Rural Realities I: Bits and Pieces

Just a shout out to everyone who commented on my last blog post. You really got my juices flowing again, either with encouragement or with extremely valid questions. So thank you! Sorry I don’t have the ability to reply to you all, but just know that I’m pumped with energy again, ready to make things happen, and much of that is credit to all of you!

I strip down, behind a mud wall that is a bathing shelter. The cool breeze of the evening feels good on my skin after a day of sweating profusely in 35 degree heat. I kneel down to the half-filled bucket of cool borehole water, take some in my cupped hands, and splash it on myself. My head, my face, then my body. I stand up to grab soap, and in the process look up at the night sky, where every star in the universe is emerging in the darkness, dominated by the powerful shine of the full moon. It’s comfortably cool, but the wind on my wet skin causes it to erupt in goosebumps anyway. I quickly lather myself down in soap, splash water all over to get (most of) the suds off, and (kind-of) dry myself off with the 2 yards of cloth that acts as a towel.

That, my friends, is the bucket-shower experience. It’s amazing how EFFICIENT it is. I didn’t even use the entire half-bucket of water! How much water do we use to shower in Canada?

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The mosquito net prevents a lot more than mosquitos! I’m just gonna leave it at that. Many people in the village sleep on reed or woven mats; I have opted to choose something a little more comfortable, and sleep on four pieces of foam arranged in a strip

The mud-and-cement hut I live in.

I’m living with a family of 6. My host father, Elijah, is a farmer in his late-thirties (I’m guessing). I think he looks older than he is, though. His wife’s name is Dana, and they have four kids (three girls and a baby boy). The oldest is a 14 year old daughter, who is in school and thus speaks English. The youngest is just 6 months old, and amazingly cute.

I’m staying in a village called Boagbaln. It’s about 1.5 km from Saboba town, so just over 2 km from where I work. This gives me the opportunity to really get a feel for rural life while experiencing the town as well. Engineers Without Borders volunteers are encouraged to integrate into the communities as much as possible, to really get down to the nitty-gritty of life in villages. I’ve chosen to spend most, if not all of my time here living in this community, and trying as much as possible to live like people here do. I bike to work every morning.

The family compound. That's my host father, Elijah, standing in the center. Unfortunately he turned away from the camera, but more photos will come!

“I’m making a yam farm this year,” Elijah says, “It’s in Togo.” The Ghana-Togo border – marked by River Oti – is just a 30-or-so minute walk away from Boagbaln. I go to the border and back for my morning run everyday (people find this running thing hilarious, by the way).

Other than yam, Elijah grows 1 acre of groundnut and 2 acres of something that I’ve never heard of.

The entire family has been absolutely amazing to me, and we’ve become close despite the thick language barrier. They are doing so much for me despite my insistence otherwise, that I don’t even know how to repay them. That’s a longer story for another blog post, though.

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A Borehole. This is not the regular model, but you get the idea. The large lever has to be pumped up and down, and ground water comes out from the tap.

I joined my friend Phillip in fetching water yesterday. This was the second time I’ve been to the borehole. I’m lucky that the village I’m living with has a borehole, and even luckier that the compound I’m in is just a 10 minute walk from it. A borehole is a narrow shaft drilled fairly deep into the ground. A hand pump is mounted on the top so groundwater can be pumped up for use. I’m not sure if there is a filter in the pump (I hazard a guess there is), but the water comes out remarkably clear. I have been drinking it for nearly a week, and so far so good!

When we got to the borehole, women were pumping the water vigorously, with full-body motion as it gushed out of the pipe. I pumped some as well, attracting amazing amounts of laughter from everyone around.

In the morning, and really throughout the day, women are carrying unimaginable amounts of water on their heads from the borehole (and some, unsafely, from the river) to their homes. Some walk for 100 m, some for 10 km. It really depends. A large amount of time and energy is spent fetching water each day.

Road heading to town. I took this while on my bike, to sneakily capture the women carrying water. I did not want to appear tourist-y!

Just to give you an idea.. a water canister that women and children carry on their heads holds about 12 L of water (6-8 year olds are commonly doing this). That is 12 kg of weight! I can’t even carry it in my arms for long!

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RANDOM DISCOVERY: Did you know how ugly sheep sound? It’s not the cute “mehh” in cartoons; really, it’s an obnoxious “BAAHHRRR”. I nearly choked on the water I was drinking when I first heard one, because it’s such a hilariously ugly sound!
Sheep, goats, some cows, roosters, roosters, chickens, fowls, and roosters. They are everywhere. Roaming on the roads (which are really dirt paths), roaming in out of the compound at home, sneaking into the food-stores mud-hut to be chased out by 3-5 yr old children with sticks.

