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.