Idl Adda

“Good morning, and to all my muslim brothers and sisters, a happy Idl Adda”.

In true Ghanaian style, the radio announcer from a popular radio station - a Christian – passed on well wishes to everyone celebrating the Muslim holiday.

Forgive my theological ignorance – and please don’t hold what I say here to be fact. My understanding of the holiday is all based on conversations and not extensive reading of the Koran. The celebration of Idl Adda was explained to me like this: God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Abraham spoke to his son and told him God’s wishes. Together they decided that if this was God’s wish, then Abraham should sacrifice his son. His son was tied to a tree and as Abraham raised his knife to conduct the sacrifice, God ordered him to stop – that he was happy Abraham was willing to obey, but it was not necessary to sacrifice his son. Then, immediately, a ram appeared in the place of his son and was sacrificed to God.

The Muslims celebrate this holiday by fasting in the morning and going for communal prayers. Following prayers, a ram is slaughtered by whoever can afford it (or a larger animal if can be afforded), and the fast is broken by eating pieces of the ram’s liver breaded in flour and fried. Then the meat is prepared for eating. Half is distributed to the poor – as charity is one of the pillars of Islam - and the other half is eaten in various dishes by extended family.

At our house, everyone began preparing to go to the town center for prayers. The central mosque is not large enough to hold everyone, so for events like this the prayers are said in a big field (see pic). I put on a long dress and donned a veil over my head and went with the children to town. There's a photo of three of the girls - getting Ghanaians to smile in photos is not easy! The men go separately because the men and women are segregated during prayers. The prayers were over quickly, and we went back to the house.

The rams were not slaughtered that day, because the celebration conflicted with normal Friday prayers, so there was not enough time to prepare the food.

The next day, two rams were slaughtered at my house (pics of rams before and after). I sampled the fried liver but turned down the intestines and slices of stomach that were in our soup for lunch. The ‘meat’ in the sense that we’re used to, came that night at dinner with a special treat of rice instead of the usual daily TZ. The big meals continued throughout the weekend, and everywhere you went, both Christians and Muslims greeted with “Barka la saala”.

The peaceful co-existence of Christians and Muslims seems to come easy to Ghanaians. The next big holiday will be Christmas, and my Muslim office mate has already started playing his favorite Christmas songs over his computer speakers. I know that everyone in town, regardless of their religion, will be in the Christmas spirit come December 25. Too bad the people of Northern Ghana can’t be more of a model to people in other parts of the world.

Harmattan

Although the air was gradually loosing the humidity from the rains and the leaves were drying and dropping, the Harmattan - the winds from the north carrying the sand from the Sahara - seemed to arrive overnight.

One day the skies were blue and alive with the kind of big dynamic clouds that I’ve only seen in the part of the world. The next day it looked as though the whole town was shrouded in a thick cloud of smoke.

Every morning and evening, the sun appears as a warm orange disk veiled by the dust. The days are hot but dry, and the air smells of smoke from the small grass fires that burn all around town (deliberately set as a control against big fires later in the year when things become really dry). The dry air sucks all the moisture from your skin and the dust and smoke sting your eyes. Fine dust settles on everything, and if you take a bus or motorbike anywhere on a road that isn’t paved (most roads), you arrive covered in red dust.

But with these conditions comes the sweet relief of cool air arriving late in the evening and lingering until morning. I sleep better at night and can even start my workday free from sweat. The Ghanaians cover up and go home early because they are too cold, but I feel right at home since the temperature is similar to the evening / morning temperatures that we would experience during our Calgary summer.

I’ve been told that as the months go on, it will become drier, dustier, hotter in the day, and cooler at night. The rainy season will start again in April / May. I think I prefer snow to living in the desert.

The British High Commission comes to Bole

“Because Ghana has a good government, we give the money to the government so they can spend it on their priorities”, says Nicolas Wescott, representative of the British High Commission. He’s addressing the BoleWura (Bole Chief) and other significant players in Bole and discussing the approximate 60 million pounds given to the Ghana government each year.

I like his statement for two reasons.
1. I appreciate the efforts to let the Ghanaian government decide what the priorities are for the use of the money. The government, through its decentralized arms, is also in a better position to deliver the services to the various communities – rather than a bunch of pale British representatives in Land Cruisers.

2. His statement makes me feel like my work is important. I feel that saying “Ghana has a good government” is only partially true. Ghana has a lot to be proud of, including a peaceful democracy and relatively low levels of corruption in their government. But their local governments are still not functioning as designed. The local governments should be the agencies using the British funds to deliver services to the communities, but they need to start performing first. EWB is trying to help them do that. It’s slow, but so is development. And if we can make small steps to improving how the local governments operate, it means that the local governments can use the British funding more effectively, and more people can benefit from the aid as intended.

Saturday Morning in the Village

“It’s in the bush! You want to go to the bush?!” One of the young English speaking girls replied when I told her that I wanted to accompany the women on their morning fire wood gathering mission.
“Yes – is that okay? Can I go with them?” I replied. I was standing in a small circle of short and wiry Ghanaian women holding hand made axes and cutlasses (machetes). They looked me up and down.
“But you don’t even have long sleeves!” I looked at the women who were going. They were dressed in their standard attire of a baggy long dress with short sleeves and flip flops. One of the younger girls didn’t even have shoes on. Nonetheless, I was sure that it was probably in my best interest to cover as much skin as possible if I was heading out with them. I went and changed into long pants, rubber boots, and a long sleeved shirt. We were off.

After 30 minutes walking down the red dirt road and another 15 minutes of bushwhacking, I found myself sitting in 12 foot tall grass and shielding my eyes from the hot sun as I watched one of the women, in a satin finish pink dress with flowers, climbing a large dead shea nut tree with a cutlass in one hand. About halfway up the tree, she stopped and steadied herself on a branch before beginning to hack away at the other branches with her cutlass. The heavy branches flattened the tall grass as they fell around the tree.

The firewood was further chopped into smaller pieces and tied on u-shaped basket frames to be carried back. I helped a few of the ladies hoist their incredibly heavy loads on top of their heads, and then asked if I could try carrying the load that was earmarked for the youngest girl (who appeared to be about 10 years old). I tried to lift the load, but needed assistance to make it up above my head. I put the firewood on my head for maybe 10 wobbly seconds before the women insisted on taking it from me. I didn’t complain – it was far too heavy for me to carry even 10 feet, let alone the long journey back.

I learned many things that Saturday morning in the village. One of them was that collecting firewood is really not my forte. I probably didn’t need to come to Ghana to figure that out.

