“Don’t be hard-hitting.” That’s what I was told on my first day as an intern at the Daily Graphic, Ghana’s state-owned and best-selling national newspaper. I was warned that, sometimes, the Graphic would find a reason to fire those who were. Now, I don’t want to completely knock Ghanaian journalism: not only are other countries allowed to do things differently, but also, the United States’ way of going about things isn’t perfect — the 2013 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, although controversial, listed it below 31 other countries. And, recently, a study by PEN America found that many U.S. writers are now self-censoring in order to avoid NSA scrutiny. Regardless, some of the journalistic trends I observed during my two months as an intern with the Daily Graphic were disconcerting. Every evening, the Graphic’s schedule for the following day — the “roaster” — is posted. Typically, it features almost nothing but press conferences, awards shows and other similar conventions. However, that alone isn’t the problem — it’s more so the way journalists go about covering the already PR-like events. In the morning, the Graphic van that drops reporters off at their assignments often doesn’t leave until after 9, even when some of the events are scheduled to start at 9. Granted, on Ghana time, many things start hours late. But, when they don’t, reporters often ask event organizers for printed versions of important keynote or opening speeches that were given. Later, they’ll quote — or completely plagiarize — words they never heard. Even when reporters — not just from the Graphic — aren’t late, they sometimes fall asleep during events and rely on the typed-up speeches to write their stories. At one press conference about offshore drilling — where two British folks and a Ghanaian gas company owner talked about how awesome the practice would be — the Ghanaian journalists were so adamant about getting the speeches afterward that employees had to make copies on the spot. I should note that, at the same conference, the reporters asked an uncannily small amount of questions. Not one person thought to bring up the potential adverse effects offshore drilling could have on Ghana environmentally. Following the public Q & A session, the reporter I was with still didn’t ask anything, even though the reporter could have done so one-on-one. The problem goes farther than that, though: with conferences and other events — even ones that are days long — reporters from all media outlets rarely stay for more than the welcome ceremony. When I was covering a three-day conference on accessibility and quality of higher education, a Graphic photographer told me we needed to leave after we’d been at the event for just 25 minutes. What? I thought. What’s the point of even going? This will be a total fluff piece. I rushed to find a man who was giving a presentation later during the conference specifically about Ghana, so I could at least have some quotes with real details. I didn’t see any other reporters do the same. Instead, when I returned, I found the photographer waiting with other media members to receive money from the university that hosted the event. Again, what? I later learned it’s a common practice in Ghana that’s widely known as ‘soli’ — short for ‘solidarity’ — and is considered more of a courtesy than a bribe to write good things. Perhaps I’d be more comfortable with that if it weren’t for the police escort Graphic reporters, myself included, received from an event at the Embassy of Japan a week earlier. Yes, that’s right: I rode, four in the backseat, in a police SUV with its sirens blaring, flying down the wrong side of the road as cars swerved out of the way just in time. There was no hurry — we were just going back to the office to write about a Community-based Health Planning and Services compound. But, that’s the effort the police made for the journalists — the same journalists who are supposed to keep the actions of the police in check. Editing errors weren’t uncommon, either. When I wrote about a conference/awards event regarding sanitation in Ghana, my article ran the following day with an “edited” lead that ended with a comma rather than a period. And, I was told my story from the conference on accessibility and quality of higher education didn’t “follow our style.” Where I had a short lead, it became 80 words long and tough to follow. Where I had two sentences, it became one run-on. Where I had words spelled correctly and plurals agreeing, they no longer were. Where I had “Prof Peter Mayer, from Osnabrueck, Germany,” there was “Prof Peter Mayer Osnabrueck, from Germany,” who was thereafter referred to as “Prof Osnabrueck.” Seriously. Fortunately, the Daily Graphic has a features section to expand on its regular coverage. With that, though, comes a different issue: actually trying to report a feature story in Ghana. In Ghana, a freedom of information bill that’s existed since 2003 still hasn’t been signed into law. Many organizations and events have poor or nonexistent websites. But, what’s worse is how difficult it was, at least for me, to get a hold of government members. When I needed information about why an island near Ada still isn’t on Ghana’s national electricity