Being black in Africa

I have often been asked the question, “what’s it like being a black American in Côte d’Ivoire?” so I figured I would address this here.

Sometimes it’s like this:

In a taxi on the way to a Saturday morning yoga class with two (white) American friends, the driver kept referring to me as his “sister” to back him up in a discussion about how Ivoirian women prefer girl children. Exasperated on my behalf, my friend said, “She’s not your ‘sister.’ She’s from America like us!” The taxi driver expressed shock and then excitement; he turned around and asked if he could shake my hand. “I’ve never met a Black American before! I see them on TV, but never before in real life!” He proceeded to chuckle and shake his head in astonishment the whole rest of the trip.

Or it’s more often like this:

Taxi driver: “is she [referring to me, even though I am in the car] American like you?”

Friend: “Yes. But, you can ask her yourself”

Taxi driver turns to me: “but really where are you from? Everybody knows where they come from… your ancestors are from which African country?”

Me, incensed: “Do I really need to explain the whole slave trade to you right now? They didn’t ask the Africans they took off the boat which country they were from and write it down. The slave traders didn’t care (I might have used more colorful French here, I was in a bad mood)”

Taxi driver: “I guess that makes sense…Well I heard Michael Jackson traced his heritage back to Guinea. So you could be from there too.” (Guess which country the taxi driver was from… go figure)

I get it. I represent an anomaly for many here, because when they meet Americans, eight times out of ten (or higher) they are white (i.e. aid workers, embassy folks, etc). From first glance, I don’t particularly stand out – I have been told that I have Bété (Ivoirian ethnic group west-central part of the country, Gbagbo’s ethnic group) legs – though my accent to a good ear has English tones. When a taxi driver discovers this and I am alone, I lie and say I am from Ghana. Why? Because I don’t want to deal with people asking me to help them get a visa to the US (i.e. help us, my sister. We are both black you should help us, etc). Only once has this plan backfired when the taxi driver knew Ghana a little too well (Oh, what village are you from? What language do you speak? etc). If I am with some of my lighter skin (read, white) friends, I become even more noticeable because I am speaking English. I once had a dude chase us down the street because he was sooo interested in talking to the Black woman who spoke English. Saw the same dude less than an hour later when I was alone; he didn’t take special notice of me. 

I guess it is frustrating because I don’t want to be the exotic token. It’s true that I can answer, after being asked four times in the same conversation, really where are you from, my grandmother is from Cape Verde (though also born in America), which I do sometimes. They nod their heads and say ok, that makes sense (because me being from America doesn’t make sense…); But I am only a quarter Cape Verdean, don’t speak the language and minimally identify as such. I don’t want to diminish the rest of my history that is directly tied to the slave trade and American history, and yet I find myself sometimes having to do this. It’s equally frustrating when they say, “but no he or she [referring to a white colleague] is a real American.” My people have been in the US for longer than every one of my white Fulbright colleagues here, who are descendents from European immigrants that arrived in the late 1800s, early 1900s. From what my grandfather has researched, the Davis side can be traced back to at least the 1790s! Argh!

On the other hand, it certainly has its advantages. The people I work with love to show me off as “Obama’s cousin” (though, they know good and well Obama and I have little to no chance of being related considering his background). I have embraced my “Bété”-ness, even adopting a Bété name: Ouzua (which now some colleagues only refer to me as). I blend in when I walk down the street… maybe they see me as different from Ivorian women, but for all they know I could be from some other West African country… in other words, I don’t usually get harassed for money or to make “new” friends any more than an Ivoirian would, compared to my white colleagues.

But the “discrimination” (maybe too strong of a word) doesn’t just apply to West Africans ignoring me or being intrigued by me. In Ghana, I have a memory of sitting in the cafeteria alone eating lunch one day. Some UCLA study abroad students (some of whom I had actually met earlier) came in. They saw another white study abroad student, and immediately went to sit with him. I sat there, appalled. I wanted to stand up and shout “hey, I am American too!”

