I was pretty annoyed Friday when the third article in a row that I had drafted so that I could contribute to the writing process was (I’m pretty sure) completely ignored. Kofi, who I’d gone with to the Obama seminar, had said we would write the article in the morning, but then I found him around 10:30 on the other side of the room already half finished with it without saying anything to me. (I had foregone a potentially interesting assignment so that I could draft the article and had it finished by that point.) So I gave him my jump drive and opened up my draft and told him he could use anything he thought was helpful and left him alone. It’s frustrating, but at the same time, if I were a journalist I’m sure I wouldn’t want to deal with interns sitting with me while I wrote my story. So I sympathize with him, but I’m still annoyed.
I went out on what was a separate potentially interesting assignment around noon. The assignment sheet said “CPA to have talk on India-Ghana relations at Indian High Commission” or something like that, and I’m very interested in the connections between the BRIC countries and the less developed world. (BRIC= Brazil, Russia, India, China, the 4 non-western big economic powers that are still developing themselves.) I know the Chinese have put some money into Ghana in various construction projects (the National Theatre is the one I can pull off the top of my head), but I hadn’t heard much about India, which also gives aid more generally to Africa at a smaller scale than China. So I thought I’d be learning a bit about that.
Well in reality, I don’t have a great story to tell about it. It turns out the CPA is a very small local NGO with some sort of tie or other to India (I was unclear what it was), and who had failed to make an appointment with the High Commissioner (that’s the ambassador for Commonwealth countries – the High Commission is the embassy). They were presenting some sort of documents to him I think, and had just phoned ahead to say that, and the High Commissioner had assumed they could just present them to his secretary. So they failed really in that respect, although I suppose seeing the Indian High Commission was sort of interesting. It was a nice building, by Ghanaian standards, although unsurprisingly couldn’t hold a candle to the US embassy, which would fit in in DC.
After that I went and met Albert, who works with the NGO that brought me here. (While waiting for him at the internet cafe, a radio journalist interviewed me about what I knew about Nelson Mandela and how I’d be commemorating his birthday. Presumably it aired on the news at 6, but I didn’t have a radio to listen to it on .) We went to pick up the surveys he had dropped off for me earlier (when he went earlier the editor of one of the papers had insisted I come myself, because the questions are of a somewhat sensitive nature I presume). So I learned how to get to the row of newspaper offices in Cantonments neighborhood, which is a really interesting setup. There are 3 papers (I think they were the Cryer, the Daily Dispatch, and the Crusading Guide) that are managed totally separately but have their offices all in a row. I’m very interested to know why, but didn’t ask while I was there. My guess is that they all share a printing press, or their printer is nearby. In any case, I’ll have a chance to ask, because no one had surveys ready for me. Two of the offices were practically deserted, and one, the Dispatch whose editor had asked to see me, did have them filled out. These were all very small papers it looked like, with 6 or 7 reporters each maybe and 3 or 4 desks/computers. Very interesting after working at the two largest papers.
The editor at the Dispatch seems like a cool guy to know though. He seemed very nice and gave me a signed copy of his book, which was about the lead-up to the election. Apparently he’s accurately predicted the results of the last few elections (percentage-wise) and he’s been a reporter for BBC and AFP (Agence France Presse), a fellow at the Ford Foundation (where he learned a bit of election polling), and has won a few awards. (I learned all this from the front page of his book, he didn’t give me his life story when I came to see him.) So definitely a good contact to have, I’m thinking.
Following that I just came home, where I met the new volunteer (James from the UK). He’s interning at the hospital and seems like a pretty cool guy. More importantly, he’s a vegetarian (and apparently chose Ghana because of how easy it is here to be a vegetarian, which I think I just got lucky at). So we might go try one of the veg restaurants sometime before I leave, which is exciting. Not that I’ll have any (exchanged) money left to do that of course.
Saturday I went with the two Austrians and the new Brit to the art centre, where I got gifts for my bridesmaids (and bookends for myself). I probably could have gotten a better price on some of it, but since it’s so much cheaper than in the states anyway, I’m ok with overpaying. However I’ve now got about $30 to live on in my last 4 days, so I’m going to need to be frugal. Very sad.