grid, Comfort Doeyo Cudjoe Ghansah, Member of Parliament for Ada, answered one email — asking me when I’d like to meet — but then never replied to my response. An NGO employee working in the area told me she’d never gotten back to him, either. When I was working on a story about child trafficking in Ghana, I walked more than 30 minutes to the Ministry of Women’s and Children’s Affairs — which became the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with very little publicity — because none of the several phone numbers listed for the place worked. Employees there sent me to the Department of Children, which they said would be able to better answer my questions, with such terrible directions that I actually couldn’t find it until I tried again two days later. There, I was told I should actually go to the Human Trafficking Secretariat for answers. I trekked almost three miles to the building only to find that the head of the secretariat, Victoria Natsu, wasn’t there and hadn’t been all week. I refused to leave until someone gave me her phone number. A few days later, I did an interview with her, oddly enough, at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. On the bright side, the Graphic did run my piece on trafficking — it received a two-page, center-of-the-paper spread — even though it could easily be considered “hard-hitting.” Additionally, the right to information bill seems closer to passage than ever, major outlets are starting to denounce ‘soli’ and increasing Internet access will inevitably lead to more, and better, websites. So, it seems Ghanaian journalism, at least, is headed in the right direction.
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Many playgrounds bring joy to the children that use them, but the playground at Pediatorkope brings light to them, too. At first glance, the blue, red and yellow merry-go-round sitting beside Pediatorkope Basic School looks perfectly mundane. But, it’s no ordinary merry-go-round: inside lies a wind turbine where, because of a gearbox, each whirl of the toy translates to 25 spins of the generator. For residents of Pediatorkope — located a quick canoe trip away from Big Ada in southeastern Greater Accra — the playground, installed by an NGO called Empower Playgrounds, Inc. (EPI), is one of the only sources of electricity on the island. Despite being situated on the Volta River and connected to the Akosombo Dam, which contributes to about 70 percent of Ghana’s electricity generation, Pediatorkope isn’t connected to the national electricity grid. Each day, after the 6 p.m. sunset, tree-lined dirt paths connecting the island’s villages become almost impossible to navigate. “I spent a few nights on the island and when it’s dark, you can’t move, you can’t go anywhere,” said Isaac Darko-Mensah, country director for EPI. “Activity just stops.” Once harnessed, energy from the playground travels as AC through an underground cable to a charging unit, designed by Goal Zero, that’s kept in a classroom at Pediatorkope Basic School. There, it’s converted down to DC and charges a 12-volt AGM battery. That battery in turn charges what, at first, were hand-modified Energizer lanterns, but are now bright, long-lasting LED lanterns designed by Energizer specifically for EPI’s charging system. The battery is sometimes used to charge teacher’s mobile phones as well. EPI doesn’t provide the lanterns just so there’s light on the island at nighttime, though. The lanterns are for the students. According to Gershon Kuadegbeku, a teacher at Pediatorkope Basic School, parents typically don’t share lanterns purchased from the mainland with their children because they use them for their businesses or otherwise. “Now, as this lantern has come, it’s given (the children) the flexible time to learn on their own,” he said. Each three-to-six-student study group — arranged by the teachers and often based on the proximity of the children’s homes — receives one lantern. One member of each group, delegated as the leader, calls the students together in the evenings to study and ensures the lantern remains charged. “The aim is to teach the kids about responsibility and how to take care of things,” Darko-Mensah said. The students never touch the charging unit; they give the lanterns to a teacher who then plugs them in. While the lanterns take about three hours to charge, they last about 40. “At a go, they can charge six lanterns,” Darko-Mensah said. “So, on a good day, they will charge 12 lanterns.” The number of lanterns a school receives is based on its size. At Pediatorkope — where about 350 students attend grades Primary 4 through Junior High School and almost 5,000 people inhabit the island — there are more than 100. Because of Pediatorkope’s large student body — typically, schools have 150-250 students in Primary 4 through Junior High School — an electricity-generating swing set accompanies the merry-go-round. And, on the roof of the school, a solar panel helps keep the charge going when students are on break. According to Kuadegbeku, the playground is used often. “We have two breaks in a day, and then after break, too, you see the children play on it,” he said. “After church, you see people coming to play on it. It is occupied every day.” With steady