HamanahamanaHA!

Hellloooo all!

What a week! Phew, I'm so glad it's over.

As the countdown begins to our return to the States, NYU students are dropping like flies. Malaria, respiratory problems, robberies, concussions, typhoid scares, GI issues, flu bugs, strange rashes, meningitis scares--every thing imaginable has hit us all at once. I myself came down with this ridiculous flu that outsmarted every homeopathic trick I had--then proceeded to outsmart every Western medicine trick I had! I was at a loss. In about 2 hours I went from sick to thinking I had strep throat. That turned into flu symptoms after a sleepless night, which then turned into symptoms of a sinus infection. My symptoms changed every 30 minutes on Tuesday and I called into work for my first sick day ever. I was an absolutely miserable mucusy mess. The doctor paid a house visit after a few of the girls had to go to the hospital for respiratory problems and told me that I could develop pneumonia quickly in this part of the world and needed to go on antibiotics. Being onery, I refused. By Wednesday, my "flu" symptoms suddenly went into my chest and I felt the feeling of pneumonia coming on. I decided to give in and take the antibiotics. Of course, the pharmacy was out of my last day's dosage....so I ended up spending WAY more money than I should have :/ But the antibiotics worked like a charm and now I'm suffering from the sniffles and a cough.

That being said, the conference that I was organizing came off yesterday. The conference was geared to be a student discussion on the effectiveness of aid in Africa, based off of the September Aid Effectiveness Conference regarding the Accra Agenda for Action and the Millenium Development Goals. Over the past week, naturally the logistical craze caught up to my team and every thing turned to chaos. Being a complete and utter useless mess, I was pretty sure the conference was going to fail miserably. Half of my team was sick, the other half angry and stressed, our supervisor a complete space cadet, and me hacking through it all. But, I am pleased to say that it was an enormous success. We had about 50+ attendees (non-organizers) which ended up being the perfect size for our small group discussions. The Vice-Provost of NYU attended as well as the Director of our program. While I was running around trying to get every thing running smoothly, I was unable to actually sit in on the group discussions. From what I heard, the discussions were actually very educational and taught both International and Ghanaian students a lot. We ended up getting speakers from the World Bank, UNDP, CARE International, and an NGO. The speakers did a good job, but the discussions were definitely the highlight of the conference.The response was overwhelmingly positive, so I'm pretty happy about it :)

So, not to worry any one, but this past week one of my friends was robbed. We have been warned since day one not to wear our purses diagonally or facing the road...of course, none of us ever listen. Unfortunately, one night walking home from dinner a car came from behind, snatched the purse, and caused her to fall back onto her head. Thankfully the bag's strap ripped so that she wasn't dragged along...also, she did not have very many valuables in her bag. However, 24 hours later she starts vomiting uncontrollably and the hospital here treats her for malaria....yea. We were all pretty pissed that they didn't even know how to diagnose a concussion. At the end of the day she's ok, but we certainly all learned a lesson.

On Monday I changed supervisors. The COP and dCOP had an intervention with me as they had expected way more work from me and had been forwarded my frustrated email from Gigi (my internship professor). I have now taken the lead on data analysis and collection. Of course, then I fell ill. My dad and I had a nice chat about not letting people take advantage of my work ethic...I'm definitely going to have to put that into perspective as finals have begun and the USAID reports are still for an unpaid internship. Sigh. Too much to think about. I really do like working working more than academically working. I think I'll get it done. As long as I don't get sick again!

Other than that, nothing really new to report. I grabbed an ankle in my back bend which gave me a huge feeling of accomplishment :) I'll be returning to the States in 3 weeks. It's either too little time or too much time. I think I either needed to go home a month ago or stay here for another 6....but I guess beggars can't be choosers!

I'm ok with Ghana today. I don't hate being here.

It is, however, getting HOT and HUMID. I thought it was hot and humid when I got here...ha. Ha ha. Funny joke, eh? I will really appreciate being cold and unsweaty. The "hamana" (or whatever it is called) is here--it's when all of the dirt and dust and sands blow into Ghana and linger in the air making it absolutely impossible for the asthmatics among us to live without wheezing, hacking, and getting pneumonia. Superrrrrrrr.

