Field Work Pt. 2: >:-(

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I was going to break this into two parts, but it looks like I won't be internet-havin tomorrow as I will be going back to the field early in the morning. So you'll have until about Monday or Tuesday to catch up before I post again.

Also, I would like to direct yo attention to some of my photos that the Spectator printed recently. I just wish they would have printed the captions I sent(scroll down to the last page): http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper948/documents/2mu3gi1e.pdf

On Sunday morning I woke up as usual at 6:20. I felt awake and well-rested. I was in a good mood. Dare I even say, chipper? I didn’t need to be up this early, but I wanted to get tea with the departing group on their way out. After washing and getting dressed, the other group had shown up, one driver and Richard, who works with the micro-finance projects. They told me that I would be joining them that day. I was shocked. This was supposed to be my day. My clothes were long past due for cleaning, I still had several hundred photos to edit, not to mention a newsletter to work on. And this was supposed to be my day off. I went and changed clothes joined them for breakfast.
This quickly tossed me into the most foul mood of my entire time in Ghana. I knew I had nobody to be mad at, but I just boiled for a few hours. I was mad at the silence in the car, and then was immediately mad at the driver’s Gospel music that he turned on. I was mad that the driver ordered my tea for me, even though I had been to the same tea place the previous three mornings and she knows what I want. I was mad that he sat with me and waited, instead of going to get his breakfast (banku) while I ate. Back in the car, my anger intensified as he turned on what seemed to be a Dolly Parton tape. When we got to his spot to get banku for breakfast I was fuming because the Dolly Parton was not a tape, it was on the radio, and the same station was on where he ate breakfast. And it was not one song, they played an entire album, which we listened to back in the car. I was angry at his jolliness toward me, and his constant criticisms of everyone else on the road. I was annoyed with everyone else’s use of English, and frustrated with their inability to understand me unless I spoke in their accent. I got mad at the bumpy dirt roads that prohibited me from sleeping and reading. I was mad because the A/C failed to reach me in the back seat. Everything I saw and everything around me just made me mad. And I had to keep it bottled up. I had no valid complaints to the people I was working with. I couldn’t even send a snarky text to Liz, hoping for sympathy, as I didn’t have cell phone reception for like the first time ever. I imagine the good cell phone coverage is because Ghana is so flat, but that just made me mad at Ghana for not having more interesting terrain. On the long drive to the communities to visit, we picked up a few people that would work with us as interpreters. I was then mad because I was sharing the back seat with three others. The only consolation was that was an excuse not to wear a seatbelt.
We finally reached the first community after about 2 hours of driving. We would be conducting interviews to assess how well internal lending groups had done after five months. I really like this project because so much is done internally. Basically all we do is provide the idea, a few materials, and a local facilitator. This is how it works: A community will form groups (membership is optional) of about 10-20. These tend to be made along gender lines, and overall female participation is far higher, which is the idea. See, in this region of Ghana, one of the major challenges that women face is the inaccessibility of any sort of formal financial institution. So these groups organize and create their own rules about how they will share money. They are given a cash box with three locks (three different people have one of the three keys). Generally they meet weekly, and have an agreed upon amount of money that everyone will contribute to the fund. Usually this is between $.50-$1.50 per person per week. Fines are created for those who do not pay. Some of this is a “social fund”, which can be used for stuff like quick emergency loans (i.e. a child is sick and needs medical help), and the other part is for loans. After a certain period of time, when there is enough money in the box, people can start taking out loans to conduct small business ventures. For example, one woman would buy a bowl of raw peanuts at the market for $2.50, then roast them, and put them in small bags and sell them for $.10 each. She would get $4 total, a profit of $1.50. She could then repay the loan with interest. There were all sorts of things that women were doing with their loans and they all seemed to really enjoy their new financial…well, not so much freedom, but lack of financial prison. Most of them really seemed to be much more comfortable due to this project. A lot of people also mentioned instances in which they were able to use the social funds to help their children get medical help. One man told us about how he came home from the farm and his child was crying, so he took out a loan and took her in to the city, where she was in the hospital for three days. When he got back he had to sell a goat to repay the loan, but without the social fund, he would have had to go door to door begging from neighbors for money to go to town. Not all groups were doing perfectly, but there were countless success stories. They were also extremely thankful for the NGO simply organizing this project. I wished that I could have taken some credit.
It was amazing how meeting with these groups ripped me out of my bad mood so quickly. By the time we got back into the car after our first community visit, I was back in my high spirits. Looking back on it, I know that there was no good reason for my bad mood. I am glad, however, that it was short-lived. When I think of all the things that made me so angry, none of them (save for Dolly Parton and bad Gospel music) were good reasons to be upset. I mean, they are all things that I always face here, and never think twice about.
