Last blog, Farewell Ghana Team 6

To close the blog, I thought I would do a salute to the team that I spent a month living with day in and day out.  There were many funny, serious, quiet and loud moments.  We definitely laughed a lot.

As the month went on, the more I appreciated the individual nature of each person on our team.  There is something I have drawn on over the years whenever I am part of a new team.  The first manager I had at Lotus years ago, a woman named Diane, left a lasting impression about how to appreciate the unique perspective and skills each person brings to the team, even when - or especially when - that person isn't like you and doesn't do things the way you would.  A situation like this brings that to light all over again. Even if we made fun of each other or got frustrated, in the end, it was all good.

So here is the roll call in alphabetical order...
Thanks for the memories and all the laughs.
To my Tema Tech team: "yeah, teamwork"!

Denis from Sao Paulo, Brazil
Denis and I had a lot in common from a shared view that caipirinha's are best with pinga/cachaca (not vodka) to a shared business perspective.  We always had interesting conversations.  He will be a future leader in Brazil if he wants to be.  Sadly I missed his poker lessons which fell on nights we were working all night.  He's spent more time in the US than I have in Brazil but hopefully I will even that up a bit and we'll meet again in SP on my next trip for some authentic strawberry caipirinha's.

Heike from Hamburg, Germany
Heike was my workout buddy.  She's far more athletic and does competitions.  Her project was at SOS Villages and they gave us access to their gym which was really nice.  I will always remember our walk one night that the SOS gym was closed where we ventured to the end of the road (and we found real road signs).  Her day job includes web design which came in handy for tips on our project. She had to leave us early and we missed her.  Hopefully she will visit the US later this year on holiday and we can walk the streets of NYC.


Joanne from Toronto, Canada
Joanne had a hearty laugh which I will always remember, along with her skills at giving Ranga a hard time.  She was the most worried about eating before she came and did really great in finding lots of things she liked.  She also had perhaps the worst scare during the crazy soccer game with her gold chain ripped from her neck but quickly brushed it off and laughed about it later.  Hopefully my cousin will move back to Toronto soon and give me a reason for a visit.

Jorge from Mexico City, Mexico
Jorge was always up for an adventure which I appreciate - that is - when he wasn't sleeping which was an unusual amount of time and became a team joke.  He was there for the first beach outing, all the late nights and the key supplier of tequila that he brought from Mexico.  He had to do all the presenting at the end of his project which wasn't easy in English and did a great job.  But the thing I will miss the most is with Jorge around, I wasn't the one who is always late.  It was so nice not to be the culprit for a month!  Hopefully I will get to Mexico soon for work and a better study of the tequila market offerings.
  
June from Beijing, China
June was equal parts team organizer and official photographer.  She had a beautiful camera and got amazing shots.  By the end of the trip she was also a key poker player and did the ladies proud.  She was a great sport and active participant for all the jokes that stemmed from everything being made in China and a news article in one of the Ghanaian papers about the "onslaught of the Chinese" taking over Ghana (and the world).  Hope to share more dinners in Beijing in the near future to reminisce about Ghana.

Kerstin from Stuttgart, Germany
Kerstin and I shared the same vices:  a love for good coffee/espresso and a passion for red wine.  Talking about them made us miss them even more.  She tended to stay back at the hotel some evenings for dinner and I'm glad I stayed behind one evening and got to know her (and Joanne) better.  I always enjoyed chatting and would love to see the town of Stuttgart one day from her perspective.



Kristina from Toronto, Canada
Kristina was the first person I saw on the way to Ghana, we met on the plane.  She was my next door neighbor at the hotel and my dance partner at the beach party.  She is a twin and a mom to 2 teenage girls with all the right aspirations for their future husbands! She had a fear of heights and went for it on the canopy walk, this picture reminds me of and commemorates her strength of spirit.  Also hope to catch up on a future crossing in Canada or the US.



Ranga from Bangalore, India

Ranga, oh Ranga...what to say...when it comes to talking A LOT : )  He always had a story to tell but he was a great sport for all of us ganging up on him.  Again, I appreciated not being the culprit since it's usually me who is said to talk alot.  He is a new dad and missed his family, he has the craziest work schedule up all night on conference calls and is an AVID cricket fan.  He is consummately a happy go lucky guy.  I hope I will get the chance to meet him and his family one day on a future trip to India.

