Ewww!!

So, I’ve really been enjoying the “no shoe” policy I’ve instituted in my room. I just deposit my flip flops at the door (African style) and walk around barefoot on the cool plastic sheet that covers the concrete of my floor. I sweep out the dirt daily and have a relatively clean surface to do yoga or dance around when no one is peering in the windows. So, today I was innocently cleaning up some clothes, and as I was hanging my dress on a hook, I felt something a bit … unfamiliar under my bare foot. I thought to myself, “That’s strange, I don’t think I left any furry clothes right there..” (you see where this is going) I looked down and saw that I was standing, for more time than is ever necessary, directly on a squished dead mouse; and if this is not disgusting enough of a picture for some of you, I should add that a little more blood had just squirted out of its’ furry body from my weight. Now, I can only assume it was already dead because I did not feel it struggling against me and I had just put out rat poison several days prior, but it is still possible that I was more directly responsible for this death. Well, I may seem to be calm about this whole little incident right now, but you should know that I let out the most primal scream after noticing what I was standing on, that my neighbors may have reasonably assumed I was being stabbed.

There is actually a little background to my cohabitation with the mice that you should hear about. A few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to someone biting my fingertip. You heard me right. Some little creature was nibbling on my middle finger and my very justified “freak out” scared the little bastard away, squeaking as he went. That incident thereby ended my “no mosquito net” policy, which was instituted because of my “need to get some sleep” in the tropical heat policy. I know that sounds brazenly cavalier since I’ve caught malaria twice already, but damn it’s hot at night and malaria can be treated. Mouse bites, however, are intolerably disgusting! So, the mosquito net came down and the rat poison was laid.

So, I guess the score to date is Kim– one fatality, Mice - two casualty incidents (the bite and the trauma of stepping on the dead body. Hey, that counts. Believe me) I’m not sure who is winning at this point. I’ll just file the whole thing under “things I won’t miss about living here.”

Let the children play

So, the first picture is of the kids in our neighborhood who, taking inspiration from CBW's well digging activities, decided to take it upon themselves to build their own little well. So, they dug a small hole, put in plastic cups and even made a "CBW" sign to put on their little well. Well, how dern cute is that? Surprisingly, their well has yet to produce any water, but then again, neither do some of CBW's. The next picture captures an afternoon of impressive yoga displays, that make me feel soft and uncoordinated in comparison.

It's astounding how creative kids can get when they don't have a room full of toys to distract them. The other day, one of my favorites, Bakayoko, proudly showed me his stash of little treasures (bottle caps, jars and boxes) that he stashes in a tree and visits regularly. I'm going to miss that a lot.

Liberia in Ghana

Every time we enter camp after picking up new volunteers, the Liberian driver proclaims to the shell shocked new-comers, "welcome to Liberian in Ghana." And it is like entering a different country. Of course, the "shell-shocked newcomers" haven't been here long enough to fully appreciate this distinction. But there it is.

Liberian culture is quite distinct from Ghana and from the rest of West Africa in general. This is apparent every time we leave camp and travel around the country. For starters, Liberian English is nearly incomprehensible to the uninitiated. This is the English spoken by the freed slaves who founded Liberia over 150 years ago; an English that has evolved through the years and mixed with local dialects. Ghanaians sometimes overhear Liberian English and assume it is another African dialect. In comparison, Ghanaians, living in a former British colony, speak the Queen's English. Ghanaians dress as you'd expect Africans to dress - in colorful African prints tailored in the traditional way or in western clothes a few decades out of date and second hand t-shirts that advertise things like "Waukegan Crabfest 1992." Liberians do the same, but because of their strong affinity for all things American, they add some seriously fashion-forward hip hop gear into the mix. You see the same "gangstah" attire you would in Compton or Harlem (I'm guessing, I'm a white suburbanite) on the men, and the women wear such tight provocative get up that I feel downright "churchy" in comparison. Add to this the near continual blaring of rap music and I feel like I'm back in West Philadelphia. Going from the interior of Ghana to the camp is like going from the set of "Out of Africa" to the set of an albeit rustic hip hop video.

