i am really having a hard time dealing with what happened in Connecticut yesterday. Not so much that a strange, perverted young person would think that this is the right answer to his problems ..because weirdness comes too easily..but it strikes so close to home. Perhaps, now that i spend so much time and invest so much emotionally in teaching, or perhaps as a grandfather i can feel the almost unendurable agonies of the families of these so-young children who were slaughtered at school. I simply can not imagine the torment.
But also, it's the unavoidable fact that this happens, with more and more frequency, i might add, over and over again..although arguably this is the worst..20 children..none aged more then 10!!!! simply horrifying. I can not imagine the mental screw-up that pumps 100 bullets into children.
And it does happen more and more...as people have more and more disposable income, as guns get more and more powerful. Someone wrote that it is easier to buy a gun than a pet!!
These guns have only one purpose..that is what gets me...they are not for hunting..or even, for self-protection. They are designed and manufactured and MARKETED on their capabilities to kill and maim as many PEOPLE as possible in a very short time..in other words they are madmen's weapons!
I'm not 100% sure that i've ever been in a gun shop..but i think possibly yes, in Texas, or New Mexico..hah! where else would it be! But guns are so easily and CHEAPLY available
will this ever stop? not in my lifetime. But i hope this President, for whom i've voted and campaigned twice, has the guts to go after the gun lobby but....i doubt it
The USA..the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave...the richest (and luckiest..in terms of natural resources, size, etc) country in the world, the leader of the free world, the #1 SuperPower....and yet its gun-control laws..or more correctly, it's gun-lack of control laws ..make this kind of carnage, oh so easy, oh so frequent. Oh so forgettable..will we remember Newtown, Connecticut in 6 months time? Or when it is repeated in some other place.
The USA is such a mystery to me..despite the fact that i have lived (here) (mostly) for the last 43 years..and i am a US citizen.
It seems to have such a frontier, rugged individual mentality and ..yes, respect for violence. Old movies...Gunfight at the OK Corral, High Noon..later ones..Rambo, Terminator..then the Godfather or Reservoir Dogs. But that's bullshit..this is an immigrant nation...most families don't go back more than 2-3 generations.
Is it an intellectual problem or an identity problem?
ah, now we come to the hard part...I'm a dual citizen, the UK and the US.
And the UK and the US have a special relationship...a common language, many common traditions, a genuine closeness.
But it is impossible to compare attitudes towards guns and gun-owning and gun-using in the US and the UK. There is a huge difference. Yes this happened 10-15 years ago in Dunblane...but legislation tightened and it hasn't happened since.
So if we're cousins across the ocean why are we so different when it comes to guns?
Random thoughts...
The US truly is a mongrel nation and the Founding Fathers arrived/settled/came to prominence when the land/country was mostly unexplored, untamed land (duh...belonging to the North American Indians)
The Founding Fathers were predominantly English...with their own reasons for settling in the Americas.
The country is new, compared to many/most at about 250 years and counting.
99% of Americans are of immigrant stock...be it 1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6 generations old now. At the time of the American Revolution ..some 250 years ago..the colonies occupied probably about 1/20th of the present USA..and almost everyone who would call themselves Americans were English/British. The population of the United States of America in 1764 was probably less than one million..i'm too lazy or angry to check (current is > 300M)...ouf, probably a lot less than 1 million!!
The USA has been populated since then by invited immigrant waves from Europe, Asia..and oops, you're in West Africa, richard ...from West Africa as slaves...and then Europe again, and again..those damn Irish!!
And then 150 years ago..the USA invented modern trench warfare and prisoner of camps..but came back together again as a Federation and abolished slavery....bit late on that weren't we??
the common language misdirects ...the common tradition misguides.
It is inconceivable that what happened in Newtown, CT could happen in the UK ...............or France or Canada or Japan and yet it will happen again here..and over and over again.
Why..for me, it is simply that we will not face up to the truth..that the blood of Newtown is on all lawmakers...and on all our hands for not getting our elected representatives to outlaw owning people-killing weapons.
This American flaw is real, addressable ..and without addressing, a terrible and growing stain on the the American definition/national identity.
Please let's change it.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
It's been a long, long time..and a tough road in some places
..now it is end-November, post-Thanksgiving (..and T'giving is every adult's favourite family holiday, isn't it?)
and despite the prediction of the last post..many, many moons ago..that i would not renew, I did and now i am 2 and a bit (less than 3 months) into my third year in rural Ghana....AND I'M WONDERING NOW IF THAT WAS THE RIGHT DECISION!!!!
Oh, It's Thanksgiving and i miss my family..and i had a bad spashdown yesterday in Accra when out running..asphalt, granite chips..and my six-point landing..heels of palms, elbows, knees...which i can still see in my mind's eye..really seems to have jolted my body..and gashed my knee, still bleeding 36 hours later..and bounced my psyche. What am i doing here? What is it that keeps me here?
Am I stubborn or driven or committed or stupid..? or addled, deluded..and my knee hurts like hell..from my ungraceful landing yesterday.
All of the above?
I like what i do..at the JHS school and i do recognise that i am making a difference in a number of children's lives...half the children in the school now are library book borrowers..some borrow 2-3 times a week. I've met the goal of making the Library a more important place, a more useful place in the life of the school and the students. But this is despite the fact that the school must be termed dysfunctional...a school that does not meet its goals to educate and support the student population. A school that doesn't even seem to recognise that such are its goals! Too many of the teaching staff seem to think that that school exists for them to operate their power plays, their plots, their own agendas. Students seem to be the last thing on the minds of most of the teaching staff. They routinely beat the students, they routinely send them off on their personal errands, they routinely don't bother to show up! The only clock in the school ..that the officially-appointed end-of-period bellringer goes by... was 12 minutes fast for a whole day..and nobody (but me..) noticed..and nobody cared!!!
It is depressing, frustrating (including/not including the theft of our/my DVD player and all the HP, Indiana Jones, Star Wars DVD's that i brought from the US) and sad.
