Because today was Republic Day, when I went to work there was absolutely no traffic, since people got to sleep in. It was amazing. I wish every day were a public holiday. When I got to the office, I found out that I had been assigned to help cover the National Youth Rally in Independence Square, which I thought would be cool and all Ghana-nationalism-woohoo sort of stuff. As it turned out, the word “Christian” had been neglected in the advertisement/ press release/ whatever, and in fact it was the National Christian Youth Rally. I got some good pictures of people dancing around, and it as sort of nice to have something to do, but in general it was a pretty terrible assignment. It was essentially like going to church, but with a planned program of 4 hours. They issued a communiqué at the end (which we did not actually stay for but which we got a copy of), that called for abstinence education and censorship of internet, literature, radio, tv, and essentially all other forms of media that contribute to the moral decay plaguing society these days. So that was certainly fun to have to write about.
The guy I went with was sort of interesting. His name is Francis, and besides getting to the program an hour and a half late, he is a National Service Volunteer who’s been with the paper 8 moths. Apparently, after college Ghanaians need to do a year of voluntary service (an allowance is paid but not a salary) after completing school, and most students do this because employers look for your certificate of completion.
On the cab ride home, the photographer apparently told the driver he’d shave off a cedi from the price if I married the driver. Didn’t pan out though, sadly.
On the way back home after work, which was uneventful otherwise, I decided to try a new route, and I took a bus to “Accra,” since until now the Accra buses have stopped at the station I want to get home. Today they went to a totally different station, so I had to walk around for 45 minutes or so trying to find the place I wanted to be. I asked directions around 20 times (and got pointed in different directions several times), and finally got where I needed to be. Traffic home was again amazing, only 20 minutes, and nobody got off at any stops before mine, so we didn’t have to wait to fill the trotro at all.
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In response to messages from yesterday:
An interesting conversation that I had forgotten about with one of the reporters: People try to be as unbiased (read: careful and non-inflammatory) as possible in their reporting, either for or against the government, in terms of reporting because you never know when the bosses will change. This also includes trying to refrain from making public political affiliations, although they’re sort of an open secret. Apparently a couple years ago (2006 I think she said), there was someone who was sneaking around and informing on his or her colleagues at the presidency, telling on what people were saying about the administration. The threat is apparently not so much of being fired, since that would raise a stink, as it is of being transferred or given crap assignments or less access to important people. So it seems people aren’t afraid of losing their cushy, well-paid jobs, per se, but I’m sure it’s also going to be hard for a reporter from the Guide, for example, to get hired here after being inflammatory. The paper is run not directly by the government but by a somewhat independent media body, the head of which has apparently stayed the same since the last administration, so it seems pretty clear that it’s not too terribly political.
What I heard from the news editor here is that the stories the Graphic reports on tend mostly to be concerning what the government does, since they do a lot and it’s easy enough to just take the press release and run with it. He said investigative reporting doesn’t happen all that much, although they pride themselves here on not running stories unless they’re sure they’re true (ass-covering of course). When I asked him about access to information, he said it was really easy to get information. And then he thought a second and said, unless of course it puts the government in a negative light. Then you can’t get anything.
In terms of dumping e-waste, I haven’t seen any of the dumps, but there is certainly a trash problem in the country and Africa is pretty good at taking the rest of the world’s trash and money, making sure that the former gets to the people and the latter not so much. So I’m not terribly surprised, but the situation does seem pretty bad. Here’s an editorial from my current paper from almost a year ago about the situation for those of you who want to know more: http://graphiceditorials.blogspot.com/2008/08/agbogbloshie-death-trap.html
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