You have probably already heard of the tragedy in Haiti and the thousands of reported and estimated casualties. This is to encourage all of you to send your donations towards delivering aid to the affected as they strive to get back on their feet.
Please go to the following websites and donate or volunteer or find more ways to help the recovery efforts.
Partners In Health
Reach Ghana (in support of Partners In Health)
Oxfam
Yele (Although there have been new concerns raised about Wyclef's organization)
World Vision
Google
If you are in the US, you can also text YELE to 501501 to support the efforts of Jean Wyclef. Make a difference. Make it count.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Friday, January 15, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Myself -- Village Idiot
My name is Edo Bedzra, I come from Xikpo in the Volta Region. My father’s name is …. My mother’s name is …. If you grew up in the Ghanaian educational system, you know where I should go with the essay. But I’m not going there. Well, see, the thing is, I am sorta going there but will not tell you my favorite food. I’ll tell you about my trip to the Volta Region of Ghana and the things I saw on the way there.
We’ll begin my trip at Madina a suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region and end at Torgbelotokope a burb of Dabala in the Volta Region of Ghana and along the way, we will mostly comment on the positives. I had to make a long round about trip from my bus stop – Firestone – to Atomic Junction because of the current expansion of the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout – Dodowa road into a three carriage road in each direction, and the overpass to be constructed at Atomic. After the initial inconvenience of the detour, one gets onto the dusty trail of road building between Atomic Junction and Okponglo that left thoughtlessly white shirts brown after a few trips and informed my black shirted choice this time round. On the way, I see the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School on the left curiously old but still producing some of the best scientific minds Ghana has seen and across from it, the ubiquitous upshot of structures and construction work of multiple hostels to cater for the ever-growing need for accommodation of students at the University of Ghana. After that, it’s the ambitious university of Ghana Stadium rising rather majestically on the roadside that captures my attention and I wonder from whence the finances for it arise and the prioritization of projects in our beacon of education.
This brings me to the Tetteh Quarshie roundabout quite nicely designed and linked to our main motorway which has led some to the decongestion of traffic and increased productivity in some intangible way. By its side is the Accra mall, the new hangout place for high schoolers on break, and distributor of many goods South African. The road into Accra from here has the same old stuff, Airport, Airport City still under construction with a functioning Holiday Inn and a Hilton under construction, 37 Military Hospital and of course the presidential palace – see the piece below. You also see a nicely built Ghanaian College of Physicians and Surgeons which I hope is doing something positive for Ghana – watch for the entry on the practice of medicine in Ghana sometime in the future. Up next, the National Theater where I alighted at the Novotel bus stop to make my walk into the Tudu station for a tro-tro to Dabala. It was a national holiday so the city center was not as bustling as it usually is and I could drag my bag nicely on the sidewalk to the chagrin of the kayayei (porters who help carry multiple and heavy loads for quite small amounts of money). These porters are predominantly urban female immigrants from the Northern regions and are left to the elements and dangers of the streets. A few of them who could not have been older than 15 have little kids on their back or lying by them on the pavements and I’ll leave it to the readers’ imagination to ponder how the children could have happened. In the mini-van at the station, I saw another one with a storey of suitcases that must have been taller than her. She’s in the picture below.
She’s making a livelihood though and an honest one and along with her, the market women selling all wares from fruit juices to biscuits, singlets to rechargeable torchlights imported from China and the guy who wanted to sell gold-plated necklaces and a weird assortment of belts to me. Their interactions with passengers and the back and forth bargains under the scorching sun are so traditionally Ghanaian. I could drive a bargain in my time.
2 hours later, the 14 passengers to get the van full were set and I could leave for my village. This part of the trip, while longer, is rather lacking in the excitement of the previous one. The main attractions are the branch off the main road to Ada where there is the Ada Beach Resort, a party ground and a place for the holidays as evidenced by the multiple cars with families foreign and local heading in that direction. Then one arrives at the Lower Volta Bridge across the Volta River along which lies the multiple communities like Sogakope, groves, Hotel Cisneros and the Holy Trinity Spa and Health Farm. The spa is an exercise in luxury and an increasingly popular destination for tourists and the upwardly mobile Ghanaian. It boasts cruises, spa services and general relaxation overseen by Dr. Anyah. There have been complaints about quality of service, however. I might be able to tell you soon what a mole thinks about the operation.
As has become the norm in my recent entries, I’ll leave you with food for thought. The most glaring presence on our road, during my 2 hour journey, was the police checkpoints. The more established ones, including the ones fashioned out of Polytank water storage tanks did their cursory checks—for what, I dunno—and let our van through. But between these, there were others with two or three policemen ostensibly checking for defects in vehicles or licenses and reporting to the authorities for legal action/safety of the passengers. I say ostensibly because when our van got the checkpoint near Hleve, a couple of meters from the Sogakope District Hospital serving the South Tongu District, we were stopped. The driver, by whom I was sitting, went out with a 1 cedi (71 cents) note in hand and no driving documents. A second later, he was back empty handed and we were waved on. This, dear reader, is not a rare occurrence. Whatever defects our vehicle might have had, whatever defiency its driver may suffer from are forgotten and our lives and their futures are sold for that 1 cedi. Some have argued it is because civil servants are paid so little that corruption exists but is the driver making so much he can give out to these officers? And are our lives so worthless a contract between the police and law-breaking vehicle operators can buy them? May the new year bring with it hopes and changes worthy of our progress as a nation. And may God be with us all.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
We’ll begin my trip at Madina a suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region and end at Torgbelotokope a burb of Dabala in the Volta Region of Ghana and along the way, we will mostly comment on the positives. I had to make a long round about trip from my bus stop – Firestone – to Atomic Junction because of the current expansion of the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout – Dodowa road into a three carriage road in each direction, and the overpass to be constructed at Atomic. After the initial inconvenience of the detour, one gets onto the dusty trail of road building between Atomic Junction and Okponglo that left thoughtlessly white shirts brown after a few trips and informed my black shirted choice this time round. On the way, I see the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School on the left curiously old but still producing some of the best scientific minds Ghana has seen and across from it, the ubiquitous upshot of structures and construction work of multiple hostels to cater for the ever-growing need for accommodation of students at the University of Ghana. After that, it’s the ambitious university of Ghana Stadium rising rather majestically on the roadside that captures my attention and I wonder from whence the finances for it arise and the prioritization of projects in our beacon of education.