Accra--Workaholic style

Greetings everyone!

It has been awhile, no? In true JS fashion I put too much on my plate and got mixed up in a mumbojumbo of work, school, and social activities. Also, some learning experiences left me a little shell shocked and reflective. Per usual. So I'll summarize.

Things that I'm doing:

• Organizing a conference to discuss aid effectiveness in Ghana (and the rest of the world) with students from Ashesi, Legon, and NYU. This is coming off November 21...hopefully we pull it together! It is a perfect chance for people (like me) to find out what people living in the developing world (national staff) think--eventually we'll be working together, may as well start learning now!
• Finishing up classes for the semester, writing too many papers, and trying to figure out how to get to an exam on a SUNDAY in November.
• Training new counselors from the National Aids Control Programme for the pilot program I'm working on and trying to launch the third aspect of the program before the end of November
• transferring the data to a new system so that I can actually leave Accra on time.
  
• Trying to figure out how to only take one undergraduate class next semester and graduate. :)

Things that I've done:

• Took a trip to Kumasi to see the cultural center, visit the palace of the Ashanti king, and roam through the hectic market
• Spent my fall break here in Accra working...
• Took a trip to Kokrobite beach
• Applied for graduation May 2009
  
• Gave up dairy (it's a slow process, but quite necessary) (no more chocolate velvet cheesecake...)
  
• Stopped chewing ice! (why I gave up dairy)
• Attempted to vote in the 2008 election. Let's just say that my ballot didn't arrive until Monday, Washoe county won't return my emails, and the Embassy doesn't really just let you add things to the diplomatic pouch....I voted, but it may not be counted. Sigh. Actually, no, it's a complete conspiracy. They have all of this talk about how they want the youth vote to rise and they want absentees to vote and they're doing every thing they can to have your vote counted--but that's crap. They refuse to send out absentee ballots in a timely manner, they don't accept write ins until 14 days before the election, the Embassy makes you wait in line with the people applying to immigrate just to submit your ballot, and no one answers emails! I did everything right. Conceivably, my vote should get to Washoe county. But it won't. Think about how many people are relying on absentee ballots to vote--it's a complete joke. Sigh.
• went to Aburi gardens yesterday--we ate cinnamon bark, smelled all spice leaves, rubbed some menthol leaves on us, and rode bikes around a village. We had the PERFECT day. We also spent a good amount of time sorting through Halloween's festivities, commiserating on our health, and gorging ourselves on jollof rice and fried chicken. Yum.
• Avoiding any and all political arguments.

Last week I had a discussion with a Ghanaian coworker regarding development projects. He told me that if he could go back, he would have never entered into development. Here's an interesting fact: Ghanaians going into development projects have a higher salary. For instance: a driver for the civil service (or NYU) makes 100 Ghana cedis a month. A driver for a development project would make about 300 Ghana cedis per month. That's huge! The same goes for every person in every position. So rather than being fueled by the desire to help people, the national staff is fueled by nothing--this is just a job. What's the incentive? They can't even take bribes (whereas many other people must --take bribes-- to survive/live their lavish lifestyles). Realizing this disparity behind values and beliefs of expats versus national staff was quite shocking. I mean, expats have it pretty easy--everything is covered: food, house, nanny, cook, car, driver, etc. The salary goes right into the bank and expats get to lead a fairly cushy life style. But still, I believe that people get into development with the fundamental purpose of helping in some way. But basically, what I concluded was that development will never work because no one wants it to work and that my entire career path is a joke. Of course, I've snapped out of that. As long as I do my best and believe in what I do, some thing will happen, even if it's just laying a foundation for the next generation. I mean, look at this pilot program. We are getting interest from several other countries and being hailed as the number one response program on the continent. That's pretty impressive.

Then we have work. Work in general just drives me insane. I'm so tired of being talked down to and constantly being out of the loop. Unless I do things myself or say things in a way that persuade others to actually do their job rather than read the paper, nothing ever happens. It's incredibly frustrating. I like to get things done and I am fairly proactive about doing them. When every one of your supervisors is NOT that way, life can be a little difficult. In a moment of absolute frustration, I decided to write a report on September's data and send it to the Chief of Party without having it approved by my supervisor...not in a brown nosing way, but because that is in my scope of work and it was my job. I couldn't wait for her to open her emails and MAYBE look at it the next week.

