Black Outs

Lately we’ve been having a lot of black outs. I know it’s the dry
season, so I wasn’t really surprised. But I found out on Sunday
there’s a much better story to explain these “light off” times.
Apparently, part of the electricity we use here comes from
hydroelectric power in the Akosombo dam over the Volta river. But a
large portion is also from a natural gas source harvested off shore
and shipped around the West African coast via underwater pipeline
(This sounds cool already doesn’t it?). Well, apparently the Somalian
pirates are causing trouble again! Do you remember hearing about them
in the news a few years ago? I remember they were described then as a
few terrorists in a rowboat trying to declare war on America for
killing one of their fellow pirates. Well, apparently they are back,
and on our side of the continent this time (I’m kind of impressed they
made it all the way over here). I guess the Togolese navy (Togo is a
country next door to Ghana) was chasing them and somebody got too
close to the underwater pipeline. Next thing you know, the pipeline
has a leak, and now we get power only 60% of the time. Isn’t that a
great story! Way better than the boring old “water is low in the dam”
explanation.

And since there is some power available, we can almost predict when it
will go off. If we’ve had it all day, it’ll probably go off in the
evening. If it went off at night it’ll come on in the middle of the
night or the morning. If we had it all weekend (Awesome!) it’ll be off
the next few days. The tense times are right around 6 or 7 am or pm,
since that’s when the lights will go if they are going to go. So you
get as much as you can done since doing it without electricity is much
more difficult.

I know I sound casual about this, believe me, frequent black outs were
a source of major frustration when we first came. But I’ve learned I
can’t do anything about the power being off, so I have to just switch
my focus from what I wish I could be doing to what I actually can do
(thank you Stephen R Covey and highly effective habit number one!).
There’s so much of life that is unpredictable and out of my control
here that I can see why people here are more laid back and less
willing to try and make life better. Storming the government here and
demanding better power…that might bring about less black outs…but they
may just look at us and say, “I’m sorry, I can’t control when Somalian
pirates are going to burst a natural gas line!”

Family Update

Hello friends and family!
I am sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted, we’ve had lots of
black outs lately, so I’m now taking advantage of a few hours of
electricity to update on the family.

Iris: Turned two recently! I know, I can’t believe it either. She’s
growing very tall lately and a little bit skinny, so I’m trying to
make sure there’s plenty of butter on her bread. She’s also more and
more obstinate about who she is friends with. Here the culture is very
friendly, especially toward little children. So, when we walk Dante to
and from school many people say “Hello baby!” to her. Her usual
response is to look away with a stubborn frown, or even better declare
to them, “I’m not a baby! I’m a big girl!” I’m pretty sure that’s a
rude response, even though everyone has been good natured enough to
smile and laugh at her pluck. I’ve tried explaining that it is more
polite to say hello back, and even went to the extent of saying “When
they are calling you baby, it’s just because they don’t know you and
are trying to be friendly, like when people call Mommy “Obroni!
Obroni!” To this she responded “I’m not Obroni! I’m Iris!” I guess
she’s picked up on how I feel about the term as well…and really, I
didn’t have any more argument after that.

Dante has now officially turned four! He was a little antsy for his
birthday after Iris had hers a month before him. He’s also gotten so
big, but is still a sweet little boy in many ways. Still loves to
cuddle with mom (which is good for me), and enjoys stories together
(Emmanuel has mentioned that I might be reading to him too much…I
guess too much of anything is bad, but the thought had never occurred
to me!) We are especially happy I have access to library books now, so
he’s enjoying hearing the Magic Tree House series and the Little House
books. He’s also been enjoying classical music lately! His grandmother
sent me home with some great books on classical music for kids, which
we have been loving (go to www.funwithcomposers.com, it’s really
excellent). He’s also hit this drawing spurt, where he just wants to
draw all day long. It’s fun to see his artwork evolve, especially as
it includes things we’re learning or reading about (like giant
octopuses or dinosaurs). He loves school and his teachers really are
doing a great job. I’m very happy he is in the class he’s in.

I had a great birthday too lately! Emmanuel was so sweet, we had a
whole 24 hours without interruption together. He took me out for a
night’s stay in a local hotel. A very interesting experience, I’ll
have an entry about it soon… Thanks to so many of you for the happy
birthday wishes! I was shocked when I opened my email to see all the
notifications from facebook! I wish I could reply to them all but
facebook is particularly tricky for me to load, all the pictures and
things slow my modem so much. But, I’m ecstatic to have Library
access! Our public library back in Idaho still allows me to access my
account and now they have a collection of e-books! Hallelujah! I can
download them right to my kindle. I love that thing. In other news, I
had a small miscarriage a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t far enough along
to need serious recovery interventions and now I’m doing fine. I also
have a new friend here in Ghana with me! Jaclyn is an American who has
just moved back here and married a Ghanaian! Congratulations to her!
I’ve been enjoying the American influence she brings, even though
everyone else makes fun of us when we talk (Africans have very deep
voices, and our voices go up another octave when we get excited, so
they say we sound like birds twittering).

