Meda ase pa Ghana

Sitting down to write my final thoughts on this year has proven tough, probably due to the fact that I’m watching the World Cup for about seven hours a day.

Here’s a brief but necessary back-story. We went over to Shawnigan on Friday for a birthday party for my sister, which was good. We came back here on Saturday, after watching Ghana beat the Czechs in an amazing game. I was going nuts and would have given anything to have been in Kumasi. And that brings us to now, as the past few days have been relaxed to say the least. Yesterday was my birthday, so I hope all of you who didn’t email me or call or sky-write ‘Happy Birthday Tony’ feel really guilty.

On to the matter at hand. I am happy to be home, but I miss Ghana a lot. This past year was an incredible experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It was also very difficult and totally different (duh) from anything I’ve ever done. I spent a lot of time looking forward to going home, but I never actually wanted to go home, at least not early, if that makes any sense.

It was a lonely experience at times, as cultural and language barriers meant that I didn’t forge too many really good connections with people, apart from Dr. Addae. My friends there were all great, but I can’t compare them to my friends here. It’s not that they were worse or better—just different. It is also harder to make lasting connections when you know you’re going to be living a million miles apart pretty soon.

That is the negative. The positives totally outweigh them. I learned as much in 9 months as I had in a lifetime, particularly about small business, adapting to a challenging environment, and myself. Those are things that will help me immeasurably down the road.

Look, I really can’t put all of this into words, or at least not onto paper. This year is something that I am still figuring out and that will continue for a while. It comes out better in conversation so you’ll all just have to call me if you’re interested. Sorry.

I’ve got a job lined up with the Mississauga News in Toronto doing sales work. I want to learn how to sell properly, as I believe this is a skill essential to success in business. I’ll probably move to Toronto in early July. As for Tony’s Adventures in Ghana, I’m not too sure what to do with it. Paul asked me to keep it going because “books are really long” but I don’t know if I want to keep doing it. I won’t delete it but there is the chance that it will be yet another piece of roadkill on the information superhighway.

Thank you all for reading this, thank you all for your emails, thank you all for everything. Knowing that I had so many great people back home really helped in some of the tougher times. Thank you Dr. Addae for being such a great host and boss. And finally, thank you Ghana. I know I’ll make it back at some point.

But for now, I’m going to enjoy the World Cup. Forza Italia (and Ghana Black Stars)!

Home

At home. The new house is great, but small. Still, it's pretty hard to argue with the view. More later.

P.S. TsoTsi is an amazing movie. It's South African and won Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars' this year. Go see it.

Homeward Bound, the Incredible Journey

It's Wednesday morning and I'm at La Palm Beach Hotel with my parents. Things have been fantastic since they got here last week and it's pretty surreal to realize that I'm leaving at 10:30 tonight.

I'm going to keep this short and put up photos and a big end-of-the-year-summary post when I get back home. We get into London tomorrow at 6 AM and then we're supposed to arrive in Vancouver around 3:30 PM.

So it's bye-bye Ghana. See you in Canada.

In Accra

It's now Saturday afternoon. I'm in Accra and my parents are getting here soon. Needless to say, I'm totally not excited or anything. I'm in a bit of a rush so I'll just say that it's sweet to be in Accra and I've got two separate posts within this post below this paragraph. See if you can decipher it. Enjoy!

It’s Wednesday night but I doubt I’ll put this up til Friday. Today was really good. As I think I mentioned in my last post, we had a ceremony to distribute school uniforms and books to twenty needy girls as part of a program that was initiated last year. We had some of the things left over and some people from a village near where we live asked for them. Ask and ye shall receive.

So Grace and I went up there to give them out. There was a big ceremony in the church with the teachers and some village elders and parents, plus at least 200 hyperactive kids. I gave a little speech about Dr. Addae, stressing the importance of education and remembering your roots. In truth, I think most of it went over the kids’ heads, but the few sentences I spoke in Twi got me a huge cheer.

It was rewarding to be able to do this, but it was also unfulfilling in a way. I wish we had more to give but I know that it would never have been enough. That’s the way it goes with this kind of work-it never ends.

One more thing: kids here go absolutely bonkers when you take their picture, especially after the flash goes off. I got a few good shots today and took a bit of video as well so I’ll be able to remember the noise. What I really need is two cameras, or at least a separate flash, so I can take a photo of how they react to the flash going off. Crazy.

