earth walk

At long last I have uploaded photos to Picasa. Click here,

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ralph.stone

or on the ‘pictures’ link to the right. Make sure you actually open the album (called Africa 2006); the front picture of the girl is only the album cover, the other pictures are inside. If you haven’t used Picasa before, clicking on any picture gives you a full sized version. The best view is probably using the slideshow button.

I just received this. This is how it is over there; they need time, energy and knowledge more than anything. So many people asked : please dont give me money. Teach me about IT, hardware, software, projects, schedules, anything you recommend! We are hungry.

December 12,2006
Dear Mr. Ralph Stone,

Greetings in Jesus name. How are you and your family
coming on? It is my prayer that is fine in Jesus
name.

I am Joe E. Greene, one of you IT students from the
Carolyn Miller Community Schoo, Buduburam Refugee
Camp, Ghana. I just want to say a big thank you for
the time spent with us here in Africa. Your time spent
teaching us was very rewarding and interesting and I
just want to say thank you again and we appreciate the
knowledge that you imparted into us. This will never
be forgotten in our lives, we will always remember you
wherever we go.

As we told you before you left, we are not interested
in money and we dont want money from anyone because
money wont really help us now; what we need most now
is knowledge. So please try your best to find us
sponsors who will help to support us in school and God
will bless you alll in Jesus name.

I hope to hear from you as soon as possible. Extend my
greetings to your beloved wife and daughter, tell them
that I love them all with the love of God.

Sincerely yours,

Joe. E. Greene

Laura (Ikando) said something that I found memorable. There are refugees from Senegal trying to flee to Europe (Spain and the Canary Islands) in small boats. However the EU has adopted a ‘Fortress Europe’ policy and has turned back many boats. A lot of them never survive the voyage. Many are fishing families fleeing dire poverty. They can’t compete with the huge european trawlers that fish right on their shoreline. It’s estimated that 200 to 600 immigrants set sail for the Canaries every day from along Africa’s west coast.

From http://www.tve.org/earthreport/archive/doc.cfm?aid=799
—————————————————————————————
On a beach in the West African State of Senegal, a traditional fishing canoe is dwarfed by the rusting hulk of a giant European trawler. It’s a stark image which sums up the unequal battle that Senegal’s fishing communities face - against the elements, against the big industrial fishing vessels, against the might of the European Union and against dwindling fish stocks. Senegalese waters are at the centre of a bitter fight over fishing rights. For more than twenty years foreign fleets have been given licences to fish here on a huge scale.
————————————————————————————————–

In an attempt to address desperate poverty Senegal signed away fishing rights, in an unequal contest of economic strength. Now their waters are fished out, and the fishing families are desperate enough to make the perilous journey to Europe. But they are turned back.

Laura quoted a Senegal man as saying : ‘You have taken all our fish. You should take our people too.’

I have really appreciated the power of the simple gift of our time. Before I came over here, while emailing logistics back and forth, I shared with Laura at Ikando my main fear : that I would not add value but actually be a net liability. I thought that when I first arrived, people would need to take time off to orient me; then I would teach for just a few weeks before disappearing again, probably disrupting the curriculum. My teaching style might not be a good fit. They may end up worse off than if I had stayed home and donated the equivalent of the air fare. Her response has stayed with me : just knowing that someone has travelled across the world to spend time with them is really valuable in itself. It makes people feel valued and cared for.

So many times I experienced this directly. Spending an hour to sit with someone, talk to them, listen, teach, anything really; it communicates the powerful message ‘You are worth my taking time to be with.’ I know at home we often slot people into convenient managed time parcels, and try to minimize the disruption to our routines and comfort. This communicates an equally powerful message. Sometimes people just want to be with another, not necessarily talking or needing an agenda, just simply sitting or walking together, spending time, saying : you are worth this.

I realized this is something I needed to learn too. Considering I came over to teach,  I am definitely taking more back than I left behind. Letting someone else know that they are worth your time and energy is a great gift.

This morning I finally packed my case and backpack, and checked out of The Golden Gate. The end of an era. Ikando had covered the accomodation so i just needed to sort out the tab I had accrued for those evening cokes and the odd bottle of water. I only have a backpack and a carry-on size case, so re-packing was quick. This means that I have found airport checkins very easy, and then I can just walk off a plane and leave. It also foils Alitalia’s attempts to redirect my luggage to the Falkland Islands. Erin also checked out and moved to the Holiday Feeling hotel; she offered to mind my case while I was off exploring. I took both bags from the hotel straight to my adult hardware class. After class, the students offered to carry the bags for me all the way up to Holiday Feeling on the main road. Erin took my carry-on case, and I was already organised with my backpack for a 2 night trip to Winneba. I wanted to see a little more of Ghana before I went home. I told the class that I would see them on Friday.I met up with School Laura and took a tro-tro on the road outside the camp to Winneba Junction, which was only about a 30 minute trip. Louise, who lives with Laura, was also on the way from a different direction. From the junction, you need to take a shared taxi to Winneba beach; we found a cruisy driver who told us on the way how Winneba was laid out, and that one of the universities there was devoted to musical studies. Winneba is a university town, with 2 large campuses and lots of students. It seemed to be much more layback than Accra and even Cape Coast. We arrived at Lagoon Lodge, which we had seen in the Bradts Guide and which Simon and Hannah had highly recommended. It was probably the prettiest place to stay that I had seen yet. The Ghanaean owner, Isaac, took my details then asked ‘You an Aussie?’ That made him the first to recognize the accent, so I said, yes, how did you know? - 20 years in Australia mate, I have an australian passport! That would explain the Ikea towels in the rooms. Isaac found it worked out better bringing gear over from Australia himself than trying to import things into Ghana.

We walked down to the beach from the lodge. The beach was one of those impossibly perfect postcard scenes; wide, white sand stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions, crashing waves, a row of palm trees lining the sand, an enormous red sun resting languidly on the horizon. We walked along the sand in the direction of town. I absolutely adore sea air and even find salt spray refreshing. For a few years i had lived inland and had always felt a landlocked sort of feeling, a restelssness when far from the sea. When a beach is within range I relax, and right on a beach I relax completely. I noticed that no one was swimming, and that the sand swept sharply uphill away from the incoming waves. I read this to mean there was a strong rip (undertow). Further on this was verified as we saw a concrete sea water pool, about the size of an indoor 25m pool, on the sand next to the water. There were several teenagers in there splashing about. This was the place for a swim. The locals had half a coconut and were playing a form of water coconut rugby that looked like great fun, although it seemed to be completely existential with the rules. We continued to walk into town, which got tricky when the goat tracks started to look more like bush tracks. In the diminishing light we resorted to navigating by following likely looking power lines into the town centre. We looked around at the ‘Old Port’; Winneba is an old fishing village, with loads of character. I like old fishing villages - so far Winneba and I are getting on just fine. With darkness now having fallen, we took a taxi back to the hotel.

The meals here were just superb. I had an octopus and salad for tea with a fruit juice made in one of those enormous stainless steel juicing machines. The hotel was newish and designed to maximize shade and air flow. It was pleasant just sitting in the central courtyard, reading in the shade and cool breeze. I think Isaac had introduced 20 years of western culinary skills to his staff with maybe just a touch of Jamie Oliver. Isaac is one cool hotelier.

The next morning, after breakfast in the dining room, we wandered along the beach to the old fishing village again. African fishing villages are much more lively than ones at home. For one thing, instead of seeing a few boats motor in to a pier, you see countless small, colourful boats wash ashore on the sand, one crashing wave at a time. As each boat arrives there is a clamour of women and children rushing over to help sort fish, before carrying them away in large bowls, on their heads. Minutes later they are being sold (the fish, not the women and children). It is fascinating watching nets being folded, boats being pulled in, shoals of fish being piled up on the sand. Throughout it all there is always music of some sort; drums, singing, a work song for heaving boats and ropes. Children make children noises and run around. Goats wander between the boats and chaos. The sun is low in the sky but already it is very hot; you adjust your walk and pace so that you start to work with the sun, not fighting it. With no effort at all I have picked up a new gait since arriving here, a walk that you just fall into with the extreme heat. Slower, loping, preserving energy, looking down. Thinking just about the next step. Then the next one. I can remember those early French Legionnaire films and can well imagine now what was in their minds when marching through a hot desert : nothing, just taking the next step. It’s obviously not as hot as the Sahara here, but 45 degrees is still enough for me to change pace.

It really strikes me for the first time that I will be flying out soon. I think that when the time comes, I will not so much be departing from Africa, as being torn away from it. I go to bed early and have trouble reconciling the still felt richness of all the sights, sounds and salt air with the reality that I will be in an Airbus in 48 hours.

The next morning I leave early so that I can be back at school by 10am. The principal, James, had asked me to confirm that I would be there on time for an important PTA meeting. 8 o’clock and we are rolling. Laura is coming back to school as well for the same meeting, and Louise is heading in the other direction for Cape Coast. One more day and one more night here to go.

I received an email from an incoming new volunteer who arrives in January. She will be working at the school in an orphange assistant’s position. Knowing what’s involved I admire her already. She asked some specific questions about school and life in the refugee camp. I prepared a document summarizing some practicals, based on my vast, um, 5 week experience. It may be useful to someone else.

Notes on Buduburam Refugee Camp

As usual it is highly subjective, biased, and hand crafted to lie just beyond legal challenge.

I have been amazed by the power of simple affirmations to the children here. As a parent I guess I naturally praise and affirm, and instinctively do the same in a classroom. However the effect here is about a hundred times what it is at home. Often I have said something simple like ‘Good girl!’, ‘Great job!’ or ‘You have done really well.’ The children then look delighted and stay that way for minutes after. When you say something personal and positive, a child locks eye contact with you for about 5 seconds,  the eyes widen, the mouth breaks into one of those suppressed proud smiles, and they just stay that way.

