High Tide

I round the corner on the path to work to meet a seething mass of bodies, cloth, and grain sacks. The World Food Project truck has finally come, and villagers from all around the district are steadily flowing into Nalerigu, congealing into a solid wall of people filling the courtyard in front of the PARED office. They come with bags hitched to their bicycles, donkeys and carts patiently waiting and grazing—some villages have even hired trotros to cart their spoils back to their homes. I can't help thinking this is a strange sight to witness in front of my local development organization.
The rainy season of 2007 was disastrous for the Northern Regions of Ghana. Widespread droughts followed by torrential rains caused the dams in Burkina Faso to overflow; the resulting deluge covered most of the region, and put acres of farms, homes, belongings and lives under 10 feet of water. The majority of the East Mamprusi district—subsistence farmers all—had their harvest and their topsoil washed away with their belongings, leaving them with nothing to eat, and nothing in which to grow anything new. The UN-funded World Food Program asked PARED to facilitate the distribution of food aid to the thousands in the district that would qualify as beneficiaries. I know that PARED, as a development organization that believes Africa can feed herself, doesn't support the concept of food aid on principle. I also know they agreed because increasing numbers of skinny legs and distended stomachs were meeting them in the rural villages we serve.
The sheer numbers of people lining up to collect these staple grains are staggering. My counterpart Sidik processes each one, finding their name on a 40-page list-by-community, and recording their presence with a purple-inked thumbprint. The large white bags of Ghanaian-grown maize and Burkinabe beans waiting to be taken away are stacked behind the office girls, an 8 foot high wall of sandbags against the flood of human hunger rising steadily as the time since the last successful harvest lengthens into 2 years. I look around me into the faces of the Ghanaians waiting to recieve, and recognize people I've met in Zambulugu, the La-atarigu blacksmith and his wife, the dry-season farmer from Gbandaa who gave me my first cassava. Almost the entire population of Sumniboma is there; I am greeted excitedly by 10 and 20 people at a time, all sporting broad smiles, all inquiring after my health, and when I will visit next. The sunny and friendly Ghanaian temperment is nigh-unquenchable, it seems, even as they stand in lines in a gesture tantamount to the admission that they are slowly starving.
We talk about the rains, and “how much better they are”. They never say what they are better than; it goes acknowledged without being stated. It is much better this year than last-- and every time I see the clouds roll in, I hope that the earth can swallow the worst of the sean's deluge still to come.

School is In

A sea of pink shirts in military formation greets me in English as I walk into the classroom. The 63 students clad in the unisex short-cropped haircuts and rosey livery of the Nalerigu Area Secondary School are crammed into worn and vandalized old-fashioned wooden desk-and-chair combinations. They have been awake since 6:30, dressing, sweeping their school grounds and dormitories, visiting the dining hall for porridge, and standing in line. They are already falling asleep on their feet, slouched against disinterested arms on the surfaces of the old desks. I'm invading their Social Sciences class, however, and having a grinning white girl this thrilled to be teaching seems to be a rare occurance. Within 10 minutes, they're asking tough questions about contentious issues; within 15 minutes, I'm getting a very clear, very interesting perspective on education in a country that recites litanies about teaching being the only road to development.
Having a background in constructivist education methods made me completely unprepared to face 60 adolescents trained in a very militaristic fashion. The same institution that claims to be grooming the leaders of tomorrow that will change the world is demanding their imitation of the leaders of today. Compliance appears to be the golden rule: the hierarchy of the school is strictly enforced, with the headmaster strictly controlling his teachers, prefects in charge of every class and dormitory, and the voices of boys clearly out-ranking and out-powering girls in classroom activities. The questions I am asked are fraught with undertones of chauvinism; “In Ghana here, we have this polygamous marriage; how many wives can I take in Canada?” “In Canada, if I have a wife, how many children am I allowed to make her bear for me?” “In Ghana here, they say that there is this thing where men have sexual intercourse with other men, and other deviant behaviour—is it illegal in your place?” I find my answers redirecting the question towards the girls of the class, sitting quietly and demurely, gaping at my pallor and smirking at my ease of speech. I find myself reacting with vehemence—“homosexuality is not a deviant behaviour where I come from”, “In Canada, you would need to ask your wife how many children she wanted to bear for you—and you would have to listen to her.” “In my place, if you marry more than one woman, they put you in jail.” The gasps, giggles and barrages of questions morph into discussions on the differences between attitudes and values here and in the West; it becomes apparent that the teenagers in front of me have never thought that maintaining a developed country is so much work.
I leave the class a twittering mass of voices in excited conversation; almost everyone is discussing something about Canada, development, or me. I leave the class satisfied, but slightly disturbed; to me it has become clear that there is a lot of work to do with the youth of today, before they can forge a better tomorrow.

