Ghana gets a gold medal in hypocrisy

I’m sure I’m going to develop the reputation of being a negative person – what with all my rants about Ghana and Africa in general.

This is not true, as Ghana has hosted me and shaped my life for over a decade and there have been countless experiences I would not change for the world. But it just never ceases to amaze me what goes on here from a political and economic perspective, while the governments of the developed world and the International Aid community turns a conveniently blind eye.

A recent article on the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation site, highlights the appalling decisions made by the government, with regard to public funds. The article is simply called “Ghana spends $1.4million on gold medals”. No catchy title needed. The story even raised eyebrows at BBC.

How, you might ask, can a country that solicits for and attracts billions of dollars in Aid every year from governments and NGOs globally, turn around and frivolously spend over one million dollars to honour some local ‘VIPs’??!! They were 18 carat gold medals, no less...

Aha – welcome to Ghana. Our outgoing president (elections to be held later this year), honoured himself at last week’s ceremonies with a $65,000 gold medallion….
A fellow blogger in Ghana, the ever positive and inspiring Kajsa, recently blogged about this story directly after a story about how Ghana is making changes in the health care system, to facilitate free maternity care for all. It would seem to balance this story out…

But if you look closely, you’ll discover that the free healthcare initiative is being sponsored by the British government, to a tune of $42 million pounds. How do the British taxpayers feel – seeing both these stories in juxtaposition? Why should the British government feel a sense of responsibility and care when the Ghanaian government cannot demonstrate this same level of concern for their own citizens by sacrificing, even once, and putting their money where their mouths are. As elections are coming up, the empty promises of the political campaigns are at an all time high.
Besides the fact that the Ghanaian government is not somehow accountable to it’s people, with it's reckless spending in the face of the abject poverty suffered by the majority, there is the other persistent question….

If Ghana was named The Gold Coast in the past and remains Africa's second largest exporter of gold, why on earth would they have to import these gold medals at such a ridiculous price tag in the first place??

Ghana exports unprocessed gold. The processing and refining into the profitable gold bars is all done outside it's borders.

Had the governments of the past or present in Ghana been forward thinking, perhaps the country would have supplied their own medals, and been bringing in $millions$ today in orders for gold medals from other frivolous spending governments…

Maybe they would even spend some of the profits on social welfare projects... but that is the Ghana of fantasy for now...

What I Saw on the Way Home From Work

Back when I lived in the city centre of Toronto, my walk home from work could be quite interesting, given that my apartment was located above a dodgy martial arts studio on a main street, opposite the largest Psychiatric hospital in the country. I could bump into a wide variety of eccentrics, intensely chewing on cigarette butts or pacing in ever shrinking circles. In the evenings I would meet ladies of the night on duty, taking shelter from the wind in the stairwell. I always thought it sweet of them to ask "How was work". "Fine thanks!" I'd blurt out and add another comment about the bad weather, but never looking them in the eye or inquiring as to their 'work'... My embarassment for the most part....

Now that I live in Ghana, all traces of embarassment have been washed away by heat, time and a generous helping of in your face reality. I have long ago been hit by the stark truth that everyone is too concerned about their own troubles to focus on my shyness or lack of it.

On my trip home from work on any given day I will see things that Toronto does not have in it's vast list of possibilities or imagination. The cigarette chewing, mumblers would be fascinated, I'm sure.

And now I am never too timid to inquire, observe, absorb.

Yesterday was a work day like any other. Drove through Accra's streets and turned into our 'upper middle class' (a very rare breed this side of the world) neighborhood. We turned off the main paved road and onto the loosely defined cul-de-sac dead end dirt road we live on. As usual, we passed the local boys - some belong to the lady who runs the corner store out of a metal shipping container, and the others seem to have no home at all. They are always amusing themselves on the side road, and bow out of the way as the 4x4 pulls around the corner. We veered into the drive, honking subconsciously at the large looming gate, for the guard to swing'er open.

Except the boys looked more excited than usual, they were dancing around something, and there were flames behind them. So my curiousity won a short internal battle and I jumped ship and went to 'say hi'.

They were all too happy to show me their proud catch - roasting, popping, bubbling and ashen, limbs hardened and extended over the bicycle tyre fire. "It's a goat!" the smallest one, Solomon piped up. The others moved aside to display it. Face up in clenched defiance, the goat burned, singed black, hair gone up in a putrid acrid smoke swirl. It's captors wholly excited and obviously proud. "We'll all chop!" (A Ghanaian slang meaning to eat). "Snap us!" (another Ghanaian term, for take a photo). I happily obliged. I was then cordially invited to join the barbeque which I declined but promised, in that ever hopeful Ghanaian way, "Next time!".

I slipped through the gate and closed that world behind me. The sharp contrast that faces me daily was right at my gate today. The smoke billowed up and over the gate and led me, as if by the hand, to my door where we parted ways again. The smoke, back to it's fire and the laughter of excited children. Me, into the air-conditioned cocoon, where meat is something on the weekly grocery list, bought filleted, without head, tail, legs...normally seasoned and served with an accompaniment. And completly devoid of the sense of pride and joy experienced by the barefooted boys a few metres away...

Tuesday photo of the day - snapshot of Northern Ghana

Life in a typical Northern Ghana compound...




