donderdag 28 augustus 2008
donderdag 14 augustus 2008
zaterdag 5 juli 2008
Sahel
Just back in Ouaga after a trip to the Sa-hell. What's in a name, I'd say...
I am tired to death, lost a few kilos and if I did not feel hungry I was sick. Imagine that that is their life; every day in and out; every year...
¨This is Africa, this is the Sahel¨ is the response to every flat tire, another hour waiting or a child with an obviously nasty infection. But it is said with a smile and accompanied by the never ending calls from the children. ¨Les blanches, donne-moi bonbon/argent/medicin (the whites, give me sweets; money etc)¨. Our Dutch politically correct mothers would snap us for it, but here things are still named the way they are. So we just shouted back "Hi le noir/black, ca va" or "Black, leave me alone."
We saw the mysterious Touareg on their camels, the men covering their face. The Peul and other nomads; the women who carry their wealth in old silver French francs on their hair. It was a dream even though sometimes a bit nightmare like. In a strange way we thoroughly enjoined it.
And is not beauty in the beholder's eye; poverty only real when one has no richness of heart?
When Youssouf walks me home at night and I struggle not to fall over a goat, sleeping people or the open sewage, he sighs: "Is not my home a beautiful place, Cousine (nichtje). It is nice and quiet and we can still see the stars. And everyone knows me. For not all the money in the world I would want to live in Europe."
I am tired to death, lost a few kilos and if I did not feel hungry I was sick. Imagine that that is their life; every day in and out; every year...
¨This is Africa, this is the Sahel¨ is the response to every flat tire, another hour waiting or a child with an obviously nasty infection. But it is said with a smile and accompanied by the never ending calls from the children. ¨Les blanches, donne-moi bonbon/argent/medicin (the whites, give me sweets; money etc)¨. Our Dutch politically correct mothers would snap us for it, but here things are still named the way they are. So we just shouted back "Hi le noir/black, ca va" or "Black, leave me alone."
We saw the mysterious Touareg on their camels, the men covering their face. The Peul and other nomads; the women who carry their wealth in old silver French francs on their hair. It was a dream even though sometimes a bit nightmare like. In a strange way we thoroughly enjoined it.
And is not beauty in the beholder's eye; poverty only real when one has no richness of heart?
When Youssouf walks me home at night and I struggle not to fall over a goat, sleeping people or the open sewage, he sighs: "Is not my home a beautiful place, Cousine (nichtje). It is nice and quiet and we can still see the stars. And everyone knows me. For not all the money in the world I would want to live in Europe."
vrijdag 27 juni 2008
Ouagadougou
After a trip as expected - 21 adults and 5 kids crammed in a 12-seater resulting in aching knees, bottom and neck - we arrived in Burkina Fasos capital. Ouagadougou is as cool as it sounds!
Finally, finally the ¨real¨ African music instead of hiphop! Another concert every night!! The french have clearly an eye for culture in their ex-colony and seem to sponsor excellent cinema, cultural centre and even library.
In between, we arrange all our visa for staying; going to Mali and getting back to Ghana. Bianca throws up in the garden of the Ghanaian embassy probably with yet another food bug. I fall head-over-feet on the street and am happy with the big pot of iodine/betadine we bought. Not being able to sleep on our crappy bed, we have swapped for a bit less crappier beds in a Catholic Sisters guesthouse. With Mother Mary looking down on us, we certainly feel safe.
As a Ghanaian friend told me ¨you know I do not want to dissapoint you but up there it is quite the same as here; actually... they are also black! Oh yeah, but they do speak a difficult language.¨ My french is not as good as I wished, but with a lot of patience seems to keep us out of the worst trouble.
There are more differences though: poorer, with more stinking, open sewages and even more unwanted friends uh amis... Am becoming quite a bitch to yet another rasta boy with their omnipresent cat calls and sleazy chat-ups: they are all too glad to call my attitude rascist. Cant they understand how anoying they are! But the music more than makes up for it and so did the bizarre ceremony I watched this morning:
Like every week the Moro Nabu came out to greet his people and to discuss court cases with the elderly. Imagine: the king of the Mores/de Moren/ los Moros!! In a bizarre ceremony mixing the traditional with the modern; he still is asked for his approval over current affairs of national government. The important men of the city came to gather in the palace garden (which looked rather like a dog-shitted city park than anything more up to royal standards). According to their means and status, they arrived on bicycles, motorbikes or spotless Mercedes Benz cars with their traditional boubou dress, sword and djembe-like gongs. The chiefs horse was there, there was a lot of kneeling for him (and to all the senior men by the juniors) and even two cannon shots were fired.
One of his servants told me the other day how he was taken away from his mother involuntarily at a very young age to serve the King. Not being allowed to school, go home or play modern instruments, he had to work for him till being released from duty at about 20 years of age. Now he is a musician. But is not that called slavery? The custom has not changed since then..
Africa, where age is still seen as an achievement that demands respect instead of a process of decay that needs to be covered up with lifting surgery.
Africa, where traditions are valued, but just as much are mobile phones.
I am going to enjoy one month more of this crazy continent!!
Finally, finally the ¨real¨ African music instead of hiphop! Another concert every night!! The french have clearly an eye for culture in their ex-colony and seem to sponsor excellent cinema, cultural centre and even library.
In between, we arrange all our visa for staying; going to Mali and getting back to Ghana. Bianca throws up in the garden of the Ghanaian embassy probably with yet another food bug. I fall head-over-feet on the street and am happy with the big pot of iodine/betadine we bought. Not being able to sleep on our crappy bed, we have swapped for a bit less crappier beds in a Catholic Sisters guesthouse. With Mother Mary looking down on us, we certainly feel safe.
As a Ghanaian friend told me ¨you know I do not want to dissapoint you but up there it is quite the same as here; actually... they are also black! Oh yeah, but they do speak a difficult language.¨ My french is not as good as I wished, but with a lot of patience seems to keep us out of the worst trouble.
There are more differences though: poorer, with more stinking, open sewages and even more unwanted friends uh amis... Am becoming quite a bitch to yet another rasta boy with their omnipresent cat calls and sleazy chat-ups: they are all too glad to call my attitude rascist. Cant they understand how anoying they are! But the music more than makes up for it and so did the bizarre ceremony I watched this morning:
Like every week the Moro Nabu came out to greet his people and to discuss court cases with the elderly. Imagine: the king of the Mores/de Moren/ los Moros!! In a bizarre ceremony mixing the traditional with the modern; he still is asked for his approval over current affairs of national government. The important men of the city came to gather in the palace garden (which looked rather like a dog-shitted city park than anything more up to royal standards). According to their means and status, they arrived on bicycles, motorbikes or spotless Mercedes Benz cars with their traditional boubou dress, sword and djembe-like gongs. The chiefs horse was there, there was a lot of kneeling for him (and to all the senior men by the juniors) and even two cannon shots were fired.
One of his servants told me the other day how he was taken away from his mother involuntarily at a very young age to serve the King. Not being allowed to school, go home or play modern instruments, he had to work for him till being released from duty at about 20 years of age. Now he is a musician. But is not that called slavery? The custom has not changed since then..
Africa, where age is still seen as an achievement that demands respect instead of a process of decay that needs to be covered up with lifting surgery.
Africa, where traditions are valued, but just as much are mobile phones.
I am going to enjoy one month more of this crazy continent!!
Last days of research
After ages, I thought I let you know where I am.
After sick, ill, asthma attacks and sick again, I finished my research around Tamale. They showed me the gods that allow or demand burning bushes. Without wanting to show disrespect - it looked to me an eggshaped form plastered with feathers on a stick. They told me all about their fire-and-hunting feast after harvest and I could see their eyes glimmer. They explained me how the gods are actually quite flexible and comprehensive towards a change in customs - like stopping the burning of the bush - as long as you sacrifice enough guinea fowls. But as a smiling chairman explains: ¨It is not the gods but the people that will not allow it!¨
Well anyhow it is a long story and I will tell it to you when back home (which as you might have heard is 29 th of july)... Sure thing is that I hugely enjoyed my last days in the field, when finally not trying anymore to understand their behaviour in terms of a rationality that I could not grasp. Is it more rational to be smoking our lungs away; stressing up to the point of heart attacks etc. than burning the bush?
Time had come to say good bye and we even organised a dinner party for our electricity friends. They are some guys in our street who work on a Worldbank project of putting street lights on both side of one street, where other parts of town have none - strangely coinciding with upcoming elections. Thing is, the Ghanaian are deemed too stupid for doing the project themselves - so our friends are driver or watchmen only - and therefore some Egyptians who could hardly speak English were flown in. They stay in their airco building almost all day. Ibrahim, Abdullah and our other friends are therefore teaching us the art of boredom; where unemployment seems the norm, a useful skill to master. They know exactly who of all our neigbhours have passed at what time of the day and are happy for any chat and offer their help to the tiniest problems we have (like where to find yam for dinner.
After eating their pasta and finishing their drinks - no alcohol, thanks to Allah - they ask permission to go home; a Ghanaian party finishes whith the food it seems...
Holidays start with travelling up to Bolgatanga to see the others and have two field trips:
After sick, ill, asthma attacks and sick again, I finished my research around Tamale. They showed me the gods that allow or demand burning bushes. Without wanting to show disrespect - it looked to me an eggshaped form plastered with feathers on a stick. They told me all about their fire-and-hunting feast after harvest and I could see their eyes glimmer. They explained me how the gods are actually quite flexible and comprehensive towards a change in customs - like stopping the burning of the bush - as long as you sacrifice enough guinea fowls. But as a smiling chairman explains: ¨It is not the gods but the people that will not allow it!¨
Well anyhow it is a long story and I will tell it to you when back home (which as you might have heard is 29 th of july)... Sure thing is that I hugely enjoyed my last days in the field, when finally not trying anymore to understand their behaviour in terms of a rationality that I could not grasp. Is it more rational to be smoking our lungs away; stressing up to the point of heart attacks etc. than burning the bush?
