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.