Heat ripples slowly, like the dry crusted back of the lizard,
Across the compound yard
Swirled up in mini tired hurricanes of sand

The air is unrelenting
It stings and burns and is uncharitable

Water stains grey skin a glossy brown
as it pours in rivulets down the limbs of the inhabitants
Like life in a dead zone, from the cool earthen pots

Life happens despite the heat
In defiance of the sun and the conspiring earth
that threatens to crack upon itself and tip inward with decay

Life thrives
Muscles ripple in response
Backs bend and thickened feet slap the scorching dirt
There is action

Voices cry out
in vibrant tones
From one compound to another
Laughter, tears,
Humanity persisting...


Photo borrowed from mt friend Krissy - a fellow Ghana traveler.

Monday's photo(shop) humour of the day

Gangsta teletubbies? Gotta love'em.

Courtesy Worth 1000.

Sundays in Ghana...

My life is a bit surreal.

A typical Sunday, (when there are no visitors to entertain or take on coastal beach tours), means waking slowly and luxuriously anywhere between 10 and noon. The lie in is standard and savoured each week.

I shove the weekend’s dishes to the side (househelp arrives tomorrow), and cook up a bacon and egg affair with a variation or two. Now that I’m on my health diet, I usually make some high fibre flax pancakes as well.
We sit down with last week’s Sunday Times (it has been mysteriously couriered to our office for the past two years every Tuesday…) and enjoy brunch.

We might download some music from the Internet or put itunes on through the rigged up laptop/stereo and blast our favourites for a few hours while puttering around.
We might grab some magazines and head out back by the pool to have a swim, but mostly just a dip to cool off.


TV comes on about 5 or 6pm, while I see what’s in the kitchen to make up for supper. If I'm really ambitious, I'll have set a roast in the slow cooker earlier... By now the dishes cover almost every visible surface… should I wash them? No! What would Gilbert do tomorrow when he arrives? To be honest, every Sunday night before flipping the kitchen light switch, I feel a twinge of embarrassment. Or is it guilt. Imagine someone seeing my kitchen like this?! But I let it pass – Sundays are a day of relaxation, and plus who am I kidding? I haven’t washed more than 5 successive dishes in more than 8 years…

Sunday evenings, lie on the couch, watch old series or documentaries on our satellite TV, maybe rent a movie and hook it up on the projector screen for a home theatre, and eventually heave our lazy selves up to bed after 11.

But this is all so isolated.

Outside the concrete walls of our vast yard, protecting our fortress, there is buzzing action on Sundays, from long before 6am. If I randomly wake very early, and listen closely, beyond the airconditioner hum, I can hear rhythmic drums. Sometimes I hear this in the distance all night.

But by 6am children across this country have handwashed their uniforms for school tomorrow and are scrubbed up and poured into their Sunday best. Sunday is church day.
From every direction, off in the distance, I hear on Sundays, the hopeful and vibrant sounds of the revivalist churches. They're called 'Charismatic' churches here. Drums and guitars and tambourines, and the massive rhythmic heave of the soul of the people, in unison, once a week, praising their God. Church here is an all day affair on Sunday. It is only by 2 or 3pm the multitudes make their way out of the churches of every description, from colossal opulent temples to half built concrete structures, to makeshift worship centres of plastic chairs, under the trees.

Sunday is fufu day in Ghana too. Fufu, being Ghana’s national dish is quite a labour intensive endeavour in it’s preparation. Everywhere in compounds, apartments and houses around the country, women are boiling plantains (large cousin of the banana, left to ripen to black on the outside), and yams and cassava, for the ritual of mortar and pestle – mashing the tubors into a gummy ball.

This ball is then placed at the bottom of a bowl, over which is poured one of three traditional soups. Light soup is a tomato/hot pepper based broth with any variety of fish and meat added. Then there is palm soup, made from the oily orange flesh of the palm kernels which hang in clusters, red skinned walnut sized seeds, at the top of all palm trees. (The method of extracting the thick fleshy pulp is again quite a long, labour intensive process). The last is groundnut soup (peanut soup). It’s base is natural peanut butter, sometimes made from scratch as part of getting supper ready. Both these soups also have the tomato/hot pepper/various meats added.

Once tummies are full, washing has been done by hand, hung to dry, it’s then pulled in after dark and ironed, and everyone drifts off to bed, mostly exhausted. It’s about 8pm.

Tomorrow is another day. By 6am the children will have completed their chores and be scrubbed up and suited up, ready to head to school, or for the many others, ready to hit the streets to sell…

By 8am, I will rise and stretch and jump into the hot shower. I can hear Gilbert downstairs, the dishes clanging. He will have cleaned a space, big enough to get breakfast ready. When we come down the places are set at the dining table, we wolf down some eggs and coffee (decaf these days), and head out the door, connect the ipod to the stereo in the car… and head to work.

Photo of the day (today being the first)

Thought I'd start this, as I've found some great artistic, funny and engaging pictures lately.



This is the closest I come to being patriotic - a great surreal view...

Maybe it's the nostalgia for snow - being that it's 32 degrees here in Accra today, with a humidex reading of over 80%, and having personally not lived through more than a week of true Ontario-style blistering cold, snowy bitter hell for over 11 years, I can freely romanticize the crisp cool beauty of the calm, sunlit snow blanket.... nice.

Ode to the tomato - eating lots prevents sunburn!!

