Princeton Update

Update: I sincerely apologize for the full month gap in posting. However, there will be compensations coming soon!

 

Ghanaians often pass on wisdom through proverbs and metaphors based on their folklore. Kpanlogo, a popular drum and music rhythm, is one such tradition. For three months I have learned from local master-drummers and participated in a workshop to build my own instrument. Although I had something of a musical background before, learning kpanlogo was a completely different process. In Western music, there are endless ways in which a musician can perform a style. Jazz, for example, has characteristics that define its identity, but the execution remains open for creation. Inventiveness is part of what makes a musician unique.

 

In traditional Ghanaian drumming, on the other hand, each rhythm or style has a correct order and technique. Improvisation has limited space, and even specific dance steps go with the beat. Also, there is no such thing as composing a new kpanlogo rhythm; it was created and is played with very little variation.

 

Many aspects of cultural learning follow this pattern; the process is centered on emulating the “correct way” of doing things, according to each culture. In Ghana specifically, you must eat with your right hand only, excuse yourself and greet every time you cross paths with someone, and pronounce words with the correct intonation, lest they become meaningless. As a visitor eager to be treated as a local but conscious of always being seen as a foreigner, replicating customs trumps combining them with a Western background. Thus, adapting to live as a Ghanaian has in many ways been like learning to play kpanlogo: learning and reproducing the rhythm. Following a reasonably clear set of expectations as an oburoni in Ghana, I tried as many aspects of the culture as possible – studying traditional Adinkra symbols and their meanings, sampling any local dishes (rat soup on a really brave afternoon), and elbowing as much as the next person for a spot in a trotro van during rush hour.

My approach towards service work in Accra diverged from my approach to cultural learning. The four months were split between SISS, a grassroots vocational-training NGO, and DAI – AFRICA LEAD, an agricultural development training project for leaders across sectors in West Africa. In both places I aimed to understand and tackle issues from a local perspective. The biggest challenge, however, was to deliver results despite obstacles from developmental lags. I found it more effective to work through my previously built personal expectations and ways of thinking. This led to what I believe will be a valuable perspective adjustment, a more objective analysis on poverty and on which means are most effective in dealing with it. Social entrepreneurship and development work are often under-scrutinized because of their altruistic ends, by both developed and developing nations, as if doing a good deed nullifies the obligation to execute well. Indifference to results contributes to the present inefficiency of development work. I believe the importance of the ends calls for a combination of the local understanding with inventive action.

 

In the many facets that Ghanaian and Western cultures and realities differ, music is one that holds many parallels to what I have experienced and learned in Accra. Through apparently opposing ways of thinking – liberty of creation and mirroring of traditions – Ghana has provided the stage for testing each method. I am still unsure whether the cultural aspects of this experience will influence my set of beliefs as much as the service placement has. While the daily life in Ghana has been like kpanlogo drumming, applying the experiences will be done in more of a ”blues improvisation” manner – no actual patterns to follow, just a harmony to refer to.

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

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