Johannesburg, South Africa: Initial Thoughts

So I've been in Johannesburg for 4 days now and I thought I would write about my first impressions for my one reader, my mom, oh wait she can't read English.... :-P  First of all, it's definitely not as dangerous as people say it is.  There are definitely sketchy areas but also some really nice areas.  I am living in the dorms in one of the nicer areas (Parktown) , although it does border the most sketchy area in Jo'burg (Hillbrow).  The campus is a gated campus with a guard at the front so no need to be too concerned about muggings and what not.  There are nine of us exchange students here which makes for a crazy good time every night. The first day, and I guess every night since, I've been in town we went to a dance club around here which was awesome (my liver has been very angry with me)! I would say Jo'burg clubs and the city remind me alot of California, including all your modern conveniences with the addition of some very attractive people (male and female).  I am pleased to say that even the guys in the group love going dancing :) It is very refreshing that the clubs here have such diversity of people, with a healthy mix of white, black, and other, which is another difference between here and Cali.  Although I must admit the whole "western" culture is taking some getting used to.  People have said that South Africa is "Africa Lite" which seems to be very true to me.  I do miss the simple life in Ghana and how down to earth everyone was there, even all the travelers I met.  Anyway, pictures of the apartment and people to come! 
 

Goodbye Ghana!

So I have just arrived to South Africa and thought I should put a quick post on saying goodbye to Ghana and list some of the things I have learned while there.  Throughout the project I have always wondered how much profit the beneficiaries would be making with selling the Gari that they make out of the casava and how those profits compare to selling oranges or other goods.  I was finally able to speak to the NGO's finance officer from whom I learned alot about the donation process. 

Essentially, the cost benefit analysis was never done for this project or, for the most part, typical NGO projects.  The way it works usually is the donors ask the communities about what they need then sends out a request for proposals to the various NGOs in the area to see who can implement it.  So in this case the French Embassy went to the village and found out the number one thing they would like to have is cassava processing equipment.  Then HFFG won the bid to then implement the project.  No where along this chain of events is the cost benefit analysis, or other analyses, done to ensure that this project is the most beneficial project for the community.  So in the end the machines are put in place and the ladies end up not using the machine because either some of them have to travel further to process cassava now, some of the communities don't get along with the other communities, or they don't want to work as a "team" to produce the gari to sell. 

However, the other side of the story is that even if the analysis was done and it was determined that the best thing for the village would be to sell orange juice, the project would also fail miserably.  The reason is if its not the idea of the village, even with much education of the benefits, the majority of the people would not understand and would dismiss the solution.  There was even one instance of a village that complained about walking for an hour to the river to get water.  So in working with an NGO the village put in a pump where they can get the water.  After the installation the village ended up still going to the river for water.  The reason? The water from the well tastes funny. 

Through my experience here I have definitely learned that all the business stuff you learn in school don't always apply in real life.  The ladies are not always motivated by the idea of making more money and sometimes don't understand the concept of long term planning.

The people I have met in Ghana have been extremely generous and hospitable and I will miss them tremendously!  Although, my first hot shower in a month did feel AMAZING.  On a side note, I went to meet up with Micheal in Accra on one of my last days there.  On the way there I was lost and asked for directions to the tro-tro station from some strangers on the side of the road who then offered to take me to the meeting place.  "Ok, strange men, I will jump into your mini-van, thanks for the ride!" Hahaha.  In retrospect, I could be dead. : )

Asiamah and I at the Wli Waterfalls in the Volta Region

PS.  Yes it is true what they say about guys in South Africa, that and they have faux-hawks.  I'm never leaving here :-P

 

Pictures!!

 

The Ajumako Office

 

Benchmarking Meeting

Cape Coast Castle

 

Door of No Return

Fort Overlooking Cape Coast and Friend Michael

Elmina Castle

Obamania! (Hanging inside a tro-tro)

One of these don't belong

Need a Crocodile Machete? It's been tested and strong!

 

Fufu!

