Notes from a Ghanaian Adventure

Rain

2008-08-17T04:18:00.001-07:00

On the bus to Tamale, wedged between too many sweating bodies in stale, soft-rock ridden air, I am witnessing climate crisis happening.
The rainstorm yesterday was the official announcement of the second portion of the rainy season. The relentless torrential deluge drove us inside, pounding water in spurts and gushes through the hairline cracks between window panes. The Nalerigu dam had overflowed four days ago, fat and bursting from the steady, regular rains that came to East Mamprusi with me. Adding the punishment of a half-day's hurricane-volume lashing left miles of maize drowning in ugly, polluted runoff, and my fellow passengers gaping, scrambling over each other to see, muttering in Mampruli. The road to Walewale, ghastly even in the dry season, was transformed into kilometers of mud, four feet deep and sucking the tires of any vehicle heavier than a bicycle. Getting off the bus to lessen the load, we trudge through the mire, my Birkenstocks caked with mud upon reaching the bus again. Nasia township is flooded; the stretching fields of Savelugu district also under the swollen banks of the rivers and streams. Town after town has the steel-grey rain lapping threateningly at the edges of compounds, shimmering in cold ways in the breeze generated by more incoming clouds that three months ago were pregnant with promise and now breed only trouble.
The weather of mid-August is schizophrenic at best, shifting wildly from pounding heat to these desperate, sobbing rains, and back just as fast. It is only a pale preview of the emotional outburst expected from the clouds this coming September, rumoured to be a huge blow in an already decimating rainy season. The Burkina Faso government has decreed that it is only a matter of time before the re-opening of the dams to the north like last year, to once again save the savanna country by flooding the Ghanaian White Volta river. With the ground already so saturated, burdened with the water of the season thus far and the tears from last year's flood, the question gnawing at peoples' guts and minds is simple: Where will the water go?

Exit Signs

2008-08-17T03:43:00.000-07:00

For three days, the funeral raging outside my window pounded the viscera-thrilling beats of talking drums, the ululating voices of women in mourning that wiped the common hip-hop off the air and reminded my insides that here, I was part of a deep, unfathomable Africa that I have come to glimpse, to fleetingly feel, to lust after and love. After weeks of its silence in the flood of westernized, "global" culture, wily Ghana was throwing everything she could at me to convince me to stay with her. I packed those belongings I would bring home, and released those I would sacrifice to the kindness of the people here, in spite of the strange beauty of her drumming and voice, the heartbeat of West Africa resonating in my chest.

Children in the road, women in the market, new acquaintances and strangers are kinder, gentler; men in the street restrain their habitual harassment towards a last chance at marrying a "white". Somehow the subtle shifts of the air are telling--they know I am on my way home. I imagine in some buried corner of their minds, in the areas that believe the white men manufacture cell phones with magic in addition to science, that the land, the ground, the rain has told them to behave; Ghana knows that a grave misstep of her people could jeopardize the effect of her drums and song. I buy my last helping of wagashi, take photos, exchange email addresses. My time in East Mamprusi is coming to an end.

The small puppy newly added to our compound household begins to follow me adoringly from the house to my office. At night, the goats wedge themselves against my door in a foul-smelling, innocent-if-stupid attempt at keeping me inside. The joking, half-pleading words of Sumnibomah women on my last visit repeat through my head: "You're not leaving yet, you're sleeping another night...". As my final load of washing dries under eaves pouring with rain--yet another of Mama Ghana's attempts at restraining me--I organize the last of my hours in Nalerigu into a schedule of last-minute errands, of simple tasks, of goodbyes. My last family meal passes. I give my final gifts.

In the early morning, I meet the motorbike called to take me to the transit station. Our load is cumbersome but manageable, as it was the first night I arrived. We ride carefully and reach our point of transfer; I buy my ticket, I stow my luggage, and I say my goodbyes to the driver.

The last bus of the week pulls out onto the Gambaga road turning south-west: towards Tamale, away from Nalerigu.

I fix my eyes on the sunrise over the Gambaga escarpment.

Exchange Rate

2008-08-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Just as I gave up things to come to Ghana, I find myself cataloguing the things I'm giving up in leaving it. I traded subculture for tribal culture; now I pass from not being allowed to show my thighs to having to shave my legs. I'm exchanging good white wine and a night life for bathing under the Milky Way. Sincere greetings from strangers for impersonal pedestrian safety; the sweeps of the Gambaga escarpment for the peaks of the Detroit skyline. The artisan community of Bolgatanga for the artist community of Toronto. Friends, family, familiarity and adventure, for friends, family, familiarity and history. Language barriers with common interest, for interest barriers with common language. Public transit that will wait for you, for public transit that arrives on time. Being "the white person" for being no one special, which is much more appetizing than it seems (I guarantee every EWB volunteer in Ghana has had a moment where they wanted to do terrible things to the next guy who reminded them they're a “Suliminga”).

But as I leave West Africa, I'm forced to take stock of the things I'm bringing home—obviously apart from Ghanaian outfits, Dagomba hats, and shea butter soap. I've taken enough pictures to drown my little ThinkPad laptop—they should be enough to give people a feel of what it was like, and just might be enough to help explain the things I've seen. I've taken recipes for food made with peanuts and fish, and the skill to eat it with only my right hand. I've taken an upper-leg strength and tone that can only come from perfecting the daily squat, and a right shoulder thinned but strong from carrying everything I need on it. I'm bringing a rear end bonier than usual from malarial weight loss and too many rocky jaunts on motorbikes. I'm bringing less-widened eyes, an understanding, a million questions. I'm bringing stories. I'm bringing hope.

And I'm bringing enthusiasm to convey my experiences, to use these four months in Ghana as the lever that moves the people of Africa closer to North American life. I haven't decided when to close this blog, because despite leaving Ghana, my placement is definitely not over. I have 8 months of explanation, sharing and storytelling to do—and thats apart from my almost inevitable battle with reverse-culture shock, as I come back into a world that is supposed to be familiar, but is so, so different than what I thought it was...

I've been told the most difficult part of this adventure is not leaving, is not the entry into a new culture. It's fitting yourself back into the one you left.

I'll keep you posted.

In Quiet Ways

2008-08-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

While my back was turned, the trees of Tamale erupted into varying shades of yellow flowers; it is the closest thing to a Western change of season I've seen since I arrived, and it reminds me of how long I've been living, as the locals say, “in Ghana here”. The taxi I take to the CIFS office is driven by a laughing Dagomba man who asks me, after I've greeted him in Dagbani, how long I have been “in Ghana here”.

As July screeches to a close, I find myself in a calm scramble to tie up loose ends. My schedule is erratic and comprehensive, pocked with day-by-day activity notes: day-trip to Sumniboma, EWB report 3 submission, cook for host family, visit primary school, PARED diagnostic...

...As August opens, I find myself in a flurry of activity unexpected in the last weeks of July. Where I thought was a work schedule like an open plain is actually riddled with the moguls of donor NGO visits; where I thought I would have two weeks to wrap up without interruption, I must navigate my wrap-up between entertaining the wonderful people from CARE international, the World Food Program, the District Assembly, and our own CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). I'm glad for the bustle and business; it keeps me on task, keeps my momentum up, increases the balance on my still-growing bank of experiences. I'm glad for the field visits and the travelling that accompanies them; it gives me an opportunity to say goodbye to the more inaccessible pockets of East Mamprusi that I adore so much.

A former JF in my district a few years ago advised me to “enjoy falling in love with Nalerigu!” Instead I've found myself in love with the small surrounding communities; with the hills and valleys, the rushing sound of the streamwater after a hot rain, the rocky roads, baobabs in Sumniboma and Kusasi dancers in Zarantinga. I feel as though Nalerigu is not home—nothing can stand in for the place where I grew up—but is a benevolent stopping place, full of bustle and enough activity to keep a girl on her toes. Whenever I climb onto the back of a motorcycle, though, on my way out on the dangerous paths and steppes that lead to the small communities we visit, I feel the closest sensation to coming home that I have had since coming to “Ghana here”.

This coming week is my last in East Mamprusi, and as the preparations to leave become more hurried, I look at the people I pass on the street and wake to the sound of in a subtly different way. I am happy—nervous, slightly frightened, but very happy—to be going home, but I am not pleased to be leaving the North. Even as the tension of these weeks becomes tighter, and the small, culture-shocking differences in the way people are grate on me like a steel emery, I think about not seeing the hills and the remarkable blue of the clear West African sky, and it feels strange and hollow. What surprises me the most is my reaction: I have been told many times that I will never want to leave Africa, but not that the prospect of going home would be more appetizing, but less scary. I feel almost as though I could leave the people—but the thought of leaving the land tugs at me in quiet ways...

Entrepreneurs

2008-08-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hacking out a living in a developing country is no easy task—if you are lucky enough that personal circumstances do not complicate it, macro-economic trends probably do. Nevertheless, I have seen some inspiring examples of people taking their skills, talents, and assistance and turning them into business.

These are some of them.

