Land of the Lumps

Hello! I hope you are all well and happy as the month of June comes to a close.

Updates from Ghana: we just finished our surveying in the mining community today, and tomorrow we will move to our control community (where there is no gold mining).

It was sad to leave Kejetia because we’ve made some good friends along the way. The carpenter’s wife, named Love (isn’t that adorable?--Love), was particularly sad today. She has a particular attachment to Rachel, and she bought “Maltas” (a malt drink) for Rachel and Kaylee and copied all of Rachel’s contact information. We have also grown attached to the kids in Kejetia. Gifty, Tina, and Theresa play follow-the-leader and do the chicken dance with me. They also delight in carrying our backpacks and equipment around the mining site (oh no, I’m exposing the unethical use of child labor in this study!) A little boy, named Calvin, hangs out with us almost every day. He holds three of my fingers in his little 4-year-old hand as we walk around the community searching for households to survey. We also hang out with Calvin’s buddy, Junior. We call Junior “Baby Driver” because one day when Allison finished her survey early, he climbed into our van with her and sat right in the driver’s seat pretending to steer the van! (I sing Simon and Garfunkel to him often: “…they call me baby driver, and once upon a pair of wheels, hit the road and I’m go-o-one…”) Allison, Mozhgon, and Kaylee have provided ample “toffees” (candy) to the kids throughout our visits, and this last week Allison also gave out stickers, silly-band-bracelets, and star-shaped sunglasses (priceless pictures!).

The Survey:

I realized that I never really explained what “surveying” entails… here’s the gist of a day in Kejetia: First, we split into 3 groups and each group locates a random household to survey (we use a GPS maps that we constructed when we arrived in May of all of the household structures in the Kejetia to select random houses). We often traipse to several households before we find one where the inhabitants are both home and not too busy working. Once we find willing participants, the survey begins.

“The survey” comprises four smaller surveys: a household, occupational, malaria, and diet-and-nutrition survey. We start with the household survey to obtain a record of the full names, ages, education levels, and occupations of all of the adults in the household. We define a “household” as all people who eat from the same pot. Households in Kejetia vary widely in structure. Today I interviewed a wife and husband with their 9-month-old baby, but I’ve also interviewed a household with 10 adult men, who all crush rock, and a household with 5 adult women with a slew of children, who cook and sell food in Kejetia.

After the household survey, we conduct up to 4 occupational surveys per household (depending on how many adults live there and/or how many adults are available and willing to participate). The occupational survey is by far the most time consuming because it includes lengthy questions about work and health history. In addition, we take biological samples of participants’ hair and urine, measure blood pressure, and lung health during this survey. We measure lung health with little machines called “spirometers.” Throughout our 54 surveys in Kejetia, our translators and us girls have become pros at the spirometry technique. We always elicit laughter and Fra Fra jeers as we demonstrate: “Blow out as FAST, HARD, and LONG as you can!” It’s fun to have a good laugh every day. :)

When the occupational surveys are all done, we continue the other two surveys with the household head. The malaria survey attempts to understand how well people understand the cause of malaria (i.e. mosquitoes), symptoms (fever, vomiting, headache, shivering, body convulsions, and diarrhea—if you weren’t aware; I didn’t know before, but I have them memorized now), and how people treat malaria when they contract it (go to a clinic or take medications, etc). I know malaria sounds scary; I always cringed at the thought when I heard statistics back in Michigan. Malaria is so common here, however, it’s regarded more like the flu than some deathly disease. Most Ghanaians have malaria several times throughout their lives; it’s just a fact of life.*

The final survey about diet and nutrition is the shortest of the 4. We ask about foods/beverages that participants have consumed in the last 24 hours. Luckily Ghanaian cuisine is rather limited; everyone eats banku (or some type of lump)**, goat meat, dried fish, a leafy green (called bitto) and maybe some shea fruits.