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That’s it for now; there is WAAYYY too much to talk about in terms of rural living, so stay tuned for more! Hope you enjoy the pictures. I know they’ve been long overdue.

Saboba 1

Saboba 2

Saboba 3

Thats my village in the distance. This road leads to River Oti, and then to Togo.

Echoes and Dust

Silence. Inactivity surrounds me, as I sit in the office today. I am the (almost) lone person here. Occasionally, someone will rustle in an out of the complex. A child’s squeaking-toy faintly echoes in the distance. It’s a civic holiday in Ghana, and everyone is off work.

Why am I sitting here, then, in the planning office of the Saboba district assembly? Well, the truth is, a throbbing guilt has been taunting me over the past few days. Guilt. I’m here in Ghana, after pouring everything I had into preparing for this placement for the past 7 months. I knew this was what I was meant to do. I felt it. I believed I could create change. I was ready for the challenges. Well, here they are.

Now, suddenly, everything has become hazy, unclear. I’m working at a snails pace. No one in this office seems to have the drive, the motivation, the leadership initiative to push this project to the forefront. Don’t get me wrong, they’re really supportive and want this to happen, but they’re submissive to everything and happy with the way things are. They don’t feel the need and urgency for this to happen. But the people in the communities, the ones that are in villages up to 50 km away, they feel the need. They feel the urgency. And that is why I feel it too.

I feel like I’m doing a terrible job right now. I feel guilty that I’m slow. I feel guilty for the fact that I’m a burden on the farming family I’m living with. I feel guilty that I miss home sometimes. I’m searching in myself, pushing to rekindle the fire that has accelerated me from Toronto to Ghana. But the firewood in Ghana is wet, and lighting it takes a lot more energy. The demotivated nature of the office is infectious, and that fire is a much-needed vaccine.

Sometimes I think about the task ahead of me and it seems easy. But when I get to work, roadblocks galore slam into my legs when I try moving forward. I don’t want to fall into the trap of creating a development plan with the district that will be just another document on the shelf. This is what normally happens. Not this time. This time, even if it’s incremental change, I want it to be different. I swear that I will keep in touch and follow through with this district even after I’m back in Canada, if that’s what it’ll take for them to improve.

There is potential here… there is amazing potential for four years of a district’s development. There is potential for water coverage in Saboba to improve. There is potential for health services to be delivered to critical areas. There is potential for gender disparity in education to decrease. There is potential for a brighter future in Saboba.

But I feel empty. I’m powering my internal spark-plug but the fuel just won’t ignite. I want to punch the wall right now. Dammit, on paper this change seems so easy… So obvious… So doable! But down here, it seems insurmountable. But that is why I’m here. And I’d better get my shit together and figure this out, because there is no way I’m backing down. Not now. Not after all this. I’m feeling the pressure, I’m feeling the weight. So much has been invested in me: financially, socially, personally… and I feel that I’m the only one that has benefited. I feel guilty for that too. I’m not in this for me, or at least not primarily for me. I’m in this for the people living in poverty. Right now, though, it doesn’t feel that way. And it bothers me.

Sorry for the rambling, sorry for the negativity. I know things will change, that I won’t be like this (feeling down) for long. But I promised you all that I’d be honest through this blog, and I meant it. Watch out for a post soon on rural life in Saboba.

Nuts and Bolts: Governance in Ghana

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I thought it was important. They won’t be this long again I promise!

This is a complete LOW-DOWN on the work I’m doing. I really wanted to communicate it to all of you in some detail, because I know you’re curious. That said, if something is unclear let me know! I’ve tried to be detailed enough to paint a good picture, without going overboard.

I mentioned before that over the last couple of decades the government in Ghana has been in the process of decentralization. This means that decisions should theoretically be taken at the district and community level, where problems are known best. These could be water supply issues, schools and teachers, agricultural services for farmers, medical services (doctors, hospitals), among others. Below is the government of Ghana in theory:

At all levels, the decentralized departments (food, health... there are 11 major ones in total) should be working together. Services and infrastructure should be planned and implemented at the district level, monitored by the regional level, and overseen by the national level.