When teaching we can teach maths, english, science, history…so many areas of skill and knowledge. But I really believe the most important lessons we need to teach a child are : you are special, you are loved, you are valuable. Because it seems that in a refugee camp, so many just don’t get to hear it. Their caregivers are probably working overtime to meet basic living needs, and there are so many orphans here. I can recommend this to anyone : find a child, give them a bit of attention and eye contact, and let them know they are wonderful in some way. The look you get in return will stay with you, I promise.

I will let this article speak for itself. I have heard so much about Firestone from the Liberian refugees. All I knew about them was that they made tyres. Now I know a lot about them. There are so many powerful companies in Africa behaving just like this, backed initially by the IMF, World Bank and WTO. There are so many reasons to be angry at companies like Firestone, but as usual, for me it is the way they affect their child labourers that stands out. And frustratingly, there are also reasons not to be angry at just them, outstanding example that they are. Because everyone is doing the same thing; they are not that unusual.

http://www.stopfirestone.org/issue.shtml

Tariff escalation is one of the ways in which western countries keep Africa poor. It works something like this.

Step 1 : the IMF and World Bank force a country such as Ghana to open up its markets to the west, and abolish or greaty lower their import tariffs. This means that the west can now buy their raw materials very cheaply. These same western countries keep their own import tariffs high, making it harder for the ‘assisted’ africans to export, and the IMF and World bank are ok with that.

Step 2: you don’t want the ‘assisted’ country to try to add value to the raw materials and sell them to the west for a profit. That’s our job. So the western countries themselves impose relatively low tariffs on incoming raw materials, but prohibitively higher tariffs on processed goods.

Cases in point from Friends of the Earth site (www.foei.org)

In 1995, the IMF forced Haiti to cut its tariff on rice from 35% to 5%. The result was that Haiti’s rice imports more than doubled in 1994-2000. Today, the country is flooded with cheap subsidies rice from the US. The largest beneficiary was Arkansas-based Riceland Flood, whose profits zoomed to $123 million (2002-03) with 50% of its exports to Cuba and Haiti.

Another example is Ghana which was self-sufficient in rice output till mid-1970s. The country had to open up with insistence from IMF and World Bank in return for assistance. The opening up resulted in flooding of cheap subsidised white rice from the US. A US rice farmer gets about $232 per hectare as subsidies. The Ghana government, however, made a vain attempt to raise its tariff on rice imports which was successfully aborted by IMF.

The trade in chocolate is also a good example of how industrialised countries continue to maintain favourable terms of trade for their own industries. The UK import tax on Cocoa beans is 3 per cent while the import tax on chocolate is 16 per cent. This encourages cocoa bean producers like Ghana and Brazil to export the raw material rather than adding value to the product by manufacturing chocolate themselves. Such a system effectively condemns these countries to produce lower value products while industrialised country manufacturers make all the money through processing.

So although many of the countries in West Africa are incredibly wealthy in physical resources , tariff escalation is used to prevent any value adding. Ghana should be the world’s leading supplier of chocolate, which keeps rising in price. Instead, it ships only raw beans whose price has fallen from $3.60 per kilogramme to $1.50 per kilogramme. A cocoa grower in Ghana gets only 1.2% of the price for a bar of chocolate in the global market. Africans can sell cheap fruit to the west for processing, but they can’t sell fruit juice. Importers of fruit juice into the European Union have to pay a tariff of 37% compared to one of 21% – in itself bad enough – on fresh fruit.

If you are interested in finding out more about fair trade and the systems used to keep Africa at the bottom of the ladder, here is an article to start with:

http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/worldtradesystem.pdf

Still running a few days behind, but catching up. Bandwidth helps. There are still a few days left to go.

This photo was taken after the Saturday workshop I ran with the camp IT committee. I presented a little on how generic IT projects are run, and introduced ITIL. They are at the stage where they don’t want to just skill up technically, they want to know how to pull the skills together into something more. Two weeks earlier I gave another workshop at Busy Internet in Accra, which was much more software development focussed. I came over as a maths teacher but have been pretty happy that I have been able to use some other things I do as well.

Karrus is the man second from the right in the blue shirt. He was the founder of the school, and its visionary. One day he saw too many children sitting around the camp during the day, and wondered why they weren’t at school. Once he found out that either their parents couldn’t afford the fees, or that they were orphans, he decided to do whatever it took to get a free school running. And he did, with over 400 students from nursery to grade 6. How cool is that.

I admire Karrus. He has a lot of quiet strength, is humble, reflective, and kind. He is also my friend. We have some unfinished business in getting some programs running.

It is 45 degrees, there are 52 students in here (not all in shot), and the fan still doesn’t work. Note there are often 3 to a double bench. We are soo-ferring. (The fan: I am onto it). The miracle is that even in the heat, they are so hungry to learn, you can’t walk past a row of desks at any time without several students asking : ‘Show me ! Please show me !’ The topic is place value and addition.

When a student doesn’t understand something, they make a fist and point their thumb down, and adopt the saddest expression known to man. So if you explain something to the class and ask ‘Who gets it?’, if the majority point thumbs down and look sad, it makes you a bit sad too. You can’t help it, surrounded by a sea of unhappy faces. They are not really sad, it is just how they communicate the feedback. But the best thing in the entire world is when someone gets it. It all happens in slow motion. First, look of puzzlement, then concentration. Followed by surprise, gasp. Then, slow smile. Then, huge smile. Stand bolt upright, tell everyone. I GET IT ! Point thumb up, grin from ear to ear. Mr Stoh-ann, Sez Laura, I get it ! Then tell your friend next door all about it - I GET IT !

That just completely makes my day, and on a good day, it happens a lot. For any teachers out there, you will appreciate that it doesn’t get any better than this.

I am sorting photos now : here’s one of my favourites, the girl I mentioned in a previous post. I found out later many children have never seen their image. They have been born on the camp, there is almost no glass anywhere, and most homes have no mirrors.

You can see from the background that the school computer room was still being built. It ended up as a real room with benches, voltage regulators, working pc’s, switches and cabling. I got more personal satisfaction out of building this small room than I got out of managing a multi million dollar Data Centre back home.

The picture is an earlier one of (in order): Laura from school, Erin, Simon, Hannah and Louise, taken at Big Millie’s, the night we went to Kokobrite Beach.

Tonight, Simon, Hannah, Erin and I all met at the camp ‘bus’ station, where taxis and tro-tro’s tout loudly and enthusiastically for business. Simon knows of a place up the road called JD Fast Food, which apparently has western style cheeseburgers. Accustomed as we have been this afternoon to the finer things of life, a cheeseburger seems most appropriate. And we are all now highly aware of my imminent departure. Friday sounds like it will be fun, but busy. So tonight will be a special farewell, just us. Tro-tro ? Simon rises to the occasion. I think not! A shared taxi, man, and hang the expense. Ok, 50 cents each it will be, but it still feels as though we are being a bit wild and reckless. We are having fun and I am really enjoying the company of these great young friends.

We arrive at JD, on the opposite side of the road, after the conventional ‘drive on the wrong side of the divided road when you can see it’ approach. Mental note : I hope air traffic controllers at Accra airport are trained overseas. We each order cheeseburgers. The service is exceptional tonight; all smiles, double checking our orders, apologies for a small delay. It’s a dead giveaway that the real Ghanean staff have been tied up and we are being served by bandits, but I don’t care. We sit outside and chat for a while. On the way home, we can’t hail a taxi, so grab the first tro-tro going west and are home by 9.

This will be the last night at the Golden Gate. I will be spending the next two nights at Wineba Beach. And Ikando has secured Erin a room at the Holiday Feeling, where it is always busy.

What a strange day. I have been here now for exactly 4 weeks, and have not even once had anything remotely resembling an ordinary day.

Erin had been assisting with creating the tickets for the Miss Liberia (in Ghana) Beauty Pageant, and in locating a suitable printshop with Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Access and a decent printer, had been introduced to Kobby : a wealthy young Ghanaean who had apparently built a luxury hotel in the middle of the camp. I met Kobby last week when I went in with Erin, and we walked to his admin complex just off the camp. It comprised a modern western style office, truck depots, a new open air pink bar and an adjoining hotel in the process of completion. We then learnt that Kobby had built yet another hotel in the centre of the camp, to luxury 5 star standards. It sounded unlikely but then so do most things here the first time you hear them.

It turns out that Kobby had always owned the large block of land where the new hotel stands. It is completely surrounded by a huge concrete wall around 4 metres high. The hotel complex started off as his own luxury home. He then watched the refugee camp growing, encroaching on the land around him, slowly engulfing his property. He had already built several hotels around Ghana; it occurred to him that he could stake first claim in what he foresaw to be a major new satellite town. He may be right. I have seen photos of early Victorian towns such as Bendigo and Ballarat, which initially were ratty tent cities with goat tracks, hastily erected during the chaos of a gold rush. The tents became rude huts, the huts in turn became small buildings of wattle, daub and wood. The tracks firmed with use and roads with names were born. At some point someone took a risk and built a serious structure. Here, today, that would be Kobby. Strategically, Buduburam is in between 2 major towns each 10km away, and supports a refugee community of 40-50,000 and a local community of maybe 10,000 in the catchment radius. It could well be a new town.

The UN has told the refugees that after June 2007, they would be receiving no further support. The UN considers Liberia to be stable following recent elections, and has been encouraging them to repatriate home. Buses and incentives are being offered. However, the Liberians here are not convinced. The capital city, Monrovia, still has no ‘current’ and there are stories of raids by armed bands in the pitch black of the city. The entire urban infrastructure was destroyed during the awful civil war. The AFL, the official armed forces, has no arms. Peacekeepers remain. And apart from that, there is a strong community here, safety , routines. Water, occasional electricity, the inspirational Dr Daniel. Markets and an economy. Friends. No one wants to get on a bus and start again somewhere dark and lonely.

