A Clear Opportunity

We sat with a group of dry season Onion Farmers on the banks of the White Volta in the Bawku District. Behind us sat a large pile of onions, waiting for a market.

The farmers were unwilling to bag and transport them because they feel the prices are too low for them to sell. However, if a trader comes to their farm with a lorry, they may sell their 15-20 bags of onions at a substantial discount compared to what they would get in the market. It seems that they don’t have the transport cost, and are in need of immediate cash to prepare for the rainy season or for other pressing expenses.

 The trader will take the onions and sell them, then return to the farm and pay the farmers out of the proceeds according to their agreement. The farmers invariably lose some or all of the value of their months of labour because they can’t reach the market. The lack of cash flow is so great that many sacrifice the profitability of the season’s work.

 

A few days earlier, I sat at the border crossing watching trucks of onions from Niger cross the border into Ghana. I was told that the trucks often travel down to Accra in the south of the country, or cross Ghana completely and take their load to Ivory Coast…

 

Each member of these two groups, the farmer, and the trader, is chasing a market, although the traders are entering the race with enough resources to exploit large trade routes, or they have the advantage of scale, with a large, reliable supply of produce in Niger.

How can the small holder farmer overcome their disadvantages and compete in this environment? It is a great question, and one that EWB and MOFA have been asking themselves. We hope that a project to promote long term market value chain development will be a way to help farmers increase their profits by creating market linkages that they can depend on and produce for. The project will most likely be focused on a specific crop in which the Upper East Region has a competitive advantage.

 

That’s all I can share for the moment, but I hope to have more details as we work them out.

 

Cheers from Ghana!

 

Sarah

Elmina Castle

On the way to Takoradi for the National Monitoring and Evaluation meeting, Christian and I stopped in Cape Coast for a day. Christian is leaving Ghana in a short time, and so he wants to make sure to take any opportunities to see the sights in these last weeks. I tried to protest… but, but, so much work to do! I failed to come up with good enough arguments. me and my rubber arm.

We visited Elmina Castle, the primary slave trading location in Africa. It is a significant historical site on the southern coast. You may remember that Canada’s Governor General visited it during her state visit to Ghana. The castle is grand, an impressive building with clean sloping lines, a moat and drawbridge, white washed with clean dark accents. The scenery is gorgeous. The ocean bay is clear blue, full of breaking waves and hand hewn fishing boats. The boats carry flags from all different nations and are painted with names like “God says Yes” Palm trees line the sandy shores.

Walking through the castle itself is a very powerful experience. We were guided through the bare women’s prisons, with little ventilation (the doorway here would be closed) and no significant sanitation facilities. Women passed two years in one crowded room, and were subjected to abuse, while fed barely enough to stay alive.

Many did not survive. Overlooking the women’s prison is the opulant governor’s quarters. They are the same size or bigger than the room (pictured above) containing 150 women. The chapel is also just above the women’s prison. The men’s prison is a set of equally small rooms with no lights or ventilation. Next to it is a small room where slaves who planned rebellion were held before being killed. A skull and crossbones adorn that doorway. This plaque is right beside the prison.

After their confinement, slaves would walk down a dark staircase to a small room with nothing but a narrow doorway. The ship would be waiting below. The doorway would only be big enough for one person, and families would occasionally meet here for the last time before being separated permanently. The door is like this…

I have to admit that I am not even terribly comfortable writing about the experience. Generally I am excited to see historical sites, but Elmina left me somber and with a sense of sadness at the trade in human life that is the root of so much inequity in the world today. Maybe someday soon I will feel inspired to stand up against injustice because of my visit to Elmina, and this physical contact with a place where such extreme human suffering occured… but for the moment, I feel a deep sense of mourning.

Thank you to my fellow EWB volunter Christian Beaudrie for taking these pictures.

www.christian-beaudrie.blogspot.com

Sarah

Work Begins

(sorry if this post is a little rough – I found myself in an internet cafe with a bit of time to write… but not much to edit!)

