Kakum & Monkey Forest

Seeing as the entire "botel" looked like it'd been periodically flooded by swamp, I wasn't surprised when our hotel room looked like a really dingy version of this:

Hans Botel Room

But then again, we paid about $20 for both of us to stay the night. We were also able to shower under running water, so I guess we got more than we paid for.


We woke up early and headed off to Kakum. After haggling with a cab driver for what seemed like an hour, we were on our way. Kakum was beautiful, and very expensive. We paid for a brief walking tour and then paid more to go on the Canopy Walk.

The Canopy Walk

The canopy walk is a rope bridge suspended about 100 or so feet above the rainforest floor. The bridges are made of steel bars with wooden planks covering them and a huge net draping around and underneath them. I didn't feel unsafe but judging by the fact that some of the boards had pulled loose or completely off, I'd guess that the safety standards are more lax in Ghana than in the U.S. There are eight bridges suspended between six platforms and all of them bounce and sway under your weight. The view was incredible.

Canopy Bridge

Looking out onto the rainforest.

Awesome!

After Kakum, we ate some red-red and walked two miles to Monkey Forest Animal Sanctuary.

Red red

Entrance to Monkey Forest

The Monkey Forest Animal Santuary was started by a couple from the Netherlands. A thin middle-aged woman named Annetta greeted us at the gate. Seven cedis to see the place and play with the monkeys, she told us, and we agreed. Annetta led us around and told us how her husband came to Ghana, fell in love, and called her to tell her that she should come to see Ghana because he was moving there. "And I thought, 'Oh, well that's just lovely, isn't it?'" she said laughing. Luckily she fell in love with the place too, so much so that--though their families beg them to come back for the holidays--they haven't stepped foot in Amsterdam since and don't plan to. They weren't there for more than a year before they rescued their first monkey, and things just sort of took off from there. Before they knew it they were getting calls from folks with a monkey, or a deer, or a turtle, or another animal that they found wounded or just couldn't care for. Annetta said that this was what her husband wanted to do all along, so they settled in and expanded the place--bought more land, build new cages and sanctuaries, found help. I loved being there. It was a more personal look at forest life than Kakum. I could sit back and enjoy the view instead of being rushed through it. I got to play with the monkeys, and one of them almost stole my glasses. Annette says that he's their most expensive monkey because he has stolen phones and glasses and engagement rings--anything he can pull from your pocket.

Mona Monkey

Turtles

The Monkey Thief!

When we left Monkey Forest, we went back to Cape Coast to catch a bus back to Buduburam. We are the first ones on our bus, so we had to wait for about an hour. (They don't move unless the seats are all sold). I'm reading my book while we wait when a preacher jumps on the bus. He started preaching, and I wasn't sure what to do. Is this like church where it'd be rude not to put the book down and pay attention? I decided it wasn't. He jumped on the bus unsolicited, and so I can just keep my nose in my book. Some people were very attentive and responsive. Tony even took out his Bible to follow along. But I wasn't the only uninterested one. Right in the middle of the preaching ("Brothers and sisters do you understand what I am saying to you today?.."), a man stops the preacher and askes him to call for the ice cream boy, he wants vanilla. Though these kinds of interruptions in religious services aren't unusual in Ghana, I wanted to die laughing. It was really unfortunate that I was alone, because any other secular American would have found it hilarious and I would have enjoying having someone there laughing with me.

Elmina Castle and Fish Market

After Cape Coast Castle, Tony and I caught a cab to Elmina to see Elmina Castle, the first European trading post on the Gulf of Guinea. It was established in Portugal in 1482 as a trade settlement. It was later used as an important stop on the transatlantic slave trade routes.

The Elmina Castle is prettier than Cape Coast Castle--at least I think so.

Elmina Castle

The architecture has different influences than Cape Coast Castle--Spanish and Portugese.

