Yesterday, I had a realization about Accra. The parts of the city that you see on the surface are loud and chaotic and aggressive and congested and exhausting. But if you plunge in deeper, layer by layer the mask breaks down until at the end you just find real people, just real people living their lives and eating sleeping loving living making music and playing and working and watching TV.
Annemieke and I went to the Arts Center yesterday, which is a fearsome bazaar of tourist trappings – paintings, sculptures, jewelry, cloth, clothes, purses, instruments… As soon as we walked near it a man came up to his to steer us into his stall, and for the five minutes or so, everyone that we passed kept calling after us – “Looking is free!” “Oburoni, come!” “White sister, come and look at my shop!” We kept walking deeper and deeper back into the market, until what had been a roof covered neatly organized conglomerate of aisle upon parallel aisle of goods slowly gave way to an open air, tree-scattered sporadic winding patchwork of stalls.
After stopping to bargain for some miniature brass sculptures and laughing when Annemieke innocently asked the store owner to ‘dash’ us a ‘jiggy jiggy’ (‘dash’ meaning throw one in for free, ‘jiggy jiggy’ referring to the series of mini sculptures he had of couples in every position imaginable), we went further still. The stalls started to thin out and a pathway opened up into the sun. On our right were stalls similar to the ones we’d seen earlier, but on the left was the concrete skeleton of a building. The concrete slabs formed small three-walled cubicles, and you could see that people were actually living in them, making it livable by drapping a curtain across the middle and laying down blankets on the floor. This was starting to feel nothing like the polished and glitzy entrance to the arts center.
We stopped to check out a rasta cottage with hanging plants and a cd collection, and probably the prerequisite weed behind the counter. Moving on, we realized that the market had given way to a village – there were homes, cooking fires, craftsmen working, kids playing… and the backdrop to all of it was the ocean! We had stumbled upon a beautiful seaside village that led right up to the bluff where the sandy beach began. There was a little kid pulling a suitcase along behind him, and nestled inside of it was an even little kid squealing and enjoying the ride! There was a whole line of little kids, each waiting for his or her turn to get pulled around and everyone was so excited about their rough and tumble ride across the dusty and bumpy ground. There was a shack right on the bluff’s edge that someone had carefully decorated with masks and mirror shards and painted over and lined with stones and all kinds of colorful odd decorating flares. It was really cool to see – especially because you could tell it wasn’t made to be seen, at least not by us. Here, so far in and far from the busy city streets and the showy facades, all of the beauty that we stumbled upon was real, was there for the sake of itself and the people who live there.
We were on our way back to the main street when we ran into a man who looked a lot like one of our friends, Arouna (a really talented musician from Burkina Faso). It turns out that this man, Ablo, actually was a really good friend of Arouna’s, and invited us back to his home. It was a little one room shack in a nearby gulley, and on his porch a man named Baba was working on making a xylophone. After chatting in my broken French for a while, Ablo, who plays the kora, and his friends played a few songs for us… while they were playing I looked around to take in exactly where we were – there was a flock of goats nearby, a few little boys running around barefoot, the ocean, the outline of the seaside village, a cooking fire nearby… the music fit the place so perfectly and the whole experience was one of those perfect moments when you feel your heart overflowing and life tingles through your whole body… if you’ve ever felt like this then you’ll know what I mean.
We had journeyed through layer after layer of the city and ended up here, listening to music in front of a friend’s home. It only took a five minute walk to get back to the main street – unbelievable considering how far removed we felt from the chaos that is normally how I think of Accra. But meeting Ablo and his friends felt like finding an anchor, something solid and simple to hold on to amidst the great shifting anonymity of the city.
I will never forget that afternoon.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
To Anyone Who Supported Photovoice, to NGOs, to Donors
Thoughts on Photovoice
When someone asks me how the photovoice project went, I automatically say something along the lines of, “Oh, it was great, it worked out really well, the kids were awesome…” etc etc.
And none of it is a lie… but it doesn’t give a good picture of what actually happened or how I feel about it either.
It’s really hard for me to be honest about this. I just got home from dinner with two of my closest friends and it was even hard to admit to them that I have my doubts, reservations, and regrets about this project.
We were talking about NGOs and corruption and failed projects, and I had been thinking about how hard (next to impossible) it is for people and organizations to admit that they are sometimes wrong, that they tried something and it didn’t work, that they could’ve done things differently. If it’s this hard for me to admit being less than perfect and I’m only accountable to my family, friends, and myself – I understand why NGOs and others who are accountable to international aid organizations and demanding donors aren’t likely to admit their faults. But I wish they would… it would help improve development so much. I know now that it takes so much bravery to do this, and so much faith that people won’t just walk away but will appreciate that by admitting our shortcomings we can improve on them, instead of pretending they’re not there.
So here are my mistakes:
1. I didn’t take enough time to understand the context that I was trying to work in. I wish that I had just hung out at the school or in the community with an open mind, and waited until I understood the dynamic and undercurrents of the place I was putting myself in more deeply. As it was, I still don’t completely understand how classes work at the school we partnered with, because our presence changed things and I had no way of measuring how big or disruptive that change was.
2. I didn’t follow through as much as I could have, especially with record keeping. I would have liked to write about how each lesson went, what topics we covered, and how I felt after each meeting with the kids. It also would have been useful to get feedback from the kids and teachers about how the program went as a form of evaluation.
A lot of other factors made this a tough project to work on: the infrastructure of the school we worked in was pretty basic, so we had to trade off distracting noise and sweltering heat; the equipment that we used had some problems, which led to a lot of time lags and destroyed some of the photographs; and a lot of developing problems came up and made our rate of return around 70% (a third of the photos the kids took were ruined and never printed, which was frustrating for everyone.) Also, the level of English spoken by the kids varied and made it difficult to teach lessons. And the general schoolyard culture was more loud and undisciplined than it has been at other schools or in other countries that I’ve worked in.
I often asked myself whether it would’ve been better if I had just come to the school and offered all of my skills as needed – maybe tutored instead, or supervised the little kids during breaks, or (is this my most valuable contribution?) donated money. I think that in general it is much better to immerse oneself in a context and find out what is needed instead of giving what you want to give. But at the same time – I am passionate about photography and I love teaching it. It was hard to set this program up, and if it wasn’t something I really cared about, I wouldn’t have had the drive to do it and the determination to work through the hard days. I would like to think of myself as someone who could be passionate enough about wanting to help in any capacity that it would have been enough to know that I was helping. But then I remember that without photography, I never would have even contacted this school, let alone braved the sweaty commute and sensory overload that is Nima to visit it once a week.
I’ve sometimes thought that if I really want to make a difference I should just sacrifice what I want and focus on serving others and fulfilling their needs. Then I snap out of this twisted martyrdom dream and realize that there is no way that I could sacrifice myself and what makes me happy and be able to sustain it for any significant amount of time. I believe that people both are at their best when they are happy and doing things that they love. So I can’t criticize myself for wanting to work on a photography project, because it’s what makes me happy and is something I’m willing to put my all into.
Here’s another mistake:
3. Since I wasn’t ready to respond to what this school needed, I wish that I had been ready to find a different school or venue that would have been in a better position to need what I had to offer. A school with slightly better infrastructure, with stronger English skills, a school that was already looking for an art program. I would have had to develop standards for selecting such a school, and it would have taken more time to find the right place. But the project would have had that much more potential to succeed. It would’ve been a hard process – kind of like weeding out the small seedlings at the beginning to give the others a better chance of growing strong. If development organizations were more selective about what specific interventions they undertook and what specific criteria had to be met before they began, I’m sure more projects would be successful and limited resources would be used more effectively. Instead, just like me, it seems that a lot of organizations are excited to do anything anywhere without taking the time to understand if it is the best project for the specific context.
Despite everything I’ve just written, a part of me believes that the main goal of this photography project – to provide an opportunity to a group of students who wouldn’t have had it otherwise – was met perfectly by working in the school that we did. I guess I’ll never really know if we made any real difference or not… and if we did, I don’t think it will have been to turn these eight kids into professional photographers.
I think our presence, despite everything, might have meant something. Our willingness to invest in this school, in these kids, in this project that seems so extravagant – maybe on some small level we managed to communicate that they were worth it.
Or maybe we just came in and did what we wanted to do. I think the answer is probably some combination of both.
In either case, I always knew that I would probably get more out of this than any of the kids that we worked with. And looking back on it, I can already say that that’s true. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about development and NGOs and aid – on a tiny 8 student 1 school scale, but the lessons apply across all levels.
So to everyone who supported me with this – through donations or words of encouragement or buying those delicious unbaked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies –
please don’t think your support was wasted. If nothing else, you helped teach me important lessons that I hope to build on and spread.
And for the record, I do think the kids had fun and got to do something they never would have otherwise. Which is maybe all we could’ve hoped for anyway.
I feel like I’ve just broken every rule of the organization-donor contract – the implicit you help me help someone, I help you feel good about yourself promise. But it seems to me that, like with every good relationship, the organization-donor one would be better if we communicated honestly back and forth.
On that note – please let me know what your reactions and thoughts.
With peace,
PS. After writing this, I visited the school one last time. On my way out, one of the boys we worked with, Shaibu, came running after me with a pen. “Madam, Madam! May I please have your phone number?” It costs a lot to make calls to the US and I doubt that he’ll really call, but it made me realize that if nothing else, we made contact with these kids and through this project, formed relationships that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.
When someone asks me how the photovoice project went, I automatically say something along the lines of, “Oh, it was great, it worked out really well, the kids were awesome…” etc etc.
And none of it is a lie… but it doesn’t give a good picture of what actually happened or how I feel about it either.
It’s really hard for me to be honest about this. I just got home from dinner with two of my closest friends and it was even hard to admit to them that I have my doubts, reservations, and regrets about this project.
We were talking about NGOs and corruption and failed projects, and I had been thinking about how hard (next to impossible) it is for people and organizations to admit that they are sometimes wrong, that they tried something and it didn’t work, that they could’ve done things differently. If it’s this hard for me to admit being less than perfect and I’m only accountable to my family, friends, and myself – I understand why NGOs and others who are accountable to international aid organizations and demanding donors aren’t likely to admit their faults. But I wish they would… it would help improve development so much. I know now that it takes so much bravery to do this, and so much faith that people won’t just walk away but will appreciate that by admitting our shortcomings we can improve on them, instead of pretending they’re not there.
For those of you not familiar with this Photo project, here’s a brief summary: Carly (my amazing and beautiful partner in all of this) and I gave cameras to a group of students (we had a class of eight 10 years olds, half boys and half girls). We met with them once a week for an hour at their school, and went over basic photography skills, like angles, being aware of the background, and the rule of thirds. We gave them film almost every week along with an assignment “Photograph your community,” or “Take pictures that work together to tell a story,” etc. Then we developed their film, returned their pictures, and talked about them as a group. After 10 weeks, we had an exhibition of 20 of their favorite photos at their school. The entire school was there, a handful of parents came, and several of our friends from our programs showed up. This 10 week program probably cost us ~ $300.
So here are my mistakes:
1. I didn’t take enough time to understand the context that I was trying to work in. I wish that I had just hung out at the school or in the community with an open mind, and waited until I understood the dynamic and undercurrents of the place I was putting myself in more deeply. As it was, I still don’t completely understand how classes work at the school we partnered with, because our presence changed things and I had no way of measuring how big or disruptive that change was.
2. I didn’t follow through as much as I could have, especially with record keeping. I would have liked to write about how each lesson went, what topics we covered, and how I felt after each meeting with the kids. It also would have been useful to get feedback from the kids and teachers about how the program went as a form of evaluation.
A lot of other factors made this a tough project to work on: the infrastructure of the school we worked in was pretty basic, so we had to trade off distracting noise and sweltering heat; the equipment that we used had some problems, which led to a lot of time lags and destroyed some of the photographs; and a lot of developing problems came up and made our rate of return around 70% (a third of the photos the kids took were ruined and never printed, which was frustrating for everyone.) Also, the level of English spoken by the kids varied and made it difficult to teach lessons. And the general schoolyard culture was more loud and undisciplined than it has been at other schools or in other countries that I’ve worked in.
I often asked myself whether it would’ve been better if I had just come to the school and offered all of my skills as needed – maybe tutored instead, or supervised the little kids during breaks, or (is this my most valuable contribution?) donated money. I think that in general it is much better to immerse oneself in a context and find out what is needed instead of giving what you want to give. But at the same time – I am passionate about photography and I love teaching it. It was hard to set this program up, and if it wasn’t something I really cared about, I wouldn’t have had the drive to do it and the determination to work through the hard days. I would like to think of myself as someone who could be passionate enough about wanting to help in any capacity that it would have been enough to know that I was helping. But then I remember that without photography, I never would have even contacted this school, let alone braved the sweaty commute and sensory overload that is Nima to visit it once a week.
I’ve sometimes thought that if I really want to make a difference I should just sacrifice what I want and focus on serving others and fulfilling their needs. Then I snap out of this twisted martyrdom dream and realize that there is no way that I could sacrifice myself and what makes me happy and be able to sustain it for any significant amount of time. I believe that people both are at their best when they are happy and doing things that they love. So I can’t criticize myself for wanting to work on a photography project, because it’s what makes me happy and is something I’m willing to put my all into.
Here’s another mistake:
3. Since I wasn’t ready to respond to what this school needed, I wish that I had been ready to find a different school or venue that would have been in a better position to need what I had to offer. A school with slightly better infrastructure, with stronger English skills, a school that was already looking for an art program. I would have had to develop standards for selecting such a school, and it would have taken more time to find the right place. But the project would have had that much more potential to succeed. It would’ve been a hard process – kind of like weeding out the small seedlings at the beginning to give the others a better chance of growing strong. If development organizations were more selective about what specific interventions they undertook and what specific criteria had to be met before they began, I’m sure more projects would be successful and limited resources would be used more effectively. Instead, just like me, it seems that a lot of organizations are excited to do anything anywhere without taking the time to understand if it is the best project for the specific context.
Despite everything I’ve just written, a part of me believes that the main goal of this photography project – to provide an opportunity to a group of students who wouldn’t have had it otherwise – was met perfectly by working in the school that we did. I guess I’ll never really know if we made any real difference or not… and if we did, I don’t think it will have been to turn these eight kids into professional photographers.
I think our presence, despite everything, might have meant something. Our willingness to invest in this school, in these kids, in this project that seems so extravagant – maybe on some small level we managed to communicate that they were worth it.
Or maybe we just came in and did what we wanted to do. I think the answer is probably some combination of both.
In either case, I always knew that I would probably get more out of this than any of the kids that we worked with. And looking back on it, I can already say that that’s true. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about development and NGOs and aid – on a tiny 8 student 1 school scale, but the lessons apply across all levels.
So to everyone who supported me with this – through donations or words of encouragement or buying those delicious unbaked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies –
please don’t think your support was wasted. If nothing else, you helped teach me important lessons that I hope to build on and spread.
And for the record, I do think the kids had fun and got to do something they never would have otherwise. Which is maybe all we could’ve hoped for anyway.
I feel like I’ve just broken every rule of the organization-donor contract – the implicit you help me help someone, I help you feel good about yourself promise. But it seems to me that, like with every good relationship, the organization-donor one would be better if we communicated honestly back and forth.
