Why stories matter

 It wasn’t my plan to write so much so frequently, but the fact is – a lot is going on, despite Kongo being in a predominantly rural setting. I think it’s appropriate to start by listing my observations from the professional perspective.       

          First and foremost, there is plastic and waste everywhere. I saw a trash can only once in Kongo, in front or the District Education Office. Plastic bags are heavily overused. If you simply buy a bottle of water, they’ll put it in a small, black plastic bag. Just another day I saw a street dog tearing off pieces of a plastic bag with sauce leftovers inside! (The most shocking discovery is that dog meat is eaten here) ☹ As for the people, they just discard their trash as they go along. The locals drink their water from 500ml plastic bags which can be seen lying everywhere.  There is a company, ZUUM LION, whose workers come early in the morning and collect the rubbish in the market. Some compounds (but not all) have designated trash cans, however, that still does not prevent locals from launching whatever they don’t need into the nearby bush. The side of the road, the water bodies, potholes… these are all the places trash accumulates. In Kongo, in Bolgatanga, everywhere I go. In my view, this is the biggest – and most manageable – issue related to my field of work. Also, it is the one I want to act while here, raising awareness, advocating for reuse of plastic bags, and educating people on dangers of micro plastic and littering.

There is still the need to list some environmentally unfriendly behaviours, such as open defecation, wildfires which occur in the dry season, illegal gold mining that, along with tree felling, contributes to land erosion. Some people produce coal to sell at the market and make a livelihood. Many people also burn their waste in open spaces. Besides trash cans, recycling is an unknown phenomenon here. Everything goes together and there is no waste segregation. For me, there’s real hearth ache in that. I’ve been devotedly recycling since high school, even when I was living in a 19 square meter flat in Zagreb, I meticulously did it daily. From what I could gather, recycling is not done anywhere in the country.

When meeting locals it was often hard hearing their stories. Most of the population relies on their own farming for food so they are mostly worried about putting food on the table or schooling their children. They had little concern of climate change and the environment. When asked what they would expect from us as volunteers, they mostly mentioned obtaining fertilizer for their crops, animals for herding, opening new markets for their produce or starting a business and developing new skills – things that are outside of the scope of both me and my colleague. I felt powerless in that regard, but I completely understand their position. Climate change in and of itself is so abstract and multi-layered; no one person can fully comprehend it. Scientifically speaking, in falls into a category called a “hyper-object” – something so complex that no human mind can fully grasp it. Think of the Internet as the other example of something so complicated.

So, to make things less complicated, I came up with an idea to hold something I call “Climate & Storytelling Lab” in local junior high schools . As I publish this entry, my first session have taken place. I did an introductory session “Why stories matter”. I engaged students, asking some to tell their favourite stories. We then analysed them, talked about why we tell stories to begin with. In the long run, I wish to equip them with storytelling skills as well as basic knowledge of climate change.

On the personal side of things, I fell into the bear trap of volunteering, one that I was aware of. And yet I stepped right into it. It is a combination of unrealistic expectations (even though I kept telling myself I have no expectations), of overestimating my own adaptative capabilities and some unfortunate circumstances. After losing my dog and falling ill with typhoid, with every plan I made collapsing and things moving ever so slowly, There’s even a term that encompasses all the factors I just listed and it's called adaptation disorder. Just as I arrived to Ghana, Sufjan Stevens, who’s one of my favourite artists, released his new record – along with news on Instagram that he’d contracted a rare condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome and was learning how to walk again, having barely escaped death. Javelin was universally acclaimed by critics and its songs are painstakingly beautiful and they underscored my adaptation struggles, though it’s a double edged sword – music can sometimes make one feel more sadder.

I mustered up the courage to share my concerns with my fellow volunteer, who’s already been deployed to India and Kenya and she was able to reassure me (even though I did not expect her to do so). She explained that what I’m going through is adaptation shock, but that it is followed by a stable period. One sentence she uttered really had an impact on me. She said that not many people would venture so far away and just my being here with the knowledge and experience can actually influence some kids in schools that I’ve been planning to work with. So I carry on, even though it’s hard.

I guess all the small things add up, creeping up on you without even noticing. You can’t buy a SIM card ready to use in a store or a kiosque. Simple things like making a sandwich become inaccessible luxury. Bumpy dirt roads, scarcity of groceries, the heat and power losses (as I wrote it, the power went out, haha!) It can be a lot to take in all at once.

          The only internet connection I have is through my smartphone. It is heavily unreliable, most of the time it is only one bar of signal reception. I’m using it as a hotspot for my laptop but it often breaks and is wreaking havoc on my battery life. It goes without saying it is quite frustrating and infuriating. When I set time aside to do guided yoga workout, the videos keep buffering. Some things that helped me are rereading this blog entry by a previous Mondo volunteer, journaling, reading ebooks (just finished The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov) and rewatching The Americans which I have downloaded on my laptop before the trip. I quite enjoy writing these blogs too. One thing I decided was to be as sincere as possible in my entries. It makes perfect sense to me to leave honest, useful material for the ones to come, rather than just fulfilling a condition of dissemination stipulated by my contract. Like one of my all-time favourite quotations by Anaïs Nin says: 

“We write to taste life twice – both in the present moment, and in retrospect.” 

Only fitting to end this blog post about storytelling by an awesome and on-the-point quote!