Reflections on our Paga trip in Ghana

‘I paga you’ (It fits my eye), some history on Paga:

Our morning started with a thunderstorm spoiling our hopes to go to Paga to see the crocodile pond and the slave camp, just 45 km north of Sumbrungu. We had planned to leave at 830, but the thunderstorm delayed our departure. Our plans included taking the motorcycles and by 1030 I thought the trip might have to be postponed. Darius, the librarian at Sumbrungu, picked us up in his moto by 11, it was still drizzling so we put our raincoats and off we went to pick up at Lucas. He decided it was a good idea for me to learn how to drive a moto. So I took off, with some basic courses taught to me by my Colombian cousins during my upbringing -surprisingly just enough-, and handled the moto pretty well. It was nice driving through the plains that Africa portrays.

Arriving at the crocodile pond where 200 crocodiles lived, according to our guide, I couldn’t stop feeling nothing but excitement. Seeing these creatures in their natural habitat is something different, although having these crocodiles acclimatized to human encounter, does make it possible for you to come so close to one as to sit on it. Coming of our motos we saw a box full of baby chickens ready to be handed as an appetizer to the crocodiles, as a way to lure them out of the pond. Just with the sound the baby chicken produces, the crocodiles can sense it from beneath the water. But as our guide explained, the bad weather makes the crocodiles lazy, and we had to be lucky to get to see one come out of the pond. Patiently we spotted one hiding in the bushes, about 2 meters long, so we came closer to it but unfortunately it decided he could wait for his lunch.  A wait of about 10 minutes, with the baby chicken crying out and the men trying to move the crocodile towards us, let us to another crocodile coming out of the water behind us. This time the father, a 2.5 meter, crocodile wanted to be fed. This one moved much faster out of the water but soon stopped as the men approached it. Being able to sit on a crocodile requires the help of at least 2 men, one to keep the baby chicken in front of the crocodile, as to keep its attention, while the other man goes behind the crocodile –thanks to evolution’s retrograde in crocodile’s peripheral vision- and grabbed his tale. Once the man grabbing the crocodile’s tale had analyzed the situation –whatever that was escaped me- calls you to come behind it. You first touch his slimy but tough tale and then are told to sit on it. Because we were mentally prepared and told beforehand we didn’t hesitate, I gathered courage and sat on it trying to look courageous and in control, but the look of awe and deference overwhelmed me. You can sense the power and strength of the animal you are on top of, giving in to total submissiveness.

Our next stop was the slave camps, a site where in colonial times served as a surplus of slaves’ station before being sold to their owners. Walking through the slave camp site we were shown rocks with man-made carved bowls from which the slaves ate their food, a natural water crate 6ft deep in between the rocks, 3 huge rocks from where the slaves could dance and drum and the punishment rock where slaves were tortured and buried write next to the punishment rock. It was quite impactful to think those times were not long ago, where men were merely monetary exchanges and there human nature was belittled.

Having returned from our field trip we went to town to buy some basic necessities. At the grocery store in New York neighborhood after having walked to the mechanic shop where Lucas had left his bike to get a check-up, we stopped at a stand where they had some good looking bananas, an oddity here in Sumbrungu. While negotiating our price with the lady, 4 bananas for 1 cedi vs. 5 for 1 cedi -the price we had normally paid-, the lady explained the reason why prices had gone up. The cause was Ramadan one of the five Muslim pillars where they fast for 30 days –don’t eat until 6pm- making the price of some commodities to go up just enough to take notice. I love how you can see the laws of supply and demand and how they explain behavior and seasons. The reason why we noticed it in the street stand and not in the supermarket can be explained by the concept of ‘menu costs’. A concept that tells us that changing prices for a short period at a business can be more expensive than the change itself, while the street stand lady doesn’t incur in ‘menu costs’ and thus being able to make the change makes it.

Our road trip back to the library included three people on a ‘pupu’ (motorcycle), a box plus a plastic bag full of groceries; I have to say it was quite the adventure a day to be certainly remembered.

Data entry, a beautiful but exact science

For the past 5 days, since I arrived in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Francesca and I have been putting 12+ work hour days formatting, entering and comprising the massive collection of observations we recorded for the past 6 weeks in norther Ghana. 