Shikha from Bangalore, India

Shikha was the first person I met from the team and it turned out we were on the same project.  I will always remember her laugh and be grateful she was always up for dancing - at church and in Accra.  She gave me something new to think about as I learned a little bit about the Hindu faith.  She's resourceful and quite the multi-tasker and somehow captures it all on Notepad. Hopefully we'll share more laughs and maybe some dancing Bangalore style on a future trip to India.

Shin from Tokyo, Japan

Shin I came to quietly admire.  He had never really worked with a team outside Japan and it wasn't easy for him to think, talk, write and relate in English but he was determined to participate and contribute equally or more.  Then the earthquake hit while we were in Ghana and he was weeks away from seeing his wife or family but always remained cool, calm and collected.  I'm glad we were on the same project or I probably wouldn't have gotten to know him as well.  I also learned he's a closet partier!  Always along for the dancing and tequila drinking.  It will be awhile before I visit Tokyo again but hopefully one day...

Francis from Tema, Ghana

Francis was our CFO (Chief Fun Officer) and definitely became a member of Ghana Team 6.  We had no idea about him before we arrived but couldn't have been more grateful for all that he did and the effect he had on our overall experience.  He grew up in Tema and his day job is working in micro-finance.  At night and on weekends he was with us and made sure we were taken care of from dinner, to day trips to going out at night.  We did a good music exchange, I've been listening to lots of it which has been a great reminder of our time in Ghana.  His brother lives in Maryland so I hope I will see him again one day in the US.

Barbara and Edem from Accra, Ghana (originally both are from the Volta region which we had the chance to visit)

Barbara was our overall liaison for the Ghana trip and she works for CDC the NGO that manages all the logistics of the program and does all the project matching/management.  Edem was her assistant and they did so much each day for our projects and the cultural experience.  They both wore beautiful Ghanaian dresses that I enjoyed admiring at each of our group meetings and events as you can see here in this photo...


Farewell Ghana Team 6.  All the best to each of you for the future...

Going to Church and Soccer (Ghana's other religion)

Church entrance with Tony

This was one of the most memorable days of the month for many reasons with 2 major events at very different ends of the spectrum in one day.

Tony from Tema Tech who told us about his Charismatic church on orientation day did indeed take us to a service.  Nearly everyone on the team wanted to go so he arranged for a bus to take 9 of us to a nearby town where he worships.  We were so grateful to him for sharing this with us and I think he really enjoyed having us there.

Talking in tongues

Physically the church isn't what I usually envision with older architecture, wooden pews and tons of crosses.  It's a regular looking modern building with chairs, a band set up at the front with guitar, drums etc and a nicely ribboned stage, which I am guessing they may call the altar but not actually sure.

Church singers

Dancing, beautiful dresses

The service is 3 hours long which sounds daunting (especially to those of us who don't frequent church often) but now that I went, you hardly realize so much time has gone by.

It begins with prayer time which is led by 2 men in the front.  I had assumed they were speaking in a local tribal language, it had a really cool beat.  They are pacing back and forth in the room and so is everyone else.  There aren't that many people there yet but those that are sort of walk back and forth wherever they are standing.  I learned later they were speaking in tongues not a language.  I have heard this phrase before but never actually knew what it meant or what it sounded like.

I thought this was fascinating, it's quite special and held in very high regard as a very personal communication channel with God.  For those of you who also aren't familiar, it was explained as something you develop, you don't understand what you are saying nor does anyone else but it puts you in a place of concentration to allow you to have a very deep conversation.  I am probably not saying it totally right but that was the idea.

Joanne, Shikha and I joined the dancing

As the church starts to fill, the program begins to change and several women go to the front and start singing and the dancing starts.  This goes on for a long time, it's called Praise.  A few of us joined them in the dancing and it was really cool to see how joyful individuals were in dancing and enjoying the spirit of the service, especially Tony. 

We had the chance to see a baby baptizing ceremony.  Then came the sermon.  It was interesting to me that the pasture spoke in English and then another woman repeated everything he said in Ewe (one of the common languages).

The pastor introduced us and our countries and then went on to preach.  Ghanaians repeat themselves a lot, as if you don't understand the first time and to make sure it gets through, the sermon was a demonstration of that.  It had all the ups and downs and spirit you would expect from a Charismatic church.

