Computing Human Ecology in Ghana

Women in Progress

Cape Coast, Ghana

Internship Report

June 15th – September 1st, 2004

Chris Ward

Akwaba! Welcome to Ghana, where life is peaceful and the people are the friendliest on earth, the place that is rich in diverse culture and amazing opportunities, the place where every day brings a new experience and where a new adventure lurks around every corner, and the place where I completed my internship during the summer of 2004.

Introduction and Internship Summary: Where, What, Why?

My academic interests are oriented around business management, technology, and international development, as well as human ecology, human rights, and education. I found an internship that fit my interests perfectly at a small non-profit organization known as Women in Progress (WIP), in Cape Coast, Ghana. The organization needed someone who could work with information technology, such as forming an internal network among existing computers, Internet marketing, and general computer troubleshooting and problem solving. In addition, it needed someone who could help create a structured introductory computer-training course and also someone who could host some computer training workshops.

Goals and Objectives: Were they met and how so?

Gain Experience in the Non-Profit Sector

It is a dream of mine to be an entrepreneur of sorts. In my internship I hoped to gain insight into some of the big pictures that are essential in organizing and operating a successful organization by working first with a small non-profit. I learned very quickly that finding success is very complicated, but also very satisfying. One of the most challenging aspects of managing a non-profit organization seems to be in meeting financial needs. Yet, this can be made easier if one can thinks creatively when approaching the problem. Working with WIP showed me that not all non-profits have to depend on grants to stay alive, like many seem to think. There are many other alternative ways to becoming self-sustainable such as making profits from selling retail products to target markets as WIP does. Another solution is to offer some type of volunteer program that is worthwhile enough for the volunteers to pay a program fee. WIP also offers such a program with great success. Finally, an organization could offer services, which reap profits that are invested back into the organization. This internship has also given me a better idea of how to create a positive environment for the volunteers, which are essential to the non-profit sector. I understand more now that the role of creating a sense of community and mutual respect within the work place and amongst the workers and the customers is also very important to the organization’s stability.

Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn

I wanted to learn about what it takes to be a teacher. I wanted to learn how to create lesson plans, think strategically about approaching people’s varied learning styles, and how to grab students’ interest so they see the importance of what they are learning. For 14 years now I have been a student; finally I had my chance to be the teacher. For nearly a month and a half, I taught three students the basics of how to use the computer within class sessions that I held for two hours two times a week. By the time I left, I also completed my most significant accomplishment: I created and left behind an extensive set of lessons plans that covered 10 weeks of an introductory computer-training course. On the day I finished, there were already two volunteers who began to use the plans with a couple of new students who were starting from the beginning of the new course.

Develop Technical Skills

In the past few years, I have avoided using Microsoft Windows, or any products that run under this operating system. However, for this internship, I could not avoid it any longer because all of WIP’s computers operated with Microsoft products. For that reason, another one of my objectives was to relearn how to maintain computers that ran Microsoft Windows. The most challenging aspect of migrating back to using Windows after many years of not regularly using it was that I had to learn how to use many new programs and features on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Edition in order to manage WIP’s central server. Working with Windows turned out to be where I spent a majority of my volunteering time, and I feel that I learned many new practical, real-world skills because of it. I worked on a very diverse range of technical projects; for example, I successfully installed both a local area network using Windows 2000 and a lot of donated networking equipment that enabled all the computers in the WIP office to share files, printers, and even the Internet. These improvements alone significantly increased the efficiency of many business functions and helped our clients because they no longer had to go to the Internet café and pay to use the Internet. Also I troubleshot numerous computer problems, configured, and reconfigured many different software titles, and I helped the women design business cards, brochures, and invoice templates that were used directly for their own businesses.

Critique of Organization and its Mission

WIP is well established, and seems to be doing things right. They are honest, generous, and hard working. The types of volunteers they attract as well as the women they work with are diverse, motivated, and inspirational. WIP is extremely open to new ideas, and because of it, it is way ahead of many other non-profits. They use a modern business-like approach to attain self-sustainability, and otherwise meet financial need by using creative and constructive means. The organization is well managed. The cultural-exchange experience that they offer is utterly fantastic, and all together, WIP was much more than I could have ever expected.