But if i keep telling myself that ANYTHING that i can do to help the children is a good use of my time and my life, it should be OK to continue, right?
Maybe not?
What effect does this time here have on me...physically, emotionally, intellectually..socially/personally (whatever that means!). Hmmm..not so good and there is a cumulative negative effect over time. AND 2 1/2 years is a LONG time to spend in rural Ghana.
I'm skinnier, lost a lot of muscle, I've learned to be more patient and to handle alone-ness better and i have no doubts about what i've done..BUT i feel tired and fed-up now.
It is impossible to be truly successful here. It is impossible for me to be truly successful here. No matter how one defines it for a volunteer. And maybe more so for an unaligned volunteer (ex-PCV) like me.
What would be success, though? Impossible to define but wouldn't it have to be something more than just helping some children. And is there an 'enough' factor in this? Have i helped enough with enough children? I suppose that i could reasonably say that I have left my mark with the libraries (all of them) and they will endure...mostly. Isn't that enough? Why did i come back? Because i didn't think i had done enough? If so, have i now done enough?
I find it hard here.
It's a cultural thing ..a collision of unknown and different cultures.
No matter how hard i try..and i do try..it's a thoroughly different and for me, impenetrable culture here. I'm always on the outside looking in. Oh i learn things about the culture almost every day but learning about and understanding are two different things.
But what does that mean? It means that where i am, in rural Ghana, i'm the complete outsider, the yevu, the odd-looking ostrich, and that no matter how friendly i am, and how friendly they are, we are so different, we're of such different worlds and we communicate so poorly that it is almost impossible to have an interesting and substantive conversation here ..one with depth... and that even ignoring the fact that it often seems impossible to spend any length of time talking to someone here without constant time-outs for phone-calls and messages! Of course, maybe that's the way the whole social media thing has taken over in the US now? Or the UK?
But that's very difficult and suffocating for me.......i like to converse, to debate, to argue even and i'm certainly interested in and involved in the outside/the whole world. I have lots of interests in things outside my life in Srogboe. And i'm slowly dying from lack of good conversations!
And to the extent that it is impossible to have good conversations ...i find myself diminished.
Other times, places when i've travelled i have been with, met lots of people of whom the meeting enhanced my life...getting stoned with a French arbitrage guy who lived in Switzerland and whom i met at a caravanserai in Urumqui (western china) or a French guy, a professional clown?, who was researching routines in Kyrgyzstan..or some/a few PCV's along the way, my friends in Italy, people i've sat beside on planes........or the people that i met and was 'traveling with' in London for the Olympics. Even meeting Brian A in Edmonton!
Here..nothing.........I've been divorced from fellow-PCV's for my entire service ..in this neglected corner of Ghana..
It seems impossible for me to have a real friendship here. But why? Because i'm a yevu, i don't speak the language, etc. Nope..its that our interests, backgrounds, experiences, hopes and dreams, and priorities are completely different.
And this comes out strongest now means when it comes to community help, community activism, community funding. We are at cross-purposes or cross-expectations because we are from different worlds.
And i'm so tired of the expectations of me...sure PC, i know you warned me. But it seems that even more so since i became an ex-/ a non-PCV that everybody expects that i will ante up the money for whatever it is anyone suggests needs to be done..for the school, for the library. A couple of people from the Director of Education's office in Keta were at the school recently and visited the Library..Oh they liked it fine but they said, you need more light, better ventilation! Shit, i know that but did you bring any budget moneys? Nope..the yevu will get it done! They're not the first people to note this either! I'd say..hey, gift horse and mouths, folks, but i think no-one would get it!
There is always, always, always the expectation is that i will come up with the money..after all it was mostly my idea to do this library.....but, but, but..isn't this the community's school??????? Well, yes, but that doesn't have real meaning.
And so i'm tired and unhappy and my knee hurts..yes, Paul, Godsway, Michael, Nathaniel, Sanity, Divine, Martha, Vivian, Satsufui, Loveth, Gabriel to name but a few..all benefit from my being here and helping and teaching classes and i have fun doing that..but aren't there limits??? don't there have to be limits..or is there a point in time when one says OK..i've done as much as i can do?
Dunno..
are there?
I'm tired of the heat, i'm really tired of the school nonsense, i'm tired of petty pilfering, i'm tired of bugs, i'm VERY tired of the community's unwillingness to get their sh-t together to actually do something good for the community....as has been done in the community down the road (proves it is possible..right!)
I'm tired of the ..expectations, the assumptions.
How tired?
Hmmm, not sure on that. I can leave any time i want..and will
i feel sometimes that this is destroying me..not just muscle mass, but brain cells..and there has to be a point when one says '...no mas..' (to quote Roberto Duran)
There does have to be a point in time...right????
and despite the prediction of the last post..many, many moons ago..that i would not renew, I did and now i am 2 and a bit (less than 3 months) into my third year in rural Ghana....AND I'M WONDERING NOW IF THAT WAS THE RIGHT DECISION!!!!
Oh, It's Thanksgiving and i miss my family..and i had a bad spashdown yesterday in Accra when out running..asphalt, granite chips..and my six-point landing..heels of palms, elbows, knees...which i can still see in my mind's eye..really seems to have jolted my body..and gashed my knee, still bleeding 36 hours later..and bounced my psyche. What am i doing here? What is it that keeps me here?
Am I stubborn or driven or committed or stupid..? or addled, deluded..and my knee hurts like hell..from my ungraceful landing yesterday.
All of the above?
I like what i do..at the JHS school and i do recognise that i am making a difference in a number of children's lives...half the children in the school now are library book borrowers..some borrow 2-3 times a week. I've met the goal of making the Library a more important place, a more useful place in the life of the school and the students. But this is despite the fact that the school must be termed dysfunctional...a school that does not meet its goals to educate and support the student population. A school that doesn't even seem to recognise that such are its goals! Too many of the teaching staff seem to think that that school exists for them to operate their power plays, their plots, their own agendas. Students seem to be the last thing on the minds of most of the teaching staff. They routinely beat the students, they routinely send them off on their personal errands, they routinely don't bother to show up! The only clock in the school ..that the officially-appointed end-of-period bellringer goes by... was 12 minutes fast for a whole day..and nobody (but me..) noticed..and nobody cared!!!