On that note – please let me know what your reactions and thoughts.
With peace,
PS. After writing this, I visited the school one last time. On my way out, one of the boys we worked with, Shaibu, came running after me with a pen. “Madam, Madam! May I please have your phone number?” It costs a lot to make calls to the US and I doubt that he’ll really call, but it made me realize that if nothing else, we made contact with these kids and through this project, formed relationships that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.
My life in 24 hours
It' always such a crazy thought to me that life is going on all around the world, all the time, regardless of where I am.
My two best friends and I have been scattered across the world for the past 5 months -- Christina was in California, Andrew was in China, and I was in Ghana. Other close friends are all over the place too -- Hong Kong, Ecuador, Guatemala, Thailand, India, Chile, across the US...
Andrew, Christina and I did a photo project inspired by the craziness of this. We each took a photograph of what we were doing or where we were on the hour, for 24 hours. The three of us are separated by exactly 8 hours each, so Andrew started at 4 pm in Beijing, Christina at midnight, and I started at 8 am.
This is my 24 hours:
8 am: Just woke up, view from my balcony in Volta Hall.
9 am: Still kickin it in my room, another view.
10 am: Getting breakfast (an egg sandwich and ice coffee) at this outdoor cafe on campus. The woman who works here is amazing.
11 am: Still on campus, on the way to the tro tro station.
12 pm: At Accra Mall -- this is where we get photos printed for the Photo Project. There's also a food court a brand new movie theater where we saw the new 007 movie.
1 pm: In a shared taxi on the way to Adabraka, where I have an interview for my independent study project.
2 pm: In a health official's office -- somewhere behind me is the info that I need!
3 pm: In a tro tro headed back to campus.
4 pm: The view from Accra Mall, where I had to pick up the prints from earlier today for the photo exhibition that we're having tomorrow.
5 pm: Cooking with my Volta girls! Don't be deceived though, this is one of the few times that I cooked all semester. The girls are Priscilla (a first year model who I met through athletics training and go salsa dancing with,) Farida (one of her four roommates,) and Annie (from UCSC, she's staying for a year! We used to run together).
6 pm: Still cooking... I'm peeling a yam that I got as a gift from a friend of a friend. I made the mistake of carrying the yam through Commonwealth (kind of like a huge fraternity) and got so many catcalls! lol...
7 pm: Dinner! Cooking takes so long! How do people do it every day? Annie and I couldn't handle all of the pepper and sniffled through the whole meal.
8 pm: These two women sell food outside of our hall and are awesome. I think I bought juice and paw paw (papaya).
9 pm: One of my two roommies! This is Irene, and her boy Andy. I love these two!
10 pm: My other roomie Rebecca and I chilling out to an episode of Sex and the City in our room.
11 pm: Working on my independent research project (30 + pages, due tomorrow!) about health-based behavior change interventions.
12 am: I miss these two!!! Wonder what they're doing right now...
1 am: Still up and typing... these are the kittens that hang out in volta and prowl around at night. They're adorable.
2 am: Rocking out to music and chugging a pure water sachet. Not so pure, actually, because a government report came out saying only 5 % of sachet brands have no parasites. lol, great...
3 am: A supportive text from Anita -- thanks babe!
4 am: I was still awake but everything around me was black. This is a picture of my sleeping roommate but you can't tell.
5 am: It's getting lighter and I'm still typing, probably page 28 or so by now. This is a picture of Lucas, the porter who guards our block in Volta.
6 am: It is finished! I spot the sunrise on my way to find a printing office that's open this early. Still haven't slept.
7 am: Delirious from not sleeping but still on a high from finishing that paper, I'm on the phone with Andrew and on my way to the tro tro station.
8 am: This is Nima. We just got here and are starting to set up for the photography exhibition that Carly and I are holding to showcase our students photos at their school.
What a day! This is actually not very typical (I normally sleep, don't really cook, etc) and there's so much that these on the hour photos didn't capture. But still -- my life in 24 hours.
Here're the links to Andrew's photos:
http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e287/goldenbeartri/Day%20in%20the%20Life/
and Christina's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=CYoung7&target=ALBUM&id=5276203604224314865&authkey=9JcPP9inDTE& invite=CILuqf0F&feat=email
To Andrew and Christina --- Thanks for going along with this project!
and Mike -- Thanks for the inspiration :)
My two best friends and I have been scattered across the world for the past 5 months -- Christina was in California, Andrew was in China, and I was in Ghana. Other close friends are all over the place too -- Hong Kong, Ecuador, Guatemala, Thailand, India, Chile, across the US...
Andrew, Christina and I did a photo project inspired by the craziness of this. We each took a photograph of what we were doing or where we were on the hour, for 24 hours. The three of us are separated by exactly 8 hours each, so Andrew started at 4 pm in Beijing, Christina at midnight, and I started at 8 am.
This is my 24 hours:
8 am: Just woke up, view from my balcony in Volta Hall.
9 am: Still kickin it in my room, another view.
10 am: Getting breakfast (an egg sandwich and ice coffee) at this outdoor cafe on campus. The woman who works here is amazing.
11 am: Still on campus, on the way to the tro tro station.
12 pm: At Accra Mall -- this is where we get photos printed for the Photo Project. There's also a food court a brand new movie theater where we saw the new 007 movie.
1 pm: In a shared taxi on the way to Adabraka, where I have an interview for my independent study project.
2 pm: In a health official's office -- somewhere behind me is the info that I need!
3 pm: In a tro tro headed back to campus.
4 pm: The view from Accra Mall, where I had to pick up the prints from earlier today for the photo exhibition that we're having tomorrow.
5 pm: Cooking with my Volta girls! Don't be deceived though, this is one of the few times that I cooked all semester. The girls are Priscilla (a first year model who I met through athletics training and go salsa dancing with,) Farida (one of her four roommates,) and Annie (from UCSC, she's staying for a year! We used to run together).
6 pm: Still cooking... I'm peeling a yam that I got as a gift from a friend of a friend. I made the mistake of carrying the yam through Commonwealth (kind of like a huge fraternity) and got so many catcalls! lol...
7 pm: Dinner! Cooking takes so long! How do people do it every day? Annie and I couldn't handle all of the pepper and sniffled through the whole meal.
8 pm: These two women sell food outside of our hall and are awesome. I think I bought juice and paw paw (papaya).
9 pm: One of my two roommies! This is Irene, and her boy Andy. I love these two!
10 pm: My other roomie Rebecca and I chilling out to an episode of Sex and the City in our room.
11 pm: Working on my independent research project (30 + pages, due tomorrow!) about health-based behavior change interventions.
12 am: I miss these two!!! Wonder what they're doing right now...
1 am: Still up and typing... these are the kittens that hang out in volta and prowl around at night. They're adorable.
2 am: Rocking out to music and chugging a pure water sachet. Not so pure, actually, because a government report came out saying only 5 % of sachet brands have no parasites. lol, great...
3 am: A supportive text from Anita -- thanks babe!
4 am: I was still awake but everything around me was black. This is a picture of my sleeping roommate but you can't tell.
5 am: It's getting lighter and I'm still typing, probably page 28 or so by now. This is a picture of Lucas, the porter who guards our block in Volta.
6 am: It is finished! I spot the sunrise on my way to find a printing office that's open this early. Still haven't slept.
7 am: Delirious from not sleeping but still on a high from finishing that paper, I'm on the phone with Andrew and on my way to the tro tro station.
8 am: This is Nima. We just got here and are starting to set up for the photography exhibition that Carly and I are holding to showcase our students photos at their school.
What a day! This is actually not very typical (I normally sleep, don't really cook, etc) and there's so much that these on the hour photos didn't capture. But still -- my life in 24 hours.
Here're the links to Andrew's photos:
http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e287/goldenbeartri/Day%20in%20the%20Life/
and Christina's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=CYoung7&target=ALBUM&id=5276203604224314865&authkey=9JcPP9inDTE& invite=CILuqf0F&feat=email
To Andrew and Christina --- Thanks for going along with this project!
and Mike -- Thanks for the inspiration :)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Election Thoughts
Standing arm in arm with friends and strangers as we listened to Obama’s acceptance speech, I felt like I was watching the first man walk on the moon. I have never been part of something so epic.
I had spent the night outside in the grassy backyard of a hotel in Accra along with 200-300 others, a surprising combination of ex-pats and Ghanaians, fellow students and professionals. It never ceases to surprise me how much people here care about U.S. politics. A lot of it is probably because Obama’s black – but even then, even if he’s just as a symbol, it is incredible to see how much people here care about what goes on in America. We all watched throughout the early hours as state after state was called and the electoral votes kept climbing…
And then the west coast was called, and Obama won! We danced and swung each other around and hugged and jumped up and down and raised our voices to sing along to the Black Rasta “Barack Obama” song.
We couldn’t stop smiling and hugging and dancing, and no one was tired even though it was 5:30 am and we’d been up all night. As our future president took the stage, the sky was starting to lighten behind the big outdoor screen his speech was projected on – a perfect metaphor for the way I felt. A new dawn, a new day, a new leader.
Being able to vote as an American, as a citizen of one of the most influential countries on earth, is a huge responsibility. Before this trip I had no conception of just how influential our country is all around the world, but the decisions we make effect people all over – and they know it and they’re watching to see what we do! So when I think about voting now, it’s not just for myself or my county or my state, but for people all across the globe who will be effected in one way or another.
When I finally climbed the stairs leading up to my room, I heard shouts from across the courtyard as my Volta hall mates woke up and heard the news – “ Obammaaa won!! Obammma won!!”
He did indeed.
Mani Agye paaa – I’m very happy!
Finding out a few hours later that California had voted yes on Prop 8 (eliminating same sex marriage,) made the elections a little bittersweet…. What happened, California? How could we take someone’s rights away like that? I guess it just shows that democracy is always a process and while I’m confident that some day gay marriage will be legal again, it’s frustrating that it’s been set back so far.
Still… it’s been beautiful hearing about everyone else’s election experiences. I talked to my mom right away, and my parents took the next day off to hike and celebrate. My aunt in England jumped up and down when she found out in the morning. Christina was part of the spontaneous co-op street celebration in Berkeley and Andrew watched in a basement in Beijing with fellow ex-pats... it’s beautiful to think about how many people around the world were touched and united by something that happened in my country.
I had spent the night outside in the grassy backyard of a hotel in Accra along with 200-300 others, a surprising combination of ex-pats and Ghanaians, fellow students and professionals. It never ceases to surprise me how much people here care about U.S. politics. A lot of it is probably because Obama’s black – but even then, even if he’s just as a symbol, it is incredible to see how much people here care about what goes on in America. We all watched throughout the early hours as state after state was called and the electoral votes kept climbing…
And then the west coast was called, and Obama won! We danced and swung each other around and hugged and jumped up and down and raised our voices to sing along to the Black Rasta “Barack Obama” song.
We couldn’t stop smiling and hugging and dancing, and no one was tired even though it was 5:30 am and we’d been up all night. As our future president took the stage, the sky was starting to lighten behind the big outdoor screen his speech was projected on – a perfect metaphor for the way I felt. A new dawn, a new day, a new leader.
Being able to vote as an American, as a citizen of one of the most influential countries on earth, is a huge responsibility. Before this trip I had no conception of just how influential our country is all around the world, but the decisions we make effect people all over – and they know it and they’re watching to see what we do! So when I think about voting now, it’s not just for myself or my county or my state, but for people all across the globe who will be effected in one way or another.
When I finally climbed the stairs leading up to my room, I heard shouts from across the courtyard as my Volta hall mates woke up and heard the news – “ Obammaaa won!! Obammma won!!”
He did indeed.
Mani Agye paaa – I’m very happy!
Finding out a few hours later that California had voted yes on Prop 8 (eliminating same sex marriage,) made the elections a little bittersweet…. What happened, California? How could we take someone’s rights away like that? I guess it just shows that democracy is always a process and while I’m confident that some day gay marriage will be legal again, it’s frustrating that it’s been set back so far.
Still… it’s been beautiful hearing about everyone else’s election experiences. I talked to my mom right away, and my parents took the next day off to hike and celebrate. My aunt in England jumped up and down when she found out in the morning. Christina was part of the spontaneous co-op street celebration in Berkeley and Andrew watched in a basement in Beijing with fellow ex-pats... it’s beautiful to think about how many people around the world were touched and united by something that happened in my country.
Impressions II: A Little Rough Around the Edges
“You must be a Californian”
“Why?”
“You couldn’t throw that sachet away.”
This conversation was with a Ghanaian-American friend who had just met me and saw me look around in frustration before stuffing my empty water sachet bag into my purse, where I already a collection of bags from previous unsuccessful attempts to find trashcans. He had lived in California for years and laughed, telling me that he couldn’t throw things away either. It made me wonder, how exactly did the message to not litter get so ingrained in me? More than a general concern for the environmental damage and destruction that trash can do, I’m pretty sure I’m motivated by a fear of what other people around me would think if they saw me toss my trash on the ground. At home, I imagine that there would be a collective social disapproval and people would be shocked and critical.
But that social pressure doesn’t exist here, and I noticed it was absent in Mumbai as well. In fact, I remember carrying around an ice cream wrapper in market and this little kid followed me around trying to teach me that I should just throw it down. He would grab the wrapper and fling it aside and I kept picking it up and scouring the scene for a trashcan or box or bag.
My friend brian had an interesting observation on the topic. He said that maybe the act of throwing things down used to be fine, when food wasn’t packaged and plastics weren’t an issue. When we eat oranges here, (which are sold with the topics cut off so that you don’t peel them at all but squeeze the pulpy juice out until it’s sucked dry) we toss aside the peel and watch as goats fight to nibble up the pieces. So it’s easy to imagine how that action could become ingrained and be transferred to plastic water sachets and wrappers and bags.
“They can laugh because we get served first.” - Me
Rebecca and I were at the university hospital because she thought she might have malaria. There were three or four other people in the waiting room when we got there, but I assumed that they, like me, were just waiting for their friends. Becks got seen pretty quickly and everyone in the room laughed as she fumbled with the door – it seemed kind of unnecessary and even rude at the time. Until we realized that even though one of the guys in the waiting room was seriously sick and having something like an asthma attack and everyone else was sick too and had been waiting to be seen before we got there. It’s not the first time this has happened either – other obruni friends have stories of being seen immediately at hospitals even though there was obviously a lot of people ahead of them. It put their laughter in a different light – a bitter reaction to being treated so obviously unfairly.
“I’ve never felt more aware of having black skin.”
-Naa
My friend Naa is a fifth year Ghanaian student who I met in my Econ class. She studied abroad in Russia for a year, so it’s been really cool to talk to her about her experiences there and how they parallel mine. It sounds like it was the first time she’s really experienced racism – people telling her to go back to Africa and the like. Which made me think about the assumptions people make about me because of my race – (I’m definitely an oburoni, but I’ve gotten everything from Indian, to Japanese, and from Mexican to African American!). and even though it’s been frustrating to be categorically stereotyped, it’s still a powerful, privileged stereotype. Some people make snide comments or are intentionally rude, but at the end of the day, we both know that my skin color gives me a lot of opportunities and words are just words.
