I’ve barely been in Ghana for a week but it’s already been such a full and busy time!
My journey really started in Kuwait on Jan 4, it took me about 12 hours to get to Accra (capital of Ghana) via Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).
All in all it was a very smooth trip and fate/the universe led me toward some interesting people. On the longest leg of my trip (Ethiopia-Ghana) I had the luck of sitting next to a young Korean student, Jiye who just happened to be an International Development/Environmental Science Masters Graduate (go figure). Needless to say we definitely found things to talk about! She is very well-travelled, having worked in Kenya and has been working with a development organization in Ghana for over a year. She was the super adventurous type who had gone to explore Ethiopia by herself and I couldn’t help but admire the confidence and ability to completely immerse herself in another culture.
I arrived in Accra around noon on Wednesday Jan 4, where my Uncle KK (1, this is the relative count), my dad’s younger brother met me at the airport. It was so good to see him after so many years and I had the pleasure of staying with him and his family (6) for 2 days.
The first thing that hit me in Ghana was the HEAT. Snap! I had left Canada in November when it had JUST started snowing, I had been in Kuwait while it had been a mild 20 degrees (beautiful weather in the desert btw) and for some reason I hadn’t counted on tropical, 30+ degree weather in Ghana! There are basically two seasons in here; dry and rainy. When visiting Ghana in the summer as a child it had always been the rainy season (running from March-July and September-October). This is the first time I’ve ever been during the dry season (November-March and August) which is known for its warm Harmattan (not Hammer Time, like I first thought!) winds kick up dust everywhere.
Accra is an extremely busy city with nearly 3 million people. It’s the industrial heart of Ghana where people goes realize dreams of success and wealth. The reality however is very different as the city represents both the minority of great wealth and majority of staggering poverty of its inhabitants. Beautiful, statuesque government buildings lay on winding roads that lead towards ram-shackled shanty towns.
By Friday morning I was ready to leave the overwhelming, organized chaos of the big city. Instead of making a 12 hour journey by bus (brutal) from Accra to Tamale (location of parent’s house), I flew on a 45 minute flight (that’s progress for ya). My mom (7, yes I’m counting my parents as relatives) met me at the airport with two of my aunts (9).
On the drive to the house it was clear to see that despite the seemingly short distance I had travelled, I was in the more rural area of Ghana. Tamale is a smaller, bustling city but as a focal farming area it’s not uncommon to find enclaves of mudhuts that normally splay remote villages.
For those of you who know my unfortunate monkey strangling story (accidental suicide), this is the house where it took place. The last time I was here the house was just a framework of bricks and the courtyard was full of the copper-red sand. Now, here stood “the dream house” that my parents had been working on ever since I could remember. The simple garden my mom tended to was now bearing mango and banana trees with chili peppers, tomatoes, pineapple and watermelon slated to be grow as well. WHOA, it was more like a farm than a garden. Pure beauty. I don’t have a green thumb whatsoever so it takes me about an hour and a half to water the entire property and I’m pretty sure I’ve already killed a few plants by stepping carelessly around the land :O
It wouldn’t be Africa if we didn’t have random animals running around the house…We have a few chickens, some goats and guinea fowl (unattractive chicken-esque birds). There are also a couple of dogs that my mom’s been raising as puppies named – wait for it – Buddy Boy and Buddy Girl … super original eh? No matter, they’re extremely sweet dogs.
Right off the bat, three of my cousins live in the house with us (12). Three of my mom’s sisters live within walking distance too. My aunt Fatima lives with two of her children, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren (20), aunt Aisha came and visited with her one year old baby Shamsee (22) and my aunt Agnes lives with her two children (25). During my first couple of days, many people stopped by the house to visit including my mom’s brother and my dad’s two cousins and niece (29). WHOA FAMILY …
The things I take for granted are carefully appreciated and utilized here – clean drinking water, running hot water, the convenience of electrical appliances, namely washing machines, or the lack thereof. I had to (re)learn how to hand wash my clothes, which is a production in itself. There’s no such thing as a shower anymore, here we heat water on the stove, pour it in a bucket and bathe. Ghana is still towing that bizarre line where development blurs – while it seems that media and communication have exploded there are still some serious gaps in areas that would raise the standard of living for people such as health care and education.
On Tuesday I began my work with Youth Alive Ghana. The organization began in 1996 as an Action Aid initiative in the Northern area of Ghana. My aunt Agnes (mentioned above) is the Director of the organization which uses a three tier approach to target the cycle of street youth in the region.
1. Primary – educating street children, bridging them into formal education, providing apprenticeships and funding for higher education, aiding in the provision of health care support and services.
2. Secondary – enabling parents and guardians (specifically females) to provide for street youth through education and opportunities to improve employability skills.
3. Tertiary – advocating on behalf of street youth by communicating with interest groups (community, schools, other NGOs, levels of government) as to the needs, potential and progress of this disenfranchised demographic.
The organization’s work contributes to ending the cycle of poverty in the region and I’m pumped that I’ll have the chance to help kids turn their lives around. In the coming weeks I’ll be working alongside a couple of other volunteers who are also interested in becoming agents of change!
PS, I apologize for the lack of photos atm, I pulled a rookie mistake and don't have the software for editing them...I'll start taking decent ones with my phone!
