|
A different kind of poverty in West
Africa...
When he wrote this on 18th July, Tony
Shanahan was in Northern Ghana but he is moving to a new home base
in Kenya so we've addressed this as a "letter from Kenya"...
| Tamale
in Northern Ghana... |
 GREETINGS
FROM NORTHERN GHANA, where the westward tendency of my
life (from birth in Sydney to Adelaide to Perth to East Africa)
is continuing with my first trip to West Africa. I am in the middle
of a stint as "guest lecturer" at the novitiate here.
The place is called Tamale, it's in the north of Ghana, and it's
the third biggest city in Ghana. Being in the north, it's heavily
Muslim, and Christians are a minority, but interfaith relations
seem fairly relaxed. Whatever the political and communal tension
up here, they don't seem to be religiously based.
Tamale has a similar population to Arusha (c. 300,000), but it doesn't
have much of a tourist industry, nor the UN and the many NGOs of
Arusha. In other words, it doesn't have Arusha's upper socioeconomic
layer, nor its concentration of white people. One result of this
is that certain things are hard to get here, e.g. foods like yoghurt,
cheese, ground coffee.
It also reminds me of some parts of Broome, in north-western Australia.
Part of the resemblance is the hot, humid weather right now, and
part is physical - flat country, red dirt, lush green vegetation,
a lot of corrugated iron shacks. This is the "cooler"
and rainy time of the year, but it still gets to 30 or more most
days. It is supposed to be the rainy season, and we have had some
good downpours, but not as much as usual. The REALLY hot time here
features temperatures around 40 and a hot, dusty wind down from
the Sahara.
The flat terrain means that the place teems with bicycles, as well
as motor scooters, motor bikes and pedestrians. In Ghana they drive
on the "wrong" (i.e. the right) side of the road, but
the locals don't feel too bound by this. So between riding the bike
on the "other" side, and weaving through the oncoming
traffic, there is a lot of stimulation as well as exercise in riding
the bike around to explore the place.
There are 12 novices and two Brothers at the novitiate, including
six of the young Kenyans we had last year in Arusha. They seem to
be doing well and blooming now that the hot weather has past and
the "cold weather" has arrived! Being in a new part of
Africa, with a different (and quite difficult) language, different
climate and different food was quite hard for many early in the
year. Arusha was the furthest from home most had ever been, but
they are well settled now.
This
week I visited some of the places where the novices go each Friday
for community service work. We went to two orphanages for infants
and children, and a centre for street kids. Though language and
other things differ, the hunger of the children for affection and
attention was the same as in any culture, and they have the same
killer smiles that African kids have right across the continent.
Another thing that struck me was finding young Europeans in the
orphanages on a short-term volunteer experience during their summer
break. It's easy to be pessimistic about the state of the world,
Africa, the materialism of the west etc. etc., but it is a shot
in the arm to meet these young people who are ready to rough it
for a month or two in a Ghanaian village and help look after orphans.
The same is true of the young (and not-so-young) Australian, Irish,
American, British and Canadian volunteers I met in Arusha. I just
hope that they somehow assimilate the experience and make it a part
of their worldview, and don't just relegate it to the status of
an exotic or curious experience that has no connection with life
back "at home".
THE BRIDGE SAGA
Life in Nairobi over the last few months has been relatively uneventful.
I have got busier as I have got into my role in Nairobi, and also
because I have had some invitations to do a few workshops and presentations.
These have gone well and I enjoyed them more than I expected.
However, one local drama may be of interest as it captures a lot
about the way things happen in Africa. The area I have been living
in has two connections with the rest of Nairobi, a dirt road leading
to the main highway (maybe 1 km. away), and an unsealed footpath
leading across a very polluted stream (officially a river, more
a creek, actually) to a tarmac road where buses run into town. This
latter is only 3-4 minutes on foot and is used by most of the locals.
Across the toxic stream was a narrow concrete footbridge, crumbling
away at the edges, due to erosion by the creek after heavy rain.
Some students from the nearby Missionaries of Africa house have
been trying to stir up action by residents to get the bridge fixed
before the next downpour swept it away for good. Only a handful
were coming to the meetings, so the effort lapsed.
You might be asking why the government or the Nairobi City Council
or the local MP's Constituency Development Fund weren't providing
funds to do the job properly. It's a good question. As far as I
know, efforts to get the local MP to take an interest in this had
got nowhere. Perhaps he's in a safe seat, maybe there aren't many
votes in this issue, perhaps he figures it'll all be forgotten come
the next election. As for the City Council, I don't know. They aren't
famous for their close relationship with local residents, especially
the poor!
So the inevitable happened. Rain fell, the remainder of the bridge
disappeared, and the thousands of people who go along this path
every day were cut off from the buses into town. The property developer
who built the apartment block next door to us (the one who got raided
by the police one day) intervened. He got a truckload of broken
rock to level out the muddy, potholed bit of the path at the bottom
of the slope near the bridge, then put a metal panel off the back
of one of his trucks across the stream as a makeshift bridge. It
was narrower than the old bridge and not an even surface, but beggars
can't be choosers.