So no one knows what June will bring. What appears certain, however, is that there will still be 40,000 plus people living here. One way or another, whether people return or not, this camp appears destined to become a town.

Now it turns out that the new hotel is about 200m from the very school I teach in, just a little further down the main road (or creek bed, depending on your viewpoint). I did not believe this when first told. it would be impossible to miss. As it was. When I first looked in the described direction, I saw a high wall, a watch tower, the upper level of a 2-3 storey complex. Tinted glass windows (glass! no one here has glass), new external air conditioners in neat rows, structured cabling, satellite dishes. I walked back into school and asked (School) Laura about the hotel. She also expressed disbelief. I said : ‘Come with me…’, took her arm, marched her to the school gate. One small step outside, turn right. Look ! And there it is, in plain view.

There is a story about early Pacific natives being unable to see tall ships headed for their shores. Only the tribe’s medicine man could see the shapes approaching, and warned the others. When sailors did indeed land on shore they thought he had had visions. With no context or framework to support sailing ships, they were simply invisible. Maybe that’s how I missed the hotel. Or maybe when you first arrive here, everything is so alien and unfamiliar, that you completely suspend judgement and just observe, setting aside things that don’t fit for processing on another day. If I noticed it at all it may have been quickly labelled ‘potential UN administration compound behind big wall’ or similar, and then forgotten.

Just before my hardware class, Simon and Hannah pass by, on the way to the hotel ‘for a swim.’ Kobby has invited us to be the first to try out the new pool. The hotel is to open soon. I promise to join them later, after my class, and after first fetching my shorts and towel from my room.

As I approach the watch tower side of the complex, I notice an entrance with double gates, the sort of thing you would expect to see in an embassy. Everything is shut tight. When I am only a few metres away, the gate swings open : You are welcome, i am told. I pass through the airlock style double entrance. The next scene is completely surreal. Salvador Dali meets Picasso meets Conrad Hilton. I navigate around a driveway and take a few short steps to the pool area. It is a very large, very modern, very clean, clear blue chlorinated swimming pool. At least 30m by 10, kidney shaped, with a smaller circular shallow pool fitting the interior curve. There are lawns, conifers, watering systems and fountains. Beautiful tiles everywhere, real slate and marble; all imported Italian, we find out later. Erin, Simon and Hannah are lounging on deck chairs in a state of absolute abandon. Everything is very new and very expensive. They read my expression and we all laugh out loud. Words fail. I try to say a few things, stumble, try again. I just shake my head. We all laugh again at the incongruity of it all.

I turn around to look at the hotel. From the outside at least, the same surreal opulence in every detail. I walk around taking it all in. There is no view of anything beyond the hotel walls; this is a private oasis of western luxury that all along, has been a few hundred metres from my class of 52 students in the hot, airless, grade 4 classroom. I sit, we have a few cold drinks. I change into swimming gear in the new change rooms, cool off under one of the outside showers (new eurpopean fittings), then take the plunge. I have no idea whether I should feel the guilt of privilege or not, but it feels cool and heavenly all the same. Not for the first time, I decide to suspend judgement until later. After a swim, I retire to the deck chairs. I am watching Simon and Hannah swimming; they look like any other happy young couple frolicking in a friend’s pool back home, playing, laughing, splashing and taking turns to fall off the floating dolphin. It is good to see them having so much fun; they have been here for months, gone through a lot, and are enjoying their time out. They deserve it.

Kobby arrives. The man is a multi-tasking entrepreneurial machine. He appears very young, under 30, fit, shaved head, intense. After talking to him for a while you realize that he is simultaneously running numerous enterprises : building, trucking, cement, hotels, importing. That’s the few I know of. Erin tells me that Kobby has offered to let us stay in one of his hotel rooms, a 3 bedroom shared area, on Friday night. Are we interested ? There is a little nervousness about the tariffs, as everyone is on a tight budget. I volunteer to field the commercials. Kobby shows me through the room. It is not completely finished : the TV is not installed, and there are only 3 air conditioners, not 4. I figure, Let’s rough it. There are 3 large bedrooms meeting a common lounge area, all the beds are brand new. Mattresses, satin sheets, pillows and blankets still wrapped in plastic. The bathroom has new Italian everything. There is real hot water. Kobby and I negotiate: it is simple, we are straight with each other, and are both happy. Done. As we return outside, I let the others know we have commercial agreement and we will be here Friday.

We realize two things : Friday will be my last night here. And Friday this very same hotel will be hosting the Beauty Pageant. Kobby has offered his pool area as the venue seating up to 400 guests. As the first guests in the new hotel, we will have front row seats. We step outside onto the dust, the gates close behind us, and we are suddenly immersed again into a world of chickens, goats, charcoal burners, tin huts and refugees. African children run over to touch our hands. I turn around, look again at the gates which conceal another world, light years away, and we agree to meet later at the tro-tro station. Simon has a special idea for tea and we are on a roll.

Liberian : Mr Stohann ! I am soo-ferring !
Australian : I find that your policy : ‘Only one girl can go to the toilet at a time during class’ is challenging.

Liberian : Ooooh ! Mr Stohann ! (jig, jig, bob). Ooooh !
Australian : Very challenging.

Liberian : Yoor-nate
Australian : May I please go to the rest room for a short time ?

Liberian : Deff-cate
Australian : Maybe a while longer

There is no self-consciousness with human needs. It took me a while to learn that euphemisms are completely lost. Where is the bathroom ? Huh ? Rest room ? Huh ? Boys room ? Huh ? Wash my hands ? It doesn’t work. You simply need to say ‘Urinate’, which is not just fine, but the only way to say it, in mixed company. It is said with the middle ‘i’ skipped, more like a high speed ‘unit’.

One of the female volunteers in Accra related that she was walking with a group of local women along a road when she felt caught short. Following protocol, she told them ‘I need to urinate’. As in, can we find a place. Good idea, they agreed, and all squatted together there and then. It wasn’t exactly crowded but it wasn’t exactly deserted either. However, the need was there, and when in Rome…

Liberian : Tea
Australian : Any hot drink. If you want coffee, say ‘Nescafe’.

Liberian : I will be there at 4 o’clock
Australian : No idea. I still haven’t worked this one out at all.

I arrived back just in time for the hardware class at 1.30. Now the previous friday, I had taken a few extra classes and was a little hoarse. So i excused myself from the class to get a drink for my raspy throat. I came back with a bottle of coke (a small glass one) and drank it while lecturing.  Today, one of the adult class members disappeared after I started teaching. He returned with a bottle of coke and a borrowed can opener, and opened the bottle for me there and then. The rest of the class erupted in laughter and applause, recognizing the extent of the gesture. Now I know that a coke is about 3000 cedis; not much for me, but for these guys, equivalent to buying someone a bottle of whisky while you are unemployed. In a refugee camp you see some of the negative extremes of conditions, but you also see some of the positive extremes of human traits such as warmth, generosity and kindness.

I went on to teach them about software drivers and their relationship to hardware, how to install, update and verify, what is included on XP disks. At the end of the class they knew more about drivers than before, and I knew more about kindness.

At 7am I met Laura for breakfast in the hotel dining room. I ordered oats and orange juice. The plan this morning was to visit Cape Coast Castle, which along with Elmina down the road, is the most famous of the slave forts. I thought it opened at 8am but when we arrived, we were told it opened at 9. So we wandered back to the Oasis on the beach. Right in front of us, 20 men were sitting on the sand pulling in a huge fishing net, 10 on each side. The end of the net was marked by a buoy, easily 100 metres out; the width of the net between the 2 teams pulling the ropes was about 30 metres. The waves were crashing in, lifting the net up high and pulling it back and forth. They were working in time to a rhythmic call made by one of them, a simple 8 beat ‘Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho… HO!!!’ with a huge pull on the 8th call only. The caller appeared to be working with the waves. Each pull brought the rope in by only about 30cm, so it took about 40 minutes altogether to pull it in. From the length of the ropes behind them, they may well have been there for some time already. I ordered a hot chocolate, just sat, and took it in. When the net finally arrived, we saw an enormous catch of fish thrashing around at the very end, silver flashes, glinting in the sun. Suddenly from nowhere a noisy crowd of women and children arrived with buckets and large stainless steel bowls. Minutes later, the fish were sorted into rough piles on the sand, some type of transactions took place, and women and children dispersed again, laden with fish, bound for the market stalls near the castle. The men started the huge task of cleaning and folding the nets and ropes. As they were doing this, a few fishing boats started coming into shore, all man powered or with very simple small sails. Along the shore we had already seen countless ships in the process of being built. Straight logs around 15m long and 1 metre in diameter are laid on the sand, and hollowed out by hand using a small tool like an adze (a small hand mattock). The sides are also shaped into a rough ‘V’. You can see many of these that seem to have just been started, and others that are nearly finished. It is a continuous process.

Now I must warn you to skip this next section if you may be disturbed; I detail some of the day to day runnings of a slave fort. It really is horrible. If in doubt, skip.
We went to the Castle, again securing a student rate after a short explanation. We entered. The Castle visit was one of those things that changes you. I have never been to Auschwitz but I assume it is also one of those places that would change anyone. Firstly, we were shown the history of the slave trade in a museum visit with videos, pictures and exhibits. This gave some context to the following tour.