use, Darko-Mensah said, the whole system can generate 500-800 watts in a day. Since the playground began functioning four years ago, Kuadegbeku said he’s seen great results. “It helps them,” he said. “It promotes a good reading ability with the children, and then, it has even changed the performance of the children when they are writing their final exam at the end of the year.” Darko-Mensah, who said EPI collects scores from the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) — the exam students must pass before being admitted to high school — pre- and post-installation, agreed. “It works because the older kids will teach the younger ones, they share ideas, they solve questions together,” he said. Before EPI arrived at Golden Sunbeam School in Essam village in 2008, for example, no student had ever passed the BECE. But now, Darko-Mensah said, that’s no longer the case: recently, every single student passed the exam. “The Empower project has helped a lot,” Kuadegbeku said. “The children don’t pay anything for it. They bring it to the doorstep of the children.” In addition to the playgrounds, charging units, solar panels and lanterns that are given free of charge, EPI also provides schools with science kits that allow students to learn about the science of the playgrounds in fun, interactive and hands-on ways. “Our aim is to make children happy, to love school,” he said. “Every school that we go, enrollment goes up the next month, or the next term.” Since 2008, EPI has installed systems at 35 locations throughout Ghana. While the early models were manufactured in Ghana, materials used, such as wood, weren’t durable. As a result, United States-based Playworld Systems, Inc. now builds the playgrounds. This year, EPI added five new systems and replaced five old ones. Almost all EPI locations have either no access to electricity — including Pediatorkope’s three neighboring islands, Tuanikope, Azizakope and Alorkpem — or have residents who can’t afford the cost of it. “We are asking, asking for electricity,” Kuadegbeku said. “Nothing has been done up to now.” Darko-Mensah cited factors such as high costs as reasons Pediatorkope and the nearby islands aren’t connected to the national grid. “There has been a lot of promise about electricity coming to the island, but it’s something that I don’t see it happening now,” he said. Comfort Doeyo Cudjoe Ghansah, Member of Parliament for Ada, was not immediately available for comment. In January, though, EPI will bring the second ever Light A Village solar energy project to the island. According to Darko-Mensah, the first, located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was launched about four years ago and is working well. As part of the project, EPI will install several solar panels on the roof of the Pediatorkope Health Centre, transforming it into a charging station for about 100 batteries. Residents will be able to purchase systems for their homes that include a high-power battery, inverters and light bulbs for either 300 or 600 cedis. The former powers a television, radio, fan and light, while the latter powers those plus a refrigerator, an important appliance in an area so involved in the fishing industry. Once they’ve purchased a system, residents will only have to pay a small amount each time they recharge their batteries. Because most residents already spend about 40 cedis per month buying batteries and kerosene from the mainland, Light A Village should actually save them money in the long run.
“They can’t wait for the project,” Darko-Mensah said. “Several people have gone to the island to make promises about going to install solar for them, but they don’t go back. But because (the residents) know what we’ve been doing on the island for the past four or five years, they know that we will do it.” Darko-Mensah explained that while several places were considered for the project, Pediatorkope was chosen because of its good leaders, teachers, assemblymen and otherwise, as well as its location. “We see Pediatorkope as a place we love,” he said. “The people are ready and they get involved in whatever we do, whatever we take to the island.” According to Darko-Mensah, though, Light A Village won’t be limited to Pediatorkope — EPI plans to launch one new project each year. And, soon, EPI may take its playgrounds outside Ghana. ‘There are a lot of requests, a lot of requests outside Ghana, outside Africa,” Darko-Mensah said. “We are ready, the train is ready to move.” 12/30/2013 Modern day slavery: Lake Volta, GhanaIn Ghana, European-built slave forts and castles scatter along the coast — most notably those at Elmina and Cape Coast — and serve as reminders of the central role the country played in the trans-Atlantic slave trade more than 200 years ago. Slavery has a different name today — human trafficking — but it still flourishes in Ghana: the 2013 Trafficking in Humans Report identified it as a source, transit and destination country for the practice. And, last year, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection said 69.8 percent of Ghana’s human trafficking is internal. Along the shores of Lake Volta, the world’s largest man-made lake by surface area, children are the victims. A trip to the Volta Region in