Christmas in Ghana

Afenhyia paa! (Merry Christmas!)

Christmas in Accra was a fun time, marked by gatherings with friends and family. Most people go to church, in what is a more religous-centered holiday than the family-oriented celebrations we mostly have in the "Western world".
Granted, the atmosphere is not as festive as it normally is in Brazil or the US. On the usual commute to work, Christmas lights and other decorative accessories were not as common as they are back home.
However, prices do go up in stores, markets and shopping centers get crowded, and traffic hits new record levels. Ah, the holiday season!

The first celebration I took part of was a dinner with all the team members from our AFRICA LEAD project. On Tuesday night, we got together at a Chinese restaurant to enjoy what proved to be a great meal. (The several options laid out in the round tables were definitely a welcome change, when compared to the usual croissants or ham and cheese wraps, all my volunteer budget allows me to buy for lunch every day.)

On Friday, the 24th, us students got together for a sinful late-lunch. For once, we ate without checking prices, ordering entrees, dessert, and indulging ourselves in Italian food.
Over pasta, strawberry-banana milk shakes and brownies, our (incomplete) group talked about our first four months in Ghana, what we looked forward to in the upcoming village life, and just enjoyed a relaxed afternoon in Osu, the oburoni neighborhood.

In Ghana, gift-exchanging is not as common as in the Western-version of Christmas. However, I was told food is the most common option for Holiday giving. With that being said, I placed an order for two hampers: one for my family (below), and one for the family that owns a small shop across the street.
I am happy to say both were received with much surprise and excitement. From Efua's reaction, my family was definitely not expecting a gift. By the next day, most of the items were nowhere to be seen (although I did see empty chocolate and biscuit boxes lying around the living room...).

To my (even greater) surprise,  I was then presented with a beautiful towel with my Ghanaian name on it: a perfect memento of a year-to-be fully spent in Ghana.
I'll save this one for when I get back home, or else it just might be confounded with someone else's towel (as 1/7 of Ghanaian men are theoretically called Kwame, all men born on Saturdays).

Just about ten days left in the stay in Accra. With the new year, soon will come the next adventure: living and teaching in the village.

Afenhyia paa!

Kwame

Agricultural Development in West Africa

For the past six weeks I have worked with Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI). Our project, AFRICA LEAD, is basically consisted of providing leadership and capacity training to pivotal professionals in West Africa, with a goal to guarantee more food security in our five target countries.
(For more on the specifics of the project, see the post Report on Volunteering)

Researching institutions, attending meetings and reading economic reports has provided me with a comprehensive view of the current situation of agriculture and food insecurity across West Africa, as well as its main causes. Over the years, economic activities in Africa have followed a lead given by countries from the developed world. Nigeria, for example, focused most of its resources into the oil industry. Most countries trailed similar paths, focusing on industry without ever building a solid agriculutral base.

Food security is not only about providing basic survival conditions for the poor, but also to lift millions out of poverty (a targeted 40 million in West Africa by 2015). Many international efforts are being made to create agricultural-led economic growth in Africa, for most countries are importers of food. This is unecessary and due to lack of development of the primary sector, for most of the countries have the untapped potential to not only be food secure, but to also become net exporters. It is not a matter of just having what to eat, but to have nutritious food to ensure each individual's health.

Whereas in my home country of Brazil farming is mostly concentrated in extensive plantations, in Ghana over 90% of farming is small-scale, with families working on their own crops at almost a subsistence level. This not only makes it hard on the government to implement mechanization and irrigation systems, it also means the small farms are extremely poor. What happens is a farmer is forced to sell most of his family's production for income. In time, because the primary sector is not well developed and his productivity is too low, his production proves to be too small to either provide him with the necessary income or to feed his family. As a consequence, months after his own harvest, the farmer is forced to essentially buy back what he produced at higher prices, getting him and his family deeper into what the economist Jeffrey Sachs calls the "poverty trap".

In Ghana, production itself is not the main issue. Theoretically, there is enough food to feed the whole country. But because of incredibly low productivity rates, agricultural outputs grow because of extended farming land, rather than an added value on the crops. This in itself is still not enough to guarantee every individual remains free from hunger. Post-harvest losses are alarmingly high; a main cause for loss of money and food waste.