Arriving in what was a french colony up to 1960 and one of the poorest countries in Africa was quite an adventure. Crossing the border at Paga, in Ghana, we almost got left by the bus that was taking us to Ouagadougou, since we had to request a 200 dolar visa at the immigration site in Posa -I believe it was- with our improving but deleterious french. After having called for an exchange guy, who by the way took for himself a handsome commission, we changed our dollars to CFA to pay the extraordinary fee to the officers before having to fill out an extensive for in french. All this with the assistant for the bus driver telling us to hurry up. Running out of immigration and running across the border, like mexicans trying to get into the U.S, to find our bus with our bags on the roof, we managed to find the bus driver in a corner cursing into the air. We managed to pronounce pardon and came into the bus expecting further insults from our dear passengers. They found the whole situation hilarious and we were able to laugh it out with them. Looking back at it we should have taking the offer from our carry-bag helper in Ghana, where he proposed an exchange where he would take is illegally into Burkina for 100 dollars. 

In a brief connotation of our experience, Lucas managed to open up a box of sangria and toasted the bad experience. We laughed out loud and enjoyed the 5 hr bumpy rainy ride into Ouaga. Our highlight of the day came when our Professor took us out for a welcoming dinner to Paradisio where I ate my first complete meal in 7 weeks, a whole pizza. 

What was to come during the next week wasn't a presentation to Burkina society and couture but a submersion into the world of numbers and programming.

To be continued...   

Gold

August 28, 2010

Today started early as I promised my kids during the second week I would go to the forest with them on Saturday. Looking back these past two weeks went by faster than I can remember. It also means I have only one more camp to run, as the second camp finished yesterday.

In the second camp, I decided to focus on doing sound workshops and completing  the research component, as the basics in terms of the schedule and division of labour where already laid upon from the first two weeks. This camp I had 19 kids, 9 girls and 10 boys, although one of them wasn’t there for most of the time. This student was unable to fully attend because the salary of one of the fathers got stolen. I have found that each household can contain as many as 50 people  as the family extends as to how many wives the father has or sometimes many families come together to from a household. Interesting story from Bernard was that the father gathered the entire household and ‘laid’ a curse of sickness on the one who stole the money. The meaning of this curse is that the first person to get sick was the one who stole the money. When one child got sick, the father and everyone in that household looked down upon this boy, but the mother blamed Safia, one of the girls attending the camp. Then Safia and the boy had to come by and meet with the father every day to talk things over. I haven’t gotten this part straight though and don’t know how the problem is going to be resolved but I thought the whole witchery was interesting. I have heard many stories having to do with witches and spells, giving way to a country where ‘free will’ isn’t the norm.

Coming back to today’s adventures, Francesca and I got picked up by Ebenizer –our new taxi driver- as I told him that I needed to go to Sherigu this Saturday. It was 7 am and we went on our way without knowing what to expect from the field trip. We brought Hilda along who is one of Francesca students from the first two weeks who always hangs out at Sumbrungu library, a very smart girl with a bossy attitude. The kids were surprised to see me, but I told them that the only thing that matters is your word. We waited for more to arrive and in the end we departed with 9 boys 2 girls Joe and Felix –two of my assistants- and Francesca and me. We had prepared with 2 liters of water, but what we didn’t realize that it wasn’t going to be enough. As we went along, we passed the Chief’s house, a very discreet set of clay huts I thought. The kids told me that they disliked the Chief and asked me if I would agree to be chief if I was offered. I asked what the Chief’s responsibilities were, and got to know that he got to set the law for the people of Sherigu community. The Chief’s house was at the outskirts of the community and we started seeing the farming areas. This was about an hour into our trip and my legs were already started to feel sore as we plugged through the morning sun. We walked by the dump area, where all the trash from Bolgatanga is collected, a tree with three huge bee-hives, fruit trees from which the children collected some food and huge termite homes as I haven’t yet seen before. It was a very long walk into the forest to the gold site, but I got encouragement from the fact that once we were there, there would be a ‘shortcut’ back to the library. Three hours afterwards we reached a stream, not the cleanest by any means, where the kids bathed. The stream meant the gold was near, we just needed to plot through the fields where about 6 men and women were digging with basic carving tool rocks that looked like they could be grind to get the gold out of them. We asked one of the workers to show us a rock where you could see some gold. They then passed us a small rock where you could see just some tiny gold specks shining on the surface of the rocks. I thought that was cool and decided to jog along to see if I could find my own gold, but Joe said it was worthless since the rocks on the surface of the road were worthless. In the end I picked up some rocks to try my luck but Joe, who is experienced in this field, told me they were worthless. On our way back we diverted through the fields not knowing that a three hour way back awaited our tired bodies with no more water left. I think it was going with the kids that helped me keep going as I thought that many of them hadn’t taken water and were still going. At one point, I was worried for them, but they didn’t say a word. Our 360 degree scenery was all green, a true inland experience in Africa. Joe said that if you walked out of the rock road in any direction you would probably encounter wild animals, in the lines of lions and tigers, we decided to stick to the road. Anyways if you tried to walk into the fields you’d probably run into snakes, not the worst of your problems anyways. I kept asking Joe how long till we get some water, and he kept saying ‘small small’, giving me a better understanding of his distance perceptions. We came upon a car that was stuck in the muddy road. It was their lucky day, and we gave them a hand by pushing the car out of it, with a little bit of a struggle though. Our luck wasn’t on our side, as soon as we pushed the car out it died on them, abating our already weak spirits. We waited about 10 minutes to see if they got it fixed so that we could get a ride home, as it was a truck with a big plate on the back. With no luck we decided to keep going as our thirsty bodies pleaded for water. It wasn’t until an hour more that we came upon a water well. The kids were already there, as they picked up speed as we drew near. I decided it wouldn’t kill me if I drunk a little and bathed my burning head. From there to the library were another 20 minutes, as I sit in my room writing this accounts I have barely moved since we got back. It was worth it though.   

