Music that transforms lives

One of the most important things that I have started trying to do in Ghana is to make a personal difference in addition to fulfilling my mandate. With the generous help of colleagues in Guelph, we shipped some computers to the Non-Formal Education Division. Those were a clear contribution to the administrative activities.

Now, I am trying to help out Theatre for Development. These remarkable musicians really do incredible work, and they do it in 15 local languages as well as english.

Songs to enhance agriculture or combat deforestation and encourage environmentalism. Songs that help mothers care for their children or improve the health of whole communities. But they are doing so with decrepit instruments.

In other words, nothing a little money can't help. So I've set up a crowd sourcing project on Indiegogo: Music that Transforms Lives. Funds will help to replace 20 year old equipment: amplifies, speakers, drums, pianos.

So if you're enjoying the blogs, past and present, or think Ghana is a great place and want to make a difference, give this a whirl and get involved in supporting this initiative.

You'll be glad you did!

Music that transforms lives!

Behind the walls

On my first trip to Ghana, I was fascinated by the walls of this city. Tall walls, short walls, elegant walls, shabby walls, new walls, derelict walls. Every type of wall surrounding who knows what (See City of Walls, August 10, 2010). Well, I’ve now been behind a wall.

A coworker invited me to spend time with her family given today is a holiday: African Union Day. So Suzy and her two daughters and my old friend Kwesi who drove me on the Cape Coast site visit last year, picked me up and we drove not too far from Suma Court. The roads though, were the tough unpaved country tracks with bumps and puddles and wandering goats, very different from Atomic Road and Video Junction -- my home turf -- with pavement invisible beneath the traffic speeding in all directions at once. But there was that same mix of housing that takes one by surprise: little shanties nestled beside mansions, as if protected by the embrace of their walls. At least we might assume they are mansions given the presence of imposing walls and iron gates. But all is not as it seems.

When we arrived at Auntie BeBe’s house we go through imposing gates and find a regular house. Comfortable but not a mansion despite the fact that the wall is topped both by large strands of barbed wire, like a jaw-toothed slinky gliding along the top but, lest that not be sufficient deterrent, jagged ugly glass shards are cemented the whole length of the wall, bristling and glinting in the sun. So these walls, worthy of Hollywood legends and Wall Street robber-barons, guard a modest house of modest people. The house only gradually reveals itself to me. The formal lounge/living room was comfortable but ultimately we repair to the yard to sit under a blueberry tree, moving lawn chairs along with the shifting shade. 

The yard is totally covered over with cement, except for the spaces left for trees to thrust through: guava, mango, banana, plantain and others with no English names.  We pick avocados, 12 at least (here called pear), from trees with trunks as thick, that grow high as maples. I think of the spindly little saplings we grow from avocado pits at home: can they even be the same species. Ghanaians, I am told, would rather eat the fruits of their gardens than mow grass, which seems eminently sensible.

Although there is a gas cooker in the kitchen, we cook and eat outside: a bbq by any other name. Tilapia on the grill. Banku (millet and fermented corn porridge) stirred over the coals. Rice, fried chicken, and a stew of fish and palm oil and vegetables, all served with spicy red chili sauce. We drink corn wine and ginger wine (neither alcoholic)  traditional to the Ebe tribe in the Eastern Region, but also red wine and Bailey's. The corn wine has a bit of a sour fermented taste to it (not unlike the sour of banku) while the ginger wine has pepper in it that really peps you up if you can stop coughing from surprise. These aren't soda pop for the faint of heart. A course of fresh fruits tops off the meal. When it is time to do the dishes, the house reveals another of its secrets; there is no running water, just that carried in by buckets from the big holding tanks that dot the yard.

What a glorious afternoon. Many generations of sisters and daughters and cousins. 

Great stories, much laughter and a privileged glimpse into Ghanaian life. 

NOTE to Readers: if anyone can tell me how to wrap text around the pictures I would be grateful!

Stranger in a familiar land

I’ve been in Ghana a week now and it is a strange experience in many ways. There is a sense of familiarity. The startling red dirt of the roads and hills and dust continues to astonish. This is the wet season and as I write I am watching a deluge that turns the roads into giant red mud puddles. The rain is load on the clay tile roof and it gushes through the drain pipes with force. All of this accompanied by thunder and lightning. I think of those folks who live in the shanties and make their living on the streets.

I am an “old timer” in so many ways. No orientation the first morning but a chat later in the week. “Everyone knows Jacqueline is fine going into work.” So there I am, Monday morning, as if I’d never been away. Samuel from the Non-Formal Education Division arrived to take me to the office: Same office, same desk: same flock of junior staff fluttering in the outer office. The Deputy Director greets me: How shall I start? What do I need? And within an hour or so, there I am, once again a fixture at NFED.

The route to the office is familiar: the street hawkers who provide the amazing bofuit (sorry everyone, phonetic spelling) and the Daily Graphic and telephone cards along the road, between the cars. The long stretch of road through untended wasteland is now walled on one side for a greenspace, with the other bristling with signs: Keep Off!! Property of University of Ghana. The enormous anthill at the end of this road has disappeared, to be replace further in by multiple huge anthills, reaching red dirt fingers up into the tree canopy. 7? 8 feet tall? One is so large that it has its own good size tree emerging from it. I shudder to think what kind of monstrous ants live in those skyscraper hills. I am told red earth is particularly attractive to ants.

One difference that is highly noticeable is the power outages. I experienced a power outage in 2010 that went on long enough that I left work early. Otherwise, if there were any in the evenings, the Suma Court generator kicked in and that was it. Even from the plane I knew this time it would be different. As we approached, I could see different areas of Accra lose and gain electricity. It was a bizarre light show, but I didn’t really take it too seriously….. until we arrived and Suma Court and an hour later the power went out….. and the generator didn’t kick in. Poor Eric. The generator is need of parts and that takes time….. But the power outages are everywhere: already the better part of a day lost at work. A number of evening and nights for 20 minutes to 8 or more hours.

Apparently, the power outages started when there was some kind of accident last year, in which an oil pipeline which brought oil to the generating stations was broken. Since then ubiquitous black outs for the past 10-11 months. In April the President announced the power crisis was over. This week the Minister announced it would take $1 billion US to fix the national power distribution system. The situation is exacerbated in Accra where last week a substation  caught fire so there are promises blackouts for some time to come.

It has been eye-opening to experience the inconveniences that are part of daily life in the developing world. I realize that I have been insulated from alot of these when I swoop in, do my job, and swoop out again in less that a month.  In the past, I have been more aware of how Ghana fits into our 21^st-century global community, how is dynamic and in touch and moving forward. Now, I have a little bit more of an understanding of the impediments and even more respect for the people who are determined to surmount them and ensure Ghana develops and moves forward along its own path.

So week one: definitely an education as well as a home coming.

Ghana 3.0

Well here we go again! Three days to departure and I'm once again weighing my luggage at the bus station. This time, though, it may be understandable since I'm packing for two and a half months.  That's correct, I have a ten week mandate in Accra with the Non-formal Education Division and I cannot wait to return.

So stay tuned. There will no doubt be the usual airport shenanigans and who knows what at customs: last year everyone was being photographed and finger printed. I anticipate reporting on a lovely reunion with beloved Juliana, Nicholas and Eric at Suma Court.  

For those of you who missed my Leave for Change blog on the University of Guelph site, I'll bring you up to date as we go.

Three days to take off. Let the packing and re-packing games begin.