I fell of the bandwagon in terms of posting to my blog - but I was still writing blog posts. Here is some of what I wrote. (Its much easier to post with high speed internet!)
I’m back to full health and will be in Toronto at EWB national office until December 21st, when I fly home to Vancouver for keeps. Can't wait to see all of you.
with optimism,
Pam
December 14, 2010
A week in the life of Pam:
My Mom combined her donation with a great question – what does a normal day look like? Every day feels wildly non-representative, and I think, oh no, I couldn’t possibly use that day as my ‘normal’ example, so I’ve decided to use a week.
Monday:
4:30 am. Wake up to the very loud mosques calling for prayer. I decide to catch up on email in the morning while internet is fast.
6:00 am. Water not running, have a bucket bath from a small bucket drawn from our large bucket of ‘spare’ water.
7:00 am: breakfast. The usual Ghanaian breakfast is “egg and bread” , which is fried egg on baguette, and Lipton tea or Nescafe with plenty of milk and sugar. As always, I modify this to two fried eggs and plain tea from Sadia. Sadia has an egg and bread stand with the most delicious eggs in the city. Her secret is adding tomato and onion. Her fire pot and stand are near my house and under the shade of a mango tree.
7:30 am. Take a taxi into town.
8:00 am. Start blood tests at the local medical test clinic.
11:00 am. Head to the local teaching hospital to have the doctor review the results. Yay! I’m certified free of UTI, kidney infection, and typhoid fever.
Chat briefly with the instructing doctor. His MD and PHD are from Europe, but he is back here teaching the next generation of doctors in Northern Ghana because he cares. He can’t even afford a car with his salary here; he could be rich working it in at any number of overseas country’s hospitals.
The instructing MD that I’ve gone to see introduces me to the head of the lab. As a personal project, a couple friends and I are making a private donation to repair the water, electricity, and countertop in the hospital diagnostic lab, as well as a maintenance budget for the next two years until the new lab is ready. Its not really development work because its not a sustainable system, but it felt deeply wrong on a personal level to be treated with so much concern by this doctor and hospital doing their best with very, very limited funding, then be whisked off by plane to a private hospital in the capital, leaving behind Dr. Ziam and his patients. How do I describe leaving behind the cries of people in the night for Jesus to just come and take them, while I look over my shoulder on the way out the door to get well at a clean hospital with all the resources money can buy.
He is teaching the best medicine he can with a desperate lack of resources. One example of this is that the hospital, its learning doctors, and its patients are facing the next two years without a functioning diagnostic lab because it doesn’t have budget for maintenance until a new lab is complete. As a consequence, Doctors will complete their complete practicum without the ability to do tests. 12:00 pm. Chat with Jason briefly on the phone – share the great news that I’m finally clear of the big infections.
Take a taxi to the only high speed internet café in northern Ghana. Ask the manager where/if it is possible to buy a replacement keyboard, someone spilled water on my laptop that I’d leant them at a training last week, and my keyboard is kaput.
Walk to the keyboard store, and buy a keyboard quickly and easily. Amazing. That was much easier than expected
1:00 pm. Meet in an upscale outside garden café with the other three members of the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team. Eat lunch and hash out the details together of an influence paper we are sending to the capital intended to layout the steps needed to create an integrated data management system for the government of Ghana, instead of a tangle of multiple systems that exists now. Mina leaves part way through for a malaria test because he’s feeling really achy; he’s clear of malaria.
6:00pm Head home as night falls and the malarial mosquitoes come out. Rinse off in a much needed bucket bath. Free of sweat for a full thirty blissful seconds after the shower! Cook dinner at my place with the team and my two roommates. Talk EWB and development strategies until 9 pm, which is late here. Fall into bed under my mosquito net.
Tuesday: a National Muslim holiday celebrating Mohammed’s proffered sacrifice of his son.
4:30am – decide to go back to sleep after morning prayers.
6:30 am – wake up, still no water, not even enough for a bucket bath. Work on documents a little, check my email.
8:30 am – Meet the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team at Sadia’s egg and bread. Go over briefing paper again, updating Mina on what he missed while doing his malaria test. Start to plan next briefing paper.
About 9:00 am – head back to my place for a coaching session with Luisa. Break out my laptops, and get down to the business of what I will contribute to the team in the next four weeks. Discuss how to leverage my strengths, specific plans to work on my weaknesses. I’m lucky to have and experienced manager and a great friend in Luisa.
12:00 pm. –still no water. I go over to a friend’s place for a shower. Wow, much better. Sweaty again a minute later. Mina’s had another malaria test from a better lab, and he does have malaria.
12:15 pm – meet the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team again for lunch at a nearby lunch spot.
1:00 pm – buy water for drinking and head home to work on documents for the afternoon.
7:00 pm - done with documents, time to eat!
9:00 pm – Bed time, tucking in under the mosquito net.
Wednesday: The actual holiday celebrating Mohammed’s proffered sacrifice of his son
1:00 am or thereabouts: prayers have started at the nearby mosque. Suprisingly loud prayers.
8:00 Our friend Razak comes over to say happy Sala and bring some rice, noodles, and meat pieces from the Sala sacrificial lamb. I feel lucky and included.
I spend the rest of the morning greeting friends in a ring shaped building of small apartments that I used to live in, greeting people at the shops I frequent, and deciding that I like the theory of eating all of an animal more than I like watching the application of the theory. I also feel lucky that as a vegetarian I don’t have to face the dilemma of accepting or turning down the intestines I’ve just watched cleaned out then wrapped on a stick and roasted. There is plenty of rice for me. Plenty.
1:00 -Oh god, its not actually a holiday today – better get on in to the office!