Time had come to say good bye and we even organised a dinner party for our electricity friends. They are some guys in our street who work on a Worldbank project of putting street lights on both side of one street, where other parts of town have none - strangely coinciding with upcoming elections. Thing is, the Ghanaian are deemed too stupid for doing the project themselves - so our friends are driver or watchmen only - and therefore some Egyptians who could hardly speak English were flown in. They stay in their airco building almost all day. Ibrahim, Abdullah and our other friends are therefore teaching us the art of boredom; where unemployment seems the norm, a useful skill to master. They know exactly who of all our neigbhours have passed at what time of the day and are happy for any chat and offer their help to the tiniest problems we have (like where to find yam for dinner.
After eating their pasta and finishing their drinks - no alcohol, thanks to Allah - they ask permission to go home; a Ghanaian party finishes whith the food it seems...
Holidays start with travelling up to Bolgatanga to see the others and have two field trips:
zondag 18 mei 2008
Transition tragedy? The God(s) are alive!
Lately someone asked me whether I thought that African farmers by indigenous knowledge actually know what is the best way to take care of their soils, but that it is true outside intervention like fertilizer that they have started spoiling the land just like we do in the West.
My answer was that indeed the intimate knowledge that people here have on their natural environment has been and still is often underestimated, ignored and by that way destroyed. However, romantizicing indigenous African knowledge by saying that by following it, all problems could be solved is just as much of a mistake. It is the black-and-white view (very literally here) that is worrysome. Any body of knowledge, like 'western scientific' knowledge cannot just be bad or good; parts of it will or will not prove useful to work in specific context. Workable new knowledge is mostly fusion...
Without pretending to know the truth on this issues, I want to share my thoughts on what could be one of the many truths about the African continent. Based on my own observations and on literature read and re-read (see some references here under) in these days when my lungs have decided that two months of ‘free air’ has been enough and are now struggling again to breath..
Where to find security in a changing world?
To me it seems more that the world around these people has changed and is changing so rapidly, that their indigenous knowledge cannot keep coping with it. The transition from a ‘traditional’ society to ‘modernity’ has often made their strategies ineffective in the face of new ‘needs’. Now they only have a ‘choice’ to hang on to the old ways that do no longer provide physical security - but at least some sense of spiritual security - and new practices that neither promises security, just a premium for those who win the gambling game of capitalist entrepreneurship. So what they do is basing their system on traditions, with ‘adopting’ modern practices only when they are given in the form of ‘gifts’ or when they can be accommodated in a non-threatening way, which means without much investment.
Ownerships over development projects seems extremely weak. On the one hand expressed wishes (to us as white outsiders) for outside assistance especially in material or financial terms seem extreme and indiscriminate: "Anything that can help our crops to grow will do. Give us fertilizer, give us tractors, give us boreholes etc." (Quite different from the farmers I met in Chiapas!). On the other hand, not even the names of the organisations that have already passed by (and knowing the density of NGOs in Northern Region this must have been quite a few) can normally be recalled, so little impact they seem to have made… And few of the ideas taught by these outsiders are still practised without continuous outside support. Besides, own initiative to innovate or organize in new ways seems small.
And not without reason… A farmer tells me: "They have told us we should be investing in our farms. See it as a business. So one guy in this village, put a lot of labour and investment in his farm. He rented tractor services to expand the farm. He had prepared compost and manure and carried it all to the fields with the rented cart. Then the rains did not come and he lost the harvest. He is in great debts now." Another young farmer adds, when asked why he does not take a loan to raise his production: "You see it is about having God on your side. You can have God with you one year and have a good harvest. Then you do not have to go in for a loan. Another year, you could have a big farm and have all the inputs bought with your loan. But when God is not on your side, you will still have a bad harvest."
Is it the harsh climate combined with the weathered, old soils of the African context that has already taught them this lesson for centuries and was it re-taught to them by the colonial experience and the subsequent instability and exploitation by their own leaders? When we look carefully at history, the myth of a peaceful Africa before the Europeans set foot on its shores cannot be sustained. But through colonisation, local elites did acquire the means to intensify wars, exploitation and hunger of the many and wealth for the few. Has following tradition, ‘doing as one’s ancestors’ and - staying in that way relatively shielded from the outer world - become so dominant in this culture as attempt not to break the fragile natural and social equilibrium? Has ever something substantially good come from following the advise of the outside world??
Another farmer tells me politely that the agricultural extension officer’s advice has always been very beneficial to them. When I probe him by stating that many farmers have in fact told me the opposite, he sighs and admits: "You know, God has its time and man has its time. But man cannot change God’s time. So the extension officer came once to tell us that that year we should expect early rains, and we should start sowing early. But the rains did not come and the crops died in the field. So I have lost faith in such advice."
If even the white man (or the white-black man..) cannot control the rains, would it not then be more rational to ‘invest’ in the relationship with the God(s) rather than in modern technology?
This might be a positive way of framing where an atheist would say these people show apathy – having lost faith in their own power, they have but the heavens to turn to. To us, their behaviour is illogical or irrational, as in our reality these helping/punishing Gods have died….so we have but ourselves to rely on.
Examples from the field of soil fertility management: beyond reason…?
In my own field of soil fertility management, I see how people hang on to practises that were once rational, but increasingly leave to be so as good-quality farming land (if you are not to be wholly dependent on chemical fertilizer with its skyrocketing price increases!) becomes scarce. People seem to be struggling with the transition from a shifting cultivation system to a permanent system where new rationalities come in. Long fallow periods, free-ranging livestock without conscious use of the manure, burning of crop residues or fields after fallow. All of these are or were adaptation to systems in which labour is more constraining than soil fertility decline. When trying to understand the farmers in their choice for certain technique I therefore try to see the surroundings where they are in: if they still have ample land of good quality available it will not be very likely they will go to the cumbersome work of compost making or manure collection. However, with my rational mind I cannot explain some of the ‘anomalies’ I see. As I do meet communities where the land is scarce (or the cost of clearing new land is prohibitive) and the fertility decline is obvious and still they do not adopt other technologies (like agro-forestry or composting) even when they have been shown to them extensively… And even when serious efforts have been made to develop technologies in a participatory way with them. (Sighing researcher/NGO-workers: "We thought it was participatory until we saw that after we left, no-one participated anymore… ").
On my probing questions, the farmers give ‘rationale’ answers: "We do not have money to hire labourers to carry the compost to the field or to rent an oxen for it." "Snakes will bite us if we do not burn the field before entering." "The land becomes fertile by burning the bush" (which would be true if the ashes were not washed away with the first rains.. Ash can add plenty potash, but in the long run you are destroying your organic matter.) Still, I sometimes feel that is not the whole story.
Having read my literature, I ask: "In some other communities they have told me that burning the bush is a way to appease the gods. Is such a practise also the custom here?" I get diverse answers on that:
Some acknowledge that it is true or at least they say "our gods allow it". "Yes whether you want it or not, coming this day, you have to burn." This than means that non-burning would not be a solution to these people, but rather causing them problems with their gods!
Others say it is only for hunting purposes: to search for ‘bush meat’ which comes out when their bush is burned.
One farmer in a supposedly non-burning community told me: "For us it is the other way round, God does not want us to be disturbing the animals in the bush. He sees everything. Besides in the community we have made strong laws that will punish all those that do still set the bush on fire." While in another community a farmer says: "We have stopped burning and that has nothing to do with religion. We just think it is not good for development." And yet another community says: "We have stopped the burning as this gives the animals more grass to eat. If someone is caught burning, the chief will ban him from farming for two whole years!"
What definitely becomes clear, is that the decision to stop burning can never be an individual one (someone else will simply burn for you then…), so that it would mean a community process.
Now, I am reading Kirby’s article on bush-burning (see reference), who also talks about the importance of the ‘irrational aspects’ in problem-solving: "Attempts to change destructive social habits [like bush fires] by using logical arguments, workshops or demonstration farms are only partly solutions. The Anufo [and many other communities in Northern Ghana] do not view bush-burning as a harmful habit. Although some are aware of some of the harmful effects which we know to be caused by the burning, they may or may not see the association. Part of the reason is the rapid speed with which these changes have taken place. They say, ‘our fathers have always been burning but those problems have come only recently.’ It is analogous to the way in which up until now, having a large family has always been valued as part of the solution rather than a part of the problem itself." [My note: In subsistence agriculture, where land scarcity is not an issue, large households are normally better off. Once, land scarcity comes in or modern ‘needs’ like schooling or pharmaceutical medicines arrive, having many children becomes a burden instead of a blessing. However, wealth is here still measured in having many wifes and many children… It is as if ‘a transition of values and behaviour’ lags behind the transition in conditions. Probably just like in European history..]
He points at the long history in which it was necessary to fight the bush as it stood for great danger with its wild animals. With the fire as protective power, with trees (apart from a few useful ones) as a threat to humanity as it harboured all those animals and bad spirits. [As it used to be for us in the West…. Only when we had destroyed all wilderness around us, we came to value it and wanted it back. Although rather in the form of small, safe patches of man-managed natural parks than in its original chaotic appearance.]
Kirby than points at the tradition and how taboos have and are still playing a ruling role in ‘socializing’ the people: "The most appealing Western ‘civilised’ sanction is reason. Africans often find it ludicrous how Europeans revert to logic to get their children to do things. In Africa appeal is made to the ancestors. The almost universal taboo against carrying lighted firebrands (but rather carrying glowing embers) through a compound, for example, is not explained in terms of the fact that it obviously reduces the possibility of the thatched roofs catching fire, but rather because ‘the ancestors forbid it".
Since "all serious misfortune is ultimately related to mystical intervention" solving problems through performing rituals becomes dominant…
Taboos in transition: a tool for development work?