After the art centre I met up with Felix, who is the designer I met on the tro-tro. We had lunch and went to the Accra shopping mall, which is very similar to an American shopping mall except probably a bit (although not a whole lot) cheaper. It also had a grocery store in it, which for here is very chic, but I’m pretty sure I was less enthusiastic than Felix wanted me to be about it. He’s a very interesting guy. In addition to being a designer and entrepreneur (he told me about 5 different projects he wants to start, and he’s on the ground floor of a 3-month old business right now), he’s also one of the big coordinators/ directors for the Miss Ghana pageant (the one that goes on to Miss World). In fact, at the mall he excused himself to go chasing after a very beautiful Ghanaian lady so he could recruit her. I hope she wins, so I can say I had a hand in getting Miss Ghana her crown (by making Felix be there at a particular time). That would be cool.
Sunday was also a pretty jam-packed day. In the morning I went with Tony (my neighbor who is just recently from Nigeria) to Agbogbloshie market to check up on this “we don’t do that any more” story. Good thing we did. It was Sunday, so there weren’t too many people around or working (and also, according to one person we talked to, fewer computers being worked on). But there was definitely a lot going on that should not have been. We saw huge piles of computer rubbish (in addition to every other kind of rubbish you can imagine). Children weren’t terribly actively involved in the scrap harvesting that I saw (except one boy of around 8 or 10 years who was working at something with a screwdriver). They were, however, fairly prevalent. One little girl was urinating on the side of the path, although I don’t think it would be easy to make the path any dirtier or less sanitary than it was. There’s a small river running through the middle of the market next to this place, and for most of the way it’s totally choked in garbage. The water runs past and flows out to the ocean. In addition to just breaking computers open, there was definitely some significant rubber-burning going on. We got some pictures of the guys who were tending the fires they had set to cables – burning off the rubber so they could get the copper.
What will come out of this trip, beyond scarring myself and Tony and probably cutting a few days off of our lives, are hopefully twofold. I’ve definitely got a story to write now, so it will be published in the Graphic and perhaps give legislators and others a kick in the pants so they know people are still paying attention to the issue. The other thing is that the woman I’ve talked to from Greenpeace is working on a campaign against Dell, to try to get them to be better at taking back their own products, and for her we looked specifically for Dell labels on the computers we saw. Because most of it was in scraps, we did not get a whole lot, but we’ve got a monitor case, a keyboard, and two motherboards (which we were told were working and could be purchased for $10) that still have very prominent and clear Dell symbols on them. So these pictures will be useful in pressuring the company, I hope.
The second part of my day was more uplifting; we went to see a football match in the big national stadium. It’s the final match of the season for the top regional league. It’s not a bracket though, so it wasn’t the top two teams, which is a bit sad. The local team, the Accra Hearts of Oak, were top-rated, however, and in fact won the game. It was a very excited atmosphere, and the seats were close to packed. They finished (I think – we snuck out ten minutes early because otherwise we would not have ever gotten home) with a 2-0 score, but the first point was scored in the first 30 seconds. It was pretty ridiculous. Fun time, though, and the pictures are more fun to look at than the other ones I took today.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Ghana Day 51
My day was not quite as I had predicted. I decided in the morning to go to both of the programs and only be a reporter at one of them, so I set off for the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) and its domestic election observer report launch at 9am (it started at 10am). I finally got there at 11 after some really terrible direction-giving by lots of people along the road and the secretary of the place who I talked to on the phone. At one point I was told to go to 2nd avenue (and was evidently directed to the wrong 2nd avenue, since every neighborhood of course decides numbering its streets is the best idea), and I got let off at a bus stop halfway between two roads along the motorway. I asked the girl who was selling phone credit which one was 2nd avenue, and she told me “this is second avenue!” like I was an idiot. All of my explaining/ clarifying really just led me to the conclusion that the bus stop was called second avenue but there was not actually a street by that name, and least not recognizably by the people there.
I really miss well-labeled streets and gps.
So I didn’t end up getting much out of the talk, since when I got there it was ten minutes away from Q&A. But now I have seen the CDD, which is good, because they’re the sort of place I’m likely to want to know about. Also, I think I could maybe sort of find my way to it now. I also have the report they released, which I’ll read over in a bit, because the reporter who actually covered the story didn’t really want it.
The second event of the day was at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), which is I believe a graduate school of the type I would enjoy attending. The talk was by a Prof. Frimpong (possibly spelled with an e and not an i) who is the dean of the School of Governance, Leadership, and Public Management. He was a very engaging speaker, and his lecture was about Obama’s speech and its implications for governance in Africa. He started off with a pretty amusing story that described Obama’s rise to office in biblical terms with Obama as Jesus (although occasionally Moses). He was trying to make a point that the perception of Obama is as a divine being is rather funny and that it really took hard work to get where he was. I was hoping he’d go a little further to debunk the jesus image, but there was definitely nothing even remotely critical of Obama (or even more humanizing than discussing his lineage). I’m not sure anyone here wants to hear anything negative about him.
