!'
Well...Do I believe in former lives? Do I not believe? Don't know, don't care too much.
However this explanation has often helped me in practical situations, like in having to run a meeting.
So, during the last board meeting my cardinal was benign and insightful, but strict. Oh was he strict! He remembers, knows the law, brings back to basics, summarizes in one sentence, cuts short, challenges, disciplines and innovates. And has a good laugh, at eight at night, under the tropical sky.
Call me 'Your Eminence' I say to Bob.
Call me 'My Jew-boy and my Moneyman' Bob says to me.
'But now that we are talking tell me why did you persecute me so, during the inquisition? What did I ever do to you? Why so cruel to an old Jew?'
I stiffen, pull my aura inside and look at him. Invisible, afraid of what I might have done.

'Come on I am just joking', says the good old Bob.
Then embrace her eminence, I say, and so we do.
We embrace.
Another day at Nkoranza.

 

29 January 2006

A new Appreciation!

I am still being the caregiver of Paa Yaw. Two nights have passed (even though it was supposed to be for one night only) and half a day is left! Tonight Sr. Joyce, who takes care of Paa Yaw, Emmanuelle and Innocencia hopefully returns from a funeral. This morning is special because we are all going to the monastery to top off the weekend!
(all: means Bob, Pieter, Ayuba, Paa Yaw, Kofi Asare and John Ambrose, not all 55 kids and 20 staffs!)
I love Paa Yaw dearly, it is a known fact. So when Joyce got permission to attend a funeral she distributed her children among three caregivers, Emmanuelle to Sophia, Innocencia to Milli, and Paa Yaw, who normally goes to Salamata, came to stay with me in our house. Great fun! Friday evening feeding him a meal included half of my plate, then bringing him with some other kids inside the house to watch a movie, a recording of a Frank Sinatra concerts which of all things he likes best! Bob gives him a coke. He spills his coke. All normal. Bouts of laughter all around.
Then I give him a bath, right! I lift him up and carry him into the bathroom, while bumping into chairs, stools, dogs and God knows what. He is very heavy this guy! Okay he sits on the floor of the bathroom (after trying to sit him down inside a large laundry bowl where he keeps slipping and going under, laughingly of course) and I lather him with soap till he looks like a curly white toy-dog with large black eyes. I splash water over his body. Delight! Rubbing him dry is easy in one of Bob's rich towels. Then a handful of talcum powder is rubbed into his skin in order to give him a dry and nicely smelling feeling. Done! He looks like a fetish priest. (Oh yes we are in Africa here, and in traditional style talcum powder is widely used to throw in handfuls towards the dancing fetish priest. Talcum helps to absorb the abundance of sweat and adds to the eerie appearance of the priest swirling himself into trance to be possessed by a spirit).
Paa Yaw sits like a nice chubby fetish student besides us on the coach. He should sleep now, it is 8, 30 and he keeps tumbling over. I put him in our bed, sigh with relief, and start a game of scrabble with Bob in the inner garden. A desperate moaning. Paa Yaw! I go look at him in the bed and see crocodile tears. Go sleep I say you are over-exhausted. He closes his eyes I return to the game and we hear a howling crying again. Okay I sigh and say 'for one night only' and let him sit on my knee where he plays with the letters of the scrabble game which we however manage to keep out of his reach. Game over and I put him back in bed, our huge bed, where he promptly sleeps in an outstretched relaxed royal transverse position. Big bed but no place for Bob and I, unless we disturb his sleep and turn him 90 degrees. Done. He grumbles but carries on sleeping. However he now lays on Bobs side and Bob sneaks away into the siesta bed in the yeshiva. Paa Yaw and I are left for the night. The silhouette of his sleeping face is awesome and tender. I fall asleep. His hand throws itself suddenly on my face and I'm awake. He sleeps. I fall asleep again. Another sound and I'm awake. 'Paa Yaw what are you saying? Do you have to empty your bladder?' Paa Yaw understands everything but does not talk much, he nods, yes or no. Problem in the darkness is you can't see his answer you have to lay your hand on his head and try to find out if the movement is rotation or flexion-extension (to use some of my medical terms). It was rotation of the head: no. 'OK, you don't have to pee, go sleep'. He sleeps at once. It takes me a while. But I get my compensation by knowing he is asleep at my side, it just feels good and he did not wet the bed so far. Than another smack in my face. Accident! He dreams. Awake I look at him but he is sound asleep. So that's how we carry on till dawn. Then I carry him out of the bed and all the way outside for him to pee, as he can't sit on the toilet. (I noticed that the evening before when he almost slipped into the toilet-pot!) Oh this is difficult in the dark, I stumble and run into things, our dogs yaps because I stepped on his tail.
I need my coffee before I can move in any coordinated way and for coffee I need Bob who is soundly asleep in the Yeshiva! Anyway one way or another I get PaaYaw outside, on the lawn, to pee. Now he is shy to pee in my presence and I have to wake up Sala, poor Sala, 'Sala please, could you let him pee on the pot?'
I look how easily and professionally she does it, laughing at my clumsiness. Of course Sala, and all of them, are so much better with all these basic actions! And they have to care for two or three of them!
Paa Yaw did his thing, and I got my wake up coffee, courtesy of dear Bob. Awake I continued with his morning bath. Better this time, I'm almost a professional. Soap, water, towel, powder. Then a spray. Oh, he does not like the spray! Very definitely female he seems to say! Wants powder wherever I sprayed to cover the smell. Pity, Calvin Klein!
Okay, red trousers, blue shirt and there he sits at breakfast. Saturday now and we have visitors, a German family. I promised PaaYaw to go swimming with him so after serving them drinks I excuse myself and together we float in the pool, in one of Ellen's magic boats. Piedu comes to help and expertly swirls us around in circles. Two hours, sun, I get tired. More kids in the boat and I get out. Who calls me to carry him back to the house? Paa Yaw of course. The king and I!