Nigeria, for example, has a critical problem with transportation, ranking in the bottom 20% of the world for transportation speed. This keeps food away from the poor areas that need it.

Around 90% of Senegal's economy operates in the informal sector, which constrains agricultural businesses from access to credit and investment. Also, they don't contribute with taxes to the government's efforts to develop the nation. Partly because of this the infrastructure in Senegal is so poor: only 15% of villages have access to a local market to buy and sell food.

A question imediately comes up from this serious scenario: what are governments doing? Actually, a lot (of planning). There are plenty of investment plans, international committments and signed compacts pledging to improve agriculture in Africa. The main issue when it comes to the public sector's actions, however, is lack of policy implementation.
As an example, input (fertilizers) subsidies in Nigeria benefit more rich farmers than the targetted poor. Because they have the means to reach the subsidized products, and there is no strict monitoring of these efforts, these larger-scale farmers then sell their surplusses at high prices to the poor farmers who were to be benefitted in the first place.

Being part of the efforts to create food security in West Africa, I have seen that the development scene is no straightforward business. There is no single cause, there is no single answer, and there are no guarantees. From lacking infrastructure and investment, to inconsistent governmental efforts, great part of the poverty in Africa can be solved through developing the primary sector.
The consequences of decades of badly planned growth (or lack thereof) are seen across economic, social and health sectors. What is reassuring, however, is that the world has indeed taken a conscious look at these issues, and much is being done to assure that the 21st century proves to be better for the "mother continent".

Scaling up for Food Security,

Henrique

Volta Region Excursion

Hello all! As promised, here's a quick view on our 5-day excursion to the Volta Region. (Well, in my case, 4-day, but that was covered in the last post...)

The Volta Region, formerly known as Togoland, is on the eastern-most part of Ghana. It was once a German colony, until World War I, after which it was administered by the British as part of the Gold Coast colony. In the 1950s, a plebiscite determined that the region would join Ghana. The Ewe people, predominant in the Volta Region, are spread across Togo and western Benin as well, with different language and customs.
On this trip, we got to learn a bit about Ewe music, dancing and pottery making. Also, we climbed Ghana's tallest mountain, Mount Afadjato, and visited a Traditional religion Thunder god temple.

Let's start with the shrine:
Traditional religion is based on the forces of nature, worshiping, as the High Priest explained, "forces that were in existence before man came". They do believe in a supreme God, who created everything, and worship these other, specific gods as a means through which they worship God. Traditionalists do not believe in Heaven or Hell, but in reincarnation. Also, some customs are similar to those of other religions, such as the sacrificing of a ram every year, in an allusion to the story of Abraham. The High Priest said, however, that their belief in this story comes not from the Bible, but from accounts of their ancestors of the same occurrence.

To enter the shrine, we were required to dress as one would traditionally. When this religion was established, there were no shoes and shirts, only cloths. We all had a fun time walking around barefoot, wrapped in cloth in the heat!

 

In the temple, the High Priest gave us a very informative reception, guiding our group through a ritual of offering a bottle of alcohol and asking for blessings. The ceremony was mostly conducted by the High Priestess, who was the one doing the actual praying. After everything, the High Priest answered several of our inquiries, enough to give a basic glimpse at Traditional religion and raise new questions.

On Sunday morning, we went for a dance and drumming workshop, where we learned the Gamu dance, or the money dance. A combination of sideways movements of the arms, rhythmic stepping in a circle, and smiling.

After some intense sweating and dancing, we learned to play each of the instruments that compose this traditional Ewe rhythm.

On Friday, the day I missed, there was the first half of a doing pottery. In this technique, the top of a pot is done first, by molding the clay and setting it to dry. Though I was absent, the guys did extra tops for Clara and myself, including a bowl which read Y3 d) wo, or "We love you". haha Very sweet.

