The Four Million Cedi Family

I have a lot of time to think here and a lot of it is spent thinking about development in terms of how to make it happen and what it will look like when it happens.  Being here has obviously given me a much better foundation to think about but unfortunately I still find myself without answers (unfortunately I am not alone.)  One of the particularly interesting facts here is that even when people make it out of the community and are successful they still keep a house in their community.  This shows just how important history and ones family/village is to people here.  I have struggled a lot with this though as it seems to me like a waste of money.  That being said I also enjoy how strong communities are here.  It did make me wonder though what if a family here somehow struck it big.

Thankfully thanks to the government of Ghana this is not such a vague concept anymore.  After four months of being here (this was a few weeks ago) Dela and I were walking when he mentioned that the land for the wildlife refuge, a few kilometers from his house, is on land that used to belong to his wives family.  Dela was telling me they own lots of land and that it is valuable, in fact, the government bought the wildlife refuge land for four million cedis (roughly 2.8 million dollars.)  Now I hear high numbers all the time because a few years ago Ghana devalued it currency so one cedi today used to be worth 10,000 cedi just a few short years ago.  I asked Dela if that was in old money and he said it was not, it was actually 4 million cedi. 

Obviously I asked what the family, lead by Dela's brother in law, did with the money.  Well first of course they had to divide it up amongst the family, and since in Ghana they practice a standard family, that meant dividing up the money somewhere between 100 and 150 different ways.  However, they did not simply divide 4 million in equal parts instead the leader of the family simply divided seemingly at a whim.  Disappointingly for Dela's wife her brother only gave her 400 cedi.  However, this only intrigued me more: if a few people received most of the money what could they spend it on?

Well in some ways they did the same thing most people would do with it.  They are in the process of building a few bigger homes in their community and also investing it.  The investments look a little different.  The biggest investment I have seen is a large truck used to haul building materials and goods, but it is an investment nonetheless.  But by and large this newly wealthy people live seemingly no different than anyone else.

The leads me to some good and bad conclusions.  First of all development, and I am only speaking in my narrow perspective, will not mean leaving behind small villages.  People will always take pride in where they are from and therefore will always keep some tie to the community.  Unfortunately, I wonder whether these ties will slow the process of development overall.  If people we always trying to move towards cities it would mean that only cities, which are already closer to development, needed to develop more, but now we still have to develop each small village.

Again I do not know if this is good or bad, but realistically think it is both.  Like I said at the beginning I have a better foundation to think about, but still no answers...

Bringing in the New Year with Gin and a Slaughtered Goat

Happy New Year to my loyal readers!  Christmas and New Year tend to blend into one very long celebration in Ghana.  In Helekpe that means every night there is drumming, dancing, and some very drunk men.  It was definitely interesting to see but I never spent more than ten minutes each night watching the festivities.  Cool to see but the possibility of getting talked to by a drunk Ghanaian was more than enough to send me home early.

However, that isn't to say I didn't bring in the New Year in style!  Apparently when you buy, or in our case rent, land in Ghana you do more than simply pay for it.  AYEC is renting five acres to start our new farm which should generate enough income to make AYEC self-sustaining particularly in terms of paying school fees for our scholarship winners.  The cost to rent the land was 30 cedi (22 dollars) per year per acre.  However, we also had to go through the tradition Ghanaian customs.  That meant a few weeks ago we had to go and see the land with the landowners and bring them to bottles of gin.  Then we paid for the land and went back to make it official by writing a contract.  When we went back we had to bring two more bottles of gin, a big jug of palm wine, a live male goat (confusingly known as a rum), and fifty cedi cash.  We did this all on New Years Day at 6am.  As custom dictates I took a shot of gin and then watched as the goat was slaughtered.  To be clear they use both the goat and the gin to offer some as a sacrifice to their ancestors who first claimed the land.  It was certainly interesting to see, but I don't think when I leave here I will find myself longing for the days of slaughtering animals.

That being said AYEC now has a farm for a year and when we harvest our first crops around June we should be able to use that money to secure the land for somewhere between five and ten years!  It is definitely exciting because it means AYEC does not have to ask future volunteers for money and it means our scholarship winners will be paid for.

January will mostly be spent getting the farm ready to go so that the planting can happen when the rainy season returns in late February or early March.  The other big plus of starting a farm is that one of the local teachers majored in agriculture in training college and has offered to help, so the farm is in good hands from the start!  Other than that January will be used looking to raise some more money so that we can use February, oddly enough my last month here, to renovate the local middle school. It won't be easy but if we can get it done all of our goals for my time will have been accomplished.

Other than that not much to report from the motherland.  As always your comments and emails are appreciated.  If nothing else please pray for the Ravens for the next month!