Dealing with Death, Ghana Style

Last week I was honoured to be invited to the funeral of a local person in the town I am working in. The deceased was a young woman of 39 years, who sadly passed away last month. It is not uncommon for Ghanaians to invite a whole range of people to a funeral, even people like me who have never met the departed, so our presence at the ceremony was nothing unusual.

The funeral was one of the strangest experiences I have had since I arrived here. Having attended a few funerals back home, what struck me was how incredibly different the whole affair was.

In England funerals are usually sombre, quiet, low-key events. You are much more likely to see a quivering lip than outright sobbing. After the funeral itself, the parties tend to decamp to a small reception, which can be an awkward few hours of expressing condolences to the family and trying to remember the deceased in fond terms.

This is a million miles away from the Ghanaian experience. When we were escorted to our seats, the first thing we observed was the local pastor leading loud, vocal, and often musical tributes to the departed. Guests were on their feet clapping and singing to the music. There was no quiet reflection here; the party was well and truly in full swing.

Afterwards we were given the opportunity to observe the body, the first time I have done so. This was characterised by hysterical wailing from the people that knew the deceased. Mourners were literally throwing themselves around the room in grief, crying and asking the Lord why death had occurred. The deceased was placed in a fine casket and dressed up to look her best for the last time.

The funeral ceremony ended once the casket was brought out and loaded on to a pick-up truck to be taken for burial. One could not help but notice the sad contrast between the expensive casket and the ordinary pick-up used to transport the body. The guests at the funeral did not appreciate this inconsistency, however, and proceeded to wail at the casket until it was finally taken away.

This did not mark the end of the festivities though and some mourners stayed on for hours, dancing to the music and giving their tributes to the deceased over the microphone. Later I was told that some people attend funerals as a way of picking up a husband or wife! I was amazed by the grace with which we were welcomed. I doubt I would have the courtesy to tolerate foreigners who I didn’t even know attending a funeral of a close relative but we were embraced with open arms and treated to a generous helping of Kenkey afterwards.

Despite the warm hospitality, I could not help but think that the English funeral experience is a great deal more powerful. There was something artificial about the outright wailing – for me it is the person who tries to keep his composure and then loses it that gives a funeral its emotional resonance. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this most interesting of cultural experiences.

Five Features of Living in Accra

Over the past month I have observed so many things about living in Accra. In this post I have collated those thoughts to try and give a picture of life in this most interesting of cities.

1. Food – it’s fair to say that there is not a great deal of variety when it comes to food in Ghana. Meat wise, pretty much the only option is chicken, probably the very same chicken you will have seen clucking away on the street a few hours earlier. Everything else is limited to rice, spicy sauces, fish, and various Ghanaian dishes. One of the most popular meals here in Accra is fufu, basically a soup served with mashed plantains. The key thing to remember is not to chew the mash. I made this mistake the first time I eat fufu, much to the amusement of my African colleagues.

2. Transport – the main form of public transport in this city is the tro tro. Essentially clapped out mini buses, tro tros are a remarkably efficient and cheap way of getting around. Disadvantages include a degree of discomfort – most do not have air conditioning and are packed to the rafters by over-enthusiastic tro tro mates (like bus conductors) – and the unbelievably high risk of fatal accidents. If you wish to take your own taxi, you will have no difficulty finding one. Taxi drivers in Accra have this annoying habit of honking at you whenever you are walking in the street in the hope of collecting a nice fare from an obruni (white person).

3. Entertainment – Ghanaians love television (when the power is on), bargain hunting, and football. Coming from England I thought I would find it difficult to encounter a society more passionate about the beautiful game. So far my experience of football in Ghana has consisted of watching the national team in the 2012 African Cup of Nations. The highlight was certainly the 2-1 victory over Tunisia after extra time. When the ‘Black Stars’ scored the winning goal, the whole bar erupted with celebration and the TV commentary was promptly replaced by loud gospel music. Sadly Ghana were narrowly defeated in the semi-finals by Zambia.