The courtyard

The injustices suffered by African slaves in the dungeons of this castle are not unlike the ones suffered by African slaves in the Cape Coast Castle. Just like in Cape Coast Castle, these slaves were deprived of fresh air, light, water, food, and sanitation. Women were dragged out of the dungeons into this courtyard and the governor would watch as they were paraded around. He picked the one he liked, and she was taken away to be washed up to slip up a back staircase later. Guards awaited her at the governor's bedroom door to take her back to the dungeon. There was no other option. A woman could either submit and be raped or she could resist and be beaten and raped.

The view from the governor's apartment

If it feels like I'm just beating you to death with depressing imagery, that's exactly how I felt at the end of the day. When the barrage ceased, I was ready to just relax for a little while. 


But before we could, I wanted to see the famous Elmina fish market located about 500 yards away from Elmina Castle. There were so many boats there. I can't even guess at how many rows of women with their fresh catch on display. In some parts it was so crowded, you couldn't hardly walk. 

A view of Elmina Castle from the shore

Rows and rows of women with fish for sale

Look how big that one is!

It's so crowded it was hard to keep up with Tony 

It was worth it though when Tony stopped a woman carrying a machete and a tub of coconuts on her head. For 10 pesewas, the woman took out two coconuts and whacked off the tops so we could drink the coconut water inside. When we were done she chopped my coconut in half and the whacked off another small piece of the outside of the coconut and handed them both to back to me. Tony taught me to used the wedge as a tool to scrape the coconut meat off the shell. It made me think about how we used to fold up the foil tops of Yoplait yogurts to make spoons or those cream ice cream cups with the wooden tongue depressor-like spoon, except this was cooler.

Then Tony and I caught a cab to the Hans Cottage Botel where we were staying for the night. It was really strange. It was run down and a little leaky. It was built on a tiny swamp with Nile crocodiles and purple heron living in it. They also keep a big tank of fish. 

Hans Cottage Botel

Hans Cottage Botel

The swamp was actually not manmade, so all of the animals around were wild, even if they had gotten accustomed to the pipes and parking lots inserted into their customary environment. It was like a manicured hybrid of LUMCON and the ULL swamp.

Tony was fascinated by the Nile crocodiles.

I was more impressed by the purple herons.

Cape Coast Castle

Tony and I set off for a weekend trip. We left early in the morning on Friday to make the most of our day. We arrived at Cape Coast around 9AM and looked for the castle, which wasn't hard to find. We walked towards the coast and stumbled upon the fish market.

Fishermen at Cape Coast

All of the fishing boats at Cape Coast

Then we looked to our right, and there it was!

Cape Coast Castle

The entrance

Cape Coast Castle was built for the trade of timber and gold but eventually became one of the biggest and most well-known sites of exportation in the transatlantic slave trade. It was the main slave trading fort used when Ghana was still a British colony in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. 

Ghana's coastline was termed the "Gold Coast" by the Swedish traders for its mineral resources

The courtyard

The courtyard and canons

First, a tour guide led us through the male slave dungeon.

Entrance to the male slave dungeon

This door takes you down a tunnel system underneath the courtyard where hundreds of thousands of male slaves were kept before they were exported--most of them to the Americas. At any given time, the castle held about 1,000 men who were separated into groups of roughly 200 into five 30-by-15-foot holding cells.

The dungeon chambers

The light at the end of the tunnel

This is the main dungeon. The small trench that you can see in the middle of this room was a sewer line that carried human excrement out to see. They've installed some lights in the room now to illuminate the room for the tour groups that pass through, but when the slaves were held here, the one small opening that you can see in this picture was the sole point of entry for sunlight and fresh air. I looked around the dungeon and noticed what looked like the water marks made so familiar to me after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. The tour guide told us that these marks were not water marks at all, but the mark left by the human feces that built up from over 400 years of men being tortured and subjected to the worst kind of hell in this room. It was about two-and-a-half feet high. That's about where I lost it. The full weight of what the experience of being held in that dungeon must have been like. Hundreds of men pissed, shat, ate, and slept in this room for weeks at a time, waiting for their turn to go. 


The women's dungeon was slightly more "livable." It was smaller, as not as many women as men were exported to the Americas. It was also better lit and ventilated. On any given day, there were about 300 women held here in two chambers. Women often served as domestic servants and on call mistresses for the British soldiers and government officials stationed at the castle. 