Zanore (good evening)

 July 31 2010,

Sentado en mi cama, después de un largo día, aprovecho mi racha de escritor.   Este sábado  teníamos que terminar la sesión de práctica para los asistentes, entonces los citamos desde el día anterior a las 830 dela mañana. Dada nuestra primera experiencia con ‘TIA’ el día anterior, había puesto la alarma a las 930 para estar listo a las 10, hora que estarían llegando los asistentes. Pero no fue así, decidieron todos llegar temprano y se podía sentir la emoción por parte de los asistentes de comenzar la segunda sesión lo más pronto posible. Siento que todos quedaron emocionados por la sesión de ayer de haber aprendido una serie de actividades que se iban a implementar en los campamentos que no conocían y que para niños/adultos pueden generar felicidad, emoción… Todos los asistentes parecían mayores de 30 pero el otro día hablando con Joe, Benard y Felix, los asistentes de Sherigu, me comentaban que tenían 24,28 y 27 respectivamente. Razón suficiente para justificar la energía y comportamiento que mostraban durante los ’pilots’ de las actividades y que no muchos adultos mostrarían con un poco más de edad, como si con el paso de los anos el alma ‘madura’ -se amarga-.

Un abre bocas a las actividades:

Welcome song*

Welcome, welcome it’s nice to meet you.

Welcome, welcome it’s nice to meet you.

Hello, hello my name is (name).

Hello, hello my name is (name).

Hello, hello (name).

It’s nice to meet you at reading camp.

Come on, come on don’t be afraid.

Step up, step up and say your name.

*autores: Francesca Lebaron y Nicolás Ruiz

Ese mismo día camine con Lucas y John por el mercado en Bolga dado que queríamos comprar vegetales para cocinar fried rice. No fue raro ver marranos y ‘goats’ rondando por las calles de barro del mercado mientras buscábamos por zanahoria y pimentones, dos vegetales en escasez dado el precio y el tiempo en encontrarlos. Grace, nuestra cocinera en la biblioteca, me explica que las zanahorias son importadas el cual explica su morosidad. Por otro lado los tomates y las cebollas si se encuentran en cada stand y se consiguen, 7 tomates por 1 cedi o 0.70 centavos de dólar. 

Pasando por Commercial Street, una de cuatro calles ‘principales’ existentes en Bolgatanga - lo cual hace alusión al estado de estas ciudades-, la capital de una de las diez regiones en Ghana, decidimos hacer las últimas compras para el campamento. Aquí saque a relucir mi dotación de ‘bargaining’ talento fermentado en Colombia y perfeccionado en China. La famosa ecuación del 10% del valor aplicable para conocer el verdadero precio del producto en China no es aplicable en Africa dado que si se aplica se llega a un valor muy por debajo del valor real del producto. En cambio ellos ofrecen un precio muy cercano al del producto real, que incluye la plusvalía, por lo cual se negocia dado el color de nuestra piel pero toca también ser razonable.

Un día largo que terminó con una manada de murciélagos sobrevolándonos en dirección a la puesta del sol. Esa misma noche tuvimos la oportunidad de tener el cielo claro, por la luna nueva, y me quede un buen rato contemplando el cielo estrellado haciéndose visible el ‘milky way’.

