Rediscovered Journal Entry from Ghana

Here is a journal entry I recently found from the April - August 2008 trip.

When "Grandpa" was a baby, his mother came in and saw a black mamba sleeping next to him.  Black mambas have enough venom in one bite to kill 40 men (at least according to my friend Clive who owns a snake farm in South Africa).  Somehow, the mother snagged the baby (who was grandpa) and got the baby out, got a hunter to shoot the snake, and scared the baby nearly to death because of the petrified expression on her face. I’ve seen black mambas before in South Africa and they are creepy.  They are probably the only snakes that will stare at you in the eye, follow your eyes with their heads, and look like they want to strike out even though they are completely unprovoked.  

 On another note, the Lever brothers (of Lever soap) built the compound we live in.  There was a factory nearby and one of the executives lived in this compound.   

This week the water was off again (it happens more often than I thought it would) but unfortunately it went off in the middle of me washing my face.  I had to walk out of the bathroom with my eyes closed, find my water bottle, get back to the bathroom, and wash it off.  The day was also unfortunate because I sat in office doing absolutely nothing except dealing with stupid technology.  The email was extremely slow, and my computer’s memory was completely eaten up so Solomon and JJ recommended I save everything I want to and completely wipe it.  There were all kinds of other technology problems as well. I felt so unproductive, but in the end realized things will run much more smoothly with these problems fixed.  The electricity is always going out as well (it happens throughout Ghana, at the office and the house).  It was actually kind of funny last year staying at the temple dorms because the temple would go out and come back on immediately with the generator whilst everything else remained dark.  Anyhow, when the electricity goes out at the office it is a bit hard to work because my laptop battery doesn’t last very long, and the computer there won’t turn on.  But there is nothing we can do about it… that is Ghana!  I am just ungrateful because it is the norm for me to have light and water.  I should think of those in the villages who always have to use lanterns or fetch water from boreholes.

While we were driving in a busy part of Accra, we saw a gated complex.  The wall had golden symbols on it and the words that said something about it being a palace.  We asked Kweku about it, and he told us it was the chief.  We also saw some chiefs walking down the street in the city.  I had assumed chiefs were only a rural thing, but we found out that complex in the middle of busy Accra was a chief’s palace.  In fact, the city is split into sections where different neighborhoods have different chiefs.

Three random people came into Kweku’s house and sat on the couch.  We had no idea who they were and thought they must be relatives.  Apparently, no one else knew who they were either, but they were “siblings.”  “Cousin” is a new word in Ghana.  Since Kweku was supposed to be the chief, he has a lot of distant “relatives,” apparently.

Another interesting tidbit.  Mommy means “mother.” “Maahme” which sounds the same to me, is “give me.”  In addition, if you wave at a child the way a lot of Americans wave, wiggling the fingers with the hands lowered, it actually doesn’t mean “hi,” it means “come.”

Wednesday, JJ, Solomon and I visited Sunil (the energy expert) at the World Bank.  The most valuable thing we got from him was a long list of other people’s contacts.  Let the goose chase begin!  I also made an application for the rural schools so there can be some competition among the schools in receiving a merry-go-round, and hopefully in turn have them take better care of the equipment.  The most memorable thing that happened at the office was that some of the shop workers picked us some coconut off the trees outside the office and we got to drink the liquid straight out of the coconut while working.  Once again, they chopped them open with a machete and we got to eat the meat as well.

The taxis and trotros all have stickers on the back windows that are usually religious such as “Redeemer” or other words.  Some of them are not religious but very random.  For example, we saw one that said, “Happy Yourself.”  I wasn’t sure at first if this meant, ‘you can be happy alone’ or ‘make yourself happy.’  Solomon then told us he knew a man named “Happy Yourself.”  And the man would tell everyone, “No one can make you happy except you.”  I think I will start selling “happy yourself” bumper stickers.

I thought we were going to dramatically perish on the ride home.  The taxi driver was nuts.  We had so many near collisions.  My heart was palpitating wildly the whole way, and since it’s over an hour drive I think my blood pressure increased notably.  People drive extremely close to the cars in front of them so no one else can squeeze in, but everyone sticks their nose in anyway. I guess it was better than the taxi ride in the village when there were 8 people in a 5-seater, and one door was completely missing so I was hugging the person next to me so I didn't fall out, and part of the floor was missing (so I could see the ground below us).

I had mentioned my gum bleeding problems to Lydia, so she picked up some “chewing sticks” for us.  They are just small chopped up chunks of a certain kind of tree that contains natural antibacterials apparently.  So we’ve been chewing on those nonstop.  JJ says they are bitter but I cannot taste it.

The home teachers came for the Anno family one day, but JJ and I were the only ones home.  They told us we are family now so they would just teach us instead and we could teach everybody else after they left.  They gave us a lesson and I’m sure they checked ‘the Anno family’ off the list on the way out.  I’m glad to be considered part of the family.

Thursday we (Solomon, JJ, and I) visited the West Africa Aids Foundation to ask them how to get a good auditor and get our finances in order.  We followed up on the contact list from Sunil, continued to deal with technology problems (we have internet access for 1-2 computers for the three of us). 

I thought the day was comparatively boring until we came home at night and there was no electricity, although this time it really stayed off for a long time, as in, more than a day.  We had decided to cook spaghetti, but the gas stove was not working so they pulled two coal pots from outside into the kitchen.  It was pitch dark in there besides one “torch” (a citronella candle) and one other torch (a small flashlight).  We waved the coal pots with a big fan to get them going and cooked spaghetti and sauce in them.  It took more than an hour and was quite the experience.  The whole family was in the kitchen, some sitting on the floor, others fanning, others stirring, some standing around.  We ate by light of a small lantern and it was interesting getting ready for bed with no electricity and no water.  I used my cell phone to read scriptures and brush my teeth.  Once again, I am completely convinced the work we are doing here is valuable!

Friday the most enlightening thing that happened was visiting Cyril Kattah at the IFC (International Finance Corporation).  Kattah is in charge of the Lighting Africa competition I wrote about earlier that JJ and I caught the last day of.  We want to enter it next year if there is a contest, but now they are still looking for funding.  They cannot help us fund the project because they are looking for businesses with returns, not nonprofits.  They did an extensive survey in rural areas of Africa to see which type of lighting is preferred (LED, what type of lantern, kerosene, candles, etc.) 

It was Lydia’s birthday on Friday.  She went to Nigeria in the morning so we were supposed to leave the house at 6am to get her to the airport but didn’t end up leaving until closer to 7am (time here is sometimes like the traffic laws.  It supposedly exists).  We did not celebrate her birthday that day, but JJ and I had gotten her a card and some English chocolate bars, which she really appreciated.  After we gave it to her, she started telling us about her cross-stitch and showing us her patterns and the things she has done.  I think she took heart because she saw that we were actually interested in her.  I felt bad though because the rest of the family hadn’t done anything… although her friend gave her some money so she could buy a cake for herself.  Maybe birthdays are not as big of a deal here. 

JJ tried to get drunk off the fermented orange juice (remember the Thursday coal pot cooking adventure you just read about unless you are skimming?)  It stayed off the whole night and he didn’t realize until after he’d had a swig.  The banku eaten often here is a very common fermented dish.  I really wonder about it sometimes.