The only thing I would suggest to the WIP is that they develop workshops that are aimed directly at interns. I would like to have learned more about marketing, international trade law, non-profit management, economics, and other things of that nature in a more direct way. I did learn many different things in each of these fields, but only by way of observation and self-initiated dialog.
Challenges Encountered

The biggest challenge I faced while in Ghana was in physically getting my students to class. The way the computer-training course worked was simple. The students were each assigned a teacher, then they determined times that best suited each the teacher and student to meet for two hours, twice a week, and finally they would meet at the WIP office to use the computer facility that is set up for them. Out of the three students that I taught over the duration of one and a half months, only one had acceptable attendance. This was a problem—unfortunately for my students and me—caused more by uncontrollable circumstances than by anything else. One of the three students got a serious case of malaria and could only attend classes for the first 3 weeks, and the last was apparently too busy to attend nearly a month’s worth of classes. This frustrated me, but I tried to understand the women’s situations. Work has a much higher priority than computer training, and there was nothing that could be done about getting malaria. Recently, though, I thought of a way I could have gotten the best of both worlds: I should have investigated ways to have brought the class sessions to the students rather than expect them to come to me when it was not practical. But at the time, I had no ideas of how to fix the situation, and so all I can say is that I now know better for next time.

The other problem I faced was not having easy access to modern technology. Things like spare computer parts, a reliable Internet connection, and even reliable power were often times difficult to come by. This forced me to think creatively about how to obtain the materials that I needed to accomplish a task or reconcile the requirements of the task all together, with the addition of any new considerations of what was available that could be used to work with. It also gave me insight into problems I will be facing in the future if I do any entrepreneurial work in developing countries such as Ghana.

Influence on Future Plan:

The more significant influence that this internship has had on the potential direction of my future is that I am now most interested in doing human ecological work in the world abroad. Ghana is the first place I have ever gone outside of the United States, and it was the one that sparked the fuel inside to work on real problems in this world. Minus the humanitarian side of things, Ghana has a host of technological business opportunities that have caught my interest.

One business opportunity in particular that I found of interest is that I could have a chance to start my own computer training programs in Ghana. I met a young Ghanaian gentleman named Alex Pobi who is a computer science major out of the University of Ghana and is a recently acclaimed entrepreneur. He and three other young men have ambitiously created a small computer graphics lab that is also a digital design studio and graphic design school. What I have proposed to Alex is that I could in the future bring an additional number of courses to their existing organization that focus on the operating system that I work with personally and commercially called Linux. Linux has already grabbed the interest of government organizations, in education sectors and within big and small businesses in Ghana. However, the interest
is so new that no one has taken the step to offer the education facilities necessary to take full advantage of the new technology. I hope to one day soon be at the forefront the Linux movement in Ghana, and I think that the connections I have made while there could be just the key I need to unlock the potential in this opportunity.

Conclusion

WIP was formed just a couple years back by a couple of ecological entrepreneurs who intended to help as many motivated, yet struggling women entrepreneurs of Cape Coast, Ghana, to find greater individual success in their own personal business ventures. They also hoped to find improvement in the conditions of their own lives and the lives of their employees, their families, and in the sustainability of the community as a whole. However, they could not do it alone. I was elated when I got the chance to volunteer along side all of these “Women (and men) in Progress” and I know that one day in the future—long after I have manifested into a working human ecologist—I will be able to look back upon the work I did and see all the positive influences it had on the people of this world.

Posted by drpooville_Admin as College Of The Atlantic, Personal Endeveavors at 10:21 PM PDT

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It’s wednesday evening, about 6:30, and i’m sitting on the living room couch listening to tunes writing this journal entry after having eaten a wonderful chicken curry dinner. This entire week has been something else! Everyday has been filled with so many wild emotions.

Two of our dearest volunteers left today. One was Tamica. Originally she had only planned to stay at WIP for about 1 month, but she ended up extending her stay for over 8. She has been essential to the growth and prosperity of Women In Progress. She will be missed a lot, especially by Renae and all the women that we work with here in Cape Coast. Renae says it is very difficult to imagine life without her here working any longer.

