What does "Engineering" have to do with it?

A constant question that comes up within EWB is “How can we make the best use of our skills and assets as Engineers in development work”. When EWB started, the idea was to design and implement technical projects overseas that would benefit those living in under-developed communities. In the early days of EWB, volunteers were sent overseas with very little direction and expectations of implementing a new technology in very little time. Through experimentation, we realized that it is not as easy to do this as we thought. We crossed the line when one group of volunteers actually snuck into a community to take water samples. I can not give a concrete answer on what engineers can bring to development work but I can share the “engineering” I saw in my experience.

As a Civil Engineering student in Canada, I have been learning how to design infrastructure based on Canadian building codes and standards. If you are designing a structure, you use the building code which has information on the strength properties and dimensions of standardized building materials. Then you place an order, the materials are inspected, and heavy equipment is used for the construction. On a construction site, all workers must wear steel toe boots and a hard hat and there is always someone in charge of quality control – making sure everything is carried out under the proper standards. To design the foundation, you use specialized equipment to take soil samples which are then sent into a lab to be thoroughly analyzed. I am leaving out many details, but I am just giving some context so that I can make a comparison.

At ITFC, I was fortunate enough to witness the construction of a few small dams that are being used for irrigation. Engineering in Ghana is a whole different story. There are no building codes, no labs to test soil samples, and no standardized building materials. I once went with one of my managers to pick up some steel re-bar. You basically point to a pile and say “that one”. When I looked at the steel I saw that it was covered in rust, which decreases its strength. In Ghana, you have to take what you can get. The aggregates for concrete are not the proper size or shape because the workers have to crush up the stones by hand. Never mind steel-toed boots and hardhats, construction workers here don’t even wear shoes. Another big issue is quality control. I once walked onto a site with the general manager at ITFC where they had just finished pouring the concrete for a dam, and we saw that there was almost no cement in the mixture. Most likely, the workers stole it so that they could sell it or use it for their homes. There is almost no construction equipment available. If you need to excavate, you hire a bunch of farmers and tell them to bring their hoes. These are just a few of the barriers I saw from the short amount of time I had in Ghana.





When attempting to implement a technology in a developing country, you can not simply take something that works well in Canada and apply it overseas. In my opinion, you need to invest time in a community to gain a better understanding of how things work and what might actually be useful to the people. I believe that the community should be heavily involved in the idea and implementation of the project in order for it to be successful. At EWB, we believe that we should focus on building the capacity (buzz word – sorry) of the communities and partner organizations we work with so that they have the skills and resources to implement their own projects. Many of our volunteers overseas are not engineers, and many of our projects have almost nothing to do with engineering. One thing that I can be sure of is that we are reaching out to the engineering community in Canada. I serve as an example; I probably would not have participated in this program had I not been attracted to the name “Engineers Without Borders”

The implementation of technology in developing countries has always been interesting to me and I would like to explore the idea further. While I was working with ITFC I kept my eyes open for any opportunities to become involved with the technical aspects of their work. As I mentioned earlier, the company has been building small dams (or weirs really). The wet season is only about half-way over and already some of the dams have failed due to seepage and erosion. Because I am in my final year of studies, I have to complete a technical paper where I can choose the topic. I have spoken with some of the McGill faculty as well as the general manager at ITFC and decided that I will write my paper on small-scale irrigation for farming and perform a case study on the company. ITFC will be constructing more dams in the future, so I can give them advice on how to build new dams as well as determine ways they can improve the existing ones.

And that’s not all… I have another idea which is a bit more far-fetched. I have spent some time with the General Manager, discussing a potential project where a hydro-electric dam would be constructed on the White Volta. There is a small waterfall along the river where the head should be high enough to power a turbine and generate electricity. The dam would impede the flow of water but not stop it completely. The idea is that the dam will force some of the water back upstream and into a canal. This canal would run eastward, up through the Janga area, and then back down through the Gushie area. This hydro-electric dam would provide electricity to communities in the northern region, and would create a clean water source that can be used for irrigation by both ITFC and subsistence farmers.



I am going to meet with members of the Civil Engineering faculty and see if it would be feasible for this hydro-electric dam be my final semester design project. In order to complete a degree at McGill, students are required to work in groups of three of four alongside professors and professional engineers and perform an actual design. In the past, many design projects have been derived from actual civil engineering jobs. If the faculty were to agree with this idea, I would be able to directly contribute my engineering skills to the development field, and I would be showing the Canadian engineering community how we can play a bigger part in development.

Debrief

After finishing up our work, the volunteers in Ghana all met up in Tamale for an in-country debrief with the long-term volunteers. Then we headed down to Accra where I managed to spend a day at the beach with some friends before flying back to Toronto. After finally making it to Toronto we spent 3 days at the National office discussing the work we accomplished overseas, bringing our experiences back to Canada, and spending some quality time with each other before being released and re-adjusting back into our old lives.

I am glad we had time together to reflect on our experiences this summer. I have learned a tremendous amount, but I still have many questions on development work and can not give any concrete answers. When I tell people about my trip, I think I will describe it more as an internship than a volunteer placement. I feel very fortunate to have had this opportunity to live and work in a new environment. I have definitely taken more out of this than I have given. When I tell people about Ghana, I don’t want them to visualize people who are completely helpless and need someone to come in and rescue them. I want to open people’s minds up to a different way of life.