Saturday I woke up feeling absolutely awful; Thursday and Friday I didn’t feel great either but Saturday it was worse!  We visited Linda (remember the one with the two kids from Nigeria)?  I really felt like we should visit.  Lydia dropped us off at the chapel, where we met Linda.  We took two trotros (vans tons of people cram into) into town.  It is hard to figure out the trotros because there is no written system.  You just have to know where they allow you to alight and which ones are going in which direction (which is still a mystery to me).  The first stop was this crazy market where people were selling refrigerators and random car parts and even kitchen sinks.  There was also a lot of food being sold—people were pounding fufu or making redred and wrapping it in leaves as a plate.  There was one part of the road that would get flooded a lot when it rained, so the people found a good solution by dropping coconut husk on the part that would flood (one of the shops sold a lot of coconuts which produced a lot of waste).  What a good idea!  It turns into road after a while and is pretty clean to walk on (especially compared to the other things we were walking on—both animals and children sometimes relieve themselves in the middle of the road).  We saw some kids playing with Styrofoam as if they were cars.  It was very crowded and very very dirty.  It is kind of fun to see really poor people so happy, such as kids in nothing but underwear dancing around in the rain.  We saw some guys pushing a broken down trotro, and the saying on the window of this one was “Never give up.”  The stores never cease to crack me up.  For example, there was one called “Tourist Attraction” that was just a normal little shop selling roadside food.

Riding in the trotros is interesting in itself.  There are two employees, the driver, and the ‘mate’ who has a little fold out seat right next to where the door opens.  The door often stays open, even while driving and the trotro doesn’t really come to a full stop before you jump out of it at your stop.  We took a second trotro to Linda’s house.

We took a trotro with Linda to the hospital where Lydia was, and went back to McCarthy Hill to celebrate Lydia’s birthday.  She found an EFY song she is particularly fond of and has been playing and singing it nonstop, kind of like my mom does when she gets a new CD (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?).  She would even close her eyes and sway and sing over the conversation during her party, to the point that she wouldn’t even respond to her name.  We had some cake and ice cream for Lydia but I noticed they didn’t do presents.

Sunday I didn’t even fast because I was still having sickness issues and figure it’s not really a good idea to combine that with the heat.  I was supposed to teach Relief Society, but suddenly another teacher showed up, so I didn’t.  Sunday School was very interesting because Lydia was teaching about Alma the Younger and the class started to get into a discussion about the people they have not seen at church for a while.  An American missionary raised his hand and said, “Whatever happened to Hilda?”  Then others in the class blurted out other names, and Lydia made a list as well.  Lydia asked who would visit who.  Then she said they will all meet in a certain spot after church, divide up the names, and everyone will visit after church.  It was amazing!  So much more effective than ward council meetings where you talk about someone, maybe organize an activity around someone scheduled for the next month, or assign a friend.  They just went.  Lydia, Kweku, Essie, Adwoa, JJ, me, Papa, Narki, Nati, their parents, and a few others went to see one man.  I think 14 people went to visit total.  He cried and cried.  I didn’t know what was going on because they were speaking Twi (or Ga, I still can’t tell the difference) of course.  At the same time I was so touched I just about cried.  I think he has sickle cell and used to bring candy for the kids every week and no one had visited him since he became ill.  They said he looked a lot better though.  It reminded me of the mission where we visited one less active member and he told us, “thank you for remembering there is a Stephen.”  After that we went to visit the former RS President who had recently given birth.  Kweku, Adwoa, Papa, Nati, JJ, and I walked home up a big hill.  

Cultural Blunders

After having spent nearly two years in Africa, I kind of prided myself on being culturally competent and generally knowing what was up. One day there was a nice little breeze outside, so I lifted up my arms to the sky and put both hands behind my head to enjoy it while tilting back my head.  A Ghanaian man came up to me and said, “No, no!  Don’t do that!  It means your mother has died!!!”  He explained that is the mourning/grieving stance, especially when the mother dies.  We actually laughed about it pretty hard because he was so intense and I was so shocked.  Also, here we don’t wave with our left hands, because it is offensive.  

Also, there was a day nobody went to work. I asked why, and was informed that it was "African Unity Day." I went around wishing people Happy African Unity Day and got some strange looks. According to the people I talked to, it is (1) ironically only celebrated in Ghana and (2) celebrated exclusively by nobody going to work, but still getting paid for it.

 

Trip to Fishing Village

Lydia (my host mother's) sisters were taking her children into the village to get fish, and they invited us to come along with them, which was really nice considering how crowded the vehicle was.  There were five kids, the aunt and uncle, JJ, and me.  In an eight passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t as bad as last week Sunday, but when they picked up a big momma in addition (some sort of relative), and I became wedged right up in between her and Nati, things got a little more crowded.  We stopped at ShopRite (there is a big mall) and got some pies (the kind with meat in them).  We all ate in the car and arrived at the fishing village.  It reminded me of last year’s visit to Cape Coast.  There were canoes all along the shore, and fishermen and their children everywhere, and huts on the other side, and a gorgeous but polluted beach.  Adwoa, Essie, Naki, Nati, Papa, JJ and I took off our sandals and ran near the ocean line when the waves went down and ran away from them as they came crashing back towards us.  I can’t explain why it was so enjoyable, but it definitely upped my jolly-meter.  We also raced across the sand.   

The fishermen’s kids were all gathering behind us.  I think because of the two obruni (white people). They were watching us and laughing with us.  Because it is not a touristy area and we were with an African family, I think it was quite the novelty.  We saw ‘gas stations’ which were basically a bottle of gas.  Some kids had tied some sticks together to make a ‘high jump’ and were jumping over it.  There were two very small boys pushing a wheelbarrow full of things around.  I don’t know how they were strong enough to do that.  And there were many carrying wood or fish on their heads.  That isn’t much different from any of the other villages, though.  We went to the uncle’s lab and changed into swimwear and went to another beach.  This one was still a public beach but secluded.  This time JJ, the five kids, and I were able to swim, jumping with the waves and letting them carry us to shore.  It was very rocky though, so we couldn’t go out too far.  The others buried Essie in the sand up to her neck, which was great.  Meanwhile, the aunt and uncle were buying fish from some fishermen.  It is cheaper to go directly to them then let the sellers buy and get it through them.  The fish were HUGE!  They had sharp teeth and were several feet long.  

Starving Children

Short story from during my time living with the Annos, my Ghanaian host family:

Essie, my "little sister," was picking at her food. Lydia (my "mother") turned to her and said, "EAT IT! There are starving children in China!" To which Essie responds, "what can I do? Can I mail it there?" I started cracking up. It was very inappropriate of me. I hope you see the irony in this as much as I do.

Essam

Morning:  After our night visit, JJ, Solomon, and I left the hotel at 4am to observe what happens in the villages during the dark hours of the morning.  There was a group of children walking to the farms to gather cocoa beans to bring back to their homes to dry at about 4:30am.  There were also men collecting firewood to sell at the market (they had a truck).  The same seamstress that we saw the night before (she works until 11pm) was getting ready to start sewing again around 4:30.  There were a few women cooking banku or other dishes that morning as well, some for their families, and some to sell.  One was putting sugar she bought from town into bags to sell and holding the flashlight in her mouth.  We saw a woman sweeping the dirt with a small flashlight in her mouth.  It was generally much quieter in the dark morning hours than in the evening when everyone was still awake (even though some were just sitting in the dark).  Nearly everyone we saw awake in the early morning when it was dark were women.  By 5:20 it was light enough to see fairly well and by 5:40 it was light enough to read without straining the eyes.  By this time many children were busy fetching water from the boreholes and more people were up sweeping and cooking.  I pumped a bucket, too.  It was a workout.  My guess is that lanterns will primarily be used at night, by children.  However, if we could identify some hardworking parents of students such as the seamstress or others who wake up very early, it could be helpful to them.  We saw a lot of wells while wandering around the villages.  Most were buckets but one was a purse with a hole in the corner.  We were passing along a narrow dirt path through the jungle when we ran into a 103 year old men who was just standing by the path near his house.  He greeted us and looked rather healthy for a 103 year old.

