19.7.06
It’s been an interesting and kind of shitty couple of days.
Monday night I got into an hour-long argument/bitchfest with my mother. I stayed up until about 3:00 in the morning worrying about what I’m going to do and how to avoid scaring Cass away via my family. (He said last night that he won’t hold my family against me, but it’s a lot easier said than done.) I’m still pissed about the whole thing, but there’s not much I can do except appeal to all you kids in Pensacola and say that if you have two couches or a bed Cass and I might want to sleep at your house sometime. Or a floor, really..whatever works.
So yesterday nothing really special happened except that I got my skirts with two tops, and of course one skirt is kind of big and has a top that I can barely get on, and the other skirt is kind of small and has a top that is huge on me. So..at least the skirts work, haha. Then I had dinner with Aggie and she told me basically her
Aggie was born to a father she never met and a mother who never wanted to see her. The first time she saw her mother after her birth was when she was 16. Her father left her mother as soon as he knew she was pregnant.
Aggie grew up on the streets, up north in Central Kofi. She told me really awful stories-she would have to sleep outside on a bench or on the ground, and she got malaria all the time, but she couldn’t afford the pills. She had to force herself to go to school, and pay her own way, because she didn’t have parents. She would do things like carry cocoa down from the mountains in the mornings before school for very small amounts of money, but then she would be late to school because of working and get beaten every day there. Sometimes, when she was sleeping, crazy people would just kind of stand over her until she woke up, and then just stand there and stare at her.
From when she was a small girl until she was about 15, she was a foster child of sorts, but really trafficked. A stranger would pay her mother (who she didn’t even know) a little bit of money, and then for a few years, Aggie would live with a family and be their slave. Kind of like Cinderella, without the prince and happy ending and all of that. She would be forced to cook for the family, and then not get any food herself. She was so thin and hungry that she had to steal food to eat at all. Meanwhile, the family would beat her, abuse her, call her names, and not pay for anything like clothes or school or food. After a few years of that, she’d get to a different family, and it would happen all over again.
When she got out of school, she was determined to help kids who had grown up like she had-no parents, no money, no food, no clothes, and no love. She began by rescuing children from the streets of Accra (the ones who are indentured to push people around on wheelchairs and beg for money from passing cars). She would bring them to her hometown, or to Sogakope, and pay for their shelter and food and school and things. She’s never had financial backing, except from the churches in the area, and so it’s always hard for her to manage. Her worst fear is not being able to provide for her children…she doesn’t care about herself.
When she decided to start a school, it took a lot of work to get the land. She begged and begged at the Assembly, and it still took them three years to give her the land (which she had to pay for, of course). Once she got it, the man who owned a building close to her land called her and gave her a proposal: since he had apparently wanted to start a school all along, he offered to buy all the stuff Aggie had put together, and the land, and just reimburse her. Aggie says that he didn’t ask-he ordered that she give him the land. She refused, and realized that men are not to be trusted, after all the begging at the assembly, this creep, and the way her father treated her mother. She’s never been married and has no children of her own, but she does have six orphans right now that are living with her.
Anyway..since the man wanted the land, Aggie had to build a foundation, and fast, so that he wouldn’t take the land from her by claiming that it was vacant. She built the foundation of the school-the cinder blocks and mortar-with her own two hands, and within a month’s time. Some Germans had heard about her work in Accra and with orphans from her hometown, and they ended up giving her about $10,000 to finish the school and roof it and stuff.
Aggie has quite a reputation. People come looking “for a woman named Aggie” having just heard about how many people she’s helped. Besides that, foreigners know that they’re always welcome at her house, and that she’ll cook and wash for them with joy. She’s everybody’s mom and ironically enough, at the same time, nobody’s. She’s almost died several times (including having a tumor in her abdomen that was larger than a basketball, as well as getting electrocuted) but she says that God wants her to live, because if she died, how would her children eat? How would they go to school? Because of her orphans, she can’t die, and because of her work with the school and the Foundation, she can’t die. I think right now she has four kids paying for school at her school-the rest are too poor for school and she lets them come anyway. She’s amazing.
My favorite story from all of this is that after a few years of independence and saving money, Aggie bought some really nice cloth for her father. She sent it to him, and heard that he could never stop crying, because he had lost such an affluent and great daughter. She smiled and said, “The best revenge you can get is being nicer than anyone has ever been to a person before. Then they’ll know that they’re wrong, and what they’re missing.”
Aggie is seriously an inspiration. When I get home I plan on doing some fundraising for her..she’s never been married, never had a “business” partner in the NGO world, never had anyone but herself to rely upon, and yet she’s been helping kids since the 80s. Neither of us has any idea how many children’s lives she’s improved, but I can tell you that hundreds of kids have gone to school for free because of her, and that there are six very happy orphans in her house right now. If you’d be interested in helping her with materials or money (she’s amazing at using small amounts of money and squeezing all she can out of it), please comment and we’ll figure something out to help her. She deserves the help, and always needs it. She’s a one-woman NGO. and why she’s doing the work she does. It was pretty intense.