Taboos can and do change over time, as do all religious and cultural customs. However, Africa traditionalism has shown to be very persistent in agriculture as in health care. Even though outside monotheist religions and Western style education have had their impact, they have not been able to wipe out the influence of ancestors and spirits. Most of the Africans nowadays have brought them together in different levels of syncretism. As Kirby (see reference) says: "In spite of the liberal crusade, rural peoples in the ‘underdeveloped’ parts of the world, in Africa, Asia and South America, continue to employ interpretations of reality that are creatively expansive and that do no limit ‘reality’ to only that which is measurable or sensed."
Development aid became development cooperation. Local people had to become ‘owners’ of the project and to ‘participate’ actively in projects defined by others…
But as Millar, Kirby and Veluw (and probably others) argue: when we leave out aspects that are so fundamental to their lives – the spiritual and the social hierarchies of their communities – how can we ever expect them to feel owner over the projects? Since to many of them, the government is far further away than the land priests and the gods. Since to them rituals are just as important or more important in solving problems as technical interventions. Why not try and see if it is possible to involve the gods, priests and rituals in a dialogue with the communities? A dialogue that does not underestimate nor romanticizes indigenous culture.
This does not mean development organizations should start rituals themselves, but they could "make way for those in the traditional sphere to do so". As an example, he talks of a chief that gathered the Earth Priests to ban bush-fires by making rituals to the ancestors to ask for permissions to change the practises and by making an oath to the gods to punish anyone who still burns…. Breaking such an ode, can mean a sure death!
And me?
I am looking forward for my lungs to recover so that I can visit NGO CARE International, who has developed a special programme on burning… Besides I will visit prof. David Millar next week, who told me I should be more creative in my methods if I want to find out more about the cosmovision around soil fertility management. But how am I to go about that? Let’s see if he can advise me on that.
Oh yeah, for the real interested in soil fertility management, there is a lot more to tell about non-"adoption" of course… it will follow.
By the way, yesterday the brother of the bar tender died due through "witch craft"… (By others interpreted as an epileptic phase after stress due to threats over outstanding debts).
References:
Millar, D. (2004) "Interfacing two knowledge systems: Local Knowledge and Science in Africa." Paper for the Compas panel in the conference: Bridging Scales and Epistemologies:
Linking Local Knowledge with Global Science in Multi-Scale Assessments. Alexandria March 2004
Kirby, J. (1987), Bushfires and the domestication of the Wild in Northern Ghana. TICCS, occasional papers. Culture and development series no. 1, 1987, p 14- 29 (In the late ’90 s reprinted as chapter of a book, I cannot find the reference of anymore…)
Veluw, K. van (2007), When we take care of the land, the land will take care of us!, Agro-Special 6. Wageningen: Agromisa Foundation.
My answer was that indeed the intimate knowledge that people here have on their natural environment has been and still is often underestimated, ignored and by that way destroyed. However, romantizicing indigenous African knowledge by saying that by following it, all problems could be solved is just as much of a mistake. It is the black-and-white view (very literally here) that is worrysome. Any body of knowledge, like 'western scientific' knowledge cannot just be bad or good; parts of it will or will not prove useful to work in specific context. Workable new knowledge is mostly fusion...
Without pretending to know the truth on this issues, I want to share my thoughts on what could be one of the many truths about the African continent. Based on my own observations and on literature read and re-read (see some references here under) in these days when my lungs have decided that two months of ‘free air’ has been enough and are now struggling again to breath..
Where to find security in a changing world?
To me it seems more that the world around these people has changed and is changing so rapidly, that their indigenous knowledge cannot keep coping with it. The transition from a ‘traditional’ society to ‘modernity’ has often made their strategies ineffective in the face of new ‘needs’. Now they only have a ‘choice’ to hang on to the old ways that do no longer provide physical security - but at least some sense of spiritual security - and new practices that neither promises security, just a premium for those who win the gambling game of capitalist entrepreneurship. So what they do is basing their system on traditions, with ‘adopting’ modern practices only when they are given in the form of ‘gifts’ or when they can be accommodated in a non-threatening way, which means without much investment.
Ownerships over development projects seems extremely weak. On the one hand expressed wishes (to us as white outsiders) for outside assistance especially in material or financial terms seem extreme and indiscriminate: "Anything that can help our crops to grow will do. Give us fertilizer, give us tractors, give us boreholes etc." (Quite different from the farmers I met in Chiapas!). On the other hand, not even the names of the organisations that have already passed by (and knowing the density of NGOs in Northern Region this must have been quite a few) can normally be recalled, so little impact they seem to have made… And few of the ideas taught by these outsiders are still practised without continuous outside support. Besides, own initiative to innovate or organize in new ways seems small.
And not without reason… A farmer tells me: "They have told us we should be investing in our farms. See it as a business. So one guy in this village, put a lot of labour and investment in his farm. He rented tractor services to expand the farm. He had prepared compost and manure and carried it all to the fields with the rented cart. Then the rains did not come and he lost the harvest. He is in great debts now." Another young farmer adds, when asked why he does not take a loan to raise his production: "You see it is about having God on your side. You can have God with you one year and have a good harvest. Then you do not have to go in for a loan. Another year, you could have a big farm and have all the inputs bought with your loan. But when God is not on your side, you will still have a bad harvest."
Is it the harsh climate combined with the weathered, old soils of the African context that has already taught them this lesson for centuries and was it re-taught to them by the colonial experience and the subsequent instability and exploitation by their own leaders? When we look carefully at history, the myth of a peaceful Africa before the Europeans set foot on its shores cannot be sustained. But through colonisation, local elites did acquire the means to intensify wars, exploitation and hunger of the many and wealth for the few. Has following tradition, ‘doing as one’s ancestors’ and - staying in that way relatively shielded from the outer world - become so dominant in this culture as attempt not to break the fragile natural and social equilibrium? Has ever something substantially good come from following the advise of the outside world??
Another farmer tells me politely that the agricultural extension officer’s advice has always been very beneficial to them. When I probe him by stating that many farmers have in fact told me the opposite, he sighs and admits: "You know, God has its time and man has its time. But man cannot change God’s time. So the extension officer came once to tell us that that year we should expect early rains, and we should start sowing early. But the rains did not come and the crops died in the field. So I have lost faith in such advice."
If even the white man (or the white-black man..) cannot control the rains, would it not then be more rational to ‘invest’ in the relationship with the God(s) rather than in modern technology?
This might be a positive way of framing where an atheist would say these people show apathy – having lost faith in their own power, they have but the heavens to turn to. To us, their behaviour is illogical or irrational, as in our reality these helping/punishing Gods have died….so we have but ourselves to rely on.
Examples from the field of soil fertility management: beyond reason…?
In my own field of soil fertility management, I see how people hang on to practises that were once rational, but increasingly leave to be so as good-quality farming land (if you are not to be wholly dependent on chemical fertilizer with its skyrocketing price increases!) becomes scarce. People seem to be struggling with the transition from a shifting cultivation system to a permanent system where new rationalities come in. Long fallow periods, free-ranging livestock without conscious use of the manure, burning of crop residues or fields after fallow. All of these are or were adaptation to systems in which labour is more constraining than soil fertility decline. When trying to understand the farmers in their choice for certain technique I therefore try to see the surroundings where they are in: if they still have ample land of good quality available it will not be very likely they will go to the cumbersome work of compost making or manure collection. However, with my rational mind I cannot explain some of the ‘anomalies’ I see. As I do meet communities where the land is scarce (or the cost of clearing new land is prohibitive) and the fertility decline is obvious and still they do not adopt other technologies (like agro-forestry or composting) even when they have been shown to them extensively… And even when serious efforts have been made to develop technologies in a participatory way with them. (Sighing researcher/NGO-workers: "We thought it was participatory until we saw that after we left, no-one participated anymore… ").
On my probing questions, the farmers give ‘rationale’ answers: "We do not have money to hire labourers to carry the compost to the field or to rent an oxen for it." "Snakes will bite us if we do not burn the field before entering." "The land becomes fertile by burning the bush" (which would be true if the ashes were not washed away with the first rains.. Ash can add plenty potash, but in the long run you are destroying your organic matter.) Still, I sometimes feel that is not the whole story.
Having read my literature, I ask: "In some other communities they have told me that burning the bush is a way to appease the gods. Is such a practise also the custom here?" I get diverse answers on that:
Some acknowledge that it is true or at least they say "our gods allow it". "Yes whether you want it or not, coming this day, you have to burn." This than means that non-burning would not be a solution to these people, but rather causing them problems with their gods!
Others say it is only for hunting purposes: to search for ‘bush meat’ which comes out when their bush is burned.
One farmer in a supposedly non-burning community told me: "For us it is the other way round, God does not want us to be disturbing the animals in the bush. He sees everything. Besides in the community we have made strong laws that will punish all those that do still set the bush on fire." While in another community a farmer says: "We have stopped burning and that has nothing to do with religion. We just think it is not good for development." And yet another community says: "We have stopped the burning as this gives the animals more grass to eat. If someone is caught burning, the chief will ban him from farming for two whole years!"
What definitely becomes clear, is that the decision to stop burning can never be an individual one (someone else will simply burn for you then…), so that it would mean a community process.
Now, I am reading Kirby’s article on bush-burning (see reference), who also talks about the importance of the ‘irrational aspects’ in problem-solving: "Attempts to change destructive social habits [like bush fires] by using logical arguments, workshops or demonstration farms are only partly solutions. The Anufo [and many other communities in Northern Ghana] do not view bush-burning as a harmful habit. Although some are aware of some of the harmful effects which we know to be caused by the burning, they may or may not see the association. Part of the reason is the rapid speed with which these changes have taken place. They say, ‘our fathers have always been burning but those problems have come only recently.’ It is analogous to the way in which up until now, having a large family has always been valued as part of the solution rather than a part of the problem itself." [My note: In subsistence agriculture, where land scarcity is not an issue, large households are normally better off. Once, land scarcity comes in or modern ‘needs’ like schooling or pharmaceutical medicines arrive, having many children becomes a burden instead of a blessing. However, wealth is here still measured in having many wifes and many children… It is as if ‘a transition of values and behaviour’ lags behind the transition in conditions. Probably just like in European history..]