Paa Yaw the King

Another bath, dinner and woops, back on the coach in the house, now with Fr Pieter and some kids to look at a film. He sleeps throughout the film. I put him in the bed, top to foot, not right to left, and relax with a Bob and a beer. Crying from the bedroom. Paa Yaw calling. Did he have a bad dream? I tug him in and go back to our inner garden. Repetition of yesterday. Definitely spoiled and who did it? I! I lift him in the bed again and we both sleep. Same as yesterday. A moan. Ineke awake. An arm that hits me in the face, Ineke awake. A mumbled word. 'Paa Yaw you have to pee?' Feel the movement of his head. Twice he rotates his head: no. It is a pitch-dark night with the electricity off. Third little sound. Feel his head. Nods yes. Woops, out of the bed, stumble, fall, he gets the giggles, I don't, struggle through the dark, bump into a closed door, open this door and that door and we are out in open air. Dark, deserted, everybody asleep. Aha, everybody asleep besides Sophia. Sophia smilingly takes him from me and finds a pot somewhere. I sit looking on in the grey dawn, exhausted but again satisfied. Second night that he did not wet the bed, he can be proud of himself! Bob comes with coffee, oh Bob! We say to each other that we are glad to be too old to get children ourselves!
Time to bath, dress and eat early, for we are going to the monastery this Sunday morning.
At two pm we are back. I sit under the tree with Emilio, who cuts my hair. Bob has siesta. Who is crawling around calling for my attention? Yes! The same little man. I say 'Sr. Joyce must be back now so go to your mother'.

Sunday night now. The third night. I'm in the bed alone, writing this second part in my laptop. Bob entertains PaaYaw and soon he will sleep here again. I decide to take a pill, or a beer, or both, to enjoy a full night sleep. Hmm, but what if he pees? So I plan to finish this little story and take a book and watch the little guy. Too tired, all of us.

Yes and I have a brand new appreciation for the caregivers.

Somewhat tempered however. Wait a minute lady, you say you are away for absolutely only one night and you make it three!? (If she comes tomorrow!)
Yes more appreciation for the caregivers but not for their funny ideas about African time.
We'll have to talk about that one again.
Good night.