Merry-Go-Round:  Before school, the kids chop the grass, sweep up the chopped grass, or collect wood.  I predict they won’t play in the mornings.  They will definitely play on it during break times and after school, though.  They love it.  The village kids sometimes come and play while Golden Sunbeam is in session, but I got the feeling that the teachers chase them off when they see them.  Because the mgr wasn’t fixed by the time we left in the evening, we didn’t get an idea about how long the kids will play on it during the evening time.  I figure we won’t know for sure for a while since it’s been locked in the evening and can still be considered a novelty.

We wandered around the village even after it was light, talking to some people about what they typically do in the village.  Although palm oil and cocoa are the cash crops, there are actually a lot of rice and cassava farmers as well.  Our day interviews were fun and I got to give a lot of kids stickers.  They were the sparkly kind, and one very small child was shy and didn’t seem to know what to make of it and went back to her mother to steer clear of the obruni.  However, whenever I glanced back she was moving her hand back and forth slowly, I assume to catch the light and see the sparkle.  We were all pretty tired by the time we did the day visits, so the late night and early morning visits were much more memorable.  I was finally able to sleep in the car on the three hour ride home.

Trip #2: JJ and I visited Essem again and were able to take a short walking tour this time, guided by Robert, one of the Ghanaian teachers. We saw a lot of cocoa and palm farms, as well as families drying the cocoa beans.  They typically have a long table outside made of wood and spread them out along the table and move them around.  There was also a family working on getting the palm oil.  It is quite the process.  We saw the village tailor (there is only one, and he works with one sewing machine).  We ran into some young men digging a 12-foot hole for a latrine.  We also saw a LOT of goats wandering around randomly, but they even do that in town.  The houses were mostly made of mud.  The people were so nice and one of the cocoa farmers gave us a cocoa pod to try.  They work so hard!  All these people living in mud huts with no lights, pumping their water from pumps, rotating cocoa beans in the sweltering sun so we can drink our Ovaltine.  

Our lunch that day was some cookies, juice, dried cherries, and the inside of the cocoa pod, all of which we had brought from home and ate in the exam room, which was just a dark, concrete, boxy room with one table in it.   

There was an exam written on the chalkboard asking questions such as: what is a buffet?  Name three types of oily fish? and other food-related practical questions suitable for farmers but never taught to students in America.   

It was interesting to read their beginning reader books too.  There was one in Kweku’s car.  It was kind of like a “See Jane run” book.  Except instead it was, “See Uncle Sofi hit the snake on the head with a big stick.  The snake does not want to die.  Uncle Sofi hits it harder.  Can you hit a snake with a big stick like Uncle Sofi?”  Or… “Adwoa is pushing a wheelbarrow full of wood.  It is hard.  Why is it hard?  Because Adwoa is a girl, and not strong enough.”  Or, “Kojo is climbing a mango tree.  He falls down.”  Or, “Grandmother is chasing a big dog.  She wants to throw a stone at it.  Why?  Because it stole her fish.  Can you throw a stone at the dog?”  I am glad to see that they had books fitted to their culture. I always get concerned when people have Americans donate all their old books and ship them over to Africa. Just thinking about a young Ghanaian girl reading Sweet Valley Twins or getting a hairstyle book (for white people's hair) makes me shudder.

Send your Girl Child to school

Moving around rural Ghana, I often saw posters that read: "send your girl child to school". I also saw kids at Adenkrebi, under the direction of their teacher, perform a skit in which a girl wanted to go to school but her "father" (fellow student role playing) wouldn't let her. At the end, two male students teamed up, picked the child playing the father up off his feet, and carried him out the door announcing "we are going to arrest you because you will not let her go to school!" It was pretty classic.

I met a man working for an NGO that helps girls.  A lot of girls cannot learn like the boys because after school they have to go home and help with the cooking and cleaning, and by night it is too dark to do their studying.  Also, a lot of girls, are "afraid to be discovered" during certain times of the month at school because they don't have the hygiene products.  If they have to cross a stream or river, they won't go, because traditionally they are told they will contaminate it.  So a lot of girls don't go to school as much as the boys.  He is working on awareness there and it is fascinating.

EPI - Ministry of Education and Lighting Africa

Ministry: The first few days during my April - August 2008 visit, JJ, Kweku, Solomon, and I met with the Ministry of Education.  I presented the concept of Empower Playgrounds to the ministry in a powerpoint format, and JJ presented on the zipline development.  There were nine prominent ministry members there.  They were all very supportive and had many questions.  They loved the idea and the head member stood up at the end and said we have their support all the way.  They then selected 15 schools for us to visit and planned on days to meet us out in the villages to show us the schools.  We will ultimately pick five that will receive playground equipment.  The MPA students also came to the meeting with the ministry.  They helped gather information from the schools and villages for us so we could select the five schools.  

Lighting Africa Conference: The MPA's saw a sign on the side of the road about the Lighting Africa Conference and one of them had the presence of mind to snap a picture.  Good thing too, without that picture we would have never found it, and if they hadn't seen the sign we wouldn't have even known that it was happening.  They arrived the day it was ending and give us the location when we met up with them to give them details about the Ministry meeting.  We caught the last day of the conference, but we were still able to make some contacts and learn some valuable information.  We learned that what we are doing is not unique in terms of the electric lighting, but only in terms of the power generation.  Most people are using solar panels, and one group had a small pedaling machine. They had information about powering various electronic devices that we haven't even looked into yet such as TV's and cell phones.  We split up and worked with a couple of different groups that were planning various implementation ideas.  I went with the NGO group and JJ found one about Carbon Financing.  One thing we hadn't thought about before is that there is a possibility of figuring out what our carbon offset is and selling carbon credits to help with costs of equipment and lanterns.  The conference assured me that renewable energy IS a major concern in Ghana, since it was such a big deal and sponsored by the world bank and held at a 5-star hotel in Ghana.  

Broom Making

Solo and I were walking through Adenkrebi one night when we saw some kids kneeling in the dirt with a pile of palm fronds in the middle. They explained they were making brooms. Solo and I stopped to help by stripping palm leaves to get the hard middle part. We then tied the tough middle parts together for the broom. It was a good skill for me to learn. I never knew how they were made before that.

EPI - Katapor MGR Installation

The November 2009 Katapor merry-go-round installation was pretty great.

The community got together and cleared the land with their machetes, dug a trench for the electric cables, put a small hole in the wall of the school for the cord to go through, etc.  They had also prepared songs and dances and a loooooooooong presentation for us.   

Solomon and the village chief and I cut the tape on the merry-go-round and uncovered it.  A girl dressed in traditional clothing presented us with the scissors with white ribbon around it.  For the dance, they did this traditional funky chicken dance type of thing... then the headmaster pulled me out of my seat to join in with them, which got them really riled up!  Then I got Matthew and the film crew to join in.  It was awesome.