Boarding the M Train

My apologies to any readers for the disruption of my regularly scheduled blog update. I was quite indisposed this weekend, and actually feeling positively malarial.

Ha. Haha. Hm.

My previously sympathetic-but-cavalier attitude towards boarding the M Train shifted when a six-legged bloodthirsty someone bought me a ticket. Despite almost-continuous use of my bed net (and always when there is question of the mosquito-proofing of the room, like mine at the compound), religious and timely consumption of my antimalarials, and confident pumping of every immuno-booster known to man into my system, what some of my fellow JFs considered inevitable for me finally occurred, and I promptly got malaria. Indeed, they're probably shocked it happened so late in the game. It crept upon my liver like a well-executed poisoning. It was ingenius in its subtlety. It happened like this:

Monday July 7th: Feeling ill; went for a blood smear to see if I had filled the vacancy in my liver. Test was negative for malaria. I went home, took a nap, and felt okay. Tricky, tricky.

Friday, July 18th, 1am: I wake up to what I feel could only be someone boring through my abdomen with the thing that built the Chunnel. I take an immodium, hoping the gas relief will kick in. I toss, turn, put my rear in the air, and do all manner of other embarrassing things in an attempt to help stem the pain. For my hubris, it increases.

Friday, July 18th, 3am: Vomiting begins. Despite it being seemingly impossible, pain increases. I give up trying to find a position to sleep in, and concentrate on not crying.

Friday, July 18th, 4am: I run out of things to vomit. Curiously, vomiting does not cease. Small unintentional groans and moaning start to emit from what I can only assume is my throat. All my attention is focused on trying to get the sun to come up so I can go to the hospital and have someone knock me out.

Friday, July 18th, 4:30am: The thought angrily occurs: "What the @!&% did I eat?!"

Friday, July 18th, 5:15am: I hear noises outside, and stumble out of my room. Doris is fetching water. I ask her when the hospital opens. She tells me the hour: 8am.

Friday, July 18th, 5:17am: My eyes cross, and I fall over in pain and hopelessness.
Soon after collecting me from the floor, Doris tells me there is emergency care open all night that could take me right that instant. I restrain my urge to suffocate myself for my inadvertant stupidity.

Friday, July 18th, 5:30am: I lurch to the hospital with Doris in tow. I stop three times to vomit. In lieu of stomach acid or food, I expel the ninja-turtle green fluid that holds the bubbles in a carpentry level. I absentmindedly wonder where I've been keeping that stuff in my body, and why suddenly it's in my stomach.

Friday, July 18th, 6am: The blood smear they took from my finger comes back positive for malaria. They march me to the men's ward. They yank down my Snoopy pyjama pants, exposing my cave-tanned white rear to 12 emaciated and previously bored Ghanaian village men, and stick me with an injection that is supposed to stem my vomiting. For their efforts, I vomit in the sink. For 10 minutes.

Friday, July 18th, 6:15am: An American doctor that runs the hospital happens to wander into the mens ward and decides that having a frail-looking white girl this wretched in public simply wont do. He sends me down the path to his house, where I collapse on the couch.
I have a faint recollection of my father calling me and me telling him that I'm okay. I also remember limeade.

Monday, July 21st, 11am: I wake up, and discover that I've been taking a three-day course of antimalarials, writing short nonsensical entries in my daily journal on looseleaf in unintelligible handwriting, and expelling a lot of liquids. I stand, and despite some difficulty, can actually keep my equilibrium.
I write a thank-you note to the doctor's family and walk hazily back to the compound.

As I write this, I'm only recently sure I am in the clear--malaria tends to relapse if not eradicated completely by its host, and I had to go back for another blood smear to see if the steady stream of toxins in my body got all the little bastards. Complications also might be a problem; we're not really sure at this point why I'm still so sore in the right half of my abdomen. I'll be proceeding with caution, thats for sure. It was a bad time for this to happen (is there a good time for malaria?), but considering the number of times a -year- people in Ghana tend to get malaria, I guess it's almost a necessary part of the experience. I guess.

Not that I'd reccommend it to anyone.

