#ualbertamba

[teamghana2019]

Team Ghana Back in Canada

Some of the team is back in Canada. Natalie, Breda and myself (Serena) arrived back in Edmonton on Monday May 21st. Ashlee and Matt went on to travel to Uganda, Ellen arrived back home in the States, and Tina and Emily went on to join the other Frontiers of Business team in Philippines (you can follow their experience on our Facebook page!) 

Blogging attempts came to a halt for our last week in Ghana unfortunately. It’s funny how you take WiFi access for granted until you are somewhere where it is not readily available. I do have a few blog posts backed up on Word that I will upload here over the course of the next few days for those interested in how the rest of the Frontiers of Business journey in Ghana turned out!

Stay tuned to hear about our weekend adventure to Wechiau and Mole, our last week of interviews in Accra, our impromptu trip to Cape Coast and overall reflections of our project and time in Ghana!

[teamghana2019]

Elephants and Baboons!

Sunday morning we packed up and headed off to Mole National Park. This was one of the places I was most excited to visit for one main reason – elephants! The National Park is another gorgeous spot in Ghana. Green luscious views everywhere and the accommodations are set right in the middle of the park. Our group was in for a treat as we woke up on Monday morning to a herd of elephants right outside our rooms. 

The unique part of Mole National Park is the way the natural wildlife is free to roam wherever on the grounds including in and around the hotel. The park employees are quite good in warding guests away to a safe distance and ensuring no one is doing anything to aggravate any of the animals. For example, the elephants attracted a lot of attention and we quickly learned that they were all teenagers and young. As a result, they can get nervous around humans and it’s even more important to keep your distance and clear away from their intended path. 

The free to roam set-up also allows for unsuspecting guests…like the baboon that just opened the door and walked into our prof’s room…while she was in it…along with 3 other team members….oh yes and stole all our snacks. It made for an entertaining afternoon to say the least! You’ll have to ask Professor Block for that story ;)

[teamghana2019]

Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary and Lobi Compound

We headed off to Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary early Saturday morning. We drove alongside Aggie’s tourism students from VIU. They are spending 11 nights there doing some data analysis and research on tourism in the Wechiau area. Our group leveraged this connection to partake in some of the tourism activities. When we arrived we learned a really neat connection with Alberta as there is a partnership with the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary and Calgary Zoo (note to look out for the tribute to Wechiau next time I visit Calgary Zoo!) 

The hippo sanctuary itself was a neat experience. I don’t think any of us realized before the tour that it was going to be done via canoe! The river itself is actually a border between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Luckily the unrest in Burkina Faso is on the opposite end of the country from the border with Ghana. The Wechiau community has a positive relationship with the hippos as they don’t disrupt them or try to hunt them. In fact, when a hippo that passes does wash up on shore, the community performs a burial ceremony. Their approach to this relationship was very much reflected in our tour as our guides were very respectful of the hippos and kept a good distance so as not to aggravate them but also not put us in any harms away. The whole tour was a peaceful experience and absolutely gorgeous in regard to the scenery. 

After the hippo sanctuary we went on a tour of the Lobi compound. The Lobi community is a traditional group located in Northern Ghana and have the most fascinating home structures. The Lobi tour gave us the opportunity to learn more about some of the more traditional communities within Ghana including their family structures and care for elders. One of the main drivers for income in Northwest Ghana is the production of shea butter. A commonly used ingredient in many of our Western products - it was neat to learn about the process from the the shea nut all the way to production into a paste. 

Shea nuts at different phases of production prior to being ground into a paste/butter:

[teamghana2019]

Sweaty and Full of Life

What a week! I can hardly believe that today is our last day in Sunyani. It’s truly been a whirlwind.

