Final day in Ghana - time to be a tourist.

 

Tonight we fly home from a fascinating and successful trip to Nigeria and Ghana. It’s certainly been a bit of a whistlestop, and I’m very aware that most of my time has been spent in church halls delivering training, rather than getting out and seeing the two countries. But, that was the reason for coming, so it’s been good to be able to squeeze in some small bits of time along the way, getting a glimpse into life beyond the training venues. NB, I should point out that Rozzie has done much better on the tourist front than me, and had 2 days being shown around Uyo area whilst we were there, and then 1 day out and about here in Ghana (including to a cocoa plantation, botanical gardens and some waterfalls.

Anyway, today was one of the days when we were both able to be tourists, and we had a very hot, but very interesting time visiting a few key sites of special interest within Accra.

First stop was Jamestown, which is one of Accra’s oldest neighborhoods. Situated on the coast, it has the significance of being a key historical site, especially in relation to the transatlantic slave trade. We were shown round by a local guy called Nice One (what a fab name!), who took us to the lighthouse (which still works, and was built to guide slave ships out to sea), the Jamestown ‘Palace’ (previously the local courts), and prison (now closed, but was the place where the enslaved people boarded the slave ships from), and the underground tunnel that those same would walk along, chained up and shackled in irons, to enter into the prison and then on to the boats. Established by the British in the early 17th century, the area was named after King James, and I was interested to note that, unlike so many places that have moved away from names with colonial ties, this community retains the name and hasn’t reverted to its previous indigenous name. We did ask about this, but Nice One said that people have moved on, aren’t living in the past, and anyway, the indigenous name is really hard to say!!!! Definitely undercurrents of spadefuls of forgiveness and not holding a grudge going on there.

Going into the tunnel was a very poignant moment – just being down there in the dark, and the heat, and trying to imagine what it must have been like for all those chained, frightened, bewildered, hurting and innocent people. A shameful part of our history but I’m glad I was able to have a moment to confront it in a place where it actually took place, and to send up prayers as I tried to process my emotions. Another point of note is that opposite the fort / prison where the enslaved would be sent off on the ships is the old slave masters office. It has now been redeveloped and sells Bibles – as Nice One: ‘good coming out of bad’.

The community is now very much focussed on fishing, although also very low in resources, and the tour also included a visit to a small school that is run on donations and supported by international volunteers to give some education to the children who can’t afford the school expenses of mainstream school. It’s a colourful and vibrant place, and people are trying to move forwards whilst also recognising that they have history which can be used to bring in useful finances.

The next place that we went was the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mauseleum. This was another incredible place to visit. Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, leading the country to independence from British colonial rule in 1957. The amuseleum included a museum dedicated to his life, and achievements, and he was clearly quite the leader. As well as leading Ghana in its early days, he worked to unify Africa and helped found the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, which aimed to promote unity and cooperation across the continent. He also carried out lots of development projects in Ghana, including health care, transport, and education. And worked to unify the nation so that the people are now Ghanaians first, and members of their own ethnic group (43 of them in Ghana) second. As we went round the site, there were various quotes from his speeches, and two that I particularly liked were ‘Those who would judge us merely by the heights we have achieved would do well to remember the depths from which we started’, and ‘We face neither East nor West, we face forward’. Sadly Kwame died at the age of 63 from prostate cancer, and spent the last 6 years in exile in Guinea following a coup to oust him from his post in Ghana, but he was clearly an incredibly visionary leader across the continent.

Within the memorial park there were statues, fountains, and the big monument with the tomb inside, There was also a statue of him that had been rescued during the coup by one of his supporters – the head had been broken off from the body, but both pieces still exist to remind of the different stages of his political career. Another really nice touch was that the memorial park is on land that, prior to independence, was a polo field for the British. No people of colour were allowed on it at all during this time. So it was wonderful to hear that Ghana totally upended that by digging it up, and turning it into a place where Ghanaians can go to celebrate their independence and commemorate those who were so significant in helping the nation achieve that status.

The rest of our tourist day included Independence Square, an art and craft market, driving past the seat of government (Jubilee House), and a look round the national museum. A busy day, but a very good way to end our visit to this country. Now, for home!

 

 

Ghana: Training over, mission complete

 

Today was the third and final day of the 360Life workshop that I’ve been delivering to prison chaplains here in Ghana who are affiliated with Good News Global. There were due to be 12, but for various unforeseen circumstances, only 8 were able to complete all 3 days and receive their certificates, but what an honour it has been to serve them in this way.

This was the first time that the materials had been delivered in Ghana, and it was great to be able to spend some really good quality time with the team, slowly going through the lessons, with lots of repetition, group discussions, activities and participation to get the new concepts embedded. We also spent some time contextualising the teaching to be tailored to the Ghanaian language and cultural values. So we considered what words would be tricky to translate into the local language (bearing in mind there are 43 languages in Ghana), what strategies to use to overcome the situations where there is no direct translation, and also what concepts might need to be adapted in order to fit with local culture and values. Today, the focus was on the participants giving a presentation themselves. They worked in pairs, and each delivered a different part of the presentation with the brief being that they had to assume we, the audience, were prison inmates, and they, the chaplains, had been given a 30-min ‘preaching / teaching slot.

It was so good to sit in the audience and watch the presentations being given. Not only did it provide good evidence of how much they now knew, but it was great to see the others really engaging in the activity and getting into the minds of prisoners as they came up with the questions that they asked.

