Hedda på tur

After the three week journey everyone got on their planes to Europe while I got on the bus back to Anwia Nkwanta and decided that my journey was over too.

I've had a good time, but I have been so tired of all the people calling me ''obruni'' everywhere, of not being able to go to the bank without people comenting on my skin colour. And I have been tired of cockroaches (I got bitten in the ass once when I sat on the toilet) and mosquitoes and the food and the uncertainty of everything. I was tired of having mushrooms in my face and diarrhea all the time, and I was tired of how hard it was to be friends with the locals, because I didn't feel like they were interrested in me, but in my money, or happy just to have a white friend they could show off like a trophy. I think about how scared I was when I came and how the people weren't as friendly as I expected, and how I only started getting comfortable with, and understanding, the culture after 2 months, and how I was never entirely sure if they cheated me for money or not.

But now, it's different. Now, when I sit here with my cup of Nescafe coffee, from the small bags that I used to buy on my way to work every day, that King Dennis gave to me for xmas (thank you very mutch, it's the best cup of coffee I've ever had)... I don't remember it as a bad thing. I learned so mutch. I learned something new every day. And over all I love the attention, because it gives me the oppertunity to talk to people. And all the small great moments, like the guy on the bus, or the lady on the roof of the boat, or the people I played cards with or Rose in the shop in the morning, tops the bad moments easy. The cockroaches and mosquitoes I will never miss, but I like it when they never expect or demand anything from me, because that way I can find my own way around and allways have free hands to do my best and to be the best I can be.

The strange thing about coming home was the culture shock I had. I didn't have mutch of a culture shock coming from Norway to Ghana, but I can't describe the feeling I had coming from Ghana to Norway. For a couple of days I went around in a fog not really feeling like I was present, but looking at situations from the outside with a different mind. I felt like I was doing something wrong whenever I drank tap water, and still, after more than a week I feel stupid when I take a shower 'cause I'm not really dirty. The biggest shock was when I sat on the train last Friday and the guy next to me ate chocolate, but he didn't invite me. It all felt really weird and made me kinda sad. I wasn't really prepared for those kinda feelings. So I'm sorry I haven't told a lot of people that I'm home. But I am

I loved the women I worked with. I loved mama Beatrice, who can cook better than Jamie Oliver and works harder than God, and Naomi who washes, and folds, cleans the clothes and takes care of more than 20 kids every day, 365 days a year. And all the other incredible strong and beautiful women that I've met. I am so humbled by the fact that they would let me come into their lives just like that, and I carry an enormous amount of respect for the work that they do. I'll be here in Norway for some time and enjoy the beauty of my country, but I can't wait to go back

On the 1st. of December we got to Yeji. Lars had it all figured out and the boat was supposed to leave on monday night. But it didn't... When we got there we were told that the boat left on Wednesday morning. Then we were told that it left Tuesday night. Then someone told us it comes on Tuesday night and go when they have finished loading it. So we figured, since we came on a Monday, That we would spen a night in a hotel and then buy a matt and sleep on the floor while we waited for the boat. Sleeping on the floor was a big adventure, but an even bigger adventure was the public toilet in Yeji. On the evening when we slept in the hotel Lars, Joe and I went out for some beers and because I cannot stand and pee I had to find myself a toilet. Now... Everyone knows the ''hole-in-the-ground'' kinda toilet. But at this toilet there wasn't even doors. Which is OK when it's dark and your drunk, but the problem was that people had taken s*its on newspaper and didn't bother to put them down in the hole so they lay around everywhere in there. And there I came... In flip flops...

In Ghana people stare. So it wasn't a big shock that people in Yeji did it either, but this time it ran wild. We were a circus coming to town. After stroling around for a few hours Lars, Joe and I found the german girls and sat down with them to read a book and relax and all around us people stood watching. I smiled, and didn't really feel too uncomfortable, but I got up after a while and started taking pictures of them. Which was really cool 'cause then even more people came to see, so when Joe, Lars and I went back to town the german girls were stuck with an even bigger crowd.

