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?