The other volunteer that left today is Brittany. She came with one of her good friends Ashley back about 4 months ago. The two of them were supposed to be leaving together, but Ashley has decided to pull a Tamica and stay for about 4 more months. Brit will be missed greatly by everyone too.

Although I am still have about 6 days left before i have to leave, i have been feeling the pains and anxiety of going already. I know that i will miss everyone so much! It is very sad that we might not ever see each other again. I am sure some of us will meet up at some point in time in the future, but who knows? It’s impossible to tell.

Besides the inevitability of that scenario, my mind is in a knot about what will happen with my personal life when i go back home. Because this journal is so public, i am not going to announce any specifics of what i am going through right now, but i will say this at least. It has to do with what will happen between me and Elisheva: “To be [together], or not to be [together], that is [my] question”

Love is such an interesting thing. No matter what happens in life, love is a constant. It’s always there, even when it is not clear exactly where it lies, or what to do about the love that you know is there.

All together, i am very excited to be getting back home in the next week. I can’t wait to see my family and friends back home! Neither can i wait to start the intense term that is coming up in the Fall. This i am especially excited about because i will be preparing for my trip to Mexico in the Winter. Spanish speaking world! Here I come!

There are still a few things that i will miss a whole lot after i leave Ghana. One is the nature of the people that i am around day in and day out.

In the morning, every morning, i walk out of my house passed a group of laborers that sit and crush rocks. They are working, banging rocks to pieces for nearly 10 hours a day. Pink! Bink! Pink! Bink! Crack! Toss! Pink! Bink! Bink! Pink! It’s a never ending process. But they seem to be doing some good business, and they are always in good spirit.

When i walk by them, either I will say Good morning! How are you!? and reply, or they acknowledge me with a smile and call out the same.

As I continue walking to the junction where i stand to wait for a taxi to take me to town I almost always pass a few people on the way. There is almost always a big enthusiastic Hello! as I pass whom ever it is, whether i know them or not.

After anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes I am picked up by a taxi that is heading into town. When i get into the taxi, it is almost always packed full with people, fish, or fishy smelling people; who almost always greet me kindly when i squeeze in next to them. (the typical taxi ride has at least 5 people in the 5 person car. It is not unusual at all to squeeze a 6th in so that two people of sharing the one passenger seat. Then, on rare occasions as many people as possible will squeeze in. The max i’ve had in the taxi at once was 9 in a 5 person car, including the driver. That was insane.) As we ride, the taxi drivers honk their annoying horns about 50 times a second at everything and at nothing sometimes. The horns and the highlights (brights) are the taxi drivers way of communicating on the road, and they are in constant communication. But that is a whole other story. The other thing the drivers do is yell and wave out the window to passers by. The left hand shoot up and out the window and begins to wave as the driver started shouting something in Fante. I can only imagine they must be yelling to a friend, judging by the enormous smile on his face.

After the tight 15 minute ride to the Bacano round about, where the office is located, i get out and make my way across the street to go to the office. Right next door to the office is a little seamstress shop that has about 5 lady’s who i always greet as i walk by them and they wave and reply with great enthusiasm. Once i make it into the office, the first person i see is Renae. Then, immediately after i walk in through the door i see Patience and anyone else who up and at work. The good morning’s quickly fly around the room as i settle into my little spot that i have set up for myself to dock my laptop use for the days work.

Usually one of the first things i do then is go and grab a bite to eat for breakfast. I make one of three choices. First, the egg lady who cooks a mean egg sandwich. And it’s a good thing that she can cook a good one because it’s the only thing she sells other than plain bread. Second choice is the Lipton Lady. She sells Lipton tea, Milo–a chocolate drink, bread and jam, egg sandwiches and a couple of small things. Third, i can go to Kingsway, which is a bit further into town to go to Cape Cafe. This option offers me the best choices at reasonable prices. But it is far and a bit out of the way. So, i only go there when i am really hungry for a good breakfast (like hearty oats, pancakes–well, crepes, omelette’s, and the like) or just don’t feel like eating bread and jam or an egg sandwich again.