1:01 – there is one person at the office. She stays about half an hour, then its just me.
5:00 – head home – too much feasting today to be able to eat supper.
Evening: Engineers Without Borders agriculture team has taken over my living room with a strategy session. Interesting to listen to.
Thursday:
Morning: Finish writing some presentations in the morning at home. The internet is not nearly fast enough today to send these presentations out, so I go downtown to the high speed internet café. Buy some veggies and lunch while I’m there.
Afternoon: Spend the afternoon at the office, and have some really quality conversation with Tamale’s Finance Officer regarding what it is that will need to change in the office culture for people to share information freely.
Evening: Make rice and veggies from the market for dinner, the give a powerpoint lunch and learn to BC Hydro over the phone. Mina’s malaria drugs work so well he’s out having a couple beers tonight.
Friday:
Morning: Sit in my office with local government planners and work with them on proposals that they are putting out for funding. We review data supporting why they are requesting, but don’t manage to get it included in the document. Baby steps.
Afternoon: Meet with the city health service information officer Abdul, and am absolutely blown away by all the graphs on his wall, and his departments handle on using data to make decisions. Could this department lead all the other departments? Abdul has requested some small training in excel on a few easy things that are frustrating him. We can provide that easily with his director’s permission.
Evening: Dinner out with the team goes from a detailed strategy discussion to an apple cider fueled. Mina found apple cider from South Africa, which we’ve never have before and it goes down all too easily.
Monday:
Daytime: Spend the day with one of EWBs co-directors of overseas programs, showing her the Governance and Rural Infrastructure work, and engage in some really useful reflection on our strategy. Finally meet the city director of health service. He starts the conversation by questioning if donors (including EWB) should even be in Ghana, and making it clear that we can offer suggestions but not make changes without his permission. I am really, really impressed. People will usually do whatever a donor requests without much questioning at all. I like this guy a lot. I like that it feels like if I put forward a bad idea he will throw me out of his office. What will it take to get this leader to connect with the other, really silo-ed departments and lead by example?
Monday:
4:30 am. Wake up to the very loud mosques calling for prayer. I decide to catch up on email in the morning while internet is fast.
6:00 am. Water not running, have a bucket bath from a small bucket drawn from our large bucket of ‘spare’ water.
7:00 am: breakfast. The usual Ghanaian breakfast is “egg and bread” , which is fried egg on baguette, and Lipton tea or Nescafe with plenty of milk and sugar. As always, I modify this to two fried eggs and plain tea from Sadia. Sadia has an egg and bread stand with the most delicious eggs in the city. Her secret is adding tomato and onion. Her fire pot and stand are near my house and under the shade of a mango tree.
7:30 am. Take a taxi into town.
8:00 am. Start blood tests at the local medical test clinic.
11:00 am. Head to the local teaching hospital to have the doctor review the results. Yay! I’m certified free of UTI, kidney infection, and typhoid fever.
Chat briefly with the instructing doctor. His MD and PHD are from Europe, but he is back here teaching the next generation of doctors in Northern Ghana because he cares. He can’t even afford a car with his salary here; he could be rich working it in at any number of overseas country’s hospitals.
The instructing MD that I’ve gone to see introduces me to the head of the lab. As a personal project, a couple friends and I are making a private donation to repair the water, electricity, and countertop in the hospital diagnostic lab, as well as a maintenance budget for the next two years until the new lab is ready. Its not really development work because its not a sustainable system, but it felt deeply wrong on a personal level to be treated with so much concern by this doctor and hospital doing their best with very, very limited funding, then be whisked off by plane to a private hospital in the capital, leaving behind Dr. Ziam and his patients. How do I describe leaving behind the cries of people in the night for Jesus to just come and take them, while I look over my shoulder on the way out the door to get well at a clean hospital with all the resources money can buy.
He is teaching the best medicine he can with a desperate lack of resources. One example of this is that the hospital, its learning doctors, and its patients are facing the next two years without a functioning diagnostic lab because it doesn’t have budget for maintenance until a new lab is complete. As a consequence, Doctors will complete their complete practicum without the ability to do tests. 12:00 pm. Chat with Jason briefly on the phone – share the great news that I’m finally clear of the big infections.
Take a taxi to the only high speed internet café in northern Ghana. Ask the manager where/if it is possible to buy a replacement keyboard, someone spilled water on my laptop that I’d leant them at a training last week, and my keyboard is kaput.
Walk to the keyboard store, and buy a keyboard quickly and easily. Amazing. That was much easier than expected
1:00 pm. Meet in an upscale outside garden café with the other three members of the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team. Eat lunch and hash out the details together of an influence paper we are sending to the capital intended to layout the steps needed to create an integrated data management system for the government of Ghana, instead of a tangle of multiple systems that exists now. Mina leaves part way through for a malaria test because he’s feeling really achy; he’s clear of malaria.
6:00pm Head home as night falls and the malarial mosquitoes come out. Rinse off in a much needed bucket bath. Free of sweat for a full thirty blissful seconds after the shower! Cook dinner at my place with the team and my two roommates. Talk EWB and development strategies until 9 pm, which is late here. Fall into bed under my mosquito net.
Tuesday: a National Muslim holiday celebrating Mohammed’s proffered sacrifice of his son.
4:30am – decide to go back to sleep after morning prayers.
6:30 am – wake up, still no water, not even enough for a bucket bath. Work on documents a little, check my email.
8:30 am – Meet the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team at Sadia’s egg and bread. Go over briefing paper again, updating Mina on what he missed while doing his malaria test. Start to plan next briefing paper.
