"HOW'S WORK?"

Today I am at Justice FM, preparing to go to Accra for about a week. The purpose of this trip is to get some tests done to see what the issue with my abdomen is. While there, I will also be doing some interviews, researching some human rights contacts, and I plan to get my digital camera fixed. In addition to this I will visit some friends, check out what Denis and Jessica are doing at their respective placements and I will attend Action Faith Christian Ministries (which is a mega-church in Accra).

Up in Tamale, things are going slowly. Making progress has been difficult as I am not here to complete things on my own, I am here to partner with Justice staff to build infrastructure. I was speaking with a friend yesterday and I attempted to answer the question: “how is work going?”, and I realized that there is a lot to say about this.

Before I say anything, I have to tell you all that I am loving the experience up here and the station staff have made me to feel so comfortable. They help me with anything that I express a need for, have given me a comfortable office, and tea and bread every morning is a nice treat. There are a number of obstacles that I have come up, but I just deal with them and they have really not bothered me. It is not something I thought about too much until, as I said, I attempted to tell my friend ‘how work is going’.

Firstly, I have not gotten any stories completed yet. When I finally sat down with Ramadan (the main reporter that I will be working with), and we made a plan to begin a few stories, he got malaria. He has come in to fulfill basic duties eventhough he is not feeling well, but when ever I see him, he looks really run down. I could go out and complete the stories on my own, but that would defeat the point.

Recently, I also started to work on a project with the marketing department. The project began as I sat in the on-air studio watching one of the afternoon presenters do their show. One the presenter duties is to do what are called “Live Presenter Mentions” (LPM’s). LPM’s are advertisements on had-written and/or typed scripts that are read live on-air. The current system is a folder full of LPM’s that are often selected at random and read. Clients pay for these ads to be read on-air; some are getting read more than the times they have paid for and some are not getting read at all. While there is a bit of communication between the presenters and the marketing department about what should be read on their shows, that communication is inconsistent for many reasons (sometimes people aren’t around, or they’re busy, or they don’t ask ,etc.).

The system that I suggested is an excel sheet that has the show time, show name, numerous spaces for the titles of the LPM’s to be read during that slot, and space to sign and date when an LPM is read.

This system replaces the ‘go into the folder and read what ever you decide to read system’ and gives a schedule and accountability. This is important for the progression of the station and directly affects the human rights and news reporting here. Recently, while doing an interview on the topic of HIV/AIDS, we were down the street at a local maternity clinic. When we mentioned that we were from Justice FM, the women that ran the clinic began to complain that their LPM’s were not being read. They came to us with the receipt for their ads and expressed that they had not heard mention of the services they were relying on the station to promote on-air at all. That was my personal experience, however, I am aware that there are many businesses with similar complaints. The proposed system would eliminate such occurrences, and would also provide clients with documentation that they can come to the station and check.

Ibrahim, the marketing officer, met with me and we worked on completing this system. While I followed up with him to have it implemented, I was surprised to find that he was no longer working at the station. I am not sure of the circumstances surrounding his resignation, but from the rumblings that I heard in advance, it is not an ideal situation.

So we await the hiring of another marketing officer, and in the meantime, Wisdom is fulfilling Ibrahim’s former duties. I have met with Wisdom about the system, and he seems to be on board.

And technical difficulties…we have our share of those. While I have running water at home, we don’t have running water at the station. Apparently, the water shut off of here about a year and a half. It has not come back on yet. In 2008, Ghana (and the new stadium that they are building) will be hosting the African Cup. This date seems to be the projected timeline for fixing everything in Tamale. Speaking with an employee of the company that is installing the pipelines and tap water infrastructure confirmed this. Even the paved roads that go through the core of Tamale have been attributed to upcoming tournament. So, I have an office with a TV, a computer and air conditioning, and have to go across town to use a toilet. Far more concerning is the hundreds or thousands of people that live in this area who are:

1) Using water in their locality that is not safe
2) Traveling across town to collect water for daily use
3) Going without when ever possible (at the cost of important hygienic care)

While we have the amenities of computer, television and air conditioning, every once in awhile, the municipality just shuts off the power. That means the computers are shut down without warning and the transmission from station comes to a cease until the power is turned back on. There was one time that I was in a taxi and the driver wanted to hear our news broadcast. He turned the dial to 98.5 FM and found that it was just static as the power was off.

We also have a driver whose name is Soldier. Apparently, he really is a solider for a traditional army. When we drive down the dstreet (which is rare, people always call out ‘Sol-jah!’). For the past few days the car has been working, but from the first day I got to Tamale, there has been problems. Upon arriving at the Tamale airport, I waited for close to two hours before Ramadan and I decided to take a taxi to the station realizing that the car was not coming. Since then, there is almost always something wrong with the car. Flat tire, dead battery, empty tank, mystery problem…battery died, again, another tire is flat...Being that station employees don’t get paid tremendously well, there is an unwillingness toward taking a taxi (even if I offer to pay) in order to complete stories, so the reliability of the car is affecting the morale in terms of doing stories.

And my computer…everyday it is something with my computer. There seems to be a few people who come in and use it for all kinds of things. Some people use it to burn CDS, or exchange software, or to surf the net. One employee had a child in here with him trying to download some sort of internet TV station as the child was bored of the only two stations that they have up here. The result is that the computer has been full of viruses. Everyday it is something else. One day, the internet connection is not on (that happens all the time!). Another day, the computer is just shutting off. Week by week there is always new software on the computer. The programs that were just added after reformatting the computer are outdated and do not allow you to use much of the internet. Loading time per page is about 5 minutes at this point. I am not sure how this will get posted or when at this point.

People have suggested that I lock the office, but I found out that there is no point in locking the door. For one, other people who use (and abuse) the computer have keys. More amusing is the fact that there is a sliding door beside the main door that has broken locks on it. If the door is locked, people walk through the sliding door. What confounded me about this is that I used to lock the door at the insistence of station management, who would ask me, “Chris, did you lock your door?”. When I found out (after a couple of weeks) that the sliding door can not be locked, I really wondered why they were so persistent on that matter.

On a positive note, it seems that the issue of employees not getting paid is an issue of the past due to a contract secured by the General Manager that will bring more funds into the station.

While writing this, Ramadan came in to my office to inform me that a close friend of his and fellow reporter at the local station FILA FM, passed-away last night from malaria. It is quite a sad time here as a result. This is actually the second death in the past week, as the technician for Savanah FM that installed our control room at Justice also passed away unexpectedly. I spent some time this morning speaking with Ramadan, who is quite shaken up about this. His friend, Greg, actually asked to see him yesterday, but Ramadan was not feeling well enough to visit him. That has him feeling guilty. He remarked to me, with a sullen look in his eyes that, “life is strange”, adding that, “I don’t like it”. I shared a poem with him that I wrote recently for someone else who passed back in Canada last year. It was helpful, but he is also just going to need some time.

I will be in Accra for about a week (and I am looking forward to meeting up with Denis, Jessica and Ato of JHR, as well as Anita, Emmanuel, the Ackerson family, Nana aka Chedda, and TJ). I will do my best to be back here Friday, as Ramadan would like me to attend the wake and the funeral for his friend. What is life? Use these moments as the treasures that they are.