Wednesday, September 21
Just to reassure, I woke up this morning feeling completely fine. We didn’t make it into Kumasi today. In fact, not much happened at all. We’re still trying to get the house in order. I’ve realized that when someone here says ‘tomorrow,’ they mean ‘next year.’ More when something cool happens. Today I read National Enquirers from late 1999. They had “articles” on Y2K and Monica-gate. That seems a world away. Which I guess makes sense, given where I am right now.
From talking to Dr. Addae, there are a million opportunities here, both non-profit and for-profit. 70% of the people here speak Twi as their first language. But there is no Twi language newspaper. That would be like not having a French paper in Quebec. I don’t think that would be too hard to get going. You’d just need to piggyback onto an existing English paper. And you’d need money, but not an exorbitant amount. But more likely for me, there are some projects that are very simple and need funding. Such as raising money to buy a semi-truck for a rural farmers’ co-op. This would eliminate the middlemen who grossly underpay the farmers for their produce. The margin between what farmers receive and what the produce is sold for is somewhere around 80%.
More generally, in that vein, there are so many business opportunities here. The thing is that they all seem so simple. I’m talking about things people would have jumped on in 2 seconds in North America. It seems unbelievable, but from talking to Dr. Addae, I’ve realized how conservative and inert commerce is here. Most people only want to deliver services. Very few people produce or innovate because risk-taking has not been inculcated here. If from my writing, it sounds like I think I know everything already, most of what I’ve written is coming from Dr. Addae.
From talking to Dr. Addae, there are a million opportunities here, both non-profit and for-profit. 70% of the people here speak Twi as their first language. But there is no Twi language newspaper. That would be like not having a French paper in Quebec. I don’t think that would be too hard to get going. You’d just need to piggyback onto an existing English paper. And you’d need money, but not an exorbitant amount. But more likely for me, there are some projects that are very simple and need funding. Such as raising money to buy a semi-truck for a rural farmers’ co-op. This would eliminate the middlemen who grossly underpay the farmers for their produce. The margin between what farmers receive and what the produce is sold for is somewhere around 80%.
More generally, in that vein, there are so many business opportunities here. The thing is that they all seem so simple. I’m talking about things people would have jumped on in 2 seconds in North America. It seems unbelievable, but from talking to Dr. Addae, I’ve realized how conservative and inert commerce is here. Most people only want to deliver services. Very few people produce or innovate because risk-taking has not been inculcated here. If from my writing, it sounds like I think I know everything already, most of what I’ve written is coming from Dr. Addae.
posted by Tony at 1:56 p.m.
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