Courtney in Gushei, Ghana: 5 Days in Gbanga

I just spent a week in a farming village that has two mango farms. The name of the village is Gbanga (pronounced ban – ga). The reason I went to this village is b/c their mango yields have been low and we believed that they were not properly irrigating their fields. ITFC provides each farm with water tanks which the company fills regularly so that the farmers do not have to go and fetch water to irrigate the trees. I was supposed to monitor how the farmers use the water that is provided to them.

I spent most of my time in the compound with the other women. None of them spoke any English so it was extremely difficult to communicate with them. They could not pronounce my name so they gave me a Dagbani one… Yemaha.

I woke up with the sun around 5:30 but the women were already up pounding maize for the koko (porridge) and fetching water from the borehole. To pound the maize (or corn) they throw the kernels in this big wooden bowl and then use these big long sticks to pound it down. Sometimes there are four women pounding at once, they get a pretty good rhythm going so they don’t bump sticks. I tried it out for a bit but there is no way that I could do it for as long as they could.

Then to cook they have to fetch the firewood. I never got a picture but it is incredible how much they can carry on their heads; girls begin carrying things on their head from a young age so their necks and backs have developed so that they can carry such large loads like this. In Gbanga, they always had plenty of food but it is all starch and not very nutritious. The staple food in this village was TZ (pronounce Tee-Zed) which is just pounded maize and water that has the texture of play-dough. They serve soup on top of the TZ but it is not very substantial. They always cook the TZ in vary large pots and as it thickens they have to stir it continuously… you need some strong arms. They also use their hands to wipe the excess TZ from the rim of the pot. Their hands have somehow become fire resistant over the years, there is no way I could cook over the fires like they do.

Other things that take up their time are doing laundry, taking care of the children (no need to be private when breast-feeding here), cracking groundnuts shells (basically peanuts), processing shea nuts into soap, helping at the farm, transporting things to the market to sell, and I’m sure there is much more that I am leaving out.

Then men did not do nearly as much work as the women, but they do go to the farms. I went with a farmer in the morning and I was helping him weed for about 20 minutes when I realized I had a big blister on my hand that had popped so I had to stop… turns out I’m not much a farmer, next time Ill bring gloves.

Every evening some of the school boys and young men go to the soccer field to play before it gets dark so I finally got to play some soccer. It was so refreshing to find something that was familiar to me that I could participate in. Well things were a little different… not only was I the only girl but I was the only white person, there was only one other person who was wearing shoes, the field was mostly dirt and rocks, and the goals were made out of sticks. But the game was still pretty much the same. I was looking forward to playing soccer every day but on my second day the ball ripped so we could not play anymore. I will have other opportunities to play while I am here, but I just hope the village can manage to get a new ball.

In terms of what I was supposed to find out about the mango farms, I was a bit disappointed and frustrated. ITFC dropped off water for the farmers on a Wednesday and they were supposed to water the fields the following morning. One of the farmers was sort of the “boss” of the mango farms and he spoke English so I would go and talk to him in the morning to get an idea of what the people in the village were doing that day. He kept telling me that they would water the fields “tomorrow” b/c the ground was still wet from the last rain. I asked “How long does the ground stay wet after it rains?” And he responded “About 3 days”. So then I asked “How long has it been since it rained?” And he said “1 week”. So I asked him “So why do you not water the trees?” and he replied “well the ground, it is still wet”. It eventually rained again so I never saw the farmers water the trees.

This tells me that he knows that the trees need water but he just neglected to do it. I have some hypothesis for why this is:

Mango trees are unique from other crops the farmers are familiar with because they require care throughout the year; their usual crops are only farmed during the wet season. So when the wet season comes around, the farmers shift their focus from the mango trees to their other crops. They know that the mango trees will not die during the wet season b/c it rains about once a week, but I do not think they make the connection that watering the trees less in the wet season when reduce their yields in the harvest season.

All the farmers know is subsistence farming, and working on the farms enough so that they have enough food to get by during the dry season. Farming as a business is a new concept to these farmers and until they start to see the benefits from it, they lack the motivation to work hard for it.

I am still confused as why the farmers do not perform to the best of their abilities. The community I was in was hardworking, but there is also a lot of sitting around. I know that they could do a better job but they just do not seem motivated. But I have to try and put myself in their shoes. Many of these people have never even been outside of a village and this way of life is all they know. I am self-motivated because I have been exposed to so many different ways of life and have been given many opportunities. I think that maybe these farmers have never been exposed to anything that would give them the self-motivation that I want them to have.

One of the women in the compound making TZ

My Room in Gbanga, I slept on a plastic mat on top of concrete. You can see a drain in the corner which is where I would take my "bucket showers"

Pounding maize with the women to make Koko

Some of the children in the compound. The tallest girl with the orange shirt is Sakina, she was always so energetic and smiling. I noticed she would not go to school every day so that she could help with the daily chores.