#jkstudyabroad

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Day 2 Sunday 5/15. Lay of the Land.

I woke up really late to recover from the jet lag. Skpped breakfast since we were an hour out from lunch. After congregating in the hotel lobby, we walked to the restaurant. The walk itself felt like a strange adventure as we drew a lot of attention. As it turns out it’s not every day that white foreigners come strolling through a Ghanaian neighborhood. The street we were on had plenty of friendly vendors trying to get us to buy their wares. I often had to watch my step as the gutters on either side of the road are several feet deep and contain sewage. We arrived---(the power just went out). This happens semi frequently but they only last a minute or 2. So we arrived at the restaurant where I chose to eat Lebanese food since I knew what to expect. We drank bottled water because tap water has the potential to get you sick. Otherwise the food was great. We then took a bus to tour around the city to get a lay of the land. It’s difficult to put into words how many different things I saw but they ranged from gorgeous high rises and gardens to smoking piles of trash surrounded by cattle. As with many large cityies, they range from the very poor to the very rich. Tomorrow We’re going to learn how to use the Tro Tros (which are essentially small buses) by being randomly dropped off in pairs around the city. I’m nervous....

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Day 1 Saturday, 5/14. Arrival

I spent a lot of time before arriving imagining what I would see upon my arrival in Accra, but I was never able to pin down what it would look like. I realized that I didn’t have too many expectations.

We arrived at 8 P.M. local time and they used buses to move us from the plane to the airport. After getting into the airport we went through a yellow fever screening and then customs. I definitely felt a tinge of anxiety going through both as I was somehow convince that something would go wrong and I’d be turned away. After retrieving baggage, (which took forever), we made our way into Accra which was a surreal experience. Droves of people were near the entrance next to a crowded road with lots of car horns and activity. I saw waving hands of my professor and fellow students. As I was led to the van I was having trouble taking in what I was seeing as I was trying not to run into people or cars. We loaded up into the bus and arrived at Alexander Plaza Hotel. The rooms are nicer than many hotels I’ve stayed at. I’m thankful for A/C (it’s in the upper 70s at night) as I unpack and go to sleep.

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Photovoice research

Today’s topic is something I have slightly more knowledge on than Ghana: Science! Traditional public health research often uses surveys to collect data and identify health problems (or solutions) in communities. Of course, there are many other tools that can be used, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll only discuss surveys.

Simply put, surveys consist of questions composed by the researchers. Depending on the circumstance, these surveys can be given orally, in writing, via the internet (we’ve all gotten those annoying consumer surveys from companies looking for information), etc. This is all great and it works in most cases, but they have their limitations. Since questions are created by researchers they have the potential to overlook information important to the people taking the survey, creating a bias in the research. It also gives somewhat limited information since answers are limited to a set number of choices.

“Surveys are the best!”- every media outlet, probably.

This is where Photovoice comes in. This method uses pictures instead of surveys to collect data. For example, researchers can ask participants to take pictures (or assist them in taking pictures) of problems in their community created from the disease being studied. This gives participants the power (i.e. voice) to identify problems that matter to them, instead of the research. This can lead to greater insight and a deeper understanding of the issue. The tricky part is trying to convert pictures into data that can be counted and later analyzed. To do this interviews are usually conducted later so that the participant can tell the researchers.

I had a little practice with photovoice using a Polaroid camera when I was asked, “What do you want your community to look like?” The results are below.

Everyone needs a good pub in their town

This one is what I don’t want my community to look like.

As a final note, if you have any photography tips I’m more than welcome to hear them; I’m still practicing. 

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Current Ghanaian Music

It’s Saturday so I’m going to keep this post simple. Here’s some music from Ghana I’ve been enjoying:

Gasmilla-Telemo

Gasmilla’s genre is considered hiplife which is basically a Ghanaian blend of hip hop and Ghanaian culture.

Sarkodie-Adonai

And lastly as a fun fact, Fuse ODG, an artist featured on Major Lazer’s “Light it Up” is Ghanaian, too.

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Larteh

Larteh (pronounced like latte, the coffee drink) is the town that I will be staying in for most of my visit as well as where I’ll be doing research. It’s located about 40 miles north of the capitol which according to Google takes about an 1 hour 20 minutes to get to by car.

Thanks for this lovely map Google.

