Goats and Garbage

Hello everyone! So, I have some good news. First, I have finally embraced technology and created a blog. I’m getting too popular, and more people are requesting these e-mails than my e-mail is capable of sending out. I will keep sending to this list, but if anyone else wants to see it, the link is www.ghanakimsuri@blogger.com.
My parents also very generously sent me a camera to replace the one that was stolen. That means that my new fancy blog will have pictures. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I’ve enjoyed taking them. Hopefully it will make some of the things I write about make more sense.
Finally, they hooked up electricity at my house.

Trash
In America I always tried to be conscientious about how much I was throwing away, but now I am my own garbage disposal service. The result is that I make an effort to not make any trash, particularly plastic.
The way that garbage is disposed of in Ghana is relatively simple. You throw it on the ground or the floor or wherever you are standing. Every morning the floor and the ground are swept, and the garbage is burnt. It’s hard to breathe in the evenings because the smell of burning plastic is so thick in the air.
Almost everything that you buy comes in a plastic bag, so there is a lot of plastic. It surrounds roadsides and occasionally goats here die of obstructed stomachs from eating the bags. Since the bags are called rubbers here, people will say things like “that goat died from eating rubbers.” The phrase makes me giggle, but the problem isn’t funny.
Plastic also holds water when it rains, which makes the extra trash a mosquito breeding ground. More mosquitoes mean more malaria.
In spite of the litter, I can’t help but observe that if Americans threw all their trash where they were standing, we would be buried in it. There are some huge cultural differences in how goods are distributed, which makes a big difference in how much trash is produced. For example, almost everything is sold in bulk, so it’s easy to bring your own container to market. Even with all the plastic bags, nothing is sold in layers of unnecessary packaging (except candy, which very few families buy).
Some types of garbage are impossible to make here. For example, you cannot throw food away. If you can’t pawn the food off on some children, you can throw it in the back yard where dogs, goats, and sheep will quickly dispose of it.
It’s also impossible to waste serving dishes or tin cans. Children find the tins and make elaborate toys with them. This would probably send most hypersensitive parents in America into a panic. Sharp edges! Oh no! There might be parts they can choke on! Mysteriously, children here don’t die from creating and playing with these toys. Mysteriously, people in Ghana don’t die of a lot of things that terrify Americans, but I will write about that another time.
If your sandal breaks in America, you almost have to buy a new pair and throw the old pair away. In Ghana, you ask who can fix it, and it’s as good as new in less than 5 minutes and for less than 25 pesua (cents). It’s interesting to me how many people (especially people who travel a lot) come back and talk about how wasteful Americans are, but they never notice how much harder it is to not waste things in America. I don’t know where I could buy wheat, corn, milk powder, or rice in bulk in America. Here I just go to market and that’s the only option to buy it. I don’t know where I could get my shoes fixed in America, but I know at least 3 people who can do it here. I don’t know the answers, but it’s interesting to look at the differences.

How to Butcher a Goat
I happened to walk by a while ago while some men were butchering one of those goats that choked on a rubber (I had to get that phrase into this e-mail again) so I stuck around to watch. People here slaughter the goat by slicing it at the neck and letting the blood leak out. Then they cut a slit in one of the hind legs. One of the butchers uses this hole to blow up the goat like a balloon, which is supposed to make it easier to butcher. Then they slice the skin down the belly and peel it off, breaking off the legs at the knee. After that, the innards are removed. The stomach and intestines are washed, and served. The best cut of meat (according to the Dagomba people, not me) is the liver, followed by the intestines, followed by the legs. Children are given the brain and eyes, which are considered lesser cuts of meat. The liver is usually given to the oldest man in the compound. The skins are used to make leather, which elders and chiefs can sit on. It is taboo for anyone who is not an elder or a chief to sit on leather. When a new chief is announced it is called an enskinment for this reason.

Burial
One of the village sub-chiefs recently died, and I got the opportunity to go to the burial. The Dagomba people have a burial for the dead, and then they also have three funerals. The burial is the same day, the first funeral is within three days, and the other two funerals are sometime within three years of the death, depending on when the family is ready. Funerals are almost always held during the dry season, when people are not busy at farm.
For the burial, almost everyone in the village gathers to the compound of the man. The women get in circles around calabashes full of leaves from Shea trees. They sing traditional songs (something about cows, but my Dagboni wasn’t good enough to pick up much else) and beat sticks against the ground. Everyone who has a drum or one of the flutes made from animal horns plays them. The young men in the village all take turns digging the hole for the body.
The body is buried in the compound. The men dig a small hole (maybe 3 x 4 feet). When they reach the depth that they want, they make the hole larger at that depth. When the body is placed in the hole, it is off to the side in this larger part- so if you look down into the hole, you can’t see the body.
The family members uncover their heads during the ceremony, and the grandchildren collect money from all the people attending. They set a fee before the ceremony starts, and they won’t release the body to be buried until they get the required sum. I think this money goes toward the actual funeral, but I’m not sure.
When the money is collected, water is heated to bathe the body. Then everyone leaves the compound except the family and the gravediggers, who wash the body and wrap it in what looks like a woven mat.
When this part is finished, the people take the body around the outside of the compound three times. This is considered the person’s last visit to the house. Everyone is still singing and drumming, and during this part they also shoot rifles into the air. Burials are loud.
After this is completed, the body is brought back into the compound and put into the hole. All the men help refill the hole and dance on it to help tamp down the dirt.