Ghana Day 15

It’s raining again finally! I appreciate very much that all the rain I’ve experienced here has occurred while I am in my bed enjoying the sound of rain and the breeze through the window as opposed to outside waiting for a trotro. I’m sure that as the rainy season picks up this will change though : (

Today’s conference was very interesting and full of anecdotes about how people with disabilities are mistreated and the reasons behind it, including religion (disability is the sign of demons occupying a child), superstition (the parents pissed off their ancestors), and so on. Apparently there are lots of laws on the books outlawing discrimination based on special ability, but they aren’t enforced (and in some cases, according to one chief, haven’t been distributed to the tribal level so they can be learned). There are also building codes that are supposed to be followed, but even new buildings are not following them. I wasn’t aware of it, but supposedly a couple hunchbacks have disappeared in the north over the past months, and they were presumably being used in the same way albinos are in Burundi and Tanzania (killed and used for parts in witchcraft). Overall, the message coming out of the conference was that persons with disabilities should be treated equally but are not now, particularly in the rural areas. So I wrote a story saying that – it might make it into the paper some day. Don’t judge me for all the language though, I had Charles edit it (meaning he put in some choice phrases like “all and sundry”). I’m not sure how much more editing will be done before it goes in (if it goes in) as well, but it might happen since I unedited a couple things I thought did not exist in the English language.

This relates to nothing at all, but one of the deaf guys completely reminded me of a young Morgan Freeman. Just to let you know.

Another story about nothing: I’m having my laundry done today (hopefully it’s not out on a line getting rained on right now…), and both of my towels smelled funny so they both made the dirty pile. So after my shower I dried off with clean socks. They worked surprisingly well.