Chapter 71...The ridding of all sins!

Halloween hit Ghana (possibly for the first time) this weekend as witches, black cats, skeletons and...scary scrabble got together for a vodka jelly, apple bobbing party! I have to hold my hands up, I didn't go in costume, which meant throughout the night I accumulated props and make-up from other people in order to create a 'Halloween costume' with a Ghanaian twist.

Now I have to admit, before today I didn't know the meaning behind Halloween, how it originated or why we dress up, trick or treat, carve pumpkins and bob for apples. This now seems a bit strange, because why would anyone do these things, but not know why they are doing it! 

Nevertheless today on Halloween my GES managed to rid themselves of a bad spirit that had been lingering around for six years. This spirit is not all bad, not by any means, and I have seen some good that it has done, but in recent times it has been bad, very bad indeed! So as the announcement came from the GES Director that today was his last day at the office as he is being transferred, I really did see some irony in it being Halloween. In the Ghana education system being transferred is the equivalent to being fired back home, but you still keep working, and being paid, and you transfer to somewhere new where no-one knows all the damage you have done elsewhere...so actually nothing alike at all! No-one is ever fired, even if they are caught teaching drunk, even if they abuse a child, even if they steal money from the office accounts (as my Director was accused of doing) they simply get transferred to another district to become someone else's problem instead...it really still is a very alien system to me!

Today was also the day I handed in my notice (my own ridding of sins) and with my last day at the now Director-less office set for next Thursday my thoughts turned to home...what people dressed up as for Halloween, the fact I'm missing my favourite night of the year on Saturday when the sky becomes a haven for my mesmerised eyes, the car journey home from the airport when my Daddyo always brings my favourite foods, then finally spending some quality Wintery, Christmas times with all the people that mean the absolute World to me...

Chapter 70...The gay Ghanaian

Saani's voice booms from the statistics office as I tap away on my netbook creating the Talensi Nabdam newsletter for all officers and teachers. No change there I think to myself, Saani's voice always booms, but never usually with this much anger and hate, I figure I should go see what's happening. Before I manage to walk out of the main office door to head to his smaller office for three, he is stood in front of me shouting words I cannot understand.  I manage to grasp hold of "we would rather starve than have your money, starve! We don't need you!" "Saani what are you talking about?" I have no fear in my voice, for I have no fear for Saani. He is always loud and opinionated, but it is rarely directed specifically at me. Often it is aimed at "your people," by this I think he means 'all white people living in the developed World.' I ask again "Saani what has happened?" "Your people are cutting aid to Ghana because we don't allow gays!" The main office erupts behind me, which again is a regular occurrence when there is a debate to be had. Although usually it has a religious undertone, which this one eventually does, and I am just observing. This debate directly involves me and "my people." 

I choose to keep myself at a distance in the heated discussion that follows. It emerges that Saani has just heard it announced on the radio that the UK has already cut aid to Zambia for their strong beliefs on homosexuality and that Ghana is next. They have in fact cut aid  to Malawi by £19 million after two homosexual men were sentenced to 14 years of hard labour as punishment for being the people that they are. Having lived in Ghana for the past eight months I have learnt that if there is one topic where there is no room for open discussion it is homosexuality. It is still considered a taboo in Ghana, and much of Africa, with Ghanaians viewing it as a "non-human, disgusting sexual act." It is a closed case, for which my liberal, accepting views are not welcome.

The whole incident drags my mind from the focused, channelled place it has been, to the bigger picture. I start to question what right the UK has to cut aid to countries based on their deep-rooted cultural beliefs? If so, why homosexuality, why not juju? Hundreds of people still die every year because of acts of juju. And I ask - how much of UK aid money is going to punishing homosexuals in Ghana? If none, then what business is it of theirs to impose thoughts that have only come into play in the UK over the last 50 years? Why not re-focus the money they are cutting to educating Ghanaians on homosexuality and to giving homosexuals in Ghana a voice?