4. Religion – this is a subject that people in Ghana are very keen on. Accra is definitely a city for believers. Christian to the core, Ghanaians name everything after Jesus, from their car registration plates to their shops. Walking around Accra one cannot help but notice the proliferation of stalls brandishing titles such as ‘Christ is My Redeemer’ or ‘Jesus Loves You Barbershop’. This personal devotion is supplemented by extreme collective worship. Church on a Sunday is an absolute must and many services are large, pre-planned events featuring thousands of people.

5. Weather – the temperature all year round here is hot. It’s crazy to think that as I write this people back in the UK are buried in snow because the temperature has not dropped below 25 since I have been here. As much as I am enjoying this winter sun, I could not imagine living in a climate where the weather does not change. The only seasonal variations are rain (which occurs from March to September) and dust (Saharan winds blown south, occurring this time of year). Of course, one of the consequences I have suffered is crippling sun burn!

Dixcove

This weekend some friends and I visited the magnificent Busua beach, apparently the finest beach in west Africa. After spending a day playing football with hundreds of children, drinking beer and getting horrendously sun burned, we decided to venture out the following day to the nearby village of Dixcove.

Back in the day Dixcove was the site of the first fort constructed in what was then the Gold Coast. It served its purpose as the first of many points of power built by the British in order to suppress the local population and ensure dominance over the slave trade for many years.

Today the fort still stands and towers over the small fishing village beneath it. It is striking that despite the centuries that have passed, the fort remains the most developed site in Dixcove. The village itself is an astoundingly poor place. Those people fortunate enough to even have shelter reside in tin shacks; the rest sleep under wooden boats along with chickens, goats, and all manner of other animals. Our visit aroused huge interest with the local children and it must have been around thirty kids who occupied themselves by holding our hands and accompanying us up to the fort. Many of these children were without clothes and looked as if food and water were luxuries rather than everyday necessities.

Climbing the steep stone staircase up to the fort, one could not help but notice the young girl lying face down in the dirt. The image of a British man climbing over an African child en route to higher ground can hardly be new to this part of the world and it happened once again yesterday.

Our trip got me thinking about who should bear the ultimate responsibility for the sorry situation in which places like Dixcove find themselves. Without doubt, the British (and in other parts of Africa, the French and the Belgians) must take serious blame. When a country is ruthlessly exploited by rich powers for its people and resources, the impact on human development must be huge. There can be no ‘organic’ progression in these societies – they start with less than nothing and have to work out how to be modern liberal democracies from scratch.

Saying this, most colonial rule in Africa ended some time ago now. Ghana, for example, was the first of the governed African states to become independent and has ruled itself for almost 60 years. It has significant natural resources, an honest and educated population, and decent infrastructure. There must come a time when countries like this start looking after their own and taking responsibility for the staggering levels of poverty I have seen so far on this trip.

In the end, however, it is only going to be a partnership between the developed economies and the nation states themselves that is going to improve things for people in these countries. While the west maintains harmful and self-serving programmes like the EU Common Agricultural Policy, the potential for African states to compete fairly in world markets is artificially limited. Equally, while African governments (democratic and autocratic alike) consistently fail to eradicate the systemic corruption that has curtailed opportunity and meritocracy for years, there can be no real development.

I look forward to a time when I can return to Dixcove and observe that the old fort has become more of a quaint relic than the continuing dominant presence in this village.

First Impressions of Africa

I arrived at Kokota International Airport in Accra, Ghana, at midnight on Monday. Having expected to be decimated by a wave of heat, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the temperature is actually not too hot. It is more like very warm British summer days without suffocating humidity.

One feature of Ghana at this time of year, however, is extreme dustiness. This is apparently caused by winds blowing down from the Sahara and makes breathing/visibility less easy than usual. Where I am staying in greater Accra is particularly dusty. My black shoes I intended to wear for work have already turned brown.

