The 4H School for the Gifted

I'm open to suggestions. I want to start a agriculture school. I am friends with the president of 4H in Ghana and he has worked out an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture to take over an under to non-utilized facility right on the Volta. I think we could make it work and it needs it. What I'm hearing is to keep these schools running you need a "rain maker" project. That means a product or service that essentially pays for the rest of the school. We'll do honey harvesting, animal raising, maybe dairy, then other under produced crops, but I think the rain maker would be a grain silo. Corn is big but no one has grain silos so all the corn goes bad and the price skyrockets during that season. We could buy up the corn during the low season and sell it back during high. Oldest rule in the book... buy low sell high. What do you think?

Excited About World Cup?

Front Page of the Daily Guide

Excited? Taking to the streets excited. Sorry no good pictures on that. After the Germany game a friend said, “what’s the point of them winning, they’re not even jubilating. Let us win at least we’d jubilate.” And they would. They keep predicting on the radio 2:0 Ghana USA. Hm. I doubt it. But all of Africa is behind them. I wish it could work out like the Ghana Germany game where we both go on but Ghana’s gonna have to earn this one.  

I am the Safety Kid

Be Safe! I find myself saying that a lot. Kind of weird. I feel old. There are so many “unsafe” things here that it would take a far better image collection than mine to fairly represent our daily adventures.  So I’m just picking one shot. Its kind of funny, but then its all fun and games until someone gets and eye poked out. Wear your seatbelt! (and safety glasses)

Burro Buddies

I thought I better do a blog on all my Burro Buddies.

 Ankrah you know about.

Nat is the route driver life of the party social glue that keeps this place together.

Cecelia is only known as Cecelia before 7:00am and after 5:00pm, otherwise she is known as Battery Girl (possessing all associated superpowers). She is Nats daughter.

Rose is the high powered, highly educated, newly promoted, Assistant Branch Manager.

Michael is our amiable and able accountant.

Thats it for the local full-time staff.

"Barack Obama, Our President"

(Uncle Sam worked in America to get kids to do their homework...  I heard they were going to put him on their 1GHC bill.)


I’ve been saving up pictures for this ever since the tour of the slave castle at Cape Coast. It’s a pretty gruesome place, that slave castle, not unlike the dungeons outside Masaya, Nicaragua, I saw last year. And that disgusting building in Masaya changed hands several times between Samozas and Sandinistas; each improving upon the torture of their captives. And it is not too unlike other buildings across the globe that record in nightmarish detail inhumanity at its worst.  Well here in the pit of one of the dungeons, near the end of the tour, our tour guide showed gifts left to the museum by countries and other organizations. He held up one gift, in relic-like reverence, for us to see. “This [arrangement of plastic flowers]” he said, “was left last year by Barack Obama, our president.”  

We BYU students thought wait, our president, right? I heard an opinion the other night that explained it. I was listening to a Ghanaian successful business leader on the radio. Students were asking him questions about all sorts of things. Most lectures of successful blacks to blacks have a similar sound. They vent frustrations of the current situation,  negate all excuses, and call them to do better. All this with a tinge of embarrassment. This man in his speech referenced Barack Obama as the greatest black man that ever lived. Of course there was Nelson Mandela and others (I think he left out MLKing, somehow King didn't transcend the American culture) but Obama has become the President of the United States of America. He has shown that blacks can achieve anything. I have to share this side note that I thought was interesting. He followed up his Obama remarks with a call for respect for women. "Think of the women that raised Obama, his mother and grandmother." I'm paraphrasing here but essentially women deserve respect because they can raise men like Obama. You can gather a lot of subtle cultural tones in his remarks. 

So this post is not supposed to be a psychoanalysis of the black man and his machismo milieu nor a political statement of internationally inspiring policy platforms. It is just another aspect of Ghana that I see every day. One thing I can say, as these two months were supposed to be about business in a developing nation, is that there are products that have complete market penetration in a very short time. Take cell phones and LED light bulbs. They both spread ubiquitously through all of Africa in a timeline of months not years, decades, or generations. And remember the list of African countries includes a good number of very corrupt governments. So there are compelling, market penetrating products, which previous to the product launch, one (pretty much everyone) would have looked at the market and been satisfied that only a little progress could be made or was even needed. But then some product finds a need that was either unreachable or hidden and within months everyone has the tshirt and is singing songs about it. 