We conclude the surveys by compensating each participant with 8 Ghana cedis (which is about 6 US dollars). We also ask if our participants have any questions , comments, or suggestions for us. Almost everyone asks us if we will give them medications. To this we have to answer: “Sorry, but we are not doctors, so we cannot diagnose what’s wrong or prescribe drugs. We will bring back your results next summer, and we can make suggestions then of whether you need to go to a doctor…” It feels a little dissatisfying. I wish we could offer more tangible and immediate help. But after they ask for medicine, most participants also express gratitude. They thank us for spending the time to consider the problems in their lives. I can tell that our study brings them hope. I just hope that we aren’t encouraging a false hope that our study can solve all of their illness and poverty.

*Kaylee experienced this “fact-of-life” first hand last Thursday and throughout this weekend. Her symptoms started with a terrible headache which lead to vomiting, diarrhea, and shivering for several days. Now, like we tell the people of Kejetia, “we’re not doctors,” but it seems very likely that Kaylee had malaria.

** “Ghana, land of the lumps.” I think this slogan summarizes Ghanaian food well. Ghanaians eat lots of starchy grains in big lumps. “Banku” is a big white lump of fermented corn, “fufu” is a big white lump of cassava, “oso” is a dense white lump of white rice, “gaari” is a (more cous cous-like) lump with the texture of fish eggs, and “tee zet” is a (more porridge-like) lump of millet. Ghanaian cuisine usually consists of one of the fore-mentioned lumps and a very oily stew with hunks of meat. They rip off pieces of lump to sop up and consume the stew. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of lumps.

GuacaMOLE

Hi all! I just returned yesterday from a particularly exciting week in Ghana. This weekend my group and I journeyed to Mole National Park. Most of all it was AMAZING! However, the trip was also arduous and (forewarning) slightly disgusting.

The ardor: getting there

First, we took a 3 hour tro-tro* from Bolga to Tamale. (*Tro-tros are big vans that provide public transportation throughout Ghana. They pack 19-24 people in the backs of each van. Thus we were squeezed sweaty shoulder to sweater shoulder, butt to butt, and thigh to thigh, holding our bags on our laps and praying for bigger windows.) Upon our arrival in Tamale, we bought bus tickets for the daily bus to Mole. They told us the bus boards at 1:30 pm, so we arrived at the station just after 1:00 ready to go. 1:30 came and went. Around 2:00 we started asking around if we missed it. 2:30…3:30…we sat in the shade and read our books. I attracted confused stares as I started doing yoga in the middle of our fellow-bus-waiters…Finally the bus arrived at 5:15 pm. We spent another 4 hours on the bus, similarly crammed together with bags in laps or between our legs. The last 2 hours of the ride, we departed from surfaced roads. The bus windows began to rattle and then bang like shot guns and the floor and seats vibrated (unfortunately not as comfortably as those nice massage chairs that they have if you get a pedicure…haha). To say the least, we were quite relieved to finally arrive at Mole Park around 9:30 pm.

The AMAZING: Mole

I woke up Saturday morning to a screech outside my window. 4 baboons chased one another across my line of sight, only meters from our bedroom window! As I looked out the window, I counted more than 20 baboons sitting in the grass, scampering on their hands and feet (with gaits like dogs mixed with human children), and preening. My group mates and I had our cameras out in a flash (bad pun…). We laughed at the baboons’ weird butts: it looks like they are covered in pink and tan plastic.

After our auspicious baboon-alarm morning, we proceeded to see a variety of other Ghanaian species. We took both a 2.5 hour “walking safari tour” and a 2 hour “car safari tour” with a guide named Abraham. Abraham helped us to spot and identify tons of antelope species including: kob, bushbuck, waterbuck, roan antelope, and hartebeest. The kob lined the roads as commonly as deer in Michigan corn fields (or U of M’s North Campus). According to Abraham, it was a rare treat to glimpse the small herds of waterbuck, roan, and hartebeest stampeding across our path. We saw several birds: red-throated bee eaters, a kingfisher, and Senegal cuckus. We met a warthog—like Pumba (naturally I had to sing some “Hakuna Matata”), saw some adorable patas monkeys, and glimpsed the ominous eyes of several crocodiles lurking in the ponds. Seeing these species outside of Disney animation and the zoo was surreal.