Rita runs her dress-making business from the former office of my NGO. Under the old PARED masthead are wide-flung barn doors that open her workshop: a set of tables, six Chinese manual sewing machines with stools, and 50 different posters of dress, outfit and clothing style collections. After scraping together enough money for technical training in Kumasi, she can reproduce any of the over 500 styles with little more than a glance at them—and make you a purse from the fabric fragments to boot. Rita works 7 days a week, 51 weeks a year when allowing for funerals, weddings, and the annual bout of malaria. She also trains 4-6 apprentice seamstresses, which she says she is thankful for “because otherwise I would have no friends”. Rita's work is consistent and busy—and despite struggling slightly to pay rising utility bills, her business appears to be taking off. It's easy to see why: Rita is easy company, and a good tailor to boot.

Bobobo's is situated across the Bolga road from a ritzy gas station in Tamale, but their products can be found in stores along the main drag. Through a grant from the French development agency, the women of Bobobo's buy organic, ethical-cooperative-farmed mangoes from the Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (a current partner of EWB) for solar-drying and packaging. The fruit leather is sinfully delicious, and it is one of the few places to buy any sort of dried fruit in the Northern Region at all. The low cost and maintenance of the solar dryer has allowed them to branch into drying bananas, coconut, tomatoes, ginger and hot pepper, and revenue from these sales is directed into the procurement of a juicing facility to expand their product line. Finding this place was a boon to me in the North, where fruit is seasonal to the extreme. The fact that eating dried mangoes can be virtually pesticide-, emissions-, cruelty- and guilt-free is an added bonus.

Adoko can be found by locating the bobbing, roaming Rasta hat in the Tamale Metromass bus station. A musician from Bolgatanga, he learned the trade of carving wooden toys from the same man who taught him to play the guitar. Smiling warmly and flipping the tiny acrobats that spin through his handiwork, he's a calm centre of the swirling hurricane of humanity that is the permanent weather condition of the station. For Ghc1.50, the toys are meant to bridge the gap in income between gigs with his band—after all, he said, he learned to make them so he could stay away from hard labour in construction gangs, and still have the energy (and undamaged fingers) to play at night. Every time I see him, there is a new invitation to a new gig; I have yet to see if his playing matches his handiwork.

Many people believe that the road to sustainable development is paved with economics instead of good intentions. EWB partners such as the Rural Enterprise Project are making leaps and bounds to help take small business into the smaller towns of the North, and help them succeed—but it is nice to see that even without REP, some people are taking care of business.

Hello, Goodbye

2008-08-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

As my placement draws to a close, the focus I previously directed to establishing and cementing relationships in East Mamprusi has turned to closing and honouring the relationships I've formed. Some require short goodbyes, scheduled on a lunch break or afternoon before I leave for Tamale; other, more important relationships require some planning, and some quality time. When I realized the time I had remaining in Nalerigu had dwindled to two weeks, I pushed aside other concerns and arranged moto transportation to the Sakogu area: I needed to say goodbye to Sumniboma.

The three weeks that passed since my last visit had changed the place in the ways only good rains can. The maize and millet obscured the views of the village from the winding footpaths; the baobabs hung heavy with fruit where they once hung with flowers. My day-trip was poorly timed on both a Sakogu market day and a voter registration drive, and those who weren't out making their 4-day purchases were putting themselves on the political grid for the happily “compulsory activity” that is voting in their community. The Pastor had traveled to Gambaga for the periodic retrieval of the National Health Insurance Scheme hospital admission cards—we passed him on the road—but Doris, Mr. Sumniboma, the IFTs and the EQUALL teachers were all there, excitedly greeting me, happy that I had returned. It felt like an illogical sort of homecoming, so natural despite my language barriers, and so comfortable despite the lack of Nalerigu's amenities. On the way to the Chief's palace I was barraged with news: Doris' husband was returning from South Africa where he drove trucks, classes had vacated for a week, Mr. Sumniboma's mother's hut was threatening to collapse so she had to move into the spare room. For every item, I had a question—how was Doris' son? Is there any news on the Pastor's second wife? How is the teak seedling planting going? Have you been getting enough rain? The biggest news was splashed all over the village in the work and bustling activity of the women and kids. The District Assembly had approved a plan for the construction of a new 3-room school block for the community last week. In typical Sumniboma fashion, the entire community had begun breaking rocks for the foundation the next day. The many neat ziggurat piles of small stones stood like monuments to the incredible verve of this community. Especially when I realized the men had been seeding a new tree plantation, and the work was done entirely by young mothers and kids on vacation.

After sitting with the Chief, who thanked me for the mutual exchange of knowledge and asked me not to forget them, he suggested we take a photo of us together, so that they could have some record of my being here. The user-friendly nature of my camera preceded my teaching, and before I even got up to show them, they had figured it out. I promised to leave the photo with PARED; I wondered as I promised if it would wind up framed in the Chief's reception area, like the photos of his prominent brothers and sons.

The women wanted to give me something to remember them by, and to my delight, decided I should apply zaama, local henna on the hands and feet that dyes them a deep red. Doris and I talked for an hour, my hands wrinkling in the brown goo covering them. When we removed it, the colour was unbelievable, but the reaction from the women was incredible. Whooping laughter, excited hand-clapping, and the exclamation that I was a real Ghanaian woman now came rushing out of every house I went to greet. What a shame, I thought, that I only had 2 weeks.

The day was spent passing from house to house, explaining my intention and my obligation to leave, what Doris called “going to goodbye them”. Over and over, I was met with exuberant and surprised welcomes, swiftly followed by a look of disappointment that I was going “back to my place”. I left each house followed by cries of “God bless you!” and “Safe journey!”. Some even tried to give me kola—a cedi to purchase a traditional kola nut as a goodbye present, and enough money to buy ingredients for a whole meal's soup.

During late afternoon, standing by the motorbike about to depart for Nalerigu, the sadness hit me like a blow to the stomach. It wasn't like homesickness; I was missing Sumniboma already, and I hadn't even left. It was more regret that I may miss the leaps of progress that the amazing people of this village are fated for. To me, they are the poster-children for development—a whole community of Dorothys, in EWB-speak.

Remembering them cannot be difficult: they are impossible to forget.

For my fellow DRED heads at home...

2008-08-03T08:32:00.001-07:00

Being at once a development worker, and a drama student, coming to a completely different culture sparked my interest in the performance art that culture breeds. It took me some time to find some examples of Ghanaian drama to experience firsthand; nothing up here is affluent enough to fund luxuries like theatres, and the school curriculums under-emphasize it, if it's present at all. But I finally found some—in the capital city of the Northern Region, and here in my home village. This is what I've figured out so far.

Drama here starts in dance--tribal storytelling of myths, or loosely improvised interactions between people dressed as chiefs and old gods at festivals. There is much more dance in these than drama, and the traditional drummers narrate the stories with a sort of morse-code with the drums. All traditional dance-dramas are non-speaking, although sometimes they sing. However, in high schools and through NGOs, western drama is being adapted to serve the needs of people here.

In NGOs, role playing is being utilized as a means of community outreach and social justice work. Role-playing modules that look suspiciously like Boal work are brought into rural communities and used to address issues like women's rights, HIV/AIDS stigmatization, pollution and bush burning, and to explain intervention projects for everything from water and sanitation to the installation of teak plantations. In rural and urban areas alike, Ghanaians have embraced the "energizer"--warm-up drama games that break up the monotony of the myriad workshops and long discussions that occur in the development community. I dont know who introduced it, but I think it's wonderful--it's great to see proud, well-dressed Ghanaian professionals clapping their arms together like crocodiles and still retaining their dignity with their peers.

In high schools, drama clubs and theatre projects are an after-school activity. They occur both in the local language of the school and in English, and more often than not, are written by the students or staff themselves. It is most common for the plays to be moralistic and educational in theme and tone, trying to teach good practices such as hand-washing, respect for women, and using latrines. That being said, I've found that excretion humour--the poop joke--is a universal standard, and is wholeheartedly embraced by Ghanaian high school populations in their drama. Technically, high school dramas in Ghana happen a lot like high school dramas in Canada: simple sets of furniture and props are used, and changed for a change in setting; students wear costumes that are easily recognizable to help to identify the roles they play, and they tailor language, speech patterns and accents to reinforce character. The structure of the plays is often simple, chronological, and familiar to me from my own high school. The difference is they're usually performed outside.

From my understanding, famous African playwrights such as Wole Soyinka are more often produced in the south of the country than here in the Northern Regions. There are also African stories that are the cultural equivalent of Oedipus Rex (adaptations of the original? I dont know--the people I've talked to think it's an African tale), possible evidence that drama that is too contentious to be put onstage here is shifted into literature.

Film, through the influences of Bollywood (India), Nollywood (the booming Nigerian film industry) and Hollywood, has crept into the popular culture of Ghana. Movies written and filmed in the Dagbani language are readily available in the large cities in the North--I'm bringing one home, although I'll barely be able to understand what's being said. These movies show the merger between traditional Dagomba culture and contemporary culture in Ghana fairly well--and the language barrier almost recreates the feeling I had getting off the plane.

Almost.

"Come and Buy!"

2008-08-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Every 3rd day, Nalerigu begins to buzz with extra activity. Trotros and lorries ferry people and goods from surrounding villages to the centre of town starting as early as 8am. Street food sellers, and shops on the main drag or close to the marketplace itself have already been preparing for the influx--people from rural villages for miles around travel here as Nalerigu becomes the economic centre of the district. Market day draws out almost every housewife and most husbands for errands and social interaction--even the American doctors at the BMC make the trip in their green pickup trucks. And for good reason: in Ghana here, market day is certainly an experience.

