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.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
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