Photos - Clean Up the World Day

This was one crazy event. The Australian high commissioner decided to bring clean up Australia day to Ghana. Sadly we picked the worst day of the year. I think the pictures tell the story better than words...

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/torsten.herbst/20100918CleanUpTheWorld#5522079258689806610

Photos - Prue's Photos

here some more pictures, this time from Prue's camera:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/torsten.herbst/20100912FantasFollyPrue#5520469041356517250

Photos - Carmen's Photos

Hi guys, here a few random photos I got off Carmen's camera:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/torsten.herbst/20100919CarmenSPictures#5520464827366850674

Working hard...

I realised today that I am one quarter through my volunteering assignment - three weeks of which I sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for my broken PC to get fixed. Meanwhile Kwame built two websites, one for an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention NGO, another for an orphanage, and managed to find a third assignment to build a smart phone pricing application for farmers and co-operatives. The other volunteers and I have concluded that his IT skills are in more demand than all of ours combined.
Carmen has spent her first month at UNIFEM (a gender advocacy agency of the UN) reading piles of notes, brochures and reports on gender rights and HIV/AIDS prevention whilst her supervisor was away on annual leave. Upon her supervisor’s return, she will be assisting UNIFEM in incorporating gender equality into the national policy framework on HIV/AIDS. Kath also had a very quiet start to her assignment at AFRRI (a farm radio initiative funded by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation) waiting for some work whilst her colleagues were out in the field collecting data which she will then integrate for donor reporting. Leah has probably been the busiest of all of as she was thrown in the deep end by her supervisor and founder of an anti-child labour NGO called Challenging Heights. She has been involved in almost every facet of the NGO from fund raising to attending child rights conferences.
My assignment with Theatre for a Change has been an interesting and varied experience. The NGO’s accountant was fired a day before my arrival and, instead, I was swiftly appointed to the role. This explains why I was writing cheques on my first day! However, the role has been varied enough to keep me interested. I am helping my supervisor build partnerships with other theatre based organisation in Europe. I have also written fund raising proposals and presented to potential donors. Corporate Social Responsibility is surprisingly well established in Ghana and we received a welcome reception from one of the major telecommunication carriers to fund an educational radio drama project.
On the capacity building front, I have been promised that a new accountant will be recruited and I am to fill the role temporarily and train the new recruit when they start.
What I have come to realise is that we’re all here to build human relationships. I’m not really here to build financial reporting systems but to exchange stories with my supervisor on how opposites are worlds are, to laugh while he and his PA sing about how much tea I consume, to lend an ear to the photocopier technician telling me about his aspirations to get a slice of Ghana's anticipated oil wealth, and to help a colleague celebrate his wedding day with as many handshakes and dance moves I can handle.

Abena

Photos - Fantas Folly

More photos, this time from our long weekend at Fantas Folly (Cape Three Points) on the west coast close to Ivory Coast. Great place, awesome food (for once!) and very relaxing...

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/torsten.herbst/20100912FantasFolly#5516719255303245618