About 9:00 am – head back to my place for a coaching session with Luisa. Break out my laptops, and get down to the business of what I will contribute to the team in the next four weeks. Discuss how to leverage my strengths, specific plans to work on my weaknesses. I’m lucky to have and experienced manager and a great friend in Luisa.
12:00 pm. –still no water. I go over to a friend’s place for a shower. Wow, much better. Sweaty again a minute later. Mina’s had another malaria test from a better lab, and he does have malaria.
12:15 pm – meet the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team again for lunch at a nearby lunch spot.
1:00 pm – buy water for drinking and head home to work on documents for the afternoon.
7:00 pm - done with documents, time to eat!
9:00 pm – Bed time, tucking in under the mosquito net.
Wednesday: The actual holiday celebrating Mohammed’s proffered sacrifice of his son
1:00 am or thereabouts: prayers have started at the nearby mosque. Suprisingly loud prayers.
8:00 Our friend Razak comes over to say happy Sala and bring some rice, noodles, and meat pieces from the Sala sacrificial lamb. I feel lucky and included.
I spend the rest of the morning greeting friends in a ring shaped building of small apartments that I used to live in, greeting people at the shops I frequent, and deciding that I like the theory of eating all of an animal more than I like watching the application of the theory. I also feel lucky that as a vegetarian I don’t have to face the dilemma of accepting or turning down the intestines I’ve just watched cleaned out then wrapped on a stick and roasted. There is plenty of rice for me. Plenty.
1:00 -Oh god, its not actually a holiday today – better get on in to the office!
1:01 – there is one person at the office. She stays about half an hour, then its just me.
5:00 – head home – too much feasting today to be able to eat supper.
Evening: Engineers Without Borders agriculture team has taken over my living room with a strategy session. Interesting to listen to.
Thursday:
Morning: Finish writing some presentations in the morning at home. The internet is not nearly fast enough today to send these presentations out, so I go downtown to the high speed internet café. Buy some veggies and lunch while I’m there.
Afternoon: Spend the afternoon at the office, and have some really quality conversation with Tamale’s Finance Officer regarding what it is that will need to change in the office culture for people to share information freely.
Evening: Make rice and veggies from the market for dinner, the give a powerpoint lunch and learn to BC Hydro over the phone. Mina’s malaria drugs work so well he’s out having a couple beers tonight.
Friday:
Morning: Sit in my office with local government planners and work with them on proposals that they are putting out for funding. We review data supporting why they are requesting, but don’t manage to get it included in the document. Baby steps.
Afternoon: Meet with the city health service information officer Abdul, and am absolutely blown away by all the graphs on his wall, and his departments handle on using data to make decisions. Could this department lead all the other departments? Abdul has requested some small training in excel on a few easy things that are frustrating him. We can provide that easily with his director’s permission.
Evening: Dinner out with the team goes from a detailed strategy discussion to an apple cider fueled. Mina found apple cider from South Africa, which we’ve never have before and it goes down all too easily.
Monday:
Daytime: Spend the day with one of EWBs co-directors of overseas programs, showing her the Governance and Rural Infrastructure work, and engage in some really useful reflection on our strategy. Finally meet the city director of health service. He starts the conversation by questioning if donors (including EWB) should even be in Ghana, and making it clear that we can offer suggestions but not make changes without his permission. I am really, really impressed. People will usually do whatever a donor requests without much questioning at all. I like this guy a lot. I like that it feels like if I put forward a bad idea he will throw me out of his office. What will it take to get this leader to connect with the other, really silo-ed departments and lead by example?
Doug's Question - What is the biggest difference you have made or best moment you've had making a difference? Mangoes: cheap, plentiful, delicious?
Doug,
Thank-you for your donation, it came at the end of a long day and was an awesome shot in the arm of energy that there are people back at home supporting us. By you donating to EWB you are helping to create lasting change, not ongoing charity.
Sweet question too. I immediately have an answer. My favorite moments of impact have been influencing change in team strategy. Namely:
1) Identifying during a team strategy session that co-ordination of existing data systems is a more critical priority than the implementation of a new system.
2) Putting two and two together that google is interested in partnering with EWB, and that the four person team I’m on in Africa is essentially trying to help people use disorganized data to drive better decisions. Google knows how to do that. Could we facilitate a partnership between the government of Ghana and Google?
(We are helping the government officials access their information so that they allocate resources where they are most needed. ie, should they more urgently hire teachers or build more schools)
Mangoes - I sat in the shade of many a mango tree, and watched little flowers for fruits the size of a pinhead, but a long rainy season meant a late mango season and no fresh mangoes for me. :(
Thank-you for your donation, it came at the end of a long day and was an awesome shot in the arm of energy that there are people back at home supporting us. By you donating to EWB you are helping to create lasting change, not ongoing charity.
Sweet question too. I immediately have an answer. My favorite moments of impact have been influencing change in team strategy. Namely:
1) Identifying during a team strategy session that co-ordination of existing data systems is a more critical priority than the implementation of a new system.
2) Putting two and two together that google is interested in partnering with EWB, and that the four person team I’m on in Africa is essentially trying to help people use disorganized data to drive better decisions. Google knows how to do that. Could we facilitate a partnership between the government of Ghana and Google?
(We are helping the government officials access their information so that they allocate resources where they are most needed. ie, should they more urgently hire teachers or build more schools)
Mangoes - I sat in the shade of many a mango tree, and watched little flowers for fruits the size of a pinhead, but a long rainy season meant a late mango season and no fresh mangoes for me. :(
November 12, 2010
Why Live in an African Village?
