More Pics...Time to go Shopping in the Market and practise my Ewwe

schoolkids..so appealing..raison d'etre(..a PCV in Ghana)

Some Thoughts ..after 150+ days back in PC..and in Ghana.

..i've been thinking a lot recently about what i've learned, what i've done since coming to Ghana, and especially, what i've learned and done since coming to my site, Whuti, in early August. (..so almost three months at site)

i compare my experience to date with my prior experience in Romania. I have to do that and it was always my plan.

Every PCV has different and strong personal reasons for joining Peace Corps ..and then perhaps some different, modified, or additional ones for staying the course.

Unlike my prior experience, i felt that i had very good and strong and well-thought out reasons, not only for re-joining, but for 'insisting' on Africa. And after being invited in early January, i worked hard to be as well prepared technically and emotionally for the effort as I could possibly be..and this included going back over Romania journals and a few e-mails and seeing the...err..pitfalls that i had encountered in my first tour.

One of the things i said and noted this time was that ..whereas my mostly young colleagues might have career or CV reasons for staying the course and that 'success' might be measured in terms of staying the course and then leveraging that (which might be a bit unfair...i think everyone has to have strong idealistic goals in enduring the application process alone)...i had to be willing to look at the trade-offs on an ongoing basis. I had to feel that my staying was worth it in the sense that i have nothing to achieve by simply staying the course and putting up with the hardships. 'Worth it' means that the plusses exceed the minuses.

The 'plusses' are mostly the things that i am able to achieve and the good effects that i have in my community and district, some very small, some hopefully not so small. The minuses are ...hmmm...the difficulties and how they affect me, the reduction of contact with my family and friends. the missed opportunities (..like my 50th Royal High School reunion!), the reduction in quality of my life..that quality which i could say i had earned or worked for.

Some of the minuses are pretty obvious but much of 'reduction in quality of life' and 'difficulties' are perhaps less so.

( In some sense, it is a surprise that i seem to have already reached this point in my thinking although i said that i would be monitoring the trade-offs on an ongoing basis. i think this is partly because this is my second tour (..i do remember that i spent most of the first year or more in Romania wondering what i was doing and not knowing how or where to help..)..and partly because it is Ghana which is a lot different for PC service than was Romania. )

Back to minuses...'difficulties'...i think that they are mostly health-related as i'm not really worried about getting eaten by a lion or chomped by a shark or put in the village cooking pot ...although i should (and do ..) worry about riding around in tro-tro's. Health-related?..no, i'm not going to get Aids and i'm not going to die or go blind from drinking local moonshine, and i'm not going to get malaria because i'm sensible and take my weekly pill and make sure i sleep under a mosquito net (mine is, unusually i think, white and on my four-poster bed it looks positively virginal!). But, i know already that living for a long period in rural West Africa is wearing, very wearing and that the longer i'm here the more worn i'm getting. i won't know until maybe tomorrow when i go up to Accra and stop off at the PC office and cop a shot at Dr Albert's scales, but i reckon i've lost somewhere in the region of 20 lbs so far and i think i'm still losing. Sadly (to vain old me, anyway) i seem to be losing upper body muscle mass and tone..even though i stretch and lift some free-weights (a bucket of water) and do pull-ups on my Mango Tree (hilarious for neighbours) every day before and after i run. I guess that it is partly diet? not getting the right mix of ..proteins, carbohydrates, etc? But also i think that the climate here is debilitating ( love that word..and now i get to be it!). Don't they talk about the White Man's Burden or something? I've already had a few comments about losing weight and i dread to think how Billie Christina is going to react...Hey, Old Man!!..if i go home next summer for a visit (oops..'when'). I have a biggish mirror now and i'm a bit surprised when i look..but when size 31 shorts fall over my knees i should know that it isn't all that good...they don't even make size 28 in most men's clothes in the US!!

So there is that...and with regard to 'quality of life'... i suppose that the internet (for news and newspapers..and tracking sports) and occasional book parcels (including The Economist) and the fact that i do have my own library here is enough to get by there...i surely don't miss TV..except sports...but i do miss FOOD!!!!!!

