The Conflict of Giving

Every day dozens of people ask me for money and every day I deny dozens of requests.  Walking through Makola Market, Nkrumah Circle, or Oxford Street I refuse people so often that the phrase “sorry my friend” has become reflexive.  With every denial I imagine, “if people at home could only see me now, what would they think”?  I ponder, “might they think I’m heartless, hardened, or perhaps deaf”?  The most awful part is about whom I’ve refused.  I haven’t just denied those I thought might use the money to buy drugs or alcohol, not only those who I thought might use the money to buy sex, I’ve also denied those who are clearly suffering, hungry, and disabled. For all of those people that I’ve given money to in Ghana there are ten-fold more that I’ve denied. 

While in the African context the amount of beggars in Accra might be quite average, when measured outside of the sub-continent the number is disproportionately large.  Denying money to someone that is truly in need is the most difficult and heartrending decision that I face in Ghana.  I don’t refuse people money on ethical grounds, although there may be credence to that justification, and it is a debate to which I will return. The reason I turn away the majority of beggars is simply because it is personally not financially sustainable.  Bluntly, if I were to give to all those who asked, or even to a quarter of those who asked, I would spend all my time at the ATM.  Yesterday as I strolled toward the Trade Fair I was greeted by eight children who jumped out of the back of a parked pick-up truck, and rushed over to me asking to shake my hand.  For no reason beyond the colour of my skin I was suddenly the center of attention as more and more children gathered around me.  After a few minutes of guessing which country I was from the children began tugging at my shorts, pointing to their mouths, and asking for money.  Once again, as so often in a day, I lowered my head, apologized, and continued down the road.  A dozen and a half children, dressed head to toe in tattered clothing, covered in soot, and I denied them all.

In Tanzania, the local NGO I volunteered with instructed the volunteers not to give any clothing, food or water, or medical supplies to the villagers.  This, they described, would create a dependency that would hurt the relationship between the volunteers that followed our group and the villagers.  More importantly, it would create an expectation that the NGO could be relied on indefinitely, an expectation that was wholly unsustainable.  I remember in Tanzania when a small girl named Kuru approached the volunteer camp asking for band-aids to heal a cut that her friend had sustained on her foot.  Without thinking I gave them to her immediately. Over the next few days more and more people came to our camp asking for medical supplies, one man even asking to drink our water, which he thought could heal his blindness.  We were not equipped, nor trained, to handle medical problems, and I’ve always wondered how my actions affected the village relationship with the volunteers that followed. 

The debate about giving is not solely restricted to the issue of dependency.  Closely related is the argument that offering charity perpetuates begging.  Bradt Guide Ghana subscribes to this reasoning by arguing that people who give charity are “guilty of reinforcing the behavior”.  I think that there is validity to this thinking in some respects.  Certainly those who are able to survive solely on the donations of others might be less inclined to look for a job or attend school.  NGOs face this challenge of sustainability every day, and thus the mantra, “to teach a man to fish…”, helps to guide their activities.  Yet it is not so simple.  Those who think beggars will stop begging once givers stop giving are delusional.  Begging is not an industry, and those in Africa do not beg because it is profitable, they beg because they are poor.  Perhaps once the well of donations dries up some beggars might be catalyzed into looking for a job out of sheer desperation, but regardless, they will likely be impeded by the continual lack of opportunity. 

 The personal conflict over giving is a challenge that people here face every day.  I’ve spoken to other volunteers who confront this issue and they have their own take on it.  For me, I only have one basic policy.  Avoid giving in public, and never give to one in a group, for the jealousy that it creates.  Beyond that I judge every situation as it comes, trying not to become too paralyzed by guilt or too empowered by cause.  Luckily for me, I have the fortune of dealing with giving in the abstract, simply as a personal dilemma, and not in reality as a matter of survival.  

Tamale, Bolga, Bawku

I spent the past week in the North of Ghana.  By bus it took fourteen hours to travel from Accra to Tamale, the distance of Ottawa to Toronto.  The bus and road were in surprisingly good condition, yet the traffic, construction, cow crossings, police checkpoints, and countless personal delays (Bathroom breaks/ Passenger goes missing at lunch stop only to discover he was napping under a nearby tree/ Bus company forces us to downsize from our sixty passenger bus to a fourty-five capacity passenger bus, only to realize that we had fifty-three passengers!) turned a scenic afternoon drive into an early morning marathon.  For the entertainment of some passengers, the torment of others, the driver blared Nigerian cinema and Christian rock on a broken frequency for the entire trip.  Agniesza, a Polish VSO who I was traveling with, and I were struck with moments of indignation and amazement when the radio would lose signal, loop for fifteen minutes of deafening static, and yet no one would say a word.

