Food, music, sounds, rural banks, and the local monikers

Once this kid got a look at me, it was locked on for almost the entire half hour ride.

Just some more observations on the nuances here for the people in USA...

I supremely regret saying anything negative about the food here, because my first experience wasn't exactly, oh I don’t know, um, solid? Sorry for that, but this week involved a sit down every day at a chop bar where they serve all kinds of local preparations (fufu included). On my first return to a chop bar, I only did it because I nice young lady greeted me with a wide grin and an awesomely typical Ghanaian attitude and said, come eat some food. I was hungry, thought about it for a couple seconds but was taken in too much by the greeting to refuse. A serving of beans and rice cooked together, tomatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, a hardboiled egg, pepe (the typical spicy sauce) and 50 cents later, I was loving life. There’s nothing like getting great food for 50 cents.

Moving on, as I was riding home today I thought about how stellar the music is on the tro-tro. And when I say stellar, I mean in a way that you can’t get anywhere else that I know of. It’s the happiest Reggae music ever made…multiplied by a factor of Jesus. If I haven’t mentioned it, Jesus is everywhere. He’s the name of your local shop, hanging from almost every taxis rear view mirror and his words are plastered on every, tro-tro’s back window. But the music, you can’t beat the music.

Lastly on the observations, the friendly monikers over here are hard to beat. An older man is “father” (pronounced fada), an older lady sister (sistah), if youre a young dude you’ll be called brother…but also hugo. Hugo? But last is my favorite, if you see a young woman you can go ahead and call her mommy. Man, that kills me every time. “Hey mommy, you forgot your change.” It’s not demeaning it’s just how it is. Ghanains additionally make two of THE most annoying sounds known to human beings. It’s either a) a cross between a hiss and a whistle that I still cannot do myself or b) the most awful sound that can only be described as identical to the noise you here when you’re walking around in Europe and those people are trying to sell you these balls that they throw up in the air which makes a sound of which only Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber and could be proud…And yet they make it hear all the time, with their mouth. I’ve tried reproducing it, but it’s impossible.

On to the work…Today, Friday, was another productive day on the research front speaking with a rural bank and the apex of the credit unions. Getting to speak to rural banks is awesome and by the time I leave I’m always giddy. Meetings with them always give a special excitement to the research I’m doing. It’s like when you’re at camp (like High Five sports camp for example, great camp, even better logo…should’ve been called High Entire Forearm camp) and the counselor comes along and is giving out popsicles…and you get the red one. Getting information from a credit union, yea its more like getting the green one, you’re a little bummed because you got the worst color, but you’re still psyched…I mean, it's a popsicle, right? I’ve really only struck out twice with blind refusals of my research and both times it’s been at the hands of credit unions, but speaking with someone at the Credit Union Association today still proved that there is much to offer in their strictly member-run and elected organizations. The reason the rural banks are so great is that it’s always tough to get to them, hence them being rural, but it has always been well worth the trip. They’re unbelievably welcoming to someone attempting to learn more about rural banks and when I ask questions, they’re always willing to expand. Today, the manager gave me a more hands on tutorial of how it’s done, how claims are processed, applications for the overdraft, account statements, the works. Oh, and the first thing he said we met with a big smile (which a bunch of people say here when I get back from work). You’re welcome. Nothing makes me feel more welcome here than when someone actually says ‘you’re welcome.’ Rural bank operations are not easy going, especially with the lack of adequate infrastructure in rural areas of Ghana, but someone has to get it done. Rural banks have come a long way since their true genesis in the early 60s, but by attempting to address the needs of the rural farmers, they only found banks mobilizing savings in rural areas to satisfy the needs of the urban economy. A decade later the Bank of Ghana grabbed a hold of the process establishing formal financial institutions (with a formal apex, ARB Apex) which were made autonomous to the mobilization of urban sector savings. Lots of improvement in hopes to reaching those most in need. We’ll see if it works.

Wow, this has been a post with no pictures and I imagine a bit too much platitudinous text. Many Apologies.

