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.