Nkoranza, January 21st 2006

This Saturday morning it should succeed. Coffee, laptop, sun and the sounds of children outside and I inside in a clean house with a clean sheet of 'Word' in front of me.
The last couple of weeks I worked more with clean sheets of 'Excel", together with Bob. Yes, finances... it has not been a bad year, in that sense too!
But now a few words in 'Word'.
I had such a busy November and December mostly because of problems in the hospital. My young colleagues were on courses and out, here and there, always gone, so that I started getting the feeling that I was on duty for two months on a stretch.
All the time these unexpected phone-calls: "Doctor, I know you are not on duty but we can't find the doctor on duty so please would you help, a woman urgently needs a C-section." Okay, okay....
The chaos in the hospital management, more than the actual work, disturbed me much and I started playing with the idea of stopping with my involvement in the hospital there and then....and my thumb helped make the decision! He (or should I call my thumb a 'she') refused to further cooperate. A thickening in its tendon had developed which played peculiar tricks with its functioning, it would either get locked in straight position or in a sharp angle. That's how the last couple of weeks you could hear in the operation room my repeated request to the scrub nurses: 'please straighten out my thumb, ok?', if once more it was locked in the eye of the surgical scissors. So I announced that per January I would stop and take a break and reconsider my involvement in the hospital And so I did.
New years eve, my last night on call, I still delivered two fat screaming, pink boys, Kwabena's, and Sunday the 1st of January at 8 am my work was over and I fell into this big quiet emptiness. First of all I slept around the clock, telephone off the hook, and on Monday the 2nd I was fully awake, rested and unburdened of the hospital and its many problems. Easily all of that was past and slipped off my shoulders..
How well that felt and how well that still feels.
It's funny that I promised myself: 'January is for reading, writing poetry, interviewing, writing, drawing, what not', and now, three weeks into January it is the first time that I write a minuscule column like this.
Light like a feather I walk around here, read a book, look a child deep in the eyes, hold Kwabena close, watch films with Bob and Paa Yaw and Dela, and with renewed enthusiasm I sink into the PCC-Hand in Hand Community affairs. News task distributions. Changes in the organization. Searching for better care for each individual child. Beautify the landscape with a tree here and a bench there. Helping Pieter with how to manage to garbage and make compost. Many call to Holland, to friends. New ideas with Ellen about the distribution of cloth and bed sheets for the children. Other package of working conditions for our staff.
As if a nurturing spring rain has fallen, that's how ideas blossom up. Or better like flowers after a rain in the desert, that's how one by one changes and new ideas are implemented, things we had no time for and now open their own way one by one. So relaxed and naturally unstrained.
'Sport en Spel' from Maasland has been here and how we enjoyed! Nieske was the 'tour operator' and for the first time her Jan came with Nieske to Africa. Daan came and 6 other new faces: Rita, Ria, Albert, Marianne, Lize and Leo. Five days long we had fun together and a real good time. The last day of their stay we organized our usual party with the children and it was magnificent. We then thanked 'Maasland' more officially for all their support to our project and children.
Wednesday night it rained and rained (which is impossible in Ghana in this time of the year according to the book and the old folks) but it did. And Angel our dog make use of the rain shield to find a hole in the fence and disappear. Only at eight at night did we realize that she was gone and it was pitch-dark and still raining hard and we were very scared for her, Bob and I and all the caregivers. It was too late to organize a search party. But I never slept and at 3 am I sat in front of the house, calling 'Angel', 'Angel'. Till I became too hoarse. Weel really I was hoarse from fear because Angel is a real Labrador and enjoys rolling around in water, specially natural pools and rivers, of which there are some behind our land and they are dangerous because Angel is getting on in years and becomes clumsy and overweight and so she can hardly climb the bank of the river after her 'bath', it has happened before that she was tuck. I saw the one doom scenario after the other enrolling before my eyes. Sweet Bob of course would come with opposite scenario's to lift my and his own mood, like: 'she is an old toughie, she is a real survivor, Angel is stronger than all of us, you'll see her coming soon, just you look and wait".
What indeed did we see in the early morning light, when light and dark still intertwine: Yes! Kwaku came walking from the riverside with what looked like our dog in his arms, a hell of an iron trap in his other hand! Ahhhhhh!
Kwaku had found him on the other side of the river, where he had walked into that horrid trap. Illegal hunters always put traps around the river, basically to catch small animals like deer and beavers.
Thursday the 19th of January: important day!
Sala Kwaku and I bathed Angel with warm water, first only the unsightly swollen leg, and then as an afterthought the whole filthy body! She trembled as if she had an epileptic attack, so bad. She was cold, frightened and mostly extremely exhausted. But then she laid on the coach rolled in towels to rub her dry and warm. I found the hairdryer and started to dry her with the warm air of it. A hairdryer used for a dog in these parts of Africa...not common to say the least. Angel looked at me in disdain as far as she could in her exhaustion: how can you pester me with this hot wind when I cant do anything back? But after a few minutes she relaxed in it, dried up, stopped trembling and soundly fell asleep. Around the clock, like me after my last night call. Just like that!
OK, yesterday the 20th Angel once again, with swollen leg and all, got it in her crazy head to once more perform the disappearing act! Thank God it was daylight and it did not rain and she was found taking her beauty bath in that same river. This time no hairdryer and other forms of pity but a reproach! Today, Saturday, Bob and I will buy some chicken wire and close all the holes in the fence: a perfect Saturday job, better than being on call. Good, Ineke, keep it that way!

Wednesday 28 th December 2005

Feast of the Innocent Children

(A quick one in between)

The R.C. Church is celebrating today the feast of the “Innocent Children”. That is us! That feast is our feast!

What made that feast extra special? An email today from Lonneke (an ex-volunteer and the ‘mother’ of Emanuel) who organized spontaneously a Christmas Bazaar for our project here in Nkoranza, at a school in Maarn in The Netherlands.

Enthusiasm all around. Children emptied their pockets to give to our children! Feast of love!

Here she is, Lonneke.

Christmas Market at school: ‘De Meent’ in Maarn.

Further this morning: a group of eleven Dutch people who have spend the night at our project and surprised the children this morning with Christmas gifts for each and everyone of them! Drumming, dancing, joy!

Joy is small-scale, specific and blessed!

 

15th December 05

Style, awards and what to Wear.

A few days ago I celebrated my 61st birthday-party. Here making a party has remained simple, we shout the magic word: 'party-time' and the party starts. Input: a coke with a straw and a big plate of rice. Output: fun, shouting, laughing, singing and dancing at the beat of expert drummer Kofi Asare.
However I write about my birthday for other reasons than how we enjoy parties, I want to remember the words that Bob gave me as a birthday present.
'You, Ineke, have received more awards than most fertile women in Ghana have received children. How many? Twenty? Thirty?' No, of course not, but I received quite a few. And being honored always brought back the same old question of what to wear!