“The state has failed in Africa. The market has failed in America. So which one do you trust? Neither!” Prof KJ
“The cocoa board buys 1 bag of cocoa for 1 GH cedi then gives 1,000 sacks to their friends who can sell them for 50-60 GH cedi. For some people, they get 1,000 sacks/week!” Prof KJ
One of my friends responded to this story by telling us about his job in one of the government’s ministries. He was in charge of something to do with revenue, and found a lot of holes in the system where people were funneling money away for themselves. So he tried to clean it up, and within a month, revenue was up 100%, and kept rising. Some people praised him. Until he got a call in the middle of the night, telling him that if he valued his life, he had better stop. So he did. And now, he admitted, he even takes a little himself, because, everyone else is and that’s how it works.
“I have a small garden in my backyard and I was watering it one day with the treated water that gets pumped to my house. I realized that between the crops in my garden and the people in my village, the cassava drinks better water than my chief!”
Prof KJ
“In my village, there is a rock in the sea, and people see it as the god of the village. Every year they sacrifice a dog there. There are a lot of fish there, but the villagers don’t fish them because they don’t want to anger the god.”
Prof KJ
“every district got TVs, because some big businessman was selling tractors (even if they didn’t’ need them) and then saw that the price that was deducted from the TV could’ve bought them three TVs!”
Prof KJ
As crazy and frustrating as this is, it sounded familiar. The same thing happens in the US, with military suppliers destroying their own products so that they can be paid to replace them at a huge profit… and did you know that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton was involved in the biggest corruption scandal in Nigeria? Which is saying a lot… they paid $180 million in bribes to secure contracts for a $6 billion deal. Halliburton’s 3rd leading executive has testified against himself and the company…
“We buy things small small. They used to break up match boxes and sell them in little bundles so that you could recycles your old matchboxes and just buy the few matches that you needed.” Prof JS
“Costco is a huge store for wealthy people. You can buy your whole year’s supply of anything there. You need to have a card to be able to shop there, so my friends would take me. I could’ve gotten lost in there.”
- Prof JS
It’s true that this professor is a little old fashioned and given to exaggeration. But still, it was so interesting to hear this perspective. To me, Costco is a place that you shop if you’re low- to middle-class and trying to save money by buying in bulk. Rich people would never shop at Costco. But apparently, having the ability to invest in a whole year’s supply of anything implies that you have enough extra money to be able to make that investment. In contrast, poorer people who have to live more day to day cannot reap the benefits of wholesale prices because they have to buy things in single serving sizes. Both here and in Mumbai, there are a lot of small packaged products, like shampoo and coffee and 10 cent sacks of flour and butter. When Rebecca and I went to buy a wheel of laughing cow cheese (8 wedges of cheese, each costing 20 cents) at one of the shops on campus, they didn’t know how much to charge us – apparently no one here buys cheese by the wheel! It’s crazy how you need to have a certain amount of money to be able to save money. Even in America, things like banking and groceries are more expensive in poor areas. …
“Market women have good logic. Charge the rich a lot and give discounts to the poor. In the US, they charge you all the same, rich and poor.”
Prof JS
I would have always thought that I was a big supporter of Robin Hood – but when you’re on the other side of the redistribution it suddenly doesn’t feel that heroic or noble anymore. But this attitude has helped me be less frustrated by ‘oburoni prices.’
“They incorrectly charged me a $50 fine and I’m still waiting to be reimbursed. You can take it all because I know that you are suffering under this sub-prime thing.”
Prof JS
This reminds me of a scene from an incredible play about Nigeria – the white playwright talks about being approached by a man asking for money while he was sitting down with a nigerian associate. The playwright said “No, I don’t’ have any money to give you.” Then the beggar turned to the Nigerian who gave him some money. The beggar turned to the white playwright, gave him the change, and said, “Here you go, now you have money.”
The dynamics of who has the power to give and who receives are so interesting… I’m coming to believe less and less in money aid. What does it do to a national psyche to always receive hand outs from “First World” countries, and grow up knowing that you are poor and “Third World”?
“I was staying in L.A. in an apartment the university arranged for me. There was a contraception above the door with a hole in it, and remember being angry that they had installed a camera to watch me. I stood on a chair and taped a piece of paper over it so that they wouldn’t be able to see me anymore. Then, one day, a friend came to visit. Shocked, he asked “Kwesi, why did you do this? If there’s a fire, this smoke detector won’t work!”
It’s nice to know that cultural misunderstanding go both ways – I’ve definitely grown a lot more humble after living in somewhere not familiar to me. But as hilarious as this story is – it’s kind of crazy that this professor thought someone would videotape him in his own apartment – and even crazier that he didn’t get more outraged about it if that’s what he really thought was going on.
The US embassy felt like home. It felt efficient and fast and clean and organized and I knew exactly how to behave and what to expect. I walked past benches full on Ghanaians, who I guessed were applying for visas. This whole experience has made me realize how deeply American I am. I used to want to live and work abroad, but I’m thinking more and more that I will be happier and more effective if I stay in the US. One of my friends here put it well:
There are so many people who don’t have the opportunity to put on a suit and gain access to powerful positions in America. But you do. Are you just going to throw that opportunity away?
I still admire all of the people who do work ‘on the ground’ – (what would Prof. Hart say about that language? Doesn’t everyone work ‘on the ground,’ and why are some places considered local while others are constructed as global?) but I think that’s it’s not for me.
Just that realization alone would have made this whole trip worthwhile.
“Why?”
“You couldn’t throw that sachet away.”
This conversation was with a Ghanaian-American friend who had just met me and saw me look around in frustration before stuffing my empty water sachet bag into my purse, where I already a collection of bags from previous unsuccessful attempts to find trashcans. He had lived in California for years and laughed, telling me that he couldn’t throw things away either. It made me wonder, how exactly did the message to not litter get so ingrained in me? More than a general concern for the environmental damage and destruction that trash can do, I’m pretty sure I’m motivated by a fear of what other people around me would think if they saw me toss my trash on the ground. At home, I imagine that there would be a collective social disapproval and people would be shocked and critical.
But that social pressure doesn’t exist here, and I noticed it was absent in Mumbai as well. In fact, I remember carrying around an ice cream wrapper in market and this little kid followed me around trying to teach me that I should just throw it down. He would grab the wrapper and fling it aside and I kept picking it up and scouring the scene for a trashcan or box or bag.
My friend brian had an interesting observation on the topic. He said that maybe the act of throwing things down used to be fine, when food wasn’t packaged and plastics weren’t an issue. When we eat oranges here, (which are sold with the topics cut off so that you don’t peel them at all but squeeze the pulpy juice out until it’s sucked dry) we toss aside the peel and watch as goats fight to nibble up the pieces. So it’s easy to imagine how that action could become ingrained and be transferred to plastic water sachets and wrappers and bags.
“They can laugh because we get served first.” - Me
Rebecca and I were at the university hospital because she thought she might have malaria. There were three or four other people in the waiting room when we got there, but I assumed that they, like me, were just waiting for their friends. Becks got seen pretty quickly and everyone in the room laughed as she fumbled with the door – it seemed kind of unnecessary and even rude at the time. Until we realized that even though one of the guys in the waiting room was seriously sick and having something like an asthma attack and everyone else was sick too and had been waiting to be seen before we got there. It’s not the first time this has happened either – other obruni friends have stories of being seen immediately at hospitals even though there was obviously a lot of people ahead of them. It put their laughter in a different light – a bitter reaction to being treated so obviously unfairly.
“I’ve never felt more aware of having black skin.”
-Naa
My friend Naa is a fifth year Ghanaian student who I met in my Econ class. She studied abroad in Russia for a year, so it’s been really cool to talk to her about her experiences there and how they parallel mine. It sounds like it was the first time she’s really experienced racism – people telling her to go back to Africa and the like. Which made me think about the assumptions people make about me because of my race – (I’m definitely an oburoni, but I’ve gotten everything from Indian, to Japanese, and from Mexican to African American!). and even though it’s been frustrating to be categorically stereotyped, it’s still a powerful, privileged stereotype. Some people make snide comments or are intentionally rude, but at the end of the day, we both know that my skin color gives me a lot of opportunities and words are just words.
“The state has failed in Africa. The market has failed in America. So which one do you trust? Neither!” Prof KJ
“The cocoa board buys 1 bag of cocoa for 1 GH cedi then gives 1,000 sacks to their friends who can sell them for 50-60 GH cedi. For some people, they get 1,000 sacks/week!” Prof KJ
One of my friends responded to this story by telling us about his job in one of the government’s ministries. He was in charge of something to do with revenue, and found a lot of holes in the system where people were funneling money away for themselves. So he tried to clean it up, and within a month, revenue was up 100%, and kept rising. Some people praised him. Until he got a call in the middle of the night, telling him that if he valued his life, he had better stop. So he did. And now, he admitted, he even takes a little himself, because, everyone else is and that’s how it works.
“I have a small garden in my backyard and I was watering it one day with the treated water that gets pumped to my house. I realized that between the crops in my garden and the people in my village, the cassava drinks better water than my chief!”
Prof KJ
“In my village, there is a rock in the sea, and people see it as the god of the village. Every year they sacrifice a dog there. There are a lot of fish there, but the villagers don’t fish them because they don’t want to anger the god.”
Prof KJ
“every district got TVs, because some big businessman was selling tractors (even if they didn’t’ need them) and then saw that the price that was deducted from the TV could’ve bought them three TVs!”
Prof KJ
As crazy and frustrating as this is, it sounded familiar. The same thing happens in the US, with military suppliers destroying their own products so that they can be paid to replace them at a huge profit… and did you know that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton was involved in the biggest corruption scandal in Nigeria? Which is saying a lot… they paid $180 million in bribes to secure contracts for a $6 billion deal. Halliburton’s 3rd leading executive has testified against himself and the company…
“We buy things small small. They used to break up match boxes and sell them in little bundles so that you could recycles your old matchboxes and just buy the few matches that you needed.” Prof JS
“Costco is a huge store for wealthy people. You can buy your whole year’s supply of anything there. You need to have a card to be able to shop there, so my friends would take me. I could’ve gotten lost in there.”
- Prof JS
It’s true that this professor is a little old fashioned and given to exaggeration. But still, it was so interesting to hear this perspective. To me, Costco is a place that you shop if you’re low- to middle-class and trying to save money by buying in bulk. Rich people would never shop at Costco. But apparently, having the ability to invest in a whole year’s supply of anything implies that you have enough extra money to be able to make that investment. In contrast, poorer people who have to live more day to day cannot reap the benefits of wholesale prices because they have to buy things in single serving sizes. Both here and in Mumbai, there are a lot of small packaged products, like shampoo and coffee and 10 cent sacks of flour and butter. When Rebecca and I went to buy a wheel of laughing cow cheese (8 wedges of cheese, each costing 20 cents) at one of the shops on campus, they didn’t know how much to charge us – apparently no one here buys cheese by the wheel! It’s crazy how you need to have a certain amount of money to be able to save money. Even in America, things like banking and groceries are more expensive in poor areas. …
“Market women have good logic. Charge the rich a lot and give discounts to the poor. In the US, they charge you all the same, rich and poor.”
Prof JS
I would have always thought that I was a big supporter of Robin Hood – but when you’re on the other side of the redistribution it suddenly doesn’t feel that heroic or noble anymore. But this attitude has helped me be less frustrated by ‘oburoni prices.’
“They incorrectly charged me a $50 fine and I’m still waiting to be reimbursed. You can take it all because I know that you are suffering under this sub-prime thing.”
Prof JS
This reminds me of a scene from an incredible play about Nigeria – the white playwright talks about being approached by a man asking for money while he was sitting down with a nigerian associate. The playwright said “No, I don’t’ have any money to give you.” Then the beggar turned to the Nigerian who gave him some money. The beggar turned to the white playwright, gave him the change, and said, “Here you go, now you have money.”
The dynamics of who has the power to give and who receives are so interesting… I’m coming to believe less and less in money aid. What does it do to a national psyche to always receive hand outs from “First World” countries, and grow up knowing that you are poor and “Third World”?
“I was staying in L.A. in an apartment the university arranged for me. There was a contraception above the door with a hole in it, and remember being angry that they had installed a camera to watch me. I stood on a chair and taped a piece of paper over it so that they wouldn’t be able to see me anymore. Then, one day, a friend came to visit. Shocked, he asked “Kwesi, why did you do this? If there’s a fire, this smoke detector won’t work!”
It’s nice to know that cultural misunderstanding go both ways – I’ve definitely grown a lot more humble after living in somewhere not familiar to me. But as hilarious as this story is – it’s kind of crazy that this professor thought someone would videotape him in his own apartment – and even crazier that he didn’t get more outraged about it if that’s what he really thought was going on.
The US embassy felt like home. It felt efficient and fast and clean and organized and I knew exactly how to behave and what to expect. I walked past benches full on Ghanaians, who I guessed were applying for visas. This whole experience has made me realize how deeply American I am. I used to want to live and work abroad, but I’m thinking more and more that I will be happier and more effective if I stay in the US. One of my friends here put it well:
There are so many people who don’t have the opportunity to put on a suit and gain access to powerful positions in America. But you do. Are you just going to throw that opportunity away?
I still admire all of the people who do work ‘on the ground’ – (what would Prof. Hart say about that language? Doesn’t everyone work ‘on the ground,’ and why are some places considered local while others are constructed as global?) but I think that’s it’s not for me.
Just that realization alone would have made this whole trip worthwhile.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Letter to Aniket
Hey!
It’s hard to imagine that you’re at school and doing the ivy league thing while we’re roughing it in the back of tro tros and eating egg sandwiches and paw paw and, of course, still drinking those good old Stars.
I can’t believe that it’s been almost two months since you left -- we still comment when we pass your old hotel room or that smoothie place, and keep mentally jotting down election-related news and conversations for you. Speaking of, here’s a summary:
Basically, no one knows what will happen still, but everyone’s personal predictions are pretty interesting. Here are some of the extremes:
- We celebrated Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, in Nima, a mainly Muslim urban slum community in Accra. After the main procession of chiefs and dancers passed, a throng of NDC supporters filled the street, decked out in red and green and white and sporting their umbrella-like logos.
[for everyone else, here's a summary of Ghanaian politics right now. The presidential elections are being held on December 7th, and there are two main parties competing for power. The first is the NPP, New Patriotic Party. They're the incumbent party and were the first democratially elected party to peacefully gain power in 2000. Since then, there's only been one other democratic election, in 2004, so this year is pretty historic. The other party, the NDC, or National Democratic Congress, began as a military party under the leadership of J. Rawlings. They were the party in control before the NPP was voted in. ]
Then one of the Parliamentary candidates and Vice Presidential candidate Alhaji Aliu Mahama drove by, waving at the impassioned crowds. It was the first time I’ve felt the power of a crowd like this… more than just being a political rally, this group of people were unified by another common identity – their religion. Maybe because of the stories I’ve heard about religion and politics from Mumbai, or for whatever other reason, I felt that there was a lot of latent power in this group because they were united by more than just politics. Or, politics had become about and a part of a larger identity. Which, I guess, can be true everywhere. It was just so tangible in this moment.
