How is one supposed to feel? Part ONe

While socializing with the District Director of Agriculture (DDA) and some of his staff I mentioned, I can’t remember why, that I pay around 30% of my salary in income taxes. They had a great time with this bragging that in Ghana they don’t pay income taxes. Which I am not sure if it is accurate, I believe that the government employees do pay income taxes? But as a whole a very small portion of the population or businesses pay taxes, I heard. They may have been exaggerating to tease me.

My answer was “off course you don’t need to pay income taxes, you have the NGOs”

There was not much laughing after that.

The next day in a coaching session with the director we talked about a problem that is persistent in most districts. Most districts have fewer mottos than they have people on the road. The front line personnel, the Extension Agents, are the one travelling the most and meeting the farmers. In Chereponi there are 6 of them. Then there are DAOs and various “experts” that form the next strata of the administrative sandwich. Some of them are required to travel on occasion. In Chereponi the mottos are assigned according to seniority. The 4 available mottos are assigned to the 4 people who spend the most time in the office. None of the Extension Agents have a motto; not one from MOFA anyhow.

So I told the director that 3 years ago CIDA bought many mottos for MOFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture).  Some say that there was 1200 of them. To this day it’s hard to get a straight answer as to where the mottos are. Some say that there are still mottos waiting to be distributed, some just vanished. Some say that some districts close to the capital, everyone has mottos.

The point is that there is a certain amount of corruption and the main complain of the DDA and their staffs  is MOFA’s inability to distribute the mottos equitably and/or to provide the number of mottos the staffs in the field need.

We accept and hope that some mottos make it to the people they were intended to. How does it feel to know Canadian money was used this way? Whatever it is we feel, there is not much that either the DDA or myself  can do about it. But neither of us likes it.

“But how do you think it feels when I come in a district where there are so few mottos and they are not giving to the people who need them the most? Some of those mottos were bought by a Canadian agency .We know that if the Extension Agents had better access to transportation they would, maybe, help a few more family out of poverty? What’s more important; entitlement and seniority or helping as many people as possible out of poverty?”

“I understand that this is a cultural issue and it is very sensitive. It's not something that you can’t totally change; but this is something you have the power to influence. At the end of the day is about helping the less fortunate of your district? The people you drive by when you drive back home to Tamale on the weekend. The people who live around you, who live around the people with the mottos they don’t really need? This is something that you can influence, in your district.”

How does it feel? That’s what I am asking myself.

Cheers

TThe DDA Fellowship part 2 (or maybe 3); I Have a Dream:

I have been working with the DDA Fellowship for the past 2 months now. Early in my placement I participate in their third meeting of the year, in one of the session we did a Gap analysis to help us understand what kind of skills they are looking at acquiring and improving.

Last week we had our 4^th meeting. The morning was spent in getting an update on their personal district improvement initiatives and we also had a session on Project Management. With decentralisation they will be tasked with increased responsibilities. Since they will have more say on projects and their implementations it stand to reason that they will need a better understanding of Project Management as a whole. I put together a session that explained the major components of PM but also was about asking the right questions. If you have a projects what are the basic questions you should be asking as opposed to try to teach them specific tools.

It was well received; we decided on this session from the result of the previous session’s Gap Analysis.

 The afternoon we had a session with Erin Antclif, my fearless leader, informing the Fellows what’s in store for EWB in 2012. The main themes were:

1-     Building internal capacity to properly support our African Programs

2-     To be more critical in justifying the initiative that we are supporting

3-     Why is EWB here in Africa? To alleviate poverty, to help Dorothy…

Which was followed by a session, facilitated by Siera and Janine, where the Directors were asked to self-reflect on the Most Significant changes they have personally experience as a result of being part of the DDA Fellowship?

The last session, “The DDA fellowship, a Way Forward…” Was the most intense of them al. I started with a pep talk driving home 3 major points:

1-     They should be proud of the work they are doing in the type of condition they are doing it in.