My walk from my house to the market takes me past my office, the Coca Cola distribution point, and the best Wagashi seller in town. Chronically incapable of resisting, I spend 20 pesewas--roughly 20 cents-- on the deep-fried local cheese and munch happily through the path as it narrows conspicuously past the threshold of market stalls. There are many avenues into an open-air market; I start at the right-hand side, partially because of a lack of human congestion, but mostly because it brings me straight to the African traditional medicine stalls.

I greet the young man operating the stall, and begin asking the questions I never had the nerve to ask until now.

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a bag of beige grass and dirt.

"Elephant shit", he tells me.

I'm told the half-skinned crocodile skulls, elephant skin, ocelot pelts and various other endangered animal parts come from Nigeria--the popular answer for the origins of other things equally illegal. The row of traditional medicine supply stalls all have different mystery suppliers--the bird heads and tortoise shells come from "the big man", or "a special place", or simply "Guinea". They are supposed to treat any number of problems, both physiological and social--it is just as likely to receive a potion or treatment for jealous neighbours as it is for a nasty headache. The young man running the stall begs me for my telephone number, so he can follow me to "my place". I tell him he better learn a new trade first; there are few ocelots in Canada.

The traditional medicine booths segue in three directions into hardware materials and dated electronics, cheap Chinese-imported sandals, and bowls upon bowls of Ghanaian rice and maize for sale. The market sprawls in a complex maze of stalls, shelters and sellers, with food and ingredient sellers roughly linked by a winding path, fabric and cloth sellers dotted throughout, and electronics, kola, beauty supplies, pots and utensils, and ready-made clothing and shoes on the perimeter. The noise is impressive and joyous; the colours are intense. I squeeze through teenage girls with baskets, children selling local frozen sugar concoctions, and women with babies on their backs and grain sacks on their heads. When I reach the food and ingredients, the women erupt into a chorus of "Suliminga, come and buy!" I'm offered local okra and bananas from Techiman, hundreds of kilometres to the south. I pass up both, but buy tomatoes and garlic--I plan on making pasta for my host family.

The Fulani man who owns the first fabric stall I ever entered greets me in lispy French, takes my hand and leads me under the shelter for his wares. When he asks to know what I'm buying from him today, I have to disappoint him--I'll bankrupt myself if I buy any more gorgeous Ghana cloth.

Finished with my purchases, I saunter home under the sun--stopping, out of utter weakness, for more delicious, heart-attack-inducing wagashi, and to greet a shopkeeper friend with beautiful facial tattoos. Two children selling bean flour donuts from containers on their heads follow me home, skipping, giggling and demanding I buy 50 pesewas worth of their food.

I wait til they draw close, spin around and chase them away, as they shriek with laughter.

Between Safehouse and POW camp

2008-08-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

The 86 elderly women crammed two to a room in the dilapidated compounds I visit come from different tribes, different villages, and even different districts. They have one thing in common: forced from their homes, they live in squalor in Gambaga, the capital of the East Mamprusi district, under the care and rule of the local chief. Like most refugees, the brutal conditions they live in now are still much better than the ones they left behind. Unlike most refugees, the conditions they fled were imposed on them by their own communities, the places they grew, and raised families in.

The Gambaga Witch Camp was established over 100 years ago, when a local Muslim religious leader demanded that instead of publicly killing the women in the locality deemed as "witches", they should be sent to him for care and "de-witching" under traditional authority. Eventually, custody of the camp and all the women in it was transferred to the Chief of Gambaga, but the conditions, concepts and practices that both inspired the camp and maintain it all remain. The camp walks a thin line between women's shelter and POW settlement. Most of the women accused of witchcraft arrive at the camp heavily drugged and beaten; once put into the custody of the chief, he exposes them to traditional shrines to determine whether they are actually witches--regardless of their testimony or opinion on the matter. If they pass the test, they are sent back to their homes, the witness of the Chief enough to largely clear them of suspicion. If they fail, they are settled at the witch camp--but not before a process of "de-witching", in which they have the small gods of the shrines invoked against them, and are fed potions designed to impede their "spiritual powers".

The man who introduced me to the women is from a local NGO called the Friends of Disadvantaged Women and Children, formed specifically to protect the human rights of those charged with witchcraft in Ghana. He tells me that most common reasons for women being sent to the camp are sickness without treatment, poor harvests, and bad dreams or epilepsy, all blamed on old traditionalist women. In the same breath, he tells me that many of these women ARE witches, and not just women accused of witchcraft; he claims that polygamist practices prompt women to "witch-hunt" the children of their fellow wives, to assure the success and inheritance of their children. This attitude is far from the last contradiction I encounter on my visit here; I am told the women will answer any question I put to them, then find questions about the reasons they are at the witch camp, and whether or not they consider themselves to have "spiritual powers" not even asked of them. The women are allowed to come and go from the camp as they please, but they are required to farm for the Chief even in their advanced age, and with no familial support, have very limited means of securing a supporting income. The ones who are fit enough travel far into the bush to gather firewood; the ones who are not sit in the compound, waiting. Some even have young children sent for them to care for, adding injury and collateral damage to an already insulting situation.

Mariama Aleedu has a sharp mind and bright brown eyes for a woman of her 60's; she has been living at the witch camp for 6 years. When I ask her if she enjoys living here, she tells me of how they suffer hunger, poor living conditions, and unshakable, heart-numbing apathy. When I ask if she would like to go home, she tells me gravely that it isn't safe. Efforts by the Chief and organizations like the Friends of Disadvantaged Women have been made to ensure the stay of these women is more comfortable than at present, but no one has even begun to tackle the issues that force these women here in the first place. The seething, roiling problem that is women's lack of rights in Africa is corroding lives in many ways--the Gambaga Witch Camp is an example of some of the more complex.

High Tide

2008-07-30T03:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-15T09:36:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-13T05:59:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Colour, Consistency, Frequency, Volume

2008-06-27T04:36:00.000-07:00

(photos of my precious latrine pending internet reliability)
This is for you, Stan.
You all know I do it. You do it too. You all knew it was going to be a challenge resplendent in all aspects of my life here.
For my sake and yours, lets talk about it.
Poop.
In Ghana, excrement is everywhere. I smell it in the streets, sweep it from the compound 3 times a day, witness its manufacture in fields in full view of all passing public (especially by grinning children screaming “Salaminga Hello!”), worry about it in my water. Its presence is dangerous and essential: it grows the food I eat from infertile soil, holds the walls of my compound together, gives the first danger-signs of illness, and can kill you when trifled with. Every illness in Ghana is accompanied by it. Revealing you are ill is a surefire means into a discussion of its colour, consistency, frequency, volume, pain, and anecdotes about any of the above, by your host family, your boss, random strangers at the house or in the street, and doctors of every type. After such discussion with the latter, it is often likely you'll be requested to somehow scrape together a sample for study, assumedly from somewhere in the ten foot concrete hole you last deposited into, housed in a container of your provision, not theirs. For Western volunteers, poop is such an accepted and open aspect of life that we buy an arsenal of pharmaceuticals and adult diapers to ward it from our clothes before we even leave the country—and when that fails, we have a support group to discuss and get through the, uh, fallout. The group gets its exercise, too—we often have someone new to add to the club. In West Africa, the laws of gastrointestinal logic are disbanded: there is absolutely no correlation between the volume put into the system, and the volume expelled from it.
The considerable exposure to the presence and reminders of poop require some psychological assimilation just to help volunteers get through the day. The latrine becomes the one dark, smelly, buzzing and uncomfortable point of solitude in the busy compound; even the clicking of the resident two-inch cockroaches fades away into the background noise as the call of nature is answered. Reading material is available—in the form of old school notes and waste paper, destined for what could be termed “hygienic use”. The flies become the group of friends you always knew were a bad influence, but still hung around with out of habit. Although expensive, toilet paper is available, allowing soft, holy respite from the chapping continual use of Hilroy notebooks tends to cause in the nethers. The leg-numbing squatting for what feels like hours is great for the glutes. It's not ideal, but it certainly is dealable—and I personally enjoy the knowledge that my use of the latrine prevents my personal contribution to the contamination of the local water table.
Urine is a completely different story for another day, but suffice it to say I try to calm myself with the reminder that it's largely water, ammonia, and sterile.

Medical Emergency

2008-06-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

(photos pending reliable internet)
The waiting spaces of Clinic Days at the Baptist Medical Centre are dark, hot and loud. People begin cramming into benches at 6am; by 6:30 when the lorries arrive carrying the sick and their relatives, the benches are filled, and the floor is running out of space. People go through the check-in process with any number of ailments, from the minor to the dire—and often the more serious it is, the farther away they have come from. Most rural communities lack orthodox health facilities of any kind, but the majority have herbalists, traditional healers and birth attendants who can deliver babies and effectively treat malaria, some snake bites, fevers, and even minor cholera without leaving the community. Those who must leave have almost invariably been treated insufficiently or inappropriately, and are weaker, sicker, and in more danger than they were before. The doctors of the BMC tell me of the “fracture specialists” that treat in many communities, including Nalerigu, by twisting, turning and massaging of the broken limb. For every time this method is successful, they say, they have to perform two amputations of gangrenous, poisonous, deadwood limbs. The rainy season tends to complicate things; severe cases of malaria, pneumonia, typhoid and cholera become a daily challenge at the hospital, and fractures, black cobra bites, and accidents become commonplace as people work their farms.

