Monday, November 21, 2016

Climbing

Every scar, every bruise, every finger split and callus becomes a memento; a souvenir of each route conquered or problem solved. They act as constant, nagging reminders of the routes unsent and problems unsolved. Your eyes catch a glimpse of these markings spastically scattered on your body and you smile happily, or furrow your eyebrows in frustration, at the memory.

Climbing doesn’t make sense. Humans don’t need to climb, and never did for survival. When you decide to climb recreationally, you are deciding to do something that goes against your human nature. Unlike other physical activities, climbing cannot be improved by training hard every day. Climbing requires days off, and once you engage in the slightly abusive relationship with the sport, you begin to realize the difficulty associated with the necessary time away from it. Restraining yourself from climbing makes you crave it even more and require that a good friend hold your hand (metaphorically or otherwise) and tell you things will be okay.




Now that climbing has taken my life by storm and morphed it into something completely different, I cannot even comprehend how I lived without it. I think of the ways in which it challenges my mind and body and realize the growth that I have gone through as a result of these challenges.


Not a day has passed since my first day climbing that I haven’t thought about it. Walls made of rock whether in houses, restaurants or other forms of architecture make my blood boil with desire to climb them. Bricks transform from building materials to under clings and pinches. Stones in ancient ruins morph into side pulls and crimps.


Climbing is my joy and my passion. It is the thing that pulls me out of bed on days when I want to do nothing but lie in it and mope. It is my cure for sadness and the only thing that both lifts me up and, ironically, grounds me. I cannot think of any better reason to have ditched my well-manicured hands and cast off every bottle of nail polish. There is no better reason to relinquish a keen sense of touch for thick and cherished calluses. My feet no longer have a chance at appearing ladylike after hours of being wedged into climbing shoes. I would never trade what climbing does to my skin, because when I look down at every scar, every bruise, every finger split and callus I smile happily at the memory.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Trotro

Most of you are familiar with bus stops. Most of you are familiar with train stations. The same goes for underground transportation and airports. If you've ever been to countries like Thailand or India, you are well acquainted with tuk tuks or auto rickshaws. I personally thought I'd seen it all as far as modes of transportation. But then I came across the trotro. 

Trotros are THE way to get around in Ghana. There are also taxis, but for longer distances or larger groups, you always go with the tro. A trotro is a large van that can seat about 9-12 people (or more depending on how many the driver wants to squish into the rows of seats). They drive along basically every main road and pick up and drop off passengers along the way. The "first mate" of the trotro shouts out the destination of the tro out the window to people standing next to the road, and if that person wishes to go there, the trop stops and picks him or her up. The first mate also collects the fare, which can generally be negotiated but is crazy cheap by our standards.


Nice n' crammed in the back of a tro

Tros are certainly a bargain, but they can also be a bit uncomfortable. If you are in the middle squished between two sweaty strangers on a 6 hour drive, a tro ride can feel like an eternity. Gotta love having stranger sweat dripping down your arm. Sometimes you end up in the one seat that doesn't have a back (this happened to me. Not ideal.) and have to sit upright the whole time. But other times, you get the wonderful window seat and get to feel the cool breeze whip over your face. The window seats are certainly the most ideal for naps, unless you don't mind laying your head on some random person's shoulder (or if you are next to a friend who doesn't mind acting as a pillow).

Trotro stations are a sensory overload of seemingly disorganized chaos, but it actually is pretty efficient. At these stations, tros are lined up and the drivers shout out the destination of the tro. Once the tro is filled, it heads out. While you are waiting to depart, people with giant baskets on their heads approach the windows to try and sell passengers anything from ice cream to phone chargers to toothpaste. Seriously, ANYTHING you can imagine. Hard boiled eggs. Plantain chips. Fabrics. Hair brushes.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Redefining "Dirty"

My eyes widened more than I thought possible when I first entered the volunteer house in which I'd be living in Ghana. Mostly, my shock came from seeing the feet of the volunteers, most of which looked as if they'd been coated in coal. Being accustomed to wearing shoes or socks the majority of the time in the United States filled me with reluctance at the idea of going shoe-less 90% of the time. I find it a bit comical looking back as now I miss the barefoot lifestyle.

"Toilets"


The layer of dirt (and who knows what else) that caked my feet once I stopped wearing shoes was really just the start of my newfound grimy self. The lack of running water meant never washing our hands in the way we do here (we turned to hand sanitizer or just went without) and bucket showers.

I quickly adapted to these living conditions and realized that it led me to reconsider what "dirty" actually means. I noticed on the days when I actually wore deodorant that it smelled substantially better than when I wore it at home. In Ghana, I started to become immune to the smell of body odor.

Showers


There were even rules regarding our hygiene. There was a sign on the door with the rules of the volunteer house and one stated that we must wash at least our feet and lower legs before getting into bed so as to not soil the sheets too badly.

I truly miss the lifestyle of no shoes and bucket showers (but not so much the pit toilet). I also feel that the lack of running water taught me to be conservative with the resource. At the start, I used a full bucket of water to wash and by the end, half of a bucket was plenty. There were a decent amount of us and we shared a small amount of water so conservation was key.

Blue Lawn Chair

Apparently, I care about lawn chairs. I’ve always known that I typically give inanimate objects personalities and feelings. The “As-is” sect...