In short, living in and travelling around West Africa has made me think about my identity as a black, African-American, woman. I would like to learn more about other African-Americans’ experiences here, and maybe one day I will write a book. In the meantime, I try not to get too annoyed when asked where I come from. I try to feel out whether the taxi driver (because nine times out of ten, they are the most interested) is going to ask me for a) more money, b) a visa, or c) if I know Beyoncé; or if he is just going to have a nice chat with me about how cool my country is. That’s when I decide to claim my American-ness or pretend to be from someplace else. 

What ARE you doing in Côte d’Ivoire?

I have been in Abidjan for two months now, and so I think it’s fine time to explain what it is exactly I am doing during my Fulbright fellowship with the Ivoirian Ministry of National Education.

Système éducatif Ivoirien

First, here’s some brief background info regarding the education system in Côte d’Ivoire.

The structure of the system is based on the French model (basically école primaire = K-5, collège = 6^th-9^th, Lycée terminates with the Bac at the end). School is free until high school, after that it’s 6 000 CFA per year ($12). Unlike France, there are no school buses or school cafeterias. Some of the problems facing the school system here include: lack of paid professors, no materials in classrooms, too many students per class, etc.

In villages, there is sometimes only an elementary school, so students have to commute to larger villages to attend middle school. Many times, they stay with family or a tuteur during the week so that they can be closer to the school. One of the projects that the DPFC is working on is the construction of collèges à la proximité, where elementary school teachers would be trained to teach at the middle school level as well, to prevent students, particularly girls, from having to travel to school. There was an increase in the number of teenage pregnancies associated with the tuteur system, so they are trying to alleviate this problem.

School is also taught in French, the national language, although there are moves to integrate local languages into the schools, particularly in rural areas where students’ parents might not even speak French (see blog post about this here).

My work

As I mentioned previously, I am working in the Direction de la Pédagogie et la Formation Continue (DPFC), which is responsible for producing the national education curriculum and training teachers from the primary to secondary levels. The staff is all former teachers and they work hard and long hours. Especially now, as the Ministry of Education has just launched a new curriculum that is slowly being introduced in schools. The content has not changed, but the way that the material is taught has, thus teachers are going to need new training and new curricula. They have decided to move from Pédagogie par objectifs (PPO – Pedagogy by objectives) to Approche par compétences  (APC   – the skills approach, which is more in line with the Anglophone model of teaching; student ability- centered). The reasoning behind this is to bring the Ivoirian education system more in line with other Francophone countries in Africa, who have already made this change.

Of course, there has been a lot of pushback regarding the shift, as teachers argue that a) there isn’t much of a difference between the two strategies, and b) they won’t ever be trained in the strategy (due to budget constraints, timing, etc), so what’s the point in changing. The DPFC, thus, has to go defend the change and has put a lot of people on the ground to train trainers to get the word out there on the new approach. I have attended some of these meetings/trainings and have heard some of the complaints, but also have seen that people seem to be pretty receptive (and they don’t have much of a choice, they will be evaluated based on the new program at the end of the year, not the old one!)

Another important change to the curriculum this year is the shift from Education civique et morale (CM, Civic and Moral education) to Education de droits de l’homme et citoyenneté (EDHC, Human rights and citizenship education). The change actually started in 2009, with emphasis placed more on human  rights than had been previously, but the program wasn’t elaborated/published until this year. Since the program is new, there is a lot of buzz around it: what makes it different from CM? Is it necessary? What should the content be? How do we teach it? Who teaches it? How will teachers be trained? Are they (both trainers and teachers) doing a good job? Are they teaching it using the APC? Does it correspond with international and regional norms?

So here’s where I come in. I get to participate in the training of professors on EDHC, evaluating their performances/approach, and critiquing the actual content of the new program. 

I have already read through the curriculum, attended some training seminars, and now have visited two schools to sit in on lessons. I expect to continue to do this, with some exciting opportunities coming up that include: attending a training seminar by ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) on their newly confirmed Peace Education Manual, seminars and trainings hosted by UNESCO, and visiting schools all over Abidjan and the interior of the country.

EDHC en bref

In August, the government signed into law the creation of EDHC as a subject in schools. Currently, there are no teachers who are specifically dedicated to EDHC; instead, professors of all disciplines may teach the curriculum. It depends on how many hours a teacher has within their own discipline (if they don’t have enough hours, they supplement them with EDHC courses) and sometimes teachers volunteer to teach EDHC on their own. 

