I don't think that red light means what you think it means.

I have returned.

Though it has been fewer than six months since my last visit to Ghana, I am very glad to be back.  Even in that short time frame, I have noticed changes.  Previously, I lived in a place near Dzorwulu called "Fiesta Junction", not because they throw wild Cinco de Mayo street parties, but because it is by the Fiesta Royale Hotel.  You can still direct a cab to the Fiesta Junction, but there is a new common name:

Dzorwulu - Traffic Light.

This is because the traffic light there now works.  Brilliant.  Of course, whether or not people stop for red is a different question.

I still live in Dzorwulu, but in a different part that's a bit more convenient for transportation and purchasing basic goods--no more need for frequent trips to the Accra Mall, which is close to Fiesta.  I also now have another semester's worth of Twi vocabulary, so taxi rides are getting even more interesting.

Me: M'aha madamfo, wc ho te s3n? [Good afternoon, my friend, how are you?]

Driver [not as stunned as previously, due to my improved accent]: Me ho y3.  Na wo nso3? [Good, and you?]

Me: Mepes3 me kc Engen filling station Adabraka, ehene na Museum.  3y3s3n?  [I want to go to the Engen filling station in Adabraka, near the Museum.]

Driver: Cedi nnotwe.  [Eight cedis.]

Me: Daabi, daabi, o!  Ne boc ed3n!  Te me so kakraa.  Cedi num. [No!  That's too expensive! [insert play-acting] Lower it for me. Five cedis.]

Driver: Daabi, daabi [litany of excuses here].  You pay six cedis.

Me: Aane. [Okay].

Driver: [several words of Twi I don't know]

Me: ...

Driver: Oh, so you know enough to get a good price?  That is very smart.

Me: Yes. I can also ask where you're from.

Driver: You look Asian.  Are you from Japan/Korea/Singapore/China/Korea/Republic of Korea?

Me: My family's from the Philippines.

Driver: Oh! So you are like Pacquiao!  Manny Pacquiao!

Me: Yeah, I guess. Maybe.

~~

The drivers here are generally nice, and because of my location I get to explore new areas of Accra that I have not previously visited such as New Town.  New Town is a bit of a misnomer, and could properly be called Re-Used Town because many of the shops and dwellings are constructed from re-used shipping containers and materials.  Of course, the "new" part indicates that this is an expanding part of Accra.  Urbanization, right there.  And Accra is a Millennium City.

A funny thing happened on a rainy night drive through New Town:

Driver: So [Houston?], we have a problem.

Me: What?

Driver: My headlights don't work.

You might wonder, why didn't we notice this before?  Well, given that cab headlights are so dim to begin with, they're more there so that other cabs will have at least 10 feet's notice before hitting us rather than lighting the actual way.

Driver [we're going about 15mph]: I'm not sure here.  What should we do?

Me: You're asking me?

Driver: Yes.

Me: Uhhhhh.  Oh, turn on your hazards!  So people can see us.

Driver: Oh, that's good.

We drive for another 10 minutes.  I'm okay with this, and we're not going that fast.

Driver: Actually, I think I will find you another cab.

Me: What, really?

Driver: Yes, I don't think this is safe.

Me: Seriously?

I am pleasantly surprised.  This driver actually cared more about my safety than making money off the fare.  I got into another cab, and made it safely to my destination.

No matter times you travel to a place, there is always room for surprises.  For instance, the pace of technology has picked up remarkably over the past few years.  I still have my first Ghanaian cell phone: a basic Samsung.  I did three things with it: (1) make phone calls, (2) text and (3) play Jewel Hunter.  And I thought those things were awesome.  Maybe they still are.  I got a second phone a year after that, but it had basically the same functions: I switched to have the most popular network in Ghana.

Now I have a Droid here.  It has a camera, Internet, can be used as a wi-fi hotspot.  I am tempted to set up a Twitter account so I can post photos and messages, and then have them imported into Facebook all from this phone. Look at how far we've Ghana.