In the last village of the day, quite a bit farther out in the middle of nowhere, I noticed that I was attracting quite a bit more attention from the youth. It was not the kind of attention from kids I got in India where they were chasing me around, and climbing all over me. Here I just got a lot of stares. As we moved around the community to interview the different savings groups, the kids would slowly follow, keeping a very safe distance. Kids usually stared, but not for as long as they did here. We probably spent an hour and a half in this community and all the kids were never far. Their stares were not so much of excitement, but of curiosity with a dash of fear. At the end of one of the interviews one of the elder men, through an interpreter, told me that I was the first white person the kids had seen. This was kind of crazy. Most of them were between the ages of about 5 and 10. I now understood their look much better, but wasn’t sure exactly how to react to it.
A few years ago, before I had ever traveled, a friend had told me how she had been working in villages in Mali, and kids would come up to touch her skin to see if it was real, because they had never seen a white person before. It became one of my goals to reach such far-flung places that I could be the first white person someone had ever see. I was surprised, though, at the reaction of the kids. I felt much more like an alien than a novelty. I would have preferred the latter because at least then the kids would have been a bit more playful.
This was my favorite village that I had visited so far as it was much more aesthetically appealing than most. There was much more green vegetation surrounding it, and at places it almost looked tropical. Dry and golden shrubs covered the ground, three feet high, between the housing compounds, with little trails connecting them. It had been a long day, and the sun was getting low in the sky by the time we left, casting a warm glow on the village. Ahh, I was as far from my mood in the morning as I thought I could get.
As we got into the car to leave, a guy about my age ran up to the car and handed me a coin and asked about its worth. I looked closely. It was silver and about the size of a quarter. It said 100 and had Korean script on it. He said he had found it in the pocket of shirt he bought. I have noticed that quite a bit of the foreign-donated clothing here in Ghana comes from Korea. I could not really tell him how much it was worth, but it was pretty cool to think of the journey this little coin has taken.
We drove for about an hour, and dropped off one of the interpreters, giving us a bit more room in the back seat. After another twenty minutes the sun was setting. As we came around a bend we saw two guys and a motorbike crashed in the ditch on the right side of the road. We pulled over and ran out to see if the guys were alright. They had crashed just before we got there. One was standing, bent over, the other guy laid unmoving next to the motorbike. The standing guy looked up at us, and his face was covered in blood. I went over to the other guy, and he was very conscious. He stood up, and didn’t have any visible injuries. I ran back to the car to grab one of our bottles of water to help them clean their wounds. The driver grabbed a towel. The guy with the bloody face was trying to snot-rocket something from deep inside his sinuses. As I poured water into his hands, he rubbed it intensely all over his battered face. He had a big cut up through his right nostril. It was a slit that separated the nostril about an inch up his nose. As he tried to get the dirt out of his nose, he shoved his finger in his nostril, separating the two thick flaps of skin. I was like, dude, stop, please, just relax. He was so dazed he could barely even speak English (haha). His arm was scraped up pretty bad and his left foot was also torn up, and I think his toe would need a few stitches. We helped them rinse their wounds, though as far as I know, we didn’t have a first aid kit. We tried to get their bike running, but it was in pretty bad shape and we couldn’t get it going. It was getting dark. They told us where we could go to send for help, in the nearest village about 20 minutes down the road.
As everyone else got back in the car, the bloodier guy asked me if we could take him to the hospital. I told him it was up to the other guys, so we walked over to the car, and he asked. The driver’s responded, “No, sorry, as you can see, our car is full.” I was thinking, so? We just dropped a guy off, plus we have a very spacious cargo area. He added, “Plus, you’re covered in blood. If you got blood on the seats we would have to answer to that.”
I couldn’t believe it. I figured the best place to take this guy for proper treatment would be the hospital in Wa, an hour and a half away, but exactly where we were going. On the way we could stop and get somebody to go back for his friend and the bike, but this guy needed help. I knew that anything I had to say wouldn’t help though. They were far too stuck to the NGO’s policy to show a little compassion for somebody in need. A little ironic, huh?
As soon as we pulled away, the driver and the other guy in front started talking. “Can you believe how fast they were going?”
“Ah! They were going too fast!”
I was thinking, yeah, coming from the same guy that spun our SUV out of control from going too fast on a dirt road about 3 weeks earlier. They continued.
“And did you see? They didn’t even know each other!”
“Yes, when I asked his friend’s name, he didn’t even know! Ah!”