Why integrate? Why do development work living with a Ghanaian family in an African village, instead of staying in expatriate hotels and driving a nice new SUV? Such hotels are available and SUVs are the vehicle of choice for NGOs. What is the purpose of living in a location where malaria is rampant and sanitation is well, bad? One EWBer half-jokingly defined integration as getting malaria 20 times and shitting your pants once. (for the record, I have had malaria twice, and my pants are clean.)
For me, there are three good reasons to integrate into Ghanaian society.
1) I love the family I’m staying with, and I’m so glad we’re getting the chance to know each other. The births, deaths, weddings, and everyday family dinners and breakfasts that I am experiencing with them are an exchange of fellowship beyond the practical application of development work.
2) Actually living in Ghana (the same Ghana that Ghanaians live in) gives me a much more accurate and realistic picture of what work needs to be done now. The patient trust-building of shared experience changes the information I receive about what people’s actual motivations are, what they’re actual problems are, and what solutions might work. People answer questions differently when I show up on a bicycle, after just doing laundry with them or their family, than they would if I pulled up in a shiny SUV, fresh from an expatriate hotel.
3) By living in traditional, rural areas, and simultaneously building influence through capital city meetings with senior government officials to communicate those realities, we bridge information across two very separated realities, and are able to enhance Ghana’s leaders own capacity to create effective solutions themselves.
The first reason may be worthwhile justification in on its own. From a practical perspective, the knowledge gained under the second reason is purchased at a great cost to our efficiency. It is really worth it though, when we are able to communicate what we learn to influence large scale changes and improvements in the system.
October 3, 2010
Kat's question - Women in Ghana
Kat’s question: I'm curious about women in Ghana. You mentioned that your "sister's" daughter is already a mother at 17, but is still going to school. So how long do girls go to school for? And the boys? Do they go to the same schools? What kinds of jobs can women get if they complete their education?
My Answer:
Thank-you so much for your question and donation Kat. Once again there is a long answer and a short answer, but the short answer is long, and the long answer is really really long.
Short answer:
Both boys and girls go to the same schools, but boys do tend to get marginally more schooling. The fees are expensive ($150 CAD per year) and a girl might not continue her schooling if the family has to choose between sending her or her brother to school, or if she is already starting a big family and intends to stay at home. If she does stay at home she will likely do petty trading and sell things like in the market.
There are no restrictions on what jobs woman can hold. Several senior government officials are woman. When I was flying into the capital of Accra, there were several Ghanaian women on the plane in suits clearly flying for business reasons.
Long answer:
Like many things in woman's rights, this comes back to the question of babies. Having children is fundamentally regarded differently in Northern Ghana than Canada. Early in an introductory conversation, people will ask each other how many children they have, and your status is determined by the number much the same way as in Canada your status is confirmed by your job or your neighborhood. Both men and women really hold having many children in their homes as their ultimate reason to be. Societally and personally, a life should be spent bearing and raising children.
Some of the consequences of this are beautiful – women’s body fertility is in many ways respected and revered. When a woman I’m friends with is breastfeeding near me, she will often look at me smiling and say, “A baby will suck at your breast soon.” as an optimistic and loving way of lifting my spirits, assuming that with no baby of my own to feed I would feel saddened. She is apologizing for flaunting her status and happiness of breastfeeding. I think a reasonable analogy would be an executive feeling a little awkward picking up her cheque in front of a close but unemployed friend. My Ghanaian friends don’t really believe that I would use birth control to not have any babies, because in their world that would be insane.
The purpose of marriage is to build a family, and to use birth control before having children is unthinkable. Depending on your tribe, your marriage is void if you don’t bear children within a year or two. When fertility is strong, a man would be considered within his rights to desire many children, and to request his wife stay home to raise the children and manage the household. While the Ghanaian community will help woman raise their children, there is no such thing as daycare.
In the villages there are no electric stoves, no clothes washing machines, dishwashers, or running water inside huts. There are not disposable diapers ,and definitely no microwave dinners or pre-prepared foods. This means that the pure physical labour of running a household with children is staggering. So when your raison d’etre is to bear children, the amount of time you will be spending fulfilling your life’s purpose is large. That makes being an exception to being a woman that raises children while dependent on her husbands income difficult. There are, however, some woman that do it.
There is one woman I work with (she is a gender officer) who separated from her husband after two children, then moved back into his (polygamous) compound again as his wife after she had raised the children and they were done University. If she’d stayed in the compound her husband wanted to have more children with her, and therefore for her to stay at home and have the time needed to take care of a big family. Her incentive to keep her own job (even though she loved her husband and it pained her to be separate from him) was to be able to be financially independent and not have to suffer whatever indignities her financial supporter would put her through. (Husbands can be jerks, spend their money on newer wives, die, or stop supporting you, either way leaving you to depend on someone else for financial support) She limited her number of children, parted a marriage she didn’t want to leave, and lived as a single Mom in a world where you have to fetch your own firewood to cook with, and grow and grind and cook your own corn and stew for dinner. She did it for the assurance of knowing that she could call her own shots because she had her education and a reliable job to support her.
My Answer:
Thank-you so much for your question and donation Kat. Once again there is a long answer and a short answer, but the short answer is long, and the long answer is really really long.
Short answer:
Both boys and girls go to the same schools, but boys do tend to get marginally more schooling. The fees are expensive ($150 CAD per year) and a girl might not continue her schooling if the family has to choose between sending her or her brother to school, or if she is already starting a big family and intends to stay at home. If she does stay at home she will likely do petty trading and sell things like in the market.
There are no restrictions on what jobs woman can hold. Several senior government officials are woman. When I was flying into the capital of Accra, there were several Ghanaian women on the plane in suits clearly flying for business reasons.