When you look at all the statistics and numbers, Ghana is much worse off than Canada and the U.S. But when you look at the poverty and challenges that each of us are facing on the ground, it is not so black and white. I don’t think I would ever go to a poor neighborhood in the US or a native reserve in Canada to do “development work”; it is not safe and the communities probably wouldn’t be too welcoming. I am having a difficult time defining poverty, and I don’t think I will ever be able to. I am not prepared to “explain” development work or poverty to anyone. My goal in communicating my experience back home is to get people to think about these issues and come up with their own ideas and questions and strive to explore them further.

I have grown very close with the other volunteers in Ghana. We all came to the realization that we are going through this together early on and created a strong support network for each other. As I listened to everyone stories and experiences from their placements, I felt extremely lucky that I am a part of this group.


Group photo of all the Ghana volunteers - midway through our placements when we met up we bought enough fabric so that we could each get a shirt made.


We had a layover in Amsterdam before getting back to Toronto. A few of us went to a pub (around 8 AM Amsterdam time)- best beer ever


At the beach in Accra with Andrea and Meghan

Wrapping up with Friends and Family

I did not have any expectations of my friends and family upon my farewell, but I was pleasantly surprised by the generosity and kindness I was shown. A few of my friends who are field assistants at ITFC organized a farewell soccer match for me!



As you can see, we had matching jerseys, and they even gave me #8 because it’s Michael Essien’s number. The match was between the ITFC staff and the local team in Diare. Unfortunately, we lost 3 – 2 but it was a pretty incredible farewell. It seemed like the entire town was out watching and cheering. Whenever Diare scored all the kids would come running out onto the field celebrating. It started to rain half-way through but we kept playing anyway. At the end of the match, each of the field assistants chipped in 1 Ghana Cedis (about $1) to pay for minerals (soda). This may not seem like a lot of money, but the field assistants only make about 70 Ghana Cedis a month so I was pretty flattered.

In my final week of work, some of my co-workers at the office arranged for everyone to have drinks outside of the pack-house as a farewell. My counterpart said a few nice words and I had the chance to thank everyone for being so helpful and patient towards me. One of my co-workers who is a field assistant gave me 2 traditional African smocks; one is for me and one is for my boyfriend. I’m thinking they will make some pretty sweet Halloween costumes. This person has helped me a tremendous amount this summer: he helped me gather photos for the user manuals I developed, he translated at the farmer meeting I held, and he helped me adjust to Ghanaian culture in many ways. I wanted to thank him so I took him to a restaurant when we were in Tamale. I asked him where he wanted to go and he said he did not know because he had never been to a restaurant before. I’m a little worried that he spent an entire pay-check on the smocks he gave me.

One of my host mother’s sons (Zidane) lives in Tamale and studied art when he was in school. He came up one weekend to help out on the family's farms and I told him I wanted to buy a few paintings from him before I leave Ghana. On my last night in Diare, his older brother showed up at the house with 2 beautiful paintings that he prepared just for me, and he would not let me pay for them. I was in Tamale for a few days before I left so I called Zidane and bought him lunch to thank him for the paintings. It was a great opportunity for me to get to know him better and he shared some of his goals for the future with me. Zidane is currently working as a gas station attendant, saving up the little money he can. He explained to me that “my mother is my world”. She has worked hard her whole life and supported her children so that they could receive an education and have more opportunities than she ever had. Zidane wants to move back to Diare when he has saved enough money and make farming easier for his family by buying a tractor and investing in more advanced farming technology. I am very grateful for people like Zidane who are self-motivated and willing to try something new.

When I was leaving my house for the last time, I presented everyone in my family with gifts and said my farewells. Amina gave me some cloth to wear when I take a bath and a head wrap with the specific instructions of giving it to my mother. Up until this point I never really felt sad about leaving Ghana. I felt like I had been working towards “the end” the entire time. But when I was saying goodbye to these people that have been nothing but kind and generous towards me, a complete stranger, I began to realize that I will miss many things about the culture and people in Ghana. Although I am a little sad it is all over, I have so many things to look forward to when I go home and I am grateful to be leaving on a good note.


I took a day off of work my final week so that I could spend some time with my family in Diare and go to the farm one last time. This is Amina, we had just taken a break to eat some TZ and Ayuyo soup. I hope I never forget her smile, it is still a vivid picture in my head


These are the three teenage girls that live at my house. The one in the middle is the only one who is actually Amina's daughter. The girl on the right was an orphan and the other girl was given to Amina to help with the farming and household duties (Im still a little unclear on this)


I saw this man every day on my bike ride to and from work. You can't tell from this photo, but he had the biggest smile. He would greet me as we passed by each other and it would always put me in a better mood. Once day I passed by him and he had stopped to help someone whose bag of maize had spilled all over the road. I decided to stop and help them gather the kernals and took the opportunity to take his photograph. I eventually realized that I had met him on my first day of work; he is a watchman at the ITFC guesthouse. He was the first Ghanaian to propose to me but did so with a huge innocent grin on his face.

Wrapping up at Work

There was so much I wanted to do in my last few weeks at work, and the time seemed to fly by. In an earlier post, I discussed how I wanted to hold a farmers’ meeting on drip irrigation, and I managed to pull it off before leaving ITFC. Just to refresh your memory, there were 2 reasons I organized this meeting:

1) To encourage more ownership and responsibility from the farmers in maintaining the equipment.
2) To build the capacity of the farmers by helping them to better understand the idea of farming as a business.

To accomplish these goals, I briefly discussed how the irrigation equipment works and then took the farmers out into the field to show them the equipment. I told them that there are 4 activities they should be doing to maintain the equipment and physically showed them what each of them were.

