Ghana: Takoradi, Tema, Accra

Three littlies in their matching "mosquito-proof" (i.e., long-sleeve) shirts.

Surfing the Atlantic waves on Takoradi Beach

Rare sighting of Mom getting wet.  Mom swims!  Adler himself is surprised.

Ghana is a devoutly and publicly Christian culture.  You will see religious slogans on everything from Taxis (My God Is God) to Beauty Spas (Precious Blood Beauty Salon) and anything/everything in between (scroll down for our favorite brand of facial tissue...)

A morning stroll in the Takoradi market.

Jasper received marriage proposals from this fruit vendor and her daughter.  

Walker still doesn't own a cell phone...

The Lord's Favor Tissue:  yes, of course we brought some back for our local bishop...  Why do you think they say "Bless You" every time someone sneezes?  Clearly the Lord is showing his Favor...

The National Soup Dish of Ghana:  Peanut stew with Foufou and the meat of your choice (in this case goat or lamb, I forget which)

Our five-year old Genevieve proved, repeatedly, to be the most adventurous of all our little eaters.

Takoradi market street scene taken from the second floor balcony of our restaurant. 

Big boys try to finish their very filling meal, while little ones crash into full-on food coma...

Ollie down for the count.

Work-Life Balance in Ghana:  Don't Lean In, Don't Lean Out - Stay Perfectly Balanced when Still and Lean Slightly Forward When You Walk...    Sheryl Sandberg, call your office nanny.  

Rachel takes a gander at some local batik print cloth.

The coconut-man cometh.

Global capitalism comes full circle:  now you can travel to the developing world and get handmade wooden models of global shipping containers made by locals.  The Ghana flag on the ship's mast is not to scale.

The formerly colonized now make hand-made wooden mannequins of the main characters of the colonialist's cartoons.  Tintin in the Congo move over:  Tintin in Ghana is here.

Dr. Margaret Ivy Amoakohene, Acting Director of the School of Communication Studies at University of Ghana - Legon, invited me to give a talk to her graduate student seminar class studying propaganda.  They were wonderful hosts, incredibly gracious, and asked very thoughtful, insightful, and mature questions regarding the impact of digital technology.  It was a great illustration for my Semester At Sea students (about 15 of whom made it to the talk) to see how Ghanaians thought about technology compared to how Americans tended to think about it.  

The next day, we had a Field Lab for my Global Media class that visited Radio Ada in the East Dangme district, and learned about the history of community radio in Ghana, the unique, local, and volunteer efforts of Radio Ada, and the ways in which they have become a true voice for the local community.  

Students learning about low-wattage radio stations.  Radio Ada transmits on 350 watts of power from a 150-foot tower to a radius of 80km, reaching about 500,000 people in the local Dangme language.  

The broadcast room with sound insulation taken from local flora.

Part of our field lab was to go "out in the field" to a live broadcast of a community discussion about bank loans for subsistence farmers.  This was the most fascinating part of it all, and somewhat depressing in retrospect. 

The men and women of the village set themselves up in separate areas.  We found the women did most of the talking.  

We didn't speak or understand the Dangme language, but we had a translator for every four or five students, so we understood the majority of what was being said.  What we later learned, from questioning, was that the farmers needed loans of about US $115 each year in order to sustain themselves and their families - the two biggest issues being the purchasing of seeds and the rental or purchase of irrigation systems.  But the banks were reluctant to give these loans, the interest rates were usurious, and the unpredictability of the weather and thus the crops -- despite Ghana's 11-month growing season, meant that many farmers went hand-to-mouth from year to year.  There was no discussion of loans borehole drilling, wells, or desalinization plants even though this particular farm was literally walking distance to the ocean.  Radio Ada's part was simply to broadcast the community's discussion.  And by offering this "listening" that was then made available to a wider public via broadcast, many of the farmers felt genuinely grateful and "heard" despite the fact that not a single thing changed for them as a result of their plight being broadcast.  Sometimes, of course, having their plight heard is the first step in achieving a substantive change.  We only found out the specifics of the farmer's story after the community event was over and the villagers were dispersing.  If they had known up front, many of my students said they would gladly have given $115 out of their own pockets to any farmer they met who needed help.  My students had just paid 23k to 38k to be on Semester At Sea, and this field lab helped them put into high perspective the reality that many many people in the world subsist on two dollars a day or less.

From the Literal Metaphor Dept.:  A mother goose and her chicks flock to a spot of moisture on the ground.

Wilna and Alex Quarmyne, the heart and head of Radio Ada, were our gracious hosts, gave us an excellent crash course in their endeavors, and also fed us a sumptuous lunch of local specialties.  

On the way home, we saw a local casket-maker's outdoor shop, and some of the creative and imaginative caskets - sometimes called "fantasy coffins" -- that Ghanaians like to be buried in.  

Computers are born of coltan in the Congo... and a whole lot of them come here to die:   the e-waste dump of Agbogbloshie, outside Accra. 

Coconut shells, humans, animals, burning plastic and metal parts, all on top of a former river and lagoon in one of the most tragic human and ecological catastrophes you'll ever read about.  

The waste is as far and wide as the eye can see.  How do the parts get here?  Global corporations "donate" them as "used computers" as tax write-offs (charitable donations!) when in fact they are known to be effectively dead machines before they are packed up and shipped out. 

Hannah and Mercer (and Talal) all took a day trip out there and captured some pretty incredible pictures and video.  

If you'd like to see or learn more about Agbogbloshie, it is featured in the film Objectified by Gary Hustwit (maker of Helvetica), the film The Light Bulb Conspiracy (an excellent 2010 film on the shelf life of planned obsolescence), and it shows up briefly, sans commentary, in the visually lush docu-meditation entitled Samsara.