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Here in tropical Ghana, I am trying my best to get the xmas feel with the help of santa-hats, jingle bells, candles, Swedish gingerbread, a few ornaments and with little help from my friends…
May your days be merry and bright!
>First Gear
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So today I enrolled with a driving school here in Ghana. My goal is to sometime next year be able to navigate between goats and Mercedes-Benzes, yellow taxicabs and banana sellers. The registration was surprisingly smooth – I payed the fees ($200) and handed over five (5) pass port sized pictures and got a report card for fifteen driving lessons to start with along with the theory course and a textbook, an exercise book and a notebook.
Then the theory class started, with me as the only student! My inspiring teacher Justice talked me through the roadsigns one by one in preparation for the “interview” later this week where I will be orally questioned by the roads authorities about the roadsigns before I get the go ahead to start practice driving.
If only it was this easy to enroll with the University of Ghana…Right now I am experiencing some time consuming shuffling around – “Oh, then you need to go to the registrar’s office and buy the forms”, “You come back later”, “You need to go back and get a go ahead from that department”, and “I can’t promise anything, just go back to the registrar”. It seems like the first test to pass is one of endurance.
I’ll keep you posted on both my educations in progress.
>Visiting Perspectives
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The last few weeks I have entertained my first Swedish guests here in Ghana. It has been wonderful to introduce them to my new world of exotic sights and scenery, Ghanaian friends and family, as well as local dishes and drinks. Along with the joy of sharing come my guests’ impressions and thoughts about life here in West Africa. Fresh insights about the heat, the quality of the roads, the nightlife, and the family systems and other things has made me look at my surroundings in a different light.
My guests have pointed out funny things – like that you can pay five and get 2000 back in change – and by just being here themselves they have provoked interesting situations (many Ghanaians referred to my father as my brother for instance and my friend as my twin). We have discussed how to deal with the ever so deep inequalities between people here, if it would be possible to introduce composts and solarcells here, and which is the best way to plant a pineapple. We have told Ghanaians about our cold country in the north and learned about their lush green nation. Also, my guests have been able to provide me with interesting comparisons between both Ghana and India as well as between Ghana and Sweden in the 1950ies (!) and the (selected) outcome is as follows: There are less wild dogs than in India but a few more goats running about than in Sweden in the 1950ies…
On a more serious note, having people who know me come to share my realities here means a lot to me and their visiting perspectives continue to enrich my everyday life in Ghana. I hope it has become evident for my guests why I love Ghana and I do have the feeling they, with their experiences of other continents and times, have fallen too…
In the picture a Swedish flag on a fishing canoe in the Elmina harbor, western Ghana.
>Made in Ghana
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The last few days I have been going round picking up gifts for friends and family back home in Sweden. Finding things that are genuinely Ghanaian proved to be more difficult than I first thought.
Truly Ghanaian are chocolate and cocoa products, a few other processed food items like spices, pineapple marmelade, roasted nuts and Ghanaian cloth – both wax prints and batik. Then we also have the jewellery like beads in every colour and shape. At least the big, heavy glass beads I have seen are produced here. The smaller ones a market lady says she buys from a man from Niger, but she wasn’t sure of their origin.
Today I also got to know from a reliable source that a lot of the “Made in Ghana” wax print cloth at the market is acctually printed in China. For a country like Ghana with a spiralling turism industry it would of course be good if the country could both gain jobs and profits themselves from selling things “Made in Ghana”.
As for me, I am tomorrow going back deep into the community 1 market in Tema to continue my quest.
>Rains in Ghana
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And people write me about the floods in Ghana – note the irony of that I write a comment on it on my blog “Rain in Africa”. Anyways apparently these floods make it to the news in Sweden, Spain and the US.
