I've Ghana to Ghana

I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in the Natural Resource Management sector. These are notes and pictures of my life at site. Zaare! (welcome in Fra-Fra) var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-29897094-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[iveghanatoghana]

Planting a mango tree, war dance, colors on the veranda, constructing a tree nursery, bed during hot season, former science students.

[iveghanatoghana]

"Look at your skin! It is so white!"

Going to America was by far the best vacation I have ever had.  Friends and family, hot showers, clean streets, great food and wine… you get the picture.  AND THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT MADE IT, like I said, THE BEST TRIP EVER!! 

After over one and a half years of living in Ghana, a month in the good life is something I could only dream about until I stepped foot on that plane.  America is truly as great as all of the Ghanaians think it is.  I’d beg someone to take me there too.  My impressions when I first got there were of how orderly everyone is and how healthy everyone looks.  Everyone was moving at a pace, I knew what was going on and what I was expected to do.  I just got to blend in.  My trip was relaxing and entertaining and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it.  Things were different, life had indeed moved on while I was here, but thankfully not in the dramatic way I thought it would.  A lot of things were still the same, my friends and family still loving and supportive, so it was surprisingly easy to fit back in.  The only thing that was really overwhelming were the amount of choices I had for everything.  What to do, what to watch, what to buy, which brand of this and that, what to eat, what to wear, what shoes to wear!  It felt like I had to make a million decisions by ten o’clock every morning.  I know I’ll get used to it when I’m there for longer, but I’m glad that’s over for a while.  Other than that, I thought I would be overwhelmed and angry at everyone for the lifestyles lived there.  You know—the consumerism.  But it was the opposite.  I was thankful for it.  Thankful that Americans have such a drive to get something better for themselves.  After being here, I’ve seen what a negative effect the absence of that has on a society.  We are constantly trying to encourage that here and it’s beyond difficult.  So thank you advertisements, Target, and the Jones’s for making us strive for more.   

Getting back to Ghana has been interesting.  I’ve dived right back into a few projects that are cumbersome and really putting the typical difficulties of working with Ghanaians at the forefront.  I’ve constantly had to talk about grant money with them, and have been spending a lot of time planning activities with Ghanaian men.  The patience it requires is taxing.  The first few days were drainingly jet lagged, seriously I didn’t sleep at night at all, and then would try to sleep all day.  I think it took me a week to get back to a normal schedule, 45+ hours of travel will apparently do that to you.  Turkey was amazing by the way!  I’ll post a few pictures soon.

After coming from America, and getting back to Ghana, I was able to reevaluate my first impressions of it without the taint of worry that I will be calling this place my home for the next two years.  I know how to live here now, so I don’t have to worry about it.  That doesn’t mean my impression changed to think of being here as a vacation by any means.  When I arrived back at my site, I couldn’t help but compare it to America.  Everything here is dead or dying.  It’s dry.  The trees are still here, but they’re a muted green color from the dust.  This is exaggerated by the fact that I left my site just before harvest time, when every farm is at its best, and have returned when harmattan is in full swing, a season created by winds blowing dust from the Sahara desert and plenty of crop burning so they’ve turned to dirt with some few remains of the stalks that once towered out of them.  There is now plastic trash covering all of the fields.  And the animals are starting to fall into their emaciated, dry season look.  America has better looking vehicles in a junk yard.  The children still walk around with tattered clothes and missing shoes.  And I’ve had two people tell me that people have been dying like fowls.  It’s unfair, but it’s life.

Despite that, I’m happy to be back.  Seeing everyone again has been wonderful.  They’ve been so happy to see me and welcoming.  I think they missed me.  Everyone is asking me how America was, and how my family is doing.  Then they proclaim how good America was to me, “Look at your skin!  It is so white!”  My transformation from tan and dirty to pale and white is astonishing to them.  To put this into context, I’ve been asked a few times by Ghanaians asking me to take them to America if they would start to look like me once they got there.  “My skin and hair will change right?”… uhh, no.  And on the other end, I’m always hearing how black I will be after staying here for two years.  Creative… but again, no.  Because my skin appears to have changed, I have lost all credibility.

[iveghanatoghana]

Pictures from the Food Security Youth Camp!

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Upper East Region Food Security Youth Camp!