He points at the long history in which it was necessary to fight the bush as it stood for great danger with its wild animals. With the fire as protective power, with trees (apart from a few useful ones) as a threat to humanity as it harboured all those animals and bad spirits. [As it used to be for us in the West…. Only when we had destroyed all wilderness around us, we came to value it and wanted it back. Although rather in the form of small, safe patches of man-managed natural parks than in its original chaotic appearance.]
Kirby than points at the tradition and how taboos have and are still playing a ruling role in ‘socializing’ the people: "The most appealing Western ‘civilised’ sanction is reason. Africans often find it ludicrous how Europeans revert to logic to get their children to do things. In Africa appeal is made to the ancestors. The almost universal taboo against carrying lighted firebrands (but rather carrying glowing embers) through a compound, for example, is not explained in terms of the fact that it obviously reduces the possibility of the thatched roofs catching fire, but rather because ‘the ancestors forbid it".
Since "all serious misfortune is ultimately related to mystical intervention" solving problems through performing rituals becomes dominant…
Taboos in transition: a tool for development work?
Taboos can and do change over time, as do all religious and cultural customs. However, Africa traditionalism has shown to be very persistent in agriculture as in health care. Even though outside monotheist religions and Western style education have had their impact, they have not been able to wipe out the influence of ancestors and spirits. Most of the Africans nowadays have brought them together in different levels of syncretism. As Kirby (see reference) says: "In spite of the liberal crusade, rural peoples in the ‘underdeveloped’ parts of the world, in Africa, Asia and South America, continue to employ interpretations of reality that are creatively expansive and that do no limit ‘reality’ to only that which is measurable or sensed."
Development aid became development cooperation. Local people had to become ‘owners’ of the project and to ‘participate’ actively in projects defined by others…
But as Millar, Kirby and Veluw (and probably others) argue: when we leave out aspects that are so fundamental to their lives – the spiritual and the social hierarchies of their communities – how can we ever expect them to feel owner over the projects? Since to many of them, the government is far further away than the land priests and the gods. Since to them rituals are just as important or more important in solving problems as technical interventions. Why not try and see if it is possible to involve the gods, priests and rituals in a dialogue with the communities? A dialogue that does not underestimate nor romanticizes indigenous culture.
This does not mean development organizations should start rituals themselves, but they could "make way for those in the traditional sphere to do so". As an example, he talks of a chief that gathered the Earth Priests to ban bush-fires by making rituals to the ancestors to ask for permissions to change the practises and by making an oath to the gods to punish anyone who still burns…. Breaking such an ode, can mean a sure death!
And me?
I am looking forward for my lungs to recover so that I can visit NGO CARE International, who has developed a special programme on burning… Besides I will visit prof. David Millar next week, who told me I should be more creative in my methods if I want to find out more about the cosmovision around soil fertility management. But how am I to go about that? Let’s see if he can advise me on that.
Oh yeah, for the real interested in soil fertility management, there is a lot more to tell about non-"adoption" of course… it will follow.
By the way, yesterday the brother of the bar tender died due through "witch craft"… (By others interpreted as an epileptic phase after stress due to threats over outstanding debts).
References:
Millar, D. (2004) "Interfacing two knowledge systems: Local Knowledge and Science in Africa." Paper for the Compas panel in the conference: Bridging Scales and Epistemologies:
Linking Local Knowledge with Global Science in Multi-Scale Assessments. Alexandria March 2004
Kirby, J. (1987), Bushfires and the domestication of the Wild in Northern Ghana. TICCS, occasional papers. Culture and development series no. 1, 1987, p 14- 29 (In the late ’90 s reprinted as chapter of a book, I cannot find the reference of anymore…)
Veluw, K. van (2007), When we take care of the land, the land will take care of us!, Agro-Special 6. Wageningen: Agromisa Foundation.
So... how much is on your bank account?
As you might recall from Mexico, interviewing a farmer is not the same everywhere in the world... To get the answers that you could at least to some extent call reliable it takes a great deal of patience and creativity. From both sides, I'd say as some of the questions could be 'quite intruding'.
Whereas a Dutch farmer would be more than happy to tell you the number of cows he owns, here the question is equivalent to asking 'how much is there on your bank account.' And most people here are just as little willing to disclose on that as would be your neighbour. For that reason I never ask the question straight away, but will always explain that I want to know it only to see if he has access to animal manure. Than still, some people will say that they do not have any animals, probably as they think it is better to look poorer than you really are as that might make it more likely you'd receive some kind of assistance (it hardly helps telling them that this white lady does not go around with a bag of money).
Lately, I went to Libga, a village where the soil fertility has declined over the years and with fertilizer going skyrocketing (from 20 dollar last year to 40 at the moment and prices still going up, as farm activities are starting now), it is hard to sustain chemical fertilizer application. Interestingly, the people had received quite a bit of extension on alternative methods of soil fertility improvement from extension service and NGOs. It was very hard to find out though, what they reallly thought of those interventions. Where a Dutch farmer would tell you straight away that governmental policy is his biggest constraint and the environmental NGOs should stop nagging, farmers here are mostly more 'polite'. Listen..
The first interviewee is joined in the conversation by some other farmers that pass by: “Yes, we know of other methods than fertilizer to improve our soils. We were taught to plant trees and use the branches. But we don’t do it because of the money.” Me: But what is so costly about planting trees?
Farmer: “You first have to nurse the seedlings which needs a lot of labour. Besides the trees can sometimes compete seriously with the crop for the scarse nutrients".
Me: Mm, I see, so how is it that you would plant the trees and manage them and why is it that they compete?
Farmer: “Ah you plant them on the hedges and come back to cut the leaves. When you plant them wide [two farmers start to pace around the show me the planting distance for a few minutes] and cut them in time it does not even compete. And it gives you fertilizer for free.”
We get back to the issue of labour requirement in nursing the trees and transplanting them to the field.
Me: Fertiliser costs money, which you say you could save by putting those trees. Hiring labour also costs money. Do the extra labour costs outweigh the savings on fertilizer you think?
Farmer: “No it would be better to invest in the trees”.
Me: “Okay, so you think it would be a better investment to plant the trees and you know how to manage them so that they do not compete with the main crop. But you are not practicing it. So, is it that there is yet another problem that you did not yet mention?”
Farmer: “Ah but we do practise it”.
Me: "Ah, could we then go to the field and see how the system works in practise."
Farmer: "Ah, it is a pity, but the fields where we have planted them is very very far away....."
Than on the other hand, in the Netherlands I often did not feel very comfortable talking about the use of human excreta (shit) or urine, whereas here they do not find it quite as strange.
Me: Mmm. Yes. Well, I would like to aks you a question. You see I have heard that some farmers use the sewage waste from the city to fertilize the soil. Is that also practised around here?
Farmer: "Yes, we would love to get the shit from the city, with that the crops grow well, but a lot of people want to have it. Only when you pay they give it to you."
Whereas a Dutch farmer would be more than happy to tell you the number of cows he owns, here the question is equivalent to asking 'how much is there on your bank account.' And most people here are just as little willing to disclose on that as would be your neighbour. For that reason I never ask the question straight away, but will always explain that I want to know it only to see if he has access to animal manure. Than still, some people will say that they do not have any animals, probably as they think it is better to look poorer than you really are as that might make it more likely you'd receive some kind of assistance (it hardly helps telling them that this white lady does not go around with a bag of money).
Lately, I went to Libga, a village where the soil fertility has declined over the years and with fertilizer going skyrocketing (from 20 dollar last year to 40 at the moment and prices still going up, as farm activities are starting now), it is hard to sustain chemical fertilizer application. Interestingly, the people had received quite a bit of extension on alternative methods of soil fertility improvement from extension service and NGOs. It was very hard to find out though, what they reallly thought of those interventions. Where a Dutch farmer would tell you straight away that governmental policy is his biggest constraint and the environmental NGOs should stop nagging, farmers here are mostly more 'polite'. Listen..
The first interviewee is joined in the conversation by some other farmers that pass by: “Yes, we know of other methods than fertilizer to improve our soils. We were taught to plant trees and use the branches. But we don’t do it because of the money.” Me: But what is so costly about planting trees?
Farmer: “You first have to nurse the seedlings which needs a lot of labour. Besides the trees can sometimes compete seriously with the crop for the scarse nutrients".
Me: Mm, I see, so how is it that you would plant the trees and manage them and why is it that they compete?
Farmer: “Ah you plant them on the hedges and come back to cut the leaves. When you plant them wide [two farmers start to pace around the show me the planting distance for a few minutes] and cut them in time it does not even compete. And it gives you fertilizer for free.”
We get back to the issue of labour requirement in nursing the trees and transplanting them to the field.
Me: Fertiliser costs money, which you say you could save by putting those trees. Hiring labour also costs money. Do the extra labour costs outweigh the savings on fertilizer you think?
Farmer: “No it would be better to invest in the trees”.
Me: “Okay, so you think it would be a better investment to plant the trees and you know how to manage them so that they do not compete with the main crop. But you are not practicing it. So, is it that there is yet another problem that you did not yet mention?”
Farmer: “Ah but we do practise it”.
Me: "Ah, could we then go to the field and see how the system works in practise."
Farmer: "Ah, it is a pity, but the fields where we have planted them is very very far away....."
Than on the other hand, in the Netherlands I often did not feel very comfortable talking about the use of human excreta (shit) or urine, whereas here they do not find it quite as strange.
Me: Mmm. Yes. Well, I would like to aks you a question. You see I have heard that some farmers use the sewage waste from the city to fertilize the soil. Is that also practised around here?