It just so happens I was not born to do pottery, and on our second session, when the task was to scrape the top in order to make it thinner, I destroyed the bowl and the two tops... On the picture above, for example, the top I am holding only had a few more seconds of existence, before it crumbled in my skilled hands.
After molding the body of the pot and uniting each piece, these were also set to dry. After a few days time, the pot is to be sand-papered and painted. Below, the final step: building a fire with hay, corncobs and wood on top of the pots, in order to toughen them.
Because our time was short and the our masterpieces had not dried by the end our excursion, the pots are to be brought to us in Accra. Personally, I don't think I had any left, but we will see how this goes.

Finally, the climb of Mount Afadjato, the tallest peak in Ghana. The name comes from Ewe, and means "at war with bush", in reference to a kind of poison ivy found in the mountain. Upon reaching the peak, we were presented with a great view of green forests, a waterfall, and the neighboring country of Togo.
I must be honest here, at under 900m, this was not a very imposing mountain... The build-up we had awaiting for its size was also fairly disappointing, considering that as soon as we reached the top, the mountain right next to it, located in Togo, was slightly taller.

Nonetheless, it was a very fun climb, with some steep parts and lots of pauses for water. Three months without regular exercise definitely kept our group a little out of shape, but this made the 45-minute climb more rewarding.

 

The excursion was a lot of fun, with opportunities to get a different view from the usual Akan, and to a lesser extent Ga, cultural exposure. A great way to enter December, the last month in Accra and work at DAI. Although over one third of the program has gone, it is hard to locate myself in a time line, as life here has become part of a normal routine. This makes me more excited to begin the stage of living in the village, for a drastic change in lifestyle and more new experiences to learn from.

By the way, thank you all so much for the health wishes. I am cured from malaria, no worries. haha
I appreciate all the visits to the blog very much, and it is an incredible joy to know that people from six continents and over 20 countries have read some of the posts! This is incredible motivation, and makes telling a little bit about Ghana very fun.

Thanks much,

Kwame

Hit By Malaria

Hi everyone!

Now that it is over, let me tell you about the time I got malaria... haha

Last Monday I woke up feeling a little slow, with a queasy feeling in my body. It had been a cold night (by Ghanaian standards), so I thought it was just a bad few hours of sleep. Little did I know!

At DAI, I was having a hard time concentrating and felt unusually demotivated for working. As I didn't feel better and wasn't much help in the office, I decided to go home a couple of hours earlier, to get some rest and get on with my week.
Ohhh boy, after a quick nap, I woke up with a headache and ... a fever! haha
fever + headache = malaria (always, or so says Mr. Kumi).
I texted Yaw and told him I wanted to get tested in the morning, to then see how we should proceed.

Early the next day, I felt increasingly more sluggish, so I hopped on a taxi (trotro just would not cut it) and went with Clara to a clinic nearby. A quick prick on the thumb, a few drops of blood and 15 minutes later, the result came in: malaria.

Now, my parents completely freaked out when I told them, through a text message. Afterall, in Sao Paulo malaria is just not something you encounter often. It is portrayed as a killer disease, and rightfully so, but only when not medicated correctly. (aha, this is where it gets interesting)

Clara accompanied me to a hospital, where after some waiting, a doctor quickly prescribed me the usual malaria medication.The doctor himself was actually on his third day of treatment, having recently contracted malaria.
This is pretty common in Ghana, where I believe it is safe to say almost every adult has had the disease at some point. Yaw, for example, has gotten it twice this semester.
 After buying all the drugs, I went home for some rest and to begin the five-day treatment.

The thing is, after 24 hours I was feeling worse, not better. I had completely lost my appetite, could barely walk, and my head spun at any attempt to move.
I did not know if this was normal, how the medicine was supposed to work, if it was safe to stop or to continue taking the drugs. Despite constant support from my Ghanaian family, Yaw and Clara, I still felt like I was in the dark, unexperienced in a disease that seemed so common in this country.

On Thursday morning, Yaw picked me up in a taxi and took me to see another doctor, one of his personal friends. All I remember up to getting to his office was how much the car was shaking - my organs were obviously not in the right places at the time.
After listing symptoms, the doctor quickly told us the medicine prescribed was the issue. Apparently, there is an enzyme that processes it, and some people (myself included) do not have high enough levels of it in their system. Why I was not tested for this possibility still puzzles me, but at the time all I thought about was getting something in my body that would make me feel better.