This brings me to the Tetteh Quarshie roundabout quite nicely designed and linked to our main motorway which has led some to the decongestion of traffic and increased productivity in some intangible way. By its side is the Accra mall, the new hangout place for high schoolers on break, and distributor of many goods South African. The road into Accra from here has the same old stuff, Airport, Airport City still under construction with a functioning Holiday Inn and a Hilton under construction, 37 Military Hospital and of course the presidential palace – see the piece below. You also see a nicely built Ghanaian College of Physicians and Surgeons which I hope is doing something positive for Ghana – watch for the entry on the practice of medicine in Ghana sometime in the future. Up next, the National Theater where I alighted at the Novotel bus stop to make my walk into the Tudu station for a tro-tro to Dabala. It was a national holiday so the city center was not as bustling as it usually is and I could drag my bag nicely on the sidewalk to the chagrin of the kayayei (porters who help carry multiple and heavy loads for quite small amounts of money). These porters are predominantly urban female immigrants from the Northern regions and are left to the elements and dangers of the streets. A few of them who could not have been older than 15 have little kids on their back or lying by them on the pavements and I’ll leave it to the readers’ imagination to ponder how the children could have happened. In the mini-van at the station, I saw another one with a storey of suitcases that must have been taller than her. She’s in the picture below.
She’s making a livelihood though and an honest one and along with her, the market women selling all wares from fruit juices to biscuits, singlets to rechargeable torchlights imported from China and the guy who wanted to sell gold-plated necklaces and a weird assortment of belts to me. Their interactions with passengers and the back and forth bargains under the scorching sun are so traditionally Ghanaian. I could drive a bargain in my time.
2 hours later, the 14 passengers to get the van full were set and I could leave for my village. This part of the trip, while longer, is rather lacking in the excitement of the previous one. The main attractions are the branch off the main road to Ada where there is the Ada Beach Resort, a party ground and a place for the holidays as evidenced by the multiple cars with families foreign and local heading in that direction. Then one arrives at the Lower Volta Bridge across the Volta River along which lies the multiple communities like Sogakope, groves, Hotel Cisneros and the Holy Trinity Spa and Health Farm. The spa is an exercise in luxury and an increasingly popular destination for tourists and the upwardly mobile Ghanaian. It boasts cruises, spa services and general relaxation overseen by Dr. Anyah. There have been complaints about quality of service, however. I might be able to tell you soon what a mole thinks about the operation.
As has become the norm in my recent entries, I’ll leave you with food for thought. The most glaring presence on our road, during my 2 hour journey, was the police checkpoints. The more established ones, including the ones fashioned out of Polytank water storage tanks did their cursory checks—for what, I dunno—and let our van through. But between these, there were others with two or three policemen ostensibly checking for defects in vehicles or licenses and reporting to the authorities for legal action/safety of the passengers. I say ostensibly because when our van got the checkpoint near Hleve, a couple of meters from the Sogakope District Hospital serving the South Tongu District, we were stopped. The driver, by whom I was sitting, went out with a 1 cedi (71 cents) note in hand and no driving documents. A second later, he was back empty handed and we were waved on. This, dear reader, is not a rare occurrence. Whatever defects our vehicle might have had, whatever defiency its driver may suffer from are forgotten and our lives and their futures are sold for that 1 cedi. Some have argued it is because civil servants are paid so little that corruption exists but is the driver making so much he can give out to these officers? And are our lives so worthless a contract between the police and law-breaking vehicle operators can buy them? May the new year bring with it hopes and changes worthy of our progress as a nation. And may God be with us all.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Friday, January 8, 2010
Domestication aka The Time I Spent, The Things I Saw
Today, I woke up to the sad news of the passing away of Dan Lartey. My promised entry on Dabala will have to come next. He burst onto the political scene, at least my scene, in 2000 with the proclamation, “Come December 7, me and my wife are going straight to the castle”. For students of history, the Osu Christianborg Castle has been the seat of government/the Presidency since it was converted from a slave castle. Dan Lartey had started the Great Consolidated Popular Party which in Ghanaian parlance meant there was nothing great at all about this great party. The platform on which Mr. Lartey (he did not become President Lartey) run was Domestication – he was talking about a new consciousness, a new drive to emphasize Ghanaian capability and encourage domestic enterprise/sufficiency in place of the “foreign is better” mentality and the overwhelming dependence on foreign debt for Fiscal and Monetary spending. In this way, it was similar to the “Operation Feed Yourself” of the Acheampong Military Regime but then again, that regime was also known for “Fa woto begye Golf” to wit, exchange your butt (sexual favors) for political/monetary favors which doomed the former. The problem, as is usually the case in these instances, was with the vessel rather than the message for if one of the two major political parties had come up with this platform, it would have been hailed far and wide as genius.
