In the United States, my home country, our motto as of late has been change. I have been working at the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN) in Ghana for almost two months now, and I am just in time to witness some monumental policy changes of its own that will redefine the way CRAN does business and may even give President-elect Obama a run for his money.

Currently, CRAN has seven different branches in three regions of Ghana. Four of its branches are located near the main office around Cape Coast and Elmina, Ghana, two fishing towns that aren’t rural but aren’t urban either. On top of loaning to people in town, CRAN also lends to many rural communities around Cape Coast. About an hour away, CRAN has two more units running in rural fishing communities. Until June of last year, one of these units didn’t have electricity or computers. The other one still doesn’t. CRAN’s last unit can be found about a six-hour drive away in the Volta Region. Due to this branch’s distance from the head unit where a Kiva Coordinator uploads all the Kiva borrower profiles, none of the clients from that unit can be found on Kiva. This is something that CRAN would like to change sometime in the near future.

At each of the units, there is a manager along with loan officers, each of which has a portfolio of clients that he or she is in charge of. The loan officer is in charge of overseeing the loan and filling out all the paperwork. Since CRAN works only with groups, the loan officer talks everything over with the group’s president, secretary, and treasurer to make sure they know what is going on. The loan officer also visits all of the people at their workplaces to take photos in order to put the borrowers on Kiva. Other employees include the cashier and field officers in charge of collecting both loans and susu savings (a small daily savings).

As CRAN moves forward and attempts to make itself a sustainable financial institution, the employees are changing the way things are currently done to a new and exciting framework. Current groups have ten members or more, but from this month forward CRAN groups will consist of five members. This change is being made because right now many groups are scattered, hard to reach for loan collection, and hard to gather together. The loan officers often only know the president, secretary, and treasurer in a group and must rely on them to find the other members. Some of these groups have multiple family members or an employer and his or her employees comprising the group as well, so from now on group members must have their businesses located in the same area, and must not have any other family members in their group. Sometimes this is the case just because people find it hard to develop a group with at least ten people in order to receive a loan. A group loan is designed so that each of the members guarantees the other members—it is a lot more to take on with ten people.

The other caveat of any group’s membership is that every member must have health insurance. A National Health Insurance Bill that was designed by the governing New Patriotic Party and passed into law in 2003 by the parliament is an insurance plan designed to ensure that Ghanaian residents would have access to basic health care services without paying money at the point of delivery of the service. It has had some criticism, mainly by the opposing party that had implemented a cash-and-carry system. This cash-and-carry system, which was used since 1985 in Ghana, was replaced for various reasons, including a fall in clinic attendance. It required every Ghanaian to pay before receiving clinical care. Since implementing the new scheme in 2004, health care is free for children, pregnant women, and Ghanaians over the age of 70. There are also various plans for everyone else, costing as little as a few dollars and lasting for one-year increments. Because health care makes such a big difference in people’s ability to work, CRAN has decided that insurance is a must. Many Ghanaians get sick with illnesses such as malaria—a disease that can keep them from the workplace for a few days if treated but can even be deadly if untreated. This is, to make it economical, bad for business. A Ghanaian who can’t work can’t make money and needs to rely on help from others to sustain a business and a family. Health insurance will ensure that all Ghanaians who work with CRAN have access to the health care they need to be healthy.

Now, taking out a loan from CRAN is more than just taking out a loan. It is a commitment on the part of the borrowers that they will attend a pre-loan training that involves an introduction to CRAN and the loan disbursement. After receiving the loan, the borrowers attend a monthly training. It is not just one group of borrowers that meet, but many—totaling around 75 people, making it less of a time burden on loan officers to meet with their groups. During these trainings, they will make their monthly loan payments and also receive various lectures on topics such as health, fire safety, and money management. Near the end of the loan period, one of the trainings is dedicated to Kiva journals—ensuring that almost all of CRAN’s Kiva participants from this point on will have a journal. This will not only be a wonderful thing for Kiva lenders, it will also be great in terms of social performance. CRAN will have an opportunity to keep track of the people it loans to and the social progress that the loans make in their lives, which may also help CRAN to modify loans to make them better for the borrowers.

