Gone To Ghana

Banking in Bolga

Being quite earnest to arrive early to do banking, I leapt on the moto (a 125 cc motorbike – roads are full of them!) for the 30 minute ride to Bolgatanga. I find the ride ying-yangish – I like the challenge of slaloming the many potholes yet I do not relish the thought, that, should I fall, this not-youngish body would find much pain and slow recovery.

Making it to “Bolga’ in fine fashion, I scurry off to enter the bank, only to see little floor space for standing. I’m talkin’ 250 plus customers waiting. I have bank drafts to do for two students in our scholarship/loan project. Were I to accept the challenge of waiting in line, It would be an all-day experience with no assurance you would reach the teller’s window before closing. Not an option as I must teach at 12:30.

I will never complain about banking service in the states. Any inconveniece there pales to the extraordinary marathon taking place here. Lots of paperwork, little use of the computer, and slow deliberate tellers. The banks name is The Ghana Commercial Bank, which is the ‘poor mans’ bank here. They offer the lowest interest rate so it is popular, but only because of that. Nary a smile from any employees. More noticable is how patient the waitiing customers are. I am not sure even in my best moments that I would be capable of such waiting without a few exasperated sighs or verbal laments. I highly admire the way Ghanaians handle waiting. I am convinced that I will ever learn this style of resolve as I have not improved yet having been here accumulatively 14 months. I guess, instead, I will keep trying to improve my ability to speak Nab’t. “Eah tooma ah yealah?” – “How is your waiting?”.

A dorm room with 50 beds

Saturday chores on the verandah of the girls dorm

For various reasons, most Ghanaians do not make it to high school. To begin with there is a lack of high schools and admittance is determined by test scores. Following JSS (Junior High), students take exams and are allocated to high schools based on their results. Only 38% attain scores high enough to qualify for high school. Something that tugs at my heartstrings daily is the shadow of yearning on the faces of young men and women left behind, who now have lost the opportunity for significant further education and the chance for income beyond that of a farmer or laborer. Another reason students stay behind is money. High schools are not free. Students must pay tuition for high school in Ghana, with the first year’s tuition of $300 being the equivalent of a farmer’s annual income. At times, the extended family members can gather enough to pay tuition for qualifying youth. At times students must delay for a year or more before money can be gathered, at times they never get to attend high school in spite of good exam scores.

Perhaps that helps to explain the enthusiasm and vitality that exudes from the girls dormitory at the brand new Kongo Senior High School on a Saturday. To begin with, it is early in the school year and, consequently, an awareness persists among the girls that they are extremely fortunate just to be there. As we arrive, it becomes obvious that Saturday is a day for laundry, cooking, bathing, and cleaning. There is a bustle of outdoor communal activity with some hand washing and ironing school uniforms (using irons with hot coals), other girls carry water from a borehole, some girls cook on little hibachis, and all of it is unsupervised. There is a sense self-sufficiency and purpose, accompanied by much laughing and talking.

The dorm rooms themselves are something a westerner must see to believe. The two hundred girls live with 50 girls to a room, sleeping on small bunk beds (smaller than a twin bed) packed closely together. At the foot of each bed is a small box or suitcase for personal items. In an unaccustomed luxury for most Ghanaians, each dorm room has ceiling fans (all of which were turned on) and large windows. While the rooms were reasonably pleasant, these girls will never have opportunity for peace, quiet, and solitude. And there were no desks. I neglected to ask where school books are kept. And a word about something we all take for granted, the flushing toilet. There are currently no latrines or toilets at the school. The technical term is ‘open defecation’; not a new experience for these girls, but of some health concern to me considering the high density of students, the possibility of flies spreading disease from the exposed feces, and the absence of running water for washing hands.

Social expectations in Ghanaian schools are comparatively restrictive in regards to personal freedoms. Students must contact the headmaster for a weekend pass, and are only allowed a few of these per year; though everyone does go home for major holidays. And, are you wondering about boyfriends? Kongo Senior High is a coed school and the boys dorms are strategically placed at least a quarter mile away. Boys are not allowed to go any where near the girls dorms, and vice versa. A typical punishment for meeting a boy outside of class is to be suspended from classes for one week, leaving the student to fall behind in classes and sit alone in the dorms.

The newclassrooms will open after the regional building inspector gives approval

Our first 10 days in northern Ghana culminated with a visit to Guanwarre school this morning. Because there are no roads and the trails are spiderwebbed in all directions through tall grasses, we arranged to follow the headmaster to the school at 7 am. It was wonderful to see the growth at the school. For now, they are using the original adobe/mud schoolhouse for two classes, but the bulk of the 117 students meet outside, each class with its teacher and blackboard under it’s own tree. There is a new, cement block building consisting of three rooms awaiting a visit from the building inspector, after which it can be occupied. The current headmaster has wisely grouped the children by grade, rather than clumping them together in large groups of varying age and ability. Though there is a committed headmaster and one professional teacher, the other teachers have just barely completed high school and are paid a pittance of $50 per month. Even so, the Guanwarre students seem to be getting a reasonable start on their education with the students engaged in their learning. We were very favorably impressed.