I thought one of the more interesting things to come out of his talk was his application of Obama’s policy of democratic commitment to regional institutions like the AU, which he said were useless as they stand because they are ruled by dictators. He advocated throwing out any leaders who weren’t constitutionally elected. Not terribly realistic, but I asked him what his practical solution was and he said the democratic countries should form their own club, so to speak.
My evening has been much less exciting than I had hoped; the theatrical performance was canceled for rain (which hasn’t occurred all week – I guess it’s just-in-case cancellation). I’m pretty bummed about that, but I suppose I did get to see one play while I was here and that’s mostly good enough.
I really miss well-labeled streets and gps.
So I didn’t end up getting much out of the talk, since when I got there it was ten minutes away from Q&A. But now I have seen the CDD, which is good, because they’re the sort of place I’m likely to want to know about. Also, I think I could maybe sort of find my way to it now. I also have the report they released, which I’ll read over in a bit, because the reporter who actually covered the story didn’t really want it.
The second event of the day was at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), which is I believe a graduate school of the type I would enjoy attending. The talk was by a Prof. Frimpong (possibly spelled with an e and not an i) who is the dean of the School of Governance, Leadership, and Public Management. He was a very engaging speaker, and his lecture was about Obama’s speech and its implications for governance in Africa. He started off with a pretty amusing story that described Obama’s rise to office in biblical terms with Obama as Jesus (although occasionally Moses). He was trying to make a point that the perception of Obama is as a divine being is rather funny and that it really took hard work to get where he was. I was hoping he’d go a little further to debunk the jesus image, but there was definitely nothing even remotely critical of Obama (or even more humanizing than discussing his lineage). I’m not sure anyone here wants to hear anything negative about him.
I thought one of the more interesting things to come out of his talk was his application of Obama’s policy of democratic commitment to regional institutions like the AU, which he said were useless as they stand because they are ruled by dictators. He advocated throwing out any leaders who weren’t constitutionally elected. Not terribly realistic, but I asked him what his practical solution was and he said the democratic countries should form their own club, so to speak.
My evening has been much less exciting than I had hoped; the theatrical performance was canceled for rain (which hasn’t occurred all week – I guess it’s just-in-case cancellation). I’m pretty bummed about that, but I suppose I did get to see one play while I was here and that’s mostly good enough.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Ghana Day 50
This morning I got stuck in the mud in the tro-tro for the first time, which is crazy because it hasn’t rained in a few days that I’ve noticed. We got unstuck pretty easily, though – thank goodness it was just stuck and not broken down.
My day wasn’t terribly eventful. My story from yesterday (the one that I didn’t write any of but still got my name on) made the front page. It’s cool to see my name there, but I feel pretty bad about having my name on things I didn’t write. Oh well, if that’s the least integritable thing I do in my life I’ll be happy.
I spent most of my work day hanging out. I worked on the latest iteration of my article with Barak (prof), who I think might have been in flight today so might not have much input on it for a bit. I also went through the papers for March, which was pretty uneventful. I’m looking now for some pretty specific storylines, and I didn’t find them in March. That in and of itself is somewhat telling. There were several car seizures in the month, but the Graphic decided they weren’t newsworthy. I’m a little surprised it didn’t make a single mention, since so many people were talking about it, although I think the Guide hyped it way too much. (I don’t recall how much I’ve discussed this – people from the previous administration took about 50 state vehicles, but it’s possible that some or many of them had purchased the cars under a policy wherein 4 or more –year-old cars can be bought off the state for about a quarter of the price, so some of the seizures were not strictly appropriate.)
I was hoping to go to a program in the afternoon, but the intern I went to lunch with mentioned she was covering it so I bowed out gracefully. (3 reporters from the same paper is a little overkill, and a regular reporter was assigned to it.) For tomorrow though I have an interesting day. There’s a talk in the afternoon about the implications of Obama’s speech on governance in Africa at the School of Governance. I was actually really torn, because there’s also an event where the ’08 domestic elections observers will be giving a talk, but I’m not sure I can make both and the assistant editor suggested I go to the afternoon one. In the evening I’ll be going to the theatre again with the news editor, so I’m very excited about that.
Short post today, but it is exciting that I’m marking my 50th day anniversary in the country. Only 7 more to go!