I then performed an activity with the farmers to help them understand how drip irrigation will save them money in the long term. I split the farmers up into 3 groups: One group watered their trees with the use of plastic water tanks that had to be transported to the mango field by trucks (the traditional irrigation system), one group had the drip irrigation system installed but never showed up to the farm to maintain the equipment, and one group had the drip irrigation system installed and always showed up to the farm to monitor the equipment. I gave each farmer group 10 rocks which symbolized money. I told the farmers that their mango trees were 15 years old and created a story about how each farmer group maintained their equipment. I would collect rocks intermittently throughout the story which symbolized the amount of money they had to pay towards their loan account. All of this was based off of actual numbers I received from the accounts office. At the end of the 15 years, the farming group with the traditional irrigation system did not have any rocks left and the farmer group with drip irrigation who took care of their equipment had the most rocks left. From this activity I was hoping that the farmers would understand how the drip irrigation system is an advanced farming technology that will save them money and increase their yields. In addition, I wanted to enforce that they must take care of the equipment in order for it to be successful.

At the end of the meeting, I asked the farmers to repeat the 4 activities they should be doing to maintain the equipment and they successfully named all 4. Throughout the meeting I really felt that they understood what I was discussing and were genuinely interested. Of course I had a few difficulties, but overall I was pleased with the way it turned out. One of the outgrower managers was present at the meeting along with a Peace Corps volunteer. They gave me positive feedback and expressed that the meeting was useful and is something they might like to perform with all the farmer groups in the future.

I feel that my work with the irrigation system has now been completed. I will keep in touch with my co-workers and I am looking forward to seeing how everything turns out (and a bit worried). In my final week of work, I focused on writing reports for both ITFC and EWB. If you would like me to send you a copy of my report, please let me know (camiller86@hotmail.com). I decided to give a presentation on my work to anyone at the company who was interested. I wanted to make sure that my co-workers knew what I was doing these past 3 months as well as pass on my ideas for the future. I posted a notice at the office, inviting anyone who was interested to attend and said the meeting would start at 7:30 AM. By the time 8:00 rolled around only 3 people showed up, but I began my presentation anyway. By the time I had finished there were about 10 people and we had some pretty good discussions going. Normally, I would be very hurt if people showed up late or not at all to one of my presentations, but I have learned to be a little more light-hearted and go with the flow of things here. I feel as if I have adjusted to the pace of Ghanaian life, but I’m worried about re-adjusting to the pace to life back home and having to balance school, EWB, and then of course the things I like to do in my "free time".



This is a pic of the office from the main road

These past few weeks I have been starting to feel more comfortable here and have been allowing myself to have a bit more fun and enjoy myself. It would have been nice if I felt this way throughout this whole experience, but I am content that I have at least reached this point and am continuing to learn and understand more and more as time goes by. I am not sure what has caused this shift, (probably a combination of many things) and I think that it has been pretty gradual. I have noticed that I am becoming less frustrated by the things that typically bother me and have been embracing more of the great things about life here in Ghana.

I’ll try to explain with an example of something that happened this past week: I decided to make certificates for all of the field assistants that I trained – I thought it would be a nice little gift. I did not have time to do it at work so I went to an internet café over the weekend in Tamale and printed them off with my own money. After my first training, I handed out the certificates to each Field Assistant; I had hand-written everyone’s name. I received a few “thank you’s” but mostly “Why are our certificates not laminated or in color?” or “Why didn’t you take our photographs and put them in the certificates and type out our names?” Of course these comments bothered me a little, but I am more able to laugh it off because I know that this is just how Ghanaians are and I should not take it personally.

I also feel like I have more going on in my life here; things have started to pick up at work and I have developed more (and stronger) relationships with people. One of the wives in the compound I lived in while I stayed in Bagarugu (my 2nd village stay) gave birth to a baby boy and I was invited to the baby naming ceremony. Just a little background info: Traditionally, the newborn child is kept in one room and does not receive a name until one full week has passed. After a week, the family is confident that the child will survive and is here to stay so they will bring it out for everyone to see and give it a name. Usually for the ceremony – at least for the Dagomba’s here in the northern region – the family will prepare HUGE bowls of TZ and soup in the morning so they can feed anyone who stops by and the new mother and her friends all have outfits made from the same cloth for the occasion. In the evening they use a generator to power a stereo and dance through the night. Those who are good dancers get candy (or a soda if they are really good). I missed most of the festivities because of work but I was able to stop by and greet everyone. Everyone was so excited to see me when I arrived. I brought a large bar of key soap for the new mother which I have learned is a proper gift, and then a small amount of money for the husband. They fed me a ton of food and then I was able to meet Haruna, the newborn. I snapped some photos of the boy and his mother and promised to get them printed before I leave.

I feel like I have been getting to know some of the people in Diare a little better. I still hear “Salaminga” (white person) as I ride my bike through town but people refer to me by my Dagbani name, “Pagnaa”, more and more. I have made friends with some of the field assistants here and one of them said he will organize a farewell soccer match for me before I leave, I’ll let you know if it actually happens. My time here is running out and I am beginning to think about how I will wrap everything up and make sure I say farewell to all the friends I have made. Here are some pics Ive taken recently...




