Oguaa Village

Hello all!

Sorry for the two-week delay - the past several days have been marked by moving out of Accra, into Kumasi, then into Oguaa, the village.

Oguaa is a small village of about 500 people, mostly farmers of cassava, plantain and cocoa. Located in the Asante Region, about an hour away from the city of Kumasi, most of the villagers are Asantes, and thus speak Twi. With limited possibilities of communicating in English, the multiple lessons at Accra are definitely paying off. Though people here are still impressed at the sight of oburonis speaking Twi, conversations are much more about daily occurrences, instead of the common "wow, you speak Twi!!" from Accra.

The friendliness of the villagers was clear from the moment we arrived. Many children ran over to our van to help carry bags, and every person standing nearby started to greet emphatically. After just over a week of living in Oguaa, calls of "oburoni" have given way to my Twi name, Kwame.

Though the lifestyle for the farmers must be a straining one, the village is in considerably positive conditions, in terms of health and sanitation. Granted, there is no running water, and pit holes are the most common toilet option (the next one being the ground itself). However, it is rare to see the conceptualized image of an "African village" - children are running happily and healthily, enough even to do as much work at home as an adult would.

As a visitor, my duties stretch to a very modest part of the so-called village life. Preparing food and washing dishes is a daily job, and a pleasant one at that (mostly preparing the food, though... I don't usually look forward to scrubbing with no running water at hand).

Also, fetching water from the village borehole is the equivalent to exercising. In the afternoon, after school hours, several children line-up around the pump, with empty buckets waiting to be carried for washing, cooking and bathing. Pumping in itself is fun, and a substitute to gym-work. The uphill walk that follows, however, is the stage where water spills all over, regardless of if you carry the bucket on your head or with your hands.

In the past few days, however, children who were late for school have been coming over to the house with buckets of water. This is their punishment - fetching water for their teachers.

Pounding palm nuts and fufu (a mixture of cassava and plantain), as well as assisting in weeding the farm with a machete are some examples of less regular physical activities. Though less frequent, they were already enough to make my hands worthy of an actual worker at Oguaa.

 
At night, about twenty children invariably show up at our compound, either with homework questions or just wanting to play. By now, tutoring has become a regular appointment for many, one that complements teaching at local Junior High Schools (7th-9th grades). This will be better covered on the next post, though.

Especially on weekends, we have learned and taught several songs and games. My personal favorite has been teaching some of the children (the coolest ones) how to play basic rhythms on my kpanlogo drum.

Last Sunday, some of the children started a shouting match outside my window, in an effort to get me to the football pitch for a few matches. Note: it was 5 am.

Though I missed the football (real football) that day, tomorrow I will make up for it, at 5 am, yes. In the middle of the week there were small pick-up matches, also great fun. After one of these, Ebenezer, one of the boys from the Oguaa's school, asked me to help him take his five goats back to his house. Below is the picture, first time I ever walked a goat.

Life in the village has been incredible. The simplicity with which things happen - from eating to working to playing - is refreshing after the somewhat scattered rush that was Accra. Regularly speaking Twi and meeting the people around is also very pleasant.
Teaching, probably the main aspect of this stage of the program, has been challenging and already very rewarding. However, I will write about this topic on the next post.
(Unfortunately, I can't say exactly when that will be... It was a two-hour commute to get to this internet cafe in Kumasi today).

All the best,

Kwame

Goodbye Accra - Hello Village!

Last day in the Ghanaian capital city of Accra.
The past four months are still a surreal experience, with incredible amounts of learning and discovering coming in bundles. Crowds of people, hailing trotros, being overwhelmingly a minority, learning a new language, volunteering in an NGO (SISS) and an economic development company (DAI)... Much of which was shared here in this blog.
Though still making sense of how all of this will be applied in the next few years is a continuous process, Ghana has left a great first impression. Mixed feelings are part of any long-term cultural experience, and believe me, ten calls of oburoni a day get old after a few months. However, the value of this gap year, as my group mate Cam put it, is a blank check from Princeton University.
Accra has given me a clear understanding of what development deficiencies are, and a much better perspective of how well structured Brazil is. The city and its friendly people provided exclusive opportunities, such as learning to play a traditional drum and making friends in public transport.

I would like to thank all who have taken the time to read parts of this adventure - this is only the halfway mark. People from over thirty countries have visited, and I am very happy to provide not only a glimpse to the world of what Ghana is, but also to develop an understanding of what I am living here.

Though internet access in the village will be much rarer, I promise to do my best to keep up the once a week posting pattern.

The village is about an hour away from Kumasi, the most important city in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The Ashantis were once a mighty empire, stretching to the Ivory Coast and Benin, in an area larger than the present-day country. After clashes with the British Empire, towards the end of the transatlantic slave trade, their size was reduced.
The Ashanti people, however, remain the proud majority of the Ghanaian populace. I look forward to learning more about their customs and traditions; comparing the kpanlogo drumming techniques I have learned from Ga's and Ewe's, witnessing the art of Kente weaving, and even carrying buckets of water on my head.

It's now time to leave the city. We're off to explore the bush.

Volunteering  in Accra was a very fortunate combination: first working with the grassroots at SISS, teaching residents from slums, and then in the USAID-funded, food security project AFRICA LEAD. The opposing approaches (much to the same goal - development) have led to a questioning of motives, and a deeper sense of identity and what fuels me.
There is a sense of goal-achieving that could not be obtained before a hands-on experience. As I recently read in an excellent book on social entrepreneurship, How To Change The World, by David Bornstein (great content, not-so-much title), institutions that work towards socioeconomic development rarely get scrutinized for effectiveness. It is as if the motives cancel-out the need for delivering competitive results, when it should be the absolute opposite: an amplification of commitment to excellency, for the sheer importance of the work.

It is with this mindset that I will approach the second-half of the program. Living in an African village, teaching children in local schools, all that sounds wonderful. But it goes to no avail if there is not a private-sector-like urgency for results, in this case, from myself.

Embarking in a new journey,

Kwame

Monkey Sanctuary

 Hello all!

This Christmas break, Clara (our program assistant) took us to a monkey sanctuary about two hours from Accra. At Shai-Hills, a forty acre reserve, there are three different species of monkeys, totaling about 35 groups. Each group has around 30 monkeys, so it's a well populated area!
The Reserve also has antelopes, though this is their mating season, and the herds usually remain hidden from the public spaces.

As soon as we drove through the gates, big baboons started moving on the sides of the roads. We were lucky enough to see two males and a female with a baby hanging from it's underside. The guard at the gate explained these were part of the most friendly group, and would occasionally roam the outer parts of the reserve for grass.
As in the picture above, the monkeys are outside the gates, and eventually also cross the highway. Luckily, they are said to be pretty savvy, and accidents only happen about once a year.

As the guard warned us, however, these were the only monkeys we would see for the rest of the day. Although we heard loud cries during our walk through the park, none of the other 30+ groups chose to reveal themselves.

After a short walk through what looked like a legitimate savanna (pictures of this on the next post!), we reached a cave. This so-called "bat-cave" was once home to a chief of the region, but now housed many bats. Consequently, the smell was not the most pleasant...

This was our last trip during our time in Accra! During the several excursions, we had opportunities to see regional and national dancing, art, religion, and now wildlife.

Wishing you all a happy new year,

Kwame