Webmaster Douwe and his wife Petra.
Where is our ‘Webmaster’ ?
26-7-07
Help! The website has come to a standstill. Where are they, Douwe and Nick and the family? Of course, vacation in Ghana. And when the webmaster is on vacation... I am also enjoying a nice break. No writing for three weeks, just sitting around and reading books and sipping tea in the spare time, great!
Yesterday Douwe, Petra and their three children Nick, Jolien and Melanie came to visit PCC-Hand in Hand. Was nice. Now we all know what our ‘webmaster’ (what a name!) looks like and what a special wife and kids he has.
Webmaster Douwe and his wife Petra.
They landed literally in a zoo, the day that they came to visit our community. Just that night one of our donkeys had given birth to a marvelous looking but trembling little baby. Helas, the father was kicking and attacking it from the start and one way or the other the mother too had rejected the baby. So everybody was involved with it. Kwame went to town with Kwaku, trying to find a feeding bottle and babymilk and what not, bottle-feeding being the only option left, unfortunately. Not much chance but worth trying and any way no other option...
Kwame bottle feeds the new born donkey.
Our very tiny puppy Lola, in the meantime, had just learned how to escape from the house and run away. That day she choose to perform her disappearing act over and over again. Eventually Fr. Pieter took pity on us and on the little dog and became its babysitter, preparing special meals for her, playing ballgames and cuddling it to sleep. Oh will we miss Pieter when he goes on holidays next week!
Pieter is mothering Lola.
Finally Lola ended in safe hands with Jolien.
We had a nice day and thank Douwe and the family for their visit.
Who knows, from next week onwards some columns and changes and additions may appear on the web again but first: enjoy your last few days in Ghana dear family!
Back Home
July 5th, 07
During the last day in Holland it became rather a hectic struggle to get the apartment clean, the things packed and the last telephone calls made. Because of an infected swollen finger, exactly on my right hand. This made the slightest movement a torture and slowed us down in everything. Try closing the zip of a suitcase with your left hand. Anyway, not all telephone calls were made but otherwise we succeeded pretty well. The next day, after checking in at the airport, we relaxed and enjoyed the relaxing! Even before we had it made easy for us as Franco helped with carrying the luggage and Nies and Jan drove us to the airport.
Waking up in Nkoranza in your own house. The best!
The next morning early, with sleepy faces and heavy eyelids we sipped our morning coffee. Then we witnessed a parade of singing and dancing and jumping people appearing from around the corner: the work-shop kids had joined the others doing their morning exercises! Something new! 60 kids and 20 caregivers in jogging outfits running and jumping all over the compound. Or sometimes exactly very slow and careful, in pace with a physical disabled child. Grace far away on the rock continues to do her exercises with M’Adyoa, Marielle and Boadu. Away from the crowd because M’Adyoa hates to be looked at when she does her morning work-out. Kwame walks with PaaYaw in his tricycle and the physeo-corner has since long started. Nice, our program has grown and it gives us a lot of energy just looking at the spectacle.
PaaYaw and Janneke! Janneke is a volunteer who is teaching PaaYaw how to talk by way of a computer, a ‘talking machine’. PaaYaw presses a key and you read: “I want to play’. Simultaneously a deep male voice says: I want to play. Makes you laugh but is very, very effective.
Great. Janneke already programmed a few sentences in the machine and what we got to hear was: ‘Hi Mum’. “Hello Papa Bob’. It works and PaaYaw loves it already. Oh and two children graduated from the ‘difficult-eaters-table’. Ahmed and PaaYaw now eat independently, even difficult dishes such as porridge. What was once started by the Movendi group is now starting to bear fruit.
More new developments and good things. Baffo has been busy so buildings have shot up out of the ground. The grass is short and green and the houses clean. Father Pieter has done new garden arrangements here and there. And an American volunteer is walking around all over the compound changing light bulbs into the energy saving ones. Great idea. Nice to be home!
Vacation at the North Sea.
June 27th 2007
Today the storm is such that we have to stay inside. Although, I tried to walk along the sea just a moment ago and it is a true spectacle of huge waves and darkened skies. But you have to hold on to someone or something or you’ll be blown off your feet. And fly away. And not as stately as Mary Poppins I think! So back home into the safety of this house, no walking, not even shopping today. No, a great day for reading and for writing, with the view of the wild sea just in front of our window.
My wild North Sea!
The day before we flew back from Chicago to Holland our sister in law, Lynda, showed us what she had made for our children. We looked at a few large boxes filled with hand made quilts. 50 of them! Can we take them? They were so extremely gorgeous that we unpacked them all and admired them with our eyes and our fingers. Soft beautiful and so thoughtfull! Stunned, we were, and very much moved. We just had to take a few with us in our luggage even though our suitcases were already bulging. The rest will come by mail.
Lynda, Bernie (Bob’s brother) and the ‘blanket-show’.
Lynda works together with a group of women who handcrafts these blankets for children hospitals and hospices throughout the USA. This is the first ‘load’ for overseas, for Ghana. One of the beautiful aspects of the project is that the ladies see to it that pieces of cotton go to primary schools where the children can decorate them with drawings or nice words for other, sick, children. Children for children, such a good idea and some of these texts are heartbreakingly sweat. The group, or club, is called: ‘Project Linus’ (www.projectlinus.org )
Almost immediately after arrival in Holland we went to my sister in Goirle and visited her exposition there that was to end a day later. I was very curious for the paintings that were inspired by her visit to Ghana. I recognized the sea near Elmina with the few scruffy palm-trees at once and thought it very special. Skillfully, with a few strokes of her brush, she had caught the character of the humid warm and strange tropical beach. It was a bit eerie. Look on the left of the picture below.
Exposition with on the left the beach of Elmina. Successful exposition, good sales, congratulations my sister!.
Yes and then the North Sea here, in comparison. Altogether different. Often boring, sometimes silky, more grey than blue. Today, however, she is majestic in all her unlashed brutal anger.
I don’t think Bob and i ever have been that active during a vacation. It was a full time. Yet I am itching to show you all these pictures on the web that speak more of a lazy kind of connectedness than of super-activity! And that’s how it was, a nice lazy active holiday! This time I’m not really ready to rush flying back to Ghana, not like other times when weeks beforehand I feel homesick for the kids. Anyway, in a few days when we see them all (except for, tragically, Emanuel) we will realize again that home is the best of all places after all.
June 14, Bob and I already 10 years married. We celebrated it in Utrecht.
It is a pity that I did not make pictures of our visit to the ‘Sport and Spellers’ in Maasland. Saturday after our arrival we went to Albert who leads this annual feast in Maasland, and we found his house filled with the other organizers of ‘Sport and Spel’. We were so sorry that the actual occasion took place during the weekend that we were literally in the air between Chicago and Scheveningen and that we could not attend. However it was nice to hear the many stories and see the photographs and hear also the amount that they collected while ‘sporting and playing’ ....Woow! Officially the amount will be known in September so we no nothing but are very very happy. I had wanted to add some pictures of the occasion but could not download them from the website, so please visit the website and look for yourself. www.sportenspel.org
Two weeks before I should have given a talk during the Maasland Church-service that precedes Sport and Spel. We were however not able to be there and Nieske did it on our behalf. Thanks dear Nieske, I know it was hard for you with all the other activities you have to juggle with but you did it well. The feedback was that you talked easily, clearly and with such passion that noone could have done it better than you. Thanks. X foto8
Bob loves cooking. That is to say if it concerns steak or lambsmeat. His table is getting famous all over Scheveningen. Mostly he served his superb dinners on the balcony of our little apartment because that’s the place to be if the sun is shining and you look out over the sea!
Dorrit and Willem at table with ‘The chef Bob”.
and Joke, with a super sunset to top it all off!
