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Feb 2006--Emily reports from Ghana
Emily Lin, founder of our Earn-a-Bike program in 2003-4, returned to
Ghana in early January and filed this report. (About 200 people have
gotten free bikes through VBP's EAB program)
Feb. 6, 2006
Hello all!
We’ve visited all three EAB sites and have lots of news to report, so
here goes.
Kopeyia
Programs have been going well there. Alex Xenyo, an EAB graduate, has
been helping Simon Akutu teach the EAB classes. He has now gone on to
Senior Secondary School (high school), but when he is home, he has been
doing some repairs for local people out of his house. Pretty great!
Simon also mentioned that some of the mothers of graduates have taken
the opportunity of their children having bicycles to learn how to ride
themselves! That’s a pretty inspiring thing, and a concrete
manifestation of the “ripple effect” that we’ve hoped EAB would have on
these communities.
There was some sad news as well – the brother of a friend of mine was
killed recently while biking on the road to Kopeyia one early morning.
It is a well-paved road, so cars really fly down it. It is upsetting to
think that we might be actually endangering people’s lives by bringing
them bicycles, and it has strengthened my and Jaye’s resolve to focus
more on safety.
One explanation for why tro-tro (mini-bus) drivers go so fast is that
they pay the car owners a fixed amount each day. Then, at the end of
the month, they get some piddling amount as salary. So they try to make
extra money by making extra trips and/or stuffing more passengers into
the cars. It’s one of those sad things about life here that are so
painfully common, where people find it so hard to make a living that
they do really stupid things like put their and other people’s lives at
risk in an attempt to make a few dollars more per day and get food for
their families to eat.
Labadi
The programs have continued to be eagerly received by the students at
the Glona Academy, as well as their families. It is a bit harder to
track EAB graduates from this school, as many of them make quick
progress and are able to go to regular government schools within a year
or two. However, Glona emphasizes home visits to both current and past
students, so they have agreed to include EAB check-ups as part of their
evaluations.
One problem they have run into is that the assistant teacher, Lydia, has
gone to school, and Emmanuel has no one to help him with teaching.
Luckily, the teacher training in March will be a great opportunity to
train a new assistant. William Annang, Glona’s executive director, said
that he has been pleased with the first phase of EAB and is interested
in expanding it into a second phase, integrating it with their health
outreach and community education programs.
Golokuati
We had a great talk with the three female teaching assistants,
Elizabeth, Gloria, and Esther, who are all still at the school. I was
really excited to see them and catch up. They seem to be doing really
well and say that the teachers have been good about letting them be
involved with both teaching and mechanics, which is great. I spent an
afternoon working on a couple bikes with Gloria, and she did quite well,
adjusting some brakes, fixing a loose back hub, and replacing a shift
lever.
VBP continues to be a big hit in the community in general. I have seen
a greater proportion of women riders in Golokuati than anywhere else in
Ghana. It makes me cheer inside every time I see a woman pedaling
around there – most of them I don’t even recognize, which makes it that
much better.
Of course, the gender gap is not totally closed. One issue the
assistants brought up was that the new female students in EAB have not
been asking a lot of questions or participating very actively. I asked
if it was any different when both male students and teachers were around
as opposed to when it was just male teachers in an all-girls class, and
they said no – they’re equally quiet in both. However, when I asked how
the girls were when the assistants were teaching them, without any men
around, they said the girls were much more inquisitive and, as they say
in Ghana, “they feel free.” This is an interesting challenge, as all
the lead EAB teachers are male.
All three female assistants have expressed interest in continuing to
teach EAB, even after they graduate from the school, which would be
fabulous. Elizabeth even said that if not for the program she would
probably move far away to look for secretarial work. However, because
she wants to keep teaching EAB, she plans to look for work in Hohoe, the
nearest big town, so she can stay involved. [after Emily’s report we
decided to hold a workshop for women only, led by these three, see
Jaye’s report]
There are lots of exciting possibilities for the future of VBP in
Golokuati. I dropped by one of the local mills just to say hi and ask
a few questions. They were shelling palm nuts using a $400 machine that
was loud and dangerous and required quite a lot of electricity. My
brain started thinking, “Now can we build a safer, cheaper, and more
efficient machine using pedal power?” Hm….
Life in General
I am really sad to be leaving Ghana again so soon. It feels like a
month was just long enough to dash around and see a lot of people and
then have to say goodbye again.
There have been so many moments in the last month that have just made me
smile, laugh, think, and say to myself, “I love life.” I love saying
good morning or good afternoon to tons of people all the time and being
greeted back with a smile and a welcome. I love how music and dancing
is such a part of everyday life. I love that babies, children,
teenagers, young adults, middle-aged folks, retirees, and very old
people who have no idea how old they are all hang out together, talking,
eating, doing work, celebrating, crying, and dancing. I’ve probably
learned more about intergenerational relationships during my time in
Ghana than during the whole rest of my life. It’s pretty crazy how
stratified American culture can be – in a lot of ways, not just
generationally – and how that narrows our understanding of how people
live their lives.
Of course, I don’t idealize life here. There is so much suffering, and
while a lot of it is due to poverty, it’s not only that. There’s money
around, but there is also greed and corruption and inequality, just like
everywhere else. One item that has been in the news quite a bit
recently is President Kufour’s plan to make Ghana a “middle-income”
country by 2020. You can certainly see the progress in and around Accra
– lots of new buildings, new or expanded roads, better sanitation,
education reforms. But then you go out to the villages, and everything
is still the same – or worse. The corn harvest has been dismal for the
last two years, and there is a country-wide water shortage (which Philo
claims is “not in Accra,” as evidenced by the fact that the water is
still flowing here, whereas in Golokuati the standpipe tap comes on only
every three or four days).
Yet despite all this, whenever I ask people about their lives, about
their health, about the family, I still hear, “Oh, everybody is fine.
We are all fine. And you?” And then later I find out that their
brother has died, or their sister was in an accident, or their son was
in the hospital for serious illness. I know if any of those things
happened in my family, it would be all I could talk about or think
about. But here, people just go on.
It’s one of the many things about life here that seems both wonderful
and terrible at the same time. I told Jaye [the new volunteer] that one
of the only useful pieces of advice I could give her was that sometimes,
there is no right answer. But there is certainly a lot to think about,
a lot of decisions to make, and you just try to do your best.
Thanks to everyone for all your financial and personal support over the
last three years. If you would like to continue your financial support,
please visit the VBP’s website at http://www.VillageBicycleProject.org
for more information about how to do this.
I hope you have seen that even a small project like this can really
change people’s lives, and I hope that you feel that your own life has
changed a little because of it, too. I am forever grateful. And from
the many Ghanaians who have asked me to “greet America” in the last few
days, greetings, and thank you.
Best always,
Emily
To reach Emily, emilyghana@yahoo.com
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