Perhaps for my next post I will take photos every five minutes of my morning commute and post them to Facebook.  Caption contests?  And, yes, I do have the DSLR with me, but it's just slightly inconvenient to take to work.  But, from a more academic standpoint, there are numerous papers, which I may discuss here later, about citizens using mobiles to hold their politicians accountable. It's fascinating stuff.

~~

I will be in the country for 10 weeks, working on PhD dissertation research.  On previous trips, I have employed mostly survey methods, but this time I will work on ethnographies.  Such work starts right at the beginning of the day with my commute.  This summer, I plan to take mostly tro-tros and shared taxis to work, experiencing what people in many developing countries do every day.  Tro-tros carry around 20 people.

But I guess there's no need to worry about our headlights.  We can light the way with our phones.

Soon to be Ghana

So I will be departing Ghana later this evening, but I will write a summary post once I return to my apartment. The research has gone better than expected, though I would have liked a bit more travel time out of Accra In any case, I'll be here for the summer. Internet has been a bit slow lately, so I haven't been able to post photos--but will do so as soon as I can!

Ghanaian politics has been more exciting than usual this past week: the Attorney General was recently sacked for unsubstantiated comments made about the Mills government (though really someone should look into the basis for those comments) and the ruling NDC party holds its primaries today.

See you stateside.

Off to Kumasi

Apologies for the lack of updates this past week. The work days have been quite arduous--Ministry test surveys started on Tuesday, and are coming along well. Luckily, I have a most excellent research officer to administer the interviews, but there's a bit of footwork on my end to coordinate times and other survey logistics. Also, visits to various Minister offices have turned out better than expected (I'm setting up summer research plans already), and I'm certainly excited to start putting the next phase in motion.

In contrast to previous projects, I've also gone in to Accra almost every night this week, revisiting many of my favorite places. I justify this by the fact that January is technically Harvard's break period, and when I get back (in 10 days, argh) I'll be immediately starting spring semester. Of course, January break hasn't stopped some of my professors from adding on assignments to their not actually finished fall courses. You know who you are. Besides, I'm in Accra. Fieldwork in Africa >> coding/despairing in freezing Cambridge.

Speaking of favorite places, I'll be flying to Kumasi this weekend to see some old friends. I lived there for a couple months in 2009, and it will be interesting to see how things have changed in the past two years. Though some things haven't changed--when I called my old hotel (Sanbra Hotel--really awesome place, will post pics in next update) to book my favorite balcony room, the receptionist recognized my voice within five seconds. That's what I call hospitality. I'll also be sure to take some photos around the city. I haven't really lugged my camera around Accra because I feel that it's riskier and there are fewer photos to take, anyways. But I'll bring it to Ministries next week as I think my funders want photos of the surveys in action. Survey papers are more awesome when there's bokeh involved. Then you throw in the sepia tones. And the crowd goes wild.

Anyways, I'll update again over the weekend. Tomorrow afternoon's flight should be interesting. As far as I know, we'll be running Saab 340 equipment. A versatile prop-jet but we'll also be flying into some thick harmattan dust. I might have an unhealthy fascination with developing-world aviation. Once on a flight from Kumasi to Accra we had to weave around columns of smoke just north of Accra due to forest fires. It was kind of fun. Too bad grad school gets in the way of the pilot's license.

Kwekus Reunited

This afternoon, I met up with my old friend, Thomas, with whom I worked during my very first research trip to Ghana. Here we are in July 2008, at the Port of Takoradi:

And now here we are today, more mature as researchers, and--yes, hard to believe--even more dashing:

In case you were wondering, Thomas and I were both born on Wednesdays. In Ghana, children are frequently given names according to the day of the week on which they were born; for Twi-speakers, Kweku is a name typically given to a boy born on Wednesday. So this makes us Thomas Kweku and Joe Kweku.

Thomas is finishing up his PhD at Cambridge in Criminology. Look for him to have a very positive effect on Ghana in the years to come.

