Exploring Volta Region

Janna and I are on Christmas break between December 16, 2012 and January 9, 2013. Given the length of time we decided to do some exploring as we have been mostly just in Accra since arriving outside of our one trip to the Cape Coast region. We decided to explore Ghana's easternmost region (which is actually east of the region actually called Eastern region). Volta is home to a major tribe called the Ewe whereas much of the rest of Southern Ghana is peopled by Ashanti tribes, more on them in a future post. The Ewe people were, as is so common in former European colonies, split apart by colonial borders and many Ewes are found in neighbouring Togo. During the late 19th century European scramble to establish colonies in Africa the British and French were taken by surprise when latecomer colanizer Germany signed a treaty with the paramount chief (king) based in present day Benin creating the protectorate of German Togoland. This colony only was the hands of the Germans for about 34 years before the League of Nations (the often ineffectual World War 1 predecessor to the United Nations) split the colony between England and France as victor's spoils. The westerly section became known as British Togoland eventually merging with the British Gold Coast colony, both eventually becoming part of modern day Ghana. Volta region lies to the west of the Togolese border and to the east of Ghana's Lake Volta, the world's largest man made lake. It is a beautiful, hilly waterfall full area that is a must see if one has the time when in Ghana. Janna and I began our journey by heading from Accra to Hohoe. We stayed in Taste Lodge for 40 cedi a night for 2 nights. The food was simple but good and the hot water buckets available upon request, when used with the unheated showers made for a pleasant experience (we have no hot water at home in Accra, and often no water at all). On the first full day in Hohoe we hiked the nearby Wli falls. There is a low falls hike (relatively easy) and a high falls hike (strenuous and sweaty!). We did both, the views were amazing, the tropical vegetation luxurious, and the waterfall was spectacular. It is the tallest in West Africa but is quite thin being approximately 6 m wide. We swam in the pool at the base of the lower falls. The water was refreshing and the extreme vertical fall of the water created a surprisingly strong wind/spray blowing out instantly cooling our overheated bodies. The waterfall cliffs were covered on either side with large, golden fruit bats which are sacred in this are. The fruit bats in Ghana are harmless, while still being alarmingly large. They have bodies the size of a good sized squirrel and a wingspan of about 2 feet. Just outside the entrance to the waterfall hike is a delightful German owned place called Waterfall Lodge. The view is amazing and the food is good. We did not stay there but rooms were 32 cedi. Late in the afternoon we returned happy but a little tired to Hohoe.
From Hohoe we headed to Mountain Paradise Lodge near Fume. While we did not visit on this trip there a two shrines to the Virgin Mary nearby. At one of the grottos some children a few years ago reported to the local Catholic priest that the statue's solid, carved robes were blowing miraculously in the wind. The local priest interpreted that the robes in their fluttering were pointing towards a local palm tree. From this it was assumed the tree had healing/blessing properties and it was not long before the tree had been so carved up for relics that iit died. Also nearby is a second interesting Virgin Mary shrine. This religious retreat/contemplative centre is called the Blues of Ur. Ur is the ancient city in present day Iraq, formerly ancient Mesopotamia where Abraham, the father of Judeo-Christianity-Islam was from, at least 1500 years before the Virgin Mary was born. Blues refers to followers of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism, for instance a group of Virgin Mary focused Catholics in Canada has the name the Blue Army. This contemplative centre has an interesting start, supposedly a local Ghanaian Catholic saw a blue star flying above the jungle and followed to where it landed on top of a cliff. It was at this point the centre was founded. Definitely not something I expected to find in Ghana, especially in a remote area!
Janna and I for exercise (and for budget :)) decided to walk the 2 km from town to the lodge. This may have been a better idea in theory then practice as it ended up being a very steep 4 km walk under a blazing sun with no shade, along a road under construction. Just to paint a picture, when you see the words "road under construction" in Ghana picture a strip of land seemingly purpose built for one thing and one thing alone, the production of dust that covers everything in sight, especially and insidiously the dust infiltrates your clothing, hair, nose and throat. It is this type of road we walked up all while large construction trucks and vehicles drove periodically past. To be continued...

