Life Just Happens

Friday July 30th 2010

A miscellaneous update of noteworthy things that I encountered this week while spending time with field staff. This week’s theme: encounters with animal friends.

On Wednesday I got to see my first snake in Ghana. Now, being one who really doesn’t like snakes, I was relieved when I found out it was dead. The men crowding around it didn’t disclose that at first, though. They simply said: “Obruni, I have a surprise for you!!!!! Please, won’t you take it back to America?” I was walking along the side of the road, talking to Duncan on the phone when I was hastily introduced to my 6 ft long python friend. I promptly hung up the phone, corrected them on the fact that I’m not an American, and snapped these photos:

They wanted to chop off a piece of the python for me to eat, but I really wasn’t up for that so I politely refused. If you look closely at the photos, you can see that they killed the snake by strangling it with fishing line. I’m still trying to figure out how they went about doing that.

This week I spent a lot of time out in rice fields. After a few months in Ghana I’ve realized that rice fields are where I’m the happiest, so it was wonderful to be out learning and exploring. Every time I’m on a new rice field I fall in love again with the stunning shades of vibrant green.

The fields I visited in Ashaiman were about one week away from being harvested. As you can see from the images, the grains of rice are fully mature on the rice stalks. Farmers are now waiting for the rice to dry under the sun– a task made more complicated by the presence of birds. Now, to an inexperienced wannabe farmer like myself, these birds are really interesting. They are incredibly beautiful, with bright red and yellow feather, and are quite mesmerizing to watch. But, according to my farming friend Dieumaime (literal translation from French to English: God loves me), these little birds can “chop an acre of rice in 30 minutes”. Bad news! Basically, the birds swoop around eating lots of rice grains, and the farmers really don’t appreciate it. So, what do they do?

They make little balls out of clay, load up their sling shots, and shoot at the birds to scare them off their fields. They do all of these things while yelling “AWAY!” frequently and loudly. I witnessed about an hour of this process and can report that it works with only marginal success, as the birds just flock to a neighbouring field until the neighbour shoots at them, and then they fly right back to the original field.

Pictured above is my first canine friend in Ghana, Goldie, looking lovely on the beach. She lives at the guesthouse I stayed at in Prampram. Definitely no rabies here, just an incredibly friendly, happy old girl. The guesthouse owner, featured in the 3rd picture with his dogs, spoke to me briefly about his life and how he came to start this guesthouse. Apparently they had high hopes that this area of Ghana would become a tourist center in the 90s, so he and his family took a risk and built this guesthouse. However, poor maintenance of the beach conditions have kept tourists away, and subsequently he hasn’t made the fortune he dreamt of. He lives on site with his wife, their children, and their grandchildren, most of whom are employed at the guesthouse. They enjoy the peaceful lifestyle of living on the coast, and have continued hope that in the coming years Ghana’s tourism industry will pick up.

Thanks for reading,

Erin

Pockets of Wonderful

Saturday July 24th 2010

Tongor-Dzemeni is the most fascinating place I’ve been to in the world. Located about a 90 minute trotro ride south-west of Ho, it’s the largest open air market in the Volta region.

Walking around I felt like all I could see were stark contrasts. At times I was surrounded by white sand, petrified wood, and hundreds of people trading bulked supplies and livestock. The desiccated landscape had a brutal, industrial feel that make me feel as if I was walking through a conflict zone. Of course I wasn’t, but it somehow felt that way.

As you walk through the crowd of merchants towards toward Lake Volta, the scenery nearly does a 180. The sky is a perfect cerulean blue over the crystal clear body of fresh water. The shoreline is dotted with colourful wooden boats packed with everything and everyone, from oxen and sheep to bags of charcoal and market women. The market is a busy hub of commerce, and many individuals from Eastern region travel to participate. This involves making a 3 hour trek by boat across Lake Volta, which separates a portion of Volta and Eastern regions, to take part in the business. I can only imagine what an adventure the multi-hour journey in a cramped fishing boat with livestock, foodstuffs, and household goods would be.

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The Tongor-Dzemeni shoreline was alive and energetic. Wherever you looked, the vibrant colors of busy people doing business would meet your glaze. Women approached boats as they arrived at the shoreline, selling the tired passengers sachets of water, fried dough, or salted fish. There were scores of oxen, sheep, and goats tied to branches bidding their time before an inevitable slaughtering. Women selling beautiful material, used clothing, and handmade sandals had shops lined in the sand.