Then last night I went to go buy a phone card, and I was crossing a place where I had to step down, and I fell and twisted my ankle really badly and thought I might have broken something in my foot, so I left without the phone card and had to walk to my house with a possibly-broken foot or ankle. It sucked a lot. When I was sitting on the ground, all these women came up and were like, “Oh, sorry eh?” And then, “No no no, don’t cry, don’t cry, come sit up here, get up, nobody can see you, don’t cry!” Like..it’s not allowed to cry in Ghana, basically, and so they wanted me to get up and start walking and stuff and all of that. I appreciated their help, but they were screaming at me to do all kinds of stuff that I couldn’t possibly do with the amount of pain I was in, and so that was not so great. I got up and walked home after they suggested that a guy nearby “pull on it a little to straighten it out.” I wasn’t about to let them yank a fracture into a fully broken bone..so I got up right then and just walked.
Today I went to Comboni (the place run by Italians) and got X-rays and stuff. It’s not broken, but it hurts like hell, and so my Italian doctor gave me some pain meds and told me not to walk until it feels better. I’m glad it’s not broken, but I rely on walking to get food and water and upstairs to the bathroom, and so trying not to walk is really hard to do. And it hurts to walk, but I have to, but ugh…I’m just going to be stuck in this house for the next few days and that’s going to suck a lot too. I don’t have any food and Odette is gone until tomorrow night and so I ate my pretty rough attempt at curry rice today…I guess tomorrow I’ll eat a can of peas or something, but I don’t even have bread for the morning.
So..that’s where I’m at now. I’ll be okay in a few days, but until then, I have to take a taxi to get anywhere. Since taxis are expensive and hard to find, don’t count on much internet frolicking on my part. Hope you’re all doing well and not injured and such.
And I’m never going anywhere foreign or cool or adventurous for Flagler ever again, because there seems to be a pattern developing here. I’m sick of not being able to ride a bike and run and swim and do normal things with a normal left leg, and I’m sick of always getting hurt. I’m also sick of Ghana and I’m glad I’m leaving in 9 days. The end, I’m a bitter wench. Deal with it.
Monday night I got into an hour-long argument/bitchfest with my mother. I stayed up until about 3:00 in the morning worrying about what I’m going to do and how to avoid scaring Cass away via my family. (He said last night that he won’t hold my family against me, but it’s a lot easier said than done.) I’m still pissed about the whole thing, but there’s not much I can do except appeal to all you kids in Pensacola and say that if you have two couches or a bed Cass and I might want to sleep at your house sometime. Or a floor, really..whatever works.
So yesterday nothing really special happened except that I got my skirts with two tops, and of course one skirt is kind of big and has a top that I can barely get on, and the other skirt is kind of small and has a top that is huge on me. So..at least the skirts work, haha. Then I had dinner with Aggie and she told me basically her
Aggie was born to a father she never met and a mother who never wanted to see her. The first time she saw her mother after her birth was when she was 16. Her father left her mother as soon as he knew she was pregnant.
Aggie grew up on the streets, up north in Central Kofi. She told me really awful stories-she would have to sleep outside on a bench or on the ground, and she got malaria all the time, but she couldn’t afford the pills. She had to force herself to go to school, and pay her own way, because she didn’t have parents. She would do things like carry cocoa down from the mountains in the mornings before school for very small amounts of money, but then she would be late to school because of working and get beaten every day there. Sometimes, when she was sleeping, crazy people would just kind of stand over her until she woke up, and then just stand there and stare at her.
From when she was a small girl until she was about 15, she was a foster child of sorts, but really trafficked. A stranger would pay her mother (who she didn’t even know) a little bit of money, and then for a few years, Aggie would live with a family and be their slave. Kind of like Cinderella, without the prince and happy ending and all of that. She would be forced to cook for the family, and then not get any food herself. She was so thin and hungry that she had to steal food to eat at all. Meanwhile, the family would beat her, abuse her, call her names, and not pay for anything like clothes or school or food. After a few years of that, she’d get to a different family, and it would happen all over again.
When she got out of school, she was determined to help kids who had grown up like she had-no parents, no money, no food, no clothes, and no love. She began by rescuing children from the streets of Accra (the ones who are indentured to push people around on wheelchairs and beg for money from passing cars). She would bring them to her hometown, or to Sogakope, and pay for their shelter and food and school and things. She’s never had financial backing, except from the churches in the area, and so it’s always hard for her to manage. Her worst fear is not being able to provide for her children…she doesn’t care about herself.
