Thou Shall not Steal...

These words are not taken lightly in Ghana. Although Ghanaians do not constitutionally practice the "eye-for-an-eye" type law, there is a brutal unspoken process that occurs when someone dares steal from his fellow man. I have been able to observe and hear about many examples of such brutality and I think it is the hardest cultural barrier I’ve had to face. Although crime is not exceptionally grave in Ghana compared to some of its Sub-Saharan African neighbours, theft continues to penetrate society out of what I feel is a result of desperation amidst extreme poverty. The most commonly stolen good here is the cell phone from which most of my experiences here have shown. Many of you remember that my friend Jody’s phone (along with her camera) was slit from her bag and taken at a tro tro station back in September. She always said that although she found it very difficult to deal with the loss (especially the pictures on memory cards in her camera case) she said it would have been more difficult to deal with what might have happened if she had realized at the time and yelled thief.

The thing is, if she had realized her belongings were gone before getting on that tro tro and had yelled 'thief!', the man might have died. In Ghana, if you steal something you will be lynched. People will immediately raise alarm, catch the suspect and begin beating them, most often to death. One might ask why someone would not just arrest the suspect and send them to prison, but most Ghanaians would reply that putting them in prison means they will only steal from someone else once they’ve been let free. Ghanaians feel that proper justice is achieved if they take matters into their own hands. Something tells me that even the authorities don’t mind this approach because they are already overwhelmed by a system that lacks capacity.

A month after we arrived there was a brutal killing down the street from our office, because thieves in a stolen taxi drove by a woman and snatched her purse. She immediately called for help and aid came in the form of a car crash. Someone crashed the taxi and then dragged the four men from the vehicle. The one with the purse managed to escape by firing shots from his gun, while the others were beaten brutally, stripped of their clothes and burned to death.

Another incident involved my housemate Caitlin who was on a tro tro and waiting at a stop. She put her phone on her lap to do something and someone came by the window and grabbed her phone from her lap! Someone beside her noticed and yelled “thief” at which time everyone piled out of the tro tro, chased down the man, gave Caitlin her phone and then she began pleading with the witnesses to stop beating him. She was briskly ushered back onto the tro tro, when the crowd started to pick up rocks and the car took off without her ever knowing what the man’s fate or punishment would be.

And just after Christmas, someone came into our office and when the secretary left her desk to go to the store room, her phone was swiped from the desk. Unfortunately the man was not caught, but one can imagine what might have happened outside our office walls had he been discovered.

I’m not sure how to answer to this behaviour. I am aware that many people don’t trust the authorities to see justice through and for that sake feel the need to take matters into their own hands. However, I cannot see how one can follow the commandment “thou shall not steal” so fervently but then disobey the commandment “thou shall not kill”? Who are we to decide the life of another? I think this ultimately the hardest cross-cultural difficulty that I have and I also find it a conflict of faith. My faith teaches me to love my enemies even if they are sinners and to pray that God will grant them mercy and pardon. My faith does not say I can judge another man or take his life in my hands, because that can only be left to God.

CAN 2008

I’ve never read Franklin Foer’s book, How Football Explains the World, but after living in Ghana during the African Cup of Nations, I am beginning to understand his hypothesis. CAN 2008, which culminated this Sunday with Egypt’s victory over Cameroun, brought 16 countries together to 4 cities in Ghana for the 20-day tournament. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a football buff but you could find me on match days with my face painted, waving the Ghanaian flag and cursing the opposing team. In fact, I even surprised myself at how excited I got about the whole thing. I even lost my temper at the Guiness Fan Park last week when Cameroun scored Ghana, a goal that cost Ghana a trip to the finals. Mind you, it was difficult not to get carried away, what with all the 24-hour whistle-blowing-horn-honking-flag-waving-Ghana-cheering action.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that football reveals any Earth-shattering truths about the world, but it has highlighted a number of interesting aspects of the way society works. I also feel it has gone a small way to explain aspects of Ghana’s politics, development, cross-cultural relations that I had not thought too much about. For instance, never have the feelings of Ghanaians, towards their former President, J.J. Rawlings been more evident than during CAN 2008. The former President was offered VIP tickets to the matches, which he refused and opted rather to sit in the popular stand with “his people”. He even received a warm welcome at the airport when he flew from Nigeria in economy class for the opening match. While he was sitting in the stands hooting and hollering with is fellow Ghanaians, President Kufuor was sitting demurely in the State box. The sentiment of Ghanaians was obvious. Somehow football managed to explain the intricacies of Ghana’s federal political parties.