In the North I met with staff members of Action Aid, IBIS West Africa, and VSO Ghana.  My project is looking at NGO accountability, and the purpose of each meeting is to gauge the perception of NGOs in Ghana as well as to look at the accountability structures of each organization.  I also met with 6 local partner NGOs to ask them how accountable they felt their “donor NGO” was to them.  The NGOs were fun to meet with and I am so impressed by the quality of people working within the civil society sector. 

From Tamale it was 3 hours further North to Bolgatanga.  Hot and dry, Bolga is the largest urban centre in the North lying less than an hour away from Burkina Faso.  The culture, dress, and food change as you reach the upper half of Ghana.  In the more Muslim areas, goat meat replaces fried chicken, bicycles and scooters replace cars, and clay mosques are equally as prominent as churches.

 Markets and bus stations are the epicenter of action in Bolga.  Women wrapped in traditional sarongs selling loafs of bread, packets of water, and meat pies, all in a basin that balance atop their head, while men wash their tros tros and hawk toothpaste and perfumes.  The buses have been in service for decades, and the new ones depreciate at an astounding rate due to lack of maintenance.  The roof racks, rusted and jagged, carry straw sacks filled with charcoal, bundles of firewood, and cases of yams.  Bus windows are a main vehicle of commerce as you can purchase anything from Nigerian comic books, circa 1960, to any variety of food or household supply.  On the streets there is litter everywhere, and a gust of wind forces you to play “dodge the plastic bag”.  The smell of burning garbage around town is constant, and the parks and beaches are overloaded with waste.  Children forage through dumps for anything of value, and value is defined far differently here.  Plastic bags grouped together and surrounded by elastic bands become a soccer ball able to withstand the unforgiving terrain, and plastic bottles cut in half are used to wash clothing and store groundnuts.

Bawku

 The danger associated with Bawku seems to be quite exaggerated from my impression.  Action Aid drove me from Bolga to Bawku to meet with one of their local partners.  Bawku has been the scene of a tribal conflict over Chieftaincy over the past number of years.  It’s the only area in Ghana that has any sort of unrest and of late the conflict has had a minor resurgence.  However, outside of a few more checkpoints when entering Bawku, and a small Ghanaian military presence within the town, nothing appears out of the ordinary.  The drive to Bawku was particularly beautiful with traditional mud huts with thatched roofs lining the road most of the way.  

Akwaaba!

This past weekend I traveled 3 hours by bus West of Accra. It felt great to leave the commotion of Accra in favour of the far more relaxed tempo in the sun-soaked cities of Cape Coast and Elmina. I stayed in the kind of hotel that you wished the electricity didn’t work. The room, decaying as I slept, was overpriced at $7/night. I partied with 9 Irish 20-somethings who are teaching in Cape Coast and drowned myself in Star beer. The beaches in Cape Coast, unlike Accra where a coastline of sandy beach is reduced to tiny enclosures of designated swimming areas, are open to swimmers. No less dangerous than Accra, however, violent waves and an undertow that sucks you out to sea make swimming fairly risky. Regardless, better beaches are to be found further West and the highlight of Cape Coast and Elmina are its castles.

Elmina castle is the oldest standing European building in existence below the Sahara. Changing hands between the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the British, both Elmina and Cape Coast Castles are infamous for their role in the Atlantic slave trade. Both castles are complete with dungeons, torture and rape rooms, as well as “doors of no return”. Hundreds of thousands of slaves passed through those doors only to die on board their ship to the New World or to reach shore and spend a life in chains. I toured the castle with a group of African Americans who seemed very shaken by the experience. The human and economic toll that slavery had on West Africa has left a legacy that lasts until today.

Back in Accra… The most important landmark in Accra is the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Named after the first President of Ghana, “Circle” as it is generally known, is a huge roundabout around which countless vendors, “hawkers”, and street children with distended bellies spend their days. Tuesday night I went with Vincent, a friend of mine from my neighborhood, to one of the many limbs that germinate off of “Circle”. Vincent works from dawn until 2am at two different internet cafés, sleeps no more than a few hours a night, and is very fortunate to be self-sufficient compared to most of his friends and family. Walking North of “Circle”, Vincent guided me through a maze of identical stalls, shielded from the sun or rain by a cut of tin, into the bowels of Accra. Here rest hoards of migrant workers that have made the journey South from all directions. Accra is the biggest city in Ghana and as such is home to masses of migrant workers who have come from all of the country to find work. Sharing no more than a straw mat, rolled up shirts for pillows, entire families of people sleep side-by-side night-over-night for years. The poverty in the rural areas of Ghana lead many to believe that urban life could provide the kind of opportunity that has been so elusive in the villages. Families uproot, leaving behind perhaps centuries of village history and tradition, for the prospect (cue Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”) of a better life. More often than not, however, this hope is vanquished, and a life selling trinkets and living hand-to-mouth resumes.