A guide showed us the huge cannons, both short and long range, and the hundreds of rusting cannon balls still arranged in several pyramids 1 metre tall. The long range cannons had a range of 4km, and there were about 20 of them lined up on the wall. The shorter range ones were ‘only’ 2km range. We then descended into the dungeons. Light globes had been strung up for our benefit. The guide explained that in these dark underground caverns, shaped like wine cellars with arched rooves about 10 metres high, 200 slaves at a time would be crammed. I could not picture 200 people fitting in the rooms at all. There were several such dungeons. All pitch black with the exception of a tiny missing brick just below roof level on the side facing the sea. Original signage existed : ‘Male Slave Dungeon’ and ‘Female Slave Dungeon’. No sanitation except for an open culvert about the width of a brick wide and deep. The castle was neglected until the 1990’s, when a combined British and UN effort saw to its restoration. An archeology team went in first and the project was stalled for a good year; evidence of the lack of sanitation remained, and archeologists found that the floor was actually a foot lower than originally thought. An ancient layer of excrement covered the stone floors. The mind boggles. It took a year or two before the site was cleaned enough for the restorers to move in. Unbelievably, at the height of the slave trade, the British built a lovely chapel directly above.

Another room was marked ‘Condemned Room’. Here, incalcitrants were placed. The procedure was simple. Put people in until there are exactly 60. Then wait until they are all dead. No food, water or light. Wait until the very last one has died before sending in a team to remove them all, and repeat for the next 60. The guide pointed out the frequent clawmarks in the stonework.

We were then shown a door marked ‘Door of No Return.’ This is where the surviving slaves were walked to waiting boats. This door opened to the outside directly on the beach. Slaves were bathed in the water (we now know why) and placed in longboats to be rowed to slave ships. The ships themselves were awful places with only half surviving the voyage. The Door of No Return has had a powerful effect on the African psyche. Africans are much more family and community oriented than westerners. The idea of brothers and sisters being shipped and exiled far from home is almost as horrifying as the extreme physical harshness. Africans still proudly follow the fortunes of Jamaicans and Brasilians (ex african slaves) and also sucecssful american black leaders and musicians. They still have a home to come back to. So a few years ago, descendants of slaves from overseas, who had never been to Africa, returned to Cape Castle. They walked up the beach to the other side of the Door of No Return. This time, a sign had been placed above the door on the outside. Same lettering and style, but this one reading ‘Door of Return’. The door was opened from the inside, and they walked through. After a hundred and fifty years the chain was broken, the door lost its power, and healing took place.

Side note : Australia is one of the very few countries which can appreciate the slave trade from experience. While Britain was plying the Atlantic Trade Route with shackled african slaves, they were also shipping shackled convicts to permanent exile in the new colony of Australia to work for settlers. Africans who know a little about Australia know about this history and talk about Africans and Australians having a similar heart, knowing suffering. When I told people that I have ancestors each side of my family who arrived as exiled convicts, an immediate bond formed and there was a lot of interest in the details. That may be why we are such a popular destination here for immigration.

After the tour, the guide gave us a short but moving sermon on lessons we all can learn. The subtext : white brothers and sisters, please go home and influence others, may this never happen again. People here are fascinated that it is our western culture, in other ways so enlightened, which has taken humanity where no one else was willing to go.

We left about 11am, just in time for me to get back to camp for an afternoon class, with a lot to reflect upon on the 2 hour journey back.

As we walked through the gates to the Hans Cottage Botel Crocodile Farm, we were met by an elderly, grey haired guard at the gate, who hastily straps on an authentic, battered old police helmet, british bobby, numbered badge and all. ‘Restaurant or Hotel?’ he enquires. Restaurant. He gestures up the driveway: ‘You are welcome.’

Immediately on my right is the edge of a large lake, which is unfenced and simply meets the road. This is true for the entire lake shore; no sign of fencing or anything else to deter a wandering crocodile. I shift track to the centre of the road. Laura has never seen a crocodile; given the lack of visible wildlife at Kakum, she is anxious to sight one. We cross a walkway over the lake to reach the restaurant. The complex is one of the most relaxing places I have been to since arriving here. It is a large, thatched roof structure, built on stilts in the centre of the lake. There are several such buildings connected by walkways. We see a few russian and french tourists; the local staff speak French primarily but also English.

French is (literally and figuratively) the lingua franca for the whole of West Africa. Only Liberia and Ghana are English speaking; French is universal everywhere else. Even the school I am teaching in has mandatory French classes for refugee Liberian children. So if there is ever a language barrier, people shift naturally to French.

We take a table by a waist high wall overlooking the lake. I order a local dish, ‘Red Red’, which is a meal of beans and plantein. Laura orders a chicken salad. I immediately see a crocodile in a small patch of water lilies. With just the snout and eyes barely visible, it takes a little to convince Laura that this is indeed her first sighting and not just a stick. She wonders how large it is. I explain that you can tell the size of a crocodile from estimating the distance between the eyes and snout. Less than a handspan is probably 2m tops and unlikely to attack you, a handspan means 3m plus and a real threat, a handspan and a half or more is a serious beast. She had never heard of a ‘crocodile roll’. Being australian and having global educational responsibilities, I say that they are most likely to attack near the shore or in water so that they can drag you down and roll you around. They are not given to leaving the water, walking along tracks, entering bars with open doorways, and snapping at diners. Really. Despite this, I am surprised that it is such a short path from the crocodiles’ main feeding area to the first building, maybe 10m. No barriers anywhere.

A woman appears with a short switch stick and a bucket of meat. She taps the side of a small wooden stairway which runs into the water and makes a whistling sound. We have a ringside seat: all this is just metres from our table. Four snouts glide through the water, triggering great excitement. Two small french children are especially captivated and watch from inside the wall near our table. Two of the smaller crocs climb the bank and walk slowly towards the woman. She reaches into the bucket, balances some white meat on the end of the switch, and holds it just above the croc’s snout. It reaches up and snaps (Oh la la ! Maman !) and is soon joined by the second smaller one. The other two are much larger and just watch silently from the water’s edge at the bottom of the stairs.

The french enfants then wander to the small gate that the woman had gone through, and left ajar. Children gasp and make a move to follow her. Just then a croc slowly ambles towards the feeding woman. She gives a concerned glance and starts walking back towards the gate, just as children start to try to pass through. French mother calls out, woman backs in, gate closes. I think I must be adjusting to constant chaos, because I take another bite of Red Red and consider ordering an orange juice. Later on a 3m croc emerges. A male staff member steers its path by going around behind it and lifting its tail a little, then spinning it around into the desired direction. Is that how you usually handle them ? Laura asks. Well, no. But given the safety practices here it is hard to know where to start. I am thinking safety barriers and someone with a revolver would be handy, but that would take all the excitement out of it.

The french mother leaves with the number of children she came with, and we walk down the pathway again to take a tro-tro home. A very new, very large luxury 4WD starts to turn out of the driveway as we are standing there. A french-african woman, the passenger, opens the window and offers us a lift back to Cape Coast. We climb in; I can’t tell the model but there are only 2 seats in the back, wide bodied bucket seats, and if I stretch my legs out I can’t hit the front seats. It is air-conditioned; one is comfortable.

We arrive in Cape Coast and on the way see a huge soccer stadium. I see glimpses of the crowd through wire gates and estimate 15 to 20,000. This must be some match. What was most striking however was the top tiered seating. There were 3 grandstands, and we passed slowly behind 2 of them. From behind, if you looked straight up, you could see a whole row of people on the top tier sitting hanging over the edges of the grandstand, about 15 or 20 metres straight above the ground. Anyone leaning back or over-balancing would simply keep going.

We were dropped off at a road way that was closed due to a funeral: our hosts’ destination. I thought it must have been a wedding. There were seats arranged along the roadway, a marquee, people with drinks, huge speakers, a band, pictures of a young woman. Laura pointed out though that everyone was wearing black and white clothing, signifying a Ghanaian funeral. The atmosphere was that of a wake celebrating a life, and not a weeping and wailing regret.

In Africa, you always feel right in the middle of the rhythms and circles of life. Rise with the sun, walk among the chickens and goats, listen to the drums whose sound resonates somewhere deep inside you. Watch the children run around, the very few old people shuffle along. Walk with 2 funerals in consecutive days. Corn is ground at sunrise, baked into corn bread straight away. You don’t just have routines and live life, you feel very much that you are life, life is you, you seek water, shade, eat simply, follow the sun, sleep again till it rises. Walk, talk. There is an ancient deja vu, a familiarity. Africa arouses the part of you where instincts live.

Another short beach walk, cut a little short as crowds start arriving, well behaved but a little ratty. The soccer game has ended. I watch one huge man race up the beach in a t-shirt, black pants and black army style boots. He appears drunk and is blowing a whistle repeatedly. He falls in the sand, rolls around, unsuccessfully attempts handstands. Then I notice a policeman watching from the distance. Rather than having a word with him, the young policeman watches him unconcerned. Then I observe the officer a little more closely: same black pants, same black boots. I make a wild guess that the beach ambience has probably peaked for the evening, so we head back to the hotel. I lie awake for a while reading and then fall into another deep, deep sleep.

On Sunday morning I took breakfast at the hotel around 7am. Fruit salad, fresh juice, doxycyclin. Laura appeared and we walked down to the main tro-tro station for a day trip to Kakum National Park, about 30km to the north. Stock up on water for the drive. We find the right tro-tro and get as far as the first road block.

It is perfectly normal here to hit a police road block once or twice a trip. Whenever we are waved over, the mate, following protocol, gives the driver what could be bank notes wrapped in white paper. For all I know, it could be 7,000 cedis, what do I know. But its probably not money because what’s the point of carrying money wrapped in white paper during a license and roadworthy check. So the driver hops out with his driver’s license and the white paper, I have no idea what’s in it, it could be anything, and talks to the police officer. Traditionally at this stage all are usually happy; unless the van actually explodes into a ball of fire at the road block, the roadworthy requirements are always met and we move on. Today, however, there is a sergeant sitting under some shade directing events. It seems that the driver has misjudged the seniority and got the commercials wrong. So we sit for 10 minutes, watch the awkward displays of body language and lecturing, and listen to passengers argue about the scene in native Twi. Driver returns, exchanges look with the mate, mutter mutter, and we are away again.