My day wasn’t terribly eventful. My story from yesterday (the one that I didn’t write any of but still got my name on) made the front page. It’s cool to see my name there, but I feel pretty bad about having my name on things I didn’t write. Oh well, if that’s the least integritable thing I do in my life I’ll be happy.
I spent most of my work day hanging out. I worked on the latest iteration of my article with Barak (prof), who I think might have been in flight today so might not have much input on it for a bit. I also went through the papers for March, which was pretty uneventful. I’m looking now for some pretty specific storylines, and I didn’t find them in March. That in and of itself is somewhat telling. There were several car seizures in the month, but the Graphic decided they weren’t newsworthy. I’m a little surprised it didn’t make a single mention, since so many people were talking about it, although I think the Guide hyped it way too much. (I don’t recall how much I’ve discussed this – people from the previous administration took about 50 state vehicles, but it’s possible that some or many of them had purchased the cars under a policy wherein 4 or more –year-old cars can be bought off the state for about a quarter of the price, so some of the seizures were not strictly appropriate.)
I was hoping to go to a program in the afternoon, but the intern I went to lunch with mentioned she was covering it so I bowed out gracefully. (3 reporters from the same paper is a little overkill, and a regular reporter was assigned to it.) For tomorrow though I have an interesting day. There’s a talk in the afternoon about the implications of Obama’s speech on governance in Africa at the School of Governance. I was actually really torn, because there’s also an event where the ’08 domestic elections observers will be giving a talk, but I’m not sure I can make both and the assistant editor suggested I go to the afternoon one. In the evening I’ll be going to the theatre again with the news editor, so I’m very excited about that.
Short post today, but it is exciting that I’m marking my 50th day anniversary in the country. Only 7 more to go!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ghana Days 48 and 49
Yup, I’m still alive!
Monday morning I had an appointment with a guy at the EPA to talk about e-waste, so I got there and found the place and it was pretty awesome. And then I asked my first question – what is your name – and the guy was like, oh, are you going to write this? Is this for a story? I can only talk to you if I have a letter.
So when I called and said, “I’m writing a followup on this report and want to talk to you about what you’ve done so far” apparently that did not sink in. I have no idea what he thought a reporter from Graphic would be doing there if not writing a story. So I got the name of the person to address the letter to and went back and fairly painlessly got the letter printed out after I drafted it. Then I asked if I could get a car over, since it was five cedis round trip, and was told, oh yeah when he gets back. So every hour or so I made a pest of myself and got told that the driver wasn’t back yet, and finally around 4:30 I gave up and paid for the taxi there and back. So I spent about $7 that day essentially to mail a letter.
In the evening, however, there was an event that made up for the crappy day. I went to a talk hosted by the Institute for Local Government Studies. The organization is doing leadership training for local government officials, starting with members of the group and people who will be doing the training. To kick it off they had a reception and panel with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development MPs (past and present), and the panel included the minister of that area, the committee chair, the director of ILGS and another group that does leadership training, and keynoted by Paul Boateng. Paul was an amazing speaker; he is a former U.K. High Commissioner to South Africa and was also the first black cabinet member in the U.K.
They were all very good speakers and talked about how local governments here are performing poorly not necessarily because there’s a resource deficiency, although there certainly is, but because people can’t share their views in civilized ways and end up fighting with one another. He told a long and complicated parable about a person who shares his bed with a bedbug, and in the morning he wakes up and finds his blood on the sheet, but when he asks the bedbug where the blood came from the bedbug blames the mosquito. But then when the person gets a mosquito net and burns citronella and sprays and all that, and the next morning there is blood on the sheet again, then the person must know where the blood has been coming from. Then he said something in Twi that brought down the house laughing, but I have no idea what it was. In any case, it’s an interesting little story. Regardless, he was a very good speaker and very moving and stole Tip O’Neill’s “all politics is local” line and made me want to do more with local government. This was I think the most interesting event I’ve been to since I got here, and I’m very glad I conned my way into going (and not just because I got free devilled eggs and peanuts at the reception). For those of you who don’t know, I wrote a 100-page honors thesis for my poli sci BA on decentralization in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, so local government is pretty exciting for me.
Beyond just what was discussed on the panel, I got an overview of how the local government system here works from Caroline, the reporter I attached myself to for the evening. Local governments have elected and non-elected elements; there’s an assembly (mostly elected but partly appointed, although she didn’t know the percentage) and the civil service led by the District Executive Officer (or some title like that). This last person is appointed by the president, but must be approved by the assembly, which usually happens but not always. So the local governments are somewhat accountable to the people, but they’re really more upwardly looking for their direction than anything else. Apparently every administration since democratization has campaigned saying they would make the local executive an elected position, but has conveniently forgotten after the election.