One of the biggest problems currently facing CRAN is high loan deferment rates—incidences where borrowers don’t pay back on time or at all. This new format will attempt to address this problem and will hopefully ensure that field officers aren’t constantly chasing down the people who need to pay—a waste of time, energy, fuel, and money for the organization. This new format—where attendance is close to mandatory in order to get a second loan later on—gathers the group on a monthly basis and gives the loan officer a perfect opportunity to collect the loan repayment.

One of the greatest strengths to this new system is budgetary. CRAN believes it will help the organization cut costs, which is imperative in CRAN’s long-term plan because it is a non-profit organization that runs off of loans. Any money loaned out to borrowers that isn’t from Kiva comes from loans from larger banks. Thus CRAN has interest of its own to pay, and when the borrowers don’t pay back, it negatively affects CRAN and how many other borrowers it can help.

My one big question as I have been introduced to this new system, which has been implemented at one of the units this month, is what will it do for the borrowers? I agree that it is best for the organization as it will hopefully lead to financial stability. However, in terms of borrowers, the recipients will be poor but probably not the poorest businesses in the area. The poorest people won’t be able to pay for health insurance and a susu savings (a small daily savings that is another new requirement of CRAN’s borrowers—so if borrowers don’t pay back CRAN will already have some money to take the repayment from).Thus, poor people will be helped, but some of the poorest won’t have the opportunity to develop their businesses through CRAN.

I do believe that this new system, especially the training, gives CRAN the opportunity to make an expanded social impact in the lives of its borrowers. And then once it is financially secure, it will be able to offer services designed for even poorer borrowers to help them develop their businesses.

This new system will involve a lot of change—from the organizational structure to what is expected of the borrowers, change in policy is revolutionizing almost every aspect of CRAN. These changes are being made in order to address and combat all of CRAN’s weaknesses as an organization and to put CRAN in a position to meet all of its future goals. While I am sure new challenges will arise with the new system, CRAN is working hard and intelligently to become a stronger organization.

ELECTION UPDATE: Ghana just had its presidential elections, which were very peaceful and well-run. Every other commercial on television the day of the elections (December 7) was about peace in Ghana. The country was praised by its African neighbors for doing so well. However, there will be a run-off taking place between the top two candidates on December 28. I will post an update following that in regards to the elections and whether Ghana is able to maintain peace.

]]> http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/11/26/the-art-and-science-of-communication/ Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:56:59 +0000 Cassie http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/11/26/the-art-and-science-of-communication/

Language is said to be the thing that separates man from animal. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow. It is also the way in which we can most easily communicate our deepest thoughts and desires with another. It is a tool that we use to bridge us together.

Yet since I have arrived in Ghana, I have begun to define language in an entirely new way. It is a constant ebb and flow of words and understanding. It is a roller-coaster ride of gerunds and participial phrases that mean all the world to some people and don’t make any sense to others.

Ghana is a tribal-based country with about 80 languages. In any given region of the country, a different language is spoken based on the tribe or tribes that reside there. In addition, Ghana is a former British colony so English is the official language—which means that people who receive an education study the language of their region and English during their schooling, and the language is used in government and business practices. This leads to an interesting work environment in that none of my co-workers other than myself speak English as their first language. On top of that, while much of the work does involve speaking native languages, not all of the employees speak the same native languages. At least three different languages from three different regions are spoken in the office on any given day, and not everyone understands each others’ tribal languages, so the use of English becomes a middle ground where employees can meet to talk to each other.

Even the English that is used here in Ghana is different from the English that I am used to. People in Ghana learn British English, which is not all that different from American English, but they have taken it and changed it in their culture to make it their own—in part, I believe, due to a lack of exposure to the way the English language is used in the Western world.

Take the word fuel, for example. I kept hearing the CRAN drivers saying they needed foo-elle. Foo-elle, I thought. What in the heck is foo-elle? Oh, fuel, of course. Then there was the time I walked around the entire University of Ghana-Legon looking for the math department and asking everyone I met for directions while being pointed in every direction. Apparently they didn’t know what math was. I found out later that the word math is pronounced mass here. If only I had asked for the mass department, they would have known exactly what I was talking about. There are many words that are now pronounced differently, for lack of knowing how to pronounce it perhaps. Either way, it is culturally right to pronounce such words that way; otherwise, no one will understand what you are saying.