When Liberians first arrived here they were warmly welcomed as fellow Africans who were fleeing a conflict not of their making. That was 15 years ago, and let's just say the welcome has cooled through the years. Ghanaians have told me that Liberians are all thieves and prostitutes, and Liberians constantly complain about being discriminated against (they are) by Ghanaians. I was once refused a ride on a tro tro (even after I offered the driver double fare) because "all Liberians are crooks and saboteurs" Well, he didn't say "saboteurs" (it's the Queen's English, but come on...), but he explained to me that Liberians put nails on the road to cause accidents. Whenever someone is found butchered (these things happen - sometimes even to provide fodder for rituals) the two communities blame one another. Ghanaian parents warn their kids about Liberian strangers and Liberians do the same of Ghanaians.

Some of this seems to have it's roots in a clash of culture. Liberians, for whatever reason, have the reputation of not saving any money - spending what little they have on present-day indulgences, dressing flashy and then worrying about school fees and clinic expenses later. I've read that this is because Liberia was for so long ruled by an elite (the descendents of freed slaves, Americo-Liberians) that distinguished themselves through outward displays of wealth, and that to gain access to power or patronage Liberians had to do the same. It could just be one of those hallmarks of people trapped by generations of poverty who prefer to enjoy any small windfall because tomorrow is so uncertain. It could be that in imitating all things American, they are mimicking our obsession with conspicuous consumption. I don't know exactly why, but that's the reputation and it's not wholly undeserved. Ghanaians, by comparison, are apparently much more conservative and frugal and disdain such ostentation.

But some of the mutual animosity might be rooted in jealousy and misunderstanding as well. Liberians were also inundated with aid when they arrived in Ghana so that their standard of living was lifted higher than the neighboring community. This was actually so much of a common problem in Africa that now the UNHCR has some kind of official policy about not creating too much of a disparity in wealth between the refugee settlement and the surrounding community even if it means providing aid to the local population. Also, many Liberians receive enough remittances from relatives abroad to live fairly comfortably on camp. But there is also an element of truth to the fact that Liberians do engage in illegal activities in Ghana. They have to. They cannot work here and the UN no longer provides them with reliable food distribution, housing or medical care. Those who do not have help from abroad truly have to hustle to survive. So, some become sex workers and some may engage in other illicit activities.

OK. But there are obviously more similarities than differences and it's no surprise that the host community has grown weary of having 40,000 refugees living on their land in a kind of economic limbo. And despite the tension between the two communities, there is no prospect of Ghanaian authorities sending the refugees back, even when the lease on the land runs out. They are co-existing and tolerating one another probably as much as possible given the circumstances. The truth is that all over Africa, countries that are struggling with their own conflicts and economic hardships generously accept large numbers of refugees from neighboring countries. Something like a fraction of a percent of refugees are ever resettled into wealthy Western countries. The others are hosted by their African neighbors. Maybe it is because the borders have been arbitrarily imposed by colonial powers or maybe because they have little choice or capacity to turn refugees away. I think a part of it is in this very African sense of community and interconnectedness that requires neighbors to help each other in times of crisis.

free press

By West African standards, Ghana has a relatively free press – and by free, I guess I mean free to be, ala the National Enquirer, a bit absurd. One of my favorite all time front page stories was printed by The Mirror ("Ghana’s most popular weekly since 1953") and proclaimed in enormous typeset "CRIPPLES ON RAMPAGE". This was accompanied by a full page picture of a man on crutches staring menacingly out at the reader. It turns out that the "cripples" really were on a bit of a "rampage," reacting to a perceived cut in benefits from a local social service agency. The summary read: "the manager of the Cripples Home of the Ghana Society for the Socially Disadvantaged has clashed with the physically challenged trainees (why are we so PC all of the sudden?) of the centre attracting military intervention, police arrests and detention of some of the trainees." Another story promised by the front page was entitled "Why Do You Want to Rape Your Wife?" What?!?! Page 12 told us that this headline was really a critique of otherwise liberal-minded male political commentators who were refraining from supporting a Domestic Violence Bill that would make it a crime to rape ones wife. Fair enough reporting, so maybe it’s just the headlines that leave you scratching your head or bugging out your eyes. Some of the headlines, like those I just mentioned, are clearly designed to shock or provoke interest, others are shockingly mundane ("New Equipment for Radiology Department") and others simply baffling, such as "My Swollen Feet Persist", "What are We Doing?" and "This is Your Captain Speaking"