Apart from politics, CAN 2008 has also opened a whole can of worms on corporate investment and development. Ghana has received a major tourist boost from the tournament with accompanying investment in hotels, transportation, sporting facilities and beautification. The major sponsor of the tournament was surprisingly Pepsi, which seems strange in a Coca Cola frenzied environment. However, Coca Cola did manage to make its presence known amidst a strong Pepsi presence by creating one of the catchiest fads in beverage advertisement. Coca Cola coined the slogan, “It’s Brrrr on the Coke side of life”, inciting a domino effect of people saying “Brrrr” at games, in the bar and on the streets. Somehow football managed to explain the competitiveness of corporate rivalry.

And of course, there is the obvious explanation that football can offer about the world, that sport can somehow ignite that Olympics-style optimism and hope that all society’s ills can be forgotten, if only for a short time. Football has some magical way of fostering global unity and cross-cultural understanding. A tournament that brings together cultures as north as Cairo to as south as Cape Town with numerous religions, languages, and races in between is bound to nurture some form of Pan-African unity. If you saw Ghanaians putting aside their animosity towards Cameroun for wiping out their team in the semi-finals or the Ghanaians waving Egyptian flags at the finals you would think the same. Or maybe that's my own optimism coming out? But even the fact that the finals brought together teams representing French- and Arabic-speaking Africa in an Anglophone country, must symbolize some form of unity, right? I know that this sense of euphoria will go as quickly as it came and many people will return to the daily struggles in their lives. The Sudanese must turn their focus again to conflict-ridden Darfur, Nigerians will turn away from their Super Eagles to face ongoing corruption and oil challenges, South Africans will turn to hosting World Cup 2010 and facing the challenge of trying to lose their title as the crime and rape capital before the world comes to its door. This is to mention only a few of the challenges that the continent currently faces. Despite these challenges, I still want to believe that there is one thing in this world that can bring people from different cultures together to laugh, cry, share and learn. Football somehow manages to do just that. So I won’t let my Ghana flag fall to the floor, nor will I let anyone dispute the fact that football somehow explains how a little black and white ball can bring joy to this world.

Happy Birthday Betty and Jody!

This year I spent my 24t birthday salsa dancing around a pool and eating chocolate cake on January 30th. Six days later we celebrated Jody's birthday on February 5th eating pizza on the beach and bowling. Yes, there is bowling in Africa! Thanks to all my Ghanaian friends who made my day special. (The staff at HelpAge Ghana, my roomies, Aaron, and the boys that sang me Happy Birthday in tenor voices at Coconut Grove...Kwesi, Sammy, Akiem and Jay). I am also grateful for messages from friends at home and a nice call from mom and dad.

Witchcraft in Northern Ghana

I think witchcraft is one of the most confusing and interesting aspects of Ghanaian culture, or even African culture for that matter. Although I think that each country has its own unique experience with witchcraft and Ghana is no exception. My introduction to Ghanaian witchcraft came from Help the Aged Canada, where I learned that HTAC was going to be facilitating a CIDA-funded project in one of the witch settlements in northern Ghana. When we arrived in Ghana, Jody and I realized that the proposal had not actually been approved and we wouldn’t actually be working with this marginalized group of older women. The situation as we learned it was that when someone fell sick in a village, an older woman would be accused of inflicting witchcraft on that individual. The accusation could even be made if someone experienced what we would think as bad luck but what Ghanaians see as some form of spiritual intervention, similar to a karmic vendetta. One such example was of an old woman who was begging a farmer for money. He refused her twice and then got bit by a snake on his farm later that day. She was accused of which craft because of this incident. Once a woman is accused she is sent from her village to a camp, which is mainly a settlement of other witches in a village that has taken these women under their wing.

So in order to learn more about the situation, Jody and I were compelled to visit the camps when we went to the north to listen to the stories of these women. Before leaving, I made contact with a Canadian whose number was left behind by last year’s HelpAge Ghana intern. He directed to a Ghanaian man working the CIFS office – funded by CIDA. When I arrived in the north I met with him, Charles Atia and he offered to bring me to a settlement of witches in Gushiegu later that week. The settlement was being supported by a Canadian who was helping fund a housing project for the women. We were interested in getting a range of perspectives about this interesting issue so we decided to visit the Gambaga settlement on Friday of that week and then I would go to Gushiegu with Charles on Saturday.