eastern Ghana reveals children as young as 4 and rarely older than 13 starting their 15-hour workdays as early as 4 a.m. and ending well after dark, seven days a week. While girls de-scale fish and perform other domestic chores, boys mend, cast and hoist nets. At the command of their masters — many of whom used to be slaves themselves — they dive underwater to unhook nets even when they can’t swim, knowing the alternative is taking a beating. Several of the children say they know others who’ve drowned. Others contract illnesses such as bilharzia, which can lead to bloody diarrhea and abdominal pain, from the parasite-infested lake. Although work has primed their young muscles, distended stomachs show their malnutrition. But, most of their parents don’t know the realities of life on Lake Volta. Believing their children will attend school and work in the evenings, parents sell their children for as little as $20 a year. Some parents can’t afford to feed their children, while others believe their kids are staying with relatives, unaware that the relatives sold the children to fishermen. Stacy Omorefe, cofounder of counter-trafficking NGO City of Refuge Ministries (CORM), said some NGOs have estimated that 7,000 – 10,000 children work along the lake — a number she thinks is low. “No one can really give you an exact figure,” said Eric Peasah, founder of Right To Be Free and former field manager of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) counter-trafficking project. “But, I can say that, when you go on the lake and cruise for one hour, you can meet not less than 20 different canoes, and each one of them might have at least one child or two children in it.” That wasn’t always the case. Four or five decades ago, Peasah explained, fishermen brought children or nephews who’d already finished middle school to learn the trade and carry on the family practice. But, he said, many of the teenagers eventually rebelled, not wanting to become fishermen. “Some of the group along the line started taking younger boys from their villages to go and help them,” he said. “They had these young, young kids who are very submissive and obedient. They do what they’re asked to do.” Prosecution Ghana’s 2005 Human Trafficking Act criminalizes the practice on the lake, and treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child — ratified by Ghana in 1990, before any other country — discourage child labor and human trafficking. But, resolving the issue is more complicated than merely arresting and jailing those who are violating the law. “We want to prosecute,” Peasah said. “But, the question is, how do you prosecute without much evidence? You need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this child was given out, was sold…and the people you need to (get) the evidence from are people within the family.” Children, not knowing any better, sometimes say the fishermen are their fathers or relatives, which compounds the problem. “Some of the kids we found, they don’t even know where they’re from, their last name,” explained Johnbull Omorefe, cofounder of CORM. According to Peasah, only those who partake in extreme and obvious trafficking are successfully convicted. Besides, according to Victoria Natsu, Head of the Human Trafficking Secretariat in the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection,“it’s not in the best interest of Ghana, the children and the family themselves to have parents being prosecuted.” Rescue Although an Anti Human Trafficking Unit was established within the Ghana Police Service in 2006, large-scale rescues pose another problem. “We have a lot of shelters around, but we don’t have shelters,” Peasah began. “For example, if police go and do police raid — we’ve done that before — and we have hundreds of children, where do you take them? Nowhere.” Most NGO shelters are at capacity, including CORM’s Children’s Village,where almost 40 children — most rescued from Lake Volta — stay in two dormitories. At the village, the children attend the on-site Faith Roots International Academy, receiving tutoring if necessary. In their free time, they take part in bible studies and a number of recreational activities, including football, art and other camps in the summer. Lessons on life skills such as budgeting prepare them to live successfully on their own. For Johnbull, a pastor, it’s about building relationships and trust and showing love, rather than being superior and condescending. CORM never pays for the release of a child. Already, he said, he’s seen change. “Some of the slave masters are now supporting us, helping us. (They) convince people on the ground to let the kids go,” he said. “That is something really good, something we’re really happy about.” According to Natsu, the government is also working to create awareness so parents and fishermen will know trafficking is not proper. Because, she said, even though the age of the children has changed since the practice began, some parents still consider the children’s work on the lake part of a natural ‘socialization process.’ “Today we are talking of modern day slavery,” she said. “What we are saying is even if you want your children to be part of the process, let them have their education, their good health. Let them do all that children are supposed to do. “Let them grow to the level where they could fit into the job, then start to train them.” As part of a five-year national anti-trafficking action plan — drafted this year by the Human Trafficking Management Board — government officials visit relevant regions, explaining trafficking and the fundamental rights of children to residents in terms of Ghanaian law. Anti-trafficking TV and radio programs broadcasted throughout the country reach an even larger audience. Prevention But, the problem is not only fueled by lack of awareness — it’s also fueled by poverty. “If you look at everything, it revolves around single moms,” Johnbull said. “So, let’s go back to the root: what can we do to prevent it?” For CORM, the answer lies in operations called 7 Continents and Save A Child Water. The former, located in the Tema New Town district of Greater Accra, employs about 10 single mothers who learn to make bags, jewelry and other similar items that are then sold in places such as the United States and France. The women are paid on a monthly basis, which is common in Ghana. Save A Child Water filters, packages and sells clean drinking water in Ghana, and only employs single mothers. A message inscribed on each water sachet, including the words, “children are not for sale,” helps spread the word about the issue. Fifty percent of profits go toward rescuing and supporting children and reconnecting them with their families. In Peasah’s opinion, helping fishermen find alternative fishing methods is important as well. Some organizations, he said, provide micro-grants to fishermen and parents alike so they can improve or start up their own businesses. As of last year, for example, IOM had given micro-business assistance to almost 1,000 parents, guardians and fishermen. “We really try to take a holistic approach to our restoration process,” Stacy said. While the children are free to come and go as they’d like — get married, attend university or do whatever else — none have left permanently, yet. Stacy said it’s possible that some never will. “This is their home,” Johnbull said. In Peasah’s opinion, though, permanent shelters aren’t the answer. “I personally don’t believe in long-term institutionalizing of children, victims,” Peasah said. “Those who run the orphanage, or whatever they are running, until children move, you can’t bring more.” And, when just one child is rescued from the lake, his or her siblings are still in danger of being trafficked. Peasah suggested organizations should support the parents and reintegrate children into their homes, instead. During his work with IOM — which has helped rescue and reintegrate more than 730 children since its inception in 2002 — only five or six families didn’t want their child back initially. Even those situations were resolved when both parties agreed upon an appropriate caretaker. “If you have money to take care of this child, support him in his environment and then build him up,” he said. His current organization, Right To Be Free (RTBF), uses the “5 R System,” which was developed during his time at IOM. After researching the situation, workers rescue the children fishermen have agreed to release, often in exchange for a micro-grant, new supplies or the opportunity to learn a new trade. At the Rehabilitation Center in Accra, the children receive medical, psychological and educational services for three months. Afterward, measures are taken to reunite and safely reintegrate the children with their families, where RTBF monitors and supports them for more than two years. “When you rehabilitate (the children) and you give the mother some help, the facilities open,” he said. Peasah suggested if all counter-trafficking NGOs worked together to improve and use an existing government shelter as a temporary rehabilitation facility, money could be freed up to help more victims directly. But, he added, many NGOs don’t want to give up their shelters. Education CORM does more than just shelter children, though. Since they were met with anger during their very first rescue attempt, Johnbull and Stacy have been holding meetings and workshops within Lake Volta communities, educating fishermen and other residents about the law and the practices of trafficking and child labor — a process they call “intervention.” They also educate “sending communities” — places where parents are likely to sell their children — about what really happens to children sent to work at the lake. The government, too, recognizes that preventing trafficking means alleviating poverty. “It’s vulnerability that creates most of these problems for us,” Natsu said. “The first point of protection should be the family and the community.” Programs such as Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), for example, provide cash and health insurance to qualifying extremely poor households across Ghana, as long as their children are not in labor or trafficking and are enrolled and kept in school. Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) and the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) also encourage parents to send their children to school. But, although Natsu said the government provides free school uniforms and supplies in the poorest communities, a January GhanaWeb featuresuggested some communities neither receive those things nor have adequate facilities or teachers. Plus, there is widespread agreementthat FCUBE — established in 1996 with a promise of free primary and junior high school for all by 2005 — has still not been fully implemented. Regardless, Natsu said the programs have resulted in increased enrollment. Soon, she added, a child protection policy that UNICEF and the Department of Children are developing specifically for Ghana will focus on both families and communities. “If the community and family are involved,” she said, “it is our prayer that we should be able to protect children more than we are doing today.” Countless counter-trafficking organizations work in Ghana, includingPartners in Community Development Programme (PACODEP), Touch A Life, Free the Slaves, Challenging Heights and many others. Some are new, some are old and all have varying approaches. But, Peasah said, vast areas of the lake are still mostly untouched by NGOs or otherwise. “Most of us who have been on the ground for a long time working on trafficking issues, internally and externally, we work as a team,” he said. “I believe that we cannot do it all. We need each other.” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ City of Refuge Ministries Children’s Village: A Brief History Stacy and Johnbull Omorefe met in Ghana in 2001, married in 2002 and launched a non-profit organization called City of Refuge Ministries in the United States in 2006. It wasn’t until they read a New York Times article detailing rampant child trafficking on Lake Volta, though, that they knew what they wanted their organization to tackle. They flew back to Ghana in 2007, enduring a sometimes road-less, 17-hour drive before arriving at the lake. “That trip was the one that changed everything,” Johnbull said. “(The children) were young when they came, but now they are 16, 18 years old and they can’t read, write. All they know is fishing.” Johnbull himself grew up on the streets of Nigeria without parents or guidance. “I wept,” he said. “I’ve never felt that way before in all of my life. It reminded me of my childhood, how I grew up.” City of Refuge Ministries’ work in Ghana started in an apartment in Tema with less than 10 children. Now, an entire children’s village sits in a clearing behind a military camp in Doryumu, Greater Accra, a dirt path through farmland the sole way back to the main road. Ground was broken early in 2011, but already the village boasts the Omorefe’s home, a volunteer house, a guest house, two dormitories plus one that’s in progress, a school, a basketball court, a playground area and more. The whole place is a story of collaboration. “Everything you see here…we didn’t have the money,” Johnbull said. “Everything has come as a surprise from God.” When they learned a private Christian school in Tema was passing students on to the next grade even when they couldn’t write their own names, the Omorefes decided to build their own school. The chief of Shai Hills, when he heard about their plan, offered the land in Doryumu in exchange for free education for one needy child from each of the eight local clans. Y – Generation Against Poverty Australia agreed to fund the Faith Roots International Academy. U.S. citizen Autumn Buzzell, first the principal and now the director of education, helps run the school and develop curriculum. A paid staff of Ghanaians teaches the classes. The 43 children staying at the village — six of which are Stacy and Johnbull’s — plus almost 180 children from around the area attend the school, which tries to cap classes out at 20 students. Sponsorships from people and organizations around the world support the children staying at the village, as well as about 40 of the community children. Although there were just seven classrooms when the school opened in 2011, there’s now a classroom for each grade level from preschool through junior high school 2 (8th grade), as well as a computer lab and an office in the works. “The expansion has been really great,” Stacy said, “but we’re already outgrowing this building.” She said they hope to eventually have two classrooms for each grade and to build a separate junior and senior high school facility. Other plans include building a clinic, looking into sustenance farming and completing a third dormitory that will hold almost 40 boys — the girls will stay in the two existing dorms. “The vision is there, the dream is there,” Johnbull said. “We take life just a day at a time.” According to Stacy, there’s also a plan to establish other City of Refuge sites in places such as northern Ghana or Nigeria that will reach out to the needs of the area. “We see City of Refuge, this place, being a model for additional campuses like this,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.” 