Minor Differences

Apologies for not posting these past couple days--things have been quite busy, but I am happy to report that my surveys look like they will run on schedule, starting next week. I completed the sampling and recruitment today, and should be able to finalize the instrument tomorrow.

Finalize the instrument. Great phrase. I think it will become my "clear the mechanism". Right before I finally throw that perfect game.

That said, these past few days I've had time to reflect on how Ghana, specifically Accra, is different from my last visit, over 18 months ago. I don't think there are any glaringly huge differences; naturally, I expect there will be new things given the country's development, but nothing overly unexpected.

As they apply to me, the differences noticed in this research assignment compared to previous ones are fairly minor. Except that they are not.

Of course, there are language differences between British English that's spoken here and the American English I grew up with (up with which I grew?), so I won't elaborate there, but, as an aside, I've never really understood the rationale for calling the letter 'z', 'zed'. My roommate and I have had this debate.

Tell me, what's the first letter in the word, 'zed'? RECURSIVE MIND IMPLOSION. YOU'RE WELCOME.

And of course there's the difference in how you count the stories of a building. Here, the first story is above the ground floor. But, really, how many stories does this building have? Come on.

Okay, enough of that. On to the real stuff

.

(1) Living in Dzorwulu v. Living in East Legon

Currently, I live in a district called Dzorwulu (pronounced JOR-loo), specifically at the Fiesta Junction because there is a nearby hotel, the Fiesta Royale, that is as ostentatious as it sounds. It's a nice area, right on the northern fringe of Accra, just south of the Accra-Tema motorway. For reference--and another difference--that motorway is officially called the George Walker Bush Highway. But I have never heard anyone call it that. Minor difference.

A stone's throw away, on the other side of the highway, is East Legon. Of course, by a stone's throw, I mean if I picked up a small, very aerodynamic pebble, had gale force winds at my back and had the shoulder ligaments of Aaron Rodgers I might be able to propel it into East Legon around the 246th iteration.

East Legon is similar to Dzorwulu, a residential area, though perhaps a bit ritzier. But the differences are astronomical.

Traffic. Getting OUT of East Legon can take over 90 minutes during rush hour. Getting out of Dzorwulu takes to the end of this sent--. Why so long to get out of East Legon? As a ritzy residential area, everyone has cars, no one car pools and the 2-3 miniscule exits simply jam. A perfect non-political example of one of my personal political maxims: persons are smart (I want to have a car because I've made it!), people are not (WHY DOES EVERYONE ELSE HAVE A CAR?!). And then you have to cross the Tema Motorway, which is itself ridiculous.

Electricity. In East Legon, the power would go out for 14 hours at a time. But that's not a problem if you have a generator, and most people do. (If you can't tell, I didn't.) This also has interesting political implications. Why demand electricity from your representative or your local bureaucrat, when you can just buy your own generator and fuel? The same goes for paving roads, which are hit or miss in East Legon.

This makes me wonder--East Legon has experienced a rise in violent and property crime recently. Maybe if residents are lacking in local, civic engagement, then there's less incentive to watch out for others, for your neighbors? Less chance that someone will report a crime they witness? This used to happen in New York in the 70s and 80s. Sometimes those social networks are the best safety nets.

Dzorwulu, on the other hand, has got the electricity and water and feels safe so far. The first two haven't gone out yet ... but I'll probably regret that statement shortly. Of course, my landlord informed me that these things don't go out here, because the ex-President lives in this neighborhood. So maybe you just have to be near someone really powerful.

(2) Twi in cabs v. English in cabs

This past semester, I took a course in Asante Twi: just the basics, introductions and chit chat, so far, but I've decided to deploy my new "skills" on some of my favorite people: taxi drivers.

As I've mentioned before, being obviously non-Ghanaian--it's my accent, naturally--results in me receiving the tourist discount (read: 200% markup) on taxi rides. There are no meters here; you have to negotiate the price in advance.

The first cab ride I took I did not deploy Twi--and subsequently got burned in the wallet. However, this guy did not have a radio, so we sat there in awkward silence.