I watched an interesting program last night, on one of my favourite channels. Keeping in mind, as an Expat in Africa there is not much choice by way of television watching. Why, you say, more time to get out there and discover the continent! But I digress...
On our satellite DTH bouquet, we get robbed of $72 per month, for about 10 watchable channels. All are showing series from a few years back at best. BBC Prime rarely disappoints though, and it's culinary cousin BBC Food has some great shows. Tonight was "The Truth About Food". (It was probably aired in the UK in 2005)

The truth, according to the experts on this witty and wise program is:

1. Detox diets don't work, they are a myth - wheatgrass shakes are disgusting and now we know it's not worth the putrid mashed lawn taste and feel!

2. Drinking 2 extra litres a day is not beneficial to our skin. Really? Wow! That means about every diet known to humankind has missed out on some scientific facts...

3. Eating brightly coloured foods is good for your health. The brighter your plate, the better the eating.

Berries help memory

Spinach helps eyesight

4. Red wine is good for you - but only 2 glasses a day and only with a meal!!!

It's apparently the French secret to healthy hearts despite all the fatty cheeses, sauces and meat they consume. However, it's the pigment in the skin that holds all the benefits so white wine doesn't substitute! Cabernet Sauvignon is apparently the best. So drink up!

5. Tomatoes help protect skin against the damaging affects of the sun. Seems a tad far fetched but they took a typical pinky, freckled Brit who had zero tolerance and burned in the mid morning winter sun of chilly Scotland... Put her on a heavy tomato diet for a month or so, and presto - she could bask in the Caribbean without a pink patch in sight! ... or something like that. Living in a climate where the sun shines 350 of 365 days, at temperatures averaging 34 degrees celcius, this knowledge comes in handy! I will incorporate more of this readily available, ungenetically mutated local crop into my diet.

I knew Pablo Neruda, who remains my favourite poet of all time, wasn't dreaming when he deified the humble tomato... poem below:

Ode To Tomatoes
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

Prison number Cocktail - empty giving reaches new heights

An upscale cocktail named for Nelson Mandela?! The Hollywood trendy crowd has really taken things to a new level.

This time the Cavendish Hotel in London has named a cocktail for Nelson Mandela’s prison number, and claims to be donating half the proceeds to the 46664 Aids charity… It’s made of Cognac and Cointreau of course. The recipe can be found on a website that’s “dedicated to spotting the latest trends and hunting out the coolest new products, places, events and exhibitions.”

Accountability for these funds will no doubt be nil. The point is never how far these funds go, who’s pockets are filled, whether any change comes from it. The West is just obsessed with the trendiness of donating. Why not dress up in the latest styles, head on down to the ‘be seen’ places, order and elegantly sip an extravagant cocktail or three, get a bit tipsy, and feel an overwhelming sense of self gratification for our delusive philanthropy… After all, the ‘in crowd’ are all doing it. Maybe you’ll run into a celeb.

The recent 90th birthday concert of the same name was such a success, all those big names turned out, and even Amy Winehouse managed to make it through her performance without passing out in a drug infused coma…

Will there be follow up now, to track where and how the proceeds of the concert and the cocktails are spent? Why bother? Annie Lennox already made a heartwrenching video down in South Africa on three day visit. It will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of wet-eyed, big pocketed, lethargic westerners over the next year or so. It was featured on the 'Idols Gives Back' edition of the famous show...

No need to head down there again. Let’s all believe we’re doing our part. By buying overpriced lipstick, fancy drinks and concert tickets.

More on waste, corruption and lack of logic on the NGO scene in Ghana

Lately I’ve been in touch with various players in the fields of Aid and development for Africa. Time and time again I am faced with overly positive, self assured people who are confident that they are doing their part to end poverty, or AIDs, or malaria, or even traffic injuries in children in Africa. They dedicate their time and positive energy to a fault. They believe in and trust the organizations that work in these countries to carry out the good work for the right reasons, to a positive end.

They believe in the philosophies of aid and the mechanisms to implement it… This is where they are very wrong.

If anyone really thought about it, they would realize that aid organizations cannot possibly support the end of poverty or whatever other societal ill they campaign about – the very achievement of their goal would put them out of business. And make no mistake this is BIG BUSINESS.

Recently I had a chat with the country director of an American agricultural NGO in Ghana (fully funded by USAID). The organization has been operating for over 15 years here. The director has personally been here in his capacity for almost 10 years. He likes the lifestyle, he married a local. Are his projects successful? He laughs. “Well I have to support a handful of hopeless project initiatives every year, so they can be extended, and my job is secure for another couple years…”

Sigh.

This week, I had the opportunity in my professional life, to come face to face with a typical mind boggling policy of the Aid world. Another American organization, focusing on women’s issues such as health and human rights, also funded by USAID, that we serve as Internet providers. A year ago, we had installed a $15,000 satellite dish and uplink for one of their projects. This week I got a call from their IT Manager asking for a quote for another complete system, as they were closing the one project office and starting a new one in another location.

“But we can easily decommission and transport the dish to the new site, and resume your service there”. I explained, expecting a grateful OK from him.
“No, we can’t do that.” He explained to my amazement. “You see, that project is finished. It had a budget and a register of assets. Now that the project is complete, all assets are written off. It’s standard. So, we need to purchase a new set for the new project. It has a new budget allocated for communications.”