On Friday we set out to the Gambaga settlement, a bus ride from Wale Wale that took longer than expected down a very bumpy and dusty road. We arrived in Gambaga around 3:30 pm. The bus that dropped was heading to the next village and then would turn around and head back to Wale Wale, leaving us with 30-45 minutes maximum to get the information we wanted from the women. We were led to the chief’s son in the village who was the first to be able to speak English to us. He brought us to his father who were told would accept a libation from us in order to grant our permission into the camp. Once we paid our respects to the chief we were escorted to the camp and were able to speak with the leader. We ended up leaving with more questions than when we came. We were told a whole manner of things that confused us, like the women believed they were witches, some still practiced witchcraft, that as soon as they arrived at the settlement they were given an herbal remedy to cure them, that they couldn’t tell us how they came to the camp because it would reveal their secrets, etc. We were so turned around by conflicting narratives and what we believed were fabricated translations from the chief’s son. The two of us were exhausted by our late return to Tamale, but I was anxious to set out on the road the next morning to seek more answers in Gushiegu.

Jody left Saturday morning for Accra, so it was just Charles and I that headed out to Gushiegu at 6 am on Saturday morning. After getting lost in a thick brush and maze of thatch roofed villages, we arrived in Gushiegu three hours later. We were welcomed by a man, named Abukare who has been caring for the women and I guess acting as a contact for them to Charles. Immediately, I could sense that I would learn a lot more from these two men that I could from the chief’s son a day earlier. Abukare and I immediately started talking about the fate of the older women in the village, the social and cultural norms that precipitate their accusations and abandonment and a number of other issues related to the rights of rural women in general. I should also mention that this conversation was had over a nice groundnut soup with guinea fowl and rice. After we ate and chatted, I was brought to the women who had all congregated to speak with me. None of them could speak English so I started to ask questions through Charles and Abukare. The women were eager to show me their daily activity of separating grain from rocks that they had swept up from the marketplace. The technique was primitive and the grain they were actually able to keep was meager, but they were determined and hard-working. When I asked if any would share their stories, one piped up right away, unlike our odd response from the chief’s son in Gambaga. The vocal woman shared that she had been accused of witchcraft because someone in her village fell ill (who coincidentally happens to be strong and healthy now). Even her own children would not defend her and she was forced to relocate to Gushiegu. The women seem happy to be here however, because they fear facing their villages and what might happen to them if they try to return. There are some accounts of the women being beat to death when they try to return to their villages. This also sparked a discussion about the role that education plays in the rights of these women. If they were educated or had money and were accused of witchcraft they would be able to defend themselves against such accusations, but the fact is that many of these older women have neither of these tools in their defense.

Then Abukare, Charles and I drove out to the housing project to see the progress that was being made there. Charles asked if I would take pictures of the construction so he could send them back to Canada. As always, I had no problem with this as I am often on the right side of the camera lens for this job. The project was impressive and coming along well. The building stood on 5 acres of land and consisted of 8 houses with three rooms each. They were in the midst of building mud urinals between each of the buildings when we arrived. This meant that there were 24 rooms at the settlement and Abukare presented the challenge he was going to have filling them because there happened to be around 90 accused women scattered around Gushiegu. This roughly means 3-4 women a room. This happens to be the current arrangement for the women, but their current structures are damp, poorly constructed and vulnerable to collapse in natural disaster or spread diseases. I will not deny the challenges that Abukare will face when it comes time to separate them. The story of me and Gushiegu does not end here so stay tuned to hear more in the near future.

Checking in

I just wanted to report that all is well with me despite my lack of entries. Trust me it has nothing to do with not having anything to write about. Since I returned from the north I've had plenty of things to write about but always experience technical difficulties when it comes time to uploading them.

Things are very busy in Accra right now because of the African Cup of Nations, a fiery football competition that's as big as the World Cup. I was at the Ghana vs. Namibia game last week and hope to see many more in the weeks to come. So far, Cote D'Ivoire and defending champions Egypt are hopefuls to take the Cup this year. Although, if you ask any Ghanaian their response is fiercely patriotic and they say Ghana will take and has to take it hands down.