Village Concert Piano Performance

The Adenkrebi hene (chief) had an old electric keyboard plugged into a car battery. Chiefs are very important in village culture and I think he wanted Solomon (the Ghanaian Country Director) and I to know that. We sat in the dirt while he played us a few songs, clad in full traditional chief clothing. He didn't read music or have any concept of chords. He dramatically pounded keys in random rhythms and combinations. Solo and I had a hard time maintaining our composure, but we managed to pull it together to solemnly clap at the end of each song.

Koni Kablu Kids - White Crystals from the Sky

I'm in love with the village of Koni Kablu.  They all call me "Sister Sarah" at that school and they all remembered me in Nov 2009 from my April 2009 trip.  

Apart from the awesome World Mahp experience, I've had other fun interactions with the kids. I played "Draw the Man" with them.  (I thought "Hangman" was too violent.)  I also taught them some songs like "The Princess Pat," "Let Me See Your Bugaloo," "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," "London Bridge," and their favorite "A Rigabamboo."  It was sweet.

"Once there was a Snowman" was interesting to teach them because they have never seen snow or even pictures of snow. I told them white, fluffy crystals fall from the sky and pile up on the ground, and you can gather the crystals and make a small white house to play in. I don't think they believed me.

Trotro Adventures

A trotro is a van used for public transportation. There's a driver, a "mate" who takes your cash, and then as many people packed shoulder-to-shoulder as can possibly fit in one van. I liked taking them in part because I was a novelty - there was never another white person in a trotro with me - so people would be very inquisitive about my business and I was able to ask them a lot of questions.

During one ride I was just sitting in the back, crammed up against a few stranger's shoulders, when I heard a bleat. I looked under my seat. There were two goats being transported along with us. And as I learned from personal experience, trotros don't stop for goats with full bladders. That was about a two-hour ride.

I feel like part of Ghanaian culture is getting up in everybody's business. On a particular trotro ride, a woman was speaking on her cell in Twi. Suddenly everybody (strangers, mind you) on the bus got agitated and started yelling in Twi. Some were yelling directly into her phone. I asked the man next to me what was going on, and he said, "she told the person she was going south, but she is going north. We are telling him she is lying." Can you imagine if something similar had happened on a subway in New York City? While it was funny, I really hoped she wasn't trying to escape a DV situation or something.

This one didn't happen to me, but it was in the news. There was a man on a trotro who opened a Coke, slipped a pill into it, and offered the woman next to him a sip. She declined. He asked her several more times, more forcefully. She continued to refuse. Eventually, the other people in the trotro told him to stop trying to make her drink it and to drink it himself. I guess the peer pressure was too great, because he did. And it knocked him out cold. For two days. They drove the trotro to a police station, and he woke up behind bars. Sometimes getting up in everybody's business turns out to be a good thing.

African Albinos

And I'm not talking about myself, though I have been told by some Africans that I am African on the inside.

Meeting a few representatives from the Society for the Albinos opened my eyes to a number of issues going on throughout the continent. Basically, albinos are not only often ostracized, but they are also being killed by middlemen of witch doctors, who believe certain albino body parts can be mixed into potions and make people rich.

Very sad.



Here is a video about social shunning of albinos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKn3dNAJ7j8

And here are a few articles about the killings:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7518049.stm
http://www.modernghana.com/news/207231/1/albino-killing-craze-stares-at-ghana.html

Sinapi Aba Trust

One of my favorite NGOs to visit was Sinapi Aba Trust. They are a microcredit group, and I was able to attend one of their solidarity meetings. It was fun to actually witness how they have to work together to cover each other in the event that a member of the group doesn't turn a profit, and how they are incentivized to help other's businesses succeed. I would have liked to interview them individually, but that didn't happen. It was a community affair - pretty much everybody showed up, they sang, prayed, and split into their groups. Really awesome crowd.

You can see Sinapi Aba's website here.

Country Premiere - Amazing Grace

Hanging out with the MPA study abroads was hilarious. I think only two of us had been to Africa before, and I was the only one who had been for an extended period of time, so it was funny watching their reactions to typical West African events we participated in.

Like this one - It was the country premiere of the movie "Amazing Grace" at the National Theater. We thought we'd check it out. It was a big deal, especially because of being on that side of the slave trade. They rolled out a red carpet, had a professional come in to take photos of those attended, and everyone was dressed to the nines in traditional clothing (except us American hippies who came in our jeans). The theater was spacious and beautiful.

The event began with previews projected from another DVD - really old previews. Then they hooked up a reel and the movie started about an hour and a half later than it was supposed to. First, there was no volume, so after about five minutes of that they started it over. Next, the volume was off by about five seconds, so after about ten minutes of that, they started it over. By this time, some of the American students were really complaining. They finally announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to say that the movie had now been rewound... by hand." Everybody clapped. Then the movie started, with volume and video synced.

However, it soon became clear by the presence of microphones dangling over the actor's heads that we did not have the final (and probably not a legal), version. My favorite was the big, fuzzy mic that came down into the foreground in several shots. It was just hilarious to me. Not really atypical. None of the Ghanaians were complaining.

After the movie was over, a beautiful Ghanaian girl came out in an evening gown and sang "Amazing Grace." It was fabulous.

Study Abroad Photos

I went on a study abroad with BYU MPA and MBA students in 2007. It was my first time in Ghana. We mostly hung out with other Americans, and stayed in air-conditioned dorms and traveled in an air-conditioned bus. It was a lot more tourist-learning than actually getting to know and love the people, and I didn't get the sense of living in Ghana like I did a year later while living with a Ghanaian family, but it was still fun. Plus it paved the way for my job with EPI and next four trips to Ghana!

Above: Mary, a fisherman's daughter. Taught me the skip game. Below: Drum making
Cape Coast
New Life Orphanage

Canopy walk - my friend Jodie.

With Kofi, our bus driver.






With some of our trainees.

EPI - Documentary Creation

My November trip was to take the BYU film crew to make the documentary. It was a lot of fun. We installed a merry-go-round at the rural school of Katapor, and visited the four other rural public schools (leaving Essam out of the picture because of how unpredictably rainy it was and how Essam was three hours away).

The film crew was delightful, and apart from a few small things (the focus child being too shy to talk to the camera, the van rental ending up being more expensive than budgeted for, and typical time issues), things went really well! We spent most of our time in the rural villages, and one day at the shop. We also took them to Cape Coast to see El Mina and do the canopy walk at Kakum.

It has aired several times on BYU-TV, even between general conference sessions! Good news for the NGO - and helped raise a bit of money too.

It was kind of weird watching it - it seemed so exotic that I almost forgot I was there watching all the filming and lived there for six months!

You can watch it here: http://byutv.org/watch/a7396421-c8e4-4f0d-900f-b611b4322fab

Volta Region

The Volta region is beautiful! I went there for the first time during my November trip. The main attractions were a lot of Diana monkeys (WAY cuter than the monkeys in Botswana), and a hike through the jungle to a beautiful waterfall. Ahhh.... I fed bananas to the monkeys, too! They ate it right out of my hand.

There's not much more I can say than it was beautiful to get out of Accra and into nature.