Long answer:
Like many things in woman's rights, this comes back to the question of babies. Having children is fundamentally regarded differently in Northern Ghana than Canada. Early in an introductory conversation, people will ask each other how many children they have, and your status is determined by the number much the same way as in Canada your status is confirmed by your job or your neighborhood. Both men and women really hold having many children in their homes as their ultimate reason to be. Societally and personally, a life should be spent bearing and raising children.
Some of the consequences of this are beautiful – women’s body fertility is in many ways respected and revered. When a woman I’m friends with is breastfeeding near me, she will often look at me smiling and say, “A baby will suck at your breast soon.” as an optimistic and loving way of lifting my spirits, assuming that with no baby of my own to feed I would feel saddened. She is apologizing for flaunting her status and happiness of breastfeeding. I think a reasonable analogy would be an executive feeling a little awkward picking up her cheque in front of a close but unemployed friend. My Ghanaian friends don’t really believe that I would use birth control to not have any babies, because in their world that would be insane.
The purpose of marriage is to build a family, and to use birth control before having children is unthinkable. Depending on your tribe, your marriage is void if you don’t bear children within a year or two. When fertility is strong, a man would be considered within his rights to desire many children, and to request his wife stay home to raise the children and manage the household. While the Ghanaian community will help woman raise their children, there is no such thing as daycare.
In the villages there are no electric stoves, no clothes washing machines, dishwashers, or running water inside huts. There are not disposable diapers ,and definitely no microwave dinners or pre-prepared foods. This means that the pure physical labour of running a household with children is staggering. So when your raison d’etre is to bear children, the amount of time you will be spending fulfilling your life’s purpose is large. That makes being an exception to being a woman that raises children while dependent on her husbands income difficult. There are, however, some woman that do it.
There is one woman I work with (she is a gender officer) who separated from her husband after two children, then moved back into his (polygamous) compound again as his wife after she had raised the children and they were done University. If she’d stayed in the compound her husband wanted to have more children with her, and therefore for her to stay at home and have the time needed to take care of a big family. Her incentive to keep her own job (even though she loved her husband and it pained her to be separate from him) was to be able to be financially independent and not have to suffer whatever indignities her financial supporter would put her through. (Husbands can be jerks, spend their money on newer wives, die, or stop supporting you, either way leaving you to depend on someone else for financial support) She limited her number of children, parted a marriage she didn’t want to leave, and lived as a single Mom in a world where you have to fetch your own firewood to cook with, and grow and grind and cook your own corn and stew for dinner. She did it for the assurance of knowing that she could call her own shots because she had her education and a reliable job to support her.
October 1, 2010
New Pictures!
I've just put in a bunch of new pictures on the 'Pictures' Tab. Enjoy!
More posts to come.....
More posts to come.....
September 13, 2010
Sam's Question
Thanks for the not only large but also numerically mirrored donation Sam!
I was surprised at what I learned in response to your question “What is the going rate for a wife in terms of livestock? Do transactions really go on like TV has led me to believe?”.
The short answer is four cows, the long answer is below.
The long answer requires some context. Before I came to Ghana I didn’t really believe that 52 different local languages could be spoken in such a small country, so I assumed that linguists were just getting a little crazy with naming languages as separate. I’ve found that there really is an enormous # of sub-cultures here. The traditional history of the country is defined by groups of many small tribes.
For example, I live in the district of W. Mamprusi, and the Mampruli people here speak a different language and have very different cultural norms for some things than the next group of tribes 70kms away. For example, men here, and just north of here, will have as many wives as they can afford, but that is not the case a little ways to the west. The Mampruli have only been in the area for a few hundred years, and their language and customs are quite different than from surrounding areas. Each tribal area has distinct traditional customs; which is all to say, each area has different engagement and marriage rites and rules.
The Fulani are a group near here that have a lot of cattle. My neighbor reports that before marriage, a man must give his future father-in-law four cows, no matter the wealth, beauty, education etc. of his bride-to-be. He also said that if the father-in-law likes you a lot, and wants you to marry his daughter, or if you are very poor, the father might agree to receive as little as one fowl (chicken). He reports that when a Fulani father accepts the livestock, the daughter is basically contractually bound to marry.
In W. Mamprusi you would visit your future fiancé’s father’s compound of huts with a group of family and friends and enough soda-pop and kola nuts to share with everyone while generally letting them know you intend to marry their daughter. They might generally agree or disagree, and the parents can direct the daughter on whether or not to get married, but they can’t agree on her behalf. Kola nuts are apparently not very delicious, and not all that expensive, but they are a traditional food to share at any important discussion. The soda-pop is a new addition to the traditional ritual! Coca-cola is the DeBeers of the Mampruli.
I was surprised at what I learned in response to your question “What is the going rate for a wife in terms of livestock? Do transactions really go on like TV has led me to believe?”.
The short answer is four cows, the long answer is below.
The long answer requires some context. Before I came to Ghana I didn’t really believe that 52 different local languages could be spoken in such a small country, so I assumed that linguists were just getting a little crazy with naming languages as separate. I’ve found that there really is an enormous # of sub-cultures here. The traditional history of the country is defined by groups of many small tribes.
For example, I live in the district of W. Mamprusi, and the Mampruli people here speak a different language and have very different cultural norms for some things than the next group of tribes 70kms away. For example, men here, and just north of here, will have as many wives as they can afford, but that is not the case a little ways to the west. The Mampruli have only been in the area for a few hundred years, and their language and customs are quite different than from surrounding areas. Each tribal area has distinct traditional customs; which is all to say, each area has different engagement and marriage rites and rules.