A big occasion happened in 1990. I became an honorable citizen of Nkoranza and a queen-mother. At that time a large crowd had gathered in town and by surprise two people brought me in the middle of the 'ring' and I was presented with a royal stool. Then women proceeded to publicly dress me in a queen mothers outfit. I felt like a Christmas-tree being decorated as they swung a cloth around my breasts and another one around my waist, both tightly secured with a kind of rope. Then another cloth went over my left shoulder. Sandals were put on my dusty feet and there I was, presented as the new honorable queen mother:'Nana Ampomah II' of Adomkrom, Nkoranza. Applause and increasing volume of drums and there I go...I dance around the durbar-grounds, expressing my newly gained royalty! I danced alone, well I thought I danced alone! Would have felt a whole lot better if I had known that people, including Dora Adyei, the now deceased mayor of Nkoranza, danced right behind me and kept their arms up high with their two fingers spread out in V-formation, saying victory!
And why did I dance so regally? Because I did not dare to breathe for fear that the upper cloth would drop and expose my breasts, that my shoulder-cloth would fall down and that my 'skirt' too would come undone! And then those sandals!! It felt like Donald Duck might feel, dancing on his water flippers! I hardly moved and hardly breathed and kept my body rigid for fear of ending up dancing barefoot and naked! I felt tremendously honored. Yet it was only in the evening, safely back home wearing my old blue jeans that I could really enjoy it all it retrospect.
After that occasion I often had to show up at celebrations and funerals clothed traditionally as a queen mother and make my dance steps. I learned to be more free in wearing the traditional cloth but I never ever felt quite 'myself'.
I received awards for my pioneering work in starting a health insurance for our district, an insurance that lasted for over 11 years untill this year,2005. Now the National Health Insurance of the government has taken over, or rather incorporated, our district wide local health-insurance plan.
And now again an award. In November our traditional chief fell ill. Because royalty is not traditionally allowed to stay in a hospital the Chief came to recuperate in one of our guesthouses at the Hand in Hand Community. Of course Bob and I know the Chief and his wife well for when in 1997 we decided to marry in Nkoranza it was the Chief who gave me away as his daughter and the wife of the chief who gave Bob away as her son (older than her, but so what, we are in a country where family loyalty counts more than family logic.)
While here with us the Chief told me that the Asanteking was coming to Nkoranza and would want to honor me among others. This time the award had not so much to do with the health insurance but mainly with our community for mentally handicapped that I had started. I felt honored. But with the honor something else goes through my mind, of course, namely what to wear for that occasion! This is an award from the Ashanti king, the most influential king of Ghana. He often functions as a goodwill ambassador for Ghana and Africa and is comparable in stature to Mr. Kofi Annan.
I decide to buy Ghanaian material and uncover my sewing-machine from under the dustsheet in order to design my own outfit. I start by making trousers which turn out well and match with my favorite black high heeled pumps.

But now what, what kind of top? I have to be traditional at least to some extend. A blouse or tee-shirt would be like an insult. I get another large peace of cloth and drape it over my left shoulder. Not bad! I leave it at that, my mind is made up!
Three days before the occasion we get official notice just like the Chief told me.
-Unfortunate detail: they want me to go for the award with one of our children in my arms, Emmanuelle, and I am asked to tell that child's story in front of the microphone. I panic. The parents of Emmanuelle are not only still alive but live in town. Last year the baby was born in our hospital, born without arms or legs. A passionate dispute then evolved as the mother categorically refused to keep the child, she was going to dispose of the child in the bush. The nurses called me: 'you have a home for special children and this child is special and if you do not take it she will die, devoured by animals. I put the request to our board. Oh yes, lets take her in, they all said, a Christmas present...so Emmanuelle joined us. That is the story but cannot of course be publicly told without embarrassing the parents. Bob goes to the Chief and asks him to please refrain from asking about the baby's story. 'Your problem is solved' says the Chief.-
Remains my dress! I have to really look traditional, the caregivers are insisting, 'Maame, remember you have to show your royalty, remember you are in front of the King', etc, etc. Yeah, yeah...
I decline an offer from the wife of the Chief to dress me (as I know what that would lead to) and ask Sophia, the most modern of our girls, to help me. I start by showing myself to her, wearing my pants and black shoes. Sophia swallows. She says: 'You cannot go in trousers'. 'Wait', I say, 'I have a traditional top in mind, the combination will be 'style'!' 'Style' is a Ghanaian expression for a modern fashion statement, a combination of the usual and the unusual. These days more and more 'style' is seen and makes people look good, firstly because Ghanaians are well shaped and can get away with daring combinations but also because one gets tired with the sameness of traditional cloth.
'Sophia, help me!' She smiles, oh is she great, as she says: 'OK', the top of a queen-mother and the down of an ambassador!'
Sophia then proceeds like a matron: 'Put the one strap of your bra down'. 'Why' I say, 'it is transparent, you don't see it'. "I see it, put it down'. So I put my strap down and almost lose the whole bra, but she pins the thing into place. Then she drapes the cloth round my back and over my left shoulder and continues to make a headgear out of another large piece of cloth and ...it is really fabulous! We both love it. However, she is uncertain until she has the approval of the final authority on this compound on dress code: Vida, the wife of Mr. Osei.
I am in a fighting mood knowing what will come. Vida arrives. 'Nice' she says. 'But not these shoes, no, you need traditional sandals. I have cloth for around your waist instead of the trousers. Anyway, you look sweet!' Then comes the punch line: 'As you receive an award from the King you really need to show respect!'
Boy is this emotional and cultural blackmail! But I stick to my guns.
'No, I can't walk on these sandals, I will fall, so I keep my shoes, OK! By the way I keep my trousers, too. I respect you, Vida, I respect Sophia and I respect the King. But you should respect me, a Queen mother, as well, so leave me alone!'
Vida gives up on me and disappears. Sophia comes back in: 'Are you sure?' 'Sure!'

