Ghana's Rice, Elections, Students and Traders - Photoblog

Methodist Women's Fellowship from Patase last week donating Brazilian sugar, Uruguayan rice, Malaysian cooking oil, and Italian tomato sauce

Women traders who requested a photo from Dorota in the National Democratic Congress stronghold section of Kejetia market











With its school rooms available from 4pm, Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre attracts a wide variety of extra-curricular activities. On any given Sunday 6 churches have services around the school, all at the same time. Not a very peaceful place to be

Kitchen staff at Edwenase


Dorota and I had been looking for weeks for locally produced rice. Last weekend we found it at Kejetia market in Kumasi. Undercut by U.S. and Asian rice imports since large-scale privatisation policies imposed since the early 80's after Jerry Rawlings coup d'etat, the IMF and World Bank's financial 'support' towards Ghana has devastated rice farming. 2 weekends ago there was a massive protest in Accra by rice farmers from all over the country appealing for support from the gvt. to grant subsidies and support their livelihoods to regain and exceed subsistence level. It's very doubtful anything will change though. Market forces rule the roost here now, and rice farmers will unfortunately have their slogans of 'Developing or Developed Countries, Who Needs Subsidies?' heard by officials.



First Aid, Health Screening and Hygiene School Assembly we recently organised at Edwenase. Thanks to Gloria Quist and her sister Esther for their skills and time.






Literacy and Numeracy classes at Edwenase. We have just implemented a programme to include all 59 students, regardless of their disabilities. We have spent a long time trying to experiment with different groups and methods to see what works best. Still a work in progress, but the students seem happy so far.

Getting ready for Dec. 7th elections

Ghana's Lotto - curse or a blessing?

L. is our local shopkeeper. Her blue and white painted store made from corrogated iron is a hive of activity on Edwenase Road, just 40 metres from the Rehabilitation Centre where we work. Her opening and closing hours are dictated by the lotto man next door. He brings regular custom. People aspiring towards gaining profit to better themselves can cool off with a drink of non-alcoholic Malt Guinness. The majority work hard, very hard here. 17 hour waking days and 15 hours of work 6/7 days a week are common amongst traders. Problem is though, it's quite hard to win anything in the 30 year old Ghanaian State lotto system. Not surprising, seen as the numers range from 1-99 and you can choose a maximum of 5 numbers. A BBC article 2 years ago entitled 'Is the lottery a curse?'

Throughout both the developed and developing worlds, state lotteries are a voluntary tax on those who can least afford it. The English proverb that "A fool and his money are soon parted." may be true, but a government that taxes the poor is just as foolish. Unfortunately with state lotteries both those who stake the lottery and the governments who run them quickly get addicted to them.
Kwabena Peacock, Nkonya Ghana

The national lottery in Ghana has contributed to the development of roads and other social amenities. it has contributed to employment especially to university students who are on vacations. but we should not forget that this same thing is causing the break down of families. money to buy food and pay fees are used to gamble. to a larger extend I think lottery has helped in the development of my country.Daniel Bassah, Accra- Ghana

But there is a secret system of success that not so many know about, according to L. In the event of a car crash, witnesses or those who hear the crunch of metal upon metal and the shattering windows best get to the scene of the accident as speedily as possible. Why? Well, the registration number(s) of the car which has just crashed into something or somebody, in particular if blood has been spilled, holds particular significance if it falls on the same day as the lotto draw is due to take place.

So with lotto card at hand, one should immediately note down the numbers on the battered car reg. I hinted to L. that it would be worth us buying two old bangers and staging a 'crash' so we could split the profits. I added that I wouldn't mind bumping my head off the steering wheel and shedding a little blood to up our chances of success. She laughed and said it doesn't work like that.

I remain confused as to whether a car reg. numbered 972635-GH holds a lucky combination of 97,2,63 and 5 with one number missing or 9,7,2,6,35 or 9,7,26,3,5 or anything else you can think of. Truth is, I don't think L. will be winning the lotto anytime soon. There are just way too many car crashes here to figure out which combination of numbers are the luckiest ones!

Photo blog from Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre, Kumasi

Old sign at the staff compound in Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre, next to the vocational school

Our room is in the centre of the photo, with the curtain
(traditional cloth we bought at the market) drawn. One the right is the wash room (no running water) which is opposite the toilet (no running water). The yard is usually a hive of activity with the kids of the staff doing their homework and playing from early till late, maize being pulled asunder for packing in bags and cooking purposes, dogs and their puppies battling with cocks, chickens and guinea fowl for territory.

