I’m all recovered from my bout of malaria – very nasty indeed, but the medicine (Lonart) is nothing short of miraculous. I had a couple of minor relapses even several days after finishing the meds, but now things are totally fine. Spending time at the University hospital, which is open to the public, really gave us a reality check; we live a pretty isolated existence on campus (though we do get into town a lot). Among the dozens of people waiting for care was a woman with a baby tied to her back, an active 4 or 5 year old sitting beside her and her very sick young child sprawled face down on the hard wooden bench. The bright pink bow in the young girl’s hair was in sharp contrast to the cracked drab gray paint of the bench. I hope their wait wasn’t extremely long (we were seen right away at the Senior Staff window).
Health care in West Africa is pretty bad, and far worse outside of Ghana. The life expectancy in Liberia, for example, is 41 years, and the doctors in Sierra Leone have been on strike recently in protest of their salaries, which are fixed by the government at $43 per month. A recent article in Africawatch estimated that the natural resources extracted from West Africa by colonial powers over the past 150 years easily amounted to several trillion dollars (not counting the human cost), and I just wonder what a fraction of that might do to improve the lives of Africans were it to be returned. The arrogance of world leaders like Sarkohzy, who said in a recent trip to Senegal, to paraphrase, that “Ya, colonialism was bad and all, but we also brought you schools and roads (!)” seems to imply that additional reparations are out of the question.
Friendly neighbors
I was taking a shower the other day and when I reached for my towel, my hand froze just before I was about to grab the largest spider I have ever seen. Sue found the biggest Tupperware bowl we own and I managed to get the guy into it - the spider crawled over to the side of the bowl where my hand was holding it, and it covered the entire palm of my hand from the tips of my fingers to my wrist. Man it was big: at least four inches across, with huge spindly legs that stuck out about 2 inches from the wall. I looked him up on the net and turns out it was a wolf spider, a biter, but not a serious poisoner. I let it go outside our front door, unfortunately before I was able to take any pictures (but here’s a spitting image):
I saw his junior brother a few days later and we have been told that with the rainy season, more and more critters will invite themselves into our dry abode. (Sounds like a party!)
En Guard!
Though we thought Sue would be wrapping up her responsibilities for the Department after her final exam last week, it turns out she was assigned to invigilization duty for the two weeks that follow. Invigilators are proctors for exams – to stand watch, to guard against injustices perpetrated by the students. No computers, books, PDAs or any other distractions are allowed the invigilator – they must be alert and focused on the task for the entire two (and sometimes, three) hours. As with many basic services that KNUST faculty perform, invigilators receive an allowance for their efforts. In fact, this is going to be Sue’s salvation – she was assigned to do eight such sessions, but when she mentioned in a meeting that eight seemed like a lot, a number of junior faculty offered to take a few of the sessions off her hands in order to receive the compensation. Sue happily unloaded four of the services to her colleagues.
Local News
We saw an “eye witness” investigative journalism piece on the local news this week about a number of Ghanaian cocoa inspectors who were themselves part of a scam to illegally export cocoa (Ghana’s number one export) to Cote D’Ivoire. Happily, a few days later, I saw in the paper that the bunch had been rounded up and placed under arrest. I was thinking about corruption as we know it in Ghana compared with some other countries and there’s just no similarity. Though some inspectors might be on the take and no doubt there are many other corrupt activities about which we know nothing, this is peanuts compared to the millions, if not billions, that past and even present leaders of countries such as Senegal, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere have stolen. (Did you hear the one about the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea building a 24 million dollar mansion for himself in LA?)
In Nigeria, for example, illegal “resale” of electricity (people siphoning off power from the grid and reselling it) costs the country over 1 billion US, and in Senegal, where the annual income is $550, the president ordered the building of a 24 million dollar statue celebrating African unity in the middle of town. Since the statue was “his idea,” he plans to keep 40% of the revenues generated by ticket sales. Figure in the huge loss of revenue from the horrible deals many African countries have made with foreign companies for mining, logging, oil, gold, diamonds and the like, (Firestone controls 20% of Liberia’s entire land territory through a 100-year lease it obtained early in the 20th century. Harvey S. Firestone called it the "the greatest concession of its kind ever made) and the situation looks pretty hopeless.
We heard a joke at a dinner the other night: The government of Nigeria sent out a request for proposals to build a new hospital. Some time later, a meeting was held at the Ministry with the final three candidates. The first candidate, an American, said “I can do the job for 1 million dollars.” The second, a German, said, “I can do it for half that.” When the third candidate, a Nigerian, submitted his bid, it was for 1.5 million. The minister asked, “How is it you wish to charge us 1.5 million when the German company can do it for so much less?” The Nigerian replied “Well, it’s like this: 500 thousand for me, five hundred thousand for you, and we hire the German.”
