Greetings from Ghana [1] The dynamics of Accra

It is already more than a year since I left Amsterdam to live at the other side of the equator in Accra. Many times I have been asked why Ghana and not Surinam where my parents come from. I have only been able to answer that question with one word ’dynamics’. The dynamics of Accra is many times more vibrant than that of Surinam. Accra is a growing city with more than two million inhabitants; attracting people from the interior as well as from neighboring west African countries in the region. I have met Nigerians, Togolese, Ivorians, and even South Africans in Accra. But also people from the African Diaspora like the United States, England and Jamaica stay in this city. One can only imagine the varied nature of our conversations comparing living conditions here and the developed world. These conversations always lead us to the conclusion that Ghana and the African continent as a whole can do better than they are doing now. This is all true but, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the society and culture of a people and so I need to live here longer in order to further understand that.
I happen to live the life of a well educated worker in Ghana, I found a job at a college where I teach journalism. My students are most critical and have endless discussions about their political leaders as well as their lecturers at school. It is not my place to impose anything on them, I only share my knowledge and experience and then try to understand what drives them. Prior to moving to Accra I have not lived in any other big city so one can imagine that I found it very impressive the first I came here. Accra has long highways, shopping centers, lively neighborhoods, far away suburbs and a long coastline. When I board the bus for work every morning, I find the streets filled with uniformed school children, shop keepers, taxi drivers, hawkers and other day time workers. My school is situated in the commercial heart of the city not far from one of the biggest markets in the region. More than once I have had to find my way through the stinky, noisy and crowded area. To a newcomer everything looks seemingly chaotic; everybody moving around conducting their business without paying particular attention to the traffic. Having lived here for more than a year the structure and layout of the city slowly begins to make meaning to me. For instance, now I recognize bus stops even when there are no signs; occasionally I take a side street where nothing seems to be happening and then I discover a workshop in front of a desolate building. There are places where I for instance could have my hair done, buy handmade furniture, order Indian food or tailor made dresses with African print. It is these dynamics that have attracted me to come to stay in Accra. If I use the senses of my sight, smell and hearing well I might just find the most beautiful spots and people.

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (June 2015)

Greetings from Ghana [2] The water carrier

The first thing that people ask you when you move into a new house in Accra is: ’Do you have running water?’ An important question, especially in a country where people are self-sufficient. My landlord is somebody like that. Being an engineer, he has built a whole system that pumps water from the ground, purifies it and then distributes it to all the apartments on his compound. The water is for free. So, I had nothing to worry about, at least not for the first half of the year. It did not occur to me that there could be problems, for instance in the case where the pump broke down one day and the tenants were reluctant to pay for the fixing and maintenance of the water system. This made my landlord angry and unwilling to fix anything. We, the renters of the building were confronted with water scarcity or to be precise, scarcity of running water. There were selling points for clean water everywhere in the neighborhood and there were two boreholes even on our compound. So the main question arises: how do I get that water into my apartment? 

The solution appears simple, with the use of muscles in the absence of any other way. My apartment is on the top floor of a three storey building therefore, any fetching of water from the borehole to my apartment would mean going up and down the many flights of stairs with a bucketful of water. A very exhausting endeavor one can imagine. Moreover, I could only do this at the beginning of the day. I had to be in good shape and have a lot of energy. Also, right before I take my bath because there is a lot of sweating involved. At some point it became too much to do this every morning so I asked a day-worker to help me out. It seems that carrying water is very often an exercise done by women and children. Already at dawn one will find a number of people in the street with buckets of water on their head. These are the daily rituals for the morning bath. Also, I now understand and appreciate why every household here has a big plastic drum in the bathroom. That is the water reservoir for emergencies, which is always filled to the brim. After a month of carrying buckets I also acquired one for my apartment, a big purple one that can contain 200 liters of water. I could use this for two or three days, depending on my need for water. Besides that, I also have someone who supplies me with water permanently whenever the need arises. She could supply five to six tubs at one request. For every tub of clean water I pay 1,5 Surinamese dollar. Now. This whole experience has taught me how to manage my water properly. For instance, if it is necessary I can run my household with nothing more than three buckets of water a day. I even know how to recycle by using soapy water from doing my laundry for cleaning the bathroom tiles. I also know how to carry buckets on my head now. The carriers have shown me how you fold a piece of cloth that goes under the bucket. I wonder if it made me walk more straight. Fetching water from the borehole was also a useful experience. One time the rope slipped out of my hand and the bucket disappear to the bottom. We had to wait until the level of the water rose again and then retrieve it with a piece of equipment. Despite all my good intentions, the feeling of vulnerability due to having limited water supply in the house cannot be dispelled. It is like your basic needs to live is under threat. Spilling a drop can feel like a big loss. Maybe I will never get used to that.