At first I thought that the people in Ghana have a whole different and less-than-American grasp of the English language. As a vivid reader and copy editor, my understanding of the science and art that is the English language is strong, and I saw a lot of rules that weren’t known and that were broken. I realized that the people I work with and interview only use it as a second language and don’t have the poetic vibe that being fluent in a language brings—that ability to truly and clearly articulate the specific words desired. Granted, there are varying levels of English and some are quite high, but each is different than that of a native English speaker and each is developed in accumulation with the culture.

Interestingly enough, despite the fact that many of the people I interview for Kiva profiles didn’t have much schooling and don’t speak English much or at all, they all know and use some English words on a daily basis. English has somehow fused with the native languages to become, in a sense, their own native words. Rather than saying Good Morning or Good Afternoon to someone in a tribal language, you actually speak these words in a sentence. For example, “Paucho, Good Morning. Ete Sen?” Translation: Please, good morning. How are you? In response, you might say, “Boco,” with a long o at the end. This means “I am cool.” What is funny is that even when speaking in English and I ask them how they are doing, people still respond by saying, “I am cool.” In that same way, the word please (paucho), a commonly used term of respect, is often used in the English language. Thus a waiter at a Chinese restaurant I went to once—that’s right, Chinese in Ghana—responded to our orders by saying, “Please, one order of rice.” And “Please, here is your coke.” The fun of this is that I can and do say “please, thank you” on a daily basis.

Many of my interviewees don’t speak the English language, yet they use a few English words—words that have become a part of their daily speech. So someone who lives in a rural area and who never went to school—someone who claims to speak no English—still says sorry when he or she bumps into someone.

Ghanaians have taken the English they learn and created an entire new way of speaking with it. I have been told a few times not to speak in slang—something that can actually unnerve me considering I am speaking proper American English and not slang at all. Until I learn Ghanaian English and start using words like foo-elle and mass in the proper settings, I will always be speaking slang to some Ghanaians.

I still love the English language with all its rules and regulations, and I love my understanding of it. But living in Ghana has taught me that the true role of language is to communicate, and sometimes that means throwing all of the rules out the window and telling people that mass was my least favorite subject in school and asking how much foo-elle prices are right now. The true purpose of language is to bridge a gap between the ideas and thoughts of two different individuals, and while I still love the rules, sometimes they don’t help me do that here. I will adjust over time, just as Ghanaians have included the English language into their own speech. And despite all the rules, isn’t it true that language is a melting pot of culture and a constantly changing means of expression anyway?

My university grammar teacher would be horrified.

*Note to reader: The language examples are Fanti, a language spoken in the Central Region where Christian Rural Aid Network is located.

Here I am, having been in Ghana for about a month now, and I realized that I haven’t posted anything about what it is I am doing here in Ghana.

To be honest, I wonder about that all the time.

Let me give you the politically correct answer: I am a fellow in Africa for nine months through a program called Kiva. Kiva is a 3-year-old organization that is changing the face of the microfinance movement—a movement that tries to alleviate poverty by giving the impoverished access to loans to develop their businesses and other financial services. The point of this is to enable these people to develop their businesses and to give them the opportunity to move themselves out of poverty.

Kiva started a few years ago with two young Stanford graduates, a married couple, who saw the need for loans in developing countries and decided to create a website where individuals, just like you and me, can go online, see photos and read about individuals trying to get a loan for their small business, and then pick any of these individuals to fund in increments as small as $25.

To think of all of the amazing people in the world who just haven’t had a chance to pull themselves out of poverty. Having just returned from Ghana, I was addicted to the idea of Kiva. I saw that there was a lack of resources, financial resources being only one of them, and I loved the fact that Kiva addressed this lack of resources and gave people opportunity when that is what many of these people really want. All I wanted to do was to effect positive change for these people who I saw needing so much.

Education is in many ways the core of my existence and has made me the person I am today—I love learning and the constant opportunities that learning bring. It was heart-wrenching for me to be in a place where education isn’t something given to all children. I saw communities fighting to just have a school, and once they got the building they had to fight against lack of teachers and lack of supplies. Then students have to pay school fees and are kicked out of school if they can’t pay. My boyfriend recently told me that growing up he would walk around selling all kinds of food items on his head on nights and weekends in order to be able to pay for school fees. He told me about missing all the opportunities to do after-school activities like track, even though he was proven to be the fastest kid in the school. He told me how he would fall asleep in class because he was so tired. I wonder if I would have done as well in school if I had to work all nights and weekends, all the while worrying about whether I would earn enough to stay in school.

