Chapter 9: how the croppy got his kicks

*trumpet fanfare*

all right, so march officially sucks. just so you know. i thought that the heat would eventually just plateau off and stay at a consistent 100-110, but i underestimated living just a hair north of the 9th parallel. this close to equator, the fun in the sun never really stops. the heat keeps rising, and these nights one can find me lying outside under a mosquito net in 110 heat (at midnight, usually), without the luxury of even a breeze. as you can imagine, I've been having a lot of good sleep lately.

with that said, let me bring all you guys up to speed on what's been transpiring over here in the bush. on march 1st, global 2000 (my n.g.o. company, as you'll remember) acted upon their desire of sacking mohammed, my counterpart. the new zonal coordinator for guinea worm in sankpala's sector is an older gentleman by the name of abukari issah. not so much the joking-around type - the man's got the sense of humor of a wooden board - but he's really nice and polite and he's hard working. i like the man well enough, and we actually manage to get things done with him (something that always seemed an impossibility with mohammed at the head of our operations). i don't remember if i mentioned the other guy i'm working with - issah zackariah - but he's a national service guy brought in from accra to help sankpala with its various epidemics, specifically guinea worm. he's fresh out of the university down in accra and 23, so we're a little more on the same wavelength (besides one being american and one being gonja). anyway, long story short, my team of volunteers is slowly but surely coming together and our programs are beginning to show a bit of promise. huzzah...

the evening after our march 1st meeting in yapei (where they canned mohammed), sahmed - my boss at global 2000 - approached me and issah and told us it'd probably be for the best that we didn't return to sankpala that evening. curious, i asked why that would be; so sahmed informs me that the annual fire festival takes place this evening and that there's a chieftaincy dispute in sankpala because of it. since issah and i aren't really full-fledged members of the community (neither of us are dagomba), it was deemed unsafe for us to be there. so issah and i were evacuated from sankpala: issah went to tamale where he had friends from the university staying. i, on the other hand, was not about to miss one of the biggest festivals of the year, so i went back to sankpala and packed up my bike's saddlebags with a few things and sped off towards kusawgu - a small gonja village 15 miles away south where my closest neighboring pcv and friend brett lived. he's also a guinea worm volunteer and was at the zonal coordinator meeting, so he invited me out there so i wouldn't have to miss the festival.

the fire festival is an annual celebration undertaken by the gonja, dagomba, and mamprussi tribes. all the men and boys in the village smear white war paint all over their bodies and face and brandish these four foot long torches. the mass of people assemble around the chief's palace, where the chief of the village and the sub-chiefs and elders are assembled. then, when they fire off the muzzle loaders - indicating the start of the festival - everyone lights their torches and goes running through the streets crying at the top of their lungs. when they get out into the fields, they begin throwing the torches....lighting everything on fire. they throw the majority of the torches at the base of the 'sacred tree' and then the drumming and dancing begins and usually lasts until dawn. brett was made a gonja chief of kusawgu just as i was made a dagomba chief of sankpala, so we were given honorary seats at the beginning of the festival. they presented us with our own special ceremonial torches, which we lit when the guns ran off. i ended up having my shirt catch on fire from someone else torch, but i didn't get burnt so i was happy. it was quite a sight, though, rest assured: hundreds of screaming gonjas funning through the night waving torches and screaming at the top of their lungs - something out of national geographic. i wanted to take my camera, but decided it'd be inappropriate. i didn't wanna come across as a tourist....after all, i'm a friggin' chief....

the problem with sankpala ended up being pretty trivial: the dead chief still hasn't had his funeral yet, so technically his brother is the ruling chief of sankpala. however, my coronation and nearly every other aspect of daily operations is undertaken by the next in line chief. well, the dead chief's brother up and decided that the fire festival was to begin at HIS house and not the new chief's. drama ensues, maligunah is evacuated, you know the rest. anyway, things have calmed down in the village and upon my return i found my hut still standing and lots of people giving me the whole, "hey maligunah, where were you last night? you missed the fire festival..." shpeel. i thought that was funny....

by now plenty of you guys have probably heard of my perilous 105 degree fever i was fighting with on and off for the first two weeks or so of march. well, they first thought it was a bladder infection, then typhoid, then amoebas, then malaria again (you have to love third world country doctors...). they're not sure what it was, but i'm feeling better and can eat three meals a day again and i'm not spraying out of my ass anymore (which is always pleasant).