Another weekly, P & P (People and Places: We Report Nothing but the Truth) leads with story "Witch Donates Blood to Rich Brother" with an inset promising next week’s inside story: "Be Careful, That Fanta Pineapple May Have More Than You Can Drink" accompanied by a too large photo of a bottle of soda. Looking forward to that one. A quick turn of the page reveals the P & P to be of a slightly sleazier variety than The Mirror – "Pregnant Woman Strips Lover Naked" "Boy, 17, Attacks Old Woman For Sex?" (they printed the question mark) and "Driver Strapped by Love". These stories are not jokes as the titles might have you believe. The pregnant woman actually did strip her lover naked after an argument in the market; the public nature of the act making it newsworthy, I suppose. While the local stories are not parodies, the page of "Foreign News and Tit Bits" (yes, it reads "tit bits") is actually culled from the Weekly World News (a joke tabloid) and so unknowingly has a page full of made up stories! I suppose the editors reasoned that anything entitled the "Weekly World News" would have just that – breaking news items from around the world. So, the paper that "reports nothing but the truth" unwittingly contains spoof articles of the kind you’d read in The Onion. One is entitled "Man files for ‘moral bankruptcy’" and another story centers around the newly discovered secret writings of Jesus, which include bar mitzvah thank you cards to his Aunt Muskah for the carpentry set.

To be fair, there are some seriously legitimate periodicals, which have thorough reporting and insightful commentary and provdie a good glimpse into what is important to Ghanaians and how they view the world. There is a lot of emphasis on politics, which makes sense in a part of the world that has had some serious political upheavals in recent memory and future stability is not a foregone conclusion. But I think the biggest insight I've gained through my not so scientific perusal of Ghanaian periodicals is that sex, violence and the oddball or touching human interest story will pretty much universally help sell papers in a free economy. And the headlines keep the tiny demographic of foreigners buying papers for the unintentional comedic value.

V day

So, many of you may not realize this but Valentine's day is something of a national holiday here in "Liberia in Ghana". I'm not kidding. The kids stay home from school and everybody parties like it's July 4th. The Ghanaian Education Board has decided that what with all the Christian and Muslim holidays and days like UN day during for which school is suspended, students only attend like 3 or 4 days of school a year. So, they are "cracking down" on lover's day making all schools hold classes that day. We had a teachers meeting to discuss this and there was practically another mutiny. The teachers pretty much refused to teach saying that none of the kids would show up because they are not used to this change and there is no good way to get out the information. That's all true. One teacher made some argument about the importance of Valentine's day having to do with universal or religious love. The other teachers just kind of rolled their eyes. It's just an expected day off. I have no earthly idea how Valentine's day got elevated to a national holiday here, but I too am glad to have another excuse to celebrate.

OK. So here's a copy of a little Valentine one of my students made for me:

He addressed it:
"Sweare is sen it to sis kim
PO Box 46 State House
Accra Ghana
for mo information
contact Sweare Jo Torjlair"

"Happy Valentine to you sis Kim. Made God Bless you and wish many many mo years. What is Valentine? Valentine is all about John 3:16 Valentine is all about Share to one and another Person THank you."

He then drew me a Valentine's apple with an arrow through it. Yes, I said apple. No idea how that became a romantic icon here, but there it is. A friend of mine received an apple and a poem from a Liberian who has been pursuing her, so we all now tease her that in accepting the fruit she has agreed to all kinds of... lets just sayy... romantic acts.

OK. So, happy Valentine's day from the land of apples and no school.

how nature's perfect food got even better

Last weekend a number of us, being the good liberals that we are, took an educational sojourn to a fair trade banana farm. One of the volunteers is a rather active fair trade campaigner in Australia and her inquiries led her to contact Hub, Ghana’s first fair trade banana farmer, who agreed to give us a tour of his operation. Hub is every bit your image of the intrepid farmer. His face is leathery and tan from days in the sun, his manner is unassuming yet straight-shooting and one of his digits (middle finger, left hand) is missing, likely taken in some industrial farming accident. He generously took around his 500 acres in his rustic blue pickup explaining the ins and outs of the fair trade business and the finer points of banana farmer, talking (in a thick Dutch accent) about the “verkersh harveshting dee bananas.”