Food has basically become that which i ingest every day cos i know that i have to...i can occasionally get relief from that with stuff from home..first time that's happened ..but so good...and when i can get something in my monthly-ish trips to Accra where i can shop in the ex-pat supermarket near my bank. But i have to get what i buy back down here to Whuti and much would melt...and then i always have to worry about perishables because although i do have a small fridge, the power is on and off and when the room temperature where i live never gets below 90F then i have to be very careful about stuff spoiling. But i can get OK bread, and canned stuff..soup and veggies, olive oil even (hideously expensive), Turkish pasta (who knew?).

So what do i eat? well, part of the 'problem'..or the reality is ...that the only places to buy food are open-air markets and between market days, road-side stalls selling what wasn't sold on the market days. the markets are big and sprawling and colourful and fun but the variety of things that i could buy is not huge. There is a lot of smoked fish for sale..all sizes, but the stench isn't enticing and so far i just haven't been able to do it..and i've tried beef at the local carve your own bit of cow place (..and may not again!) ..and occasionally i'll see (is it ?) roasted chicken or goat for sale but these are not Frank's chickens and you generally end up with a mouthful o f bone and gristle. Most of the eatables for sale are local produce...tomatoes, okra, onions, shallots, spinach-like leaves, garlic, dried peppers and little green ones, ginger root..and fruits, bananas, avocado, pineapples, even apples (imported), oranges, plantains (are they a fruit) and yams...and dried grains, millet, beans, corn....and English biscuits, of course....ginger snaps are my favourite.

I live on fruit, eggs, rice, pasta with garlic, red peppers and olive oil, tea, water (2-3 litres a day), bread (olde English soggy style..ugh), tomatoes, occasional onions or shallots, the occasional dinner of beans on toast or sardines on toast (both canned). The beer is awful...tastes like washing up liquid although maybe its my taste buds now..i bot a bottle of red wine in Anloga (Chianti, it said, i think that the bottle had floated down from Italy) ..but i can buy Pastis at less than $3 a bottle so i'm developing some taste for it.

Yes..you're absolutely right...i could be doing a lot better on diet, being more adventurous, knocking up a dish of fufu, etc or fetri detsi (whatever that is)...and i could try the local restaurants (or chop bars, as they're called) if there were any...although there are a couple of roadside places in Whuti that offer rice or fufu with 'light soup' (i kid you not..it has egg in it, i think) but i just never seem to pluck up the courage..but i will one day.

so there you have it..the difficulties and the reduced quality of life...

Survivable, but they are probably an ever-present for my time here..the climate isn't going to change, Wholly Foods are not going to open a branch in Ghana, Peapod (is that what it was called?) won't deliver to Whuti.

Yes..my diet can improve...and slowly but surely with the combination of food parcels, Accra shopping trips, and more courage it is improving!

But as i look ahead or do my trade-off ongoing..i know this is pretty much what it is going to be like!

And so the plusses..if you're still with me..and haven't called the Good Samaritan hot-line for me!.

The most interesting thing, especially vis-a-vis the Romanian experience is that i have a very good feel for what i will do and what i can achieve here over the two years.

My work and the prospects and possibilities are so settled, obvious, clear that i can easily map out the next two years.

A lot of that, i think, comes from my preparation for this and from my Romanian experience.

It is amazing to me that i have already made such progress for my community.

My situation is unique (hey..they all are) and i feel that i have been incredibly lucky in getting this assignment..but in so many ways, i am the perfect PCV for this slot.

i have opened the community library ..a new 2,800 sq feet facility with almost 4000 books from the World Bank Book Project ...we have been open for over 5 weeks, are open for 25 hours a week currently and have peaked at 80 users in a session. When i arrived the building was done, and there was a what-do-i-do-next librarian on staff who had never been in a library, and bookcases, and boxes of books. i got everything out of the boxes, organised, figured out the categories/sub-categories, put the books on the shelves. ordered them within categories where appropriate --no, we're not ordering all of these 1800 childrens' books! Wrote the library rules, counted all the books (3, 896), created the procedures...and opened the library.

yes..i recognise that opening the library cuts into the librarian's internet time and his work in impressing prospective brides with his smarts..but what the hell, the community needed a library!