The report got great feedback from the Chief of Party and we edited it and sent it off to Nigeria, Senegal, and Washington. Even though my supervisor made me feel like crap after it, I can't help but be a little bit proud.

Anyway. I could go on forever. At the end of the day, I'm really starting to miss my friends and family. This town is like high school and the expats all know every one's business. I don't really like that. I love this country, but I'm starting to think I need some thing less comfortable. I was reading through the devex report on the world and realized that I live in a Ghana bubble. Just because I'm in a developing country doesn't mean that the world has stopped killing itself. Wars, cholera, measles, malnutrition, etc etc etc are still happening and I need to stop living in this fantasy world where every developing country is like Ghana. I let myself get too comfortable.

I miss you all and can't wait to see you in December (Reno) and in January (New York). I can't wait to be cold and get to wear clothes again. I can wait to be homeless and cold in New York in the middle of winter....Regardless, we'll have to have a huge reunion fest to celebrate me actually coming back. It's questionable at times ;)

Love you!!
J

Greetings from Accra!

We finally have internet access! Yes, I did go through slight withdrawals.

Upon our arrival in Accra on Sunday evening, the telephone lines were down--no calls to the US, no internet. While it is still spotty and chooses to work whenever it wishes, I currently have access!

So a mumbojumbo of the details you never thought you needed to know...(let me know if you want to UNSUBSCRIBE ;))--this is not eloquent and written on sleep deprivation and caffeine withdrawals. Sue me.

The Flight (s):
Reno--SFO: pit stop in San Francisco with the lovely Aunty Lorraine and Randy to indulge on some delicious dim sum during my layover. You have no idea how glad I am that I did that--not only do they give you ONE meal on the flight, but the portion size is about that of a Lean Cuisine. Mind you this is an 11 hour flight to Frankfurt. I would have possibly died from starvation if it weren't for the quick thinking brilliance of Aunty Lorraine :)

SFO--Frankfurt: Altogether not as bad as expected. The people on the plane were strange--everyone was very standoffish and rude...not to JUDGE or anything, but I certainly did not have any desire to visit the country. I watched four movies, all of them bad, and slept for about 2 hours. I've already mentioned the lack of food.

Frankfurt--Lagos: Lufthansa is an interesting airline. The flight attendants actually wear hats, full uniforms, and are constantly smiling. It's sick! They also get extremely excited when they are about to serve the cocktails. Now, as a smart individual, I avoided such beverages as a flight dehydrates you enough as it is. The pasta on the flight was pretty good, but the portions were quite small yet again. This time I didn't have the dim sum to ride through with.... The airplane had ridiculous amounts of electrical glitches--I'm just going to assume it's because they refused to turn off the cabin lights for the entire flight....

Lagos--Accra: Well, the lovely flight crew didn't tell us ANYTHING about staying on the plane, EDT, etc, so we just sort of...looked confused. Flying into Lagos was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. I have never seen so many houses/shacks/living quarters in my life. It was a sea of corrugated metal and tires--there were people everywhere and the streets were layed out in this haphazard chaos. It was amazing! Flying into Accra, one could see the difference--while there was still a sea of houses, there was slightly more order in the streets. Additionally, there was a semi-clear ratio of paved roads to unpaved. When I got off the plane, we went through immigration, got our bags, and met up with NYU after customs--everything was surprisingly organized. When we rounded up everyone from the flight, we headed to our living quarters.

The House:
I live on a compound called Church Crescent. There are 2 sets of 2 houses--3 of girls, one of boys. There were only 6 boys in the entire program so they got their own house. My house has two rooms upstairs: a triple (mine) with a patio and a double with a patio. Downstairs there is a room of two girls, an extra bathroom, a large living/dining room, a kitchen (which was stocked with bread, cookies, juice, water, and groundnut butter) and a dirty little meeting room. If that room was clean, I would totally use it as a yoga room. But it's not.

