Back to Awisa

We(my host family) went back to Awisa this weekend. That's the village we traveled to for the funeral. It looks like they go there a lot. I already know of the next trip they'll make. It will be in three weeks for a one year anniversary of an uncles death. This week's trip was more celebratory, though. It was for Easter and the confirmation of three of my brothers(Bediako, Omega and Kwame).

It started on Thursday. We wanted to be there for as long as possible, so Rihanna and I skipped our afternoon classes. I still had to go to my internship. We had a staff meeting and I did some typing for the business editor. Because of those things, I returned home a bit late. I was agonizing about my tardiness on the tro-tro ride home. Plus, it was a swelteringly hot ride of the stop and go nature, which didn't help in the least.

I guess this is a good time to discuss an aspect of Ghana that is unique to the country... in Ghana, you can buy anything you want on the street. They sell everything on the street(other than pharmaceuticals, although I'm sure you can find herbal remedies and illicit drugs). So much of their economy is street based, that it is actually harder to find objects in brick and mortar establishments. This is important because it allows you to do some shopping while your stuck in traffic. Need a new dress shirt? No problem, roll down your window and start bartering with the man standing at the intersection. Thirsty? Why pull into a convenient store(or Quick-E-Mart) when there are women(and some times young girls) carrying baskets filled with ice cold water walking between the cars. I hadn't ever partaken in this street economy, I wanted to get a feel for their prices before I bought anything. They always try to rip off obrunies, with high prices. Well, today I was hot. I was thirsty. I was hungry. And my water bottle only had warm water in it. So I looked around between the cars and found a man selling ice cream. I bought FanIce(that's the vanilla flavor) and it was divine. It was so good. It hit the spot perfectly. So much so that I stopped worrying about being late.

Which was good because when I finally arrived, my family was sitting around watching Pirates of the Caribbean. That wasn't at all what I was expecting. They told me that my brother Micky had been diagnosed with malaria and was at the hospital on an IV drip. They postponed the trip to the next morning. No problem, I sat down and ate lunch. Your probably reading this thinking that its horrible, I should be more concerned for Micky. But its cool. Malaria in Ghana is like the flu in the US. Everyone gets it. Typically once or twice a year. They go to the doctor, get some medication and are sent on their way. Most people heal in about 3 days.

So the next day we headed out.

We spent most of the weekend swimming. I guess I should mention that Easter is a national holiday and the University canceled classes on Friday and Monday to allow students to go home and visit their families. We swam three out of the four days we were there. I've been teaching my brothers to swim and they've gotten pretty good. The only things their missing are endurance and confidence. Both of which go hand in hand. They didn't improve too much this weekend because the pool we went to operates as more of a party in the water then an actual pool. Most Ghanaians can't swim, so I think they use the pool as nothing more than an excuse to hang out with friends and a way to stay cool. There was loud music and dancing(in and out of the pool). Then in the midst of it all was me teaching lesson. It wasn't too hard to do so the first two times we went. But on the third day, the place was packed. You really couldn't move without running into someone. That is everywhere except for the deep end and when I was tired of teaching people, that's where I hung out. I taught a lot. Teaching your siblings is one thing, but others kept coming over for lessons and my brothers kept finding friends who they thought needed to learn a thing or two. I was glad to help, I think basic knowledge of swimming skills is necessary for everyday life. But on Monday, I totally burned out. I had taught at least something to about 1/5 of the pool and everywhere I looked was someone looking up at me to critique their stroke or show me the next step and since the pool was so hopelessly full(as to be impossible for me to effectively show them anything useful), I just stopped all together.

I guess it didn't help that I had almost been robbed and was a bit perturbed at the time. It happened when Rihana(obruni sister) walked away to meet up with some brothers who had arrived late. Well, it was her job to look after our stuff and when Bernard(youngest brother), told me that she wasn't around, I rushed over to our stuff to make sure everything was still there. Everything of mine was, save for my cell phone. I searched all over and when she returned with our brothers, they helped out. Eventually(like 15-20 minutes later), I accepted the loss and dove back in the pool(at least the water has never betrayed my trust). While I was swimming my brothers found some boy outside of the pool who had 'found' my phone. We don't know if he was the one who took it or if we were just really lucky and he found it after it had fallen out of my pocket. Either way i ended up paying him a $1 out of gratitude(and because my bro's said they boy had insisted on a reward). 'Boo' to that.

The rest of the weekend.....

we had to awake at 3:30 am to go get my brothers confirmed on Sunday. I don't know if this was because of Easter Sunday and the rest of the day as booked with services... or they just do all their confirmations really early. who knows.

