Chapter 3: o'bruni's and other news

alright kids, so here's what's been going on lately up here in the north...

i just got back from a week-long stint with the other seven water sanitation/health pcts. we did a tour of several villages and have been building latrines and teaching at schools, etc. i accidently sat in the chief's chair in diare and pissed off a few of the village elders, but the chief didn't seem to mind and as a sign of his forgiveness he gave us a chicken. guess what you had to do with the chicken? that's right, you had to sacrifice it in the muslim tradition. guess who had to sacrifice the thing? that's right, i did. and i'll say this much, friends, those things make a noise that is almost unexplainable when you're hacking and sawing at their throat and they won't die. sounds a little like a rabbit being killed, i don't know. it wasn't all that bad, though, and i guess its something i'll have to get used to if i'm gonna be raising chickens when i get down to sankpala anyway....

so digging latrines: not all that cool. smells terrible, but its something that has to be done 'cause they people are crapping and pissing all over the place - wherever they want. so you have to build soak-aways and sewer trenches. that made me gag and throw up when we were in garu. i've also been teaching a lot about guinea worm at some of the schools around diare and bawku, and the kids seem to get a kick out of the 'obrunis' that speak broken dagbaani with a poor accent. not sure how much those kids really learned, but they sure do love staring at white people ('obruni' literally means 'from over the horizon' in twii)..

oh yeah, and even though i'm supposed to be working on guinea worm as my primary project while i'm over here in the 'beach corps' (as all the other african pcvs call us ghanain pcvs 'cause we have it so easy in comparison to those in really crappy countries), i talked with the pcv, jenny, who i'm replacing in sankpala and she said i can start building a guesthouse for n.g.o's that occasionally pass through the village. the grant proposal has already been accepted and the ground has already been cleared, i just have to help oversee the construction. that'd be a hell of a lot more fun that pulling three foot worms out of peoples' bodies all day long....

and as for secondary projects go, besides the chickens, donkeys, and stuff like that, i'm gonna open up an irish pub in sankpala. and i'm gonna call in "o'bruni's" - eh? how clever is that, making a ghanain term sound irish and still apply. my mind works at such a pace the likes of which few have ever seen before. i'm also making blueprints for a chicken guillitine so i don't have to go through the process of slitting one's throat and holding it down with my bare friggin' hands again. french revolution style....

anyway, a lots been going on lately and i'm sure i didn't touch on nearly half of the stuff i probably should have. i'll check back in in a few days or so and update you guys on other stuff. still hot over here, though, rest assured - the temperature's rising and the humidity's dropping, and i think i'm getting used to the heat 'cause i'm not sweating as bad anymore. huzzah.

one more thing, i have a new address. i'm still in bolga-tanga, but the mail from accra takes forever to get up here (i still haven't gotten any of the packages that were supposedly sent), so i'm gonna have people send them to the tamale sub-office instead.

you bastards have fun in your cool weather, watching the simpsons and drinking slurpees and enjoying dairy products whenever the hell you feel like it. i hate you all. naawuni ni labsina, i am outty 5000 - stay outta trouble....

col. brian j. hough
9th royal northern region donkey cavalry regiment