Next thing some enterprising young men appeared by the new bridge
demanding money from pedestrians if they want to cross! This went
on for a few hours, then the developer and a few locals turned up
to tell them to get lost - which they did.
With the problem "solved", at least for now (which is
about as far ahead as most people care to think), nothing else has
happened. People can get across, so there is no interest in pursuing
the matter. We have been picking our way across this metal panel
for several months. The rains have eased off, so it'll probably
last for some months, maybe a year or two, till we get heavy rain
or someone steals it or the owner decides he wants it back! Then
it'll be another crisis, and another makeshift solution. Will Make
Poverty History, the G8 resolutions or Live8 fix our bridge and
give the great bulk of the ordinary people, who go on foot or (if
they are lucky) bicycle, a decent footbridge? What about paving
the footpath so they are not ploughing through mud each time it
rains? I'm not holding my breath.
CULTURE CORNER
The last few months have been quite rich in this area. I ventured
along to a concert in Nairobi by the local orchestra and a choral
society. They tackled Dvorak's "New World" symphony, assorted
choral favorites and a Mass written by Puccini (before he got into
opera). The symphony had a few wobbly moments, but was enjoyable,
and the choral stuff was most enjoyable, including a rousing rendition
of "Va pensiero" from Verdi's "Nabucco". The
tenor for the Puccini Mass was called (believe it or not) Charles
Dickens, and he turned out to be a young Ugandan (a carpenter by
trade), brought down especially for the occasion, and he had a magnificent
voice and lots of stage presence. If talent counts for anything,
he should be able to throw away the hammer and saw. Not that I'm
a music expert, mind you, but if you hear some more of Charles Dickens,
remember you heard it here first.
Movie-wise, there was an EU-sponsored festival of European film
in Nairobi, and I managed to catch "Les Choristes" (thanks
to Chris and Mary for the recommendation). A predictable story,
but beautifully acted, and the right combination of humour, pathos
and hope to be totally enjoyable and heart-warming. More recently
I caught a DVD of "Hotel Rwanda" which had a Golden Globe
nomination earlier this year. Based on a true story from the Rwanda
genocide, it is told very soberly, with little dwelling on the horrible
violence, but very engaging, suspenseful and powerful in its own
way.
THIS AND THAT
Time for the odd details that keep me amused…
- Ghanaians often use religious names for
businesses. So Tamale features the Anointed Lady and Step to Christ
Beauty Parlours., God is Able Cold Store, and God's Power Electrical
Shop (rather appropriate!).
- "Idler" is a favourite media
word in Africa to cover any passers-by or people in the street.
An "idler" is somehow less than human. Police can wade
into a group of onlookers in a city street with their batons,
and they are only "dispersing idlers", which nobody
objects to (except maybe the idlers). The other day I rode past
the "Youth Idleness Control Centre". What exactly do
they do? Is it an employment scheme? Or do they send vigilantes
out into the streets to harass "idlers" into being productive
and active?
- A month or two back a Kenyan woman hit
the headlines in Kenya when she was up in court in the UK for
running a high-class prostitution ring in Chelsea (young East
European women held without their passports, paid a pittance etc.).
You could detect the covert pride in the newspaper coverage that
one of our girls had hit the big-time in London. Her family's
local MP commented that she was only making her living "selling
natural resources"!
 I
was walking down a local shopping street one evening and saw a
roadside vendor cooking up goat intestines on his little charcoal
brazier. Then I noticed he had the goat's head in his hand and
was wielding a machete with the other. From his gestures he was
obviously about to split the head in two, right between the eyes.
What he was going to do with it. Any guesses? Anyone
remember the Rolling Stones' album "Goat's Head Soup"?
Yes, soup was on the way.
- Evangelical and hot-gospel religion is
big in Africa, and especially in Kenya. I was in the "goat's
head soup" street one weekday around lunchtime and some preacher
was holding forth in a small shopfront with maybe 15 or 20 in
the congregation. Not content with vox natura, he had a PA system,
and did all of us the favour of turning one of the speakers to
face out into the street! I was amazed at the forbearance of the
locals in putting up with the relentless machine-gun bursts of
his amplified barking. Then the penny dropped. He resembled nothing
so much as a rap artist. Did evangelical religion give birth to
rap? Given the usual association of rap with everything rebellious
and anarchic, there is irony in that.
NEW POSTAL ADDRESS
My new postal address in Kenya is:
Christian
Brothers Karen
PO Box
15201
Langata
Post Office
00509
Nairobi
KENYA
Best wishes till next time. Tony
Br Tony Shanahan cfc
18 jULY 2005
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Edition
20: August 2005 Holy Spirit Province