Actually, of course, to one who loves books and loves (he discovered in Romania) to work with children, opening, running and working in a library is truly like died and gone to heaven..but it's hard work too!

I have to think about how we staff it for more hours..ah, library volunteers...of course! About how we modify our process so that we will actually have some books for users still intact in a year or so. About how we market the library to schools...i foolishly thought that i we 'built it, they would come' but when thee never has been a library in the area before we have to sell it. How do we do Library Outreach..to get to the 14, 15 and 16 year-olds who can't read and are afraid to come in? Adult Literacy classes also? Reading Circles.

Oh and figure out what operating and maintenance budget this library needs such that at some point in time it becomes the community's/district's to maintain/sustain!

The bottom line is that i could spend all of my time over the next two years just running and improving and USING the library for the community.

But i can't because there are other things to do...and so without compromising or cutting back on the dream and the opportunity i have to train/coerce others into running it, etc.

I am very excited about the doors this opens for the community and i enjoy my time as a librarian very much.

So what else do i know that i have to do and can do for this community over the next two years.

Well, as many of you know, MicroFinance..making small amounts of credit available to micro-entrepreneurs in rural Africa was one of my strong interests in coming here and finding a GOOD MicroFinance operation for Whuti was one of my highest priorities. I, of course, got incredibly lucky on this at my site visit in july when i ran into (literally) a visiting student from the University of Washington in Seattle who was working in a nearby community with a young NGO, Lumana, www.lumana.org, started less than two years ago by would-be social entrepreneurs at UW's B-school. They are so good, so impressive, so unique (..use of smart/very smart phones in their process..their own apps) and a lot of fun to work with and, i suppose, the best part is that they are the perfect answer, both now and for the foreseeable future, for Whuti's and the district's MicroFinance needs and they will continue to get better and better and more and more effective as time goes by. I already have 28 names of interested borrowers from Whuti on their immediate waiting list for training and funding, and i have about 130 more who are waiting to go on the list!

i like them..they have a constant flow of students/new graduates coming here for 1-6 months to work on apps and process...and i really enjoy working with them. i could spend all my next two years full-time with them and thoroughly enjoy it but i have to find some way to divide up my time!

And i have met my objective of finding a GOOD MicroFinance source for Whuti.

What else do i see..

...well, there was a residual (as in floating around without anything actually happening) suggestion that the US Ambassador's Self-Help Fund could be tapped for funds to rennovate a nearby building as a Community Guest House. the problem is ..it's a super idea but the community wouldn't apply any brain cells or effort to actually producing any kind of plan on which to base the application...until i 'primed the pump' so to speak by ante-ing up a consultant fee! And so that application for funds will go in before 31DEC and has a pretty good shot at success.

..and i'm about to run out of power on my laptop and the electricity is off..so, dear readers, you are saved

..and we didn't even cover the computer room/internet cafe..to be a self-sustaining business..a first in Ghana?

..or the SPA grant for a veggie garden with the PTA and local school

..or the 2nd year plan for a Whuti Development Council..

..or

but it doesn't matter, yes-these are real things and real achievements but they aren't why i would stay

i will stay for the look in a young boy's eyes when i'm teaching him to read..dog, ball, water, jump

the rest will crumble to dust anyway..even the books (..and me)

Fishing pictures from Whuti, Ghana

29August2010

Well, yes, two weeks at my site is not enough time to claim much real success in cultural integration or to be able to claim that there really are opportunities here to actually help and ‘improve’ the community that can be grabbed by me over the course of the next two years!

But...it’s different here in Ghana, in West Africa. It’s different being a Peace Corps Volunteer...it ‘seems’ to mean much more than I remember from Romania. And it seems to be very different being an international aid worker here.

I think that is what we are or anyway what i want to be.