Photo Roundup #4: Sumniboma

Dorothy herself: mother of 4, wife 2 of 3, farmer of maize, groundnuts and millet, and an incredible example of how difficult women in Ghana work to stay afloat.

The local blacksmith, resting under a shade structure by one of the many baobabs after a day full of pumping coals and slamming heated metal with anything solid until the desired effect is reached.

The school children rise and greet me in rote english with military precision that actually makes me sad. I try to gesture that they should stop saluting me; only a few of the girls listened and understood.

The view from the neighbour's was pretty incredible--both inside the house and out. The more urban the setting, the more rare the door-painting becomes; a brutal shame, considering how beautiful and intricate it is.

I cant think of a better elder to be in charge of the youth...

Doris, walking the long road from Zambulugu to Namasim, to Sumniboma... limping, as her diseased leg pained her for the sake of my exceptionally poor Mampruli skills.

Two of the many children that would camp out in front of my compound, waiting to call me by my name, and watch me smile and wave, grateful for being more than a "Suliminga" this time. The donkey is part of a CARE International initiative aimed at assisting transport of water and goods in rural areas like East Mamprusi.

My landlord, Mr. Sumniboma himself; head IFT, next in line for Chieftancy of the community, tall, Muslim, soft-spoken and incredibly generous.

One of the community IFTs standing in his family compound--a sprawling monstrosity of domestic life, all 17 connected huts crawling with children, wives, sisters, aunts, cousins: cooking, playing, relaxing, and going to farm. He is the last born of his father's many wives; he speaks english, volunteer-teaches, and is one of three local family-planning and STD counsellors.

The stream separates Sumniboma from Sakogu, the nearest source of electricity and the site of the Area Council. It also saves women the trouble of bringing borehole water 2km to the house just to do the washing.


If I wanted any more proof that Sumniboma understood the real requirements of development work, I had it here... over the heads of children, the declaration that you can do "Nothing Without Something".

More reflections from Sumniboma, and some chat about my job, technology, and the coming crunch, next weekend!

Village Stay: Sumniboma

The landscape in Sumniboma is richer than a postcard. I cant figure out why no one has built a spa resort to capitalize on the green hills, rock outcroppings, gorgeous baobabs, bubbling springs and picturesque community. Not to mention the views: from the hills surrounding it, it feels like you can see the whole country for miles on end, clear, sharp, and serene.
The Fulani cowherders sing unabashedly, waving and smiling as they direct their grazing herd. The Mamprusis and Frafras that live here are the most welcoming people I've ever met in a country renowned for its friendliness. They are hard workers, but have dedicated every scrap of their time and patience to my sunburned, wide-eyed days in their village--just like they have doggedly and staunchly put time and effort into the development of their community since 1998, I later found out. The Baptist pastor made himself my tour guide and translator. A local volunteer development worker named Doris has stayed with me in the room I am borrowing, translating, following me on my journeys, and insisting on carrying my things; she has two jobs (neither of which are paid), an infant son, an elderly mother to care for, and an injured leg, and she still followed me limping up the escarpment, spiting my concern with dogged courtesy. The man acting as my landlord, personal guard, and pack mule every time I go to lift my backpack, turns out to be the next in line for the chieftancy of Sumniboma, and one of the most important people in the hierarchy of the community.
I have intruded on and disturbed market transactions, the chief's house three times, innumerable infants terrified of strange pale faces, every class in the local mud school, people at farm and work, and virtually every house in the community. For all my irritations, I have been rewarded with groundnuts, a chicken, a hand-made fan, six eggs, a ram from the chief, and more happy visitors than I know what to do with. They called a meeting of the whole community to ask me to give them words of hope, and the opportunity to ask questions of each other. For my benefit alone, they brought out the ceremonial drums, and three dozen women raised their siren voices together, weaving traditional dances between the young men with clicking cowrie belts and traditional dancing boots. It is an honour that is rarely given, and I am certain is not deserved in this instance. Everyone I meet thanks me for coming to their community, even though I am an immense complication in their already difficult lives. They tell me that even the head of the NDC (a popular national party in the upcoming election) who was born and raised in Sumniboma and is stalwartly supported by its people despite that loyalty sometimes sacrificing their own interests, refused to stay the night in the community even for his brother's funeral. He stayed at the Chesterfield lounge, and had his meals brought in from Nalerigu; hard to believe, when the food I have eaten in Sumniboma is some of the best I have ever put in my mouth.
It is impossible that I am the first outsider to see the immense value in this small community, but all indications the people of Sumniboma give me say that is indeed the case. But I know for certain that I will not be the last; Sumniboma is a shining example of why I am here in Ghana, and why I want to do the work I am doing now, and the work I plan to do in the future. They are an entire community working with what they have to improve their futures, and they do it brightly, tirelessly, and constantly. They are an entire community of Dorothys, the central figure of the inspiration EWB draws on.
They have recharged my batteries.