Oh, there was a lady selling rice and chicken out of her house near the waterfall. When I asked how much it was, of course she told me it was three times the cost of what it is for Ghanaians. I went to hang out with the van driver, who was also eating. He informed me I was overcharged and demanded of the woman that she give me the meal for the same price. Then I played with a bunch of village boys. They started out picking on me, trying to pull my hair and touch me and make fun. So I pulled a Jackie Chan on them and they thought it was hilarious. They didn't speak English at all, so we interacted through sparring. Then I gave them all a few cents. I think they ended up liking me, and somewhat confused.

Grandpa had fallen behind, as Matthew and I had gotten back from the waterfall much faster than the rest of the group, so I purchased a flashlight since it had gotten completely dark since we had returned. Matthew ran back to rescue them.

It was a good day. :-)

EPI - Accra Beach

The film crew wanted some entertainment/scenic ocean scenes to film, so Solomon took us all to a public beach near Accra. This was nothing like Kokorobite or Busewa. This was an Accra beach with a crowded village near the shore.

We got out and the smell was overpowering. There was garbage and human waste everywhere. There was a trench filled with brownish-black water, but fortunately there was a log going across it. We walked across the log. Then some men gathered around us and bullied us to give them money since we had walked across the log. There were nine or ten of them. White faces certainly attract a lot of attention in a place like that. Our cameraman decided not film the water there because of how the villagers were acting.

We went to another nearby beach hoping to not be bullied this time. The cameraman, Josephine (my Ghanaian friend), and myself were the only ones that got out of the van because of the mixed strong smell between garbage, waste, and fish. There were some fishermen preparing their nets and canoes who were friendly and let us talk to them (one, of course, proposed to me). They were very friendly. There was a pipe from a factory running straight into the ocean, gushing out large quantities of black oil. There was a little boy doing handstands next to pipe.

All in all, not my favorite experience. It left me wondering what can be done to clean up these Accra beaches. Ghana could really be a great place for tourists if the beaches were cleaner (though other beaches further away from Accra are absolutely gorgeous).

The Worrrrrrld Mahp!

I traveled back to Ghana in November 2009 with a huge world map rolled up in a plastic tube sticking several feet out of the top of my backpack.

Matthew Colling (who was at the time performing a social impact analysis) and I went to the rural school of Koni Kablu, where one of the merry-go-rounds is. We brought the map to give to the school, and it was the first time they had ever seen one!

Only one of the three teachers had come to the school that day. We rolled out the map in front of about 40 wide-eyed kids, and invited the teacher to help us teach. However, we soon became aware that the teacher didn't know where Ghana, Africa, or the US was. He told us to continue with teaching.

We take so much for granted! The kids didn't know the difference between a country and a continent. They didn't know Ghana was part of Africa. They knew that they lived in Ghana and that they lived in Africa, but having never seen a representation of it, they didn't know how Ghana fit into Africa. Since most of them have never left their village, there was no understanding of the size of Ghana, or Africa, or the world.

We showed them where Ghana was, and then Africa, circling it with our fingers. Then we had them circle it with their fingers. We showed them where we came from in the US. They thought we were from Ghana at first. They caught on quickly to locating those places.

We soon realized they didn't know that the colors represented different countries while the blue represented the ocean. Then, we discovered that they didn't know what the ocean WAS! They had never seen pictures, and they lived a dry, savanna area with no lakes.

My lesson to them about oceans went something like this:

Me: The ocean is made of water. What is the ocean made of?
Kids: Water.
Me: The ocean is made of water. The land is made of dirt. Yes or no... the ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.
Me: No. The land made of dirt. The ocean is made of water. Yes or no... the ocean is made of water?
Kids: Yes.
Me: Yes or no. The ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.

I think English was the main barrier to our lesson. So instead I wrote out on the chalkboard "Ocean" with "Water" and "Blue" and "Fish" under it. Then I wrote "Land" with "Dirt" and "Grass" and "Cows" under it.

We went through a series of questions like: Do fish live in the ocean? Yes. Do cows live in the ocean? Yes. Basically the answer to everything was yes. Eventually, we got to the point that they understood what was associated with ocean and what was associated with water.

Now it was time to associate it with the map. I said "the BLUE parts are the ocean." What part is the ocean? Then it seemed they didn't understand what the word blue meant. Matthew and I pointed to different things that were blue, and the kids caught on fast. Then we pointed to different blue things, asking, "what color is this book?" "Blue!" "What color is his shirt?" "Blue!"

Then we said, "What color is the sky?"

"White!" They all yelled in union. I looked out the hole in the plaster that was the window. They were right. The sky was bright white.

Then we had the kids come forward one at a time to point to different parts of the ocean. The first pointed somewhere in the Pacific. The next pointed to somewhere in the Indian. The third pointed to DR Congo. Which was, in fact, a different shade of blue.

Overall, I think the English lesson disguised as a geography lesson turned out fairly well. I learned a lot of things... next time I will bring photos of fish, the ocean, grass, different parts of Africa, and different parts of other countries including the US. When I was their age, I loved maps, and dreaming about going to Africa and traveling to other exotic places. I wanted to travel the world. I really want the kids to know about interesting things that exist in the world that they haven't seen, like snow and castles and kangaroos. Just like I dreamed about giraffes and elephants in Africa as I was growing up.

Family Home Evening and Table Climbing

My host mother, Lydia, likes to take charge of Family Home Evening lessons. One FHE, she asked us all what we heard in church.

My little sister Adwoa talked a bit about Sunday School. Lydia said, "Nice try." Then Essie said what she heard in sacrament. Lydia said, "Nice try." I didn’t want a 'nice try', so I gave a slightly lengthy monologue and seemed to pass the test.

When it was Kweku’s turn, he said: ‘You want to know one thing I heard at church? One thing I heard at church was: ‘Amen.’”

It is safe to say Lydia was less than amused and rephrased the question to ‘what did you learn at church?’

We finally got her to crack a smile when Essie said she learned that Sister so-and-so had a baby.

JJ had an interesting activity in store for FHE. It is called ‘table climbing’ but it turned out to be more like ‘rolling off the table onto the floor with a giant thump.’ If anyone wants to try it, I will tell you how. Lay on the table. Roll off without falling on the floor. Grab whatever you can with whatever limb you can. Get from one side of the table to the other (under the table) without touching the floor. Roll yourself back up onto the opposite side of the table from where you started. More succinctly, go down one side of the table and come up the other without touching the ground.

I made it the first time because luckily there was a bar on the bottom of the table. When I tried it without using the bar, I fell on the floor the first time. I tried again and was able to briefly suspend myself in the air under the table, and it took a battle with gravity to roll myself back up onto the table.

JJ didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Rock climbers are so aggravating sometimes.


Essie and Adwoa both dropped flat onto the ground. I wanted to see Lydia try, but didn’t want to push my luck in volunteering her.


Another time, JJ and I decided we wanted to play the newlywed game, Kweku against Lydia. It was so funny hearing their perspectives. Kweku saw her one night in the dark and offered her a ride. He said it was because he felt sorry for her. She said it is because he fell in love with her the second he saw her. She did not like his car and told her friends at work about it. They said she could do better. She left the house 15 minutes before he was supposed to pick her up on her first date with him. On purpose of course. He persisted in continuing to visit her at work.

Though they couldn't agree on all the details, Kweku summed it all up with the last statement, "It was the dimple that did the trick."

EPI - Nii Otto Kwame Stone Crackers, Civil Unity, and Unexpected Visitors

Having been on the MPA study abroad a few years before, I decided to collaborate with the group. They could get some good village exposure, and I could get some help selecting schools for the pilot program. My goal was to visit 18 schools within four days in three groups, and do an initial data collection, eventually to select five. We split the MPAs into three groups and Solomon, JJ, and I each went with a different group. I went to two villages/schools on the first day.