It is depressing, frustrating (including/not including the theft of our/my DVD player and all the HP, Indiana Jones, Star Wars DVD's that i brought from the US) and sad.
But if i keep telling myself that ANYTHING that i can do to help the children is a good use of my time and my life, it should be OK to continue, right?
Maybe not?
What effect does this time here have on me...physically, emotionally, intellectually..socially/personally (whatever that means!). Hmmm..not so good and there is a cumulative negative effect over time. AND 2 1/2 years is a LONG time to spend in rural Ghana.
I'm skinnier, lost a lot of muscle, I've learned to be more patient and to handle alone-ness better and i have no doubts about what i've done..BUT i feel tired and fed-up now.
It is impossible to be truly successful here. It is impossible for me to be truly successful here. No matter how one defines it for a volunteer. And maybe more so for an unaligned volunteer (ex-PCV) like me.
What would be success, though? Impossible to define but wouldn't it have to be something more than just helping some children. And is there an 'enough' factor in this? Have i helped enough with enough children? I suppose that i could reasonably say that I have left my mark with the libraries (all of them) and they will endure...mostly. Isn't that enough? Why did i come back? Because i didn't think i had done enough? If so, have i now done enough?
I find it hard here.
It's a cultural thing ..a collision of unknown and different cultures.
No matter how hard i try..and i do try..it's a thoroughly different and for me, impenetrable culture here. I'm always on the outside looking in. Oh i learn things about the culture almost every day but learning about and understanding are two different things.
But what does that mean? It means that where i am, in rural Ghana, i'm the complete outsider, the yevu, the odd-looking ostrich, and that no matter how friendly i am, and how friendly they are, we are so different, we're of such different worlds and we communicate so poorly that it is almost impossible to have an interesting and substantive conversation here ..one with depth... and that even ignoring the fact that it often seems impossible to spend any length of time talking to someone here without constant time-outs for phone-calls and messages! Of course, maybe that's the way the whole social media thing has taken over in the US now? Or the UK?
But that's very difficult and suffocating for me.......i like to converse, to debate, to argue even and i'm certainly interested in and involved in the outside/the whole world. I have lots of interests in things outside my life in Srogboe. And i'm slowly dying from lack of good conversations!
And to the extent that it is impossible to have good conversations ...i find myself diminished.
Other times, places when i've travelled i have been with, met lots of people of whom the meeting enhanced my life...getting stoned with a French arbitrage guy who lived in Switzerland and whom i met at a caravanserai in Urumqui (western china) or a French guy, a professional clown?, who was researching routines in Kyrgyzstan..or some/a few PCV's along the way, my friends in Italy, people i've sat beside on planes........or the people that i met and was 'traveling with' in London for the Olympics. Even meeting Brian A in Edmonton!
Here..nothing.........I've been divorced from fellow-PCV's for my entire service ..in this neglected corner of Ghana..
It seems impossible for me to have a real friendship here. But why? Because i'm a yevu, i don't speak the language, etc. Nope..its that our interests, backgrounds, experiences, hopes and dreams, and priorities are completely different.
And this comes out strongest now means when it comes to community help, community activism, community funding. We are at cross-purposes or cross-expectations because we are from different worlds.
And i'm so tired of the expectations of me...sure PC, i know you warned me. But it seems that even more so since i became an ex-/ a non-PCV that everybody expects that i will ante up the money for whatever it is anyone suggests needs to be done..for the school, for the library. A couple of people from the Director of Education's office in Keta were at the school recently and visited the Library..Oh they liked it fine but they said, you need more light, better ventilation! Shit, i know that but did you bring any budget moneys? Nope..the yevu will get it done! They're not the first people to note this either! I'd say..hey, gift horse and mouths, folks, but i think no-one would get it!
There is always, always, always the expectation is that i will come up with the money..after all it was mostly my idea to do this library.....but, but, but..isn't this the community's school??????? Well, yes, but that doesn't have real meaning.
And so i'm tired and unhappy and my knee hurts..yes, Paul, Godsway, Michael, Nathaniel, Sanity, Divine, Martha, Vivian, Satsufui, Loveth, Gabriel to name but a few..all benefit from my being here and helping and teaching classes and i have fun doing that..but aren't there limits??? don't there have to be limits..or is there a point in time when one says OK..i've done as much as i can do?
Dunno..
are there?
I'm tired of the heat, i'm really tired of the school nonsense, i'm tired of petty pilfering, i'm tired of bugs, i'm VERY tired of the community's unwillingness to get their sh-t together to actually do something good for the community....as has been done in the community down the road (proves it is possible..right!)
I'm tired of the ..expectations, the assumptions.
How tired?
Hmmm, not sure on that. I can leave any time i want..and will
i feel sometimes that this is destroying me..not just muscle mass, but brain cells..and there has to be a point when one says '...no mas..' (to quote Roberto Duran)
There does have to be a point in time...right????
Friday, April 6, 2012
It's been a while..
..and i'll say that not having my Macbook for almost 3 months ..waiting for the Apple Reseller network to get their act together..which is maybe never...means that i can't access my photo libraries and that has always been a big part of my blogging.
But, in truth the last 2+ months, have been unsettling and difficult while i've gone through the will he/won't he extend in Ghana for another year dialogue.
i think that dialogue is at an end..but i rate it only 90% certain..and it has certainly gone back and forth.
I'm not extending!
There are good working/helping reasons to stay but there are strong 'fed up with the shit and politics' reasons to not extend. But in the end, i think the strongest set of reasons that i won't and should not extend for another year come from looking in a mirror and reflecting on how i am day-to-day. Africa is hard on me and i've been here now for almost 22 months. It's hard ..as i've said a number of times...on every aspect of one's being here..shoes, clothes, muscle mass...getting to be scary..books, anything /everything electrical, sleep patterns...probably overall health and longevity. I'm used to it here but my guess is that the deterioration..for such it is...would accelerate in a third year. I need some time to recover and get stronger....and not just a couple of weeks!