Wednesday

On Wed morning the group split up into two with half of us visiting a wound clinic and the other half visiting a Rehab facility. I was in the group that visited the Rehab Centre and I was extremely impressed. The facility is run by a retired Ghanaian physician, Dr. Charles Mensah, who has experience in Holland and Switzerland and has come back to Ghana to give back to his community. I think the piece that struck me the most was his passion for giving back and genuinely helping people. His centre is equipped with a rehab room for children, the elderly, and a workshop where members custom make proesthetics. The Center is a privately run clinic but Dr. Menseh was able to secure some support from the Ghanaian government through the commissioning of people resources. As a result of being a private clinic, patients are required to pay for their treatment but about half of his patients can’t afford their treatment so he provides it for free. He’s a very spiritual individual and I think part of his compassion stems from that. He’s also an extremely bright individual that you can learn so much from. Two days a week he does outreach to support 4 regions around Sunyani and so we arranged to have a couple of individuals from our team to join him the next day. You can learn more about his clinic here:  https://www.hopecar.org/.

 After Dr. Menseh’s clinic we visited the Methodist Church to meet with the Reverend of the church. It seems that religion is a huge part of life here and we wanted to learn more about the role it plays in supporting the community particularly when it comes to elder care. We got to learn a lot about the perceptions of hiring an external caregiver. In Ghana, this is seen as a really unfortunate situation for elders to be in and the younger generation who hires the caregiver are criticized for doing as such. The expectation is that family should take care of their elders and any non-family care is looked down upon.

 We finished off our day of interviews by visiting a nursing and midwifery school. I found this session particularly fun. We all split off into smaller groups so Tina and I had a group of ~20 female nursing students in our focus group. A lot of the students were quite shy and as in any typical classroom setting, there were 3-4 really vocal students who shared some real personal and candid experiences both in their professional and personal lives when it comes to compassionate care and care for the elderly. They all wanted to take group pictures afterwards and get my contact information which was very sweet. I find this is quite normal in Ghanaian culture but this particular experience felt endearing given how shy some of the girls had been.

 After that our team had the opportunity to walk around and do some shopping at Sunyani’s weekly market. We collected some fresh produce for a delicious vegetarian meal at home. This made me quite happy as there is a lot of meat featured in traditional Ghanaian food and as someone who is not a big meat eater, I’ve been craving good vegetarian cuisine.

Thursday

Thursday was our symposium day! Emily gave us the morning off the prepare for our presentation and get a bit of a mental break from all the interviews. Ashlee went with Ellen, Emily’s sister and a professor of anthropology that is with us on this trip, to join Dr. Manseh for their outreach visits.

The symposium itself was quite fun. We got to hear from Vancouver Island University who has a tourism faculty. A professor from VIU does a lot of work in Ghana so she had a group of about 10 students with her as they explore tourism in parts of rural Ghana. We also got to hear from the Nanaimo Rotarian members on the ongoing projects they have partnerships with in the Sunyani area. We’ll be heading out to Wechiau with the VIU group this weekend where they have a hippo sanctuary. The VIU group will be staying there for the next couple weeks while we head off the Mole National Park on Sunday before resuming work back in Accra next week!

Friday

This morning we woke up bright and early to head off to Nanketiwa village. The Nanaimo Rotary club has a couple projects out there so we leveraged their contacts to interview some local villagers. Nanketiwa has a Northern Empowerment Association which has been set up with PLAN Ghana, a NGO. This Association essentially is about women supporting women in the community. Farming is their livelihood and PLAN Ghana provides a variety of skilled training in this area.

Next we have one more hospital visit – a private hospital which we’re really eager to see. It has been around for over 30 years and all of our exposure thus far has been with the public system. We’ve heard mixed things about the private sector of healthcare in Ghana and is definitely a piece of our research that we want to flush out further.

[teamghana2019]

The interviews continue and the internal processing kicks in

It’s 11:15 pm and we’ve just finished typing up our field notes from the day and adding some of that content into our presentation. We present at a Rotary symposium this Thursday so trying to get prepped for that in the evening alongside debriefing about all the information we are soaking in. 

Today we visited Berekem Hospital, a teaching and mission hospital in Ghana and then visited a Muslim community to speak to the communities’ Imam and a number of aged individuals (both Christian and Muslim) that live within the community. I’m still processing the experience I had today - I feel very much in awe of humanity which feels corny to type but it’s hard for me to put into words some of the emotions I’m feeling after all those conversations. It’s been extremely humbling to speak to those that we have and learn about their lives and I just continue to be amazed, particularly as some of my own presumptions get overturned. 