New medicine in hand, Yaw dropped me off at home, where I slept through the day. Efua was kindly bringing in chicken soup and orange juice in every meal, and making sure I wasn't feeling too bad. Even my sister, Abenaa, dropped by just to see if I was feeling better. Mr. Kumi was also very attentive to my symptoms, and guaranteed me he will buy more of the new medicine so I can take it "whenever you get a headache in the village. Headache in Ghana is always malaria."

Friday was the day of our excursion to the Volta Region. I was still not in conditions to travel, so Clara came over and we watched TV from 9am to 2pm. By then the side effects were finally becoming mild, and the hours were more about resting than just muscling through the nausea.
Clara and I eventually joined the group on Saturday, and this weekend I will blog about our fun excursion.

Honestly, malaria itself was not so bad. What was really terrible was not knowing I couldn't take the regular kind of medicine, which provided some two very upsetting days. Also, missing almost five days of work felt incredibly counter-productive, while also I couldn't make sense of any books I tried to read. (HUGE thanks to Ryan, by the way, for getting me a copy of Atlas Shrugged, I'm psyched dude!)


As Carla, my boss at DAI, said, "malaria is inevitable here, and it toughens you up". I do feel stronger now, but I am also pretty sure on passing on extra mosquito repellent from now on.

Thanks to everyone from the Bridge Year Program for helping so much with speeding my recovery!

Up and running,

Henrique

Arts in Ghana

Hello all!

Having visited the National Museum last week, and with considerable exposure to Ghanaian music, the next items on the list was obvious: seeing the famous thematic coffins and visiting an art gallery. OK, maybe it was not so clear, and our visit to coffin workshops and the Artists' Alliance was a suggestion from Yaw and Clara, the program coordinators, over the week.

Nonetheless, on Saturday Ryan, Lindsay, Pallavi and I (Cam was resting at home) took long trotro rides to a neighborhood by the Labadi beach. Around this area, a special kind of casket is manufactured. People with special wishes while alive, sometimes decide to be buried in tune to their passions or professions. For example, we saw several models of beer bottles, cars, cameras, fish, airplanes...all in reality coffins!
Clara had given me telephone number to call, and Halo, one of the craftsmen at the first shop we saw, told us a little about his work. It takes about two weeks to finish one of the caskets, and the price is around 2500 GHC, or $1700.

The girls showcasing the inside of a truck coffin.

After a quick walk looking at a few coffin stores (two...), we hauled a trotro and went to the Artists' Alliance, an art gallery opened by famous Ghanaian painter Ablade Glover. Different pieces were on sale, from furniture, cloths and beads, to painting, drums and weapons.
Many of them were from colonial times, and thus a brownish-gray color predominated in many wings of the building. Naturally, our volunteer/college student budgets were way short of being able to purchase any of the 5-foot tall drums, or abstract paintings there exposed. Nonetheless, the collection was indeed impressive and comprehensive on the Ghanaian colonial and modern arts scene.

 
In my first few weeks with the Kumi, my brother Kwasi had showed me a book with selected paintings by Ablade Glover, whose heavy brush-style of painting routine scenes in the country had already caught my attention. The Alliance is an initiative of his, and thus also has some of his painting for sale. Seeing his work up close is a complete different experience, one that had me running up the stars for another quick look before leaving the building. From inches away, you can feel the dry paint reaching out (so much to the point that there are spider webs between strokes). As you step back, scenes of marketplaces, trotro stations and beaches appear. Below, my favorite at the Alliance, which is not as "crowded" as most of his other works.

On Friday we leave for a 5-day excursion to the Volta Region, so I am sorry to say the blog will have a post-less week for the first time in 3 months! Look forward to coming back and updating with some cool stories, straight from different parts of Ghana!

All the best,

Henrique

Ghana's National Museum

Last Saturday was the first free day I spent in Accra. Really. Up to this point, I usually did things around Madina and Legon, the neighborhoods in the outskirts, which is where work and home are.

Around the National Museum, Accra is a very beautiful city, with architecturally magnificent buildings, such as the National Theater and the Flagstaff House, and streets surrounded by trees. It's also a relieving change, to walk on paved sidewalks, next to almost empty streets. On a day to day basis, as noted on the last post, it's mostly about trotros off-roading in the middle of traffic.