Apparently the local governments here don’t work all that well. There was a basic survey done in the past year to see how well they worked, and most of them failed. Not a single one in the Greater Accra region passed. Oops.
So I got home super late from that. I left Accra at 9pm so got home around ten… it was sort of spooky walking down the street because I could hear my heels echoing around. Everyone was asleep by then. I passed out pretty fast after finding food and showering (since I wake up around 5, 11 is really late for me). That’s why you got no post Tuesday morning.
On that morning in question, I got in early so I could write a story on the evening’s event. Then I took a cab to a meet-the-press function with the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice officials… or so I thought. I got in a cab after asking if the driver knew where the ministry of information was (because I had no idea). He said yes and drove me to the middle of a street full of ministries and said, here you are! It soon became clear he had no idea where I needed to go, and we ended up asking about 5 people and driving in a couple circles for over an hour before someone finally showed us the right spot. I felt bad for the guy, but really, you shouldn’t pick up foreigners who say they don’t know where they’re going if you don’t either.
So I got in about 45 minutes after the press conference started, but fortunately important things like that aren’t just left to interns and the reporter who was supposed to be there anyway was there on time (he didn’t go to the office before the assignment or else I would have gone with him).
The event was interesting but was definitely an information overload. She gave an overview of every agency within the ministry and what they’re up to and it was pretty hard to follow. One interesting thing to come out of it though was that the government apparently owes about a billion dollars to various entities who have sued it and won. Also there were lots of things that almost go without saying about a shortage of resources, not enough lawyers with enough experience, and so on. Apparently lawyers are four to a room, which makes client privilege difficult I’m assuming. There was also considerable discussion about anti-piracy efforts, which surprised me because I figured they would be frying different, possibly larger fish. Apparently they’ve arrested several dozen people in Accra selling bootlegs though. Hasn’t really discouraged people from what I’ve seen walking around, but that’s alright.
When we got back he let me have the paper report of what the AG said and told me to start writing about the things in it from a certain point forward. So I did that for a while, and then he came and told me he was done with the article and I realized I had been given busy work. (I think Caroline also just wrote her own story rather than using what I had written, but I’m not sure yet since I haven’t seen the final article there.)
So while I went to a couple fairly interesting events in the past couple days, I utterly failed to be useful as a reporter. Oh well. I’m not really in training to be a journalist; if I were I might be a little more upset, but as it is I’m just enjoying getting access to cool things and learning how to navigate the city (or sometimes not).
I left work a bit early to make up for Monday’s working late, and because the two British girls are leaving tonight. I got home to see them off, and until now I’ve staved off sleep long enough to write this entry, which I’m fairly proud of. Tomorrow’s activities are still mysterious, but hopefully I’ll get lots of sleep tonight and get there early so I can sneak into something else cool.
Monday morning I had an appointment with a guy at the EPA to talk about e-waste, so I got there and found the place and it was pretty awesome. And then I asked my first question – what is your name – and the guy was like, oh, are you going to write this? Is this for a story? I can only talk to you if I have a letter.
So when I called and said, “I’m writing a followup on this report and want to talk to you about what you’ve done so far” apparently that did not sink in. I have no idea what he thought a reporter from Graphic would be doing there if not writing a story. So I got the name of the person to address the letter to and went back and fairly painlessly got the letter printed out after I drafted it. Then I asked if I could get a car over, since it was five cedis round trip, and was told, oh yeah when he gets back. So every hour or so I made a pest of myself and got told that the driver wasn’t back yet, and finally around 4:30 I gave up and paid for the taxi there and back. So I spent about $7 that day essentially to mail a letter.
In the evening, however, there was an event that made up for the crappy day. I went to a talk hosted by the Institute for Local Government Studies. The organization is doing leadership training for local government officials, starting with members of the group and people who will be doing the training. To kick it off they had a reception and panel with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development MPs (past and present), and the panel included the minister of that area, the committee chair, the director of ILGS and another group that does leadership training, and keynoted by Paul Boateng. Paul was an amazing speaker; he is a former U.K. High Commissioner to South Africa and was also the first black cabinet member in the U.K.