Farmer: "Yes, we would love to get the shit from the city, with that the crops grow well, but a lot of people want to have it. Only when you pay they give it to you."
maandag 12 mei 2008
Elephants and one more 'Na' for the chief...
Dear all, I miss you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you are enjoying Spring time, Liberation day etc
In this country, where sweat and tiredness are constant companions, I find it hard to make time and energy to write you all the strange, funny things that happen here, besides from my struggles. And when I do, there usually is no internet ;-)
But this morning, waiting for an interview with an ICCO-sponsored NGO here in Tamale that work on rural development, both the spirit and the internet is there. So just as much for you as for me, these are the things that make me smile in Ghana:
- Seeing the impressive elephants, rude baboon monkeys (keep your bags closed or they'll steel everything away) and antilopes closeby while doing a walking safari in Mole national park where we went last week.
- Thinking that hiring a bicycle to go for a nice ride around the nature reserve during mid-day is a good idea. When we finally have a bike that more or less has two wheels, steering wheel, saddle and pedales, we do not come much further than the first shade-providing tree anyhow...
- Trying to put up an 'interesting' conversation in broken french with a medicine man who has come walking all the way from the north of Burkina Faso. Asking him about his background, showing interest in his profesion and culture... Taking pictures from his medicinal plants. To find out afterwards he only staid around to watch Sister Bianca asleep. As soon as she gets up he flungs himself around her. "Couchez, couchez" he utters happily. Local boys superfluously gave us the translation and said we'd better bike on...
- Talking to the park ranger who cannot believe there are people that do not believe in God. He starts laughing "How can you not believe in God? He just exists!". For him it is not even necessary to convince anyone. How are you going to argue with someone on whether he believes the grass is green, when it is so obvious!
- Every Sunday again saying hopefully: "Bianca, there must be a nice place in town we can go and listen some music or see some dancing or whatever, don't you think?" To receive the reply "You say that every Sunday, dear, but there is only one place we can go and it is always closed on when we are not working." So, I make up other big plans instead, determined to enjoy myself. "You know we could go to the market, see some weavers, take a walk in another neighbourhood, ask them to teach us owari (a game) " In the end, after biking to the market and staying there for half an hour, we can only think of cold water and a fan...
Still, it is an adventure: dodging not to be splashed with blood from the butcher that just sells his meat next to the tomatoes. Seeing the beautiful wax cloth. Probing the market women to find out the market chain for their products, but through the language barrier not coming much further than 'the farm' or 'it is for eating'.. And ofcourse acquiring many new friends again.
- All the many greeting rituals, which I only know more or less. "Just follow the translator" has become my device. So that involves a whole lot of kneeling to all the elder, afterwards asking them or they asking you "How did you sleep?", "How is the cold?" (yes they think it is cold in the mornings...), "How is your work?", "How is your husband?", all in the difficult Dagbani.. ofcourse and trying to guess the answers write - mostly Na or Alaafe.
- But ... to the chief it is different again: to some you are not even supposed to adress directly, and you cannot inform on the health of the chief, but only by asking "How is the chief's horse?", which is used as a metaphor. You see all the chiefs are supposed to have a horse, and no-one else can own horses. They are very expensive any how.
- Seeing this ancient traditions and traditional huts and then all of a sudden hear the ringtones from several mobiles and seeing them coming out of the dirty, torn clothes. Or a chief that rides away on his motorbike. It is like moving from 'stone-age' to 'modern times' in a split second.
- Hearing how one village has started a tree nursery of nitrogen-fixing trees Moringa and I being all happy that they start to think of something else than the 'sacred' fertilizer-fertilizer (the chemical one). When a farmer says: "Yes, you know the seeds are medicinal and they are very expensive. If you could only plant an acre with them, you will become rich!" Whatever, if it is for another reason that they adopt it. It was wonderful to see some initiative instead of passive waiting for outside assitance..!
In this country, where sweat and tiredness are constant companions, I find it hard to make time and energy to write you all the strange, funny things that happen here, besides from my struggles. And when I do, there usually is no internet ;-)
But this morning, waiting for an interview with an ICCO-sponsored NGO here in Tamale that work on rural development, both the spirit and the internet is there. So just as much for you as for me, these are the things that make me smile in Ghana:
- Seeing the impressive elephants, rude baboon monkeys (keep your bags closed or they'll steel everything away) and antilopes closeby while doing a walking safari in Mole national park where we went last week.
- Thinking that hiring a bicycle to go for a nice ride around the nature reserve during mid-day is a good idea. When we finally have a bike that more or less has two wheels, steering wheel, saddle and pedales, we do not come much further than the first shade-providing tree anyhow...
- Trying to put up an 'interesting' conversation in broken french with a medicine man who has come walking all the way from the north of Burkina Faso. Asking him about his background, showing interest in his profesion and culture... Taking pictures from his medicinal plants. To find out afterwards he only staid around to watch Sister Bianca asleep. As soon as she gets up he flungs himself around her. "Couchez, couchez" he utters happily. Local boys superfluously gave us the translation and said we'd better bike on...
- Talking to the park ranger who cannot believe there are people that do not believe in God. He starts laughing "How can you not believe in God? He just exists!". For him it is not even necessary to convince anyone. How are you going to argue with someone on whether he believes the grass is green, when it is so obvious!
- Every Sunday again saying hopefully: "Bianca, there must be a nice place in town we can go and listen some music or see some dancing or whatever, don't you think?" To receive the reply "You say that every Sunday, dear, but there is only one place we can go and it is always closed on when we are not working." So, I make up other big plans instead, determined to enjoy myself. "You know we could go to the market, see some weavers, take a walk in another neighbourhood, ask them to teach us owari (a game) " In the end, after biking to the market and staying there for half an hour, we can only think of cold water and a fan...
Still, it is an adventure: dodging not to be splashed with blood from the butcher that just sells his meat next to the tomatoes. Seeing the beautiful wax cloth. Probing the market women to find out the market chain for their products, but through the language barrier not coming much further than 'the farm' or 'it is for eating'.. And ofcourse acquiring many new friends again.
- All the many greeting rituals, which I only know more or less. "Just follow the translator" has become my device. So that involves a whole lot of kneeling to all the elder, afterwards asking them or they asking you "How did you sleep?", "How is the cold?" (yes they think it is cold in the mornings...), "How is your work?", "How is your husband?", all in the difficult Dagbani.. ofcourse and trying to guess the answers write - mostly Na or Alaafe.
- But ... to the chief it is different again: to some you are not even supposed to adress directly, and you cannot inform on the health of the chief, but only by asking "How is the chief's horse?", which is used as a metaphor. You see all the chiefs are supposed to have a horse, and no-one else can own horses. They are very expensive any how.
- Seeing this ancient traditions and traditional huts and then all of a sudden hear the ringtones from several mobiles and seeing them coming out of the dirty, torn clothes. Or a chief that rides away on his motorbike. It is like moving from 'stone-age' to 'modern times' in a split second.
- Hearing how one village has started a tree nursery of nitrogen-fixing trees Moringa and I being all happy that they start to think of something else than the 'sacred' fertilizer-fertilizer (the chemical one). When a farmer says: "Yes, you know the seeds are medicinal and they are very expensive. If you could only plant an acre with them, you will become rich!" Whatever, if it is for another reason that they adopt it. It was wonderful to see some initiative instead of passive waiting for outside assitance..!
dinsdag 29 april 2008
Small-small
While I lay sick in bed (or was on the toilet), Spring has started. Now when I go out and leave the main road, I step into the village this town actually is to find everything buzzing with life. In this small park we have recently discovered, I breath in the humid, fresh air. The soil has been covered in green, the trees have started flowering, reptiles can be seen even more than before and butterflies and birds flutter around between the plastic waste.
“They have started farming”, Christoph reports us from the outer world. That means we will have a great opportunity to see the farming happening at last. On the other hand, it will make it increasingly difficult to find research subjects. No time to waste and linger around anymore. It is as if after a long sleep the earth and time itself have woken up by the beat off the rain.
The magic of the rain. No wonder that people are adoring and worshiping the rain in all ancient religions. It seems way more logical to me than praying to a man once nailed on a cross.
And me? I will start again “small-small” as the people say here…. Little-by-little trying to come to grips with the world around me by observing, listening and … enjoying it!
“They have started farming”, Christoph reports us from the outer world. That means we will have a great opportunity to see the farming happening at last. On the other hand, it will make it increasingly difficult to find research subjects. No time to waste and linger around anymore. It is as if after a long sleep the earth and time itself have woken up by the beat off the rain.
The magic of the rain. No wonder that people are adoring and worshiping the rain in all ancient religions. It seems way more logical to me than praying to a man once nailed on a cross.
And me? I will start again “small-small” as the people say here…. Little-by-little trying to come to grips with the world around me by observing, listening and … enjoying it!
Inshallah!
In a country where the Mosques summon the believers to their prayers 5 times a day. Where our Muslim brothers from the bicycle repair spot lightheartedly quarrel over their place in the prayer line before kneeling down again for their umpteenth “Allah w Akbahr”.
In a country where you buy your jeans in the “Jesus never fails”-boutique. Ride through the dodgy trafic in the “Put your trust in God”caps. Or eat a meal out of a plastic bag in the “There is no power above the power of God”-snackbar.
In such a country, religious expressions are seeping into my own vocabulary without notice. I caught myself saying “may God bless you” and “thanks to God” on more than one occasion already. And sighing an Inshallah… when I hope that the car will come to take us back to town.
They say that the African is a deeply religious being. And this goes way longer back that the monotheist religions that trade and conquest brought them. Traditional shrines and rituals are still the parch-and-parcel of African everyday life.
Divine fate rules life. This gives unexpected answers to interview questions. When asked about future decisions and plans, it is not unusual to reply “How can I know what God has in mind for me?”, as if will and own choice have no place…
I asked an 18 year old what training would he choose if he was given the opportunity to learn on any aspect of farming (animal rearing, soil fertility, a cash crop etc.). He replied: “Okay, all those different aspects are ways to make your farm successful. May God give me success if it is his wish and guide me on my path.. That is my answer to your question.”