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (July 2015)


Greetings from Ghana [3] The collective experience

The irony is that my previous column was about a shortage of water and this one is about the over abundance of water. Some thing profoundly different happened in this instance. Every year during the rainy season streets in Accra get flooded. The city does not have a properly working drainage system and the open drains get filled with rubbish. After a good cloudburst some neighborhoods even become inaccessible. This was the case on Wednesday the third of June this year. It started raining heavily late in the afternoon, forcing

most of my colleagues to choose to stay at work instead of leaving for their various homes early. A heavy downpour in Accra almost always severely affects traffic adversely. I however decided to take my chances, so armed with my umbrella I headed out hoping to catch a ride with my landlady back home. But unfortunately for me she left early because of the bad weather. So I had no choice but to go by public transport. It was already rush hour and the bus stops were getting overcrowded by homebound workers and commuters. The first bus I boarded did not go further than the biggest roundabout in the city, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Pools of water had already started forming on the streets. We, as pedestrians, got permission to walk through a construction area where cement blocks were stacked. It turned out to be a climbing exercise in the dark, because the sun had set. With great care and caution I made it to the spot where I could get a bus directly to my area. However, there were no buses. At this point it was raining cats and dogs and we stood waiting for our ride huddled together under a few umbrellas and parasols that were left behind for close to an hour. When a vehicle finally came and we set off it was only join traffic jams on the road, we caught glimpses of endless lines of cars through the condensed windows of our bus. In silence we prayed for a safe arrival at our destination. I made it to my neighborhood at about nine o’clock in the evening and saw there was also no power. Due to all of this there was absolutely no soul in the streets. When I finally made it home I took a hot bath and hit the pillow with exhaustion. I woke up the next morning to the terrible news of how the rains had caused flooding in places all over the city leading to deaths and damage to property. I realized how lucky I had been. Many suburbs of Accra reported that homes and belongings were washed away and lives were lost in the chaos. The most disastrous event was an explosion that night at a petrol station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Petrol had floated up from the underground reservoirs onto the water and had somehow caught fire leading to the exploding of the underground reservoirs. More than a hundred lives were lost that night, a lot of them were sheltering from the rain at the fuel station. In a single night the big roundabout was turned into a disaster area. Army tanks lined up to make it possible for rescue workers to do their work, they worked through the night and were still busy by morning carrying charred bodies out of the ashes. Behind the red tapes hundreds of people watched the havoc from the night before with shock and dismay. I had my own moment of shock when I became aware of the fact that a few hours before the explosion I had walked by that same spot. I listened nonstop to the radio and tried to make sense of what had happened the previous night. The stories were horrifying; people got trapped in buildings when the level of the floodwaters rose, drivers lost control of their vehicles and drifted away, small salesmen who had their whole businesses washed away in stalls. The number of lives lost was pegged at 159 and the damage to property is in the millions. The heavy downpour had affected every citizen in Accra, one way or the other. The ordeal created a sense of bonding together with my fellow citizens; I had experienced a disaster. Long afterwards I still received concerned phone calls from people who knew Circle was on my daily route. All in one day I was fully connected to the city and its recent history.   