The day itself I ask Sophia not only to do my bra and drape that cloth around my shoulder and do the headgear but stay close to me. Off we go with some of the kids. I am called to receive the award. No talk about Emmanuelle and nobody tells me to dance! The function is a success and once it is over the King announces to visit our community. All the compliments about my dress are heartwarming! Osei left the function early to prepare for the visit by putting the children in a large circle...waiting. Then he did not come, explained that he had too many simultaneous commitments. However he let us know that in a few days he would send a minister of state to visit us instead. All the same, visit or not, we all feel happy about the award, everybody has a drink and it becomes a party. (Remember us with our parties?)
Then a few days later messengers arrive: The minister will come. Tonight. Again we make ready, sit in a circle till it starts raining and the kids go to sleep. At 10 pm the minister indeed arrived to our sleeping compound, so Osei told us the next day! They desired rooms which we didn't have so they went to stay in a hotel in town.
Bob found one of his favorite play-scripts again: 'Waiting for Godot'
OK, we hear they will come this morning. 'Sure', we say, 'sure'! However at 10 am they called me from the hospital: the minister has arrived! I return and the first thing I see is a long row of important looking cars, blocking our beautiful view over the hills.
Then I see a woman in blue jeans, comfortable with Emmanuelle on her lap.
Is that her? It is her, Mrs.Elisabeth Ohene, minister for education!
She and her large entourage are sitting around the table and soon we are all at ease. They see our kids, our beautiful premises, the sheltered workshop with the beads and the weaving and of course they are much impressed. She is especially interested in the story of how I started this project and wants details about each child.
I like her and I say it: 'Honorable Mrs. Elisabeth you are in blue-jeans, this is the first time I see a Minister of State in jeans. It looks great on you.'
She laughed!! 'It won't be the last time either, Ghana is changing!'
With all respect we spoke like sisters and found out that we are the same age and have similar likes and dislikes, for example in dressing up for occasions! 'Wait', she said, 'Traditions will always be there but 'style' is what counts. Take this place here for example: your inspiration to create this unique community is a brave untraditional act of style!'

We did not dance but my soul danced. I danced because Emmanuelle was treated like a baby instead of an exhibition object. I danced because Ghana is in an upwards swing, I danced because for the first time a high Ghaianan official came to visit our community, I danced because I had found an honorable blue-jeans-clad soul mate!

December 17, 2005

Jet Douwes Awarded

Jet Douwes has been a weaver all her life. Not long ago Jet received an award in Holland, the award for the 'Silent Hero of the year'. This award was given because Jet has spend her entire life teaching weaving to those who are sometimes brand marked as 'the asocial and un-teachable youth', and with amazingly positive results! Well, Jet has sent the money-award to our project, has sent us looms and all kind of things, and finally she herself came to Ghana to help Ellen set up the looms in the sheltered workshop and teach a selected few of our children how to weave.
Thus on the 3rd of November Jet arrived, with her sister Bertje from Norway and her friend Wendel who is, like Jet, from Groningen. Ellen and Morocco went to pick them up at the airport.
First of all they did not arrive too comfortably! They had to carry the precious load of four new children from Osu Children's Home to our community, literally carry them on their laps. The ladies in their sixties-seventies, sweet but tired, and the children between two and ten, scared, shouting, wiggly and incontinent (of course!). What they had in common was that they were all on a journey to a foreign place. The ladies curious, the children scared...
I remember how easily the children settled in. Michael was somewhat overactive but within a week felt comfortable with Angela, his caregiver. Kwabena settled in immediately. Francis got a fever which was caringly treated by his Alydja, and Adoa silently followed her new mother Charity for a few days but now talks and laughs as if she has always been here.
Equally easily the three lady-weavers settled in. A day or two after arrival they were seen studying the improvised weaving-hall for ways to set up the looms and you could see that in her mind Jet was already weaving. Next day, Monday, all three ladies were actually weaving with the six elected kids as if they had been doing that, in Ghana, all their lives!
They were working so quietly and so professionally and they felt so much at home that Bob and I hardly noticed their presence (and felt a bit guilty about that!) till one day they came walking to our house like this: look at that picture!

Jet, Bertje and Wendel with a present: six chairs for the children!

'How come, how do you know we need them?'
They had spent an evening in the internet café reading our website, and thus they realized that the new children had to eat from an improvised table without chairs. That's how!

That's how all the three ladies were all during their three week stay here: Quiet, professional, generous and contented! And now...we miss them dearly.

Jet taught Kojo Evans (he is a born weaver, she noticed), Latiff, John, Kofi Baidoo, Kwame Nkrumah and Charles how to weave. Not children play but weaving. They made products that could be laying for sale in the Boutiques at the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, or in the expensive shops in The Hague.
One especially amazing product is a ladies bag that is woven from a combination of colorful cotton and old plastic bags cut into strips. The effect of that combination is really wonderful, here are artists at work. And environmentalists! You have to see it to believe. I mean it is not just a nice environmental friendly product made by the handicapped so that with a sigh of compassion you buy one. No! When you see these bags you just want to buy them and give them to your very best and most fashionable friends! Artwork, a joy to behold!