And, before i forget, i am much better trained for a role here than before and am taking a much broader approach to things and researching as much as possible too.

One aspect that shapes so much of things is that i am the only yevu/obroni (white person) in this rural setting in West Africa..and to some extent it is virtually assumed that i am a volunteer, working for an NGO. It surprises people when they see me..especially in some settings and activities....running every morning, helping the fishermen pulling on their ropes/nets, shopping in the market, and now tootling around on my bike...a rebuilt mountain bike a lot like my one sitting on MDI (a yevu on a bike!!! )..and it greatly surprises them if i tell them that i am here in Whuti for two years...mewo le Whuti fe eve!

In a sea of black faces, i stand out and that means too that in a small town..is it a small town or a village?(nominal population approx 8000 but so many people live and work in other cities that the average number sleeping in town each night must be considerably lower...but we’ll call it a town) ) ......since i’m still and perhaps always will be an object of curiousity, everybody knows what i do, where i go, what i eat, what i buy.. and they seem to tell each other too!

Of course, too, mine has been quite a public introduction to the community. The reception outside the library from the chiefs and elders of the community with music, dancing, and many speeches when i came here for my site visit seven weeks ago and then a formal introduction to the community last last Tuesday at the (outdoor) community meeting place...a square with big shade trees, etc.....more speeches; i’m offered to the community; the community accepts me; i accept their acceptance, etc.

I am the first Peace Corps Volunteer this community has ever had.

I don’t understand the role of the chiefs yet...and it will take some time.

At first i thought that chiefs were the head of tribes..like the Ashanti, Aka, Ewe...but now i think that yes, there is a tribal system but there is a clan or family system underneath that..and there are chiefs for each family. A family is quite big (he thinks..) and maybe everyone in a community like Whuti is ‘under’ the chief, Togbui...but for example there seem to be four or five people who are addressed/introduced to me as chiefs/Togbui’s but seem then to be in some kind of hierarchy. The person i recognise as Togbui here is clearly the community leader and takes the lead over all the other ‘chiefs’ at ceremonial occasions, and in meetings, etc. I often meet with him, despite the fact that he lives and works in Accra and only comes to Whuti when he is needed in his role for ceremonies, meetings, etc. BTW..in Accra, he is, apparently, an auto mechanic! (Very comic-book-like...by day an auto mechanic, by night a crime-fighting, community leading tribal chief!...made the more so by having seen him in his going to Accra outfit and many times here in his tribal regalia!)

He seems to wield power by virtue of his election...chiefs aren’t automatically taken from the eldest sons..but are found/chosen ..perhaps some time after the chief’s death... from the royal family, which explains perhaps why some chiefs are women.

How much power? Well he can’t raise money with taxes; perhaps he gets rents/use fees from tribal lands but whatever money he collects has to be plowed back into the community? And he doesn’t act as the town’s mayor or manage the town’s ‘administration’ and so monies from the district capital, Keta, don’t come to him as an operating budget. In fact, Whuti doesn’t seem to have any powers of its own..doesn’t in fact have any administration..and none of the buildings, etc that might be associated with such an identity.....like, for example, a bank, post office, town hall, licensing authority, telephone exchange ....exist in Whuti. Beyond a public toilet (one), one Primary School, one Junior Secondary that sits on the border of Whuti and neighbouring Srogbe, and a couple of churches (are they public buildings?) i can’t think of a single public building in Whuti at all! (.... i sometimes wonder why it exists but maybe that is mean and it has always existed and therefore...but when a place has no ability to raise money, no administrative entity, and no operating budget, one might wonder how it improves its lot in life...ah, maybe that’s where Peace Corps come in!)