The work at MOFA is progressing steadily. For the past four weeks I have been in the process of visiting each of the eight district offices in the Upper East. You will see pictures of these visits throughout this blog entry.

Picture: Simon Apoaaba is a Farmer in Zebilla who planted dry season maize with MOFA’s support

I have taken a ‘break’ from this work to get a look at MOFA’s National Level for the next week. To be more specific, at the moment my EWB colleague, Christian Beaudrie, and I are travelling to a National MOFA workshop on the Livelihood System Approach (a concept originally developed by DFID: pls google the term for more information). MOFA is adopting Livelihoods as a monitoring philosophy, following the lead of the World Bank and other institutions who have recently adopted it.

During the visits i interact with as many district staff in formal interviews, field visits, and informal conversations about MOFA’s successes and challenges as I can manage. In each district i request to be lodged with a farming family, and i am indebted to my hosts, who have been amazingly welcoming. The results so far have engaged me completely… leading to a lack of posts (i apologize) From all of these experiences, my counterpart at MOFA (Thomas, the UE Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Officer) and i, are developing a program for my work. Once everything has been finalized I will be able to share it with you!

Picture: The dry season maize is bought from farmers by market women such as this woman, who sell it fresh in Zebilla, or travel to Bolgatanga and Bawku to get the highest price in the region… as long as they can afford to pay the transport costs up front.

Most of the districts have very different cultural groups, and so i have busied myself learning greetings in as many languages as possible. So far I know 3 very well, and I can manage greetings in another 3 languages with my handy language notebook, a small book where I keep track of the words people teach me.

The benefits of this travel are paying off. On our travel to the south this weekend, my colleague Christian and I were on a night bus (it was 16hrs of bus travel, including a 1am breakdown with a broken clutch) We hitched a ride on another bus and I was seated between two young men. Trying to avoid the common tendancy to speak with the most outgoing person… I tried to engage the more silent of the two by asking where he was from. To my surprise, he was originally from Builsa, a district I had just visited. I greeted him in Bulle, the language there, and we talked about Sandema, the capital, a bit of their history, and the local markets, all of which I was able to visit during my stay. His name is Jimmy, and he is an apprentice glassmaker in Kumasi. He was able to complete JSS (elementary school), but wasn’t able to continue to Secondary school because his family has some pressing financial demands. He says that he knew they would not be able to support him so he left for Kumasi to learn a trade.

These brief interactions, paired with the time spent with my family in Kantia, have helped me better understand the challenges of Ghana from the perspective of it’s people. I can’t think of a better way to start engaging in the process of Ghana’s development.

Much love from Ghana,

Sarah

ps – my family has started calling me MBOTEBA, or MBOTI for short. It means “I welcome everything, and I accept every kind of people”

Musah Ayariga, another Zebilla farmer and I, are tying maize cobs so that they can easily be dried for seed

Fields Days

This was my first week in the field working with Agricultural Extension Officers in the peri-urban area around Bolgatanga. It was a really rich few days and my guides did a good job of introducing me around to their contacts in the communities. As always, my presence leaves a big impression, but I try and make my visits to the field more that just a passing meeting by using the local greetings that I know and participating in as many activities as I can.

witness me hoeing… I didn’t do quite as well as the 8 year old boy who lent be

his hoe to give it a try. The farmer whose field I worked in for a few minutes wasn’t expecting it…

that’s for sure. THey soon joined in the spirit and did their best to educate me.