Going to School

It was a Friday morning and I found myself surrounded by about 50 children dressed in dark green uniforms, singing and animatedly performing the actions to their song. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I tried – really not a bad way to start a day.

Three of my host sisters are school teachers at the same school and they invited me to see their school and the children. They teach at a nursery school – similar to our pre-school or kindergarten. Kids start here when they are four years old, and will move on to the primary school around the age of six, or when they have proven they can pass the requisite test of reading and arranging numbers 0 through 50, and writing and sounding out the alphabet.

Dark clouds settle in
As happy as the kids’ songs make me, I can’t suppress a deeper sadness that is growing as I take in their reality. Uniforms are ratty and torn. There are hundreds of children in this three room classroom block – many of them take their class under a tree outside. This means that if it rains, the kids either go home, or go and join their classmates inside where the deafening sound of the rain hitting the tin roof is only matched by the voices of the hundreds of children crammed into a few tiny rooms. “We can’t teach again” I’m told by my host sister, as she describes what happens when the rains come.


There is a blackboard in each room (and one set up under the tree), and some benches with small tables for the children to sit at, but no other teaching aids to speak of. I’m introduced to the headmaster – a welcoming woman with a baby tied to her back. The motivation amongst the teachers appears to be quite low. First period is an hour and it’s scheduled as music (thus the singing). But after 20 minutes the teachers run out of songs to sing with the children and sit on some benches as the kids run around and play. Then when the hour of the first period is up, one of the teachers rings a bell and yells “Break!” Break from what? I wonder. The kids have already been playing in the playground for the last half an hour.

Missing motivation: a key piece of the puzzle
I know the teachers care for the kids, but there are very few incentives in place to motivate performance in teaching. Their only goal is simply to teach the kids the numbers to 50 and the alphabet – over a period of about two years. They’re poorly paid, have no resources to do their jobs, and no one holds them accountable. Many of the parents of the children are illiterate and so long as their children are away in the morning, they assume they’re at school learning.

A story of one family
During the break, I sat on the bench with the teachers, watching the children. The teachers spotted a small boy sleeping on the side of the field amongst children playing. They called him over to see if he was sick. The boy, wearing torn and dirty clothes instead of the required uniform, made his way over to the teachers. His slightly older sister (also in dirty clothes) accompanied him. My host sister, Amelia, felt his forehead. “Is he sick?” she asked his sister. “No madam. Hungry” the small girl answered. “Mmm. You are hungry too?” “Yes madam”. Amelia called over to the lady on the side of the playground selling rice and ordered a small portion for each of the two children. She took some money from her own purse and gave it to them. They took it to exchange for the rice. I watched them as they sat and ate. Life was breathed back into them both and they joined the other kids on the playground.

My other host sister, Alijatu, told me their story. “Their father was a teacher here at this school. March 6 of this year he was teaching. That night he was even at a meeting with some other people in the community. March 7 he passed away. The mother is just sitting down, not doing anything (to make money). When she brought the kids here for enrollment, she didn’t have the GHc2.00 for the school fees for each child ($1.40 each) but we had to take them because their father was a teacher here. Still, up to today, no uniforms for the children.” My smile from the children’s songs earlier had long faded – this was heavy stuff for a Friday morning.

The bigger picture
I sat a while longer and contemplated how many more children at the school went hungry every day. How many of the girls I saw would be pulled from school as soon as they were old enough to carry water? How many students’ potential was lost without an education system that could engage them? And what was the reality for the children in the other outlying communities if this was all happening in Bole, the district capital, where the schools are significantly better than those in the other communities in the districts?

The gift of opportunity
I thought about the District Coordinating Director at my district. He was a well educated man and a strong leader at our office. He had only transferred to our district about six months ago, but he wasted no time putting procedures in place that were supposed to be there and encouraging better work practices. He told me that he attended a secondary school that was fully funded by a Dutch Catholic Church. Fully funded to the extent that the students even ate cheese (cheese is non existent in northern Ghana now, let alone 40 years ago). Most of his classmates went on to become top government officials, consultants for big NGOs, and leaders of their sectors. A glaring example of how powerful a good education can be.

Education is a system, not a school
My visit to the school was a clear demonstration that education does not come with the delivery of a school. Education comes from a system of engaging students and transferring knowledge from teachers who are resourced and motivated. A system that allows kids to explore curiosities and pushes them to develop their potential. And education really is absolutely necessary to bring a country out of extreme poverty. My story sounds bleak, but I know that there are also a few examples of effective education delivery around the country – both government run and donor funded.


Beyond building schools
The reason I share this information with you is not so that you will feel pity for the children in Ghana. I share so that if you ever hear about someone going to a developing country to build a school – you can ask them some questions. Who will be teaching and how will they be resourced? Will the children in the community be able to attend, or have their guardians decided that helping on the farm is more important? Will the children need a school feeding program to ensure they are able to learn? Do they have books and pencils to use? Will anyone be checking on the quality of education they receive? It’s not easy, but these are important questions to ask. Those of us who want to do development work need to hold each other accountable to ensure that what we are doing is actually having the intended impact for the intended beneficiaries. A structure won’t educate a population alone, and it’s not enough to sit around and pat each other on the back for thinking about the ‘poor kids in Africa’.

Optimism remains
Educating the population of a country is slow – but so is change and development. But I know that the rewards will be great as education for the majority of the world’s population can unlock the human potential of Ghana, of Africa, and of developing communities around the world. Let’s see what amazing things people can do when they are given the opportunity.

Village Dance Party

Some photos from a village that I visted one afternoon to dance to some xylophone music and drumming on plastic gerry cans.

A day I won’t forget: Gold mining in Ghana, and my advocacy for Bill C-300

October 19, 2009

The cab of our pickup was packed with four grown men and myself. There were another four men in the box of the pickup, and another pickup following us with the same arrangement (less the Canadian girl). It took us nearly two hours to make our way down the 20km of horrible road filled with giant mudholes and other hazards. We were going to Kui.

Kui is a place I’ve heard lots about around the District Assembly. It’s a settlement about 100 km from my town of Bole and it’s home to a small scale illegal gold surface mining operation. Everyone’s been spreading stories about the place – how the population is that of a city and isn’t just Ghanaian, but also people from nearby Togo, Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria; how the money flows more than water; how you can buy anything you want; and how the place is overrun with social problems like prostitution, HIV/AIDS, and robbery.