My room consists of a bunk bed and a single. One of the roommates got there a few days ahead of time and had the single--she is a slightly larger African American girl that attends Spellman University in Georgia. So far she refuses to leave her room, eat anything that is not American, and talk to people. She stays in all the time and talks (quite loud) on her cell phone and/or to one of us in the middle of the night. I don't really know how I feel about that--her attitude is so negative, all I can think about is "Debbie Downer...." I suppose she's just adjusting. I do hope that she starts to emerge from her shell of negativity though...we can only encourage her so much before school starts and we're all bogged down with school, internships, and volunteering!
My other roommate is a junior at NYU --while at first I was a little nervous that she was going to be super high maintenance, she's turned out to be a pretty chill girl. She hasn't traveled much and is super cautious, but there are worse things in life. She is a nice, considerate person (so far) so we can only hope that nothing changes.
I don't have the best room mate track record.
The room is attached to a porch which I thought would be perfect for yoga until I realized that the properties on either side of my room have groundskeepers (with machetes) that can see up--I quickly found a new spot. Right outside of the kitchen is a perfect little J sized patio that is surrounded by enough walls/grass to me comfortable. As long as I go out there with my bug spray, I'm good to go! I have become that "token yoga girl" with my two mats and exercise ball. Unfortunately (or fortunately...) for me, the bad malaria bugs come out at night, forcing me to practice in the morning. Quite a change from my usual early evening practice, but I guess it's best to avoid malaria at all costs!

Accra:
The climate here is something I have never really experienced. It's super humid day and night, but in the shade it's almost cold. There are clouds in some parts of the sky and hot hot hot African sun in others. For a good part of the day the sun beats down upon you--talk about dripping in sweat. It threatens rain (it's the rainy season) daily but we have yet to experience a downpour. The majority of roads are dirt and the sewage system is wide open. GLORIOUS! Cars will hit you so you can't be day dreaming (too much).
The pace is quite different from NYC so everyone generally "strolls" along. I was thinking about purchasing a bike but was informed that the ride to the University of Legon was too dangerous/long--so I'll probably stick to my two feet. I do like walking.
The food here is quite delicious--everything is INSANELY spicy. Some of it too much: this is when you can pick the people with a palate from those without. The fruits and veggies are unbelievably fresh and I have yet to have an allergic reaction (touch wood). The street food looks and smells absolutely delicious--future care packages: Pepto Bismol tablets! (I'm semi-adventurous, leading to negative reactions....)
The people in this program are quite interesting--a lot of International kids, military brats, etc. There are only a few of us old seniors who are making a last gasp effort to get SOMETHING out of this institution, so our priorities are slightly different than the rest of the students, but all in all this is a good group of kids.
The Ghanaians are quite wonderful people. Always friendly, smiling, just wanting to say hi...the vendors are quite pushy and have perfected the "pout" more than me, but I'm not one to be fooled by such trickery! The kids are so cute with their "Good Afternoon!"s, staring at us like we are aliens. It's great.

Over the next few days there are SO many things to do. Register for classes at Legon, meet with the President of Ashesi, figure out what's going on with the internship program, begin classes, figure out the best routes, grocery shopping, etc etc etc. Of course NYU has packed our orientation week from 7am til 9pm leaving very little time to stock any thing in our apartments.

Oh yea, and I need a coffee maker. My caffeine withdrawals are completely insane. I have found a not so small group of people in the same boat, so tomorrow the hunt is on!

So this is it so far. My first impression of the city is nothing but wonderful--in fact, the only down side is that I feel far more comfortable than I would have liked. I suppose my mother will appreciate that :) I have high hopes for the next four months and hope that this experience is as enriching as it can be. I do apologize to all of you that I promised to keep in contact with after NYC--for such an internet addict, I am absolutely terrible at remembering to return e-mails. I wish you all well in the world! Keep in touch (I'll try try TRY to be better--blame the faulty internet connection!)!! Hopefully my future emails a) exist and b) are not filled with so many monotonous details. I'll be sure to forward along some stories :)

Be the change you wish to see in the world.-Gandhi

It's funny how my life has "themes."

This has been my theme for the past few years. This will also be the theme of my future.

This correlates to the following Confucian principle: In order to change the world, you have to change your nation. In order to change your nation, you have to change your state. In order to change your state, you have to change your community. In order to change your community, you have to change you friends. In order to change your friends, you have to change your family. In order to change your family, you have to change your self.