More on microfinance, energy and Ghanaian skills

As I make my way through the process of uncovering the behavior of microfinance institutions, I begin to realize how difficult it must have been to have created the Grameen Bank as Dr. Yunus did in Bangladesh. I think the word is clairvoyant. To possess the acumen recognizing that the poor will almost always pay back their loans is truly remarkable. Restoring confidence that there are investment opportunities in impoverished nations is an important one that help these nations help pull themselves up by the bootstraps into competitive free market democracies. I once heard that if you are able to make it alright on minimum wage, then you shouldn’t be getting minimum wage. Well here the institutions do their best to make sure that their monetary (and usually more than just monetary) illiterate clients know how to put the little capital bestowed to them to efficient means. In order to understand more of the process, I set up meetings today with two of the more apex institutions responsible for training and allocation of government funding. Both of these institutions received initial funding from the US and were pleasantly rewarded with a doubling of the amount as the Ghanaian government agreed to match the US’s donation in 2005. The African Development Foundation provides loans to small and micro enterprises with 0% interest and zero collateral to be paid back over five years. They provide money, technical assistance, but of course perform the due diligence to make sure that the client’s business is capable of earning a profit, that the product will replicate and that they create a positive social impact of generating income and jobs. One of the arguments against microenterprise is that it too infrequently creates new avenues of wealth as individuals remain with the self-employed handiwork and food selling businesses that will rarely lift them out of poverty. The ADF hopes to improve societies through successful SMEs that will involve augmentation of wealth and job opportunity in new market sectors…and that, is important.

When I was waiting for my meeting, I picked up the daily paper to read about the impending crisis dealing with expiring dam providing much of the country’s power. The government’s action seems more of procrastination than any formal plan to obviate crisis. The levels of the dam have reached all time lows and energy pundits are fearing the worst even as the energy council has decided it will take decisive action only when it gets below a certain point (although they have already had to shut down one of the four turbines). They need solutions, and not palliative ones that will only delay the crisis for a couple months. They have been lucky with the rain so far this year, but trouble is inescapably on the way if new ways to harness energy are not explored and employed.

The last commentary on the day has to do with the continued amusement I get from the Ghanaians. First, one of the stereotypical things I imagined I would see before coming to Africa is people carrying all kinds of things on their head all the time. Well, as it turns out, it’s kind of true. Plaintain, water, yogurt, crackers, towels, pastries, watches, chicken kebabs, fried potatoes and yams, eggs and sauce, fish, apples, CDs, books on how to learn English, you name it. The thing is, you really could name it and it’s probably been done. Before I came I emailed a friend of a friend who had been here and he maintains that he once saw a woman who had three baby goats fasted to a basket atop her head…I’ll believe it when I see it. Who knows, but I have seen a man carrying one suitcase in his hand and the other on his head with his second hand swinging freely. It’s almost as if they want to carry things on their hand. I mean this was a legitimate suitcase, not enormous, but a suitcase balanced on a person’s head, while moving. Impressive. If they had an Olympics of the book-balancing-on-your-head relay-race like we did in fourth grade, no doubt Ghana takes Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Aluminum, they’d take it all home. Secondly, their friendliness continues to amaze me. Coming home from the meetings today I stopped at a roadside vendor where a lady was cooking some spiced potatoes which I decided to try. I sat instead of taking it away being that I was in no rush, and a good thing to, because there was no way I was getting out within a half hour. I sit down, some school children come over (a side note: It’s always great to see children in their uniforms, because every time you see them trying to sell sachets of water in the middle of crowded intersections, it’s a little upsetting knowing that they should be in school, so this put me in a good mood from the start) and start asking me all these questions, because, you know, I’m so wildly different, when all of a sudden the lady running the operation plops her child right in my lap! Ok, so I’m talking with these kids, waiting for some frying spiced potatoes while babysitting…yes, literally sitting with baby. It was cool at least knowing that I wasn't alone in my state of confusion as this baby and I shared the common bewilderment of what exactly it was doing sitting in my lap. No complaints on my end though, and no crying on hers…and of course the kids thought all this was hilarious. Well the potatoes were excellent as getting used to spicy food has been a slow yet enjoyable process.