I then can't help but think further about UK aid and how it is accumulated, distributed and monitored. Next year UK aid to Ghana will increase by £5 million taking the total up to £90 million. The majority of this goes to the government, with a small percentage going to the likes of VSO in order to have volunteers in country, "sharing skills and changing lives." DFID  (Department for International Development) who act as the UK's 'aid ministry' are the ones in control of UK aid money. They are the ones implementing aid cuts to some and increases to others, as well as monitoring and over-seeing the use and benefits of UK aid to much of the developing World. I would question from my time in Ghana how well these processes are actually working and whether DFID are in fact reducing poverty by pumping millions of pounds into a country with little action plan for it and even less monitoring. Mr Mitchell said the coalition had made "huge changes" to the way the department runs its finances and that aid is linked to "tangible results on the ground". These results I am struggling to see. But clearly the intentions of both DFID and VSO are good, but in my view, the implementing is not.

I am working on VSO Ghana's largest donor project - TENI (Tackling Education Needs Inclusively). This five year programme receives £1 million each year of Comic Relief money, with VSO Ghana contributing a further £250,000 per year. So in total £1,250,000 per year is being given to reduce poverty through education in three districts in Northern Ghana. The focus of the project is led by VSO and Comic Relief, not by the needs of the people. The idea is that three volunteers - an MSO (Management Support Officer), TSO (Teacher Support Officer) and CASO (Community Advocacy Support Officer - me) are shipped in to build the capacity of the district GES (Ghana Education Service) in order to improve education for all, but specifically girls and those with disability, those not obviously included. Where is homosexuality in this? If the UK feel so strongly that Ghana must legalise homosexuality, why not include that in their development work? Small tangent, back to TENI...the districts themselves have no buy-in, they have very little say in what work they do and they are most definitely not having their capacity built. Instead they have lost their voice, their ownership and accountability. They have become dependant on TENI money to carry out activities, most of which do very little to help school children and teachers, rather doing more to line GES officers pockets with crisp Cedis from Ghana Commercial Bank. And the only question I ask is - what will happen once TENI is gone? Because TENI will leave and VSO and Comic Relief will declare the project a huge success with thousands of beneficiaries lives changed. A video clip will be shown on Red Nose Day of smiling happy children sat comfortably in a concrete school with a celebrity by their side just to add a theatrical twist.  And little of this thanks to TENI, because children in Africa do smile. They also laugh and joke. They cry and they hurt. They are the same little children as you and I once were. They push boundaries. They learn. They grow. They cause mischief and trouble. They bring smiles of joy. This I am sure of. One thing that I am less sure of is how much they directly benefit from UK aid money. In fact I'm not sure how much most people in Ghana benefit from UK aid money.

So to wrap up...does the UK have the right to cut aid to African countries that do not legalise homosexuality? Is that part of the terms and conditions for aid? How many people in those African countries have the voice to agree or disagree with the UK's proposed actions? And after all of this I have to retract some statements a couple of posts back, because clearly I do care about International Development, maybe just not the way VSO or DFID go about it.

For all recent BBC News on UK aid

The breakdown of UK aid review cuts

The table at the bottom shows where DFID money goes in Ghana

The first project under 'Voluntary Services Overseas' is TENI. The problems are real, the solutions are not. Whose fault is it - VSO or Comic Relief? 

Chapter 69...The first time I've linked to someone else's blog!

This blog post written by a fellow VSO pretty much sums up a lot of my thinking at the moment. It talks directly about the Comic Relief funded project - TENI that I am working on, but disagree with strongly, as well as VSO - an International NGO. It leaves me asking the questions - what can this World do together, as a collective whole, to hold fire, stop and really take a look at what International Aid is doing to prevent poverty? How has something that was meant to do so much good ended up doing so much bad, and who can turn this around? What is the harm in halting for a while, to re-assess and start afresh? Take a read and let me know what you think, it's a long one mind, but a real eye opener...

http://www.coolacoustic.com/home/Ghana/Entries/2011/7/12_NGOs_Do_More_Harm_than_Good.html

Chapter 68...The lifting of weights!

My face is dripping with sweat. I can see the droplets falling from my forehead, past my eyes and hitting the ground in that movie kinda way when everything is in slow motion and if that bead of sweat hits the ground then it's game over! Well luckily my life is no Hollywood movie and those beads of sweat signify the start of the game, rather than the end. The game being tennis!