I would run a campaign on domestication. In fact I have been running such a campaign, not politically of course but within friends and colleagues, I have maintained that the African is capable of managing his affairs (apologies to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah). Let me give you a couple of examples that have been encouraging to me. Prior to my leaving this country in 2003 as a starry-eyed 18 year old, the fashion industry had already begun making the move towards producing designs/products that met international standards, creating products and labels they could sell at a premium – one thinks of the mkogh line from Mawuli Okudzeto and the recent pkog line by Papa Kwame Osei. That industry has not let up especially as it has tapped into the Ghanaian hunger for “designer” labels and need to advertise his patriotism. As I type this, I am wearing a rather chic black shirt (if I may say so myself) with the Ghana Coat of Arms and Map in the colors of the Ghanaian Flag made so well that it immediately reaffirms my ancestry without shouting noisily that I am Ghanaian so much that people miss the point in the hullaballoo. It’s made by some minor design houses (although I have a sinking suspicion China might be behind some manufacturing) and sold on Osu Oxford street for anywhere from 10 to 20 bucks depending on your bargaining power. I presume the cost of manufacturing is much lower than that but I am willing to pay the premium. On the cloth/textiles front, Printex, among many are integrating Ghanaian idioms and Adinkra symbols into the making of cloths for the local Ghanaian market and through an advertising blitz that has made it cool to wear Ghanaian prints to work, one has begun to see the preponderance of workers clad in local wear at anything from commercial banks to Parliament House. They have ceased to be the preserve of funerals, outdooring rites and church services thus increasing revenue for these companies and generating jobs for the economy.
Two other industries have since joined the fray and are worth mentioning. The information technology field has bloomed since the first NIIT school was established on Ring Road Central. Today, there are local companies like Soft Tribe and Tribal Solutions (started by a friend of mine) which are churning out software for the peculiar needs of Ghanaian companies and providing support for home-brewed and foreign software. At the recent Barcamp Ghana, the IT presentations were the most sought after and it was refreshing to hear Ghanaian youth espousing strategies for start-ups and business models for sustainability. With minimal overlays into laptop computers, internet connection and some basic software, one can start a software development operation and build on it. At this point, I cannot help plugging REACH Ghana, an NGO started by Ghanaians like myself for Ghanaians, aimed at delivering healthcare to Ghana, providing health access to underserved communities, enhancing the education of the Ghanaian health professional and encouraging scientific research into the health and practice of healthcare in our communities. It was conceived at Barcamp Diaspora in Washington DC in July 2009. See the beginning and join the cause at www.reachghana.org. Make a change, make it count.
The last industry to comment on is the fruit juice industry. Most of the fruit produced in the country when I was here were exported but these days, it has been realized that as easily as fruit can be made into juice in western countries, perhaps more easily (due to low labor costs), it can be made in Ghana. Granted that my taste buds have been serenaded with a veritable bevy of sensations given the creative mixtures of juices that have been produced from the sleeves of these juice companies and have made it impossible for me to not go back for more but the packaging! My God, the packaging! From boxes in the mould of Don Simon to bottles in the shape of champagne (containing sparkling fruit juices for tee-to-tallers like us replacing alcoholic beverages at almost every Ghanaian function), Ghanaian firms have moved from tied plastic bags to hygienic and appealing packaging that attract the customer and provide a sense of living and accomplishment to her (deserved or not) when she drinks their juices. Again, good marketing has gone a long way to increasing their market share to the extent where I have not seen much of the foreign varieties of fruit drinks since arriving a week or so ago.
I am very much impressed by the headways our industries have made and I look forward to one day contributing to the self sufficiency of this great nation of ours. I do leave you however on a sober note. Were Dan Lartey to be alive today and as brash as in 2000, he would say “Come December 7th, 2012, me and my wife are going straight to the Presidential Palace”. This palace is the monstrosity built on the right side of the road when traveling between the 37 Military Hospital and The National Theater. You will know it by its ugliness. On what could have been prime industrial/commercial land, in the face of human poverty and suffering, we have built with a $30million loan from the Indian government, designed by Indian Architects (but resembling the ugly cousin of the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum designed by a Ghanaian) and constructed by Indian contractors, an $80-135 million eye-sore with little local involvement on the mere premise that “even the Gambia has a presidential palace (well I simplify)”. It ran smack in the face of logic and common sense but even more so in the face of the ideals of self sufficiency and ensured that as is usually the case, the bulk of a loan returned to the economy of the “donor” and made the recipient poorer in resources and richer in idiocy. I have the misfortune of passing in front of this fool’s paradise every time I go into Accra from Madina where I live but these days, rather than make me disillusioned with the custodians of our beloved country, it reminds me of the better job that could have been done by our local professionals. It reinforces what Dr. Andrew Arkutu told me in a conversation four days ago; ‘men can die but ideas cannot be killed’. May Dan Lartey rest in peace. And long live Domestication. Happy New Year.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
I would run a campaign on domestication. In fact I have been running such a campaign, not politically of course but within friends and colleagues, I have maintained that the African is capable of managing his affairs (apologies to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah). Let me give you a couple of examples that have been encouraging to me. Prior to my leaving this country in 2003 as a starry-eyed 18 year old, the fashion industry had already begun making the move towards producing designs/products that met international standards, creating products and labels they could sell at a premium – one thinks of the mkogh line from Mawuli Okudzeto and the recent pkog line by Papa Kwame Osei. That industry has not let up especially as it has tapped into the Ghanaian hunger for “designer” labels and need to advertise his patriotism. As I type this, I am wearing a rather chic black shirt (if I may say so myself) with the Ghana Coat of Arms and Map in the colors of the Ghanaian Flag made so well that it immediately reaffirms my ancestry without shouting noisily that I am Ghanaian so much that people miss the point in the hullaballoo. It’s made by some minor design houses (although I have a sinking suspicion China might be behind some manufacturing) and sold on Osu Oxford street for anywhere from 10 to 20 bucks depending on your bargaining power. I presume the cost of manufacturing is much lower than that but I am willing to pay the premium. On the cloth/textiles front, Printex, among many are integrating Ghanaian idioms and Adinkra symbols into the making of cloths for the local Ghanaian market and through an advertising blitz that has made it cool to wear Ghanaian prints to work, one has begun to see the preponderance of workers clad in local wear at anything from commercial banks to Parliament House. They have ceased to be the preserve of funerals, outdooring rites and church services thus increasing revenue for these companies and generating jobs for the economy.