Akuapem Hills and Asenema Waterfall

The plan was to head to the hills on Saturday, but as it has every Saturday, it was pouring, only this time it started early and didn’t seem to be letting up…Which made the trip today even better as a waterfall was on the schedule. Sunday it was then for the trip which began with an hour and a half tro-tro ride up the through the hills and about 30 km past Aburi to a town called Adukrom where the journey began. The guide book mentioned that the Asenema falls were 5km north of the town and of course when I asked directions from a taxi driver, he told me it was far away. How far away I ask…200km. Taxi drivers are great, one with no customers will never fail to honk at me on the road, stick his hand out the window and ask where I’m going. And they exaggerate distances so that you think it’d be faster to walk to the moon and take a taxi instead. I thanked him for his terrific estimate and began the walk. Walking is awesome only because I get to do more interacting in places where people, let alone white people, pass by on foot. It turned out to be a beautiful hour walk down the hill where the waterfall was situated off a signed footpath. When I first approached, it looked as though smoke was billowing out of the trees, only it was the violent spray coming from the base of the falls. The landing area for the water was indented rock that flowed down the river, but since the water was flowing straight onto rock, instead of a pool of water, it created a huge spray of water and wind that soaked me when I got within 20 yards of it. I was the only one there which made it easier to roam around and take the camera with the video option up near the falling water. The closer I got, the more I felt like I was going to be blown over by the tremendous amount of wind that swirled within the hollowed out rock. It was one of the coolest experiences with nature that I’ve ever had and I think the fact that it poured yesterday made it an even stronger flow of water. Although I only got within 10 feet of the water I was soaked all the way through which was a refreshing way to reward the long hot walk down.
On the walk up, I became a bit bolder with the use of the camera and took some pictures of some small communities of people living in mud and bamboo houses yet who were enjoying the beautiful Sunday afternoon. Every time I walk by a bunch of kids they come to side of the road waving, right, but this time I whipped out the camera and immediately as that happens, they all freeze. I threw them another wave and got them to wave back for the picture, which shows how happy these people are.
Exhausted after the climb back up the hill to the station I hopped in a tro-tro to head back to Accra. As one of the last in the car I headed towards the rear to await the drive home only this trip was not restricted to humans. Oh definitely not. Right before we leave, as is customary, the trotro driver (called the “mate” – prounounced more like miet) opens the back and sticks the goods people are transporting into the small space the car offers. Only this time, as the mate was helping a lady insert her luggage into the cabin, I felt something furry brush up against my leg. Before I could even think of what it could be, I heard it…the baaaaing of a goat! Awesome. Along with my 20 Ghanaian friends, we headed home with TWO of the Adukrom town goats. Oh man this was a trip. I got a short video of it, as the two people to my right started yelling at the mate and bailed. The funniest part was the mate thought he could get away with literally stuffing the goats in untied, but at the behest of the two aforementioned passengers, they hogtied these poor goats and then stuffed them under the seat. I thought was hilarious and quite an experience…at first. Imagine, for the next hour and a half there were two squirming baaaaing goats, and the worst part about it was the woman who owned the goats was sitting in the very front! Maybe she thought the white man would enjoy this experience. What a crazy day with three weeks to go.

Cape Coast

Sunday brought another trip two hours west of Accra to Cape Coast wherein lies one a castle that harbored thousands of African slaves before being shipped off to the Americas. The experience was appropriately chilling as I imagined it would be, yet still unnerving when entering the dungeons where hundreds of humans were forced into the darkest, dirtiest, disease-ridden chambers one could imagine. The museum in the castle was fairly interesting and I learned some new things about African culture that appear all over the world. For example, Rastafarianism is named after a Ghanaian leader, Ras Tafari, who, ironically, gathered a following professing a return to the ways of the Old Testament (which forbids the cutting of hair, hence the long dread locks). Oh man, go tell a Rasta looking dude that he should look no longer to the joint in his hand for his “roots” so much as the Bible.