Among these steadfast believers, I started sighing myself “Oh Lord teach me humbleness…” and I think the Lord is well answering my prayer… although his lessons are hard ;-)
As you have followed my black ponderings above, I am going through a struggle to get to terms with my so-called “uselessness”. A lot of pretentions had to be left in the first weeks as a result of the constant heat-induced sleepiness. Then other pretentions are being taken away by the diarrhea, some important backlashes in the research project, the not all that positive reaction of Ghanaian researchers and farmers to our research….
At first, my idea was that by linking up to the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) I would have something concrete to deliver recommendations to. And through SNV (a Dutch development organization) as a research partner, we would make sure our research would benefit local organizations and partners to the GSFP. So even though I could not do action-research myself, it would at least not be doing some “stand-alone”research.
Soon upon arrival these two “anchors” turned out not to be very “stead fast”. The Dutch government decided to withdraw her support from the GSFP for several reasons: financial management is not performed the way it should by the Ghanaian government and 70% of the money goes to the 3 richest districts. Is this about fighting poverty or winning votes in the presidential elections this autumn?
Secondly, SNV announced that they did not want to be partners in our research. Reason: According to SNV they offered mr. Eenhoorn (the former Unilever guy now the associate professor in charge of our research programme) to link us up with local partner organizations, which would mean open up our research agenda to their input. Eenhoorn refused this as he wanted to stick to his own brilliant research plan…without even discussing the option with us, the researchers. And failing to report back the subsequent withdrawal of SNV to the project.
I was very angry with mr. Eenhoorn for two days and was determined to tell him what I thought of his depreciation of us as researchers by taking such an important step in research strategy and by spoiling our chances to contribute anything to local knowledge development. But on Monday morning, when I managed to reach him…. Well, intercontinental phone calls are just not the best for disagreements and besides he has this way with charms and words that made me decide not to spill my energy any further.
I sigh… even though we both are Dutch, we seem to come from other planets… so talking louder will not open ears that are full of other music. I only hope he understands that developing a happy society, is not the same as running a company… that subsistence farming is a different kind of trade than selling Magnum icecream… and that Africa is not a market to be conquered but the home to many who want to live life in all its aspects, not just the productive ones. And that since it is their home and not ours, we should have a whole lot of respect and a lot more patience!!
But oh well, it might just as well be me who does not understand. And in the end, can anyone pretend that he fully does??
So humbleness, Lord, humbleness ;-)
In a country where you buy your jeans in the “Jesus never fails”-boutique. Ride through the dodgy trafic in the “Put your trust in God”caps. Or eat a meal out of a plastic bag in the “There is no power above the power of God”-snackbar.
In such a country, religious expressions are seeping into my own vocabulary without notice. I caught myself saying “may God bless you” and “thanks to God” on more than one occasion already. And sighing an Inshallah… when I hope that the car will come to take us back to town.
They say that the African is a deeply religious being. And this goes way longer back that the monotheist religions that trade and conquest brought them. Traditional shrines and rituals are still the parch-and-parcel of African everyday life.
Divine fate rules life. This gives unexpected answers to interview questions. When asked about future decisions and plans, it is not unusual to reply “How can I know what God has in mind for me?”, as if will and own choice have no place…
I asked an 18 year old what training would he choose if he was given the opportunity to learn on any aspect of farming (animal rearing, soil fertility, a cash crop etc.). He replied: “Okay, all those different aspects are ways to make your farm successful. May God give me success if it is his wish and guide me on my path.. That is my answer to your question.”
Among these steadfast believers, I started sighing myself “Oh Lord teach me humbleness…” and I think the Lord is well answering my prayer… although his lessons are hard ;-)
As you have followed my black ponderings above, I am going through a struggle to get to terms with my so-called “uselessness”. A lot of pretentions had to be left in the first weeks as a result of the constant heat-induced sleepiness. Then other pretentions are being taken away by the diarrhea, some important backlashes in the research project, the not all that positive reaction of Ghanaian researchers and farmers to our research….
At first, my idea was that by linking up to the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) I would have something concrete to deliver recommendations to. And through SNV (a Dutch development organization) as a research partner, we would make sure our research would benefit local organizations and partners to the GSFP. So even though I could not do action-research myself, it would at least not be doing some “stand-alone”research.
Soon upon arrival these two “anchors” turned out not to be very “stead fast”. The Dutch government decided to withdraw her support from the GSFP for several reasons: financial management is not performed the way it should by the Ghanaian government and 70% of the money goes to the 3 richest districts. Is this about fighting poverty or winning votes in the presidential elections this autumn?
Secondly, SNV announced that they did not want to be partners in our research. Reason: According to SNV they offered mr. Eenhoorn (the former Unilever guy now the associate professor in charge of our research programme) to link us up with local partner organizations, which would mean open up our research agenda to their input. Eenhoorn refused this as he wanted to stick to his own brilliant research plan…without even discussing the option with us, the researchers. And failing to report back the subsequent withdrawal of SNV to the project.
I was very angry with mr. Eenhoorn for two days and was determined to tell him what I thought of his depreciation of us as researchers by taking such an important step in research strategy and by spoiling our chances to contribute anything to local knowledge development. But on Monday morning, when I managed to reach him…. Well, intercontinental phone calls are just not the best for disagreements and besides he has this way with charms and words that made me decide not to spill my energy any further.
I sigh… even though we both are Dutch, we seem to come from other planets… so talking louder will not open ears that are full of other music. I only hope he understands that developing a happy society, is not the same as running a company… that subsistence farming is a different kind of trade than selling Magnum icecream… and that Africa is not a market to be conquered but the home to many who want to live life in all its aspects, not just the productive ones. And that since it is their home and not ours, we should have a whole lot of respect and a lot more patience!!
But oh well, it might just as well be me who does not understand. And in the end, can anyone pretend that he fully does??
So humbleness, Lord, humbleness ;-)
Guilt as my garment
But can you at all compare their happiness with your own? If you were used to the village life and T-Z and porridge, to the hard work during the rains, and the idleness of the dry season? If you knew from little girl on that you would marry as the first, second or third wife to a man and have children and work on the land? Well, my ponderings are classical and cliché. But as I have found out before, clichés carry a lot of truth within them. That is, I see much more smiling faces and hear laughter around me than on many a day in the Dutch polder. And if poverty is the absence of opportunities and choice. Richness can lead people to suffer from the uncertainty that comes with having too many… Once you are able to fulfill basic needs, life can become as empty as purchasing the latest fashion.
As always, truth is sure to lie in the middle. There are good things here, there are good things there. We all have our own problems, and the perception of the individual determines the importance or even the reality of the problem. With our rational, Western minds we like to classify our observations to seek for efficiency, effectiveness and economic priorities. Blind to these ghosts of our own, we ignore someone else’s ghosts (the rain god, the ancestors) as back ward. And our preaching and teaching has done its work with the educated Africans leaving their communities and countries to fulfill the new goal of personal achievement. To become more educated and struggle for a place in an office…
And what about me? Where ponderings, feelings, western’ rationalism mingles with African magic, melancholy lies waiting. The feeling of guilt to interfere in other people’s lives without offering them anything in exchange competes with the attraction to a world so different from mine. With the weight of the world on my shoulders converting all my ponderings in moral judgments about my own life’s choices, life is a never ending struggle with depression as a natural reaction. Why is gratefulness so much harder to welcome as my garment than guilt?
Striving to complete integrity, to congruency is only possible in a life without taking risks to make errors. And that is not a life. But then is the good intention or heart enough? Who decides when an error is an error… And am I so infected by Western productivism, that I can only measure my value by the good deeds I am able to realize in the material world as others measure it by money or career achievements..
On lighter days, Africa makes me laugh to a point that it is inappropriate. They laugh at me, for being strange. But customs here are often so strange, that I cannot hold back my laughter either. After greeting yet another chief with some minutes of bowing, clapping and ‘Na, Na, Na’, it start to trickle the laughter muscles as we’d say in Dutch and I have to bite my lip to prevent another outburst…
On others days, in Zinindo, a somewhat bigger town, the plea for assistance of the farmers becomes again unbearable to me. An accusation. Its knifes deadly sharp when in perfectly in tune with my inner critiques…
To the farmers we try to be honest from the start: we come to ‘take’ not to ‘give’, we ask them to be our teachers in telling us about the way they practice agriculture and the constraints that come with it. That by teaching us, we hope that we can send a clearer picture of their situation home: indirectly to donor organizations and us as part of their future work force… in order not to repeat past mistakes. They do understand. They say.
As always, truth is sure to lie in the middle. There are good things here, there are good things there. We all have our own problems, and the perception of the individual determines the importance or even the reality of the problem. With our rational, Western minds we like to classify our observations to seek for efficiency, effectiveness and economic priorities. Blind to these ghosts of our own, we ignore someone else’s ghosts (the rain god, the ancestors) as back ward. And our preaching and teaching has done its work with the educated Africans leaving their communities and countries to fulfill the new goal of personal achievement. To become more educated and struggle for a place in an office…
And what about me? Where ponderings, feelings, western’ rationalism mingles with African magic, melancholy lies waiting. The feeling of guilt to interfere in other people’s lives without offering them anything in exchange competes with the attraction to a world so different from mine. With the weight of the world on my shoulders converting all my ponderings in moral judgments about my own life’s choices, life is a never ending struggle with depression as a natural reaction. Why is gratefulness so much harder to welcome as my garment than guilt?
Striving to complete integrity, to congruency is only possible in a life without taking risks to make errors. And that is not a life. But then is the good intention or heart enough? Who decides when an error is an error… And am I so infected by Western productivism, that I can only measure my value by the good deeds I am able to realize in the material world as others measure it by money or career achievements..