Anyway, please stay tuned for more upcoming blogs, some on the following subjects: Witchcraft in Northern Ghana, CAN 2008, Liberian Refugee Camp and hopefully a post to celebrate my 24th birthday!

Not that I'm counting or anything but I'm home in 5 weeks! Unbelievable. At this point in time, I'm looking forward to drinking "brewed" coffee, eating bacon and cheese, bra shopping and doing the crossword in the morning paper, the most when I get home. Hope my readers are happy and healthy.

The Great Dry North

Dusty roads, peaceful landscapes, strong dry winds and warm hearts. Nothing can describe the northern parts of Ghana more than these words. I suppose I could add that in my experience the north was also highlighted by hundreds of watermelons, dirty feet, broke down buses and close encounters with God’s creatures. On the 6^th of January, my colleague, Jody and I took a bus to Tamale, the capital of the northern region. One week later we arrived back in Accra exhausted, dirty, lathered in shea butter but ultimately happy. Apart from my dry skin and sore bottom from many uncomfortable bus rides, the north was good to us. We had an ambitious itinerary and by the grace of God were able to see everything we wanted to and more. Our adventure went as follows:

On Monday, we set out for Mole National Park. Our bus was supposed to leave at noon and so we arrived at the station at 11:30 am. Little did we know that the bus was completely unreliable and we didn’t end up leaving Tamale until 4:30 pm! The bus was packed with goods, mothers with babies on their backs, chickens and God only knows what else. So what should happen to us when we’re driving at full speed down the dirt road towards Larabanga? Yes, the driver hits a bump and we break the axle on the front wheel! Now we are stuck on a dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Ghana. Everyone piles off the bus and we begin the long wait and hope for another bus to come save us. We happened to be traveling with two other Canadians that we met on the bus to Tamale the night before. We passed the time making peanut butter sandwiches and reading chapters from Things Fall Apart (a classic West African novel and an appropriate title under the circumstances). Some two hours later a second bus comes, after thinking that we would be spending the night there. We get to Larabanga and then take the village’s only taxi into the park. Of course, this couldn’t be a smooth ride either, the driver has to drive over a rock and pop a hole in his gas tank. When we arrived we tried to help him siphon what little gas he had left and then he took a bar of soap and shoved it up the hole. We arrived 12 hours after our journey at the station began and we were exhausted.

Tuesday morning we woke up for the 7:30 am safari walk and the rough trip into the park was definitely worth it once we began our early morning stroll. About five minutes in we had already seen our first of many elephants. The park was beautiful and mostly because it was extremely peaceful and being able to watch elephants bathe gracefully in the watering holes while others gathered around to drink was Creation at its best. The afternoon wasn’t entirely peaceful however, because our lookout was invaded by a group of olive baboons, one of which tried to slap me in the face. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the peace and paid a short visit to one of the first mosques in Ghana in Larabanga, dated to 1421. Our trip to the village also brought us natural shea butter which our thirsty skin gladly accepted. We left Mole the next morning on a very early and uncomfortable 4 am bus. We spent most of Wednesday on the road, as we continued on to Bolgatanga after arriving back in Tamale.

On Thursday, we traveled even further north to Paga, along the Burkina Faso border where we experienced our own Crocodile Hunter adventure. If you can believe it, yours truly, straddled a crocodile and was petting its back! The crocodiles in Paga are said to be spiritual and can hear human voices. They even venture into people’s homes and are said to bring blessings. We also visited a slave camp on the outskirts of Paga, named Pikworo, that served as a stop for slaves coming from northern Ghana and Burkina Faso before heading to the slave market in Salaga. The rocky outcrop left eerie signs of habitation from slaves and their raiders. There were impressions made in the rocks where slaves were forced to carve out bowls to eat. There was even a rock that the slaves would play like a drum with smaller stones and we were able to listen to some men playing the natural instrument while singing songs from the days of the slave trade. Before leaving Paga, we drove to the Burkina Faso border to give Ghana’s neighbour a wave and then we headed back to Tamale.

Friday and Saturday were spent in less of a tourist fashion but ultimately rewarding and also confusing experience. I will share what we did on those days at a later date as I think they will need and deserve their own blog entry. For now you can enjoy the pictures and know that I am back safely in Accra from my northern Ghana experience.

Photos: Jody and the broke down bus; elephant!; standing in elephant tracks; getting friendly with a croc at Paga; bowls carved in rocks used by slaves at Pikworo