“But surely you can sell over the equipment from one project to the other! The equipment has a minimum 10 year lifespan and is only a year old!” I explained, thinking of the ABSOLUTE WASTE in funder’s resources.

“Holli, please understand, that is not how we work. The funders have allotted money for new equipment. That is what we do. Please let me know if we can send through the purchase order so I can get back to my superiors with feedback.”

And that was that.

So, another $15,000 for a new satellite dish and electronics, while a virtually new set, will rot on thelot of first office site down the road. No doubt these policies apply to the new Land Cruisers for the projects as well as office furniture, supplies etc etc etc… The other question relates to where the used vehicles and furniture go? There is surely a bustling side industry going on with all the local employees of the Aid orgs in possession of all these valuable written off assets…

How many women's lives could be saved, how much medication, shelter, support could have been covered with this wasted money???

Do the American taxpayers know this is going on?! Does Bono support this frivolous illogical waste??!!

Surely not. He doesn’t want to know about it. As long as he gets that ‘warm fuzzy feeling’ of being PC, helping the world, caring for the needy in Africa, he can sleep at night.

I am the negative one on the other hand, I must have lost my sense of empathy.
Then why is it me awake at night churning this hypocrisy over and over in my mind?
By the way – this woman’s rights NGO has no females in it’s senior management team. Not one…

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly inspires

An excellent, touching, chilling, soul changing movie is a rare thing. In this day of brutally stupid, insulting empty humour and gun happy blood spurting American crap churned out weekly.

Living in a country where there are no movie theaters anyway, and the video rental shops are all renting illegal hand-me-downs from their relatives overseas… it is even more rare to find a movie that moves you.

We found one this week. Miraculously we had a few nights of peace and time to vegetate – with no foreign business visitors to entertain… we decided to visit the video shop. In Ghana, the concept of racking movies alphabetically has not yet surfaced… so I did the usual eye scan over all the obviously ridiculous choices, until I found a few with interesting covers. One of them was a foreign film, which is usually a no-no in our house as ‘someone’ hates reading the subtitles, but this one claimed it had English dubbing. The name was obscure “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It caught my interest though, and for $2, I figured if it was unwatchable, we hadn’t broke the bank.

We set up our livingroom theater – (it does pay to have a gadget-man in your life at times…) and put the lights off to watch on the big pull down screen. Two hours later we were both moved. Deeply. What a movie, what a story, how excellently done, filmed, dubbed, presented. Wow.

The movie is an adaptation of a book. The book was written by the person who is the central character in the film. This is a true story about the former French editor of Elle magazine, who suffered a massive stroke and found himself completely paralyzed in every single way except his left eye. His mind was in top form. He was completely trapped in his body. With the painstakingly patient help of a speech therapist, he dictated the entire book by blinking letters… about his experience and view of the world around him.

One can’t help but imagine throughout the film what it would feel like to be in his place. To know it’s possible… it puts everything in perspective. It takes away everything we experience daily – completely turns life as we take for granted, on it’s head.

The depiction is touching, subtle, dark, a masterpiece.

Everyone should watch this film, read this book. Anyone who sees a film like this could not ignore the vast differences culturally between Europe and North America. It is presented without bling, without ‘in your face’ cinematography, without Hollywood names… it leaves one to see the real people in it, the gritty difficult reality, the mirror that we fear to hold up to ourselves…

But the journey is so worth it.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Fourth Estate, hc, 144 pp, $24.95

Giving Back - Volunteers flood into Ghana

That time of year is upon us again in Ghana – the time where every international flight that arrives, pours out scores of the bright and bushytailed, the hopeful and positive, the naïve and trusting…

they are…

THE VOLUNTEERS.

Most of them come for the summer, some come to build a school and leave, some come for 6 months or even 2 year contracts. I hear that some of them pay thousands of hard earned or raised money to come and volunteer.

Either way, they come, like pale ants, they line the streets of Osu (Accra's main strip - affectionately called Oxford Street), dressed in the vibrant local designs that clash and look garish against pale skin. They don boubous (flowing shapeless long originally muslim gowns- very comfortable and cool and not unsimilar to a big nightgown) and Birks, or local ‘Charlie wotee’ (pronounced CHAH-LEH-WO-THE) – the common cheap imported Korean flip flops on every foot in Ghana. They get ‘corn row’ braids, exposing the pink fleshy skulls, and weaving in various colours of plastic ‘hair’. They think it makes them look ‘local’. In reality it makes them look like new prey, fresh meat for the hustlers and the 419ers. It pegs them as idealist, naïve, giving, gullible.

They sit in cafes gibbering away happily in packs. 90% are female between the ages of 18 and 25. They come from upper middle class families from across North America and Europe. They scratch at the pocked calves which peek out between the boubous and the ‘Jesus sandals’, dotted with tender pink or brown scabbing remnants of mosquito bites.

And then they disappear out into the ‘bush’ to work with ‘the people’. They cram into the trotros (over crowded privately run vans/minibuses in lieu of a formal public transport system in the country), happily taking babies and parcels on their laps, smiling too widely at everyone. Trying not to look conspicuous but realizing slowly over time that an Obruni (the local term for white person) can never, ever ride a trotro without looking conspicuous. Maybe some of them never realize this.

Most are wearing very bright pink rosy glasses with which to view the new world around them.