Last week I was sitting with an AEA under a tree to escape the heat of the day after a morning farmer’s meeting, when I heard a regular ‘ping, ping, ping’ noise coming from somewhere closeby. I asked my counterpart about it and he asked if I wanted to visit the blacksmiths. We walked around a few homes to find a small building. One man sat working the bellows, two half buried clay ‘pots’ (with vents to a nearby red/white fire) covered in canvas sacs that he pumped furiously and the fire responded. The older man on the left worked a lump of metal into the rough shape of a hoe blade with the help of the man at the bellows. THey struck the red hot metal alternately (as you see here) The men were shy and busy, so we didn’t stay much longer than to explain who we were and ask if a few pictures would be ok. The blacksmith will sell each blade for 5000 cedis, which is less than one Canadian dollar. The AEA said that he belongs to a blacksmith’s association who regulate his rate of pay and have some control over the prices that he charges. I need to confirm the details, but I can say that the men were working extrodinarily hard in the heat of the day, and that there is a social network within their trade that I would like to learn more about.

It was very exciting to recieve news that my MP, Mr. Andrew Telegedi, mentioned me in a recent publication that he sent to his constituents. I had the opportunity to meet him before departing for Ghana and was very impressed by this generous demonstration of support for my work with EWB.

Reports have been intercepted that the final line is “The world needs more people like Sarah Lewis”. Many of those who are reading these posts enjoy teasing me about these type of statements… and so I thought I would share that for your amusement.

 Regarding a previous post about school attendance and dowry practices… I don’t think that dowry necessarily devalues women. I’m not sure that was clear. The reason I presented the story as I heard it was that I found the storekeeper’s view to be an interesting perspective and I didn’t want to pass a lot of judgements on it in the post.

Dowry is described here as a traditional practice that cuts across religious lines (both Muslims and CHristians practice the giving of cattle to a woman’s family when she marries) but the specific practices changes among different ethnic groups. I don’t think that the existance of the practice means that wqomen are equated with cattle, or with goods… or that this is actually why fewer girls complete school than boys… I will have to further investigate now that people seem interested.

 If you have more questions – please just let me know ! I enjoy your comments and emails very much.

Home Life in Kantia

Dear readers

I am having a great first week at MOFA. The staff is very helpful and supportive of my work. I have been able to contribute to the work of the Monitoring and Evaluation department by updating spreadsheets and providing advice on computer matters while completing a diagnostic of MOFA’s programs and beginning to design a baseline study which I will complete over the next two months.

In other exciting news I have settled into a home just outside of town, about a 25 minute bike ride away from work. It is a community called Kantia. The photos are of my roomate Lizzy and some neighbours that we met on a daily stroll through the village.

 

Each night a group of local kids comes to sit on a pile of cement bricks piled at the side of the road. Everyone laughs a lot! The kids make fun of each other by saying that their toes are soft like Fufu, or that they say things in a funny way, etc… The translations into english from the local language, grunsi, don’t always make sense… but we have fun working with rudimentary communication all the same.

It has been pleasant to receive all of your email and I look forward to replying to all of it as soon as possible. Next post will be an issue related topic… maybe the change in the denomination of Ghana’s currency planned for July. There are commercials all over television, but rural communities may still be challenged to see the numbers on their bills changed from 1000 cedis to 1 Ghana Pesoe.

Until next time!

 

Why do fewer girls go to school than boys in the Northern Regions?

Interview with a shopkeeper on March 2, 2007

One Woman’s Perspective…this post is meant to be read as my impression of a brief conversation, not as a generalized statement of education in Ghana!

 
For our in-country learning session today we were asked to create a blog entry about an informal interview with the goal of learning more about the education of girls. I spoke with a woman who owns a shop near where we are staying.

 

Florian, a fellow volunteer, and I had been in this woman’s shop earlier in the afternoon to buy snacks, an adventure which ended in a good chat and an excessive bill, and also established a positive relationship. This was proven, not only because the Madame was later still interested in speaking with me, but also because of her reaction when I happened to have forgotton my wallet . She just handed me the satchet of water and told me to come back and pay later. I think this was a demonstration of trust, and I’m happy that Flo and I left a good impression.

