Ka-sani yun-zune-ga (It's Official or Part 2 in a Series of Firsts)

The issue of my true Ghanaian-ness has been the topic of much debate amongst random strangers who hear my North American accent, so I was more than ready to jump at the chance to "perform my civic duty" and register to vote. Finally, I'd have a legit piece of ID I could whip out as proof that I belong! (despite not being able to speak a local language or cook a local dish - indicators of true African pride)!

Now I know it doesn’t sound all that exciting but this wasn’t just a matter of filling in some paperwork and signing my name on the dotted line … this was biometric registration! There was going to be technology involved – fingerprint scanning AND lamination, how could I say no? I couldn’t, so I went down to my nearest polling station which happened to be conveniently located five minutes from my house.

The rules for getting registered are pretty standard; any current form of government issued ID could be used to confirm your identity and information OR you could bring two newly registered voters to vouch for your identity.( I still find this concept incredibly interesting as it seems to impede the government’s efforts to discourage non-Ghanaians and those who are not of voting age to participate in the general elections, but that’s a tangent for another time :)). With the relevant information a government official fills out details like name, age, DOB, address as well as both parents’ names before directing you to the “biometric station”.

First, you're welcomed to the fingerprint station where they employ the 4-4-2 system . So they scan the four fingers of the left hand, four fingers of the right and then both thumbs. I’ve only ever seen “bad guys” get their fingerprints taken on TV and it always looks as though the scanners are extremely sensitive and barely require any pressure to be applied on the screen – NOT THE CASE. I felt like a criminal AND a bit of an incomp when I had to go through the process twice to obtain a full scan of my fingerprints. It was pretty impressive to see a copy of my “unique” prints on the computer screen though.

Next, was the photo, le sigh. It doesn’t seem to matter how much preparation goes into attempting to looking good for a piece of government issued ID, it just never turns out as well as its supposed to. Just as I sat down to have my picture taken and asked the guy if I could smile, he smugly informed me that he had already taken it. I look offended or bored in the picture, which makes me wonder if I always appear that way :/ 

I'm also really fortunate that the polling station I registered at didn't experience any disruptions or violence (particularly from the youth) due to inter-party conflict. Hopefully the peace and tolerance observed during this first step in the electoral process is a sure sign of good things to come. Youth Alive's governance campaign geared at the youth has been gaining momentum mainly in the Upper West Region by educating and encouraging peaceful participation.

As the registration process comes to an end May 5th I'm thankful that things have gone smoothly thus far. I’m glad that I got to participate in a new system that hasn’t even hit North America yet :p – let’s just hope having my fingerprints on file with the government doesn’t come back to haunt me :)

PS I apologize for the lack of photos (i.e. NONE) but I didn't think it would be apropos to take pics at the registration station or to have "government issued ID" on display for the world :)

More visuals next time!

Inna Keewa Key (I Miss You or Discomfort is Just a Symptom of an Unfamiliar State of Being, so Familiarize Yourself)

I’ve been doing so much travelling lately and despite the long hours and unpaved roads I seem to have a taste for it now! I absolutely love Tamale but any chance to get out and see more of Ghana is an opportunity I simply have to jump on J.

Needless to say I took full advantage of various family members’ travel plans and decided to just casually tag along and see how far across the country that would take me! Little did I know I’d get to cross six of Ghana’s 10 regions!

Luckily one of my cousins was getting ready to head back to college in the Brong-Ahafo region after a mid-semester break, there we’d meet our aunt Amina who had some errands to run in the capital Accra … so my route was pretty much set! My plan was to attempt a trip all the way down South to Accra and then back up North to Tamale, by road, within a week…

My route across the country!

Our journey begins on a cool Monday morning at precisely 4AM. My cousin Zalia and I had to go to the bus station and buy our tickets, which of course could only be bought on the day of travel! By the time we arrived at the station the line was so long that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t even get standing room. In our dire desperation we had to bribe a transport worker who was a friend of a friend of someone important, to get us tickets (when in Rome right?) Thankfully it worked and by 6AM we were off on a 4 hour journey to Techiman.