Wards are filled with the smells of sanitation fighting the odours of road dust and human sweat, as the relatives and friends of those admitted visit daily, regardless of the distance traveled to do so. There is no fee to visit, but the meals, bed, care, blood transfusions, consultations and medications come at a price. A bad bout of malaria in one member can cause a family incredible stress—it becomes the choice between risking the loss of a family member, and risking the whole family's starvation after food is sold to pay medical bills. Nevertheless, the line at the pharmacists' counter never seems to thin. In Ghana, there is a medicine for everything, parceled out in old collection envelopes from American Baptist churches.

The small sun shelter of the Nutrition Centre is always bursting with mothers cradling children suffering from “kwashiorkor”, the grotesquely bloated stomach and frail body of television famine victims severely malnourished during their most crucial developmental years. Healthier children, wrapped in a sea of IV tubes and watching Ghanaian children's television with broad smiles on their TZ-coated faces, are often there too. It is the worst now, during the rainy season—it has been a whole year since the last harvest and the flood that destroyed farms and homes, and under normal conditions some of the villages that send their sick to the BMC may not have had a stable food supply in 9 months, forget a supply that is nutritionally balanced. Despite this, the Nutrition Centre is one of the more pleasant, relaxed sections of the hospital. It is one of the few places that deliver much-needed medical assistance that is relatively risk-free.

Despite the lateness of the day, and the line of almost 300 before me, I am ushered to the front, given immediate consultation, blood smears and tests, and sat to wait as my relatively minor case is rushed to the forefront. I ask the American and Swedish doctors serving me to place me at the end of the line—and am answered with ominous honesty that there is no “end of the line”. Those sweating and suffering around me for hours before I even entered the grounds do not so much as raise an eyebrow in indignation.
White privilege strikes again; I am heart-heavy for the rest of the day.

Blanc, la mystere

2008-06-27T04:25:00.000-07:00

(photos pending functional internet)
I have always thought that I am here to learn, so that later I may teach. The nature of my placement—short, probing, and with a very able partner NGO—made me very aware from the start that the majority of the impact from my stay in Ghana will likely spring from how my experiences here are leveraged in Canada. With this in mind, I began my sweat through the savanna asking questions, taking photos, and chronicling everything I could about the lives of those around me, justifying as I went that things were different where I come from, and I would like those at home to understand. It has taken me six weeks and innumerable conversations to realize the hubris and backwardness of my attitude towards my learning here, and it flooded into my vision at the quiet, embarrassed question of a child politely asking, “Why are your legs different colours than your arms?”
After explaining the concept of sun damage to skin, and laughing at the gasps of shock when I revealed my considerable Birkenstock tan, I realized what I had been doing for weeks: instead of absorbing their way of life alone, I had also been sharing my own. Instead of downloading, I had been exchanging. And in that process, I had been learning much, much more than I would have if engaged in a solely one-sided process.
Westerners are truly a strange breed in a place like Ghana, coming from all over the world for short stints of busy, alienating and culture-shocked time. Just as so many people in Canada believe through exposure that the face of Africa is that of the World Vision child, many people in Ghana believe that the face of the West is an equivalent of Donald Trump in a safari hat. At transit stations, it is assumed I am going to tourist-driven National Parks in Damongo; everywhere I go, people ask me for my water, money, clothes and jewelery, because it is assumed I can just go and get some more. These requests increase when I mention I am working in development—in Ghana, “development work” is a highly-paying profession, the equivalent of being a banker or an accountant in Toronto. The dichotomy between what many Ghanaians think they know about Westerners and what they actually DO know is a mirror image of what Westerners think they know about Ghanaians.
It's not much.
I was met with disbelief and laughter when I talked about Canadians eating soup with a spoon, and no solid mass of grain to compliment it; when I talked about snow 5 months of the year, and temperatures of -25ºC; when I mentioned that it cost a lot of money to get to Ghana, but I am not being paid for my work here, and may have trouble paying my rent next year. I have been met with anger at children passing on the street who swear that I promised them a soccer ball gthe last time I was in Ghana, and frustration from Mamprusis when they mistake my name, because "all you whites look the same". I have been met with wonder that in Canada there are no legal and few social sanctions against Mulatto children or registered landed immigrants; that women own houses equally with their husbands, have full autonomy within a marriage and receive alimony payments in divorce; that there are people in Canada who suffer from poverty, and live in the dangerous streets without assistance from the government.
I had come to Ghana prepared to be a sponge, when I should have come prepared as an emissary. For every fact, attitude and truth that I don't know or understand about Ghanaians, they have an equally gaping void of understanding about me—and more questions than I have time to answer in my short months here. In every one of their queries stands an attitude, and every conversation about my life and country yields an insight into theirs. All learning is an exchange, and their steps towards understanding me yield ways in which I can understand them. The foreign, the White, and the places they come from seem to be a mysterious, mythical paradise to escape to and an easy way to reach happiness for the many, many Ghanaians that ask me “How can I get to Canada?”. Perhaps with learning, with exchange, they will slow their search for a way out of their wonderful country, and discover the opportunities and potential for greatness that brought me to it.

Farming Season

2008-06-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

(photos to come pending functional internet)
When the long-awaited rains finally come in, the tone of Nalerigu shifts in subtle, but perceptible ways.
The town empties out during seemingly random hours, before and after which you see men walking hand-made hoes leaned on dirty shoulders back from their farm acres. Goats and pigs, usually left to wander in and out of traffic and yards indiscriminately, are tied to anything and everything they cannot wrest from the ground--an act of protection for the maize shoots newly sprouting everywhere. On my walk home from work I hear the repetitive "thwack" and "thud" of hand-ploughing as every patch of fertile land surrounding compounds and other buildings is softened and converted into garden patches by women, children, and young men. Tractors roll in and out of narrow footpaths, reaching impasse after impasse with donkey-drawn carts, motorbikes, and water-carriers. School attendance wanes as family farms become priority; schools lie dormant when it rains, with no students or teachers able to trek through the pounding elements to wake the colourful buildings up. Lush green overtakes the red Ghana dust as weeds, ground cover, and eventually crops all spring into frantic growth. It is a time of work, but not of anxiety--provided the rains are good.
This year, it appears they are not. I am told by veterans of Nalerigu that by this late in the season, the rains should be every day, instead of the every-four-day schedule meteorology has roughly endowed us with. Nalerigu natives try to keep their optimism up, no doubt as a means of protection against the memory of the inordinate damage of last year's drought and flood. Food aid still streams into East Mamprusi to raise the burden of farmers that lost not only their homes and belongings, but the very topsoil that keeps them alive, to the rush of water south from Burkina last September. Though it makes me uneasy, I am glad for the aid this time--if just to give these farmers an opportunity to sow again, and try to rebuild their foundations.
We at PARED are just as affected by the difference in pull the farming season exerts. Farms and farmers become priority as we engage in the CIFS Food Security Initiative proposal process, late due to rains and the aforementioned lack of anxiety many experience during this season. The busy nature of these few months pose difficulties with this CIFS process: ploughing and sowing season is not the best window in which to request the time, thought, effort and dedication of subsistence farmers literally ploughing for their lives. Unfortunately, the timeline was not ours to choose: CIDA, possibly remembering the ease of summer vacations past, calls the shots on the FSI's with the snapping of purse strings and the urgency to help.
It rained very early this morning, after a day of scorching temperatures and blistering sun. Already the ground is dry, reverting to the sandy guinea savanna it is, from the fertile croplands we need it to be. Nevertheless, all around me on my walk to work I see maize leaves struggling towards the sun, more proof of this nation's dogged determination to survive.

Photo Roundup #2

2008-06-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm currently Ill with a capital "i", so I'll post extra later: for now, photos from the past weeks;

Rita, my seamstress, working on the manual sewing machines that turn out most of the clothes in the Northern Region

Mother and children, sowing maize at Kukigbini--a community in which we're running a CIFS food security project.

Um, CuteOverload? I win. Two of the three stooges, my tiny cats at the house.

Nalerigu women carrying firewood to sell--a last resort for a majority of women in the North when the food runs out, and a major player in the desertification and lack of fertility in the farmlands here

A village chief carving the handmade hoes that most people, young and old, use to till acres of land with their hands and the strength of their backs

Boys and girls of Kukigbini, androgynous through malnutrition and frightened of me, but respectfully standing still--their mothers wanted a photo.

PARED at work--a village woman collecting the culmination of a partnership with OXFAM, a metal donkey cart for carrying water, goods, crops, and often people.

There are so, so many more--this week I venture into tourist country, to Damongo and Mole National Park for the midsummer JF retreat. Expect updates when healed, rested, and able to eat again!

An Open Letter to Ghanaians Who Eat

2008-06-15T03:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Ghanaians,

Since coming to your wonderful country and meeting you wonderful people, it has been brought to my attention in an overwhelming number of ways how little I understand you. My best efforts have yielded small victories, and I continue in the fight to reach even a meagre level of comprehension of the way you think, work and live, but there is one facet of your life that, try as I may, I do not think I will ever understand.

Ghanaians, you eat like crazy people.