The first was Katapor. I focused on the school, visiting the classrooms and interviewing teachers and students, as well as the headmaster. There were 212 students (88 in the nursery). They have two breaks during the day and all break at the same time. Not all kids can go because some cannot afford the uniform and books cost. By Ghanaian law, they cannot work in the market either, so some kids are just running around. There are books and the kids get homework, but many do not have any light at home. Some may have one kerosene lamp for a family of nine. The school itself was fairly light because there were a lot of windows, but I wonder what would happen in a storm (during these three months it sometimes rains nearly every day). There is no glass so the blinds would have to be closed. There are also no science labs at that school, so it would be extremely beneficial to have one using the merry-go-round and zip-line.

The second school was Nii Otto Kwame. It was much darker. It was made of thick cinder block and did not have any windows, just some decorative designs with holes. They did have a science lab, or at least a box with some test tubes and cylinders they measure water in. They have a mini-microscope as well. I focused more on interviewing village members this time. Many (maybe half) have no light. The rest have maybe one lantern for the whole family. There were, however, some civil unity problems in this village. There is some argument over who should be the chief. Traditionally, it was decided that the first family to settle the area are the royals and that is where the chief comes from. We met with the chief and he told us they had been on national news for some fighting. This school was very crowded with over 400 students. It was not big enough so they had to rotate classrooms with one class meeting under a tree. Mind you, these are all government schools, as we are working with the Ministry of Education.

I am not sure this school is a good candidate. There are too many students to regulate lantern distribution, and the kids did not seem as organized or obedient as Katapor. The civil unrest also makes me wonder what would happen if we suddenly dropped a playground in their area.

Many women in the area are stone crackers. I asked if they could show me so the four women took me up a hill and showed me the quarry and how they gather big rocks and carry them out on their head and hit it with this primitive looking hammer to break it down. I asked if I could do it, so I sat on that hill and cracked stones with the women. One woman tried to also put the bowl of large rocks on my head but the others began to scream, so I pretended to hold a bowl on my head and walk swerving back and forth and they all laughed and laughed. I made some great friends in that village. The men were complaining that there was no work for them in the village. I asked why they couldn't help in the quarry or carrying the rocks. They all laughed at me and said, "that's a woman's job!"





The funny thing about visiting these villages it that nobody except the headmasters were supposed to know we were coming or why we were there. However, hundreds of village members sat in the middle of the schoolyard for three hours waiting for us at both schools. The chiefs were sitting front and center in their traditional garb. They had a table with a white tablecloth and flowers for us to sit in front of them. They expected a speech.

Luckily, Jeff (MPA study abroad professor) and Catherine (professor and MPA administrator) were able to make one for us. Even when the ministry told the people to go away, they still waited! The kids at the second school had planned a song, a few educational speeches, and a skit in which each child dressed in a traditional tribal uniform and told us about the culture. Then they brought out a Ghanaian flag to tell us which each color represented. The kids kept calling us their "honored guest from the United States." We were also able to play some games with the kids.


The village members, apart from 'not knowing we were coming', were not supposed to know why we were there. Once Jeff asked what the greatest need in the community was and a man said, "we need a merry-go-round!"

Osu and New Life Orphanages

During the four days the MPA study abroad students worked with us, we went with them to the Osu orphanage. It was a very different experience than going to the schools. The kids were completely starved for both attention and touch. I loved picking them up and giving them stickers, and I loved swinging on the swings with them and going down the slides. Most couldn't speak English so it was hard to communicate with them.

There was a fun boy who spoke English who came right up to me and demanded, "Pick me up!" I said, "Why, can't you walk?" He exclaimed, "Yes!" and continued to look at me. I picked him up and spun him around and he laughed and laughed and I kept doing it until I thought we would both fall over. Then we would fall over, and then we'd do it again.

There was a group of older girls on the swings who liked to stroke my hair, too. They all wanted to take pictures with my camera and were surprisingly good at it. They also took a lot of pictures of dirt, but oh well. There was a cute little girl in a purple dress but she didn't respond to much and I thought she must have been through an ordeal.

JJ and I went with our new friends Vicki and Betsy to New Life Orphanage in Cape Coast. Once again, the kids were so warm and accepting and just wanted to be touched and held. I have a great respect for those who set up orphanages. The kids take care of other kids. I brought some balloons as well as stickers this time and the kids preferred to blow them up, let all the air out making the screeching sound, and then come to me and ask me to blow them up again. Every time I tried to give out a balloon, they would say, "do not tie it!" Those kids were so cute.

No-Good-Horrible-Very-Bad-Morning!

I was pretty excited Saturday morning because JJ and I were going to a beach party with the young single adults. I had only gotten four hours of sleep because the night before I was washing my clothes by hand in a bucket. I woke up at 5:30am, extremely groggy, and staggered into the cold shower. There was a ginormous cockroach.

Halfway through the shower, the cold water dripping from the shower head completely stopped. I was used to the lights and water turning off spontaneously, and it's normally more of an adventure. This time, though, it was just too early for adventures.

My hair was completely lathered with shampoo, and there was nothing I could do but laugh briefly, and then wonder why mornings even exist. I was left with two options: (1) wait and hope my water comes back on, or (2) humble myself to the dust and ask JJ if I can use his shower. I hated option number two.

So, I waited, shivering, teeth chattering, for about 15 minutes hoping against hope the water would come back on. When it didn’t turn back on, seeing no other possible option besides showing up to the activity with shampoo all over my head, I sent him a text message to warn him that I was coming over whether he liked it or not and that it was a ‘salty fish head’ morning (a phrase coined from our least favorite dinner experience). I put on some sopping wet clothes (they hadn’t dried yet from my washing the night before) and hiked to his house complete with lathery, wet hair glued around the top of my head like a devilish halo.

I think the first words out of my mouth when he opened the door were something along the lines of, “Laugh, and I’ll kill you.” He didn’t laugh (obviously, or he’d be dead now), but kindly let me in. Then, he calls me back, and I thought maybe he was going to tell me some trick to the shower, but no. He has the AUDACITY to HIDE his camera behind his back, then whip it out and snap a picture at six in the morning when I look like a drowned rat! That punk! The good news is I swore in my wrath I’d delete the photo if it was the last thing I did, but he accidentally deleted it himself! Haha! Don’t mess with drowned rat girl.

JJ, if you’re reading this, you know I like you. It WAS funny, looking back.

Because of this incident, I was running a bit late so we scrambled to find a taxi to the church where we were meeting our friends. I bought some koko off the street. It’s a spicy, liquid millet drink. The lady I bought it from appeared to be surprised a white lady was buying it, and asked what price I’d pay. When I told her I would take it for 20 pesewas, the price the three Ghanaians in front of me had purchased it for, she seemed insulted. She told me it would be one cedi. Normally I am a pushover like that, but this morning brought out the hidden feistiness. I told her it would be 20 pesewas or I'd find someone else to buy it from. I gave her one cedi and waited for my change. She wanted to capitalize on obruni and claimed she didn't have any change, even though I had just seen several people pay her with coins. JJ gave me some coins instead. I said 'thank you very much' through gritted teeth and recalled the moment last year when someone tried to charge a friend of mine 20 US dollars to use the public toilet.