Last year, I spent a lot of time thinking about starting a non-profit organization working with education in Africa and collecting school supplies to bring back here. I wanted to return and knew that whatever I did had to involve bringing opportunity to a group of people who deserve it.

So I applied to be a Kiva Fellow and was accepted. I was ecstatic to know that I was going to be part of this movement that might really be affecting change in people’s lives. I read everything I could find and am still obsessed with learning about the topic.

Since I have been here, however, the object of what I am really doing has blurred a bit. I am a girl who left most of her worldly possessions behind and decided to go into debt in order to follow her principles and to become the kind of person I want to be in the future—a woman who understands the world and more importantly can be a positive part of it. Here I am, living off of rice and beans (literally), and I can’t go a day without people passing me telling me to give them money. Granted I am better off in many ways than they are, but I have come to hate those words. It is sheer ignorance, and more importantly it makes me feel like nothing more than my skin color. One girl I bought credit for my phone from asked me if she could keep the change–$2 in the US, a lot of money since I usually spend less than that on any given day. I asked her if she asks black people if she can keep their change. She acknowledged that she didn’t and said she wanted to be my friend. I wonder, though, what makes me need to pay for friendship?

People here are forward, sometimes rude, and different from people who lived in the other city I previously lived in here in Ghana. I have been told how fat I am many times, people will try to overprice, men will follow me or grab my hands, and I have even had guys slap or talk about my butt. They aren’t afraid to call you names or laugh in your face, and even though I try not to let it bother me, I wonder what in the heck I am doing and why I came here in the first place. I know most of them don’t mean to be rude and are just curious, but there is a sense that with an obruni (white foreigner) you can act however you want and ignore your manners.

I know how Ghanaians are supposed to act, having a Ghanaian boyfriend. I fell in love with the people of Accra and am still in love with them, but now I am wondering if I love Ghana so much why don’t I like life in Cape Coast? People give me all sort of attention but don’t care to see the real me, and that is a hard thing for me to swallow. I wonder how I can act and solve the problem. Should I even care? Will it go away in time?? Or should I just let the real me come out for everyone to see—when they very well may only use that real me for my things.

These little things and instances are consuming me at times. I can’t take being told how fat I am anymore, which is really not considered rude here to call people and many women are called fat (anyone with fat on them pretty much—any amount). In a country where pencil thin is not considered attractive, I know that my curves are the same reason that I lost count after 50 marriage proposals and have been asked out by hundreds of men ranging in ages from 16-60(no joke), but every time I hear it, I feel so bad about myself. Sticks and stones, right? Once, I turned abruptly toward a guy walking down the street who looked at me and said, “Hey biggie,” and told him that was rude and inconsiderate—and did I come up to him saying “Hey, short guy?” He literally ran away from me and didn’t look back. It is funny how it is okay as long as it is other people being called the names.

People in Ghana can be very abrupt, which I know and sometimes understand. But I have seen a lot of people cross the line as to what is appropriate just because I am a white girl walking alone. I have adopted a say-exactly-what-I-feel attitude and will see how it works—I find that as I say what I am feeling, I don’t pent up the anger. If I think a Ghanaian is acting rude, I say so and attitudes tend to change.

So here I am far away from home feeling uncomfortable in the house I live in, having already had disagreements with people whom I work with, and living in a city with people who have treated me less than kindly and feeling like I have no real friends in this whole city. All after having had the worst injury I have ever had during my second week here. So what am I doing here? I have no idea.

But I know I am supposed to be here. I can feel it, even when the world feels like it is crashing down on me. Even when I feel more alone than I have ever felt before. Even when I question the use of microfinance in a world where the all of the people borrowing money sell the same product and are competing against each other just to make pennies, let alone dollars. Even when I read stories from the Kiva Fellows and wonder if my mind is stuck on small details rather than the big picture that all of them seem so focused on. Even when I wish I were having this amazing experience with all sorts of moving moments that constantly touched me.

But here I am, and here I will stay. I can feel why I am here—it is the change. It is the change I hope to create and the change in me that I am already seeing occur. Even with all the comments, I find myself gaining confidence. I am learning to be independent and dependent at the same time, each in ways that I have never experienced before. I am learning a new way of seeing the world. I am learning about religion in a very spiritual country and am developing my own religion at the same time. I have questioned things and gained perspective that I never before knew existed. I am learning…about the world, about Africa, and mostly about myself. And somehow, in the midst of it all, I find that even when my soul gets tired because of all the little things, I can’t remember a time when my spirit felt this strong.