My Day - Part 2

“Thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev, third-sev.” “Excuse me, is this the trotro to thirty seven military hospital?” “Thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev, third-sev” he repeats as if he had just answered my question. I keep staring at him with a puzzled look on my face. He points inside the trotro. Hesitating briefly as I'm still waiting for an answer, I follow his instructions and step inside. “Obroni!” somebody cries out excitedly as they see a white man crawling into the vehicle. I see a few kids giggling in the back waving their hands at me. Despite its limited size there are nearly twenty people crammed inside this trotro, a vehicle slightly larger in size than a VW combi. Realising that there is no space left I turn around to exit the vehicle when somebody suddenly folds out another seat and gets me to sit down. Here I am, the last sardine in the trotro can. The mate knocks on the outside of the vehicle, folds out yet another chair, sits down and slams the door shut in one singular, well rehearsed motion. The driver puts in the first gear, the engine howls and the trotro jolts into action. The black smoke billowing out of the exhaust pipe envelopes the cars behind in a veil of black. I'm still not sure where this trotro is headed but decide to stay calm, lean back and relax. Unfortunately I'm already off balance when I realise that my seat has no back rest. The lady behind me is a little more attentive and pushes me back onto my seat. A little embarrassed I turn my head to thank her. She points me to the front where the mate is now standing semi upright with a bunch of notes and coins in his hand and his head squashed against the roof to keep his balance. He's collecting money and points at me as I'm trying to recapture my composure. I pass a note to the passenger in front of me and my money floats towards the mate like a rock star crowd-surfing at a concert. A few seconds later my change floats back towards me over everyones' head. I do not know how the mate figured out the exact amount of my fare without knowing my destination, but since he only charged me 40 peswas there is no need to argue. The trotro is slowly approaching full speed and we're cruising along on the way to my work. With little else to do I start looking around the cabin marveling at the décor inside. The driver is either a big Chelsea fan, as there are at least three stickers plastered across the windscreen or trying to prevent the crack in the window from widening. A fourth sticker for the local football team as well as the Ghanaian flag and some faded registration sticker seem to have been carefully placed to mend the crack. For good measure a cross is dangling from the rear view mirror, hoping the Lord will do his bit to prevent major investments for overdue repairs. There is no shortage of slogans on the vehicle that highlight the importance of faith over good grammar: 'God time is best', 'No sweat, no sweet', 'Blessed you enterprise', etc. All of a sudden my heart jumps as we seem to be suspended in mid air. I look out the window and see that the tarred road has come to an end, drops off abruptly and the highway we were on turns into a dirt road. For a second I feel like being on a plane that missed the runway, when the vehicle crashes back to the ground with a loud thud, then bounces back into the air after hitting a bump before gravity pulls it back into the next pothole. Everyone on the trotro is shaken wildly up and down, left and right in synchronised movements reminiscent of crash test dummies in super slow motion. The driver hangs suspended between his seat and the gear lever but he manages to keep one hand on the steering wheel and skilfully navigates the trotro around the next potholes lined up on the road in front of us. After a few seconds of inaction my heart starts pumping again and my brain signals that I'm sitting more on, than next to my fellow passenger. I move back onto my seat, while everyone else is busy fixing their hair or recovering their possessions. A few moments later everything seems to be back in order. The driver has regained control of himself and the vehicle and now sits back in his chair as proud and upright as the king on his stool. “Maaaet! Baaastop.” somebody shouts from the back. “Baaastop”, the mate relays the message from the back to the driver. The driver breaks and pulls over at the bus stop. How on earth is the guy in the back going to get out of this vehicle, I think to myself. The mate slides the door open and jumps out of the car. Then the guy in front of me leaves the vehicle and folds his chair back up to make way for me. The lady behind me gives me a nudge to indicate that I need to move. In clear breach of trotro etiquette, I forget to fold up my chair as I exit the vehicle, which gets the lady behind me grumbling. She reluctantly folds the chair up for me and exits the vehicle. This procession continues until the guy in the back finds a passage to squeeze out past the remaining passengers. After he has managed to disembark the process starts in reverse, except everyone moves one place further to the back leaving the old guy at the front with an empty seat next to him, space he happily claims for himself. Eager to fill the spare capacity the mate starts shouting again: “Thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev, thirdsev” and sure enough he finds another passenger willing to join in the fun. The door re-opens and to the horror of the old guy at the front, an elephant of a woman steps inside. As she swings her behind around her massive boobs nearly knock the guy out, before she comes crashing down on the bench accompanied by a crushing noise that makes me shudder. I'm hoping it's the bench and not the old guys thigh that just cracked. To the mate's delight the vehicle is again filled to capacity and the trotro is back on the road. I'm watching the scenery outside when the driver abruptly stops the vehicle on the side of the road. Without uttering a word he jumps out of the vehicle, unbuttons his pants and in clear sight of everyone on and off the vehicle he has a good old wee. People break out in laughter and there is a big cheer as he re-enters the vehicle and resumes his day job. Moments later the trotro is flying along the road again and I continue inspecting the inside of the vehicle. There is rust everywhere. Panels with holes welded onto older panels with more holes, often three layers thick. The benches are screwed onto the chassis with rusty screws that would barely sustain the strain of an emergency breaking action, but then there is a good chance the breaks would fail before the screws give way. Why fix anything if you can pray for good fortune, I think to myself and briefly contemplate saying some prayers myself. Another loud bang and a metallic screeching sound send my heart rate back up to 200. The door has disappeared! I turn around and sure enough the whole side panel is sliding along the road behind us. The driver pulls over and with the help of the mate the door is quickly collected and put back in place. Obviously not the first time this has happened and nothing short of a broken axle or lost tyre is going to stop these guys. Still on an adrenalin high and in hysterics I'm wondering how long this fix will last. The next pothole answers my question and convinces pilot and co-pilot that this problem requires a little more than duck tape to fix. Always ready for the unexpected they find another cunning solution. This time the door is placed on the roof of the trotro. After a quick inspection our two engineers are happy to resume the trip without even tying the door down. As we navigate around town I'm waiting for the door to fly off the top of the vehicle at any moment, but to my surprise the door remains in place, even on the last sharp bend as we turn into our destination, a large bus depot filled with hundreds of other fellow travellers and feeble trotros. Squeezing my way out of the trotro my knees feel like jelly and I wonder if Ghanaians have a special word for a white man that looks so pale he's practically transparent.

Another Website

Got roped into creating another website for an orphanage in the Volta region. If anyone's curious, here's the new site:

http://www.anjacharityfoundation.org/

Food

I arrived in Ghana with what I thought was an open mind about food. I was keen to try anything that was served on a plate, a plastic bag (as it is here) or in a banana leaf.

By the second week I had declared a ban against Ghanaian food.

Fortunately, six weeks into our stay my stomach and palate are slowly starting to come around to the local cuisine. The bowl of porridge I’d quickly gobbled up this the morning was not enough and my stomach was already grumbling by the time I’d arrived to work. So I headed to the friendly street vendor just outside my office who sells the local breakfast option for $1. This consists of rice boiled with kidney beans topped with spaghetti, chicken (or beef or fish) and hardboiled egg cooked in a spicy tomato sauce. You can ask for a dash of spicy fish paste if you need that extra kick in the morning. So I indulged in a bowl full of ‘waakye’ (pronounced waache) and of course regretted my choice as soon I felt my entire blood supply rush to my tummy in an attempt to digest it. It left me a little lethargic but satisfied.

Lunch options consist of a sour, sticky, dough-like ball served in a watery, oily and spicy stew with cow, goat, chicken or fish. Or I could indulge in more carbohydrates and meat by eating rice with fried chicken or fried fish. For lack of what locals call ‘leaves’ or vegetarian dishes, most foreigners here opt for roadside stands selling barbecued plantain (banana-like fruit) or deep-fried yams (potato-like root vegetable). There’s also the fruitarian’s diet of a whole pineapple or six bananas (Torsten’s daily average) which will get you by until you get home for dinner.

Luckily, the local vegetable produce is cheap and plentiful and we have been cooking up a storm at home. Coconuts, papaya, avocado, cabbage and tomatoes have been the basis of our cooking and we are convinced that we can now open our own Thai inspired street stall. Not sure we’d be willing to sell our hard labour for $1 per serve though...

Abena

Photos - Labadi Festival

Just uploaded some photos of the festival in Labadi the other night:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/torsten.herbst/20100830LabadiFestival#5512216087586501698