The mornings are pretty slow and laid back in the office. But as the day continues on, things pick up a bit and a number of people come in and out for varies reasons. Everybody that comes in is greeted and returns their salutations. Then everyone carries on with their business.

The streets outside are always bustling with people. There is never a dull moment on the streets in Cape Coast. Little kids can be seen playing on all walks of the road. Women and men can be found walking up and down the street selling all sorts of stuff right from the top of the head. People chatting on the side of the road, people eating at the little chop bars. There is almost never a moment in time when men, women, young boys and girls are stuck in a dance trance, the move their bodies so freely, so fluidly. I am amazed at the inherent ability of the people here to dance. I learn so much just by walking up and down the street. As a matter of fact, i can see more dancing within a only a few days alone by random children alone on the streets than i have seen in total in my life before coming here. The streets are even alive and crawling with life that is not human. Goats, chickens, pigs, lizards, dogs, cats, and more can be found meandering around everywhere you look. Nearly every taxi ride i take brings goats and chickens only inches from their death, and inches from a pain in my neck!

If i wanted to, which i don’t do very often though, i could stop and chat with anyone that i wanted to. Everyone is so open to spend time talking about anything! The ones i do take time out to talk to at times is mostly the taxi drivers or other passengers. I figure since i am there and can’t do anything else, i might as well talk to them. I have not experienced very many incidents where a person did not want to speak to me. Even the taxi drivers that i hassle a lot for a good price end up laughing the deal off and are willing to talk. They don’t seem to hold grudges and they simply have a lot of respect for one another.

After i eventually leave work around 5 PM, i do the whole taxi ride back home in reverse. The same type of things occur. Everyone is still really friendly and up for a chat. And those worker bees are generally still working out in front of the house. Bink! Pink! Pink! Crack! Toss! Pink! Pink! Pink! Bink! Crack! Toss. As i pass them by again i always say Good Evening! and sometimes even give them some fruit if i have any on hand. I admire their hard work. Honestly, i don’t know if i will ever labor as hard as they do in one week as i will ultimately do in my entire life. It takes a lot of strength to do what they do.

So, then i am home for the night (well…most of the weeknights anyway) and all the volunteers either sit around and chat or read, or both until dinner is served. Five nights a week we get a fantastic meal of our choice cooked for us by Elizabeth who owns a small bar just across the street from our house called Elimax. She is so sweet, and can cook up a mean and hearty dinner.

Food is one of the other things i will miss a lot when i leave Ghana. I have had the chance to try so many great dishes since i have been here. I wish i could explain what each was, but i would never be able to guess anywhere near the way the meals are prepared or even what is in them. But, for memories sake, here’s a list of the names i know the dishes to be called. FuFu, Banku, Palava, Ground-nut Soup with Rice Balls, Yam balls, Fish with Red Sauce, RedRed, some crazy egg stuff (hehe! what?) that almost tastes like meat, and there is probably more but i just can not think of it. I am sure if anyone is curious to know what these dishes are for real, they could be found on google or something.

Jumping of the good things for a bit, how about some bad. Malaria, worms, parasites, plain old sour stomach, diarrhea and stomach pain, trash at your feet everywhere you
go, bad food service, the ghanian chocolate (interesting though, ghana supposedly has the best cocoa, they just suck at turning it into good chocolate) cramped taxi rides, cold showers, being dirty all the time, having to bring toilet paper everywhere you go, dirty bathrooms (whew that’s an understatement), mosquitoes and other bugs, the sun, lack of running water, unstable power, 220v power output instead of 110v, smell of fish and salt water everywhere you go, inner city pollution, car honking, car brights, tro-tro rides, STC seats, lack of washing machines, crappy roads, and oh, i am sure there is more.