I know that nothing is a constant and this experience I am having will continue to change in some ways for the good and maybe in some ways for the bad, but I invite the change because I know it, more than anything else, is the true reason why I am here.

So what am I doing in Ghana?

I am working to end poverty.

I am learning about the microfinance industry.

I am attempting to pick up at least a little of the four+ languages spoken in the area where I live.

I am, for the first time, living with a family with very different ideals and morals from my own.

I am making valiant attempts to become a cook.

I am positively changing myself, and maybe, just maybe, the people around me as well.

Should I have stuck to the politically correct answer?

What does an African country do in the aftermath of election violence in its neighbors, including Kenya and Zimbabwe? In the case of Ghana, about to hold its presidential elections in December, it takes the mere thought of election violence very seriously and starts a country-wide campaign against it.

Africa is a very big place, but in some ways despite its vast landscapes, cultures, and governments, there is a sense in Ghana that it is all connected. African wear and television channels like TV Africa connect them together and create a sense of African pride—but after the violence following elections in the past year, it has also created a sense of panic that Ghana could be next.

Last week, the morning after president-elect Obama had just heard of his victory (midnight of election day in the United States EST), everyone at the head office of Christian Rural Aid Network gathered in our conference room for a 30-minute morning devotion, just as we do every day. This morning the executive director was in charge of leading prayers, and one of the main subjects of prayer this day was thanking God for a peaceful election in the United States and praying that Ghana will have a peaceful election of its own.

But Ghanaians aren’t relying on God to ensure this—the government has started a nation-wide campaign concerning peaceful elections. This campaign includes frequently played commercials on all the television channels, articles in all of the newspapers, and even a Ghana peace concert with all of the most popular Ghanaian singers and bands that is traveling to all ten regions in Ghana to perform free concerts for the people. Various popular singers have made videos that have been turned into peace commercials and play throughout the day on television, especially during primetime. Many companies and media entities have taken on the campaign as their own and are holding their own events—all based on keeping the peace.

Even all the candidates are getting into the action. Seven of the eight presidential candidates and their running mates attended a symposium called “Towards a Peaceful Election 2008: My Party’s Contribution; The way forward.” It was an opportunity for the candidates to tell the public how they intended to keep the peace before, during, and after the elections.

One candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), said, “We acknowledge that the call for peace is underlined by events in Kenya and Zimbabwe and we are committed to ensuring that Ghana becomes an example for Kenya and Zimbabwe instead of repeating what happened in those countries. “

He ended saying that Kenya and Zimbabwe should be a lesson and not a model for Ghana.

This campaign for peace isn’t only based on what has happened in other African countries, it is also due to some small skirmishes that have already taken place in Ghana this year. In Northern Ghana, shots were fired during a campaign tour for the NPP, which led to a rampage across the town the following day. In all, three people died and nineteen houses were burnt down.

Political struggles in the capital of Accra that left eight people seriously injured were caused by supporters of two different political parties fighting, and a few other incidents of similar measure have happened mostly in September in at least three of the ten regions of the country.

In the midst of these sporadic acts of violence throughout the country, people are scared. They enjoy the freedom and the peace that they have now, and they enjoy the economic prosperity that goes along with it. Ghanaians know that they are considered a very peaceful country that is good for doing business with—and it doesn’t want to lose its current or potential business partners due to political violence and instability. Some people think the peace campaign is unwarranted and that Ghana’s peaceful state is not something to worry about, but others are afraid.

The election is now 24 days away, and what will happen only time will tell. In the meantime, a group of Christian Rural Aid Network employees, including myself, gather every day for morning devotion. And every day they pray to God for an election where peace will prevail in their beloved Ghana.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg_LK9mllQQ to watch one of the videos from the Ghana peace concert series.

I take a break from my normal broadcasting about microfinance to discuss a special event. This weekend I had an invitation to attend a funeral a couple hours away in a part of the country I have never been to. I was invited by my friend and co-worker Lawrence, but I live with Lawrence’s mother’s twin sister and her family. Lawrence’s grandmother had died at the age of 86, so it was going to be a family affair.

