Heyyy everybody!
So if I haven’t spoken to you in the last 4+ weeks…I have a
WHOLE BUNCH to catch you up on!
I don’t know how much detail you are looking for/want to
read so I’m going to just dig in. Feel free to quit reading anytime…no hard
feelings. J
From the beginning…
24-29 April 2103 (Wednesday through Monday)Last month (April) myself and a few other volunteers were planning a World Malaria Day surf competition in the village next to mine, Busua. On 24 April a few volunteers came down from their site to my house so begin setting up for the even that was going to happen that Saturday and Sunday. The event went really well, we made piñatas shaped like mosquitos, had educational videos and bed net hanging demonstrations. We even had a Peace Corps media guy down from the Kumasi area to video everything. The whole weekend was a bunch of fun. Monday rolls around and the event is finished but a few people are still hanging around because the waves are supposed to be “epic”. Whatever. I’m ready for a break.
29 April 2013 (Monday)
P (the Peace Corps video guy, came into country with me…sidenote: just proposed to his Ghanian girlfriend and is getting married in the next few months!) and myself are sitting at my house Monday morning, mostly in some kind of haze because we’ve been so busy all weekend. Then I get a call from my friend S. We call each other a few times a week to mostly just vent about something annoying or weird that’s been happening so when my phone rang I didn’t automatically answer it. I was in the middle of a conversation with P and told myself I would call her back in a few minutes when we were finished. We finish our conversation and I step away to call S back. When she answers I can tell that shes really sad and that something is wrong. She tells me that she has some really bad news. I automatically think that something has happened to her family back home and shes going back to America. But she tells me that our friend, Dannie, has died. I hear the words but I cant seem to put a meaning with them. I break it down in my head…”our friend”-got that part, I have lots of friends, I understand this…”Dannie”-I know her, I picture her face in my mind, I think about her at my house a week ago tie dying for her first time, I think about the plans we have to go dancing in a few weeks, I’m excited to see her, I understand this…”died”- I try and think about what this word means. I think of a cemetery. I understand this word. I try and put the sentence together. I say it in my head a few times. I know that this is huge but I cant understand the sentence enough to understand whats happening. I try saying it out loud. That works. I understand. I lose it for a while, while understanding creeps up. I tell P and the other volunteers and it takes them a moment. We sit for a moment. P is the first person to pull himself together and he says “I’m going to Accra”. I cant think of anywhere I’d rather be. I start to pack. A few handfuls of dirty clothes and I’m ready to go. I try to leave the house barefoot, P is patient with me. It’s a few hours later before I realize I’ve left in my pajamas. Whatever. Good enough. We travel the entire way from my house to the Peace Corps office (about 10 hours in total) in silence, not one word between us. I think we’re both afraid that if we talk we don’t know what will come out, so we don’t chance it.
We get to Accra and its indescribable. Chaos mixed with sadness
mixed with anger. Somehow it makes me feel better, I’m with people that feel
the same as I do, even if we don’t know what that feeling is. The sense of
every single person doing what needs to be done, no question asked is
comforting. Nobody feels out of place in a country and situation that just doesn’t
fit. We all want answers. The best they’re giving us is that they think it was
cerebral malaria. At the end of the day, one of the senior staff in Peace Corps
comes over to the group of volunteers who are at the office and asks “does
everybody have a bed for tonight?”.
Myself and 2 others do not. He says he has servants quarters and we can
stay with him. He’s exhausted and still manages enough energy to try and make
us feel better about everything. It helps.
I sleep for a bit its mostly impossible. I have to be up at
2.30am. Dannies mom requested that Dannies body never be left alone, especially
until she has made it into the country. We we’re taking shifts standing vigil
at the funeral home. I have the 3am-6am shift. 30 April- 3 May 2013 (Tuesday through Friday)
The week is spent planning and making arrangement for Dannies service. During a meeting on Tuesday morning Dannies mom joins us. Dannie is so much like her that it really is almost like getting to see Dannie one last time. Its nice. She is so strong she blows the entire room away. I don’t know how she can do it. She has something in her that the rest of us don’t have. She asks us to go around the room and introduce ourselves. We tell her a small story about a time we had with Dannie. I think back to the first time I ever met her. It was in Washington DC during staging, before we even left for Ghana. She sat at my table for introductions and admin stuff…and she was late. And for some reason, out of all of the wonderful stories I have with Dannie, this is the one I chose to share with her mother. But I have to say that her mom (as well as the rest of the room who knew Dannie so well) laughed for a good long while over this. For some reason Dannie was mostly always running behind and you never minded waiting for her. She was that good. Dannies mother thanked us profusely for her service (being in the foreign service and ex-army herself) that really meant a lot to all of us.
4 May 2013 (Saturday)
Day of the memorial
Day of the memorial
With
the heaviest of hearts I am reluctantly saying goodbye for now to my dear
friend and sister Danielle Dunlap. She was inspiring, driven, truly caring and
an all-around amazing person. She made you want to be a better person by just
being around her. She was among the best of us and to say she will be missed
doesn’t even begin to cover it. I know you will keep the angles dancing till we
can all join you.
This was a shitty day.
I was asked to speak at her service. I had to write every
word I wanted to say down and even that didn’t help. I presented fabric to her
mom. My friend J and I were working to start a batik (dyed fabric) group with
some of the local students. One of the designs we made was a purple and blue
Peace Corps stamp. Dannies mother saw it and requested to it so that it could
cover Dannies casket during her funeral in Atlanta.
What do you do after you’ve just said goodbye to someone
that meant something to you? You dance. One of Dannies favorite things to do in
the world was to dance. She and I had plans to go out dancing together right
before she was to finish her service. So we went dancing. It was a complete
mess, too many white people in a too crowded part of the city. People were
getting pick pocketed and yelled at. Whatever. A few of my good friends and I
decide we are going to leave before something happens to us, to go swimming in
my Accra homestays pool. We had a great time together, we were out until after
4am and it was exactly what all of us needed at a time like that.
5 May 2013 (Sunday)Dannie leaves Ghana. I go to the airport with a bunch of
other volunteers to say our final goodbyes. She gets brought from the funeral
home to the cargo area of the airport in the back of the funeral homes tro. They
unload her from the tro and shes in a cardboard box draped in an American flag.
It was heartbreaking. The guys working at the airport didn’t understand what
was going on so they were pretty insensitive to it all.
this is not the end of the story. i thought that all this was getting too long. so i'll give you a break and i'll be back soon.
Some links related to Dannie:
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