A day in the life

I realized it's probably hard to put what I'm saying into context, so I thought I would write out a brief play by play about what an average day here is like for me.

05:15 - wake up to the mosque loudspeaker announcing it's time to pray

06:30 - wake up for the second time to a screaming goat, and a very loud rooster

07:00 - boil water for Nescafe, buy bread for 40 cents from the lady across the road

07:30 - eat and drink Nescafe while the people in my compound (who have been awake since call to prayer) do their washing and clean and iron

08:30 - get on my bike, pedal uphill to school in some outfit not made for exercising

09:00 - buy two water sachets, go to class, take notes

12:30 - finish class and go the yam lady across from school, buy lunch for 40 cents

13:00 - go to the market, buy tomatoes and bread and yams and rice and sauce

14:30 - go home, lay in my bed beneath the fan to avoid heat stroke, the compound is empty and everyone is hiding from the heat

16:30 - try to avoid the children screaming SALMINGA HEEELLLLOOOOOOO and jump across rancid, toxic gutters to go to the internet cafe by our house - surrounded by thatch huts

17:30 - start peeling yam, cutting tomatoes. Light burner and cook supper

19:00 - fill two buckets with water, start washing clothes by hand

20:00 - fill another bucket with water, scrub down and bucket bath

21:00 - hang out with people in our compound, drink more sachets

22:00 - bundle up and go to sleep beneath my sleeping bag

That's a pretty calm day. Sometimes there are wrenches thrown in, like when I had to deal with a drunk bicycle mechanic, or when I got hit by a cyclist, or when I took cheap drugs without prescription to stop my diarrhea and ended up having vertigo and insomnia from the side effects. After every ridiculous and potentially dangerous experience, it usually ends in a good laugh. Salminga means foreigner in Dagbani, so the kids who live around my compound are always screaming it at me and are not satisfied until I wave furiously at them.

This weekend was Sallah, which is a national Islam holiday. There was an abundance of animal slaughter and the cooking of cow bones and hide and insides has forever stained my nostrils. I didn't even feel bad for the goats next door though, because they wake me up so early every single day with their incessant crying.

So soon it will be Christmas, this month has gone by unbelievably fast.

Kukuwo

Ok so this is my second attempt to blog, but since my computer has been nothing but difficult this whole trip, it erased my first attempt.

When I get home I'm buying a mac, and that's that.

As I was saying, I realized I haven't blogged about food yet and it is quite relevant in my everyday life. All of Ghana is sustained mainly of starches, which is probably one of the main factors in the group weight changes we have seen.

Fufu: pounded yam, served with soup and meat

Banku: pounded cassava or maize served with Okra soup and meat

Red Red: beans and fried plaintains

Yams and Pepe: fried yams and super spicy sauce. Today my pepe was so hot I had to stop eating it, and my face to my chest was actually in pain, and my eyes watered.

Rice: (fried, plain with sauce, or with beans)

Egg and bread: fried egg on fried bread

Ghanaians enjoy these meals at all times of the day, often even for breakfast. I like them all except egg and bread, which I expelled from my body violently when I got ecoli and now I can't even stand the smell.

Ditto Julie, but with banku.

Ghanaians like to see me try and pound fufu, they find it very amusing. It's pounded with a really long, really heavy piece of wood that you slam over and over into a pile of yams until it becomes a soft gooey ball. It's extremely hard work and I can only do it for about 5 swings and then my little bicep muscles get tuckered out and the people at my compound clap for me. Overall, they appreciate my effort but on the whole it's pretty pathetic in comparison.

Also, you don't chew banku or fufu, and all of the above foods are eaten with your hands. One time I ate fufu with a spoon and I am the butt of that joke to this day. Every woman in our compound (there is one man and one boy and like 10 women) is a force, I swear. They are so badass, but they are also really nice and caring. They help us out and teach us about things that we are ignorant of, and we make them laugh by trying to exist in the world and constantly struggling.

School is going well, our prof/coordinator is a brilliant, radical man. Unfortunately I am having some problems with the direction the program is taking right now, and so I am desperately trying to work out an alternative with the heads of my program. I was aware we would be partaking in mini placements, but I wasn't aware of was what the mini-placements would entail. I assumed it would be like our 3 month placement, shadowing an NGO or a community organization or something. What our assignment really is, is getting into groups and actually going into a rural community and coming up with questions in order to analyze a system that has been put in place, such a school feeding program.

The problem is that we are not skilled or trained on how to know whether or not a programme is in fact being as effective as it can be. We are students, and we are predominantly white, all privileged, all middle-upper class, and we are invading a poor, African community and any conclusions we draw will stay in our classroom. This is not the development that I believe it. It is against my politics and my ethics to do this, and although I can see the benefits that might be drawn my people who are interested in field work, I am not.