On lighter days, Africa makes me laugh to a point that it is inappropriate. They laugh at me, for being strange. But customs here are often so strange, that I cannot hold back my laughter either. After greeting yet another chief with some minutes of bowing, clapping and ‘Na, Na, Na’, it start to trickle the laughter muscles as we’d say in Dutch and I have to bite my lip to prevent another outburst…
On others days, in Zinindo, a somewhat bigger town, the plea for assistance of the farmers becomes again unbearable to me. An accusation. Its knifes deadly sharp when in perfectly in tune with my inner critiques…
To the farmers we try to be honest from the start: we come to ‘take’ not to ‘give’, we ask them to be our teachers in telling us about the way they practice agriculture and the constraints that come with it. That by teaching us, we hope that we can send a clearer picture of their situation home: indirectly to donor organizations and us as part of their future work force… in order not to repeat past mistakes. They do understand. They say.
15-04-2008: Sweet village life in Balsheigh?
(The following is just taken from my field report, not written to entertain ;-))
Through the example of house building, the chair man explains how communal labour has its place in the village. “When a man wants to build a house, he himself is responsible for providing the material, like sand, cow dung, wild fiber plants for the roofing or sink. But for the work he can count on all the village members to help him on the day he has announced. When strangers pass by they will lend a hand – even just for a minute – so that they know that anytime they have to hide for the rain they have a roof in this village.”
Some huge trees in the village provide not only shade, but also the local ‘cotton’: Kapok. Kapok is used to make pillows or matrasses. “Nowadays, the trader comes by to buy the produce and we just sell it for any price he gives. We don’t know the prices in other places, we just want to sell it. Yes the price is low. The revenue accrues to the family of the planter of the tree.”
Later on, we see old man making rope from a fibrous plant that grows in the wild and is also sometimes cultivated. The produce from this typical dry season activity, he himself goes to sell in the market. It is used to tie up cattle or building purposes.
The groundnut and rice processing and trading is women’s domain. Men help in the ground nut processing (during our group interview we sit under a tree for shade peeling groundnut while conversing) but the women from Balsheigh and some neighbouring communities organize themselves to go to the Tamale market to sell the produce to the retailers. The women also process the rice by threshing, cooking, drying. For this they use their own produce, but also buy extra rice. For this buying of unprocessed rice they can get a loan. Interestingly, the loan is often used to buy the rice produce from their husbands, so that the men can repay their farming loans.
For lunch and evening meal T-Z is served: a staple based on maize (thick maize porridge) with a sauce made from cassava leaves or groundnuts. Apologies were made that the maize was mixed with smashed cassava, as they started running out of maize. Cassava seems to be seen as a poor man’s crop instead of a ‘miracle crop’, that can still produce on very poor soils with little water and can be stored in the ground for a long time.
The chief receives our presents. Joris gives him hazelnut and walnut from his garden in the Netherlands as the counterpart for the bitter kola nuts we have received so often in the last days. “Oh your land must be sweet, since even the nuts taste sweet. Bring me the seeds to grow these trees.” The chief, old and fragile, kept on expressing his gratitude for our visit and said that we did very well. That it is hard to live in the village, that it is “not sweet”, that it was not like the life in the towns that attracted him so much. We explained him about the disadvantages of city life: the danger for the children to play, the haste of the people, the lack of social cohesion etc. He was surprised to hear that it is possible not to know your neighbors, to hear that life in the city is not only sweet. He was happy to see that we ate T-Z as he had been worrying about what to give us. And he was even more surprised that for us sleeping under the moon and stars on the floor of his compound was special to us…. We affirmed him that we were fine and happy and it was true. For the moment. When next morning’s porridge (a thinner version of last night’s dinner with some spices through it) was served, I knew I couldn’t live in the village conditions for more than some days if it were without my supplies of biscuits… That as a holiday the village life is sweet, but that it is the choice that makes it sweet. The knowledge that I can get a proper meal when I get back to town, that when I catch malaria I can leave and pay the treatment…
Through the example of house building, the chair man explains how communal labour has its place in the village. “When a man wants to build a house, he himself is responsible for providing the material, like sand, cow dung, wild fiber plants for the roofing or sink. But for the work he can count on all the village members to help him on the day he has announced. When strangers pass by they will lend a hand – even just for a minute – so that they know that anytime they have to hide for the rain they have a roof in this village.”
Some huge trees in the village provide not only shade, but also the local ‘cotton’: Kapok. Kapok is used to make pillows or matrasses. “Nowadays, the trader comes by to buy the produce and we just sell it for any price he gives. We don’t know the prices in other places, we just want to sell it. Yes the price is low. The revenue accrues to the family of the planter of the tree.”
Later on, we see old man making rope from a fibrous plant that grows in the wild and is also sometimes cultivated. The produce from this typical dry season activity, he himself goes to sell in the market. It is used to tie up cattle or building purposes.
The groundnut and rice processing and trading is women’s domain. Men help in the ground nut processing (during our group interview we sit under a tree for shade peeling groundnut while conversing) but the women from Balsheigh and some neighbouring communities organize themselves to go to the Tamale market to sell the produce to the retailers. The women also process the rice by threshing, cooking, drying. For this they use their own produce, but also buy extra rice. For this buying of unprocessed rice they can get a loan. Interestingly, the loan is often used to buy the rice produce from their husbands, so that the men can repay their farming loans.
For lunch and evening meal T-Z is served: a staple based on maize (thick maize porridge) with a sauce made from cassava leaves or groundnuts. Apologies were made that the maize was mixed with smashed cassava, as they started running out of maize. Cassava seems to be seen as a poor man’s crop instead of a ‘miracle crop’, that can still produce on very poor soils with little water and can be stored in the ground for a long time.
The chief receives our presents. Joris gives him hazelnut and walnut from his garden in the Netherlands as the counterpart for the bitter kola nuts we have received so often in the last days. “Oh your land must be sweet, since even the nuts taste sweet. Bring me the seeds to grow these trees.” The chief, old and fragile, kept on expressing his gratitude for our visit and said that we did very well. That it is hard to live in the village, that it is “not sweet”, that it was not like the life in the towns that attracted him so much. We explained him about the disadvantages of city life: the danger for the children to play, the haste of the people, the lack of social cohesion etc. He was surprised to hear that it is possible not to know your neighbors, to hear that life in the city is not only sweet. He was happy to see that we ate T-Z as he had been worrying about what to give us. And he was even more surprised that for us sleeping under the moon and stars on the floor of his compound was special to us…. We affirmed him that we were fine and happy and it was true. For the moment. When next morning’s porridge (a thinner version of last night’s dinner with some spices through it) was served, I knew I couldn’t live in the village conditions for more than some days if it were without my supplies of biscuits… That as a holiday the village life is sweet, but that it is the choice that makes it sweet. The knowledge that I can get a proper meal when I get back to town, that when I catch malaria I can leave and pay the treatment…
zondag 13 april 2008
Update
Underneath you find a lot of pieces that I wrote on Joris' laptop and today the internet works well, so: there you go!!! As you may read, I am healthy and enjoy Africa, although our pace has slowed down considerably because of the heat....
Dirty water?!
No where on earth, the water tastes as good as at home in Wageningen. But since man cannot live by water alone…
Here, I easily drink away litres of water a day and as long as the water meets hygienic standards, I try not to complain. From the very expensive bottle we have shifted to the ‘sachets’ - half a litre sealed water bags of pure water. Besides the price, another disadvantage of the bottles is that most shops only have one or two in store, so they have sold out after ‘white man’ came by and you will have to visit some three shops to get your daily supply. This in the heat, makes you sweat so much that you will need yet another bottle…
Sachets can be bought in packets of ten litres, that just fit in your bicycle basket. The taste? It depends… the trick is to find water that has not been in the sun for a long time and to keep them cool or transfer them to bottles as soon as possible. Otherwise the plastic taste is verrrrry dominant indeed….
But it makes me feel ashamed to nag about the taste when others depend fully on the tap water of doubtful quality (?) or on even more unsure supplies. In the villages women have to walk for hours to meet the household’s water demand from the river.
So you would expect the people to be very happy when a development organisation comes to dig boreholes and put pumps. But… as a nice example of African irony:
The people complained: “The water is acidic. When you give it to the trees they die.” “The water from the bore hole is salty. We don’t cook with it or it will spoil our dishes.” They tell us and let me taste the crystal clear water from the borehole with the taste of exclusive Spa water or even Wageningen water...
Then they show the water that they prefer. “Nice river water”, pointing at the sandy, turbid water that they fetch far away and then settle with aluin and filter it with a piece of cloth. “But are you not afraid of the guinea worm?” “No we never have trouble with them”, they reassure me. Looking at some swollen bellies I wonder about other parasites….
Not withstanding these are the things that make me smile daily here in Ghana. They may be very frustrating for development workers. They might lead government officials to say that these farmers are backward and stupid. But does not it only show the truth in the Dutch saying:
“Over smaak valt niet te twisten / You can’t argue over taste…” ???
Trees and taboos
In his muslim attire he attended us. The village’s tree planter. The man who had dared to plant ten cashew trees (eight of them dried out or got eaten by the goats), even though the traditional belief is that one will die at the moment the tree planted grows higher than oneself. He was a muslim scholar he said and had read in the Koran about the importance of tree planting. And he had realized that whether or not you plant a tree, you will die and it is better to leave a tree for your children. The other villagers now agree with him and they happily had received tree seedlings from an NGO some years before: the teak grows well, but the mangos were flooded.. and when even simple fencing is too big an investment, it is hard to keep away the animals.
Traditional belief holds that some trees are home to the ancestors. Those trees are not allowed to be cut, nor to be planted. The baobab tree, the sheanut, the dawedawe… Only thing is, people will often not tell development workers who propose a tree-planting project about this, as it is a taboo to share such secrets.. or people are afraid to be called backward. So it can take years to find out.