Hub had begun his tropical farming career in the Ivory Coast in what he described as pretty primitive conditions. After that, nearly 13years ago, having fallen in love with a Ghanaian woman, he moved here to try his luck at farming the land in the Volta region. Hub was not drawn to the fair trade game due to any kind of outrage over multinational exploitation of disempowered native workers, but because without fair trade he would not have been able to overcome the trade barriers that were keeping him from exporting his produce.

A complicated set of European trade restrictions that gave former colonies preferential treatment in exporting produce was phased out when the EU was established, technically permitting a flood of cheap produce from many parts of the earth to all over Europe. But to take advantage of this new rule producers had to be already exporting to Europe before the EU was established. Because no one had seen it profitable to export bananas from Ghana before this rule, no one could take advantage of this newly lifted trade barrier. OK. I think I have this part of the story correct so far, but trade regulations are by design complicated partly (to be cynical) so that those with the slickest lawyers get the best deal. Not being a slick lawyer I may have screwed up one of the finer details. Anyway, point is Hub was priced out of the banana game, and a part of the world that could grow bananas most efficiently was prevented from selling to the part of the world that would pay the most for them (the opposite of what free trade enthusiasts advocate). But with a fair trade label stuck to his produce, Hub could circumvent some of these trade restrictions and command enough of a premium in European markets to make a profit.

Many of us are familiar with the term “fair trade”, but we know it as a tiny niche market for select goods (like chocolate, coffee and handicrafts) frequented mainly by us liberal yoga-practicing organic oat-eating do-gooders. However, in Europe, there are entire aisles of produce dedicated to fair trade products for the social conscious salad eater. The fair trade consumer can rest assured that the far off producer of their produce is getting a fair wage, the right to unionize, health and pension benefits, and paid overtime (conditions that, to make an obvious comparison, would make the average Walmart employee envious). The FLO (the Fair Trade Labeling Organization) visits the operation, or more often collective of small farmers, to ensure that these labor standards are adhered to, and awards them the official fair trade label which confers with it a premium at the selling point.

Hub’s banana fields flank the great Volta River and are nestled between rolling green hills. Monday through Wednesday his 500 workers tend to the fields for a 5 hour day while Thursday and Friday (the “harveshting” days) they put in a longer 10 hours. If they work on the weekends they get paid overtime. They are unionized and have a health policy and even, we were surprised to learn, maternity leave. Hub's farm puts $60,000 into the local economy each month, which of course helps generate and support other small businesses as well as the estimated 5 dependents per each of his workers. When profits from their fair trade premium were twice as much as expected last year, the workers had a say in determining where this extra $120,000 went. They voted on buying a bicycle for each worker so that their commute (otherwise potentially hours on foot) would become easier, and now blue “fair trade” bikes dot the region.

Last year Dole (maybe you’ve heard of this company) moved into the neighborhood after things got too unstable in the Ivory Coast next door, setting up a banana plantation ten times larger than Hub’s operation. Dole’s workers are paid daily with no contract (probably made it a lot easier to get out of the Ivory Coast when the going got rough) and paid five times less than Hub’s. These lower labor costs and the benefits of economies of scale from such a huge operation mean that without fair trade, Dole’s farm would have run Hub out of business last year.

One of the main arguments for free trade is that, while it is easy to paint multinationals as nefarious parasites, they are providing much needed employment to workers whose alternatives are much worse. But the problem is that they can pull out of a country at any time when greener pastures emerge or when things get too prickly, leaving the situation worse than where they found it. But this is business and not social work, and it’s not surprising that there is no real loyalty to betterment of the country or to the workers and their families. But that’s precisely why our government has regulations to protect workers – because the competitive environment in which businesses operate does not select for expensive decisions that nurture workers or create a healthy society outside the company gates. Because there are no real global worker protections, mobile multinationals can game the system to their advantage. OK. That’s probably a sophomoric oversimplification of things, but that should give the uninitiated a bit of background. Back to Hub…