Outside of the House in Ajumako

Roommate Mona

Greeting the Chief (done before meeting with the community members)

Typical Community Meeting (this one was for the Abor community)

Honorable Bank Man

We finally had our meeting with the villagers and a representative from the bank today. The ladies had a lot of questions regarding the repayment periods and the risks associated with the weather and its impact on their crops. But, in general, there seemed to be support and enthusiasm for taking on the bank loan to finally buy the raw materials (cassava) they need to produce the gari that they can then sell in the market. My only concern is that I’m not sure if the ladies would actually follow through with the loans or if they were just feigning interest since we (the organization) was present. We were also able to meet with the Ministry of Farming and Agriculture (MOFA) and the Business Association to gain their support on the project. The MOFA promised to teach the ladies how to properly cultivate the cassava and also provide them with the right species of cassava to get started. This way eventually the ladies will not need to buy the cassava but can farm their own to produce the gari. The Business Association also promised to market the gari product to other businesses and at tradeshows once the ladies start producing it. All in all it seems like we got the ball rolling and that the ladies will start manufacturing soon!! I really hope this is the case, the staff promised to keep me updated seeing as how I won’t be here to actually see the start of manufacturing :(

Earthquake…Psych!!!!

Sunday night there was an apparent earthquake scare, Mona and I slept through everything, haha. Anyway, at around 12:30am there was a rumor of a major earthquake that spread through the entire country of Ghana via mobile phones (everyone here has a mobile, even the ladies in our villages!). The Ghanaians were telling me stories about people in their respective villages running out of their houses to stand in the clearing. This wasn’t just isolated to one town, but multiple places. Alberta’s home village had everyone evacuate and go down to the beach. There were stories of people carrying their TVs out on their heads. Many villages were woken up to someone beating their pots to wake everyone up. As a result of all this chaos the cell phone networks malfunctioned for a day after. Unbelievable! It was such a scene that the news was talking about it all the next day. In the end, obviously there was no earthquake, not even a little one, but people didn’t end up going to bed until dawn and many were crying and praying outside, I’m just glad no one called us, I would’ve been so mad! :)

Of Religion and Vegetarianism

This weekend I went to the nearby Kakum Rainforest Park to visit the much touted canopy walk. It’s the first of its kind in Africa and the only place that you can view the rainforest from above the canopy in 7 suspension walkways. Although there were a ton of obrunis there I still enjoyed it and was very glad that I got to see it before I left Ghana (one more week, just when I’m getting settled in to the lifestyle!) Unfortunately besides some birds, I didn’t see much of any wildlife in the rainforest although it was still interesting to learn about the different types of trees and their uses. I was also pretty proud of myself when I found out from the other obrunis that I’m the only one who came to Kakum by way of tro-tro; a common public van that Ghanaians take all the time. The tro-tros usually run between cities and pick up and drop off passengers along the way, I think it’s a great mode of transportation and super cheap! For an hour and half journey with 3 major stops it took me $2. Awesome! Anyway, for anyone planning to visit Ghana I highly recommend the tro-tros, and I can vouch for their safety, well at least from the other passengers, they’re still driven by crazy drivers!
I spent the night in a hostel outside of the national park called Hans Cottage Botel. It was a super cute place that was surrounded by a pond with crocodiles. I had dinner with the owner who told me about how he started the place and how all the crocodiles he owns were supposedly “domesticated”. He said if I wanted to I could take a picture with my hand in their mouth…um yeah no thanks, Steve Erwin also thought the same thing about sting rays (too soon?). After dinner I hung out with some of the people who were staying there a German (yes another one), an Israeli from Tel Aviv and some Ghanaians. It was interesting to learn from the Israeli about the difficulty he has explaining the fact that he doesn’t believe in Jesus to the Ghanaians. Even explaining vegetarianism to the Ghanaians is a tough concept. My roommate told me stories about how the chop shops didn’t understand that she didn’t eat meat and would ask would you like fish instead? It makes sense that some of these concepts are so foreign to them since the Ghanaians are pretty homogenous in their beliefs most are Christian except for some who are Muslim. The Israeli was here finishing a project that he started as part of his NGO in Barcelona, its so crazy to me how many volunteers are here helping the Ghanaians, not really sure if that is a good thing or not since it seems like the people have come to depend on the fact that the volunteers will take care of whatever instead of learning the skill to take care of it themselves when the volunteers leave.

Lizards and Frogs and Mice Oh My!

