akwaaba

the volunteer arrived, and it wasn't a German man.

in the twi language, there is no differentiation between the pronouns "he" and "she", the same word is used for both. this has caused a many slightly confusing conversations, because a twi speaker using english interchanges the two quite freely, without a second thought. english being my first language i get held up on this little detail quite easily.

some examples...

"kacie? your sister, is he beautiful? would he marry me? ask him?"

or

"my father went to the market. she won't stay long because she is sick with malaria and wants to come home and rest. he is buying a cloth for her wife. he is sewing a dress."

i've learned to let go of my control over pronouns and let the miscommunication settle itself. so when the car pulled up at the clinic, with 2 foreign volunteers, i wasn't surprised to learn that neither of them were german, and it was the woman who was the doctor and had planned to stay and work.

i laughed. "welcome any way." i said "i was told you were a german man!"

"oh no! why, are you disappointed?" she asked.

"not at all." i was glad to have another female around. and i didn't mind her boyfriend, he had some pretty strong feminine energy.

"i'm kacie." i shook his hand, it was so pale.

"i'm andrew." he said "and that is sophie." she had been bombarded by all the other people that wanted to meet her too.

"so are you both here? or whats going on?" i was a bit confused. "and who is the doctor?" i just wanted to make sure.

"sophie is the doctor. i'm volunteering at Agogo Hospital so i'm just visiting for a bit. came to see the place and help sophie settle in."

it had been quite some time since i had made conversation with a white man. it jostled me.

"so where are you from?" i asked.

"i am from britain."

"and sofie?"

"she's swiss, but lives in london."

"you both look young." sophie walked back over. "how old are you?" i asked.

"i'm 30 years old." she said, giving me a little sly look, as if she'd been told she looked younger than her age many times before.

andrews face was welcoming. his eyes were alert and spoke more than his mouth. he reminded me of a very good therapist. their accents were nice to listen to and their choice of words kept my ears constantly interested.

i liked sofie right when i met her. i observed her interacting. she seemed confidant, but not overly. she laughed a lot and was flexible. the two arrived as a couple but operated as individuals. i let out a sigh of relief.

"andrew? do you reckon we should leave our bags here or take them back to the house? i've got heaps of supplies that i don't want to carry back here. i'd much rather just leave them. but..." she went off calculating just what she should do.

"have you been to the house yet?" i asked.

"no, not yet. we've just come straight from Agogo." he said.

this should be interesting, i thought.

"let's just go to the house and drop our bags there. then we can sort through them and bring whatever back." she decided.

"what do you have?" i asked.

"loads and loads of books mostly." she said.

Secetry walked up. "the car is waiting. will you go with them to show them the place?"

"yes" i answered. but in a way i felt silly. i wasn't sure if they wanted me tagging along. oh well, i'll be overly hospitable, it's the ghanaian way. if it bothers them they'll just have to get used to it.

the van chugged down the road. it felt luxurious to be riding in a 16 seater with only a few of us. i stretched my legs.

a few minutes later, after many waves out the car window to the locals staring at the strange trio, we pulled up at our gate.

"is this it?" sofie asked.

"yup!" i said.

andrew started letting out little gasps that were half laugh half shock.

"it's quite out of place, don't you think?" he said.

he hadn't even stepped inside the courtyard yet and he already could tell.

we walked through the gate and auntie, chief, and sakola were tending to a big pile of maize spread out on a blue tarp. they looked up at us.

"maaha (good afternoon)" i said.

auntie gave a little nod and chief kept working. sakola walked over and introduced himself. he asked them a few questions in twi, which went unanswered and unnoticed. "they don't speak twi yet" i told him. so he tried in english and they all had a good laugh.

"this area is quite large, isn't it?" andrew said looking at me. i smirked. "what would be the reason for building such a massive front yard?"

sofie had already made her way onto the front porch and was peering through the tinted windows into the first room. i was wondering what they thought of the carcass flagpole, but decided it'd be too early to ask.

i hadn't really noticed that our house had columns. 4 of them, large and foreign, rested in intervals attached to the porch.

we waited for sakola to bring the key, while admiring the design of the porch.

he eventually yelled up to us.

"i'm waiting for the key!" i said.

he told me the door wasn't locked. i pushed on it hard and it opened. then he yelled at me for being foolish in front of my new friends.

sofie practically ran down the hallway while andrew and i lagged behind and talked about the property. when she turned the corner into our living room she yelled

"this is the biggest flat i've ever lived in! i could do my yoga in here!"

i immediately felt unoriginal, mostly because that was my first thought too when i saw the room. i had a strange awareness in that moment. for months i had been made to believe i was something extremely original, bordering freakish, an anomaly. sofie was shattering my false belief.

she was exploring the house like a ballet dancer, moving gracefully from one room to the next quite intrigued with it all. andrew followed her closely and i just hung back, waiting. i heard them asking each other where the bathroom was, noting the electricity hook-ups, and excited about how 'nice' the house was.

they walked out from sophies room.

i answered some of their questions, but wasn't sure what to leave for them to figure out on their own. there is so much beauty in self-discovery.