"Sunday school"

It was interesting to me to experience a Christian church so opposite of the ones I grew up with which were very quiet with low monotone sermons, singing but not with this type of energy and most definitely no dancing!  The most activity was going up for communion and that my church did serve real wine, not grape juice.  If a baby cried or a kid stirred everyone around you knew it and it was a disruption.  The thing I enjoyed so much here was there so much freedom of movement, there was energy, it was fun.

What a great experience...

The scene outside the stadium

Then came part II of our day, I guess the one consistency was lots of energy!

We had plans to go to what I thought was a "local" soccer game.  I was thinking it was some small match, we'd walk up and no big deal.  Turns out we were going to the biggest rivalry match b/w Accra and Kumasi, another major city in Ghana.  It was in a huge stadium with massive crowds milling around outside.  We had no tickets and we showed up late so it was already most of the way through the first half when we arrived.

Parades of fans chanting/dancing to cheer their team on

After a bunch of back and forth trying to scalp tickets, we came across a big military looking guy with huge chains around his neck.  He tells us he can get us in and 'we won't be bothered'.  He and Francis go off and secure 8 individual tickets - then begins the process of trying to get in.

The doors are barely bigger than a person, the second one opens a mad rush of guys start pushing their way in.  Naively we all start pushing our way into the wall of men.  It is getting us nowhere.  Plus, everyone is getting lots of hands trying to get into their pockets for phones and wallets.

Accra Phobia vs Kumasi Kotoko

We are getting pushed back and forth with the crowd when all of a sudden a wave pushes me far back, I almost fall and at this point I'm about to say "I'm done" this is ridiculous and starting to feel not so safe. Then I hear "Go, go, go, go!!!"  The sea of men parts and the string of foreigners rush through to the other side of the doors.

Turns out our military man had gone in to the stadium and come from inside and started swinging his big chains to break the crowd for us.  Joanne had her gold chain ripped from her neck, fortunately she held on to it from the front but it was broken.  Everyone with pockets managed to keep their stuff in tact.  We were all just in shock, what just happened?? Is everyone here and OK?  It was unreal.  Did I mention this is the first soccer game I've ever been to?

Post victory celebration as the stadium emptied out

Once inside it's smooth sailing, the crowd is normal and it's like any other sports game, people cheering but normal - oh except for the guy that popped up out of nowhere and basically did a lap dance with his pants half way down for June.

We needed a beer, there were none for sale which in retrospect is good.  I notice in the hundreds of people sitting around us, only 3 or 4 girls.  The only other girls are the ones selling drinks or food.  That's a lot of testosterone and now the lack of alcohol is seeming even smarter.   We come to learn that everyone knows how crazy these games get and no one brings their wife or girlfriend - including Francis!

By the time we get in there is hardly any game left but it was well worth the experience and what a story to tell!  We went to a pub after for some much needed beers and rehashed that experience with a lot of laughing.  Kumasi Kotoko's won by the way.

Die hard and novice fans unite!

Tema Tech Weeks 2, 3 and 4

Our "office" at school

I felt good at the end of week 1 that we were really on track, had figured a lot out and were on a good pace.  Week 2 was the total opposite.  We began to experience the reality of the Ghana "work challenges" which are not very conducive to meeting deadlines.  During this week, we lost the internet b/c the cables were stolen, lost the power (it just happens and they were doing work in the area), found out about a teachers strike which was causing the school to close unexpectedly for 2 days and learned that our Principal/key sponsor would be leaving the country - as it turned out for the remainder of our project.

Each day, sometimes each hour brought a new piece of news compounding the previous.  The reality of the project work was that there were really only 16 true working days so losing a few days matters. But we figured it out and kept readjusting.  Our core guys that helped us coordinate everything were awesome and all the staff really responded well to the training for eSchool and the process of editing and administrating the web content.

For the Tema Tech team, they are used to such interruptions and delays with no clear understanding of when things will get fixed.  Each day it's a wait and see process. Interestingly, I have found since that stealing cables to sell the copper inside is also not so unique to Africa.  I had heard one version of this from an IBM colleague in Kenya explaining the unreliability of conference calls and phone lines in Kenya.  The doormen in my apartment building tell me people steal lines in the Bronx/Queens where they live, my parents tell me it's common in Puerto Rico and I've heard counts from others too.