This presents a major dilemma: those teaching EDHC have no training related to the curriculum. This is going to change since EDHC is now an official subject and will be taught in teacher colleges for future professors, but for now, anyone could be teaching the material: a math teacher, a history teacher, a German teacher. Even those in charge of the program with whom I work, though they are excited and committed about teaching EDHC, are not formally trained in human rights education. 

The content of EDHC can be broken down into three main components:

Human rights education and civic education: varies from learning the various international instruments on human rights (international convention on rights of the child, for example) to making sure you vote and pay your taxes to learning the lyrics to the national anthem.

Taking care of the environment:  the importance of clean water, not polluting, etc.

Health: the fight against HIV/AIDS, puberty, , don’t do drugs, teenage pregnancy, etc. 

To help with the problem regarding lack of training, the DPFC issued a guide to go along with the curriculum sent to teachers, which includes specific information necessary to teach on the topics above (for example, for the lesson on instruments and mechanisms to protect vulnerable populations from violence, the guide has a list of all the international conventions related to vulnerable populations, definitions etc). However, with no textbooks produced on the subject as of yet, plus constant revisions still ongoing, I can understand why some teachers may find it hard to convey what it is they are expected to regarding the curriculum.

Now that you know a little more about it, I will start to write more posts on some of the observations I have made during classroom visits and the experiences I have in trainings. It is an exciting time as the curriculum is more or less brand spanking new, plus it has already been heralded as extremely important part of the national curriculum by both the Minister of Education and the National Assembly. It’s a great opportunity to see it being put into action. 

I gave a guy a car and got a box of quail eggs! And other stories of first few days in Abidjan

I can already see that this West African experience will be quite different from my other adventures. Here’s why:

1.       Accommodation: I and two other Fulbrighters are staying in a very secure, nice, new building in the Riviera III neighborhood (not far from the U.S. Embassy). My apartment is air conditioned, with hot water and NOT cheap (my rent here will greatly exceed what I paid in Paris!), but it’s not easy finding secure, cheap, furnished housing in Abidjan, so I will take what I can get.

2.       Work: on Tuesday, 18 Sept. I went for the first time to the Ministry of Education, Pedagogy and Continuing Education Department, where I will be spending the next 10 months. It is located in one of the many sky scrapers of Abidjan. The building itself is a bit dilapidated, as it and its neighbors were attacked during the election violence in 2010-2011 (i.e. windows are shot out, some offices were clearly burned and never repaired, water is dripping from somewhere into the lobby, etc). The elevators are so slow and come so intermittently that there are chairs on each floor for you to wait. But, I’ll have a nice office (not finished yet) fully equipped and ready to go (I’ll even have my own toilet!).

This department (henceforth referred to as DPFC) just launched a new national curriculum, so they are now in the process of training teachers (already 3 000+ have been trained) and communicating the new strategy across the country. One new element is the EDHC (Human rights and citizenship education), which is exactly the type of curriculum I would like to work with. We’ll see.

Another interesting project is the teaching of local languages at the elementary school level. The idea is that students will be better integrated into the system if they start off by learning how to read/write in their mother tongue, and then slowly progress to French education. They have already had success in an initial pilot program (in classic schools, 73% of students advance, whereas in the pilot program 83% continued onto middle school).  The director of this program was really nice and already invited me to her home for Tabaski (Muslim celebration)!

On the first day, I met with my director and we discussed possible avenues for me. This followed a lunch with the deputy director, who then told me we were going to visit the lycée Classique (high school). I thought we were going to check out the training program for new teachers. When we arrived, there were hundreds of people lined up on the street clapping. Come to find out, it was actually a ceremony involving the Minister of Education, Madame Kandia Camara and World Bank officials, who had provided materials and several vehicles for the various school districts (many cars were stolen during the conflict, so administrators were unable to get around to visit/inspect the schools). It was a big affair with music and I even participated by symbolically handing the papers for one car to one of the district directors (Minister Camara thought it was a good idea to include l’américaine!) We then had a reception with the principal of the high school who explained that a student association had been raising quails all summer in order to sell the eggs as a business venture. He gave three boxes of quail eggs to Minister Camara, who then gave me a box! Apparently they are really good for you, if you drink them raw in the morning, several a day (haven’t tried that yet!).