I was going to Kui in a small convoy. We had Immigration Officers, the District Police Chief, some District Assembly staff, some elected Assembly Members, and the Chief of a nearby town who used to be the acting chief of Kui itself. And the random white Canadian girl. The purpose of our trip was to go and visit the people in Kui and tell them that the District Assembly wasn’t interested in shutting down their illegal operations, but instead wanted to help them legalize and obtain licenses for their activities. And that the assembly wanted to begin collecting taxes from the massive amount of money being made there.

A Sore Sight
We finally arrived in Kui after a truck ride that gave me bruises. Most days in Ghana I see sights that tug at my heartstrings, but this day was overwhelming. The settlement looked like a refugee camp. All the shelters were made from thatched grass held up by broken branches. Some had plastic sheets covering them to provide a bit of protection from the rain. There was garbage everywhere and no latrines or sanitation facilities to speak of. A lack of sanitation isn’t uncommon in Ghana, but perhaps here it was magnified because all the grass and trees had been removed to make houses or to dig through the sand for gold.

Most of the other stories I had heard about Kui seemed to be true. The place was huge and I don’t doubt that the population was larger than the 10,000 or so that are in Bole. The shelters were all arranged haphazardly and were crammed between large piles of sand or deep cuts through the earth – all results of the surface mining. The main path through the shelters was lined with makeshift stands selling all kinds of things that you can only buy in larger Ghanaian cities – even the food we were served for lunch can’t be bought in Bole. There were hundreds of crates stacked up with empty beer bottles, and even a chalkboard outside a drinking area that advertised the times of upcoming football matches they were showing on TV (there’s no electricity to Kui, but apparently no shortage of generators).

We arrived at the Chief’s Palace (a thatched grass roof held up with sticks and no walls), and were all seated in a giant circle of about 20 people. As the white girl, I was seated beside the Chief. Another 50 or 60 people gathered around our circle to listen to our meeting.

Forced Participation
The meeting was conducted with the formalities of a typical Ghanaian meeting, and there was a translator in the middle broadcasting everything which was said to the rest of the crowd in one of the local languages. The message was delivered to the people, and no complaints were heard. After most people in the meeting had spoken, the meeting chair turned to me and asked for my contribution.
“Sister, do you have anything you would like to say?”
“No – thank you sir, I am here to listen and learn”
“But you must say something”. Oh crap.
Nothing like being put on the spot. I’ve come to understand that the fact that I’m white means that people expect me to have answers when I come to meetings, and that they also expect me to make contributions whether I like it or not. So I did my best to provide an analogy of Fort McMurray, and how when a community is formed of people from many different places that no one will treat it as their home and the result is a place which no one wants to live. I urged them to come together as a community and work with the District Assembly to make it a better place to live whilst they are there trying to earn a living. Big and vague words with little tangible meaning – the best I could do while trying to think on my feet in front of the huge crowd. Who knows what the translator told everyone I said. Insert polite clapping for the white girl here.

An Interruption
At one point, our meeting was broken by a large and very muscle bound man sprinting into our circle and diving to take cover at the feet of the Chief (right next to me, while I silently freaked out in my chair). A couple of other men chased him into the circle and stopped when they saw the man was sitting at the feet of the Chief. In a couple of minutes there were five men in total, all angry and cut on their faces from fighting. The police chief and immigration officers got them all up and made them carry giant logs around town in the dead heat of the day. They all returned about 15 minutes later, sweating and collapsing from exhaustion. The police chief gave them a lecture:
“You have no jobs so you come here looking for something small to eat. And now look what you are doing to each other. None of you are sober enough to say anything of value to the people gathered here so go and sleep. If you continue this, we will come and take you to Bole [to the prison].”

I am still haunted by the face of one of the men sitting on the ground. Bleeding, sweating, he looked like he was about to cry. He glanced at me and I swear I had met him in Bole but I couldn’t place exactly where. And now here he was, drawn to this terrible place in hopes of earning some money but just ending up in trouble.

Private Sector vs. Public Sector in Development
I firmly believe that Ghana needs private sector development to move out of poverty. But it also struck me that this town is the result of breakneck speed private sector development without any government intervention. Any service that can generate a profit for someone has been catered for, as evidenced by the luxuries like ice cream being sold from generator powered freezers. But the less glamorous services, or those that require a community effort such as fixing roads, providing sanitation, education, or basic health care have been neglected.

The private sector – a small mining company from Malta - has provided a single borehole for water and they make around GHc1,000 ($720 CAN) per day from selling water - a good sum of money in Ghana. At first I was angry that the people were being charged for the water. But I quickly realized that before this well was drilled, the only water available to drink was dirty ditch water. I also realized that the local government wasn’t in the position to provide these types of services to Kui because:
1. The borehole at that location reportedly cost GHc25,000 (around $18,000 CAN - although I question this amt, it's very high). They simply don’t have this type of money.
2. Even if they had the money, the bureaucracy is slow and it would take several months to mobilize resources to drill a well, and
3. I’m not convinced that people in a very temporary mining town should be prioritized for government spending over those who live in permanent settlements and still don’t benefit from public services.

Kui’s Contribution to Development
Nothing operates in isolation, and Kui definitely contributes to the bigger picture of development in Ghana. Kui is providing jobs for the thousands of people without jobs. This is great if they take the opportunity to go and work, earn an income, save some money, and support themselves into school or other business after they leave Kui. But unfortunately I think this will be the exception rather than the standard.

I’ve heard stories of women’s groups being educated in local programs in their communities to produce shea butter and use it as an income generating activity. When the trainer went to deliver the certificates to the women, they had all gone to Kui. School aged children leave school to go there and carry water, or are even forced to go because their parents take them there. They’re often swept into the sex trade. People diagnosed with HIV leave their home communities because of the social stigma attached to the positive diagnosis, so they go to Kui where no one knows they are positive and they continue to spread the disease there. Any diseases contracted at Kui will also be multiplied throughout the home communities of the workers when they return. People also become accustomed to earning mining salaries and then when they leave the mine, they turn to robbery or crime to support their lifestyles.

Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility
I don’t know a lot about mining communities or boom and bust cycles, but the importance of the private sector providing services to the people who live in these communities and conduct the mining is evident. Communities like these in Canada, such as Fort McMurray (where I spent a total of three cold, dark, and depressing months), are stigmatized as unpleasant places to be. But here in Ghana and in other developing countries, these places are a collection of desperation. There really are no other job options as there is such a lack of private sector development throughout the nation and public sector employment is saturated. For the first time in many people’s lives they have a chance to collect something that resembles a steady income – and a significant income at that. Their governments can’t respond quickly with infrastructure and necessary services do things like prevent disease, provide safe water, or security for the citizens of the settlement. Even our rich Albertan government can’t keep up with Fort Mac, so how can we expect governments of developing countries to be equipped to respond?