Service was alright. There was a lot of dancing and I wore a traditional wrap, so that was fun. But they didn't speak in English and it lasted 3 hours... so that was bad.

I'm really tired of typing and must be going home so i guess I'll have to cut this short. My sister just told me I have to go.


peace and love -tamu

Wrote My First Piece

Today I was asked to write a piece by Cynthia, one of the writers on staff. She was reading an article on My Joy Online about police mishandling contraband. She told me to research the story and write an editorial about it.

Turns out that the Ghanaian police department has been having a pretty decent sized problem with 'misplacing' large quantities of confiscated cocaine. There was a recent internal audit looking into an old investigation that found several bags of cocaine missing from one of their crates; several other bags had been replaced by flour; and on top of all of that, they couldn't even find an entire crate of cocaine.

I'm thinking that someone in the police department must be taking these drugs and selling it back into the streets, fueling the very crime and social destruction that they are supposed to be fighting. That's what I wrote my price about.

Sadly, the editorial I wrote never got published. When I checked the editorial page the next day, I saw a piece about police mishandling cocaine, but it didn't look the way I remembered. It didn't even look like it could have been a result of being ripped to shreds and rewritten by the paper's editors.

I was nervous since I'd never worked at a paper before, never written anything for a paper and I wasn't even a journalism major. So, I asked Cynthia what she thought of my piece. She said it was well written, that was a relief. What it lacked, though, was depth in analysis. It was then that I realized how tough it was for journalist on foreign assignments. Here I was writing a piece about what I thought was an isolated event, and it turns out that it was an institutional problem. I thought I had done my research about the subject, but I guess I had just scratched the surface.

From this day on, I decided to start each day off by scouring the previous day's news.

A Conversation on Dependency Theory

4:17 AM Vicky: baby!! mwah

4:18 AM me: hey love

Vicky: how has your morning been so far besides stiff waking up?

4:19 AM me: class was good

4:20 AM we(i) got a ton of handouts to read

and you know how i love my reading

its rare to have things to read here because resources are so low

so i'm quite happy

4:21 AM and us international students get special treatment when it comes to those sorts of things(which is nice for me) probably so the school can get good PR

4:24 AM Vicky: hehe ah yes I know your first - reading material. That is good! I bet that made your day! oh special treatment for obruni's. Yeah no doubt..it actually does help their PR

I mean I know u're first LOVE - your reading material...oh and what are the readings about?

4:25 AM me: your my first love

but the readings are about history of ghana

Vicky: aww baby!!

mwah!!!

me: and then a couple of others on more widespread african history

4:26 AM Vicky: ooo i see...u are going to be an expert on everything when u get back. Have you been reading a lot apart from class?

4:27 AM me: 'ive read some

but the only place to get books is the library and i always forget to bring my ID card

4:28 AM i really only get onto campus on Mondays

so its a small window of opportunity

4:29 AM Vicky: oh i see

4:31 AM me: but, i should also get a lot of great readings from my development studies class, because that's one is run through CIEE

4:32 AM and they can print plenty of copies without killing their budget

there was one i read last week(from that class)

4:33 AM it was so good

it was about dependency theory

Vicky: ooo do explain...

me: which i had learned about before (the general 'how the west underdevelops the rest of the world' sort of stuff)

4:34 AM but it was just so diffreent to read about it while i'm here

Vicky: oh i see..is it because you saw exactly what they were talking a bout in the reading?

me: because for everything they wrote about, i could think of real life examples proving that it was all true

yep

4:35 AM Vicky: oh yeah..wow..that must have been an emotional read

how do u feel about dependency theory generally?

me: it was crazy just how true it was

4:36 AM well i think that what africa's experiencing right now is due in part to dependency and in part to bad governance

they did have some horrible leaders

4:37 AM Vicky: yeah

true

4:38 AM I think most problems with places like Africa is double - folded like u said

4:39 AM its because of its infrastructure. It seems easy to infiltrate, mess up and weaken

4:43 AM me: the was that the article was teaching it, they were showing that the way the global economic structure is set up, the only time the developing world is developing is in reflection of expansion made in the rich countries

so they do move upwards but only to the extent that we allow them to facilitate our expansion

4:44 AM Vicky: hmm i see

me: and did you know that Ghana has no factories?