Inevitably they will spend some days close to a toilet, worshipping from both ends, having been ‘cool’ enough to try the street food, with LOTS of pepper. Some will brave the ‘mystery meat’ in the stews…

They will be robbed, if not directly, then by coworkers who see a chance and inflate prices. By the taxi drivers and the market sellers seeing opportunity stare them in the face… By landlords and ‘friends’ and the system in general.
It’s a cycle. It's a system. They fit the role within it.

Now before I get accused of being horribly harsh and unnecessarily negative, I must qualify my observations. I know these girls. I am these girls. I lived it, breathed it, sat in the 40 degree trotro, stuffed like a sardine with 40 others (in a 12 person capacity van built in 1970) hundreds of times. I held babies and smiled a lot and pretended the density of human flesh, with it’s pungent overpowering smell was fine. Pretended that my knees against me, pinned in on both sides by the volumous arms of the market women, with the radio blaring at it’s loudest through fried speakers, bouncing without shock absorbers through the potholed roads of Accra was fine. In a way it was. What doesn’t kill you…

12 years on, I have the clarity of hindsight. I see the well of experience that lay ahead of me back then and I watch them all fall straight down it now, year after year, time after time.

More and more volunteers come each year. What with Angelina Jolie, Chris Martin and Bono engaging the Hollywood and corporate crowd in the plight of Africa and the value of ‘giving back’, it has become glamourous, trendy.

There are new organizations popping up both locally and internationally, cashing in on the guilt trip dolled out to the impressionable in the west. Help Africa! Give back. Donate your money and your time. VSO, Peace Corps, Operation Crossroads, African Impact, Volunteer for Africa, Volunteer Avroad, i-to-i, Right to Play, Save the Children, Fight for the Children, Go Africa, Oxfam, Ripple Africa, Wish for Africa, Teamworks Abroad, Unite For Sight, Stand Against Poverty, Global Volunteers, Cosmic Volunteers, GapYearGhana, Cross Cultural Solutions, the list goes on and on and on...

No one has looked much at the statistics regarding the success of all of the donations and exchange programs and volunteer time… but that’s another story. What counts is the rich experience everyone has.

I found a travel blog website and zoned in on Ghana and the stories of this year’s volunteer troups. The diaries and accounts read just like a book. A book I’ve read so many times. The positive attitude reigns – despite being pick pocketed in a trotro, being food poisoned at the dump of a hotel, having local groups only participate in the great programs if they are paid to join in. Fist fights breaking out when some villagers hear others were paid more... Meanwhile these programs are designed for their benefit. Sigh…

I ache to ask the new recruits – and mostly because I don’t know what I would have answered back in my volunteer days – “What is it you feel you need to give back? Why is it that you will put up with fraud, discomforts, delays, disorganization, filth, and so many other obstacles that you would never put up with back home?”. “What is it exactly that you took that you feel the need to give back?”.

Every one of them who actually does a job here will be frustrated and will feel despair at some point. Every one will marvel at the chaos and the poverty and the resignation they see around them.

But they will go back remembering the bright eyes of the children, the friendly banter with the market sellers, the journeys where they saw goats tied to the tops of trotros and Jesus stickers on the back windows. It will be the memories of the ‘kitch’ and the kindness not the overbearing corruption and chaos they will take away.

This in turn breeds more of their kind.

But then they meet me – the one who stayed too long. The one who hears the annoying patronizing nasal tone the children use when they chant “Obruni, obruni, give me a pen. Give me money, be my friend” and run off laughing. Instead of their innocence I see the way they are being programmed from a tender age to take advantage, to hold their hands out, perpetually begging, to accept the mess around them and not strive for better.

My perspective is dangerous. I’ve lost my pink glasses. Perhaps I should stay indoors this time each year.

Back on diet

Some of us make New Years Resolutions (to eat healthy, to be on a diet etc.) and stick to them... Some of us fall off the wagon and roll down the hill.... and into deep swampy ponds, and sink hard.

Someone I know - and I swear it wasn't me, but rather a certain male-ish half of a twosome I am in - fell hard recently and had a real binge weekend to end it in style. The peanut butter and jam and bread were all cowering in their respective corners in fear. And they had reason to shiver, as they were soon to be fashioned into gluttonous heavy, sopping squares of indulgence.. The Milo and the milk and the much coveted porridge had no chance... as they were soon swirling around in sugar saturated bowls of carbohydrate bliss. All of this was bought in a Supermarket frenzy at the new Accra mall - all as a last chance prelude to the lean days ahead.

Today is Monday. Today marks the first day of the rest of the year where 'some people' will climb the dusty ladder back up to where us righteous ones are riding along on the wagon... to 'healthy living'.

And the journey for this 'someone' started with plain fried eggs for breakfast and a tin of sardines for lunch... yum....

Flew back home safely...

...Courtesy great comic website: Married to the Sea

More from Liberia - Excerpts from the local paper...

One gets quite an insight into a country from the newspaper. What is covered, how the stories are covered, what the perspectives are...

I arrived in Liberia this week - here is a general sampling of the main stories featured in the country's main newspaper:

1.FRONT PAGE: Taylor Loyalists Warn American 'Boys and Girls'

This story covers the reaction of a former (NPP) government chairman, to American forces raid on ex-President/tyrant/war monger/war crimes detainee Charles Taylor’s residence (with search warrant) this week. Mr. Cyril Allen states” Those American boys and girls are lucky they did not encounter ex-fighters in the building, because their heads would have been cut off!”. He further warns, “They should try it again!” (apparently foaming at the mouth).

