Day Nine

Day nine in Ghana, day five in Tamale and day three at Justice FM.

Since my arrival in Tamale, quite a lot has happened. In addition to losing Janey, staying at Razak’s house, and going to the Tamale prison (to visit), a few other things have happened.

Monday night, I took two retired American ladies from North Carolina out for dinner. I met them on the airplane and we have stayed in contact. The dinner was nice (they had fried rice and chicken). After that we went to check out the 5th Anniversary celebration of the church that I went to on the Sunday. They really enjoyed it, and one of the ladies went up for prayer to get saved! She was singing a song called “Hallelujah” that the choir had been singing for the entire ride home.

And about that ride home. I asked a cab driver whether he knew of the place that the ladies lived and he said yeah...he didn’t know, nor did he speak English at all. We were on our way out town when I realized. Eventually we found our way there, and then I returned to Razak’s house. The driver after all of that, for what should have cost 30,000 CD’s (paying the tourista price) asked for 60,000 CD’s...he didn’t get it.

What was funny is that I had been here for three days and I was being a tour guide for these ladies and translating between their accent and English for others, as well as Ghanian English for them. Not to say that I have it down...my friend’s cousin (who I met in Accra) sent me a text yesterday that said “Hey, do u know that most times I don’t know what u r saying? I just say ‘yeah’.”

Last night I went to the town centre after work. I was getting food for Razak and I, but had to wait for him while he was getting his motorbike fixed. I was sitting around by myself downtown and these two ladies selling apples told me to come and sit with them. I learned a lot about the whole breakdown of what they do on a day to day. We spoke (though it was not easy for them to understand me) about the purchasing price, the profit margin, the obstacles to advancing in business, their dreams (they want to open a store selling clothes and shoes). One thing that I noted was that they have this dream, but have written it off as impossible. Rent for a store is 3-15 million cds a month, they make 500 cds profit off of each apple they sell and you can eat for the day for about 10,000 cds and pay rent for about 50,000 cds...so the math doesn’t work. But there was no plan. Ideas of going to Accra and making the big money kept coming up, but I kept thinking of the Amnesty International presentation that we saw in Ghana which spoke of the intense exploitation that often happens of women from the North of Ghana heading to Accra to make it.

Eventually, Razak came to meet me on his new motorbike. Cruising along the main road, all of a sudden Razak turned and began to go the other way. In a flash I noticed, we slowed down and some police grabbing a hold of the handle bars. I stepped off of the bike and saw two officers, one with a big gun in his hands, very upset. They asked if they Razak wanted them to hit him in his head.

They brought the bike over to a little roadblock up ahead where a few other riders were negotiating and pleading with a group of about five officers, one of whom was a woman. I stood aside and waited, watching, but not worried. This was my second run in with the police (the first being at another road block that they had waved us past until they saw me in the back and figured they could get some money...the main officer settled for the phone number of the one young lady in our entourage before a truck crashed into the barricade allowing us to get out of there).

After about 15 minutes, they let us go. Apparently, we had been stopped because Razak had no helmet. He explained to the officers that he had just bought the bike that day, that he was from Radio Justice (which has a good relationship with the police via a friendly futeball match that they play againt eachother), and he was continually pointing me out to the officers saying, "look at him, he looks so sad". It worked. No money needed to be exchanged, but the bike would not start, so we had to walk it. While walking, Razak said "the reason that I slowed down was because they would have shot out my tires". I told him I don't want bullets coming near me for any reason. I don't think they really would have, but thank God he stopped...

As for Justice, I have a few story ideas and had a meeting with Razak and with Ramadan about some of the work that we are going to do.

To let you know, Ramadan works at Justice and is a very enthusiastic, very ambitious (and very popular) news reporter at the station. I think he is the person I will be working with most often, though there seems to be a few other people around who have an interest. Razak (as I mentioned before, is the station manager).

Ramadan really wants to get started on some stories and he seems like he is also keen on traveling for some stories. I have already spoken with them about adding an international news report focusing on Africa via the http://www.irinnews.com/ site.

Razak wants to see some workshops and he and I were speaking about some contacts in the city around human rights. As well, we were discussing some co-sponsorship ideas with community events and the station.

Oh, in terms of the home front aka the housing situation, good news...I have a plan! I am moving out of Razak’s place tonight. He seems sad to let me go, but he want me to do what’s best for me. He offered me a place in the compound he lives in that they could fix up. That’s love! However, I am going to stay in the guest house tonight in order to have some space and time for myself. I need to just have that. Yesterday, I went and saw a place that was basically everything that I was looking for (running water, electricity, a bed, a desk, a kitchen, and a nice area ). It is a room in a house with a family here, and is such a nice place. I really like the area, my only hesitation was not being out on my own. After being shown some big, empty places in the middle of nowhere with no water or electricity, I figure that the only way I am going to have my own place that I will be comfortable with is to stay in a guest house. The cost is literally ten times more per month at the guest house, which is still not dramatic; but the difference means more flexibility to travel.