For breakfast I had an egg with peppers, potatoes, and a piece of toast with instant coffee. The hotel provides great food for us here! Afterwards we went to have another conference session on the politics and economy of Ghana- fascinating! In our group discussion, many issues were brought up even within my own country. This is truly a learning experience for me!
Last year Ghana's President Mills died, so his Vice-President took office. There were only 6 months until elections in December, and Mahama (the VP) won office again. This was the first year that Ghana used what is called "biometrics" to vote. Everyone over the age of 18 is allowed to vote, and they had to get their picture taken along with their fingerprints for their biometrics to register. Due to the extreme heat, the machines reading the fingerprints during the day votes were taken broke down, and for the first time ever Ghana had to postpone the election to the following day.
Ghana is a very peaceful country. In fact it is one of the most peaceful in all of Africa. There are different tribes of people, but all get along. The main language is English, but there are multiple Ghanaian languages in the country such as Twi, Ga, and a bunch more dialects.
One of the main resources in Ghana is gold, but many tribe leaders are being bribed to allow people to mine gold on their land using unsafe practices for the environment. Another big resource that was just found in Ghana is oil.
Like any country, Ghana has its own problems. One of them is education. Education is free and compulsory through grade 6, but many children don't go. It all boils down to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In order to survive, you must have food, water, clothes, and shelter. If a family is struggling with that, their kids help them on the farms to grow foods and harvest them, or go to work for the family for an income which means that school is put on the back burner. Only about 25% of the population goes on to Secondary School (High School). Another problem is that once students have graduated from college, they are very good in a specific area, but yet have no real skills to do the job. Today when I met with teachers from Ghana, they explained that often times the program a person wants in college is not available due to numbers, so about 80% of people who become teachers in Ghana originally wanted to do something else. What a scary number!
There are also human rights issues here which mostly focus on homosexual issues, abortion, and human trafficking. In the Volta region thousands of children each year are sold into the fishing industry by their parents and families. Of course this is illegal, but it still happens.
In Ghana the legal age to get married is 18, but many girls are married quite young around 11 or 12 years old. When a girl marries, the male's family has to "pay" the girl's family a dowry with cows. The reason many families encourage their young daughters to marry early so the families can use the cows as income. When I married Nkondo, his family also had to "pay" my family a dowry of cows. In Zambia the number of cows you "pay" depends on the girl's level of education, so I was an expensive one :)
Since I have been here, I can already see vast improvements to the country. One of the big improvements is that Ghana now has the lowest rate of HIV/AIDS in the entire continent of Africa- WOW!
At the American Embassy I had the pleasure of meeting with Ghanaian teachers who had the opportunity to teach in the United States for a period of time. It was interesting to hear their perspective on the differences and similarities of our education systems. One big difference is that in Zambia the teacher moves from room to room to teach and the students stay together in the same room all day. Since there are multiple teachers in the same room each day, the rooms are not decorated with bulletin boards or posters on the wall. Another major difference is class size. In Ghana a teacher can have as many as 100 students in each class! That would be crazy! To help the teacher, there are "prefects" which take attendance and monitor behavior so the teacher can teach. What a concept! These "prefects" also monitor the halls and keep record of what happens in the lunch room. The prefects are actual students who have been nominated by teachers to help, and it is a very prestigious role in schools (PS my husband Nkondo was a prefect in Zambia).
After our meeting at the American Embassy with the Ghanaian teachers, we came back to our hotel for a special cultural dinner of traditional Ghanaian foods and then enjoyed a night of dancing by a famous dance group here in Accra. They even called me up to dance!
Today was a great day. Even though I have lived in Ghana in the past, I am still learning about the life, culture, and people here and making the most of each minute I spend here.
Tomorrow we are heading to the market and down through Accra to have a lunch and entertainment on the beach for lunch.
Goodnight for now, and thanks for reading!!!
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