Later the same day when we got back the crowd had gotten a little bit smaller but it was still a lot of people, and so when Joe and I sat down to play cards I asked them if they wanted to join us. At first they didn't answer, I think sometimes that they don't really see us a fellow human beings, but as something strange and distant and fascinating that comes to their town once in a while. But I told them that I didn't like it that they were staring (I was a bit tired by then), but if they wanted to join us they could. And so two came to play, Mary and Stephen, and we tought them ''Go Fish'', and it wasn't really a lot to tell about it, but it was one of those moments that you remember. A small girl came to sit with me and I asked her how old she was. ''1?!'' she said, and we laughed and said no you'r probably not 1. Closer to 5 I'd say. But her name was Esther. Gorgeous little Esther

Now I just have to tell everyone how mutch I enjoyed sleeping on the matt. No kidding. I really did. I went to bed at 7 and slept till 2 when Joe woke me up to go on the boat. While we waited to go on they off loaded the boat and a big truck drove of it and up the hill. All of a sudden it came back down with a pretty high speed and then parked on the platform between the boat and the ground. All the people panicked and grabbed their stuff and ran to the side, but it took us a while to understand what the ghanaians had understood a long time ago: that the driver hadn't backed down to get on the boat, he had just lost controle over the truck, and that he probably hadn't driven that fast intentionally, but something went wrong with he's breakes. Next time I see someone else running and I don't know why, I'm sure as hell gonna run too, just in case...

On the boat we slept on matts on the deck and I loved it. People went to bed when the sun went to bed and in the daytime we ate, played cards, slept or sat on the roof spot that Lars found, and looked at all the beautiful nature, the small villages and the small fishingboats that passed. We barely saw Lars for two days, he stayed up there most of the time. One night I couldn't sleep and so Lilly and I went down for a few beers. One of the women working there asked us to buy her one too and so we did and asked her to join us on the roof. I don't remember the lady's name, but she was a tough human being. And smart. She told me she came from Akosombo and was 23 years old and lived with her family. I liked her a lot.

We arrived Akosombo in the middle of the night and went to a hotel to sleep 5 hours and went to Accra where I had another funny incident with a public toilet. To Takoradi from Accra is 5 hours on a bus and I had to go. So before we got on the bus I ran to the toilet. The toilet was just an open space with a small platform-thing to stand on and no door. So I placed myself, very strategicly, in the corner and made sure no one was there before I sat down to ''do my thing''. And right after I had sat down (off course) three ghanaian women came in. I have to say, ghanaian women are soooo mutch more pro than we are. They can stand and pee. All they do is pulling the leg of their shortslooking underwear aside and wee out there. Not like me, who actually have to pull my pants down to go. Anyway... When I see them standing up I feel a little bit stupid sitting there and so I kinda try to half stand, half sit and the women start talking aboutt me and laughing, and it felt a bit weird, but we exchanged looks that said ''Yup... Peeing standing up sure is cool..'' The funny thing now is the woman next to me. She had no shame... She stood as close to me as she could get and did her thing so I got my leg full of her splashing wee. I'm happy I chose to half stand up, if I had stayed down there who knows what her pee would have hit. But I wasn't mad. It was an experience and I was all too taken aback for that...

When I came to Tamale I was lucky and got to stay with Emily's family. Emily is a german volunteer I met during the introduction week and I hadn't seen her for 2 months but it was nice to see her again. I got my own room (that was pretty dark and scary and really dirty, but I'm gratefull still, lol) and the next day Lars, Lily and Joe came from Mole. Lars and Lily stayed that night at Emily's place, but Joe and I booked into a hotel and had a great time going out for icecream (real icecream) and food and eating it back in the hotel, having a laugh till 2 am (when we were getting up at 4). The hotel looked like a prison. Really.... Honestly... It was just like a prison. Green doors with bars in front of the regular door and looooong, dark, green hallways going around an outdoor concrete yard in the middle of the building, where they sold tickets for people to come and see football on a ''big'' screen so it was stuffed with angry guys in their twenties...