Let me explain. In Canada, I am rarely referred to as a big eater; there are a few dishes on a few occassions that prompt me to pile a plate and a half of food into my digestive system in less than an hour, groan at my own gastronomical hubris, and go have a nap, but in general I tend to respect the fact that the human stomach is only as big as a fist. Stupidly, I assumed this was less of a cultural thing than a humanity thing, and that eating what I would consider sane amounts of food was fairly standard issue all over the world. Ghanaians, I'm sorry for my Western-centric stupidity, but the fact that I'm so terribly, terribly wrong does not help me reconcile that on a thrice-daily basis I see portions bigger than my whole head being shoveled into skinnier people than I've ever seen off a runway in Paris. I would give my left leg for one-tenth of your metabolism, especially in light of the fact that in addition to centering on gargantuan portions, the overwhelming majority of your diet consists of carbs and water. I, the struggling vegetarian, am staring at an entire culture of people being pleaded with to eat their vegetables, because no one has managed to engineer an ear of corn or a yam tuber with the vitamins, minerals and fibre that people need to survive on only yams or corn, the way you're trying to. And you must know it somewhere in your minds, too, because you don't let yourself eat without putting yourself through a certain degree of torture and punishment for not having the salad. Whether it's stirring TZ thicker than molasses over a roaring charcoal fire in 45 degree weather, or systemically pulverizing yams into fufu like you're working on a chain gang, there's really no such thing as an easy meal here, is there? Who first looked at a yam and said "Hey, lets peel this, boil it, beat the living crap out of it for no less than three hours, pour boiled hot peppers all over it, and put it in our mouths every day for the rest of our lives"? And how do you eat the same meal, multiple times every day, for twenty eight years, and still miss it when one day someone passes you some rice and beans and reminds you there is food in the world that is not TZ?

Not that the other food strays very far from what you're used to. Every single Ghanaian dish I have ever had fell into one of four flavour categories: hot pepper, peanut, okra, and/or fish. Most things you like to put in your mouth for a meal fall into a number of these categories at once. And when you cook anything else, somehow they still wind up tasting like one of the Big Four. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate shrimp-flavoured chicken, but Ghanaians, you delivered. And when I say "chicken", I mean -a chicken-: for you, Ghanaians, the whole animal is meat. Opening up the compound freezer, I was mistakenly surprised to see that the "meat" that was fulfilling my protein requirement later in the day was actually the slack-jawed, scream-of-avian-terror face of a rooster's still-feathered head staring at his own dismembered feet. Well, waste not, want not, right Ghanaians? There's gotta be at least flavour value in muscles, veins, bones, face, extremities, skin, hair and horns, which is why it all winds up from the soup pot to my plate. Hey, and it removes the necessity for subtle work when lopping through an entire pig/cow/goat/donkey/fruit bat/dog/pigeon/fire-licked roasted trout with a machete, as "meat" of varying sorts tends to be dealt with. I guess any animal is meat, too--why, just today, one of you told me that eating dog meat adds 5 years to your life.

I'm really trying to get it, Ghanians, please believe me, I am. Every day I eat the TZ, I pound the peanuts, I try to fan the charcoal fire, cover my hands with food and shove them in my mouth to the knuckles like I have seen so many of you do. And there are some foods you've cooked up that I actually really enjoy--your palm nut soup and rice balls are fantastic, really, they are! But I still manage to disappoint you by being incapable of consuming the amount of food put in front of me, even when pared down in anticipation of the fact that you're feeding the Salaminga, and she doesnt eat.

So Ghanaians, what I'm trying to say is I'm sorry, but no matter how guilty I feel about it, I'm of pretty solid certainty that I'm physically, mentally and emotionally incapable of eating like you do.

But hey, food prices keep going up... so at least I'm cheap to feed!

Sincerely,
-Ash

Training Days

2008-06-08T07:03:00.001-07:00

If this first month of my JF placement has yielded anything, it is an awareness of, dread of, and ultimate appreciation for training. Since my embarking on this journey, more of my waking hours have been spent in training than in any other activity: of the 5 and a half weeks I have spent as an EWB volunteer, one was ill and locked in my room, and 3 were in training. And now, I have done the inevitable, and shifted from the trainee to the trainer. This past Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I worked with the PARED team to design and implement a training on the Canadian Initiative for Food Security (CIFS) proposal development, the next project we are taking on in approximately a dozen of 190 communities in Northern Ghana. The point of the Initiative is to involve communities in choosing, designing and implementing a project that will reduce or eliminate the number of months they go hungry in a year. The point of the training is to help our team develop the skills to first facilitate this process in the community, then develop it into a proposal to persuade the Canadian government to grant the funds necessary for its completion. I was trained in these skills with a number of my PARED teammates two weeks ago in Tamale; in classical West African fashion, while I fretted and stressed about preparing for delivering this to the rest of the East Mamprusi district, my coworkers refused to worry about it, delivered on the fly, and experienced at least moderate success.

This was, in a most West African fashion, a great learning experience with a steep learning curve. It quickly became clear that the colloquial, fast-talking, metaphor-slinging Canadian Ashley was neither necessary nor useful. A simple, humble, minimalist, confirmatory, laboriously slow-talking West African version took her place. This Ashley converted everything into a question to the audience in a clear attempt to maintain the audience participation necessary for consciousness to continue among them. She ended every second sentence with a variant of “Does this make sense?” or “Do we understand?”. She took pains to tease out explanations, examples, pros and cons, potential challenges and their solutions for every task she posed to the group. She did this because she had no idea what kind of understanding was being reached (if any), but had every terrifying idea of the fallout for the communities and the work made for her if she screwed this up. Essentially, this Ashley had absolutely no clue what the hell she was doing. Luckily, she was told whatever it was she did, she did it moderately well.

Next week we embark on the daunting but exciting process of community entry, building a relationship with people of different tribes and tongues, and helping them to decide on and eventually acquire what they need the most to build their own opportunities. I'm excited to begin; and will definitely keep you all posted.

Lifting Hearts, Lifting Wallets

2008-06-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not a classically religious person. While I value a concept of God, I highly value the secularization of our educational institutions, our places of healthcare and government. I'm a strong, strong advocate for freedom of belief, and for a religious system working FOR you, rather than the other way around. When I came to Ghana hearing of the primacy of belief over proof and the importance of religious institutions to the social fabric, I came interested to see the way they weave together with the society in which I would be living for the better part of four months. I am a little surprised at my first observations.

It did not shock me that my coworkers and host family were surprised I had no church. It was equally unsurprising when they offered--or rather, demanded--that I attend church with them; this was something I had expected from the start.

Rather, what surprised me was the operations of some of the churches I went to.

Sitting in a plastic lawn chair with the words "Assemblies of God Church Nalerigu" punctured into the sides, I watched the people who had spent the last three weeks explaining their suffering, asking me for the water I drank, the food that I ate, the clothes I was wearing and the small change I carried, the people who asked every time that I answered I worked for an NGO "Well, how will you help me out of my poverty?", pulling ten Ghana Cedis--the equivalent of two weeks' pay for many--out of their pocket for the offeratory. A pastor at the front of the church called for donations like an auctioneer, demanding ten as the price of their salvation and watching people leave their seats to trek to the front to contribute, a hero among their congregation. A prayer was said, and another request from the pastor--five Ghana Cedis. More contributions, from more people with children waiting in the aisles, all skinny legs, round stomachs and wide eyes. Yet another prayer; a request for two Cedis. Prayer, then one Cedi. I think of the assembled 80 people dressed in Sunday best bought and tailored especially for church, I was the only one who contributed nothing. I was too at a loss to move or think.

I have no doubt of the positive effects of religion on a population at risk. Congregations can serve as an extended family, a social (and sometimes even fiscal) support net, and a wellspring of spiritual support in the inevitability that times become difficult. Nevertheless, I left the church building paralyzed with anger at a system that can so easily work against the very people who support it. The money given in this way every week could put a KVIP latrine and rainwater collection and storage in every house, and cut malaria, cholera, and the workload of women and girls in half. In this town, it could give electricity and cold food storage, allowing people to keep meat and vegetables for more than one day, and increase the nutritional balance (and therefore the immune system and health) for the whole family. It could buy more uniforms and books to put their children in school than they would need, and still have money to pay for a lunch each day in lieu of a feeding program. What does it do for God? Where does it go, after the journey from the pocket of the impoverished to the offeratory basket is over?

In Canada, offerings like this are pooled to help the needy, the unfortunate, and often those in developing countries. In Nalerigu, the signs of clothing drives, donations, missions and feeding programs are everywhere, from the cast-off 1997 Nike tank top and Addidas backpack on my host sister, to the phased-out western textbooks at the Junior Secondary School. East Mamprusi alone boasts the Baptist Medical Centre, with its prayer meetings and American surgeons, and the Presbyterian Agricultural Station, with its agro-training and farming implements. I have no doubt that the majority of the help or handouts in Nalerigu comes from various religious institutions. But I also have no doubt that they are all Western religious institutions, harnessing the over-abundance of Western money.

I am shaken by the question; Who does Ghana donate to? And what does that say about why I am here?

The Elemental Difference

2008-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Fire is everywhere in Ghana-- in the cooking coals of compounds, the burning rubbish heaps of communities, the tailpipes of motorbikes and the hand-cranked stoves of village blacksmiths, the spent maize fields after harvest. It is in the hands of women, moving red-hot charcoal with bare, careworn fingertips to heat the evening meal. It is in the hearts of everyone, in their sparkplug-lit arguments exploding on the smallest light, and in the warmth of their love for each other when they laugh, smile, greet each other, sing; in the explosion of excitement in their children when something new arrives in town. It is in their festivals, red light reflected off dancing bodies, and in the eyes of sacrificial fowls and goats under the glint of the cutlass. It is in my face and shoulders, white skin freckling and bronzing under the cheerily merciless sun.