- Over dinner that night with my friend, we slipped into a conversation about the election. He said “if the NDC doesn’t win, then the NPP will have used tricks and there will be a civil war.” We asked him more about it, but he was adamant that the NPP couldn’t win legitimately (the registrar of voters is NPP, he claimed). He was equally confident in the succession of events, repeating that if the NPP won, there would be civil war. Just one perspective, but I do respect this man a lot, so it was interesting to hear this position from him.
- Another night, becks and I got a taxi ride home and had the back and forth Obama-McCain, Akufo-Addo Mills conversation. He said he was definitely for the NPP, and when we asked why, his answer was also suprising. “Because the NDC killed my family. I will never vote for them and they will never be good. They killed my uncle.”
- Last night, the boy our roommate has been talking to was chatting politics, and his opinion is that neither government is good, so he’s trying to make his vote strategic. He’s considering voting for the CPP (Convention People’s Party) and when I asked him why, wasn’t that like voting against the NPP (which he really doesn’t want) he responded “Yes, maybe. But I want to contribute to building up the CPP for future elections.”
- We have a friend who was coordinating a walk for peaceful elections event, and who helped make “Survive Elections 08” shirts. What a different frame of reference – in the US our shirts are about how ‘cool’ it is to vote, and here at least a few people are worried about making it through them as a peaceful country.
- On the radio today, I heard an announcement about the voter registration verification program that is going to help in the first week of October at all police stations. The announcer said that it was set up in an effort to correct the voter registration inaccuracies from August’s registration, and encouraged everyone to confirm that their name and photo were there correctly. Also, he warned that all minors and illegible voters could use this a grace period to cross their names off and avoid facing fines and punishment later. Finally, he instructed all families to remove their dead relatives from the registry.
Anyway, let us know if you have any specific on the ground questions about how things are going.
It’s hard to imagine that you’re at school and doing the ivy league thing while we’re roughing it in the back of tro tros and eating egg sandwiches and paw paw and, of course, still drinking those good old Stars.
I can’t believe that it’s been almost two months since you left -- we still comment when we pass your old hotel room or that smoothie place, and keep mentally jotting down election-related news and conversations for you. Speaking of, here’s a summary:
Basically, no one knows what will happen still, but everyone’s personal predictions are pretty interesting. Here are some of the extremes:
- We celebrated Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, in Nima, a mainly Muslim urban slum community in Accra. After the main procession of chiefs and dancers passed, a throng of NDC supporters filled the street, decked out in red and green and white and sporting their umbrella-like logos.
[for everyone else, here's a summary of Ghanaian politics right now. The presidential elections are being held on December 7th, and there are two main parties competing for power. The first is the NPP, New Patriotic Party. They're the incumbent party and were the first democratially elected party to peacefully gain power in 2000. Since then, there's only been one other democratic election, in 2004, so this year is pretty historic. The other party, the NDC, or National Democratic Congress, began as a military party under the leadership of J. Rawlings. They were the party in control before the NPP was voted in. ]
Then one of the Parliamentary candidates and Vice Presidential candidate Alhaji Aliu Mahama drove by, waving at the impassioned crowds. It was the first time I’ve felt the power of a crowd like this… more than just being a political rally, this group of people were unified by another common identity – their religion. Maybe because of the stories I’ve heard about religion and politics from Mumbai, or for whatever other reason, I felt that there was a lot of latent power in this group because they were united by more than just politics. Or, politics had become about and a part of a larger identity. Which, I guess, can be true everywhere. It was just so tangible in this moment.
- Over dinner that night with my friend, we slipped into a conversation about the election. He said “if the NDC doesn’t win, then the NPP will have used tricks and there will be a civil war.” We asked him more about it, but he was adamant that the NPP couldn’t win legitimately (the registrar of voters is NPP, he claimed). He was equally confident in the succession of events, repeating that if the NPP won, there would be civil war. Just one perspective, but I do respect this man a lot, so it was interesting to hear this position from him.
- Another night, becks and I got a taxi ride home and had the back and forth Obama-McCain, Akufo-Addo Mills conversation. He said he was definitely for the NPP, and when we asked why, his answer was also suprising. “Because the NDC killed my family. I will never vote for them and they will never be good. They killed my uncle.”
- Last night, the boy our roommate has been talking to was chatting politics, and his opinion is that neither government is good, so he’s trying to make his vote strategic. He’s considering voting for the CPP (Convention People’s Party) and when I asked him why, wasn’t that like voting against the NPP (which he really doesn’t want) he responded “Yes, maybe. But I want to contribute to building up the CPP for future elections.”
- We have a friend who was coordinating a walk for peaceful elections event, and who helped make “Survive Elections 08” shirts. What a different frame of reference – in the US our shirts are about how ‘cool’ it is to vote, and here at least a few people are worried about making it through them as a peaceful country.
- On the radio today, I heard an announcement about the voter registration verification program that is going to help in the first week of October at all police stations. The announcer said that it was set up in an effort to correct the voter registration inaccuracies from August’s registration, and encouraged everyone to confirm that their name and photo were there correctly. Also, he warned that all minors and illegible voters could use this a grace period to cross their names off and avoid facing fines and punishment later. Finally, he instructed all families to remove their dead relatives from the registry.
Anyway, let us know if you have any specific on the ground questions about how things are going.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
To all my family, friends, and anyone interested
I am beginning a photography project in Ghana!
There are so many reasons why photographs can be important: sometimes they can communicate stories, even across language and cultural barriers; sometimes they can be used to express daily realities, both hard and beautiful; sometimes they are valuable simply because they provide a record of a loved one that otherwise would not exist.
This is the idea:
Give students from an impoverished area access to cameras and basic photography skills, and challenge them to see and create and record their life and experiences. Take the time to get to know these students, to hear their stories and learn about there passions and dreams and what’s important to them. Create a venue for them to share their images and stories with people in their community, and people around the world.
Often, the images that we see in America that supposedly represent ‘Africa’ are either exotic or shocking. So it’s important for us to see images that come from one specific community in one specific city in one specific region in one specific country in Africa – images that have been taken by the very kids who are so often photographed themselves.
As much as the students that we work with stand to gain in terms of fun, experience and expression, we have to learn from them in terms of opening our eyes and breaking down our stereotypes.
These are the numbers:
2 teachers
4 cameras
8 students
10 weeks
5 rolls of film each
3 exhibitions (Ghana, California and North Carolina)
350 dollars to make it happen
The past few days have been busy with set up and planning work – I’ve visited the school I’m going to work in, met some of the kids, researched all the costs, baked cookies and sold them door to door on campus, and met up with a fellow student who’s just as excited as I am about this project.
We start on October 8th. But we need to raise at least $200 more.
If you’re interested and want to help, here’s what you can do:
1.Make a donation to our project through PayPal to miriam_alvarado@berkeley.edu
2.Mail a check to my family in California, who will credit my account (email me at miriam_alvarado@berkeley.edu for my address)
3.Keep checking this blog for more updates on the project.
4.Tell people!
Thanks for reading this,
with peace,
There are so many reasons why photographs can be important: sometimes they can communicate stories, even across language and cultural barriers; sometimes they can be used to express daily realities, both hard and beautiful; sometimes they are valuable simply because they provide a record of a loved one that otherwise would not exist.
This is the idea:
Give students from an impoverished area access to cameras and basic photography skills, and challenge them to see and create and record their life and experiences. Take the time to get to know these students, to hear their stories and learn about there passions and dreams and what’s important to them. Create a venue for them to share their images and stories with people in their community, and people around the world.
Often, the images that we see in America that supposedly represent ‘Africa’ are either exotic or shocking. So it’s important for us to see images that come from one specific community in one specific city in one specific region in one specific country in Africa – images that have been taken by the very kids who are so often photographed themselves.
As much as the students that we work with stand to gain in terms of fun, experience and expression, we have to learn from them in terms of opening our eyes and breaking down our stereotypes.
These are the numbers:
2 teachers
4 cameras
8 students
10 weeks
5 rolls of film each
3 exhibitions (Ghana, California and North Carolina)
350 dollars to make it happen
The past few days have been busy with set up and planning work – I’ve visited the school I’m going to work in, met some of the kids, researched all the costs, baked cookies and sold them door to door on campus, and met up with a fellow student who’s just as excited as I am about this project.
We start on October 8th. But we need to raise at least $200 more.
If you’re interested and want to help, here’s what you can do:
1.Make a donation to our project through PayPal to miriam_alvarado@berkeley.edu
2.Mail a check to my family in California, who will credit my account (email me at miriam_alvarado@berkeley.edu for my address)
3.Keep checking this blog for more updates on the project.
4.Tell people!
Thanks for reading this,
with peace,
A Mixed Up, Disjointed Late Night Reflection on the Great Authentic
Today I ate breakfast at a beachfront hotel, and sat at a shaded table on an elevated patio, from which I could look out and down and see the chaos of color that was fishermen hauling in their catch and women selling fruit and kenkey on the beach a few feet away, in what metaphorically felt like a whole different world. Except that it wasn’t. The cliché contrast was apparent enough – hot chocolate on one side of the wall, a water sachet on the other; 2.30 for an egg omelet and toast on one, 0.45 for an egg sanwhich on the other; mainly white skin, mainly dark skin. But what didn’t seem cliché was how interconnected we all were – I wouldn’t be there without them, they wouldn’t be there without me, and although there definitely was a ‘them’ and a ‘me,’ I’m pretty sure the fear of feeling superior from where I sat, gazing out from on high, was only in my head.
I want to be the person who could just as easily see the beauty in someone next to me at that restaurant as in someone beneath me on the beach.
I don’t want to feel guilty for who I am, or for enjoying the things that I can afford to enjoy, like breakfast on a hotel verranda and two cups of Milo. I don’t want to be so driven by the pursuit for the Great Authentic African Experience that I can’t appreciate those luxuries, especially because they are authentic too.
“Authenticity” is such a bizarre concept, when you think about it. Anything that is, anything that is happening is authentic. I tend to think of it as a static ideal, something to be reached, but really, it’s a flowing, constant reality to be lived rather than attained.
There’s this mall here, most people call it ‘Shoprite’ after the big WalMart/Safeway-esque store that dominates the side of it facing the highway. A lot people see it as a bizarre space, a little piece of America transplanted on African soil, either an oasis of luxury or a sad symbol of globalization. But it’s in Africa, so in some ways it is authentically African, it is an authentic space, an authentic African experience. Which would you say is more authentic – the mall that sells Puma bathing suits and cell phones and Nutella, or the drums and koras and tantabens that most Ghanaians don’t know how to play?
Going back to the beach this morning -- as I enjoyed our tourist haven, I also loved seeing the things that not everyone sees: the dirt path that leads through school kids and halfway built hotels and laundry lines and brick thatched huts and a beach with only one man from Kineshie in the surf with his arms spread wide and rain clouds in the distance. When I sat down to write this, I wondered if it made my hypocritical, to write about not pursuing the Authentic, and then write about how wonderful that ‘real’ experience was. But it’s all real and I want to take it all in equally.
I was thinking (the rather obvious thought) that I’d never be a local here. But then I realized that I’d like to free myself from this local vs. global dichotomy … maybe this seems a little academic to apply to breakfast at the beach, but in one of my classes last semester, Professor Hart kept circling back to the same theme, the idea that there are these false dichotomies set up, layered upon one another to mutually reinforce each other. On the one hand, you have the passive, traditional, local; one the other, the active, modern, global. These words map onto the lens I’ve sometimes looked at Ghana through – with the people I see and meet as being helpless and stuck where they are, while I am empowered and able to move through their space. But it’s not true at all – this divide really isn’t there, or at least, excuse my hippie, tripped out image, but I imagine a row of dots and lines, except that now the dots are becoming lines too, we’re all lines, and the only difference is that some of us have resources to be moving faster or farther, but we’re all in motion, and it’s not all the same but it’s not all one-sided either.
I want to be the person who could just as easily see the beauty in someone next to me at that restaurant as in someone beneath me on the beach.
I don’t want to feel guilty for who I am, or for enjoying the things that I can afford to enjoy, like breakfast on a hotel verranda and two cups of Milo. I don’t want to be so driven by the pursuit for the Great Authentic African Experience that I can’t appreciate those luxuries, especially because they are authentic too.
“Authenticity” is such a bizarre concept, when you think about it. Anything that is, anything that is happening is authentic. I tend to think of it as a static ideal, something to be reached, but really, it’s a flowing, constant reality to be lived rather than attained.
There’s this mall here, most people call it ‘Shoprite’ after the big WalMart/Safeway-esque store that dominates the side of it facing the highway. A lot people see it as a bizarre space, a little piece of America transplanted on African soil, either an oasis of luxury or a sad symbol of globalization. But it’s in Africa, so in some ways it is authentically African, it is an authentic space, an authentic African experience. Which would you say is more authentic – the mall that sells Puma bathing suits and cell phones and Nutella, or the drums and koras and tantabens that most Ghanaians don’t know how to play?
Going back to the beach this morning -- as I enjoyed our tourist haven, I also loved seeing the things that not everyone sees: the dirt path that leads through school kids and halfway built hotels and laundry lines and brick thatched huts and a beach with only one man from Kineshie in the surf with his arms spread wide and rain clouds in the distance. When I sat down to write this, I wondered if it made my hypocritical, to write about not pursuing the Authentic, and then write about how wonderful that ‘real’ experience was. But it’s all real and I want to take it all in equally.
I was thinking (the rather obvious thought) that I’d never be a local here. But then I realized that I’d like to free myself from this local vs. global dichotomy … maybe this seems a little academic to apply to breakfast at the beach, but in one of my classes last semester, Professor Hart kept circling back to the same theme, the idea that there are these false dichotomies set up, layered upon one another to mutually reinforce each other. On the one hand, you have the passive, traditional, local; one the other, the active, modern, global. These words map onto the lens I’ve sometimes looked at Ghana through – with the people I see and meet as being helpless and stuck where they are, while I am empowered and able to move through their space. But it’s not true at all – this divide really isn’t there, or at least, excuse my hippie, tripped out image, but I imagine a row of dots and lines, except that now the dots are becoming lines too, we’re all lines, and the only difference is that some of us have resources to be moving faster or farther, but we’re all in motion, and it’s not all the same but it’s not all one-sided either.
Letter to Allie
hey girl! How’re you?? thinking about you makes me miss our lunches at La Val’s… good greasy cheap pizza and our talks about boys and life and all of the crazy things that you take on. How was your run, if it’s happened already? And how’s your semester going? You’re still going to italy next semester, right?
My roommate is in chi O too, but from UCSD. she’s crazy/spunky/spiritual and great to live with ..although it’s still hilarious to hear her describe greek life to Ghanaians, who are for the most part pretty socially conservative and don’t really drink.
Anyway, I wanted to write to you because I met this woman last week who reminded me a lot of something you mentioned awhile back. I’ll call her Mrs. P, she’s a professor of nursing at my university. I’m doing this project with community health nurses in an urban slum, and so she took a whole morning off to drive me there and introduce me to everyone I had to know. Along the way I read her most recent research, on AIDS and stigma and income production in women (which was really really hard to read… it’s one thing to know that these things happen to people, but to actually read their own voices describing how they’ve been shunned and abused and prevented from making money… it’s tough when it’s not abstract.) She told me about her career – 30 years as a nurse in rural regions of Ghana, and in poor communities in the capital. Then we started talking about her travels (Canada, South Africa, and the US).
