Football

I'm not having much luck meeting foreigners in Tamale, but it's been pretty easy to meet locals. When I first met Siobhan, I was probably overly suspicious that he was a townboy, but he's not. Actually, he's a pretty nice guy who's really into football. He knows a lot of players in the local semipro club, and he took me to one of their games. Photos! (That's him in the top right)

Fever Dreams

I got sick last week. So now I know what malaria feels like. There's at least one authentic experience chalked up. Sorry for the late posting.

Originally I thought it was the Kenke, which was a new food I'd tried the day before. My days have generally settled into a routine where I go out to a community in the morning, shoot some footage of whatever work or investigation we're doing there, and edit in the office AC after lunch. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to go - to Kuokuo, where we'd like to put that new borehole - but there wasn't much chance to replicate the meeting that was going to take place with the community leaders. I rode out on the back of Samson's scooter with my guts tying themselves in knots.

Once we reached the community, I got some basic shots of the meeting, Samson, etc. I'd been feeling steadily worse, and had let Samson know I was probably going to throw up at some point. I checked to make sure if that was going to offend anyone in the village. It would probably be OK, he said. In the end, it didn't come up.

I spent the rest of the meeting lying on a bench in the shade, which the community had thoughtfully dragged out for me. If they hadn't, I'd have taken the ground. By the time the meeting concluded, I was pretty weak. The ground was sand and it looked pretty comfortable. My head was spinning and I was looking at the motorbike unsteadily, not quite sure that I'd be up for the long ride back to Tamale.

Samson was kind enough to let me hang out under a tree near the main road for about half an hour, waiting for a taxi that never came. By this time, I was pretty sure I had heatstroke, or something. I felt hot all over. Eventually I just climbed up on the back of his scooter and held on. Woozy, I stared closely at the small hairs on the back of his neck as we drove to a Tamale hospital. I could see the sun in the small beads of sweat which hung off them. When the bike pulled, I'd sway forward and my helmet would click gently against the one he was wearing.

The hospital had no AC, just three slow fans. Everything was cash up front. I sat in a heap on a bench in the corner. Samson had a friend who happened to be visiting the hospital and they told me what to do and when to do it. The doctor was on the phone, organizing a construction project. The lab tech used a fresh needle - I checked it out of the corner of my eye. They stapled the printout to itself for privacy, but not very well. I could read 'positive' and 'seen' and 'malaria parasites'. Samson loaned me seven cedis when I ran out of money to pay the miscellaneous fees.

When we went to get the meds that the doctor had written out for me, the ATM ate my debit card. There was a policy, apparently, against returning debit cards. I told the lady that I had malaria and couldn't afford medicine without it, which wasn't entirely true. I stopped short of telling her that she'd as good as killed me. That seemed like overkill.

I stumbled after Samson looking for a bank that would take my VISA. No luck. Tried every bank in central Tamale. Went home to get money. Samson went to get the drugs on my prescription. I passed out at home in a pool of my own sweat.

After that, not much. Took the drugs, felt terrible, slept fitfully overnight and was fine the next morning. No reeneactments of Heart of Darkness, thanks to at least five different anti-malarials. Isn't technology grand?

Good news in brief

Well, I got a call from Shannen (the director of Create Change, now back in Canada). We're looking for money to put in a new borehole somewhere, and it's looking probable that it'll be in that same community that the pastor/funeral story happened. Heaven on Earth? Well, not yet exactly, but maybe it's a start.

Hafiz's Sister's Wedding

I've been put in touch with a Ghanaian filmmaker named Hafiz. I know him through a mutual acquaintance, a guy who's one of the managers at a local hangout called Sparkles. Hafiz puts on "Theatre of the Oppressed" (http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/) productions in small local communities as a way of educating & politicizing the locals. I'm going, hopefully on Tuesday, to check out one of his rehearsals. He videotapes some of these, and, somewhat incongruously, is also interested in local-style narrative films in the Nigerian style.