Haruna and his mother



This is me and Haruna at the baby naming ceremony



I made french toast one morning for the whole fam! They have eggs, bread, and canned milk here and I brought maple syrup with me from Canada to share. They all loved it. If I get around to it I might make it again and try selling it at the market... just as a little experiment



This was at an NPP rally in Diare for the presidential election coming up. The next day just about everyone I ran into said "I saw you dancing yesterday". The election is not until december. I am glad that I will not be around for it, but every Ghanaian I have talked to is confident that it will run smoothly and without any violence



Here is Amina and I, and her brother who also lives at the compound



This is my friend/host sister Kande

Update on my work with ITFC

Things have really been moving along lately and I have almost completed my work with the drip irrigation system. This past week I held 5 trainings. I facilitated a training with all of the outgrower managers, and then a training with all of the field assistants in each of the four zones. This all adds up to about 60 people. Each of the managers and field assistants received a manual on drip irrigation (in color and laminated) that I have been working on throughout the summer and a certificate upon completing the training. I have also compiled a manual on how to operate and maintain the pumps and generators in our pump-houses and will be holding a training with all of the pump-house attendants next week. I have come up with a reporting system and sat down with the managers to discuss some of the challenges and threats that are likely to come up and what we can do to avoid them. I am feeling pretty good about how everything has been going so far. I have received positive feedback from many of my co-workers and feel that I have been gaining their respect. There is so much going on with the ITFC; they are in the process of expanding the outgrower scheme and trying to get the new drying facility up and running. The company would not have had the time to compile all the information that I’ve gathered and produce documents for reference. I feel like I have made a positive contribution and am hopeful that my work will have an impact on the farmers.

Of course, not everything is running perfectly here. There are many difficult, complex challenges with the work we are trying to do. One of the overarching challenges that I see is that the farmers themselves are lacking ownership and responsibility in this project. There are probably many causes for why this is, and they all overlap, but I have come up with some hypothesis that I would like to test out before I leave.

Most of the projects that are carried out in this region are run by NGO’s (non-governmental organizations). Often with NGO’s, the stakeholders are constantly changing and the projects have a short life-span because there are so many funders involved and they all want things to be done their way. Many development projects in this region have eventually collapsed and the people are left with half-finished equipment and facilities that are never used. I don’t want to generalize NGO’s or give them a bad name, I am just trying to share one of the challenges I see to illustrate my point.

With ITFC there is someone who has invested millions of dollars in the project and he will not see a profit for at least another 10 years. He wants to make money in the end, but he wants Ghanaians to make money with him. In order for this project to become economically viable, there are certain targets that we have to reach and we are in it for the long-haul. I think that ITFC addresses some of the challenges I see with NGOs; the stakeholders in this company have a long-term investment and demands and expectations are not coming from too many outside investors. I think that this set-up also brings additional challenges. Because the company must meet certain targets and demands to make this project viable, they must find a way to meet them even if it is not the best way for the farmers.

Here is an example: When the field assistants are to prune the mango trees, they are supposed to be working side by side with the farmers who own that acre of trees and teaching the farmers how to do it themselves. Often the farmers never show up to the field and the field assistants prune the trees for them. It would be best (in my opinion) if the field assistants refused to prune the trees if the farmer does not show up. But in reality, the trees have to be pruned because we are trying to reach a certain yield at the end of the season. If we never reach the desired yields, then this project will never be profitable.

I have noticed that the farmers do not really have an understanding of the business aspect behind this entire project. We have an accounts office that keeps records and handles all of the farmers’ finances, and the managers are responsible for making the big business decisions. From what I have read about development work, the most successful projects are those where the idea originates from the community and the people carry everything out themselves. But sometimes, I think the obstacles are too large and the people need a little help to get started. ITFC provides the farmers with an interest free loan account, organic certification, access to the international market, and technical service. It would be almost impossible for a farming group to accomplish all this on their own. The downside to ITFC providing all this for them is that the farmers don’t have to figure it out on their own; they can rely on the company.

As I said earlier, I want to test this hypothesis and give the company an idea of how they can begin to address this challenge. I want to hold a meeting with one of the farmer groups and explain to them in terms they understand (hopefully) the financial benefits of using drip irrigation. I hope that the farmers will benefit from understanding the business aspect behind the company’s decision to switch to drip irrigation, and that they will be more excited about this new technology and want to take more responsibility in maintaining it. Luckily, this idea fits in with my original work-stream and keeps the focus on drip irrigation.

The meeting will be held Friday, August 8th right after the farmers go for prayers. Some of the managers will be present so I can test out how receptive they are to this idea and if it is something they would like to pursue further. Ill let you know how it goes in my next post. Wish me luck!

So this all makes sense in my head, but please let me know if it is unclear or if you have any questions. Other than finishing up the trainings and holding this farmer’s meeting, I am pretty much wrapping up my work here. I only have 2 weeks left! I will write a final report to both EWB and ITFC on what I have done these past 3 and half months. I also want to do a good job wrapping up my personal relations with everyone here at the office, and of course with those in my host community. If you are still with me, thanks for reading! Here are some pics from the trainings I held this past week.

I took this at the end of one of my trainings; I think it'll be a nice pic for the EWB office at McGill - those are mango trees in the background

This is me demonstrating how to clean out the filter on the control valve

For the beginning of the training I gave an overview of the irrigation system and discussed the content of the user manuals I developed

The Home Life

I have been living in Diare for about 3 weeks now and I am definitely happy with my decision to move out of Gushei and live with a family.

Recently, I found a group of people to play soccer with. I bought a ball in Tamale and brought it out to the field one day. I thought it might be difficult to get a game going, but once some of the kids saw that I had a ball they all came running towards me. At first I was overwhelmed but once one of the older boys split the kids up into teams and we started playing, I started to feel more comfortable and was able to just enjoy it. Later on some older boys showed up, so the quality of soccer was much better (it can be frustrating when the kids all run after the ball at once). I left my ball with one of them when I went home for supper and told them I would meet them again tomorrow. Now there is a group of boys who are out on the field every day and I can just show up and join in. It is a nice thing to look forward to at the end of the day.