Being so close to sand and water reminded me of summers spent in Shediac, New Brunswick, which was for a moment mildly comforting. It was interesting to connect to Lake Volta based on my upbringing in Atlantic Canada, because culturally, the two locations are worlds apart.

Although I spent only a few hours getting to know this open air marketplace, I left knowing it was the most complex, dramatic, interesting place I’ve ever been.

Thanks for reading,

Erin

An Inconvienient Truth

Thursday July 22nd 2010

“Ben, look up at the sky! It’s an incredibly clear night; you can see so many stars.” I say, half in awe, half excited by the buffet of stars before my eyes. My counterpart Benedictus and I walk down a pothole-filled path outside of town, blackened by recent nightfall in the absence of street lights. As often occurs in unsuspecting moments such as this one, I’m struck by the natural beauty around me. “Oh really?” Ben replies, in his usual tone: a mix of playful humour and innocence. “I wouldn’t even have noticed.”

I’m constantly surprised by how little attention Ghanaians pay to the beauty of their country. Easy for me to say though, as I’ve been lucky enough to see various different countries of the world, and thus have multiple reference points. Many Ghanaians I’ve met have little to no travel experience within their country, let alone internationally. But, these things aside, I’ve seen that Ghanaians put little thought into the environmental consequences resulting from their actions and habits, and subsequently don’t prioritize environmental upkeep and protection.

If Ghanaians really knew what a jewel they had, would they be less likely to throw plastic bags of trash out of trotro windows? Would it be less common for me to walk home from work smelling the sickly sweet smell of burning plastic? Would community members push harder for environmentally conscious behaviour changes?

When I first came to Ghana I was shocked and, quite frankly, appalled by two things: lack of environmental regulations, and the apathetic attitudes and behaviours often exerted by Ghanaians towards their natural habitat. I distinctly remember whizzing through Accra in a taxi, nauseated by the thick layer of exhaust fumes seemingly floating over the road, and thinking to myself: “This can’t be real. A country where millions of citizens rely on the environment for the success of their agriculture projects, and this is how we’re treating the environment!?”

Where do these unsafe, environmentally compromising vehicles come from? Why are they allowed here? I’m certainly no expert, but I do know that they come from rich ‘developed’ countries via exportation. Exportation is a complex industry unto itself– one that I can’t claim to understand now, but that I’m eager to learn more about.

I picture car exportation this way– it’s sort of like if you were to buy a sweater you love and decided to wear it every single day for a year. At year’s end, your sweater has seen better days and you’re tired of wearing it. So what do you do? You give it to your younger brother, who is small enough that the sweater will fit, albeit probably not well. He also isn’t likely to complain about how nasty your sweater is, having been worn for 365 days. He’s probably just going to put it on and go play in a sandbox, happy to be covered from the elements. Meanwhile, you’re quite relieved to have gotten rid of your dirty old sweater, and are likely already on your way to go replace it with a newer, cleaner, more stylish version. To me, rich countries dumping used cars in Africa is kind of like you giving your soiled clothes to a younger sibling. And so it goes, Ghana ends up with a plethora of junky cars spitting out thick, black smoke across its countryside.

This year Ghana’s farmers have been incredibly frustrated with the changes they are seeing in the weather patterns, and how it is negatively impacting their yields. These two extremes, one of thoughtless destruction and one of heavy reliance, currently co-exist in Ghana. But, I have to ask myself how much longer they can afford to sweep these pressing environmental issues under the rug.

Ghanaians are proud people who love Ghana, that’s certainly true. But, much to my dismay and heartbreak, protecting their environment doesn’t factor in to that. I can’t help but wonder how different things would be if it did.

Thanks for reading,

Erin

Slow Glass

Saturday July 17th 2010

I’ve been silent for a while. There have been a few reasons behind that, and I think it’s about time I try to explain why. I want to open up about the less romantic, less pretty, less digestible side of my overseas experience so that you have a more accurate representation of what I’m going through. But first, I’ll start with a visual representation where the past two weeks have taken me.



The first reason behind my online absence has been purely logistical. The past few weeks have seen me spend more hours in busses than ever before in my life. If memory and my calculations serve me correctly, I’m closing in on my 50th bus hour in just over two weeks. Now, I’m not actually complaining about this– I’ve spent many quality hours with EWBers lately because of these bus trips. But, travelling frequently has resulted in me not having had much personal time to think and write for my blog.