They were all very good speakers and talked about how local governments here are performing poorly not necessarily because there’s a resource deficiency, although there certainly is, but because people can’t share their views in civilized ways and end up fighting with one another. He told a long and complicated parable about a person who shares his bed with a bedbug, and in the morning he wakes up and finds his blood on the sheet, but when he asks the bedbug where the blood came from the bedbug blames the mosquito. But then when the person gets a mosquito net and burns citronella and sprays and all that, and the next morning there is blood on the sheet again, then the person must know where the blood has been coming from. Then he said something in Twi that brought down the house laughing, but I have no idea what it was. In any case, it’s an interesting little story. Regardless, he was a very good speaker and very moving and stole Tip O’Neill’s “all politics is local” line and made me want to do more with local government. This was I think the most interesting event I’ve been to since I got here, and I’m very glad I conned my way into going (and not just because I got free devilled eggs and peanuts at the reception). For those of you who don’t know, I wrote a 100-page honors thesis for my poli sci BA on decentralization in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, so local government is pretty exciting for me.
Beyond just what was discussed on the panel, I got an overview of how the local government system here works from Caroline, the reporter I attached myself to for the evening. Local governments have elected and non-elected elements; there’s an assembly (mostly elected but partly appointed, although she didn’t know the percentage) and the civil service led by the District Executive Officer (or some title like that). This last person is appointed by the president, but must be approved by the assembly, which usually happens but not always. So the local governments are somewhat accountable to the people, but they’re really more upwardly looking for their direction than anything else. Apparently every administration since democratization has campaigned saying they would make the local executive an elected position, but has conveniently forgotten after the election.
Apparently the local governments here don’t work all that well. There was a basic survey done in the past year to see how well they worked, and most of them failed. Not a single one in the Greater Accra region passed. Oops.
So I got home super late from that. I left Accra at 9pm so got home around ten… it was sort of spooky walking down the street because I could hear my heels echoing around. Everyone was asleep by then. I passed out pretty fast after finding food and showering (since I wake up around 5, 11 is really late for me). That’s why you got no post Tuesday morning.
On that morning in question, I got in early so I could write a story on the evening’s event. Then I took a cab to a meet-the-press function with the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice officials… or so I thought. I got in a cab after asking if the driver knew where the ministry of information was (because I had no idea). He said yes and drove me to the middle of a street full of ministries and said, here you are! It soon became clear he had no idea where I needed to go, and we ended up asking about 5 people and driving in a couple circles for over an hour before someone finally showed us the right spot. I felt bad for the guy, but really, you shouldn’t pick up foreigners who say they don’t know where they’re going if you don’t either.
So I got in about 45 minutes after the press conference started, but fortunately important things like that aren’t just left to interns and the reporter who was supposed to be there anyway was there on time (he didn’t go to the office before the assignment or else I would have gone with him).
The event was interesting but was definitely an information overload. She gave an overview of every agency within the ministry and what they’re up to and it was pretty hard to follow. One interesting thing to come out of it though was that the government apparently owes about a billion dollars to various entities who have sued it and won. Also there were lots of things that almost go without saying about a shortage of resources, not enough lawyers with enough experience, and so on. Apparently lawyers are four to a room, which makes client privilege difficult I’m assuming. There was also considerable discussion about anti-piracy efforts, which surprised me because I figured they would be frying different, possibly larger fish. Apparently they’ve arrested several dozen people in Accra selling bootlegs though. Hasn’t really discouraged people from what I’ve seen walking around, but that’s alright.
When we got back he let me have the paper report of what the AG said and told me to start writing about the things in it from a certain point forward. So I did that for a while, and then he came and told me he was done with the article and I realized I had been given busy work. (I think Caroline also just wrote her own story rather than using what I had written, but I’m not sure yet since I haven’t seen the final article there.)
So while I went to a couple fairly interesting events in the past couple days, I utterly failed to be useful as a reporter. Oh well. I’m not really in training to be a journalist; if I were I might be a little more upset, but as it is I’m just enjoying getting access to cool things and learning how to navigate the city (or sometimes not).