Kojo Evans working at his loom.

During these weeks Mr. Osei, who has constructed the new weaving hall, frantically worked on making things ready for the official opening ceremony, despite the usual problems of carpenters not showing up, missing masons and sand trucks getting stuck on our road. But of course in the end things always work out and a few days before the departure of the three ladies Ellen conducted the official opening of the weaving-hall, a beautiful and happy celebration!
The big surprise during the ceremony was the name of the hall, "Jet Douwes Weaving Hall", as a tribute to our silent hero.
When one of our children solemnly took the veil away it was great to see the surprise and glow in Jet's eyes. That glow is surely a reflection of her inner strength and goodness, but still it is great to award the awarded and feel awarded by the effect! (Wooops, what a sentence!)

29-11-05,

Bericht van Berend en Hildegart:

Dear friends in Ghana, (and in Holland),
On behalf of the Muller family I have to tell you that Ab (Albert) Muller has passed away. You may remember him as the friend with whom we made some great trips to Ghana: twice with his wife Rita, once just the two of us (last year november).
The children of Ab and Rita and our kids Emiel, Joost and Maarten used to go to the same elementary school in Achterveld. Once there was an exposition in that school of Ghanaian items; stools, kente, adinkrah. That is where we met for the first time. Ab explained that he lived in Ghana in the sixties and that he was involved in the construction of the Polytechnic in Sunyani and the school buildings of the present Cape Coast University in Kumasi. In 2001 we decided to return with his wife Rita after so many years and he felt like coming home. The friendlyness and hospitality of the people, the beauty of the country and the feeling of pride that his buildings were well maintained and unaffected by time. He was touched by the staff and inhibitants of the Nkoranza Community, by the devotion of people like Ineke and Bob; he felt a warm friendship for Stella, Nana Yaw, Gifty, Charles, Monica, Sammy and all others he met. He was not a man to sit down and rest, so on a second trip we worked in the Sunyani Eye Department and on a third trip we worked in the Sunyani Diocesan Pharmacy.

Unfortunately in last July the tall and strong man suddenly fell down. Doctors found some tiny spots in his brains. Walking became more and more difficult for him, but his mind was very clear until the very last days. He was still making his jokes, still asking about you people in Ghana. A few days before his passing away he gave me a historic book about the Ghanaians who served in the Dutch Colonial Army. In our last conversations he said that he felt sorry that he was unable to show your countru to his children Liesbeth, Jacob and Margriet. He asked me to do that for him and we promised him that we will show them around in Ghana one day.

Last Friday was a cold and windy day, lots of people stuck in the snow. In that night Ab passed away, peacefully amidst his wife, children and some friends. We were loosing a true husband, father and a real friend and it made us very sad. Next Thursday there will be a cremation ceremony ( that will be the last farewell, we do not have funerals as such). According to his wish there will be a Ghanaian song: Aseda. May he rest in peace.
Berend and Hildegard Schaeffner, Achterveld.

Muller family:
van Oldenbarneveltstraat 80
3791 AL Achterveld
Netherlands

Rouwbief Muller (pdf)

November 24th, 2005

Three donkeys in a taxi.

I still can't believe that it wasn't true, that I did not hear the sound of donkeys at two in the morning. Donkeys produce this very special snorting sound and when you have heard it once you don't make a mistake about it: there are donkeys around!
I was so convinced that the donkeys had arrived that, hadn't it been dark outside and had I not been that sleepy, I would have jumped out of my bed to welcome them in the middle of the night. I did not but with a kind of Christmas feeling I went back to sleep again, certain that in the early morning I would see them, our donkeys, grazing on our fields as if they had always been here.
So in happy expectation Bob and I got up early this morning, went outside and looked around. However there was no donkey to be found. But could this have been a dream? No! It was too clear and too real to be a dream. However there simply was no donkey and somewhat confused I started my usual morning ritual of getting the email from the telephone-office. I came back and what did I see....
I see three taxis, little KIA's with the backdoor open, drive through the gate onto our land. And what sticks out of the back of these little cars: three donkey-heads! It's a quarter to seven and here they come: three little taxi's each with a donkey inside!
By the way this can only happen in Ghana and it was quite a sight. How I regret not having had the camera ready but I was still too much preoccupied with my dream and it not being true and then it becoming true...and all that! And gone were the taxis already! With a sleepy head Osei makes his appearance. I tell him my dream. 'Yes', he says, 'at 2 am in the morning they called me from Techiman that the donkeys had arrived from the north'. The whole night they had been in a truck that transported them from Bolgatanga in the far north of the country to Techiman. Osei said they wanted him to pick them up in Techiman in the night but he wisely advised them to send them on in a taxi from there as soon as it would be morning. That's how they arrived, each maxi donkey in his own mini-taxi.
The first three taxis that stationed themselves at the lorry park in Techiman, ready for work, took their backseats out and each loaded one donkey in the back.
(Oh if only I could make a drawing of it on the computer now that we are too late for a picture. I immediately decide to take a Corel course in computer drawing at the internet- cafe!).
Two donkeys for Zachariah and John and all the children of our community. They are called Nelly and Nelson. And the third one, that is a surprise present for Abraham. Abraham has long lived with us in our community but then married, decided to live independently and was able to maintain his little family by way of selling water from a barrel that was situated on top of his donkey chart. He got his first donkey from the Lilian Fund in Holland. A few weeks ago Abraham came to visit us, down and out and with a broken voice he told us that his donkey had died.
'So', we said, 'that is very sad news....'
He doesn't know yet that we have bought a donkey for him as well, that is his Christmas present. Thanks to...we said it before, Nelly Seldenthuis.