4:45 AM they don't actually make anything

other then hand crafts

Vicky: no...

are u serious?

wow..thats no good

4:46 AM me: in order to receive foreign aid they have to aggree to spend it on on things like roads, shopping centers, offices, housing, education

and never investing into their economic infrastructure unless other wise told so

4:47 AM they have to send all their unprocessed goods to the places we tell them to

Vicky: that is horrible! its like all a ploy to keep them dependent

4:48 AM me: then after we're finished manufacturing/processing... we ship it back to them and sell them the finished products

so ghana has to import everything

Vicky: omg...omg...that is so upsetting

4:49 AM wow..I mean u hear of these things..but it has never been broken down to me the way u just h ave

me: and the port here is gigantic

its like the size of a city

and out on the coast line all you see is cargo ships waiting to enter

4:50 AM and of course finished goods cost a lot more than raw materials

so we make a huge profit

4:51 AM keeping us rich and them poor

4:52 AM Vicky: :(

we need to get into politics so we can help change this

4:53 AM me: plus they have to work so hard to make enough raw materials to sell to us, so that they can afford the finished products

4:54 AM but the good side is that they have tons of the goods that are necessary to survive

4:55 AM so they won't starve or anything

the country produces so much food and such that its ridiculously cheap to live here

4:56 AM but if you want any of the finished goods(like a tv or a car or computer) you have to save up money for a really long time

Vicky: boo...

4:57 AM it's just so wrong. we already owe them so much

and yet we continue taking from them...

don't we get that enough damage has already been done

4:58 AM people and labor land resources like anything else..can eventually be depleted...

and then what will we do...?

5:00 AM me: i don't think people will ever be depleted

there are always ways to make labor more efficient

5:01 AM with proper technology one person can increase in efficiency indeffinitly

5:02 AM and as long as we are able to find countries to sell the excess goods to... then the system will prosper

Vicky: boo

5:03 AM me: add to that the trend of disposability (where people replace functioning things so that they can have something slightly better) and you'll never run out of paying customers

5:05 AM Vicky: sigh, u're right. The africans should just refuse to go by the system and develop their own economies. These people have been exploiting them the same way since the begining. We learned about it. this is exactly what happened and what lead up to the slave trade

but yeah I know they need someone to trade with and I know they need cash and and credit but can't Africa as a whole do that within themselves?

5:06 AM just like they did in the tran-saharan trade

me: they can as long as they don't want any complex goods

5:07 AM Vicky: i mean not every aspect of Africa was very very colonized and suffered from imperialism. there has to be enough wealthy to get them to our level . It just has to be distributed better

me: it takes a lot of money to set up a factory, especially if you want it to be efficient enough to compete with established firms

5:08 AM because if they start building things and selling them amongst them selves

someone is going to figure out that they can buy the chinese version of it for half the price and sell it in africa to their compatriates at a nice profit

5:09 AM or if that doesn't happen then everyone has to deal with huge inflation

and they won't be ableto afford anything

Vicky: boo...!

5:10 AM thats why I think all of us should move back there and contribute out wealth, labor and mind to everything there...of us blacks I mean

then they could tax us and everything

me: but since jobs pay so little

Vicky: its ok..we will just have to live off of much less for a time

me: very few want to be here

5:11 AM all the educated in ghana(and most poor places) move to the western world to make their moeny

same thing happens in Jamaica and Dominica

5:12 AM Vicky: :(

5:13 AM Vicky: people just need to have more pride. They need to get educated and come back to help where they've come from

5:25 AM me: i'm totally cool with moving out here
but i have to get a western style pay grade in order to pay off my student loans.
but once thats done, i'd love to help out

and move to a developing country

Vicky: :)

I would too

5:26 AM specifically Africa and or a spanish speaking country

but def western Africa

me: or a spanish african country... like madagascar?

Vicky: :)

oooo

me: i love that place

5:27 AM Vicky: yeah

that would be two dreams wrapped up in none

*one

why do u love that place?

me: i don't know if the people there actualy speak spanish or if that died when they stopped being a colony

they have great wild life

that's why i love it

5:28 AM Vicky: oh hehe...oh west coasters

me: its a very natural, unpoluted country

Vicky: u can take a person out of Portland but you can't take Portland out of someone

hehe

5:31 AM me: of course

Statesman Newspaper: Day II

This day was much better.

I started by helping to organize the writer's room. We went through all the newspapers and arraged them by organization and date. After that we watched a speech by the country's leading presidential candidate. His name is Nana Akuoffo-Addo. His party the NPP has been in power for the past 8 years and has lead Ghana through arguably the only real democracy in the nation's history. He was talking about the party's legacy and how he will continue their efforts to improve the economy, modernize the society and ensure democracy continues. He used the speech to announce his election committee(the folks who are supposed to get him into office). At the end, I was given a copy of the speech, so I could read it and take notes.