The EWB is stood opposite me, racquet in hand, grimace on face. I'm around 20ft away sliding across the floor in my house flip-flops trying to catch the glass that has just been hit by the tennis ball, but also aware that if I get too close and miss then the glass will shatter over my bare feet. Two seconds later I let out a huge roar of laughter as the glass smashes into hundreds of tiny pieces and we agree that maybe we should have moved the glasses into the kitchen and shut the door before playing tennis in the house. After all we had only purchased the six (now five) new glasses three days earlier. 

Despite the glass shattering results of our afternoon antics, the buzz from our spontaneous indoor tennis workout could be felt around our new home for hours after. I passed from room to room hammering nails into walls with no precision and power, but utter delight when the curtains and paintings I was hanging stayed up. Even when one set fell down, almost into the open flame of the gas stove, it was no big deal! Even when I realised that the seamstress I had asked to turn our cloth into curtains had 'taken' one yard,  which means as a result our main room curtains flap around like a ships sail and conceal nothing of what they are supposed to, it was frustrating, but somehow understandable, after all we had chosen beautiful cloth who wouldn't want some for themself. So, the buzz. The buzz of life being lived. The buzz of life being healthy. The buzz of life being valued. The buzz of hormones. The buzz of here and now. The buzz of energy. The buzz of addiction. As a result of three days of running, push-biking and tennis playing, as well as chopping healthy home-cooked meals, the EWB and I have well and truly caught the buzz. We have made a vow to lift the weights and experience the buzz as often as possible, because with it comes the clarity and knowing of a free mind that I haven't experienced in a long time. 

In one month the weights that are digging into my shoulders will be lifted, as the ending of this VSO chapter arrives. There will be no cliff-hanger ending as the page turns. The reader will be left with a sense that all loose ends have been wrapped up. Yet there will be a sense of excitement and intrigue, because if everything that has come before is finalised and complete then what is next. That blank canvas is yet to be written...

And so in order to start the turning of the page on this chapter I need to take some ownership for how my placement has turned out over the past eight months. In recent posts the underlying trench of blame that lies beneath each and every word is heartfelt, but not wholly justified. I have been so quick to aim the arrow of anger, frustration and lack of motivation at VSO, my colleagues at GES and people in general that I have not opened my eyes to look at myself. I too am to blame for the fact I stayed in the dark place for so long and didn't start the process of escape sooner. I am to blame for not  releasing my mind and heart to Ghana. I am to blame for closing myself off to things that, in my eyes, weren't working. But for whatever reason I am being given a second chance. I have found myself blanketed by positivity, hope and the buzz and this time around I will cling to that and let that drive my head and heart. And when those dark clouds come, which they will, my aim will be to not run as I have done before, but to ground myself, pick up those weights and get lifting! After all, what will I have to show for my life if I just keep running!

Chapter 67...The first ever giving of thanks

I'm riding down the Bolga-Tamale road at 80km/h releasing a high pitched scream from my lungs as I go. The road ahead is empty and my wing mirrors show it is the same behind, no-one can hear my squeals or see my smile. The breeze is absorbing the sweat from my face and flapping my jacket around my back, giving a look and feel of a Superman cape, which only adds to my excitement and feeling of glee.  Tongo hills are jutting out from the otherwise vast flatness that is the landscape, and are occupying my left eye, while my right is keeping a close watch out for the white sign with blue writing on that I have been told is my destination... At times like this could life really get any better!

Well apparently the answer is yes, as I was invited to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving soaking up the sheer warmth and energy of around 20+ EWB's. This is a group of people that I have slowly become absorbed by in recent months, as each time I meet them I am greeted with love and sincerity. They are a unit, a whole that oozes optimism, fun and purpose. Their drive for change is commendable, as is the way their organisation operates. 