I sat on the curbside and sucked my koko out of the plastic bag while we waited. I think I was successful in getting it all over my wet pants as well. Oh yeah, my clothes were wet all day because they hadn't fully dried from my washing them in a bucket the night before. We had arrived by the time we were supposed to leave the church, 7am, but they ended up picking us up around 10am. We sat on the curbside for three hours, both a little grumpy from lack of sleep. Ghana time. It was worth it though. The rest of the day was fabulous!

With God All Things are Possible Beauty Salon

One of the things I love about Africa in general (but particularly Ghana) is looking at various shop names. The people are very religious and affiliate many shops with religious titles. For example: "God is Great Furniture Works," "Redeemer Tyres," "Jesus Saves Hair Salon," and "God is With Us Chop Shop." I love this because it shows the religious conviction of the people. While America is busy taking God out of the pledge, people in Ghana are recognizing him in their businesses.

My personal favorite was: "The Downfall of Man is Not the End of His Life Enterprise." 12 words. It was a bike repair shop.

Some of the names are not religious, but just kind of funny, like this one:

In case you can't read it, it's "Don't Mine Your Wife Chop Bar."

Another good one was the "Bar Be Que" shop.

Taxis and trotros are also filled with religious sayings. Some of them, again, are not as religious. For example, I was walking down the street and saw some men pushing a trotro that had broken down. The writing in the back windshield? "Never Give Up." Very appropriate.

How to Start an NGO in Ghana

One of the main goals I had in going to Ghana was to make the organization official in Ghana. We already had our 501(c)3 but were not registered in Ghana at all. In case you were wondering what is involved in the process, I will tell you what I did this summer.

1. Find an auditor.

2. Go to the Register General's Office. Buy a form, make 4 copies, pay your registration fee, give a letter from your auditor. Wait several months, unless you have a connection, in which case, wait two weeks or so and get your certificate!

3. Go to the Social Welfare Office. Bring a slew of documents including (but not a comprehensive list) your registration certificate, articles of incorporation, the Social Welfare application form, 501(c)3 copy (if affiliated with US nonprofit), letter from an auditor, and a memorandum of understanding between your nonprofit and the government of Ghana. We were also asked to bring letters from the Ministry of Education. Wait another few weeks, pay your fee (why is it that nonprofits have to pay exorbitant fees to the government when they are in fact stepping in and saving the government money by doing things the government is failing to do?), and receive your Social Welfare Registration.

4. Once you have your Social Welfare registration, you are free to begin applying for tax exemptions. In Ghana, these are not given unless the organization is either education or health related. Solomon and I have had quite the headache trying to convince the government that this is an educational venture. However, since we are not directly importing books or other clearly educational goods, we have been fighting tooth and nail for our import duty exemptions. The Ministry of Finance tells us there is no way for us to prove the lights are going to children and not being sold. This step is by far the hardest because you have to apply through the Ministry of Finance, who then sends you to Customs and the VAT (value added tax) for consideration, who then sends it back for approval. We are still fighting for this one.

5. Hire yourself a country director. We were very lucky to have a very good candidate fall right in front of us. To do this, you need to register your country director officially with the organization, and go to the SSNIT (Social Security Office) to fill out another form. Careful when setting the employee's base salary... the organization is required to pay 12% to SSNIT and the employee 5%.

I probably missed a few steps, because this was an extremely long and drawn out process, but since it happened within the three months I was there even with all the other things we were doing, I'd say it's relatively easy in Ghana. It is not very hard to obtain the status, but it does take some waiting time.

Asaba - The Miracle Fruit

One of my favorite things about Ghana (apart from the kids) is the delicious fresh fruit that grows so abundantly. There were mango and coconut trees in our front yard. The pineapple is absolutely divine. You will never find such a succulent pineapple in the US. There is also a small red berry the Ghanaians call asaba. After chewing this fruit, sour and bitter foods taste sweet for several hours. I ate a whole lemon as if it were an orange. And it tasted delicious! I must warn you, do not eat asaba if you are planning on eating anything else sweet. Drinking fruit juice and eating a grapefruit was very unpleasant afterwards - too sweet! Wikipedia explains that this works because a molecule asaba contains called miraculin binds to the tongue's taste buds and possibly distorts the sweetness receptors, making them react to bitter and sour flavors.

EPI - School Selection - Ga East

Adenkrebi Village:  This village is good because there is not conflict, there are less than 1,000 people in the village, the teachers are smart and dedicated, the students were extremely well-disciplined, and a man in the village said that light was their greatest need.  The kids only get to eat fufu and banku.  The water comes from a stream about 1 mile away from the village.  They farm maize and cassava.  The community is very unified and live close together.  The chief said their greatest needs were: lights, teacher bungalows, roads, and the lack of a hospital in the area.  I had a good feel from the community—this school had arranged for a few parents to come to the school.  So instead of the whole village of us showing up and waiting for us to give us something, they kept it quiet, which I think is so good.  They were also very humble.  They said, “If, by the grace of God, these people feel moved to help you…” compared to some of the others.  They were much more upbeat.  We shall contrast this attitude to the next school I visited. 

We stopped by Akporman Model School on the way.  The kids had pink uniforms rather than the orange ones I’ve seen at the rest of the government schools.  

Adenkrebi School: There are only about 75 students at the school and only one building.  It is in a beautiful rural area at the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the jungle.  There is a very difficult winding, muddy, bumpy road leading through the jungle up to it, which could be a problem as far as maintenance and evaluation is concerned, though.  The only other concern I had was that I wondered if they would have time to play with it.  They only have one break time, and they all go home for lunch (they all live within a five minute walk from the school—which is good because it is easier for them to come back and play on the mgr).  However, if they leave during their break time and go straight home to farm after school and then help around in the house, I don’t know when these kids have time to play.  They only play football on Fridays during gym class and besides that, it seems they always just work. I asked a 13 year old boy, Immanuel, about his schedule, and he said right after school he goes to the farm (2-4) and works, then he sweeps the house, then he does homework and finishes about 5.  Then he helps his mother cook, eats, looks after his grandmother, and sleeps.  He said another interesting thing—he and his siblings wake up at midnight every night to play, because if they don’t, the devil will take you and play with your head like a football and you will have a headache in the morning.  But if you pray, he cannot get you.  Many families have kerosene lights at home, but some do not.  I think they would love the science lab we will create with the mgr.  In science, they learn about food boiling, maize cropping, soil erosion, food, teeth, reproduction and growth, and the environment.  The technology they learn about is: maize, recycling, cell phones, and computers.  As in, there is a picture of a computer in their book with the keyboard and monitor labeled (that is the extent of it).  In their book, the energy unit only shows: how to put on a lantern, charcoal, ironing, and heating water.  This is for kids maybe, twelve years old.  There are no materials for any kind of science lab.  We could even keep the lanterns in the school for study groups or literacy classes at this school, because of the short walk.  Maybe not though, it might be more beneficial to give people light in their homes at night.  Just ideas.

Mueter School:  Tuesday we were around the Affinya area visiting more schools.  Mueter was the first I visited.  Right away, I could tell mud may be an obstacles in getting the mgr in and maintaining it.  There were six classroom, a library, and they are in the process of building a new KG room.  It appears to be a very religious community, because before the teachers met with us, they sang a prayer.  There are about 200 students at the school.  The children’s typical schedule is that they wake up at 5am, sweep and fetch water for the day, take ‘morning supper’ of bunku or rice, and help at the farm after school.  The other problem is that the kids don’t have books to take home, so they do their homework at school often.  Would they come back that far at night to do their homework if there were lights there?  Other times, the homework is based off the teacher’s notes, so the kids can take them home and do their homework.  They do play during their break time, unlike Adenkrebi, and they have two breaks.  They were very happy to get footballs from us.