I asked her where in the US she’d been, and that’s when she told me that she had gone to Wisconsin in 1994 to visit Martha Higgins, the woman who had sponsored her as a child and paid for her schooling all the way through nursing school.
“Without her, I couldn’t have gone to school. We were really poor.”
“How did she find you? Did she know you or meet you or every come to Africa?”
“No, 1994 was the first time we met. We wrote letters to each other through an organization that worked in my village. All of her kids had grown up, so she began to sponsor me. All of the work that I do now, serving others, I do because of her.”
Isn’t that amazing? I’ve always been vaguely aware of these “sponsor a kid in Africa” programs, but just like the AIDS stories, they were always abstract in my mind and didn’t affect real people. Or else I wrote them off as scams. Which many of them might still be. But the fact that this powerhouse of a woman was driving me through Accra, telling me about the NGO she’s started and the research she’s doing to get her PhD, is proof that sometimes they really can make a huge difference, a difference which ripples out to affect everyone that person touches.
I remember you saying that you and Brian were going to sponsor a kid – I don’t know if you ever ended up doing it, but either way I wanted to share this story with you.
I miss you and would love to hear about your summer and semester and all of the incredible things that I know you’ve been up to.
With love,
My roommate is in chi O too, but from UCSD. she’s crazy/spunky/spiritual and great to live with ..although it’s still hilarious to hear her describe greek life to Ghanaians, who are for the most part pretty socially conservative and don’t really drink.
Anyway, I wanted to write to you because I met this woman last week who reminded me a lot of something you mentioned awhile back. I’ll call her Mrs. P, she’s a professor of nursing at my university. I’m doing this project with community health nurses in an urban slum, and so she took a whole morning off to drive me there and introduce me to everyone I had to know. Along the way I read her most recent research, on AIDS and stigma and income production in women (which was really really hard to read… it’s one thing to know that these things happen to people, but to actually read their own voices describing how they’ve been shunned and abused and prevented from making money… it’s tough when it’s not abstract.) She told me about her career – 30 years as a nurse in rural regions of Ghana, and in poor communities in the capital. Then we started talking about her travels (Canada, South Africa, and the US).
I asked her where in the US she’d been, and that’s when she told me that she had gone to Wisconsin in 1994 to visit Martha Higgins, the woman who had sponsored her as a child and paid for her schooling all the way through nursing school.
“Without her, I couldn’t have gone to school. We were really poor.”
“How did she find you? Did she know you or meet you or every come to Africa?”
“No, 1994 was the first time we met. We wrote letters to each other through an organization that worked in my village. All of her kids had grown up, so she began to sponsor me. All of the work that I do now, serving others, I do because of her.”
Isn’t that amazing? I’ve always been vaguely aware of these “sponsor a kid in Africa” programs, but just like the AIDS stories, they were always abstract in my mind and didn’t affect real people. Or else I wrote them off as scams. Which many of them might still be. But the fact that this powerhouse of a woman was driving me through Accra, telling me about the NGO she’s started and the research she’s doing to get her PhD, is proof that sometimes they really can make a huge difference, a difference which ripples out to affect everyone that person touches.
I remember you saying that you and Brian were going to sponsor a kid – I don’t know if you ever ended up doing it, but either way I wanted to share this story with you.
I miss you and would love to hear about your summer and semester and all of the incredible things that I know you’ve been up to.
With love,
Monday, September 22, 2008
Letter to Andrew H
Hello!
how’re you doing? It’s really hard to imagine that you’re in the full swing of Berkeley life again… how’re classes and roommates and singing and life?
it’s so crazy to be here with annemieke – I’m definitely getting to see a whole different side to our former prez and it’s really nice having someone here who knows some of the same friends and places and has some of the same memories.
we’re both taking bamboo flute lessons, and I’m really excited to get better and be able to bust out a haunting flute song kind of like you and your harmonica.
and, like always, there’ve been a lot of hilarious moments when I feel like Ghana has gotten the best of me. at the beginning of our semester here, our friend Kevin was invited out to dinner with this girl, and then ended up having to pay for the whole expensive dinner – Ghana: 1, Kevin (and the more universal Us): 0. Since then the score’s probably something like Ghana: 87547, Us: 3. lol. I tried to order tea for two friend and myself, but 15 minutes later only got one tea cup. only to discover that I did, in fact, get three teas – or rather, three tea bags all in the same cup! what a failure, lol.
or my friend and I were taking a tro tro (minivan converted into a public transport bus type thing) into the city and needed to get off. I yelled up from the very back, “ Mate! Mate!” in a pathetically pleading voice, trying to get the attention of the guy who controls the stops. “We need to get off here, please!” a pretty common request, but he leaned forward and turned off the radio in complete incomprehension. “We want to get off!” still nothing, and the entire tro tro full of passengers were now involved in our sad attempt to get down. Finally one of our fellow Ghanaian travelers turned and translated “The need to get off” in a more Ghanaian-esque accent. He nodded, put on the radio, and proceeded to drive five long blocks more before letting us out. Ghana scores again.
anyway, despite, and probably partly because of all of the humbling moments, it’s definitely starting to feel like this is exactly where I need to be right now. The learning curve about our/my place in the world is really steep here… still have a lot more to mull over and share...
with peace and love
how’re you doing? It’s really hard to imagine that you’re in the full swing of Berkeley life again… how’re classes and roommates and singing and life?
it’s so crazy to be here with annemieke – I’m definitely getting to see a whole different side to our former prez and it’s really nice having someone here who knows some of the same friends and places and has some of the same memories.
we’re both taking bamboo flute lessons, and I’m really excited to get better and be able to bust out a haunting flute song kind of like you and your harmonica.
and, like always, there’ve been a lot of hilarious moments when I feel like Ghana has gotten the best of me. at the beginning of our semester here, our friend Kevin was invited out to dinner with this girl, and then ended up having to pay for the whole expensive dinner – Ghana: 1, Kevin (and the more universal Us): 0. Since then the score’s probably something like Ghana: 87547, Us: 3. lol. I tried to order tea for two friend and myself, but 15 minutes later only got one tea cup. only to discover that I did, in fact, get three teas – or rather, three tea bags all in the same cup! what a failure, lol.
or my friend and I were taking a tro tro (minivan converted into a public transport bus type thing) into the city and needed to get off. I yelled up from the very back, “ Mate! Mate!” in a pathetically pleading voice, trying to get the attention of the guy who controls the stops. “We need to get off here, please!” a pretty common request, but he leaned forward and turned off the radio in complete incomprehension. “We want to get off!” still nothing, and the entire tro tro full of passengers were now involved in our sad attempt to get down. Finally one of our fellow Ghanaian travelers turned and translated “The need to get off” in a more Ghanaian-esque accent. He nodded, put on the radio, and proceeded to drive five long blocks more before letting us out. Ghana scores again.
anyway, despite, and probably partly because of all of the humbling moments, it’s definitely starting to feel like this is exactly where I need to be right now. The learning curve about our/my place in the world is really steep here… still have a lot more to mull over and share...
with peace and love
Letter to all of my cross country and track girls,
I am running again! It brings back so many memories of you all to be on a cross country team… even one that’s in West Africa. lol
This morning we ran the full course again, all five miles and two hills of it. It’s getting easier, and it’s always beautiful because we run up this hill that overlooks the whole suburb of Medina and there’re these trees up there that look perfect for picnicking underneath. and then there are the sunrises (because this five mile routine gets started at 5:30 every morning!).
the girl who is our pseudo coach is such a badass… her name’s Gloria and you can tell she’s a really strong athlete just by the way she walks and interacts with all of the other teams at the field. last friday we had a practice meet for all of the first year students (and internationals) and right before the last event, the 4 by 100, Gloria pulled on a pair of shorts over her dressy black Bermudas and donned a bright Volta jersey over her satiny blouse, kicked off her strappy sandals and took her place on the starting line. Then she took off and in just 100 meters gained so much on everyone -- by the time the last leg of the race started, their team was basically 100 meters ahead. it was like the continuing students were showing off – “Freshmen – you can run on our track, but you better know that we own it.” it was amazing.
my own race was not nearly so dramatic. I came in an exhausted last in the 400 m, but somehow losing that much was kind of liberating. So the next day I gamely started in the 5000 m (that’s three miles! 12 laps!) with my roomie and one other girl who’s rumored to be incredible. We’ve been reading African American literature for one of my classes and there’s this Zora Neal Hurston essay, “How It feels to be colored me” that described how I felt as the obruni facing the African girl in this epic race.
"No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think, to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep."
Everyone knew that she was going to win (and she did) but it was still a giddy feeling to make them all hold their breaths about it for awhile. anyway, I was happy with my run and got so much love and support from my team – it reminded me of the best part of track and cross country meets, cheering each other on and then exhaustingly being done and free to cheer for everyone else.
and volta got 2nd out of all the girl teams!!!
this is to all of you that I’ve shared the sweat and the pain of running with -- the intimidation of Jones and his dark sunglasses and the dust of crystal springs and the beauty of rancho and the slurpee 7 11 runs behind Mitty and the Mrs. Fields melted chocolate chip cookies and the bleachers and don’t-touch-my-shoes abs and the runs through the park and past that “never give up!” church and those classic bus rides with our rowdy boys… thanks girls! I miss you and all of those goods times.
hope you’re all well and let me know what you’re up to.
with love,
This morning we ran the full course again, all five miles and two hills of it. It’s getting easier, and it’s always beautiful because we run up this hill that overlooks the whole suburb of Medina and there’re these trees up there that look perfect for picnicking underneath. and then there are the sunrises (because this five mile routine gets started at 5:30 every morning!).
the girl who is our pseudo coach is such a badass… her name’s Gloria and you can tell she’s a really strong athlete just by the way she walks and interacts with all of the other teams at the field. last friday we had a practice meet for all of the first year students (and internationals) and right before the last event, the 4 by 100, Gloria pulled on a pair of shorts over her dressy black Bermudas and donned a bright Volta jersey over her satiny blouse, kicked off her strappy sandals and took her place on the starting line. Then she took off and in just 100 meters gained so much on everyone -- by the time the last leg of the race started, their team was basically 100 meters ahead. it was like the continuing students were showing off – “Freshmen – you can run on our track, but you better know that we own it.” it was amazing.
my own race was not nearly so dramatic. I came in an exhausted last in the 400 m, but somehow losing that much was kind of liberating. So the next day I gamely started in the 5000 m (that’s three miles! 12 laps!) with my roomie and one other girl who’s rumored to be incredible. We’ve been reading African American literature for one of my classes and there’s this Zora Neal Hurston essay, “How It feels to be colored me” that described how I felt as the obruni facing the African girl in this epic race.
"No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think, to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep."
Everyone knew that she was going to win (and she did) but it was still a giddy feeling to make them all hold their breaths about it for awhile. anyway, I was happy with my run and got so much love and support from my team – it reminded me of the best part of track and cross country meets, cheering each other on and then exhaustingly being done and free to cheer for everyone else.
and volta got 2nd out of all the girl teams!!!
this is to all of you that I’ve shared the sweat and the pain of running with -- the intimidation of Jones and his dark sunglasses and the dust of crystal springs and the beauty of rancho and the slurpee 7 11 runs behind Mitty and the Mrs. Fields melted chocolate chip cookies and the bleachers and don’t-touch-my-shoes abs and the runs through the park and past that “never give up!” church and those classic bus rides with our rowdy boys… thanks girls! I miss you and all of those goods times.
hope you’re all well and let me know what you’re up to.
with love,
Saturday, September 13, 2008
A Typical Day
5:10 am: I woke up to see if I my knee was feeling well enough for me to run on it. After hobbling down the hall to the bathroom and back, I decided it wasn’t and settled back within the canopy of my mosquito-netted bed. My roommate and I have been running with the Volta Hall team (our sorority-esque dorm), and what began as our quest for exercise has ended up with us getting roped into competitions and an 8k run in three weeks! The knee injury that spared me from running this morning happened last night. I was walking with Rebecca and texting my friend Andi in Accra, when all of a sudden I plummeted three feet down and my forward momentum jammed my leg into the wall of the gutter I had just stepped into. Luckily the gutter was dry, and my injury wasn’t bad at all, and the man who came to give me a hand turned out to be a nursing student and walked us all the way back to Volta.
5:30 am: Frustratingly unable to go back to sleep, I got up to read some papers on my computer about water and sanitation – I’m doing an independent research project on how to create behavior change in urban slums, how to get people to wash their hands with soap, etc. Behavior change is so hard but also interesting, especially because we can all relate to knowing we should do something one way because it’s better for us, but then do it another way because.. it’s easier, or habit, or makes us feel good, or whatever.
6:30 am: The battery on my computer’s about to die and our electric outlets haven’t been working, so I’m back to bed.
8:30 am: On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would have class, but today I’m free! After grabbing the last clean shirt that’s dry (the rest are drying outside my room on a drying rack after I handwashed them in a bucket with a detergent bar and lots of splashing and mostly futile rubbing,) I head down to the international students computer lab. I wonder why we have this lab – it’s really nice and has free internet, but what do all of the Ghanaian students do for computers/internet? For breakfast along the way, I tried corn porridge for the first time. It’s the gray brown milky looking stuff that is poured into a clear plastic bag and tied up, so that to eat it you have to tear a hole in one of the bag’s corners and drink it up. It’s definitely not my favorite, but it’s filling and cheap.
9:00 am: I wait for bout 30 minutes at the photocopy stand that copies all of the Geography department readings. The stand is outside, just under the awning of a building. I’ve been trying to get these readings for about ten days now, but everytime I come and ask for them, “They are finished. Come back tomorrow.” But today, gloriously, I get my stack of readings. I’ve never been so excited to be able to do my homework! They’re for one of my best classes too, Geography of Urbanization: The City.
10:00 am: I get free internet on my computer and read and write and check emails! An email from Christina, yay! I always am so excited to get emails from home, but feel like I end everyone reply with “ahh, I’ll write more later!” I guess I finally am.
12:30 pm: Andrew called! We didn’t talk for long but it always makes me so happy. While waiting for my egg sandwich (an egg omelet in a roll), I call the number I had saved into my phone earlier, and feel like such a development badass when I see “WorldBank” dialing on my cell phone screen. The WB Accra office secretary is finally able to connect me with the Water Sanitation specialist I’ve been trying to talk to (because he’s been out until just now). He tells me that the internship I’m trying to create, working on an Urban Water Project, is highly sensitive and because it involves the government, I might not be able to be involved. But I should still email him about it just in case.
1:30 pm: “Let there be light, baby!” – a text I send to my two roommates after having successfully hunted down the electrician, ‘Bernard’ who was hanging out in the back of our annex. Apparently all we had to do was flip a switch to turn our electricity back on, but unfortunately one of our light bulbs burned out at the exact time, so we never realized how easy fixing it would’ve been. When the electrician came in I had to quickly hide the mattress Irene, our Ghanaian percher roommate sleeps on because no one can know that there’re three of us because there’s not enough housing on campus for everyone so people squeeze in extra mattresses for their friends while the hall supervisor tries to hunt them down. Irene texted back: “N There was light!”
