A few months ago.
Toronto, ON.
“8:45 am! SHIT!” For the umpteenth day in a row I was going to miss class. “No, not this time!” rang through my mind as I slapped the snooze button one last time on my alarm that morning, jumped out of bed, and bolted to the washroom to get ready. I sprung on the tap, washed my hands and face, brushed my teeth, and got back to my room to quickly get changed. Grabbing my backpack and locking my room door, I ran down to the kitchen and threw slices of English muffin in the toaster; in the meanwhile I packed the lunch I had made for myself previously, and had stored in the fridge. My muffin popped out, I threw some jam on it, wrapped it in a kitchen towel and put it in my backpack. Out the door, on my bike, ripped down to school. I walked into my Stats class by 9:10.
Present Day.
Saboba, Ghana.
“Cuckkoo! Cuckkoo!” “Qaaannkk!! Qaaannkk!” Roosters. Crows. Laughter from the women working early in the morning. My consciousness surfaces from a light sleep. I bring my watch up to my eyes and hold down the “light” button to be informed it’s 5:15 am. My alarm, set for 5:30, has not gone off yet; I sigh. I’m drenched in sweat. My t-shirt, without which I would be devoured by insects, is soaked through in most places and sticks to my skin as I peel myself off my bed sheet. I duck out of my mosquito net, put on shorts, and walk out of my mud hut.
Everyone else in my host family is already awake. It’s market day today, and my host-mother Dana is sitting with a massive (about 1 m in diameter) metal bowl crushing and mixing powdered yam with maize. The family would sell the mix, fruits of their farming and labor, in the market all day. I seek out water in the basins of an adjacent mud hut, filling half a cup quickly before someone from the family troubles themselves to help me. The water has already been carried from the borehole, about a 10 minute walk away, to the compound by the women of the house before 5 am.
I grab my tooth brush, go out of the compound, and brush my teeth with the water in the cup. It’s already 5:30 am. I need to go to the toilet; I grab toilet paper from my room, and sleepily trudge my way past several compounds and through an acre of fallow farm land. There, in the middle of the field, there is a “toilet” in the form of a concrete slap on a hole, and a reed that surrounds part of it. I stomp on the block to scare away the lizards and salamanders, and settle in among the fleas to do my business.
I walk back to the house, look for soap in my room, grab some water again, and fumble clumsily to wash my hands while pouring water from the cup. 5:50. Now I go for my run; in West Africa, nature will hurt you unless you take care of your body. Guaranteed. I run to the river – the Ghana-Togo border – and back. It’s 6:20. I take a bucket shower, I won’t describe the logistical issues around getting dressed. It’s 6:40. My host mother prepares tea for everyone and eggs for me on hot coals, a process that takes a good 20-30 mins (eggs are not what the family eats for breakfast, they are not accustomed to it; they eat left overs from dinner; but as much as I’ve argued they refuse to let me do the same). It’s now 7:00. I grab my stuff, and my bike, lock my door, and set off for town on the dirt road. The bike wheels are perpetually deflated, and it’s hot so I go slow. I stop in town several times to talk to and chill with people I know, and by the time I get to work it’s just before 8.
—
The contrast is pretty crazy eh? 20 minutes in Canada to 3 hours in Ghana? Granted, I don’t run or shower in the mornings in Canada. But I don’t fetch water or cook in Ghana either. The message is, things here take time. More importantly, they take human power. Our lives in Canada, they are so mechanized. Water is at our fingertips. Our food processing (like Dana was doing) is done in big machines in factories. We have fridges and toasters and light. Here, things wear you down. Many people rest in the middle of the day: it’s simply too hot, the work is laborious, and people work hard. They still have a blast doing it, and enjoy their lives; but it’s still taxing on the body.
—
I ate at my coworker Thomas’s house the night I arrived in Saboba. Apart from his wife and three children, his late brother’s children and other members of the family live with him too.
“In Ghana,” he says, “if your family sends you to school and you start to earn, you are obliged to take care of others in the family.” He tells me how people are quite regularly in and out of his house, and in fact at any given time there are no less than 10 people living in his house. He is also sending his kids to school, and has paid for several of his brothers to go to school as well – he comes from a family of 27 children.
“Ah! You’ve done well!” I say, reeling from the thought. Even when people are successful in making some money, it’s many-a-time spread around to benefit the entire family. This is one of the many factors that contribute to the slowness of economic improvement in Ghana; wealth is diluted. It’s a good thing, it’s an admirable thing, it’s a difficult thing.
“Hmm..” Thomas continues, “education is a risky investment here. You see, even after university the jobs are simply not there for people here. A farmer won’t send his children to school, because then who will work on the farm? And what money will school bring? So sometimes a family will send one child to school, and if he does not make money it’s seen as a wasted investment.”
Thomas explains how he strongly believes rural villagers must understand the importance of education, and send their children to school. After this conversation, though, if I was a farmer struggling to make ends meet I don’t know if I would choose to send my kids to school…