The Fulani are a group near here that have a lot of cattle. My neighbor reports that before marriage, a man must give his future father-in-law four cows, no matter the wealth, beauty, education etc. of his bride-to-be. He also said that if the father-in-law likes you a lot, and wants you to marry his daughter, or if you are very poor, the father might agree to receive as little as one fowl (chicken). He reports that when a Fulani father accepts the livestock, the daughter is basically contractually bound to marry.
In W. Mamprusi you would visit your future fiancé’s father’s compound of huts with a group of family and friends and enough soda-pop and kola nuts to share with everyone while generally letting them know you intend to marry their daughter. They might generally agree or disagree, and the parents can direct the daughter on whether or not to get married, but they can’t agree on her behalf. Kola nuts are apparently not very delicious, and not all that expensive, but they are a traditional food to share at any important discussion. The soda-pop is a new addition to the traditional ritual! Coca-cola is the DeBeers of the Mampruli.
September 9, 2010
"You are welcome"
"You are very welcome" is a phrase everyone hears alot of around here.
Anytime someone enters a room they are greeted with a warm 'you are welcome' and meeting people usually involves a heartfelt 'you are very welcome here'. So I have been welcomed many times in my new temporary home.
I am currently in the village of Walewale, a small town about 100 kms outside of Ghana's big city of the North, Tamale.
The buildings looks exactly like you'd imagine. Along the highway little shacks support just about any business you can imagine in a chaos of traffic of all types and sizes.
Buses, transport trucks, shiny NGO pickups, overloaded taxis, donkey carts, motorcycles, cyclists, and pedestrians with absurdly large loads on their heads all compete for road space. The bigger you are, the more priority you get.
Off the highway mud huts circle to form compounds. Children of like ages run around alternately helping their parents when requested and otherwise getting into as much trouble as possible.
Tucked in the heart of the village off the road is the family I am living with. The man of the house, Salifu, is the district water and sanitation engineer, so I basically don't stop bouncing ideas off him when he is home. His wife Agata (Ah-gah-ta) has taken me on as her Canadian sister, even going so far as to say the neighbors are mistaking us for each other. I do love my Ghanain sister, but I think the neighbors may be a little short sighted.
Agata promises that Jason will be very happy when I am returning, because I will be a good cook. She is pretty shocked at what I don't know, like how to make Fufu, the most basic dish of boiled maize flour made into a paste. For my part, I'm hoping to come home with some mad cooking skills, and I'm very happy cooking with Agata in the evening after work.
Even when Agata is cooking, she is taking care of the gaggle of children in the family home. Her oldest daughter Julie-Anna is 17 years old, and about to start the final year of high school. Like most new Moms, Julie is more than a little tired, but her two month old baby Malick is happy and healthy.
Agata's brother's nephew Aquesee will come back from the remote village he lives in to go to school here in Walewale. Alahssam and Fushina are two 5 yr. old twins, who are most easily told apart because Fushina refuses to keep her dress on in the heat of the day.
Agata's last child is called Junior, and at two years old he definately rules the roost.
Anytime someone enters a room they are greeted with a warm 'you are welcome' and meeting people usually involves a heartfelt 'you are very welcome here'. So I have been welcomed many times in my new temporary home.
I am currently in the village of Walewale, a small town about 100 kms outside of Ghana's big city of the North, Tamale.
The buildings looks exactly like you'd imagine. Along the highway little shacks support just about any business you can imagine in a chaos of traffic of all types and sizes.
Buses, transport trucks, shiny NGO pickups, overloaded taxis, donkey carts, motorcycles, cyclists, and pedestrians with absurdly large loads on their heads all compete for road space. The bigger you are, the more priority you get.
Off the highway mud huts circle to form compounds. Children of like ages run around alternately helping their parents when requested and otherwise getting into as much trouble as possible.
Tucked in the heart of the village off the road is the family I am living with. The man of the house, Salifu, is the district water and sanitation engineer, so I basically don't stop bouncing ideas off him when he is home. His wife Agata (Ah-gah-ta) has taken me on as her Canadian sister, even going so far as to say the neighbors are mistaking us for each other. I do love my Ghanain sister, but I think the neighbors may be a little short sighted.
Agata promises that Jason will be very happy when I am returning, because I will be a good cook. She is pretty shocked at what I don't know, like how to make Fufu, the most basic dish of boiled maize flour made into a paste. For my part, I'm hoping to come home with some mad cooking skills, and I'm very happy cooking with Agata in the evening after work.
Even when Agata is cooking, she is taking care of the gaggle of children in the family home. Her oldest daughter Julie-Anna is 17 years old, and about to start the final year of high school. Like most new Moms, Julie is more than a little tired, but her two month old baby Malick is happy and healthy.
Agata's brother's nephew Aquesee will come back from the remote village he lives in to go to school here in Walewale. Alahssam and Fushina are two 5 yr. old twins, who are most easily told apart because Fushina refuses to keep her dress on in the heat of the day.
Agata's last child is called Junior, and at two years old he definately rules the roost.
September 1, 2010
Carol's Question
First, let me apologize for not posting more! I'm currently in a small town in northern Ghana named Walewale. The internet connectivity has left alot to be desired so, with Jason's help, I'm trying to get pictures and videos uploaded. Please be patient- they're coming!
Carol's question:
My first year university room-mate and friend Carol Wai donated to my EWB fundraising campaign and asked the first question about Ghana. First of all thank you for your donation Carol, it means the world to me to see the impact we're having able to continue. I'm sure it won't be much of a stretch for you to imagine me being in a new environment, not knowing what to wear, or even how to order a coffee.