Photo Roundup #3

Farming near the riverbanks has its benefits and downsides--like entire crops washing out

A woman and her son from Da-azio, who would have a modeling contract and a movie career anywhere else in the world

The crowd of children that follows me home from work every day

The statue of the founder of the BMC, with the opening of the clinic behind

A raquet and ball homemade toy, product of host brother Silas' genius

Me, deep in thought at the retreat, thin, tanned and freckled

A young village girl in Tamale, not in school, but selling water like dozens of others

Dean, resplendent in his Ghanaian zoot suit.

A woman of Da-azio standing with her infant at the field she has just sown; everyone participates in planting season

My coworker Baba facilitating the crowd at Tamboku

Steph, and her new friend at Mole park. It's about three inches wide.

Shea nut processing in Da-azio; boiling the fruit, drying the nuts, shelling and grinding into butter.

Sights and Sounds

The sun is still asleep when the call to prayer rings out, sounding Arabian and exotic in the wan light of 4:30 in the morning. It floats through the windows, and subverts the crowing of roosters and braying of goats that precedes it at 4am and continues well into the night. It is the sign that the day has begun, and everyone, Muslim or otherwise, listens. Soon, as the sun creeps slowly up over the ridge of the Gambaga escarpment and floods by small trickles into my window, the sounds of compound life begin to awaken, and amplify.
Through closed eyes, clinging hopelessly to the last vestiges of sleep and relaxation, I hear Silas release the goats. The clacking of hooves on concrete floor and the distressed clucking of the chickens running for cover as they evacuate the compound is not buffered by the thin curtains on my windows and door. I can hear the splashing of Arija fetching water from the pump embedded in the floor, and the deep pouring sound as she transfers it to the rainwater drums, from which the cooking, cleaning and bathing water comes. The cooking fire heating the leftover TZ from the evening's dinner cracks quietly, and I can smell the smoke of the young wood feeding it. I hear the shuffling of extra feet; the school kids know that breakfast is coming, and the morning is a busy time.
I open my eyes to the thin scratching of the reed brooms expertly wielded by Salima and Afia against the concrete floor. The sound moves systematically across my hearing, from one end of the compound to the door, taking dust, debris, and animal droppings with it. The mewling of the house's kitten shows he has been disturbed. Through the clucking of the chickens I can hear the scraping of the dog's nails as she meanders around the compound, looking for a place to go back to sleep. I can hear 4 voices at once, arguing, laughing and giving instruction in Mampruli in all kinds of tones.
The sun streams through my windows; my cell phone clock says 5:45. Nematu and Jen are singing a song outside in the way that only those under four can; I peek out my window with just enough time to see Afia leaving to feed the pigs, a large bowl of spent pito millet balanced on her head. Arija and Salima are bent over one cooking fire, tending to the leftovers. Joyce is standing in a yellow, blue and orange patterned cloth, full bucket in one hand, on her way to bathe. As I wrench myself from bed and wrap myself in the cloth of my own, a shrill scream erupts—the toddlers have broken their peace treaty, and someone has landed a clumsily-aimed punch at the other over a cracker, or a bag of dawadawa powder. I put my feet into my sandals amidst the booming cries of matriarchal power ringing through the compound: Doris is mediating the conflict in no uncertain terms, laying down the law in Mampruli at 80 decibels, and distributing verbal lashings as punishment for the breach of peace.
I leave my room to greet everyone, and as always am met with a chorus of “Sister Ashley, good morning!” before I can squeak out a word. The Ghanaian tempers have cooled with the swiftness in which they flared, and everyone is happy. The sun is kind and not too hot; the day is fat with possibility.
I reach for my bucket, draw some water, and wash myself into the day.

Notes from the Road Less Traveled

In Ghanaian english, the word “road” has many meanings.
A “road” can be a tarred, flat, maintained stretch of pavement, over which traffic of all sorts travels from one place to another. A “road” can also be the beaten dirt space between two distances only kept free of vegetation by the passage of trucks, motorbikes, and hoofed animals. A “road” could be the sole open path through country foliage, grazing land, and difficult terrain, big enough only for foot traffic and stretching for miles. The distinction of “road” means only that travel is possible, but never specifies what means are possible to cross the distance with.