In short, the first day was an exciting whirlwind of meet/greet (I met all the different curriculum heads and other important people) and official stuff. I learned my lesson, always bring my camera to work, you never know when I might do something cool like give someone a car! (I might even be on tv or in the newspaper!)

The second day was just as interesting, yet less official. I attended a seminar on using cell phone technology for statistics gathering in education. It is a new program, to be tried on schools here in Abidjan with the support of Orange (cell phone company) and Microsoft (who is making the application to be used on Windows phone, presumably) and UNESCO. It was really interesting to see how technology can be used in this capacity, and especially since Orange had successfully run a similar program in Senegal involving birth registration by cell phone. Since so many people have cell phones (and there may not even be roads in the villages!) it is an efficient way to transmit information over distances quickly. Getting the stats to the Ministry of Education will help them develop programs, find out what the schools need, etc. This idea, of integrating technology into education, seems to be really important to my boss, so maybe I will be working on these types of projects too?

3.       Daily routine: Riviera III is pretty far from Plateau, where I work, but the traffic is ridiculous and makes it even worse. Therefore, the people in the DPFC start at 7:30 to avoid the traffic and leave at 16:30. It’s going to be a very early start for me! This is a change from classes in Senegal or Ghana, which weren’t so early or every day.

So that’s that. Things have started off really well: I am making quick friends with the other Fulbrighters and have met a ton of cool people through work, especially the seminar on technology. So far everyday is a surprise, and I like it that way!

Direction: Abidjan!

On 15 September, as a   2012-2013 Fulbright Public Policy Fellow,  I will be headed to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire to work with the Ivoirian Ministry of Education on public policy issues.

Justine Davis _ Public Policy Fellow

I am super excited about this position and can't wait to find out what exactly I will be working on! You can follow my experiences here.