Here is what I learned in response to her question "What does a Ghanaian think of then they hear Canada?".:
First I asked a young boy yelling "foreigner!" at me in his local language. His response: "I don't know, what is Canada? Give me Canada! Give me Canada! " (fair enough I guess, ask any young boy in Canada about Ghana....)
Then I asked my''sister'', the woman of the house in the family I am staying with. Her reply: "I think you are from Canada. Tom is also from Canada." (Tom is a previous EWB volunteer)
I thought a university student might know, so I asked one: University student: "I think it is far away." (Further probing questions got no more info. This is how far rote learning goes.)
Of course the supreme chief's primary son had an interesting response. He asked back: "Do you have machine or hand weeding of maize (corn) in Canada?"
***I had no idea - do we even weed corn fields in Canada? can anyone answer this for me?***
(He then wanted to know if we have traditional chiefs in Canada to which I said yes, and then whether my chief was a good chief, which he further defined as being a very wealthy chief like his father. He didn't really believe that I didn't know how wealthy my traditional chief was, and explaining that I was traditionally Irish didn't clarfiy matters at all.)
Last of all I was speaking to politician from Ghana's capital who was visiting Walewale (the village that I am currently in) for his sister's funeral, and this was his response:
"I think the best NGOs are from Canada. They are the most effective and the best are helping all of Africa more than any country, because they have the most and the best NGOs. I think soon Canada is the best country in the world and everyone is wanting to go to that country. What can you do for my constituents?"
(I was super-excited to ask this guy, because he would actually know a little about Canada, but I guess a politician is a politician anywhere. Its worth noting that China is providing by far the most funding, and who has the best strategy could be debated late into the night.)
Carol's question:
My first year university room-mate and friend Carol Wai donated to my EWB fundraising campaign and asked the first question about Ghana. First of all thank you for your donation Carol, it means the world to me to see the impact we're having able to continue. I'm sure it won't be much of a stretch for you to imagine me being in a new environment, not knowing what to wear, or even how to order a coffee.
Here is what I learned in response to her question "What does a Ghanaian think of then they hear Canada?".:
First I asked a young boy yelling "foreigner!" at me in his local language. His response: "I don't know, what is Canada? Give me Canada!
Then I asked my''sister'', the woman of the house in the family I am staying with. Her reply: "I think you are from Canada. Tom is also from Canada." (Tom is a previous EWB volunteer)
I thought a university student might know, so I asked one: University student: "I think it is far away." (Further probing questions got no more info. This is how far rote learning goes.)
Of course the supreme chief's primary son had an interesting response. He asked back: "Do you have machine or hand weeding of maize (corn) in Canada?"
***I had no idea - do we even weed corn fields in Canada? can anyone answer this for me?***
(He then wanted to know if we have traditional chiefs in Canada to which I said yes, and then whether my chief was a good chief, which he further defined as being a very wealthy chief like his father. He didn't really believe that I didn't know how wealthy my traditional chief was, and explaining that I was traditionally Irish didn't clarfiy matters at all.)
Last of all I was speaking to politician from Ghana's capital who was visiting Walewale (the village that I am currently in) for his sister's funeral, and this was his response:
"I think the best NGOs are from Canada. They are the most effective and the best are helping all of Africa more than any country, because they have the most and the best NGOs. I think soon Canada is the best country in the world and everyone is wanting to go to that country. What can you do for my constituents?"
(I was super-excited to ask this guy, because he would actually know a little about Canada, but I guess a politician is a politician anywhere. Its worth noting that China is providing by far the most funding, and who has the best strategy could be debated late into the night.)
August 25, 2010
Thoughts from Training in Toronto
The group of diverse people that came together to do pre-departure training in Toronto is full of exceptional high-performers (I must have fooled someone to have got on this team!). We rapidly came together as a team, and I’d like you to meet my new friends that I’ve headed overseas with: this year’s professional fellows. Flying you here to say hello isn’t really in the budget, so we’ll have to settle for a blog introduction:
Don McMurtry: Don is enjoying early retirement after being at RIM
from when it was just three guys with a good concept, until recently. Don will
be working in Malawi on water and sanitation.
Mark Abbott: Some of you in Vancouver may know Mark, he is a major
driving force of Fair Trade in Vancouver and a part of the Fransen
Engineering team. Mark will be working for the Ghanaian Ministry of
Agriculture in a small village in Northern Ghana, seven hours travel
from the nearest city.
Mark Soares: A knowledge maven of the agricultural world from Agriculture Canada and an experienced traveler, Mark will stick with 'team Mark', also working for the Ghanaian ministry of Agriculture but
in a different small village in Northern Ghana.
Jason: An Engineering-physics grad with professional experience in test engineering, he was an EWB professional chapter president for the last year. Jason will be working for an Agricultural College about
20km away from where I’ll be.
Dana: A mechanical Engineer and a reflective thinker, Dana will be bringing his careful thought to Burkina Faso, just North of Ghana.
We’re all off and away to our districts across Africa to patiently learn
and act to make change.
The EWB national office environment in Toronto is electric – it has exceptional management practices and is full of (mostly) young people working hard with purpose – creating change for 'Dorothy' however it may be best accomplished. If you don’t know Dorothy, she is our client. I’m not sure if she was originally an actual person in an actual place, but she is now an EWB concept that is easy and powerful to come back to; asking how each of our actions could best benefit her.
The concept of a client, or someone we need to work efficiently & deliver the best results for is always in development fund raising literature, but looking at some projects I’m not sure its always in the project plans.
Is changing the concept of your ultimate client from the funder to the end user one that you could use in your work?