"the toilet is outside, behind the house where the papaya trees are." i said. "don't sit on it. go like this." i showed her how to go to the bathroom, which felt a little funny because i didn't know her or andrew and i was improv-ing private matters, but it was a useful tip that took me weeks to figure out.

she gave a long slow nod, "ahhhhh okay."

her mind was quick, i could already tell. both she and andrew wondered about everything; how things were built, how they operated. they focused on details i would never think to ask. i felt very different in that regard.

"the house doesn't have electricity and we fetch our water from the well. you just carry it in and then you can bathe in your bathroom. but don't pour water down the sink, it's not hooked up properly." i advised. i figured that one out a month after spitting toothpaste down a pipe that goes underneath the house.

andrew had a perplexed look on his face. "this place is really strange." he said. "it's almost as if it is half completed. who lives here?"

"yes, how many rooms are there?" sophie asked.

"there are 5 rooms and i'm not really sure who lives here. definitely sakola. he's the guy you met outside."

"safola?"

"sakola."

"sakola? okay, sakola. sakola. who else?"

"there is a boy named chief who stays in that room around the corner. and the rest of the rooms well, just pretend we live in a hostel, that might make it a little easier. half hostel, half church. okay?" i would have told them about collins and nanakwame but i wasn't sure they would be coming here. i'd wait.

they looked up and around, at the walls and ceiling, over at the cushion less couches pushed against the walls, not to be used. they laughed at the situation.

"whats going on with that?" andrew asked, pointing at the sofa.

"um, i don't really know except they are supposed to stay like that. i haven't seen anyone sit on them."

he pointed at a door in the living room with big wood boards nailed across it. "and that?"

"oh, i guess i've never noticed that. the room on the other side is sort of like a closed in porch, we keep our pet rat in there. but he's lost. if we go out to the porch we can get in that way. i'll show you, c'mon."

he and i walked around to the front. i noticed his posture, it wasn't straight and powerful like the men i had seen here. he was curved, and slumped. i thought about something someone had said on my first trip to africa, when i was in kenya.

"it's not good to carry your babies tied to your back the way they do here, they'll grow up to have weak backs." she was from america.

i thought of the millions of african people i had seen and how strong and perfectly able they are. then i looked at Andrew. we made our way to the porch and i saw my reflection. i tried my hardest to stand up straight, shoulders back. it was uncomfortable.

"okay, that maize, that they're working with over there used to be in here." we walked into the outdoor/indoor room connected to the porch. "over here is where we dump our scraps to plumpen up our little buddy. but we think he's gone down beneath the ground, so Sakola sticks yam chunks into this hole right here."

if we kept feeding the bushmeat like this he would become too big to come back out through the hole he crawled in. then he'd just die and rot in there and stink everything up.

andrew was observing and carefully assessing the household situation. "so the rat lives under there?"

"yes. and we are going to eat it."

"eat it?"

"uh huh, you'll have to come to the dinner whenever it happens."

"ah hu huh ha, alright."

we walked back outside and chatted some more.

"this living arrangement is much better than i had expected. we were told we were going out into the middle of the bush. i thought sophie was going to be sleeping..." he moved his hand close to the ground.

"...in a mud hut!" i said.

"YES!!!"

we laughed.

she almost had to but i didn't mention that.

the rest of the day was spent touring the surroundings, introducing the two to the folks in the village, and translating a bit. i had learned more twi than i had given myself credit for. i also knew more about the village people, their personal lives and connections, than i realized. we eventually made our way back to the clinic, where sophie saw her first patient.

i sat in the office and talked with andrew about boamadumase.

sophie walked back in after having been gone for quite some time.

"well!" she exclaimed "i've just seen my first patient! a young boy whose teacher hit him on the head with a board eraser."

"was the wound bad?" i asked.

"ah yes, it was quite deep."

she gave andrew a look that was full of life.

they were in africa. it was her first time here and everything was fresh. she had committed to throwing herself into life at huttel health center.

"so i assume corporal punishment is accepted here." she said.

being around her reminded me of home. she was driven and motivated and wanting to work hard. i liked that. it also seemed out of place. the village moves slow.
i couldn't imagine her napping at noontime.

i was sure that africa was going to soften her and slow her down just a little, but we'd just have to wait and see.