I’ll interrupt the flow of this post/the  journey to note a few key travel survival tips that I’ve picked up. For ease of comfort during long road trips such as this it is key to: drink as few fluids as possible and eat a lot of bread and bananas; it’ll keep you from squirming in your seat every time you hit a pothole or from needing to use questionable bathroom facilities or popping a squat in the bush.

After an relatively calm trip to Techiman, we still had to get to Attebubu, the town where my cousin attends college and where my aunt was meeting us. This meant chartering a taxi to drive us the 2.5 hours. I’m sure this leg of the trip should have taken longer, but our driver was flying around corners and speeding to beat no discernable traffic but rather his own personal record. As exhausted as I was by this point, it was the scenery that kept me alert. Ghana is absolutely stunning and in a few (relatively) short hours we’d moved from the dry savannah of the North to the forest belt in the middle of the country. It was so green with an abundance of banana and plantain trees all over the place.  

Once in Attebubu I received the grand tour of the small town from its bustling marketplace to the Teacher’s Training College Campus. In a country like Ghana, I always make the assumption that the further North you go, the harder the living conditions and vice versa. That little illusion was shattered in Attebubu; here we were, a good almost 7 hours South of where Tamale (where I normally live) and I found myself in a town with a water shortage and questionable electricity distribution. Long story short, I took a bath in the pitch black darkness with half a bucket of water … that was an experience, definitely made me feel like more of a local though.

Day #2 and my aunt and I are getting ready to continue on South. This started with getting a seat on a Tro-tro from Attebubu to Kumasi, one of Ghana’s most populated cities in the Ashanti Region. Tro-tros are like big vans from the 1970s that can carry about 15 people (legally), if not more – they’re very Scooby-Doo Van-esque and notorious for less than stellar driving records.

 

Scooby Doo Van - The Mystery Machine





Tro-tro ... see the resemblance?









I was a little apprehensive to have to be in one for 2 hours, but at least I wasn’t alone. Again, the scenery was enough to keep me distracted; especially this really amazing gorge we passed that just gave an amazing view of the mountainous areas of Ghana. 

Cliffside beauty

  

Once reaching a severely over-populated Kumasi (takes forever to get anywhere). We got seats on a coach to take us from Kumasi to Accra; a straight 6 hour shot. Now I have to mention how nice this coach was; it had full air conditioning, two flat screen televisions and lots of leg room (essential when you’re tall!) … faaancy J Road trippin’ in style, as it were. The most memorable part of this bit of the trip was that as we were leaving, a man got up and started a 30 minute preaching spiel in Twi (Chwee, the local language) where he blessed the bus, the journey, warded off  highway robbers (yeah, that actually happens here!). He did all this before introducing his friend who was selling Anti-Hemorrhoid tea?! And it was a hardcore sell too, like a live infomercial! And people were actually buying it! That kind of commercialism would never fly in Canada, let alone with hemorrhoid tea. Only in Africa.



That 6 hour bus ride took us through the Ashanti, Eastern and Greater Accra regions – phew! Little did I know my aunt was about to spring a surprise on me … we weren’t going straight to Accra – no, no. We were actually going to continue on further West into the Central Region to see my mom’s eldest sister (my aunt Zet) whom I hadn’t seen since I was 8! This meant getting picked up by relatives (42 - my family count!) and driving an hour from Accra to Kasoa (Ka-soo-wa), spending the night then waking up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday (Day #3) to take another Tro-tro into Winneba on a 1 hour journey.



Cocoa beans :)

16.5 hours and 6 vehicles later and we had finally arrived! I was so excited to be in Winneba, visiting my aunt and her husband (44). Since she was busy during the day with her job teaching, I spent a lot of time with her husband who showed me all around their property and around their small coastal town.

They had actual COCOA BEANS growing in their backyard! Ghana is famous for them but I’d never actually since or touched one!  



Traditional fishing on Winneba beaches





Winneba seaside fish market



We then went on a driven tour of Winneba from the beautiful beaches full of towering coconut trees, to the seaside market full of fresh catch-of-the-day and finally to the university campuses spread out across the town. 