2-     Their work is “Very Important”. When they improve their district, even just a little, it means that there are actual people in need that may be able to eat better or to send one of their children to school. They have a direct impact on Dorothy…

3-     …I Have a Dream to come back to Ghana in 15 or 20 years with my grand child (I haven’t cleared this one with Olivier yet) and not be able to find a NGO. I Have a Dream to come to a DDA fellowship and it’s not run by EWBers. The only EWBers are to ones coming to learn from the Fellowship.

Then I ask about the future of the DDA Fellowship; how could this Fellowship becomes their to own, little by little? How can we shape it for the next year so that it becomes a real fellowship where the more experienced Director help and mentored the others who needs it? How can we help them be proud not only to be a member of the fellowship but to be the ones building it?

I asked them for ideas so that next session, our last of the year, how we can come up with a direction or a vision for a way forward… I also asked them how they wanted to do this, talk in smaller groups? Do they want me to facilitate? Do they want to work on their own?

Doctor Dixon did stand up and told me that for this part I should step aside and they should, the Directors, run the session… I took charge and they went at it. I swear to you, I got a little misty; I was so proud.

They came up with some ideas, some that are pretty good. We could probably have done a better job at getting better ideas if we had facilitated the session. But now those are their ideas which make them much better. They own them.

I still have lots of work ahead of me before the next meeting in a few weeks. I poked at their pride and awaked something in them now we have to put that good energy to good use.

It’s back to my 3 main points:

1-     Be proud

2-     You and what you do, are important

3-     Share my Dream

Over and out for now

Dom

Making Shea Butter Part One

 I went back to Taha to attend the Farmer Group meeting a few days ago. On that occasion they also had the woman group attending. Some of the women are members of both groups.

The womens group is just newly formed and they process shea butter. Shea butter in Ghanian culture is used for cooking, as well as for healing skin rashes. They face some constraints and they hope that by pulling their resources together they can better their situation. As far as I can tell they have two major constraints; they have very limited money-if any-and they have to rely on a mill for part of the processing that is located miles away. They think that if they had their own mill they could increase their output / revenues.

The first part of the process is labour intensive; it consists of grossly crushing the nuts. The crushed nuts are then fried and they are ready to be transport to the mill. The women transport the nuts on their head all the way to the mill and back. From there is the long process of separating the solid from the oil and clarifying the butter. The butter is sold to the market in Tamale, 20 kilometers away.

Meeting with the Farmer and Women Group

 So Karie and I spent some time with them and with a stick I drew the whole process on the ground and ask many questions. I have a pretty good understanding of what it takes to make the butter however the quantitative information is very unclear. It’s difficult to assess how much butter is produced with a certain amount of nuts. They sell the butter in bowls that are piled high over the rim. The quantity of nuts they use will depend on how much they can afford or what is available and sometimes a batch is combines with the left over from another to complete a bowl.

Abdulai doing the translation

They show us a small bowl, left over from the last batch, and Karie and I were very impressed. I have to say that Karie in her previous life did own a bath product manufacture and she used to buy shea butter and would pay $60 a pound. Looking at the women’s group butter she was immediately impressed at the quality and the purity of the product. I evaluate, from my questioning, they are selling what amount to about 10 pounds for 10 Cedis ($7 Canadian Dollars).

But I don’t know for sure.

The women's group embracing the photography

So I decided on the spot to invest in them.  I lend them the money to buy a 50 kilos bag of nuts and the price of the processing; this amounts to 100 Cedis ($70 Canadian Dollars). I expect a small mason jar of butter as my interest payment. I explained to them that they need to measure the time it takes them for each steps and the exact amount of shea butter they will produce with that one bag. Once I have those measures I can evaluate how profitable making butter is. From there I can look at options with them and evaluate if buying a mill is a good option for them...

Those are beautiful strong women who work hard and live very humbly. They are not very different than we are. They are concerned about shelter, food and the future of their children.  They are concerned about making their life better for themselves and their family. The difference is that where they were born they don’t have the same kind of opportunities as we have. 