1:50 pm: Ran into two friends at the tro-tro station. Tro-tros are minivans converted into buses, except that they keep no schedule and are flexible about where they’re going and how they’ll get there. So you show up at a station and wait until you hear one of the mates calling “Circ circircirc” if you want to go to Circle, a big station in Accra. Or “kinesh kineshkinesh,” or “acrra cra cra.”
3:00 pm: Finally made it to Korle Bu, and found the man I was supposed to meet and interview for my independent research. He didn’t mind that I was late and told me about his research at UCLA and his daughter in Ann Arbor. He reminded me of a grandfather – he was so kind and patient with me, and left several times to go hunt down so and so’s phone number or the name of this or that organization.
4:00 pm: Bought a small mango at a street vendor and ate it out of the plastic bags they cut them in… one of the best mangoes I’ve ever had, especially because I ate it in the shade of a tree-lined street. I followed it up with a FanChoco, which is a genius invention – frozen chocolate milk in a bag. You tear off a corner with your teeth and suck it out, which is perfect for the hot weather almost every day. Interestingly, FanIce is always only sold by men. This particular guy was riding a bike, and when he cycled away I saw that he had written “Love” on the back of his bike.
5:00pm: After passing a beautiful mare and colt nibbling along the road, contrasting in a surreal way with the bright blue wall behind them and the chaos of the gritty urban setting, I spotted a bunch of bicycles and stopped to find out how much ($70 for a beach cruiser, but I should bargain more if I end up buying it) from a guy who calls himself Daddy. I also spotted an urban garden – rows of vegetables on a piece of land sandwiched between the road and a slummish settlement. Supposedly urban gardens produce 90 % of Accra’s produce!
6:00pm: Walked into an ArcBright meeting late with Rebecca – the nursing student who helped me with my leg yesterday is the president and invited us to this meeting. Apparently they do health education activities and might be really cool to work with. Everyone seemed really friendly and laughed when we both introduced ourselves in Twi: “Yefre me Adwoa.” Which means, my name is Adwoa, or Monday-born. In Ghana, you are given a name that corresponds to the day of the week that you are born on. Since we’re both Monday-borns, I’m Adwoa Kakra, or little, while Becks is Adwoa Peni, or big.
7:00pm: Got dinner from a guy near our dorm – rice and ketchup and mayonnaise and salad and a sliced up hard boiled egg all wrapped up in a bag again. Exhausted at this point, we settled in to watch the pilot of Arrested Development and catch up on work. Rebecca and I traded stories about our friends back home… I love and miss them all!
1:00am: Turned off the lights and closed up the mosquito net.
5:30 am: Frustratingly unable to go back to sleep, I got up to read some papers on my computer about water and sanitation – I’m doing an independent research project on how to create behavior change in urban slums, how to get people to wash their hands with soap, etc. Behavior change is so hard but also interesting, especially because we can all relate to knowing we should do something one way because it’s better for us, but then do it another way because.. it’s easier, or habit, or makes us feel good, or whatever.
6:30 am: The battery on my computer’s about to die and our electric outlets haven’t been working, so I’m back to bed.
8:30 am: On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would have class, but today I’m free! After grabbing the last clean shirt that’s dry (the rest are drying outside my room on a drying rack after I handwashed them in a bucket with a detergent bar and lots of splashing and mostly futile rubbing,) I head down to the international students computer lab. I wonder why we have this lab – it’s really nice and has free internet, but what do all of the Ghanaian students do for computers/internet? For breakfast along the way, I tried corn porridge for the first time. It’s the gray brown milky looking stuff that is poured into a clear plastic bag and tied up, so that to eat it you have to tear a hole in one of the bag’s corners and drink it up. It’s definitely not my favorite, but it’s filling and cheap.
9:00 am: I wait for bout 30 minutes at the photocopy stand that copies all of the Geography department readings. The stand is outside, just under the awning of a building. I’ve been trying to get these readings for about ten days now, but everytime I come and ask for them, “They are finished. Come back tomorrow.” But today, gloriously, I get my stack of readings. I’ve never been so excited to be able to do my homework! They’re for one of my best classes too, Geography of Urbanization: The City.
10:00 am: I get free internet on my computer and read and write and check emails! An email from Christina, yay! I always am so excited to get emails from home, but feel like I end everyone reply with “ahh, I’ll write more later!” I guess I finally am.
12:30 pm: Andrew called! We didn’t talk for long but it always makes me so happy. While waiting for my egg sandwich (an egg omelet in a roll), I call the number I had saved into my phone earlier, and feel like such a development badass when I see “WorldBank” dialing on my cell phone screen. The WB Accra office secretary is finally able to connect me with the Water Sanitation specialist I’ve been trying to talk to (because he’s been out until just now). He tells me that the internship I’m trying to create, working on an Urban Water Project, is highly sensitive and because it involves the government, I might not be able to be involved. But I should still email him about it just in case.
1:30 pm: “Let there be light, baby!” – a text I send to my two roommates after having successfully hunted down the electrician, ‘Bernard’ who was hanging out in the back of our annex. Apparently all we had to do was flip a switch to turn our electricity back on, but unfortunately one of our light bulbs burned out at the exact time, so we never realized how easy fixing it would’ve been. When the electrician came in I had to quickly hide the mattress Irene, our Ghanaian percher roommate sleeps on because no one can know that there’re three of us because there’s not enough housing on campus for everyone so people squeeze in extra mattresses for their friends while the hall supervisor tries to hunt them down. Irene texted back: “N There was light!”
1:50 pm: Ran into two friends at the tro-tro station. Tro-tros are minivans converted into buses, except that they keep no schedule and are flexible about where they’re going and how they’ll get there. So you show up at a station and wait until you hear one of the mates calling “Circ circircirc” if you want to go to Circle, a big station in Accra. Or “kinesh kineshkinesh,” or “acrra cra cra.”
3:00 pm: Finally made it to Korle Bu, and found the man I was supposed to meet and interview for my independent research. He didn’t mind that I was late and told me about his research at UCLA and his daughter in Ann Arbor. He reminded me of a grandfather – he was so kind and patient with me, and left several times to go hunt down so and so’s phone number or the name of this or that organization.
4:00 pm: Bought a small mango at a street vendor and ate it out of the plastic bags they cut them in… one of the best mangoes I’ve ever had, especially because I ate it in the shade of a tree-lined street. I followed it up with a FanChoco, which is a genius invention – frozen chocolate milk in a bag. You tear off a corner with your teeth and suck it out, which is perfect for the hot weather almost every day. Interestingly, FanIce is always only sold by men. This particular guy was riding a bike, and when he cycled away I saw that he had written “Love” on the back of his bike.
5:00pm: After passing a beautiful mare and colt nibbling along the road, contrasting in a surreal way with the bright blue wall behind them and the chaos of the gritty urban setting, I spotted a bunch of bicycles and stopped to find out how much ($70 for a beach cruiser, but I should bargain more if I end up buying it) from a guy who calls himself Daddy. I also spotted an urban garden – rows of vegetables on a piece of land sandwiched between the road and a slummish settlement. Supposedly urban gardens produce 90 % of Accra’s produce!
6:00pm: Walked into an ArcBright meeting late with Rebecca – the nursing student who helped me with my leg yesterday is the president and invited us to this meeting. Apparently they do health education activities and might be really cool to work with. Everyone seemed really friendly and laughed when we both introduced ourselves in Twi: “Yefre me Adwoa.” Which means, my name is Adwoa, or Monday-born. In Ghana, you are given a name that corresponds to the day of the week that you are born on. Since we’re both Monday-borns, I’m Adwoa Kakra, or little, while Becks is Adwoa Peni, or big.
7:00pm: Got dinner from a guy near our dorm – rice and ketchup and mayonnaise and salad and a sliced up hard boiled egg all wrapped up in a bag again. Exhausted at this point, we settled in to watch the pilot of Arrested Development and catch up on work. Rebecca and I traded stories about our friends back home… I love and miss them all!
1:00am: Turned off the lights and closed up the mosquito net.
Cape Coast Festival
I found myself meandering through the carnival-esque streets, alone and gloriously happy. With a bag of 20 pesawa sweet popcorn, I roamed the main street of Cape Coast. I saw old people sitting in bunches by store fronts in plastic chairs, women selling peeled oranges neatly arranged in metal frames and a woman announcing “Milo, Milo” (the hot-chocolate esque drink that’s sold cold and in a green skinny can,) and the smoky haze announcing another kebab stand rich in red fat hot dogs and dark delicious beef strips. I caught myself automatically heading towards our hotel, but only out of habit. So I doubled back and walked towards the ocean, following the warm golden light of late afternoon. Everything looked beautiful and alive and pulsing.
I sat alone on the bluff behind the castle overlooking the tumultuous beautifully conflicted waves and long stretch of sandy beach hemmed by its accompanying palm tree lining and fishing canoes. The waves are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, which seems fitting actually, given the stories people say about what happens if you swim in these waters. The story is that the hands of the slaves who died at the castle and were thrown in the water reach up and pull you down down into their murky depths. I wonder how many bones once littered the ocean floor around here. Anyway, all you can see today are the waves that fling themselves at the rocky acropolis and then ricochet backwards, to collide head-on with the next oncoming wave. The result is a huge spray of water and foam that reaches up and surges along the length of the waves, almost like a row of Broadway dancers kicking their legs out one after the other in perfect flowing synchronicity.
Regardless of these endless watery collisions, and of the dominance of the castle in the background, the beach is a happy exuberant place. Looking down the stretch, I watch with a smile I can’t help as a crowd of little black boys practice a string of backflips into the surf. They’re far away so all I can see are their dark silhouettes against the golden haze and reflection of the sand.
Dusting myself off, I decide to follow the curve of the coastline and meander through one of the smaller streets – as I do I get the impression that not a lot of tourists walk this way, and from now until I rejoin the main street I’m the only obruni I see. Everywhere there are people in and along this street, walking places, hugging people they run into, selling things (but to each other, not to me – which is a refreshing change), eating, cooking. Now there’s a procession of people in blue and white up ahead, a throng of them even, and I squeeze between a car and a gutter to slip ahead of them. We’re climbing a hill now and the street is even smaller and it feels like everyone knows each other, which can’t be true because it’s a big city and there’re so many people but it feels like a small town and the people dancing in the streets are the same people who live in the slummish shacks a few feet away. The homes are built in succession receding from the road and little dirt paths branch off but I am too ... self conscious? Afraid? To venture down any of them and instead step off onto a platform at the top of the hill. From here I can see down to a narrow strip of beach, and stand by as the blue and white parade passes by. I can see roofs of corrugated metal and washing lines laden with colorful clothes and brown dirt packed down from walking over it, and a little boy with a bucket and a woman who slips around a corner gracefully. I feel serene and peaceful, even amidst the noisy boisterous procession.
I sat alone on the bluff behind the castle overlooking the tumultuous beautifully conflicted waves and long stretch of sandy beach hemmed by its accompanying palm tree lining and fishing canoes. The waves are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, which seems fitting actually, given the stories people say about what happens if you swim in these waters. The story is that the hands of the slaves who died at the castle and were thrown in the water reach up and pull you down down into their murky depths. I wonder how many bones once littered the ocean floor around here. Anyway, all you can see today are the waves that fling themselves at the rocky acropolis and then ricochet backwards, to collide head-on with the next oncoming wave. The result is a huge spray of water and foam that reaches up and surges along the length of the waves, almost like a row of Broadway dancers kicking their legs out one after the other in perfect flowing synchronicity.
Regardless of these endless watery collisions, and of the dominance of the castle in the background, the beach is a happy exuberant place. Looking down the stretch, I watch with a smile I can’t help as a crowd of little black boys practice a string of backflips into the surf. They’re far away so all I can see are their dark silhouettes against the golden haze and reflection of the sand.
Dusting myself off, I decide to follow the curve of the coastline and meander through one of the smaller streets – as I do I get the impression that not a lot of tourists walk this way, and from now until I rejoin the main street I’m the only obruni I see. Everywhere there are people in and along this street, walking places, hugging people they run into, selling things (but to each other, not to me – which is a refreshing change), eating, cooking. Now there’s a procession of people in blue and white up ahead, a throng of them even, and I squeeze between a car and a gutter to slip ahead of them. We’re climbing a hill now and the street is even smaller and it feels like everyone knows each other, which can’t be true because it’s a big city and there’re so many people but it feels like a small town and the people dancing in the streets are the same people who live in the slummish shacks a few feet away. The homes are built in succession receding from the road and little dirt paths branch off but I am too ... self conscious? Afraid? To venture down any of them and instead step off onto a platform at the top of the hill. From here I can see down to a narrow strip of beach, and stand by as the blue and white parade passes by. I can see roofs of corrugated metal and washing lines laden with colorful clothes and brown dirt packed down from walking over it, and a little boy with a bucket and a woman who slips around a corner gracefully. I feel serene and peaceful, even amidst the noisy boisterous procession.
Slave Castles
Slave castles are places of paradox. First of all, the two that I’ve visited, Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle, are both white and grand and commanding. They could even by called beautiful, if your imagination wasn’t tainted with an understanding of what they were and what they represent.
Secondly, from the upper ramparts of one, you can stand in such a way that exactly half of your field of vision is filled with the view of a beautiful, even pristine beach with white sand and palm trees and quaint fishing canoe boats and bright colors and blue sky. The other half is white and gray and black – you can see down into this courtyard from which there are doorways leading into cellars and holding rooms and even a death room marked with what has come to be a cliché skull and crossbones, except this time the meaning is literal and real. You can see canons and stacks of cannonballs, and the officer’s third story flats and the wrought iron railings from which they could look down onto the whole scene.
Thirdly, you’re touring a place based on a history of pain and suffering and cruelty and power, but the act of you being there is supporting the local economy, and, fourth of all, the people who live in that community may have been descendants of both escaped slave conscripts and enriched slave traders. There’s a quotation in a photo book I bought about a slave-trade tour guide in the north who said, “We do not judge because we are the descendants of both those enslaved and those (Africans, and sometimes Europeans) who sold them into slavery.”
Some of the things that I remember from our tours: the men and women were separated and several hundred of them were kept in single chambered dark stone-walled rooms, partway underground. There may have been one or two small windows high up, but only enough to let in a gloomy amount of light each day, and a splashing of water each rain. There were small, shallowly inadequate sewage drains that ran through the middle of each room, more as cruel irony than any kind of practical sanitation. Over the years, the blood and vomit and urine and feces of hundreds of people built up in the rooms, forming a three foot deep floor entirely made of human waste. We walked over it.
The commanding officer’s three room apartment was built on the highest part of the castle, with a beautiful three window veranda facing the ocean. That damned contrast again – I imagine he must have been able to hear and smell the suffering beneath him even sheltered in his beautiful bedroom. There was a chapel directly above one of the slave chambers.
And there is a death room. They locked sixty men inside a completely dark chamber, and didn’t open the door again. At least, not until everyone inside was dead.