Autumn in Ghana: Tales from the North

Saturday the 18th of November: We arrive at the STC bus station a little before 8 for the bus to Tamale that is supposed to depart at 9. Of course, we don’t leave until 1pm. It was the “ordinary” bus, which means no A/C, no loud Nigerian movies (more on this later), and the dreaded middle seats. These are seats rigged in the aisle that have backs that are permanently reclining and are mighty uncomfortable for a 12 hour bus ride. And lucky us, two of our four seats were middle seats. We tried to rotate, but someone always got screwed with the middle seats. I was really uncomfortable because I was having some sort of allergy/sinus attack and was sneezing/blowing my nose the entire trip. We stopped four times: once about 2 hours outside of Kumasi at a very nice rest stop with a restaurant and nice clean toilets, once in Kumasi with okay toilets, once in Sunyani (I didn’t get off the bus, but it looked nice), and one last stop in Techiman. The toilets in Tamale were the worst I have yet to see in Ghana, and that’s saying a lot, I think.
First and foremost, it was Freezing on the bus once the sun went down. I tried my best to bundle up, but its hard to do when all you have is t-shirts and a skirt. We arrived in Tamale at 2am. It was too late to get a hotel room, since the bus to Mole left at 4, but too early for the bus. So, we found some nice benches and slept until the bus arrived.
Sunday the 19th of November: It was a bumpy ride to Mole, but we were so exhausted we didn’t care. It was a long dirt road that ran through the savannah. Actually, I felt like I was in East Africa or some other country other than Ghana, haha. It just felt so different! We stopped in Larabanga, which is where the oldest Mosque in Ghana is located. Twin brothers run this hotel in town and they gave us a tour of the village and mosque and took us to a place where we could eat some rice and eggs. We also met the chief of the village which was cool. From here we took a taxi (which was a big hassle; the brothers wanted us to take bicycles or motobikes with them, but there was discrepancies about prices and whether or not we were getting ripped off or not) to the actual park. We sat out on the look out which is right above the two main watering holes in the park and saw elephants bathing and a ton of deer like animals as well. It was really relaxing. The hotel was nice, 70,000 per person per night, which is the most I have paid for a hotel here, but it was nice with our own bathroom and a fan and a pool. Unfortunately, I learned that the age old rhyme “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” was something you should actually wish for. Our beds for filled with bed bugs so we were all covered with tiny red bumps that itched like no other for a few days after the stay. At least the beds were comfortable, right? What was weird was the temperature change. It was extremely hot during the day, yes, but at night it got really cold. There were a ton of warthogs that wondered around over the park and many times they would appear out of nowhere in front of our room in the dark and scare the crap out of me.
Monday the 20th of November: We got up at 6:00am for the guided tour of the park. We hiked down the hill to the water hole, didn’t see any elephants, hiked some more, saw some monkeys and antelope type animals, no elephants, saw a ton of army ants making a highway of sorts, but still no elephants. We hiked for two hours and the guide was disappointed about elephants. As we started to climb back up, we saw two elephants in the bush. We rushed down to take pictures of them, so we were really close, which was cool (of course, my batteries picked this time to die, and I stupidly didn’t bring any extras). We went back to the room and slept, during the hot middle of the day hours, then chilled that evening.
Tuesday the 21st of November: Woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4am bus out of Mole back to Tamale. Tamale was a very dusty town, but it wasn’t too bad. I did notice a lot of beggars, but that is probably just a trait of big cities anyway. From Tamale we took a metro bus to Bolgatanga (four hours) which is in the Upper East Region. Bolga, as it is fondly called, was different from Tamale. It was drier, number one, and I could feel my skin dry up and my throat and nose become parched. That is a big change from the extreme humidity that plagues us here in Accra. Second, it wasn’t as hot and it actually felt a little bit like fall. Leaves were even falling from the trees, so it felt only appropriate we were celebrating Thanksgiving up north.
From Bolga we took a metro bus to Zebilla (one hour, stood up the entire time). When we got to Zebilla it was market day, so we went in search of fresh bread, vegetables, and other necessities for the next three days (market is every three days up there). Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any eggs (apparently in the dry season guinea fowl and chickens don’t lay eggs…what kind of crap is that??) They speak Kusal in Zebilla, so we picked up a couple of words, such as hello (tima tima). Maura, who is the reason we went to Zebilla, is doing research on well water and ground water and soil (she is doing geology research on a Fulbright). We stayed in the former MPs house with his neice, Emilia who is a seamstress, and another graduate who is working on a clinic in Zebilla, Katie. The former MP wasn’t there, of course. It was a really nice house with running water, electricity, an oven, and a t.v.
