“… 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…