After the tour, Hub invited us to his house to relax and chat a bit more. Let’s just say, fair trade has been good to Hub. His house was unpretentious but beautiful; the pickup and farm tools in the garage clashed a bit with his leather sofa and high-tech sound system inside. Pictures of his farm and family and an impressive collection of Africana dotted his walls. It all seemed to fit what we knew of Hub so far. We convened in his backyard and relaxed in the gazebo overlooking the Volta drinking beer in the early mid-day. Life has not always been so comfortable. Farmers can experience a reversal of fortunes any year making it a risky investment. A few years ago, a disease in his fields wiped out his harvest and he nearly lost everything. He had to lay off almost all of his workers. But considering that they negotiated a 5 months severance package, Hub told us that most of his workers were asking to be fired. (The contracts required he pay even more which would have permanently shut him down, so the workers union agreed to the 5 months) He was able to start over, however, and has seen some very profitable years lately.

All of this was very heartening - one of those instances where everybody wins. And it is all due to the market of socially conscious consumers that are willing to pay a bit more to know that the workers who pick the fruit half a world away are being treated as they would want to be treated. I don’t know if it will be enough of a market to truly change the way global business is done, but it is a start.

noise pollution

As I mentioned, one of the hardest things about living on camp is noise. I'm not just referring to the children constantly screaming in the windows or the continual din of chatter. The real problem is the decibel (painful) and time of day (all hours) people insist on blaring music and the like over loud speakers. This ranges from rather enjoyable Ghanaian high life music to the down right offensive Celine Dion ballad or evangelic ranting. Whatever it is, it is played so loud that you have to scream over it in your own house and frustrated attempts to shut out the noise with ear plugs or mental concentration only make your blood boil. I've spent some time trying to work out why no one (other than every international volunteer) seems to mind the noise. Seriously, this kind of noise at home would elicit at least a "shut the f--k up!" screamed out a window and more likely a call to the police, but here people just go about their business, sing along or break out into a little dance. I have a few theories brewing about this apparent tolerance for such extreme noise pollution, but none of them seem entirely satisfying.

1) This acceptance could be a manifestation of an African sense of communalism and a fuzzier sense of where the individual ends and the community begins. So much here seems to implicitly belong to everyone, and that includes everything from a person's income to their private space, which is (by necessity or culture) virtually non-existent. I have had strangers literally sit on my lap on a tro tro and children grab every part of my body without exception. A person’s fortunes or tragedies are never their own to enjoy or endure. A family member that makes good is expected (not hoped) to share their gains with the rest, but when someone is sick or everyone they know comes to aid with money and emotional support. There are so many manifestations of this communalism and sense that we are all tied to one another. Maybe this tolerance for another person's noisemaking is just another. The air belongs to everyone so no one person can stake prevent another from pouring a sound into it.

2) Maybe it's not all that deep. Maybe, in the same way those who grow up eating spicy food can tolerate it better than those of who grew up eating blander food, Africans’ sense of what is too loud or annoying has become muted through habituation. That seemed like a satisfying explanation, but I have spoken to some Liberians who are in fact irritated by their neighbor blasting music in the wee hours of the morning. So, it could be that…

3) There is no civil authority to create and enforce any noise pollution regulations. Maybe everyone is stewing with rage and frustration in their homes but they have no police to call and are afraid to confront someone who is bold enough to blare 50 Cent at deafening decibels. That could be true, but doesn’t seem to explain everything as most people still seem unfazed by noises levels that make it impossible to think, but maybe that’s the whole point.

4) It *is* hard to think when Ghanaian high life or American rap music is playing so loudly that furniture is rattled. But, considering what so many adults have had to live through in the war and afterwards, maybe silence is a worse offender. If quiet provides an opening for past horrors to visit your mind, loud music could be the antidote. So, maybe loud music works as kind of an easy and convenient palliative strategy when otherwise you’d be left to cope with some serious trauma.

I could still be wrong, but finding an explanation for this helps me from pulling my own hair out in frustration when a hokey musak version of Amazing Grace wakes me at 4 AM from much needed slumber. It keeps me from falling apart as I pull my pillow over my head and try not to loose my own grip on reality.