Saturday, 14 April 2012

DAY 5

Not having to wake up to Frazer, the sleep hater's, 4:30am alarm at Green Turtle was absolutely delightful! I slept in until 7am (never before would I have considered that sleeping in), ate breakfast and enjoyed a delicious cup of French press coffee.  By 9am everyone was up and we were out on the beach playing Frisbee.  By 12pm we were all starting to feel hungry and refused to pay 7-12 cedis for a meal, so Evelyn and I ventured out to the next town (about a mile away) for food.  The town’s name was Akwade and it was truly special.  I can’t quiet put my finger on it, but the energy was extremely positive and touching, I felt almost overwhelmed.  It is one of the most remote towns I have ever been in, to the point where it was difficult to find food to buy.  We had to walk through the front and back areas of small homes made out of clay, bamboo and grass roofs.  Although the town was clearly impoverished, the people looked happy, hard working, and healthy.  It was bustling with life. 
We finally found a hut where at least four women were working on the preparation of fufu, by peeling and pounding the plantains and cassava as well as stirring up a really aromatic fish stew.  Once inside, we were warmly welcomed and given a bench to sit on.  For the next 15 minutes I just sat there looking out the small 4 ft entrance door, watching life happen.  A four year old girl was carrying cassava on her head, and then passed a three year old drumming along with his wood stick and empty plastic bottle.  Kids with button-up collar shirts were walking in and out of the fufu kitchen and then passed a teenage boy blasting hip-life (Ghanaian pop music) on his small boom box.  The men were on the canoes fishing and there was a bridge (rickety, but high and about 30 ft long) which the people use to cross over the stream that meets the ocean.  The Women crossing the bridge were all carrying something or other on their heads: water, cassava, pots, wood, bamboo, etc.  We also walked past women sifting through the Cassava in order to make Gari. 
There was so much activity; it was almost difficult to process.  It left me with lingering questions about poverty alleviation and “development.”  Never had it been more clear to me how dynamic poverty is and how difficult and at times unnecessary it is for outsiders to come in and try to re-structure peoples way of life in order to speed them through what would be a more localized and sustainable development process.  Is development actually “for” the people? Or do many organizations simply try to bring them up to life standards that developed countries find agreeable, regardless of what actually makes sense to the community?  Surely it is not so black and white, and there are some truly successful and inspirational development projects throughout Ghana, but this experience (along with others that have followed) has made me significantly more skeptical of development work.   
By
Margarita Gonzalez

No comments:

Post a Comment