I left work a bit early to make up for Monday’s working late, and because the two British girls are leaving tonight. I got home to see them off, and until now I’ve staved off sleep long enough to write this entry, which I’m fairly proud of. Tomorrow’s activities are still mysterious, but hopefully I’ll get lots of sleep tonight and get there early so I can sneak into something else cool.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Katey's post on the Obama visit
As I say below, Katey had a much more exciting time with Obama's visit (despite the naysayers, mainly me). You can read her post here:
http://kateymargaret.blogspot.com/2009/07/alas-i-am-proud-to-be-american.html
I think the most interesting thing though is that the hospital Obama visited was newly painted and the driveway graveled with USAID money right before he got there. Oh yeah, and all the patients were discharged (well or not). The hospital is normally very crowded and not very sanitary, but Obama was able to come out of it and describe it in his speech as "a wonderful clinic and hospital that is focused particularly on maternal health" (because they kept some pregnant women around for him to meet).
http://kateymargaret.blogspot.com/2009/07/alas-i-am-proud-to-be-american.html
I think the most interesting thing though is that the hospital Obama visited was newly painted and the driveway graveled with USAID money right before he got there. Oh yeah, and all the patients were discharged (well or not). The hospital is normally very crowded and not very sanitary, but Obama was able to come out of it and describe it in his speech as "a wonderful clinic and hospital that is focused particularly on maternal health" (because they kept some pregnant women around for him to meet).
Pictures
Agbobloshie Market through the car window (before my camera battery died) - the sign demanding cleanliness and the pile of trash right around the corner from it. The coffins are cool, the fish is a small one and the camera a large. There were also trucks, lions, cows, a crab, a pineapple, a cocoa bean, and various other items. Finally, a still shot from the dance we went to Sunday.
Ghana Days 45-47
Friday was something of a boring day. My only productive activity that was work-related was making an appointment with someone at the EPA for Monday morning and then coming up with questions to ask him. The paper was all-Obama all the time again, and I’m sure tomorrow’s will be as well, so I think the pressure for getting actual news is somewhat alleviated for a while. On the up-side, it’s possible that the Graphic has improved its internet system. Wireless internet showed up for the first time, albeit only for ten minutes that I was aware of. I got a couple more people to fill out my survey, and chatted with Letitia, who is a National Service Personnel with 2 months left in her journalism stint. She’s very sweet, but she’s decided not to pursue journalism, which is her original degree (she’s going to go back to school to get a degree in HR or something).
Saturday was more interesting because Obama was in town. I watched him land on Friday night, and then Saturday morning hung around with all the children who eagerly awaited Obama (Grandma and Mike were at a wedding, and the other obrunis in the compound weren’t nearly as excited as they should have been about the speech, so it was me and the kiddies). We did not have a set time for anything to start, so starting from 10am I just hung out in the living room while the half dozen children marched in time to the soldiers performing on tv or danced to the Obama music videos or got in pillow fights or combed doll hair. (During the pillow fight, 2-year-old Aku who is extremely cute and makes me less annoyed with the idea of children wanted in on the fun, so she got a pillow and repeatedly hit the ground with it. It was pretty adorable. When she slobbered on the doll comb and then tried to comb my hair with it, though, it was less endearing.) Probably needless to say, for the actual speech I decided to find a different, less noisy tv.
The speech was good and you can probably find it or a summary in a lot of places, but here are the main points. Obama first and foremost said that African development is up to Africans, and while the western world should be partners, they can no longer be held to blame and expected to fix things. This has mostly been the message for a while, but I think this might be one of the most direct ways it has been said, and Obama is one of the few leaders who can say it with complete credibility and not look like a jerk. He also outlined the administration’s four priorities for Africa, which are democracy/ good governance, sustainable development (teach a man to fish sort of thing), health (he promised $63 billion for health initiatives, I think for Africa but he didn’t rally go into allocations), and conflict resolution. My big takeaway here is that the number one priority was “strong and sustainable democratic governments,” which alleviates any fear there might have been that Bush gave democracy-building a bad name and we were going to draw back from it a bit (thus putting me out of work before I even got a job…). So I’m pleased with his speech, but it’s not a huge policy shift from what I can tell and did not shatter any earths.
The guy (Matt) volunteering here at the hospital has a much better Obama story. Obama actually visited his clinic, and because he looked American I suppose was singled out for a handshake and a hi-how-are-you while the president was greeting the staff. He also got a ticket to the goodbye party that saw Obama off, and he got two extras as well. Sadly, he took Katey, who had (apparently not as foolishly as I had thought) gone to the hospital to see Obama wave his arm out of the window of his car, and also a British volunteer here who had been pretty psyched about the visit and is a bit closer to Matt than I am. I tried not to be too jealous.
(For those of you keeping track, the Saturday paper was also Obama-filled, although today Monday the paper is only half Obama, with 1/4 ads and 1/4 real news to supplement.)