EWB is currently using this criteria to drive an evolving body of programs. Of course there are overseas programs like the one I’m working on for the next 4 months, but sometimes the problem blocking the solution isn’t in the field, sometimes it’s social, political, or other systems. For the last week I’ve been learning more about the organizations direction as a whole, and there is some really interesting work going on.
In Canada, EWB employees at the national office advocate for aid effectiveness, bringing back our knowledge from getting our hands dirty in the field to change the requirements put on aid funding. Let your local professional chapter know if you’d like to be a part of this.
Where do you think the biggest international change for improved results for Dorothy could occur? Looking forward to your comments.
Pam
Don McMurtry: Don is enjoying early retirement after being at RIM
from when it was just three guys with a good concept, until recently. Don will
be working in Malawi on water and sanitation.
Mark Abbott: Some of you in Vancouver may know Mark, he is a major
driving force of Fair Trade in Vancouver and a part of the Fransen
Engineering team. Mark will be working for the Ghanaian Ministry of
Agriculture in a small village in Northern Ghana, seven hours travel
from the nearest city.
Mark Soares: A knowledge maven of the agricultural world from Agriculture Canada and an experienced traveler, Mark will stick with 'team Mark', also working for the Ghanaian ministry of Agriculture but
in a different small village in Northern Ghana.
Jason: An Engineering-physics grad with professional experience in test engineering, he was an EWB professional chapter president for the last year. Jason will be working for an Agricultural College about
20km away from where I’ll be.
Dana: A mechanical Engineer and a reflective thinker, Dana will be bringing his careful thought to Burkina Faso, just North of Ghana.
We’re all off and away to our districts across Africa to patiently learn
and act to make change.
The EWB national office environment in Toronto is electric – it has exceptional management practices and is full of (mostly) young people working hard with purpose – creating change for 'Dorothy' however it may be best accomplished. If you don’t know Dorothy, she is our client. I’m not sure if she was originally an actual person in an actual place, but she is now an EWB concept that is easy and powerful to come back to; asking how each of our actions could best benefit her.
The concept of a client, or someone we need to work efficiently & deliver the best results for is always in development fund raising literature, but looking at some projects I’m not sure its always in the project plans.
Is changing the concept of your ultimate client from the funder to the end user one that you could use in your work?
EWB is currently using this criteria to drive an evolving body of programs. Of course there are overseas programs like the one I’m working on for the next 4 months, but sometimes the problem blocking the solution isn’t in the field, sometimes it’s social, political, or other systems. For the last week I’ve been learning more about the organizations direction as a whole, and there is some really interesting work going on.
In Canada, EWB employees at the national office advocate for aid effectiveness, bringing back our knowledge from getting our hands dirty in the field to change the requirements put on aid funding. Let your local professional chapter know if you’d like to be a part of this.
Where do you think the biggest international change for improved results for Dorothy could occur? Looking forward to your comments.
Pam
August 9, 2010
Training in Toronto
My backpack is full of the myriad pharmaceuticals that I may or may not need (so many of them for Africa!), I’ve said see you soon to Jason, and flown to Toronto.
Here I’ll meet the other professional fellows in person and complete one final week of training which concludes four months of education on leadership skills, the successful and unsuccessful history of development work, how to stay healthy in Africa, and rural Ghanaian livelihoods.
You might have heard me say this before; one of my favorite things about EWB is that they put their time and money towards getting development work accomplished well, not towards fripperies. Training obviously makes a difference in effectiveness, especially when our time overseas is limited it is key that we can get going quickly. While we receive a more thoughtful and thorough training program than any other overseas development organization I’ve heard of, this is done at very little expense. Our long distance training was all done over skype, and we’re now bunking down together in EWB house Toronto. Its not flashy, but it gets the job done.
The total cost to EWB of sending a professional fellow overseas is $5,300 with the breakdown at the bottom of this post.
My fundraising goal is the same sum. I believe passionately in the value of bringing opportunities to those who don’t have them. These funds go towards the next professional fellow to go overseas and continue the same work I’m about to embark on. Thank-you everyone for your support!
Yours,
Pam
COST BREAKDOWN
$2,220 Airfare
$1,400 Living stipend (food, housing, travel, etc… ~ $10/day to live on)
$600 Overseas Support Resources
$500 Insurance
$150 Visas
$400 Pre-departure travel
$50 Pre-departure training materials
Here I’ll meet the other professional fellows in person and complete one final week of training which concludes four months of education on leadership skills, the successful and unsuccessful history of development work, how to stay healthy in Africa, and rural Ghanaian livelihoods.
You might have heard me say this before; one of my favorite things about EWB is that they put their time and money towards getting development work accomplished well, not towards fripperies. Training obviously makes a difference in effectiveness, especially when our time overseas is limited it is key that we can get going quickly. While we receive a more thoughtful and thorough training program than any other overseas development organization I’ve heard of, this is done at very little expense. Our long distance training was all done over skype, and we’re now bunking down together in EWB house Toronto. Its not flashy, but it gets the job done.
The total cost to EWB of sending a professional fellow overseas is $5,300 with the breakdown at the bottom of this post.
My fundraising goal is the same sum. I believe passionately in the value of bringing opportunities to those who don’t have them. These funds go towards the next professional fellow to go overseas and continue the same work I’m about to embark on. Thank-you everyone for your support!
Yours,
Pam
COST BREAKDOWN
$2,220 Airfare
$1,400 Living stipend (food, housing, travel, etc… ~ $10/day to live on)
$600 Overseas Support Resources
$500 Insurance
$150 Visas
$400 Pre-departure travel
$50 Pre-departure training materials
August 2, 2010
June 22, 2010
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