At first I was really excited about going—I had gone to part of a funeral once but knew there was much more to it than I had first experienced in the few hours I had spent before. I did have one big worry about going—I just pulled my calf muscle and could barely walk. I was worried about going, but I was more worried about being stuck in my house in Cape Coast alone all weekend with no access to food or water—since I don’t have any food in the house and am almost out of water. I figured that I might as well go, rest my leg as much as I could, and experience something new.

Lawrence, his Aunt whom I live with, her 7-year-old son Francis, and I left Friday at the end of work to drive what was supposed to be two hours. I brought pillows to elevate my leg on and was excited to enjoy the view. About two hours in, however, we picked up a woman who I learned was Lawrence’s older sister. The car was at that point full of people and luggage. I had my bag with my laptop and my purse on the ground at my feet and was holding two pillows and a blanket on my lap. My legs were squished together, and I knew that this wasn’t going to be good for my calf. But, hey, we were close so I could do it.

Two hours later, we finally arrived at our destination: a city in the Central Region of Ghana called Breman Asikuma. It turns out that we had taken an entirely different road to pick up his sister and had gone quite a bit past our destination. We then had to turn around and go back south and quite a ways more east. Most Ghanaians are not the most explicit of people, and on top of that they don’t usually speak in English unless they are speaking to me, which makes it difficult for me to know what is going on. I have learned a lot of basics, and as I learn them I can question Ghanaians on what they are saying, but otherwise everyone just keeps speaking different languages (there are many that are spoken). By the time we arrived, I could barely walk. My calf was so swollen and cramped I literally stumbled and needed someone to hold my hand to walk.

I quickly hit the couch and elevated my leg, but everyone else wasn’t so lucky. They began getting dressed for the wake, a ceremony that involves a service and seeing the deceased one last time. It starts around midnight and goes on until daybreak—this one in particular ended up going until 3 a.m. Because of the shape of my leg, I decided not to go and rested instead.

The next morning, I woke to the sounds of voices—many voices. I went to the backyard and saw about twenty women cooking all sorts of dishes. I watched for a while and then they put me to work. I saw that some women were preparing the meat—fried fish and chicken mostly along with intestines and other meats that were meant for their soups. I also saw them making giant bowl after giant bowl of one of my favorite dishes in Ghana: Jollof Rice. Jollof Rice is a dish similar to (and thought to be the origin of) the dish called Spanish Rice in the United States. The women were pouring the sauce, which they had previously made, and then added rice and water to the mix. The giant bowls were on small outside ovens consisting of charcoal and at times rocks that they took from the backyard. My job was simple: fan the ovens. It was pretty easy, but it was much more work than we have when we use an oven in the United States. In the meantime, I got to spend time talking to all the women, which was really fun despite the language barriers (English is the official language in Ghana, but that just means that only officials speak it and only when they are at work. Anyone who has gone to school speaks it, but there are quite a few people who don’t know it.)

We made giant bowl after giant bowl of Jollof Rice, and after we finished one bowl it was dumped into a cooler and the bowl was washed so we could repeat the process. As we finished the rice, others had already started making the stew, made with fresh vegetables and lots and lots of vegetable oils, that we would serve with fufu and preparing the cassava to make fufu with. Fufu is made by boiling cassava and plantain and pounding it into a glutinous mass. It is served with a soup or stew and meat. Others boiled yam, a food similar to a potato that is served boiled and with meat and palava sauce (a sauce consisting pretty much of oils, vegetables, and sometimes meat. and still others cooked the plantain, a food very similar to a banana but less sweet that in its boiled form is eaten with the palava sauce as well.

Fufu being served with stew and meat

By the time all the other foods were finished, it was fufu-pounding time. Pounding fufu takes hours and is not for the weak at heart. It involves one person using a large thick stick with a wooden masher at the end to repeatedly pound on the cassava while another person continues to add more and more cassava, constantly putting their fingers in danger of total havoc. I have no idea how long it took them to pound as much fufu as they were making (enough for at least 100 people and probably more than that), but pounding fufu for one person usually takes about 15 minutes.

Each piece of cassava in the bowl gets pounded one at a time

I guess I should step back and say that all this food the women were making was for guests of the funeral—and it was more food than I have even seen at weddings that I have attended in the United States. In Ghana, when someone dies, people are expected to come and pay their respects—and usually they leave after having eaten and danced. In front of the house, there was a large sitting area set up where people, clad in traditional black and red African clothing to properly mourn the death of Auntie Dadzie, aged 86—people also wore black and white to celebrate her old age, something guests can do if the person who died was more than seventy. Various people were on hand to serve a variety of drinks filling two refrigerators to all the guests along with the food that we had slaved over all morning.