At the other castle, Elmina, our tour guide told us about how all of the women would be marched outside into a courtyard. Above them, from a terraced vantage point, the commanding officer would survey the women and pick out the one he wanted to rape that day. They would clean her up (after having lived in her own shit and blood for weeks without a shower,) and if she resisted, chain her up in the courtyard. If she became pregnant, she would be kept at the castle but treated a little better, and her kid might get some kind of education while she worked as a cook or cleaner.
There are some signs about how these places have been healed, have been transformed from bloody open sores to white scars on the landscape. First of all, they provide tourism and income for a lot of people. In Cape Coast, the castle was built on a holy religious site, so during the slave trade, the holy stone marking the place and representing Tibur, the God of Protection, was relocated to beneath a tree some distance away. Now, it has been brought back and there is a shrine offering type place in one of the slave rooms itself, where we saw a sacrificed goat’s head and watched a priest make an offering and sprinkle holy water. He explained that they give thanks to the Tibur for protecting those who passed through here and giving them the strength that they had.
We revisited the Cape Coast Castle several weeks after going on the tour – and I noticed that already, after only one other visit, the horror was more subdued and I could nap and laugh in the same places where I had cried and been silent.
Secondly, from the upper ramparts of one, you can stand in such a way that exactly half of your field of vision is filled with the view of a beautiful, even pristine beach with white sand and palm trees and quaint fishing canoe boats and bright colors and blue sky. The other half is white and gray and black – you can see down into this courtyard from which there are doorways leading into cellars and holding rooms and even a death room marked with what has come to be a cliché skull and crossbones, except this time the meaning is literal and real. You can see canons and stacks of cannonballs, and the officer’s third story flats and the wrought iron railings from which they could look down onto the whole scene.
Thirdly, you’re touring a place based on a history of pain and suffering and cruelty and power, but the act of you being there is supporting the local economy, and, fourth of all, the people who live in that community may have been descendants of both escaped slave conscripts and enriched slave traders. There’s a quotation in a photo book I bought about a slave-trade tour guide in the north who said, “We do not judge because we are the descendants of both those enslaved and those (Africans, and sometimes Europeans) who sold them into slavery.”
Some of the things that I remember from our tours: the men and women were separated and several hundred of them were kept in single chambered dark stone-walled rooms, partway underground. There may have been one or two small windows high up, but only enough to let in a gloomy amount of light each day, and a splashing of water each rain. There were small, shallowly inadequate sewage drains that ran through the middle of each room, more as cruel irony than any kind of practical sanitation. Over the years, the blood and vomit and urine and feces of hundreds of people built up in the rooms, forming a three foot deep floor entirely made of human waste. We walked over it.
The commanding officer’s three room apartment was built on the highest part of the castle, with a beautiful three window veranda facing the ocean. That damned contrast again – I imagine he must have been able to hear and smell the suffering beneath him even sheltered in his beautiful bedroom. There was a chapel directly above one of the slave chambers.
And there is a death room. They locked sixty men inside a completely dark chamber, and didn’t open the door again. At least, not until everyone inside was dead.
At the other castle, Elmina, our tour guide told us about how all of the women would be marched outside into a courtyard. Above them, from a terraced vantage point, the commanding officer would survey the women and pick out the one he wanted to rape that day. They would clean her up (after having lived in her own shit and blood for weeks without a shower,) and if she resisted, chain her up in the courtyard. If she became pregnant, she would be kept at the castle but treated a little better, and her kid might get some kind of education while she worked as a cook or cleaner.
There are some signs about how these places have been healed, have been transformed from bloody open sores to white scars on the landscape. First of all, they provide tourism and income for a lot of people. In Cape Coast, the castle was built on a holy religious site, so during the slave trade, the holy stone marking the place and representing Tibur, the God of Protection, was relocated to beneath a tree some distance away. Now, it has been brought back and there is a shrine offering type place in one of the slave rooms itself, where we saw a sacrificed goat’s head and watched a priest make an offering and sprinkle holy water. He explained that they give thanks to the Tibur for protecting those who passed through here and giving them the strength that they had.
We revisited the Cape Coast Castle several weeks after going on the tour – and I noticed that already, after only one other visit, the horror was more subdued and I could nap and laugh in the same places where I had cried and been silent.
Impressions -- an essay for my program
During one of our orientation lectures, Kwame Shabaz told us pay attention to the things that provoke strong reactions – whether they be reactions of passion, curiosity, disgust or bewilderment. While the following represent only a few of such moments, they were all memorable enough that I jotted down in one of my many disorganized notebooks and journal margins. I labeled them as “Thoughts,” and set them apart from other notes with brackets and stars and italics. At times I found myself more interested in these notes than in the lectures that were producing the material for them; at other times these observations were made possible precisely because a lecture did not happen. In any case, these represent only the extremes and thus do not really represent anything, except for the peaks and ploughs of my emotional experience of Ghana. Most especially, these quotations have been taken out of context and thus, in many cases do not completely represent the speaker.
“A student of mine once observed that there is a noticeable difference between African students in the department and African American students: the former are self-assured and confident, while the latter are often struggling against a sense of inferiority”
Prof. Adams
This quotation was shocking in several ways. First of all, I am still learning so much about race in America – I’ve only ever had one real conversation about being black in the States. So it’s been easy to imagine that we’re all the same and that our experiences are only different if we chose to make them so. But I know that isn’t yet true (will it ever be?) and even my own experiences as a bi-racial Latina have shown me that the racial hierarchy still exists in phantoms and memories and projections and for some, in realities. I think the only way to move away from racism is for one person to take a chance and be truthful and drop the mask in a duet of truth and honesty and nakenedess with someone equally scared and equally brave. And as I haven’t done this very much, I still have a pool of quiet racism to face, to see myself reflected in, and to begin to drain.
Secondly, it’s a surprising twist that this professor was comparing Africans and African Americas – in a way that elevated Africans. Most of the time there’s an implicit assumption in America that it’s better to be an ‘anybody’ in the States than a king in an African country. We even read a Zora Neale Hurston essay in which she writes (controversially) about slavery being the price her ancestors had to pay for civilization. When my Ghanaian classmate challenged that line, our professor could only agree that the “Africa as uncivilized” ideas was, in fact, exactly what Ms. Hurston was implying. Although I do not intentionally place Americans over Africans, at some level I must have unconsciously absorbed that message. I know, because of the surprise I felt when my professor described African Americans as lacking something that Africans in America have.
“I will give you a Bible if you come up here to throw away a condom.”
- A Preacher, sermonizing before one of my lectures.
Listening to the dark, dark skinned man in his deep blue shirt, a blue which brought out the heavy purples and indigoes of the reflections of light on the sweat layer swathing his face, I felt both angry and indifferent. I knew enough to put him in context, to separate his words from his proclaimed role and religious association. I saw my deeply Christian friend shake her head and pointedly ignore him, and I listened as conversations continued in the rows ahead and behind me. But even then, just the fact of his presence, and the devout and keen listeners he managed to scrounge up from amongst the class, were enough to challenge my ideas about tolerance. I suppose I may have a West-centric view on AIDS in Africa and the role of condoms and of religion – but neither abstinence nor condoms has proven to be very effective on the population level, and on the individual level either can work but need not be traded against each other.
“There’s a modern scramble for Africa going on between China, India and the US.”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
The original scramble for Africa happened when European powers raced to lay claims to various African territories, in the hopes of gaining political influence and access to valuable resources. The name is deceptive – “scramble for” implies that all of the power of motion, of action, lay with these European nations, when in fact the historical melee was a product of interactions between various European and African actors and segmented classes and interests. This time around, the same assumed ideologies are at play – Africa as the passive static continent waiting to be divvied up by the big boys around the corner. And the assumption is wrong again, for much the same reasons.
However, it is interesting to see which countries have a lot of influence here and how that is manifested…we keep spotting TATA trucks (an Indian super-company,) and a lot of the projects that are referred to in my lectures are Chinese-sponsored. The US presence is harder for me to point out explicitly, because when I experience it, it almost feels natural. So many international players have so many vested interests in Africa: for military bases, for access to oil resources, for aid delivery channels and good PR.
“In Ghana, people don’t want to hurt foreigners, but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana.”
-Prof. Jacob Songsore
Perhaps even more than the quotation itself, I was struck by the delivery. This professor, who is brilliant and intimidatingly academic most of the time, seemed to be sharing an inside joke with all of the Ghanaians in the class (so, everyone but me and one other girl.) Everyone kind of chuckled in a knowing sort of way, but actually, from an outsider’s perspective, that’s a really loaded comment to make, especially when it’s tossed out with the same disregard exhibited by the pooled taxi driver who casually chucked his used water sachet bag out the window after taking one last drag on his chewed up corner.
‘People don’t want to hurt foreigners’ – in Ghana, which implies that in other African countries, the same is not true. In fact, my professor went on to talk about the dangers belaying a white person in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Why is this? Because Ghana’s economy is better or its government more stable? Is there inter-African ethnic stereotyping, when one defines a Ghanaian by what a Nigerian is not?
And then the next part – ‘but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana,’ which no one really had to tell me, or any girl on this trip, because we’ve all been solicited by at least one out of every five to ten male acquaintances. I once took down a taxi driver’s phone number because he wanted me to call him when I go back to the US so that I can bring him with me. As I was writing it down, I knew that my smile and inked numbers were a lie; the friends I was with watching knew they were a lie; and I don’t understand how he could have actually thought it was anything more than a lie either.
Whenever I mention that I’m from California, people talk about wanting to come, and as much as I love my state and my home, I can’t help thinking that some of the people who talk about coming would be disappointed with the reality of it. Then again when my Literature professor asked her friend “Why do so many Ghanaians want to come to Germany as cleaners or caretakers? They could definitely get better jobs in Ghana,” he responded “But even with a better job, sometimes they can make more money being a cleaner in Germany than a professor in Ghana.” Zing.
[Incidentally, my Economics professor makes $1700 a month, and told us not to begrudge him the days his misses lecture to complete a project that pays $2,000.]
Last word though: The first Ghanaian-raised educated in American student I met was talking about going back to start school in September. When he said he had 25 days left, I said “Oh, you’re already counting down?”
“No. I don’t want to leave at all.”
“You don’t know anything. If I ask you about the US, you can rattle of an answer. You’re looking at the US, Coca Cola, iPods, you’re looking outside and don’t know anything about your country. How will this lead to development?”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
This professor is really passionate about being rooted in Ghana – Ghanaian culture and history and geography. But in response to his question – whose fault is it if the students in front of him know more about American pop culture than the ancient history of Ghana? Is it the fault of their teachers before them? Of schools? Of government? Of the US-spawned global consumer culture? Of globalization itself? It would take so much effort for these students to not know about Coca Cola and iPods, and would it be better if they didn’t? I don’t think so.
Interesting what he chose to represent America though. If I was a student in Ghana, would I prefer to pursue an education and career and life abroad? Or stay here? Today I just visited the office of a high-ranking doctor at the Center for Community Health, which in the US would warrant shiny windows, a swirly chair, a secretary, full AC, filing cabinets, and a private office. Instead, this beautiful, kind accomplished man was sitting in a shared office surrounded by light green paint, old shutters, and piles and piles of documents, and furnished with two basic desks and chairs, with the AC remote carefully wrapped in a protective plastic bag on the table. It’s a tough, unglamorous, potentially unthanked decision. I don’t know.
“It’s OK, baby girl, it’s over.”
-Grace, on slavery at the Cape Coast Castle
How can it be OK, how can it be over? When you and I are both still living with the consequences of this place, of these people, of these ghosts and bones and demons? When the descendants of the people who passed through here are some of the people I read about getting shot in my neighboring Oakland, when they are some of the people I address a public policy memo to, highlighting the racial discrimination inherent in US coke and crack sentencing laws, when they are some of the people who live in the Afro-dorm across the way from which I hear Gospel singing and in which I feel uncomfortable and distinctly like an excluded and excluding outsider. When you are the descendent of the people who avoided passing through here, and perhaps also of some of the people who brought people here in exchange for money or arms. How? How can you be so much stronger than me, so that despite the weight of the world leering in at Africa, you are the one holding me up as I full body sob uncontrollably? How can it be over for you, when it’s just beginning for me?
“They didn’t open the doors until everyone was dead.”
-Cape Coast Castle tour guide
I read this book called the Wave once, about how easy it would be for Nazism to take hold in a small town high school classroom. It’s hard for me to know or imagine how near or how far away we are from repeating this.
I’ve never been imbued with death like this… the memory still makes my body and mind fall into silence.
“Tell people back in the US.”
-Joshua, Volta porter
We were talking about my recent trip to Cape Coast, and no, I didn’t see the Castle this time, but I have been through it a few weeks before and how could that have happened. ‘How?’ he asks me, incredulous that I should ask the question. He tells me that Africans are strong, strong people, and points out that so many great American athletes are of African descent. He himself is a big man, and strong, and is also soft and warm. He’s the Joseph to my Mary turned Miriam. And he knows I understand, or at least, he thinks I do. But how am I going to communicate all of this, without self-righteously blaming them, or self-consciously saying nothing?
“Fair-skinned is a term that implies that light skin is a positive attribute. Lighter is better”
-Adams
Even so, light and dark have their own powerful connotations. I wonder how black got re-branded as beautiful and to whom the message was made clear?
“There’s a joke, if you want to hide something from an African man, write it down”
-Econ prof
I couldn’t tell if the class laughter was at the joke or at the man for being so racist as to tell it. He is Ghanaian, since that seems like it would matter. Why would you continue to propagate that kind of idea, even jokingly? And in a classroom? Is it funny? Perhaps he retold it bitterly, as a sentiment which should motivate his students to prove it wrong.
“In Nigeria, I’m Ibo. In England, I’m Nigerian. In the US, I’m African.”
-Rebecca, a joke she once heard
“It is finished.”
– multiple photocopiers on multiple occasions in relation to a multitude of readings and textbooks that I have yet to find. Also, several vendors, on the absence of laughing cow cheese.
“A student of mine once observed that there is a noticeable difference between African students in the department and African American students: the former are self-assured and confident, while the latter are often struggling against a sense of inferiority”
Prof. Adams
This quotation was shocking in several ways. First of all, I am still learning so much about race in America – I’ve only ever had one real conversation about being black in the States. So it’s been easy to imagine that we’re all the same and that our experiences are only different if we chose to make them so. But I know that isn’t yet true (will it ever be?) and even my own experiences as a bi-racial Latina have shown me that the racial hierarchy still exists in phantoms and memories and projections and for some, in realities. I think the only way to move away from racism is for one person to take a chance and be truthful and drop the mask in a duet of truth and honesty and nakenedess with someone equally scared and equally brave. And as I haven’t done this very much, I still have a pool of quiet racism to face, to see myself reflected in, and to begin to drain.
Secondly, it’s a surprising twist that this professor was comparing Africans and African Americas – in a way that elevated Africans. Most of the time there’s an implicit assumption in America that it’s better to be an ‘anybody’ in the States than a king in an African country. We even read a Zora Neale Hurston essay in which she writes (controversially) about slavery being the price her ancestors had to pay for civilization. When my Ghanaian classmate challenged that line, our professor could only agree that the “Africa as uncivilized” ideas was, in fact, exactly what Ms. Hurston was implying. Although I do not intentionally place Americans over Africans, at some level I must have unconsciously absorbed that message. I know, because of the surprise I felt when my professor described African Americans as lacking something that Africans in America have.