After that my self and one other reporter set out to come up with some questions and interview Akuoffo-Addo's opposition, to get their reaction to the start of his campaign. We were given a list of names and phone numbers of some of the leadership in the nation's other political parties. It was all really cool. I was about to become a real journalist and co-write my first article.

But, bad information and/or communication networks hit. We attempted to call them all. But only reached two people. One was a member of Akkuoffo-Addo's political party and the other declined the interview because he hadn't had time to see the speech. The rest of the phone numbers gave us an error message, telling us that the person whom we were attempting to reach was out of coverage area or had turned off their phone. Typical.

End of the road.

I still can say it was a nice glimpse of my work to come. Can't wait to try again.

My Ghana Courses

These are the Classes I Signed Up For:

1. SREL 365 - Islam in West Africa
2. HIST 308 - History of Africa from 1500 to 1800
3. DANC 112 - Introduction to African Dance
4. TWIL 1001 ACGH - Introductory Twi Language
5. INSH 3001 ACGH - Internship at the Statesman Newspaper
6. SOCI 3001 ACGH - The Sociological Foundations of Development Studies

Statesman Internship

I started to do an internship at a local newspaper called the Statesman. They are the country's oldest mainstream newspaper. And have a pretty nice website. So check them out.

This first day that I went was really bad. I was there for about 5 hours and spent most of my time sitting and waiting for someone to tell me what to do. One and a half hours in, all I had done was write the following as I sat in the lobby:

Waiting With You

[What to write?]

I'm in Ghana. Here, football is the national pastime. I'm doing
the other national pastime... waiting

Machines begin to crank and putter. I can hear that the presses are
rolling. This waiting room has a view of the workmen.

Journalist sit behind clean desks to make the stories, while printers
manage greasy old machines to make the paper

I wait

There's someone keeping me company while I wait. I'm not refering to
the man sitting next to me. He's asleep and unconcious, which doesn't make
for the liveliest interaction. And let this be clear: my companion is not
my friend, although it's becoming increasingly clear that I am a friend
of his.

I speak of a spider, who refuses to leave me alone.

I brushed him off my arm, then my leg, then my arm again... and the next time
I look down, there he is again. He's scaling my mountainous body like a
passionate climber who will never call it a day unless he's seen the view from
the top.

To be fair, he's not a complete nusence, this arachnid friend of mine.
He is one of those tiny jumping spiders I love so much. I like he way he
looks; he is a miniature, zebra-striped companion. I like the way he
moves; crouching his eight legs, he is a ferocious jaguar, waiting to
pounce. Waiting, calculating, preparing for the jump.

There he goes. Right back onto my leg.

I want to like him. I really do. I'd just prefer for
him not to be on me. There's no way for me to be comfortable while he
darts to and fro, scaling me, peak to peak.

I brush him away once more.

It's something in the quickness and unpredictability of their turns that
makes me jump. Insects, arachnids and other bugs... even when I like
you, it doesn't mean I want you around.

Brushed away one last time. Maybe this time he won't come back.

Awisa

And back to Awisa. I had been told that we had to attend a funeral while in Ghana because they were just so different, so I jumped at the opportunity to go with my family. There were some differences, but for the most part it was the same sort of British style that we're used to. The only part of the ceremony that i hadn't seen before was the thanksgiving ceremony. This was at the end of the weekend to that all those who came to the funeral for their support(financial and goodwill). This one was a celebratory event with dancing and drums and such. During it a chief from a neighboring town came and had a fairly large procession with him. His entourage included an orator that talks to people for him; man that shakes hands and greets on his behalf; some dancers and a group of musicians. Oh, and of course, two people who held his umbrellas so he wouldn't have to get caught in the sun. Well, it was cool to see the chief. But whats more, everyone in the crowd pushed me out in front so I was able to dance for him. I joined his entourage for a little and the crowd went crazy. It was a lot of fun.

When we arrived to the village we first walked around from house to house meeting relatives. Everyone fits into the following categories: friend, sibling, parent or grandparent. They categorize extended family in with the nuclear family, so, i met a lot of papas and momas, brothers and grandmothers. Many of them would speak to us in Twi and luckily my brothers tought us just enough to get by: hello, how are you, i'm fine, etc. Although a lot of the elders would either only speak to us in English or poke fun at the fact that i didn't understand Twi by speaking to me for about 15-30 seconds and expect me to respond. Then when i looked confused, they would laugh and do it again. Little children in the town would follow us(me and Rihana) around with hails of 'Obruni, obruni!' and 'How are you?' They would even run up to Rihana and hug her or hold her hand and walk with her. That happened only to her since she's more white than I am. But the shouts of 'Obruni' and waving followed me the whole weekend.