Emmanuel is doing well also, and we’re both surprised we’ve been here
8 months now. He’s started a new curriculum at the school that would
allow students to get credit with international schools. This is a big
deal here in Ghana, since many of the students here, when they finish
school want to head overseas for secondary education. Not to mention
we’ll finally be attracting people who are ready to move beyond the
style of education that we find here in Ghana, which is pretty
archaic. He’s finally been seeing good results to the systems he been
putting in place, which is of great relief to both of us! Many times
when he puts a system or process in place he gets a lot of resistance,
with comments like “That won’t work here in Ghana,” or “the old ways
are best.” So any kind of acceptance or follow through has been really
exciting for both of us.

All together we are still doing great! I’ll write future posts on our
hotel visit recently, living without electricity, going for water, and
other details of life in Ghana.

Here’s a post for the hair lover inside each of us…

I feel like I’m about to expose a dirty little secret; but the funny
thing is, the people it applies to think it’s common knowledge! But
this knowledge is purely cosmetic, so any male followers out there may
not be so interested in this post

(I don’t think I have any male followers…have these past posts been
too feminine, or is following a blog a mostly female thing to do?)

When I was getting ready to come to Africa I thought a little bit
about my hair. I wondered if I should cut it short again or keep
letting it grow out as I had been attempting for a year or so. I
thought about the pictures I’d seen of women in Africa. I hadn’t seen
very many. Most were of Emmanuel’s sisters who were taken when they
were in college or high school and showed their hair shaved very
short. I had heard also that their hair was “hard” and very different
from Obroni hair, so styling products and hairdressers who could work
with my hair would be in short supply. I also thought if I had long
hair I’d stand out even more. I figured it’d be easiest just to cut it
short again (not to mention help with the climate change), so I did:
cute little layered bob.

Then we arrived. After initial culture shock started to wear off, I
looked around and noticed the women around me. They had beautiful
hair! And so much variety too! Long hair, short hair, tight curls,
loose waves, straight…I was very impressed! I thought “I must’ve had
the wrong idea about African hair!” In fact, there was so much
beautiful long hair that my short hair stood out as unusual.

Then I started to notice something funny: There were lots of hair
changes. Drastic hair changes. People who I’d met last week with long
rasta braids would now have ropey dreadlocks. Or someone with long
curly hair would show up a month later with short straight hair. Or,
even weirder, vice versa. It made recognizing all these new friends
even more difficult, having to rely only on basic face shape, and
almost ignoring hair when I tried to remember names and people. I
should’ve started to pick up on it quicker, but it wasn’t until my
sister in law clued me in that I realized the scandalous truth:

It’s all fake.

Most of the hair I see here is a variety of wigs, extensions,
attachments, weaves, etc. The hair (real hair, coming from India or
Brazil, or fake hair made from nylon) is glued on, sewn in, or put on
like a hat! Women change their hairstyles every week if they have the
time and money, but almost everyone I’ve seen here changes their hair
once or twice a month. At first I thought that was because they wanted
to try new styles and sometimes that’s so, but also I’ve learned that
most extensions start to look pretty awful after a few weeks. So you
either wear a head scarf (a perfectly acceptable and stylish thing
here) or go to the salon. At the salon (or you can do some of these
treatments at home if you have a friend or sister who knows how) you
apply harsh chemicals to your scalp to unglue the old fake hair, which
tend to make your scalp tingle and burn as you sit there (this is the
story I get from my sisters here, I haven’t tried it myself). Or if
you still use your own hair you can “relax” it by applying a relaxer,
a hair product usually made from lye (ouch!) to make the hard stiff
strands loose and slippery like Obroni hair. I haven’t seen that
really work anywhere except in the TV ads, and even then I have my
suspicions that the models are using extensions.

It was so funny when I first learned all this, my sisters here
wondered why I was so appalled by all the deception and subterfuge.
I’m not really sure on this point, weigh in if you have a contrary
opinion (maybe it’s just the home I was raised in), but in America, to
use fake hair is something you don’t admit to. You want to keep that
quiet. I know some women use extensions but I think it’s pretty few,
and if you use them, you don’t admit it. And talk about embarrassing
if you toupe or wig goes askew or falls off! But here, it’s pretty
much accepted that everyone practices hair disguises with zero guilt,
embarrassment, or explanations!

On the one hand, this helps me understand why Emmanuel kept suggesting
I “change my hair” every month or so when we were first married; he
was used to seeing his mom and other women change their hair all the
time! Whereas for me, I’d had the same hairstyle pretty much all my
teenage years and through college: Long. After my first attempt at
pleasing my husband with a drastically new hairstyle, only to have him
request another dramatic change a few months later…well, you can
imagine the confusion! Yet another part of our marriage I understand
better after being here!

I’ve tried describe why it seems so duplicitous to me to always be
using fake hair but my explanations were falling flat until I
remembered my mom teaching me why she didn’t think it was a good idea
for me to color my hair strawberry blond when I was 12. “It’s
expensive, it’s not good for your hair, and worst of all, it isn’t
you. How about we find ways to make your hair look nice without dying
it?” I like that explanation still.