So in the end we built a website from scratch with over 50 pages of content and dozens of pictures and we successfully expanded their ability to electronically store and track student information and financial information.  I feel good about the tangibility of what we did, what we left behind and hopefully the impact on inspiring how to work differently.  Obviously there are so many details under this but too much to write it all down.

Mr Mac-Kusi and his students = the photo team

I continued to really appreciate the fact that our project involved students, I loved each day interacting with them and talking to them.  The Photography team was really cool, they ran around the whole time taking photos for us to put on the website and would come in and give me their catch each day.  They had a student week celebration while we were here which had education, sports and a trip.  It was fun to see them having fun, doing tug of war and other contests.  It was nice to see their pride in their school.

I also had a really positive feeling from the teachers who seemed very genuine and involved overall.

Lunch each day was always a time usually with our core guys Mr. Inkoom, Mr. Nars-Saam and Tony and usually involved cultural comparisons and sharing b/w all of our respective worlds as well as catching up on next steps or things we needed to get done.  The kitchen staff was super friendly and went out of their way to make us comfortable.

Our Ghanaian outfits and Kente cloth gifts

The final week we wrapped and gave a final presentation summarizing the work that we did.  In addition to all the core management and department heads of Tema Tech we also had officials from the Ministry of Education, heads of other schools and the school chair of the board attend.

 We got to deliver our final presentation in outfits tailored by the students in the Tailoring department.  Tony (one of our core guys) took us to get fabrics from one of the main producers which the school is associated with and the tailoring department made us beautiful outfits.  It was a great way to showcase the products of the school programs.  And they gave us my favorite gift which was a Kente cloth weaving with our names in it as well as made us other pieces from fabrics that they hand made in the school called Batiks which is hand printing.  Really special items to help us remember them always...


Some additional scenes from the school below....

Weekly Monday morning school assembly

Blocklaying & Concreting (aka construction) class

I just love this pic, it was from one of their soccer tournaments. They are local champions!

Printing T-shirts in textiles class

Doris! Administration supervisor, she always wore gorgeous colors and here it shows just a glimpse of all the PAPER!

Student week, the winners of the tug of war contest

View entering the school, building ahead is administration block where we spent most of our time

Volta Region & Lunch with the Principal

Our second weekend involved a trip to the Volta region.  It was again 3-4 hours in a bus to get there with all sorts of scenery along the way.

Volta Region

Once we got to where were going...we saw a large dam on the Volta river.  We climbed a small mountain overlooking the region which is beautiful and green with a big cross at the top.  Then we went to visit a village where there was a funeral going on which was really interesting to see up close.  We had passed some during the drive but now we could hear the music.  The head of the village invited us to his home to drink palm wine (palm nuts are local and serve as the basis for soups, wine, oil and lots of other things) out of calabashes (which we got to bring home).  Then we went to lunch at this awesome place with the perfect view of the region.  On the way back we stopped at a monkey sanctuary where we lucked out big time and got a show immediately.  The monkeys come right down and eat banana's out of your hand, one of the little guys put his hand on mine while he was eating his banana, it was SO cute.  That was a real treat.

Top of the mountain

part of the funeral

drinking palm wine in a calabash

feeding the monkeys

On Sunday, before the Principal left on his trip to Austria (the Austrian government had invited a select number of school heads to come to Vienna along with the Ghana Education Service and there was already an agreement that they will be doing renovations at TemaTech later this spring for 3 of the departments) he invited us to his home for lunch.  We were expecting just us to be there and didn't realize he had actually invited all of the key school leaders and our project leaders to join too.  It was a beautiful lunch and we enjoyed the social time with them.  The principal gifted Shin with some kind of crazy alcohol, I will use the analogy of moonshine or grain alcohol which I haven't touched since "fruit punch" in college.  Smelling it was enough to keep me away but Shin liked it : ) and we got some cute pics of him trying it.

lunch at the Principal's house

Sunday evening we had been invited to a beach party back at the same beach we had been at the weekend prior.  One of Samantha's friends was having a birthday and was sweet enough to include us.  This trip the beach was not nearly as crowded and a little calmer but still very lively.  We had fun dancing and walking on the beach.  Some of the girls went for a night swim and loved it.

Independence Weekend

We had 3 weekends in Ghana and got to do some exploring locally and in other parts of the country.