Bep, Louis, Joena, Michelle
and look at Osei here on the balcony, even though the weather is changing. No problem, umbrella and smile!
Madurodam with Bob and Osei was a new experience for both of them. Tthat day too wasvery happy!
In between time for a very special exhibition in the museum of The Hague.
Not long after Hinke and Jelle came to introduce themselves. They will be volunteers at our community and are already involved with the sales of sheltered workshop products in The Netherlands.
Yes I realize again how we enjoyed these days. We are still inside the house and the storm keeps whistling in crescendo. At times the whole building seems to shake. Great day for writing. But when I lift up my head to look at the sea I see that she has now almost reached the boulevard and a helicopter is flying above the sea. Hope nothing happened.
And I hope that the people of the G8 as I call them, a group of about eight very enthusiastic folks represented by Bernard Meier, who are coming to help us in October, will take a break today!
By way of all kind of activities such as washing cars they are raising funds for the building project they will undertake in October.
Washing cars is not possible today, Bernard and you all, not even for you! But thanks so much for your enthusiasm.
The G8 washing cars to collect money for us.
And enough now, dear North Sea, it was a good show but tomorrow we want to be able to enjoy our balcony for one more time without being lifted up and flying away. Stop, please.
And then cleaning and packing and off. Homewards bound. With the sun on our back if we may.
In Memoriam for Emanuel
June 21, 2007
An early morning telephone call from Baffo out of Ghana. Ema has died this morning. Pneumonia. He could not be saved not even after a week long intensive therapy at the hospital. Ema, seven year old, just only a few months living at the PCC- Hand in Hand community, where he came to life after an episode of shock and amazement in view of such a different world than the one he previously lived in. You could see him sit and ponder: ‘so there is another life as compared to the one I lived’.
Brown antilope eyes, which could glue themselves to your eyes, almost like trying to hypnotise the other. “Hold me, somebody, love me, give me safety, dont lock me up. See me the way I am. I need you to see me and reciprocate my looking at you” Sometimes he looked like that. Other times he was closed off from the world, laying on the ground, bouncing his head on the floor, crying.
Now he is dead, no more. The epileptic fits which were hard to control are probably the cause of the pneumonia. Maybe a fit on his bed at night, silently, maybe his head on a pillow, maybe he choked in what came up from his stomach. Often that is the case. It was like that with Balloo, but Balloo was lucky that at the moment that he chocked someone saw it and he was rushed to the hospital for emergency procedures. This is not always possible. Ema could not be saved.
So long Ema. Thanks for being with us. On your good days you consoled us, on your bad days we felt helpless. Now you might be able to see God, or some beautiful light, or lush garden, we hope for you that you may taste the joy you missed most of your life. Peace to you dear little friend.
Kojo Joseph, Emilio, Steven and The Color Purple
Chicago, June 3rd 2007
First of all it is already over three weeks ago since once again another child joined our community: Kojo Joseph, brought in by the Danish volunteer Liane from an orphanage in Kumasi.
Kojo is three years old boy. For the time being he will be living with Liane, the Danish girl who brought him to us. That’s because right now we have no room available for him and his caregiver to be (Benson).
Maybe in a few days he will get his own place (And Liane some more rest at night!) and will Benson be his new caregiver.
With Liane’s permission I quote some parts of the letter she wrote to our community in order to gain admission for Kojo:
“Kwadwo Asvirie (Joseph), boy said to be 3 years.
Story: found in the bush on the 14th of august 2006 by local farmers. They phoned the police to say that they found a dead baby. When the police arrived they pushed him and he started shaking. There was still some life left. Starved and covered with wounds on the entire body he was brought to “King Jesus charity home”, at Boadi, Kumasi. From there they took him to the hospital with the purpose of finding treatment. He was brought to a speech therapist, doctors who are specialized in hearing etc. but nobody could explain his behavior. We tried several psychologists but none could help us. In October 2006 we gave up trying to find help for Kwadwo in Ghana. Therefore i started cooperating with a psychologist in Denmark. She gave a lot of good advise which i passed on to the mothers of the orphanage. This didn’t bring any results either. There is in that orphanage no time and resources to care for a child with disabilities.
At the end of 2006 I gave up. Everything I did seemed so pointless – and Kwadwo was not getting better.
On the 1st of May 2007 I, by coincidence visited “PCC hand in hand community” –Nkoranza, and that gave me new hope for Kwadwo.”
“Behavior: Kwadwo is very withdrawn and it is impossible to make eye contact. He doesn’t speak and it is hard for him to express his needs. He does not communicate with others. If he is alone by himself he can play a simple game, such as sitting on the ground making circles in the dirt with a stone.
He can not express when he wants to go to toilet and does not go himself either. Kwadwo has problems concerning food. If someone refuses him access to food he gets hysterical and doesn’t calm down before the food is out of sight again. He never feels fully satisfied and eats everything that looks like food, included his own stools. He can not get dressed by himself, and does not even contribute when being dressed. He hardly responds to physical contact, but if in a good mood he will laugh when being tickled. He often smiles, but I’m not sure that he is aware.
He likes to sit on people’s lap and is easiest put to sleep when he is carried on the back. If not carried he gets anxious and it is difficult for him to sleep.
It is very rare that he takes physical contact to others. Mostly he is playing alone and doesn’t pay attention to the surroundings.
Physically he is now healthy and functioning well.”
“Environment: Kwadwo lives in the orphanage with 70 other children and four mothers. He is mostly left to his own, since nobody has time to take care of him. In the beginning everyone was very helpful and they liked him, but that has changed.
Kwadwo has become a part of the every day life, where everyone sees to their own duties. This for instance means that he is no longer being fed. During the meals he is left on his own. Often his clothes have not been washed and they let him go without a diaper.
The mothers don’t have time so it is the other children who take care of him. At Easter everybody above 12 years left, except two mothers. This means that now 12-year old Alima is taking care of Kwadwo. Alima is still too little to even carry Kwadwo.
At most times he sleeps in “ladies room” a tiny room where the 16 girls take turn sharing a bed with him.
He has no stability and no stable caregiver-mother.
The 8 months in the orphanage certainly didn’t improve his behavior. None of his physical needs are being fulfilled and he hungers for help, attention and care.
His mental stage does not combine with his age and physical development, and that is already now causing him problems with the surroundings. As time goes by he will only be more rejected.
It is not easy being the weakest in an orphanage in Ghana. “
So far the quote from Liane’s letter. She brought Kojo Joseph to us on the 14th May. (By the way the Ashanti’s use the name “Kwadwo” for a boy born on Monday and in our area (The Bono’s) call the Monday-boys: Kojo. The pronunciation is the same!)
Bye and bye you will hear more from Kojo. The two weeks that I could still observe him before Bob and I traveled, we saw him getting more secure, exploring our roads and gardens and the kitchens!, taking his first brave swim in the pool, smiling and yes eating a lot. He has a sleep-disorder that hopefully may settle in time in a natural way.
We have now been in Chicago for over a week and it is good to be away and catch up with what is going on in the big world. However the small Nkoranza world keeps following us too. A few times we have met Dr. Emilio who is from Cuba, worked at our hospital in Nkoranza and now resides in Chicago. He follows a course, teaches at the same time and will soon start to work. It was great to celebrate his 31st birthday here in Chicago with
him.
Wonderful, Emilio, the way you so quickly get your life together here in again another country.