Ghanaians are fire-borne people, shaped like the Guinea Savannah under the hot breath of the Sahara Harmattan winds since time immemorial. I, a February child from a land of ice, am starting slowly to melt and trickle, trying to flow like their flames dance. I may emulate, but I am what I am; an ice woman would have to evaporate to become someone of fire.

I'm beginning to believe that owning this process, this placement, depends upon owning your differences. As a volunteer, the reason you have come here is that you are not the same; the idea is that that from your differences there is something to contribute, and that you can return to where you come from with a new difference that will help people further. I'm slowly, slowly beginning to realize how deep the differences are—and in turn, how simple it is to bridge them and live together. It is never easy, but very straightforward. Never easy, but so important.

Where the Magic Happens

2008-06-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

In pre-departure training we were told that in Ghana, what is provable is often less important than what is believed. I did not realize how true this was until the superstition started to seep through the walls of my compound.

I'm told that a woman who was a witch recently replaced a man's heart with a pig's heart. The pig died, but the man lived. She was sent to the Gambaga witch camp, described to me as a prison for witches, where she "cant kill anybody anymore".

I'm told the King of Mamprugu can hear everything that goes on around the community--if you ask him what you said on a certain day, he will know.

I'm told there is an ancient wall around Nalerigu made of bodies, stones, milk and honey. It was built during times of strife to protect Nalerigu--and it is so strong, it would cause helicopters to fall from the sky if they tried to bomb the town.

The most ardent of Christians and Muslims around me, the housewives and day-labourers, and the government workers and university graduates all assure me that juju is real, and they have seen it. At market, a number of women have asked me for my necklace because of its power to protect me; they have asked me where they too could get such a magic tattoo. The girls in my house worry about my impending visit to the witch camp; even though they have faith in the safety of the camp, they don't want me to return cursed, or worse.

It makes me wonder about some of the many things that I see every day in this place that I dont understand yet. What sort of purpose does the shopkeeping woman's arrowhead forehead tattoos serve? What does the monkey skull I saw on sale at market beside the goat tails and python teeth do to protect, or to harm?

Where does the tradition end, and the magic begin?

I've missed the fire festival by a few months, and leave before the yam festival; the most I can hope to witness is a lesser-known ceremony, a wedding, or a funeral. When I complete my witch camp visit, I'll be sure to post a full report.

I'm excited to see the magic in action.

Photo Post: Living Arrangements

2008-06-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Joyce and Doris, host sister and host mother

Nematu; Lydia's daughter, host kid, and resident screaming banshee

host brother, and the Manager of the Chesterfield. Both live with me.

My room....

The compound entrance with host siblings and omnipresent goats

Patience, host sister, washing dishes in outdoor kitchen

...the centre door leads to my room.
Arija, Elijah, Afia, and Nematu; host sisters and brother

More to come in the future!

“A Stranger in her Father's House, a Stranger in her Husband's”

2008-06-01T06:54:00.001-07:00

Most days in the office, I read Community Action Plans: documents generated by PARED and other field organizations that summarize the assets, needs, history, problems and requested solutions of impoverished communities. Over and over, the root causes of poverty manifest in the requests from these people: requests for KVIP latrines to improve sanitation, a borehole to improve water access and cleanliness, bullocks and donkeys to help plough their maize, millet and cassava fields, water pumps for gardening in the dry season. PARED is involved with over a dozen of these communities—and the more I read, the more I see social customs, attitudes and traditions complicating the already incredibly complex problem of village poverty in one important regard: an often overlooked and difficult to describe root cause of poverty, gender inequality.

Over and over, I read the descriptions of the Land Tenure Systems of these communities. Over and over, I read that women are traditionally barred from owning land, and that this causes them reduced yields when they farm on the least fertile bits of their husband's, the only plots available to them. Over and over I read the sentence “In our community, women and land are both owned by our men, who take care of their own”. Over and over, I read “In our tradition, property cannot own property”. And over and over, I read reports stating that village women sustain their families for sometimes up to 11 months after their husbands' crops run out, scraping out of their own pockets for staple food after paying school fees, health bills, and for food ingredients to stave off malnutrition. After, of course, they have brought water, cared for children, cooked for an army, cleaned a compound of clothes, floors, waste and dishes, farmed their husband's land, fed the animals, farmed their own, and waited on the whim of their husbands when he returns.

I see the attitude reflected in many of the CAPs: “A woman is a stranger in her father's house, and a stranger in her husband's”. Many of the people I speak to about this, villagers and development workers alike, say the same things. Since women are bound by duty to be married to another family, they cannot inherit land from their own. Since women are bound to be married and sent away, educating them is not a smart investment for a family with sons. Since new wives are from another family, another home, and sometimes another tribe, they are not entitled to any of the husband's family's property or wealth. Since new wives can leave their husbands, allowing them to own any part of their husband's inheritance can result in the lands of your ancestors being owned by aliens. And since their daughters are doomed to the same fate, the cycle continues.

Attitudes are changing. The CAP development process also serves as a sensitization for communities involved, asking them to inspect and evaluate their traditions, practices and habits and choose whether or not they contribute to their betterment as a village. Many communities look at the work of their women, see how strongly they support the community despite the overwhelming pressures and odds, and decide that a change in their favour is necessary. This shift is evident in the number of girls being sent to schools, the number of women voted onto Internal Community Project facilitation teams that run development initiatives from the ground, and the number of voices raising within the communities to speak about the inequality of women—from women and men alike. Nevertheless, there is still far to go. My Gender Officer counterpart, the entire PARED team, and myself and the rest of EWB, have a lot of road in front of us until we reach an equitable and beneficial arrangement for women.

And like them, we have a lot of water to carry.

Maddeningly Fine

2008-06-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings are an integral part of Ghanaian culture, the foundation for social interaction of any sort. Every time you pass someone on the street or in the office; every time you make eye contact with a stranger; every time you need to make a purchase, find out information, or even get someone in trouble; every time one human being engages in any sort of social congress with another, there is a long string of greetings involved, different for every cultural group. And for every one of them, the correct answer is “Fine”.

“Good morning!”
“Fine!”
“How is work?”
“It's fine!”
“How is your husband?”
“He's fine!”
“And your children?”
“Fine!”
“How is the farming?”
“Fine!”
“And your animals?”
“They're fine!”

I have visited people languishing under malaria who have told me they were “Fine”; walking through the hospital greeting patients bleeding from every orifice also elicits “Fine”. People in the middle of disciplining their children, in arguments, and chasing wayward goats, all “Fine”. I tell people here that I am certain if I could find a Ghanaian with his house burning down around his ankles, he would tell me that he was “Fine”. They laugh, and agree.

The question in my Canadian brain turns rather logically from “How are you?” to “Why ask, if the responses are the same?” When I ask this of my Ghanaian counterparts, my host family, and people in conversation on the street, they give me many important and interesting answers. Even in semi-urban areas like Nalerigu, everyone knows each other. The ties between friends and relations are strong, and further cemented with the knowledge that if you pass each other on the street, you will actually speak—whether you've met once, or have known each other for years. The social hierarchy is cemented every time a greeting is given: children bow to their elders, adults bow to the elderly, and everyone bows to the Chief and his council. It is an unavoidable conversation-starter, essential in this inherently friendly Northern Ghanaian culture. And sometimes, it is an important link to a tradition that threatens to slip with the influx of globalization.

Walking to work, greeting the strangers I pass in mangled Mampruli, starts my day with the message that despite my differences, or perhaps even because of them, I am welcome. Ending my day with a tsunami of children screaming the only English they know--“Salaminga, Hello!!”--reminds me that change is happening all around me, and like it or not, I am part of it. It reminds me that what is important to these people, these “Dorothy”s, is for me to observe, not to decide.

And it reminds me to ask better questions.

Last Day in Tamale

2008-05-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

The View from the Bus: the busy streets of Tamale

Walking through the crowded streets of early market day, Tamale seems dirty and crazy, but really pretty friendly. People want to talk to you, and you find you want to talk to people. Running errands becomes easier the braver you become: you will have to dart across the crowded street between large busses, packed taxis, screeching motorbikes, goats, sheep and other terrified pedestrians; you will have to coax and barter with men in your Ghanaian accent, telling them that your friend only paid half of his asking price for a cheap chinese-imported plastic mirror; you will have to refuse beggars and children, looking to profit from the wealth that comes tattooed on you with your white skin. But amongst all this, the thick clouds of leaded gasoline smoke, the yelling voices and the old-Kensington-market smell of meat butchered on a street with a machete, there are friends hiding everywhere.

The MetroMass bus station: as many people as Tokyo, in one eighth the space.