Unfortunately for Kui, with the exception of the one man Maltese company mentioned above, there are no companies who are mining there. The operations are an ad-hoc free for all, loosely organized by individuals in some sort of power structure I have yet to figure out. I don’t know why there are no companies there – maybe the deposits are not big enough to warrant significant private investment. I’m not sure why, but they just aren’t there.

Since Kui is a surface mine, the operation will continue whether a private company is investing or not because it’s easy for individuals to find the gold on their own. But with most mines, the resources are not accessible for extraction without massive front end capital investments – and therefore will lie untouched without private sector intervention. Social services for the community and the workers must accompany these companies and their extraction investments because the consequences of not providing them will contribute to the decline in development of the surrounding area and even the country as a whole.

What’s Next for Kui?
The District Assembly is very focused on collecting revenue from this literal gold mine. Not just the mining, but all of the buying and selling will provide a needed push to their pool of Internally Generated Funds (IGF). Fortunately there are also some people within the assembly who are advocating for service provision for the people there. It seems like mobile services such as toilets and clinics are a start, and are investments the government feels comfortable with in such a transient atmosphere. Now to see how quickly they will be mobilized is another matter. For the sake of the people of Kui, I’m hoping these interventions won’t be delivered in ‘Africa time’.

Ghana Wins!

Ghana wins! The FIFA Under 20 World Cup! And my heart. Aww.

First: the football. As Ghana made it through match after match of qualifying rounds, the hopes of Ghana’s people for their team climbed higher and higher. They were the only African team in the quarter finals and Ghanaians were proud to have the chance to show off on the world stage. Ghana and Brazil were to face off in the final and people all around the country gathered around televisions in their homes, at public bars, and even at shops on the side of the street to watch the fate of their young players.

A red card early in the game against Ghana couldn’t stop Ghana from defending strong and maintaining a 0 – 0 score through the regulation time and the two 15 minute overtime halves. The entire game came down to a shootout and everyone held their breath as Ghana went goal for goal with Brazil. But then victory! The entire city erupted in celebration – an amazing sight!

I’m a self professed band wagon sports fan and usually can’t be too bothered with watching pro sports until the stakes are high. It was as I watched the game that I realized Ghana had stolen my heart. I wanted so badly for Ghana to win. For a country that is so accustomed to receiving assistance and handouts, and being told that it must ‘develop’ to a better state, to legitimately prove that they could be the best at something in their own right.

Thanks for not letting me down Ghana.

The rains down in Africa

It’s Thursday morning. I’ve got a meeting all day today on the issue of HIV/AIDS that sounds very interesting and I was really looking forward to attending. The meeting was to start at 9:00am, but it is 9:30am and I am still sitting in my bedroom.

It’s raining.

This isn’t Canadian style rain – get your umbrella and quickly walk to your car/train/office. No, this is African rainy season rain. The kind that seems to come from all directions, soaks you through in about 30 seconds, and would render even the biggest golf umbrella useless.

The rain stops all human activity. Stalls where you buy goods and food are closed and people don’t leave wherever they are. I’m not worried about missing my meeting – I know that no one else is at the office either and the meeting won’t start until the rain has passed.

There is really something beautiful about this rain though – the power of it leaves me in awe every time it comes. I feel like I now understand why Toto misses the rain down in Africa. I think I will too when I leave. But I don’t think I will miss how it holds me hostage in my bedroom, eating ginger candies for breakfast and wanting to go to work to talk about development issues in my district.

Development Work: When the Solution becomes the Problem

Two months of being in Ghana certainly does not make me an expert in this topic, and there are many people much smarter than I who have published extensively on the issue. This post is simply about some of my observations on a certain type of development work that I witness aimed at the District level governments in efforts to improve civil service and governance.

“Through Sensitization and Education Workshops, we will Build their Capacity”
Sensitization, capacity building, and capacity development are all buzz phrases which I have developed a strong distaste for. They make me cringe every time I hear them thrown around. Not because I disagree with the concept of increasing someone’s ability to help themselves. This is a great concept, and the reason these phrases have become so popular. My problem with the phrases is that in the context of district operations, the workshops are not only often ineffective, but they can actually be counter productive as well.

The Problems with Workshops
Let me place another caveat on this post by saying that not all workshops fit this description, and that there are some workshops that actually seem to be valuable. Unfortunately, many more seem to fit under the category of ‘Well-intentioned-but-poorly-implemented-development-work’.

Problems:
Awareness does not necessarily result in behavior change. This is a topic that EWB discusses often. Awareness is relatively easy to achieve, whereas behavior change can be complex. There are many factors influencing the behavior of an individual or a community. For example, I know that flying around the globe emits massive amounts of harmful carbon emissions, and yet I do so without spending the extra cash to purchase any sort of carbon offset. Holding a workshop for civil servants on a transparent tender evaluation process does not necessarily mean that this process will be disseminated to all of the districts with representatives attending the workshop. Too often, workshops are not designed in a way that considers the complexities of behavior change and it is assumed that the knowledge gained at the workshop will result in drastic behavior changes.

Too many workshops! This is a bad thing because the same people are often invited to the workshops. These people are generally senior officers whose job it is to make things happen at their districts. If they’re at a workshop in a city 4 hours away from their district, they’re not able to do their job to develop the district. As an example, I am working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate a two day meeting in our district to discuss the next four year development plan with all of the heads of departments. The meeting was originally scheduled for September 30th and October 1st. Unfortunately, a workshop we were attending on September 29th ran over schedule from one day to three (imagine leaving town for a workshop that you expected to last for one day and you would be home that night, only to find the meeting would actually take three days!). So our meeting at our district would need to be rescheduled. Unfortunately, there is no suitable date in the next three weeks because of workshop conflicts outside of the district. So our work is literally on hold for about a month while we wait for schedules to align. My fingers are crossed that no more workshops will pop up which will delay us even longer!

Lack of coordination between development partners holding these workshops is often low and times and topics may overlap. Not a good use of senior district officer time. For many reasons, communication about the workshops to the districts is often delayed and so officers may get only a day’s notice that they are to attend a workshop.

Workshop quality. This seems to be more variable, and some workshops are run by very good and experienced facilitators that engage all of the attendees. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen some run by facilitators who are unprepared, unaware of realities of district operations, and who are outright dull. This means that no matter how valuable the information being delivered is, it’s likely not reaching the audience and so it doesn’t even result in awareness, let alone behavior change. I realize this is a fact of life for workshops in both the developing and developed world, but here it makes me especially angry because the consequence of failing to deliver a message and wasting the time of the district officer is that those in extreme poverty will be deprived of essential services for even longer.