Kakum is a great national park. I negotiate paying the Ghanaian student price instead of the full adult price of 90,000 cedis each. Volunteers are usually offered discounted rates if issued with an ID card, but we are not carrying one. A short quiz to verify we are indeed maths teachers, and we pass.
Kakum is not quite a rainforest, but is technically a tropical forest. That means rainforest-ish, with a brief dry season. The highlight is a canopy walk 30 metres above the ground. A swaying suspension bridge built of aluminium ladders for a walkway, suspended by ropes and a side net attached to steel cables strung between trees. The walkway is in several segments and is about 350m long. It is just spectacular.

http://www.ghanatourism.gov.gh/regions/highlight_detail.asp?id=1&rdid=65

There are 6 in our party accompanied by a local guide, Stephen. There are monkeys, elephants and leopards in the park, but it is unusual to see any during the day because they avoid this end of the park when people are around. After enjoying the canopy views and listening to the sounds of countless birds, Stephen then takes us for a 1 hour walk, showing us many local medicinal trees. The Offram tree, whose bark is a natural mosquito repellant. Locals burn small pieces of bark using them as natural mosquito coils. The Strangler Fig, which envelopes giant trees in snakelike tentacles and squeezes the life out of them. The Ya-Ya tree, a natural viagra. Pardon ? We think we all heard it wrong. But no. Note that I am the only man in the group, among 5 women. With no hint of self-consciousness, Stephen helpfully explains the concept for those who may be unclear. Terms like performance, stamina, endurance are used. There are discrete gestures and hand signals. References to the need for harmonious domestic life. A man has certain responsibilities. The girls are amused and innocently ask a few questions as well to help the discussion along. The name of the tree? That would come from the women of the village - ‘ya-ya!’ Time to move on I guess? Not yet. Is anyone in the group interested in following it up, sampling the bark ? All attention turns to the men in the party; well that would be me. I’m good, I say bravely, no thank you. Ok Stephen, it really must be time to move on…but no! Now Stephen is a fit and healthy man of around 30. ‘I myself…’ he begins. I am shouting desperate telepathic messages, ‘Stephen ! No!!! Don’t go there !!!’ But he does go there; our guide is here to help. Every 2 weeks he takes a small piece of bark and chews it. What difference does it make, you are probably wondering. He tells us. The girls think this is great stuff.

On safer ground, the next trees were ebony and mahogany. I had never seen an ebony tree before; apparently they are quite rare and obviously very valuable. It takes 200 years to reach a good size and the park is filled with them. Laura is keen to see an elephant. I enquire at the desk, but the man explains that logistically they could not guarantee a sighting. The park is 360 sq km and they may all be at the other end. Monkeys ? Not today.

We leave the park. We had noticed a place called ‘Hans Cottages Boton’ on the way, which is described as a crocodile park. To compensate for the lack of wildlife, we start to walk down the road towards the farm, neither of us remembering how far down it was. It is a nice quiet walk. Since arriving in Africa I have been pretty well surrounded by noise 24 hours a day. But here I can only hear birds singing, the wind swishing through branches, and our footsteps. It is a great contrast and I am in the zone. We pass several small villages over about 3km.

Now all children in Africa from a very young age learn to wield a panga, a full sized, wicked looking machete. It is used for everything : stripping bamboo, slicing fruit and pineapples, firewood, grass cutting, woodwork, chickens and goats. I now no longer look twice if I see a four year old on camp swinging a blade in rapid arcs, close to fingers and bare toes. Seeing a group of unattended 4-10 year olds walking towards us all wielding pangas, though, is not something I see every day. The children are delighted to see us. They raise their pangas, wave them cheerily, beaming and singing. ‘Oberoni, oberoni ! How are you !’ I give my most disarming smile and we wave back.

We ask several people on the way how far the crocodile farm is. The responses are, in order : a long walk, a short walk, too far to walk, 1 km and 13 miles. We decide to flag the next passing tro-tro and jump on. To the crocodile farm, please. I am behind the driver and glance at the odometer. It was precisely another 11km, but we arrive.

I met School Laura at Kasoa, and we hopped on a tro-tro bound for Cape Coast. It rained heavily during the trip to the point where the drive looked dangerous. If you have ever been on a normal tro-tro drive, you would know that singling one out as dangerous is saying something. I doubt I could use a seat belt again without being shown how. Apparently it does usually rain in Ghana during November. I have heard rain a couple of times overnight, and seen the odd brief sprinkle during the day from a classroom, but this is the first serious rain I have seen. It lasts for about 30 minutes, and is over by the time we arrive. The drive is also delayed due to roadworks. To increase the interest level, signs and police occasionally direct traffic into oncoming traffic lanes.

There is one thing I have noticed. Divided roads are a new concept here. The road between Accra and Cape Coast has new divided lanes in several sections. But there has been no guidance for drivers in how to use them. So if you are driving along and there is a place on the other side of the road you want to get to, one option would be to pass the place you want, and do a u-turn at the next break. Let’s call this ‘the sensible option’. The other option is to take the break before your destination, then drive on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic until you get there. Let’s call this ‘the preferred option’. Seriously. Everyone does it : buses, trucks, police, tro-tro’s, cars. On a divided road you still expect oncoming traffic.
Arrived safely and surprisingly around 3pm. Cape Coast is the site of the original european forts and also the huge slave fort. The area has a fascinating history. It became a Portugese trading port in the 1400’s. Then the Dutch took it over. Then the Danes. Then the Swedes. (The Belgians were not here, but were next door in the Congo.) Even the Ghanaians wanted some action in running the place. Then finally Britain. It changed hands several times, usually after the arrival of naval vessels and cannons. There was a scramble in those days to secure trade in West Africa. Ghana, which was called The Gold Coast until independence in 1957, was seen as a key strategic position. The coast is lined with forts and colonial buildings, some dating back to the 1500’s, many to the 16-1700’s. By the way, next year is going to be huge in Ghana; the 50th anniversary of independence. Ghana was the first country here to achieve independence and has had stable government since.

Trade originally comprised genuine trade and relationships between the colonial powers, and the african chiefs. However, England changed things somewhat by developing the Atlantic Trade Circle. This meant shipping guns from England to West Africa, trading them for slaves, gold and diamonds, taking them to America, then picking up there goods to take back to England. Then around again, every trip a profit making venture. People have been bringing guns and weapons to Africa ever since. It is hard to have minor border skirmishes when the country is flooded with AK-47’s, which can be easily bought at black markets for US $6 each, almost anywhere in the continent. Not to mention rocket launchers. If there are any arms dealers reading, could you please cut it out ? And yes, I am talking to you, England, Germany, France, USA, Russia and China in particular. These countries earn more in arms trading than they give in total aid.
http://www.controlarms.org/the_issues/movers_shakers.htm
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/small-arms/default.asp

To its credit England broke the cycle when the anti-slavery movement gained momentum in the 1800’s, stopping and searching vessels leaving the african coast. Still shipped guns though. This exact town was the centre of the universe for slavery and arms trade.

Cape Coast is a nice town, quieter and less manic than Accra. Being right on the coast means there is a beach (yay) and a sea breeze (yay yay). After getting rooms at a hotel that Erin had stayed at and recommended, ‘Mighty Victory’, we explored town a bit and had a light meal right on the beach. A place called ‘The Oasis’ had a few chairs and thatched umbrellas right on the sand. I watched the waves rolling in, the approaching sunset, the fishing boats coming to shore, and the wild foraging pigs. Although I am all for wild pigs, they were not helping the relaxing beach ambience. Then a couple of dogs arrived and chased the smaller pigs around while I sipped a fresh orange juice. A man, possibly a swineherd, ran up, arms waving frantically, to chase the dogs away. He was not quick enough and dogs did big circles on the sand, chasing pigs again each full circle. It all seemed to make perfect sense at the time.
Around 7, feeling tired, I went back to the hotel and read for a bit, before noticing the tv. I watched a little Dawson’s Creek, then Angel, before drifting off around 8.30. The hotel room was very comfortable and I slept right through.

Saturday morning I slept in a little. I wake early every morning and know to within 10 minutes what time it is. From the early grey of the morning sky, it was 5:45. After my late social night I have slept in and missed the drums.

I am now completely used to cold showers. I have at least 2-3 a day. The water in shaded tanks here is as cold as an outdoor pool in Melbourne; I would say quite cold, but not chilling. It is stored in a huge polytank on the floor immediately above my bed where they are still building. There are no cement mixers here - concrete is hand mixed. If I see a crack appear in the ceiling I have estimated that it will take 1.7 seconds to casually stretch and rise from bed, unlock the door, and leap into the corridor from a standing start. The tank is about 2m diameter, and between 2-3m high, so I guess a 10,000 litre tank. 10 cubic metres of water weighing 10 tonnes, when the tank is filled by the water trucks. And the trucks come frequently now, after we raised the issue of water running out, and Ikando who are paying the bill escalated it with the hotel. In Africa, the Sword of Damocles is a black polytank. Mix concrete like the wind, my building friend ! And don’t spare the reo.