Female slave dungeon chambers

I couldn't help but think, "How many women were raped in this room? How many women died in labor here?" The women (and the men) were only let outside once a day. They were led out to the courtyard in shackles, blinded by the sun, and were fed what was often their only meal for the day. Menstruating women were left in the cell to simply bleed where they sat.


Any slave that rebelled was thrown into the condemned cell which held as many as 50 men at a time but was no bigger than some of the walk-in closets I've seen. The men in the condemned cell were deprived of food, water, light, and air, and they were held there until they died.

The condemned cell

Before those that survived these conditions left Cape Coast, all of the men and women passed through "the door of no return"--aptly named as none of the men or women that passed through it were able to live to return back to their homeland.

Placard

The door of no return

Right above the male dungeon was the chapel, where the British worshipped not 30 yards above where enslaved men lay sick, shackled, and starving. On the wall was a plaque with "Psalm 132" inscribed on it.

Sign in the Cape Coast Castle chapel

Psalm 132 tells of the search for a resting place for the ark of the covenant and all of the promises that God made to his people thereby. In it the Lord promises to privilege David and all of his descendants over others. To them alone he will give protection and might and fulfill the needs of their bodies and minds. 


"11. The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath he will not revoke: 'One of your own descendants I will place on your throne. 12. If your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever.' 13. For the LORD has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling, saying, 14. 'This is my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it. 15. I will bless her with abundant provisions; her poor I will satisfy with food.'"


Could this psalm that tells of a man chosen by "God," "placed on the throne" to be privileged over all the rest and protected and provided for "for ever and ever" be any more appropriate? The repetition of the phrase "for ever and ever" in this psalm echoes the profound sense of powerlessness and defeatism that emanates from the castle's pores. You can see both the sense of worthiness and entitlement and the promise of transgenerational passage of privilege once preserved in the scripture, now codified into law.


Unlike the African slaves, the British were set up quite nicely, especially the governor.

The governor's spacious apartment 

The hallway that wrapped around two sides of the governor's apartment.

The staircase where the slave woman of his choice was taken up to bed with him

I remember standing at the window in the governor's apartment looking out over this beautiful view of the coast and trying to imagine what it must have felt like for the governor to stand there--the wind at his face, the king of the castle. He was the ultimate alpha-male: rich, powerful, free to have any slave woman he chose. I suspect that the source of his pride and masculine sense of efficacy came more from the guns that he stood on, the money he was making, and the view of the ocean with no enemies in sight than the women he had and could have. Ruling over the Africans housed at Cape Coast Castle was probably not a source of pride for him. He slept above them; he slept with them; but it's unlikely he thought about them.

The view from the governor's window

Stashing Trash in Aboansan

Today I went early to the village preschool to do a game with the children. The idea was to offer incentives to the kids to clean up their village.


There is trash everywhere here, not just in the village but also in Buduburam, Tema, Kasoa, and even Accra, the capital city. Even if you want to throw your trash away, good luck finding a trashcan! Recycling? Forget it! I always assumed that this was a cultural thing--not a cultural laziness but a cultural apathy--that environmentalism has been a cause championed primarily by the white bourgeoisie and the educated elite. Though I am sure that it is not just white foreigners that care about the environment in Ghana, all of the sustainable hostels that I've heard about (both ones that exist now and ones that plan to be built) are the work of white foreigners, save one. However, it is worth mentioning that Accra recently instituted sanitation services (garbage pickup) as a way to create jobs. But I've been told that the small number of formal landfills (formal, as in, not the ground) fill quickly, which causes one of two things to happen. Either the trash is burned or the trash collectors simply stop picking up trash while continuing to collect a paycheck. My guess is that it's some of both. It's hard to say which is worse anyway. Pick the lesser of two evils: carcinogens or government corruption.


