What am I doing in Ghana, Part One?

The MOFA team, the group of EWBers working with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana, has worked with the District Directors of Agriculture (DDA) to create a fellowship between them. This is one of the many projects the MOFA Team works on. They had their first Fellowship in 2010; 7 DDAs participated and they met 5 times over the year. The goal is to create managerial capacity; by having DDA with better skill sets. This year 7 DDAs have signed up for the fellowship, 3 are returning from last year. We are had the 3^rd meeting of the year on August 16^th. As part of this year's program they were asked to create an improvement initiative for their district and they have to report on it each time we meet.

We believe it can have an important impact in the farmer's lives. If by better managing their Extension Agents (the EA are the ones visiting the farmers and delivering the services) we hope that more or better services will be delivered to the end users; the farmers

My task is to evaluate if the DDA is working and being effective? Also, we want to give the fellowship a direction that will impact more DDAs. In the Northern Region, were we work, there are more than 20 Districts. At the present the Fellowship depend entirely on EWB's leadership and money. We also provide the content of these meetings. Instinctively I would say that the Fellowship is working but this is not based on hard evidences.

Although we will try to evaluate the positive impact the Fellowship has in the districts we also want to get them to take ownership for the program and use this as a measure of success.

How Will we be doing it?

Between now and December I will be working on the first three steps of changes.

1. Creating a sense of urgency: As mentioned before by making the transfer of ownership and leadership a measure of success we can make it clear that we won't be supporting the program if it doesn't succeed. Therefore they have to start taking action or it won't exist.
2. Building a coalition: I am already working with 2 of the DDAs. I believe that they both understand the necessity to create ownership within the Fellowship. Some of the key points:
   1. Taking ownership, start assuming some of the functions that the group needs to operate (little by little).
   2. Have some of the senior Fellows to take over some of the teaching.
   3. Find a way to keep the past participants informed and active.
3. Creating a vision: For this part they will have to come up with it. We want them to be proud of their Fellowship; They are very capable and very smart people. Most of them are a lot smarter than me... they shouldn't need me. ;)

More to come...

The Village Stay, Conclusion:

So I spent a few more days with my adoptive family. Good hard working people with beautiful kids. By the time I left I was used to the Ramadan and didn't mind not eating or drinking for the whole day. I got wiser in my spending of energy. Memunatou got used to me not finishing my servings and when she realized that I was enjoying my porridge she served me industrial quantity of the stuff. One night she served me a bowl of porridge that I measure to be 2.5 litres. Even the next morning I couldn't finish it.

I made an effort to finish my meat. I got used to have Memunatou barging in my room. I also got used to have kids following me around and constantly laughing at me and me laughing with them. Memunatou got used to me helping with the little ones. She felt comfortable enough to directly ask me (or as direct as sign language can be) to care for her 4 months old son because she wanted to be sewing. Itisam, the 4 years old, help me and we took turn singing song to her brother, me in French and her in Dag-bani Her sister Suraya joined in and before long all three were asleep on my bed.

What happen when you let the kids use the camera...

Abdulai made me a hand written list of key Dag-bani words and greetings with their English translation. Mamunatou went to great length to patiently teach me new words everyday. I may have not liked some of the food but I certainly can appreciate the great generosity and kindness of these people. When I was packing and getting the motto loaded for the trip back, Itisam was crying and wanted to come with me.

I got introduced to more people, met more of the community leaders and I got to spend some time with Abdulai's farmer group. I met about half of the group of 43 farmers and found out that they started this spring and are meeting once a week under a big mango tree. Each of them contributes 10 Pesewas (7 cents Can.) every week to their piggy bank. This season the are farming together 2 acres of rice and they dream of owning a tractor. I drew on the gravelly ground a picture of a tractor with a stick. 30 feet away from the tractor I drew 2 square representing 2 acres. I explain as well as I could that that it's great that they have a dream and now they can create a plan to get the tractor. How many acres will they need to get enough for a down payment? Can they do 10? Can they do 50? Is the land available? Can they store the grain so it fetches a better price later in the year?

So I committed to help them with a business plan. There are a few programs available to help the farmers buy equipment but I have to find out how much of a down payment they need? I'll squeeze some of the extension agents I met, event the few Directors I work with for information. Between trips to the country side I'll stop in Taha to visit. I'll probably attend a few of their Friday night meetings.

Marielle, Siera, Don, Erin, Janine and all the others we form a good team and we are looking after each other as much as we can. I am glad that I have them looking out for me. But strangely enough, for the good and the bad, spending time with Abdulai and Mamunentou's family is the closest thing that I have here that feels like a family. We often, almost always, hear people coming back from a placement talk about their new mother and father. About their adoptive family. Unfortunately I won't be spending long enough in any community to live in a family. But I guess I found a place I can almost call home for the next 3 months.

When I was packing and getting the motto loaded for the trip back, Itisam was crying and wanted to come with me. Mamunatou told me that both her daughters want me to marry them. I told her that I like my wives to be on the mature side and preferably on the legal side. Beside I would have to clear it with Karie and probably convert to the Muslim faith... They are probably better finding, in a few years of course, a nice boy from the village.