Hillary, Ellen, and Who?

Column time! It was published here first, and below second:

When I started working at GO in July, it was hard to move in our office without tripping over a young woman reporter. I think of the period between July and October as “attachment season,” during which our paper hosted seven enthusiastic young women journalists gaining their first practical experience in the field. Except for one who stayed to do her National Service with GO, these formidable females have all left our office, returning to finish their studies or heading to other media houses to complete their own year of service.

Even without our knot of newly minted newsies, the ratio of women to men on GO’s staff is pretty impressive; we’re as close to a 50-50 split as you can get with a staff of 13. For now, all the management positions are held by men, but I’m confident some of my female colleagues will see their names followed by “Editor” some day if they so desire.

I’ve been pleased to see that journalism isn’t the only profession where Ghana’s women are finding opportunities to rise in the ranks and make a difference, not only in their own lives, but that of their country; I’ve been treated by women doctors and stopped by women police officers at checkpoints. I’ve sought advice from women lawyers, enjoyed the hospitality of women restaurateurs and hoteliers, and encountered countless women holding important positions in NGOs doing important work.

With so much impressive womanpower in the economy, I’m shocked by the lack of women interested in holding one particular position: President of Ghana.

Health Care that Cares

Annoyingly, my column from November 14 appears never to have made it onto the GO website (presumably because we have had to resort to dialup since our broadband went kaput) so I’m going to leave a chronological gap and fill it in once it’s up. In the meantime, the next column was published here, and can be read below:

Regular readers (if I have any) will have noticed that I often fill my column inches with criticism of Ghanaian governance. I hope it is clear (for it is certainly true) that this criticism stems from my affection for Ghana and her people. It’s precisely because I care about Ghanaians that the failures of their leaders make me irate.

I don’t, however, feel irate today. No, today I thought I’d share one of the experiences that has made me so fond of Ghana. As I mentioned last week (assuming again that you were reading), my mother visited me here last month. She had a wonderful time, though things didn’t go at all as planned. Her fifth evening here, we were walking along a street near my home on our way to dinner, when I stepped over a gap in the pavements covering the gutter. I called out “Careful!” so my mother would do the same. Carefully watching her feet as she followed me, my mother looked up at my warning, and in the process failed to see the gap. She fell in the gutter, and cut her left leg quite badly.

In the Name of Tourism

As a result of technical difficulties, my column for this week was never published on the Ghanaian Observer website. So, here it is as I originally wrote it:

In Ghana, much is done in the name of tourism. For months, Accra residents have braved endless traffic jams so roads can be improved in time for CAN 2008 and its influx of visitors. In recent weeks thousands of people in the city have had their homes and businesses demolished by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in order to “clean up” the city for the same event. One of my favourite Accra billboards even advises passers-by to use condoms to prevent AIDS so they can “live to enjoy tourism.”

I see no problem with using tourism as a justification for safer sex; if it works, I’m all for it. Traffic jams are a part of urban life no matter where you are, so I can’t sensibly complain about that either. I am, however, appalled at the wholesale abuse of Ghanaians’ rights to housing and livelihood in the name of a football tournament. The AMA’s related announcement that it plans to “rid Accra of lunatics” by January has me similarly concerned.

But I am also surprised. Surprised that a country that justifies public human rights abuses and attempts to influence private sexual decisions with the holy grail of tourism promotion isn’t trying to improve tourists’ experience in the most obvious place.

Time Machine

I promised I would fill you in on stuff from the last couple of months (in chronological order this time!), so here’s a start. It’s funny (or apt, or convenient or all of the above) that the first weekend I need to recap shared almost the exact same itinerary as this past weekend. Not much happened during the two weeks following our trip to Togo, except for a series of unscheduled blackouts, and Yom Kippur (which, apart from a contemplative morning walk, was mostly spent reading Harry Potter; almost definitely not the fast that God has commanded, but about all I could manage in the absence of other Jews). The last weekend in September, however, Kevin had arranged to travel to Accra and spend some time out at Buduburam, where he wanted to make a documentary about the basketball court out there. Me being me, I decided we ought to turn our camp excursion into a full weekend away. And so, a plan was born: Kevin, Mia and I would head out to Buduburam Saturday morning, and after a few hours out there travel a short distance back toward Accra to spend the rest of the weekend on the beach at Kokrobite, spending the night at a backpacker’s hangout known as Big Milly’s Backyard.

The Hike to Higher Education

So apparently I can’t even manage to update my weekly column on this blog, let alone write anything new for it. Here’s this week’s screed (published here), and the previous two weeks are posted below it. I hope to be actually blogging soon (this weekend perhaps?), but in the meantime hope I can tide you over with the following:

I try to travel out of Accra as much as I can on the weekends. There’s so much to see in Ghana, and I spend so much of my week in Labone (location of both my office and apartment), that I feel an irrepressible urge to plan my next trip almost as soon as I return from my last. So far, I’ve spent time in Ghana’s five southernmost regions—on beaches, in forests and villages, under waterfalls, along riverbanks and lake shores. Recently, as the temperature in Accra has increased, I’ve headed for the hills, where morning breezes and evening chills provide welcome relief from Accra’s morning hazes and evening sweats.

The cooler temperatures aren’t the only highlight of my trips to higher altitudes. Not surprisingly, hiking is a major activity in hill country, and cheerful, charming, and cheap guides are easy to come by. For a few Ghana cedis, my travelling companions and I have been able to engage delightful locals to show us their areas, share their stories and secrets, and, usually, become our friends.

While I am always interested to learn what the guides have to teach us about our natural surroundings (the life cycle of a cocoa tree, the appearance of a pineapple plant) I have learned just as much by getting them to talk about themselves.