I found out that Amina, my host mother, not only cares for chickens and has 1 acre of mango farm, but also 4 acres of cotton, 5 acres of maize, 1 acre of groundnuts (inside the mango farm), and 1 acre of “henna”. I don’t think it is actually called henna, but there is a plant that grows here that can be turned into a dye. The women use it to dye the bottom of their feet a deep reddish-black color. Maybe I will try it out sometime. It would look pretty ridiculous on my white skin, but apparently it shows that you are married so it might help with fighting off the marriage proposals.

Amina does not do all the farming herself. She usually hires others to do the weeding, which is extremely difficult when all you have is a cutlass, and the entire family helps out on the weekends when the kids are not in school. But she works hard! Just to get to the farms it is at least a 30 minute bike ride, depending on how flooded the road is. Amina goes almost every day, is probably on her feet under the sun the entire time, and returns to the house limping because she has been having knee problems. Then it is time to make the TZ and soup for dinner.

I have been going to the farm with everyone on the weekends when I am not at work. It feels pretty good going with the family out to the farm, carrying one of the kids on the back of my bicycle. I feel like I am living a more “normal” life here; I guess I feel more Ghanaian and less like a tourist. The first time I went to the farm it began to rain around 2 in the afternoon. Rains here are different than back at home. The clouds begin to shift, the sky turns dark extremely fast, you feel a strong gust of wind, and then it just pours. It is not the kind of rain where you can just sit outside and enjoy the drizzle; you have to take cover and wait it out. When we saw that it was about to rain, we gathered our things as quickly as possible and sped off on our bikes. We were not fast enough and the rain started to come down on us. We ran into a round mud-hut with a thatched roof that was built for the purpose of sheltering the farmers during the rains. Take a bunch of sweaty farmers, soaking wet from the rain, put them all in a small hut, and you get a pretty smelly, but pretty entertaining little party. Everyone just started laughing when I walked in; startled that a “Salamingpa” was out farming and got stuck in the rain. Some people were eating rice or yam chips, they passed their bowls around because you must always invite people to your food. I understood almost nothing of what was being said and had a sore bum from sitting on a jagged log, but I really enjoyed the time I spent in the mud hut during the rain. I think that it will always be a memorable experience for me.

Once the rain lifted, we biked back to the house. The road was now completely flooded so it was a long, tiring ride (Amina must have been dead tired). I have been enjoying farming on the weekends. Most of my summer jobs in the past have involved physical labor of some sort and I have always found it satisfying to have a hard day of work and go home tired. But I have always known that this sort of lifestyle is only temporary for me. I will have many options when I graduate and will be able to choose the type of work I want to do. Most people here do not have that luxury. I think 70% of Ghanaians in the northern region are subsistence farmers… that is pretty incredible to me. I will never completely understand Ghanaians or see things from their perspective because I have lived such a different life. I can’t imagine thinking that my life would always be the same as my mother’s, and her mother’s, and so on. Every day there is work to do just to make sure that you can support yourself with the basic necessities. And when there is a drought or flooding and your crops are destroyed, it just makes things that much harder. The hope is that things will change and people will have more opportunities. But if I was Ghanaian I might feel trapped in the cycle and it would be difficult to believe in change if you can not see it.

I don’t want to sound too pessimistic, but I try to put myself in people’s shoes when I am frustrated or don’t understand why things are the way they are here. I think it is important for me to remember that I will never fully see things from a Ghanaian perspective; not in 4 months, not even in 10 years. I think there has been positive change; it just seems slower and more gradual to me. Within my household, there are 3 boys who live in Tamale so that they can attend a good school. The oldest daughter can read and write English pretty well and works at the guinea worm containment center. She wants to go back to school so that she can learn how to use a computer (I have spent some time with her teaching her to type and use Microsoft Word). There are 3 teenage girls in the house, 2 of them are still in school and have been learning English. The other 2 children are too young for school but I am hopeful that they will get some sort of education. From what I can tell, Amina never went to school; so there have been some improvements in just one generation. I hope that these children will be able choose whether or not they want the same life as their parents.

Sorry for the lack of photos, the internet is VERY slow today, hope you are all well

A Weekend "Off"

Half-way through our placements, all the volunteers in Ghana get together. We went to Damongo for 3 days, which is west of Tamale and close to Mole National Park. We spent Sunday at the park where we went on a walking tour and saw some elephants, a water buck, warthog, crocodile, and some birds. Then we had a few days to talk about what we’ve been up to so far and where we are headed over the next couple of months.

As I was hoping, this trip was very re-energizing. It felt so nice to not have to be “on” all the time. We have all been having different experiences and have different stories to tell, but when it comes down to it we are all going through more or less the same things. Almost every one of us had an embarrassing story about fetching water, a funny story about getting around with the transportation here, a story about someone who has inspired us, or a story where we were incredibly frustrated and angry. Oh, and we have all become very comfortable talking about our bowel movements, but that’s all I’ll share about that.

We each gave a short presentation on what we have been doing at work and had time set aside to give feedback and ideas to one other. Most of the long-term volunteers were there so it was really nice to get advice from them and see how our work is contributing to the overall goal of EWB.

Not only am I working with a new partner, but this is the first time we have worked in the private sector (at least in Ghana). So there are pros and cons to my placement, just like any other. The difficult aspect (for me) is the lack of information and structure I was given going into this. We did not know anything about this company, exactly what kind of work I would be doing with them, or whether we will work with them again in the future. This makes it more difficult to do something that we can follow up on and will have a lasting impact. On the other hand, all I have to do is learn as much as I can about how things work around here and I will be helping EWB determine where and how we should focus our work in the years to come.