After the speech I went and had a look at some coffins. Ghana is renowned for its use of creative coffins, and I pretended I was in the market so they would talk to me and let me take pictures at a shop in the neighborhood. They’re pretty cool, and if they weren’t coffin-sized I might have considered bringing one home. They’re only 100 cedis ($70) for a regular-sized, and the child-sized are 50 cedis ($35). It might sound morbid, but they are sort of cool.
After that I hung out with the other whiteys for a bit and went out to eat at a far too expensive restaurant on the beach, but I got fried rice with real vegetables in it, so I was happy enough.
Sunday I didn’t have any real plans, but Katey showed up mid-morning and wanted to know if I wanted to go an hour west of Accra to a beach and cultural show there, and since I had nothing better to do I went along. The beach was nicer and less trashy than the ones in Accra, and the dancing was cool. I got lots of video, but I don’t think I can upload it from here so you’ll have to believe me.
I’m sorry if my posts are getting a little shorter and less interesting! I’ve been putting them off too long and forgetting the cool parts : / I’ll try to be better in my last week and a half here.
Saturday was more interesting because Obama was in town. I watched him land on Friday night, and then Saturday morning hung around with all the children who eagerly awaited Obama (Grandma and Mike were at a wedding, and the other obrunis in the compound weren’t nearly as excited as they should have been about the speech, so it was me and the kiddies). We did not have a set time for anything to start, so starting from 10am I just hung out in the living room while the half dozen children marched in time to the soldiers performing on tv or danced to the Obama music videos or got in pillow fights or combed doll hair. (During the pillow fight, 2-year-old Aku who is extremely cute and makes me less annoyed with the idea of children wanted in on the fun, so she got a pillow and repeatedly hit the ground with it. It was pretty adorable. When she slobbered on the doll comb and then tried to comb my hair with it, though, it was less endearing.) Probably needless to say, for the actual speech I decided to find a different, less noisy tv.
The speech was good and you can probably find it or a summary in a lot of places, but here are the main points. Obama first and foremost said that African development is up to Africans, and while the western world should be partners, they can no longer be held to blame and expected to fix things. This has mostly been the message for a while, but I think this might be one of the most direct ways it has been said, and Obama is one of the few leaders who can say it with complete credibility and not look like a jerk. He also outlined the administration’s four priorities for Africa, which are democracy/ good governance, sustainable development (teach a man to fish sort of thing), health (he promised $63 billion for health initiatives, I think for Africa but he didn’t rally go into allocations), and conflict resolution. My big takeaway here is that the number one priority was “strong and sustainable democratic governments,” which alleviates any fear there might have been that Bush gave democracy-building a bad name and we were going to draw back from it a bit (thus putting me out of work before I even got a job…). So I’m pleased with his speech, but it’s not a huge policy shift from what I can tell and did not shatter any earths.
The guy (Matt) volunteering here at the hospital has a much better Obama story. Obama actually visited his clinic, and because he looked American I suppose was singled out for a handshake and a hi-how-are-you while the president was greeting the staff. He also got a ticket to the goodbye party that saw Obama off, and he got two extras as well. Sadly, he took Katey, who had (apparently not as foolishly as I had thought) gone to the hospital to see Obama wave his arm out of the window of his car, and also a British volunteer here who had been pretty psyched about the visit and is a bit closer to Matt than I am. I tried not to be too jealous.
(For those of you keeping track, the Saturday paper was also Obama-filled, although today Monday the paper is only half Obama, with 1/4 ads and 1/4 real news to supplement.)
After the speech I went and had a look at some coffins. Ghana is renowned for its use of creative coffins, and I pretended I was in the market so they would talk to me and let me take pictures at a shop in the neighborhood. They’re pretty cool, and if they weren’t coffin-sized I might have considered bringing one home. They’re only 100 cedis ($70) for a regular-sized, and the child-sized are 50 cedis ($35). It might sound morbid, but they are sort of cool.
After that I hung out with the other whiteys for a bit and went out to eat at a far too expensive restaurant on the beach, but I got fried rice with real vegetables in it, so I was happy enough.
Sunday I didn’t have any real plans, but Katey showed up mid-morning and wanted to know if I wanted to go an hour west of Accra to a beach and cultural show there, and since I had nothing better to do I went along. The beach was nicer and less trashy than the ones in Accra, and the dancing was cool. I got lots of video, but I don’t think I can upload it from here so you’ll have to believe me.
I’m sorry if my posts are getting a little shorter and less interesting! I’ve been putting them off too long and forgetting the cool parts : / I’ll try to be better in my last week and a half here.
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