It’s not all Doom and Gloom

One of my pet peeves is people who complain about their situation but don’t do anything to change it. So what is EWB doing to address the problems I’ve indicated above?

On the job training: one of the huge value adds of our work with the District Assemblies is that we show up day after day to provide on the job training that is relevant and responsive to the realities that the district officers face, and doesn’t pull officers away from their jobs. This means skills that we teach are much more likely to result in behavior change. Unfortunately this model is resource intensive (i.e., there are 170 districts in Ghana so it’s very difficult to supply each district with a volunteer).

Development Partner Influence: our work with the districts gives us a unique perspective into realities and challenges. EWB sits on some Development Partner meeting groups and shares these realities to try and influence how Development Partner work is conducted. We also share district realities with the Regional Offices who have authority over the districts. The Regional Office can share our successes with districts which do not have an EWB volunteer (e.g., a water point siting tool is being scaled up for use in several more districts). EWB’s critical thought process is unfortunately not a norm in the world of development I’ve seen.

So Now What?

I don’t believe that all westerners should immediately pack up and abandon Africa for Africans to sort it out on their own. I do believe there is a place for westerners in development work, but there is much room for improving the way it is delivered. Saying development is complex feels like an understatement. I certainly don’t have all the answers for exactly how to make it better, but asking hard questions and quickly learning from failure is a behavior that needs to be adopted by the entire development industry if we truly have people at heart.

Kadeo!

Here are some photos I thought I would share since I've had an abundance of text only posts. Most are from a recent festival in town called the Kadeo festival which is celebrated on the 27th day of fasting during Ramadan. Enjoy!

My Job in Ghana

Although I’ve tried to fill you in on my living situation and my office atmosphere, I haven’t actually articulated what I’m doing at work.

I think I’ve already mentioned that I feel very lucky to have the job I do here; I’m involved in all sorts of conversations about all the development issues that the Bole District faces, and I get to meet all sorts of amazing people. I really feel like I’m getting an experiential degree in Development Studies and a very large portion of my day every day is spent thinking about how the local District Government can better deliver services to citizens of the District; and how I can help to facilitate that in my short time here.

Engineers working in governance?

I am part of EWB’s Governance & Rural Infrastructure team. Here’s a blurb from our team strategy document:

“Our team is making the district planning systems work. Specifically:
1. District plans utilize accurate data for evidence-based decision-making.
2. District leaders are proactive in assigning roles, motivating staff, and taking responsibility for creating evidence-based plans.
3. District communication systems are transparent and allow communities to hold the district accountable.”

Let me be the first to say that these are big goals. But they’re also really exciting because they address some of the key issues to proper functionality in the local governance structures, and ultimately in service delivery to the citizens of the district – particularly the rural poor.

Fortunately for me, I find big challenges like these to be motivating rather than paralyzing – especially when working with the awesome people that make up our little G&RI team. We’re all working towards the team’s goals with strategically selected projects, but there’s also room for some innovation and testing things out within each of our districts so we can learn and share best practices.

Planning for Service Delivery

At the Bole District, my primary focus is working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate the creation of the District Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) for the term 2010 – 2013. This document is supposed to be the framework that each district uses to plan out their focus and specific development projects over the four year period. Each year, the MTDP is used to guide the creation of an Annual Action Plan which is a more detailed and specific plan for the upcoming year.

The theory of the process is great, but in reality many of the districts fell short on execution. This is likely due to a great number of factors, but some main hypotheses are:
- the document was not easily read or understood and so was not consulted when carrying out specific actions or projects
- there was little stakeholder involvement in the creation of the plan, meaning that departments didn’t have buy in (or even know that it existed for use)
- the plan wasn’t actually finished until over half way through the planning period
- the plan didn’t reflect actual priorities of communities and departments

Project Specifics

I’m trying to facilitate a MTDP creation process that addresses these challenges and hopefully creates a plan which reflects the development priorities of the district, is accessible and user friendly, and engages stakeholders so they can use it to hold their governments and politicians accountable for service delivery. It’s a long process which involves data collection, consulting all stakeholders in the District, prioritizing issues and projects, and setting goals and targets. The process won’t be complete when I leave in December, but I’m working hard to coach the planning officer through initial stages of the process so he can continue down that path when I leave.

Some other things I’m doing at work:
- exploring the role of the public sector in private sector development and trying to determine some best practices that the public sector can follow to create an enabling environment for economic growth
- some computer training to staff at the District Assembly in basic computer use, MS Office programs, electronic data analysis and management, and virus management
- trying to facilitate development of a District capacity building plan based on a government led and donor supported assessment called the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT). Basically FOAT is a way of annually assessing the performance of a District and awarding funds based on good performance. If District capacity is built, there will be potential for higher fund disbursement to Bole in the following years
- working to change small behaviors such as time management, communications, and organization

Not a short list. And also not comprehensive. I don’t expect to achieve a state of satisfaction of each area, but organizational change is difficult and if I can make some small sustainable changes to the way the District operates to better deliver services to its people, I will be happy.

The EWB vacuum

When the EWB long term volunteers leave Canada for their 12 month placement, many of them seem to be drawn in and extend their placements for two and even three years. When I first arrived in Ghana, I was a little overwhelmed with things and although I knew I would be fine for four months, I wondered how so many volunteers would want to stay longer than a year.
I’m now beginning to understand how easy it is to be completely caught up in your work – the challenges are so numerous but the potential for rewards are so great. You’re learning so much every day about your surroundings, systems that work and don’t work, and your own ability to face challenges and seek for solutions. I’ve never had a job that is constantly pushing my thinking and is filled with so many opportunities for contribution. I know that at the end of my placement I will be going home, but I also can now see how easy and tempting it would be to stay.

Great Expectations

My greatest fear in coming to Ghana had little to do with uncomfortable living conditions, unappealing toilet facilities, or unusual insects. My greatest fear was that I would not live up to expectations.

I’m continually impressed by the caliber of people I meet within Engineers Without Borders. Their insights, critical though processes, ideas, and achievements never ceased to amaze me. EWB did express some expectations of their volunteers; although no one was outwardly demanding that I live up to all of the characteristics of every other previous remarkable volunteer. However, these became expectations that I imposed on myself – and more than anything else, I feared failing.

I’ve since arrived in Ghana and overcome my fear. This doesn’t mean I think I’ve surpassed all the expectations, and being a month in then it’s far too early to evaluate whether I’ve failed.