The bowl on the left is grounded Shea nuts, the second if the extracted oil and the small one is the butter

Here I have to take my learned skills, project management, accounting, Business Planning and reduce it to the simplest of expression.  All the same principles apply but it has to be understood with few words and perhaps a few drawing in the dirt.

Karie and I are very excited about this and we are already thinking of taking as many jar as legally possible in our luggage.

The Tale of the Missing Visa...

Karie Wylie is my life partner and is now visiting Ghana. I asked her to contribute to my blog with some of her impressions and thoughts.

I arrived six days ago in Accra and really, am here to see Dom and support him on his endeavour, hoping to share a tiny bit of his experience over here. It's a great opportunity for him, and of course, a chance for me to be a tourist in a country that is not known for it's tourist trade. I can't say it's a place that was high on my list of places to visit-nevertheless I am excited to see all that it has to offer.

 Getting here has been an adventure in itself. Before I left Canada I had hit speed bumps with the Ghanian High Commission in Ottawa. Despite applying almost a month before my departure date, my visa was not processed in time. They ask that you allow three to five day processing time-so I assumed 24 days was plenty of time. The High Commission was not answering their phones for the first fifteen days, so that shortened my window of opportunity down to nine days. They finally picked up on a Friday, 8 days before I was to fly and told me “we are moving today, call back on Monday”.

Of course, Monday they did not answer the phones again, despite me calling them with stalker like dedication. Tuesday they didn't answer either. I began to imagine the entire staff on the floor of the new office, victims of some sort of mysterious illness-but I was also concerned about my flights, so I went through the online staff listing and proceeded to leave messages on all the voice-mails I reached, leaving my name and number twice on each message-I went through the entire directory three times that day.

I didn't sleep that night. I now had four days left to get the visa not including the Saturday I was to leave-and still had not talked to the high commission directly.

Wednesday I started at 7 am Calgary time and called every half hour. I talked to Dom and gave him the lowdown. He remained optimistic on the phone with me but was calling often-so I knew he was worried. I didn't get a hold of them until 12:00 Calgary time and admittedly, when I heard an actual person on the end of the line, I was at a loss for words. I had, after all, gotten into the routine of leaving messages “This is Karie Wylie. I am calling about my Visa, I am scheduled to leave on Saturday. Please call me back at 403.... Again, this is Karie Wylie.....”

The human on the other end of the phone told me to hold while I heard her rustling through papers. I had hope, finally. She came back to the line to tell me “Oh yes, your Visa application is incomplete and we didn't know how to get a hold of you.” I tried really hard not to scream but I explained to her that I had been calling for over a week, and that the contact information was on the form, or at the very least on the return courier envelope I had supplied them with. She said it wasn't, that they had no way of contacting me-I just want my visa, so I took a deep breath and asked as politely as I could, what was missing from the application. “We don't know where you are staying while you are in Ghana”. I explained to her that I had sent four copies of the hotel reservation-she claimed not to have them.

She then went on to explain that I needed a resident of Ghana to “invite” me to their country and that person had to be a passport holder. Really? So tourism is non existent in Ghana? You can't just go and visit? I needed not only a letter in invitation, but a copy of the photo id of that person as well as a copy of that person's residency permit-and I had less than an hour to do all of this because they close at 3:00 sharp Ottawa time.

I called Dom immediately and cried into the phone, and through sobs I explained what I needed. Then a flurry on calls to and from Ghana resulted in one of the EWB members sending me photos taken with her cell phone, of the documents I needed, which I forwarded to the high commission with about 10 minutes to spare. “Okay,” she said on the other end of the phone, “Your Visa is ready. Now send a courier to pick it up after two tomorrow and you can have it on Friday.” I had already paid for one envelope-regardless- I called Fedex immediately, then called her back and talked her through the return address form, and hung up, but not before getting the tracking number.

Problem solved...I can sleep tonight. Of course, I didn't.

The next day, at 1:30, I called the high commission to make sure we were on track. “Yes, they have not picked up yet but it is not 2 so don't worry.” I called Fedex to confirm THEY were on target. Yup, Fedex was on board with the arrangement so I headed into a meeting.