Obama Mania... mmm

makes you feel a little special doesn't it... 

calm, cool, collected, and collectablethey wouldn't be able to get more american flags hanging in taxis if they made it federal law

no, they haven't forgotten Michelle

my personal favorite for so many reasons. some might say too rigid in comparison, blatant even, but the balance, composition, and meaning carry the day for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85YF0pyPH0&feature=related

Crowded in Ghana?

Andrew,
So is it very crowded in Ghana - urban? or more rural?


Joshua
____________________________________________


Joshua, 


I've been wanting to talk about this. Urban or Rural? Another fun part about Ghana, you can slip from city to country in a matter of minutes; from dusty, noisy, chaotic, to green, not really quiet but calm almost soothing, and  orderly in its own way (its still a jungle, just not a concrete one). The two are so different and I've obviously got my preference but here's some pictures so you don't have to take my word for it. 


A bit about population density though. Ghana is pretty open as far as I can tell. I don't have any numbers but it seems there is plenty of land and they are plenty spread out. That's good and bad for them, but mostly good. Bad because they don't have much connectivity with other villages or cities for exchange of goods, services, ideas, etc. Good because they aren't living right on top of each other so they aren't bathing in each others wash water or worse. The cities get pretty dirty, people relieve themselves in storm drains and throw litter where ever they want. But they do that in any big city, fortunately for the time being the dilution of relatively few people and a lot of rain saves Ghanaians cities from the filth found in developing world megacities. In the same way, being spread out means village life is in fact more like camping, happy camping. 

Sprint to the finish.

Considering I've only got 10 days until I'm home I'm stepping up my blogging. Check back daily, I'll have a new cover picture and post.

God as a Business Partner

I’ve always preached this and I still say it’s the best way to do business. Check out Ghana's approach--I like it.  

Re: the Mormon church

Andrew, 


Have you been to the Mormon church where you are? If so, what's it like?


Josh


Well Josh, 


I have been to the Mormon Church. They actually don't call them Mormons here, its always "Latter-Day Saints." They are very well known and have a strong following, I seem to bump into members everywhere we go. I'll include a few pictures here but I should also tell you about district conference. The culture of the Church is interesting. They are very spiritual and very participative. The love to sing and they love to sing loud, so much that you can't even hear the piano, but that isn't a bad thing really because they are poor quality keyboards and the congregation usually sounds pretty good. But they have two major difficulties. The mission president put it very well in his talk. He went through a chain of searching the scriptures diligently and then asked what does it mean to search diligently. Then he asked a fun question, if you lose a 10 cedi (~$7) bill on the way to the market would you send a blind man to go back and look for it? Of course not but that is how well we can search the scriptures if we can't read. Literacy is a big problem for the entire country. Then the second problem. "Having been taught in the language of my fathers..." The Book of Mormon prophets did that so they could read the scriptures. They may have spoke in one language but there was another they needed to be proficient in to study the scriptures. The mission president said this was like Twi, Krobo, Elwe, or anyother tribal language that they may speak at home. They need to learn English so they can learn the scriptures. They have what they call Gospel English classes taught during church on Sunday. Most of the men speak english pretty well, the women struggle and often hold Relief Society in Twi (they're not supposed to). The men have an advantage from serving missions and probably just general work outside the house. All things considered I'm impressed how well they know the Bible. I'm guessing they know the Book of Mormon just as well but since Sunday School is covering Old Testament right now I can only guess. 

Love the Latter-Day Prophet Dress

Only seats left in the back, and we were 10 minutes early

So what else is it like? They have a nice meeting house with a big back yard and a basketball court outside and a parking lot (that rarely has more than one car in it -- our's). There are a few other groups close by. One group meets in a school that is very run down, pretty poor facilities. I would guess they could meet in our building because there is only one branch there but, when I say "close" that's relative to the American I-have-a-car proximity. I suppose its too far to walk so they meet there. We could also just go up the road to another church house that is actually bigger than ours (stage/cultural center) but we don't have to because ours is just a couple minutes away, about 15 walking. 