But back to the game... I brought ten trash bags and asked Mary, the teacher, to divide up the children into teams. I told her that each team had to have at least one girl and at least one child under five-years-old on it. The teams were told to fill their bags with trash (or "rubbish," as they say). No pushing. No shoving. No taking trash from other team's bags. Every member of a team that filled a bag got a piece of candy and every member of the team that filled their bag the fasted got and piece of candy and ten pesewas. I thought it was pretty clever--not brilliant, but clever.


Since kids will do anything if there's candy involved, it was pretty easy to get them on board. Mary told them they could start and they took off. I saw two teams stuffing their bag with grass, so I told Mary to tell them "trash only." The game was over more quickly than I had expected it to be. Solomon's team won and got their prized reward. Emmanuel's team came in a close second and their bag was heavier than Solomon's team's bag so I gave them an extra candy each.


When the school day was coming to a close, Mary and I were walking towards the site of the new school building when she asked me what I was going to do with the bags full of trash. Surprised, I said, "Throw them away, of course." Mary is a woman of few words (even in her native tongue), and all I got from her was a blank look and a bemused half-smile. I told her that my goal was to entice the children to clean up their otherwise beautiful village. Again, blank stare. I chose to ignore it, deciding that even if it struck her as silly it was still less trash in the village. I told Morris that we would be carrying the bags back with us. He then told Mary that we were carrying the bags back to Buduburam. I am pretty sure that Morris said what he did so that I would take a hint. Bringing the bags with us all the way back to Buduburam was virtually impossible because trying to bring ten big bags of trash is a definite no-go. But when I said back, I meant back to the road, which was about a half-mile's walk down the dirt road that splits the brush because I assumed that where there is a paved road, there will be a trashcan--wrong! Apparently the closest dumpster to Aboansah is the one that was installed by the UN in the refugee camp about ten miles away. "What?!"


I realized then that not a single one of the kids, or Mary for that matter, understood the larger purpose of the game. They stuffed grass in the bags because they didn't get it, not because they were trying to cheat the game. They threw the candy wrappers on the school floor right next to the filled trash bags, not because they are short-sighted kids, but because the idea that putting trash in any sort of waste receptacle is ideal is completely lost on them.


Morris tells me that there is a group of volunteers ages eight to fourteen coming sometime after me to teach about and improve sanitation in the village. I am planning a mini-lesson about sanitation to give to the preschool children (remember they range in age from two to ten-years-old) and to the community peace cell leaders on Monday, but I'll have to leave the bulk of the work on this issue to the new volunteers. For now, I'll just keep playing the game.

Excerpt from Sebastian Junger's "Fire"

"Modern society, of course, has perfected the art of having nothing happen at all. There is nothing particularly wrong with this except that for vast numbers of Americans, as life has become staggeringly easy, it has also become vaguely unfulfilling. Life in modern society is designed to eliminate as many unforeseen events as possible, and as inviting as that seems, it leaves us hopelessly underutilized. And that is where the idea of "adventure" comes in. The word comes from the Latin adventura, meaning "what must happen." And adventure is a situation where the outcome is not entirely within your control. It's up to fate, in other words. It should be pointed out that people whose lives are inherently dangerous, like coal miners or steelworkers, rarely seek "adventure." Like most things, danger ceases to be interesting as soon as you have no choice in the matter. For the rest of us, threats to our safety and comfort have been so completely wiped out that we have to go out of our way to create them..."


"...The one drawback to modern adventuring, however, is that people can mistake it for something it's not. The fact that someone can free-solo a sheer rock face or balloon halfway around the world is immensely impressive, but it's not strictly necessary. And because it's not necessary, it's not heroic. Society would continue to function quite well if no one ever climbed another mountain, but it would come grinding to a halt if roughnecks stopped working on oil rigs. Oddly, though, it's the mountaineers who are heaped with glory, not the roughnecks, who have a hard time even getting a date in an oil town. A roughneck who gets crushed tripping pipe or a fire fighter who dies in a burning building has, in some ways, died a heroic death. But Dan Osman [legendary free-soloist] did not; he died because he voluntarily gambled with his life and lost. That makes him brave--unspeakably brave--but nothing more. Was his life worth the last jump? Undoubtedly not. Was his life worth living without those jumps? Apparently not. The task of every person alive is to pick a course between those two extremes."