And remarkably the feeding program, now operating for 2 years in the months from January to June, seems to be going without problems. It warms our hearts to see that the Guanwarre children are definitely looking healthier with better skin and less extreme leanness. We met today with some of the mothers that participate in cooking the food, and they expressed satisfaction with the food supply, storage, and preparation. The teachers too reported that the food is being stored and prepared competently. It is so rare not to have conflicts and issues. Ghanaians are generally communicative and, therefore, not hesitant to let you know of problems. We are so pleased at the success of this program and its benefits to the school and in the community.

In a country where the many schools have no toilet, a particularly notable development is that of a toilet building for the school. On starting the feeding program two years ago, all of the mothers who volunteered to cook tested positive for typhoid fever. They all received treatment with antibiotics, along with most of their children. Typhoid is transmitted by the fecal-oral route. Contamination can happen either by flies landing on feces and then on food, or by contaminated hands. We are hoping the enclosed toilets has reduced the contamination of food by flies. One aspect of the feeding program is to retest the cooks while we are here.

Gathered around their teacher for a lesson, primary 5

Indeed, we are here! In so many ways it feels great! Our friend the hot sun is a bit too friendly. I am wondering how long before our bodies learn to sweat enough to cool us through out the day. Besides the joy of smacking a few tiny bugs that get through our mosquito net at night, the biggest highlight has been my first visit to the new high school facilities now placed near Pelungu. Classrooms have ceiing fans that work and lights, two features lacking at the old site.

Still, the students struggle with lack of living space. I saw the girl’s dormitory. Bunk beds are set in rows about 20 inches apart. This is good compared to the boy’s living conditions. Their accommodations are the same but the overflow of about 100 boys are left to find a place to live on their own by appealing to the community. The school enrollment is about 425, with the Freshman ( here they are called Form1) coming in late November or December not yet counted. Once the slow-moving ed system compiles the list for who goes to what school, they will come. The term “It is not easy” is said so much here that it loses meaning.

THE POWER OF KIDS TO MAKE YOU SMILE. Having ‘motoed’ (to ride a motorcycle) to the school in time for Monday Assembly, the greeting puts a smile on my face hard to erase. The remaining members of the choir that I assembled two years ago present to me two of the songs I taught them. One a “Kongo Tongo, Bongo Round,” an original that speaks of peace from village to village. It is sung in Nab’t the local language. Bravo! Bravo! It was well done! I myself had forgotten some of the words. The other was a shortened version of “Oh Susanna!”. It was really quite touching. I hope to start a choir again.

FAMILIAR FOOD! Yup! We ate our first self-prepared meal last night! Lisa did her magic tricks with tomato sauce, onions and a few other things thrown in for a great vegetarian pasta dish. Prior to this we have been eating ‘native’. I wish I could say we enjoyed that. Maybe too old for this dog to learn this new trick.

NURSE AND TEACHER’S COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP/LOAN. It is an understatement when I say there is a need. Just today, 5 people have asked for application. Were we to satisfy all, our funds would be depleted in no time. Though we mantian our desire to ‘stay small’, I am planning to make an appeal to those contributing to spread the word to get a few more contributors. I would rather do that than ask the gracious contributors for more. Plans are under way to register our own NGO in Ghana. In a perfect world, the NGO in the U.S. has a corresponding registered organization in Ghana.

SCHOOL FEEDING AND NUTRITION CENTER. We will soon take our moto across the grassy savannah to meet with the Guanwarre community about the feeding program. Reportedly, the feeding program is crucial to the success of this remote, new school. In addition, we are working to obtain information on academic achievement to help us know if the feeding is actually helping in the ways we hoped it would.

First days in Ghana

Like most visitors to Ghana, we arrived at Kotoka Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana, a large city teeming with humanity. And traffic. A city with over 2 million people and a marked shortage of paved roads. One could enjoy Accra much more if it did not take more than an hour, at any time of day, to crawl five miles by un-airconditioned taxi or bus. Following recent rains, the humidity was intense, but temperatures did not go much above 90 degrees, making the climate bearable. We instantly became fans of cool showers, which is a good thing considering there is no hot water at most hotels. Our good friend and mentor in Ghana, attorney Tobiga Somtim, was just around the corner from our lodging. We also met with Basko Kante, a Ghanaian friend and an Oregonian who spends about half his time Ghana. Our efforts in Ghana are greatly helped by guidance from these two men.

After we purchased a cell phone modem, a device you attach to your computer for internet access, we sweated through Accra traffic in taxi and bus rides finding someone to configure our Linux based laptop so the modem would work. It felt like nothing short of a miracle when we were actually able to connect to the internet. Another day was spent getting paperwork to register our organization in Ghana, an important step to make the student scholarship/loan program more official. The forms were surprisingly easy to get, but they are very detailed and must be TYPED in quadruplicate. Over the next few days we will be looking for a typist in Bolga to help us out.

Our chance to experience some air conditioning came on the 15 hour bus ride from Accra to Bolgatanga. We decided to pay extra (tickets were $30 each) and go by way of the “Executive Bus” at night. The bus had plenty of leg space (I think of David as ‘Daddy Long Legs’) and luxurious 30 degree reclining seats. With only ½ of a sleeping pill one could could have a mostly comfortable night. And just in case I needed to test my knee mobility, the only bathroom stop was the chance to squat in a brushy patch alongside the road; women to the right, men to the left. The stop was a good reminder of what daily life is like for most Africans.

Women who sell in the markets are transporting the bags of food and clothing. It all fits under o inside of the bus.