A lack of opportunity is the brutal reality of a country, a continent, with barely such a thing as a middle class. Roughly 2% of Africa’s population can be considered middle class with Ghana positioned slightly above average. I’ve become friends with many people around my neighborhood who have freshly graduated from secondary school or college and struggle to find work at even the most basic levels. Even the very ambitious are burdened by an exhaustive bureaucracy that takes on average 138 days to start a business. Inflation is 12%/annum making Ghana less of a bargain than one might suspect. VSO provides a meager monthly allowance to its volunteers, and, while it takes creativity to stretch it past three weeks, it urges us to eat and travel by the most local means available. Invariably everyone cheats a little, flocks to Koala, a Western Supermarket teaming with Expats, and loads up on fresh cheese, meat, and bread.

15 new volunteers arrived this past week. Good folk, they’ll be scattered about the country working on disability and education projects. Tomorrow I’m off to the North of the country. First a 13 hour drive to Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region. I’ll spend about 4 days in Tamale interviewing 3 members of each of VSO’s, Action Aid’s, and IBIS West Africa’s staff. Then mid-week I’ll continue further North to Bolgatanga where I’ll be interviewing the local partners of these 3 organizations. I’m so excited to see the different climate, landscape, ethnic and language groups of the Northern Region, not to mention the crocodile ponds.

Hope all’s well. Be in touch soon.

Brian

First Impressions of Ghana

The brilliance of Google has allowed me to spare those uninterested parties the nuisance of a group email, and instead allow you the liberty to read or avoid, comment or condemn this blog at your leisure. To begin; Unaware of the infamous grade 7 typo that renamed me “Brain”, I’ve since begun to be referred to as Kofi by some in my neighborhood. Kofi is the Twi word for Friday and in the Twi language, as one of their many names, people adopt the name associated with the day of their birth. Thus, happily, I share a name with the most celebrated Ghanaian of all, Kofi Annan. Annan’s name headlines boulevards, peacekeeping and IT centers, and, less appropriately, tin beer shacks.

I’m in Ghana on a VSO-funded internship, researching and writing a report on the Ghana Accountability Project and Civil Society’s efforts at becoming more responsible to the communities they represent. Sounds dry, I know, but it’s actually a very interesting project. I am in the process of interviewing the partnered NGOs, local community NGOs, the donor agencies, and an MP with links to civil society. The project will send me to the North of the country in two weeks time where I’ll be doing most of the qualitative work before returning to Accra to draft a report.

While things have picked up nicely the past week, they began at quite a protracted pace. I’ve come between VSO intervals and have not received the benefit of the normal two-week orientation. In a few weeks some 15 VSOs arrive and time permitting I will take part in that orientation. I spent my first few days at the toe of a girl name Joseline, who works as the administrative assistant to my boss Adelaide. Very helpful, she is hoping to gain immigrant status and reunite with her mom in Baltimore. I’ve met 7 other VSOs of the 12 who are scattered about in the Greater Accra region and was surprised to hear that there are some 75 VSOs from around the world working in Ghana. Those I’ve met so far, Kenyan, British, Irish, Pilipino, American, are from quite diverse backgrounds. Disability workers, professors, IT specialists, and health professionals are just some of the many different backgrounds of the VSOs.

VSO found me accommodation in the guesthouse of a French expatriate and his Ghanaian wife. They work in advertising and marketing and have been very welcoming and kind to me. My apartment has character. Complete with a kitchen and breakfast table I even have a microwave and an air conditioner. However, anyone who knows Ghana understands that the water situation in residential areas is not good. The kitchen and bathroom faucets do not function, nor does the shower, and the toilet must be manually refilled. I bathe by splashing myself with 30 or so mugs of tepid water from a basin that sits underneath my non-functioning sink.

The lack of research I did on contemporary Ghana was made remarkably clear once I set foot on its soil. How did I not know that Ghana was hosting the African Cup of Nations? It’s possible that these past few weeks have taught me nothing about the country and once the tournament ends Ghana will present its true identity. More likely, however, is that football in Ghana is not simply an opportune passion but the most intoxicating and catalyzing elixir in the country. A handful of VSO interns and I secured tickets to the match that saw the BlackStars defeat Morocco last Monday and took part in the carnival of Ghanaian colours, beer, and merriment that followed.

I have yet to meet anyone for whom Accra inspires sincere love of genuine loath. It’s a city disconnected that seems to base its identity on manicured roundabouts. Accra appears like an English professor’s exercise in teaching juxtapositions. The natural beauty of the Gulf of Guinea coastline in the South of town is eclipsed by the architectural nightmare that you find in the centre. The concrete jungle representing the government ministries erupts as a series of pockmarked, obnoxious, and dull behemoths throughout the downtown core.