Apart from ants and geccos in our room this part of the layout. It's about 7 by 4 metres in size, consists of a desk, bed, mosquito net, a socket and some shelves. I got this guitar from a German volunteer for 25 Euro so at least I won't get too rusty over the coming months. I hope I can start doing lessons for some of the trainees soon.

Our route to the school and centre which is next to the living quarters for staff. We are usually tempted to decapitate this cock as he has a tendency to drive us mad from about 5 in the morning.

Guinea fowl lazing around, looking for old corn cobs, getting ready to fill their bellies before annoying us in the evening as their headquarters are 5 metres from our bedroom.

Mr. Modesto, Director of the Centre, pumping up the wheels on some of the new wheelchairs presented by the Mormons in early November. 750 wheelchairs were granted to the Social Welfare Department this year, 250 for the Ashanti region where we are based. 8 of them were put aside for residents of the Centre, but the trainees are still using ones they received last year. Why? Well, some families have a tendency to sell new wheelchairs during school breaks and send their kids back to school without wheels and a chair.

Some of the recipients of new wheelchairs, including David Nkrumah, resident at Edwenase. David recently made me beautiful leather sandals at the school workshop. He has been trained at Edwenase for the past 3 years and hopes top set up his own business from next year. Grants are hard come by in Ghana despite the fact that disabled persons have the statutory right to receive start up funds.



Trainees waiting for the ceremony to commence. In the foreground is Gifty; the student looking towards the camera is Naomi. All photos of this ceremony were taking by Judith, one of the trainees with my digital camera.



Lake Bosumtwe near Kumasi - from left: Dorota (Poalnd), Mattia (Italy), Lena (Germany)

Students dancing at recent ceremony welcoming new wheelchairs for Edwenase Centre and Ashanti region

Volunteering in Ghana - some challenges

Wheelchair beneficiaries at ceremony in Edwenase last week. The Mormons soponsored 750 wheelchairs for Ghana

I am 3 weeks in Ghana today. as is often the case when one embarks on a journey, characters who cross your path in the initial stages of assimilation have a tendency to pop in and out to varying degrees of friendliness.

This coming Thursday, I am hoping that Gloria Quist, a Ghanaian native and nurse educator who has lived in the US since 1991, will give some First Aid training to staff and students at Edwenase. Gloria was in seat 28A on our British Airways flight from London Heathrow. We got talking about racism in the US, Ghanaian culture and politics mid way through the flight.

Her short trip back home had been filled with drama. 10 days after arrival, travelling with her nurse friends over from the US for the first time (among their questions were: „Does Ghana have cars and tomatoes?”). Anyhow, too cut a long story short, travelling near Kumasi last week a drunk stepped out in front of their car, they knocked him down and he died soon after in hospital. Although he was at fault, the shock remained with Gloria and that as the reason why she hadn't managed to visit our project with her friends.

Thankfully though she is due to come soon and her skills and authority will be a great asset in convincing students and staff alike that one teen girl who has epilepsy is not actually possessed by demons. In addition to this we are hoping education about early intervention in keeping wounds clean and dressed properly will reduce the amount of infections we see here daily. Lastly, we hope this will be a trust building exercise amongst us, the volunteers, and the staff.

At this stage, it seems to me that we are courteous up front but both sides are highly critical of the role being played by the other. From my perspective, it doesn't inspire confidence to see the hairdressing teacher sit in a chair for 2 hours in her classroom with an air of disinterest, while her 3 students teach other. Or that the head of the visually handicapped, literacy and numeracy department only had his first lessons last week for this semester (which officially began in late August). His 56 students have therefore received no tuition on these issues for 4 months as prior to the start for the school year they were back with their families.

On the other hand, with little interaction between us or a clear vision as to what role the volunteers play here, it's difficult for them I think to see us as anything other than naive well do-wishers who really are out of touch. I reckon we have a fair idea as to why there is little motivation or opportunity for them to drive their department to vocationally train students.

Broken machines, lack of material, little positive affirmation of their work in difficult circumstances, solidified by years of neglect by the Social Welfare department and harsh judgements by the rest of society upon those with special needs and their potential role in the future of their communities, combine to create a recipe for educational disaster. Though despite all of this, most of the teachers do what they can to pass on their excellent skills in needlework, shoemaking, tailoring, and dressmaking.