In the last few months of watching Six Nations Rugby in Accra at weekends, i've met quite a few ex-pats and i recognise that the ex-pat life in Ghana is quite nice..and i idly consider it. but PCV life in rural Ghana is very very different. I try to live on 300 GH cedis a month (about $165)..travel, electricity, food.. whereas they tootle around in SUV's, live in a-c apartments and shop for all their food in ex-pat supermarkets..and get paid 10 x 0r 20 x 0r 30 x times what i have. One's ex-pat dollar or pond or euro goes a lot further here in Ghana than in the US or Europe but $165 is not a lot. Of course, how one lives and survives as a PCV is also a function of where...in rural Ghana the only place i can shop is the open-air market ..every 4 days.
why ever then would i consider extending?
Because Africa, certainly Ghana, is a unique and very different experience for one who has lived a striving life in the Western world, and especially the US
Towards the end of what has to be recognised and accepted as my useful life, Africa represents either a different kind of 'challenge' or a different kind of 'finis'.
(and i do come out of this adventure with a clear intention to go on, to do something else like this..another country probably...and i like Africa for many many reasons.)
i would go on record, also, as saying that i like Peace Corps- i take great pride in being a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Despite what i've said about how wearing and grinding life as a PCV is, i would probably have extended if i could have got past the ...shit, the rural community politics, the small-town and small-minded pettiness and jealousies.
I like being here a lot/most of the time....although i've never been sure why.
Obviously daily life here is very different from any life i've ever led - including two years as a mostly lost PCV in Romania 2005-2007.
Given that i've noted many times that Ghana, rural Ghana, is not beautiful, charming, cute, picturesque...in fact it is fairly ugly-lots of half-finished, never-to-be-finished breize-block dwellings and plastic trash everywhere- then what is it?
It's the people and the challenge/opportunity of trying to understand a completely different culture or state in the years 2010-2012.
I am an observer...and this place and living here is very very interesting.
And as a yevu-white person-it seems OK to be an observer...people don't seem to mind being observed.
So, as i insist that i like it here, what is it that i like? I supose that it is the simple accessabilty of the people that i'm with..and especially the children. In the US..even in a small community like Bar Harbor, Maine...for one reason or another people of all ages, including the very young, are very reserved and cautious-and certainly incurious- of strangers, or even people who might be vaguely familiar. But people in rural Ghana, especially, are definitely curious...and with their constant 'yevu, yevu..' cries almost respectful of one's presence amongst them. They are open..no agendas-apart from the occasional '..give, me, give me..' hands-out opening. and they smile and they love when i do my usual stunts for them. So in every day in my new 'adopted' small town i have many fun interactions.
I will miss these interactions more than i can possibly know just now..because there are dozens and dozens of such every day and i enjoy each and every one.
They are fuller and more frequent than ever i could have imagined...and that's before i talk about the reception/interaction at schools!
I am an everyday presence at these schools..imagine that in the good ole USA!
and maybe what i'm doing in establishing Libraries is genuinely useful and long-lasting.
so what's the hard part? That comes from the description of my role here and being caught between the NGO that built and funds the Library and the community and its self-appointed rulers who think that the Library is theirs (they focus principally on the monies in Ghana that are used to operate the Library on an ongoing basis)
In the work i've done with Lumana, the micro-finance operation here, and with the schools for the additional Libraries that I/we have established, i've had no problems at all. Sometimes it takes an age to get things done and it can be frustrating but nobody (incl. me) gets really upset and there is overall a mutual 'understanding' of what we're trying to do here amongst all the parties.
But the relationship with almost everyone associated as 'advisors' with the Whuti Community Library has been much more complicated.
On one hand the WCL is seen as an ongoing source of funds/money to (be distributed by the chiefs) be locally spent on Library Services, and on the other hand, i am seen as the access/gatekeeper to the ALAD riches and therefore the person with whom they need to arm-wrestle to get Mo' Money.
This last creates many problems with the mostly-uneducated people who run or think that they run Whuti.
It creates a complex relationship with, let's say, the Library Committee Members, who want access to the money..and this PCV who stand old-fashionedly between them and the money (the ALAD accounts) but also since they're always talking about someone else's money (...and they're VERY MUCH lacking in financial expertise) they are very difficult to deal with and they think that i am blocking them from the money..and virtually cheating them of what is rightfully theirs!
I'm not cheating them..i am trying to show them the realities of the financial situation that 'we' are in but they don't get it...a function of poor education and some hopeless belief that yevu money will last forever.
And so as a PCV, i find myself constantly at odds with them..about money and control of the LIbrary. They make no contribution of time or money or energies vis-a-vis the Library..but they think they should control all these aspects. And i think that being at odds with a community about money and control of a local establishment as big as this Library is very very unusual for a PCV.
Additionally, they have a very selfish and parochial attitude towards their PCV... I am theirs and should barely even set foot in adjoining communities no matter the cause!
These are frequent squabbles which i can't win and which leave me feeling awful and unmotivated and i often feel as if i'm being watched and that my daily behaviour will be censured.
That then is really what drives me away..because they are too often what i take 'home' in the evenings and it is them and their pettiness and their squabbles that wake me up in the middle of the night. And it would not change if i extended.
Either as a group or as individuals, i have very little respect and good feeling for the people of the Library Committee who have never ever cared about the children and who only care about power. Power..what a joke...but i suppose within a small community, being chairman of the Library Committee is a big deal.
There have been too many bad days with these people. I have to work hard to see past them and to focus on what has actually been done.
But, in truth the last 2+ months, have been unsettling and difficult while i've gone through the will he/won't he extend in Ghana for another year dialogue.
i think that dialogue is at an end..but i rate it only 90% certain..and it has certainly gone back and forth.