Friday July 30, Zare (hello)

Hoy realizamos el entrenamiento de los asistentes que nos ayudarán a llevar a cabo el campamento. Se citó a las 830 am, pero empezaron a llegar a las 930-10 y ya a las 1030 estábamos sentados listos para comenzar. Lo que Francesca y yo no sabíamos era que faltaba nuestro bautizó y el desayuno. El bautizó se realizó, no antes que unas palabras de Lucas, quien es el encargado de las tres bibliotecas acá en Ghana y el encargado de nuestra estadía y todo lo que eso concierne, con unas bandejas de cerámica llenas de ‘pito’ –la cerveza de la aldea hecha a base de harina y con un sabor agrio-. Prosiguieron con unas palabras de bienvenida y dándonos un nombre en el lenguaje nativo –frafra-. ‘Abutomalga’, refiriéndose al trabajo social y desarrollo, nombre dado a Francesca precedido por el famoso bautizo, en el cual le bañan la cabeza con ‘pito’. ‘Alotenga’, nombre con el cual fui bautizado, haciendo referencia a Ghana como país que seleccione. Ya se acercaba el medio día y decidimos comenzar nuestro largo entrenamiento. Esta fue nuestra primera experiencia con lo que nosotros decidimos nombrar TIA, siglas para ‘This is Africa’; que hace alusión a que las cosas acá se hacen como si el tiempo no transcurriera, en donde el destino pesa más que la voluntad. Donde el buen orador de la parroquia tiene una mansión la cual pasamos todos los días en mi trayectoria a Sherigu y es escuchado y alabado en la radio la mayoría del día –experiencia que me toca vivir en el taxi que me lleva todos los días a mi campamento-.

Ese día tuve mi primer malestar africano, que con el tiempo mi cuerpo ha construido  mecanismos de defensa para combatirlos. Me levanté al calor de mi arropamiento, dada la previa fiebre, y al olor a pito. Decidimos dar una vuelta ya que cada 3 días es ‘market day’. Caminando  por los barrales la gente nos saluda en frafra, ‘zanore’, ‘luong wane’ a lo cual uno responde ‘luon so’. Llevamos la cámara y si uno les pregunta que si se les puede tomar una foto, ellos asienten. Pero si uno decide tomar la foto sin preguntar, se molestan  porque  piensan que somos periodistas que quieren reproducir las fotos y sacar una ganancia. Pero en general son muy abiertos a que les tomen fotos aunque se sienten incomodos al frente de la cámara por lo cual la mayoría no sonríen. Al mostrarles la foto se atacan de la risa y se molestan entre sí. Antes de volver a nuestro hogar paramos a comprar ‘alvaro’, una soda local de pera y pina que quisiera llevar a Colombia.

  

Continente Africano

Algo que escribí los primeros días en la capital de Ghana, Accra:

Desde el avión se veían tierras ásperas cuando miraba por las ventanillas, estaba aterrizando en la capital de Ghana, Accra. Después de un vuelo de 9 horas y media desde Washington D.C, aterrizaba en el continente africano por primera vez. No se veía mucha construcción, ni un agrupamiento de la ciudad como se ve cuando se aterriza en cualquier Capital, sino más bien una dispersión aleatoria pero razonable de acuerdo a la distribución de la tierra. Una vez la señal de desabrocharse los cinturones se apagó me prepare para pisar tierra desconocida. Lo que no me esperaba era encontrarme con un clima y ambiente muy parecido al de Cartagena, además de desembarcar el avión usando las escaleras trasladables. A pesar de que el lenguaje oficial es inglés, no me esperaba que tuvieran tan poco manejo del idioma, donde la mayoría manejan un inglés apenas básico. No me sorprendería si hay más chinos que sepan hablar inglés (proporcional a la población).

Por otro lado la amabilidad y el sentido humano es el común denominador de los ghaneses. Todavía en las instalaciones del aeropuerto un taxista se acerca al verme esperando un poco confundido frente al stand de celulares y me pregunta que si necesito algo. Me recomienda que compre un celular en la ciudad ya que saldría más barato. Me asombró fue la calma con la que se manejaba, sin el único interés del taxista colombiano, o más bien del colombiano, de aprovecharse del turista y de hacer billete, sino más bien un interés humano por resolver mi inquietud.

Francesca me había dicho que me esperaría un señor portando un papel con mi nombre. Salí entonces a la sala de espera donde esperan los familiares a buscar al señor pero no lo encontraba, mi concentración estaba tan enfocada en el señor, que no me di cuenta cuando Francesca se acerca y me recibe con un abrazo inesperado. Me lo debí esperar, punto para ella. Estaba acompañada de Anthony, nuestro taxista y encaminamos hacia nuestro hotel, Afia Beach. Un recorrido esquivo sin dirección con el único propósito de esquivar los huecos, mejor conocido como ‘potholes’, que se hacían predominantes en la carretera y con el desagradable pasajero de los pitos, característico de ciudades de bajo desarrollo. Sin la moral cooperativa, el desorden seguía el deseo contradictorio de cada conductor, en vez de la ley de transporte.