James tells that years ago they let people from other tribes from the south, come to plant the trees for them as they would not be affected. But then someone tried to plant a tree and did not die, and then others tried…. Also there is less danger in planting ‘white-man’s trees’: trees like the mango that are not originally from this area and the ancestors do not care about.
“… then you are in the right place!”
On Friday we got introduced in the first research village. And doing this correctly in traditional Dagbani style is no piece of cake. Our translators were there to save us from the rudest mistakes, but still we made a lot… As the Dutch would say, I felt like an ‘elephant in the china cupboard’.
Leaving our shoes and slippers in front of the round clay hut, where all the household heads (the elders) were gathered. The thick, sweet sour smell of African men.
The traditional greetings that translated would be something like “Good morning. How are you? How is the family? How is the land? Etc”. We only know the first part “Desba” and know that after most questions “Na” is the correct answers. After most… so sometimes you are horribly wrong and reply “yes”, when they ask you where you are from…
Water was brought to welcome us.
After translator Al-Hassan explained the purpose of our visit, one of the men concluded with content that: “If you come to study agriculture, you are in the right place. Because that is what we do..... Actually that is all we do. Well, we have a few guinea fowl and chicken. We send a few children to school.”
They also made it clear to us that they hoped we did not come to tell them that they should produce more rice. The government and NGOs had been promoting rice growing in the valley bottoms that could be sold as a cash crop. “We now produce rice and the women process it. But we don’t believe in eating rice, because our staple is T-Z, maize porridge. So why produce more rice for sale when later we have to buy maize? Besides the soil has gone acidic and the water has become weak, and rice yields have declined. We would welcome people to work on maize…”
A second meeting followed. Again with the men, but now also with the chief. More opportunities to make mistakes and provoke their laughs. Handing over one cedi (a dollar) as a sign of respect, we were then given to eat the bitter Kola nuts (indeed, the original ingredient of Coca Cola!) that the old men use to get energy. We had a hard time breaking them to share and chew them…
Afterwards we were shown around, receiving guinea fowl eggs as ‘we cannot offer you breakfast as we should, because it will cook to long’. Seeing the swollen bellies of the kids, I felt more guilty with every egg. But Al-Hassan said they would feel very insulted if we suggested giving them back to feed the children.
We talked about cereal seed selection, storage, trees and soils and were introduced to a Fulani family, another ethnic semi-nomadic group that herds the animals for the farmers.
And I finally had some success with the local man: the eldest man with three teeth left informed which of the two white ladies would be his wife…
Fried yams and bicycles
The title of this weblog “Sorghum and tro-tro’s” might have been badly chosen. Even though
So I daily cycle on our far-too-small blue bike with its practical basket in front of me to get water bags or our take-away lunch. That lunch shows the importance of yam, a tuber crop, above the sorghum cereal crop I hoped to see more. But sorghum is excellent for drought and it therefore is more popular further up north. And actually… yam chips are a great lunch. Well, so far at least. Let’s see how many days it takes to grow tired of white bread with omelette for breakfast and yam chips for lunch…
The embarrassing thing is that having been scared away with the stories about Ghanaian cuisine, we haven’t even tried the fufu, banku or t-z yet: the cereal based staple foods. But we’ll soon go to the villages and will have too… But Jeroen, don’t worry: there is plenty of rice, plaintain and red-red bean sauce are nice and I haven’t been “forced” to eat meat yet!
Latest news: we have managed to rent a house for a month with our own kitchen!
The family keeps growing
“TSSS… sister… tsss … sister.”
As you see, next to friends, Ghana is a great place to expand your family. But are you up to the responsibilities that come with that…? Because “You are our sisters, we are your brothers. Your problems are ours. Our problems are yours.” (Quote from Tom & Jerry our new ‘brothers’, after we told them we were not going to rent their house even if they had already ordered the beds….)
Too many friends
It is common wisdom that you can never have too many friends.
After ten days in
‘I your friend’ always knows where to get exactly what you need for the lowest price. Whether it is a bicycle, hotel or a taxi home.
‘I your friend’ always has a lot of friends from “
‘I your friend’ says you can always call on him anytime you need him. But if you are stupid enough to give him your number, he’ll instead be calling you all day long.
Certainly not all of them are rip-offs. Only some of them use you to improve their status. A lot of them are demonstrating genuine friendliness and hospitality. And that is amazing in a country where so little `works´ and people have so little. For sure. But still, even of friends you can have too many.
The good new is: I am hardly in favour with the other category of ‘friends’. The ‘hey white lady, I want to marry you’- friends all go for Bianca’s round female forms. Skinniness is not fashionable in Africa ;-)
What kind of a bus is this? (01-04-2008)
We are on the bus from
“What kind of a bus is this, without airco and without music?” “Why are we waiting for that lady? She should be on time. Five minutes is five minutes!”
Spoiled, rich whites complaining that things do not work as in their countries? No! It are the Ghanaians themselves that defy our prejudices…
Looking at the scenery, we see how beautiful the south of
Sleeping is too much of a word… (Accra, 31-03-2008)
Last night soaking in our own sweat under a mosquito net in our double bed, the ventilator kept on failing with every power short cut…. Halfway through the night I wake up dizzy and sick. Stumbling to the toilet with my flashlight, I start doubting this mission for the first time. Am I up to the “violence” of the African continent? Already there is no air to breath and they say that Tamale is even hotter…
My intestines (darmen) have a better flush than the toilet … but a bucket of water is there to help. Of what was left, my stomach relieves itself in the sink.
Crawling back to bed, the rest of the night is spent half awake, half unconscious – sleeping is something else.
(All seems more dramatic than it is. Malarone + heat + one glass of beer taken in the hope that it would still the thirst for more than just ten minutes, can produce a lot of nausea… I am still parasite-free)
Back? (From my diary: Accra, 30-03-2008)
The houses, the colourful clothes, the dirt, the warmth….
The noise, the traffic, the trees, the laughs, the attention…
The discussions over prices, the beginner’s mistakes, the menu that is always shorter than on the card…
I am back!! Back home to….
That’s what I first thought and felt when I arrived in
Of course
It impressed me: seeing the first African capital from the air. We landed in
From the white, snowy
woensdag 2 april 2008
Heet Tamale
Geen mooie verhalen. Het internet heeft zich aangepast aan de traagte van de Afrikaanse hitte.
Alleen jullie laten weten dat het goed gaat. Dat ik plak en jeuk van het zweet. Maar dat alles een avontuur is. En dat ik email helaas erg weinig zal lezen of zal schrijven. Voorlopig beperken we dat dan maar tot het noodzakelijke.
Alleen jullie laten weten dat het goed gaat. Dat ik plak en jeuk van het zweet. Maar dat alles een avontuur is. En dat ik email helaas erg weinig zal lezen of zal schrijven. Voorlopig beperken we dat dan maar tot het noodzakelijke.
donderdag 27 maart 2008
Obruni in Ghana
Two days from now this newly graduated ir./MSc will fly to Accra Ghana to once again become an outsider, a foreigner, a whitey, an obruni for some months.
I can take comfort from the fact that I will not be the only one: with a group of students from Wageningen we will conduct research within the Ghana Home-grown School Feeding Program (GSFP). A program co-sponsored by the Dutch government which aim is to provide school children with at least one hot nutricious meal a day as it is hard to learn on an empty stomach.
But this is not the only goal. Difference between this program and so many other school feeding programs should be that the food is coming from local farmers: home-grown. This should boost their production, instead of the importing country's or draw on food aid.
A splendid idea on paper, but - as so many times - not yet so easy in practise. In practise where politics matter, where favours to family and friendship matter... And where smallholder farmers do hardly ever react as one plans for.
What do farmers think about the GSFP? Do they see it as an oportunity? Will they take the risk to produce for this new market or have past experiences severly wained their trust in such programs?Do they actually want to become entrepreneurs in the Western sense of the word: 'produce for markets in a planned and intentional manner'? Or is farming a way of life for them, full of coping strategies to deal with a harsh environment in which taking risks can mean digging your own grave if the rains fail to come?
We will try to find answers on these and many more questions.
Besides I hope to learn on smallholder farmers ideas on soil fertility management under the title "Fertile soils as an investment base for smallholder entrepreneurship in Ghana?".
What efforts do they make to improve their soils? And how do they look at the numerous interventions that government agencies and NGO's have made in this field? From chemical fertilizer subsidies to courses on organic farmer - how useful are they to them?
For all of you back home, wherever that is, I will use this website to keep you informed as long as internet connections and electricity services are on my side...
I can take comfort from the fact that I will not be the only one: with a group of students from Wageningen we will conduct research within the Ghana Home-grown School Feeding Program (GSFP). A program co-sponsored by the Dutch government which aim is to provide school children with at least one hot nutricious meal a day as it is hard to learn on an empty stomach.
But this is not the only goal. Difference between this program and so many other school feeding programs should be that the food is coming from local farmers: home-grown. This should boost their production, instead of the importing country's or draw on food aid.
A splendid idea on paper, but - as so many times - not yet so easy in practise. In practise where politics matter, where favours to family and friendship matter... And where smallholder farmers do hardly ever react as one plans for.
What do farmers think about the GSFP? Do they see it as an oportunity? Will they take the risk to produce for this new market or have past experiences severly wained their trust in such programs?Do they actually want to become entrepreneurs in the Western sense of the word: 'produce for markets in a planned and intentional manner'? Or is farming a way of life for them, full of coping strategies to deal with a harsh environment in which taking risks can mean digging your own grave if the rains fail to come?
We will try to find answers on these and many more questions.
Besides I hope to learn on smallholder farmers ideas on soil fertility management under the title "Fertile soils as an investment base for smallholder entrepreneurship in Ghana?".
What efforts do they make to improve their soils? And how do they look at the numerous interventions that government agencies and NGO's have made in this field? From chemical fertilizer subsidies to courses on organic farmer - how useful are they to them?
For all of you back home, wherever that is, I will use this website to keep you informed as long as internet connections and electricity services are on my side...
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