From: miguel@aclcb.purdue.edu (PHILLIP_SANMIGUEL)
Newsgroups: rec.juggling
Subject: Juggling in Ghana.
Date: 11 Sep 92 00:57:18 GMT
Reply-To: miguel@aclcb.purdue.edu
Organization: Purdue University AIDS Center

The following letter is from Deron Barnhart, formerly a Purdue Juggler, now 
a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, Africa.  It was addressed to the Purdue 
Jugglers (sometimes called "hardchoppers" for reasons I won't go into.) but 
dwells so much on juggling I thought it appropriate to post here.

Included in the letter are two pictures.  One is of a waterfall, the other 
of Deron and David Morton passing 12 bags on a Ghanaian beach.

My comments are enclosed in square brackets [].
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					24-8-92
Dear Hardchoppers...

  ... how I miss you so.  Having visions of the ex-Purdue numbers juggler 
struggling to hold together a steady 5 ball pattern as his abilities 
whither away??  Well, fear no more.  In fact, on the 2nd day here in the 
awesome contry of Ghana I stumbled upon the infamous David Morton -- a 
fellow IJA member (and apparantly the ONLY other IJA member on the continent),
 fellow _numbers_ juggler, fellow _site-swapper_ (he is very good friends 
with Allen Knutson and for your juggling trivia, the 2 of them won the ball 
passing competition in Los Angeles), and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer to 
Ghana (he's been here for 1 year).  Amazing?  Yes, but it gets better...  A 
few weeks ago us "trainees" went on site visits.  That is, P.C. paid us to 
go on 1-week vacations to visit current P.C. volunteers in Ghana.  My 
roommate here at training and I were _randomly_ selected to visit David 
Morton's site, a city on the coast in the southwest corner of Ghana called 
Axim.  Since David is also a teacher and school was not in session, he 
travelled around with us to many places including the most beautiful, 
clean and isolated beach you could possibly imagine.  Fergie Bags in hand 
we proceeded to pass not 6, not 7, not 8, not 9, not 10, not 11, but a 
whopping _12_ balls!  Actually, I lied.  We did pass 6,7,8,9,10 and 11 
balls and he knows all sorts of awesome passing patterns, too.  We could 
only get 12 balls around about twice at most.  In the meantime, I've taught 
a very large number of people, trainees and Ghanaians, to juggle including 
most of the Ghanaian language and cultural trainers.  The price is high, 
however, as my 9 infamous silver/grey/flesh Fergie Bags have perished.  
They became soooo dirty that I tried to wash them and the almost constant 
100% humidity of the rainy season led to intense mildew.  Yep, an 
unbearable smell.  Juggling them now creates a cloud of dust with an odor 
that kills better than my can of RAID and remains on your hands for days.  
Tell Fergie I'll probably be ordering a large supply of balls sometime 
over the next year.  What kind of a bulk rate do you think he'll offer to a 
third world country, eh?  Keep in mind that the price of just one basic 
Fergie Bag is about _twice_ as much as the average teacher here makes in a 
_day_, and teaching is one of the _highest_ paid occupations!
  
				27-8-92
I'm still so damn lazy it takes me days to write a letter.  This is 
actually only the second letter I've written.  That reminds me -- I need 
Shidan's [Habibi] and thomasl's addresses!  Please help and send them (I'm 
begging on my hands and knees) or tell them to write me:

			Peace Corps Ghana
			P.O. Box 5796
			Accra-North, Ghana
				West Africa

Tell both of them, and whoever else has money, that they should 
_definately_ visit.  I just confirmed my site for the next 2 years.  They 
gave us a list of all the sites and we gave our top 2 choices.  The place I 
chose (and I got) is a small village called Pampawie in the Volta Region of 
Ghana and about 2 miles from the Togo border.  It is the most isolated spot 
available (the closest volunteer to me will be about 100 kilometers away, 
which is about a 4-5 hour drive!) and it is a mountainous rain forest area. 
 It's about 1/3 of the way up from the coast.  The school I'll be teaching 
at is the smallest one available (There were about 43 different sites, or 
schools, to choose from and there are 40 education volunteers here in my 
training group) The school just opened in February and isn't even approved 
yet by the Ghana Educational System.  It has about 64 students and 6 
teachers.  Of course, no volunteer has been there before so it should be an 
even more interesting experience for me and the whole village.  We're done 
with training in 2 weeks so by the time you read this, I'll already be in 
Pampawie.

