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
4 comments:
Will continue to follow your blog with interest. Used to live in Nigeria.
'Avoid Electoral Violence'
Wow - that's quite a poster! And sponsored by the Brits, as well. Good advice I suppose :-)
Any chance you could upload a higher resolution version of that pic so we can read the details on it.
Damien, looks like you are doing great work there. We're watching you from Budapest :-)
jd+vera
http://LMV.hu/redjade
Hi Gutsywriter, thanks for visiting. I used to live with 3 Nigerians, all Igbo, in Dublin, Ireland. One was a Catholic theologian and priest, the otehr 2 student priests. I am reading Martin Merdith's State of Africa about the continent's post-colonial history and am interested in hearing where you lived, what difficulties you faced in such a diverse place as Nigeria. Being from a country colonised by the Brits, it is interesting living in Ghana to observe the legacy they left behind.
How did you find the religious practices and differences within Nigeria? In Ghana religious worship is, as one may expect, all pervasive. Thankfully Ghana has experienced relative political and tribal peace for a number of decades now, but with the Dec. 7th elections being a hotly contested election trouble has not been ruled out though it seems unlikely. Any reflections on your time in Nigeria would be interesting to ehar about. All the best,
Damo
Hi JD&Vera,
Good to hear from you guys. I don't know whether I will have time but may try do some vox pops in the lead up to the election although it will take some effort to avouid it being uniform. The district of Kwadaso that I am based in is a big (current gvt.) New Patriotic Party supporter. They hate the National Democratic Congress which held power for almost 20 years through Jerry Rawelings (fiormer coup leader) and his successor Prof. Mills. They are offically centre-left, while the current regime of the NPP is officially centre-right.
I will try write a summative blog on the players and politics soon.
So keep an eye out on Dec. 7th for coverage of the Ghanaian elections and let's hope things don't explode like previous decades.
Love from us both,
Damo and Dorota
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