The Realities of Life

I have learned that we take traffic lights for granted.  We assume they will work.  This is not always the case in Ghana.  Numerous factors such as power failures, burned out bulbs, etc. cause them to fail.  And I commonly come across intersections where this has happened.  It does pose an interesting challenge, but people know how to deal with it, and are really quite considerate of one another in ways that I suspect would not occur in the United States.  Of course, it can be a little nerve wracking if it occurs during rush hour when everyone is in a hurry and traffic is especially heavy.  Then you have to push your way through intersections that are full of vehicles with drivers frantically trying to get to their destinations, and not as willing to let you through.  At such times, the right of way seems to go to the person who most aggressively is able to push his front bumper into any gap (no matter how small) that may appear between vehicles.  Somehow, though, accidents are not nearly as common as one would expect under these circumstances.

So many people here work hard as street hawkers (peddlers) selling to those passing by in cars driving through intersections.  The hours are long and they work in the hot sun and in the rain.  It must be exhausting.  Here we saw one woman who had stepped about five meters away from the street, lay down upon the rocky soil, and was taking a nap while her fellows continued to sell.

We have previously posted pictures of the housing used by the poor.  Here is another example.  This is on an overpass.  In the foreground is the guardrail at the edge of the roadway.  Next is the sidewalk that runs along the side of the overpass.  On the far side of the sidewalk sits the metal fencing that runs along the outside of the sidewalk and marks where it ends and the overpass drops off to the street below.  Beyond that are two billboards (the one on the left has blue poles, and the one on the right has red ones).  In the center of the picture you can see someone's home.  The roof is a white tarp spread over the sidewalk between the guardrail and the metal fencing.  Various other items mark the sides.  Here someone lives.

We haven't shown pictures of the middle-class yet.  In this picture you see examples of their homes.  This particular street is not paved at this time but the homes on either side are really quite nice.  In my experience, middle-class neighborhoods usually do have paved streets.  Notice that each home is built in a compound.  The middle-class is growing here in Ghana, and you can see how these homes stretch into the distance.  Ghana is in so many ways the jewel of Africa.

Then, of course, there are the wealthy.  Here are some upper-class flats.  There are also billboards around town advertising "Luxury Apartments" and even "Serviced Apartments" meaning they are like a hotel with maids, etc. taking care of your home for you.  Very nice.

What is perhaps the greatest thing about Ghana, though, is it is a free country.  Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, honest elections.  These are not common blessings on the continent of Africa but Ghana helps to lead the way.

Elder Emfield

It's Complicated

The longer I am here in Ghana, the more I find a lot of questions can be answered by "It depends" and/or "It's complicated."  Nothing is as simple as it seems.  We can't make assumptions or gain understanding by looking at things simply through our own lens of experiences.  This really rang true to me a few weeks ago.

As you probably know, throughout a lot of Africa, there are many shanty towns.  These are areas made up of dwellings (or homes, if you want to stretch the term) made from various items, ranging from pieces of wood, cardboard, or metal to small metal shipping containers. These town are ugly and dirty.  However, for some people, this is all they have.  They have worked very hard to obtain that little room where they sleep.  They keep their few possessions in it and have shelter when it rains.  It is a step up from those we see sleeping on cement sidewalks or the side of the road.

These areas can be quite large, or just a small community alongside the edge of the road.

A few days ago, we went to a local city in the morning.  One the way back, we found that one of the larger communities, and several others  along the highway had been razed to the ground.  There was nothing but rubble where the dwellings had been.  There was a bunch of make-shift furniture sitting along the roadside.  Hundreds of men, women and children had just watched in horror as everything they owned was demolished.  There was a huge traffic jam and police were there to keep the peace.  I didn't take a picture at the time, because it was all too much.  Here are a few after a lot of it had been cleaned up a few days later.  

I was heartbroken.  How could anyone do this to those people?  It wasn't much but it was all they had and now they had nothing.  It didn't make sense.  I was probably as close to wanting to go home as I had  been since I got here.  

Wanting to make meaning of it all, we reached out to two dear friends from here, one a local Stake President and another a young man we work with.  They were able to share some insight into the situation.

It seems many people from the outlying bush areas move to Accra (and other cities) seeking a better life.  They want more opportunities for employment, education and safety.  However, when they come, they are ill prepared.  The city is already flooded with people seeking the same thing.  They come with no money to get started, no place to stay and there is no system in place to help them find housing, employment, food etc.  So they squat on government land or sometimes land owned by others.  The government sometimes allows them to stay until the land is needed for something else.  As they settle in, they bring in family and friends from outside the city and communities are formed.  The problem comes when the land is needed.  In this case, they are going to widen the highway from 4 lanes to 6.  The people were informed several months ago that they had to be off the land by a certain date, but they refused to go.  They probably had nowhere to go.  They were warned many times as the day drew near.  They still did not go.  When the day came, the bulldozers came and cleared the land.  

Some may say that the people should be more important that the highway.  However, if things like highways are not constructed, progress is stopped.  Jobs do not come to the city for people because there is no way to get in and out.  The city would become one large shanty town and no one would be able to move forward.  Development is necessary so the whole country can move forward.  Ghana is the jewel of Africa.  They are working very hard to move from being a third world country.  This cannot happen without infrastructure.

Meanwhile, there are still hundreds of men, women and children who are homeless and have just endured the trauma of watching everything they owned destroyed.  

Draw whatever conclusions you want. Compare this to whatever politically charged situation comes to your mind.  As for me, I am still working through this in my mind and will be for a long, long time. 

Like I said, "It's complicated."

Sister Emfield

Making Batik

A few weeks ago I was able to go to a neighboring community and make some batik fabric.  Esther is a seamstress here in Accra.  She also makes a lot of her own batik fabric in back of her home.    We were able to learn how they do it and make some of our own.

This is where the batik is made.  It was quite rainy and gloomy that day.  

Inside the building are many foam blocks of the forms you use to stamp the patterns on. 

You can see many of the patterns she has made to choose from.  It was very hard to decide on which ones to use. 

Yes, there was even a BYU stamp.  Esther is LDS and caters to the senior missionaries.

We start with a white piece of cloth.  Ours were only done with one color because it was so rainy that it would take too long for the color to dry and then add another color.  

You then dip your block into hot wax and place it on the fabric.  This wax protects the fabric from the dye and makes the pattern.  Here are two videos of a couple of my friends working on their fabric.  We all made tablecloths.  You can hear the African radio station playing in the background. The lighting was quite poor so it was hard to get good pictures inside but you can get the idea. 

This is the bowl of hot wax that the foam blocks are dipped in.

Here are a couple of pieces of fabric that are part way stamped with the wax.  The wax is a pretty gold color but, of course, that doesn't stay on the fabric when it is finished.

The water is for dying and rinsing the fabric is heated over wood fires in the big barrels.  

These are the pots the fabric is dyed in.  Most of us chose the blue color but one chose pink.

The fabric is put into the pots and dyed.

It is laid out to dry for a short time.  

Then the fabric is dipped in very hot water and rinsed, followed by scrubbing the wax off in another container. 

The finished product is laid out to dry one last time.

One lady who was there and wasn't with our group made a beautiful tablecloth.  Here are some pictures in it's various stages.

The cloth with only the wax on it.

Drying the first time, with the wax still on it.  You can see that the wax has absorbed some of the color.

The finished product.  The wax is gone, so the white shines through.

It was nice to just take a girls' morning and go do something different.  I have always wondered how that fabric was made.  Some day, when it's not the rainy season, we will go back and do it with several shades or colors.  Maybe some fabric to make a skirt?  

Sister Emfield