So far I have enjoyed my stay in this fascinating country. The people are almost universally friendly with most truly taken aback by the presence of white people in their neighbourhoods. Things here are pretty laid back. Most people do not bat an eyelid about doing stuff quickly or on time. This pace of life suits me quite well!

Earlier in the week I drafted some agreements relating to a new school that is being constructed in rural Ghana. A couple of days ago we were able to go and visit the school so it was nice to see what we were working towards. In the last couple of days I have started work at the Human Rights Commission, working largely on family based mediation, which I intend to write about later in my stay.

Assuming I survive the unbelievably dangerous road system and do not contract any tropical diseases, I will be posting weekly updates on my stay in Ghana. I look forward to sharing some of the weird and wonderful experiences I will be exposed to!

My African Adventure

On Monday I will be leaving the frosty wasteland of England and jetting off for the sunnier climes of Africa. Starting next week, I will be volunteering as an intern with Voluntary Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA) in Ghana, working on human rights and justice projects.

I'm not entirely clear on exactly what I will be doing in Ghana but I'm sure I will find out soon enough. My impression is that I will be assisting communities in dispute resolution through mediation/informal litigation and also providing advice to local people about their legal rights. I am supposed to do that knowing next to nothing about Ghanaian law and Ghana in general, of course. Personally I feel sorry for the poor souls I will be 'helping' but I'm sure it will be a positive experience for all involved!

I'll be working with VPWA for two months before flying down to South Africa and spending a few days in the beautiful city of Cape Town. After that I'm picking up a tour of southern Africa, visiting the Namibian desert, the Okavango delta in Botswana, and then finishing off at the majestic Victoria falls in Zambia.

Throughout my trip I will be blogging my experiences - highs and lows- of living and working in Africa. In addition, I'll be giving my views on Africa in general and hopefully recording some of the life changing lessons I'm sure to learn while spending time in this beautiful continent.

Playing the Race Card

This week's conviction and sentencing of two men for the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 should have been a proud moment for all of those people who have campaigned for justice for almost twenty years. Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville, expressed relief that their son's killers had been held to account after a long and flawed police investigation. Many people would be forgiven for thinking that this event represented a watershed point in UK race relations.

Any benefits this case could have produced, however, were dampened by the comments of politicians and writers in the media following the trial. The most notorious of those has been the remarks of Labour MP Diane Abbott, who discouraged a black journalist from questioning the merits of referring to 'one black community'. Abbott said that this 'divide and rule' tactic was something white people love to employ and that black thinkers should not engage with this approach.

For this she has been roundly criticised. Labour leader Ed Miliband forced her to issue an immediate apology for issuing an 'unacceptable' comment. Deputy PM Nick Clegg called her remark 'stupid and crass'. Unsurprisingly, Abbott's political opponents jumped at the chance to brand her a racist and to call for her sacking.

The interesting thing about race is how it makes people forget their principles. Despite general criticism in the mainstream media, Abbott was largely defended by writers on the left. Feminist commentator Laurie Penny, for example, argued that us ordinary folk had failed to understand that Abbott was reflecting on a history of structural racial politics. Samira Shackle of the New Statesman claimed that Abbott was not intending to make a general comment about the attitudes of white people as a whole.

Really? The comment 'white people love playing divide and rule' looks pretty general to me. An intelligent MP, she could have said 'racist white people' or 'oppressive white people'. She didn't. She said 'white people' meaning precisely that: white people in general.

Granted, I may not have an in depth understanding of structural racial politics, but that seems like racism to me.

It's not just the Diane Abbott row that has exposed hypocrisy on the part of certain commentators. Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre was quick to use the Lawrence verdicts as a vindication of the actions of his newspaper back in 1997 when it ran a headline accusing a number of men, including Dobson and Norris, of Lawrence's murder. These men had not yet been convicted of any crime relating to Stephen Lawrence and were therefore innocent in the eyes of the law.

