A recap of my first few days in Kumasi: #housingprobs

Hey Everyone!

I am back in Accra after a very short, but productive four days in Kumasi. Here is a recap:

I arrived in Kumasi on Thursday afternoon after a roughly six-hour bus ride. In Ghana, bus services make multiple stops along the way to their final destination. Reasoning that the last stop would be at the bus station in Kumasi (that is logical, right?), where I told my friend Michael I would meet him so he could help me find my hostel, I stayed on the bus until we reached the final destination. The only problem was that the final destination was not the bus station, but rather in the middle of one of the markets. I called Michael and ended up having to hand my phone to a taxi driver to explain where I was because neither Michael, nor myself, had any clue when I tried to explain it. So, after a brief chat with Michael, the taxi driver took me to meet him. It was at this time that I figured out that my sim card in my phone had de-activated itself for the second time (it would deactivate for a third time in the four days I was in Kumasi. I am definitely learning the value of patience). On the up side, at least it was still working when I was dropped in the middle of the market with no sense of where I was. We finally reached Bethel Methodist Guesthouse, my home for the next four days. The place was great; the bathroom even had a working showerhead. I felt quite spoiled, as most of the times I have stayed in Ghana, including my initial time in Accra this time around, I have taken bucket showers, which I actually prefer.

After checking in, Michael and I went to the phone store to try to rectify the issues with my registration. I was given yet another sim card (my third) and was told that the problem was probably my phone, so off Michael and I went to Adum, a market center, to buy a new phone. The trip was successful and the next day I went to get my phone all set up, which went well. I now had a working phone complete with Whatsapp, which is very popular here, and email to communicate easily with people back home, as well as a BBC app to keep up with the news. Originally I was iffy about getting a smartphone because I didn’t want to seem flashy or to have too many distractions from things here. But, being able to communicate with my loved ones at home is important and makes me happy, and having internet capability on my phone facilitates that process. Plus, in all honesty, I would have been an outlier if I had a phone that just made phone calls, a point I want to use as a segway to address those of you who are shocked that there are smartphones in Africa. Telecommunication has become widespread in countries all over the continent, and Ghana is no exception. I see more people with Blackberries and iPhones, or some other Nokia or Samsung version of a smartphone, here than I expected. Smartphones are as common in Ghana as they are back home in the States. How’s that for breaking stereotypes of Africa?  

The following day, I met with Dr. Kwabena Nyarko, professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (K.N.U.S.T)- the university with which I am affiliated- who is advising and helping me with my research while I am here. Dr. Nyarko is a great resource. In addition to his role as a professor, he is the head of the WASHCost Project in Ghana, which is researching the costs of water, sanitation and hygiene services in rural and peri-urban communities. He has been working in the water and sanitation sector for many years and I am really looking forward to learning from his expertise over the next nine months. The meeting went well. We discussed some national policy documents I should review to begin my background research and he also told me of the National Level Learning Alliance Platform, an organization under the Resource Center Network Ghana (RCN). RCN is a “network of institutional partners working to promote knowledge management in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, with aims to provide improved and sustainable pro-poor services.” The Learning Alliance hosts monthly meetings where members come together to discuss relevant topics and themes. It is open to the public and to students. There is a meeting this Thursday in Accra, on an Evaluation and Impact Assessment of the Governance and Transparency Fund Program in Ghana, which is incredibly pertinent to the research I will be doing here. So, I decided to come back to Accra, indefinitely, to attend the conference and set up some other meetings with organizations in the area. More on plans for the week, later.