2. also FRONT PAGE: Brutalizing Girl was Little Matter

This story is about a current Senator Nathaniel Innis, who brutally attacked his very young niece (she looks about 8 to 10 years old in the photo), without cause last week. I have to quote the rest because I just couldn't believe what I was reading.

"Sen. Nathaniel Innis said the devil and Satan fooled him when he brutally beat up his niece on Monday." When asked about the incident, the Senator said: "Anything that besmear my character, I should call on your hournalists because they will say, it's a Liberian Senator. The incident will incur negative raves on Liberia, hence journalists should help cover up such actions".

Then, in response to the labour minister, who had called for his prosecution, Sen. Innis said: "Liberia is a big elephant meat, he better cut off his own and be silent. He wants to use my little matter he missed it big time. Sen. Innis is the wrong man to to reckon with". ....

No charges have been laid.

There is full page advert for this weekend's Anti-Rape concert. It is fully funded by the UN, with performers coming from around the region.
Liberia's years of war, under Charles Taylor, legitimized mass rape, and now that the war is over, the hundreds of thousands of boy soldiers are finding it hard to learn new ethics. Rape is still rampant. Taylor's soldiers also murdered their parents at his command and cut limbs off everyone in their path. Women and children were not spared...

The extreme violence has ended, but the rapes continue daily, despite the fact that Liberia elected their first woman as President and that many of the key positions such as Chief of Police have been assigned to women. The society still sees women and children as objects and in a place where abject poverty is everywhere, the frustrations of the powerful are taken out on the weak and the small.

Will the Anti- Rape concert do anything? Will it help raise consciousness? The word in town is that many people got kickbacks in the organising committees and that the budget was highly inflated to allow for personal pockets to get filled.

Sigh....

Notes from the Edge - Liberia today

I am in Liberia for business. The whole concept is bizarre to me. There is apparently business growing here. Opportunities. Investment. Liberia has no electricity supply and no running water. Anywhere. It has been like this for 18 years.

Recently some street lights have been illuminated in the capital city, fed by a huge generator, donated by another government.

All water is supplied in huge round trucks that drive around the city constantly.

Of course there is only water for those who can pay.

This morning as I sit on the balcony of the $200 a night (less than) 1 star hotel, my view is the ocean, dotted with small fishing canoes, the beach that stretches along in front of miles of corrugated tin slums, and below me the daily water is being delivered.

One of the big trucks is parked on the street below, loudly pumping water via a hole filled pump, into the hotel building. Surrounding the truck are scores of barefoot children, sent with buckets of every size and description, to collect some of the water. They jostle and fight and wave up at the hotel guests. But the sad truth is that they are here on a mission and no doubt there will be trouble if they arrive back home, down the road in the slums, without water.

Their dilemma is pathetic. The guys from the water delivery truck are also on a mission and the dirty swarming children are to them, like flies. They must fight them off, or bear the repercussions from the hotel owner who's not interested in feeding the water needs of the people. If the kids get alot of water they will tell more people and the hotel will be swarmed, on a dangerous level.

But the children are desperate.


I focus on one little boy who is about 5 years old. Mostly because I see something so familiar in his eyes. He is alive, there is a spark in him. His long smooth chocolate brown forehead is beaded with sweat and his eyes squinting, while he bounces a wide mouthed large plastic bowl against his ashen, bony knees. He steps back from the mob and watches the men from the truck. All the while the pump is deafening. As soon as they move toward the other children to beat them away, slap and shout, flail their arms around hoping to touch skin and cause fleeing, our little boy moves up to the truck behind them and holds his bowl under the massive leak at the base of the hose. At first no one sees him and his bowl is filling. He smiles a cheshire grin to himself. He has no clue he's got a witness, a fan, a cheerleader above him looking on.

I notice as the water sprays up on him, that he's wearing a badly faded 'Rainforest Cafe' t-shirt. This t-shirt has been bought for coins, in the local market. Originally sent by the Salvation Army or other charity, and plucked up for selling to the poorest of the poor. It may have been through three children here already. And all of a sudden I am not happy for him, I almost cry. Involuntarily.

I think about his childhood. That is not a childhood. And that at the Rainforest Cafe, back in the 'civilized' world, children light up at the animals that talk, they enjoy huge lunches they can never finish, they whine for ice cream afterwards, and they get it. They never think about how they will wash or whether there will be water to drink, or whether they will have to fetch muddy slush from the potholes instead, and hope their depressed, desperate, poor mother will not beat them when they get back home...

As I was lost in melancholy, I was jolted back to reality. The water truck driver had seen our boy and lashed out at him. In his haste to get away, his slyfully attained water supply sloshed round and out of the bowl, as if in slow motion, all out onto the cracked pavement as he ran off, the water making rich brown streaks, down to his little calloused feet, down the dry grey panes of his bony legs. And he was gone.

Foiled armed robbery fuels my day

When I woke up this morning I felt inspired to blog about something, I just didn’t quite know what it was yet. This happens often and inevitably something random will jog my memory about something I have been wanting to ramble about forever…Today I didn’t need to search my endless vault of trivialities... today something happened.