On October 19th, volunteers from the Upper East region brought students together to have the first-ever food security youth camp.  The camp was by and large a huge success!  We held it at the new Ghana Institute of Organic Farming at my site in Sirigu.  To kick-off the camp, we started with an introduction session to food security, a term almost all of the students weren’t familiar with, despite living in a region where 15% of the region does not have food security.  Also on the first day, I led a session to introduce 4-h.  4-h clubs in the states are youth clubs that allow students to “learn by doing”.  They were initially established as a way to teach youth to learn and experience new technology, basically to demonstrate the advantages of innovation.  The students chosen to attend the camp are ones that have demonstrated leadership abilities, and the hope is that by attending this camp, they can use the information to start clubs, similar to 4-H, to work on projects that can eventually increase food security in the region.  To make the definition of food security really stick, the students were split into three groups (food availability, food access, and food utilization) and were asked to apply what they learned throughout the camp to their group’s pillar of food security.

We covered topics to teach students how to improve upon each area of food security.  For food access (people have food access when they have the purchasing power to buy the food they need), we did a practical session on building chicken coops, had a discussion with a resource person on animal rearing, and had a practical on soap making.  All ways that farmers can increase incomes.  For food utilization, Stephanie Carey held an interactive session on nutrition and I brought them to a tree nursery where we are growing and transplanting moringa and many other trees.  And for food access, one of the most challenging areas to improve in the region, Dawn Rostad led a session on sustainable agriculture, my counterpart, Peter, led a session on organic farming where we visited an organic farming plot, and Jennifer Bryant, our resident garden expert, led a practical session where we established a school garden. 

To supplement the core practical and discussion sessions, PCVs from the Upper East region led lecture sessions also relating to these topics.  The days were full of substantive learning, and we held sessions on these topics: activities clubs can do, holding a meeting, resources needed to start a school garden, animal rearing, beekeeping, animal housing, climate change and desertification, climate adaptation, and a few health-related lessons on neem cream, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. 

On the last day of the camp, we invited the farmers from farming groups I work with to come and hear what the students have been learning.  Each group, (food utilization, food access, and food availability) taught the farmers what they had learned throughout the week.  It was well received by the farmers.  The students know what resources and knowledge these farmers are working with much better than we do as volunteers.  They listened with open ears, made sure that each student had a chance to talk, and asked great and relevant questions.  It was a wonderful thing to watch and be a part of.  The community really came together to make it what it was- a huge success!

[iveghanatoghana]

Lesson Learned- Illiterate farmers don't get clip art and it takes more than a 'for sale' sign to sell trees.

The rains have arrived and the seedlings are ready to go! To get the farmer groups on board with this, my counterpart and I held an agroforestry workshop that included a lecture, practical, and a little tour around the nursery. The pictures in my last post are from the workshop.  The attendance was a bit low on account of the rain, but for the 20+ farmers that came, I think most of them understood the importance of planting trees. I even got to talk to them about climate change and desertification. Showing the pictures opened up some discussions between the farmers.  They talked about how the trees were planted in rows, how terrible it would be to not have trees, and my favorite- the most simplistically drawn picture in the powerpoint of a fire burning with firewood had them discussing what it could be for a good five minutes.  Lesson learned:  Illiterate farmers are unfamiliar with clip art.

Doing the workshop in the classroom, a setting where some of them have never been before, might have been a bit counterproductive and distracting, but they seemed to be taking the training more seriously. I had brought up agroforestry before during meetings, and they just sort of nodded along. "Yes, we know the importance of trees and that they are good for the land. Yes, we want to plant trees. Yes, we will come to the nursery and buy them." But that wasn't happening. We were at the nursery every day and no one was coming to buy them.  So does no one want trees?  It turns out they do!  For the farmers, this workshop was their excuse to come. A few farmers from each group came to the workshop, so at the next meeting I had with them on whatever other topic (savings group or soap making), I followed up with those farmers and had them tell the group what they learned and what they saw; this was with mixed success.  The more important thing is that their trees are planted and growing.  And we are moving even more trees by the schools buying them, and my supervisor is having the farmers plant them around the school.

[iveghanatoghana]

[iveghanatoghana]

In the words of my Ghanaian friends, "We pray for peace."  The vice president, John Mohama, was sworn in the same day, a testament to Ghana's stable democracy.  I was lucky enough to see the president shortly after I arrived in Ghana, he invited the new group of Peace Corps volunteers for Peace Corps' 50th anniversary in Ghana.

[iveghanatoghana]

Toms Sighting!

I've seen my fair share of failed aids projects.  Broken, stolen, and useless...  Apparently it takes a hot guy with some hipster shoes to get the job done.  I've been seeing kids in toms shoes around my village this past week.  They were distributed by AfriKids (unfortunately Tom himself was not present that I'm aware of), and they will be used and worn for years to come.

[iveghanatoghana]

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Science Club and GYD Committee Take Steps Toward Improving Waste Management at School!