The catering, hairdressing an rural craft sectors have need for much investment and assessment to determine how they can address the difficulties of their students and the obvious lack of material to use in order to train them in their trade.

With time I am confident that we can forge a path together. Tomorrow we will kick start literacy and numeracy classes. The Christmas card project is off to a flying start and we are already running out of cards, and banana leaves! The dry season is kicking in, sweat is rolling down my forehead like a waterfall and evening showers are a joy to behold.
Our Ghana flag project with the rural craft department. Green leaves used for the Ashanti region's garden city, Kumasi

The final product. Red for blood flowed, gold for their rich mineral resource, black star for Pan-Africanism

Welcome to our Edwenase Christmas Card Action - Appeal for support

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre Staff and Students

For more info about Edwenase please visit our new website: www.ercghana.blogspot.com

Even great potential and enthusiasm needs money to start off, so as Edwenase's 5 volunteers from Germany(Lena and Markus), Ireland (me, Damien), Italy (Mattia) and Poland (Dorota), we decided to make use of the art skills and amazing creativity of the students to generate funds for their different needs in the centre.

With Christmas approaching it seemed like handmade cards for friends and family at home would be worth exploring.

The teachers of the Centre came up with the idea of creating more "Ghanaian" cards bearing Adinkra symbols, typical for the Ashanti region which Kumasi is the capital of.

How the cards were made

We tried to make the cards as natural as possible by using banana leaves as the base creating the shape of the card. Inside a piece of paper is sewn in order to allow you to write a personal message for a friend or family member.

Trainees have different skills and so patterns were prepared to help them draw certain shapes. Sometimes they needed help with cutting them out, but the composition on the card or the choice of colours (i.e. red palm tree) is completely their own creation which we dared not to intervene with. Students also participated in collecting the banana leaves.

At the back of the card there is a sticker with: Made by the students of Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre for the disabled, Kumasi, Ghana - www.ercghana.blogspot.com - so the receivers of these cards will know who they were made by, why they are special, and how to receive more information about our work here.

There are therefore two types of cards :

with an Adinkra symbol cut from a Ghanaian cloth


with different shapes ( Christmas tree, angel, shooting star) cut from paper or banana leaves and coloured

How will your donations be spent?

All the money raised from the Christmas cards will be used for the benefit of students. Three main issues we hope to address with the donations are:


1. Wheelchair ramps

The centre has ramps for the the trainees who use wheelchairs, apart from the steps to their dormitories. These steps mean that to go in and out of their room they need to get off the wheelchair, bring it over to the other side and climb on it again. During the day there may be 10 to 15 such journeys. Concrete ramps would solve the issue.

2. Library
Evening time is usually boring for all, apart from the time when TV is on. There are few games or books to compete with the box and develop different skills of the students. This is what we aim to change by introducing a library, where trainees will be able to choose from language (Twi and English), art and song, literacy and numeracy books; games (e.g. table tennis, boardgames, music practice) to fill in free time, enjoy communally and practise important skills.


3. School kit

Numeracy, Literacy and English classes are to be introduced for all the trainees, but in order to practise and be able to fully benefit from them each of the students should have a school kit containing: notebook, pencil, pen, ruler, eraser, pencil sharpener.

After the end of the action we will include a detailed report including photos of how the donations were spent.

If you would like to get more information about the centre, order a card or make a donation please contact us at erc.kumasi@yahoo.com

How you can buy them

If you are interested in receiving cards then please email me at dbamoran@yahoo.com, send me an sms at 00233240020157 with your name, postal and email address, amount and type of cards you would like.

Cost

There is no set price for these cards. They were handmade by the students at Edwenase with the assistance of volunteers. A suggested donation would be €0.50-€2 per card depending on the size and whether you purchase those with traditional kente cloth in the shape of Adrinka symbols or those with coloured Christmas symbols.

For example, a mixture of 10 cards may average out at €10. If you can afford less or more that's also ok. It's important for me to stress here that these cards are special because they are handcrafted and each is unique. There is no chance you will receive a duplicate card as the shape, size and colour of each card is different.

Volunteering in Ghana and exploring Kejetia market

Outside the tailoring room. Boys dormitory and toilets in the background. Immanuel taking a beak.