Alongside all of that have been some good conversations about life in prisons generally, what the main crimes are that lead to imprisonment (petty theft is the main one, although armed robbery was talked of as one of the more major crimes), and wider issues regarding the prisoners. These included reoffending rates, lack of visiting rights for prisoners and their families, (especially when the prisoner is sent to a jail a long way from home), and mental health issues in prisons – both for prisoners, and prison staff. The main challenges being faced by the prison service were overcrowding, lack of food for prisoners, and a lack of well-trained staff, ie under-resourced generally, and there was also discussion around the challenge of being imprisoned for minor crimes (e.g. petty theft) and then transitioning to more major crimes as a result of mixing with more dangerous criminals and gangs. It was interesting how many themes are similar to those that we hear of regarding UK prisons, although I think the scale of overcrowding in Ghanaian prisons far outweighs that of UK prisons. However, before I make it sound like Ghana has a real problem with overcrowding, I must point out that I hear the same tales of massive overcrowding in many of the African countries that I go to, and certainly not just Ghana.

The training finished with the handing out of certificates, closing comments, words of thanks and a closing prayer before we all went our separate ways. It’s been so good to be here, and I’d love to come back. Will have to wait and see on that front. But whether I do or don’t achieve that, I pray that the seeds sown on this training will reap much harvest, and that the teaching on having a more trauma-informed approach will bring hope and healing to many who are currently incarcerated in Ghanaian prisons. Finally, a massive thank-you to Benjamin Siaw, national director of GNG Ghana for all of his support this week – it just wouldn’t have worked without him.

 

Reflections on Accra, Ghana

 

We’re in Accra, Ghana for this week, and I’m delivering 360Life training to some of the Good News Global Ghana team of prison chaplains. I’ll write about that another day, but for now I thought I’d just share a few reflections from my limited time here. Bear in mind that I’ve not made it out of the city, so it is somewhat limited in its scope, but I hope there’s something of interest all the same.

I think the first thing that I noticed when we got here from Nigeria was that it all just felt more relaxed. The traffic isn’t so frenzied for a start. There isn’t the continuous honking of horns, and there is a lot more willingness to give way to other drivers, and to pedestrians. Just as well, as there aren’t many pavements except on the really main roads, and with big, open drainage ditches down the sides of the roads, the pedestrian and the car are often quite close together! But people drive at a sensible speed, they wait until there is a proper gap rather than forcing one to appear, and they go in straight lines a lot. None of the weaving of Lagos, none of the haring down the highways, and a better respect for the number of lanes in a road! The driving generally feels less aggressive and forceful, with no fighting for every inch of space.

That’s not to say the roads system is all wonderful – some of the roads have big piles of sand or other building rubble encroaching on them, just to add to the challenges of navigating safely along them. And despite the presence of sand and rubble, there often doesn’t appear to be much active building works taking place – it feels like things have just been left from a while ago, and never quite cleared up. Or maybe it is in anticipation of the owner having enough money to do the next bit of building works. Potholes feature as well – but hey, find me a place where they don’t feature! From the roads I’ve been on in Accra, they’ve definitely got the situation under better control than South Gloucestershire!!!

Ghana as a country is perceived as safe and so we have been able to go out for walks in the local area. It’s lovely to be able to just walk around the neighbourhood, seeing the explosion of colour as the children in their bright uniforms all pour out of school and walk home together, chatting and laughing. There are little ‘shack shops’ everywhere, all selling basic commodities which seem to be the same as all the other shops around. I’m not sure how one decides which shop to go to, as I imagine everyone is selling at the same price. I guess you just go to the one where your friend works, or that you’ve always been going to. There are lots of stalls selling street foods as well – samosas, meat on sticks, vegetables, doughnut-type things, bags of nuts…… All so vibrant and friendly and welcoming, and very different from our stay in Nigeria when we were strongly discouraged (in Uyo) and told absolutely not (in Lagos) to go out for walks.

One of the things that is more noticeable here in Accra than was apparent in Nigeria is the number of people who appear to be homeless and living on street corners – both adults, and children. It’s not huge numbers, and certainly not as many as I’ve seen in some other African cities, but definitely more than in Lagos. Apparently, many of these are informal refugees who have fled to Ghana from one of 5 nearby countries (including Senegal, Liberia and Mali). Their presence here is in part an indicator of Ghana’s reputation as a friendly and welcoming nation, although it is sad to see that the infrastructure for supporting them is perhaps not all that these displaced people might have hoped for.

Way back in my past, when I worked for Christian Aid, I remember that there was a campaign for trade justice, and one of the feature stories was to do with tomatoes from Ghana. Local Ghanaian tomato growers were struggling to sell their tomatoes in Ghana because the market was being flooded by cheap imports from Italy, that had been subsidised by EU support. The Ghanaian government, when it tried to subsidise it’s own farmers in the same way, was told that to do so would jeopardise their access to international development funds. A total trade injustice that I remember getting very bothered by and speaking out about whenever I could.

Today on my walk I went through the market, and saw many women selling tomatoes. Obviously I can’t confirm that they were Ghana-grown tomatoes, but the women were certainly local farmers, and I like to think that that particular trade injustice is a thing of the past, and that the tomatoes I saw being sold today are testimony to that.

Staying on the theme of food, my final little reflection is that, based on my limited experience of one hotel in Ghana and 3 hotels in Nigeria, Ghana is better able to cope with vegetarian diets! Both nations do very delicious jollof rice, but Ghana just has the edge on providing dishes that don’t seem to have little bits of fish or offal snuck into the veg, even when you’ve said that you don’t eat meat, or chicken or fish. But maybe I’m doing Nigeria a disservice on that one!!!