This is the first time I’ve done research of this sort. It’s much more rewarding than I expected. I love having the opportunity to connect with people on a personal level and learn more about them. It’s also amazing the amount of information our team has collectively gathered in 2 days just by talking to people.  On the other hand, field research and the volume of interviews we’re conducting is also exhausting. We come back at the end of the day just floored with all the information we have learned. Trying to process that to debrief and wrap into neat bundles is not always easy. Regardless, I’m feeling so fortunate to be in Ghana in this moment. The experience thus far has been like no other in the program and I’m very grateful for it.

[teamghana2019]

First Day of Field Research

What an eye-opening day! Today we headed out into the field to start our research and interviews for our in-country research. After a weekend getting settled in, I think the team was ready to get down to work!

We started off the day meeting with our colleagues in Sunyani who have been helping us to get organized and make connections so that we can go ahead and interview individuals. We had a debrief in the morning where the team shared additional individuals or groups that were of interest to us along with some of the thoughts we had thus far from our preliminary research. Ernest, Becky, and Julia are amazing and they really set up our day to be a successful one. 

The first visit we did was to one of Ghana’s municipal hospitals. For context, Ghana’s healthcare system is split into three tiers of hospitals (primary, secondary, and tertiary). Primary care hospitals are mainly municipal hospitals along with various clinics that are found in the periphery where there are no hospitals. Secondary hospitals are regional hospitals. There are 16 regions in Ghana but only 12 of them have a regional hospital. Tertiary hospitals are teaching hospitals such as Korle Bu located in Accra, a site we are hoping to visit next week. I believe there are only 4 teaching hospitals in the country of Ghana.

Anyhow, seeing the municipal hospital was fascinating. It was extremely busy and the staff were extremely kind and accommodating to our group. After receiving an introduction from the Medical Superintendent (head of the hospital) we split into groups of 2 to interview various people in the hospital. Myself and Breda had the opportunity to interview 3 different individuals: the administrator of the hospital, one of the nurses that works on the female ward, and the training coordinator for the nurses in the hospital. Our conversations were quite enlightening and we really appreciated all individuals opening up about the challenges they face along with successes.

For example, the administrator highlighted some real system issues that exist with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). We had suspected there were some issues with this program through our preliminary research and our interview with the administrator revealed there are many issues with receiving reimbursement from NHIS to even operationally run their hospital (currently NHIS is a year behind in payments to the municipal hospital!) This is a problem considering this program is part of Ghana’s National Aging Strategy and has been often touted to us as a great program for the elderly as individuals over 65 do not have to pay premiums. Does not sound like a sustainable model for government run, NHIS accredited hospitals though...

We didn’t snap many pics as we were busy with interviews but here are a few shots that show the layout of the municipal hospital, the outside walkway, and the org chart for the site: 

Contrasting to the municipal hospital was the Regional Hospital where he headed to next. Right off the bat, we felt there was a different culture in the place. We didn’t feel as welcome, particularly by the hospital administrator, and thought for a moment that we may not be able to go forward with interviews. Luckily that was not the case.

Breda and I were paired up again and we were set to meet with the Deputy Administrator at the hospital (a position that does not exist at the Municipal Hospital level). Once again, we were not sure if he wanted to meet with us as we were kept waiting in a hall for quite some time. To the point one of our other groups passed back our way with an individual they were interviewing in the time we were still waiting. Some say this is part of Ghana Time but given this was our first experience with it  - we just were not sure if this was part of the unwelcoming we felt or if this was truly typical Ghana Time. 

We eventually got to meet with him though and needless to say our uneasiness was quickly put to rest. The Deputy Administrator is a really smart, busy and passionate individual - particularly when it comes to the topic of elder care. He shared both his professional and personal experience which we really appreciated. He also turned out to be one of our most candid interviewees shedding further light on the problems with the NHIS program, and the way hospitals are trying to sustain themselves despite this promised government program. He spoke to challenges in the referral system (delays in referrals, limitations of their hospital categorization system, transportation - very few ambulances and poor roads in some areas!, and ineffective communication). He gave us a lot to reflect on.