The science club at St. Joseph’s Junior High School in Sirigu is a very active club with about 50 members in forms one, two and three.  They have weekly meetings and executive members that speak at the meetings.  The teacher that organizes the club, Wellington, is highly motivated and does well with the kids.  So far, they have completed a tree planting project at the school, organized excursions to science-related locations in the region, and led a street cleanup in the community.  At the science club’s first meeting of the year, I visited the club and was asked to give a talk about the environment.  The students and I discussed environmental solutions (this was after a talk on environmental problems given by the organizing teacher), and the students were incredibly concerned with the lack of local solutions to waste management.  I posed the question to the club, “What is a locally available solution to the lack of waste management?”  They came up with the project idea of an incinerator.

Typically, trash is burned in piles with a child, or student, watching over it.  During the week, trash is just kept in piles around the compound and market, which leads to it being picked through by animals for food, children for “toys”, and blown away by the wind.  Ghanaians know that it is important to keep the environment clean, especially to reduce breeding places and shelter for mosquitoes, but they don’t have the resources to do so.

    With the help of the GYD Committee’s Small Grant Fund, the students and I built a demonstration incinerator at the school site.  They have been using it to store rubbish during the week, and on Friday, instead of burning it in an open pile, they use the incinerator (basically a small burn-barrel).  After the first couple of uses, I asked the students if there were any problems and to tell me what they thought about it.  They like it a lot, but there was too much smoke coming from the barrel when they burn the trash.  This meant that there wasn’t enough oxygen getting to the fire that should be consuming the waste, so we added more air-intake holes at the bottom and left the lid up while burning the trash.  Problem identified and solved!  The school looks better, and the students and I are applying for funds to expand the project to the community because they think it will be a good solution to the village’s waste management challenges.  Thanks GYD!

[iveghanatoghana]

Neem cream demonstrations!!  I've done five trainings so far at the baby weighings held monthly in different areas of Sirigu.  So far, over 150 women have learned how to make it and took some home with them from the demonstration.

[iveghanatoghana]

HIV/AIDS Workshop

What do you get when you set up a projector, speakers blasting Akon, and have a few games and boxes of condoms lined up on the agenda?  An HIV/AIDS Education workshop at a secondary school!  Last weekend, on Saturday, July 14th, we held an HIV/AIDS Education workshop at Sirigu Secondary School in the Upper East Region of Ghana.  Two students and I planned and led the event, with the input at some important times by the future patron of the HIV/AIDS Club, Wilfred.  The two students, Samuel and Zinatu, represented their school at the Peace Corps STARS conference held this year in Kumasi earlier this year.  They came back from the conference with an overwhelming amount of motivation to bring all of their new knowledge back to their school, so as soon as we arrived back from the conference, we started planning how we would do that.  We decided to form a club on campus and kick-off the club by holding an event on campus. 

The day started with the usual technical and latecomer difficulties, but by the time it started, over 60 students were there and more were coming in.  We followed an agenda that we wrote the week before and presented what had been prepared accordingly.  The main activities were picture-heavy presentations on the basic facts of HIV/AIDS and signs and symptoms of STIs, a quiz of questions and answers (that led to a set of much more interesting questions and answers from the students), a condom demonstration using a wooden penis, an participatory activity to highlight the negative effects of stigmatization, and the day was interspersed with games and activities.  And as any HIV/AIDS related event put on by a Peace Corps volunteer, there was a mad rush for condoms at the end.  There were many insightful questions and it was easy to tell how open the environment had become.  Hopefully we can recreate this when we have the first meetings with the club at the beginning of the next term.

[iveghanatoghana]

Some of the students in a group picture after playing a risk game.

[iveghanatoghana]

Neem Cream and a Burial

Yesterday was probably one of the best days I've had in Ghana.  The morning started with a baby weighing, so I hung out with babies (0-3yrs) and their mothers, and all of the primary school students since the weighing was just outside of the school.  I have been wanting to do something malaria-related with the clinic for a few months, but time and time again, it never ended up working out.  But yesterday was different!  It was even supposed to start the day before, but the orphanage wasn't ready with firewood, so they asked me to come back next week.  No problem.  I trained the women now to make neem cream and talked about the importance of using bed nets.  Neem cream is a mosquito repellant made with organic, locally available material.  It's really easy to make, and cheap.  You only need neem leaves (a tree found everywhere), shea butter, and key soap (sold in the market).  If you're interested, the directions are on the shea page of the Peace Corps Ghana Wiki.  Basically you just boil the leaves, then mix it with the melted soap and shea butter.  Let it sit for a while, and you've got neem cream!  Compared to soap making, it's a breeze.  The clinic, through their community volunteers, was able to tell the women to bring a small container so that they could take some neem cream home with them.  There were over 30 women there, and hopefully some of them use the neem cream on themselves and their children to fight malaria!

