Chapter 4: and all hell breaks loose

back with a vengeance, guys - sorry for the long wait, been a bit on the busy side. i'm sure most of you got the forward from my dad about the tamale sub-office phone number (if not, email him) - that's the closest phone to where i'll be stationed for the next two years or so, and i'll be at that office probably twice a week or so. there's a pcvl posted there, so you can always leave messages with her....

i just returned from our week-long site visit. quite the adventure that was. sankpala is great; my house is better than i thought it would be, and my counterpart muhammed is a hilarious guy. pretty much there's zero english spoken in the village, though, so i'll be next to fluent in dagbani by the time i leave (the pcv i'm replacing, jenny, is - and she said i speak better dagbani than she did when she was where i'm at now in training...). i only got to spend one night in sankpala, unfortunately, 'cause i was running a temperature of 103 and was forced to stay at the tamale office for a few nights. they thought i had malaria, so the pcvls made me take a malaria test...still waiting for the results (cross your fingers, folks...)

so, as you kids know, i'm part of the dagombe tribe - one of the two largest tribes here in the northern region, the other being gonja. technically, sankpala is in gonja land but everybody here speaks dagbani still. who knows. the languages and culture of the two tribes are nearly identical anyway, seeing how at one point in time they were one unified people (many moons past, in the long long ago before the great earth-shake...). as far as i can figure, if i were to form some kind of an analogy as to the relationship and status of the two tribes and their reputations 'round these parts, it'd be that the dagombes are like the greeks as the gonjas are like the romans. or, maybe better put, the dagombes are like the athenians and the gonjas are like the spartans. read up on your history, i'm not gonna explain that one. anyway, each tribe has a chief per village, and then regional chiefs , and then, finally, the paramount chief (the king). unfortunately, someone last year decided to cut off our king's head and henceforth there has been a curfew imposed in tamale and the surrounding villages. they can't bury the king's body yet 'cause they still don't know where his head is, and so the king's decapitated body has remained on ice for the last year and a half. the eldest son (of 107 children left behind with the king's 37 widows....busy man), the heir to the paramount chief seat, can't ascend to the dagombe throne until the king's body is buried - as is the custom. so you can see where there's a bit of drama going on in dagombe land lately....

halloween was pretty cool this year, believe it or not. all the pct's and pcv's in the northern region and the upper east and west regions all met up together in the tamale office on saturday, the 1st, and we had a cook out. we even got a hold of some beef, which was really cool (lately i've been eating osterich, donkey, and dog....dog, suprisingly enough, isn't all that bad....). anyway, our peace corps detachment - decked out in full regalia and costume - decided to crash a welcoming ceremony being held for some canadian vso's (canadian equivalancy to peace corps) at this ritzy hotel north of town. and crash that occasion we did; those poor girls (who weren't in costume and were all somewhat sober) didn't know what to do with us off-the-handle americans, but it was a good time. representing the american government, friends, that's what we do here in the beach corps. anyways, i really didn't go as anything - just wore my turban and a ghanain cloth and a scimitar. maybe in america that might be considered a costume, i suppose, but here people didn't even notice me....

so i swear in as an offical peace corps volunteer on nov. 21st, then on the 22nd head down to tamale to buy last minute supplies before heading to sankpala, 13k away from tamale. i can't wait - training here is fine and all, but the pace is so slow 'cause we can only go as fast as the slowest learners in the group (and, thank God, our training group is blessed with an abundance of retards...). there's a huge ceremony for 'swear in' where we have to recite all this crap in our target language (dagbani, for me) and present stuff on different research we conducted over the course of the last two months. there's a lot more homework here than i thought there would be, gotta say i'm not taking a liking to it. but we're so close to being done now that we're all just trying to get through the last stint in one peice...

thanksgiving should be interesting this year, to say the least. we're all going to mole, where a pct named dan is going to be stationed. he's in the business sector under 'eco-tourism,' and his job is to help maintain a four star hotel and keep tourism at high levels. mole is the site of the biggest game reserve in ghana, and i think 4th in all of africa. so after we chill out at this lavish hotel (with a swimming pool and a bar even) we're going to go out into the bush and go hang out with some elephants, lions, baboons, and things like that. should be lots of dutch and english vso's there too, so we can screw with them some more (that's quickly becoming one of our favorite pasttimes, heckling other white foriegners). for christmas, we're going to all head south for this bonfire on the beachfront where a pct named greg is stationed. i think we're staying there until new year's, actually. so if any of you guys feel like celebrating the holidays on the warm beaches of the atlantic with some sweaty dirty obrunis, just let me know....

well, i'm sure by now many of you heard about the breaking and entering of our storage unit in clare and the great robbery that transpired. but fear not, although much was lost we're insured so i'm not really doing too bad i guess. the great 'collussus maximus' is gone, but the pimp cymbal remains. my sword collection's gone, but the swords of poke'mon remain. my music collection's gone, but the rock cannot - and shall not - be stopped. dad, that dvd list is in the mail en route - keep up the good work, i appreciate it. alright, friends, i have to blast on outta here and fight evil. you guys all take care of yourselves, stay outta trouble, and i'll talk to you later...

the one and only,

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