Faces, pronunciation, energy and the gardens of Aburi

Goat
Women lugging sticks up a hill, I offered to help, they refused...naturally
BIG tree
BIG spider
BIG wormy guy
The kids

Almost two weeks of Ghanaian culture and a couple things continue to fascinate me the more I try to get to know these people. First, I have noticed that in about one in three people have a peculiar scar(s) right below the cheekbone sometimes multiple and on both sides of the face. It is not the scar of a cut, but more like a separated indent of about three cm long and one cm tall. Once I know what this is about and once I get a close up of it, I’ll share the knowledge. Also, I’ve found myself beginning to pronounce words like the people here, due to the fact that almost every time I ask a question or begin a conversation, I get the pardon me and puzzled look right back. This means pronouncing all ‘o’s like home…So when we talk about the hostel instead of ‘hastel’ like I would normally say it, it has become ‘hoestal.’ Clear? What’s really working better is picking up on the local language, as some of the workers around the hostel have been teaching me. One dude passed me on a bike yesterday and asked me how I was doing in the local Twi, and it took me a couple of seconds to get the gears going, but I eventually responded in kind, and he threw me a thumb’s up and ‘that's very gooood.’ People like it here when I know something about their country whether it be words, history, politics, or economics and they try the best to welcome me even more. In fact, on my way back from today’s adventure, I had a conversation with a chemistry student and he was psyched that I was over here studying finance and the trouble it has encountered. After being preoccupied with how I excited I was that I was finding good and useful information, I’ve realized how inefficient credit programs here can be. This guy was talking about how hard banks are on people and complaints are coming from the bottom of the social ladder all the way up. Loan rates are usurious in most cases, and collateral is egregious…Facts I was hoping to find to the contrary. Credit institutions are trying to become more financially and operationally stable and the way they do that is raising interest rates and collateral, while narrowing the depth of outreach to the poor. The institutions loaning to the extreme poor are staying afloat only by donor groups, and insufficient capital is being provided by the government, notorious for its corrupt allocation of resources. Right, so I asked him what kind of career he was planning to pursue and he brought up the impending energy crisis that is beginning to worry many Ghanaians. They’ve been supplied with power from a single dam that was built during the tenure of the nation’s first president 50 years ago. I originally thought that the three days power on, one day power off thing was limited to my hostel, but turns out I was way off and in fact is applied to the entire country. They’ve divided the sectors so that everybody doesn't lose power at the same time, but the other day when Accra didn't have it, generators filled the streets and made for an extra smelly, loud and contaminated day. This guy was telling me how this dam is starting to wear down and the government had originally envisioned it lasting 40 years and they are now beginning to scramble. Solutions I ask? This student is hoping to work in/develop/increase solar energy…Booya. The sun, yep, they have that. Loads of it. It of course isn’t that easy, or at least until foreign enterprises start investing in this country.
Today though, I took my first solo trip out into the nature of Ghana to a place called Aburi north of the city. Our tro-tro wound up the side of the mountain to a small town wherein lies the 65 hectare gardens of Aburi. In said gardens I saw the largest tree, worm and spider I have ever seen in my life. There was a myriad of footpaths and I descended one down and out as far away from the people I could get and popped out meeting a group of six children hanging out under their “roof” (composed of some bamboo and big leaves). They gave me some directions, but I didn't want to leave without getting a picture of the oldest boy and his Bulls shirt. Theirs tons of Bulls shirts and jerseys over here, but this one, noting that the Bulls were established in 1964, was my favorite. Right after I whipped out the camera, the other kids ran over to join, all except the crying one in the background. Lots of children, no shoes, tattered clothes, no real home…That’s the story all too often here, and you can see the boy has a machete in his hand that he uses to help his father cut down the brush. I trounced a while and headed back during the torrential 15 minute rain shower that came. I walked back through town where there was a funeral (during which all the women wear black dresses and the men huge thick black robes) and took the tro-tro back home after an exhausting day.