Two other industries have since joined the fray and are worth mentioning. The information technology field has bloomed since the first NIIT school was established on Ring Road Central. Today, there are local companies like Soft Tribe and Tribal Solutions (started by a friend of mine) which are churning out software for the peculiar needs of Ghanaian companies and providing support for home-brewed and foreign software. At the recent Barcamp Ghana, the IT presentations were the most sought after and it was refreshing to hear Ghanaian youth espousing strategies for start-ups and business models for sustainability. With minimal overlays into laptop computers, internet connection and some basic software, one can start a software development operation and build on it. At this point, I cannot help plugging REACH Ghana, an NGO started by Ghanaians like myself for Ghanaians, aimed at delivering healthcare to Ghana, providing health access to underserved communities, enhancing the education of the Ghanaian health professional and encouraging scientific research into the health and practice of healthcare in our communities. It was conceived at Barcamp Diaspora in Washington DC in July 2009. See the beginning and join the cause at www.reachghana.org. Make a change, make it count.
The last industry to comment on is the fruit juice industry. Most of the fruit produced in the country when I was here were exported but these days, it has been realized that as easily as fruit can be made into juice in western countries, perhaps more easily (due to low labor costs), it can be made in Ghana. Granted that my taste buds have been serenaded with a veritable bevy of sensations given the creative mixtures of juices that have been produced from the sleeves of these juice companies and have made it impossible for me to not go back for more but the packaging! My God, the packaging! From boxes in the mould of Don Simon to bottles in the shape of champagne (containing sparkling fruit juices for tee-to-tallers like us replacing alcoholic beverages at almost every Ghanaian function), Ghanaian firms have moved from tied plastic bags to hygienic and appealing packaging that attract the customer and provide a sense of living and accomplishment to her (deserved or not) when she drinks their juices. Again, good marketing has gone a long way to increasing their market share to the extent where I have not seen much of the foreign varieties of fruit drinks since arriving a week or so ago.
I am very much impressed by the headways our industries have made and I look forward to one day contributing to the self sufficiency of this great nation of ours. I do leave you however on a sober note. Were Dan Lartey to be alive today and as brash as in 2000, he would say “Come December 7th, 2012, me and my wife are going straight to the Presidential Palace”. This palace is the monstrosity built on the right side of the road when traveling between the 37 Military Hospital and The National Theater. You will know it by its ugliness. On what could have been prime industrial/commercial land, in the face of human poverty and suffering, we have built with a $30million loan from the Indian government, designed by Indian Architects (but resembling the ugly cousin of the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum designed by a Ghanaian) and constructed by Indian contractors, an $80-135 million eye-sore with little local involvement on the mere premise that “even the Gambia has a presidential palace (well I simplify)”. It ran smack in the face of logic and common sense but even more so in the face of the ideals of self sufficiency and ensured that as is usually the case, the bulk of a loan returned to the economy of the “donor” and made the recipient poorer in resources and richer in idiocy. I have the misfortune of passing in front of this fool’s paradise every time I go into Accra from Madina where I live but these days, rather than make me disillusioned with the custodians of our beloved country, it reminds me of the better job that could have been done by our local professionals. It reinforces what Dr. Andrew Arkutu told me in a conversation four days ago; ‘men can die but ideas cannot be killed’. May Dan Lartey rest in peace. And long live Domestication. Happy New Year.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Ghana My Happy Home
I have been told that my blog entries are “too long” so I will try to economize words and subjects in this one. As those on facebook already know, I arrived in Ghana on December 20th after a long flight which just barely missed the impending snowstorm in new york—ah those were the days of prayer. Well to repeat what fb already knows again, just when the pilot announced the beginning of our descent, Bob Marley’s Africa Unite started on my ipod with the lyrics “Africa unite ‘cos we’re moving right out of Babylon and we’re going to our father’s land”. It was an apt welcome into my beloved home land and when the humid air at 27.2C (81F) hit my three-layer clothed self, I made the sign of the cross and thought “it’s good to be home”. It is good to be home and I’ve been singing the following song (I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the lyrics but I capture the essence) ever since:
Ghana my happy home,
Land of rich resources,
Land of mighty talent, racial tolerance, justice and freedom.
I will fight for thee, O my Ghana, I will die for thee, O my Ghana
I will uplift thy name, in all I do, justice and freedom.