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre - Staff and Students

I've been just over 2 weeks in Ghana now. Tonight I found a great internet cafe so hopefully I can update this blog a bit more. The below entries have been waiting patiently to be uploaded for a week. At last they can see the light of cyber-life. I hope they can give you some insight into daily life here from theperspective of an 'Obroni' (Twi word used to describe anybody with white skin).

Kejetia Market

The livelihoods of thousands of Ashanti region families rely upon daily business at Kejetia market in downtown Kumasi. From the fishermen who supply dozens of fresh choices to the traders, to the weavers who provide yards and yards of traditional, beautifully coloured kente cloth for people to use as curtains, dresses, trousers, shawls and shower towels, amongst many other purposes.

From a high vantage point, the sprawling mass of individual units and mobile sellers seems to be a chaotic mess. But everything has it's own 'way' here, and once one steps of their global northern horse for a moment, the particular districts specialising in certain commodities become more apparent. Entering from the tro tro (minibus) station side, one approaches the stationary area, advancing eastwards towards sweets, lanterns, cups, buckets, brooms, and general household materials. After a few hundred metres one may stumble upon a disused railway track (Ghana's railways are somewhat obsolete and unused nowadays) is home to general clothes, progressing from menswear trouser and shoe wear to women and children's casual western style clothing. It reminded me of images I have seen from a great distance of the Kibera slum district in Nairobi, Kenya – though trading actually occurs on a live railway there and traders have to be efficient in gathering their stock out of the way when trains appear.

Branching off to one of the labryinthine side streets after 200 metres of railway, with a quick sniff you will wander into the nut quarter, and soon afterwards into the massive fish section. Before coming to Ghana I rarely ate fish, but given the fact that I have no or little other source of protein apart from daily fish portions served at dinner, my past habits have gone to the wayside.

Even for carnivores I would imagine that the sight of cows' heads in the back seat of a car are enough to speed up your departure from the meat section. The more pleasant smell of peanut butter and colour of traditional cloth stalls attracted our eyes and we ended up having a useful Twi lesson from the owner. Dorota bought 2 yards of beautiful cloth for a trousers to be sewn in the tailoring workshop at Edwenase Centre. I got 2 yards of cloth to work dually as a cover in bed and a spare, quick to dry shower towel.

After about 3 hours we had pencils, pens, rulers, sketch pads, cups, traditional cloth, soap, a clothes brush and other assorted items in our bags as we headed back to the Centre for lunch.

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre

Well, my first full week at Edwenase should have been a week to remember but it was so full of activities that I can hardly believe it is already over.

Monday saw Markus from Germany, Mattia from Italy and I cover for the rural craft teacher. We had already done 3 days of his class the previous week, though given the lack of materials, and the students' multiple special needs the class is usually somewhat idle. So after playing Uno playing cards for numeracy and colour recognition, basketball and bowling for fun and accuracy, dominoes, paper plane construction and flying competitions, we decided to keep the inclusive and participatory nature of the class going.

With 'Mikado' game sticks we made the outline of a Ghanaian flag: red (representing the blood of their ancestors), green (for the beautiful fauna throughout large parts of the country) and gold with a black star representing one of their key resources (exploited by Anglo Ashanti Gold) and pan-Africanism, respectively.

Other stuff I have been involved with is our Christmas Card Action, teaching the director basic computer skills, teaching English to Rita, the Needlework teacher and Centre supervisor, co-planning literacy classes for the 70 students (due to commence soon), sports games and activities, general maintenance, manual and cleaning work around the Centre, helped organise the Centre's first group photo, amongst many other things.

I'll write more details in my next blog.

One thing is for certain, there is always something to do at Edwenase Rehabilitation Center in Kumasi.

I'll upload some more photos of our work as soon as possible.

Hope the photos included here satisfy any hunger for images and less text. I'm grateful to Dorota and Lena for allowing me to use them from their blogs.

Dorota's blog

Lena's blog

Blogging obstacles in Kumasi

Sometimes it's a dead slow connection. Other times, like today, the internet cafe will not accept my usb device as it exceeds the power limit. Therefore, the stuff I wrote offline will just have to wait before I can upload here.

Suffice to say that all is going well in Kumasi, Ghana. Time is flying by already and all of us at Edwenase are kept very busy. Once I get the usb working I will upload photos of our Christmas card project and other impressions of my 2nd week in Ghana.

So far, so good.