So, after meeting Dr. Nyarko, it was time to begin my search for housing. Fortunately, I had a few leads on places open to rent in the area. The first was a single room, with my own toilet, shower, and kitchen facilities. The woman leasing the place, Mercy Vanessa, works for the International Programs Office on campus and was very nice. The place was great, but I wasn’t crazy about the location. Though it was on campus, it was in the area where staff and faculty are housed by the university, so it was a bit far removed from the main campus, where I plan to be everyday. I proceeded to contact a man named Eric. Eric has hosted SIT students in the past and Yaw gave me his number so I could see if he had a room open to rent. It turns out there is a room for rent, so I went to see it. Essentially, I would be living in my own room in Eric’s home and would share a toilet, shower, kitchen, and living room with him and his family. It also had a balcony, which was definitely a bonus. The location was great: it was situated roughly 2 minutes from Tech junction, where I can catch transportation to just about anywhere I would want or need to go, and a five minute walk to campus. The only issue was the price. I have been talking with Michael and other people I have met in the area about what I should expect to pay for housing. The price continually quoted to me was between 50-100 Ghana Cedis (GHC) per month (roughly $25-$50). Eric’s price was roughly double this for a two month stay. Though I will be here for nine months, right now I am looking for a place to stay for November and December. Since I am going to take the next two months to just do relevant background reading and research for my project, which I can do from anywhere since I just need my computer and an internet connection, I plan on taking advantage of this freedom to travel as much as I can. Plus, I haven’t yet identified the communities where I will be conducting fieldwork for my research, which I am hoping to begin in January, so I also don’t want to lock myself into a place until I figure out the logistics of my daily routine when my research really gets underway. Basically, what I am looking for in terms of housing is: a location that is convenient to campus and transportation, a place where I can cook my own food if I so choose, and a place that is safe to store my things while I am gone. Eric’s house definitely fit that description and it would be nice to live with a family, but I decided to keep looking to see what else was available. My friend Rita referred me to a woman named Ms. Rosemond who was building a hostel in the area and had rooms available for roughly 100 GHC/month. The following day, I went to see the hostel. It was great. It had all the amenities I am looking for and though it wasn’t directly on campus, it was only a ten-minute walk to KNUST. There weren’t very many people living there from what I could tell because it was still under construction, but since housing is limited in the area, she said it was going to fill with tenants quickly. The only problem with the place was that I could only live there if I agreed to stay there for a full semester, or in other words, the full nine months I will be here. Well that made my choice clear: no. I explained to her what I was looking for: a room for two months with the flexibility to support my nomadic lifestyle. Ms. Rosemond is a fashion designer and splits her life between Ghana and Germany. As a frequent traveler herself, she could appreciate my requests. So, she took me to her home because she has a room that is open. The place was amazing. I felt like I was at a resort, which could be very good for my psyche, but potentially very bad for my work ethic. The room was huge with a full size bed and a small leather couch. I would share a bathroom and kitchen with a girl living in the room opposite mine, who is a Master’s student in the Pharmacy program at KNUST. The only problem was the location: a 15-minute drive (by car, not public transportation) to campus. That was a turn off for me, but I haven’t ruled it out completely. My final option is to live with my host family in Kumasi from when I was studying in Ghana last year, which would be awesome because I am very comfortable there and am considered part of the family. It isn’t very close to campus, but it’s definitely not a bad commute either. So the good news is that I have a lot of options, but the bad news is that my indecision is in full swing. I have decided the best thing for me to do is to make a pro-con list and mull it over while I am in Accra. I’m in no rush to get back to Kumasi and I’m confident that I’ll have a decision by the time I leave Accra to go back to Kumasi on a more permanent basis (at that point, I’ll have no other option than to make a decision).

Basically, my five days in Kumasi were filled with house hunting, making new friends, multiple trips to the phone store, random tro-tro rides to the market and walking around campus to pass time. I am very happy to be back in Accra with Magdalene and the family. I missed everyone a lot and it was great to come back to very warm welcomes and a lot of “I’ve missed you” ’s from Nana, Ama, and Kate (my host siblings).  On the agenda for this week: tomorrow I will be meeting with Alberto Wilde, Director of Global Communities. Global Communities is an organization working on water and sanitation projects in peri-urban areas in Ghana. I am really eager to meet Alberto and get to see the work the organization is doing. Thursday, I will be going to the National Learning Alliance conference. I am hoping to go to a drumming show at the National Theatre and will plan some day trips to the market and Tema as well. There is a train, painted as the Ghanaian flag, that runs from Accra to Tema and it is on my bucket list, so I’m hoping to do that on Friday. I am also going to begin my background research and enjoy spending time with Magdalene and everyone. Accra has become a safe haven for me, which I am grateful to have, and I am looking forward to spending the next week or so in the comfort of good company.

Until next week,

Chelsea

"Popping Bubbles Means You're a Hooker"

Hello everyone!

This is my first official blog post from Ghana. I am writing you from the bus on my way to Kumasi. I woke up this morning around 4:30 to leave just after 5:00 for the bus station. There is a guy standing on the front of the bus who has been yelling, apparently to advertise some product he is trying to sell, since we left at 6:00 AM. It’s times like these that I am thankful for earphones and an ipod.  