Today I accidentally drew a crowd of 20-- refusing a marriage proposal with the fact that I am "married" led me to bring out my photo book, and answer four-dozen impassioned questions about snow, busses, the homeless, and whether they could marry my sister (thats you, Steph! Want a Ghanaian husband?). An offhand mention of how a new acquaintance had the same name as my godfather led to an invitation for dinner, and an offer of a free TV. Many of them, upon learning that I work for an NGO, had some questions that I ask myself: what am I doing for the Ghanaian people? What will I tell Canada about them? What will I do to help Ghanaians free themselves from poverty? I send the questions back at them--ask -them- what I should do. Most of them laugh in the good-natured way so common here, and say they do not know.
Tomorrow I embark on my first combined bus-trotro ride on my way back to Nalerigu. With luck, the place I am staying (hopefully for the summer) will be ready for my arrival--but Cat warns that I am in West Africa, where things rarely go right. We will see how it goes, whether I get the chance to start putting down roots immediately, or if it needs to be deferred a little longer.

When I get to Nalerigu, I have quite the task in front of me. Along with getting myself set up in my place (with a post with pictures to follow, of course), I have to meet the King of the Mamprusus, the Chief of Nalerigu, the District Assembly office, and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture outpost. Plus, we have to start on our work for the CIFs project--food security initiatives in East Mamprusi villages, including training, field facilitation, and proposal writing.

We'll see how this goes! Wish me luck!

-Ash

New Baptism

2008-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

I wish I brought a video camera, if only to help explain what it's like here when the strong sun gets pushed aside, and the rains finally roll in.

It's Sunday, and I'm in Tamale again, relaxing temporarily at the EWB compound house before the beginning of the week-long CIFS training tomorrow, and I feel as though I have been given another start at this experience. Through the course of the last two days I've had the opportunity to relate some of my difficulties with the other volunteers, be in a social environment again, talk to my whole family, meet some incredible Ghanaians, and stomach a whole meal. It feels as though I'm getting my physical and emotional strength back a bit, and this means I can finally take the small steps I need to build my foundations in this organization, in PARED, and in Nalerigu. After a day of roaming the streets trying for supplies on a non-market day, having my first real (and shaking) encounter with some Ghanaian men's penchants for Canadian girls, and being denied my favourite internet cafe due to religious practice, the clouds flowed into the sky at an alarming and amazing speed, and all the water that the world has been holding for us fell heavy like cool, clear lead. Ryan, Courtney and I rushed outside to collect the runoff in an attempt to offset the brutal shortages in the area from the dry season, and as it soaked me through (and for the first time since I got here I actually felt -cold-), I felt like Ghana was washing the week off me and giving me another go. I only get to do this once; I am a Canadian in Ghana, trying to understand, which is a gargantuan challenge—but these are kind people, and I am a capable person, and while I'm here, I'll see what I can do. Confidence restored, at least temporarily. Lets do this!

Two nights ago, the rains ripped through Nalerigu. The concrete walls of the guesthouse were wailing at the wind, and the rolling, rolling thunder and lightning bass-pounded and strobe-lit my room after it thoroughly took out all our power. Clinging to my coworker on the back of his motorcycle, I saw zinc roofs lying twisted, walls collapsed. I didn't take pictures; I'd have felt like a disaster pornographer. Nalerigu has 1,000 proud and capable people, but certainly not unlimited means, materials or time. I worry about what they will do, where they will stay, whether it will be their farms or their families that suffer first. I worry about how strong this storm we just passed through will be when it hits them.

Subsistence farming makes it necessary to have a strange relationship with the rains; they're your respite from the Harmattan winds, your only irrigation, and the keystone of feeding your family, and they breed diseased mosquitoes, sweep away your soil and sterilize your land, rip your home to pieces, and flood your towns and cities. Too little rain will disarm a community in their fight to survive; too much will make survival impossible. Communities that we volunteer in today are still suffering the effects of last year's flood, and farmers who have experienced bumper crops in the past are importing these same foods from Korea to still be able to eat. Through the course of this season, my job could fluctuate, intensify, or even disappear, and it all depends on the rains.

Kind of wish we had a weatherman.

I'll write more during the week, and post again on the weekend. I may as well take advantage of Tamale while I can!

Keep me in your thoughts,
-Ash

This isn't just shock. It's an earthquake.

2008-05-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

This is, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.

The climate, the culture, the people, the distance, the difficult lines of communication, and intense feelings of loneliness conspire to make this, my third day in Nalerigu, very hard. Culture shock hit me like a wave, at the same time that illness from food poisoning left me embarrassed, dirty, crying and dehydrated on a crowded public bus to a place I have never been. Being in Ghana now is like being on another planet; the strange people speak strange languages, and are afraid of you (somewhat understandably) for your differences; the food is strange and difficult to eat, and the water comes in astronaut-sealed plastic bags. It is difficult, expensive, and somewhat unreliable to communicate with your loved ones. The similarities you see between your home and this new place are facades—the differences emerge at simple scratching of the surface.

I have never experienced anything like this.

In-country learning was a positive experience, despite sunburn, and being with fellow Canadians helped stave off culture shock excessively well. However, going from spending every day with them, to spending no time at all, has certainly taken its toll on me. I may have some feedback for the EWB manual and operations next year.

At the time of writing this, I am able to maintain the confidence that things will get better. I'm hoping that this mindset will be the one that is correct. I already have a few best-practices, from the inevitable falling on my face:

Don’t let them leave you alone when you first get to your community; find a family or a home to stay in, have regular social interaction, get involved and stay distracted.

Don’t get sick the first night. Any sickness throws you headlong into culture shock and turns a bad emotional situation even worse.

Don’t think it’s not normal, expected, and dealable. This one’s a toughie, I can tell you.

From the 17th til the 24th I'm in Tamale, at a CIFS training, and staying at the EWB house. And after that, I move in with my host family! I'll have better things to report soon!

Missing Canada, and all of you,

-Ash

In Transit

2008-05-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I'm sitting in the Amsterdam airport, feeling hazy, but still excited. It is 3am Toronto time, but here at 9am, everyone around me scrambles to write and post in these few hours of free time between the craziness of Pre-departure training and the reeling of culture shock and our inevitable exhausted collapse in Accra. The last week has been quite the experience: twelve hours a day of critical thinking, information retention, and thrilling but sometimes harsh truths. In the last few days, I have had to reconcile the notion of some of the friendliest people in a continent of friendly people using immolation as government punishment for petty theft. I have contended with the truth that I know nothing, and worse, habitually make assumptions that stand in the way of me learning. I have accepted the responsibility that every one of my actions has risks, negative consequences, and a need to be questioned. I have wrestled with the inevitability that I will have to make choices that runs the risk of damage in the short term, to maintain my ability to make positive change that is sustainable. I have wrestled with the inevitability that I will not only make mistakes, but that my responsibility to battle them from being repeated, misinterpreted, and internalized -must- be constant. This job is among the most difficult in the world, tackling one of the most difficult problems in the history of the human race. The climate is challenging, the terrain unforgiving, and the infrastructural supports so integral to Canadian society either fledgling, struggling, or absent. The culture is not only alien, but incredibly diverse, with more languages, traditions, ways of doing and reasons for doing than we could absorb in a lifetime, forget about four months. And yet, despite all of this, I have been forced to confront the difficult fact that incredible change as a result of my work is viable, possible. This opportunity provides me with a responsibility: to ensure, regardless of my professional project, my orders from above, or my shivering from culture shock, that I pioneer my own chances to make change. Our first and foremost indicator of success in past JF's has been the ability to own our placements. I am preparing to arrive, stabilize, and make this process mine.

Looking at the time-zone shifts and trying to anticipate the direction and severity of our jet lag, someone mentioned we lose time in Ghana that we will regain when we travel back to our families in August. I like that--we dedicate our days, nights and thoughts while we're here to the people at the bottom, but when we come back, those extra handful of precious hours are returned to us, to spend with those without whom we could not develop.

As a sidenote, I'd like to ask people to dedicate some of their thoughts, hopes, or research time to those in Myanmar/Burma. The damage the brutal military regime inflicted by closing borders, shooting students, monks, and minorities, barring the media from exposing them, and exploitative policy has been brought to a fever pitch by refusing aid organizations after the worst disaster in Asia since the tsunami. The effects of this meteorological and political storm will be felt around the world, especially because of the devastated rice producers affected in a time of soaring food prices, riots, and starvation. If you can help by time, resource or cash donation, or by talking: these are people with less of a voice than most, even among the most voiceless countries in the world.

Tomorrow at 8pm (or 4pm, in the Toronto area), I arrive in Accra, sleep, and board the twelve-hour pulic bus to Tamale for in-country training. Let the challenge begin!

-Ash

Departing from Canada...And the Western Monkey Is Coming With Me!

2008-04-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Look at that guy!

Won by me as a door prize at the '08 UWO Wine and Cheese, hidden in a glove compartment for a month and a half and then surrendered to the Windsor Chapter as our faithful, fuzzy mascot, and now, dressed up and lent -back- to me as a cuddle buddy on the trip! I was worried I was gonna have nothing for my sappy, homesick ass to hold onto! Better than my pack....or my own knees....
I wanted to dress it up like Helen Brennek and Shyam in a little orange jumpsuit and bandanna, but that'll have to wait until he gets back from Ghana and gets a substantial wash. The monkey, I mean, not Shyam.

