Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day

Ajia picked up the cell phone excitedly and greeted in Gonja the person on the other line. She had a big smile on her face as she talked away, while Barkison, her grandaughted waited to get a chance at the phone. When Barkiso finally had the phone she exploded into a “happy mother’s day Auntie!”. Throughout the morning, phone calls came and went of women calling to wish each other a happy mother’s day. As I washed away at my clothes these phone calls brought a warm feeling to my heart, and an appreciation for all those women who devote their life to their children. This appreciation was only made stronger after four hours of washing and cleaning house.

Ajia
Ajia is the matriarch of my compound. She is a strong and intimidating personality with a soft and just heart, and the most incredible laugh I have ever heard. Her laugh comes from deep within her and booms out of her with a big smile.

I don’t know too much about her life story, except that she is the wife of Gonja chief. Her children all grown up, she now looks after the compound of one of her sons (also my home in Tamale). Every day, I come home to find a shifting population of children in the house. Currently there are approximately 10 children and two adolescent boys, all her grandchildren, living with her. Her daughter in law is also here, with her kids included amongst the multitude. Every morning there is an assembly line of children being bathed, proceeding to the ritual of tea and bread when all the screaming and crying kids finally settle down to munch on bread and drink lipton. I watch her as she does all her activities with firmness and a deep love for every child.

When I first arrived she insisted to Dan that I better learn to speak Gonja. Now I greet her every morning with “Ashuma”, afternoons I am home with “Entre”, and every evening with “Anula”. I was intimidated by her then. She never learned my name and would shout at me for everything I did wrong. It is on my return to Africa that I discovered within her firmness, the unconditional love for her family, her strength as a woman, her hard work.


Ama
Ama is my host mother in Kpandai. She owns a restaurant that she started out of nothing with her own savings. Ama is a woman representing the transition from the old to the new Ghana. She separated from her husband many years ago and after seeing her son grow up, she now looks after her brother’s children. He own son is now bringing up his highschool marks to get into higher education and she works hard to be able to fund him in his endeavours.
Ama is a natural entrepreneur. With only primary education, she has learned through experience to make her business successful. Ama started trading at the Togo border and soon discovered this business involved too much financial risk as her customers were often unreliable payees. Throughout her time as a trader, she had taken the initiative to save money. She invested these savings into some building blocks and grout, leased some land from the chief that no one wanted, and built a small restaurant in the middle of town. She started off selling food and brought in drinks when she realized this was more profitable. Over time she expanded her small restaurant into what it is now.

Ama is consistently in search of opportunity. She is also a networker, seeking relationships with her clients and seeking the advice of the knowledgeable people that surround her. Her business has had its ups and downs, but she is always there from dawn till dusk and beyond working hard to make it successful. Recently, business has been slow. In response, she is actively seeking for innovative ways of developing her business to attract clientele. As she thinks of expanding her business, she is facing the likelihood of having to seek a loan from the credit union. This makes her nervous but she is willing to take the risk.

Ama is my inspiration for her determination, her persistence, her courage and her openness to all people. She will welcome everyone and anyone into her restaurant, listening patiently to their story without judgment.

So today, on Mother’s day, remember your own mother, and the millions around the world that are working hard to make a place in the world for themselves and their children. Find your inspiration in them and strive to reflect it in your own life. And of course remember to wish them a happy mother’s day. Feliz dia de la Madre mami!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Globalization of Music

Music is a part of Ghanaian culture. All day there are tunes flying out of store fronts and radios blaring from people’s houses. At night there's choir practice and people singing in groups. And of course big gatherings will have music and dancing.

The music ranges from local Ghanaian music to Rihanna (Umbrella), to country, etc. That's right…country…the other day I had a refreshing open air shower under mango trees listening to country music on Radia Savannah. I have to admit it was a guilty pleasure. Oh! And Celine Dion. People here LOVE Celine Dion. In fact, sometimes you mention Canada and right away they jump to talk excitedly about our Celine.

So now to the point…in this music I listen to the cultures mixing in one big pot of banku. It makes me aware of history, of the movement of peoples around the world and the music that is carried with them.

When I listen to local Ghanain music, I feel like I am sitting in the middle of a street in Colombia. The rhythms and melodies are so similar it sometimes catches me off guard. Listen to Cumbia and you will hear the heart of Africa beating. This is a testament to the mobilization of thousands of Africans through the slave trade to work caribean and South American lands. It is the human culture they brought with them.

R&B is played everywhere here, a 360 return of African culture. African Americans are bringing their music back to their roots. How has traditional African culture influenced black american music? Does this link create the appeal for the music here in Ghana?
But still my favourite is sitting in the office with Sadek, the budget officer, as he blairs his own music selection from his laptop…80s and 90s - we're talking New Kids, Back Street Boys, and of course Boys to Men.

I see music as a form of globalization, one that has been happening since the beginning of civilization. And as I consider this and the adverse reaction that some of us can have to globalization, comes the realization that, to some extent, globalization in general is not a new thing and rather a natural occurrence that has taken place with migration and trade since the beginning of human existence . These are only my reflections. What are your thoughts?

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Exploring the Challenges & Mangoes

4 weeks into Ghana

I am sitting in an office in Kpandai with Planner on one side and Budget on the other. This is the Kpandai District Assembly, governing body for the district of Kpandai that addresses citizen’s’ infrastructure and service needs. “Planner” is Ahmed, the District Planning Officer, and “Budget” is Sadek, the District Budget Officer. They are both motivated and hardworking, but this is not the case in many districts.