La carretera para llegar a la entrada de nuestro hotel no me daba mucha esperanza y criticaba mi decisión de haber escogido este hotel, pero una vez llegamos me di cuenta que no era así. Decidí entonces comenzar mi aventura probando un plato ghanes, banku, una sopa a base de vegetales con un picante bastante fuerte acompañado de una masa a base de harina. No una muy buena elección, pero dada mi actitud y mi ingenuidad no tengo rencores. Ya cinco semanas adentro de mi viaje perdí esa determinación y mentalidad de probar la cocina ghanesa y me repito que no fue hecha para mi paladar, especialmente cuando sobrevivo con arroz y vegetales y mi plato favorito sándwich de atún. Ese día descansamos y hablamos con Francesca de nuestro plan a seguir.

First two weeks with the kids

My first two weeks of camp ended today with a song created by the students. I will ask for the kids too write the song so I can post it, since I wasn't feeling very well today as I puked my hearts out yesterday night maybe because of food poisoning. The song was composed in English and even had rhythm. Before the song, one student, Jennifer, stood up and made a speech in which she expressed how thankful the class was for the t-shirts, notebooks and pens that were given to them and how grateful they were for having me. I realized that i was sad as I will not see many of them again after two weeks of being their teacher and mentor. I told them that they could come and visit the camp site any time they liked, and I will probably ask some of them if I could visit their homes and maybe have a meal with them. It will be interesting to see in what conditions many of them live in, since one of the teachers that assists me in camp said that most of them come because they get fed and are concentrated during the day’s activities only because we’re are providing the meals. I will like to think that the kids see this as an opportunity to improve their English, as the camp gave the kids tools to be used in reading and comprehension in their next years of education.
I was very impressed with many of the kids, how composed and respectful they were during the day and how motivated they were towards improving their reading skills. I think some activities that we used in the reading workshops, to improve and teach the basic English principles such as sounds and pronunciation, were the best methods to use as their reading level was lower than expected. Tests are always good as long as they receive feedback from the teacher so they can see their mistakes and improve upon them.
The librarian, Bennet, always handed me an Alvaro, a pineapple or pear soft drink, for lunch as he knew I wasn’t so fond of their local cuisine. It is very hard to get used to their food since they use a very hot sauce and crush small pieces of fish in the sauce which doesn’t provide a nice flavor, especially when you see the fish sold in the market –not very hygienic-. I have been also enjoying some eggs with my dinner as one of the kid’s mom sent me 10 eggs to show her appreciation for the effort we were putting into the camps. I had the opportunity to meet her one day as she passed by to thank me personally. That same day that I received the eggs, I told Asore that I wanted to go to his house to thank his mom personally but he said that his mother will probably be in the forest.
I had a very odd range of ages, from 11 to 17, especially for a form 5 in primary when the normal age, this said by our friend Romanus –a son of one of the board members of CESRUD-, is 9. Many of the older students had the hardest time with the camp activities since they had a tough time reading words besides ‘the’, ‘in’ and some few others. This was why Francesca and I decided it was important to create the reading workshops in which we emphasized teaching the sound of the letters. This surprisingly also helped the strongest readers as they had some trouble with some advanced coding with CVC, VV (C- consonant, V- vowel) that the English language has. Since I wasn’t taught the English language but mostly learned from speaking with my mom and memory, I enjoyed learning the basic principles of the English language and know have a better understanding of how to teach kids that not have had the opportunity to learn English. I got frustrated sometimes with the kids as they had a very hard time understanding my instructions given for each assignment, fortunately one of the other teachers always translated it into Frafra –the local language-. The kids then gave me the opportunity to practice two of my many weak virtues, tolerance and patience. Especially as they nodded when asked if they had understand, after a few days I knew better and started trying to explain slower and making sure they understood.
One of my future students for week 2, Mathias, was in the camp site at 2, as he was collecting maze to crush it and make millet. I went over as I was interested in knowing what he was doing, and they explained to me that you pound the maze to get the millet out of it. I asked for the wooden stick and started pounding it until I was stopped and said that I wasn’t pounding but hitting. The difference is in the technique, where hitting means taking it over your head and dropping it into the maze, and pounding means taking it over your head but as you bring it over your head, you go down with it. I guess I’ll get better.