Nigerian films are basically genre B-movies. They're horror, action, etc. on a shoestring budget, morally conservative, sensationalistic, and cheesy (to the cynical Westerner) as all hell. There's touches of Bollywood-style symbolic realism and manic overacting. I might get a chance to be a token white guy in one of these. I'm having trouble thinking of anything more fun.

I went to his sister's wedding today - the first chance I've had to actually meet the guy. We talked for a while, I met some of his friends - talked to one for a long time about the NGO he works for - and eventually I begged off to go do some work. Like write this blog post.

I'm pretty excited about this - Hafiz is a genuinely friendly guy, and the work he's doing looks like a pretty sweet topic for a documentary (maybe, maybe, wish I had a broadcast-quality camera). I think I can contribute as well - the filmmaking techniques here are pretty basic and I've got the good old BFA.

Thought I'd dash this off while it was fresh. Apologies for rushed nature of the post & lack of art. I don't like bringing a camera when I'm not working - too intrusive. Someone at the wedding took a photo of me and the bride - I'll see if I can get a hold of that, maybe.

The photogenic mob

When I show up to a school or community, there's inevitably a mob of kids trailing around after me. I guess there's not much else going on, especially in the rural schools, where class often ends early in the day. This is especially true if I have a camera out - video or still. The kids at the schools will run into the area I'm shooting and pose. Sometimes they'll start to dance or show off.
Most people here still shoot film, so I think there's a lot of novelty value to showing them the photo right after it's been taken. If I show them a picture of themselves or their friends, a crowd forms pretty quickly. I'll take some photos or video that I don't need, because they seem to get such a kick out of it. The viewfinder on our video camera flips around so they can all crowd around and have a look at themselves in live action I'm a bit jealous. I don't know the last time I thought some bit of technology was that cool.

It's mostly the rural kids that get such a kick out of this - I suppose they're less exposed to technology in the day-to-day. Or foreigners, for that matter. It's also the rural kids who have the worst of a strained school system, especially at the primary level. The kids above were writing exams about half an hour before I took the picture. I took a look at some of the them. One student identified cows, dogs, and goats as examples of C) Birds. Most rural students speak Dagbani at home and English inconsistently, and they naturally struggle to learn in a second language.

There's also a chronic shortage of qualified teachers. Some are simply unskilled 'volunteers' paid on a small stipend. Often they commute by bicycle to schools in remote communities. There is no guarantee that class will be in session for more than a few hours a day. It depends on the dedication of the underpaid teaching staff and the discipline of the head teacher. Occasionally, the head teacher is the one not showing up.

The students learn rote memorization from handmade 'picture' cards, which the teacher holds up to the whole class. Students often sit three to a desk because there aren't enough to go around. They share textbooks. Etc. I saw three students at the school where that photo was taken sharing a desk that must have been broken somehow. They were balancing a science textbook on part of the wreckage. They were alert and paying attention. Good for them - and I mean that.

The Categorical Imperative

There's a thousand examples to illustrate how poor some of the people who live in and around Tamale are. I've used one or two already. I like the preface to this blog because of what it says about heaven, although I'm aware that it also says something about poverty. After all, 'purewater' is just a 500mL bag of filtered water - they sell on the street for about five cents.

Still, I woke up a few mornings ago to a 9 AM doorbell. There was a guy there, a friend of one of Create Change's school liaisons. He didn't have enough money to pay an exam fee at school. Thanks to some mid-'80s IMF austerity measures, these run around 100 GHC. I think his idea was that I would pay for it.

I can live without that 100 GHC. But for someone I don't know? To get him through one exam? He's probably telling the truth. But I wonder how rich he thinks I am.

In the end, I told him that I'd ask around the office to see if there were organizations in his area that sponsored boys' education. There was one CCFC partner organization that might have done it. I passed on their name, but couldn't get a contact person.

Send me some Kant?