In recent months it has been a struggle to recognise the many flaws in the organisation I am working for and at the same time acknowledge the desire in me for organisational qualities like the ones I see in EWB. VSO's lack of unity, lack of motivation, lack of development and progression have made some days grey and others turbulent thunderstorms. But in the past week freedom has been found, as the sun beams, the birds humm and  the mosquitoes buzz grows faint. VSO have taught me what I do not want from an organisation - one I work for, or even my own, whilst EWB have taught me that even while budgets are tight and times are hard, a solid unit is always key! Now nothing is ever perfect and you may think that these people were hand built by robots with an 'eternal optimism' default mechanism built in. Obviously every unit has it's anomalies of sub-units and negativity, for some reason though with this unit, it still feels whole, it still feels complete.

So at the dinner table last night I found myself surrounded by plenty of people - some fresh faces to my darting, inquisitive eyes, others familiar, safe and known. The meat was tender, the mashed potato smooth, the stuffing spot on and the houmous just like home, and of course the beer was flowing! As I sat during the poetry slam that followed and listened to the voice of the one EWB I recognise, understand and love the most, my head and heart were open to my new beginning. A re-discovery of myself, the person I want to be and the people I want to surround myself with.

 

Chapter 66...The end is near!

It's been a long time since my blog and I have been connected and for a while I thought we never would be again, but I have woken this morning with a knot in my stomach and a need to express...

My placement with VSO is soon coming to an end and as a result I have recently found myself in that void between the chapters that make up my life. I am left evaluating what has been my life for the past year and somehow planning what I want from this World and myself in the coming year. This is the first time that I feel a number of things are out of my control, and being a control freak 'I do not feel comfortable' (that one's for you Stumps) with that! Whenever I have made one of those 'life changing decisions' in the past they have only involved me, but this time it is all change! Someone else's 'life changing decisions' are driving the steering wheel of the brightly coloured, bubbly car with a dark grey interior that is my life.  I am left trying to figure out how I feel about it, but then I question whether I have to figure that out at all, because I have committed myself to another human being and now we ride that huge break of a wave together. Sometimes we sail over the top of the wave smoothly with a soft floating motion of ease, other times we misjudge and the wave sidesweeps us completely, turning us under the water so we don't know which way is up, then eventually when all hope is lost, yet sheer excitement is felt, we surface again to the calm of the World and life, together as one...!

So for the time being I lack an element of control over things I am usually 100% certain of and that is fine and settled within me. The knot comes from finishing what has been a turbulent ten months (by the time I step onto that flight home) with VSO and figuring out what my next calling in life is. One thing is for sure, it is not International Development and after a few hours lying in bed this morning debating how comfortable I am with that, I feel fine! Because it is some people's vocation in life to fall hard into the International Development World, but is evidently not mine. Firstly I do not have the patience for it, which will come as no surprise to most of you, I want the change now, in fact yesterday is when I want it! I want people to be committed to change, to work hard for it, to be hungry for it. I want to work for an organisation where the cards are laid out on the table, where the money is evenly and fairly spent and where the people on the ground working are a collective whole. I am not well placed in this arena, because I accept things as they are one minute then get wound up by them the next. I struggle to be consistent with my level of flexibility and understanding versus my need for the Western World. When seeing a 'street boy' shovelling food into his mouth while trying to keep empty plastic bottles securely stuffed up his winter jumper and asking what his story is, my heart bleeds (this will never stop) to hear that his father died and his mother left him for a new life elsewhere. Yet other times I can be so cold-hearted and controversial and take this unfair, ill-balanced World for what it is.

By now I am sure we are all agreed that International Development work is not for me! And this is a good thing, because it allows others to fill the role that I cannot. Everyday my eyes see and my ears hear the heart-felt, phenomenal, committed work that others are doing in this field. The drive and determination they feel to make a change, however small. These are the people who should be working in International Development and I am so thankful that they are. But for me the big question is...what next? The paths ahead are all sign-posted with my name and one is slightly more illuminous in the African sun, but not quite fully lit up! My heart thinks it knows exactly what it wants and am I doing it an injustice by not following it, or do I make a compromise, for once, and tell my heart that it will eventually get what it wants, but for now it must hold off! Yes, this is the decision I have made.

So in the next two months I have plenty of time to detach myself both mentally and physically from the World of International Development and to figure out, at the very least, the synopsis for the next chapter, whatever possibilities that may bring...