Microfinance

A picture I took in a small village outside Winneba. This is a young girl who lives with her family on the side of the road. On her right leg she has a fairly large infection where it looks like worms took their toll. You see it all the time here, but you don't get used to it...

...And hopefully places like this can help.

Today was quite the successful day as far as the networking and microfinance aspects of my stay are concerned. Since my first meeting last friday with my main contact here, Mr. Abbey, I have met with three microfinance institutions and will meet with another tomorrow and the more I go along, the more time I feel I need to meet with all the names I have been getting. Which of course is a good thing, but it can be overwhelming too. Today I met with the microfinancial manager of the Women’s World Banking Savings and Loan Company and it went as well as any meeting could have gone. Working under the auspices of Mr. Abbey and throwing around Mr. Abbey’s name, which I do liberally upon his recommendation, has truly brought me into contact with some legitimate institutions willing to give me some of their time. The one interesting thing I have noticed about the location of the institutions is that they are always outside the cities in poorer areas in order to, I suppose, more easily reach those in need. Which means I walk by blocks of impecunious city dwellers into an office of tailored suits and bosses scolding their employees for too much facial hair (yes, a man grabbed a worker’s tuft on his chin and told him to get rid of it). Anyhow, the man who met with me today was as prepared as he could be with his laptop at the ready to regurgitate statistics upon my request and he was happy to help. Just to give an idea of what these meetings are like I’ll give some of the details so apologies if this gets a bit dull.
My research focuses on the five major avenues of microfinance, them being financial NGOs, Rural and Community banks, Savings and Loans Companies, Credit Unions, and Susu Collectors (A more rural practice where people can save their money without having to travel miles to a bank). My first goal is to acquire information about one institution of each category. Information I’m hoping to collect includes but is definitely not limited to interest rates, ratio of women to men borrowers, average loan size, depth of outreach, ratio of active savers to borrowers, % required savings, % of staff composed of credit officers, and repayment rate. A little profile on Women’s World Banking shows that, ironically, only 60% of members are women, the average loan is $1,500, 8:1 savers to borrowers, interest rates run from 21%-36%, repayment rates are up to 99% (although they’ve upped the ante on collateral more on that later), and two out of seven staff members is a credit officer.
The institituion previously relied strictly on donor funding, but as of January, when many things changed, they have become an independent commercial institution relying on no outside funding. As is customary among MFIs , they require that their members be trained on the terms of their institution and how to handle their money appropriately. Unlike the RCB and FNGO of last week, WWB ensures that they finance working capital, meaning they are shaping what their money is being used for. When they loan out money, they make sure they know exactly where it’s going and how they are going to be repaid. They require in some programs that 25% of the loan be saved in order to promote good financial strategy for the borrower. The collateral is an important issue, because the crux of Dr. Yunus’s Grameen Bank (and what eventually one him and the bank the Nobel Peace Prize) is that you can dole out uncollateralized loans to the poor, and through efficient strategies, they will pay back…97% of the time! WWB is adding the social pressure to collateralized loans by threatening to seize assets (vehicles, closing shops) so that the community will see that a certain individual is not running a trustworthy business. In January they addressed their loan portfolio which had 80% of borrowers at risk of finding themselves in arrears. It seems that their strategy is working for them, but it doesn't work out so well for the poor. This methodology means that those who have the least stability (the illiterate, poor) are charged the most usurious rates, which doesn't aid in the alleviation of poverty…which we hope microfinance can do. Anyway, the guy was quite knowledgeable and helpful and at the end when I asked if he could refer me to other institutions he gave me names addresses phone number and directions to three of them, one of which, ProCredit, is high on my list of institutions.
A note on MF…As I am studying the varying techniques of MFIs in rural and urban settings, the five categories previously described exist under the umbrella of microfinance. Although, as the rural bank manager described to me last Friday, they cannot make loans over 10 million cedis ($1,000) because it lies outside the domain of “microfinance.” Sure enough, after my meeting I was directed to ProCredit (an institution often mentioned under microfinancial terms) where there brochure reads “Loan amount rage from GHC 10,000,001 – GHC 99,000,000.” This means that to be recognized as an official RCB, your loans must not exceed GHC 10,000,000 and those involved in S&L must loan out at rates greater than GHC 10,000,000.