Nelly and Nelson

The great move, 11-9-05

Since last week all kind of events have happened. All these things however are overshadowed by the arrival of five new children. Never ever did we get so many children at the same time! Within a week we grew from a community with 34 kids to one of almost forty children, apart from the many young people who learn and work at the sheltered workshop.
We thought that there would not be too much difficulty in finding place and shelter for these kids. Several caregivers were actually asking for another child and there were still corners and unused spaces in the bungalows where the kids could be comfortably housed. But after they arrived there was, of course, all of a sudden still shortage of space: for example: outside in the garden, where we all eat, we had to create a fifth dining-table. This was easily improvised but the chairs are borrowed from the guesthouses...so when the visitors come, specially in the weekends, those chairs need to return to the guestrooms and then we have to improvise something else: like standing while we eat, maybe!
We need another cuddle room and another siesta house, we need a second art-school (that is how we call the round hut where in the afternoon the kids color and draw and make music and so on) and we need actually all kind of things and extra spaces!

Thankfully there are helpers. The Lilian Fund is always helping us with shortages. This is not about infrastructure but about caring for the children, feeding them and so on. Recently we quite surprisingly received a large donation of 700 euro from a German volunteer and her mother (Katherina and Christina) who were visiting here, and equally spontaneous we received a big gift from Andrea's husband in Holland who has been selling old computers on our behalf. (Andrea was one of our first volunteers here). On top of that yesterday a mail came in from one of the friends of Alexandra who sponsors Abena, that they have done a special fund-raising action for us in Holland and collected 6000 euro and what do we want to do with it...! We told them, help five new kids settle, extend necessary facilities! Besides that amount will be doubled by the employer of Rien, the person who spearheaded that action.
And....I have won the first prize (a large amount!) for a poem in a poetry contest by the South African 'Whisper of the Heart Poetry Club'. Yes, I! Of course that prize money will go to the children. (www.whisperpoetry.com )

Prize winner Ineke!

And: the owner of the poetry club, Stan, will help to financially adopt one of our children, Kwabena Endezi, for one third of the total amount, as is usual within our system. So for one of the five new kids there is help at the horizon.
For the five new children we urgently need 14 more sponsors, who each pay 25euro per month. Are there maybe people who would like to financially adopt one of these sweeties? Please...Mepawokyow, alstublieft!

This is Moses, who arrived from Tamale on the 1st of November, he was brought by friends of the volunteer Marieke Brenninkmeyer.

These are the 4 others: Francis (on Morocco's lap), Kwabena (on the lap of Jet Douwes), Michael (on Bertje's lap) and Adua (besides Wendel). Together with the above mentioned guests of Ellen, who by the way are going to teach the kids how to weave, these four children came to us from Osu Children home. That is a week ago.
Have a closer look:

Michael

Kwabena

Francis

My God not a real good portrait of Adua available, so that has to be next time! Here is a picture of her foster-mother, Charity, whom many people know because of her excellent way of making her visitors comfortable and at ease. (Picture of Adua is coming...)
We need financial sponsors.
(Oh and thank you Nelly for adopting Quinten! He is a different boy now, since he knows he has a grandmum!)

Oct 25, 2005

About Emanuel

We have so many different Emanuels in our community that I have to specify: I am talking today about, or rather with, Emanuel the House-prefect, the leader of the caregivers. A few days ago we had the first meeting of our recently revised board of directors of which he, Emanuel, as well as Ellen, have become additional members. We talked about our new areas of responsibility, frequency of meeting, decision making process and all that. It is a good feeling to work on wider leadership for our community.

Emanuel has been with us as a caregiver since six years and he has become the leader of the house since 2003. He quietly gets done what we all talk about, which is how to make the children feel better and live a happier life. This includes sleeping and eating arrangements for each individual child, the playing and the cuddling, the health and the hygiene, seeing to the structure of the daily activities, delegation and supervision and .... an endless string of problem solving. It seems all to come to him naturally.

This is Emanuel with three of the kids:
Innocencia, Lisa and Paa yaw.