The first weekend was a holiday weekend celebrating Ghana's 54 years of independence.  This gave us 3 days off.  On Friday night half of us went into Accra to a club called Bella Roma.  Francis negotiated with the doormen for the ladies to get in free but funny enough the price for the guys to get in doubled as a result - forced chivalry, LOL : )  It was good people watching and fun dancing.

Saturday we made our first trip into Accra, the capital.  It wasn't the first trip for the team working with ECG (Electricity company) as they had to go to Accra a lot and during traffic which was a nightmare, 1.5-2 hours each way.  Fortunately no such craziness on a Saturday.  We stopped at several artist shops and the Accra market.  This day added lots of color and good photos on market life.  We had an amazing lunch - turned out to be the best meal of the trip.  The local red snapper was amazing and this was the only time I got it as a grilled fillet (vs fried with head or tail and all the bones).  YUM.

Accra Market

Kakum National Park canopy walk

Sunday (early) we boarded a bus that drove 3-4 hours west to Cape Coast.  This was one of the main things I wanted to see in Ghana that I had read about in advance.  This part of Africa was known as the Slave coast and Ghana is one of the only places where you can still witness the buildings (called castles) where they used to trade.  In most of the other ports/countries along the coast they built temporary structures which are long gone.  But before we got to the castles we first stopped at Kakum National Park where they have built swinging bridges to allow you to walk high up in the canopy of this park.  It was fun and a big feat for Kristina!  She conquered her fear of heights and did all 7 bridges instead of taking the short path and just doing a few.

Coconut Grove in Cape Coast

Then came a lovely lunch at the beach, really nice setting and a pina colada that hit the spot...better than the pre-made frozen ones we usually get in the US.  It was made with fresh pineapple juice, had to have 2.  This beach was what Ghana is known for, very beautiful and scenic.

Elmina Castle main courtyard

Last but not least, we toured Elmina Castle.  This was the largest of the buildings they used to trade in human life.  This was obviously a sobering visit and I was struck by the juxtaposition of the sunshine, beauty of the beaches and lightness that surrounded this castle with the darkness of what took place inside.  It reminded me of visiting Aushwitz where I just couldn't wrap my mind around the mass participation that had to take place to make the stories we were hearing true and how one man treats another in such inhuman ways...  Two spots in the castle I remember the most, a small room where as we stood on the floor learned it was for warriors who all died there and the room of no return which was the final exit point to the slave ships.

Final door that led to the slave ships

When I travel I like to read books that have something to do with where I am so am reading a book called "Someone Knows My Name" about a girl who is taken from Africa, sent on a ship to South Carolina and her return to freedom.  I had just started the book and was reading the part where she was captured, marched to the coast and sold on to the ships, so this visit to the castle was perhaps even more vivid in my mind.

On a lighter note, we met the most enterprising kids outside this castle.  They asked our names on the way in and as we left showed up to give us seashells with heartfelt messages addressed to our names.  I had to give them props for good marketing and spelling my name right so I gave them a cedi (Ghana money, 1 cedi = 65 cents) and then got persuaded to donate to their school : )

Independence Day at Labadi Beach

On Monday the original plan was to do a beach day back in Accra but everyone bailed except Jorge and I.  Beach vs staying at the hotel didn't seem like a hard choice but we were in the minority that day.  Really glad we went, it was a cultural shock!  Not the relaxing day at the beach we would have had along Cape Coast but highly entertaining.  Francis and his girlfriend Samantha took us to Labadi Beach which is party central - especially on Independence Day.  I've never seen so many bodies in the water or jammed together on the beach.  I felt like we were in a human version of the Serengetti, watching the great migration of people walking down the beach towards the party.  Tons of soccer playing, people building sand sculptures, dance parties all over.  I also got my first understanding of how aggressive Ghanaian men can be, I learned not to walk by myself in crowds anymore.  The other interesting thing was no one was in bathing suits, everyone was wearing their clothes.  Happy Independence Ghana...

Things that make you go, Hmmm.....

I am really behind on the blogging.  Internet is a challenge and finding the time to do it is a challenge...probably a good sign I shouldn't take up blogging permanently, I am not timely enough.

So lots of cool stuff has gone on over the last few weekends and during the work week which I will write more about later.  For now, a quicker blog (with no pics which is half the battle on blogging from here) on the things that have surprised me the most/that I wasn't necessarily expecting.  They sort of all make sense once you know the context...but anyway....