At 4 am we were at the bus staion meeting Lily, Emily, Lars and two german girls I never cought the name of. We got on a bus of the brand ''Metro'' wich looks like a regular bus back in Norway though pretty old. First they sold out the tickets for the seats, and after that they started selling tickets to people that wanted to sit on the floor of the bus. So the bus was stuffed. I had a guy leaning on my left leg (and I wasn't able to move it) for about 4 hours... But still, it was the best busride I have ever had. On my right hand side sat a woman with a year-old kid on her lap and on my left was a guy sitting on a bucket full of old meat. Lucky for me the bucket had a lid so it only smelled when they opened it. Ghanaians share food. You can hear it everywhere: ''you are invited'' they say, and that means you can come and eat with them. The man on the bucket on my left ate fufu (I belive it was), sucking it out of the corner of the small plastic bags you buy them in, and he was no exeption. He looked up at me and did a gesture that said ''you are invited'' (in our language: ''do you want to suck the food out of my plastic bag?!''). I passed up on that with a smile and a hand movement that said ''no, thank you'' and offered him some of my bread, but he passed up on my offer. Good for him, 'cause the bread is just water, sugar and flour anyway. The lady on my right didn't though, I invited her too and her kid and I shared bread for the next 2-3 hours. After finishing hi's fufu, the guy on my left pointed at my Mp3 player and said ''radio??". ''Yes...'' I answered ''it's kinda like a radio,'' and I gave him one of the earphones and introduced him to Timbuktu, the sweedish rapper. He listened to it a little bit and then gave it back to me with sort of a blank look on his face, but half an hour later I offered him the headphone again and put on Cher, Elton John and Tina Turner (Proud Mary, live version) and hi's face lit up and he said "Music!!".. ''Yeah... Yeah, it's music,'' I said and then we digged the music together for a couple of hours. Especially Crocodile Rock and Christina Aguleira, he loved it... But I could tell Timbuktu wasn't his thing...

When we came off the bus in the small, small village Makongo, we had to cross the lake to get to Yeji. The only way to cross the lake was in a big roboat with two motors on it. According to Joe it was at least 120 people in it, but I lean more towards 70. We had to sit on the railing or a plank accross the top a meter and a half above the ground, (poor Lars had to stand), and on the floor directly underneath me was a cows head. It smelled... But again I kinda escaped the old-meat-that's-been-laying-in-the-sun-smell because of the wind, but I was a wee bit uncomfortable with the fact that we were driving and hour, there were no lifejackets, ghanaians can't swim and the boat didn't look big enough for all of us. I immagine we looked like a refugee camp on sea... Nothing else unusual happened that day. A Jehova's Witness tried to convert me on the boat but I couldn't hear anything, so he gave up and gave me a leaftlet in stead.

So much has happened since last time I hardly know where to start...