The name Larteh means fire-stone or fire-gate. The town itself resides in the Akwapem Hills which is part of the Togo mountain range that extends into (surprise) neighboring Togo. The town has recently built a campus for Mountcrest University, a medical university that also has a campus in Accra. Outside of that, what I can confirm is that the town has a bar that you can walk to which is always a plus. Tomorrow I’ll talk a little bit about “Day Names.”  I’ll leave you with a view of a hills near Larteh.

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

A (very ) Brief Overview of Ghana

I’m going to start this post off with a little disclaimer: I’m far from being an expert on Ghana, but I want to give this a shot and I expect to learn way more as time goes on so we’ll be learning together here. Hopefully you’ll get a sense of the mindset I’m going through as we continue to learn, too.

Let’s start with the easy stuff.

Ghana is located in west Africa below the Sahara desert. It also borders several countries as you can see below (Togo is the unnamed country immediately to the east).

Ghana was formerly a colony of the British empire and gained its independence in 1957. It was named The Gold Coast due to its abundance of gold. Unfortunately, this enticed Europeans to take advantage of the land and its people through the slave trade.

The country is about the size of Oregon and is split into several regions, each having their own capitol. One of the major ethnicities of Ghana is Akan whose native language is Twi. However, the official language of the country is English and many people speak it.

Here’s a short video on the country’s history:

I’ll be starting my journey in the nation’s capitol Accra which is located along the coast. Most of my time will be spent in the village, Larteh which is about 40 miles north of Accra. I will also be traveling to Cape Coast and Kumasi for short visits.

Kumasi is home to the largest market in west Africa, called Kejetia Market which has thousands of stores and stands. I’ll talk about it in future posts (especially after my visit) but I’ll leave a picture here so you can see the scale of it.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow’s post I’ll talk a little bit about where I’ll be spending most of my time, Larteh.

[kamal-pursuitofhappiness]

Africa on Social Media

So let me just start this post off saying what I’m going to attempt in this blog here as it’s not something I usually do and is more than likely going to be challenging for me to keep up with.

1. I want to get my thoughts out and writing is a great way to think through things.

2. I want to let folks back home know about my experiences as I’m sure some of you will be curious.

3. To have a way of remembering this trip and the things I learn.

4. Maybe (hopefully) passing on some knowledge to anyone that might read this.

I’m going to keep this as updated as possible while I’m in Ghana (Wifi will be spotty or nonexistent in some of the places I’ll be at). So without further ado let’s got on with the post.

In this introductory post I’m going to talk about social media and potentially unintended effects it has. I’ll get into things like where I’ll be and what I’m doing in posts to come but this one has been weighing on my mind so I figured I’d start here.

One thing that a lot of us on social media like to do when we travel or do something new is share it. We take pictures, we share stories, and talk to each other amongst other things. In many cases there’s almost an expectation that we should share events to stay in touch with people that we care about.

For my experience in Ghana, my main way of sharing will be through this tumblr. What I won’t be doing much (if any) of is posting pictures to social media. A lot of my feelings on taking pictures in Africa and posting to social media is reflected in this blog below.

https://psmag.com/instagrammingafrica-the-narcissism-of-global-voluntourism-e5001bf57fdf#.tyf00mvvj

The gist of the story is that taking pictures is often a narcissistic practice which basically boils down to, “Hey look at me, and this cool thing I did!” It also doesn’t necessarily tell the story of what’s happening. This is especially problematic where pictures show the visitor to Africa as the hero and the people living there as those that are helpless and need to be saved. The picture below is from the blog I previously mentioned.

“Here we have a smiling young white girl with a French braid, medical scrubs, and a well-intentioned smile. This young lady is the centerpiece of the photo; she is its protagonist. Her scrubs suggest that she is doing important work among those who are so poor, so vulnerable, and so Other.”

She goes on to say how she was wondering how many “likes” she would get from that picture on social media. There are many problems that come with posting similar pictures to social media even if they are well intentioned. 

Don’t get me wrong. Not every picture is narcissistic. Not every picture has bad intentions. But It is difficult though to tell a proper story without alienating those in it. 

For those reasons and more that I won’t get into, I won’t be posting many pictures to social media unless I’m sure that what I’m sharing genuinely tells the experiences of the people in the picture. And that’s a big part of why I wanted to do this blog.

So if you have stuck through this far: thanks for reading and I’ll see you back here tomorrow