So I’ve been asked about where I am living so here’s a little bit about my apartment. I’m sharing a room with a German girl (Mona) who is also here volunteering; she’s been here for 4 months already and plans on staying on until August. Why, you might ask, are there so many Germans in Ghana? There’s an organization in Germany that sets these types of projects up for them. Along with our room there are 2 other rooms (one where Phyllis is staying and one where the other lady at the office sometimes stays, I have yet to meet her) that are connected via an open air square (~7’ x 7’). On the other side of the square is a room for the shower, a separate room for the bathroom, and a kitchen. The rooms have ceiling fans which are amazing and we each have a full size bed :) . However, since we are living close to the “bush” as Phyllis says there are some things that I am still getting used to. First of all, there are no lights in either the shower or the bathroom or the kitchen for that matter so, lucky for me, I brought my headlight (probably one of the best investments I’ve ever made next to the sleep sheet); it’s kind of like camping ALL the time. As for the kitchen, I have learned to buy only food I can eat that night, I walked into the kitchen one morning and found a gigantic lizard eating my bread, asshole! Then to make matters worse there are also two mice (Mickey and Minnie) living in the kitchen, as some of you are aware I’m a bit frightened by small creatures so these are all things I need to get used to. I’ve gotten in the habit now of knocking on the door of the kitchen before entering so the little creatures can run away. Yesterday I was in the room with Mona sitting around and chatting when I heard a rustle by my suitcase. I looked to see what it was and of course it turned out to be a giant frog (slightly bigger than a fist), yes there’s a frog that’s living in my room. I think I’ll name him Kermit. Mona doesn’t seem to be phased by any of this; apparently I’m just a giant wimp, haha. She saw Kermit and was like yeah from time to time he likes to come out. Um, a little heads up would have been nice. She also told me a story about a Spanish girl who was staying at one of the hotels where she felt something under her mattress. She thought she was just imagining things so tried to go back to sleep. Again she felt something move under her mattress. She finally gets up and tells the manager. The manager came into the room lifted the mattress and found a gigantic rat. I think if that happened to me I would’ve shat myself and probably died from a heart attack.

Now onto more interesting things. We’ve visited 3 villages, met their chiefs, the women beneficiaries, and the Queen Mother. It was interesting to learn about their reasons for why the project has failed so far. The common complaint from all the beneficiaries has been the fact that the organization hasn’t provided them the raw materials to make the products that they can sell. There seems to be a general lack of empowerment as they look to the organization to provide the raw materials and the vehicles to transport their goods. And to be frank, it’s not all their fault. Apparently there were promises made of a vehicle and other such things. If I were the women I would wait around too, why would I expend my own energy to get the supplies when it’s going to be delivered soon? Through the meetings Phyllis made it clear to them that the organization has no money to give them, instead she told them about the loans that are available to them and explained how they can control their own businesses instead of waiting and relying on others. All the women seemed very excited about the idea. We’ve set up a time for the people from the bank to come speak to the villages and again they were all very receptive. I get the perception that expectations weren’t set out clearly at the beginning of the project so that’s why there’s been a lot of waiting and wondering.

Oh and I’ve been given a Ghanaian name “Esi” which means Sunday, the day I was born. All Ghanaians have that as part of their names, so you can imagine there are a lot of Esi’s running around.

Spreken Ze Deutsch?

I took the weekend to visit the neighboring Cape Coast. A definite tourist destination, there were more obrunis (at least six in the span of six hours) there than I’ve seen my whole trip thus far. Cape Coast is the home of the Cape Coast Castle, a world heritage site, known for being one of the largest slave holding sites in the world during its time. It was definitely a sobering experience to see the “rooms” where they kept up to 200 slaves for months at a time. The males and females were kept in separate areas and rooms of the castle. Both rooms were underground and consisted of a tiny trench that went through the middle of the room where the occupants can relief themselves. It was said that during that time because the trenches could easily be backed up with rain water and human feces the layer of crap that covered the floor was as high as 6 inches, now imagine sleeping in that! Once the slave ships came the women and men were then walked through the “Door of No Return” and loaded onto the ships and ready for their journey to America or other places depending on the sailing winds. Recently two ancestors of slaves were brought back through the door to be buried in Cape Coast, leading to an added plaque on the other side of the door saying “Door of Return”.


