Ghana Immersion Project

An Outbreak of Peace

Sunyani, Tuesday 6th July.
Denis Murphy diary entry.

There’s an outbreak of peace here with the boys over in school for the morning and the boombox turned off in the front garden of the hotel. They completed their first day in St. James’ yesterday and were buzzing. After six years’ worth of visits, the school’s attitude is refreshingly blasé; put two or three visitors in each class and continue as normal. There’s some hilarity at our accents, especially when the Irish students are asked to read in class, where they’re being told by their new teachers to slow it down and speak clearly, please. It’s an unusual situation for a white European. How many of us are ever in a minority, where the teasing is tilted in favour of the black, rather than the white? The lads are enjoying it, and find it better than the exaggerated deference given to visitors in places here where we are not known.

Another feature of this week is that the boys are in more senior classes, covering material that they haven’t done yet in Mary’s. Normally we’d be put in younger classes because the older ones are preparing for their final exams, but this year the Ghanaian system is converting to a four-year senior cycle so there’s no Leaving Cert. Not being the brightest kid in the class in putting pressure on them to perform academically, which they’re enjoying more than being bored by the classwork.

We had a fantastic drumming class last night. Most have bought their own drums (sorry, folks) and a teacher called Mr Minta taught us the basics: three ways to hit it, and eight basic rhythms. He drove us hard, moving around the group and making each one of us perfect the rhythm, firstly in groups of three, then if necessary on our own. We were in a gazebo outside but hardly dared to glance at the lizards hunting across the ceiling as Minta put us through our paces. After two hours he brought it all together, starting us off on our rhythmic drumbeats, then accompanying Cian Delaney through a series of spectacular dance movements. It was hard work but ultimately mesmerising, finishing the day on a high of collective achievement.

I asked Mr Minta to text his address so that we could write and thank him properly; he very kindly rang at 5.30 a.m. to check I’d got it. Ghanaian time. I cut my losses and went over to St. James’ for morning prayer and Mass. On the road in the early-day light were lines of women and children come to fetch water from a tap in the hotel grounds, carrying it home on their heads in two gallon yellow plastic containers. Over in school the church was packed with sleepy Massgoers. Attendance is compulsory for all, Catholics and non-Catholics, and is followed by the day’s announcements. As always I was caught unawares by the hissing noise made to get silence; I used to think it was derogatory but finally worked out it’s simply their version of ‘shush’. Afterwards I watched with Fr Alex, the headmaster, as the 600 lads filed along to their first class at 7.15; he can be stern when he needs to be but he was smiling as he described the thirty minute Mass as ‘very Irish – get them in and get them out’. They have a break at 8.15 for breakfast, then 50 minute classes starting at 9, 10, 11, 12 and 1.

Fr Alex hopes to bring a group of St James’ students to visit Ireland next year, finally closing that circle. We chatted through the supports and organisation that will be necessary. The barely-spoken fear is that we will not be able to get all of them visas. We had two Ghanaian teachers over last year and one of them, because years ago she was refused an entry visa for the UK, was at first turned down for Ireland. Thankfully there was a successful appeal and she got the paperwork the day before she travelled. Fr Alex will get his group to organise their passports and we’ll start the process as soon as possible.

The weather today is the coolest it’s been. Over the past ten days it’s generally been humid, but thankfully it’s never been ‘sweat-as-you-sit-in-the-shade’ kind of heat. We’re still consuming a lot of liquid: I’m waiting here for a water delivery organised by Ruth and Elaine (myself and Nisbet chuckled at the women doing the water). Yesterday and today, the group have accounted for ten cases of twenty-four 750ml bottles. So far – touch wood – we’ve all been healthy. A few had rocky days last week after forgetting to take the lettuce from their burgers, ironically when we treated them to dinner in a relatively expensive European-style pizza & burgers joint. But nobody has yet missed an activity, whether teaching, school or project visits. There was one case of tonsillitis which Elaine treated with antibiotics; the inflammation is now gone. Pray God we get another five days of this.