My role here, at the highest levels, and consistent perhaps across PC and the community and in my own head, is to use my business skills and experience to generally help the community be more ‘successful’ (i.e. raise income levels) by aiding small businesses to get going, to expand, to be more efficient, etc...even to attract more business opportunities to the town..and in PC terms, to increase the town’s business capacity. (And, of course, micro-finance is one way that i see to help make this happen.) Nominally, of course, my role is to get the US-funded Whuti community library and internet cafe up and running (..and formally commissioned ) wherein the internet cafe’s revenues will make the whole operation self-sustaining. In this role, i am serving the community’s longer-term growth and improvement as/if the library becomes an integral part of the community’s education system and a magnet for surrounding communities‘ populations. Similarly, a robust internet cafe, as well as also being a magnet for the area and thus bringing in revenues to Whuti will dramatically improve the general business skills within the community..and theoretically, at least this should help build Whuti’s business capacity. It is a reasonably well-defined opportunity then and all players seem to be somewhat on the same page in recognising and supporting it...including me!

So how does an opportunity like this seem different in Ghana?

Well, i think it is different and hopefully easier to exploit because of Ghana’s history in the last 20-30 years (since the rich world started ‘helping’ Africa in a serious way..or at least with chunks of money) and because you don’t need a team-sheet to tell who the players are. I’ll explain.

I knew before coming here that there are/have been a lot of international agencies, governments, funds, NGO’s, non-NGO groups, and many, many individuals ‘working’ in Ghana and in West Africa for a long time and that because of its relative stability and ‘better’ reputation, Ghana has been the preferred West African aid country rather than any of its West African neighbours. To a large extent this is still true although perhaps there is always a flavour of the month aspect to aid focus and efforts.

Many aid organisations, like PC, for example, have long and ‘good‘ histories with Ghana. To remind, i am a member of the 49th consecutive PC annual intake to Ghana and Ghana was the very first country that ever received PCV’s (30 August 1961).

I suppose over time huge amounts of aid money and effort have come into Ghana from all the various sources...and i would never be able to comment on effectiveness, what might have happened if not, etc.

But it has created a climate, an awareness perhaps, that knows and recognises that aid organisations, their people, their signs, their vehicles, their exhortations are a part of the country’s current definition.

Being able to easily see this aspect of the country’s definition is what i mean by not needing a team-sheet. Much of who, if not what, this whole aid organisation is stands out because the people involved generally look different!....dah, they’re white!..and they hang out behind big signs that say who they are and drive around in 4WD vehicles etc ...OK, maybe that’s a bit unfair.... They are very easily identifiable ..and that means not just by me, but by everyone. Down here in the Keta district, i KNOW that every white person i see is an aid person of some description.

That means two things to me..so far.

It means that most communites and their people already have some experience of aid organisations and their people. Ghanaians do indeed seem a very welcoming and generally happy and smiling people, if one can generalise, and that means that one genuinely does feel welcomed and encouraged when one meets the people of a community. The impression from many people in this community, for example, is that i can help them in many ways and that they want my help and will work with me. My guess from everything that i’ve heard so far from PC and non-PC volunteers that i’ve met is that this is true across the country.

That of itself makes Ghana quite different for me and does indeed seem to provide real opportunity.

The other ‘thing’ that this aid organisation/people national ‘awareness’ means to me pertains to my ability to exploit this opportunity here. Again, i knew going in that my ability to actually help a community is going to partially depend on my ability to make contacts and work with other volunteers/aid organisations working in Ghana and particularly my area and this has already borne fruit and is off to a good start.

One can basically guarantee that every white person one sees in this area and every ‘yevu’ one hears about is an aid person..and i’ve stopped tro-tro’s and people out jogging tho not yet flagged down 4WD SUV’s to introduce myself and find out what people are doing here. It’s fun!

That is how i found a very promising Micro-Finance opportunity for Whuti. First, on my site visit here seven weeks ago, i stopped a young guy, a University of Washington student on a short-term assignment in the area, while he was jogging! I got particulars of his work and the US-backed organisation from him and then last Sunday coming back from a long beach walk and walking through the community where their work is based, i asked around as to where the yevu lives and eventually found his organisational successor at the MFI! And it is indeed a very promising partner for me and Whuti!

I look forward to many such serendipitous contacts!