While having breakfast at the Brotherhood, we saw a funeral procession coming up the main track, ‘The 18′. I have seen a couple of these in the camp now. A noisy procession, beating drums, shuffling dance, everyone with their faces smeared with a blue-grey paint. Pictures of the deceased, a young man in his 20’s who died suddenly and unexpectedly after a brief illness. They stopped at each stall and showed us a picture of the man so that he would not be forgotten. One of the leaders asked me if I was comfortable having some of the war paint on my cheek. I agreed, there was a short 5 second ceremony, and I shifted from observer to participant. It was moving. Sudden deaths here are both tragic and routine. People around me were saying things like : ‘Another one! He’s the third this week!’ In a camp of 50,000, that would translate to a mortality rate of 1 in 50 p.a. or 20 per 1000 of population, I guess not unexpected given the circumstances and environment. Malaria, cholera and typhoid are commonplace as pretty well only volunteers are prperly vaccinated (due to the cost.) So I think it is not so much the rate, as the average young age, that is more tragic. As in, ‘Another one, only 24 years old !’

At 9am I gave a workshop to a representative group of IT professionals at the camp. There are quite a few technical qualifications around, even Cisco and MSCE. I gave an all purpose project management presentation which seemed to be relevant. Covered in the soft chalk dust, with adults sitting in the school double benched desks. There are people here who have some great ideas, but never schedules, dates, or names of real people doing things. Resources don’t get pulled together, budgets are a surprise on the day causing a frantic search for a sponsor at the last minute, and it just doesn’t happen. I have an idea that teaching key people here how to plan a simple project might be the best thing I can do in the short time left. At first they found it a bit abstract. So I asked them, ‘I am going to Accra on a tro-tro at 7:45 tomorrow morning. This other guy is going to Accra sometime next week. Which one of us will definitely get there ? Why ?’ Ah-ah ! More solid examples please.

So we talked through how to build an internet cafe in Liberia, with today as day one of the project. I know that this is an actual stalled thought. When do we want it to open ? Shall we say, September 1 2007 ? What happened the day before to make it real ? Oh, so who ordered the truck ? What was the name of the man who organized transport, you ? Who signed the lease? When did he go over to check out properties ? 3 months earlier ? On a bus ? Who designed the network, you ? Who then ? How many PC’s ? etc etc. Working from the final goal backwards, rather than the vague idea forwards. All basic stuff for our PM readers but I think it was the right message on the right day. So many ideas here are in a holding pattern, and people sort of wait for the next step, then the next; things may proceed slowly and sequentially, or stall altogether.

The workshop finished very positively and we did the group photos thing in front of the blackboard. I grabbed my backpack, raced to the tro-tro’s, and caught one bound for Cape Coast where I planned to stay the rest of the weekend.

There is a stereotype you see on black american TV sitcoms. A matriarch is unimpressed. Drawing to full height, hands on hips, and looking down her nose, she simply utters : ‘Hmm-Hmmmm!’

The first syllable is short and low. The second syllable is much longer; it starts off the same pitch, but then rises quite a way. It says so much and leaves so much unsaid.

Simon and Hannah were to visit a church service Sunday. It was a special event, being the first sermon by a pastor friend of theirs. (About 10% of the population here are pastors.) They were to be escorted to the church on Sunday at a meeting place, but the rendezvous did not connect. Instead they went to Kokobrite Beach for the day. Unfortunately, while there they had a bag snatched. They lost only some day cash, and their bag was later found with their keys still in it. Passports and camera were safely at home. But it was still very unsettling for them both.

Simon related that they told an african women friend about the theft. She started off quite sympathetic and concerned. Then she asked, ‘Weren’t you supposed to be at a church service ?’

Uh-oh. As Simon tells it, he stammered just a little with an ‘Um, well..’ sort of start. The connection between not going to church, and having a bag snatched same day, was closing in on them. She heard them out before pausing, then announcing :

‘Hmm-Hmmmm!’

I have heard that sound a few times. They do it so well here.

The sky has been greyish the last few days and the temperature has dropped to about 30 degrees sometimes. This feels very cool and refreshing. However, I noticed that the sky was more of a haze than a cloudy overcast, and even the nights are clouded, with only a few stars visible. The Harmattan has arrived; this is the seasonal north wind which arrives late November, bringing with it sand and dust from the Sahara. Visibility reduces to around 1km for a month. So far the Harmattan has a cooling wind with the haze. I hope it stays that way: the Sahara sounds hot. The Harmattan blows across most of the Sub-Sahara for a month.

School has officially finished and an exam period has started. Students in all grades are sitting hour long exams for the next 2 weeks. I hope they all bring their pens and pencils. In a typical class, about 6 arrive each lesson unable to write. However I still have the adult IT classes, and some non-teaching school things to do. The school pc’s are all virus infected so I will give the network a spring clean.

This means I have a bit more time during the day. I gave Erin a hand to print some tickets for the ‘Miss Liberia in Ghana’ Beauty Pageant to be held Friday December 1st. Erin had done a great job with the graphics, but the tickets needed to be sequentially numbered 1-1000, and Photoshop was not up to it. Manually typing each number, the first 100 tickets took half a day. So I migrated her over to Access and did a report with the numbers 1-1000, using her graphic as a background, and laying the tickets on the page 3×3. A fair bit of resizing due to page sizes and printer margins, but it came up a treat. The special ticket paper had not arrived yet. I asked if the ticket paper was A4 or US Letter. No one in either Ghana or Liberia knows if their country is metric or not. You would think it would be a matter of asking a few adults around you, but no, no one knows. Cars have metric odometers, but they are all european anyway. School texts are metric. But people talk in miles. There are no city signs showing distance that I have ever seen. I guessed A4, formatted accordingly, then found that the standard paper size is US Letter, and so was the ticket paper when it arrived. Another resize.

While walking to the building where the printer was, I passed a huge tray truck stacked about 4 metres high with full sized hessian bags filled with what appeared to be a green plant, bamboo shoots or similar. A man was perched precariously up on top, lowering bags down one at a time to a crew of about 6. They reached up and set the lowered bag on their heads, before walking about 25 metres to an area where the bags were being stacked into another huge pile. I couldn’t help noticing that there was nothing between the truck and the destination pile. The truck could have reversed another 25m and they could have just dropped the bags over the side. I watched this for a while, took the scene in from a couple of various angles, then moved on.

There is one job here that seems like really hard work. Most people have charcoal burners for cooking, buying charcoal that is made in the camp. There are about a dozen places where a family burns wood in an underground pit, where it is covered and smoulders for a day or so, turning into charcoal. They then dig the still hot charcoal out with shovels, put it into hessian bags, and sell it. Day in, day out. I walk past a couple of these regularly and it is hot, sooty work. Just walking past you need to be careful with pants and shoes, but these poor people are literally covered in it. I can see that there are young children working there who should be in school. But if they went to school, the charcoal income would reduce, which means water and food would reduce, and they would all suffer. So in the balance of things having their own children work in a charcoal pit is the optimized outcome.

I met up with Simon and Hannah for a coke at the Holiday Feeling. There were 4 women, staff, sitting together. Simon warned me that one of them thought I owed them money. So I called her over, and asked if I was up to date. The result was a 15 minute shouting match.

Scenario : the previous night, I ordered a chicken and rice (21,000) and a coke (3,000). The woman came up and said that they were out of chicken, but they had beef. So I said, ok, beef and rice is fine. I had never tried the beef before because I have not seen any cows in Ghana, and thought it unlikely that people were importing frozen container loads. I have seen some buffalo, but ended up concluding that the beef was a red meat, and can we please let it go at that.

So she came up later for the money. She asked me how much the beef cost, then suggested 21,000 ? The menus were downstairs. I said it sounded right and paid 24,000. Our small group then took a few minutes to venture downstairs. Woman is looking evil.  It turns out that beef and rice is 28,000 and I should have known that. I have not paid enough. No problem, I say, I want to be clear, how much do you need ? All are happy it is just 7,000, which I pay.

But today she is still looking positively evil. I ask what the problem is. She tells me that I owe them money, her friends intervene, then she screams at them and I can only partly follow the conversation. I pick up that she is happy with the beef side, but now thought I had 2 cokes. Her friends are adamant I only had one. She is upset and thinks they told her I had 2, so now they are the ones causing the problem. This goes on forever before she storms away. One of the staff apologizes to us. Several times now I have seen Ghanaians having a full on shouting argument in front of customers. Anyone reading this in the customer service training business, there is plenty to do over here. Ironically, this same shop has a scrawled sign out front advertising for a catering person.

The last few days I have gone to bed exhausted around 8.30-9 o’clock. That sudden deep weariness that I need to go to sleep right now, and I am closing my eyes as soon as I land on the bed. Tonight I go back to the hotel, enter the room, and am asleep within minutes.

Today I had a visit from James Bedeah, who runs a school of 40 odd students in the camp specializing in literacy. An australian girl, Tara, assisted with setting up the program, called ‘Literacy for Life.’ Tara is a friend of one of my friends at my Monday meditation classes, Helen. Helen made the connection and put us into email contact with each other before I left.

James was with a woman and two small children. I asked James how he was going, and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. However I found out later that James has malaria. Child one has malaria. Child two has typhoid.

If you are reading this from a western country, then unless you had a very unusual day today, you probably don’t have a lot to complain about.

The school has 3 wells, each of which is 4 metres deep. The opening of each well is about 1 metre square. So the school has a huge supply of non-drinking water. The wells are simply holes in the ground, with square ground level concrete covers in place. The school also has a very small quadrangle. The school buildings form a rectangle enclosing the central quadrangle, which is about 20m x 10m. The children can only play in the quadrangle as the school gate is shut during school hours.

Now the best place to put wells is somewhere central, so that when the maintenance man opens the covers a few times a day to lower buckets for water, it is not too far to carry them. And what could be more central than the centre of the quadrangle. I have some photos of the children absolutely crowding the play area, and another of Mr. Maintenance standing over open wells drawing water.

The well covers are almost always firmly in place.

What could be more of a cliche than hearing native drums in the african night ? However…the Golden Gate hotel is beyond the camp boundary, just at the edge of civilisation. On the western side of the hotel we see huts and tracks extending into the hills. But I have never explored that way.