I'm not extending!
There are good working/helping reasons to stay but there are strong 'fed up with the shit and politics' reasons to not extend. But in the end, i think the strongest set of reasons that i won't and should not extend for another year come from looking in a mirror and reflecting on how i am day-to-day. Africa is hard on me and i've been here now for almost 22 months. It's hard ..as i've said a number of times...on every aspect of one's being here..shoes, clothes, muscle mass...getting to be scary..books, anything /everything electrical, sleep patterns...probably overall health and longevity. I'm used to it here but my guess is that the deterioration..for such it is...would accelerate in a third year. I need some time to recover and get stronger....and not just a couple of weeks!
In the last few months of watching Six Nations Rugby in Accra at weekends, i've met quite a few ex-pats and i recognise that the ex-pat life in Ghana is quite nice..and i idly consider it. but PCV life in rural Ghana is very very different. I try to live on 300 GH cedis a month (about $165)..travel, electricity, food.. whereas they tootle around in SUV's, live in a-c apartments and shop for all their food in ex-pat supermarkets..and get paid 10 x 0r 20 x 0r 30 x times what i have. One's ex-pat dollar or pond or euro goes a lot further here in Ghana than in the US or Europe but $165 is not a lot. Of course, how one lives and survives as a PCV is also a function of where...in rural Ghana the only place i can shop is the open-air market ..every 4 days.
why ever then would i consider extending?
Because Africa, certainly Ghana, is a unique and very different experience for one who has lived a striving life in the Western world, and especially the US
Towards the end of what has to be recognised and accepted as my useful life, Africa represents either a different kind of 'challenge' or a different kind of 'finis'.
(and i do come out of this adventure with a clear intention to go on, to do something else like this..another country probably...and i like Africa for many many reasons.)
i would go on record, also, as saying that i like Peace Corps- i take great pride in being a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Despite what i've said about how wearing and grinding life as a PCV is, i would probably have extended if i could have got past the ...shit, the rural community politics, the small-town and small-minded pettiness and jealousies.
I like being here a lot/most of the time....although i've never been sure why.
Obviously daily life here is very different from any life i've ever led - including two years as a mostly lost PCV in Romania 2005-2007.
Given that i've noted many times that Ghana, rural Ghana, is not beautiful, charming, cute, picturesque...in fact it is fairly ugly-lots of half-finished, never-to-be-finished breize-block dwellings and plastic trash everywhere- then what is it?
It's the people and the challenge/opportunity of trying to understand a completely different culture or state in the years 2010-2012.
I am an observer...and this place and living here is very very interesting.
And as a yevu-white person-it seems OK to be an observer...people don't seem to mind being observed.
So, as i insist that i like it here, what is it that i like? I supose that it is the simple accessabilty of the people that i'm with..and especially the children. In the US..even in a small community like Bar Harbor, Maine...for one reason or another people of all ages, including the very young, are very reserved and cautious-and certainly incurious- of strangers, or even people who might be vaguely familiar. But people in rural Ghana, especially, are definitely curious...and with their constant 'yevu, yevu..' cries almost respectful of one's presence amongst them. They are open..no agendas-apart from the occasional '..give, me, give me..' hands-out opening. and they smile and they love when i do my usual stunts for them. So in every day in my new 'adopted' small town i have many fun interactions.
I will miss these interactions more than i can possibly know just now..because there are dozens and dozens of such every day and i enjoy each and every one.
They are fuller and more frequent than ever i could have imagined...and that's before i talk about the reception/interaction at schools!
I am an everyday presence at these schools..imagine that in the good ole USA!
and maybe what i'm doing in establishing Libraries is genuinely useful and long-lasting.
so what's the hard part? That comes from the description of my role here and being caught between the NGO that built and funds the Library and the community and its self-appointed rulers who think that the Library is theirs (they focus principally on the monies in Ghana that are used to operate the Library on an ongoing basis)
In the work i've done with Lumana, the micro-finance operation here, and with the schools for the additional Libraries that I/we have established, i've had no problems at all. Sometimes it takes an age to get things done and it can be frustrating but nobody (incl. me) gets really upset and there is overall a mutual 'understanding' of what we're trying to do here amongst all the parties.
But the relationship with almost everyone associated as 'advisors' with the Whuti Community Library has been much more complicated.
On one hand the WCL is seen as an ongoing source of funds/money to (be distributed by the chiefs) be locally spent on Library Services, and on the other hand, i am seen as the access/gatekeeper to the ALAD riches and therefore the person with whom they need to arm-wrestle to get Mo' Money.
This last creates many problems with the mostly-uneducated people who run or think that they run Whuti.
It creates a complex relationship with, let's say, the Library Committee Members, who want access to the money..and this PCV who stand old-fashionedly between them and the money (the ALAD accounts) but also since they're always talking about someone else's money (...and they're VERY MUCH lacking in financial expertise) they are very difficult to deal with and they think that i am blocking them from the money..and virtually cheating them of what is rightfully theirs!
I'm not cheating them..i am trying to show them the realities of the financial situation that 'we' are in but they don't get it...a function of poor education and some hopeless belief that yevu money will last forever.
And so as a PCV, i find myself constantly at odds with them..about money and control of the LIbrary. They make no contribution of time or money or energies vis-a-vis the Library..but they think they should control all these aspects. And i think that being at odds with a community about money and control of a local establishment as big as this Library is very very unusual for a PCV.
Additionally, they have a very selfish and parochial attitude towards their PCV... I am theirs and should barely even set foot in adjoining communities no matter the cause!
These are frequent squabbles which i can't win and which leave me feeling awful and unmotivated and i often feel as if i'm being watched and that my daily behaviour will be censured.
That then is really what drives me away..because they are too often what i take 'home' in the evenings and it is them and their pettiness and their squabbles that wake me up in the middle of the night. And it would not change if i extended.
Either as a group or as individuals, i have very little respect and good feeling for the people of the Library Committee who have never ever cared about the children and who only care about power. Power..what a joke...but i suppose within a small community, being chairman of the Library Committee is a big deal.