I arrived in Accra on Saturday afternoon. The flight went smooth and all my luggage arrived, so I was happy to have had such an easy trip getting here. I was met at the airport by Yaw, who I met last year when I was studying in Ghana, and Shannan, who is a Cultural Affairs Officer at the Embassy. Yaw works for the School for International Training (SIT), which is the company through which I studied abroad last year. It was a comfort to see a familiar face and I was glad to meet Shannan. Yaw then took me to Magdalene’s home, where he arranged for me to stay and also where I am still currently living. Magdalene is fantastic; she is kind and friendly with a warm, welcoming personality. She is a fantastic mother to her children and has made me feel like one of her own. My host family follows suit. I have a host brother, Nana, who is 19 and has proclaimed himself my bodyguard, and four host sisters, Kate, 25, Ama, 18, and Florida and Rebecca who are both roughly 10. Ama and I have become quite close; we do yoga together and went running together Monday morning morning. She also taught me how to hand wash my clothes properly, despite her having malaria. My transition to Ghana has been a smooth one and I have had a great start to my time here and I largely have my host family to thank for that.

I feel as though this past week has flown by. On Sunday morning, I went to church with Magdalene, Ama, Rebecca, Florida, and Aunt Adwowa. Now those of you who haven’t experienced a church service in Ghana for yourself, it is quite the experience. The service seems to never have a definitive end- I’ll put it to you this way, in the times I have traveled here and have accepted invitations to church I have received, the shortest service I have sat through was an hour and a half and the only reason it was so short is because I left early because I was sick. So, when Magdalene emphasized that we would leave at exactly 12:00 pm because as she put it, “these people don’t close early at all and I have cooking to do,” I should have realized that she meant 12:00 Ghana time. We arrived around 10:00 in the morning and not to sound pessimistic, but by the time 10:30 rolled around, I began a countdown to keep myself optimistic. Spending more than an hour in church just isn’t my thing. We ended up leaving around 12:15, which, to be fair, was the only real choice given that at 12:00 they took the second offering since I had been there and then the pastor began to give announcements, so we couldn’t really leave until he had finished. After church, we went back home and Magdalene taught me how to make jollof rice, one of the most popular rice dishes here and one of my personal favorites. When Nana returned from church, we went to the mall so I could get my phone and internet set up, which over the course of the next two days proved to be a continual adventure, but more on that later. While waiting for the tro-tro to fill so it could leave, I learned something new: blowing bubbles when chewing gum apparently means you’re a hooker. I was chewing gum and happened to pop a bubble. As soon as he saw me, Nana told me, “You shouldn’t do that.” I asked him why. And he told me that in Ghana, if you pop bubbles it signals to people that you are a hooker. Good to know. How’s that for cultural differences?

The following day, I left in the morning to go to the University of Legon with Magdalene. She works in the performing arts department. I was having problems with my Internet and needed to go to the mall, which is more accessible from the university. To give you a visual of the mall, think of a mall the size of that in Dover, complete with a food court, clothing shops, Game and Shoprite (the Ghanaian equivalents of Target), and even an Apple computer store. I went to the phone store where I bought my internet and the woman fixed the problem I was having. Then, as I left, I received a text message from Vodafone (my service provider) stating that I needed to go to update my registration in order to keep making phone calls. I was conveniently still in the mall so I walked back into the store and hopped back into line to talk to an associate about the message. She did something to my phone, which I thought had updated my registration, but I came to later find out must have deactivated my sim card. I went back to campus to use the internet café there and meet with Magdalene. Remember how I just mentioned my sim card deactivated? Yeah, well I found this out when I returned to campus and Magdalene told me that she had tried calling me, but I hadn’t received it. I then proceeded to try to make a phone call and it didn’t work. So, for the third time that day, I went back to the mall to get my phone fixed. I had been in the store so many times by this point that when I walked in, the woman knew me by name and said, “how can we help you, Chelsea?” How’s that for some customer service? Anyway, many trips to the mall later, I got my phone fixed and that’s what’s important, well until it started doing the same thing today at least.