Mueter Village:  My chief concern about this school is the long walk from the village to the school.  Catherine, Aaron, and I started walking to the village (aka: tromping through a jungle and swamp.  I have to admit, I have the coolest job ever).  We went through a lot of mud to get to the chief’s compound, where there were some huts and a small power generator—the only one in the village.  We walked for at least half an hour and only made it halfway to the closest village.  These kids have to walk far!  It was extremely muddy and I ended up being covered up to my knees (unfortunately I choose this day as the first day I wore my white capris… oh well).  We came to a point where the swamp was up to our knees, halfway to the village, and stopped there.  Our guide said that when it rained very hard, sometimes it was up to the children’s necks, and they wouldn’t come to school.  Some days during the rainy season, they come to school 2-3 out of 5 days.  Aaron thought putting a mgr there may be a good test actually, a good challenge.  All the other essential elements that automatically eliminated a lot of schools we visited were in place at this school.  I actually felt pretty good about it.  The village is, again, a farming community, although there are also many charcoal makers.  The communities are somewhat scattered and a little hard to get together.  The chief sees light as their biggest challenge.  Afterwards, they gave us thirty eggs.  A very generous gesture.  They also pulled out a bucket of water they pumped and washed my muddy legs and shoes off (it was pretty bad).  I was touched that they would pump it for me.  Although I admit it was a little odd to have someone cleaning between my toes for me.  I tried to tell her I could do it, but she didn’t speak English.  I think that the teachers and administration of this school is very capable of taking care of a mgr and lanterns.  The community was not demanding at all.

Asutsnape Junction School:  I didn't really like this school.  The headmaster was actually pushing the kids down if they were in his way.  There were 376 kids and no order at all.  The whole community showed up sitting under a tree to demand things from us—TVs, entertainment, anything they could think of.  They were saying, “We have no electricity.  No hospital.  No market.  No entertainment.  We are bored.  Give us mobile phones.” in a ‘what are you going to do about it’ way.  They kept arguing and talking over each other in their native language.  They seemed mad we had only brought footballs.  Apparently, hard drugs are a problem in the community, and teen pregnancy.  Before we left, the headmaster told the whole community, “We know that once we see white people here, all our problems will be solved for us” and everybody clapped.  I felt like he said it just to put the pressure on us and it was so annoying!  As if there is nothing these people can do about their problems themselves without waiting for a white person.  They are so not empowered!  The school did have a maize farm, a pepper farm, and a tree lot the kids work in to support the school.  I really wonder if it is a good idea or child labor and where the money really goes.  We met with the teachers, who were less than helpful and looked like they wanted us to go away.  Most had only been teaching for 1-2 years, but there was one great lady who had taught for 23 years.  In science, there is no equipment, they draw the equipment on the chalkboard.  The ages, as in most schools, are very mixed up according to opportunity.  For example, there is a 20 year old in the primary school.  There are three 30 minute each breaks.

 

Back to Adenkrebi about a month later: Our final visit before deciding to select Adenkrebi in the Ga East district was interesting. It had formerly been my top choice, but now I’m not so sure. We took a few trotros to get there and finally took a taxi from the last city-like area to the school. The taxi driver was dressed in traditional garb and seemed more than happy to be paid to chill in the car while we did our school visit, with his long legs sticking out the open door and African music blaring from the car. Adenkrebi had been so organized and well-behaved last time I went. However, this time they were not informed we were coming and things were a bit different. The headmaster was out and we only saw three of the nine teachers at the school that day. The kids didn’t seem so disciplined, and sometimes the kids were not in the classroom. The location is gorgeous—it is at the top of a high hill overlooking other beautiful green hills. We gave the assistant headmaster the brochure and application and explained who we are. They were quite interested in applying.

Drama: One of the teachers invited us to come watch a ‘drama’ the kids are doing. We stood around in a circle with the kids for the warm-up. There was one student in the middle who called out and everyone else responded. It went something like this:
“Whazzup?”
“Wazzup?”
“I want you.”
“For what?”
Then everyone starts dancing like crazy.

I think they were entertained by JJ’s and my obruni dance. Then they put two big chairs in the middle of the classroom for JJ and I to sit on—I felt bad that they didn’t bring one for Solomon, but he insisted it was fine. So JJ and I watched from our thrones while everyone else stood. Then the kids did the real performance.

It was about a village man who wouldn’t allow his girl child to go to school. The best part was near the end when some village people were reprimanding him that every child, even the girl child, has the right to go to school. In the end, the kids playing the "community" ganged up on him, grabbed him by his trousers, picked him up, and carried him out the door to the police station while he yelled and kicked his legs. The boy playing the father was absolutely hilarious and looked completely indignant as he was hiked a foot into the air. It was awesome and definitely reflected the change in mindset and how hard the government and NGOs have been working to get girls in rural areas to school.

Adenkrebi Village: The most enlightening part of the trip was when we went into the community. The assistant headmaster took us around and I believe showed us a very biased view, taking us to all the better-off and more prominent people (who still lived in mud houses). We met the chief first and then one of the elders, the asarfo hene, (hene means chief and asarfo has something to do with youth). Many members of the community actually have tv sets and take their batteries into town to charge them. We found an interesting fact, that when electricity is introduced into a community, the birthrate goes down because people have something new to do at night (watch tv). Everyone in the community seemed to be a farmer, plus have another very small business. One man was a pensioner (retired teacher) who farmed to stay young, his wife ran a shop, and his daughter a hair saloon. We also sat under a tree talking to five men who spend time between Adenkrebi and Accra.



The people seemed to all have cell phones and tv sets, until we choose the last house instead of letting the headmaster take us. I really liked the last house. It was a carpenter and his wife, and there was a little baby sleeping outside on a homemade rug in the dirt. The carpenter had made a scooter out of wood. They also grew a garden in the back with coconut and palm trees and cocoa yams (which they made a stew out of the leaves and root, and some pound the root for fufu.). The cocoa yam leaves were longer than my arm and fairly circular.


There were a lot of homemade bamboo fences in that area. People actually tied their goats up instead of letting them wander around. The general feel was that it wasn’t quite as open and friendly as some other villages. The other concern I had is that people would use the energy for cell phones or tv’s instead of education - but maybe that would be okay if they had other positive impacts?

The interesting thing was that everyone in the school and the community remembered me immediately (JJ and Solomon had never been there before). And all of them said, 'I remember you, the one that asks a lot of questions.’ Apparently I am a loudmouth.

Adenkrebi kids: The kids at that school followed us around and made some interesting noises through narrowed lips, kind of like ‘ssssswhhheeessssweeeessss.’ We finally realized they were simply trying to imitate the way we talk. JJ and I were trying to teach the kids how to high-five. They all just wanted to touch our hands. So it turned out the kids were falling all over each other trying to touch my hands for a high-five, then I’d go down for a low-five and they would all kneel on the ground trying to touch my hands over each other. When I said, “Up high,” they didn’t understand, so the whole way back to the taxi there was a mass of primary school students following us saying ‘uh-buy, uh-buy.’ Cute kids.