I am emailing my prof at Trent and trying to get out of it. Usually I would just suck it up, I mean, I'm uncomfortable here all the time and I just deal. But this makes me so uncomfortable I can't even express. At least if I don't get out of it I can try and change the program for next year. Maybe over something different, something that applies to field work but that doesn't so blatantly take advantage of the groups' overall status.

Beyond privilege and beyond wealth, it comes down to race. I do not want to the white do-gooder going into the poor Black community not even to help, but for the sake of purely selfish information gathering. Information that will be discarded, and in addition to that, any community hopes that might be raised about elevated attention to their cause will of course be dashed. It is frustrating that these concerns were not addressed in class because I am sure I am not the only one with these concerns. The Ghanaians in our group are used to community entry, but none the less see the problematic nature of it. Especially because we are doing it just to know what it's like, not to actually try and mend something that is broken, or some other larger purpose.

On a totally different note, I drink about 5L of water a day. Give or take a litre. I am not messin around here. Also, lately it's been getting really cold at night because of the change of seasons, so I've been wearing a hoodie, pants, and socks to bed under a sleeping bag. Then Chris told me how low the temperature gets at night...

30 degrees Celsius.

So I guess I can say I've acclimatized.

Education/Ridge

We have arrived and begun school in Tamale. After travelling from Accra to Kumasi, and from Kumasi to Tamale, we unpacked our bags at a guest house here planning on staying for a few nights until we moved into our new house. We were told by the people who run our program that we could choose to either live in a huge house with 12 or so of our classmates, or break into very small groups and find homes together. They made it seem so easy. However it turned out to be the opposite - people who wanted to live in the huge house moved in, and the rest of our housing options all but fell through. After days in the hotel, we were taken yesterday to a compound to look around and see if we were interested in renting it for the next 5 weeks. The second I walked in I was sold - I was not kidding when I said my standards were extremely low. All I need at this point is one bucket of water per day, a place (a hole, some dirt) to go to the toilet, and a mattress. This is pretty much what I got so I am happy. It is 50 cedis a month, Julie and I are sharing a bed, and sharing the compound with 3 of our classmates. It is ideal for me and I am extactic that we found a place with an accomodating landlord because I was a ball of anxiety not knowing where I was going to sleep night after night.
School so far has been interesting, but we have only had class for the past three days. We have had a tour of Tamale, we went North to Bolgatanga and even walked across the border to Berkina Faso. In Bolgatanga I got to touch/ride a wild crocodile! I was terrified but the man in charge (who was wearing safety goggles, and had no other form of protection from the crocs) grabbed my hand and dragged me behind the animal so I could lift its tail and inspect its scales. It feels very....waterproof. I don't know how else to describe it. After that we watched it devour a whole chicken (read: a live chicken) in one gulp.
I like Tamale; the pollution is not as bad, nor is the traffic, and everyone and their dog drives a motorcycle or a bicycle so getting around is much easier. It is easier for me, as an affluent outsider, but life in Tamale appears to be much more difficult for some people than life in Accra. It is more rural and has less development over all - and therefor less money circulating. I had a really interesting conversation with a man today over coffee. I don't know how, but we started talking about Canada and then suddenly we were deep in conversation about terms of trade and aid in Ghana. He ended it with "What can Ghana do? It has one hand reaching out for aid, and the other reaching out for different terms of trade in order to be able to profit off its exports. It cannot have both, nor one without the other." He made a serious and tragic point. In many deep rooted ways it seems as though the country's hands are tied.

On a medical note, while I was travelling to Bolgatanga it seems that I acquired my roommates highly infectious staph infection, and small patches of boils broke out my face, eyelid, and arm. I got appropriate medication at the pharmacy and it has very much cleared up, but for a while I was scared that it would spread rapidly and maybe into my blood stream. Again though - I am lucky enough to be able to seek medical treatment as soon as I deem it is needed. Many people do not have these privileges.