I interviewed him this very morning and with his permission I transcribe exactly that what he told me on the tape recording.
Here comes Ema:

'We are going to write a story about you on the website and I would like to ask you about your experiences as a caregiver, house-prefect and now also as a board-member to the PCC Community'

'First of all I thank you, maame, for asking me these questions. I came here on the 21st October 1999 and so I have worked here for six years. First of all as a caregiver to Mr. Robert and then in 2001 when Clement went to school I came to be the father to Kojo Evans and came to live with him like a son. I stayed with Kojo Evans for some years and later also became the father to Peace. And then I also work with them all and see to the art-class and the movement-games and the swimming-pool and the morning exercises and I do all and feel happy to do that! I feel happy because I feel an interest in the kids and like them to play and exercise and see them happy.
When I came here first people told me:
'Oh, as for these people, go away from them quick!' -we have traditional beliefs- they say they have spirits or something like that. So in fact the first time I came and I saw Nana Yaw I was afraid of Nana Yaw, in fact when Nana Yaw came to me I was shocked and decided to go back. I was afraid of the spirits. I quite remember the other day maame Amma called me and said: 'Nana Yaw is not dangerous, he is rather afraid and a fearful person himself'. So I started contacting him and then gradually we became friends so now I don't fear the children anymore.
I like my work very much and I have an interest in Kojo Evans because he wanted to work and make a farm and grow tomatoes and all that and I helped him and he worked in his farm and grew tomatoes and it made him happy.
He grew, on the advise of the husband of one of the doctors, I forgot the name (Abdul, the husband of Heidi), he grew okra and garden eggs and cucumber. He also raised chickens. The man was an agric officer and was very helpful. When we plucked our tomatoes we earned a lot of money, more than 200,000 Cedis. Yes, and I stayed with Kojo and later also got Peace to stay with me. Later on, in 2003, I was also asked to become the leader of the caregivers which we call the house-prefect. I continue with my children and I lead the other caregivers and help them and when I feel something wrong I always call my caregivers in a meeting and we talk about it, we discuss and we put order back into the place. For example our art-classes. First we held only once a week movement games. Since I became prefect we did it two times a week because the children like it too much. Now it is Monday and Friday that we do it and also now we share them in groups so that they not all do the same game but some play football and some go on bicycles and others play ball and so it becomes very much lively with them. I see that the toys are used and they are cleaned and put back also and see to all that. I look in the store and sometimes I get help to know what some of our toys mean and how to use them and then I bring them out.
Then on the 14th of this month I was called to a meeting by the board. Papa and maame and daada had told me they wanted me on the board and I had agreed and thank maame for this. We all met and I was happy for I like to join these meetings and I am assigned to overlook the area of childcare and maybe child development we still have to come back again and decide on who does exactly what work. I like to be in charge of the children and their daily activities and of the caregivers to, they respect me. I also work with the physiotherapy of the children and also I do the ledgers for papa or papa is teaching me how to do the financial ledgers. I like that very much and papa teaches me a lot and I like it and I like it that I am learning a lot.
I am happy to have joined this organization, Thank you.

'Ema, a few more questions: how do you see your life and work in the future, and also what motivates you, what turns you on to be so good with the children and also with the group of caregivers?'

Now I see my future that I want to be here with the children for long. But at first I know there are some rules here that once you marry and have your own children you cannot live with the children here and have to stop your work at PCC. They told us that before we were starting. But now I become very sad when I think I want to marry and live with my wife in the same house and also I want very much to continue working with the kids and the work I have to do at PCC. In fact I would be very sad if I had to leave this place for here I like to be and it seems like here I am happy and I belong with these children here. That one is my problem. But then by and by Papa and Mama told me that because I do so well and am the prefect I can stay here and marry and stay here with my wife and also together look for the children I care for so much. I am very grateful they say that I am good so they want me and want to make me an exception. This has set my mind at ease.
I am a Christian and I know that this PCC family is a Christian family and I want to be with them. All that they do from morning to evening, and the eating and the singing, and all is something I cannot miss. I need this and now I may have it and also stay with my future wife and together we will be very much where we want to be.
I wanted to become a pastor in my church, very much. But then I started working here and my religion helps me to work here. My pastor said to me: Ema, Ema, what you do here is much more than being a pastor, what you do here is what Jesus himself likes us to do most: to care for the children without parents to console those who have nothing and are simple and sick and to feed them and make them happy, for that is being a Christian that is what is the best to do, he said, and even better than being a pastor. And also that at the end of the month I get something and that also helps me to stay here! So I will stay here till the Kingdom comes!
So I am so happy the day that mama called me and said that she and papa and all of the board love my work and want me and want me to marry if I should want that and if I should want I can bring my wife here so I never have to separate from these children here. In fact that day my life became very happy.
'Seems like your kingdom has partly already come as I hear you! Are you also looking after other people with what you get at the end of the month, if I may ask?'
Yes, I have been able to send my brother to secondary school and now he has completed. And thanks to my junior father now he will continue to look after my brother and send him to the training college. But there are some women in church who have no parents and I help one to be an hairdresser-apprentice and the other also to be an apprentice in Techiman. That's what I do.
'God bless you Ema, it was so nice talking to you, or rather listening to you and we have all the confidence in the world that you will remain happy here and also function very well at the board. Our only fear is you might become too busy but then you have to tell us immediately, would you promise?
Maame I am not busy, I like the work.

October 18th

Bye Nelly, Bye Lies.