 

Winneba University campus

 After a couple of chill days in Winneba I went down to Accra to spend some time with my dad’s side of the family whom I hadn’t really seen since my grandma’s funeral 2 months ago (52). They did a really great job of taking me across the entire city and pointing out big landmarks like the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah circle (a major round-about) 



Chowing down with my cousin Keilan :)

Sunday was time for some reverse culture shock when I spent the day with my cousin Keilan, and his friends and we were reminiscing about the first time I had come to Ghana in 1995. My brother and I had insisted on eating pizza and it had been an absolute disappointment for those of us who knew what it should have tasted like and for Keilan who had never tasted it before. Accra has become much Westernized and now pizza is apparently quite common, you can even order it to your house. So we went out for pizza and I will say, it was pretty legit, I was surprised at how good it tasted … oh globalization! 

  



The evidence ...

On my very last day in the city I made my final stop at Teshie, one of the main army barracks in Accra, to visit my mom’s younger brother, whom again, I had not seen since 1998! He barely recognized me and we had so much catching up to do J Luckily, during that visit too, his son, my cousin Taufiq came home from work and we got a chance to hang out as well (54). It was nice to reconnect with people I’d been inseparable with on my trips to Ghana as a child, I was very thankful for that opportunity!



I woke up on Tuesday faced with a solo journey back home. I had opted for the road; it would be long and tiring but it would be a heck of a lot more interesting than just taking the plane, and at least this time it would be a straight 12hr (or so) shot across the country!



We left Accra at 9AM and pulled into the Tamale transport yard by about 10PM that evening. Surprisingly, I was awake the entire trip that took us through five regions and all manners of traffic; city, highway and highway construction. We passed toll booths, bodies of water, villages, towns, fringe towns and hubs that had transformed into mini-villages due to their proximity to the major highway routes. I literally watched the scenery modify from dense tropical forest to flat and sparse grassland and felt the moisture evaporate each mile we moved further North.



I pretty much took all of this past week to recover from the journey(s) but I got to see, live and breathe 6 more regions of my beautiful home, bringing my total to 8 - only 2 more to go! (Western and Volta Regions).

Zeeya, Yo, Go-bay (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow)

In mid-November I graduated from with a degree in PR and given some time to reflect I had reached two conclusions; I had no idea what I wanted to do next, but I definitely wanted a chance to spend time with my family –  not just my brother or parents, but family in the broadest sense possible.

It’s been almost eight years since I was last in Ghana … over 1/3 of my life (scary). Things have obviously  changed since then and I was starting to feel disconnected from my national identity in terms of culture, language and lifestyle. Travelling and living across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia had given me an understanding and appreciation of people and places beyond my background. I was able to read Arabic and speak French but couldn’t understand a word of my parents’ secret dialect – that didn’t seem right. Also, the recent passing of my grandmother (Old Lady, as she was lovingly referred to), makes now an important time for me to feel a physical presence with family and not one that depends on the connection of faulty phone lines.

After grad, my dad started planting the notion of attempting a Master’s degree and I slowly started leaning towards an interest in International Affairs/Global Development. Ghana is a developing country with a lot of opportunity for growth and positive change. I wanted to take the time to understand the complex cycle of social (and political) issues that affect people on a daily basis; people that I even know personally. Volunteerism with a  local NGO was something that I definitely wanted to pursue and knew would be beneficial on a personal and professional level.

So it was decided - take some time off for R&R in Ghana with family whilst giving back to the community.

Being a Comms major, I couldn’t just leave my goals for the trip so open-ended. That’s right,  I’m busting out some objectives:

1. See/visit/greet as many relatives as possible. Unfortunately I can’t give a number because it constantly fluctuates in Ghana with the sheer size of families plus births and deaths. Family is also a loose concept as there tend to be very strong ties even between extend family members -  I’ll try and keep a count going.

2.   Learn conversational Hausa (pronounced House-ah). Hausa is a common West African language so my mom suggested that I try and learn it first instead of a local dialect. I’ve already started with the title of this blog so you can learn along with me!

3.   Volunteer with an effective (and efficient!) local organization. I want to get my feet wet by learning about local development initiatives. I’ll be working with Youth Alive Ghana, an Action Aid initiative that aims to help street youth end the cycle of poverty within the community.

This is more of an intro on the basis of my stay in Ghana and of this blog. I start writing my thoughts and experiences here as a way to document whatever valuable time is left before life becomes full of other obligations and time is no longer mine. Hopefully, these words will become the bridge between the romanticized idea of Africa and the unknown truth of its society.