What I find quintessentially Ghanaian, however, can sometimes be vexing for those who live here year-round. For instance, later in the evening on the day I came home, the lights suddenly went out—no it wasn’t a ghost story—the electricity had been cut as part of rationing by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). See, our electric power is mainly hydroelectric generated from the one dam on the Volta Lake (the biggest man-made lake in the world). It’s supplemented by solar power and a second dam is in the works but I digress. Anyway, when the water level goes down, there is load rationing and the lights go off at different places at different times to enable sustainability. So here we all are watching the 11 channels of private and public tv and the lights go out. I am jumping and shouting for joy at this happy reenactment of my childhood and everyone else is grumpy. Dear reader, what would you have done? Can’t I be happy? I was happy and I’ll tell you why.
The longer I have stayed in the US, the more I have longed for home and that way of life – the complicated life made up of coal pots, firewood, smoke, lack of access to water and that most unique characteristic of that life – family. For some reason, I have come to miss, love and yearn for my family more than I have in my life. Maybe it’s moving into a studio apartment or the intrinsic isolation of 3rd year medical school but I like to think I’m just growing to better appreciate what it is that family means. Family was always first with me but this time I know better what it takes to keep it together and I have felt more and more the need to belong in one. One of the things that make it possible is “light off” and when those lights gave out, we immediately went onto the porch and started a lively conversation ranging from the mundane to the political. It was a family moment so thoroughly enjoyed.
Another family moment is eating together. Most Ghanaian dishes are prepared to be eaten by hand and at least in my family, it used to be a family affair; four or so sets of right hands eating from a single bowl, four or so sets of heads conferring at a meal-time ritual exchanging ideas, planning, advising, being together. We are moving a bit away from that now as the times and demands of work put individuals on different schedules and make it impossible to spend time together as a family unit. I came to my village, Dabala, today. I’ll tell you the things I saw on the trip here and what the experience is now I’m here, in the next entry. In the meantime, I will continue to consort with the symphony of mosquitoes that have been singing such Christmas favorites as Silent Night and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town with local mixes like Agba Ee Mido Agba Nam A, Mewi Wo Mawi Wo Nkasei. Best wishes of the holidays. Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Ghana my happy home,
Land of rich resources,
Land of mighty talent, racial tolerance, justice and freedom.
I will fight for thee, O my Ghana, I will die for thee, O my Ghana
I will uplift thy name, in all I do, justice and freedom.
What I find quintessentially Ghanaian, however, can sometimes be vexing for those who live here year-round. For instance, later in the evening on the day I came home, the lights suddenly went out—no it wasn’t a ghost story—the electricity had been cut as part of rationing by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). See, our electric power is mainly hydroelectric generated from the one dam on the Volta Lake (the biggest man-made lake in the world). It’s supplemented by solar power and a second dam is in the works but I digress. Anyway, when the water level goes down, there is load rationing and the lights go off at different places at different times to enable sustainability. So here we all are watching the 11 channels of private and public tv and the lights go out. I am jumping and shouting for joy at this happy reenactment of my childhood and everyone else is grumpy. Dear reader, what would you have done? Can’t I be happy? I was happy and I’ll tell you why.
The longer I have stayed in the US, the more I have longed for home and that way of life – the complicated life made up of coal pots, firewood, smoke, lack of access to water and that most unique characteristic of that life – family. For some reason, I have come to miss, love and yearn for my family more than I have in my life. Maybe it’s moving into a studio apartment or the intrinsic isolation of 3rd year medical school but I like to think I’m just growing to better appreciate what it is that family means. Family was always first with me but this time I know better what it takes to keep it together and I have felt more and more the need to belong in one. One of the things that make it possible is “light off” and when those lights gave out, we immediately went onto the porch and started a lively conversation ranging from the mundane to the political. It was a family moment so thoroughly enjoyed.
Another family moment is eating together. Most Ghanaian dishes are prepared to be eaten by hand and at least in my family, it used to be a family affair; four or so sets of right hands eating from a single bowl, four or so sets of heads conferring at a meal-time ritual exchanging ideas, planning, advising, being together. We are moving a bit away from that now as the times and demands of work put individuals on different schedules and make it impossible to spend time together as a family unit. I came to my village, Dabala, today. I’ll tell you the things I saw on the trip here and what the experience is now I’m here, in the next entry. In the meantime, I will continue to consort with the symphony of mosquitoes that have been singing such Christmas favorites as Silent Night and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town with local mixes like Agba Ee Mido Agba Nam A, Mewi Wo Mawi Wo Nkasei. Best wishes of the holidays. Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Happy New Year
A very merry christmas and a happy new year to you all. Over the next couple of days, if not weeks, I will be uploading entries I wrote while on vacation in Ghana over the holidays. I managed to have little internet access during this time and thus could not upload these entries. I am however doing that in the coming days and since I am altogether too lazy/not motivated to change the writings/the moments, I will upload them as I wrote them chronologically but be mindful that their tenses refer to a past time and not the day they show up.
Otherwise, Happy New Year again and may this year be a fruitful one for all of us. I hope you keep reading these ramblings.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Otherwise, Happy New Year again and may this year be a fruitful one for all of us. I hope you keep reading these ramblings.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Dreaming Reality
Why do I cry?
when I think of you,
When you bring me joy
In my dreams,
make love to me, your juices
mixing, flowing, churning blood
in my veins, down
to my heart, up
to my head
One with me and separate
Who are you?
I touch your hair,
Feel it thick through my fingers
But can’t find the roots
Deep black humus threads spanning
Time and intervening oceans
I eat the fruit.
Today I died
No. I hung myself
You never quite understood me
Did you?
First I tore my heart
Then my eyes—why ?
