the bats have won, but a plan is being hatched

Things did not work out quite as I had hoped for.

I made it to site on Wednesday. It took a lot of haggling and several hours until a bush taxi finally agreed to go up that way, but I was at the house right around midday. I said hello to some villagers I had met and the walked down the bush path to the house with about 20 kids in tow.

I walked in the house and the effects were almost immediate. As it turns out, the community had cleaned the walls below the ceiling, but the above the ceiling were still literally encrusted with batshit. The ceiling had been torn out and so it was possible to see that batshit was also all over the beams holding up the roof. I did not stay to give the house much of an inspection; my eyes were watery and starting to itch and my throat was starting to tingle. I bounded outside, got the epi-pen ready, and waited to see if the reaction would get any worse. It did not, so I called the medical officers and they told me to get my ass outta there and head towards Accra. I sent some kids in for my luggage and walked back to the center of the village to wait for a car.

So, Agou-Fie is a pretty small place. Less than a thousand people live there, and it is on a spur road that branches off from the main Nkwanta-Damanko road several miles. For the record, traveling on the Nkwanta-Damanko road (or for that matter, going from Hohoe to Tamale via Nkwanta) is something that the guide books say is "for the very adventurous". So you can imagine what adventure awaits those who go down the dead end road that is an offshoot of the "main road" that is "off the beaten path". Curious what the adventure is like? It involves a lot of waiting by the roadside for a car to take you away.

I waited for a car for several hours. Down the road even further, along the shores of Lake Volta is a town called Kabiti and seeing as how wednesday was kabiti market day, all the cars going to kabiti were full of people going to market, and all the cars coming from kabiti were full of people coming back from market. Eventually I hitched a ride on a tractor that was going that way and then secured a spot on a bus that was filling with people returning to Nkwanta. I looked for my counterpart in the market for a bit, but I was unsuccessful at finding him and after an hour or so the bus had filled and we drove back towards Nkwanta. I spent the night in a nurses quarters house attached to the district hospital and on Thursday morning got a 5am car to Hohoe and then continued to Accra, arriving by 2pm or so.

Since then...meetings.

Met with the medical staff and told them what happened, met with the Country Director to discuss how to move forward, and met with my program director to discuss what to do now.

Here is the plan: Everyone is in agreement that I cannot return to that site. Everyone is also in agreement that I cannot stay in Accra indefinitely while an alternative placement is developed. So the plan right now is for me to go and stay with my friend Hannah at her site in Northern Region while John (my program director) hatches a plan. I know I can safely stay at Hannah's site because i spent a couple nights there in July on field trip and had no problems. Ultimately, my ability to remain in country will depend on whether a suitable alternative site can be found, and whether that site is truly ready for a volunteer.

I want to stay here. I like it here. I am also acutely aware of just how many resources have been put into getting me this far. At the same time though, spending time in a site that is not well poised to partner with a volunteer is not a good use of my time or PC resources. Of course, only one half of this decision is really mine to make. I can end my service in Ghana at any time, but it is up to Peace Corps to decide whether they want to expend the resources to place me in another country. I really hope it does not come to this. I love serving in Peace Corps, but dealing with any bureaucracy is a pain in the ass and I really like Ghana.

Hopefully a site can be found soon and after more than five months living out of a backpack I will finally be able to end this recent stint as a wandering Jew.

So that is the plan. As soon as my laundry dries, I will be overjoyed to get out of Accra. This city is considered the Pearl of West Africa, and while it is indeed a vibrant and interesting place, it is also loud, expensive, and pretty overwhelming when you have been living in a small farming village in Eastern Region for the past two months.

That is the measure of things.