Urban Ghana presents its challenges not least of which is the traffic. I felt a certain hubris after 4 months in Vietnam thinking that nothing could compare to the sea of motorbikes that engulf every intersection. Accra is certainly less congested than Vietnam, but by no means more pedestrian friendly. There is hardly such a thing as a sidewalk and any excess space has surely been taken up by some makeshift tin stall or lotto vendor. I’ve bought a bicycle and learning to evade the sliding doors of the tro tros or dodging the chasms that are the gaping pot holes has been a challenge. Tro tros serve as the main mode of transportation. Rusty reformed mini-buses whose shocks are blown, seats stripped, speedometer and gas lights non-functional, service passengers for about 15 cents a trip. Naturally, the one thing that does work, far too well in my opinion, is the horn. Horns in Ghana are the most important part of the car, possibly more than the wheel or gearbox.

Life is public in Ghana and there is no such thing as solitude in numbers. Regardless of whether you are an expat, long time local, or off-the-boat tourist no walk is lonely as you are immediately included in the happenings of town. Take a trip to the local market and you’ll suddenly find yourself surrounded by shoe and bracelet hawkers, football enthusiasts, or dazed children mouthing, “Obruni”, meaning white person.

Eating in Ghana is like being hooked to an intravenous of carbohydrates. A combination of rice, beans, yams, plantains, and the local staple fufu, a tasteless dough, are the main components to every meal. The smell of fried beans and chicken is ubiquitous and no return trip from a bar is complete without a peppered sausage kebab.

Like every developing country of which I’ve visited the focal point is invariably the markets. The main market is particularly Ghanaian, replete with authentic djembes, kente fabrics, and beautifully carved wooden masks. Not far away is the claustrophobic Makola market and environs where you can find almost anything in the world. A sweaty and dizzying area where sellers outnumber buyers 5 to 1, Makola is a cacophony of noise if only a rite of passage.

Ghana is overwhelmingly Christian, save the Northern border with Burkina Faso where there is a strong Muslim population, and almost every denomination is represented. Sunday Church is an extravagant affair with women in hats of every imaginable colour, men and boys in neatly pressed trousers, and a pastor on an outdoor stage baiting calls for salvation and hallelujahs! The music is wonderful, boisterous and rhythmic, and there appears not the sense of obligation and ennui that has become common in Canadian Churches.

It’s currently the Harmattan season in West Africa when dust and sand from the Sahara travels to the Gulf of Guinea. The dust protects pedestrians from the sun but also seriously obstructs visibility and constricts breathing. Every day is an effortless 30 degrees and when the rainy season begins in April, 45 degrees Celsius will be the norm.

The poverty in Accra is less obvious than I had imagined. Hardship and need, yes, but there’s less of a visceral desperation than I witnessed during my brief time in East African metropolises. Seems ridiculous to say there’s hope and opportunity with children weaving “I love Ghana” bracelets and women working to sell packets of water, but it’s more of a prospect than many in impoverished countries have. West Africa is the poorest region in the world and Ghana, ranked 135^th on the Human Development Index, is certainly not free from the shackles of extreme poverty. However, there does seem a sense of optimism in Accra and relative to its Northern neighbour, Burkina Faso, Ghana is a success story. Possibly a skewed analysis after only three weeks, and I hope to learn more as I visit the rural areas, but I maintain that one’s impression of Accra is not reflexively about poverty.

Life in Accra is certainly different from the tent that was home for two months in a remote village in Central Tanzania. In Accra it’s easy to allow the path to be dictated by paved roads, bypassing communities that come after the concrete ends and dirt begins. The often seamless transition from one air-conditioned room to the next makes it simple to overlook the city outdoors. The temptation to reason, “once you’ve eaten at one sidewalk stall you’ve eaten at them”, provides comfort when you’re grappling for justification. Yet it’s only when I’ve wandered off the grid in Accra, taken the less obvious left, that I’ve discovered the neighborhood that I’ve been missing. It’s when I’ve taken the tro tro to nowhere, landed in the middle of a drum circle or been escorted hand in hand by a 9-year-old boy who wanted to show me his classroom, that I learned what draws people to this place. The organized chaos of the street and markets is slowed by the traffic, the heat, and the congestion of Accra. It’s also slowed by a rhythm that is casual, sociable, accommodating, in essence, authentically Ghanaian.

These are simply first impressions. I hope that I have the chance to elaborate, clarify, and contradict in the coming months.

Go Sens!

ps. What the feck is goin' on with the Sens!?!?!?!?!