I hung myself on the big Mango
Won’t let blood go to my brain
Remember! You told me not to hang upside down
Why did you turn me back?
What were you doing in the dark—and—light doorway?
I long for you day and night
—And midnight
Am I dead?
I know your back, the curve
Of your hips, here they are wide
there rounded
here hollowed by child bodies
The eagles nested here
Turn your face to me!
I know you, you know
I’ve climbed your back,
Sucked your breasts
Been in you.
Father calls you my Girlfriend
—you must be the One
So why do I cry?
There’s a blue veil hiding you
I’m hungry
Tell me, am I awake?
You have left my dreams
No! I’m thinking
You, I, the world
Megbona lo—I’m coming back
Your fingers sear my skin
I need
There’s an explosion in my loins
My loins turn to jelly—I want to fall
My first steps,
Steady, steady
Thank You
—for your hand.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
when I think of you,
When you bring me joy
In my dreams,
make love to me, your juices
mixing, flowing, churning blood
in my veins, down
to my heart, up
to my head
One with me and separate
Who are you?
I touch your hair,
Feel it thick through my fingers
But can’t find the roots
Deep black humus threads spanning
Time and intervening oceans
I eat the fruit.
Today I died
No. I hung myself
You never quite understood me
Did you?
First I tore my heart
Then my eyes—why ?
I hung myself on the big Mango
Won’t let blood go to my brain
Remember! You told me not to hang upside down
Why did you turn me back?
What were you doing in the dark—and—light doorway?
I long for you day and night
—And midnight
Am I dead?
I know your back, the curve
Of your hips, here they are wide
there rounded
here hollowed by child bodies
The eagles nested here
Turn your face to me!
I know you, you know
I’ve climbed your back,
Sucked your breasts
Been in you.
Father calls you my Girlfriend
—you must be the One
So why do I cry?
There’s a blue veil hiding you
I’m hungry
Tell me, am I awake?
You have left my dreams
No! I’m thinking
You, I, the world
Megbona lo—I’m coming back
Your fingers sear my skin
I need
There’s an explosion in my loins
My loins turn to jelly—I want to fall
My first steps,
Steady, steady
Thank You
—for your hand.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Why So Poor? -- Of Minds(ets) and Men
Masitala, Malawi – According to this BBC news report, William Kamkwamba woke up one day, figured he could build a windmill out of bicycle parts to supply electricity to, and pump water for his village and did it with practically no formal education. A couple of years ago my father was working in his backyard garden. He needed to dig a shallow hole and with no tool at hand, picked up a broken piece of calabash that was lying innocently by. Before he began to dig, he looked at us and said, “Improvise”. It was the first time I had heard the word. Improvise! A blessing and a curse. I did not spend years trying to understand what he meant. No, I did not even think about it after the words escaped his lips. It was just one of the big words daddy liked to use on occasion. Like the time he said “my food is always palatable”. But I did get the old boy to tell us what exactly the word meant. I thought it was pretty simple -- use one thing in place of another. I’m not so sure anymore. I’ll tell you why in a little bit.
On many occasions, I’ve had the opportunity to ask myself why the African continent is so poor. I’m sure you have too. So why are we poor? Is it because of the many years of colonialism and the slave trade or the additional years of bad leadership, coups and counter coups, civil war and strife started by men who care for nothing but themselves? Are we still lagging in development because of neocolonialism and the strangling juggernaut of the western financial institutions or because our very minds are inferior to the best of the world and our mindsets inherently retrogressive instead of progressive? The question of whether colonialism, neocolonialism, political strife and the combined exports of the World Bank and IMF has been detrimental to the continent is a moot one and has been argued on many fronts so I will only briefly examine them here.
More than a hundred years ago, the white man landed on the shores of our beloved black continent (the Dark Continent as they called it) and proceeded to rape and ravage it out of gold, cocoa, timber, the strongest men, freedom and indeed its very soul. What this did was in essence take away the foundation on which we could build our countries and our economies. The remnants became second class citizens, strangers in their own land, told where they could go and where they could not, paying taxes to foreigners and unable to buy one imported commodity without the other – I suppose the forced balanced diet kept us healthy. After that came the age of the Strong Men of Africa, the Mugabes, Nyereres, Nkrumahs, Contes and a spate of coups with stories of US and Russian involvement as the two major powers of the world sought influence in the as yet unexplored philosophy of African neocolonialism—that would come later. And when it did, it was through the multiple protectionist moves in the World Trade Organization and the extension of loan facilities from the World Bank and IMF. They attached western imports of economic philosophy and conditions that, even with the best of intents, took no account of the peculiar economic and political climates of the recipient countries. Add to this the fact that some of these conditions require loans to be disbursed in installments from western banks with all the transaction fees applicable and stipulate that consultants be hired from the donor country on development goals in the recipient and you have, by anecdotal evidence, anywhere from fifty to eighty percent of loans going back into the donor economy while drowning the poor African country further into debt. It’s not all tales of doom and gloom, of course and I am not a proponent of the “the west is keeping us down” cacophony so I will focus on the African.