Usually I crash around nine, and sleep deeply until 5.30′ish when the sun starts to rise. But on Sunday morning I woke to the sound of two people in the corridor talking loudly and opening a door at 4am. As everything quietened down, I heard the distinctive sound of african drums and chanting in the distance, beyond the western edge of the hotel. The sound of the drums stirred something deep; it was not merely a haunting sound, it actually seemed to arouse something I had hardwired in. There are some things that are genetically coded and we react to, which require no explanation. An aggressive stare, the cry of a child, fingers down a blackboard: these are not taught and are recognized in all cultures. I have to tell you that there is a particular sound of drums and rhythms that you can add to the list. I have heard so many african drums so far which were very musical and spectacular, but this sound was of a different type : primitive, evocative and powerful. Like, I have been here before. It was so striking, the feeling : oh, this is the real thing. I lay awake until the sun rose, listening to the drumming and occasional chants. Then, exactly at first light, it abruptly ceased.

As I was leaving the hotel at 7am, I handed in my key and asked the receptionist : What was with the drumming early in the morning ? She didn’t look at all surprised and just said, ‘Oh, that is the fetish priest, they worship the old ways and ghosts.’ It is all coming together. I also asked, ‘Do many people here still believe the old ways ?’ Then she did look a bit surprised, and repeated almost word for word what Trish had said in Accra 2 days before : ‘I think maybe everyone in Africa believes the old things…’

There is interesting research now showing that if you follow all the dna codes backwards, they seem to converge in what is now Gambia. Apparently western people descended from a small band, estimated at only 50 people, who crossed the land bridge from Africa to Europe 50,000 (?) years ago. I have terrible bandwidth today; a record 20 minutes for the first load of gmail, several timeouts. The network icon status shows only 100 bytes/second. I will allow the last 10 minutes for pressing the ‘Publish’ button for this post ! So I can’t google the links I am after, but it is definitely an interesting read for those who want to follow it up. Both New Scientist and Nature magazines also have a great articles on the ‘haplotype tree’ theories, and various ‘out of africa’ debates. After this morning I can well believe that somewhere in this part of the world, long ago, these drum beats were planted as a deep human memory.

Since then, I have heard them each morning. I am stirring at around 5 o’clock now. They always stop just as the sun first colours the sky grey.

Saturday night I was invited to Mark Davies’ birthday party in central Accra. Mark runs Busylab, where I was invited to host the software development process workshop. Mark is a really fascinating character :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2977598.stm

After taking the tro-tro in, I stopped off first at the flat to drop off a few things, rather than carry them around. Small differences in the weight of a backpack make such a difference if you are walking around a lot. I rested under the fan for a while, then went out and had lunch in Oxford Street, Osu. This is the part of Accra where you can buy anything in the supermarket, and there are western food courts and restaurants. I had a chicken burger and white coffee, a real treat.

Customer service in Ghana is non-existent. Shop staff are not necessarily rude, they just really don’t have a clue. There is no concept of smiling or ‘Have a nice day.’ Imagine you are in the shower and your partner asks you to get out and make them a cup of tea. Customer service staff  have that expression on their faces that you would have when you try to buy something. This is just in Accra. Around the camp, it is the opposite; Liberians, Sierra Leonians and Senegalese shopkeepers are all really friendly and comment on the unique Ghanean approach to customer service themselves.

In the afternoon I caught up with Laura and Nat at the Ikando office. I met Laura’s companion Jean-Luc, who I found out works for AlItalia in Accra. A wonderful airline ! and one I cannot recommend highly enough. And a very good day to our readers Laura and Jean-Luc. I spent a bit of time tweaking the Ikando laptop, which had ground to a halt due to multiple anti-virus programs being installed and fighting, and killed McAfee that had half uninstalled but stayed a zombie.

I walked from the flat to Mark’s place. The house was in a really nice part of town, Asylum Down, with walls and security guards distinguishing it from the surrounding numerous stalls. The house is huge : high ceilings, enormous rooms, cool and comfortable. The upper storey was about 50% balcony, so we went out there to enjoy the cool breeze and the view. It had been a bit overcast and unusually cool, maybe even in the low 30’s.

I met Cory, who is from Seattle and is building a call centre from the ground up. Cory is staying there while in Accra; he was fantastic company and a great host. I also met Bless, who left Ghana at the age of 5, did very well in the US, and has now returned to build wireless/telecommunications networks throughout Ghana. Cory, Bless and I talked shop for a bit and I found their stories great fun. Example : Cory arrived to find the call centre cabled with 35km of CAT cable. That’s a lot of new cable. The cabling quality was great. However, when he asked for the ‘map’, blank looks. As in, patch panel numbering, what goes where ? Hmmm. End result was that it was far easier logistically to rip out the 35km of cable, put it aside as it had been cut to length, and start again with new cable. Both Cory and Bless also talked about the power supply problems in Ghana as a whole. Cory was also an ex-Microsoft senior manager for many years and shared a few insights about life at Microsoft and within the senior development team. Very entertaining : maybe not necessarily for the public domain, but over a barbeque when I get back !

I met Trish, who has lived in Ghana for 10 years, and in Nigeria for 5 before that. I told her about my encounter in the bus with the juju preacher. She related her own experiences, and explained that in Africa, everyone believes in juju and ghosts as a given. I didn’t want to clarify on how extensive ‘everyone’ was due to present company. So how did that reconcile with the fundamentalist churches everywhere, surely there’s a contradiction ?

That’s where it gets really interesting. Belief in the old ways is the foundation. People then take on a church, not to replace the juju, but to protect them from it. A second layer. So it is not a contradiction to believe in both, rather they are complementary halves of a single world view. The juju preacher was bridging the gap, and reinforcing  the message ‘You need me, and christanity, to protect you from the witches, and we can pray against them and attack them.’ That certainly put a new perspective on things.

Food was wonderful; spicy goat skewers were a highlight. Caroline then told me a lot about Senegal and how different it was in french West Africa. I resolved to visit the french part of town next time over here.  Apart from the completely different food, the education system there was typically french. Cote D’Ivoire in the early days was apparently the model of educational excellence, with graduates being given a new car (Honda Civic) AND a furnished apartment. I understand from my daughter Jannah that this is in contrast to the current Australian Government’s model of student support.

Around 11.30 I started to wind down as it was way past my current bed-time, so I reluctantly headed home. Everyone else was just starting. I thanked Mark for a wonderful evening and went back to the flat.

There was no power ! Funny that. That means no fan, so I opened all the windows, got a mosquito coil going, and crashed. That is, until 2am when the mosque down the road with loudspeakers started. I had Sunday breakfast in Osu : a coffee and a fresh croissant ! Then an early lunch at Frankies, including a thick chocolate milkshake. A hot walk back to the tro-tro station.

Taxi drivers sometimes go too far. After frequent beeping, one jumped out, followed me, and waved animatedly, shouting ‘Taxi! Taxi!’, with all appearances of following me around despite my politely waving a ‘No.’ Then I replied ‘Man ! Man!’ We alternated this for a while. Then, he thought we should shift from stating the obvious to something more interrogative. ‘Where you go?’ met with ‘Where you drive?’, ‘No where you go ?’, ‘ Where you drive?’ Anyone who has seen me with a 4 year old doing the ‘Did..Did not..Did too…Did not’ routine knows I have the grudging respect of toddlers. Eventually he wandered off. Another one stopped right next to me beeping, and asked ‘Can  help you?’ I replied, ‘Yes, could you please stop all the beeping ?’ He laughed, gestured a vague explanation that never came, then waved and drove off. I think the Accra drivers know they go too far sometimes with entering your personal space.

The trip back to the camp was incredibly hot but I am getting used to it. I stocked up on 1.5 litres of water for the 2 hour trip in a sauna back. Arrived about 3pm, wandered around the camp for a while. I gave the Sierra Leone guys at the brotherhood a copy of a french weekend newspaper (Le Monde) I bought at Koala in Osu, had a cool coke, and went to bed early.

This has now happened 5 times in a row. I came to school one day eating a pineapple I had bought just near the school. The woman there sliced it up for me. As I walked through the school gate, one of the ‘canteen’ women who sits there all day with food and water, said to me : ‘White Man ! You like pineapple ? Do you want me to bring ?’ Good idea : yes please.

Next day, at morning recess : ‘White man ! You want your pineapple ?’ ‘Yes please, but at lunchtime.’ Lunchtime comes and she looks helpless, surrounded by 400 children. It is not a good time. It takes about 3 minutes to peel and then slice the pineapple with a wicked looking knife. I have a class after lunch, so end up eating it late, just before school finishes around 1.30pm. By the way, it is not unusual for someone to just call out ‘Hey White Man!’ It must happen 30 times a day.

That was fine, but it has happened every day since then, exactly the same. Recess : ‘Hey White Man ! You want your pineapple ? ‘ Me : ‘Yes please, but for lunch’. Lunchtime : ‘Oh, too busy.’ Mind you it is delicious, and she only charges 2500 cedis (25 cents). But I would prefer it a bit earlier. I know that Gannt charts are not popular here, but I am thinking that maybe she could cut up the pineapple just before the kids come out for lunch ? Although in a strange way, it is starting to become one of those little routines that is a milestone in your day, like an afternoon cup of tea. It adds a little predictability to a sometimes alien landscape. Perhaps if she did look ahead, and gave me a prepared pineapple at lunchtime, I would miss it.

On the way to Accra Saturday morning, Erin and I walked from the brotherhood, up the 18, towards the tro-tro station. I was on the way to a dinner party that night, and Erin needed to hit an ATM. Up ahead we heard the loudest drumming and singing, then saw a crowd of about 50 young people coming our way. It was a full on procession. The girls were all carrying hand made brooms, and doing a shimmy sort of dance alternating with group stomps, while moving the the brooms in time. Guys were drumming very loud. They were all singing this simple rhythmic song, pure african. It was all hypnotic and incredibly loud.