Awkward, awkward silence.

And then I had an idea.

Me: Madanfo, wo din de s3n? (My friend, what is your name?)

Driver [STUNNED]: Uhh, uhh ... my name? Uhh, me din de ... Obi--?

Me [wishing I could ask if he were the Ghanaian Obi-Wan Kenobi]: Wo firi hene? (where are you from?)

Obi-wan: Me firi ... Eastern Region.

That's right, Obi-wan. The force is strong in this one.

We eventually switched to English, and he turned out to be pretty cool. Told me to hire his cab next time--he's stationed at the Government Ministries, where I'm surveying, so maybe I'll find him and he can give me the Ghanaian rate. As you saw in my last post, cab drivers really remember you.

Also, I think this should be the real final exam in Twi. Use your skills to get the Ghanaian rate from a cab driver. The lower the price, the higher your score.

Today (Friday) was casual Fridays at the Ministries. No joke. Basically everyone wears their kente patterns to work. I brought one kente shirt along specifically for this purpose, so I wore it today, looking extra Ghanaian. I hail a cab in Dzorwulu; this conversation followed.

Me: Maakye, madanfo, mepes3 me kc Ministries. (Morning, my friend, I want to go to Ministries.)

Driver: [Eyes widen, bursts into laughter]

Me: Eyes3n? (how much?)

Driver: Ministries. 10 cedis.

Me: Daabi. Cedi nnotwe. (No. Eight cedis.)

We settle on nine. Still high, but an improvement. Later today I got eight. The driver proceeded to call a friend, and talk excitedly. I'm not sure what about, but in my mind it goes like: "DUDE YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS I HAVE A TWI-SPEAKING OBRUNI HERE".

Let's see what I can pull off after another semester.

(3) Government Department v. Kennedy School.

Okay, this one is an old one, but it is a distinction I must frequently make. In fact, a few years ago the then-G2s in my department created a holiday video lampooning this difference.

I have a very good friend who was at the Kennedy School many years ago. He's one of my Harvard connections, and has been so helpful since the day I first met him, four years ago. However, he often still introduces me as an HKS student rather than the much-more-difficult-to-say Government Department of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Really, some benefactor needs to endow GSAS and give it a simple name so that we can rival Kennedy.

So introductions sometimes go like this.

Friend [to important official]: This is my good friend, Joe. He is a PhD student at the Kennedy School at Harvard!

Me: Well, actually ...

Official: The Kennedy School! That's brilliant! There are so many important people who go through there, and I really hope to get there one day--

Me: That's really great, but--

Official: And they have the Institute of Politics! (Me, mentally, you've heard of the IOP?) With all those speakers. And the professors must be top notch. How are your classes? How are things at the Kennedy School?

Me [wondering about those IRB warnings on use of the Harvard name]: They're absolutely splendid.

Now, I have a lot of friends at HKS and my first research job was there, so I like that place a lot. It's a great school. I know other academic political scientists might be less open to the practice-oriented policy schools.

Maybe we should just merge. At least it would make my life easier.

(4) One mosquito in your room v. Zero mosquitoes in your room

Despite my investment in a permethrin mosquito net and mosquito coils, last night I found a mosquito in my room. Now having battled something that felt like malaria twice, I, a usually very calm person, freak out a bit--probably because there was no one around to see me.

Naturally, these exact thoughts go through your mind:

(a) This mosquito clearly has malaria.

(b) It will bite me repeatedly rather than just leave and feast on other less protected people.

(c) My net will fail. So will the coil.

(d) Those mefloquine anti-malarials are placebos. I haven't had any crazy dreams yet. They're not working.

(e) Something just brushed my--OH MAN I'VE BEEN BI--false alarm.

I then spent about half an hour trying to kill by swatting anything that resembled a mosquito, that had shadows like a mosquito. Let's just say there are a lot of pulverized dust bunnies in my room.