The point of this piece is to look at those two essential components of human progress, the mind and mindsets of a people, and the people themselves. The last time my mother visited the US was for my graduation from college. On a stroll through Chicago, she casually remarked on how nice it would be for the white man to build some of his skyscrapers back home. Needless to say I flew off the handle with a lecture on how we had to fight our own battles, et cetera. My mother, bless her soul, is the most important person in this world to me and the one I respect the most so this example is not to cast her in a bad light. She is also a certifiably smart lady and that is the crux of the story. In Ghana, we have brains and smarts. I read animal farm, makers of civilization, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Pride and Prejudice before I was out of 6th grade. The second year college classes I took in college taught little different from what I had read for three years in high school and when I pit my brains against friends with “similar” levels of education, I find out again and again how much more theory they know than I do. In fact the truth remains that one of the main reasons I came to the US for school is because I could not gain admission into medical school in Ghana. In every medical school I interviewed for in the US, there was one Ghanaian faculty member or two and even more students from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the like. There are Africans excelling in most, if not all, of the greatest institutions of higher education this country. No! The African’s mind is flexible enough to bend the most esoteric theories and to propose some himself. Even with the limited educational infrastructure, the African child rises to the top. So why is it a bachelor’s degree at a third rate university outside Ghana is enough to gain you a promotion, in Ghana, over a long term employee with multiple Ghanaian degrees?
It is not the lack of firepower that is holding us back. It must be our mindsets then. From the ingrained mindset of inferiority of everything African through our unwillingness to chance innovations to the lack of support and in fact, the PhD (pull-him-down) of those entrepreneurs who try it, we have connived to drive the continent farther and farther into poverty. The problem with improvisation is that the African has been doing it for ages and has thus become complacent and comfortable. Improvisation allows us to use inferior tools albeit with extra effort for accomplishing tasks and we are just happy that way. We are not motivated to innovate. We lose sight of that intrinsic component of the word improvise, the creation of something new to replace what is. When my father first said “improvise”, it was while using a broken calabash in place of say, a hoe. There was no progress there. However, because we were just fine digging without a hoe, we had no incentive to look for better ways to dig. We missed the chance to innovate. But the buck does not end there. If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, why is there so little invention coming out of Africa? Our institutions are ill equipped to advance science, I know but that is just the beginning. Until we move beyond that essential Africanness of coping with the hard life and start looking to get into a more comfortable lifestyle, we will be unable to progress. Have you seen the travelling Ghanaian? Poor soul has oversized carry-ons, multiple oversized checked bags and some more for the children to carry. Why? Because he is bringing gifts to family members. Why? Because they are foreign goods. It is not good enough to buy these same things in Ghana. It has to have made the flight to hold any value to the Ghanaian. The Ghanaian has to have Holland prints in textiles to wear to a funeral --in effect stifling the local enterprises that seek to compete with the influx of cheaply made, overpriced foreign goods.
As much as the Ghanaian yearns after imported milk and bread however, few can afford it thus allowing room for local inventors to prosper on their minor creations. Yet, our economies suffer the ignominy of lagging behind the prosperous ones and our people suffer from lack of access to healthcare, education, employment and clean water. This is no fault of the minds and sets of minds in corpus but of the corpus itself. It is man and the men of our various countries that drive us deeper and deeper into the ground and bring our countries, which relatively flourished post-independence to their knees groveling for western handouts. The “Strong Men” of the continent began the looting process that continued in coup after coup which promised accountability but looted the state coffers while paying lip service to higher ideals. These were followed by pseudodemocracies installed to legitimize corrupt governments with the support of countries like France all so the interests of these supporting countries could continue being served at the expense of the poor African. No matter how great the demand, it is the African, like the times past when he sold his fellow man to the slave trader, who continues to sell his country out for thirty pieces of silver. And when he is finally thrown out of office by the vote, what right does he have to demand additional graciousness from a country he has so thoroughly helped to exploit and why must we pay him to relinquish power?
Many reasons are proffered for the poverty of my people. Though they all have legitimacy in and of themselves, none of them hold as much weight as the dead weight of corrupt men that bogs the continent down. From high school, when the senior student extorts sardines and milk out of the first year student so he can protect the latter from other extortionists and where a housemaster takes money from parents so as to reserve preferential treatments for their children and the headmaster takes money to admit a bad student over an excellent one, corruption runs riot in the fabric of our countries weakening the seams and breaking the bond of unity that keeps it strong. Until we change our minds(ets) and until there arises a new generation of (wo)men willing to stand tall and move our nations forward, we will forever lag in the darkness of our skins and our soils crying out as children of the dark yearning for the light of prosperity yet running back into the darkness from the pain the light causes our eyes which are so accustomed to nothingness. Long Live Africa and on men, may there be peace, and prosperity.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
On many occasions, I’ve had the opportunity to ask myself why the African continent is so poor. I’m sure you have too. So why are we poor? Is it because of the many years of colonialism and the slave trade or the additional years of bad leadership, coups and counter coups, civil war and strife started by men who care for nothing but themselves? Are we still lagging in development because of neocolonialism and the strangling juggernaut of the western financial institutions or because our very minds are inferior to the best of the world and our mindsets inherently retrogressive instead of progressive? The question of whether colonialism, neocolonialism, political strife and the combined exports of the World Bank and IMF has been detrimental to the continent is a moot one and has been argued on many fronts so I will only briefly examine them here.