On to the rest of my day- I then headed to the secondary school to ask the headmaster if any teachers had volunteered to be the patron of a new HIV/AIDS club I am helping the school form.  A teacher had in fact volunteered, and he seems pretty motivated, so I think the club will go even better than I thought it would!  I took two students to STARS, a week-long leadership camp held by Peace Corps Volunteers at one of the universities in Kumasi (second largest city in Ghana).  The students came away from the conference armed with a toolkit and new experience to do educational activities about HIV and AIDS, so this Saturday, we will be holding a workshop at the SS, and we confirmed it with the headmaster yesterday.  It's even been rewarding to plan with the students, so I have high hopes for the workshop. 

In the afternoon, as I was working on the budget of a grant application, absorbed in excel like a would-be day in the states, I looked out my window to see what looked like a war dance.  I never really know what they are for (I've heard a few different things, one of them being an anniversary of a funeral).  I mentally flipped back to being in Ghana, and walked outside to see what was going on.  Turns out it was a burial.  The father of a boy living in my compound died a few days ago, and they were bringing the body to the family's house.  How did he die?  From disease.  This is the only thing anyone ever says, "he fell sick some few days ago, and they were taking him to the hospital, and he died".  The family is traditionalist, so that meant the burial didn't involve a casket.  What I thought was a war dance was the processional with the body wrapped in cloth and a straw mat.  One of the girls at the school I was teaching at explained what was going on as the funeral progressed.  The body was carried by shirtless men into the family's compound surrounded by a group of drummers and dancers.  A second mat followed carrying the bones of his children that he had outlived.  It's tradition to do this.  The children went into the compound and I went inside to see the drumming and dancing a bit.  One of the girls ran in and told me to go outside of the compound because they were taking the body out to bury it.  They were running and the adults were chasing them away.  Why?  Because they believe that if the mat that the body is in touches their head, they will go mad.  The body was carried outside and to the back of the house where the grave had been dug, the same spot where generations and generations have been buried.  Only the men are allowed near the grave, the women stay near the compound and sing and dance and play some locally made instruments (mostly plastic containers with rocks in them).  At all of the traditional activities, they've been marked with the blast of a gun.  And accordingly, the brother of the man that died was walking around the compound with a gun that looked like it had been left here by the British, but the atmosphere was anything but tense. 

It was comforting that I knew so many people there, and that they knew me.  There were men and women from the farming groups, women from the market, men from the school, women from the shea group, kids from everywhere... people I now consider my friends.  They were all bearing their culture at its best.  I guess this is what being a year into service really means. 

[iveghanatoghana]

"She wants you to buy her tree..."

So I thought the first tree sales would be by the staff at the nursery, but I was somehow wrong. The other day, I was sitting with the women under the shade of the tree nursery.  We had finished weeding the bags of trees and the watering had been taken care of.  Lamissi and I had counted the seeds that had germinated.  The neighbors in the compound near the nursery will visit every so often.  Occasionally I've bought some seeds the children in the house had collected.  And as we're sitting there this one day, instead of the children trying to sell us seeds as they usually do, one of the younger ones came with a tree!  She leaned against the fence, tree in a bag in her right hand, gripping the fence in the other.  On a school day, but not in school.  She doesn't speak any english, only local fra-fra, so Lamissi told me, "she wants you to buy her tree".  This tree- one she had nursed all by herself.  She had taken the initiative, taken a bag from the nursery, collected a seed, and nursed it.  This is a hard thing to get people to do.  But she did it, and that is, to some small extent, promising.  And then she tried to sell it to me for 4 cedi.  A business woman!  "She wants 4 cedi for the tree because she has been taking care of it".  An appropriate price, probably a little higher with the foreigner-premium, but it wasn't lower than a price that reflected the work she might have put into it (watering it).  However, I was sitting directly in front of about four hundred mango trees that are all bigger than the one she was trying to sell me...  So I told her to plant it, and that she should eventually sell the mangoes from the tree.  That sun-absorbing mango tree.  She agreed and slowly walked back to her house.  Thinking about this a week later, and after my supervisor told me that the family is suffering from a lack of food, the mother is blind and the father is old.  I regret not immediately buying the tree.  But next week, at site, I'll check on the status of that sun-absorbing tree and see if I can buy it so that her family can have a little cash, or if she did decide to plant it, so that her children can have a little cash.

[iveghanatoghana]

Celebrating my one year mark with a picture of a project that's come a long way!  I've been working on this with two women from the NGO and some of the trees will be planted soon. 

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After a soap making training with Nyagolingo.  We shared the soap among the members after the training, and next time we do the training again the members will sell the soap and collect the money.