The Future is Success

I interviewed a girl last week at Vitting High School. I asked her what would happen to her if she were to drop out. She'd go dancing and clubbing. She'd be influenced by her friends "not from the good side, but from the bad". She'd go around with boys. She'd get HIV.

This sounds a lot like the outside view on townboy culture. This girl, Beatrice, is a very successful student. I think her fear of this alternative path is a powerful motivator. It's a slippery slope, after all. There's a little flat area on the top full of books and grades.

A teacher at the same school explained the obvious differences in material wealth between rural and urban students. The rural students have only one uniform, which they have to wash every other day. They eat millet. They can't buy the supplementary textbooks or extra classes that the richer students can afford. They feel ashamed. The teachers tell them that when they finish school, and graduate, they can buy all the same things as the students from richer families.

I had short chat with one of the owners of Sparkles restaraunt. He asked me if I had a local girlfriend yet. I brought up Fatimah, since I'd been wondering how Ghanains dated. It's normal for the man to buy things for the woman, he said. But asking for things outright is 'too much.'

I guess there's a line. He called girls who cross that line "opportunists". Good word. They want passports, clothes, stereotypical things with social cachet.

I feel like there's only one story going on, and it's told in black and white. Beatrice is scared (and motivated) because there's only one alternative. Townboy culture. The other side of virtuous progress is rebellious laziness.

The nonporifts are using money to bring about a measure of social progress. This is a critical and important task, but it's still wealth generation. At Samson's Baptist church, they use donations to equip pastors. They help their youth through school, so that one day the youth can make Ghana a great and prosperous nation.

One day I'd like to meet a student who studies because they enjoy it. Of course, this isn't likely. They're all in school with good reason, dragging their families out of dire poverty. Useless knowledge is a luxury, art is a luxury. More than supermarkets, washing machines, and consistent power, it's one I'm having trouble doing without.

Sick leave

Had typhoid for about a week. The heavy duty antibiotics were a cure worse than the disease, which wasn't that bad. Got to experience 'mild delirium' which was less fun than it might have been. Actually it was a bit scary.

Fortunately, I am now making significant progress of my tropical-disease checklist. I am giving myself a by for meningitis, both because I have a vaccine, and because it is usually fatal. Cholera and dysentery await!

Eric

Oh and... (please)

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The Programme

Last weekend I ended up at pool party, of all places. It was a bit surreal - I went with a girl named Fatimah, who, along with her townboy friend Wisdom, I'd met at Sparkles on Friday. It was weird. Fatimah didn't talk much so I kept asking half-questions about the school everyone was from (Tamale Polytechnique) and sitting in silence in between. Didn't have swim stuff.

A bit further into the party (they called it a programme) one of the reps from Ghana Water Co. showed up. I'd met him at a community meeting Create Change held the day before. He was with two college friends, eyeing the college girls. They asked me if I had plans for Fatimah. I told them I had a girlfriend in Canada but 'it was complicated', which seemed a good an answer as any. It was somebody's birthday. They poured beer and soda on him.

Fatimah called me later, and I dragged Siobhan to Sparkles to go see her, explaining that I wanted him as sort of an anti-wingman. She showed up with a friend and asked what drinks I was buying them. So I bought two sodas, made excuses for me and Siobahn, and got the hell out of there. I apologized to him later. He's a good friend.

Anyway, she keeps calling me. I keep saying I'm busy with work. I'm hoping she will stop after a few days. (Although, she called just as I wrote that. Argh.)

Might get in touch with Wisdom again. He's a bit ridiculous (he 'owns the streets' and bragged about selling weed to the President's bodyguards when they were here). He called himself a townboy. I told him he's only a townboy if I'm buying the drinks.

Samson's Farm

E-I-E-I-O.

Further down towards Bolgatanga, and past about five kilometers of side road, is the small community that Samson comes from. I went to meet him there early last week; he's starting a small project and wants me to help him make a short video to promote it.