Emilio cuts the birthdaycake (2x)
Emilio met verjaardagstaart
The next day we met Steven Philips. Steven is a lay-missionary from the SMA Congregation. He was running all over the USA during his leave and had a few minutes for coffee with us between two weddings. We had invited him to come and work with the PCC Hand in Hand Community. He holds a master’s degree in occupational therapy and has been gathering experience in Africa for years and years. Anyway, the way he seemed to have so little time for our appointment suggested to me that the answer would be no. But contrary, he ended his travel-stories with an ‘oh, by the way, can I still come to Nkoranza?” “Of Course Steve.” “Well then the answer is Yes!”. Oh my God, how could he tease like that! We danced and then we had to go. Even though we live in Africa we get pretty soon used to agenda’s and other appointments and the car of a friend was already hooting at the door… Bye Steven, see you in Ghana after the end of the year.
Now down town Chicago here “The Color Purple” is on tonight, a musical I believe. I red the book and saw the film. Can anything still top that up? Will tell you next time. Ineke.
Tropical abscess
18-5-07
Abena has now been admitted to the hospital for over a week already. One of her thighs got very swollen and painful. Not clear why but clear that the swelling kept increasing in size. And with it the pain. Antibiotics and cold compresses would hardly make a difference, no difference at all. A few days ago she was brought to the operation room and we found to our surprise an abscess deep inside the muscular body of her thigh. One-and-a-half liter of pus was released! They still talk about it in the OR.
Now she is much better and hopefully she may be discharged from hospital somewhere next week.
With all that it is amazing that she never once opened her mouth, let alone cried. She took this illness the way poor people handle further misfortune, without a wink. Even the day she was dressed to go for operation, she walked alone and with dignity, on her slippers and wrapped in a sheet-like coat. Abena does not go for self pity at all!
When the nurses tried to humor her by making jokes she would simply look away. A special treat of extra nice food would not be ignored but accepted with a tiny little nod. Certainly not with a smile!
But I caught her smiling once, a small but distinct smile. When we said the worst was over and she could go home soon. Aha, a shadow of a smile but happy!
This Abena understands a lot, a lot more than the best of us would think.
And she acts with dignity, like old fashioned African woman, well done. Get well soon, Abena!
Not out of the blue
May 8th 2007
A conflict doesn’t start out of the blue, it’s like a cancer that, if no intervention takes place, gradually but unstoppably puts its tentacles in a relationship and will eventually destroy it if no adequate action is taken. It destroys the interpersonal and eventually also the work relationship and if so will eventually escalate in a ‘divorce’.
One day Ellen came to me. “I want to withdraw from the board, withdraw from all responsibilities and just be a volunteer again, be in the workshop, with my kids”.
Long difficult talk. Then eventually accepted. “If this is your decision, if you don’t want to give reasons for it but you really want this, well yes, then you have to do that, agreed. Pity Ellen, but thanks for all you have done.”
(around March 10)
A month of trying, conversations, attempts to restore the relationship, if even at the working level only, and most of all much sadness and anger. Powerlessness. I did not succeed in finding out which were the points where the work-relationship had stranded, but that the communications were nil and the relationship permanently fractured was a fact. How very horrifying.
Then a decision on the 17th April:
Dear Ellen,
Thank you for continuation of your voluntary services after resigning from board and other responsibilities.
However the board, during an emergency meeting on the evening of 17 April, has unanimously decided to let you know that your services are no longer needed as per April 30th.
You will hand over the management of the workshop to Sr. Angela, your deputy, and you will hand over all financial matters to Bob Maram before the end of the month.
Thank you for your great services in building up the sheltered workshop.
Sincerely: Ineke Bosman,
Director PCC-Hand in Hand Community.
One can just imagine that such an escalated conflict, that at personal level is not been solved as yet, made further cooperation impossible. The communication at the worksite failed altogether and became even negative, dangerous for the community itself.
Again, it was a terrifying painful experience that is still tearing me (or likely both of us) apart. Painful like a divorce. In her work I have the greatest admiration for Ellen.
I found and find it hard to talk and certainly write about this but people must know that Ellen is no longer here and it is me who has to write it. People have to know. So I simply say it the way it is. A great pain for us and for many people, which maybe will heal, but certainly with scars.
We carry on. Angela now is the leader of the workshop. Peacecorps is going to help us by sending a Peacecorps-staff. Our luck. Also there is a new team that will coordinate the sales of the products from the workshop in Holland, a new team consisting of Nieske, Joke, Jelle and Hinke. That’s all I have to say today. Ineke.
Emanuel the third
29 April 2007
We have yet again another mouth to feed, and his name is (again!) Emanuel. It’s a sweet little guy of eleven, halfsided paralysed and severely epileptic. Maybe he has an intellectual handicap as well, it is too early to tell. But he has a very sensible way of looking and talking at you. “Hello Mamma, my name is Manuel, how are you?”, with a dream of a smile and shining soulful eyes.
Emanuel
Emanuel stays here since ten days and he enjoys it to the full. He eats so much and with so much gusto that he has to give something back sometimes, he eats till he vomits! He gets the most out of his freedom, the games and plays, the music, the toys, in short he loves everything and everybody here at the PCC Hand in Hand community.
Emanuel the Third already lived for some time with an elderly unmarried nurse on the hospital premises, someone I know for over twenty years. She is an independent and hardworking woman, Sister Vicky. Her church, a Pentecostal church, had asked her to look after this child. They saw a caring woman and a nurse, what better combination to look after this little Emanuel. However the minister did not realize that the nurse has to work morning-, afternoon- and nightshifts. And also that it is hard for people in Ghana to say ‘no’ to authorities such as a minister of a church.
So the nurse took him in her house, with disastrous results.
The boy was often alone and started roaming over the hospital premises, the bushes around and the market in town. Often he would suffer epileptic fits and had to be carried home by people who gradually got to know him and his foster-mother and started to talk badly against her. (‘She is a witch’ is a gossip that spreads fast and is easily believed in Ghana). Because of the fear for a bad name the nurse started to lock up the child when she had to work. Which was often. Helpless attempts to solve an impossible situation. That’s how he came to us. A question, a conversation, a lot of relief all around.
Ema attends the Special school in town and when the school is in session he stays at the dormitory. We don’t know if, when school starts again next week, we will let him stay at the dormitory or if we are going to let him reside permanently at our community. This question has been put to our caregivers to discuss and they are going to advise us about it next week. Emanuel the Third stays with the caregiver of Joshua Moses, and incidentally the name of this caregiver is also Emanuel!
For the time being he is safe and insatiably happy. And one more in the family is not really such a big deal, or is it. We keep saying that but one day we’ll have to stop admitting children. One day but not today...
Palm-Sunday and other celebrations.
13-4-07
Before you know it it is already two weeks later. No time to write. It is a pity as very many things, big and small, are happening! Easter has already been over and forgotten. With enthusiasm however a new celebration is being prepared today. The swimming pool party! Between three and five in the afternoon there will be poolgames and celebrations. The pool has been renovated, made watertight, has even been covered with little bue tiles. Very professional, very higienic and very very beautiful! We are preparing a table under the tree for Kwame Baffo who has made all this possible and for his crew of masons (Kwasi) and tile-layers (Sampson), even as they are still working on last finishing touches of the pool. Soon they will be honored and seated for a festive lunch around that very-important-people table, while the kids plunge into the pool and together with caregivers and others have fun in big splashes. Ballgames, water-basketball, peddling and floating on plastic bands, fighting for the large beach ball, enjoying! The balloons are already being fastened around the tree where the table stands and above the pool.
Parties, parties, parties. With Easter itself we had a nice simple get-together at night, with of course songs and dance. The Easter morning service at the rock formation (our church) was taken care of by two volunteers with special vocal abilities and a guitar. Songs were sung that had been practiced for days before with our kids and have already become quite popular. (‘He’s got the whole world in His hands’, spread your arms so wide that you can to hold the world! ‘A little, little baby’, swings your arms tenderly as if a little baby lays in your hands! “You and me sister!’, etc.) To witness the service at the rock-church in session with the kids singing, praying and dancing, is a prayer in itself. A thing of great beauty.