It was great hearing about what the other volunteers have been doing and getting excited about their work. I think we have all been doubting ourselves a bit too much and constantly asking ourselves “Why am I here?” I read something by the author Eric Dudley, who wrote The Critical Villager and he explains: “The greatest leaders, whether in politics, the military, business, or science, are those who manage the paradox of confident action tempered by profound doubt.” This really sums up how I feel sometimes. There is always this tension that I feel between getting things done while I am here, and questioning the things I am doing and trying to make them flexible and sustainable. I have found that it helps to remind myself that, in the end, we just have to keep going and do the best we can with the situation we have in front of us.

Me with the elephants at Mole Park

This is Steph, another volunteer in Ghana working with a women's group in Tuna, we found a giant beetle that we thought was dead. We realized it was still alive after she pretended to eat it

Diare

I have finally moved out of my compound in Gushei and into a Diare, which is about 5 km North. While I have been enjoying the people I have lived with in my compound, they all work for ITFC and I was having a difficult time finding separation from my work. In addition I wanted the experience of living with a Ghanaian family. So I am now half-way through my placement here in Ghana and still have 2 months to get to know Diare and gain another perspective of Ghanaian life.

I am still a little unclear as of the relation of the people in my compound and how they came to live here, but I try my best to explain. There is a woman named Amina who I would say is the head of the household; her husband passed away a while back. I think she has many children, but most have moved out. Her eldest daughter, Kande, works and lives at the Guinnea worm containment center down the road but she is often at the house. Kande is 23 and speaks English so it has been nice for me to be able to get to know a Ghanaian girl around my age. Kande has a 6-year-old that lives with her aunt in Tamale and she sends enough money for school fees each month. She is the first Ghanaian woman I have met who is not married and has a child so I get the feeling that the people in this house are a bit more liberal than most. There are a few men who live here that drive tractors; they leave when the sun goes up and do not return until the sun goes down. There two younger girls and this cute little boy who everyone calls “my senior” even though is his by far the youngest in the family… he is pretty hilarious to say the least.

I ride my bike to and from work so I no longer have time to go running in the mornings before work, but I have managed to go jogging a few times in the afternoons if the sun has not taken too much out of me already. Jogging is my secret to keeping healthy here; that or I have just been incredibly lucky.

I no longer have running water (still no electricity but the village itself has it), but there is a well right outside the house. There is a bucket with a rope tied to it that you use to draw the water. The other day I managed to embarrass myself by accidentally dropping the rope into the well. Luckily, we recovered it pretty fast, and I guess everyone got a good laugh out of it.

Just wanted to give you a brief update on my living situation… I hope to have more stories soon


Loading up a Tro-tro - You know how parents like to joke around with their kids that they will throw them up on the roof of the car if they do not stop mis-behaving? Well here it is no joke, it is not even punishment, people just hang onto the top of the van, sometimes with goats

The sunset one night outside of my compound in Gushei

A woman - with a baby on her back! - getting water in Janga, a village I was in for work

Hanah (compound in Gushei) allowing me to stir the Banku one day - as you can see she is using her hand to scrape the end of the pot. Ive decide that Ghanaian's hands are fireproof

Abdul (Hanah's son) decided to put on his dad's work boots one day

Update on my Work with ITFC

During my stay in Bagarugu, I was able to spend a lot of my time on the mango farms since the field assistants were there working every day. I helped some farmers intercrop with groundnuts (which fixes nitrogen in the soil), learned how to prune, and counted the number of dead trees on the new farm. Unfortunately, the rains were frequent enough that the farmers did not have to water their trees so I could not observe how effectively they water the trees. I did ask the field assistants many questions about irrigation. Once again, many of the trees did not receive water in between the rains. When I asked why this was, I was first told that the pump ran out of diesel. I dug a little bit further by asking more questions, and was told that “they don’t think that watering the trees during the wet season makes a big difference.”

Again, I am perplexed. It seems to me that the major problem is a lack of commitment from the farmers and staff. I am constantly thinking about my work-stream and how I can have the most impact on the mango farmers, but it has been extremely challenging.

Here is a re-cap on what I have been doing with my time here at the office:

I have been making step by step user manuals with many photos and diagrams for the different aspects of the irrigation system. The irrigation system varies depending on the farm. Some farms have a drip irrigation system installed, some have pumps that transfer water into large plastic tanks that are in the mango fields, and some farms receive water by trucks. In the long run, the drip irrigation system is superior both financially and in terms of labor and resources. So ITFC is in the process of expanding the drip system to as many farms as possible. I have been working on a user manual for the operation and maintenance of the generators and pumps that transport water to the mango fields, and manuals for the in-field irrigation (drip and filling of tanks). Before I leave, I will facilitate an irrigation training session with all of the zonal managers and Field Assistants (4 separate trainings – one for each zone). I am also trying to come up with a monitoring and evaluation system and would like to prepare a report on the potential threats to the system. I am hoping that my work will assist ITFC in the expansion of their irrigation program and that it will run smoothly. Hopefully less time is spent on the logistics of getting water to the trees and more time is spent on improving the project for the farmers.

Compared to the pace of things back home, it has been a slow process. I have to acquire the information I need through informal conversations with the staff; there are no written resources available. I meet with the out-grower manager as often as possible to discuss my progress and how to make improvements, but he is always very busy and it is hard to sit down and have a conversation with him. I am having a difficult time coming up with a monitoring and evaluation system because what the irrigation scheme will look like in the future is very vague. ITFC still needs to hire more staff, and the type of irrigation system that will be implemented in each farm is uncertain.