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (August 2015)

Greetings from Ghana [4] The hostess
Though I am quite new in Ghana, I have already performed the role of a host on several occasions. Last year for instance I took a Dutch couple out to diner; I also spent a week with a group of fellow-journalists from neighboring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone. On another occasion, I functioned as a tour guide for my mother’s friend for a whole weekend. The last example especially brings back beautiful memories. My guest was an aging Surinamese lady who, without any fear, dared to travel by herself to Africa. With her walker in the car I took her to one of the slave forts nearby, only a few hours drive from the capital. We stayed at the seaside and had endless conversations about our family history. It is indeed special to receive Afro-Surinamese here probably because our life in the

Caribbean started at one point on this continent. It was therefore very exciting news when I heard about a group of spiritualists on a mission to Ghana. Their mission was to come and perform certain rituals restoring the ties between the ancestors from there and here. I was especially curious about how they would experience the country and how they would react to being on African soil and, if they would have the same thoughts and feelings as I had. They broke down and cried at the historical hotspots of the slave trade of course and I imagined that the poverty amongst the local people touched them. Each person, however, responds differently while visiting the same places and meeting the same people, and how this response is managed, is entirely up to the individual. Therefore, my conversation with De Ware Tijd - journalist Euritha Tjan A Way was very attentive; she shared her first impressions of the country with me. One of the things she found distasteful was the way some servants in the hotel would overdo stuff for the white guests while they neglect the black guests. I followed their journey to Europe through her articles and I laughed out loud when she wrote in her column: ’Why does Africa has so little and Holland so much!?’ I laughed, not out of malicious delight, but because I understand her anger and frustration so well. Every human being who uses his head and speaks from the heart, would ask the same persistent questions and begin to understand that the poverty in one country is connected to the wealth of another country. These inequalities are also a legacy of the colonial days. When it comes to this especially, we as Afro-Caribbeans have more in common with Ghanaians than we would like to think in the first place. Not only do we have the same ancestors, we also have the same life task ahead. A task we still have to achieve. For decades we have been fooled with the idea that the current world trade is for the benefit of all countries and people. While, in reality, only a few major powers still decide on the rules for the smaller players to follow. The consequences are devastating. Also the Caribbean guests witnessed one of these consequences when during their stay they were confronted with hungry children coming to ask for food. Suriname might not know young beggars like here in Ghana, because the scale is less big, but both countries are fighting the same battle. Just like Ghana, Surinam tries to improve its position in the world on a socio-economic level while facing the same challenges. Our trans-Atlantic ties are not only cultural and historical, but also political and economical. I think it is about time we explore these relations further. So, I believe it was crucial that this mission also included some government representatives who came to do business with their counterparts here. I do hope that their first promise will be fulfilled some time soon: to have a direct air route connection between Accra and Paramaribo. If this happens, I am more than willing to perform the role of a host again.

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (September 2015)

Greetings from Ghana [5] The president is a woman

It is about time that I share something about the African University College of Communications (AUCC), the school where I teach. It is a big international school in the city center of Accra with more than 1500 students; most of them Ghanaian, the rest being students from neighboring English speaking and French speaking countries. The school is open seven days a week with classes running in the evenings and over the weekends; a continuous learning factory. The campus is a popular meeting point for many people. Every week there is some event or project going on that attracts visitors. If you study or work at AUCC you become automatically a member of the family. For instance, it is possible to receive text messages on your phone with a request for a small contribution towards a wedding or funeral. I wonder if it is the large number of female heads that count for the

pleasant and informal atmosphere on campus. Let us begin with the President of the University, who is a woman; my boss, the Dean of Faculty, is a woman and other departments like Human Resources, Cooperate Communications are headed by women and including the campus radio station. The radio station was set up by two females, a part-timer and full-timer; the full-timer being myself. After the first academic year I can say that my management choirs go well, but the technical part of the job was completely new for me. I had to quickly learn and make decisions concerning transmitters, speakers, consoles and other electronic devices. Due to the fact that we did not have a technician in the studio that could take care of these matters and one could not find any listings of them in the yellow pages. I had to become an expert myself, one who could tell who to hire or what to get within the limited available budget. The radio studio is absolutely my favorite spot at school and it also attracts a certain amount of attention. That women managing these key positions are hardly something to discuss here. I can confidently say that I work in a women friendly environment. Recently we had a debate on one