What has changed is my perspective. I’ve come to appreciate tall expectations to be wonderful gifts instead of a cause for concern. Expectations have the power to motivate me and push me to face challenges and achieve things I didn’t realize I could. There’s a great sense of empowerment in knowing that you have the ability to face challenges and work towards overcoming them. Whether you succeed or fail is somewhat irrelevant because either way you will learn valuable lessons about the problems you faced and about yourself.

So the next time someone confronts me with great expectations, instead of feeling fear I will feel excitement. And instead of losing sleep over the possibility of failure, I will simply say ‘thank you’, and get to work.

My Hometown

Here are some random photos of my Ghanaian hometown of Bole.

Friday Market

Main road through town

My bike and the road I go running on in the morning.





My path to work from my house.

(The house shown is my neighbour's house)

Politically Correct?

September 10, 2009

One of the things I love about Canada is the cultural diversity. Bringing people together from many different backgrounds is not without its challenges, but as a whole I strongly feel that we benefit from this cultural wealth as a society. However, I’m sometimes frustrated by the paralysis of being overly politically correct. Of course I don’t want to offend anyone, but it seems that this fear of offending people prevents us from having potentially rich conversations about each others backgrounds, cultures, and religions.

Here is Ghana, it is quite refreshing when people are very up front with their questions. “What is it like in your place?”; “Why don’t you live with your parents?”; “Why don’t you like the skin of the cow, when it is so sweet?”; “What religion are you?”; and “Why does it seem that white people don’t believe in things unless they see them?”.

People have genuine curiosity about my culture and religion, and aren’t afraid that they will offend me or be perceived as less intelligent by asking the questions. Likewise, I can ask them many questions about their culture, behaviors, and religious beliefs without them thinking less of me. (“How do you know which chickens are yours when they all run around?”; “How is it that Muslims and Christians live together so peacefully here?”; “Why do you pray during the middle of the night during Ramadan?”; and “How am I supposed to know who your actual sister is, when you call everyone your sister?”).

It leads to some very interesting conversations, and I wonder why we can’t openly have more of these conversations back in Canada where we have such a huge opportunity to learn about cultures from all corners of the globe, without stepping outside of our city or even our social circles. I know that conversations like this happen, but usually not without developing a certain level of trusting relationship first.

So I’m posing a question to those reading this post. Especially those who represent visible ethnic minorities – even if you and possibly generations before you were born in Canada. Would you be offended if someone you didn’t know very well were to ask you about your background, culture, or religion; with the implicit assumption that because you look different than they do, you must have a different cultural background? Or is a fully developed trusting relationship a necessary precursor to opening this dialogue in Canada?

BUSAC Workshop

1 September 2009

I’ve just returned from a two day workshop in the nearby city of Wa. The purpose of the workshop was to educate public officers on the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund, and generally the role that the public sector can play in the development of Ghana’s private sector.

Meetings like this one are certainly a perk of my job with the District Assembly. I get to attend meetings with many top government officials, Traditional Chiefs, and NGO leaders. I get to meet many interesting people, like one gentleman who spent the last 20 years in the UK and has come back to be the District Chief Executive in his home district in Ghana. This is a district with no electricity or paved roads – how the Assembly even functions is beyond me!

This was not my first workshop in Ghana, but it was my first workshop that was out of town. The workshop was at the Upland Hotel – a very nice hotel by standards that I’ve witnessed in Northern Ghana. The room I stayed in was charged out at GHc45 per night, which is 5 times the price of the place I stayed in Wa the weekend before when I was footing the bill. Although these workshops serve as important training (which we would pay for in Canada), participants are generally funded to come – travel costs, all food, accommodation, and even sitting allowances (a personal stipend). This workshop did not provide sitting allowances, but everything else was fully covered. At the close of the workshop, participants were told to go and claim their travel costs. I tried to deny any compensation since it cost me GHc2.50 to get to Wa, and I was catching a ride back with some other participants. However my attempts to turn it down caused quite a stir with my coworkers, so instead I claimed it and gave the envelope containing GHc40 to them to share.

The topic of the workshop was very interesting. Since I have arrived, I have begun to take the stance that private sector development is really going to be the key to Ghana’s development. The two main reasons I currently identify are:
1. the private sector will employ the large segment of the population that is currently unemployed (providing reliable income for employees and even wealth creation for many entrepreneurs), and
2. This will also increase the taxable base so that the government agencies have a source of internally generated revenue to use to deliver services and infrastructure to their citizens.

About the BUSAC fund: a grant which is awarded on a competitive basis to for-profit business associations who have identified constraints or challenges pertaining to their business environment, and would like to advocate with an institution to implement proposed solutions to their challenges. An example would be a farmer’s association lobbying their government for improved roads to their markets, or a women’s artisan association lobbying a bank for different credit terms for their members.

Challenges facing implementation: These are especially relevant in the North of Ghana, where I am living and working. Some of the northern associations simply do not have the skills and capacity to access the fund. These are usually the poorest and those that could benefit the most from access to the fund. For example, the BUSAC fund has been advertising the fund in the South of Ghana by printing ads in newspapers. I live in a District capital, and as far as I know there is no where I can buy a newspaper in town. At about GHc1 per paper, few can afford to purchase it regularly. Many others are illiterate and couldn’t read it even if they could afford it. Another challenge that I’m worried about, is the fund providing money to associations who use it to lobby their local governments. This alone is a great thing because it opens dialogue between the government body and the association, but the resources of the District governments are very tight and the government may not be able to respond to the requests of the association. If not handled properly, this could lead to further distrust and poor relationships between businesses and the government bodies.

However, a positive outcome of the workshop was that the members of the District Governments were open with their criticisms and suggestions for the fund implementation. And that the facilitators seemed to take their suggestions seriously, hopefully with the intent of improving fund requirements for implementation during the second round of funding in 2010. It’s great to see governments having open dialogue with development partners (donors), to ensure that funds actually go to help those who need it!

Honeymooning

I'm embarking on my honeymoon. This doesn't mean that I've accepted one of my many many marriage proposals (typical answer is "I would make a terrible wife; I won't prepare TZ and I don't clean). What I'm referring to is my honeymood with Ghana.

A month in to my visit is a bit delayed, but in reflection on the last month I think I was going through a little more culture shock than I admitted to myself. But now that I'm feeling much more comfortable with my town and my settings, I'm seeing things through rose colored glasses. There are definitely days where I get frustrated or feel overwhelmed with complex situations that I know I'll never even be able to understand - let alone change, but by and large things are looking pretty good.