From living with the farmers, I have come to the realization that the major obstacle is not getting the water to the mango fields, but rather ensuring that the farmers participate and adopt the instructions given to them. I would like to somehow incorporate this challenge into my work, but I can not do this only by compiling user manuals so I have been trying to pursue other work-streams in addition to the work ITFC expects from me.

There are many links in the chain that connects the managers at ITFC to the farmers and it seems that the communication between the two needs improvement. I feel that there is frustration at all levels b/c for one reason or another the important messages are not getting through. I have attended a few work plan meetings, which is where the zonal managers meet with all of their field assistants to plan for the week ahead. I see a lot of potential in these meetings, but I have found that currently they are not very effective. The managers have a list of things to go over and the information is transferred in a “this has to happen, figure it out” sort of way to the field assistants. I want to create a more participatory discussion where field assistants are sharing their challenges and successes. I think that some great ideas could come from these discussions, and the managers will have a better understanding of the challenges in the field.

I have expressed my idea to one of the managers and he has agreed to let me facilitate one of his meetings next week. If all goes well, I will try to spend time with all of the zonal managers and facilitate at least one work plan meeting with each of them before I leave. I am not sure if the managers will adopt this new method of holding meetings (coaching versus instructing), but at least I have shown them another option.

With the work I am doing, I need to re-evaluate the way I measure my own success. At school, I know that if I attend classes, hand in my assignments, and study, I will make good grades and making good grades makes you a good student. Things are a bit more complicated here. It is hard to find those small successes that are indicators that you are doing a good job and heading in the right direction. Sometimes I feel guilty because I am not producing enough tangible outputs. I spend a lot of my time trying to learn more about how things work here and reflecting on what I have done so far. This has been a difficult adjustment, but I am starting to realize the value in it. It will be difficult for me to adjust back to “school mode” when I get home, but this experience has really pushed me to view things from a higher level. I have to think about the long term effects and sustainability of my efforts; otherwise, there is no purpose in me being here.

So I hope that you now have a better idea of what I have been doing, I would love to hear your feedback and any questions you have. I am still keeping my eyes open for other ways that I can get involved here at ITFC. This week marks the half-way point, so I only have 7 more full weeks of work. On the other hand, I still have 7 full weeks of work so a lot can happen! Time is a funny thing

Life in Bagarugu

Kneading the Shea Butter

The chairman and some of his children; we were removing the kernals from the corn husks

Breaking the shells off the Shea nuts

Women carrying sand to mix with cement for a new room

The one on the right is Adams, he is a field assistant in Bagarugu and has been a good friend

I did another week-long village stay so that I could dig a little bit deeper into the questions I have about the mango farmers and their attitudes towards farming. I also wanted to have another experience so that I can make comparisons and not make all of my assumptions based on one village stay.

I arrived on a Monday around noon and managed to have a pretty eventful day. I shared a compound with the chairman of the older mango farm, his 3 wives, and his 9 children (I think he has more but they have moved away). When I arrived the women were processing shea nuts into oil. They had grinded the seed into a powder – not sure if they used a mill or not - and were kneading it with water in a big bowl until it thickened and turned to a lighter color. I motioned that I wanted to help them knead the mixture and they were more than willing to let me give it a try. Of course I failed miserably. With everything Ghanaian women do, there is a rhythm and a lot of strength involved. They would use their hand to smack the thick substance up against the side of the bowl, causing the whole mixture to move in a wave-like motion while managing to not spill any over the side. They got a good laugh watching me try to mimic their motions.

Once the mixture has been kneaded for long enough (I think it takes a few hours) they boil it multiple times until it turns to this small clump – shea butter. Later on I learned that this was the least time-consuming part of the process. The women go everyday to collect shea nuts from the trees on which they grow naturally. They transport huge amounts on the top of their heads in these large ceramic bowls. Once they eat the thin layer of fruit on the outside (with the help of the kids) they lay them out in the sun for a while before they begin to break off the outer shells using a wooden stick – with a rhythm of course. I tried to find out a bit more on how they transport the shea butter to the market and how much profit they earn, but it was difficult because of communication. When I go home I will cringe when I see those bottles of lotion that have maybe 5% shea butter and are extremely expensive. If Ghanaians could manage to process the oil into a final product to be exported they could make so much money. This is not a new idea by any means; there have people trying improve shea nut production for years.

After attempting to help the women with the shea nuts, I was playing a bit of soccer with the kids – classic possession game: 4 on the outside passing and one in the middle defending. I could hear some drumming and singing and managed to get one of the kids to take me to see what was going on.

One of the compounds was putting in a floor… sounds like a normal household chore but here it is a cause for celebration and the whole community is involved. When I first walked inside the compound, my senses were completely overwhelmed and I was struggling to take it all in. The compound was absolutely packed with women and children in all of their brightly colored fabrics. Their entire bodies were moving up and down in unison. They were all holding these wooden sticks that have a wide flat bottom edge, striking the ground simultaneously in an effort to compact the soil before the cement is placed on top. There was a single man with a drum, keeping the rhythm and guiding the women through their pounding. When I first walked in everyone turned and looked in my direction, shouting excitedly towards me, laughing, and gesturing for me to come over. I made my presence in the village know pretty quickly. They handed me a wooden pounding stick so that I could join. I though I was doing an OK job keeping up with them when the women standing next to me grabbed my arm to show me that she wanted me to follow her motions. After she struck the ground she would come back up and rock her shoulders back, turning it into more of a dance. I did my best to keep up and she responded with a great big smile. With all of this movement they managed to sing in unison with the sounds of the drum – “Ai-yaaay… Ai-yay Ai-yay Ai-yaaay”. And that’s not all… they began to move forward in small steps. When I managed to look up and take a breath I realized that the women had arranged themselves in circles and would slowly move in towards the center as they continued to compact the soil. People were pulling me in all directions; they all wanted the white lady to try to keep up with them. Eventually someone from my compound called out my name because it was time for me to go and greet the chief and the elders.