We’d a meeting the other night to mark the half-way point. Two themes emerged most strongly from the first week: the teaching, and the visit to Trede village school. Many commented on the sense of achievement of moving from the mutual awkwardness of the first day with the Ghanaian primary school kids, to the easy chatting and fun at the end; several spoke openly and movingly at their delight at greeting and being greeted by name on the street by the kids they were teaching, and their sense of loss at the farewell ceremony.

In Trede, the classroom facilities were shocking. The twentysomething Spiritan parish priest told me it is a very poor place, with many desperate people attracted to Pentecostal churches which promise great things. Spiritians, he commented, work in difficult places, and Trede is difficult. In one class where we introduced ourselves and asked if anyone had questions, a youngster stood up. He pointed to the tin roof, full of holes, and told us with customary formality overlying his barely-suppressed passion that proper learning could not take place when it rains or when the sun is baking down. None of us knew where to look. It was somehow worse that he was in this final weeks at school; aged 15 he’s gone from school even if the improvements do take place.

Today, back in Sunyani, the boys will be home for lunch at 12.00, change quickly out of their school uniforms, and be on the road as soon as possible after 12.30 to visit the mushroom project and a village afterwards. They might miss the World Cup semi-final which starts at 6.30 local time this evening, but then, if they’re not prepared to let that go without comment, they’re missing a bigger picture, and I don’t think they are. There’s similar debates here to what happened when Ireland didn’t qualify: the ‘that’s football get on with it’ versus ‘the injustice must be rectified’ approach. After the quarter-final, an almost eerie stillness descended on Kumasi with thousands of men walking home having watched it around televison sets in the open air. Some spoke angrily, most were silent. They’d seen this World Cup as Africa’s chance to break a glass ceiling; the outcome was hard to stomach.

At the mid-point meeting, the lads looked at me for a comment on a moment that had stood out for me. I’d to think about it: so many strong experiences. There’s the profound satisfaction, for example, that since 2004 St. Anthony’s in Bantama has turned from a group of semi-collapsed sheds into a simple but magnificent school, with its blocks of busy classrooms. For the Irish boys, it’s the way it is; for us who’ve been fortunate enough to watch it grow, it’s a miracle. The moment I mentioned as a highlight of the past week was a smile and a wave from the new principal, Mr Peter, as we passed one day. When we met him the first day he didn’t know what to expect, and was warily seeking to work out what to do with this big group of Europeans invading his school. Two days of watching the programme in action turned him into a convert; as I told the lads, he joined a long line of people who’ve being won over by the niceness of St. Mary’s students at their best.

Tuesday evening
A very heavy project visit this afternoon which one of the boys is writing up. It began with a visit to Bernard Bempah in Techiman, who trains women in income generation schemes such as mushroom growing and rearing rabbits, giant snails and grasscutters (bushrats) for eating. We went on to a village in the Wenchi district to meet some of the women. There people here are Islamic, originally from the north of the country. It was stone-age poor: mud huts, people dressed in rags, children with swollen bellies. No electricity, no running water, no practical way to transport surplus produce a few dozen miles to Techiman, one of the best-known markets in western Africa. There are water pumps, but the villagers say one is contaminated and the other doesn’t always work because the water table is very low. At the end the kids showed us a version of hopscotch and ampee, a game like paper-scissors-stone done through dance steps. Then they performed a dance for us; their mothers smiled for the first time as they kept time with claps. No drums here. An older man sat and watched, a small child nestled against him. At the end he thanked us for coming. He told Bernard that he didn’t come to them often enough, and asked him to come more often (Bernard, to his credit, translated this). He asked us to remind Aidlink about the water pumps not providing enough. All this with a gentle, stately dignity that belied the desperation of the message.

Later we spoke on the phone with Anne about the village. I’d been there before but it hadn’t seemed so close to the edge; the people today looked worn out. Anne reminded me that Concern Universal, previously our hosts in this area, are closing down their operation here. Their funding reduced in the recession, they’re cutting programmes. Previously they’d have been advocates for that village, providing training, support in dealing with the state, and a general safety net.