Today, I'm home in Barrie for the last full day--the place I hang out with my dog and scramble around to put the last touches on foundation learning, get my financial and academic ducks in a row for my absenteeism, spend precious time with my family and darling boyfriend, and pack. We had the requisite going-away-party, with friends, family and friends of the family coming out to ask me the requisite questions: What are you doing in Africa? When are you going to Africa? Make sure you stay safe in Africa! It was nice to see them (and some of them even went so far as to pass me money for some of my expenses--Uncle Richard and Uncle Malcolm, I was shocked and surprised and SO thankful, thank you!!), and nice to be able to talk about what I was doing. I even had our brilliant Windsor Co-President and Return JF Holly here, five hours north, to chat with everyone, and tell more of her amazing Zambian stories. She was a brilliant asset, and really helped me clarify what I was doing, and how. I think she helped prepare the people I know for the sorts of stories I may have for them when I come back.

Despite all -my- rampant preparation for this, it's becoming increasingly funny how much is being left to the last minute--not necessarily by me (although I am often guilty), but sometimes by those around me. My list of stuff to do is still pretty huge, but as a huge change from my normal demeanor, I'm neither worried, tense nor nervous. In fact, I'm approaching thrilled--the thought of reuniting with those fabulous fellow goofballs met at the National Conference going on this adventure with me, working hard for something I believe in, meeting new amazing people and doing something totally new is keeping me from worrying about the junk that might happen here while I'm gone. Right now, the worst I'm worried about is teaching my semi-skittish mom to take care of my pet snake while I'm gone.

I think much of this assurance is spurred on by my call to my coach Kristy in Tamale, who gave me the single best treatment for putting me at ease and infusing me with confidence in my ability to do this: more information. Apparently Nalerigu is a pretty happening place; it has one of the best hospitals in the Region, very kind and interesting people, electricity, and the PARED office (which itself boasts employees who speak english and Mampruli, motorbike transportation, a dial-up internet connection, and some amazing people to boot). My prospects for living could be fairly comfortable, with people with lots of kids who also speak enough of my language to minimize the barrier. The biggest pleasant surprise to me was that not only does Nalerigu have a secondary school, but a -drama club- that Mr. Moses, my boss at PARED, is going to put me into contact with. How can I NOT jump at this opportunity? I swear I almost had a glee-triggered heart attack.

I think right now, my biggest drive is to just get out there and do some WORK! Staying in Canada in my municipal office job, I definitely never had this problem.

Tomorrow afternoon, I trek through the Ontario April weather (which right now, despite LOOKING beautiful outside, is hovering around 4 degrees celsius) down to the Toronto EWB house, say a (likely incredibly tearful and huggy) goodbye to the boyfriend and family, calm myself down, and reconnect with everyone/vie for a sleeping space!

1 day til I have to fend off tears for my family and Chris, and

8 hard-workin' days til flyout to Accra.

-Ash out.

Serendipitous!

2008-04-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

As I hack and sweat my way through exams and final papers, wishing against all hope that I could have more legitimate excuses to research and blog, someone comes along and makes the quivering unknown of Life in my Placement Village –much- less…quivering?

Long story short, thanks to the grace and presence of mind of the fantastic Kyle Baptista (this dude->)

I was promptly hooked up with not one, but TWO previous JFs who lived in Nalerigu! This eases my mind to NO end—me, the one constantly trying to figure out what the hell she’s in for.

And what AM I in for, you may inquire? Apparently, I should expect

-about half the houses to have electricity (most of them solar powered, from a government project 10 years ago),

-about half the male population to propose to me at least once in an attempt to solve their financial problems,

-latrines and well-water,

-being called a Salaminga over, and over, and over (translation: White person. Surprise.)

-4-5 hour church services,

-complete stymieing on the local language Mampruli, which is apparently incredibly complex and difficult to retain past greetings and basic nouns (note: Looking at how intense Dagbani is, Mampruli’s close linguistic cousin, I can DEFINITELY believe it. Maybe there’ll be a miracle.)

-freezing after it rains, especially after I acclimatize to sweating my face off like any Aryan-looking northern girl would,

-being woken at 6am to Muslim prayers every morning,

-3 hour tro tro rides to an internet source in Tamale,

-a slight lack of fruit,

-the friendliest people in the world (which everyone says, so I’m trying to take it with a grain of salt)

According to Marka, anyway. I have yet to pick Dave’s brain.

On the 27^th, I have a phone conference with the brilliant Kristy, my coach overseas, who hopefully will have more work-related details for me after her endless stack of paperwork and schedule of meetings with PARED.

I also read in some past JF blog that a bunch of the Northern Ghanaian JFs got together to celebrate Canada day….and since it’s my anniversary that day, and I’ll probably be pretty homesick, I’d like to pass the motion that we plan on doing something like that too… just a thought…please?

Back to paper-hacking. One more gargantuan monstrosity of a paper to go, then a final, then I clean my house.

Oh, as another sidenote: I've discovered some of my fellow JFs are quite the writers in their own right: Points to Kim and Emily for informative reporting (and extra points to Em for awesome homespun map-alteration), points to Henry and G-Unit (the great and marvellous Glynnis) for cheek and entertainment, and points to Brian for somehow finding a way to keep the world updated on the goings-on of apparently every single member of Team Zambia regardless of how far away they may actually be from him. We have one of those in the Windsor chapter; we call her VP Stalker. **But we can call you VP Omniscience, Brian!

Twelve kids of awesome. I miss everyone already.

7 days to finish all this junk and go home, and

14 days til Pre-Departure craziness starts and I may or may not share a bed with Sylvie and Glynnis again.

-Ash out.

The First Big News!

2008-04-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

Finally, what I've been waiting for! Disambiguation!

Thanks to the painstaking efforts of the beautiful and lovely JFSS Cat, I've received the information I have been aching for since I agreed to join this program seven months ago:

I will be working in Nalerigu, a village in the East Mamprusi District in the Northern Region of Ghana... approximately, here:

The first and most obvious social perk is that the Northern and Eastern regions of the country have a more condensed Muslim and traditional belief population, which is both a huge paradigm shift for me in terms of religious landscape, and also intensely fascinating. Not to mention the languages: Mampruli, Likpakpa and English, two of which are completely alien to me, and one of which is scarce. The first and most obvious geographical perk to this is that after flying into Accra on the southeast coast, I'll have to travel practically the entire length of the country to get to my placement. I'll be a development worker Jack Kerouac--heavily on the road.

I just let my nerdism out of the bag. But it gets even better:

My partnership organization is PARED--the Partners in Rural Empowerment and Development. The name itself gives me shivers; I can't disagree with any of those words. The mission statement?

"To work with individuals, groups and communities in the East Mamprusi District and beyond to empower them to tackle poverty related issues for themselves".
Precisely why I signed up for this program.
PARED's work emphasizes food security, human rights and good governance; they work with MoFA and CIFS; they have a Gender Officer as well as a Field Officer. These little details make things so rich; the previously unshakably lingering What-the-hell-am-I-doing feeling has certainly been shaken, and now I just want to see this place, smell the air...
PARED has worked with OxFam in the past, but never directly with EWB, so this is a fantastic opportunity to learn with a new organization and maybe pave the way for other JFs and LTOVs to work with someone new. Now all I have to do is find some time for the research I want to do...
Oh, speaking of LTOVs, I got my coach, too! Kristy Minor, two-years-established with CIFS in Tamale, and a powerhouse in Good Governance. It's important I stop writing in this thing so I can get enough work done to contact her.

It's slightly frustrating and frightening that the vast majority of the linguistic information available on the Mamprusi people comes from evangelist groups eager to convert them to Christianity from their traditional beliefs or from Islam. Searches show vast supplies of Mampruli bibles, films about Jesus that have been translated to "allow the Lord to speak in their language", and statistics of "percentages of those saved". It is both fascinating and jarring; I hold a great deal of respect for religious beliefs, but I wonder whether that respect will have to compete with my statute of freedom of religion...

Sidenote, I meant to post this earlier, but in addition to my family, friends and dear boyfriend, this is what I'm leaving behind in Barrie:

Oscar von Pupski. Beagle hell-raiser extraordinaire.

Okay, I cant put it off any longer, I need to go do work.

13 days til I go home to get mauled by a puppy and prepare, and
21 days til I leave for Pre-Dep.

Signing off.

Water weight/ water wait.

2008-03-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

In Canada, the snow is melting. I can hear water running off from yards and on roofs; in gutters I can see it sweeping street trash down its eddies, trapping chip bags and wrappers at the base of the drains. The grates are singing in synchronization, from one side of the street to the other. The taps and dings from the eaves trough drips chime in as I walk past houses; the whole soggy mess sounds like a symphony. All I can think about is how there are riches running right under my feet; that this water oozing down the streets is enough to keep villages of people alive, enough to grow acres in a time when even high-priced golf courses in Phoenix, Arizona is going dry. For the first time in my life, I couldn't shake the amazement of how rich we are that we can shovel water off our steps, and treat it as a nuisance. What a fantastic, incredible problem to have...

Fundraising is hectic; a hundred letters, a hundred ways to spin your need so it is appealing. My overseas coordinator tells me it rained, for the first overwhelming time, in Ghana, and I realize I'm going to be there for the middle of the downpour season--approximately the time of my fourth anniversary. This is getting really real, really fast, and slowly, I think I'm becoming up to it.

Frankly, I better be.

So It Begins!

2008-03-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

First post o' the blog--that no one's seeing til something actually happens.

Wheee!

Current questions:
-how long can I put off these papers that are due tomorrow?
-how long can I wait before taking off and seeing the puppy?
-how thrilled will I be tomorrow after the mess of the day is finally over?

over and out.