At 10am or so, cold coffee remnants (decaf of course in this year of living healthily), swirling around in our mugs, pouring over a presentation on a tight deadline, we were interrupted by two high pitched whirlwinds – one after another they scurried into the office, breathless, “ARMED ROBBERS! DOWNSTAIRS!!!”

Well that was something to tear us away from the world of power point and get some adrenalin pumping! We jumped up and ran to the window. The voices trailed on with the rest of the story, “The police have caught them! The tried to rob the bank but many police came and chased them into the empty building next door!” Indeed, downstairs, outside looked like a hub of activity.


There were random police vehicles and police with various uniforms (in Ghana they use what they have, resulting in many types, colours and styles of police uniform and even more diverse – the hats, ranging from Bahamian rounded tall white hats to army-like berets). The police were all carrying their weapons – obsolete rifles of varying size and description as well. It all looked a bit disorganized. We couldn’t tell who the armed robbers were, as they had apparently been plucked one by one from the corners of the building next door and thrown in a police jeep. There were a few jeeps dotted around. We couldn’t tell which vehicles they had arrived in either as there were many vehicles parked in different directions, amongst the people in the yard next door.

Well no one was shot and the fear and excitement almost died down, until someone came up the stairs to tell us that these were the very same thieves who successfully robbed another bank yesterday, and in the process they had shot a policeman in both legs. He later bled to death. They had also made off with two police issued guns and shot them off in every direction, shooting three innocent bystanders on the road. The two vehicles they had escaped in yesterday matched perfectly with two surrounded in the yard downstairs – a Mercedes and an unmarked Golf.

So it turns out we did have something to be frightened about, considering these guys were not playing around. They had intercepted a money delivery truck at the other bank and may have been set to do the same here, without caution or concern for human life. Who knew when we moved into our brand new offices above a prominent bank on a main street in Accra, we'd be this close to an 'almost' armed robbery?!

Gives you a chill when you consider the many errands you run every day… I could have been walking down into the parking lot to leave in the car, or even walking down the road to the store, and just been in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The most shocking aspect of this story is that the police actually showed up in considerable force! Normally you have to pay the taxi fare for a police officer to attend to an emergency! Normally you can’t reach the police station on phone because they have not paid their phone bill and it is cut off (both of these scenarios I have experienced).

Just as in my earlier post about being clamped – I am impressed that things are happening in a more professional and accountable fashion.

Having said that however, they released the 2008 Afrobarometer report recently, and sadly over 75% of Ghana’s population perceives the government to be corrupt in general. The police service rated even higher at 89%!!! These figures are up significantly from the last report in 2005.

Where is Ghana going? Are we safe??

Grief is eternal but love is stronger

Today is a tough day. I sit at my desk, busying myself with the unimportant, while the undercurrent within me threatens to surge, up through my pounding heart,through my tight throat that fights back with jolted swallows - all the way up into my face, overflowing - my eyes, the tiny openings through which all the feelings will brim over.

Tomorrow marks exactly three years since Shiloh left us. Since I have not held his warm hand or fallen into the warm dark pool of his shining eyes. Of course it is unfathomable not to have my son here with me. It is the stuff of nightmares, and horror films pale in comparison. To even put in black and white the word 'death' - it is so difficult. So very unnatural.

So the only way to approach the reality that faces me is to remember. To celebrate the short time we had. To laugh and smile and hug those who are still here. We all miss him. We all will remember. Always.

I've dragged out an old poem because it is my best tribute to my amazing Shiloh.


For Shiloh

If you were a farmer you’d plant pumpkins

Huge orange nuclear blast pumpkins!

If you were a singer you would wear a white suit and carry a shiny ebony walking stick

You’d have a purple satin handkerchief in your pocket on display

And you’d wear a fedora to match the suit

You would tip the hat forward and wink at all the ladies as you took over the stage…

If you were a bird you would soar higher than happiness

And deeper than 6 oceans

You would grace the sky of my mind with indigo paint brush wings

Touch my cheek so briefly and float on past

Making speed look like a breeze

If you were pink candy floss

You would melt and still be crunchy in my teeth

Fresh and warm and comforting

But you would disappear if I tried to hold you

On my tongue

I would be left with the remnants of u

You cannot be held

You are more than man and mountains below u are small

Though I can’t see u

I feel your red sports car energy

With a yellow lightning stripe down your soul that can only be glimpsed as you

Pass in an instant...

Obama, the Mama, the myth and Drama

I’ve decided to blog about Obama. There comes a time in every blogger’s life where they have to blog about Obama.

I know nothing about American politics and that is by choice. However, it seems the less one knows about the actual political system the better. The democratic campaign of 2008 is about emotions and faith. It is about getting excited and building hope around a person who represents the polar opposite of George Bush.

After being bombarded on the Net, the TV, the papers, the global media monster, the other day I decided to read about Obama and the only aspect that is interesting to me – Obama as a person. His family, his past, what makes him tick. I wanted to get a true feeling about whether his popularity is based on faith, fiction, myth or merit.
What I discovered surprised me. I learned that I could relate to his mother’s story – a middle class North American suburban white girl, intrigued and obsessed by other cultures, with the audacity to believe she could overcome the overwhelming challenges of loving a man from another world.