To balance that list out, here’s the list of the things i will miss significantly once i leave. The local people, the volunteers, the women we work with at WIP, WIP itself, my work, the adventures, the scenery, the beaches, the ocean, the sounds, the dancing, the little kids teaching me how to dance, the music, the little kids running around on the streets, the entire social structure and how everyone is always on the streets rather than couped up and hidden inside their homes, the little kids that ride in taxi’s by themselves, the taxi drivers, the women who carry the little baby’s on their back using only a cloth that is tied around the baby on their back and their chest, the people selling stuff off their heads, the people carrying stuff on their heads, the people that laugh at me when i carry stuff on my head, the cost of living, the randomness, the chaotic-ness (this one is split on both sides, positive and negative), the clothing, the slowness (also a positive and a negative), the rosta’s, the different say’s like “oh why” and “Sorry O”, etc, and again, i am sure there is much more.

There are so many things that i have expereinced here that i could not have experienced anywhere else. Maybe i could have experienced something near it, but this I am sure, has been something of an extremely unique and unforgettable experience.

But, life must go on. It has been on pause so to speak for almost 3 months now, but now i must prepare to push play.

Wait! Not so fast. I still have a week left here! I can’t leave yet and i am not going to! Although the rest of my time here will pretty much be me on vacation because i was able to complete my final goal today. The goal was to design the lesson plans for the 10 week Women In Progress Introductory Computer Training course that is taught to the women that work within the Global Mamas cooperative. I am very happy with my accomplishment. I think it will be of great use to the future volunteers who opt in to teach the lessons and it will also then benefit the students themselves in many ways. One of the things that my lessons plans will do for the students is give them a chance to set goals for themselves. They now have a way to visualize their progress by taking a couple fun exams. They also have a number of fun assignments that will help them learn the material taught in the lessons in a way that is directly applicable to the businesses they run. And so in the end they will now have a much greater chance at actually coming away from the course having learned something valuable to them. Something that they will be able to use in the future and something that will help them generate new ideas in how to incorporate modern computer technology into their businesses for further growth and efficiency.

And the women aren’t the only one’s who i have helped expand the use of modern technology for growth and efficiency. By acting in as a Technical everything consultant at WIP, they now are able to effectively make use of the advanced computer technology they have that was previously being under utilized at the WIP office. There is a local area network established between all 8 computers in the office. The networks works using both standard network cabling and the latest wireless technologies.

To get the networking up and running was no easy task. It’s been a contant struggle to keep things working for more than a few days.

The first problem i ran into was that the router we were using to connect the computers together had been broken. It worked sometimes, but them it did not work at other times. Luckily Renaes husband had an extra route sitting around his office that he could let use have for our office. So i switched the router and it worked perfectly. There was a problem though. The new router had only 4 ports. Meaning only 4 computers could be plugged in at once, so i ended up adding an additional switch (that Dave also let us have) to beef up the network so all the computers could plug in. Well, almost all the computers. I ran into another problem. We did not have enough network cards to install in all the computers. But we did have a few wireless cards we could use if we had a wireless access point, which we did not have. However, Dave did. So he gave it to us and i configured three computers to work with the wireless networking equipment.

However convienent and easy it might seem to have set everything up by the simple nature of my explaination, i must say, it was nothing of the sort. The major problem was that there are no computer shops near us in Cape Coast and Dave lived four hours away in Accra. So there were always huge delays in between times when things were not working and when he could bring the equipment down. And each piece of equipment came on a completely separate trip. So the entire process took about a full month to complete even though it could have taken only a week or less.

Working with such developed technology in such an underdeveloped area has been a big challenge in my work. Along side that is the fact that everything here works in slow motion. When you want to do something, you must always prepare for it to take a long time to finnaly work out how you wanted to. My flexibility and patience has been tested repeatedly while working for WIP in Ghana.

One i completed configuring the network equipment and all the computers in the office, i enabled all the computers to have access to the internet, printers, and files on other computers. This made a lot of tasks much easier for everyone.

No longer does anyone who needs to print a document have to copy the files to a disk and transfer them to the server and bother Renae to print for them. They do still have to print one page at a time because the printer is ghetto, but they can do it with much less hassle. The same goes for sharing files between everyone. Sometimes people have documents, pictures, or whatever that they need to show to someone else. Instead of having to copy the files to disks, they can just open them up through the network without leaving their computer.