The most beautiful celebration of this Easter was probably the Palm Sunday celebration. This year we had to get our children out of bed and ready sitting in a circle on the grass at the very early hour of six in the morning. Just as it is getting light and I drink my first cup of coffee. And it was Friday morning, not the Sunday morning before Easter. But would our kids know the difference? The catholic Father Tang of the hospital, who often does Mass and other celebrations with the children had no other time available. So, there they all sat, in their pajamas, at dawn in the grey-white morning.
Outside a bit chilly and with scattered fog here and there resting in the vallies. The evening before Kwaku and Kwame had cut some palm leaves and woven them into three artful tall pillars, decorated with bougainvillea flowers, planted in the grass and pointing right into the morning sky. The three pillars gave the impression of an open air cathedral of which the sky was the ultimate roof. The kids and caregivers sat in a circle in between them, all with sleepy faces despite the wet towel that went around to help keep them awake. In pajamas but how proud we are of those pajamas of the children, the self made presents of last years Christmas. Their gowns are so African and so playful and colorful with all the ribbons and kente-motivs. During the Christmas they did not want to depart from them and I had wrongly predicted that they would never wear them as pajamas. They do, every night. Some are already torn and faded but we don’t notice that we notice the beauty of it all. The children in the circle between the cathedral pillars, solemn, each a palm branch decorated with flowers in their hand. Then Fr. Tang arrived and started at once, already in a bit of a hurry for the next occasion or so it seems. It’s his style. Kofi’s drums hesitatingly started to find the rhythm to a song but Fr. Tang was already at the next part. Or not? Our old Fr. Pieter in his equally old white habit got up from his chair and laughingly started to dance with the children, bringing a whole group of them hand in hand inside the circle: a line a dancing children around an old smiling morning faun! Gorgeous! Fr. Tang too stopped and looked at the moving little group of dancers, Fr. Pieter the faun in the morning with his dancing children. Nobody else came to join the dance. It seemed to be a mystical dance almost. And too early in the morning and too solemn in this open air cathedral with grey-pink sky as ceiling. Very high, far above the clouds, you could imagine another smiling number of beings, God and His angels, bending forwards and gazing down onto that little piece of earth in Nkoranza, the piece of earth with the dancing children and the happy old faun. I think the heavenly group was watching for all faces turned shining and a sweet smell seemed to permeate the air, a smell that neither came from the flowers in the palms nor from the breakfast that was cooking on the fire. We are a miracle land.
The storm after the silence after the storm.
March 29th
From the moment I arrived back home here at the PCC premises I have been enjoying the many happy faces passing by. Boys and girls with bags and sacks balanced on their heads one after the other ready to go home. Yesterday was their traditional end-of-term party at the sheltered workshop and today their parents come, or uncle or big brother to tae them home to their villages. Easter holidays have started and the workshop, like all schools, is vacating. In Ghana this is a long vacation for over a month, but then in Ghana everything is celebrated with gusto. The atmosphere is excited. A light-footed or maybe a very solemn farewell-greeting but always happy: school is over and we are going home! A little hand grasps mine: ‘this is my father!’ A finger points: ‘Maame’. Proud and shining faces.
Our children, who have no parents to take them home, sit around in a bit of a strange way, or that is what I think. Happy and elated because the general feeling is like that but also somewhat pensive, one more than the other. Some not at all of course! But yet. Ayuba walks around restlessly, kicking at stones with his big boots. Amma’s hand has disappeared within her mouth up to the wrist. Dela points at the kids that are leaving the same way he points at everybody, like a schoolmaster ‘They are going”. Abena sits stiffly in her chair and looks like an elderly auntie who has seen it all, bored, downcast eyes. Kofi Asare is exalted. That’s because he’s the most sensitive and selfless person of this community. He feels the joy of the persons going home and makes it his own. Kojo Evans is standing away from it all, observing, face without expression. It is the hottest time of the day and it now looks as if the last student has gone. It gets quieter. I go inside to read the paper, hoping for some cooler air. Silence descends over the compound. Then a hesitating beginning that gradually swells in volume and rhythm. Out of nowhere, unexpected, rises the drumming and singing of Kofi Asare, wilder and wilder till almost
Kofi Asare
in a frenzy! I look out of the window and see them together in the play-house, drumming and dancing as if the Messiah has come, or the second coming of Christ! Wonderful, engaging! They sing: ‘Come Holy Spirit’ and “’I walk with Him, I sit with Him”, all the traditional consoling songs from the treasure of the Ghanaian folk culture that knows no separation between secular and religious. Here all is religious! Why, this music soaring up and booming all over the premises in this somewhat empty atmosphere, further dulled by overheated air, after the departure of the students? Is it a kind of self-assertion? ‘We have no parents to bring us home but on the other hand this IS our home and who has a better, more loving family than we!’ Would that be the feeling that inspired this outburst of super enthusiastic music making? Or just like that, no reason needed? Or like kids that dance in their house and eat all the leftovers when visitors have left? No comparison and no explanation is needed as to why out of nowhere they have become so elated. They ARE happy, that is important. So. I’ll join them. Despite the heat. Sweat-dancing you could call it, dancing till the salty sweat rains into your own eyes, more salty than tears. Just as purifying. Live! Dance! Just like that, in the heat of Thursday early afternoon.
Good Times. Bad Times.
March 25th 2007
Good times again, so far. Last Tuesday Mrs. Helena visited us with an entourage of eight persons. She is the director of Osu Children Home in Accra and came with a very special mission. We had long discussions about the running of Osu Children Home and our own community, as well as other orphanages, but the main mission was that we got two new children entrusted into our care. That same evening we made a party. Reason: extension of our family. From Tuesday onwards two new children live with us:
Regina, a girl of twelve years who seems to be able to sing delightfully (haven’t heard it yet). She lives with caregiver Felicia and Lisa is her little sister. Moses (another Moses!) lives for the time being with Steve. Sunday, today, a new caregiver will come and live with Moses in the house of Jerry. Jerry is the one who looks after his ‘own’ Moses and Ema. Two Mosesses in one house, we must do something about it! Just like we changed the name of the little Moses who came last year into ‘Aaron’. Problem is that this Moses is a much bigger guy and he knows his name, responds to it and is proud of it! So, Moses the Second maybe. We have to discuss that in tonights meeting.
Moses is a real boy who likes football, basketball-caps front to back and blue-jeans, those kind of things. He is changing his front teeth which gives him an extra adorable smile.
Moses the second. Seven years old. Full of life.
Healthy as can be. Akwaaba, welcome!
Regina. Twelve. Mastersinger. Talks all day even if
no-one pays attention. Beautiful girl!
Other good news: It was great to be at the wedding of Emanuel and his bride this Saturday. With a large delegation of PCC children and caregivers we went to the Pentecostal church in Techiman to attend to the wedding. The beautiful couple was feasted after the exchange of solemn vows. We sung to them and almost got them to dance, even… They were grateful that such a big group from our community attended and arrived here half an hour ago to thank everybody for attending yesterday. A proud husband Emanuel, a shy beautiful bride and James as the best man. The old sores have now been fully healed and then it is so good to embrace and make fun. Emanuel is my big son and now I’ve received another ‘in-law’ as they say here.
The wedding of Emanuel.
James, Emanuel and (oh God what was her name, the bride.) All seated under the palanquin as neat, combed and dressed up as can be. Solemn dark suits. ( but why always so western and seemingly always one size too big?) Whatever. Congratulations dear people. May your life together be good.
More good things, but that concerns developments in the hospital and I’ll mention it another time.