During the tour I met a fellow obruni from Germany and we decided to hang out the rest of the day together in Cape Coast. Micheal was spending a year volunteering at an orphanage in Accra. Interestingly, in Germany before you start college you are required one year of military service or one year of field service to a developing country, he chose the latter. I was afraid to ask him how old he was because I’m pretty sure I could as old as his mom! Haha, even when in Ghana I’m still a cougar! Since he’s been here already been here for four months it was interesting to learn about his impressions of Ghana thus far. According to him, the school system here is extremely rigid and does not foster “free thinking”. For example in one of the classes he sat in they were taught the days of the week, when he spoke to one of the kids and asked what day comes after Wednesday the kid had to go through the whole order in his head to come up with Thursday. In another example, when he asked what 9/3 was, the answer came easily because that was memorized. When asked what 90/3 was the person wrote out 9 ten times then started crossing out and adding. This revelation actually made some sense to me. When I was with Alberta she had pointed out a man carrying a large burnt box on his head because he was cursed by some witch doctor. I asked her what would happen if he just didn’t carry it to which she had no response since she did not seem to understand the idea of why he wouldn’t carry it and do what he was told. All that being said, Micheal suggested that the Ghanaians were taught not to question authority which could lead to corruption. This corruption can be seen in the police barricades along the road where they’re essentially taking bribes from the cars passing the barricade. It will be interesting to see what is going to happen with the new discovery of oil off the coast of Ghana, I hope that it will not corrupt and adversely impact the people here.

On a side note on my way to Cape Coast I took a shared taxi, which got into an accident with another broken down taxi. We probably hit them straight on at a speed of 20mph (none of the cars’ speedometers work here!), luckily it didn’t seem like their hand break was on so the impact was probably less severe. Since there are no seat belts, it was a slight miracle that everyone in both cars were ok, I got a slight bruise on my cheek (same cheek as the surfing bruise!) and a small bruise on my leg. Craziness!!

Obruni!

So I’ve finally semi-settled into where I will be staying for the next 19 days. The name of the community is Ajumako which is just outside of Mankessim. It has been definitely the experience I have been looking for including the limited internet access and the lack of a hot shower!! I’m living in a room, similar to Hotel California that we stayed in in Egypt, needless to say I need to get used to feeling dirty allll the time. Walking around town and the different villages I get a lot of people, especially the kids, yelling “obruni!” to me, which means white person. Hahaha, apparently I’m white! The way they yell it is definitely not threatening in anyway and is actually kind of cute  (unlike Egypt and Morocco in my opinion) and walking around I can see why. Alberta (one of the ladies I’m working with) decided to count the number of “my people” we encountered in a day at the market and it was about five, all real whites no yellows. I tried to count the number of “her people” but lost track. For example, I was walking home from the internet café in front of a little boy for a good ten minutes, when I turned down to my “street”, or dirt path, the kid yelled “goodbye obruni!”, how cute is that!

Auntie Cecilia (auntie is used when referring to women who are older than you out of respect) from HFFG has set a bunch of objectives for Auntie Phyllis (the project director) and I to accomplish for the month of January that we will be based in Ajumako. Before I joined HFFG, the organization worked with the nine neighboring communities in raising funds from the French Embassy to purchase equipment that can process Casava into starch and other products that can be sold by the 160 women beneficiaries in the markets in order to generate revenue for their respective communities. Unfortunately the machine is hardly utilized by the nine neighboring communities. Our main objective is to work with the communities to understand why they’re not using the equipment. In addition, we are also charged to educate the women on the importance of saving money and the importance of safe motherhood. Over the next week we will be meeting with the community chiefs, the queen mothers, and opinion leaders to get their buy in.

Today we went to visit the different rural banks to understand the types of microfinance loans and savings that are available to the women beneficiaries. In addition, we also went on a “benchmarking” trip, yeah that’s right I said benchmarking, to Krofu, a community that has successfully implemented a similar project. Since the Krofu community is a very small village the children had a field day with the “obruni”. In our meeting with the executive who ran the successful project random kids would run by and when I smiled at them they would run, laugh and yell “obruni!”, ahh racist kids, just kidding.