Accra, of course, and especially the area, Osu, around the US Embassy, the Ambassadors’s Residence and the Peace Corps offices is awash with signs for/directions to aid organisations of all shapes and sizes..from USAID, and UNHCR to small NGO’s and to understand Ghana and to get as much help as possible for Whuti i will need to become familiar with Accra too.

Now, just in case, you all think that i’m being too optimistic, i have already noted many, many signs in the area of aid efforts in the past, all the way up to the Millennium Challenge and major Western government ‘investments’ ....and most seem to be only half-completed or abandoned. That is sobering...help and great ideas aren’t much use unless the results of such are self-sustaining (even profitable!) activities. I think i have to be very careful with this.

And to those who still wonder why i am doing this....there are many aspects of this PCV life in Africa that i clearly enjoy and could we honestly come up with a better, more interesting, more challenging way for me to spend the next two years of my life??

..and now that i’m done with this, it’s time (past time) to go out running and see if the fishermen need help!

Ok..enough of the words..give us some pictures..Last of Maase

10August2010 Musings

Blog..10 AUGUST 2010

I often ask myself..for you, my enraptured readers..whether Ghana is beautiful.

If i had come here as a tourist for a three or four week trip then i might be able to say..Yes, Ghana is indeed beautiful; its slave castles, and hardly-visited national parks are indeed beautiful; and the birds and animals in the parks and sanctuaries are marvelous and so approachable..and the Ghanaian beaches are a little-known treasure ..and the food if one works at finding the right places is surprisingly good..and the sale of all these English biscuits..Rich Tea, Bourbon, Digestives..is really quite quaint! One could do three weeks in Ghana and see and do all these things without spending any time in crazy traffic-jammed Accra or having to brave the tro-tro transportation system..and one could even get by without trying fufu, banku or..grasscutter!

But that isn’t what happened...and so, perforce, the answer might be different..especially since i’ve never seen the slave forts or the national parks and i’m sure that i’ve never been to any of the ’right’ places to eat ...and i do have to endure the tro-tro’s and I do eat fufu and banku..and even grasscutter (..tastes just like chicken!).

But what i might not be able to rave about visiting as a tourist would be the people..meeting them as a a tourist would they be as friendly, as welcoming, as smiling, as helpful? Maybe not.

I can definitely say that the Ghanaians are beautiful people! I’ve known this from my first days here. It is true across the board, all ages, all the parts of the country that I’ve been in so far. More Akwaaba’s (Welcome) than one could imagine..from total strangers or new friends. More smiles of greeting than one would have thought possible ..even makes me smile in response! So, for example, going running in the morning is a constant smiling, waving, welcoming exercise! The total workout.

The Ghanaians are without a doubt both the friendliest and (apparently) the happiest people I’ve ever met...and this is true across the country. They are unreserved about their joy to see us and to meet us and to talk to us..and this is true of all the PC staff also..and that’s kind of nice too.

As for the country, i would say that i’m too close to it now and its people to be able to assess its beauty!

There are trees and views down red roads and mist-covered hills and outcrops that are rapidly becoming so familiar and unforgettable..and there will be the amazing 25 miles of beach at Whuti..sometimes foggy off the sea in the early morning until the sun burns it off...long views of huge palm trees peering through the fog in the distance.

To some extent I’ve stopped seeing the mess that the villages and towns and cities are in...half-complete buildings, ruins, delapidation, culverts along the roads as rudimentary drainage and sewage systems, buildings, shacks really, or stands that are put together any old way and are falling apart from the day that they are built...piles of stones, rubble, sand for some forgotten project, holes in the ground, terrible roads, asphalt patched with packed dirt, too much plastic garbage in the villages and towns and along the roads....tumbledown, falling apart, never properly completed, wireless towers growing like weeds, TV aerials on 20-foot bamboos lashed to each house. In truth there is very little redeemable in the current state of Ghana’s villages, towns and cities...and the roads in between...but at night, with limited street lighting, and with the flames of street food vendors, and the smiles of the people in the streets, it all seems very exotic.

I don’t know if i will ever think of Ghana as beautiful but i think it will always be exotic and welcoming and fascinating to