Sebastian, Junger. Fire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2002. Pg. 150-1. 

Typical Me

I spent the weekend at the beach. I stayed in a hostel called Big Millie's Backyard. It's a circle of huts about 200 yards away from the ocean. It's run by a British woman for white tourists so it is a little cheesy, but not overwhelmingly so. 

Big Millie's Backyard:

Big Millie's Backyard

The best thing about the beach in general is that the cool breeze coming off the water is a nice respite from the oppressive heat of Buduburam, Aboansah, and Accra. The ocean can be dangerous though, so it's best not to swim out too far. The wicked undertow pulled two men under and drowned them not three weeks ago. I could feel the force of this current as I walked into the water; it rips the sand right out from under your feet. The salt water stung my eyes and threatened the future of my contacts so I didn't really test the waters (no pun intended), but I did wade out far enough to get a sense of just how easy it would be to make a 10-feet-too-far mistake.

The beach at Big Millie's

Can you see that wind?

On the beach there are artisans selling beautiful carved masks, bags, jewelry, tapestries, pipes, bowls, musical instruments, dresses--you name it! Closer to the water little kids run around playing soccer and, when they get too hot, quickly drop their clothes and run into the ocean. They spend a lot of time diving into incoming waves or they grab a plank of wood and use it as a body board.

The artisans peddling their wares on the beach

Looking through the market to the beach

Some Ghanaian boys playing on the beach

After lunch, the PCO staff I'd traveled there with left to head back to Buduburam, and I decided to take a bath. I had to draw my own water from the reservoir, which is like a well except it is about 6' by 6' with a 2' by 2' openning with a wooden "lid." I set all of my stuff down, drew enough water to take my shower, replaced the lid, and drug the heavy buckets about 50 yards to the shower. No sooner did I finish my shower did I realize that I could not find my key. I am panicking. "What if I can't get into my room? My money is in there! My passport is in there! Where will I sleep? Oh my god!" So I looked in the shower, retraced my steps from the shower to the reservoir (I was 100% positive that I had it when I got to the reservoir), and I look all around the reservoir--no key. I do all of this again--still no key. Finally I walked shame-faced up to the reception hut and asked if someone turned in a key. Nope, no key! Noah, the guy at the reception desk, rolled his eyes but got up to help me. He did the same thing I did: looked between the shower and reservoir, looked around the reservoir, etc. only his funt was punctuated by a few sighs and eye rolls. After some time he openned the reservoir to look in it for my key. I was laughing. "No, no," I'm thinking, "The key is not in there--no way!" I was in the process of telling him all of the reasons why I knew it could not be in there while thinking, "Please God, do not let it be in there." And then suddenly, he points and nods. "Yes," he says, "The key is in there." I am absolutely mortified--slightly relieved--but mostly mortified.

Noah called to two others and they started trying to maneuver the key into the well bucket with the hose--no luck. I'm apologizing profusely. The key was on a keychain and finally one guy had the great idea to hammer a nail into a piece of wood and fish it out that way. I thanked him and, of course, apologized again. He then asked me where I am from and when I told him that I am from the US he said, "Oh, it's no problem. I want to go to America. I do this for you." I laughed and thanked him. "Do you know Texas?" he said. "Yes," I replied, "I grew up near Texas." He said, "Beautiful place, Texas. I will go there when I move to America!" (Everyone talks about "when they move to America" here.) I have an incredible disdain for Texas both from the Texas kids moving into the Louisiana school system and constantly telling us how much better the schools are in Texas (true, but who wants to hear that 24/7?) and from my own travels in Texas. The exception is Austin. Austin is awesome. I asked him why Texas and he told me that he saw it in a movie. And then "You know O-I-O?" "Ohio?" I said. He answered, "Yeah, Ohio! When I move to America, I will go there, Texas or Ohio." At that point he had finished constructing his instrument and quickly fished out my key. I thanked him and walked back to my room relieved. That night I got dressed for dinner thinking, "Texas and Ohio? What?!" and meditating on the words of Jon Stewart:


"Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land...Sometimes it's just New Jersey."