11/17/2013 8 Comments Out of the city and in to Ga MashieBy last Saturday, I’d grown a bit tired of city life: spending Tuesday evenings at Venus drinking wine while acoustic music permeated the night, listening to taxi drivers beep their horns constantly, being surrounded by fancy buildings such as the National Theatre. I decided to join some members of the African University College of Communications Journalists for Human Rights chapter on a trip to a place just outside central Accra. As I traveled around the poor, overcrowded area known as Ga Mashie, I was reminded what it felt like to actually do journalism. And I wasn’t even really doing the interviews, just taking the photos and adding a question here and there. My friends were working on a story about housing: the structures in Ga Mashie are quite poor, and, often, up to 10 people will stay in one room, which forces some of them to sleep outdoors. They spoke to locals, sometimes in the local language, learning that the people knew their housing situation was bad, but, they said, “what can we do?” It reminded me a lot of the stories I found when traveling through Misisi Township — know as one of the worst slums in sub-Saharan Africa — with the Times of Zambia. That’s not to say they’re helpless. Again, just as in Misisi, Ga Mashie was self-sustaining in a way. Want bananas? The lady down the road sells them. Need a new shirt? Take your pick from a number of tailors in the area. And, being located next to the ocean, the fishing industry there is huge. We from the United States and other nations like to come to places like Ga Mashie and point out all the issues, but if the world were to go dark, the people in Ga Mashie would make it, not those in the United States. While we were in the middle of an interview with a family that lived close to an open area, where chairs were sprawled out under tents and music shook the ground, a commotion arose. People began running into the space, including us, although we weren’t sure at first why we were following suit. In a few moments, as a group of men carrying a fancy, colorful casket on their shoulders emerged, it became clear: we were witnessing a traditional funeral. One of the JHR students explained that the men will run haphazardly all over town with the casket, until its spirit, which is guiding them, is ready to be laid to rest. Crowds of people — including women who’d stripped off their shirts — followed the men, like an angry mob without the anger. That’s not how all funerals are in Ghana, of course, but even the regular ones boast loud music and happy faces, and seem to be much more a celebration of life than a mourning of death. And, by the way, the funerals are held all over the city, literally. I can’t tell you how many I’ve already inadvertently walked through. Eventually, we popped out of Ga Mashie and into James Town, an area with an oldlighthouse and a lot of history. We paid an admission fee to a lady at the bottom, climbed the lighthouse’s spiral staircase and arrived at a shady, almost vertical ladder placed where the original, final few steps had disintegrated. After a moment’s hesitation, we each decided to attempt the ladder, quickly emerging at the top of the lighthouse, built in the 1870s and restored in the early 1900s. When in Ghana. As we took in the amazing view, a guy who may or may not have worked there gave us all kinds of information: how, to the left, James Fort was used as a trading post and then as a prison; to the right were the slave quarters, roofs now caved in, and, behind us was the oldest hotel in Ghana: Sea View Hotel, also built in the early 1870s. I thanked him as I began the long descent down the staircase, praying he wouldn’t try to charge more than the 10 cedis we’d already paid since he’d given us information and took a few photos for us. You never know what may come at an additional cost here. I learned that when I first arrived, unfamiliar with the currency, and had to pay some guy at the airport about $7 just to make some calls for me. Fortunately, the light house “guide” just wished us well and sent us on our way. Although we’d already been out for hours, we followed the shoreline farther, to a place popularly, albeit strangely, known as Lavender Hill. Every day, trucks on trucks full of human feces travel to the hill to dump tons of the untreated waste directly into the ocean. Down the coast, about 100 – 200 meters either way, kids swim in the water and fishermen sit in wait of their day’s catch. The stench was almost overwhelming, but I sneaked closer to snag a few photos. The practice seems unbelievable; that the government is aware of it is even worse. Supposedly, a “scientific liquid waste recycle plant” was built so Lavender Hill could be closed, but that was supposed to be completed last year, and then in June of this year. Although the new “plant” — consisting of six anaerobic digesters — is being used, it’s only able to handle about half of the 120 trucks that arrive at the hill daily. So, Lavender Hill endures. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the government here in Ghana, it’s that its members make a lot of empty promises. But, I suppose that applies to governments worldwide. My friend and I ended the day in comfort with a salad at Osu, but the dirt on our legs and the sunburn on our shoulders served as reminders of the place we’d visited earlier that day, the way some people live each and every single day. |
ABOUTPublished pieces and blog posts from the three months I spent in Ghana on a post-graduation grant. Archives
February 2014
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