I now believe that microfinance/microloans are one of the only means left to raise the standard of living for most people – they basically have to help themselves. (So please give generously and give often! ;-) (Kiva, among others, does a great job:www.kiva.org.)
Do the Math
Very happy to see a full page announcement in the national paper requesting entries for a “census jingle” contest. Seems that someone believes people will more likely participate in the always contentious census if there is some nice music associated with it. When the country redenominated their currency a few years back, the government produced a 2-minute video with music for the occasion entitled "The Value is the Same.” You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVbFJxWPfy8&feature=related (so what would you rhyme “the tuber we buy for twelve thousand CEDIs” with?? ;-)) Turns out there’s also a “sing along” to ease the pain of the new (required) national ID card: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcpEPrYdJVg&feature=related . We’ve seen thousands of people waiting hours at locations all around town to register for these (seems a little sinister to me, in fact).
Marketing
There’s a wide range of shopping options in Kumasi from two “super markets” that carry a fair amount of goods to the single-proprietor “sellers” who sit by the edge of the road and offer everything from used TVs to a few cans of mackerel or a dozen peeled oranges. Added to this are the twelve or so large outdoor markets (Central Market at 10,000 stalls being the largest), which sell absolutely everything imaginable. The super markets don’t carry fresh produce so we buy ours from several different sellers; Emmanuel, my driver, always seems to know who has the best supply of what.
Some items in the stores cost about the same as those in the US; a can of coke is 70 cents, and a loaf of bread costs around $1. Some are ridiculously cheap: a dozen bananas costs about 20 cents. A box of authentic Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, on the other hand, costs $14, so I opt for Sami’s Sweet Flakes ($2), which is packaged in Dubai. Many times we’ve bought things, a box of cookies, for example, that are wrapped in an outer layer of shrink wrap, then packed in a sealed box, then individually wrapped in plastic inside the box, and still when we get it home, they are full of ants. But the produce is always very fresh and (perhaps?) organic – there are certainly no pesticides being added to the mango and orange trees that are the source for the sellers on campus.
All Hail!
On Sunday, May 2nd we went to an amazing festival at the Asantehene’s palace called Akwasidae. This celebration occurs every six weeks and is intended to allow all the sub-chiefs in the Asante Confederacy to pay homage to the King. This time, the event coincided with the Asantehene’s 60th birthday, which was a few days later. We watched for six hours as chief after chief paraded onto a large fairgrounds, complete with their entourages. Some of the chiefs were accompanied by large groups – as many as 40 or 50 assistants, often carrying ceremonial swords, guns and relics – while others had only two or three. But all had at least one umbrella carrier and of course a drummer or two.
There were groups of dancers performing at multiple spots simultaneously, and watching the many thousands of spectators, each decked in their finest Kente, was a treat in and of itself. The Asantehene came last, of course, and his procession included several hundred people. (I learned in class that the King sends spies onto the grounds before he arrives to see if any of the lower chiefs are wearing the same cloth as he. If so, they are told to change their outfits.)
We also went to a second event in the weeklong celebration of His Majesty’s birthday. This one was a concert of Asante dances.
It was a low key affair, except that I had the honor of meeting a Nigerian chief, His Royal Majesty Iwge Dr. Elder E. U. Nneli, Traditional Ruler of Umeje Community (since 1977, or so says his business card).
We struck up a conversation and he asked me if I would like to help set up a school on his land. He said that he had the “resources” for the projects and also mentioned that he had three wives (not sure of the significance of that). I thanked him for his offer and told him that I already had a job (and a wife!). Sue and I decided to pass on the final event of the celebration, which was the Asantehne’s 18-hole tournament. Apparently he is a big fan of the links.
Mali
We’ve just booked an 8-day trip to Mali, which will serve as a little vacation for us before we head home later this month. It’s a little sad to think that we will be leaving GH just ten days after we return, and leaving Kumasi even sooner than that. But we expect the Mali trip, which takes us well out into Dogon country and the Sahel (the region between the Sahara desert in the north and more tropical areas to the south) will be spectacular. (See http://www.dogoncountry.com/about-pays-dogon/ for details). Our tour includes a few days in Bamako, where I’ll take a kora lesson with Toumani Diabate or one of his disciples, plus a Dogon mask dance when we’re in that region. I’ve been practicing my French, but it won’t do us much good once we get outside of town.