  So, that's all the juggling news and info on where I'll be for the next 2 
years; now I can talk about Ghana.  Life for the average Ghanaian is _very_ 
hare.  Starvation is not a problem and in terms of all of Africa, Ghana is 
in pretty good shape.  However, there just isn't any money and very few 
good jobs, so most people, especially students, are looking for a way out 
(i.e. to go to America, the Second Heaven)  The most amazing thing about 
Ghana is by far the people.  Ghanaians are sooooo incredibly nice that it 
is impossible to describe.  I knew Ghana was known for friendliness but I 
never expected anything like this.  Ghanaians make "Hoosier Hospitality" 
look like the biggest joke in the world.  And, no, it's nothing like Terry 
Jones' stories [about Morocco] of Africa where everyone is out to rip you 
off.  In a country that is 100% black, racism isn't even a word here.  The 
kids here are so awesome you'd love it.  Yep, in Ghana: -- kids play soccer 
barefooted on "fields" with huge tree roots sticking up, rocks everywhere 
and goats grazing, and they kicked our butts in soccer (Ghana even won the 
bronze medal in football)...
--everyone carries _everything_ on their head, a trick I must learn for 
juggling applications... -- people (men and woman) openly urinate anywhere.
.. -- the clothing is beautiful and everything is tailor-made and costs 
less than a cheap t-shirt in the U.S...  -- drivers like Terry Jones and 
thomasl are considered _safe_!  (If I die in Ghana, it will be in an 
automobile accident)... -- I now eat fish-heads, along with some of the 
spiciest food I've ever had... -- Diarrhea is practically constant, and we 
often get sick... -- We take mefloquin, which is somewhat of an 
experimental drug with unknown side-effects other than depression and very 
intense, vivid dreams, as our anti-malaria medicine.  A few weeks ago my 
mefloquin pill dissolved in my throat (down by my stomach) so swallowing 
was _extremely_ painful.  After a week of worsening pain and several days 
of barely eating, I was sent to the medical unit in Accra.  (Our training 
is here in Koforidua, about 2 hours north of Accra).  I was in Accra for 
about 4 days during which time I saw a military doctor who insisted that I 
get a complete set of about 10 chest X-rays and barium swallows despite the 
fact that my throat was starting to heal.  So I did, and I'm sure that my 
life expectancy decreased a few years because of it...
-- If you ask someone for directions, they don't tell you where it is, they 
_take_you_there_ even if it is a _long_ walk!... -- The official language 
maybe English, but few people speak much of it.  Of the 50+ languages here, 
Twi (pronounced like "tree") is the most common and the language they have 
been teaching us here at training.  Fortunately, they do speak Twi at my 
site and I am quite determined to leart the language well...  -- Almost 
everyone here goes to church which sucks because it is almost all 
Christianity and is a blatant reminder of colonial influence.  (Although 
church around here consists almost entirely of dancing and playing drums.)  
The missionaries have succeeded in wiping out much of the religion and 
culture here in Ghana...  -- Teaching is harder than expected but fun and 
the kids are great.  There is a serious language gap which makes the 
teaching particularly challenging...  -- Hot water?  I haven't felt a drop 
of it on my body since I left America.  Cold water bucket baths are already 
becoming an art form...  -- Hand washing clothes is a major pain in the 
butt.  Getting several wearing out of a shirt or pair of pants is the best 
way to avoid those raw knuckles and deoderant is a thing of the past...  -- 
The weather, except maybe for the humidity, is _PERFECT_.  No jacket 
required and it's hotter in Indiana now than it is here, though that'll 
change once the cool rainy season ends in a few weeks...  -- Looking for 
some weird insects of vultures that you thought only existed in cartoons??  
Come to Ghana for a surprise...  -- Taking pre-natal vitami{s and sleeping 
under a nosquito net are daily activites ... and so on and so on.  That 
pretty much sums up life so far in Ghana.  This place is awesome.  Things 
will be considerably different when I get to my site in 2 weeks, but it 
should still be awesome, especially since the _most_ disappointing thing 
about this whole Peace Corps thing so far is the other American P.C. 
Volunteers.  I can barely tolerate the attitudes of many of them.  Oh well. 
 I just got a letter from Shidan today so forget about telling him to write. 
 Tell thomasl or send me thomasl's new address.  David Morton come here to 
our training site tonight so once we juggled and passed.  Try this 4-ball 
site swap:    6 4 6 1 6 4 1 4      I'm doing a juggling show at a trade 
fair in town next week, too.
  Well, happy chopping,

			Deron "Bush Hardchopper" Barnhart



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