On Tuesday, I had a mandatory security briefing at the Embassy. I was to be at the embassy at 9:00 AM, so Magdalene arranged a taxi to come to pick me up to take me at 7:00 because traffic is so bad. It took roughly 45 minutes to get there, so I arrived super early, which turned out being beneficial. Shannan came to greet me and take me through security, then gave me a tour of the embassy grounds. I learned I have access to services in the embassy, including their resource center, which has computers, free internet, reference books and apparently, access to databases that only the embassy has. I was pretty excited about that. Then, I met some of Shannan’s colleagues and since we had spare time, she took me to the USAID office next door to introduce me to people working in their water and sanitation project department. I met Emmanuel, who from what I could gather, was the main person in charge of projects in the country. He sent an email introducing me to organizations that USAID partners with for their projects, which was very kind of him and I appreciated a lot. I then went through my briefing, which was surprisingly short. Based on the country guidelines provided by the State Department that I had received from my Fulbright grant administrator, I was expecting the officers giving the briefing to paint Ghana as a place one should not traverse at night (there are parts where you absolutely shouldn’t, but there are places where traveling at night isn’t as much of an issue) and where one should exercise caution at all times. In my experience, Ghana is an incredibly safe place and people here are very friendly, you just have to be smart and aware of your surroundings, as you have to do anywhere you travel. However, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t give that portrayal. The officers were very frank and honest without overexaggerting the risks of living and working here. After the briefing, I was issued my own photo ID that gives me open access to the embassy whenever it is open. After my briefing, I went back home, receiving a few marriage proposals along the way. Ama and I ran errands and she taught me how to hand wash my clothes properly. We got into a discussion about relationships and gender roles in Ghana. I learned last semester that it is not uncommon in Ghana for a man have a wife or a girlfriend and to have affairs outside of their relationship, so I asked Ama how women in Ghana view this. She told me that it depends on the situation and how the guy replies when it is brought to his attention that his actions are causing the woman pain (so essentially, just like any relationship anywhere, it is a matter of what one chooses to put up with). I asked her about the differences between a if a woman cheats compared to if a man does it. Essentially, if a man cheats it’s dismissed without much thought, but if a woman cheats she is looked down upon. The discussion reiterated the differences in cultural perceptions and views around and functions of love, relationships, and marriage. It made me reflect a lot on my own culture and my views on these topics based on my upbringing and environment. I am thankful that I was born a woman in the US because though women face challenges still in US society, I have many privileges and opportunities not afforded to others in the world simply because they are a woman.

For my last day in Accra, I decided to journey to Jamestown, which is roughly one hour from my home in Achimota. Jamestown is home to Fort Usher and Fort James, which were part of the slave trade. As I was walking from the station to town, a man named Emmanuel approached me. We exchanged all the basics of an introductory conversation: names, where we’re from, etc.. I told him I was in Jamestown for the day to see the forts and to explore. He offered to take me around, so I said yes. Now, disclaimer for those of you freaking out about me walking around a foreign place with a stranger: in Ghana, this type of hospitality is normal and part of the culture. He didn’t seem threatening, it was in the middle of the day and seeing a new place is always better when shown around by someone who knows the area well. Plus, it was nice to have a traveling companion. It was a great decision. We went to Fort Usher first. The security guard there gave us an informal tour of the grounds. As I mentioned, Fort Usher was part of the slave trade and until recently, 2007 to be exact, was used as a prison. I learned that Kwame Nkrumah, first president of Ghana and leader of African independence, and Jerry Rawlings, a president in the 1980s, were both jailed at Fort Usher as political prisoners. The guard also told me that in 2007 the prison was order to be closed and declared a historical site, which apparently receives funding from UNESCO for upkeep. However, the fort is rundown and poorly maintained on the inside, which leads me to believe that this aid isn’t going to its intended purposes. I found so much about the place depressing: its historical significance, the fact that it had been regarded so little that it was then used as a prison, and the fact that now it is not maintained as well as it should be. We then went to Fort James. It amazed me how people had built there homes into these structures. Emmanuel showed me his home, the exit of which was a gateway through which slaves would pass on their way to ships awaiting their fate. A cell once used as a holding room for slaves, was now used as a place for storing unwanted items; a courtyard one traversed by colonizers was now a place where woman washed laundry. I had never seen anything like it.  We then walked and saw the outside of the king’s palace- Jamestown has its own king- and went to the top of the lighthouse for an aerial view of the city. Perhaps the best GHC 5 cedis (the local currency) I’ve spent so far. Emmanuel then took me to walk through the fishing village that is on the beach. The dynamics of human-environment interaction were unfortunate in that the beach was littered with trash and the old nets of fisherman. Sanitation is also a huge problem. When Emmanuel was showing me a set of railroad tracks that are now used as a sort of platform for beached boats, but once led from the ocean to different parts of the country where people were captured to be sold in the slave trade, a woman came to the side of a boat near where we are standing to urinate. This didn’t really bother or phase me, but made me wonder about the implications of such habits on the general health of the population in the area. After touring Jamestown, I went to see the national theatre. I had never been there and wanted to see the inside. Magdalene told me to ask for her former colleague, William, who now works as the stage manager at the theatre, when I arrived. When I initially tried to enter, they tried to charge me 2 cedis to enter. But once I told them I had a message for William and spoke to them in Twi, they graciously let me in, for free, and took me to see William. It’s always amazing to me how far knowing the language, even only conversationally and not fluently, goes to show that I respect the culture and am interested in learning more. The national theatre was beautiful. I learned that the Chinese had built the theatre 20 years ago. There were three stages apparently. I only saw the main one, which had three floors and a huge stage. I am definitely going to try to go to a show while I am here.