Overall the Church here is very similar to everywhere else. It is teaching them to give up un-Christlike cultural habits and develop Christlike ones. That difference around the world seems to be in what unsavory qualities they have inherited from their culture. The leaders are typically impressive people and have rolled up their sleeves and are engaged in a long process of training and encouraging to build up the congregation. To something so that when He appears, they shall be like Him. 


Hope that helps. 


Andrew

Choir Practice

What we sang. Look closely its a new version.

Mole

I'll refer you to the capable blog addresses posted previously and this new one. This one is from one of the other intern/consultant that has been here for the month with us. 

Tribute to Team

Bidding farewell to a team member last night I realized I forgot a proper tribute post to those previous colleagues, who have since gone the way of the intern (heading for the hills or to the nearest more tolerable firm). Last night Whit’s older brother, Max the writer, returned to Maine. Hopefully our paths will cross again.

Paths I will certainly cross again are those of Tara and Jennia, the interns I came out with. We all spent our first three weeks in Africa together and here are some of the memories.  

Fellow Bloggers

A few colleagues and their blogs. (not that you need it because I do such a good job capturing Ghana and our experiences)
http://7weeksinghana.blogspot.com/
http://byumbaadventures.blogspot.com/
http://www.maxalexander.info/
one more TBA (to be added)

Animal Planet

Okay Readers I need your help again. I need you to help Justin and me identify this animal. We think a jaguar / raccoon mix skin would be a pretty cool item to hang in the MBA lounge at school--haha. Maybe we shouldn't encourage this kind of hunting, or weird breeding, but if we ended up with the skin we don't want to get arrested for trying to leave the country with an endangered species. 

RE: food

Dear Andrew,

What is the local food like? Have you been doing a photo documentary of it like Nicaragua?
Hope you are well

Courtney

Dear Courtney,

This blog would have been incomplete without a post on the local food. I'll do my best to answer your question. For starters read the sign here. That was our welcome to the local cuisine and I haven't seen a more apt description. 

Here is fufu. You have to use your fingers. This dish is with grass cutter, a large rodent (gerbil looking thing) that they hunt in the grass and clean and sell by the roadside stretch. I have a picture of me and snails in fufu I'll have to post later. The snail was huge. Another thing people in the village hunt for and sell on the side of the road. The texture wasn't bad but it tasted a little mossy so i just a had a couple bites and mostly left the gallon sized bowl of cassava goo and spicy spicy snail untouched.

.  This is waakye. As nasty as it looks it sounds like something I would do. It's a mix of rice, beans, spaghetti, boiled egg and some red spice. The workers here eat it at least once a day and always "invite" me. I've sampled it and the beans are really smoky and the spice is hot and not good. I haven't worked up the courage to try that slimy stuff smeared on the egg. Oh, and I think I see some cabbage in there as well. They are usually very large portions and its pretty cheap. 

 There are street vendors everywhere you go. Here this lady is roasting plantains and corn. I haven't had the roasted plantain but the corn isn't too bad, they dip it in salt water after it roasts.

 Another street vendor that sells (I think) goat kebabs. Goats run everywhere, I'm not sure what the green is but I'm sure its spicy.

 As delectable as it all looks sometimes its better to pass. because, well as they say on Hospital Street in Koforidua, "Stomach No Holiday" and how...

 This is what I eat. It might not look that appetizing but on the fresh roll on the left is cheese and avacado and on the right is banana and peanut butter and nutella. There is a backery here, they only really make a couple types of bread a sweet and butter loaf. The bread is pretty expensive (about what we pay in the states) but there seems to be a good market for it. Avocados and bananas are everywhere and cheap. Peanut butter is made locally so fresh and organic and very good. Cheese is hard to find. This stuff was the european spreadable. 

 We have a hard time keeping the fruit stocked. It only lasts a day or two but it is worth looking for. The locals don't eat it as much as you'd think so we haven't either but I think that will change soon.  Near the camera you see sugar cane. I guess you're just supposed to gnaw on that stuff and suck out the sweet goodness. I passed on it. 

So Court hopefully that helps you get a better feel for what the local food is like. Bon Appetite! You're Invited!

Andrew