There have been too many bad days with these people. I have to work hard to see past them and to focus on what has actually been done.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I think I begin to understand...and I DO NOT LIKE IT AT ALL!
My last post was six weeks ago when I was raging about local politics....but i didn't know the half of it then ...probably not even the quarter of it. The 'system' here is patronage..and at the rural level, it is dispensed by chiefs.
Almost every piece of contracted 'business' that is transacted locally..be it an agreement to build walls, or permission to put up a wayside food stand, or (let's say) an NGO hiring a local person to work in the new Community Library, or the 'fees' charged for operating a little stall in the Anloga marketplace, is a 'transaction' that, as a matter of course, goes through one of the local chiefs. They decide who gets hired and who gets black-balled (a meritocracy it isn't). They decide who can set up a business and who can't.
It's a very old-fashioned system and goes back long before colonialism and before independence. it was the way it had always operated-tribalism. In Ghana/The Gold Coast, the colonial system and the tribal system co-existed, side-by-side, and the colonial system really only operated at the high end and the tribal system continued as before..with only the occasional war between the two groups. Unlike colonies in East Africa or South Africa where large chunks of land were given over to white farmers the tribal system controlled the land all along.
After Independence, in 1957, Ghana tried to impose a few different systems..progressive nationalism, socialism, maybe even extreme socialism, and now what would we call it ... a vaguely Western-style democracy..with reasonably fair multi-party elections, a powerful presidency but no presidents-for-life, an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch and a 'market economy'..if one is being reasonably generous. But the tribal system still operates underneath that because the reach of the government and the civil service doesn't really extend to a community or an area like ours...some government monies are spent here but not much. There is very little evidence of government here in Whuti apart from its single Primary School run by the Ghana Education Service. There is no Health Service here (and no doctors), no Post Office or Police presence ..hell, the district capital even ordered that our speed bumps be removed as unauthorised .
In return, of course, the community pays no taxes..there are no property taxes; i would be very, very, very surprised if there is a single Personal Income Tax payer residing in Whuti ;and I would be equally surprised if there is any business in Whuti paying Business Taxes.
In other words, the government barely exists at this level.
So back to patronage and the tribal system of disbursing it...how does that affect me, why do i care?
i want to get this right and i want to get this said clearly..and it hasn't been easy for me to see the Library's future through the mists.
So maybe, first a few facts.
The Whuti Community Library (and the Computer Centre) is wholly funded and always has been, by a small, committed NGO in the US which has operated in Ghana for fifteen years and this could be called the NGO's Act III..the Last Hurrah. Indeed, Acts I and II (set in other parts of Ghana) are over and did not end well. Because of the NGO's founder's age and other concerns, this work is almost certain to be ALAD's final effort. (ALAD = African Literacy, Arts & Development Association )
The Community Library has been operating successfully on a daily basis since 22 September 2010, i.e. 16+ months ago, six weeks after I arrived in Whuti. And the Computer Centre has been operating on a daily basis as a revenue-generating internet cafe since 15 November 2011 (Thomas' 10th birthday). Less than three months then and the revenues are very small because we have no high-speed connection and because there isn't a lot of disposable income round here. But it might get better.
Notwithstanding the fact that we have been operating the Community Library for 16 months..with as many as 500+ users a week...it will be officially opened on 21/22 July 2012 with a ribbon-cutting and speeches, and dancing and drumming, etc. It will be a fine occasion with (hopefully) lots of dignitaries present, including ALAD's founder.
It costs between $500 and $600 a month to operate the Community Library and Computer Centre...and the internet cafe earns less than $20 a month. The founder of ALAD has committed to funding the Community Library's operations through at least the end of 2012 and possibly into 2013, but he has a declared intent to step down as ALAD's president in mid-2013.
And then what happens?
There is no real plan just the vague hope that the community will find ways to sustain the library financially.
The community have no real likelihood of coming up with a deep-pocketed external funding source to the tune of a committed $7000+ per year. It is also highly unlikely at the moment that ALAD will be able to come up with a committed long-term funding source.
Only a resourceful, enterprising, imaginative, concerned (Ghanaian) organisation could possibly come up with the necessary funding and at the moment such does not exist for the Library.
It is possible to conceive of such a (Ghanaian) organisation with the Whuti-Srogboe or Srogboe-Whuti diaspora ..and certainly Dr Sam's wonderful work in nearby Atorkor says it is doable.
But...try to superimpose that on Whuti and the chiefs and elders of Whuti and it just doesn't work.
They are intellectually dull, they are poorly educated, they are committed to the old ways and the old system, and sadly they actually do NOT care about the children.... which is surely why we're doing the Library! (..or I thought it was!)
The PCV has been lucky. He has got things going..and, believe me, 500+ Library visitors for a community library in Ghana is HUGE! And computers too, for children who've never seen them.
And a JHS Library and a Primary School Library also!!!
But..to recap, the Community Library Opening Ceremony is in late July 2012, which, coincidentally is my COS date, and the ALAD founder will be here to discuss the future...knowing that he and ALAD will not fund the Library much longer..
..and knowing that it will take a Mighty Heart to come up with the 'deal' that will ensure the Library's future and knowing that he doesn't have such a candidate.
....and knowing in his heart, as I know in mine, that the local chiefs and elders will never come up with the money to run the Library and that they'll simply wait for a miracle from outside.
The founder will be between a rock and a hard place at the Opening Ceremony. He will be under extreme pressure to turn over the Library and its operating accounts (..the money!!!) to the community.Under all the possible scenarios that I can come up with, he will be obliged to do that.
From that moment on, the Library will begin to deteriorate ..maybe almost imperceptably at first but it would get worse over time and I shudder to think of the Library in 18-24 months
Disintegration is not an overnight thing..it will happen gradually, day-by-day, week-by-week.