The most incredible moment of my weekend, however, occurred during our “walking safari.” We saw ELEPHANTS! As we approached a pond, we heard rumblings and then 3 massive, dark shapes came into view: 3 elephants cooling themselves and frolicking in the water! (Incessant picture-taking, jaw-dropping, and awed exclamations ensued for the next hour—yes, we watched the elephants for a whole hour, and we could have stayed longer!) Playing in the water, 2 of the elephants locked trucks and “wrestled” back and forth, their tusks dipping into and out of the water. Although playful, each movement seemed stoically slow because elephants are just so big. Soon they climbed up the steep slope out of the pond to join 3 more elephants in a nearby field. We followed them around and continued to watch. The elephants pawed their massive feet into water holes to stir up the mud then they lowered their whole bulk down into the mud to cover themselves. Abraham explained that the layer of mud on their skin helps them to stay cool. We gawked as they flapped their ears (the size of car doors) and stood with one of their back legs crossed over to the other (as nonchalantly as country-club boys relaxing after a game of squash). All six of the elephants were males, Abraham said; apparently elephants usually travel in same-sex groups. Soon enough, one of the elephants indiscreetly displayed his “manlihood” with, as Abraham put it, his “fifth leg.” (Amazingly this euphemism isn’t a great exaggeration. Elephant penises are huge: 3 ft long and probably 6 inches wide, it nearly dragged to the ground!) If you can’t tell by this rather detailed account, seeing elephants was spectacular!

The disgusting…

After our safaris, tours, and ample pictures, we went to the Mole restaurant for some dinner. I got a Spanish omelet (because the menu-picture advertised large chunks of vegetables). Unfortunately the omelet offered neither liberal veggies nor a pleasant night for me. I didn’t start to feel queasy till around 8 pm. At first I thought it could be cramps. After my bucket-shower, I wondered if maybe I should switch with Mozhgon and sleep on the bottom bunk for easy-toilet-access. By 2 am, I appreciated this decision, and I felt significantly better.

But “the disgusting” wasn’t quite over. The bus back to Tamale on Sunday left at 4 am, so the five of us woke up in the pitch dark at 3:30 to board the shot-gun-windowed-, vibrating-seated-bus. Still feeling quite queasy and dizzy, I took a window seat—just in case. This was another wise decision. After about 15 minutes, I emptied any remaining contents of my stomach out of the moving bus window…so there’s a first (and hopefully last): vomiting out of a moving vehicle.

(sorry for the lack of transition to the next topic…guacamole is definitely not part of the disgusting category)

Quick coda: Guacamole

They grow huge and delicious avocadoes here in Ghana. There are also tomatoes, onions, and garlic available. Thus Mozhgon, Rachel, Allison, and I decided to make some guacamole! Yum. They don’t have tortilla chips here, so we bought plantain chips from the market; it was delightful (even Kaylee, the finicky eater, loved it). After this success, we wanted to share our “American”-guacamole-culture with our translators. Emmanuel, Charles, and Sowah all thought the guac was “quite good.” (I thought of all of my sophisticats and hipsters--eating pounds of guacamole at any gathering.)

Missing you all, sending my love—and looking forward to sharing guacamole with you soon!

Chinese food in Ghana

Hello all, this is Codi with another update from Ghana. I hope you are all well State-side (or where ever you may be—Emily, are you in Italy now?!). I wanted to introduce you to my research group here and also share a totally-multicultural-moment.

Meet the group

Our research team has really begun to grow into a cohesive unit over the last 2 weeks. The five of us girls from U of M share everything from bars of laundry soap and rinse water to snacks of mangoes, pineapples, finger-sized bananas, and green-skinned “oranges.” Every meal time and evening I learn more stories about my colleagues, their families, and their values:

First there’s Allison, a recent graduate from the Program in the Environment—like me—who hopes to move to Hawaii someday and practice environmental health, sit on the beach, and eat pineapples everyday. Rachel, another recent graduate from Program in the Environment, spent the last 2 summers in Bhopal, India and West Virginia and (subsequently) is a fervent defender of human and environmental rights. Kaylee is a masters student in U of M’s School of Public Health studying epidemiology. After she completes her degree, she hopes to design health studies for GE or another industry. Finally, Mozhgon is a PhD student in Environmental Health. We call her our “mother hen” (partly because her family has tons of chickens—and peacocks!—and mostly because she is the nurturing leader of the group). I think she would make a wonderful professor of environmental health someday.