Debriefing with the team after all our interviews to share all our findings is a valuable piece that we are trying to do after interview days such as these. It was neat to put all the pieces of information we gathered together and just brainstorm some thoughts we had on “easy” solutions. We’re not here to provide solutions of course and don’t want to go there off the hop but some of the discussion really helps stimulate the conversation on additional questions and information we hope to obtain as we continue on in our interviews these next couple weeks. Our desired interviewee list keeps growing as well!

[teamghana2019]

Exploring Accra and Travel to Sunyani

Saturday was our team’s first full day in Accra.  We intentionally came a weekend early to get acclimatized and overcome any potential jet lag we would experience before getting to work.

Friday night we were reunited with Emily – our prof for this trip, Tina – a immigration lawyer by trade and one of Emily’s colleagues and close friends,  and Esther Lynne – the President of the Rotary Club in Accra. We got to come together for some delicious Ghanaian food!

Saturday was a day of markets and exploring. We started the day out by being what I like to call farm chickened. This is a term, that a local I met in Vietnam, used to describe tourists who fall for gimmicks. His analogy was that tourists are like farm chickens who have had their heads chopped up and wander around aimlessly afterwards just completely clueless ( a bit of a crude descriptor for tourists) but now on to our farm chicken experience:

We were headed out for the day to meet with Emily and Tina for some lunch and came across Isaac – a friendly Ghanaian hanging out near our accommodations. He asked what we were up to for the day and we indicated we were going to explore some markets. Well, Isaac indicated he could take us to some markets that were much closer so off we went….to his brother’s shop. We were each joined by a shopkeeper very eager to show us around and display some of the local goods in the shop. A few minutes later in walk another group of tourists - same show. To be fair, there was some beautiful artwork, soapstone figurines, and jewelry (and after doing some browsing at other markets we think we’ll be heading back!)  One of the things we’ve loved about Ghana is how friendly and welcoming everyone is and farm chickening aside – Isaac fits that description perfectly. As Isaac says - “it’s nice to be nice, it’s good to be good.”

  One thing that our group is trying to practice, as we meet different locals, is our interview skills. Getting a grasp of people’s perceptions on the migration of younger individuals to the cities, work opportunities in the smaller communities of Ghana vs Accra, and the family structure (i.e. what happens to parents still residing in more rural communities) is interesting to us. Every interaction is an opportunity to glean more information about the country and dynamics around elder care.

After that we joined up with Tina, Emily, and Eve – our APCA (African Palliative Care Association) rep, to go to Moccala Market which was a neat mosaic of people and goods and food. All the sights, sounds, and smells. We attracted quite a bit of attention - just visibly standing out - but the experience also helped us get used to some different norms in the country - for example hissing is quite a normal action to call someone over and physically grabbing someone’s arm while you’re walking wasn’t uncommon either. A bit of a taste of the market streets are captured in this picture:

Today though we took off from Accra to travel on the road for 7 hours to Sunyani. It’s been a neat way to observe the countryside and just take in life  off the side of the road. Meeting with one of our hosts in Sunyani this afternoon!

[teamghana2019]

Nine Hour Layover in NYC

Team Ghana left bright and early this morning from Edmonton International Airport! YEG --> YYZ -->JFK and currently sitting at JFK on a 9 hour layover. So what does one do for 9 hours in NYC? I wish I could thrill you guys with our ventures into the Big Apple but our team hunkered down and got some much needed work done to get prepared for our arrival in Ghana. That didn’t stop us getting some classic Shake Shack in (two locations in Terminal 4 in case one needs to know), checking out the plethora of candy and chocolate shops (continuing on our healthy eating train...), and then getting to work in a good old Irish Pub! 

Emily, our professor, is already in Accra and making some great headway with Eve, our representative from the African Palliative Care Association who has traveled from Uganda to come meet with our group. We’re looking forward to joining them both tomorrow and presenting our research findings to Eve thus far. We’re also getting our schedule lined up nicely and have meetings coming up with: the Ghanaian Red Cross, the High Commission of Canada to Ghana, a board member from the Ghana Palliative Care Association a nursing home care service in Accra, village leaders in Northern Ghana, and a variety of health care professionals in Accra, Sunyani, Kumasi, and Cape Coast. 

We’re starting to feel the fatigue hit a bit and some long travel still ahead...next stop JFK --> ACC! Only a 10 hour flight between us and our destination ;)