One way I could tell we were not in a large city was the reaction villagers had towards me. First, they asked me where I was from. When I said the US they asked why I wasn’t white, or how I was black. In fact, they were really confused most of the time (“So…she is African?” “No, American, African American.” “But she’s black?” or “If you are American, why are you black?”). Then they asked me why I was fat. I am not sure how to answer that one. I have started taking it as a compliment…haha.
Of course, because I am a dork, I talked politics with the people in the house. Haruna, who helps Maura out by giving her rides to her wells on the motorbike, believes that NDC will win the presidential election in 2008 and change the constitution so that Rawlings will be president for life. He contends that President Kufour has done nothing for the North; only helping out the rich south. ( I am not going to bore you with my extreme interest in Ghanaian politics, but I just want to note here that the North and the Volta region vote as a block for NDC, Rawlings’ party. It is really interesting, because the parties have no platform difference; they are just divided along ethnic lines. AND if you didn’t know, Rawlings was a military dictator for 18 years who killed a lot of people, but was charismatic, held democratic elections in 1992 and stepped down after serving two terms which is admirable, I guess, and he also did a number of good things for the country…its one of those, which is worse type questions.) Also, to keep along the politics line, I went to Parliament the week that we left to go up north, which was really cool, especially because we got to see the budget for 2007 (as in the budget for the entire country) as proposed by the party in power. NPP, the majority, were all shouting and excited whereas the minority, NDC, was sitting quietly on the other side of the room. The minority leader called the budget a “monotonous soliloquy.”
Back to Zebilla.
Wednesday the 22nd of November: We got up and headed to Tongo, one of the villages where Maura is monitoring wells. It is interesting…there is a reservoir, where a dam stopped a small stream to make a small pond that people use for washing. The reservoir affects the ground water which is used to provide water in wells. During the wet season, the wells are full, but soon the wells will dry up. Maura is trying to look at whether the wells near reservoirs have water longer and also looking at the type of soil that is around the wells. Water access is really politicized; chiefs will request a borehole (a covered well with a pump, which is more hygienic and safer than an open well) in their village, but will want it built right by their house. A mechanic in town has been monopolizing the equipment to fix wells and has charged ridiculous prices to fix it with old equipment. He actually accused Maura of tampering the boreholes and she had to go in front of the district assembly to tell them she is not there to do harm.
The best part of Tongo was the four hour donkey cart ride. All of us, four, couldn’t fit on motorbikes, so we hired a donkey cart, which traveled at the same pace as us walking, but was fun nonetheless. The funniest part was the stares we got from the villagers (imagine, a bunch of obrunis on the back of a donkey cart which is supposed to not have human cargo…).
Thursday the 23rd of November: we bought two guinea fowl…which one of the guys in the house had to kill and pluck (yuck). We roasted them in the oven, mashed potatoes (they were purple and really sweet), roasted some vegetables, and had fanta for Thanksgiving dinner. We had no bake cheesecake for dinner. It was cool. The people in the house called it the “food holiday.”
Friday the 24th of November: Karen and I headed back to Bolga around 12:00pm. We boarded the OA bus, which was much nicer than STC, right on time at 2:00 and left around 3pm. When we got to Tamale, we switched buses, and this is when the Nigerian movies started. The first movie was about a woman who was in a love affair with what appeared to be an 8 year old boy. The Ghanaians loved it; it was a comedy that kind of made fun of African American “thugs”, but really made the little boy the hero. After this came one about a girl who treats her mother and sister as a slave (I fell asleep during this one). Around 2am we started watching Terminator. The bus was, no joke, 30 degrees. The A/C was on full blast. My teeth were chattering. We were wrapped up in sheets, it was so cold. We got to Accra at 6, took a tro-tro to campus, I went to sleep for a few hours, and then started studying for my finals.
Finals: As of now I have completed two out of three “papers.” The first one, conflicts in Africa, wasn’t bad at all, just a lot if writing and a lot of information. I was a little worried about the second one, African Literature, but it wasn’t too bad. Two and a half hours to answer 2 or 3 questions that are extremely broad and I hate to write so it was not fun. I am glad they are over with, though.
Sorry about the length of this blog, I tried to keep it short. I have three weeks left in Ghana…and a ton of stuff to do!