Winneba and The Coast

Sunday brought about the most interesting day thus far with a trip to a small village outside Winneba on the coast of Ghana. Haruna and I headed out, picked up his friend Isaac in another town and then headed for the sandy beaches. The town going down to the coast was my first look at utter poverty. There is an interesting protocol for taking photos here and I thought it would’ve been inappropriate to take any, but the stench was one of the worst ever to hit the nostrils with garbage everywhere, there places where people relieved themselves in the street, and it was the saddest I have seen people here. We walked up the shore in a boat village towards a river we needed to cross to get to the actual beach and up to the place where Isaac’s family live. The river was too deep to ford the river so in order to spare our oxen, we hired a nice man to help us across the river in his canoe. And this, was the coolest part of the day. I wanted to keep my shoes on, because there is all kinds of crap here you don't want your feet getting in, but again it would have been highly inappropriate and so we waded into the river where the canoe and the canoe man waited. There is a picture below (you may have to click on it to see) of said man taking us across and if you look closely you will see it. Yes, uh huh, yep, that’s a slingshot. Booya. You can have have the numchucks, the sai, the bo staff and the swords…I’m taking the sling shot. I was so amped to see a dude toting a sling shot as his weapon of choice, I forgot to ask what exactly he used it for, so when my momentary shock subsided and I came to, I asked Haruna later what he used it for. Small birds. If I’m a small bird within a 2 mile radius of this canoe man and his sling shot, I would might as well fly my way to bird heaven cause I’d be toast.
Ok so on it was down the beach, and we came upon a beach community doing some group fishing, and if you look at the picture below you can see basically the entire community working on one net. Someone canoes out into the ocean and plops a massive net attached to a long thick rope and then about two hours later everyone comes and heaves on that rope until they get dinner. On we went and stopped briefly for some cocunt milk straight from the coconut. I remember trying to tap into the coconut milk with my friends in Puerto Rico and not having such a great experience, but here we had this 12 year kid who cut (he and his brother also climb the trees themselves and knock them down) this thing like a pro and it made for quite a refreshing $.50 snack. We continued on toward the village where his family lives and on the way we came across a really primitive looking beach village that you can see in the pictures. They all lived in straw huts and we there is where we stopped for some lunch of shrimp, spicy plantain dough, and pepe (onions, peppers, and lots of spice and hot stuff). The shrimp were full on shrimp complete with head and Isaac and Haruna started eating them like chips. I picked one up and said being the foreigner chump that I am, oh so you eat the head too, and noticing my incredulity, Haruna responded saying something like, the blood (pointing to the bulging eyeballs) it makes you strong…Almost as good as my Dad telling me that bustle sprouts would put hair on my chest. On we continued where the madness of being a pale white foreigner only grew more intense. The other day I got a new addition to Obruni which was was Obruni Coco meaning, ironically, red haired white man, or so it was explained to me. Normally I am called Obruni about 5-10 times a day sometimes with people just walking on the street and passing me saying Obruni and that’s it. It’s really odd sometimes, I mean imagine it, it’s like someone saying, ‘white man’ to you and then nothing else. Anyway, as we got to Isaac’s old stomping grounds the kids went nuts. They come out to the edge of the road waving their hands saying either ‘Obruni bye-bye” or “Obruni gayu” which means really really really white man. It was pretty cool seeing how happy these kids were with the sight of a foreigner. I earlier mentioned that people think I’m straight from Mars, but under normal circumstance I imagine that when the aliens arrive, people won’t be running into the street smiling…But maybe these people just might. One of the pictures I have below is indicative of how kids react when I try to take a picture of them. The kid in the front is ready for Hollywood while the kid in the back wants no part of it. It was a sweet day and made for encountering great places, food and people.
Group fishing

Canoe man man man

Ready for Hollywood, one in the back not so much