Yes and tomorrow: The handing over of the physio-certificates to the five ‘PCC-physiotherapists in training’. Also tomorrow the official opening of the resource and study room donated by Movendi. The festivities, the final steps in the process of handing over of the responsibilities to the local team (Jerry, Joyce, Felicia, Kwame), all will happen this week to come. Next weekend the last two volunteers from Movendi are leaving: Annemiek the physiotherapist and Piet the technical man.
Then it is ‘over to us’ and with ups and downs this will succeed I think.
Movendi: Annemiek, Jasper, Marije, Merelijn and now Piet and Annemiek: thanks and we are going to miss you. We had our clashes but that is part of the deal. I’ve come to understand your style somewhat better and adore the way you move with the children. Playfully. Professionally. I like what you did and I like you Annemiek.
All the other volunteers that are leaving coming weekend: to you too thank you. Thanks to Mieke and Maria for their thoughtful attentive work with Hagar and Nana Yaw and thanks Gideon and Juul for the kente-classes and the work with the kids. Byebye!
Running away.
March 16 2007
It’s now more than half a year ago that Osei has left our community as an active member of the board of directors. Now Osei has his own business and that is good, considering all that’s needed for his growing children and all the time he has to invest in the leadership position in his church. Osei remains an ambassador for our community and this year too he may go to Europe to speak about the Hand in Hand Community at several schools and churches.
Emanuel resigned from his work around Christmas and changed it for an opportunity to get a better education.
Ellen stepped out of the board less than a week ago and with it she resigned from additional responsibilities such as the coordination of volunteers and the organization of our stores. All her attention is now focused again on the sheltered workshop. As a volunteer.
Sometimes I would like to travel back in time all the way to where we started this community, celebrate the pureness and harmony of it. The few children, the first songs we learned to sing together, the success of the orthopedic surgery for Araba and how she beamed with it. (Even though she still could hardly walk!).
Or just go somewhere else, go to Scheveningen and feel the salty air of the sea on my face. But for how long what the joy last? After a few hours it would turn into boredom, and worse, a sense of guilt for running away from responsibilities, my own. I can’t. I’m stuck with this community which is the product of my own creativity.
Could I hand it over? To the bishop for example or to a community with likewise ideals like L’Arche? I think of it often. However, if I would give it to the Bishop what would he do but place Catholic Sisters here. And they can be rather mean to say the least! And communities with similar visions are already overburdened with their own problems!
Hand it over and turn my back to our kids? The sea is beautiful but would then be as empty as my soul would be. And if I should I flee from stress and conflicts would they not turn on me and jump me on the back? They would. No, this community remains my life’s work and my challenge. Things might work out again, turn right again I guess…maybe. Or maybe not, maybe.
“You place one foot in front of the other
Holding on to nothing
Even when the ground gives away
Hope is the goat cart you ride in crippled
Secretly you make a wish
Under a sky crazy with stars
Hoping that the light you have chosen
Doesn’t come from a source already dead.”
From: “Maybe” By Barbara Elovic (Poetry in Perfomrmance 1998)
Indian Summer
In Youth it was a way I had
To do my best to please
And change with every passing lad
To suit his theories
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do
And if you do not like me so
To hell, my love, with you!
By: Dorothy Parker
Independence Day
7-3-07
It was on New Year’s Eve that Emanuel, our house-prefect and leader of the caregivers, resigned. A blow because he had expressed so much enthusiasm for a life time commitment to the PCC Hand in Hand Community and together with his future wife he was to settle in permanently in a house specially to be renovated for him. Things like that, high expectations from all sides. But out of the blue he left to be trained as a ward-assistant in Dormaa Hospital, another district hospital in our region. It was more the suddenness of his decision that surprised me than the decision itself. Why not go for further education if you have a chance at all, of course!
In any case when he left it was not easy to fill the gap. There remained an open wound at the center of the community, having to miss his kind personality and also having to miss his leadership-skills. I can’t deny it. There was no instant solution to fill up the gap, just maybe some kind of bandage to superficially conceal it.
After deliberations with the group of caregivers, Kwaku became the leader for January. Not an easy task if you are not prepared for it and more difficult because Kwaku does not speak much English. I helped by setting up dozens of committees to advise Kwaku and help share the decision making. Thus there was not only a food-committee and a plants-and-gardens committee, but also a committee for sleeping-arrangements, personal needs like toothpaste and soap-bars, a committee to see that all the daily programs were implemented, a medication and illness-committee, whatever you can think of, a committee had been raised for it!
Not all of them worked well of course but some did and others are still worked upon. It helped Kwaku to seek advise when questions and problems came his way. Like: ‘Can the watchman have some time off for a funeral’, ‘Can a caregiver visit his sick father’, and so on and so forth. Kwaku did well. At the end of January I met with the caregivers to evaluate what we had achieved. We clapped for ourselves and each-other. Joyce was asked to be the house-speaker for February but Kwaku was to stay on as her assistant, because now he had gained some useful leadership experience. February went better than January. They got the hang of it! The wound was starting to heal with new leadership and lots of subcommittees as if we were the United Nations!
March 5th, evening. The monthly meeting between the caregivers and I should have taken place the day before but that Sunday-night we celebrated the farewell of Marije who left us after eight months of loving and dedicated service. So Monday night we met, the night before Independence Day. (The 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence.)
It became a good, an excellent meeting. We decided that Kwaku and Joyce should together, like house-mother and house-father, remain the house-leaders for this year (at least this year!).
We reviewed how and where we had reached and how our caregivers felt in the new situation of shared leadership. The decision was made that several ‘house-related’ committees would advise Joyce and that other more ‘maintenance and work related’ committees would report to Kwaku. Traditional gender stereotypes: yes, quite a bit, but what works, works! This week I will get to know from the group the exact role distribution, the distribution of responsibilities between Joyce and Kwaku. I am very keen not to impose that upon the group but let is grow from their decision-making, a natural process, just like after all the healing of a wound.
With passion I stressed however that we are a family, a community, and not a school or hospital or other kind of institution. That our children, like in most families, are the center of our dedication but that, with that in mind, there is reason to celebrate freedom and independence as long as we celebrate the responsibilities as well. (And why not celebrate a responsibility…). In this difficult process of healing the gap of leadership they, we, had managed to create a much more democratic model of leadership for our family where everybody played a role in the decision-making and sharing of responsibility. Not just like an empty slogan but from deep within we had grown by letting the wound lay open till healing had taken place in such creative ways. I was proud of us. Not that this is the end of troubles, troubles will happen every day as much as good things will happen (well hopefully less of the troubles and more of the good things) but we stumbled on a model where the family takes much more responsibility than before and consequently has much more freedom too!
“You all do amazing marvelous work. Marvelous! Caregivers, you are real volunteers, full of dedication, full of loyalty for our kids, sacrificing, a warm and sweet family. You deserve to pamper yourself every now and then. You deserve to go to the hairdresser and come back refreshed. You have the power to do that! Use your power, just don’t abuse it. Be our democratic independent family”. Something like that, it was a good evening and we sat together till it was really dark and we couldn’t see each others faces again.
Today I have new hope, better hope, for the continuation and the independence of our community, two aspects that I think go hand in hand in our Hand in hand Community.
So, next day: Ghana colors and symbols in everything: tee-shirts, flags, balloons, caps, scarves, everybody in and outside our community was dressed up to celebrate Ghana’s Independence and radiated joy.
March Pass at the community
At our place the small children did a proud march pass in the morning while the bigger ones went to town to do the same. In the afternoon we had a visit of 35 student-nurses who are presently in the hospital and wanted to know about our community. They came to sit in a big circle under the tree and after an introduction about our community with questions and answers, songs, poems and dances from and by our kids, everybody danced with everybody and it became a big love feast. The nurses were so enthralled that they found it hard to leave. This morning in the hospital they all commented on their visit to our community. We are enriched, they said. We feel in awe. We had so much fun with the children. They are normal!