st. patrick's day went over pretty well: i was placed in charge of organizing a celebration at the sub-office on the 17th and appointed different pcvs in charge of different tasks. one of the guys here, paul, used to be a chef at the four seasons so i had him go out and get the ingredients for corned beef and cabbage and throughout the day i helped him with that. it actually turned out pretty good from what i remember. a few others were in charge of ordering beverages for the day from our personal delivery service down the street. jack daniels was there, and was johnny walker and a few other friends we hadn't seen in awhile - good seeing those guys again. anyway, i'd love to tell you more about st. patrick's day....but i honestly don't remember. it wasn't no doherty hotel, hell-razing, clare irish fest - but it was the best we simple croppies could muster with the resources that were available. i think we would've done you folks proud....

we had a disco-themed party on the 20th this month at the nicest hotel in tamale (not saying all that much, obviously). nearly all the pcvs from every region of ghana showed up, not to mention some dutch, french, and british volunteers from other organizations. we had nearly 150 or so white kids there - quite an accomplishment around these parts, almost like being in college again. the festivities started off around noon that day on the other side of town, and ended up in the ballroom later that evening. i probably shouldn't go into too much detail concerning the course of events throughout the night - wouldn't want to offend anyone - but i'd like to point out real quick that getting hit by a car totally sucks. a taxi came whirling around a corner when me and a few other pcvs were coming back from a series of hardline negotiations with a local brewery/distributor and caught me off guard. not that one can be caught on guard when being hit by a car, i suppose; he was far enough away from me when i started to cross the street that he could've easily at least slowed down. thankfully the Ghanaian driver had the common courtesy of slamming on his brakes right before he hit me, and i jumped up out of instinct so he only clipped me. my left leg was bruised up a bit and i limped the rest of the night, but after a few stop-offs at some bars i was fine. i was more shaken up and surprised than anything else; the guy was pissed off I hit HIS car - not sympathetic in the slightest. i had half the mind to pull the guy out of the car and beat the living bejesus out of him, but he was nearly eight feet tall and a solid four hundred pounds, so i opted not to. so yeah....that was disco....bellbottoms, car drama, and lots and lots of crappy music.

i've been placed in charge of organizing a team of volunteers to help me vaccinate little kids in my village for polio (remember polio?). our first sweep of the village took us three days of five hour shifts. like i've said before, working even three hours out in this unrelenting heat feels like twelve. its tough work, and the kids don't make it any easier on us. we had to vaccinate every child in sankpala under the age of 5 - and this is truly a magical age of children to work with. they would see the three of us (issah and a guy name alhassan rounded out my unit) coming from a ways off and just start screaming at the top of their lungs. watching two or three year old kids waddle off into the fields crying like madmen is pretty funny stuff, but struggling to keep the kid still while you administer the medicine really isn't. it sometimes took four of us adults to hold down one small kid - they'd kick and squirm and urinate all over the place. i've about had enough of the medical field - if i ever do this again, you can be sure i'm gonna stay clear of health assignments.

in all honesty, though, the polio vaccinating went well and it was a lot of fun - its a good way to go out and make yourself familiar around the community. the novelty of the mysterious white man in sankpala has significantly faded, and the only time the kids seem enthralled to hang out around my house and hover about gawking is when i have other white people over to visit. and that's not so bad 'cause i'm getting to the point in my dagbani proficiency where i can threaten to beat them or have their parents beat them if they don't get the hell off my porch. what a great language - lots of hand gestures i'm surely gonna use later on back in the states.

well, i don't really have anything else to talk about right now so i think i'm gonna let you guys go for now. hope you enjoyed this month's reading - i probably left out a lot, and if that be the case i'll include it in the next go-round. oh yeah, arsons set a few stores in tamale on fire (we think they were political extremists for the n.d.c. party....rawlings' dudes) - i was pissed 'cause i was in town that day and i had shopping to do and couldn't get anything done. oh well. anyway, hope all you guys are doing well these days. if you guys need me, you know where to find me....

the one and only,

col. brian j. hough, maligunah - chief of dagombas
9th northern region royal donkey cavalry regiment

p.s. operation: mullet is coming along splendidly....