It’s Friday morning now. Yesterday I finished creating an application form for the college and then we went up to the clinic to deliver everything and start putting things in order…finally. It’ll take a few more days to get everything done but it should be up and running by the time I get back on Wednesday. I spent about half an hour putting outpatient cards in alphabetical order (fun!). It seems like half of Ghana has a last name that starts with ‘A’ and the other half has a last name starting with ‘O’. Not one ‘C’. At least I know that if I got sick there they could find my card quickly.

I’m about to head to Accra but hopefully I’ll get this posted before I leave. I’m staying with Nana Aba tonight and my parents are getting in tomorrow night. Not too sure how often I’ll be writing after they get here, so it might be a while. So long, everyone…

The home stretch

It’s been a while. I really don’t have much desire to write on this thing anymore, probably because I’m near the end of it and feel tired with it.

But I’ll try my best to put up a few more posts, at least before my parents get here on Saturday. After that, I don’t think I’ll post until I get home on June 15. So I might as well tell you what we’ll be doing. First, we’re going to a place called Busua for three days. It’s on the coast and is supposedly beautiful: white sand beaches and all that. Then we’ll spend a few days in Kumasi, looking at our projects and the various sights here. From there, it’s on to Mole National Park for two nights. It’s a hell of a trek to get up there but when else are my parents going to be able to do a safari? And then one last night in Kumasi (the night of Ghana’s opening match in the World Cup), one night in Accra and then homeward bound.

Work is going well and I think RUCNET is about to make a good leap forward. We’re taking on a consultant and plan on expanding the health care project. The model is one that can be used anywhere in the country and it involves the community in a meaningful way, giving them a stake in their own health care. Things take so long to happen here, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.

At some point this week we are having a ceremony to distribute school uniforms and supplies to needy children and apparently, I’m supposed to make a speech. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And finally, I couldn’t let an important event go un-remarked upon. On Friday I went to the immigration office for the last time ever. It was anti-climactic, although I guess it would have been pretty tough to top the BS of the last trip. I felt like asking the jerk officer if he was happy that he’d never have to see me again, but I decided not to push my luck.

‘Til next time.

A Potential Darwin Award

We finally have power, after not having it all weekend. It is supremely frustrating to be part of one town that is an island of darkness in a sea of power—the streetlight a stone’s throw from our house had power while we didn’t. Long may it last.

Get ready for an incredibly bizarre and disturbing story with shades of the Darwin Awards painted all over it. The brother of a patient of Dr. Addae’s (got that?) died several weeks ago. As is custom, the funeral was to take place last weekend. When they went to get the body from the morgue for the viewing and funeral rites, they discovered that there had been a mix-up and the man had been buried about six weeks earlier!

I guess the proper response would have been to have a funeral without a body, but that would be highly unusual. What this family did instead was exhume the body that had been in the ground for six weeks. They then dressed it and left it lying in the house for two days for the viewing and then re-buried it. Viewings here mean close contact with the corpse and lots of weeping over the body. This is fine if it has been kept in a mortuary, but not if it has been buried for six weeks! I can’t even begin to imagine how disgusting that is.

Apart from being disgusting, it is totally unhygienic. The man’s sister, who is about 70 years old, fell ill on Sunday because of this. She went into a coma and Dr. Addae went to see her this morning. Apparently she’s had some form of stroke and pneumonia. Hopefully she will recover.

I was unsure how to react when I heard the story, but the human capacity for dark humour is amazing: while lamenting the situation, Dr. Addae started laughing and so did I. It is a ridiculous story and goes to show the overwhelming lack of education about basic hygiene that many people here suffer from. SIX WEEKS IN THE GROUND!!!

Sweet dreams, y’all.

GIS BS

It’s that time again: time for me to bitch about Ghana Immigration Services! But I am totally justified in my anger.

The last time I went, I was only granted a two-month extension, the reason for which was that “we can only give you two months if we want to”, thus ensuring I would have to return.

So on Friday, I went to take their BS yet again. I showed up at 12:38, in order to make it before their lunch break. I soon found out that they take an hour and a half for lunch and I had missed them by 8 minutes. I was told to leave and come back at 2. Fine. So I came back at 2 and asked for a form to fill out. Instead of being handed a form, I was grilled on various subjects by one man, while another officer (who seems to hate me, and the feeling is more than mutual) asked me “WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THIS COUNTRY? YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT?” I didn’t quite lose it, but I almost did. I told him that I would never talk to someone who was visiting my country like that and that he was the least friendly person I’d met in Ghana. To my surprise, he actually became nicer after that, apart from mumbling something about how I should have applied for a work permit because I’d been here for so long. I go back next Friday to pick up my passport and I can’t wait. I’m already happy—I feel like I’ve had the braces from my bottom teeth removed and the top ones are coming off in a week.