Yeah, that’s what people do here, if you haven’t noticed! They give each other rides. They help someone out that needs a ride! Did you not see the vans going in the opposite direction that had about 20 people inside and 20 more on top? Yeah, they are public transport, but every vehicle eventually becomes public transport. Oh man, my bad mood had returned with a vengeance, and this time I felt like I had a valid reason.
The driver popped in his crappy Ghanaian English Gospel music and continued on towards Wa. He sang along, no he mumbled along in a high-pitched voice to the awful music. I find it amusing that quality gospel music in America, which can be very good, comes from Africans, who are descendants of Ghanaians and other West Africans, but then when missionaries bring the music back to Africa, their recreations of it are awful. Also, there seems to be some sort of belief that if you are serious Christian, it’s a good idea to record Christian music, regardless of musical ability. I feel that we were all victims of that belief that night.
By the way, I just finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (If you don’t know who he is, find out now, and get that book). And reading it in the midst of the over zealousness of Ghanaian Christians is extremely disturbing. And please don’t take that statement as a jab at Christianity, just at the missionaries that brought it, as well as the superiority complex that those that it was brought to seem to have.
Also by the way, I am writing this in the guesthouse bed and there’s like a billion little tiny ants on it.
On Monday morning, I was still a little annoyed about the night before. We had ended up stopping in the nearby community where the guys had told us to go. We told them what happened and where the guys were, but whether anybody had a car, let alone the money for gas to get them to a hospital, I don’t know.
I had banku for breakfast. In the morning I am usually not in the mood for the fermented gooey corn ball in spicy soup, and prefer to just have tea and bread. But as we arrived at the breakfast place that we usually go to, Richard said, “oh, but what will Joey eat?” knowing that I had only had tea the previous morning. “I eat banku,” I said, with a bit of attitude, like, psh! I eat your food, just watch! And don’t forget to put plenty of pepper in it! Haha, I’m lame. After eating, the woman serving the food asked (through the interpretation of the driver) if the pepper was too much for me, because apparently she had made it too strong that morning. I said it was fine, which it was, but I was surprised that both Richard and the driver later said it was too hot for them. The night before I bought rice from a stand and the woman had not even put the spicy paste on mine, even though everybody else got it without her even asking. I was so mad at her racism, and told her that she needed to give me the pepper. Haha, no I don’t really take offense, but the assumption that white people don’t eat pepper is getting really annoying. It is funny, though, to think of a parallel example. Say an African walks into a diner in a white town in America, and they order Pancakes and it comes covered in hot sauce, the waitress assuming she is just being considerate. Or even worse, if it came with a side of watermelon. Ooh, I really want some watermelon right now, that sounds awesome.
Anyway, on Monday I was hoping to get a lot of work done, because it would be possible to return to Tamale a day early. I was mostly anxious to get back because I have a lot of work to do, and if I can get a lot of it done, I might be able to do something fun this weekend, since Friday is a holiday. Unfortunately, though, one of the interpreters didn’t show up, ensuring that our work would extend into the next day.
In one of the villages we went to we met the male elders and the chief. As we interviewed their group, the chief reminded me of Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart. He did not say much but had a very strong presence, and, although old, a strong physique. I was more than a little scared of him and his bulging vein that rippled across his temple.
In one of the villages, a woman brought us a pitcher of water. I was worried, because everyone watched us as we were expected to accept their hospitality. Luckily it was borehole water from deep in the ground, and I assumed it was relatively safe. I have already ingested small amounts of water on a regular basis simply through eating fufu, and other activities I am sure, so I must have at least a little immunity by now. Plus I was really thirsty. I drank a tall glass and, well, it was good, and I am still very alive.
Again, in every village we went to it seemed more and more like remote, simply judging by the amount of children following me around, and the length the stares from the elderly lasted. We visited three communities that day and were able to finish by 3:00, getting us back to town around 5:30.
In local news the STC bus drivers went on strike across Ghana. This is kinda crazy since STC is basically the only major bus company in Ghana. Also, there was a clash between military and taxi drivers in a lorry station nearby. Apparently two soldiers were blocking the way with their vehicle. When the security guy told them to move, they got into a heated argument. The two soldiers were assaulted and left. Soon after, though, they returned with about 30 more soldiers, who indiscriminately attacked the crowd at the lorry station, mostly taxi drivers. Nobody was killed but a few dozen were injured. A news article also said something that implied that the soldiers forced people to do “drills”. The article didn’t really expand on that statement, but it sounded like military exercises. Some people (who align themselves with the NPP party) blamed the now ruling NDC government for this. Because the NDC has a military history (they originally took power by a coup in the early eighties and led by military rule until they won a popular vote 11 years later) people say that when they are in power, the military will do whatever they want without consequences.