My time in Accra was great and I am very thankful to Magdalene and her family for helping me with my transition. I am excited for the adventures that await me in Kumasi.

Until next week,

Chelsea

3 Days to Departure

Hey Everyone:

So I finally created the blog that I have been talking about creating for the past three months. With only three more days before I leave for Ghana, I figured it was time to stop talking about blogging and actually start doing it.

As many of you know, I will be leaving this Friday to begin research on a Fulbright grant. I will be living in Kumasi for nine months. My research will focus on how effective current policy initiatives have been in improving water access to disadvantaged peri-urban communities largely isolated from piped water networks. I am very eager and thankful for such an awesome opportunity.

For this first post, I want to take the time to define my goals and objectives for this blog.

Goal #1: Use this blog as a way to analyze the findings from the research I will be conducting over the next nine months, personally process my experiences and share them with all of my loved ones back home.
     As I mentioned before, I will be spending the next nine months immersing myself in literature on all things water and doing field-based research on current policy initiatives in Ghana. When I was in Ghana last year studying on a Boren scholarship, I was fortunate to get to conduct fieldwork for my senior thesis. One of the lessons I learned from this experience is the importance of taking the time to process. What I mean, is that it is very easy to take what you hear, read, or see at face value, but it is vital to take the time to ask questions; to think critically about the information presented. A personal goal of mine for my research is to look at current policy initiatives and derive lessons from their application. What is or isn't working about a certain policy and why? What local contexts are either facilitating or constraining the successful implementation of a policy initiative? What can be done better? What can be replicated elsewhere? These are all important questions that I am seeking to answer; maybe I will ascertain answers to all, maybe only some, maybe none, but the one thing I am sure of is that if I don't take the time to process information and be open to learning from other people, then I won't find any answers.
      I also want to use this blog as a platform to share my experiences and my impressions of my time in Ghana with my family in friends. I wish I had the money to fly the people who mean the most to me to Ghana to live with me for the next nine months so that they can personally share in my experience, but alas, as a recent graduate on a budget, I don't. So, I'm going to use this blog, hopefully, in conjunction with phone calls, emails, Skype sessions, and facebook posts, as a connector so that family and friends and whoever else decides to read this blog, can share in my experience with me.

Goal #2: Blog at least once a week
      For those of you who know me well, know that I have been fortunate to travel quite a bit throughout college. And if you know that, you also know that each time I have gone abroad, I have steadfastly declared that I will keep a blog. With the exception of the blog I updated when I returned from Malawi and South Africa, I have pretty much failed to earn the title of a blogger. Well, not this time. One of my personal goals is to improve my writing skills and to refine my writing style. What better way to do that than to actually write? So, I am stating it here, on this post, publicly, that I intend to blog at least once a week. I am putting this out there because studies have shown (see Poor Economics) that  successfully following through on the things you say you will do is more likely if you have someone else holding you accountable or you know that there is a consequence for doing, or not doing, what you set about to do. Therefore, I would like someone to call me out if I start to deviate from my goal to blog at least once a week. Courtney, Shannon, Brent, Paul, Anastasia, and Vansch I am relying on you for this.

Well, I think that about covers my bases. I am sure there are plenty of other goals I could define for myself here, but for all intents and purposes, I think that those two will do the trick.

The next time I post will be from Ghana. Crazy!