What has happened is extensive flooding in the north of Ghana, the three regions called Upper East, Upper West and Northern Region, in all an area that is poor and marginalized as it is. The reason for the flooding is heavy rains as of three weeks, but in the shared taxi I took today everybody seemed to be sure it was due to the dam built north of Ghana in Burkina Faso. The dam is a new enterprise and because of recent heavy rains also in Burkina Faso it is currently left open, according to my fellow Maybe the amount of water could also be due to climate change, the rains came late to Ghana and the Ghanaian dam in Akosombo reached a historical low some time ago. Now however, it rains cats and dogs and both casualties and property damage has been reported. About a quarter to half of a million people in Ghana are affected. However, most news reports here are about what has been given as relief support (bags of rice, a helicopter etc.) and not so much information on the actual floods. Today I read in the newspapers about one of the most serious damages destroying the one connection from Ghana to Burkina Faso – a bridge has basically been washed away. Just last week I was in a conference stating that Ghana needs more infrastructure to keep growing as an economy. Now we are going backwards.
As usual, a crisis cannot be seen off the TV-screne unless you acctually are at the scene. For us in the south of Ghana, the only sign of the catastrophe are trucks filled with goods for the north having parked, for indefinite time, close to the harbor in Tema.
Picture borrowed from bbc.co.uk
>Onomatopoeic
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Since I came back from Sweden to Ghana I have gotten to hear, more than once, that I have become obolo. I think you can hear what it means. But if not, this is what I’ve been told:
My coworker: Kajsa, you have become fat!
Me: Eh, what?
Coworker: You must have eaten a lot when you travelled…(Laughs)
Me: Well…
Coworker: Obolo! (Mimics a person so fat the arms stand out from the body)
Yesterday, at the third reminder of my apparently new body size i couldn’t hold it back.
Me: Did you know that saying someone is fat is an insult in Sweden? Coworker2: Oh, really? (looks ashamed) No no, here it is a good thing…
Me: I kind of thought so.
Coworker2: (cheers up) Now we can call you Mama Obolo! (laughs)
Judge for yourselves, in the picture me eating a goat khebab. Photo taken by Isaac Kweku Adu.
>What about the summit?
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The plan was to compose a beautiful, yet sharp piece of writing summarizing the AU-summit, combined with the stack contrasts of the leaders’ potbellies to the Ghanaian street life. But then, I thought if my readers want to read a trashing of Mugabe they will go to the Economist’s website. So to please you, loyal friends, here’s instead a picture with me and my (bf’s siblings’) children. Enjoy your weekend!
>My last week as a millionaire
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The value of the Ghanaian currency the Cedi (pronounced like “CD”) is as of now about USD 1 to 10 000 cedis. This means that if I go to change 100 dollar, I will get about 1 000 000 cedis, and voila, I’m a millionaire! That’s the nice part. However, when the biggest note is the yellowish 20 000 cedi note, it means that even if it is nice to be a millionaire is is extremely impractical. Buying groceries for 200 000, means counting (at least) ten notes. Or when changing money I cannot double check I have the right amount, because I don’t have time to count hundreds of notes! Since the coins in use are only worth a pittance, even the smallest purchase involve notes, which has made the notes wear out. Buying things becomes a hassle, since you have to carry big stacks of money. I couldn’t imagine buying a car, for instance!
Due to an instable economy, the cedi has been inflated over the years. I estimate the value of it to have almost halved since I last was in Ghana 2,5 years ago (based on a beer-taxi homemade index 🙂 and today everything you buy, more or less is ‘thousend something.
Therefore it is welcomed that on Sunday, 1st of July the currency in Ghana will undergo a redomination. 10 000 cedis will next week be 1 Ghana cedi, or 100 pesewas. A huge campaign attached to it is aired on radio and TV with a really happy high-life tune in which they sing “the value is the same”. In a country where still a big chunk of the population do not know how to read or write, explaining that is not easy. Probably the reason for knocking 4 zeros off, and not what seems easier to me – take out three, is that it is nice to have a currency that is equal to or even worth more than the US dollar. Regardless, the campaign has been well received, and “the value is the same” is a slogan that is now used jokingly in almost every situation (“But that is not your lunchbox!”, “Nah, but the value is the same”.)