Again, like I said before, I am not asking to be treated like a saint. I’d settle for being treated like a bloody human being. What a joke. I can now say without any reservation that I hate Ghana Immigration Services way more than Future Shop.

That aside, life is great. We’re going to have our first clinic up and running within the next few days, which I’m thrilled about. I only have two weeks of work left and it is a great way to finish. My parents are coming on June 3^rd and we’re travelling around the country for eleven days and then leaving back to Canada on the 14^th. It’s pretty hard to believe and although I’m excited, I’m already starting to miss Ghana. But more on that later, after I’m back. For now I’ll just leave you with some advice. If you’re in Ghana and need your visa extended, go to Accra to do it. A six-hour bus ride either way is worth it not to have to deal with that blankety-blank-blank-blank.

Soccer, a follow-up and Jesus

First of all: the Champions League Final. It was a pretty good game, although I’m disappointed about the outcome and feel really bad for Jens Lehmanns. But Barcelona deserved to win. In true Ghana-style, the power went out just after Lehmanns had been red-carded (about 15 minutes into the game), so I quickly jetted over to Bon Appetit where they have a generator. As it turned out, they had power anyways. This is now the third time the power has cut out in a dramatic moment of a soccer game. Not as bad as when it cut out right before the decisive shot of a shootout in the African Cup but still annoying.

Second of all: a follow-up to the child labour post. Apparently, some of the children that have been freed by the International Organization for Migration are being rejected by their parents, who argue that is the responsibility of the IOM to care for them as they freed them. This is disgraceful and it shows that poverty isn’t the only factor in the trafficking of children: irresponsible and selfish parents are also to blame. But while we can argue about where to assign blame and who to punish, obviously it is the children who suffer the most and I reiterate what I said about my gratitude at the privilege of being born in Canada.

Finally, occasionally, I’ll get picked up by a private car while trying to catch a tro. This is always nice, as it’s free, more comfortable, and the conversation is good. But without fail, every time, I get preached too about Jesus. Ghana is such an ostentatiously Christian country. The last guy was great: as he dropped me off, he asked if I had been washed with the blood of Jesus. But his demeanour was so friendly—it almost seemed like he was preaching because there is some unwritten rule about doing it to hitchhiking obrunis.

Modern-Day Slavery

Distressing items on the nightly news are anything but rare; however, there was one tonight that was particularly brutal. It dealt with child trafficking and its hub in Ghana: a town at the north end of the Volta Lake, Yeji, where fishing is the main industry and children make up a huge part of the workforce.

Children from all over Ghana are sold to fishermen because their parents need money for various reasons. The report started in a town in the south of the country where there are very few children to fill a new school building because their parents have sold them to fishermen in Yeji. The reporter interviewed several women who had sold their children for sums ranging from 300 000 to 500 000 cedis per child. One woman had sold her five children for a total of 2 million cedis. That’s about $250 or 50 bucks per kid. All the women blamed poverty for selling their children, but one described how she used the money to re-roof her home. In fairness, while this might sound extravagant to us, that really means a new sheet of corrugated metal for a small building of one or two rooms.

The segment then moved to Yeji, where a reporter was interviewing children whose parents had sold them to fishermen there. Most were around 9 or 10; the youngest was five years old. Five years old. Facing a life of servitude, at least until he becomes old enough and if he’s lucky, his master gives him a boat and a net of his own. The conditions under which these boys work are far from safe, as they go out with each other in large, flat-bottom canoes to pull in nets.

It wasn’t all bad news, as the International Organization for Migration is making efforts to free these children and stop the flow of child trafficking. Right now, their efforts largely focus on paying fishermen for the children, which seems like a pretty poor solution to me. With the money they get for one child from IOM, they can afford to buy two or three more. Obviously, the ‘root cause’ of poverty needs to be addressed, as the only way to totally stop the sale of children is to create favourable economic conditions where parents can support themselves and their kids.

I am unsure of the law regarding human trafficking in Ghana, but from watching this report, it either needs to be a) toughened, or b) actually enforced. This is modern-day slavery and people who take part in it should be prosecuted. If parents know that the consequences of selling their children outweigh the benefits, they won’t do it.