I am very frustrated because the prof we have right now is teaching us about the Human Rights Based Approach to Development, but he has been stubborn and contradictory in his views that liberalized changes will not occur in countries such as Ghana. I posed the question that if the HRBA aims to provide marginalized people with the ability to realize their rights, is the constitution not directly contradicting that in making "unnatural sexual acts" (e.g. homosexuality) and women's reproductive rights illegal? He refused to give me a straight answer. He sidestepped the issue claiming that it is unfortunate but true - tradition and religion rule and Ghana and that is just the way it is. He then proceeded to compare same sex acts to beastiality in that they are regarded as one in the same under the Ghanaian law books and I was livid. I had to leave the class because it had become obvious that although my point was not arguable and in some ways he seemed to agree with me, he would not move from his stance.
This is my number one frustration with living in Ghana - especially living here as a marginalized individual. I feel that I cannot express my views without being criminalized or shrugged off as not deserving to have an opinion. Of course circumstances such as these do occur in Canada as well, but here I am helpless. The majority of opinions I have heard expressed are very conservative and are not condusive to the progression and change of a liberal democracy in Ghana. My opinion stands however: the HRBA to development carries moot points. If excluding the reproductive rights of 51% of the population and denying freedom of sexuality of countless individuals and groups is part of the HRBA - then it is being outright contradictory and selective. It is truly the Rights Based Approach for heterosexual, able-bodied men because it is taking place in a religious based, patriarchal society. How then is this a legitimate approach to fair and democratic development in the Global South?

But, it is hard to see problems such as these unless you are an individual that is oppressed and marginalized by the very ideologies that are being built to help you be more free. Majority always rules, and hence the stagnancy in social change.
I am hoping that I am either wrong or misguided in my cynicism, but I am witnessing this everywhere and so I continue to be jaded by failing development systems and the ongoing systematic oppression of marginalized groups. I will continue to go to school and participate in my placement and hope that somewhere I can find the organizing and exercising of resistance.

Traveling

I have not blogged in a while, as I have been so busy with exams and traveling and finishing up my stay in Accra.

The past few weeks have really been a blur. We had a five day break so my roommate and I decided to go traveling outside of Accra and explore Ghana a bit more. The first two days we had really unfortunate and hilarious luck, but after that things got much easier.
We traveled East to Ada Foah where the Volta River meets the Ocean. It felt like we had walked to the tip of the world, it was so breathtaking. But it took hours of exhaustion, dehydration, and frustration to find the ocean and struggle to the end of it.
The next day we went to Shai Hills and saw baboons and climbed a mountain. I thought I was going to die of dehydration and exhaustion because I wasn't prepared to literally climb a mountain, and was wearing flip flops and had no water. But it was worth it because we got to see a natural rock formation where the Chief of the Shai tribe hid during war. It was so incredible and educational, but I had to awkwardly ask our guide to get me water, like immediately, or else he was going to have to carry me back to the main gate. He was nice and did so.

We walked to our hotel (so exhausted) and they informed us that they had no rooms. I asked nicely if they did not even have a small closet we could sleep in and they said no. I thought maybe we were going to have to return to the nice woman we had bought yams from earlier and ask to sleep on the floor of her stall, and we started walking back to where we came from. After walking, hitching a ride, and getting a taxi, we finally stumbled across a very strange and out of place ritzy hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere, that had peacocks walking around and air conditioning.

After that we went to the Volta Dam on the world's largest man made lake. (Paddy I have pics for wiki.) We stayed on the Volta River and visited a bead factory and market, and made friends with the founders of a cool international fair trade organization called Global Mamas.

Now I am back in Accra packing and learning about different NGOs that I might volunteer for. I was having a hard time with the NGO fair because of my beliefs on volunteering abroad and the privileges that I specifically am privy to because of my skin colour and nationality. I have a hard time with people who volunteer abroad - especially students who have no essential skills to offer and are basically there to fulfill their own needs morally. Because that is not my motivation for being here, because I am here to further my knowledge of privilege and difference and the inequality in the distribution of wealth globally - actually participating in an NGO makes me very uncomfortable and make me feel like I am being put on a pedestal I do not deserve to be put on. So I have been talking to my wonderful friend who is second from the top in an organization that I really believe in and appreciate. It is called CPEHR - the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights. It fronts as an organization that deals with HIV/AIDS (which in truth, they do, but not primarily) , however in reality they are basically the only organization that's foundation stems from resistance to homophobia and oppression based on alternative sexuality. Specifically male to male sexual relations in Ghana is still illegal - a law that is impossible to enforce and denies an extremely high number of the population one of their basic human rights. Because of this many of the activities have to be discreet or secret, which is tragic but none the less, an extremely effective method of widespread resistance.

Tomorrow I move to Tamale where I will have less access to internet but will have more independence in terms of eating/sleeping arrangements. I am looking forward to the change but am anxious to rearrange the routine that I have set for myself here. My hands hurt from doing laundry by hand....after the godforsaken trek to Ada Foah down about 3km where all we could see was sand my clothes may never be the same. When I washed them water came out brown and grey. Literally my sweat blood and tears - but seriously, so worth it.

Hopefully the trip to Tamale isn't so bad tomorrow, and my guitar survives the trek. I will try and blog again soon to keep everyone posted on the differences that I notice between urban and rural living in Ghana.

So much love,
Claire