In reality, though, the system is broken; shot to pieces. Donors (World Vision, UNICEF, CIDA, World Bank, and hundreds of others) fund projects with a preset purpose in mind. This undermines the government system that is supposed to identify what the people NEED and implement projects accordingly. The picture really looks like this:

There is a lot of influence (donors, politics) that skew the power. The departments don't communicate with eachother, and report to their national level counterparts directly. There is no procedure or system in place to say otherwise.

Also, the way the government functions is really reactive. The national government says: “do a survey!” and a survey is done, data is collected. The government says: “make a plan!” and a plan is made. The government says: “report on projects!” and projects are implemented and reported on. But the link between these activities does not exist. Data is not used to plan. Plans are not used to implement projects. And the projects are not used to collect data and see what has changed as a result.

There is a HUGE push right now from both the Ghanaian government and a Danish development project to fix this system. It involves pooling all the money Ghana is getting from donors, and using that to provide the districts with grants. The grants are awarded based on the districts’ leadership, planning, and data management systems, among other factors evaluated in assessments called the FOAT (Functional Organization Assessment Tool). This grant creates incentive for the district to do well. Eventually, as districts improve their process, the plan is to (over the next decade) make FOAT based on changes in the actual indicators of district development (illness rate, water access, test scores, school enrollment). The hope is that as their communication, planning, and data processes improve, we will start seeing improvement in the quality of life in impoverished communities.

MY JOB:

This gets a little complicated. I am part of a team of 9 Engineers Without Borders volunteers in the Northern Region. 6 of us are short-term, like me, and are embedded at the district level of government in 6 different districts (out of a total of 20 in the region). Out of the 3 long-term volunteers, 1 is working with a huge development initiative that spans the whole region; 1 is embedded at the regional level of government; 1 is working to engage stakeholders, and funnel all the knowledge and lessons from our work to donors, government agencies, and the Danish development initiative I mentioned.

The 6 of us embedded in districts are trying to develop and implement 3 different systems; the regional government will then potentially use these systems for all 20 districts in the region. The systems are:

1. An database that tracks the key issues in across all the communities in the district, and across all the departments (health, water/sanitation, roads, education, agriculture)
2. A process for using this data (making it visual, developing easy ways to see which communities are priorities for certain resources such as water) to inform the planning process.
3. A monitoring system: a database for information relating to projects in the district, and process for interfacing with the regional level who will monitor plans and projects. There is already a database in place at the regional level, as a result of this Danish initiative.

For these systems to work, they must be developed with the district, for the district. I can’t just draw up a plan and implement it. I have to work with everyone: the planning officer, people from every decentralized department, the engineering department, data people, etc.

Right now, there are broken links in the planning process for infrastructure and services. My job is to attempt to strengthen the links.

Key challenges:

• In Ghana, things move sssllloooowwww. People don’t appreciate directness like in Canada, but take it easy. ALL THE TIME. It gets frustrating, but it’s not something I can change. It’s cultural, and something that I have to adapt to and work with. In a way it’s nice, but the fact that I’m only here for three more months is constantly on my mind; there is SO much to do, my brain is going at light speed all the time but I’m paralyzed by the system. All the knowledge I’m accumulating from all over the place feeds into other interactions, and leads to connections with people and future possibilities; but there isn’t enough time!
• Authority is ridiculous. No one will do anything without the director’s permission. I mean anything. Initiative is culturally not appreciated. Again, frustrating as hell. I’ve been (slowly) trying to push people to take action, and constantly communicating with the leaders myself. It’s really difficult though, and really slow.
• The different departments (who should be working together) are up to 1 km apart in different buildings! Also, all of the workers who are supposed to work in a TEAM have separate offices with doors shut; how the hell does this make sense?!
• People are underpaid. There is no motivation to work, to do things well or to do them right.
• Computer skills are extremely poor. The communication barrier adds another level of craziness in trying to tutor someone.

Here is what I’m trying to do right now:

• Pushing the creation of a Medium-Term (4 year) Development Plan for Saboba district. The district does not even have a planning officer (yeah, crazy, I know) so they are behind schedule. The good thing is that the previous volunteer at this district really worked hard to ensure issues were identified based on data. I’m working with an awesomely determined (but unfortunately by-the-book) man named Thomas to improve his computer skills through writing the plan.
• Making connections with people in the different departments, and will hopefully work with them to identify issues for their sections in the database. I am also going to try and bring them together for anything from computer training, lunch, or a meeting in hopes of opening up communication channels.
• Working with both Thomas and a sharp woman named Patience to develop the database. This way, they can improve their excel skills while actually applying them to something practical. The first challenge is getting Patience assigned to work with me! (she’s been assigned to another department, and management has to deal with it)
• Working with the Engineering department to develop the monitoring system, while developing their excel skills. I haven’t given much thought to this yet, but it’s only my 4th day at the office.
• Going to project sites (I went to 2 yesterday) to ask questions, and understand the process for project implementation and monitoring that is used at the district.