of our radio programs about the question of whether Ghana was ready for a female president. It would not be the first African country to have a female president; Liberia and Central African Republic are already front-runners. Nobody here finds female leadership something weird. However, it is true that it is rare and that female representative can be quite limited in some industries. Maybe our school is an exception, a place where you see this quota changing. This may sound strange, but I think the conventional Ghanaian culture plays an important role in this. At my school motherhood is cherished instead of being discouraged, like in Holland. It is not weird to bring your children to campus. They also belong to the AUCC community. For instance, on my wall I have two drawings of a 4-year old and 7-year old who I babysit one time when their father was to give a two-hour lecture. You also have young mothers in class with children in their arms while they follow a lecture. During one of my weekend classes my youngest students were two babies. And other classmates do not mind taking over rocking the babies once in a while. An extraordinary occurrence where I work is that you get an extra bonus when you have a newborn which is quite different from Holland where I know women who where pushed out of their jobs, as soon as their pregnancy was announced. Here, you do not have to hide your family duties, but you share them with the community. Maybe it is also time for me to learn how to carry a child in a wrapper on my back.

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (October 2015)

Greetings from Ghana [6] The church

For a long time I have avoided this subject, but even as I write this piece now I can hear a preacher blaring out his message over a loudspeaker right outside my window, at 4am in the morning. Sleep becomes a struggle at these moments so instead of tossing and turning in bed, I have gotten the fuel to write about the immense popularity of the church in Ghana. Most people go to church or other houses of worship. For instance I live in a neighborhood where the population is predominantly Muslim. There are about a dozen mosques around. I am already used to the call from the mosques for early morning prayers. However, it is the christen believers who make me less happy. My feelings are based on legitimate reasons.

first, being the level of loudness. It makes Sunday special. It is not uncommon to find a crowd of well-dressed people in the street on their way to a lively service of music and dance. Some of them already carrying their bibles in their hands, an item you can find at almost every street corner. I know some Christians who can recite the Word from back to front. It is a great relief that people in Ghana are deeply spiritual and are not embarrassed to express their love for God. This is a plus in comparison to the reserved and almost emotionless religious way in Holland. However, I am also of the opinion that you don’t always have to scream that love literally from the rooftops and certainly not in the middle of the night until the sun comes up. In the busiest spots in the city you can find a preacher with a microphone in one hand next to a pile of speakers. Other preachers look for their audience in the public bus, picked out randomly. And then there are some of them who choose a street in a neighborhood where people are still in bed, just like the gentleman outside my window. I don’t know what I despise most: the shouting or the eagerness to convert me. Maybe this comes to you as surprise but I do believe in God even though I don’t go to church. The convention still exists that you can only be a genuine believer if you belong to a certain church community. Moreover, out of ignorance it is often forgotten that the church is a holy house built by people. The bible is a book translated by people. Religion is an interpretation made by people. It can make me furious when others try to force their religion on me and by doing that making a judgment about my devotion. I wonder why it is so important to others that I go for Sunday prayers and how I am assessed as a lost soul? Though, I do understand the enthusiasm that comes with one’s own inner awakening process. It reminds me of my first yoga lesson, afterwards I wanted to take everybody with me to the school the next day. A few people actually came along, but I also understood that a human being’s will is his own and you should not want to change that. This whole discussion about my beliefs already cost me a friendship when I was accused of worshipping Buddha instead of Jesus because I practice yoga. First of all yoga is not a religion and certainly not invented by Buddha. It is an ancient Indian training of body, mind and soul. Secondly, this harsh remark made me really sad. People can condemn you based on their limited knowledge about other belief systems in the rest of the world. A perception very often fed by a priest or pastor who thinks he knows what he is talking about. Even if you are a member of a church community, what is solely important is your own interpretation of your believe. That is how I see it, but probably I have already said enough and my comments will only cause further discussions, for which it is too early in the morning right now. Besides that the man outside my window has finally stopped preaching.

This is a translation of my column published in Surinamese magazine Parbode (November 2015)