By this point I was pretty sweaty and filthy, but that did not seem to matter. I went to greet the chief first. Before you enter his hut you must remove your shoes. When he greets you, you must squat down so that you are lower than him. He asked me a series of questions which is how the typical Ghanaian introduction goes…

How is the journey? – Fine
How is the family? – Fine
How is your father? – Fine
How is your mother? – Fine
How is your husband? – Fine (there is no such thing as a boyfriend in the villages so to simplify things here I sometimes just say I have a husband at home)
How are your children? – No children (this always causes surprise and laughter)

Of course this is all in Dagbani but someone was translating for me and I can understand simple greetings. No matter how you are truly feeling you always respond with “Fine”. The chief then asked me why I was here, welcomed me to Bagarugu and handed me a bag full of guinea fowl eggs. Next I went to greet the elders. Basically the same thing happened over again in each hut, except some of the elders gave me marriage proposals and one of them even gave me 1 Ghana Cedi with the instructions to buy Kola nuts (anyone read Things Fall Apart?)

When I went back to the compound I was pretty exhausted, both physically and mentally. I ate some TZ and bra soup with the women and then the husband called me over to share some meat with him. I wanted so badly to just give the meat to the children, they need the protein much more than I do. I have the comfort of knowing that soon I will be home where I have the ability to have a nutritious diet. These children eat nothing but starch and oil. But I would insult him by not eating the meat so I thank him generously and just eat everything. The same thing happened each night I was in Bagarugu.

One night I saw the chairman dumping some dust into his bag of maize that he was going to sow. Luckily there was someone nearby to translate when I asked him what it was. In the Muslim religion there are 99 names for God. He has memorized them all and writes them down in ink on a wooden board in Arabic. When he cleans the board he preserves the dust. If the dust is poured onto the seeds, the plant will survive even if the rains do not come for a month. I’m not sure but I think this was a form of JuJu (kind of like voodoo). In northern Ghana most people genuinely believe in witchcraft… something I would like to learn more about.

I stayed in Bagarugu until Saturday. I had some pretty frustrating moments here and there but this time around I could laugh them off more easily. Overall, I genuinely enjoyed my stay. The things that brought me down were the difficulties I had communicating and dealing with people constantly asking me for things. One man even sat me down for half an hour, the first thing he says is “In Africa we are poor country”. Then he went on to ask me to find him work and get him a visa. Not once did he ask me questions about myself or what my life was like back home; he just wanted things from me.

In the villages I’ve stayed in, I often compare them to the poverty I’ve seen at home… in Atlanta, New Orleans, Montreal, and various places that I have traveled. I think about the stories I have heard or read about where children grow up with abusive families, and are exposed to drugs and violence on a daily basis. In my experiences here, the “poor” people are always laughing and smiling and seem to enjoy the daily chores that make up their day. More importantly people know that they are safe, they have a family and community that they can rely on, and I get the sense that everyone feels a sense of love and belonging. I would never want this life for myself; I am fortunate enough to have been exposed to so many things and need more out of life. I want Ghanaians to be able to have more opportunities and be able to choose the life they want, but I want Ghanaians to understand that life is not perfect in other parts of the world. We have our problems too, they are just different. I have been learning more from Ghanaians than they will ever learn from me and I hope to take some of the great things about Ghana back home with me to share.

I think I have written enough… congratulations if you have made it this far! I would like to sum this up with another Dagbani proverb that I recently learned which is pretty appropriate for the post:

In Dagbani: “A yi bi gberi nopoyu ni a bi mi ni nohi nyeri binfam”

Translation : If you haven’t spent the night in the hens’ house you won’t know that the hens fart

Further Translation: It is only by being closely involved with the life of a community that we get to know what goes on inside.

"The white people peeked"

The other day I was riding in the truck with the general manager to check on one of the dams that has started to erode. He told me that he had just seen a truck that stole diesel from one of the company’s generators and was selling it to the villagers. My co-worker and I had an interesting conversation on why this is happening.

In Ghana, it is considered a very serious crime to steel from another person. If some one is caught in the act, they could possibly be beaten to death. It is sad that the punishment is so violent but Ghanaians simply do not steal from one another because of the repercussions. I ask my co-worker, why then do Ghanaians think it is OK to steal from a company?

He told me a very interesting story that he has heard from a few Ghanaians who genuinely believe it to be true: When God created the Earth he told the white people and the black people to close their eyes so that they could not see what he was doing. The black people kept their eyes closed and the white people peeked. This is why white people are cleverer than black people and therefore are less poor. So it is OK for a black person to steel from a white person because the white person stole from God. (I might not have mentioned this yet, but 4 of the managers at ITFC are white so some Ghanaians view ITFC as a “western company”)

This is not to say that every Ghanaian believes this, in fact I doubt many do. This story could have also been altered by the time I heard it. But I think it sheds light on some of the complex issues with development work. There is a long history of development work here and it has affected the mentality of many Ghanaians. They have this idea that life is so much better and easier and that we do not have any problems to deal with. Some also think that westerners should just give them things without having to work for it. It is only when people start to realize that change comes from within themselves that real progress will be made. It seems to me that part of development work involves reversing the damage that we have caused by giving handouts that were not warranted.

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.

Inside the compound, this little boy would follow me around all day