Samson recently spent a year in the states, at an agriculture development workshop in Waco, Texas. There's a small plot of land behind his family home, where he's hoping to build a farm to demonstrate some basic techniques (transplantation, the care & feeding of rabbits) which should help fill some gaps in local agricultural practices. The will provide a rare source of protein, especially for children. The traditional view is that higher-value (and protein-rich) foods such as protein and eggs are too good for children, who are seen as easily spoiled by such luxuries. This leads to widespread malnutrition of younger children. A prevalent protein source could help change this attitude.

Right now there's just a couple rabbits, huddling in a cage in the store room of Samson's family's compound. The farm area itself is a bit of a mess - debris from the old rabbit enclosure covers about half of it. It blew down in a storm recently, and will need to be redesigned.

Samson's optimistic about the future of the farm though. There's possible funding through his US connections, and it's not much work to clear this small patch of land.

Traffic

“Candidate must be willing to learn to ride motorcycle. “

This is a line from the job posting that got me here. Soft sell. Pickup line for when I get back: I like long walks down the beach and uncontrolled intersections. Both under moonlight. Or dirt paths through small villages. Watch out, small, shirtless children. Staying in second gear to avoid stalling & murder.

Here they build speedbumps like they mean it. Slow down, one way or another. On the bike or not, as you like. Dirt roads mean dirt speedbumps, logically enough. They build them at least a foot and a half high so the erosion takes longer. In the meantime… found new ones on my road last night. Thanks, civil engineering. Who speeds down dirt roads anyway? Isn’t the whole mass of pedestrians and brave goats enough? I go thirty and feel like Evil Knievil.

Riding with two people is tricky. Our bikes max out at an optimistic 70 klicks with one person. I drove Peter, our water project engineer, to Kpanduli the other day. Well, Peter, camera, tripod, backpack, laptop, etc. We stopped by a filling station to buy purewater for the construction crew and I thought I heard the bike scream. We bottomed out the suspension just going from the paved road to the dirt one. At this point, my influence on our center of gravity was proportionately negligible. I pointed us in a direction and prayed against potholes. We came up to a herd of cows chewing cud in the road. I steered between them. Peter wasn’t happy. The animals are unpredictable he said. Be careful.

In the main intersection in Tamale there’s a board posted with stats on traffic deaths in Ghana, organized by city. Every morning I scoot through the traffic cluster underneath. I imagine the two story trucks that barrel down the road to Bolga, crammed with people, appliances and livestock. If I end up on that board, it better be for good reason. Not some cab door opened at the last minute or badly-timed outside pass. I’ll take a cow herd or a tro-tro flipping down the highway. Give me a fatal pileup with an African flavour.

Some local commuter will saunter up in the chaos to steal my helmet. Stupid saliminga should’ve learned how to ride the motorcycle. And steered around the cows.

The Wet

The rainy season's come early this year. Today I drove the Create Change motorbike through nearly deserted streets - just a few taxis and NGO trucks were out and braving the downpour. The whole town shuts down, and there's a small huddle under every awning and storefront. The rain, when it comes, doesn't last long. I was unlucky enough to have things to do today - visa renewal, in this case. I sloshed into the Vodafone internet cafe to print of a copy of my return ticket itinerary. Under their air conditioning, the little hairs on my arms all stood up and I noticed for the first time that they've been bleached blonde by the sun. I left a puddle wherever I walked. When I went for passport photos, the photographer was nice enough to let me use one of his spare canvas backdrops as a towel.

This change in the weather is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the communities around Tamale benefit. Their dams have all dried up over the last few months, and they often walk long distances (4 hours!) to find water. The rains will fill the dams again, water will be near at hand. On the flip side, our borehole construction season is coming to a rapid close. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get the driller truck to the planned site for the Wayamba borehole. Twice now, drilling attempts have been called off on account of terrain made impassable by mud. We're hoping that a few dry days in the next week or so will make it possible to get the truck in. In the meantime, the communities will still rely on the old dams.

Photos

Top: Sunset over Kotingli dam.

Left: My official visa renewal ID photo

Right: Girl drinking water from a newly formed pool in Wayamba. Fortunately, this water is unlikely to have been contaminated with Guinea Worm.