“I will give you a Bible if you come up here to throw away a condom.”
- A Preacher, sermonizing before one of my lectures.
Listening to the dark, dark skinned man in his deep blue shirt, a blue which brought out the heavy purples and indigoes of the reflections of light on the sweat layer swathing his face, I felt both angry and indifferent. I knew enough to put him in context, to separate his words from his proclaimed role and religious association. I saw my deeply Christian friend shake her head and pointedly ignore him, and I listened as conversations continued in the rows ahead and behind me. But even then, just the fact of his presence, and the devout and keen listeners he managed to scrounge up from amongst the class, were enough to challenge my ideas about tolerance. I suppose I may have a West-centric view on AIDS in Africa and the role of condoms and of religion – but neither abstinence nor condoms has proven to be very effective on the population level, and on the individual level either can work but need not be traded against each other.
“There’s a modern scramble for Africa going on between China, India and the US.”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
The original scramble for Africa happened when European powers raced to lay claims to various African territories, in the hopes of gaining political influence and access to valuable resources. The name is deceptive – “scramble for” implies that all of the power of motion, of action, lay with these European nations, when in fact the historical melee was a product of interactions between various European and African actors and segmented classes and interests. This time around, the same assumed ideologies are at play – Africa as the passive static continent waiting to be divvied up by the big boys around the corner. And the assumption is wrong again, for much the same reasons.
However, it is interesting to see which countries have a lot of influence here and how that is manifested…we keep spotting TATA trucks (an Indian super-company,) and a lot of the projects that are referred to in my lectures are Chinese-sponsored. The US presence is harder for me to point out explicitly, because when I experience it, it almost feels natural. So many international players have so many vested interests in Africa: for military bases, for access to oil resources, for aid delivery channels and good PR.
“In Ghana, people don’t want to hurt foreigners, but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana.”
-Prof. Jacob Songsore
Perhaps even more than the quotation itself, I was struck by the delivery. This professor, who is brilliant and intimidatingly academic most of the time, seemed to be sharing an inside joke with all of the Ghanaians in the class (so, everyone but me and one other girl.) Everyone kind of chuckled in a knowing sort of way, but actually, from an outsider’s perspective, that’s a really loaded comment to make, especially when it’s tossed out with the same disregard exhibited by the pooled taxi driver who casually chucked his used water sachet bag out the window after taking one last drag on his chewed up corner.
‘People don’t want to hurt foreigners’ – in Ghana, which implies that in other African countries, the same is not true. In fact, my professor went on to talk about the dangers belaying a white person in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Why is this? Because Ghana’s economy is better or its government more stable? Is there inter-African ethnic stereotyping, when one defines a Ghanaian by what a Nigerian is not?
And then the next part – ‘but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana,’ which no one really had to tell me, or any girl on this trip, because we’ve all been solicited by at least one out of every five to ten male acquaintances. I once took down a taxi driver’s phone number because he wanted me to call him when I go back to the US so that I can bring him with me. As I was writing it down, I knew that my smile and inked numbers were a lie; the friends I was with watching knew they were a lie; and I don’t understand how he could have actually thought it was anything more than a lie either.
Whenever I mention that I’m from California, people talk about wanting to come, and as much as I love my state and my home, I can’t help thinking that some of the people who talk about coming would be disappointed with the reality of it. Then again when my Literature professor asked her friend “Why do so many Ghanaians want to come to Germany as cleaners or caretakers? They could definitely get better jobs in Ghana,” he responded “But even with a better job, sometimes they can make more money being a cleaner in Germany than a professor in Ghana.” Zing.
[Incidentally, my Economics professor makes $1700 a month, and told us not to begrudge him the days his misses lecture to complete a project that pays $2,000.]
Last word though: The first Ghanaian-raised educated in American student I met was talking about going back to start school in September. When he said he had 25 days left, I said “Oh, you’re already counting down?”
“No. I don’t want to leave at all.”
“You don’t know anything. If I ask you about the US, you can rattle of an answer. You’re looking at the US, Coca Cola, iPods, you’re looking outside and don’t know anything about your country. How will this lead to development?”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
This professor is really passionate about being rooted in Ghana – Ghanaian culture and history and geography. But in response to his question – whose fault is it if the students in front of him know more about American pop culture than the ancient history of Ghana? Is it the fault of their teachers before them? Of schools? Of government? Of the US-spawned global consumer culture? Of globalization itself? It would take so much effort for these students to not know about Coca Cola and iPods, and would it be better if they didn’t? I don’t think so.
Interesting what he chose to represent America though. If I was a student in Ghana, would I prefer to pursue an education and career and life abroad? Or stay here? Today I just visited the office of a high-ranking doctor at the Center for Community Health, which in the US would warrant shiny windows, a swirly chair, a secretary, full AC, filing cabinets, and a private office. Instead, this beautiful, kind accomplished man was sitting in a shared office surrounded by light green paint, old shutters, and piles and piles of documents, and furnished with two basic desks and chairs, with the AC remote carefully wrapped in a protective plastic bag on the table. It’s a tough, unglamorous, potentially unthanked decision. I don’t know.
“It’s OK, baby girl, it’s over.”
-Grace, on slavery at the Cape Coast Castle
How can it be OK, how can it be over? When you and I are both still living with the consequences of this place, of these people, of these ghosts and bones and demons? When the descendants of the people who passed through here are some of the people I read about getting shot in my neighboring Oakland, when they are some of the people I address a public policy memo to, highlighting the racial discrimination inherent in US coke and crack sentencing laws, when they are some of the people who live in the Afro-dorm across the way from which I hear Gospel singing and in which I feel uncomfortable and distinctly like an excluded and excluding outsider. When you are the descendent of the people who avoided passing through here, and perhaps also of some of the people who brought people here in exchange for money or arms. How? How can you be so much stronger than me, so that despite the weight of the world leering in at Africa, you are the one holding me up as I full body sob uncontrollably? How can it be over for you, when it’s just beginning for me?
“They didn’t open the doors until everyone was dead.”
-Cape Coast Castle tour guide
I read this book called the Wave once, about how easy it would be for Nazism to take hold in a small town high school classroom. It’s hard for me to know or imagine how near or how far away we are from repeating this.
I’ve never been imbued with death like this… the memory still makes my body and mind fall into silence.
“Tell people back in the US.”
-Joshua, Volta porter
We were talking about my recent trip to Cape Coast, and no, I didn’t see the Castle this time, but I have been through it a few weeks before and how could that have happened. ‘How?’ he asks me, incredulous that I should ask the question. He tells me that Africans are strong, strong people, and points out that so many great American athletes are of African descent. He himself is a big man, and strong, and is also soft and warm. He’s the Joseph to my Mary turned Miriam. And he knows I understand, or at least, he thinks I do. But how am I going to communicate all of this, without self-righteously blaming them, or self-consciously saying nothing?
“Fair-skinned is a term that implies that light skin is a positive attribute. Lighter is better”
-Adams
Even so, light and dark have their own powerful connotations. I wonder how black got re-branded as beautiful and to whom the message was made clear?
“There’s a joke, if you want to hide something from an African man, write it down”
-Econ prof
I couldn’t tell if the class laughter was at the joke or at the man for being so racist as to tell it. He is Ghanaian, since that seems like it would matter. Why would you continue to propagate that kind of idea, even jokingly? And in a classroom? Is it funny? Perhaps he retold it bitterly, as a sentiment which should motivate his students to prove it wrong.
“In Nigeria, I’m Ibo. In England, I’m Nigerian. In the US, I’m African.”
-Rebecca, a joke she once heard
“It is finished.”
– multiple photocopiers on multiple occasions in relation to a multitude of readings and textbooks that I have yet to find. Also, several vendors, on the absence of laughing cow cheese.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Letter to Christina
If you thought my waist-length braids were good, you’ll like this too: I got up at 5:30 this morning for my first day of cross country/track practice! Lol. I know. Despite what you’re probably thinking, today was actually pretty decent, but mainly because I think we just did a warm up and stretches. It definitely brought back memories from circling up on that orange track and gossip-chat-stretching with the girls. On the other hand, I saw a guy doing those one legged hops across the field … which brought back a whole different set of memories of pain and gasping for breath and those dark intimidating sunglasses that we loved so much. Lol, oh nostalgia.
Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it but for now at least it’s a good way to start the day off and to make friends with my Ghanaian hallmates.
I live in Volta Hall, which is basically the sorority dorm of the campus. It’s the only all-women dorm complex and our motto is “ladies with vision and style.” They’re definitely serious about being stylish here – everyone dresses to a tee and looks super cute in a sharp preppy put together way. So much for my hippie Berkeley clothes or going to class in sweats. Most of the international students here live on the other side of campus in an international hostel, but I’m really happy to be living at volta with only 8 other international girls. There’re a lot of little things that are different that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t live right next to the differences. Like the other night I was making a tuna pasta salad except that my pot is kind of janky and doesn’t have a handle. It was definitely too hot (boiling!) to pick up so I was trying to do this complicated balancing with knives thing to strain the pasta – when my friend grace (Ghanaian) comes in. without flinching or even really thinking about it, she moves me to the side, grabs the pot and pours. In response to my ‘No no no, don’t do that it’s hot!” her friend just smiled and said “here, a lot of us are trained to touch hot pots from when we are little, so by this time we don’t feel hot and cold on our fingers.” How badass. Ghana 1, Miriam 0.
Since I haven’t written at all yet, here’re a few of the facts of my life here, just so it’s easier to imagine:
I went through a 2 week orientation with 60 other int’ls from California and Indiana, which involved guest lectures on Ghanaian culture, epic tourbus trips around the country, seeing Ghana from behind tinted glass and full air conditioning, dancing, and all of those ‘we’re a new bunch of college kids trying to get to know each other’ rounds of ten fingers and such. At the time it long and drawn out, but looking back it was a good way to get to know 60 people quickly, and now a lot of them feel like really close friends.
Since then, we got to travel a bit on our own, then spent a week registering for classes because you have to physically walk from department to department and then come back the next day and the next. This is the second week of classes but I’ve only had a few lectures because most of the profs were on strike last week to get higher wages, and some just don’t show up for awhile. But I did have one pretty awesome lit class, somewhat reminiscent of Hudelson except without the tripped out music and movies. Also, in between the epic class registration week I got to see Kofi Annan and John Kufuor (the former UN Secretary General and current President of Ghana!).
here, everyone gets a
‘ghanaian name’ when they’re born, depending on the day of the week they were born. Since I was born on a Monday, I’m ‘Adjoa,’ Anyway, “Kofi” is a Ghanaian name too, which means Friday born, and since Kofi Annan is Ghanaian, it means he was definitely born on a Friday too. Interesting, no? what day where you born on?
I’m off to my African language class (twi pronounced closer to “tree”) but much love, this is the first of many!
With love,
Miri
Ps. It’s so great being from California! Everyone knows where our state is and when I tell Ghanaians that I’m a cali girl they get really excited and ask about our rappers and our LA style and SF and san diego and the ocean…
Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it but for now at least it’s a good way to start the day off and to make friends with my Ghanaian hallmates.
I live in Volta Hall, which is basically the sorority dorm of the campus. It’s the only all-women dorm complex and our motto is “ladies with vision and style.” They’re definitely serious about being stylish here – everyone dresses to a tee and looks super cute in a sharp preppy put together way. So much for my hippie Berkeley clothes or going to class in sweats. Most of the international students here live on the other side of campus in an international hostel, but I’m really happy to be living at volta with only 8 other international girls. There’re a lot of little things that are different that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t live right next to the differences. Like the other night I was making a tuna pasta salad except that my pot is kind of janky and doesn’t have a handle. It was definitely too hot (boiling!) to pick up so I was trying to do this complicated balancing with knives thing to strain the pasta – when my friend grace (Ghanaian) comes in. without flinching or even really thinking about it, she moves me to the side, grabs the pot and pours. In response to my ‘No no no, don’t do that it’s hot!” her friend just smiled and said “here, a lot of us are trained to touch hot pots from when we are little, so by this time we don’t feel hot and cold on our fingers.” How badass. Ghana 1, Miriam 0.
Since I haven’t written at all yet, here’re a few of the facts of my life here, just so it’s easier to imagine:
I went through a 2 week orientation with 60 other int’ls from California and Indiana, which involved guest lectures on Ghanaian culture, epic tourbus trips around the country, seeing Ghana from behind tinted glass and full air conditioning, dancing, and all of those ‘we’re a new bunch of college kids trying to get to know each other’ rounds of ten fingers and such. At the time it long and drawn out, but looking back it was a good way to get to know 60 people quickly, and now a lot of them feel like really close friends.
Since then, we got to travel a bit on our own, then spent a week registering for classes because you have to physically walk from department to department and then come back the next day and the next. This is the second week of classes but I’ve only had a few lectures because most of the profs were on strike last week to get higher wages, and some just don’t show up for awhile. But I did have one pretty awesome lit class, somewhat reminiscent of Hudelson except without the tripped out music and movies. Also, in between the epic class registration week I got to see Kofi Annan and John Kufuor (the former UN Secretary General and current President of Ghana!).
here, everyone gets a
‘ghanaian name’ when they’re born, depending on the day of the week they were born. Since I was born on a Monday, I’m ‘Adjoa,’ Anyway, “Kofi” is a Ghanaian name too, which means Friday born, and since Kofi Annan is Ghanaian, it means he was definitely born on a Friday too. Interesting, no? what day where you born on?
I’m off to my African language class (twi pronounced closer to “tree”) but much love, this is the first of many!
With love,
Miri
Ps. It’s so great being from California! Everyone knows where our state is and when I tell Ghanaians that I’m a cali girl they get really excited and ask about our rappers and our LA style and SF and san diego and the ocean…
Friday, June 27, 2008
A Day in the Life
So I realize I havent done a very good job of describing what I actually do every day... so here's 24 hours in the life -- enjoy!
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
5:45 am: wake up, grab toast and tea and throw up a kourta and long leggings – four of us are off to a nearby Muslim slum to do water quality testing. We have to do it this early in the morning because water only comes for about 2 hours a day, typically early in the morning.
6:30 am: we just got dropped off by a taxi at the train station near our flat – normally it’s lined with people selling produce and juices and umbrellas and clothes, but this early, it’s pretty quiet except for a wholesale parsely market. The train is pretty empty, but I still end up standing by the door because you get a refreshing breeze and it’s cool to look out as we hurtle by. This morning, because it’s so early, we spot a row of men and boys on the tracks, squatting over them to poop. It’s pretty crazy.
7:00 am: we arrive in the community and try to find the specific households that the other girls had tagged earlier – they’re part of a pilot for our epi survey to measure the effectiveness of our education interventions. None of us speak hindi though and it’s kind of difficult to find some of the people we’re looking for. Even when we find the right households, it takes all four of awhile to figure out how to hold everything to test the water and package our test samples without contaminating them. It starts sprinkling while we’re working. Walking through the slum, several things stand out: it’s really dark, even though the sky’s getting brighter, because the slums are built up to about 3 stories and the passageways are narrow.
…
We have to leave to catch our train to goa – will be continued soon!
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