Lukas stayed with us in the orphinage for 2 weeks and he did great. Originally I wanted him to come to make us a webpage, but Anne Eva's father as allready fixed that so there was no need for another one. So he came with no purpose other than being nice and helpful, but helpful he was, with computerstuff I can't understand. After he left there was a bit of ''nothingness'' going on. Anne Eva went to volunteer for a week in a hospital with a german team of doctors, Bas was sick and Hedda and Jessica were out travelling. So we went from being 6 volunteers to just me left over the weekend. Because of a bit of a poor diet (the bread here is consisting of water, flour and sugar, and I have it twice a day with chocolate spread, peanutbutter or jelly, and hardly never any fruit or meat, chicken or fish) I was suffering from what you can call malnutrition and I stayed at home and just rested for a couple of days (I was sent home by big Beatrice because my legs were shivering) and that was allright 'cause the previous weeks had been pretty intence, after the bedbugs incident I also got an infection so my armpit looked like minced meat and had a huge lump under it... I went to see one of the german doctors that Anne Eva worked with and he told me to desinfect it and if it didn't get better take penicillin, wich I had to do after another week of several of the most extreme pain attacks I've ever had (everytime I desinfected it I cried, even though I took painkillers half an hour before). But when I was there the german doctor asked me if I wanted to stay for a bit and have a look around. And I said that yes, I'd like that very mutch. And so I got to see a live surgery... There was a guy who had an enormous wound on his foot that wouldn't heal, and so they had to do a skin graft. When they do a skin graft they take skin from another part of the body, makes a lot of small holes in it to make it bigger, and stitch it over the wound. Anne Eva gave me a green suit, a mouth cover thing and a plastic hood for my hair, and we went in and I fainted... Almost fainted... I saw them clean the wound for about 5 or 10 mins. and then i started to see prickles and feel dizzy. So we went out and a layed down a bit before we went back in and I saw them take the skin from his thigh with a machine that looked like the one you shave your head with... And I started to see prickles again and I just made it out before it went black. Wich was very frustrating 'cause I really, really wanted to see it.. After that I didn't go in again, I didn't want to desturbe the doctors too mutch. But what I did see was really cool...

Lukas and I had a plan about going to Burkina Faso but I don't have a multientry visa for Ghana, so if I leave I can't come back without applying for a new visa and therefore I figured I'd tour Ghana instead. I hooked up with Lars in Kumasi on the 23rd.(??) of November and I showed him around a little bit. At the hotel in Kumasi (I'm a regular there now) we met a couple of girls and a guy Lars had been in the introduction week before mine with. And the guy, Joe, later came to travel with us The plan was originally Kumasi-Tamale, Tamale-Mole National Park, Mole-Tamale, Tamale-Yeji, Yeji-Akosombo, Akosombo-Accra, Accra-Takoradi and from the to The Green Turtle Lodge, but I had to skip out on the Mole trip because I was told I probably had cancer.. Yes... That's right... The doctor told me I probably had cancer... I had a mole that was read around the edge like a rashand it itched a little bit and so Lars and I went to the hospital the first day in Kumasi. He also had an ear infection he had to take a look at so that's why we went together... After about 3 hours in a very confusing queue system , I got to see a doctor in a small and dark office in a public hospital, and he asked me what the problem was. ''I have a funny looking mole'' I said and showed it to him, and he said (after hardly looking at it at all) ''It's most likely a malignant melonoma.'' ''What is that??'' I asked and he replied ''cancer.'' Shock... ''You can come tomorrow and on Friday and see the other doctor'' he continued, ''when??'' I said, ''you should come in the morning.'' ''When in the morning, 8, 9, 10...??'' ''something like that.''
So I told Lars when I got out and we were in shock the both of us, and so we started joking about it, wich was really funny, we had a couple of good, though shaky laughs on my expence that day... On our way out we saw a dead woman (with yellow feet, that's how dead she was...) laying on a trolleybed before she was sent away in a tinbox on carwheels, and we had to step over a guy (also very, very yellow) laying in the hallway shivering from sweat and pain (malariavictim I'd guess) in what looked like a seizure. When we got back from the hospital we met Lily who came from Cape Coast to join us. Lars and I, who had joked about cancer for a couple of hours by then, told the most horrible joke... ''How are you??'' Lily asked, and we laughed and we said we had so mutch trouble and we kept on trying to top eatchother, so I said: ''I have a ringworm (a rashlooking thing), but Lars can top that off because he has...''
Lars: ''...a rash on my thigh''
Me: ''But I can top that again... My armpit lookes like minced meat and so I'm on penicillin''
Lars: ''But I can top that because I have an earinfection so I'm on penicillin too. But Hedda can top that.''
Me: ''Because I have cancer...''
And you should have seen the look on Lily's face... It was dreadful, I felt so guilty for putting her in that awqward possition. And I suddenly realized how serious it was. And I had no knowledge about how I should be treated or what to expect or what kind of demands to make from the people treating me. So when Lars and Lily went out to see Kumasi I stayed in the hotel and stroled the internet for information, and looked it all up. And I found out they can't know if it's cancer before they have removed it. And I sure as hell wasn't going to do that in a hospital with yellow, shivering malaria patients laying on the floor in the hallway. But I figured I'd go and see the doctor about his opinion anyway, and I called my mother and asked her to call the insurance company for me to find the best private hospital in Ghana. The following day, on Thursday, I went to the hospital and after about an hour in another confusing queue system (where a lot of people snook in front of me because they know white people aren't that smart) they told me the doctor wasn't there... But he might be there on the following wednesday (WTF??). And so I went straight to the bus station and got on the first bus to Accra instead of going to Tamale with Lily and Lars. On Friday I went to Nyaho Clinic in Accra. In a nice neighbourhood with clean suroundings and the doctor there could tell me it was just an infection. He gave me a cream, I got on the first bus back to Kumasi, went from there to Tamale the next day. And by the time we came to Yeji the mole was back to normal... But goddamn it, that was a lonely experience...

