Field Visits and Pito

June 3

I spent the day meeting with famer groups with AEA, James. I felt kind of awkward and intimidated, and felt a little pressured to do something. I guess I thought that I was just going to introduce myself, say a few words and schedule the next meeting. But James pretty much introduced me, so I proceeded with asking the groups some questions like what did you farm, how were the yields, why did you form a group, and what are your challenges. Almost of all the groups mentioned that land preparation was an issue, especially regarding bull plows that are in short supply and expensive. The meetings were brief for they were simply an introduction, which farmers didn’t mind seeing as how they were busy sowing, tilling, and weeding their fields. On the whole the farmers were pretty friendly and thanked me for coming; we even stopped by one of the farmers homes and sat for a calabash of pito: basically a bowl of homemade sorghum beer. I thought I’d try it, my mistake. I regretted it the next morning.

On a different day, another group was very enthusiastic and wanted to show their level of motivation and dedication along with gratitude by giving Wisdom (an AEA) and I a live rooster and about 2 dozen eggs. We both felt uncomfortable about receiving the gift because we haven’t really done anything yet. Wisdom said this group has tried to give him gifts in the past and he politely refuses and hops on his moto before they give it to him, but we accepted the gifts this time after trying to refuse. I felt pretty uncomfortable about it seeing it as: a white man from a foreign NGO comes along and farmers give him gifts of gratitude for helping them. I don’t deserve this gift but what can I do? To be honest, in an area with high poverty rates – the Upper East Region has the highest in Ghana – a group of farmers during the lean season giving Wisdom and I a chicken that we could afford to buy, I felt guilty accepting it. But what if I flat out refused? I talked with a local about it later and who said it’s an insult to refuse such a gift. Well, we hung the chicken around the handle bars of the moto by its bound feet, thanked them again, and waived goodbye as we rode off to meet the next group. But not before dropping the eggs off at home, and bringing the bird to the butcher/roaster, it was a pretty tasty gift.

Back to the day with James: After James and I got back to Navrongo we went to a bar and had a couple beers and some grilled meat (goat/lamb). We sat around and talked some business, some family, and some joking. Here’s one thing that stood out. After we left the place he told me that one of the men sitting at another table was the district judge. James noticed that when we were talking about my moto helmet, and the roads and drivers in Ghana, the judge started paying attention to our conversation. You see I get many jokes and laughs directed towards me for owning a helmet but not a moto; my coworkers, friends, housemates, taxi drivers, and strangers all get a good laugh out of this, but if you witnessed the roads, traffic, speeding, and condition of vehicles here, you would understand why I don’t mind the laughter and continue to wear my helmet. The roads aren’t too bad just occasional potholes scattered in patches; the traffic is pretty hectic sometimes; speeding is common practice, same with pretty close encounter passing, but many taxis don’t have functioning speedometers so I’m not sure if there even speeding but it feels as though they are; and most of the vehicles have seen better days.

James later joked about how the judge will probably use this example in a court case: ‘a white man came to Ghana with his moto helmet without even owning or operating a moto. He brought a helmet only for the sole purpose of riding on the back of someone else’s moto!’ I guess he meant that the judge could use my example to leverage the importance of helmets and safety, while discrediting cases where people are injured from accidents without wearing helmets? Not quite sure, but after all the flak, laughter, staring and jokes about me having a helmet but no moto, I felt good that I might help set some precedence in regards to helmet use.

(I’ve begun to meet with the majority of AEA’s I’ll be working with and we’ve held introductory meetings with farmer groups. My next post(s) I’ll specifically shift the focus to my work with Mofa and farmer groups.)