This Friday, I was invited to a meeting in Tamale - the city which is the capital of the Northern Region (here, a region is similar to a province). We originally came into Tamale when we first arrived in Ghana and I didn't exactly love it - it seemed busy and dirty and had very basic ammenities for a bigger city. But now that I've spent time other places, Tamale seems absolutely luxurious and I can't get over the amount of things that are available to buy. Today I spent more money in one day than I have since I left Canada (about $75). It was some great retail therapy and I'm feeling awesome!

Bring on the honeymoon - I know it won't last forever so I'm going to embrace it!

You are Welcome

I had heard good things about Ghanaian hospitality, but didn’t know the full extent of it until I actually arrived. Whenever I go somewhere new and meet new people, before even asking for my name they greet me with a warm smile and a kind "You are welcome".


I can tell by their facial expressions and their subsequent actions that their words are genuine and my presence is truly welcome with them. It’s a comforting feeling, especially on those days when the difficulties of life here seem to be overwhelming and my own family is thousands of miles away. Hearing those words at home after each work day is like being wrapped in a warm blanket and told there’s no need to worry.


Greetings are another big part of Ghanaian culture. Every morning, I say more "Good Mornings" than I can count. It’s rude to pass without greeting, and if you know someone then it’s necessary to stop and chat.


During a recent dinner with one of the local chiefs (he’s a chief of a nearby village, but not of the large town where I stay) we were discussing the concept of "Africa Time". He said that one of the reasons he ends up being late often, is because any time he travels anywhere, he needs to stop by everyone on the way to greet them. These greetings can add an hour to a 10 minute trip. He said that if he is staying in the same town as his mother, every morning before he does anything else, he must go to her house and greet her. I told him that I live in the same city as my mother and can sometimes go for a week without talking to her because we are both busy. He told me "In Africa, we don’t value time". I said "Maybe not. But you value people".


Ghanaians have really taught me something about how to properly host a guest, and it makes me want to bring the spirit of Ghanaian hospitality home with me.

Work at the Bole District Assembly

Friday August 21, 2009

Its early afternoon and I write this sitting at my desk, listening to the rain hammering my office roof as though a pack of the local goats have all congregated on top of my office to dance. The humidity has been building for the past few days and I’m hoping the rain will bring relief from the constant stickiness of the air. The unfortunate thing is that today is Friday, which means market day, and I had wanted to get out and buy some things for the week ahead. The rain shouldn’t last too long, so hopefully I can go within the next hour or so.

Today marks the end of my second week here at Bole District Assembly; and I’ve learned lots already about Ghanaian office work culture and the realities of implementing development projects from the district perspective. (Photos are of the view from my office door).

An office is an office is an office…

In many ways, things are very similar to office life in Canada. I would guess that there are about 40-50 people working out of my three storey office. Everyone in the office has a role and set of procedures to operate within. They’ve got offices, desks, and computers. The men wear shirts and ties and the women wear either western style office wear or traditional Ghanaian style tailored dresses. Coworkers get together after work to go to the local patio for a drink, and I’ve even already observed some office politics.

Or is it?

As much as things are the same, they are also very different. My three storey office is a concrete block building which looks like it was built in about the 50s. The desks and chairs are old, shabby, and are broken to some degree. Most of them are spray painted with the name of the Development Aid Project that donated the furniture. The computers are few in number and those that have them don’t always know how to use them. One even sits idle because it is outdated and the computer illiteracy rates are too low to generate demand for the unused computer. When a copy of a document is needed, it often means copying the document by hand. When an electronic copy of a document is needed, it usually means recreating the document on the computer as the file is no where to be found. There is no internet access, no email, and no formal phone system. The discussions my coworkers have after work usually seem to revolve around the state of the nation and its development.

So how do things work?

I’ve come to realize just how much I take for granted the way that computers and the internet improve our communication systems and can make our work easier. So given the constraints that this office is dealing with, I would say they’re doing a good job of using their available communication systems.
Take meeting invites, for example. Here are the steps one of my colleagues would need to undergo to call a meeting:
Write a formal letter of invitation, likely by hand (either due to lack of computer access or skills).
Find a typist to type the letter up on a computer.
Find some paper somewhere to print invites on.
Locate a working printer and print the correct number of invitations.
Sign each invite.
Arrange for the messenger to pick up the invites and hand deliver to the various attendees (sometimes they may be an hour or two away).
Hope people get the invite on time, read it, and actually show up.

This doesn’t even include arranging for any meeting logistics such as sitting allowance, snacks, etc. A step that would take me 5 minutes to perform at work in Canada with Outlook, can last an entire day.

Fortunately, there are some incredibly hardworking and dedicated people here who are doing their best to improve the functioning of the District Assembly. I already know that I’ll learn far more from these people than they could ever learn from some 27 year old engineer from Canada. I just hope that I can share a few things that will help them to do their jobs in building up the infrastructure for the communities in the district, and continue to gain the trust of the people living in those communities.

(Note: Our individual offices all open to the walkway outside, and as I sit in my office and write this, I see that a chicken has just walked in the door. It’s somehow managed to make its way up the three flights of stairs and find my open door. Last week I was in a meeting with several department heads, some top representatives from the National Water Resources Commission, and the Ministry of Environment from Accra; and two chickens actually walked in to the meeting. No one batted an eye.)
Pictures: Office parking lot, and chicken in the parking lot.

Pictures: General Assembly meeting, and the District Chief Executive giving his opening address to the assembly.

Ghanaian Food!

If this post has a negative tone, I apologize. I love lots of things about Ghana – but the food is not one of them.

I’ve converted to a semi-vegetarian in Ghana. Not because I think I will get sick from the flies I see on the meat hanging at the butcher stall in the hot sun, or because I don’t like goat meat – which is their primary source of meat here. It’s really more because I don’t like all the parts of animal that are included in your food. Intestines, chunks of fat, maybe some brain, gizzards – if it’s part of an animal, it could be in your food. It’s insulting to leave all your meat in your bowl, and sometimes all I get are chunks of fat and maybe a lower part of leg that’s only hide on bone. So I’ve learned that my safest bet is to just order food without meat.

Food here is ordered by the starch. In Canada we tend to order a dish by the name of the meat (or protein). We say "I’ll have the steak", knowing that it will come with potatoes and veggies. Food here is ordered by the starch. "I’ll take fufu" or "I’ll take rice". Then people seem to just know what sauce will come with each starch.