What does 'deterioration' actually mean in the Community Library...well, books will start to go missing because the current levels of care and attention will slip; the place will get messier because there won't be anything like the current attention to keeping the books on the shelves in order and maintenance will be downplayed; computers will go walk-about as the chiefs and elders claim their privileges...and then as the money runs out..no payment of salaries, etc..and the Library won't be able to stay open the same number of hours, etc
This is the future..this i know.
Does it have to be this way? Not if the Founder was willing to put his foot down and refuse to turn over the Library and the accounts to the community..the self-appointed committees..until a new organisation with strong Accra representation and a commitment and ability to raise funds was established. But when he comes here in July he won't be willing to go head-to-head with the chiefs and elders. He wants a Love-In and so he'll agree to turning things over to the community without receiving any evidence that they can raise funds for ongoing operations.
And so my situation...
I have an option to extend here in my current assignment for six or twelve months..perhaps even longer.
I don't want to leave because I enjoy my work, I feel proud of our efforts to-date but I would be EXTREMELY uncomfortable and MUCH less effective after the Community Library has been turned over to the community simply because the staff would no longer report to me and I would then have no authority to stem the deterioration. Currently the staff reports to me on all operations and I work hard (some might say very hard) to keep our standards high. I would be completely sidelined as far as the Library is concerned and these standards would slip. Yes, I could continue to help at the JHS Library and the Primary Library and in the ordinary way that would be OK though it would hardly fill my time.
I have been very seriously considered extending for another year where the goal would be to establish and implement a plan for long-term financial sustainability for the Library.....and that would certainly fill my time and be rewarding. But it has always been clear that long-term financial sustainablity for the Library depended on bringing in outsiders and creating a new, small, committed organisation with fund-raising capabilities to operate the Library.
Unfortunately, it has become very evident over the last six-eight weeks that the wolves are gathering and the chiefs and elders are deliberately excluding those who stand between them and control of the Library and its accounts ..the money!!(and that includes me, of course) and those excluded are in fact the ones (again, including me) that I had hoped would be a part of a new organisation to run the Library.
It isn't a surprise that they would be excluded AND that I would have thought of them as the right local people with whom we could have gone forward because, of course, the qualities in them that appeal to me are those that the chiefs and elders fear...independence, clear thinking, activist, and owing no particular loyalties to any local chief. And that description pretty much applies to me also!
And so I can't extend, I won't extend..it would be too hurtful to stand and watch after July without any influence to correct or shape things.
I can walk away from Whuti with the Community Library and the Computer Centre ..and the JHS Library and the Primary School Library ...all running and probably as good as they could ever be. And probably Whuti-Srogboe now has better and better-run Libraries(3) and aComputer Centre (free to students for 3 hours per day) than any community in Ghana!!!!
I will be sad for the children for whom so few seem to care..because i certainly do and they know it.
And I will miss my daily life in Whuti for a long, long time and it will be difficult for me when I return to the US but I will learn to live with that and I will focus on the next 'thing' whatever (and wherever) that is and I will accept the fact that i could never have changed the system here and that it was my success that made that apparent.
And so, the only question is how long i stick around to watch this.
The counter-balance is that on a day-to-day basis i am helping children.
It will become more and more difficult after the end of this school year in early July. Diminishing returns. Probably impossible.
I don't want to leave..how can i stay, how long can i stay?
Almost every piece of contracted 'business' that is transacted locally..be it an agreement to build walls, or permission to put up a wayside food stand, or (let's say) an NGO hiring a local person to work in the new Community Library, or the 'fees' charged for operating a little stall in the Anloga marketplace, is a 'transaction' that, as a matter of course, goes through one of the local chiefs. They decide who gets hired and who gets black-balled (a meritocracy it isn't). They decide who can set up a business and who can't.
It's a very old-fashioned system and goes back long before colonialism and before independence. it was the way it had always operated-tribalism. In Ghana/The Gold Coast, the colonial system and the tribal system co-existed, side-by-side, and the colonial system really only operated at the high end and the tribal system continued as before..with only the occasional war between the two groups. Unlike colonies in East Africa or South Africa where large chunks of land were given over to white farmers the tribal system controlled the land all along.
After Independence, in 1957, Ghana tried to impose a few different systems..progressive nationalism, socialism, maybe even extreme socialism, and now what would we call it ... a vaguely Western-style democracy..with reasonably fair multi-party elections, a powerful presidency but no presidents-for-life, an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch and a 'market economy'..if one is being reasonably generous. But the tribal system still operates underneath that because the reach of the government and the civil service doesn't really extend to a community or an area like ours...some government monies are spent here but not much. There is very little evidence of government here in Whuti apart from its single Primary School run by the Ghana Education Service. There is no Health Service here (and no doctors), no Post Office or Police presence ..hell, the district capital even ordered that our speed bumps be removed as unauthorised .
In return, of course, the community pays no taxes..there are no property taxes; i would be very, very, very surprised if there is a single Personal Income Tax payer residing in Whuti ;and I would be equally surprised if there is any business in Whuti paying Business Taxes.
In other words, the government barely exists at this level.
So back to patronage and the tribal system of disbursing it...how does that affect me, why do i care?
i want to get this right and i want to get this said clearly..and it hasn't been easy for me to see the Library's future through the mists.
So maybe, first a few facts.
The Whuti Community Library (and the Computer Centre) is wholly funded and always has been, by a small, committed NGO in the US which has operated in Ghana for fifteen years and this could be called the NGO's Act III..the Last Hurrah. Indeed, Acts I and II (set in other parts of Ghana) are over and did not end well. Because of the NGO's founder's age and other concerns, this work is almost certain to be ALAD's final effort. (ALAD = African Literacy, Arts & Development Association )
The Community Library has been operating successfully on a daily basis since 22 September 2010, i.e. 16+ months ago, six weeks after I arrived in Whuti. And the Computer Centre has been operating on a daily basis as a revenue-generating internet cafe since 15 November 2011 (Thomas' 10th birthday). Less than three months then and the revenues are very small because we have no high-speed connection and because there isn't a lot of disposable income round here. But it might get better.