Top things I learned about Ghanaians so far:

1. Women are generally not respected if they’re not married or have children. Most women marry between ages 18 and 21.

2. All women know how to cook, if not their husbands will feel ashamed. Most start learning when they’re six and run their kitchen when they’re nine.

3. The men tend to like women who are not educated so they don’t talk back to them.

4. A Ghanian dude will never marry me for obvious reasons  Although, one 16 year old boy said he would wait for me and another dude told me he loved me at the bus stop, alllriiight!

5. They have delicious street food (yes, I am probably going to regret it but I really don’t have a choice –oddly there’s no McDonalds or Starbucks around – plus when in Ghana…). I’ve had random brown mush in a bag from street lady (tastes like spicy peanut butter), mush wrapped in corn leaf with small whole fish, octopus and spicy sauce from a little girl vendor who used her hands to prepare everything, and lots of fufu in side stalls.

6. They eat Fufu (gooey matzo ball in spicy stew with either fish or “grasscutter” not sure what kind of animal that is, both delicious) with their hands! Oddly enough, apparently this is where I reached my food limit; eating stew with your hands actually grosses me out to the point that I can’t eat the dish, not the mystery meat and fish with its head in mystery stew in the not so clean bowl.

7. They’re mostly Christian in the south, Auntie Phyllis would like me to go to church with her one of these days…yaaaay…

8. They LOVE Obama, there’s banners everywhere welcoming him, not to mention watches with his face and apparently Obama cookies (still to be verified)

9. In general, they are generous and kind, offering to take me places and show me their home towns.

10. Carrying anything on your head is the way to go.

Lucky for Eric, I’ve figured out that I can write my blog entries at night after working since there really is nothing to do and then load it at the internet café. So much for 4 entries sucka!

When in Ghana...

So I have spent approximately 12 hours in Ghana already and I am already falling in love with the people and the culture!  So starting out the journey I asked the ticket lady at the KLM counter if I could get window seats the whole way, to which she intrepreted as middle seats, thanks KLM lady! Nothing like spending 10 hours on a flight to Amsterdam in the middle seat.  When I got to Amsterdam the ticket lady was kind enough to change the seat to the back of the plane which was nice of her.  So I'm walking to the back of the plane and getting seated about to relax for the 6hour flight to Ghana when I was approached by the Dutch police.  Apparently they were escorting an illegal back to Ghana and there's the chance that he was going to be loud, and wouldn't you know the dude was going to be sitting in the same aisle as me, yeah never seen that before.  In the end, they ended up moving my seat so I can be more "peaceful".

Arriving here the driver that was supposed to come pick me up actually did! Yay for not really planning!  He also invited me to his village during the Easter festival where they climb up a giant cliff and hang glide off of it, sounds awesome! Too bad I will be back stateside.  On the way to the house our car was stopped by a police man who proceeded to harrass me and teach me how to say hello how are you and I'm fine in "twi" which is one of the many African languages spoken here, that and ElWay are the biggest ones. 

When we got to the house, Cecilia, my host, had prepared a really good "jlopi-rice" dish which consisted of rice, tomatoes, carrots, and beef. It was absolutely amazing.  I was following her lead so took a tiny spoonful, I definitely could've eaten the whole bowl but then I would probably be that fat American that ate the whole families dinner!

Today I'm traveling to where I will be living for the next month in a village north of Accra.  There is promise of internet there but we will see!  In the mean time, there are tons of street food vendors everywhere, so I might be in trouble, but as long as I don't get sick by tomorrow Nate will lose the over/under on how long it'll take me before I get sick, mwahahaha. 

All Packed Up....Well Almost

It's 2:30am the night before I leave and I'm blogging instead of packing! Ugh! I haaate packing.  Good news is I remembered to start taking my malaria medication so I can be immune by the time I get to Ghana!

In case anyone is actually reading this the name of the organization that I am volunteering for in Ghana is Hope for Future Generations at www.hffg.org.  As far as I know I'm going to be working in a village somewhere on microfinance "stuff".  The stuff part is still TBD :) clearly I am not a planner, we'll see how that might backfire.

So begins my travels, more updates to come!!