shower sell-out, conferences, botanical gardens, etc.

It has been a while since I wrote, so its time for an update. p.s. for togo pictures, please click the ghanawebshots link on the right side. I haven't put up the Cape Coast ones yet.

Nothing much has happened, I haven't been traveling or anything too exciting. October 16-17th I went back to Cape Coast for a conference on decentralization and district assemblies' ability to generate revenue for CDD. I was the designated reporter. Since Cape Coast is a bit of a distance from Accra, we stayed overnight at the Elmina Beach Resort (this is where the conference was hosted as well). I felt like a sell-out...We were in an air-con car with a driver, stayed in a nice hotel with air-con, satelite tv, and...hot showers. I guess i felt like such a sell-out because I felt like the uppidy people i am totally against here. and the hot shower...it was just okay (i.e. it was a nice addition, but not necessary). Anywho, I am really grateful I had the experience of attending the conference. There was a presentation on the Cape Coast Municipal assembly and how they are attempting to generate revenue (tax collection is hard, especially with so many people in the informal economy not contributing to the tax base, so the assemblies have a hard time implementing successful development projects, such as trash collection.).One suggestion was the construction of student hostels, since the University of Cape Coast doesn't have enough housing for their students (the same applies to the University of Ghana, Legon...where I have heard rumors of one room with 13 people in it...a room meant for four). At the conference was the Central Region minister(he had a personal bodyguard too), some professors from UCC, members of the district assemblies, the Director of the Non-tax Revenue Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning from the central government, and a host of other prominent people as well as students and those involved in NGOs such as CDD and one of its chief funders, FNF. It was a really interesting conference...the director from the ministry of finance gave a presentation on street naming and house numbering. You just never think about how something so basic as this can really affect the infrastructure and development of a city. Anyway, as the reporter I had to write down everything that was said during the Q&A session, which was difficult because some people were mutterers, others were mumblers, others didn't really make coherent arguements, and still others were bringing up interesting topics that had nothing to do with anything. I went to the conference with Prof, Buntu (South African who is CDD's international fellow), and Joe, who has become my boss here at CDD (and who got me invited in the first place). We talked about US Foreign Policy (popular, eh?) listened to the BBC Africa on the way back, ate some pineapple, and had a wonderful time. I think that the internship thus far has provided me with the greatest experience, because I am with Ghanaians and learning so so much about the Ghanaian government, the innerworkings of a NGO, and getting to go to interesting conferences (like the one I attended today about women in the reconciliation process, how the reconciliation process should take on a more gendered approach to consider women who were abused, humiliated, or oppresed during the military regimes and the totalitarian governments of Ghana's past).
The following weekend my roommate's mom took us out to eat at a popular chopbar called Asanka's. I had yam and palava sauce (boiled yams and a spinach sauce) which was pretty tasty. My roommate's mom is a professor of finance at UofG and she is trying to get a fulbright in the US to study international finance at NYU. She is from Nigeria and has four kids, one in the US studying engineering in Georgia. She took us for icecream afterwards.
The next day we headed to Aburi botanical gardens, about an hour away from campus. It was built by the british and houses a ton of trees and flowers from all over the world. There is this one tree that got eaten by some crazy plant and the tree is completly hollow inside. We climbed in and it was cool. The gardens were small, but it was a change because it was a higher elevation than Accra and the air didnt smell like noxious fumes from cars. That week marked the official halfway point, and now its all downhill. I am not ready to leave...I mean i want to see everyone, but i think that you should come here, so i can see you and enjoy my lovely life in Ghana!
Last weekend (20-22) was also laid back, but sunday I went to prof's house for lunch. I met some of prof's friends, a chem professor from UofG that studied at duke, prof's ghanaian-canadian neighbor, a lawyer working in NY for international transitional justice, a woman on CDD's board of trustees who is a professor in communications at UofG, and a female lawyer who studied in London and is a non-sitting district judge. Prof's real name is E. Gyimah-Boadi, he is a professor at UofG in political science as well as the head of CDD. He doesn't want people to know what the E stands for. Anyway, he is a great guy, funny, smart, religious neutral (which is a "God-send" (no pun intended, haha) in this OVERLY christian society). Just sitting there, listening, i learned so much about Ghanaian politics. Granted, sometimes I had no idea what they were talking about (idk what it is with Africa and its 100 million acronyms for everything i.e. CHRAJ, PM, CCMA, AMA, CPP, NPP, NDC, etc and those are only a few of Ghana's million acronyms), but I got the general gist, like their views on chiefs and their desperation to hold onto power i.e. the Asantehene (the chief of the Ashante) who recently issued a fatwa on some journalists who wrote an article where his name came up in discussion about a cocaine scandal. Chiefs play a critical role in Ghana's democratic development, but it is interesting to see how they interact with the central government (in other words, they do what they want).
Speaking of religion, tonight we are going to a singles/relationship conference on campus. We are mostly going because we want to learn about things such as 10 things that are wrong about sex, 15 reasons not to marry your classmate, but to marry your CLASSMATE (whatever that means), etc. It will be an interesting experience, even if we don't believe what they tell us. I have no problem with Christians, mind you, but here in Ghana it is a bit on the ridiculous side, with someone left and right always preaching to you about something. Not to mention, one of the first questions in conversation is are you a christian? because that really matters if you are only trying to get the lecture notes from class. They are way too "holier than thou" for me.
This weekend we are hopefully going somewhere...p.s. only three more weeks of class...crazzy.