At about this time, we headed over to the other part of the funeral in a large outdoor area that included three large seating areas complete with canopies all facing a canopy under which the band was playing. In between all the canopies in a center area was a dance floor, at times aptly inhabited by numerous Ghanaians strutting their stuff, sometimes too much stuff for the many men who had simply had too much to drink.

When we arrived, people in t-shirts with the deceased women’s photo on the front and the words Demirefa Due (Respect is due) sprawled across the back. Some of them handed out small pieces of paper with Lawrence’s grandmother’s photo and information on it along with pins so guests could pin it on their bodies. In the center of one of the canopied seating areas was a donation table where guests could give back to those who planned the entire day and who had paid for the band, the food, the drinks, and the renting of the chairs and canopies among other things. I gave the equivalent of $5, and in exchange for my donation I received a keychain of the woman along with her information and when she died.

I couldn’t help but to thinking in the midst of all the chatting and planning that if Ghanaians could organize such a great party, they surely have what it takes to organize revolutionary change at great magnitudes—aren’t the two always related?

Despite my injury, the weekend was full of learning new words in new languages, learning to make new foods, learning to live with a family very different from my own, and learning to see a funeral as more than just goodbye. Next month, I will be going to another funeral (this time the funeral of a chief and one of my friend’s fathers—it is planned out so far in advance to allow ample time for people to prepare to come and attend the event, not to mention ample time for the family to save up enough money for the event)—and I am excited for the chance to learn more. In Ghana, funerals are more than just a funeral or a party or a gathering; it is Ghanaian culture. Ghanaians love to dance, party, and relax, they have a culture that is very hospitable and caring about others, and they strongly believe in taking care of their children. And once children are grown, they have the responsibility of taking care of their parents, even in death.

Dancing the day away

The next day was Sunday, and although I spent the day at home resting my leg some of the others had another event to man. After church, there was another celebration that lasted for many hours—the final in a weekend ode to a woman whom I’ve never met but whose family made sure I would never forget.

Veronica was more than just the small provisions shop owner across the street from where I used to live in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. She was more than just a woman full of life and smiles who I would often visit with on my way home from work. She was a friend, one I even visited at home to say goodbye to when I left. So when I spend my first five days in Ghana back in the neighborhood where I lived for two months last year while working at a popular Ghanaian newspaper, one of the things on my to-do list was to see Veronica.

I walked down the street where I used to live, down the entire neighborhood spanning about six blocks that I called home. The salon that a good friend of mine owns is the same, but many of the faces inside have changed. The pharmacy I frequented after falling over a random step in Ghana (which left permanent scarring) has been remodeled and my confidante Alex who used to work there has moved away. Further down, many of the same families and shops look almost exactly the same—the way I realize that I wanted them to look, which is funny considering I came here to help effect change. Other things changed drastically, such as the former trash pile that has now become a taxi station. And then there was what used to be Veronica’s shop, missing from the mix as if it had never been there in the first place. When her shop closed down, she left as well, where to I may never know.

Apparently Veronica had taken out a loan but was unable to pay back for some reason. I don’t know the specifics of what happened, but I was told that she had made some bad business decisions and got herself in over her head in debt and was unable to handle it. It was hard for me to hear considering the reason I came back here and chose to work in microfinance was to make a difference in the issue that for me was the greatest difference between people here and people back home—lack of resources. I hate seeing the economic divide that sometimes fills the air while walking down a busy street. I can see it in the eyes of those who pass me. I can hear it when children ask obruni to give them money (Obruni means foreigner but is often used to say white foreigner, which is obruni co-co). I can feel it when I receive compliment after compliment on my slippers (flip-flops) even though they are just like theirs but with a Nike swoosh. The fact is that people in Ghana can’t readily access resources the way people in the United States can. You want a house but can’t afford it, so you take out a loan. If people in Ghana want a house but can’t afford it, they save up until they can and then start building until they run out of money. Then they save up some more and keep working on the house. There aren’t nearly as many scholarships or educational opportunities, and even if they get an education, the Ghanaian people say there’s no place to go with it. There are a lack of jobs, and even a good job at a bank pays about $350 per month—not bad money for Ghana, but how can people compete and take care of a family in a global economy—imagine saving up to go on a cruise if you only earn $350 each month and have a family to take care of; it is simply not an option