I will be the first to admit that plenty of my knowledge has been force fed to me through my education. But not this one. This one actually struck a chord through church, believe it or not. As anti-Church as I am, it did teach me life principles....not so much the church, but the regurgitation of God's word throughout my childhood...at least something stuck. The overarching theme of being the "light of the world."

Eph 5:8-14a (Phi) Once you were "darkness", but now as Christians you are "light". Live then as children of the light. The light produces in men all that is good and right and true. Let your lives be living proofs of the things which please God. Steer clear of the fruitless activities of darkness; let your lives expose their futility. (You know the sort of things I mean; to detail their secret doings is too shameful to mention.) For light is capable of showing everything for what it really is. It is even possible for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light also.

Gandhi makes it more...."politically correct." Sad, eh?

For 18 years of my life, I lived a very secluded life. I still live a secluded life, but thank the good Lord I have changed certain elements. I used to keep my distance from my family, keep loose ties with friends, and not care about my community. Then I moved away. Slowly but surely, I realized that the people who will be there when you have no where else to go are the people in your family. One of the hardest things in my life was to suck it up, put my pride aside, and work on relationships with my family. It took a lot of effort, but slowly I believe that these relationships are growing.

Not to go all mushy on you or anything.

But there are many many things that I realize about myself that I dislike.

Here I am with all of these idealistic dreams, realistic goals, and I have yet to focus on changing myself.

• I live in Williamsburg, in the Hasidic part. I have found myself expressing so much...dislike towards these people. The fact that they, yes as a generality, find themselves to be superior, upholding every stereotype I have ever seen makes me sad. I came into this neighborhood understanding that I was part of the "gentrification," and that I was intruding--but they have left me with such a negative view, I can't be anything but sad. Sad that I myself have the capacity to dislike an entire group of people for the way they act towards me. Sad for this community for being so standoffish and close minded.
• I have allowed myself to become too busy to communicate with others. All it takes is a simple phone call, a random e-mail, just a "hey, how are you doing?" and yet I've become too busy. I wasn't there for people who needed me the most. People that I consider my best friends, people I consider my only constants...and I let them down. I let myself down.
• I am mean to people, men in particular. It is always a game. But here's the thing. I don't like being put on a pedestal. I hate it when people only see the surface. I hate it when people don't take me seriously. I hate it when people think that I am this amazing person, when they think they are so lucky to "have" me. First of all, no one can ever "have" me. Second of all, I am not that amazing. My reaction to this unrealistic view/expectation of me is to retaliate. Not react, retaliate. It's like I'm punishing them for thinking that I am some great person. I mean...in retrospect, that's not very nice.
• I'm selfish. I only do things that make me feel good. And that's not right either. I mean, I want to go into the humanitarian aid field to help people because, as a pure selfish motive, it makes me feel good about myself. How disgusting is that?

So, clearly I have not even STARTED to change myself. How do I expect to change the world? We all claim that we want peace...but look at ourselves. We fight over stupid, meaningless things. We get angry over parking spots. We destroy friendships over rumors. How can such a negative society even think about world peace?

I am not a positive person. I am an extremely flawed person. I am a hypocrite. I complain about everything. Nothing is every good enough. I get unreasonably angry when people don't understand my dayplanner. I get unreasonable angry when my roommate doesn't wash dishes.

How am I supposed to help others?

I read a book last summer and realized something. The only thing that I can do is to be myself. I can be myself and hope that it affects others. Because no matter how much I try to change myself, my family, my community, nation, or world, the most that I can do is be myself. How I represent myself is how people will see me and how people will associate my work. If I am a negative person doing "good" things, that work will take on a negative undertone.

So in order to be myself, I have to learn some things about myself.

This summer I am moving to Reno. After Reno I will be moving to Ghana. A large portion of my moving to Reno is to really get to know myself, come to terms with the personality traits my genes have given me and dilute those traits that I have developed over time. It's a lot. It's necessary. It will take a lot of time. As I described in my Myspace, I need everyone around me the next three months to bear with me. Because I am trying...and that's all that I can do. Try.

The theme for 2008 is Patience and Tolerance. I invite you to join me in the journey.

Namaste.