I called again at 2:30 to confirm the pick up to which the person on the other end of the phone responded “Oh yes, he was here, but your Visa wasn't ready so we sent him away.”

Seriously? Really? What did you just say to me?

“It's no big deal” she said “ we will drop it off on the way home tonight and you will have it tomorrow.”

Uh huh-sure-of course you will.

18 hours later it was not in the Fedex system. It was supposed to be in my hands. My passport had been “misplaced” and they were back to not answering their phones. I was to leave in less than 24 hours, but had no Visa, and even more importantly, no passport. Was it in the backseat of someone's car buried under fast food containers or was it lost-really, really lost?m Of course, I assumed the worst, and while I was on the phone cancelling my flight reservation, it occurred to my I should probably cancel my passport also. So I did.

I then cried for a few minutes, while downloading the emergency passport application, and began to gather all the information to get a reissue of my passport first thing Monday morning.

My cancelled passport was delivered on Monday, two days after my scheduled departure date, Visa intact.

God bless the passport office for reissuing me a temporary passport by Wednesday and the Ghanian High Commission in TORONTO for issuing my visa in 48 hours.

I am finally in Ghana with Dom.

What am I doing in Ghana, part 2?

Last time I talked about the three first steps of changes:

1- Creating a sense of urgency

2- Building a coalition

and

3- Creating a vision

So how am I doing so far?

The House Calls:

I have visited with 3 of the seven DDAs (District Directors of Agriculture) so far. Amed Mohamed Adam in Kpendai, Dr. Savior in Karaga and Dr. Dickson in Kunpurugu. Each visit lasted at least a few days, sometime a whole week. I spent some valuable time with the DDA but also some time with some of their subordinates. On a few occasions I accompany a EAA (Extension Agent of Agriculture) in the field.

The first the objective of the visit is to find out from the DDAs' point of view what makes a good DDA and if the fellowship has either improved their skill set or had positive impact on the work they do. I also try to find the same information from their subordinates point of view.

The second objective is to engage the DDAs in a discussion about ownership of the fellowship; about the DDAs becoming the drivers as opposed to be be enthusiastic participants.

These are relatively simple objectives. The big challenge is to get to the “real” answers. Ghanaian have a long history of dealing with NGO and have a tendency to tell us what we want to hear (or what they perceive as what we want to hear). So the big challenge is to get to a better answer.

It is in part about story telling. Their stories and my stories. It's about asking about where they come from, their parents, ancestors, the land, their tribes, about how they live, and farm. It's about our children.

It is in part about building relationship. It's like engaging in a long courtship, about being patient. Once in a while between comparing notes on growing maze in the hilly region of Kungpurugu and my dad growing corn in Quebec when I was a child, the eyes get a sparkle and the door crack open a little and a question is ask and answered.

It's about pride and honour. It's about listening to their stories of perseverance, courage and past glories. Stories telling of the strength of their villages, of being together and looking after each others. Again when the sparkle comes into their eyes I remind them that it's not about Block Farm, NGO, free inputs and other programs; it about helping each other. It''s about looking out for your brothers and sisters.

The DDA Conference:

From our conference last August 16^th we had the directors do a gap analysis of the skill set that is required now compare to the skill set that will be needed after decentralization. The directors gave us a very good indication with this exercise of what skills the Fellowship should focus on for the near future.

For the next conference in a few weeks we are planning on having a session on Project Management among other things. We also plan on having a session on assessing the effectiveness of the DDA Fellowship. We also want to explore the logistic requirements of managing and running the fellowship and look at what requirements could be assigned to the Directors? I am preparing some of those sessions but Erin (my coach) Don (my motto riding instructor) and Siera (one of my surrogate daughters) will heavily weigh in with their wisdom.

By our last conference in late November all the ground work should be done to have the tools to create a vision for the Fellowship going forward. By then I will have visited all DDAs and hopefully we can propel the Fellowship into 2012 with the Directors at the helm.

Lots to do and so very little time. I feel that I am barely starting my work and already I see the end nearing.

Logging off,

Dom

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.