As they neared we stepped right to the side, with our backs to a stall to let them pass by. But instead they wheeled towards us, shuffled into a dense pack, and surrounded us completely, still singing, drumming and stomping. There was absolutely no escape : it was not even easy to move at all. Then one girl held out a plastic bag which was full of money, shaking it to the music, about 10 cm away from me. The singing became more of a chant : loud loud VERY LOUD ! loud loud VERY LOUD !

There was nothing even remotely threatening. But I recognize a good cause when I see one, and getting out of there was an excellent cause.  I had the 3000 cedis change from breakfast in an accessible pocket, so I didn’t have to look through and count notes, which would have been awkward. I just went reach-drop. The crowd goes wild ! A huge cheer, more chanting. Now everyone turns to Erin. She finds 1000 cedis and another cheer erupts. Then the procession moves on.

No idea what it was all about. But it worked really well.

African women have an amazing walk and posture. Everything can be carried on your head. Not just women, but also men carry anything above a kilo on their heads, using a cloth wound into a loose ring as a base under the load. However the women have it down to an art form.

The first day on camp, I was directed down a main road. At first I couldn’t see the road. I was standing on what we would call a dry creek bed, very narrow, but with steepish, short uneven banks, rocks, some rubbish, and a downhill path. That would be the road. I walked carefully at first then got a bit used to it. There are other tracks that are fine, including the central road called ‘The 18′; they are even and easy to walk on, if a bit dusty. But the road to the school is a creek bed.

One morning I was walking to school and saw an african woman coming the other way. Sometimes around 7am you see someone immaculately dressed, who must work for a bank in town, or for western union over the road. She was dressed really smartly, newish clean dress, hair made up - a very non-refugee look. I was walking with my rockports, treading comfortably but carefully. She was walking over the uneven track with her perfect african posture and easy stride, not missing a beat. Then I saw she was wearing high heels.

Every morning, on the way to breakfast, I still see at least one thing that blows me away.

There is no other way to say this. Most of the camp looks like a rubbish tip, a hard stone ground covered in plastic bags. It is the first thing you notice. But when you first parachute into an alien landscape you suspend all judgement, absorb every vivid sight and sound with your heightened senses, and later reflect on how it all can be used to make sense of the new environment.

However with the plastics I have no idea. People are personally very clean and proud, showering regularly, covering in soap and scrubbing. Each morning naked children stand outside absolutely lathered from head to toe, pouring buckets of non-drinking water over themselves from the huge tanks and wells. And adults shower in these single person wet areas that are everywhere, about 2 metres by 2, with concrete block walls about 1.6 metres high. It is enough for personal privacy, but with the addition of eye contact with the outside world. So you see people soaped up and showering each morning, greeting you as you pass. The first few times it is weird but it all seems quite normal now. And good morning to you sir !

But the rubbish, I never got it. True, the bins are few on the ground, but they are there. I don’t drop anything and know where bins are for my water bags as I wander around. When you ask people, what’s with the rubbish ? it gets genuinely vague. I don’t think anyone knows.

Electrical power here is called current. As in, there is no current. Power failures happen a lot. I read an article in a magazine saying that the Akosombo dam, which is 3% of Ghana’s land area, is low due to a drought. The dam is huge and was a major engineering project in the 60’s, and one which launched Ghana into modernisation and relative propserity. It turns out is is not so much a drought ,as a new climate feature due to climate change which is being accepted here. Sounds very familiar, similar to Steve Bracks (Premier of Victoria, Australia) announcing recently a new water plan for Melbourne, with reserves at an all time low and projections worrying.

Things are not as simple as they seem however. Ghana does have enough water to meet the electricity needs of the entire population. However, they sell power to neighbouring countries such as Togo and others. There are many industries which get preferential treatment and subsidised power. And a few people who live here said that they never had regular blackouts until the huge aluminium smelter fired up. Since then Ghana has been running in power deficit.

Australia is similar with water. We announce a new water plan, but farmers who irrigate, and industry, use about 94% of the water supply. City dwellers and householders, the other 6%, are the ones asked to conserve. I am all for responsible water use and conservation. We use an average 600 litres a day in my house at home. This includes occasional swimming pool maintenance, laundry, cisterns, a dishwasher, and bathing a daughter twice a week. However, a single big mac at MacDonalds requires a total 5,000 litres of water to produce. This includes the cow, the farm, the grain and the rest. I can save 200 litres a day maybe, then blow 25 days worth of saving by buying a single hamburger. It takes 25000 litres to produce 1kg of beef, 9000 litres to produce 1kg of wheat, 5000 for 1kg of rice. Add it up and you realize that the water out of your tap is completely irrelevant; it is the food you eat that completely swamps your personal water usage by orders of magnitude. So apart from my 150 litres a day of personal use, I use at least another 20-30 thousand maybe by eating. Add more water for the packaging, transportation. We are only talking about the 6% usage in the city. In Australia farmers are up in arms about talk of changing the irrigation model, however maybe not all countries are in a position to grow whatever they want if it rarely rains. This is an interesting read, among many others. A subject worth a google. :

http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/1037.html

Anyway, Ghana switches whole sectors of the power grid on and off daily !! Critical services have generators. But you just can’t do this without severely damaging the infrastructure. When a grid is taken on and off line, huge travelling waves of electrical energy reflect up and down the lines like waves on a string, causing dramatic power surges in electrical equipment. Things just blow up.

I spoke to a guy called Cory who is building a new call centre in Accra. He told me that they have used state of the art voltage regulators, but still can’t keep up with the damage to the huge circuit breakers. People talk of their household equipment, even washing machines, going bang. The school is a case in point : when I arrived there were 9 pc’s, and 4 dead power supplies.

The wiring here is, well, different. Live and neutral wires are used interchangeably, and earths are usually not connected at all. If you see 2 wires in a roof, you can tap into them and connect them to a switch and a light. Everyone seems to know how to do that. The 2 wires are usually the same colour. Metal things tingle. Sometimes you see a wire between a switch and a light socket having several splices over its short journey. Oh, and you can see the wiring because it runs over walls and ceilings, usually not under. Due to the lack of switches and meters, people work on things live ! I have no idea why half the population has not been electrocuted.

Quite apart from issues of safety and things blowing up, it means that modernisation is being affected. Overseas consultants like Cory have the skills to build data centres and call centres. But they absolutely need a reliable, sane power supply. And don’t get anyone started on billing. Metering is not a big thing here so estimates are the norm.

A funny thing happened on Friday night. A few of us were sitting on the only high point on the camp, the top level of ‘Holiday Feeling’, a hotel come restaurant on the main road to Accra, on the very edge of the camp. You get a great view over the whole camp. (I must have been here too long already. I am talking about a great view over a refugee camp.)Suddenly, everything went pitch black. A few generators started and a few lights appeared here and there. Then a few fires and fireworks (what could go wrong) for light. But we were still sitting in the dark. After about 30 minutes, the waitress came up and told us they had started the generator, but the light wasn’t coming on. She pointed to 2 light globes above us. One was wired to the generator, perhaps the globe was loose. Simon is quite tall and offered to twist it around. He reached up, grabbed the globe, gave it a quick flick, and the other mains globe, and the entire camp, suddenly lit up around us. The way things are wired up here, you could almost believe that the power grid failed due to one loose globe in a restaurant.

I wash my hands about 20-30 times a day. Over here, even a small cut or graze can become infected in the tropical, humid air. Rubbing your eyes can cause an eye infection. Handling cash, as you do many times a day for countless small transactions, is a health risk. So I wash with soap often, mostly avoid touching my face at all despite the odd itch, scan morning and night after each shower for small scratches and cuts, and carry savlon and anti-bacterial wipes around.

The school has some reasonably modern toilet facilities. There are several wooden cubicles with western style units and cisterns. There is a dedicated staff cubicle, with a key. The cistern sometimes has water in it but usually you take in a bucket, several of which are always lined up outside by the ever-present maintenance man/groundsman. There are 2 small hand sinks outside with taps. For the taps to work, the maintenance guy has to fill a header tank manually; I think this involves climbing with a bucket. Maybe 1 time in 4 or 5, I have success and wash my hands with soap. The other times there is no water for hand washing. You also would rely on these taps as the only place to wash your hands during the day, especially before and after meals, and after eating juicy pineapples.

However there is a backup plan, which is the same plan reserved full time for all students. There is a communal hand washing basin filled with soapy water. It is one of those plastic laundry bowls about half the height of a bucket and twice the diameter, the type you might soak a woollen jumper in. The 400 odd students wash their hands in this during the day. A second bowl is for rinsing. Both bowls sit in the sun all day.

The first time I noticed these was when the taps didn’t work on day one. The helpful man pointed me to the basin of soapy water. It all clicked, and I remembered I had seen children dipping and soaking during the day. Now, I am thinking to myself, you don’t see a petri dish this big every day. I am also thinking that the sanitation model is a work in progress and I might wait for some process improvement before I get involved myself. I nod politely to the guy, point vaguely towards the library where I have hand wipes, and wander off. I know what he is thinking: this australian doesn’t even wash his hands! But what can you say ? They have made an effort at implementing hygeine, told children the importance of using soap and water, and check they always wash after using the bathroom.

We met an american volunteer called Lee from Philadelphia. She told us that she was assisting in an immunization program in regional Ghana, somewhere near the Volta River. There were trained nurses giving injections with single use disposable needles. So far, so good. However, the nurses were using the one and only alcohol soaked tissue to wipe everyone’s arm, both before and after the shot.

There is a western staffed hospital on camp, St Gregory’s. The french volunteer doctors’ service ‘medecins sans frontiers’ is there. I think those guys are heroes.