Despite this flagrant perversion of the ordinary course of justice, liberal commentators took the chance to forgive the Daily Mail, an otherwise right-wing, xenophobic publication, and support the headline claiming innocent men were murderers. Instead of reserving judgment until the outcome of a fair trial, these commentators just assumed these aggressive, racially intolerant, working class white men were responsible for the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Human rights barrister (someone who should understand the presumption of innocence better than anyone) David Malone, posted a link on twitter to a post claiming the headline amounted to brave and bold journalism. I doubt he would have reacted in the same way had the Mail accused a number of young Muslim men of acts of terrorism. Would that be bold and brave journalism? Or would it be an example of feral media distorting the correct legal process?

I was delighted for the Lawrence family when I saw that these disgusting individuals had been brought to justice for a cowardly, racist murder of an innocent young man. I was equally pleased to read commentary from the likes of Trevor Phillips, someone who has done more for race relations in this country than most, claiming that the UK was now a better, more tolerant country in which to live. The hypocrisy of certain people on this issue though is further evidence that we are still some way from being able to have a sensible discussion on race.

The Case for a Living Wage

Today the Chancellor outlined just how much of an economic mess this country is in. According to George Osborne, the UK economy is now unlikely to grow beyond 1% in either this year or the next. Various factors are trotted out to explain our decline; so far Osborne has blamed snow, strikes, riots, Europeans, and even Kate and Wills.

As for answers, most of the Government's rhetoric has been directed towards 'deregulation' and 'easing burdens on businesses'. Examples of this include Vince Cable's plan to make it easier to sack people and Chris Grayling's intention to scrap the vast majority of EU health and safety provisions. Welfare reforms designed to encourage people back into work have very much taken on the 'stick' rather than the 'carrot' tone with punitive new measures for job seekers who refuse work.

The problems in the British economy mainly derive from an absence of key demand. Growth is stagnant because people are not working and therefore not spending. Any plan to change our economic fortunes must be geared towards motivating the human capital largely wasted at the current time.

One way of doing this is to introduce what has been called the 'living wage'. Put simply, this involves raising the national minimum wage rate to £7.20 (£8.30 in London) from its current level at £6.08. The living wage is designed to enable every worker in the country to provide their family with the essentials of life. Currently, the scheme is voluntary and there are a number of employers that adhere to the campaign by paying their workers the higher rate. If it was incorporated into law, however, the economic benefits would be significant.

Firstly, it would serve as genuine encouragement for those on welfare to find work. Many young people in particular fail to see the incentive in finding a full time job that promises a weekly income of £200 at the most. Instead, they are content to spend their time on benefits at a huge cost to the taxpayer or, failing that, many turn to a life of crime to supplement their earnings. While tough welfare reform to prevent abuse is also required, the introduction of a living wage would motivate those in desperate situations to turn their lives around.

Secondly, it would improve levels of productivity in the economy. If employees know that they are receiving a decent wage they will be more likely to work hard to keep their jobs. In addition, they would be more likely to actively seek out promotion opportunities in order to rise further up the income scale. Improving productivity in the workforce is hugely important for the UK given the fierce competition from highly efficient economies, such as China and India.

Employers who have brought in the living wage have reported a 25% drop in absenteeism and significant gains in terms of work quality as a result of moving to the higher rate. Rather than making employers more cautious before taking on new staff, therefore, there is every chance that the living wage could actually boost recruitment.

David Cameron and other senior Conservatives like Boris Johnson have voiced support for the living wage campaign. If they truly believe in the merits of this cause, however, they will pledge to enact the living wage as law in order to get our economy moving again. Doing so would send out a positive message that trust and optimism will get us out of this mess, rather than the fear and division current policies are producing. Time will tell if the Government has the bravery to face down its demons and do what is right for our country.