Yes we are normal! And a wound has been healed.
Independent alive and well!!
Back from Safari
Feb 28th 2007
This little sentence, ‘back from Safari’, sounds so east-African and therefore strange to our way of life here in Ghana. And yet Bob and I did come back from a Safari the day before yesterday. We spent about a week in Kenya. How it was?
Day one, Feb.20st, at Accra airport, who sat in front of us in the plane but the President of Liberia. She was seated in the first seat, seemingly alone, with as only sign of her stateliness that traditional intricate African headgear. Otherwise she slept like most of us with shoes kicked off and feet up all through the journey.
Once landed at Kenya airport, day two, the luxury was over. (We had free 1st class tickets for the plane but not for the whole of the safari!) We were expelled from the plane onto the tar mark of Nairobi airport at a cool and breezy dawn. Refreshing. But there was no bus or indication as to how to walk to the exit, so we followed some other crowd and ambulated for what seemed over a mile between bigger and smaller planes, oil-stained ground staff and sleeping people (waiting for a plane?) towards what could be the checkout area of the airfield. After two hours we were through except for the luggage. We wondered if our guide would still be waiting for us. Our suitcase was gone. We walked from one luggage band to the other but no blue and silver suitcase. Then I saw it laying outside the luggage hall, somewhere on the tar mark where it must have fallen down. Someone rescued it for us, we gratefully carried it out, passed the customs, and there they were with two men carrying two signs with capital letters: “Ineke” and “Bob”. They were Peter and Michael, our guides for the next few days. We were lucky again for the president of Liberia with her escort of cars and motorbikes came out of the airport right ahead of us and cleared the roads from traffic all the way into Nairobi city!
The next day, day three, Peter drove us a few hours westwards from Nairobi to Lake Nakuru, a game reserve. We had the little safari bus to ourselves as Peter had no other tourists. That was a lucky thing because the road was rough and Bob’s seat in the car was loose so that with every bump and pothole he was propelled forwards against the back of another seat. When we arrived at the Nakuru Lodge it was early afternoon and much of the feeling of bliss was gone. “Short, nice ride, not so”? asked Peter. We kept silent rubbing our backs and thanking the Lord that this was over. Ghana roads are holy compared to those of Kenya!
We were to have lunch and proceed immediately on a tour through the reserve. This is where it came in so handy that we were the only people in the tour-bus. We simply quickly put our heads together and decided to say ‘no’ to the rest of the program. “Yes wonderful country. You are an excellent driver, Peter. But we will stop here, we won’t go on. The next few days we will sleep here at this lodge. Cancel the rest for us and pick us up Sunday if you want.”
“But Madam, Ineke, Bob, rest a bit and you’ll feel better, you’ll enjoy all of your tour not just here at Lake Nakuru. A little rest and you’ll feel better.”
“No, Peter, really, we can’t. Unless you want to see my husband dead.” There was truth in that statement and I felt pretty tired too.
“Madam, but how can we stay here for three days? We are to go to the Masai people and the lions and the hippos and so on?” He was sorry not to show all of his Kenya to us like he ought to according to the program. However after some consultations over the phone with Michael Peter got settled with our idea and we came to a peaceful agreement.
Day four, five and six were spent at Lodge Lake Nakuru and it was one of the better decisions of our life!
Pink flamingo’s, clouds of them, zebra’s, rhino’s, buffalo’s, a lion, but most of all the harmony of nature, the wideness of the land, the serenity. Almost a religious experience, included the daily safari treks with Peter and that same old minibus. Peter must have decided that we were crazy but that he should stay and drive us around as much as he could. So he did, faithfully like a guardian dog!
What made Peter very heroic was the fact that he even came to terms with the fact that we had no cameras. “ Madam Ineke, why no camera?! How can I stop at a nice spot close to say a giraffe for you to snap a picture and then you don’t snap the picture. We will just be standing there for nothing…!” I realized we were odd. Thank God I had a camera in my phone and that saved Peter’s sanity and by the way mine too. For after all it was a pity to see these awesome scenes and not to be able to make a picture. ( I have over 10 pictures in my phone now. They give me a good feeling. I just do not know how to get these pictures onto a computer or a printer! Never mind. The real thrill was something other than making pictures.)
(Picture of pink flamingo’s at Lake Nakuru, c/o a tourist site on the web)
Day seven saw two very contented people returning to Nairobi and the next morning we flew back to Accra and back to Nkoranza.
Of all the good experiences the best part, a sit should have been, was the coming home again! Amma was there with her shy welcoming scream and Dorcas and Robert with his smile. PaaYaw serenely laughing with averted eyes and Joyce jumping up and down. John shouting with joy and Kojo Evans and Ayuba playing hard to get. To see the ever enthousiastic caregivers again, Kwaku and Joyce and all of them. Faithful Baffo, Ellen, the volunteers. Our dogs welcoming us with crescendo wagging tails. Even the heat and the mosquitoes welcomed us! And our grand house, home sweet home! Back from safari!
February 18, 2007
Your attention please for this great picture made by Roger Levi en Hiske Schaafsma, two of the many people that recently visited our community. The photograph has been made in the “Monkey-sanctuary” in Fiema-Boabeng, half an hour away from us. It is a reserve where the original rainforest has been maintained and where monkeys can live freely and safely because as long as the people there can remember they consider their monkeys as sacred and therefore protect them from any kind of stress. The result is visible below!
All well here, not much time to write but no news is good news as the saying goes. The day after tomorrow Bob and I will disappear for one week to Kenya, on safari, yes. And this photograph maybe gives a small taste of what we shall meet there. More about that later.
The last days of Dr. Wonderful.
05-02-2007
The two Ghanaian doctors have left. Dr. Philip left before Christmas and Dr. Kofi left in the middle of January. No replacement as yet. Some days ago, entering the hospital gates, I met up with Wonderful, the dog of all the successive African doctors. He was walking up and down the hospital corridor, tail down, eyes averted, stiff legged, looking old, accentuated by the white hairs in his black coat.Dr. Kofi, the last ‘real’ doctor, has left and Wonderful has been forgotten! The dog Wonderful belonged not so much to a specific doctor but to the house and to the car that was used by the Ghanaian doctors. That dog was of the extreme ‘black is beautiful’ type, as far as doctors were concerned. Black is real, black is wonderful. He received his name because of his wonderful loyalty to the black doctors. Where ever that doctors-car was parked, there you could find Wonderful. Waiting, watching, sleeping. Doctor done his work and gets into the car, the dog wakes up and runs, wagging tail, home beside their car, as a happy police escort. Two years ago, when that hospital-car broke down, Wonderful, not dumb, started to follow the private cars of the latest two Ghanaian doctors. Wonderful was such a faithful companion to the latest doctor, that he would sometimes make ward rounds with him. I imagine he knew his special status and enjoyed it: “Assistant Doctor Wonderful”. I heard that the hospital missed last years first price of the region in hygiene because…at the moment the prize-giving regional team made a picture of our hospital Dr. Kofi showed up with Wonderful trailing behind him. A wonderful photograph but not apparently the image of ultimate hygiene, that’s how we lost the award!
I never thought of Wonderful again till I saw him some days ago. Desolate and starting to look neglected. No one seems to call and joke with him anymore. I call him, softly :”Wonderful, come”. He does not even look up at me. He walks the stiff walk of the hopeless, the way an old lonely widower might walk. Death row.
Okay he knows me but I am not black and we had this out before. However, my car: he might be interested in the car. I open de door and call him in but he does not even come near. Not worth looking at that old blue car! He dislikes KIA’s, dented old KIA’s. He totally ignores me. How about Dr. Pando, the Cuban doctor. He is somewhat darker. But no, a kind of sneering sniff, a display of disdain for both of us. Wonderful is a loyal dog and yes he never had anything to do with me, my car, or whites. He is and remains the black doctor’s companion. I do admire his military loyalty even in this hungry situation.