1.  Where does the chicken breast go??
I kept noticing that when one orders chicken, without fail it's always the thigh/leg.  Anywhere I asked if they had chicken breast, they didn't have it.  So I started to wonder what on earth do they do with the rest of the chicken?  After 2 weeks, last weekend I finally found the answer.  It turns out there isn't much of an agriculture or farming industry (another surprise) so they important most of the chicken.  The breast is obviously more expensive so they tend to import the rest.  I was told they only carry chicken breast in certain grocery stores, usually that cater to foreigners.  If they do get a chicken locally (ie the whole bird) the breast meat goes for the father.  Kids usually get a leg and if you are a more senior kid you get the wing.  Even the chicken eating has a hierarchy in Ghana.

2.  No credit cards.
In order to host the website for our school, we need to pay a hosting service.  We decided to go with one outside Ghana for the reliability and service.  The only methods of payment are credit cards or Paypal.  So when we ask about credit card payment, the Tematech team says there aren't any.  What? Really?  They don't have them in Iran either so I have heard of it before, but wasn't expecting it.  We came to learn that no personal, no business cards, they simply aren't issued in Ghana.  Paypal we found works in places like Swaziland (tiny country next to South Africa) but doesn't work in Ghana (or Nigeria).  Speculation on their website being too much credit card fraud.

3.  [Name] P.O. Box [XYZ] Church
While working through student data in the eSchool system, Shikha noticed many students had addresses of a church listed as their mailing address.  She couldn't imagine all these people live in a church so asked why?  It turns out there is no mailbox/address system as we know it so the most reliable way to get mail is have it sent to the church and after services you pick it up.  This leads to the next surprise...

4.  Church + State, Church + Everything in Ghanaian Life = Not so separated
Each day you realize more and more how ingrained church and leading a "moral, upright" (a phrase I've heard repeated often) Christian life is in the every day life.  The weekly school assemblies are mostly worship, they have preaching and it's organized by the chaplaincy of the school.  It is nearly all Christian and highly unusual to not belong to a church.  Religious sayings are printed everywhere from a piece of paper hanging in someone's office to the back of a bus to any literature you pick up.  Their weekends are mostly filled with weddings or funerals and always church services on Sunday.

5.  I never knew I liked mango
I don't know what they do here to grow the mangos as sweet as they do but I usually don't eat them in the US, they always taste not so great to me, kind of bland even a little bitter at times, so I always thought I just didn't like mango that much other than as a mixer in a martini.   I will miss having mango's for breakfast when we leave!

6.  Milk & Cereal
Similar to the above on the manufacturing issue, the same goes for dairy and milk (and many other industries, they import a lot).  I found it odd they gave us this weird highly condensed sort of milk in very sparing portions at breakfast for our coffee and even for cereal.  A trip to the grocery store in search of some plain yogurt (which I am really missing) revealed how expensive milk is.  A container of milk less than a half gallon was twice the price of what I pay for a half gallon of organic milk in NYC (3 times the price of non-organic which this wasn't).  Special K was twice the price of a box at home.  The yogurt for a smaller container was more than what I pay at home for a larger container too.  Wow.

7.  Care for some Nespresso? oh sorry make that Nescafe...
Given the amount of coffee that is exported from Africa (including Ghana), I was surprised that there is no brewed coffee to be found in any of the places we are frequenting.  There isn't much of a coffee or tea drinking culture that I've noticed at all, but they do like their fruit juices.  So it's been Nescafe or Lipton black tea at breakfast.  I did bring a stock of tea w/me.  The funny thing is I am acquiring a taste for Nescafe (I know shocking) but will gladly give it up in favor of my favorite coffee from Local in NYC.

8.  Do you want some food with your spice and your rice?
I was definitely not expecting the food to be so spicey.  Especially after being here and knowing how hot it is all the time, the spice seems even more surprising to me.  I've never had such spicey food actually.  And they eat a lot of stews and soups which I always associate with winter weather but here it's every day food and every day it's like the worst days of humid DC summer in July/August.  They also eat a ton of rice.  Many days I have it at lunch and dinner, served all sorts of ways.  I like the rice dishes a lot but it is interesting how much it is served.  I never associated rice as much with African food but more as Asian and middle eastern. 