Kpandai

Kpandai District is a new district in Ghana’s Northern Region, it is ~6hr. travel time South East of Tamale (the largest city in the Northern Region), not based on distance but on the difficult mogul laden route that connects the two. The area is known for its mangos, and sure enough I’ve never seen such a large concentration of beautiful motherly mango trees. I am here for three or four weeks to engage in understanding the challenges that districts are faced with, both at the community level and the District Assembly.

Ghana's Northern Region - The Challenge

Ghana is divided into many regions of which the Northern Region is the largest in terms of land mass (~30%) yet constitutes only 10% of the population. Communities are therefore sparsely located throughout this flat, Savannah landscape subject to a long dry season in many areas. The Northern Region is also the poorest area of Ghana, with the majority of its citizen’s relying on subsistence farming. So the challenge…how do you provide adequate services and infrastructure to all communities across the Northern Region and in doing so, enhance their quality of life and decrease their vulnerability?

G&RI's Role

The Governance & Rural Infrastructure (G&RI) team believes that government is the right avenue to achieve this. There is a shift in Ghana for donors, also termed development partners, to execute their projects through the government. At the same time there is a move towards decentralization in Ghana to empower districts to identify and address the needs of their communities. Our team is trying to facilitate this process in such a way that it is the local government (districts) and in turn the communities that define the projects that will address the service and infrastructure needs on the ground. One of the challenges lies in that districts often don’t have the capacity or the resources to achieve these goals effectively.

Most recently districts have been developing their 4 year Medium Term Development Plans that capture the needs and goals of the district. Over the past year our EWB staff has been supporting the development of these plans at the districts, driving the importance of collecting, analyzing, and managing data from the ground to properly inform these plans. How do you achieve this? What tools can make this process more effective? First of all – Why is data important in developing these plans? What are the limitations?

I have been at the district for only one week, and every day my assumptions are challenged. Case studies come alive in every community visit, pointing to the complexities of development. And with this awareness of the complexities comes the realization of the importance of data to planning, and it’s inherent limitation – human nature.

The Market School Story

There is a story the G&RI team often shares to give an idea of the challenge that exists in project design and the challenges in the development sector related to planning. There is a food security project that comes into northern Ghana and involves the community in determining what they need, defining the intervention/project unique to each community in this way. They come to one community and ask them what their highest priorities are. The community identifies education, and perhaps something else. The project crew indicates that schools are not in their scope, and proceeds to ask what else they need. Eventually the community says they need a market. “PERFECT! That we can do”. The market is constructed and goes unused initially, but when a field crew comes to visit the community some time later they discover it has been turned into a temporary school! I will let you assume/guess what happened.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit this very community. As you may imagine I was pretty excited to go check out this example we talk so much about, and particularly when the district planner mentioned the project director would be there. I went off with the planner, Ahmed and budget officer Sadek through rough country roads seeking to validate my assumptions. We arrived in this flat, dry, barren fishing settlement, three SUVs/Pick-ups leaving dust flying behind them and catching the excitement of children along the way. And there it was, the only concrete structure in the area, two blocks of concrete stalls, blackboards attached and cluttered with children using the dividing sections as benches. Three teachers stood giving their lessons. We sat in a circle of benches under a dry tree with representatives from the community, district assembly officers, and project representatives.

The project director from Canada and one of the project team leaders in Ghana proceeded to ask questions in an experienced manner waiting for a translator to communicate their message. I admired their approach and the questions they asked; I realized I have much to learn. We soon found out that there was much more to the story than we had assumed. A conflict with a neighbouring tribe was at the heart of it. This community was a settlement that had come into another tribe’s land. As per their culture, in order to start using the market stalls, a ritual needed to be performed by this neighbouring tribe, the Jalai. The Jalai however, were asking for dues in return that the community simply could not afford. The community was also concerned that if the Jalai performed the ritual they would absorb possession of the market stalls that were intended to benefit this community. They had approached the chief of the whole area, but it appeared he did not have sufficient clout over the Jalai. While the issue was resolved, the community decided to use the market stall to address their other priority, a school.

In the past, the community had also tried to build a school but the Jalai had not permitted them to, perhaps because they felt such a move would make this settlement more permanent.

The chief had just recently contacted the District Chief Executive (DCE), the political head of the district to intervene. It is possible that the whole story had not been explained. The meeting with the community was productive in getting to the root of the problem and also in defining the path forward. The presence of the district government officials, allowed this matter to be communicated to the political head of the district, maintaining that link at the ground level and resulting in a plan of action – the ownership was with the district now. The community individuals now had a contact person to help them in resolving the issue. One of the responsibilities of the district government is to mediate conflicts between traditional structures. I later learned that tribal conflicts over land are common in Northern Region and act as a barrier in getting thing done on the ground. The DCE will now follow up with the chief, the Jalai people and the fishing community to assist in resolving this issue.

Lingering Questions

As we left, some lingering questions remained: What is the Jalai’s side of the story? Where the market stalls really the right solution for this small settler’s community? It is remote and there is a more developed market up the river on which they sit. What will happen when the fish dry up and this community needs to move on? Would there have been a better initiative for this community? Ahmed and Sadek proposed that perhaps a better initiative for this community would have been an oven for smoking fish, an activity that takes up much of the community’s time….

Food for Thought

I spent five years supporting the operation of a nuclear plant. I learned that you won’t always have all the facts, and assumptions will be necessary to decision making. One of the most important tools ingrained in me was the importance of validating assumptions. How do you design and implement a project in an assumption laden environment? How do you ensure these assumptions are consistently challenged, validated and lessons learned incorporated?

What are the limitations to using data to make decisions where there are so many social factors involved? How do you tackle this challenge?