In our final day in the field, we visited only two communities. On the way, our driver was listening to a different Gospel tape. At least with this one, the people knew how to sing, but the music was still pretty sorry. And the lyrics were pretty repetitive when they were in English. The most notable consisted mostly of the following: “I’m in love with you Jesus, I’m in love with you lord!” Luckily the driver knew all the words to this song and sang along happily. We listened to the tape three times through on the way to our first village.
The second village we visited became my favorite that we went to the entire time. Based on our interviews, they were not really the best at this lending project, but I just really enjoyed being there. Usually our interviews were conducted under a large tree near the road, preventing us from walking through the communities. This time, as we interviewed a total of 6 lending groups, we walked all through their village compound. It was a maze of narrow pathways between mudbrick homes and adobe-like structures. Lots of people were in the process of making more bricks and building or repairing homes in preparation for the rainy season.
I also got to actually do some photojournalism as I would usually do too. Well, not exactly, but better than it has been so far. Basically I was told that I was coming here to do human interest stories about people involved in the projects, however it hasn’t really worked like that. There is not enough money to justify sending me on my own to do this kind of work, so I am sent with field officers while they do their work. This pretty much leaves me without my own interpreter, and at the mercy of the field worker’s schedule, which is usually too rushed for me to do anything meaningful. It is kind of frustrating because through these interviews I see so many people that would be interesting subjects, but the only photos that I can manage are of them sitting under a tree (in the worst lighting circumstances imaginable) getting interviewed, which does not tell a thing about their life.
In this community, though, I was able to miss one of our interviews to spend time with one man who had used his loan to start a small pharmacy in the community. He spoke good enough English so I was able to get his story and some decent quotes. Photo-wise, I was only able to manage a few nice portraits of him and one of his 8 kids (he has two wives) in his little shop. The light was gorgeous, and it was one of the first photos that I have made for my internship that I really like.
After we finished our interviews, we waited for one of the interpreters to finish his. I sat around by the car with a bunch of gawking kids. Because they all seem fairly intimidated by me, and we do not share a common language, I have not been very good at connecting with the kids here. They are way too well behaved in my opinion, in stark contrast to the kids in Calcutta that were just a little too friendly. Earlier in the day I had tried to give a high-five to a girl of probably 9 years. She looked confused at first, and then as I stepped closer, she ran away, thinking I was going to hit her. Ok, I know that I should have seen that coming, but come on, hi-fives are still pretty universal I have found. Sitting here with these kids, I reached my hand out to one of them to see if he at least knew the typical Ghanaian handshake, ending with the snapping of each other’s fingers. His hand was pretty limp, but he smiled as I formed his hand into the proper shapes, and he even caught on the second time, and laughed as our fingers snapped together. I showed a couple of the other kids, but they all had trouble with the snap. I decided I needed to import a handshake for these kids. In India, EVERY kid knew this handshake that is made by making a “rock-on” handsign with the thumb pointed out a bit, then meeting the tips of the forefinger, pinky, and thumb with your partner’s corresponding fingers. Then rotate your hands, keeping the thumbs touching until your hands meet in a handshake. I taught the first kid, and he liked it. I pointed to the kid next to him and said, teach him. He understood, and within a few minutes of this they were all spreading it around. I had to help some of them, as they were not doing it quite right. I am pretty sure, though, that if I return to Ghana in a year, every kid will be doing it. I can’t wait. I think I spread that in Central America too. I am going to be an evangelist for Indian handshakes!
On the way back, we dropped off one of our interpreters in his little town. However, because the buses were on strike, we agreed to give a ride to a local priest who needed to make it to Wa, ensuring 2 more hours of a repeating gospel music tape. I did not have a problem helping him, but I felt that if we could carry him, why couldn’t we have taken one of the bloodied guys from the motorbike wreck, or the old blind woman the quarter mile to her community? I also wondered what we would have done if a local Imam needed to be taken to a Mosque in Wa. I doubt he would have been greeted so warmly.
The next morning we headed back to Tamale. On the way we stopped for cheaper food stuff than is available in Tamale. Our driver bought a few bags of Gari, a powdered cassava, Richard got some yams, and I got 2 big bags of charcoal for Pat. On the way I finished my second book on this trip. The first was Things Fall Apart, and I just finished a collection of contemporary African short stories. Most of them were pretty good, but a few just didn’t make any sense to me. I think that marks a fault in me, though, and not the writer..