I can barely remember being five, but whatever I was doing, it was what we in the developed world consider normal and carefree. I can’t even begin to imagine the existence of thousands of children here and around the world and for that I am forever grateful for the privilege of being born in Canada.

Just checking in

I'm still here. I've been working on a list of equipment for the lab for the college, which is incredibly extensive. And I lost a day's worth of work because of the crappy internet cafe I was at. That's all for now.

A few things

Q: How do you fit four goats on your head?

A: First, be a Ghanaian woman, not particularly big, maybe 5'5". Next, hogtie the four goats and put them in a metal basin. Then put said basin on your head. Four goats!!!

I'm putting up two logos that Ken designed, one for RUCNET and one for the school. They're fantastic, so if any of you need any design work, drop Ken a line. You can find an email address here. Sorry for the size disparities.

Not much else. I'm feeling a lot better, especially after getting some great pizza yesterday.

Food issues

Sorry not to have written for a few days, as I know you were all on the edge of your seats waiting for my next exhilarating post from Kumasi.

So here it is. The reason I didn’t post anything is because I had my second case of food poisoning in Ghana on Sunday. I ate some stew on Saturday that must have been spoiled and it caught up with me on Sunday. I’m fine now, but Sunday was a pretty brutal day.

The reason for this is that we don’t have a fridge, which is nothing too abnormal here. With the food that we cook (our get Grace to cook for us), we re-heat it twice a day to keep it from spoiling. This will keep something for at least three days, but I think I got to the stew on day 4 or it wasn’t properly re-heated. Another lesson learned, hopefully for the last time.

So apart from being sick, there’s not too much else to report right now. But in light of this, I think you should all take a minute to hug your fridge for keeping your food fresh and you healthy.

Thursday and Friday

For the past few days, apart from nursing a broken heart, I’ve been working on a report to send to the Ghana AIDS Commission as well as the budget for the clinics. Today we went to town to meet with a supplier who is a friend of one of our nurses. He’s going to give us a very good deal and we left him with a list of the things we need, so we’ll pick up an invoice on Monday.

The report is on a project that RUCNET ran before I got here that took an economic approach to HIV/AIDS prevention with the theory being that women who were economically independent would be less susceptible to getting AIDS. It involved education and micro-credit. From writing this report, I can conclude that the project was somewhat successful. The one problem has been the repayment of the micro-credit loans. They achieved the goal of making the first batch of women self-sufficient, but not enough has been repaid to make the project renewable. I am not sure as to why this is the case.

Traffic in Kumasi is terrible.

The End.

Not really. It’s now Friday night and I didn’t get to an internet cafe today, so this post continues. This morning I was working on the report for the AIDS Commission as well as more logistics for the college. In the afternoon, Grace and I travelled to the village where our first clinic will operate to see how things are coming along there. The place needs cleaning and paint but other than that, it’s pretty much ready to go.

I saw another kid get hit by a car today. Fortunately, he didn’t appear to be too badly hurt. The car that hit him wasn’t going all that fast and although he was crying, I think he was okay.

The End (probably for real).

Heartbroken

I woke up this Wednesday morning feeling positive that the Habs had won to force a game 7 that I would be listening to late Thursday night. As I bounded up the steps to the internet cafe, I was nervous, but still confident.

And then I opened TSN.ca and saw what had happened. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Another season ended too soon; another long summer ahead.

In the end, the pivotal moment was losing Koivu. Enough ink has been spilled on this already, but it’s the truth. The leadership he provides is irreplaceable and I hope to hell that he recovers soon from this. That guy is worth his weight in gold and is my favourite player of all time.

I realized this morning that I care more about the Habs than Team Canada. The joy I get from their victories surpasses any other sports team by a country mile. The trade-off is that their losses hurt. A lot. But I wouldn’t lessen my adoration for ‘les boys’ for anything.

I’m heartbroken this morning, along with the rest of Hab-land. I really didn’t think it would end like this. But I am already excited for next season. The promise shown by our young guys like Chris Higgins, Thomas Plekanec and Alexander Perezhogin bodes well for the future. I hope Gainey re-signs Huet and picks up a power forward. Or Brad Richards.

In other hockey matters, I am once again amazed by Steve Yzerman. That guy is the epitome of class and grit. In 2002 he led Detroit to a Cup win on one leg and this year he played phenomenal hockey through brutal back pain. If he’s played his last game, it’s a huge loss for hockey, as he is one of the game’s greatest ambassadors.

Today I’m going to end with the mating call of the Leafs fan: "Next year".