But now what? The hospital watchman and I put our heads together. I give the watchman an eating bowl for Wonderful which he can put near the gate. He can rest there and at least keep eating while waiting for an African doctor. Some money for daily meals is found. It means little in resolving Dr. Wonderful’s grief for being abandoned, but still, he won’t die at least from hunger. A word to him and he growls. Not a nasty growl, I recognize that growl. It says if my beloved one deserted me who do ‘you’ think you are to give me charity. Point taken. But he did eat his food, in the night, so the watchman said.
Next day the same. His plastic bowl, striped yellow and purple (from the bicyclists from Holland, yes!) stands there at the entrance, much to the irritation of the sanitary inspectors I hear later. (That award!!) But first comes first. He eats, he sleeps, he walks, he sleeps again. Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.
I hope. But next day he is gone. Bowl empty, no dog. Watchmen look for two days, nowhere to be found. Night watchman breaks the news to me at last “He’s sold to the Northerners”.
We who live here know what that means.
The bowl is taken away and now used on the ward, for the use of patients with infected wounds. To soak their afflicted body parts in. That is the reality in our little district hospital and actually the patients are happy with the bowl.
So, bicyclists from Holland, if you come again you may see how we use all the things you kindly left behind before you returned back home. Everything, yes everything is used in Ghana. Your bowl too, from the Hand in hand community to the entrance of the hospital-gate to the center of the ward. From dish wash-bowl to dog food bowl to soak bath bowl.
Adieu, Wonderful, you left behind a great impression of loyalty. And eventually a gift for your patients that you loved to attend to with your Boss doctor Kofi.
Abiding Images
28-1-07
PaaYaw joined us on the journey to the airport to pick up my sister. It was his first trip to Accra and his first time to see an airport. KLM was late that night which gave him the opportunity to see some other planes taking up and landing. After a late meal there was still no KLM and PaaYaw was starting to fall asleep so I carried him to the back-seat of the car to rest. My sister finally arrived around midnight and so we kissed and hugged and climbed into the car. Being suddenly with five people plus bags and suitcases we had to reposition PaaYaw but he slept through it all. Off to the hotel. Once there Baffoe picked him up and, like a bicycle-bag held in the middle, carried him upstairs to the room and on to his bed. He continued to sleep exactly the way he was put on the bed, on hand and knees and feet, shoes still on. I put a blanket over him, gave the sleeping heap a kiss and went down to welcome my sister! Ah, sweet to be sisters! Finally we all went to bed and I slept till the early grey of the morning when the sound of the waves woke me up. I looked at the sleeping tortoise with the blue blanket over him in the other bed and, somewhat late, removed his shoes. He opened his eyes and looked at me while still sleeping. ‘That is the sea” I said, ‘and the sound is from the waves. Want to see?’ A slow severe nod. I got a chair between his bed and the window, peeled the blanket from him and lifted him up on the chair. He looked.
I made my first cup of coffee with hot water and Nescafe and after the second cup I dressed myself and went to see how PaaYaw was doing. He was still sitting in the same position with a serene look on his face, gazing at the sea. No smile, no question, no portray of feeling, only solemnity.
The silhouette of PaaYaw’s face as he looked out over the endless water and endless sky. The outline of his head enlightened by the silvery early morning sun. Awesome and mystical image which I can’t and don’t want to get out of my head.
A day or two later, Kakun National Park. PaaYaw stayed at a cool shady canteen downstairs while my sister Lucie, Nel, Charity and I decided to walk the canopee-walk, a walk over the treetops of the forest by way of a number of hanging bridges from one point to the next. Lucie and Charity went ahead. Nel, however, had an injured knee and I, I have a fear of height and might have known that that phobia would not just melt by itself. Standing there at the beginning of the swinging bridge I was about to faint and had to decline the walk. The guide would not have let me anyway! So Nel and I walked quickly back to the canteen while Lucie and Charity were the brave ones! We soon arrived back, relieved, and who starts doubling up with laughter: PaaYaw! First spontaneous laughter during all this trip! Before he was taking everything in, in silence. He seemed to have understood the rather humorous situation before even we could explain why we returned so soon. A catharsis for him and all of us. I took a beer and it tasted the best of all the beers I ever had. We all relaxed and there they came, the winners, Lucie and Charity, sweaty but victorious.
Charity on canopee walk.
Another abiding package of images: that cold bottle of beer, his uncontrollable laughter and Lucie and Charity proudly marching back to where we were. And then zzzzapppp to Nkoranza, another 8 hour drive! We arrived late and were home.
Already it is maybe two weeks later. Sundaynight, under the moon, and we eat together with Pando, Kwaku and others and lots of children. Lucie’s and Nel’s stay is coming to an end and we are intensely enjoying each-other but also sorry to have to separate the next day. We eat, we drink ( a lot), we talk, some kids fall asleep and are carried away, Kwaku and another caregiver thank us for the party and disappear but we cannot separate ourselves as yet. Pando, Bob, Lucie, Nel and I are still there. We haven’t really noticed the others leaving and Lucie says she wants to say a few words. She does. The words speak of love and my eyes fill up. I want to answer but first have to walk around the long empty table to the other side to embrace her, then I walk back and respond to her speech. This too is hilarious somehow, and moving too. Words we exchanged about sisters together and love and laughter and how good it was.
Lucie and Bob
I think Nel talked, Pando talked, Bob talked and certainly Bob embraced everybody and I do not know how it ended except that my heart was filled with joy. This of all three is maybe the most impressive abiding image.
Two remarkable weeks of two sisters rediscovering each other in the strange but serene atmosphere of the PCC Hand in hand Community. Bye, sweet sister.
A picnic after all!
18-1-07
The best days of the year, as you know if you follow this column, the best days happen between Christmas and New Years day. This year again it was festive. At the beginning of December the celebrations start with the formation of a Christmas Committee from among our caregivers. Their task is to discuss the activities of that year and calculate the different costs involved. Every year this committee comes with the suggestion for a picnic. This is because our people remember that at first, when we were still few, we included a picnic in the Christmas program. The last time may be four or five years ago when all our kids and caregivers still fitted into two busses, our bus and the Shalom school bus, borrowed for the occasion. It was a great success, the preparations, the cooking and baking the day before, the pots and pans and tins and jerry cans and drums and other instruments, the swimming suits and towels and everything. Get into the cars and drive! Singing and swinging busses that sound so happy that people in the street look up and smile and wave!
However nowadays we have over forty kids and more than twenty personnel. Where to get the money for three or four busses and drivers and all hat!? So for a time we could not afford the picnic and had to say no. This year too.
Two students on clinical exposure had a little extra money for extra-ordinary things. Maud and Rian already had built a sandbox with part of that money and hired a seamstress to help sew the Christmas dresses. Still there was some money left before they departed.
-What shall we do with it? What about a picnic? Yes, but then everybody should go, not just a few. Great, but that will cost you a fortune. But indeed, that would be soooo nice!-
That’s why, with the help of Baffo and the two students, on a beautiful early morning somewhere during the first week of the year four busses were parked on our land. One somewhat new, the other so old that it would have been condemned since long if not in Africa. Our own bus is not in a good shape but was probably the best of the lot. But who cares. A bus is a bus. An outing is an outing! Fun is fun! They filed into the busses, our kids and our caregivers. With great laugther and excitement. It took some time before the pots and pans and water cans were safely stocked and of course before the kids were comfortably seated between their caregivers and other staff. Oh it was a great success. Faces that beamed from joy. Look! And thank you Rian and Maud.