Notwithstanding the fact that we have been operating the Community Library for 16 months..with as many as 500+ users a week...it will be officially opened on 21/22 July 2012 with a ribbon-cutting and speeches, and dancing and drumming, etc. It will be a fine occasion with (hopefully) lots of dignitaries present, including ALAD's founder.
It costs between $500 and $600 a month to operate the Community Library and Computer Centre...and the internet cafe earns less than $20 a month. The founder of ALAD has committed to funding the Community Library's operations through at least the end of 2012 and possibly into 2013, but he has a declared intent to step down as ALAD's president in mid-2013.
And then what happens?
There is no real plan just the vague hope that the community will find ways to sustain the library financially.
The community have no real likelihood of coming up with a deep-pocketed external funding source to the tune of a committed $7000+ per year. It is also highly unlikely at the moment that ALAD will be able to come up with a committed long-term funding source.
Only a resourceful, enterprising, imaginative, concerned (Ghanaian) organisation could possibly come up with the necessary funding and at the moment such does not exist for the Library.
It is possible to conceive of such a (Ghanaian) organisation with the Whuti-Srogboe or Srogboe-Whuti diaspora ..and certainly Dr Sam's wonderful work in nearby Atorkor says it is doable.
But...try to superimpose that on Whuti and the chiefs and elders of Whuti and it just doesn't work.
They are intellectually dull, they are poorly educated, they are committed to the old ways and the old system, and sadly they actually do NOT care about the children.... which is surely why we're doing the Library! (..or I thought it was!)
The PCV has been lucky. He has got things going..and, believe me, 500+ Library visitors for a community library in Ghana is HUGE! And computers too, for children who've never seen them.
And a JHS Library and a Primary School Library also!!!
But..to recap, the Community Library Opening Ceremony is in late July 2012, which, coincidentally is my COS date, and the ALAD founder will be here to discuss the future...knowing that he and ALAD will not fund the Library much longer..
..and knowing that it will take a Mighty Heart to come up with the 'deal' that will ensure the Library's future and knowing that he doesn't have such a candidate.
....and knowing in his heart, as I know in mine, that the local chiefs and elders will never come up with the money to run the Library and that they'll simply wait for a miracle from outside.
The founder will be between a rock and a hard place at the Opening Ceremony. He will be under extreme pressure to turn over the Library and its operating accounts (..the money!!!) to the community.Under all the possible scenarios that I can come up with, he will be obliged to do that.
From that moment on, the Library will begin to deteriorate ..maybe almost imperceptably at first but it would get worse over time and I shudder to think of the Library in 18-24 months
Disintegration is not an overnight thing..it will happen gradually, day-by-day, week-by-week.
What does 'deterioration' actually mean in the Community Library...well, books will start to go missing because the current levels of care and attention will slip; the place will get messier because there won't be anything like the current attention to keeping the books on the shelves in order and maintenance will be downplayed; computers will go walk-about as the chiefs and elders claim their privileges...and then as the money runs out..no payment of salaries, etc..and the Library won't be able to stay open the same number of hours, etc
This is the future..this i know.
Does it have to be this way? Not if the Founder was willing to put his foot down and refuse to turn over the Library and the accounts to the community..the self-appointed committees..until a new organisation with strong Accra representation and a commitment and ability to raise funds was established. But when he comes here in July he won't be willing to go head-to-head with the chiefs and elders. He wants a Love-In and so he'll agree to turning things over to the community without receiving any evidence that they can raise funds for ongoing operations.
And so my situation...
I have an option to extend here in my current assignment for six or twelve months..perhaps even longer.
I don't want to leave because I enjoy my work, I feel proud of our efforts to-date but I would be EXTREMELY uncomfortable and MUCH less effective after the Community Library has been turned over to the community simply because the staff would no longer report to me and I would then have no authority to stem the deterioration. Currently the staff reports to me on all operations and I work hard (some might say very hard) to keep our standards high. I would be completely sidelined as far as the Library is concerned and these standards would slip. Yes, I could continue to help at the JHS Library and the Primary Library and in the ordinary way that would be OK though it would hardly fill my time.
I have been very seriously considered extending for another year where the goal would be to establish and implement a plan for long-term financial sustainability for the Library.....and that would certainly fill my time and be rewarding. But it has always been clear that long-term financial sustainablity for the Library depended on bringing in outsiders and creating a new, small, committed organisation with fund-raising capabilities to operate the Library.
Unfortunately, it has become very evident over the last six-eight weeks that the wolves are gathering and the chiefs and elders are deliberately excluding those who stand between them and control of the Library and its accounts ..the money!!(and that includes me, of course) and those excluded are in fact the ones (again, including me) that I had hoped would be a part of a new organisation to run the Library.
It isn't a surprise that they would be excluded AND that I would have thought of them as the right local people with whom we could have gone forward because, of course, the qualities in them that appeal to me are those that the chiefs and elders fear...independence, clear thinking, activist, and owing no particular loyalties to any local chief. And that description pretty much applies to me also!
And so I can't extend, I won't extend..it would be too hurtful to stand and watch after July without any influence to correct or shape things.
I can walk away from Whuti with the Community Library and the Computer Centre ..and the JHS Library and the Primary School Library ...all running and probably as good as they could ever be. And probably Whuti-Srogboe now has better and better-run Libraries(3) and aComputer Centre (free to students for 3 hours per day) than any community in Ghana!!!!
I will be sad for the children for whom so few seem to care..because i certainly do and they know it.
And I will miss my daily life in Whuti for a long, long time and it will be difficult for me when I return to the US but I will learn to live with that and I will focus on the next 'thing' whatever (and wherever) that is and I will accept the fact that i could never have changed the system here and that it was my success that made that apparent.
And so, the only question is how long i stick around to watch this.
The counter-balance is that on a day-to-day basis i am helping children.
It will become more and more difficult after the end of this school year in early July. Diminishing returns. Probably impossible.
I don't want to leave..how can i stay, how long can i stay?
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