I didn't have the heart to tell him.

Guest House, School Supplies and Thoughts on Privilege and Volunteer Work

This morning I woke up, washed my face, and got dressed for my day. Morris, Rogers, the representative for the Women's Skills Training Center (I wish I could remember her name) were setting off to Accra to purchase school materials for the 51 school children in the Aboansan preschool and fabric for their uniforms. It was around 7:30am & we were set to depart around 9:00am WMT (white man's time). When I walked outside, Tony (the cook) was already cooking me breakfast--"French toast"--browned Ghanian sweet bread thinly smeared with margarine and lightly dusted with sugar & cinnamon. 

Tony cooking

Where I Live and the People that Make Living there Enjoyable:

I live in the PCO Guest House located behind an agricultural development bank right across the street from the Buduburam refugee camp. Security guards usually man the front entrance to the bank. There's a cast iron gate that tops a brick wall that fences in the kitchen and the table where I currently sit journaling by candlelight and forms the main entrance to the guest house. The guest house is situated in a courtyard of sorts and is fenced in by a heavy metal gate that remains unlocked but hides it from view. There are two other families that live there. Sami called the courtyard "the kingdom" and the matriarch of our immediate neighbors "the queen." The girls from the two families like to sing and dance and "model walk" for me. The cast iron gate enclosing the kitchen and porch can be secured with a heavy pad lock. The door to the house/living room with a regular key lock & my bedroom door locks with a deadbolt. Though I'm fairly certain that I could kick in both the door to the house/living room and the door to my bedroom, I am about as secure as it gets around here. 

The Agricultural Development Bank in the front of the guest house

My view of the Buduburam refugee camp from across the street

Buduburam

Sunset over the courtyard wall

Looking out of the kitchen to the courtyard

Rita, "The Queen," doing laundry and watching over her castle

Rita with her goddaughter

My room is about 12' by 12' with an ajoining shower (no running water, just bucket baths). The room is furnished with a full-sized bed, a side table, desk, and a place to hang or store my clothes. When there is electricity, I make use of an overhead light and a fan. 

My bed and mosquito net

The adjacent shower

The living room

There is a caretaker that lives here named Joseph. I'm not sure what he does or is supposed to do but he so sweet to me. He is constantly buying presents for me: vitamilk, apples, juices, etc. Once he took me out for a juice. I plan to get him back right before I leave but he has protested so much that for the sake of his masculinity, I don't push the issue for now. Bottom line: I might be the biggest diva within a 15 mile radius. I told Tony that he treats me like a princess, to which he replied in a thick Liberian accent, "More to come"--absolutely melted my heart. Tony is easily one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is quiet, loves to read and play sudoku and is never spotted without his red Obama baseball cap. Tony and I often sit on the porch and discuss politics: Charles Taylor, Obama, the civil unrest over the contested election in the Ivory Coast, and other events we hear about on BBC Africa.

Joseph, the "caretaker":

Tony, the cook:

The Trek to Accra:

Yesterday I'd told everyone (including the taxi driver we'd hired) that we were going to be running on WMT today and that anyone who arrived one minute after 9:00am was getting left behind--a policy that I wouldn't have enforced, but the threat proved effective. Around 8:10am, Roger and the Women Skills Training Center arrived. Morris arrived about half an hour later. The taxi driver arrived early too (around 8:45am) and we left not 5 minutes later.

We spent about three and a half hours in Accra, but I returned absolutely exhausted despite getting a good night's sleep. I even fell asleep in the taxi on the way back, which is quite a feat because of the constant jerking and stalling out of the beyond beat up stick-shift taxi surrounded by drivers who honk more than they do in NYC. The marketplace in Accra was packed with people. It's kind of disorienting because the content of the shops are identifiable until you are right in front of them and even then there might not be any one unified theme. Being white, I draw extra attention; people are constantly waving things in my face, grabbing at me, or calling me into their shops. Morris and I reached the bookstore successfully, and we spent about $350 on school books, notebooks, arts and other supplies while Rogers and the Women's Center rep. went off to purchase fabric.

