Camp Life

My VOLU Experience: An interview with Alex Krenzer,

One Day at a VOLU workcamp: Journal Entry, Sasha Leznev

One Day at a VOLU workcamp:
Journal Entry, Sasha Leznev
August 5, 2000

Second day of the camp. Well, here we are in this crazy village in Ghana. We have done so many things since we've arrived here in Ghana, so I will just try to explain a few of them. This village is certainly a crazy place - we live in this school like you see in the movies - just 3 classrooms, no electricity or running water, walls built of clay, and some wooden doors and windows.
So far the life has been pretty slow, although beginning very early. We are woken up at around 5 AM by chickens running around the village. It is not quite light yet, but the Ghanaians are already up.

The schoolbuilding that we slept in and hung out around.
"This was one of our work breaks, where we all got to relax a bit in front of the school. That's Frank in the foreground, who was one of the most hospitable people in the camp. As everyone gets a 'camp name' (which is pronounced comp name in Ghana) at the VOLU workcamps, he was nicknamed 'Franko' in our camp. I was still Sasha, however, because there is a famous Ghanaian reggae star with my name."
Several go running in the morning before dawn, and most of the villagers are already up as well, having gone to the fields for work. It is only we foreigners who are used to sleeping late - they must think of us as very lazy! The life has also been very social. All the Ghanaians we've met have been very friendly, showing us around some markets in Accra, talking to us a lot on the bus on the way to the village, telling us about life and politics in Ghana, and treating us very warmly and friendly. I have to say that it's certainly true that Ghanaians are very welcoming - especially our new friends Frank and Joseph, who have made us feel very much at home.
Like I said, the village is pretty wild - I never expected to see a place like this with my own eyes in my entire life. There are 1 meter potholes in the road, there is no electricity (which means that most things stop in the evening, and it is pitch black at night), the village is full of clay houses, there are no stoves but lots of palm trees, there is only one toilet (outhouse) in the ground for all of the campers, there are many many curious children running around everywhere, and one gets little privacy.
But it's very social, with people eating, sleeping, drumming, dancing, and walking around together in groups. And this makes things really interesting for me - I often feel quite alone at home in the U.S. in front of a computer or sitting in my car alone. But it is just the opposite here in Ghana, and I find this very refreshing. It's easy to make friends here with both the Ghanaians and the Europeans. There are many things I don't yet understand about all the parts of the culture here, but I hope I will grasp these underlying ties as more time goes by.
Sasha Lezhnev, 5 August.