I (N´Hedda) realize I am far behind on my ''blog-updating-schedule''. And I also realize my English is not the best (thank you for pointing that out to me granny), but I still want all my friends to read it. Now... The past two weeks, or three weekends, has definitely just been better and better. By now I feel comfortable taking a trotro from anywhere to anywhere and that certainly make my stay a lot easier.

Two weeks ago I went with Kyle to a place called The Green Turtle Lodge, which is a small hotel on the beach outside Takoradi. In the weekends I like to travel to clear my head and get a break from everyday life that can be a bit boring, and Kyle and I decided to hook up in Cape Coast the first night. My trotro ride went perfectly, except for the fact that if you want to take a wee you have to go wherever you find it suitable. Or not suitable... But that was OK, I guess... I'll leave a little something to your imagination here, no need to describe everything... I arrived in Cape Coast a few hours before Kyle, and watched the sunset by my self, while I sat on a brick wall, had the wind blowing in my hair and felt the most comfortable and calm feeling. Yes, it was just like on TV. Though the sunrise the next morning was more striking.

Talking to someone about my job over a beer was definitely something I needed. Not because my job sucks or anything, but because letting out the steam, after all my new impressions, to someone that can't judge it feels pretty good. The Green Turtle is a hotel/resort thing on the beach. It's basically only white people crashing there, which means that no one there is staring at you, and we didn't do anything for three days. It's basically impossible to do anything there but playing football, American football, volleyball or swim. Even though the waves are big and dangerous and scary, so they areu more suitable for playing with than for actual swimming. It's far out in the middle of nowhere, but that just makes it the biggest ''summer camp'' for people in their twenties. And if you are having trouble picturing it, it was just as exotic as on TV. At the G.T. I met some interesting people. One of them is named Lukas. Lukas is from Czet Republic, and after a, more or less, nice conversation I invited him to come to the orphanage to visit us. He took me up on it, and on Tuesday he came with a smile and on Wednesday he cleaned poop. The last week has been very different from usual. Not only because Lukas is here, but because I have travelled around everywhere. I have been to a school to apply for a scholarship for Bernice and Beatrice (my 3 year old twins), and to the hospital with Kenneth (one of my 2 year old kids), and to the health insurance office and at the moment I am in a hotel with bedbugs in Kumasi. But that doesn't mean I haven't had a nice time here. On Friday we came here, and since then we have done nothing but reading, eating pizza, drinking beer and sprite (apparently called Shandi) and just chilled. And I needed that. Today I'll go back home, and tomorrow I'll continue my work, and that's OK, because I like my job more and more. Maybe I'll stay till May?!