Week 1 at Tematech

School emblem; students in photography class; front of school; students in textiles class

Mr. Provincal, the school principal, picked us up from our hotel and there started our journey with Tematech.  I like the commute to and from work, it sort of makes you feel like part of the city.  Many people walk, we see school students and people walking to work which might be a "shop" on the side of the road or an office. In the evening we often see soccer games.

What we've learned so far is Tema Technical Institute is a technical training school established in 1964 with the first department of textiles.  The Japanese govt helped establish the school and it has now grown to over 13 departments and has on average 1000 students in the school each day across the classes.  The training programs are either 2 or 3 year programs with Certificates awarded at the end of passing their exams in their field of study.  The exams are mostly administered by the Ghana Education Service or some other 3rd party.  From what we can tell Tematech appears to be one of the better technical level schools in Ghana.  When we first saw the name of the school we all thought we would be working with a computer technology school, then we came to realize that here technical = trade like carpentry, mechanics, construction, tailoring, photography etc.  So it's a mix of what we would consider a trade school and 2 year community college because they also offer Business Studies and all the core classes like science, math, english and ICT (their term for computers).  Some students go specifically to learn and work in a trade.  Other students who do not qualify as well for universities or the Polytechnical Institutes right out of the Junior or Senior high schools will go to technical schools to improve their grades and skills to be more competitive for getting into the higher education schools.

Getting feedback from students on the website

The school has an interesting history that also tells how foreign governments get involved in Africa.  The school beginnings were based on support from the Japanese government including a lot of machinery, other departments were started under guidance and equipment donation of the Soviet Union and also Germany.  Just this month the Austrian govt will be starting a renovation project for the electrical installation, motor vehicle and welding departments including installing all new equipment.  I found this really fascinating.  But in some ways, it has also created a culture of expectation that nothing new can happen unless someone gives it to you.   We've been trying a lot to give a message of self sufficiency and how to think differently about controlling their own destiny.  Even small things like fundraisers or proactively developing proposals for budget support from an organization. For example, the textiles department has really old machinery now, they are still using the equipment donated by the Japanese.  There are many organizations that may sponsor support for what they are doing to advance the field of textiles - especially because it is a unique government accredited program in Ghana but this type of thinking is not obvious here.  

The students we've met so far are really cool, very energetic and eager.  We had a meeting with student representatives (about 40) from all the departments to get their input on what they want on the website and then smaller reviews once we had some content to share.  They were right on in terms of what should be shown, came prepared with written lists and were very vocal...much more so than the staff/teachers who do not use the internet or computers that much.  Most of the department write-ups for the website I have gotten in handwritten form.  For the school staff there are 4 primary computers and there is an ICT (computer) lab.  I guess this is true in any school, the young are always up on the latest : )  Most of the room raised their hand when we asked who uses Facebook.

Kitchen staff makin g Banku for lunch

Our routine has developed: The Principal picks us up every morning, we have a debrief meeting in his office and then go about our day.  On the first day we got a tour of the school, were introduced to the entire staff in a staff meeting.  Our "office" is 2 long tables inside of Mr. Nars-Saam's office.  The chairs are made by the carpentry and joinery department, very well constructed but not a lot of cushion!  We have lunch each day in the cafeteria.  The matron is really sweet.  Her husband and children live in Wichita, Kansas, she is hoping to see her son graduate this year.  Lunch is always Ghanaian food, so far we've had Jollof rice, Beans and Plantains, Red fish and rice and more...dessert is always fruit, usually really sweet pineapple or mango.  The mango we've had in Ghana is the best I've ever had anywhere.

School drumers practicing for Independence Day parade

Students practicing march for Independence Day parade

In terms of our project, we started the week evaluating their requirements against the system they already use called e-School which was developed by a local solution provider.  It turned out most of what they wanted was there, they just didn't know it.  Each user used a very specific part of the application and had no reason to look at the other parts and only a very few people actually use the system.  It's a relief b/c creating a new system from scratch would have been really time consuming and not as good as what they have now.  The website will be brand new, most of the technical schools don't have one, so it will be a good asset for the school and holding up their image.  A lot of my time has been here interviewing departments, organizing and gathering content.  We are trying to involve those that will take it over from us along the way as much as possible.  We felt fairly on track by the end of week one.

Nitsumo Kpakpa He Ye Seenamo is the school motto.  It means "Hard work deserves a good reward" in Ga, the local language of Tema and Accra.