In addition to the Michigan gang, I am getting to know our Ghanaian translators as we conduct surveys in the field everyday. Sowah grew up here in Bolga and has helped with this project for the past two summers. He actually used to work in the gold mines of Kejetia several years ago. Charles does volunteer teaching for middle school-aged students in Bolga and takes university classes in economics and psychology on Saturdays. Emmanuel completed a degree in nutrition over a year ago and is also a volunteer teacher in Bolga. He hopes to travel to the States for a masters program if he and his wife Rita can afford it. Emmanuel, Rachel and I all aggregate in the back of the van to assiduously study GRE vocabulary during our tortuous bus rides to and from Kejetia everyday.

Diversity at its best

Spending time with this already diverse group of colleagues has enriched my cultural perspective so much. For example: we have compared Ghanaian foods (which are the only dishes that Charles, Emmanuel, and Sowah have been exposed to) to Persian food (Mozhgon is half-Persian), Chinese food (Kaylee is Chinese and Allison is half-Chinese), Indian food (Rachel’s partner is Indian and she spent time there last summer) and other ethnic and American favorites (falafel, Thai, pizza, TexMex, cereal, pie—we talk a lot about food, can you tell?). I have also gotten a taste (punny…) of family dynamics in big Ghanaian families or families like Mozhgon’s with more than 6 many siblings. And it is fascinating to learn about the challenges and benefits of inter-cultural relationships (like Rachel’s) and inter-cultural families like Allison’s and Mozhgon’s. (“What do we mark on standardized forms?” they laughed, “Do I feel Asian today? White? Or Other?”)

This week, however, we took “multicultural” to a whole new level. In Kejetia, a Chinese-Canadian mining company bought some land and hired a troupe of 35 Chinese men to mine gold next to the Ghanaian miners (who we are interviewing). The Chinese miners saw us driving by in our van one day and came into Kejetia to meet us. Kaylee grew up in Beijing and speaks Mandarin, so she chatted with the miners. They invited her to join them for lunch and (upon her request) extended their invitation to our whole group. So after our surveys on Wednesday, 3 Chinese miners brought our group to a bit of shade by Kejetia’s stream, and we had a picnic!

The miners provided wooden chop sticks and Tupperware containers of white rice and stirfry. The 5 of us girls felt honored by their generosity, but our Ghanaian translators didn’t know what to think. Chop sticks? Eating rice and veggies with two little pieces of wood? (They thought we were all nuts!) Among much laughter and picture-taking, Kaylee, Allison and the Chinese miners demonstrated proper chop stick technique to Sowah, Charles, Emmanuel, Rachel, Mozhgon, and I. Sowah and Emmanuel picked up the technique, although each bite was painstaking. Charles eventually abandoned the chop sticks and ate the Ghanaian way (with his right hand—Ghanaians say that you enjoy your food much more when you eat it with your hands). Rachel and I managed half-scoop/half-carry bites of vegetables and rice to our mouths with relative ease. But one of the Chinese miners actually took the chop sticks and fed Mozhgon at one point!

The stirfry was DELICIOUS: eggplant, onion, potato, pork, chicken and tofu! Garlic, ginger, and hot chilis flavored the sauce (instead of the overly salty/MSG-filled sauces that coat Americanized Chinese food). The Chinese miners actually brought seeds to grow their own garden and have a chef who cooks all of their meals. (We’d love to join them for lunch more often…)

Afterward we snapped myriad pictures with various combinations of our Ghanaian-Red-headed-Chinese-American-German-freckled-Persian-Polish-tan-yellow-black-red group. The Chinese miners loved Kaylee and were fascinated that Allison was half. At 5’9’’ and 5’10’’ both Kaylee and Allison towered over the short Chinese men as they snapped pictures with both girls. Then they wanted a shot with both the red-heads and the “non-Chinese” girls. Even our Ghanaian translators documented the diverse group with pictures on their cell phones.

I never thought I would get my first authentic Chinese meal in a gold mining community in Bolga, Ghana.