Various Starchy Lumps

Fufu
Made from boiled yams which are pounded using a giant wooden mortar and pestle. Ghanaians like getting white people to try pounding fufu, and every time I see it being made I’m invited to pound it. I struggle with the 30 pound pestle. I get a few pounds in and everyone gets a good laugh because I’m so obviously terrible at this (although I think my technique is improving). At my house, the family has a giant sized mortar and they will use three people to pound the fufu at once. They all get a rhythm going and it’s pretty amazing! I think fufu is my favorite ‘lump of starch’ food, but I can still eat only about half of the serving size given.
Fufu is served with light soup, which is a tomato and oil based broth with a chunk of animal. Sometimes you luck out and get a completely decent piece of goat, but usually it’s not worth the risk so I order without meat.

TZ
TZ stands for something, but I have no idea what. My family makes it for dinner every night. It’s a mixture of maize flour and cassava flour. Both flours are individually mixed with water, and then the two are mixed together and stirred with a giant wooden spoon. It’s very thick and the stirring is a full on workout (the pic is of me attempting to stir). The finished product is a firm sticky dough.
TZ is typically served with stew – at my house this is usually an okra stew with various ‘meat’.

Banku
Made from fermented maize flour (and maybe some cassava flour?). Like sour TZ. Again served with okra stew and some meat.

Kenke

A more fermented version of banku. The banku is wrapped in maize leaves and left to ferment a bit longer, then steamed. Tastes like sour banku; the flavour is similar to a strong sourdough. I’ve had kenke with pepe (a pepper sauce) and various whole small fried fish.

Other notes on food:

• Everything you buy is sold to you in a plastic bag. If I buy rice from a stall, it’s in a plastic bag. If I buy my morning porridge, it’s in a plastic bag. I bite a hole in the corner and slurp the porridge through the hole.
  
  
• I drink treated water from plastic bags. They are called ‘pure water sachets’, and again you just bite a hole in the corner and drink the water through the hole.


• Women sell various fried foods from plastic display cases that are carried on their heads.


• There are these giant Timbit things called ‘bolfru’. Tasty but super greasy and rich.

My favorite thing to have for lunch is called ‘ground nut soup’. It’s basically a soup made from peanut butter and hot peppers and is spooned over rice.

Veggies and fruits have been quite hard to come by. They can be found on Fridays, because it’s market day, but outside of Friday then they’re a bit scarce in Bole (although on my way to Bole, we stopped in a town called Kintampo where they were selling mangoes which were actually the size of my head!!).

My Home

To be perfectly honest, I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot with my living situation.

I live in a compound, which is a large concrete rectangular building. All the rooms open into a central concrete courtyard, which is used for cooking, laundry, drying flour, kids and goats running around, and pretty much anything else my family might want to do. Compounds are a common thing of African life, and sometimes they will be shared with several families or tenants. My compound is only my family, which is nice. They seem to be a fairly well to do family in the town. Although living in this luxury doesn’t really fit with old EWB ‘integrating and living with the poorest’ mantra, fortunately for me EWB has realized that a volunteer is only effective if they are with their sanity, and volunteers have started to live wherever they feel comfortable.

All of our cooking is done over coal pots in the courtyard. We have a tap for running water, but it’s only used in the morning to top up some steel drums where the water for the day is kept. It’s hauled from here to do all the cooking, cleaning, and toilet flushing.

We have one toilet in our compound, which is a godsend every day at 4am when my stomach cramps wake me up like an alarm bell and I bolt for the toilet. It’s relatively clean, even has a seat, and I haven’t seen any cockroaches in the toilet room yet.

Our house is connected to the electrical grid. This is excellent news, I can use my computer in my room and I have a ceiling fan which allows me to sleep at night. There’s a single fluorescent light in the courtyard so you can make out shapes of the food you are eating. Most of the family has televisions in their room (I go without), and my host brother even has a satellite dish.

My family is about 15 or 16 people at the house currently. Come September, it sounds like the family size will change as some will leave for university and some will come back from other towns because they are school teachers in Bole. Apparently we’re getting another four or so kids, bringing the total to somewhere between 10-12 kids. The reason I don’t know the exact number is that it can be tough to figure out who actually lives there, and who just spends all their waking hours there.

My host father is about 70 years old and has a good life of teaching and politics. He was the District Chief Executive for our Bole District (probably equivalent to the mayor of an area of about 150,000 people). He is also the Chief of a village on the border of Cote D’Ivoire. When I told him I wanted to visit his village, he said it would not be a good idea because in addition to people living there, there is also a ‘symphony of mosquitos’ and the roads are impassable this time of year. Fair enough, I don’t really want to go to a place where I need to swim down the roads to get there, only to be eaten alive by potentially malaria infested insects. Anyway, I usually just call him Chief, and he speaks excellent English and is a very kind and intelligent man. He even tells me I cannot pay rent to stay with his family. His wife is my host mother, who seems very kind but does not speak English. She is trying to teach me some Gonja, and I’m trying equally hard to learn (not hugely successful as of yet, but I’ll be patient!).

My four host ‘brothers’ (an assortment of brother, cousin, and friends that live there), are between the ages of about 22 – 25. They speak English fairly well and are very interesting to talk to. Since they are on break right now until going back to University, they spend their days watching politics and sports on TV. I think my one host brother will actually be a prominent Ghanaian leader one day – and it’s very inspiring to hear him talk about his vision for his country. I’ve had him write up some things for me that I will share on my blog – watch for it!
My two host sisters are 24 and 37. Their English is not too bad, and they’ve adopted me to teach me Gonja and how to cook meals and wash my clothes. I even spent a whole afternoon with them at the salon where they had their weaves redone – quite the process! They’re really sweet and they make coming home after work a treat. I can ask them questions about why Ghanaians do what they do, and they can ask me about the behavior of crazy white people. They are both school teachers, and have invited me to spend a day with them at their schools when school starts again in September.

The kids are adorable. Right now there are about 7 between the ages of 4 and 18, and they do the majority of cleaning and cooking (depending on who is around). They greet me outside the house when I come home and insist on carrying my bags and pushing my bike to its parking spot. When I first arrived with my huge and very heavy backpack full of everything from Canada, there were about 8 kids who swarmed me, grabbed my bag, and hoisted it onto the heads of about 4 of the kids! I couldn’t stop laughing.

The neighbors are numerous, and they will come over to use our courtyard to dry their various maize or cassava flour, etc. They seem nice, and no one seems to mind me taking pictures of the motions of their daily lives.
I hope you enjoy the pics! Sorry about the photo quality - necessary to compress them so that my internet connection actually works. As time goes on and my new family members arrive to replace those going off to school, I’ll update some more on my living situation. I’ll also post some photos later with pics of my room, etc. since I don’t seem to have any of those right now.