WUSC, Gender Equity and Corporal Punishment

An important part of WUSC's and the Uniterra program's mandate is to work for equity for women. Studies and field experience have shown that improving the conditions of women which is necessary from a rights based approach also has a multiplier effect on development. Part of every Uniterra volunteer's mandate is to work on gender equity and development. While my primary mandate is to strengthen the NGO I am placed with my gender component is focused on reducing violence against girls especially in schools. Studies show that the threat of violence is one of the barriers to increasing the number ofi girls in school as well as the quality of their educational outcomes. I have been working with my GNECC colleagues on a multi-year project that has focused on various forms of violence particularly sexual violence against girls. The current phase is focusing on alternatives to corporal punishment. Physical (and also mental and emotional) punishment/abuse is common and culturally accepted by many. Over 95% of both boys and girls report having experienced corporal punishment. It occurs in the home, in the community and in school. There is no law against corporal punishment in Ghana though there are laws against both physical and sexual assault. Corporal punishment of children though is not considered assault unless it passes an undefined line of excessiveness. In the school setting one the most common techniques is to beat children using a cane. GNECC in partnership with Action Aid
, UNICEF and the Ghana Education Service developed a Teacher's Code of Conduct which was in theory enshrined as an official human resources policy. This code forbid the use of corporal punishment by teachers with progressive discplinary outcomes for teachers up to and including dismissal and reporting to the police. Despite this code though corporal punishment continues. This is a classic case of implementing a regulation where there is not yet cultural acceptance. In multiple conservation I have had with teachers, NGO staff and even students I have been told that corporal punishment is a necessary disciplinary tool. One teacher told me, after asking if teachers in Canada practice corporal punishment, and I said no,that what I did not understand is that children in Ghana are so much more misbehaved than in Canada that caning is necessary. I assured him that while I had limited experience obseving Ghanaian children from what I had seen they were extremely well behaved. Children in school, and in Ghana as a whole fit in a hierarchy that values elders, adults and men. Classrooms often resemble those in old British movies where everyone sits up straight, calls teacher by madam or sir and repeats back desired responses in rote unison. I asked what are examples of misbehaviour and the examples given to me all focused on failing to satisfactorily complete homework. Contextually this is important as there are so many reasons that may impact the completion of homework.
These can include improper nutrition, illiteracy, chores such as fetching water or farming, jobs to supplement the family income or learning disabilities. The reasons behind failure to adequately complete homework are not investigated. Instead the teacher sees their role as to correct the misbehaviour through caning or other methods. We visited three schools to discuss punishment with the students. We excluded the teachers so the students would feel freer to speak. First we asked them what punishments they were familiar with. Examples included caning, hitting, kneeling on hard floors, weeding, garbage picking, digging of holes and then filling them in again, standing outside without being allowed to move under the hot sun, washing the teacher's car and working during school time on the teacher's farm amongst many others. Some punishments also included various exclusions from the classroom. We then asked the children what they thought of these punishments. By far the majority wished for alternative, more positive methods to be used. Many students felt that it was important for teachers to take the time to understand what barriers were preventing the completion of homework. Also interesting was the near unanimous condemnation of caning and also punishments that excluded students from class. Some even questioned if punishment was necessary at all as there could be more positive, reinforcing techniques that could be used. The thoughtfulness, engagement and commitment to learning 
so refreshing and exciting to see especially given that these students are immersed in an adult culture that insisted that techniques such as caning are indispensable. GNECC will be using the testimony of these children in an upcoming advocacy campaign focusing on positive alternatives to punishment. By providing parents and teachers with positive, proven successful techniques at bringing the best out of students we hope to begin to get teachers to buy in to these changes. We are working with some great Ghanaian educators who have used these techniques resulting in improved outcomes and a more positive experience for everyone. By removing the use of violence in school, the lesson that violence is a way to solve problems is removed leading to a less violent, more positive future.

Sorry for the break, blame the Masters!

I have been away from the blog for a few weeks as I have been wrapped up in both work and schoolwork. The course I have been taking has been towards completion of my Masters. As many of you know when Janna and I returned from living in Malawi in 2009 we decided to start Masters degrees part-time. We wanted a flexible option so we decided to take our degrees by distance education via Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada. Both of us are pursuing degrees in Integrated Studies which pursues an interdisciplinary social science approach. The idea is that the narrow disciplinary focus common in university is not necessarily the best approach to tackle today's complex problems. In the public policy world these are often called wicked problems, examples include tackling poverty, climate change, and international governance. These are problems that have so many layers, factors and players that it is necessary to have a broad understanding of a lot of disciplines as opposed to a narrow but expert understanding of one discipline. We each have areas of focus though. Janna's is equity studies and also community development. My area of focus is global change, basically a study of globalization, it's effects and ways to effect a positive, equitable future. The course that has been absorbing all of my non-work time for the last few weeks has had the very broad topic of What is Globalization? I was late getting started with the course as it officially started in the beginning of September while I was trying to wrap up my Ministry of Labour work and get ready for our move overseas. Then I took a few weeks getting settled here in Ghana. I had to write 3 papers. One on what globalization is, one on how power is practiced in our networked society and one examining the recent resolution of the longest trade dispute in the history of the World Trade Organization dealing with bananas. It is nice to be done as interesting as the course has been just in time for the Christmas break. More on our travels during the break soon.

