Stern Reflections
A summer in Ghana
In the summer of 2018, I spent two months in Ghana to participate in a program at a local university in the city of Tamale. This venture was arranged through an inter-school partnership with McGill University.
I spent the majority of this time just outside of Tamale, in a rural community called Zanzugu Yipala. I left at the end of July deeply dissatisfied with my experience as I felt the program took on a performative nature, prioritizing the university's reputation over making a lasting impact on the lives of those living in the rural communities.
With this collection, I hope to bring attention to these communities and direct anyone interested in my work to two Canadian initiatives of Ghanaian heritage:
Huri Movement @huri_movement is an Afrocentric sustainable fashion brand and supporter of this project.
The Canadian African @thecanadianafrican is a fantastic resource for accessible and engaging learning all about vegan West African cuisine.
Stern Reflections is now a book that is available to read for free here.
Campus
A good portion of the time I spent in Ghana was at the university campus, located a short drive from the city centre of Tamale. I found the large, minimalist architecture of many of the faculty buildings and dorms pleasing to the eye, and enjoyed the presence of the goats and guinea fowl that frequented the grounds.
Tamale
Not to be confused with the Tyler, the Creator song of the same name, Tamale is the fastest-growing city in West Africa. In the centre of the city is a bustling environment with a number of markets, shops, banks, and other merchants that satisfy the needs of day-to-day life. Whether it's indoor supermarkets, outdoor produce stands, vendors selling waakye wrapped in leaves or faux designer items, you could find just about everything you needed in this area. A fond memory I have in the market was when my two friends and I found ourselves outside at the start of a summer storm, and a number of local women invited us into their shop to wait for the harsh rain to abate, passing the time with a board game.
Zanzugu Yipala
Zanzugu Yipala, the rural community where I stayed to conduct fieldwork, is located about fifteen minutes south of the university. It is split in half by a road running down the middle, a major highway that connects Tamale to Techiman, a smaller city not too far away.
On our first day there, one of the first things we did as a group was gather water from a well to use for our bathing and cooking needs (pictured right). After our initial trip to the well, one of the local students in our group began paying a child living in the community to bring him water from the well, dropping by on a bicycle to make the deliveries.
There were two wells we were given access to in the community; one across the road from our rooms and another at the community school. On our first walk to the school site, a group of children followed us and assisted with filling up the buckets with water.
Those of the students in our group who practice Islam would regularly attend prayer at the community mosque, conveniently placed right next to the classrooms (no longer in use) where we slept. Morning calls to prayer would often rouse me from my sleep at sunrise.
Pictured on the right is one of our group members cooking either TZ or kenkey, which are both corn-based staples eaten throughout the country. I remember watching her scrape the insides of the steaming hot pot with her fingers without even a wince – my McGill colleague and I yelped out, "Ow!" on her behalf.
PLASTIC
The ubiquity of single-use plastics has been imposed onto Ghana without fitting its infrastructure with the facilities and services required to conveniently stash away single-use waste from the public eye. Corporate influence has led to plastic becoming the most convenient and affordable means to package, distribute, and consume items, without equipping communities with proper strategies to handle its disposal. Waking up many mornings to the stench of burning garbage is something you never forget.
Shea nuts are collected in the community and sent off to another facility to be processed into shea butter.
We found while conducting our community survey that most of the residents' ailments concerned the poor quality of their water supply and access to healthcare.
During our survey collection one morning, an elderly resident said to our group something to the effect of:
"You students come here every year. You use our water and our resources then you leave, and nothing in the community changes for our benefit."
This validated my suspicions that we were part of a largely performative endeavour, and that the university's program was not a productive way of improving the lives of the community members.
Pictured: a student (left) interviewing the head of the household (right) during one of our morning survey rounds.
Thank you for stopping by. Please feel free to read and share the e-book Stern Reflections, available here.
If you enjoyed this project, please consider supporting Huri Movement and The Canadian African.