I think about my life and about how hard I have worked for everything I have, be it the clothes on my back or the laptop that I am typing on. I feel as if I deserve these things because I worked so hard to attain them. But then I look around me in the office I share with Ghanaians—who earn about $210 each month– and wonder what my life would be like had I been born Ghanaian. What if, no matter my profession, I never had the opportunity to earn a comfortable lifestyle. It is a scary thought for me growing up as an American where I consider my college years and post-college years of constant lack of money the character builder that I will remember throughout the rest of my life when I do have money. It is a means to an end, but people in Ghana never have that comfortable end in sight. Some do, of course, but it is a much smaller pecentage than those that reach such a place in the United States and with much less stuff. The family that I am living with here in Ghana is relatively well off. They have a big house, running water, a toilet, a television even—but you can’t help but to notice that the walls are empty. I think of my own house covered with photos, knick-knacks, and the like. Money only goes so far in Ghana, and photos are a luxury item. With a 4 by 6 costing the equivalent of $1, such items are scarce here.

It reminds me that nothing in this life is promised—that picture-perfect future that I still hope will happen is not certain. Because even if I work really hard to make it happen, the same thing that happened to Veronica could happen to me. I could fall on my face, and no one may be there to help pick me up. I think maybe hearing about Veronica should have depressed me, but it made me want to work harder. I want to make it so that people have a place to access resources, so that when the economy deflates or when a crisis occurs people can take care of themselves through it.
The goal of Kiva is to alleviate poverty by enabling and empowering the poorer people in the world to pull themselves out of poverty in order to create a sustainable and better life for themselves. My goal is to do the same but on a more micro-level. I can only do so much here at Christian Rural Aid Network, but if I successfully do so along with the other Kiva Fellows, then I believe we can do so much. Maybe I have to have this faith because otherwise how will I ever be doing what I am doing.

I end this first fellows blog with my favorite quotes by one of my very favorite authors, Arundhati Roy, because it is everything I am thinking about as I am about to finish my third day of work.

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty in its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget….another world is not only possible, it is on her way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully, you can hear her breathe…Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.”

My name is Cassie DeFillipo, and I am one of the new Kiva Fellows currently training in San Francisco and preparing to head out into the field to serve as a liason for Kiva and its microfinance institutions in Africa. I will be spending my first three months at CRAN (Christian Rural Aid Network) on the coast of Ghana about an hour west of its capital city and then three months working with Sinapi Aba Trust in Kumasi, Ghana’s cultural capital where many of its most famous products come from. After that, I will be sent somewhere else in Africa–pretty much wherever Kiva needs me. As I prepare by purchasing nine months worth of anti-malarial medication, fundraising, and setting up a work plan that I know very well I may not be able to keep while working in a country that moves quite a bit slower than me, I find myself getting more excited and eager about this opportunity. One thing I like about the microfinance world is that they try to be very transparent and honest about the strengths and weaknesses that go along with microfinance. This movement–shall we call it a microfinance movement–is not about saving the world, and my hopeful dreamy self realizes this can be much more sustainable. I spent last summer working in Ghana as a journalist, and the poverty I saw astounded me. What astounded me even more was the amazing masses of hopeful people who wanted to better themselves but didn’t have the resources to do so. My desire to help them is what led me to participate in this program. I go back in the hopes of being a resource for both Kiva and the microfinance institutions to make leaps or at least baby steps that tackle this problem of poverty. Back to bucket baths. Back to no or less-than-par indoor plumbing. Back to whistles on the street and multiple marriage proposals daily. The truth is, I feel so blessed to be able to go back to a place that taught me so much about hope and caring about others and hopefully making a difference for a group of people whom I believe would do so much with an opportunity to develop themselves.

I look forward to sharing my journey with others, and I want to finish my first blog entry by recounting a story. I went to Nicaragua in July and was staying in the mountains outside of Matagalpa in a rural agricultural area. One of the men and I began talking, and he told me (with no idea that I was applying to be a Kiva Fellow) that what the farmers in this disconnected town really needed was access to capital. He told me that this access would open doors for these farmers being able to develop their crops and make the most out of their land.This inspired me, more than anything, to enable others to make the most out of their own resources. Ghana, here I come….