 

I greeted her and a girl sitting on the floor bagging cold ‘coco’ shyly. ‘Coco’ is sort of like chocolate milk, and in this case was about to become the Ghanaian equivalent of a freezie after some time in the small freezer at the back of the shop. I asked them why it was that women do not go to school, and then followed up with anther question, why they thought more boys went to school than girls. The girl bagging coco was very shy and repeated the question back to me slowly (Note to self: have to learn Grunsi!) The stall owner felt more free to speak with me and had a lot of things to say about education, her main points (paraphrased) follow…

 
On the Upper East in General

 Why girls do not attend school:

- Children do not go to school because their parents can’t afford the school fees.

- Another problem is that women are exchanged for cows through dowry here and so they are not respected. Men feel they have paid for their wife and therefore she is his. There is no reason for women to be educated.

- The government is trying to get more people to go to school and so they are paying for a lot of the setting up of schools but not for school fees. This problem is greater in the villages.

 

From the Perspective of an Asante Woman

 In her culture, Ashanti people from Brong-Ahafo, local liquor called sheel (sp and pronounciation) and a few other things are exchanged ‘for’ a wife during a marriage ceremony. She said that women are not viewed in the same way, and that because there is less money exchanged it means women are more valued.

 
Conclusions

Since this is really just one interview, I wouldn’t dare make any generalizations. I did find talking with the Madame to be very enlightening and I think she also enjoyed sharing her perspective with me. She encouraged me to share it with you and I have done my best to do it justice.

Some of the challenges of my interview process were that I didn’t make a very thought out choice of interviewee, and the madame didn’t know much about conditions of educational services in villages. Robert Chambers, who is heavily involved in the development of participatory research methods, has identified some important biases that  development workers are often  plagued with. Here are some of the ones I could have done a better job of avoiding!

Political Bias : Didn’t have the guts to ask her if she was educated or if her daughters go to school. This would probably not have been an issue for her to answer. I will keep working at asking tough questions until I see push-back

 
Urban Bias : Market women have more education then most and have more chutspah then most – this shop is used to foreigners because they are located right across the street from the Catholic Social Centre where I am staying.  Still we had a good chat.

 
Medas-see  (Twi)  :  M’Pus’ia  (Grunsi) :  Thank you (English)

 Sarah

Welcomed to Ghana

I have a phone! (+233) 024 9251246 No address yet!

Arriving in Ghana after a long plane ride and a rainy stop over in amsterdam was exciting – to say the least! We had a few notes of Twi greetings jotted down in a notebook and forced relaxaed responses to get us through customs. I was very happy to see my backpack pop out with everyone elses’s luggage. (Losing my bag on the way to Cameroon was a stressful experience and left quite an impression on me! )

The ‘Honeymoon’, or initial stage of culture shock has never been so enjoyable. I can’t tell you how many little things I had missed about West Africa without realizing it. I’m very much enjoying getting to know how things work here, although I’m still a little shy about discussing prices and talking with people.

Ghanaians that I’ve met have been extremely helpful and friendly. I was directed to an internet cafe by the accountant at the hostel we are staying in and led there by a small boy who took me by the hand and chatted with me shyly about snow and wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t get lost.

It is amazing what an impact trying to learn the local language (Grundi and FraFra here in Bolgatanga) Language is linked to identity and wanting to learn a few new words often earns me an enthusiastic teacher. This morning when meeting the accountant at the hostel, Andy, I had the reverse experience..When he discovered I am from Canada he asked me to help him improve his French, and we exchanged a few words. I was surprised at how happy this small connection to home made me, despite soon concluding that he would probably be a better teacher then I. Bolgatanga is very close to the border of BUrkina Faso, a French speaking country, and so many people speak some French.

The rest of the West Africa crew, Florian, Liz and Catherine, were still sleeping when I left – the 16 hour bus ride and 24 hours of plane travel interspersed. I will be downloading my photos and posting them when I get a chance.

All my best wishes from Ghana!

Sarah

Article for EWB’s University of Waterloo Chapter Newsletter

Dear Readers,

Please enjoy this copy of an article that I have written for a newsletter at my home University. Consider yourselves included in the thanks expressed in the last paragraph.

Sarah Lewis