The second reason behind my silence is more complicated, and took me a lot longer to figure out. I’ve found myself in an emotional and mental funk recently, and it has affected my ability to feel like I can connect with my in-Canada audience. Up until this point, I’ve made a point of communicating back my big realizations and success stories. I’ve felt less comfortable talking about the murky transition space, with both high and low moments, which occupies the path between each clean, crisp story. I’ve realized that I haven’t been giving my audience enough credit, and that I’m ready to be a little more vulnerable with my writing when I feel like communicating about the harder aspects of being overseas.

I didn’t recognize it right away, but recently I’ve been actively looking for hope. The problem was, I was looking for a big piece of it. I was inadvertently making things harder on myself by feeling like I had to find a big, cathartic external source of hope to re-clarify my motivations for being here. The longer I searched, the closer I felt to two very big, very scary D words: disengagement and disillusionment. I was still going about my life as I normally would, but I felt a bubbling sense of urgency inside me that really bothered me, but I couldn’t nail down why.

After giving myself the time and space to seriously reflect on what has been triggering my sense of confusion, I’ve made progress towards bridging the emotional gap between where I’ve been recently, and where I see myself being the happiest, most productive, and most engaged. As is normally the way with periods of searching and reflection, I’ve learnt a lot about what I need in my life to feel balanced, and what type of tensions result in my feeling out of whack. The realizations I’ve come to know are quite valuable to me, but the path towards reaching them has been a messy, long, and tiring one. It has resulted in me missing opportunities recently— both with connecting back to Canada and with connecting to people in Ghana– and for that I’m really sorry.

Anyway, all of this just to say that I’m mentally back in the blogging game, and hope to continue posting consistently from here on out.

Thanks for reading,

Erin

Twofold

Friday July 2nd 2010

This post will be broken into two segments– the first for the two questions of the week, and the second for a photo-guided update of a few fun things that have taken place recently.

Questions of the Week

Q: What do you look forward to when you wake up?

A: I look forward to the fact that I’m working off of a clean slate, that I can anticipate new interactions with people to learn from, and that, as long as I keep an open mind, I’m unbound by yesterday’s challenges and frustrations. I also look forward to the small pleasures each day undoubtedly brings, like trying new food from interesting street vendors, shaking hands with colleagues that I trust and admire, and meeting new and exciting value chain actors through work. But really, I think most of all I look forward to the moments, the people, and the stories that occupy the unpredictable space in between what I woke up expecting to see and do, and what I realize I’ve actually experienced at the end of the day.

Q: What’s your favourite food in Ghana?

Ghana has lots of interesting foods (see Amir’s recent post for details), but I think my favourite so far has been a dish called Red-Red. Red-Red is composed of two things: kidney beans in a palm oil and pepe sauce plus a side of delicious fried plantain. Sadly I haven’t been able to find it consistently in Hohoe, so it’s a rare treat when I travel to a larger city and can order it. Most days when I’m cooking my own dinner I eat beans and gari (shredded, roasted cassava) with an onion, pepe, and tomato stew.

Small Small Update from Ghana

Last Wednesday, Trevor, the JF program manager, came to visit me in Hohoe. We had a spectacular time exploring the Wli Waterfalls outside of Hohoe, and climbing Akpafu Mountain. Besides acting like a tourist for essentially the first time since I’ve arrived, I also had a chance to share what I’m currently learning, some of my challenges, and receive new ideas for moving forward. Great time overall.

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We travelled down to Accra on Friday to watch the Ghana vs. Uruguay game with my coach Colleen and a few other EWBers. Accra was absolutely wild with excitement and nervous energy leading up to the game, which was pretty neat to experience. We watched it on a big screen in Osu, in a crowd of about 500 people, decked out head to toe (literally.. there was face paint!) in Ghanaian gear. Despite the games heartbreaking outcome, it was really fun to enjoy the festivities and to soak up the atmosphere in Accra.

This coming Tuesday I’ll head up to Tamale for the JF mid-placement retreat at Mole National Park. I’m super pumped to reconnect with the other JFs, and to spend time diving into how I can make the second half of my placement even more impact-filled than the first. I likely won’t be updating until the retreat is over, but guaranteed I’ll have tons of new pictures and stories to share once I return.

Remember that I’m looking for you to send questions for me to answer next week, so please feel free to do so!

Thanks for reading,

Erin