In addition to the network i set up at WIP, i was able to bring a number of the computers back up to optimal operating conditions. Before i came to volunteer a few months ago, most of the computers were in sad shape. One of them only displayed in black and white with the lowest resolution; plus it had other minor problems. Another had a broken My Documents folder. Two had viruses. One of those was the server and it had about 6 viruses on it at one time and that took me almost two days to tackle them all. A computer lost it’s hard-drive and i replaced it. The color printer was thought to be broken but i was able to get it configured and working. I setup one computer to be video-editing ready. And I setup and configured 3 additional computers that WIP had donated to them.

After nearly 11 weeks of work, i feel as though i have successfully completed the goals i had set for myself for the duration of my volunteer internship. Not only have i helped WIP get their office equipment working up to speed, i have left a piece of my work that will continue to help everyone for a long time to come.

On my last day working at WIP I found myself feeling all getty and happy inside because it was finally time to finalize my training course lesson plans, exams, and evaluations. Once i felt they were as complete, i promptly printed and binded them to be ready for used by any of the volunteers who needed them. Much to my surprise, while the plans were still hot off the press, Marte, a new volunteers who arrived a couple weeks back asked to borrow them so she could prepare for the first lessons she will be teaching just the following day. :-) What can I say, i was proud and happy to give them to her, I can only hope they are as useful to her as they are to everyone who follows her in the future.

Later that evening there was to be a party in my name. It wasn’t to big, but everyone had a good time. All the volunteers and about 5 of the Ashanti dance group members came over too. We went to the roof for a good old rasta-far-i time. We drummed for an hour and talked for a hour or so too Then unfortunately it started to rain. So once it started to rain we headed to the Shell to finish up the night with some drinking and dancing. Nothing to amazing but it was a good time for me and i was really happy to spend one of my last nights with all my friends. The funny thing about the night was that i learned early on that the person who’s name the party is being help in is the one who is expected to provide for everyone. I ended up buying the drinks and some food for everyone. Humph. How about that.

The next morning i woke up and met with Renae, Dave, and Daves mom to get moving on what was to be my last outing in Ghana. Our main destination was to be the stilt village. It was my second attempt to make it there, and this time i made it.

We left around noon to head out to Axim. This is the same beatuful area that i stayed with just a couple weeks back when i went with Brit and Tamica. This time around i stayed in an even nicer room at
the Axim Beach Resort and the weather was a whole lot better too.

After we arrived, we almost immediately left for the little fishing village that layed a few kilometers down from the resort. What an intense place that is. I do not remember if i described the experience previously but here it is again.

The air was saturated with the aroma of freshly cut wood, smoke, the sea and fish. Every step i took i found myself in a completely new environment. The first few hundred meters of the village were areas set aside for storing and chopping wood for the fires they use to smoke fish. There was tons of wood piled everywhere and quite a number of men chopping up more. The second area had dozens of large fires going. Each one had a stack of 10 or more rows of these wooden framed rectangle screens sitting over them. Each screen has as many fish as could possibly fit squeezed onto it that were to be sitting there being dried and smoked. Which then after a few hours of that, would be packed by women sitting near and transported to markets all over. The third area was the fisher-mens housing. Nothing special, just a bunch of mud huts and people, up real close to the coast. The fifth area that we walked by was the coast. There sat dozens and dozens of canoes on shore, with lots of men repairing nets and just sitting around waiting for the night to fall and their time clock to start ticking for them to be out at sea fishing the night through. Women were everywhere to be seen sorting, preparing and selling fish that would be taken near and far and distributed to buyers all around. Some buy to transport and sell again and others buy to bring home to cook up for dinner. I had no doubt about the fact that i was definately tooling arounding in an important fishing village. The difference between the conditions there and the beach reasort which i was staying at only a half a mile up the road was fascinating. It’s amazing how different two environments can truely be even though they lay in such close proximity to one another. The other interesting thing that i wonder about is just how many people come to visit places like the beach resort and so many other micocosms like it in undeveloped areas like this and leave never having seen the reality that lays just outside their view or the beautiful scenic views of the plush westernized resort zone.

For now….that is all i am going to talk about. I will up detailing my last few days in Ghana soon.

-Chris

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