Actually, this behavior is part of a broader phenomenon: think you are very slightly ill in Africa v. thinking you are very slightly ill anywhere else.

Here, a slight tummy rumble--if you are crazed enough to read through Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Africa--could be anything from NOTHING to giardiasis to intestinal parasites to malaria to man-eating flukes.

Or you could just be hungry. As Leo asked us: "What is the most resilient parasite?" Yes, an idea. Followed immediately by giardiasis.

The first couple days I had a slight headache. I figured out what it was. Caffeine withdrawal. A cup of tea and I was better. Though if in three months I have river blindness then you'll know I was wrong.

Those symptoms anywhere else: Whatever.

Okay, time to finish some work then get to bed before the power goes out, river blindness sets in and my taxi drivers storm the house demanding their obruni discount realizing that I only speak the same 20 sentences of Twi. More updates this weekend.

In Many Ways, A Return

After a rather long--at least for me--hiatus from field research, I am returning to Ghana for January 2012. In the future I will upgrade this website, maybe merge it with my academic site, maybe publish some papers to make my academic site an academic site and hopefully finish my PhD at a reasonable age.

In any case, I will still be taking photos. Look, here's my trusty Kelty backpack that has accompanied me on every trip to Ghana.

It even still has the orange stains from the trip to Mole. For those of you keeping score, I have a new lens, a 50 f/1.4. I'm very excited to get more practice on it.

While the lens may be new and other equipment has been updated, my research is actually coming back full circle to where I started. Bureaucracy.

I know that you're holding yourself back with excitement, that you can't wait to hear it again. Bureaucracy. Okay, maybe it's just me. But for me it's an exciting, understudied area of comparative politics, an area that really can make a difference in people's lives and not just in journal pages.

I believe that politics and government are two different things. Politics you see in the papers, hear on the radio; it's measured with vote counts, with speeches, with campaigns. We may not know our local politicians, but we each have our own definition of what a politician is. As one friend told me, politics comes from the Greek, "poli" for "many", with "tics" from the English for "blood-sucking animals."

QED.

Jokes aside, I do think that many people do enter democratic politics with a desire to change things for the better. Many do, of course, enter to enrich themselves. But I think somewhere in there there must be even a slight tendency toward positive change.

If that's politics, government is everywhere. But it's so everywhere that you might not notice it. It's the pothole that gets fixed. It's that stamp in your passport. It's the teacher in the school.

It's also the lack of all those things, whether across the board or just in certain places. Why is it, that when the policy is 'improve education', we get an additional teacher, rather than innovative teaching methods? Or that improve transport means 'build more roads' rather than 'fix existing roads'? I think that answer is somewhere in between the politicians and the bureaucrats, and I want to find out how we get there. And how we get there will matter for policy makers, aid workers and the private sector.

So that's why I'm here. Actually, I'm here to pilot surveys and then hopefully launch something bigger later this year or next year. But it's exciting times in Ghana. Election is coming up, and already the radios are buzzing with the parties speculating about fraud. There are more ads at the airport. Two different people today have pointed out that a KFC is open in Accra. There are more hotels. So things are different, and I'm excited to see how the country has changed in the year that I've been away.

But some things don't change. People, for instance. This afternoon I did some grocery shopping at the Accra Mall. I hailed one of the outrageously priced taxis from the mall (I justify this by the fact that it's my first day back and I just want to get back to the apartment), and start getting into it. At that point, I detect another cab driver sprinting towards me, yelling something ...

Me (mentally): Seriously, man, I already got a cab.

Him: Hey hey hey hey! I know you!

Me [slightly recognizing this voice]: Wh-What?

Him [extending his hand for the Ghanaian handshake]: It's me, Prince! You're Joe! It's good to see you again, my friend.

Indeed, it was Prince, my go-to driver in projects past, Prince the King of drivers. If any of you need a good taxi driver, just let me know. He has a great car--which basically means three things: (1) there are seat belts in the back, (2) the windows roll down and (3) you can't smell the enging fumes. First day back, and I run into him. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

test

test