More than a hundred years ago, the white man landed on the shores of our beloved black continent (the Dark Continent as they called it) and proceeded to rape and ravage it out of gold, cocoa, timber, the strongest men, freedom and indeed its very soul. What this did was in essence take away the foundation on which we could build our countries and our economies. The remnants became second class citizens, strangers in their own land, told where they could go and where they could not, paying taxes to foreigners and unable to buy one imported commodity without the other – I suppose the forced balanced diet kept us healthy. After that came the age of the Strong Men of Africa, the Mugabes, Nyereres, Nkrumahs, Contes and a spate of coups with stories of US and Russian involvement as the two major powers of the world sought influence in the as yet unexplored philosophy of African neocolonialism—that would come later. And when it did, it was through the multiple protectionist moves in the World Trade Organization and the extension of loan facilities from the World Bank and IMF. They attached western imports of economic philosophy and conditions that, even with the best of intents, took no account of the peculiar economic and political climates of the recipient countries. Add to this the fact that some of these conditions require loans to be disbursed in installments from western banks with all the transaction fees applicable and stipulate that consultants be hired from the donor country on development goals in the recipient and you have, by anecdotal evidence, anywhere from fifty to eighty percent of loans going back into the donor economy while drowning the poor African country further into debt. It’s not all tales of doom and gloom, of course and I am not a proponent of the “the west is keeping us down” cacophony so I will focus on the African.
The point of this piece is to look at those two essential components of human progress, the mind and mindsets of a people, and the people themselves. The last time my mother visited the US was for my graduation from college. On a stroll through Chicago, she casually remarked on how nice it would be for the white man to build some of his skyscrapers back home. Needless to say I flew off the handle with a lecture on how we had to fight our own battles, et cetera. My mother, bless her soul, is the most important person in this world to me and the one I respect the most so this example is not to cast her in a bad light. She is also a certifiably smart lady and that is the crux of the story. In Ghana, we have brains and smarts. I read animal farm, makers of civilization, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Pride and Prejudice before I was out of 6th grade. The second year college classes I took in college taught little different from what I had read for three years in high school and when I pit my brains against friends with “similar” levels of education, I find out again and again how much more theory they know than I do. In fact the truth remains that one of the main reasons I came to the US for school is because I could not gain admission into medical school in Ghana. In every medical school I interviewed for in the US, there was one Ghanaian faculty member or two and even more students from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the like. There are Africans excelling in most, if not all, of the greatest institutions of higher education this country. No! The African’s mind is flexible enough to bend the most esoteric theories and to propose some himself. Even with the limited educational infrastructure, the African child rises to the top. So why is it a bachelor’s degree at a third rate university outside Ghana is enough to gain you a promotion, in Ghana, over a long term employee with multiple Ghanaian degrees?
It is not the lack of firepower that is holding us back. It must be our mindsets then. From the ingrained mindset of inferiority of everything African through our unwillingness to chance innovations to the lack of support and in fact, the PhD (pull-him-down) of those entrepreneurs who try it, we have connived to drive the continent farther and farther into poverty. The problem with improvisation is that the African has been doing it for ages and has thus become complacent and comfortable. Improvisation allows us to use inferior tools albeit with extra effort for accomplishing tasks and we are just happy that way. We are not motivated to innovate. We lose sight of that intrinsic component of the word improvise, the creation of something new to replace what is. When my father first said “improvise”, it was while using a broken calabash in place of say, a hoe. There was no progress there. However, because we were just fine digging without a hoe, we had no incentive to look for better ways to dig. We missed the chance to innovate. But the buck does not end there. If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, why is there so little invention coming out of Africa? Our institutions are ill equipped to advance science, I know but that is just the beginning. Until we move beyond that essential Africanness of coping with the hard life and start looking to get into a more comfortable lifestyle, we will be unable to progress. Have you seen the travelling Ghanaian? Poor soul has oversized carry-ons, multiple oversized checked bags and some more for the children to carry. Why? Because he is bringing gifts to family members. Why? Because they are foreign goods. It is not good enough to buy these same things in Ghana. It has to have made the flight to hold any value to the Ghanaian. The Ghanaian has to have Holland prints in textiles to wear to a funeral --in effect stifling the local enterprises that seek to compete with the influx of cheaply made, overpriced foreign goods.
As much as the Ghanaian yearns after imported milk and bread however, few can afford it thus allowing room for local inventors to prosper on their minor creations. Yet, our economies suffer the ignominy of lagging behind the prosperous ones and our people suffer from lack of access to healthcare, education, employment and clean water. This is no fault of the minds and sets of minds in corpus but of the corpus itself. It is man and the men of our various countries that drive us deeper and deeper into the ground and bring our countries, which relatively flourished post-independence to their knees groveling for western handouts. The “Strong Men” of the continent began the looting process that continued in coup after coup which promised accountability but looted the state coffers while paying lip service to higher ideals. These were followed by pseudodemocracies installed to legitimize corrupt governments with the support of countries like France all so the interests of these supporting countries could continue being served at the expense of the poor African. No matter how great the demand, it is the African, like the times past when he sold his fellow man to the slave trader, who continues to sell his country out for thirty pieces of silver. And when he is finally thrown out of office by the vote, what right does he have to demand additional graciousness from a country he has so thoroughly helped to exploit and why must we pay him to relinquish power?
Many reasons are proffered for the poverty of my people. Though they all have legitimacy in and of themselves, none of them hold as much weight as the dead weight of corrupt men that bogs the continent down. From high school, when the senior student extorts sardines and milk out of the first year student so he can protect the latter from other extortionists and where a housemaster takes money from parents so as to reserve preferential treatments for their children and the headmaster takes money to admit a bad student over an excellent one, corruption runs riot in the fabric of our countries weakening the seams and breaking the bond of unity that keeps it strong. Until we change our minds(ets) and until there arises a new generation of (wo)men willing to stand tall and move our nations forward, we will forever lag in the darkness of our skins and our soils crying out as children of the dark yearning for the light of prosperity yet running back into the darkness from the pain the light causes our eyes which are so accustomed to nothingness. Long Live Africa and on men, may there be peace, and prosperity.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