Bank of Ghana launched the new currency at a press conference some time ago which show similarities to the old one, for instance “the big six” or the Ghanaian freedom-fighters from independence in 1957 are portrayed on all the bills. On the other sides there are famous buildings like the University of Ghana and the Bank of Ghana. Only the 50 Ghana pesewas coin shows a woman. Then it is not a named historic person, but an unknown trades-woman.
Because of the depreciation of the cedi, I have come to see “money burning in the pocket” with my own eyes… it is a common thing to have a heat rash on the thigh/butt from carrying a heap of money in your pocket not allowing air to pass through…But, after this week, and the 6 month period in which both currencies can be used, my time as a millionaire, with rashes, is over.
>When? Why? Where?
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One of the most difficult things to get used to here in far away Ghana is the apparently different approach to time.
It is not as simple as many Europeans think, “that Africans are always late”, instead it is something closer to “Africans are always flexible”. They deal with non-complete or vague information, waiting, delays, contingency and the likes a hell of a lot better than the average Swede…
I have three examples from work.
1. The most common thing people tell you is “I am coming, eh!” meaning that they came to your office to tell you that sooner or later they will be returning (When? Why? Where?).
2. Like when I ask my co-worker about when people will be getting days off for going on a weekend retreat next Saturday and he cheerfully(!) replies: “we’ll come back Sunday evening and then we go to work on Monday again, no days off!” (What? I work on a weekend and there’s no compensation?)
3. When I got to work today around 8.30 am three people are sitting in the lunch room enjoying a meal that to me looks like lunch (damn, what time is it? You break after 30 minutes of work? And it’s not even time for coffee break!)
And, sadly, when I get to the lunch room around 10 (coffee) and later at 12.30 (lunch), I now expect to sit there alone.
Update: Just came back from a two hour lunch with a hilarious and nice collegue…so, here’s a work example of that flexible is also nice, it does allow for two hour breaks when the moment is right.
Photo: Isaac Kweku Adu
>Finally rain
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Naming this blog Rain in Africa was of course a bit silly, even though it in my ears sounded good,but silly since it adds to the common misunderstanding of that “there-s-nothing-in-Africa-not-even-rain”. But then again, when the anticipated rain (Ghana normally goes in to the rain period in the beginning of April) finally fell this weekend I just felt it nevertheless was a good decision to mention the rain in the title. Because of the scent of rain. Because of its promises. And because there is acctually A LOT of rain in Africa.
Also, some other “rain” or good news: UN reports that Ghana is one of the first sub-Saharan African countries to reach the first Millenium Development Goal, halving hunger, well in time ahead of deadline which is set to 2015.
>Mama Obruni
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The African saying “It takes a village to raise a child” is well-known even in Sweden, but the effects of it were not known to me. Every adult about the same age as the parent is regarded as a parent, hence to the children in my house and in the neighboring houses I am “Mama Obruni” or mother-white person.
It is heart-warming to be called Mama by a child you have just come to know. But I have decided to enjoy the moment and be the generous kind of parent so “Children, who wants candy?”
In the picture I am standing in an alley next to our house and neighbor girl Nana is hiding behind me.
>H5N1
>The avian flu has arrived in Ghana. The first cases, none affecting humans, were discovered in a chicken farm in my hometown of Tema. According to BBC what one has to do now is avoid contact with domesticated chicken.”Humans catch the disease through close contact with live infected birds. Birds excrete the virus in their faeces, which dry and become pulverised, and are then inhaled.” However, I was surprised to read I can continue to eat chicken. “Experts say avian flu is not a food-borne virus, so eating chicken is safe.”
Some days ago we were discussing this topic in my house.
Me: So last time I was here a rooster woke me up every day. Now, I see no chicken in your henhouse. Do you have any chicken nowadays?
Mother-in-law: No, my daughter says because of the flu we shouldn’t have chickens. So I only have one.
Maybe I have to talk my mother-in-law into letting that hen go.