I learned that Obama’s mother was forced to realize that the union with her Kenyan husband was doomed from the start, found herself abandoned and alone when he was just a baby, and that as a single mom she wanted to establish some stability for her son. She quickly married again – never losing her thirst for exotic adventure, and moved the family to Indonesia. Obama was a privileged expat kid!! He went to the private schools and was even sent to a $14,000 per year boarding school back in that states (Hawaii) as a teenager. He did what intelligent, spoiled American teens do. He juggled schoolwork with becoming a junkie. He smoked joints and snorted cocaine.

A disturbing aspect of his troubled teen years was his proclaimed profound identity crisis and lack of self esteem as a result. And he accredited all of this to his mixed racial heritage.



He blamed his mother and her middle class caring grandparents who he lived with as a teen, for his identity crisis. He changed/shortened his name during highschool to Barry to fit in.



He idolized his absent father, and allowed the romantic and vague stories told to him by his mother as he grew up, to cloud his true judgment of his father.

The true story of his father’s life has been exposed though, courtesy of the media – however I am shocked that the conservative/republican ‘powers that be’ have not pounced on this information to grind his campaign to a screeching halt… after all, the sins of the father…
According to Obama senior’s relatives, he had 8 children in total, from 4 women whom he married concurrently. By western standards he was scum then? And a raging alcoholic who’s involvement in numerous drunk driving crashes eventually brought his demise. Hmmmm…

Obama has since written inspirational books glorifying his father’s life and struggles. But as a mother, learning what I’ve learned about their lives, I just have to assume he is deeply affected by the truth of it all. His father was nothing more than a sperm donor. Married already to a poor woman in his home village, before coniving an idealistic white lady at University in the States to marry him and bear him a child. He then moved on (to another American University, on yet another scholarship) without a glance backward. And he did not stop there. He brought another white American lady back to Kenya with him, married her as well and added more children to the flock.

There is also the fact that Obama senior was a muslim, with the name Hussein. Now what I know about Americans is that the masses have a reputation for being brain washed fear mongers who would, under normal circumstances have a field day with this type of info – drumming up a frenzied fear of the Arab enemy… Otherwise how would Bush have gotten as far as he did?

Anyway, Obama got through his teenage identity crisis by the end of college and got involved in the Democratic Party. He was determined and ambitious. He was smart and relatively charismatic. But Presidential material? I don’t know what he has done to compel people to believe he is the future of the USA. He is all about change and promise and the future. But one must examine his past and his track record in order to make a fair assessment.

The thing about this campaign is that there is no room for fair assessment. Just because there is no better alternative, does not mean Obama is the answer.

He gets the black America vote, despite being an elitist with nothing in common - no roots in slavery, no connection to the 'hoods' or the cultural markers that define this group.

He gets the middle class liberal white American vote despite their underlying racism and uneasiness. He is a chance for them to prove they are politically correct. He talks like them, they can relate...

Whoever says the issues are not racially charged is just dreaming. America is racially divided. They cannot help but to see his colour. There's a one drop rule in America! His close personal association with an extremist black preacher has been widely discussed. Yet still, he gains votes from every corner of the country in staggering numbers.

I just can’t help but think that the American public is so desperate for the promise of something new and different that they turn a blind eye to the glaring issues that would normally have thrown a candidate to the dogs before their campaign could even get off the ground.

Kick ass soup recipe

As I’ve been blogging about my health and diet and some challenges that I’ve faced this year, I thought it would be fair to share some of the recipes I’ve found/developed/evolved as well.

All of the recipes include things I can get in Ghana – which is always the challenge to cooking ‘Western’ food as an expat… All of the recipes include one or more of the key foods that I’ve identified through research to be 'super foods’.

So – to start – today I have to share one of my recent great successes – a recipe that has been found, modified, adapted, and experimented with until I’d have to say it’s perfect!

Kick Ass Soup that’s soooo good for you…

1 large onion, chopped into small squares
2 tblsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground coriander
4 tblsp. fresh coriander/cilantro washed and chopped fine
1 and ½ cups pumpkin puree (I only use fresh, but canned will do)
1 can of black, navy or kidney beans or a mix
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup low sodium vegetable or chicken broth
2 tsp. fresh lime juice

Directions:

Saute onion in olive oil until soft and golden, add all the dry spices and saute a few more minutes.
Scrape this mixture into a pot and add the broth, 3tblsp. of the cilantro, the pumpkin, half the beans and the coconut milk and bring to a boil while stirring. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor and whir- it-up for about 2 minutes. Return to pot.
Add the remaining beans, cilantro and simmer for a few minutes. At the end, pour in the lime juice and stir through. Serve.
YUMMM! Great cozy bowl of comfort for those bitter cold windy days… oops, don’t have those in Ghana !

Mega site of bible studies?!

Recently my favourite cynic and brilliant writer - British restaurant critic A.A. Gill wrote an article about how his son had happened upon a website called aagillisgod - which he found both bizarre and amazing.

The Internet is indeed bizarre and I just discovered something less profound but highly amusing and ironic!

If one types my blog site url (wrongly), mixing up the s and the p in blogspot, like this: www.hollisramblings.blogpsot.com, one arrives at the Mega site of bible studies?!!!

To a completely non religious, evolutionist like me - this is quite absurd really.
To those who are 'believers' I'm sure this would be some kind of sign...