Keep smiling
Jan 8th, 2007
If you live and work in Ghana you tend to do as the Ghanaians do and what they do very well is showing a smiling face. It is a much observed habit. Much discussed too. Lovely these smiles, but why all the time, day and night, rain or shine? Why smile when there is no joy in the eyes to match the happy appearance? To talk about it is one thing, to write about it may more clearly amount to stereotyping. Though in fact we do that all the time, stereotyping! We see the British keeping a stiff upper lip the Germans being overly serious and the Dutch always knowing everything better. We admire the French regardless of their weaknesses and connect the Russians with their drinks. The Balkan is explosive and the Scandinavians are dispassionate and good at social welfare. And oh the Americans…this most powerful nation get the scorn form just about everybody. In contrast the poor underdog countries such as in Africa are more easily defended, explained and praised. Their misfortunes are often exclusively blamed on external causes. Thus is mankind, stereotyping, opinionated!
Where am I going with all this?
I am going to write that the eternal sunny face of Ghana starts bothering me and bothering me a lot. That my own smile, in line with the culture among which I live, starts wavering.
Ghana’s smile irritates me at this very moment because I have encountered somewhat of an overdose of insincerity in it, including in my own smiles.
Used as a mask and formed by habit it becomes false for it no longer expresses the emotions of the soul inside. I understand it. We all have our habits, our learned behavior, our good manners, our national characters. But today I object to the national smile of Ghana.
I object because there is a package deal with the smile. The smile expresses ‘I want you to like me’ as much as ‘I like you’. There is more to that ‘I want you to like me’. Words may follow, words that affirm, approve, appreciate and agree. While the face smiles the person says ‘yes’ to the recipient. There may be disagreement, doubt, confusion, anger, what not, but tradition wants it that a person agrees with a senior and says ‘yes, I agree’ with a smile. And often with various degrees of insincerity.
On New Years Eve our two smiling leaders, Ema the board member and house prefect and James the activity leader at the weaving hall came to Bob and me and said:”We are going to a course.” Oh says Bob, that is nice, why, when, tell me?
‘Yes, a course. The 8th we should start but we want to give you notice so we leave a week later, the 15th’.
‘Oh, nice. What? Leaving? Are you saying you are leaving? Leaving on the 15th?’
‘Yes, papa’.
‘Oh why? Are you not happy here?’
‘Oh very happy’.
‘But why, Ema? Did you not say that you wanted to work here all your life, did you not talk about your vocation at our community? Did you not say your wife was going to join you in March and you will be like the parents of the community?’
‘Yes, but no, I have to go’.
‘Why then, why?’
‘The Minister of my church said so, he has arranged everything, we had even forgotten that we had applied for this course but it came through and I am accepted and the minister said I have to go’.
‘Oh, ah’.
The fun of the bonfire was over. Although… at midnight we did share a few glasses of champagne with the visiting Bootsma family and we laughed and joked because we too…. have learned from life in general and Ghana in particular that it is good to shake off the effect of a major blow and show a happy face.
Still, after a week of attempting to understand, a few tears and lots of meetings and new plans to be implemented to let the community carry on as usual, we are smiling easier again. When I look at Ema he too wears a smile. Around the mouth, not in the eyes. It is wearing thinner by the day. Poor guy.
‘Why Ema, why could you not say this earlier, I would have understood. But now, how can I trust again? I have encountered smiling deceptions many times, a few times too many I think. It makes it hard. It is tough to love but not to trust. Do you understand that? Don’t you find that yourself?
So many times we get to hear what people think we want to hear but in the meantime people go their own way which is different from what they say. Ema, don’t you think this is destructive? To our community, the kids, the trust in your smiling congenial culture? James, don’t you understand there is something sadly dysfunctional in all that saying ‘yes’ while your course of action says ‘no’?
‘Yes, mama. Yes you are right.’
‘Does your yes now means yes I agree or yes I respect you so give lip service to your comments? Yes. Yes what?’
‘We are sorry, we beg, we are sorry’.
‘Okay, no problem, prepare to go. All right. Pity but all right. It is not the sorry I am worried about. I worry about the way you reinforce the stereotype of your country… nice but hard to have a dialogue with. A real dialogue. Words are many times deceitful’.
‘Yes, Maame.’
‘Oh so you think a dialogue would have been better than lip service?’
‘Yes, doctor. Yes papa yes’.
Keep smiling friends, keep hoping. A day will come when the person will stop forming his facial expression according the expectations of the country’s tradition. That day individualism will be born. A great day, though other problems will arise with it. Western problems!
Amen. So says a Dutch person who of course knows everything best! Trust the Dutch to live their own stereotypes…
New Years Day 2007
We have seven days of celebrations behind us. Today a final New Years celebration and then all will be ‘normal’ again and that too will be great! Below a description in photographs of the last week of our year. As you may see it was very special.
The 25th. Christmas itself. Kofi Asare is Father Christmas and he and his assistant PaaYaw hand out the Christmas presents, followed by a dancefest. Hilarious!
Amma receives her present from Father Christmas.
26th, Boxing Day, the day of the now famous Christmasplay. This time the lead role of Jesus is taken by little Moses. A large audience, some all the way from Sunyani (Fr. Sylvio and the novitiate of Don Bosco) and from Techiman (The Benedictine monks and Medical Mission sisters). Glorious. Moving.
Kojo Evans as King Herod with his entourage.
Left Balloo as the angel.
Every year the status of King Herod seems to increase as you can see from the picture. Now the King has a wife beside him and numerous princes and counselors at his feet. Jesus seems too look on sowhat anxiously. Is King Herod going to be the star of the play? Wasn’t it all about me? Hush, wait and see, Jesus, till they lift you up and dance with you on their shoulders and shout with joy and throw you in the air. Then you know again that it’s all about you and you alone!
Jesus looks concerned; when is my turn??
The 27nd, Mikesap hotel throws us a party that is unique in history. Dear children of our community, the town of Nkoranza has not only seen you but has started to love you. Mr. Michael Sarpong, owner of the Mikesap Hotel, thank you so much. This means more than just a party, now we are accepted as co-inhabitants of Nkoranza town! Heady with festive joy!
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Filled with expectation while the last preparations for Mikesap party take place.
Everyone in new and festive cloth.
The Christmas presents, for each child a brand new pajamas, is a hit. Only the dresses are not used as pajamas, they are of course just too beautiful to sleep in. (Now we need to find a solution again for their new nightwear)
Amma is quietly impressed and Philo is radiating exhilaration.
The 28th the choir of the SDA church is coming to sing for us. The performance starts somewhat stiffly but our caregivers, like Kwame here, with Emanuelle in his arms, know how to bring the right spirit to the group. Come on, let’s dance!
Kwame dances with Emanuelle.
The 29th. Games. Giggles and fun. A day where our caregivers too can relax and let their hair down.
Day of Games. Considering my own feet in the picture I’m relaxing too.
The present of the Movendi-people, a real basketball set!
The 30st. Dancing with the traditional kete-group, the dance group of the chief. In style!
The traditional kete group of the Chief in action.
A thundering applause when three of our caregivers, Mercy, Grace and Abiba, surprised us with a professional and witty traditional dance performance!
Ayekoo!
The 31st: Did we still have energy? Maybe. Some faces showed tiredness. Leave me a little bit alone today! But no, the camp fire was lit and
PaaYaw and Bob at the campfire. Do we feel like celebrating again?
Suddenly, surprise, surprise, there was the choir of the Presby-church of Nkoranza standing in front of us. “We thought to come and help you close the old year well and start the new year even better” said the minister. What a sweet man. What a joy to feel the rhythm and the song in your inner self again and dance. There we go, in a long line we dance from one year into another. Happy and blessed New Year to you, dear friends.
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That’s how we, Bob and Ineke, started this year, happy and blessed.