My hopes are that through a parallel efforts of creating the databases, using them while writing the plan, and connecting key people from different departments to each other, information flow will become better, and the planning process will improve.

New Realities

Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana
May 16^th. 2:00 pm.
~35 degrees Celsius (I had to throw this in)

“Salaminga! How are you!?”*
“Hellooo!! How is it?!”
Cars honking. Kids screaming. People haggling. People talking enthusiastically, loudly.

The smell of food. The smell of sweat. The smell of dirt. The smell of sewage.

Fields close to the EWB house in Tamale. Note the mud huts and compounds in the distance; this is where people usually live.

The heat. The afternoon sun beating down on you just intensifies the always-present, intrinsic heat. Your skin never dries. You drink up to 5 L of water a day, and it gushes out through every pore in your body, failing to keep you cool. You bathe only to get the dirt off; don’t bother with the sweat.

Children are everywhere. Kids playing on the streets. Kids helping their mothers sell goods from roadside stalls. 1-to-2-year olds chilling responsibly next to the open sewer, wearing clothes many sizes too big for them, while their parents work.

Foods of every kind, slippers, sandals, phone credit, technology, cloth, clothes, toiletries, water, pop (or “minerals,” as they say here in Ghana)… Everything under the sun is available, well, under the sun. By the roadside, or in the open market.

The market… that is just something else. It’s roadside stalls, hundreds of them, packed so close together that there are places that are completely covered. Men are chopping meat at every corner, there are tailors by the dozen, and you have to swim your way through people; there are more people in the narrow spaces between the stalls than you’d think physically possible.

There is one thing you see everywhere, though: smiles. People are always laughing, always greeting, always friendly. It takes double the time to get anywhere walking, because of the random conversations you have on the way. Through the crazy climate, through the unreliable water and electricity, through the gaps between peoples’ wealth, through the images of poverty… the smiles shine through like a beam of energy, a power that radiates through not only Tamale, but Ghana.

It’s a stark contrast to Toronto, where people don’t even say “hi” when getting into a cab or ordering at a café. We may have all the wealth, the cleanliness, the services… but our social capital in Canada leaves a lot to be desired.

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A major street in Tamale. Not only are their no lanes on the road, but really there is no differentiation between where cars, bikes, motos (motorbikes), pedestrians, or vendors should be.

I’ve spent the last six days in Tamale, the main “metropolis” or big city in the Northern Region of Ghana. We (the 16 volunteers who’ll be in Ghana) landed in Accra last Sunday night, got a bit of sleep, headed to the bus station at 6 am and took a 12-hr bus ride to Tamale. One of the volunteers is working in the southern part of the country, so she stayed behind with a long-term EWB volunteer in Accra.

Check out this earlier post for background and a map: Destination: Saboba, Northern Region, Ghana

Over the last six days, the 15 of us have spent time:

• Getting acclimatized
• Making sure we have everything we need (money!) before heading to our districts, which will be much more rural.
• Understanding the culture a little, language a little.
• Started work: not at the office, but worked with the long-term EWB volunteers on what we’ll be doing for the next four months.
• 1 person got malaria, 7 have gotten sick. I’m doing good for now… Don’t worry, though, it’s common and all part of the experience!

The governance team (6 short-terms including me, and 3 long-terms) is going to be in a meeting tomorrow with all the District Directors and Planners from all the government offices we’ll be working in. By tomorrow evening, if all goes well, I’ll be in Saboba and ready to start work on Tuesday.

I want to write about all the actual “work” stuff, but that’ll make this an enormously long post… so stay tuned for the goodies on governance in Ghana coming up in the next post. In the meanwhile (through commenting) please let me know what you’d like me to write more about! It could be anything from details on the things listed above, to food, to culture, to language (Ghanaian-English is amazing, by the way). Holler back!

*“Salaminga” roughly means “traveler,” and is associated with a “white person” in Degbani (the major language in Tamale).

Question of the Week (May 16th)

My latest post gives a taste of a major town in Northern Ghana (Tamale)… but does not by any means give a complete picture of life in a “third-world” country.

What images, feelings, and thoughts come to your mind when you think of a developing country? Where do these ideas come from? (experience? media? news? anything else?) Feel free to be specific in your answers!