Oh and by the way, I'm white here, the same way I'm considered black in the US. I knew that I'd be completely considered an obruni(foreigner), but i forgot that because Ghana is a black society, any racial deviance from that norm would be thrown into whichever category they can fit into, thats not black. So in the US and a half black/half white man, they say I'm black. Then in Ghana they say I'm white. I thinks its interesting that neither society would consider me mixed, unless prompted to do so. Just more proof that the idea of race is completely arbitrary and useless.

Back to the story.

After meeting everyone, we ended at the house where we were going to eat dinner. They told us that we had to go there for dinner because that part of the family had been waiting for us to slaughter a goat in our honor. When we arrived, it turns out that they actually wante us to slaughter the goat. Rihana couldn't handle it at all, being the city folk that she is and she refused to take part or even be present. So then I picked up the obruni slack and slaughtered it with the help of my brothers. It wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be. It was fairly quick and painless, and not messy at all. The only time that it got messy was when we were burning off the fur and some juices spurted out of it onto me.

After that we ate. The brothers(who the family calls "Boys, Boys") have a very frantic way of eating. Rihana and i get served our food, then the boys all sit/stand/kneel around a communal bowl. The meal generally starts pretty calmly, but the pace quickens ever steadily as they notice each other beginning to be outpaced. In order to save their food from being stolen, they begin to steal. They begin to grab food by the fistful and swallow with out chewing until rice is flying and someone grabs the bowl and runs away. We later learned that another technique they use is to hide containers near them while they eat. That way they are able to fill that extra bowl or plate without the others noticing, then when the meal is over they grab their bowl quickly and try to get away without anyone noticing. They are crazy. But they tell me its the best way to eat.

One last thing before I go. We also went onto their farm. The farms here are almost like walking into a forest. It was pretty nice. Tons of biodiversity.

Aburi, Classes, and Village Life III

This weekend my family and I went up to the village of Awisa. Thats where our family is from. The reason for the occasion was to attend the funeral of an Uncle. He died at the age of 42. And just a year before that another one of the uncles died. So, its been a sad year for the family.

One the way to Awisa, we stopped by the biggest tree in West Africa. It was pretty big, but I've seen bigger in Oregon. I told them about the tree in California that is big enough for people to drive through. They were trying to imagine a car going through the center of their big tree. While we were at the tree, a guide told us about some dwarfs that live at the tree and keep it clean and protect it. They told us about how people come to the tree to make offerings to the dwarfs and ask favors. I was thinking 'alright, some traditional african religious worship happens here.' But, i wasn't expecting that it happened very often. However as we were leaving, two men came up and took off their shoes in preparation for their ritual. We didn't get to witness their ritual because they waited for us to leave prior to starting. A lot of the things our guide told us about the tree was spiritual. There were stories about men trying to cut down the tree and being rewarded with death. They also showed us a line in the tree where a chainsaw had attempted to cut the tree. They say the cut has healed completely and did so within a week.

A lot of that sort of mythology/mysticism/superstition happens here in Ghana. Not so much in Accra, because its a pretty cosmopolitan city. But once you venture out, everyone believes it. Another stop that we made on the way was to the Brin river. This river is also considered a deity and there are stories about it being the nasty sister(out of a group of rivers in the area). A man once tried to reunite the Brin with one of its sister rivers by digging a canal and the river turned him into a tree. My host parents are so afraid of the river that they wouldn't allow us to go near it. That's why my pictures are of other people in the boat/swimming in the river... not anyone i know. And the whole family here is very Christian, church on Sundays, Bible study during the week, and my brothers are nearly all confirmed, plus one of the uncles is a priest. But in Ghana they have kept their traditional beliefs, while converting over to Christianity. Its the similar to the way that those in Latin America merged their beliefs while they converted, only in Ghana it seams like the two religions are side by side rather than one. If you ask around, or if the government takes a survey the whole country will saw that they are either Christian or Muslim(with just 10% practicing traditional beliefs) but in practice i'm guessing most people don't forget their theological african roots. For example, Lexis's mother(he's one of my brothers) died recently. She died in Guinea so not many were able to go to her funeral. So after the funeral when one of his aunties had a stroke everyone was convinced that the mother's spirit attacked the auntie as a sign to the family that she was angry. This weekend that part of the family went to a Christian holy man who didn't do anything for them, so then they went to a local shaman to see what could be done. I'm not sure what happened after that because Lexis is the only person from that side of the family who lives with us and he didn't go to the shaman because Christianity is against that sort of thing, but he was also just scared of it.

This post is pretty long. Perhaps i should start a new one. And I'll write more on Ghanaian faith as events come up.