A Day in Accra, Ghana (Tuesday, November 27, 2012)

Tro-Tro (beaten up minibus made out of an old van) for 4 km trip moving slower than the walkers streaming past us avoiding the traffic nightmare that is Accra, $0.25.

Workshop on inclusive education and students with special needs. Committed, passionate civil society members and civil servants.

Workshop starts at 10. Agenda says firm start at 9.

Indignantly insisting on being the meeting note taker after a female participant asked me to especially after she was scolded by a male colleague who told her that you don’t delegate work upwards.

Ghanaian art gallery with amazing paintings and sculptures. Beautiful pots as low as $10.

Delicious skewers of sausage (thick hot dog would be a better description) from a charcoal brazier sitting beside an open air bar while enjoying a cold beer with Janna. Sausage, $0.75, 1 litre of beer, $2.50.

First place at pub quiz.

Taxi home without seatbelts for 5 km, $3.00.

A man wrestling on the edge of the road with a fully clothed man, wearing nothing but his underwear late at night.

Bouquet of raw sewage wafting up from the open trenches running along every road.

Buying eggs and freezies of frozen strawberry yoghurt called Fan-Go from a shop built inside a shipping container. Eggs, $0.17 each, Fan-Go, $0.50. 

TV show via the wonders of online streaming.

Views of GNECC

Views of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) where I work.

 

Boundary Road, the street my office is on looking South

 

Boundary Road, the street my office is on looking North towards my office

 

The outside wall of GNECC

 

GNECC's gate

 

GNECC, yes my office is in a house. My office is attached to the garage on the left under the outside stairway you can see

 

My humble desk

 

Posters on the walls of GNECC

Sighted in Accra

I thought that I would post some pictures to give a visual dimension to Accra where Janna and I are living.

Religious signage is very common, even when the product is not religious. Here is the local auto parts shop

Chickens are everywhere, kind of like pigeons in Toronto

In case you wondered where Obama eats fried chicken in Ghana, it is only 650 m from my work

Note that each small black dot in the sky is actually a large bat.

One of my local variety stores

For my Ministry of Labour colleagues, inspection time? 

Just in case you were looking for Einstein college it is here in Ghana

Lord's Triumph is you place for coolers

Walls are not the most welcoming things to climb over here, this one sports razor wire beside spikes

And in case razor wire just doesn't quite do the job, this one has electrified their razor wire. Gives a new meaning to thoughts of hopping fences

First Road Trip

Janna and I had our first trip together outside of Greater Accra over the October 26-28, 2012 long weekend here in Ghana. We spent the first night at a nice place on the beach just east of a town called Elmina. On the Saturday we toured two towns, Elmina, and Cape Coast, which was my first exposure to some of the colonial history here in Ghana. Cape Coast was the capital of Ghana until the capital was moved to Accra in 1877.  Both towns have varied histories passing between the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Swedes, and the British.

Here is a view of Elmina.

Elmina Panoramic View

And here is a view of Cape Coast.

Cape Coast Panoramic View

I will write more about these two towns in a future post especially their role in the transatlantic slave trade.

On the Sunday Janna and I visited our first Ghanaian National Park, Kakum. It is a beautiful remnant of the once extensive rainforest that could be found along the coastline here in Ghana. Our guide was great, explaining many of the botanical specimens we could see in the forest giving us an ethnobiological insight into how the trees fit into the Ashanti culture. We learnt about medicinal properties, uses for the different woods and even how on one type of tree you could bang on their buttresses in order to communicate over long distances via the booming sound that would result. The highlight of the visit though was the canopy walk which is a series of rope bridges that allows you to access the top of the rainforest canopy, at times greater than 40 m in the air. I loved it and could have spent hours up there.  Below is a video (not taken by me, you can find everything on YouTube) that can give you a taste of the bridges. Janna did really well on the bridges considering heights aren’t really her thing. I am really glad that we got to experience the rainforest especially as I have to date been immersed in the hectic urbanness of Accra.

Kakum National Park Canopy Walk