For example.





















The 2 roads to Tamboku, one of our CIFS beneficiary communities, contain every kind of hazard possible on a road--2ft square rivets cut by rainwater in the road bed; a choice of wheels slipping on pea gravel, mud, clay or sand; thrilling opportunities to puncture tires or brains on large jutting rocks, bash engines on metamorphic slabs, or smother and drown motive power in the 4ft deep, 16 ft wide rivers spontaneously breaking over and through the “road”. Goats, debris, heavily laden pedestrian groups, motorists and other obstructions bar the way through the ten inches of “road” just wide enough to squeeze a moto tire into, throwing doubt and fear about the safety of continuing at speeds in excess of 70km/h. Hands quickly become raw after gripping the bike to counteract the violent cantering, bucking and tipping of the two-wheeled metal-with-momentum propelling you. After the first 45 minutes of travel, your joints and muscles are jarred enough to require serious recuperation time. After the first 60 minutes, traveling in this way stops being fun. This sort of transit is essential to work with a Community Based Organization like PARED. If development was conducted only where roads were auto-accessible, the most vulnerable populations—those who cannot access markets or health care during the rains due to washed out roads, those passed over by NGOs due to inaccessibility—would be completely overlooked.
I am told by the Regional Planning Unit that the cost to build what Canadians would call a road of minimum safety requirements is 10,000 Ghana Cedis per kilometre. For District Assemblies with tiny annual operating budgets, not only is this impossible, but it is almost laughable. Most of the community development and infrastructure—boreholes, water and sanitation projects, clinics, school feeding programmes—are all funded by NGOs. Unfortunately, it is rare for transportation infrastructure to be included as spectacular and sensationalist enough for attention from international funds. As a result road building is often contracted to Chinese companies in for-profit industry that import all their materials and labour, draining money out of Ghana without any re-investment. A difficult problem to solve, in a country where contractor quality control is unheard of.
In the meantime, we laugh as our motorbikes get shaken into components, jarred into sputtering messes, and soaked to the carburators in river water. It is certainly an adventure, speeding across East Mamprusi. And it is better than walking—what so many around us do every day.

Retreat!

The rattling of the trotro shakes my hair into my face and the cap off my pen; it is clear the roads here have seen too many large trucks, too many passenger buses. It's the lush green they're driving through that they come to see: boatloads of tourists shaking and shimmying to the elephants at Mole game park, or the historic mosque at neighbouring Larabanga. However, our trotro comes to West Gonja for other reasons—although the perks of a foot safari were not ignored. The 2008 Junior Fellowship Midsummer Retreat is in Damongo, and the wildlife, greenery, and tourist-driven flush toilets are extras in the gift of reconnecting with each other.
Volunteer work for EWB is no easy task, and frustration, exhaustion and loneliness is part of the job description. Coming together gives us the necessary vent to release our anger, tension, disappointment and frustration accumulated in the first (and hardest) seven weeks, and recalibrate it into motivation, strategy, inspiration, and expectations. Even though we are on “retreat”, given an opportunity to withdraw temporarily from work, no one can stop talking shop. Conversations on government programs, how to motivate farmer groups, how to invoke behaviour change and the plights and successes of our women are continual. Every extra instant is spent on problem solving, project analysis, brainstorming and collaborating, making plans. For this one weekend, the problems of one volunteer become the projects of the others, and at the end of three days we emerge from the guesthouse each with a new initiative, a new plan, a direction, and the renewed verve to follow it.

I arrived frustrated, contorted into a mess by the difficult decisions and awkward positions of my life in Nalerigu. Now I know the best thing I could have been given was the safe time and space to cry it out, be angry, share stories of why we keep going, and decide what I'm to do about it. The motivation of the people around me is exhilirating; the passion I still feel about the work we are doing is more apparent to me when reflected in the faces of my fellow volunteers. This group of Canadians, sourced from all over the country and flung haphazardly across Ghana, has grown into quite the strong family. And after we cram our feet into dirty rubber boots, trek through Gonjaland in search of elephants, finish with our flush toilets and tourist inclinations and breathe our welcome sigh of relief, we'll rush back into the fold for seven more weeks of battling poverty--our brothers and sisters in arms in the back of our minds, and the stretch of the Northern Region in front of our eyes.