When she decided to start a school, it took a lot of work to get the land. She begged and begged at the Assembly, and it still took them three years to give her the land (which she had to pay for, of course). Once she got it, the man who owned a building close to her land called her and gave her a proposal: since he had apparently wanted to start a school all along, he offered to buy all the stuff Aggie had put together, and the land, and just reimburse her. Aggie says that he didn’t ask-he ordered that she give him the land. She refused, and realized that men are not to be trusted, after all the begging at the assembly, this creep, and the way her father treated her mother. She’s never been married and has no children of her own, but she does have six orphans right now that are living with her.
Anyway..since the man wanted the land, Aggie had to build a foundation, and fast, so that he wouldn’t take the land from her by claiming that it was vacant. She built the foundation of the school-the cinder blocks and mortar-with her own two hands, and within a month’s time. Some Germans had heard about her work in Accra and with orphans from her hometown, and they ended up giving her about $10,000 to finish the school and roof it and stuff.
Aggie has quite a reputation. People come looking “for a woman named Aggie” having just heard about how many people she’s helped. Besides that, foreigners know that they’re always welcome at her house, and that she’ll cook and wash for them with joy. She’s everybody’s mom and ironically enough, at the same time, nobody’s. She’s almost died several times (including having a tumor in her abdomen that was larger than a basketball, as well as getting electrocuted) but she says that God wants her to live, because if she died, how would her children eat? How would they go to school? Because of her orphans, she can’t die, and because of her work with the school and the Foundation, she can’t die. I think right now she has four kids paying for school at her school-the rest are too poor for school and she lets them come anyway. She’s amazing.
My favorite story from all of this is that after a few years of independence and saving money, Aggie bought some really nice cloth for her father. She sent it to him, and heard that he could never stop crying, because he had lost such an affluent and great daughter. She smiled and said, “The best revenge you can get is being nicer than anyone has ever been to a person before. Then they’ll know that they’re wrong, and what they’re missing.”
Aggie is seriously an inspiration. When I get home I plan on doing some fundraising for her..she’s never been married, never had a “business” partner in the NGO world, never had anyone but herself to rely upon, and yet she’s been helping kids since the 80s. Neither of us has any idea how many children’s lives she’s improved, but I can tell you that hundreds of kids have gone to school for free because of her, and that there are six very happy orphans in her house right now. If you’d be interested in helping her with materials or money (she’s amazing at using small amounts of money and squeezing all she can out of it), please comment and we’ll figure something out to help her. She deserves the help, and always needs it. She’s a one-woman NGO. and why she’s doing the work she does. It was pretty intense.
Then last night I went to go buy a phone card, and I was crossing a place where I had to step down, and I fell and twisted my ankle really badly and thought I might have broken something in my foot, so I left without the phone card and had to walk to my house with a possibly-broken foot or ankle. It sucked a lot. When I was sitting on the ground, all these women came up and were like, “Oh, sorry eh?” And then, “No no no, don’t cry, don’t cry, come sit up here, get up, nobody can see you, don’t cry!” Like..it’s not allowed to cry in Ghana, basically, and so they wanted me to get up and start walking and stuff and all of that. I appreciated their help, but they were screaming at me to do all kinds of stuff that I couldn’t possibly do with the amount of pain I was in, and so that was not so great. I got up and walked home after they suggested that a guy nearby “pull on it a little to straighten it out.” I wasn’t about to let them yank a fracture into a fully broken bone..so I got up right then and just walked.
Today I went to Comboni (the place run by Italians) and got X-rays and stuff. It’s not broken, but it hurts like hell, and so my Italian doctor gave me some pain meds and told me not to walk until it feels better. I’m glad it’s not broken, but I rely on walking to get food and water and upstairs to the bathroom, and so trying not to walk is really hard to do. And it hurts to walk, but I have to, but ugh…I’m just going to be stuck in this house for the next few days and that’s going to suck a lot too. I don’t have any food and Odette is gone until tomorrow night and so I ate my pretty rough attempt at curry rice today…I guess tomorrow I’ll eat a can of peas or something, but I don’t even have bread for the morning.
So..that’s where I’m at now. I’ll be okay in a few days, but until then, I have to take a taxi to get anywhere. Since taxis are expensive and hard to find, don’t count on much internet frolicking on my part. Hope you’re all doing well and not injured and such.
And I’m never going anywhere foreign or cool or adventurous for Flagler ever again, because there seems to be a pattern developing here. I’m sick of not being able to ride a bike and run and swim and do normal things with a normal left leg, and I’m sick of always getting hurt. I’m also sick of Ghana and I’m glad I’m leaving in 9 days. The end, I’m a bitter wench. Deal with it.