A Misunderstanding:

While in Accra, there was a situation in which I felt like a friend was pushing me into buying school books for his children. Between this incident and another in which I felt like I was not allowed the appropriate amount of control over my project, I felt slighted. I've been told that in Ghana it is common for people to tell you "You'll give me ___," or "Let's go have a juice" (read: "You'll buy me a juice") and that these questions function as questions to which it is your responsibility to say no.  

Privilege and Power:

I was still plagued by the incident over the books for my friend's children. I was warring between two perspectives. On one hand, if Person A has more than Person B, Person B is not entitled to what belongs to Person A. More importantly though was the fact that being a "yes girl" or a pushover creates a power dynamic that is unpalatable to me and is ill-suited for a working relationship. On the other hand, if I had a one-time shot at getting school materials for my child that I couldn't afford, I might be more pushy than he was. 

Similarly, when I think about how sellers try to rip me off by jacking up the prices because I'm an easy target, I can't really blame them. There's an extent to which I can't be ripped off. Even the elevated prices are less than what I would pay for the same products in the United States. However unsettling their attempts to rip me off, I can't begrudge the sellers for their actions. In this the usual power structure has been turned on its head to the extent that I am ignorant of the market prices and am thus easily fooled. The power structure cannot be upset to the extent that I can afford to pay their elevated prices.

To a large extent, poverty is not something you bring upon yourself but something that is brought upon you. We are all born into a global caste system. The quest for wealth is a zero-sum game in which some win but most lose. There are structures of power that serve to create and maintain the radical inequality that results in some people building a third house while many, many, many, many more are dying of hunger. A man can be proud of his hard work that earned him his fortune while realizing that the system of globalized capitalism privileges the hard work of some over others. The systems that arbitrarily privilege some over others inflict what many writers and theorists call "structural violence" on an undeserving people.

I benefit from these structures of power everyday: I am getting an education at an elite liberal arts college; I don't have to be concerned that any of my basic needs will not be met; and so on and so on ad infinitum. In fact, it was radical economic inequality that afforded me the opportunity to witness radical economic inequality here in Aboansan & Buduburam in the first place. I experienced a lot of "rich girl guilt" from the second I signed up for this trip. This guilt was the catalyst for my responsible giving fundraising project. 

"Voluntourism":

I've read a lot about both voluntourism, both good and bad. It gets a bad reputation to the extent that it promotes the whole "whites in shining armor mentality." The "whites in shining armor mentality" is the idea that poor, "backwards" colored people need "progressive" white people to come and save them from their plight...and that they can do so in a should period of time. Many critics argue that this is just another insideous example of Western imperialism and Western arrogance. That's true in part but it ignores that voluntourism is in many ways responsible tourism. I could come here on vacation, make games out of cultural customs, and maybe even go on one of those twisted poverty tours, in which poor colored people are rendered animals as tour guides take paying customers into vilages to see the ways that a "strange and backwards people" live. Alternatively, I could be committing my time and money to a cause, a cause that I plan on working for at least through the spring semester. I'm happy to do it, and I've formed connections with some wonderful people.

Every single member of the PCO staff is owed money for their salaries that has not been paid for a couple months now. Mary, the school teacher in the village working to put herself through school; Morris, struggling to put his children through school; Wilfred, Rogers, all of them working tirelessly to help similarly situated people without pay. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to work to help to enable the incredible work they are doing for their community. 

Mary

Morris

Wilfred

Rogers

I'm also very excited about the volunteer trip I'll be taking to Buenos Aires over Spring Break and the opportunity it will give me to see a dear friend.

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If anyone would like to donate to the Aboansan village school, I am starting a new "chipin" to facilitate hassle-free donating. If anyone has things that they are not using that could be of use to PCO or the village children such as:

clothes for children ages 10 and under

books appropriate for children 1st grade or below

a digital camera, laptop, or printer

OR

has any ideas about how to better help PCO via fundraising ideas or other means, please contact me at madeleinebrumley@gmail.com