National Theater

National Museum

The National Museum is moderately sized, but has very insightful expositions on Ghanaian and West African culture. I'll talk about a few of my favorite examples:

This is a model of how the traditional cloth, kente, is woven. The patterns and colors on a kente cloth have different meanings, similar to what the Adinkra symbols represent. Yellow, for example, means wealth. Each pattern also has a name, and the knowledge of how to weave each one is passed on through the generations.

The throne used by Kwame Nkrumah on his induction as Ghana's first president.

A mask in form of an antelope. Sorry, can' t remember exactly which country this is from, but my guess is Cote D'Ivoire. This is used in a ceremonial dance, asking for a good harvest. These people believe an antelope taught their ancestors how to farm, and symbolizes the necessary skills for good agriculture.

A collection of stools. Stools for traditional rulers in Ghana (chiefs) are the equivalent to thrones for kings. The main difference, however, is that they represent not only political power, but also have spiritual meaning. In some tribes in Ghana, the chief was not allowed to ever touch the stool, as it would then lose its mystical powers.
Like the Adinkra symbols, different shapes and designs of stools symbolize distinct types of rule, such as power and wisdom.
For the Asantes (the largest ethnic group in Ghana), the chief united the people in times of war by telling them a Golden Stool descended from the skies, as a gift of the gods and proof that their empire had their blessing. To this day, the Golden Stool is a symbol of the Asantehene's (Asante chief) power, and is only seen in public in especial occasions.

The Museum also had a great exposition on the Slave Trade in the Gold Coast (as Ghana was known in colonial days). A complete shift in perspective from slavery, as I was used to looking at it from a country that received slaves' perspective. Here, emphasis was placed on slave raids, and how tribal wars were actually the main source of slaves in West Africa.


Oh, this was a first: Ghanaian students wearing Japanese kimonos, dancing Japanese rhythms and combining it with hip hop. Awesome.

Have a great weekend!
Oh, and LET'S GO BRASIL! Wednesday, against Argentina. It's on.

Henrique

Daily Life in Ghana

Hey all!

So, I thought this week I'd post some of the funny pictures acquired over the last two months.

Working at DAI, I now have to wear nicer, office clothes. However, I had not planned for this... Only three shirts and one pair of pants in my bag. Luckily, on my way home, I walk through Madina Market, a bustling place to buy whatever you need. There's food, a bakery, school supplies, and, luckily, shirts and pants!

There are several options to choose from: piles of clothes, shirts hanging from the ceiling, or walking vendors with pants on their shoulders. Personally, I explored all three. Each of the three shirts I got was 5 GHC, which is around 4 USD. However, they feel as soft as cardboard. Totally fine, they do the trick.
The pants were also an improvisation, and cost only 6 GHC. Surprisingly, they fit as if tailored for me. Of course, I have to look away from a few small holes on the leg...

For the transport part, trotros are the cheapest option. In Brazil, they would be the lotacao. It's basically a van, with a driver and a mate,  a man who coordinates the payments and calls for the stops. After 5 p.m., however, it's almost impossible to catch a trotro without some sort of "personal defense".

Imagine all these people, 75% of which trying to take the Achimota (the one I have to take too). The cars mostly don't have any signs showing where they go, so the way I know which one is Achimota is because there are people jumping through the open door several meters before the trotro even slows down.

After the initial fight, the ride is mostly peaceful. On my way home, I take two trotros for about a one and a half hour ride, total.

Riding trotros is also a great way to be exposed to some interesting situations on a daily basis. Out of the window, I've seen heated discussions, a fist fight and have gotten the usual friendly hello's.

Last Sunday, as Cam and I were waiting for the next trotro, a group of people playing drums and dancing suddenly, literally, appeared behind us. The flash mob was a funeral celebration. Within minutes, we were also handed twigs (which we still don't know what represented), and joined the fun!

Oh, for the Brazilians reading this: check out the name of the restaurant that is on my way home. The picture was taken in a speeding trotro, so hopefully it's clear enough.

Quem quer comer no Fogo de Chao?

Dressing nicely, riding trotros,


Henrique